The Black Opal - Katharine Susannah Prichard (open ebook .TXT) 📗

Sophie nodded. “But I hadn’t had enough then⁠ ⁠… of the beautiful places and things I found myself in the midst of⁠ ⁠… and of all the admiration that came my way. What a queer crowd they were⁠—Kalin, that Greek boy who was singing with me in Eurydice, Ina Barres, the Countess, Mrs. Youille-Bailey, Adler, and the rest of them.⁠ ⁠… They seemed to have run the gamut of all natural experiences and to be interested only in what was unnatural, bizarre, macabre.⁠ ⁠… Adler in that crowd was almost a relief. I liked his⁠—honest Rabelaisianism, if you like.⁠ ⁠… I hadn’t the slightest intention of more than amusing myself with him⁠ ⁠… but he, evidently, did not intend to be merely a source of amusement to me. The supper on the yacht.⁠ ⁠… I kept my head for a while, not long, and then⁠—”

“Then?” Armitage queried.

“That’s why I came home,” Sophie said. “I was so sick with the shock and shame of it all⁠ ⁠… so sick and ashamed I couldn’t sing any more. I wouldn’t. My voice died.⁠ ⁠… I deserved what happened. I’d been playing for it⁠ ⁠… taking the wine, the music, Adler’s lovemaking⁠ ⁠… and expecting to escape the taint of it all.⁠ ⁠… Afterwards I saw where I was going⁠ ⁠… what that life was making of me.⁠ ⁠…”

“I don’t know how you came to have anything to do with such a rotten lot,” Armitage cried, sweating under a white heat of rage.

“Oh, they’re just people of means and leisure who like to patronise successful young dancers and singers for their own amusement,” Sophie said.

“Because you fell in with a set of ultra-aesthetics and degenerates, is no reason to suppose all our people of means and leisure are like them,” Armitage declared hotly.

“I don’t,” Sophie said; “what I felt, when I began to think about it, was that they were just the natural consequences of all the easy, luxurious living I’d seen⁠—the extreme of the pole if you like. I saw the other when I went to live in a slum settlement in Chicago.”

“You did?” Armitage exclaimed incredulously.

“When I got over the shock of⁠—my awakening,” she went on slowly, “I began to remember things Michael had said. That’s why I went to Chicago⁠ ⁠… and worked in a clothing factory for a while.⁠ ⁠… I saw there why Adler’s a millionaire, and heard from girls in a Youille-Bailey-M’Gill factory why Connie Youille-Bailey has money to burn.⁠ ⁠…”

“Old Youille-Bailey had fingers in a dozen pies, and he left her all he’d got,” Armitage said.

“But people down in the district where most of their money is made are living like bugs under a rotten log,” Sophie exclaimed wearily. “They’re made to live like that⁠ ⁠… in order that people like William P. Adler and Mrs. Youille-Bailey⁠ ⁠… may live as they do.”

Armitage’s expression of mild cynicism yielded to one of concerned attentiveness. But he was concerned with the bearing on Sophie of what she had to say, and not at all with its relation to conditions of existence.

“After all, life only goes on by its interests,” she went on musingly; “and Mrs. Youille-Bailey’s not altogether to blame for what she is. When people are bored, they’ve got to get interest or die; and if faculties which ought to be spent in useful or creative work aren’t spent in that work, they find outlet in the silly energies a selfish and artificial life breeds.⁠ ⁠…”

“I admit,” Armitage said, trying to veer her thoughts from the abstract to the personal issue, “that you went the pace. I couldn’t keep up with it⁠—not with Adler and his mob! But there’s no need to go back to that sort of life. We could live as quietly as you like.”

Sophie shook her head. “I want to live here,” she said. “I want to work with my hands⁠ ⁠… feel myself in the swim of the world’s life⁠ ⁠… going with the great stream; and I want to help Michael here.”

Armitage sat back against the windowsill regarding her steadily.

“If I could help you to do a great deal for the Ridge,” he said; “if I were to settle here and spend all the money I’ve got in developing this place.⁠—There’s nothing innately immoral about a water-supply or electric power, I suppose, or in giving people decent houses to live in. And it would mean that for Fallen Star, if the scheme I have in mind is put into action. And if it is⁠ ⁠… and I build a house here and were to live here most of my time⁠ ⁠… would you marry me then, Sophie?”

Sophie gazed at him, her eyes widening to a scarcely believable vision.

“Do you mean you’d give up all your money to do that for the Ridge?” she asked.

“Not quite that,” he replied. “But the scheme would work out like that. I mean, it would provide more comfort and convenience for everybody on the Ridge⁠—a more assured means of livelihood.”

“You don’t mean to buy up the mines?”

“Just that,” he said.

“But the men wouldn’t agree.⁠ ⁠…”

“I don’t know so much about that. It would depend on a few⁠—”

“Michael would never consent.”

“As a matter of fact”⁠—John Armitage returned Sophie’s gaze tranquilly⁠—“I know something about Michael⁠—some information came into my hands recently, although I’ve always vaguely suspected it⁠—which will make his consent much more likely than you would have imagined.⁠ ⁠… If it does not, giving the information I hold to men of the Ridge will so destroy their faith and confidence in Michael that what he may say or do will not matter.”

Sophie’s bewilderment and dismay constrained him. Then he continued:

“You see, quite apart from you, my dear, it has always been a sort of dream of mine⁠—ambition, if you like⁠—to make a going concern of this place⁠—to do for Fallen Star what other men I know have done for no-count, out-of-the-way towns and countries where natural resources or possibilities of investment warranted it.⁠ ⁠… I’ve talked the thing over with the old man, and with Andy M’Intosh, an old friend of mine, who is one of the ablest engineers in the States.⁠ ⁠… He’s willing