WHAT TONY BUILT
By a caprice of chance, it was that day Masterson came; almost at the
hour when Adriance, tired and exultant, was rearing a structure of good
dreams as he ate his cheap food at the counter of the lunch-cart under
the shadow of the huge electric sign bearing his name.
Morning had arrived at noon, when Elsie was called to her front door by
a clang of the bell; one of those small gongs favored years ago, that
snap with a pulled handle. Down at the end of the straight path she
heard laughter and the high-pitched voices of women above the soft roll
of an automobile's motor. Surprised, she opened the door.
Before her, on the high, absurd little porch, a man in motoring furs
stood and steadied himself by grasping the snow-powdered railing.
Confronted by a woman, he lifted his cap, and a sunbeam piercing the old
roof gleamed across his close-clipped auburn curls.
"I was told at the little shop that a chauffeur lived here," he
explained, pleasantly enough. The glare of the sun on snow dazzled his
first vision. "Our compressed air system is out of order, and my man
forgot to put in a hand-pump. I----"
His voice trailed away into silence. He had seen her face.
"Elsie?" he doubted. "Elsie?"
She smiled at him with her serene composure, although deep color swept
over her face with the startled movement of her blood.
"Mrs. Adriance," she corrected. "Will you not come in? I am sorry Mr.
Adriance is not at home."
He crossed the threshold mechanically, his gaze not leaving her.
"I did not believe it," he exclaimed, under his breath. "I thought
Lucille--lied."
"Mr. Masterson!"
He shook his head in deprecation of offense, continuing his scrutiny of
her. He had the appearance of a man fevered by drink or illness; his
eyes were bright behind a surface glaze, his face was haggard, yet
flushed. His features, always of a fineness almost suggesting
effeminacy, had sharpened to an extreme delicacy that promised little
for health or endurance.
"They told me a chauffeur lived here," he said, presently.
"Anthony is a chauffeur," she answered, compassion for the change in him
making her voice very gentle. "But I am afraid we have no automobile
tools to lend. All such things are kept at the factory or in the machine
he drives."
He swept aside the subject of automobiles with an impatient movement of
his hand, and slowly turned to look over the room.
It had gathered much of comfort during those last months, that room; and
something more. Scarlet-flowered curtains hung at the windows, echoing
the vivid note of scarlet salvia in bloom on the sills. A shelf of books
had been put up; beneath, a small table held the jade-and-ivory chessmen
drawn up in battle array on their field. As always, the fire glowed, and
on the hearth the cat stretched drowsily. Cheer dwelt in the place, the
atmosphere of comradeship and assured love; and the pulse of it all was
the girl who stood, tranquil of regard, rich in life and beautiful with
health, princess in her own domain.
At her Masterson looked longest, his handsome, bitter mouth oddly
twisted out of shape.
"You're different," he pronounced, finally.
"I am very happy."
"Happy? Here? You married a millionaire's son to live here?"
"I married to live with my husband," she proudly corrected him.
Again he looked around, and suddenly laughed out with an over-loud lack
of control that in a woman would have been called hysterical.
"Tony Adriance's house!" he cried, striking his gloved hands together.
"Tony--idle Tony, easy Tony, Tony of teas and tangos--Tony has built
this! Why----," he bent toward her. "You have been matching work with
God, Elsie Adriance; you have made a man!"
She drew back, aghast at the bold irreverence. He laughed again at her
expression.
"You think I meant that wrongly? I did not. I know well enough the way
Tony is going, and the way I am. That is if he sticks to this! Are you
never afraid he will not! Never afraid he will drift back to the easier
ways?"
"No," she affirmed. A shining radiance lighted her confident eyes. She
carried beneath her heart that which made Anthony and her forever one.
Fear was done with; it no longer, wolf-like, hunted down her happiness.
"No? Do you think he will be content to be a chauffeur on a honeymoon
all his life? I'm going to do something decent, Elsie; I'm going to help
you clinch Tony Adriance. No, don't protest. I'm going to force my help
on you both, wanted or not. Why, you can't keep him out of New York
forever! Send him there to-night, to me, and I'll finish what you have
begun."
Amazed and dismayed, she retreated from his urgency.
"Excuse me," she began a stiff refusal.
He cut her short with impatience.
"Then I'll leave a message for him. Don't look like that; I only want
him to meet me in a public restaurant. Can't you trust me?"
"You do not understand."
"I understand more than you do," he retorted bluntly. "But if I am
wrong, no harm will be done. I want to see him, anyhow. Are you afraid
of me?"
"No."
"Well, then----?"
He pulled off his gloves and took a card and fountain pen from his
pocket. Elsie watched him helplessly as he wrote, chilled in spite of
herself by a return of the old dread. What, was she not able to hold
Anthony certainly, even now? She tried to look around her, fortifying
her spirit with all the prosaic evidences of their united life. After
all, Masterson knew "Tony"; he knew nothing of the man Anthony was.
She was able to meet her visitor's glance with her usual calm, when he
put the message he had written into her hand.
"Tell him to come," he pressed. "Have you forgotten he and I were
friends? And I'll always be grateful to you for loving Holly. Did you
know I had lost Holly?"
She paled, the baby face rising before her.
"Lost him! Not----?"
"Dead? No. I'm the one who is dead, to borrow a bit of slang."
His laugh was bitter as quassia; he turned his head toward the sound of
the automobile horn that summoned him.
"A dead one!" he repeated. "I have to go, Mrs. Adriance. But send Tony
over, to-night."
The door closed on the last word. Elsie heard the high, rather strident
voices of the women calling salute and impatience; then Masterson's
reply set in a key of strained merriment. The motor roared under the
chauffeur's hand. They were departing; evidently a means of inflating
the tire had been found.
The peace of Elsie's day had departed with them. The alteration in
Masterson frightened her; the strangeness of his manner and of his
invitation filled her with anxiety. Something was wrong; something she
could not guess or understand. Why should he have spoken so of Holly?
Why, too, did he want Anthony this night?
Was Mrs. Masterson to be one of the party at the restaurant? That idea
came later. The mere possibility of such an event fixed Elsie's
decision; she would not send Anthony to the meeting desired. She would
let Masterson's accidental visit pass unnoticed.
But when evening came, and with it Adriance, ruddy with the March wind,
boyishly hungry and gay; when he took his wife in his arms and kissed
her with the deep tenderness that the morning had added to their first
love, Elsie knew better. Better any misfortune than the barrier of
deceit between them. And she remembered in time that it was not for her
to deprive him of his right of decision and free-will.
She waited until supper was eaten and the blue-and-white dishes shining
in their rack again beside the ten-cent-shop china.
"Shall we go on with our book?" Adriance proposed, when his pipe was
lit. Now that the moment had come, it pleased him to dally with the
surprise he held for her, to prolong his secret content. He stretched
luxuriously in his arm-chair. "Lord, it's good to get home! Funny I
never cared much about books until we took to reading aloud, isn't it?
Come over and settle down. I think we'll turn in early to-night, if you
don't mind, girl. I want to do some extra work, to-morrow."
She came to him rather slowly.
"Mr. Masterson was here to-day," she said reluctantly. "He came by
chance, to borrow something for his automobile. I think it was a
tire-pump. Of course he was surprised to find me. And he left this for
you."
Astonished, he took the card, pulling her down beside him; and they read
the message together. It was very brief, yet somehow carried a force of
compulsion. Masterson urged his friend to go that night to the ball-room
of a certain restaurant known to every New Yorker, and there wait until
he, Masterson, joined him.
There was a pause after the reading. Adriance stared at the card with
the knitted brow of perplexity, while Elsie watched his face in tense
suspense.
"It would be too late, now, anyway," she murmured, tentatively. "It is
eight o'clock."
Adriance aroused himself and laughed.
"Oh, innocence! That ball-room does not open until eleven, fair
outlander. But you had better get ready, for we have a quite
respectable distance to go. Here vanishes our quiet evening!"
"We? You would take me?"
He regarded her curiously.
"Did you suppose I would go without you? We will have to go, because
Fred means this; I know him well enough to tell. I'm afraid he is in
some kind of trouble."
Elsie shut her eyes for a moment, mastering her passionate relief. She
opened them to a new thought.
"Anthony, I haven't any clothes, for such a place."
"Neither have I," he calmly dismissed the matter. "We will go in street
costume. It doesn't matter, since we do not want to dance. By the way,
can you dance?"
"Certainly."
"The new dances?"
"Some of them," a dimple disturbed her smooth cheek. "Not the very new
one."
"Well, I'll teach you. But you will only dance with me," he stated with
finality.
Absurdly happy in the jealous prohibition, she went to make ready.
Elsie Murray had possessed one dress that Elsie Adriance never had worn.
It was a year old, one brought from her distant home, but so simply made
that its fashion would still pass. It was an afternoon, not evening
gown; a clinging, black sheath of chiffon and net, covering her arms,
but leaving bare the creamy pillar of her throat. The cloudy darkness
echoed the dark softness of her hair and threw into relief her clear,
health-tinted beauty of complexion. When she wore it into the room where
her husband waited, he greeted her with a whistle of surprise and
pleasure.
"Some lady!" he approved. "What did you mean--no clothes? Have I seen
that before?"
"No. Do you like me this way?"
He put his hands on her shoulders, looking down into her eyes.
"Of course. But don't you know it doesn't matter what you wear or have?"
he asked. "We have got away beyond that, you and I."
They walked to the ferry; two miles through the cold darkness. But they
found the journey a pleasure, not a hardship. Elsie had taught Anthony
her art of extracting amusement from each experience. On the ferryboat,
they had sole possession of the deck. "Mollycoddles," Elsie called the
passengers who huddled into the cabins. The wind painted her cheeks and
lips scarlet, as she leaned over the rail to hear the crunch of drift
ice under the boat's sides. The two evoked quite a sense of arctic
voyage, between them. Anthony gravely insisted he had seen a polar bear
on one tossing floe. They were happy enough to relish nonsense; and more
excited by the coming meeting and place of meeting than either would
have admitted.