A gay world, that summer morning! The sprinkler on the lawn flung a
rainbow mist into the air, and left tiny diamonds shining on the
grass blades. Everything was astir—the leaves rustling on the
trees, gay flowers swaying on their stalks. Curtains fluttered at
the open windows, and through the cool, bright house voices came
floating, light as butterflies. Serena Page had arisen.
To be sure, she had told her house guests the night before that just
because she had to get up was no reason why any one else should be
disturbed at the outrageous hour of half past eight; but somehow
everybody was disturbed. Somehow her getting up made confusion all
through the house; for that was Serena’s especial talent—to create
an exciting sort of bustle about her, without herself doing anything
at all. Serena! Never was a woman so misnamed!
She came down the stairs, her filmy black negligee floating out
behind her, so that she seemed, as always, to be coming in a
breeze—an artificial breeze, though, perfumed and enervating,
bringing no health or color. She was without make-up at this early
hour. Her handsome, haggard face was pale, her eyes were heavy.
She entered the breakfast room, and there was the Moriarty girl,
standing by the window.
“Good morning, Mrs. Page,” she said, with that enigmatic smile of
hers.
Serena smiled, too, but faintly. Geraldine Moriarty was beginning to
get on her nerves very badly, and she was longing for an excuse to
fly into a rage with the girl. That was the only way Serena could
get rid of people. She could do nothing in cold blood. She had taken
on Geraldine in an outburst of generosity, and she would have to
have an outburst of anger before she could send her away.
“Had breakfast?” she inquired.
“No—I was waiting for you, Mrs. Page.”
Serena took her place at the table, and the Japanese butler came
forward to serve her. She did not know his name. She was not even
sure that she had seen him before. She got her servants from an
agency in the city, which upon demand would send her out a “crew”
commanded by a butler. Sometimes things went wrong, and the whole
lot left together; but another crew always came promptly, and her
household suffered very little from the change. She had the art of
making her home as impersonal as a hotel; but she did notice this
butler. She smiled upon him, because his charmingly deferential air
pleased her. He seemed to appreciate the solemnity of the occasion.
It was indeed an important occasion. It was the beginning of
Serena’s diet. Before this elegant and luxurious creature the butler
set half of a grapefruit, two slices of Graham bread toast without
butter, and a cup of black coffee.
She shuddered a little, and closed her eyes. Every morning,
henceforth, she was to get up at half past eight, go through a set
of exercises, take a cold shower, and come downstairs—to this!
Every one said she wouldn’t be able to stand it. Those who pleased
her best said she had absolutely no need of a reducing diet, and
would be made ill by it.
Only the Moriarty girl showed no interest at all. Serena observed
that Geraldine had a slice of grilled Virginia ham on her plate.
“How Connie could ever have called her a sweet child!” she thought.
“She’s as hard as nails!”
Some six weeks ago Connie Blanchard had come to Serena with a most
piteous tale about Geraldine Moriarty.
“Her mother and I went to the same school in Paris,” she had said;
“and now this sweet child’s all alone in the world. Something awful
happened to her father. He went bankrupt, or lost his mind, or
something—I can’t remember now—and Geraldine simply hasn’t a
penny. Fine old Irish family, you know, and she’s awfully well
educated. I’d love to help her, but you know how it is with me, my
dear, living as I do in hotels—and I’m not strong. Do please do
something for the poor child, Serena!”
Who could have done more? Serena had at once engaged Miss Moriarty
as secretary-companion, and here she was, getting a nice little
salary, and with practically no work to do. The secretarial duties
were almost nonexistent, for Serena very seldom wrote or even
answered a letter. She and her friends carried on their social
activities by telephone, and they liked to do their own talking.
As for the companion part, that was absurd. Serena was always
surrounded by companions, and mighty obliging ones, too—penniless
cousins, ambitious and ambiguous ladies, all sorts of eager and
pliant creatures, who made up a little court where Serena ruled
magnificently. No—all the Moriarty girl had to do was to look on,
and of course to admire; and it was at this simple task that she so
utterly failed.
She didn’t seem to admire anything or anybody, not even herself. She
was ironically indifferent to her own dark beauty. She had no decent
clothes, and when Serena had offered her some very good things that
she was tired of, Geraldine had refused—politely, of course. She
was always polite, always careful not to give Serena any excuse for
getting rid of her.
“But you’ll go, my dear!” thought Serena. “I’ve done quite enough
for you!”
She glanced across the table at her silent companion.
“Hopeless!” she reflected. “Simply hopeless! Of course she’s
good-looking, in a way—but she has absolutely _no_ charm, and _no_
figure.”
Miss Moriarty went on eating with an excellent appetite. She was
never talkative. She was quiet, but with a quiet which Serena did
not find restful or soothing. She was a tall girl, thin and supple,
with a careless grace in every movement. Her face had a gypsy
darkness, with high cheek bones, features delicate and yet bold, and
black eyes with a scornful light in them. She was dressed in a black
skirt, a black jersey, and a plain white blouse—a costume that made
her look lanky, thought the dieting Serena; and she had that air of
not caring.
“For Heaven’s sake, do talk, my dear!” cried Serena, overcome by
exasperation. “I’m all on edge this morning, and it makes me
horribly nervous to see you sitting there like a—like a graven
image!”
“I’ll try,” said Miss Moriarty obligingly. “Have you seen the
delphiniums?”
“Never heard of the things,” said Serena. “Oh, do answer that for
me, my dear!”
For the butler had come forward to say that a “generman” wanted to
speak to Mrs. Page on the telephone.
There was, inevitably, a telephone in the breakfast room. There were
telephones everywhere in that house, so that, in order to speak to a
friend perhaps a hundred miles away, one need not have the fatigue
of walking more than twenty feet. Geraldine took up the receiver.
“This is Mrs. Page’s secretary,” she said. “Will you give me the
message, please?”
“Tell Mrs. Page it’s Sambo,” said a curt and very clear masculine
voice.
“It’s Sambo,” repeated Miss Moriarty, turning toward Serena.
She was surprised by the change that came over that haggard,
petulant face. Forgotten were the nerves and the cruel diet. Serena
sprang to her feet and ran to the telephone, and even her voice was
changed.
“Sambo!” she cried. “What an hour! Yes, I know, but why didn’t you
write me, just once? I’m not reproaching you, silly boy! Only I did
think you’d have time just for a line. No, no! To-day, Sambo? But
can’t you give me some idea what time? Surely some time to-day? Oh,
all right! By-by, big boy!”
She came back to the table and sank into her chair, laughing.
“I’ll take a slice of that ham,” she said to the butler, “and cream
for my coffee. Quick! I’m starving!” Then she looked at Geraldine.
“Sammy Randall is coming,” she announced.
“How nice,” said Geraldine.
But Serena missed any irony there may have been in the words. Mrs.
Anson had appeared in the doorway, and she called to her:
“Betty, Sambo’s coming out to-day!”
“My dear, how simply marvelous!” cried Betty Anson, with fervor.
Serena expected that fervor. She took it for granted that all her
friends would rejoice with her; and so they did. Serena, the queen,
was happy, and all her court was happy, too, reaping the benefits of
her good humor.
“But that awful Moriarty!” she whispered to Betty Anson. “She’s
worse than usual this morning. I don’t know what’s the matter with
her. She’s so indifferent and ungrateful!”
“Those people are always envious,” said Mrs. Anson. “Governesses and
companions—they’re not exactly servants, you know, and yet they’re
not—well, they’re simply out of everything.”
“I wish she’d stay out altogether!” said Serena.
Geraldine Moriarty wished the same thing. As she stepped out through
the long window of the breakfast room to the lawn, she wished that
she need never set foot in that house again. She hated it, she hated
the life there, and at times she came dangerously close to hating
the people in it.
For, though Serena’s conclusion that the girl was “as hard as nails”
was an exaggeration, there was a grain of truth in it. She had, for
her nineteen years, a character remarkably definite and independent.
She had fortitude, courage, and the pride of Lucifer. She had come
here, penniless, solitary, and so young, direct from the almost
cloistered life she had led with her invalid mother, and not for one
instant had she been dazzled or swayed by the luxury and the
feverish gayety about her. She stayed because she knew no other way
to earn her bread, but all her salary she put into a savings bank,
and would not touch a penny of it. When there was enough, she meant
to go away. She would learn typing and shorthand, find work in an
office, and be done with this existence which she hated.
She lived here in exile, utterly alien and lonely, among these
people whom she neither comprehended nor pitied. Her people had been
gentlefolk. She had been brought up in a tradition of dignity,
honor, and reserve, and she clung to that tradition with all the
strength of her loyal heart. What her people had been, she would be.
Their ways were the right ways. Their manners, their speech, their
tastes, formed the standards by which all others should be judged.
And, so judged, Serena and her friends were damned. Geraldine saw no
good in them at all. They were base, heartless, and vulgar.
She walked across the lawn to the sea wall at the foot of the
garden, and jumped down to the beach, a few feet below. She wanted
to be alone for a little while in the fresh, sweet summer morning,
in the sun and the salt wind, and to forget the monstrous thing she
had seen; but she could not forget. In anger, in contempt, she was
obliged to remember Serena’s face at the mention of that man’s name.
Evidently Serena “loved” this man with the mountebank name, and her
friends seemed to think it a charming idyl—the “love” of a woman of
forty, who had divorced one husband and was living in constant
bickering with a second. The fact of her being married was simply a
side issue. Faith and honor had no meaning at all for these people,
and love—that was what they called “love”!