SNOW MAGIC
Boskirk and Bojo greeted each other with that excessive cordiality which
the conventions of society impose upon two men who hate each other
cordially but are debarred from the primeval instincts to slay.
"He wouldn't gamble, he wouldn't take a risk! Oh no, nothing human about
him," said Bojo to Fred, sending a look of antagonism at Boskirk, who
was adjusting his glasses and spreading the contents of a satchel on the
table before him.
"The human cash-register!" said DeLancy. "Born at the age of forty-two,
middle names Caution, Conservatism, and the Constitution. Favorite
romance--Statistics."
"Thank you!" said Bojo, somewhat mollified.
"There was a young man named Boskirk
Who never his duty would shirk,--"
began DeLancy--and forthwith retired into intellectual seclusion to
complete the limerick.
The spectacle of Boskirk immersed in business detail irritated Bojo
immeasurably. The feeling it aroused in him was not jealousy but rather
a sense that some one was threatening his right and his property.
A complete and insidious change had been worked in his moral fiber. The
hazardous speculation to which he was now committed, which was nothing
but the sheerest and most vicious form of gambling, the wrecking of
property, would have been impossible to him six months before. But he
had lived too long in the atmosphere of luxury, and too close to the
master adventurers of that speculative day. Luxury had become a second
nature to him; contact with men who could sell him out twenty times over
had brought him the parching hunger for money. All other ideals had
yielded before a new ideal--force. To impose one's self, making one's
own laws, brushing aside weak scruples, planning above ridiculously
simple and obvious schemes of legal conduct for the ordering of the
multitude, silencing criticism by the magnitude of the operation--a
master where a weak man ended a criminal:--this was the new scheme of
life which he was gradually absorbing.
He had become worldly with the confidence of succeeding. Whatever
compunctions he had formerly felt about a marriage with Doris he had
dismissed as pure sentimentality. There remained only a certain pride, a
desire to know his worth by some master stroke. In this fierce need, he
had lost moderation and caution. With the steady decline of Pittsburgh &
New Orleans, his appetite had increased. It was no longer a fair profit
he wanted, but something miraculous. He had sold hundreds of shares,
placing always a limit, vowing to be satisfied, and always going beyond
it. He had plunged first to the amount of thirty odd thousand, reserving
the fifty thousand which was pledged to the pool, but which he had not
been called on to deliver. But this fifty thousand remained a horrible
ever-present temptation. He resisted at first, borrowing five thousand
from Marsh when the rage of selling drove him deeper in; then finally,
absolutely confident, he had yielded, without much shock to his
conscience, and drawn each day until on this morning he had drawn on the
last ten thousand as collateral.
And still Pittsburgh & New Orleans receded, heaping up before his mind
fantastic profits.
"When asked, 'Don't you tire,'
He said, 'Di diddledee dire--
I never can get enough work.'"
finished Fred with a grimace. "That's pretty bad--but so's the subject."
"Look here, Fred," said Bojo, thus recalled from the tyranny of figures
which kept swirling before his eyes. "I want to talk to you. I'm worried
about your letting Louise Varney in on Pittsburgh & New Orleans; besides
I suspect you've plunged a darned sight deeper than you ought."
And from the moral superiority of a man of force, he read him a lecture
on the danger to the mere outsider of risking all on one hazard--a
sensible pointed warning which DeLancy accepted contritely, in utter
ignorance of the preacher's own perilous position.
It was well after seven when they stepped out on the icy station amid
the gay crowd of week-enders. Patsie, at the reins, halloed to them from
a rakish cutter, and the next moment they were off over the crackling
snow with long, luminous, purple shadows at their sides, racing past
other sleighs with jingling bells and shrieks of recognition.
"Heavens, Patsie, you're worse than Fred with his car! I say, look
out--you missed that cutter by a foot," said Bojo, who had taken the
seat beside the young Eskimo at an imperious command.
"Pooh, that's nothing!" said that reckless person. "Watch this." With a
sudden swerve she drew past a contending sleigh and gained the head of
the road by a margin so narrow that the occupants of the back seat broke
into many cries.
"Here, let me out-- Murder!-- Police!"
"Don't worry, the snow's lovely and soft!" Patsie shouted back,
delighted. "Turned over myself yesterday--doesn't hurt a bit."
This encouraging information was received with frantic cries and demands
on Bojo to take the reins.
"Don't you dare," said the gay lady indignantly, setting her feet firmly
and flinging all the weight of her shoulders against a sudden break of
the spirited team.
"Pulling pretty hard," said Bojo, watching askance the riotous struggle
that whirled past cottage and evergreen and filled the air with a snowy
bombardment from the scurrying hoofs. "Say when, if you need me."
"I _won't_! Tell the back seat to jump if I shout!"
"Holy murder!" exclaimed Fred DeLancy, who so far forgot his animosities
as to cling to Boskirk, possibly with the idea of providing himself a
cushion in case of need.
"Are they awfully scared?" said Patsie in a delighted whisper. "Yes?
Just you wait till we get to the gate. That will make them howl! How's
your nose--frozen?
"Glorious!"
"Too cold for Doris and the rest. Catch them getting chapped up. Their
idea of winter sports is popping popcorn by the fire. Thank heaven
you've arrived, Bojo! I'm suffocating. Hold tight!"
"Hold tight!" sang out Bojo, not without some apprehension as the
sleigh, without slackening speed, approached the sudden swerve which led
through massive stone columns into the Drake estate. The quick turn
raised them on edge, skidding over the beaten snow so that the sleigh
came up with a bump against the farther pillar and then shot forward up
the long hill crowned with blazing porches and to a stop at last,
saluted by the riotous acclaim of a dozen dogs of all sizes and breeds.
"Scared--honor-bright?" said Patsie, leaping out as a groom came up to
take the horses.
"Never again!" said DeLancy, springing to terra firma with a groan of
relief, while Boskirk looked at the reckless girl with a disapproving
shake of his head.
They went stamping into the great hall to the warmth of a great log
blaze, Patsie dancing ahead, shedding toboggan cap and muffler riotously
on the way, for a dignified footman to gather in.
"Don't look so disappointed!" she cried, laughing, as the three young
men looked about expectantly. "The parlor beauties are upstairs
splashing in paint and powder, getting ready for the grand entrance!"
Boskirk and DeLancy went off to their rooms while Bojo, at a sign from
Patsie, remained behind.
"Well?" he said.
"Bojo, do me a favor--a great favor," she said instantly, seizing the
lapels of his coat. "It's moonlight to-night and we've got the most
glorious coast for a toboggan and, Bojo, I'm just crazy to go. After
dinner, won't you? Please say yes."
"Why, we'll get up a party," said Bojo, hesitating and tempted.
"Party? Catch those mollycoddles getting away from the steam-heaters!
Now, Bojo, be a dear. You're the only real being I've had here in weeks.
Besides, if you have any spunk you'll do it," she added artfully.
"What do you mean?"
"Just let Doris get her fill of that old fossil of a Boskirk. Show your
independence. Bojo, please do it for me!"
She clung to him, coquetting with her eyes and smile with the dangerous
inconscient coquetry of a child, and this radiance and rosy youth, so
close to him, so intimately offered, brought him a disturbing emotion.
He turned away so as not to meet the sparkling, pleading glance.
"Young lady," he said with assumed gruffness, "I see you are learning
entirely too fast. I believe you are actually flirting with me."
"Then you will!" she cried gleefully. "Hooray!" She flung her arms about
him in a rapturous squeeze and fled like a wild animal in light,
graceful bounds up the stairs, before he could qualify his
acquiescence.
When he came down dressed for dinner, Doris was flitting about the
library, waiting his coming. She glanced correctly around to forestall
eavesdroppers, and offered him her cheek.
"Is this a skating costume?" he said, glancing quizzically at the
trailing, mysterious silken ballgown of lavender and gold, which
enfolded her graceful figure like fragrant petals. "By the way, why
didn't you let me know I was to have a rival?"
"Don't be silly," she said, brushing the powder from his sleeve. "I was
furious. It was all mother's doings."
"Yes, you look furious!" he said to tease her. "Never mind, Doris,
General Managers must calculate on all possibilities."
She closed his lips with an indignant movement of her scented fingers,
looking at him reproachfully.
"Bojo, don't be horrid. Marry Boskirk? I'd just as soon marry a mummy. I
should be petrified with boredom in a week."
"He's in love with you."
"He? He couldn't love anything. How ridiculous! Heavens, just to think
I'll have to talk his dreary talk sends creeping things up and down my
back."
Bojo professed to be unconvinced, playing the offended and jealous
lover, not perhaps without an ulterior motive, and they were in the
midst of a little tiff when the others arrived. Mrs. Drake did not dare
to isolate him completely, but she placed Boskirk on Doris's right, and
to carry out his assumed irritation Bojo devoted himself to Patsie, who
rattled away heedless of where her chatter hit.
Dinner over, Bojo, relenting a little, sought to organize a general
party, but meeting with no success went off, heedless of reproachful
glances, to array himself in sweater and boots.
Twenty minutes later they were on the toboggan, Patsie tucked in front,
laughing back at him over her shoulder with the glee of the escapade.
Below them the banked track ran over the dim, white slopes glowing in
the moonlight.
"All you have to do is to keep it from wobbling off the track with your
foot," said Patsie.
"How are you--warm enough? Wrap up tight!" he said, pushing the toboggan
forward until it tilted on the iced crest. "Ready?"
"Let her go!"
He flung himself down on his side, her back against his shoulder, and
with a shout they were off, whistling into the frosty night, shooting
down the steep incline, faster and faster, rocking perilously, as the
smooth, flat toboggan rose from the trough and tilted against the
inclined sides, swerving back into place at a touch of his foot, rising
and falling with the curved slopes, shooting past clustered trees that
rushed by them like inky storm-clouds, flashing smoothly at last on to
the level.
"Lean to the left!" she called to him, as they reached a banked curve.
"When?"
"Now!" Her laugh rang out as they rose almost on the side and sped into
the bend. "Hold tight, there's a jump in a minute-- Now!"
Their bodies stiffened against each other, her hair sweeping into his
eyes, blinding him as the toboggan rose fractionally from the ground
and fell again.
"Gorgeous!"
"Wonderful!"
They glided on smoothly, with slacking speed, a part of the stillness
that lay like the soft fall of snow over the luminous stretches and the
clustered mysterious shadows; without a word exchanged, held by the
witchery of the night, and the soft, fairylike crackling voyage. Then
gradually, imperceptibly, at last the journey ended. The toboggan came
to a stop in a glittering region of white with a river bank and elfish
bushes somewhere at their side, and ahead a dark rise against the
horizon with lights like pin-pricks far off, and on the air, from
nowhere, the tinkle of sleigh-bells, but faint, shaken by some
will-o'-the-wisp perhaps.
"Are you glad you came?" she said at last, without moving.
"Very glad."
"Think of sitting around talking society when you can get out here," she
said indignantly. "Oh, Bojo, I'm never going to stand it. I think I'll
take the veil."
He laughed, but softly, with the feeling of one who understands, as
though in that steep plunge the icy air had cleansed his brain of all
the hot, fierce worldly desires for money, power, and vanities which had
possessed it like a fever.
"I wish we could sit here like this for hours," she said, unconsciously
resting against his shoulder.
"I wish we could, too, Drina," he answered, meditating.
She glanced back at him.
"I like you to call me Drina," she said.
"Drina when you are serious, Patsie when you are trying to upset
sleighs."
"Yes, there are two sides of me, but no one knows the other." She sat a
moment as though hesitating on a confidence, and suddenly sprang up.
"Game for another?"
"A dozen others!"
They caught up the rope together, but suddenly serious she stopped.
"Bojo?"
"What?"
"Sometimes I think you and Doris are not a bit in love."
"What makes you think that?" he said, startled.
"I don't know--you don't act--not as I would act--not as I should think
people would act in love. Am I awfully impertinent?"
Troubled, he made no answer.
"Nothing is decided, of course," he said at last, rather surprised at
the avowal.
They tramped up the hill, averting their heads occasionally as truant
gusts of wind whirled snow-sprays in their eyes, chatting confidentially
on less intimate subjects.
"Let's go softly and peek in," she said, returning into her mischievous
self as the great gabled house afire with lights loomed before them.
They stood, shoulder to shoulder, peeping about a protecting tree at the
group in the drawing-room. Mr. Drake was reading under the lamp, Fred
and Gladys ensconced in the bay window, while Doris at the phonograph
had resorted to Caruso.
"Heavens, what an orgy!-- Sh-h. Hurry now."
A second time they went plunging into the night, close together, more
sober, the silence cut only by the hissing rush and an occasional
warning from Drina, as each obstacle sprang past. But her voice was no
longer hilarious with the glee of a child; it was attuned to the hush
and slumber of the countryside.
"I hate the city!" she said rebelliously when again they had come to a
stop. "I hate the life they want me to lead."
All at once a quick resentment came to him, at the thought that she
should change and be turned into worldly ways.
"I'm afraid you're not made for a social career, Patsie," he said
slowly. "I would hate to think of your being different."
"You can't say what you want, or do what you want, or let people know
what you feel," she said in an outburst. "Just let them try to marry me
off to any old duke or count and see what'll happen!"
"Why, no one wants to marry you off yet, Patsie," he said in dismay.
"I'm not so sure." She was silent a moment. "Do you think it's awful to
hate your family--not Dad, but all the rest--to want to run away, and be
yourself--be natural? Well, that's just the way I feel!"
"Is that the way you feel?" he said slowly.
She nodded, looking away.
"I want to be real, Bojo." She shuddered. "I know Dolly's
unhappy--there was some one she did care for-- I know. It must be
terrible to marry like that--terrible! It would kill me--oh, I know it!"
They were silent; come to that moment where secret carriers are near,
she still a little shy, he afraid of himself.
"We must go back now," he said after a long pause. "We must, Drina."
"Oh, must we!"
"Yes."
"Will you come out to-morrow night?"
"I don't know," he said confusedly.
He held out his hand and raised her to her feet.
"Come."
"I don't want to go back," she said, yielding reluctantly. She threw out
her arms, drawing a long breath, her head flung back in the path of the
moonbeams with the unconscious instinct of the young girl for enchanting
the male. "You don't want to go either. Now do you?"
He made no reply, fidgeting with the rope.
"Now be nice and say you don't!"
"No, I don't," he said abruptly.
"Drina?"
"Drina."
She took his arm, laughing a low, pleased laugh, quite unconscious of
all the havoc she was causing, never analyzing the moods of the night
and the soul which were stealing over her too in an uncomprehended
happiness.
"I think I could tell you anything, Bojo," she said gently. "You seem
to understand, and so much that I don't say too!"
All at once she slipped and flung back against him to avoid falling. He
held her thus--his arm around her.
"Turn your ankle? Hurt?"
"No, no--ouf!"
A galloping gust came tearing over the snow, whirling white spirals,
showering them with a myriad of tiny, pointed crystal sparks, stinging
their cheeks and blinding their eyes. With a laugh she turned her head
away and shrank up close to him, still in the protection of his arms.
The gust fled romping away and still they stood, suddenly hushed,
clinging with half-closed eyes. She sought to free herself, felt his
arms retaining her, glanced up frightened, and then yielded, swaying
against him.
[Illustration: "'Drina, dear child,' he said in a whisper"]
"Drina--dear child," he said in a whisper that was wrenched from his
soul. Such a sensation of warmth and gladness, of life and joy, entered
his being that all other thoughts disappeared tumultuously, as he held
her thus in his arms, there alone in the silence and the luminous night,
reveling wildly in the knowledge that the same inevitable impulse had
drawn her also to him.
"Oh, Bojo, we mustn't, we can't!"
The cry had so much young sorrow in it as he drew away that a pain went
through his heart to have brought this suffering.
"Drina, forgive me. I wouldn't hurt you-- I couldn't help it-- I didn't
know what happened," he said brokenly.
"Don't--you couldn't help it--or I either. I don't blame you--no, no, I
don't blame you," she said impulsively, her eyes wet, her hands
fervently clasped. He did not dare meet her glance, his brain in a riot.
"We must go back," he said hastily, and they went in silence.
When they returned Patsie disappeared. He entered the drawing-room and,
though for the first time he felt how false his position was, even with
a feeling of guilt, he was surprised at the sudden wave of kindliness
and sympathy that swept over him as he took his place by Doris.