SHACKLES
The evening was a specially gala occasion, with a dinner dance on, the
last big party before Tony went home to her Hill. The great ball room at
Crest House had been decorated with a network of greenery and crimson
rambler roses. A ruinous-priced, _de luxe_ orchestra had been brought
down from the city. The girls had saved their prettiest gowns and looked
their rainbow loveliest for the crowning event.
Tony was wearing an exquisite white chiffon and silver creation, with
silver slippers and a silver fillet binding her dark hair. Alan had sent
her some wonderful orchids tied with silver ribbon, and these she wore;
but no jewelry whatever, not even a ring. There was something
particularly radiant about her young loveliness that night. The young men
hovered about her like honey bees about a rose and at every dance they
cut in and cut in until her white and silver seemed to be drifting from
one pair of arms to another.
Tony was very gay and bountiful and impartial in her smiles and favors,
but all the time she waited, knowing that presently would come the one
dance to which there would be no cutting in, the dance that would make
the others seem nothing but shadows.
By and by the hour struck. She saw Alan leave his place by the window
where he had been moodily lounging, saw him come toward her, taller
than any man in the room, distinguished--a king among the rest, it
seemed to Tony, waiting, longing for his coming? yet half dreading it,
too. For the sooner he came, the sooner it must all end. She was with
Hal at the moment, waiting for the music to begin, but as Alan
approached she turned to her companion with a quick appeal in her eyes
and a warm flush on her cheeks.
"I am sorry, Hal," she said, low in his ear. "But this is Alan's. He is
going away to-morrow. Forgive me."
Hal turned, stared at Alan Massey, turned back to Tony, bowed and
moved away.
"Hanged if there isn't something magnificent about the fellow," he
thought. "No matter how you detest him there is something about him that
gets you. I wonder how far he has gone with Tony. Gee! It's a rotten
combination. But Lordy! How they can dance--those two!"
Never as long as she lived was Tony Holiday to forget that dance with
Alan Massey. As a musician pours himself into his violin, as a poet puts
his soul into his sonnet, as a sculptor chisels his dream in marble, so
her companion flung his passion and despair and imploring into his
dancing. They forgot the others, forgot everything but themselves. They
might have been dancing alone on the top of Olympus for all either knew
or cared for the rest of the world.
It was Alan, not Tony, who brought it to an end, however. He whispered
something in the girl's ear and their feet paused. In a moment he was
holding open the French window for her to pass out into the night. The
white and silver vanished like a cloud. Alan Massey followed. The window
swung shut again. The music stopped abruptly as if now its inspiration
had come to an end. A single note of a violin quivered off into silence
after the others, like the breath of beauty itself passing.
Carlotta and her aunt happened to be standing near each other. The girl's
eyes were troubled. She wished Alan had not come back at all from the
city. She hoped he really intended to go away to-morrow as he had told
her. More than all she hoped she was right in believing that Tony had
refused to marry him. Like Dick, Carlotta had reverence for the Holiday
tradition. She could not bear to think of Tony's marrying Alan. She felt
woefully responsible for having brought the two together.
"Did you say he was going to-morrow?" asked her aunt.
Carlotta nodded.
"He won't go," prophesied Miss Cressy.
"Oh, yes. I think he will. I don't know for certain but I have an idea
she refused him this morning."
"Ah, but that was this morning. Things look very different by star light.
That child ought not to be out there with him. She is losing her head."
"Aunt Lottie! Alan is a gentleman," demurred Carlotta.
Miss Lottie smiled satirically. Her smile repeated Ted Holiday's verdict
that some gentlemen were rotters.
"You forget, my dear, that I knew Alan Massey when you and Tony were in
short petticoats and pigtails. You can't trust too much to his
gentlemanliness."
"Of course, I know he isn't a saint," admitted Carlotta. "But you don't
understand. It is real with Alan this time. He really cares. It isn't
just--just the one thing."
"It is always the one thing with Alan Massey's kind. I know what I am
talking about, Carlotta. He was a little in love with me once. I dare say
we both thought it was different at the time. It wasn't. It was pretty
much the same thing. Don't cherish any romantic notions about love,
Carlotta. There isn't any love as you mean it."
"Oh yes, there is," denied Carlotta suddenly, a little fiercely.
"There is love, but most of us aren't--aren't worthy of it. It is too
big for us. That is why we get the cheap _little_ stuff. It is all we
are fit for."
Miss Carlotta stared at her niece. But before she could speak Hal
Underwood had claimed the latter for a dance.
"H--m!" she mused looking after the two. "So even Carlotta isn't immune.
I wonder who he was."
Meanwhile, out in the garden Tony and Alan had strayed over to the
fountain, just as they had that first evening after that first dance.
"Tony, belovedest, let me speak. Listen to me just once more. You do love
me. Don't lie to me with your lips when your eyes told me the truth in
there. You are mine, mine, my beautiful, my love--all mine."
He drew her into his arms, not passionately but gently. It was his
gentleness that conquered. A storm of unrestrained emotion would have
driven her away from him, but his sudden quiet strength and tenderness
melted her last reservation. She gave her lips unresisting to his kiss.
And with that kiss, desire of freedom and all fear left her. For the
moment, at least, love was all and enough.
"Tony, my belovedest," he whispered. "Say it just once. Tell me you love
me." It was the old, old plea, but in Tony's ears it was immortally new.
"I love you, Alan. I didn't want to. I have fought it all along as you
know. But it was no use. I do love you."
"My darling! And I love you. You don't know how I love you. It is like
suddenly coming out into sunshine after having lived in a cave all my
life. Will you marry me to-morrow, _carissima_?"
But she drew away from his arms at that.
"Alan, I can't marry you ever. I can only love you."
"Why not? You must, Tony!" The old masterfulness leaped into his voice.
"I cannot, Alan. You know why."
She lifted her eyes to his and in their clear depths he saw reflected his
own willful, stained, undisciplined past. He bowed his head in real shame
and remorse. Nothing stood between himself and Antoinette Holiday but
himself. He had sown the wind. He reaped the whirlwind.
After a moment he looked up again. He made no pretence of
misunderstanding her meaning.
"You couldn't forgive?" he pleaded brokenly. Gone was the royal-willed
Alan Massey. Only a beggar in the dust remained.
"Yes, Alan. I could forgive. I do now. I think I can understand how such
things can be in a man's life though it would break my heart to think Ted
or Larry were like that. But you never had a chance. Nobody ever helped
you to keep your eyes on the stars."
"They are there now," he groaned. "You are my star, Tony, and stars are
very, very far away from the like of me," he echoed Carlotta's phrase.
For almost the first time in his life humility possessed him. Had he
known it, it lifted him higher in Tony's eyes than all his arrogance and
conceit of power had ever done.
Gently she slid her hand into his.
"I don't feel far away, Alan. I feel very near. But I can't marry
you--not now anyway. You will have to prove to them all--to me, too--that
you are a man a Holiday might be proud to marry. I could forget the
past. I think I could persuade Uncle Phil and the rest to forget it, too.
They are none of them self-righteous Puritans. They could understand,
just as I understand, that a man might fall in battle and carry scars of
defeat, but not be really conquered. Alan, tell me something. It isn't
easy to ask but I must. Are the things I have to forget far back in the
past or--nearer? I know they go back to Paris days, the days Miss Lottie
belongs to. Oh, yes," as he started at that. "I guessed that. You mustn't
blame her. She was merely trying to warn me. She meant it for my good,
not to be spiteful and not because she still cares, though I think she
does. And I know there are things that belong to the time after your
mother died, and you didn't care what you did because you were so
unhappy. But are they still nearer? How close are they, Alan?"
He shook his head despairingly.
"I wish I could lie to you, Tony. I can't. They are too close to be
pleasant to remember. But they never will be again. I swear it. Can you
believe it?"
"I shall have to believe it--be convinced of it before I could marry
you. I can't marry you, not being certain of you, just because my heart
beats fast when you come near me, because I love your voice and your
kisses and would rather dance with you than to be sure of going to
Heaven. Marriage is a world without end business. I can't rush into it
blindfold. I won't."
"You don't love me as I love you or you couldn't reason so coldly about
it," he reproached. "You would go blindfold anywhere--to Hell itself
even, with me."
"I don't know, Alan. I could let myself go. While we were dancing in
there I am afraid I would have been willing to go even as far as you say
with you. But out here in the star-light I am back being myself. I want
to make my life into something clean and sweet and fine. I don't want to
let myself be driven to follow weak, selfish, rash impulses and do things
that will hurt other people and myself. I don't want to make my people
sorry. They are dearer than any happiness of my own. They would not let
me marry you now, even if I wished it. If I did what you want and what
maybe something in me wants too--run off and marry you tomorrow without
their consent--it would break their hearts and mine, afterward when I had
waked up to what I had done. Don't ask me, dear. I couldn't do it."
"But what will you do, Tony? Won't you marry me ever?" Alan's tone was
helpless, desolate. He had run up against a power stronger than any he
had ever wielded, a force which left him baffled.
"I don't know. It will depend upon you. A year from now, if you still
want me and I am still free, if you can come to me and tell me you have
lived for twelve months as a man who loves a woman ought to live, I will
marry you if I love you enough; and I think--I am sure, I shall, for I
love you very much this minute."
"A year! Tony, I can't wait a year for you. I want you now." Alan's tone
was sharp with dismay. He was not used to waiting for what he desired. He
had taken it on the instant, as a rule, and as a rule, his takings had
been dust and ashes as soon as they were in his hands.
"You cannot have me, Alan. You can never have me unless you earn the
right to win me--straight. Understand that once for all. I will not marry
a weakling. I will marry--a conquerer--perhaps."
"You mean that, Tony?"
"Absolutely."
"Then, by God, I'll be a conquerer!" he boasted.
"I hope you will. Oh, my dear, my dear! It will break my heart if you
fail. I love you." And suddenly Tony was clinging to him, just a woman
who cared, who wanted her lover, even as he wanted her. But in a
breath she pulled herself away. "Take me in, Alan, now," she said.
"Kiss me once before we go. I shall not see you in the morning. This
is really good-by."
Later, Carlotta, coming in to say goodnight to Tony, found the latter
sitting in front of the mirror brushing out her abundant red-brown hair
and noticed how very scarlet her friend's cheeks were and what a
tell-tale shining glory there was in her eyes.
"It was a lovely party," announced Tony casually, unaware how much
Carlotta had seen over her shoulder in the mirror.
"Tony, are you in love with Alan Massey?" demanded Carlotta.
Tony whirled around on the stool, her cheeks flying deeper crimson
banners at this unexpected challenge.
"I am afraid I am, Carlotta," she admitted. "It is rather a mess,
isn't it?"
Carlotta groaned and dropping into a chaise lounge encircled her knees
with her arms, staring with troubled eyes at her guest.
"A mess? I should say it was--worse than a mess--a catastrophe. You know
what Alan is--isn't--" She floundered off into silence.
"Oh, yes," said Tony, the more tranquil of the two. "I know what he is
and isn't, better than most people, I think. I ought to. But I love him.
I just discovered it to-night, or rather it is the first time I ever let
myself look straight at the fact. I think I have known it from the
beginning."
"But Tony! You won't marry him. You can't. Your people will never let
you. They oughtn't to let you."
Tony shook back her wavy mane of hair, sent it billowing over her
rose-colored satin kimono.
"It don't matter if the whole world won't let me. If I decide to marry
Alan I shall do it."
"Tony!"
There was shocked consternation in Carlotta's tone and Tony relenting
burst into a low, tremulous little laugh.
"Don't worry, Carlotta. I'm not so mad as I sound. I told Alan he would
have to wait a year. He has to prove to me he is--worth loving."
"But you are engaged?" Carlotta was relieved, but not satisfied.
Tony shook her head.
"Absolutely not. We are both free as air--technically. If you were in
love yourself you would know how much that amounts to by way of freedom."
Carlotta's golden head was bowed. She did not answer her friend's
implication that she could not be expected to comprehend the delicate,
invisible, omnipotent shackles of love.
"Don't tell anyone, Carlotta, please. It is our secret--Alan's and mine.
Maybe it will always he a secret unless he--measures up."
"You are not going to tell your uncle?"
"There is nothing to tell yet."
"And I suppose this is the end of poor Dick."
"Don't be silly, Carlotta. Dick never said a word of love to me in
his life."
"That doesn't mean he doesn't think 'em. You have convenient eyes, Tony
darling. You see only what you wish to see."
"I didn't want to see Alan's love. I tried dreadfully hard not to. But it
set up a fire in my own house and blazed and smoked until I had to do
something about it. See here, Carlotta. I'd like to ask you a question or
two. You are not really going to marry Herbert Lathrop, are you?"
A queer little shadow, almost like a veil, passed over Carlotta's face at
this counter charge.
"Why not?" she parried.
"You know why not. He is exactly what Hal Underwood calls him, a poor
fish. He is as close to being a nonentity as anything I ever saw."
"Precisely why I selected him," drawled Carlotta. "I've got to marry
somebody and poor Herbert hasn't a vice except his excess of virtue. We
can't have another old maid in the family. Aunt Lottie is a shining
example of what to avoid. I am not going to be 'Lottie the second' I have
decided on that."
"As if you could," protested Tony indignantly.
"Oh, I could. You look at Aunt Lottie's pictures of fifteen years ago.
She was just as pretty as I am. She had loads of lovers but somehow they
all slipped through her fingers. She has been sex-starved. She ought to
have married and had children. I don't want to be a hungry spinster. They
are infernally miserable."
"Carlotta!" Tony was a little shocked at her friend's bluntness, a
little puzzled as to what lay behind her arguments. "You don't have to
be a hungry spinster. There are other men besides Herbert that want to
marry you."
"Certainly. Some of them want to marry my money. Some of them want to
marry my body. I grant you Herbert is a poor fish in some ways, but at
least he wants to marry me, myself, which is more than the others do."
"That isn't true. Hal Underwood wants to marry you, yourself."
"Oh, Hal!" conceded Carlotta. "I forgot him for a moment. You are right.
He is real--too real. I should hurt him marrying him and not caring
enough. That is why a nonentity is preferable. It doesn't know what it
is missing. Hal would know."
"But there is no reason why you shouldn't wait until you find somebody
you could care for," persisted Tony.
"That is all you know about it, my dear. There is the best reason in the
world. I found him--and lost him."
"Carlotta--is it Phil?"
Carlotta sprang up and went over to the window. She took the rose she had
been wearing, in her hands and deliberately pulled it apart letting the
petals drift one by one out into the night. Then she turned back to Tony.
"Don't ask questions, Tony. I am not going to talk." But she lingered a
moment beside her friend. "You and I, Tony darling, don't seem to have
very much luck in love," she murmured. "I hope you will be happy with
Alan, if you do marry him. But happiness isn't exactly necessary. There
are other things--" She broke off and began again. "There are other
things in a man's life besides love. Somebody said that to me once and I
believe it is true. But there isn't so much besides that matters much to
a woman. I wish there were. I hate love." And pressing a rare kiss on her
friend's cheek Carlotta vanished for the night.
Meanwhile Alan Massey smoked and thought and cursed the past that had him
in its hateful toils. Like the guilty king in Hamlet, his soul,
"struggling to be free" was "but the more engaged." He honestly desired
to be worthy of Tony Holiday, to stand clear in her eyes, but he did not
want it badly enough, to the "teeth and forehead of his faults to give in
evidence." He did not want to bare the one worst plague spot of all and
run the risk not only of losing Tony himself but perhaps also of clearing
the way to her for his cousin, John Massey. Small wonder he smoked gall
and wormwood in his cigarettes that night.
And far away in the heat and grime and din of the great city, Dick Carson
the nameless, who was really John Massey and heir to a great fortune, sat
dreaming over a girl's picture, telling himself that Tony must care a
little to have gotten up in the silver gray of the morning to see him off
so kindly. Happily for the dreamer's peace of mind he had no means of
knowing that that very night, in the starlit garden by the sea, Tony
Holiday had taken upon herself the mad and sad and glad bondage of love.