The One Woman (Dixon, 1903)/Chapter 28
When Gordon entered the library he glanced uneasily at his wife and she smiled in insolent composure.
Overman rose hastily.
"Sorry the weather was so threatening I couldn't persuade your wife to go to the Temple, Frank."
"Yes, the rain is pouring in torrents and it's getting colder," he answered, rubbing his hands before the fire.
"I'll not stay to dinner; I've an engagement at my club," the banker said, briskly.
The one eye ran from the man to the woman in embarrassment at the threatening silence. Kate walked with him to the door.
"You will return at seven o'clock," she said, in even tones.
"If you command it," he coolly answered.
"I do. We will have our parting this afternoon. He can remove to his old quarters at the hotel. I will receive you alone, and we will arrange for the divorce and our marriage."
"Promptly at seven," he said, crushing her hand in his parting grasp.
Gordon ate his dinner in obstinate quiet, now and then looking at his wife's dazzling beauty with fevered yearning in his eyes.
When she rose from the table he said:
"I wish to speak with you in the library, my dear."
"Very well, I'll be down directly," she carelessly replied.
He paced the floor for half an hour, and rang for the maid.
"Tell your mistress I am waiting," he said, abruptly.
The maid did not return, and his anger grew with each lengthening minute.
At the end of an hour, Kate appeared.
He fixed her with a look of angry amazement.
"Well, what is it?" she asked, impatiently.
"Why did you keep your maid and send no answer to me?"
"I was writing a letter. Are you a king? What is it?" she repeated, coldly.
"I wish to say something of the utmost importance both to you and to me, and to another man," he said slowly, in a voice pulsing with a storm of emotion.
The violet eyes danced and laughed in his face.
"So tragic?" she asked, mockingly.
He locked his big hands nervously behind him, stood before the fire, and a scowl settled over his face.
"Yes," he said, with quiet force. "More than you understand, I fear. I have had enough of Mark Overman in this house."
The fair face flushed with excitement. She walked quickly up to him, paused, and slowly pointed to the door.
"Very well. This is my house. You know the way to the hotel, or shall I ring for my maid to show you?"
He stared at her in a stupor, and a sense of sickening terror choked him.
"Kate, are you crazy?" he stammered.
"Never was more myself than in this moment of perfect freedom," she replied, defiantly.
His great jaws snapped in silent ferocity, and his hairy hands closed slowly like the claws of a bear. He planted his big feet apart, and the sparks flew from the gray eyes that seemed to crouch now behind his brows.
"What do you mean?" he sullenly asked.
The woman drew back with uncertainty, chilled by the tone of his voice.
"Just what I said," she answered, with returning courage. "This is my house. I am a free woman. I mean to do what I please. Permit me to repeat your own words from the ceremony of Emancipation, and lest I shock you later, announce that I love Mr. Overman"
"Kate!" he cried, in bitter reproach.
"Yes, and he loves me. I announce to you this unity of our Eves. For months it has made us one. May I repeat your ceremony? I have memorised it perfectly. 'Human life incarnates God. Words can add nothing to the sublime fact of the union of two souls. This is the supreme sacrament of human experience. It proclaims its inherent divinity. There is no yesterday or to-day in the harmony and rhythm of two such souls. Love holds all the years that have been and are to be.'"
She paused, smiled, and went on:
"'This is a day of joy—overflowing, unsullied, serene; a day of hope, a day of faith. It is a day of courage and of cheer, and to the world it speaks a gospel of freedom and fellowship. It proclaims the dawn of a higher life for all, the sanctity and omnipotence of love. It asserts the elemental rights of man.' With joy I announce to you my approaching marriage to your friend and schoolmate, Mark Overman, a man in whose strength I glory, whom I shall delight to call my lord and master."
Trembling from head to foot, the veins on his neck and hands standing out like steel cords, Gordon said in a hoarse whisper:
"Kate, darling, this is a cruel joke! You are teasing me."
Again she laughed, sat down lazily, and threw her arms behind her head.
"I never was more serious in my life," she quietly replied.
He hesitated a moment, his eyes devouring her beauty, stepped quickly to her side, knelt and took her hand.
She snatched it roughly, pushed him from her, and cried angrily:
"Don't touch me!"
He attempted to take her hand and place his arm about her.
She sprang up, repulsing him with rage.
"It is all over between us. You are not my husband. I love another."
He arose, walked back to the fireplace and leaned his elbow on the mantel. A wave of agony and blind rage swept him. And then the memory of the hour he spent in such a scene with Ruth caught him by the throat. He could feel the soft touch of her tapering fingers on his big foot as she lay prostrate on the floor before him.
He turned with a shiver toward Kate, who was still gazing at him with insolent languor.
Again his eyes swept the lines of her superb form with the wild thirst for possession that means murder. Two bright red spots appeared on his cheeks.
With slow vehemence he said:
"And do you think the man lives who will dare to take you from me?"
"Dare? I will dare to turn you out of this house. I have chosen the man, and made love to him as his equal. His scruples as your friend bound him. They do not bind me. Thank yourself if this means a tragedy. You challenged the world in your strength. You proclaimed freedom in comradeship. Under the old laws of life, this man would have cut his right arm off rather than betray you. You invited him here. Has he no rights—have I no rights you must respect under such conditions?"
He ignored her question and continued to look at her in stubborn, curious silence.
"Do you know what you are saying?" he asked, brusquely.
"Certainly. Repeating to you the secrets you have taught me."
"Well, I'll teach you something more before this drama has ended, young woman," he said, with a touch of ice in his tones.
She gave an angry toss of her head and cried with sneering emphasis:
"Indeed!"
"Yes. I'll show you, if you push me to it, what a return to the freedom of nature really means. I, too, have had some illuminations in the past months."
She laughed again.
"Ah, Frank, you are a born preacher, and your threats are scarcely melodramatic; they are merely idiotic."
The gray eyes grew somber. He drew his right arm up until its muscles stood a huge twisted knot, fairly bursting through his sleeve, seized her hand roughly and held it with iron violence on his arm.
"It's worth your while to take note of that," he said, steadily disregarding her angry effort to withdraw her hand. "It's made out of threads of steel—that muscle. Few men are my equal. I am talking to you in the insolence of physical strength that proclaims me a king—a savage viking, if you like, but none the less a king."
She attempted again to free her arm from his brutal grip.
"Be still," he growled. "I feel throbbing in my veins to-day the blood of a thousand savage ancestors who made love to their women with a club and dragged them to their caves by the hair—yes, and more, the beat of impulses that surged there with wild power before man became a man."
With a sob of rage, she tore herself from his grasp.
"Oh, you brute!" she cried, stiffening her figure to its full height, her dark-red hair falling in ruffling ringlets about her ears and neck, as she rubbed her arm where his hand had left the blue finger-prints.
"I warn you," he said, his voice sinking lower and lower into a mere growl. "I am your husband. You are my wife. Whatever may have been my dreams, I'm awake now. Man once aroused is an animal with teeth and claws and Titanic impulses, huge and fateful forces that crush and kill all that comes between him and his two fierce elemental desires, hunger and love."
The splendid form of the woman shook with anger. Her eyes ablaze, her cheeks scarlet, her voice sobbing and breaking with wrath, she said:
"And did you call it that when you threw your little wife into the street for me? Is this your boasted freedom—freedom for man's desires alone?"
"I warn you," he repeated, ignoring her question. "You will bring that man into this house again at the peril of his life and yours."
"Yes, you are talking to a woman now," she hissed. "Babbler, preacher, parson, coward! Why did you not say this to him?"
"I'll say it in due time," he answered, deliberately folding his arms. "In the meantime, I will inform you, as you are in search of a master, that I am your master and the master of this house."
With a stamp of her foot, she swept from the room, throwing over her shoulder the challenge:
"We shall see!"