David may have thought it pure chance that he should find Dolly Tennant
alone. But it was not. She had given the matter not a little strategy
and arrangement. Why, however, in view of her relations with McAllen,
she should have made herself as attractive as possible to the eye is for
other women to say.
It was to be April in a few days, and March was going out like a fiery
dragon. The long, broad shadow of the terrace awning helped to darken
the Tennants' drawing-room, and Venetian blinds, half-drawn, made a kind
of cool dusk, in which it came natural to speak in a lowered voice, and
to move quietly, as if some one were sick in the house. Miss Tennant sat
very low, with her hands clasped over her knees; a brocade and Irish
lace work-bag spilled its contents at her feet. She wore a twig of tea
olive in her dress so that the whole room smelled of ripe peaches. She
had never looked lovelier or more desirable.
"David!" she exclaimed. Her tone at once expressed delight at seeing
him, and was an apology for remaining languidly seated. And she looked
him over in a critical, maternal way.
"If you hadn't sent in your name," she said, "I should never have known
you. You stand taller and broader, David. You filled the door-way. But
you're not really much bigger, now that I look at you. It's your
character that has grown.... I'm _so_ proud of you."
David was very pale. It may have been from his long journey. But he at
least did not know, because he said that he didn't when she asked him.
"And now," she said, "you must tell me all that you haven't written."
"Not quite yet," said David. "There is first a little matter of
business...."
"Oh--" she protested.
But David counted out his debt to her methodically, with the accrued
interest.
"Put it in my work-bag," she said.
"Did you ever expect to see it again?"
"Yes, David."
"Thank you," he said.
"But I," she said, "I, too, have things of yours to return."
"Of mine?" He lifted his eyebrows expectantly.
She waved a hand, white and clean as a cherry blossom, toward a
claw-footed table on which stood decanters, ice, soda, cigarettes,
cigars, and matches.
"Your collateral," she said.
"Oh," said David. "But I have decided not to be a backslider."
"I know," she said. "But in business--as a matter of form."
"Oh," said David, "if it's a matter of form, it must be complied with."
He stepped to the table, smiling charmingly, and poured from the nearest
decanter into a glass, added ice and soda, and lifting the mixture
touched it to his lips, and murmured, "To you."
Then he put a cigarette in his mouth, and, after drawing the one breath
that served to light it, flicked it, with perfect accuracy, half across
the room and into the fireplace.
Still smiling, he walked slowly toward Miss Tennant, who was really
excited to know what he would do next.
"Betcher two cents it snows to-morrow," said he.
"Done with you, David," she took him up merrily. And after that a
painful silence came over them. David set his jaws.
"I gave you one more promise," he said. "Is that, too, returned?"
"Of course," she said, "all the promises you gave are herewith
returned."
"Then I may make love?" he asked very gently.
She did not answer for some moments, and then, steeling herself, for she
thought that she must hurt him:
"Yes, David," she said slowly, "you may--as a matter of form."
"Only in that way?"
"In that way only, David--to me."
"I thought--I thought," said the young man in confusion.
"I made you think so," she said generously. "Let all of the punishment,
that can, be heaped on me ... David...." There was a deep appeal in her
voice as for mercy and forgiveness.
"Then," said he, "you never did care--at all."
But even at this juncture Miss Tennant could not speak the truth.
"Never, David--never at all--at least not in _that_ way," she said. "If
I let you think so it was because I thought it would help you to be
strong and to succeed.... God knows I think I was wrong to let you think
so...."
But she broke off suddenly a stream of extenuation that was welling in
her mind; for David did not look like a man about to be cut off in the
heyday of his youth by despair.
She had the tenderest heart; and in a moment the truth blossomed
therein--a truth that brought her pleasure, bewilderment, and was not
unmixed with mortification.
"The man," she said gently, "has found him another girl!"
The man bowed his head and blushed.
"But I have kept my promise, Dolly."
"Of course you have, you poor, dear, long-suffering soul. Oh, David,
when I think what I have been taking for granted I am humiliated, and
ashamed--but I am glad, too. I cannot tell you how glad."
A pair of white gloves, still showing the shape of her hands, lay in the
chair where Miss Tennant had tossed them. David brought her one of these
gloves.
"Put it on," he said.
When she had done so, he took her gloved hand in his and kissed it.
"As a matter of form," he said.
She laughed easily, though the blush of humiliation had not yet left her
cheeks.
"Tell me," she said, "what you would have done, David, if--if I _did_
care."
"God punish me," he said gravely, "oh, best friend that ever a man had
in the world, if I should not then have made you a good husband."
Not long after McAllen was with her.
"Well?" he said.
"Well," said she, "there was a train that he could catch. And I suppose
he caught it."
"How did he--er, behave?"
"Considering the circumstances," said she, "he behaved very well."
"Is he hard hit?"
She considered a while; but the strict truth was not in that young lady.
"I think," she said, "that you may say that he is hard hit--very hard
hit."
"Poor soul," said Billy tenderly.
"Oh, Billy!" she exclaimed, "I feel so false and so old."
"Old!" he cried. "You! You at twenty-five say that to me at----"
"It isn't as if I was _just_ twenty-five, Billy," and she burst out
laughing. "The terrible part of it is that I'm still twenty-five."
But he only smiled and smiled. She seemed like a little child to him,
all innocence, and inexperience, and candor.
Then as her laughter merged into tears he knelt and caught her in his
arms.
"Dolly--Dolly!" he said in a choking voice. "What is your name?"
"Dolly." The tears came slowly.
"Whose girl are you?"
"I'm Billy McAllen's girl." The tears ceased.
"All of you?"
"All of me.... Oh, Billy--love me always--only love me...."
And for these two the afternoon dragged slowly on, and very much as
usual.
"You are two days ahead of schedule, David. I'm glad to see you."
Though Uriah Grey's smile was bland and simple, beneath it lay a
complicated maze of speculation; and the old man endeavored to read in
the young man's face the answers to those questions which so greatly
concerned him. Uriah Grey's eyesight was famous for two things: for its
miraculous, almost chemical ability to detect the metals in ore and the
gold in men. He sighed; but not so that David could hear. The magnate
detected happiness where less than two weeks before he had read doubt,
hesitation, and a kind of dumb misery.
"You have had a pleasant holiday?"
"A happy one, Mr. Grey." David's eyes twinkled and sparkled.
"Tell me about it."
"Well, sir, I paid my debts and got back my collateral."
"Well, sir?"
"I tasted whiskey," said David. "I lighted a cigarette, I registered a
bet of two cents upon the weather, and I made love."
Uriah Grey with difficulty suppressed a moan.
"Did you!" he said dully.
"Yes," said David. "I kissed the glove upon a lady's hand." He laughed.
"It smelled of gasoline," he said.
Mr. Grey grunted.
"And what are your plans?"
"What!" cried David offendedly. "Are you through with me?"
"No, my boy--no."
David hesitated.
"Mr. Grey," he began, and paused.
"Well, sir?"
"It is now lawful for me to make love," said David; "but I should do so
with a better grace if I had your permission and approval."
Mr. Grey was puzzled.
"What have I to do with it?"
"You have a granddaughter...."
"What!" thundered the old man. "You want to make love to my
granddaughter!"
"Yes," said David boldly, "and I wonder what you are going to say."
"I have only one word to say--Hurry!"
"David!"
Spools of silk rattled from her lap to the floor. She was frankly and
childishly delighted to see him again, and she hurried to him and gave
him both her hands. But he looked so happy that her heart misgave her
for a moment, and then she read his eyes aright, just as long since he
must have read the confession in hers. At this juncture in their lives
there could not have been detected in either of them the least show of
hesitation or embarrassment. It was as if two travellers in the desert,
dying of thirst, should meet, and each conceive in hallucination that
the other was a spring of sweet water.
Presently David was looking into the lovely face that he held between
his hands. He had by this time squeezed her shoulders, patted her back,
kissed her feet, her dress, her hands, her eyes, and pawed her hair.
They were both very short of breath.
"Violet," he gasped, "what is your name?"
"Violet."
"Whose girl are you?"
"I'm David Larkin's girl."
"All of you?"
"All--all--all----"
It was the beginning of another of those long, tedious afternoons. But
to the young people concerned it seemed that never until then had such
words as they spoke to each other been spoken, or such feelings of
almost insupportable tenderness and adoration been experienced.
Yet back there in Aiken, Sapphira was experiencing the same feelings,
and thinking the same thoughts about them; and so was Billy McAllen. And
when you think that he had already been divorced once, and that
Sapphira, as she herself (for once truthfully) confessed, was still
twenty-five, it gives you as high an opinion of the little bare god--as
he deserves.