Lord, those green stones! Well, why not? Something in the world worth
a hazard. What had he in life but this second grand passion? There shot
into his mind obliquely an irrelevant question. Supposing, in the old
days, he had proceeded to reach for Molly as he was now reaching for the
emeralds--a bit lawlessly? After all these years, to have such a thought
strike him! Hadn't he stepped aside meekly for Conover? Hadn't he
observed and envied Conover's dazzling assault? Supposing Molly had
been wavering, and this method of attack had decided her? Never to have
thought of that before! What did a woman want? A love storm, and then an
endless after-calm. And it had taken him twenty-odd years to make this
discovery.
Fact. He had never been shy of women. He had somehow preferred to play
comrade instead of gallant; and all the women had taken advantage of
that, used him callously to pair with old maids, faded wives, and homely
debutantes.
What impellent was driving him toward these introspections? Kitty,
Molly's girl. Each time he saw her or thought of her--the uninvited
ghost of her mother. Any other man upon seeing Kitty or thinking about
her would have jumped into the future from the spring of a dream. The
disparity in years would not have mattered. It was all nonsense, of
course. But for his dropping into the office and casually picking up the
thread of his acquaintance with Kitty, Molly--the memory of her--would
have gone on dimming. Actions, tremendous and world-wide, had set
his vision toward the future; he had been too busy to waste time in
retrospection and introspection. Thus, instead of a gently rising and
falling tide, healthily recurrent, a flood of mixed longings that was
swirling him into uncertain depths. Those emeralds had bobbed up just in
time. The chase would serve to pull him out of this bog.
He heard a footstep and looked up. The nurse was beckoning to him.
"What is it?"
"He's awake, and there is sanity in his eyes."
"Great! Has he talked?"
"No. The awakening happened just this moment, and I came to you. You
never can tell about blows on the skull or brain fever--never any two
eases alike."
Cutty threw down his napkin and accompanied the nurse to the bedside.
The glance of the patient trailed from Cutty to the nurse and back.
"Don't talk," said Cutty. "Don't ask any questions. Take it easy until
later in the day. You are in the hands of persons who wish you well. Eat
what the nurse gives you. When the right time comes we'll tell you all
about ourselves, You've been robbed and beaten. But the men who did it
are under arrest."