It was likely to be a dull evening at the Fireside. Frances Hazlet was
giving a birthday party--or, rather, some kind gentleman was giving
one for her, and had taken Fantozzi’s drab, demure private mansion on
Lexington Avenue.
Sutton had gone home from the office to dress. He was rather restless
because he had not been able to get Gilda on the telephone. He dined
alone at the Province Club, finally, but continued to haunt the
telephone between courses.
Something in Freda’s placid responses hatched suspicion in his mind. He
began to wonder if Gilda was really at home and wouldn’t come to the
telephone. He had vaguely suspected this on other occasions, but always
concluded there could be no reason for such behaviour, and was ashamed
to mention it to her.
However, the odd suspicion returned, now, to haunt him; and, the
Province Club palling on him, he sent for a taxi and drove to the
Fireside.
Seeing Sadoul reading in a corner relieved him, although Sadoul also
was in evening dress and, moreover, wore a camelia. They exchanged nods
but no words. Sadoul calmly turned a page in his book. Sutton sat down
by the log fire to smoke a cigar.
Toward eleven Pockman came rocking in with his coattails flying, an
opera hat crammed over his prominent ears. Sadoul laid aside his book,
got up and went downstairs with him.
After that there was a gradual exodus from the club toward Fantozzi’s.
Warne went, Lyken, other men.
Sutton tried to read; couldn’t; grew irritable; decided to go home;
decided not to; tried Gilda’s house again, but nobody answered, not
even Freda.
His watch seemed to have gone wrong; he discredited what it reported.
So he went downstairs and looked at the standard clock in the lobby;
and discovered it was long after midnight.
Where could Gilda be? It was none of his business, which made him
the madder. She had decided not to go to Frances Hazlet’s party. She
declined his guidance thither. Had she changed her mind?
Harry Stayr strolled into the cloak-room to reconstruct his white
evening tie.
“Going to Fantozzi’s?” he inquired, looking at Sutton in the mirror.
“No,” said Stuart shortly.
Stayr turned, took him by the elbow; but Sutton demurred, saying he
didn’t feel like dancing.
“One can always eat and drink,” observed Stayr. “Come on, like a
sport. That Esthonian Prince and his suite are there, and it’s likely
to turn lively by this time. Besides, don’t you want to pay homage to
concentrated pulchritude?”
“I’m not in the humour----”
“You’re going with _me_, old dick! Get into your bonnet!”
“It’s one o’clock--nearly half past one, Harry----”
“Those night-blooming blossoms will be in the fuller bloom! Allons!
Houp! Come into the garden, friend. There’s many a nosegay to gather at
Fantozzi’s.”
* * * * *
When they descended from their taxi there was not a gleam of light
visible about the house; all shades were drawn; Fantozzi’s had the
aspect of a private mansion fast asleep.
They ascended the brownstone steps and rang. The door opened.
Into a dim vestibule they stepped; the outer door closed; then an inner
grille clicked and they stepped into a glaring inferno of heat and
noise.
Fantozzi’s fairly seethed with colour and turmoil; the rooms to the
right were swarming with dancers whirling through tobacco haze, amid a
deafening outcrash from the energetic orchestra.
Upstairs, downstairs, _on_ the stairs, everywhere were pretty
faces--flushed, laughing, eager faces vis-a-vis masculine and ardent
youth--lank youth, fat youth, chuckleheaded youth, handsome youth--and
middle age, too, bearded and saturnine like Sadoul, with a half sneer
on his features--dapper and bald like George Derring yonder, capering
with Nikka Weld, whose bobbed hair bobbed as she danced.
And there was his Serene Highness of Esthonia footing it
enthusiastically with Frances Hazlet. He and his suite looked like
Ritz waiters--having no backs to their heads--but they were tenderly
cherished by beauty, and seemed to be having a magnificent time.
Already the party had become a trifle rough. There was a girl there
whose partner had lifted her off the floor, and was swinging her in
circles, her body and legs nearly horizontal.
Sutton eluded collision with this pair of flying feet and backed into
the hallway.
Here a girl he had never before beheld seized him and danced with him.
Here, later, he encountered Frances Hazlet, who kissed him boisterously
in return for birthday wishes.
About that time an Esthonian fell downstairs; and Freedom was preparing
to shriek, but he landed uninjured on the back part of his skull which
wasn’t there.
The heat and noise were bewildering. Stayr beckoned Sutton to the punch
bowl, where his Serene Highness, encouraged by Katharine Ashley, was
bobbing for floating strawberries, amid shouts of laughter. He lifted a
dripping muzzle in triumph and bolted a berry.
“Nasty beast,” muttered Stayr, tucking several bottles of champagne
under his arm and picking up a silver ice-bucket. “Come on upstairs,
Stuart, and we’ll crack a quart like gentlemen.”
There was tumult, too, above stairs; laughter and singing at the supper
tables; a negro banjo trio hammering stridently; sporadic dancing and a
riotous tendency to throw flowers and sweet-meats at all new arrivals.
Sutton received a heavy handful of flowers full in the face; then the
girl in the white dinner gown, who had hurled them, rose straight up
among the gay and disorderly group surrounding her, pushed her way
violently through the throng, gained the hall, and already had started
running downstairs, when Sutton caught her by the waist.
Both were breathing irregularly and fast when they confronted each
other. Her cheeks burned crimson, and there was a scent of wine in her
breath.
“I thought you weren’t coming here,” he said. “You told me so.”
“_You_ said _you_ weren’t coming!”
“Is that why _you_ came?”
No answer.
“Tell me,” he insisted.
“Yes, it is,” she panted, “----if you’ve got to know! Please, may I
pass you----”
“One moment, Gilda. Where are you going?”
“I’m going home.”
“Then I’ll take you----”
“I don’t wish you to!”
“Is somebody else----”
“Yes, Sadoul!--if you’ve got to know.”
The shock left him white and silent; the girl released herself, started
to pass him, saw his ghastly face, stopped, stood motionless and mute
with her green eyes fixed on him.
After a moment she shivered as though chilled. “I’m safe with Sadoul,”
she said. “Can’t you understand that I’m safe with Sadoul when I’m this
way?”
“Have you had too much wine?”
She shook her head, set one foot on the stair below, descended another
step, laid her left hand on the banister, halted, looked back and
upward.
“I’m better off with Sadoul,” she said again.
He made no answer.
Suddenly she turned, sprang up the stairs and came close to him where
he stood on the step above her:
“You are not to care what I do!” she cried. “Let me go home! You don’t
know what you’re doing to me!”
“I’m not holding you,” he said, astonished.
Her fingers tightened on the banisters. All at once her eyes were
glittering with tears.
“Take me home,” she whispered. “I can’t stand this.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Yes! Yes! Can’t you see I do?... Only--I was safer with Sadoul....
When this happens--when I’m this way--I’m safe with anybody except you.”
She took his hands, strained them convulsively between her own. Cheeks,
eyes, lips were burning; the column of her white throat was stretched
up toward him. For the second time in their lives she threw both arms
around his neck and returned his kiss as passionately as he gave it.
But now the hallway was invaded by a noisy company ascending the
stairs. The girl clung tightly to his arm as he started downward with
her through the increasing tumult and disorder.
* * * * *
She was tearful, excited, incoherent, when they entered the taxi;
almost hysterical when they ran up the dark stairway, unlocked her
door, and entered.
“I want you to go,” she wailed. “I’m not myself tonight--not the girl
you know--not even friendly----”
“Don’t be frightened. Has Sadoul tried any of his beastly tricks----”
“Don’t you understand what I mean!” she cried. “Can’t you see it’s not
I who stand here? It’s that damned _Other One_!
“It’s the thing you saw!... She’ll tear my heart out for this! She’ll
tear my soul out! I’m trying to tell you that we’re not safe with
her.... I’m asking--you--to go----”
She turned with a tragic gesture and caught her quivering face in both
hands. He stared. After a moment she dropped her snowy, naked arms,
moved her lovely head until her eyes met his.
“I suppose you know I’m in love with you,” she said.
When he could find his voice he said: “Do you know that I am in love
with you, also?”
“I knew it tonight, on the stairs.”
Neither stirred for the moment, but the boy was all a-quiver now; swept
by his first overwhelming surge of passionate love.
She came to him and rested both white hands on his shoulders.
“What are we going to do about it?” she asked.
He gazed blindly into her altered face. All the flushed and sensuous
stigmata were there. He felt the heavy sweetness of her body; the
languour of her eyes invaded him.
Suddenly the clamour of the telephone filled his ears. She paid no heed
to it; her gaze lost in his, searched deeper; her red lips, too full,
trembled.
But the monotonous shrilling of the telephone had partly aroused him
to some consciousness of the world about him--to _self_-consciousness,
too. And, with this confused resurrection of submerged senses,
came mental awakening--a glimmering recognition of facts.... Of
indestructible facts which never change.... Old, old facts which never
can be ignored, never altered....
There were two things which a man of his race did not do. One of these
he was about to do now.
He took the girl into his arms and held her close, not kissing her.
“I’m in love with you, Gilda,” he said unsteadily.
“I want you to be.”
There was a brief and breathless silence, filled suddenly by the racket
of the telephone bell. The metallic outburst cleared his brain, but it
seemed to madden hers.
She flung wide her bare arms in a sort of childish rage, her lovely
mouth distorted.
“Do you hear that telephone?” she cried. “That’s Sadoul! And _this_ is
where his damned cleverness is urging me--not into _his_ arms--into
_yours_!----” And she clasped him fiercely, strained him to her with a
little cry:
“It’s _you_, not Sadoul! It’s you! only you! Shall I prove I love you
better than my soul?”
The boy turned scarlet: “I want--want you to marry me,” he stammered.
“What!” she exclaimed in flushed astonishment.
“Didn’t you understand?” he demanded.
“M-marry you?” she faltered. “_Darling!_ What are you saying? Don’t you
know I can’t _marry_?”
“Why not?”
“Because I _am_ married.”
He gazed at her aghast.
“Darling! I married Sadoul in Paris ten months ago. Didn’t anybody ever
tell you?”
He seemed stupefied.
“I thought you knew it,” she repeated in a bewildered voice. “That’s
why I ask you what are we to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said vacantly;.... “I’d better leave you alone, I
suppose----”
She caught his lips with hers to silence him; clung closer in a passion
of fear until again he drew her to him.
She was trembling all over now, imprisoned in his arms. After a while
the boy dropped his blond head beside hers, pressing his face against
her hot cheek.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, “----it isn’t in me--it isn’t in
any of my race--to love--lawlessly....”
The girl was crying silently. But when he lifted his head she looked up
at him through her tears:
“I didn’t ever want you to see me when I am this way,” she said
tremulously. “That’s why I always try to escape being with you
when--when the _Other One_ is in possession--and I seem to be what I am
not----”
“Do you mean that this other--this intruder, this strange, depraved
intelligence--is in possession of you _now_!” he demanded hoarsely.
“Can’t you see? Look at me, Stuart. Can’t you see that tonight I am
the--the thing Sadoul showed you?”
But already he knew it was true; knew that he was in love with her even
as he saw her now--even with this depraved intruder gazing out at him
through Gilda’s lovely eyes.
Exasperated, well nigh beside himself, he took the girl by her bare
shoulders, violently:
“You’ve got to free yourself,” he cried; “You’ve got to rid yourself of
this obsession--this waking nightmare. You’ve got to divorce Sadoul----”
“He won’t let me, Stuart. What can I expect from a man who trapped my
soul when I lay dead and sent this _other_ shameless thing into me,
hoping it would prove a friend to him?”
“Can’t your own soul drive it out?”
“It is fighting now.... By tomorrow, I hope----”
“But your mind is still your own, Gilda.”
“My own soul controls that, always. It’s the senses that the _Other_
seizes.”
He looked at her fearfully, unloosed his clasp from her waist, stepped
backward, passing one hand heavily across his eyes.
“This is incredible,” he muttered. “If it’s true, it’s too monstrous to
be without remedy.... After all, God lives--somewhere----”
He pressed his hand, tight, over his eyes again.
“Stuart?”
“Yes,” he said harshly.
“Shall I attempt to make it clearer to you? I think I can.”
“How?”
She thought a moment: “Dearest, I am going to try to show you more than
Sadoul once showed you. I want you to _know_ exactly what happens to
me. Come.”
She took his hand, led him across the room, and opened her chamber door.
There was a bright ceiling lamp burning in her bedroom. She lighted the
rose-shaded night lamp also, then pointed toward the lounge.
He seated himself. She said in a low voice: “I think God will let me
show you.... I pray that He will.... Don’t touch me--_afterward_. Don’t
even speak. Just turn out both lights and go home very quietly. Do you
promise?”
He nodded.
The girl went over to the bed and lay down on the lace counterpane,
extending her slender figure so that she rested on her left side. Her
left arm lay extended; her eyes were covered by her right hand.
For a second or so she moved a little, adjusting herself; then she lay
unstirring under the brilliant ceiling light.
Minutes passed. He scarcely stirred, watching her motionless form.
But into his memory crowded poignant recollections of another night,
when he had sat beside a dead girl until, unable to endure it, he had
dropped on his knees beside her to ask an “Unknown God” for equity and
justice.
* * * * *
Thinking of God now, and his eyes fixed upon the still form on the bed,
he was suddenly aware of another person in the room--a girl, standing
near the fireplace.
Over his neck and back and thighs slow chills crawled.
She was like Gilda; lovelier, possibly. The brilliancy of her
complexion under the ceiling light--the exquisite, nameless grace of
her somehow seemed to still the surging fear in him--quiet his pulse’s
panic.
In the flood of light where she stood there was absolutely nothing
unreal about her. And had Gilda not been lying there on the bed he
would have believed this girl was she.
Then, to his astonishment, she looked at him smilingly; came to him and
rested a light hand on his shoulder. He could feel the warmth of it; he
looked up into her face, and felt the fragrance of her breath.
This was no phantom. Scarcely knowing what he did, he started to rise,
and was arrested by the pressure of her hand gently resisting.
“You promised,” she said, smiling. The sweetness of the low voice was
indescribable.
“Are you real?” he asked, under his breath.
She laughed silently. “Oh, very,” she said. “Touch me.”
Her arms and body were warm and firm. She took his hand and placed it
over her heart. Under it he felt the steady beating.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
“I am Gilda.”
“Then--then _what_ is that on the bed?”
“My home. There is an intruder in it.... Look! Do you see her lying
there, watching us?”
And now, beside the motionless shape on the bed, he saw another figure
lying, half hidden, peering stealthily at him over the naked shoulder
of the unstirring form.
Slowly, furtively, its head lifted; and he recognised the sensual
features of the thing that Sadoul had made him see--the languorous
eyes, the scarlet lips, the neck too white and thick, the limbs, marble
fair, heavy, marvellous----
The thing rose on the bed, supported by one naked arm to prop it.
Suddenly it leaped lightly to the carpet--a living creature, breathing,
palpable, utterly real.
The girl on the bed stirred slightly and a deep sigh escaped her.
The figure beside Stuart bent down and whispered to him to put out the
lights and go.
He rose. The _Other One_ laughed at him; touched his face with her soft
pink fingers as he passed her to extinguish the rose-shaded night lamp.
Before he put out the ceiling light he paused, his hand on the electric
button, and looked at the three he was leaving in the bedroom--leaving
in darkness there.
He looked at the motionless form on the lace counterpane; he looked
at the _Other One_ in all her flagrant beauty; he looked at his first
and loveliest visitor, who returned his gaze sweetly, tranquilly,
reassuringly.
Then he switched off the light.