UNDER THE ASHES
He had neither burned nor returned the photograph to Mrs. Ruthven. The
prospect perplexed and depressed Selwyn.
He was sullenly aware that in a town where the divorced must ever be
reckoned with when dance and dinner lists are made out, there is always
some thoughtless hostess--and sometimes a mischievous one; and the
chances were that he and Mrs. Jack Ruthven would collide, either through
the forgetfulness or malice of somebody or, through sheer hazard, at
some large affair where Destiny and Fate work busily together in
criminal copartnership.
And he encountered her first at a masque and revel given by Mrs.
Delmour-Carnes where Fate contrived that he should dance in the same set
with his _ci-devant_ wife before the unmasking, and where, unaware, they
gaily exchanged salute and hand-clasp before the jolly _mêlée_ of
unmasking revealed how close together two people could come after
parting for ever and a night at the uttermost ends of the earth.
When masks at last were off there was neither necessity nor occasion for
the two surprised and rather pallid young people to renew civilities;
but later, Destiny, the saturnine partner in the business, interfered;
and some fool in the smoking room tried to introduce Selwyn to Ruthven.
The slightest mistake on their parts would have rendered the incident
ridiculous; and Ruthven made that mistake.
That was Selwyn's first encounter with the Ruthvens. A short time
afterward at the opera Gerald dragged him into a parterre to say
something amiable to one of the débutante Craig girls--and Selwyn found
himself again facing Alixe.
If there was any awkwardness it was not apparent, although they both
knew that they were in full view of the house.
A cool bow and its cooler acknowledgment, a formal word and more formal
reply; and Selwyn made his way to the corridor, hot with vexation,
unaware of where he was going, and oblivious of the distressed and
apologetic young man, who so contritely kept step with him through the
brilliantly crowded promenade.
That was the second time--not counting distant glimpses in crowded
avenues, in the Park, at Sherry's, or across the hazy glitter of
thronged theatres. But the third encounter was different.
It was all a mistake, born of the haste of a heedless and elderly
matron, celebrated for managing to do the wrong thing, but who had been
excessively nice to him that winter, and whose position in Manhattan was
not to be assailed.
"Dear Captain Selwyn," she wheezed over the telephone, "I'm short one
man; and we dine at eight and it's that now. _Could_ you help me? It's
the rich and yellow, this time, but you won't mind, will you?"
Selwyn, standing at the lower telephone in the hall, asked her to hold
the wire a moment, and glanced up at his sister who was descending the
stairs with Eileen, dinner having at that instant been announced.
"Mrs. T. West Minster--flying signals of distress," he said, carefully
covering the transmitter as he spoke; "man overboard, and will I kindly
take a turn at the wheel?"
"What a shame!" said Eileen; "you are going to spoil the first home
dinner we have had together in weeks!"
"Tell her to get some yellow pup!" growled Austin, from above.
"As though anybody could get a yellow pup when they whistle," said Nina
hopelessly.
"That's true," nodded Selwyn; "I'm the original old dog Tray. Whistle,
and I come padding up. Ever faithful, you see."
And he uncovered the transmitter and explained to Mrs. T. West Minster
his absurd delight at being whistled at. Then he sent for a cab and
sauntered into the dining-room, where he was received with undisguised
hostility.
"She's been civil to me," he said; "_jeunesse oblige_, you know. And
that's why I--"
"There'll be a lot of débutantes there! What do you want to go for, you
cradle robber!" protested Austin--"a lot of water-bibbing, olive-eating,
talcum-powdered débutantes--"
Eileen straightened up stiffly, and Selwyn's teasing smile and his
offered hand in adieu completed her indignation.
"Oh, good-bye! No, I won't shake hands. There's your cab, now. I wish
you'd take Austin, too; Nina and I are tired of dining with the
prematurely aged."
"Indeed, we are," said Mrs. Gerard; "go to your club, Austin, and give
me a chance to telephone to somebody under the anesthetic age."
Selwyn departed, laughing, but he yawned in his cab all the way to
Fifty-third Street, where he entered in the wake of the usual laggards
and, surrendering hat and coat in the cloak room, picked up the small
slim envelope bearing his name.
The card within disclosed the information that he was to take in Mrs.
Somebody-or-Other; he made his way through a great many people, found
his hostess, backed off, stood on one leg for a moment like a reflective
water-fowl, then found Mrs. Somebody-or-Other and was absently good to
her through a great deal of noise and some Spanish music, which seemed
to squirt through a thicket of palms and bespatter everybody.
"Wonderful music," observed his dinner partner, with singular
originality; "_so_ like Carmen."
"Is it?" he replied, and took her away at a nod from his hostess, whose
daughter Dorothy leaned forward from her partner's arm at the same
moment, and whispered: "I _must_ speak to you, mamma! You _can't_ put
Captain Selwyn there because--"
But her mother was deaf and smilingly sensitive about it, so she merely
guessed what reply her child expected: "It's all settled, dear; Captain
Selwyn arrived a moment ago." And she closed the file.
It was already too late, anyhow; and presently, turning to see who was
seated on his left, Selwyn found himself gazing into the calm, flushed
face of Alixe Ruthven. It was their third encounter.
They exchanged a dazed nod of recognition, a meaningless murmur, and
turned again, apparently undisturbed, to their respective dinner
partners.
A great many curious eyes, lingering on them, shifted elsewhere, in
reluctant disappointment.
As for the hostess, she had, for one instant, come as near to passing
heavenward as she could without doing it when she discovered the
situation. Then she accepted it with true humour. She could afford to.
But her daughters, Sheila and Dorothy, suffered acutely, being of this
year's output and martyrs to responsibility.
Meanwhile, Selwyn, grimly aware of an accident somewhere, and perfectly
conscious of the feelings which must by this time dominate his hostess,
was wondering how best to avoid anything that might resemble a
situation.
Instead of two or three dozen small tables, scattered among the palms of
the winter garden, their hostess had preferred to construct a great oval
board around the aquarium. The arrangement made it a little easier for
Selwyn and Mrs. Ruthven. He talked to his dinner partner until she began
to respond in monosyllables, which closed each subject that he opened
and wearied him as much as he was boring her. But Bradley Harmon, the
man on her right, evidently had better fortune; and presently Selwyn
found himself with nobody to talk to, which came as near to embarrassing
him as anything could, and which so enraged his hostess that she struck
his partner's name from her lists for ever. People were already glancing
at him askance in sly amusement or cold curiosity.
Then he did a thing which endeared him to Mrs. T. West Minster and to
her two disconsolate children.
"Mrs. Ruthven," he said, very naturally and pleasantly, "I think perhaps
we had better talk for a moment or two--if you don't mind."
She said quietly, "I don't mind," and turned with charming composure.
Every eye shifted to them, then obeyed decency or training; and the
slightest break in the gay tumult was closed up with chatter and
laughter.
"Plucky," said Sandon Craig to his fair neighbour; "but by what chance
did our unfortunate hostess do it?"
"She's usually doing it, isn't she? What occupies me," returned his
partner, "is how on earth Alixe could have thrown away that adorable man
for Jack Ruthven. Why, he is already trying to scramble into Rosamund
Fane's lap--the horrid little poodle!--always curled up on the edge of
your skirt!"
She stared at Mrs. Ruthven across the crystal reservoir brimming with
rose and ivory-tinted water-lilies.
"That girl is marked for destruction," she said slowly; "the gods have
done their work already."
But whatever Alixe had been, whatever she now was, she showed to her
little world only a pale brunette symmetry--a strange and changeless
lustre, varying as little as the moon's phases; and like that burnt-out
planet, reflecting any flame that flared until her clear, young beauty
seemed pulsating with the promise of hidden fire.
Selwyn, outwardly amiable and formal, was saying in a low voice: "My
dinner partner is quite impossible, you see; and I happen to be here as
a filler in--commanded to the presence only a few minutes ago. It's a
pardonable error; I bear no malice. But I'm sorry for you."
There was a silence; Alixe straightened her slim figure, and turned; but
young Innis, who had taken her in, had become confidential with Mrs.
Fane. As for Selwyn's partner, she probably divined his conversational
designs on her, but she merely turned her bare shoulder a trifle more
unmistakably and continued her gossip with Bradley Harmon.
Alixe broke a tiny morsel from her bread, sensible of the tension.
"I suppose," she said, as though reciting to some new acquaintance an
amusing bit of gossip--"that we are destined to this sort of thing
occasionally and had better get used to it."
"I suppose so."
"Please," she added, after a pause, "aid me a little."
"I will if I can. What am I to say?"
"Have you nothing to say?" she asked, smiling; "it need not be very
civil, you know--as long as nobody hears you."
To school his features for the deception of others, to school his voice
and manner and at the same time look smilingly into the grave of his
youth and hope called for the sort of self-command foreign to his
character. Glancing at him under her smoothly fitted mask of amiability,
she slowly grew afraid of the situation--but not of her ability to
sustain her own part.
They exchanged a few meaningless phrases, then she resolutely took young
Innis away from Rosamund Fane, leaving Selwyn to count the bubbles in
his wine-glass.
But in a few moments, whether by accident or deliberate design, Rosamund
interfered again, and Mrs. Ruthven was confronted with the choice of a
squabble for possession of young Innis, of conspicuous silence, or of
resuming once more with Selwyn. And she chose the last resort.
"You are living in town?" she asked pleasantly.
"Yes."
"Of course; I forgot. I met a man last night who said you had entered
the firm of Neergard & Co."
"I have. Who was the man?"
"You can never guess, Captain Selwyn."
"I don't want to. Who was he?"
"Please don't terminate so abruptly the few subjects we have in reserve.
We may be obliged to talk to each other for a number of minutes if
Rosamund doesn't let us alone. . . . The man was 'Boots' Lansing."
"'Boots!' Here!"
"Arrived from Manila Sunday. _Sans gêne_ as usual he introduced you as
the subject, and told me--oh, dozens of things about you. I suppose he
began inquiring for you before he crossed the troopers' gangplank; and
somebody sent him to Neergard & Co. Haven't you seen him?"
"No," he said, staring at the brilliant fish, which glided along the
crystal tank, goggling their eyes at the lights.
"You--you are living with the Gerards, I believe," she said carelessly.
"For a while."
"Oh, 'Boots' says that he is expecting to take an apartment with you
somewhere."
"What! Has 'Boots' resigned?"
"So he says. He told me that you had resigned. I did not understand
that; I imagined you were here on leave until I heard about Neergard &
Co."
"Do you suppose I could have remained in the service?" he demanded. His
voice was dry and almost accentless.
"Why not?" she returned, paling.
"You may answer that question more pleasantly than I can."
She usually avoided champagne; but she had to do something for herself
now. As for him, he took what was offered without noticing what he took,
and grew whiter and whiter; but a fixed glow gradually appeared and
remained on her cheeks; courage, impatience, a sudden anger at the
forced conditions steadied her nerves.
"Will you please prove equal to the situation?" she said under her
breath, but with a charming smile. "Do you know you are scowling? These
people here are ready to laugh; and I'd much prefer that they tear us to
rags on suspicion of our over-friendliness."
"Who is that fool woman who is monopolising your partner?"
"Rosamund Fane; she's doing it on purpose. You must try to smile now and
then."
"My face is stiff with grinning," he said, "but I'll do what I can for
you--"
"Please include yourself, too."
"Oh, I can stand their opinions," he said; "I only meet the yellow sort
occasionally; I don't herd with them."
"I do, thank you."
"How do you like them? What is your opinion of the yellow set? Here they
sit all about you--the Phoenix Mottlys, Mrs. Delmour-Carnes yonder, the
Draymores, the Orchils, the Vendenning lady, the Lawns of Westlawn--" he
paused, then deliberately--"and the 'Jack' Ruthvens. I forgot, Alixe,
that you are now perfectly equipped to carry aloft the golden hod."
"Go on," she said, drawing a deep breath, but the fixed smile never
altered.
"No," he said; "I can't talk. I thought I could, but I can't. Take that
boy away from Mrs. Fane as soon as you can."
"I can't yet. You must go on. I ask your aid to carry this thing
through. I--I am afraid of their ridicule. Could you try to help me a
little?"
"If you put it that way, of course." And, after a silence, "What am I to
say? What in God's name shall I say to you, Alixe?"
"Anything bitter--as long as you control your voice and features. Try to
smile at me when you speak, Philip."
"All right. I have no reason to be bitter, anyway," he said; "and every
reason to be otherwise."
"That is not true. You tell me that I have ruined your career in the
army. I did not know I was doing it. Can you believe me?"
And, as he made no response: "I did not dream you would have to resign.
Do you believe me?"
"There is no choice," he said coldly. "Drop the subject!"
"That is brutal. I never thought--" She forced a smile and drew her
glass toward her. The straw-tinted wine slopped over and frothed on the
white skin of her arm.
"Well," she breathed, "this ghastly dinner is nearly ended."
He nodded pleasantly.
"And--Phil?"--a bit tremulous.
"What?"
"Was it all my fault? I mean in the beginning? I've wanted to ask you
that--to know your view of it. Was it?"
"No. It was mine, most of it."
"Not all--not half! We did not know how; that is the wretched
explanation of it all."
"And we could never have learned; that's the rest of the answer. But the
fault is not there."
"I know; 'better to bear the ills we have.'"
"Yes; more respectable to bear them. Let us drop this in decency's name,
Alixe!"
After a silence, she began: "One more thing--I must know it; and I am
going to ask you--if I may. Shall I?"
He smiled cordially, and she laughed as though confiding a delightful
bit of news to him:
"Do you regard me as sufficiently important to dislike me?"
"I do not--dislike you."
"Is it stronger than dislike, Phil?"
"Y-es."
"Contempt?"
"No."
"What is it?"
"It is that--I have not yet--become--reconciled."
"To my--folly?"
"To mine."
She strove to laugh lightly, and failing, raised her glass to her lips
again.
"Now you know," he said, pitching his tones still lower. "I am glad
after all that we have had this plain understanding. I have never felt
unkindly toward you. I can't. What you did I might have prevented had I
known enough; but I cannot help it now; nor can you if you would."
"If I would," she repeated gaily--for the people opposite were staring.
"We are done for," he said, nodding carelessly to a servant to refill
his glass; "and I abide by conditions because I choose to; not," he
added contemptuously, "because a complacent law has tethered you to--to
the thing that has crawled up on your knees to have its ears rubbed."
The level insult to her husband stunned her; she sat there, upright, the
white smile stamped on her stiffened lips, fingers tightening about the
stem of her wine-glass.
He began to toss bread crumbs to the scarlet fish, laughing to himself
in an ugly way. "_I_ wish to punish you? Why, Alixe, only look at
_him_!--Look at his gold wristlets; listen to his simper, his lisp.
Little girl--oh, little girl, what have you done to yourself?--for you
have done nothing to me, child, that can match it in sheer atrocity!"
Her colour was long in returning.
"Philip," she said unsteadily, "I don't think I can stand this--"
"Yes, you can."
"I am too close to the wall. I--"
"Talk to Scott Innis. Take him away from Rosamund Fane; that will tide
you over. Or feed those fool fish; like this! Look how they rush and
flap and spatter! That's amusing, isn't it--for people with the
intellects of canaries. . . . Will you please try to say something? Mrs.
T. West is exhibiting the restless symptoms of a hen turkey at sundown
and we'll all go to roost in another minute. . . . Don't shiver that
way!"
"I c-can't control it; I will in a moment. . . . Give me a chance; talk
to me, Phil."
"Certainly. The season has been unusually gay and the opera most
stupidly brilliant; stocks continue to fluctuate; another old woman
was tossed and gored by a mad motor this morning. . . . More time,
Alixe? . . . With pleasure; Mrs. Vendenning has bought a third-rate
castle in Wales; a man was found dead with a copy of the _Tribune_ in
his pocket--the verdict being in accordance with fact; the Panama
Canal--"
But it was over at last; a flurry of sweeping skirts; ranks of black and
white in escort to the passage of the fluttering silken procession.
"Good-bye," she said; "I am not staying for the dance."
"Good-bye," he said pleasantly; "I wish you better fortune for the
future. I'm sorry I was rough."
He was not staying, either. A dull excitement possessed him, resembling
suspense--as though he were awaiting a dénouement; as though there was
yet some crisis to come.
Several men leaned forward to talk to him; he heard without heeding,
replied at hazard, lighted his cigar with the others, and leaned back,
his coffee before him--a smiling, attractive young fellow, apparently in
lazy enjoyment of the time and place and without one care in the world
he found so pleasant.
For a while his mind seemed to be absolutely blank; voices were voices
only; he saw lights, and figures moving through a void. Then reality
took shape sharply; and his pulses began again hammering out the
irregular measure of suspense, though what it was that he was awaiting,
what expecting, Heaven alone knew.
And after a while he found himself in the ballroom.
The younger set was arriving; he recognised several youthful people,
friends of Eileen Erroll; and taking his bearings among these bright,
fresh faces--amid this animated throng, constantly increased by the
arrival of others, he started to find his hostess, now lost to sight in
the breezy circle of silk and lace setting in from the stairs.
He heard names announced which meant nothing to him, which stirred no
memory; names which sounded vaguely familiar; names which caused him to
turn quickly--but seldom were the faces as familiar as the names.
He said to a girl, behind whose chair he was standing: "All the younger
brothers and sisters are coming here to confound me; I hear a Miss Innis
announced, but it turns out to be her younger sister--"
"By the way, do you know my name?" she asked.
"No," he said frankly, "do you know mine?"
"Of course, I do; I listened breathlessly when somebody presented you
wholesale at your sister's the other day. I'm Rosamund Fane. You might
as well be instructed because you're to take me in at the Orchils' next
Thursday night, I believe."
"Rosamund Fane," he repeated coolly. "I wonder how we've avoided each
other so consistently this winter? I never before had a good view of
you, though I heard you talking to young Innis at dinner. And yet," he
added, smiling, "if I had been instructed to look around and select
somebody named Rosamund, I certainly should have decided on you."
"A compliment?" she asked, raising her delicate eyebrows.
"Ask yourself," he said.
"I do; and I get snubbed."
And, smiling still, he said: "Do you know the most mischievous air that
Schubert ever worried us with?"
"'Rosamund,'" she said; "and--thank you, Captain Selwyn." She had
coloured to the hair.
"'Rosamund,'" he nodded carelessly--"the most mischievous of melodies--"
He stopped short, then coolly resumed: "That mischievous quality is
largely a matter of accident, I fancy. Schubert never meant that
'Rosamund' should interfere with anybody's business."
"And--when did you first encounter the malice in 'Rosamund,' Captain
Selwyn?" she asked with perfect self-possession.
He did not answer immediately; his smile had died out. Then: "The first
time I really understood 'Rosamund' was when I heard Rosamund during a
very delightful dinner."
She said: "If a woman keeps at a man long enough she'll extract
compliments or yawns." And looking up at a chinless young man who had
halted near her: "George, Captain Selwyn has acquired such a charmingly
Oriental fluency during his residence in the East that I thought--if you
ever desired to travel again--" She shrugged, and, glancing at Selwyn:
"Have you met my husband? Oh, of course."
They exchanged a commonplace or two, then other people separated them
without resistance on their part. And Selwyn found himself drifting,
mildly interested in the vapid exchange of civilities which cost nobody
a mental effort.
His sister, he had once thought, was certainly the most delightfully
youthful matron in New York. But now he made an exception of Mrs. Fane;
Rosamund Fane was much younger--must have been younger, for she still
had something of that volatile freshness--that vague atmosphere of
immaturity clinging to her like a perfume almost too delicate to detect.
And under that the most profound capacity for mischief he had ever known
of. Sauntering amiably amid the glittering groups continually forming
and disintegrating under the clustered lights, he finally succeeded in
reaching his hostess.
And Mrs. T. West Minster disengaged herself from the throng with
intention as he approached.
No--and he was so sorry; and it was very amiable of his hostess to want
him, but he was not remaining for the dance.
So much for the hostess, who stood there massive and gem-laden, her
kindly and painted features tinted now with genuine emotion.
"_Je m'accuse, mon fils_!--but you acted like a perfect dear," she said.
"_Mea culpa, mea culpa_; and _can_ you forgive a very much mortified old
lady who is really and truly fond of you?"
He laughed, holding her fat, ringed hands in both of his with all the
attractive deference that explained his popularity. Rising excitement
had sent the colour into his face and cleared his pleasant gray eyes;
and he looked very young and handsome, his broad shoulders bent a trifle
before the enamelled and bejewelled matron.
"Forgive you?" he repeated with a laugh of protest; "on the contrary, I
thank you. Mrs. Ruthven is one of the most charming women I know, if
that is what you mean?"
Looking after him as he made his way toward the cloak room: "The boy is
thoroughbred," she reflected cynically; "and the only amusement anybody
can get out of it will be at my expense! Rosamund is a perfect cat!"
* * * * *
He had sent for his cab, which, no doubt, was in line somewhere, wedged
among the ranks of carriages stretching east and west along the snowy
street; and he stood on the thick crimson carpet under the awning while
it was being summoned. A few people like himself were not staying for
the dance; others who had dined by prearrangement with other hostesses,
had now begun to arrive, and the confusion grew as coach and brougham
and motor came swaying up through the falling snow to deposit their
jewelled cargoes of silks and laces under the vast awning picketed by
policemen and lined with fur-swathed grooms and spindle-legged
chauffeurs in coats of pony-skin.
The Cornelius Suydams, emerging from the house, offered Selwyn tonneau
room, but he smilingly declined, having a mind for solitude and the
Lenox Club. A phalanx of débutantes, opera bound, also left. Then the
tide set heavily the other way, and there seemed no end to the line of
arriving vehicles and guests, until he heard a name pronounced; a
policeman warned back an approaching Fiat; and Selwyn saw Mrs. Ruthven,
enveloped in white furs, step from the portal.
She saw him as he moved back, nodded, passed directly to her brougham,
and set foot on the step. Pausing here, she looked about her, right and
left, then over her shoulder straight back at Selwyn; and as she stood
in silence evidently awaiting him, it became impossible for him any
longer to misunderstand without a public affront to her.
When he started toward her she spoke to her maid, and the latter moved
aside with a word to the groom in waiting.
"My maid will dismiss your carriage," she said pleasantly when he halted
beside her. "There is one thing more which I must say to you."
Was this what he had expected hazard might bring to him?--was this the
prophecy of his hammering pulses?
"Please hurry before people come out," she added, and entered the
brougham.
"I can't do this," he muttered.
"I've sent away my maid," she said. "Nobody has noticed; those are
servants out there. Will you please come before anybody arriving or
departing does notice?"
And, as he did not move: "Are you going to make me conspicuous by this
humiliation before servants?"
He said something between his set teeth and entered the brougham.
"Do you know what you've done?" he demanded harshly.
"Yes; nothing yet. But you would have done enough to stir this borough
if you had delayed another second."
"Your maid saw--"
"My maid is _my_ maid."
He leaned back in his corner, gray eyes narrowing.
"Naturally," he said, "you are the one to be considered, not the man in
the case."
"Thank you. _Are_ you the man in the case?"
"There is no case," he said coolly.
"Then why worry about me?"
He folded his arms, sullenly at bay; yet had no premonition of what to
expect from her.
"You were very brutal to me," she said at length.
"I know it; and I did not intend to be. The words came."
"You had me at your mercy; and showed me little--a very little at first.
Afterward, none."
"The words came," he repeated; "I'm sick with self-contempt, I tell
you."
She set her white-gloved elbow on the window sill and rested her chin in
her palm.
"That--money," she said with an effort. "You set--some--aside for me."
"Half," he nodded calmly.
"Why?"
He was silent.
"_Why_? I did not ask for it? There was nothing in the--the legal
proceedings to lead you to believe that I desired it; was there?"
"No."
"Well, then," her breath came unsteadily, "what was there in _me_ to
make you think I would accept it?"
He did not reply.
"Answer me. This is the time to answer me."
"The answer is simple enough," he said in a low voice. "Together we had
made a failure of partnership. When that partnership was dissolved,
there remained the joint capital to be divided. And I divided it. Why
not?"
"That capital was yours in the beginning; not mine. What I had of my own
you never controlled; and I took it with me when I went."
"It was very little," he said.
"What of that? Did that concern you? Did you think I would have accepted
anything from you? A thousand times I have been on the point of
notifying you through attorney that the deposit now standing in my name
is at your disposal."
"Why didn't you notify me then?" he asked, reddening to the temples.
"Because--I did not wish to hurt you--by doing it that way. . . . And I
had not the courage to say it kindly over my own signature. That is why,
Captain Selwyn."
And, as he remained silent: "That is what I had to say; not
all--because--I wish to--to thank you for offering it. . . . You did not
have very much, either; and you divided what you had. So I thank
you--and I return it.". . . The tension forced her to attempt a laugh.
"So we stand once more on equal terms; unless you have anything of mine
to return--"
"I have your photograph," he said.
The silence lasted until he straightened up and, rubbing the fog from
the window glass, looked out.
"We are in the Park," he remarked, turning toward her.
"Yes; I did not know how long it might take to explain matters. You are
free of me now whenever you wish."
He picked up the telephone, hesitated: "Home?" he inquired with an
effort. And at the forgotten word they looked at one another in stricken
silence.
"Y-yes; to _your_ home first, if you will let me drop you there--"
"Thank you; that might be imprudent."
"No, I think not. You say you are living at the Gerards?"
"Yes, temporarily. But I've already taken another place."
"Where?"
"Oh, it's only a bachelor's kennel--a couple of rooms--"
"Where, please?"
"Near Lexington and Sixty-sixth. I could go there; it's only partly
furnished yet--"
"Then tell Hudson to drive there."
"Thank you, but it is not necessary--"
"Please let me; tell Hudson, or I will."
"You are very kind," he said; and gave the order.
Silence grew between them like a wall. She lay back in her corner,
swathed to the eyes in her white furs; he in his corner sat upright,
arms loosely folded, staring ahead at nothing. After a while he rubbed
the moisture from the pane again.
"Still in the Park! He must have driven us nearly to Harlem Mere. It
_is_ the Mere! See the café lights yonder. It all looks rather gay
through the snow."
"Very gay," she said, without moving. And, a moment later: "Will you
tell me something? . . . You see"--with a forced laugh--"I can't keep my
mind--from it."
"From what?" he asked.
"The--tragedy; ours."
"It has ceased to be that; hasn't it?"
"Has it? You said--you said that w-what I did to you was n-not as
terrible as what I d-did to myself."
"That is true," he admitted grimly.
"Well, then, may I ask my question?"
"Ask it, child."
"Then--are you happy?"
He did not answer.
"--Because I desire it, Philip. I want you to be. You will be, won't
you? I did not dream that I was ruining your army career when I--went
mad--"
"How did it happen, Alixe?" he asked, with a cold curiosity that chilled
her. "How did it come about?--wretched as we seemed to be
together--unhappy, incapable of understanding each other--"
"Phil! There _were_ days--"
He raised his eyes.
"You speak only of the unhappy ones," she said; "but there were
moments--"
"Yes; I know it. And so I ask you, _why_?"
"Phil, I don't know. There was that last bitter quarrel--the night you
left for Leyte after the dance. . . . I--it all grew suddenly
intolerable. _You_ seemed so horribly unreal--everything seemed unreal
in that ghastly city--you, I, our marriage of crazy impulse--the people,
the sunlight, the deathly odours, the torturing, endless creak of the
punkha. . . . It was not a question of--of love, of anger, of hate. I
tell you I was stunned--I had no emotions concerning you or
myself--after that last scene--only a stupefied, blind necessity to get
away; a groping instinct to move toward home--to make my way home and be
rid for ever of the dream that drugged me! . . . And then--and then--"
"_He_ came," said Selwyn very quietly. "Go on."
But she had nothing more to say.
"Alixe!"
She shook her head, closing her eyes.
"Little girl!--oh, little girl!" he said softly, the old familiar phrase
finding its own way to his lips--and she trembled slightly; "was there
no other way but that? Had marriage made the world such a living hell
for you that there was no other way but _that_?"
"Phil, I helped to make it a hell."
"Yes--because I was pitiably inadequate to design anything better for
us. I didn't know how. I didn't understand. I, the architect of our
future--failed."
"It was worse than that, Phil; we"--she looked blindly at him--"we had
yet to learn what love might be. We did not know. . . . If we could have
waited--only waited!--perhaps--because there _were_ moments--" She
flushed crimson.
"I could not make you love me," he repeated; "I did not know how."
"Because you yourself had not learned how. But--at times--now looking
back to it--I think--I think we were very near to it--at moments. . . .
And then that dreadful dream closed down on us again. . . . And
then--the end."
"If you could have held out," he breathed; "if I could have helped! It
was I who failed you after all!"
For a long while they sat in silence; Mrs. Ruthven's white furs now
covered her face. At last the carriage stopped.
As he sprang to the curb he became aware of another vehicle standing in
front of the house--a cab--from which Mrs. Ruthven's maid descended.
"What is she doing here?" he asked, turning in astonishment to Mrs.
Ruthven.
"Phil," she said in a low voice, "I knew you had taken this place.
Gerald told me. Forgive me--but when I saw you under the awning it came
to me in a flash what to do. And I've done it. . . . Are you sorry?"
"No. . . . Did Gerald tell you that I had taken this place?"
"Yes; I asked him."
Selwyn looked at her gravely; and she looked him very steadily in the
eyes.
"Before I go--may I say one more word?" he asked gently.
"Yes--if you please. Is it about Gerald?"
"Yes. Don't let him gamble. . . . You saw the signature on that check?"
"Yes, Phil."
"Then you understand. Don't let him do it again."
"No. And--Phil?"
"What?"
"That check is--is deposited to your credit--with the rest. I have never
dreamed of using it." Her cheeks were afire again, but with shame this
time.
"You will have to accept it, Alixe."
"I cannot."
"You must! Don't you see you will affront Gerald? He has repaid me; that
check is not mine, nor is it his."
"I can't take it," she said with a shudder. "What shall I do with it?"
"There are ways--hospitals, if you care to. . . . Good-night, child."
She stretched out her gloved arm to him; he took her hand very gently
and retained it while he spoke.
"I wish you happiness," he said; "I ask your forgiveness."
"Give me mine, then."
"Yes--if there is anything to forgive. Good-night."
"Good-night--boy," she gasped.
He turned sharply, quivering under the familiar name. Her maid, standing
in the snow, moved forward, and he motioned her to enter the brougham.
"Home," he said unsteadily; and stood there very still for a minute or
two, even after the carriage had whirled away into the storm. Then,
looking up at the house, he felt for his keys; but a sudden horror of
being alone arrested him, and he stepped back, calling out to his
cabman, who was already turning his horse's head, "Wait a moment; I
think I'll drive back to Mrs. Gerard's. . . . And take your time."
* * * * *
It was still early--lacking a quarter of an hour to midnight--when he
arrived. Nina had retired, but Austin sat in the library, obstinately
plodding through the last chapters of a brand-new novel.
"This is a wretched excuse for sitting up," he yawned, laying the book
flat on the table, but still open. "I ought never to be trusted alone
with any book." Then he removed his reading glasses, yawned again, and
surveyed Selwyn from head to foot.
"Very pretty," he said. "Well, how are the yellow ones, Phil? Or was it
all débutante and slop-twaddle?"
"Few from the cradle, but bunches were arriving for the dance as I
left."
"Eileen went at half-past eleven."
"I didn't know she was going," said Selwyn, surprised.
"She didn't want you to. The Playful Kitten business, you know--frisks
apropos of nothing to frisk about. But we all fancied you'd stay for the
dance." He yawned mightily, and gazed at Selwyn with ruddy gravity.
"Whisk?" he inquired.
"No."
"Cigar?"--mildly urgent.
"No, thanks."
"Bed?"
"I think so. But don't wait for me, Austin. . . . Is that the evening
paper? Where is St. Paul?"
Austin passed it across the table and sat for a moment, alternately
yawning and skimming the last chapter of his novel.
"Stuff and rubbish, mush and piffle!" he muttered, closing the book and
pushing it from him across the table; "love, as usual, grossly out of
proportion to the ensemble. That theory of the earth's rotation, you
know; all these absurd books are built on it. Why do men read 'em? They
grin when they do it! Love is only the sixth sense--just one-sixth of a
man's existence. The other five-sixths of his time he's using his other
senses working for a living."
Selwyn looked up over his newspaper, then lowered and folded it.
"In these novels," continued Gerard, irritably, "five-sixths of the
pages are devoted to love; everything else is subordinated to it; it
controls all motives, it initiates all action, it drugs reason, it
prolongs the tuppenny suspense, sustains cheap situations, and produces
agonisingly profitable climaxes for the authors. . . . Does it act that
way in real life?"
"Not usually," said Selwyn.
"Nobody else thinks so, either. Why doesn't somebody tell the truth? Why
doesn't somebody tell us how a man sees a nice girl and gradually begins
to tag after her when business hours are over? A respectable man is busy
from eight or nine until five or six. In the evening he's usually at the
club, or dining out, or asleep; isn't he? Well, then, how much time
does it leave for love? Do the problem yourself in any way you wish; the
result is a fraction every time; and that fraction represents the proper
importance of the love interest in its proper ratio to a man's entire
life."
He sat up, greatly pleased with himself at having reduced sentiment to a
fixed proportion in the ingredients of life.
"If I had time," he said, "I could tell them how to write a book--" He
paused, musing, while the confident smile spread. Selwyn stared at
space.
"What does a young man know about love, anyway?" demanded his
brother-in-law.
"Nothing," replied Selwyn listlessly.
"Of course not. Look at Gerald. He sits on the stairs with a pink and
white ninny; and at the next party he does it with another. That's
wholesome and natural; and that's the way things really are. Look at
Eileen. Do you suppose she has the slightest suspicion of what love is?"
"Naturally not," said Selwyn.
"Correct. Only a fool novelist would attribute the deeper emotions to a
child like that. What does she know about anything? Love isn't a mere
emotion, either--that is all fol-de-rol and fizzle!--it's the false
basis of modern romance. Love is reason--not a nervous phenomenon. Love
is a sane passion, founded on a basic knowledge of good and evil. That's
what love is; the rest!"--he lifted the book, waved it contemptuously,
and pushed it farther away--"the rest is neuritis; the remedy a pill.
I'm going to bed; are you?"
But Selwyn had lighted a cigar, and was again unfolding his evening
paper; so his brother-in-law moved ponderously away, yawning frightfully
at every heavy stride, and the younger man settled back in his chair, a
fragrant cigar balanced between his strong, slim fingers, one leg
dropped loosely over the other. After a while the newspaper fell to the
floor.
He sat there without moving for a long time; his cigar, burning close,
had gone out. The reading-lamp spread a circle of soft light over the
floor; on the edge of it lay Kit-Ki, placid, staring at him. After a
while he noticed her. "You?" he said absently; "you hid so they couldn't
put you out."
At the sound of his voice she began to purr.
"Oh, it's all very well," he nodded; "but it's against the law.
However," he added, "I'm rather tired of rules and regulations myself.
Besides, the world outside is very cold to-night. Purr away, old lady;
I'm going to bed."
But he did not stir.
A little later, the fire having burned low, he rose, laid a pair of
heavy logs across the coals, dragged his chair to the hearth, and
settled down in it deeply. Then he lifted the cat to his knees. Kit-Ki
sang blissfully, spreading and relaxing her claws at intervals as she
gazed at the mounting blaze.
"I'm going to bed, Kit-Ki," he repeated absently, "because that's a
pretty good place for me . . . far better than sitting up here with
you--and conscience."
But he only lay back deeper in the velvet chair and lighted another
cigar.
"Kit-Ki," he said, "the words men utter count in the reckoning; but not
as heavily as the words men leave unuttered; and what a man does scores
deeply; but--alas for the scars of the deeds he has left undone."
The logs were now wrapped in flame, and their low mellow roaring
mingled to a monotone with the droning of the cat on his knees.
Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze.
When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids
fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he
opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on
the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, and her pretty little
Alsatian maid beside her, laying a log across the andirons.
"Upon my word!" he murmured, confused; then rising quickly, "Is that
you, Miss Erroll? What time is it?"
"Four o'clock in the morning, Captain Selwyn," she said, straightening
up to her full height. "This room is icy; are you frozen?"
Chilled through, he stood looking about in a dazed way, incredulous of
the hour and of his own slumber.
"I was conversing with Kit-Ki a moment ago," he protested, in such a
tone of deep reproach that Eileen laughed while her maid relieved her of
furs and scarf.
"Susanne, just unhook those two that I can't manage; light the fire in
my bedroom; _et merci bien, ma petite!_"
The little maid vanished; Kit-Ki, who had been unceremoniously spilled
from Selwyn's knees, sat yawning, then rose and walked noiselessly to
the hearth.
"I don't know how I happened to do it," he muttered, still abashed by
his plight.
"We rekindled the fire for your benefit," she said; "you had better use
it before you retire." And she seated herself in the arm-chair,
stretching out her ungloved hands to the blaze--smooth, innocent hands,
so soft, so amazingly fresh and white.
He moved a step forward into the warmth, stood a moment, then reached
forward for a chair and drew it up beside hers.
"Do you mean to say you are not sleepy?" he asked.
"I? No, not in the least. I will be to-morrow, though."
"Did you have a good time?"
"Yes--rather."
"Wasn't it gay?"
"Gay? Oh, very."
Her replies were unusually short--almost preoccupied. She was generally
more communicative.
"You danced a lot, I dare say," he ventured.
"Yes--a lot," studying the floor.
"Decent partners?"
"Oh, yes."
"Who was there?"
She looked up at him. "_You_ were not there," she said, smiling.
"No; I cut it. But I did not know you were going; you said nothing about
it."
"Of course, you would have stayed if you had known, Captain Selwyn?" She
was still smiling.
"Of course," he replied.
"Would you really?"
"Why, yes."
There was something not perfectly familiar to him in the girl's bright
brevity, in her direct personal inquiry; for between them, hitherto, the
gaily impersonal had ruled except in moments of lightest badinage.
"Was it an amusing dinner?" she asked, in her turn.
"Rather." Then he looked up at her, but she had stretched her slim
silk-shod feet to the fender, and her head was bent aside, so that he
could see only the curve of the cheek and the little close-set ear
under its ruddy mass of gold.
"Who was there?" she asked, too, carelessly.
For a moment he did not speak; under his bronzed cheek the flat muscles
stirred. Had some meddling, malicious fool ventured to whisper an unfit
jest to this young girl? Had a word--or a smile and a phrase cut in
two--awakened her to a sorry wisdom at his expense? Something had
happened; and the idea stirred him to wrath--as when a child is wantonly
frightened or a dumb creature misused.
"What did you ask me?" he inquired gently.
"I asked you who was there, Captain Selwyn."
He recalled some names, and laughingly mentioned his dinner partner's
preference for Harmon. She listened absently, her chin nestling in her
palm, only the close-set, perfect ear turned toward him.
"Who led the cotillion?" he asked.
"Jack Ruthven--dancing with Rosamund Fane."
She drew her feet from the fender and crossed them, still turned away
from him; and so they remained in silence until again she shifted her
position, almost impatiently.
"You are very tired," he said.
"No; wide awake."
"Don't you think it best for you to go to bed?"
"No. But you may go."
And, as he did not stir: "I mean that you are not to sit here because I
do." And she looked around at him.
"What has gone wrong, Eileen?" he said quietly.
He had never before used her given name, and she flushed up.
"There is nothing the matter, Captain Selwyn. Why do you ask?"
"Yes, there is," he said.
"There is not, I tell you--"
"--And, if it is something you cannot understand," he continued
pleasantly, "perhaps it might be well to ask Nina to explain it to you."
"There is nothing to explain."
"--Because," he went on, very gently, "one is sometimes led by malicious
suggestion to draw false and unpleasant inferences from harmless
facts--"
"Captain Selwyn--"
"Yes, Eileen."
But she could not go on; speech and thought itself remained sealed; only
a confused consciousness of being hurt remained--somehow to be remedied
by something he might say--might deny. Yet how could it help her for him
to deny what she herself refused to believe?--refused through sheer
instinct while ignorant of its meaning.
Even if he had done what she heard Rosamund Fane say he had done, it had
remained meaningless to her save for the manner of the telling. But
now--but now! Why had they laughed--why had their attitudes and manner
and the disconnected phrases in French left her flushed and rigid among
the idle group at supper? Why had they suddenly seemed to remember her
presence--and express their abrupt consciousness of it in such furtive
signals and silence?
It was false, anyway--whatever it meant. And, anyway, it was false that
he had driven away in Mrs. Ruthven's brougham. But, oh, if he had only
stayed--if he had only remained!--this friend of hers who had been so
nice to her from the moment he came into her life--so generous, so
considerate, so lovely to her--and to Gerald!
For a moment the glow remained, then a chill doubt crept in; would he
have remained had he known she was to be there? _Where_ did he go after
the dinner? As for what they said, it was absurd. And yet--and yet--
He sat, savagely intent upon the waning fire; she turned restlessly
again, elbows close together on her knees, face framed in her hands.
"You ask me if I am tired," she said. "I am--of the froth of life."
His face changed instantly. "What?" he exclaimed, laughing.
But she, very young and seriously intent, was now wrestling with the
mighty platitudes of youth. First of all she desired to know what
meaning life held for humanity. Then she expressed a doubt as to the
necessity for human happiness; duty being her discovery as sufficient
substitute.
But he heard in her childish babble the minor murmur of an undercurrent
quickening for the first time; and he listened patiently and answered
gravely, touched by her irremediable loneliness.
For Nina must remain but a substitute at best; what was wanting must
remain wanting; and race and blood must interpret for itself the subtler
and unasked questions of an innocence slowly awaking to a wisdom which
makes us all less wise.
So when she said that she was tired of gaiety, that she would like to
study, he said that he would take up anything she chose with her. And
when she spoke vaguely of a life devoted to good works--of the wiser
charity, of being morally equipped to aid those who required material
aid, he was very serious, but ventured to suggest that she dance her
first season through as a sort of flesh-mortifying penance preliminary
to her spiritual novitiate.
"Yes," she admitted thoughtfully; "you are right. Nina would feel
dreadfully if I did not go on--or if she imagined I cared so little for
it all. But one season is enough to waste. Don't you think so?"
"Quite enough," he assured her.
"--And--why should I ever marry?" she demanded, lifting her clear, sweet
eyes to his.
"Why indeed?" he repeated with conviction. "I can see no reason."
"I am glad you understand me," she said. "I am not a marrying woman."
"Not at all," he assured her.
"No, I am not; and Nina--the darling--doesn't understand. Why, what do
you suppose!--but _would_ it be a breach of confidence to anybody if I
told you?"
"I doubt it," he said; "what is it you have to tell me?"
"Only--it's very, very silly--only several men--and one nice enough to
know better--Sudbury Gray--"
"Asked you to marry them?" he finished, nodding his head at the cat.
"Yes," she admitted, frankly astonished; "but how did you know?"
"Inferred it. Go on."
"There is nothing more," she said, without embarrassment. "I told Nina
each time; but she confused me by asking for details; and the details
were too foolish and too annoying to repeat. . . . I do not wish to
marry anybody. I think I made that very plain to--everybody."
"Right as usual," he said cheerfully; "you are too intelligent to
consider that sort of thing just now."
"You _do_ understand me, don't you?" she said gratefully. "There are so
many serious things in life to learn and to think of, and that is the
very last thing I should ever consider. . . . I am very, very glad I had
this talk with you. Now I am rested and I shall retire for a good long
sleep."
With which paradox she stood up, stifling a tiny yawn, and looked
smilingly at him, all the old sweet confidence in her eyes. Then,
suddenly mocking:
"Who suggested that you call me by my first name?" she asked.
"Some good angel or other. May I?"
"If you please; I rather like it. But I couldn't very well call you
anything except 'Captain Selwyn.'"
"On account of my age?"
"Your _age_!"--contemptuous in her confident equality.
"Oh, my wisdom, then? You probably reverence me too deeply."
"Probably not. I don't know; I couldn't do it--somehow--"
"Try it--unless you're afraid."
"I'm not afraid!"
"Yes, you are, if you don't take a dare."
"You dare me?"
"I do."
"Philip," she said, hesitating, adorable in her embarrassment. "No! No!
No! I can't do it that way in cold blood. It's got to be 'Captain
Selwyn'. . . for a while, anyway. . . . Good-night."
He took her outstretched hand, laughing; the usual little friendly shake
followed; then she turned gaily away, leaving him standing before the
whitening ashes.
He thought the fire was dead; but when he turned out the lamp an hour
later, under the ashes embers glowed in the darkness of the winter
morning.