|THE maid, Minna, sprang up, dropping her sewing and giving a throaty
little shriek. Peter, steadying himself with an effort, softly closed
the doer, leaned back against it, and frowned.
“Good God!” he said, “don't scream like that! They'll hear you clear to
Fiftieth Street.”
The girl had staggered back against the wall, was supporting herself
there with outspread hands.
“Mr. Mann--you frightened me! And--and--” Her eyes wandered from his
white face to his shirt-front. That had been white. It was now spotted
red with blood.
He stared down at it, fascinated.
“Please, Mr. Mann, will you lie down?”
She hurried to clear a heap of garments off the sofa: then she took his
arm and steadied him as he walked across the room.
“You won't let me call a doctor, Mr. Mann?”
“Oh, no! Don't call anybody! Keep your head shut.”
“But--but--”
“Here, help me with these studs.”
“You'd better take your coat off first, sir.”
She helped him get it off; unbuttoned his waistcoat; untied his white
bow. He had to unbutton the collar himself, holding all the while to his
folded envelope.
“It's astonishing how weak I am--”
“Oh, Mr. Mann, you're bleeding to death!” The girl began weeping.
“I'm not bleeding to death! That's nonsense! Don't you talk like that to
me--keep your head shut! It's nothing at all. I'll be all right. Just a
few minutes.”
“Oh, Mr. Mann--”
Peter glanced nervously toward the door. “Shut up!” he whispered
huskily.
She got the studs out of his shirt, and opened it. Beneath, his singlet
was dripping red. She drew in a spasmodic long breath, with a whistling
sound.
“Now, for God's sake, don't you go and faint!” said he. “I tell you it's
nothing--nothing at all.”
She was crying now.
“Quit your blubbering! Quit it!... Here!”--he reached painfully into
his pocket, produced a bank note--“run over to the drug store--there's
one just across, on the corner--and get some things--bandages, cotton,
something to wash it off with. And hurry! I've got to be out of here in
ten minutes.”
“You won't let me call a doctor, Mr. Mann?”
“Call nothing! You do as I tell you. Understand!”
She took the money and slipped out, carefully closing the door after
her.
Peter, flat on the sofa, peered about him. He wished the room were less
brightly lighted. And it was disagreeably full of flowers. The air was
heavy with the scent of them--like a funeral. Doubtless it would have
been the decent thing for him to have sent Grace a few roses. If only
for old times' sake. The window shade was swaying in the soft September
breeze--what if Marla should be out there in the alley, peeping in?
The sweat burst out on his forehead. _Had_ they held her? God--if they
hadn't.
His gaze drooped to the painful spectacle of his own person. He was a
sight. There was blood all over his hands now, and on his clothes. The
paper he gripped was stained with it. It had got on the sofa. It was
on the floor. The door-knob, the door itself, the wall beside it, were
marked with it.
What if Grace should come in! What could he say? Could he say anything?
His mind darted about this way and that, like a rat in a trap. This was
awful! Where was that girl? Why, in Heaven's name, didn't she come hack?
It seemed to him that hours were passing. He observed that the
blood came faster when he moved, and he lay very still....
Hours--hours--hours!
There were sounds outside. Some one ran up the iron stairs. Then some
one else. People were speaking. The act--the play--was over.
He raised himself on his elbow. There was another step in the corridor,
a step he knew. He let himself slowly down.
The door swung open. Grace, tired, a far-away look in her eyes, was
coming slowly in. Then she fairly sprang in--and closed the door
sharply. She was across the room before he could collect his thoughts
and on her knees, her arms about him.
“Peter!”
“Look out, Grace. You'll get all covered with this stuff.”
Her eyes, wide, horror-struck, were fastened on his. “Peter--how awful!
What is it? What has happened?”
Her solicitude was unexpectedly soothing. His self-respect came creeping
back, a thought shamefaced. He even smiled faintly.
“I don't know, Grace, dear. Something happened--out in the street. A
fight, I think. I was walking by. Then I was stabbed.”
“Oh--oh!” she moaned, “some dreadful mistake!”
“Isn't it silly!”
“I'll have Neuerman get Doctor Brimmer.”
“No--please--”
But she rushed out. In a moment she was back, with an armful of parcels.
“Poor Minna--”
“I sent her to the drug store.”
“Yes. She fainted. She was bringing these things. They've carried her
into Miss Dunson's room.”
She opened the parcels.
He watched her. He had forgotten that she was so pretty, that she had so
much personality even off-stage. The turbulence in his heart seemed all
at once to be dying down. A little glow was setting up there now. The
little glow was growing. There was, after all, a great deal between him
and Grace. He had treated her shabbily, o: course. He hadn't known how
to avoid that, She was a dear to be so sweet about it.... The way she
had rushed to him, the feel of her firm smooth hand on his cheek,
the fact that she had, right now, in the very moment of her triumph,
forgotten herself utterly--that was rather wonderful. A fine girl,
Grace!
She came to him again; opened his singlet and examined the wounds.
“I don't think they're very deep,” said she. “What a strange
experience.”
“They're nothing,” said he.
“Perhaps I'd better not do anything until the doctor comes.”
“Of course not,” said he.
She was bending close over him. A loose strand of her fine hair brushed
his cheek. A new fever was at work within him. He kissed her hair. She
heard the sound but said nothing; she was washing away the blood with
the antiseptic solution Minna had got. He caught one glimpse of her
eyes; they were wet with tears.
Suddenly he knew that the sonnet, on the envelope, blood-soaked, was
burning in his hand. He raised it.
“Careful, dear!” she murmured. “Don't move.”
“We've quarreled, Grace--”
“Yes, I know.”
“I haven't been--decent, even--”
She was silent.
“But when I saw you to-night--” He unfolded the envelope. “I wrote this
to-night. Up in the gallery...”
Slowly, in a low voice that trembled with passion, he read it to her.
And he saw the tears crowd out and slowly fall. He had his effect.
“Grace, dear--”
“Yes, Peter.”
“I'm tired of being alone--tired.”
“I know...”
“Why shouldn't we try the real thing--go all the way--”
“You mean--marriage. Peter?”
“I mean marriage, Grace.”
Very tired, very thoughtful, still in the costume and make-up of the
part, kneeling there beside him, she considered this. Finally she lifted
her eyes to his. “I'm willing, Peter,” she said. “I won't try to deceive
myself. It is what I have wanted.”
The doctor came then; bandaged him, and advised quiet for a few days,
preferably in a hospital. When he had gone, she cried with a half smile:
“You're not going to his old hospital, Peter. You're coming home with
me.”
He lay there in a beatific dream while she changed to her street
clothes.
They were ready to go. She had ordered an ambulance, and they were
waiting. There was a knock.
“Come in,” she called.
The door opened. First to appear was a breezy young man who could not
possibly have been other than a press-agent--a very happy press-agent.
Next came a policeman; a mounted policeman, evidently, from his natty
white cap and his puttees. Following were half a dozen newspaper men.
“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Mann,” said the press-agent, “but they're
holding the woman, and the officer wants to know if you're going to
prefer charges.”
“I'm not going to prefer charges against anybody,” said Peter with quiet
dignity. And then added: “What woman?”
The policeman looked straight at him. “The young woman that stabbed
you,” he said.
Peter made a weak gesture. His dignity was impenetrable.
“I really don't know yet what it was,” he said. “It happened so
quickly.”
The press-agent gave the officer a triumphant look, as if to say:
“There, you see!”
“Do you think you could identify her?” This from the officer.
“No,” said Peter. “I'm afraid I couldn't. My thoughts were anywhere but
there.”
They went away then. The reporters hung eagerly on the sill, but the
press-agent hustled them out.
Grace, subdued, thinking hard, took her hat from the wall rack. A
woman had stabbed him. Grace knew, none better, that her Peter was an
extremely subtle and plausible young man.
But she had wanted him. She had got him. And she let it go at that. In
the ambulance, all the way to her rooms, her arm was under his head, her
smile was instant when his roving gaze sought her face. It seemed to her
that he was grateful, that he wanted her there. This was something. And
the poor boy was suffering!
Once he spoke. He was very weak. And there was noise in the street. She
had to bend close to hear him.
“What is it, dear?”
“That press-agent--I should have talked with him--something very
important....”
Sue and her new husband rode down to Washington Square on the bus, and
wandered over into Greenwich Village. It was midnight. There were few
signs of life along the twisted streets and about the little triangular
parks. But Jim's was open.
They had Welsh rabbits and coffee. The Worm lighted his caked old brier
pipe.
“Been thinking over Pete's speech, Susan,” said he.
“Of course. So have I.”
“As I recall it, the gist of it”--the Worm's lean face bore the
quizzically thoughtful expression that she loved to see there; she
watched it now--“Pete uses the word 'truffler' to mean a young woman who
turns from duty to the pursuit of enjoyment. Those were pretty nearly
his words, weren't they?”
“Almost exactly.”
[Illustration: 0008]
“The Truffler, according to Pete, builds no home, rears no young,
produces nothing. She goes in for self-expression instead of
self-abnegation. She is out for herself, hunting the truffles, the
delicate bits, playing with love and with life. That's about it?”
“Just about, Henry.”
“Well, in applying it only to women, Pete was arbitrary. For he was not
defining a feminine quality--he was defining a human quality, surely
more commonly found among members of his own sex.
“No”--he clamped his lips around his pipe stem, puffed and grinned--“no,
Pete has done a funny thing, a very funny thing. The exasperating part
of it is that he will never know. Do you get me?”
“Not exactly.”
“Why--Pete's the original George W. Dogberry. He has described himself.
That little analysis is a picture of his own life these past years.
Could anything illustrate it more perfectly than the way he stole that
play to-night? Self-interest? Self-expression? That's Pete. Hunting
the delicate bits?” He checked himself; he had not told Sue about Maria
Tonifetti. He didn't propose to tell her. “When has _he_ built a home?
When has _he_ reared any young? When has _he_ failed to assert his
Nictzschean ego? When has _he_ failed to yield to the Freudian wish?
Who, I wonder, has free-loved more widely. Why, not Hy Lowe himself.
And poor Hy is a chastened soul now. Betty's got him smothered, going to
marry him after the divorce--if he has a job then. Waters Coryell
told me.... No”--he removed his pipe and blew a meditative ring of
smoke--“no, dear little girl, whatever the pestiferous Pete may think,
or think he thinks, you are not the Truffler. Not you! No, the Truffler
is Peter Ericson Mann.”
They wandered heme at one o'clock--home to the dingy little apartment on
Tenth Street that had been her rooms and later his rooms. It was their
rooms now. And the old quarters were not dingy, or bare or wanting
in outlook, to the two young persons who let themselves in and stood
silently, breathlessly there, she pressing close to his side; they were
a gulden palace, brushed by wings of light.
“Henry,” she whispered, her arms about his neck, her wet face on his
breast, her heart beating tumultuously against his--“Henry, I want us to
build a home, to--to produce...”
With awe and a prayer in his heart, he kissed her.
THE END