When Maxwell finally turned his car cityward it was with the feeling
of a naughty boy who had run away from duty and was suddenly
confronted by retribution.
He glanced at the clock in the car and noted that the hour was
getting very late, and compunction seized upon him. Now that he
had done the thing it suddenly seemed atrocious. He had ignored a
lady in trouble and gone on a tangent. It wasn’t even the excuse of
a previous engagement, or the plea of old friends. It was utterly
unnecessary. He had followed an impulse and accepted an utter
stranger’s invitation to dinner, and then had stayed all the evening,
and gone back to wash dishes afterward. As he thought it over he
felt that either he was crazy or a coward. Was it actually true
that he, a man full grown, with a will of his own, was afraid to
trust himself for an hour in the company of the woman who had once
been supreme in his life? What was he afraid of? Not that he would
yield to her wiles after two years absence; not that he would break
his promise to himself and marry her in spite of husbands and laws
either moral or judicial. It must be that he was afraid to have his
own calm disturbed. He had been through seas of agony and reached a
haven of peace where he could endure and even enjoy life, and he was
so selfish that he wished to remain within that haven even though
it meant a breach of courtesy, and an outraging of all his finer
instincts.
He forgot that his struggle earlier in the evening had been in an
exactly opposite line, and that the finer feelings had urged him to
remain away from the woman who had once been almost his undoing.
However, now that it was almost too late to mend the matter he felt
that he ought to have gone. Even if her plea of asking his advice had
merely been a trumped-up excuse to bring him to her side, yet was it
not the part of a gentleman to go? A true gentleman should never let
a lady ask for help in vain. And he had promised always to be her
friend. It might be that it had been an ill-advised promise, but a
promise was a promise, etc.
By that time he had arrived at his apartment and was hastening
through a rapid evening toilet. The evening and its simple
experiences seemed like a pleasant dream that waking obliterates. It
might return later, but now the present was upon him, and he knew
Evadne when she was kept waiting. If she had not changed there was no
pleasant interview in store for him. However, he need not tell her
that he had been enjoying himself all the evening and had forgotten
how fast time was flying.
Arrived at the hotel he went at once to the desk and asked for the
lady. The clerk asked his name and called a bell-boy. “Go page Miss
Chantry,” he said. “She’s in the ballroom.” Then turning to Maxwell,
he said: “She left word you were to wait for her in the reception
room over there.”
“No, don’t page her,” said Maxwell sharply, “I’ll go and find her
myself.”
“Oh, all right! Just as you please! Those were her orders.”
Maxwell turned toward the elevators, half inclined after all not to
see her. She had not been in such distress but that she could amuse
herself after all. But that was Evadne, of course. He must expect
that. Besides, she was doubtless angry at his delay.
Maxwell got off at the gallery floor expecting to find the lady
seated in one of the little quiet nooks overlooking the gay throng,
but he made the rounds without finding her, and paused at the last
door to look down on the moving, throbbing, colorful life below.
The orchestra was beating out a popular bit of elevated jazz and the
floor below was like a kaleidoscope as the couples wove their many
colored patterns in and out among each other.
Maxwell watched the dancers idly for a moment. He was not a dancer
himself and not particularly interested in it. As he looked he was
suddenly struck with the contrast between this scene and the quiet
little home where he had spent the evening. How hard these people
were trying to enjoy themselves, and how excited and restless and
almost unhappy many of them looked.
A group of ladies seated near the railing quite close to where he
stood were discussing one of the couples on the floor.
“She is disgusting,” said one, “I wonder who she is? How dare she
come to a respectable place and dance in that way?”
His eyes followed their glances and he easily singled out the two who
were under their criticism. The man, a tall, dark, bizarre looking
fellow he knew by sight, with money enough and family irreproachable
enough to get away with anything in these days.
But the woman! Why did there seem to be something familiar about
her? Sleek, black hair wound closely about a small, languid head,
lizard-like body inadequately sheathed in gold brocade, sparkle of
jewels from lazy graceful feet.
A break in the throng as some one went off the floor, and the two
swept around facing him. The woman looked up and met his eyes. _It
was Evadne!_
Something clicked and locked in his soul as if the machinery could
not go on any longer without readjustment. He stood staring down
at her, a growing wonder in his face, aware that she was looking
at him and waving, aware that he was expected to smile. Instead he
felt as if he were glaring. Was this the woman for whom he had spent
two years of agony and struggle? This little empty faced creature
with a smile upon her painted selfish mask? As he stood looking at
her he was struck with a fleeting fancy that she resembled Clytie,
poor featherbrained Clytie trying to exploit her own little self
in the best way she knew, to play the game of life to her own best
advantage. What was the difference between them?
Was it for a woman like this that he had wasted two of the best years
out of his young manhood? He used to call her beautiful, but now her
face seemed so vapid. Was it just the years that had come between or
had she changed, grown coarser, less ethereal? A vision of Cornelia
Copley floated in his mind. Why hadn’t he known sooner that there was
a girl like that some where in the world? What a fool he had been!
Evadne had signalled to him and led her partner off the floor. Now
they were coming to him. He wished he might vanish somewhere. Why had
he come? This girl had no real need of him. She was merely enjoying
herself.
“What made you so late?” she challenged gaily, “We’ve been waiting
supper for an age. I met an old friend tonight. Bob, meet Artie
Maxwell. Come on, I’ve had the food served in my suite, and I’ve
ordered lobster Newburg and all the things you used to like.”
“I’ll answer for the drinks,” broke in the one called Bob, “I’ve
sampled them already.”
“Sh! Naughty! Naughty! Bob!” hushed Evadne with her finger on her
lips. “Artie is a good little boy. He doesn’t break the law—” she
laughed. “Come on, Artie, I’m nearly starved. I thought you never
would get here. Ring for the elevator, Bob, please.”
Maxwell’s whole being simply froze.
He didn’t want to remain, and he didn’t like the other man, but he
could not ask her point blank what she wanted of him in the presence
of this stranger. He was gravely silent as the elevator carried them
to the right floor and Evadne did the talking. But when the door
opened into the apartment and showed a table set for three with
flowers and lights and preparations for a feast he made a stand.
“I can’t possibly stay for supper,” he declared, “I’ve dined only
a little while ago, and I must leave for New York on business very
early in the morning. I only dropped in to explain—”
“Indeed, you are not going to leave in that way!” she flashed upon
him angrily, “I told you in my note that I had something very
important to tell you.”
Maxwell looked at the other man politely:
“If we could have just a word together now,” he said, turning back
to the girl. “I really must get back to my apartment at once. I have
important papers to prepare for tomorrow.”
The other man turned away toward the table haughtily, with a
scornful: “Why certainly,” and poured himself a glass from the flask
that stood there.
Maxwell turned to the angry girl:
“Now, what can I do for you? I shall be very glad to do anything in
my power of course.” He spoke stiffly as to a stranger. The girl
perceived that her power over him was waning. Yet she was too subtle
to let him see it.
“I am in deep trouble,” she sighed with a quiver of the lips, “but I
can’t tell it in a moment. It is a long story.” Her eyelids fluttered
down on her lovely painted cheeks. She knew the line that would touch
him most.
“What sort of trouble?” he asked almost gently. He never could bear
to see a woman suffer.
She clasped her little jewelled hands together fiercely and bent her
head dejectedly.
“I cannot tell you all now,” she answered desperately, “you would
have to hear the whole before you could understand. Wait until we are
alone.”
“Is it financial trouble?” he urged after a pause with a gentle
persistence in his voice.
“Yes, that—and—_other things_!” Evadne forced a tear to the fringes
of her almond lids.
He studied her gravely:
“I’ll tell you what I want you to do,” he said at last, “I will not
be here tomorrow nor possibly for several days, but I would like you
to talk with our old family lawyer. He was a friend of my father’s,
and is very wise and kind. Anything you could tell to me you can
tell to him. He knows you and will fully understand. I can call him
tonight when I get back and explain, and he will be glad to come here
and see you I am sure; or if you prefer you can go to his office.”
But Evadne lifted her sleek, black head wrathfully, flicked off the
tear, flung out her chin, and looked him down with her almond eyes as
if from a great height:
“Thank you!” she said crisply, “When I want a family lawyer I can get
one! And YOU—can—GO!”
She pointed to the door with her jewelled hand imperiously and
Maxwell arose with dignity, his eyes upon her as if he would force
himself to see the worst, and went.
“Bob!” said Evadne to the bibulous man at the table when the elevator
door had clanged shut after her one-time lover, “I’m not sure but I
shall come back to Philadelphia after a few days and stay awhile. I
wonder if you could keep track of that man for me and tell me just
where he goes and what he does. I’ll make it worth your while you
know.”
“Surely, old dear, I’ll be delighted. No trouble at all. I know a
private detective who would be tickled to death for the job. What did
you say the poor fish’s name is? Seemed a harmless sort of chump. Not
quite your kind is he? Come, Vaddie, let’s have another drink.”
But Evadne’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she took the glass and
drank slowly. She was not one to take lightly any loss.
Out in the night the young man drew a deep breath of the clean
air thankfully. It seemed as though he had escaped from something
unwholesome and tainted. He was glad that he had the sense to know
it, and he thought back again with relief to the happy evening in the
simple, natural home.