When Ruth telephoned Professor Pendragon’s hotel she found that he had
not left any address and would not be expected back before the first of
the year. Her next thought was of Nels Zord. He might know, but much to
her surprise she did not see Nels at the League, and sought out Dorothy
instead. She found her easily enough, but it was not until she had asked
about Nels that she observed that Dorothy’s eyes were red and her cheeks
swollen as if from recent weeping. It was luncheon time and they were
walking toward their restaurant together.
“I don’t know where Nels is,” said Dorothy. Her voice was almost a sob.
“Haven’t you seen him today?”
“I never see him any more—haven’t you seen? He’s too busy with that
Alice Winn girl. Oh, you know her, Ruth, the insipid creature with the
carefully nurtured southern accent, who always has some highbrow Russian
or Swedish book under her arm, and begins reading it every time she
thinks a man is looking.”
“I think I know the one you mean, but what about her and why is Nels
busy with her and why have you been crying? You _have_ been crying.”
“I suppose I have; it’s most unmanly of me, but I must do something. All
men you know are irresistibly attracted to the weakest, cheapest sort of
women. They all prefer sham to reality, and they are all snobs at
heart.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know much about men,” admitted Ruth.
“Well, I’m telling you about them now. You might as well know. And the
better a man is the more he likes imitation women, and Nels is just as
bad as any of them, and that’s why he’s fallen so hard for Alice Winn.
First he fell for the highbrow books. He really believes that she reads
’em. Then she told him all about her aristocratic family in Kentucky,
who fought and fought to keep her from being an artist, but she must
‘live her own life,’ even if she had to brave the hardships of a great
city with not a thing to live on except the income she gets from home.
And then, of course, she scorns everything except real art—she would
never stoop to a fashion drawing or commercial art of any kind. Her
artistic temperament would not allow it. She is working on a mural—yes,
indeed—of course it never has and never will go any further than a rough
sketch and a lot of conversation in her comfortable studio, but Nels
doesn’t know that. He and every other man she talks to believes that she
is really working on something big. And then she is _such_ a lover of
beauty. She must have flowers in her studio at all times. She simply
couldn’t live without flowers. And Nels—Nels who never bought me even a
bunch of violets at Easter time—is pawning his clothes to buy her roses.
I think that’s what hurts most. I’m just a practical old thing, and I’ve
never wanted to do anything at all but work with him and for him, and go
to dinner with him ‘Dutch’—and so you see I am of no value—and she, who
has never done a useful thing in her whole life, has completely
fascinated him. He isn’t worth all this. I ought not to care—I don’t
care—I’m just plain angry.”
Tears were overflowing the blue eyes of the “just plain angry” girl and
Ruth feared a public exhibition. They had reached the restaurant and she
feared the curious eyes inside.
“Let’s not eat here today, Dorothy. You need a change, that’s all, so
why not take the afternoon off? We could go to your studio. I’ve never
been there, you know. Couldn’t we have lunch there?”
“We could buy it at the ‘delly’ ’round the corner,” said Dorothy, her
round face clearing a bit.
“And let’s buy some flowers first; if Nels shows up we can pretend a man
sent them.”
“That’s ‘woman stuff’; I don’t think I ought—but—”
“Just for this once,” persisted Ruth, leading the way into the nearest
flower shop.
“I don’t like to have you spend money on me. I don’t like to have
anything that I can’t pay for myself.”
“That’s selfish, and vain. Perhaps that’s why Nels is with Alice.”
“I suppose so. You know they’re so stupid, men. They believe everything
you tell them. I’ve told Nels what a practical worker I am and how
independent I am and he believes me, without ever trying to prove it;
and she’s told him that she is an impractical, artistic dreamer and he
believes that, too, though if he’d only think for just a minute he’d
know that she’s a mercenary schemer, not an artistic dreamer.”
“Do you like these pink ones?”
“Oh, and those unusual pale yellow roses—the combination is wonderful,
and the scent.”
She buried her nose in the flowers in an ecstasy of delight that made
her forget that Ruth was paying for them.
“Now we’ll ride down on the ’bus,” said Ruth. “But you haven’t told me
just where Nels is—is Alice Winn pretty?”
Questions of this sort are perfectly intelligible to women and Dorothy
answered in her own way as they climbed into the Fifth Avenue ’bus.
“He’s gone with her to the Met—to look over some costumes she wants to
use in this mural she’s supposed to be doing; and of course she is
pretty—an anæmic, horrid, little dark-skinned vamp—and she lisps—all the
time except when she forgets it or when there aren’t any men around.
It’s not nice for me to talk like this. Probably she’s all right, only
she isn’t good for Nels. I know that. What I’m afraid of is that she’ll
use him. Lots of girls do, you know, use men like that. She’ll ask his
advice about things and before he knows it he’ll be painting her old
mural for her and she’ll sign it, and he’ll sit back and let her get the
credit for doing it. It’s been done before, you know.”
“Nels is too sensible for that. He’ll wake up before it’s gone that
far.”
“I don’t think so; she _is_ attractive to men.”
They fell silent for a short space, looking out at the grey December
streets on which no snow had yet fallen. Now a thin, cold rain began
falling, making the pavements glisten, and giving even well-dressed
pedestrians a shabby appearance as they hurried up and down—a thick
stream of holiday shoppers.
“My room isn’t much, but at least I live on Washington Square and that
is something,” said Dorothy. “I love it all the year round, even now
when there aren’t any leaves on the trees or any Italian children
playing and when this beastly rain falls. I rather like rain anyway, but
I’m awfully glad we’ve got the roses. We’ll get off here and walk around
to the ‘delly’ first. It’s on Bleecker Street. I’m not supposed to cook
anything in my room, but of course I do. All of us do.”
Their purchases, though guided by the practical Dorothy, were rather
like a college girl’s spread. Dorothy lived in an old-fashioned white
house on the south side of the square—a house in which every piece of
decrepit furniture seemed to have been dragged from its individual attic
and assembled here in vast inharmony. Yet mingled with the 1830
atrocities were a few “good” things, left from time to time by artists
and writers whom prosperity had called to better quarters. Dorothy lived
at the top of the house in one of the two rooms facing the square.
“You see it isn’t really a studio,” she explained apologetically. “But
it has got north light and the sloping room and that bit of skylight
makes it quite satisfactory, and then, too, I face the Square and can
always see the fountain and the Washington arch and the first green that
comes on the trees in May, and I like it. And just because we’re
celebrating I’ll put a charcoal fire in the grate and we’ll make tea in
the samovar, but first we must take care of the flowers.”
For a few minutes she seemed to have forgotten all her troubles.
“I do wish I had a pretty vase. It’s almost criminal to put roses in
this old jug. Don’t you think the samovar’s pretty? Nels did get me
that. Wait a minute; I’ll show you his studio. It’s the next room to
this and just like it. He never locks his door.”
She stepped out, Ruth following, and pushed open the only half closed
door of a room, the exact counterpart in size of her own, but rather
more comfortable as to furnishings.
“That’s her picture; she must have given it to him last week. I haven’t
been in his studio for days and we used to have such corking times
together—I worked here more often than in my own room and he always
seemed to like having me—”
Fearing a return of tears Ruth hastily retreated to Dorothy’s room.
Besides she didn’t feel quite comfortable about entering a man’s room
during his absence and examining his pictures.
“Let’s not think about her; it’s just a phase and he’ll recover and come
back to you,” she comforted.
“You make the tea and I’ll spread this little table,” she continued,
removing a pile of sketches to the floor.
In a short space of time there was a real fire burning in the tiny
grate, throwing a ruddy glow on the burnished brass of the samovar; in
the small room the roses shed a heavy sweet perfume and the two girls
chatted cosily over their tea cups. Dorothy smoked a cigarette.
“Cigarettes are a party to me,” she exclaimed. “If I could afford to
smoke I might not care for it at all, but I can’t, so when I want to be
extravagant I smoke; it’s just a symbol.”
Now that Dorothy seemed to have put her grief into the background Ruth
was beginning to feel restless. On the following day the party was to
leave for the Christmas party. They would arrive at their destination on
the twenty-third of December and the imminence of the solution of all
Ruth’s worries, for either good or evil, made her feel that she should
be at the house as much as possible. Could she have done so she would
have followed Gloria wherever she went. Most of all she wanted to find
out where Professor Pendragon was stopping; and she ought to telephone
Terry again to remind him not to forget the revolver. In her own mind
she was not exactly sure what she would do with the gun when she got it.
“I think I’ll have to run along,” she said.
“Oh, and we were having such a good time. I was beginning to be quite
cheered up. Wait a minute; that’s him.”
Regardless of grammar, Ruth knew that the masculine pronoun could refer
to only one person. Down three flights of stairs she could hear a
tuneless but valiant whistle.
“I wonder why he’s coming home so soon?” continued Dorothy. “I’ll shut
the door tight so he won’t see us. I’m not going to make it easy for him
to come back.”
She closed the door as she spoke and the two girls waited, trying to
keep up a hum of conversation. Dorothy’s agitation communicated itself
to Ruth.
“Will he come here?” she asked.
“I don’t know; he always did before, but now, he may just be coming in
to get something and then dash out again to meet her.” She walked to the
window and looked out:
“There’s no one down there waiting for him.” She came back to her place
at the tiny table.
The whistle had mounted all three flights now, and paused a moment
before their door. Dorothy began talking unconcernedly. They heard him
enter his own studio. The whistle was resumed and they could hear him
moving restlessly about. A match was struck, then another; then silence,
then footsteps and a knock at the door.
“Come in,” called Dorothy, and the door opened, disclosing a rather
shame-faced Nels, who, however, was determined to appear as if nothing
had happened.
“Looks like a party,” he said.
“It is a party,” said Ruth.
“I hope I’m not intruding—I thought Dorothy was alone.”
“We were chattering continuously enough for any one to hear us,” said
Dorothy. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Thanks—I suppose that means, too, that I can come in and sit down and
share your gossip, and everything,” said Nels, seating himself forthwith
on the couch-bed—not a chaise longue—but an ugly bed disguised as a
couch—without which no cheap studio or hall bedroom is complete.
Much is written about the “feminine touch” which makes home of the most
ordinary surroundings. Ruth thought of it as she looked at Dorothy’s
room. Perhaps, she decided, artistic women are an exception to this
rule. Dorothy had knowledge of beautiful things, more knowledge than the
average woman, but no one would have guessed it from the untidy
shabbiness of her studio. Only the bright samovar and the roses, thrown
into relief by the firelight, which with the same magic threw dusty
corners into shadow and seemed to gild the ugly, broken-down furniture
into beauty, threw a glamour over the place now and made it seem quite
different from the cheerless room they had entered over an hour before.
The rain was bringing a premature twilight which made the firelight
doubly welcome. Nels felt the change and looked about him as if in
unfamiliar surroundings.
“This is certainly cheery,” he said, taking the cup Dorothy offered him.
“And roses!” He looked inquiringly at Ruth.
“No, I’m not the lucky girl; some admirer of Dorothy’s.”
There was an embarrassed pause. Ruth blushed because she had told what
in childhood she had called a “white lie”; Dorothy because she accepted
the deception that she would not herself have instigated, and Nels for
many reasons.
“Whoever he is he’s not a poor artist,” he said. “I know the price of
roses in December,” whereupon he blushed more redly in remembrance.
“I thought you were going to spend the entire day at the Metropolitan,”
said Dorothy, beginning to enjoy the situation.
“So did I,” said Nels, and then with a sudden burst of resolution, “I
don’t mind telling you all about it—I’ve been an awful fool, and if
you’ve decided to play with some one else, I don’t blame you. We walked
to the Met this morning; Alice lives way uptown and I thought it would
be a pleasant hike, but when we got there she was quite worn out, and
then some fellow she knows came along with a car and offered to take her
home and she went; said the walk had made her too tired to work. Of
course he offered to ‘pick me up,’ too, but I preferred to walk and I
did—all the way from the Metropolitan to Washington Square—now you know
the entire story and can laugh to your heart’s content.”
But neither of the girls laughed. Nels had evidently learned his lesson,
and they were in no mood to increase his discomfiture.
“I wanted to see you to ask if you know where Professor Pendragon went
when he left town. He said some place in the country, but I’ve forgotten
where,” said Ruth.
“Yes; I got a note from him only this morning. He’s visiting a friend of
his in the Berkshires. North Adams is the post-office and I’ve forgotten
the name of the house. One of those big country places with a fancy
name—wait and I’ll get the note from my room.”
“He believed that about the roses and now that he’s sane again, my
conscience hurts,” whispered Dorothy when he had left them.
“Let it hurt a bit; I wouldn’t tell him,” whispered Ruth.
“Here it is,” said Nels, returning. “Professor Percival Pendragon, care
of Mr. John Peyton-Russell, Fir Tree Farm, North Adams,
Massachusetts—some address, but anyway it will reach him.”
“Peyton-Russell—he’s at the Peyton-Russell’s?”
“You know them?”
“Yes, that is, I know Mrs. Peyton-Russell a bit; she’s a friend of my
aunt’s, and we’re going there for Christmas—going tomorrow.”
“Really; that’s splendid, for you can save me writing a note. I hate
writing letters. You see Pendragon has been trying to interest this
Peyton-Russell in my work. He’s one of these men who’s spent two-thirds
of a lifetime making money, and now he doesn’t know exactly what to do
with it. He’s only been married about two years. I know Pendragon hadn’t
met his wife, but Mr. Peyton-Russell depends on Pendragon to tell him
when things are good, and when Professor Pendragon bought one of my
pictures Mr. Peyton-Russell thought he ought to buy one, too. If you’d
just tell Professor Pendragon that I don’t care what he pays for the
picture he has—I let him borrow one to see whether he grew tired of it
after it was hung—you’ll save me a lot of trouble.”
“Of course; did you say Professor Pendragon hasn’t met Mrs.
Peyton-Russell?”
“He hadn’t; but I suppose he has now that he’s a guest in her house.
John Peyton-Russell used to try to get him out to dinner in town, but
Pen wouldn’t go; he hates society. But he was ill, you know, and
Peyton-Russell was so anxious to do something for him, and promised that
it would be quiet—no one out there, and the doctor seemed to think it
might be good—he took the nurse along, of course, so Pen went.”
“Did he say how he was getting on, in his last letter?”
“Yes; just the same, no better and no worse, but didn’t say anything
about coming back at once. You’re more interested than Dot.”
“No; only it seems strange, a coincidence, his being at the same house
we’re going to.”
“While you’re delivering messages for Nels, deliver one for me too,
Ruth,” said Dorothy. “Tell him I’m waiting very patiently to make that
portrait and that when it’s finished if he wants to sell it to his rich
collectors he can. What is he, Nels, a sort of dealer?”
“My word, no—he’s a—just a man who happens to have a little money and a
lot of appreciation. He’s just helping me to success, and helping
Peyton-Russell to a reputation as a collector—he is quite disinterested.
He could be anything, that man. I don’t know why he isn’t. Something
went wrong some place along his route, I guess, and he just got
side-tracked, you understand.” He finished with a wave of his hand.
“Now I really must go—one must do a few things even before a short
journey.”
Ruth was more anxious than ever to get away now, and neither Nels nor
Dorothy made any great effort to keep her. Nels was looking at the roses
with sad eyes and Dorothy was looking at him with eyes that made Ruth
fear that the secret of the flowers would not be kept long. Dorothy was
too generous and honest to want to keep up even so tiny a deception.
The one stupendous fact that stood out in her brain as she walked
homeward was that Gloria and Professor Pendragon would meet. What would
they do? Would Pendragon leave or would Gloria come back to town? What
would they say to each other? How amazing that Mr. Peyton-Russell should
be a friend of Pendragon’s and that Angela should be a friend of
Gloria’s and that they had never before all met. Still it was
understandable. Angela had only been married a year. George would be
there, too, and Prince Aglipogue.
She thought of Pendragon’s tall, clean-cut figure and fine face, and of
Aglipogue’s heavy countenance and elephantine form—the contrast. Surely
Gloria would see and withdraw before too late. It would be, too, the
time of test—the dark of the moon.