When the sombre morning broke at last, Jacqueline awoke, sprang from her
bed, and fluttered away about her dressing as blithely as an April
linnet in a hurry.
She had just time to breakfast and catch her train, with the help of
heaven and a taxicab, and she managed to do it about the same moment
that Desboro, half a hundred miles away, glanced out of his
dressing-room window and saw the tall trees standing like spectres in
the winter fog, and the gravel on the drive shining wet and muddy
through melting snow. But he turned to the mirror again, whistling a gay
air, and twisted his necktie into a smarter knot. Then he went out to
the greenhouses and snipped off enough carnations to make a great sheaf
of clove-scented blossoms for Jacqueline's room; and after that he
proceeded through the other sections of the fragrant glass galleries,
cutting, right and left, whatever he considered beautiful enough to do
her fresh, young beauty honour.
At the station, he saw her standing on the platform of the drawing-room
car as the train thundered in, veil and raincoat blowing, just as he had
seen her there the first time she arrived at Silverwood station.
The car steps were sheathed in ice; she had already ventured down a
little way when he reached her and offered aid; and she permitted him to
swing her to the cinder-strewn ground.
"Are you really here!" he exclaimed, oblivious of interested glances
from trainmen and passengers.
They exchanged an impulsive hand-clasp. Both were unusually animated.
"Are you well?" she asked, as though she had been away for months.
"Yes. Are you? It's perfectly fine of you to come"--still retaining her
hand--"I wonder if you know how glad I am to see you! I wonder if you
really do!"
She started to say something, hesitated, blushed, then their hands
parted, and she answered lightly:
"What a very cordial welcome for a business girl on a horrid day! You
mustn't spoil me, Mr. Desboro."
"I was afraid you might not come," he said; and indiscreet impulse
prompted her to answer, as she had first answered him there on the
platform two weeks ago:
"Do you suppose that mere weather could have kept me away from the
famous Desboro collection?"
The charming malice in her voice, the delightful impertinence of her
reply, so obviously at variance with fact, enchanted him. She was
conscious of its effect on him, and, already slightly excited, ventured
to laugh at her own thrust as though challenging his self-conceit to
believe that she had even grazed herself with the two-edged weapon.
"Do I count for absolutely nothing?" he said.
"Do you flatter yourself that I returned to see _you_?"
"Let me believe it for just one second."
"I don't doubt that you will secretly and triumphantly believe it all
the time."
"If I dared----"
"Is that sort of courage lacking in you, Mr. Desboro? I have heard
otherwise. And how long are we going to remain here on this foggy
platform?"
Here was an entirely new footing; but in the delightful glow of youthful
indiscretion she still maintained her balance lightly, mockingly.
"Please tell me," she said, as they entered the car, and he drew the big
fur robe around her, "just how easily you believe in your own
overpowering attractions. Do women encourage you in such modest faith in
yourself? Or are you merely created that way?"
"The house has been a howling wilderness without you," he said. "I admit
_my_ loneliness, anyway."
"_I_ admit nothing. Besides, I wasn't."
"Is that true?"
She laughed tormentingly, eyes and cheeks brilliant, now undisguisedly
on guard--her first acknowledgment that in this man she condescended to
divine the hereditary adversary.
"I mean to punish," said her eyes.
"What an attack from a clear sky on a harmless young man," he said, at
last.
"No, an attack from the fog on an insufferable egoist--an ambush, Mr.
Desboro. And I thought a little sword-play might do your complacent wits
a service. Has it?"
"But you begin by a dozen thrusts, then beat down my guard, and cuff me
about with blade and pommel----"
"I had to. Now, does your vanity believe that my return to Silverwood
was influenced by your piteous appeal over the wire--and your bad
temper, too?"
"No," he said solemnly.
"Well, then! I came here partly to put my notes in better shape for Mr.
Sissly, partly to clear up odds and ends and leave him a clear field to
plow--in your persistent company," she added, with such engaging malice
that even the name of Sissly, which he hated, made him laugh.
"You won't do that," he said confidently.
"Do what, Mr. Desboro?"
"Turn me over to anything named Sissly."
"Indeed, I will--you and your celebrated collection! Of course you
_could_ go South, but, judging from your devotion to the study of
ancient armour----"
"You don't mean it, do you?"
"What? About your devotion?"
"No, about Sissly."
"Yes, I do. Listen to me, Mr. Desboro. I made up my mind that sleighing,
and skating, and luncheon and tea, and--_you_, are not good for a busy
girl's business career. I'm going to be very practical and very frank
with you. I don't belong here except on business, and you make it so
pleasant and unbusinesslike for me that my conscience protests. You see,
if the time I now take to lunch with you, tea with you, skate, sleigh,
talk, listen, in your very engaging company is properly employed, I can
attend to yards and yards of business in town. And I'm going to. I mean
it, please," as he began to smile.
His smile died out. He said, quietly:
"Doesn't our friendship count for anything?"
She looked at him; shrugged her shoulders:
"Oh, Mr. Desboro," she said pleasantly, "does it, _really_?"
The blue eyes were clear and beautiful, and a little grave; only the
upcurled corners of her mouth promised anything.
The car drew up at the house; she sprang out and ran upstairs to her
room. He heard her in animated confab with Mrs. Quant for a few minutes,
then she came down in her black business gown, with narrow edges of lawn
at collar and cuffs, and the bright lock already astray on her cheek. A
white carnation was tucked into her waist; the severe black of her
dress, as always, made her cheeks and lips and golden hair more
brilliant by contrast.
"Now," she said, "for my notes. And what are you going to do while I'm
busy?"
"Watch you, if I may. You've heard about the proverbial cat?"
"Care killed it, didn't it?"
"Yes; but it had a good look at the Queen first."
A smile touched her eyes and lips--a little wistfully.
"You know, Mr. Desboro, that I like to waste time with you. Flatter your
vanity with that confession. And even if things were--different--but
they couldn't ever be--and I must work very hard if I'm ever going to
have any leisure in my old age. But come to the library for this last
day, and smoke as usual. And you may talk to amuse me, if you wish.
Don't mind if I'm too busy to answer your folly in kind."
They went together to the library; she placed the mass of notes in front
of her and began to sort them--turned for a second and looked around at
him with adorable malice, then bent again to the task before her.
"Miss Nevers!"
"Yes?"
"You will come to Silverwood again, won't you?"
She wrote busily with a pencil.
"Won't you?"
She made some marginal notes and he looked at the charming profile in
troubled silence.
[Illustration: "She turned leisurely.... 'Did you say anything recently,
Mr. Desboro?'"]
About ten minutes later she turned leisurely, tucking up the errant
strand of hair with her pencil:
"Did you say anything recently, Mr. Desboro?"
"Out of the depths, yes. The voice in the wilderness as usual went
unheeded. I wished to explain to you how we might give up our skating
and sleighing and everything except the bare necessities--and you could
still come to Silverwood on business----"
"What are the 'bare necessities'?"
"Your being here is one----"
"Answer me seriously, please."
"Food, then. We must eat."
She conceded that much.
"We've got to motor to and from the station!"
She admitted that, too.
"Those," he pointed out, "are the bare necessities. We can give up
everything else."
She sat looking at him, playing absently with her pencil. After a while,
she turned to her desk again, and, bending over it, began to make
meaningless marks with her pencil on the yellow pad.
"What is the object," she said, "of trying to make me forget that I
wouldn't be here at all except on business?"
"Do you think of that every minute?"
"I--must."
"It isn't necessary."
"It is imperative, Mr. Desboro--and you know it."
She wrote steadily for a while, strapped a bundle of notes with an
elastic band, laid it aside, and turned around, resting her arm on the
back of the chair. Blue eyes level with his, she inspected him
curiously. And, if the tension of excitement still remained, all her
high spirits and the indiscreet impulses of a gay self-confidence had
vanished. But curiosity remained--the eternal, insatiable curiosity of
the young.
How much did this man really mean of what he said to her? What did his
liking for her signify other than the natural instinct of an idle young
man for any pretty girl? What was he going to do about it? For she
seemed to be conscious that, sooner or later, somewhere, sometime, he
would do something further about it.
Did he mean to make love to her sometime? Was he doing it now? It
resembled the preliminaries; she recognised them--had been aware of them
almost from the very first.
Men had made love to her before--men in her own world, men in his world.
She had learned something since her father died--not a great deal;
perhaps more from hearsay than from experience. But some unpleasant
knowledge had been acquired at first hand; two clients of her father's
had contributed, and a student, named Harroun, and an amateur of soft
paste statuettes, the Rev. Bertie Dawley.
Innocently and wholesomely equipped to encounter evil, cool and clear
eyed mistress of herself so far, she had felt, with happy contempt, that
her fate was her own to control, and had wondered what the word
"temptation" could mean to any woman.
What Cynthia had admitted made her a little wiser, but still
incredulous. Cold, hunger, debts, loneliness--these were not enough, as
Cynthia herself had said. Nor, after all, was Cynthia's liking for
Cairns. Which proved conclusively that woman is the arbiter of her own
destiny.
Desboro, one knee crossed over the other, sat looking into the fire,
which burned in the same fireplace where he had recently immolated the
frivolous souvenirs of the past.
Perhaps some gay ghost of that scented sacrifice took shape for a moment
in the curling smoke, for he suddenly frowned and passed his hand over
his eyes in boyish impatience.
Something--the turn of his head and shoulders--the shape of them--she
did not know what--seemed to set her heart beating loudly, ridiculously,
without any apparent reason on earth. Too much surprised to be
disturbed, she laid her slim hand on her breast, then against her
throat, till her pulses grew calmer.
Resting her chin on her arm, she gazed over her shoulder into the fire.
He had laid another log across the flames; she watched the bark catch
fire, dully conscious, now, that her ideas were becoming as
irresponsible and as reasonless as the sudden stirring of her heart had
been.
For she was thinking how odd it would be if, like Cynthia, she too, ever
came to care about a man of Desboro's sort. She'd see to it that she
didn't; that was all. There were other men. Better still, there were to
be no men; for her mind fastidiously refused to consider the only sort
with whom she felt secure--her intellectual inferiors whose moral
worthiness bored her to extinction.
Musing there, half turned on her chair, she saw Desboro rise, still
looking intently into the fire, and stand so, his well-made, graceful
figure, in silhouette, edged with the crimson glow.
"What do you see in it, Mr. Desboro?"
He turned instantly and came over to her:
"A bath of flames would be very popular," he said, "if burning didn't
hurt. I was just thinking about it--how to invent----"
She quoted: "'But I was thinking of a plan to dye one's whiskers
green.'"
He said: "I suppose you think me as futile as that old man 'a-settin' on
a gate.'"
"Your pursuits seem to be about as useful as his."
"Why should I pursue things? I don't want 'em."
"You are hopeless. There is pleasure even in pursuit of anything, no
matter whether you ever attain it or not. I will never attain wisdom,
but it's a pleasure to pursue it."
"It's a pleasure even to pursue pleasure--and it's the only pleasure in
pleasure," he said, so gravely that for a moment she thought with horror
that he was trying to be precious. Then the latent glimmer in his eyes
set them laughing, and she rose and went over to the sofa and curled up
in one corner, abandoning all pretense of industry.
"Once," she said, "I knew a poet who emitted such precious thoughts. He
was the funniest thing; he had the round, pale, ancient eyes of an
African parrot, a pasty countenance, and a derby hat resting on top of a
great bunch of colourless curly hair. And that's the way _he_ talked,
Mr. Desboro!"
He seated himself on the other arm of the sofa:
"Did you adore him?"
"At first. He was a celebrity. He did write some pretty things."
"What woke you up?"
She blushed.
"I thought so," observed Desboro.
"Thought what?"
"That he came out of his trance and made love to you."
"How did you know? Wasn't it dreadful! And he'd always told me that he
had never experienced an emotion except when adoring the moon. He was a
very dreadful young man--perfectly horrid in his ideas--and I sent him
about his business very quickly; and I remember being a little
frightened and watching him from the window as he walked off down the
street in his soiled drab overcoat and the derby hat on his frizzly
hair, and his trousers too high on his ankles----"
Desboro was so immensely amused at the picture she drew that her pretty
brows unbent and she smiled, too.
"What did he want of you?" he asked.
"I didn't fully understand at the time----" she hesitated, then, with an
angry blush: "He asked me to go to Italy with him. And he said he
couldn't marry me because he had already espoused the moon!"
Desboro's laughter rang through the old library; and Jacqueline was not
quite certain whether she liked the way he took the matter or not.
"I know him," said Desboro. "I've seen him about town kissing women's
hands, in company with a larger and fatter one. Isn't his name Munger?"
"Yes," she said.
"Certainly. And the fat one's name is Waudle. They were a hot team at
fashionable literary stunts--the Back Alley Club, you know."
"No, I don't know."
"Oh, it's just silly; a number of fashionable and wealthy young men and
women pin on aprons, now and then, and paint and model lumps of wet clay
in several severely bare studios over some unfragrant stables. They
proudly call it The Back Alley Club."
"Why do you sneer at it?"
"Because it isn't the real thing. It's a strutting ground for things
like Munger and Waudle, and all the rag-tag that is always sniffing and
snuffling at the back doors of the fine arts."
"At least," she said, "they sniff."
He said, good-humouredly: "Yes, and I don't even do that. Is that what
you mean?"
She considered him: "Haven't you any profession?"
"I'm a farmer."
"Why aren't you busy with it, then?"
"I have been, disastrously. There was a sickening deficit this autumn."
She said, with pretty scorn: "I'll wager I could make your farm pay."
He smiled lazily, and indulgently. After a moment he said:
"So the spouse of the moon wanted you to go to Italy with him?"
She nodded absently: "A girl meets queer men in the world."
"Did you ever meet any others?"
She looked up listlessly: "Yes, several."
"As funny as the poet?"
"If you call him funny."
"I wonder who they were," he mused.
"Did you ever hear of the Reverend Bertie Dawley?"
"No."
"He was one."
"_That_ kind?"
"Oh, yes. He collects soft paste figurines; he was a client of father's;
but I found very soon that I couldn't go near him. He has a wife and
children, too, and he keeps sending his wife to call on me. You know
he's a good-looking young man, too, and I liked him; but I never
dreamed----"
"Sure," he said, disgusted at his own sex--with the exception of
himself.
"That seems to be the way of it," she said thoughtfully. "You can't be
friends with men; they all annoy you sooner or later in one way or
another!"
"Annoy you? Do you mean make love to you?"
"Yes."
"_I_ don't; do I?"
She bent her head and sat playing with the petals of the white carnation
drooping on her breast.
"No," she said calmly. "You don't annoy me."
"Would it seriously annoy you if I did make love to you some day?" he
asked, lightly.
Instinct was whispering hurriedly to her: "Here it is at last. Do
something about it, and do it quick!" She waited until her heart beat
more regularly, then:
"You couldn't annoy--make love--to a girl you really don't care for.
That is very simple, isn't it?"
"Suppose I did care for you."
She looked up at him with troubled eyes, then lowered them to the
blossom from which her fingers were detaching petal after petal.
"If you did really care, you wouldn't tell me, Mr. Desboro."
"Why not?"
"Because it would not be fair to me." A flush of anger--or she thought
it was, brightened her cheeks. "This is nonsense," she said abruptly.
"And I'll tell you another thing; I can't come here again. You know I
can't. We talk foolishness--don't you know it? And there's another
reason, anyway."
"What reason?"
"The _real_ reason," she said, clenching both hands. "You know what it
is and so do I--and--and I'm tired of pretending that the truth isn't
true."
"What is the truth?"
She had turned her back on him and was staring out of the windows into
the mist.
"The truth is," she answered deliberately, "that you and I can not be
friends."
"Why?"
"Because we can't be! Because--men are always men. There isn't any way
for men and women to be friends. Forgive me for saying it. But it is
quite true. A business woman in your employment--can't forget that a
real friendship with you is impossible. That is why, from the very
beginning, I wanted it to be purely a matter of business between us. I
didn't really wish to skate with you, or do anything of that kind with
you. I'd rather not lunch with you; I--I had rather you drew the
line--and let me draw it clearly, cleanly, and without mistake--as I
draw it between myself and my employees. If you wish, I can continue to
come here on that basis until my work is finished. Otherwise, I shall
not come again."
Her back was still toward him.
"Very well," he said, bluntly.
She heard him rise and walk toward the door; sat listening without
turning her head, already regretting what she had said. And now she
became conscious that her honesty with herself and with him had been a
mistake, entailing humiliation for her--the humiliation of letting him
understand that she couldn't afford to care for him, and that she did
already. She had thought of him first, and of herself last--had conceded
a hopeless situation in order that her decision might not hurt his
vanity.
It had been a bad mistake. And now he might be thinking that she had
tried to force him into an attitude toward herself which she could not
expect, or--God knew what he might be thinking.
Dismayed and uncertain, she stood up nervously as he reëntered the room
and came toward her, holding out his hand.
"I'm going to town," he said pleasantly. "I won't bother you any more.
Remain; come and go as you like without further fear of my annoying you.
The servants are properly instructed. They will be at your orders. I'm
sorry--I meant to be more agreeable. Good-bye, Miss Nevers."
She laid her hand in his, lifelessly, then withdrew it. Dumb, dreadfully
confused, she looked up at him; then, as he turned coolly away, an
inarticulate sound of protest escaped her lips. He halted and turned
around.
"It isn't fair--what you are doing--Mr. Desboro."
"What else is there to do?"
"Why do you ask me? Why must the burden of decision always rest with
me?"
"But my decision is that I had better go. I can't remain here
without--annoying you."
"Why can't you remain here as my employer? Why can't we enjoy
matter-of-fact business relations? I ask no more than that--I want no
more. I am afraid you think I do expect more--that I expect friendship.
It is impossible, unsuitable--and I don't even wish for it----"
"I do," he said.
"How can we be friends, from a social standpoint? There is nothing to
build on, no foundation--nothing for friendship to subsist on----"
"Could you and I meet anywhere in the world and become _less_ than
friends?" he asked. "Tell me honestly. It is impossible, and you and I
both know it."
And, as she made no reply: "Friends--more than friends, possibly; never
less. And you know it, and so do I," he said under his breath.
She turned sharply toward the window and looked out across the foggy
hills.
"If that is what you believe, Mr. Desboro, perhaps you had better go."
"Do you send me?"
"Always the decision seems to lie with me. Why do you not decide for
yourself?"
"I will; and for you, too, if you will let me relieve you of the
burden."
"I can carry my own burdens."
Her back was still toward him. After a moment she rested her head
against the curtained embrasure, as though tired.
He hesitated; there were good impulses in him, but he went over to her,
and scarcely meaning to, put one arm lightly around her waist.
She laid her hands over her face, standing so, golden head lowered and
her heart so violent that she could scarcely breathe.
"Jacqueline."
A scarcely perceptible movement of her head, in sign that she listened.
"Are we going to let anything frighten us?" He had not meant to say
that, either. He was adrift, knew it, and meant to drop anchor in a
moment. "Tell me honestly," he added, "don't you want us to be friends?"
She said, her hands still over her face:
"I didn't know how much I wanted it. I don't see, even now, how it can
be. Your own friends are different. But I'll try--if you wish it."
"I do wish it. Why do you think my friends are so different from you?
Because some happen to be fashionable and wealthy and idle? Besides, a
man has many different kinds of friends----"
She thought to herself: "But he never forgets to distinguish between
them. And here it is at last--almost. And I--I do care for him! And here
I am--like Cynthia--asking myself to pardon him."
She looked up at him out of her hands, a little pale, then down at his
arm, resting loosely around her waist.
"Don't hold me so, please," she said, in a low voice.
"Of course not." But instead he merely took her slender hands between
his own, which were not very steady, and looked her straight in the
eyes. Such men can do it, somehow. Besides, he really meant to control
himself and cast anchor in a moment or two.
"Will you trust me with your friendship?" he said.
"I--seem to be doing it. I don't exactly understand what I am doing.
Would you answer me one question?"
"If I can, Jacqueline."
"Then, friendship _is_ possible between a man and a woman, isn't it?"
she insisted wistfully.
"I don't know."
"What! Why don't you know? It's merely a matter of mutual interest and
respect, isn't it?"
"I've heard so."
"Then isn't a friendship between us possible without anything
threatening to spoil it? Isn't it to be just a matter of enjoying
together what interests each? Isn't it? Because I don't mind waiving
social conditions that can't be helped, and conventions that we simply
can't observe."
"Yes, you wonderful girl," he said under his breath, meaning to anchor
at once. But he drifted on.
"You know," she said, forcing a little laugh, "I _am_ rather wonderful,
to be so honest with a man like you. There's so much about you that I
don't care for."
He laughed, enchanted, still retaining her hands between his own, the
palms joined together, flat.
"You're so wonderful," he said, "that you make the most wonderful
masterpiece in the Desboro collection look like a forgery."
She strove to speak lightly again: "Even the gilding on my hair is real.
You didn't think so once, did you?"
"You're all real. You are the most real thing I've ever seen in the
world!"
She tried to laugh: "You mustn't believe that I've never before been
real when I've been with you. And I may not be real again, for a long
time. Make the most of this moment of expansive honesty, Mr. Desboro.
I'll remember presently that you are an hereditary enemy."
"Have I ever acted that part?"
"Not toward me."
He reddened: "Toward whom?"
"Oh," she said, with sudden impatience, "do you suppose I have any
illusions concerning the sort of man you are? But what do I care, as
long as you are nice to me?" she laughed, more confidently. "Men!" she
repeated. "I know something about them! And, knowing them, also, I
nevertheless mean to make a friend of one of them. Do you think I'll
succeed?"
He smiled, then bent lightly and kissed her joined hands.
"Luncheon is served," came the emotionless voice of Farris from the
doorway. Their hands fell apart; Jacqueline blushed to her hair and gave
Desboro a lovely, abashed look.
She need not have been disturbed. Farris had seen such things before.
* * * * *
That evening, Desboro went back to New York with her and took her to her
own door in a taxicab.
"Are you quite sure you can't dine with me?" he asked again, as they
lingered on her doorstep.
"I could--but----"
"But you won't!"
One of her hands lay lightly on the knob of the partly open door, and
she stood so, resting and looking down the dark street toward the
distant glare of electricity where Broadway crossed at right angles.
"We have been together all day, Mr. Desboro. I'd rather not dine with
you--yet."
"Are you going to dine all alone up there?" glancing aloft at the
lighted windows above the dusky old shop.
"Yes. Besides, you and I have wasted so much time to-day that I shall go
down stairs to the office and do a little work after dinner. You see a
girl always has to pay for her transgressions."
"I'm terribly sorry," he said contritely. "Don't work to-night!"
"Don't be sorry. I've really enjoyed to-day's laziness. Only it mustn't
be like this to-morrow. And anyway, I knew I'd have to make it up
to-night."
"I'm terribly sorry," he said again, almost tenderly.
"But you mustn't be, Mr. Desboro. It was worth it----"
He looked up, surprised, flushing with emotion; and the quick colour in
her cheeks responded. They remained very still, and confused, and
silent, as fire answered fire; suddenly aware how fast they had been
drifting.
She turned, nervously, pushed open the door, and entered the vestibule;
he held the door ajar for her while she fitted her key with unsteady
fingers.
"So--thank you," she said, half turning around, "but I won't dine with
you--to-night."
"Then, perhaps, to-morrow----"
"Don't come into town with me to-morrow, Mr. Desboro."
"I'm coming in anyway."
"Why?"
"There's an affair--a kind of a dance. There are always plenty of things
to take me into town in the evenings."
"Is that why you came in to-night?" She knew she should not have said
it.
He hesitated, then, with a laugh: "I came in to town because it gave me
an hour longer with you. Are you going to send me away now?" And her
folly was answered in kind.
She said, confused and trying to smile: "You say things that you don't
mean. Evening, for us, must always mean 'good-night.'"
"Why, Jacqueline?"
"Because. Also, it is my hour of freedom. You wouldn't take that away
from me, would you?"
"What do you do in the evenings?"
"Sew, read, study, attend to the thousand wretched little details which
concern my small household. And, sometimes, when I have wasted the day,
I make it up at night. Because, whether I have enjoyed it or not, this
day _has_ been wasted."
"But sometimes you dine out and go to the theatre and to dances and
things?"
"Yes," she said gravely. "But you know there is no meeting ground there
for us, don't you?"
"Couldn't you ask me to something?"
"Yes--I could. But you wouldn't care for the people. You know it. They
are not like the people to whom you are accustomed. They would only bore
you."
"So do many people I know."
"Not in the same way. Why do you ask me? You know it is better not." She
added smilingly: "There is neither wealth nor fashion nor intellectual
nor social distinction to be expected among my friends----"
She hesitated, and added quietly: "You understand that I am not
criticising them. I am merely explaining them to you. Otherwise, I'd ask
you to dinner with a few people--I can only have four at a time, my
dining room is so small----"
"Ask me, Jacqueline!" he insisted.
She shook her head; but he continued to coax and argue until she had
half promised. And now she stood, facing him irresolutely, conscious of
the steady drift that was forcing her into uncharted channels with this
persuasive pilot who seemed to know no more of what lay ahead of them
than did she.
But there was to be no common destination; she understood that. Sooner
or later she must turn back toward the harbour they had left so
irresponsibly together, her brief voyage over, her last adventure with
this man ended for all time.
And now, as the burden of decision still seemed to rest upon her, she
offered him her hand, saying good-night; and he took it once more and
held it between both of his. Instantly the impending constraint closed
in upon them; his face became grave, hers serious, almost apprehensive.
"You have--have made me very happy," he said. "Do you know it,
Jacqueline?"
"Yes."
A curious lassitude was invading her; she leaned sideways against the
door frame, as though tired, and stood so, one hand abandoned to him,
gazing into the lamp-lit street.
"Good-night, dear," he whispered.
"Good-night."
She still gazed into the lamp-lit darkness beyond him, her hand limp in
his; and he saw her blue eyes, heavy lidded and dreamy, and the strand
of hair curling gold against her cheek.
When he kissed her, she dropped her head, covering her face with her
forearm, not otherwise stirring--as though the magic pageant of her fate
which had been gathering for two weeks had begun to move at last,
passing vision-like through her mind with a muffled uproar--sweeping on,
on, brilliant, disarrayed, timed by the deafening beating of her heart.
Dully she realised that it was here at last--all that she had
dreaded--if dread be partly made of hope!
"Are you crying?" he said, unsteadily.
She lifted her face from her arm, like a dazed child awaking.
"You darling," he whispered.
Eyes remote, she stood watching unseen things in the darkness beyond
him.
"Must I go, Jacqueline?"
"Yes."
"You are very tired, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"You won't sit up and work, will you?"
"No."
"Will you go straight to bed?"
She nodded slowly, yielding to him as he drew her into his arms.
"To-morrow, then?" he asked under his breath.
"Yes."
"And the next day, and the next, and next, and--always, Jacqueline?" he
demanded, almost fiercely.
After a moment she slowly turned her head and looked at him. There was
no answer, and no question in her gaze, only the still, expressionless
clairvoyance of a soul that sees but does not heed.
There was no misunderstanding in her eyes, nothing wistful, nothing
afraid or hurt--nothing of doubt. What had happened to others in the
world was happening now to her. She understood it; that was all--as
though the millions of her sisters who had passed that way had left to
her the dread legacy of familiarity with the smooth, wide path they had
trodden since time began on earth. And here it was, at last! Her own
calmness surprised her.
He detained her for another moment in a swift embrace; inert,
unresponsive, she stood looking down at the crushed gardenia in his
buttonhole, dully conscious of being bruised. Then he let her go; her
hand fell from his arm; she turned and faced the familiar stairs and
mounted them.
Dinner waited for her; whether she ate or not, she could not afterward
remember. About eleven o'clock, she rose wearily from the bed where she
had been lying, and began to undress.
* * * * *
As for Desboro, he had gone straight to his rooms very much excited and
unbalanced by the emotions of the moment.
He was a man not easily moved to genuine expression. Having acquired
certain sorts of worldly wisdom in a career more or less erratic,
experience had left him unconvinced and even cynical--or he thought it
had.
But now, for the moment, all that lay latent in him of that impetuous
and heedless vigour which may become strength, if properly directed, was
awakening. Every recurring memory of her had already begun to tamper
with his self-control; for the emotions of the moments just ended had
been confusingly real; and, whatever they were arousing in him, now
clamoured for some sort of expression.
The very thought of her, now, began to act on him like some freshening
perfume alternately stimulating and enervating. He made the effort again
and again, and could not put her from his mind, could not forget the
lowered head and the slender, yielding grace of her, and her fragrance,
and her silence.
Dressing in his rooms, growing more restless every moment, he began to
walk the floor like some tormented thing that seeks alleviation in
purposeless activity.
He said, half aloud, to himself:
"I can't go on this way. This is damn foolish! I've got to find out
where it's landing me. It will land her, too--somewhere. I'd better keep
away from her, go off somewhere, get out, stop seeing her, stop
remembering her!--if she's what I think she is."
Scowling, he went to the window and jerked aside the curtain. Across the
street, the Olympian Club sparkled with electricity.
"Good Lord!" he muttered. "What a tempest in a teapot! What the devil's
the matter with me? Can't I kiss a girl now and then and keep my
senses?"
It seemed that he couldn't, in the present instance, for after he had
bitten the amber stem of his pipe clean through, he threw the bowl into
the fireplace. It had taken him two years to colour it.
"Idiot!" he said aloud. "What are you sorry about? You know damn well
there are only two kinds of women, and it's up to them what sort they
are--not up to any man who ever lived! What are you sorry for? For her?"
He stared across the street at the Olympian Club. He was expected there.
"If she only wasn't so--so expressionless and--silent about it. It's
like killing something that lets you do it. That's a crazy thing to
think of!"
Suddenly he found he had a fight on his hands. He had never had one like
it; didn't know exactly what to do, except to repeat over and over:
"It isn't square--it isn't square. She knows it, too. She's frightened.
She knows it isn't square. There's nothing ahead but hell to pay! She
knows it. And she doesn't defend herself. There _are_ only two kinds of
women. It _is_ up to them, too. But it's like killing something that
lets you kill it. Good God! What a damn fool I am!"
Later he repeated it. Later still he found himself leaning over his
desk, groping blindly about for a pen, and cursing breathlessly as
though he had not a moment to lose.
He wrote:
"DEAR LITTLE JACQUELINE: I'm not going to see you again. Where the
fool courage to write this comes from I don't know. But you will
now learn that there is nothing to me after all--not even enough of
positive and negative to make me worth forgiveness. And so I let it
go at that. Good-bye.
"DESBORO."
In the same half blind, half dazed way, cursing something all the while,
he managed to seal, stamp, and direct the letter, and get himself out of
the house with it.
A club servant at the Olympian mailed it; he continued on his way to the
dining room, and stumbled into a chair between Cairns and Reggie
Ledyard, who were feasting noisily and unwisely with Stuyvesant Van
Alstyne; and the racket and confusion seemed to help him. He was
conscious of laughing and talking and drinking a great deal--conscious,
too, of the annoyance of other men at other tables. Finally, one of the
governors came over and very pleasantly told him to shut up or go
elsewhere.
They all went, with cheerfulness unimpaired by gubernatorial
admonition. There was a large dinner dance for debutantes at the
Barkley's. This function they deigned to decorate with their presence
for a while, Cairns and Van Alstyne behaving well enough, considering
the manners of the times; Desboro, a dull fire smouldering in his veins,
wandered about, haunted by a ghost whose soft breath touched his cheek.
His manners were good when he chose; they were always faultless when he
was drunk. Perfectly steady on his legs, very pale, and a trifle over
polite, the drunker he was the more courtly he invariably became,
measuredly graceful, in speech reticent. Only his pallor and the lines
about his mouth betrayed the tension.
Later, one or two men familiar with the house strolled into the distant
billiard room and discovered him standing there looking blankly into
space.
Ledyard, bad tempered when he had dined too well, announced that he had
had enough of that debutante party:
"Look at 'em," he said to Desboro. "Horrible little fluffs just out of
the incubator--with their silly brains and rotten manners, and their
'Bunny Hugs' and 'Turkey Trots' and 'Dying Chickens,' and the champagne
flaming in their baby cheeks! Why, their mothers are letting 'em dance
like _filles de Brasserie_! Men used to know where to go for that sort
of thing----"
Cairns, balancing gravely on heels and toes, waved one hand
comprehensively.
"Problem was," he said, "how to keep the young at home. Bunny Hug solves
it. See? All the comforts of the Tenderloin at home. Tha's
'splaination."
"Come on to supper," said Ledyard. "Your Blue Girl will be there, Jim."
"By all means," said Desboro courteously. "My car is entirely at your
disposal." But he made no movement.
"Come to supper," insisted Ledyard.
"Commer supper," echoed Cairns gravely. "Whazzer mazzer? Commer supper!"
"Nothing," said Desboro, "could give me greater pleasure." He rose,
bowed courteously to Ledyard, included Cairns in a graceful salute, and
reseated himself.
Ledyard lost his temper and began to shout at him.
"I beg your pardon for my inexcusable absent-mindedness," said Desboro,
getting slowly onto his feet once more. With graceful precision, he made
his way to his hostess and took faultless leave of her, Cairns and
Ledyard attempting vainly to imitate his poise, urbanity and
self-possession.
The icy air of the street did Cairns good and aided Ledyard. So they got
themselves out across the sidewalk and ultimately into Desboro's town
car, which was waiting, as usual.
"Little bunny-hugging, bread-and-butter beasts," muttered Ledyard to
himself. "Lord! Don't they want us to draw the line between them and the
sort we're to meet at supper?"
"They're jus' fools," said Cairns. "No harm in 'em! And I'm not going to
supper. I'll take you there an' go'me!"
"What's the matter with _you_?" demanded Ledyard.
"No--I'm through, that's all. You 'sult nice li'l debutantes. Rotten bad
taste. Nice li'l debbys."
"Come on, you jinx!"
"That girl in blue. Will she be there--the one who does the lute solo in
'The Maid of Shiraz'?"
"Yes, but she's crazy about Desboro."
"I waive all pretension to the charming condescension of that very
lovely young lady, and cheerfully concede your claims," said Desboro,
raising his hat and wrecking it against the roof of the automobile.
"As you wish, dear friend. But why so suddenly the solitary recluse?"
"A personal reason, I assure you."
"I see," remarked Ledyard. "And what may be the name and quality of this
personal reason? And is she a blonde?"
Desboro shrugged his polite impatience. But when the others got out at
the Santa Regina he followed. Cairns was inclined to shed a few tears
over Ledyard's insults to the "debbys."
"Sure," said the latter, soothingly. "The brimming beaker for you, dear
friend, and it will pass away. Hark! I hear the fairy feetsteps of a
houri!" as they landed from the elevator and encountered a group of
laughing, bright-eyed young girls in the hallway, seeking the private
supper room.
One of them was certainly the girl in blue. The others appeared to
Desboro as merely numerous and, later, exceedingly noisy. But noise and
movement seemed to make endurable the dull pain thudding ceaselessly in
his heart. Music and roses, flushed faces, the ringing harmony of
crystal and silver, and the gaiety _à diable_ of the girl beside him
would ease it--_must_ ease it, somehow. For it had to be first eased,
then killed. There was no sense, no reason, no excuse for going on this
way--enduring such a hurt. And just at present the remedy seemed to lie
in a gay uproar and many brilliant lights, and in the tinted lips of the
girl beside him, babbling nonsense while her dark eyes laughed,
promising all they laughed at--if he cared to ask an answer to the
riddle.
But he never asked it.
Later somebody offered a toast to Desboro, but when they looked around
for him in the uproar, glasses aloft, he had disappeared.