"Yes; she came straight up to these apartments, looking more like a
beautiful eagle than ever,--my heart fell straight into my boots,--and
asked, or rather demanded to see you."
"Aunt Honoria! But yesterday she was staying with the Mordens at
Morristown."
Mrs. Keene was delighted to find that she held a full hand. "I said
that you were out. My dear, she didn't take my word for it. She
marched, or rather sailed along the passage to your room and stabbed
your empty bed with her long, thin fingers. Of course I followed. Then
she turned to me and said: 'Where is she?' I'm sure she didn't add
'woman,' but she as good as did. She always does. I was terrified. I
felt like a shop-lifter before the Lord Chief Justice. She always
reminds me of a great legal dignitary with her snow-white hair and
aquiline nose and the cold, direct gaze."
"Thank you, Brownie, dear, for your very charming literary touch, but
please go on." Beatrix was really interested and curious. Her Aunt
Honoria Vanderdyke, the outstanding figure in New York's most exclusive
society, at whose entrance into her box at the opera the whole house
very nearly rose to its feet, did nothing without a very strong motive.
"I tried to tell a lie--I did indeed--but somehow it stuck in my throat.
Under those two mind-searching eyes I _had_ to say that you had driven
away with Mr. Sutherland York."
"Well, this is interesting!"
"'Ah!' she said. 'Indeed! And how often has Miss Vanderdyke stained
herself with the paint of that mountebank?' 'I really do not know,' I
replied. 'Thank you,' she said. 'That will do,' and went, or rather
floated out of your bedroom and along the passage. I watched her from
the gallery as she went down-stairs and through the door and away. A
wonderful woman! If only Queen Elizabeth had been a lady she might have
looked like her. I honestly confess, my dear----"
Beatrix held up one pink-nailed finger. "Brownie," she said, "I feel in
my bones that there is going to be a row in the family. I've been seen
going into York's studio, Aunt Honoria has been informed! She heard
that I had come to town,--came to spy----"
"Oh, not spy, dear. She could never spy!"
"No, that's true. Inquire first hand, then,--and has now gone home
to----"
The telephone bell rang. Beatrix's eyes gleamed with fun and a sort of
impish amusement. "Brownie, I'll bet you any money you like that that's
mother!"
Mrs. Keene rose. "Oh, no, my dear. Why should it be? It's the
dressmaker, of course." All the same she hesitated apprehensively.
"Well, I'll bet you. The row is simmering."
Mrs. Keene nearly dropped the receiver. "It is your mother," she said.
"She asks for you. And, oh dear me, how icy her voice is!"
Before going to the telephone, Beatrix lit another cigarette, gave a
tilt to a comfortable arm-chair that stood near the little table, sat
down, crossed one round leg over the other in a most leisurely way and
took up the instrument. She looked like a water-color by Van Beers come
to life.
"Good morning, Mamma! How sweet of you to call me up--I shall be glad
to get away from the glare of the streets and reek of gasoline, but I
can't leave until to-morrow. I must try on my costume twice before
then--I'm very sorry, Mamma, darling, but--Well, give father my love and
tell him that he simply must curb his impatience to see me, because it's
absolutely necessary--Aunt Honoria! Is Aunt Honoria there?" She shot a
wink at Amelia Keene, who stood in an attitude of piteous trepidation.
"My very best love to Aunt Honoria. But it will be impossible for me to
leave town at once. Well, then, expect to see me at tea to-morrow. Au
revoir, Mamma. I wish I could stay for a longer chat, but I'm just on my
way out, with so much to do."
She rang off and burst out laughing. "A very good thing you were not
betting, Brownie."
"Did Mrs. Vanderdyke sound----?"
"Angry? Yes, in a white heat. Every word was like a grain of Cayenne
pepper."
"And is it about last night?"
"Yes, obviously, and probably the others. There has been a family
council, that's easy to guess. Scandal has been at work. Isn't it
absurd?"
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried Mrs. Keene, who dreaded disturbances, would
do anything in her power to keep trouble away from her charge, to whom
she was genuinely attached, and saw starvation facing her if she were to
lose her position. "How very unfortunate and distressing all this is!
And, oh, my dear, how _could_ you talk to your mother like that?"
"My dear good Brownie," said Beatrix, tipping off the end of her
cigarette, "what's the use of belonging to this generation if I can't
keep my parents in their place?"
She was just the least little bit disappointed that her companion failed
to catch her touch of satirical humor.
*III*
At the moment when her maid was getting a bath ready for Beatrix and was
waiting in a white marble room filled with the pleasant aroma of scented
bath salts, Pelham Franklin wandered into the dining room of his studio
apartment with his friend, Malcolm Fraser. Both men were in pajamas,
and even then welcomed the occasional soft puff of air that came through
the open window. Another hot day had fallen upon the city and a
blistering sun was already high in a cloudless sky.
The dining room, like the studio and the passages, was filled with
antlered heads and stuffed tarpon, and the skins of bear and tiger and
wild-cat. There was something finely and healthily inartistic about the
whole place, which more nearly resembled the work-rooms of a naturalist
than anything else. The same note was struck by Franklin, who, with his
broad shoulders and deep chest, his six feet of wiry body and small
head, was obviously nothing but a man and not one who had ever been
accused of being handsome either. He shuddered at the word except when
it was applied to the royal mate of a fallow deer. All the same, he
caught all discriminating eyes for the shortness of his thick, dark
hair, the cleanness and humor of his grey, deep-set eyes, the rather
aggressive squareness of his jaw, the small, soldierly moustache that
covered a short upper lip and the strong, white teeth that gleamed
beneath it when he laughed or was very angry. He had the look, too, of
a man who mostly sleeps out under the sky, and the sun-baked skin of one
who is not chained to a city or doomed to the petty slavery of the
social push.
"This damned city," he said. "This time eight days ago we were well out
to sea. If I hadn't been ass enough to put the yacht back for another
stock of tobacco the mail would have waited and grown stale. Rotten bad
luck, eh?"
Fraser grinned ironically. "If it was a question of my having to chuck
a few fish and give up two or three weeks of the open sea to come to the
city to see about adding a million or two to my capital, d'you think I'd
grumble?"
"But you're such a mercenary brute. You think of nothing but money."
"Yes, and the only reason you're not mercenary is that you don't have to
think about it. Thanks, I'll have a sausage. What are you going to do
to-day?"
Franklin groaned. "Sign deeds and things most of the morning at the
lawyer's, having tried to make out what the devil they mean, and after
lunch I'm going to buy a Rolls Royce. Say why?"
"I was going to say why."
"Well, I say why not?"
"But you've got five cars already. You don't want another."
"My dear chap, don't rub it in. I can't help being one of those unlucky
beggars who's got so much, through no fault of his own, that he doesn't
want anything else. Don't heave bricks at me when I wake up with a mild
desire for something I don't need. Encourage me. Help me to work up an
interest in an expensive toy. Tempt me into getting rid of some of my
superfluous cash. It helps some other feller, y'know, and anyway the
only thing I've never done is to desire a Rolls Royce, and I dreamt
about it all night. Will you come and let me see if I can break your
neck?"
"All right! A good way of getting it in shape for to-morrow. You'll
drive out to Greenwich, won't you?"
Franklin looked up quickly from the plate which had been occupying his
close attention. "Greenwich? Why Greenwich?"
Fraser grinned again. He seemed to find a lot of grim amusement in
Franklin. "You read me a telegram that you sent off from the yacht
accepting Mrs. Vanderdyke's invitation for the Pastoral house-party."
"Oh, my God, yes!"
"But perhaps you'll have to undergo a slight operation or sit by the
bedside of a sick relative, or something."
"No; I shall go. I promised Ida Larpent I'd meet her there."
"Oh!" said Fraser, dryly. "I see." He hoped to draw further details.
But Franklin let it go. There were so many far more vital things to
talk about than women.
"By Jove!" said Fraser, going off at a tangent. "I envy you this
house-party. You'll be able to talk to Beatrix."
"Well, that won't worry me much." Franklin had passed from sausages to
Virginia ham and was still going strong.
"Maybe not. Your attention is occupied. It would worry me a whole lot,
though. That girl has a strange effect on me. Always has, ever since I
met her. That was before she left this country to be put to school in
England. I only have to catch her eyes to begin to tremble at the
knees. Ever had that queer sensation?"
"Twice," said Franklin, taking another cup of coffee.
"Who were they?"
"One was a tiger in the Indian bush, and the other a crazy Chinaman
running amuck in San Francisco. They both made my knees waggle."
Fraser lit a cigarette, inhaled a mouthful of smoke and let it dribble
through his nostrils. The first cigarette is worth going through
breakfast to achieve. "Well," he said, without any of the
self-consciousness that generally goes with the pulling down of the
fourth wall, "I don't mind telling you, Pel, old man, but I'd give ten
years of my life to marry Beatrix Vanderdyke."
"An expensive hobby," said Franklin.
"Yes, quite. But I knew her when she was a little bit of a slip of a
thing, before she realized what it meant to bear that dollar-weighted
name. She was the sweetest kid I ever saw. She might have been left
behind by the fairies. I watched the gradual change take place in her
and the disastrous effect of governesses who licked the blacking off her
boots and the army of servants who treated her as though she were the
First National Bank come to life. I was one of the people, almost
unnoticed, who stood on the pier and watched her sail for England with
her mother and father and their retinue. Since her return and during
the time that she was a debutante and every newspaper in the country
knelt at her feet I have met her perhaps a dozen times--the opera, the
horse show, the races, and so on. She has given me two fingers and half
a smile. She has been utterly and absolutely spoiled. She doesn't seem
to be even distantly related to the little girl with the fairy face with
whom I used to play in the country. And that's why I should like to
marry her, and would make a huge sacrifice to do it. You may laugh and
call me all sorts of a fool, but I should like to make it my business to
chip off the outer layer of artificiality and affectation which has been
plastered all over by her training and atmosphere. I would willingly
die in hefty middle-age in order to bring back into that girl's eyes
once more the look that she used to have as a child, so help me God!"
With extreme surprise Franklin watched his usually unemotional friend
get up and walk over to the window. His voice had shaken with deep
feeling and there was a sincerity so profound in the sudden disclosure
of his soul that it put him outside the region of chaff. And so
Franklin left him alone and swallowed the badinage which he had intended
to throw at him. "Ye gods!" he thought. "I wonder if I shall ever meet
a woman who will make me think such things as that, or go the eighth of
an inch out of my way. I rather wish I could." He possessed enough
humor and imagination to know that he was not unlike the girl under
discussion; that he, like her, had been born in surroundings that were
peculiarly artificial and altogether unlike those of the average man;
that the enormous wealth to which he had succeeded made any sort of
effort unnecessary, and left him without the urgent incentive for the
good and glorious grapple for a place in the sun, which made most of his
countrymen prove themselves and their worth.
He led the way into the studio where all that his life could show hung
on the walls. Each head and each stuffed fish and every one of the
skins had its interest, but as he looked round the huge room he told
himself that they all came to very little and proved that he was a fine
example of a man who had done nothing but play games. His toys were
very empty and meaningless. A new and curious impatience with himself
came over him. He was rather annoyed with Fraser for having shown him
the quivering nerve of his hitherto hidden sincerity. "My God!" he
thought. "I wonder when I shall begin to live!"
*IV*
It was twelve o'clock before Beatrix left the house with Mrs. Lester
Keene and walked down to Fifty-seventh Street. To the relief of the
gasping city, a phalanx of dark clouds had put out the sun. A storm
which had burst with great violence over Westchester County was bearing
slowly down. The air was heavy and windless, and the gasoline vapor
from all motor traffic hung like an oily veil everywhere. The seats in
the Park were filled with listless people. Men sat on the tops of
busses with their coats off. The very trees looked tired and sapless.
"I wonder how soon we shall get the storm," said Beatrix.
Mrs. Keene fanned herself with an envelope. "The sooner the better.
This heat is unbearable. Don't you think, dear, that you can leave town
to-night? I'm longing to get back to the country."
Beatrix crossed the street. The only cool figure in the city was that
of the rather too plump young woman who stood naked and unashamed over
the fountain in the geometrical open space in front of the Plaza. "Oh,
yes, I could, of course," she said, "but if you can put up with another
night here, I won't. I'm not going to allow mother and father and Aunt
Honoria to imagine that I'm awed by them--that would be weak. For the
sake of the whole of the younger generation I must maintain my attitude
of complete independence." She glanced at the line of automobiles which
were drawn up outside the famous shop in Fifty-seventh Street. "The
Dames from Virginia seem to be keeping Raoul fairly busy. I rather hope
that Tubby will be here to-day. She is such fun."
"Tubby" was the nickname which had been given to the astute woman who
had started her dressmaking business in London and extended it to New
York,--a woman who had married an Italian Count and who, with consummate
art and the assistance of an imaginative press agent, ran herself as
though she were an actor-manager and her shops as though they were
theatres. By charging enormous prices and calling her frocks by
poetical names she had bluffed the gullible public into believing that
she was the last word--the very acme of fashion. Like most charlatans
who succeed, she had grown to believe that she was what she said she
was,--an artist who had been sent into the world not for the purpose of
making money or any such vulgar and banal proceeding, but in order to
design coverings for female forms which would leave as much of them as
possible open to the gaze without causing the arrest of the wearer.
At the first sight of Beatrix there was a stir and a rustle among a
collection of tall, willowy and rather insolent young women who were
lolling about, and a whisper of "Miss Vanderdyke" was passed from one to
the other. Tubby's deputy wabbled forward,--herself a lady of very
generous proportions who shone, like a fat seal, in very shiny satin.
"Oh, good morning, Miss Vanderdyke!" she said, deferentially. "Your
costume is well advanced. Will you be good enough to step upstairs?"
Beatrix nodded. "Is Tubby here to-day?" she asked.
The seal-like lady looked as though she had received a prod from a sharp
fork. "No," she said, "the Countess is feeling the strain of an even
more than usually busy season. She is undergoing a rest cure. As you
know, she's very high-strung."
"I'm sorry," said Beatrix.
Followed by Mrs. Keene, she went up a wide staircase painted white and
arrived at what Tubby invariably called the "atelier," on the first
floor. Here the Southerners, to whom Beatrix had referred, were
undergoing the apparently exciting process of being tried on. There
were perhaps a dozen women in the large airy room, and each one was
surrounded by fitters sticking pins into various parts of them and
paying no sort of attention to the suggestions or the protests of their
victims.
A very special girl came forward with the Shakesperian costume that was
being carried out, or "created," as Tubby would say, for Beatrix. It
was a sort of Titania costume, white, loose and airy, with a shimmer
here and there of silver, which could very easily have been made at home
for a mere nothing. The special girl, with a quiet "If you will allow
me," unhooked Beatrix's frock, murmuring one or two well-turned
compliments as to her figure, and helped her into the robe that was to
cause a sensation in the Queen Anne gardens of the Vanderdyke country
house.
Utterly unconscious of the other women in the room, Beatrix swept up to
the astonished Mrs. Keene, and in a high clear voice, cried out: "Set
your heart at rest; the fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother
was a votaress of my order; and in the spiced Indian air, by night, full
often hath she gossip'd by my side; and sat with me on Neptune's yellow
sands, marking the embarked traders on the flood; when we have laugh'd
to see the sails conceive and grow big-bellied with the wanton wind----"
"Oh, my dear!" cried Mrs. Keene. "Do you remember that there are people
present. That may be Shakespeare, but really his choice of words is
very shocking."
Beatrix burst out laughing. "You should have waited for the next few
lines, Brownie. Even _I_ am going to blush when I spout them under the
trees. Yes," she said to the girl, "I think this costume will do quite
well. Don't forget to let me have a wand. The wreath I'll make myself
of real flowers. Shall I have to come again?"
"No, Miss Vanderdyke, there's nothing to do now except the silver belt,
and we needn't trouble you as to that."
"Well," said Beatrix, "I shall leave town to-morrow directly after
lunch. Be sure you send the dress round to my house in good time.
Thank you. Good morning."
Mrs. Keene gave a little cry. "Oh, you've forgotten to put on your
frock, dear," she said.
"Have I? It's so hot it didn't seem necessary."
Beatrix came back. She had already arrived half-way towards the
staircase in what was a most bewitching undress. She never could resist
the temptation of putting Mrs. Keene on tenter-hooks. She stepped into
her frock and submitted to being hooked up. She noticed that the girl
who had tried her on looked very pale and tired. "Aren't you going
away?" she asked.
A rather wan smile passed over the girl's pretty face. "No, Miss
Vanderdyke, not this year."
"What, you aren't going to take any holiday at all?"
The girl shook her head. "My mother has been very ill, and doctor's
bills----"
"I'm so sorry," said Beatrix. "What's your name?"
"Mary Nicholson."
Beatrix went over to Mrs. Keene, who was examining a Paris model between
the windows. She opened a bag which hung on the elderly lady's arm and
took out a cheque-book. Armed with this she made her way over to a
desk, sat down and wrote a cheque for five hundred dollars, payable to
the girl whom she had seen constantly on duty since the previous
October. This she slipped into an envelope and wrote on it, "Please
take a little holiday to oblige me?" And having returned the
cheque-book to the ample bag in which Mrs. Keene kept enough necessities
to provide against shipwreck or other likely accidents, slipped the
envelope into the girl's hand and said "Good-bye. Let me know about
your mother."
On the way down stairs the first crash of thunder broke over the city
and heavy rain beat against the window. "We shall have to drive home,"
said Beatrix. "Will you ask them to call up a taxi?"
Her ladyship's deputy came forward. "I hope you found the costume to
your liking, Miss Vanderdyke."
"Oh, yes," said Beatrix. "It'll do very well. I shall have to be very
careful how I'm photographed, because if I stand against the light
there'll be very little left to the imagination."
"This's an artistic age," replied Madame, with a sly smile.
Beatrix joined her companion under the shop's awning, from the corners
of which the rain came down in long streams. The uniformed man, with
"Raoul" on his hat, was making frantic endeavors to obtain a cab, but
without success. The line of taxis outside the Great Northern Hotel had
been taken.
"I'm afraid we shall have to wait," said Mrs. Keene.
"I don't mind the rain," said Beatrix. "Let's walk."
"I'd so much rather not, dear," said Mrs. Keene. "Getting wet always
brings on my rheumatism, and will absolutely spoil my dress. Have
patience for at least five minutes."
"D'you think I can?" asked Beatrix. "Five minutes is a long time."
Two men drove by in a new and beautiful limousine. The one who was not
driving turned round and saw the two ladies standing under the awning.
The car slowed down, turned and came smoothly up to Raoul's. Fraser
jumped out and stood bare-headed in front of Beatrix.
"How d'you do?" he said. "Pretty bad storm this. Can we drive you
anywhere?"
"Oh, hello!" said Beatrix. "I thought it must be you. Yes, it'll be
awfully kind of you to give us a lift. Taxis seem to be at a premium.
Mrs. Lester Keene--Mr. Malcolm Fraser."
"How d'you do," said Mrs. Keene, the thought of rheumatism and a spoiled
dress at the back of her cordiality. "It is very kind of you to come to
our rescue."
Fraser beamed at Beatrix. His whole whimsical, sincere and honest
personality paid deference to her loveliness. "You owe me nothing," he
said. "I wish you did. I only happened to see you standing here. It's
Franklin's car."
Beatrix smiled back at him. He still seemed to her to be the
self-constituted brother--the round-faced serious boy who used to look
after her sled and carry her skates and make himself generally and
generously useful. "You have a gift for happening to see people when
they need you, Malcolm," she said, and he was amply rewarded.
Franklin got out of the car and came to meet Beatrix as she led the way
under the rain-splashed awning.
"How are we to thank you, Mr. Franklin?" Beatrix held out a most
gracious hand. "You come just at the moment when I was going to plough
through all this wet."
"You'd have been soaked to the skin in about a minute," he said. "It's
tropical." He held open the door of the limousine.
He showed a touch of reproof at her impatience which Beatrix was quick
to catch. She remembered that invariably when she had met him there had
been a suggestion of antagonism in his manner. For some reason she was
not, she knew, altogether to his liking. It amused her. "I'll ride in
front, if I may," she said, with the mischievous intention of seeing
whether he would try to coerce her as he had done once before, "but I'll
wait until you get in."
He, too, remembered the incident at a dance the year before when he had
told her that she was sitting in a dangerous draught and asked her to
move, and she had declined. He stood up to her. This spoiled, wilful
girl needed a master. He felt an impish desire to prevent her from
getting her own way. "I'd rather you rode inside," he replied. "Then
there'll be no chance of your getting wet."
"Please let me ride in front," said Beatrix, and a bewitching smile and
a little upward look of appeal settled the matter.
Franklin returned to his seat and, when Beatrix was in, made a long arm
over her knees and shut the door with a bang. "What a girl!" he said to
himself. "As pretty as paint; but, ye gods, how she needs the spurs."
As sick as a dog that Beatrix was not with him, Fraser handed Mrs. Keene
in and yelled, through another crash of thunder: "Go ahead, Pel!"
"Where may I drive you?"
"Anywhere you like," said Beatrix, airily. "I've nothing to do."
The rain was running in streams along the gutters and the day had gone
as dark as though it were late evening. The sidewalks were deserted and
people who had been caught were huddling under doorways. A clean, fresh
smell had taken the place of stale gasoline.
Franklin was nonplussed. He looked round and saw the girl's
delicately-cut profile with its short nose blunted at the tip, its
rather full, red lips and round chin. She was sitting with her
shoulders back, her head held high, and an air of supreme unconcern. In
no part of the world, under any sort of sky, under any kind of condition
had he seen a girl so delightful to the eye and so irritating to the
temper. He and Fraser were on their way home and two men were going to
lunch with them. It didn't matter to her whether he were on his way to
a wedding or a funeral. She had nothing to do.
He sent the car forward, turned it into Fifth Avenue and drove up to the
Vanderdyke house. Its great doors were boarded up and no footman was
ready to spring out with a huge umbrella.
"I'm quite happy," said Beatrix. "May I sit here until this downpour
relaxes a little? It's a very nice car."
Franklin sent out a big laugh. This young woman took the biscuit. It
might go on pouring for an hour. But she was quite happy, _she_ had
nothing to do and therefore he must cry a halt to life and its
obligations and engagements and be content, and even thankful, to sit at
her side until such time as it pleased her and the storm to make a move.
"Please sit here as long as you like," he said. "Fraser and I have some
men coming to lunch at one o'clock. Will you excuse me if we get out
and leave you?"
"Of course," said Beatrix, without allowing him to see the remotest
inkling of the fact that she knew how much he would love to treat her as
though she were an unbroken colt. "Before you have to go, tell me about
to-morrow. You'll drive, I suppose? I saw your name on mother's list
for the Pastoral house-party, and she told me that you had agreed to
play a small part."
"Yes, I shall drive," said Franklin, running his eyes over her
curiously, thinking how beautiful she was and how badly she stood in
need of coming up against love or grief. "Fraser's an old friend of
yours, it appears," he added, looking at his watch.
"Indeed, yes. But mother doesn't know my old friends."
"I see." He knew that this implied question as to why Fraser was not
included in the house-party was answered. This girl might have served
as First Secretary to an Ambassador, or have been a leader of society
for twenty years.
Then he opened the door of the car and stood bareheaded in the downpour.
"I hope you won't be obliged to sit here long," he said. "I'll send a
man along to look after the car. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Beatrix, with a perfectly straight face, but laughing
at him with her eyes. "Thank you so much for rescuing and looking after
two lone females."
"Come on, Malcolm," said Franklin, shortly.
And Fraser, wondering what sort of madness had attacked his friend,
murmured things to the equally amazed elderly lady, bowed to the calm,
slight, alluring figure in the front of the car and went.
Beatrix watched them duck their heads against the slanting rain which
bounced up from the pavement and hurry away. "I like him for that," she
thought. "I didn't think he would do it." Then she picked up the
speaking tube and called out: "Brownie, so that you sha'n't get
rheumatism and spoil your dress we're going to enjoy this shelter until
the rain stops. And, by the way, I think the house-party's going to be
fairly interesting after all."
*V*
The Vanderdyke house at Greenwich was built upon a point which jutted
out into the Sound. It was not merely a house, it was an edifice,--a
great florid, stiff, stone building which might easily have been a town
hall, a public library, a museum, a lunatic asylum or a hospital. It
had a peculiar green roof and many turrets, and it formed a landmark
which could be seen for miles from all parts of the country.
A long drive through beautifully wooded gardens ablaze with lilac and
rhododendron, and wide lawns bespattered with uncountable groups of
erect tulips did much to soften the angular pomposity of the barrack
which had been built by Beatrix's grandfather. Stone pergolas covered
with climbing roses on the point of bursting into bloom shot out from
the house and hid the ample stables and garages. An inspiring and
invigorating view of the Sound caught the eye through the trees. There
had been a belated spring, after a long and cantankerous winter, but now
tree and shrub vied with one another and the first fresh green of them
all was almost dazzling. The chestnuts, especially, were prodigal with
bloom and looked like great Christmas trees thickly covered with bunches
of white candles, and everywhere birds sang and went merrily about the
little business of their lives.
The car in which Beatrix and Mrs. Lester Keene drove up was followed
closely by Franklin's new Rolls Royce, in the body of which all his
baggage was stacked. Franklin, who had been driving, sprang out and
opened the door of the other car. "I've been dogging your heels," he
said, "and incidentally getting all your dust. How d'you do?"
"Don't blame me for the dust," said Beatrix. "Why didn't you overtake us
and finish the journey in bright conversation with the two grateful and
admiring females to whom you behaved like a knight errant yesterday?
You and I always seem to have a great deal to talk about, don't we?"
Franklin knew that she was pulling his leg. Hitherto, during their
occasional meetings, their conversation had been more or less
monosyllabic. He felt tempted to say that he preferred driving to
talking to women, but held his peace. There would perhaps be plenty of
opportunities of getting his own back.
They passed a double line of men-servants and went into the large hall
together. Mrs. Keene gave one quick glance round and, imitating a
rabbit which hears the approach of enemy, scuttled across to the
elaborate staircase and hurried away. Mrs. Vanderdyke,--a very
finished, rather too tall, insistently slight woman who never raised her
voice and seldom laughed and seemed to be continually watching herself
in a mental looking-glass,--met them. Her dark hair was dressed as
carefully as a salad. Her perfectly correct and well-balanced face was
as well painted as the cover of a magazine, and without any undue
compression she wore a white frock which might have been made for a girl
of twenty-four. She gave her left hand to Beatrix and placed a mere
suggestion of a kiss on her left ear. "So you've come," she said. Her
right hand she gave to Franklin, to whom she added, "You are very
welcome."
"Thanks," said Franklin. "I'm delighted to be here."
And then Miss Honoria Vanderdyke sailed forward. With her white hair,
thin, thoroughbred face, rather frail, tall figure and old-fashioned
dress she might have stepped out of one of Jane Austen's books. Without
any attempt to act the part, she looked every inch the great lady and
stood frankly and proudly for all that was best of the generation which
is scoffingly referred to as mid-Victorian. She, too, gave Beatrix a
perfunctory greeting and the merest peck on the cheek, and turned with
the utmost graciousness to Franklin. "I'm very glad to see you," she
said. "Your father and I were old friends. I hope that we may know each
other better."
Franklin bowed over her hand. In all his travels he had rarely seen a
woman who so well lived up to his ideas of dignity and beauty grown old
gracefully. "Thank you very much," he said. "You're very kind."
Then Mr. Vanderdyke made his appearance--the mere husk of a
man--uneager, hypochondriacal, melancholy-looking, grey-headed, with a
white moustache every hair of which seemed to be in a state of utter
depression. Completely ignoring his daughter, he gave a limp hand to
Franklin. "I'm glad to see you," he said, without any warmth, and then
backed away and began to look at Beatrix with an expression of such
pained surprise that she almost burst out laughing.
Her whole reception by the family proved to her that she was now
regarded by them as the prodigal daughter. There was obviously going to
be a scene presently. Well, she didn't care. She could hold her own
against all of them. She almost wished that there was enough in her
relations with Sutherland York to warrant their disturbed feelings. It
was like eating an egg without salt to proceed into a row without a
cause.
"I dare say that you'd like to go up to your room at once," said Mrs.
Vanderdyke.
Franklin bowed, smiled and followed the footman upstairs.
Through the French windows Beatrix caught sight of a number of people
having tea on one of the terraces. She made no effort to join them, but
sat on the edge of a long, narrow table with bulbous legs and selected a
magazine. Beneath her short frock rather more than two delicate ankles
showed themselves. She saw no reason why they shouldn't, knowing that
they were worth infinite admiration. Her father irritably acknowledged
that he had never seen her so lovely, so cool, so self-possessed or more
utterly desirable in her first sweet flush of beauty and youth. She
seemed to say: "Come on, all of you, and get it over, and then let there
be peace."
Her challenge was eagerly accepted by her mother, who looked round to
see that the hall was deserted of guests and servants, and closed down
upon Beatrix with more anger in her eyes than the girl had ever before
seen in them.
"I don't quite know what's to be done with you," she said.
"I thought it was agreed that I shall play 'Titania,'" replied Beatrix,
glancing up with an air of mild surprise. "I've brought a charming
costume with me."
Aunt Honoria joined in. "In my opinion the moment is ill-chosen for
this unpleasant business. It might better have been reserved until our
guests are changing for dinner. However, there's every excuse for your
mother's impatience, Beatrix, and as the matter is one about which we
all feel very deeply it will be well for you to take it seriously."
Beatrix gave a little bow.
"In the history of the family," said Mr. Vanderdyke, with more feeling
than anyone had ever seen him display, "never before has one of its
women been connected with a scandal."
Beatrix laid down the magazine. "Somebody said that scandal comes from
the mouth of Ananias." She gave them all the epigram for what it was
worth.
Her mother spoke again. "Aunt Honoria has had a letter from a friend of
hers telling her that you've been seen going into the apartment of a
portrait painter, called Sutherland York, late at night."
"And coming out," added her father.
"I should naturally come out," said Beatrix, smiling at him as though he
had said an unintentionally comic thing.
"It has been reported to me," said Aunt Honoria, "that as often as once
a week during the winter and spring you've visited this man alone at
night. You don't deny that?"
"Oh, no."
"Good God!" said Mr. Vanderdyke.
"And you don't deny that you were there last night?"
"The night before last," said Beatrix quietly.
Mrs. Vanderdyke almost raised her voice. "What you could see in a
flamboyant creature of that type----"
"That isn't the point," said Aunt Honoria. "We are not concerned as to
whether Beatrix has developed vulgar tastes and has found this painter
attractive. We are concerned with the fact that for some utterly
inadequate and inexcusable reason, she has surrounded our name with a
net-work of vulgar gossip which, inevitably, will find its way into the
scurrilous paragraphs of the carrion press."
"For the first time in history!" Mr. Vanderdyke almost wailed.
"We're very jealous of our good name," continued Aunt Honoria. "We've
endeavored to set an example to society. It's inconceivable to us that
it should have been left to you, old enough as you are to appreciate the
truth of things, to put a slur upon us and with an obvious disregard for
our reputation the subject of smoke-room gossip. I don't think that
even _you_ could make me believe that you've played the fool with this
picturesque person, who, I hear, makes professional love to the silly
wives of men with more money than sense. I can see that you've been
merely indulging your latent sense of adventure or trying to persuade
yourself that you've been playing the heroine's part in a romance."
"I wonder," said Mrs. Vanderdyke.
Beatrix gave her a quick look. The implication of those two words hit
her hard. But she said nothing, and gave the white-haired lady another
little bow.
"A portrait-painting charlatan!" said Mr. Vanderdyke.
Aunt Honoria paid very little attention to these interruptions. "That's
my firm belief. Please God, I'm justified. You were asked to return
last night, so that this most unfortunate business might be gone into
quietly. You exercised the right of modern youth to tell us that we
might go to the devil. Let me assure you, my dear Beatrix, now that
you've chosen to come, that we do not intend to be relegated to that
person, even to oblige you. On the contrary, the point that has been
gone into during your absence is the place to which we are going to
relegate you."
"I don't quite understand," said Beatrix.
Her mother put in "probably not," to the peculiar discussion which was
being conducted, on the face of it, as though its subject were
politics,--without outward heat, angry gesture or raised voices, but
with an intensity of feeling that made the air vibrate all round these
four ultra-civilized people.
"And I am very far from well," said Mr. Vanderdyke, with curious
irrelevance.
Beatrix very nearly laughed. "Dear old Daddy," she said to herself,
"how funny he can be."
"We came to a decision this morning," said Aunt Honoria, "in which I
think you'll be interested. Your attitude over the telephone on top of
my very inconvenient visit to New York the night before last,--of which,
naturally, your companion told you,--was a pretty conclusive proof that
you're quite callous of what has been and will be said about you and
that you show no inclination to accept our demands, requests or
pleadings to tone down your supreme individualism to a normal level and
give up playing the ostrich in town. In short, my dear Beatrix, we
realize that unless we assert our authority this once and make it
impossible for you to get us all into a deeper scandal, you'll continue
to 'carry on,'--I quote the expression from the language of the
servants' hall,--either with York or some other equally impossible
member of the long-haired brigade."
"I'm old enough to take care of myself, I think," said Beatrix.
"We don't," said her mother.
"Nor of us and the family reputation," added Aunt Honoria, "which, as
I've said already, is the point. You'll go through with the
pastoral,--that'll avoid comment,--then you'll see a doctor and it'll be
given out that your constitution needs an entire change of air and
scene. About a week after the present house-party has broken up you'll
join me on a visit to my cottage in Maine, and there you'll spend a
quiet, thoughtful year learning how to live from nature, with my devoted
assistance."
Mrs. Vanderdyke punctuated this sentence of banishment with an inaudible
comment.
A sort of groan came from Mr. Vanderdyke. He adored his only child.
With a supreme effort of will, Beatrix controlled an almost overwhelming
desire to scream at what was, to her way of thinking, a form of
punishment quite barbarian in its severity. She remained, instead, in
an attitude of polite patience, determining to die rather than to show
how awful the very thought of such an excommunication was to her, who
was only really happy when in the whirl of town life. Her inherent
honesty made her confess to herself that, little as she realized it at
the time,--never having stopped in her impetuous desire to go her own
way and carry out her own wishes,--she had laid herself open to every
charge brought against her. She owned that her indiscretion had been
colossal, and instantly dismissed all idea of giving her family a
picture of the utter harmlessness of her relations with York. She
disliked and regretted having brought the family name into the mouth of
gossipers as much as the three people who stood over her and knew
perfectly well that they fully intended to carry the punishment out to
its bitter end. But,--and here her fertile mind began to work,--was
there a single living person so foolish as to believe that she was made
of the feeble stuff that knuckled down to the loss of one whole exciting
season in town for the lack of a brain wave? Had she ever yet, either
in the nursery or in school, so wanted in courage or in wit as not to
have been able to carry out a quick and effective counterstroke against
authority? Not she!
She looked up, avoided the eyes of her father, mother and aunt, and saw
Pelham Franklin in the gallery that ran round the hall. He was standing
with his hands in his pockets, looking at a portrait of the Vanderdyke
who had come over from Holland to lay the foundations of a great
fortune. A sudden impish and daring idea took possession of her. She
would use this man, as she had hitherto used any other likely person, to
triumph over her present quandary, and trust to her invariable good luck
to see her through. It was the legitimate outcome of her autocratic
upbringing, the fact that she had had it instilled into her from
babyhood that she had only to raise her finger to obtain her own way.
Acting, as usual, on impulse and not stopping to give a second's thought
to the complications that might be caused by it, she turned back to the
three people who stood waiting for her to speak with a very sweet smile,
and the glorious knowledge that she could turn the tables upon them and
become top-dog again. She was going to fight for that season in town
with all her strength, never mind who paid for her success.
"I'm very sorry about all this," she said, "and I want you to believe
that I had no intention of inspiring unpleasant remarks or putting you
to all this pain. But you'll be glad to hear that this story about my
visits to Sutherland York is only half true,--like most stories of the
kind. It hasn't occurred to you, has it, that more than one man may
live in York's apartment house and that I may have been going to see
him?" She saw, with a quicker action of her heart, that Franklin was
coming downstairs.
"It makes no difference whether the man you went to see was York or
another," said Aunt Honoria, in her most incisive way. "The fact
remains that everyone is talking about your visits to some man, alone at
night."
Franklin caught the words, gave a quick, sympathetic glance at Beatrix,
whom he rather pitied,--he detested family rows,--and drew up to examine
another picture, with well-simulated interest.
Beatrix began to enjoy herself. A wave of exhilaration swept over her.
She had a surprise in store for her family that would transfer her from
the position of a prodigal daughter to that of a Joan of Arc, a Grace
Darling, a Florence Nightingale. Never mind who paid!
She raised her voice so that Franklin should hear her. "I would
willingly and without any argument be sent to the backwoods for a year
if I'd made a fool of myself with a man like Sutherland York. He was
never anything more to me than a poseur and a freak, and as such he
amused me. But what will you and all these people with nasty minds say
if I tell you that I had every right to pay midnight visits to the man
who lived in the studio opposite to York's, and if there is anything
attaching to our name it is not scandal, but romance?"
Franklin wheeled round. What on earth was the girl trying to suggest to
save her skin?
An amazing change came over the three accusers. They all knew that
Franklin's rooms were in the same building as York's,--Franklin, the man
whom they would rather see married into their family than anyone alive.
"W-what d'you mean?" cried Mr. Vanderdyke, stammering in his eagerness.
Mrs. Vanderdyke lost her perfect reserve for once and grasped her
daughter's arm. "Tell us! Tell us!" she cried.
Over Aunt Honoria's face the beginning of a new understanding came.
"What is this right, Beatrix?" she asked. "What is it?"
Beatrix came to the jump, rose to it and cleared it at a bound, with
every drop of blood in her lovely body tingling with excitement and a
glorious sense of being alive, being beautiful, being able to carry
everything before her. She was leaping from one scrape to another, but
in this one she was dealing with a sportsman who would help her somehow.
"The right," she said, throwing up her head, "of a girl who goes to see
the man to whom she has been secretly married."
She rose, and with exquisite shyness and her fair skin touched with the
color that nature paints upon the petals of apple blossoms, went across
to Franklin and ran her hand through his arm.
*VI*
In her relief at being able to put a stop to the ugly story which
coupled the names of Beatrix Vanderdyke and Sutherland York, Aunt
Honoria,--who invariably took the lead in all matters relating to her
family,--not only at once gave out to the house-party the news of the
romantic marriage of her niece and Pelham Franklin, but, with her
characteristic thoroughness, called up the editor of the New York
_Times_ and gave it to him for immediate publication. In her mind's eye
she saw the front page of the next day's issue setting forth under big
headlines, with photographs of the happy couple, an elaborate account of
the wealth and importance of the families of Vanderdyke and Franklin.
This would be taken up and spun out by all the other papers in the
country, and then, she rejoiced to know, would be killed the insidious
scandal with which the family name had been connected to the horror and
pain of all who bore it.
Neither she, nor any of the members of the house party, stopped to ask a
single question. They had swallowed the story of Beatrix and Sutherland
York whole. They now swallowed the news of the secret marriage with the
same appetite. It is the human way. The details mattered nothing. The
motive which led to so unusual a proceeding as a secret marriage, the
place and date of the ceremony, mattered nothing. They had all believed
without corroboration that Beatrix had fallen a victim to the
picturesque attractions of the much-advertised portrait painter. In the
same way they accepted the new and much more exciting fact and hastened
to congratulate their hostess and the two young people concerned.
Beatrix found herself, as she knew that she would, the heroine of the
family. Her mother smiled upon her during the remainder of the day and
frequently placed her usually unemotional hand on her daughter's
shoulder and said: "My dear, dear child," or "dear Beatrix."
Her father,--that rather pathetic figure, a man who had never done a
stroke of work since his birth--whose immense wealth had utterly
deprived him of the initiative to do things, conquer things or achieve
things, and who found himself in late middle-age without having
discovered the master-secret of life--how to live,--came out of his
almost settled melancholia for the time being and behaved at dinner like
any ordinary healthy, normal man, laughing frequently and cracking
little jokes with his guests.. Whenever he caught his daughter's eyes
he gave her the most tender and appreciative smile, and came so far out
of his shell as to raise his glass to Franklin, who responded with a
very queer smile.
As for Aunt Honoria,--a past-mistress in the art of graciousness,--so
proud and happy was she that her pet ambition of a union between her
family and Franklin's had been fulfilled, that she readily forgave the
unconventional behavior of the two young people, the lack of a wonderful
wedding and a great society function, and beamed upon them both. She
caught Beatrix as she was about to dash upstairs to change for dinner
and folded her arms about the girl, whose eyes danced with the spirit of
mischief and the sheer fun of it all. "My darling," she said, "you've
made me very happy. No wonder you came home to-day defiant and with a
high head. You held a royal flush. You've won the love of a man, my
dear. Honor and respect it, and may God bless you!"
Upstairs in her room, whose windows gave a view of the Sound that was
indescribably charming, Beatrix had a brief, almost breathless talk with
Mrs. Lester Keene, to whom the story of the secret marriage had come as
a frightful shock. This amiable, weak woman, hide-bound in her ideas of
right and wrong, met her with nerves unstrung, and incoherent in her
terror of being implicated in what she knew to be a lie.
But Beatrix waved her stammering reproaches aside. "Brownie," she cried,
at the top of her form, "whatever happens you're safe, so don't worry.
I've jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, but I'm an excellent
jumper and I believe in luck. I dare not think where the next spring
will land me, so I'm not going to think. Sufficient unto the day, you
know, and Franklin is a sportsman. All I know is that at this moment
I'm the little pet of all the world; that I had the unspeakable delight
of turning the tables on my people and that I feel as beautiful as I
look,--and that's saying a good deal. Now run away and tell Helene to
come and dress me as befits a young wife still on her honeymoon." She
gave the elderly, disturbed lady a kiss on both her cheeks, shooed her
out of the room and broke into song.
Only once during dinner did she permit herself to meet Franklin's eyes
and then, for the first time since she had sprung her suddenly conceived
surprise upon her irate family, she received a momentary shock which ran
through her body like that of electricity, leaving her tingling and
frightened. But with her abounding capacity for recovery and her
all-conquering belief in herself and her gift for getting out of scrapes
she shook the feeling off and went through the rest of the evening in
the highest spirits. No one had ever seen her looking so brilliantly or
so exquisitely beautiful. Her eyes shone like stars, her dimples came
and went and came again. She was the life of the house, moving from
group to group like a young Helen--a wood nymph--the very spirit of joy
and laughter. Not for the ninety-ninth part of a second did she permit
herself to pull up and wonder what she had done; where her impetuous,
hare-brained, autocratic desire for self-preservation might lead. Never
for an instant, or the fraction of an instant, did she give a thought to
the appalling difficult position into which her spur-of-the-moment
scheme had placed Franklin. What she had done she had done, and there,
for the time being, was the end of it. Somehow or other everything
would come right, as it always did. Why else was she who she was? Why
else had she been led to believe that the earth, the sun and the moon
were hers. It was all the natural correlation of her training since she
had been brought into the world.
Franklin allowed Beatrix to avoid a talk with him until many of the
guests had gone to bed. Between the moment when she had slipped her arm
through his and made that urgent and almost childlike appeal which had
carried him off his feet and left him without caution and sanity, and
the one when he stalked across the pompous hall to her side and drew her
into an alcove, he had done some peculiar thinking. He was a
straight-going, honest fellow, who, like Beatrix, had gone through life
having his own way. No living soul had ever before coerced him from the
path that he had chosen. He was in no sense of the word a lady's man,
and he had no idea of marrying and settling down until he had had enough
of hunting and camping.
He had watched Beatrix closely. He had seen her reinstated into the
family favor, taking the congratulations that were poured upon her by
them and their friends with a charming dignity that took his breath
away. He guessed, of course, that he had been "used" by Beatrix to save
herself from punishment, because he had been obliged to overhear the
last part of the family attack. But he expected from moment to moment
that she would either permit him to deny the story of the secret
marriage or do so herself. It was inconceivable to him that this lie
was to be allowed to get them both deeper and deeper into a most
deplorable tangle.
He was blazing with anger when at last he found her alone for a moment,
and he made no attempt to hide it. "I want a word with you," he said
shortly.
Beatrix tried to escape. "A little later," she said.
"No, now."
"I'm so sorry----"
Franklin took her arm and led her into the quiet corner. "Sit down," he
said.
There was something so new and refreshing in receiving orders, that
Beatrix gave a little laugh and obeyed.
Franklin took a seat at her side. Their knees almost touched.
"You evidently take me for many kinds of a fool," he said.
"Not at all. May I trouble you for a cushion?" She bent slightly
forward.
He placed one behind her back. "Whether you do or not, you've made me
one,--the most colossal example of a damned idiot I've ever struck."
"Oh, please don't say that."
Franklin's eyes flicked. This girl could be flippant under such
circumstances, could she? She could sit knee to knee with an angry man
and remain as self-possessed and undisturbed as though she were resting
between dances. Well, he would show her with whom she was dealing!
"Before your mother goes to bed," he said, "I'm going to put my foot
through this yarn of yours and give the game away."
"Oh, no," replied Beatrix, "you'll certainly not do that."
"Why not?"
"Because, in addition to many other attributes, you happen to be a
sportsman."
"But how long d'you imagine I'm to let this thing go on?"
"I haven't thought about it."
"Don't you see that you'd better begin to think pretty quickly?"
"No. Everything is going very well. Why disturb it?"
"But look at it from my point of view."
"To tell you the truth--I usually do tell the truth--to-day has been the
exception that proves the rule,--I'm only able at present to look at it
from mine."
"You realize that every hour makes the whole thing more impossible.
It'll all be in the papers to-morrow."
"Isn't that exciting? I hope they'll be able to get an attractive
photograph of you." Her heart was beating more and more quickly.
Franklin began to pull his short moustache. He hardly dared to trust to
his choice of words. Yesterday he had told himself that this girl wanted
the spurs. The thought came back to him as he sat racking his brain for
some way out of the ghastly mess into which she had placed him. He saw
that it was no earthly use to endeavor to talk sensibly to her and that
she had made up her mind to hold him to the mad plan of escape into
which she had dragged him. Very good. He would show her that sportsmen
were also very human men.
He raised his finger to a footman who was crossing the hall. "Have my
things taken at once from my room to Mrs. Franklin's," he said, and, as
the man bowed and went, put his hand under the elbow of the girl--who
had turned as white as the gardenia at her waist--and added: "Let's go
and say good night, darling. It's time for bed."
Beatrix turned upon him and wrenched her arm away. "You don't know what
you're saying," she said.
"Oh, yes, I do. You've had your way to-day, I'm going to have mine
to-night. Two can play your game, you know, and I'm going to show you
how completely I can play it when I choose."
He took her hand in a grip of iron and led her to where Mrs. Vanderdyke
was standing with Aunt Honoria. He looked the loving husband to the
life. "Good night," he said. "Bee and I are rather tired after an
exciting day."
Mrs. Vanderdyke gave him her hand, with her best smile. "And to-morrow
we begin rehearsing and shall all be very busy. Good night."
"You look quite tired, my darling," said Aunt Honoria tenderly.
Beatrix received the kiss, tried to return the smile and to find even
one word to say, but her heart was trembling, and her hand was held so
tight that her fingers were crushed together. She heard other remarks
as though they were spoken a long way off, felt herself guided and
controlled up the wide stairway as if she were walking in a dream, and
found herself standing in the gallery.
"Which is your room!"
It was not a question. It was an order, sharp and short.
She pointed to the door, shaking like a frightened deer.
But when she stood inside her room, heard the door shut and locked, and
saw Franklin with his white teeth gleaming under his moustache, her
voice came back and she clasped her hands together in a very ecstasy of
appeal.
"Let me off! Please, _please_ let me off!"
Franklin shot out a laugh. "Not I. You've told everybody that you're
my wife. Good. Live up to it."
He took the key out of the lock and put it in his pocket. Then he sat
down and crossed one leg over the other. "How long will you be?" he
asked.
This girl needed the spurs. He intended to use them.
*VII*
The sound of the key turning in the lock of her door had an instant and
peculiar effect on Beatrix. It awoke in her the same primeval spirit
which had carried Franklin into her bedroom on the wave of an infuriated
impulse. It made her realize that the time for protest was over; that
the moment when she could appeal (with any hope of success) to this
man's sense of honor had passed. It was through her own action, and she
knew it, that she had cracked the skin-deep veneer of civilization and
rendered Franklin the mere savage which most men become under the
influence of one or other of the passions.
Self-preservation was the instinct which was now uppermost in her mind.
Alone, without help, with only her native wit to fall back on, she had
to save herself from the almost unbelievable crisis that she had so
lightly brought about. She grasped this fact quickly enough. One look
at Franklin's face made it plain,--his blazing eyes, his set mouth, the
squareness of his jaw.
It was characteristic of her, however, that while still under the first
shock of his threat, his presence and the knowledge that he intended to
carry out his purpose with all the cold-bloodedness and cruelty which
comes from wounded vanity, the thought of the fight which faced her
filled her with a sort of mental delight. Here, if you like, was
something new upon which she could bend her whole ingenuity--something
which sent the monotony of her all-too-complete existence flying as
before a cyclone. Her blood danced. Her spirits rose. Her eyes
sparkled like those of the mountaineer who stands at the foot of a
summit which has hitherto been unclimbed. She gave a little laugh as
all these things flashed through her brain. She thrilled with the sense
of adventure which had always been latent in her character and which was
the cause of the amazing position in which she now found herself. Like
a superb young animal brought to bay, she turned to defend herself,
strung up to fight with every atom of her mental and physical strength
for that which counted for more than life. That she regarded her
antagonist with respect surprised her a little, but she was glad to make
the discovery, because it made the fight all the more worth while. She
recognized in this tall, wiry, dark-haired man, who looked in the very
pink of condition and bore on his well-cut young face the tan of sun and
wind, someone who had in him every single one of her own faults, whose
training and environment were the same as her own, who had been made as
impatient of control from the possession of excessive wealth as she was,
and whose capacity for becoming untamed the very moment that the thin
layer of culture which education gives falls in front of passionate
resentment was similar in every way to that which had made her lie to
her family.
It was with the feeling that she was leading lady in an extremely daring
society drama, that she took what she inwardly called the stage, as much
mistress of herself as she had been in the rooms of the portrait
painter. When she turned up the shaded lights on her dressing-table and
over the fireplace she did so with the rhythmic movement and the sense
of time which would have been hers had she rehearsed the scene and been
now playing it to a crowded house on the first night of a metropolitan
production. She seemed to hear the diminuendo of the orchestra and to
feel that curious nervous exhilaration that comes from the knowledge of
being focused by thousands of unseen eyes. It was surely an almost
uncanny sense of humor which allowed her to stand outside herself in
this way and watch all her movements as though they were those of
another person. But,--she knew her part. She had the confidence of one
who has completely memorized her lines. Her triumph would be complete
when she succeeded in making Franklin put the key back into the lock of
her door and remove himself from her presence.
As Franklin examined the room in which he never imagined that he would
find himself and had no desire to be his determination to get even with
the spoiled girl who had used him to get herself out of a family fracas
grew stronger and stronger. It seemed to him that the room,--almost
insolent in its evidences of wealth,--was symbolic. It was not, he saw,
the room of a young, healthy, normal girl so much as of a woman of the
world, a highly finished, highly fastidious mondaine, who had won the
right to live in an atmosphere of priceless tapestries, historic
furniture, and a luxury that was quite Roman. He ran his eyes
scornfully about and scoffed at the four-poster bed in which a French
queen might have received, and probably did receive, the satellites and
flatterers of her court; and saw through an open door not a mere
bathroom, but a pool, marble-lined, with florid Byzantine decorations,
discreetly lit. This thing angered him. It stood, he thought, as the
reason for this girl's distorted idea of life--of her myopic point of
view. It stood for many thousands of misplaced dollars which would, if
sanely used, have provided much-needed beds for the accident wards of a
hospital.
Not for the first time in his life, Franklin staggered at the sight of
the abnormality of excessive wealth, and felt that he himself, like
Beatrix, was nearer to lunacy than the ordinary human being because of
the possession of it. The queer paradox of his having been made the
instrument to bring this girl down from the false pedestal upon which
she had stood ever since she was born, also struck him. He had never
been much given to self-analysis or to the psychological examination of
social conditions; but as he sat there in that large, lofty and
extravagant, almost grotesquely furnished bedroom, more closely
resembling that of one or other of the great courtezans than of an
American girl in the first exquisite flush of youth, he came to the
conclusion, with a savage sense of justice, that he would be doing
something for civilization by bringing this millionaire's daughter face
to face with the grim truth of things.
It was Beatrix who broke a silence which had only lasted a few minutes.
"There are cigarettes at your elbow," she said. "Won't you smoke?"
Franklin looked up. The note of camaraderie in her voice surprised him.
The last time he had heard her speak it was in a tone of agonized
appeal. "No, thanks," he replied, "I've smoked enough."
"In training for one of your much-paragraphed athletic feats, perhaps,"
she said, a quizzical smile playing round her lips.
"I am," said Franklin. "Though I doubt whether this one will be as much
advertised as the others." He looked steadily at her as he said this
thing, caught the merest flick of her eyes and marked up to his credit
the fact that she understood his meaning.
For several seconds these two eyed each other deliberately, like
contestants in a prize ring. They measured each other up calculatingly
without any attempt to hide the fact. It was with unwilling admiration
that Franklin noted the girl's return to courage. He had to confess to
himself that the fearless tilt of her chin and the superb grace of her
attitude, which was as far from being self-conscious as though she were
standing in the corner of a crowded drawing-room, pleased him. It was
to be a fight, then. That was evident. The spirit of the huntsman rose
in him as he realized this.
"Will you ring the bell for your maid?" he asked, making the first
attack, "or shall I?"