The visit was altogether a disappointment. Angelica had imagined that it
would be a sort of triumph for her, that she could at least a little
exult over these "rich people"; but, after all, it was nothing but an
obvious condescension on their part. She hadn’t conquered them; they had
accepted her voluntarily--not reluctantly, but rather graciously.
It was a tiresome day. Mrs. Russell’s cordiality had evaporated
overnight, and she was bored and yawning. She lay in a deck chair on
the piazza, rustling through the Sunday papers, and talking to Angelica
now and then with outrageously forced politeness. She had an air which
Angelica knew of old; when one of her fits of ennui came on her, she all
but pushed her bewildered guests out of the door.
But Angelica stayed until after supper. That was what she had planned to
do, and what she was determined to do. She too sat on the piazza, with a
Sunday paper, concealing her sullenness.
There wasn’t any supper, properly speaking. Annie was out, and Mrs.
Russell said that their new custom was to help themselves from the
ice-chest--a plan which might have been jolly if the people had been a
little less hostile. They stood about in the immaculate kitchen with
plates in their hands, Mrs. Russell yawning, the doctor subdued,
Angelica severe, and Courtland embarrassed and aggrieved. Vincent wasn’t
there. There was beer and cold chicken and ham and salad and tarts.
"And coffee if you want to make it," Mrs. Russell said; but no one did.
After this, Angelica took her leave. Courtland was suddenly deprived of
his secretarial dignity and ordered peremptorily to drive her to the
station, which he did in complete silence. He never ceased to resent
this seesawing, by which he was one moment the promising young man being
trained as a secretary and treated with immense, if not maternal,
indulgence, and the next minute was a servant and a rather rudely
treated one. He endured it with wonder and disgust.
Angelica was able now to gratify a long-cherished desire--she was
traveling in the style which she had so much admired in suburban ladies.
It was, of course, out of the question to expect Courtland to help her
on the train. Nothing in the world could have induced him to do so; but
at least she was able to alight from a motor, to buy three or four
magazines and a box of sweets, and enter the train, thus burdened, with
the proper air. She sat down near a window and opened a magazine.
A hand covered the page.
"Angie!" said a voice, and she looked up into Vincent’s laughing face.
She couldn’t repress a smile herself--a sudden throb of joy; that
exquisite feeling of comradeship again.
"Are you glad to see me?" he asked.
"No. Why should I be?"
"You can spare this one little evening for me," he said, "no matter what
wonderfully upright sort of future you’re planning. It won’t hurt any
one. I’ll be irreproachable. I won’t make any demands, any requests. I
won’t evoke old memories. Before we say good-by, let me have a few hours
with the old Angelica--my beloved, reckless, adorable Angelica. Just to
make a memory!"
"No; we better not!" she said.
It might well, she thought, make a memory which would last far, far too
long.
"Why not, Angelica?"
"I don’t want to, Vincent, that’s all."
He didn’t urge her; he sat quietly beside her, suddenly dejected. The
train ran on past dark woods, wide fields, lighted houses; stopped at
lively little stations with their lines of motors--that world of
bourgeois smartness which Angelica so admired. It turned her thoughts
again to Eddie, and to all that she would gain through Eddie. _She_
would be coming home to one of these little stations, met by her own
motor, to be whirled off to her own lovely home, with servants to wait
on her, with dignity, security, peace!
And a sudden disarming pity for Vincent rushed over her--poor Vincent
who had nothing to give. She glanced cautiously at his face, gloomy,
perplexed, his eyes clouded with a sort of hungry dissatisfaction. He
couldn’t help but look bold all the time, but even that boldness was
pitiful to her who knew his weakness, his faults, his vices, his
follies. She had never felt so sorry for any one else.
"Walk home with me, if you like," she said.
They came out into the bewildering brilliance of Forty-Second Street
side by side, and began walking east, slowly, in that astonishing
hurly-burly of crowds, of glittering signs winking, flashing, pouring
out into the night sky a flood of radiance, of hurrying taxis, immense
motor-cars, trolleys, strings of fiercely lighted little shops, the
windows filled with inane and shamelessly overpriced trinkets and
souvenirs; noise, blinding light, crowds and crowds of people.
"Let’s turn down Madison Avenue," suggested Vincent.
"That’s out of my way."
"But you’re in no hurry. Please!"
She consented; she had no particular reason for not doing so. He took
her arm as they turned into the darker, quieter street, and went on with
her so, like a young lover, his head turned toward her, listening
eagerly, watching her face.
"Now tell me about it," he said. "Tell me what it is that’s made you
change so."
She didn’t answer.
"It was you, and all the dreadful pain you caused me," she thought, but
without bitterness; with only immeasurable sadness and regret that it
should have been so.
"I’ve been working with two very nice girls," she said aloud. "They’ve
helped me, and I’ve learned a lot from them."
He asked her a great many questions. He was really interested in it all,
and in the effect of this commercial adventure upon her crude soul. It
was the first time any one had shown a real interest in her heart and
her mind. He didn’t care so much about what she _did_, as what she
_felt_. She could not help talking freely, with a sense of great relief.
All the observation of her shrewd and intelligent mind, so friendless
and so little understood, came to her lips now--not the naïve egoism of
a young girl in love, but the wit, the vigour, the soundness of a woman
of character.
They turned into Fifth Avenue at Twenty-Third Street, and went on
down-town, for Angelica had promised to show Vincent her millinery shop.
"There!" she said with pride.
They stood in the silent and deserted square, looking at the house, at
the peacock, at the windows where in the light of the street-lamp the
purple letters of "Angélique" might be deciphered.
A clock struck eleven.
"I’ll have to hurry home," said Angelica. "Mother’ll worry."
She was reluctant, for she had been happy in her fool’s paradise. Of
course it couldn’t last, this friendly communion with the man she found
above all other people in the world supremely interesting, supremely
attractive. She knew all about him, she didn’t trust him; but it was
something just to be with him, so happily, for this one last time.
All the old magic came flowing back into her heart, there in the tiny
park, with the dead leaves blowing down the paths, and a sharp white
moon to be seen now and then as the wispy clouds drew across it. That
yearning for his sympathy, for his love, positively tormented her. She
longed and longed to draw near to him, to feel his arm about her.
As always, his instinct warned him of his moment. His hold on her arm
tightened.
"Don’t go!" he said. "Let’s have just this hour! Angelica, imagine--if
we had a little room here, some little place all to ourselves! And I’d
wait at home for you, and write and dream about you, and long for you
all day, while you sat there in your shop, bending your dear, dark head
over your work. You’d work for me, until I grew famous--and then I’d
make a queen--an empress of you, my beloved woman!"
"Don’t begin that!" she entreated. "We’ve had such a nice time!"
"But think of it! Think of sitting together in the dark, in our poor
little room, our arms about each other, weary, harassed, finding our joy
and consolation only in those hours together--living just for that! Oh,
Angelica! Angelica! Hasn’t this long, weary parting been just an
interlude? Can’t we begin again? Take me back! Forgive me and love me
and make me over. Make me what you wish. Come back to me! Come back to
me! I need you so terribly!"
"Don’t!" she begged again, profoundly troubled. "I don’t know how to
tell you--how to make you see how useless it is. I can’t--I don’t feel
as I used to. All that is dead. I’ll never care that way for any one
again."
"For me you can!"
She shook her head dumbly.
"Vincent, you’ve done me enough harm. For God’s sake, let me alone! Now,
just when I’m struggling up out of the mud, you come and try to pull me
down. Right here, before this very house----”
She stopped, unable to explain, even to suggest to him all that Fine
Feathers meant to her, how it was her honour, her dignity, friendship,
self-respect, ambition.
"You see how I’ve changed," she said, "and how I’ve improved. Why don’t
you try to help me?"
"Changed?" he said, stooping to look into her face. "Not a bit of it,
Angelica! You’re nothing but my Angelica, my beloved girl, the mother of
my child!"
"Oh, stop!" she cried. "Oh, it’s too horrible!"
"It’s too horrible that you should repudiate me. Angelica, let us take
back our child and start again, a decent, honest life. You talk of
improving yourself; why don’t you think of improving me--of helping your
poor little child? Let’s help each other!"
"You wouldn’t do it! You know you wouldn’t!" she cried. The tears were
rolling down her cheeks unnoticed. "You’ve never even seen the poor
little thing, or asked about him."
"But I’ve thought of him! I’ve been haunted by that little son--yours
and mine. Oh, Angelica, don’t, don’t for God’s sake, turn away from me!
Polly will set me free, and I’ll marry you and we will have our child
again."
She felt as if she were sinking in a whirlpool. An intolerable pity for
this man confused her, overwhelmed her.
Her troubled glance, leaving his beloved face, fell upon the ridiculous
peacock with its jaunty little paper hat--fit image for her nightmare;
and a little trickle of cold, sane daylight began to filter into her
darkened and suffering mind.
"Angelica! Let us begin again, you and I and our little son----”
"No!" she cried in a ringing voice. "No!"
His face fell. He looked at her, startled.
"No!" she said again. "I’d never believe you--not a word you said. I
won’t forget! I’ll _never_ forget, and I’ll never forgive what you’ve
done. You’re a liar! You’re a beast! I hate you!"