"What decision, sir?"
"The one I cited when I brought you the paper that secured Lennox'
discharge."
"Damme, sir, nothing of the kind. I would have had him discharged any
way."
Jones' smile broadened. "You seem capable of anything. It is a great
quality. Believe me, if I thought you lacked it, you would not now be
enjoying my society."
"You flatter yourself strangely, sir. If you have nothing to say, don't
keep on saying it."
"On the contrary, I am here to listen to you," Jones agreeably put in.
"I want your views on that case, 'The Matter of Ziegler.'"
"Hum! Ha! Got yourself in a mess. Yaas. I remember. Been served yet?
Give me the facts."
One after another, Jones produced them.
During their recital, Dunwoodie twirled his thumbs. At their conclusion,
he expressed himself with entire freedom. After which, he saw Jones to
the door, an act which he performed only when he felt particularly
uncivil. At the moment the old bulldog's lip was lifted. But not at
Jones.
Broad Street was very bright that day. Its brilliance did not extend to
the market. Values were departing. The slump was on. Speculators,
investors, the long and the shorts, bank-messengers, broker's-clerks,
jostled Jones, who went around the corner, where a cavern gaped and
swallowed him.
Crashingly the express carried him uptown. He did not know but that he
might have lingered. There is always room at the top, though perhaps it
is unwise to buy there. At the bottom, there is room too, much more. It
is very gloomy, but it is the one safe place. Jones did not think that
the market had got there yet. None the less it was inviting. On the
other hand, he did think he might eat something. There was a restaurant
that he wot of where, the week before, he had had a horrible bite. The
restaurant was nauseating, but convenient. To that dual attraction he
succumbed.
At table there, he meditated on the inscrutable possibilities of life
which, he decided, is full of changes, particularly in the subway;
whereupon a tale in Perrault's best manner occurred to him.
A waiter, loutish and yet infinitely dreary, intervened. Jones paid and
went out on the upper reaches of Broadway. The fairy-tale that he had
evoked accompanied him. It was charmful as only a fairy-tale can be. But
the end, while happy, was hazy. He did not at all know whether it would
do.
Abruptly he awoke.
"Will you come in?" Cassy was saying.
She had her every-day manner, her every-day clothes, her usual hat.
Jones, noting these details, inwardly commended them. But at once,
another detail was apparent. The entrance to the room where the _Bella
figlia_ had been succeeded by a dirge, was blocked. There was a table in
it.
Cassy motioned. "I was trying to get it out when it got itself wedged
there. Will you crawl under it, as I have to, or would you prefer to use
it as a divan?"
"Where your ladyship crawleth, I will crawl," Jones gravely replied. "I
just love going on all fours."
As he spoke he went under. With a sad little smile she followed.
"I know I ought to be in mourning," she told him as he brushed his
knees.
She hesitated and sat down. She did not say that she lacked the money to
buy the suits and trappings. She did not want to say that she had sold
the table, which was the last relic of her early home, nor yet that she
had been trying to get it out, in order to prevent the Jew purchaser
from again coming in. Instead, she fingered her smock.
"I have been looking for an engagement and they don't want you in
black."
Jones took a chair. "War has made mourning an anachronism in Europe. If
it lasts long enough, it will do the same here and do the same with art.
But you are very brave." He looked about. "I understood your father had
a Cremona."
"The poor dear thought so, but a dealer to whom I took it said it was a
Tyrolean copy."
Jones put down his hat. "The brutes always say something of the kind.
What did it look like?"
Cassy glanced at him. "A flute, of course. What else would a violin look
like?"
"You are quite right. I meant the colour."
"Oh, the colour! Madeira with a sheen in it."
"Yes!" Jones exclaimed. "That is the exact and precise description of
the Amati varnish, of which the secret is lost. I hope you did not let
the brute have it."
Cassy did not want to tell him that either. But when you are very
forlorn it is hard to keep everything in.
"I needed a little for the funeral and he gave it to me."
"And it was worth thousands! Have you found an engagement?"
"The season is ending. Then too, either I have lost confidence or I am
not up to it, not yet at least."
"I can understand that."
Cassy gestured. "It is not this empty room, it is the doors that slam.
We know we should hasten to love those whom we do love, lest they leave
us forever before we have loved them enough. But do we? We think we have
time and to spare. I know I thought so. I was careless, forgetful,
selfish. That is one of the doors. I can't close it."
"Time will."
"Perhaps. Meanwhile I am told I should change my name. At first, I felt
very bitterly toward you for what you did here. It seemed inhuman of
you. Since then I have realised that you could not have done otherwise.
It saved Mr. Lennox. I would have done that."
"I am sure of it."
"But I won't change my name. I won't put such an affront on the poor
dear who thought--yet there! I shall never know what he thought, but
who, however wrongly, did it because of me. If only I had not told him!
I ought never to have said a word. Never! That door slams the loudest.
It wakes me. It is slamming all the time."
"That too shall pass."
Cassy doubted it. The door and the noise of it hurt. Her eyes filled.
Yet, too sensitive to weep at anybody, even at an inkbeast, she stood
up, went to the window and, while reabsorbing her tears, looked, or
affected to look, at a lean stripe of blue sky.