For some reason, never made sufficiently clear, Rivers' parents had
handicapped him from the baptismal font with the prenomen of Conde,
which, however, upon Anglo-Saxon tongues, had been promptly modified to
Condy, or even, among his familiar and intimate friends, to Conny.
Asked as to his birthplace--for no Californian assumes that his
neighbor is born in the State--Condy was wont to reply that he was
"bawn 'n' rais'" in Chicago; "but," he always added, "I couldn't help
that, you know." His people had come West in the early eighties, just
in time to bury the father in alien soil. Condy was an only child. He
was educated at the State University, had a finishing year at Yale, and
a few months after his return home was taken on the staff of the San
Francisco "Daily Times" as an associate editor of its Sunday
supplement. For Condy had developed a taste and talent in the matter
of writing. Short stories were his mania. He had begun by an
inoculation of the Kipling virus, had suffered an almost fatal attack
of Harding Davis, and had even been affected by Maupassant. He "went
in" for accuracy of detail; held that if one wrote a story involving
firemen one should have, or seem to have, every detail of the
department at his fingers' ends, and should "bring in" to the tale all
manner of technical names and cant phrases.
Much of his work on the Sunday supplement of "The Times" was of the
hack order--special articles, write-ups, and interviews. About once a
month, however, he wrote a short story, and of late, now that he was
convalescing from Maupassant and had begun to be somewhat himself,
these stories had improved in quality, and one or two had even been
copied in the Eastern journals. He earned $100 a month.
When Snooky had let him in, Rivers dashed up the stairs of the
Bessemers' flat, two at a time, tossed his stick into a porcelain
cane-rack in the hall, wrenched off his overcoat with a single
movement, and precipitated himself, panting, into the dining-room,
tugging at his gloves.
He was twenty-eight years old--nearly ten years older than Travis; tall
and somewhat lean; his face smooth-shaven and pink all over, as if he
had just given it a violent rubbing with a crash towel. Unlike most
writing folk, he dressed himself according to prevailing custom. But
Condy overdid the matter. His scarfs and cravats were too bright, his
colored shirt-bosoms were too broadly barred, his waistcoats too
extreme. Even Travis, as she rose to his abrupt entrance? told herself
that of a Sunday evening a pink shirt and scarlet tie were a
combination hardly to be forgiven.
Condy shook her hand in both of his, then rushed over to Mr. Bessemer,
exclaiming between breaths: "Don't get up, sir--don't THINK of it!
Heavens! I'm disgustingly late. You're all through. My watch--this
beastly watch of mine--I can't imagine how I came to be so late. You
did quite right not to wait."
Then as his morbidly keen observation caught a certain look of
blankness on Travis' face, and his rapid glance noted no vacant chair
at table, he gave a quick gasp of dismay.
"Heavens and earth! didn't you EXPECT me?" he cried. "I thought you
said--I thought--I must have forgotten--I must have got it mixed up
somehow. What a hideous mistake, what a blunder! What a fool I am!"
He dropped into a chair against the wall and mopped his forehead with a
blue-bordered handkerchief.
"Well, what difference does it make, Condy?" said Travis quietly.
"I'll put another place for you."
"No, no!" he vociferated, jumping up. "I won't hear of it, I won't
permit it! You'll think I did it on purpose!"
Travis ignored his interference, and made a place for him opposite the
children, and had Maggie make some more chocolate.
Condy meanwhile covered himself with opprobrium.
"And all this trouble--I always make trouble everywhere I go. Always a
round man in a square hole, or a square man in a round hole."
He got up and sat down again, crossed and recrossed his legs, picked up
little ornaments from the mantelpiece, and replaced them without
consciousness of what they were, and finally broke the crystal of his
watch as he was resetting it by the cuckoo clock.
"Hello!" he exclaimed suddenly, "where did you get that clock? Where
did you get that clock? That's new to me. Where did that come from?"
"That cuckoo clock?" inquired Travis, with a stare. "Condy Rivers,
you've been here and in this room at least twice a week for the last
year and a half, and that clock, and no other, has always hung there."
But already Condy had forgotten or lost interest in the clock.
"Is that so? is that so?" he murmured absent-mindedly, seating himself
at the table.
Mr. Bessemer was murmuring: "That clock's a little fast. I can not
make that clock keep time. Victorine has lost the key. I have to wind
it with a monkey-wrench. Now I'll try some more beans. Maggie has put
in too much pepper. I'll have to have a new key made to-morrow."
"Hey? Yes--yes. Is that so?" answered Condy Rivers, bewildered,
wishing to be polite, yet unable to follow the old man's mutterings.
"He's not talking to you," remarked Travis, without lowering her voice.
"You know how Papum goes on. He won't hear a word you say. Well, I
read your story in this morning's 'Times.'"
A few moments later, while Travers and Condy were still discussing this
story, Mr. Bessemer rose. "Well, Mr. Rivers," he announced, "I guess
I'll say good-night. Come, Snooky."
"Yes, take her with you, Papum," said Travis. "She'll go to sleep on
the lounge here if you don't. Howard, have you got your lessons for
to-morrow?"
It appeared that he had not. Snooky whined to stay up a little longer,
but at last consented to go with her father. They all bade Condy
good-night and took themselves away, Howard lingering a moment in the
door in the hope of the nickel he dared not ask for. Maggie reappeared
to clear away the table.
"Let's go in the parlor," suggested Travis, rising. "Don't you want
to?"
The parlor was the front room overlooking the street, and was reached
by the long hall that ran the whole length of the flat, passing by the
door of each one of its eight rooms in turn.
Travis preceded Condy, and turned up one of the burners in colored
globe of the little brass chandelier.
The parlor was a small affair, peopled by a family of chairs and sofas
robed in white drugget. A gold-and-white effect had been striven for
throughout the room. The walls had been tinted instead of papered, and
bunches of hand-painted pink flowers tied up with blue ribbons
straggled from one corner of the ceiling. Across one angle of the room
straddled a brass easel upholding a crayon portrait of Travis at the
age of nine, "enlarged from a photograph." A yellow drape ornamented
one corner of the frame, while another drape of blue depended from one
end of the mantelpiece.
The piano, upon which nobody ever played, balanced the easel in an
opposite corner. Over the mantelpiece hung in a gilded frame a steel
engraving of Priscilla and John Alden; and on the mantel itself two
bisque figures of an Italian fisher boy and girl kept company with the
clock, a huge timepiece, set in a red plush palette, that never was
known to go. But at the right of the fireplace, and balancing the tuft
of pampa-grass to the left, was an inverted section of a sewer-pipe
painted blue and decorated with daisies. Into it was thrust a sheaf of
cat-tails, gilded, and tied with a pink ribbon.
Travis dropped upon the shrouded sofa, and Condy set himself carefully
down on one of the frail chairs with its spindling golden legs, and
they began to talk.
Condy had taken her to the theatre the Monday night of that week, as
had been his custom ever since he had known her well, and there was
something left for them to say on that subject. But in ten minutes
they had exhausted it. An engagement of a girl known to both of them
had just been announced. Condy brought that up, and kept conversation
going for another twenty minutes, and then filled in what threatened to
be a gap by telling her stories of the society reporters, and how they
got inside news by listening to telephone party wires for days at a
time. Travis' condemnation of this occupied another five or ten
minutes; and so what with this and with that they reached nine o'clock.
Then decidedly the evening began to drag. It was too early to go.
Condy could find no good excuse for taking himself away, and, though
Travis was good-natured enough, and met him more than half-way, their
talk lapsed, and lapsed, and lapsed. The breaks became more numerous
and lasted longer. Condy began to wonder if he was boring her. No
sooner had the suspicion entered his head than it hardened into a
certainty, and at once what little fluency and freshness he yet
retained forsook him on the spot. What made matters worse was his
recollection of other evenings that of late he had failed in precisely
the same manner. Even while he struggled to save the situation Condy
was wondering if they two were talked out--if they had lost charm for
each other. Did he not know Travis through and through by now--her
opinions, her ideas, her convictions? Was there any more freshness in
her for him? Was their little flirtation of the last eighteen months,
charming as it had been, about to end? Had they played out the play,
had they come to the end of each other's resources? He had never
considered the possibility of this before, but all at once as he looked
at Travis--looked fairly into her little brown-black eyes--it was borne
in upon him that she was thinking precisely the same thing.
Condy Rivers had met Travis at a dance a year and a half before this,
and, because she was so very pretty, so unaffected, and so
good-natured, had found means to see her three or four times a week
ever since. They two "went out" not a little in San Francisco society,
and had been in a measure identified with what was known as the Younger
Set; though Travis was too young to come out, and Rivers too old to
feel very much at home with girls of twenty and boys of eighteen.
They had known each other in the conventional way (as conventionality
goes in San Francisco); during the season Rivers took her to the
theatres Monday nights, and called regularly Wednesdays and Sundays.
Then they met at dances, and managed to be invited to the same houses
for teas and dinners. They had flirted rather desperately, and at
times Condy even told himself that he loved this girl so much younger
than he--this girl with the smiling eyes and robust figure and yellow
hair, who was so frank, so straightforward, and so wonderfully pretty.
But evidently they had come to the last move in the game, and as Condy
reflected that after all he had never known the real Travis, that the
girl whom he told himself he knew through and through was only the
Travis of dinner parties and afternoon functions, he was suddenly
surprised to experience a sudden qualm of deep and genuine regret. He
had never been NEAR to her, after all. They were as far apart as when
they had first met. And yet he knew enough of her to know that she was
"worth while." He had had experience--all the experience he
wanted--with other older women and girls of society. They were
sophisticated, they were all a little tired, they had run the gamut of
amusements--in a word, they were jaded. But Travis, this girl of
nineteen, who was not yet even a debutante, had been fresh and
unspoiled, had been new and strong and young.
"Of course, you may call it what you like. He was nothing more nor
less than intoxicated--yes, drunk."
"Hah! who--what--wh--what are you talking about?" gasped Condy sitting
bolt upright.
"Jack Carter," answered Travis. "No," she added, shaking her head at
him helplessly, "he hasn't been listening to a word. I'm talking about
Jack Carter and the 'Saturday Evening' last night."
"No, no, I haven't heard. Forgive me; I was thinking--thinking of
something else. Who was drunk?"
Travis paused a moment, settling her side-combs in her hair; then:
"If you will try to listen, I'll tell it all over again, because it's
serious with me, and I'm going to take a very decided stand about it.
You know," she went on--"you know what the 'Saturday Evening' is.
Plenty of the girls who are not 'out' belong, and a good many of last
year's debutantes come, as well as the older girls of three or four
seasons' standing. You could call it representative couldn't you?
Well, they always serve punch; and you know yourself that you have seen
men there who have taken more than they should."
"Yes, yes," admitted Condy. "I know Carter and the two Catlin boys
always do."
"It gets pretty bad sometimes, doesn't it?" she said.
"It does, it does--and it's shameful. But most of the girls--MOST of
them don't seem to mind."
Miss Bessemer stiffened a bit. "There are one or two girls that do,"
she said quietly. "Frank Catlin had the decency to go home last
night," she continued; "and his brother wasn't any worse than usual.
But Jack Carter must have been drinking before he came. He was very
bad indeed--as bad," she said between her teeth, "as he could be and
yet walk straight. As you say, most of the girls don't mind. They
say, 'It's only Johnnie Carter; what do you expect?' But one of the
girls--you know her, Laurie Flagg--cut a dance with him last night and
told him exactly why. Of course, Carter was furious. He was sober
enough to think he had been insulted; and what do you suppose he did?"
"What? what?" exclaimed Condy, breathless, leaning toward her.
"Went about the halls and dressing-rooms circulating some dirty little
lie about Laurie. Actually trying to--to"--Travis hesitated--"to make
a scandal about her."
Condy bounded in his seat. "Beast, cad, swine!" he exclaimed.
"I didn't think," said Travis, "that Carter would so much as dare to
ask me to dance with him--"
"Did he? did--did--"
"Wait," she interrupted. "So I wasn't at all prepared for what
happened. During the german, before I knew it, there he was in front
of me. It was a break, and he wanted it. I hadn't time to think. The
only idea I had was that if I refused him he might tell some dirty
little lie about me. I was all confused--mixed up. I felt just as
though it were a snake that I had to humor to get rid of. I gave him
the break."
Condy sat speechless. Suddenly he arose.
"Well, now, let's see," he began, speaking rapidly, his hands twisting
and untwisting till the knuckles cracked. "Now, let's see. You leave
it to me. I know Carter. He's going to be at a stag dinner where I am
invited to-morrow night, and I--I--"
"No, you won't, Condy," said Travis placidly. "You'll pay no attention
to it, and I'll tell you why. Suppose you should make a scene with Mr.
Carter--I don't know how men settle these things. Well, it would be
told in all the clubs and in all the newspaper offices that two men had
quarreled over a girl; and my name is mentioned, discussed, and handed
around from one crowd of men to another, from one club to another; and
then, of course, the papers take it up. By that time Mr. Carter will
have told his side of the story and invented another dirty little lie,
and I'm the one who suffers the most in the end. And remember, Condy,
that I haven't any mother in such an affair, not even an older sister.
No, we'll just let the matter drop. It would be more dignified,
anyhow. Only I have made up my mind what I am going to do."
"What's that?"
"I'm not coming out. If that's the sort of thing one has to put up
with in society"--Travis drew a little line on the sofa at her side
with her finger-tip--"I am going to--stop--right--there. It's
not"--Miss Bessemer stiffened again--"that I'm afraid of Jack Carter
and his dirty stories; I simply don't want to know the kind of people
who have made Jack Carter possible. The other girls don't mind it, nor
many men besides you, Condy; and I'm not going to be associated with
people who take it as a joke for a man to come to a function drunk.
And as for having a good time, I'll find my amusements somewhere else.
I'll ride a wheel, take long walks, study something. But as for
leading the life of a society girl--no! And whether I have a good time
or not, I'll keep my own self-respect. At least I'll never have to
dance with a drunken man. I won't have to humiliate myself like that a
second time."
"But I presume you will still continue to go out somewhere," protested
Condy Rivers.
She shook her head.
"I have thought it all over, and I've talked about it with Papum.
There's no half way about it. The only way to stop is to stop short.
Just this afternoon I've regretted three functions for next week, and I
shall resign from the 'Saturday Evening.' Oh, it's not the Jack Carter
affair alone!" she exclaimed; "the whole thing tires me. Mind, Condy,"
she exclaimed, "I'm not going to break with it because I have any
'purpose in life,' or that sort of thing. I want to have a good time,
and I'm going to see if I can't have it in my own way. If the kind of
thing that makes Jack Carter possible is conventionality, then I'm done
with conventionality for good. I am going to try, from this time on,
to be just as true to myself as I can be. I am going to be sincere,
and not pretend to like people and things that I don't like; and I'm
going to do the things that I like to do--just so long as they are the
things a good girl can do. See, Condy?"
"You're fine," murmured Condy breathless. "You're fine as gold,
Travis, and I--I love you all the better for it."
"Ah, NOW!" exclaimed Travis, with a brusque movement, "there's mother
thing we must talk about. No more foolishness between us. We've had a
jolly little flirtation, I know, and it's been good fun while it
lasted. I know you like me, and you know that I like you; but as for
loving each other, you know we don't. Yes, you say that you love me
and that I'm the only girl. That's part of the game. I can play
it"--her little eyes began to dance--"quite as well as you. But it's
playing with something that's quite too serious to be played
with--after all, isn't it, now? It's insincere, and, as I tell you,
from now on I'm going to be as true and as sincere and as honest as I
can."
"But I tell you that I DO love you," protested Condy, trying to make
the words ring true.
Travis looked about the room an instant as if in deliberation; then
abruptly: "Ah! what am I going to DO with such a boy as you are, after
all--a great big, overgrown boy? Condy Rivers, look at me straight in
the eye. Tell me, do you honestly love me? You know what I mean when I
say 'love.' Do you love me?"
"No, I don't!" he exclaimed blankly, as though he had just discovered
the fact.
"There!" declared Travis--"and I don't love you." They both began to
laugh.
"Now," added Travis, "we don't need to have the burden and trouble of
keeping up the pretences any more. We understand each other, don't we?"
"This is queer enough," said Condy drolly.
"But isn't it an improvement?"
Condy scoured his head.
"Tell me the truth," she insisted; "YOU be sincere."
"I do believe it is. Why--why--Travis by Jingo! Travis, I think I'm
going to like you better than ever now."
"Never mind. Is it an agreement?"
"What is?"
"That we don't pretend to love each other any more?"
"All right--yes--you're right; because the moment I began to love you I
should like you so much less."
She put out her hand. "That's an agreement, then."
Condy took her hand in his. "Yes, it's an agreement." But when, as had
been his custom, he made as though to kiss her hand, Travis drew it
quickly away.
"No! no!" she said firmly, smiling for all that--"no more foolishness."
"But--but," he protested, "it's not so radical as that, is it? You're
not going to overturn such time-worn, time-honored customs as that?
Why, this is a regular rebellion."
"No, sire," quoted Travis, trying not to laugh, "it is a revolution."