DICKY CALLS
Joan had been staying a great deal in her room for the past week. It
was partly upon the advice of Dr. Nichols, and partly upon the advice
of her mother and father; but it is very doubtful if their superior
knowledge would have had quite as much weight as it did if Joan herself
had not welcomed the internment. To be sure, the shock had been
considerable; but after the first temporary and purely normal reaction
came a second reaction, which was not correctly diagnosed either by her
parents or the physician. Nichols, looking merely at her heightened
color and brighter eyes, feared hysteria. Mrs. Fairburne took it to
be disappointment at the many social engagements Joan was forced to
cancel. She tried hard not to blame any one for the situation; but upon
several occasions she observed darkly to her husband:
“All I can say is that some one was stupid to allow such a
misfortune—at the height of the social season.”
The first time he heard this, Fairburne squared his shoulders a trifle,
as though considering that he himself might be involved in the general
accusation.
“Not you, of course, my dear,” she hastened to assure him; “but some
one.”
Yet Charles was not discharged. Then apparently the fault lay between
Devons and Fate. Anyhow, it was more or less immaterial.
Perhaps it was just as well for the peace of mind of all concerned
that it was not generally known that Joan really was enjoying one of
the most interesting experiences of her life there in the privacy of
her room. Certainly to have informed Dr. Nichols that she felt every
sense to be more alert than formerly would have contributed nothing to
science; to have explained to her parents that she was enjoying as a
luxury the privilege of calling her time her own would not have left
them any the wiser; to have confessed to Dicky that she felt even a
certain relief from him would not have done a particle of good in that
direction. Half the joy of her joy lay in the fact that it was a very
intimate and personal and secret joy.
As soon as she learned, through Dr. Nichols, that there was not
the slightest element of danger in Devons’s condition; that in all
probability the man, with good care, would leave in better condition
than he came, it was as though she had found an opportunity.
“As a matter of fact,” Nichols had told her, “you can credit yourself
with having saved his life.”
“How?” she asked doubtfully.
“The man hasn’t been getting enough to eat,” Nichols informed her.
“Not enough to eat?” It sounded like an absurd statement.
“He tells me he has been living on a diet of black coffee and tobacco.”
“But why should one do that?” she inquired.
“Because,” answered Nichols, “it is very inexpensive. Of course he
could have invested the same amount of money to better advantage in
some other type of food-stuff, but it’s doubtful if he would have got
as much comfort out of it.”
“Then he must be very, very poor.”
“I gather he is.”
So here, in a way, was the case of Mildred all over again. With
a difference. The difference was that Devons—well, it did make a
difference that he was—he. At best, there is less opportunity for a
woman to be of assistance to another woman than to one of the opposite
sex, even in an impersonal way. The response is less keen. It does not
touch the same depths.
Not that she was in the slightest sentimental about it. She was
absolutely normal. Even the excitement of the situation was normal.
Nichols to the contrary, her attitude was not even remotely associated
with hysteria, or with mawkish sentimentality. It had more to do
with what she had vaguely described to Dicky at that last meeting
as “the big adventure.” It was as though this man Devons had made a
breach in the high wall surrounding her and offered her opportunity to
venture a little way beyond into the quick life that men and women led
outside—the life that treated men and women like men and women and not
like daintily dressed dolls.
Devons had gone hungry! There was nothing, perhaps, in that to make
any one envy him; and yet, it stood for something. At least, that had
intensified the hours to him. He had been like a harp with the strings
drawn too taut, drawn almost to the breaking point; but she had been
like a harp with the strings sagging. Of the two it would be easier to
play the taut strings. After all, it might be better to be hungry than
surfeited. The very hour that she had sat with listless interest before
the delicacies at Delmonico’s, he had been wandering, dazed and hungry,
through the snow. It was a question who was in the worse plight.
That was only a detail, anyway. But how it dramatized the same safe,
uneventful streets through which she rode in her snug machine! And how
curious that, as though in response to her cry, this should be brought
to her in her own home.
Was there some truth in that strange doctrine of fatalism—that our
lives are mapped out for us ahead and that, however remote the
possibility may seem, we must travel the foreordained road?
Staring from her window at night, she wondered with quickened breath.
Looking back, her meeting with Mildred may have been significant. She
had come upon her quite by chance, and through her had met Devons. At
the time it had seemed the most trivial and commonplace of incidents;
yet, if that had not been, it is probable that Devons would have been
sent off out of her life to a hospital. She had brought him here and
insisted upon his remaining because of Mildred. It was significant,
too, that on that very afternoon she had not ridden back with
Dicky—that she was alone at the appointed moment.
Poor Dicky! She was rather sorry that it had been necessary to involve
him. If only he had not said what he did say, she would have turned
to him now. She would have liked to discuss the whole question with
him. She supposed it was possible even now; only—well, she was afraid
he would not understand. She was afraid it might trouble him. And in
a sense she felt responsible for his peace of mind. She should have
foreseen what might come of their relations. Only, she had never
thought it possible for him to be as serious as he had seemed when he
spoke. Even if he imagined himself in love with her, she thought she
would recognize it as pure imagination. It was as natural for Dicky
to fall in love, in fancy, with any woman with whom he might be thrown
in contact any length of time as it was for him to breathe. He had
confessed several previous romances to her.
It was probable, then, that this was just another. She should have held
to that. But somehow it was difficult. She had not laughed when he
told her of his love. If she had given way to her emotions the chances
are she would have cried. She had found some new quality in his eyes
and his voice. Then she liked the way he stood square-shouldered when
she told him the naked truth. And actually, she had felt a sense of
possessing something rare and wonderful in the loyalty that prompted
him to his offer.
“I want you to feel you have some one always ready to call on.” So the
ladies of romance used to receive an oath of allegiance from their
knights.
Then to-day a note from him had come which she had read with misty
eyes. It was so direct and uncomplaining that it tightened her throat.
There was a great deal about Dicky that was likable. She could be
with him more than with any other man she knew, if only he would not
talk about love; because love meant something entirely different
from anything Dicky dreamed. It had to do with life. It had to do
with—adventure. It had to do with big, earnest things, with real
things, with heart-breaking things, perhaps. All of which Dicky knew
nothing about.
But, after reading his note twice, she sent down word to Sparrow that
she would be at home that day to Mr. Richard Burnett. If Sparrow felt
a certain sense of relief, it would be nothing surprising, because the
last time he had given his message to the man he had hesitated about
holding the door open as wide as usual.
Dicky did not come until after four, which was unfortunate, because she
had a very important appointment at four-thirty, and told him so almost
at once.
“You’re going out?” he inquired hopefully.
“No,” she replied with some embarrassment.
He concluded then that a milliner or something of the kind was
coming to the house; and that, if one looked far enough ahead, was
encouraging, because it suggested that she was preparing to go out
again.
So he sat down and talked with her about this thing and that very
rationally and good-naturedly, as he might have done a week ago. In
many ways he seemed more himself than he had for several weeks, because
she realized now that for some time he had not been exactly normal.
Then he gave a new turn to the conversation by observing:
“It must be mighty dull for you to be shut up in the house, Joan.”
And she answered, speaking the truth, “Only it isn’t, Dicky.”
“But what do you do with yourself all day?”
That was a difficult question to answer directly. From his point of
view she supposed she was not doing very much, because most of the
interest of these days came from within herself. And she could not very
well let him into the secret of her thoughts. So she answered:
“I don’t think I could make you understand, Dicky. Only truly it isn’t
stupid.”
He looked up with a frown.
“You don’t give me credit for understanding much of anything, do you,
Joan?”
“It isn’t that,” she tried to reassure him. “Only—supposing I don’t
understand myself very well?”
“I don’t think you do.”
“Then—”
“Oh, we’ll only get mixed up again if we go on like that,” he
interrupted. “Tell me something about this fellow you ran over.”
She looked frightened.
“I didn’t run _over_ him.” She shuddered. “Don’t make it any worse than
it is.”
“Well, you started to.”
“There’s a big difference.”
“I suppose there is,” he admitted. “Who is he?”
“Oh, I hope some day you can meet him. You’d like him, Dicky.”
“Perhaps.”
“He’s a Technology man and—”
“He’s what?”
“Technology.”
Dicky appeared concerned.
“I didn’t know that. Some one told me he was a ’bus driver.”
“Why, Dicky, he’s a wonderful fellow. He has invented something. Only
he’s very, very poor.”
“Inventors always are,” he nodded.
“And he has tried so hard to make his way. He—he was almost starving
when—”
She did not like to fill in the ellipsis.
“When you partly ran over him,” he suggested.
“It’s nothing to make fun about,” she warned.
“Go on.”
“And I’d met him before. I knew a cousin of his at college.”
“You did?”
“She was wonderful, too.”
“Runs in the family?”
“They are from out West.”
“Anywhere in particular out West?”
“From Montana.”
“Just Montana?”
He was laughing at her now, and she resented it—resented it with more
genuine feeling than she would have thought possible. Her lips closed
firmly.
“I shan’t tell you anything more about him,” she decided.
“Now, look here—” he protested, making his feet in some alarm.
“No, I mean it,” she replied.
“I was only fooling, Joan. I didn’t know—”
He was studying her face. She was in dead earnest. He knew that. He
always knew when she was in earnest.
“Good Heavens, Joan—” he began.
But she had risen too, and was holding out her hand.
“You must excuse me now,” she said. “It is almost half-past four.”
Dicky caught his breath.
“You’re going—back to him?” he demanded.
It was a foolish thing for him to say. He realized it the moment the
words were out of his mouth. He saw her toss up her head—saw her look
the princess.
“Must I account for my movements to you?” she asked.
“You know better, Joan,” he cut in quickly. “Only—”
“Good-bye,” she insisted.
He took her hand.
“I don’t care where you’re going or who it is you’re going to see; but
you’ll let me call again?”
“Do you think you’ve made yourself very agreeable?”
In holding her hand he held an advantage. She could not very well leave
until he let go.
“Next time—” he began.
“Oh, all right, Dicky; I’ll try you once more. Please let me go.”
So he let her go, and in an instant she had vanished—none too politely.
Sparrow opened the door. Dicky wondered if it would not be well to
inform the man of her promise to admit him again, in case she herself
forgot. Then other thoughts crowded in upon him, and he went down the
steps in a kind of daze.