If Floyd-Rosney’s temper were less imperious, if he had had less
confidence in the dictates of his will, which he misconstrued as his
matured judgment, he could not have so signally disregarded the feelings
of others; if only in obedience to the dictates of policy, he could not
have been so oblivious of the possibility of adverse action,
successfully exploited.
Maddened by his wife’s revolt against his plans, futile though he deemed
it, he would not await her return from the nursery whither she had
hurried to verify his words. He burned with rage under the lash of her
fiery denunciation--“Brute!--Fiend!” How dared she! He wondered that he
had not beaten her with his clenched fists! He had some fear of being
betrayed into violence, some doubt of his own self-restraint that
induced him to rush forth into the street and evade her frenzied
jeremiad when she found the child was indeed gone.
What a fool of a woman was this, he was arguing before the banging of
the front door behind him had ceased to resound along the street. What
other one would turn down such a beautiful opportunity! As to leaving
the child--why, it would have been to any except the perverse vixen he
had married one of the special advantages of the outing--to be free for
a time of domestic cares, of maternal duties. Had he not over and over
heard women of her station congratulate themselves on a “vacation”--the
children loaded off on somebody, Heaven knows whom, or where, a matter
of minor importance. It was absolutely fantastic, the idea of dragging a
child of Edward’s age around Europe and the Orient for a year’s travel.
The very care of him, the necessary solicitude involved at every move,
would destroy all possibility of pleasure. The mere item of infantile
disorders was enough in itself to nullify the prospect. And he might die
of some of these maladies in a foreign country, deprived of his father’s
supervision and experience in the ways of the world.
Floyd-Rosney’s contention in the matter seemed to him eminently right
and rational. It was desirable that she should not testify in the suit,
he could not leave at this crisis, and she could not well take the child
with her. He would not risk his son and heir to the emergencies, the
vicissitudes of a year of foreign travel under the guidance merely of an
inexperienced and careless woman. Paula herself was like a child. He had
kept her so. Everything had been done for her. In any unforeseen,
disastrous chance she would be utterly helpless to take judicious action
and to protect the child from injury.
Floyd-Rosney was not more willing to be separated from the boy than the
mother herself. He had, indeed, no unselfish love for the child, but his
son’s beauty and promise flattered his vanity; the boy would be a credit
to his name. His prospects were so brilliant that in twenty years there
would be no young man in the Mississippi Valley who could vie with him
in fortune and position. Floyd-Rosney had gloated on the future of his
son. He was glad, he often said, that he was himself a young man, for he
would be but in the prime of life when Edward would come to his
majority. No dependent station would be his--to eat from his father’s
hand like a fawning pet. With an altruistic consideration,
uncharacteristic of him, the father had made already certain investments
in his son’s name, and these, though limited in character, by a lucky
stroke had doubled again and again, till he was wont to say proudly that
his son was the only capitalist he knew who had an absolutely safe
investment paying twenty per cent. He had a sort of respect for the boy,
as representing much money and many inchoate values. His infancy must be
carefully tended, his education liberal and sedulously supervised, and
when he should go into the world, representing his father’s name and
fortune, he should be worthy of both. Turn him over to Paula, in his
tender callowness, to be dragged about from post to pillar for her
behoof--he would not endure the idea.
As the cool air chilled his temper and the swift walk and change of
scene gave the current of his thoughts a new trend he began to be more
tolerant of her attitude in the matter. The truth was, he said to
himself, they each loved the child too dearly, were too solicitous for
his well being, to be willing to be separated from him, and, but for the
peculiar circumstances of this lawsuit, he would never have proposed it.
It was, however, necessary, absolutely necessary, and he would take
measures to induce Paula to depart on this delightful journey without
making public her disinclination. He had taken her, perhaps, too
abruptly by surprise. She was overcome with frenzy to discover that the
child was actually gone!--he should overlook her hasty words--though to
his temperament this was impossible, and he knew it; they were burned
indelibly into his consciousness. Never before, in all his pompous,
prosperous life had he been so addressed. But he would make an
effort--one more effort to persuade her; with a resolute fling he turned
to retrace his way, coming into the broad and splendid avenue on which
his palatial home fronted, he walked up the street as she was walking
down the opposite side.
He let himself in with his latch-key, closing the door softly behind
him. The great hall and the lighted rooms with their rich furnishings,
glimpsed through the open doors, looked strangely desolate. For one
moment silence--absolute, intense. Then a grotesque, unbecoming
intrusion on the ornate elegance--a burst of distant, uncultured
laughter from below stairs, and a clatter of dishes. Floyd-Rosney was
something of an epicure, and it was a good dinner that went down
untouched. The master of the house frowned heavily. He lifted his head,
minded to ring a bell and administer reproof. Then he reflected that it
well accorded with his interests that he should be supposed to be out of
the house while the interview with his wife was in progress. She had a
way of late of raising her voice in a keen protest that advertised
domestic discordances to all within earshot. “Let the servants carouse
and gorge their dinner; I’ll settle them afterward!” he said to himself
grimly, as he noiselessly ascended the stairs.
Once more silence--he could not hear even his own footfall. He had a
vague sense of solitude, of uninhabited purlieus. With a sudden rush of
haste he pushed open the door of the nursery, flaring with lights, but
vacant, and strode through to his wife’s room, to find it vacant, too.
He stood for a moment, mystified, anger in his eyes, but dismay, fear,
doubt clutching at his heart. What did this mean? He went hastily from
one to another of the suite of luxurious rooms devoted to her especial
use, but in none save one was any token of her recent presence. He stood
staring at the disarray. There was the gown of lavender gauze that she
had donned for the opera, lying on a chair, while the silk slip that it
had covered lay huddled on the floor. The slippers, hastily thrust off,
tripped his unwary step as he advanced into the room. On the dressing
table, glittering with a hundred articles of toilet luxury, lay the two
strings of costly pearls “where anyone might have stolen them”; he
mechanically reproved her lack of precaution. He strove to reassure
himself, to contend against a surging sense of calamity. What did this
signify? Only that the festivity of the evening relinquished she had
laid aside her gala attire. Her absence--it was early--she might have
gone out with some visitor; she might have cared to make some special
call, so seldom did they have an evening unoccupied. Despite the
incongruity of the idea with the recollection of her pale, drawn,
agonized face, the frenzy of her grief and rage, he took down the
receiver of the telephone and called up Hildegarde Dean. The moment the
connection was completed he regretted his folly. Over the wire came the
vibrations of a string-orchestra, and he recalled having noticed in the
society columns of the papers that Miss Dean was entertaining with a
dinner dance to compliment a former schoolmate. He had lost his poise
sufficiently, nevertheless, to make the query, “Is Mrs. Floyd-Rosney
there?” and had the satisfaction to be answered by the butler, in the
pomp and pride of the occasion: “No, sah. Dis entertainment is
exclusively for unmarried people.”
“The devil it is!” Floyd-Rosney exclaimed, after, however, cautiously
releasing the receiver.
His fuming humor was heightened by this _contretemps_, although a great
and growing dismay was vaguely shadowed in his eyes, like a thought in
the back of the mind, so to speak, too unaccustomed, too preposterous,
to find ready expression. He endeavored to calm himself, although he
lost no time in prosecuting his investigations. With a hasty hand he
touched the electric bell for his wife’s maid and impatiently awaited
the response. To his surprise it was not prompt. He stood amidst his
incongruous surroundings of gowns, and jewels, and slippers, and laces,
and revolving panels of mirrors, frowning heavily. How did it chance
that her service should be so dilatory? He placed his forefinger on the
button and held it there, and the jangling was still resounding below
stairs when the door slowly opened and the maid, with an air of
affronted inquiry, presented herself. Her face changed abruptly as she
perceived the master of the house, albeit it was like pulling a cloak of
bland superserviceableness over her lineaments of impudent protest.
“What do you mean by being so slow to answer this bell?” he thundered,
his angry eyes contemptuously regarding her.
“I came as soon as I heard it, sir. I think there must be something
wrong with the annunciator.”
“What do you mean by leaving your mistress’s gowns lying around, and her
room in this disorder?”
The girl’s beady eyes traveled in bewilderment from one article to
another of the turmoil of toilet accessories scattered about the
apartment. She had looked for a moment as if she would fire up at the
phrase “your mistress,” and she said with a slight emphasis on the
title:
“I didn’t know that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney had changed.”
“Where has she gone?”
Once more a dull and genuine bewilderment on the maid’s face.
“I am sure, sir, I don’t know--she didn’t ring for me.”
“I reckon you didn’t answer the bell,” Floyd-Rosney sneered. “She
couldn’t wait forever. She hasn’t my patience.”
The girl glowered at his back, but, mindful of the mirrors, forbore the
grimace so grateful in moments of disaffection to her type.
Floyd-Rosney was speaking through the house telephone.
“Have the limousine at the door--yes--immediately.”
The ready response of the chauffeur came over the wire.
“Now see what gown she wore, so that I can guess where to send for her.
A nice business this is--that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney can’t get hold of her
maid to change her dress and leave a message. I don’t doubt there is a
note somewhere, if I could find it.”
He affected to toss over the _mélange_ on the dressing-table. He even
looked at the evening paper lying on the foot-rest, which she had read
while her hair was being dressed for the opera.
As he did so an item of personal mention caught his attention. Mr.
Randal Ducie was in the city, doubtless in connection with the gathering
of planters to consult with the Levee Commission in regard to river
protection. A meeting would be held this evening at the Adelantado
Hotel.
This was the most natural thing in the world. Half the planters in the
river bottom were in active coöperation seeking to influence the Levee
Commission, or the State Legislature, or the Federal Government to take
some adequate measures to prevent the inundation of their cotton lands
by a general overflow of the great Mississippi River, according to the
several prepossessions relative to the proper plans, and means, and
agency to that end.
But as he read the haphazard words of the paragraph the blood flared
fiercely in Floyd-Rosney’s face; a fire glowed in his eyes, hot and
furious; his hand was trembling; his breath came quick. And he was well
nigh helpless even to conjecture if his wife’s absence had aught of
connection with this ill-starred appearance of the lover of her
girlhood. He--Edward Floyd-Rosney, baffled, hoodwinked, set at naught!
Could this thing be!
For one moment, for one brief moment, he upbraided himself. But for his
tyranny in sending off the child without her consent, without even
consulting her, but for his determination that, willing or no, she
should expatriate herself for a year, and, with neither husband nor
child, tour a foreign country in company of his selection they might
already be seated in their box at the opera, rapt by the concord of
sweet sounds in the midst of the most elegant and refined presentment of
their world, at peace with each other and in no danger of damaging and
humiliating revelations of domestic discord.
He heard the puffing of the limousine at the curb below the windows, and
he turned to the maid.
“I can find no scrape of a pen--no note here. Do you know what gown she
wore?”
The girl had made a terrifying discovery. As she fingered the skirts
hanging in the wardrobe, for she had thought first of the demi-toilette
of usual evening wear, she was reflecting on the gossip below stairs,
where it was believed that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney had not known of the
departure of her little son till he was out of the house, and where it
was surmised she would be all “tore up” when she should discover his
absence--so much she made of the boy. Aunt Dorothy had been given
permission to spend the night with her granddaughter who lived on the
opposite side of the river, a favorite excursion with the ancient
colored retainer. She was not popular with the coterie below stairs,
and, being prone to report what went amiss, would certainly have
notified her young mistress if any attempt had been made to spirit away
the child while in her charge. The maid had found naught missing from
among the dresses most likely to be worn on any ordinary occasion in the
evening, and she was turning away reluctantly to examine the boxes in
the closet where were stored those gowns of grander pretension,
designed for functions of special note. She had a discontented frown on
her face, for they were enveloped, piece by piece, in many layers of
tissue paper; she could not ascertain what was there and what was gone,
from the wrappers, save by actual investigation; among them were sachets
of delicate perfumes that must not be mixed; they had trains and
draperies difficult to fold, and berthas and sashes that must be laid in
the same creases as before--a job requiring hours of work, and useless,
for no gown of this sort could have been worn without assistance in
dressing, and for an occasion long heralded. As she closed the wardrobe
with a pettish jerk it started open the other door, and she paused with
an aghast look on her face. She was afraid of Mr. Floyd-Rosney when he
was angry.
“She has worn her coat-suit of taupe broadcloth,” she said in a bated
voice, and with a wincing, deprecatory glance at him, “and the hat to
match.”
Floyd-Rosney received this information in silence. Then--“Why do you
look like that, you fool?” he thundered.
“’C--c--cause,” stuttered the girl, “she has taken her suit-case--it was
always kept on the shelf here, packed with fresh lingerie, so she might
be ready for them quick little auto trips you like to go on so often,
and her walking boots is gone”--holding up a pair of boot-trees,--“and,”
opening a glove box, “the suède taupe gloves is gone.” Her courage
asserted itself; her temper flared up. “And it seems to me, Mr.
Floyd-Rosney, that if there’s any fool here, ’taint me!”
“You will be paid your wages to-morrow,” foamed Floyd-Rosney, dashing
from the room. “Clear out of the house.”
“Just as well,” the girl said to the gaping servants downstairs, who
remonstrated with her for her sharp tongue, reproaching her with
throwing away a good place, liberal wages and liberal fare. “Just as
well. If there’s to be no lady there’s no use for a lady’s maid.”
“To the Union Station,” Floyd-Rosney hissed forth as he flung himself
into the limousine. In the transit thither he took counsel within
himself. Where could Paula be going?--Only on some fantastic quest for
her child. He ran over, in his mind, any hint that he might have let
drop as to the locality where he had bestowed him, and she, putting two
and two together, had fancied she had discovered the place. If, by any
coincidence, she had hit upon the boy’s domicile, he told himself, he
would make no protest; he would let her have her way; he would give the
world for all to be between them as it was this afternoon. As to the
lawsuit--let come what might! If only he could intercept her in this mad
enterprise; if he could reach her before she took the train! He called
through the speaking tube to the chauffeur to go faster.
“Never mind the speed limit--do all you know how!”
Presently the great vehicle slowed up, panting and sizzling as if winded
in the race. He sprang out before it had ceased to move and rushed up
the stairs, patrolling the various apartments, the ladies’ waiting room,
the refreshment room--he remembered that she could have had no
dinner--the general ante-room, with its crowd of the traveling public.
He was a notable figure, with his splendid appearance, his fur-lined
overcoat, his frowning, intent brow, his long, swift stride.
All in vain--she was not there. The clamor of the train that was making
ready for departure struck his absorbed attention. The place was full of
the odor of the bituminous smoke from the locomotive; he heard the
panting of the steam exhaust.
Floyd-Rosney rushed down the stairs and into the great shed which
seemed, with its high vaulted roof, clouded with smoke dull and dim,
despite the glare here and there of electric lights. He was stopped in
the crowd at the gate. He had no ticket--money could not buy it here. He
explained hastily that he wished to see a friend off. The regulations
were stringent, the functionary obdurate; the crowd streaming through
the gate disposed to stare, and a burly policeman, lounging about,
regarded the insistent swell with an inimical glare. For there are those
dressed like swells that are far from that puffed-up estate.
The suggestion calmed Floyd-Rosney for the nonce. It needed but this, he
felt, to complete his folly--to involve himself in a futile fracas with
a gateman and a cop. Moreover, he had no justification in fancying that
Paula was likely to take a train--in fact, and he smiled grimly, she
would not have the cash to buy a ticket. The whole theory that she might
quit the city was a baseless fabrication of his fears, of the disorder
of his ideas induced by the vexatious and unexpected _contretemps_.
Doubtless, by this time she had returned from the stroll or the call, or
whatever device she had adopted to quiet her spirit and divert her mind,
he argued--he himself had found refreshment in a brisk walk in the
night air--and was now sitting before the fire at home, awaiting his
coming, possibly willing to discuss the matter in a more amicable frame
of mind.
He was about to turn aside when suddenly down the line of rails within
the shed and between the train standing still and the one beginning to
move, the metallic clangor of its bell insistently jarring the air, he
saw the figure of Paula, visible in the glare of the headlight of the
locomotive beside her. Every detail was as distinct, as illuminated as
in the portrayal of a magic lantern--her taupe gown, her hat with a
plume of the same shade, her face flushed, laughing and eager. A man was
assisting her to mount the platform of the coach and in him Floyd-Rosney
was sure he recognized Randal Ducie, whose arrival in the city he had
noted in the evening paper. The whole maneuver of boarding the
train,--the placing of the stool by the porter, Paula’s failure to reach
from it to the step of the car, the swift muscular effort by which Ducie
seized her, swung her to the platform, and then sprang upon it
himself,--was all as plain to the frenzied man watching the vanishing
train from between the palings of the gate as if the scene had been
enacted within ten feet of him.