donned a favorite pink silk shirt and tied on a white stock into which
he stuck a fox-head pin. He had put on more flesh in the last three
years than he needed, and his collar bands were getting too tight;
but as he looked in the mirror of his dressing-stand, he was willing
to admit that he was still the fine figure of a man--a Van Duyn every
inch of him. It was in the midst of this agreeable occupation that Mr.
Worthington entered, a corn-flower in his buttonhole and otherwise
arrayed for conquest. Van Duyn looked over his shoulder and nodded a
platonic greeting.
“Tea-ing it, Bibby?”
“Oh, yes. Might as well do that as sit somewhere. Just stopped in on my
way down.” Worthington’s apartment was above. And then, “Lord Coley,
you _are_ filling out! Riding?”
“No,” grinned the other, “going to pick strawberries on the Metropolitan
Tower. Don’t I look like it?”
Worthington smiled. Van Duyn’s playfulness always much resembled that
of a young St. Bernard puppy.
“I thought you’d given it up. Her name, please.”
Mr. Van Duyn refused to reply.
“It’s the Loring girl, isn’t it?” Worthington queried cheerfully. “I
thought so. You lucky devil!” He touched the tips of two fingers and
thumb to his lips, and with eyes heavenward laid them upon his heart.
“She’s an angel, a blue-eyed angel, fresh from the rosy aura of a
cherubim. Oh, Coley, what the devil can she see in you?”
“Don’t be an ass, Bibby,” Van Duyn grunted wrathfully.
“I’m not an ass. I’m in love, you amatory Behemoth, in love as I’ve
never been before--with an angel fresh from Elysium.”
“Meaning Miss Jane Loring?”
“Who else? There’s no one else,” dolefully. “There never has been any
one else--there never will be any one else. You’re in love with her,
too; aren’t you, Coley?”
“Well, of all the impudence!”
“Nonsense. I’m only living up to the traditions of our ancient
friendship. I’m giving you a fair warning. I intend to marry the lady
myself.”
The visitor had lit a cigarette and was calmly helping himself to
whisky. Van Duyn threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“You! Good joke. Haw! You’ve got as many lives as a cat, Bibby. Been
blowing out your brains every season for fifteen years.” He struggled
into his coat and squared himself before the mirror. “Wasting your
time,” he finished dryly.
“Meaning that _you_ are the chosen one? Oh, I say, Coley, don’t make me
laugh. You’ll spoil the set of my cravat. You know, I couldn’t care for
her if I thought her taste was as bad as that. Not engaged are you?”
“Oh, drop it,” said the other. “Remarks are personal. Miss Loring is
fine girl. Fellow gets her will be lucky.” He had poured himself a
drink, but paused in the act of taking it, and asked, “Haven’t seen
Gallatin lately, have you?”
“No--nobody has--since that night at the Club. He’d been sitting
tight--and God knows that’s no joke! Good Lord, but he did fall off
with a thud! Been on the wagon six months, too. He ought to let it
alone.”
“He can’t,” said Van Duyn grimly.
“Well, six months is a good while--for Phil--but he stuck it out like
a little man.” And then ruminatively, “I wonder what made him begin
again. He’d been refusing all the afternoon. Came in later with his jaw
set--white and somber--you know--and started right in. It’s a great
pity! I’d like to have a talk with Phil. I’m fond of that boy. But he’s
so touchy. Great Scott! I tried it once, and I’ll never forget the look
he gave me. Never again! I’d as leave try a curtain lecture on a Bengal
tiger.”
“What’s the use? We’ve got troubles of our own.”
“Not like his, Coley. With me it’s a diversion, with you it’s an
appetite, with Phil it’s a disease. That’s why he went to Canada this
summer. By the way, you were in the woods with the Lorings, of course
you heard about that girl that Phil met up there?”
“No,” growled the other.
“Seems to be a mystery. Percy Endicott says----”
Van Duyn set his glass on the table with a crash that broke it, then
rose with an oath.
“Think I’m going to listen to _that_ rubbish?” he muttered. “Who cares
what happened to Gallatin? _I_ don’t, for one. As for Percy, he’s a
lyin’, little gossipin’ Pharisee. I don’t believe there _was_ any
girl----”
“But Gallatin admits it.”
“D---- Gallatin!” he roared.
Worthington looked up in surprise, but rose and kicked his trousers
legs into their immaculate creases.
“Oh, if you feel that way about it--” He took up his silk hat and
brushed it with his coat sleeve. “I think I’ll be toddling along.”
“Oh, don’t get peevish, Bibby. You like Phil Gallatin. Well, I don’t.
Always too d---- starchy for me anyway.” He paused at the table in
the library while he filled his cigarette case from a silver box.
Then he examined Worthington’s face. “You didn’t hear the girl’s name
mentioned, did you?” he asked carelessly.
“Oh, no, even Gallatin didn’t know it.” Worthington had put on his hat
and was making for the door. “Of course it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Van Duyn followed, his man helping them into their overcoats.
“Can’t drop you anywhere, can I, Bibby? I’ve got the machine below.”
“No, thanks. I’ll walk.”
On the ride uptown Coleman Van Duyn glowered moodily out at the winter
sunlight. He had heard enough of this story they were telling about
Phil Gallatin and the mysterious girl in the woods. He alone knew that
the main facts were true, because he had had incontestible evidence
that the mysterious girl was Jane Loring. All the circumstances as
related exactly tallied with his own information received from the
two guides who had brought her into Loring’s camp. And in spite of
his knowledge of Jane’s character, the coarse embroidery that gossip
was adding to the tale had left a distinctly disagreeable impression.
Jane Loring had spent the better part of a week alone with Phil
Gallatin in the heart of the Canadian wilderness. Van Duyn did not
like Gallatin. They had known each other for years, and an appearance
of fellowship existed between them, but in all tastes save one they
had nothing in common. He and Gallatin had locked horns once before
on a trifling matter, and the fact that the girl Van Duyn intended to
marry had been thrown upon the mercies of a man of Gallatin’s stamp was
gall and wormwood to him. But when he thought of Jane he cursed the
gossips in his heart for a lot of meddlers and scandal-mongers. If he
knew anything of human nature--and like most heavy deliberate men, he
believed his judgment to be infallible, Jane was the blue-eyed angel
Mr. Worthington had so aptly described, “fresh from the rosy aura of
a cherubim.” But there were many things to be explained. One of the
guides that had found her had dropped a hint that it was no guide’s
camp that she had visited in the woods, as she had told them at camp.
And why, if she had been well cared for there, had she fled? What
relations existed between Jane Loring and Phil Gallatin that made it
necessary for her to hide the fact of his existence? What had Gallatin
done that she should wish to escape him? Van Duyn’s turgid blood
seethed darkly in his veins. Gallatin had acknowledged the main facts
of the story. Why hadn’t he told it all, as any other man would have
done without making all this mystery about it? Or why hadn’t he denied
it entirely instead of leaving a loophole for the gossip? Why hadn’t he
lied, as any other man would have done, like a gentleman? Only he, Van
Duyn, had an inkling of the facts, and yet his lips were sealed. He had
had to sit calmly and listen while the story was told in his presence
at the club, while his fingers were aching to throttle the man who was
repeating it. Phil Gallatin! D---- him!
It was, therefore, in no very pleasant frame of mind that Van Duyn got
down at Miss Loring’s door. The horses were already at the carriage
drive and Miss Loring came down at once. Mr. Van Duyn helped her into
the saddle, and in a few moments they were in the Park walking their
horses carefully until they reached the nearest bridle path, when they
swung into a canter. Miss Loring had noted the preoccupation of her
companion, and after one or two efforts at cheerful commonplace, had
subsided, only too glad to enjoy in silence the glory of the afternoon
sunlight. But presently when the horses were winded, she pulled her own
animal into a walk and Van Duyn quickly imitated her example.
“Oh, I’m so glad I came, Coley,” she said genuinely, with mounting
color and sparkling eyes.
“Are you?” he panted, Jane’s optimism at last defeating his megrims.
“Bully, isn’t it? Ever hunted?”
“Yes, one season at Pau.”
“Jolly set, hunting set. Jolliest in New York.”
“Yes, I know some of them--Mr. Kane, Mr. Spencer, Miss Jaffray, the
Rawsons and the Penningtons. _They_ wouldn’t do _this_, though; they
turn up their noses at Park riding. Aren’t you hunting this year?”
“No,” he grunted. “Life’s too short.” He might also have added that
he wasn’t up to the work, but he didn’t. Jane noticed the drop in his
voice and examined him curiously.
“You don’t seem very happy to-day, Coley.”
“Any reason you can think of why I should be?” he muttered.
“Thousands,” she laughed, purposely oblivious. “The joy of living----”
“Oh, rot, Jane!”
“Coley! You’re not polite!”
“Oh, you know what I mean well enough,” he insisted sulkily.
“Do I? Please explain.”
“Don’t you know, this is the first time I’ve been with you alone--since
the woods?” he stammered.
Jane laughed.
“I’m sorry I have such a bad effect on you. _You_ asked me to come, you
know.”
“Oh, don’t tease a chap so. What’s the use? Been tryin’ to see you for
weeks. You’ve been avoidin’ me, Jane. What I want to know is--why?”
“I don’t want to avoid you. If I did, I shouldn’t be with you to-day,
should I?”
There seemed to be no reply to that and Van Duyn’s frown only deepened.
“I thought we were goin’ to be friends,” he went on slowly. “We had
a quarrel up at camp, but I thought we’d straightened that out. You
forgave me, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes. I couldn’t very well do anything else. But you’ll have to
admit I’d never done anything to warrant----”
“I was a fool. Sorry for what I did, too. When you got back I told you
so. I’m a fool still, but I’ve got sense enough to be patient. Pretty
rough, though, the way you treat me. Thinkin’ about you most of the
time--all upset--don’t sleep the way I ought--things don’t taste right.
I’m in love with you, Jane----”
“I thought you had promised not to speak of that again,” she put in
with lowered voice.
“Oh, hang it! I’ve got to speak of it,” he growled. “When a fellow
wants to marry a girl, he can’t stay in the background and see other
fellows payin’ her attention--hear stories of----”
Jane looked up, her eyes questioning sharply and Coleman Van Duyn
stopped short. He had not meant to go so far.
“Stories about _me_?”
He wouldn’t reply, and only glowered at his horse’s ears.
“What story have you heard about me, Coley?” she asked quietly.
“Oh, nothing,” he mumbled. “It wasn’t about you,” he finished lamely.
“It’s something that concerns me then. You’ve made that clear. You must
tell me--at once,” she said decisively.
Van Duyn glanced at her and dropped his gaze, aware for the second time
that this girl’s spirit when it rose was too strong for him. And yet
there was an anxiety in her curiosity, too, which gave him a sense of
mastery.
“Oh, just gossip,” he said cautiously. “Everybody gets his share of
it, you know.” Then he laughed aloud, rather too noisily, so that she
wasn’t deceived.
“It’s something I have a right to know, of course. It must be
unpleasant or you wouldn’t have thought of it again. You must tell me,
Coley.”
“What difference does it make?”
“None. But I mean to hear it just the same.”
“Oh!” He saw that her face was set in resolute lines, so he looked
away, his lids narrowing, while he thought of a plan which might turn
his information to his own advantage.
“It isn’t about you at all,” he said slowly, sparring for time.
“Then why did you think of it?” She had him cornered now and he knew
it, so he fought back sullenly, looking anywhere but at her.
“You haven’t given me a fair show, Jane. Up in camp we got to be pretty
good pals until--until you found out I wanted to marry you. Even then
you said there wasn’t any reason why we shouldn’t be friends. I lost
my head that morning and made a fool of myself and you ran away and
got lost. When the guides brought you back you were different, utterly
changed. Something had happened. You wouldn’t have been so rotten to
me, just because--because of that. Besides you forgave me. Didn’t I
acknowledge it? And haven’t I done the square thing, let you alone,
watched you from a distance, almost as if I didn’t even know you? I
tell you, Jane----”
“What has this to do with----”
“Wait,” he said, his eyes now searching hers, his color deepening as
he gathered courage, while Jane Loring listened, conscious that her
companion’s intrusiveness and brutality were dragging her pride in
the dust. “You went off into the woods and stayed five days. You told
us when you got back to camp that you’d been found by an Indian guide
and that you hadn’t been able to find the trail--and all that sort of
thing. Everybody believed you. We were all too glad to get you back.
What I want to know is why you told that story? What was your reason
for keeping back----”
“It was true--” she stammered, but his keen eyes saw that her face was
blanching and her emotion infuriated him.
“All except that the Indian guide was Phil Gallatin,” he said brutally.
The hands that held the reins jerked involuntarily and her horse reared
and swerved away, but in a moment she had steadied him; and when Van
Duyn drew alongside of her, she was still very pale but quite composed.
“How do you know that?” she asked in a voice the tones of which she
still struggled to control.
He waited a long moment, the frown gathering more darkly. He had still
hoped, it seemed, that she might deny it.
“Oh, I know it, all right,” he muttered, glowering.
Her laughter rather surprised him. “Your keenness does you credit,”
she continued. “I met a stranger in the woods and stayed at his camp.
There’s nothing extraordinary in that----”
“No,” he interrupted quickly. “Not in that. The extraordinary thing is
that you should have----” he hesitated.
“Lied about it?” she suggested calmly. “Oh, I don’t think we need
discuss that. I’m not in the habit of talking over my personal affairs.”
Her indifference inflamed him further and his eyes gleamed maliciously.
“It’s a pity Gallatin hasn’t a similar code.”
Her eyes opened wide. “What--do--you--mean?” she asked haltingly.
“That Gallatin is telling of the adventure himself,” he said with a
bold laugh.
“He is telling--of--the--adventure--” she repeated, and then paused,
her horrified eyes peering straight ahead of her. “Oh, how odious of
him--how odious! There is nothing to tell--Coley--absolutely nothing--”
And then as a new thought even more horrible than those that had gone
before crossed her mind, “What are they saying? Has he--has he spoken
my name? Tell me. I can’t believe _that_ of him--not that!”
Van Duyn was not sure that the emotion which he felt was pity for
her or pity for himself, but he looked away, his face reddening
uncomfortably, and when he spoke his voice was lowered.
“I heard the story,” he said with crafty deliberateness, “at the Club.
I got up and left the room.”
“Was--was Mr. Gallatin there?”
“No--not there?” he muttered. “He came in as I left. You know it
wouldn’t have been possible for me to stay.”
“What are they saying, Coley?” she gasped, seeking in one breath to
plumb the whole depth of her humiliation. “You must tell me. Do you
mean that they’re saying--that--that Mr. Gallatin and I--were--?” she
couldn’t finish, and he made no effort to help her, for her troubled
face and every word that she uttered went further to confirm his
suspicions and increase his misery.
“Do _you_ believe that?” she whispered again. “Do you?” And then, as he
refused to turn his head or reply, “Oh, how dreadful of you!”
She put spurs to her horse and before he was well aware of it was
vanishing among the trees. His animal was unequal to the task he set
for it, for he lost sight of her, found her again in the distance and
thundered after, breathing heavily and perspiring at every pore, hating
himself for his suspicions, and filled with terror at the thought of
losing her. Never had he been so mad for the possession of her as now,
and floundered helplessly on like an untrained dog in pursuit of a
wounded bird. But he couldn’t catch up with her. And when, later, he
stopped at the Loring house, she refused to see him.
XI
THE CEDARCROFT SET
Miss Loring had no engagements for the evening, and excusing herself
to her family, spent it alone in her room, where for a long while she
sat or walked the floor, in dire distress, her faculties benumbed like
those of a person who has suffered a calamitous grief or a physical
violence. Sentence by sentence she slowly rehearsed the conversation
of which she had been the subject, seeking vainly for some phrase that
might lead her into the paths of comprehension and peace. The thought
of Coleman Van Duyn loomed large, indeed, but another figure loomed
larger. She was new to the world of men, of men of the world, such as
she had met since she had been in New York, but it had never occurred
to her to believe that there could be a person so base as Philip
Gallatin. He weakened her faith in herself and in all the world. The
dishonor he had offered her had been enough without this added insult
to the memory of it. Downtown they were using her name scurrilously in
the same breath with that of Phil Gallatin, speaking her name lightly
as they spoke of--of other women they couldn’t respect. Phil Gallatin’s
name and hers! It was the more bitter, because in her heart she now
knew that she had given him more of her thoughts than any man had ever
had before. Oh, what kind of a world was this into which she had come,
which was made up of men who held their own honor and the honor of the
women of their own kind so lightly? People received him, she knew.
She had even heard of his being at the Suydams on an evening when
she had been there. She had not seen him, and thanked God for that;
for since their meeting in the Park, some weeks ago, her conscience
had troubled her more than once, and her heart had had curious phases
of uncertainty. “What if what he had said about his own dependence on
her were true?” She had questioned herself, “What if,” as in a few
unrelated moments of moral irresponsibility she had madly speculated,
“what if he really loved her as he said he did--and that his mad
moment in the woods--_their_ mad moment, as she had even fearfully
acknowledged, was only the supreme expression of that reality?” He had
solemnly sworn that he had kept the faith--that since that afternoon
in the woods he had not broken it. She saw his dark eyes now and the
animal-like look of irresolution which had been in them when she had
turned away and left him.
Could this man they were talking of in the clubs who gibed at the
virtue of women to make a good story, be the same smiling fugitive of
the north woods, the man with the laugh of a boy, the tenderness of a
woman and the strength of moral fiber to battle for her as he had done
against the odds of the wilderness? It was unbelievable. And yet how
could Coleman Van Duyn have repeated the story if he had not heard it?
There was no reply for that. Weary at last, trying to reconcile the two
irreconcilable facts, she fell into a fit of nervous tears at the end
of which, relaxed and utterly exhausted, she sank to sleep.
Even then, though reason slept, her imagination had no rest, and she
dreamed, one vision predominant--that of a tall figure who carried
upon his back the carcass of a deer, his somber eyes peering over his
shoulder at a shadow which followed him in the underbrush. But when
she spoke to the figure it smiled and the shadow behind disappeared.
In her dream, she found this a curious phenomenon, and when the shadow
returned, as it presently did, she spoke again. The shadow vanished
and the smile appeared on the face of the man with the burden. Several
times she repeated this experiment and each time the same thing
happened. But in a moment the shadow formed into a definite shape,
the bulky shape of Coleman Van Duyn it seemed, and growing larger as
it came, closed in over them both. This time when she tried to speak,
her lips would utter no sound. She awoke suffocating, and sat up in
bed, gasping for breath. She looked about her and gave a long sigh of
relief, for day had broken and the cool dawn was filtering through the
warm flowered pattern on her window hangings, flooding the room with a
rosy light.
That shadow! It had been so tangible, so real that she had fought at
it with her bare hands when it had descended above Phil Gallatin’s
head! She lay awhile looking up at the painted ceiling, her eyes wide
open, fearing that she might sleep again and the dream return; and
then, without ringing for her maid, got out of bed abruptly, slipping
her small feet into fur-lined room-slippers and putting on a flowered
kimono. She was angry at herself for having dreams that could not be
explained.
What right had Phil Gallatin’s image to persist in her thoughts, even
when she slept? And what did the vision mean? The shadow must be the
shadow that had ever followed the Gallatins, and yet it looked like
Coley Van Duyn! She laughed outright, and the sound of her voice echoed
strangely in her ears. She had thought the shadow ominous, but she
could laugh now because it looked like Coley!
She drew her bath and peered out of the window at the sunlight.
Familiar sounds and sights reassured her, and with her plunge came
rehabilitation, physical and mental. Poor Coley! How jealous he was,
and how unghostlike! So jealous, perhaps, that he had lied to her!
The thought of the possibility of this moral turpitude caused her to
pause in the midst of her toilet and smile at her reflection in the
mirror. It was a gay little smile which seemed out of place on the pale
image which confronted her. She drew back her curtains and the morning
sunlight streamed into the room bringing life and good cheer. No, she
would not--could not believe what Coley had told of Philip Gallatin.
She dressed quickly, and before her astonished maid had her eyes open,
had found the dog, Chicot, downstairs, and was out in the frosty air
breasting the keen north wind in the Avenue. It was Kee-way-din that
kissed her brow, Kee-way-din that brought the flush of health and youth
into her cheeks, the breath of Kee-way-din which came with a winter
message of hopefulness from the distant north woods. Chicot was joyful,
too, and bounded like a harlequin along the walk and into the reaches
of the Park. This was an unusual privilege for him, for his mistress
carried not even a leash, and he was bent on making the most of his
opportunities. He seemed to be aware that only business of unusual
importance would take her out at this hour of the day, and came back
barking and whining his sympathy and encouragement. Like most jesters,
Chicot was foolish, but he had a heart under his Eton jacket, and he
took pains that she should know it.
Chicot’s philosophy cleared the atmosphere. Her course of action now
seemed surprisingly clear to Jane. Philip Gallatin being no more and no
less to her than any other man, deserved exactly the consideration to
which her gratitude entitled him, deserved the punishment which fitted
the crime--precisely the punishment which she had given him. If they
met, she would simply ignore him as she did other men to whom she was
indifferent, and she thought that she could trust herself to manage the
rest if, indeed, her rebuff had not already made her intentions clear
to Gallatin. Refusing to meet him or cutting him in public would only
draw attention and give him an importance with which she was far from
willing to invest him. If, as she had said, he was not responsible for
his actions, he was a very unfortunate young man, and deserved her pity
as much as her condemnation; and it was obvious that he could not be
more responsible for his actions in New York than elsewhere. She still
refused to believe that her name had passed his lips, for of his honor
in all things save one, reason as well as instinct now assured her.
The story of Coleman Van Duyn’s no longer persisted. In spite of
herself she made a mental picture of the two men, and Van Duyn suffered
in the comparison. Coley had lied to her. That was all.