WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

The stare of that brutal face and of those red words sent her sinking into Mr. Driscoll's chair, and the letters fluttered to the floor. After a moment she reached in eager revulsion for the paper, and her eyes reeled through the high-colored account of the court scene. What was printed there was the newest of news to her; she had lunched early, and the paper she had bought to learn the latest developments in the Avon case had carried her only to the beginning of the trial. As she read, a dizzy sickness ran through all her body. The case against Tom, as the papers made it out, was certainly strong; and the fact that he, the instigator of the outrage, had attempted to escape blame by seeking to help convict his own tools was emphasized as the most blackening phase of the whole black affair. But strong as the case appeared, within her sickened, bewildered self there was something that protested the story could not possibly be true.

During the weeks that had passed since she had last seen Tom she had wondered much that he had not come again, guessing every reason but the right one. When ten days had passed without a visit from him she had concluded that he must be too busy in the management of the strike to spare an evening; she did not know how completely Tom had been crowded off the stage by Foley. When more days had passed, and still no call from him, her subtle woman's nature had supplied another reason, and one that was a sufficient explanation to her even to the present. She knew what Tom's feelings were toward her; a woman needs precious little insight to discover when a man loves her. For all her instinctive democracy, she was perfectly conscious of the social difference between herself and him, and with not unnatural egotism she endowed Tom with the same consciousness. He loved her, but felt their social inequality, and felt it with such keenness that he deemed it hopeless to try to win her, and so had decided to see her no more.

Such was her explanation of his absence. She pitied him with a warm romantic pity for his renunciation. Held away by such a reason, she knew that if ever he came it must be at her bidding. At times she had been impelled to send for him to come. To her this was not an impulse of prohibitive unmaidenliness; she could bend to a man who thought himself beneath her as she never could to a man on her own level. But she had not sent. To do so without being prepared to give him what he desired would be to do him a great wrong, and to give him this she was neither able nor ready. She admired all that was good in him; but she could not blind her eyes to his shortcomings, and to go into his world, with its easily imagined coarseness, with its ignorance of books and music and painting, and all the little refinements that were dear to her, she could not. And yet her heart had ached that he had not come.

But now as she read the story of his disgrace, and as the reflux of wits and strength began, all her heart was one protest of his innocence, and she forgot all the little differences that had before halted her desire to see him; and this desire, freed of its checks, suddenly expanded till it filled the uttermost recesses of her soul.

Her first impulse, when she had reached the story's end, was to go straight to him, and she went so far as to put on her hat. But reason stopped her at the door. She could do him no good, and her call would be but an embarrassment to them both. She removed her hat, and sat down to surging thoughts.

She was sitting at her desk, white and weak, reading anew the lurid story in the paper, when Mr. Driscoll passed through her room into his office with hat drawn over his eyes. She looked through his open door for several minutes—and then, obeying the desire for the relief of speech, she went in.

"Did you see this article about Mr. Keating?" she asked, trying to keep her personal interest in Tom from showing in her voice.

Mr. Driscoll's hat brim was still over his eyes. He did not look up. "Yes," he said gruffly.

"You remember him, don't you?—one of the foremen?"

The hat brim moved affirmatively.

She had to summon all her strength to put her next question with calmness. "What will be done with him?"

"I don't know. Blowing up buildings isn't a very innocent amusement."

"But he didn't do it!"

"He didn't? Hum!"

Ruth burned to make a hot defense. But instead she asked: "Do you think he's the sort of a man to do a thing of that sort? He says he didn't."

"What d'you suppose he'd say?"

She checked her rising wrath. "But what do you think will be done with him?"

"Hung," growled Mr. Driscoll.

She glared at him, but his hat brim shielded off her resentment; and without another word she swept indignantly out of the room.

Ruth went home in that weakening anxiety which is most felt by the helpless. On the way she bought an evening paper, but there was nothing new in it. After a dinner hardly touched she went into the street and got a ten o'clock edition. It had the story of Tom's release on bail.

"Why, the dear old bear!" she gasped, as she discovered that Mr. Driscoll had gone Tom's bond. She hurried to her room and in utter abandonment to her emotion wrote Tom a note asking him to call the following evening.

The next morning Tom, discharged but half an hour before, walked into Ruth's office. He had stood several minutes in front of the building before he had gained sufficient control to carry him through the certain meeting with her. She went red at sight of him, and rose in a throbbing confusion, but subdued herself to greet him with a friendly cordiality.

"It's been a long time since I've seen you," she said, giving him her hand. It was barely touched, then dropped.

"Yes. I've been—very—busy," Tom mumbled, his big chest heaving. It seemed that his mind, his will, were slipping away from him. He seized his only safety. "Is Mr. Driscoll in?"

"Yes." Suddenly chilled, she went into Mr. Driscoll's room. "He says he's too busy to see you," she said on her return; and then a little of her greeting smile came back: "But I think you'd better go in, anyhow."

As Tom entered Mr. Driscoll looked up with something that was meant to be a scowl. He had had one uncomfortable scene already that morning. "Didn't I say I was busy?" he asked sharply.

"I was told you were. But you didn't think I'd go away without thanking you?"

"It's a pity a man can't make a fool of himself without being slobbered over. Well, if you've got to, out with it! But cut it short."

Tom expressed his thanks warmly, and obediently made them brief. "But I don't know what you did it for?" he ended.

"About fifty reporters have been asking that same thing."

The telephone in Ruth's office began to ring. He waited expectantly.

"Mr. Bobbs wants to speak to you," said Ruth, appearing at the door.

"Tell him I'm out—or dead," he ordered, and went on to Tom: "And he's about the seventeenth contractor that's asked the same question, and tried to walk on my face. Maybe because I don't love Foley. I don't know myself. A man goes out of his head now and then, I suppose." His eyes snapped crossly.

"If you're sorry this morning, withdraw the bail and I'll——"

"Don't you try to be a fool, too! All I ask of you is, don't skip town, and don't blow up any more buildings."

Tom gave his word, smiling into the cross face; and was withdrawing, when Mr. Driscoll stood up. "When this strike you started is over come around to see me." He held out his hand; his grasp was warm and tight. "Good-by."

Tom, having none of that control and power of simulation which are given by social training, knew of but one way to pass safely by the danger beyond Mr. Driscoll's door. He hurried across Ruth's office straight for the door opening into the hallway. He had his hand on the knob, when he felt how brutal was his discourtesy. He turned his head. Ruth sat before the typewriter, her white face on him.

"Good-by," he said.

She did not answer, and he went dazedly out.

Ruth sat in frozen stillness for long after he had gone. This new bearing of Tom toward her fitted her explanation for his long absence—and did not fit it. If he had renounced her, though loving her, he probably would have borne himself in the abrupt way he had just done. And he might have acted in just this same way had he come to be indifferent to her. This last was the chilling thought. If he had received her letter then his abrupt manner could mean only that this last thought struck the truth. When she had written him she had been certain of his feeling for her; that certainty now changed to uncertainty, she would have given half her life to have called the letter back with unbroken seal.

She told herself that he would not come,—told herself this as she automatically did her work, as she rode home in the car, as she made weak pretense of eating dinner. And yet, after dinner, she put on the white dress that his eyes had told her he liked so well. And later, when Mr. Berman's card was brought her, she sent down word that she was ill.

Presently ... he came. He did not speak when she opened the door to him, nor did she. There was an unmastering fever burning in his throat and through all his body; and all her inner self was the prisoner of a climacteric paralysis. They held hands for a time, laxly, till one loosed, and then both swung limply back to their places.

"I just got your letter to-night—when I got home," he said, driving out the words. But he said nothing of his struggle: how he had fought back his longing and determined not to come; and how, the victory won, he had madly thrown wisdom aside and rushed to her.

They found seats, somehow, she in a chair, he on the green couch, and sat in a silence their heart-beats seemed to make sonant. She was the first to recover somewhat, and being society bred and so knowing the necessity of speech, she questioned him about his arrest.

He started out on the story haltingly. But little by little his fever lost its invalidating control, and little by little the madness in his blood, the madness that had forced him hither, possessed his brain and tongue, and the words came rapidly, with spirit. Finishing the story of his yesterday he harked back to the time he had last seen her, and told her what had happened in the second part of that evening in the hall over the Third Avenue saloon; told her how Foley had stolen the strike; how he had declined to his present insignificance. And as he talked he eagerly drank in her sympathy, and loosed himself more and more to the enjoyment of the mad pleasure of being with her. To her his words were not the account of the more or less sordid experiences of a workingman; they were the story of the reverses of the hero who, undaunted, has given battle to one whom all others have dared not, or cared not, fight.

"What will you do now?" she asked when he had ended.

"I don't know. Foley says he has me down and out—if you know what that means."

She nodded.

"I guess he's about right. Not many people want to hire men who blow up buildings. I had thought I'd work at whatever I could till October—our next election's then—and run against Foley again. But if he wins the strike he may be too strong to beat."

"But do you think he'll win the strike?"

"He'll be certain to win, though this explosion will injure us a lot. He's in for the strike for all he's worth, and when he fights his best he's hard to beat. The bosses can't get enough iron-men to keep their jobs going. That's already been proved. And in a little while all the other trades will catch up to where we left off; they'll have to stop then, for they can't do anything till our work's been done. That'll be equivalent to a general strike in all the building trades. We'll be losing money, of course, but so'll the bosses. The side'll win that can hold out longest, and we're fixed to hold out."

"According to all the talk I hear the victory is bound to go the opposite way."

"Well, you know some people then who'll be mighty disappointed!" Tom returned.

She did not take him up, and silence fell between them. Thus far their talk had been of the facts of their daily lives, and though it had been unnatural in that it was far from the matter in both their hearts, yet by help of its moderate distraction they had managed to keep their feelings under control. But now, that distraction ended, Tom's fever began to burn back upon him. He sat rigidly upright, his eyes avoiding her face, and the fever flamed higher and higher. Ruth gazed whitely at him, hands gripped in her lap, her faculties slipping from her, waiting she hardly knew what. Minutes passed, and the silence between them grew intenser and more intense.

Amid her throbbing dizziness Ruth's mind held steadily to just two thoughts: she was again certain of Tom's love, and certain that his pride would never allow him to speak. These two thoughts pointed her the one thing there was for her to do; the one thing that must be done for both their sakes—and finally she forced herself to say: "It has been a long time since you have been to see me. I had thought you had quite forgotten me."

"I have thought of you often?" he managed to return, eyes still fixed above her, his self-control tottering.

"But in a friendly way?—No.—Or you would not have been silent through two months."

His eyes came down and fastened upon that noble face, and the words escaped by the guard he tried to keep at his lips: "I have never had a friend like you."

She waited.

"You are my best friend," the words continued.

She waited again, but he said nothing more.

She drove herself on. "And yet you could—stay away two months?—till I sent for you?"

He stood up, and walked to the window and stood as if looking through it—though the shade was drawn. She saw the fingers at his back writhing and knotting themselves. She waited, unwinking, hardly breathing, all her life in the tumultuous beating of her heart.

He turned about. His face was almost wild. "I stayed away—because I love you——" His last word was a gasp, and he did not have the strength to say the rest.

It had come! Her great strain over, she fairly collapsed in a swooning happiness. Her head drooped, and she swayed forward till her elbows were on her knees. For a moment she existed only in her great, vague, reeling joy. Then she heard a spasmodic gasp, and heard his hoarse words add:

"And because—I am married."

Her head uprose slowly, and she looked at him, looked at him, with a deadly stupefaction in her eyes. A sickening minute passed. "Married?" she whispered.

"Yes—married."

A terrified pallor overspread her face, but the face held fixedly to his own. He stood rigid, looking at her. Her strange silence began to alarm him.

"What is it?" he cried.

Her face did not change, and seconds passed. Suddenly a gasp, then a little groan, broke from her.

"Married!" she cried.

For a moment he was astounded; then he began dimly to understand. "What, you don't mean——" he commenced, with dry lips. He moved, with uncertain steps, up before her. "You don't—care for me?"

The head bowed a trifle.

"Oh, my God!" He half staggered backward into a chair, and his face fell into his hands. He saw, in an agonizing vision, what might have been his, and what never could be his; and he saw the wide desert of his future.

"You!" He heard her voice, and he looked up.

She was on her feet, and was standing directly in front of him. Her hands were clenched upon folds of her skirt. Her breath was coming rapidly. Her eyes were flashing.

"You! How could you come to see me as you have, and you married?" She spoke tremulously, fiercely, and at the last her voice broke into a sob. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she did not heed them.

Tom's face dropped back into his hands; he could not stand the awful accusation of that gaze. She was another victim of his tragedy, an innocent victim—and his victim. He saw in a flash the whole ghastly part he, in ignorance, had played. A groan burst from his lips, and he writhed in his self-abasement.

"How could you do it?" he heard her fiercely demand again. "Oh, you! you!" He heard her sweep across the little room, and then sweep back; and he knew she was standing before him, gazing down at him in anguish, anger, contempt.

He groaned again. "What can I say to you—what?"

There was silence. He could feel her eyes, unchanging, still on him. Presently he began to speak into his hands, in a low, broken voice. "I can make no excuse. I don't know that I can explain. But I never intended to do this. Never! Never!

"You know how we met, how we came to be together the first two or three times. Afterwards ... I said awhile ago that you were my best friend. I have had few real friends—none but you who sympathized with me, who seemed to understand me. Well, afterwards I came because—I never stopped to think why I came. I guess because you understood, and I liked you. And so I came. As a man might come to see a good man friend. And I never once thought I was doing wrong. And I never thought of my wife—that is, you understand, that she made it wrong for me to see you. I never thought——If you believe in me at all, you must believe this. You must! And then—one day—I saw you with another man, and I knew I loved you. I awoke. I saw what I ought to do. I tried to do it—but it was very hard—and I came to see you again—the last time. I said once more I would not see you again. It was still hard, very hard—but I did not. And then—your letter—came——"

His words dwindled away. Then, after a moment, he said very humbly: "Perhaps I don't just understand how to be a gentleman."

Again silence. Presently he felt a light touch on his shoulder. He raised his eyes. She was still gazing at him, her face very white, but no anger in it.

"I understand," she said.

He rose—weak. "I can't ask that you forgive me."

"No. Not now."

"Of course. I have meant to you only grief—pain. And can mean only that to you, always."

She did not deny his words.

"Of course," he agreed. Then he stood, without words, unmoving.

"You had better go," she said at length.

He took his hat mechanically. "The future?"

"You were right."

"You mean—we should not meet again?"

"This is the last time."

Again he stood silent, unmoving.

"You had better go," she said. "Good-night."

"Good-night."

He moved sideways to the door, his eyes never leaving her. He paused. She stood just as she had since she had touched his shoulder. He moved back to her, as in a trance.

"No." She held up a hand, as if to ward him off.

He took the hand—and the other hand. They were all a-tremble. And he bent down, slowly, toward her face that he saw as in a mist. The face did not recede. Their cold lips met. At the touch she collapsed, and the next instant she was sobbing convulsively in his arms.

And all that night she lay dressed on her couch.... And all that night he walked the streets.