GLITTER AND TINSEL
Clarence Sidwell--Chad, his friends called him--leaned farther back in
the big wicker chair, with an involuntary motion adjusted his
well-creased trousers so there might be no tension at the knees, and
looked across the tiny separating table at his _vis-a-vis_, while his
eyelids whimsically tightened.
"Well," he queried, "what do you think of it?"
The little brunette, his companion, roused herself almost with a start,
while a suggestion of conscious red tinged her face. "I beg your
pardon?" she said, inquiringly.
The man smiled. "Forgotten already, wasn't I?" he bantered.
"No, certainly not. I--"
A hand, delicate and carefully manicured as a woman's, was raised in
protest. "Don't prevaricate, please. The occasion isn't worth it." The
hand returned to the chair-arm with a play of light upon the solitaire
it bore. The smile broadened. "You were caught. Confess, and the
sentence will be lighter."
As a wave recedes, the red flood began to ebb from the girl's face. "I
confess, then. I was--thinking."
"And I was--forgotten. My statement was correct."
She looked up, and the two smiled companionably.
"Admitted. I await the penalty."
The man's expression changed into mock sternness. "Very well, Miss
Baker; having heard your confession and remembering a promise to
exercise clemency, this court is about to impose sentence. Are you
prepared to listen?"
"I'm growing stronger every minute."
The court frowned, the heavy black eyebrows making the face really
formidable.
"I fear the defendant doesn't realize the enormity of the offence.
However, we'll pass that by. The sentence, Miss Baker, brings me back to
the starting-point. You are directed to answer the question just
propounded, the question which for some inexplicable reason you didn't
hear. What do you think of it--this roof-garden, and things in general?"
The stern voice paused; the brows relaxed, and he smiled again. "But
first, you're sure you won't have something more--an ice, a wee
bottle--anything?"
The girl shook her head.
"Then let's make room here at this table for a better man; to hint at
vacating for a better woman would be heresy! It's pleasanter over there
in the corner out of the light, where one can see the street."
They found a vacant bench behind a skilfully arranged screen of palms,
and Sidwell produced a cigar.
"In listening to a tale or a confession," he explained, "one should
always call in the aid of nicotine. I fancy Munchausen's listeners must
have been smokers."
The girl steadily inspected the dark mobile face, half concealed in the
shadow. "You're making sport of me," she announced presently.
Instantly her companion's smile vanished. "I beg your pardon, Miss
Baker, but you misunderstood. I thought by this time you knew me better
than that."
"You really are interested, then? Would you truly like to know--what you
asked?"
"I truly would."
Florence hesitated. Her breath came a trifle more quickly. She had not
yet learned the trick of repression of the city folk.
"I think it's wonderful," she said. "Everything is wonderful. I feel
like a child in fairyland; only the fairies must be giants. This great
building, for instance,--I can't make it seem a product of mere six-foot
man! In spite of myself, I keep expecting a great genie to emerge
somewhere. I suppose this seems silly to you, but it's the feeling I
have, and it makes me realize my own insignificance."
Sidwell smoked in silence.
"That's the first impression--the most vivid one, I think. The next is
about the people themselves. I've been here nearly a half-year now, but
even yet I stare at them--as you caught me staring to-night--almost with
open mouth. To see these men in the daylight hours down town one would
think they cared more for a minute than for their eternal happiness. I'm
almost afraid to speak to them, my little affairs seem so tiny in
comparison with the big ones it must take to make men work as they do.
And then, a little later,--apparently for no other reason than that the
sun has ceased to shine,--I see them, as here, for instance, unconscious
that not minutes but hours are going by. They all seem to have double
lives. I get to thinking of them as Jekylls and Hydes. It makes me a bit
afraid."
Still Sidwell smoked in silence, and Florence observed him doubtfully.
"You really wish me to chatter on in this way?" she asked.
"I was never more interested in my life."
The girl felt her face grow warm. She was glad they were in the shadow,
so the man could not see it too clearly. For a moment she looked about
her, at the host of skilful waiters, at the crowd of brightly dressed
pleasure-seekers, at the kaleidoscopic changes, at the lights and
shadows. From somewhere invisible the string orchestra, which for a time
had been silent, started up anew, while her answering pulses beat to
swifter measure. The air was a familiar one, heard everywhere about
town; and she was conscious of a childish desire to join in singing it.
The novelty of the scene, the sparkle, the animation, the motion
intoxicated her. She leaned back in her seat luxuriously.
"This is life," she murmured. "I never grasped the meaning of the word
until within the last few months, but now I begin to understand. To work
mightily when one works, to abandon one's self completely when one
rests--that is the secret of life."
The man in the shadow shifted his position, and, looking up, Florence
found his eyes upon her. "Do you really believe that?" he asked.
"I do, most certainly."
Sidwell lit a fresh cigar, and for a moment the light of the burning
match showed his face clearly. He seemed about to say more; but he did
not, and Florence too was silent. In the pause that followed, the great
express elevator stopped softly at the roof floor. The gate opened with
a musical click, and a woman and a man stepped out. Both were
immaculately dressed, both had the unmistakable air of belonging to the
leisure class. They spied the place Florence and Sidwell had left
vacant, and leisurely made their way to it. A waiter appeared, a coin
changed hands, an order was given. The man drew out a cigarette case
that flashed in colors from the nearby arc-light. Smilingly the woman
held a match, and a moment later wreath after wreath of curling blue
smoke floated above them into the night.
Florence Baker watched the scene with a strange fascination. She was
conscious of having at some time visited a play wherein a similar action
had taken place. She had thought it merely a creation of the writer's
imagination at the time, but in her present broadened experience she
knew better. It was real,--real as the air she breathed. She simply had
not known the meaning of life then; she was merely existing. Now she
knew!
The waiter returned, bearing something in a cooler. There were a few
swift motions, a pop distinctly heard above the drone of the orchestra.
The man tossed aside his cigarette and leaned forward. Two glasses with
slender stems, each containing a liquid that effervesced and sparkled,
one in the man's hand, one in the woman's, met midway of the board. The
empty glasses returned to the table.
Many other seekers of pleasure were about, but Florence had no eyes for
them. This pair alone, so indifferent to their surroundings, so
thoroughly a part of them, perfectly fulfilled her newly formed
conception. They had solved this puzzle of existence, solved it so
completely that she wondered it could ever have appealed to her as a
puzzle at all. Again the formula, distinct as the handwriting upon the
wall, stood revealed before her. One had but to _live_ life, not reason
it, and all would be well.
Again and again, the delicate glasses sparkled to waiting lips, and
returned empty to the table. The man lit another cigarette, and its
smoke mingled with the darkness above. In the hands of the waiter the
cooler disappeared, and was returned; a second cork popped as had the
first. The woman's eyes sparkled as brilliantly as the gems upon her
fingers. The languor of the man had passed. With the old action
repeated, the brimming glasses touched across the board, were exchanged
after the foreign fashion, and again were dry. The figure of the man
leaned far over the table. He spoke earnestly, rapidly. Unconscious
motions of his hands added emphasis to his words. Neither he nor she who
listened was smiling now. Instead, there was a look, identical upon
either face, a look somehow strangely familiar to the watcher, one she
had met with before, somewhere--somewhere. Memory flew back on lightning
wings, searched all the paths of her experience, the dim
all-but-forgotten crannies, stopped with pointing finger; and with a tug
at her very being, she looked, and unbelieving looked again. Ah, could
it be possible--could it? Yes, there it was, unmistakable; the same
expression as this before her--there, blazing from the eyes of a group
of strange street-loafers, as she herself, she, Florence Baker, passed
by!
In the shadow the face of the spectator crimsoned, the hot flood burned
at her ears, a tightness like a physical hand gripped at her throat; but
it seemed that her eyes could not leave the figures before her. Not the
alien interest of a watcher at the play, but a more intense, a more
personal meaning, was in her gaze now. Something of vital moment to her
own life was taking place out there so near, and she must see. A
fleeting wonder as to whether her own companion was likewise watching
came to her, but she did not turn to discover. The denouement,
inevitable as death, was approaching, might come if she for an instant
looked away.
The man out there under the electric globe was still talking; the woman,
his companion, still listened. Florence caught herself straining her
ears to hear what he was saying; but to no purpose. She heard only the
repressed murmur of his well-modulated, resonant voice; yet that in
itself was enough. The old song of the sirens was flowing from his lips,
and passion flamed in his eyes. Farther and farther across the tiny
intervening table, nearer the woman's face, his own approached. The last
empty bottle, the thin-stemmed glasses, stood in his way, and he moved
them aside with his elbow. So near now was he that their breaths
mingled, and as the drone of his voice ceased, the music of the
orchestra, a waltz, flowed into the rift with its steady one-two-three.
He was motionless; but his eyes, intense blue eyes under long lashes,
were fixed absorbingly on hers.
It was the woman's turn to move. Gradually, gracefully, unconsciously,
her own face came forward toward his. Sparkling in the light, a jewelled
hand rested on the surface of the table. A tinge of crimson mounted the
long white neck, and colored it to the roots of her hair. The arteries
at the throat throbbed under the thin skin. Simultaneously, the opening
gate of the elevator clicked, and a man--another with that unmistakable
air of leisure--approached; but still she did not notice, did not hear.
Instead, with a sudden motion, heedless of surroundings, reckless of
spectators, her face crossed the gap intervening between her and her
companion; her lips touched his lips, caught fire with the contact, met
them again and again.
Watching, scarcely breathing, Florence saw the figure of the man come
closer. His eyes also were upon the pair. He caught their every motion;
but he did not hurry. On he came, leisurely, impassively, as though out
for a stroll. He stopped by their side, a darkening shadow with a
mask-like face. Instinctively the two glanced up. There was a crash of
glassware, as the tiny table lurched in the woman's hand--and they were
on their feet. A moment the three looked into each others' eyes, looked
deep and long; then together, without a word, they turned toward the
elevator. Again, droning monotonously, the car appeared and disappeared.
After them, vibrant, mocking, there beat the unvarying rhythm of the
waltz, one-two-three, one-two-three.
In the shadow, Florence Baker's face dropped into her hands. When at
last she glanced up another couple, likewise immaculate of attire,
likewise debonair and smiling, were seated at the little table. She
turned to her companion. His cigar was still glowing brightly. He had
not moved.
"I think I'll go home now, if you please," she said, and every trace of
animation had left her voice. "I'm rather tired."
The man roused himself. "It's early yet. There'll be vaudeville here in
a little while, after the theatre."
The girl observed him curiously. "It's early, did you say?"
Sidwell smiled indulgently. "Beg your pardon. I had forgotten our
standards were not yet in conformity. It is so considered--here."
Florence was very quiet until they reached the steps of her own home. A
light was in the open vestibule, another in the library, where Scotty,
his feet comfortably enclosed in carpet-slippers and elevated above his
head, was reading. Then she turned to her escort.
"You won't be offended, Mr. Sidwell, if I ask you a question?"
The electric light on the nearby corner shone full upon her soft brown
face, a very serious face now, and the man's glance lingered there.
"Certainly not," he answered.
Florence hesitated. Somehow, now that the moment for speaking had
arrived, the thing she had in mind to say did not seem so easy after
all. At last she spoke, hesitatingly: "You seem to be interested in me,
seem to take pleasure in being in my company. For the last few months we
have been together almost daily, but up to that time we had lived lives
as unlike as--as the city is from the prairie. I know you have many
other friends, friends you've known all your life, whose ideals and
points of view came from the same experience as your own." She
straightened with dignity. "Why is it that you leave those friends to
come here? Why do you find pleasure in taking me about as you do? Why is
it?"
Not once while she was speaking had the man's eyes left her face; not
once had he stirred. Even after she was silent he remained so; and
despite the compelling influence which had prompted the question,
Florence could not but realize what she had done, what she had all but
suggested. The warm color flooded her face, though she held her eyes up
bravely. "Tell me why," she repeated firmly.
Sidwell still hesitated. Complex product of the higher civilization,
mixture of good and bad, who knows what thoughts were running riot in
his brain? At last he aroused and came closer. "You ask me a very hard
question," he said steadily; "the most difficult, I think, you could
have chosen; one, also, which perhaps I have already asked myself."
Again he took a step nearer. "It is a question, Florence, that admits of
but one answer; one both adequate and inadequate. It is because you are
you and woman, and I am I and man." Of a sudden his dark face grew
swarthier still, his voice lapsed from its customary impersonal. "It
means, Florence Baker--"
But the sentence was not completed. As suddenly as the change had come
to the man's face, the girl had understood. With an impulse she could
not have explained to herself, she had drawn away and swiftly mounted
the steps of the house. Not until she reached the porch did she turn.
"Don't, don't, please!" she urged. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have
asked what I did. Forget that I spoke at all." She was struggling for
words, for breath. Her color came and went. "Good-night." And not
trusting herself to look back, oblivious of courtesy, she almost ran
into the house.
Standing as she had left him, his hat in his hand, Clarence Sidwell
watched her pass through the lighted vestibule into the darkness
beyond.