XL

Amazing to learn, upon authority as sound as that of the clock in the

hotel lobby, that the age of the evening was still something short of

nine ... preposterous to credit that lapse of time so little could have

wrought the transformation of life's kindly countenance at close of day

to its present cast, so bleak, forbidding, and implacable....

Yet neither circumstance was a whit less certain or more disputable than

the other. And that the hour was what it was, no earlier, no later, gave

one good reason for thanksgiving. For now the miscellaneous dinner mob

with its components of envious sharp eyes and ungenerous tongues had

scattered on its various ways; while the cinemaniacs were not yet due to

come trooping home from the neighbouring halls of their addiction. Only

the elderlies remained in evidence, that element of the clientele which

Fanny had styled the Grumpies in discrimination from the Gaddies; staid,

smug bodies in black taffeta, old lace fichus and rocking-chairs, or

stiff collars, shapeless trousers and blunt-nosed boots, devoted to

solitaire, fancy-work, and gossip of the home-brewed brand that cheers

but not inebriates; a species of migratory perennials to whom the

cotton-wool climate of Southern California is a sort of gracious prelude

to the grave; at once avidly intrigued by and as honestly innocent of

that other Hollywood with whose lively denizens they rubbed shoulders

daily, as of the other world and its press of equally unquiet souls.

Dotting the public rooms with little groups, engrossed in cards,

knitting, and placid prattle, these took only casual account of the

flying transit of that vision of elegance and youthful charm with

evening wrap caught high about the pretty face. Such sightly shapes were

too much a commonplace of their deliberate and self-sufficient days, and

always passed in haste; as young blood does ever, irrationally enough,

having so much time before it, so little patience....

So, though she knew them for a pack of greedy scandal scavengers, and

conceived every eye among them to be regardful of her and all her shifts

to deceive them spent for naught, not one who observed her guessed with

what agitation she was a-quake, what unrelenting urgency whipped on her

feet till they all but stumbled in their eagerness to find her sanctuary

behind locked doors, where she might ease off at last the tension of

self-control, pillow her sore and aching head, and give range to the

pent tempest of emotions brewed by love thwarted and chagrined, faith

confounded, dreams done shamefully to death....

Fleeting free of that gauntlet, she gave a sigh to find herself in the

quiet corridor leading to her apartment. How good it was to think she

would in another minute be alone, what an inspiration had been hers

when, looking forward to an evening long drawn out, she had given her

maid liberty till morning!

She passed the door through which she once had ventured to discover

Nelly Marquis lying in a faint brought about by Lynn's cruelty.... And

now what would become of that one? Whither had she turned in her flight?

with what hope of asylum or immunity? A hapless creature beating blindly

through the night, a land-bird swept to sea by an off-shore gale,

questing what it might never hope to find....

Lucinda slipped into her sitting-room, turned the key, found the

switchbox near the door, and in an abrupt blaze of illumination stood,

startled beyond speech, face to face with the woman the riddle of whose

fate had been riding her imagination.

One of Nelly's hands was planted flat against the wall; but this support

helped not at all to abate the vicious racking of her body by nerves

deranged. The other, a begrimed fist, was fumbling at her mouth. Those

eyes whose haunted beauty had first laid claim to one's humanity were

now--their blazing madness of a short hour since dispelled--black pools

of pathos in a face whose chalkiness was runneled by tears and framed in

hair like tarred rope unravelled. Her dress of hackneyed smartness was

bedraggled, the skirt marked by knees that in some fall had ground into

loam. The black satin slippers were pale with dust, and the openwork

stockings, which boasted two great tears as well.

In that first flash of affrighted recognition, Lucinda started back to

the door and fumbled for the key, but had yet to find it when the woman

plunged down to grovel at her feet, catching at her knees, lifting up a

face of torment, supplicating against teeth that chattered as if with an

acute ague.

"O Mrs. Druce, Mrs. Druce! I'm all right now, I am, I swear I am!

Forgive me, and for God's sake don't turn me out, don't call the

police!"

Still frightened and mistrustful, Lucinda yet held her hand on the knob.

"What do you want?" she asked in a voice that shook.

"Just to talk to you a minute.... Don't be afraid...."

"I'm not afraid," Lucinda lied. Nevertheless, in compassion and dawning

reassurance, she stooped, freed her skirts from the clutching hands, and

stepped back. "Get up," she said, watchful. "Tell me plainly what you

want...."

The woman scrambled to her feet again, cringing and fawning. "I had to

come," she protested. "I didn't know where else to go, I had to know.

Mrs. Druce: please tell me, is he.... Did I hurt him bad?"

"Desperately," Lucinda replied, wondering at the reserve of fortitude

which enabled her to speak with such composure. "Whether he'll live or

not we don't know yet. He was unconscious when I left, before the doctor

came."

"You left him that way? You didn't wait to find out! O my God!"

"Are you reproaching me?" Lucinda retorted in amazement--"as if it were

I who shot your husband!"

"_My_ husband!" Nelly shrilled. "It's yours I'm talking about, it's Mr.

Druce. It's not knowing how bad I hurt him that's driving me crazy ...

not meaning to harm even his little finger, I hope to die! I didn't

hardly know who he was, that time while we was fighting...." She drove

her knuckles against her mouth again and sunk teeth into them till pain

helped her reassert self-control. "I didn't know what I was doing!" she

mumbled between sobs----"I didn't know."

"Do you know now?"

"Oh, I do, I do! I'm all right now, honestly I am. I know what I've done

and what--what I've got to pay for doing it. But I don't care!" She

jerked up her chin, bravado fighting with fear in her eyes. "Lynn only

got what was coming to him. I warned him often enough, time after time I

told him how it was all bound to end if he kept on like he was doing;

but he wouldn't listen, he'd just laugh and tell me what I could do if I

didn't like his ways.... I don't mean I threatened him, Mrs. Druce. It

wasn't like that. I don't believe I ever dreamed of striking back at him

before today. I always thought it would be some other woman would do it,

somebody that didn't love him like I did, and couldn't stand being

treated like a dog, just because he got tired--I always thought somebody

like that would make Lynn pay, I never thought I'd have the nerve. But

today, all at once, I couldn't seem to stand it any longer.... And when

I looked in at that window and saw you alone with him, and him holding

you in his arms, even if you did try to make him quit.... But I'm not

sorry! Lynn never treated any woman so mean, and I guess it was right

his punishment should come from me. I ain't a bit sorry, I hope he

dies.... Do you--do you think he will?"

To the implicit hope that thus gave vaunted impenitence the lie, Lucinda

returned, in a low tone and against her wish, the one word,

"Probably...." and saw the woman quail and writhe away, twisting her

thin, graceful hands into each other till their knuckles shone dead

white through the tortured skin.

"I don't care," she wailed--"I don't! And anyway, it wasn't about him,

it was Mr. Druce I came here to find out about. I couldn't go away

without knowing.... He's been such a prince to me, a regular prince, and

I never meant him any harm. It just makes me sick to think...." She

swung passionately back to Lucinda. "Won't you please, _please_ tell me

how bad he's hurt?"

"Not much--a flesh wound in the arm----"

"Thank God it wasn't worse!" Nelly drooped heavily against the wall,

with a pathetic smile testifying to her relief of mind. "I'd never have

forgiven myself, never...."

Profound fatigue seemed to be overcoming her. The quavering murmurs

failed upon her lips, her eyes closed, her head sagged toward one

shoulder.

"Are you in love with him, then?" Lucinda demanded inexorably. "Is Bel

in love with you?"

Startled, Nelly stood away from the wall, with a hysterical note in the

laugh that scorned this notion. "No, no, no, no!" she cried. "He isn't

that sort. You ought to know he isn't. I don't know what the trouble was

between you two, but I'll tell the world it wasn't on account of any

other woman.... It wasn't as if Mr. Druce didn't have his chance,

either; any time he'd wanted it he could have had it with me, anytime!"

"Yet you tell me you're not in love with him!"

"You don't have to be in love in the picture business...." The fugitive,

twisted smile vanished away, the lustreless eyes stared into space.

"Mostly it's better if you aren't. If you are, it's likely to turn out

like it did with me and Lynn. If a girl wants to get on, she can't

afford to care for anybody, only herself. It hasn't mattered much to me

what happened, since Lynn.... But Mr. Druce never as much as held my

hand."

"Wouldn't you tell me that anyway?"

"It's God's honest truth."

The statement was made without spirit, as one of simple, provable fact.

And for all her memories of Bel's misconduct, Lucinda believed.

Wearily the woman began to pull about her shoulders a wrinkled, sleazy

wrap.

"Guess I'd better be going," she said with eyes averted. "Thank you for

being so kind. I'm glad Mr. Druce wasn't much hurt, and I wish you'd

tell him I'm sorry for everything. I didn't mean to do it, but I just

went crazy when I saw you and Lynn together, and him making love to you.

I don't remember much about what happened, but I guess it must've been

pretty awful for you, and I'm sorry."

Continuing to avoid Lucinda's eyes, she plucked at her cloak once more

and moved toward the door; but faltered on finding that Lucinda stood in

her way and didn't offer to budge. "I'd better go," she iterated

uneasily.

"Where?"

"I don't know." Nelly wagged a head of desolate uncertainty. "There

isn't any place I can think of now, they wouldn't find me. Only ... I'm

sorry about Lynn, and I'm not going to suffer any more on his account

unless I have to. So it's up to me to be on my way."

"Wait a minute, please." Remaining between the girl and the door,

Lucinda pursued: "I want to know how you got in here. How did you get

back to the hotel so quickly?"

"From Beverly Hills, you mean? Oh, I had luck and caught a trolley

without having to wait. They make pretty good time, you know. And then,

when I got here ... I wanted to go up to my room and get some money....

I was afraid to come in the front way, I thought maybe they'd telephoned

or something, so I tried the side door. They don't lock that till about

nine o'clock. And just as I came in, I noticed the chambermaid unlocking

this door, and it come over me like a flash you'd probably be coming

home pretty soon, and I was worried about Mr. Druce; so I slipped in

while she was in your bedroom, and hid behind that chair there till she

went out again."

"But what if they've locked the side door since? It must be after nine

now. You won't be able to leave except by way of the office."

"I guess I'll have to take my chances...." She bent upon Lucinda a look

of flickering defiance. "Anyhow, what do you care?"

"I don't like to think of your being caught."

"Why?"

"I don't know, unless it's because I think you've been punished enough

already. You'd better wait and rest for a while, at least till the house

quiets down. And perhaps we can think of some way.... Don't you think

you'd better trust me?"

For another instant suspicious eyes searched Lucinda's, then with a

half-nod the girl wilted into a chair. "All right," she acquiesced with

the passivity of a child chastened by terror--"just's you say, Mrs.

Druce. Only, I don't see why you're being so good to me."

Lucinda had no answer to that. Her motive was not more obscure to that

muddled mind than to her own. Unless, of course, it had to do with that

enduring image of the bird storm-beaten, weary of wing and bewildered by

the dark, risking the debatable mercy of mankind in its stark

necessity....

She stood pitiful, contemplating the creature who huddled in the chair,

shivering, whimpering a little, gnawing her knuckles, with the dazed

eyes of an animal hunted to its last gasp seeking to probe the fearful

ambiguity of the future. A murderess by intention, whom the word of any

moment might prove a murderess in fact.... And one couldn't condemn or

reproach her, one couldn't shrink from her because of the crime that

stained her hands, one couldn't even win one's own consent to send her

out to chance the retribution she had invited.

Incomprehensible the alchemy of the human heart! Lucinda was making up

her mind to help a sinner circumvent justice....

"Tell me something," she said, with no more preface: "You've been

calling me Mrs. Druce. How did you learn that was my name? Did Mr. Druce

tell you?"

Only the hand of the girl moved in a sign of dissent, and her lips to

shape the words: "It was Lynn told me."

"Lynn!"

"Mr. Druce never said as much as a word about you. I don't believe he

knows I know now. I thought he didn't want me to know, so I never let

on; but of course I did know, all along."

"Lynn told you when----?"

"That time you found me on the floor, you know. I guess I ought to

apologize for the way I treated you, but I was all upset, I hated you on

account of what Lynn had told you about me and all."

"I don't think I blame you--now."

"You wouldn't 've, then, if you'd been through what I'd been through

that afternoon.... Lynn didn't let me know he was coming, or send his

name in or anything, he just walked in through the window while I was

getting dressed to go out. He said I'd got to clear out, go back home,

where I come from in the East. He said if I didn't I'd spoil everything

for him, if you ever found out about me you wouldn't have any more to do

with him, and then where'd be his chance of getting in with New York

society people like you trained with. He took out a hundred dollars and

put it on the bureau and said I'd got to take it and go home and he'd

send me fifty dollars every week. I said I wouldn't, and he said I would

if he had to ship me East on a stretcher. I forget what I said then, but

I was pretty wild, I guess, and he hit me, and I don't remember anything

after that, except waking up to find Lynn gone and you taking care of

me."

She jumped in the chair, cried out shrilly, and clapped a hand over her

heart when the telephone sounded a peremptory call. Lucinda, answering,

heard the voice of her chauffeur: he had called up Mr. Summerlad's,

somebody there had told him Miss Lee had gone home already and wouldn't

want him again that night, and he wanted to make sure that was all

right.

"Yes, Ben," Lucinda assented, "it's quite all right. I left that word

for you, but ... just a minute ... I may change my mind."

"It'll be all right with me, Miss Lee, if you want to go out again."

"Yes, Ben, I know; and thank you. But if I decide to use the car again

tonight, I'll drive it myself--alone, you understand. If you wouldn't

mind bringing it to the side door of the hotel in about an hour and

leaving it there.... No; don't wait for me, I may be delayed; just leave

the car and go home. I'll take it to the garage when I'm through with

it."

When Lucinda hung up she found Nelly slewed round in the chair and

watching with darkly doubting eyes, to which she responded, with a

slight smile: "That was inspiration. While Ben was talking, it occurred

to me, the only possible way for you to escape would be in somebody's

car. So I've arranged to let you steal mine. You can leave it wherever

you think it safe to get aboard a train. You can drive, of course?"

Nelly nodded. "Then if you'll come into my bedroom, you can lie down and

rest while I find you a change of clothes. I'm afraid, if the police get

a description of you dressed as you are, you wouldn't have much

chance...."

Before she could surmise or move to defeat the girl's intention, Nelly

had caught one of her hands and was weeping and slavering over it.

"You're so sweet and good to me!" she sobbed. "I can't make out what

makes you so kind!"

"I think," Lucinda said, with gaze remote--"I think _I_ am beginning to

understand...."