Letty had not heard Allerton's entrance or approach because for the
first time in her life she was lost in the magic of Hans Andersen.
"The sun had just gone down as the little mermaid lifted her head
above the water. The clouds were brilliant in purple and gold, and
through the pale, rose-tinged air the evening star shone clear and
bright. The air was warm and mild; the sea at rest. A great ship with
three masts lay close by, only one sail unfurled, for there was no
breath of air, and the sailors sat aloft in the rigging or leaned
lazily over the bulwarks. Music and singing filled the air, and as the
sky darkened hundreds of Chinese lanterns were lighted. It seemed as
if the flags of every nation were hung out. The little mermaid swam up
to the cabin window, and every time she rose upon the waves she could
see through the clear glass that the room was full of brilliantly
dressed people. Handsomest of all was the young prince with the great
dark eyes."
Allerton's eyes were dark, and though she did not consider him
precisely young, the analogy between him and the hero of the tale was
sufficient to take her eyes from the book and to set her to dreaming.
"He could not be more than sixteen years old, and this was his
birthday. All this gaiety was in honor of him; the sailors danced upon
the deck; and when the young prince came out a myriad of rockets flew
high in the air, with a glitter like the brightest noontide, and the
little mermaid was so frightened that she dived deep down under the
water. She soon rose up again, however, and it seemed as if all the
stars of heaven were falling round her in golden showers. Never had
she seen such fireworks; great, glittering suns wheeled by her, fiery
fishes darted through the blue air, and all was reflected back from
the quiet sea. The ship was lighted up so that one could see the
smallest rope. How handsome the young prince looked! He shook hands
with everybody, and smiled, as the music rang out into the glorious
night. It grew late, but the little mermaid could not turn her eyes
away from the ship and the handsome prince."
Once more Letty's thought wandered from the page. She too would have
watched her handsome prince, no matter what the temptation to look
elsewhere.
"The colored lanterns were put out, no rocket rose in the air, no
cannon boomed from the portholes; but deep below there was a surging
and a murmuring. The mermaid sat still, cradled by the waves, so that
she could look in at the cabin window. But now the ship began to make
more way. One sail after another was unfurled; the waves rose higher;
clouds gathered in the sky; and there was a distant flash of
lightning. The storm came nearer. All the sails were taken in, and the
ship rocked giddily, as she flew over the foaming billows; the waves
rose mountain-high, as if they would swallow up the very masts, but
the good ship dived like a swan into the deep black trough, and rose
bravely to the foaming crest. The little mermaid thought it was a
merry journey, but the sailors were of a different opinion. The ship
strained and creaked; the timbers shivered as the thunder strokes of
the waves fell fast; heavy seas swept the decks; the mainmast snapped
like a reed; and the ship lurched heavily, while the water rushed into
the hold. Then the young princess began to understand the danger, and
she herself was often threatened by the falling masts, yards, and
spars. One moment it was so dark that she could see nothing, but when
the lightning flamed out the ship was as bright as day. She sought for
the young prince, and saw him sinking down through the water as the
ship parted. The sight pleased her, for she knew he must sink down to
her home. But suddenly she remembered that men cannot live in the
water, and that he would only reach her father's palace a lifeless
corpse. No; he must not die! She swam to and fro among the drifting
spars, forgetting that they might crush her with their weight; she
dived and rose again, and reached the prince just when he felt that he
could swim no longer in the stormy sea. His arms were beginning to
fail him, his beautiful eyes were closed; in another moment he must
have sunk, had not the little mermaid come to his aid. She kept his
head above water, and let the waves carry them whither they would."
Letty didn't want Allerton's life to be in danger, but she would have
loved saving it. She fell to pondering possible conditions in which
she could perform this feat, while he ran no risk whatever.
"The next day the storm was over; not a spar of the ship was left in
sight. The sun rose red and glowing upon the waves, and seemed to pour
down new life upon the prince, though his eyes remained closed. The
little mermaid kissed his fair white forehead and stroked back his wet
hair. He was like the marble statue in her little garden, she thought.
She kissed him again, and prayed that he might live."
Letty saw herself seated somewhere in a mead, Allerton lying
unconscious with his head in her lap, though the circumstances that
brought them so together remained vague.
"Suddenly the dry land came in sight before her, high blue mountains
on whose peaks the snow lay white, as if a flock of swans had settled
there. On the coast below were lovely green woods, and close on shore
a building of some kind, the mermaid didn't know whether it was church
or cloister. Citrons and orange trees grew in the garden, and before
the porch were stately palm trees. The sea ran in here and formed a
quiet bay, unruffled, but very deep. The little mermaid swam with the
prince to the white sandy shore, laid him on the warm sand, taking
care that his head was left where the sun shone warmest. Bells began
to chime and ring through all parts of the building, and several young
girls entered the garden. The little mermaid swam farther out, behind
a tiny cliff that rose above the waves. She showered sea-foam on her
hair that no one might see its golden glory, and then waited patiently
to see if anyone would come to the aid of the young prince."
To Letty that was the heart-breaking part of the story, the leaving
the beloved one to others. It was what she and the little mermaid had
in common, unless she too could get rid of her fish's tail at the cost
of walking on blades. But for the little mermaid there the necessity
was, as she, Letty read on.
"Before long a young girl came by; she gave a start of terror and ran
back to call for assistance. Several people came to her aid, and after
a while the little mermaid saw the prince recover his consciousness,
and smile upon the group around him. But he had no smile for her; he
did not even know that she had saved him. Her heart sank, and when she
had seen him carried into the large building, she dived sorrowfully
down to her father's palace."
Lifting her eyes to meditate on this situation Letty saw Allerton
standing between the portieres. Her dream of being little mermaid to
his prince went out like a pricked bubble. Though he neither smiled
nor sneered she knew he was amused at her, with a bitterness in his
amusement. In an instant she saw her transformation as it must appear
to him. She had spent his money recklessly, and made herself look
ridiculous. All the many kinds of shame she had ever known focused on
her now, making her a glowing brand of humiliations. She stood
helpless. Hans Andersen dropped to the floor with a soft thud.
Nevertheless, it was she who spoke first.
"I suppose you--you think it funny to see me rigged up like this?"
He took time to pick up the book she had dropped and hand it back to
her. "Won't you sit down again?"
While she seated herself and he followed her example she continued to
stammer on. "I--I thought I ought to--to look proper for the house as
long as I was in it."
Her phrasing gave him an opening. "You're quite right. I should like
you to get whatever would help you in--in your profession before
you--before you leave us."
Quick to seize the implications here she took them with the submission
of those whose lots have always depended on other people's wills.
"I'll go whenever you want me to."
Relieved as he was by this willingness he was anxious not to seem
brutal. "I'd--I'd rather you consulted your own wishes about that."
She put on a show of nonchalance. "Oh, I don't care. It'll be
just--just as you say _when_."
He would have liked to say when at that instant, but a pretense at
courtesy had to be maintained. "There's no hurry--for a day or two."
"You said a week or two yesterday."
"Oh, did I? Well, then, we'll say a week or two now."
"Oh, not for me," she hastened to assure him. "I'd just as soon go
to-night."
"Have you hated it as much as that?"
"I've hated some of it."
"Ah, well! You needn't be bothered with it long."
Her candor was of the kind which asks questions frankly. "Haven't you
got any more use for me?"
"I'm afraid--" it was not easy to put it into the right words--"I'm
afraid I was mistaken yesterday. I put you in--in a false position
with no necessity for doing so."
It took her a few seconds to get the force of this. "Do you mean that
you didn't need me to be--to be a shame and a disgrace to you _at
all_?"
"Did I put it in that way?"
"Well, didn't you?"
The fact that she was now dressed as she was made it more embarrassing
to him to be crude than it had been when addressing the homeless and
shabby little "drab."
"I don't know what I said then. I was--I was upset."
"And you're upset very easy, ain't you?" She corrected herself
quickly: "aren't you?"
"I suppose that's true. What of it?"
"Oh, nothing. I--I just happen to know a way you can get over that--if
you want to."
He smiled. "I'm afraid my nervousness is too deeply seated--I may as
well admit that I'm nervous--you saw it for yourself----"
"Oh, I saw you was--you were--sick up here--" she touched her
forehead--"as soon as you begun to talk to me."
Grateful for this comprehension he tried to use it to his advantage.
"So that you understand how I could go off the hooks----"
"Sure! My mother'd go off 'em the least little thing, till--till she
done--till she did--the way I told her."
"Then some of these days I may ask you to--but just now perhaps we'd
better talk about----"
"When I'm to get out."
Her bluntness of expression hurt him. "That's not the way I should
have put it----"
"But it's the way you'd 'a' meant, isn't it?"
He was the more disconcerted because she said this gently, with the
same longing in her face and eyes as in that of the little mermaid
bending over the unconscious prince.
The unconscious prince of the moment merely said: "You mustn't think
me more brutal than I am----"
"Oh, I don't think you're brutal. You're just a little dippy,
ain't--aren't--you? But that's because you let yourself go. If when
you feel it comin' on you'd just--but perhaps you'd rather _be_ dippy.
Would you?"
If he could have called these wide goldstone eyes with their tiny
flames maternal it is the word he would have chosen. In spite of the
difficulty of the minute he was conscious of a flicker of amusement.
"I don't know that I would, but----"
"After I'm gone shall we--shall we _stay_ married?"
This being the real question he was glad she faced it with the
directness which gave her a kind of charm. He admitted that. She had
the charm of everything which is genuine of its kind. She made no
pretense. Her expression, her voice, her lack of sophistication, all
had the limpidity of water. He felt himself thanking God for it. "He
alone knows what kind of hands I might have fallen into yesterday,
crazy fool that I am." Of this child, crude as she was, he could make
his own disposition.
So in answer to her question he told her he had seen his lawyer in the
afternoon--he was a lawyer himself but he didn't practice--and the
great man had explained to him that of all the processes known to
American jurisprudence the retracing of such steps as they had taken
on the previous day was one of the simplest. What the law had joined
the law could put asunder, and was well disposed toward doing so.
There being several courses which they could adopt, he put them before
her one by one. She listened with the sort of attention which shows
the mind of the listener to be fixed on the speaker, rather than on
anything he says. Not being obliged to ask questions or to make
answers she could again see him as the handsome, dark-eyed prince whom
she would have loved to save from drowning or any other fate.
Of all he said she could attach a meaning to but one word:
"desertion." Even in the technical marital sense she knew vaguely its
significance. She thought of it with a tightening about the heart. Any
desertion of him of which she would be capable would be like that of
the little mermaid when she dived sorrowfully down to her father's
palace, leaving him with those to whom he belonged. It was this
thought which prompted a question flung in among his observations,
though the link in the train of thought was barely traceable:
"Is she takin' you back--the girl you told me about yesterday?"
He looked puzzled. "Did I tell you about a girl yesterday?"
"Why, sure! You said she kicked you out----"
"Well, she hadn't. I--I didn't know I'd gone so far as to say----"
"Oh, you went a lot farther than that. You said you were goin' to the
devil. Ain't you? I mean, aren't you?"
"I--I don't seem able to."
"You're the first fellow I've ever heard say that."
"I'm the first fellow I've ever heard say it myself. But I tried
to-day--and I couldn't."
"What did you do?"
"I tried to get drunk."
She half rose, shrinking away from him. "Not--not _you!_"
"Yes. Why not? I've been drunk before--not often, but----"
"Don't tell me," she cried, hastily. "I don't want to know. It's
too----"
"But I thought it was just the sort of thing you'd be----"
"I'd be used to. So it is. But that's the reason. You're--you're
different. I can't bear to think of it--not with you."
"But I'm just like any other man."
"Oh, no, you're not."
He looked at her curiously. "How am I--how am I--different?"
"Oh, other men are just men, and you're a--a kind of prince."
"You wouldn't think so if you were to know me better."
"But I'm not goin' to know you better, and I'd rather think of you as
I see you are." She dropped this theme to say: "So the other
girl----"
"She didn't mean it at all."
"She'd be crazy if she did. But what made her let you think so?"
"She's--she's simply that sort; goes off the hooks too."
"Oh! So there'll be a pair of you."
"I'm afraid so."
"That'll be bloody murder, won't it? Momma was that way with Judson
Flack. Hammer and tongs--the both of them--till I took her in hand,
and----"
"And what happened then?"
"She calmed down and--and died."
"So that it didn't do her much good, did it?"
"It did her that much good that she died. Death was better than the
way she was livin' with Judson Flack--and it wasn't always his fault.
I do' wanta defend him, but momma got so that if he did have a quiet
spell she'd go and stir him up. There's not much hope for two married
people that lives like that, do you think?"
"But you say your mother, under your instruction, got over it."
"Yes, but it was too late. The more she got over it the more he'd
lambaste her, and when her money was all gone----"
"But do you think all--all hot-tempered couples have to go it in that
way?"
She made a little hunching movement of the shoulders. "It's mostly cat
and dog anyhow. You and her--the other girl--won't be much worse than
others."
"But you think we'll be worse, to some extent at least."
She ignored this to say, wistfully: "I suppose you're awful fond of
her."
"I think I can say as much as that."
"And is she fond of you?"
"She says so."
"If she is I don't see how she could--" Her voice trailed away. Her
eyes forsook his face to roam the shadows of the room. She added to
herself rather than to him: "I couldn't ha' done it if it was me."
"Oh, if you were in love----"
The eyes wandered back from the shadows to rest on him again. They
were sorrowful eyes, and unabashed. A child's would have had this
unreproachful ache in them, or a dog's. Though he didn't know what it
meant it disturbed him into leaving his sentence there.
It occurred to him then that they were forgetting the subject in hand.
He had not expected to be able to converse with her, yet something
like conversation had been taking place. It had come to him, too, that
she had a mind, and now that he really looked at her he saw that the
face was intelligent. Yesterday that face had been no more to him than
a smudge, without character, and almost featureless, while to-day....
The train of his thought being twofold he could think along one line,
and speak along another. "So if you go to see my lawyer he'll suggest
different things that you could do----"
"I'd rather do whatever 'ud make it easiest for you."
"You're very kind, but I think I'd better not suggest. I'll leave that
to him and you. He knows already that he's to supply you with whatever
money you need for the present; and after everything is settled I'll
see that you have----"
The damask flush which Steptoe had admired stole over a face flooded
with alarm. She spoke as she rose, drawing a little back from him. "I
do' want any money."
He looked up at her in protestation. "Oh, but you must take it."
She was still drawing back, as if he was threatening her with
something that would hurt. "I do' want to."
"But it was part of our bargain. You don't understand that I
couldn't----"
"I didn't make no such--" She checked herself. Her mother had rebuked
her for this form of speech a thousand times. She said the sentence
over as she felt he would have said it, as the people would have said
it among whom she had lived as a child. The cadence of his speech, the
half forgotten cadences of theirs, helped her ear and her intuitions.
"I didn't make any such bargain," she managed to bring out, at last.
"You said you'd give me money; but I never said I'd take it."
He too rose. He began to feel troubled. Perhaps she wouldn't be at his
disposition after all. "But--but I couldn't stand it if you didn't let
me----"
"And I couldn't stand it if I did."
"But that's not reasonable. It's part of the whole thing that I should
look out for your future after what----"
"I know what you mean," she declared, tremblingly. "You think that
because I'm--I'm beneath you that I ain't got--that I haven't got--no
sense of what a girl should do and what she shouldn't do. But you're
wrong. Do you suppose I didn't know all about how crazy it was when I
went with you yesterday? Of course I did. I was as much to blame as
you."
"Oh, no, you weren't. Apart from your being what you call beneath
me--and I don't admit that you are--I'm a great deal older than
you----"
"You're only older in years. In livin' I'm twice your age. Besides I'm
all right here----" she touched her forehead again--"and I could see
first thing that you was a fellow that needed to be took--to be
taken--care of."
"Oh, you did!"
She strengthened her statement with an affirmative nod. "Yes, I did."
"Well, then, I've always paid the people who've taken care of me----"
"Oh, but you didn't ask me to take care of you, and I didn't take no
care. You wanted me to be a disgrace to you, and I thought so little
of myself that I said I'd go and be it. Now I've got to pay for that,
not be paid for it."
Her head was up with what Steptoe considered to be mettle. Though the
picture she presented was stamped on his mind as resembling the proud
mien of the girl in Whistler's Yellow Buskin, he didn't think of that
till later.
"There's one thing I must ask you to remember," he said, in a tone he
tried to make firm, "that I couldn't possibly accept from you anything
in the way of sacrifice."
Her eyes were wide and earnest. "But I never thought of _makin'_
anything in the way of sacrifice."
"It would be sacrifice for you to help me get out of this scrape, and
have nothing at all to the good."
"But I'd have lots to the good." She reflected. "I'd have
rememberin'."
"What have you got to remember?"
With her child's lack of self-consciousness she looked him straight in
the eyes. "You--for one thing."
"Me!" He had hardly the words for his amazement. "For heaven's sake,
what can you have to remember about me that--that could give you any
pleasure?"
"Oh, I didn't say it would give me any pleasure. I said I'd _have_ it.
It'd be mine--something no one couldn't take away from me."
"But if it doesn't do you any good----"
"It does me good if it makes me richer, don't it?"
"Richer to--to remember _me_?"
She nodded, with a little twisted smile, beginning to move toward the
door. Over her shoulder she said: "And it isn't only you.
There's--there's Steptoe."