Charity Coe forgot her great moving-picture enterprise for a time in the
agony of her discovery that her husband was disloyal and that the Church
did not accept that as a cancellation of her own loyalty.
For a long time she was in such misery of uncertainty that she went up
to the mountains to recover her strength. She came back at last, made
simple and stoical somehow by the contrast of human pettiness with the
serenity (as we call it) of those vast masses of debris that we poetize
and humanize as patient giants.
Her absence had left Cheever entirely to his own devices and to Zada's.
They had made up and fought and made up again dozens of times and
settled down at length to that normal alternation of peace and conflict
known as domestic life.
With Charity out of the way there was so little interruption to their
communion that when she came back Zada forbade Cheever to meet her at
the station, and he obeyed.
Charity felt that she had brought with her the weight of the mountains
instead of their calm when she detrained in the thronged solitude of
the Grand Central Terminal. And the house with its sympathetic family of
servants only was as home-like as the Mammoth Cave.
She took up her work with a frenzy. The need of a man to act as her
adjutant in the business details was imperative. She thought of Jim
Dyckman again, and with a different thought.
When he pleaded to her before she had imagined that she was at least
officially a wife. Now she felt divorced and abandoned, a waif on the
public mercy.
She wanted to talk to Jim because she felt so disprized and downtrodden
that she wanted to see somebody who adored her. She felt wild impulses
to throw herself into his keeping. She wanted to be bad just to spite
the bad. But she merely convinced herself that she was wicked enough
already and deserving of her punishment.
She made the moving-picture scheme a good excuse for asking Jim to
grant her a talk--a business talk. To protect herself from him and from
herself she made a convenience of Mrs. Neff's home. Jim met her
there. She was not looking her best and her mood was one of artificial
indirectness that offended him. He never dreamed that it was because she
was afraid to show him how glad she was to see him.
He was furious at her--so he said he would do her bidding. She dumped
the financial and mechanical ends of the enterprise on his hands and he
accepted the burden. He had nothing else pressing for his time.
One of his first duties, Charity told him, was to call at the Hyperfilm
Studio and try to engage that Mr. Ferriday for director and learn the
ropes.
“While you're there you might inquire about that little girl you pulled
out of the pool. I sent her there. They promised her a job. Her name
was--I have it at home in my address-book. I'll telephone it to you.”
And she did. She had no more acquaintance with the history Kedzie was
making in the moving-picture world than she had of the sensational rise
of the latest politician in Tibet. Neither had Jim.
He had been traveling about on his mother's yacht and in less correct
societies, trying to convince himself that he was cured of Charity. He
did not know that the first pictures of Anita Adair were causing lines
to gather outside the moving-picture theaters of numberless cities and
towns.
When his car halted before the big studio where Ferriday was high priest
Jim might have been a traveler entering a temple in Lassa, for all he
knew of its rites and its powers.
No more did the doorman know the power and place of Jim Dyckman. When
Jim said he had an appointment with Mr. Ferriday the doorman thumbed him
up the marble stairs. There were many doors, but no signs on them, and
Dyckman blundered about. At length he turned down a corridor and found
himself in the workshop.
A vast room it was, the floor hidden with low canvas walls and doors
marked “Keep out.” Overhead were girders of steel from which depended
heavy chains supporting hundreds of slanting tubes glowing with green
fire.
From somewhere in the inclosures came a voice in distress. It was the
first time Dyckman ever heard Ferriday's voice, and it puzzled him as it
cried:
“Come on, choke her--choke harder, you fool; you're not a
masseur--you're a murderer. Now drag her across to the edge of the well.
Pause, look back. Come on, Melnotte: yell at him! 'Stop, stop, you dog!'
Turn round, Higgins; draw your knife. Go to it now! Give 'em a real
fight. That's all right. Only a little cut. The blood looks good. Get
up, Miss Adair; crawl away on hands and knees. Don't forget you've been
choked. Now take the knife away, Melnotte. Rise; look triumphant; see
the girl. Get to him, Miss Adair. Easy on the embrace: you're a shy
little thing. 'My hero! you have saved me!' Now, Melnotte: 'Clarice! it
is you! you!' Cut! How many feet, Jones?
“Now we'll take the scene in the vat of sulphuric acid. Is the tank
ready? You go lie down and rest, Miss Adair. We won't want you for half
an hour.”
As Kedzie left the scene she found Dyckman waiting for her. He lifted
his hat and spoke down at her:
“Pardon me, but you're Miss Adair, aren't you?”
“Yes,” said Kedzie, with as much modesty as a queen could show,
incidentally noting that the man who bespoke her so timidly was plainly
a real swell. She was getting so now that she could tell the real from
the plated.
“I heard them murdering you in there and I--Well, Mrs. Cheever asked me
to look you up and see how you were getting along. I see you are.”
“Mrs. Cheever!” said Kedzie, searching her memory. Then, with great
kindliness, “Oh yes! I remember her.”
“You've forgotten me, I suppose. I had the pleasure--the sad pleasure of
helping you out of the water at Mrs. Noxon's.”
“Oh, Lord, yes,” Kedzie cried, forgetting her rank. “You're Jim
Dyckman--I mean, Mr. Dyckman.”
“So you remember my name,” he flushed. “Well, I must say!”
“I didn't remember to thank you,” said Kedzie. “I was all damp and mad.
I've often thought of writing to you.” And she had.
“I wish you had,” said Dyckman. “Well, well!”
He didn't know what to say, and so he laughed and she laughed and they
were well acquainted. Then he thought of a good one.
“I pulled you out of the cold water, so it's your turn to pull me out of
the hot.”
“What hot?” said Kedzie.
“I've been sent up here to learn the trade.”
Kedzie had a horrible feeling that he must have lost his money. Wouldn't
it be just her luck to meet her first millionaire after he had become an
ex-?
But Dyckman said that he had come to try and engage Mr. Ferriday, and
that sounded so splendid to Kedzie that she snuggled closer. Ordinarily
when a woman cowers under the eaves of a man's shoulder it is taken for
a signal for amiabilities to begin.
Dyckman could not imagine that Kedzie was already as bad as all that.
She wasn't. She was just trying to get as close as she could to a
million dollars. Her feelings were as innocent and as imbecile as those
of the mobs that stand in line for the privilege of pump-handling a
politician.
Jim Dyckman kept forgetting that he was so rich. He hated to be reminded
of it. He did not suspect Kedzie of such a thought. He stared down at
her and thought she was cruelly pretty. He wanted to tell her so, but he
found himself saying:
“But I mustn't keep you. I heard somebody say that you were to lie down
and rest up.”
“Oh, that was only Mr. Ferriday. I'm not tired a bit.”
“Ferriday. Oh yes, I'm forgetting him. He's the feller I've come to
see.”
“He can't be approached when he's working. Sit down, won't you?”
He sat down on an old bench and she sat down, too. She had never felt
quite so contented as this. And Dyckman had not felt so teased by beauty
in a longer time than he could remember.
Kedzie was as exotic to him as a Japanese doll. Her face was painted in
picturesque blotches that reminded him of a toy-shop. Her eyes were made
up with a delicate green that gave them an effect unknown to him.
She was dressed as a young farm girl with a sunbonnet a-dangle at the
back of her neck, her curls trailing across her rounded shoulders and
down upon her dreamy bosom. She sat and swung her little feet and looked
up at him sidewise.
He forgot all about Ferriday, and when Ferriday came along did not see
him. Kedzie did not tell him. She pretended not to see Ferriday, though
she enjoyed enormously the shock it gave him to find her so much at ease
with that big stranger.
Ferriday was so indignant at being snubbed in his own domain by his own
creation that he sent Garfinkel to see who the fellow was and throw him
out. Garfinkel came back with Dyckman, followed by Kedzie.
Before Garfinkel could present Dyckman to the great Ferriday, Kedzie
made the introduction. Dyckman was already her own property. She had
seen him first.
Ferriday was jolted by the impact of the great name of Dyckman. He
was restored by the suppliant attitude of his visitor. He said that he
doubted if he could find the time to direct an amateur picture. Dyckman
hastened to say:
“Of course, money is no object to us....”
“Nor to me,” Ferriday said, coldly.
Dyckman went on as if he had not heard: “... Except that the more the
show costs the less there is for the charity.”
“I should be glad to donate my services to the cause,” said Ferriday,
who could be magnificent.
“Three cheers for you!” said Dyckman, who could not.
Ferriday had neither the time nor the patience for the task. But when
the chance came to dazzle the rich by the rich generosity of working for
nothing, he could not afford to let it pass. To tip a millionaire! He
had to do that.
He saw incidentally that Kedzie was fairly hypnotized by Dyckman and
Dyckman by her. His first flare of jealousy died out. To be cut out by a
prince has always been a kind of ennoblement in itself.
Also one of Ferriday's inspirations came to him. If he could get those
two infatuated with each other it would not only take Kedzie off his
heart, but it might be made to redound to the further advantage of his
own genius. A scheme occurred to him. He was building the scenario of it
in the back room of his head while his guest occupied his parlor.
He wanted to be alone and he wanted Dyckman and Kedzie to be alone
together. And so did Kedzie. Ferriday suggested:
“Perhaps Mr. Dyckman would like to look over the studio--and perhaps
Miss Adair would show him about.”
Kedzie started to cry, “You bet your boots,” but she caught herself in
time and shifted to, “I should be chawmed.” Millionaires did not use
plain words.
Then Dyckman said, “Great!”
He followed Kedzie wherever she led. He was as awkward and out of place
as a school-boy at his first big dance. Kedzie showed him a murder scene
being enacted under the bluesome light. She took great pains not to let
any of it stain her skin. She showed him a comic scene with a skeletonic
man on a comic bicycle. Dyckman roared when the other comedian
lubricated the cyclist's joints with an oil-can.
Kedzie showed him the projection-room and told the operator to run off
a bit of a scene in which she was revealed to no disadvantage. She sat
alone in the dark with a million dollars that were crazy about her. She
could tell that Dyckman was tremendously excited.
Here at last was her long-sought opportunity to rebuff the advances of
a wicked plutocrat. But he didn't make any, and she might not have
rebuffed them. Still, the air was a-quiver with that electricity
generated almost audibly by a man and a woman alone in the dark.
Dyckman was ashamed of himself and of his arm for wanting to gather in
that delectable partridge, but he behaved himself admirably.
He told her that she was a “corker,” a “dream,” and “one sweet song,”
and that the picture did not do her justice.
Kedzie showed him the other departments of the picture-factory and he
was amazed at all she knew. So was she. He stayed a long while and saw
everything and yet he said he would come again.
He suggested that it might be nice if Mr. Ferriday and Miss Adair would
dine with him soon. Ferriday was free “to-morrow,” and so they made it
to-morrow evening at the Vanderbilt.
Kedzie was there and Dyckman was there, but a boy brought a note
from Mr. Ferriday saying that he was unavoidably prevented from being
present.
Dyckman grinned: “We'll have to bear up under it the best we can. You
won't run away just because your chaperon is gone, will you?”
Kedzie smiled and said she would stay. But she was puzzled. What was
Ferriday up to? One always suspected that Ferriday was up to something
and thinking of something other than what he did or said.
Kedzie was not ashamed of her clothes this time. Indeed, when she gave
her opera-cloak to the maid she came out so resplendent that Jim Dyckman
said:
“Zowie! but you're a--Whew! aren't you great? Some change-o from the
little farm girl I saw up at the studio. I don't suppose you'll eat
anything but a little bird-seed.”
She was elated to see the _maitre d'hotel_ shake hands with her escort
and ask him how he was and where he had been. Jim apologized for
neglecting to call recently, and the two sauntered like friends across
to a table where half a dozen waiters bowed and smiled and welcomed the
prodigal home.
When they were seated the headwaiter said, “The moosels vit sauce
mariniere are nize to-nide.”
Dyckman shook his head: “Ump-umm! I'm on the water-wagon and the diet
kitchen. Miss Adair can go as far as she likes, but I've got to stick
to a little thick soup, a big, thick steak, and after, a little French
pastry, some coffee, and a bottle of polly water--and I'll risk a mug
of old musty.” He turned to Kedzie: “And now I've ordered, what do you
want? I never could order for anybody else.”
Kedzie was disappointed in him. He was nothing like Ferriday. He didn't
use a French word once. She was afraid to venture on her own.
“I'll take the same things,” she said.
“Sensible lady,” said Jim. “Women who work must eat.”
Kedzie hated to be referred to as a worker by an idler. She little knew
how much Jim Dyckman wished he were a worker.
She could not make him out. Her little hook had dragged out Leviathan
and she was surprised to find how unlike he was to her plans for her
first millionaire. He ate like a hungry man who ordered what he wanted
and made no effort to want what he did not want. He had had so much
elaborated food that he craved few courses and simple. He said what came
into his head, without frills or pose. He was sincerely delighted with
Kedzie and made neither secret nor poetry of it.
Toward the last of the dinner Kedzie ceased to try to find in him what
was not there. She accepted him as the least affected person she had
ever met. He could afford to be unaffected and careless and spontaneous.
He had nothing to gain. He had everything already. Kedzie would have
said that he ought to have been happy because of that, as if that were
not as good an excuse for discontent as any. In any case, Kedzie said to
herself:
“He's the real thing.”
She wanted to be that very thing--that most difficult thing--real. It
became her new ambition.
After the dinner Dyckman offered to take her home. He had a limousine
waiting for him. She did not ask him to put her into a taxicab. She was
not afraid to have him ride home with her. She was afraid he wouldn't.
She was not ashamed of the apartment-house she was living in now. It
was nothing wonderful, but all the money had been spent on the hall. And
that was as far as Dyckman would get--yet.
Kedzie had acquired a serenity toward all the world except what she
called “high society.” In her mind the word _high_ had the significance
it has with reference to game that has been kept to the last critical
moments, and trembles, exquisitely putrid, between being eaten
immediately and being thrown away soon.
There is enough and to spare of that high element among the wealthy, but
so there is among the poor and among all the middlings. Kedzie had
met with it on her way up, and she expected to find it in Dyckman. She
looked forward to a thrilling adventure.
She could not have imagined that Dyckman was far more afraid of her than
she of him. She was so tiny and he so big that she terrorized him as a
mouse an elephant, or a baby a saddle-horse. The elephant is probably
afraid that he will squash the little gliding insect, the horse that he
might step on the child.
The disparity between Jim Dyckman and Kedzie was not so great, and they
were both of the same species. But he felt a kind of terror of her. And
yet she fascinated him as an interesting toy that laughed and talked and
probably would not say “Mamma!” if squeezed.
Dyckman had been lonely and blue, rejected and dejected. Kedzie was
something different. He had known lots of actresses, large and small,
stately, learned, cheap, stupid, brilliant, bad, good, gorgeous, shabby,
wanton, icy. But Kedzie was his first movie actress. She dwelt in a
strange realm of unknown colors and machineries.
She was a new toy in a new toyhouse--a whole Noah's ark of queer
toys. He wanted to play with those toys. She made him a _revenant_ to
childhood. Or, as he put it:
“Gee! but you make me feel as silly as a kid.”
That surprised Kedzie. It was not the sort of talk she expected from
a world which was stranger to her than the movie studio to him. He was
perfectly natural, and that threw her into a spasm of artificiality.
He sat staring down at her. He put his hands under his knees and sat on
them to keep them from touching her, as they wanted to. For all he
knew, she was covered with fresh paint. That made her practically
irresistible. Would it come off if he kissed her? He had to find out.
Finally he said, so helplessly, passively, that it would be more
accurate to say it was said by him:
“Say, Miss Adair, I'm a dead-goner if you don't gimme a kiss.”
Kedzie was horrified. Skip Magruder would have been eleganter than that.
She answered, with dignity:
“Certainly, if you so desire.”
That ought to have chaperoned him back to his senses, but he was too
far gone. His long arms shot out, went round her, gathered her up to
his breast. His high head came down like a swan's, and his lips pressed
hers.
Whatever her soul was, her flesh was all girlhood in one flower of lithe
stem, leaf, petal, sepal, and perfume. There was nothing of the opiate
poppy, the ominous orchid, or even that velvet voluptuary, the rose.
She was like a great pink, sweet, shy, fragrant, common wild honeysuckle
blossom.
Jim Dyckman was so whelmed by the youth and flavor of her that his
rapture exploded in an unsmothered gasp:
“Golly! but you're great!”
Kedzie was heartbroken. Gilfoyle had done better than that. She had been
kissed by several million dollars, and she was not satisfied!
But Dyckman was. He felt that Kedzie had solved the problem of
Charity Coe. She had cleared his soul of that hopeless obsession--he
thought--just then.