During the days in which Lindaberry lay weak and shattered, slowly
struggling back to strength and a new grip on things, some perverse
spirit seemed to actuate Dodo in her attitude toward Massingale. She had
remained without seeing him for forty-eight hours after Christmas,
refusing to make the advance when he had stayed away. Feeling a need of
retaliation, she went to luncheon twice with Harrigan Blood in the short
hours in which she absented herself from the sick-room. When finally,
the third day, Massingale capitulated and came to see her, she treated
him with the greatest indifference, inventing new stories, incredible,
but galling to his pride.
"Why didn't you come?" he said, without preliminaries.
"I have other friends and other engagements!" she said, shrugging her
shoulders. "Besides, I have resolved to make it easier for you."
"For me?"
"To be just a father confessor!" she said maliciously.
He had no answer that he could phrase, so he waited, staring at his boot
in perplexity, aware of the lights that were dancing in her roguish
eyes.
"And dinner--Christmas dinner?"
"Engaged, too; my other friends don't leave things to chance!"
"Why do you treat me this way?" he asked, frowning.
"What way? I'm sure I'm very nice to you! I'm not even angry because
you've been sulking all this time!"
She stood before him, laughing, her head on one side, her hands on her
hips. He made a movement as if to seize her, and she sprang away.
"Don't let's quarrel; I've been quite miserable!"
"Serves you right!" she said, unrelenting, determined to teach him by a
bitter lesson what punishment she reserved for rebels.
At this moment his eye perceived the ring that Lindaberry had placed on
her finger. At the same instant she caught his glance, and flourished
her hand tantalizingly before his eyes.
"Isn't it beautiful?"
"What's that mean?"
"It means I'm engaged!" she said demurely.
"Who lent you that thing?"
"I'm a very mysterious person," she said gravely. "Look out! Some day
you'll find me married before you know it!"
He looked at her with his intimidating, magisterial stare.
"Oh, you don't frighten me at all, Your Honor!" she said, making a face.
"I don't believe a word you say! You've borrowed the ring, and you've
made ready a fine story; but I'm not going to give you the pleasure.
Will you dine with me?"
"Previous engagement!"
"With your fiance, of course?"
"Quite right!"
"That's serious?" he said, rising, and containing his wrath with
difficulty.
"Very serious!"
"Good-by, then!"
"Au revoir or good-by?"
"Good-by!" he said dryly and with emphasis.
She accompanied him to the door with a well simulated mask of tragedy,
shook hands gravely, and suddenly, with a burst of laughter, called
after him:
"To-morrow--here--same hour! If you're not on time you won't find me!"
The next day she told him, very seriously, the story of the ring, and
with the true spirit of fiction, assimilating all that came to her ear
and turning it into personal experience, she profited by what Winona had
told her.
"You are sure you want to know?" she began, with a little alarmed air.
He nodded with a jerky, irritated motion.
"You will be annoyed," she said, hesitating; "you won't like it!"
"Begin!"
"Very well! I've told you often my time is not my own. The truth is that
at any moment I may have to go when I am called," she began. Her starts
were always rather jerky until the mood had enveloped her. Suddenly she
remembered Winona and dashed ahead. "The person who gave me this ring is
an old man, sixty-five years of age--very rich. You have often wanted to
know how I manage to live. He gives me the money. I have signed a
contract to marry him when three years are up. There! Now you know all!
That is my fate--if he lives! To-day he is desperately ill."
She went to the window, draping herself in the proper tragic pose,
gazing out into the clear frozen twilight, drawing a deep sigh.
"It was all before I knew you--when I first came, when I was desperate,
without a friend, without a cent! It was either that or--" She left the
window abruptly, overcome by the mood, and returning, sat down, her
elbows on her knees, her head in her hands. "He is a gambler, a partner
of my father's. He fell in love with me there at Gold Fields--you
remember? When my father was killed, he sent me to school; he has always
been kind, very kind. Wanted to marry me afterward, but I wouldn't hear
of it. I ran away. I wanted to be young, to enjoy life, to live! He is
very ugly, very old; his skin is all spotted and loose, and his eyes are
watery and faded, and when he touches me I shiver."
She raised her head, staring before her, drawing down the corners of her
mouth.
"I didn't see him again until--until I came here, and that was by
accident. Everything had gone wrong! The company I had come with had
failed; I could get nothing to do! It was very black. There were men,
horrible men, offering me--you understand! I sold newspapers, in all
kinds of weather, until ten or eleven at night sometimes, to get enough
to eat! That's where he found me, under an umbrella on a street corner,
in a pouring rain, a bundle of newspapers soaking under my arm. I was
crying; I couldn't struggle any more! He took me to his home, a
beautiful place just off Washington Square. He wanted me to marry him
then. I can remember every word he said:
"'I'm over sixty. I've lived hard. Two strokes--and the next will box me
up. At the worst, girl, it'll only be four or five years and then seven
hundred thousand coming to you!'
"I don't know what I might have answered, but he put out his
hand--wrinkled chalky hand! I can see it now--and touched mine. Ugh! But
I made the bargain then and there, signed it in black and white. Three
years to do as I please, and then--"
"And the time is up precisely on the tenth of March?" he said, with a
grim smile.
"No! I have eight months more," she said, furious that he should not
have been convinced by a story which had moved even her. "Who knows? He
is very, very ill; it may all be over in a week!"
All at once the true effect flashed into her imagination, she turned,
seizing him by the coat violently, clinging to him, crying:
"Oh, Your Honor, forgive me whatever I do these days! I haven't told you
the truth. I'm not engaged--I'm married to him! And it's horrible--it is
killing me! I don't know what I shall do. I think such wicked thoughts.
I hope he'll never recover! Can you ever love me now?"
His answer was effective. He swore a splendid, soul-easing oath, adding:
"Dodo, if ever I'm fool enough to believe you, I deserve all I get!"
She laughed through the tears which had come naturally.
"So that's all you'll tell me!" he said roughly.
"Oh, there's always some truth in what I tell you!" she answered; and
she had so entered into the part, so completely dramatized herself, that
all that day he could not succeed in drawing her back to plain
matter-of-fact.
But, despite all the good humor he put to her caprices, the
determination to plague him always returned to her in some animal
revulsion on leaving Lindaberry. No sooner had she left this quieter
self that she found herself seized by the need of violent reaction, to
which Massingale did not always suffice. Consequently she gave more time
and more opportunity to Sassoon than she ordinarily would have done in
prudence. But Sassoon, as though the lion had clipped his claws, never
made the slightest attempt to presume, acting mildness and docility. She
even began to consider him as rather a safe person, who could always, in
the last test, be found manageable--which was exactly what Albert Edward
Sassoon had planned. Next mutually to provoke Judge Massingale and
Harrigan Blood, she persuaded them to lunch _en trois_. The alacrity
with which Massingale (who, since the unexplained ring, was suspicious
of Blood) agreed where she expected resistance, drove her to too overt a
display of interest before Harrigan Blood, with his keen vindictive
eyes.
This luncheon, the result of one of those unreflecting impulses which
seem so casual at the time, was destined to have the gravest
consequences. Harrigan Blood, suddenly enlightened as to the true state
of Dodo's interests, perceived that the ruinous quarrel with Sassoon had
been to no end, and disillusioned and duped, became a bitter enemy of
Massingale's: for Blood, with all his idealism in the domain of ideas,
was capable of petty and terrible vindictiveness when his desires were
once aroused. This luncheon, in fact, cost Massingale a career.
But Dodo, having thus roused Harrigan Blood to an extent to which she
little guessed, turned the tables on Massingale, who, claimed by the
afternoon session, was forced to hand her over to the escort of Harrigan
Blood and see them depart in the intimacy of a closed automobile.
"Thanks! now I know who is my rival!" said Harrigan Blood immediately.
"You think so?"
"I know!" he said pointblank. Then, with a sudden rage, he turned on
her. "Do you know what you have cost me by making one mistake?"
"Yes," she said softly; "Mr. Sassoon told me!"
He swore at this, and went on:
"Look here! I want to understand things; I want the truth! I want some
straight answers!"
He was one of those men of force who believe that they can resolve all
feminine intrigues by bruskly bringing things to a point. She smiled to
herself at this bull rushing toward a fancied light.
"Are you in love with Massingale? If so, I want to know!"
"I haven't made up my mind," she said, looking at him out of the corner
of her eye.
"Are you playing a game with me or not?"
"That would be rather natural, wouldn't it?"
"What's that?" he said, amazed.
"We are rather different, aren't we?" she said quietly. "It's very easy
for you to make up _your_ mind to put out your hand and take me, as you
once expressed it; that's not a very great decision for you. But it's a
little different, you see--it takes a little longer--to persuade _me_
that I want to be taken. You are a very poor hand at courting, Mr.
Harrigan Blood; you go out to win a woman as you would bowl down a lot
of ten-pins. Don't you see?"
"Lord!" he cried, angry at the fretting and time-wasting she had made
him endure and would further inflict on him. "Will there ever be a woman
who'll have the courage to say, 'I love you as you love me, and let's
dispense with all this backing and filling, this fencing, this
coquetting and vexing of the spirit!' And why? Afraid that if you give
naturally you won't be prized. That's the littleness about you women;
you can't conceive anything on a big scale!"
"But I don't know at all that I love you!" she said quietly. His last
words had brought to her mind an idea of Estelle Monk's, which she
adopted instantly, as she had adopted Winona's story. Even as she began
she was laughing inwardly at the effect she knew it would bring. "Win
me--make me love you! You have big ideas; so have I!"
He came closer, putting his arm back of her shoulder, taking her hand
with impulsive suddenness, excited by this first opportunity she had
permitted him.
"Give me a chance, Dodo! Let me see you, like this, but be honest with
me!"
"I'll be perfectly honest, Harrigan," she said demurely, smiling to
herself at the thrill that went through him at this first use of his
name. "You are very much mistaken if you think I am like other girls. I
want to be honest, and I am not afraid. We have the same ideas about
marriage. I want to be a pioneer, to have the courage to lead the way!
I'm not an adventuress. I shall never be ashamed of what I do! I shall
never marry, but when I know that I love, I shall go to the man of my
choice--openly!"
He placed her hand to his lips enthusiastically.
"And I shall let the world know it!"
"What?"
"And I shall announce it to every one!"
A sudden chill came over his ardor; the hand that had gripped hers so
passionately felt all at once limp and discouraged.
"Are you serious?"
"Absolutely! I have made up my mind to this for a long time!"
"It isn't so easy," he said slowly.
"All the better!" she replied enthusiastically. "It'll show we have the
courage of our convictions! That's what you believe in, too, isn't it?"
"H'm--yes."
The conversation suddenly dropped. He began to stare out of the window,
pulling at his short mustache, while Dodo, shrunk in the corner, was
choking with laughter. When they arrived at Miss Pim's, she could no
longer contain herself. He looked up suddenly, detecting her laughter,
furious.
"What!"
"Oh, Harrigan Blood!" she cried, between spells of laughter. "What a
chance you have missed--and you such a clever man!"
"You were making fun of me; you didn't mean it!" he cried angrily.
But Dodo, waving a feeble handkerchief, ran hilariously up the stoop.
She returned from these excursions into her dramatic self to her nest,
so to speak, languid and eager for calm. How did it happen that she did
not attempt to dramatize herself with Lindaberry? Perhaps she did; but,
if so, it was always as something bodiless and mystic, a sort of dipping
into a religious exaltation, conceiving of herself as a ministering
sister of the poor, sexless and utterly unselfish. But she never, in the
long hours when she sat by his bedside, prattling gaily or reading him
to sleep, set sail on the gentler seas of romance and passion. For him
she had great depth of tenderness and affection, being often deliciously
moved, as she was when Betty's childish body lay locked upon her heart.
When he welcomed her coming with a quick hailing motion of his hand, his
face radiant with smiles, or when he listened, nodding or grave,
fastening his profound eyes on her as if afraid the slightest turn of
her head would escape him, he gave her a feeling of long intimacy; yet,
when she spoke to him, even when she drew closest, it was always without
the feeling of passion, of the realization of contact, which she always
felt with Massingale.
Her idea of love was more and more something unreasoning, violent and
stirring, something that upset all that had been planned, a flame that
consumed the will--something that was perhaps greatest when it hung on
the threshold of tragedy, madness in some form or other, sweet and
bitter--bitter, in the end, as _Tristan and Isolde_. At this moment she
could not conceive of this serenity that lay between her and Lindaberry
as love; and, besides, it made her feel older, as if she were being
hurried, as if something fragile and elusive were being stolen from her.
A curious thing--she sometimes had the feeling that she was married to
him, that she was a wife, watching and devoted. It rather interested her
to project herself thus. The feeling came to her at times strongly, when
she rose to shift the pillows under his head, as Clarice had taught her,
or, watching his averted eyes, hurried to moderate the glare that smote
them from the windows.
Sometimes she thought of it with a sort of regret, wishing that she were
not constituted as she was, that marriage were a possibility, that
another had not seized on her imagination and awakened in her such
fever. Here, alas! everything was too permissible; it lacked the element
of danger, of the forbidden which alone could make the perfect Eden. But
she felt with him a vast security, and a curious oneness of sympathies.
If she were only ten years older--if she were not Dodo--
But one day an interruption from the outer world arrived to cast a stain
of the matter-of-fact across the fragile fabric of this dream life. It
was the first day that he had received permission to sit up in a chair,
and the event had been duly celebrated with much gaiety. Lindaberry, in
manly vanity, had insisted on taking ten steps alone without the
humiliation of feminine support, but on the return trip had been forced
to capitulate weakly. Having installed him again in bed, while Clarice
had hurried off for luncheon, Dodo was bending over him, supporting his
back with one arm, piling up the pillows, when the door opened and
Lindaberry's brother entered, followed by Doctor Lampson.
"Hello, there, old bruiser!" he began, in a rough welcome in which a
note of anxiety was trembling. "You're a nice, brotherly person! Why
didn't you send me a telegram?"
All at once he stopped, perceiving that Dodo was not in nurse's dress.
At the same moment she was seized with a sudden embarrassment. Doctor
Lampson, in the background, equally at a loss, waited, rubbing his chin
with quick nervous movements. Garry, engrossed in the joy of seeing his
brother, did not at once perceive the situation.
"By the Lord Harry, Jock, glad to see you! I'm not all in yet, am I? Sat
up--walked--" A little movement of Dodo's, stiffening and withdrawing,
caught his eye, and recalled him to the necessity of an explanation. He
hesitated only a moment, a little unprepared, but that momentary delay
hurt her with a sudden swift pain.
"Jock, I want you to meet a good angel," he said quickly. He stretched
out his hand, taking hers, and turned proudly: "This is Miss
Baxter--Dodo. We are engaged to be married."
Jock Lindaberry's face at once lost the peculiar undecided stare it had
borne. He stepped forward, bending over her hand with a trace of the
old-fashioned courtesy that sat so naturally on Garry.
But the slight trace of awkwardness which had attended the explanation,
a fugitive sensitive thought that Garry had said what he had to save the
situation,--out of _noblesse oblige_,--had shocked Dore in her
independent soul. She felt a sudden anger at the invalid, at the doctor
who was a spectator, and at the brother who had made such an excuse a
social necessity.
"Mr. Lindaberry is quite wrong!" she said hotly. "And his explanation is
totally uncalled for, whatever his motives! We are not engaged. I have
never promised to marry him, and I do not need any such excuse to
account for my being here. Mr. Lindaberry and Doctor Lampson both know
what my motives are, and I consider them quite honorable enough to need
no apology. Good day!"
Before she could be prevented, deaf to the entreaties of Lindaberry or
the expostulations of his brother, she walked out, in a fine temper.
Lindaberry did not understand in the least the motive of her revolt. He
rather ascribed it to a refusal on her part to commit herself. The next
day, when she came, he stammered out:
"Dodo, look here. You don't understand! I'm not taking things for
granted--I meant what I said. You're bound to nothing. What I--"
But she laid her hand across his lips, frowning.
"We won't discuss it!"
The evening came when Garry, still with a touch of weakness in voice and
in complexion, was ready to go off for a month in the open with Doctor
Lampson--a hunting trip in the clarifying wilds of snow-ridden Canada on
the track of moose: a month in which to fight the first battles against
old habits, with the strength of a devoted friend at his side, far from
old associations, nightmares of interminable electric lights and the
battering, nerve-tiring hammer of New York. He had come doggedly out of
the shadow, fortified by the inspiration a great love had raised in him.
Not that the fight was easy: on the contrary, alone he never would have
conquered. He loved, and he felt resurrected. He had no fear of the
test. The old manhood, sharp and decisive, returned. Sometimes, when, on
a sleepless night, he had gone trudging, in greatcoat and boots, for
miles across frozen sleeping blocks, he would return to her home, gazing
up at her window with the adoration of the Magi. For him she was the
purest spirit that could exist, without evil--without even the power to
perceive ugliness.
He had never again referred to their relations since the unfortunate
introduction to his brother. He saw her every day, at every hour, but he
guarded strictly the retinue of friendship, putting into this
self-discipline a fierce pride. The result was that she little divined,
under the soldier, how deep a love had been kindled. She believed in his
gratitude only; but this, to her independent romantic spirit, raised an
impossible barrier.
She went to the station with him, alone in the automobile, her hand in
his all the way. He did not say a word. She spoke rapidly, and then by
fits and starts, wondering at his silence. The truth was, he dared not
permit himself a word, for fear of the torrent which lay pent up in his
soul. Perhaps had the outburst come in one wild moment, it would have
frightened her, given her a new insight, satisfied her and awakened in
her other sides that craved for expression--the sides below the serenity
and the tenderness that were so ready.
Doctor Lampson met them at the station, shooting a queer little glance
at their quiet faces. The train was ready, the great iron cavern filled
with the monster cries of steam animals, bells ringing, crowds frantic,
bundles, trunks, children, babies, rushing by in pandemonium. There was
nothing else to do but to say good-by.
"Better be getting on--better be moving!" remarked Doctor Lampson, in
his nervous rough way. "Good-by, Miss Baxter. You're a trump--the finest
of the fine! I'll take care of Garry. He'll come back like a drum-major!
Good-by, good-by--God bless you! Come on now, Garry; come on."
He turned obligingly away, shouting orders at a couple of negro
porters staggering under valises and gun-cases. She looked up at Garry,
a lump in her throat, thrilled through her misty eyes at the victory
she had wrought in the erect and confident figure. Would he take her
in his arms and kiss her, there, before all the people? She did not
care ... it would only be natural after all she had won for him. She did
not care ... perhaps, she longed for this embrace without knowing quite
why.
"Dodo ..." he began, and then suddenly caught himself, and his great
chest rose. He stopped, took her hand, pressed it as though to crush it,
did not even seek her eyes, turned and went quickly away.
[Illustration: "Good-by, Miss Baxter. You're a trump."]
"How he reveres me!" she thought, tears rushing to her eyes. She clung
to the iron railing, her handkerchief to her face, a sob in her throat,
following the strong figure, which the crowd slowly obliterated. Once
she thought he had turned and she waved her white signal feebly--not
quite certain. It seemed eternity waiting for the train to move. At
the last she had a mad desire to run after him, to call him back, to
hold him and to be held, to look in his eyes, to give up all the daring
and the curiosity of life, to be just a weak woman and to hear him say
those words which she had steadfastly forbidden. She was afraid to let
him go. She felt as though she needed him more than he had needed her.
It had all been so serene. The goodness in the world seemed to vanish
with his going. What was left was so black, so impenetrable. If only she
were different--like other women....
The great black shape stirred at last, drew swiftly away and curved into
nothingness. It seemed to her all at once as though a door had closed on
her life, even as the iron gate had slammed against her tears. She
drifted out in a daze. The whole clanging tumultuous station was empty
to her eyes. Energetic purposeful crowds buffeted her and unresisting
she went with the current and feebly home to where she knew Massingale
at least would be waiting for her. For with all her fancied daring, she
had a consuming horror of being left alone. The twilight electric world
of New York roared in her ears and weakly she felt that to stand against
this merciless leap of contending thousands she had no strength but the
strength of the men her instincts could draw about her.
Massingale had been waiting interminably for Dore. He had come in a
little after five to take her off to dinner, as she had ordered. But
hardly had he arrived when she had told him a story he did not believe:
Ida Summers had quarreled with an admirer and had asked her to make it
up for her; she would be only a moment below, half an hour at the
most--would he mind waiting? He had assented heavily, with a new
vexation, certain that this was but a new trial she was imposing on him,
part and parcel with the misery of the wretched last weeks, and yet too
proud to show the pain.
He sat down alone in the great vacant room--her room, in which every
breath brought him some perfume of her, feeling her tantalizing presence
in a hundred vanishing shapes twirling about him: in the alcove, a
glimpse of pillow and counterpane, where she slept, unconscious of
torture and craving; in the swung door of the closet, soft filmy fabrics
that seemed yet warm from her body; in the ugly dressing-table, with its
musty mirror which seemed reclaimed by the glamour of her reflection; in
all the undisciplined touches, in all the poverty-conquering gaiety--her
room, her world, into which she had drawn him as the Lorelei steals the
fisherman from his boat. Outside, vacancy, a cold and colorless world,
his world, the life he had chosen, believing it secure. He took up a
magazine, gazed at a random page without turning and laid it down. Was
it love or hatred?--the malignant, brute-to-brute passion for
destruction of the male, tormented and defied! How she had made him
suffer, wounded him in his pride, humiliated him before himself in all
this blind clinging to something which had no answer! And here he was
now, Judge Massingale, enduring new indignity, waiting supinely in her
room, exposed to the ridicule of any chance entrance. He glanced at his
watch: forty-five minutes had already elapsed. He started up angrily.
No! he would endure no more! The time had come to revolt! He would
humble himself no longer; now, at last, he would make an end--once and
forever! He went down-stairs quietly, and into the parlor. It was as he
had surmised--she was not there. Only one more lie! Then, resolved, with
a feeling of liberation, he went up-stairs again, took out paper and
envelope, and sat down at her desk, saying to himself:
"This is the end, thank God! She is making a fool of me; I am only
ridiculous! Now to finish it!"
Without phrasing or hesitation, he wrote with rapid furious scratches:
"_My Dear Girl_:
"You have been very clever, and I have been nothing but a fool,
but for once you have gone too far! Thanks; it has opened my eyes!
It is not only that I do not believe one single word you tell me,
but that I see what a ridiculous role you have made me play. Don't
attempt to invent any new fiction--I warn you, I will not see you!
I leave you without the slightest fear for your future. You are
quite capable of taking care of yourself.
"M."
Prudently he affixed only his initial, sealed the envelope, and rose,
again glancing at his watch. It had been fully an hour and a quarter.
"If she is not here in five minutes--" he began angrily.
The door flew open, and Dodo rushed into his arms. He crushed the
envelope clumsily into his pocket, and caught her to him.
"Ah, hold me strongly!" she cried, quivering and breathless.
"More--more! You are so kind--you are so patient with me, Your Honor!
And I have been so cruel. How I must have plagued you! Forgive me!
Forgive me! Forgive me!"
"It's nothing--nothing!" he said, troubled with her embrace, which had
never seemed so complete an abnegation, a surrender and a seeking.
"Oh, I'll make it up to you now!" she cried, her cheeks wet.
She clung to him, craving affection, the pain of his clutching arms, the
strength of his male body, in a strange impulse, the inconscient seeking
from one man what another had roused. Did she know herself to whom she
was clinging, or why she had such a wild hunger in her sorrow-racked
body? She clung to him, but she did not cry his name!