HALF TRUTHS AND INFERENCES
Chrystie had developed a liking for long walks. As she was a person of a
lazy habit Lorry inquired about it and received the answer that walking
was the easiest way to keep down your weight. This was a satisfactory
explanation, for Chrystie was of the ebullient, early-spreading
Californian type, and an extending acquaintance among girls of her age
might readily awake a dormant vanity. So the walks passed unchallenged.
But, beside an unwonted attention to her looks, Lorry noticed that her
sister was changing. Quite suddenly she seemed to have emerged from
childhood, blossomed into a grown-up phase. She was losing her irrelevant
high spirits, bubbled much less frequently, sometimes sat in silence for
half an hour at a time. Then there were moments when her glance was fixed
and pondering, as if her thoughts ranged afar. The new interest in her
appearance extended from her figure to her clothes. She spent so much
money on them that Lorry spoke to her about it and was answered with
mutinous irritation. Why shouldn't she have pretty things like the other
girls? What was the sense of hoarding up their money like misers? Lorry
could do it if she liked; she was going to get some good out of hers.
Lorry saw the change as the result of a widening social experience--she
had tried to find amusement, the proper surroundings of her age and
station, for Chrystie and she had succeeded. Gayeties had grown out of
that first, agitating dinner till they now moved through quite a little
round of parties. Under this new excitement Chrystie was acquiring poise,
also fluctuations of spirit and temper. Lorry supposed it was
natural--you couldn't stay up late when you weren't used to it and be as
easy-going and good-humored as when you went to bed every night at ten.
Lorry might have seen deeper, but her attention was diverted. For the
first time in her life she was thinking a good deal about her own
affairs. What she felt was kept very secret, but even if it hadn't been
there was no one to notice, certainly not Chrystie, nor Aunt Ellen. The
only other person near enough to notice was Fong, and it wasn't Fong's
place to help--at least to help in an open way.
One morning in the kitchen, when he and "Miss Lolly" were making the menu
for a new dinner, he had said,
"Mist Bullage come this time?"
"Miss Lolly," with a faint access of color and an eye sliding from Fong's
to the back porch, had answered,
"No, I'm not asking Mr. Burrage to this one, Fong."
"Why not ask Mist Bullage?" Fong had persisted, slightly reproving.
"Because I've asked him several times and he hasn't come."
That was in the old Bonanza manner. One answered a Chinaman like Fong
truthfully and frankly as man to man.
"He come this time. You lite him nice letter."
"No, I don't want to, I've enough without him. It's all made up."
"I no see why--plenty big loom, plenty good dinner. Velly nice boy, good
boy, best boy ever come to my boss's house."
"Now, Fong, don't get side-tracked. I didn't come to talk to you about
the people, I came to talk about the food."
Fong looked at her, gently inquiring, "You no like Mist Bullage,
Miss Lolly?"
"Of course I like him. Won't you please attend to what I'm saying?"
"Then you ask him and I make awful swell dinner--same like I make for
your Pa when General Grant eat here."
When Fong had a fixed idea that way there was no use arguing with him;
one rose with a resigned air and left the kitchen. As Lorry passed
through the pantry door he called after her, amiable but determined,
"All samey Mist Bullage no come I won't make bird nest ice cleam with
pink eggs."
No one but Fong bothered about Mr. Burrage's absence. After the evening
at the Albion Chrystie set him down as "hopeless," and when he refused
two dinner invitations, said they ought to have asked him to wait on the
table and then he would have accepted. To this gibe Lorry made no answer,
but that night before the mirror in her own room, she addressed her
reflection with bitterness:
"Why should any man like me? I'm not pretty, I'm not clever, I'm as slow
as a snail." She saw tears rise in her eyes and finished ruthlessly, "I'm
such a fool that I cry about a man who's done everything but say straight
out, 'I don't care for you, you bore me, do leave me alone.'"
So Lorry, nursing her hidden wound, was forgetful of her stewardship.
It was a pity, for there were times when Chrystie, caught in a contrite
mood and questioned, would have told. Such times generally came when she
was preparing for one of her walks. At these moments her adventure had a
way of suddenly losing its glamour and appearing as a shabby and
underhand performance. Before she saw Mayer she often hesitated, a prey
to a chill distaste, sometimes even questioning her love for him. After
she saw him things were different. She came away filled with a bridling
vanity, feeling herself a siren, a queen of men. Helen of Troy, seeing
brave blood spilled for her possession, was not more satisfied of her
worth than Chrystie after an hour's talk with Boye Mayer.
It was the certainty of Lorry's disapproval that made secrecy necessary.
He soon realized that Lorry was the governing force, the loved and feared
dictator. But he was a cunning wooer. He put no ban upon confession--if
Chrystie wanted to tell he was the last person to stop it. And having
placed the responsibility in her hands, he wove closer round the little
fly the parti-colored web of illusion. He made her feel the thrill of the
clandestine, the romance of stolen meetings, see herself not as a green,
affrighted girl, but a woman queening it over her own destiny, fit mate
for him in eagle flight above the hum-drum multitude.
But the moments when her conscience pricked still recurred. She was
particularly oppressed one afternoon as she sat in her room waiting for
the clock to strike three. At half past she was to meet Mayer in the
plaza, opposite the Greek Church. She had no time for a long walk that
day--an engagement for tea claimed her at five--so he had suggested the
plaza. No one they knew ever went there, and a visit to the Greek Church
would be interesting.
Her hat and furs lay ready on the bed and she sat in the long wicker
chair by the window, one hand supporting her chin, while her eyes rested
somberly on the fig tree in the garden. She was reluctant to go; she did
not know why, except that just then, waiting for the clock to strike, she
had had an eerie sort of fear of Mayer. She told herself it was because
he was so clever, so superior to any man she had ever known. But she
wished she could tell Lorry, say boldly, "Lorry, Mr. Mayer is in love
with me"--she wished she could dare.
At that moment Lorry appeared in the doorway between the two rooms.
"Hello," she said. "How serious you look."
"I'm thinking," said Chrystie, studying the fig tree.
"Are you going out?" The things on the bed had caught her eye.
"Um--presently."
"So soon? You're not asked to the Forsythe's till five and it's not
three yet."
"I _could_ be going somewhere else first."
"Oh--where?"
"Somewhere out of this house--that's the main thing. Since the furnace
was put in it's like a Turkish bath."
"You're going for a walk?" Lorry went to the bed and picked up the
hat. It was a new one with a French maker's name in the crown. "You
oughtn't to hack this hat about, Chrystie. I wouldn't wear it when I
went for a walk."
"Do you think it would be better to wear it in the house? Having bought
it I must wear it somewhere."
Lorry, laughing, put on the hat and looked at herself in the glass. There
was a moment's pause, then the chair creaked under a movement of
Chrystie's, and her voice came very quiet.
"Lorry, do you like Boye Mayer?"
Lorry, studying the effect of the hat, did not answer with any special
interest. The Perfect Nugget had lost all novelty for her. He came to the
house now and then, was a help in their entertainments, and was always
considerate and polite--that was all.
"No, not much," she murmured.
"Why not?"
"It's hard to say exactly--just something." She placed her hand over a
rakish green paradise plume to see if its elimination would be an
improvement.
"But if you don't like a person you ought to have a reason."
"You don't always. It's just a feeling, an instinct like dogs have. I've
an instinct against Mr. Mayer--he's not the real thing."
Chrystie sat forward in the chair.
"That's exactly what I'd say he was, and everybody else says so, too."
"On the outside--yes, I didn't mean that. I meant deep down. I don't
think he's real straight through--it's all varnish and glitter. Of course
I don't mind his coming here the way he does; we don't see him often and
he's amusing and pleasant. But I wouldn't like him to be on a friendly
footing. In fact he never could be--I wouldn't let him."
It was the voice of authority. Chrystie felt its finality, and guided by
her own inner distress and the hopelessness of revolt, said sharply:
"And yet you wouldn't mind Mark Burrage being on a friendly footing."
"Mark Burrage!" There was something ludicrous in Lorry's face, full
of surprise under the overpowering hat. "What has Mark Burrage to
do with it?"
Chrystie climbed somewhat lumberingly out of the chair. Her movements
were dignified, her tone sarcastic.
"Oh, nothing, nothing. Only if Mr. Mayer is so far below your standard
I'm wondering where Mr. Burrage comes in." She stretched a long arm and
snatched the hat. "Excuse me," she said with brusque politeness, setting
it on her own head and turning to the glass, "but I really must be going.
Only a salamander could live comfortably in this house."
Lorry was startled. Her sister's face, deeply flushed, showed an intense
irritation.
"I don't understand you. You can't make a comparison between those two
men. They're as different as black and white."
"They certainly are," said Chrystie, driving a long pin through the hat.
"Or chalk and cheese, or brass and gold, or whatever else stands for the
real thing and the imitation."
"What's the matter with you, Chrystie? Are you angry?"
"Me?" She gave a glance from under her lifted arm. "Why should I
be angry?"
"I don't know but--" An alarming thought seized Lorry, and she
moved nearer. It was preposterous, but after all girls took strange
fancies, and Chrystie was no longer a child. "You don't _care_ for
Boye Mayer, do you?"
It was the propitious moment, but Chrystie was now as far from telling as
if she had taken an oath of silence. What Lorry had already said was
enough, and the tone in which she asked the question was the finishing
touch. If she thought her sister had fallen in love with Fong, she
couldn't have appeared more shocked and incredulous.
"Care for him?" said Chrystie, pulling out the bureau drawer and clawing
about in it for her gloves. "Well, I care for him in some ways, and then
I don't care for him in other ways."
"I don't mean that, I mean _really_ care."
"Do you mean, am I _in love_ with him?"
Her eye on Lorry was steady and questioning, also slightly scornful.
Lorry was abashed by it; she felt that she ought not to have asked, and
in confusion stammered, "Yes."
Chrystie moved to the bed and threw on her furs. Her ill-humor was gone,
though she was still a little scornful and rather grandly forbearing. Her
manner suggested that she could condone this in Lorry owing to her
relationship and the honesty of her intention.
"Dearest Lorry, you talk like an old maid in a musical comedy. In love
with him? How I wish I could be! At my age every self-respecting girl
ought to be in love--they always are in books. But try as I will, I
can't seem to manage it. I guess I've got a heart of stone or perhaps
it's been left out of me entirely. Good-by, the heartless wonder's going
for her walk."
She ended on a laugh, a little strident, and crossed the room, perfume
shaken from her brilliant clothes. Outside the door she broke into a song
that rose above her scudding flight down the stairs.
Lorry's momentary uneasiness died. Chrystie, as a woman of ruses and
deceptions, was a thing she could not at this stage accept.
They met in the plaza and saw the Greek Church and then sat on a bench
under a tree and talked. They were so secure in the little park's
isolation that they gave their surroundings no attention. That was why a
woman crossing it was able to draw near, stand for a watching moment,
skirt the back of their bench, and pass on unnoticed. She was the same
woman who had seen them at that earlier meeting in Union Square.
During that month the new operetta at the Albion had been put on and had
fallen flat. There was a good deal of speculation as to the cause of the
failure, and it was rumored that the management set it down to Miss
Lopez. She had slighted her work of late, been careless and indifferent.
Nobody knew what was the matter with her. She scorned the idea of ill
health, but she looked worn out and several times had given vent to
savage and unreasonable bursts of temper. She was too valuable a woman to
quarrel with, and when the head of the enterprise suggested a rest--a
week or two in the country--she rejected the idea with an angry
repudiation of illness or fatigue.
Crowder was there on the first night and went away disturbed. He had
never seen her give so poor a performance; all her fire was gone, she was
mechanical, almost listless. Her public was loyal though puzzled, and the
papers stood by her, but "What's happened to Pancha Lopez? How she _has_
gone off!" was a current phrase where men and women gathered. Behind the
scenes her mates whispered, some jealously observant, others more kindly,
concerned and wondering. Gossip of a love affair was bandied about, but
died for lack of confirmation. She had been seen with no one, the
methodical routine of her days remained unchanged.
For her the month had been the most wretched of her life. Never in the
hard past had she passed through anything as devastating. Those trials
she had known how to meet; this was all new, finding her without defense,
naked to unexpected attack. Belief and dread had alternated in her,
ravaged and laid her waste. After the manner of impassioned women she
would not see, clung to hope, had days, after a letter or a message from
Mayer, when she had almost ascended to the top of the golden moment
again. Then there was silence, a note of hers unanswered, and she fell,
sinking into darkling depths. Once or twice, waking in the night or
waiting for his knock, she had sudden flashes of clear sight. These left
her in a frozen stillness, staring with wide eyes, frightened of herself.
The process of enlightenment had been gradual. Mayer wanted no scenes, no
annoying explanations; there was to be no violent moment of severance. To
accomplish his withdrawal gracefully, he put himself to some trouble.
After that first letter he waylaid her at the stage door one night, and
walked part of the way home with her. He had been kind, friendly,
brotherly--a completely changed Mayer. She felt it and refused to
understand, walking at his side, trying to be the old, merry Pancha.
It was at this time that she received her father's letter from Farleys.
Weeks had passed since she had heard from him, and when she saw his
writing on the envelope she realized that she had almost forgotten him.
The thought left her cold, but when she read the homely phrases she was
moved. In a moment of extended vision she saw the parents' tragedy--the
love that lives for the child's happiness and is powerless to create
it. He would have died for her and she would have thrust him aside,
pushed him pleading from her path, to follow a man a few months before
a stranger.
After that she endured a week without a word from Mayer, and then,
unable to sleep or work, telephoned to his hotel. In answer to her
question the switchboard girl said Mr. Mayer had not been out of town at
all for the last two weeks. She asked to speak with him and heard his
voice, sharp and cold. He couldn't talk freely over the wire; he would
rather she didn't call him up; his out-of-town business had been
postponed, that was all.
"Why are you mad with me?" she breathed, trying to make her voice steady.
"I am not," came the answer. "Please don't be fanciful. And _don't_ call
me up here, I don't like it. I'll be around as soon as I can, but I've a
lot to do, as I've already told you several times. Good-by."
She had sent the call from a telephone booth, and carefully, with a slow
precision, she hung up the receiver. A feeling of despair, a stifling
anguish, seized her and she began to cry. Shut into the hot, small place,
she broke into rending sobs, her head bent, her hands gripped, rocking
back and forth. Small, choked sounds, whines and cries came from her, and
fearful of being heard, she pressed her hands against her mouth, looking
up, looking down, an animal distracted in its unfamiliar pain.
The following day he wrote to her, excused himself, said he had been
worried on business matters and sent her flowers. She buoyed herself up
and once more tried to believe, but her will had been weakened. From
lower layers of consciousness the truth was forcing its way to
recognition, yet she still ignored it. Realization of her state if she
admitted it made her afraid and her fight had the fierceness of a
struggle for life. It was only in the night--awake in the dumb dark--that
she could not escape it. Then, staring at the pale square of the window,
she heard her voice whispering:
"What will I do? What will become of me?"
In all her miserable imaginings and self-queries the thought that she had
been supplanted had no place. Mayer had often spoken to her of his social
diversions and no woman had ever figured in them. The paragraphs which
still appeared about him touched on no feminine influences. It was her
fault; she had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Had she not
always wondered that he should have cared for her? On close acquaintance
he had found her to be what she was--common, uneducated, impossible. At
first she had tried to hide it and then it had come out and he had been
repelled. It was not till the afternoon, aimlessly walking to ease her
pain, when she saw him again with the blonde-haired girl, that the
thought of another woman entered her mind.
That night Crowder, after watching the last act from the back of the
house, resolved to see her and find out what was wrong. He had been
talking to the manager in the foyer and the man's sulky discontent
alarmed him. If Pancha didn't buck up she'd lose her job.
She was at the dressing table in her red kimono when he came in. The
grease was nearly all off and with her front hair drawn back from
her forehead, her face had a curiously bare, haggard look. As he
entered she glanced up, not smiling, and saw the knowledge of her
failure in his eyes.
For a moment she looked at him, grave and sad, confessing it. The
expression caught at his heart, and he had nothing to say, turning away
from her to look for a chair.
She picked up the rag and went on wiping her face.
"Well," she said in a brisk voice, "I wasn't on the job tonight, was I?"
Reassured by her tone, he sat down and faced her.
"No, you weren't. It wasn't a good performance, Panchita. I've always
told you the truth and I've got to go on doing it."
"Go ahead, you're not telling me anything I don't know. I've got my
finger on the pulse of this house. I know every rise and fall of its
temperature. But I can't always be up in G, can I?"
"No, but you can't stay down at zero too long."
"It was as bad as that, was it?"
"Yes, it was bad."
She dropped her hand to the edge of the dressing table and looked at it.
Her face, with the hair strained back, the rouge gone, looked withered
and yellow. Crowder eyed it anxiously.
"Say, Panchita, you're sick."
"Sick? Forget it! I never was better in my life."
"Then why are you off your work--why do you act as if you didn't care?"
"Can't I have a part I hate? Can't I get weary of this old joint with its
smoke and its beer? God!" She began to pull the pins out of her hair and
fling them on the dresser. "I'm human--I've got my ups and downs--and you
keep forgetting it."
"That's just what I'm not forgetting."
"Stop talking about me--I'm sick of it," she cried, and snatching up the
comb began tearing it through her hair.
"It's nerves," said Crowder. "Everything shows it. The way you're combing
your hair does."
"If you don't let me alone I'll put you out--all of you nagging and
picking at me; a saint couldn't stand it!" Crowder rose, but she whirled
round on him, the comb held out in an arresting hand. "No, don't go yet.
I'll give you another chance. I want to ask you something. I saw a woman
the other day and I want to know who she is--at least I don't really want
to know, but she'll do as well as anything else to change the subject.
Tall with yellow sort of dolly hair and a dolly face. Dark purple dress
with black velvet edges, lynx furs and a curly brimmed hat with a green
paradise plume falling over one side."
Crowder's face wrinkled with a grin.
"Well, that's funny! You might have asked me forty others and I'd not
have known. But thanks to your vivid description I _can_ tell you--I
saw her yesterday afternoon in those very togs. It's the youngest
Alston girl."
"Who's she?"
"One of the two daughters of George Alston. They're orphans, live in a
big house on Pine Street. The one you saw was Chrystie. What do you want
to know about her?"
Pancha, gathering her hair in one hand, began to whisk it round into a
knot. Her head was down bent.
"I don't know--just curiosity. She's sort of stunning looking. Did you
ever meet her?"
Crowder smiled.
"I know them well--have for over a year. Awfully nice girls--the
best kind."
Pancha lifted her head, her face sharp with interest.
"What's she like?"
He considered, the smile softened to an amused indulgence.
"Oh, just a great big baby, good-natured and jolly. Everybody likes
her--you couldn't help it if you tried. She's so simple and sweet,
accepts the whole world as if it was her friend. Her money hasn't spoiled
her a bit."
"Money--she has money?"
"To burn, my dear. She's rich."
Pancha took up a hand glass and turning her back to him studied her
profile in the mirror. It did not occur to Crowder that he never before
had seen her do such a thing.
"Rich, is she?" she murmured. "How rich?"
"Something like four hundred thousand dollars; her father was one of the
Virginia City crowd. Chrystie's just come into her part of the roll.
Eighteen years old and an heiress--that's a good beginning."
"Um--must be a queer feeling. I guess the men are around the honey thick
as flies."
Crowder screwed up his eyes considering.
"No, they're not--not yet anyhow. Until this winter the girls lived so
retired--didn't know many people, kept to themselves. Now they've broken
out and I suppose it's only a matter of time before the flies gather, and
if you asked me I'd say they'd gather thickest round Chrystie. She hasn't
as much character or brains as Lorry, but she's prettier and jollier, and
after all that's what most men like."
"It certainly is, especially with four hundred thousand thrown in for
good measure."
The hand holding the glass dropped to her lap. She sat still for a
moment, then without turning told him to go; she was tired and wanted to
get home. It did not even strike him as odd that she never looked at him,
just flapped a hand over her shoulder and dismissed him with a short
"Good-night."
When he had gone she sat as he had left her, the mirror still in her lap.
The gas jet flamed in its wire cage, and so silent was the room that a
mouse crept out from behind the baseboard, spied about, then made a
scurrying dart across the floor. Her eye caught it, slid after it, and
she moved, putting the glass carefully on the dresser. The palms of her
hands were wet with perspiration and she rubbed them on the skirt of her
kimono and rose stiffly, resting for a moment against the back of her
chair. She had a sick feeling, a sensation as if her heart were
dissolving, as if the room looked unfamiliar and much larger than usual.
When she put on her clothes she did it slowly, her fingers fumbling
stupidly at buttons and hooks, her mouth a little open as if breathing
was difficult.