In a twinkling, from the heights of triumphant pleasure, Dodo found
herself plunged into profoundest dejection. It seemed as if everything
must turn against her, that there could be no end to the defeats that
were to pile up. At the end of the week a curt farewell letter came from
Mr. Peavey, in which she believed she divined the hand of Brennon. For
the first time, too, she felt the clammy touch of poverty. In the last
months, unperceived, the props had dropped away, one by one. She had
been foolish, extravagant. She had wanted to be as well dressed in the
eyes of Massingale as the women of his world. She had sold, through Zip,
the furs Stacey had given her, for the exigencies of the wardrobe. Trip
by trip, she had gone into the shadow of the pawn-broker, sacrificing
the silver toilet set, Sassoon's bracelet, the vanity-box, earrings,
brooches, every convertible thing, until only two remained--Judge
Massingale's bracelet, and the ring that Lindaberry had placed on her
finger as a troth.
When Peavey's automobile had been withdrawn, she had tried Gilday, only
to find him out of town. When she had sought to bring Stacey back into
the fold of the faithful, she found that his allegiance had been
transferred. He came once to take her to luncheon, but it was out of a
sentiment for the past, and a need of unbosoming himself. She listened
with a little lonely feeling to his rhapsodies about another girl, and
when it was over she made no attempt to recall him. The time was too
short to seek out other alliances: she resigned herself to going on
foot. It gave her a curious sensation, as if she were suddenly
bankrupt--as if she were slipping back.
Nebbins had written that he would come on the fourteenth, but she had a
vague dread that he might turn up any day. She never let herself into
Miss Pim's hall now that she did not glance apprehensively at the musty
shadows of the parlor, fearing to see the brisk red-headed apparition of
Josh Nebbins.
Doctor Lampson returned the end of February and she went to his office
for news of Garry. But at the sight of her, pale and restless, he had
exclaimed:
"Great heavens! What have you been doing? You look like the ghost of
yourself!"
"I've been worrying," she said quickly.
"Don't! Does no good! Besides, Garry's all right: he's coming out of it
with flying colors! Hello! I almost forgot. Here's a letter for you," he
added, with a twinkle in his eyes.
Dore took the letter, holding it without opening it.
"How long will he stay?" she asked quietly.
"I rather think he'll turn up here before the tenth," said Lampson,
still enjoying his joke.
"He ought to stay longer, doctor!" she said, with a sinking feeling.
"Of course, but he won't! I can't imagine what it is; he seems to be
fond of that date."
"It's my birthday!" she said, gazing at the rug, longing to take him
into her confidence.
"Then you'd better get the roses back in your cheeks!" said the doctor
briskly. "What do you think of these snapshots? Garry's more beautiful
than I am, but I landed the first moose. Take 'em along!"
He put in her hand a dozen photographs, accompanying her to the door
with the cordial respect he had shown her ever since that afternoon when
she had indignantly disclaimed the engagement. There he took her hand in
a fatherly way:
"Miss Baxter, you've one life to your credit, bless you! I didn't think
it possible! You've got a better medicine than I have!"
When she went home, she sat a long while, staring at the curious figures
in snow-shoes and sweaters; but she did not open the letter. She knew
that he would return for the tenth, and yet the news upset her terribly.
If she shrank from the necessity of telling Nebbins the truth, this was
nothing to the dread she had of Lindaberry's being present. She had
hoped, almost against hope, that he would stay away for months; that, as
he regained his self-control, the feeling he had for her would quiet
down into a sense of profound gratitude only, which would leave him not
too long miserable at her flight.
She took up the envelope again, hesitated, ran her fingers along the
edge, and glanced at the first page. Almost at once she rose, with a
catching of the throat, thrust the letter back into the envelope and
locked it in her trunk. Then she went hurriedly, blindly, to seek
Massingale in court, a thing she seldom did. All that evening she was
very quiet, very clinging with him, studying him with wide serious eyes.
One day at the end of the first week in March, the boarding-house was
thrown into a state of violent excitement: Winona Horning had returned,
paid Miss Pim, tipped Josephus the enormous sum of five dollars, left an
address near the park for her trunk, and departed, after an abrupt
answer to Miss Pim's exclamatory questions, saying that she had received
a small legacy. The truth was discovered an hour later by Josephus, who
personally delivered the trunk at an impressive apartment in the West
Eighties. Winona was there under the name of Mrs. Sampson, and the
automobile at the door belonged to Mr. Gilday. The next morning a letter
came by messenger which left no further doubt in Dodo's mind:
"_Dear old Dodo_:
"You'll know the truth by this time. Don't waste any sympathy
over me! I don't care--the other was worse! I couldn't go back
and starve! Don't blame Joe, either; it's all my doing! I suppose
the girls will say terrible things about me. The Duchess told me
Ida's married: I'm glad of it. Dodo, I wish I could see you some
day, just to _talk_ to, but I suppose that's impossible. Remember
what I say--only I hope it won't ever happen!--if things ever go
bad with you, and you're dead up against it, come to me! What
you've been to me I never can forget! Perhaps now you can even
forgive me about Mr. Peavey. I was desperate! Don't refuse the
hundred dollars I send you in this. It'll hurt me terribly--and I
owe you every cent of it, on my word of honor! Good-by, Dodo.
You've got more chances than I had; only don't make mistakes!
"WINONA (Mrs. Edgar Sampson.)"
"P. S. Now, whatever you do, don't get teary about me. It isn't
necessary. I don't care in the least--now! That's honest!"
Inclosed was a bank-note of a hundred dollars. The sight of this money
coming from such a source brought to Dodo a sudden horror akin to the
smarting shame she had experienced at Brennon's insulting advances. She
went out hastily to lunch, alone, to that mediocre noisy restaurant on
Lexington Avenue where she had gone so miserably on the night of her
first meeting with Massingale, Sassoon and Lindaberry. There, in the
quiet of a corner, she took out the letter and reread it. Her first
thought was to rush to Winona and take her in her arms. No; certainly
she had nothing in her heart now but charity.
How well she understood the horror of returning into the old! Why should
not a woman have the right to progress, to free herself from hateful
surroundings? Why should it be so difficult for a woman, when it was so
easy for a man? Why should she only be forced to the wall? In the bare
room, lighted by feeble curtained windows, she saw this other life from
which she too had emerged, to which she was resolved never to return,
but which frightened her now as a possibility. How tired and pinched
these men and women were who surrounded her! And the women, how bare of
coquetry and charm! Even the young men who clustered in a corner,
talking languidly, had a tired air of being already middle-aged!
Her next impulse was to warn Winona of her insecurity: for she had read
Gilday without illusions, and if five months ago she had perceived what
he would be to-day, she saw now the man of to-morrow, undisturbed by
sentiment or weakness, avid of experience and sensation, an egoist soon
evolved, who would never deviate from his own desires from any feeling
of remorse or pity. She felt that his attachment could not last. She
must warn Winona, open her eyes, prepare her for the worst! She went
from the lunch-room with this one thought in mind. Only, as the
interview would be difficult, and she did not quite yet know what to
counsel, she began to wander aimlessly through the streets, gusty with
the rage of March.
The figure of Winona haunted her, rising like an accusing specter
against her conscience. If only she had understood in time! She saw her
always weak and irresolute, obstinately shrugging her shoulders, her
brow clouded over--rebellious and foredoomed. Again she revolted at the
different destinies of the sexes, with a hot indignant anger. Why should
the woman be cut off from all friendships, and not the man? Would it
make any difference to Gilday's friends, or change his position in the
slightest? That was the injustice of it all. And who was unjust? Her own
sex!
"No! She needs a friend more than ever!" she said resolutely. "I'll go
to her now--this instant!"
All at once, by one of the perversities of the city, as, come to the
thoroughfare of Fifth Avenue, she was halted and crowded against the
curb, a great automobile came swinging about the corner, with Gilday at
the wheel, Adele Vickers and two men behind, and in front, laughing and
elegant, Winona Horning. They flashed by without even seeing her,
standing on the sidewalk, elbowed by the common crowd. She had but a
glimpse of the girl who had shared her wall in Miss Pim's
boarding-house; but the glimpse she had caught of the butterfly that had
emerged from the grub tore down her last illusions. She it was who was
left standing, depressed, struggling against the buffeting busy crowd,
feeling all at once deserted and shoddy.
Until now she had never experienced the slightest temptation in regard
to Sassoon. She had never deceived herself on that point, for she had a
horror of ugliness, and it was not money, but romance, which she wished
to force from life in this ardent fleeting period of her youth. Sassoon
awoke, not her cupidity, but her curiosity. It was an unexplored world,
and she was anxious to perceive its proportions. What would he do under
strong provocation, and what, at least, would it mean to her if she were
differently inclined? Besides, his docile attitude had disarmed her
prudence: she believed in her control over him.
But to-day, one in the multitude that moved, heavy of foot and weary of
heart, through the great shop-lit thoroughfares, she felt in a
peculiarly vulnerable moment. She had been walking for hours in the
effort to tire her brain, afraid to seek out Massingale for fear that
another deception was awaiting her, beginning more and more to doubt
that anything but empty dreams would ever come. This physical weariness
into which she had forced herself had brought a profound moral
lassitude. She felt perilously near the point of surrender. At times she
had a desire to take train and escape to somewhere unknown, to
reconstruct everything from the bottom up. Ida's marriage, the departure
of Winona, affected her in different ways. What better chance had she to
struggle against the crushing weight of an implacable city? After all,
was not Ida right? Did she really belong? How long could she endure in
this rarefied air? At bottom, what did all these men really think of
her--even Massingale? Did one of them consider her in equality?
Never had she felt the bruising brutality of New York so much as she did
this evening, wandering aimlessly from shop to shop. What was the use of
struggling against these enormous forces, that could reckon all
emotions, joy or sorrow, love or despair, only in tens of thousands?
What difference, after all, did it really make what became of her in
this huge maelstrom of New York? Who would notice, and who would
remember for more than a few hours, what came to one girl in the
hundreds of thousands?
In her pocket was the money Winona had sent, from which her fingers had
retreated in horror. Yet now no such sensation came to her. She was very
tired, weary of the struggle, of being on foot, of defeat, of the
contamination of poverty, of resisting temptation which could be so
easily squared with her conscience. There was one particular shop-window
past which she had gone a dozen times--a window in which was a dress
she coveted, all gold and black, the color men preferred on her, a dress
she could have so easily for the mere acceptance of the offer about
which her fingers clung. And, after all, it was but money returned, not
a gift.
She was hovering before the fatal window for the tenth time, cold with
the approach of darkness and the lack of the furs which had had to be
surrendered, when suddenly Sassoon appeared at her side from some
current of the crowd. She felt him at her shoulder, silently studying
her, striving to seize her secret thought, and she started as if he were
an apparition of the devil himself.
"How long have you been here?" she asked hastily.
"Four minutes--five," he said, shaking hands elaborately. "Well, what do
you want?"
"Everything in the window!" she replied angrily.
"May I send them to you?"
This made her angrier still. She shrugged her shoulders and glanced at
her watch.
"Take me to tea somewhere!"
"A little run in the country?"
"I don't care!"
He put her into his automobile with an eagerness she did not notice, so
delighted was she by the sense of escape from mediocrity which the
elegance and ease of the car brought her. He considered a moment, and
then, with a word to his chauffeur, followed her.
"Where are we going?"
"I thought it would be something different to run down a way toward
Coney Island."
[Illustration: She was hovering before the fatal window]
"I don't care."
"Blue?"
She nodded, her head turned to the flying shops, the cross streets, and
the maze of traffic at her side. He put out his hand to take hers, but
she stopped him with a warning finger.
"None of that, Mr. Sassoon!"
"I had no thought--"
"Yes, I know; but you know the conditions!"
"Why are you blue?" he asked, checking himself. "Getting near the
tenth?"
"That's it!"
"And you haven't made up your mind yet?" he said slowly.
"How can I?" she said, with an irritable movement of her foot.
"Don't forget that I have something to say to you before you decide," he
said quietly.
"It will do you no good!"
"Are you sure?"
"Quite!"
"Sure there is nothing I could offer you that would mean anything?"
"Quite!"
But, though she repeated the word with extra emphasis, she felt all at
once the beginning of a dangerous curiosity. After all, was there
nothing he could offer her, who had gone so long, tired of foot and
discouraged of heart, that might not cause her to pause and at least
experience a regret--for an enormous sum, something fantastic, which no
man would offer? Yet the idea entered into her imagination and
stimulated it. How many women would hesitate before a sum so great that
it made no difference what people said? From which she began to wonder
what might be her price to this experienced connoisseur, who had
estimated and bought so many of her sex: Yes, what was his estimate of
her resistance? This awoke a zest which soon dominated the lassitude of
the afternoon. She must learn this price: it would be more than
exciting.
All at once they seemed lifted above the city, soaring upward past the
last sinking roofs, cleaving into clear air. They were on the great
Williamsburg Bridge, the river far below, strewn with dusky moving
shapes setting out faint lamps against the darkening day. Across the
river gusts of steam or belching smoke thickened the gray horizon.
Factories, come down like animals to drink at the riverside, stood in
naked profile against the sky, pointing their rigid towers toward the
stars, sending occasional flaming blasts across reddening lines of
window-panes. Below, like the magic of invisible sprites, the jeweled
strands of Brooklyn Bridge were flinging a brilliant span across the
gulf of the night. About them, deliriously below, were the thousand
waking eyes of mysterious hours, starting from the regimented lamp-posts
that cut the city into squares of black. All about them was that day of
the city which is the creation of man, which he has created in the need
of forgetfulness, of doubling the span of his few allotted years in a
sort of Promethean revolt. The day often oppressed her--the night
never. She sat up, smiling and alert, and as if for the first time
taking notice of where she was and where she was going, asked:
"What time is it?"
"Half past five only."
But she began to feel a menace in this other bank which they were
nearing, in these long stretches of human wilderness leading to the
sound. Sassoon was entirely too docile, she did not know why, but she
scented danger in the air.
"We will go back," she said suddenly. "Brooklyn is too dreary; besides,
it's late for tea."
"I'm sorry," he said, stirring in his seat; "I'm afraid you don't trust
me?"
"No, I don't--not too far!"
"Supposing I decided to go on?" he said quickly.
"I should open the window and scream," she said, handing him the tube.
He complied reluctantly, seeking an excuse.
"It'll only take us twenty minutes. I wanted you to get the effect of
New York coming back; in another half-hour it'll be magnificent!"
"I'll enjoy it very much now," she answered, laughing.
"You quite misjudge me," he said, without further trace of irritation.
"However, as you wish. I saw you were blue, and I had planned something
to distract you. But it's no use."
"What had you planned?" she said maliciously.
"To take you to a very nice party."
"What?"
"A supper with some interesting people--Emma Fornez, Sada Quichy--"
"Where?" she said suspiciously.
"At the Cafe Loo."
"Where's that?"
"In Harlem."
She reflected. She had expected him to give the name of some inn in the
country where she would not venture; but Harlem reassured her. Perhaps
the party existed, and, if so, she was crazy to meet Emma Fornez, of the
Metropolitan Opera. Besides, she felt in a reckless mood, within certain
safe limitations.
"If you asked me very nicely," she said softly, "you might be
surprised--"
An hour later they came to a stop before a restaurant flanked with
plants and shining with the dazzle of reflecting mirrors. It was of new
creation, on the order of the German Gardens, situated on one of the
great thoroughfares, a publicity which quite reassured her. They went in
by a private entrance, and up in an elevator to a suite on the third
floor.
"We're ahead of time," said Sassoon. "Dressing-room to the left. Leave
your things there."
The room into which they had entered from an ante-chamber was a salon in
false Empire furniture against plum-yellow carpets and hangings. Through
a curtained door to the right was a glimpse of a dining-room in the
corner of the house. She took in the surroundings with a quick glance as
she went into the boudoir. What she had suspected was true. The party
was an invention. She was alone with Sassoon.