A week passed and, just as I was within sight of my limit of patience,
Bromwell Ellersly appeared at my office. “I can't put my hand on the
necessary cash, Mr. Blacklock--at least, not for a few days. Can I count
on your further indulgence?” This in his best exhibit of old-fashioned
courtliness--the “gentleman” through and through, ignorant of anything
useful.
“Don't let that matter worry you, Ellersly,” said I, friendly, for I wanted
to be on a somewhat less business-like basis with that family. “The
market's steady, and will go up before it goes down.”
“Good!” said he. “By the way, you haven't kept your promise to call.”
“I'm a busy man,” said I. “You must make my excuses to your wife. But--in
the evenings. Couldn't we get up a little theater-party--Mrs. Ellersly and
your daughter and you and I--Sam, too, if he cares to come?”
“Delightful!” cried he.
“Whichever one of the next five evenings you say,” I said. “Let me know
by to-morrow morning, will you?” And we talked no more of the neglected
margins; we understood each other. When he left he had negotiated a three
months' loan of twenty thousand dollars.
* * * * *
They were so surprised that they couldn't conceal it, when they were
ushered into my apartment on the Wednesday evening they had fixed upon. If
my taste in dress was somewhat too pronounced, my taste in my surroundings
was not. I suppose the same instinct that made me like the music and the
pictures and the books that were the products of superior minds had guided
me right in architecture, decoration and furniture. I know I am one of
those who are born with the instinct for the best. Once Monson got in
the way of free criticism, he indulged himself without stint, after the
customary human fashion; in fact, so free did he become that had I not
feared to frighten him and so bring about the defeat of my purposes, I
should have sat on him hard very soon after we made our bargain. As it was,
I stood his worst impudences without flinching, and partly consoled myself
with the amusement I got out of watching his vanity lead him on into
thinking his knowledge the most vital matter in the world--just as you
sometimes see a waiter or a clerk with the air of sharing the care of the
universe with the Almighty.
But even Monson could find nothing to criticize either in my apartment
or in my country house. And, by the way, he showed his limitations by
remarking, after he had inspected: “I must say, Blacklock, your architects
and decorators have done well by you.” As if a man's surroundings were not
the unfailing index to himself, no matter how much money he spends or how
good architects and the like he hires. As if a man could ever buy good
taste.
I was pleased out of all proportion to its value by what Ellersly and his
wife looked and said. But, though I watched Miss Ellersly closely, though I
tried to draw from her some comment on my belongings--on my pictures, on my
superb tapestries, on the beautiful carving of my furniture--I got nothing
from her beyond that first look of surprise and pleasure. Her face resumed
its statuelike calm, her eyes did not wander; her lips, like a crimson bow
painted upon her clear, white skin, remained closed. She spoke only when
she was spoken to, and then as briefly as possible. The dinner--and a
mighty good dinner it was--would have been memorable for strain and silence
had not Mrs. Ellersly kept up her incessant chatter. I can't recall a word
she said, but I admired her for being able to talk at all. I knew she was
in the same state as the rest of us, yet she acted perfectly at her ease;
and not until I thought it over afterward did I realize that she had done
all the talking, except answers to her occasional and cleverly-sprinkled
direct questions.
Ellersly sat opposite me, and I was irritated, and thrown into confusion,
too, every time I lifted my eyes, by the crushed, criminal expression of
his face. He ate and drank hugely--and extremely bad manners it would
have been regarded in me had I made as much noise as he, or lifted such
quantities at a time into my mouth. But through his noisy gluttony he
managed somehow to maintain that hang-dog air--like a thief who has gone
through the house and, on his way out, has paused at the pantry, with the
sack of plunder beside him, to gorge himself.
I looked at Anita several times, each time with a carefully-framed remark
ready; each time I found her gaze on me--and I could say nothing, could
only look away in a sort of panic. Her eyes were strangely variable. I have
seen them of a gray, so pale that it was almost silver--like the steely
light of the snow-line at the edge of the horizon; again, and they were
so that evening, they shone with the deepest, softest blue, and made one
think, as one looked at her, of a fresh violet frozen in a block of clear
ice.
I sat behind her in the box at the theater. During the first and
second intermissions several men dropped in to speak to her mother and
her--fellows who didn't ever come down town, but I could tell they knew who
I was by the way they ignored me. It exasperated me to a pitch of fury,
that coldly insolent air of theirs--a jerky nod at me without so much as a
glance, and no notice of me when they were leaving _my_ box beyond a
faint, supercilious smile as they passed with eyes straight ahead. I knew
what it meant, what they were thinking--that the “Bucket-Shop King,” as the
newspapers had dubbed me, was trying to use old Ellersly's necessities as a
“jimmy” and “break into society.” When the curtain went down for the last
intermission, two young men appeared; I did not get up as I had before, but
stuck to my seat--I had reached that point at which courtesy has become
cowardice.
They craned and strained at her round me and over me, presently gave up
and retired, disguising their anger as contempt for the bad manners of a
bounder. But that disturbed me not a ripple, the more as I was delighting
in a consoling discovery. Listening and watching as she talked with these
young men, whom she evidently knew well, I noted that she was distant and
only politely friendly in manner habitually, that while the ice might
thicken for me, it was there always. I knew enough about women to know
that, if the woman who can thaw only for one man is the most difficult, she
is also the most constant. “Once she thaws toward me!” I said to myself.
When the young men had gone, I leaned forward until my head was close to
hers, to her hair--fine, soft, abundant, electric hair. Like the infatuated
fool that I was, I tore out all the pigeon-holes of my brain in search of
something to say to her, something that would start her to thinking well
of me. She must have felt my breath upon her neck, for she moved away
slightly, and it seemed to me a shiver visibly passed over that wonderful
white skin of hers.
I drew back and involuntarily said, “Beg pardon.” I glanced at her mother
and it was my turn to shudder. I can't hope to give an accurate impression
of that stony, mercenary, mean face. There are looks that paint upon the
human countenance the whole of a life, as a flash of lightning paints upon
the blackness of the night miles on miles of landscape. That look of Mrs.
Ellersly's--stern disapproval at her daughter, stern command that she be
more civil, that she unbend--showed me the old woman's soul. And I say that
no old harpy presiding over a dive is more full of the venom of the hideous
calculations of the market for flesh and blood than is a woman whose life
is wrapped up in wealth and show.
“If you wish it,” I said, on impulse, to Miss Ellersly in a low voice, “I
shall never try to see you again.”
I could feel rather than see the blood suddenly beating in her skin, and
there was in her voice a nervousness very like fright as she answered: “I'm
sure mama and I shall be glad to see you whenever you come.”
“You?” I persisted.
“Yes,” she said, after a brief hesitation.
“Glad?” I persisted.
She smiled--the faintest change in the perfect curve of her lips. “You are
very persistent, aren't you?”
“Very,” I answered. “That is why I have always got whatever I wanted.”
“I admire it,” said she.
“No, you don't,” I replied. “You think it is vulgar, and you think I am
vulgar because I have that quality--that and some others.”
She did not contradict me.
“Well, I _am_ vulgar--from your standpoint,” I went on. “I have
purposes and passions. And I pursue them. For instance, you.”
“I?” she said tranquilly.
“You,” I repeated. “I made up my mind the first day I saw you that I'd make
you like me. And--you will.”
“That is very flattering,” said she. “And a little terrifying. For”--she
faltered, then went bravely on--“I suppose there isn't anything you'd stop
at in order to gain your end.”
“Nothing,” said I, and I compelled her to meet my gaze.
She drew a long breath, and I thought there was a sob in it--like a
frightened child.
“But I repeat,” I went on, “that if you wish it, I shall never try to see
you again. Do you wish it?”
“I--don't--know,” she answered slowly. “I think--not.”
As she spoke the last word, she lifted her eyes to mine with a look of
forced friendliness in them that I'd rather not have seen there. I wished
to be blind to her defects, to the stains and smutches with which her
surroundings must have sullied her. And that friendly look seemed to me
an unmistakable hypocrisy in obedience to her mother. However, it had the
effect of bringing her nearer to my own earthy level, of putting me at ease
with her; and for the few remaining minutes we talked freely, I indifferent
whether my manners and conversation were correct. As I helped her into
their carriage, I pressed her arm slightly, and said in a voice for her
only, “Until to-morrow.”