Merle laughed. "All right, call it that. It's been a long time coming,
but it's come to stay. I'm going to Europe, Anne."
"When?"
"Just as soon as Mr. Wilson can arrange his business. I went once
with Tom--steerage, before the war. Good Lord! I'm going to have a
stateroom, Anne, and I'm going to tip, God, how I am going to tip. Pay
human beings, 'lackeys,' 'wage slaves,' to do the most menial things I
can think of. I hope I'm seasick all the time just to----"
Merle broke off and her eyes invited some one who had just entered the
door. The next moment a heavy young man whose well-cut clothes and
expensive tie could not refine the overfed body, came forward.
"Anne, let me present Mr. Wilson. Ben, this is Anne you've heard me
speak about, Mrs. Roger Barton."
His bold, brown eyes summed up Anne's fair delicacy, and he smiled
approval of Merle's friend. But Anne felt that as long as Merle wanted
him he would find no real interest in any other woman. He was shrewd
and would know when Merle worked him, but it would please him to be
so worked at his own pleasure. Merle's childish curls and violet eyes
and scarlet mouth saying bitter, worldly things, had caught his jaded
interest and filliped it to stinging passion, so far above the torn and
frayed sample he had bought at extravagant prices, that the man was
humble and grateful. Perhaps he, too, in his own way, was searching for
Beauty. Besides, it gave him a pleasant sense of the security of the
world he helped to make to have taken Merle from Black Tom O'Connell.
In some way it justified the existence of things as they were, proved
the tottering foundations of the movements that had begun to give him a
good deal of trouble with his labor.
He was so plainly in love with Merle, it surprised Anne that his look
was no grosser than it was, for it was evidently difficult for him
to sit near and touch her in no way. If Merle were conscious of his
restraint she did not show it, but after a few moments it got on Anne's
nerves, and she rose. Merle rose too, insisting that Mr. Wilson stay
where he was and finish the tea the waitress had just brought.
"I'll be back. I'm just going to the door with Anne. You wait here,
honey."
Merle hurried after Anne.
"When's Tom coming back, do you know?" she whispered. "I saw in the
papers he is out of town."
"Yes. No, I don't know; in a few days I think."
Merle's small, white teeth marked the crimson lip in a faint line.
Slowly her black brows drew down in a frown. Her hands clenched.
"Anne, I would have died for him--I really would have once."
"Merle, don't go on with this. You're doing it in a fit of anger.
You'll be sorry."
"I'm not doing it in a fit of anger. Didn't I tell you I thought it
out, wrote it out? And do you know what was the last item on the
balance sheet for Ben? Well, if I stay and marry him, it's a baby,
a warm, cuddly thing like Rogie. And I'm going to dress him in the
loveliest clothes, and nobody will kick about the starving Russians or
the dying Roumanians. I'll feed him out of a gold-monogrammed nursing
bottle if I take the fancy, and Ben will think it's grand."
At the exaggerated picture Anne smiled. Merle smiled, too, and then her
eyes darkened again, just for a moment, as if a shadow had crossed them.
"Anne, you might let me know if Tom puts over that case he's gone on. I
used to listen to it till I most went frantic, but it's--well, the last
thing I'll ever hear of the crowd and I'll feel more finished, neat and
tidy-like, to know. I'll be here another two weeks, anyhow."
"All right. I'll let you know."
But Anne did not keep her promise, because two days later she saw in
the society news that Mr. Benjamin Wilson was leaving unexpectedly for
Europe. The next day Black Tom came back. He had lost his case.