  And down the corridor Neil Crawford closed another door behind himself and Sydney. Their eyes met with a bleak and hopeless questioning. “Oh, Neil,” she breathed. “What are we going to do?” “What am I going to, you must say, Sydney. Remember, my dear, you are not in this. And remember that whatever I do or don’t do will be entirely governed by my love for you and my desire to keep you and the children out of it.” “You can’t keep me out of it, Neil, even if you wanted to. That is the way, with things relating to one or other of two people who are closely united, both are in them for good or bad. So I’m in this with you to the very last—that is, if—if—” “If I want you?” He took her shoulders in She did her best to control the wave of feeling that made her draw free of him. “She doesn’t feel so, Neil, or think you do. She loves you; and said it tonight too definitely to make me feel you have not returned in kind. Neil, where are our promises?” “My God, Sydney, since when were you such an innocent as to think promises were anything more than baubles, pretty but—but vain. The promises to love forever until death do us part—” “Keep still, Neil! You know as well as I do that those aren’t the promises I am thinking of. Besides, we never made those particular promises. But we did promise we weren’t going to go living around with other people unless we meant it—meant it down to the ground, do you hear me?” She was trying to keep her voice under control, but it would rise spasmodically. “And here you seem to have done just that.” “I wasn’t just living around, Sydney. You know me well enough to know I’d be fastidious about such things. Romany and I got into it somehow, quite naturally. Why can’t women realize how little such things mean to a man, and to some women. She’s one of them. We’ve never spoken of love; do you hear that?” “Neil, how silly to say such a thing, when by its very nature love is somehow involved. In the very essence of it—your winnowing of the physical from the spiritual—it is the ruin of all idealism. Someone we know, who was it, was saying the other day that the trouble with the younger generation is that it lacks guts. You are exactly what he meant, Neil.” “Don’t be vulgar about it, Sydney. Vulgarity doesn’t suit you. Only the sophisticated can get away with it. Your delicacy is one of the reasons I care for you. And I do care. You can’t say I don’t love you, or you me. Can you say it?” “Which only makes it frightfully much worse. And don’t lie to me. She couldn’t have written you a letter like that if you hadn’t used love, in one form or another, toward her. Don’t quibble about the meaning of the word love.” “What do you mean ‘such a letter’?” “I saw a letter on your desk, Neil. I had to read it, you can see that.” “Then you got just what was coming to you, Sydney. Even a wife, a wife least of all, doesn’t read a man’s private correspondence unless she wants to get hurt.” “All right! Say it if you will. It can’t make matters any more terrible than they are. I saw the address on the envelope (I knew she had been in Hollywood this spring), and in a flash I remembered that—that night. It’s asking too much of human nature to ask it to turn its back on the truth at such a moment. And you can’t say it isn’t better to know the truth at whatever cost to us both.” “If you think so, yes.” Crawford’s anger died as he saw her face change. “Oh, Sydney, don’t look at me like that. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He tried to take her hands and failed. “And now this other thing to hurt you. I can’t endure it.” “This other is bad, yes. But not really bad, my dear, as compared to my trust and respect, trust in you and self-respect, splintered to atoms overnight. Bertrand Whittaker can do his worst, can put you behind bars, and me talking to you through bars, “Don’t confuse them. Don’t have illusions. Yet that’s why I love you, for the image you make of a perfect life. But it can’t be lived, Sydney. It can’t.” “Our chance is gone, if that’s what you mean.” “I don’t see how it affects us in the least if our love remains to us. I have never told her I loved her.” “How charming for her!” “That wasn’t what she wanted. She understands. I’m not the only one for her. It isn’t as if she were— She can take care of herself.” He paused. “Oh, I wouldn’t mind if she were dead if it would do us any good.” “Neil, hush! Nothing, not even our own “I don’t know. I don’t know how I think a lot of things I’m thinking. For instance, Bertrand Whittaker must be stopped dead in his tracks. He can’t be allowed to do this to Bunny’s life, or yours, or mine either. I’ll kill him first. The past is over and done with and he has no right to revive it.” “The past is over; yes, the past is done with. She said she had your picture and Bunny’s on the dresser before her. Listen to that—Bunny’s picture. What’s Bunny to her under the circumstances, I’d like to know, that she should be able to make free with her picture: stepchild, love child or godchild? I don’t suppose any of them fit, but they sound so refreshingly shocking it’s fun to use them.” “Stop making a scene, Sydney! I didn’t think you had it in you to make scenes and say such wild, bitter things. I can’t tend to a scene now. Can’t you see I can’t?” “When did it all begin, Neil? Don’t say it began in the common old-fashioned way at the common “Of course it did. When did you think it would have begun? You didn’t expect me to be a monk, did you? Sydney, let’s stop talking, please; and think about what’s got to be done. What do you say we clear out of the country and make a fresh start. Australia or somewhere.” “A fresh start! How devastating it sounds—to start over after eight years. It can’t be done, and the soul still live. As if one were told, after a terrible day of sled-pulling in an Arctic storm, that one had to retrace one’s steps without rest or food. It couldn’t be done, and the body live. That’s how I feel.” “Sydney, quiet. Quiet, dear, you must stop. And help me plan. I must find Giordano. I see it clearly. I must find him tonight. He will deal with Whittaker.” “Oh no, no, no, no. You mustn’t get in touch with those men again. You are finished forever if you try that. Neil, don’t do anything rash. I’ll talk to Bertrand the minute I have a chance. He will listen to reason. You know we have always “Nothing. Nothing. It doesn’t do anything to them, dearest one. We have our love. With Romany, as we agreed, it was all just a symbol. Do you hear me, Sydney? Stop crying. Stop it. I have something that has to be done. Stop it.” He went to the telephone on the stand between the beds. She screamed. “Keep away from that telephone, Neil. Can’t you see what frightful things may be going to happen in this house tonight. A call can be traced—you mustn’t touch a telephone.” She sprang toward him; but he had lifted the receiver and she couldn’t struggle or argue with him against the ear of the operator. The number he gave was AUdubon 2-1801. It answered. “Hello. Crawford speaking.” Then he never had been out of touch with them. “Pick up Disuno if you can find him. If not, one of the Neil hung up. “You have made the mistake of your life, Neil Crawford. If a breath of what you have just done reaches the police it’s all over but the shouting, Bertrand or no Bertrand.” “And it’s certainly all over if I do nothing. No, this is going to be Whittaker’s life or mine.” “Ordway Belknap may be here for a purpose.” “They have foiled better men than Belknap.” “You have been with them ever since?” “You didn’t for a minute imagine I could have been anywhere else did you? Once with them always with them as far as the underworld is concerned. They never release us.” “And you never told me how it has been with you!” “You couldn’t have helped in the least. I’ve saved Giordano from the chair twice over. And Disuno hasn’t hide nor hair that he doesn’t owe to me. Now I need them, that’s all. And you, my dear. And always you.” He took her in his arms now, but she was |
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