Sunday breakfast was a ceremony at the house on Gramercy Square. Then
Gloria broke away from her rule of breakfast in bed, and clad in the
most alluring of French negligées, she presided at the coffee urn in the
big dining-room, while around her were ranged friends expected and
unexpected in harmonious Sunday comfort. There was a delightful
untidiness about the entire room that was particularly cheering—ash
trays with half-smoked cigarettes on the white cloth and Sunday
newspapers scattered at random by casual hands. Conversation for the
first half hour was confined to nods and sleepy smiles, but when the
second cup of coffee had been poured people really began to talk. There
was always, when the weather permitted, a fire in the grate, and after
breakfast there was an hour of intimate chat in which all the stage
gossip of the season was told and analysed, and careers were made and
unmade.
Breakfast was at eleven o’clock, but Ruth had been up for hours, working
away in her studio at the top of the house. At eleven she came down, for
George was intolerant of late comers. Gloria, Billie Irwin, Terry
Riordan, and John Courtney were already there. They raised their heads
from their newspapers and greeted her with smiles, for Gloria considered
it the worst taste possible for any one to speak before she had had her
first cup of coffee, and particularly she disliked “Good morning” spoken
in a cheery tone.
“There is no such thing as a good morning,” she always averred. “Morning
is never good, except for sleep.”
At the moment that Ruth entered George placed the coffee urn on the
table and Gloria proceeded to pour the cups, looking very lovely with
the dusk of sleep still in her eyes.
Ruth thought it very odd to be at a table with four other people none of
whom spoke a word. No one else seemed to mind, they all devoted
themselves to their breakfast with the same earnestness that a few
moments before had been bestowed on the Sunday newspapers.
“Now, Terry, you can give Ruth her surprise,” said Gloria presently.
Ruth had almost forgotten but now she remembered, seeing them all look
at her beamingly, as if she had done something very nice.
Terry reached down to the floor and picked up a section of newspaper. It
was the theatrical section, Ruth saw, even before he handed it to her,
and then, that it contained a story about “Three Merry Men,” with a
photograph of the leading woman and grouped around it the sketches that
Ruth had made caricaturing the players. The sketches had not been signed
but under them was a printed caption, “Sketched by Ruth Mayfield.” She
stared at the page for some moments, realizing that they were all
looking at her and expecting some sort of an outburst. Finally when she
sat silent, Billie Irwin, less sensitive than the others, spoke:
“Isn’t it wonderful, Ruth—we’re all so proud and glad for you—to think
of seeing your work reproduced, and you’ve only been in New York a few
weeks.” She put her plump hand on Ruth’s shoulder with an impulsive
gesture.
Ruth restrained an impulse to throw it off. She still kept her head
bent, instinctively hiding her eyes until she should gain control of
their expression. She realized that every one there thought that Terry
had done a fine thing in getting the sketches printed, that Terry
himself thought he had done a nice thing. It would be impossible to
explain to these people that she considered such work beneath her—that
she, the future great painter, did not want to dabble in cartooning. But
to them she was only an obscure art student. She must say something
soon—her silence was past the limit of surprise.
“How good of you, Mr. Riordan,” she said at last. “I had no idea that
you were going to do this when you took my sketches. It’s quite
wonderful to see them—to see them in a newspaper like this—”
“My word,” laughed Terry, “I believe that Ruth doesn’t really like it at
all, though I meant well, I did indeed, child, and though you don’t know
it, cartooning is quite as much art as painting, and quite as difficult
if one had not the particular genius for it. I gave the sketches to the
_Sun_ critic and he was quite enthusiastic. I dare say you might get a
chance to do it right along if you wanted to.”
“Ruth is an ungrateful little wretch if she isn’t both pleased and
proud,” said Gloria, smiling fondly at Ruth.
“I am pleased and grateful,” protested Ruth, “but I don’t want to be a
cartoonist, not until I’m quite sure that I can never be a painter.”
“Better far be a clever cartoonist than a bad painter,” said John
Courtney, “though I understand just how you feel. As a young man, when I
first entered the profession I wanted to be a great comedian—I still
think I could have been one, for I have a keen sense of humour, but it
was not to be, I was, you will pardon me for speaking of it, I was too
handsome—my appearance forced me to be a romantic hero—”
He passed one white hand over his grey, curled hair, as he spoke, with a
gesture as one who should say, “you can see that I am still handsome and
can judge for yourselves of my youth.”
“Your fatal beauty was your ruin,” said Gloria.
He smiled good-naturedly.
“No, not my ruin, I have done very well, but I did want to be a great
comedian, and I’ve never seen a comedian who did not secretly long for
tragic rôles, but ‘there is a destiny that shapes our ends—’ What is
that quotation?”
“‘Rough-hew them as we will,’” Ruth finished for him. “I quoted that
myself to a girl last week and she answered me by saying that she
intended to do a lot of rough-hewing.”
“Still, even if you do want to paint I think you ought to follow this
newspaper thing up,” said Billie Irwin who was a bit vague as to the
trend of the conversation. “Your name is in quite large type and nothing
counts like keeping one’s name before the public. If only I had not been
so retiring when I first started!”
Just here George came in with a letter which he laid beside Ruth’s
plate.
“It just came by hand,” he explained.
Ruth lost no time in opening the large, square envelope, addressed in a
precise, old-fashioned, masculine hand.
Inside was a square engraved card of admission to the private view of
the water colour show at the Academy on Monday evening. With it was
another card with the name Professor Percival Pendragon engraved on it,
and the words “compliments of” written above.
“Oh, isn’t this splendid!” she exclaimed, passing the contents of the
envelope to Gloria. “You know all of the students are crazy to go to the
private view tomorrow night, but it’s awfully exclusive and only the
members of the Academy and the exhibitors have cards, but each one is
permitted one guest. Nels Zord, one of the student exhibitors is taking
Dorothy Winslow and he’s asked this man, a friend and patron of his, to
send me his guest card. Hasn’t he got a queer name? You know I’ve never
met him at all. He must be really fond of Nels—quite an old chap I
suppose and perhaps I’ll meet him at—”
Just then Ruth was stopped by the expression on Gloria’s face. She was
holding the card away from her as if it were something dangerous and her
face had grown quite pale, her big, blue eyes staring out with an
expression that Ruth could not analyse.
“What is it—are you ill?” In her fright Ruth has risen from her place at
the table and moved to Gloria’s side.
Gloria waved her away with a movement of her arm, and seeming to recover
a part of her composure began to smile.
“It’s nothing at all, Ruth,” she said. “I was just startled for a
moment—you see Professor Percival Pendragon is—was, my husband.”
Ruth sank back into her chair.
“Then I suppose—perhaps you’d prefer—I can send the card back to him and
tell that I am unable to use it.”
“Not at all,” said Gloria, twisting her round, red mouth in the
whimsical way she had. “If you haven’t met him he doesn’t know that you
are a relative of mine and you needn’t tell. Besides he’s an awfully
good sort really. I always did like Percy. I didn’t know he was in
America. The last I knew he was in Oxford, associated with the
observatory there. He’ll probably talk to you about the great star map.”
“The great star map?” questioned Terry.
“Oh, I don’t know what the thing really is,” said Gloria. “Something
that the astronomers are working on now. It takes about twenty years to
make one, but it’s no particular use to them after it’s finished. They
just make it with great work—but that’s merely a rehearsal. Their
children make another one, which I suppose is the dress rehearsal; and
their grandchildren make a third, which is I suppose the _première_.
Then they compare their map with the one made by their parents and
grandparents and by some process discover that the planets have moved.
They have a wild hope that they may discover where the planets have
moved and why, but if that doesn’t materialize the great-grandchildren’s
children make a new star map, devoting their entire lives to it, and
some time, two thousand years from now, perhaps, some grey-whiskered old
man some place will know something exact about the stars, or will not
know something exact about the stars, as the case may be.”
Every one except Ruth laughed at this description. She felt that these
people with all their years must be in some ways younger than herself.
“They are working for posterity,” she said reprovingly. “All great art
and science is like that.”
“Yes, but you mustn’t expect player folk to appreciate anything but the
transitory in art,” said John Courtney. “It is the tragedy of the
profession that the art of every one of us dies with us. The tones of
Gloria’s marvellous speaking voice will not be heard by our descendants.
Booth is nothing but a memory in spite of his statue out there in the
park. It is the life of a butterfly.”
Courtney had used his deepest emotional voice in speaking, and despite
custom and knowledge of his many harmless affectations, Billie Irwin
shuddered and looked pained.
“Butterflies are very beautiful at least,” said Terry, reflecting in his
face the concern that Ruth also felt as she noted that Gloria was still
looking quite pale, with a strained expression in her eyes as if she
were seeing things far removed from the breakfast room. She determined
to again ask her aunt if it would not be better to give up the private
view, as soon as she had an opportunity to speak with her alone.
The opportunity did not come until late that afternoon, and then Gloria
shrugged her shoulders in a careless manner and laughed at Ruth.
“Certainly not, foolish child. He doesn’t know that you live with me. I
doubt if he even knows that I am alive. I’ve been off the stage so long
and besides he never goes to the theatre. This art thing must be a new
fad with him. Still he must have noticed the name. Even Percy can
scarcely have forgotten my last name. Only don’t tell him about me.
Don’t let him know that you are a relative, and don’t let him come to
the house.”
“The others are coming—Dorothy and Nels. I’m going to lend Dorothy a
gown.”
“Do they know anything about me?” asked Gloria.
“No; you see I’ve been afraid to tell them just how happily I am
situated. They are all so poor and I’ve been afraid that they’d not take
me seriously if I told them that I have never been hungry or afraid of a
landlord or any of the interesting things that seem to be common in
their lives. They rather look down on the students that have an
allowance from home, so I’ve never told them anything about myself.
Probably I shan’t meet Mr. Pendragon at all. If he had wanted to meet me
he would have come with Nels instead of sending the admission card,
don’t you think so?”
“Perhaps,” said Gloria.
Then curiosity overcoming delicacy, Ruth asked her the question that had
been in her mind all day.
“Which one is Professor Pendragon?”
“Which one?” Gloria’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Oh yes, I know what
you mean, which one on my list. Percy was number one. I was very young
when I married Percy and very ambitious. It was—let me see—eleven years
ago and we were married just one year. I haven’t seen him for nine years
or heard of him for at least five, and if you love me, Ruth, you won’t
let him know who you are or you won’t mention me. You see I’ve been
married twice since then and I don’t want to meet Percy. It would be
painful to both of us. He can’t have any interest in me, and certainly l
have none in him.”
Her voice grew hard as she spoke the last words and her mouth set in a
line that made her lips look almost thin, but her eyes were not hard.
Some deep emotion looked out of them, but whether it was pain or hate,
Ruth could not decide.
She could understand that Gloria would be embarrassed at seeing her
first husband, especially in view of the fact that he had had two
successors, and that Gloria was contemplating a fourth marriage. As
Ruth’s own admiration for Terry Riordan increased she found it
increasingly difficult to believe that Gloria would reject him, so the
fourth marriage seemed quite possible.
Gloria was going to dine out that night and they were together in her
room where she was dressing. Her auburn hair fell over her shoulders and
Ruth decided that now she looked like the pictures of Guinevere in “The
Idylls of the King.” Ruth knew that Gloria had been disturbed by the
knowledge that her former husband was in New York and that she might
meet him at any time, but she did not seem to be averse to talking about
it, and Ruth was one of those persons, who, seemingly shy and reserved,
actually so about her own affairs, could yet ask with impunity,
questions that from any other person would have seemed prying and almost
impertinent. This was really because Ruth never asked out of idle
curiosity, but because she had a real interest. Her aunt was to her a
fascinating book, the pages of which she must turn and turn until she
had read the entire story.
“Had any of the people this morning ever met Professor Pendragon?” she
asked.
“No; that is no one but George—I acquired George in London, you know,
just about the same time that I married Percy. Husbands come and
husbands go, but a good servant is not so easily replaced, so I’ve
managed to keep George, though he hates New York.”
“Then,” continued Ruth, more to herself than to Gloria, “it was not
Professor Pendragon who gave you this house.”
“No, as I told you, I don’t think he even knows that I’m in New York. I
didn’t know he was here. I was fond of Percy and naturally I don’t let
him give me anything, because that would have given him pleasure and I
wanted to hurt him—”
In the mirror she caught the shocked expression in Ruth’s eyes, and
turned swiftly to face her.
“Of course you think all this is terrible, but after a few years you’ll
understand, not me, but something of life itself and of how helpless we
all are. I know that you have a very clearly defined plan of
life—certain things that you will do—certain things that ‘could never
happen to me.’ I know because we’re all like that. And then one day,
utterly without your own volition, knowing that you’re doing the wrong
thing, you’ll do and say things that simply aren’t written in your
lines. Do you suppose that at your age I planned to love a human
observatory that observed everything except me, or that I expected to
divorce him and marry a tired business man who expected to use me as a
perpetual advertisement for toilet preparations, or that I expected when
I divorced him that I’d do it all over again with a man more lifeless
than his family portraits? You don’t know what you’re going to do when
you start out. I know just that much now—that I don’t know. I may commit
matrimony again tomorrow.”
“But didn’t you love any of these men?” gasped Ruth.
“Of course—I loved Percy, and Percy loved the stars—perhaps that’s why
he married me. I was a star of a kind at the time.”
“Then why—”
“Oh, I don’t know; I think the final break came because of Eros— Isn’t
that the bell? Do run and tell Terry that I’ll be with him in a minute.
I wonder why he will persist in always being on time?”
It was Terry. He was trying to engage the dignified George in
conversation.
“Hello—you look as if you’d been reading fairy tales,” he exclaimed.
“No, just talking to Gloria,” said Ruth. “She’ll be down in a few
minutes.”
“It must have been an exciting conversation from the size of your young
eyes.”
“We were talking,” said Ruth, “we were talking about—about Eros.”
“The God of Love?” asked Terry.
“If you will pardon me,” said George, “Eros is also the name of a small
planet discovered in our solar system in the year 1898.”
Completing which amazing piece of information, George silently departed,
leaving the two staring after him.