As January went shivering into the slush and fury of February, and the
fatal tenth of March drew nearer, Dodo found herself approaching the
great test of her character. All the different dramatizations that she
had permitted herself, with her joyful instinct toward comedy, suddenly
loomed before her, no longer trivial and facile, but reaching into
seriousness, fraught with the elements of tragedy. Impossible to
describe the fever of emotion into which she now plunged, acting and
reacting, perpetually in a whirl, avoiding solitude and rest, trying
every impulse, frantically proceeding from one flirtation to another,
aghast at the necessity which she had imposed on herself of definitely
choosing what her life should be. She was rarely in bed before the wan
grays were scurrying in their pallid flight before the dawn, like
thieves across the city. She saw the heavy, jangling milk-wagons
plodding to their deliveries, abhorrent figures combing the refuse of
yesterday, groups in rags asleep on iron gratings which sent the warm
blast of underground furnaces into the shivering winds. Often,
heavy-eyed and vibrantly awake, returning in singing parties of four or
six from long hours of dancing, she came suddenly upon night shifts
emerging from their slavery in the bowels of the earth, black shadows
trooping up from the flare of kerosene lamps, an underworld which stared
at the revelers in brutish hostility.
She consumed the night thus--fearing it, avoiding its quiet reflections,
stopping her ears to its whispers of rules learned in childhood; afraid
to face God, who, in her simple superstitious faith, was ever personal.
She felt that if she did not recall herself to Him, God, who had so much
to do, would not notice her. When she returned, she fell at once into
profound, dream-driven sleep from which she woke at noon, heavy and
incredulous, arousing herself into a febrile energy, impatient for the
whirling day to start. At the foot of the alcove she had placed an
enormous calendar; and each night, on entering, she tore off another
sheet--counting the days that yet intervened before the coming tenth of
March. In the whole room she saw nothing but these looming figures,
black against white, marking her little allotted hours. She had so
little time left to revel and dare, to skirt the edge of precipices or
tease the leaping flames ... such a little while to be just Dodo.
The pace she set began to tell on her vitality, to proclaim itself in
the hollowing of her cheeks and the strained cords of the neck. Her eyes
were never quiet, nor could her body find an instant's repose. Snyder,
who had succeeded to Winona's room, perceived the danger, as did
Massingale; but to the remonstrances of each Dore would run to the
calendar, half laughing, half serious, drumming on it with her little
fist, crying:
"Pretty soon--pretty soon. Can't stop now! Soon it'll be over!"
It was not simply three or four intrigues that she drove at once, but a
dozen, keeping the threads from tangling, adding new ones each night,
for a few days' mystification and abandonment. Yet, despite the
nerve-racking and exhaustion, never had she felt so triumphant or known
herself so desirable. The city which once had crushed her imagination in
the first despair of her arrival, the city which she felt in all its
moods, grumbling, defiant, waiting cruelly, submissive or ominous, now
rolled before her in a brilliant succession of pleasures, her world and
her destiny--theater and restaurant, opera and cabaret; and everywhere,
in the burst of lights, or languidly sunk in the seduction of music, in
the lure of shop-windows was the zest of precious temptations--dangers
that it was an ecstasy to be able to reject. Everything succeeded for
her: Massingale, Blood, Sassoon the patient, Gilday, Stacey and dozens
of others. She managed as she wished, arranged her day so that they
never crossed one another, and yet leaping from one dramatization to
another. Never had she felt so confident of the mastery of her
destinies, so avid of the delicious draft of pleasure. She felt that she
was coming to a supreme sacrifice, self-immolation, but that the setting
was superb and the climax must be magnificent!
She adored the reckless threading flight of taxi-cabs through the
streets, plunging into sudden openings, grinding to hairbreadth stops,
rounding abrupt corners, tossed and buffeted, skimming into new perils.
It was all something of herself, her reckless, daring, danger-loving
self. Then, there was the telephone, which called to her twenty times a
day: she never went to it without a little thrill of anticipation. She
adored it as the gambler the rolling ball, this mysterious instrument
which, with its startling jangle, could change the complexion of a dull
and hopeless day and send her swiftly out on some new dare, throbbing
with excitement. She appreciated it, too, for its mocking moments of
conversation, engagements to take or to refuse, laughing excuses or new
traps to set; but it was especially this quality of the unexpected she
adored, the possibility at the last moment, after a day of calculated
planning, to throw everything to the winds, to go rushing off on the
hazards of the unexpected. During this period her passion for the opera
increased: _Tristan and Isolde_, _Boheme_, _Tosca_, _Manon_--she never
let a performance of these favorites pass unattended if she could manage
it, hanging breathless on the passionate poignant tragedies at the end,
soothed and satisfied, convinced, resolved, saying:
"Ah, yes! That is what love is--what it must mean!"
At such times, if she happened to be with Massingale, she would close
her eyes, serenely content, her fingers fastened over his hand,
clinging, as if her arms were wrapped about him. She was certain now
that this was the best--if only she could bring him to the height she
wished, if she could only make him rise above the commonplace and know
the tragic ecstasy. She knew now that he loved her; would it be as she
wished, great enough to justify the sacrifice she would willingly make
to grasp the dream? Perhaps, unconsciously, at the bottom it was
necessary for her to know of what he was capable before she could decide
what she herself would do. To force him to this was now her one idea;
she was fiercely resolved that what had started as a casual flirtation
should redeem itself in a heroic flame.
Besides, Massingale had a physical effect over her. In the anticipation
of his coming she was always nervous and excited; in his presence always
conscious of a feverish magnetized need of drawing closer, of touching
his hand, his arm, of the pressure of his shoulder against hers,
resisting the impulse to be caught in his arms; and always melancholy
and depressed on his departure. This empire over her senses was so
strong, she was convinced that this was the only way love could show
itself. She was glad, at such times, that the day of decision was
coming; for if, in her contrary moods, she inflicted torture on him,
she, too, knew now what it was to suffer. The strong emotions on which
she was living had at last aroused the elemental in her below all the
mental hazards of the girl. If she had ever seen him clearly, she could
not now. She had so completely visualized him in the image of what she
imagined a lover should be that she might have created him herself.
At an earlier moment Massingale might have perceived this; but he had
now drunk too deep of the narcotic on her lips, and followed too long
the firefly lights in her eyes, to distinguish fact from fancy. He saw
he could no longer command, and he felt no strength in him to run away.
He was resigned to letting her conduct them where she willed. For he,
too, was in love with love for the first time in his life; yet it was
not a hungry scanning of future horizons, but a profound melancholic
reflection over the wasted past. He saw himself young, capable of dreams
once more, remembering the hours when he fondly believed in a great
destiny; and this longing, which, against his reason, had fastened him
to the young, ardent and graceful girl, had she but divined it, was the
same that made Peavey so ridiculous--the yearning back to a stolen
youth.
And Lindaberry? Yes; certainly she thought of him often, but as
something she had surrendered, that was not for her rebellious life. It
was love, lawless and destructive, which she sought, not that quiet
content that rises from the wells of peace and serenity. She was indeed
a lawless waif of a law-defying generation, and her mind was set on
great flaming sensations, hating conventions and resolved on rebellion.
She saw her future in the hands of Massingale, Blainey--yes, possibly
even Sassoon, if the others should fail; and conscious of the fierceness
and selfishness of her desires, she judged herself unworthy of
Lindaberry. Once or twice she had paused to consider such a marriage;
but the affection for him which she termed friendship, sympathy,
pity--everything but love--was so deep that she shrank from the thought
of inflicting harm, saying:
"If I married him, what would come?"
For occasionally she looked her image in the face, judging it
mercilessly. Dodo married, she believed, would not be Dodo reformed. She
would still run after adventures, still hunger for admiration, still be
tempted to play with other men--many men at once; and when she saw
herself thus, she recoiled at the ruin she might cause him, at the
thought of bringing another deception into his life, of offering him
anything but a complete self. But when his rare letters came she
devoured them, and answered them while yet his words were in her ears.
Then she thought to herself, since it could not be, at least she wished
she could choose his wife--some one who would be worthy of the desperate
battle he was fighting, of the big vision that was awakening, of the
fineness and the gentle strength which glowed through every page and
moved her strongly.
On the days his letters came, Dore could hardly control herself with
Massingale; she was cruel beyond all reason, flying into a temper at the
slightest imagined excuse. Occasionally they brought a reaction against
the senseless fever in which she was caught, against these men of
pleasure or craving who pursued her; and abruptly, throwing all
engagements to the winds, she flung herself back into childhood, in long
giggling, romping afternoons with Betty. With Snyder she never really
conversed. Once or twice the woman had made as though to open her
confidence, but there was something that lay between them, that each was
conscious of, that could not be bridged. She had ended by telling her of
her adventure with Lindaberry. He had even, once or twice before his
departure, met Snyder in her room, and disapproved too strongly of the
friendship. But Massingale was a subject they could not discuss.
In the last week of February two events of importance occurred. Ida
Summers was married, and Mr. Peavey returned. The news of the engagement
came to Dodo as a great surprise. In the last month she had seen little
of the other Salamanders, except in the confusion of gay parties--having
no time, and, besides, rather avoiding them. Of Winona not the slightest
word had come. Miss Pim, who retained embattled possession of the trunk,
had decided "suspicions," which Dodo did not share. For her, the worst
of all fates had occurred: Winona had retroceded, gone back and given up
the struggle, overcome. Ida Summers had somehow ceased to drop into the
room, or rather their hours no longer coincided. Dodo was
correspondingly surprised when, one morning as she was rising heavily
and against the spirit, Ida, a vision of youth and health, burst
abruptly in on her with the announcement that she was to marry Tony Rex,
that the wedding was for that night, and that Dodo would kindly attend.
"Knocks you off your feet, eh? No more surprised than I am, Do!" she
cried in her exclamatory style. "But, lord! what are you going to do
when a human detective agency like Tony camps on your trail and shoos
all eligibles away!"
"Tony Rex!" said Dodo, with a gasp of astonishment. She was studying the
brilliant beauty of the girl, wondering to herself if she would ever
know what chances she had missed.
"Tony, God bless him!"
"Why?"
"Can't help myself! He's my kind, and I can't fool him!" cried Ida. Then
she continued enthusiastically: "I say, Dodo! I'm tired of all that
other crowd--the stuffed shirt brigade, you know. What's the use? I
don't belong! Lord! I'd rather link my arm in Tony's and trolley it to a
hot dog and a glass of beer, where you can talk English, than to stiffen
up and act refined with a Sassoon or a Charley-boy, feeding me broiled
lobster in a gilded caff! It's not in me. I don't belong--thank God!"
"Well, I never!" said Dore clutching a stocking.
"Now, just a word or two strictly on the Q. T.," resumed Ida anxiously.
"Tony is a most hot-headed native; I think it just as well to cut out
all references to a few episodes in the past. Do you get it?"
"I do!"
"He tells me I'm a blue-eyed baby somersaulting through a wicked world,
entirely too innocent and fragile to understand--ahem! If that's what
Tony wants, why,--God bless him!--I wouldn't have him disturbed for the
world! Besides--lord! Dodo! I've been an awful fool; such risks--whew! I
wish one particular party--well, ahem! It's to-night, no fuss or
feathers. That's Tony's way, quick, on the trigger. Gets me. He's got a
best man: that'll make a party of four. Little Church Around the Corner,
a good blow-out after--Mrs. T. Rex! Why don't you do the same, Do? Lord!
I feel so happy I could jump fifty feet in the air and bite the feathers
out of the lulubird!"
The marriage was very quiet. The sudden solemnity of Ida at the last,
the proud carriage of Tony Rex, the new sidelong clinging of the young
wife to her husband, half protection, half proprietorship, the glow in
her eyes, the gay dinner and the trip to the station to wave them
Godspeed on their mysterious journey into the new world--all this
impressed Dodo strongly. At first it seemed a sort of treason: she
resented Ida's succumbing to the impertinent mastery of Tony Rex--Rex,
who always, with a shudder recalled to her that other figure who had
once, in the forgotten past, domineered likewise over her. But the
marriage service in the little chapel, the quiet of the party of four,
the feeling of solemnity, the way Ida had turned for her husband's kiss,
oblivious of them, had affected her curiously. She scarcely noticed the
best man at her side. She was thinking of Lindaberry--how happy he would
be if she should turn to him, if she could feel as Ida did! Lindaberry
was in her thoughts all the evening, and again in her dreams that night.
The next day she refused to see Massingale at all.
Mr. Peavey arrived two days later, and the moment she entered the musty
parlor where he was fidgeting before the mirror, waiting to take her
out, she realized that a crisis was approaching. Luckily, another couple
were by the window, impatient for their departure, talking in stilted
phrases. Their greeting was therefore formal.
"Glad to see you!"
"Been an age, hasn't it?"
"Shall we go?"
They went immediately to his automobile, where it seemed to her that
Brennon, the chauffeur, sent her a knowing glance from a malicious eye.
"I must leave right after for Boston," he said hurriedly. "I'm sorry,
but I'll be back, the end of the week, for good. I broke the trip just
to see you--first chance."
"What a lot of traveling you have to do!"
"Yes," he assented; "but it has been worth it. Things have worked out
marvelously--better than I hoped. In a year I can retire: you've brought
me luck! I'll tell you later."
He stopped, drawing a long breath, frowning but happy. The joy she saw
on his face made her guess what he would have to announce, and set her
busy imagination planning for some means to postpone an issue. They
entered the restaurant of one of the quieter hotels. A table was already
reserved, in a secluded corner, somewhat removed from the crowd, which
had not yet begun to pour in.
While he busied himself with the ordering, she studied him, seeking some
way to escape the proposal that she saw coming, as one sees an
inevitable collision on a narrow road. Above everything in the world,
she wished to prevent a spoken offer. She was sure that, for the
present, he did not represent a possibility; but there were unsounded
currents in the future of which she knew nothing. At the bottom there
was in her a prudent streak: she did not like to burn her bridges.
Despite all the license she permitted her imagination, there was always
back of it all a sober second sense. She wished to keep him as a friend
until she was at least certain of other things--even perhaps as a
refuge, if that were possible, for whatever turn fate might play her in
the coming years.
She was not quite certain that it was possible to achieve this _tour de
force_, but she intended to try; for, curiously enough, she doubted
Massingale not so much now, in the impulses of his infatuation, but
beyond, in the hazardous months that must succeed. Up to the present she
had two refuges; Blainey, who would continue steadfast, and Peavey, who
was a problem. They had always been fixed points in her moments of
greatest recklessness. Youth was a madness; but, after that, what? And
whom to lean upon? With these thoughts in mind, she looked at Peavey's
honest simple features with a feeling of tenderness and wonder. If the
end of the romance were tragedy and disillusion, would he forgive her?
Would she find there the charity--
"I owe you an explanation, Miss Baxter," Peavey began abruptly. Then he
hesitated, and rearranged the knives and forks. "Your letter caused me
great pain--the greatest! I would have come back instantly, if it had
been possible without sacrificing things I had set my heart on."
"I was very much surprised; hurt, too!" she said gravely. "I have always
thought of you--well, as different, don't you know?"
He bit his lip, and brought the knives over to the forks.
"I hope you didn't misjudge me?"
"I didn't know what to think!"
"I--I don't quite know how to explain. I did not realize Miss Horning's
character. She confessed to me that she was in want; I thought of her as
your friend."
"And you helped her?" she said, instantly alert.
"It was not much."
"It is true," she said seriously, "I introduced Winona to you. She has
been a great deception to me, too. But why did you keep on seeing her
without saying anything to me? Nothing wrong in it, but why hide it?
That's what wounded me."
"Of course," he said miserably, "that was wrong. I don't know how it
came--"
"Sympathy?" she suggested, with a smile.
"I was sorry for her."
"She wished you to marry her, didn't she?"
"No, it was not that! It--was quite different!" he said, and his
face crimsoned, while the knives were transferred hastily back to
the right. He drew a long painful breath. "It's something very
disagreeable--something I can't talk to you about! All I wish to say
is, for your own good, Miss--Miss Horning is not a proper friend for
you."
"She has been gone almost two months!" she said quietly. "Very well; we
won't say anything more. You are too generous, too warm-hearted, Mr.
Peavey! Tell me about what you've been doing."
Her doubts had been suddenly confirmed, but it gave her a sudden feeling
of horror as she thought of the desperation to which Winona must have
been driven to have attempted such a stroke. Then she was afraid of the
opening into sentiment which she saw before her, and changed the subject
quickly, but, unfortunately, to her disadvantage.
"I have carried through a great merger of our interests," he said, his
face lighting up. "The last formalities will be completed to-night, in
Boston. It will be"--he stopped, not daring to look at her--"very
profitable. In a year I shall be, not a very rich man, but quite
rich--yes, quite rich, even as things go to-day! My intention then is to
retire, to travel, to see the great cities of the world. I don't care
for money myself, except--well, to give everything possible in the world
to the person I care for."
He was speaking rapidly now, staring directly before him at her hand,
which was playing with the glass. She looked about in terror. The near
tables were vacant; they were still practically isolated. In another
moment it would be all over. The arrival of the second course
momentarily saved her. She plied him with questions, signaling the
waiter on a dozen invented pretexts whenever the conversation turned to
an intimate note. But at the end of the luncheon, as if overburdened
with the strain of a great secret, resolved to end the torture, he said
abruptly:
"Miss Baxter, it was not simply to explain I came here; I want to talk
to you very seriously, on a matter that is everything in the world to--"
She drew back suddenly as if frightened, and her hand, apparently by
accident, coming in contact with her glass, sent it tumbling over the
table, drenching the cloth, amid a clatter of cutlery. The maitre
d'hotel came running immediately to her rescue, napkin in hand.
"Oh, dear! how awkward I am!" she cried, in great confusion.
"It's nothing--nothing!" Peavey said hastily, reproaching himself for
having frightened her by the abruptness of his methods, here in a
crowded restaurant.
But when they had gone into the anteroom, he said quickly:
"Miss Baxter, will you come into the salon here, or up-stairs? For a
quarter of an hour--a few moments, just a second--I must speak to you.
Now--at once--please!"
There was no escape; she resigned herself to following him. But as she
entered the green-and-gold desert where intimacy could no longer be
avoided, she thought to herself:
"Oh, dear! If I had only knocked it over my dress I could have gone
right home!"
In twenty minutes it was all over, and very red, very quiet, he had
conducted her to his car and sent her off.
"I'm sorry!" she said, distressed at his pathetic figure.
"Such things can't be helped!" he said, with a closing of the jaws.
"But let's be friends, can't you? Just now--I'm so young
still--later--Please let's be friends, Mr. Peavey!"
He shook his head.
"I'm afraid--that's too hard, and--I don't think you'll ever change!"
"I have been honest!" she said sadly--which was true, in a measure.
"Very!"
He shook her hand with an exaggerated bow, signaled the chauffeur and
went back.
All at once she had a feeling of utter loneliness and abandonment. He
had been something so secure in her life, so dependable. To give him up
was more of a wrench than she had imagined. It brought her a curious
sense of peril. Would he wait, as she had suggested, or would this be
the end, the last glimpse she would have of this strong, solitary,
devoted soul?
She jumped out hastily at Miss Pim's, and then stopped to consider.
"Want me this evening?" said Brennon, watching her attentively.
"I don't know--yes--I'll telephone."
"Everything all right?" he asked slyly.
"What do you mean?" she said, frowning and surprised.
"Oh, nothing!" he said noisily. Then he leaned forward, his eyes fixed
boldly, covetously on her. "I say, when you've got an open date, why not
come joy-riding with me?"
"Oh!" She drew back, stung to the quick of her pride.
He misunderstood her action, perhaps. Shrugging his shoulders, he went
on:
"Why not? I'm as good a spender as some of the high-rollers!"
"How dare you?" she cried, blushing hot under his look. "What do you
think I am? Go with _you_!"
"You needn't be so particular!" he said, angry in his turn at her
contempt. "A chauffeur's not a servant. And I guess I've kept your
secrets, young lady!"
"What do you mean?"
"Look here! I'm no fool! Don't you think I know your game? Don't you
think I got on to the brother racket that night? All right! Don't get in
a huff! What've I done? Invited you out! What are you turning up your
nose at me for? Come, now!"
He had ended in a conciliatory tone, smiling at her indignant face with
undisguised admiration.
"Brennon, that's enough! I shan't want you, now or ever! Mr. Peavey
shall hear of this!"
"Oh, will he?" he said, with an ugly look. "Then he'll hear of a good
deal more! What are you but a--"
She gave a cry of shame at the word he flung out in anger, and rushed
into the house, utterly crushed and revolted, wounded as she had never
been before in all her life. The whole day had been one of blank defeat.
Now with her body smarting as if from a blow, broken in spirit, clinging
to the window-frame, she had a sudden ominous chill. It seemed as if in
a twinkle everything had changed for her--that all that had been so rosy
and brilliant before, was now become grim and black; that everything had
been broken up; that, one by one, all would fall away.
And, as if her cup of bitterness were not full, in her mail she found
the one letter she had dreaded for months:
"All over and I've won out, Flossie! Whew! Three months ago
things looked so squally, I couldn't even write. If I'd gone
under, I'd just have quietly dropped out, and, Kid, you'd never
known what had hit me! But, bless the luck, I'm It! Clear the
tracks for me! I'm coming East with the bells on! Listen! Six
thousand eight hundred fifty-two dollars in the bank, salted
away. Prospects, sixteen karat fine. Got a cracker-jack
proposition; six cinematograph shows, one-fifth interest. In a
year, Flossie, it's a gasoline buggy for you! I'm beating it to
you, hot-foot. One stop in Des Moines to pick up some easy money,
and me for the gay White Way! Watch for me about March
fourteenth. Say, we're going to be rich, and don't you forget it!
It's all for you, bless your pretty eyes! Do I love you? Well,
say! I'm sitting up, talking to your little photo, foolish as a
kid! I'm daffy about you. If you're still strong for Josh, why,
set the date. Go the limit on the clothes--the best isn't too
good for you! Don't keep me waiting, and don't go for to tease
me, honey, for my heart's been true to you!
"JOSH.
"P. S. If you've got any foolish thinks in your sassy head that
you care for any cane-bearing dude, dismiss them! You don't!
Sweep the porch and cut the hammock-strings. Don't fool yourself
one minute--we're the team!"
She gave a cry of horror. The worst had come! The past was rising up to
claim her, stretching out its cruel tentacles to drag her back, as it
had done to Winona. How could she escape him? What could she say to him,
after all these months of weak postponement? If only she could stop him
by a letter or a telegram! But there was no address. All she knew was
that somewhere, out on the cold brown sky-line, he was hurrying toward
her, resolute, confident, a terribly earnest lover. All that night, in
the midst of hideous dreams, where Brennon pursued her with his
vindictive grin, she had the feeling of something advancing over the
horizon, black, swelling like a tornado, roaring toward her, obscuring
everything with its expanding darkness.