The Fighting Chance

Years seemed to fall away from her, slipping back, back into girlhood, into childhood, drawing not her alone on the gliding tide, but carrying him with her. An exquisite languor held her. Through it vague hints of those splendid visions of her lonely childhood rose, shaping themselves in the starry darkness--the old mystery of dreams, the old, innocent desires, the old simplicity of clairvoyance wherein right was right and wrong, wrong--in all the conventional significance of right and wrong, in all the old-fashioned, undisturbed faith of childhood.

Drifting deliciously, her eyes sometimes meeting his, sometimes lost in the magic of her reverie, she lay there in her chair, her unresisting fingers locked in his.

Odd little thoughts came hovering into her reverie--thoughts that seemed distantly familiar, the direct, unconscious impulses of a child. To feel was once more the only motive for expression; to think fearlessly was once more inherent; to desire was to demand--unlock her lips, naively, and ask for what she wished.

Under the spell, she turned her blue gaze on him, and her lips parted without a tremor: "What do you offer for what you ask? And do you still ask it? Is it me you are asking me for? Because you love me? And what do you give--love?"

"Weigh it with the--other," he said.

"I have--often--every moment since I have known you. And what a winter!" Her voice was almost inaudible. "What a winter--without you!"

"That hell is ended for me, too. Sylvia, I know what I ask. And I ask. I know what I offer. Will you take it?"

"Yes," she said.

He rose, blindly. She stood up, pale, wide-eyed, confronting him, stammering out the bargain: "I take all--all! every virtue, every vice of you. I give all--all! all I have been, all I am, all I shall be! Is that enough? Oh, if there were only more to give! Stephen, if there were only more!"

Her hands had fallen into his, and they looked each other in the eyes.

Suddenly, through the hush of the enchanted moment, a sullen sound broke--the sound of a voice they knew, threateningly raised, louder and louder, growling, profanely menacing.

Aghast, they turned in the darkness, peering toward the lighted space beyond. Leroy Mortimer, his face shockingly congested, stood unsteadily balancing there, confronting his wife, who sat staring at him in horror. At the same instant Plank rose and laid a hand on Mortimer's shoulder, but Mortimer shook him off with a warning oath.

"You and I will settle with each other to-morrow!" he said thickly, pointing a puffy finger at Plank. "You'll find me at the Algonquin Trust. Do you hear? That's where you'll settle this matter--in the president's office!" He stood swaying and leering at Plank, repeating loudly: "In Quarrier's office! Understand? That's where you'll settle up! See?"