To have got that sillily superfluous note to Verrian without any one’s
knowing besides, Miss Shirley must have stolen to his door herself and
slipped it under. In order to do this unsuspected and unseen, she must
have found out in some sort that would not give her away which his room
was, and then watched her chance. It all argued a pervasiveness in her,
after such a brief sojourn in the house, and a mastery of finesse that
he did not like, though, he reflected, he was not authorized to like or
dislike anything about her. He was thirty-seven years old, and he had
not lived through that time, with his mother at his elbow to suggest
inferences from facts, without being versed in wiles which, even when
they were honest, were always wiles, and in lures which, when they were
of the most gossamer tenuity, were yet of texture close enough to make
the man who blundered through them aware that they had been thrown
across his path. He understood, of course, that they were sometimes
helplessly thrown across it, and were mere expressions of abstract woman
with relation to abstract man, but that did not change their nature. He
did not abhor them, but he believed he knew them, and he believed now
that he detected one of them in Miss Shirley’s note. Of course, one
could take another view of it. One could say to one’s self that she was
really so fervently grateful that she could not trust some accident
to bring them together in a place where she was merely a part of the
catering, as she said, and he was a guest, and that she was excusable,
or at least mercifully explicable, in her wish to have him know that she
appreciated his goodness. Verrian had been very good, he knew that;
he had saved the day for the poor thing when it was in danger of the
dreariest kind of slump. She was a poor thing, as any woman was who had
to make her own way, and she had been sick and was charming. Besides,
she had found out his name and had probably recognized a quality of
celebrity in it, unknown to the other young people with whom he found
himself so strangely assorted under Mrs. Westangle’s roof.
In the end, and upon the whole, Verrian would rather have liked, if the
thing could have been made to happen, meeting Miss Shirley long enough
to disclaim meriting her thanks, and to ascribe to the intrinsic value
of her scheme the brilliant success it had achieved. This would not have
been true, but it would have been encouraging to her; and in the revery
which followed upon his conditional desire he had a long imaginary
conversation with her, and discussed all her other plans for the revels
of the week. These had not the trouble of defining themselves very
distinctly in the conversation in order to win his applause, and their
consideration did not carry him with Miss Shirley beyond the strictly
professional ground on which they met.
She had apparently invented nothing for that evening, and the house
party was left to its own resources in dancing and sitting out dances,
which apparently fully sufficed it. They were all tired, and broke up
early. The women took their candles and went off to bed, and the men
went to the billiard-room to smoke. On the way down from his room,
where he had gone to put on his smoking-jacket, Verrian met Miss Macroyd
coming up, candle in hand, and received from her a tacit intimation that
he might stop her for a joking good-night.
“I hope you’ll sleep well on your laurels as umpire,” he said.
“Oh, thank you,” she returned, “and I hope your laurels won’t keep you
awake. It must seem to you as if it was blowing a perfect gale in them.”
“What do you mean? I did nothing.”
“Oh, I don’t mean your promotion of the snow battle. But haven’t you
heard?” He stared. “You’ve been found out!”
“Found out?” Verrian’s soul was filled with the joy of literary fame.
“Yes. You can’t conceal yourself now. You’re Verrian the actor.”
“The actor?” Verrian frowned blackly in his disgust, so blackly that
Miss Macroyd laughed aloud.
“Yes, the coming matinee idol. One of the girls recognized you as soon
as you came into the house, and the name settled it, though, of course,
you’re supposed to be here incognito.”
The mention of that name which he enjoyed in common with the actor made
Verrian furious, for when the actor first appeared with it in New York
Verrian had been at the pains to find out that it was not his real name,
and that he had merely taken it because of the weak quality of romance
in it, which Verrian himself had always disliked. But, of course, he
could not vent his fury on Miss Macroyd. All he could do was to ask,
“Then they have got my photograph on their dressing-tables, with candles
burning before it?”
“No, I don’t believe I can give you that comfort. The fact is, your
acting is not much admired among the girls here, but they think you are
unexpectedly nice as a private person.”
“That’s something. And does Mrs. Westangle think I’m the actor, too?”
“How should Mrs. Westangle know what she thinks? And if she doesn’t, how
should I?”
“That’s true. And are you going to give me away?”
“I haven’t done it yet. But isn’t it best to be honest?”
“It mightn’t be a success.”
“The honesty?”
“My literary celebrity.”
“There’s that,” Miss Macroyd rejoiced. “Well, so far I’ve merely said
I was sure you were not Verrian the actor. I’ll think the other part
over.” She went on up-stairs, with the sound of her laugh following her,
and Verrian went gloomily back to the billiard-room, where he found
most of the smokers conspicuously yawning. He lighted a fresh cigar,
and while he smoked they dropped away one by one till only Bushwick was
left.
“Some of the fellows are going Thursday,” he said. “Are you going to
stick it out to the bitter end?”
Till then it had not occurred to Verrian that he was not going to stay
through the week, but now he said, “I don’t know but I may go Thursday.
Shall you?”
“I might as well stay on. I don’t find much doing in real estate at
Christmas. Do you?”
This was fishing, but it was better than openly taking him for that
actor, and Verrian answered, unresentfully, “I don’t know. I’m not in
that line exactly.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Bushwick said. “I thought I had seen your name
with that of a West Side concern.”
“No, I have a sort of outside connection with the publishing business.”
“Oh,” Bushwick returned, politely, and it would have been reassuringly
if Verrian had wished not to be known as an author. The secret in which
he lived in that regard was apparently safe from that young, amiable,
good-looking real-estate broker. He inferred, from the absence of any
allusion to the superstition of the women as to his profession, that it
had not spread to Bushwick at least, and this inclined him the more
to like him. They sat up talking pleasantly together about impersonal
affairs till Bushwick finished his cigar. Then he started for bed,
saying, “Well, good-night. I hope Mrs. Westangle won’t have anything so
active on the tapis for tomorrow.”
“Try and sleep it off. Good-night.”