"You two have quarrelled," he said.
The faintest shrug of the lovely shoulders answered him.
"Now _don't_ do anything rash--before you make it up," he cautioned.
"I'm a little surprised at Pendleton letting you quarrel with him. I
thought he was too superior a being for that; but you never can tell
when----" He smiled at her significantly. "There may be method in his
plan, but I--no, assuredly, you never can tell!"
"No, you never can tell anything for sure," she replied enigmatically.
The music stopped. They were just beside Miss Chamberlain and Cameron,
and the four strolled out of the crush to the punch bowl on the nearest
piazza.
"May I have the next dance, Mrs. Lorraine?" said Porshinger's voice
behind them.
Cameron, who was close, touched her arm.
"It is promised to Mr. Cameron!" Stephanie smiled.
"How about the next?" Porshinger asked.
She felt Burgoyne's fingers close lightly around her own.
"It is taken also--Mr. Burgoyne gets it!" she smiled again.
"Which one may I have before the cotillon?" Porshinger persisted
pleasantly, refusing to be rebuffed.
"You may have the--fifth," she replied.
"You mean the fifth from now or from the beginning?"
"The fifth from the beginning," she answered, as Cameron bore her back
to the ballroom.
"I didn't know if you wanted to dance," began Cameron, "but I----"
"It was very good of you, Steuart, very good indeed," she replied. "I
would much rather dance with my friends than with----"
"Your enemies," he appended.
"I don't say so."
"No, _I_ say so. Meanwhile, let us forget Porshinger and enjoy the
music. You sure are a dancer, Stephanie!"
"So Sheldon says!" she smiled. "I'm delighted that I haven't lost
that too"--then gave herself up to the slow languorous waltz, so
intoxicating in its swing that it fairly lifted them up and bore them
along without an effort.
"Thank you!" said Cameron, when it ended. "It was entrancing--simply
entrancing! Don't dance so with Porshinger, I pray you; he may not be
able to withstand temptation."
"I knew I could trust you, Steuart!" she laughed. "I'll be more prudent
with the other."
And she was--dancing it in the formal way, with tight held body,
yielding just sufficiently for the dance but not a shade more.
And Porshinger noted the difference; and he said, as the music ended:
"I'm afraid I'm rather an awkward dancer, Mrs. Lorraine. I don't seem
to get on as I should."
"I did not notice it," she replied.
"At least, I didn't get on as Cameron or Burgoyne did."
"You must remember that I have danced with them for years--we know each
other's steps."
"Yes, that may be it--for I can modestly say that I am not a poor
dancer. It struck me that we were not in accord temperamentally--we
didn't catch the spirit, so to speak. We were treading the minuet
rather than dancing a two-step."
"You mean we were doing it decorously rather than in a romp!" she
laughed. "I don't like rompish dancing, Mr. Porshinger."
"Nor do I; but there is a happy medium--as you showed with Burgoyne,"
he replied calmly. "That is what I had in mind."
"When you have known me as long as they have, our steps doubtless will
fit as well also."
"Let us hope that it won't be so long deferred," he answered, bending
down and whispering it confidentially in her ear. "When may I have
another try--may I have the third from now?"
"I shall dance no more before the cotillon," she replied.
"Then sit out another with me," he pleaded--in the certain compelling
manner he at times assumed; and which she tolerated because it amused
her, and because it was Porshinger who did it--and she was playing a
game.
"Here is the conservatory; let us investigate the abode of the
flowers," he said.
She hesitated a moment, then permitted him to lead her in. She had seen
Gladys Chamberlain just ahead of her.
"How charming! how entrancing!" she exclaimed, as they entered. "A
veritable fairyland."
"It is very pretty," Porshinger agreed.
"You don't enthuse. Look how the light falls on the palms and the
cactus and the rhododendron, yet you don't see whence it comes."
"It comes from the roof!" he laughed. "Nevertheless, I grant you the
fairyland--a maze of flowers and foliage, with _you_ the Fairy, madame."
"The Fairy-madame!" she laughed. "How romantic."
Gladys had disappeared, but other couples were strolling about.
"Which shows how important is a comma," he remarked. "Let us sit
yonder," indicating two chairs well hidden by a palm, "while I enjoy my
little trip into fairyland with the Fairy."
It was not far from the entrance and Stephanie complied.
"Do you know," he said presently, "we are almost quite concealed by
this tree--what a charming place it is, so near and yet so far."
"Particularly so near!" she rejoined.
"And particularly so far!" he smiled, apparently all unconsciously
letting his arm fall around her waist but without touching her.
The next moment he suddenly drew her to him and bent over.
"Just one," he said.
And before she could so much as struggle he kissed her on the lips.
"You vile coward!" she panted, held close in his arms yet writhing to
be free. "You miserable cur! You----"
"Why struggle so, Stephanie--no one saw," he whispered. She was but
pretending.
She tore herself loose--only to be caught back again and crushed closer.
"Let me go!--_Let me go!_" she gasped frantically.
This was no pretense, and he realized it. He had thought it would be
otherwise--had thought that she would be a yielding beauty--and the
mistake angered him. He was not given to making mistakes. She had drawn
him on--and now----
"You didn't struggle so with Pendleton on the porch at Criss-Cross," he
said, kissing her again and again.... "Aren't mine just as sweet and
worth as much as his?"
Once more she tore herself loose and sprang away--made a step--then
stopped and faced him.
He had risen and was moving slowly after, a mocking smile on his lips.
"You will please take me back to the ball-room," she commanded. "I am
not minded to provoke comment by returning alone."
"I am always your most obedient servant," he replied, with a bow and
another smile.
In silence they passed from the conservatory and into the ball-room a
little way. There she dropped his arm.
"You will do me the favor of never speaking to me again," she said--and
left him.
"Spirit!" he muttered, as he turned away. "Spirit--or a damn good
player! I don't know which." He gave an admiring chuckle. "God! what a
looker she is!"
XVI
THE UNANIMOUS OPINION
Lorraine did not come out of the Hospital in a week. It was two weeks
before he quit it, and three weeks until he was able to leave his house
and go down town and to the Clubs. He found a hearty welcome awaiting
him from everyone; even those whom he knew but slightly shook his hand
and congratulated him on his recovery.
Some of the men had dropped in at intervals--Cameron the most
frequently, but Pendleton not at all--though they all were too
busy to do more than inquire, and then forget him in the rush of
affairs and Society. He heard occasionally of Stephanie--read in the
Society news of her being at the Burlestons' and the Tazewells' and
the Chamberlains', and others of her old friends who were loyal.
Pendleton's name always was included; and once or twice he had noticed
Porshinger's--with a frown. What was _he_ doing there--how did _he_
come to be included? He had intended to ask Cameron--but every time he
had forgotten it until Cameron had gone.
The truth of the matter lay in the Chamberlain invitation. Porshinger
had seen to it that that fact was promptly noted in all the papers,
and Society--at first a bit gasping and incredulous--had been more or
less quick to follow suit. If the Chamberlains were taking him up, who
else could refuse? So Miss Tazewell's fear was verified--as was Miss
Chamberlain's prediction--that it was only a question of being first.
True, neither Mrs. Porterfield nor Mrs. Postlewaite had given him the
light of her countenance, but that would come in time--a reasonably
short time. Just as soon as they were assured of his desirability, he
would be formally viséd by them--and his social career would be easy
henceforth.
It was the afternoon of the day after the Croyden dance that Lorraine
first got up to the Otranto Club, and had his curiosity gratified--at
least as to the reasons for Porshinger's inclusion.
He found Warwick Devereux absorbing a long, cold drink on the side
piazza, and was hailed to participate.
"Mighty glad to see you around," said Devereux. "Must be a month since
your accident."
"I'm mighty glad to get around," Lorraine replied. "What have you been
doing while I was in a hospital?"
"Do you mean me individually, or is the question intended to include
the social world in general?"
"Both--the latter first, if you don't mind; it will comprehend much of
the former."
"Hum!" muttered Devereux. "I suppose that is meant to be courteous,
Harry, but I don't know. Well, the main thing that we have been doing,
we've been doing to ourselves--making damn fools of ourselves, to be
accurate."
"That is interesting!" laughed Lorraine. "How did we manage to do it?"
"It doesn't require management to do it," the other remarked, draining
his glass. "The management is required when we _don't_ do it--only, on
this particular occasion, we have been more than ordinarily successful
at the damn-fool business."
"What have we done now?" Lorraine asked. "Break it gently, Devereux,
break it gently!"
"We've been taking up that bounder Porshinger. By _we_ I mean Society.
We have been helping--no we've actually been dragging him up the wall
with the gold chains and the gold ladder he has provided. Did you ever
know such--asininity?"
"It's pretty bad," Lorraine agreed; "though I reckon it was about due.
Porshinger was bound to get in so long as he didn't marry wrong, though
I didn't think _we_ would _lift_ him over the wall. How do you explain
it?"
"Naturally enough!" Devereux snorted. "Everyone was waiting for someone
to start--but everyone was afraid to start. Then Gladys Chamberlain
started--and the rest of the women followed like a lot of geese."
"Like a lot of geese is good," said Lorraine. "Society is like nothing
so much as geese, in such matters. Yet what surprises me is that Gladys
Chamberlain should take him up. She doesn't need his money, and it
isn't possible that she likes him. I don't think she even knew him,
certainly not more than to bow to, when I went on the injured list. Why
is it, do you suppose?"
"It occurred suddenly down at Criss-Cross. Some of us were there for
the week-end; Porshinger was at the Woodsides'. Gladys announced at
dinner that she was going to have him over, and asked our opinion. We
gave it to her, Burgoyne and Cameron and Pendleton and I, but it didn't
faze in the least. He came. We were courteous to him, of course. He
was unassuming, but talked shop to the women beside him all through
dinner--and there you are! The Rubicon was crossed."
"But _why_ did Gladys do it?"
"Search me!" Devereux exclaimed.
"She is the last one to act on impulse in such a matter."
"Search me!" Devereux reiterated, with a lift of his hands. "Only, you
don't want to try to explain things by the reasonable route--you won't
succeed, Harry. Woman isn't a reasonable creature. She's an exotic, an
eccentric, who doesn't always eccent."
"Is that a discovery?" asked Lorraine.
"Not at all," retorted Devereux. "It's a self-evident fact, that is why
I told you. Understand?"
"Have another high-ball?" laughed Lorraine.
"Yes, thank you!... Harry," said he, as he poured the Scotch and slowly
shot in the carbonated water, "it may be impertinent, it is _damned_
impertinent, but you'll not misunderstand me--sometimes a friend's
impertinence is a proof of his friendship.--What I want to say, old
man, is this:" He pushed back his glass and looked at the other
thoughtfully a moment. "Why don't you make it up with Stephanie?"
"For the simplest of reasons, Devereux," Lorraine responded. "She won't
make it up."
"She won't make it up!" Warwick marvelled. "Have you tried her?"
Lorraine nodded.
"Before my accident--and later at the Hospital," he said. "It was
respectfully declined."
"She surely doesn't mean it! She would be a--it would be most
extraordinary."
"Stephanie's an extraordinary woman. Moreover, I can't blame her. She
can't forget, I think, the day of her return and my denial of her
before them all on this very piazza."
"You were a fool!" exclaimed Devereux pithily.
"You're putting it mildly!" Lorraine admitted--"but--oh, well--she came
so suddenly, so absolutely unexpectedly that I acted before I thought."
"I can understand, but--Stephanie can't."
"Stephanie can't--and she won't. She won't accept any excuse. She says
that if I'd been a proper sort of husband Amherst wouldn't have had a
chance."
"Which is peculiar reasoning," Devereux commented:--"If you don't guard
me, you're to blame if I go wrong."
"Woman is an exotic--an eccentric!" quoted Lorraine.
"She is. Do you need any further demonstration to prove it? And are you
not going to try to persuade her?" Devereux demanded.
"I am, indeed."
"That's right, Lorraine--don't give up! You started wrong, very
wrong--end right. Stephanie's worth it--despite the past."
"The past be damned!" Lorraine exclaimed. "I've forgot it--buried it.
So far as she is concerned, it never existed. But----" he brought his
fist down on the table till the glasses jumped and rattled--"it's
another thing with Amherst!--it's another thing with Amherst! Sometime,
Devereux, sometime----" he ended with a gesture.
"I know how you feel, old man," said Warwick soothingly, "and I reckon
I'd feel like you do; but Amherst is gone, and I don't imagine will be
back for years--if ever. You just forget him. If you had done something
at the time the law would have been lenient--but not now. Moreover,
it will only renew the scandal and react upon Stephanie. Oh! I know
it's hard to let him go--but it's the wise course now.--If only you
_had_ broken his head at the time, or filled him full of lead! Now your
opportunity is gone, and you must put the idea away from you."
Lorraine beat on the table and said nothing; and Devereux, after
watching him a moment, said nothing more. Lorraine was a weak
character, whom opposition sometimes makes the more determined. And
while Warwick did not care particularly for him, he wanted to save
Stephanie the embarrassment that a revival of the affair would be sure
to cause. So far as the two men were concerned, they might fight it out
and welcome--and if they killed each other, it would not be much loss
to the world.
From which it may be seen that Pendleton's view-point was the
view-point of Devereux--as well as of most of the men.
Presently Lorraine spoke.
"I wonder where Amherst is?" he said.
"Abroad," Devereux answered.
"I mean, where abroad?"
"In Siberia or the Congo or Australia or anywhere that's far off. I
should bury myself."
"More than likely he is in London or Paris," Lorraine insisted.
"More than likely he is," Devereux admitted. "I hear that he has
converted all his real estate, and has slipped his moorings for good
and all."
"You mean that he is never coming back?"
"Such is the report from an authentic source, I'm told."
Lorraine smiled a bit grimly.
"_Never_ is a long time," he said. "I'll not believe it--and I shall
hope not until I die.--Someway--somehow--I'm going to square off with
Amherst. It may be years, yet I shall do it--and do it well."
"What if Stephanie and you make it up--you won't think then of harming
Amherst?" said Devereux.
"No--I suppose not--at least, not openly; but if we don't make it
up----" another gesture ended the sentence.
Devereux frowned and was about to answer; then he pulled himself up,
and with the slightest lift of his eyebrows busied himself with his
drink. There was no use in arguing with Lorraine--he would not know
his own mind more than an hour anyway.
"There is another contingency, Lorraine," said he:--"Suppose you don't
succeed in effecting a reconciliation with Stephanie--what then?"
"I'll never give up trying," Lorraine replied.
"But if your efforts after a time prove fruitless, will persistence
be of any avail? Won't it simply make her more irreconcilable and
unyielding?"
"You mean will I divorce her--or permit her to obtain a divorce?"
Devereux nodded.
"Most assuredly not!" Lorraine declared. "If _I'm_ not to have her, who
belongs to me, none else shall."
"Sort of a dag in the manger business?" Devereux smiled.
"Not at all.--I'm simply keeping what is mine."
"Not exactly--you will be keeping what _was_ yours but is yours no
longer."
"You think that I should let her go?"
"If a reconciliation is impossible, I think that you should let her go.
What is more, you should make it possible for _her_ to get the divorce."
"You mean I should admit----"
"Not at all--though that is a minor matter, and wouldn't hurt you in
the least if you were to admit it; under the circumstances, you are
entitled to break over. However, that is neither here nor there; she
can procure a divorce for non-support--if you don't contest it."
"Yes--if I don't contest it!" Lorraine sneered. "One might fancy that
you contemplated marrying her yourself, Devereux."
"I don't contemplate marrying her, and you know it," said Devereux
imperturbably; "though for my part, I should consider myself very
fortunate indeed to win her. But someone else probably _will_ want to
marry her, and she may want to marry him--and you will be only the dog
in the manger, Lorraine, only the dog in the manger--with the sympathy
of not one soul in all the world."
"I don't care for sympathy!" Lorraine exclaimed--"and I shouldn't get
it if I did--from you men. You always favor a pretty woman. You all
have been against me from the first. You think it was all my fault
Amherst had a chance to ingratiate himself."
"Wasn't it?" Devereux asked.
Lorraine stopped and stared.
"They went off together, didn't they--was that my doing?" he demanded.
"Not directly--but indi----"
"Am I responsible for what a low-down dog like Amherst does? Hadn't I
a right to presume he wouldn't do it? Hadn't I a right to trust my own
wife? Is a husband to be suspicious and suspecting? Isn't he justified
in presuming innocence rather than guilt?"
"As a general proposition, yes; varied, however, by the _dramatis
personae_--and the circumstances."
"What should I have done?" Lorraine demanded.
"Anything but what you did do," returned Devereux kindly. "But that
isn't the question that confronts you now, and is up to you for
decision, and which you alone can decide. Don't make another blunder;
you can't afford it--and neither can Stephanie." He leaned forward and
put his hand on the other's knee. "Consider well, Lorraine. Stephanie
and you are young--the world is before you. Make it as easy going for
both of you as you can. You are a long time dead, remember."
"At least when we're dead we're done!" Lorraine broke out.
"Maybe you are--but I haven't heard of anyone who knows; and you'd best
not chance it when it is so easy to do the right thing now."
"And the right thing is?" asked Lorraine sarcastically.
"What is best for you both--if you can't be reconciled, then be
divorced."
Lorraine smiled a sickly smile, and made no answer.
"Gratuitous advice is rarely acceptable, I know," Devereux went on,
"but it is honest and well meant, and comes from a life-long friend
of you both. Now, Lorraine, we will say no more on the subject."--He
struck the bell. "Take Mr. Lorraine's order," he said to the waiter.
But Lorraine shook his head.
"I think I've had enough," he replied--"both of liquor and the Club,
for this time. I'm going home and think it over. I'm a bit tired and
out of sorts. So long!" and went slowly out, got into his car and
drove off.
Devereux watched him meditatively until he was gone; then he too shook
his head--and sat drumming on the chair-arm with his finger tips.
"What is it?" asked Pendleton, who had approached from the rear. "What
do you see, Dev--a pretty girl?"
"Do I look it?" said Devereux, glancing around.
"Now that you favor me with your full countenance, I can't say that you
do," the other smiled, swinging a chair around for his feet and sitting
down. "You are evidently bunkered or have topped your drive. I beg your
pardon for intruding--don't let me interrupt, I pray."
"I wasn't playing mental golf--I was thinking."
"I see," said Pendleton. "A good occupation--continue to think, if it
isn't too exhausting."
"I was thinking and wondering," Devereux continued--"why Stephanie
Mourraille married Lorraine. What in the devil's name did she see in
him anyway!--What _could_ she see in him!"
"Qualities which you and I and the other men are blind to," said
Montague dryly. "Woman has the power of endowing the man with whom she
imagines she is in love, with every attribute that he should normally
possess--and rarely does. We're all deficient, Devereux, at the Bar of
Popular Opinion--it is only a matter of degree."
"Well, I should say that Lorraine is the maximum degree--and then
some," was the reply.--"And that Stephanie knows it at last--when it
is too late. Why didn't you marry her, Pendleton? Everyone thought
_you_ were willing--and _she_ ought to have been."
Pendleton sent a smoke whirling upward, and followed it with another,
and another--but said no word.
"It's a bit personal, I know--and you shouldn't answer," Devereux
admitted--"but all the same, why didn't you?"
"Maybe Stephanie wouldn't have me," said Pendleton slowly.
"The more fool she!" the other exclaimed. "Yet it's like a woman--they
never know what is best for them when they have a choice to make--at
least, they choose wrong thirty-five times out of fifty."
"And forty-five out of fifty they think they are the winning
fifteen--and fifty times out of fifty, it is no one's business but
their own," Pendleton replied.
"You're right in theory," Devereux admitted, "but you're wrong in
practice. We have some business with our friends' affairs--enough to
regret when we see one of them, especially a woman, going on the rocks
from very heedlessness of the buoys that mark the channel."
"Why not chain in the channel so they can't get out of it?" asked
Pendleton.
"They would break the chains from very perversity and go on the rocks
just the same," Devereux averred. "The only way is to provide a pilot
who won't run amuck."
"You're mixing your metaphors, old man!"
"Maybe I am, but you know what I mean."
"Stephanie chose a pilot," Pendleton reminded him.
"Not at all--she chose a blockhead--a fool. Now she is paying the
price for her error--and I'm mighty sorry for her. The simpleton now
is crazy to effect a reconciliation, says he will never give her up,
and vows vengeance on Amherst. I advised him, if he can't effect the
reconciliation--which of course he can't--to let Stephanie divorce
him. But nay! nay! If _he_ can't have her no one shall have her,
he declares--she is his wife and she is going to stay his wife--et
cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It makes me sick! I asked him why, for
Stephanie's sake, he didn't forget Amherst and not stir up the nasty
scandal afresh? He answered that he would do nothing if she returned to
him, but if she did not, he would----" He imitated Lorraine's gesture.
"I don't know what that gesture means, but I assume it threatens
something dire."
"And the pity of it is that he is just a big enough fool to do it,"
said Pendleton. "If he had acted at once, and shot Amherst down for the
vicious beast he is, everyone would have been glad and the deed would
have been amply justified. Now it is worse than foolish--it's asinine."