“Can’t you think?”
She shook her head.
“I must say you seemed inordinately penitent over a broken cup, even if
Mrs. Sillinger was so cross. She said you spilled the coffee all over her
dress; but you didn’t.”
“You mean Jack.”
“Oh yes! What a bother! I shall always get you mixed up in the future.”
“I hope not—for his sake.”
“Now don’t tease me. Tell me where we met.”
“If I do—”
She brightened, the smile of the scarlet lips growing vividly brilliant.
“I know. It was at the Millings’, at Tarrytown.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then it was at the Wynfords’, at Old Westbury? They always have so many
people there—”
“Think again.”
“What’s the good of thinking when, if I could remember you, I should do
it right away?”
“It seems extraordinary to me that you can have forgotten.”
“You seem very sure of the impression you made on me.”
“I am.”
“And I’ve forgotten all about it!”
“You haven’t forgotten the impression; you’ve only forgotten me.”
“Oh, Mr. Melbury, tell me! Please! I’ve got to run off and overtake Mrs.
Grace; and I can’t do it unless I know.”
You will admit that my duty at this juncture required some considering.
In the end I said: “I sha’n’t tell you to-day. I may do it later. In
any case, I’ve given you so many tips that you can’t fail to see for
yourself what they lead to. You’ll probably have recalled by to-night.”
“Then I shall ring you up to-morrow and tell you.”
“No, please don’t do that; and yet, on second thoughts, I know that when
you’ve remembered you won’t want to.”
She said, while withdrawing again toward the adjoining room, “You
certainly know how to make a thing mysterious.”
“I’m not making anything mysterious. You’ll see that, after it’s all come
back to you.”
But, having passed into the next room, she returned to the threshold to
say: “I know you’re only making fun of me. I never met you, because I
couldn’t have forgotten you. And I couldn’t have forgotten you, because
you’re so like your brother. But we’ll talk about it all some other time.”
The first thing I did was to go to a room where there was a full-length
mirror fixed to the wall and examine myself in the glass. Was it possible
that I had changed so much in the brief space of four months? The
reflection told me nothing. In the tall, slim figure in the neat gray
check I could still see the sinister fellow who had slept at Greeley’s
Slip and skulked about the Park and crept into a house at midnight.
The transformation had come so imperceptibly that the one image was
no more vital to me than the other. Inwardly, too, I felt no great
assurance against a relapse. I was like an insect toiling up a slippery
perpendicular. Not only was each step difficult, but it might in the
end land me at the bottom where I began. In other words, I had still
within me the potentialities of the drunkard; and to the drunkard all
aberrations are possible.
That night I put the question up to Lovey.
“Lovey, do I look the same as I did four or five months ago?”
“You looks just as good to me, sonny.”
“Yes, but suppose you hadn’t seen me in the mean while, and had come on
me all of a sudden, would you know right off that it was me?”
“Slim, if I was blind and deaf and dumb, and couldn’t see nothink nor
’ear nothink nor feel nothink, I’d know it was you if you come ’arf a
mile from where I was.”
Since this intuitiveness was of no help to me, I worked round to the
subject when, later in the evening, I had gone in to smoke a good-night
pipe with Cantyre.
He had a neat little corner suite which gave one a cheery view of the
traffic in Madison Avenue north and south by a mere shifting of the eyes.
I sat in the projecting semicircle that commanded this because, after
my own outlook into an airshaft, I enjoyed the twinkling of the lights.
To me the real Ville Lumière is New York. It scatters lights with the
prodigal richness with which the heaven scatters stars. It strings them
in long lines; it banks them in towering façades; it flings them in
handfuls up into the darkness; it writes them on the sky. Twilight offers
you a special beauty because, wherever you are in the city, it brings
out for you in one window or another that first wan, primrose-colored
beacon—in some ways more beautiful than the evening star. Behind the
star you don’t know what there is, while behind the light there is a
palpitating history. Then as you look down from some high perch other
histories light their lamps, till within half an hour the whole town is
ablaze with them—a light for every life-tale—as in pious places there is
one for every shrine.
Those who were looking at ours saw nothing but a green-shaded lamp, and
yet it lit up such bits of drama as Cantyre’s and mine. So behind every
other shining star, in tower or tenement, dwelling-house or hotel, there
was tragedy, comedy, adventure, farce, or romance, all in multifold
complexity, while before each human story there glowed this tranquil fire.
If I had not been an architect, with a knowledge of interior decoration
as part of my profession, I might not have been worried by the sybaritic
note in Cantyre’s rooms. Being fond of flowers, he had sheaves of
gladioluses and chrysanthemums wherever he could stack them. Over the
tables he threw bits of beautiful old brocades, ineffable in color.
Framed and glazed, a seventeenth-century chasuble embroidered in
carnations did duty as a fire-screen. Japanese pottery grotesques and
Barye bronzes jostled one another on the mantelpiece and low bookcases,
while the latter housed rows of handsome volumes bound to suit Cantyre’s
special taste and stamped with his initials. He himself, stretched in a
long chair, wore a dressing-gown of an indescribable shade of plum faced
with an equally indescribable shade of blue. The plum socks and blue
leather slippers couldn’t have been an accident; and as I had dropped in
on him unexpectedly I knew that all this _recherche_ was not to dazzle
any one—I could have forgiven that—but for his own enjoyment.
No one could have been kinder to me than he was—and I liked him. I
reminded myself that it was none of my business if his tastes were
fastidious, and that to spend his money this way was better than in
lounging about bar-rooms, as I had done; and yet I could understand
that a girl like Regina Barry should be impatient of these traits in a
husband.
I sat, however, with my back to it all, astride of a small chair, my pipe
in my mouth, looking down on the lights and traffic.
Breaking a long silence, I said, as casually as I could do it: “I met
Sterling Barry’s daughter the other day—Miss Regina Barry, her name is,
isn’t it?”
Vague, restless movements preceded the laconic response, “Where?”
“She came to the memorial with Mrs. Grace.”
Hearing him strike a match, I knew he was making an effort at sang-froid
by lighting a cigarette.
“Did you—did you—think her—pretty?”
“Pretty wouldn’t be the word.”
“Beautiful?”
“Nor beautiful.”
“What then?”
“No word that I know would be adequate. You might say fascinating if it
hadn’t been vulgarized; and chic would be worse.”
“She’s tremendously animated—and vivid.”
“She has the most living eyes and mouth I’ve ever seen in a human being.
I’ve never seen a face so aglow with mind, emotion, and color. She’s all
flame, but a flame like that of the burning bush, afire from a force
within.”
He spoke bitterly. “And people talk about that being conquered!”
To lead him further I said, “Has any one talked of it?”
“Didn’t you know?”
“How should I know? You—you’ve never told me.”
“Well, I’m—I’m telling you now.”
My sympathy was quite genuine.
“Thanks, old boy. I can see—I can see how hard it must have gone with
you.”
“How hard it’s going, Frank. There’s a difference in tense. If you knew
her better—”
“I’m not sure that I care to know her better; and that, old man, isn’t
said out of rudeness. I don’t belong to her world any more; and I’d
rather not try to get back into it.”
“Oh, get out! As a matter of fact I’m going to take you to see her.”
“You needn’t do that, because she asked me to come.”
“Right off the bat like that? The first time she’d ever seen you?”
“It wasn’t exactly that. She knew my brother Jack; and my cousin, Annette
van Elstine, is a friend of hers.”
“Annette van Elstine is your cousin? Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“Oh, for reasons. I should think you’d see. Why should I claim Annette as
a cousin? One of the smartest women in New York, I’m told she is.”
“One of the very smartest. She could do anything for you.”
“So there you are! When you think of what I was when you first met
me—what I am still, really—” It seemed to me, however, that I had found
my opening, so I went on in another vein. “I met Annette’s father in the
street one day, not long ago, and he went by without recognizing me. Have
I changed very much—since the spring?”
“I should know you anywhere, Frank; but Coningsby and Christian were
saying last week that they wouldn’t take you to be the same man any more.”
“Did they mean morally—or physically?”
“Oh, they meant in looks. They said they’d never seen any one in whom
good clothes and a straight life had so thoroughly created a new man.”
“So that you think my uncle might reasonably—”
“Pass you without recognition? Oh, Lord, yes! Besides, your mustache
changes you a lot. I’d shave that off again if I were you; and you want
to get back to your old self.”
To end the subject I said merely: “I’m glad to hear that I don’t look as
I did; because—because I shouldn’t like to think that the good old fellow
had cut me.”
_CHAPTER X_
My problem was now as to how to tell Regina Barry who I was; and it would
have been more urgent had I not felt sure that sooner or later she must
guess. Indeed, she might have guessed already. I had no means of knowing.
During the four or five days since her visit to the memorial no echo of
our meeting had come back to me.
But I was not left long in doubt.
The William Grace Memorial was now practically ready for furnishing.
Mrs. Grace was about to move back to town in order to undertake the
task. Coningsby and I were going through the rooms one day with an eye
to details that might have been overlooked when he said, “Well, there
doesn’t seem much more for you to do here, does there?”
I replied that as far as any further need of my services was concerned I
might knock off work there and then—thanking him for all his help through
the summer.
“And now,” he went on, “I should like you to come in on this job at
Atlantic City if you’d care to. You see, you and I understand each other;
we speak the same language both professionally and socially; and it’s not
so easy as you might think to pick up a chap of whom you can say that.
Why not come up to our little place—say to-morrow night—and dine with us,
and we could talk it over? My wife told me to ask you.”
Knowing that Coningsby had been aware of the state of my wardrobe a few
months earlier, I blushed to the roots of my hair as I put the question:
“What shall I wear? Tails—or a dinner jacket and black tie?”
“Oh, a dinner jacket. There’ll be just ourselves.”
But when I went I found not only my host and hostess, but Regina Barry to
make the party square.
The Coningsbys lived on the top floor of an apartment-house on the summit
of the ridge between the west side of the Park and the Hudson. Below
them lay a picturesque tumble of roofs running down to the river, beyond
which the abrupt New Jersey heights drew a long straight line against the
horizon. Sunset and moonset were the special beauties of the site, with
the swift and ceaseless current to add life and mystery to the outlook.
The apartment differed from Cantyre’s in that its simplicity would have
been bare had it not produced an impression of containing just enough.
The walls of the drawing-room were of a pale-gold ocher against which
every spot of color told for its full value. On this background the green
of chairs, the rose of lamp-shades, the mahogany of tables, and the
satinwood of cabinets pleased and rested the eye. There were no pictures
in the room but a portrait of Mrs. Coningsby, which one of the great
artists of the day had painted for her as a gift. In its richness of
copper-colored hair and diaphanous jade-green draperies the room got all
the decoration it required.
I had heard Regina Barry’s voice on entering, and knew that I was up
against my fate. That is to say, the revolver lay ready in my desk.
Knowing that such a meeting as this must occur some time, I was in
earnest as to using the weapon on the day when her eyes accused me. As I
took off my overcoat and hat and laid them on a settle in the hall, I
said I should probably do it when I went home that night. It would depend
on how she looked at me.
Meeting me at the door of the drawing-room, Mrs. Coningsby was sweet and
kindly in her welcome without being over-demonstrative. I had heard of
her beauty, but was not prepared for anything so magnificent. Her height,
her complexion, her hair, her free movements—were those of a goddess. I
liked and admired Coningsby; but I wondered how even he had caught this
Atalanta and imprisoned her in a flat on the west side of New York.
“You know Miss Barry, don’t you?” were the words with which she directed
me toward the end of the room, where the other guest was seated in a low
arm-chair by a corner of the fireplace.
So the supreme moment came. I went the length of the room knowing that I
was facing it.
I suppose it is instinct that tells women how to avoid comparisons with
each other by creating contrasts. Knowing that in competition with her
hostess she would have everything to lose, Miss Barry used Mrs. Coningsby
as a foil. In other words, she had divined the fact that her friend would
be in black with a spangling of blue-green sequins, and so had enhanced
her own vividness by dressing in a bright rose-red. What she lacked in
beauty, therefore, she made up in a brilliancy that stood out against the
pale-gold ocher background with the force of a flaming flower.
As I stooped to take the hand she held up languidly I tried to search
her eyes. They told me nothing. The fire in them seemed not exactly to
have gone out, but to have been hidden behind some veil of film through
which one could get nothing but a glow. Had she meant to baffle me she
couldn’t have done it more effectively; but, as I learned later, she
meant nothing of the kind. Her greeting, as far as I could judge of it,
was precisely that which she would have accorded to any other diner-out.
During the exchange of commonplaces that ensued there were two things I
noticed with curiosity and uneasiness. She wore the string of pearls I
had seen once before—had had in my pocket, as a matter of fact—and the
long diamond bar-pin. As to her rings I could not be sure, having on the
night when I meant to steal them noticed nothing but their number. But
the pearls and the diamonds arrested my attention—and my questionings.
Was she wearing them on purpose? Was she holding them up as silent
reminders between her and me? Was I to understand from merely looking at
them the charge her eyes refused to convey?
I had no means of seeking an answer to these questions, because Coningsby
came in and the process of being welcomed had to be gone through again.
Moreover, the commonplaces which, when carried on _à deux_, might have
led to something more personal remained as commonplaces and no more when
tossed about _à quatre_.
On our going in to dinner the same tone was maintained, and I learned
nothing from any interchange of looks. There was, in fact, no interchange
of looks. Miss Barry talked to her right and to her left, but rarely
across the table. When it became necessary to speak a word directly to
me she did it with so hasty a glance that it might easily not have been
a glance at all. The burning eyes that had watched me so intently on our
first meeting, and studied me with so much laughing curiosity on our
second, kept themselves hidden. Since it was on them that I had reckoned
to tell me what I was so eager to be sure of, I was like a man who hopes
to look through a window and finds it darkened by curtains.
After dinner, however, I got an opportunity. Coningsby and his wife were
summoned to the nursery to discuss the manifestations of some childish
ailment. Miss Barry and I being left alone before the fire, I was able to
say, “Well, have you thought of it?”
Some of the customary vivacity returned to her lips and eyes. She had at
no time seemed unkindly—only absent and rather dreamy. She was rather
dreamy still, but more on the spot mentally.
“Thought of what?”
“Of—of where we first met.”
“Oh, that! I’m sorry to say I’ve been too busy to do any searching in my
memory. But one of these days I must.”
There was no mistaking the sincerity of her tone. She had not searched in
her memory; she had not considered it worth while. Her interest in our
meeting at the memorial had probably passed before she had driven away.
I must plead guilty to feeling piqued. That she should be so much in
my mind and that I should occupy so small a place in hers not only
disappointed but annoyed me. I said to myself, “Oh, well, if she cares
so little there is no reason why I should care more.” Aloud I made it:
“Please don’t bother about it. One of these days the recollection will
come back to you of its own accord.”
“Yes; I dare say.” She went on without transition, “Whom did your brother
marry?”