"Yes--a little. But I--" She halted.
"Yes?"
"You hadn't told me what to do," she repeated, as if on mature thought
that sentence expressed the whole matter.
He felt in his pockets, found a small roll of bills. He laid twenty-five
dollars on the table. "I'll keep thirty," he said, "as I shan't have any
more till I see Tetlow to-morrow. Now, fly out and amuse yourself. I'm
going to sleep. Don't wake me till you're ready for dinner."
And he went into his bedroom and closed the door. When he awoke, he saw
that it was dark outside, and some note in the din of street noises from
far below made him feel that it was late. He wrapped a bathrobe round
him, opened the door into the sitting room. It was dark.
"Dorothy!" he called.
"Yes," promptly responded the small quiet voice, so near that he started
back.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, and switched on the light. "There you are--by the
window. What were you doing, in the dark?"
She was dressed precisely as when he had last seen her. She was sitting
with her hands listless in her lap and her face a moving and beautiful
expression of melancholy dreams. On the table were the bills--where he
had laid them. "You've been out?" he said.
"No," she replied.
"Why not?"
"I've been--waiting."
"For what?" laughed he.
"For--I don't know," she replied. "Just waiting."
"But there's nothing to wait for."
She looked at him interrogatively. "No--I suppose not," she said.
He went back into his room and glanced at his watch. "Eleven o'clock!"
he cried. "Why didn't you wake me? You must be nearly starved."
"Yes, I am hungry," said she.
Her patient, passive resignation irritated him. "I'm ravenous," he said.
"I'll dress--and you dress, too. We'll go downstairs to supper."
When he reappeared in the sitting room, in a dinner jacket, she was
again seated near the window, hands listless in her lap and eyes gazing
dreamily into vacancy. But she was now dressed in the black chiffon and
the big black hat. He laughed. "You are prompt and obedient," said he.
"Nothing like hunger to subdue."
A faint flush tinged her lovely skin; the look of the child that has
been struck appeared in her eyes.
He cast about in his mind for the explanation. Did she think he meant it
was need that had brought her meekly back to him? That was true enough,
but he had not intended to hint it. In high good humor because he was so
delightfully hungry and was about to get food, he cried: "Do cheer up!
There's nothing to be sad about--nothing."
She lifted her large eyes and gazed at him timidly. "What are you going
to do with me?"
"Take you downstairs and feed you."
"But I mean--afterward?"
"Bring--or send--you up here to go to bed."
"Are you going away?"
"Where?"
"Away from me."
He looked at her with amused eyes. She was exquisitely lovely; never had
he seen her lovelier. It delighted him to note her charms--the charms
that had enslaved him--not a single charm missing--and to feel that he
was no longer their slave, was his own master again.
A strange look swept across her uncannily mobile face--a look of wonder,
of awe, of fear, of dread. "You don't even like me any more," she said
in her colorless way.
"What have I done to make you think I dislike you?" said he pleasantly.
She gazed down in silence.
"You need have no fear," said he. "You are my wife. You will be well
taken care of, and you will not be annoyed. What more can I say?"
"Thank you," she murmured.
He winced. She had made him feel like an unpleasant cross between an
alms-giver and a bully. "Now," said he, with forced but resolute
cheerfulness, "we will eat, drink and be merry."
On the way down in the elevator he watched her out of the corner of his
eye. When they reached the hall leading to the supper room he touched
her arm and halted her. "My dear," said he in the pleasant voice which
yet somehow never failed to secure attention and obedience, "there will
be some of my acquaintances in there at supper. I don't want them to see
you with that whipped dog look. There's no occasion for it."
Her lip trembled. "I'll do my best," said she.
"Let's see you smile," laughed he. "You have often shown me that you
know the woman's trick of wearing what feelings you choose on the
outside. So don't pretend that you've got to look as if you were about
to be hung for a crime you didn't commit. There!--that's better."
And indeed to a casual glance she looked the happy bride trying--not
very successfully--to seem used to her husband and her new status.
"Hold it!" he urged gayly. "I've no fancy for leading round a lovely
martyr in chains. Especially as you're about as healthy and well placed
a person as I know. And you'll feel as well as you look when you've had
something to eat."
Whether it was obedience or the result of a decision to drop an
unprofitable pose he could not tell, but as soon as they were seated and
she had a bill of fare before her and was reading it, her expression of
happiness lost its last suggestion of being forced. "Crab meat!" she
said. "I love it!"
"Two portions of crab meat," he said to the waiter with pad and pencil
at attention.
"Oh, I don't want that much," she protested.
"You forget that I am hungry," rejoined he. "And when I am hungry, the
price of food begins to go up." He addressed himself to the waiter:
"After that a broiled grouse--with plenty of hominy--and grilled sweet
potatoes--and a salad of endive and hothouse tomatoes--and I know the
difference between hothouse tomatoes and the other kinds. Next--some
cheese--Coullomieres--yes, you have it--I got the steward to get it--and
toasted crackers--the round kind, not the square--and not the hard ones
that unsettle the teeth--and--what kind of ice, my dear?--or would you
prefer a fresh peach flambee?"
"Yes--I think so," said Dorothy.
"You hear, waiter?--and a bottle of--there's the head waiter--ask
him--he knows the champagne I like."
As Norman had talked, in the pleasant, insistent voice, the waiter had
roused from the air of mindless, mechanical sloth characteristic of the
New York waiter--unless and until a fee below his high expectation is
offered. When he said the final "very good, sir," it was with the accent
of real intelligence.
Dorothy was smiling, with the amusement of youth and inexperience. "What
a lot of trouble you took about it," said she.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Anything worth doing at all is worth taking
trouble about. You will see. We shall get results. The supper will be
the best this house can put together."
"You can have anything you want in this world, if you only can pay for
it," said she.
"That's what most people think," replied he. "But the truth is, the
paying is only a small part of the art of getting what one wants."
She glanced nervously at him. "I'm beginning to realize that I'm
dreadfully inexperienced," said she.
"There's nothing discouraging in that," said he. "Lack of experience can
be remedied. But not lack of judgment. It takes the great gift of
judgment to enable one to profit by mistakes, to decide what is the real
lesson of an experience."
"I'm afraid I haven't any judgment, either," confessed she.
"That remains to be seen."