INTO AN UNKNOWN LAND
The red-haired man was fighting.
He had always been fighting. But to-night he must wield weapons whereof
he had no experience; unskilled, must meet deft opponents on their own
ground. The thought thrilled him, with the joy of the born fighter.
The hour for the Standish dinner was seven; that the meal might be
well over before the musicale guests should begin to arrive. Caleb
rang the Standish bell at twenty minutes before seven. The manservant
who admitted him managed to convey from behind a totally mask-like
face that there was something amiss with the arrival. Glancing into
the drawing room as he followed a maid to the men’s dressing room
upstairs, Caleb saw it was quite devoid of guests. In fact, a servant
was lighting the lamps there. The dressing room, too, was deserted.
Conover was vaguely puzzled. Surely the invitation had fixed the hour
for seven? And he was nearly twenty minutes ahead of time. At functions
such as he was wont to attend, people always began to drop in nearly
half an hour beforehand. So fearful had he been to-night of breaking
some unknown social rule, that he had allowed a full twenty minutes
leeway. Yet he was very palpably the first to arrive. This perplexed
and shamed him. It even shook his iron self-confidence. He caught
himself hoping that none of the Standishes knew he was there. The man
who had with cool derision, faced hostile legislatures, investigation
committees and actual physical danger; felt his nerve turning into
nerves.
A tray of cigarettes lay on the chiffonier. Caleb had never smoked a
cigarette. He wondered if etiquette commanded that he should do so now.
He weighed the matter judicially as he took off his coat and gloves;
then decided that the cigarettes had indisputedly been put there to
be smoked. Gingerly, he lighted one. The aromatic mild flavor of the
smoke disgusted him. He had always despised men who chose cigarettes in
preference to cigars. Now he regarded such smokers as idiotic rather
than decadent. Yet he puffed dutifully at the abhorred paper tube and
pondered on the probability of his being called upon to repeat the
performance, later, in the dining room. He had heard of people smoking
cigarettes with dinner. Or, rather, hadn’t he seen pictures of such a
scene? Yes. Surely. A picture on a calendar in the general passenger
agent’s office. But the smokers, in the picture, were women. And one
of them had her feet on the table. Caleb mentally apologized to his
present hostesses and dismissed the theme.
When dinner was at seven, why shouldn’t people come on time? Was there
a joke in it somewhere? A joke on himself? Anything, just now, seemed
possible. What was the use of smoking this measly cigarette when there
was no one to see? He dropped it into a bronze dish, went over to the
cheval glass and surveyed himself from head to foot. Then he turned;
and, looking over one shoulder, sought to see how his dress coat fitted
in the back. The twisting of his body caused a huge central wrinkle to
spring out between his shoulders, creases diverging from it. Also there
was a spear of stiff red hair in the very center of his well-brushed
head that had escaped from the combined lures of pomade and water.
Conover crossed to the chiffonier, picked up one of a pair of military
brushes and attacked the rebellious lock with vigor.
There was no water in sight. How did these people expect a man to brush
his hair without water? No pomade, either. Not even brilliantine.
Could it be that folk of the Standish class did not use such aids?
Or did they keep them locked up? Caleb’s eyes swept the room and its
quiet furnishings appraisingly. It did not represent at all his idea
of luxury. Not a bow, not a tidy, not a fancy screen nor a lambrequin
in sight. Yet there was an indefinable something about the place that
met his approval. He fell to walking back and forth, uneasily; pausing
every now and then in front of the cheval glass.
Amzi Caine, who had come early in the futile hope of a word alone with
Letty before the dinner, found him thus employed. Conover swung around
on his friend with a grunt of relief.
“Hello!” he said, his heavy voice actually cordial, “I begun to think
it was Judgment Day an’ that I was the first one resurrected. How’d I
look? All right? Nothin’ wrong in this get-up is there?”
“The glass of fashion and the mould of form!” laughed Caine, “Behold a
phenomenon! The worker of miracles--and Steeloids--deigns to ask a mere
mortal’s opinion!”
“All right, is it?” said Conover, relieved. “Say,” he went on
suspiciously, “You’re guying me! Tell me what’s wrong. Be honest, can’t
you?”
“If you insist,” replied Caine, nettled at the domineering tone, “I
can’t just hint that most men don’t wear diamond studs with evening
dress, and that your tie is rather too evidently a ‘masterpiece not
made by hands.’ Otherwise, you look very fit indeed.”
Caleb scowled in the glass at the flashing studs and the ready-made
lawn tie. Then, brushing away the gnat of worry, he answered,
carelessly:
“I don’t like to dress like everybody else. Too much sameness for me.
It’s well enough for fellers without an idee or a scrap of originality
in their heads. I like to do a little different.”
“A Beau Brummell come to Judgment!” mocked Caine, “But with diamonds
rising in price ten per cent. a year, I hope you won’t set the fashion
just yet. You’ll break us. It’s all very well to dress regardless of
expense--or style--but--”
“Let it go at that,” ordered Conover sullenly, “There’s something else
I wanted to ask you about, first time I saw you alone. You told me one
day that Desirée Shevlin could take any place she wanted, in s’ciety
here, if only she married the right sort of a man. Remember?”
“Why, yes. But--”
“Well, would it work both ways? I mean, if _I_ was to marry a girl who
had a big social position in Granite, would it help me on, any?”
“I--should think so,” hesitated Caine, overcoming a desire to laugh at
the unique idea. “Why? Are you thinking of it?”
“Not exactly thinkin’ of it, but turnin’ it over in my mind. If I was
_thinkin’_ about it I’d do it. That’s my way.”
“Who is the lucky damsel?” bantered Caine, “Or haven’t you selected her
yet?”
“I’ve about picked her out,” said Caleb slowly, “Just now she’s keepin’
comp’ny with another man.”
“Of course you won’t let that stand in your way for an instant?”
“No,” returned Caleb, on whom irony of any sort was ever lost, “Of
course not. I have a way of gettin’ what I want. I only wish,” he
continued with a half sigh of weariness, “that I could always keep on
wantin’ what I get.”
Clive Standish ran into the room. From one of the servants he had heard
of Caine’s arrival.
“What fun to find you before you go down!” he cried, “I was afraid you
wouldn’t see me to-night and I knew you’d be disappointed. Aunt Lydia
won’t let me sit up for the musicale, because I was bad last evening.
And she’s made me learn a hymn called ‘I Know That God is Wroth With
Me!’ besides. The hymn is signed ‘I. Watts.’ I think ‘I. Watts’ must
have been a very sorrowful person. I wonder if God really disliked him
as much as ‘I. Watts’ pretended. He--”
The child checked himself, catching sight of Caleb. “I beg your
pardon,” he said, “I didn’t see there was anyone here besides Mr.
Caine. Mr. Caine,” he explained, condescendingly, “is a friend of mine.”
“Go on with your gabfest together, then,” vouchsafed Caleb, with an
effort at unbending. “Don’t mind _me_.”
The boy’s brows contracted at sound of the false note in Caleb’s
voice. He looked at the Fighter long and with frank criticism. Caleb
bore the scrutiny with visible discomfort. He was not fond of children
and did not understand them. Having had no childhood himself he could
nowhere meet them on equal terms. Yet, as this slender, Eton-suited
youngster was apparently a relative of Letty’s and a member of the same
household, he sought to improve the acquaintance.
“I know a little rat about your age,” he began, with elephantine
geniality, “His name’s Billy Shevlin. Smart boy, too. Sharp as a whip.
Ever meet him?”
“No, sir,” replied Clive, “I think not.”
“No? You wouldn’t be likely to, I s’pose. While you’re home, evenin’s,
learnin’ hymns, he’s out learnin’ life. Spends most of his evenin’s
round at the fire-house. Why, that kid knows the name of each engine in
town the minute he hears ’em whistle.”
Clive’s eyes grew wistful with envy; yet abated none of the unconscious
criticism wherewith they were still scrutinizing the Fighter. His lack
of response confused Caleb; who started off on a new tack.
“Yes, Billy’s a great boy. He used to have a lot of cunnin’ tricks,
too, when he was little. He’s outgrowin’ ’em now. Used to tiptoe
up behind me an’ put both his dirty little hands over my eyes an’
say: ‘Guess who’s here?’ An’ then I’d guess ‘General Grant’ an’ ‘Abe
Lincoln’ and ‘Queen Victoria’ an’ ‘Tom Platt’ an’ a lot of other big
guns; till all of a sudden I’d guess ‘Billy Shevlin!’ An’ he’d squeal
out ‘Yes!’ Not much sense in it. But kind of cute for such a little
feller. I remember some folks were callin’ there one day an’ I wanted
him to play that game, to show off before ’em. But he was kind of
bashful and wouldn’t. An’ that made me mad; so I cuffed him over the
head. An’ since then, somehow, he’s never played it any more.”
“I don’t wonder!” gasped Clive. “I--excuse me, sir,” he caught himself
up, “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“Go ahead!” laughed Caleb, “That ain’t rude. It’s bein’ honest. Don’t
let ’em make a Miss Nancy of you by teachin’ you to ’pologize an’ say
‘please,’ an’ ‘Sir’ an’ all those folderols.”
“I _like_ to say them,” retorted Clive, “And I’m not a Miss Nancy. Last
week I thrashed a boy two years older than I am.”
“Look out, Conover!” warned Caine, solemnly, “He may pick you for the
next victim.”
At the sound of the name, Clive had glanced sharply at Caleb.
“I beg your pardon,” he put in, now, “But you aren’t ‘Brute’ Conover,
are you?”
“Clive!” admonished Caine, with what severity he could summon up.
“I b’lieve I’ve been called that a few times,” answered Caleb, in high
good humor. “Why?”
“Because,” said Clive, backing toward the door, “from what I read in
the newspapers about you,--and from something I once heard Grandpapa
say,--I don’t think I care to know you, Mr. Conover. I’m sorry.
Goodnight.”
* * * * *
Caleb Conover had not known there were so many kinds of forks in
existence. From his oyster plate they stretched away to the left in
what seemed an interminable vista. Had Desirée told him to begin with
the left-hand fork and work inward, as the courses progressed? Or
was it the right-hand fork he was to begin with and work outward? A
furtive glance at Letty, on his right, solved the problem.
Then, the same glance sweeping the table, he found he was the only
person whose doubled napkin had not disappeared. He pulled it unnoticed
down to his knee. A roll fell from its hidden interior and crashed
to the floor with a report that sounded to him loud enough to shake
the house. But the sound passed unheard, in the ripple of talk. Caleb
kicked the offending bit of bread further under the table and sombrely
attacked his oysters.
A cocktail had heralded the meal. This, with his glass of dry sherry,
now began little by little to cut away the Fighter’s crust of stark
self-consciousness. He was not wont, of late years, to touch liquor
at all; although in early days his Gargantuan drinking bouts had been
the wonder of the local Underworld. On his unaccustomed senses the
slight stimulant now acted with redoubled force. It sharpened his wits,
banished his first feeling of stiff discomfort, enabled him to come out
of himself and take note of what went on about him.
Caine talking animatedly just opposite, was nevertheless looking
unobtrusively at Conover. So were Reuben Standish and others at the
table. To their varied relief or disappointment the big, silent man had
perpetrated thus far none of the capers which comic stories ascribe to
_parvenus_. He handled his soup-spoon with an inward sweep, it is true;
but he ate quietly and as one not wholly unaccustomed to civilized
methods. Desirée’s long and stern training was standing him in good
stead.
Letty, emboldened by these repeated signs of house-brokenness, ventured
a few perfunctory remarks to him. Caleb replied briefly, but without
embarrassment. He even answered a question put him from across the
table, with the same self-possession. Caine relaxed his nervous
vigilance. His reluctant admiration for the newcomer was increasing.
Conover, with the true fighter’s intuition, noted all the tokens of his
own well-being, and his dawning self-possession grew steadily stronger.
The talk at his end of the table had turned into musical channels.
“We were able to get Miss Tyson for the musicale after all,” Letty was
saying. “She was to have sung at the Worcester Music Festival, you
know; but at the last moment they engaged someone else.”
“We are so grateful,” chimed in Mrs. Standish, managing to inject just
a little recognition of the Divine into her tone. “She has a wonderful
voice. In Munich she once sung the Forest Bird music in a performance
of _Siegfried_. Just think! One of our own townswomen, too!”
She cast a vitreous beam athwart the table as she spoke. Caine used to
say that when Mrs. Standish’s glasses diffused that look, he was always
sore tempted to bow his head and murmur “Amen.”
“Yes,” prattled the Saint, “hers is a heaven-sent gift. I believe that
singing may often bear a message--”
“It’s easier, I should think,” put in Caleb, suddenly finding his
tongue as he set down his empty wine glass, “for a woman to sing like a
forest bird than for a bird to sing songs made up by humans.
“F’r instance,” he proceeded, with renewed courage, mistaking the
general hush of surprise for a gratifying interest, “there’s a lady I
know here in Granite who has a canary bird that sings all about the
death of Ase. Sings it fine, too.”
Letty giggled.
“So you are a Grieg fiend, like so many other Granite people just now,
Mr. Conover?” said she.
“Me?” Caleb exclaimed, in genuine astonishment, “No, indeed, ma’am. I
leave dope of all sorts alone.”
There was a laugh. Caleb did not quite see the point, but felt dimly
that he had scored a hit. Caine came to his rescue.
“What a pity the bird couldn’t have been pressed into service for the
musicale,” he observed. “It would be a real comfort to hear the ‘Death
of Ase’ in new form.”
“Oh, he don’t sing all of it,” amended Caleb. “He just sings the
first part. I forget quite how it goes. But he does it fine. Only,
to my mind,” with an air of profound criticism, “he sings it kind of
sprightly for such a sad piece. Still, I s’pose that’s a matter of
taste.”
Conover felt he was getting on finely. A most flattering attention--far
different from the slight aloofness of the evening’s earlier
moments--greeted his every word. Caine, however, seemed actually
jealous of his friend’s popularity; for he cut in now with a complete
change of subject.
“I wonder,” he conjectured, addressing no one in particular, “why
tenors invariably are born without intelligence. When Providence gives
a man a great tenor voice, He gives him nothing else. Perhaps, though,
he needs nothing else.”
But an avalanche of trite sayings could not have halted Caleb. He
listened with ponderous deference to Caine; then glanced about the
table and cleared his voice.
“Speaking of ‘needin’ nothin’ else,’” said he, “reminds me of Old Man
Wetherwolks who used to live at Pompton when I was a kid. He used to
get jagged as reg’lar as pay-day came ’round. Had a battin’ av’rage
of seven nights a week. Then when he’d blowed his last nickel he’d
make us boys pilot him home. It wasn’t any cinch, either. For his
wife was always waitin’ at the door. An’ the chunks of language she’d
hand out to us would a’ fried an iceberg. One night, I remember, we
brought the ol’ sot home worse’n usual. She was right there with the
tongue-lashin’. She told him what a swine he was to spend all his
fam’ly’s cash on booze and how he was a disgrace to his town, an’ other
nice comfortin’ things like that. She wound up by screechin’: ‘An’ you
haven’t a single redeemin’ trait, you worthless drunkard!’ That was
too much for Wetherwolks. He c’lapsed on the bottom step and began to
cry. ‘You’re right, m’dear,’ he whines. ‘Ev’ry word you say is true. I
_haven’t_ a single redeemin’ trait. But,’ an’ here he throws his chest
out an’ looks stern an’ noble, ‘But in ev’ry _other_ respec’ I’m a dam’
fine man!’”
The anecdote somehow did not “go” as well as when Conover had told it
in the back room of Kerrigan’s saloon. But if there was constraint in
its reception, he did not observe it. Letty, dropping her voice, to
shut him out of the general talk, inquired:
“Where is Pompton? I don’t think I ever heard of it. Did I? Are our
Pompton Avenue and the Pompton Club named for it?”
“I don’t think so,” he answered. “It’s a little place, ’way up in the
North Jersey hills. Swarmin’ with commuters, by now, I s’pose. I used
to live there for a while, once, when I was learnin’ railroadin’.
There’s a lake, with the soft green hills all closin’ down around it
like they loved it. The sun used to set ’bout a mile from our house.
It’d turn the lake all gold color. An’ then a blue sort of twilight
would roll up through the valley. An’ the hills would seem to stretch
out like they was goin’ to sleep.--Kind o’ pretty place,” he ended
lamely.
“You are a poet!” the girl assured him with gushing uneasiness. “I had
no idea you looked at nature through such roseate glasses.”
“Neither I do,” he replied, ashamed of his unwonted flight of fancy. “I
was only tellin’ you how it used to seem to me when I was a half-baked
kid. Since then I’ve been so busy _livin’_ that I’ve lost all the knack
of gettin’ enthoosed over measly lan’scapes. They don’t mean anything
to me now. As for po’try,--honest, I never wrote a rhyme in my life.
Never read one neither when I could help it. Guess you was stringin’
me, weren’t you?”
Nevertheless he was inwardly flattered at her praise and began to look
on her with an even more favoring eye. If marriage in such a set were
really the keystone to social achievement, he felt he might do far
worse than choose this comely, quivering-nosed damsel at his side.
“Fond of rabbits?” he asked--as unintentionally as irrelevantly.
“What an odd question!” she cried, her round eyes raising incipient
distress signals. “Is it a joke?”
“No,” he answered, floundering, “I--I just happened to say it.
You--you look just a little like one. A very pretty one of course,” he
supplemented with mammoth gallantry.
Her eyes, this time, hoisted the distress signal so perceptibly that
Caine, skilled to read the signs, broke off in the midst of a sentence
to his right-hand neighbor and engaged Caleb in momentary conversation.
Letty, in the interval, stared appealingly about the board. But, thanks
to her own success in drawing Conover into _tête-à-tête_, the others
were not, at the instant, noticing either of them. Thrown upon herself
for comfort, she decided the rough guest had intended his asinine
remark as a compliment. The thought did much to console her. She
glanced, sideways, at him, with a new interest; and, Caine, relieved,
saw the ‘Fair Weather’ standard flying once more.
But Conover, subtly aware of her emotion, knew he had somehow
blundered. He saw how far he had deflected from his original plan of
stony self-control. He knew it was the few glasses of wine he had drunk
which, while in no way befuddling his brain, had given his tongue
an undue looseness. A wave of self-contempt passed over him; sharp,
unaccustomed. A manservant bent to fill one of his glasses. Caleb,
recalling the etiquette-book maxim, clapped his hand hastily over
the top of the goblet. The gesture was sudden and carried with it an
unintended force. The wrought stem of the thin Venetian glass snapped.
Conover, purple with angry mortification, surveyed the wreck he had
wrought. Then, pulling himself together, he looked about the board, the
glare behind his forced grin challenging any and every eye that might
dare to show derision.
“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Standish!” he called down the table to his
host. “I’ll save the pieces and send you a whole set like it to-morrow.
Where’d’you buy it?”
“It is of no consequence at all,” returned Standish, the consumption
spots on his cheek bones burning a little darker red than usual. He
turned to the neighbor with whom he had been talking, and with his
usual dry cough took up the shattered thread of conversation. But Caleb
was resolved not to permit his overtures at restitution to be slighted.
“Where’d you buy it?” he repeated, raising his voice a little, “I want
to know so I--”
“It is of no importance at all,” protested Standish, guiltily avoiding
his sister-in-law’s saintly gaze. “I--”
“But I want to know,” persisted Caleb. “Where’d the glasses come from?”
“Why,” smiled Standish with a painful effort at careless good-nature,
“I believe they’re some we picked up in Venice once. But they--”
“Well, I’ll send there for ’em, then,” promised Caleb, his defiant
glance once more sweeping the oval of faces.
Strangely enough, everyone seemed to be talking at once, and no one
seemed to be looking either at him or at Standish. In cool, level,
unhurried tones they were speaking; these denizens of an unknown world,
into whose presence he fought his way unasked, unwanted. Their language
was not his language; their thoughts were not his thoughts. They were
moving on as if he did not exist. Caleb remembered having read in some
newspaper’s “reprint” column, how an oyster calmly glazes over the
grain of irritating sand that has found unwelcome refuge within its
shell. He felt humiliatingly like the nucleus of such a pearl. And
with the thought, and the waning of the wine’s effects, came wholesome
anger.
“I’ve got more cash than the whole crowd of ’em put together,” he told
himself fiercely.
The reflection did much to build up his wobbling self-esteem. But, for
the rest of the meal, he sat glum. After an endless, dreary aeon of
time, Mrs. Standish’s eye-glasses flashed to the others of her sex the
signal to retire. Everyone rose. The women, collecting from the men
beside them the handkerchiefs, fans and other feminine accessories that
strewed the floor under the table, filed out, chatting and laughing.
Caleb, not minded to seem inferior to any man by hanging back and
giving precedence to others, left the room at the heels of the last
woman.
“Oh, Conover!” called Caine, as the Fighter’s shoulders vanished
through the doorway.
“I wanted to ask you something about Steeloid Preferred, if you don’t
mind,” continued Amzi.
A backward look told Conover that the men were re-seating themselves.
He also saw the meaning of his mentor’s summons. At that moment Caleb
came nearer feeling gratitude toward Caine than ever he had felt it
for any man. He slouched back, unconcernedly; lighted a cigar, shook
out his match and dropped into the vacated chair at Caine’s left.
Mentally he resolved to tear the etiquette book, leaf from leaf, for
failing to warn him that men outstay women in a dining room. But, with
characteristic calm, he refused to be ruffled by the mistake.
“What was it you wanted to ask me?” said he.
“About Steeloid,” repeated Caine, “and about a rumor I heard that the
Rogers-Whitman Company is--”
“Don’t let us talk business,” growled Conover, “I never talk shop when
I’m out in s’ciety. It’s bad form. I’d rather chat just now ’bout
music.”
He was himself again; loudly self-assured.
“This feller, Back, they were speakin’ about at dinner to-night,” he
went on. “I’m kind o’ rusty on op’ras, lately. So I’ve lost track of
him. Is he composin’ much, nowadays?”
“Bach has been de-composing for a couple of centuries,” answered Caine.
One or two men laughed. Caleb waxed glum once more. Nor could the
combined tact of Caine and their host draw him again into speech.
* * * * *
The Fighter, glowering in a corner, watched the stream of musicale
guests trickle in through the great double doors. He was lonely,
cross, disappointed. He could not define his own sensations, nor see
how nor wherein he had failed. Failure he had met. He knew that. But
the knowledge made him the more determined to persist in his assault
until the social citadel whose outworks he had stormed, should be his.
And, the more he thought, the more his amorphous idea of entering that
citadel under a wife’s aegis began to take definite shape. He found
his gaze straying to where Letty Standish stood laughing and talking
with a knot of newcomers. Once his eye caught hers, and she smiled. A
polite, deprecatory smile that strengthened Caleb’s growing resolution.
After all, he reflected, one might do worse than to marry.
An indefinable something swept across his busily-planning mind, like a
breath of May through a slum. Even before he raised his eyes eagerly to
the door, he knew that Desirée Shevlin had come into the room. Slender,
dainty, infinitely pretty, in her soft white dress, the sight of her
struck athwart Caleb’s senses; scattering to the winds every thought
but delight at seeing her,--pride in the way she bore herself among
the people in whose presence he felt so ill at ease.
And she had seen him. Seen him and noted his discomfiture, his
aloneness; even while she was responding to her hosts’ welcome. As soon
as she could leave Mrs. Hawarden’s side, she moved toward him. As he
advanced to meet her, the labored grin of festivity wherewith Caleb had
sought to wreathe his features for her benefit, gave way to a glow of
boyish pleasure.
“Gee, but you’re dandy to look at in those clo’es, Dey!” he exclaimed.
“There ain’t a one in the room who’s a patch on you.”
She smiled up at him in frank joy at the compliment. Then, looking more
keenly into his face, she murmured, her pretty brows knit:
“You poor, _poor_ boy! You’ve been having a _horrid_, hagorous time!
What have they been doing to you?”
In her voice was a vehement, motherly note; as of indignation against
the ill-treatment accorded a loved, deficient child. Caleb felt it and
it was as balm to his scratched sensibilities. But he laughed loudly as
he made shift to reply:
“What a crazy notion! They treated me fine an’ I’ve had an out o’ sight
time. Honest, I--”
“Caleb!”
“They made me quite one of ’em,” he bragged, the more earnestly for her
unbelief. “I haven’t had such a good time in a couple o’ years. I--”
“Caleb Conover! Look me in the eyes.”
“It was rotten!” he admitted ruefully; his defense, as ever, breaking
to pieces before the onslaught of her sweet imperiousness.
“I knew it!” she made answer; but there was no triumph in her words, “I
knew how it would be. Oh, if only I could have been here to take care
of you, you poor lamb among social lions! Listen to me! You’re not to
stir from my side all evening. Understand? Now mind me! _I_ am going
to see that nobody is woozzey to you or lets you stand all frumped up
alone in a corner any more.”
“An’ spoil your own good time?” snorted Caleb. “Not much! You chase on
an’ get talked to an’ made much of, you little girl! An’ I’ll get all
the fun I want, watchin’ the hit you make. _That’s_ no lie.”
“I’d rather be with you, if you don’t mind,” she insisted, “We’re
chums, aren’t we? Well, then, mind me and do as I say! We’re going to
stay right together.”
For some unknown reason, Caleb felt happier than he had for days.
He was ashamed of the feeling, but so strong was it that he made no
further demur. People were starting for the music room. Piloted by
Desirée, (who managed to make it perfectly clear to divers and sundry
youths, en route, that she was quite content to remain with her present
escort) Conover found himself at last, enthroned on a maddeningly
uncomfortable camp-stool; with the girl at his left side.
The musicale opened with a long, intricate piano solo; played with
splendid persistence by a short young man with long hair. The night
was hot. The bright-lit, overcrowded room was hotter. Caleb had eaten
largely and had drunk more than was his wont. There is something
very soporific, to the Philistine outlander, in a rendition of
ultra-classical music long sustained. Conover shook himself impatiently
to scare off the drowsiness that threatened to enmesh him. Desirée
glanced at him with merry encouragement as the tireless pianist’s last
reluctant note was followed by a ripple of civil applause. The clapping
and Desirée’s look combined to bring Caleb’s drowsy senses back to
normal wakefulness.
“That chap,” he whispered, “can’t play anywhere near as good as you
do. Lord, but he did hit that old pianner some cruel ones! After he’d
tired it all out, too; so it couldn’t get back at him. I bet them keys
wish they had _your_ white little fingers pettin’ ’em instead of that
blacksmith’s. What’s this next turn goin’ to be?”
“A tenor solo,” she answered. “It’s the ‘Siciliana’ from _Cavalleria
Rusticana_. Oh, good! It’s to be accompanied by the harp. It always
ought to be, I think. Don’t you?”
“Sure!” responded Caleb, with an air of loyal certainty.
But Desirée was too much engrossed in the prelude to admonish him.
A few staccato chords; then began the song. At first, repressed
floridity of phrase; then passion bursting starkly through the
convention of stilted word and melody; rising at last to a crescendo
where speech failed and a hot-gasped “_A--ah!_” broke off the strain.
To Caine, listening impassive on the other side of Desirée from
Conover, the air conjured up its picture as vividly as though the scene
lay before his eyes. Gray dawn in the gray-walled Sicilian village,
high on the mountain top. Gray dawn of Easter, above the sleeping
hamlet. One figure half hidden by the abutting angle of the stone
houses, the only human being abroad. One figure,--a man, guitar in
hand, singing that mad love song beneath the casement of the woman he
had won--lost--and wrongfully won again. Turiddu, the returned soldier,
serenading Lola, fickle wife of Alfio, the absent teamster; Alfio
under whose knife-thrust Turiddu was destined to fall, before the yet
unrisen sun should stand at high noon above their sordid little village
world. And, contemptuous of his half-foreseen fate, the wooer was
singing to the woman whose love was to bring him death.
Mad, undisciplined, lawless adoration now moaned, now cried aloud, in
both air and words. What mattered the holy day, the avenging husband’s
steel, the forsaken Santuzza, who was sobbing alone somewhere in that
huddle of blind houses? Love was king. The pirate love who knows its
stake is death; and, unafraid, tempts its fate.
“_C’è scrito sangue so prala tua porta--;
Ma di restarci a me non me n’importa!_”
Then in a last burst of gloriously insane protestation:
“_Si per te muojo e vado in Paradiso,
Non c’entro se non vedo il tuo bel viso!_”
And that yearning, wordless passion-fraught cry wherein supreme longing
rushed beyond the bounds of speech.
A rumbling mutter of the harp-strings. And silence.
“The sublimated howl of a back-fence tom-cat!” muttered Caine, to
himself; the garish brain-picture fading.
A momentary, tense hush fell over the audience as the final chords
trailed off into nothingness. Then, before the utter stillness could
be broken by the burst of ensuing applause, another sound--hideously
distinct, vibrant, long-drawn,--cut raggedly through the breathless
quiet. The sound of a full-lunged, healthy snore.
Caleb Conover was sleeping like a child.