AFTERGLOW
"Phil," she wrote, "I am a little frightened. Do you suppose Boots
suspected who it was? I must have been perfectly mad to go to your rooms
that night; and we both were--to leave the door unlocked with the chance
of somebody walking in. But, Phil, how could I know it was the fashion
for your friends to bang like that and then come in without the excuse
of a response from you?
"I have been so worried, so anxious, hoping from day to day that you
would write to reassure me that Boots did not recognise me with my back
turned to him and my muff across my eyes.
"But scared and humiliated as I am I realise that it was well that he
knocked. Even as I write to you here in my own room, behind locked
doors, I am burning with the shame of it.
"But I am _not_ that kind of woman, Phil; truly, truly, I am not. When
the foolish impulse seized me I had no clear idea of what I wanted
except to see you and learn for myself what you thought about Gerald's
playing at my house after I had promised not to let him.
"Of course, I understood what I risked in going; I realised what common
interpretation might be put upon what I was doing. But ugly as it might
appear to anybody except you, my motive, you see, must have been quite
innocent--else I should have gone about it in a very different manner.
"I wanted to see you, that is absolutely all; I was lonely for a
word--even a harsh one--from the sort of man you are. I wanted you to
believe it was in spite of me that Gerald came and played that night.
"He came without my knowledge. I did not know he was invited. And when
he appeared I did everything to prevent him from playing; _you_ will
never know what took place--what I submitted to--
"I am trying to be truthful, Phil; I want to lay my heart bare for
you--but there are things a woman cannot wholly confess. Believe me, I
did what I could. . . . And _that_ is all I can say. Oh, I know what it
costs you to be mixed up in such contemptible complications. I, for my
part, can scarcely bear to have you know so much about me--and what I am
come to. That is my real punishment, Phil--not what you said it was.
"I do not think it is well for me that you know so much about me. It is
not too difficult to face the outer world with a bold front--or to
deceive any man in it. But our own little world is being rapidly
undeceived; and now the only real man remaining in it has seen my gay
mask stripped off--which is not well for a woman, Phil.
"I remember what you said about an anchorage; I am trying to clear these
haunted eyes of mine and steer clear of phantoms--for the honour of what
we once were to each other before the world. But steering a ghost-ship
through endless tempests is hard labour, Phil; so be a little kind--a
little more than patient, if my hand grows tired at the wheel.
"And now--with all these madly inked pages scattered across my desk, I
draw toward me another sheet--the last I have still unstained; to ask at
last the question which I have shrunk from through all these pages--and
for which these pages alone were written:
"_What_ do you think of me? Asking you, shows how much I care;
dread of your opinion has turned me coward until this last page.
_What_ do you think of me? I am perfectly miserable about Boots,
but that is partly fright--though I know I am safe enough with such
a man. But what sets my cheeks blazing so that I cannot bear to
face my own eyes in the mirror, is the fear of what _you_ must
think of me in the still, secret places of that heart of yours,
which I never, never understood. ALIXE."
It was a week before he sent his reply--although he wrote many answers,
each in turn revised, corrected, copied, and recopied, only to be
destroyed in the end. But at last he forced himself to meet truth with
truth, cutting what crudity he could from his letter:
"You ask me what I think of you; but that question should properly
come from me. What do _you_ think of a man who exhorts and warns a
woman to stand fast, and then stands dumb at the first impact of
temptation?
"A sight for gods and men--that man! Is there any use for me to
stammer out trite phrases of self-contempt? The fact remains that I
am unfit to advise, criticise, or condemn anybody for anything; and
it's high time I realised it.
"If words of commendation, of courage, of kindly counsel, are
needed by anybody in this world, I am not the man to utter them.
What a hypocrite must I seem to you! I who sat there beside you
preaching platitudes in strong self-complacency, instructing you
how morally edifying it is to be good and unhappy.
"Then, what happened? I don't know exactly; but I'm trying to be
honest, and I'll tell you what I think happened:
"You are--you; I am--I; and we are still those same two people who
understood neither the impulse that once swept us together, nor the
forces that tore us apart--ah, more than that! we never understood
each other! And we do not now.
"That is what happened. We were too near together again; the same
spark leaped, the same blindness struck us, the same impulse swayed
us--call it what we will!--and it quickened out of chaos, grew from
nothing into unreasoning existence. It was the terrific menace of
emotion, stunning us both--simply because you are you and I am I.
And that is what happened.
"We cannot deny it; we may not have believed it possible--or in
fact considered it at all. I did not; I am sure you did not. Yet it
occurred, and we cannot deny it, and we can no more explain or
understand it than we can understand each other.
"But one thing we do know--not through reason but through sheer
instinct: We cannot venture to meet again--that way. For I, it
seems, am a man like other men except that I lack character; and
you are--_you_! still unchanged--with all the mystery of
attraction, all the magic force of vitality, all the esoteric
subtlety with which you enveloped me the first moment my eyes met
yours.
"There was no more reason for it then than there is now; and, as
you admit, it was not love--though, as you also admit, there were
moments approaching it. But nothing can have real being without a
basis of reason; and so, whatever it was, it vanished. This,
perhaps, is only the infernal afterglow.
"As for me, I am, as you are, all at sea, self-confidence gone,
self-faith lost--a very humble person, without conceit, dazed,
perplexed, but still attempting to steer through toward that safe
anchorage which I dared lately to recommend to you.
"And it is really there, Alixe, despite the fool who recites his
creed so tritely.
"All this in attempt to bring order into my own mental confusion;
and the result is that I have formulated nothing.
"So now I end where I began with that question which answers yours
without the faintest suspicion of reproach: What can you think of
such a man as I am? And in the presence of my _second_ failure your
answer must be that you now think what you once thought of him when
you first realised that he had failed you, PHILIP SELWYN."
That very night brought him her reply:
"Phil, dear, I do not blame you for one instant. Why do you say you
ever failed in anything? It was entirely my fault. But I am so
happy that you wrote as you did, taking all the blame, which is
like you. I can look into my mirror now--for a moment or two.
"It is brave of you to be so frank about what you think came over
us. I can discuss nothing, admit nothing; but you always did reason
more clearly than I. Still, whatever spell it was that menaced us I
know very well could not have threatened you seriously; I know it
because you reason about it so logically. So it could have been
nothing serious. Love alone is serious; and it sometimes comes
slowly, sometimes goes slowly; but if you desire it to come
quickly, close your eves! And if you wish it to vanish, _reason
about it_!
"We are on very safe ground again, Phil; you see we are making
little epigrams about love.
"Rosamund is impatient--it's a symphony concert, and I must go--the
horrid little cynic!--I half believe she suspects that I'm writing
to you and tearing off yards of sentiment. It is likely I'd do
that, isn't it!--but I don't care what she thinks. Besides, it
behooves her to be agreeable, and she knows that I know it does!
_Voilà_!
"By the way, I saw Mrs. Gerard's pretty ward at the theatre last
night--Miss Erroll. She certainly is stunning--"
Selwyn flattened out the letter and deliberately tore out the last
paragraph. Then he set it afire with a match.
"At least," he said with an ugly look, "I can keep _her_ out of this";
and he dropped the brittle blackened paper and set his heel on it. Then
he resumed his perusal of the mutilated letter, reread it, and finally
destroyed it.
"Alixe," he wrote in reply, "we had better stop this letter-writing
before somebody stops us. Anybody desiring to make mischief might
very easily misinterpret what we are doing. I, of course, could not
close the correspondence, so I ask you to do so without any fear
that you will fail to understand why I ask it. Will you?"
To which she replied:
"Yes, Phil. Good-bye.
"ALIXE."
A box of roses left her his debtor; she was too intelligent to
acknowledge them. Besides, matters were going better with her.
And that was all for a while.
Meanwhile Lent had gone, and with it the last soiled snow of winter. It
was an unusually early spring; tulips in Union Square appeared
coincident with crocus and snow-drop; high above the city's haze
wavering wedges of wild-fowl drifted toward the Canadas; a golden
perfumed bloom clotted the naked branches of the park shrubs; Japanese
quince burst into crimson splendour; tender chestnut leaves unfolded;
the willows along the Fifty-ninth Street wall waved banners of gilded
green; and through the sunshine battered butterflies floated, and the
wild bees reappeared, scrambling frantically, powdered to the thighs in
the pollen of a million dandelions.
"Spring, with that nameless fragrance in the air
Which breathes of all things fair,"
sang a young girl riding in the Park. And she smiled to herself as she
guided her mare through the flowering labyrinths. Other notes of the
Southern poet's haunting song stole soundless from her lips; for it was
only her heart that was singing there in the sun, while her silent,
smiling mouth mocked the rushing melody of the birds.
Behind her, powerfully mounted, ambled the belted groom; she was riding
alone in the golden weather because her good friend Selwyn was very busy
in his office downtown, and Gerald, who now rode with her occasionally,
was downtown also, and there remained nobody else to ride with. Also the
horses were to be sent to Silverside soon, and she wanted to use them as
much as possible while the Park was at its loveliest.
She, therefore, galloped conscientiously every morning, sometimes with
Nina, but usually alone. And every afternoon she and Nina drove there,
drinking the freshness of the young year--the most beautiful year of her
life, she told herself, in all the exquisite maturity of her
adolescence.
So she rode on, straight before her, head high, the sun striking face
and firm, white throat; and in her heart laughed spring eternal, whose
voiceless melody parted her lips.
Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their
perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers
of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she
saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers
flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.
From rock and bridge and mouldy archway tender tendrils of living green
fluttered, brushing her cheeks. Beneath the thickets the under-wood
world was very busy, where squirrels squatted or prowled and cunning
fox-sparrows avoided the starlings and blackbirds; and the big
cinnamon-tinted, speckle-breasted thrashers scuffled among last year's
leaves or, balanced on some leafy spray, carolled ecstatically of this
earthly paradise.
It was near Eighty-sixth Street that a girl, splendidly mounted, saluted
her, and wheeling, joined her--a blond, cool-skinned, rosy-tinted,
smoothly groomed girl, almost too perfectly seated, almost too flawless
and supple in the perfect symmetry of face and figure.
"Upon my word," she said gaily, "you are certainly spring incarnate,
Miss Erroll--the living embodiment of all this!" She swung her
riding-crop in a circle and laughed, showing her perfect teeth. "But
where is that faithful attendant cavalier of yours this morning? Is he
so grossly material that he prefers Wall Street, as does my good lord
and master?"
"Do you mean Gerald?" asked Eileen innocently, "or Captain Selwyn?"
"Oh, either," returned Rosamund airily; "a girl should have something
masculine to talk to on a morning like this. Failing that she should
have some pleasant memories of indiscretions past and others to come,
D.V.; at least one little souvenir to repent--smilingly. Oh, la! Oh, me!
All these wretched birds a-courting and I bumping along on Dobbin,
lacking even my own Gilpin! Shall we gallop?"
Eileen nodded.
When at length they pulled up along the reservoir, Eileen's hair had
rebelled as usual and one bright strand eurled like a circle of ruddy
light across her cheek; but Rosamund drew bridle as immaculate as ever
and coolly inspected her companion.
"What gorgeous hair," she said, staring. "It's worth a coronet, you
know--if you ever desire one."
"I don't," said the girl, laughing and attempting to bring the insurgent
curl under discipline.
"I dare say you're right; coronets are out of vogue among us now. It's
the fashion to marry our own good people. By the way, you are
continuing to astonish the town, I hear."
"What do you mean, Mrs. Fane?"
"Why, first it was Sudbury, then Draymore, and how everybody says that
Boots--"
"Boots!" repeated Miss Erroll blankly, then laughed deliciously.
"Poor, poor Boots! Did they say _that_ about him? Oh, it really is too
bad, Mrs. Fane; it is certainly horridly impertinent of people to say
such things. My only consolation is that Boots won't care; and if he
doesn't, why should I?"
Rosamund nodded, crossing her crop.
"At first, though, I did care," continued the girl. "I was so ashamed
that people should gossip whenever a man was trying to be nice to me--"
"Pooh! It's always the men's own faults. Don't you suppose the martyr's
silence is noisier than a shriek of pain from the house-tops? I know--a
little about men," added Rosamund modestly, "and they invariably say to
themselves after a final rebuff: 'Now, I'll be patient and brave and
I'll bear with noble dignity this cataclysm which has knocked the world
galley-west for me and loosened the moon in its socket and spoiled the
symmetry of the sun.' And they go about being so conspicuously brave
that any débutante can tell what hurts them."
Eileen was still laughing, but not quite at her ease--the theme being
too personal to suit her. In fact, there usually seemed to be too much
personality in Rosamund's conversation--a certain artificial
indifference to convention, which she, Eileen, did not feel any desire
to disregard. For the elements of reticence and of delicacy were
inherent in her; the training of a young girl had formalised them into
rules. But since her début she had witnessed and heard so many
violations of convention that now she philosophically accepted such,
when they came from her elders, merely reserving her own convictions in
matters of personal taste and conduct.
For a while, as they rode, Rosamund was characteristically amusing,
sailing blandly over the shoals of scandal, though Eileen never
suspected it--wittily gay at her own expense, as well as at others,
flitting airily from topic to topic on the wings of a self-assurance
that becomes some women if they know when to stop. But presently the
mischievous perversity in her bubbled up again; she was tired of being
good; she had often meant to try the effect of a gentle shock on Miss
Erroll; and, besides, she wondered just how much truth there might be in
the unpleasantly persistent rumour of the girl's unannounced engagement
to Selwyn.
"It _would_ be amusing, wouldn't it?" she asked with guileless
frankness; "but, of course, it is not true--this report of their
reconciliation."
"Whose reconciliation?" asked Miss Erroll innocently.
"Why, Alixe Ruthven and Captain Selwyn. Everybody is discussing it, you
know."
"Reconciled? I don't understand," said Eileen, astonished. "They can't
be; how can--"
"But it _would_ be amusing, wouldn't it? and she could very easily get
rid of Jack Ruthven--any woman could. So if they really mean to
remarry--"
The girl stared, breathless, astounded, bolt upright in her saddle.
"Oh!" she protested, while the hot blood mantled throat and cheek, "it
is wickedly untrue. How could such a thing be true, Mrs. Fane! It is--is
so senseless--"
"That is what I say," nodded Rosamund; "it's so perfectly senseless that
it's amusing--even if they have become such amazingly good friends
again. _I_ never believed there was anything seriously sentimental in
the situation; and their renewed interest in each other is quite the
most frankly sensible way out of any awkwardness," she added cordially.
Miserably uncomfortable, utterly unable to comprehend, the girl rode on
in silence, her ears ringing with Rosamund's words. And Rosamund, riding
beside her, cool, blond, and cynically amused, continued the theme with
admirable pretence of indifference:
"It's a pity that ill-natured people are for ever discussing them; and
it makes me indignant, because I've always been very fond of Alixe
Ruthven, and I am positive that she does _not_ correspond with Captain
Selwyn. A girl in her position would be crazy to invite suspicion by
doing the things they say she is doing--"
"Don't, Mrs. Fane, please, don't!" stammered Eileen; "I--I really can't
listen. I simply will not!" Then bewildered, hurt, and blindly confused
as she was, the instinct to defend flashed up--though from what she was
defending him she did not realise: "It is utterly untrue!" she exclaimed
hotly--"all that yo--all that _they_ say!--whoever they are--whatever
they mean. I cannot understand it--I don't understand, and I will not!
Nor will _he_!" she added with a scornful conviction that disconcerted
Rosamund; "for if you knew him as I do, Mrs. Fane, you would never,
never have spoken as you have."
Mrs. Fane relished neither the naïve rebuke nor the intimation that her
own acquaintance with Selwyn was so limited; and least of all did she
relish the implied intimacy between this red-haired young girl and
Captain Selwyn.
"Dear Miss Erroll," she said blandly, "I spoke as I did only to assure
you that I, also, disregard such malicious gossip--"
"But if you disregard it, Mrs. Fane, why do you repeat it?"
"Merely to emphasise to you my disbelief in it, child," returned
Rosamund. "Do you understand?"
"Y-es; thank you. Yet, I should never have heard of it at all if you had
not told me."
Rosamund's colour rose one degree:
"It is better to hear such things from a friend, is it not?"
"I didn't know that one's friends said such things; but perhaps it is
better that way, as you say, only, I cannot understand the necessity of
my knowing--of my hearing--because it is Captain Selwyn's affair, after
all."
"And that," said Rosamund deliberately, "is why I told _you_."
"Told _me_? Oh--because he and I are such close friends?"
"Yes--such very close friends that I"--she laughed--"I am informed that
your interests are soon to be identical."
The girl swung round, self-possessed, but dreadfully pale.
"If you believed that," she said, "it was vile of you to say what you
said, Mrs. Fane."
"But I did _not_ believe it, child!" stammered Rosamund, several
degrees redder than became her, and now convinced that it was true. "I
n-never dreamed of offending you, Miss Erroll--"
"Do you suppose I am too ignorant to take offence?" said the girl
unsteadily. "I told you very plainly that I did not understand the
matters you chose for discussion; but I do understand impertinence when
I am driven to it."
"I am very, very sorry that you believe I meant it that way," said
Rosamund, biting her lips.
"What did you mean? You are older than I, you are certainly experienced;
besides, you are married. If you can give it a gentler name than
insolence I would be glad--for your sake, Mrs. Fane. I only know that
you have spoiled my ride, spoiled the day for me, hurt me, humiliated
me, and awakened, not curiosity, not suspicion, but the horror of it, in
me. You did it once before--at the Minsters' dance; not, perhaps, that
you deliberately meant to; but you did it. And your subject was then, as
it is now, Captain Selwyn--my friend--"
Her voice became unsteady again and her mouth curved; but she held her
head high and her eyes were as fearlessly direct as a child's.
"And now," she said calmly, "you know where I stand and what I will not
stand. Natural deference to an older woman, the natural self-distrust of
a girl in the presence of social experience--and under its protection as
she had a right to suppose--prevented me from checking you when your
conversation became distasteful. You, perhaps, mistook my reticence for
acquiescence; and you were mistaken. I am still quite willing to remain
on agreeable terms with you, if you wish, and to forget what you have
done to me this morning."
If Rosamund had anything left to say, or any breath to say it, there
were no indications of it. Never in her flippant existence had she been
so absolutely flattened by any woman. As for this recent graduate from
fudge and olives, she could scarcely realise how utterly and finally she
had been silenced by her. Incredulity, exasperation, amazement had
succeeded each other while Miss Erroll was speaking; chagrin, shame,
helplessness followed as bitter residue. But, in the end, the very
incongruity of the situation came to her aid; for Rosamund very easily
fell a prey to the absurd--even when the amusement was furnished at her
own expense; and a keen sense of the ridiculous had more than once saved
her dainty skirts from a rumpling that her modesty perhaps might have
forgiven.
"I'm certainly a little beast," she said impulsively, "but I really do
like you. Will you forgive?"
No genuine appeal to the young girl's generosity had ever been in vain;
she forgave almost as easily as she breathed. Even now in the flush of
just resentment it was not hard for her to forgive; she hesitated only
in order to adjust matters in her own mind.
Mrs. Fane swung her horse and held out her right hand:
"Is it _pax_, Miss Erroll? I'm really ashamed of myself. Won't you
forgive me?"
"Yes," said the young girl, laying her gloved hand on Rosamund's very
lightly; "I've often thought," she added naïvely, "that I could like
you, Mrs. Fane, if you would only give me a chance."
"I'll try--you blessed innocent! You've torn me into rags and tatters,
and you did it adorably. What I said was idle, half-witted, gossiping
nonsense. So forget every atom of it as soon as you can, my dear, and
let me prove that I'm not an utter idiot, if _I_ can."
"That will be delightful," said Eileen with a demure smile; and Rosamund
laughed, too, with full-hearted laughter; for trouble sat very lightly
on her perfect shoulders in the noontide of her strength and youth. Sin
and repentance were rapid matters with Rosamund; cause, effect, and
remorse a quick sequence to be quickly reckoned up, checked off, and
cancelled; and the next blank page turned over to be ruled and filled
with the next impeachment.
There was, in her, more of mischief than of real malice; and if she did
pinch people to see them wiggle it was partly because she supposed that
the pain would be as momentary as the pinch; for nothing lasted with
her, not even the wiggle. So why should the pain produced by a furtive
tweak interfere with the amusement she experienced in the victim's jump?
But what had often saved her from a social lynching was her ability to
laugh at her own discomfiture, and her unfeigned liking and respect for
the turning worm.
* * * * *
"And, my dear," she said, concluding the account of the adventure to
Mrs. Ruthven that afternoon at Sherry's, "I've never been so roundly
abused and so soundly trounced in my life as I was this blessed morning
by that red-headed novice! Oh, my! Oh, la! I could have screamed with
laughter at my own undoing."
"It's what you deserved," said Alixe, intensely annoyed, although
Rosamund had not told her all that she had so kindly and gratuitously
denied concerning her relations with Selwyn. "It was sheer effrontery of
you, Rosamund, to put such notions into the head of a child and stir
her up into taking a fictitious interest in Philip Selwyn which I
know--which is perfectly plain to m--to anybody never existed!"
"Of course it existed!" retorted Rosamund, delighted now to worry Alixe.
"She didn't know it; that is all. It really was simple charity to wake
her up. It's a good match, too, and so obviously and naturally
inevitable that there's no harm in playing prophetess. . . . Anyway,
what do _we_ care, dear? Unless you--"
"Rosamund!" said Mrs. Ruthven exasperated, "will you ever acquire the
elements of reticence? I don't know why people endure you; I don't,
indeed! And they won't much longer--"
"Yes, they will, dear; that's what society is for--a protective
association for the purpose of enduring impossible people. . . . I
wish," she added, "that it included husbands, because in some sets it's
getting to be one dreadful case of who's whose. Don't you think so?"
Alixe, externally calm but raging inwardly, sat pulling on her gloves,
heartily sorry she had lunched with Rosamund.
The latter, already gloved, had risen and was coolly surveying the room.
"_Tiens!_" she said, "there is the youthful brother of our red-haired
novice, now. He sees us and he's coming to inflict himself--with another
moon-faced creature. Shall we bolt?"
Alixe turned and stared at Gerald, who came up boyishly red and
impetuous:
"How d'ye do, Mrs. Ruthven; did you get my note? How d'ye do, Mrs. Fane;
awf'fly jolly to collide this way. Would you mind if--"
"You," interrupted Rosamund, "ought to be _down_town--unless you've
concluded to retire and let Wall Street go to smash. What are you
pretending to do in Sherry's at this hour, you very dreadful infant?"
"I've been lunching with Mr. Neergard--and _would_ you mind--"
"Yes, I would," began Rosamund, promptly, but Alixe interrupted: "Bring
him over, Gerald." And as the boy thanked her and turned back:
"I've a word to administer to that boy, Rosamund, so attack the Neergard
creature with moderation, please. You owe me _that_ at least."
"No, I don't!" said Rosamund, disgusted; "I _won't_ be afflicted with
a--"
"Nobody wants you to be too civil to him, silly! But Gerald is in his
office, and I want Gerald to do something for me. Please, Rosamund."
"Oh, well, if you--"
"Yes, I do. Here he is now; and _don't_ be impossible and frighten him,
Rosamund."
The presentation of Neergard was accomplished without disaster to
anybody. On his thin nose the dew glistened, and his thick fat hands
were hot; but Rosamund was too bored to be rude to him, and Alixe turned
immediately to Gerald:
"Yes, I did get your note, but I'm not at home on Tuesday. Can't you
come--wait a moment!--what are you doing this afternoon?"
"Why, I'm going back to the office with Mr. Neergard--"
"Nonsense! Oh, Mr. Neergard, _would_ you mind"--very sweetly--"if Mr.
Erroll did not go to the office this afternoon?"
Neergard looked at her--almost--a fixed and uncomfortable smirk on his
round, red face: "Not at all, Mrs. Ruthven, if you have anything better
for him--"
"I have--an allopathic dose of it. Thank you, Mr. Neergard.
Rosamund, we ought to start, you know: Gerald!"--with quiet
significance--"_good_-bye, Mr. Neergard. Please do not buy up the rest
of Long Island, because we need a new kitchen-garden very badly."
Rosamund scarcely nodded his dismissal. And the next moment Neergard
found himself quite alone, standing with the smirk still stamped on his
stiffened features, his hat-brim and gloves crushed in his rigid
fingers, his little black mousy eyes fixed on nothing, as usual.
A wandering head-waiter thought they were fixed on him and sidled up
hopeful of favours, but Neergard suddenly snarled in his face and moved
toward the door, wiping the perspiration from his nose with the most
splendid handkerchief ever displayed east of Sixth Avenue and west of
Third.
Mrs. Ruthven's motor moved up from its waiting station; Rosamund was
quite ready to enter when Alixe said cordially: "Where can we drop you,
dear? _Do_ let us take you to the exchange if you are going there--"
Now Rosamund had meant to go wherever they were going, merely because
they evidently wished to be alone. The abruptness of the check both
irritated and amused her.
"If I knew anybody in the Bronx I'd make you take me there," she said
vindictively; "but as I don't you may drop me at the Orchils'--you
uncivil creatures. Gerald, I know _you_ want me, anyway, because you've
promised to adore, honour, and obey me. . . . If you'll come with me now
I'll play double dummy with you. No? Well, of all ingratitude! . . .
Thank you, dear, I perceive that this is Fifth Avenue, and furthermore
that this ramshackle chassis of yours has apparently broken down at the
Orchils' curb. . . . Good-bye, Gerald; it never did run smooth, you
know. I mean the course of T.L. as well as this motor. Try to be a good
boy and keep moving; a rolling stone acquires a polish, and you are not
in the moss-growing business, I'm sure--"
"Rosamund! For goodness' sake!" protested Alixe, her gloved hands at her
ears.
"Dear!" said Rosamund cheerfully, "take your horrid little boy!"
And she smiled dazzlingly upon Gerald, then turned up her pretty nose at
him, but permitted him to attend her to the door.
When he returned to Alixe, and the car was speeding Parkward, he began
again, eagerly:
"Jack asked me to come up and, of course, I let you know, as I promised
I would. But it's all right, Mrs. Ruthven, because Jack said the stakes
will not be high this time--"
"You accepted!" demanded Alixe, in quick displeasure.
"Why, yes--as the stakes are not to amount to anything--"
"Gerald!"
"What?" he said uneasily.
"You promised me that you would not play again in my house!"
"I--I said, for more than I could afford--"
"No, you said you would not play; that is what you promised, Gerald."
"Well, I meant for high stakes; I--well, you don't want to drive me out
altogether--even from the perfectly harmless pleasure of playing for
nominal stakes--"
"Yes, I do!"
"W-why?" asked the boy in hurt surprise.
"Because it is dangerous sport, Gerald--"
"What! To play for a few cents a point--"
"Yes, to play for anything. And as far as that goes there will be no
such play as you imagine."
"Yes, there will--I beg your pardon--but Jack Ruthven said so--"
"Gerald, listen to me. A bo--a man like yourself has no business playing
with people whose losses never interfere with their appetites next day.
A business man has no right to play such a game, anyway. I wonder what
Mr. Neergard would say if he knew you--"
"Neergard! Why, he does know."
"You confessed to him?"
"Y-es; I had to. I was obliged to--to ask somebody for an advance--"
"You went to him? Why didn't you go to Captain Selwyn?--or to Mr.
Gerard?"
"I did!--not to Captain Selwyn--I was ashamed to. But I went to Austin
and he fired up and lit into me--and we had a muss-up--and I've stayed
away since."
"Oh, Gerald! And it simply proves me right."
"No, it doesn't; I did go to Neergard and made a clean breast of it. And
he let me have what I wanted like a good fellow--"
"And made you promise not to do it again!"
"No, he didn't; he only laughed. Besides, he said that he wished he had
been in the game--"
"What!" exclaimed Alixe.
"He's a first-rate fellow," insisted Gerald, reddening; "and it was very
nice of you to let me bring him over to-day. . . . And he knows
everybody downtown, too. He comes from a very old Dutch family, but he
had to work pretty hard and do without college. . . . I'd like it
awfully if you'd let me--if you wouldn't mind being civil to him--once
or twice, you know--"
Mrs. Ruthven lay back in her seat, thoroughly annoyed.
"My theory," insisted the boy with generous conviction, "is that a man
is what he makes himself. People talk about climbers and butters-in, but
where would anybody be in this town if nobody had ever butted in? It's
all rot, this aping the caste rules of established aristocracies; a
decent fellow ought to be encouraged. Anyway, I'm going to propose, him
for the Stuyvesant and the Proscenium. Why not?"
"I see. And now you propose to bring him to my house?"
"If you'll let me. I asked Jack and he seemed to think it might be all
right if you cared to ask him to play--"
"I won't!" cried Alixe, revolted. "I will not turn my drawing-rooms into
a clearing-house for every money-laden social derelict in town! I've had
enough of that; I've endured the accumulated wreckage too long!--weird
treasure-craft full of steel and oil and coal and wheat and Heaven knows
what!--I won't do it, Gerald; I'm sick of it all--sick! sick!"
The sudden, flushed outburst stunned the boy. Bewildered, he stared
round-eyed at the excited young matron who was growing more incensed and
more careless of what she exposed every second:
"I will not make a public gambling-hell out of my own house!" she
repeated, dark eyes very bright and cheeks afire; "I will not continue
to stand sponsor for a lot of queer people simply because they don't
care what they lose in Mrs. Ruthven's house! You babble to me of limits,
Gerald; this is the limit! Do you--or does anybody else suppose that I
don't know what is being said about us?--that play is too high in our
house?--that we are not too difficile in our choice of intimates as long
as they can stand the pace!"
"I--I never believed that," insisted the boy, miserable to see the tears
flash in her eyes and her mouth quiver.
"You may as well believe it for it's true!" she said, exasperated.
"T-true!--Mrs. Ruthven!"
"Yes, true, Gerald! I--I don't care whether you know it; I don't care,
as long as you stay away. I'm sick of it all, I tell you. Do you think I
was educated for this?--for the wife of a chevalier of industry--"
"M-Mrs. Ruthven!" he gasped; but she was absolutely reckless now--and
beneath it all, perhaps, lay a certainty of the boy's honour. She knew
he was to be trusted--was the safest receptacle for wrath so long
repressed. She let prudence go with a parting and vindictive slap, and
opened her heart to the astounded boy. The tempest lasted a few seconds;
then she ended as abruptly as she began.
To him she had always been what a pretty young matron usually is to a
well-bred but hare-brained youth just untethered. Their acquaintance
had been for him a combination of charming experiences diluted with
gratitude for her interest and a harmless _soupçon_ of sentimentality.
In her particular case, however, there was a little something more--a
hint of the forbidden--a troubled enjoyment, because he knew, of course,
that Mrs. Ruthven was on no footing at all with the Gerards. So in her
friendship he savoured a piquancy not at all distasteful to a very young
man's palate.
But now!--he had never, never seen her like this--nor any woman, for
that matter--and he did not know where to look or what to do.
She was sitting back in the limousine, very limp and flushed; and the
quiver of her under lip and the slightest dimness of her averted brown
eyes distressed him dreadfully.
"Dear Mrs. Ruthven," he blurted out with clumsy sympathy, "you mustn't
think such things, b-because they're all rot, you see; and if any fellow
ever said those things to me I'd jolly soon--"
"Do you mean to say you've never heard us criticised?"
"I--well--everybody is--criticised, of course--"
"But not as we are! Do you read the papers? Well, then, do you
understand how a woman must feel to have her husband continually made
the butt of foolish, absurd, untrue stories--as though he were a
performing poodle! I--I'm sick of that, too, for another thing. Week
after week, month by month, unpleasant things have been accumulating;
and they're getting too heavy, Gerald--too crushing for my
shoulders. . . . Men call me restless. What wonder! Women link my name
with any man who is k-kind to me! Is there no excuse then for what they
call my restlessness? . . . What woman would not be restless whose
private affairs are the gossip of everybody? Was it not enough that I
endured terrific publicity when--when trouble overtook me two years
ago? . . . I suppose I'm a fool to talk like this; but a girl must do it
some time or burst!--and to whom am I to go? . . . There was only one
person; and I can't talk to--that one; he--that person knows too much
about me, anyway; which is not good for a woman, Gerald, not good for a
good woman. . . . I mean a pretty good woman; the kind people's sisters
can still talk to, you know. . . . For I'm nothing more interesting than
a _divorcée_, Gerald; nothing more dangerous than an unhappy little
fool. . . . I wish I were. . . . But I'm still at the wheel! . . . A
man I know calls it hard steering but assures me that there's anchorage
ahead. . . . He's a splendid fellow, Gerald; you ought to know
him--well--some day; he's just a clean-cut, human, blundering, erring,
unreasonable,lovable man whom any woman, who is not a fool herself,
could manage. . . . Some day I should like to have you know
him--intimately. He's good for people of your sort--even good for a
restless, purposeless woman of my sort. Peace to him!--if there's any
in the world. . . . Turn your back; I'm sniveling."
A moment afterward she had calmed completely; and now she stole a
curious side glance at the boy and blushed a little when he looked back
at her earnestly. Then she smiled and quietly withdrew the hand he had
been holding so tightly in both of his.
"So there we are, my poor friend," she concluded with a shrug; "the old
penny shocker, you know, 'Alone in a great city!'--I've dropped my
handkerchief."
"I want you to believe me your friend," said Gerald, in the low,
resolute voice of unintentional melodrama.
"Why, thank you; are you so sure you want that, Gerald?"
"Yes, as long as I live!" he declared, generous emotion in the
ascendant. A pretty woman upset him very easily even under normal
circumstances. But beauty in distress knocked him flat--as it does every
wholesome boy who is worth his salt.
And he said so in his own naïve fashion; and the more eloquent he grew
the more excited he grew and the deeper and blacker appeared her wrongs
to him.
At first she humoured him, and rather enjoyed his fresh, eager sympathy;
after a little his increasing ardour inclined her to laugh; but it was
very splendid and chivalrous and genuine ardour, and the inclination to
laugh died out, for emotion is contagious, and his earnestness not only
flattered her legitimately but stirred the slackened tension of her
heart-strings until, tightening again, they responded very faintly.
"I had no idea that _you_ were lonely," he declared.
"Sometimes I am, a little, Gerald." She ought to have known better.
Perhaps she did.
"Well," he began, "couldn't I come and--"
"No, Gerald."
"I mean just to see you sometimes and have another of these jolly
talks--"
"Do you call this a jolly talk?"--with deep reproach.
"Why--not exactly; but I'm awfully interested, Mrs. Ruthven, and we
understand each other so well--"
"I don't understand _you_", she was imprudent enough to say.
This was delightful! Certainly he must be a particularly sad and subtle
dog if this clever but misunderstood young matron found him what in
romance is known as an "enigma."
So he protested with smiling humility that he was quite transparent; she
insisted on doubting him and contrived to look disturbed in her mind
concerning the probable darkness of that past so dear to any young man
who has had none.
As for Alixe, she also was mildly flattered--a trifle disdainfully
perhaps, but still genuinely pleased at the honesty of this crude
devotion. She was touched, too; and, besides, she trusted him; for he
was clearly as transparent as the spring air. Also most women lugged a
boy about with them; she had had several, but none as nice as Gerald. To
tie him up and tack his license on was therefore natural to her; and if
she hesitated to conclude his subjection in short order it was that, far
in a corner of her restless soul, there hid an ever-latent fear of
Selwyn; of his opinions concerning her fitness to act mentor to the boy
of whom he was fond, and whose devotion to him was unquestioned.
Yet now, in spite of that--perhaps even partly because of it, she
decided on the summary taming of Gerald; so she let her hand fall, by
accident, close to his on the cushioned seat, to see what he'd do about
it.
It took him some time to make up his mind; but when he did he held it so
gingerly, so respectfully, that she was obliged to look out of the
window. Clearly he was quite the safest and nicest of all the unfledged
she had ever possessed.
"Please, don't," she said sadly.
And by that token she took him for her own.
* * * * *
She was very light-hearted that evening when she dropped him at the
Stuyvesant Club and whizzed away to her own house, for he had promised
not to play again on her premises, and she had promised to be nice to
him and take him about when she was shy of an escort. She also repeated
that he was truly an "enigma" and that she was beginning to be a little
afraid of him, which was an economical way of making him very proud and
happy. Being his first case of beauty in distress, and his first
harmless love-affair with a married woman, he looked about him as he
entered the club and felt truly that he had already outgrown the young
and callow innocents who haunted it.
* * * * *
On her way home Alixe smilingly reviewed the episode until doubt of
Selwyn's approval crept in again; and her amused smile had faded when
she reached her home.
The house of Ruthven was a small but ultra-modern limestone affair,
between Madison and Fifth; a pocket-edition of the larger mansions of
their friends, but with less excuse for the overelaboration since the
dimensions were only twenty by a hundred. As a matter of fact its narrow
ornate facade presented not a single quiet space the eyes might rest on
after a tiring attempt to follow and codify the arabesques, foliations,
and intricate vermiculations of what some disrespectfully dubbed as
"near-aissance."
However, into this limestone bonbon-box tripped Mrs. Ruthven, mounted
the miniature stairs with a whirl of her scented skirts, peeped into the
drawing-room, but continued mounting until she whipped into her own
apartments, separated from those of her lord and master by a locked
door.
That is, the door had been locked for a long, long time; but presently,
to her intense surprise and annoyance, it slowly opened, and a little
man appeared in slippered feet.
He was a little man, and plump, and at first glance his face appeared
boyish and round and quite guiltless of hair or of any hope of it.
But, as he came into the electric light, the hardness of his features
was apparent; he was no boy; a strange idea that he had never been
assailed some people. His face was puffy and pallid and faint blue
shadows hinted of closest shaving; and the line from the wing of the
nostrils to the nerveless corners of his thin, hard mouth had been
deeply bitten by the acid of unrest.
For the remainder he wore pale-rose pajamas under a silk-and-silver
kimona, an obi pierced with a jewelled scarf-pin; and he was smoking a
cigarette as thin as a straw.
"Well!" said his young wife in astonished displeasure, instinctively
tucking her feet--from which her maid had just removed the shoes--under
her own chamber-robe.
"Send her out a moment," he said, with a nod of his head toward the
maid. His voice was agreeable and full--a trifle precise and
overcultivated, perhaps.
When the maid retired, Alixe sat up on the lounge, drawing her skirts
down over her small stockinged feet.
"What on earth is the matter?" she demanded.
"The matter is," he said, "that Gerald has just telephoned me from the
Stuyvesant that he isn't coming."
"Well?"
"No, it isn't well. This is some of your meddling."
"What if it is?" she retorted; but her breath was coming quicker.
"I'll tell you; you can get up and ring him up and tell him you expect
him to-night."
She shook her head, eyeing him all the while.
"I won't do it, Jack. What do you want him for? He can't play with the
people who play here; he doesn't know the rudiments of play. He's only a
boy; his money is so tied up that he has to borrow if he loses very
much. There's no sport in playing with a boy like that--"
"So you've said before, I believe, but I'm better qualified to judge
than you are. Are you going to call him up?"
"No, I am not."
He turned paler. "Get up and go to that telephone!"
"You little whippet," she said slowly, "I was once a soldier's wife--the
only decent thing I ever have been. This bullying ends now--here, at
this instant! If you've any dirty work to do, do it yourself. I've done
my share and I've finished."
He was astonished; that was plain enough. But it was the sudden
overwhelming access of fury that weakened him and made him turn, hand
outstretched, blindly seeking for a chair. Rage, even real anger, were
emotions he seldom had to reckon with, for he was a very tired and bored
and burned-out gentleman, and vivid emotion was not good for his
arteries, the doctors told him.
He found his chair, stood a moment with his back toward his wife, then
very slowly let himself down into the chair and sat facing her. There
was moisture on his soft, pallid skin, a nervous twitching of the under
lip; he passed one heavily ringed hand across his closely shaven jaw,
still staring at her.
"I want to tell you something," he said. "You've got to stop your
interference with my affairs, and stop it now."
"I am not interested in your affairs," she said unsteadily, still shaken
by her own revolt, still under the shock of her own arousing to a
resistance that had been long, long overdue. "If you mean," she went on,
"that the ruin of this boy is your affair, then I'll make it mine from
this moment. I've told you that he shall not play; and he shall not. And
while I'm about it I'll admit what you are preparing to accuse me of; I
_did_ make Sandon Craig promise to keep away; I _did_ try to make that
little fool Scott Innis promise, too; and when he wouldn't I informed
his father. . . . And every time you try your dirty bucket-shop methods
on boys like that, I'll do the same."
He swore at her quite calmly; she smiled, shrugged, and, imprisoning her
knees in her clasped hands, leaned back and looked at him.
"What a ninny I have been," she said, "to be afraid of you so long!"
A gleam crossed his faded eyes, but he let her remark pass for the
moment. Then, when he was quite sure that violent emotion had been
exhausted within him:
"Do you want your bills paid?" he asked. "Because, if you do, Fane,
Harmon & Co. are not going to pay them."
"We are living beyond our means?" she inquired disdainfully.
"Not if you will be good enough to mind your business, my friend. I've
managed this establishment on our winnings for two years. It's a detail;
but you might as well know it. My association with Fane, Harmon & Co.
runs the Newport end of it, and nothing more."
"What did you marry me for?" she asked curiously.
A slight colour came into his face: "Because that damned Rosamund Fane
lied about you."
"Oh! . . . You knew that in Manila? You'd heard about it, hadn't
you--the Western timber-lands? Rosamund didn't mean to lie--only the
titles were all wrong, you know. . . . And so you made a bad break,
Jack; is that it?"
"Yes, that is it."
"And it cost you a fortune, and me a--husband. Is that it, my friend?"
"I can afford you if you will stop your meddling," he said coolly.
"I see; I am to stop my meddling and you are to continue your downtown
gambling in your own house in the evenings."
"Precisely. It happens that I am sufficiently familiar with the
stock-market to make a decent living out of the Exchange; and it also
happens that I am sufficiently fortunate with cards to make the pleasure
of playing fairly remunerative. Any man who can put up proper margin has
a right to my services; any man whom I invite and who can take up his
notes, has a right to play under my roof. If his note goes to protest,
he forfeits that right. Now will you kindly explain to yourself exactly
how this matter can be of any interest to you?"
"I have explained it," she said wearily. "Will you please go, now?"
He sat a moment, then rose:
"You make a point of excluding Gerald?"
"Yes."
"Very well; I'll telephone Draymore. And"--he looked back from the door
of his own apartments--"I got Julius Neergard on the wire this afternoon
and he'll dine with us."
He gathered up his shimmering kimona, hesitated, halted, and again
looked back.
"When you're dressed," he drawled, "I've a word to say to you about the
game to-night, and another about Gerald."
"I shall not play," she retorted scornfully, "nor will Gerald."
"Oh, yes, you will--and play your best, too. And I'll expect him next
time."
"I shall not play!"
He said deliberately: "You will not only play, but play cleverly; and in
the interim, while dressing, you will reflect how much more agreeable it
is to play cards here than the fool at ten o'clock at night in the
bachelor apartments of your late lamented."
And he entered his room; and his wife, getting blindly to her feet,
every atom of colour gone from lip and cheek, stood rigid, both small
hands clutching the foot-board of the gilded bed.