"Why, I rather like that dried-up little chip," he said. "He's about
the grade of citizen we expected."
"_We?_" repeated Diana meaningly; "do you expect to go with us?"
"Are you going to force me out of this perfectly good combination,
Diana?"
The girl sat silent on the bed's edge regarding him, but not answering.
"There's one thing which ought to be settled now," observed Silvette;
"if our cousin, Mr. Edgerton, is to remain in this firm, we've got to
call him Jim, if only for appearance' sake. Otherwise people would
chatter."
"Jim?" repeated Diana; "very well, it doesn't embarrass me to call him
Jim--or Tom or Bill, for that matter," she added indifferently.
"It doesn't worry me, either," said Edgerton; "call me anything but
early."
"Such a poor joke!" said Silvette; "if we ever call you, cousin, it will
be a very late affair--and with nothing under a full house."
"Poker!--and _you_! What an incredible combination!" he said.
Diana interrupted coolly: "If you please, Mr. Edgerton, what is your
valuable and masculine opinion concerning this munificent offer for the
summer?" And she let her glance rest slowly and sideways on her sister.
"Take it," he said; "it's a good offer."
"Is that your vote?" inquired Silvette.
"Have I a vote?" he asked of Diana; but she merely said: "I say we try
the Rivetts of Adriutha. That is _my_ vote."
"Then--so do I say so," nodded Silvette. "Is it settled?"
Diana looked up at Edgerton.
"Are you really expecting to come with us?"
"If you will let me."
She remained a moment in thought, then sprang lightly to her feet.
"Who is going to be our spokesman?" she asked; "you, sister?"
"Jim," said Silvette, tranquilly leading the way. "It looks better, I
think."
So Edgerton politely informed Mr. Rivett of their unanimous decision,
and that little man got briskly to his feet.
"I'm satisfied," he said. "Come to Adriutha as soon as you are ready.
Bring all the luggage you want to bring; there's plenty of room.
_Don't_ bring any servants; there are more than enough there now. My
wife and I receive you as guests; my son and daughter are about your
ages; nobody can prophesy what you'll think of them or they of you....
Colonel--if you are ready.... Good-by, ma'am," to Silvette, offering a
dry little hand; and he took his leave of Diana and of Edgerton, and
pulled the colonel unceremoniously out of a most elegant attitude,
ruining a jaunty bow which he had not intended to finish so abruptly.
"Well," exclaimed Silvette with a sigh and a laugh as the door closed,
"it's settled! Let's forget it.... What do you think of our gowns,
cousin James?"
"Corking," he replied; "but my cousin Diana was very fetching in her
Japanese dress this morning."
"That's like a man!" observed Diana. "I was a mess, Silvie--with two
ragged peonies over my ears and those old straw sandals of yours----"
"You were a vision of Japanese fairyland," he insisted. "I may be
weak-minded, but I simply cannot get that vision of you out of my head."
"Try some tea," as the maid brought it; "weak tea and feeble intellects
agree."
"Oh, I'll try tea or anything else, but if you think I'm likely to
forget the first moment I ever saw you--a slender, Japanese shadow shape
against the sun!--ethereal, vaguely tinted, exquisite----"
"You _are_ a poet, Jim," said Silvette admiringly. "I read one of your
rhymes in _Life_ once, and didn't think so."
"Diana made me a poet. If you'd seen her as she came stealing across
the window, which was all glittering like a Japanese sunburst, you'd
have become a poet, too!" He began to laugh. "I even created a name
for you, Diana; it came to me--was already on my lips----"
"What name?" she asked, looking composedly at him.
"Japonette! ... _I_ never before heard such a name. I don't believe
there ever was such a name before it suddenly twitched at my lips for
utterance! Japonette!"
"Why didn't you utter it if you were so enchanted with your discovery?"
"Because you seemed to be sufficiently scared as it was."
She shrugged, and handed him his tea. "Japonette," she repeated
reflectively; "I don't know whether or not I care for it. It sounds
frivolous."
"Which you are not!"
She lifted her blue eyes to his.
"_You_ think I am," she said.
"No, I don't."
"You _know_ I am," she said, and presented herself with a small tea
cake. Into it she bit once; then raised her eyes, watching her sister
manipulating the alcohol lamp.
"Do you suppose," she said, "that we'll ever have the slightest personal
interest in these Rivett people?"
"Probably not," said her sister. "What of it? I wonder whether that
colonel is likely to figure as a guest."
Diana shrugged again. "Figure! He seems to be all figure. I thought
him rather odious."
"Did you? He seemed anxious to be agreeable. Who is he, cousin Jim?"
"I don't know.... Perhaps I may have heard of him--a militia colonel of
some kind, I don't remember. He's probably a decent sort; I rather like
him."
"I wonder," said Diana reflectively, "whether you are anything of a
snob?"
Edgerton reddened, then sat still looking at her.
"I was going to resent that," he said after a moment, "but I can't;
because what you just said set me thinking."
"Are you unaccustomed to thinking?" she asked too innocently; and he
reddened again.
"Stop tormenting him," said Silvette, pouring herself more tea. "You're
a tease, Diane."
"You both seem a little in that way," he suggested; "you jeer at me and
then look pained, and tell each other to stop."
"We're too intelligent," said Silvette calmly; "that's the trouble with
us; and when, by degrees, we add a little more experience to our
intelligence we'll be either exceedingly unpopular or--successfully
married."
"Why those terrible alternatives?" he asked, laughing.
"Because the man who is able to endure us will probably be worth the
bother of marrying--when we've finished dissecting him. We don't know
just how to dissect men yet, but we're rapidly learning. It's only a
matter of practice and experience."
He laughed again, and so did Silvette, but Diana scarcely smiled, lying
back in her velvet armchair and watching Edgerton and her sister
alternately with grave, incurious eyes.
"How old are you, anyway?" he said, looking straight at her.
"Twenty-seven," she answered calmly. "Don't jump, please."
"What!" he exclaimed incredulously.
"I look about nineteen, don't I?"
"Certainly you do--about eighteen!"
"Well, I am twenty-seven; Silvette is twenty-five. Don't bother with
compliments."
"Good Lord! Are _you_ the elder?"
"Tread lightly there," cautioned Silvette, amused, "or you'll presently
involve yourself with two indignant spinsters. You've behaved very
cleverly. Let well enough alone."
"If you hadn't told me," he began, astonished, "I'd have taken Silvette
for nineteen and you for eighteen. I--well, I simply can't realize it."
"How old may _you_ be, cousin?" inquired Silvette with a malicious
sweetness impossible to describe.
"I'm thirty-two," he said.
"We thought you less," remarked Diana; then she ventured to glance at
him, and the enchanting smile broke suddenly from her lips and eyes.
"Don't you know we _do_ like you, cousin James, or we wouldn't torment
you?" said Silvette, laughing.
"A woman at twenty-seven is centuries older than a man at thirty," added
Diana, "except, of course, in some things. Theoretically, Silvie and I
are highly instructed; practically, the man of thirty is more
specifically intelligent, which is no compliment to the man of thirty."
Edgerton, still astonished, sat back in his chair, considering.
"Do you know," he said, "I never suspected I had two such relatives in
the world, who wear the appearance of debutantes with an assurance that
convinces until their wit and wisdom convict them. Where were you
educated, anyway?"
"In a southern boarding school and in a western university. After that,
Silvette studied law and was admitted to the bar. I am entitled to
practice medicine," she added demurely. "Does _that_ scare you?"
"Do you think it has spoiled us?" asked Silvette so naively that he made
no attempt to control his laughter.
"Why on earth don't you do those two things?" he managed to ask at last.
"If you're entitled to exercise professions, why don't you?"
"We only studied out of curiosity," explained Diana. "We never intended
to follow it up. Of course, we expected to remain always in pleasant
financial circumstances."
"Anyway," added Silvette, "it's too late now to sit in an office and
wait for clients and patients. Besides, it's a stuffy life. We dance
better, and we decorate a drawing-room to more advantage than an office
building."
"You _have_ thoroughly scared me," he said, looking at them admiringly.
Diana glanced up, then flushed.
"I was afraid for a moment that you meant it," she said.
"I do. What was it you asked me a few moments ago--whether or not I was
something of a snob? And I was about to resent it--politely, of
course--when it occurred to me that there was, after all, no more
finished snob than the man who is so convinced of his own position that
he can afford to like everybody; and I told you I liked that militia
gentleman. I really didn't; I thought him the limit.... Diana, you seem
to be a sort of truth compeller."
"I'm a liar, occasionally--to speak with accuracy instead of elegance,"
said Diana frankly. "I've managed to convey to you an idea that I am
indifferent to your joining the firm of Tennant and Tennant. As a
matter of fact, I'm flattered and happy. It's my conscience that
protests."
"Your--what?"
"Conscience. Never mind--you won't understand, and I won't tell you....
After all, you are thirty-two, even if you happen to be an Edgerton."
"Are you jeering at me?"
"No, I am not. I'm flattered because you wear a distinguished name; I'm
happy because I'm entirely inclined to like you. In fact, I'm a kind of
a happy, little snob myself. There! we're all tarred with the same
snobbish brush, cousin. Shall we take off our masks for a while and
cool our faces?"
She rose with a gay little laugh and a bewitching gesture as though
sweeping from her face an invisible vizard.
"Behold me as I am, cousin! Just what you have already divined me, with
your eyes too humorous and too wise for a man of thirty--frivolous,
feminine, not insensible to flattery, wise only in theory, a novice in
practice----"
She hesitated, looking at him, the bright color in her cheeks.
"What silenced and incensed me was that you divined it. I would have
liked to have played a part with you vis-a-vis----"
"You're playing it now," observed Silvette. "Jim doesn't know what you
are now; even I have doubts."
Diana laughed deliciously.
"_Do_ I puzzle you, cousin?"
"Are you trying to?"
"Of course."
"Well, you've succeeded. You're perfectly right, Silvette; I don't know
anything about her now. Are there any more roles you can assume,
Japonette?"
"Many, monsieur. One of them _is_ Japonette, if I choose."
"Play it," he said, "if you ever want to tie me to your Obi."
"You behave," observed Silvette tranquilly, "like two rather ordinary
young persons flirting."
"We are," nodded Diana, "but it won't last, Silvie. It's only my kimono
and his thirty-odd years and the unconventionality that attracts him."
She strolled about airily waving her fan. "Not that I mind being picked
up----"
"Di! You'll give him a perfectly horrid impression of yourself!"
"Why, he knows I didn't mind it. It's past helping now."
"_How_ can a man 'pick up,' as you so disgustingly put it, his own
cousin?"
"That _was_ a triumph, wasn't it, Jim?" she asked innocently. "It
remained for an Edgerton to accomplish the weird and impossible; but an
Edgerton can do anything in New York--n'est ce pas? Bien, sure! Sure,
Mike!"
"Diana!"
"Dearest, I _feel_ slangy; and cousin James is so thoroughly a man of
the world that he doesn't care. He wouldn't care what I did. I could
perform a pas seul or a flip-flap or a cart wheel, and _he_ wouldn't
care. It's done in the best circles here, isn't it, cousin?"
"Frequently," he said gravely, "varied occasionally by voloplaning down
the banisters."
She looked about her wistfully.
"There are no banisters here. Perhaps there are at the Rivetts'. Do
you think it would entertain his guests? You know we are employed for
that purpose."
"You and I ought to practice some acrobatic turns," he suggested. "Do
you think you could learn to throw a double somersault standing on my
shoulders?"
"I can try----"
"Di! what on earth are you talking about!" said Silvette, turning from
the piano to encounter their unrestrained laughter.
"Oh, dear," said Diana, "I didn't know I could ever be silly again. I
thought that losing all our money a year ago had frightened it out of
me; but it's there, cousin Jim--the same frivolity which _you_ instantly
discovered in me, and which the Rivetts will probably and properly
quench.... Silvie, this studio floor is delightfully waxed.... Cousin,
do you dance?"
"Rottenly."
"Never mind.... Silvie, dear--one little waltz, please? _Please_?
Thank you. Pull away that rug, cousin. Are you ready?"
She laid her arm on his, her hand in his; Silvette, playing, turned her
head to watch them.
"He _is_ a rotten dancer," she said critically.
"I can't help that," said Diana; "it was the time and the hour. I
needed it! ... Jim, don't step on my toe, please, and don't _think_ of
stopping. You do well enough, really, you do.... No man who counts
dances like a Turveydrop.... We use dancing men for dancing purposes
only.... Of course you are flattered; I meant to flatter you, so you
wouldn't be horrid enough to stop.... Please finish glaring at me; you
are really giving me a great deal of pleasure."
"I begin to wonder whether I was not created for that, Japonette."
"To amuse me? Unintentionally? perhaps."
"So that you notice me at all, it doesn't matter," he said under his
breath.
"Goodness! what meekness! Only that you're a typical man and don't mean
it, I'd hate you for it.... A meek man--from him, good Lord, deliver
us! ... No, cousin, there is that in your eye which--and in your general
make-up----"
"What?"
"Oh, I don't know--thirty-odd masculine years--_very_ masculine!--or I'd
not be dancing with you, or I'd not be in this house at this moment; or,
rather, _you_ wouldn't. Stop mincing along in a horrid sort of
self-satisfied prance! ... And don't hop, either! Are you tiring?"
"No," he said bravely.
"I'll let you go in a moment, before you swoon and I have to drag you to
a chair.... You dance well enough. I like it, really ... and--thank you
very much indeed!"
They parted, breathless. She stood a moment waving her fan against her
bright cheeks and touching her hair with cleft fingers. He extracted a
handkerchief from his sleeve and used it frankly.
"It's hot in here," he said; "show me your roof garden."
"Silvette," she called over her shoulder, "will you come up to the
roof?"
Silvette nodded and continued playing an air from "Armide"; and they
waited for her a moment, then went out into the hallway and up to the
roof.
"The garden of a thousand delights!" she said with a sweep of her hand
and a curtsey. "The Japanese fairy, Japonette, welcomes the true prophet
of her frivolity."
He looked around at the flowers in pots--geraniums, verbenas, fuchsias,
heliotrope--homely, old-fashioned blossoms.
"I bought them from a peddler; I stopped his wagon in the street and
made him carry them up here. They only cost two dollars; and I was
economical at the market," she explained.
He glanced up at the awning gay with yellow and white stripes.
"Macy's," she admitted guiltily; "I'll starve you at dinner to-night to
pay for it."
He looked at her rather queerly, she thought.
"There are things I'd starve for--and people."
"And awnings, cousin?"
"Yours."
"That's very nice and gallant and obvious," she said in such a
tormenting tone that he broke out almost impatiently:
"Japonette, can't you ever take me seriously?"
"I hope not, cousin."
For an instant the smile remained stamped on their lips; then the slight
strain became perceptible, a moment only, for she turned lightly away
and seated herself on the edge of a big hanging seat.
"More Macy," she nodded ruefully. "We'll all have to fast to-morrow....
You may sit here, too, if you wish.'"
A family of starlings were nesting in the cornices of the roof across
the way, and the two young people watched the old birds for a while
flying to the park and returning with food for their invisible young.
"Horrid, isn't it?" observed Diana. "But that's the way of things. No
sooner are you married and happy than--zip! the scene changes, and you
turn into a wretched purveyor of nourishment for the next generation.
Carpe diem!"
"Cede Deo! It's probably good fun," commented Edgerton.
"What? Slaving for others just when you are all ready for real
happiness?"
"_That's_ happiness, or nobody would do it--not even those birds."
"It's instinct!"
"Maybe with birds. Instincts are all right for birds, but we humans are
usually arrested when we follow our instincts."
She laughed. "That _is_ true; it's neither instinct nor happiness that
makes us slaves to babies:--it's duty."
"If that were all it is," he said, "the state would be nourishing the
majority of infants. No; it's probably fun, Diana. That's the only
possible explanation."
She shrugged her dainty shoulders and looked at the westering sun above
Staten Island; and in the gesture she seemed, in pantomime, to discard
all feminine duties, cares, and responsibilities forever. Then as she
rested there, cheek on hand, her blue eyes grew vaguer.
"I am glad you came into our lives," she said; "I mean it this time."
"I am glad, too," he said seriously.
"You are now; I can see that.... How soon will you be sorry?"
"Why?"
She turned toward him.
"How soon will the novelty tire you?"
"I have not considered you as a novelty."
"But I am; I'm a mechanical toy. My paint soon comes off, cousin."
"You're my own kin. There's no novelty, as you call it, in kinship,
nothing evanescent."
She said: "Do you really and deliberately desire to stand by that
extremely tenuous and attenuated tie? An attitude of that sort entails
duties. You may have much to overlook in us--even much to forgive. Are
you aware of your responsibilities?"
"I assumed them when I asked to be admitted to your partnership."
"Why _did_ you ask to join?"
"The real reason?"
She hesitated, looking at him.
"Yes, the real one."
"You."
"What exactly do you mean by that answer?"
"I don't know, myself, Japonette," he said laughingly; "I've tried to
analyze it, too. The instinct of relationship may have counted."
"I hope it did," said she.
"I hope so. God knows, and men are selfish.... And _that_ counted,
too."
"What?"
"Selfishness."
"I don't believe there is very much in you."
"That is where your heart is still a child's heart, Japonette."
"Oh, I'm no altruist, but there's selfishness _and_ selfishness....
What were we talking about? Oh! why you desired to join----"
"No, we got past that."
"Oh, yes; well, then, you say it was because of me. Why?"
"I told you I didn't know exactly why; but the root of it all was
you.... And when you told me about some people who had come here--that
fellow who spoke about a housekeeper----"
"Jim Edgerton!"
"What!"
"I believe--but you _can't_ be as nice as that! You simply can't!"
"Oh, I'm not nice," he protested, reddening; but she interrupted:
"You _are_! I certainly believe you thought that Silvie and I required
somebody masculine in our vicinity--to throw the housekeeping man
downstairs, for example. Did you?"
"No. I only----"
"_Did_ you?"
"Of course not."
"Do you know," she said seriously, "you're a perfect dear in one way,
and I don't know what you are in others. _Now_ be flattered, for _that_
makes you interesting. And you know it's all up with a woman who finds
a man interesting."
She was laughing at him now, and he scarcely knew how to take what she
said except to take it with a grin.
"You're a terrible torment, Diana," he said. "My value in my own
estimation, since I've known you, has fluctuated between a dollar and a
half and thirty cents."
"You _said_ you had two dollars! I believe you're one of these wealthy
men who are always singing poor!"
"How many other kinds of things do you think I am?" he asked resignedly.
"I don't know. I think I'll amuse myself by finding out."
"Meanwhile," he said, smiling, "remember I am always what I was when I
first set eyes on you--no!--the next second _after_ I had seen you."
"A lightning change, cousin?"
"Like lightning, Diana."
"The lightning of the gods?"
"Diana's own shaft.... 'The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the
moon by night,' but I stand betwixt the rising sun of Japan and--you,
Diana. _Somebody's_ shot me, that's all."
"You are perfectly delightful, but do you realize that I'm dissecting
you all the while?"
"You once said----"
"Never mind that," she interrupted hastily; and blushed until it
infuriated her to calmness. And to heal the sting with the cause of it
she said:
"You're perfectly right, cousin; any man who can endure our scalpel will
be worth seizing and dragging to the parson. But--you are perfectly
safe for a while. It takes a lifetime to properly dissect a man of your
sort. I'll be eighty before I make up my mind about you."
"Eighty years is not beyond the statute of limitations."
"You'd marry me at eighty! Do you know you're beginning to trouble me?
I told you I was thoroughly feminine, and susceptible to flattery. I
am; it's too bad I'm so intelligent that I've really got to satisfy that
intelligence by spending years and years in dissecting you. Otherwise,
I'd run away with you now."
"In your Japanese silks and little straw sandals?"
"Oh, yes, if you were sentimental enough to insist."
"I would."
She shrugged. "I knew you were a dreamer--captivated by a vision.
Suppose you had to see me pinning on store curls?"
"I'd help pin 'em."
"Well, there are plenty of other things to disillusion you. I adore
onions."
"So do I," he said.
They laughed together.
She was near enough for him to be aware of the faint scent of her
breath, or it may have been a fragrance from her gown which stirred
slightly in the evening breeze, or the delicate fresh perfume of her
hair and skin--something indefinable, some exquisite emanation of youth
which had stolen subtly into his senses--something of her, and as
distinctly and inviolably hers as the occult atmosphere of a virgin
planet.
"Cousin," she said, "I thought we were to remove our masks in the family
circle. They seem to be on as closely as ever."
He looked at her a moment.
"We never will remove them," he said.
"Never?"
"Never, Japonette."
"Why not?"
"Because, for example, in my case I want you to believe me everything
I'd like to be. I know what I am. All people know what they are....
Does anybody ever really unmask? ... Could they if they wished to? There
would be only another mask beneath.... We can't ever get rid of
masks.... I don't care how hard we try, how honestly we try, how
intimate two people become, how deeply they may love--there's always a
mask, and it grows there; and our own eyes are the slits. Even a mother
with her first born in her arms looks down into its eyes in vain--those
blue and transparent veils of a secret soul which sits behind them,
impenetrable, inviolable."
After a silence she said:
"Silvette was right; you are a poet, Jim.... How dusky it is growing
over the river. Silvette is probably superintending dinner preparations.
Shall we go down?"
*CHAPTER V*
*DE MOTU PROPRIO*
They arrived at Adriutha two days later in a roaring downpour of June
rain. A maid conducted Silvette and Diana to their rooms, a valet
piloted Edgerton to another wing of the house devoted to bachelors'
quarters over the vast billiard room.
At the eastern end of the house Silvette stood beside the window while
the maid assigned to them undressed her. Diana, already in her pajamas
and sandals, lay flat on the bed, one knee crossed over, swinging her
slim, bare foot and looking out at the rain.
It was a wet outlook across the meadows, over a low range of rocky and
wooded hills, behind which the invisible sun had already set. In the
drenched foreground, beyond the meadow's matted edge, the Deerfield
River tossed and foamed, swollen a deeper amber by the rain--a wide,
swift stream set with spray-dashed bowlders, and bordered alternately by
ledges dripping with verdure and sandy stretches full of low rain-beaten
willows. The world, through its limpid veil of rain, looked like a
silvery aquarelle framed by a window.
Tea was presently served. Silvette in her silk lounging suit came over
and seated herself on the edge of the bed; the maid finished drawing the
bath, and retired until again summoned.
"Well," sighed Silvette, pouring the tea, "here we are, Di. How do you
feel about it now?"
"Depressed," said Diana briefly.
"So do I, somehow.... I wish we were back in New York, with just enough
to live on."
Diana swung her foot gently, but made no reply.
Presently she kicked off her sandal, lay thinking a moment, and then sat
up and accepted the cup of tea offered by her sister. They sipped their
tea in silence for a while, nibbled toast and cakes until sufficiently
refreshed.
"After all," observed Silvette, "what we are doing for a living is
purely a matter of personal taste. It ought not to depress us."
"We should have told him! That is the only thing that worries me,"
remarked Diana. "Still, it is really none of his business what we do for
a living."
"After all," repeated Silvette, "what is there to tell him? Keno,
Nevada, has nothing to learn from New York in frivolity, I fancy. There
are several pretty women in every set who'd starve if they didn't play
cards better than their neighbors."
"I rather wish we'd told him about our year there; yet, what is there to
tell? Probably it resembled plenty of years with which he is perfectly
familiar."
"Do we have to account to Jim Edgerton anyway?" asked Silvette
impatiently.
"He wanted to come with us," mused Diana. "When he wants to go, he'll
go fast enough, I fancy. It isn't what he might think, or his possible
disapproval, that worries me; it's that he ought to have been told more
about us in the beginning.... But how were we to tell him?"
"He didn't ask, did he?"
"No; but, somehow or other, we ought to have put him au courant, and
then he could have had his choice about recognizing the relationship or
ignoring it. That's what bothers me a little."
"How could we possibly have told him all about ourselves the first
afternoon we ever set eyes on him?"
"There were two other afternoons; one is just ending.... I don't know;
I might easily have created a situation in which it would have seemed
natural enough to mention our programme to him."
"Why didn't you, Di?"
"Cowardice," said the girl frankly; and she stretched herself out flat
on the bed again.
"Do you think as much of Jim Edgerton's opinion as that?"
"I seem to.... I didn't want to take the risk of his disapproval. I'm
beginning to realize that we've been dishonest with him."
"That is an ugly word, little sister."
"I don't know any way to soften it. A girl is either honest or the
contrary. I was not honest with Jim Edgerton."
"He might not disapprove, after all. He is no provincial."
"Yes--and he might disapprove. Men of his kind who stand for almost
anything in outsiders are finicky about their own relatives. They really
don't care what imprudence other people commit; they may even admire
it--even do it themselves--but there's a difference as soon as it
involves one of the family. I've an idea he is like that."
"Isn't it stretching a thin tie of kinship too far to speak of Jim
Edgerton and ourselves in a family sense? Are you and I not rather
inclined to abuse that word cousin, Diana?"
"He first used it to us," she said warmly; "it is his choice. He's a
very impulsive and generous boy; do you know it?"
"Yes, I do.... Isn't it a thousand pities?"
"What about?"
"His losing everything--being so wretchedly poor.... And our being
poor, too."
"Yes," said Diana simply.
"And he'll never, never recoup. He is full of talent, and nothing else.
What a pity! He isn't the successful sort. It's a pity, isn't it, Di?"
"Yes."
"Because he is already quite mad about you, Di--he's a perfect boy about
you... How can men of his age retain their niceness and charm and
freshness, after what they usually pass through. With all his
undesirable wisdom and his masculine worldly experiences, he's
practically as innocent as we are."
Diana suddenly sat up cross-legged on the bed and gathered her ankles in
her hands.
[Illustration: "'I wonder just how innocent we really are,' she said."]
"I wonder just how innocent we really are," she said, "with all those
things which we have been obliged to know about in our higher education?
And--speaking of education--there was our last year in Keno. That year
did some curious things to us. Do you realize our development, our
worldly evolution since the beginning of last year--how familiar we
became with that doubtful worldly wisdom which is supposed to be part of
the make-up of a woman of the world? ... Do you realize that it was a
year of laissez faire, of revelation, of laxity and acquiescence in
relaxation, a year of paradox, of ceremony sans facon, of schooling
oneself to overlook and accept, of an education in morals and their
immoral variations? How aloof have we kept ourselves from what we have
learned to tolerate?--and how much was due to fastidiousness, how much
to expediency, how much to common sense, and how much to spiritual
conviction?"
"Does your conscience really trouble you?" asked Silvette anxiously.
"No; only in regard to Jim Edgerton. I'd rather he knew how we regard
life before he reclaims relationship in public; that's all."
Silvette said: "We are merely wiser; merely less provincial and more
honest and tolerant of a world that isn't any too goody-goody. We've
learned to distinguish between mock modesty, false shame, hypocrisy, and
honest conviction. Take Keno, for instance; before we lived there we
were inclined to look askance on what the world accepts with
indifference and perfect good nature. I mean, on the rather lurid
gayeties of a little world where attractive divorcees make up the bulk
of society--where the eternal cry in the ballroom is 'Change partners!
Ladies change!'--and where nobody plays cards except for stakes. After
all, Keno is merely a section of New York temporarily transplanted.
He'd probably feel at home there."
Diana turned, deliberately rolled across the bed, landing lightly on her
feet.
"All right," she said; "only, some day somebody will tell Jim Edgerton
that those two cousins of his are outpacing propriety. We're just a dash
too pretty, Silvie, and we've simply got to be careful. There's one
enemy you and I will always have to reckon with--our own sex."
She walked to the window, looked out, and stood watching the rain, her
childish mouth troubled. And, presently, speaking again without turning
around:
"Our programme, as we have arranged it, was to be a general one--to win
out, go in for everything, play the game as hard as it can be played,
meet the gayer world face to face squarely, and take from it honestly
all it has to offer."
"Except love."
"Except--that."
"Love, per se, we can't afford," said Silvette gayly; "however, it may
even be included. Who knows? Material masculine eligibility need not
necessarily exclude that agreeable passion, need it? Many a worthy
heart beats beneath the waistcoat of the plutocrat."
"The chances are against any deal in hearts, as far as we are
concerned."
"You're not thinking of Jim Edgerton, are you, Di?"
Diana stood, hands clasped behind her back, staring at the rain.
Suddenly she pivoted on her sandals.
"Yes, I am thinking of him. I'm thinking of him all the time."
"That is very unwise," said Silvette gently.
"I am thinking of him, but it's only thinking.... I like him. I never
liked any man better, or as well, perhaps.... And I've known him three
days. Give me a day or two grace, and I'll stop thinking about him."
"You were quite mad over young Inwood in Keno," mused Silvette.
"Yes.... I realize that I like men. I enjoy them; if I had my way, I'd
carry on like the deuce with every man who took my fancy, before I come
to the final decision and spoil life for myself."
"You carry on like the deuce _now_, sister," said Silvette, laughing.
"I don't do it enough," retorted Diana fiercely; "what have I got to
look forward to, after all?--a homeless life of social employment, an
old age of gossip and cards!--or, if I win out, a loveless middle age
wearing some wealthy man's name and pearls, and all the rest dashed
out--the brightness, the youth of things, the hope of things,
children----"
"_You_ don't want children!" exclaimed Silvette, horrified; "grubby
little things! I thought you hated them!"
"Grubby little things," repeated the girl slowly; "so I do, in theory."
"You don't know anything about them practically."
"Except at the Maternity Hospital.... Oh, Silvie, it _is_ ghastly....
It's horrid! horrid!--it's devilishly unfair! ... Young girls in the
springtide of youth crept in and out of that dreadful place like the
white ghosts of murdered souls! If maternity didn't slay them, it
killed the better part of them. Then the world ended for them--youth,
hope, freedom ended with the first thin cry of the tyrant that dooms all
women.... Yes, I--hate children!" She stood a moment, slim hands on
her hips, head lowered with the brown locks clustering against her
cheeks; then, looking up:
"But I mean to have one of my own sometime. Life to the full, dregs and
all, before I die. That is my programme."