Dore went to Lindaberry, without a thought of fear, crying his name:
"Garry, it's I--Dodo!"
He turned, striving to recognize her through the blurred phantasmagoria
of the week.
"Who?"
He drew his hand across his face, bending down a little, staring at her.
At the moment she despaired of his recognizing her, suddenly he
stiffened up, made an attempt to readjust his clothes, and doffed his
hat. She gave a cry of horror: across his forehead was a seam of blood.
"You're hurt!"
"'S nothing," he said, drawing a long breath, and his jaw growing rigid
with the attempt to recover his control. He relaxed his grip on the
collar of the inert policeman, who flattened out against the trampled
snow. "This little misunshtanding--gen'lman spoke rather rude.
Sorry--little mussed. 'Scuse me."
The fear that others might arrive and find him thus, the dread of an
arrest--a trial and publicity--gave her a new will; for, strangely
enough, even before his wild demeanor she had no fear.
"I've come, as I promised," she said quickly. "I'm going to take you
home. Come, Garry!"
"Any one else?" he asked, shrinking back.
"My maid," she said quickly.
He bowed and gave her his arm to the automobile. At the door he placed
her inside, saying, with careful courtesy:
"Sit outside. Thank you. Not fit. All right!"
Aware of his condition, by some tremendous exertion of his will, he had
flung back the lethargy that held his senses, and recovered his dignity.
Dodo, in the car, was thinking rapidly. The first glance at his eyes and
quivering lips had told her how serious was the crisis. Everything else
disappeared before this insistent need of her--romance, intrigues,
calculation, or care of what others might think.
"Ida, it's not true what I said," she said rapidly. "He's not my cousin,
but some one whom I would give my life to save. I'm taking him to his
house. You must come in with me--until we can get a doctor. I can't
leave him. If you get a chance, tell Brennon it's my brother; he mustn't
know."
She had anticipated a struggle to get Lindaberry to his rooms; but, to
her surprise, he walked from the car without wavering, and up the flight
of stairs to his apartment. The two girls, leaving Brennon below with
orders to wait, followed quickly. In a few moments his valet, hastily
awakened, had let them in. He was a young fellow, strong and
intelligent, and he gave a cry of relief at the sight of the master thus
returned.
"Dodo!"
[Illustration: She gave a cry of horror]
"Here I am!" she said quickly, touching Lindaberry's arm.
"Oh!" He looked at her, and then, as if suddenly recollecting himself,
imbued with the need of taking command, said: "Pretty bad; can't tell
what happened. Doctor--Lampson--quick!"
She turned calmly to the valet, feeling a deep delight in her control of
the situation.
"You know Doctor Lampson? Good! My car's down-stairs. Go and bring him
immediately!"
She returned to Lindaberry.
"Garry, lie on the couch! You've got a scratch; I want to bind it up.
Ida, bring me a couple of towels, sponge, water."
He obeyed her, but his glance started nervously at the sight of Ida
Summers.
"Who's that?"
She comprehended his humiliation that another should see him thus, and
replied again, with a warning look at Ida, who came in:
"My maid, Garry; that's all!"
"Tell her--wait--outside."
"Very well!"
Ida, at a nod, went into the library, not without wonder at the quiet
authority of voice and action in her butterfly friend.
She made him stretch out on the sofa, and with sponge and towel quickly
bathed and bound up the gash across his temple. The application of cold
water seemed to calm him. He relaxed and closed his eyes as she
remained at his side, applying the healing sponge. She studied the
racked body and disordered head with a tightening of her heart. The weak
and quivering lips, the sunken cheeks, the dark circles under the
punished eyes, everything cried out to her:
"You could have prevented this!"
She accused herself with a thousand reproaches in the presence of this
wreck she had made, and before his abject weakness her sense of
possession awoke. He was hers, as Betty was hers--by right of the
unanswered famine in her maternal heart. Come what might, she would not
leave him until she had seen him back into strength and courage again.
She called him but he had gone off into an unseeing delirium, wandering
through what black and sunken ways! She drew off his shoes, disengaged
the stained tie and collar, and by patient effort slipped the torn coat
from him, covering him with a clean dressing-gown.
Once or twice he sought to start up, but each time, at her hand across
his forehead and her clear voice in his ear, he relaxed. This docile
obedience, this willing trust in her little strength, one word of hers
stilling the storm in his brain and bringing peace instead of fury,
moved her almost to tears. She closed her eyes, her hand over his
throbbing lids, and gave herself up to an impulsive prayer--another
Dodo, back again in the quiet soul reaches of that unfathomable night
when, reckless and defiant, ready to renounce the faith of a Salamander,
she had suddenly found herself gliding into unforeseen deeps,
miraculously inspired.
After a long half-hour Doctor Lampson came--a powerful man of quick eye,
hearty laugh and abounding vitality.
"Hello, Garry! Been wrestling with skyscrapers?" he cried with a
rumbling laugh, sitting down on the sofa. "Trying to drink up the Hudson
River, eh?"
"Hello, Alex!" said Garry gratefully. He shook his head despondently.
"Bad start!"
"Rats, man! Bad start? What are you talking about? Remember the first
half of that Princeton game, eleven to nothing? That was a bad start,
wasn't it? Didn't prevent you going through like a runaway engine for a
couple of touchdowns, did it? Well, then! Don't talk to me! I've seen
you start!"
"Good old Alex!" said Lindaberry, with a smile. "Oh, I'm in the fight!"
"Yes; you look as if you'd been fighting, all right!" said Lampson with
a roar. "Now, just you shut up! What you want, man, is sleep! We'll fix
you up in a jiffy!".
"Stay; get me quiet, will you, Alex?"
"Don't you tell me what to do!" said Doctor Lampson, with assumed
fierceness. "Here, Rogers, get him undressed and into bed. Back in a
moment!"
He nodded to Dore, and they passed into the next room.
"Pretty close to D. T's. I'll quiet him down, but we've got to get a
trained nurse in here, Christmas Eve--bad time!" He began to whistle.
"But I'm here!" Dore said eagerly.
"You? My dear child, he may go quietly, and then he may take to chewing
up chairs and walking on the ceiling. No, no! Who the devil could I get
at this hour?" he said, studying Dore, at a loss where to place her.
A sudden thought came to her.
"There are two trained nurses where I live, friends of mine, just a few
blocks away, Doctor. One is free--I know she'd come for me!"
"What's her name?"
"Stuart--Clarice Stuart."
"I know her. Good!" he said, breaking in. "All right! That'll do!"
Ida, with a note from Dodo, went off in the automobile, leaving them
alone.
"You'd better go too, young lady," he said abruptly.
"I am going to stay!" she said, up in arms at once.
"This is no place for you!"
"If I were a trained nurse," she said obstinately, "it would be all
right! Well, I'm some one who has a great deal more interest in saving
him than any nurse, and I am going to stay!" She turned impulsively.
"Doctor Lampson, Mr. Lindaberry started to get hold of himself for me.
It's my fault, I didn't do what I ought to; now I'm going to think of
nothing else! Don't you understand, this is _my_ fault? I just must
help!"
"Well, of course, that's different!" he said, still undecided.
When they entered the bedroom, they found Lindaberry angry and excited,
struggling to rise, against the efforts of Rogers to keep him in bed.
Dore went to him without a thought of fear, laid her hand on his wrist,
and said quickly:
"Garry, be quiet!"
He relaxed immediately at the one voice that penetrated the roaring in
his brain. She turned with a smile toward Lampson, who was pulling his
short beard.
"You see? He will do as I tell him!"
And there was something in her defiant attitude, the ardor of a woman
fiercely defending her own, which convinced him that she had the right
to stay.
At eight o'clock the next morning she returned to her room, a cloak
which Clarice Stuart had brought thrown over her garments of the
reveling night. Yet, keenly buoyed up by the sense of ministering, she
had no sense of fatigue. She had been at Lindaberry's bedside
constantly, combating the delirium that seized upon him in abrupt gusts
of fury. And in these moments of frantic wanderings, as he tossed
helplessly before the stalking phantoms that rose out of the grim
yesterday, when real and unreal went rocking through his tortured brain,
no other hand but hers could control him. He seemed to know the moment
she slipped noiselessly away, turning convulsively, stretching out his
arm, querulously summoning her back. She obeyed, untired, willing,
rapturously content.
Rogers, the valet, in the next room; Clarice Stuart, in her blue and
white nurse's dress, silently in a corner; Dore, in pink and white
evening gown, buckled satin slippers, with the odor of tired flowers
still at her breast, sat endlessly, her eyes on the restless tormented
head and the twitching lips that were never still, listening to
incoherent phrases that still had intelligence for her.
What an inferno of desperation and defeat rose shapelessly about her!
Through what dark corners of despair had he blundered in these last
days! Sometimes, across the horror and the anguish of his mutterings,
she heard her name called in a voice that rent her heart. But she
thought no more of herself, only of the quiet that she must enforce on
him; and quietly, smiling in the dark, she repeated in a gentle voice:
"I am here, Garry--Dodo; I am taking care of you! Try to sleep! No--I
won't leave you!"
The hours rang from some unseen clock, and in the end the paling dawn
filtered across the white roofs of Christmas morning. Clarice Stuart,
noiseless as a shadow, rose and extinguished the useless candle. Some
one touched her on the shoulder. It was Doctor Lampson, his finger on
his lips. She glanced at the bed, slowly disengaging her hand.
Lindaberry had fallen at last into a profound sleep, his hand clutching
the bedspread, his head still impulsively turned toward her.
[Illustration: "No, I won't leave you."]
Once or twice she had wondered if she had been wise in introducing into
this intimacy Clarice Stuart, whose frivolous side only was known to
her. But, as soon as she had come, Dore knew she had made no mistake.
Clarice Stuart, once in uniform, was another being, serious,
matter-of-fact, concentrated, with a strength that surprised her.
"Cut out apologies, Dodo!" she had said, with brusk sincerity. "The
presents are all in--the props can wait. What's a turkey between
friends? This is the real part of life. You need me! That's enough,
isn't it?"
She had asked no questions, and for that Dore was grateful.
When she reached her room, she calmed her nerves with a hot bath and
went to sleep at once, without a thought of the heaped-up presents
waiting to be opened, or the mail that had accumulated. She had only one
idea: to snatch some rest, and to be back--on the field of battle.
Snyder had been waiting, restless and apprehensive, looking innumerable
questions at such an inexplicable return.
"Don't worry, Snyder!" she had said, with a tired laugh. "Nothing
terrible's happened. Tell you later--must get sleep. Wake me at ten!"
But it was almost eleven when, impelled by some uneasy instinct, she
awoke precipitately, furious at Snyder, who, on her part, retreated,
dumb and obstinate. In the rapid ten minutes in which she dressed, Dore,
remembering with fresh irritation the surveillance which had been
instituted over her actions, burst out:
"Snyder, what's got into you? I'm beginning to get annoyed--yes,
exceedingly so! I don't like your manner toward me. I sometimes think
you don't approve of me! What is it? Do you think I am not capable of
taking care of myself? Or do you wish to select my friends for me? Which
is it? Let me understand!"
"Well, yes! I don't want to see you getting in trouble!" answered Snyder
abruptly.
"Ah, that's it!" said Dodo indignantly. "I couldn't believe it. Now I
know! So that's why you come sneaking in every time I have a man calling
here?"
"Not every man!" said Snyder, reddening. "One man!"
"Judge Massingale? Say it!"
"Yes!"
"Why?"
"You know very well!"
"I don't!"
"He means no good!" said Snyder obstinately. "Besides, he hasn't the
right. And you care!"
"The idea!" said Dore, flushing hotly under an accusation which she knew
had point. "I suppose you think I've been out with him? That that's the
sort of girl I am? Thank you for your confidence! And may I ask why you
take it on yourself to regulate my conduct? Have I ever asked you any
questions? Do I know anything about you?" She stopped abruptly at the
pain that flashed into Snyder's face, and, being sensitive to such
things, added quickly: "You've hurt me very much, Snyder, by your
attitude--very much! I didn't expect it of you!"
"I'll tell you--when you want. Yes; guess I have been sailing under
false colors!" said Snyder, in a blundering voice. "No, you ain't asked
questions. But it isn't 'cause I want to judge you, honey!... Lord, why
should I judge? I'd stick to you, no matter what you were. That's not
it--only--"
"Only--what?"
"Only, pet, you don't know what's facts!" said Snyder, looking at her
directly, "facts _and_ consequences!"
"I've got a very wise head!" said Dodo, laughing to dismiss a subject
she did not wish to discuss. "Don't you worry about me, Snyder! I've
fooled many a man who thought he was clever. I won't make mistakes! Give
me the mail! I'm off! Back at four for Betty and the tree. Be prompt!"
She started out, then came back and caught Snyder playfully by the chin:
"Why, you old dragon, don't you know I'm just amusing myself?"
But Snyder, always obstinate and direct, answered:
"Dodo, I tell you, you're serious!"
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Dore, departing with an exaggerated laugh.
Lindaberry was still sunk in long-needed slumber when she returned.
Clarice, tiptoeing out, informed her that the worst had been avoided: he
had a constitution and a will that was incredible; that alone had saved
him from an attack of cerebral fever. What he suffered from most was
insomnia and lack of rest; then, of course, there was the craving that
had grown into the body, the hot thirst for alcohol. He would have to be
watched every moment for days. There was the danger. She lay down on the
sofa in the salon, asleep almost instantly, while Dodo, stealing back
to the bedroom, encamped in a distant armchair by a fugitive gray slit
of light, began to sort her Christmas mail.
There were a score of letters in all, gay with green and red stamps:
some from already forgotten beaus, others from girl friends; a long
annual letter from her aunt and uncle, distilling the heavy quiet and
enforced lethargy of the small town; a note from Peavey; sentimental
scrawls from the various props; a line in Sassoon's brief peremptory
style, saying that he would call that afternoon--an announcement
suggestive of presents to appear; a missive from Massingale, which she
reserved for the last; several envelopes in unfamiliar hands which
puzzled her--in fact, odds and ends of all the curious threads that had
woven into her life. She arranged them in order, the old memories first
to be read and forgot the quicker, the outer cohorts of admirers, the
initiated, and for the last Massingale and a letter or two that she had
not peeped into, in deference to her love of the mysterious.
She began with the news from home, her body stiffening as her mind set
itself to resistance. It was ten pages long, closely and painfully
written out in the familiar faded and trembling hand: news of the
weather and of the year's building, a record of illnesses and deaths,
who had married and who had moved--the tabulated inconsequentialities of
village life; and through all the complaining note of solitude and
longing which always left her uneasy before the querulous pleading note
of duty. She finished rapidly, and drew a long breath. The next was
from her old admirer, the grocer's clerk, now full partner, faithfully
announcing his marriage. She stopped a moment at the name of the woman.
"Bedelia--Bedelia Stone? Funny I can't remember. Oh, of course!
Delia--the girl with red hair and freckles who hated me so. Curious, I'd
almost forgot!"
She went on to the next, shaking off the heaviness of spirit which these
returning memories always laid across her ascending imagination. Then
came Christmas remembrances from other outstripped chance devotees--one
from a young dramatic critic in Buffalo whom she had enlisted in that
short stop. She smiled at this fidelity, rather flattered. Peavey's
letter, announcing a delay in his return, and the forwarding of a
present, was signed, "Your devoted and faithful friend." This departure
from formality left her in a reverie; she foresaw complications ahead, a
new difficulty in the intimacy of the coming explanation which would
require all her tact to prevent an open declaration.
Before beginning Massingale's letter she scanned anxiously the two
unopened envelopes. What she had feared from the first nervous glance
was a letter from Josh Nebbins. He had written her on her last birthday,
and on the Christmas before--sentimental confident notes, the faith of a
man who believes in the future. Each time she had determined definitely
to announce the breaking of the engagement,--to her long since a thing
of ridicule,--but she had delayed, mainly from cowardice, for fear that
that persistent, terrible young hustler would come straight to New York.
Lately she feared him at every turn, obsessed more and more in her
dreams by his pursuing shadow. To her relief, no word had come from him.
Perhaps he too had forgot, after all! She raised herself and glanced at
the bed, where Lindaberry was still moving restlessly, but asleep. Then
she opened Massingale's letter:
"_My Lady-of-Dreams_:
"Merry Christmas, and everything you can desire, even to
impossible islands in southern seas! The bracelet I send you
carries a talisman of good luck to keep you from an ugly world!
I'll come for you at twelve, to tell your especial ear all the
things that are too fragile to put on crude paper, and if the
snow holds, as seems probable, we'll get a sleigh and go jingling
off into the new world, and I'll promise solemnly to believe
everything you wish me to believe, never once to say _acting_, to
be entirely docile and joyfully credulous, for a whole
twenty-four hours.
"HIS HONOR."
She glanced guiltily at the clock, amazed how completely Massingale had
gone out of her thoughts. It was almost noon. She arose hastily to
telephone. But at this moment the man in the bed moved and opened his
eyes, which remained profoundly set on her halted figure, so luminous
and young in the glowing golden Russian blouse in which she had first
appeared to him. She paused, poised lightly on her toes, as he stared
out at her incredulously, striving to collect his thoughts.
"Dodo?" he said in a whisper, frowning before him.
She came to his bedside, all else forgot, smiling, radiant.
"Here I am!"
Suddenly some confused streak of memory seemed to cross his brain, and
immediately he said, weakness in his voice:
"You--you ought not to be here!"
"I am not alone," she said, sitting down; "there is a trained nurse in
the other room."
"I remember--last night--your coming suddenly. But--"
"Hush, don't try to remember!" she said quietly. "Rest; sleep all you
can!"
He continued looking at her with great uncomprehending eyes.
"What day is it?" he asked slowly.
"Christmas."
"Good God!" He turned his face away, horror-stricken and ashamed; but
she, struck by the movement and the shudder that passed through his
body, called to him gently:
"Garry, I don't blame you. Look at me! No, don't turn away, please."
She stretched out her hand, and slipping it under his head, brought it
back to her; when he lifted his eyes, hers were smiling through her
tears, compassionate and tender.
"I went to pieces," he said slowly.
"Never mind! Now I know how much you need me--what I can mean!"
"I remember nothing. Good God! where have I been?" he said bitterly,
and in his eyes was the black fog of impenetrable days and nights.
"It was my fault, too; I made the mistake, Garry!" she said hastily.
"All that is over, though. Now we'll make the fight together!"
He watched her mutely, his eyes seeming to widen and deepen with the
intensity of his gaze.
"Don't go away--just now--to-day...."
"I won't!"
"And wear--" He raised his hand and ran it caressingly over the golden
velvet. "It's your color!"
She nodded, smiling down on him, her soothing fingers running lightly
over his hot forehead.
"Lord! Such a defeat!" he said presently, shaking his head.
"Hush!"
"What can you think of me?"
She looked down at his great frame, at the bared muscles of the arm that
lay at her side, the corded brown neck, rough cut of chin, the powerful
features, now so weak and so appealing. The despondency she saw in that
great strength and stricken energy brought her all the closer to him,
with an impulse to join all her strength to his, to take away the sting
and the mortification, to raise him with confidence and hope.
The clock on the mantel began to send out its twelve tiny warning notes.
She did not remember. She was looking in his eyes, smiling, bending over
him, claiming him by every gentle right; and the breath that came deeply
from her moving breast descended to him, bearing all her strength, all
her will, all herself.