So Melissa went to dinner, with Roderick, at a place up the river, that
first night, and upon other nights, and at other places, she went to
dinner with him a number of times thereafter.
He progressed so frankly from acquaintance to friendship, from
friendship to things warmer, making no bones at any time of the
sincerity of his interest, the honorable quality, so to speak, of his
intentions, that Melissa had only to look on, quiescent, to be not too
unresponsive ... and see the pleasantest, safest sort of future unroll
itself neatly before her.
She began to feel that she possessed some quality of appeal, quite
beyond her own volition, for men who possessed nothing for her.
Murdock and Austin and Luke ... now Roderick!
Her year had been fruitful of opportunity. All that she asked for had
been poured into her lap. This she had put away from her and that
she had let slip. If she were to make her fortune at all, remained
acceptance of the one now available suitor.
“Roderick,” the Marchesa assured her, “has never been in love before.
I have known him all his life. If you let him get away from you ...
you deserve to spend the rest of your days in an office, pecking at a
typewriter....” she added with sinister coolness--“and so far as I am
concerned, my dear Melissa--that is exactly what you will do.”
“I believe that was our understanding,” said Melissa.
The two stared at each other coldly. A kind of hatred tinctured with
unwilling respect existed between them.
“If you marry him--you need not be afraid--I shall let you alone,” said
the Marchesa as if she read Melissa’s thought, and were amused by it.
“He has not asked me to marry him,” said Melissa ... “so why discuss
it?”
“If he hasn’t,” retorted the Marchesa nibbling the edge of her fan
with sharp yellow little teeth--“it’s because you haven’t wanted him
to. Don’t attempt to deceive me, my dear--you’re not clever enough, by
half. Save your pretty chicaneries for Roderick. _He_ is not clever
enough for _you_!”
Which was all of it so--as Melissa very well knew. But liked the
Marchesa none the better for putting things thus straightly.
Roderick had shortly to be taken--or left.
Melissa let down her guard, the merest fraction and he came on with a
rush. She withdrew and he stopped--the soul of decent consideration. An
old game but one, as the Marchesa had observed, which did not change in
its essentials.
It was on the day when Melissa passed Luke and Em’ly Armistead on Fifth
Avenue together, that she abruptly stopped maneuvering and decided to
let Roderick have his say.
Not that Luke and Em’ly saw Melissa. Not that a word passed or a sign.
Merely, through the window of her taxi, returning from a particularly
depressing Shakespearean matinee, Melissa caught sight of Luke’s dark
head--uncovered, beside Em’ly’s crimson-hatted blond one. They were
parting on a corner. Laughing into each other’s eyes. A parting which
apparently had no need of haste.
And Melissa remembered. Em’ly had always wanted Luke. In his loneliness
and present disillusionment she could very likely have him. His next
fata morgana. Any woman will understand why Melissa, not wanting
Luke herself yet went home and sat down to the telephone ... called
Roderick’s number....
What came after is not so easy of explanation.
She drove and dined that night with Roderick, she let him bring her
back to the apartment, fairly early, she stood with him upon her narrow
balcony and looked across the Park through bloomy breathless shadows
... she let him tell her how he had always loved those rooms, how he
loved them twice as much, now ... but that he never wanted to live in
them again--unless--she were living in them, too....
Very sturdy in his love-making, Roderick, perhaps a shade pathetic,
because so doggedly in earnest ... he panted a little, it is to
be feared, and twice wiped his forehead upon a spotless linen
handkerchief. In spite of which it seemed at first as if he had a
chance--every chance--It was not until he put his arms about Melissa
unexpectedly, that she had jerked away from him and went back into the
room, tears streaming down her face.
Roderick followed--not unnaturally.
“Have I said something--to hurt you?” he asked anxiously.
“Nothing--” said Melissa, “not that!”
She couldn’t tell him that at the window--at her very shoulder--the man
of the picture had seemed suddenly to stand, looking at her curiously,
quietly, with that arrogant, half-smiling question in his eyes.
And Melissa couldn’t betray him--that was all. She knew, at last, to
what she was true.
Knowing, however late the hour, she set her teeth and went through with
it blindly. The thing that was her ultimate choice. The thing that had
no reality, that transcended reality.
She told the Marchesa’s nephew she didn’t love him. That she couldn’t
marry him. That she was sick with shame to have let him think she might.
“Good Lord--” said he comfortingly, “that’s my mistake--not yours!
Maybe I’ve been in too much of a rush ... don’t make this final ...
wait--just be friends--and let me ask you again....”
“It’s no use,” said Melissa. She said it till he believed her.
She said one other thing when he was leaving her, crushing her hand in
his warm, moist one, looking at her out of hungry, honest eyes, trying
to carry off his hard luck with a jest--and not succeeding notably.
“Will you tell your aunt--at once--about this evening?” asked Melissa.
“If you want me to, I will--but--”
“I’d like her to know. She’s been--kind--to me.”
“Then can’t you be a little--kinder to _her_? She’d be pleased as Punch
to have you for a niece ... why--she sent me some kind of a crazy
cable--before I left Japan--wanted to get me back here--to meet you....
Couldn’t you....”
“Don’t say it--again--I can’t....”
“All right--I won’t. You’ll let me see you again--soon--anyhow?”
“I don’t know--I won’t promise.”
“Why not--for pity’s sake! You’ll still have friends--won’t you?”
“Please--I want you to go, now--” said Melissa unsteadily. And he went.
As for her still having friends, in that especial moment she really
hadn’t anything--having traded substance for shadow and spent her all
in the trade.
To-morrow, the Marchesa--after the Marchesa, the deluge.
Melissa slept well, that night. She knew at last what it was that she
wanted.
Not the slightest chance of getting it--so far as any one could
see--but after all ... the great thing is to know!
Once more the Marchesa, entering with a cry and a sharply slammed door
... not even sending up her name before her ... not even waiting to
learn if Melissa could see her ... ignoring any claim Melissa might
have to privacy ... as if Melissa had been merely her creature.
Which Melissa wasn’t to be--any longer.
All this at eleven in the morning. Roderick, having breakfasted with
his aunt and communicated his defeat. Little guessing what fuse he
ignited. In the way of the beloved.
“Melissa--” said the Marchesa violently. “What is all this? I insist
upon knowing. I could not believe my ears--when Roderick told me....”
Melissa asked the Marchesa to sit down. She sat down herself and looked
at the Marchesa quietly.
“I asked him,” she said--“to tell you.”
“Of all the impudence!... Incredible...!” Unlovely rage roughened the
Marchesa’s voice, distorted her delicate features. “Do you mean to say
that after everything ... you have deliberately broken that poor boy’s
heart--”
A vagrant recollection of Roderick eating eggs and bacon, toast and
marmalade, with a large pot of coffee at his elbow, stemmed his aunt’s
eloquence for the fraction of an instant ... “at least,” she amended
thoughtfully, “he seems very much upset.”
“I’m sorry,” said Melissa.
The Marchesa looked her over with furious acuteness.
“It’s true, then--you’ve refused him?”
“Yes.”
“Not good enough for your ladyship?”
Melissa made no answer.
“You are the most amazing fool,” said the Marchesa viciously, “that I
have ever known.”
Melissa didn’t answer that either. She rather thought so, herself.
“Very well,” continued her visitor, “if you think that in the remaining
six weeks of your year you can accomplish anything at all ... if you
think that I am going to advise you any further....”
“That,” said Melissa, interrupting her coolly, “is what I should like
to speak to you about. I shall not be here any longer....”
Even the Marchesa, as the significance of that took her--sat
momentarily open-mouthed.
“Where--may I ask....”
“I am leaving the apartment to-day,” said Melissa. She added--“The
clothes which you--bought for me--I will leave in the closet. I am
taking nothing but things that belong to me.”
“Indeed?... Blue serge and little black hat again? You’ll never do it,
my dear!” A brief rattle of laughter.
Melissa looked down at herself curiously. “It is what I have on.”
The Marchesa stared--and stopped laughing. “So it is. Not quite the
same, however. I’ve given you one thing you won’t be able to leave in
that closet.... charm! You could wear a gunny-sack, now--and look well
in it.”
Extraordinary old creature! She preened herself, at that, with a smirk
and a chuckle and a flutter.
“I’ve done something to you, Melissa, which you can’t undo with a
change of hats. I’ve altered your soul--that’s what I’ve done!”
“I didn’t know myself--that was all.”
“And now you do?”
“And now I do.”
“Who held the mirror? Are you going back to Kenealy?”
“I am not going back to any one,” said Melissa. “And you will forgive
me if I decline to discuss myself any further. As I said--I am leaving
to-day--which terminates our agreement. I wish to thank you....”
“Don’t be absurd!” said the Marchesa with vast annoyance. “You never
liked me--and you know it. I must say, Melissa, I’m disappointed
in you. You’ve had a most remarkable opportunity--and you’ve made
nothing at all of it ... exactly nothing at all! Well--” she rose a
trifle creakily ... “shall I tell them downstairs, that you’re leaving
to-day?... You wouldn’t like--” this with a slight leer--“to think it
over?”
“I have already told them.”
“Indeed! You’ll miss this place--whether you know it now--or not....”
Melissa’s eyes were dark and unsmiling. A tremor passed over her
mouth. She looked about her and shut her hands hard in the folds of her
frock.
“You’ve gotten soft ... you’re uncommonly dependent on your
surroundings ... it will be harder than before ... going back to one
room--with no view--and no gas-jet. You’ll have to go back to work you
know, too. I hope you don’t expect me to finance you any further?”
Melissa’s face flamed. Without a word she turned toward the door.
“Just as well,” said the Marchesa, “that you are not marrying Roderick
after all ... with that temper ... you’d make his life a burden!”
She stopped once more on the threshold, looked at Melissa strangely,
laughed her thin raucous laughter and narrowed withered eyelids.
“It’s a man, of course!” she said. Her Credo and apologia.
The porter came up as the Marchesa went down.
He asked for Melissa’s bags and wanted an address to which to send
them. Melissa gave him one--Nelly Rivers’ studio. She had called Nelly,
early that morning and Nelly had said: “Well--I’m not altogether
surprised, old thing! I thought you were too good for the Persian-pussy
stuff. Stay with me to-night--or as long as you need. Look for a job,
to-morrow.”
Melissa did not intend to wait for to-morrow. She was going to look
for a job that afternoon ... with loneliness in her heart ... but with
hands untied.
She thought, a faint smile twitching her lips, as she watched the
porter trundle her belongings out of sight ... “Gold-diggers are born
and not made.”
But deeper than that, she knew what had brought all her gold-digging to
nothing.
Nelly’s song had said it.
“--The dream of an unborn kiss....”
Making other dreams dust.
Making other kisses futile.
The cruelest dream to follow ... but heaven, if ever, to find!