THE MAGIC WORD
"Maud," said Dita, walking in upon that young woman, a package of
letters in her hand, "a lot of things are happening. Here is a letter,
among other things, from Mrs. Wilstead. She says that she is just back
from California, and that she needs stacks and stacks of new clothes,
and wants our designs. It will be fun dressing her. She is so extremely
good looking."
Maud stirred restlessly, frowned, bit her lip, but did not speak.
"Just back from California," went on Dita. "I wonder--I wonder, Maud, if
she could possibly have come on with Cresswell?"
"Very probably," said Maud. "In fact, I think nothing could be more
likely."
"Why, what do you mean by speaking so mysteriously?" Dita widened her
eyes. "Suppose they had? Nothing, after all, could be more natural."
"Nothing, I suppose." Maud was trying hard to be non-committal. "But let
her go to some one else. If we take any more people, we shan't get away
this summer. We have more on our hands now than we can manage. Yes, let
her go to some one else."
"But, Maud," Dita hesitated, "I really think we should refuse some one
else and take her. She is an old friend."
"Old fiddlesticks!" cried Maud impatiently.
"Maud! What is the matter with you? A touch of spring fever? Really, I
think we must consider her."
"But if I ask you not, Dita"--there were almost tears in Maud's voice.
"But why should you ask me not? This is too bewildering."
"Ah, well," Maud spoke now with the calmness of despair, "since you
force me to tell you, I ask you not because Mrs. Wilstead has been
constantly with Mr. Hepworth in the West this winter, and the current
gossip is that he is only waiting for a divorce to be arranged between
you and himself, to marry her."
There was silence for a moment on Dita's part. Her eyes were downcast,
mechanically she sorted the letters in her hand. "Then what of the talk
about Fuschia Fleming and himself?"
"Oh, they say that she took a back seat when Alice Wilstead appeared on
the scene. But really, Dita, this move on Alice's part makes me furious.
The idea of her being guilty of such wretchedly bad taste. I have always
liked her, been really fond of her, in fact, but this crass exhibition
of bad breeding disgusts me. I dare say that she doesn't care so long as
she gets results; that is, the benefit of your taste and skill to
enhance her waning beauty; but look at the position it is going to place
you in, Dita. For number one to design the trousseau for number two is
really too absurd. It simply goes beyond all belief. Dita, you must,
indeed you must, write her the curtest, coldest of polite notes and tell
her that we are entirely too busy to consider her."
"Very well. I'll humor you so far," returned Perdita. "What is it?"
turning to a maid who entered with a visiting card. "Ah, Eugene! I asked
him to come this morning. I particularly wanted to see him and I don't
want you present. There, don't get that stony look of despair on your
face, Maudie; think how good I have been all winter, only seeing Eugene
once in a blue moon, and then in your company."
"But I want you to keep on being good," pleaded Maud; "especially now."
"I am gooder than you can possibly imagine," laughed Perdita, "but, all
the same, I do not wish you tagging about this morning." She smiled
teasingly at her puzzled business partner as she left the room.
She went down to meet Eugene in the same room at the same hour she had
talked with her husband the day before.
But Eugene was not one to endure for one moment a situation dominated by
the shadowy third person. No woman should gaze at him with the
remembrance of yesterday in her eyes, the smile of wistful reminiscence
on her lips. An hour with him must be a dazzling and kaleidoscopic
episode. He would hold it in his hand, and at the bidding of his will,
the moments, like bits of colored glass, should revolve and melt and
mingle--rainbow arabesques on the background of Time.
"Your meditations, remembrances and regrets for your oratories, my
dear," his challenging eyes seemed to say, "but with me you live, you
laugh, you thrill responsive to the harp of life; the yesterdays
forgotten, the to-morrows unborn."
"Dita!" he caught her hands in his as she entered. His eyes were
shining, his head thrown back. He was more vivid than the spring
sunshine which fell through the open windows.
"Eugene! You look as if you had just received some wonderful new
commission."
"So I have, a commission to love you. That is right, blush. Dita, why do
you not always wear rose color? But no, don't listen to me. If it were
blue or green, I would be making the same request. Dearest, my eyes
drink in, drink up your loveliness. You never, never were so beautiful
as you are this morning."
"Eugene, you are mad; too foolish for anything. What is the matter with
you?"
"Mad doesn't half express it. May I smoke?" He took her consent for
granted, for he was already rolling cigarettes in his deft, supple
fingers. "Yes? No? I am delirious with joy. Hepworth is back as, of
course, you know. That can only mean one thing; every one says that just
as soon as a divorce can be decently arranged, he and Alice Wilstead
will be married. The verdict of the world is that he was so angry at
your going into business that he flung off to the West. It was the most
spectacular of your many caprices and it proved the last straw for him.
Blessed last straw!" lifting his eyes devoutly. "And then Alice Wilstead
cleverly appeared on the scene and the consoling offices of friendship
did the trick."
"Three months ago it was Fuschia Fleming, according to gossip." Her eyes
were downcast, her tone expressionless.
"Oh, that," he blew rings of smoke lightly through the air and followed
them with gay eyes; "that is a part of the game. That was making
evidence for you. It is all arranged that I am to paint her portrait,
you know. I have not met her yet, either." He threw his cigarette
through the window. "Dita, Dita, how can you sit there so cool and
still? When I think that you are actually on the very eve of freedom, I
become delirious with joy."
"So sure of the winning, Eugene?"
"Dita!" His face clouded, there was a world of reproach in his voice.
"That is a terrible trait in your character, that teasing desire of
yours always to fling a little dash of cold water on one's mounting
enthusiasms."
"There is another dash coming," she laughed. "I want my amulet, and I
want it at once, to-day. I know," anticipating his protestations, "that
you returned it to me the afternoon Hepworth left for the West, and I
would not see you to receive it in person. Then, my mind was so
perturbed and occupied that I didn't think of it again before you
sailed, and since your return," a little smile creeping about her mouth,
"I haven't thought about it either; but now that the matter has come up
between us, please see that I have it to-day, Eugene."
He had looked slightly annoyed while she was speaking, but now he bent
toward her with his most charming manner, his most winning smile. "You
know my greatest weakness, Dita? I try to overcome it, really I do," in
laughing excuse, "but in spite of will or reason those superstitions of
mine persist. Alas! They do." He admitted it as a naughty little boy
might admit a passion for stealing jam. "And I have tremendous faith in
that old charm of yours." He picked up another cigarette from his
skilfully rolled little heap, placed as orderly on the table beside him
as if they were his paint brushes.
"Ever since I have had it," he went on, "the luck of the high gods has
been mine. Princessin, Contessin and high Altessin still clamoring to
have their portraits painted. The critics amiable and almost
intelligent, money pouring into my coffers and pouring out faster than
it comes in--I wish there were such a thing as a money-tight purse--and
best of all, ah, best of all, the love of my heart so near, so near."
His eyes held the warm glow which changed, irradiated them. "The star of
my life comes slipping, wavering through the spaces of the sky and down
the purple pathways of heaven to my arms." He leaned forward quickly
and almost enfolded her.
"Eugene!" She stood haughty and tall before him. "You assume entirely
too much. You have from the beginning. More, much more, than I have ever
given you any reason to assume. According to the tradition the amulet
can only bring one luck when it is given with the heart's love; and I
never gave it to you, Eugene, never. You laughingly filched it one day
when I took it off the chain about my neck, that you might look at it
more closely. And you are so sure, so sure of me, when I am anything but
sure of myself. I have never deceived you as to the state of my
feelings. How would that have been possible when I am still so doubtful
myself? Ah, those doubts!"
"They are nothing, dearest, nothing. I shall brush them away as I brush
cobwebs." He put his hands upon her shoulders and stood gazing deeply
into her eyes.
"Ah," she shook her head, and, at the same time, stepped away from him,
"I am no more sure that I love you than I was six months ago."
"Never any more sure?" His voice deep and rich as a low-toned bell.
Her black eyelashes lay long on her cheek, where the crimson, the hue of
a jacqueminot rose petal, was spreading. "There are moments," she
admitted, "times when I am with you that I believe that the magic word
has been spoken and that my heart has blossomed in purple and red, that
I truly love you, but," she shook her head sighingly, "the moment I am
away from you, I know that that is not so; that you haven't said the
magic word yet, 'Gene."
"But I know it, that magic word," he whispered, "and I shall awake you,
just as the Prince did the Sleeping Beauty. Not with a word at all,
dear, but with a kiss." He bent forward, but she had slipped away from
him, and before he knew it had put almost the length of the room between
them.
"You--you must not talk so to me now, 'Gene," the words were barely
breathed, "and," with a desperate clutch at a safe topic, "my amulet. I
must have it by to-morrow morning."
There was a flash like fire in Gresham's eyes. A quick scowling change
darkened his whole face. He picked up the five or six beautifully
rolled cigarettes which yet remained of his neat heap and tossed them
out of the window.
"I see it," he cried harshly. "You probably have Hepworth's box of
amulets in your keeping. You wish to return it to him, and show him when
you do so that your old charm is safe in its place. Oh, I can see the
whole scene. He will courteously hand it to you and say, 'Your property,
I believe, my dear Perdita.' I can hear his frigid, formal utterance.
And you will accept it with that grand, ancestral manner of yours,
murmuring, 'Thank you, yes, I regret that I can not ask you to accept it
as a small contribution to your collection, but that being out of the
question on account of certain traditions which adhere to it, I feel
that I must continue to hold it in my possession.' Why not be honest,
Dita, and tell him that you have given it to me?"
"Eugene, you are impossible. You go entirely too far." There was no
mistaking the displeasure in her voice, and his immediate recognition
that it was cold, not hot anger, brought him to himself at once.
"Flower of magnolia!" his voice fell to all those exquisite and
heart-touching modulations of which he was master. "I was only teasing.
Forgive me. You shall have your bit of glass early to-morrow morning.
And until I see you again I shall dream only of the wonderful, beautiful
years we shall have together. We shall wander about the world, here,
there and everywhere, and I shall paint the glory and color of the
universe and you, always you, Perdita, the focus, the center, the heart
of all beauty."