Massingale had come so tempestuously, had gone so like a roaring blast,
that she had felt swept up and whirled about in a revolving, benumbing
cycle. She followed him in a daze to the hall, leaning over the
balusters, watching the slipping white of his hand descend and vanish.
She crossed to the window, peering through the blurred dripping panes
for a last sight of his skidding car. Then she returned, perceived the
door left open, closed it and came incredulously back.
"So I am going! It's all decided. All!" she whispered.
It was no longer the fabric of dreams, but actuality, that confronted
her. This was new, uncomprehended, despite all her dramatizations. This
was a fact. She was to leave in two hours, vanish forever from the
curious massive room, with its belfried clock over the roofs and its
blank brick wall at the side, out into the gray restlessness of a March
night. Whither? With whom? With a strange man--a Massingale she had
wrought herself, and whom she now scarcely recognized.
"I love him. I said I would go! It's what I've wanted all along!" she
repeated, struck by the idea. "Yes, that's true; it's what I've
wanted!"
But now there was a difference. For the first time, it was not she who
sought to incite him to misty romance, but the man himself who had come
and asked. It was no longer a question of how he loved, where he would
go at her beckoning, her will over him. All this had been miraculously
achieved. It was now only a matter of what she would do, and she had
said that she would go--in two short hours! She remained immovable and
listening, and already it seemed to her that she felt the shaken iron
rush of a flying train, hurrying her onward into the unknown.
"Snyder!"
Terrified, overwhelmed with loneliness, she had cried out, longing for a
human soul to listen, ready to pour out her whole story in confidence.
But no answer returned. She went hastily to the door and flung it open.
The room was empty, filled only with the vague shadows in the same
barren dusk that pervaded her own. She returned, lighted the feeble
gas-jet by her bed, and going to the embrasure of the window, sat down,
her hands weakly in her lap, her head thrown back, gazing inertly at the
yellow clock-face rising through the rain flurries.
No! This Massingale was not the man who had held her in fascination by
his quiet mastery, whom she had despaired ever to move! Yet she had
wished to see him thus, uncontrolled, at her feet, wild and shaken! She
had wished it; yet, at the bottom, had she ever really believed it
possible? Now, the spectacle of his disorder rather terrified her, and
this terror brought a certain liberation. She was satisfied; she could
wish for no completer victory over this man who, by a trick of fate,
scarce five months ago had caught and tamed her. How the roles were
reversed! How abject was now his surrender! For her he was sacrificing
everything--career, friends, family, all--to go out with her into dark
ways. What had she wrought, a miracle or a crime?
"I must pack; I must make ready!" she said to herself. But she did not
rise. No longer framing her thoughts, lost in indefiniteness, prey to a
heavy mental stupor, her hands lay weakly in her lap, her head thrown
back, staring. Later her fingers stopped upon the sharp facets of the
ring which had been pledged as a troth. Garry! What should she say to
him? How make him understand? She rose heavily, and going to the
writing-desk, brought back pad and pencil. Slowly, seeing dimly the
sheet on her lap, she began:
"_Garry dear_: I am going away--"
She stopped. She could not add another word. What could be added? The
pencil slipped from her fingers, the pad slid finally to the floor. She
returned again into the stupor, incapable of thought or action, waiting,
seeing only the jerky advance of a minute-hand around the yellow
surface, until an hour had gone by without a single preparation.
All at once a tear gathered in her eye and went slowly down her cheek--a
tear of profound fatigue, of listlessness, rather than the touch of an
aching thought. This tear, hot and unbidden, seemed to dissipate, all
at once, the frigidity of her mind. She sat up hastily, with a
frightened glance at the clock. It was already past six.
"What am I doing?" she thought, dismayed. "He's coming! I must hurry!"
She went to the closet and brought out a dress-suit-case, laid it open
across a table and gazed helplessly about her. What next?
Ten minutes later, Snyder, coming hastily in, found her camped on the
floor, sorting an enormous pile of stockings, which she rolled and
unrolled without decision. Nothing had yet been placed in the open
suit-case, though every drawer was ajar and every trunk-lid up.
"Dodo!" cried Snyder, with a rapid survey. "In the name of heaven, what
are you up to?"
Snyder's arrival was like a ray of hope to Dore. She rose quickly, her
strength of mind suddenly restored--at last some one to whom she could
talk, to whom she could tell of the great romance that was sweeping her
on!
"Snyder, I'm leaving now, at seven o'clock," she said firmly.
"Leaving, honey? For how long?"
"I guess forever, Snyder!" she answered, with a little shortness of
breath.
Snyder, with a quick motion flung off her rain-coat, rolling it in a
ball and hurling it through the open door into her room. Then she went
rapidly to Dodo, grasping her arms, peering into her face, crying:
"Dodo! That Massingale?"
She nodded, answering aggressively:
"I adore him!"
The woman recoiled, wringing her hands, overcome with grief, crying:
"Oh, petty, petty! I knew it would come! O God of mercy!"
"But, Snyder, I am happy!" Dore said. Yet the words seemed to her heavy,
there in the shadowy room, watching, amazed, the agony of affection and
terror that shook the woman.
"Happy!" cried Snyder, with a mocking laugh. "God! Do you know what you
are doing?"
"Yes, yes, I know!" Suddenly a thought struck her, and she added
hastily: "Snyder, you are wrong! It isn't Massingale. It's I who have
done it all!"
"That's what you think!"
"No, no; it's so!"
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know!"
"When?"
"To-night!"
"And after?"
"What?"
"And after?"
"I don't understand!"
"What's he going to do? Give up his wife? Divorce her?"
"No, no!"
"And after!--what's to become of you?"
Dodo was silent. All the fantastic scheme she had imagined--a year, and
then each to return--seemed so inadequate an answer now. All at once
Snyder, in a sudden rage, bounded to the table, and catching the
suit-case, flung it scurrying across the room.
"No, petty! You shan't do it! I won't let him. I'll kill him first!"
"Snyder, Snyder, you don't understand!" she cried.
"Don't I? I know! Honey, I tell you, I know! You're the one who don't
understand! Honey, I tell you, it ain't a fair world! No; it's a rotten
unfair world! The chances ain't equal! A woman ain't a man! Think of
your own security first, honey. You've got to, or God help you! I know!"
"What do you mean, Snyder?"
"I mean, you shan't do what I did!" said the woman, clutching her
arm--"what I did blindly!"
"You weren't--"
"Married? Never! You didn't know it? I thought you guessed. The others
did!"
"No, no! I thought, at times--but I didn't know!"
"Do you know where I had my child?" she said, folding her arms across
her heart and flinging back her head as if to breast a storm. "I,
nineteen years old, a girl? In a charity hospital, between a black woman
and a raging shrieking dago with the fear of death in her! The story?
Hell! Any one's story! What does that matter? Anyhow, I believed! I had
ideas, like you: liberty, woman same as man. That suited him! It suits
them all! What do they risk? Honey, if I told you what I went through
those last months, you'd never look at a man again! You think I'm
bitter, hard? Yes, I am hard, through and through! And I believed in
him. And proud? God! how proud I was!"
"Snyder! Snyder!" She put out her hands as if to ward off the picture
that rose luridly to her eyes.
"You don't know--no woman knows what the hell of suffering is," she
continued doggedly, "until they're caught, until they've got to bring
into the world another soul, and you stand branded, with every tongue
against you! God! What a world! You marry--you're safe! You can be a
fiend incarnate, lower than the gutter. Nothing to say! But the other?
To be a girl, to believe, to love, to bear a child, as God intended you
to, in love--every one against you, your own family cursin' you, closing
the doors on you, telling you to go and starve! Don't talk to me! I
know! Marry, honey, marry! You've got to, in this world!"
She was weeping now, and the sight of these unwonted tears on the iron
countenance of Snyder terrified Dodo more than all she had heard. She
felt now very little, very weak, far from the volatile Dodo of dreams
and fantasies.
"Oh, Snyder!" she cried brokenly, "why didn't you tell me before? I've
misjudged you so!"
"Yes, you've done that!" said Snyder, flinging away the tears and coming
back into the steeled attitude again. "You thought I didn't care for the
kid--for Betty; didn't you?"
Dodo nodded dumbly, great lumps in her throat.
"Why, honey, I love the ground she walks on! I live for her! Every cent
I can scrape together she's to have! She's to go to the finest school,
to get an education. She's to marry, have a home!..."
"But then, Snyder, why put her away from you?"
"Why?" She stopped, drew a long breath, crossed her arms with a
characteristic brutal motion and said, her face set in hardness: "That's
the horror of it! Because, honey,--don't you see?--I'm training myself
to do without her, training myself to go on without depending on others,
doing for myself. You don't see? Supposin' I had her with me, bless her
heart! Supposin' I got to tying up my life to hers, needing her,
clinging to her? Then what would come? The day would come when she'd
learn the truth, and turn against me. And--God! I couldn't stand
anything more!"
"Oh, no, Snyder, she wouldn't!"
"Yes, she would! I know!" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "No. Better
as it is! I'm getting used to myself. It's a rut, but it keeps me
going!"
Dodo sank into a chair, shuddering and cold, burying her face in her
hands.
"Snyder! Snyder! Why did you tell me?"
"Because I love you, honey! You know I love you! I couldn't see anything
hard happen to you! It's not a fair world, petty! You've got to play the
game. A woman's got to think of her security first, I tell you! For,
when you get on the other side of the wall, it's hell! All your arguing
about what ought to be don't change it! That's why I say to you, 'And
after?' Supposin' you can believe him, suppose he dies in the next
months, where'll you turn? It's a rotten world. They're millions and
millions, and you're only just yourself!"
"Don't! Don't! No more!" she cried. "Oh, Snyder, what am I going to do?"
Yes, she felt this inequality now. Millions on millions against one, all
her courage gone, dismayed, aghast before the ugliness of reality.
Courage? She had none, not the slightest shred of daring left! She drew
back against the wall, huddled and little, so weak, so tired, so unable
to struggle any longer!
"Ah, what am I going to do?"
"I'll tell you, honey," said Snyder, starting toward her with
outstretched arms. But, as she advanced, there came a knock, and
answering Dodo's terrified gesture by one of assurance, she went to the
door.
"No one--no one! I can see no one!" said Dodo, recoiling.
Snyder received the card from Josephus, said something unintelligible,
and came back radiant. One glance at her face made Dodo suspect the
truth. She sprang forward with a frightened cry:
"Who is it? Snyder, tell me!"
But the woman, struggling, refused the card.
"It's not Garry? Not he?" she said frantically. "Any one but him! I
won't see him! I won't!"
And, as she was still struggling to see the card, the door opened and
Garry came powerfully in. Dodo stopped short, caught her throat with an
exclamation of terror, her head thrown back against the table, looking
at the strong glowing figure with the light of resurrection in his eyes;
and as she looked, all at once a beneficent calm seemed to fall about
her, clothing her with peace. All the good she had accomplished was
there. She looked at him, and she knew!
Snyder, gliding to him, said but three words:
"Now! At once!"
Then, drawing back, she remained by the door to her room, her whole
being concentrated on the scene, her hands clasped as if in prayer.
He came directly to Dore, and lifted her up in his arms, clear of the
floor, not rapaciously or uncontrolled, as the acquisition of the other
men, but cradling her like a child, tender and strong, his lips on the
lightest fluttering golden tress of her hair. She felt no passion, but a
great thankfulness; and she closed her eyes.
"Ah, Dodo, how have I ever lived a day from you!" he said rapidly.
"Child, how I love you! Poor, tired little child, with such a great
strength! How have I ever existed a day away from you?"
Suddenly he set her down reverently, and said firmly:
"Now, put on your coat and hat!"
She looked up at him, too tearfully happy to comprehend.
"Your coat and hat, and come!" he said, smiling his strong adoring
smile.
The next moment Snyder had stepped to her side, holding out her coat.
She had one arm in, her eyes on him, when suddenly she started away,
comprehending.
"What do you mean? Where?" she asked breathlessly.
"To end all this, Dodo! To marry me--to begin a real life--our life!" he
said firmly.
She went from him, shaking her head, putting out her hands in her
characteristic defensive gesture.
"No, no, Garry, I can't! It wouldn't be fair--it wouldn't be just to
you!"
"What wouldn't be fair? Child, don't you realize that you love me?"
"No, I don't, Garry; I don't know!"
"I know!" he said triumphantly. "Every letter you've written me has
breathed it! And now--Dodo, can you doubt?"
"Listen, Garry!" she said, tormented with the fear of harming him,
fighting against her own happiness. "I do care for you! I always have!
But how? That I don't know! Garry, I tell you, I don't know anything
to-night, but that I'm a miserable weak creature! Wait! Wait until I can
know! Until I can be sure!"
"Put on your coat now!" he said, with a confident laugh.
"No, no! Don't you see?" she cried, shrinking away. "Don't you realize
that I wouldn't harm you for anything in the world? I won't come to you
until I'm sure I love you--_you_, and only you!"
"You will come now with me, and end all this nonsense!"
"To-morrow!"
"No, to-night!"
"But if I don't love you?"
"If you don't now, you will love me!" he said immovably. "Come, this
must be ended! You're almost crazy now! You can't think or act! I'll
take all responsibilities!"
He strode up to her, the coat in his hands, holding it out as she still
shrank away.
"Oh, Garry! It isn't right! I haven't any strength left. I don't know
anything! I'm not myself--no, I'm not myself! Be generous!"
"What are you afraid of? Of not loving me?" he cried.
"Yes--yes! Of not--of not--" She caught her voice and cried: "Oh, Garry!
I am not worthy of you! I'm a vain, foolish, wild creature! You don't
know me--how wicked I am! But I won't harm you! I wouldn't be unjust!
Please! Please!"
She was struggling now, with a yielding strength. He caught her arms and
drew her coat over them.
"Dodo, dear, I know! Believe me, I know!"
"But to-morrow?"
"No, now! Come! I'll take all responsibility!"
Abruptly, stridently, the telephone rang, and with it the booming notes
of seven o'clock.
She gave a cry, frantic, remembering Massingale.
"No, no! Never! Not to-night! I will not!"
He stepped between her and the still ringing telephone.
"You shan't answer! You shall come with me!"
"No! For your sake, Garry, for your sake, I tell you!" she cried, her
extended hands shaking with the intensity of her pleading. Massingale
and the self she could not trust terrified her. No; she could never come
to him with this fear of what another man had awakened in her veins. The
telephone ceased. She had torn off her coat. He came quietly to her,
unflinching in his resolve.
"Dodo, did you understand me, dear?" he said gently. "I will take all
responsibilities!"
"You don't know what that means!" she said hoarsely.
"I do know!"
At this moment she saw Snyder in the corner, kneeling, her hands clasped
above her head. A sudden flood of tears came to her. He drew the coat
once more about her, his voice, too, shaken:
"Your hat now!"
She obeyed, reaching out her hand, holding it.
"Garry, I haven't the right!" she said brokenly. "If--if I weren't so
weak! If--if--"
"Put it on!" he said.
"Oh, Garry! What will happen?" she said heavily. "Promise, whatever
happens--forgive--"
She could not finish; her voice became inarticulate. And blindly obeying
the touch of his fingers, she put on her hat, grotesquely turned about.
The next moment his arm was about her, seeming to lift her from the
ground. At the door, again the telephone burst out. She shrank back,
afraid to pass it, seeing an omen.
"Come!" he said obstinately.
His arm tightened about her body, not to be denied. Her head buried
against his shoulder, her hands clutching his coat, they swept out of
the room, down-stairs and bravely into the pattering gusty night.
Up-stairs the telephone continued to ring a long time, clamoring and
insistent. And for a long time the figure of Snyder remained kneeling
and tense and motionless.
* * * * *
At ten o'clock Snyder started from her seat. Dodo had come into the
room. She was against the door, her face tortured and white, her eyes
very big.
"His wife!" she said solemnly. She held up her hand, on which a thin
gold band was shining. "We leave to-night. He is waiting below. Tell me,
did he come?"
"Yes!"
"You told him?"
"I told him!"
She caught at her throat, and made as if to ask further questions, but
suddenly checked herself, went to the desk and drew out writing-paper.
She wrote but a few words, though once she stopped and rested her
forehead in her hands. Then she rose.
"For him--yourself!" she said with difficulty. "To-night. This too."
With a hurried movement she joined the bracelet to the letter, and
suddenly seized the woman in a straining desperate grip.
"Snyder! Snyder! If you've ever prayed for me--pray now!"
She drew her veil hurriedly over her tortured white face, and went
rapidly away into the night.
EPILOGUE
And what became of Dodo? Did she completely change--in a twinkling, and
changing by the divine dispensation of being a woman, forget that other
turbulent self? Only once again did she return into the hazardous life
of old--a last flash of the dramatic impulse--and the adventure came
close to a final tragedy. Six months after that rainy March night when
she had gone weakly into the rain on Garry's imperious arm, she set foot
in New York once more.
Perhaps it was the tragic splendor of these Towers of Babel aflame
against the night, after all the grim months of victorious struggle and
abnegation; perhaps it was something deeper within her that drove her to
slip from the sober cloak of matrimony and once again try the perilous
paths of the Salamander.
At three o'clock the next afternoon, she left her hotel, after procuring
a promise from her husband that he would not attempt to follow her.
Below Jock Lindaberry's automobile was waiting, a footman at the door.
She gave the familiar number of Miss Pim's on lower Madison and sank
against the cushioned back. A mirror caught her reflection and she gazed
with a queer tugging sensation of the incongruities of time. It was Dodo
and it was not Dodo at all. The figure was still fragile, the alert
poised eagerness was still in the glance and the arch mischief in the
smile, but that was all. The old rebellion, the recklessness, the
nervous unrest were gone. She looked incredulously upon a woman of the
world, soberly attired in blues and blacks, correctly bonneted and
veiled, a woman at peace, pensive and settled, with a note of authority.
She gazed long with memory haunted eyes, half inclined to laughter and
half verging on tears. Now that she had set recklessly out in search of
the past, she began to experience a little doubt. Familiar corners, a
glimpse of a restaurant, ways by which she had so often returned,
brought her a strange disturbance. Which was real, Dodo Baxter or the
present Mrs. Lindaberry?
At the door she dismissed the automobile, aware of sudden eyes in
windows above and climbed the brownstone steps. The emotion of
familiarity was so instantaneous that absent-mindedly she found herself
seeking in her purse for a departed latch-key. Not Josephus but another
darky answered her ring. On the hat-rack was a disordered heap of
letters which other girls tremulously would come to sort. In the musty
parlor with its Sunday solemnity a couple were whispering, sinking their
voices in sudden consciousness at her arrival. She groped her way into
the obscurity of the stairs, thinking with a little melancholy of the
girl and the man below, playing the old, old game. On the second
landing, from the room that once was Ida's, another girl in hasty kimono
was saying,
"You answer--tell him I went out with another man--make out I'm
furious--"
She caught herself at Dodo's rustling coming, eying her curiously and
then as though reassured ended, "If he responds with a bid for dinner,
grab it!"
The whispering plotters recalled a hundred fragments of the old life, as
though one cry had started echoes from every corner and cranny. She went
on a little saddened by the sound of old accents in new mouths. So even
she had not been different from the rest. Other Dodos would come and go
as she had passed, as everything changed and gave way to the same
renewals. Then she opened the door of her room and saw Snyder
standing--gazing eagerly at her.
She did not cross immediately, waiting by the door, lost in familiar
details of patched walls and carpets, noting changes, the absence of
confusion, the new note of bare simplicity.
"It doesn't seem quite the same--without the trunks. You've moved the
couch, too. Funny, queer old room!" she said solemnly.
For the trunks that had served so often as impromptu bureaus, were gone,
all save one,--those trunks that were always gaping open, in such fine
disorder. Then there were no flowers, sporting their gay extravagance
from rickety table or smoky mantel and the great gilt mirror which had
leaned in the corner had departed, too. Yet all the familiar old seemed
incredibly distant: even that rapid figure her imagination conjured up,
perched on a trunk before the dressing-table studying a disastrous hole
in a golden stocking. Was that Dodo and if so where had been the present
self all that tempestuous time? Suddenly she noted the figure of the
woman waiting on her tensely. She raised her veil, crossed quickly,
holding out her arms.
"How is he--how is Mr. Lindaberry?" said Snyder at once.
"Garry? Magnificent--every inch a man."
"And you?"
"And I?" she asked a little puzzled.
"You're happy, aren't you?" said Snyder breathlessly.
"Oh--very happy--" She added with careful emphasis, "Very, very happy!"
She slipped off her black fur jacket and was about to toss it on a chair
when she stopped, folded it carefully and handed it to Snyder.
"I forgot. Seems like old times for us to be here and you waiting on
me." She took off her gloves, rolled them in a ball and tossed them to
Snyder who placed them beside the coat on the bed. She added, seeking to
give the conversation a casual note: "You got my letter of course. It's
all right? I can have the room for the afternoon--alone?"
"Sure."
"I don't need to explain, do I?" she said rapidly. "It's--"
"Shut up, honey," said Snyder in the old rough manner, "it's all yours."
"No one will come?"
"No one ever comes."
"And who's in that room--Winona's?" she asked, walking to the door and
listening.
"She's gone from noon--teaching Fifth Avenue to walk like Hester Street.
Don't know her. She's new."
She passed the dressing-table, still crowded with her knickknacks and
mementoes.
"Snyder," she said surprised, "you've kept all those crazy things.
Heavens, what didn't I used to do!" She sat down before the table,
shaking her head at the strange reflection. "Is it possible!" Then
turning quickly she said, "And you, Snyder? Tell me all about yourself."
"Me? Sliding to fame on greased rails," said Snyder pleased. "Two
hundred dollars a week now. Fact. Betty? She'll marry a dook yet!"
Dodo rose and taking from her purse a pendant, a diamond cross with a
pearl in the center, held it out.
"It's for Betty--the first thing we bought. It's to bring her everything
in the world."
"My lord--" said Snyder aghast. "Look here--that ain't right--it must
have cost--"
"Hush, you funny old thing," said Dodo, silencing her. "Don't you know
it never--never could cost enough!"
But before another word could be exchanged Miss Pim burst effusively
into the room, ruffling like a motherly fowl.
"Dodo! Land's sake what a swell you've become!"
She bore down, open-armed, for a convulsive hug but Dodo extending a
formal hand checked her.
"How do you do--very glad to see you, I'm sure."
"Two men, Dodo! Chauffeur and footman!" exclaimed Miss Pim, blundering a
little over the defensive handshake, but unabashed. "My, I think I
should expire on the spot if I ever went up Fifth Avenue behind a
chauffeur _and_ a footman. You lucky, lucky girl--who'd have thought
you'd make such a match--you such a fly-away! Well, you always were my
favorite."
Again the door slapped enthusiastically against the wall and Anita
Morgan bounded in, all eyes and exclamations.
"Dodo! The lord be praised! Won't Clarice be surprised? Heard about her?
She's domesticated too--oddles of money--old gent in splendid state of
ill health! My, won't she be crazy to see you! How well you look! Clever
puss! Always said you were the slyest of us all!"
"Heavens, Anita, do be careful," said Dodo, disengaging herself from the
reckless embrace, "you're tearing me to pieces!"
Anita, jumping on the table, rocking enthusiastically, rushed on:
"How's Garry--the darling!"
"Mr. Lindaberry's health is quite satisfactory," said Dodo coldly.
"Come off!" said Anita with a laugh. "Guess I played round with Garry
before you ever did. I say, Do, I'm just dying for a good old bust!
Lord, it's been slow since you went. Gee, everything's broke up. Ida's
a hundred years married--can't talk anything but the price of eggs and
Brussel carpets. Thank the lord, Dodo, you and Garry are back to start
something!"
Snyder by the mantelpiece was standing grimly prepared, watching for
developments, while Miss Pim overawed was listening open-mouthed.
"My dear Anita," said Dodo quietly, "I'm afraid you are going to be
disappointed again. We are going to be very quiet--much too quiet for
you!"
Something in the cold decision of the tone opened Anita's eyes. She
looked at Dodo with a new vision, with a flare-up of that fierce caste
antagonism which Dodo once had felt so brutally, face to face with Mrs.
Massingale.
"Dear me, as late as that!" she said, glancing at a wrist watch with
extra nonchalance. "I must be rushing. So glad though to have had this
glimpse." She shook hands airily. "You look quite shaken down,
dear--quite matronly. I should never have thought it. Good-by. My love
to poor old Garry."
She went out languidly, her head in the air. Miss Pim remained,
shuffling from foot to foot, awed and embarrassed, wondering how to exit
with dignity.
Dodo, quite at her ease and determined, came to her aid.
"My dear Miss Pim, there are certain things I must talk over with
Snyder. If you will wait for me--down-stairs, I'll drop in as I go
out--since I was always your favorite!"
"Down-stairs?" said Miss Pim, absolutely dazed by this easy air of
patronage.
"Yes, that's it."
"Oh, down-stairs?" she repeated, open-mouthed.
She turned, gazed at Snyder, bumped against the table and sidled out of
the room, staring at Dodo in consternation.
Snyder who had been silently enjoying the scene stepped forward, folding
her arms abruptly.
"Right, honey--you've got your chance now. Cut away all the rest!"
"Yes, I must," Dodo answered, drawing a long breath, gazing out of the
great bay-window to where the Metropolitan tower, like a great stalk
among the weeds, was silhouetted against the changing white and yellow
clouds. She had been abrupt, she had been cruel, yet she knew she had
only done what she had to do. Snyder had understood, the readjustment
was to be profound.
"Sure, you must," said Snyder standing before her stubbornly. "Oil and
water don't mix. Don't you get sentimental--don't you flinch--cut it all
out! Start new." She nodded twice resolutely, turned and going to the
bed, flung on her coat and slapped on her hat in her familiar way. She
came back struggling in the sleeves. "The room's yours."
Dodo, a little embarrassed, felt called upon for an explanation.
"You see I want it for a particular--" she began, only to be
interrupted.
"Cut out explanations. It's yours. Well, honey, you've got a bully
start, hang on to it--hang on hard. Good luck--good-by."
Suddenly Dodo comprehended. She caught the woman in indignant revolt.
"Not you, Snyder! Never you!"
"Oh, yes--me more than the rest," said Snyder heavily.
"Oh, no, no! Never!"
"What's the use of fooling ourselves?" said Snyder stubbornly. "You've
found yourself--you've started a real life--Thank God. I've got no place
in it." As Dodo emotionally stricken started to protest she shook her
head, smiling a strange smile, taking up doggedly. "Let's be honest. See
here--it is a queer world. We bumped against each other going through
it--God knows how--you've been square to me and I've been square to you.
Lord, that's enough. Precious lot more than most people can say." She
stopped, locked her hands convulsively and avoided Dodo's eyes. "Well,
your train has got to go one way--mine another. That's all. Here, give
me your hand. We're not going to fool ourselves or each other. You know
what's got to be. Good-by--good luck."
"Oh, Snyder, it's too cruel, life is too cruel!" said Dodo, her eyes
blinded, her throat choking.
"You see," said Snyder, forcing a smile, "even you know what I say is
right."
"No--no, I didn't mean it that way," said Dodo indignantly, but she
stopped short, struck with the truth of it all.
"I know you didn't," said Snyder, fist to her eyes. "Hell, am I going to
get sentimental?" Suddenly she took Dodo's hand, muttered something
incoherent and raised it to her lips. Then she broke from the weeping
woman and went hastily to the door.
"Remember," she said, "don't you flinch--don't you--"
Suddenly she stopped, caught her throat and went out with a last feeble
wave of her hand. Dodo sank down, overcome with loneliness and the
melancholy of other existences.
She had come indeed to set the seal on the past, to tie up old bundles,
old memories, sweet and sad, regrets and failures; to arrange them into
compact moral bundles, to be placed carefully on the shelves of
oblivion, but she had not contemplated eliminating Snyder. Yet the
pitiless verity had penetrated and convinced her. Nothing of the old
life could travel with her into the new. When she had recovered herself
she went rapidly to the narrow window and flung down the shade to blot
out the impending side of brick. She threw open the trunk and the little
bureau where Snyder had religiously guarded her things. There were a
hundred reminders of the old life, scrawled notes from forgotten props,
the card of Sassoon's with the scribbled entreaty to see him for a short
time, typewritten business letters from Mr. Peavey, a confidential note
from Harrigan Blood--a tintype she once had had taken with Nebbins at a
Sunday picnic--a photograph of Blainey looking uncomfortably posed,
scores of cards which had accompanied flowers, Christmas offerings,
pawn-tickets, birthday presents, what not, and in a separate packet done
round with red ribbon, all that Judge Massingale had written her,
beginning with that first miserable apology.
"_Dear Miss Baxter_:
"I was out of my head ... I should have known my limitations ...
I didn't ..."
She sat down, her lap filled, looking into the stormy past through this
strange rent in the fabric of the actual. A knock sounded from the hall
and she sprang up hastily, gazing in sudden fear at the round clock-face
of the Metropolitan Tower. The successor to Josephus was at the door,
hesitating at her appearance.
"Yes, it is for me," she said hastily, glancing at the card. "It's all
right. Send him up."
She returned in a panic, closing the trunk, pushing in stubborn bureau
drawers. Now that he had actually come, as she had written him, as she
had not believed he would come, she felt cold and hot all at once with
sudden irregular knockings of her heart within. What would be the end of
it all? What power had he still over her? All at once she perceived the
packet of letters on the bed where she had thrown them--his letters--and
rushing over caught them up and flung them in the hastily opened trunk.
"Come--"
She turned instantly intent--rigid. But her ear had deceived her, there
had been no knock. She caught her breath twice, dug her nails into the
palms of her hands and walked steadily away. When a moment later there
came a knock, she was able to say calmly:
"Yes, come."
The door opened with a certain solemnity and Judge Massingale came in.
She acknowledged his coming with a half-forward gesture of her hand, her
glance on the floor, afraid of the first recognition, saying rapidly:
"It was good of you to come, very good. Thank you."
He stood, without movement to lay aside his hat and stick,
self-possessed and cynically amused.
"I have come, my dear lady," he said evenly. "Well, because--I was
curious."
"I had to see you," she said in a low rapid voice, "I could not bear--I
had to see you--I wanted you to understand."
"Understand? What a curious word. You'll be saying forgive next."
"Ah, yes, forgive me," she cried impulsively, looking at him for the
first time. "Forgive me for all the harm I've done to you!"
"And I came to congratulate you." He laid his hat and cane
mathematically on a table and came forward with the same controlled
smile.
"Oh, let me explain," she said, revolting at his manner.
"Explain? There is nothing to explain, everything is quite clear--to me
at least," he said, and against his intention a note of harshness came
into his voice. "You played your game perfectly. You used me for just
what you wanted: to bring another man to the point. Oh, don't apologize.
It's done a great deal nowadays in the best of families. You have made a
splendid marriage, Mrs. Lindaberry. I _do_ congratulate you."
"You don't believe that," she said angrily.
"Pardon me, I do. I'm not reproaching you. I warned myself again and
again. I said once if I ever was fool enough to believe you I would be
lost. Well, I believed you. I blame only myself. You are a very clever
woman, Mrs. Lindaberry."
She twisted her hands helplessly, staring out the window over worn roofs
to storm-clouds piling against the sky, hurt and defenseless against his
light irony.
"Yes, yes," she said tremulously. "You have a right--I deserve all
that." She sat down weakly, her hands between her knees, staring out.
"Oh, please," he said, smiling at the dramatic assumption. "Don't let's
take things too seriously. I was not so hard hit as all that. Honestly,
now that it's all over I'm--well, rather relieved. It would have been
rather a nasty mess. I like the ruts of life; I'm quite happy going on
as I am. You see how frank I am--I won't play the injured hero. Now that
I look back, critically, in my own sort of way, I assure you my only
sentiment is one of admiration. Great heavens, what does it avail to
have all the knowledge of the world against one little woman! Come," he
added with a certain nervous intentness, which belied the simulated
lightness of his tone, "be frank. You know you never meant to go."
She shook her head slowly, staring ahead of her as though painfully
distinguishing that other volatile and breathless self.
"It seems an awful thing to say now," she said slowly. "I think I would
have gone if I'd been sure of you."
"If!" he said scornfully.
"You never really wanted to go!" she said, rising and approaching him
swiftly, speaking rapidly with quick breaths. "You only wanted the
sensation of the forbidden--you, too! All you say now proves it! You
were always thinking of society--of what your friends--and the
newspapers would say--always afraid, always hesitating, always a
gentleman!"
"True, but not at the last," he said doggedly, forgetting his pose.
"Yes, yes, even at the last. Just the same at the last," she said
angrily. "No, no! I was to blame! I saw in you what you were not, what
you could never be. I was wild--crazy; but I longed for something
beautiful--a great romance. I thought you understood--you didn't! It was
never anything but an infatuation with you--just that and nothing
else--something pulling you down!"
"That is not true," he said roughly, stirred by her charge. "At the end
it was I and not you who would have made the greater sacrifice. I was
ready to throw over everything!"
"No, no!" she repeated blindly. "You weren't going of your own free
will. There were times when you hated me more than you loved me. At the
end you were going like a criminal!"
"What! When I had told my wife all--broken with her--put myself in her
power--turned my back on everything--yes, and gladly!"
"I never believed it," she said standing in front of him, inciting him
by word and look. "I don't believe it now. If you had cared as I
wanted--"
"Cared! Great God," he broke in passionately, "I was ready to exile
myself, to throw my reputation to the dogs--to ruin my whole life.
Cared!"
"You cared!" she said in rapid scorn. "You loved! And now six months
later you can come here calmly, brutally, cynically, and say, 'I came
because I was curious.' You _cared_!"
A blind animal fury swept over him. He caught her in his arms, murder
and abject yielding wrestling in his soul.
"Dodo!"
She had swept aside all the artifices of the man of the world. The man
beneath the veneer, rage or passion led, held her in a clasp that left
its wounds upon her tender arms. Yet she did not move or cry out. He
looked at her inertly thus, immobile as a statue and suddenly as though
perceiving a strange woman, he released her roughly, amazed at himself.
"Good God," he said, striking his forehead, "haven't you done me enough
harm already!"
She burst out weeping.
He turned, stirred to a guilty responsibility, trying to bluster into
the better reason.
"Why did you bring me here?"
She made no answer.
"Dodo," he said angrily, wondering still at her motive with growing
alarm, "I warn you; all is over between us. You yourself have done it.
You belong to another!"
She fell back in a chair, her sobs redoubling hysterically; a wild laugh
suddenly breaking through.
"I'm sorry--I'm awfully sorry," he said, stirred from his anger and his
righteousness.
"No, no," she said brokenly, "you've done nothing--nothing, but what I
wished."
"What!" he said in a voice of thunder.
"I wanted you to forget yourself--to take me in your arms," she said
almost incoherently.
He could not believe his ears. Astounded, he seized her by the wrist,
saying angrily:
"You--you did this on purpose!"
"I did, and oh, it is the worst, the most awful thing I've done in all
my life--I know it, I know it! But I had to do it, yes, I had to. Oh,
forgive me, Your Honor. I had no right but I had to know."
"What do you mean?" he said, releasing her and staring at her to assure
himself that she was in her right mind.
She rose, the tears at an end, facing him calmly, even with a new sense
of power, which struck profoundly into his masculine vanity.
"I had to know that I was really free--that you had no more power over
me--that I could go on with my life," she said simply.
It was too monstrous, he could not credit it.
"And you brought me here for that?" he said slowly.
"Yes."
"Good heavens," he cried, revolted and shocked, "you--you could do--such
a thing, such an indefensible, outrageous thing as this. That is too
much, I can not understand--"
"I did it," she said quietly, "because I want to be a good wife."
"Then it was not because you wished to get me back?" he cried, too
amazed not to be indiscreet.
"Why, no--of course not!"
"It is incredible!" he said stupidly aghast at her candor.
"Then I wanted you to understand," she said swiftly. "Wait. You will
understand," she added quickly, her hand on his arm as he started an
angry gesture. "Yes, yes, you will, because I know you or would I have
let you come here?" she said illogically. "You are too big--you
understand everything--you will me."
There was a moment's silent struggle as their eyes met each other. Then
without waiting his answer, confidently she said:
"You know, after all, it's very simple. You were right. You remember
that first time here--you said I was to end like all the rest,--just an
ordinary little house-frau. Wasn't I furious though! Well, you were
right! That's just what I have come to be!"
The incredible side of it all, the boldness of the situation, yet the
naturalness of the incomprehensible Dodo doing just this, caught him
with the old fascination. He yielded.
"You, Dodo, are saying this," he said, interested despite himself, "you
who adored precipices?"
"Did I?" She shook her head, with a little catch after breath, in the
suddenness of her victory which his surrender had brought her. "I think
all my daring was just ignorance. Now, when I look back I am frightened
to death. You thought I was such a wild breathless creature--no! I never
really was brave. You see, I imagined a world as every girl must. It
wasn't real, nothing was real. It was all just groping after
something--just waiting, longing. And that's why I was as I was with
you. I was impatient, tired of waiting. And I imagined the answer. Often
I try to understand why I did what I did. Then I used to be so thrilled
by every reckless, lawless thing I did. It gave me the feeling of a cork
bobbing over hungry waves. What a pitiful little creature that Dodo was!
She thought she could conquer life. She didn't know. She thought she was
different from the rest. She was only restless, a helpless little rebel,
with every man's hand against her. And because she didn't want to be
like all the rest--what a terrible disaster it came near being!" She
stopped, lost in the obscurity of the past and then turning to him,
gaining confidence by what she saw in his eyes, went on in soft
pleading: "Don't judge me. The game wasn't square. It never is between a
man and a girl. You would have had your man's world to go back to--and
I? Oh, won't you understand why I did what I did? Can't you understand
how hard it is for a girl, all by herself, to really know what she wants
of life? Your Honor, can't you forgive?"
He had been profoundly moved by her words and by the deep tones of her
voice, beyond any power of simulation. He knew he would grant her
request and yet with a last personal feeling against the
unreasonableness of asking it of him, he said:
"What difference can it make to you whether I forgive or not?"
"Oh, but it does--it does," she cried, joining her hands in a passionate
entreaty.
"Dodo," he said solemnly, not daring to look at her, "I suppose you are
my destiny. I shall always go on loving you. If you need this from me to
be happy as I want you--you have it."
"Thanks," she said in a whisper.
He felt suddenly the finality of their words as though the shadowy hand
of destiny had moved between them, parting them irrevocably.
"You have never been like any one else," he said solemnly. "I never
thought I could forgive--well, I do understand. There is nothing more to
be said. Write finis and close the book." He went to the rack and took
up his hat and stick. "I suppose I shan't see you again or if I do it
will be in the midst of a herd of human beings--to pretend correctly we
never once dreamed an impossible dream. Good-by."
Her lips murmured inarticulately.
He took a step toward the irrevocable parting, and then stopped seeking
anything to delay the inevitable.
"One question--just one. You could not have loved him--your
husband--that night. And now?"
"I did then though I wasn't sure," she said as though this were the most
natural question in the world. "Now? Yes, and yet it is nothing to the
way I am going to love him, the way I must love him."
"How can you say such things?" he said in a final stupefaction.
The battle she had fought, the incredible triumph she had won, had left
her exalted, lifted out of the personal self. She spoke now, as though
unaware of his presence, as though trying to comprehend things beyond
her ken.
"What is a woman's life? Do you know? Just an exchange of illusions. I
have put aside all the queer fantastic dreams of a girl--I haven't yet
quite put on the new--not quite. I suppose for just this one
moment--this one moment of absolute truth, I can see myself as I really
am, just for a moment--perhaps I shall never want to look at myself so
steadily again. To-day I can look ahead and know everything that is
coming. I know that I shall make myself just what he, my husband, wishes
me to be. I shall really become what he now thinks I am. I shall have
children--many children I hope. My home, my husband, my children--there
will never be room for any other thought in my life. Mine--all that is
mine, I shall cling to and keep!"
She heard the door close, as the man before the sanctity of the
revelation, had gone in reverence. Then suddenly a horror of the past,
of the room, of the Dodo that had been, seized her. She wished now only
to finish, to escape and never to return. She ran to the trunk, seized
the bundle of letters and keepsakes and flung them in the fireplace.
Then seizing a box, she struck several matches and applied them
feverishly.
All at once the door opened and the voice of her husband cried gaily:
"Caught!"
She gave a scream, reeling against the mantelpiece. He sprang hurriedly
to her side, gathering her into his arms, apologizing for the fright he
had given her while she lay trembling and shivering, quite hysterical.
The horror of what might have been, the last gaping pit of fate to which
she had subjected herself, left her sick unto weakness. He knew nothing.
He suspected nothing, and yet he must have passed Massingale on the
stairs themselves.
"Good heavens, what a fool I am! I didn't mean to scare you. I'm a
brute--you poor child!" he cried.
"When did you come?" she said aghast--holding herself from him and
gazing in his face fearfully.
"Why, just now."
"You promised--"
"I know, but I couldn't keep away," he said, smiling penitently. "Wanted
to surprise the Missis! Steady."
She reeled, catching his arm, fighting down a wild impulse to shriek out
against what might have been, dangerously inclined toward a fatal
confession. Then she saw a dark smirch across his sleeve and brushing it
away, asked breathlessly:
"Where did you get that?"
"Coming up. Infernally black stairs--couple of fellows trod all over me.
Bless your heart, Dodo, I say I didn't know you frightened as easily as
that. What a brute I am. Come here!"
He sat down, holding out his arms.
"You mustn't frighten me, Garry--you must be careful just now," she said
weakly, sinking against his shoulder.
He surveyed the room curiously, running his hand over her hair. "Odd old
room. Seems like old times, doesn't it?"
"I hate it," she said passionately.
"It was pretty rough going," he said sobered immediately. "A pretty
tight squeeze. But you pulled me out of it,--you curious, fragile little
child. How did you ever dare?"
"Not such a child as you think," she said rebelliously.
"The idea," he said, laughing gloriously. Then he became serious again.
"Dodo, that's what's marvelous about you women. You can go up against
the ugliness of life and never--not for an instant--even realize what
you touch. Bless your innocence!"
She raised herself on his lap, her hands on his shoulders, looking deep
into his unseeing eyes, realizing that he would never comprehend her
otherwise. All at once she felt a fierce resolve to defend that
illusion.
"Garry," she said tensely, "that's what you want me to be, isn't
it--just a child!"
"Dodo could never be anything else!" he said joyfully, oblivious of the
recording hand of fate, writing on the woman's heart.
"Then that's what I shall always be," she said softly. She relaxed,
cuddling her head against his shoulder, repeating in a tired
whisper--"Just a child!"
* * * * *
The rest can be written in a sentence.
She became a conventional member of society,--rather extreme in her
conservatism.
THE END
* * * * *
Transcriber notes:
Archaic, alternate, and mis-spellings have been retained with the
exception of those listed below.
page 81 "species" changed to "specie" (paid her, whenever possible in
specie.)
page 136 "your" changed to "you" (What were you planning)