The morning was well spent when Dore awoke, after a gray return from the
cabaret party where, in a revulsion of emotions, she had flirted
scandalously. But the men with whom she had danced, laughed and fenced,
provokingly were lost in a mist. They had only served to eat up the
intervening time; she had not even a thought for them.
The busy bubbling whistle of a coffee-pot in fragrant operation sounded
from the table. She opened one eye with difficulty, peering out the
window at her friend, the clock. It was already thirty-five minutes past
ten--what might be called a dawn breakfast in Salamanderland.
Snyder, moving about the table with a watchful eye, came to her
immediately.
"Take it easy, Petty! Don't wake up unless you feel like it!"
She stood at the foot of the bed, and the smile of fond solicitude with
which she bent over Dodo, lightly touching her hair, seemed like another
soul looking through the tired mask of Lottie Snyder.
"You're an angel, Snyder! You spoil me!" said Dodo, rubbing her eyes and
twisting her body in lazy feline stretches.
"Me an angel? Huh!" said Snyder, grinding on her heel.
She went to the improvised kitchen with the free gliding grace of the
trained dancer, and lifting the top of the coffee-pot, dropped in two
eggs.
Breakfast at Miss Pim's was an inviolable institution ending at
eight-thirty sharp. Wherefore, as the Salamanders would as soon have
thought of getting up to see the sun rise, coffee was always an
improvisation and eggs a visitation of Providence. Besides, the
Salamanders, for the most part, made their arrangements for lodgings
only, trusting in the faithful legion of props, but supplementing that
trust by an economical planning of the schedule ahead. In a week, it was
rare that a Salamander was forced to a recourse on her purse for more
than one luncheon--dinner never.
"Did you hear me come in?" said Dore, raising her gleaming white arms in
the air and letting the silken sleeves slip rustling to her shoulders.
"Me? No!" said Snyder, who had not closed her eyes until the return.
"Here's the mail."
Dore raised herself eagerly on one elbow.
"How many? What! only four?" she said, taking the letters from Snyder.
She frowned at the instant perception of Miss Pim's familiar straight up
and down, sharp and thin writing, concealing the dreaded summons quickly
below the others, that Snyder, who paid nothing, might not see.
Two she recognized; the third was unfamiliar. She turned it over,
studying it, characteristically reserving the mystery until the last.
But, as she put it down on the white counterpane, she had a feeling of
expectant certitude that it was from Massingale.
"Well, let's see what my dear old patriarch says!" she said, settling
back in the pillows and taking up a stamped envelope, typewritten, with
a business address in the corner.
"_Dear Miss Baxter_:
"Will be in town to-morrow, Friday, the twenty-second. It would
give me great pleasure if you could lunch with me at
twelve-thirty. Will send my car for you at twelve-twenty. I trust
you are following my advice and giving attention to your health.
"Very sincerely yours,
"ORLANDO B. PEAVEY.
"P. S. Am called to important business appointment at one-thirty
sharp, but take this brief opportunity to see you again.
Telephone my office only in case you _can not_ come.
"O. B. P."
"Sweetest old thing!" she said, smiling at the postscript
characteristically initialed. "So thoughtful--kindest person in the
world!"
Snyder brought her coffee and an egg broken and seasoned in a tooth-mug.
Dore glanced at it suspiciously, seeking to discover if the division had
been fair.
"My! Eggs are a luxury," she said, applying the tip of her tongue to the
tip of the spoon; and she added meditatively: "I wish Stacey went in for
chickens!"
She took up the unknown letter, turned it over once more, and laid it
slowly aside in favor of the second, a fat envelope covered with the
boyish scrawl of the prop in disgrace. She spread the letter, frowning
determinedly. Joe Gilday was difficult to manage, too alert to be long
kept in the prop squad. It began without preliminaries and a fine
independence of punctuation:
"Look here, Do--what's the use of rubbing it in on a fellow?
You've made me miserable as an Esquimo in Africa, and why? What
have I done? Supposing I did slip fifty in your bureau honest to
God Do you don't think I'd do anything to jar your feelings do
you? Lord, I'll lay down and let you use me for a door mat for a
week if it'll help any. Kid you've got me going bad. I'm
miserable. I'm all shot to pieces--insult you, why Do, I'd Turkey
Trot on my Granny's grave first. Won't you let up--see a fellow
won't you? I'll be around at noon if you don't see me I swear
I'll warm the door-step until the neighbors come out and feed me
for charity: _that's_ straight too! Now be a good sort Do and
give me a chance to explain.
"Down in the dumps,
"J. J. (Just Joe.)"
This note, inspired with the slang of Broadway, would have made Dore
laugh the day before, but the experiences of the last twenty-four hours
had given her a standard of comparison. Between Joseph Gilday, Junior,
and the men she had met there was a whole social voyage. Nevertheless,
props were necessary, and undecided, she laid the scrawl on Mr. Peavey's
neat invitation, postponing decisions. She opened the third, drawing out
a neat oblong card, neatly inscribed in a minuscule graceful
handwriting, slightly scented:
"_My dear Miss Baxter_:
"I shall call this afternoon at two o'clock.
"A. E. SASSOON."
She was not surprised at the signature nor the pasha-like brevity.
"Harrigan Blood won't take chances; he'll telephone," she thought. At
the bottom she was pleased at this insistence of Sassoon's; it worked
well with the plan she had determined on for his disciplining. "You're
sure that's all?" she said aloud, wondering what Massingale would do.
"Yes."
"Wonder why he called so soon?" she thought pensively; and then,
remembering the warring cards of Blood and Sassoon, added: "To warn me,
perhaps?"
She smiled at this possibility, sure of herself, knowing well how weak
the strongest man is before the weakest of her sex, when he comes with a
certain challenge in his eyes.
"So Sassoon is coming, is he? Good!" she said musingly, a little far-off
mockery in her smile; and to herself she rehearsed again the scene she
had prepared, coddling her cheek against her bare soft arm, dreamily
awake.
She would receive him with carefully simulated cordiality there below in
the dusky boarding-house parlor; she could even lead him to believe that
he might dare anything; and suddenly, when she had led him to
indiscretions, she would say suddenly, as if the thought had just
suggested itself:
"What! you have no flowers. You shall wear mine!"
She smiled a little more maliciously at the thought of the look that
would come into those heavy foolish eyes at this. Then, taking a few
violets from her corsage, she would fix them in his buttonhole, saying:
"No, no; look up at the ceiling while I fix them nicely--so!"
And, when she had coaxed him into a ridiculous craning of his neck, she
would deftly pin the hundred-dollar bill on the lapel under the little
cluster of purple, and turning him toward the mirror, say, with a
mocking farewell courtesy:
"Mr. Albert Edward Sassoon, I have the pleasure of returning your
visiting-card!"
She was so content with this bit of romance that she laughed aloud.
"Hello! what's up?" said Snyder, taking away the tooth-mug.
Dodo could not restrain her admiration.
"You know, Snyder," she said seriously, "I am really very clever!"
But she did not particularize. She had a feeling that Snyder, who
watched over her in a faithful, adoring, dog-like way, might not quite
approve. She did not know quite what made her feel this, for they had
not exchanged intimacies; yet she felt occasionally in Snyder's glance,
when she met it unawares, a dormant uneasy apprehension.
"Now for it!" she thought, and taking up the last note, unstamped, she
tore it open.
"Miss Dore Baxter, Dr.
"To Miss Evangelica Pim
"Four weeks' lodging, third floor double room front at $10 per
week ...............................................$40
"Kindly call to see me as to above account."
"Four--impossible!" exclaimed Dore, bolt upright, now thoroughly awake.
But instantly she repressed her emotions, lest Snyder might guess the
cause. She made a rapid calculation, and discovered that in fact she had
to face four deficiencies instead of three. But finances never long
dismayed her.
"Anyhow," she thought, "I can turn over the champagne. If only Winona
raised something on the orchids! There are a dozen ways, but I must give
it some attention!"
Suddenly she remembered Harrigan Blood's estimate of the cost of
yesterday's luncheon, and of what she had herself turned over with her
fork. She thought of what Sassoon spent so carelessly, and of what he
might squander were he once awakened, really interested.... Not that
there was the slightest temptation,--no--but it did amuse her to
consider thus the irony of her present dilemma. Well, there certainly
were funny things in life!
Snyder had silently cleared away breakfast, and seated herself with a
book by the window. Now, glancing at the clock, she rose.
"Ready for tub, Petty? I'll start it up."
"Snyder, you're too good to me!" said Dore, rousing herself from her
reveries.
"Huh! Wish I could! Hot or cold?"
But Dore, catching her wrist, detained her, her curiosity excited.
"You're the queerest thing I ever knew!" she said, looking at her
fixedly.
"That's right, too!"
"Why do you insist upon my calling you Snyder?"
"Don't like to get fond of people," said the other shortly.
"Why not?"
"Too long a story."
She sought to detach her wrist, but Dore held it firmly.
"And aren't you fond of me?"
Snyder hesitated, frowning at thus being forced to talk.
"Sure! Couldn't help it, could I?"
Dore smiled, pleased at this admission.
"And yet, you have such a funny way of watching me!"
"Me? How so?"
"Yes, you have! I often wonder what's back of a certain queer look you
get--"
"What I'm thinking?"
"Yes!"
"I want to see you married and settled, girlie!"
No more unexpected answer could have been given.
"Heaven forbid!" said Dore, sitting up in astonishment. For this
commonplace solution to all the romantic possibilities she imagined
always infuriated her. But at this moment Ida Summers came, after a
little rippling knock, a grapefruit in hand.
The new arrival was in bedroom slippers and pink peignoir, her
disordered hair concealed under a tasseled negligee cap. She was a bit
roly-poly, but piquant, merry, still new to Salamanderland, hugely
enjoying each little excitement.
"Breakfasted already?" she said in astonishment. "Heavens! Dodo, how
_do_ you get up in the middle of the night?"
She began to laugh before she finished the sentence, she laughed so hard
as she said it that it was almost incomprehensible, and she continued
laughing long after Dore had ceased. She could hardly ever relate an
incident without being overcome with laughter, but the sound was
pleasantly musical, infectious even, and the blue devils went out the
window as she came in the door.
"Heavens!... thought I had a swap for a cup of coffee," she said,
beginning to laugh again at the thought of her exploded stratagem.
"There ought to be some left," said Dore, venturing one rosy foot from
under the covers in search of a warm slipper. She was still thinking of
Snyder's strange speech.
Having teased from the coffee-pot a bare cup of coffee, Ida camped down
on the couch, and while waiting for the coffee to cool, applied the end
of her forefinger to the tip of her nose in the way to uplift it
contrary to the gift of nature.
"Ida, do leave that nose alone," said Dore.
"I must have a retrousse nose," said the girl merrily. "This doesn't go
with my style of laughter. All the artist-men tell me so. Ah, this
nose!" And she gave it a vicious jolt, in her indignation. Her coloring
was gorgeous, her lines were delicate, her expressions vivacious and
quick with natural coquetry. Wherefore she was in great demand among the
illustrators, who had reproduced her tomboy smile on the covers of a
million magazines. She was in great demand, but she was capricious in
her engagements--like all Salamanders, sacrificing everything to
pleasure.
Winona Horning, aroused by the sounds of laughter, appeared through the
connecting door, in a green and black negligee, rubbing her eyes, quite
indignant.
"Heavens, child! No one can sleep when you're round! Hello, Snyder.
Morning, Dodo!"
She said the last words in a tone that made Snyder look up at her,
surprised. There was a note of reluctance, even of apprehension.
"Ida's drunk up the coffee; make her give you a grapefruit," said Dodo,
nodding and departing.
When she darted in twenty minutes later, tingling and alert for the day,
Snyder had gone and Ida Summers, curled like an Angora cat on the couch,
was chatting to Winona, who stood in the doorway, undecidedly, turning a
cigarette in her fingers, watching Dodo from under her long eyelashes.
"You certainly made the big hit last night, Win," said Ida rapidly. "Do,
you should have seen her. She gets the men with that quiet waiting
manner of hers. I can't do it to save my life. I have to rush in,
barking like a white fluffy dog, to get noticed."
"Where were you?" said Dore, opening all the trunks and ransacking the
bureaus. When she dressed, the room had always the look of a sudden
descent by the police.
"Up at Vaughan Chandler's studio," said Ida, giving the name of one of
the popular illustrators, who catered to the sentimental yearnings of
the multitude. "Quite some party, too, celebrities and swells. I say,
Do, why don't you go in for head and shoulders? They're perfect
gentlemen, you know ... flirty, of course, ... but it pays well, and
they'd go daffy over you."
"Don't know ... hadn't thought of it," said Dore, who, having decided to
see Gilday and lunch with Peavey, was in a reverie over the subject of
the dramatic costume. "By the way, Winona, raise anything on the
orchids?"
"Only eight bones--hard enough getting that," said Winona slowly.
"Old brute! Pouffe would have given double," said Dore indignantly. "By
the way, Joe's coming at noon. I must dress the stage up for him. What
flowers have you girls got?"
"Three vases," said Ida joyfully. "Couple of southern millionaires are
getting quite demonstrative over little me. What's up?... Going to coax
the Kitty?" she added,--meaning in Salamanderish, "Are you going to
encourage him to make presents?"
"Must raise something on this confounded rent," said Dore briefly.
"Then, there are other reasons."
As Ida went tripping off, her little white ankles gleaming, Winona
entered with two jars of chrysanthemums which she placed, one on the
table and one on the mantel, slowly, frowning. Then she turned and said,
with a gesture like a blow:
"Do, I took it! I had to!"
"Took what?" Said Dore, startled.
"Joe's fifty!"
Dore sprang precipitately to the drawer and opened it.
"Winona, you--you didn't!"
"It was that or get out!" said Winona doggedly, her back against the
wall. "The Duchess made a scene. I'll pay it back--sure!"
"But, Winona, what am I to do? Joe's coming. I must--I have to return it
to him. What can I say?" said Dore in dismay, staring at the empty
drawer. "You had no right! You should have asked me. I can't--oh, you've
put me in an awful hole! It wasn't right!"
"Don't! Dodo--don't!"
The girl clasped her hands, extending them in supplication, and burst
into tears.
Dore could not resist the spectacle of this misery. She sprang to her
side, seizing her in her arms, all her anger gone.
"Never mind! I don't care! You poor child! It isn't the money--it isn't
that! I'll find some way." All at once she remembered the hundred
dollars of Sassoon's bouquet. "Stupid! Why, of course!" She recounted
hastily the incident to Winona, smoothing her hair.
"But, Do, you can't take it. How can you?" said Winona, becoming more
calm.
"Why not? It was a present to each."
"But what can you say to Sassoon?"
"Him? Let me alone; I'll invent something--he'll never know! Bah! I
shall miss a fine scene, that's all!" she added with a dramatic regret.
"Well, that's over! How much did you use?"
"Thirty-five."
"Keep the rest!"
"I'll pay."
"Bur-r--shut up! I'm not lending. Borrowing breaks up friendships. It's
yours--it's given!"
She looked at the distressed girl a moment and added apprehensively:
"Winona, you're losing your grip!"
"Losing? It's gone!"
"Decidedly, I must see Blainey this afternoon and get that job for you,"
said Dore pensively. She disliked these sudden bleak apparitions and
hated long to consider them. "You'll see in a few days, all will be
changed--all!"
Ida returned with long-stemmed chrysanthemums towering over her brown
curls, and made a second trip for some hydrangeas which she had found at
Estelle Monks' below. The room had now quite the effect of a
conservatory.
"Why don't you work the birthday gag?" said Winona helpfully.
"Can't! November's my month for Joe," said Dore reluctantly.
Birthdays, needless to say, are legitimate perquisites in
Salamanderland, and pretty certain to occur in the first or second
months of each new acquaintance.
As the three Salamanders were thoughtfully considering this possibility,
three knocks like the blow of a hammer sounded on the door, and the next
moment the dreaded form of Miss Pim, yclept the Duchess, swept, or
rather bounded, in.
"Humph! and what's this folderol mean?" she said, stopping short,
sniffing and folding her hands over her stomach. "Very fine! Plenty of
money for cabs, perfumes, silks, hats, flowers, luxuries--"
"You certainly don't object to my having plenty of money, do you, Miss
Pim?" said Dore in a caressing voice, as she went to her purse before
the landlady could make the demand direct. "You seem rather anxious
about my little bill, I believe!"
"Little!" exclaimed Miss Pim, sitting down with the motion of a
jack-knife shutting up.
Dore's calmness took away her breath, but a certain joy showed itself
eagerly over her spectacled nose. She understood that such impudence
meant pay. Nevertheless she sat stiffly and suspiciously, ready to
pounce upon the slightest evasion.
Miss Pim's face advanced in three divisions--forehead, keen nose and
sharpened chin. She wore a high false front, of a warmer brown than the
slightly grizzled hair that she piled _en turban_ on her head, a
majestic note which had earned her the sobriquet of "the Duchess." She
adhered to the toilets of the late seventies--flowing brown shotted
silks, heavy medallions, hair bracelets, and on state occasions appeared
in baby pinks, as if denying the passage of years. She had had a tragic
romance--one only, for her nature was too determined to risk another,
and at the age of fifty-four she still showed herself implacable to the
male sex, although not unwilling to let it be known that she could
choose one of three any day she selected. She carried a hand-bag, which
jingled with the warning note of silver dollars. She was horribly
avaricious, and the Salamanders who courted her favor paid her, whenever
possible, in specie. Then she would open her bag, holding it between her
knees, and drop into it, one by one, the shining round dollars,
listening eagerly to the metallic shock.
"My dear Miss Pim," said Dore, returning with her pocketbook, in a tone
of calm superiority that left the landlady dumfounded, "I've told you
frequently that I prefer my bill monthly. These weekly rounds are
exceedingly annoying. Please don't bother me again. I have nothing
smaller than a hundred; can you change it?"
And flirting the fabulous bill before the eyes of the landlady, she
nonchalantly let it flutter from the tips of her disdainful fingers.
Miss Pim, who liked to inspire terror, was so completely nonplused that,
though her lips worked spasmodically, she found nothing to say. She took
the bill furiously, and went out. A moment later Josephus appeared with
the change in an envelope. The Salamanders were still in gales of
laughter over the discomfiture of their common enemy.
Dodo, left alone, dressed in a simple dress of dull black, relieved by a
lace edging at the throat and sleeves, and a tailor hat with the
invariable splash of a red feather; for she made it a superstition never
to be without a little red flutter of audacity and daring. Then she
zealously applied the powder, to give a touch of ailing melancholy to
her young cheeks--it would never do to appear before Mr. Peavey in too
healthy a manifestation. In general, it must be noted that no Salamander
is ever in perfect health. There is always lurking in the background a
melancholy but most serviceable ailment that not only does for a
thousand excuses, but encourages concrete evidences of masculine
sympathy.
Her costume finished, she exercised her prevaricatory talents at the
telephone, soothing irate admirers, who had clamored ineffectually for
her the evening before, with plausible tales which, if they did not
entirely believe, they ended by weakly accepting, which amounted to the
same thing.
[Illustration: "Please don't bother me again."]
At noon, according to orders, Joseph Gilday, Junior, arrived with a
carefully simulated hang-dog look. He was a wiry, sharp-eyed, jingling
little fellow, just twenty, already imbued with the lawyer's mocking
smile, on the verge of being a man of the world, eager to arrive there,
but not quite emancipated. For the last month in this growing phase Dore
had found the lines of discipline difficult to maintain. She even
foresaw the time when it would be impossible. He had to be handled
carefully.
"Hello, Dodo," said Gilday in a hollow tone of misery, dragging his cane
into the room and fastening humble eyes on his yellow spats.
"Good morning," said Dore frigidly, for she perceived his maneuver was
to force a laugh.
"Thunderation! what is it?" said Gilday, lifting his head and perceiving
for the first time the floral display on the trunk tops, the bureaus and
the mantelpieces. "I say, is this your October birthday?"
"What do you mean?" said Dore blankly, shaking the water from the stems
of Sassoon's orchids.
"Never saw so many flowers in my born life!"
"Many?... do you think so?" said Dore with the air of a marquise.
"Ouch!" said Gilday; "I got it!... I got it!"
"I think you came here to...."
Gilday flushed; apologies were not easy for him.
"What's the use of kicking up a tempest about a little bill of fifty?"
he said sulkily. "You could take it as all the other girls do!"
"My dear Joe," said Dore, seizing her opportunity instantly, "other
girls do, yes--the kind that I think you see entirely too much of. The
trouble with you is, you are not man of the world enough to distinguish.
That's the trouble of letting boys play around with me; they make
mistakes--"
"Come, now," he broke in furiously, for she had touched him on the raw
of his vanity.
Dore stopped his exclamations with an abrupt gesture, and picking from
her purse a fifty-dollar bill, held it to him between two fingers.
"Take it!"
"You don't understand."
"I understand perfectly, and I understand," she added, looking him in
the whites of the eyes, "just what thoughts have been in the back of
your head for the last two weeks!"
Her plain speaking left him without answer. He reddened to his ears,
took the bank-note and thrust it in his pocket.
"Now I am going to say to you what I have to say many times," she
said, without softening her accusing glance. "I expect to be
misunderstood--often. I live independently, and as men are mostly stupid
or brutal, I expect to have to set them right. I forgive always one
mistake--one only. If you make a second, I cut your acquaintance! Now
we'll consider the matter closed!"
Gilday gulped, suddenly enlightened, overcome with mortification, and in
a sudden burst of sentimentality exclaimed:
"Dodo, if you'll take me I'll marry you to-night!"
This unexpected turn, the value of which she did not overestimate,
brought her a mad desire to burst out laughing. It was not the first
time that she had been surprised by such sudden outbursts, and not being
given to the study of psychology, had always been puzzled--with a little
disdain for the superior masculine sex.
"Neither now nor ever!" she said, with a shrug of the shoulders. "Don't
be a silly! Hand me my muff--there on the table. It's time to be going!"
She replaced the orchids, deciding it was best to appear alone and
unbefriended before Peavey. Joe, going to the table, stole a glance at
the cards of Sassoon, Harrigan Blood and Judge Massingale, apparently
carelessly thrown there, and returned with enlarged eyes.
"Damn it, Do," he said, with a new respect, "I wish you'd let me buy you
a diamond necklace or an automobile. This money burns my pocket!"
"Presents, all you wish. Send me a _little_ bouquet of orchids, if it
will make you feel better," she said, descending the stairs. "Orchids I
never get tired of. If I were rich I'd wear a new bunch every day.
Pouffe has such exquisite ones...."
The stairs were so dark that she had to feel her way: she could smile
without fear of detection.
"He will leave an order for a bouquet every day," she thought
confidently, and she began busily to calculate the advantages of her
understanding with that justly fashionable florist.