Claire was disappointed that Mrs. Flint was not to be at home. She had
caught glimpses of her now and then coming into the office and she was
interested in the hope of seeing her at closer range. Mrs. Flint was a
rather frumpish individual, who always gave the impression of pieced-out
dressmaking.
"She must subscribe to the _Ladies' Home Journal_," Nellie Whitehead had
commented one day. "You know that 'go-up-into-the-garret-and-get-five-
yards-of-grandmother's-wedding-gown' column. Well, she's a walking ad
for it. She's no raving beauty, but if she would throw out her chest and
chuck those flat-heeled clogs of hers, and put a marcel wave in her
hair, maybe the old man would sit up and take notice."
To which Miss Munch had replied:
"Well, she's a mighty sweet woman, anyway!" in a tone calculated to
freeze the irrepressible Nellie Whitehead into silence.
"Who says she isn't? And at that, a good tailor-made suit and a
decent-looking hat won't spoil her disposition any...."
The children, too, were what Nellie Whitehead had termed "perfect guys."
On warm days Mrs. Flint would drag these two daughters of hers into the
office, dressed in plaid suits and velveteen hats; and when a cold north
wind blew it seemed inevitable that they would appear in gay and airy
costumes up to their knees, with impossible straw bonnets trimmed with
daisies and faded cornflowers, reminiscent of the white-leghorn-hat era.
"Men don't marry women for their clothes," Miss Munch used to say,
challengingly, to Nellie.
"Oh, don't they, indeed! Well, I've lived longer than sixteen and a half
years and I've noticed that it's the up-to-the-minute dame that gets
away with it and holds onto it every time, just the same. And any woman
silly enough to work the rag-bag game when her husband can afford seven
yards of taffeta and a Butterick pattern is a fool!"
Claire knew women who looked dowdy on dress-parade and yet managed to be
quite charming in their own houses. She was wondering whether this might
not be Mrs. Flint's case; anyway, she had hoped for a chance to decide
this point, and now Mrs. Flint was not at home.
As she settled into her matting-covered seat in the train she began to
wonder just who _would_ be home at the Flint establishment. And she
thought suddenly of the disagreeable emphasis that Mrs. Richards had
seen fit to give the fact that Mrs. Flint was bound cityward. At this
stage she became lost in discovering so many points of contact between
Mrs. Richards and her cousin, Miss Munch. Then the train started with a
quick lurch, and a view of the rapidly darkening landscape claimed her
utterly.
Claire always took a childish delight in watching the panorama of the
countryside unroll swiftly before the space-conquering flight of a
train. And to-night the quick close of the December day warned her to
make the most of her opportunity. The wind was whipping the upper
reaches of the bay into a shallow fury, and the water in turn was
beating against the slimy mud and swallowing it up in gray, futile
anger. This part of the ride just out of Sausalito was always more or
less depressing unless a combination of full tide and vivid sunshine
gave its muddy stretches the enlivening grace of sky-blue reflections.
Worm-eaten and tottering piles, abandoned hulks, half-swamped skiffs,
all the water-logged dissolution of stagnant shore lines the world over,
flashed by, to be succeeded by the fresher green of channel-cut marshes.
The hills were wind-swept, huddling their scant oak covering into the
protecting folds of shallow canons. At intervals, clumps of
eucalyptus-trees banded together or drew out in long, thin, soldier-like
lines.
Presently it began to rain. There was no preliminary patter, but the
storm broke suddenly, hurling great gray drops of moisture against the
windows. Claire withdrew from any further attempt to watch the whirling
landscape. It was now quite dark, the short December day dying even more
suddenly under a black pall of lowering clouds.
She began to have distinctly uncomfortable thoughts about her visit to
the Flints'. But the more uncomfortable her thoughts became, the more
reason she brought to bear for conquering them. Surely one was not to be
persuaded into a panic by any such person as Mrs. Richards! And by the
time the brakeman announced the train's approach to Yolanda, Claire had
recovered her common sense. What of it if Mrs. Flint had gone to town?
There must be other women in the household--at least a maid. It was
absurd! The train stopped and Claire got off.
Flint's car was waiting, and Jerry Donovan, the chauffeur, stood with a
dripping umbrella almost at Claire's elbow as she hopped upon the
platform.
As they swished through the inky blackness, Claire said to Jerry, with
as inconsequential an air as she could muster:
"I thought I saw Mrs. Flint get off the boat in town. But I guess I was
mistaken. She wouldn't be leaving Mr. Flint alone ... when he's ill."
"Ill?" Jerry chuckled. "Well, he ain't dead by a long shot. Just a case
of sniffles, and a good excuse for hitting the booze. He's in prime
condition, I can tell you."
Claire had never seen Flint in "prime condition," but she had it from
Nellie Whitehead that there were moments when the gentleman in question
could "go some," to use her predecessor's precise terms.
"About twice a year," Nellie had once confided to Claire, "the old boy
starts in to cure a cold. I helped him cure one ... but _never_ again!"
Jerry's observations aroused fresh anxiety, but they did not settle the
issue for Claire. She felt that she could not turn back at the eleventh
hour. There was nothing else for her to do but go through with the game.
Yet she still hoped for the best.
"_Did_ Mrs. Flint go to town to-day?" she finally asked, point-blank.
"Sure thing," said Jerry, swinging the car past the Flint gateway.
Claire refused to be totally lacking in faith.
"There must be a maid," flashed through her mind, as Jerry stopped the
car and swung down to help her out.
A Japanese boy threw open the door as they scrambled up the rain-soaked
steps. But the fine, orderly, Colonial interior reassured Claire. The
few country homes she had seen had been of the rambling, unrelated
bungalow type, with paneled redwood walls either stained to a dismal
brown or quite frankly left to their rather characterless pink. This
home was different. Even the pungent oak logs crackling in the fireplace
did so with indefinable distinction. The general tone of the
surroundings was as little in keeping with the patchwork personality of
its mistress as one could imagine. It was as if the singular
completeness of Mrs. Flint's home left no time nor energy for a finished
individuality. Claire got all this in the briefest of flashes, just a
swift, inclusive glance about the entrance hall and through the doorways
leading into the rooms beyond. Particularly did she sense the severe
opulence of the dining-room, twinkling at a remoter distance than the
living-room--its perfectly polished silver, its spotless linen, its
wonderfully blue china, not to mention the disconcerting fact that the
table in the center was laid for but two.
And then Flint himself came forward with a very red face and an absurdly
cordial greeting.
"Well, I began to wonder whether you'd risk it. This will be a storm and
no mistake.... Here, let me have your coat. Come, you're quite wet....
Shall you warm up on a hot toddy or something cooler--a cocktail?"
She felt his hand sliding down her arm as she released the coat to his
too-eager fingers. "Oh no, Mr. Flint! Thank you, nothing. It's only a
bit of rain on the surface. I'm quite dry."
"Quite dry!" He echoed her words with a guffaw. "Well, then, we'll have
to moisten you up. I always say everything's a good excuse for a drink.
If you're cold you take a drink to warm up; if you're warm you take one
to cool off. You dry out on one, and you wet up on one. I don't know of
any habit with so many good reasons back of it. I'm dry, too.... We'll
have a Bronx! That's a nice, ladylike drink."
Claire weighed her reply. She did not want to strike the wrong note; she
wanted to let him have a feeling that she was accepting everything in a
normal, matter-of-fact way, as if she saw nothing extraordinary in the
situation.
"You're very kind, but really you know ... if I'm to get my dictation
straight...."
"Well, perhaps there won't be any dictation. We're not slaves, you and
I. Maybe it will be much pleasanter to sit before the fire and listen to
the storm. What do you say to that?"
She turned from him deliberately, under the fiction of fluffing up her
hair before a gilt mirror near the door. She was thinking quickly and
with a tremendous, if concealed, agitation. "Why," she laughed back,
finally, "that _would_ be pleasant. But I came to take dictation, Mr.
Flint. And women ... women, you know, are so funny! If they make up
their minds to one thing, they can't switch suddenly to another idea."
He was paying no attention to her remark, a remark which she felt would
have fallen flat in any event, since it was so palpably studied.
"The living-room is in there," he said, pointing. "Make yourself at
home."
She went in and sat before the fire. Flint disappeared. She tried hard
to analyze the situation. It was unthinkable that Mr. Flint had
deliberately planned this piece of foolishness. He must have had some
idea of work when he had telephoned her; perhaps he still had. It was
his way of being facetious, she argued, this fine pretense that it was
all to be a pleasant lark, or it may have been his idea of hospitality.
Of course he had been drinking, but she took comfort in the thought that
there must be instinctive standards in a man like Flint that even whisky
could not swamp. At least he must respect his wife--surely it was not
possible for Flint, drunk or sober, to offer such an affront to _her_,
however little he respected the women in his employ. She dismissed Mrs.
Richards's exaggerated insinuations with their well-deserved contempt,
but she could not thrust aside quite so readily the eye-lifting tone
with which Stillman had met the announcement of Mrs. Flint's absence
from home.
This was the first time that Claire had seen Stillman since the
musicale. She had thought a great deal about him and particularly about
his problem. She felt a great desire to know everything--all the details
of the unfortunate circumstance that had driven his wife into a
madhouse, and yet whenever her mother broached the subject Claire
changed the topic with curious panic. She seemed to dread the hard,
almost triumphant manner that her mother assumed in tracking misfortune
to its lair and gloating over it. She began to wonder whether Stillman
would be swinging back to the city on a late boat ... or would the storm
keep him at Edington's sister's home all night?
She was in the midst of this speculation when Flint came into the room.
"We'll eat early and have that off our minds," he announced. His manner
was brusk and business-like again. Claire felt reassured.
But she was disturbed to find a cocktail at her place at the table.
"Well, here's glad to see you!" Flint raised his glass and tilted it
ever so slightly in her direction. Claire lifted the cocktail to her
lips and set it down untasted. "What's the matter? Getting unsociable
again?"
"No, Mr. Flint. I don't care for cocktails."
"Oh, all right! We'll send down-cellar and get some wine."
"Thank you, not for me."
"I suppose you don't care for wine, either?" His voice had a bantering
quality, with a shade of menace in it. "Or maybe the right party isn't
here. I've noticed that makes a difference. Females are damned moral
with the wrong fellow."
His attack was so direct and insolent that Claire missed the trepidation
that might have come with a more covert move. She was no longer
uncertain. There was a sharp relief in realizing that all the cards were
on the table. She felt also that there was no immediate danger. Flint
was far from sober, but he was in his own home. She had the conviction
that he was merely skirmishing, testing the strength or weakness of the
line he hoped to penetrate. Her reply was rather more of a challenge
than she could have imagined herself giving under such a circumstance.
"And if I were to tell you that I don't care for wine, Mr. Flint?"
He threw open his napkin with a flourish. "You'd be telling me a damned
lie! You drink wine at the Palace with Stillman and Edington."
She had felt that he was going to say some such thing and for a moment
it amused her. It was so ridiculous to find this rather wan and wistful
indiscretion assuming damaging proportions. But a nasty fear succeeded
her faint amusement. Could it be possible that Stillman had gossiped?
"Who told you?" she demanded.
"Oh, don't be afraid; it wasn't Stillman! You're like all women, you
moon about sentimentalizing over Ned until it makes a man like me sick!
I like Ned; I always have. But even when we went to college together it
was the same way. Everybody ... yes, even the men ... always gave him
credit for a high moral tone. Not that he ever took it.... I'll say that
for him.... Ned Stillman didn't tell me, for the simple reason that he
didn't have to. Nobody told me. I go to the Palace myself under
pressure, and I've got two eyes. As a matter of fact, there isn't any
reason why Edington or Stillman or the waiter who drew the corks
shouldn't have mentioned it. A glass of wine is no crime. But the thing
that makes me hot is to see any one pretending. If you drink with
Stillman, you haven't any license to refuse a glass with me."
There was something more than wine-heated rancor back of his harangue.
Claire guessed instinctively that he both loved and hated Stillman with
a curious confusion of impulses. It was a feeling of affection torn by
the irritating superiority of its object. One gets the same thing in
families ... among children. It was at once subtle and extremely
primitive.
"My dear Mr. Flint, this isn't quite the same thing. I've work to do for
one thing and, and...."
"And ... and.... Why don't you say it? You're alone with me and all that
sort of rubbish! Want a chaperon, I suppose. Mrs. Condor, for
instance.... Good Lord!"
Claire dipped her spoon into the steaming bouillon-cup in front of her.
She was growing quite calm under the directness of Flint's attack.
"It isn't the same," she reiterated, stubbornly. "I've work to do, Mr.
Flint."
"I tell you that you haven't!" Flint brought his fist down upon the
table.
"Well, then, why did you send for me?"
"I had something to say to you.... Gad! one can't talk in that ramping
office of mine. We've never even settled the matter of an increase in
salary for you. By the way, how much money do you get?"
Claire had never seen any man look so crafty and disagreeable. He gave
her the impression of a petty tyrant about to bestow largess upon an
obsequious and fawning slave.
"Sixty-five dollars a month."
"Well, I don't exactly know.... I've been trying to figure out just how
valuable you are to me, Miss Robson. Or, rather, how valuable you're
likely to be." He thrust aside his soup and leaned heavily upon the
table. "That's why I invited you over to-night. I wanted to see you at a
little closer range. You live with your mother, don't you?"
"Yes, Mr. Flint."
"You ... you support your mother, I believe?"
"Yes, Mr. Flint."
"Well, sixty-five dollars don't leave much margin for hair ribbons and
the like, does it, now?"
"No, Mr. Flint."
"No, Mr. Flint.... Yes, Mr. Flint...." he mocked. "Good Lord! can't you
cut that school-girl-to-her-dignified-guardian attitude. I'm human.
Dammit all, I'm as human as your friend Ned Stillman. I'll bet you don't
yes-sir and no-sir him.... You know, that night I saw you at the Palace
you quite bowled me over. I'd been thinking of you as a shy,
unsophisticated young thing. But you were hitting the high places like a
veteran. Even old lady Condor didn't have anything on you. Except, of
course, that she looks the part. By the way, where did you meet
Stillman?"
"At ... at a church social," Claire stammered.
"At a church social! Say, I wasn't born yesterday. Ned Stillman doesn't
go to church. Tell me something easy."
"It was really a Red Cross concert. He went with Mrs. Condor," Claire
found herself explaining in spite of her anger. "We sat at the same
table when the ice-cream was served."
Flint was roaring with exaggerated laughter. Even Claire could not
restrain a smile. What made the statement so ridiculous, she found
herself wondering. Was she unconsciously reflecting Flint's attitude or
had she herself changed so tremendously in the last few weeks?
"Stillman at a church social! But that _is_ good! And eating
ice-cream.... How long ago did all this happen, pray?"
"Sometime in November."
He stopped his senseless guffawing and looked at her keenly. "Where did
you get the church-social habit?"
"I ... why, I guess I formed it early, Mr. Flint. As you say, sixty-five
dollars a month doesn't leave much for hair ribbons or anything else.
Going to church socials is about the cheapest form of recreation I can
think of."
The bitterness of her tone seemed to pull Flint up with a round turn.
"Well, we're going to get you out of this silly church-social habit.
Dammit all, Stillman isn't the only possibility in sight. That's just
what I wanted to get at--your viewpoint. I take an interest in you, Miss
Robson--a tremendous interest. Good Lord! I can dance one-steps and
fox-trots and hesitations as well as anybody! I danced every bit as
well as Ned Stillman when we went to dancing-school together. But he
always got most of the applause. He _has_ an air, I don't deny that, but
he's working it overtime.... And he's not in any better position for
being friendly to you than I am--_he's_ married."
The talk was sobering him a little. Claire was amazed to find that she
did not feel indignant. His tone was offensive, but at least it was
forthright. Besides, she had known instinctively that some day he would
force the issue, and she was rather glad to get it settled. And she
began to hope that she could persuade him skilfully against his warped
convictions. She was trembling inwardly, too, at the thought that she
might make a false step and find herself out of a position. Positions
were not easy to land these days. She knew a half-score of girls who had
tramped the town over in a desperate effort to find a vacancy. Two or
three months without salary meant debts piling up, clothes in ribbons,
and no end of hectic worries.
"I think you've got a decidedly wrong impression of my friendship for
Mr. Stillman," she said, after some deliberation. "I really know him
only slightly. He was good enough, or rather I should say Mrs. Condor
was good enough, to include me in a little musical evening. That was on
the night you saw me at the Palace. We dropped down for a dance or two
after the music was over. I'd never been to such a place before, and I
dare say I'll never go again. It was just one of those experiences that
come to a person out of a clear sky. It's over as quickly as a shower."
"Oh, don't you worry! There'll be other showers. I'm going to see to
that. You know, the more I talk to you the more amazing you are....
Fancy your graduating from dinky church things into Stillman musicales,
and Palace dansants, and young Edington, and old lady Condor, all of a
sudden ... and getting away with it as if you were an old hand at the
game. Say, if you're that apt I'll give you a post-graduate course in
high life that'll make your hair curl forty-seven ways. I don't mean
anything vulgar or common ... _you_ understand. I'm a gentleman, Miss
Robson, at that."
He stopped for a moment to ring the bell for the Japanese boy. Claire
maintained a discreet silence. She had a feeling that it would be just
as well to let him take his full rein. The servant came in and cleared
away the empty bouillon-cups. Fish was served.
Flint took one taste of the fish and shoved it away impatiently. "You
know, a fellow like me gets awfully bored at all this sort of thing." He
swept the room with an inclusive gesture. "Not that my wife isn't the
best little woman in the world, but _you_ know. She's got standards and
convictions and all that sort of rot. I can't bundle _her_ off for
dinner and a little lark at the Red Paint or Bonini's or some other
Bohemian joint like them.... You know what I mean, no rough stuff ...
but a good feed, and two kinds of wine, and a cigarette with the small
black. Just gay and frivolous.... Of course I can get any number of
girls to run around and help eat up all the nourishment I care to
provide. But, good Lord! that isn't it! I'm looking for somebody with
human intelligence. Not that I want to discuss free verse and the Little
Theater movement. But I like to feel that if I took such a crazy notion
the person sitting opposite me could qualify for a good comeback.... I
like my home and everything, but.... Oh, well, what's the use in
pretending? I'm just as human as your friend Ned Stillman and I've got
just as keen an eye for class."
He sat back in his seat with an air of satisfaction, waiting for
Claire's reply. She had been calm enough while he talked, but under the
tenseness of his silent expectancy she felt her heart bound.
"Dammit all! Why don't you say something?" he blurted out. "I know, you
need a little wine. I'm going down-stairs and pick out the best in the
cellar ... _myself_."
She did not attempt to dissuade him; as a matter of fact, she felt
relieved to be left alone for a moment. She must leave as soon as dinner
was over. She began to wonder about the trains. The storm was raging
outside. She could hear the frenzied trees flinging their branches about
and a noisy flood of rain against the windows. She spoke to the Japanese
boy as he was carrying away Flint's unfinished fish course.
"Do you know what time the next train leaves?"
He laid the tray on the serving-table. "Please.... I telephone. Please!"
He bobbed at her absurdly and went out into the hall. She listened. He
was ringing up the station-master. He came back promptly.
"Please," he began, sucking in his breath, "please ... no train
to-night."
"No train to-night? Why, what do you mean?"
"Please ... very much water. Train track washed out. No train to-night.
To-morrow morning, maybe."
"Oh, but I must go home to-night! I really must! I...."
She broke off suddenly, realizing the futility of her protest.
"To-morrow morning," replied the Japanese, blandly. "All right to-morrow
morning. You stay here.... I fix a place. You see.... I fix a very nice
place for young lady."
He went out with the tray and Claire rose and walked to the window.
Flint broke into the room noisily. She turned--he had two dusty bottles
in his hand, and an air of triumph.
"Mr. Flint, it seems that there has been a washout. I understand that no
trains are running. What can I do? I must get back; really I...."
"Who says so?" Flint laid the bottles down with an irritating calmness.
"The station-master. Your ... your servant just telephoned for me."
"Oh, well, _we_ should worry! Sit down."
"Mr. Flint, really, I must.... You know I can't.... I...."
"Sit _down_!"
His tone was a dash of cold water thrown in the face of her rising
hysteria. She sat down. Flint ignored the bottles on the table and,
crossing over to the Sheraton sideboard, poured himself a stiff drink
of whisky. His hair-towsled condition stood out sharply against the
precise background.
He made no further comment, but he began to open the bottles of wine
deliberately. Then he rummaged in the china-closet for the wine-glasses
and set four, two at his place and two at Claire's, upon the table.
"White wine with the entree and red wine with the roast," he muttered.
And he poured out the white wine without further ado.
The servant came in with creamed sweetbreads. Claire forced herself to
make a pretense of eating, although her appetite had long since deserted
her. She was thinking, and thinking hard.
She should never have come, in the first place--at least she should have
turned back upon the strength of Jerry's announcement. But she saw now,
with a clearness that surprised her, that the situation had really
challenged her imagination. She had been too calm, too collected, too
well-poised, full of smug over-confidence. She had read in the current
novels of the day how hysterically unsophisticated heroines conducted
themselves in tight corners and she had followed their writhings with
ill-concealed impatience. She never had really put herself in their
place, but she had had a vague notion that they carried on absurdly. Her
fear all evening had been not what Mr. Flint would do or say or even
suggest--she had been anxious merely to have the impending storm over,
the air cleared, and her position in the office assured upon a purely
business-like basis. She had really welcomed the forced issue; for weeks
her mind had been entertaining and dismissing the idea that Mr. Flint
had any questionable motives in yielding Nellie Whitehead's place to
her. With this fleeting trepidation had come the realization of her
dependence, the importance her sixty-five dollars a month in the scheme
of things, the compromises that she might be forced into accepting in
order to insure its continuance; not definite and soul-searing
compromises, it was true, but petty, irritating trucklings which wear
down self-esteem.
It had been the primitive violence of Flint's commanding, "Sit down!" to
thrust the issue from the economic to the elemental. For the first time
in her life Claire was face to face with unstripped masculine brutality.
She had wondered why women of a lower order took men's blows without
striking back, without at least escaping from further torment. But she
was beginning to see, as her spirits tried to rise reeling from Flint's
verbal assault, the fawning submission, half admiration, half fear, that
could follow a frank, hard-fisted blow. And she had a terror, sitting
there trying to thrust food between her trembling lips, that the sheer
physical force of the male opposite her might shatter in one blow a will
that could have withstood any amount of spiritual or material attrition.
She had never seen Flint so clearly as at this moment; in fact, she had
never seen him _at all_. Formerly, he had been a conventionalized
masculine biped in a blue-serge covering who paid her salary and struck
attitudes that were symbols of predatory instincts rather than an
indication that such instincts existed. Life had, after all, been
peopled by the precisely labeled puppets of a morality play; they came
on, and declaimed, and made gestures--but they remained abstractions,
things apart from life, mere representations of the vices and virtues
they impersonated. She had entertained this idea particularly with
regard to Flint. She had felt that the day would come when he and she
would occupy the stage together. He would speak his part with a great
flourish of the hands and much high-sounding emphasis, and when he had
finished she would reply with a carefully worded retort, setting forth
the claims and rewards of virtue. Thus it would continue, argument
succeeding argument, a declamatory give and take, dignified,
passionless, theatrical.
They were occupying the stage now, it was true, but there was something
warm and human and ragged about the performance. Flint was not a mere
spiritless allegory in red-satin doublet and hose to give flame to his
conventionality. Instead, she saw sitting opposite her a ponderous,
quick-breathing, drunken male, handsome in a coarse, rough-hewn way,
speaking in the quick, clipped speech of passion and striking her to the
ground with the energy of his stage business. She was afraid, almost for
the first time in her life, with a primitive, abandoned fear. And
suddenly her vista of womanhood narrowed to include the ugly foreground
of life that youth had looked over in its eager, far-flung scanning of
the horizon beyond. Suddenly she felt all the oppression and sorrow of
the sex bear down upon her and mark her with its relentless finger.
Because she was a woman she would pay for every joy with a corresponding
sorrow; receive a blow for every caress; know courage and fear with
equal intimacy.... She stopped eating and she began to realize with a
vivid terror that Flint was looking at her fixedly and beginning to
speak.
"What's the matter with the sweetbreads? Don't you like 'em?... And the
wine?... Say, I'm going to get peeved in a minute. You don't suppose we
serve this French-restaurant style of meal every day do you? I should
say _not_! That's another one of the _frau's_ convictions. Plain living
at home so as to set the right example to the _girls_!" Flint threw his
head from side to side, mincing out his last statement. "Gad! I'm tired
of setting a good example!... And even Sing gets tired. Chinks, you
know, like to cook a bang-up meal once in a while. They like a chance to
show their speed and put in all the fancy trimmings."
His mood, during this speech, had changed with drunken facility from
irritability to good humor. Claire, still attempting to marshal her
wits, picked up her fork again and murmured:
"Oh, you have a Chinese cook, then? I had no idea.... The Japanese boy,
you know. They say that the two never get along."
"That's a fairy-tale. Besides, it's next to impossible, these days, to
get a Chinese second-boy. And the missus _won't_ hire a girl." He winked
broadly. "Can't get one ugly enough, I guess. Sing's a wonder. I copped
him from the Tom Forsythes. _You_ know--young Edington's in-laws.
They've never quite forgiven me. Though they _will_ come back and tuck
away one of his dinners occasionally."
Claire's mind closed nimbly over Flint's statement. "The--the Tom
Forsythes of Ross?" she asked.
He nodded and tossed a glass of wine off in one gulp. The Tom Forsythes
of Ross ... Edington's sister ... Ned Stillman! The sequence of ideas
flashed through Claire's mind with flashing detachment. She leaned back
in her seat and raised the wine-glass in obvious pretense to her lips.
Flint was watching her keenly: an ugly gleam was in his eyes.
"Well, Miss Robson, you might just as well make up your mind to finish
that glass of wine first as last. We're not going to have the next
course until you do."
She measured him deliberately. She knew now that it was to be a fight to
a finish. She was honestly afraid and full of the courage of
realization.
"I've had enough as it is, Mr. Flint. Besides, we must either be getting
to work or figuring how I am to make the boat at Sausalito. I suppose
you could send me in the car ... with Jerry."
"Oh, with Jerry? So that's it!... No, not on your life! He's too
good-looking a boy for a job like that. No, Miss Robson, you are going
to stay _right_ here.... Now, understand me, I'm not a damn fool! You
seem to have an idea that because I've had a glass or two that I've lost
my reason. You're an attractive girl and all that, Miss Robson, and I am
interested in you! But please don't flatter yourself that I'm staking
everything on a throw like this. As a matter of fact, I'll see that you
are properly chaperoned. We've plenty of neighbors. You've got the best
excuse in the world for staying here and...."
"But, my dear Mr. Flint, can't you see, I...."
"No, I can't. I want you to stay _here_. My reasons are as good as
yours. Now let's get that off our mind and enjoy the meal."
His manner struck her protests to the ground again. She was no longer
fearing the immediate outcome, in fact, she never had, but she knew that
if he broke her to his will now, all the safeguards, all the chaperons,
all the conventions in the world wouldn't save her from ultimate
consequences. This was the try-out that was to establish her pace in the
final contest; she would stand or fall upon the record she made at this
moment. For she was trying out something more than Flint's temper,
something greater than a mechanical adjustment of human
relationships--she was trying out _herself_. She sat for some moments,
thinking hard, one hand fingering the slender base of the wine-filled
glass in front of her, the other dropped in pensive limpness at her
side. Flint had cleared the space in front of him of everything but his
two wine-glasses. He had slipped down in his seat and his two bloodshot
eyes were fixing her with a level stare.
She stirred finally and rose.
He was on his feet in an instant.
"I'm going to telephone," she said, calmly.
"Telephone ... where?... What's the idea?"
"Mr. Flint," she answered, a bit wearily, "at least I'm a guest in your
house, am I not?"
He settled back in his seat with a grunt of acquiescence. She stood
dazed for a moment, surprised at the chance that had put such telling
words into her mouth. She had been fingering timidly for the key to his
chivalry; quite by accident she had hit upon it in the shape of this
appeal to her expectations of him in the rôle of host. She could have
lied, of course, and told him that she wished to telephone her mother,
but she had not yet been cornered sufficiently to resort to so
distasteful a weapon.... As she left the room she found herself
wondering whether Stillman had by any chance left the Tom Forsythes. She
looked at the clock. It was not quite eight o'clock. She felt reassured,
yet she was tremendously frightened.... Especially as she realized that
the telephone was in the entrance hall within earshot of the
dining-room....
She was decidedly more frightened when she got back from her
telephoning, and looked at Flint. He was clutching at the table with
both hands, his body tilted slightly forward, his lips ominously thin.
"You telephoned to the Tom Forsythes, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"And you asked for Stillman.... Did you get him?"
"Yes."
"What did you want with him?"
"If you heard that much, I guess you heard the rest, Mr. Flint."
Claire stood at her place at the table. She decided not to sit. Flint
bore down on both hands until things began to creak.
"Yes, I heard everything, but, dammit all, I couldn't believe my own
ears. You're like every woman I ever knew ... you don't play fair. You
appeal to my instinct as host and then you go and outrage every
privilege you've got me to concede. You're a pretty guest, you are! And
I sit here and let you 'play me for a fool.' Let you ring up Ned
Stillman and ask him to fetch you away from _my_ house in _his_ car!" He
stopped and took a deep breath; his words were no longer passionate;
instead, they were precise and cool and venomous. "Understand me, young
lady, I'm through with you. I wouldn't care, if I thought you were
really virtuous. But you're too clever for a virtuous woman.... Oh, I
dare say you subscribe to the letter of the law, all right. For
instance, you take care not to run around with married men whose
incumbrances are in plain view of the audience.... Oh, I've seen lots of
clever women in my time, but in the end they always took too much rope.
Remember, you'll have your bluff called some day."
He pushed back his chair noisily and rose. The Japanese servant came
bobbing along.
"Clear away the things!" Flint bellowed. "We're through!... Good night,
Miss Robson, and a pleasant journey to you--you and your _immaculate_
friend Stillman."
He left the room with a melodramatic flourish.... Presently Claire heard
him mounting the stairs.
"He's drunk!" flashed through her mind, as if the idea had just struck
her. "Of course, he must be drunk, otherwise he wouldn't have dared
to...."
She went out into the entrance hall and put on her hat.