Shotwell Junior discovered in due course of time the memoranda of the
repeated messages which Palla had telephoned to his several clubs,
asking him to call her up immediately.
It was rather late to do that now, but his pulses began to quicken
again in the old, hopeless way; and he went to the telephone booth and
called the number which seemed burnt into his brain forever.
A maid answered; Palla came presently; and he thought her voice seemed
colourless and unfamiliar.
"Yes, I'm perfectly well," she replied to his inquiry; "where in the
world did you go that night? I simply couldn't find you anywhere."
"What had you wished to say to me?"
"Nothing--except--that I was afraid you were angry when you left, and
I didn't wish you to part with me on such terms. Were you annoyed?"
"No."
"You say it very curtly, Jim."
"Is that all you desired to say to me?"
"Yes.... I was a little troubled.... Something else went wrong,
too;--everything seemed to go wrong that night.... I thought
perhaps--if I could hear your voice--if you'd say something kind----"
"Had you nothing else to tell me, Palla?"
"No.... What?"
"Then you haven't changed your attitude?"
"Toward you? I don't expect to----"
"You know what I mean!"
"Oh. But, Jim, we can't discuss _that_ over the telephone."
"I suppose not.... Is anything wrong with you, Palla? Your voice
sounds so tired----"
"Does it? I don't know why. Tell me, please, what did you do that
unhappy night?"
"I went home."
"Directly?"
"Yes."
"I telephoned your house about twelve, and was informed you were not
at home."
"They thought I was asleep. I'm sorry, Palla----"
"I shouldn't have telephoned so late," she interrupted, "I'm afraid
that it was your mother who answered; and if it was, I received the
snub I deserved!"
"Nonsense! It wasn't meant that way----"
"I'm afraid it was, Jim. It's quite all right, though. I won't do it
again.... Am I to see you soon?"
"No, not for a while----"
"Are you so busy?"
"There's no use in my going to you, Palla."
"Why?"
"Because I'm in love with you," he said bluntly, "and I'm trying to
get over it."
"I thought we were _friends_, too."
After a lengthy silence: "You're right," he said, "we are."
She heard his quick, deep breath like a sigh. "Shall I come
to-night?"
"I'm expecting some people, Jim--women who desire to establish a
Combat Club in Chicago, and they have come on here to consult me."
"To-morrow night, then?"
"Please."
"Will you be alone?"
"I expect to be."
Once more he said: "Palla, is anything worrying you? Are you ill? Is
Ilse all right?"
There was a pause, then Palla's voice, resolutely tranquil.
"Everything is all right in the world as long as you are kind to me,
Jim. When you're not, things darken and become queer----"
"Palla!"
"Yes."
"Listen! This is to serve notice on you. I'm going to make a fight for
you."
After a silence, he heard her sweet, uncertain laughter.
"Jim?"
"Yes, dear."
"I suppose it would shock you if I made a fight for--_you_!"
He took it as a jest and laughed at her perverse humour. But what
she had meant she herself scarcely realised; and she turned away
from the telephone, conscious of a vague excitement invading her and
of a vaguer consternation, too. For behind the humorous audacity
of her words, she seemed to realise there remained something
hidden--something she was on the verge of discovering--something
indefinable, menacing, grave enough to dismay her and drive from her
lips the last traces of the smile which her audacious jest had
left there.
The ladies from Chicago were to dine with her; her maid had hooked
her gown; orchids from Jim had just arrived, and she was still pinning
them to her waist--still happily thrilled by this lovely symbol of
their renewed accord, when the bell rang.
It was much too early to expect anybody: she fastened her orchids and
started to descend the stairs for a last glance at the table, when, to
her astonishment, she saw Angelo Puma in the hall in the act of
depositing his card upon the salver extended by the maid.
He looked up and saw her before she could retreat: she made the best
of it and continued on down, greeting him with inquiring amiability:
"Miss Dumont, a thousand excuses for this so bold intrusion," he
began, bowing extravagantly at every word. "Only the urgent importance
of my errand could possibly atone for a presumption like there never
has been in all----"
"Please step into the drawing room, Mr. Puma, if you have something of
importance to say."
He followed her on tiptoe, flashing his magnificent eyes about the
place, still wearing over his evening dress the seal overcoat with its
gardenia, which was already making him famous on Broadway.
Palla seated herself, wondering a little at the perfumed splendour of
her landlord. He sat on the extreme edge of an arm chair, his glossy
hat on his knee.
"Miss Dumont," he said, laying one white-gloved paw across his
shirt-front, "you shall behold in me a desolate man!"
"I'm sorry." She looked at him in utter perplexity.
"What shall you say to me?" he cried. "What just reproaches shall you
address to me, Miss Dumont!"
"I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Puma," she said, inclined to laugh,
"--until you tell me what is your errand."
"Miss Dumont, I am most unhappy and embarrass. Because you have pay me
in advance for that which I am unable to offer you."
"I don't think I understand."
"Alas! You have pay to me by cheque for six months more rent of my
hall."
"Yes."
"I have given to you a lease for six months more, and with it an
option for a year of renewal."
"Yes."
"Miss Dumont, behold me desolate."
"But why?"
"Because I am force by circumstance over which I have no control to
cancel this lease and option, and ask you most respectfully to be so
kind as to secure other quarters for your club."
"But we can't do that!" exclaimed Palla in dismay.
"I am so very sorry----"
"We can't do it," added Palla with decision. "It's utterly impossible,
Mr. Puma. All our meetings are arranged for months in advance; all the
details are completed. We could not disarrange the programme adopted.
From all over the United States people are invited to come on certain
fixed dates. All arrangements have been made; you have my cheque and I
have your signed lease. No, we are obliged to hold you to your
contract, and I'm very sorry if it inconveniences you."
Puma's brilliant eyes became tenderly apprehensive.
"Miss Dumont," he said in a hushed and confidential voice, "believe me
when I venture to say to you that your club should leave for reasons
most grave, most serious."
"What reasons?"
"The others--the Red Flag Club. Who knows what such crazy people might
do in anger? They are very angry already. They complain that your club
has interfere with them----"
"That is exactly why we're there, Mr. Puma--to interfere with them,
neutralise their propaganda, try to draw the same people who listen to
their violent tirades. That is why we're there, and why we refuse to
leave. Ours is a crusade of education. We chose that hall because we
desired to make the fight in the very camp of the enemy. And I must
tell you plainly that we shall not give up our lease, and that we
shall hold you to it."
The dark blood flooded his heavy features:
"I do not desire to take it to the courts," he said. "I am willing to
offer compensation."
"We couldn't accept. Don't you understand, Mr. Puma? We simply must
have that particular hall for the Combat Club."
Puma remained perfectly silent for a few moments. There was still, on
his thick lips, the suave smile which had been stamped there since his
appearance in her house.
But in this man's mind and heart there was growing a sort of dull and
ferocious fear--fear of elements already gathering and combining to
menace his increasing prosperity.
Sullenly he was aware that this hard-won prosperity was threatened.
Always its conditions had been unstable at best, but now the
atmospheric pressure was slowly growing, and his sky of promise was
not as clear.
Some way, somehow, he must manage to evict these women. Twice Sondheim
had warned him. And that evening Sondheim had sent him an ultimatum by
Kastner.
And Puma was perfectly aware that Karl Kastner knew enough about him
to utterly ruin him in the great Republic which was now giving him a
fortune and which had never discovered that his own treacherous
mission here was the accomplishment of her ruin.
* * * * *
Puma stood up, heavily, cradling his glossy hat. But his urbane smile
became brilliant again and he made Palla an extravagant bow.
"It shall be arrange," he said cheerfully. "I consult my partner--your
_friend_, Mr. Skidder! Yes! So shall we arrive at entente."
His large womanish eyes swept the room. Suddenly they were arrested by
a photograph of Shotwell Junior--in a silver frame--the only ornament,
as yet, in the little drawing room.
And instantly, within Angelo Puma, the venomous instinct was aroused
to do injury where it might be done safely and without suspicion of
intent.
"Ah," he exclaimed gaily, "my friend, Mr. Shotwell! It is from him,
Miss Dumont, you have purchase this so beautiful residence!"
He bent to salute with a fanciful inclination the photograph of the
man who had spoken so contemptuously of him the evening previous.
"Mr. Shotwell also adores gaiety," he said laughingly. "Last night I
beheld him at the Palace of Mirrors--and with an attractive young lady
of your club, Miss Dumont--the charming young Russian lady with whom
you came once to pay me the rent--" He kissed his hand in an ecstasy
of recollection. "So beautiful a young lady! So gay were they in their
box! Ah, youth! youth! Ah, the happiness and folly when laughter
bubbles in our wine!--the magic wine of youth!"
He took his leave, moving lightly to the door, almost grotesque in his
elaborate evolutions and adieux.
Palla went slowly upstairs.
The evening paper lay on a table in the living room. She unfolded it
mechanically; looked at it but saw no print, merely an unsteady haze
of greyish tint on which she could not seem to concentrate.
Marya and Jim ... together.... That was the night he went away
angry.... The night he told her he had gone directly home.... But it
couldn't have been.... He couldn't have lied....
She strove to recollect as she sat there staring at the newspaper....
What was it that beast had said about it?... Of course--_last_
night!... Marya and Jim had been together last night.... But where was
Vanya?... Oh, yes.... Last night Vanya was away ... in Baltimore.
The paper dropped to her lap; she sat looking straight ahead of her.
What had so shocked her then about Jim and Marya being together? True,
she had not supposed them to be on such terms--had not even thought
about it....
Yes, she _had_ thought about it, scarcely conscious of her own
indefinable uneasiness--a memory, perhaps, of that evening when the
Russian girl had been at little pains to disguise her interest in this
man. And Palla had noticed it--noticed that Marya was seated too near
him--noticed that, and the subtle attitude of provocation, and the
stealthy evolution of that occult sorcery which one woman instantly
divines in another and finds slightly revolting.
Was it merely that memory which had been evoked when Puma's laughing
revelation so oddly chilled her?--the suspected and discovered
predilection of this Russian girl for Jim? Or was it something else,
something deeper, some sudden and more profound illumination which
revealed to her that, in the depths of her, she was afraid?
Afraid? Afraid of what?
Her charming young head sank; the brown eyes stared at the floor.
She was beginning to understand what had chilled her, what she had
unconsciously been afraid of--_her own creed!_--when applied to
another woman.
And this was the second time that this creed of hers had risen to
confront her, and the second time she had gazed at it, chilled by
fear: once, when she had waited for Ilse to return; and now once
again.
For now she began to comprehend how ruthless that creed could become
when professed by such a girl as Marya Lanois.
* * * * *
She was still seated there when Marya came in, her tiger-red hair in
fascinating disorder from the wind, her skin fairly breathing the warm
fragrance of exotic youth.
"My Palla! How pale you seem!" she exclaimed, embracing her. "You are
quite well? Really? Then I am reassured!"
She went to the mirror and tucked in a burnished strand or two of
hair.
"These Chicago ladies--they have not arrived, I see. Am I then so
early? For I see that Ilse is not yet here----"
"It is only a quarter to eight," said Palla, smiling; but the brown
eyes were calmly measuring this lithe and warm and lovely thing with
green eyes--measuring it intently--taking its measure--taking, for the
first time in her life, her measure of any woman.
"Was Vanya's concert a great success?" she asked.
"Vanya has not yet returned." She shrugged. "There was nothing in New
York papers."
"I suppose you were very nervous last night," said Palla.
For a moment Marya continued to arrange her hair by the aid of the
mantel mirror, then she turned very lithely and let her green gaze
rest full on Palla's face.
What she might possibly have divined was hidden behind the steady
brown eyes that met hers may have determined her attitude and words;
for she laughed with frank carelessness and plunged into it all:
"Fancy, Palla, my encountering Jim Shotwell in the Biltmore, and
dining with him at that noisy Palace of Mirrors last night! Did he
tell you?"
"I haven't seen him."
"--Over the telephone, perhaps?"
"No, he did not mention it."
"Well, it was most amusing. It is the unpremeditated that is
delightful. And can you see us in that dreadful place, as gay as a
pair of school children? And we must laugh at nothing and find it
enchanting--and we must dance amid the hoi polloi and clap our hands
for the encore too!----"
A light peal of laughter floated from her lips at the recollections
evoked:
"And after! Can you see us, Palla, in Vanya's studio, too wide awake
to go our ways!--and the song I sang at that unearthly hour--the song
I sing always when happily excited----"
The bell rang; the first guest had arrived.