The summer Sunday ran its usual course. Ward and his sister went to
luncheon at the club; Madame Carter drove majestically to a late
service in the pretty, vine-covered village church. Harriet, at last
able to relax in soul and body, slept hour after glorious hour.
Richard, returning from golf for a late luncheon, asked for her. Mrs.
Carter was still asleep, Bottomley assured him, and received orders not
to disturb her. But when Mr. Blondin called, Richard told the butler he
was to be shown to the terrace at once.
At three o'clock, therefore, Royal Blondin followed his guide out to
the basket chairs that were set under the trees, and here he found
Richard, comfortably smoking, and alone. The host rose to greet him,
but they did not shake hands, and measured each other like wrestlers as
they sat down.
"I had your message," Royal said, as an opening.
"You've not seen Nina to-day?" Nina's father asked.
"I broke an engagement with her at the club," the other man assured
him. "We will probably meet at the Bellamys', at dinner this evening."
"Ah, it was about that I wished to speak." Richard paused, and Blondin
watched him with polite interest. "You have held your knowledge of Mrs.
Carter as a sort of weapon for some months," Richard said, presently,
"to use it when you saw fit. I have always been in my wife's
confidence--"
He paused, but for no reason that Blondin could divine. As a matter of
fact, it gave Richard a sudden and unexpected pleasure to speak of her
so, to realize that he really might give the most wonderful title in
the world to this beautiful and spirited woman.
"And I have also talked with Nina this morning," he went on. "I regret
to say that her intentions have not altered."
"A loyal little heart!" Blondin said, gravely and contentedly. "I knew
I could depend upon her!"
Richard looked at him steadily for a moment, and felt carefully for his
next words.
"You know how I feel about her marrying you--" he began.
Royal nodded, regretfully, broke the ash from his cigarette with a
delicately poised little finger, and regarded Richard questioningly.
"That is my misfortune," he said, resignedly; pleasantly aware that
Nina's father would never be his match in phrases and self-control.
"I needn't go over all that," Richard said. "I love my daughter; I
believe she will make a fine woman. But she isn't anything but a child
now!"
"Perhaps you fail to do her justice in that respect," Royal Blondin
said. Richard flushed with anger, but felt helpless under the other
man's quiet insolence.
"I said I wanted to see you on business, Mr. Blondin," Richard
continued, trying to keep impatience and contempt out of his voice,
"and we'll keep to business. I don't know what your circumstances are,
of course--"
He hesitated, and Blondin looked at him with a faint interest.
"I live simply," he said. "Nina's money will be all her own."
"Nina will have no money, not one five-cent piece, for exactly three
years!" Richard said.
Blondin shrugged.
"She is quite willing to try it!" he reminded her father.
"I know she is! But how about you?" Richard asked. "You are not a boy,
you have some idea of what marriage means. For three years you must
take care of her, dress her, amuse her, satisfy her that she has not
made a mistake. Then she does come into her money--yes. But three years
is a long time in which to keep her certain that the wisest thing she
can do is turn it over to you."
He paused; Blondin smoked imperturbably.
"The marriage must be a notorious one, in any case," Richard pursued.
"For I intend to make my stand too clear ever to permit of a
retraction. I shall forbid it--let the world know that I forbid it. I
shall forbid my daughter the house, and her wedding gift will be simply
the clothes she happens to have. From Tuesday--her eighteenth
birthday--she will turn to you for her actual pocket money, for her
theatre tickets and cab fares."
"I understand that perfectly!" Royal said, serenely. But underneath,
while not moved from his intention, he felt his customary assurance
shaken.
"She is extravagant, naturally," her father said. "She will want new
gowns, want to display her new importance a little. Those bills will
come to you, Mr. Blondin. All the world will know as well as you do
that I have washed my hands of the whole affair."
Royal nodded again. He began to be conscious of a growing disquietude.
He had naturally given much thought to this exact question during the
past few weeks, and had solved it only by dismissing it. He had assured
himself that with his only daughter no man as generous as Carter could
be really harsh, and had always held his knowledge of Harriet
comfortably in the back of his mind, as an irresistible lever. Now both
these considerations were losing their force, and the empty
satisfaction of defying Richard seemed to be losing its flavour, too.
Blondin had no money, and lived with an extravagance that kept him
perpetually worried for money. The rent of his studio had been raised;
he was conscious of the necessity of returning hospitalities, of buying
clothes. His credit would receive an immediate assistance from a
marriage with Richard Carter's daughter, to be sure, but to sustain a
credit for three years upon that shadowy footing would be extremely
trying.
He liked Nina; despite his contempt for the girl, there was a certain
pitying affection for her stubborn loyalty and simplicity. But he knew
exactly what hideous scenes must follow upon his marriage with her.
What could he do with her, even suppose him to have borrowed money
enough to make their honeymoon a success? He imagined her dawdling
about his studio, imagined his social standing as necessarily affected,
imagined Mr. and Mrs. Royal Blondin attempting to reach an agreement as
to which invitations would be accepted and which rejected. Railway
fares, luncheons downtown, all these cost money--lots of money. Nina
would want to entertain "the girls." And Royal had at present several
serious debts. He had lost money on three morning lectures, delightful
lectures and well-attended, but still a financial loss. He had been
foolish enough to lose money at bridge, at the Bellamys' a week ago,
and young Bellamy was carrying his check for three hundred and twelve
dollars, drawn upon a bank where Royal was already overdrawn. Then
there was an unpleasantness about three rugs, rugs he had taken four
years ago, in a moment of unbelievable prosperity, but for which seven
hundred and twenty dollars had been promised, and never paid. Royal had
indeed offered Hagopian the rugs and a bonus, back again; he was sick
of the studio, and the endless reminders from his landlord's agent that
the monthly one hundred and seventy-five dollars was overdue; he was
sick of the whole business.
But Hagopian had refused to take back the rugs, and the rent had
reached the four-figure mark, and until he had settled for the last
lectures, he did not feel encouraged to begin more.
This was not a cheerful outlook with which to begin three years of
penniless matrimony. Royal, suavely smiling, and smoking on the
terrace, wondered suddenly if old Madame Carter, who had always been
his champion, would help out.
But Richard seemed to read his thought.
"Nina has appealed to her grandmother," he said, "and I know my mother
sympathizes, and would be glad to help you. But her affairs are in my
hands. She preferred it so, when I offered her some securities years
ago, and it has always been so. Her bank account receives a monthly
check; she sends all her household bills to my secretary, Fox. He O.
K's and pays them. Consequently, she is not able to act in this matter,
and I think she is glad of it! I believe she would regret the--the
inevitable estrangement as much as I."
Blondin elevated his eyebrows politely, as one interested but not
concerned. But he knew, with a sort of rage, that he was beaten. His
only recourse now would be to plead to Nina an all-important wire from
the Pacific coast, a dying friend, a temporary absence. He could
sub-let his studio for twice the rent, and live on the margin until
kindly Fate, as always, turned up a new card. Nina would protest, would
weep that her beloved studio, where her first exciting housekeeping was
to begin, was occupied by strangers, but that was unavoidable. However,
he would annoy this gray-eyed, firm-lipped business man first.
But Richard had taken a small slip of tan paper from his pocket, and
was studying it thoughtfully. Royal saw it, and his eyes narrowed.
"Now, Mr. Blondin," Nina's father said, simply, "I'm a business man. I
can't beat about the bush, and call things by pretty names. I want a
favour of you, and I'm willing to pay for it. I telephoned you this
morning that I wanted to see you on a matter of business. This is my
proposition."
He leaned forward, and Royal saw the paper. He boasted to women of his
indifference to money, it was true, but as with all adventurers, it
held first place in his thoughts. No man who was in debt could look
upon that check unmoved. Royal might win at cards to-night, to be sure;
Carter might weaken to-morrow, it was true. But this check bore his
name, and it was sure.
To enter the bank, with Richard Carter's check for so substantial an
amount, to deposit it, exchange a careless word with the cashier, to
write his check for the overdue rent, with a casual apology; to play
bridge again, this evening, with young Bellamy, and this time win back
that accursed check of his own, as he knew he would win it. ...
It all fluttered before his eyes, despite his attempt to look
indifferent. It weighed down the little tarnished thing he called his
pride, already half-forfeited in this group. His last attempt at
bravado was obviously that, and he knew it.
"Just one moment, Mr. Carter. You say that you and I know what marriage
is. How do you reconcile it with your knowledge of Nina, your knowledge
of her upbringing, to plan deliberately what would make our
marriage--or any marriage--foredoomed to failure from the start? I
didn't spoil Nina, I didn't form her tastes. She has thought of herself
as an heiress, she has spent money, lived luxuriously. I only ask a
fair chance. Make it an allowance, if you like. Keep the matter in the
family; don't blaze to the world that you disapprove! Many a
less-promising marriage has turned out a brilliant success. She loves
me. I--I am devoted to her. I see tremendous possibilities in her!"
"She loves you as a child does, and because she doesn't know you,"
Richard said, inflexibly. "But you haven't heard what I propose,
Blondin. Hear me out. I give you this now, to-day, on condition that
before to-night you talk to Nina. Represent anything you wish to her.
Tell her what you please. But convince her that she must wait for two
years--with no letters, no meetings, no engagement--that's all.
"On my part, I promise that nobody in the world, not Mrs. Carter, not
anybody, will hear of this for two years from to-day, at least.
Meanwhile, we'll amuse Nina. Her grandmother wants to take her to Santa
Barbara next fall--Gardiner wants both the youngsters on his ranch this
summer, or she may go with me to Brazil. She'll have enough to think
about. We'll not hurt you with her, you may take my word for it. And I
tell you frankly that I shall be deeply grateful. I'm not paying you
for giving her up. I'm paying you for two years' delay. Young Hopper
will be at the Gardiners' this summer--she likes him, and he likes her!
Well, that's speculation." Richard dismissed it with a movement of his
fine hands. "But we'll distract her!" he promised. "Hopper may buy a
ranch out there--that sort of thing might suit Nina down to the ground!"
"Buy it with Nina's money," Royal could not help sneering.
Richard eyed him in surprise.
"When Joe Hopper died he left that boy's mother something in the
millions," he said. "There's an immense estate." And then, with a
reversion to business: "Come, now, Mr. Blondin. We understand each
other. Nina's dining at the Bellamys' to-night; you're staying there.
Will you see her?"
The check fluttered to the table between them. There was a long
silence. Then Blondin ground out his cigarette in a stone saucer, rose,
in all the easy beauty of his white summer clothes, his flowing scarf,
his dark, romantic locks. He lifted his straw hat, put it on, picked up
his stick, and laid it on the table. Then he took the check and read it
thoughtfully.
"Thank you!" he said. Yet the shameful thing struck him, an adept now
in evading and lying, as surprisingly easy, and as he sauntered away in
the June warmth and silence, it was not of Nina, or her father, or even
of himself that he was thinking.
He had met the widow of Joe Hopper a few nights ago: a faded little
pleasant woman of fifty, pathetically grateful for his casual
politeness in her strangeness and shyness. He had chanced, quite idly
and accidentally, to make an impression on her. She had promised to
come to the studio and look at his rugs.
Royal wondered why she dressed so badly; she needed simple materials
and flowing lines. He heard himself telling her so.
Richard sat on, on the terrace, thinking, and presently his mother came
out and joined him. Wasn't he, the old lady asked elaborately, going to
the club? It was almost five o'clock, her son reminded her. Two or
three of his business associates were coming to dinner; Hansen was to
drive them all into the city later. Now, he just felt lazy.
"No tea to-day?" he asked, presently. People usually went to the club
on Sunday, said his mother. She added, irrelevantly, that Harriet was
asleep. Richard said that she had looked tired this morning; sleep was
the best thing for her.
But suddenly life became significant and thrilling again; he heard her
voice, her laugh. She came swiftly and quietly out to them, smiling at
him, settling herself in the chair beside his mother. She wore white,
transparent, simple; there were coral beads about her firm young
throat. The dew of her deep sleep made her blue eyes wonderful; her
cheeks were as pink as a baby's.
"Aren't the June days delicious?" she said. Richard studied her,
smilingly, without answering. What would she say next, where would she
move her eyes, or lay her white hand, he wondered. When she murmured to
his mother in an undertone, he tried to catch the words.
"We're to have tea," Harriet announced. When it came, she poured it;
for awhile the three were alone. Richard found himself talking to make
her talk, but she was apparently interested only to draw out his mother
and himself. "I'm starving," she presently said, apologetically, "this
is luncheon and breakfast, too, for me!"
"Did you have a good sleep?" Richard asked. She flashed him an eloquent
look.
"Oh--the most delightful of my whole life! Eight hours without
stirring!"
The Hoyts arrived: a handsome mother and two equally handsome
daughters. Harriet went to them gracefully; Richard saw that she was
accepting good wishes. She took the callers to his mother, and filled
their cups herself.
"She certainly is wonderful!" Richard said. He perfectly realized his
own suddenly deepening feeling for her, but he dared not analyze it
yet. When Mrs. Hoyt hinted at a dinner, he took part in the
conversation. "Thursday? Why not, Harriet? We have no engagement for
Thursday?"
She flushed brightly, signalling to him that she had already indicated
an excuse. They had never dined together away from home. He need not
think, said Harriet's anxious manner, that he need carry the appearance
of marriage so far.
"But--but aren't Nina and I to be in town Thursday?" she ventured,
"Shopping. You can make that next week!" Richard said. He loved her
confusion.
"Then we surely will! Thank you," she said to Mrs. Hoyt.
"Thursday, then, at eight!" the caller said, departing. Richard
sauntered with them to their car, and returned to find Harriet
half-scandalized, half-laughing.
"But do you want to dine with them?" she asked.
"Why not?" His smile challenged her, and she laughed hardily.
"I suppose there is no reason why not, Mr. Carter!"
"You can wear"--he gestured--"the black and goldy thing. They'll all be
watching you!"
"Oh," she said, considering earnestly, "I have a much handsomer one
than that. Blue and silver. You've not seen it."
"Blue and silver, then." Richard felt a distinct regret when the men he
expected appeared. There was but one figure of any interest to him on
the shady, flower-scented terrace, and that was a woman's figure in a
white gown.
For two or three days he was conscious of a constant interest in her
appearances and disappearances, a constant desire to please her. He
found himself liking a certain young man, in his city club, for no
other reason than that he had asked admiringly for Mrs. Carter. He
found Harriet deeply interested in a book, and took the time to go into
a bookstore and ask the clerk for something "on the same line as the
Poulteney Letters." In Nina's old Kodak album, idly opened, he was
suddenly held by pictures of Nina's governess, beautiful even in a
bathing-suit, with dripping hair; lovely in the gipsy hats and short
skirts of camp life.
Richard Carter was conscious of one mastering curiosity: he wanted to
know just how Harriet regarded him. It seemed suddenly of supreme
importance. He thought of it in his office, and smiled to himself
during important business conferences, wondering about it. It seemed
incredible to him, now, that his experiences of the past year had been
so largely concerned with Harriet. His wife's companion, his daughter's
governess, his own capable and dignified housekeeper, the woman he had
so hastily married, all seemed a different person, a quite visionary
person, with whom just such businesslike arrangements had been possible.
But Harriet was beginning to seem to him a stranger who possessed at
once the most mysterious and childlike, the most beautiful and the most
baffling personality that he had ever known. He made excuses to go home
early, just to catch glimpses of this wife who was not his wife. That
he had ever taken a fatherly, advisory tone with this woman was
unbelievable; her mere approach made him catch his breath and lose his
coherency. He had walked into her room--he had patronized her--he had
asked her as casually to marry him as if she had been fifty, and as
plain as she was lovely!
Richard shuddered as he thought of it. He made constant efforts to
engage her in personalities, but she evaded him. There was a real
thrill for him in the quiet dinner at the Hoyts'. Mrs. Carter, said
slow old bewhiskered John Hoyt, was an extremely pretty woman. My
wife--Richard in answering called her that--looks particularly well in
an evening gown. Indeed she looked exquisite in the blue and silver
dress, laughing--still with that adorable mist of strangeness and
shyness about her--with her neighbours at the table, and afterward in
the drawing room, waving her silver fan slowly while Freda Hoyt, who
quite obviously adored her, whispered her long confidences.
Coming home in the limousine they had neighbours with them, old Doctor
and Mrs. Carmichael, so he might not have the word alone with her for
which he had been longing all evening. But he stopped her in the wide,
dim hallway when they reached Crownlands.
"Tired?" he said, at the foot of the stairs.
"Not a bit!" There was an enchanting vitality about her. She had
slipped the thin wrap from her shoulders, and she turned to him her
lovely, happy face. "Did you want me?"
"I wanted to say something to you," Richard said, feeling awkward as a
boy.
"In there?" She nodded, suddenly alert, toward the library.
"Why in there?" he asked, with a little husky laugh. His one impulse
was to put his arms about her.
"I thought--bills, perhaps?" Harriet said, innocently. It was the third
day of the month; he had often consulted her as to expenses before this.
"No," Richard said, with another unsteady little laugh. "It wasn't
bills. I was just wondering--if I had been very stupid," he said,
taking one of her hands, and looking up from the fingers that lay in
his to the face that now wore an expression a little frightened despite
the smile.
"Never with me!" Harriet said, in a low tone.
"Never so blind," Richard said, "never so matter-of-fact that I hurt
your feelings? Nothing of--that sort?"
"Always the kindest friend I ever had!" the girl answered, unsteadily,
and with suddenly wet eyes. "The--the most generous!"
He looked at her hand again, looked up at her as if he would speak. But
instead she felt her fingers pressed, and felt her heart thump with a
delicious terror.
"Do--do you like the blue and silver dress?" she asked with an excited
laugh.
"I like it better than any dress I have ever seen!" Richard answered,
seriously. Her hand free now, Harriet, standing on the lowest step,
made him a little bow that displayed the frail silver fan, the silver
slippers, the stockings with their silver lace.
"And wait until you see our frocks for the boat!" she warned him. "Nina
has a yellow coat--and I have a black lace and a white embroidery!
Really--REALLY I have never seen anything like the white one. SHEER,
you know--"
Bottomley came noiselessly, discreetly, across the hall. Instantly the
woman in blue and silver was all the mistress.
"Is Mr. Ward in, Bottomley?"
"He dined at 'ome, Mrs. Carter."
"Oh, thank you! You may lock up, then. Good-night, Mr. Carter!
Good-night, Bottomley!"
She was gone. The blue and silver gown and the bunched folds of the
furred coat vanished on the stairway landing. The tall clock that she
passed struck eleven. And Richard, going into his library, realized
that he was deeply and passionately in love. He could think of nothing
else--he did not wish to think of anything else. Her face came between
him and his book, her voice loitered in his ears, her precise, pretty
phrasing, the laughter that sometimes lurked beneath her tones.
He went upstairs, and to his own suite. There was a door between his
own sitting room and the room that had been Isabelle's. From the other
side of his door, to-night, came the murmur of voices: Harriet and Nina
were talking. Their conversation seemed full of fascination to Richard,
although he could not hear a word, and would not have made an effort to
do so. But he liked the thought of this lovely woman near his little
girl, of their conferences and confidences.
Next day Harriet told him that Nina had been talking of young
Hopper.
"It seems that this awkward, tongue-tied youth is desperately enamoured
of Rosa Artures, of the Metropolitan Opera Company," Harriet said in
rich amusement. "Of course the Artures is forty-five, and has a
domestic life that is the delight of the women's magazines. But poor
little Hopper haunts her performances, and sends her orchids, just the
same. He had never met her until a week or two ago, then some friends
had her and her husband on their yacht, and he was there. And she ate,
it seems, and laughed, and even drank a little too much--he's entirely
disillusioned! Isn't it too bad? And somebody told me about it, so I
encouraged Nina to get him to talk last night. They talked only too
well! They exchanged tragedies."
"Well, that won't hurt her!" Richard said, thoughtfully.
"Hurt her!" Harriet answered, eagerly. "It will be the best thing in
the world for her!"
They were at the country club; Harriet chaperoning Nina, who was down
at the tennis court with a group of young persons; Richard breathless
and happy from a hard game of eighteen holes. He had encountered her on
the porch, on his way to the showers, experiencing, as he did so, the
thrill that belongs only to the unexpected encounter. Now they loitered
at the railing, in the shade of the green awnings, as entirely
oblivious of watching eyes as if the clubhouse were the library at home.
"Nina is charming as a confidante," Harriet said, "and she would make a
boy of that type a delightful wife. She is the sort that marries early,
or not at all, and I'm going deliberately to encourage this affair in a
quiet way. He's a dear fellow, domestic and shy; they'd love their home
and their children and Nina would develop into the ideal wife and
mother. She's discriminating, she makes nice friends, she has splendid
French and Spanish. She looks lovely to-day; I persuaded her to leave
her glasses at home, even if she did miss them a little, and she has on
one of the gowns we bought for the Brazilian trip."
"I made the reservations to-day. We sail the third of August," Richard
said. "We've got to have your pictures taken for the passports."
"South America!" Harriet gave a great sigh of joy. "You don't know how
excited I am!" she said. "Three weeks on a big liner--and we have to
have bathing-suits, somebody said for the canvas tank, and they have
all sorts of things on board. I've always wanted to go to Rio!"
"There are eight big staterooms with baths on this liner," Richard
said. "I've taken two adjoining ones, so we ought to be very
comfortable. Yes," he conceded, enjoying her enthusiasm, "it ought to
be a great trip! Will you and Nina want a maid?"
"A maid?" She widened her blue eyes. "Oh, no! Why should we?"
Richard laughed at her surprise.
"You might take Pilgrim," he suggested. And with an amused glance he
added: "You forget that you are a rich man's wife."
"Indeed I don't!" Harriet said, quickly. "I spend simply scandalous
sums! When I saw my sister last week," she confided, gaily, "she
explained that the payment on the new house would prevent the usual six
weeks at the beach this year, and I simply made them go! I paid the
rent on their cottage and bought the tickets, and--oh, all sorts of
things, little dresses and sandals and shade hats, and off they went!
You never saw such joy!"
Richard blinked his eyes, and managed a smile.
"What did you pay it out of?" he wondered,
"My bank account! Linda and I shopped a whole morning, and had lunch
downtown--it was more fun!" Harriet said, youthfully. "The rent," she
explained, "was eighty dollars--"
"What? For six weeks!" Richard interrupted.
"Do you think that's a lot?" she asked, anxiously.
"Go on!" he said. "They all went off, did they? Eighty dollars gives
them a cottage until the middle of August, does it?"
"Until school opens," she nodded. "All the other things--well, it came
to about two hundred."
"That's happiness, isn't it?" Richard said. "A cottage on a swarming
beach. Sons and daughters in bathing-suits, no real housekeeping for
the mother, nothing but sleep and swimming and plain meals!"
"They love it!" But Harriet's eyes drank in the awninged shade of the
country club porches, the flowered cretonne on the wicker chairs, the
women in their exquisite gowns, the smooth curves of the green links,
where brightly clad figures went to and fro. Riders were disappearing
into the green shade of the bridle paths; girls in white, demanding
tea, came up the shallow steps. A group of four women, at a card table,
broke up with laughter. "Yes, it's honester than this," she said,
bringing her eyes back to his. "I'll have Linda and the girls here some
day," she added, "and they'll think it is wonderful. But after all,
they get more taste out of life!"
"You know they do!" Richard said.
"Mrs. Carter," said a woman in bright yellow, coming up to them
suddenly, "will you be a darling and come and talk to my French
officer? The girls have all been practising their Berlitz on him, and
he's almost losing his mind! Dick," added this matron, who had linked
her arm about Harriet's waist, "for heaven's sake go clean up! Can't
you find time to talk to your wife at home? I've been watching you for
five minutes, getting my arms burned simply black--will you come, Mrs.
Carter? That's the poor soul, over there with Sarah. I don't know why
I've had a French governess for that girl for seven years!"
"To save the life of a fellow creature--" Harriet said in her liquid
French. She went off, laughingly, in the other woman's custody; Richard
looked after them a moment.
He saw them join the group of smiling girls and the harassed Frenchman;
saw the alien's face brighten as Harriet was introduced. A moment later
a boy with a tennis racket dashed up to them, and there was a
scattering in the direction of the courts. The girls surrounded the
boy, and streamed away chattering. The matron in yellow came back to
her card table. And Harriet, unfurling her parasol, deep in
conversation with the captured soldier, sauntered slowly after the
tennis players. The afternoon sunshine sent clean shadows across the
clipped grass; the stretched blue silk of Harriet's parasol threw a
mellow orange light upon her tawny hair and saffron-coloured gown.
Richard had a child's desperate wish that he was dressed, and might run
after them.
"They are playing the semi-finals," he said to himself, hurrying
through his change of garments. "I wish to the Lord I had gotten
through in time to get down there!"
But it was not at the tennis that he looked, twenty minutes
later, when he reached the courts; although a brilliant play was being
made, and there was a spattering of applause. His eyes instantly found
Harriet's figure; she was still talking to the Frenchman, whose olive
face was glowing with interest and admiration, and not more than eight
inches, Richard thought, from her own. Harriet's own face wore the
shadow of a smile, her lashes were dropped, and she was gently pushing
the point of her closed parasol into the green turf. The chairs in
which they sat had been slightly turned from the court.
Richard engaged himself in conversation with two or three men and women
who were watching the youngsters' game, and presently found himself
applauding his son for a brilliant ace. But after perhaps five minutes
he walked quite without volition, straight to Harriet's neighbourhood,
and she rose at once, introduced her new friend, and with a glance at
her wrist, announced that she must go.
"Ward said he would drive me home the instant it was over," said
Harriet, clapping heartily for the triumphant finish of the set.
"I'll drive you home!" Richard said, instantly. "I've the small car."
"Friday night!" Harriet smiled. For Friday night was the night for a
men's dinner and poker game at the country club, and Richard usually
liked to be there.
"I can come back!" he persisted, suddenly caring more for this
concession than anything else in the world. Without another word she
agreed, bade her Frenchman what seemed to Richard a voluble good-bye,
and when the bowing officer disappeared turned with a reminiscent smile.
"And now what?"
"Where did you learn to chatter French that way?" Richard said, leading
the way to the line of parked motors.
"Oh, we lived in Paris--old Mrs. Rogers and I," Harriet reminded him
carelessly. And reaching the little rise of ground that lay between the
clubhouse and the parking field, she stood still, looking off across
the exquisite spread of fields and valleys, banded by great strips of
woods, and flooded now by the streaming shadows and golden lights of
the late afternoon. "What a day!" she said, filling her lungs with
great breaths of the sweet air. "What an hour!"
"What I meant to say to you up there on the porch," Richard said, "when
that--that woman interrupted--"
Harriet herself interrupted with a laugh.
"You say 'that woman' as if it was a bitter, deadly curse!" she said.
"Well--" They had reached the car now, and Richard was investigating
the oil gauge and spark plugs under the hood. "Well, a woman like that
breaks in--nothing to her!" he said with scorn, straightening up.
"Yes, but at a country club?" Harriet offered, placatingly, as she got
into the front seat, and tucked the pongee robe snugly about the
saffron-coloured gown.
"I suppose so!" He got in beside her; there was a moment of backing and
wrenching before they glided out smoothly on the white driveway. "What
I meant to say was this," he added, suddenly, with a sidewise glance
from his wheel. "I--I want you to realize that I appreciate the
injustice--the crudeness of my rushing to you in New Jersey that
Christmas Day. I realize that we all have imposed on you--we've taken
you too much for granted! I was in trouble, and I couldn't think of any
other way out of it. But for any man to put a proposition like that to
any woman--"
They were driving very slowly. He looked at her again, and met a
wondering look in her beautiful eyes that still further confused him.
He had been uncomfortably conscious of an odd confusion in touching
upon this subject at all. Yet his mind had been full of it all day.
"I never felt it so, I assure you!" Harriet said with her lucid,
friendly look. Richard felt that there was more to say, but realized
that he had selected an unfortunate time for these confidences.
"I'm afraid I've been extremely stupid in the matter," he said, feeling
for his words. "I've gone about it clumsily. To tell you the
truth--What does that boy want?"
It was Ward who was coming toward them across the green, with great
springs and leaps, like some mountain animal.
"Give us a lift!" shrieked Ward, flinging himself upon the car as its
speed decreased. "Something is the matter with my engine--engina
pectoris is what I call it! Father, Mr. Tom Grant expects you to dine
at his table to-night, he said to remind you. And, Harriet, angel of
angels, we will be about six or seven about the groaning board; is that
all right?"
"I told Bottomley six or seven," Harriet said, serenely. "Ward, get in
or get out," she added, maternally, "don't hang over the door in that
blood-curdling way!"
She had put her arm about the boy to steady him; they began to discuss
tennis scores with enthusiasm. Richard drove the rest of the way home
almost without speaking.
He planned to see Harriet again that evening, and left the club at
eleven o'clock, after an incredibly dull game, with the definite hope
that the youngsters would dance, or in some other way prolong the
summer evening at least until midnight. His heart sank when he reached
Crownlands; the lower floor showed only the tempered lights that burned
until the latest member of the family came in, and Bottomley reported
that the young persons had gone upstairs at about half-past ten, sir.
It was now half-past eleven.
Richard debated sending Harriet a message to the effect that he would
like to see her for a moment. The flaw in this plan was that he could
think of nothing about which there was the slightest necessity of
seeing her. He felt restless and anything but sleepy, and glanced
irresolutely at the library door, and at the stairway.
Suddenly uproar broke out upstairs: there were thumping feet, shrieks,
wild laughter, and slamming doors. With a suddenly lightened heart
Richard ran up the wide, square flight to the landing. His son, in
pajamas that were more or less visible beneath his streaming robe of
Oriental silk, was pirouetting about the upper hall with a siphon of
soda water. Subdued giggles and smothered gasps indicated that the
young ladies were somewhere near, in hiding. Young Hopper, under Ward's
direction, was investigating doors and alcoves.
"Amy Hawkes--Amy Hawkes--Amy Hawkes--come into court!" Ward intoned.
"Drunk and disorderly!"
"Here, here, here!" Richard said. "What's all this?" Amy and Nina, with
hysteric shrieks, immediately forsook cover, and dashed down to him,
clinging to him wildly.
"Oh, Father! Make them stop! Oh, Mr. Carter, save us!" screamed the
girls in delicious terror. "Oh, they got poor Francesca--she's locked
up in your room! They climbed up our porch, after they swore to Harriet
that they wouldn't make another SOUND--"
Harriet now appeared in the hallway, her hair falling in a braid over
her shoulder, and the long lines of the black robe she wore giving her
figure an unusual effect of height. She did not see Richard
immediately, for she had eyes only for Ward, as she caught his
shoulder, and took away the siphon.
"Now, Ward--look here," she said, sternly. "What sort of honour do you
call this! Half an hour ago I thought all this nonsense was STOPPED.
Shame on you! Those girls promised me--"
She saw Richard, and laughed, the colour flooding her face.
"Aren't they simply shameless!" she said. "I had them all settled down,
once! Nina, where's Francesca? You see," Harriet said, in rapid
explanation to Richard, "I gave the girls my room to-night, so that
they could all be together, and this is my reward!"
The girls, entirely unalarmed by her severity, had deserted Richard
now, and were clinging to her with weak laughter and feeble
explanations.
"Francesca unlocked that door, and rushed into Mr. Carter's room!" Amy
explained, wiping her eyes. "And then the boys locked her in there!"
The composed reappearance of Francesca at this point, however, added to
the general hilarity.
"You DID NOT lock me in, Smarties!" Francesca drawled, childishly.
"They climbed to the balcony, and we were--well, we were undressing,"
she said to Richard, "and here they were hammering and yelling
like--like Siwashes! We grabbed our wrappers, we wanted to---"
"We wanted to lock them out there!" Amy explained, laughing
uncontrollably. "But--"
"And I snapped off the light--" Nina interposed, with deep satisfaction.
"And, mind you--"
"And, Father--"
"And the wonder was that we didn't die of fright--"
"Now, look here," Harriet said, in the babel, "I'll give you all
exactly two minutes to QUIET DOWN. Never in the course of my life--"
Richard thought her maternal indulgence delightful; he thought the
young people who clung about her charming in their apologetic and
laughing promises. Ward and Bruce Hopper mounted to their own region;
Richard went with the girls and Harriet to the rooms that had been
attacked. Pilgrim, the tireless, was already there, replacing pillows,
straightening beds, untwisting curtains. The girls, with reminiscent
bubbles of laughter, began to help her.
After the last good-nights, Richard and Harriet had no choice but to
cross the hall again, and they stood there for a moment, laughing at
the recent excitement.
"After twelve," Harriet said, with a smiling shake of her head. "Aren't
they young demons! However," she added in an undertone, "it's the best
thing in the world for Nina! This sort of nonsense will blow cobwebs
away!"
Richard was only conscious of a desire to prolong this intimate little
moment of parental consultation.
"She doesn't speak of Blondin?" he asked.
"Not at all. The birthday came and went placidly enough," Harriet
answered, suddenly intent after her laughing. And as he did not speak
for a second, she looked up at him, innocently. "You don't think she's
hiding anything?" she asked, anxiously.
"I--no, I hardly think so," Richard answered, confusedly. Their eyes
met, and he smiled vaguely. Then Harriet slowly crossed the hall to the
door of the guest room where she was spending the night, and gave him
an only half-audible good-night. Richard stood watching the door for a
moment or two after it had closed upon the slender, dimly seen figure.
Then he went to his own rooms, and began briskly enough to move about
between the mirrors and dressing room, windows and bed. But two or
three times he stopped short, and found himself staring vacantly into
space, all movement arrested, even thought arrested for whole long
minutes at a time.
Harriet, entering her room, closed the door noiselessly, and remained
for a long time standing with her hands resting against it behind her,
her eyes alert, her breath coming as if she had been running. There was
only a night light in the bedroom; the covers were still tumbled back
from her sudden flight toward the rioting youngsters in the hall. She
got back into her bed, and opened her book. But for a long time she
neither slept nor read; her eyes widened at the faintest sound of the
summer night; her heart thumped madly when the curtains whispered at
the window, or the wicker chairs gave the faintest creak. It had not
been only for Richard that the midnight hour of responsibility and
informality shared had had its thrill.
One o'clock. Harriet closed her book and snapped off her light. But
first she went to the window, and leaned out into the sweet darkness.
There was shadow unbroken everywhere; no light in all the big house was
burning as late as her own.