Mrs. Dorsey-Martin’s invitation, for she knew that Jane Loring was
staying at “Mobjack,” the Ledyards’ place, and she hoped that she might
yet be the means of bringing the two together. Her interview with Phil
had been barren of results, except to confirm her in the suspicion that
Nina Jaffray held the key to the puzzle. Nina, who had been one of the
early arrivals at “Clovelly,” had so far eluded all her snares; and
Nellie Pennington was now convinced that here was a foeman worthy of
her subtlest metal. She enjoyed the game hugely, as, apparently, did
Nina, and their passages at arms were as skillful (and as ineffectual)
as those of two perfectly matched _maîtres d’escrime_. Nina knew that
Nellie Pennington suspected her of mischief, but she also knew that it
was unlikely that any one would ever know, unless from Jane, just what
that mischief had been.
The arrival of Phil Gallatin, while it gave Nina happiness, made
her keep a narrower guard against the verbal thrusts of her playful
adversary.
Phil Gallatin had regained his poise and reached “Clovelly” in a
jubilant frame of mind. Two days ago Henry K. Loring had agreed to a
conference.
Mr. Leuppold, more suave, more benign, more patronizing than ever, had
called and told Gallatin of this noteworthy act of condescension on
the part of his client. Nothing, of course, need be expected from such
a meeting in the way of concessions, but men of the world like Mr.
Leuppold and Mr. Gallatin knew that co-operation was, after all, the
soul of business, and that one caught many more flies with treacle than
with vinegar.
He continued for half an hour in this vein, platitudinizing and begging
the question at issue while Gallatin listened and assented politely,
without giving any further intimation of a course of action for Kenyon,
Hood and Gallatin. But when the great lawyer had departed, Gallatin
went to the window and surveyed the steel gray waters of the Hudson
with a gleaming eye, and his face wore a smile which would not depart.
Sanborn’s case would never go to court.
The vestiges of this good humor still remained upon his face and in
his demeanor all the morning, which had been spent in a run with the
Warrenton pack. It was so long since he had ridden to hounds that
he had almost forgotten the joy of it, but he was well mounted and
finished creditably. Nina Jaffray showed the field her heels for
most of the way and Gallatin pounded after her, his muscles aching,
determined not to be outridden by a woman.
In the first check, she drew her horse alongside of his and smiled at
him.
“Ready to let me announce it yet, Phil?” she asked.
Gallatin just then was wondering whether his leg grip would last out
the day.
“Announce what, Nina?” he asked.
“Our engagement,” she returned with a smile. “It’s almost time, you
know.”
“Oh, go as far as you like.”
“Don’t laugh!”
“I’ve got to--you make me so happy.”
“Oh, you can joke if you like now, but you’ll have to marry me some
day.”
“Oh, will I? Why?”
“Because you like me. Friendship subdues even Time, Phil. I’m willing
to wait.”
And when he looked at her, at loss for a reply, the hounds gave tongue
again and they were off at a full gallop. He couldn’t help admiring her
this morning. The easy unconventionality of her speech, her attitude
of good fellowship, were a part of the setting. This was the scene in
which she always appeared to the best advantage and she took the center
of the stage with an assurance which showed how well she knew her lines.
It was Nina’s brush, of course, for she had brought down her own best
hunter for the occasion and was in at the death with the Huntsman and
Master of the Hounds, while Gallatin trailed in with the Field. And
in the ride homeward Phil found himself jogging along comfortably at
Nina’s side.
“Phil,” she said again, when the others had ridden on ahead. “I hope
you won’t laugh at me any more. It’s indecent. I never laugh at you.”
“Oh, don’t you? You’re never doing anything else.”
“It seems so, doesn’t it? That’s my pose, Phil. I’m really very much
in earnest about things. I don’t suppose I ever could learn to love
anybody--the faculty is lacking, somehow; but I think you know that,
even if I didn’t love you, I’d never love any one else, whatever
happened, and I’d be true as Death.”
“Yes, I know that. But----”
“But--?” she repeated.
“But--I’m not going to marry,” he laughed.
She shrugged.
“Oh, yes, you will--some day.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because men of your type always do.”
“My type?”
“Yes, they usually marry late and beneath them. I’m trying to save you
from that mistake.”
He smiled at her saucy profile.
“Marrying one’s equal doesn’t always mean equality.”
“You were always a dreamer, Phil.”
“I think I’ll always dream then, Nina,” he broke in abruptly.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’ve got to marry
somebody--anybody--just because you’ve reached the marriageable age.
That’s the trap that catches most of us. Marry for love, Nina. You’ve
got that much capital to begin on. Love doesn’t die a sudden death.”
“Not unless it’s killed. That happens, you know.”
“You can’t kill it easily. You may scoff at it, deny it, wound it, but
it doesn’t die, Nina.”
She turned and examined him narrowly, then shifted her bridle to the
other hand and ran her crop along her horse’s neck.
“You know, Jane Loring is going to marry Coley.”
“What has that to do with what we’re talking about?” he said quickly.
“Oh, nothing. Only I thought you’d like to know it. You’ll have a
chance to congratulate them to-night.”
“To-night? Where?”
“They’re at the Ledyards’, but they’re dining at ‘Clovelly.’”
“Oh!”
“So, if you’re going to put them asunder, you’d better do it to-night
or forever hold your peace.”
He smiled around at her calmly.
“Nothing doing, Nina. You missed it that time. The only things I’m
putting asunder are a railroad and an omnivorous coal company. That
takes about all my energy.”
“Phil,” she put in thoughtfully after a moment.
“What?”
“What’s the use of waiting? You’re going to marry me in the end, you
know.”
“Oh, am I?”
“Yes. You can’t afford to refuse. I’ve got the money, position, and
father has influence. That means power for a man of your ability.
You’re getting ambitious. I can tell that by the way you’re sticking at
things. There’s no telling what you mightn’t accomplish with the help
I can bring you. Oh, you could get along alone, of course. But you’d
waste a lot of time. You’d better think about it seriously.”
“I have thought about it. I’m really beginning to believe you mean it.”
“Yes, I do mean it. I’ve decided to marry you. And you know I’ve never
yet failed at anything I’ve undertaken.”
She was quite in earnest and he looked at her amusedly.
“Then I suppose I’d better surrender at discretion.”
“Yes, I’m sure you had.”
“Isn’t there a loophole?”
“None, whatever. I’m your super-man, Phil. You might just as well go
at once and order your wedding garments and the ring. It will save us
endless discussions--and you know I _hate_ discussions. They’re really
very wearing. Besides, O Phil!”--She laid the end of her crop on his
arm--“just think what a lot of fun you’ll get out of letting Jane know
how little you care!”
Gallatin didn’t reply and in a moment they had reached the stables of
“Clovelly” where the others were dismounting.
In his room, to which he had gone in search of his pipe, Gallatin
paused at the window, looking out over the winter landscape, thinking.
Why not? Why shouldn’t he marry her? It would be a cold-blooded
business, of course, but he called to mind a dozen marriages of reason
that had turned out satisfactorily, and as many marriages for love
which had ended in the ditch. This life was a pleasant kind of poison,
the luxury and ease, the careless gayety of these pleasant people who
moved along the line of least resistance, taking from life only what
suited their moods, living only for the moment, sure that the future
was amply provided for. He had turned his back on this world for a
while, and had lived in another, a sterner world, with which this one
had little in common. A place like this might be his, with its broad
acres and stables, horses and motor cars, a life like this for the
asking. A marriage of reason! With Nina Jaffray at the helm of his
destiny and hers. God forbid!
He had laid his own course now, but he had weathered the rocks and
shoals and the rough water in sight did not dismay him. Marriage!
He wanted none of it with Nina or any other. This kind of life was
not for him unless he won it for himself, for only then would he be
fit to live it. And while he found it good to be away from his rooms
in the house in ---- Street, good to be away from the office for a
while, the atmosphere of “Clovelly” was redolent of his early days of
indolence and undesire and he suddenly found himself less tolerant of
the failings of these people than he had ever been before. He hadn’t
realized what his work had meant until he had this idleness to compare
it with.
Jane! He had been able to think less of Jane Loring in the fever of
work, but here at “Clovelly,” among the people they both knew, where
her name was frequently mentioned, he found it less easy to forget her,
and the imminence of the hour when he must see her again gave him a
qualm.
He lighted his pipe and started downstairs toward the gunroom, where
the guests were recounting the adventures of the morning over tobacco
and high-balls. Nellie Pennington, who had an instinct for the
psychological moment, met him and led him to a lounge at the end of the
hall.
“Well,” she said, “are you prepared to give a full account of yourself?”
“An empty account, dear Mother Confessor. I’m neither sinful nor
virtuous.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“About which?”
“About either. You’re unpleasantly self-righteous and criminally
unamiable.”
“Oh, Nellie, to whom?”
“To me. Also, you’re stupid!”
“Thanks. That’s my misfortune. What else?”
“That’s enough to begin on. I could pull your ears in chagrin. You’ve
treated my advice with the scantest ceremony, made ducks and drakes of
the opportunities I’ve provided, and lastly you’ve gone and gotten Nina
Jaffray talked about----”
“Nellie! Please! I can’t permit----”
“Oh, fudge, Phil. Nina is well able to look after herself. It isn’t of
Nina I’m thinking.”
“Who then?”
“You! You silly goose. There isn’t any spectacle in the world half
so ludicrous as a chivalrous man defending the fame of a woman who
doesn’t care whether she’s defended or not.”
“I don’t see----”
“I know you don’t. That’s why I’m telling you.”
“But Nina, does care.”
“Yes, but not precisely in the way that you suppose. Fortune gave her
some excellent cards--and she played them.”
“Please be more explicit.”
“Very well, then. Girls of Nina’s type would rather have their name
coupled unpleasantly with that of the man they care for than not
coupled with it at all.”
“Nonsense, Nina doesn’t care----”
“Oh, yes, she does. She wants to marry you. She has told you so, hasn’t
she?”
Phil Gallatin looked at her quickly with eyes agog. Such powers of
divination were uncanny.
“She has proposed to you once--twice--how many times, Phil?”
“None--not at all,” he stammered, while she smiled and shrugged her
incredulity.
“If I didn’t know already, I need only a glance at your face to be
convinced of it.”
“How did you know?”
“How does a woman know anything? By virtue, my friend, of those
invisible spiritual fibers which she thrusts in all directions and upon
which she receives impressions. That’s how she knows.”
“You guessed?”
“Call it that, if you like. I guessed. I guessed this, also: that Nina
wanted Jane to believe this story to be true. It didn’t need much to
convince her. That little Nina was willing to provide.”
“What?”
“Nina admitted that the story was true,” she repeated.
Gallatin rose to his feet and stared at his companion like one
possessed.
“Nina admitted it! You’re dreaming.”
“No. I’m very wide awake. I wish you were.”
“It’s preposterous. Whatever put such an idea into your head?”
“My antennæ.”
“Nonsense!”
“Listen. Nina called on Jane a while ago. They had a long talk.
Something happened--something that has interrupted friendly relations.
They don’t speak now. What do you suppose that talk was about? The
weather? Or a plan for the amelioration of the condition of homeless
cats? Oh, you know a lot about women, Phil Gallatin!” she finished
scornfully.
“I know enough,” he muttered.
“You think you do,” she put in quickly. “The Lord give me patience to
talk to you! For unbiased ignorance, next to the callous youth who
thinks he knows it all, commend me to the modern Galahad! The one only
_thinks_ he knows, but the other doesn’t want to know. He’s content to
believe every woman irreproachable by the mere virtue of being a woman.
Nina Jaffray has played her cards with remarkable cleverness, but she
has been quite unscrupulous. It’s time you knew it, and it’s time that
Jane did. I would tell her if I thought she would believe me, but I
fancy I’ve meddled enough.”
Gallatin took two or three paces up and down and then sat down beside
her.
“It isn’t meddling, Nellie,” he said quietly. “You’ve done your best
and I’m grateful to you. Unfortunately, you can’t help me any longer.
It’s too late. I did what I could. No girl who had ever loved a man
could let him go so easily, could doubt him so willingly. It was all a
mistake. It’s better to find it out now than too late.”
Nellie Pennington didn’t reply. She only looked down at her muddy boots
with the cryptic smile that women wear when they wish to conceal either
their ignorance or their wisdom.
“Did you know that Jane was dining here to-night?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “Nina told me. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter in the least. The world is big enough for everybody.
Jane evidently thinks so, too. Otherwise she wouldn’t be coming.”
“Does she know I’m here?”
“Oh, yes, she knows that Nina is, too.”
Gallatin looked out of the window.
“You don’t understand women, do you, Phil? Admit that and I’ll tell you
why she’s coming.”
He smiled. “I do admit it. You’re all in league with the devil.”
“She’s coming here because she wants to show you how little she cares,
because she has a morbid curiosity to see you and Nina together, and
lastly,” at this she leaned toward him with her lips very close to his
ear, “and lastly--because she loves you more madly than ever!”
He had hardly recovered from the shock of surprise at this announcement
when he realized that Nellie Pennington had suddenly risen and fled.
This preliminary step taken, Nellie Pennington retreated upstairs in
the most amiable of moods, to dress for luncheon. If Nina was going
to play the game with marked cards, it was quite proper that Phil be
permitted the use of the code. She had at least provided him with food
for reflection, which, while not quite pleasant to take, would serve as
nutrition for his failing optimism. And somewhere in the back of her
head a plan was being born, unpalpable as yet and formless, but which
persisted in growing in spite of her.
XXV
DEEP WATER
The afternoon was passed in leisurely fashion. The modern way of
entertaining guests is to let them entertain themselves. They loafed,
smoked, played bottle-pool and later on there was a court tennis match
between young Dorsey-Martin and the marker, which drew a gallery and
applause. Nina Jaffray tried it next with Bibby Worthington and though
she had played but once, got the knack of the “railroad” service and
succeeded in beating him handily, amid derisive remarks for Bibby from
the nets. A plunge in the pool followed; after which the ladies went up
for a rest before dressing for dinner. Gallatin saw little of Nellie
Pennington during the afternoon, and though he wanted to question her
to satisfy the alarming curiosity which she had aroused, she avoided
speaking to him alone, and when he insisted on following her about,
fled to her room. She knew the effect of her revelations upon his mind
and she didn’t propose that it should be spoiled by an anti-climax.
The dinner hour arrived and with it the Ledyards and their
house-guests, Angela Wetherill, Millicent Reeves, the Perrines, Jane
Loring, Percy Endicott, Coleman Van Duyn and some of the Warrenton
folk. Dinner tables, each with six chairs, had been laid in the
dining-room and hall, but so perfect was the machinery of the great
establishment that the influx of guests made no apparent difference
in its orderly procedure. There were good-natured comments on Bibby
Worthington’s defeat in the afternoon, congratulations for Nina Jaffray
on her dual achievement, uncomplimentary remarks about Virginia clay,
flattering ones about Virginia hospitality and the usual discussion
about breeds of hounds and horses, back of which was to be discovered
the ancient rivalry between the Cedarcroft and Apawomeck hunt clubs.
Nellie Pennington directed the destinies of the table at which Gallatin
sat. Nina Jaffray was on his right, Larry Kane beyond her, Coleman Van
Duyn on Mrs. Pennington’s left and Jane Loring opposite. Nothing could
possibly have been arranged which could conspire more thoroughly to
lacerate the feelings of those assembled. Gallatin saw Jane halt when
she was directed to her seat, he heard Nina’s titter of delight beside
him, caught Larry Kane’s glare and Coley Van Duyn’s flush, but the stab
of Jane’s eyes hardened him into an immediate gayety in which Nina
was not slow to follow. Mrs. Pennington having devised the situation,
calmly sat and proceeded to enjoy it. Good breeding, she knew, made
a fair amalgam of the most heterogeneous elements, but she gave a
short sigh when they were all seated and each began talking rapidly to
his neighbor, Jane to Larry Kane, Nina to Phil and herself to Coley.
Pangs in every heart except her own! It was the perfection of social
cruelty, and she enjoyed it hugely, aware that two, perhaps three,
of the persons at the table might never care to speak to her again,
but stimulated by the reflection, whether for bad or good, something
must come out of her crucible. The first shock of dismay over, it was
apparent that her dinner partners had decided to make the best of the
situation. The table was small, and general conversation inevitable,
but she chose for the present to let matters take their course,
trusting to Nina to provide that element of uncertainty which was to
make the plot of her comedy fruitful.
Indeed, Nina seemed in her element, and, when a sudden silence fell,
broke the ice with a carelessness which showed her quite oblivious of
its existence.
“So nice of you, Nellie, to have us all together! I was just saying to
Phil that dinners at small tables can be _such_ a bore, if the people
are not all congenial.”
“Jolly, isn’t it?” laughed Nellie. “Jane, why weren’t you hunting this
morning?”
“Oh, Coley didn’t want to,” she said quickly, her rapier flashing in
two directions.
Nellie Pennington understood.
“You _are_ getting heavy, aren’t you, Coley?” she asked sweetly.
“Didn’t Honora have anything up to your weight?”
“I didn’t ask,” returned Van Duyn peevishly. “Dreadful bore,
huntin’----”
“Hear the man!” exclaimed Nellie. “You’re spoiling him, Jane.”
“There’s no hope for any creature who doesn’t like hunting,” put in
Nina in disgust.
“Except the fox,” said Gallatin.
“And there’s not much for him when Nina rides,” laughed Larry Kane.
“Lord, Nina, but you did take some chances to-day.”
“I believe in taking chances,” put in Miss Jaffray calmly. “The element
of uncertainty is all that makes life worth while. Nothing in the world
is so deadly as the obvious.”
“You’ll be kept busy avoiding it,” sighed Nellie. “I’ve been.”
“Oh, I simply ignore it,” she returned, with a quick gesture.
“Jane won’t approve, of course; but the unusual, the daring, the
unconventional are the only things that interest me at all.”
“They interest others when you do them, Nina,” Jane replied smiling
calmly.
“Of course, they do. And you ought to be grateful.”
“We are. I’m sure we’d be very dull without you. Personally I’m a
bromide.”
“Heaven forbid! The things that are easiest are not worth trying for.
Whether your game is fish, fowl or beast (and that includes man), try
the most difficult. The thrill of delight when you bag your game is
worth all the pains of the effort. Isn’t it, Nellie?”
“I don’t know,” the other replied, between oysters. “I bagged Dick, but
then I didn’t have to try very hard. I suppose I would have bagged him
just the same. A woman can have any man she wants, you know.”
“The trouble is,” laughed Larry Kane, “that she doesn’t know what she
wants.”
“And, if she does, Larry,” said Gallatin slowly, “he’s usually the
wrong one.”
Nina laughed.
“His sex must be blamed for that. The right men are all wrong and
the wrong men are all right. That’s my experience. ‘Young saint, old
devil; young devil, old saint.’ You couldn’t provide me with a better
recommendation for a good husband than a bad reputation as a bachelor.
And think of the calm delights of regeneration!”
“You’ll have no difficulty in finding him, Nina,” said Jane.
“I’m afraid there’s no hope for me,” laughed Kane. “I, for one, am too
good for any use.”
“Too good to be true,” sniffed Nina.
“Or too true to be interesting,” he added, below his breath.
Nellie Pennington, having led her companions into deep water, now
turned and guided them into the shoals of the commonplace. Jane
Loring’s eyes and Phil Gallatin’s had met across the table. The act
was unavoidable for they sat directly opposite each other and, though
each looked away at once, the current established, brief as it was,
was burdened with meaning. Gallatin read a hundred things, but love
was not one of them. Jane read a hundred things any one of which might
have been love, but, as far as she knew, was not. Gallatin caught the
end of a gaze she had given him while he was talking to Nina, and he
fancied it to be a kind of indignant curiosity, not in the slightest
degree related to the scorn of her surprise at being detected in the
midst of her inspection. Gallatin found her face thinner, which made
her eyes seem larger and the shadows under them deeper. He had seen
fresh young beauty such as hers break and fade during one season in
New York, but it shocked him a little to find these marks so evident
in so short a time. It was as though a year, two years even, had been
crowded into the few weeks since he had seen her last, as though she
had lived at high tension, letting nothing escape her that could add to
the sum of experience. Her eyes sparkled, and on her cheeks was a patch
of red clearly defined, like rouge, but not rouge, for it came and went
with her humor. She had grown older, more intense, more fragile, her
features more clearly carved, more refined and--except for the hard
little shadows at the corners of her lips--more spiritual.
He glanced at the heavy, bovine face of Coley Van Duyn beside her and
wondered. Coley had been drinking freely and his face was flushed, his
laugh open-mouthed and louder than Nellie Pennington’s humor seemed to
warrant. How could she? God! How could she do it?
A blind rage came upon Gallatin, a sudden wave of intolerance and
rebellion, and he clenched his fists beneath the table. This man drank
as much as he liked and when he pleased. He was the club glutton.
He ate immoderately and drank immoderately, because he liked to do
it, and because that was his notion of comfort. Not, as had been the
case with Gallatin, because he had not been able to live without
it. Van Duyn could stop drinking when he liked, when he had had
enough, when he didn’t want any more. He drank for the mere pleasure
of drinking. Gallatin bit his lip and stared at his untouched wine
glasses. Pleasure? With Gallatin it had been no pleasure. It had been a
medicine, a desperate remedy for a desperate pain, a poisonous medicine
which cured and killed at the same time.
“Phil!” Nina’s voice sounded suddenly at his ear. “Are you ill?”
“Not in the least.”
“You haven’t listened to a word I’ve been saying, and it was so
interesting.”
He laughed.
“What were you thinking of?”
“My sins.”
“Then I don’t wonder that you looked so badly.”
But it was clear that she understood him, for after a short silence she
spoke of other things.
The dinner having progressed to the salad course, visiting was in
order, and the guests sauntered from table to table, exchanging chairs
and partners. Jane Loring was one of the first to take advantage of
this opportunity to escape, and found a seat at Honora Ledyard’s table
between Bibby Worthington and Percy Endicott.