DO YOU LOVE ME?
The Warrens and Mrs. Wilstead had remained in Santa Barbara a week, time
enough for Alice to discover that Hepworth was in no apparent need of
the consolatory offices of his old friends, that Fuschia Fleming was a
most entertaining young woman, and that Hayward Preston's attentions
were persistent and his intentions manifest and purposeful.
During the next month, no matter in what part of the state they were and
in what hotel Alice and her friends registered, Preston was sure to turn
up before the day was over; and to begin at the earliest possible moment
his unending argument. Along palm-shaded boulevards, under avenues of
pepper trees, in orange groves, on lonely mountain trails, in the shadow
of old missions, on surf-pounded beaches, in secluded nooks of great
hotels, everywhere and at all times he told his plain, unvarnished
tale. He had now asked Mrs. Wilstead to marry him in every resort in
California; and had not yet succeeded in winning her consent, and the
day of her departure was drawing near. Within two days she would be
leaving for New York. It was at Pasadena that Mr. Preston made his last
desperate stand.
He and Alice were strolling about the gardens of the hotel; she had not
wished to get too far away from the sheltering Warrens, and there
Preston was making what he assured her was his last appeal.
She, however, preferred to view his condition of mind and heart in a
psychological rather than a sentimental way.
"It is a habit, an obsession," she asseverated, tilting her rose-lined
parasol toward the sun so that charming pink reflections fell upon her
face. "You have lost sight of the object in the zest of pursuit. It is
the game which absorbs you, believe me. The winning would disconcert
you. Yes, it's the game. I am convinced that you have lost sight of the
goal and all that it entails."
Mr. Preston merely looked at her. "It entails you," he replied simply.
"It entails a great deal more," her speech was as quick as his was slow.
"You are, you tell me, exactly thirty-three years old. I, Alice
Wilstead," she shut her lips and breathed hard a moment and then
gallantly took the fence, "am just thirty-eight."
Not by even the flicker of an eyelash did he show either surprise or
dismay. Alice's heart went out to him. She really adored his
impassivity; it was so unlike anything she was capable of.
"What has that got to do with my loving you and your loving me?" asked
Preston stolidly.
"Everything," she answered deeply, regarding with drooping eyes and
wistful mouth a great, fragrant rose which she held between her fingers.
"If we could but hold this moment, if neither of us would know further
change, why--"
"Then you admit that you could care for me, that you do care for me," he
exclaimed with brightening eyes.
"Let it remain at 'could' and 'might,'" with one of her swift smiles.
"But under any circumstances, I do not wish to marry any one. Look at
my admirable position, rich, free, supposedly attractive, young--a
widow, you know, is always a good five or six years younger than either
a married or an unmarried woman. One is regarded as a young widow until
one is quite an elderly person. Now, really, why should I marry?"
"There isn't any possible reason," agreed Mr. Preston unhappily, "unless
you love me, and then there is every reason. But are you not tired
walking up and down, up and down these paths? Shall we not sit down on
this seat a few minutes?"
She acquiesced. It was a glorious morning and the spot was enchanting
with all this fragrant, almost tropical plant life blooming and blowing
about them, and Alice, impelled by the softness and sweetness of the air
and scene, forgot her adamantine resolutions and lifted her eyes to his
in one long and too-revealing glance.
"Alice, Alice"--there were all manner of tender inflections in his
usually colorless and unemotional tones--"you can not now deny--"
"Yes, I can," she cried quickly; "I can and I do. Hayward, believe me,
it will never, never do. You are looking at the matter from the man's
viewpoint, I, from the woman's, and, in cases of this kind, the woman's
is the surer, the more safely intuitive."
"Bosh!" Preston's exclamation was calm, but pregnant.
"But consider, consider," she besought him. "Look at us, you are the
robust, ruddy, phlegmatic type that will not change in twenty years, and
I am exactly your opposite in every respect and that's the reason you
like me and therein lies the whole tragedy. I'm nervous, mercurial,
emotional, and nothing, nothing brings wrinkles so quickly as vivacity
and expression."
"But you haven't any wrinkles."
"Not yet. Care, massage, a good maid and a light heart have kept them at
bay. And, oh! gray hair!"
"But you haven't any gray hair," he said, with the same patient
obstinacy.
"Not yet, but when they do begin to come, they come all at once.
Hayward, I do not deny that I could care for you if I would let myself,
but when I realize that for a woman to marry a man younger than herself
makes life one long, hideous effort to keep the same age as her husband;
oh, it is too frightening! Just think! No matter how much one may long
for repose to have to be always up and exercising to keep one's figure;
to have to hold on to one's complexion by always sleeping in stifling
masks and slippery cold cream; to be always watching the roots of one's
hair to see if it doesn't need retouching, and, worst of all, to have to
be gay and vivacious and conceal, heaven knows, what twinges of
rheumatism under a smiling face."
"You're just talking," said Preston calmly. "Keep on if it amuses you.
It doesn't mean anything at all to me. Not at all." His success in life
was largely due to the fact that he always kept the main object in view
and never permitted himself to be diverted by side issues. "Your
personal appearance ten years from now has nothing to do with the
matter. We may both be dead ten years from now. There is only one
question to be discussed and that is, 'Do you love me?'"
The petals fell from the red, red rose as Alice twisted it nervously in
her fingers.
"I think I have given you ample proof of my liking for you," she said at
last, "but the _loving_ is obscured in doubts."
"Forget them, for my sake," he murmured. "Can't you, won't you, Alice?"
"If I could only get away from those mental pictures," she confessed.
"They stand between us like a barrier. Just think of arriving at the
point where you want to doze after dinner and dream over some nice,
slow, old book, with your head comfortably nodding now and then. And the
fire flickering and the cat purring on the rug. Lovely, isn't it? And
instead, think of realizing wearily that you've got to spend the evening
at the opera or playing bridge. And that, of course, means turning
yourself at an early hour into the hands of your maid for repairs and
decoration. And then you've got to sit upright the whole evening because
your stays, which are guaranteed to give you the lithe and willowy
figure of youth, will not let you lean back. And you do not dare to
smile, because you will crack the kalsomining on your face; neither may
you move your head, you are so afraid that the curls and puffs and
braids may not be pinned on tight. Oh, it's a dog's life!" she sighed
heavily.
"And it's not for you," Preston spoke firmly. "There is nothing coltish
about me." Alice laughed, it was so true. "Business is all that very
deeply interests me, and amusements bore me very much. I like the
after-dinner doze and the fire and cat already. You will probably have
more of that kind of thing than you like, if you marry me. Alice, will
you not consider?"
"Mrs. Wilstead, Mrs. Wilstead," a page's voice rang through the
shrubbery and came nearer and nearer and Alice took from him a thick
letter addressed to her in Isabel Hewston's hand and adorned with a
special delivery stamp.
"From a dear friend," Alice exclaimed. "Will you excuse me while I look
at it? There may be some matter of importance, you know."
In Preston's manner there was no hint of his annoyance. He behaved as
well as a man could when interrupted in the most fervent declarations of
affection which the limitations of his nature permitted him. He even
suggested that he withdraw, and rose, hat in hand. Could complaisance,
consideration go further? There were only two days before him, and she
had never been so near yielding before.
"Oh, no, no," almost possessively, she stretched forth a hand to detain
him. "You have nothing to do but wait, and I shall run through this,"
touching the letter, "in a moment."
Preston sat down beside her again and lighting a cigarette, smoked and
looked out over the brilliant garden before him while she read.
It was evident, Alice discovered this before she had finished the first
page, that Isabel Hewston was actuated by no deeper motive than pure,
erratic impulse when she placed that special stamp upon the letter. At
least so Alice and Preston probably would have agreed and Isabel
reluctantly would have admitted it. But the Fates who sit in the
background and transmit wireless messages to mortals would have smiled
inscrutably and shaken their heads. If Isabel hadn't stuck that stamp on
for no reason whatever, and if the page hadn't sought Alice through the
breeze-caressed, rose-scented garden and given her the missive at the
exact moment he did--but, as Eugene Gresham would say, "What's the use?
Why conjecture?" What really occurred was this:
"Dearest Alice," wrote Mrs. Hewston, "how I envy you in that southern
paradise while here the weather merely changes from sleet and snow to
rain and then back again."
There was a page or two of this and of Willoughby's various ailments and
symptoms, and then a long and glowing account of her visit to Perdita
Hepworth, and a great deal of minute, enthusiastic description of the
gowns that Dita was designing for her.
This Alice read with interest, but greater interest still did she bestow
upon the statement that there appeared to be a coldness between Wallace
Martin and Maud Carmine, owing, it was said, to the fact that she had
ruthlessly criticized his last play, and prophesied accurately its
speedy failure.
"It does seem too bad, dear," Isabel wrote next, "that you, away off in
California, should have to come in for your share of the gossip which
seems so sadly rife this season."
Here Alice clutched the pages and, bending over, bestowed upon them an
almost breathless attention. What could Isabel mean?
"It is perfectly stupid, of course," the letter ran, "and I would not
think of mentioning it to you except that we have always been frank
about such things, and, anyway, you ought to know. There is a rumor
about that you went to California hoping to catch Cresswell's heart in
the rebound. People now believe that he and Perdita have definitely
separated and that you knew this, and, as some one put it to me, so
vulgarly too, dear, camped down on his trail. They say now that the
incident of the actress was merely to make things easier for Perdita in
gaining her freedom, but that soon after that is granted her, Willoughby
says that, as those coarse men express it, you will lead Cress to the
altar."
"Darn Willoughby!" Alice breathed hard as she muttered the words between
her clenched teeth, the vivid scarlet of hot anger suffusing her face.
Preston turned quickly to her, throwing away his cigarette, and ceasing
to regard the brilliant garden through meditative, half-closed eyes.
"What is it?" he asked. "Something has worried you."
"No," she smiled, with an effort, and shrugged the matter lightly off
her shoulders, "some mistake about a very trifling matter. It annoyed me
for a second, that is all."
For a moment or two neither spoke. Alice was watching the flight of a
butterfly that soared in the air until almost out of sight and then came
back to drift about a group of tall, white yuccas.
"Hayward, do you still love me as much as you did ten minutes ago?" She
smiled charmingly at him, that very, very especial smile of hers, and
he, with his rather slow perceptions quickened by love, read
capitulation and a real affection in her softened eyes.
[Illustration: "Hayward, do you love me?"]
"Alice!" And the depth and fervor of his love will be appreciated when
it is recorded that he, Hayward Preston, the most conventional of men,
deliberately tilted her rose-lined parasol and in the face of the world
and before the very eyes of an advancing couple, kissed her.