A little after the hour of four on Monday afternoon, Joan emerged from
that riotous meander of hideous wooden galleries, ramps, passages,
sheds, and vast echoing caves of gloom, which in those days encumbered
the site of the new Grand Central Station; and with a long breath of
relief turned westward on Forty-second Street.
She walked slowly and without definite aim; yet she had never felt so
keenly the quickness and joy of being alive. Her idle fancy invested
with a true if formless symbolism her escape from that amazing labyrinth
of shadows to the clear, sweet sunlight of the clamorous, busy street:
as if she had eluded and cast off convention and formality, the
constraint of a settled future and the strain of aspirations to be other
than as Nature had fashioned her; and was free again of the enchanting
ease of being simply herself.
She had within five minutes said good-bye to her betrothed; her lips
were yet warm with their parting kiss, her eyes still moist--and so, the
more bewitching--with the facile tears through which she had watched his
train draw out of the station.
He was not to be back within a month; more probably his return would not
occur within five or six weeks....
She was contrarily possessed by two opposed humours: one approximately
saturated with an exquisite melancholy and a sense of heroic emotions
adequately experienced; and the other, of freedom untrammelled by
restrictions of any sort.
Overruling her faint-hearted protests, Matthias had left her the sum of
six weeks' wages (or allowance) in advance, by way of provision against
emergencies and delays. Joan had this magnificent sum of one hundred and
fifty dollars intact in her pocket-book: more money than she had
ever--at least, seriously--dreamed of possessing at one time.
Temporarily it represented to her imagination, level-headed as she
ordinarily was in consideration of money matters, wealth almost
incalculable. It thrilled her tremendously to contemplate this tangible
proof of her lover's unquestioning trust and generosity--and at the same
time it irked her with gnawing doubts of her worthiness. For continually
the knowledge skulked in the dark backwards of her consciousness that
only lack of opportunity restrained her from active disloyalty to his
prejudices.
Though she had disguised it from him, and even in some measure from
herself, she knew that love had not quenched but had quickened her
ambition for the stage. To be desired by one man only stimulated her
longing to be desired inaccessibly--beyond the impregnable barrier of
footlights--by all men.
She wondered how far her strength and constancy would serve her to
resist, were opportunity to come her way during the absence of Matthias,
when distance should have sapped the strength of his influence and
loneliness had lent an accent to her need for occupation and
companionship.
Furtively she closed her left hand, until she could feel the diamond in
his ring, turned in toward the palm beneath her glove: as if it were a
talisman....
Turning north on Broadway, she breasted the full current of the late
afternoon promenade. Where the subway kiosks encroach upon the sidewalk,
in front of what had been Shanley's restaurant, there was a distinct
congestion of footfarers: Joan was obliged to move more slowly, crowded
from behind, close on the heels of those in front, elbowed by
pedestrians bound the opposite way.
Abruptly she caught sight of Wilbrow, approaching. Almost at the same
instant he saw her. Momentarily his eyes clouded with an effort of
memory; then he placed her, his lantern cheeks widened with an ironic
grin, and he lifted his hat with elaborate ceremony. Joan flushed
slightly, smiled brightly in response, and tossed her head with a
spirited suggestion of good-humoured tolerance. In another moment,
wondering why she had done this, she realized that it had been due
simply to a subconscious valuation of the man's interest, in the event
she should ever again decide to try her luck on the stage....
Crossing at Forty-third Street, she turned again north on the sidewalk
in front of a building given over almost entirely to the offices of
theatrical businesses: a sidewalk darkened the year round with groups of
actors sociably "resting."
One of these groups, as Joan drew near, broke up on the urgent
suggestion of a special policeman detailed for the purpose; and a member
of it, swinging with a laugh to "move on," stopped short to escape
collision with the girl. Then he laughed again in the friendliest
fashion, and offered his hand. She looked up into the face of Charlie
Quard.
"Well!" he cried heartily, "I always was a lucky guy! I've been thinking
about you all day--wondering what'd become of you."
Joan smiled and shook hands. "I guess it wasn't worrying you much," she
retorted. "If you'd wanted to, you knew where to find me."
Quard needed no more encouragement. Promptly ranging alongside and
falling into step: "That's just it," he argued; "I knew where to _start_
looking for you, all right, but I was kinda afraid you might be in when
I called, and didn't know whether you'd snap my head off or not."
"That's likely," the girl countered amiably. There was a distinctly
agreeable sensation to be derived from this association with one upon
whom she could impose her private estimate of herself. "What made you
want to see me all of a sudden?"
"Then you ain't sore on me?"
"What for?" she evaded transparently.
"Oh, you know what for, all right. I'm sore enough on myself not to want
to talk about it."
"Well," said Joan indifferently, "I guess it's none of my business if
you're such a rummy you can't hold onto a job. Only, of course, I don't
have to stand for that sort of foolishness more than once."
"You said something then, all right," Quard approved humbly. "I can't
blame you for feeling that way about it. But le' me tell you an honest
fact: I ain't touched a drop of anything stronger'n buttermilk since
that night--so help me Klaw and Erlanger!"
"Why?"
"Well, I guess I must've took a tumble to myself. Anyhow, when I got
over the katzenjammer thing, I thought it all out and made up my mind it
was up to me to behave for the balance of my sentence."
"Is that so?" Joan asked, pausing definitely on the corner at
Forty-fifth Street.
"I know I can," Quard asserted convincingly. "Believe me, Joan, I hate
the stuff! I'd as lief stake myself to a slug of sulphuric. No, on the
level: I'm booked for the water-tank route for the rest of my natural."
"I'm awful glad," observed the girl maliciously. "It's so nice for your
mother. Well ... g'dafternoon!"
"Hold on!" Quard protested. "I'll walk down to the house with you."
"No, you won't," she returned promptly.
"Why not?"
"I don't want you to."
"Oh, you don't!" he murmured blankly, pulling down the corners of his
wide, expressive mouth.
"_So_ sorry," she parroted. "G'dafternoon."
She was several steps away before the man recovered from this rebuff.
Then, with a face of set intent, he gave chase.
"I say--Miss Thursday!"
Joan accepted with a secret smile this sudden change from the off-hand
manner of his first addresses. "Miss Thursday, eh?" she said to herself;
but halted none the less.
"Well?"--with self-evident surprise.
"Look here--_lis'n_!" insisted Quard: "I got to have a talk with you."
"What about?"
"Oh, this is no good place. When can I see you?"
"Is it quite necessary, Mister Quard?"
He wagged an earnest head at her: "That's right. What are you doing
tonight?"
"Oh, I got an engagement with some friends of mine," she said with
spontaneous mendacity.
"Well, then, when?"
"Oh, I don't know; you might as well take your chances--call round
sometime--in two or three days."
"And I got to be satisfied with that?"
"Why not?"
Quard shook his head helplessly: "I'd like to know what's come over
you...."
"Why, what's the matter?" The temptation to lead him on was
irresistible.
"You've changed a lot since I seen you last. What you been doing to
yourself?"
She bridled.... "Maybe it's you that is changed. Maybe you're seeing
things different, now you're sober."
Quard hesitated an instant, his features drawn with anger. Then
abruptly: "_Plenty!_" he ejaculated, and as if afraid to trust himself
further, turned and marched back to Broadway.
Smiling quietly, Joan made her way home. On the whole, the encounter had
not been unenjoyable. She had not only held her own, she had
condescended with striking success.
Later, she repented a little of her harshness; she had been hardly kind,
if Quard were sincere in his protestations of reform; and a little
tolerance might have earned her an evening less lonely.
It was spent, after a dinner which proved unexpectedly desolate, lacking
the companionship to which of late she had grown accustomed, in the
back-parlour (to which Matthias had left her the key) and in
discontented efforts to fix her interest on a novel. Before ten o'clock
she gave it up, and climbed to her room, to lie awake for hours in mute
rebellion against her friendless estate. She might, it was true, have
kept a promise made to her lover just before his departure, to look up
and renew relations with her family. But the more she contemplated this
step, the less it attracted her inclination. There'd be another row with
the Old Man, most likely and ... anyway, there was plenty of time.
Besides, they'd want money, if they found out she had any; and while a
hundred and fifty was a lot, there was no telling when she'd get more.
Eventually she fell asleep while reviewing her meeting with Quard and
turning over her hazy impression that it wouldn't hurt her to be less
stand-offish with him, next time.
In the morning she settled herself at her typewriter in a fine spirit of
determination to keep her mind occupied with the work in hand--and
incidentally to rid her conscience of it--until the feeling of
loneliness wore off or at least till its reality became a trifle less
unpalatable through familiarity. But not two pages had been typed before
the call of the sunlit September day proved seductive beyond her will to
resist; a much-advertised "_Promenade des Toilettes_" at a department
store claimed the rest of the morning; and after lunch she "took in" a
moving-picture show.
But again her evening was forlorn. Theatres allured, but she hardly
liked to go alone. In desperation she cast back mentally to the friends
of the old days, and after rejecting her erstwhile confidant and
co-labourer at the stocking counter, Gussie Innes (who lived too near
home, and would tell her father, who would pass it along to the Old Man)
Joan settled upon one or two girls, resident in distant Harlem, to be
hunted up, treated to a musical comedy, and regaled with a narrative of
the rise and adventures of Joan Thursday until their lives were poisoned
with corrosive envy.
But the first mail of Wednesday furnished distractions so potent that
this project was postponed indefinitely and passed out of Joan's mind,
never to be revived. It brought her two letters: manufacturing an event
of magnitude in the life of a young woman who had yet to write her first
letter and who had thus far received only a few scrappy and incoherent
notes from boyish admirers.
There was one from Matthias, posted in Chicago the preceding morning.
Her first love letter, it was scanned hurriedly, even impatiently, and
put aside in favour of a fat manila envelope whose contents consisted of
a type-written manuscript and a note in scrawling long-hand:
"Friend Joan--
"I hope you are not still mad with me and sorry I got hot under
the collar Monday only I thought you might of been a little
easy on me because, I am strictly on the Water Wagon and this
time mean it--
"What I wanted to talk to you about was a Sketch I got hold of
a while ago you know you picked the other one only that was
punk stuff compared with this I think--Please read this and
tell me what you think about it if you like it, I think I will
try it out soon, if it's any good it's a cinch to cop out
Orpheum time for a Classy Act like this--
"Your true friend--
"Chas. H. Quard.
"P.S. of course I mean I want you to act the Womans part if you
like the Sketch, what do you think!"
It was afternoon before she realized the flight of time.
She turned back to Quard's note, a trifle disappointed that he hadn't
suggested an hour when he would call for her answer.
Adjusting her hat before the mirror, preparatory to going out to lunch,
she realized without a qualm that there was no longer any question of
her intention as between Quard's offer and the wishes of Matthias.
Whatever the consequences she meant to play that part--but on terms and
conditions to be dictated by herself.
But in the act of drawing on her gloves, she checked, and for a long
time stood fascinated by the beauty and lustre of the diamond on her
left hand. A stone of no impressive proportions, but one of the purest
and most excellent water, of an exceptional brilliance, it meant a great
deal to one whose ingrained passion for such adornments had, prior to
her love affair, perforce been satisfied with the cheap, trashy, and
perishable stuff designated in those days by the term "French novelty
jewellery." Subconsciously she was sensitive to a feeling of kinship
with the beautiful, unimpressionable, enigmatic stone: as though their
natures were somehow complementary. Actively she knew that she would
forfeit much rather than part with that perfect and entrancing jewel.
With nothing else in nature, animate or inert, would it have been
possible for her to spend long hours of silent, worshipful, sympathetic
communion.
If she were to persist in the pursuit of her romantic ambition, it might
bring about a pass of cleavage between herself and her lover; it was
more than likely, indeed; she knew the prejudices of Matthias to be as
strong as his love, and this last no stronger than his sense of honour.
Tacitly if not explicitly, she had given him to understand that she
would respect his objections to a stage career. He would not forgive
unfaith--least of all, such clandestine and stealthy disloyalty as she
then contemplated.
The breaking of their engagement would involve the return of the
diamond.
Intolerable thought!
And yet....
Staring wide-eyed into her mirror, she saw herself irresolute at
crossroads: on the one hand Matthias, marriage, the diamond, a secure
and honourable future; on the other, Quard, "The Lie," disloyalty, the
loss of the diamond, uncertainty--a vista of grim, appalling hazards....
And yet--she had four weeks, probably six, perhaps eight, in which to
weigh the possibilities of this tremendous and seductive adventure. "The
Lie" _might_ fail....
In that case, Matthias need never know.