"She has gone back to bed," Matthias explained pleasantly. "I didn't
like to think of you waiting out there, all alone."
Marbridge choked on a retort, turned and began slowly to mount the
stairs.
"Oh--going? Half a minute."
The man paused, and in silence looked down.
"I just happened to think perhaps you haven't a time-table in your
room," said Matthias amiably. "There are several early trains tomorrow,
you know. I fancy the eight-seven would suit you as well as any."
He got no answer other than a grunt. Marbridge resumed his deliberate
ascent, gained the upper floor, and disappeared.
"Good night!" Matthias called after him, softly; and turned out the
light.
X
Monday afternoon found Mr. Matthias back at his desk and in a tolerably
unhappy temper, tormented not only by that conscience-stricken sensation
of secret guilt inseparable from a return to neglected work, but also by
a less reasonable, in fact inexplicable (to him) feeling of discomfort;
as though he were a trespasser upon the premises rather than their
lawful tenant.
Never before had he felt less at home, never more ill at ease in the
homely solitude of his workshop and lodgings.
As for his work.... He found page 6 of that promising young first act in
the typewriter carriage, precisely as it had been left on his receipt of
Helena's peremptory telegram. Removing the sheet, he turned back to the
first page, and read what had been written with such high and eager
hope; and looked his dashed bewilderment. Knitting portentous brows,
sedulously he reconsidered the manuscript at length; then with a groan
put it aside, ran fingers through his hair till it rose rampant, and sat
scowling darkly at the wall, groping blindly and vainly for the lost
ends of that snapped thread of enthusiasm.
The first flush of confidence vanished, what he had written owned
heart-rending incoherence in his understanding.
However (he assured himself) it would come back to him in time. Indeed,
it was bound to. It wasn't the first time this sort of thing had
happened to him, nor yet the second: he was no raw novice to cry despair
over such an everyday set-back.
But what the devil _was_ the matter with him? All the way to Town he
had been full of his theme, as keen-set for work as a schoolboy for a
holiday, and hardly less for the well-worn comforts of his abode. And,
lo! here sat he with his head as empty as his hands, and that misfit
feeling badgering him to exasperation.
Instinctively he consulted a pipe and, through its atmosphere, the view
from his windows: the never-failing, tried and true, enheartening
monotony of that sun-scorched area of back-yards, grim and unlovely in
the happiest weather, cat-haunted and melancholy in all its phases....
But today he essayed vainly to distil from contemplation of it any of
the rare glamour of yesterday's zeal and faith. It was all gone, all!
and the erratic mind of him would persist in trailing off after errant
thoughts of Venetia Tankerville.
Surpassing inconsistency of the human heart! Three hours ago, in her
company, he had been able to control and to behave himself, to
anticipate with pleasure the prospect of returning to his desk after
escorting her from the Pennsylvania to the Grand Central Station and
putting her aboard the train for Greenwich, whither she was bound for a
fortnight's visit. But now--he could think of nothing but Venetia:
Venetia's eyes, her scarlet lips, her exquisite hands, her hair of
bronze; her moods and whims, her laughter and her pensiveness, alike
adorable; Venetia in evening dress on the moon-drenched terrace of
Tanglewood; Venetia on the tennis-courts, all in white, glorified by
sunlight, an amazingly spirited, victorious figure; Venetia with her
hair blown across her eyes, at the wheel of one of Tankerville's racing
motor-craft; Venetia in the gloom of the Grand Central Station,
lingering to say good-bye to her betrothed....
It required several days for this stupid gentleman to awaken to the fact
that the name of his trouble was merely love; that an acknowledged lover
is a person vastly different from a diffident and distant worshipper;
that, in short, the muse of the creative fancy is a jealous mistress,
prone to sulk and deny the light of her countenance to a suitor who
thinks to share his addresses with another.
But this illuminating discovery did little to allay his discontent:
progress with his work alone could accomplish that; and the work dragged
dolefully; he scored only dismal failures in his efforts to produce
something to satisfy himself. And he had only six months to prove his
worth. The date of their marriage had been fixed for February; every
detail of their plans had been worked out under the masterful guidance
of Helena; even the steamer upon which they were to sail for Egypt had
been selected and their suite reserved.
In short he positively _had_ to win out within the allotted period of
grace, who seemed able only to sit there, day in and out, beside his
typewriter, with idle hands, or, with a vacant mind, to pace his trail
of torment from door to window: getting nowhere, stripped of every
vestige of his arduously acquired craftsmanship.... It was maddening.
None the less, doggedly, savagely determined to overcome this
sentimental handicap, he worked long hours: only to review the outcome
of his labours with a sinking heart. For all his knowledge of the stage,
for all that a long career of failures and half-hearted successes had
taught him, the play that slowly took shape under his modelling lacked
vitality--the living fire of drama. Technically he could find no
disastrous fault with it; but in his soul he knew it to be as
passionless as a proposition in Euclid.
He was a dreamer, but not even the stuff of dreams could dull the clear
perceptions of his critical intelligence....
Meantime, the superficial routine of work-a-day life went on much as it
had ever since he had set up shop in the establishment of Madame Duprat.
His breakfasts were served him in his rooms; for his other meals he
foraged in neighbouring restaurants. A definite amount of exercise was
required to keep him in working trim. In short, he was in and out of the
house several times each day. Inevitably, then, he encountered fellow
lodgers, either on the stoop or in the hallway; among them, and perhaps
more often and less adventitiously than in other instances, one wistful
young woman, shabbily dressed, in whose brown eyes lurked a hesitant
appeal for recognition. He grew acquainted with the sight of her, but he
was generally in haste and preoccupied, looked over her head if not
through her, stepped civilly out of her way and went absently his own,
and never once dreamed of identifying her with that dreary and damp
creature of the rain-swept night whose necessity had turned him out of
his lodgings for a single night.
One day--the second Thursday following his return to Town--he found
himself waiting in the lobby of the Knickerbocker, a trifle early for a
luncheon engagement with Rideout and his producing manager, Wilbrow: a
meeting arranged for the purpose of discussing the forthcoming
production of "The Jade God." The day was seasonably insufferable with
heat, but there was here a grateful drift of air through open doors and
windows. Lounging in an arm-chair, he lazily consumed a cigarette and
reviewed the listless ebb and flow of guests with a desultory interest
which was presently, suddenly, and rudely quickened.
Marbridge, accompanied by a woman, was leaving the eastern dining-room.
They passed so near to Matthias that by stretching forth his foot he
could have touched the woman's skirt. But she did not see him; her face
was averted as she looked up, faintly smiling, to the face of her
companion. Marbridge, on his part, was attending her with that slightly
exaggerated attitude of solicitude and devotion which was peculiarly his
with all women. If he saw Matthias he made no sign. His dark and boyish
eyes ogled his companion; his tone was pitched low to a key of
intimacy; he rolled a trifle in his walk, with the insuppressible
swagger of the amateur of gallantry.
They passed on and out of the hotel; and Matthias saw the
carriage-porter, at a sign from Marbridge, whistle in a taxicab.
He turned away in disgust.
A moment or so later he looked up to find Marbridge standing over him
and grinning impudently as he offered a hand.
"Why, _how_ do you do, Matthias, my boy?"
His voice, by no means subdued, echoed through the lobby and attracted
curious glances.
Matthias, ignoring the hand, lifted one of his own in a gesture
deprecatory.
"Softly!" he begged. "Somebody might hear you."
Unabashed, Marbridge dropped into the chair beside him. "How's that? Why
shouldn't they?"
"They might make the mistake of inferring that I liked you," returned
Matthias.
Marbridge, on the point of settling back, sat up with a start. A dull
colour flushed his plump, dark cheeks. For an instant his hands twitched
nervously and his full lips tightened on a retort which he presumably
deemed inadvisable; for mastering his impulse, he sank back again, and
put a period to the display with a brief but not uneasy chuckle.
"You're all there with the acidulated repartee," he observed
appreciatively. "Some class to your work, my boy!" To which, Matthias
making no comment, he added with at least some effort toward an
appearance of sincerity: "Sorry you feel that way about me."
"Unfortunately, I do."
"Because I wouldn't act on your suggestion about that time-table, eh?"
"Because of the circumstances which moved me to drop that hint."
A brief silence prefaced Marbridge's next remark:
"But damn it! I couldn't. It would've made talk if I'd pulled out when
you wanted me to."
"There would have been no occasion for any talk whatever if you'd known
how to comport yourself as the guest of decent people."
And still Marbridge husbanded his resentment.
"Oh well!" he said, aggrieved--"women!"
Matthias threw away his cigarette and prepared to rise.
"Hold on a bit," Marbridge checked him. "I want to ask a favour of
you.... Of course, you're right; I am a bad actor, and all that. I'm
sorry I forgot myself at Tanglewood--word of honour, I am!"
"Well?" Matthias suggested with an unmoved face.
"Look here...." Marbridge sat up eagerly. "I think you're a mighty good
sort--"
"Thanks!"
"You didn't blow about that business down there--"
"I couldn't very well--could I?--with a woman involved!"
"Oh, you did the white thing: I'm not disputing that. But what I'm
worried about now is whether you're as good a sport as you seem."
"Meaning--?"
Marbridge nodded significantly toward the sidewalk, where he had put his
late companion into the cab. "About today: you won't find it necessary
to--?"
"By God!" Matthias's indignation brimmed over. "If you're so solicitous
of the woman's good name, why the devil do you allow her to be seen in
your company?"
"It isn't that," Marbridge persisted, keeping himself well in hand.
"After all, what's a lunch at the Knick?"
"Well--?"
"The trouble is, she's supposed to be at Newport. Majendie doesn't
know--"
"You just can't help being a blackguard, can you, Marbridge?" Matthias
enquired curiously. "You ought to have bitten off your tongue before you
named a name in a public place like this." He rose, meeting with steady
eyes the vicious glare of the other. "One word more: if I hear of your
accepting another invitation to Tanglewood, I'll forget to be what you
call 'a good sport'."
Marbridge jumped up hotly. "Look here!" he said in accents that, though
guarded, trembled, "I've been mighty patient with your insolence, and
I'm certainly not going to forget myself here. But if you want to make a
book on it, I'll lay you any odds you like that I'll be received at
Tanglewood within the year, and you won't say one single damn' word. Do
you make me?"
Matthias looked him up and down, smiled quietly, swung on his heel, and
moved across the lobby to greet Rideout and Wilbrow.
His instinctive inclination to dismiss altogether from his mind a
subject so distasteful was helped out by a conference which outlasted
luncheon, involved dinner with the two men of the theatre, and was only
concluded in Matthias's rooms shortly after midnight.
Wilbrow, considering the play from the point of view of him upon whom
devolved all responsibility for the manner of its presentation (the
scene painting alone excepted) and gifted with that intuitive sense _du
théâtre_ singular to men of his vocation, who very nearly monopolize the
intelligence concerned with the American stage today--Wilbrow had
uncovered a slight, by no means damning, flaw in the construction of the
third act, and had a remedy to suggest. This, adopted without opposition
from the playwright, suggested further alterations which Matthias could
not deny were calculated to strengthen the piece. In consequence, when
at length they left him, he found himself committed to a virtual
rewriting of the last two acts entire.
Groaning in resignation, he resolved to accomplish the revision in one
week of solid, uninterrupted labour, and went to bed, rising the next
morning to deny himself his correspondence and the newspapers and to
make arrangements with Madame Duprat to furnish all his meals until his
task was finished. These matters settled, and his telephone temporarily
silenced, he began work and, forgetful of the world, plodded faithfully
on by day and night until late Thursday afternoon, when he drew the
final page from his typewriter, thrust it with its forerunners into an
envelope addressed to Rideout, entrusted this last to a messenger, and
threw himself upon the couch to drop off instantly into profound
slumbers of exhaustion.
At ten o'clock that night he was awakened and sat up, dazed and blinking
in a sudden glare of gas-light.
Stupidly, bemused with the slowly settling dust of dreams, he stared,
incredulous of the company in which he found himself.
Madame Duprat, having shown his callers in and made a light for them,
was discreetly departing. George Tankerville, whose vigorous methods had
roused Matthias, stood over him, with a look of deep and sympathetic
anxiety clouding his round, commonplace, friendly countenance. Wearing a
dinner jacket together with linen motor-cap and duster, oil-stained
gauntlets on his hands, with an implacable impatience betrayed in his
very pose, he cut a figure sufficiently striking instantly to engage
attention--the unexpectedness of his call aside. Furthermore, he was
accompanied by his wife: Helena, in a costume as unconventional as her
husband's, stood at a little distance, regarding Matthias with much the
same look of consternation and care.
"Great Scott!" Matthias exclaimed, pulling his wits together. "You are a
sudden pair of people!" With a shrug and a sour smile he deprecated his
clothing, which consisted solely of a shirt, linen trousers, and a pair
of antiquated slippers. "If you'd only given me some warning, I'd've
tried to dress up to your elegance," he went on.
"Damn your clothes!" Tankerville exploded. He dropped a hand on
Matthias's shoulder and swung him round to the light. "Tell us you're
all right--that's all we want to know!"
"All right?" Matthias looked from one to the other, deeply perplexed.
"Why, of course I'm all right. Why not?"
With a little gasp of relief, Helena dropped into a chair. Tankerville
removed his hand and leaned against the table, smiling foolishly.
"That's all right, then," he said. "We tried to get you on the telephone
all afternoon, failed, were afraid you'd done something foolish, and
took a run in to town to make sure."
"What the dickens are you driving at?" Matthias demanded. "I had my
telephone cut off the other day because I was working and didn't want to
be interrupted. I do that frequently. Why not? What's got into you two,
anyway? Have you gone dotty?"
"No," Helena replied with a grim, pale smile; "We're sane enough--and
thank Heaven you are! But Venetia--"
"Venetia!" Matthias cried. "What about Venetia?"
Tankerville avoiding his eye, it devolved upon Helena to respond to
Matthias's frantic and imperative look.
"Venetia," she said reluctantly--"Venetia eloped with Marbridge day
before yesterday--Tuesday. She came in town in the morning to do some
shopping, met him and was married to him at the City Hall. They sailed
on the Mauretania yesterday. The papers didn't get hold of it--_we_ knew
nothing!--till this afternoon. I was afraid she might have written you
and you--in despair--"
Her voice broke.
After a little, Matthias turned to a heap of unopened correspondence on
a side table and ran rapidly through it, examining only the addresses.
"No," he said presently, in a level tone: "no--she didn't trouble to
write me."