BILLY AND CAROLINE
It was one night in middle October when Billy and Caroline met by
accident on Thirty-fourth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
Caroline stood looking into a drug-store window where an automatic
mannikin was shaving himself with a patent safety razor.
"There's a wax feller going to bed in an automatic folding settee, a
little farther down the street," Billy offered gravely at her elbow;
"and on Forty-second Street there is a real live duck pond advertising
the advantages of electric heaters in the home."
"H'lo," said Caroline, who was colloquial only in moments of real
pleasure or excitement. "I've just written to you. I asked you to come
and see me to-morrow evening," she added more seriously, "to talk
about something that's weighing on my mind."
"I'm going out with a blonde to-morrow, night," Billy said speciously,
"but what's the matter with to-night? I'm free until six-fifty A. M.
and I could spare an hour or two between then and breakfast time."
"I can't to-night," Caroline said, "I promised Nancy to dine at the
Inn."
"That wasn't your line at all," Billy groaned. "Who's the blonde?--that
was your cue. If it's only Nancy you're dining with--that can be
fixed."
"I regard an engagement with Nancy as just as sacred as--"
"So do I," Billy cut in. "She is the blonde. Well, let to-morrow night
be as it may; let's you and I call up the Nancy girl now and tell her
that we're going batting together; she won't care."
"I don't like doing that," Caroline said; "it's a nice night for a
bat, though."
"I walked down Murray Hill and saw the sun set in a nice pinky gold
setting," Billy said artfully. Caroline liked to have him get an
artistic perspective on New York. "Let's walk down the avenue to the
Café des Artistes and have Emincé Bernard, and a long wide high, tall
drink of--ginger ale," he finished lamely.
"We'd have to telephone Nancy," Caroline hesitated.
Billy took her by the arm and guided her into the interior of the
drug-store to the side aisle where the telephones were, and stepped
into the first empty booth that offered. Caroline stopped him firmly
as he was about to shut himself inside.
"I'd rather hear what you say," she said.
Billy slipped his nickel in the slot and took up the receiver.
"Madison Square 3403 doesn't answer," Central informed him crisply
after an interval.
"Oh! Nancy, dear," Billy replied softly into her astonished ear.
"Caroline and I are going off by ourselves to-night, you don't care,
do you?"
"Ringing thr-r-ree-four-o-thr-r-ee, Madison Square."
"That's nice of you," Billy responded heartily. "I thought you'd say
that."
"Madison Square thr-r-ree-four-o-t-h-r-r-ree doesn't answer. Hang up
your receiver and I'll call you if I get the party."
"Of course I will. You're always so tactful in the way you put things,
always so generous and kind and thoughtful. I can't tell you how much
I appreciate it."
"What did Nancy say?" Caroline asked, as they turned away from the
booth.
"You heard my end of the conversation," Billy said blandly. "You can
deduce hers from it."
"There was something about your end of the conversation that sounded
queer to me somehow. It was odd that Central should have returned your
nickel to you after you had talked so long."
"Yes, wasn't it?" Billy asked innocently. "Well, I suppose mistakes
will happen in the best regulated telephone companies."
"I like you," Billy said contentedly, as the lights of the avenue
strung themselves out before them. "I like walking down this royal
thoroughfare with you. You're a kind of a neutral girl, but I like
you."
"You're a kind of ridiculous boy."
"Don't you like me a little bit?"
"Yes, a little."
"What did you get engaged to me for if you only like me a little?"
"Ought not to be engaged to you. That's one of the things I want to
talk to you about."
"Well, you are engaged to me, and that's one of the things I don't
care to discuss--even with you."
"Oh! Billy," Caroline sighed, "why can't we be just good friends and
see a good deal of each other without this perpetual argument about
getting married?"
"I don't know why we can't, but we can't," Billy said firmly. "What
was the other thing you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Nancy's affairs. The reckless--the criminal way she is running that
restaurant, and the unthinkable expenditure of money involved. I can't
sleep at night thinking of it."
"And I thought this was going to be a pleasant evening," Billy cried
to the stars.
"I wish you'd be serious about this," Caroline said. "Nancy's the best
friend I have in the world, and she doesn't seem to be quite right in
her mind, Billy. Of course, I approve of a good part of her scheme. I
believe that she can be of incalculable value as a pioneer in an
enterprise of this sort. Her restaurant is based on a strictly
scientific theory, and every person who patronizes it gets a balanced
ration, if he has the good sense to eat it as it's served."
"And not leave any protein on his plate," Billy murmured.
"I don't even mind the slight extra expenditure and the deficit that
is bound to follow her theory of stuffing all her subnormal patrons
with additional nourishment. That is charity. I believe in devoting a
certain amount of one's income to charity, but what I mind about the
whole proceeding is the crazy way that Nancy is running it. She's not
even trying to break even. She orders all the delicacies of the
season--no matter what they are. She's paid an incredible amount for
the new set of carved chairs she has bought for up-stairs. You'd think
she had an unlimited fortune behind her, instead of being in a
position where the sheriff may walk in upon her any day."
"Handy men to have around the house,--sheriffs. I knew a deputy
sheriff once that helped the lady of the house do a baby wash while he
was standing around in charge of the place. All the servants had
deserted, and--"
"You pretend to be Nancy's friend, and you're the only thing remotely
approaching a lawyer that she has, and yet you can shake with joy at
the thought of her going into bankruptcy."
"That isn't what I'm shaking with joy about."
"Nancy must have spent at least twice the amount of her original
investment."
"Just about," Billy agreed cheerfully.
Caroline turned large reproachful eyes on him.
"Billy, how can you?"
"Listen to me, Caroline, honey love, it will be all right. Nancy isn't
so crazy as she seems. She is running wild a little, I admit, but
there's no danger of the sheriff or any other disaster. She knows what
she's doing, and she's playing safe, though I admit it's an
extraordinary game."
"She's unhappy," Caroline said. "You don't suppose she's going to
marry Dick to get out of the scrape, and that she's suffering because
she's had to make that compromise."
"No, I don't," said Billy.
"I can't imagine anything more dreadful than to give up your
career--your independence because you were beaten before you could
demonstrate it."
"Let's go right in here," Billy said, guiding her by the arm through
the door of the grill of the Café des Artistes which she was ignoring
in her absorption.
It was early but the place was already crowded with the assortment of
upper cut Bohemians, Frenchmen, and other discriminating diners to
whom the café owed its vogue. Billy and Caroline found a snowy table
by the window, a table so small that it scarcely seemed to separate
them.
"If it's Dick that Nancy's depending on," Caroline shook out her
mammoth napkin vigorously, "then I think the whole situation is
dreadful."
"I don't see why," Billy argued; "have him to fall back on--that's
what men are for."
"Your opinion of women, Billy Boynton, just about tallies with the
most conservative estimate of the Middle Ages."
"Charmed, I'm sure," he grinned, then his evil genius prompting, he
continued. "Isn't that just about what you have me for--to fall back
on? You're fond of me. You know I'll be there if the bottom drops out.
You're sure of me, and you're holding me in reserve against the time
when you feel like concentrating your attention on me."
"Is that what you think?"
"Sure, it's the way it is. If I haven't got any kick coming I don't
see why you should have any. You're worth it to me. That's the
point."
Caroline opened her lips to speak, and then thought better of it. The
dangerous glint in her pellucid hazel eyes was lost on Billy. He was
watching the clear cool curve of her cheek, the smooth brown hair
brushed up from the temple, and tucked away under the smart folds of a
premature velvet turban.
"I like those mouse-colored clothes of yours," he said contentedly.
"I think the only reason a woman should marry a man is that
she--she--"
"Likes him?" Billy suggested.
"No, that she can be of more use in the world married than single. She
can't be that unless she's going to marry a man who is entirely in
sympathy with her point of view."
"That I know to be unsound," Billy said. "Caroline, my love, this is a
bat. Can't we let these matters of the mind rest for a little? See,
I've ordered _Petite Marmite_, and afterward an artichoke, and all the
nice fattening things that Nancy won't let me eat."
"I wish you'd tell me about Nancy," Caroline said. "It makes a lot of
difference. You haven't any idea how much difference it makes."
"See the nice little brown pots with the soup in them," Billy implored
her. "Cheese, too, all grated up so fine and white. Sprinkle it in
like little snow-flakes."
But in spite of all Billy's efforts the evening went wrong after that.
Caroline was wrapped in a mantle of sorrowful meditation the opacity
of which she was not willing to let Billy penetrate for a moment.
After they had dined they took a taxi-cab up-town and danced for an
hour on the smooth floor of one of the quieter hotels. Billy's dancing
being of that light, sure, rhythmic quality that should have installed
him irrevocably in the regard of any girl who had ever danced with a
man who performed less admirably. Caroline liked to dance and fell in
step with an unexpected docility, but even in his arms, dipping,
pivoting, swaying to the curious syncopation of modern dance time, she
was as remote and cool as a snow maiden.
At the table on the edge of the dancing platform where they sat
between dances, Billy pledged her in nineteen-four _Chablis Mouton_.
"This is what you look like," he said, holding up his glass to the
light, "or perhaps I ought to say what you act like,--clear, cold
stuff,--lovely, but not very sweet."
"If it's Dick,"--Caroline refused to be diverted--"Nancy is merely
taking the easiest way out. Just getting married because she hasn't
the courage to go through any other way. She and Dick have hardly a
taste in common--they don't even read the same books."
"What difference does that make?"
"If you don't know I can't tell you. When you see somebody else in
danger of following the same course of action that you, yourself, are
pursuing," she added cryptically, "it puts a new face on your own
affairs."
"Oh! let's get out of here," Billy said, signaling for his check.
Caroline lived, for the summer while her family were away, in an
elaborate Madison Avenue boarding-house. The one big room into
which the entrance gave, dim and palatial in effect--at least in
the light of the single gas-jet turned economically low--seemed
scarcely to present a departure from its prototype, the great
living hall of the private residence for which the house was
originally designed. It was only on the second floor that the
character of the establishment became unmistakable. Billy took
Caroline's latchkey from her,--she usually opened the door for
herself--and let her quietly into the dim interior. Then he
stepped inside himself, and closed the door gently after him.
Being a man he entirely failed to note the drift of psychological
straws that indicated the sudden sharp turn of the wind, and the
presage of storm in the air. He was thinking only of the illusive,
desirable, maddening quality of the girl that walked beside him,
filled with inexplicable forebodings for a friend, whom he knew to
be invulnerable to misfortune. Certain phrases of Dick's were ringing
in his ears to the exclusion of all more immediate conversational
fragments.
"Cave-man stuff--that's the answer to you and Caroline.... This
watchful waiting's entirely the wrong idea...."
Billy made a great lunge toward the figure of his fiancée, and caught
her in his arms.
"I've never really kissed you before," he cried, "now I shan't let you
go."
She struggled in his arms, but he mastered her. He covered her cool
brow with kisses, her hands, the lovely curve of her neck where the
smooth hair turned upward, and at last--her lips.
"You're mine, my girl," he exulted, "and nothing, nothing, nothing
shall ever take you away from me now."
There was a click in the latch of the door through which they had just
entered. Another belated boarder was making his way into the domicile
which he had chosen as a substitute for the sacred privacy of home.
Caroline tore herself out of Billy's arms just in time to exchange
greetings with the incoming guest with some pretense of composure. He
was a fat man with an umbrella which clattered against the balusters
as he ascended the carved staircase.
"Caught with the goods," Billy tried to say through lips stiffened in
an effort at control.
Caroline turned on him, her face blazing with anger, the transfiguring
white rage of the woman whose spiritual fastnesses have been invaded
through the approach of the flesh.
"There is no way of my ever forgiving you," she said. "No way of my
ever tolerating you, or anything you stand for again. You are
utterly--utterly--utterly detestable in my eyes."
"Is--is that so?" Billy stammered, dizzied by the suddenness of the
onslaught.
"I--I've got some decent hold on my pride and self-respect--even if
Nancy hasn't, and I'm not going to be subjugated like a cave woman by
mere brute force either."
"Aren't you?" said Billy weakly, his mind in a whirl still from the
lightning-like overthrow of all his theories of action.
"I'm not going to do what Nancy is going to do, just out of sheer
temperamental weakness, and--and tendency to follow the line of least
resistance."
Billy had no idea of the significance of her last phrase, and let it
go unheeded. Caroline turned and walked away from him, her head high.
"But, good lord, Nancy isn't going to do it," he called after her
retreating figure, but all the answer he got was the silken swish of
her petticoat as she took the stairs.