In a half-voice, like a lark beating up into the clouds, she commenced

to hum to the accompaniment; then took up the words. In the dim-lit

room, with the blackness of night peering in at the window and the

lilies breathing out their exotic fragrance, all the wistful past came

trooping back. He forgot New York, forgot his anxiety and loneliness.

Pictures formed and melted under the spell of her singing. He remembered

his childish elation, when she had carried him back to the tapestried

bedroom, making him believe that she preferred him to Hal. He saw again

the tenderness in her face as she had bent over him by the firelight,

listening expectantly for Hal’s footstep in the passage. He felt again

the despair of his first disillusion, when the great day had been spoilt

and she had driven home with him through the lamp-smirched London night,

begging him to believe that she was good--that she was good whatever

happened. After all these years the memory of that childish tragedy

burnt again intensely.

Had love hurt her? A strange complaint to hear from Vashti! Hadn’t she

rather hurt herself? Her fatal sweetness must have proved cruel to many

men.

His mother, Mrs. Sheerug, every one had doubted her. Even Hal doubted

her now--Hal who had promised to follow her through the dark wood that

few women had dared to tread. What had happened to her in the dark wood?

Teddy could only guess; but because she was Desire’s mother, and still

more at this moment because she was singing, he could not help but think

that she was good. At last, after all these years of following, he had

come up with her. Did she need his help? Was she trying to tell him?

She swung round with a rippling laugh which had tears in it. “Have you

forgiven me, Teddy? A sentimental question! Of all the big sins I’ve

done, that’s the one that I’ve most regretted.--Ah, you’ll not say that

you havel Boys don’t forget things like that.”

He was filled with an immense compassion for her. Beneath her forced

gayety he suspected heart-hunger. She looked a proud woman, with just

that touch of distinction and mystery that makes for lurement. Her smile

was a mask, rather than a means of self-expression. She would impress a

stranger as being courteously on the defensive, yet anxiously ready for

the excitement of attack. “A woman of experience!” one would say. “A

proficient man-tamer! She fears nothing.”

Her face was made up; her lips too scarlet. Teddy could see that even in

the half-light. Her figure was finer than in the old days--more rounded

and gracious, but still sinuous in its lines. She possessed to an even

greater extent her dangerous power to fascinate. By a trick of kindness,

which might mean nothing, by a hint of restrained tenderness, she could

quicken the blood and set a man dreaming of goddesses in a riot of

blue seas, and the throb of Pan’s pipes heard distantly in sun-smitten

woodlands. Her eyes spoke of other things to Teddy. They had lost their

old contentment. He recognized in them the questing melancholy that he

had seen in Hal’s.

She was beautiful--in some ways more beautiful: haunting and

unsatisfying: an instrument for romance; a shuttered house from behind

whose windows there was a continual sense of watching.

Her forehead was intensely cold and white, contradicting the eagerness

of the rest of her expression. Her brows were like spread wings,

hovering and poised; her eyes vague as sea-clouds till they smiled,

when they flashed with gleams of blue-gray sunlight. Again he wondered

whether his love for Desire was an outcome of this earlier ghostly

passion. They were more than ordinarily alike, even to their gestures.

The hair of both was the color of ancient bronze, dark in the hollows

and burnished at the edges. The mouth of each gave the key to her

character, becoming any shape that an emotion made it: petulant and

unreasonable; kind and gracious and adoring. But there was this great

difference: Desire’s beauty had youth’s conscious certainty of conquest;

in Vashti’s there was the pathetic appeal to be allowed to conquer. Her

throat was still her glory, throbbing like a bird’s and slender as a

flower. Rising from her low-cut gown, it showed in its full perfection.

She clapped her hands, as Desire would have done, and laughed softly at

the impression she had created. “Nearly old enough to be your mother;

but still vain and pleased because you like me. I dressed especially for

you, my littlest lover. And now--now that I’ve seen you, I’m not sorry

that you’ve grown up.” She stretched out both her hands and drew him

to her. “You’re nice. You’re even nicer. So tall! So brave-looking! And

you’re still a dreamer, Teddy--a little god Love, peering in through the

gate.”

Suddenly she reached up her arms. “There! Why, you’re blushing, you dear

boy. We’re going to be great friends, you and I and Desire.”

He wanted to ask about Desire, but he couldn’t bring himself to frame

the question. He listened intently to catch the rustle of her approach.

He expected every minute to see her through the darkness, across the

threshold. Why didn’t Vashti tell him? Was her kindness a subtle way

of apologizing foe Desire’s absence? He had found hidden meanings in

everything that had been said: “She feels far more than she’ll ever

express--goes out of her way to make people misunderstand.” And then:

“We’re going to be great friends, you and I and Desire.”

Vashti touched his hand gently. “You’ve something on your mind.”

Would she never be frank with him?

“On my mind! No, really. It’s only seeing you and finding myself a man.

Last time,” he laughed into her eyes, “it was you that I thought I was

going to marry.”

“And wouldn’t you now? No, you wouldn’t. I can see that.”

A gong tinkled faintly. She slipped an arm through his. On the

right-hand side of the passage doors led off. He watched for one of them

to open. When they reached the small paneled dining-room at the far end,

his heart sank: only two places had been set.

“Let’s make it our day--the day that I promised you. Now tell me

everything. What brought you over?”

He glanced sharply across the table. Was she poking sly fun at him?

“Brought me over?”

“Yes. That’s not such an unreasonable question. You can’t persuade me

that you came just to see me, Teddy.”

“And yet,” he said, “it was partly that.”

“And the rest?”

“Work. I’m a writer. I’ve had a little success. Don’t you remember how

I always said I was going to be famous? But aren’t you playing with me?

D’you really mean that you didn’t expect me?”

Vashti met his eyes quietly. “My baby-girl told me something. But how

did you discover our address?”

While he answered, he watched her narrowly to catch the flicker of any

tell-tale expression. “When she was in London this summer, she visited

Madame Josephine’s Beauty Parlors. Madame Josephine’s my friend. I’ve

told her a good many things about myself; amongst others---- You spoke

about dream-persons. I’ve had my dream-person for years--ever since I

was at the farmhouse. So there----! She spotted Desire directly.”

Vashti raised her glass: “To our dream-persons; and may they not

disappoint us when they become realities.” There was a pause. He

trembled on the brink of a confession. The maid entered to change the

dishes. When she had gone, he leant towards Vashti. His voice was husky.

“When shall I see her?”

Vashti closed her eyes and caught her breath in a quick laugh. “That

depends--depends on how late you stay. Desire’s out at Long Island,

taking part in some amateur theatricals. She may ’phone me up

presently to say she’s stopping the night If she comes back, she’ll have

to get some man to drive her, She won’t arrive till after twelve.”

He had a curious feeling of impropriety in discussing Desire with her

mother. It was a stupid feeling to have just because, long ago, he had

given Vashti his boyish affection. Yet instinctively he felt that he

might rouse her jealousy if he laid too much stress on his change of

homage. Was that why she was evading him? How much did she know of what

had happened? He began to skirmish for information.

Speaking carelessly, he said, “So she’s not gone on the stage yet?”

Vashti betrayed surprise. “She wants to--but, how did you know?” Then,

finding her own explanation: “Madame Josephine again, I suppose. Desire

talks about her ambitions to every one.”

“You don’t want her to be an actress?”

“She’ll do what she likes. I shan’t thwart her. I’d much rather---- It’s

funny that I should tell you, Teddy. I’d much rather that she should

marry some nice boy, and have heaps of children. I’d like her to have

all the wholesome things that her mother hasn’t had--the really good

things--not the shams. It’s lonely to be forty and to have no one to

protect you. Unfortunately we don’t find that out till we’re forty, and

we can’t hand on our experience. She’s very young.--Tell me about

yourself. How’s that big father with the bushy head?”

While they talked of the past a closer sense of comradeship grew up

between them. He told her about Madame Josephine and Duke Nineveh, and

how the wonderful change in their fortunes had occurred.

“And Mrs. Sheerug,” she asked, “does she still wear green plush and

yellow feathers?”

“She still wears green plush and yellow feathers. But she does a bit of

splashing now--drives about in a carriage-and-pair. I don’t think she

likes it; she wants to please her Alonzo.--It is good to be able to

speak of Eden Row. Why, I don’t feel a bit homesick now.”

“Homesick!” She pushed back her chair and rose languidly. Her hand went

slowly to her heart. “My home’s hidden here; it’s an imagined place,

Teddy. I’ve lived always swinging on a perch. How I envy your being able

to feel homesick!--It’s seeing you that’s done it. I want to be young,

young, young again to-night.”

With the reflected light from the table drifting up across her breast

and her eyes brooding on him through the shadows, she looked both

gorgeous and tragic. He couldn’t think of anything to say; he had

always pictured her as wandering from happiness to happiness. While he

struggled with his silence, a sob escaped her; she hurried from him.

He followed her into the other room, where the shaded lamp shone softly

on the lilies. Ever since he had entered the apartment, he had had the

sense of a thinness of atmosphere, a temporary quality, a consciousness

of something lacking. He knew what it was that he had missed now; these

rooms were tenanted only by women.

She was beside the window, with one knee upon the couch, staring out to

where night yawned above the river and lights twinkled, like stars in an

inverted firmament.

“_Come_.” She slipped her arm about his shoulder. “Wouldn’t you have

loved me once for doing that? Am I terribly older--not quite what you

expected? No, don’t tell me. Don’t lie to me. Life! It goes from us.

When a woman’s lived merely to be beautiful, she’s reached the fag-end

at forty. Seeing you so brave and tall, has brought that home to me.

I’ll have to live whatever life I have left, through the beauty of

Desire now. A little hard for a selfish woman! I trusted to my beauty to

do everything. And I _was_ beautiful when first you knew me.”

“And you’re still beautiful.”

“Dear of you to say so! Still beautiful! In a way, yes. But,” she

laughed scornfully, “with an effort--with such an effort. How I’d

love to see myself the way I was when your father painted me. A garden

enclosed, he called me, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. You see, I

remember. It was my remoteness that attracted then. All the men were at

my feet, even your father. Oh, yes, he was; your mother knew it.

Common men in the street, and little boys like you, and--and poor old

Hal--they’d do anything for me if I raised an eyelash.”

The maid brought in coffee.

“Let’s sit down. No, not so far away--quite near to me, for old times’

sake, my littlest lover. D’you mind if I smoke a cigarette? Mrs.

Sheerug, dear old Mrs. Sheerug, she wouldn’t approve of it. I always

loved her and wanted her to think well of me. She’d never believe that.

You’re a bit shocked yourself. I don’t often do it before my baby-girl.

But tell me,” she sank her voice, “what about Hal?”

He tried to think of things to tell her. What was there to tell? Good

fortune had worked no change in Hal. Money hadn’t made him happier. He

was a man thrust forward by the years, but always with his face turned

back.

“Ah,” she whispered, “I know. Don’t go any further. He would be like

that. He lives remembering.” Her grip on Teddy’s hands tightened. “Learn

a lesson. Don’t be kind to women, Teddy. You’ll get no thanks. A woman’s

mean-hearted. If a man’s too good to her, she doesn’t try to be nobly

good in return; she takes advantage. She plays pranks with him--wants to

see how much he’ll forgive her; if he’s still magnanimous, she despises

him. It takes a good woman to appreciate a good man; few women are both

good and beautiful. It wasn’t till Mary Magdalene had lost her looks

that she broke the alabaster box of ointment. What I mean is that

beautiful women are cruel; God gives them too much power. Oh, yes, it’s

true. Desire’s like that--sweetly ungrateful. I can see myself in her. A

man’ll have to be a brute to make her love him.--Ah, you almost hate me!

I wish she could make you hate her so that you’d go home to Eden Row,

and--oh, do big work and marry another Dearie. I’m fond of you, Teddy.”

She let go his hands. “When we’re forty, we beautiful women learn to be

gentle, and--and you thank us, don’t you?”

She got up and buried her face in the lilies. “Sent them to her, eh?

Hoped you’d find her wearing them.”

She seated herself at the piano, looking back across her shoulder

and playing while she spoke, as though her hands were a separate

personality.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. There was a garden enclosed--the gates all

locked, and Love gazed in at it! But there came a time when Love grew

tired. While he had waited, the garden had taken no notice. But when he

had gone, all the lilies, and sunflowers, and roses rushed to the gates

and clamored to follow him. But the locks had grown rusty. The garden

which had enclosed itself against Love, found itself shut out from Love.

Tra-la-la! Yea, verily.”

Her hands lay idle in her lap for a moment. “You mustn’t mind me. It’s

a luxury to indulge in self-pity. I shall be so gay to-morrow you

won’t know me. But just at present I’m wishing,” she mocked her own

melancholy, slanting her eyes at him, “rather wishing I were Mrs. Hal

Sheerug--wishing I were any good domestic woman instead of Vashti, the

singer. And if I were Mrs. Hal, I’d be as much of a curiosity as Eden

Row set down on Broadway.”

Again she took up her playing. “And yet--and yet life would be tedious

without love. We’re so afraid that love will never come to us, aren’t

we, Teddy? Afraid that our latest chance will be our last. You see, I’m

like that, too; I know all about it. You’re asleep. Perhaps we’re both

asleep--both dreaming of something more splendid than reality. Don’t

let’s wake up--we’ll be unhappy. Let’s go on dreaming together.”

She ceased speaking, but her hands wandered from melody to melody. She

played very softly. From far below in the darkness the hum of speeding

cars was like the drowsy trumpeting of gnats in an English garden.

Through half-closed eyes he watched her, trying to make himself believe

she was Desire.

Why had she so deliberately filled his mind with doubts? And Desire--why

had she gone away without mentioning him on the very day that he had

landed? Was it carelessness, or a young girl’s way of impressing him

with her value? “She feels far more than she’ll ever express.” It might

be that--a paradoxical way of showing affection.

Vashti gazed towards him and nodded, as much as to say, “I know what

thoughts are passing.” She struck three chords.

What happened next was like arms spread under him, carrying him away and

away from every trouble. “Oh, rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him.”

Her voice sprang up like a strong white bird; at every beat of its

wings the accompaniment fluttered like the weak wings of small birds

following. “Oh; rest in the Lord”--the white bird rose higher with a

braver confidence and the little birds took courage, plunging deeper

into the grave and gentle stillness. “Oh, rest in the Lord”--it was like

a sigh of contentment traveling back from prepared places. The room grew

silent.

She was kneeling beside him--kneeling the way his mother would have

knelt, with her arms about him and her face almost touching.

“I’m really religious, Teddy. Won’t you trust me? Don’t you think that

there must be some good in me when I can sing like that?” It was like a

little child pleading with him. “I’ve tried to turn you back. Desire’s

too young and I don’t think---- But you won’t be turned back; so let me

help you. I don’t know much of what’s happened between you, but----”

In the hall a key grated. The sound of the door opening. A gust of

laughter--a man’s and a girl’s.

“Shish! It’s tee-rrifically late.--My goodness, Tom, but you were

reckless! I thought every moment we’d upset.”

“Some driving, wasn’t it? You oughtn’t to complain. You liked it.”

“Liked it! I should say so. But Twinkles didn’t like it Poor Twinkles

was mos’ awf’lly scared. Wasn’t ’oo, Twinkles?--Wonder if mother’s in

bed.”

“Coming. I have a visitor.”

After Vashti had left him, their voices sank to a whisper.

So she’d been out with another man! While he had been waiting, almost

counting the seconds, she’d been out with another man! They’d been

driving through the darkness together. Perhaps they’d been making love.

No wonder she hadn’t answered his letters or cables. “Come to America

if you really care.” She had said it lightly and forgotten. It had meant

nothing to her. And here he’d been finding delicate excuses to explain

what was no more than indifference.

A Pekinese lap-dog waddled in; catching sight of him, it sniffed

contemptuously. It was followed by a boy who had the perky air of

an impudent fox-terrier. He stared at Teddy with an amused gleam of

challenge.

“Here, all this evening! Oh, what a shame and me out!” It was Desire’s

piping voice. “Get out of the way, Tom, you’re blocking up everything.”

He saw her--her piquant face alight with welcome. She tripped across the

room, extending both her hands. Her eyes begged him to keep their secret

“It is good of you to visit us so promptly,” she said. “Fancy your

remembering! I didn’t think we’d see you till to-morrow at earliest.”

She waited for him to help her. Then: “Mother says you’re over on

business. Are you going to be here long?” His sense of injury died down.

He saw only the small penitent face, with its gray eyes and quivering

childish mouth.

“That depends.”

“Well, we’ll see heaps of you, won’t we?”

He couldn’t endure this pretending. He pushed aside her question. “What

are you doing to-morrow?” he asked abruptly.

“To-morrow! To-morrow!”

She gazed vaguely round. Her mother came to her rescue. “My baby-girl

never knows what she’s doing tomorrow. She never plans ahead. Better

call her up, Teddy.”

“Not too early,” Desire smiled poutingly. “I’m awfully tired. And

Twinkles is tired. Isn’t ’oo, Twinkles darling?” She stooped down and

touched the dog’s nose with the tip of her finger. “We shan’t get up

till----”

“Call up at eleven,” said Vashti. “Before you go, I may as well

introduce you two men. If I don’t, you’ll glower at each other all the

way down in the elevator.”

He was passing out; Desire touched him on the arm possessingly.

“I couldn’t help it,” she whispered. “We’ll have all to-morrow to

ourselves. You’re not angry?” Angry! As though he’d come all the way to

America to be angry.

“Couldn’t ever be angry with you,” he whispered back.

CHAPTER VII--LOVING DESIRE

During the past two hours since he had breakfasted, he had watched the

telephone as though it were a live thing--as though it were her lips

which might speak to him at any moment He felt that she was there in the

room with him, obstinately keeping silent.

She had told him not to disturb her till eleven, but he had persuaded

himself that he would hear from her long before that--at nine, perhaps;

at ten, at latest. She had tried to appear offhand in arranging the

appointment because another man had been present He pretended to think

it rather decent of her to have let the chap down so lightly.

During every minute of the last two hours, he had been expecting to hear

the shrill tinkle of her summons. As he bent above his writing his heart

was in his throat He kept glancing up, telling himself that his sixth

sense had warned him that her voice was already asking its way across

the wires. Though previous premonitions had proved unwarranted, he was

confident that his latest was truly psychic.

Surely a girl who knew that she was loved wouldn’t sleep away the

freshness of a blue September morning! Curiosity, if nothing better,

would rouse her. It didn’t often happen that a man came three thousand

miles to do his courting. She’d kept him waiting so long. If she felt

one-tenth part of his impatience----

He finished his letter to his mother. It was all about his voyage and

the interviews of yesterday. He ought to tell her more--but how, without

telling her too much?

He scrawled a postscript, “By the way, yesterday I met Vashti”; then

sealed the envelope. By the time an inquiry could be returned, he would

know everything. He would know for certain whether Desire loved him. He

pulled out his watch. A few minutes past ten! To keep his nerves quiet

he made a pretense at working. He would outline the first of his series

of articles.

But his thoughts wandered. There was no room in his mind for anything

save her. She possessed him. The birdlike inflexions of her voice piped

in his memory; he could hear her laughter, the murmur of her footsteps,

the rustle of her dress. The subtle fragrance of her presence was all

about him. In the silence of his brain she pleaded with him, taunted

him, explained her omissions of consideration. “You don’t know what

things have done to me--don’t know what things have done to me.”

It was useless; he gave up his attempt. All he had accomplished was to

fill a page with sketches of her face. Here she was as he had seen her

last night, fashionably attired, with her hair like a crown of bronze

upon her forehead. And here as the Guinevere of that bewildering drive,

mystic as the dawn in a web of shadows. And here as the coaxing, elusive

sprite, who had scribbled her heart upon the dusty panes of childhood.

Would he ever be able to work again, ever be able to pursue any ambition

or any dream in which she did not share?

He rose restlessly and fumbled for his watch. A minute to eleven! He

stepped across to the telephone. While the boy at the switchboard was

getting his number, he tapped with his foot, consumed with impatience.

“Madame Jodrell’s apartment?--I want to speak to Miss Desire.--Oh, no,

I’m sure she’s not sleeping. You’re mistaken.” He laughed nervously.

“This is Mr. Gurney. She asked me to ring her up at eleven.”

Silence. A long wait. “She’ll speak to you, sir.” The clicking of a

new connection. He heard the receiver taken down at the other end and a

curious sound which, after puzzling over, he decided must be the running

of bathwater.

“Are you there?”

He listened.

“Is that you, Desire?”

No answer.

Then she gave herself away. Across the wire came to him a stifled yawn,

followed by a bubbling little laugh.

“Yes, it’s Desire. What a lot of time you’re wasting. A whole

minute! Time enough to decide the destiny of nations. And weren’t you

punctual!--Can you come at once! Certainly not. Can’t you guess where I

am? I shan’t be ready till twelve.--Oh, well, if you don’t mind waiting,

I’ll expect you.”

He had intended to say more, but she rang off.

Streets were gilded with sunlight The sky was a smooth shell-like blue,

without a cloud. It seemed much more distant than any sky he had seen in

London. Over London the sky broods companionably; from London streets,

even at their merriest the hint of melancholy is never absent But here,

in New York, he was conscious of an invigorating reckless valor, a

magnificent and lonely daring. It was every man for himself. There was

no friendship between the city and the heavens; as ladders of stone were

set up higher against the blue, the heavens receded in challenge.

There was a tang of autumn in the air. Leaves on trees began to have

a brittle look. Everything shone: trolley-lines, windows, the slender

height of sky-scrapers. It was a wide day--just the day for adventures.

As he passed further uptown, he noticed that people walked more

leisurely; men’s faces grew rarer. He had a glimpse of the Park, a

green valley of coolness between the quarried, sun-dazzled crags of

the metropolis. Presently he turned off to the left, down one of

those tunnels hewn between apartment-houses and sacred to the morning

promenades of yapping dogs--proud little useless dogs like Twinkles,

led on leashes by lately-risen mistresses. Then, in a flash, he saw the

Hudson, going from one great quietness to another, sweeping down to the

ocean full-bosomed and maternal from its sanctuary in the hills.

The elevator-boy seemed to have been warned of his coming; when he gave

his name, he was taken up without suspicious preliminaries.

“Miss Desire hasn’t finished dressing yet,” the maid told, him. “If

you’ll wait in here, she’ll be with you presently.”

He was shown into the room in which Vashti had played to him. He hadn’t

taken much notice of it on his previous visit Now, as he tiptoed about

he saw that it was expressive of its occupants’ personalities. It had

a gay, delicate, insubstantial air. It didn’t look lived in. Everything

could be packed up within an hour. It wasn’t a home; it was what Vashti

had called a “perch.”

The furniture was slight and dainty, as though there for appearance

rather than for use. The sofa by the window seemed the only piece meant

to be sat on. On the table a dwarf Japanese garden was growing. Beside

it lay a copy of _Wisdom and Destiny_, opened and turned face down.

The books within sight were few, for the most part plays and the latest

fiction. They were strewn about with a calculated carelessness. On the

walls was a water-color of the Grand Canal and another of the Bay of

Naples. The rest of the pictures were elaborate photos of actresses,

with spidery signatures scrawled across them. One face predominated:

the face of a beautiful woman, with a vague smile upon her childish,

self-indulgent mouth and a soft mass of hair swathed about her head. She

was taken in a variety of poses, but always with the same vague

smile and always with her face stooping, as though she were trying to

hypnotize the onlooker. One might have supposed that this was the den

of a man who was in love with her. Scratched hurriedly in the corner of

each of her portraits, prefaced by some extravagant sentiment, was the

name “Fluffy.”

On the piano stood the photo of the only man in the collection, signed

“To my dearest Girl.”

Teddy paused before it. He recognized the man who had brought Desire

home last night--the man who had kept her from him. “To my

dearest Girl.” He read and re-read it. Was that the secret of her

indifference--that she was in love already? But wouldn’t Vashti have

warned him? He stared his defiance. The more inaccessible she became to

him, the more he felt the need of her. Something of the valor and bright

hardness of the day had entered into his soul. He was like those tall

buildings, climbing more recklessly into the blue every time the sky

receded from them. He didn’t care who claimed her. He was glad that he

would have to fight. She was his by the divine right of the dreamer,

and had been his for years. At whatever sacrifice he would win her.

Inconsistently, the more difficult she became to him, the more certain

he grew of success.

“Hulloa, King Arthur! Getting impatient? I’ll soon be> with you.”

He stepped to the door and looked out into the passage. “Impatient! Of

course I’m impatient. Where are you?”

Her laugh floated back. “Where you’re not allowed to come. You can’t

complain; I told you I wouldn’t be dressed till twelve.”

“It’s nearer one by now.”

“Is it? But you’ve nothing to do. If you hunt about, you’ll find some

cigarettes. Make yourself happy.”

He had hoped she would continue the conversation; but her voice grew

secret as she whispered to her maid. He heard cupboards and drawers

being opened and shut, a snatch of song, and, every now and then, the

infectious gayety of her laughter.

He came back into the room and smiled at the photo on the piano. “She

mayn’t be in love with me yet, but she’s certainly not in love with

you,” he thought. Then he stood gazing at his unresponsive rival,

wondering how much he could tell.

He was still intent upon the portrait when she danced across the

threshold, swinging her gloves.

“Taking a look at Tom? Be careful; you’ll make him jealous.” She slipped

her small hand into his. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you.”

“D’you mean that--that you’re really glad?”

Her eyes sparkled with mischief, but she said demurely: “Why shouldn’t

I mean it? I’m always glad to see my friends.--And now, don’t you think

you’ve held my hand long enough? See how lonely it looks, just as if it

were asking me to put on its glove.”

She tripped over to the window and gazed out. “Isn’t it glorious?--And I

feel so happy--so full of life, so young.” Her back was towards him; she

felt him drawing nearer. “I ought to tell you about my hands before

we know each other better. They have names. The right one is Miss

Self-Reliance, and the left Miss Independence. They’re both of them very

ambitious and--” she swung round, lowering her eyes--“and they don’t

like being held.” He glanced at the photo on the piano. “Did no one ever

hold them?”

“Hardly any one, truth and honest” She finished the last button and

winked at him solemnly. “Here have I been ready since eleven, sending

you cables and whole gardens of flowers.” She burst out laughing: “I’m

glad you don’t drizzle. Come on, I’m hungry for the sun.”

As they shot down in the elevator he asked her: “Drizzle! That’s a new

word. What do you mean by it?”

“You’ll know soon enough.” She nodded. “Sooner or later all men do it.

Tom drizzles most awfully. He drizzled last night, when I didn’t want

him to come up because I thought you’d be in the apartment.”

“Then you did think that? You hadn’t forgotten that it was the day I

landed?”

“Forgotten after you’d cabled me! You must think me callous.”

She gave her shoulders a haughty shrug and ran down the steps into the

sunlight. He followed, inwardly laughing. Already she had taught him one

way of stealing a march on the rest of her suitors. All the other men

grew gloomy--“drizzled,” as she called it--when they fancied that she

had hurt their feelings. He decided, then and there, that under no

provocation whatsoever would he drizzle. She might do what she liked to

him, he would always meet her smiling. _Amor Omnia Vincit_ should be the

legend written on his banner.

“What shall we do?” She clasped her hands against her throat in a

gesture of ecstasy.

“Anything you like.”

“Anything! Really anything? Even something quite expensive?”

“Hang the expense.”

“Then come on.”

He had no idea where she was taking him, and he didn’t care. All places

were alike, so long as he was alone with her. They walked shoulder to

shoulder, their arms just touching. Sometimes in crossing a road they

drew apart and then, as if to apologize for their brief aloofness,

came together with a little bump on the farther pavement. They were

embarrassed, and glad to be embarrassed. When their silences had lasted

too long, they stole furtive glances at each other; when their eyes met,

they smiled archly.

They had passed through the tunnels where the dogs take their morning

walks, and had come out on to Broadway. Suddenly she stopped and

regarded him with an expression of unutterable calamity.

“I’ve got to go back.”

“No, don’t--please.”

“I must.”

He scented tragedy--a previous engagement, perhaps. “But why--why, when

we’ve only just met?”

“I’ve forgotten your lilies. I was going to wear them as--as an

apology.”

He laughed his relief. “Pooh! There are heaps more.”

“But it isn’t that. I wouldn’t accept any more. It’s the dear old ones

that I want--the ones you sent me almost the minute you landed.”

He glanced round sharply; a few doors off he saw a florist’s. “Don’t

go back,” he pleaded. And then, with a frankness which he feared might

offend her: “If you did go back, we might meet other people. I want you

all to myself to-day; I can’t spare a second of you to other persons.

Promise to stop here for me.”

“But I--perhaps I don’t want to lose a second of you to other persons.”

She rested her hand on his arm lightly. “Where are you going?”

“Be back before you can say Jack Robinson.”

He darted off. As he entered the shop, he caught her slow smile of

intelligence forbidding him.

While the flowers were being arranged, he kept his eyes turned to where

she hovered on the pavement; the anxiety that she might escape him was

not quite gone. He saw her hail a taxi. For a moment he thought---- But,

no, she was having an earnest conversation.

“It’s all arranged, brother. We’re going to drive down

“Don’t tell me.” He banged the door and settled himself beside her.

“Life’s much more surprising when you don’t know where you’re going.” He

laid the flowers in her lap. “For you. You won’t refuse them?”

She bent over them curiously, as though she hadn’t the least idea what

he had been purchasing. As she stripped the paper from them and the

white cup of the blossoms began to appear, she frowned severely.

“Lilies of the valley! You’re too good. You spoil me. And now you’ll

think that I was asking for them. No. I won’t wear them.”

Having registered her protest, she at once rewarded him with her

fluttering delight as she turned back her coatee and tried several

effects before finally deciding where to fasten them.

While he had walked at her side, he had been too embarrassed to take

much notice of how she was dressed.

Now that her attention was occupied, he grew bold to examine her toilet.

Her beauty was a subtle, intoxicating perfume, like incense suggesting

the spirit of worship. She was different from his mother--different even

from Vashti, and from any woman that he had known. Her difference might

not be the result of virtues--might even be due to omitted qualities.

He did not stop to analyze; to him the very newness of her type was a

fascination.

Nothing that she wore was useful. It was perishable as a spring garden.

A shower of rain, and it would be eternally ruined. None of it could be

employed as second-best when its first freshness was gone. It couldn’t

even be given to the poor: her attire was too modish--it bespoke luxury

and marked the wearer’s class in society. Her clothes were the whim of

the moment--utterly uneconomic. If Mrs. Sheerug had had to pass judgment

on them, she would have said that they weren’t sensible.

In the exact sense they weren’t even clothing; they were adornments,

planned with a view to exposing quite as much as to concealing the

person. To enhance the effect of beauty was their sole purpose.

The skirt was a creamy shade of muslin, with small green and blue

flowers dotted over it. It was thin and blowy, and so modeled as to

pronounce rather than to hide the lines of the figure. A pair of pretty

feet peeped from under; the kind of feet that demand a carriage and are

not meant for walking. They were clad in gossamer silk-stockings; the

shoes seemed to have been designed for dancing and were absurdly high

in the heel. Both shoes and stockings exactly matched the creamy tint of

the muslin. Teddy thought with joy that any one who wore them would be

in constant need of a man’s protection. There would be many puddles in

life over which, with such shoes, she would require to be carried.

The coatee was of apple-green satin, turned back from the neck and

belted in at the waist, revealing a gauzy blouse cut into a low V-shape,

so as to display the gentle breathing of the throat and breast.

His eyes stole up to her face. It was shadowed by a broad hat of limp

straw, trimmed with dog-roses and trailing cherry-colored ribbon. On

her fresh young cheeks was the faintest dust of powder, giving to them

a false bloom and smoothness. He wondered why she did that, when her

unaided complexion would have been so much more attractive. Below her

left eye was a beauty-patch. Behind her left ear hung a tremulous curl,

which added a touch of demure quaintness. In appearance she was like

to one of Lely’s portraits of the beauties of the Cavalier period--to a

Nell Gwynn, whose very aspect of innocence made her latent naughtiness

the more provocative.

Though he was exceptionally ignorant of the feminine arts and familiar

only with domestic types of women, Teddy thought that he now understood

why she had taken two hours to dress. For his sake she had made herself

a work of art. It was as though she had told him, “I want you to like

me better than any girl in the world, Teddy”--only, for some unexplained

reason, she had avoided calling him Teddy as yet.

He sat watching her as she pinned the lilies against her breast How

pretty her hair was, with its reddish tinge like specks of gold shining

through its blackness! And her ears--they were like pale petals enmeshed

within her tresses.

He couldn’t blame her if other men had loved her first; but he wished

they hadn’t. The knowledge had come as a shock.

“Been inspecting me for quite some time! Do I meet with monsieur’s

approval?” She leant her head at a perky angle and glanced up at him.

“Approval! My mind was made up before I started. I didn’t come to

America to----”

“No, I know.” She cut him short. “Mother told me: you’re a gree-at

success. You came on business.--Please don’t interrupt; I’ve something

most important to tell you. I do want you to approve of me to-day--

to-day most especially. That’s why I didn’t get up till eleven.” She saw

the smile creeping round the edges of his mouth. “I didn’t mean that the

way you thought. You’re looking sarcastic and--and I hate sarcastic

persons. I stayed in bed to get rested that I might look my prettiest,

because----- Presently I’ll tell you. I’ve done something terrible; No,

I won’t tell you now--later. But promise you’ll forgive me.”

“Forgive you!” His voice trembled. Had he dared, he would have slipped

his arm about her; but she had huddled herself closer into her corner.

“I’ll forgive you anything, if you’ll do one thing to please me.”

He waited for her to ask him what it was; but her strategic faculty for

silence again asserted itself. She sat, not looking at him, with her

eyes shaded.

It was a childish longing that prompted him to make his request. “I want

to see your hands,” he whispered. “They’re so beautiful. It’s a shame

to keep them covered. On my word of honor,” he sank his voice, “I

won’t--won’t take advantage.”

She considered poutingly whether she would grant the favor.

“The first I’ve ever asked,” he urged.

The smile came like sunshine flashing through cloud. “That kind is

rarely the last.”

She pulled off the glove from her right-hand, Miss Self-Reliance,

because it was furthest from him.

“When I was very little,” she said, “I used to ask you whether I was

pretty. You used to drizzle in those days; all you’d tell me was, ’You

have beautiful hands.’ Then Bones and I would steal away and cry in the

currant-bushes. D’you remember?”

“I must have been a grudging little beast.”

“No, you were a nice boy when you weren’t quite horrid. But if I were to

ask you now, ’Do you think I’m pretty?’ Please don’t answer. I’m not

asking. But because of all that--the times we used to have--let’s be

good playfellows while it lasts. We won’t say silly things or do silly

things. Let’s be tremendously sensible. There! That’s a bargain.”

It wasn’t. If being in love wasn’t sensible, the last thing he wanted

was to be sensible. He hadn’t come to America to be sensible in her

meaning of the word. But the swiftness with which she took his consent

for granted left no room for argument. She might mistake his arguing

for drizzling--the fault which she held the most in contempt. So he kept

both his tongue and his hands quiet, doing his best to forget all the

ardent scenes which his imagination had conjured.

The lonely distance in the taxi between his corner and hers seemed to

have widened. They passed over a long cat’s-cradle of girders, spanning

the East River. She didn’t speak. She sat with her ungloved hand before

her eyes and her face averted. Any stranger who had glanced in on them

at that moment would have said they had quarreled. It felt very much

like it to Teddy.

CHAPTER VIII--FAITH RENEWS ITSELF

They had traveled for fully twenty minutes in silence; to Teddy it

had seemed as many hours. The patches of waste-land with hoardings,

advertising chewing-gums and New York plays, were growing less frequent.

A sea-look was softening the blueness of the sky. The greenness by the

roadside remained unmarred for longer and longer stretches. They skirted

a little bay, where power-boats lay tethered to buoys and a white-winged

yacht was spreading sail. They panted through a town of scattered wooden

houses, cool with lawns and shadowy with trees. Then they came to a

sandy turf-land, across which a horseman distantly galloped, leaping

ditches and hurdles.

He paid scant attention to his changing surroundings. He kept gazing at

the girl at his side. He feared to raise his eyes from her for a second,

lest she should drift away like thistledown.

Was she asleep or pretending? Why should she be asleep, when they had

so much to say and she had been up for barely three hours? Her ungloved

hand screened her eyes. He suspected that she was spying on him through

her fingers. Did it amuse her to torment him with silence? She had done

that with variations from the moment of their meeting at Glastonbury.

He couldn’t understand her motive in trying to make him wretched. His

impulse, if he liked people, was to make them glad. He became ingenious

in unearthing reasons for her conduct. Perhaps she was getting ready to

confess the thing for which she had to ask his forgiveness. Perhaps she

was offended by his request that she should remove her glove. But she

hadn’t seemed offended at the time of asking. And, if she were, how

trivial! She need only have refused him. She’d given him far graver

causes for offense.

He had reached this point in his despair, when suddenly she uncovered

her face and sat up vivaciously.

“Smell the sea! Cheer up. We’re nearly there.”

Darting out her hand, she patted his knee, laughing gayly at her

familiarity.

“You are restful You don’t expect me to chatter all the time. People

need to be very good friends to be able to sit silent. I know men who’d

be quite snappy if I---- But you’re different.”

She spoke caressingly, giving him credit for a delicacy which he did not

merit. He felt cheap in the accepting of it He wasn’t at all convinced

of her sincerity. He had the uncomfortable sense that she was aware that

he wasn’t convinced of it.

“Poor you! You do look squashed. One would think you weren’t enjoying

yourself. Was it really only business that brought you to America?”

He smiled crookedly, making a lame effort to clamber back to her level

of high spirits. “Didn’t you arrange that we were going only to be

sensible?”

She clasped her hands and gazed at him wistfully. “But we needn’t be

sensible quite always; it wouldn’t be fun. Besides, if it was just

business that brought you over, I ought to know, because----”

“Because,” he laughed, “if it was just business, then it wasn’t you that

brought me. And, if it wasn’t you, I’ll be going back directly. If it

was just business, the only way you could make me stop longer would be

by being more lavish with your sweetness. You’ve not changed. Desire;

you’re still the dear, imperious Princess, always kindest at the moment

of parting.’’

“Now you’re drizzling.”

“I’m not. But you push me over precipices for the sheer joy of making me

thank you when you pull me back to safety. I’m most happy to thank you,

little Desire; but I’d be ever so much obliged if you wouldn’t try such

risky experiments. You see, you know you’re going to rescue me, but I’m

never certain.”

She drooped towards him fluttering with merriment “Oh, youl What a lot

you know!”

With a quick transition of mood, she sat erect and became severely

solemn. “I shan’t be nice all day unless you tell me. But if you do tell

me----” The blank was wisely left for his imagination to fill in with

eloquent promises. Then, putting all her charm into the question, “Why

did you come?”

He looked away, ashamed that she should see his unshared emotion. “You

know already.”

“But I’d rather hear it from your lips. It isn’t half as exciting to

have to take things for granted.”

“If you must have it, I came because of you.”

“And not one scrap because of business?”

“Not one scrap because of business. Business was my excuse to my people.

I had to tell them something.”

He was staring at her now. His soul stood beckoning in the windows of

his eyes, watching for an answering signal.

It was her turn to glance away. She had wakened something which both

thrilled and frightened her. She took refuge in disappointment.

“Then you didn’t mention me to them. My father doesn’t know. I wonder

why you didn’t mention me. Was it because they--all those old-fashioned

people--wouldn’t think me good enough?--No. No. Don’t touch me.

Perhaps, after all, it’s better to be sensible. Let’s talk of something

else.”

“We’ve got to finish this now that you’ve started it.” His face was

stern and he spoke determinedly. “I’d have passed over everything,

for your sake, Princess-gone on pretending to take things for granted.

But-d’you think you’re fair to me? You said, ‘Come to America if you

really care.’ I thought that meant that you’d begun to care.-I hope it

does.”

She crossed her feet and resigned herself to the danger she had courted.

“You’re spoiling a most glorious day; but I suppose it’s best to get

things off one’s chest.” Then, in a composed, cool little voice, “Well?”

He surprised himself by a touch of anger. It came and was gone like a

flicker of lightning.

“I’ve obeyed you,” he said slowly; “I’ve come. I’ve done everything

decent that I could think of to keep you reminded of me. Since we said

’Good-by,’ I’ve known nothing but purgatory. Even happy things haven’t

been happy, because you weren’t there to share. That’s the way I feel

about you, Desire: whatever I am or can be must be for you. But you----

From the moment you sailed out of Liverpool, you dropped me. You didn’t

answer my letters. You went out of New York the day I landed, leaving no

message. When we met last night for five minutes, you were with another

man. This morning for about half-an-hour you did seem glad, but since

then----”

He bit his lips and watched her. Outwardly she seemed utterly unmoved.

“Shall I go on?”

“Just as you like.”

His words came with a rush. “This means too much to me; it’s all or

nothing. If it means nothing to you, say so. I’m not playing. I can

go away now--there’s time; soon you’ll have become too much a part of

me.--When you’ve forced me up to the point of being frank, you say,

’Let’s talk of something else.’ Can’t you understand that you’re

becoming my religion--that I do everything thinking, ’This’ll make her

happy,’ and dream about you day and night?”

She sat beside him motionless. He had expected her either to surrender

or to show resentment. She made no attempt to alter her position; their

shoulders were still touching.

At last, when he had come to the breaking-point, she lifted her grave

gray eyes. “You’re foolish,” she said quietly. “Of course I’m glad of

you. But you’ll spoil everything by being in such a hurry. You don’t

know what kind of a girl I am. We’ve not been together twenty-four hours

all told, and yet that’s been long enough to teach me that we’re totally

unlike. I’m temperamental---one of those girls who alter with the

fashions. You’re one of the people who never change. You’re the same

nice boy I used to play with, and fancy that--oh, that on some far-off

day I might marry. You’re nearly famous, so mother says. I want to be

famous, too; but I’m younger than you--I’ve not had time. But I know

much more about the world. Don’t be hurt when I say it: your ideas

about love and your generosity, and everything you do, make me feel that

you’re such a child. I like you for it,” she added quickly.

Then, speaking in a puzzled way: “You make things difficult. I shouldn’t

be doing right by encouraging you, and----” She faltered over her words.

The innocent kindness shone in her eyes. “And I can’t bear to send you

away. I don’t know what to do. I’d have encouraged you if I’d written to

thank you for those flowers, shouldn’t I? But they made me just as happy

as---- I was a regular baby over them. Every morning they lay there on

my plate and I wore them the whole day. Fluffy used to chaff me. You

don’t like Fluffy.” She winked at him provokingly. “Oh, no, you don’t!

You think actresses improper persons. You needn’t deny it.--And I do so

want to be an actress, so as to prove to my father and Mrs. Sheerug, and

all the lot of them, that I’m worth knowing. Can’t you understand? After

I’m great, I might be content to chuck the stage and become only a

simple good little wife.”

“Wouldn’t it be as fine,” he whispered, “to share some one else’s

success?”

She gazed at him wisely. “Philanthropic egotist! You know it wouldn’t.

Own up--don’t you know it wouldn’t?”

“For a man it wouldn’t,” he conceded ruefully.

She smiled vaguely. “Then why for a woman? Only love could make it

different. You believe in love at first sight. I don’t At least, I’m not

sure about it.”

“But you can’t call ours love at first sight.”

“Ours!” She raised her brows. “Yours was. You had your magic cloak ready

to pop over me the moment you thought you’d found me. I’m only a lay

figure.”

“You’re not,” he protested hotly. “If you’d read my book, you’d know

that. Your face is on every page.”

“A lay figure,” she repeated imperturbably.

She did not gratify his curiosity as to whether she had read _Life Till

Twenty-one._ He waited. At last, driven to desperation, he asked, “What

am I to do?”

“Do?”

“Yes. I’ve nothing to keep me in America; I had nothing to bring me

over except you. If I stay here and don’t give my people an explanation,

they’ll begin to wonder. It won’t be playing the game. So if you don’t

care----”

She laughed so gayly that she made all his mountain difficulties seem

molehills. “What an old serious! You can’t set times and seasons for

love. Sooner or later, if you keep on jogging, everything turns out all

right. You’ve got to believe that. _It does_.”

Since she was his prophetess, he let her optimism go undisputed. He

almost shared it. But it didn’t provide him with a certain foundation

for his future.

“If you’ll stop drizzling,” she said, “I’ll set Miss Independence free

for a run. There!” She pulled the glove off her left hand and made it

scamper in the blue and green meadow of her gown. Then, of a sudden, the

temptress fingers shot out and caressed him for the merest second.

“Life’s so much more surprising when you don’t know where you’re

going. That’s what you said, King Arthur. We don’t know where we’re

going--we’re both too young. It’s silly to pretend we do. Let’s agree to

be immensely kind to each other. Don’t let’s try to be anything closer

as yet. If we do--” She wriggled her shoulders; the little curl trembled

violently. “I do hate quarreling.--Hulloa! There’s the sea. We’ll be

there in a second.”

The taxi had halted in a line of automobiles. They were on a bare,

sun-baked road. On every side salt-marshes stretched away, criss-crossed

with ditches which drained into a muddy canal The canal crossed the

road; the bridge was up to allow a fishing-boat passage. Over to the

left a board-walk ran; behind it the sea flashed like a mirror. Straight

ahead, in a straggling line of diminishing importance, hotels rose up.

A little over to the right an encampment of match-box summer-cottages

sweltered in the glare. Hoardings met the eyes wherever they turned,

announcing the choicest places to lunch, to garage or to put up for the

night in Long Beach. At no great distance a wooden cow, of more than

lifelike proportions, gave a burlesque imitation of the rural, stooping

its head as if to graze while its back advertised a brand of malted

milk.

The landscape would have been dreary enough without the people and the

sun. But the people lent the touch of vivacity. The bright colors of

women’s dresses stood out boldly in the strong, fluttering air. When

seen distantly clumped together, they looked like a stage-garden, a-blow

with artificial flowers. The men and women were for the most part in

pairs and young--only the older people were in parties. Teddy had the

sense that he had joined a carnival of irresponsible lovers. Probably

all those men had their problems. And the girls--they, too, didn’t know

where they were going. No one was indulging in the careful cowardice

which takes thought for the morrow. They were leaving all future evil

to take care of itself. They were finding to-day sufficient in its

goodness; and of its goodness they intended to miss nothing.

When he turned to Desire, he found her studying her face in a

pocket-mirror and dabbing a film of powder on her impertinent little

nose. He glanced away, thinking his watching would embarrass her.

She spoke with a bewitching self-composure, still scrutinizing her

reflection: “I could hear your brain ticking. I was right, wasn’t I?

It’s best at first not to be too much to each other?”

Her naive frankness in not attempting to hide her vanity, sent a wave of

affection tingling through him. It was as though by one foolish act

she had entrusted him with the key to her character--her unabashed

truthfulness.

He leant forward, brushing her shoulder intimately, and peered into the

mirror from which her eyes watched him.

“I’ve been an old serious,” he whispered tenderly. “But now I’ll be

anything you choose. Let’s be just as kind as we know how.”

“Let’s,” she nodded, “you convenient person.” The curl against her neck

shook roguishly.

They pulled up in the courtyard of a hotel. By its architecture it might

have been in Spain. Great palms in tubs cast heavy shadows. Somewhere

nearby, but out of sight, an orchestra twanged a ragtime tune. He held

her hand for one breathless moment as she alighted.

“What next? Are you hungry?”

She closed her eyes with feigned contempt: “Hungry! Glutton.”

Away she fled, light as pollen, dancing in her steps in unconscious

rhythm with the unseen orchestra. He caught her up where the flash of

waves, rising and falling, burst upon them in tumultuous glory. She was

leaning back, clutching at the brim of her hat, while the eager wind

dragged at her skirt like a child entreating her to join in its frolic.

She laid her hand on his arm.

“This is life. Doesn’t it wake you up--make you wonder why you ever had

the drizzles? We’re not the same persons. I’m not. Cling on to me. I’ll

blow away. You’ll have to chase me as you would your hat.”

They stepped down on to the sands and strolled along by the water’s

edge, watching the bathers bobbing and splashing. When they had

reached the point where the crowd grew less dense, they climbed to the

board-walk for the return journey. They had made a discovery which their

action confessed: aloneness brought silence; they spoke more freely when

strangers swarmed about them.

Teddy became aware that, wherever they passed, Desire roused comment.

Men, who were themselves accompanied, turned to gaze after him

enviously. He compared her with the other women; she was in a separate

class--there wasn’t one who could match her. She had a grace, a

distinction, a subtlety--an indescribable and exquisite atmosphere of

freshness, which lifted her beyond the range of competition. She was

like a tropic bird which had flown into a gathering of house-sparrows.

Moreover, she had a knack, highly flattering to his masculine vanity,

of appearing to have appropriated him, of appearing to be making him her

sole interest. The pride of possession shot through him that he, of all

living men, should be allowed to walk by her side as if she belonged to

him.

“You’re creating quite a sensation,” he told her.

She affected an improvised boredom. “Oh, yes. I always do.” Then, with a

flash of girlishness: “Look here, you’re mine to-day absolutely, aren’t

you?”

“To-day and always.”

“We’ll leave out the always. But to-day you’ll do whatever I tell you.”

“Anything at all.”

“Then go and bathe.”

He grimaced his astonishment at the smallness of the request What was

she after?

“I’ll bathe,” he consented, “if you’ll come with me. But aren’t you

hungry?”

“Not a bit I breakfasted late.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well, if you’ll wash first, I’ll let you feed after.”

“I--” he hesitated, “I don’t want to leave you.”

“But I’m keen to see you bathe,” she insisted childishly. Then,

employing her most winning manner, “I’ll sit here on the beach and watch

you.”

He made a last effort to tempt her. “D’you remember the pool in the

woodland--the place where we camped? You thought it would make you a

boy. Perhaps, if you tried now----”

“Nonsense.” She shook her head determinedly and sat down.

The situation was too absurd to argue over. Before he left, he gave

his watch and money into her keeping. He derived a queer sensation

from seeing her pop them into her vanity-case. That was just the

matter-of-fact way in which she’d do it if they were married.

As he undressed in the concrete bathing-house, he puzzled to discover

what caprice had prompted her order. Had she done it to prove that she

had power over him? Or had she wanted to get rid of him? Had he bored

her? He reviewed their conversation. All small talk! Not very inspiring!

His brain had been weaving a lover’s phrases, which she wouldn’t permit

him to utter. The result was that the potentially eloquent lover, when

stifled, had been neither brilliant nor entertaining--in fact, a dull

fellow.

A horrid little suspicion sprang up. He tried to stamp it out, but it

ran from him like flame through withered grass. Had she wanted to be

alone to enjoy the admiration she inspired? By Eden Row standards they

had no right to be out unchaperoned. It was still less respectable for

her to be alone in that fast crowd.

He hurried into his bathing-costume and stepped into the sunshine.

She wasn’t where he had left her. She was nowhere in sight He was

half-minded to go back and dress, but was deterred by her imagined

laughter. He ran down to the sea and swam about. Every time he rose on

the crest of a wave he watched for her. When he passed the spot again

she was still absent.

Making haste over his dressing, he came out. She wasn’t there. Panic

began to seize him--all kinds of feverish alarms. He was setting out to

search, when he saw her coming sauntering along the beach.

“Hulloa!” she called breezily. “You haven’t been long. Did you only

paddle or did you duck your head as well?”

“Where’d you get to?” he asked pantingly. “I’ve been awfully nervous.”

She cocked her head on one side like a knowing little bird.

“Nervous! I’ve lived years and years without you to take care of me, and

haven’t come to much harm.--You silly old thing, I was getting

something for you.” She opened her vanity-case and pulled out a tin-type

photograph. “There!”

Then she noticed that his hand trembled. “Why--why, you _are_ upset I

thought you were only cross. I’m awfully sorry.”

She melted and gazed at him penitently. In the next breath she was

chaffing. “If you go on this way, I shan’t bring you out for holidays.

You might die in my arms. Nice thing, that! It’d ruin my reputation.”

He was regarding the cheap little picture. It was of her, with the wind

breaking against her dress and the sea backing her. It was scarcely dry

yet. “For me?”

“Of course. And, before I lose them, here’s your watch and money.”

“And--and that’s why you insisted on my bathing: to get rid of me for a

little while so that----”

She cut him short. “Feeding-time. You ask too many questions.”

As they walked to the hotel, she chattered at length of her adventure.

“The man who took it, he thought I was an actress. Wanted to know in

what show I was playing.--You don’t consider that a compliment?”

“Not much.”

He was only half listening. He was remembering his unworthy suspicion,

that she had stolen a respite to court admiration. Perhaps all his

suspicions had been equally ill-founded. Perhaps behind each of her

inconsideratenesses lay a concealed kindness--a tender forethought. If

it had been so in one case, why not in all?

“Sweetly ungrateful,” Vashti had called her; “she feels far more than

she’ll ever express--goes out of her way to make people misunderstand

her.” And she’d added: “It’s because---- Can’t you guess? She’s afraid

to love too much. Her mother got hurt.”

He felt humiliated--unworthy to walk beside her. No wonder she’d smiled

at his ideas of love! He’d make it his life’s work, if need be, to teach

her what love really meant. He vowed to himself that whatever she did,

no matter how compromising the circumstances, for the future he would

give her the benefit of the doubt He would never again distrust her. He

would keep that pathetically cheap little photograph and gaze at it as a

poignant warning.

CHAPTER IX--SHE ELUDES HIM

They were crossing the hotel foyer, when something caught her

attention. Without explanation, she darted from his side. Thinking she

had seen a friend, he did not follow at first. She made straight for the

news-stand; picking up a magazine, she commenced skimming its pages. He

strolled over and peered across her shoulder.

“_The Theatre!_ Something in it that you want? Shall I buy it for you?”

She did not seem to hear him. He touched her hand, repeating his

question. For answer she turned back to the cover-design. “Isn’t she

wonderful?”

He recognized the stooping face and the vague hypnotic smile that he had

seen in the many photographs that decorated the walls of the apartment.

“Don’t know about wonderful,” he said carelessly; “she’s all right.”

“All right!” Desire frowned her restrained annoyance. “No one who knows

anything about Fluffy would call her ‘all right.’ She’s wonderful. I

adore her.”

He chuckled. He hadn’t wakened to the enormity of his offense. “You’re a

curious girl Surely you, of all persons, don’t want me to adore her?”

Her frown did not lighten.

“Shall I buy it for you, Princess? You can glance through it while we’re

waiting for our meal to be served.”

She ignored his offer and drew out her purse. As they turned away she

said, “If you’d liked her, I’d have allowed you to pay for it.”

“But why should I like her? I’ve never met her. You talk as though I

detested her.”

“You do. And I know why. You’re jealous.”

Again her daring truthfulness took away his breath. She had discovered

something so latent in his mind that he hadn’t owned it to himself. He

_was_ jealous of Fluffy--just as jealous as if she had been a man. He

resented her power to whisk Desire from his side. He dreaded lest she

had occupied so much of the girl’s capacity for loving that nothing

worth having was left He suspected that the use of powder, the trivial

views of marriage, the passion to go upon the stage were all results of

her influence. It wasn’t natural that a girl of twenty should focus all

her dreams on an older woman. She should be picturing the arrival of

Prince Charming, of a home and the graciousness of little children.

Desire lifted to him a face grown magically free from cloud. “That

wasn’t at all nice of me--not one bit ladylike. After all, I am your

guest.”

Did she say it out of sweet revenge? It was as though she had told him,

“I keep my friendships in separate watertight compartments. To-day it’s

your turn to be taken but. To-morrow I shall lock you away and remember

some one else.” It hurt, this polite intimation of his standing. He

wanted to be everything to her--to feel all that she felt, to know

her as his very self. To him she was his entire life. And she--she was

satisfied to term herself his guest.

She led the way as they entered the grill-room. Heads were turned and

glances exchanged, in the usual tribute to her beauty. The orchestra

was still madly twanging. Between tables in the centre, a space had

been cleared that two paid artistes might give exhibitions of the latest

dance-steps. When they rested, the diners took their places and did

their best to copy their example. Doors and windows were open. In lulls,

while the musicians mopped their foreheads, the better music drifted in

of waves breaking and the long sigh of receding surge. They took their

seats in a sunlit corner, a little retired, to which they were piloted

by a discreet and perspiring waiter. As Desire examined the mena he

inquired, “What will madam have?” To every order that she gave he

murmured, “Yes, madam. Certainly, madam.”

When he had left, she glanced mischievously across at Teddy. “Why did he

call me that?” She knew the answer, but it amused her to embarrass him.

“Because--obviously, he thought we were married.”

“Married!” She was pulling off her gloves. “I shan’t be married for

ages--perhaps never. I expect he thought we were married because we

looked so separate--so uninterested.”

She didn’t speak again till she had satisfied herself, by means of the

pocket-mirror, that no irreparable ruin had befallen her pretty face

since the last inspection. Her action seemed prompted by childish

curiosity rather than by vanity. It was as though when she saw her own

beauty, she saw it with amazement as belonging to another person.

It made him think of the first sight he had had of her: a small girl

kneeling beside the edge of a fountain and stooping to kiss her own

reflection. He remembered her clasped hands and dismay when her lips had

disturbed the water’s surface, and her image had vanished.

The examination ended, she gazed at him thoughtfully. “I’ve still to

tell you about that--the thing for which I’ve to ask your forgiveness.

Shall I tell you now?--No. It’s about Fluffy, and----” Her finger went

up to her mouth.

“We don’t agree on Fluffy. And we’ve neither of us recovered from our

last---- Was it a quarrel?” She coaxed him with her smile, as though he

were insisting that it was. “Not quite a quarrel. Not as bad as that I

expect you and I’ll always have to be forgiving. I have a feeling--But

you’ll always forgive me, won’t you?” Before he could answer, she leant

companionably across the table, “Do you believe in romance? I don’t.”

His sense of humor was touched. One minute she rapped him over the

knuckles as though he were a tiny, misbehaving boy, the next it was she

who was young and he who was elderly.

“You’re irresistible.”

“Ah!” She gave a pleased little sigh. “When I choose to be

fascinating--yes. D’you think the waiter would call me madam, if he

could see me now? But tell me, do you believe in romance?”

“Believe in romance!” He felt her slippered foot touching his beneath

the table. “I couldn’t look at you and not believe in it. Everything

that’s ever happened to you and me is romance: the way Hal and Farmer

Joseph brought me to you; the way we met in the dead of night at

Glastonbury; and now---- I’ve come like a troubadour as far as Columbus,

just to be near you. Isn’t that romance? Romance is like happiness; it’s

in the heart It doesn’t shine into you; it shines out Even those people

over there, hopping about to rag-time, they don’t seem vulgar; they

become romance when you and I watch them.”

“But they’re not vulgar.” She spoke on the defensive. “If you could

turkey-trot, I’d be one of them. Oh, dear, what an awful lot of things

you disapprove of. I’ll have to make a list of them. There! You see----”

She spread out her appealing hands. “I’m being horrid again. I can’t

help it.” The babies crept into her eyes. “I’m not the girl you think

me. I’m really not.”

The slippered foot beneath the table had withdrawn itself.

“You’re better,” he whispered. “You’re unexpected. None of my magic

cloaks fit you. You’re surprising. A man likes to be surprised.”

She refused to look at him. With her chin tucked in the palm of her

hand, she gazed listlessly to where the dancers whirled and glided. When

she spoke, her voice sounded tired, as if with long contending.

“Why won’t you be disillusioned? Every time I show you a fault, you turn

it into a virtue. From the moment we met, I’ve acted as selfishly as I

knew how; and yet you still follow, follow, follow. Don’t you ever lose

your temper? You can’t really like me.”

To her bewilderment a great wave of gladness swept into his eyes. At

last he had stumbled on the hidden forethought that lurked behind all

her omissions of kindness. She had been trying to save him from herself.

In the light of this new interpretation, every grievance that he had

harbored became an infidelity. He stretched out his hand, as though

unconsciously, till the tips of his fingers were just touching hers.

“I shall always follow, and follow, and follow. I shall know now that,

even when you’re trying to be cross, it only means that you’re----”

What it would only mean he didn’t tell her; at that moment the waiter

returned.

When the covers had been removed from the dishes and they had something

to distract them from their own intensity, the gayety of the rag-time

caught them.

She flashed a friendly glance at him. “We’re always getting back to that

old subject, like sitting hens to a nest.”

“We hadn’t got there quite.”

She pursed her lips judiciously. “Perhaps not quite. Wouldn’t it be

safer to talk of something else?”

“About what? I can’t think of anything but you, Princess.”

She clapped her hands. “Splendid. Let’s talk about me. You start.”

He bent forward, smiling into her eyes, grateful for the chance.

“There’s so much to tell. All day I’ve been making discoveries. I’ve

found out that you’re half-a-dozen persons--not just the one person whom

I thought you, Desire. Sometimes you’re Joan of Arc, with dreams in your

eyes and your hands lying idly in your lap. Sometimes you’re Nell Gwynn,

utterly unshockable and up to any naughtiness. That’s the way you are

now--the way I like you best. And sometimes you’re a faery’s child, a

Belle Dame Sans Merci, a beautiful witch-girl, who won’t come into my

life and won’t let me forge.”

She became extraordinarily interested. At last he had absorbed her

attention. “That Belle Dam whatever you call her, she sounds rather

lurid. Tell me about her.”

All through the meal, to the alternate thunder of the sea and the

jiggling accompaniment of rag-time, he told her. How La Belle Dame Sans

Merci lay in wait in woodlands to tempt knights aside from their

quests and, when she had made them love her, left them spell-bound and

unsatisfied. They forgot time and place as they talked. The old trustful

intimacy held them hanging on each other’s words. They were children

again in the meadows at Ware, hiding from Farmer Joseph; only now Farmer

Joseph was their fear of their own shyness.

“I did something last summer,” he said; “it was just before I met you.

Perhaps it’ll make you smile. I’d just come to success, and I wanted

to tell you; but I hadn’t an idea where to find you in the whole wide

world. I tried to pretend that you were still in the woodland beside the

pond. I went there and stayed all day, willing that you should come. You

couldn’t have been so far away; you may have been in London. Well, I had

that poem with me, and---- You know the way one gets into moods? It

seemed to me that you weren’t a truly person and never had been--that

you were just a faery’s child, a ghost in my mind.”

‘I set her on my prancing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long;

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

A faery’s song.’

“That sort of thing. Perhaps you were thinking of me at the very time.”

“Perhaps,” she nodded. “Coming back to England after all those years did

make me think of you. But how does the whole poem go? Can’t you repeat

it?”

He had come to, “And there I shut her wild, wild eyes with kisses four,”

when she stopped him.

“I should never let you do that If I did----” She bent towards him

flippantly, lowering her voice. “If I did, d’you know what I’d do

next? I should marry you.” The curl against her neck shook in emphatic

affirmative. “I’m not going to be La Belle Dame whatever you call her

any more. I’m going to try to be Nell Gwynn always. You must tell me

next time I’m that La Belle person, and I’ll stop it.”

“Ah, but I can’t--that’s a part of the spell When you look that way I

can’t speak to you. I’m dazed. It’s as though you’d buried me beneath

a mountain of ice. I can only see you and feel unhappy. I can’t even

stir.”

He fell to gazing at her. His silence lasted so long that she grew

restless. “Say it,” she urged.

“I was thinking that, in spite of all these people and the orchestra

and the dancing, we’re by ourselves--not afraid of each other the way we

were.”

“Oh!” She twisted her shoulders. “And now I’ll tell you why: it’s

because there’s a table between us and, however much you wanted, you

couldn’t do anything silly. So, you see, I’m safe, and can afford to be

gracious.”

He knew at once that it was the truth that she had stated. How few girls

would have said it! They had finished their coffee. She had been very

pressing that he should smoke a cigar. He had just lighted one, and was

comfortably wondering what they should do next; a drive in the country

perhaps, and then back to the tall city lying spectral in moonlight.

She consulted her wrist-watch and pushed back her chair. “How about the

taxi?”

He at once began to seek the connection between his smoking and the

taxi. Behind all her actions lay a motive, which she disguised with an

appearance of irresponsibility. Being in her company was like studying

the moves in a game of chess. Had she persuaded him to smoke in

self-protection, so that he might be occupied when they were alone

together?

“The taxi! It’s early. We don’t need to go yet. Or d’you mean that you

want to take a longer drive?”

“I’ve----” She winked at him. “This isn’t the great big confession----

I’ve to get back for the theatre. Don’t look crestfallen; you’re

coming--just the two of us. If we don’t start now, I shan’t have time to

dress.”

As he followed her out into the courtyard, he made a mental note: her

insistance that he should smoke had been a precautionary measure for a

home-defense. Already her manner towards him was growing circumspect.

When she had given the driver instructions, she took her seat remotely

in the corner. There was one last flicker of her Nell Gwynn mood when

she leant out to gaze at the sea lying red behind the gray salt-marshes.

“Good-by, dear little day; you’ve been a sort of honeymoon.” She spied

out of the comers of her eyes at Teddy with an impish raising of her

brows. It was as though she were asking him whether the day need end.

“Why go back? Why ever go back? Why not get married?” The hand which he

tried to seize happened to be Miss Independence. It gave him a friendly

pat in rebuke as it escaped him.

“We’re getting stupid again.” Closing her eyes, she curled herself up

against the cushions. Her voice was small and tired.

In an instant he was miles away from her, buried beneath his mountain

of ice. She was La Belle Dame Sans Merd, chilling his affection with

silence. He was amused. He was beginning to understand her tactics. She

was easy of approach, but difficult of capture. He looked back; from

a child she had been like that. But he wished that she wouldn’t show

distrust of him whenever they were alone. It made love seem less

gallant, almost ugly--a thing to be dreaded. Was it what had happened to

her mother that made her----? “She’s afraid to love too much. Her mother

got hurt.” Was this the price of which Hal had spoken? Was his share of

the paying to have his ideal lowered by the girl by whom it had been

inspired?

He sat in his corner, smoking and scrupulously preserving the gap that

lay between them. He was doing his best to show her by his actions that

her defensive measures were unnecessary. One hand shaded her eyes, the

other lay half open in her lap. Her head drooped forward slightly and

her knees were crossed. Her attitude was one of prayer.

“Please go on talking,” she murmured. “Don’t mind if I’m a little quiet.”

He tried to talk. His monologue grew halting. He asked a question; she

returned no answer. He ceased speaking to see if that would pique her

and rouse response. She seemed to have divined his intention; he felt

that, if he peeped behind her hand, he would find her laughing.

Easy of approach, but difficult of capture! If he didn’t take care, she

might keep him dawdling and spellbound forever. Ah, but when she began

to learn what love really was, not Fluffy’s kind of tepid flirtation,

but the kind of love that thinks no sacrifice too costly---- How long

would it take him to fire her with earnestness?

Traffic was thickening. Automobiles, snorting and tooting their horns,

came racing up behind and passed. The road ahead was a cloud of dust,

which the sunset tinted to a crimson glory. The laughter of women’s

voices was in the air. He had glimpses of their faces peering merrily

into men’s. In a flash they were gone; but his imagination followed,

listening to the happy tendernesses that were said. How closely these

other lovers sat! Sometimes beneath the dust-cloth that lay across their

knees, he suspected that hands were being clasped. At others he

didn’t need to suspect; it was done proudly and bravely. There were

disadvantages in being in love with a young lady who gave remarkable

names to her hands.

He smiled grimly at the respectable distance that separated him from his

praying girl. It so honestly published to the world: “The two people in

this taxi are wasting an opportunity--they are not in love.” The waiter,

had he had to address her now, would certainly have called her madam.

Teddy tried to see the humor of his situation. He wondered whether she

was really as indifferent as she pretended--whether she might not be

glad if he were to slip his arm about her? But he refrained from

making the experiment; he feared lest she should interpret his action

flippantly or resent it. When he pictured the kind of happiness they

were losing, he felt a little sick at heart.

They had come to the great cat’s-cradle of girders that spans the East

River.

“That’s better. I’m rested. You are good.”

She spoke gratefully and sat up. From his corner, making no attempt to

narrow the distance, he watched her quietly. “D’you always do that?”

“What?”

“Pretend to go to sleep when you’re unchaperoned? You don’t need to do

it with me. It’s the third time you’ve done it.”

She laughed tolerantly. “Oh, you! What old-fashioned notions! I never am

chaperoned.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that in her case it wasn’t

necessary. Instead he asked: “Do you do that with Tom? Does he

appreciate it?”

She threw up her hands in an abandonment to merriment “Tom! He hates it

Poor Tom! Haven’t I told you he drizzles?”

When no answer was returned, she began to sing provocatively:

“If no one ever marries me,

And I don’t see why he should.

For Nurse says I am not pretty

And I’m very seldom good,

I’ll----”

She broke off and glanced over at him, making her mouth sad. “You do sit

far away.” When he made no motion to accept her invitation, she smiled

the unreserved smile of friendship. “Look here, if I come half way over,

will you?”

She made the journey and waited for him to follow her example. He came

reluctantly, but not all the way; there was still a gap between them.

“Well, if you won’t, I’ll have to be forward.” She closed up the

distance. “There! Isn’t that happier?”

“Yes. But what’s the good? We’re in the middle of streets and nearly

there now.”

“I was tired,” she said appealingly. “I thought you’d understand.”

It was impossible to resist her. Perhaps she had been tired. Perhaps she

had done with him what she would have dared to do with no other man; and

what he had mistaken for indifference and distrust had been a reliance

on his chivalry.

“I do understand.”

“I wonder.”

Ahead, across the misty greenness of the Park, the troglodyte dwellings

of the West Side barricaded the horizon. In some of the windows lights

were springing up. It was as though lonely people flashed unnoticed

signals to the cold hearts beating in the heavens.

“Desire, why do we try to hurt each other?”

“Do we? I wasn’t trying. I was thinking of something that Fluffy told

Horace. She said that men never married the women who said ‘Yes.’ It’s

the women who say ‘No’ sweetly that men marry.”

“So you were saying ‘No’ sweetly by keeping quiet.”

“I was looking back to find out if it was true.”

“And is it?”

She gazed down demurely at her folded hands. “I once knew a girl; she

didn’t care a straw for her man. He waited for her for five years

always hoping, and she made all kinds of cruel jokes about him. Then one

night--she didn’t know how it happened--all the ice broke and she felt

that she wanted him most awfully. They were alone. Suddenly, without

warning and without being asked, she kissed him and put her arms about

his neck---- Can you guess what he did? You’re a man. You ought to

know.”

“He kissed her back again, I suppose, and after that they were married.”

“Wrong. He picked up his hat and walked out of the house. He’d made her

want him ten times worse than he’d ever wanted her. He never went back.”

“But why? I don’t understand.”

They were on Riverside Drive. The taxi was halting. She leant forward

and opened the door. “He’d won, don’t you see? Because she’d given in he

despised her. It was the holding off that made her value.”

“A parable?”

As she jumped out, she glanced roguishly across her shoulder. “No. A

fact.”

To save time, since they both had to dress, they arranged to meet at the

theatre. The curtain had gone down on the first act when they entered.

It was a first-night performance; the place was packed. Desire at once

became interested in the audience, spying round with her glasses and

picking out the critics, the actors and actresses who were present She

gave him concise accounts of their careers, surprising him with her

knowledge. She was intensely alive; it was difficult to recognize in her

the bored praying girl who had traveled with him from Long Beach on that

late September afternoon. In her low-cut evening-dress, with her white

arms and dazzling shoulders, he found her twice as alluring. But he

wished she would show more interest in him and a little less in the

audience. Every time he thought he had secured her attention, she would

discover a new face on which to focus her glasses.

The curtain had risen only a few minutes, when he realized why she had

brought him. From the wings Tom entered; from that moment she became

spellbound. Teddy tried to reason away his jealousy--his feeling that he

had been trapped into coming. It was quite natural that she should

have wanted to see her friend--there was nothing so disastrous in that.

But---- And he couldn’t get over that _but_. It would have been fair to

have warned him.

In the second interval he found that he was expected to eulogize his

rival’s acting. This time, cautioned by the error he had made over

Fluffy’s portrait, he was more careful in expressing his opinion. She

quickly detected the effort in his enthusiasm. “I didn’t like to tell

you,” she whispered apologetically; “but I had to come. Ever so long

ago, before I knew you’d be here, I promised him.”

“So that’s the confession that’s been worrying you?”

“One of them.” She touched his hand.

It wasn’t until midnight, when they had had supper and were flying

uptown, that she told him.

“We’ve had a good first day, Meester Deek, in spite--in spite of

everything.”

Mister Dick had been the name of the hero in the play; Meester Deek

had been the caressing way in which the Italian woman who loved him had

pronounced it. That Desire should call him Meester Deek seemed an omen.

He turned to her gladly. She was in her Nell Gwynn mood and at her

tenderest. Through the darkness he could see the convulsive little curl.

The beauty-patch seemed a sign put there to mark the acceptable place to

kiss her.

“So I’m Meester Deek! You won’t call me Teddy. I knew you’d have to find

a name for me.”

“D’you like my name for you, Meester Deek?”

She sat bending forward, her face illumined by the racing street-lights

and her body in darkness. He was tempted to trespass--tempted to reach

out for her hand and, if she allowed that, to take her in his arms. She

looked very sweet and unresisting, with her cloak falling back from

her white shoulders and her head drooping. But instinct warned him: she

beckoned attack only to repell it. He remembered what she had told him

about the women who said “No,” the women who eked out their affection.

“D’you like my name for you, Meester Deek?” There was all the passion of

the south in the way she asked it.

“I like it. But why don’t you call me by my own name? You speak of

Horace and Tom.”

“Ah, that’s different.”

“How?”

She shrugged her shoulders and threw back her cloak. The fragrance of

her stole out towards him.

“They’ll be always just Horace and Tom to me, while you--perhaps. I

can’t explain, Meester Deek, if you don’t understand.”

In her own peculiar way, half shy, half bold, she had told him that,

just as he held her separate from all women, so she held him separate.

“I’d rather have you call me Meester Deek than--than anything in the

whole world, now that I know.”

“And will you forgive me the big confession?”

He laughed emotionally. “Anything.”

She shrank back into the shadow so that her face was hidden. “I’m just

as sorry as I can be. But I can’t break my word. Perhaps you’ll be so

hurt that you’ll sail back to England, and won’t wait for me.”

His heart sank. For a moment he had felt so sure of her. Again she was

planning to elude him.

“You don’t say anything, Meester Deek. I’m afraid you’re angry. It’s

only for two weeks. I start to-morrow.” Two weeks without her! It spelt

tragedy. He had a desperate inspiration, “Can’t I come with you?”

“Poor you! No.” She shook her head slowly. “I wish you could. You see,

I’ve got to do without you, too. But you don’t like her--I mean Fluffy.

She’s on the road in a try-out before she opens in New York.--Only two

weeks, Meester Deek! Look on the bright side of things. You can get

through all your work while I’m gone and then, when I come back, we can

play together.--If you stay,” she added softly.

Two weeks! It seemed a very short time to make a fuss over.

But in two weeks he had hoped to go so far with her. He had hoped to be

able to win a promise from her, so that he could send good news to Eden

Row. And now, at the end of two weeks, he would be just where he had

started.

“I’ll write to you, oh, such long letters.” And then, like a little

child on the verge of crying: “You said you’d forgive me. You’re not

keeping your promise.”

At the moment of parting, as she was stepping into the elevator, he drew

her back. “When d’you start? Mayn’t I come and fetch you, and see you

off?”

“It’ll be so early. Won’t that be a lot of trouble for a very little

pleasure?”

“But if I think the trouble’s worth it?”

“Then I’d love to have you.”

She held out her hand and let it linger in his clasp. Other revellers,

returning from theatres and dinners, passed them. For the first time

that day she didn’t seem to care who guessed that he loved her.

“It’s too late to ask you up,” she whispered regretfully. “It’s been a

nice day in spite of--of everything, Meester Deek. Thank you.”

She withdrew her hand and darted from him, as if fearing that, if she

stayed, she might commit herself irrevocably. He saw her gray eyes

smiling pityingly down on him as the iron cage shot up.

CHAPTER X--AND NOTHING ELSE SAW ALL DAY LONG

He had lost count of days in the swiftness of happenings. As he drove

uptown to fetch her, he wondered why the streets were so quiet. He

pulled out his watch; it was past eight. Not so extraordinarily early!

His watch might be wrong. His eye caught a clock; it wasn’t Then the

knowledge dawned on him that the emptiness of the streets and his sense

of earliness were due to the leisure which betokens Sunday morning.

New York had a look of the rural. Now that few people were about, trees

claimed more attention and spread abroad their branches. Grass-plots in

squares showed conspicuously. It almost seemed that on these islands

of greenness, lapped by sun-scorched pavement, one ought to see rabbits

hopping.

When he reached the apartment, she wasn’t ready. From somewhere down the

passage she called to him: “Good-morning, Meester Deek. You’re early.”

Then he heard her tripping footsteps crossing and recrossing a room, and

the busy rustling of packing.

He leant out of the window, drinking in the sunny stillness. A breeze

ruffled the Hudson. The Palisades shone fortress-like. Far below, dwarfed

by distance beneath trees of the Drive, horsemen moved sluggishly like

wound-up toys. A steamer, heavily loaded with holidaymakers, churned

its way up-river; he caught the faint cheerfulness of brazen music. The

tension of endeavor was relaxed; a spirit of peace and gayety was in the

air. His thoughts went back to Eden Row, lying blinking and quaint in

the Sabbath calm. In this city of giant energies he smiled a little

wistfully at the remembrance.

He listened. The sounds of packing hadn’t stopped. Time grew short; it

wasn’t for him to hurry her. Secretly he hoped she would lose her train;

they might steal an extra day together.

She entered radiant and laughing. “You’ll think I always keep you

waiting. Come on. We’ve got to rush for it.”

“But let me have a look at you.”

“Time for that on the way to the station.”

When he had seen the luggage put on, he jumped in beside her--really

beside her, for she sat well out of the corner.

“Almost like a honeymoon,” he laughed, “with all the bags.”

“A spoilt honeymoon.” As they made a sharp turn into Broadway she was

thrown against him. “Poor old you, not to be coming!”

“Hulloa!” He looked at her intently.

“A discovery?”

“The beauty-patch has wandered. It’s at the corner of your mouth

to-day.”

“Observing person! There’s a reason.” She leant nearer to whisper. “It’s

a sleep-walker.”

In the midst of her high spirits she became serious. “It’s mean of me to

leave you. If I’d known that it was only to see me that you’d sailed----

I couldn’t believe it--not even when you’d cabled. I ought to feel

flattered. I shouldn’t think--shouldn’t think it’s often happened that a

man came so far on ’spec.’”

“Perhaps never,” he said. “There was never a Desire----”

Then they felt that they had gone far enough with words, and sat

catching each other’s smile in silence.

“You don’t want to go?” he asked.

“I oughtn’t to say that.” She frowned thoughtfully. “It would be

ungracious to Fluffy. But I don’t want to go much.” Then, letting her

hand rest on his for a second: “It’ll make our good times that are

coming all the better.”

All the way to the station, like shy children, without owning to it,

they were doing their best to comfort each other.

“I’m glad I had that photograph taken.”

“Was that why? Because----”

“Meester Deek, I didn’t know you so well then. It didn’t seem so

terrible to leave you. But--it was partly.”

The tiffs and aloofness of yesterday seemed as distant as a life-time.

“We were stupid to quarrel.” His tone invited her indorsement.

“We’ll do it again,” she laughed.

They swung into the Grand Central. She let him look to her luggage as

though it were his right. It was nearly as good as being married to her.

“Shall I take your ticket?”

“Let’s get it together.”

When they came to the window, she opened her bag and handed him the

money.

“Where to?” he asked. Then he remembered: “Why, you haven’t given me

your address.”

“To Springfield. Here, I’ll scribble out the address while you get the

change. You’d better write your first letter to the theatre in care of

Fluffy. I’ll send you the names of the other towns later.”

At the barrier they met with an unexpected setback; the gateman refused

to let him see her off. “Not allowed. You ought to have a pass.”

It seemed hopeless. The man looked too righteous for bribery and too

inhuman for argument. Desire leant forward: “Oh, please, won’t you let

my brother----?”

Slowly and knowingly the man smiled. He glanced from the anxious little

face, doing its best to appear tearful, to the no less anxious face of

Teddy. He scented romance and signed to them to go forward. So Teddy

had proof that others could become weak when she employed her powers of

fascination.

He followed her into the train and sat down at her side.

“I wish I were coming.”

She gazed out of the window. He bent across to see her face.

“Why, Desire, you’re----”

“I’m silly,” she said quickly. “Parting with anybody makes me cry. Oh,

dear, I wish I wasn’t going.”

“Then don’t.”

He covered her hand in his excitement. There was no time to lose. The

conductor was calling for the last time; passengers were scurrying to

get aboard.

She considered the worth of his suggestion. “I must There’s Fluffy. But

why don’t you come? You can get back to-night.”

He wavered. She was always at her sweetest when saying good-by; if he

went with her, she might get “tired” and become the praying girl again.

He had almost made up his mind to accompany her when the train gave a

preliminary jerk, as though the engine were testing its strength.

“Oh, well, you know best.” Her expression was annoyed and her tone

disappointed. “Only two weeks, after all.”

“But two weeks without you.” He had not quite given up the idea of

accompanying her.

“Hurry up,” she said, “or you won’t get off.”

It was no good going with her now. From the platform he watched her.

As the train began to move, he ran beside her window. At the point of

vanishing she smiled forgiveness and kissed the finger-tips of Miss

Self-Reliance.

In passing out of the station it occurred to him to inquire how long it

took to get to Springfield. He wanted to follow her in imagination and

to picture her at the exact hour of arrival. He was surprised to find

that it was such a short journey and that she might have gone by a later

train. If she’d been so sorry, she needn’t have left him in such a

hurry. When he came to reason things out, he saw that she could have

gone just as well on Monday, since Fluffy’s company was evidently

playing in Springfield another night. Perhaps she had a good reason for

going. It was some comfort to remember that at the last train. If she’d

been so sorry, she needn’t have left him in such a hurry. When he came

to reason things out, he saw that she could have gone just as well on

Monday, since Fluffy’s company was evidently playing in Springfield

another night. Perhaps she had a good reason for going. It was some

comfort to remember that at the last moment she had wanted to stay.

Then began the long days of waiting, from which all purpose in living

seemed to have been banished. Ambitions, which had goaded him forward,

were at a halt. Everything unconnected with her took on an air of

unreality. His personality became distasteful to him because it seemed

not to have attracted her sufficiently.

Things that once would have brought him happiness failed to stir him.

A boom was being worked for him. He was on the crest of a wave.

Interviewers were continually calling to get personal stories.

Articles appeared in which he confided to the public: “How I Became

Famous at Twenty-three,” “Why I Came to America,” “What I Think of New

York,” “Why I Distrust Co-education.” There seemed to be no subject,

however trivial, upon which his views were not of value to the hundred

million inhabitants of America. He was continually finding his face

in the papers. He sprang into an unexpected demand both as writer and

artist.

The fun he derived from this fluster was in imagining the added worth

it would give him in her eyes. He liked to think of her as dashing up to

news-stands and showering on him the enthusiasm he had seen her shower

on Fluffy. Success left him the more humble in proportion as it failed

to rouse her comment. If success couldn’t make her proud of him, there

must be some weakness in his character. He searched her letters for any

hint that would betray her knowledge of what was happening. Perhaps

her very omissions were a sign that she was feeling more than she

expressed. At last he wrote and told her. She replied inadequately,

“How very nice for you!” His hope had been that she would have included

herself as a sharer in his good fortune.

Though he sat for long hours at a stretch, he accomplished laborious

results. His attention refused to concentrate. He was always thinking

of her: the men who might be with her in his absence; the things she had

said and done; the things he had said to her, and which might have been

said better; her tricks of gesture and shades of intonation. Her very

faults endeared themselves in retrospect He coveted the least happy of

the hours he had spent in her company.

For the first day he was consoled by the sight of her tin-type

photograph on the desk before him. He glanced at it between sentences

and felt that she was near him. But soon he made a sad discovery: it

was fast fading. As the days went by he exposed it to the light more

and more grudgingly. He had the superstitious fear that, if it was quite

dark before she returned, his hope of winning her would be ended.

He lived for the arrival of her letters. His anxiety was a repetition

of what he had suffered after her departure from London. He left orders

with the hotel-clerk to have them sent up to his room at once. Every

time a knock sounded on his door he became breathless.

They came thick and fast, funny little letters dashed off at top-speed

in a round girlish handwriting and made to look longer than they were

by being sprawled out over many pages. They were full of broken phrases

like her speech, with dashes and dots for which he might substitute

whatever tenderness his necessity demanded. Usually they began “_Dear

Miester Deek_” and ended “_Yours sincerely, Desire_.” Once, in a

glorious burst of expansiveness, she signed herself “_Affectionately,

Desire,_” and scratched it out. He watched for the error to occur again;

it was never repeated. They were the kind of letters that it was

perfectly safe to leave lying about; his replies emphatically were not.

He marveled at her unvarying discretion.

She had a knack of reproducing the atmosphere of her environment. It was

a gay, pulsating world in which she lived. Like Flora, flowers and the

singing of birds sprang up where she passed. He contrasted with hers

the world he had to offer; it seemed a dull place. She had the keys to

Arcady. How false had been his chivalrous dream that a fate hung over

her from which she must be rescued!

His lover’s eye detected a wealth of cleverness in her correspondence.

He sincerely believed that she was more gifted as a writer than himself.

Her letters were full of descriptions of Fluffy in her part, thumb-nail

sketches of the other members of the cast and accounts of the

momentously personal adventures of a theatrical company on tour. She had

a trick of humor that made her intimate in an adjective, and made him

laugh. She also had a trick of allotting to him prejudices. “You’d call

our leading man a very bad character, but I like him: I think one needs

to have faults to be truly charitable. I’d ask you to join us, but----

You wouldn’t get on with theatrical people; you rather--I know, so you

needn’t deny it--you rather despise them. I think they’re the jolliest

crowd. We dance every night when the show is ended and have late

suppers, and--you can guess.”

It was after receiving this that he made up his mind, in preparation for

her return, to learn the latest dances. He wondered where she could have

gathered the impression that he was puritanical.

But there were other letters in which she joined his future with hers.

“Perhaps you’ll write a great play one day, and allow me to be your

leading lady.”

He paused to let the picture form before he went further. It would

be rather fun. He saw himself holding hands with her and bowing to

applauding audiences. As husband and wife they’d travel the world

together, emancipated beings who never gave a thought to money, each

contributing to the other’s triumph. Fun! Yes. But unsettling. The life

that he had always planned was a kind of glorified Eden Row existence

without the worries. He thought of Jimmie Boy and Dearie, and all the

quiet bonds of dependence they had built up by living always in one

place together.

His eyes went back to her letter. “You’ll come and see me, won’t you,

Meester Deek, if ever I become a great actress? And I shall.--Oh, did

I tell you? Horace is on his way over. I wonder what he and Fluffy will

do? Perhaps quarrel. Perhaps just dawdle.”

He was tempted to go to her; but she hadn’t really invited him. He felt

that she wouldn’t be his in her nomad setting. He couldn’t bear to have

to share her with these butterfly people who viewed love as a diversion,

and marriage as a catastrophe.

Sometimes he doubted whether he was as unhappy as he fancied. He

searched through books to prove to himself that his case was by no means

solitary--that it was the common lot of lovers. He became an admirer of

the happy ending in novels. He sought for fiction-characters upon whose

handling of similar situations he could pattern his conduct One writer

informed him that the secret of success in love was to keep a woman

guessing; another, that with blonde women a heated courting brought the

best results, while with women of a darker complexion a little coldness

paid excellently. All this was too calculating--too like diplomacy.

He fell back on the advice of Madame Josephine: “Don’t judge--try

to understand. When a good man tries to be fair, he’s unjust.” As

an atonement for the disloyalty of his research, he sent Desire a

needlessly large box of flowers.

“It’s only two weeks, after all,” she had said. But the two weeks had

come and gone. All his plans were dependent on hers, and she seemed to

be without any. Already he was receiving inquiries from Eden Row as to

when he could be expected back. He could give no more definite answer

than when he had left; he procrastinated by enclosing press-cuttings and

talking vaguely about taking advantage of his American opportunities.

His position was delicate. He didn’t dare to use the argument with

Desire that she was his sole reason for remaining in New York; it would

have seemed like blackmailing her into returning. Meanwhile, since her

letters arrived regularly, he attributed her continued absence not to

lack of fondness, but to fear of facing up to a decision. He must do

nothing to increase her timidity.

On several occasions he visited Vashti. Each time other people were

present. He noticed that her eyes followed him with a curious expression

of amusement and compassion. At last one afternoon he found her alone.

She was curled up on the couch by the window, wearing a pale-blue

peignoir and a boudoir cap embroidered with tiny artificial roses. A

novel lay face downwards on the floor beside her, and she was playing

with the silky ears of Twinkles, who snuggled in her lap. As he entered,

she reached out her hand without rising and made a sign for him to sit

beside her.

“Twinkles is lonely, too. Aren’t you, Twinkles? We’re all waiting for

our little mistress.”

She went on smiling and playing with the dog’s ears. Slowly she raised

her eyes.

“I can guess what you’re wishing. You’re wishing that I wore a little

curl against my neck and had a beauty-patch.”

“A beauty-patch that’s a sleep-walker,” he added.

She laughed softly. “And did she tell you that? I’ve been thinking about

you--expecting to hear any day that you were sailing to England.”

He shook his head. “I’m like Twinkles. I’m waiting.”

Vashti lifted herself from the cushions and gazed at him intently. “How

long are you prepared to wait?”

“D’you mean how long till she comes back?”

“No. For her. She’s young, Teddy, and she asks so much--so many things

that life’ll never give her. She’s got to learn. She may keep you

waiting a long, long while yet.”

“I’ll wait.” He smiled confidently.

She leant forward and kissed him. “I’m glad. If you win, she’ll be worth

it.”

She went back to playing with Twinkles; he watched her in silence.

With her face averted she said: “At first you thought you had only to

love and she’d love you in return--wasn’t that it? With you to love her

has been a mission; that’s where you’re different from other men. Other

men start by flirting--they intend the run-away right up to the last

minute; then they find themselves caught But you---- It takes an older

woman than Desire to understand. You’re so impetuously in earnest, you

almost frighten her. You’re such a dreamer--the way you were about the

marriage-box. You always take a woman at her word; and a woman, when

she’s loved, means most by the things she leaves unsaid. What happened

to the marriage-box after you found me out?”

He blushed at the confession. “I burnt it.”

“Ah! Burnt me in effigy. That’s what Hal’s done, I expect. That’s where

men make mistakes; they’re so impatient. Often a woman’s love begins at

the point where a man’s ends. I wonder, one day will you get tired and

do something like that to her?”

He wanted to ask her whether her love had begun for Hal at the point

where his had ended; but he said, “I was a little boy, then.”

She took his hands and made him meet her eyes. “Little boys and men are

alike. Don’t wait at all, Teddy, unless you know you’re strong enough to

wait till she’s ready.”

“I am.”

“Easily said. A man once told me that. There came a time when I wanted

him badly; I turned round to give him all that he had asked; he was

gone.”

She sank her voice. “Can you go on bearing disappointment without

showing anger? Can you go on being generous when she hides her kindness?

You may have to see her wasting her affection on all kinds of persons

who don’t know its value. She may stop away from you to punish

herself--she won’t tell you that; and perhaps all the time she’ll be

longing to be with you. That’s the kind of girl Desire is, Teddy; she

leaves you to guess all that’s best Can you stand that?”

280

He nodded. He couldn’t trust his voice to answer.

“Then, here’s a word of advice. Don’t let her see that you’re too much

in earnest.” She laughed, relieving the suspense. “Almost like the

wedding-service, wasn’t it?”

As he left, the last sight he had of her she was still sitting curled

up on the couch, in her pale-blue peignoir, with the sky behind her,

playing with the silky ears of Twinkles snuggled asleep in her lap. She,

too, was waiting. For whom? For what?

That night he wrote a letter to Hal; tore it up and rewrote it. Even

then he hesitated. At last he decided to sleep over the wisdom of

sending it.

CHAPTER XI--THE KEYS TO ARCADY

Of a sudden life became glorious--more glorious than he had ever

believed possible. It commenced on the morning after he had written his

letter to Hal.

He was seated in the white mirrored room of the Brevoort which looks

out on Fifth Avenue. From the kitchen came the mutter of bass voices,

passing orders along in French, and the cheerful smell of roasting

coffee. Scattered between tables, meditative waiters were dreaming that

they were artists’ models, each with a graceful hand resting on the back

of a chair in readiness to flick it out invitingly at the first sight

of an uncaptured guest. From the left arm of each dangled a napkin,

betraying that he had served his appenticeship in boulevard cafés of

Paris.

Outside, at irregular intervals, green buses raced smoothly with a

_whirr-whirr_, which effaced during the moment of their passage the

clippity-clap of horses. Past the window, from thinning trees, leaves

drifted. When they had reached the pavement, the breeze stirred them

and they struggled weakly to rise like crippled moths. There was an

invigorating chill in the October air as though the sunshine had been

placed on ice. Pedestrians moved briskly with their shoulders flung

back. They seemed to be smiling over the great discovery that life was

worth living, after all.

A boy halted under the archway and threw about him a searching glance.

Catching sight of Teddy, he hurried over and whispered. Teddy rose.

In the hall the telephone-clerk was watching. “Booth number three, Mr.

Gurney.”

As he lifted the receiver he was still discussing with himself whether

or no he should send Hal that letter.

“Yes. It’s Mr. Gurney.”

A faint and unfamiliar voice answered--a woman’s voice, exceedingly

pleasant, with a soft slurring accent. It was a voice that, whatever it

said, seemed to be saying, “I do want you to like me.”

“I didn’t quite catch. Would you mind speaking a little louder?” he

asked.

There was a laughing dispute at the other end; then the voice which he

had heard at first spoke again:

“This is Janice Audrey, Desire’s friend--Fluffy. Desire’s too shy to

phone herself, so I---- She’s here at my elbow. She says that she’s not

shy any longer and she’ll speak with you herself.”

It was as though he could feel her gray eyes watching.

A pause. Then, without preliminaries: “You can’t guess where I am. For

all you know, I might be dead and this might be my ghost.--No. Let me do

the talking. It’s long distance from Boston and expensive; I don’t know

how many cents per second. If you were here, I’d let you do the paying;

but since you’re not---- Here’s what I called up to tell you: we’re

coming in on the Bay State Limited at three o’clock.--I thought you’d be

interested. Ta-ta.”

He commenced a hurried question; she had rung off.

Adorably casual! Adorably because she contradicted herself. By calling

him up all the way from Boston she had said, “See how much I care.” By

not allowing him to speak, she had tried to say, “I don’t care at all.”

It amused him; the odd thing was that he loved her the more for her

languid struggles to escape him. He agreed with her entirely that the

woman who said “No” bewitchingly increased her value. As he finished

his breakfast he reflected: she was dearer to him now than a week ago,

and much dearer than on the drive from Glastonbury. Instead of blaming

her for making herself elusive, he ought to thank her. He’d been too

headlong at the start. He fell to making plans to take Vashti’s advice:

he wouldn’t speak to her of love any more--he’d try to hide from her how

much he was in earnest.

In his eagerness not to disappoint her, he had reached the Grand Central

a quarter of an hour too early. He was standing before the board on

which the arriving trains are chalked up, when from behind some one

touched him.

“Seen you before. How are you? I expect we’re here on the same errand.”

He found himself gazing into the humorous blue eyes which had discovered

him playing tricks with his engine before the house in Regent’s Park.

“You’re Mr. Horace Overbridge, I think.”

“Yes. I’m here to see _October_ put on; that’s my new play in which Miss

Audrey is acting. What are you doing?” Then, because Teddy hesitated,

“Perhaps I oughtn’t to ask.”

At that moment the arrival-platform of the Bay State Limited was

announced; they drifted away at the tail of the crowd towards the

barrier. Teddy wanted to hurry; his companion saw it. “Heaps of time,”

he laughed. “If I know anything about them, they’ll be out last.”

His prophecy proved correct. The excited welcomes were over; the stream

of travelers had thinned down to a narrow trickle of the feeble or

heavily laden, when Desire, walking arm-in-arm with a woman much more

beautiful than her portraits, drew into sight behind the gates. After

hats had been raised and they knew that they had been recognized, they

did not quicken their pace. They approached still leisurely and talking,

as much as to say: “Let’s make the most of our opportunity before we

sink to the level of these male-creatures.”