Asaph came in then and looked around the room with defiant eyes around
the room with defiant eyes that dared anybody to be uncomfortable. He
recognized Meldrum with a start, and realized that the most important
guest had been left to Deb Larrabee, of all people. This misstep might
mean ruin to him. His anger changed to anxiety, and he made haste to
carry Meldrum away. He was inspired to present him to Pamela.
Deborah, abandoned on the sofa, studied Pamela with wonder. How
beautiful the child was! How she drew the men! How their eyes fed upon
her! How she queened it in her little court! Everywhere she went it must
be so. In Peoria they must have gathered about her just as here. They
must be missing her in Peoria now. When she went back they would be
glad. Or if she went on to Chicago men would gather about her there-or
in Omaha, or Council Bluffs, or Toledo-anywhere!
It was manifest enough why the men gathered about the girl. She
delighted the senses. She improved the view. She was the view.
Suavity of contour, proportion of feature, silkiness of texture,
felicity of tint; every angle masked with a curve, every joint small and
included, desirableness, cuddlesomeness, kissableness, warmth, and all
the things that make up loveliness were Pamela's.
The contrast between herself and Pamela was so cruel that Deborah's
heart rebelled. She demanded of Heaven: "Why so much to her and none to
me? My mother was as good as her mother, and better-looking in her day;
and my father was a handsome man. Why was I made at all if not well
made? Why allowed to live if not fit for life? My elder sister that
died was more beautiful than Pamela, but she died. Why couldn't I have
died in her place, or taken the beauty she laid aside as I wore her
cast-off clothes? Yet I live, and I shall never be married, shall never
be a mother, shall never be of any use or any beauty. Why? Why?"
Bitter, bitter were her thoughts as she sat with her plate in her lap.
She hardly noticed when Josie took the plate away. She fell into an
almost sleep of reverie and woke with a start to find that everybody
else was crowding forward to hear Pamela sing. She was repeating "The
Last Rose" by request. Mr. Maugans had said he would like another whack
at that accompa'ment.
Debby felt again that stab of Birdaline's-"Poor Debby! She never was a
rose."
She could not bear to remain. She tiptoed from the dining-room,
unnoticed, and went out at the side-door, drawing her shawl over her
head. She must sneak home alone as usual. Thank Heaven, it was only a
block and the streets were black.
As she reached the front gate she met a man who had just come down from
the porch. It was Meldrum. He peered at her in the dim light of the
street-lamp and called out:
"That you, Debby? Couldn't you stand it any longer? Neither could I.
That girl is a peach to look at, but she can't sing for sour apples; and
as for brains, she's a nut, a pure pecan! I guess I'm too old or not
old enough to be satisfied with staring at a pretty hide on a pretty
frame. Which way you going? I'll walk along with you if you don't
mind."
If she didn't mind! Would Lazarus object if Dives sat down on the floor
beside him and brought along his trencher?
Debby was so bewildered that the sidewalk reeled beneath her intoxicated
feet. She stumbled till Meldrum took her hand and set it in the crook
of his arm, and she trotted along as meek as Tobias with the angel.
All, all too soon they reached her house. But he paused at the gate.
She dared not invite him even to the porch.
If her mother heard a man's voice there she would probably open the
window upstairs and shriek: "Murder! Thieves! Help!"
So Debby waited at the gate while the almost invisible Meldrum chattered
on. She was so afraid that he would go every next minute that she
hardly heard what he said. But he had only a hotel room ahead of him.
He was used to late hours. He was in a mood for talk. The paralyzed
Debby was a perfect listener, and in that intense dark she was as
beautiful as Cleopatra would have been.
To her he was solely a voice, a voice of strange cynicisms, yet of
strange comfort to her. He was laughing at the people she held in awe.
"This town's a joke to me," he said. "It's a side-show full of freaks."
And he mocked the great folk of the village as if they were yokels. He
laughed at their customs. He ridiculed many, many things that Debby had
believed and suffered from believing. He ridiculed married people and
marriage from the superior heights of one who could have married many
and had rejected all. It was strangely pleasant hearing to her who had
observed marriage from the humble depths of one whom all had rejected.
He talked till he heard the town clock whine eleven times, then he said:
"Good Lord! I didn't know it was so late. I must have talked your arm
off, Debby. I don't get these moods often. It takes a mighty good
listener to loosen me up. Good night! Don't let any of these fellows
bunco you into marrying 'em. There's nothing in it, Debby. Take it
from me. Good night."
She felt rather than saw that he lifted his hat. She felt again his big
hand enveloping hers, and she answered its squeeze with a desperate
little clench of her own.
He left her wonderfully uplifted. Now she felt less an exile from
marriage than a rebel. She almost convinced herself that she had kept
out of matrimony because she was too good for it. The solitary cell of
her bed was a queenly dais when she crept into it. She dreamed that
General Kitchener asked for her hand and she refused it.