Nickie was lying on the bed, flat on her back, without a pillow, her
eyes resolutely closed, in a stern effort to rest. That morning, just as
she was saying good-by--very willingly--to the cantankerous old lady
with a broken arm whom she had been attending for three weeks, Dr. Lucas
had telephoned and told her that he wanted her for night duty on a
pneumonia case. It was a bad case, and she had a bad night ahead of her.
She must rest now; but she couldn’t. This wasn’t rest.
She heard the key turned in the latch, and the front door opened
quietly.
“Hello, Mac!” she called.
But it was not Miss McCarty who answered. It was Pem.
“You home, Nickie?” she said. “That’s nice.”
She came into the bedroom. Nickie sat up and stared at her with wide
eyes.
“For Pete’s sake!” she exclaimed. “What’s the meaning of all this, Pem?”
“I don’t know,” replied Pem slowly. She had taken off her hat and coat,
and was looking at herself in the glass--at her carefully dressed hair,
the artful touch of color in her cheeks, the new frock of navy twill
with red leather buttons. “I look rather nice, don’t I, Nickie?”
“Yes,” said Nickie, “stunning; but--well, I suppose I’m not used to it.
But what’s the reason, Pem?”
Pem’s explanation did not satisfy her. Pem said that her patient was a
wealthy young woman suffering from a mild form of melancholia. She had
to be diverted, and--
“I had to look halfway decent, going about with her,” said Pem. “She
wanted me to.”
“Finished now?” Nickie asked.
“No--it may last for months; but I often get an afternoon off when her
sister comes to stay with her. She likes me to clear out sometimes, so
that she can tell her sister how awful I am.”
“Doesn’t she like you, Pem?”
“Oh, pretty well; but she doesn’t really like anybody but herself.
That’s what’s the matter with her. She’s got everything on earth--money,
and friends, and a wonderful husband. Lend me some of your powder,
Nickie?”
“Powder? Going out again now, Pem?”
Pem nodded.
“Who with?”
“With a man,” said Pem, laughing. “Don’t faint!”
“Of course it’s not my business,” observed Nickie, “but it--it isn’t the
husband, is it?”
She waited a long time for an answer.
“I wish you’d tell me, Pem. I always tell you things.”
Pem turned and looked at her steadily.
“No, you don’t, Nickie,” she said; “not always.”
Nickie looked back at her friend quite as steadily.
“I do,” she said. “I tell you anything that really matters. You see,
Pem, the reason I am asking this is because I thought you were rather
gone on Arthur Caswell. You see, I’ve known him for a long while, so
I--”
Pem turned to open the bureau drawer, and to take out a pair of white
gloves and a handkerchief.
“I’ll tell you something, Nickie,” she said in a curt, cool voice. “He
would never have looked at me that night if I had been my real self. I
acted like a fool, and that’s what he liked. That’s what every one
likes. After he’d gone, everything seemed tame and flat, and I felt so
lonely that I couldn’t stand it. I’m going to keep on being a fool,
Nickie. I’m going to make people like me. I’m going to live, and enjoy
myself!”
“All right,” said Nickie; “but what about Arthur Caswell?”
“He’ll never come back.”
“Yes, he will.”
“If he does, then--but he won’t. I’m not going to waste my life--or
what’s left of it.”
“If I was going to waste any lives,” said Nickie, “I’d rather waste my
own than any one else’s.”
Pem was astounded.
“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “Are you trying to preach to
me, Nickie? It was you who started the whole thing--always pestering me
to go to parties.”
“I never went out with a married man in my life,” said Nickie; “and I
never would, either.”
“That’s a little too much, after that last party!” returned Pem
scornfully. “You wouldn’t go out with a married man, but you don’t mind
three fellows who’ve been drinking!”
“How do you know I didn’t mind?” cried Nickie, jumping up. “Just let me
tell you, Pem--I knew Arthur Caswell’s people in Halifax. His father’s a
strict Presbyterian. I know what he’d think about that, and I’d have
stopped Arthur, too, if--”
Pem was about to make a sharp retort, but she changed her mind in time.
Going over to Nickie, she put her arms about her friend.
“I’m sorry, little pal,” she said gently. “I didn’t mean to.”
Nickie gave her a rough little hug.
“All right, Pem,” she said. “I know! But, Pem, for my sake, please don’t
go out with this man. You’ll be sorry for it--awfully sorry. It’s not
like you. Don’t do it, Pem!”
“You don’t understand, Nickie. He’s a wonderful man, so honorable--”
“He’s not honorable if he goes out with you behind his wife’s back.”
“How can he help it, when she’s turned her back on him for good? She’s
horrible to him. Nobody else would have put up with her as he has. He is
honorable, Nickie; he’s a gentleman through and through. He’s so
lonely--you don’t know what that is, but I do. He’s longing and longing
for women to be nice and friendly to him. If his wife was ever halfway
decent to him--”
She stopped short, because the doorbell had rung.
“There he is,” she said. “Nickie, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I wish
you’d see him and talk to him. Then you’d understand. Open the door and
talk to him while I’m getting ready.”
Nickie hesitated for a moment.
“All right!” she said, then. “I’ll talk to him!”
Without even troubling to smooth her unruly hair, off she went, down the
passage. In a moment she was back.
“Pem,” she cried, “Arthur Caswell is here!”
They stared at each other in a sort of dismay, both speechless for a
time.
“I’ll take him out, quick,” said Pem. “When Mr. Blanchard comes, tell
him something--anything. I’ll see you later, Nickie. I’ll stop here
before I go back to Mr. Blanchard’s.”
“All right,” Nickie said again.
When Pem had gone, she closed the bedroom door after her; but she didn’t
even try to rest now.
V
Pem went down the passage with a lagging step and a heart strangely
troubled and doubting.
“No,” she said to herself. “Of course it can’t be like that. I just
imagined it. I’ve thought about it so much that--no, it couldn’t really
have been so wonderful. He couldn’t have been so dear. When I see him
again I shall get over being so silly.”
But that silliness was the best thing in her life. For weeks the glamour
of that enchanted evening had colored all her days. The music they had
danced to still sounded in her ears, faint and stirring. When she closed
her eyes, she could see again the sparkle and glitter of that tinsel
fairyland of Broadway, made true and fine by the boy’s love.
“I won’t be an idiot!” she told herself. “When I see him again, I’ll
find that he’s--not really like that!”
So, with what fortitude she had, she entered the little sitting room. He
didn’t hear her. He was standing at the window, with his back toward the
room, his hands in his pockets--such a straight, stalwart figure!
“Hello!” said Pem. “It’s a surprise to see you here again!”
Then he turned, and it was true, all of it--that look she had
remembered, that glamour, that enchantment.
“Oh, Pem!” he said. “Didn’t you know I’d come?”
For a minute she was utterly content in his arms, as if her restless and
disconsolate spirit had at last found peace; but not for long. She moved
away, still holding his hand, and looking at him with a misty smile.
“You’re so beautiful!” he said. “Sometimes I thought you couldn’t be as
lovely as I remembered, but you’re a hundred times--”
The clock on the mantelpiece struck three.
“Let’s go out!” she said hastily.
He was a little taken aback.
“Can’t we stay here, Pem? I want a chance to talk to you.”
“Not here. We can talk somewhere else. I know a nice little tea room
where we can dance.”
“I don’t want to dance,” said he; “and--look here, Pem! I’m a bit hard
up, this trip.”
She couldn’t help kissing him for that.
“As if I cared! We’ll take a bus ride, then.”
“No, we won’t do that, either,” said he, half laughing. “We’ll stay
where we are. I want to talk to you. I--does this suit you, Pem?”
From his pocket he pulled out a ring, carried loose in there, without a
box, without even a bit of paper, and laid it in her hand. There it was,
honest and unashamed, like himself--the tiniest little diamond. She
stared down at it through a veil of tears.
“Best I could do,” he said a little forlornly. “You see, I never tried
to save my pay, and it’s darned small, Pem, old girl. I’m only third
mate. I dare say I don’t make as much as you do.”
“Never mind! That doesn’t matter,” she answered, so low that he could
scarcely hear.
It seemed to her the most touching and beautiful thing that had ever
happened, that he should come to her with his poor little ring, so
simply and loyally offering her all he had.
“But we can manage,” he went on more cheerfully. “I’ve figured it out.
We can take a little flat, you know, and if we’re careful, we can get
on. You won’t mind a pretty quiet life, will you, Pem? Nickie told me
you weren’t keen on going out and all that. I’m not, either--at least,
not now. I was, you know, but not now. We’ll settle down--”
He stopped short, looking at her with a faint frown, but she did not
meet his eyes. She was shocked, appalled, at her own traitorous
thoughts. She glanced again at the ring, and tried in vain to recapture
the tenderness and pity she had felt.
To settle down and marry this boy--not to dance with him, not to listen
to his love-making to the accompaniment of music, in a bright dazzle of
light, but to marry him and settle down to a deadly quiet life--she knew
very well what that meant. She had often enough been in the sort of
little flat they would have to live in. She went into such places when
sickness was already there. She had seen all the makeshifts, all the
sordid and pitiful anxieties of such existences--people who hadn’t
enough towels and sheets, who couldn’t afford hot water bottles, who
couldn’t afford even the necessary sunlight.
The quiet life! What had he to do with a quiet life? He had come
suddenly into her own chill, somber existence, startling her into youth
and gayety--that was why she loved him. A dear, honest, silly boy, to
dance with, to be happy with for an evening, but--
“Pem!” he said abruptly. “What’s the matter?”
At his peremptory tone, she found it less difficult to speak. She put
her hand on his shoulder and spoke as kindly as she could.
“I’m afraid you’re going ahead a little too fast,” she said. “After all,
we’ve only seen each other once before, you know. Doesn’t it seem--”
“Do you mean that you don’t care for me?” he interrupted.
His bluntness disconcerted her.
“No,” she said, with a trace of impatience; “but we don’t really know
each other. I think we ought to wait--until we’re sure.”
He was silent for a long time, searching her downcast face.
“You’re sure now, aren’t you?” he asked at last. “All right, Pem! All my
fault! I might have known--”
And in the face of his sincerity, his honest and unresentful pain, she
could give him no false hope, no false consolation, nothing but the
truth revealed to him by her silence.
He took the ring from her hand and looked at it with a shadowy smile.
Then, before she knew what he was about, he threw it out of the open
window into the street.
She came to the window and looked down, but she couldn’t see it in the
street far below.
“Oh, why did you do that?” she cried. “Why, didn’t--”
A sob rose in her throat. She turned away her head, so that he should
not see her tears.
“Don’t cry!” he said. “It’s all my fault. I should have known better, of
course. I say, Pem! Please don’t cry! The whole thing isn’t worth it.
Just--let’s say good-by, Pem!”
She held out both her hands. After a brief hesitation, he took them in
his.
“I’ll never forgive myself!” she said unsteadily. “Never!”
“Nothing to forgive,” he assured her, with a gallant attempt at a smile.
“I--anyhow, I’m glad I ever saw you. Good-by, Pem!”
If it could only have ended then! If he could have gone then, with that
moment for them to remember! But it was their great misfortune that no
such memory should be left to them.
The doorbell rang, and Nickie came out of her room.
“Shall I go, Pem?” she asked. “Or--”
Pem looked at her helplessly. As the flat was arranged, the front door
could not be opened without affording a plain view of the sitting room.
“I’ll let it ring,” said Nickie, with a fine effect of carelessness. “No
one we want to see.”
But that was not Pem’s way. She came of an austere and stiff-necked
family, living secluded on an exhausted little Vermont farm. They had
nothing much but pride to keep them warm in winter, to feed and clothe
them. Pride was the only heritage that came down to Pem, and pride would
not allow her to refuse admission to Mr. Blanchard, no matter what it
cost her. As for the possible cost to Arthur Caswell and to Nickie, that
didn’t occur to her just then.
She opened the door herself.
“I’m afraid I’m a little late,” said a courteous, apologetic voice.
“Please--”
Then, as he followed Pem inside, he caught sight of the others, and made
a general bow.
“This is Mr. Blanchard, Nickie,” said Pem.
He looked altogether what Pem had called him--a gentleman through and
through. He was a rather slight man in the middle forties, with a
sensitive, harassed face, hair a little gray on the temples, and fine,
dark eyes. He hadn’t in the least a furtive or shamefaced air. Indeed,
there was a quiet sort of straightforwardness about him that favorably
impressed Nickie, in spite of her prejudice against the man.
“I’ve heard a great deal about you from Miss Pembroke,” he said.
Nickie liked his smile, his voice, his well bred ease. She liked all
this, and yet, when Pem presented Caswell to him, her liking was a pain.
Arthur seemed so young, so awkward, such an immature and unimpressive
creature, in contrast to his senior. She wanted to defend him against
comparison. She wanted to force Pem to see, and Mr. Blanchard to see,
the splendid qualities in the young sailor.
But she had no chance. Before she could interfere, Blanchard had
mentioned that it was growing late. Pem had answered that she was ready,
and off they went.