BUT he did not stay away. He owned and lived in a small house up on
the Rumson Road. While the house was little more than a bungalow and
had a simplicity that completely hid its rare good taste from the
average observer, its grounds were the most spacious in that
neighborhood of costly, showy houses set in grounds not much more
extensive than a city building lot. The grounds had been cleared and
drained to drive out and to keep out the obnoxious insect life, but had
been left a forest, concealing the house from the roads. Stanley Baird
was now stopping with Keith, and brought him along to the cottage by
the sea every day.
The parties narrowed to the same four persons. Mrs. Brindley seemed
never to tire of talking to Keith--or to tire of talking about him when
the two men had left, late each night. As for Stanley, he referred
everything to Keith--the weather prospects, where they should go for
the day, what should be eaten and drunk, any point about politics or
fashion, life or literature or what not, that happened to be discussed.
And he looked upon Donald's monosyllabic reply to his inquiry as a
final judgment, ending all possibility of argument. Mildred held out
long. Then, in spite of herself, she began to yield, ceased to dislike
him, found a kind of pleasure--or, perhaps, fascinated interest--in the
nervousness his silent and indifferent presence caused her. She liked
to watch that immobile, perfect profile, neither young nor old, indeed
not suggesting age in any degree, but only experience and
knowledge--and an infinite capacity for emotion, for passion even. The
dead-white color declared it had already been lived; the brilliant,
usually averted or veiled eyes asserted present vitality, pulsing under
a calm surface.
One day when Stanley, in the manner of one who wishes a thing settled
and settled right, said he would ask Donald Keith about it, Mildred, a
little piqued, a little amused, retorted:
"And what will he answer? Why, simply yes or no."
"That's all," assented Stanley. "And that's quite enough, isn't it?"
"But how do you know he's as wise as he pretends?"
"He doesn't pretend to be anything or to know anything. That's
precisely it."
Mildred suddenly began to like Keith. She had never thought of this
before. Yes, it was true, he did not pretend. Not in the least, not
about anything. When you saw him, you saw at once the worst there was
to see. It was afterward that you discovered he was not slovenly, but
clean and neat, not badly but well dressed, not homely but handsome,
not sickly but soundly well, not physically weak but strong, not dull
but vividly alive, not a tiresome void but an unfathomable mystery.
"What does he do?" she asked Mrs. Brindley.
Cyrilla's usually positive gray eyes looked vague. She smiled. "I
never asked," said she. "I've known him nearly three years, and it
never occurred to me to ask, or to wonder. Isn't that strange? Usually
about the first inquiry we make is what a man does."
"I'll ask Stanley," said Mildred. And she did about an hour later,
when they were in the surf together, with the other two out of earshot.
Said Stanley:
"He's a lawyer, of course. Also, he's written a novel or two and a
book of poems. I've never read them. Somehow, I never get around to
reading."
"Oh, he's a lawyer? That's the way he makes his living."
"A queer kind of lawyer. He never goes to court, and his clients are
almost all other lawyers. They go to him to get him to tell them what
to do, and what not to do. He's got a big reputation among lawyers,
Fred Norman tells me, but makes comparatively little, as he either
can't or won't charge what he ought. I told him what Norman said, and
he only smiled in that queer way he has. I said: 'You make twenty or
thirty thousand a year. You ought to make ten times that.'"
"And what did he answer?" asked Mildred. "Nothing?"
"He said: 'I make all I want. If I took in more, I'd be bothered
getting rid of it or investing it. I can always make all I'll
want--unless I go crazy. And what could a crazy man do with money? It
doesn't cost anything to live in a lunatic asylum.'"
Several items of interest to add to those she had collected. He could
talk brilliantly, but he preferred silence. He could make himself
attractive to women and to men, but he preferred to be detached. He
could be a great lawyer, but he preferred the quiet of obscurity. He
could be a rich man, but he preferred to be comparatively poor.
Said Mildred: "I suppose some woman--some disappointment in love--has
killed ambition, and everything like that."
"I don't think so," replied Baird. "The men who knew him as a boy say
he was always as he is now. He lived in the Arabian desert for two
years."
"Why didn't he stay?" laughed Mildred. "That life would exactly suit
him."
"It did," said Stanley. "But his father died, and he had to come home
and support his mother--until she died. That's the way his whole life
has been. He drifts in the current of circumstances. He might let
himself be blown away to-morrow to the other end of the earth and stay
away years--or never come back."
"But how would he live?"
"On his wits. And as well or as poorly as he cared. He's the sort of
man everyone instinctively asks advice of--me, you, his valet, the
farmer who meets him at a boundary fence, the fellow who sits nest him
in a train--anyone."
Mildred did not merely cease to dislike him; she went farther, and
rapidly. She began to like him, to circle round that tantalizing,
indolent mystery as a deer about a queer bit of brush in the
undergrowth. She liked to watch him. She was alternately afraid to
talk before him and recklessly confidential--all with no response or
sign of interest from him. If she was silent, when they were alone
together, he was silent, too. If she talked, still he was silent. What
WAS he thinking about? What did he think of her?--that especially.
"What ARE you thinking?" she interrupted herself to say one afternoon
as they sat together on the strand under a big sunshade. She had been
talking on and on about her career--talking conceitedly, as her subject
intoxicated her--telling him what triumphs awaited her as soon as she
should be ready to debut. As he did not answer, she repeated her
question, adding:
"I knew you weren't listening to me, or I shouldn't have had the
courage to say the foolish things I did."
"No, I wasn't," admitted he.
"Why not?"
"For the reason you gave."
"That what I said was--just talk?"
"Yes."
"You don't believe I'll do those things?"
"Do you?"
"I've GOT to believe it," said she. "If I didn't--" She came to a full
stop.
"If you didn't, then what?" It was the first time he had ever
flattered her with interest enough to ask her a question about herself.
"If I didn't believe I was going to succeed--and succeed big--" she
began. After a pause, she added, "I'd not dare say it."
"Or think it," said he.
She colored. "What do you mean?" she asked.
He did not reply.
"What do you mean, Mr. Keith?" she urged.
"You are always asking me questions to which you already know the
answer," said he.
"You're referring to a week or so ago, when I asked you why you
disliked me?"
No answer. No sign of having heard. No outward sign of interest in
anything, even in the cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth.
"Wasn't that it?" she insisted.
"You are always asking me questions to which you already know the
answer," repeated he.
"I am annoying you?"
No answer.
She laughed. "Do you want me to go away and leave you in peace with
that--law case--or whatever it is?"
"I don't like to be alone."
"But anyone would do?--a dog?"
No reply.
"You mean, a dog would be better because it doesn't ask questions to
which it knows the answer."
No reply.
"Well, I have a pleasant-sounding voice. As I'm saying nothing, it may
be soothing--like the sound of the waves. I've learned to take you as
you are. I rather like your pose."
No reply. No sign that he was even tempted to rise to this bait and
protest.
"But you don't like mine," she went on. "Yes, it is a pose. But I've
got to keep it up, and to pretend to myself that it isn't. And it
isn't altogether. I shall be a successful singer."
"When?" said he. Actually he was listening!