Janet had her revenge. Words have a terrible power. And Janet's
vocabulary might be as primitive as lightning, but unlike lightning it
never failed to strike.
"That old Zattiany woman." "She's a thousand years old and nobody
cares what she does." "That rejuvenated old dame who's granny's age if
she's a day." "Much happier than your grandmother." The phrases
flashed into his mind when he awoke and echoed in his ears all day. No
doubt similar phrases, less crude, but equally scorching, were being
tossed from one end of New York Society to the other. If Janet knew of
his devotion to Madame Zattiany others must, for it could only have
come to her on the wings of gossip. He was being ridiculed by people
who grasped nothing beyond the fact that the woman was fifty-eight and
the man thirty-four. Of course it would be but a nine days' wonder and
like all other social phenomena grow too stale for comment, but
meanwhile he should feel as if he were frying on a gridiron. Anne
Goodrich would merely exclaim: "Abominable." Marian Lawrence would
draw in her nostrils and purr: "Lee was always an erratic and
impressionable boy. Just like him to fall in love with an old woman.
And she's really a beautiful blonde--once more. Poor Lee." As for
Gora and Suzan Forbes--well, Gora would understand, and impale them
sympathetically in her next novel, and Suzan would read up on
endocrines, blend them adroitly with psychology, and write an article
for the _Yale Review_.
He avoided the office and wrote his column at home. Luckily a favorite
old comedian had died recently. He could fill up with reminiscence and
anecdote. But it was soon done and he was back in his chair with his
thoughts again.
It had been his intention when he awakened on Sunday after a few hours
of unrefreshing sleep to dispatch his work as quickly as possible, take
a long walk, and then return to his rooms and keep the hours that must
intervene until Monday afternoon, sacred to Mary Zattiany. But if man
wishes to regulate his life, and more particularly his meditations, to
suit himself he would be wise to retire to a mountain top. Civilized
life is a vast woof and the shuttle pursues its weaving and
counter-weaving with no regard for the plans of men. It was impossible
to ignore Mrs. Oglethorpe's appeal, and it was equally impossible to
refuse to aid in the hunt for that damnable Janet when her distracted
father and his own intimate friend took his coöperation as a matter of
course. And even if he had remained at home, no doubt she would have
wiggled her way in before he could shut the door in her face. Then
there _would_ have been the devil to pay, for she would have seen to it
that he was hopelessly compromised. No doubt she would have run out on
the balcony and screamed for help. Her failure was the one saving
grace in the whole wretched night.
But she had planted her stings.
He was in a fine frame of mind to make love to a woman. He had
pictured that scene as one of the great moments of life, so subtly
beautiful and dramatic, so exalted and exulting, so perfect in its very
incompleteness, that not a lifetime of suffering and disappointment
could blur it. And he felt exactly like the flat tyre of Janet's
distinguished vernacular. Even his body was worn out, for he had had
but nine hours' sleep in two nights. What a dead cinch the playwrights
had. A man might as well try to breathe without oxygen on Mount
Everest as attempt to give his own life the proper dramatic values. He
was a cursed puppet and Life itself was a curse.
He excoriated himself for his susceptibility to mere words; he who
juggled in words, and often quite insincerely when it suited his
purpose. But "that rejuvenated old dame," and "that old Zattiany
woman" crawled like reeking vapors across some fair landscape a man had
spent his life seeking, blotting out its loveliness, turning it to a
noisome morass.
He had used equally caustic phrases when some young man he knew had
married a woman only ten years older than himself, and when old men had
taken to themselves young wives. And meant them, for he was
fundamentally as conventional and conservative as all men. . . . But
he cared less that he would be the laughing stock of New York than that
his own soul felt like boiling pitch and that he was ashamed of himself.
He looked at the clock. It was twenty minutes to four. There was
neither love nor desire in him and he would have liked to throw himself
on the divan and sleep. But he set his teeth and got to his feet. He
would go through it, play up, somehow.
He felt better in the nipping air and soon began to walk briskly. And
then as he crossed Park Avenue and entered her street he saw two men
coming down her steps. They were Mr. Dinwiddie, and the extremely
good-looking young man whom Osborne had brought to the box on Monday
night. The young man was smiling fatuously.
A wave of rage and jealousy swept Clavering from head to foot. She, at
least, could have kept these hours sacred, and she had not only
received this grinning ape, but evidently given him a delectable morsel
to chew on. He could have knocked both men down but he was not even
permitted to pass them by with a scowling nod. Another contretemps.
Dinwiddie hailed him delightedly.
"Good old Lee! Haven't seen you in an age. Where've you kept
yourself? Know Vane? Mother's an old friend of Mary's. He's head
over like the rest of us. Who says we don't live in the age of
miracles?"
"Yeh, ain't life wonderful?" Clavering's jocular faculty was
enfeebled, but it came to the rescue. He was staring at Vane.
Evidently this young man was unimpressed by searing phrases and he must
have heard several, for, if he remembered aright, "Polly Vane" with
"her head like a billiard ball," who "wore a wig for decency's sake,"
had been one of the most resentful women at the luncheon. For a moment
he had a queer impression that his stature had diminished until the top
of his head stood level with this glowing young man's waistcoat. And
then he shot up to seven feet. Something had turned over inside him
and vomited forth the pitch and its vapors. But he still felt angry
and jealous. He managed to reply, however:
"Well, I must be getting on. Have an engagement at four. See you in a
day or two, Din." He nodded to young Vane and in another moment he was
taking Madame Zattiany's front steps three at a time.