Sunny poured Jerry's tea with a hand turned ostentatiously in a
direction that revealed to his amazed and indignant eye that enormous
stone of fire that blazed on the finger of Sunny's left hand. His
appetite, always excellent, failed him entirely, and after conquering
the first surge of impulses that were almost murderous, he lapsed into
an ominous silence, which no guile nor question from the girl at the
head of his table could break. A steady, a cold, a biting glare, a
murmured monosyllabic reply was all the response she received to her
amiable overtures. His ill temper, moreover, reached out to the
inoffensive Hatton, whom he ordered to clear out, and stay out, and if
it came down to that get out altogether, rather than hang around
snickering in that way. Thus Jerry revealed a side to his character
hitherto unsuspected by Sunny, though several rumblings and barks from
the "dog in the manger" would have apprized one less innocent than she.
They finished that meal--or rather Sunny did--in silence electric with
coming strife. Then Jerry suddenly left the table, strode into the
little hall, took down his hat and coat, and was about to go, heaven
knows where, when Sunny, at his elbow, sought to restrain him by force.
She took his sleeve and tenaciously held to it, saying:
"Jerry, do not go out these night. I are got some news I lig' tell to
you."
"Let go my arm. I'm not interested in your news. I've a date of my own."
"But Jerry----"
"I say, let go my arm, will you?"
The last was said in a rising voice, as he reached the crest of
irritation, and jerking his sleeve so roughly from her clasp, he
accomplished the desired freedom, but the look on Sunny's face stayed
with him all the way down those apartment stairs--he ignored the
elevator--and to the door of the house. There he stopped short, and
without more ado, retraced his steps, sprang up the stairs in a great
hurry, and jerking open his door again, Jerry returned to his home. He
discovered Sunny curled on the floor, with her head buried in the seat
of his favourite chair--the one occupied that afternoon by the
mischief-making Jinx.
"Sunny! I'm awfully sorry I was such a beast. Say, little girl, look
here, I'm not myself. I don't know what I'm doing."
Sunny slowly lifted her face, revealing to the relieved but indignant
Jerry a face on which it is true there were traces of a tear or two, but
which nevertheless smiled at him quite shamelessly and even
triumphantly. Jerry felt foolish, and he was divided between a notion to
remain at home with the culprit--she had done nothing especially wrong,
but he felt that she was to blame for something or other--or follow his
first intention of going out for the night--just where, he didn't
know--but anywhere would do to escape the thought that had come to
him--the thought of Sunny's probable engagement to Jinx. However, Sunny
gave him no time to debate the matter of his movements for the evening.
She very calmly assisted him to remove his coat, hung up his hat, and
when she had him comfortably ensconced in his favourite chair, had
herself lit his pipe and handed it to him, she drew up a stool and sat
down in front of his knees, just as if, in fact, she was entirely
guiltless of an engagement of which Jerry positively did not intend to
approve. Her audacity, moreover, was such that she did not hesitate to
lay her left hand on Jerry's knee, where he might get the full benefit
of the radiant light from that ring. He looked at it, set down his pipe
on the stand at his elbow, and stirred in that restless way which
portends hasty arising, when Sunny:
"Jerry, Jinx are come to-day to ask me make marriage with him."
"The big stiff. I pity any girl that has to go through life with that
fathead."
"Ho! I are always lig' thad fat grow on Jinx. It look very good on him.
I are told him so."
"Matter of taste of course," snarled Jerry, fascinated by the twinkling
of that ring in spite of himself, and feeling at that moment an emotion
that was dangerously like hatred for the girl he had done so much for.
"Monty and Bobs are also ask me marry wiz them." Sunny dimpled quite
wickedly at this, but Jerry failed to see any humour in the matter. He
said with assumed loftiness:
"Well, well, proposals raining down on you in every direction. Your
janitor gentleman and landlord asked you too?"
"No-o, not yit, but those landlord are say he lig' take me for ride some
nize days on his car ad those park."
"The hell he did!"
Jerry sat up with such a savage jerk at this that he succeeded in
upsetting the innocent hand resting so confidingly upon his knee.
"Who asked him around here anyway?" demanded Jerry furiously. "Just
because he owns this building doesn't mean he has a right to impose
himself on the tenants, and I'll tell him so damn quick."
"But, Jerry, _I_ are ask him come up here. Itchy fall down on those fire
escape, and he are making so much noise on this house when he cry, that
everybody who live on this house open those windows on court, and I are
run down quick on those fire escape and everybody also run out see
what's all those trouble. Then I am cry so hard, bi-cause I are afraid
Itchy are hurt himself too bad, bi-cause he also are cry very loud."
Sunny lifted her nose sky-ward, illustrating how the dog's cries had
emanated from him. "So then, everybody _very_ kind at me and Itchy, and
the janitor gentleman carry him bag ad these room, and the landlord
gentleman say thas all ride henceforth I have thad little dog live wiz
me ad these room also. He say it is very hard for liddle girl come from
country way off be 'lone all those day, and mebbe some day he take me
and Itchy for ride ad those park. So I are say, 'Thang you, I will like
go vaery much, thang you.'"
"Well, make up your mind to it, you're not going, do you understand?
I'll have no landlords taking you riding in any parks."
Having delivered this ultimatum as viciously as the circumstances called
for, Jerry leaned back in pretended ease and awaited further revelations
from Sunny.
"--but," went on Sunny, as if finishing a sentence, "that landlord
gentleman are not also ask me marry wiz him, Jerry. He already got big
wife. I are see her. She are so big as Jinx, and she smile on me very
kind, and say she have hear of me from her hosban', that I am very
lonely girl from Japan, and thas very sad for me, and she goin' to take
those ride wiz me also."
"Hm!" Jerry felt ashamed of himself, but he did not propose to reveal
it, especially when that little hand had crept back to its old place on
his knee, and the diamond flaunted brazenly before his gaze. Nobody but
a "fat-head" would buy a diamond of that size anyway, was Jerry's
opinion. There was something extremely vulgar about diamonds. They were
not nearly as pretty as rubies or emeralds or even turquoise, and Jerry
had never liked them. Of course, Miss Falconer, like every other girl,
had to have her diamond, and Jerry recalled with irritation how, as a
sophomore, he had purchased that first diamond. He neither enjoyed the
expedition nor the memory of it. Jinx's brazen ring made him think of
Miss Falconer's. However, the thought of Miss Falconer was, for some
reason or other, distasteful to Jerry in these days, and, moreover, the
girl before him called for his full attention as usual.
"So you decided on Jinx, did you? Bobs and Monty in the discard and the
affluent fat and fair Jinx the winner."
"Jerry, I are _prefer_ marry all my friends, but I say 'no' to each one
of those."
"What are you wearing Jinx's ring for then?"
"Bi-cause it are loog nize on my hands, and he _ask_ me wear it there."
New emotions were flooding over the contrite Jerry. Something was racing
like champagne through his veins, and he suddenly realised how "damnably
jolly" life was after all. Still, even though Sunny had admitted that no
engagement existed between her and Jinx, there was that ring. Poor
little girl! A fellow had to teach her all of the western conventions,
she was that innocent and simple.
"Sunny, you don't want to wear a fellow's ring unless you intend to
marry him, don't you understand that? The ring means that you are
promised to him, do you get me?"
"No! But I _are_ promise to Jinx. I are promise that I will consider
marry him some day if I do not marry some other man I _wan'_ ask me
also."
"Another man. Who----?"
Sunny's glance directed full upon him left nothing to the imagination.
Jerry's heart began to thump in a manner that alarmed him.
"Jerry," said Sunny, "I going to wear Jinx's ring _until_ that man also
asking me. I _wan_ him do so, bi-cause I are lig' him mos' bes' of all
my frien'. I think----" She had both of her hands on his knees now, and
was leaning up looking so wistfully into his face that he tried to avert
his own gaze. In spite of the lump that rose in his throat, in spite of
the frantic beating of his heart, Jerry did not ask the question that
the girl was waiting to hear. After a moment, she said gently:
"Jerry, Hatty are tell me that nex' year he are come a Leap. Then, he
say, thas perlite for girl ask man make marriage wiz her. Jerry, _I_ are
goin' to wait till those year of Leap are come, and then, me? I are
goin' ask _you_ those question."
For one thrilling moment there was a great glow in the heart of Jerry
Hammond, and then his face seemed suddenly to turn grey and old. His
voice was husky and there was a mist before his eyes.
"Sunny, I must tell you--Sunny, I--I--am already engaged to be married
to an American girl--a girl my people want me to marry. I've been
engaged to her since my eighteenth year. I--_don't_ look at me like
that, Sunny, or----"
The girl's head dropped to the level of the floor, her hands slipping
helplessly from his knees. She seemed all in a moment to become purely
Japanese. There was that in her bowed head that was strangely
reminiscent of some old and vanished custom of her race. She did not
raise her head, even as she spoke:
"I wishin' you ten thousand year of joy. Sayonara for this night."
* * * * *
Sunny had left him alone. Jerry felt the inability to stir. He stared
into the dying embers of his fire with the look of one who has seen a
vision that has disappeared ere he could sense its full significance. It
seemed at that moment to Jerry as if everything desirable and precious
in life were within reach, but he was unable to seize it. It was like
his dream of beauty, ever above, but beyond man's power to completely
touch. Sunny was like that, as fragile, as elusive as beauty itself. The
thought of his having hurt Sunny tore his heart. She had aroused in him
every impulse that was chivalrous. The longing to guard and cherish her
was paramount to all other feelings. What was it Professor Barrowes had
warned him of? That he should refrain from taking the bloom from the
rose. Had he, then, all unwittingly, injured little Sunny?
Mechanically, Jerry went into the hall, slowly put his hat on his head
and passed out into the street. He walked up and down 67th Street and
along Central Park West to 59th Street, retracing his steps three times
to the studio building, and turning back again. His mind was in a chaos,
and he knew not what to do. Only one clear purpose seemed to push
through the fog, the passionate determination to care for Sunny. She
came first of all. Indeed she occupied the whole of his thought. The
claim of the girl who had waited for him seven years seemed of minor
importance when compared with the claim of the girl he loved. The
disinclination to hurt another had kept him from breaking an engagement
that had never been of his own desire, but now Jerry knew there could be
no more evasions. The time had come when he must face the issue
squarely. His sense of honour demanded that he make a clean breast of
the entire matter to Miss Falconer. He reached this resolve while still
walking on 59th Street. It gave him no more than time to catch the night
train to Greenwich. As he stepped aboard the train that was bearing him
from Sunny to Miss Falconer all of the fogs had cleared from Jerry's
mind. He was conscious of an immense sense of relief. It seemed strange
to him that he had never taken this step before. Judging the girl by
himself, he felt that he knew exactly what she would say when with
complete candour he should "lay his cards upon the table." He felt sure
that she was a good sport. He did not delude himself with the idea that
an engagement that had been irksome to himself had been of any joy to
her. It was simply, so he told himself, a mistake of their parents. They
had planned and worked this scheme, and into it they had dumped these
two young people at a psychological moment.