If she would only allow herself to understand what it was that he was

offering! He longed to take her in his arms--not the way he had; but as

he would cuddle a sick child against his breast to give it comfort. His

compassion for her was almost womanly; it was something that he dared

not tell her. Compassion from him was the emotion which she would most

resent.

It was her pride that made her so poignantly tragic--her pose of being

an enviable person. There was no getting behind it except by a brutal

statement of facts. The scene which they had surprised in the apartment

had staged those facts with ugly vividness. Despite the gayety with

which she drugged herself, she must know that her mother’s position made

her fair game for the world’s Mr. Daks. Her way of speaking of her as

“my beautiful mother” was an acknowledgment, and sounded like a defense.

Her fear of losing her maiden liberty, her dread of the natural

responsibilities of marriage, her eagerness to believe the worst of men,

her light friendships, her vague, continually postponed ambitions--they

were all part of the price she was paying. Her glory in her questionable

enfranchisement was the worst part of her penalty; it made what was sad

seem romantic, and kept her blind to the better things in the world. She

did not want to be rescued from the dangers of her position. She ignored

any sacrifice that he might be making and spoke only of the curtailments

that love would bring to her. In putting forward her unattempted career

as an obstacle, she did not recognize that his accomplished career was

in jeopardy while she dallied.

Increasingly since he had landed in New York, his financial outlook had

worried him. At the time of sailing he had had seven hundred pounds in

the bank; then there were the three hundred pounds per annum from his

Beauty Incorporated shares. This, in addition to what he could earn, had

looked like affluence by Eden Row standards. But in the last few months

he had been spending recklessly. The frenzy which held him prevented

work. Commissions from magazines were still uncompleted. His American

and English publishers were urging him to let them have a second

manuscript. He assured them they should have it, but the manuscript was

scarcely commenced. The dread weighed upon him like a nightmare that he

had lost his creative faculty. His intellect was paralyzed; he had only

one object in living--to win her.

And when he had won her, at the rate at which he was now going, marriage

might be impossible. Already he had drawn on his English savings. After

accustoming her to a false scale of expenditure, he could scarcely urge

retrenchment It would seem to prove all her assertions of the dullness

which overtakes a woman when she has placed herself absolutely in

a man’s power. At this stage there was no chance of curtailing his

generosity. So long as they were both in New York the endless round of

theatres, taxis and restaurants must continue. He could not confess to

her how it was draining his resources. It would seem like accusing her

of avarice and himself of poverty. Poverty and the loss of beauty were

the two calamities which filled her heart with the wildest panic.

Like a thunderstorm that had spent itself, the clamor of argument died

down. It left him with a lucid quietness. Again she lay hushed in

his embrace; her lips shuddered beneath his pressure. That moment of

dearness, more than any ceremony of God or man, had bound him to her.

It had made him sure of subtle shades of fineness in her character which

she refused to reveal to him yet His love should outlast her wilfulness.

He would wait for years, but he would win her. The day would come when

she would awake to her need of him. Meanwhile he would make himself a

habit--what the landscape was to the old man at Baveno--adding link

upon link to her chain of memories, so that in every day when she looked

back, there would be some kindness to remind her of him.

A thought occurred. He would put his chances to the test. He fetched a

pack of cards from his trunk and drew up to the desk. Having shuffled

them, he spread them out face-downwards. If he picked a heart, he would

many her within the year. When he found with a thrill of dismay that

it was a spade, he changed his bargain and agreed to give himself three

chances. The next two were hearts. That encouraged him. He played on for

hours in the silent room--played feverishly, as though his soul depended

on it He craved for certainty. When luck ran against him, he made his

test more lenient till the odds were in his favor. Whatever the cards

said, he refused to take no for an answer. Morning found him with the

lights still burning, his shoulders crouched forward, his head pillowed

on his arms.

All that day he waited to hear from her. He could not bring himself

to telephone her. After what had happened, delicacy kept him from

intruding. In the afternoon he sent her flowers to provide her with

an excuse for calling him up. She let the excuse pass unnoticed. Her

_strategic_ faculty for silence was again asserting itself. He lived

over all the events of the previous day, marking them in sequence hour

by hour, finding them doubly sweet in remembrance. The longest day of

his life had ended by the time he crept to bed.

Next morning he searched his mail for a letter from her. There was

nothing. He was sitting in his room trying to work--it was about

lunch-time--when the telephone tinkled.

“Hulloa,” a voice said which he did not recognize, “are you Mr. Gurney,

the great author?--Well, something terrible’s happened; you’ve not

spoken to your girl for more than twenty-four hours. It’s killing her.”

A laugh followed and the voice changed to one he knew. “Don’t you think

I’m very gracious, after all your punishment?--Where am I?--No, try

another guess. You’re not very psychic or you’d know. I’m within--let

me count--forty seconds of you. I’m here, in a booth of the Brevoort,

downstairs.--Eh! What’s that?--Will I stop to lunch with you? Why, of

course. That’s what I’ve come for.”

It was extraordinary how his world brightened. The ache had gone out of

it Finances, work, nothing mattered. The future withdrew its threat “I’m

wearing my Nell Gwynn face,” she laughed as he took her hands. Then they

stood together silent, careless of strangers passing, smiling into each

other’s eyes.

“You silly Meester Deek,” she whispered, “why did you keep away if you

wanted me so badly?”

“Because----” and there he ended. He couldn’t speak to her of the

ugliness they had seen together; she looked so girlish and innocent and

fresh. It was hateful that they should share such a memory.

“I’m not proud when I’ve done wrong,” she said. Her eyes winked and

twinkled beneath their lashes. “And it’s rather fun to have to ask

forgiveness when you know you’ve been forgiven beforehand.”

He led her into the white room with its many mirrors. Quickly

forestalling the waiter, he helped her off with her furs and jacket. She

glanced up at him as he did it. “Rather mean of you to do the poor man

out of that It’s about the nearest a waiter ever comes to romance.”

When he had taken his seat opposite to her, she questioned him, “Why did

you act so queerly?”

“Queerly!”

“You know. After the night before last?”

He wished she would let him forget it “I thought you might not want me.”

“Want you!” She reached across the table and touched his hand. “You

do think unkind thoughts. If I did say something cruel, it wasn’t

meant--not in my heart I’m afraid you think I’m fickle.”

He delayed her hand as she was withdrawing it “If I did, I shouldn’t

love you the way I do, Princess.”

A waiter intruded to take their order. It seemed to Teddy that ever

since Long Beach, waiters had been clearing away his tenderest passages

as though it were as much a part of their duties as to change the

courses.

When they were left alone, she brought matters to a head. “I suppose you

got that strange notion because--because of what I said. Poor King! He

did make me angry, and yesterday he came to us so penitent and sorry.

We had to forgive him.--You’re looking as though you thought we oughtn’t

But it doesn’t do to be harsh. We all slip up sooner or later, and the

day’s always coming when we’ll have to ask forgiveness ourselves.”

He stared at her in undisguised amazement Was this merely carelessness

or a charity so divine that it knew no bounds?

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” she continued; “you’re thinking we’re

lax. That’s what people thought about Jesus when he talked to the woman

of Samaria. Mr. Dak’s quite a good little man, if he did make a mistake.

He’s always been understanding until this happened.”

She described as a mistake something that had appealed to him as

tragedy. Had her innocence prevented her from guessing the truth?

Perhaps it was he who was distorting facts.

“You seem to be accusing me of self-righteousness when you speak of

other people being understanding. I’m not self-righteous--really I’m

not, Desire--I do wish you’d believe that. Can’t you see why I’m not so

lenient as some of your friends? It’s because I’m so anxious to protect

you. If people are too lenient, it’s usually because they don’t want to

be criticized themselves. But when a man’s in love with a girl, he

doesn’t like to see her doing things that he might encourage her to do

if he didn’t respect her and if they were only out for a good time

together.”

She had frowned while he was speaking. When he ended, she lifted her

gray eyes. “I do understand. I think I understand much more than you’ve

said. But please don’t judge me--that’s what I’m afraid of. I know I’m

all wrong--wrong and stupid in so many directions.--I’ve only found

out how wrong,” her voice dropped, “since I’ve known you.” He felt like

weeping. He had judged her; in spite of his resolutions to let his love

be blind, he had been judging her. Every time he had judged her, her

intuition had warned her. And there she sat abasing herself that she

might treat him with kindness.

He became passionate in her defense. “You’re not wrong. I wouldn’t have

anything, not a single thing in your life altered--nothing, Desire,

from--from the very first. You’re the dearest, sweetest----”

She pressed a finger to her lips and pointed to the mirror. He caught

sight of his strained expression, and remembered they were in public.

While he recovered himself, she did the talking. “I’m not the dearest,

sweetest anything; you don’t see straight. Some day you’ll put on your

spectacles. You’ll see too much that’s bad then. That’s what Horace has

done.--He sailed for England this morning.”

“What’s that? D’you mean he’s broken with----”

She nodded. “Too bad, isn’t it? She didn’t much want him to come to

America, but she’s fearfully cut up now he’s left She was counting

on having such good times with him at Christmas. He didn’t explain

anything; he just went. And----” She made a pyramid of her hands over

which she watched him. “D’you know, she owns up now that some day she

might have married him.”

“But she never told him?”

Desire looked away. “A girl never tells a man that till the last moment.

He got huffy because she was cross with him for taking her to the

country. He didn’t know that when a woman dares to be angry with a man,

it’s quite often a sign that she’s in love with him.”

“Is it?” He asked the question eagerly. Desire had been cross; this

might be the key to her conduct.

She caught his meaning and smiled mysteriously. “Yes--quite often.”

Then, speaking slowly, “I guess most misunderstandings happen between

men and women because they’re not honest with each other.”

The tension broke. “Fancy calling you a man and me a woman,” she

laughed. She bent forward across the table. “We both ought to be

spanked--you most especially.”

“Why me especially?”

“A little boy like you coming to a little girl like me and pretending

to speak seriously of marriage.--But let’s be honest with each other

always. Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

“Then, I’ll tell you something. I think it’s splendid of you to go on

loving me when you know that I’m not loving you in return.”

“And I think it’s splendid of you to let me go on loving.”

“But do I?” She eyed him mockingly. Then, with one of those sudden

changes to wistfulness, “What Horace has done has made me frightened.

I’m afraid--and I’m only telling you because we’ve promised to be

honest--I’m so afraid that you’ll leave me, and that then I may begin

to care. But you’d never be unkind like that, would you?” His hand

stole out and met hers in denial. They kept on assuring each other that,

whatever had befallen other people’s happiness, theirs was unassailable.

They had dawdled through lunch. When at last they rose the room was

nearly empty.

“What next?”

She clapped her hands. “I know. Make this day different from all the

others. Let’s pretend.”

“Pretend what?”

“You’ll see.”

On the Avenue they hailed a hansom and drove the long length of New

York, through the Park to the Eighties on the West Side. Then she told

him: they were to examine apartments, pretending they wanted to rent

one. Wherever they saw a sign up they stopped the cabby and went in to

make inquiries. Sometimes she talked Cockney. Sometimes she was a little

French girl, who had to have everything that the janitor said translated

to her by Teddy. She only once broke down--when the janitor, as ill-luck

would have it, was a Frenchman; then they beat an ignominious retreat,

laughing and covered with confusion.

It was a very jolly game to play with a girl you loved--this pretending

that you were seeking a nest. It was all the jollier because she would

not own that that was the underlying excitement of their pretense. As

they passed from room to room, and when no one was looking, he would

slip his arm about her and kiss her unwilling cheek. “Wait till we’re in

the hansom,” she would whisper. “Oh, Meester Deek, you do embarrass me.”

Try as he would, he could not disguise the fact that he was in love

with her. A light shone in his eyes. This seemed no game, but a natural

preliminary to something that must happen. She was indignant when the

custodians of the apartments took it for granted that they were an

engaged couple. She ungloved her hand that they might see for themselves

that the ring was lacking. “It’s for my mother,” she explained. “Yes, I

like the apartment; but I can’t decide till my mother has seen it” She

referred to Teddy pointedly as “My friend.” The janitors looked

knowing. They smiled sentimentally and put her conduct down to extreme

bashfulness.

That afternoon was a sample of many that followed. In ingenious and

unacknowledged ways they were continually playing this game that they

were married. Frequently it commenced with his presumption that she

shared his purse, and that it was his right to give her presents. If a

dress in a window caught her fancy, he would say, “How’d you like me to

buy you that?”

“But you can’t. It isn’t done in the best families.”

“But I could if I were your husband.”

“If! Ah, yes!”

Then, for the fun of it, she would enter and try on the dress. Once he

surprised her. She had fitted on a green tweed suit-far more girlish

than anything that she usually wore-and the shop-woman was appealing to

him for his approval. When Desire wasn’t looking, he nodded and paid for

it in cash.

“Very pretty,” Desire said, not knowing it had been purchased, “but a

little too expensive. Thank you for your trouble.”

At dinner, long after the store had closed, he told her.

“But I can’t accept things from you like that. It’s very sweet of

you, but the suit’ll go back to-morrow. Even if I were willing, mother

wouldn’t allow it.”

But Vashti only smiled. She was giving him his chance. It pleased her to

regard them as children.

“Of course it isn’t the thing to do, but if it gives Teddy pleasure----”

So when the suit came home it was not returned. When she met him in the

day time she invariably wore it He knew that her motive was to make him

happy. The little tweed suit gave him an absurd sense of warmth about

the heart whenever he thought of it. It was another bond between them.

“I wonder whether my fattier was at all like you--whether he was always

buying things for my beautiful mother. It is strange to have a father

and to know so little of him. You’re the only person, Meester Deek, I

ever talk to about him. That’s a compliment. D’you think----” she

hesitated, “don’t you think some day you and I might bring them

together?”

It became one of the secret dreams they shared. He told her about the

letter he had written to Hal and never sent.

“Don’t you ever mention me to your father and mother?”

It was an awkward question.

“You don’t Why not?”

He wasn’t sure why he didn’t He hadn’t dared to admit to himself why he

didn’t. His world was out of focus. He supposed that every man’s world

grew out of focus when he fell in love. But the supposition wasn’t quite

satisfying; his conscience often gave him trouble.

“But why not?” she persisted. “Are you ashamed of me?”

“Ashamed of you!” he laughed desperately. “What is there to tell? If we

were engaged------- But so long as we’re not, they wouldn’t understand.

I’m waiting till I can tell them that.”

“I wish they knew,” she pouted. “I wish it wasn’t my fault that you were

stopping in America. I wish so many things. I wouldn’t do a thing to

prevent you if you wanted to sail to-morrow. You won’t ever blame me,

will you?”

It always came back to that, her fear that he might accuse her of having

led him on.

One day he made a discovery. He had gone to the apartment to call for

her earlier than he was expected. She was out Lying on the table under

some needle-work was a book which he recognized. He picked it up; it was

the copy of Life Till Twenty-One which he had bought for her after the

ride from Glastonbury, the receipt of which she had never acknowledged.

He had invented all manner of reasons for her silence: that she was

annoyed with him for having written about her; that she didn’t take him

seriously as an artist. On opening it he found that not only had it been

read, but carefully annotated throughout. The passages which referred

most explicitly to herself were underscored. Against his more visionary

flights she had set query marks. They winked at him humorously up and

down the margins. They were like her voice, counseling with laughing

petulance, “Now, do be sensible.”

She came in with her arms full of parcels. He held the book up

triumphantly. “I’m awfully-proud. You are a queer kiddy. Why didn’t you

tell me? I thought you didn’t care.”

Her parcels scattered. She grabbed the book from him. “That’s cheating.”

She flushed scarlet. “Of course I care. What girl wouldn’t? But if I feel

a thing deeply I don’t gush. I’m like that.”

“But you talk about Fluffy’s work; you’re always diving through crowds

to see if her picture isn’t on news-stands. You tell me what your

friend, Tom, is doing and--and heaps of people.”

“They’re different.”

“How?”

“If you don’t know, I can’t tel! you.”

“But I’m so proud of you, Princess. I do wish that sometimes,” he tried

to take her hand--she fortressed herself behind a chair, “that sometimes

you’d show that you were a little proud of me.”

“Oh, you!” She bit her finger the way she did when she suspected that he

was going to try to kiss her mouth. Her eyes danced and mocked him above

her hand. “Fancy poor little you wanting some one to be proud of you.

Meester Deek, that does sound soft.”

“Does it?” His voice trembled. “I don’t mind how foolish I am before

you. But I do wish sometimes that you’d treat me as though I wasn’t

different. You’ve only called me twice by my name. You won’t dance

with me, though I learnt especially for you. You won’t do all kinds of

ordinary things that you’re willing to do with people who don’t count.”

All the while that he had been speaking she had smiled at him, her

finger still childishly in her mouth. When he had ended, she came from

behind her chair and threw herself on the couch. “I have piped unto you

and ye have not danced. Is that it, Meester Deek? So now you’re weeping

to see if I won’t mourn. I’m afraid I’m not the mourning sort; life’s

too happy.--But I’m not nice to you. Come and sit down. I’m afraid I’m

least gracious to the people I like best. Ask mother; she’ll tell you.”

Just as he was about to accept her invitation, Twinkles entered, her

tail erect, and hopping on the couch, planted herself between them. She

had the prim air of a dog who is the custodian of her mistress’s morals.

Desire began to toy with the silky ears. “My little chaperone knows

what’s best for me, I guess.--Meester Deek doesn’t love ’oo, Twinkles.

He thinks ’oo’s a very interfering little doggie.”

He did. Despite his best efforts Twinkles growled at him and refused to

be friends. She was continually making his emotion ridiculous. She timed

her absurdly sedate entrances for the moments when the cloud of his

pent-up feelings was about to burst.

“_Love’s Labor Lost_ or _Divided by a Dog._” Desire glanced, through her

lashes laughingly. “You could write a play on it Twinkles and I could

take the leading parts without rehearsing.”

After his discovery that she had read his book he began to try to

interest her in his work--his contemplated work which was scarcely

commenced while she kept him waiting. She seemed pleased when he placed

his manuscripts in her lap. She loved to play the part of his severest

critic, sweeping tempestuously aside all ideas that she pronounced

unworthy of him.

The only side of his career in which she failed to show interest was the

financial. The mere mention of money made her shrivel up. He had hoped

that if he could persuade her to talk about it, he might be able to

confess his straitened circumstances. He guessed the reason for her

delicacy and respected it: concern on her part over his bank-account

might make her look grasping. After each vain attempt to broach the

subject, he would dodge back to cover as if he hadn’t meant it, and

would commence to tell her hurriedly of his dreams of fame. While he did

it, a comic little smile would keep tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“I don’t think you’re wasting time with me,” she said.

“I know I’m not.”

“But I meant something different. I meant that you’re learning about

life; I’m making awfully good copy for you. One day, when I’m a famous

actress and you’re married to some nice little woman who’s jealous of

me, you’ll write a book--a most heart-rending book--that’ll make her

still more jealous. It’ll be a kind of sequel to _Life Till Twenty-one_,

I guess. All experience, however much it costs, is valuable.--You’re

laughing at me. But isn’t it?”

“You wise little person.”

“Just common-sense--and not so terribly little, either,” she corrected.

Many of these conversations took place towards midnight, after he had

seen her home from dinners or theatres. Usually they were carried on in

whispers so as not to waken Vashti, who left her bedroom door ajar when

she knew that Desire was to be late in returning. As a rule, Desire was

in evening-dress; he was sensitively conscious of her mist of hair, and

of the long sweet slope of her white arms and shoulders. After taking

Twinkles for a final outing, he always accompanied her up to the

apartment Once she had had to press him to do so; now she often

pretended that she had expected him to say good-night in the public

foyer.

Saying good-night was a lengthy process, packed with the day’s omitted

tendernesses and made poignant by a touch of dread. After he had risen

reluctantly from the couch, they would linger in the hall, lasting out

the seconds. There were few words uttered. When a man has said, “I love

you,” many times, there is no room for further eloquence. She would

stand with her back against the wall, eyeing him luringly and a little

compassionately. Presently her hand would creep up to the latch and

he would seize the opportunity to slip his arm about her. Wouldn’t she

appoint a place of meeting for to-morrow? She would shake her head and

whisper evasively, “Phone me in the morning.”

Gazing at each other in quivering excitement, they would droop nearer

together. She knew that soon he would draw her to his breast. At the

first movement on his part she would turn the latch and her free hand

would fly up to shield her mouth. He would attempt to coax it away with

kisses.

“I’ve only kissed your lips once. And you’ve never kissed me yet. Won’t

you kiss me, Desire?”

The tenacious little hand would remain obdurate. “Meester Deek, you

mustn’t. The door’s open. If anybody saw us----”

If he tried to pull it away, she would call softly so that nobody could

hear her, “Help, Meester Deek is kissing me.” If he went on trying, she

would gradually call louder.

By degrees she would get him to the elevator; but unless she rang the

bell, he preferred to descend by the stairs for the joy of seeing her

leaning over the rail and raining down kisses to him. The further he

descended the more willing she seemed to be accessible. If he turned

to go back to her, her face would vanish and he would hear her door

shutting.

These farewells embodied for him the ghostly acme of romance. They were

the balcony scene from _Romeo and Juliet_ enacted on the stairway of

a New York apartment-house. From such frail materials till the new day

brought promise, he constructed the palace of his hopes and ecstasies.

It was the ghost of happiness that he had found; happiness itself

escaped him. He longed for her to love him.

CHAPTER XVII--THE TEST

Was she incapable of passion--she who could rouse it to the

danger-mark in others? He suspected that he was too gentle with her; but

forcefulness brought memories of Mr. Dak. Though she made herself the

dearest of companions, he knew that her feeling was no more than intense

liking. He had failed to stir her.

Sometimes he thought that out of cowardice she was wilfully preventing

herself from loving; sometimes that she was diverting the main stream

of her affection in a wrong direction. She could still court separation

from him without regret Fluffy had only to raise her finger and all

his plans were scattered. Fluffy raised her finger very often now that

Horace had left.

He despised himself for feeling jealous of a woman; but he was jealous.

Fluffy knew that she was his rival. When they were all three together,

she would amuse herself with half-sincere attempts to help him in his

battle: “He looks at you so nicely. Why don’t you marry him?” But she

robbed him remorselessly of Desire whenever it pleased her fancy. “Oh,

these men!” she would sigh, shrugging her pretty shoulders. “Don’t you

know, little Desire, that it does them good to keep them guessing?”

While the days slipped by unnumbered, he tried to persuade himself that

Desire’s difficulty of winning made her the more worthy of his worship.

He often thought of his father’s picture, buried beneath dusty canvasses

in the stable at Eden Row. It was like that. He had stumbled into a

Garden Enclosed, basking in lethargy, where Love peered in through

the locked gate, and all things waited and slumbered. Then came the

awakening, shattering in its earnestness.

It was three days before Christmas. The weather had turned to a

sparkling coldness. Tall buildings looked like Niagaras of stone, poured

from the glistening blueness of the heavens. In Madison Square and

Columbus Circle Christmas trees had been set up. New York had a festive

atmosphere--almost an atmosphere of childhood. Schools had broken up;

streets were animated with laughing faces. Mistletoe and holly were in

evidence. At frequent corners a Santa Claus was standing, white-bearded

and red-coated, clattering his bell. Broadway and Fifth Avenue were

thronged with matinée-girls and their escorts. They sprang up like

flowers, tripping along gayly, snuggling their cheeks against their

furs. Stores were Aladdin’s Caves, where money could make dreams come

true. The spendthrift good-nature of the crowds was infectious.

All afternoon he had been shopping with her. “Our first Christmas

together,” he kept saying. He invented plan after plan for making the

season memorable. “When we’re old married people,” he told her, “we’ll

look back. It’ll be something to talk about.”

“Only you mustn’t talk about it before your wife,” she warned him slyly.

“Why not?”

“She won’t like it, naturally. A Joan likes to think she was her Darby’s

first and only.”

He drew her arm closer into his, and peeped beneath the brim of her hat,

“Well, and wasn’t she?”

“Old stupid.”

Over his cheerfulness, though he tried to dispel it, hung a mist of

melancholy. He was reminded of all the Christmases which his father and

mother had helped to make glad. If this was the first he had spent with

Desire, it was the first he had been absent from them. They would be

lonely. His gain in happiness was in proportion to their loss. He felt

guilty; it came home to him at every turn that his treatment of them had

not been handsome.

Suddenly she bubbled into laughter. “You do look tragic Cheer up.”

Perching her chin on her clasped hands, she leant towards him, “What’s

the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“But there is. Is it anything that I’ve said or done? I’m quite willing

to apologize. Tell me.” Her voice sank from high spirits till it nearly

trembled into tears. “You promised always to be honest” Her hand stole

out and caressed his fingers. “Our first Christmas together! Mee-ster

Deek, you’re not going to make it sad after--after all our good times

together?”

“I’m not making it sad.” He spoke harshly. His tone startled her.

She stared at him, puzzled. For the first time he had failed to be

long-suffering.

“Perhaps we’d better be going.”

Assuming an air of dignity, she slipped into her jacket and commenced to

gather up her furs. Usually they enacted a comedy in which he hurried to

her assistance and she made haste to forestall him. Instead, he beckoned

for the bill.

“Perhaps we had,” he said shortly.

When the waiter had gone for the change, he began to relent. Fumbling in

his breast-pocket, he pulled out the case and placed it on the table.

“I got this for you, not because it cost money, but because I thought

you’d like it.”

She did not touch it. “Three days till Christmas. It isn’t time for

presents yet.”

“Will you promise to accept it?”

“Why shouldn’t I? It’s a little brooch or somethings isn’t it? Let’s

wait till Christmas Eve, anyway--till the day after to-morrow.”

“I want you to see it now.”

The waiter came back with the change. He picked it up without counting

it, keeping his eyes on hers. She was fingering the case with increasing

curiosity.

“But why now?”

“Because-----” He couldn’t explain to her.

Her face cleared and broke into graciousness. “You are funny. Well, if

it means so much to you----” She examined the case first. “Tiffany’s! So

that’s what you were doing when you left me--busting yourself? Shall I

take just one peek at it?--Give me a smile then to show that we’re still

friends---- All right--to please you.”

He twisted on his chair and gazed into the room. The moment while he

waited was an agony. He was a prisoner waiting for the jury to give its

verdict. All his future hung upon her words.

She gasped. “What a darling! Diamonds! Are they diamonds? They must be

since they’re Tiffany’s. But it must have cost---”

He swung round. Her glance fell. “I can’t take it.”

“You can. You’re going to. Here, let’s try it on--There!”

She fidgeted it round, watching the stones sparkle. She seemed

fascinated, and wavered. Then she gathered her will-power: “No, Meester

Deek. What kind of a girl d’you think I am?”

She tried to remove it; he stayed her. They sat in silence. It was very

much as though they had quarreled--the queerest way to give and receive

a present.

He picked up the empty case and slipped it in his pocket “I’ll carry it

for you. What’ll we do next? A theatre?”

She glanced down at her green tweed suit. “Not dressy enough. Besides,”

she consulted the watch on her wrist, “it’s nine.--Oh, I know; let’s

visit Fluffy. We’ll catch her between the acts.”

Fluffy was leading lady in _Who Killed Cock Robin?_ which was playing to

crowded houses at The Belshazzar.

At the corner of Forty-second Street and Times Square he held her elbow

gingerly to guide her through the traffic; on the further pavement he

released it They walked separately. Then something happened which marked

an epoch in their relations. Shyly she took his arm; previously it was

he who had taken hers. She hugged it to her so that their shoulders came

together. “Can’t you guess why I wanted to see Fluffy? I’m dying to show

it to her.” Then, in a shamefaced little whisper: “Don’t think I’m

ungrateful, Meester Deek. I never could say thanks. People--people who

really like me understand.”

They came to The Belshazzar with its blazing sign, branding Janice

Audrey on the night in fiery letters. There was something rather

magnificent about marching in at the stage-entrance unchallenged. As

they turned into the narrow passage which ran up beside the theatre,

passers-by would halt to watch them, thinking they had discovered a

resemblance in their faces to persons well known in stage-land. Even

Teddy felt the thrill of it, though he was loth to own it, for these

peeps behind the scenes cost him dearly; they invariably rekindled

Desire’s ambitions to be an actress. She would talk of nothing else till

midnight. The chances were that the rest of his evening would be spoilt;

that was what usually happened if he allowed himself to be coaxed into

the lady-peacock’s dressing-room. If the lady herself was before the

footlights, he would have to hear Desire talking theatrical shop with

her dresser. If she was present, he would have to sit ignored, listening

to her accepting the grossest flatteries, till he seemed to himself to

have become conspicuous by not joining in the chorus of adoration. In

the seductive insincerity of that little nest, with its striped yellow

wall-paper, its dressing-table littered with grease-paints, its frothy

display of strewn attire, its perfumed atmosphere and its professional

acceptance of the feminine form as a fact, he had spent many an

unamiable hour.

As they passed the door-keeper, Desire smiled proudly. “We’re visiting

Miss Audrey.” The man peered above his paper, recognized her and nodded.

She glanced up at Teddy merrily, “Just as if we were members of the

company.”

Breaking from him, she ran ahead up the stairs: “You wait here. I’ll let

you know if it’s all right.”

In his mind’s eye he followed her. He imagined her flitting along the

passage from which the dressing-rooms led off, on whose doors were

pinned the names of their temporary occupants. He imagined the faded

photographs of forgotten stars, gazing mournfully down on her youth from

the walls. At the far end she would pause and tap, listening like an

alert little bird for the answer. Then the door would open, and she

would vanish. She was showing Fluffy her watch-bracelet now; they were

vying with each other in their excited exclamations. He could picture it

all.

It seemed to him that she had kept him waiting a long while--a longer

time than usual. It might be only his impatience; time always hung heavy

without her. Men passed--men who belonged to the management. They

looked worried and evidently resented his presence. He returned their

resentment, feeling that they were mistaking him for a stage Johnny.

At last he determined to wait no longer. As he climbed the stairs, he

heard the muttering of voices and some one sobbing. All the doors of the

dressing-rooms were open. The passage was crowded. The entire cast was

there in their stage attire. Managers of various sorts were pushing

their way back and forth. A newspaper man was being hustled out.

Something might have happened to Desire. The disturbance was in Fluffy’s

dressing-room. He elbowed his way to the front and peered breathlessly

across the threshold.

Stretched on a couch was a slim boyish figure, in the costume of a

Tyrolese huntsman. Her face was buried in her hands, her feet twitched

one against the other and her shoulders shook with an agony of crying.

The cap which she had been wearing had been tom off and hurled into a

far corner. Her hair fell in a shining tide and gleamed in a golden pool

upon the carpet. By the side of the couch her dresser stood, wringing

her hands and imploring: “Now, Miss Audrey, this’ll never do. They’ve

sent for Mr. Freelevy. You must pull yourself together. The curtain’s

waiting to go up. It’ll be your call in a second.”

“Oh, go away--go away, all of you,” Fluffy wept “I don’t care what

happens now. Nothing matters.”

Desire was kneeling beside her with her arms about her. She was crying

too, dipping her lips into the golden hair. “Don’t, darling. You’re

breaking my heart. Tell me. It may help.”

Simon Freelevy shouldered his way into the room. He was a stout, short

man with a bald, shiny head. His hurry had made him perspire; he was

breathing heavily.

“What’s all this?” he asked angrily. “Tantrums or what?”

Fluffy sat up. She looked pitiful as a frightened child. The penciling

beneath her blue eyes made them larger than ever. She fisted her hands

against her mouth to silence her sobs.

The dresser answered. “A cable was waiting for her. She read it after

the first act It took her by surprise, sir. It was to tell her that Mr.

Overbridge had married.”

“Sensible fellow.” Simon Freelevy took one look at Fluffy. In the

quiet that had attended his entrance the roar of the impatient theatre,

clamoring for the curtain to rise, could be heard. “She can’t go on,”

he said brusquely. “She’s no more good to-night. Where’s her

understudy?--Oh, youl Good girl--you got ready. Get back into the wings

all of you.”

He drove them out like a flock of sheep, slamming the door

contemptuously behind him.

Desire turned to Teddy. “Fetch a taxi. I can’t leave her to-night We’ll

take her home to my apartment.”

As they drove through Columbus Circle the Christmas tree was illuminated

at the entrance to the Park. The happiness which it betokened provoked

another shower of tears from Fluffy. “It was cruel of him,” she wept,

“cruel of him. I always, always intended---- You know I did, little

Desire.”

She was like a hurt child; there was no consoling her. Her only relief

seemed to be derived from repeating her wrongs monotonously. She kept

appealing to Desire to confirm her assertions of the injustice that had

been done her. Desire gathered her into her arms and drew her head to

her shoulder. “Don’t cry, darling. He wasn’t worthy of you. There are

thousands more men in the world.”

As soon as they had reached the apartment Fluffy said: “Let me go

to bed. I want to cry my heart out.” In the hall as she bade Teddy

good-night, she gazed forlornly from him to Desire: “You two, you’re

very happy. You don’t know how happy. No one ever does until--until It

ends.”

He watched them down the passage. He supposed he ought to go now.

Instead, he went into the front-room and seated himself. He couldn’t

tear himself away. He was hungry for Desire. He hadn’t known that she

could be so tender. He yearned for some great calamity to befall him,

that he might see her kneeling at his side and might feel her arms about

him.

Finality was in the air. Horace’s example had startled him into facing

up to facts; perhaps it had done the same for her. He felt that this was

the psychologic crisis to which all his courtship had been leading. She

cared for him, or she wouldn’t have accepted his present. Knowing her as

he did, the very ungraciousness of her acceptance was a proof to him of

how much she cared. And now this new happening I It had darted swiftly

across their insecurity as the shadow of nemesis approaching. To-night

her lips must give him his answer. She had said: “When I kiss you,

Meester Deek, without your asking, you’ll know then.” They could drag

on no longer. It wasn’t honorable to her, to himself, to his parents--it

wasn’t fair to any of them. Like a stave of music her words sang in his

memory, “And we’re about the right height, aren’t we?”

Twinkles wandered in; seeing that he was alone and that her services

were not required, she wandered out. He got up restlessly. To kill time,

he examined the little piles of books and set them in order. He picked

up a boudoir-cap that she was making, pressing it to his lips because

her hands had touched it. He smiled fondly; even in her usefulness she

was decorative. She made boudoir-caps when buttons needed sewing on her

gloves.

Whatever he did, the eyes of Tom watched him from the photograph on the

piano. He had been hoping for months that she would remove it The eyes

watched him in malicious silence. She had told him that Tom was a sort

of brother. He had never disputed it, but he knew that no man could play

the brother for long with such a girl. He wondered if Tom had found her

lips more accessible, and whether she had ever kissed him in return.

It was getting late. Not quite the evening he had expected! Very few of

his evenings were.

At a sound he turned. She was standing in the doorway, a wrapper

clutched about her, her hair hanging long as at Glastonbury, her bare

feet peeping out from bedroom slippers. She looked half-child, half-elf.

“Oh, it’s you. I thought you’d gone--been gone for hours.”

“Gone! How could I go? We didn’t say good-night.” He lowered his voice,

copying her whisper. Everything seemed to listen in the quietness,

especially Tom’s photograph.

He approached her. If she would be only a tenth as tender to him as she

had been to Fluffy! He was quivering like a leaf. The mystic wind that

blew through him was so gentle that it could only be seen, not heard.

It seemed to fill the room with flutterings. She shook her head, tossing

her hair clear of her shoulders. He halted. Then he seized her hands.

They struggled to free themselves.

“You’re eating my heart out, Desire. I’m good for nothing. You must say

yes. If you don’t love me, you at least like me. You like me immensely,

don’t you? The other will come later.” His voice trembled with the

need of her; it was more like crying. He tried to draw her to him; she

clutched her wrap more tightly, and dodged across the threshold.

Something in him broke. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

She closed her eyes in dreamy denial. “Never?”

“How can I tell?”

“Then let me kiss you. You’ve let me do it so often. You’ll at least do

that And--and it’s so nearly Christmas.”

“You’ve kissed me so many, many times. I don’t know why I allow it.” Her

voice sounded infinitely weary.

He let go her hand. His face became ashen. “This can’t go on forever.”

“Shish! You’ll wake Fluffy.” She pressed her finger to her lip. “I know.

It can’t go on forever. Don’t let’s talk about it.”

He turned slowly, and picked up his coat and hat. “You and I can talk of

that or nothing.”

As he approached the hall, she slipped after him into the passage. With

his hand on the latch he looked back, “Then you won’t let me kiss you?”

Her expression quickened into a bewitching smile. “You silly Meester

Deek!” She glanced down at her gauzy attire. “How can I? You wouldn’t

have seen me this way if it hadn’t been for an accident. Besides,”

with a drooping of her head, “I’m so fagged; I don’t feel like kissing

to-night.”

“If you loved me,” he said vehemently, “you’d let me kiss you, anyhow.

You wouldn’t mind. You’d be glad. Why, you and I, the way we’ve been

together, we’re as good as married.”

“Not as bad as that,” she murmured drowsily.

He opened the door. At the last moment she ran forward, holding out

her hand. “You’re angry. Poor Meester Deek! You’re splendid when you’re

angry. Cheer up. There are all the to-morrows.”

He could have taken her in his arms then. He would have taken her

cruelly, crushing her to him. He feared himself. He feared the quiet. He

feared her, lest directly he relented, she would repulse him. She lifted

her hand part way to his mouth. He arrested it; it was her lips for

which he was hungry--to feel them shuddering again beneath his pressure

before love died. He hurried from her.

At last he had stirred her. He had wounded her pride. Tears gushed to

her eyes, deepening their grayness. She stood gazing after him, dumbly

reproachful.

As he entered the Brevoort the clerk handed him a letter. He glanced at

the writing; it was from his mother. He waited till he was in his room

before he tore the envelope.

“_Aren’t you ever coming home!” [he read], “It makes us feel so old,

living without you. What is it that’s keeping you? Until now I’ve not

liked to suggest it. But isn’t it a girl? It can’t be the right one,

Teddy, or you wouldn’t hide the news from your mother. When it’s the

right one a boy comes running to tell her; he knows it’ll make her glad.

But you must know it wouldn’t make me glad--so come back to where we’re

so proud of you. If you cable that you’re coming, we’ll postpone our

Christmas so that you can share it.”_

And then, in a paragraph:

“_I’ve bad news to tell you. The Sheerugs have lost all their money.

Madame Josephine died suddenly; Duke Nineveh has stolen everything

and decamped with a chorus-girl. Beauty Incorporated is exposed

and exploded. The papers say it was a swindle. This’ll affect you

financially, poor old chap_.”

CHAPTER XVIII--THE PRINCESS WHO DID NOT KNOW HER HEART

He sat with his mother’s letter in his hand--the same kind of letter

that years ago Mrs. Sheerug must have penned to Hal. If Hal had

preserved them, there must be stacks of them stowed away in the garrets

at Orchid Lodge. How selfish lovers were in the price they made others

pay! What dearly purchased happiness!

And he was becoming like Hal. He resented the comparison; but he was.

Fame and opportunity were knocking at his door. Instead of opening to

them, he sat weakly waiting for a girl who didn’t seem to care. One day

fame and opportunity would go away; when they were gone, he would

have lost his only chance of making the girl respond. If he became

great--really great--she might appreciate him.

For the first time in his dealings with Desire strategy suggested

itself. Not until Fluffy had lost Horace had she discovered that she had

a heart. If he were to leave Desire---- Fear gripped him lest, while he

was gone, some one else might claim her. The loneliness of what he would

have to face appalled him. It was a loneliness which she would share at

least in part; the habits formed from having been loved, even though she

had not loved in return, might lead her into another man’s arms.

And yet, strategy or no strategy, he would have to leave New York; he

couldn’t keep up the pace. The three hundred pounds per annum which had

come to him from Beauty Incorporated hadn’t been much; but, while it

lasted, it had seemed certain. It had been something to fall back on.

It had stood between him and poverty. His nerve was shaken. What if his

vein of fancy should run dry?

His habits of industry were already lost. He would have to go into

retreat to re-find them--go somewhere where people believed in him; then

he might retrieve his confidence. The yearning to be mothered, which the

strongest men feel at times, swept over him like a tide. He wanted

to hear himself called Teddy, as though his name was not absurd or

disgraceful--a name to be avoided with a nickname.

If he appealed to Desire one last time, would she understand--would she

be kind to him as she had been to Fluffy? He wondered--and he doubted.

If he told her of the loss of the three hundred pounds his trouble would

sound paltry. It might sound to her as though he were asking her to

restore to him the watch-bracelet. It was in her company that he had

spent so riotously; she might think that he was accusing her of having

been mercenary. She had never been that; she had given him far more in

happiness than the means of happiness had cost But he couldn’t

conceive of being in her company and refraining from extravagance. Her

personality made recklessness contagious; it acted like strong wine,

diminishing both the future and the past, till the present became of

total importance.

There was a phrase in his mother’s letter which brought an unreasonable

warmth to his heart: “Come back to where we feel so proud of you.” It

was a long while since any one had felt proud of him. But how had she

guessed that? He had poured out his admiration. He had been so selfless

in his adoration that he had sometimes fancied that he had been despised

for it. He had almost come to believe that there was an unpleasantness

in his appearance or a taint in his character which the love-blind eyes

of Eden Row had failed to discover. Desire seemed most conscious of it

when he stood in the light. It was only in the dusk of cabs and taxis

that she almost forgot it. Sometimes she seemed morbidly aware of this

defect; then she would say in a weary little voice, “I don’t feel like

kissing to-night.”

Humiliation was enervating his talent. He was losing faith in his own

worth--the faith so necessary to an artist. Desire said that it was

“soft” of him to want her to be proud of him. Perhaps it was. But if she

ought not to be proud of him, who ought?

He would have been content with much less than her pride--if only, when

others were present, she had not ignored him. Her friends unconsciously

imitated her example. They passed him over and chattered about trifles.

Their conversations were a shallow exchange of words in which, when

every nerve in his body was emotionalized, it was impossible for him to

take part. He showed continually at a disadvantage. They none of them

had the curiosity to inquire why he was there or who he was. He felt

that behind his back they must smile at Desire’s treatment of him.

It would be good to get back to people who frankly reciprocated his

pride--to artist father with his lofty ideals, who went marching through

life with all his bands playing, never halting for spurious success to

overtake him. It would be good to get back, and yet----

She had worked herself into his blood. She was a disease for which she

herself was the only cure. Without the hope of seeing her his future

would lose its sight. Up till now the short nightly partings had been

agonies, which called for many kisses to dull their pain. When absent

from her, he had made haste to sleep, that oblivion might bridge the

gulf of separation. To have to face interminable days which would bring

no promise of her girlish presence, seemed worse than death. If he

returned to England, what certainty would he have that they would ever

meet again?

He stung himself into shame by remembering what weakness had done for

Hal. Hal would form a link between them, when every other means of

communication had failed.

The wildness of his panic abated. He urged himself to be strong. If he

went on as he was going now, he would bankrupt his life. To-morrow he

would plead with her.

If she still procrastinated, then the only way to draw her nearer would

be to go from her. The horror of parting confronted him again. He closed

his eyes to shut it out. He would decide nothing to-night.

Next morning he phoned her at the usual time. She was still sleeping; he

left a request that she should call him. He waited till twelve. At last

he grew impatient and phoned her again. He was told that she had gone

out with Fluffy, leaving word that he would hear from her later. By

three o’clock he had not heard. All day he had been kept at high tension

on the listen. The cavalierness of her conduct roused his indignation.

Her punishment was out of all proportion to his offense, especially

after the way in which she had received the watch-bracelet A month

ago he would have hurried out to send her a peace-offering of flowers.

To-day he hurried out on a different errand.

Jumping on a bus, he rode up Fifth Avenue and alighted at The

International Sleeping Car Company. Entering swiftly, for fear his

resolution should forsake him, he booked a berth on the _Mauretania_,

sailing on Christmas Eve, the next night. He hesitated as to whether

he should send his mother a cable; he determined to postpone that final

step. He had booked and canceled a berth before. He tried to believe

that he was no more serious now than on that occasion. He was only

proving to himself and to her his supreme earnestness. ‘If she gave him

any encouragement, even though she didn’t definitely promise to marry

him, he would postpone his sailing.

He wandered out into the streets. Floating like gold and silver tulips

on the dusk, lights had sprung up. Crowds surged by merrily; all their

talk was of Christmas. The look of Christmas was in their faces. Girls

hung on the arms of men. Everywhere he saw lovers: they swayed along

the pavement as though they were one; they snuggled in hansoms, sitting

close together; they fled by in taxis, wraithlike in the darkness,

fleeting as the emotion they expressed. He knew all their secrets, all

their thoughts: how men’s hands groped into muffs to squeeze slender

fingers; how the fingers lay quiet, pretending they were numb; how

speech became incoherent, and faces drooped together. He listened to the

lisp of footsteps--all going somewhere to sorrow or happiness. How many

lovers would meet in New York to-night! He felt stunned. His heart ached

intolerably.

In sheer aimlessness he strolled into the Waldorf and hovered by the

pillar from which he had so often watched to see her come. To see her

approaching now he would give a year of his life. She would be wearing

her white-fox furs and the little tweed suit he had given her. The fur

rubbed off on his sleeves; it told many tales.

His resolution was weakening every minute; soon it would be impossible

to leave her--even to pretend he had thought of leaving her.

He must keep his mind occupied; must go to some place which held no

associations. Sauntering along Thirty-fourth Street, he passed by the

Beauty Parlor where she went, as she said, “to be glorified.” He passed

the shop to which he had gone with her to buy the earliest of his more

personal gifts, the dozen silk stockings. Foolish recollections, full of

poignancy! He crossed Broadway beneath the crashing Elevated. Gimbel’s

at least would leave him unreminded; she despised any store which was

not on Fifth Avenue. He had drifted through several departments, when

he was startled by a voice. He turned as though he had been struck. A

salesman, demonstrating a gramophone, had chosen the record of _Absent_

for the purpose. He stood tensely, listening to the tenor wail that came

from the impersonal instrument:

“Thinking I see you--thinking I see you smile.”

It was the last straw. His pride was broken. What did it matter whether

she cared? The terrible reality was his need of her. He made a dash for

the nearest pay-station and rang her up.

A man answered. He wasn’t Mr. Dak. “Who? Mr. Gurney? Hold the line. I’ll

call her.---- Little D., here’s your latest. Hurry!”

He heard Desire’s tripping footsteps in the passage and her reproving

whisper to her companion, “You had no right to do that.” Then her clear

voice, thrilling him even at that distance: “Hulloa, Bright Eyes! I’ve

just this minute got home. Did you get my wire?--You didn’t! But you

must have. I sent it after you left last night.--Humph! That’s what

comes of staying at these cheap hotels. You’d better ask the clerk at

the desk.--Oh, you’re not at the Brevoort. At Gimbel’s! What are you

doing there? Buying me another watch-bracelet? Never mind, tell

me presently.--No, I’m not going to tell you what was in the

telegram.--What’s that?”

He had asked who was with her.

“Naturally I can’t answer,” she said; “not now--later. You understand

why.--Of course you can come. Hurry! I’m dying to see you. By-by.”

He had been conscious, while she was speaking, that her conversation was

framed quite as much for the other man’s mystification as for his own.

There had been a tantalizing remoteness in her tones. But what man had

the privilege to call her “Little D.”? He remembered now that, when he

had done it, an annoyed look of remembrance had crept into her eyes.

Life had become worth living again. The madness was on him to spend, to

be gay, to atone. On his way uptown he went into Maillard’s to buy her

a box of her favorite caramels. He stopped at Thorley’s and purchased

a corsage of orchids. He was allowing her to twist him round her little

finger. He confessed it. But what did anything matter? He was going to

her. Life had become radiantly happy. He no longer had to eye passing

lovers with envy. He was of their company and glorified.

When he had pressed the button of the apartment, he was kept

waiting--kept waiting so long that he rang twice. On the other side

Twinkles was barking furiously; then he heard the soft swish of

approaching garments. The door opened. Through the crack he could just

make out her face.

“Don’t come in till I hide,” she warned him in a whisper. “Every

one’s out, except me and Twinkles. I’m halfway through dressing.” She

retreated, leaving the door ajar. When she had fled across the hall into

the passage, she called to him, “You may enter.”

He closed the door and listened in the discreet silence. She was in her

bedroom. She had made a great secret of her little nest. She had told

him about the pictures on the walls, the Japanese garden in the window,

and the queer things she saw from the window when she spied across the

air-shaft on her neighbors. She had a child’s genius for disguising the

commonplace with glamour. Of this the name she had given him, which was

known to no one but her and himself, was an example. She made every hour

that he had not shared with her bristle with mysteries by sly allusions

to what had happened in it Her bedroom was a forbidden spot; she deigned

to describe it to him and left his imagination to do the rest. In

his lover’s craving to picture her in all her environments--to be in

ignorance of nothing that concerned her--he had often begged her to let

him peep across the threshold. She had invariably denied him, putting on

her most shocked expression.

He walked into the front-room; it was littered with presents, received

and to be given, and their torn wrappings.

She heard him. “You mustn’t go in there,” she called.

“Then where am I to go?”

“Bother. I don’t know. You can stand in the passage and talk to me if

you like.”

For a quarter of an hour he leant against the wall, facing her closed

door. While they exchanged remarks he judged her progress by sounds.

Sometimes she informed him as to their meaning. “It’s my powder-box that

I’m opening now.--What you heard then was the stopper of my Mary Garden

bottle.--Shan’t be long. Why don’t you smoke?”

He didn’t want to smoke, but when she asked him a second time, her

question had become an imperative.

Her voice reached him muffled; by the rustling she must be slipping on

her skirt. “I’m keeping you an awfully long while, Meester Deek; you’re

very patient.” There was a lengthy pause. Then: “Of course it isn’t done

in the best families, but we’re different and, anyhow, nobody’ll know.

I’ve drawn down the shades.--If you promise to be good, you can come

inside.”

She was seated at her dressing-table before the mirror, adjusting her

broad-brimmed velvet hat.

“Hulloa!” She did not turn, but let her reflection do the welcoming. “I

haven’t allowed many gentlemen to come in here.” She seemed to be saying

it lest he should think himself too highly flattered.

He bent across her shoulder, asking permission by his silence.

“You may take a nice Christmas kiss, if that’s what you’re after. Just

one.”

He brushed her cool cheek, the unresponsive cheek of an obedient child.

Her arms curved up to her head like the fine handles of a fragile vase.

She proceeded quietly with the pinning of her hat. His arms went about

her passionately. His action was unplanned. He was on his knees beside

her, clutching her to him and kissing the hands which strove to push him

from her. When his lips sought hers, she turned her face aside so that

he could only reach the merest corner of her mouth. So she lay for

some seconds, her face averted, till her motionlessness had quelled his

emotion.

She laughed, freeing herself from his embrace. “Oh, Meester Deek,” she

whispered softly, “and when I wasn’t wearing any corsets! Now let me go

on with the pinning of my hat.”

He filled in the awkward silence by placing the corsage of orchids

in her lap. Before she thanked him, she tried them at various angles

against her breast, studying their effect in the mirror. Then she

whispered reproachfully:

“Aren’t you extravagant? Money does burn holes in your pocket. You ought

to give it to some one to take care of for you.”

There was no free chair. The room was strewn with odds and ends of

clothing as though a cyclone had blown through it He seated himself on

the edge of the white bed and glanced about him. On the dressing-table

in a silver frame was a photograph of Tom. On the wall, in a line above

the bed, were four more of him. Vaguely he began to guess why she had

made such a secret of her bedroom, and why she had let him see it at

this stage in his courtship. Jealousy smoldered like a sullen spark; it

sprang into a flame which tortured and consumed him.

What right had this man to watch her? Why should she wish to have him

watch?

He threw contempt on his jealousy. It made him feel brutal. But it had

burnt long enough to harden his resolve.

She rose and picked up her jacket. “D’you want to help me?”

He took it from her without alacrity. As he guided her arms into the

sleeves, she murmured: “Why were you so naughty last night, Meester

Deek? You almost made me cross, I was so upset and tired. You weren’t

kind.” Then, with a flickering uplifting of her lashes, “But I’m not

tired any longer.”

She waited expectant. Nothing happened. She picked up a hand-mirror,

surveying the back of her neck and giving her rebellious little curl a

final pat, as though bidding it be careful of its manners. In laying it

down she contrived to hold the glass so as to get a glimpse of his face

across her shoulder. Her expression stiffened. As if he were not there,

she swept over to the door, switched off the light and left him to

follow.

He found her in the front-room. She had unwrapped a pot of azaleas and

was clearing a space to set it on the table.

“Tom brought me this,” she explained in a preoccupied tone. “He was

waiting for me when I got back. It was Tom who answered the phone when

you called me. Kind of him to remember me, wasn’t it?”

“Very kind.”

“You don’t need to agree if you don’t really think so.” She spoke

petulantly, with her back toward him. “Even a plant means a lot to some

people. Tom’s only an actor. He’s not a rich author to whom money means

nothing.”

“And I’m not.”

“Well, you act like it.”

She had found that the bottom of the pot was wet and walked out of the

room to fetch a plate before setting it on the table. While she was

gone, he groped after the deep-down cause of her annoyance.

“Did you really send me a telegram?” he asked the moment she reentered.

“You’ve never caught me fibbing yet. I’ve been careful. Why d’you doubt

it?”

“I thought you might have said it--well, just for something to say.

Perhaps because you were embarrassed, or to make Tom jealous.”

“Embarrassed! Why embarrassed? Tom’s an old friend. I must say you have

a high opinion of me. It strikes me Mrs. Theodore Gurney’s going to have

a rough time.”

There was a dead silence. She pivoted slowly and captured both his

hands. Dragging him to the couch, she made him sit beside her. In

the sudden transition of her moods, her face had become as young and

mischievous with smiles as before it had been elderly and cross.

“Well, Meester Deek, haven’t you anything to say? Don’t you like me

better now?” She dived to within an inch of his face as though she were

about to kiss him, and there stopped short, laughing into his eyes. When

he made no response, she became tensely grave. “I can be a little cat

sometimes, and yet you want to live with me all your life. I should

think you’d get sick of me. I’m very honest to let you see what I

really am.” She said this with a wise shake of her head and an air of

self-congratulation. “But you’re a beast, too, when you’re offended.”

She stooped and kissed his hand. “The first time I’ve ever done that,”

she murmured, “to you or any man. Haven’t we gone far enough with our

quarreling?”

“I think we have.”

“But you’ve not forgiven me?--Well, I’ll tell you, and then you’ll ask

my pardon.” She moved away from him to the other end of the couch. “I’ve

really been very sweet to you all the time and you haven’t known it.

Last night we were both stupid; I was upset. I don’t know which of us

was the worst. But after you’d gone I was sorry, and I dressed, and I

went out all alone at midnight to send you a telegram so you’d know that

I was sorry directly you woke in the morning. It wasn’t my fault that

you didn’t get it. And then about to-day--you’re angry because I didn’t

call you up. It was because I was looking after your Christmas present.

And when you came here all glum and sulky I let you see my bedroom. And

now I’ve kissed your hand. Isn’t that enough?”

She was turning all the tables on him. “Let’s be friends,” he said.

When he slipped his arm about her, she flinched. “Mind my flowers. Don’t

crush them. You must first say that you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry. Terribly sorry.”

“All right, then. But you did hurt me last night when--when you went

away like that.”

“But you often let me go away like that.”

She held up a finger. “You’re starting again.”

She rose and walked over to a pile of parcels which were lying on the

piano. As he watched her, the thought of Tom came back. She hadn’t

explained those photographs; his pride wouldn’t permit him to ask her.

“You’re not very curious, Meester Deek. Why d’you think I kept you

waiting in the passage and wouldn’t let you come in here? I was afraid

you might see something. I’ll let you see it now.”

She was leaning against the piano. He went and stood beside her. She

moved nearer so that her hair swept his cheek like a caress. “Do you

like it?” She placed a miniature of herself done on ivory in his hand.

“Better than the poor little tin-type portrait that faded!”

“For me?” he asked incredulously.

“Who else? No, listen before you thank me. I thought they’d never get it

done. They’ve been weeks over it. All day I’ve been hurrying them. Now,

won’t you own that you have been misunderstanding?”

“I’ve been an unjust idiot.”

“Not so bad as that. And I’m not so bad, either, if you only knew----

Now I’ll put on your bracelet Did you notice that I wasn’t wearing it?”

“Why weren’t you?”

The babies came into her eyes. “You’ve had a narrow escape. If you

hadn’t been nice, I was going to have given it back to you. Let’s fetch

it. You can fasten it on for me.”

From the steps of the apartment-house they hailed a hansom, and drove

through the winking night to the Claremont. “‘So, honey, jest play

in your own backyard,” she sang. When she found that she couldn’t

intimidate him, she started on another fragment, filling in the gaps

with humming when she forgot the words:

“Oh, you beautiful girl,

What a beautiful girl you are!

You’ve made my dreams come true to me----”

“Sounds as though I were praising myself, doesn’t it? Don’t come so

near, Meester Deek; every time you hug me you carry away so much of my

little white foxes. ‘Beware of the foxes, the little foxes that spoil

the something or other.’ Didn’t some one once say that? I wish you’d

beware; soon there won’t be any fur left.”

While she went to the lady’s room to see whether her appearance had

suffered under his kisses, he engaged a table in a corner, overlooking

the Hudson.

Towards the end of the meal, when she was finishing an ice and he was

lighting a cigar, a silence fell between them. She sat back with her

eyes partly closed and her body relaxed. Up to that moment she had been

daringly vivacious. He had learnt to fear her high spirits and fits

of niceness. They came in gusts; they always had to be paid for with

periods of languor.

“What are you thinking?” he asked. “Something sad, I’ll warrant.”

“Fluffy.” She glanced across at him, appealing for his patience.

“How is she?” He tried to humor her with a display of interest

“She’s broken up. She’s been speaking to Simon Freelevy. She absolutely

refuses to go on playing in New York; it’s too full of memories. So it’s

all arranged; she’s going to California in the New Year with a

road-company.”

He understood her depression now. If Fluffy was leaving New York, this

was his chance. Somehow or other he must manage to hang on. He was glad

he had not sent that cable to his mother.

“That’s hard lines on you.” He sank his voice sympathetically. “You’ll

miss her awfully.”

Desire woke up and became busy with what remained of her ice. “I shan’t.

She wants me to go with her. It’ll do me good.” Then coaxingly, as

though she were asking his permission, “I’ve never been to California.”

The heat drained from him. He paused, giving himself time to grow

steady. If he counted for so little, she shouldn’t guess his bitter

disappointment. “But will you leave your mother? I should think she’ll

be frightfully lonely.”

“My beautiful mother’s so unselfish.”

“But----”

“Well?”

They gazed at each other. He wondered whether she was only playing with

him--whether she had only said it that he might amuse her with a storm

of protests.

“You were going to ask about yourself?” she suggested. “I’ve thought

all that out. You and mother can come and join us somewhere. There’s

splendid riding out West. I’ve always wanted to ride. It would be fine

to go flying along together if--if you were there.”

He didn’t understand this girl, who could give him ivory miniatures

one minute and propose to go away for months the next--who, while she

refused to become anything to him, undertook to arrange his life.

He laughed tolerantly. “I’m afraid that can’t be. I shouldn’t accomplish

much by tagging after a road-company all across a continent. You don’t

seem to realize that I have a living to earn.”

“That was a nasty laugh,” she pouted; “I didn’t like it one little bit.”

She played with his fingers idly, lifting them up and letting them fall,

like soldiers marking time. “You manicure them now. You’ve learnt

something by coming to America---- Your living!” She smiled. “It seems

to come easily enough. I hear you talk about it, but I never see you

working.”

Here was the opening for which he had been waiting. “You’re right. I’ve

hardly done a stroke since I landed. Winning you has taken all my time.”

“Has it?” She glanced round the room dreamily, making confidences

impossible by her lack of enthusiasm.

He got up. “Shall we go back to the apartment? We can talk better

there.”

She lounged to her feet. “If you’ll promise not to worry me. I’ve gone

through too much to-day already.”

He knew the meaning of her fatigue; once more she was barricading

herself. He was doubly sure of it when he saw her open her vanity-case

and produce a veil. A veil was a means of protection which, above all

others, he detested. “Don’t put that thing on.”

“I must. It’ll keep the wind off. I don’t like getting chapped.”

On the drive back she sat rigid with her hand before her eyes, as though

she slept. It seemed to him that he had not advanced a pace since the

ride to Long Beach; the only difference was that his arm encircled her.

She paid so little heed to it that he withdrew it. She gave no sign that

she noticed its withdrawal. It was only when they were halting that she

came to herself with a drowsy yawn. Leaning against his shoulder for

a second, she peered up at him with mock regret: “And to think that my

head might have been resting there all the time!”

It was plain that she didn’t want him to come up. In the foyer she held

out her hand. When he did not take it, she lowered her eyes: “I’m sorry.

I thought you were going.”

After the elevator had left them, she stood outside the door and

carefully removed her veil. It was a frank invitation to him to kiss her

and say good-by. He did neither. She drew the palms of her hands across

her eyes. “I ought to go to bed.--You are a sticker. Well, if you won’t

go, just for a little while.”

She produced the key from her vanity-case. He took it from her and

slipped it into the latch. Only Twinkles was at home. For Twinkles she

mustered the energy for a display of fun-making. Romping with the dog

revived her.

“Take the nice gentleman in there,” she said, “while mistress makes

herself beautiful. Mistress can’t allow the same gentleman, however

pleasant, to come into her bedroom twice.”

He didn’t feel flippant. He was quivering with earnestness. While he

waited among the litter of presents and paper he tried to master his

emotion. He knew that if he once got to touching and kissing her,

he would go out of the door with matters as undecided as when he had

entered.

She drifted into the room rubbing her hands. “Been putting scent on

them,” she explained, holding out to him her smooth little palms. “Don’t

they smell nice?”

He didn’t kiss them. He didn’t dare. She gave him a puzzled look of

inquiry; then showed him her back and became absorbed in gathering up

the scattered papers. When several minutes of silence had elapsed, she

turned.

“I’m not going to quarrel with you, if that’s what you want You’d have

been wise to have said good-night to me downstairs. If you’ve really got

something on your mind, for Heaven’s sake get it off.”

“It’s difficult and you don’t help me.”

She tossed her head impatiently. “You make me tired. It isn’t a girl’s

place to help.”

Seating herself on the floor, with her legs curled about her and her

ankles peeping out from under her skirt, she began to wrap up presents.

“Please be nice,” she implored him in a little voice, “because I really

do like you. Sit down here beside me and put your finger on the knots,

so that I can tie them.”

He sat down opposite to her. That wasn’t quite what she had intended.

She made a mischievous face at him.

“It isn’t a question of being nice,” he said quietly; “it’s a question

of being honest. I’ve booked my berth on the _Mauretania_ for to-morrow

night.”

She gave a scarcely perceptible start. When she spoke, it was without

raising her eyes. “You did that once before. You can’t play the same

trick twice.”

“It isn’t a trick this time.”

She eyed him cloudily, still persuaded that it was. “Are you saying that

because of what I told you about going to California? I thought you were

too big and splendid to return tit for tat.”

“It isn’t tit for tat I booked this afternoon, before I knew about

California.”

She gave her shoulders a shrug of annoyance. “Well, you know your

business best.”

“I don’t; that’s why I’m telling you. I’m not being unkind. My business

may be yours.”

At last she took him seriously. “I don’t see how it can be; you’d better

explain. But first tell me: are you trying to imitate Horace? Because if

you are, it won’t work.”

“I’m not.”

“Then light me a cigarette and let’s be sensible.”

Seated on the floor in the dim-lit room, with the Christmas presents

strewn around, he told her. The first part was the old story of how he

had dreamt about her from a child.

“You know that’s true, Princess?”

“And I’ve dreamt about you,” she nodded. “You were my faery-story.”

“Then why----”

“You tell me first.”

So he told her: told her how she had pained him in England by her

silence; told her what her words “Come to America” had implied;

described to her the expectations with which he had set sail; the

disappointment when on landing he had found that she was absent; and

then the growing heartache that had come to him while she trifled with

him. He spared her nothing. “And you act as if my loving bored you,” he

said; “and yet, if I take you at your word, you’re petulant May I speak

about money now? I know how you hate me to talk of it---- And you won’t

misunderstand?”

She gave her silent consent.

“I can’t afford to live in New York any longer. Last night there was a

letter waiting for me. It told me that my only certain source of income

was lost. It told me a whole lot besides; they’re lonely and promise to

postpone Christmas if I’ll cable them that I’m coming.”

“Have you cabled?”

He shook his head.

“You must. Your poor little mother,” she murmured.

“You’d love my mother,” he said eagerly, “and my father, too. The moment

he clapped eyes on you he’d want to paint you.”

“Would he? And after I’d taken you from him?” She screwed up her mouth

in denial and crushed out the stub of her cigarette against her heel.

It seemed the symbol of things ended. “You were telling me about the

letter. What else?”

“That’s all. But you see, I’ve got nothing now except what I earn. And

when my mind’s distracted---- It’s---- You don’t mind my saying it, do

you? It’s waiting for you that’s done it. My power seems gone. If only

I were sure of you and that you’d be to me always as you are now, I’d be

strong to do anything.”

She had been fidgeting with her bracelet. When he had ended, she

commenced to slip it off. “And it was the day that you lost everything

that you were most generous. And I didn’t thank you properly, like the

little pig I am. Teddy, please don’t be offended, but I’d so much rather

you----”

He pressed his lips against the slim wrist that she held out. “Please

don’t. It would hurt me most awfully.”

“And it makes me feel guilty to keep it,” she pouted.

They sat holding hands, gazing at each other. In the silence, without

the fever of caresses, he had come nearer to her than at any previous

moment. They were two children who had experimented with things they did

not understand, and were a little frightened at what had happened and a

little glad.

“You called me Teddy just now,” he whispered. “It’s the third time.”

She smiled at him with a flicker of her old wickedness. “I didn’t intend

to. It slipped out because--because I was so unhappy.”

“But you needn’t be unhappy. Neither of us need be unhappy. Everything’s

in our own hands. I’d work for you, Desire. I’d become famous for you.

We’d live life splendidly. The way we’ve been living is stupid and

wasteful; it doesn’t lead anywhere. If you’d marry me and come back with

me----”

“To-morrow?” she questioned. “Meester Deek, you didn’t go and book two

berths? You weren’t as foolish as that?”

He sought her lips. She turned her face ever so slightly, as though

apologizing for a necessary unkindness! His look of disappointment

brought tears to her eyes. She stroked his cheek gently in atonement.

“You weren’t as foolish as that?”

He hung his head. “No, I wasn’t: I wish I had been, and I would be if

you----”

She stared beyond him, watching pictures form and dissolve before her

inward eyes.

“We could sail to-morrow,” he urged her; “or wait till after Christmas.

I’d wait for you for years if you’d only say that some day---- Can’t we

at least be engaged?”

“Don’t wait,” she whispered.

“But I shall wait always--always. I shall never love any one but you.”

“They all say that.”

A key grated in the latch. She didn’t snatch away her hand the way she

would have done formerly. She sat motionless, courting discovery.

They heard Vashti’s voice, bidding some man good-night. The door shut.

Glancing in on them in passing, she pretended to be unaware of what was

happening. “I’m going straight to bed. You don’t mind if I don’t stay to

talk with you? I’m tired.”

The quiet settled down. Desire crept closer. They had been sitting

facing. “I guess you’re badly hurt. You thought that all girls wanted

to get married, and to have little babies and a kind man to take care of

them.” When he tried to answer her, she placed her hand upon his mouth.

He held it there with his own, as though it had been a flower.

“I’m glad we got mad,” she whispered; “it’s made us real. It’s nice to

be real sometimes. But I don’t know what to say to you--what to do to

you. I haven’t played fair. At first I thought you were like all the

rest. I know I’m responsible.”

She snuggled up to him like a weary child. “I’m at the

cross-roads.--Don’t kiss me--you put me out when you do that. Just put

your arms about me so that I feel safe. I--I want to tell you.”

“Then tell me, Princess.”

“I’m two persons. There’s the me that I am now, and the other me that’s

horrid.”

“I love them both.”

“You don’t. The me that’s horrid is a spiteful little cat, and I may

become the horrid me at any moment Meester Dèek, you’d have to marry

us both. I’m not a restful person at the best. I can never say the kind

things that I feel. Most of the time I ought to be whipped and shaken. I

suppose if I fell really in love it might be different.”

“Then fall really in love.”

She seemed to ponder his advice. “My love’s such a feeble little

trickle. Yours is so deep and wide; mine would be lost in it And yet I

do like you. I speak to you the way I speak to no other man. I could go

on speaking to you forever. If I’d seen as much of any other man, he’d

have bored me long ago.”

“And isn’t that just saying that you do love me?”

“Perhaps.” Her head stirred against his shoulder. Then: “No. That’s only

saying that you’ve not found fault with me and that you’ve let me be

selfish. You need some one who’ll be to you what your mother has been

to your father. I’ll hate her when you find her; but, oh, Meester Deek,

there are heaps of better girls in the world. I can’t cook, can’t sew,

can’t even be agreeable very often. I want to live, and make mistakes,

and then experiment afresh.--Perhaps I don’t know what I want. I feel

more than friendship for you, but much less than love, because if it

were love, it would stop at nothing. Oh, I know, though you don’t think

it. Perhaps one day, when I’m older and wiser, I’ll look back and regret

to-night. But I’m not going to let you spoil your life.”

“You’d make it.”

“Spoil it.”

She released herself from him. He helped her to rise.

“I’ve at least been an education for your soul. Do say it. I haven’t

done you nothing but harm, have I?”

His emotion choked him.

She came and leant her forehead against his shoulder. “Do say it. Have

I?”

“You darling kiddy, you’ve been the best thing that ever happened to

me.”

“I have my own little religion,” she whispered. “I shall say a prayer

for you to-night.”

“Will you pray that one day you may be my wife?”

She was silent. They moved together as in a trance towards the door. He

was remembering what she had said it would mean if she kissed him

without his asking. He was hoping. She accompanied him to the head of

the stairs. Suddenly his will-power gave way. “I’m not going. You don’t

think I’m going after to-night? You’ve shown me so much that---- Desire,

I can’t live without you.”

She took his face between her hands. “You must go. If you don’t, it’ll

be all the same. You’ve told me things, too. I’m hindering your work.

After what you’ve told me, I would refuse to see you if you stayed.

Perhaps it’s only for a little while. I may marry you some day. Who

knows? And I wouldn’t want your mother to hate me.”

They clung together in silence.

“We’ll write often?”

“Yes, often.”

“And to-morrow?”

“Phone me in the morning.”

He thought she had repeated the phrase from habit. “My last day,” he

pleaded.

“Phone me in the morning,” she reiterated.

He had said good-by; she was waving to him across the rail. He was

nearly out of sight. He turned and came bounding back.

“What is it? I can’t keep brave if you make me go through it twice.”

He caught her to him. “Give me your lips,” he panted.

She averted her face.

His arms fell from her. “I thought not,” he whispered brokenly.

He had begun to descend. At the last moment she stooped. Her lips

fluttered against his own; they neither kissed nor returned his

pressure. She fled from him trembling across the threshold. The door

shut with a bang. He waited to see her come stealing out. He was left

alone with her memory.

On returning to the Brevoort he inquired for her telegram. At first

he was told that none had arrived. He insisted. After a search it was

discovered tucked away in the wrong pigeon-hole. Paying no heed to the

clerk’s apologies, he slit the envelope and read:

“Forgive me. I’m sorry. Desire”

If only he had received it earlier! If only it had been brought to his

bedside in the morning, what a difference it would have made! She would

never have known that he had thought of going. She would have heard

nothing about her hindering his work. She would have been ignorant of

his money embarrassments. He couldn’t unsay anything now. It was as

though a force, stronger than himself, had conspired to drive him to

this crisis. He saw her in his mind’s eye, slipping out at midnight to

send him that message. His tenderness magnified her kindness and clothed

her with pathos. The unkindness of the thoughts he had had of her that

day rose up like conscience to reproach him. From the first he had

misjudged her. He had always misjudged her. He forgot all her omissions,

remembering only her periods of graciousness.

He didn’t send the cable to his mother. He went upstairs and commenced

packing. It was only a precaution, he told himself; he wasn’t really

going. To-morrow they would cease to be serious and would laugh about

to-night.

When to-morrow came, he phoned her. Vashti answered. “She didn’t sleep

here, Teddy. She left half-an-hour after you left; she made me promise

not to tell you where she was going.--She was crying. She said she was

sure you hated her or that you would hate her one day.--What’s that?

No. I think you’re doing right I should advise you to sail. It’ll do her

good to miss you.--Yes, if she comes in, I’ll tell her.”

When he had seen his boxes put on the express-wagon, it began to dawn

on him that he was doing things for the last time. He still told himself

that he wasn’t going. He still procrastinated over sending the cable.

Yet he proceeded mechanically with preparations for departure. He saw

his publisher. He interviewed magazine-editors. He promised to execute

work in the near future. He lunched at the Astor by himself, at a table

across which he had often faced her. The waiter showed concern at seeing

him alone and made discreet inquiries after “Madame.” Wherever he turned

he saw girls with young men. The orchestra played rag-time tunes that

they had hummed together. Every sight and sound was a reminder. The

gayety burlesqued his unhappiness.

After lunch he had an inspiration: of course she was at Fluffy’s. He

felt certain that he had only to talk with her to put matters right.

Fluffy was out. It was her maid’s voice that answered; she professed to

know nothing of the movements of Miss Jodrell.

Night gathered--the night before Christmas with its intangible

atmosphere of legendary excitements. All the world over stockings were

being hung at the ends of beds and children were listening for Santa

Claus’s reindeers. Cafés and restaurants were thronged with men and

women in evening-dress. Taxis purred up before flashing doorways and

girls stepped out daintily. Orchestras were crashing out syncopated

music. In cleared spaces, between tables, dancers glided. If he hadn’t

been so wise, he might have been one of them.

Slowly, like pirouetting faeries, snowflakes drifted gleaming down the

dusk. It was the first snow since that memorable flight to the country.

The pain of his loneliness was more than he could bear. There was no use

in telephoning. Perhaps she had been at home all the time and had given

orders that people should say she was out. Quite likely! But why? Why

should she avoid him? She seemed to have been so near to loving him last

night. What had she meant by telling her mother that he hated her or

would hate her one day? He had said and done nothing that would hint

at that The idea that he should ever hate her was absurd. Perhaps the

“horrid me” had got the upper-hand--that would account for it.

Eight o’clock! Four more hours! At midnight the ship sailed.

He hurried to the apartment in Riverside Drive. The elevator-boys told

him that the ladies were out. He refused to believe them and insisted

on being taken up. He knocked at the door and pressed the button. Dead

silence. Even Twinkles didn’t answer.

He was seized with panic. They might have gone to the Brevoort,

expecting to say good-by to him there. He rushed back.. No one had

inquired for him. The laughter of merry-makers in the white-mirrored

dining-room was a mockery. He hid himself in his room upstairs--his room

which would be a stranger’s to-morrow.

Nine! Ten! He sat with his head between his hands. He kept counting from

one to a hundred, encouraging himself that the telephone would tinkle

before he had completed the century. It did once--a wrong number. He

attempted to get on to both the apartment and Fluffy’s a score of times.

“They’re out--out--out.” The answer came back with maddening regularity.

The telephone operators recognized his anxious voice; they cut him

off, as though he were a troublesome child, before he had completed his

question.

He grew ashamed. At last he grew angry. It wasn’t decent of Desire. He

had given her no excuse for the way she was acting.

He pulled out his watch. Nearly eleven! Slipping into his coat and

picking up his bag, he glanced round the room for the last time.

What interminable hours he had wasted there--waiting for her, finding

explanations for her, cutting cards to discover by necromancy whether

she would marry him! With a sigh that was almost of relief, he opened

the door and switched off the light.

While his bill was being receipted at the desk, he wrote out a cable to

his mother:

“_Sailing Christmas Eve. ’Mauretania_”

It would reach them as they were sitting down to breakfast to-morrow--a

kind of Christmas present.

At last he had made the step final. He wondered how far he had

paralleled Hal. The comparison should end at this point; he had better

things to do than to mope away his life.

On arriving at the dock he inquired for letters. He was informed that he

would find them on board at the Purser’s office. A long queue of people

was drawn up. He took his place impatiently at the end. He told himself

that this episode was ended; that from first to last his share had been

undignified. Doubtless he would marry her some day; but until she was

ready, he would not think about her. He thought of nothing else. Each

time the line moved up his heart gave a thump. There might be one from

her. He became sure there was one from her. A man named Godfrey, two

places ahead, was being served. As the G’s were sorted, he watched

sharply; he made certain he had seen a letter in her hand.

At last it was his turn.

“You have a letter for me. Theodore Gurney.”

A minute’s silence.

“Nothing, sir.”

“But are you sure? I thought I saw one.”

“I’ll look again if you like.--Nothing.”

He staggered as he walked away. His face was set and white. An old lady

touched him gently. “Is the news so bad?”

He shook off her kindness and laughed throatily. “News I No, it’s

nothing.”

He felt ill and unmanned. Tears tingled behind his eyes. He refused to

shed them. They seemed to scald his brain. He didn’t care whether he

lived or died. He’d given so much; he’d planned such kindness; he’d

dreamed with such persistent courage. The thanks he had received was

“Nothing.”

He found his way out on deck and leant across the rail. A gang-plank had

been lowered to his right. Passengers came swarming up it, laughing with

their friends--diners from Broadway who were speeding the parting guest.

Some of them seemed to be dancing; the rhythm of the rag-time was

in their steps. For the most part they were in evening-dress. The

opera-cloaks and wraps of women flew back, exposing their throats and

breasts. He twisted his mouth into a bitter smile. They employed their

breasts for ornament, not for motherhood. They were all alike.

He had lost count of time while standing there. His eyes brooded

sullenly through the drifting snow on the sullen water and the broken

lights. Shouted warnings that the ship was about to sail were growing

rare. The tardiest of the visitors were being hurried down the

gang-plank. Sailors stood ready to cast away and put up the rail.

There was a commotion. Hazily he became aware of it A girl had

become hysterical. She seemed alone; which was odd, for she was in

evening-dress. She was explaining, almost crying, and wringing her

hands. She was doing her best to force her way on deck; a steward and a

man in uniform were turning her back.

Suddenly he realized. He was fighting towards her through the crowd. He

had his hand on the steward’s shoulder. “Damn you. Don’t touch her.”

The ship’s eyes were on them. His arms went about her.

“I couldn’t stop away,” she whispered. “I had to come at the last

moment. I was almost too late. I’ve been a little beast all day. I want

to hear you say you forgive me, Teddy.”

He was thinking quickly.

“You’ve come by yourself?”

“I slipped away from a party. Nobody knows.”

“You can’t go back alone. I’ll come with you. I’m not sailing.”

She laughed breathlessly. “But your luggage!”

“Hang my luggage.”

She took his face between her hands as though no one was watching.

“Meester Deek, I shouldn’t have come if I’d thought it would make you a

coward.”

“A coward, but------”

She rested her cheek against his face. “Your mother’s expecting you.

And--and we’ll meet so very soon.”

“Give me something,” he implored her; “something for remembrance.”

She looked down at herself. What could she give him? “Your little curl.”

“But it’s false.”

“But it’s dear,” he murmured.

An officer touched him. He glanced across his shoulder and nodded. This,

then, was the end.

He drew her closer. “I can’t tell you. I never have told you. In all

these months I’ve told you nothing.--I love you. I love you.--Your lips

just once, Princess.”

Her obedient mouth lay against his own. Her lips were motionless. She

slipped from him.

Waving and waving, he watched her from the deck. Now he lost her; again

he saw her where raised screens in the sheds made golden port-holes.

She raced along the dock, as with bands playing the Christmas ship stole

out. Now that it was too late, she hoarded every moment. Beneath a lamp,

leaning out through the drift of snowflakes, she fluttered a scarf that

she had torn from her throat It was the last glimpse he had of her. A

Goddess of Liberty she seemed to him; a slave of freedom, Horace would

have said.

CHAPTER XIX--AN OLD PASSION

He was like a man from the tropics suddenly transplanted to an Arctic

climate. He was chilled to the soul; the coldness brought him misery,

but no reaction. His vigor had been undermined by the uncertainties and

ardors which he had endured. Building a fire out of his memories, he

shivered and crouched before it.

Hour by hour in the silence of his brain he relived the old pulsating

languors. He had no courage to look ahead to any brightness in the

future. The taste of the present was as ashes in his mouth. He felt old,

disillusioned, exhausted. The grayness of the plunging wintry sea was

the reflection of his soul’s gray loneliness.

He had spent so long in listening and waiting that listening and waiting

had become a habit. He would hear the telephone tinkle soon. His heart

would fly up like a bird into his throat. Her voice would steal to him

across the distance: “Meester Deek, hulloa! What are we going to do this

morning?” He often heard it in imagination. He could not bear to believe

that at last his leisure was his own--that suspense was at once and

forever ended.

Among the passengers he was a romantic figure. Stories went the rounds

about him. It was said that the girl who had delayed the sailing was an

actress--no, an heiress--no, one of the most beautiful of the season’s

débutantes. Men’s eyes followed him with envy. Women tried to coax

him into a confession--especially the old lady who had met him coming

white-faced from the Purser’s office. He was regarded as a triumphant

lover; he alone knew that he was an impostor.

His grip on reality had loosened. There were times when he believed

she had never existed. He was a child who had slept in a ring of the

faeries. He had seen the little people steal out from brakes and hedges.

All night In their spider-web and glow-worm raiment they had danced

about him, caressing him with their velvet arms. The dawn had come; he

sat up rubbing his eyes, to find himself forsaken. He would wake up in

Eden Row presently to discover that all his ecstasies had been imagined.

The little false curl was a proof to the contrary. He carried it near

his heart. It was the Nell Gwynn part of her--a piece of concrete

personality. It still seemed to mock his seriousness.

He had left so many things unsaid; in all those months he had told her

nothing. He argued his way over the old ground, blaming himself and

making excuses for her. If only he had acted thus and so, then she would

have responded accordingly. He was almost persuaded that he had been

unkind to her. And there was so much--so much more than he had imagined,

from which he ought to save her. If she played with other men as she had

played with him, she would be in constant danger. She seemed to regard

men as puppies who could be sent to heel by a frown. Mr. Dak had taught

her nothing. She skirted the edge of precipices when strong winds were

blowing. She would do it once too often; the day was always coming. It

might come to-morrow.

He missed her horribly--all her tricks of affection and petulance. He

had so much to remember: her casual way of singing in the midst of his

talking; the way she covered her mouth with her hand, laughing over it,

that she might provoke him into coaxing apart her fingers that he might

reach her lips through them; the waving down the stairs at the hour of

parting--every memory flared into importance now that she had vanished.

Most of all, he missed the name she had called him. Meester Deek I What

a fool he had been to be so impatient because she would not employ the

name by which any one could call him!

No, he hadn’t realized her value. Their separation was his doing. He

might have been with her now, if only----

And back there at the end of the lengthening wake, did Broadway still

flash and glitter, a Vanity Fair over which sky-signs wove ghostly and

monstrous sorceries?

At night he paced the deck, staring into the unrelieved blackness. With

whom was she now? Was she thinking of him? Was she thinking of him with

kindness, or had the “horrid me” again taken possession? Perhaps she was

with Fluffy. “Oh, these men!” Fluffy would say contemptuously. She

was with some one--he knew that; it was impossible to think of her as

sitting alone. She wouldn’t allow herself to be sad; she was somewhere

where there was feverish gayety, lights and the seduction of music. But

with whom?

He saw again her little white bedroom which had been such a secret. On

the dressing-table, where it could watch her night and morning at her

mirror, was the silver-framed photograph. (She had never asked him for

his portrait) In a line on the wall, looking down on her as she lay

curled up in bed, were four more photographs. His jealousy became

maddening. His old suspicions crept back to haunt him. Who was this Tom?

What claims had he on her? Was Tom her permanent lover, and he the

man with whom she had trifled for relaxation--was that it? Even in the

moment of parting, after she had shown herself capable of abandon, her

lips had been motionless beneath his passion. To her he had offered

himself soul and body; at intervals she had been sorry for him.

His one consolation was in writing to her--that made her seem nearer.

He poured out his heart hour after hour, in unconsidered, fiery phrases.

The journal which he kept for her on the voyage was less a journal of

contemporary doings than of rememberings. It was a history of all their

intercourse, stretching back from the scarf fluttered on the dock to the

far-off, cloistral days of childhood. He believed that in the writing of

it he became telepathic; messages seemed to reach him from her. He

heard her speaking so distinctly that at times he would drop his pen and

glance across his shoulder: “Meester Deek! Meester Deek!” He noted down

the hours when the phenomenon occurred, begging her to tell him whether

at these hours she had been thinking of him. Like a refrain, to which

the music was forever returning, “I shall wait for you always--always,”

he wrote.

“And we’ll meet so very soon,” she had said at parting. What had she

meant? He had had no time to ask her. Had she meant that she would

follow him--that she had at last reached the point at which she could

not do without him? That she wasn’t going to California? That her

foolish and excessive friendship for Fluffy had ceased to be of supreme

importance? “And we shall meet so soon.” He built his hopes on that

promise.

In the moments just before sleeping he was almost physically conscious

of her. When lights along passageways of the ship had been lowered and

feet no longer clattered on the decks, when only the thud of the engines

sounded, the swish of waters and the sigh of sleepers, then he believed

she approached him. He prayed Matthew Arnold’s prayer, and it seemed to

him that it was answered:

“Come to me in my dreams and then

By day I shall be well again!

For then the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day.”

They say love is blind; it would be truer to say love is lenient. He had

intervals of calmness when he appreciated to the full the wisdom of

what he was doing. He recognized her faults; he recognized them with

tenderness as the imperfections which sprang from her environment. If

he could take her out of her hot-house, her limp attitudes towards life

would straighten and her sanity would grow fresh. The trouble was

that she preferred her hothouse and the orchid-people by whom she was

surrounded; she had never known the blowy gardens of the world, which

lie honest beneath the rain and stars. She pitied them for their

blustering robustness. She pitied him for the distinctions he made

between right and wrong. They impressed her as barbarous. Once, when

she had told him that she was cold by temperament, he had answered, “You

save yourself for the great occasions.” He was surer of that than

ever; he was only afraid that the great occasion might not prove to be

himself. There lay the hazard of his experiment in leaving her.

He dared not count on her final act of remorse. She was theatrical by

temperament. To arrive at the last moment when a ship was sailing

had afforded her a fine stage-setting. Her conduct might have meant

everything; it might have meant no more than a girl’s display of

emotionalism.

He began to understand her. It was like her to become desperate to

inveigle him back just when he had resigned himself to forget her. In

the past he had grown afraid to set store by her graciousness or to plan

any kindness for her. To allow her to feel her power over him seemed to

blunt her interest. It was always after he had shown her coldness

that she had shown him most affection. Directly he submitted to her

fascination, she affected to become indifferent. It was a trick that

could be played too often. If this see-saw game was too long continued,

one of them would out-weary the other’s patience. If only he had been

sure that she was missing him, his mind would have been comparatively at

rest.

He disembarked at Fishguard an hour after midnight The December air

was raw and damp. His first action on landing was to dispatch his

journal-letter to her. As he drowsed in the cold, ill-lighted carriage

it was of her that he thought Now that the voyage was ended, the ocean

that lay between them seemed impassable as the gulf that is fixed

between hell and heaven. She had seen the steamer--she had been a topic

of conversation on board; but everything that he saw now, and would see

from now on, was unfamiliar to her.

The entrance into London did nothing to cheer him. He had flying

glimpses of stagnant gardens, windows like empty sockets plugged with

fog, forlorn streets like gutters down which the scavenger dawn wandered

between flapping lamps. London looked mean; even in its emptiness, it

looked overcrowded. He missed the boastful tallness of New York. Before

the train had halted his nostrils were full of the stale stench of

cab-ranks and the sulphurous pollutions of engines. Milk-cans made a

cemetery of the station; porters looked melancholy as mourners. His

gorge rose against the folly of his return.

He had stepped out and was giving instructions about his luggage, when

he heard his name called tremblingly. As he turned, he was swept into

a whirlwind of embraces. His father stood by, preserving his dignity,

giving all the world to understand that a father can disguise his

emotions under all circumstances.

“But how did you get here?” Teddy asked. “It’s so shockingly early.”

“Been here most of the night,” his mother told him, between tears and

laughter. “You didn’t think we were going to let you arrive unmet?

And we didn’t keep Christmas. When we got your cable, we put all our

presents away and waited for you.”

How was it that he had so far forgotten what their love had meant? He

compared this arrival with his unwelcomed arrival in New York. A flush

of warmth spread from his heart They had stayed awake all night on the

wintry station that he might not be disappointed.

On the drive back in the cab, all through breakfast and as they sat

before the fire through the lazy morning, they gossiped of the things

of secondary importance--his work, the Sheerugs, his impressions of

America. Of the girl in America they did not talk. His mother’s eyes

asked questions, which his eyes avoided. His father, man-like, showed no

curiosity. He sat comfortably puffing away at his pipe, feeling in his

velvet-coat for matches, and combing his fingers through his shaggy

hair, just as if he had no suspicions that anything divisive had

happened. It was only when an inquisitive silence had fallen that he

showed his sympathy, chasing up a new topic to divert their interest.

Desire was not mentioned that day, nor the next; even when her letters

began to arrive, Teddy’s reticence was respected. For that he was

infinitely thankful. The ordeal of explaining and accepting pity would

have been more than he could have borne. Pity for himself would have

meant condemnation of her conduct. In the raw state of his heart,

neither would have been welcome.

During the afternoon of the first day of his home-coming he visited

Orchid Lodge. He was drawn there by the spectres of Desire’s past.

Harriet admitted him. What a transformation! All the irksome glory was

gone. Carriages no longer waited against the pavement. It was no longer

necessary to strive to appear as if you really had “a nincome.”

Tiptoeing across the hall, he peeped into the parlor with its long

French-windows. It was seated on the steps outside in the garden that he

had listened to Alonzo convincing Mrs. Sheerug of his new-found wealth.

It was a different Alonzo that he saw now--an Alonzo who carried him

back to his childhood. Facing Mr. Ooze across the table, he was dealing

out a pack of cards. He was in his shirtsleeves; Mr. Ooze wore a bowler

hat at a perilous angle on the back of his bald head. Both were too

intent on the game to notice that the door had opened.

“What d’you bet?” Mr. Sheerug was asking.

“Ten thousand,” Mr. Ooze answered.

“I’ll see you and raise you ten thousand. What’ve you got?”

Teddy closed the door gently and stole away. Was he really grown up? Had

time actually moved forward? The thin and the fat man sat there, as in

the days when he had supposed they were murderers, still winning and

losing fabulous fortunes in the unconquered land of their imaginations.

Upstairs, in the spare-room, he found Mrs. Sheerug. With a bag of

vivid-colored wools beside her, she was busy on a new tapestry. She rose

like a little old hen from its nest at the sound of his entrance. Her

arms flew up to greet him.

“You’ve come back.”

“I’ve come back.”

That was all. Whatever she had guessed, she asked no questions. Had they

all agreed to a kindly conspiracy of silence?

As he sat at her feet, watching her work, she told him philosophically

of the loss of their money. “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.

I wouldn’t be so terribly sorry if it hadn’t given Alonzo sciatica of

the back.”

“Do you get sciatica in the back?” he asked.

She peered at him over her spectacles. “Most people don’t, but that’s

where he’s got it. He never does any work.--Oh, dear, if he’d only take

my lemon cure! I’m sure he’d be better. I don’t think he wants to be

better. He can sit about the house all day while he’s got it. Poor man,

it doesn’t hurt him very badly.”

It soon became evident to Teddy that she wasn’t so cut up as might have

been expected now that her wealth was gone. Straitened means gave her

permission to muddle. “Those coachmen and men-servants,” she told him,

“they worried me, my dear. Their morals were very lax.”

When he tried to find out what had really occurred to cause the collapse

of her affluence, she shook her head. “Shady tricks, my dear--very

shady. Unkind things were said.”

More than that he could not learn; she did not wish to pursue the

subject further.

Little by little the old routine came back, and with it his ancient

dread that nothing would ever happen. Every morning, the moment

breakfast was ended, he climbed the many stairs to his room to work.

From his window he could see his father in the studio, and the pigeons

springing up like dreams from the garden and growing small above the

battlements of house-tops. If he watched long enough, he might see Mr.

Yaflfon come out on his steps, like an old tortoise that had wakened too

early, thrusting its bewildered head out of its shell.

He wanted to work; he wanted to do something splendid. He longed more

than he had ever longed before to make himself famous--famous that she

might share his glory. At first his thoughts were slow in coming. Day

and night, between himself and his imaginings she intruded, passing

and re-passing. He saw her in all her attitudes and moods, wistful,

friendly, and brooding. He could not escape her. Even his father and

mother filled him with envy when he watched them; he and Desire should

have been as they were, if things had turned out happily. Hal rose up as

a warning of the man he might become.

Since he could think of nothing else, he determined to make her his

story. Gradually his purpose cleared and concentrated; his book should

be a statement of what she meant to him--an idealized commentary from

his point of view on what had happened. He would call it _The Book of

Revelation_. It should be a sequel to _Life Till Twenty-One._ His first

book had been the account of love’s dreaming; this should be his record

of its realization. After the idea had fastened on him, he rarely

stirred out He wrote enfevered. If his lips had failed to tell her,

she should at last know what she meant to him. As he wrote, he lost all

consciousness of the public; his book was addressed to her.

Although he seemed to have lost her, he was perpetually recovering her.

He re-found her in other men’s writings, in Keats’s love-letters to

Fanny Brawne and particularly In _Maud_.

“O that ’twere possible

After long grief and pain

To find the arms of my true love

Round me once again.”

He had never felt her arms about him, but such lines seemed the haunting

echo of his own yearning. They gave tongue to the emotions which the

dull ache of his heart had made voiceless.

He recovered her in the dusty portrait of Vashti, which had lain in

disgrace in the stable for so many years. Vashti’s youthful figure,

listening in the Garden Enclosed, was very like Desire’s; the lips,

which his boyish kiss had blurred, prophesied kindness. He brought it

out from its place of hiding and hung it on the wall above his desk.

He recovered her most poignantly in small ways: in the stubs of

theatre-tickets for performances they had attended. When unpacking one

of his trunks, he found some white hairs clinging to the sleeve of one

of his coats. They set him dreaming of the pale, reluctant hands that

had snuggled in the warmth of the white-fox muff.

But he recovered her most effectually a week after his home-coming, when

her letters began to arrive. Not that they were satisfactory letters;

if they had been, they would not have been like her. Her sins as a

correspondent were the same as her sins of conduct: they consisted of

things omitted. Where she might have said something comforting, she

filled up the sentence with dots and dashes. He begged her to confess

that she was missing him. She escaped him. She let all his questions go

unanswered. There was a come-and-find-me laughter in her way of writing.

She would tell him just enough to make him anxious--no more. She had

been to this play; she had danced at that supper; last Sunday she had

automobiled with a jolly party out into the country. Of whom the jolly

party had consisted she left him in ignorance.

Strange letters these to receive in the old-fashioned quiet of Eden Row,

where days passed orderly and marshaled by duties! They came fluttering

to him beneath the gray London skies, like tropic birds which had lost

their direction. He would sit picturing her in an Eden Row setting,

telling himself stories of the wild combinations of circumstances that

might bring her tripping to him!

He was homesick for the faeries. He felt dull in remembering her

intenser modes of living--modes of living which in his heart he

distrusted. They could not last. There lay his hope. When they failed,

she might turn to him for security. He excused her carelessness. Why,

because he was sad, should she not be glad-hearted? For such leniency he

received an occasional reward, as when she wrote him, “I do wish I could

hear your nice English voice. I met a lady the other day who asked me,

‘Is there any chance of your marrying Theodore Gurney? If you don’t,

you’re foolish.’ You’d have loved her.” And then, in a mischievous

postscript, “I forgot to tell you, she said you had beautiful eyes.”

Tantalizing as an echo of laughter from behind a barrier of hills!