On their fourth meeting a furious quarrel developed. Dodo had expected
that, with the difficulties of the reconciliation resolved, their
relations would be resumed where they had been interrupted. She found,
to her surprise, that only a new conflict had opened. She did not divine
at once all the hesitation of his character, but she perceived an
opposition which amazed her. In her infatuation, she wished to run
heedlessly, with bandaged eyes and hungry arms, into these enchanted
gardens of her imagination. She did not wish to visualize facts,
hungrily seeking the satisfaction of undefined illusions. That he should
follow gravely, with troubled searching glance, aroused in her a storm
of resentment. She little guessed at what price he paid for his
self-control. She could not comprehend this resistance in him. What was
it held him back? He spoke of everything but the one vital
issue--themselves. Unconsciously she felt herself forced to fasten to
him, as instinctively she felt him seeking escape. But always, while
thus led to compel him on she refused to consider where the road might
lead.
Massingale, in fact, in the moments of her absence, was continually torn
between his impulses and his logic. Logically he saw the danger without
an attempt at subterfuge. He did not believe in her, and he was certain
that at the last crucial test she would never break through
conventionalities; but he foresaw that the true danger lay, not in her
romanesque imagination, but in the hunger that would awaken in him. Even
the appearance of evil must always be inscribed to his account by that
judgment of society that never goes below the surface and would persist
in seeing in the present situation only an inexperienced young girl and
a man of the world, married, who pursued.
By every reason he sought to liberate his imagination, and only
succeeded in enmeshing himself the more securely in the silk
imprisonment. To each clear and warning argument a memory rose
victoriously, confounding reason and bringing new longings. When in her
presence, he found the study of this perplexing and ardent disciple of
youth, who had darted across into his life out of nowhere, one of
endless mystification and satisfaction. He forgot all his resolves in
the sensation of gazing into the profoundly troubling blue of her
glance, watching the divine subtleties of that smile which began in the
twinkling corners of her eyes and glided, with always a note of arch
malice, to the childlike lips. Sometimes he incited her to assumed anger
in order to watch the sudden lights that awakened in the cloudy eyes,
the sharp little teeth, brilliant against the parted red of the lips,
the heightened danger-signals on the cheek. And when, in curious
restaurants, removed from the prying gaze of Mrs. Grundy, they ensconced
themselves, laughing with the delight of truants at finding a
hiding-place, the slight pressure of her foot against his, a moment
offered and a moment gone, created new philosophies in his logical
brain, and he repeated to himself again and again that he would change
all to be a young cub, as the young fellows who surrounded them,
starting life undaunted and free. To have the right, or to do no harm!
Often, watching her sparkling mood, that showed itself in a dozen
laughing tricks with cutlery or glass, mystified, he asked himself:
"Does she realize what this means?"
There lay this great difference between them--he sought gloomily to
foresee the end, she was in raptures only at the beginning. In this
period which preceded the inevitable one when he would find subterfuge
and evasion to put his conscience to sleep, a period in which he still
felt the closing of the trap on his liberty, and saw clearly because he
still wished to resist, Massingale asked himself logically where each
step would lead. How long could his embottled control be kept to
phrases? And when, in one combustible moment, he should obey the longing
to recall that hour when, conquering her, she had conquered him, what
would follow?
Shrinking from the thought of another solution, he asked himself once or
twice if, under her artless insouciance, there was not a deep
calculation; or if, indeed, she were planning to upset everything in his
life, drag him into the publicity of the divorce courts, create a new
home, dissolve old habits, estrange old friends, and fasten on him new
ones. He thought thus, not because he thought honestly, but because he
wished to recoil from immediate responsibility.
Dodo had not the slightest care of the future. The next month or the
next week did not exist; the day sufficed. She raised no questions; she
contented herself rapturously with emotions.
"He will come at five--how many hours more? He will be here at
five--where shall we go for dinner? Where can we be alone? He will
come--"
Her mind satisfied itself with such speculations. If, at this time, he
had again asked her seriously what would come of it all, she probably
would have answered him pettishly, like a gay child:
"Oh, don't let's talk of annoying things."
He began a hundred comedies of resistance, some of which she detected
scornfully, others which eluded, in their subtlety, her analysis. There
were times when, uneasy at the growing responsibility that she was
slowly drawing about his shoulders, he tried by artful questions to
convince himself that she was not quite so innocent as he had believed.
"And how do you put off Sassoon all this time, and Harrigan Blood?" he
asked her once, abruptly.
It was their fourth successive evening together. They had gone to the
"Hickory Log," a chop-house on lower Seventh Avenue, secure of finding
privacy. The walls had been decorated to simulate ancient Greenwich
village; the floor, fenced off with green palings, affording convenient
nooks. In the back, before a spacious open oven, chickens and steaks
were turning savorously over glowing hickory embers, that mingled their
clean pungent perfume with appetizing odors. Up-stairs, in special
rooms, some East Side club was noisily celebrating over a chop supper,
while from time to time two or three young men in white berets and coats
came singing down the turning stairs, saluting gaily the sympathetic
audience.
Below, everywhere was the feeling of the people, happy, prosperous,
relaxed, feasting on heavy bourgeois dishes flanked by huge bumpers of
the beer which made the "Hickory Log" a Mecca for the thirsty. The floor
was sanded, the tables bare of cloth. Opposite them a young man had his
arm about his sweetheart, bending his head to her ear. When a group of
the revelers saluted them with enthusiasm, each returned a laughing
acknowledgment, but without change of pose.
"How natural all this is!" said Dodo, finding in her hungry soul a
kindred longing. "How they enjoy things! We must come here often. This
garden, this table--it shall be ours!"
"And how do you keep Sassoon and Blood in good appetite, little Mormon?"
he persisted.
She hated this incredulous cynical mood of his, and she disapproved of
the epithet.
"Why do you always begin like this?" she said, chopping off the head of
a celery stalk with a vicious blow of her knife. "I am not a Mormon, and
you know perfectly well that no one else exists now for me!" She turned,
saw his quizzical look, and added vigorously: "And I am _not acting_!"
[Illustration: They had gone to the Hickory Log]
"Do, please. It is your great charm!"
"You are positively hateful!"
"Well, why did you encourage Sassoon, then?" She looked at him with a
little malice in her eyes.
"I suppose you want to think yourself one of many?"
This was too near the mark. He answered evasively:
"All I wish is to be your father confessor, you know!"
This simulation of friendship was another thing that always aroused her.
She wished to punish him, and began to embroider.
"Yes, I encourage Sassoon," she said, leaning on the table, nodding in
emphasis, and switching a celery stalk among the glasses venomously,
like the tail of an irritated leopard. "Harrigan Blood, too. And I have
my reasons. You think I am a wild little creature who never looks ahead.
Quite wrong! Everything is planned out. Everything will be
settled--definitely--soon!"
"When?"
"On my twenty-third birthday--on the tenth of March. Remember that
date!"
"Very appropriate month," he interjected.
"Then I am through with this sort of a life--good-by forever to Dodo!"
she went on rapidly. "You don't believe me? I assure you, I never was
more serious! Then I shall choose"--she raised her fingers, counting--"a
great love, marriage, career, or"--she ended with a shrug--"lots of
money!"
"I see," he said, comprehending her maneuver, and yet annoyed by it.
"And so Sassoon is a possibility?"
"If you fail, quite a possibility!" she said, to irritate him further.
"At any rate, I shall keep him just where I want him--until the time
comes to decide!"
"You could never do that, Dodo!" he said sharply.
"Oh, couldn't I?" she cried, delighted that he had entertained the
thought. "I'm quite capable of being a cold-blooded little adventuress!
Perhaps I am one, and am only making sport of you. Beware! As for
Sassoon--do you know what I'd do? I'd make him give me a career, and
then, when I am very, very well known, perhaps--if I wanted--I'd make
him divorce, and become Mrs. Sassoon! How would you like to meet me in
society?" She laughed at the thought, but added immediately: "Oh, it is
not so impossible, either! Nowadays, a clever girl who sees just what
she wants can do anything!"
"Is that what you would do with me?" he said quietly.
She turned swiftly, abandoning all her pretense, pain in her eyes.
"Oh, no, Your Honor! Not with you! I would take nothing from you, now or
ever!"
"Then don't say such things!" he said, strangely soothed by the passion
in her voice.
"Don't be--friendly, then!" she retorted, and with a quick appealing
raising of her eyes she laid her hand on his.
"I must talk frankly with her!" he said to himself, with a groaning of
the spirit. "She will not face the situation, and there can be no
solution to it--no possible solution!" He turned heroically, resolved to
lay down the law, and his stern eyes encountered hers, so troubling and
so untroubled, tempting and yielding--glorified and inconscient.
"I am so happy!" she said; and, in an excess of emotion, as if
suffocating, her eyes closed and her breast rose in a long sigh.
Arguments and fears went riotously head over heels in flight.
It was almost at the end of the dinner before, his calm returning, he
said:
"Let's talk of your career. Do you know, I believe you'd do big things!"
She glanced up suspiciously, judging the tone rather than the words.
"You say that because you wish to get rid of me!" she said abruptly.
He protested vehemently to the contrary.
"Yes, yes, you would! I'm beginning to know you and your tricks! But
look out! I warn you, you will never get rid of me!" She rose
impatiently. "I don't like it here. We do nothing but quarrel. Come!"
Outside his automobile was waiting. "No, no; let's walk a little. It's
good to be among people who are natural!"
"I have a meeting I can not put off--at nine; I told you," he said,
irritated and impatient to be free.
It was cold, with a sharp, dry, exhilarating sting. The shop-windows
were set with glaring enticements for the Christmas season--red and
green or sparkling with tinsel and gold ornament. The sidewalks were
alive with the sluggish loitering of a strange people, Italians,
Germans, Jews from Russia, negroes flowing in from dark side streets,
occasional Irish about the saloons, whose doors swung busily; but the
signs above the shops were foreign, without trace of the first
Anglo-Saxon emigration which had passed on to the upper city.
Everything interested Dore. She wished to stop at every window, mingling
with the urchins and the curious, prying into cellars whence the odor of
onions or leather came to their nostrils. He yielded his arm, following
her whims, and yet unamused. A policeman saluted him, grinning
sympathetically at the spectacle of His Honor unbending. Massingale did
not look back, but he divined, with annoyance, the smile and the
interpretation. All this sodden or abject world, which passed before his
eyes day in and day out, with its unanswerable indictments, its
bottomless misery, left on him a very different impression. He saw in it
the quicksands of life, where those who steered their course without
foresight sometimes disappeared, closed over by floods of mediocrity and
poverty. Natural and happy? He felt in it only a horror and a threat. On
his arm the touch of the young girl grew imperiously heavy, that touch
which stopped him abruptly or forced him ahead, unwilling, bored and
reluctant.
"I could be happy here--very happy!" she said romantically. There was
something in this that recalled the few regretted sides of her early
life. Sorrow was sorrow, and joy pure delight, and each walked here,
unhesitating and unashamed, unhampered by little spying social codes or
the artifices of manners. Her hand slipped down his arm to where his was
plunged in his pocket, closing over it.
"It's wonderful! So free, so _honest_! Don't you adore the feeling?"
"No!" he said abruptly. He had been thinking of a college mate of his
who had broken through the permitted of society and married where he
should not have: a forgotten friend who had dropped out, who might have
ended,--who knows?--in a howling stuffy flat in just such a quarter.
She drew her hand impatiently away.
"I hate you to-night! I won't keep you any longer. Take me home!"
In his own automobile, surrounded by the atmosphere of things he knew
and enjoyed, Massingale felt an easier mood. Besides, her indifference
and flashes of temper always exercised a provocative effect.
"What a little whirligig you are, Dodo," he said, laughing. "Happy
there? You wouldn't last an afternoon! Besides, romance is one thing,
but think of the dirt!"
"You want to antagonize me; you've done it all evening!" she said,
drawing into her corner.
He defended himself lamely, aware of the truth.
"Never mind!" she added vindictively. "I shall amuse myself to-night."
"Sassoon or Harrigan Blood?" he said, pinching her ear.
"Perhaps."
She refused to be enticed from her offended dignity. When they reached
Miss Pim's, contrary to his determination, he descended and went
up-stairs with her, seeking, with a quick pity in his heart, to repair
the effects of his ill-humor. Then, judging the moment auspicious, he
began gravely:
"Dodo, where is this going to end?"
"What? Which?" she said, frowning and whirling about, as if she had not
understood.
He repeated the question with even more seriousness.
"I want to be genuine!" she said, stamping her foot. "I don't want to be
dissecting everything I do before I do it! Whatever comes, I want it to
come without calculation!"
He groaned aloud.
"Hopeless! Crazy! Impossible child!"
"It's you who are impossible!" she retorted hotly. "It's you who are
neither one thing nor the other! It's you who back and fill! I am
honest; you're not! What are you thinking of all the time--your wife?"
His sense of decorum was shocked.
"Dodo, kindly leave my wife's name out of the conversation!"
"And why should I leave it out?" she answered furiously. "She's the one
thing that comes between us! I hate her! I despise her! I could kill
her!"
"Dodo!"
"Do you love her? No! Do you care _that_ for her? No! Or she for you?
No! Well, then, why shouldn't I discuss her?"
When she fell into a passion, he no longer heard what words she said,
fascinated by the impetuosity of the emotion that shook her--man-like,
longing to have it translated into clinging in his arms. He felt himself
beaten in this discussion where no logic was possible, and he said
desperately that he would no longer quibble or avoid issues, that he
would lay the truth before her, and pronounce ugly names. But, before he
could venture, the telephone interrupted. She went to it joyfully,
seeking a new means of tantalizing him.
He sought to catch some inkling of the man at the other end, but her
ingenuity evaded him. Presently she leaned out of the hall, covering the
mouthpiece with her hand.
"You are sure you have to go to that meeting?" she said, in a dry
staccato.
"Sure!"
Then her voice rose again, answering the telephone.
"Yes, indeed--free.... Delighted.... Oh, longing for a spree.... How
gorgeous! How soon?" She turned, glancing at Massingale.
He took up his hat, answering with asperity:
"Immediately!"
When she returned, they stood eying each other, rage in their hearts.
"Thank heaven, now I shall enjoy myself!" she said abruptly.
"And who is the gentleman?" he said.
"Any one you like; it's quite indifferent to me!"
"In that case, good-by!"
"Good-by--good-by!"
"Good! Now I am free," he thought, with a sudden liberation of the
spirit, resolved to make this a pretext for his emancipation. He went to
the door, but there a little shame made him halt. If this was to be the
end, he wished to leave behind a memory of gentleness and courtesy. He
returned and held out his hand, saying:
"I have been rather ill-humored--"
She looked up at him solemnly, hostility still reflected from his
defensive antagonism. They had so opposed and tantalized each other all
evening that all their nerves were on edge, vacillating toward a sudden
obliterating reaction. He did not take her hand; his arms instead
clutched her whole body to him, closing furiously over what he had
resisted futilely all the day--every day since that first disorganizing
embrace, until he could resist no longer. Her arms caught him. She gave
a little cry that ended on his lips, her whole body relaxed, half turned
and half fallen, as he bent over her.
This kiss, wrenched from him at the moment he felt himself strongest,
obliterating useless exasperation and futile combat, ended his
resistance. From his soul the eternal rebel cry of the transgressor went
up:
"Ah, I must live!"
The moments slipped by unheeded, and still he held her, imprisoned. All
the stifled side of his nature started up. It seemed to him that all
the genuine in his life was in this kiss: the denied ardent self; the
young Massingale and the girl he had adored in his first extravagant
passion: the Massingale in revolt, surrendering to the fear of the
world, clasped in the last renunciation with the woman who might have
been--the past and more than the past, the present and the exquisite
pain of time, youth renounced and youth fleeting. He raised her,
convulsively strained to his breast, closing his eyes, and breathing the
same air that came to her, as if pursuing on her lips the last precious
dregs of a cup that was almost drained.
"By heaven, I've done all I could! I'm not going to fight any more!" he
said, in a rage at her, at himself, at life.
And as, erect, he held his head from her the better to study the faint
face, the closed eyes and the parted lips, her body swayed toward his,
one arm wrapping about him, one arm winding about his throat, the
fingers closing over his shoulders like the tendrils of ivy, that subtle
feminine vine that fastens itself to the monarchs of the forests,
stealing their strength. Even in this moment he felt in her this
fatality, but a fatality that drew him recklessly, gratefully on.
All at once she had a sensation of fear--as if the victory were over and
another conflict were on. She sought to free herself, seeking air to
breathe, afraid of herself, of these half lights, neither day nor the
glaring night, of every vibrant sense, warned by some still unmastered
instinct within her, that struggled through the dizziness in her mind
and body.
She wrenched herself from him, springing behind a table, and once
liberated, feeling an instantaneous buoyancy of triumph. He stood
quietly, breathing deep, locking and unlocking his hands. She stood, as
free as though a canon separated them, watching him, her hands folded
poignantly at her throat, her body leaning toward him, victorious,
mentally alert.
"Oh, Your Honor, Your Honor, what's the use!" she cried. "You care--you
do care! Say that you care!"
His answer was an exclamation, inarticulate, convincing, a cry rather
than a word! The next moment, transformed, no longer calm, restrained,
judicial, but tempestuous, revealing and defenseless, he stepped forward
with a threatening gesture.
"Dodo, if you are acting! If you--"
"Ah, that's how I like you!" she cried rapturously, flinging out her
arms. "No, no--fear nothing; I am not acting! You will see! You will be
satisfied! When I tell you my plan--a wonderful, beautiful plan--Only,
first I must be sure!"
She was transformed, radiant; but on her glowing face and glorified eyes
he saw, with a return of incredulity, the elfish lights of the
dramatizer.
He stood angry, perplexed, defiant, examining her with distrust. All at
once he passed the table abruptly, caught her as she sprang away, turned
her in his arms fiercely, roughly, pinned her arms to her sides
furiously, more in anger than passion, covered her cheeks, her eyes, her
lips with kisses, and suddenly, almost flinging her from him, rushed out
of the room.
She rose from the sofa where she had fallen, listening breathlessly, a
little frightened, satisfied at last. Then suddenly she ran to the
window, flinging it open, leaning out, happy, victorious, eager. He did
not see her; he was rushing down the steps abruptly, flinging himself
into his car, departing quickly.
The reaction from all the petty miseries of the spirit which she had
suffered in these days of fencing and resistance had been so acute that
she returned in a perfect delirium of delight. Even the tragic shadow
that hung about it heightened the heroism of their infatuation. At last
she had shaken off the tentacles of the dreaded commonplace. She might
suffer; what did it matter? All her life might pay for it; she did not
care! It was not an ordinary bread-and-butter affection. It would be
magnificent, like the great loves of history, tragic but magnificent!
And the solution she had hinted of to Massingale, the end which she had
imagined in her romanesque, runaway mind was something that seemed so
supremely great, so extraordinary, that she abandoned herself into its
misty vistas without doubt or hesitation, radiant, convinced.
"Ah, now I know--now I know what the answer is!" she cried rapturously.
She went to the hostile window, shaking her fist at it triumphantly:
"Ugly wall, horrid wall, hateful wall! You are beaten! I am no longer
afraid of you! That for you!"
And snapping her fingers, laughing gaily, she returned, whirling on her
toes like a child, crying:
"He cares--he does care!"
But the moods into which she had flung herself had resulted in such an
intoxication of all her emotional self that she forgot her first resolve
to remain quiet. She felt the need of more excitement: lights, music,
movement, noise! She was too exhilarated, too tensely throbbing with
conquest and recklessness. She could never remain now alone and still.
She resolved to go out, for a little while only, for an hour or so. On
her table was a note from Lindaberry, unopened. She had seen it on her
first return. She saw it now in all her whirling progress about the
room, imperative, appealing. But did she not go to it. It represented to
her a self that she wished to avoid just now--for this bewildering night
of senses and emotions. It was another world, the world of the hushed
spaces and tranquil shadows, where her vibrant theatric self could not
rest. So she let the letter lie unopened, fearing an imperative call,
conscience-stricken at the neglect of these last days. When she returned
at three o'clock, fatigued at last, she went precipitately to the
letter, carrying it to the gas-jet, with an uneasy glance at Snyder, who
was moving restlessly in a dream.
"_Dear Dodo_:
"Pretty tough going. Tried to get you many times. What's the
matter? Tried to get you many times. Is the bet off? Wouldn't
blame you. Will stop at ten sharp. At exactly ten. If you
could--it would mean a lot. You see, it's--well, it's a
backsliding day--at first, you know, hard going.
"GARRY."
The slight waver in the handwriting, the repeated stumbling phrases,
told her everything. In a fever of remorse and self-accusation, she
flung herself on her knees at her bedside, vowing that never again would
she fail him, come what might, resolved to run to him the first thing in
the morning and repair the damages she had selfishly inflicted. She
prayed fervently, accusing herself, unable to control her tears. Snyder,
in the dim luminous reflection from the windows, bolt upright in her
bed, watched her breathlessly, unperceived.
The next morning, when, after vain calls at the telephone, she went to
Lindaberry's apartments, the janitor, with a shrug of his shoulders,
informed her that he had not returned. It was not unusual: sometimes he
was gone for four days, a week--God knew where!