By a series of neutral subterfuges and tactful evasions Claire Robson
won her point--she went to the Condor musicale at Ned Stillman's
apartments alone, and on that same night her mother wended a rather
grudging way to the Second Presbyterian Church reception.
Acting under her mother's advice, Claire timed her arrival for nine
o'clock, an hour which seemed incredibly late to one schooled in the
temperate hour of church socials. Mrs. Condor herself opened the door in
answer to Claire's ring.
"Oh, my dear, but I _am_ glad to see you!" burst from the elder woman as
she waved her in. But she did not so much as mention the absence of Mrs.
Robson, and Claire was divided between a feeling of wounded family
pride, and gratification at the intuition which had warned her to leave
her mother to her own devices. More people arrived on Claire's heels,
and in the lively bustle she was left to shed her wraps in one of the
bedrooms. Her heart was pounding with reaction at her outwardly
self-contained entrance. She let her rather shabby cloak slip to the
floor, revealing a strange, new Claire resplendent in the
gold-embroidered gown that had once so stirred her rancor. For a brief
instant she had an impulse to gather the discarded wrap securely about
her and make a quick exit. A swooning fear at the thought of meeting a
roomful of people assailed her. But there succeeded a courage born of
the realization that they all would be strangers. With a sense of
bravado she stepped out into the entrance hall again.
Ned Stillman came forward. She halted and waited for him. His face had
lit with a sudden pleasure, which told Claire that for once in her life
her presence roused positive interest. He inquired after her health, why
her mother had not come, whether the abominable fog was clearing. His
easy formality put her, as usual, completely at ease.
It was only when he asked her, with the most inconsequential tone in the
world, "whether she could read music at sight" that a sinking fear came
over her. And yet she found courage enough to be truthful and say yes.
"That's fine!" he returned. "Our accompanist hasn't come yet and we want
to start off with a song or two."
From this moment on the evening impressed itself on Claire in a series
of blurred hectic pictures.... She knew that Stillman was leading her
toward the piano, but the living-room and its toned lights gave her a
curious sense of unreality. She seated herself before the white keyboard
and folded her hands with desperate resignation while she waited for
Stillman to dictate the next move.
"My dear Mrs. Condor," Stillman explained, as that lady came up to them,
"we sha'n't have to wait for Flora Menzies. Miss Robson will accompany
you."
Claire sat unmoved. She was beyond so trivial a sensation as anxiety.
Stillman drifted away; Mrs. Condor began to run through the sheet music
lying on the piano.
"Of course you know Schumann, Miss Robson. Shall we start at once? How
is the light? If you moved your stool a little--so. There, that's
better."
Claire did not reply. She looked at the music before her. She was
conscious that it was a piece she knew, although its name registered no
other impression. She began to play. The opening bars almost startled
her. She felt a hush fall over the noisy room. Her fingers stumbled--she
caught the melody again with staggering desperation. Mrs. Condor was
singing.... The room faded; even the sound of Mrs. Condor's voice became
remote. Claire had a desire to laugh.
All manner of strange, disconnected thoughts ran through her head. She
remembered a doll she had broken years ago and buried with great pomp
and circumstance, a pink parasol that had been given her as a child, the
gigantic and respectable wig which had incased the head of her old
German music-teacher, Frau Pfaff. And as she played on and on the music
further evoked the memory of this worthy lady who had given her services
in exchange for lodgings in an incredibly small hall bedroom, with
certain privileges at the kitchen stove. And pictures of this irritating
woman rose before her, stewing dried fruit, or preparing sour beef, or
borrowing the clothes boiler for a perennial wash. What compromises her
mother had made to give her child the gentle accomplishments that Mrs.
Robson associated with breeding! It came to Claire that it was almost
cruel to have denied this mother a share in the triumphs of that
evening. And with that, she realized that Mrs. Condor had ceased
singing. A hum broke loose, followed by applause. Claire grew faint. Her
head began to swirl. She clutched the piano stool and by sheer terror at
the thought of creating a scene she managed to keep her consciousness as
she felt Mrs. Condor's hand upon her shoulder and heard a voice that
just missed being patronizing:
"My dear, you did it beautifully."
Claire longed to burst into tears....
The concert was over shortly after eleven o'clock. Besides Mrs. Condor,
there had been a 'cellist, very masculine in his looks but rather
forceless in his playing, and a young, frail girl who brought great
breadth and vigor to her interpretations at the piano. But Claire was
really too excited for calm enjoyment. Supper followed--creamed minced
chicken and extraordinarily thin sandwiches, and a dry, pale wine that
Claire found at first rather distasteful. Claire sat with a little group
composed of Mrs. Condor, Ned Stillman, a fashionable young man, Phil
Edington, who frankly confessed boredom at all things musical except
one-steps and fox-trots, and two or three artistic-looking souls who
pretended to be quite shocked by young Edington's frankness.
Conversation veered naturally to the subject of the war. Edington had
tried for a commission in an officers' training-camp and failed. He was
extraordinarily frank about it all, and good-natured at the chaffing
that Mrs. Condor and Stillman threw at him.
"I'm going to wait now and be drafted," he announced. "As long as I
failed to make a high grade I want to begin at the bottom and see the
whole picture."
Claire rather waited for a word from Stillman as to his convictions on
the subject. Of course one could see that he was over the draft age,
still.... For the most part she was silent, but happy and content. By
contributing her share to the evening's entertainment she had justified
her presence. Wine as a factor in midnight suppers was a new but not a
revolutionary experience to Claire Robson, but she gasped a bit when the
maid passed cigarettes to the ladies. And yet she felt a delicious sense
of being a party to something quite daring and _outré_, although she did
not have either courage or skill to enjoy one of the slender,
gold-tipped delights.
The time for departure finally came. Claire rose reluctantly. Mrs.
Condor, slipping one arm in Phil Edington's and the other in Claire's,
sauntered with them toward the entrance hall.
"I say," ventured Edington as Stillman caught up to the group. "What's
the matter with just us four dropping down to the Palace for a whirl or
two?"
Claire stared. She had not grown used to the novelty of being included,
but any instinctive objections to the plan were promptly silenced by
Mrs. Condor's enthusiastic approval.
They arrived at the Palace Hotel shortly before midnight. The Rose Room
was crowded. All the tables seemed filled, and Claire had a moment of
disappointment caused by the fear that their party would be unable to
gain admittance. But young Edington's presence soon set any uneasiness
on that score at rest, and a place was evolved with deftness and
despatch. The novelty of the situation to Claire was nothing compared
with her matter-of-fact acceptance of it. She was neither self-conscious
nor timid. Her three companions had a way of tacitly including her in
even their trivial chatter that was unmistakable, though hard to define.
She felt that she was one of them, and she blossomed in this strange new
warmth like a chilled blossom at the final approach of a belated spring.
All evening her starved sense of self-importance had been feeding
greedily upon the compliments that had come her way. There had been her
mother's rather apologetic words of approval at her appearance, to begin
with, then Mrs. Condor's appreciation at the piano, and finally a word
dropped by one of the women who had shared a mirror with her at the hour
of departure.
"How do you manage your hair, Miss Robson?" the other had said, digging
viciously at her shifting locks with a hairpin. "I do declare you're the
only woman in the room that looks presentable."
But it was Edington's words to Stillman while they stood waiting for the
hotel attendants to prepare the table that brought a quickened beat to
her heart. The conversation was low and not meant for her ears, but her
senses were too sharpened to miss Edington's furtive words as he
whispered to Stillman:
"Where did ... amazing.... Miss Robson?"
Claire did not catch the reply which must have also been something of a
query, but she heard Edington continue.
"Well ... a little too silent, I must admit.... No, I don't dislike 'em
that way ... but I'm afraid of them."
Stillman answered with a low laugh.
They sat down. Edington ordered wine. The crowd at the tables was rather
a mixed one. There was plenty of elaborate gowning among the groups of
formal diners who had prolonged their feasting into the supper hour, but
many casuals, drifting in for a few drinks and a dance or two, robbed
the scene of its earlier brilliance.
The orchestra struck up a one-step. Claire denied Stillman the dance,
explaining that she knew none of the new steps, and he whirled away with
Mrs. Condor. Edington, robbed of his chance, pouted unashamed.
"I say, Miss Robson, can't you do a one-step--really? There isn't
anything to it! Come on--try; I'll pull you through."
Claire's knowledge of dancing was instinctive, but not a matter of much
practice, yet his distress was so comic that she relented. She wondered
if he could feel her trembling as they swung into the dance. She
stumbled once or twice from timidity, but Edington guided unerringly.
Half-way round she suddenly struck the proper swing.
"There--that's it," cried Edington, enthusiastically. "Now you've got
it! Fine!"
His praise mounted to her brain like a heady wine, and suddenly, in the
twinkling of an eye, all the repressed youth within her awoke with a
sweet and terrible joy.... They danced madly, perfectly, the rhythm
entering into them like something at once fluid and flaming. Her ecstasy
awoke a vague response in her partner, who bent forward as he kept
repeating, monotonously:
"And you said you couldn't, Miss Robson! Fancy, you said you couldn't!"
The music stopped abruptly with a crash. Some of the dancers made their
way leisurely back among the tables, but the most of them wandered about
the polished' floor, clapping insistent hands for an encore. In this
brief interlude, groups arrived and departed. The musicians lifted their
instruments to chin and lip, struck an opening chord; couples began to
whirl and glide. Claire Robson, palpitant and eager, followed Edington's
lead, but almost at the first moment of their rhythmic flight they came
crashing into the overcoated bulk of a man cutting across the corner of
the ballroom in an attempt at a swift exit. A smothered protest escaped
Edington, and Claire detached herself from her partner long enough to
see the offender bow very low and hear his apology in a voice and manner
that seemed curiously familiar:
"I beg your pardon. Pray forgive me! I should have known better."
In the twinkling of an eye the interrupted dancers were sweeping on
again, and the apologetic stranger, hat in hand, turning for a farewell
look at the pair. Claire Robson felt an up-leap of the heart; a fresh
ecstasy quickened her. It was the Serbian!
They finished the dance almost opposite their table and were met by a
patter of applause from Mrs. Condor and Stillman, who were already
seated.
Claire was flaming with embarrassment as she faced Stillman.
"I hope you'll understand, Mr. Stillman," she faltered. "But Mr.
Edington seemed willing to risk my ignorance."
Mrs. Condor turned Claire's plaintive apology into a covert attack upon
Stillman's courage, but Stillman rescued Claire from further confusion
by laughing back:
"Well, I'll have my revenge on Edington. I'll grant him all the
one-steps, but he can't have any of the waltzes, Miss Robson."
The waiter began to pour out the champagne. Claire settled back in her
seat with a feeling of delightful languor. The dance had released all
the pent-up emotions that a night of vivid sensations had called into
her life. She had come into the Rose Room of the Palace Hotel quivering
in the leash of a restrained enjoyment; it had taken the quick lash of
opportunity to send her spirits hurtling forward in wild and headlong
abandon. She lifted her wine-glass in answer to the upraised glasses of
her companions, and the thought flashed over her that it would be
impossible for her to have quite her old vision again. In every life
there are culminating moments of joy or sorrow which either clear or
dim the horizon, and Claire felt that such moment was now hers.
Stillman rose promptly in his seat at the first strains of the waltz,
which proved to be the next number. Claire stepped out upon the floor
with confidence.
She did not need any word of reassurance this time to tell her that her
dancing was more than acceptable, and, true to her brief experience with
Stillman, he refrained from voicing the obvious. They had begun the
dance promptly and for the first whirl about they had the floor almost
to themselves. Claire's discreet sidelong glances detected many
approving nods in their direction; people were noticing them and making
favorable comment.... The floor filled, but even in the crowd Claire had
a sense that she and her partner were standing out distinctly.
The very nature of the waltz contrasted sharply with the one-step. There
was less abandon and more art. The first dance had expressed a primitive
emotion; the present slow and measured whirl a discriminating sensation.
And slowly, under the spell of Stillman's calm and yet strangely glowing
manner, Claire recovered her poise. All night she had been inhaling
every fresh delight rapturously with the closed eyes and open senses
that one brings to the enjoyment of blossoms heavy with perfume. It took
Stillman's influence to rob the hours of their swooning delight by
recapturing her self-consciousness. Things became at once orderly and
reasonable. And as he led her back to their table she felt the flame
within cease its flarings and become steady, with a pleasurable glow.
For a moment she felt uneasy, as if she were being trapped by something
sweetfully insidious. Slowly, almost cautiously, she withdrew her arm
from his. He made no comment; it was doubtful if he really noticed her
recoil.
* * * * *
Long past its appointed time the hall light in the Robson flat continued
to burn dimly. Mrs. Robson, sleepless and a bit anxious, waited alertly
for the sound of Claire's key in the door. The welcome click came
finally, succeeded by the unmistakable slam of an automobile door and
the sharp, quick note of a machine speeding up.
"She's come home in Stillman's car," flashed through Mrs. Robson's mind,
as she sat up in bed. At that moment Mrs. Finnegan's cuckoo clock,
sounding distinctly through the thin flooring, warbled twice with a
voice of friendly betrayal. "Mercy! it's two o'clock!" she muttered. "I
wonder if Mrs. Finnegan is awake?... I do hope she heard the
automobile!..."
Seated at the foot of her mother's bed, Claire tried her best to give a
satisfactory report of the evening, but she found that she had
overlooked most of the details that her mother found interesting. Who
was there? What did Mrs. Condor wear? Did they have an elaborate
spread?--the questions rippled on in an endless flow.
Under the acceleration of Claire's recital, Mrs. Robson found her
experiences at the church reception left far behind. Even with scant
details, Claire had managed to evolve a fascinating picture of a life
robbed sufficiently of puritanism to be properly piquant. There was a
tang of the swift, immoral, fascinating 'seventies in Claire's still
cautious reference to champagne and cigarettes. It was impossible for
any San Franciscan who had lived through those splendid madcap bonanza
days to deny the lure of gay wickedness. At least it was hard to keep
one's eyes on a prayer-book while the car of pleasure rattled by. And a
coffee-and-cake social was, after all, a rather tame experience in the
face of beverages more sparkling and eatables distinctly enticing.... Of
course, if Claire had been introduced to any of these questionable
delights by anybody short of a survivor of the Stillman clan, Mrs.
Robson might have had a misgiving. As it was, she was not above a
certain forewarning sense that made her say with an air of inconsequence
as Claire finished her recital:
"Mrs. Towne tells me that there is a chance that Mr. Stillman's wife may
get well. She's in a private sanitarium, at Livermore, you know." She
stopped to draw up the bedclothes higher. "I do hope it's so!... But I'm
always skeptical about _crazy_ people ever amounting to anything again.
Seems to me they're better off dead."