THE WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING
One afternoon, a week later, Chrystie Alston was crossing Union Square
Plaza. It was beautiful weather, the kind that comes to San Francisco
after long spells of rain. Across the bay the distances were deep-hued
and crystal-clear, the hills clean-edged against a turquoise sky. Green
slopes showed below the dense olive of eucalyptus woods and around the
shore were the white clusterings of little towns. Where the water filled
in the end of a street's vista it was like an insert of blue enameling,
and from the city's high places Mount Diavolo could be seen, a pointed
gem, surmounting in final sharpness the hill's carven skyline.
Chrystie felt the exhilaration of the air and the sun, and walked with a
bounding, long-limbed swing. She was a glad and prosperous figure, silk
skirts swept by scintillant lights eddying back from the curves of her
hips, glossy new furs lying soft on her shoulders, and on her bosom--a
spot of purple--a bunch of violets. Her eyes were as clear as the sky,
and her hair, pressed down by the edge of a French hat, hung in a misty
golden tangle to her brows. No one needed to be told she was rich and
carefree. Her expensive clothes revealed the former, her buoyant step and
happy expression, the latter condition.
She was halfway across the Plaza when her progress suffered a check.
There was a drop in her swift faring, a poised moment of indecision.
During the halt her face lost its blithe serenity, showed a faltering
uncertainty, then stiffened into resolution. Inside her muff her hands
gripped, inside her bodice her heart jumped. Both these evidences of
agitation were hidden and that gave her confidence. Assuming an air of
nonchalance she moved forward, her gait slackened, her eyes abstractedly
shifting from the sky to the shrubs.
Boye Mayer, advancing up the path, saw she had seen him and drew near,
watchfully amused. Almost abreast of him she directed her glance from
the shrubs to his face. Surprise at the encounter was conveyed by a
slight lifting of her brows, pleasure and greeting by a smile and
inclination of the head. Then she would have passed on, but he came to a
stop in front of her.
"Oh, don't go by as if you didn't want to speak to me," he said, and
pressed a hand that slid warm out of the new muff.
Standing thus in the remorseless sunshine she was really very handsome,
her skin flawless, her lips as red and smooth as cherries. And yet in
spite of such fineness of finish there was no magic about her, no allure,
no subtlety. Achieving graceful greetings he inwardly deplored it, noting
as he spoke how shy she was and how she sought to hide it under a crude
sprightliness. There was a shyness full of charm, a graceful gaucherie
delightful to watch as the gambolings of young animals. But Chrystie was
too conscious of herself and of him to be anything but awkward and
constrained.
She was going shopping, but when he claimed a moment--just a moment, he
saw her so seldom--went to the bench he indicated and dropped down on it.
Here, a little breathless, sitting very upright, her burnished skirts
falling deep-folded to the ground, she tried to assume the worldly
lightness of tone befitting a lady of her looks in such an encounter.
"Do you often go this way, through the Plaza?" he asked after they had
disposed of the fine weather.
"Yes, quite often. When it's a nice day like this I always walk downtown,
and it's shorter going through here."
"It's odd I haven't met you before. This is my regular beat, across here
about three and then out toward the Park."
"That's a long walk," Chrystie said. "You must like exercise."
"I do, but I also like taking little rests on the way. That is, when I
meet a lady"--his eye swept her, respectfully admiring--"who looks like a
goddess dressed by Worth."
She moved in her flashing silks, making them rustle.
"Oh, Mr. Mayer, how silly," was the best she could offer in response.
"Silly! But why?" His shoulders went up with that foreignness Chrystie
thought so bewitching. "Why is it silly to say what's true?"
"But you know it's not--it's just--er--" She wanted to retort with the
witty brilliance that the occasion demanded, and what she said was, "It's
just hot air and you oughtn't to."
Then she felt her failure so acutely that she blushed, and to hide it
buried her chin in her fur and sniffed at the violets on her breast.
His voice came, close to her ear, very kind, as if he hadn't noticed
the blush,
"Well, then, I'll express it differently. I'll say you're just charming.
Will that do?"
"I don't think I am. It sounds like someone smaller. I'm too big to be
charming."
That made him laugh, a jolly ringing note.
"Whatever _you_ think you are, _I_ think you're the most delightful
person in San Francisco."
The silks rustled again. Chrystie lifted her eyes from the violets to the
bench opposite from which two Italian women were watching with deep
interest this coquetting of the lordlings.
"Now you're making fun of me," she said, like a wounded child.
"Oh, dear lady," it was he who was wounded, misunderstood, hurt, "how
unkind and how untrue. Could I make fun of anyone I admired, I respected,
I--er--thought as much of as I do of you?"
She looked down at her muff. Just for a moment he thought her shyness was
quite winning.
"I don't know--I don't know you well enough. But you've been everywhere
and seen everything, and I must seem so--so--sort of stupid and like a
kid. I don't know what you think, but I know that's the way I feel when
I'm with you."
The Italian women were aware of a slight movement on the part of the
aristocratic gentleman which suggested an intention of laying his hand
upon that of the golden-haired lady. Then he evidently thought better of
it, and his hand dropped to the head of his cane. The golden-haired lady
had seen it, too, and affrighted slid her own into the shelter of her
muff. With down-drooped head she heard the cultured accents of the only
perfect nugget she had ever met murmur reproachfully.
"Now it's _you_ who are making fun of _me_. Why, _I'm_ the one who feels
stupid and tongue-tied. I'm the one who comes away from you abashed and
embarrassed. And why, do you suppose? Because I feel I've been with
someone who's so much finer than all the others. Not the pert, smart
girl of dinners and dances, but someone genuine and sincere and
sweet"--his glance touched the bunch of violets--"as sweet as those
violets you're wearing."
Chrystie experienced a feeling of astonishment, mixed with an uplifting
exaltation. Staring before her she struggled to adjust the familiar sense
of her shortcomings with this revelation of herself as a creature of
compelling charm. She was so thrilled she forgot her pose and murmured
incredulously,
"Really?"
"Very really. Why are you so modest, little Miss Alston?"
"I didn't know I was."
"Wonderfully so--amazingly so. But perhaps it's part of you. It is so
sometimes with a beautiful woman."
"Beautiful? Oh, no, Mr. Mayer."
"Oh, yes, Miss Alston."
Chrystie began to feel as if she was coming to life after a long period
of deadness. She had a consciousness of sudden growth, of expanding and
outflowering, of bursting into glowing bloom. A smile that she tried to
repress broke out on her lips, the repression causing it to be one-sided,
which gave it piquancy. She was invaded by a heady sense of exhilaration
and a new confidence, daring, almost reckless. It made it possible for
her to quell a rush of embarrassment and lead the conversation like a
woman of the world:
"You're mistaken about my being modest. Everybody who knows me well says
I'm spoiled."
"Who's spoiled you?"
"Lorry and Aunt Ellen and Fong."
She gave him a quick side glance, met his eyes, and they both laughed, a
light-hearted mingling of treble and bass.
The Italian women breathed deeply on their bench, aware that the
interchanged glances and chimed laughter had advanced the romance on its
happy way.
"Three people can't do any serious spoiling--there should be at least
four. Who's Fong?"
"Our Chinaman; he's been with us for centuries."
"Let me make the fourth. Put me on the list."
"I think you've put yourself there without being invited. Since we sat
down you've done nothing but pay me compliments."
"Never mind that. Here's a sensible suggestion: I'll judge myself if
you're spoiled and if I think you are I won't pay you one more. Isn't
that fair?"
"I think so."
"Very well. Of course I must know you better, have a talk with you before
I can be sure. How can we arrange that? Ah--I have it! Some bright
afternoon like this we might take a walk together."
"Yes, we could do that."
"We might go to the park--it's wonderful there on days like this."
She nodded and said slowly,
"And we could take Lorry."
"To be sure, if she'd care to come."
There was a slight pause and he saw by her profile there was doubt
in her mind.
"I don't know about her caring. Lorry doesn't like walking much."
"Then why ask her to do it?"
She stroked her muff, evidently discomfited.
"Well, you see, it's this way, I don't think Lorry'd like me to go with
you alone."
"But why?" He drew himself up from the bench's back, his tone surprised,
slightly offended. "Surely having invited me to her house, she could
have no objection to my going for a stroll with you?"
"No, no--" Her discomfort was obvious now. "It isn't _you_. It's just
that father was very particular and Lorry always tries to do what he
would have liked."
"My dear young lady, your father's been dead a good many years. Things
have changed since then; the customs of his day are not the customs of
ours. Of course I wouldn't suggest that you go counter to your sister's
wishes, but"--he turned away from her, huffy, head high, a gentleman
flouted in his pride--"it's rather absurd from my point of view. Oh,
well, we'll say no more about it."
Chrystie was distracted. It was not only the humiliation of appearing
out of date and provincial; it was something much worse than that. She
saw Boye Mayer retiring in majestic indignation and not coming back,
leaving her at this first real blossoming of their friendship because
Lorry had ideas that the rest of the world had abandoned with hoop
skirts and chignons.
"Why, why," she stammered, alarm pushing her to the recklessness of the
desperate, "couldn't we go and not tell her? It's--it's--just a prejudice
of Lorry's--no one else feels that way. The Barlow girls, who've been
very strictly brought up, go walking and even go to the theater
with"--she was going to say "their nuggets" and then changed with a gasp
to--"the men their mother asks to her parties."
So Chrystie, guileless and subjugated, assisted in the development of the
Idea. She made an engagement to meet Mr. Mayer four days later in the
Plaza and go with him to see the orchids in the park greenhouse. The Holy
Spirit orchid was in bloom and she had never seen it. A flower with such
a name as the Holy Spirit seemed to Chrystie in some way to shed an
element of propriety if not righteousness over the adventure.
It was when they were sauntering toward the end of the Plaza that a
woman, coming up a side street, saw them. She was about to cross when her
eye, ranging over the green lawns, brought up on them and she stopped,
one foot advanced, its heel knocking softly against the curbstone. As the
two tall figures moved her glance followed them, her head slowly turning.
She watched them cross the intersection of the streets, lights chasing
each other up and down the lady's waving skirt and gilding the web of
golden hair; she watched them pass by a show window, its glassy surface
holding their bright reflections; she watched their farewells at the door
of a large shop which finally absorbed the lady. Then she faced about,
and walked toward the Albion, where a rehearsal was awaiting her.
That afternoon a week had passed since Pancha had seen her lover.
During the first three days of it she experienced a still and perfect
peace. She did not want to see him; she had reached a point of complete
assurance and was glad to wait there, rest in the joy that had come to
her, dwell, awed, on its wonderfulness. In her short periods of leisure
she sat motionless, recalling lovely moments, living them over, sometimes
asking herself why he cared for her, then throwing the question
aside--that he did was all that concerned her now.
On the fourth day her serenity was disturbed very slightly, but she could
not banish a faint, intruding surprise that she had not heard from him.
She tried to smother it by a return to her old interests, but her work
had lost its power to engross and she went through it mechanically
without enthusiasm. By the fifth her mental state had changed. She would
not admit that she was uneasy, but in spite of her efforts a queer,
upsetting restlessness invaded her. Everything was all right, she knew
it, but she seemed to be dodging a shadow that fell thinly across the
brightness. That evening she played badly, missed a cue and had no snap.
She realized it, saw it in the faces of her fellows, and knew she must do
better or there would be complaints.
On the way home she argued it out with herself. She was thinking too much
of Mayer--worrying about nothing--and it was interfering with her work.
She oughtn't to be such a fool, but her place at the Albion was
important, and a word from him--a line or a phone message--would tone her
up, and she would go on even better than before. At an "all night" drug
store she bought a box of pink notepaper and a sachet, and before she
went to bed put the scented envelope in the box and covered them both
with a sofa pillow to draw out the perfume.
In the morning, after sniffing delicately at the paper, which exhaled a
powerful smell of musk, she sat at her table and wrote him a letter. She
made several drafts before she attained the tone, jocose and tender, that
would save her pride and draw from him the line that was to dissipate her
foolish fancies.
"DEAREST BOYE:
"No one has knocked at my door for nearly six days now. Not even sent me
a telephone message. But I'm not complaining as maybe the caller may have
a lot of things to keep him busy. But I would like a word just so I won't
forget you. I don't want to do that but you know these stage dames do
have sort of tricky memories. So it might be a good idea to give mine a
jolt. A post card will do it and a letter do it better, and I guess
yourself would do it best of all.
"Thine,
"PANCHITA."
The next morning his answer came and she forgot that she ever had been
uneasy. The world shone, the air was as intoxicating as wine, the sun a
benediction. She kissed the letter and pinned it in her blouse, where it
lay against her heart, from which it had lifted all care. The second
floor of the Vallejo rang to her singing, warbling runs and high, crystal
notes, gushes of melody, and tones clear as a bird's held exultingly.
People passing stopped to listen, looking up at the open windows. And yet
it was far from a love letter:
"DEAR PANCHA:
"What a brute I must seem. I've been out of town, that's all. I have to
go every now and then--business I'm meditating in the interior. I forgot
to tell you about it, but it will take up a good deal of my time from now
on. I won't be able to see you as often as I'd like, but as soon as I
have a spare moment there'll be a knock at your door, or someone waiting
in the alley to the stage entrance. Until then _au revoir, _or in your
own beautiful language, _hasta manana,_
"B."
If she had seen Mayer and the blonde lady before the receipt of this
missive her alarms would have increased. But the letter with one violent
push had sent her to the top of the golden moment again. She was poised
there firmly; it would take more than the sight of Mayer in casual confab
with a woman to dislodge her. He knew many people, went to many places;
she was proud of his social progress. So undisturbed was she that as she
walked to the theatre she smiled to herself, a sly, soft smile. How
surprised the lady would be if she knew that the shabby girl unnoticed on
the curb was Boye Mayer's choice--the Rosamund of his bower, the inmate
of his secret garden.