They were married in the morning at St. George's in Stuyvesant Square.
Gay little flurries of snow, like wind-blown petals from an apple bough,
were turning golden in the warm outbreak of brilliant sunshine; and
there was blue sky overhead and shining wet pavements under foot as
Jacqueline and Desboro came out of the shadows of the old-time church
into the fresh splendour of the early morning.
The solemn beauty of the service still possessed and enthralled them.
Except for a low word or two, they were inclined to silence.
But the mating sparrows were not; everywhere the little things, brown
wings a-quiver, chattered and chirped in the throes of courtship; now
and then, from some high façade rang out the clear, sweet whistle of a
starling; and along the warm, wet streets ragged children were selling
violets and narcissus, and yellow tulips tinted as delicately as the
pale spring sunshine.
A ragged little girl came to stare at Jacqueline, the last unsold bunch
of wilted violets lying on her tray; and Jacqueline laid the cluster
over the prayer-book which she was carrying, while Desboro slipped a
golden coin into the child's soiled hand.
Down the street his chauffeur was cranking the car; and while they
waited for it to draw up along the curb, Jacqueline separated a few
violets from the faintly fragrant cluster and placed them between the
leaves of her prayer-book.
After a few moments he said, under his breath:
"Do you realise that we are married, Jacqueline?"
"No. Do you?"
"I'm trying to comprehend it, but I can't seem to. How soft the breeze
blows! It is already spring in Stuyvesant Square."
"The Square is lovely! They will be setting out hyacinths soon, I
think." She shivered. "It's strange," she said, "but I feel rather cold.
Am I horridly pale, Jim?"
"You are a trifle colourless--but even prettier than I ever saw you," he
whispered, turning up the collar of her fur coat around her throat. "You
haven't taken cold, have you?"
"No; it is--natural--I suppose. Miracles frighten one at first."
Their eyes met; she tried to smile. After a moment he said nervously:
"I sent out the announcements. The evening papers will have them."
"I want to see them, Jim."
"You shall. I have ordered all this evening's and to-morrow morning's
papers. They will be sent to Silverwood."
The car rolled up along the curb and stopped.
"Can't I take you to your office?" he whispered.
"No, dear."
She laid one slim hand on his arm and stood for a moment looking at him.
"How pale you are!" he said again, under his breath.
"Brides are apt to be. It's only a swift and confused dream to me
yet--all that has happened to us to-day; and even this sunshine seems
unreal--like the first day of spring in paradise!"
She bent her proud little head and stood in silence as though unseen
hands still hovered above her, and unseen lips were still pronouncing
her his wife. Then, lifting her eyes, winningly and divinely beautiful,
she looked again on this man whom the world was to call her husband.
"Will you be ready at five?" he whispered.
"Yes."
They lingered a moment longer; he said:
"I don't know how I am going to endure life without you until five
o'clock."
She said seriously: "I can't bear to leave you, Jim. But you know you
have almost as many things to do as I have."
"As though a man could attend to _things_ on his wedding day!"
"This girl _has_ to. I don't know how I am ever going to go through the
last odds and ends of business--but it's got to be managed somehow. Do
you really think we had better go up to Silverwood in the car? Won't
this snow make the roads bad? It may not have melted in the country."
"Oh, it's all right! And I'll have you to myself in the car----"
"Suppose we are ditched?" She shivered again, then forced a little
laugh. "Do you know, it doesn't seem possible to me that I am going to
be your wife to-morrow, too, and the next day, and the next, and always,
year after year. Somehow, it seems as though our dream were already
ending--that I shall not see you at five o'clock--that it is all
unreal----"
The smile faded, and into her blue eyes came something resembling
fear--gone instantly--but the hint of it had been there, whatever it
was; and the ghost of it still lingered in her white, flower-like face.
She whispered, forcing the smile again: "Happiness sometimes frightens;
and it is making me a little afraid, I think. Come for me at five, Jim,
and try to make me comprehend that nothing in the world can ever harm
us. Tell your man where to take me--but only to the corner of my street,
please."
He opened the limousine door; she stepped in, and he wrapped the robe
around her. A cloud over the sun had turned the world grey for a moment.
Again she seemed to feel the sudden chill in the air, and tried to shake
it off.
"Look at Mr. Cairns and Cynthia," she whispered, leaning forward from
her seat and looking toward the church.
He turned. Cairns and Miss Lessler had emerged from the portico and were
lingering there in earnest consultation, quite oblivious of them.
"Do you like her, Jim?" she asked.
He smiled.
"I didn't notice her very much--or Jack either. A man isn't likely to
notice anybody at such a time--except the girl he is marrying----"
"Look at her now. Don't you think her expression is very sweet?"
"It's all right. Dear, do you suppose I can fix my attention on----"
"You absurd boy! Are you really as much in love with me as that? Please
be nice to her. Would you mind going back and speaking to her when I
drive away?"
"All right," he said.
Their glances lingered for a moment more; then he drew a quick, sharp
breath, closed the limousine door, and spoke briefly to the chauffeur.
As long as the car remained in sight across the square, he watched it;
then, when it had disappeared, he turned toward the church. But Cairns
and Cynthia were already far down the street, walking side by side, very
leisurely, apparently absorbed in conversation. They must have seen him.
Perhaps they had something more interesting to say to each other than to
him.
He followed them irresolutely for a few steps, then, as the idea
persisted that they might not desire his company, he turned and started
west across the sunny, wet pavement.
* * * * *
It was quite true that Cairns and Cynthia had seen him; also it was a
fact that neither had particularly wanted him to join them at that exact
moment.
Meeting at St. George's for the first time in two years, and although
prepared for the encounter, these two, who had once known each other so
well, experienced a slight shock when they met. The momentary contact of
her outstretched hand and his hand left them both very silent; even the
formal commonplaces had failed them after the first swift, curious
glance had been exchanged.
Cairns noticed that she had grown taller and slenderer. And though there
seemed to be no more of maturity to her than to the young girl he had
once known, her poise and self-control were now in marked contrast to
the impulsive and slightly nervous Cynthia he had found so amusing in
callower days.
Once or twice during the ceremony he had ventured to glance sideways at
her. In the golden half-light of the altar there seemed to be an
unfamiliar dignity and sweetness about the girl that became her. And in
the delicate oval of her face he thought he discerned those finer,
nobler contours made by endurance, by self-denial, and by sorrow.
Later, when he saw her kiss Jacqueline, something in the sweet sincerity
of the salute suddenly set a hidden chord vibrating within him; and, to
his surprise, he found speech difficult for a moment, checked by
emotions for which there seemed no reason.
And at last Jacqueline and Desboro went away, and Cynthia slowly turned
to him, offering her hand in adieu.
"Mr. Cairns," she said quietly, "this is the last place on earth that
you and I ever thought to meet. Perhaps it is to be our last meeting
place. So--I will say good-bye----"
"May I not walk home with you? Or, if you prefer to drive, my car is
here----" he began.
"Thank you; it's only to the theatre--if you care to walk with me----"
"Are you rehearsing?"
"There is a rehearsal called for eleven."
"Shall we drive or walk, Cynthia?"
"I prefer to walk. Please don't feel that you ought to go back with me."
He said, reddening: "I do not remember that my sense of duty toward you
has ever been persistent enough to embarrass either of us."
"Of course not. Why should you ever have felt that you owed any duty to
me?"
"I did not say that I ever felt it."
"Of course not. You owed me none."
"That is a different matter. Obligations once sat very lightly on my
shoulders."
"You owe me none," she repeated smilingly, as they emerged from the
church into the warm March sunshine.
He was saying: "But isn't friendship an obligation, Cynthia?"
She laughed: "Friendship is merely an imaginary creation, and exists
only until the imagination wearies. That is not original," she added.
"It is in the new Barrie comedy we are rehearsing."
She turned her pretty head and glanced down the street where Jacqueline
and Desboro still stood beside the car. Cairn's car was also waiting,
and its owner made a signal to the chauffeur that he did not need him.
Looking at Jacqueline, Cynthia said:
"Long ago I knew that she was fitted for a marriage such as this--or a
better one," she added in a lower voice.
"A better one?" he repeated, surprised.
"Yes," she nodded calmly. "Can you not imagine a more desirable marriage
for a girl?"
"Don't you _like_ Desboro?" he demanded.
"I like him--considering the fact that I scarcely know him. He has very
handsome and very reckless eyes, but a good mouth. To look at him for
the first time a woman would be inclined to like him--but he might
hesitate to trust him. I had hoped Jacqueline might marry a professional
man--considerably older than Mr. Desboro. That is all I meant."
He said, looking at her smilingly but curiously: "Have you any idea,
Cynthia, how entirely you have changed in two years?"
She shook her head: "I haven't changed."
"Indeed you have----"
"Only superficially. What I was born I shall always be. Years teach
endurance and self-control--if they teach anything. All one can learn is
how to control and direct what one already is."
"The years have taught you a lot," he murmured, astonished.
"I have been to school to many masters, Mr. Cairns; I have studied under
Sorrow; graduated under Poverty and Loneliness; and I am now taking a
finishing course with Experience. Truly enough, I should have learned
_something_, as you say, by this time. Besides, _you_, also, once were
kind enough to be interested in my education. Why should I not have
learned something?"
He winced and bit his lip, watching Desboro and Jacqueline below. And,
after a moment:
"Shall we walk?" she suggested, smilingly.
He fell into step beside her. Half way down the block she glanced back.
Desboro was already crossing the square; the limousine had disappeared.
"I wonder sometimes," she remarked, "what has become of all those
amusing people we once knew so well--Marianne Valdez, Jessie Dain,
Reggie Ledyard, Van Alstyne. Do you ever see them any more?"
"Yes."
"And are they quite as gay and crazy as ever?"
"They're a bit wild--sometimes."
"Do they ever speak of me? I--wonder," she mused, aloud.
"Yes. They know, of course, what a clever girl you have turned into. It
isn't usual, you know, to graduate from a girlie show into the legit.
And I was talking to Schindler the other evening; and he had to admit
that he had seen nothing extraordinary in you when you were with his
noisy shows. It's funny, isn't it?"
"Slightly."
"Besides, you were such a wild little thing--don't you remember what
crazy things we used to do, you and I----"
"Did I? Yes, I remember. In those days a good dinner acted on me like
champagne. You see I was very often hungry, and when I wasn't starved it
went to my head."
"You need not have wanted for anything!" he said sharply.
"Oh, no! But I preferred the pangs of hunger to the pangs of
conscience," she retorted gaily.
"I didn't mean that. There was no string to what I offered you, and you
know it! And you know it now!"
"Certainly I do," she said calmly. "You mean to be very kind, Jack."
"Then why the devil didn't----"
"Why didn't I accept food and warmth and raiment and lodging from a
generous and harebrained young man? I'll tell you now, if you wish. It
was because my conscience forbade me to accept all and offer nothing in
return."
"Nonsense! I didn't ask----"
"I know you didn't. But I couldn't give, so I wouldn't take. Besides, we
were together too much. I knew it. I think even you began to realise it,
too. The situation was impossible. So I went on the road."
"You never answered any of those letters of mine."
"Mentally I answered every one."
"A lot of good that did me!"
"It did us both a lot of good. I meant to write to you some day--when my
life had become busy enough to make it difficult for me to find time to
write."
He looked up at her sharply, and she laughed and swung her muff.
"I suppose," he said, "now that the town talks about you a little, you
will have no time to waste on mere Johnnies."
"Well, I don't know. When a mere Johnnie is also a Jack, it makes a
difference--doesn't it? Do you think that you would care to see me
again?"
"Of course I do."
"The tickets," she said demurely, "are three dollars--two weeks in
advance----"
"I know that by experience."
"Oh! Then you _have_ seen 'The Better Way'?"
"Certainly."
"Do you like--the show?"
"You are the best of it. Yes, I like it."
"It's my first chance. Did you know that? If poor little Graham hadn't
been so ill, I'd never have had a look in. They wouldn't give me
anything--except in a way I couldn't accept it. I tell you, Jack, I was
desperate. There seemed to be absolutely no chance unless I--paid."
"Why didn't you write me and let me----"
"You know why."
"It would have been reward enough to see you make good--and put it all
over that bald-headed, dog-faced----"
"My employer, please remember," she said, pretending to reprove him.
"And, Jack, he's amusingly decent to me now. Men are really beginning to
be kind. Walbaum's people have written to me, and O'Rourke sent for me,
and I'm just beginning to make professional enemies, too, which is the
surest sign that I'm almost out of the ranks. If I could only study! Now
is the time! I know it; I feel it keenly--I realise how much I lack in
education! You see I only went to high-school. It's a mercy that my
English isn't hopeless----"
"It's good! It's better than I ever supposed it would be----"
"I know. I used to be careless. But what can you expect? After I left
home you know the sort of girls I was thrown among. Fortunately, father
was educated--if he was nothing else. My degeneracy wasn't permanent.
Also, I had been thrown with Jacqueline, and with you----"
"Fine educational model I am!"
"And," she continued, not heeding him, "when I met you, and men like
you, I was determined that whatever else happened to me my English
should not degenerate. Jacqueline helped me so much. I tried to study,
too, when I was not on the road with the show. But if only I could
study now--study seriously for a year or two!"
"What do you wish to study, Cynthia?" he asked carelessly.
"English! Also French and German and Italian. I would like to study what
girls in college study. Then I'd like to learn stage dancing thoroughly.
And, of course, I'm simply crazy to take a course in dramatic art----"
"But you already know a lot! Every paper spoke well of you----"
"Oh, Jack! Does that mean anything--when I know that I don't know
anything!"
"Rot! Can you beat professional experience as an educator?"
"I'm not quite ready for it----"
"Very well. If you feel that way, will you be a good sort, Cynthia, and
let me----"
"No!"
"I ask you merely to let me take a flyer!"
"No, Jack."
"Why can't I take a flyer? Why can't I have the pleasure of speculating
on a perfectly sure thing? It's a million to nothing that you'll make
good. For the love of Mike, Cynthia, borrow the needful and----"
"From _you_?"
"Naturally."
"No, Jack!"
"Why not? Why cut off your nose to spite your face? What difference does
it make where you get it as long as it's a decent deal? You can't afford
to take two or three years off to complete your education----"
"Begin it, you mean."
"I mean finish it! You can't afford to; but if you'll borrow the money
you'll make good in exactly one-tenth of the time you'd otherwise take
to arrive----"
"Jack, I won't discuss it with you. I know you are generous and
kind----"
"I'm _not_! I'm anything _but_! For heaven's sake let a man indulge his
vanity, Cynthia. Imagine my pride when you are famous! Picture my
bursting vanity as I sit in front and tell everybody near me that the
credit is all mine; that if it were not for me you would be nowhere!"
"It's so like you," she said sweetly. "You always were an inordinate
boaster, so I am not going to encourage you."
"Can't you let me make you a business loan at exorbitant interest
without expiring of mortification?"
They had reached the theatre; a few loafers sunning themselves by the
stage entrance leered at them.
"Hush, Jack! I can't discuss it with you. But you know how grateful I
am, don't you?"
"No, I don't----" he said sulkily.
"You are cross now, but you'll see it as I do half an hour hence."
"No, I won't!" he insisted.
She laughed: "_You_ haven't changed, at all events, have you? It takes
me back years to see that rather becoming scowl gather over the bridge
of your ornamental nose. But it is very nice to know that you haven't
entirely forgotten me; that we are still friends."
"Where are you living, Cynthia?"
She told him, adding: "Do you really mean to come?"
"Watch me!" he said, almost savagely, took off his hat, shook her hand
until her fingers ached, and marched off still scowling.
The stage loafers shifted quids and looked after him with sneers.
"Trun out!" observed one.
"All off!" nodded another.
The third merely spat and slowly closed his disillusioned and
leisure-weary eyes.
* * * * *
Cairns' energetic pace soon brought him to the Olympian Club, where he
was accustomed to lunch, it being convenient to his office, which was on
Forty-sixth Street.
Desboro, who, at Jacqueline's request, had gone back to business,
appeared presently and joined Cairns at a small table.
"Anything doing at the office?" inquired the latter. "I suppose you were
too nervous and upset to notice the market though."
"Well, ask yourself how much _you'd_ feel like business after marrying
the most glorious and wonderful----"
"Ring off! I concede everything. It is going to make some splash in the
papers. Yes? Lord! I wish you could have had a ripping big wedding
though! Wouldn't she have looked the part? Oh, no!"
"It couldn't be helped," said Desboro in a low, chagrined voice. "I'd
have given the head off my shoulders to have had the sort of a wedding
to which she was entitled. But--I couldn't."
Cairns nodded, not, however, understanding; and as Desboro offered no
explanation, he remained unenlightened.
"Rather odd," he remarked, "that she didn't wish to have Aunt Hannah
with her at the fatal moment. They're such desperate chums these days."
"She did want her. I wouldn't have her."
"Is that so?"
"It is. I'll tell you why some day. In fact, I don't mind telling you
now. Aunt Hannah has it in for me. She's a devil sometimes. You know it
and I do. She has it in for me just now. She's wrong; she's made a
mistake; but I couldn't tell her anything. You can't tell that sort of a
woman anything, once she's made up her mind. And the fact is, Jack,
she's already made up her mind that I was not to marry Jacqueline. And I
was afraid of her. And _that's_ why I married Jacqueline this way."
Cairns stared.
"So now," added Desboro, "you know how it happened."
"Quite so. Rotten of her, wasn't it?"
"She didn't mean it that way. She got a fool idea into her head, that's
all. Only I was afraid she'd tell it to Jacqueline."
"I see."
"That's what scared me. I didn't know what she might tell Jacqueline.
She threatened to tell her--things. And it would have involved a
perfectly innocent woman and myself--put me in a corner where I couldn't
decently explain the real facts to Jacqueline. Now, thank God, it's too
late for Aunt Hannah to make mischief."
Cairns nodded, thinking of Mrs. Clydesdale. And whatever he personally
was inclined to believe, he knew that gossip was not dealing very
leniently with that young wife and the man who sat on the other side of
the table, nervously pulling to pieces his unlighted cigarette.
* * * * *
But it needed no rumour, no hearsay evidence, no lifted eyebrows, no
shrugs, no dubious smiles, no half-hearted defence of Elena Clydesdale,
to thoroughly convince Mrs. Hammerton of Desboro's utter unfitness as a
husband for the motherless girl she had begun to love with a devotion so
fierce that at present it could brook no rival at all of either sex.
For Mrs. Hammerton had never before loved. She had once supposed that
she loved her late husband, but soon came to regard him as a poor sort
of thing. She had been extremely fond of Desboro, too, in her own way,
but in the vivid fire of this new devotion to Jacqueline, any tenderness
she ever might have cherished for that young man was already consumed
and sacrificed to a cinder in the fiercer flame.
Into her loneliness, into her childless solitude, into the hardness,
cynicism, and barren emptiness of her latter years, a young girl had
stepped from nowhere, and she had suddenly filled her whole life with
the swift enchantment of love.
A word or two, a smile, the magic of two arms upon her bony shoulders,
the shy touch of youthful lips--these were the very simple ingredients
which apparently had transmuted the brass and tinsel and moral squalor
of Aunt Hannah's life into charming reality.
From sudden tenderness to grim love, to jealous, watchful, passionate
adoration--these were the steps Mrs. Hammerton had taken in the brief
interval of time that had elapsed since she had first seen Jacqueline.
Into the clear, truthful eyes she had looked, and had seen within only
an honest mind and a clean young soul. Wisdom, too, only lacking in
experience, she divined there; and less of wisdom than of intelligence;
and less of that than of courage. And it all was so clear, so perfectly
apparent to the cold and experienced scrutiny of the woman of the world,
that, for a while, she could not entirely believe what she understood at
the first glance.
When she _was_ convinced, she surrendered. And never before in all her
unbelieving, ironical, and material career had she experienced such a
thrill of overwhelming delight as when, that evening at Silverwood,
Jacqueline had drawn her head down and had touched her dry forehead with
warm, young lips.
Everything about the girl fascinated her--her independence and courage;
her adorable bashfulness in matters where experience had made others
callous--in such little things, for example, as the response to an
invitation, the meeting with fashionable strangers--but it was only the
nice, friendly, and thoroughbred shyness of inexperience, not the
awkwardness of under-breeding or of that meaner vanity called
self-consciousness.
Poor herself, predatory, clever, hard as nails, her beady eyes ever
alert for the main chance, she felt for the first time in her life the
real bitterness of comparative poverty--which is the inability to give
where one loves.
She had no illusions; she knew that what she had to offer the girl would
soon pall; that Jacqueline would choose her own friends among the sane
and simple and sincere, irrespective of social and worldly
considerations; that no glitter, no sham, no tinsel could permanently
hold her attention; no lesser ambition seduce her; no folly ever awake
her laughter more than once. What the girl saw she would understand;
and, in future, she would choose for herself what she cared to see and
know of a new world now gradually opening before her.
But in the meantime Jacqueline must see before she could learn, and
before she could make up her mind what to discard and what to retain.
So Mrs. Hammerton had planned that Jacqueline should be very busy during
March and April; and her patience was sorely tried when she found that,
for a week or two, the girl could give her only a very few minutes every
other day.
At first it was a grim consolation to her that Jacqueline still remained
too busy to see anybody, because that meant that Desboro, too, would be
obliged to keep his distance.
For at first Mrs. Hammerton did not believe that the girl could be
seriously interested in Desboro; in fact, she had an idea that, so far,
all the sentiment was on Desboro's side. And both Jacqueline's reticence
and her calm cordiality in speaking of Desboro were at first mistaken by
Aunt Hannah for the symptoms of a friendship not sentimentally
significant.
But the old lady's doubts soon became aroused; she began to watch
Jacqueline askance--began to test her, using all her sly cleverness and
skill. Slowly her uncertainty, uneasiness, and suspicion changed to
anger and alarm.
If she had been more than angry and suspicious--if she had been
positive, she would not have hesitated an instant. For on one matter she
was coldly determined; the girl should not marry Desboro, or any such
man as Desboro. It made no difference to her whether Desboro might be
really in love with her. He was not fit for her; he was a man of weak
character, idle, useless, without purpose or ability, who would never
amount to anything or be anything except what he already was--an
agreeable, graceful, amusing, acceptable item in the sort of society
which he decorated.
She knew and despised that breed of youth; New York was full of them,
and they were even less endurable to her than the similar species extant
in England and on the Continent; for the New York sort were destitute of
the traditions which had created the real kind--and there was no excuse
for them, not even the sanction of custom. They were merely imitation of
a more genuine degeneracy. And she held them in contempt.
She told Jacqueline this, as she was saying good-night on Saturday, and
was alarmed and silenced by the girl's deep flush of colour; and she
went home in her scrubby brougham, scared and furious by turns, and
determined to settle Desboro's business for him without further
hesitation.
Sunday Jacqueline could not see her; and the suspicion that the girl
might be with Desboro almost drove the old lady crazy. Monday, too,
Jacqueline told her over the telephone would be a very busy day; and
Aunt Hannah acquiesced grimly, determined to waste no further time at
the telephone and take no more chances, but go straight to Jacqueline
and take her into her arms and tell her what a mother would tell her
about Desboro, and how, at that very hour perhaps, he was with Mrs.
Clydesdale; and what the world suspected, and what she herself knew of
an intrigue that had been shamelessly carried into the very house which
had sheltered Jacqueline within a day or two.
So on Monday morning Mrs. Hammerton went to see Jacqueline; and,
learning that the girl had gone out early, marched home again, sat down
at her desk, and wrote her a letter.
When she had finished she honestly believed that she had also finished
Desboro; and, grimly persuaded that she had done a mother's duty by the
motherless, she summoned a messenger and sent off the letter to a girl,
who, at that very moment, had returned to her desk, a wife.
The rapid reaction from the thrilling experience of the morning had made
Jacqueline nervous and unfit for business, even before she arrived at
her office. But she entered the office resolutely and seated herself at
her desk, summoning all her reserve of self-control to aid her in
concentrating her mind on the business in hand.
First she read her morning's mail and dictated her answers to a
red-headed stenographer. Next she received Lionel Sissly, disposed of
his ladylike business with her; sent for Mr. Mirk, went over with him
his report of the shop sales, revised and approved the list of prices to
be ticketed on new acquisitions, re-read the sheaf of dictated letters
laid before her by the red-headed stenographer, signed them, and sent
down for the first client on the appointment-list.
The first on the list was a Mr. Hyman Dobky; and his three months' note
had gone to protest, and Mr. Dobky wept.
She was not very severe with him, because he was a Lexington Avenue
dealer just beginning in a small way, and she believed him to be honest
at heart. He retired comforted, swabbing his eyes with his cuff.
Then came a furtive pair, Orrin Munger, the "Cubist" poet, and his
loud-voiced, swaggering confrère, Adalbert Waudle, author of "Black
Roses" and other phenomena which, some people whispered, resembled
blackmail.
It had been with greatest reluctance, and only because it was a matter
concerning a client, that she had consented to receive the dubious pair.
She had not forgotten her experience with the "Cubist," and his
suggestion for an informal Italian trip, and had never again desired or
expected to see him.
He now offered her an abnormally flat and damp hand; and hers went
behind her back and remained there clasped together, as she stood
inspecting Mr. Munger with level eyes that harboured lightning.
She said quietly: "My client, Mr. Clydesdale, recently requested my
opinion concerning certain jades, crystals and Chinese porcelains
purchased by him from you and from Mr. Waudle. I have, so far, examined
some twenty specimens. Every specimen examined by me is a forgery."
[Illustration: "Mr. Waudle gaped at her like a fat and expiring fish;
the poet ... said not a word"]
Mr. Waudle, taken completely by surprise, gaped at her like a fat and
expiring fish; the poet turned a dull and muddy red, and said not a
word.
"So," added Jacqueline coldly, "at Mr. Clydesdale's request I have asked
you to come here and explain the situation to me."
Waudle, writer of "Pithy Points" for the infamous _Tattler_, recovered
his wits first.
"Miss Nevers," he said menacingly, "do you mean to insinuate that I am a
swindler?"
"_Are_ you, Mr. Waudle?"
"That's actionable. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly. Please explain the forgeries."
The poet, who had sunk down upon a chair, now arose and began to make
elaborate gestures preliminary to a fluency of speech which had never
yet deserted him in any crisis where a lady was involved.
"My dear child----" he began.
"_What!_" cut in Jacqueline crisply.
"My--my dear and--and honored, but very youthful and inexperienced young
lady," he stammered, a trifle out of countenance under the fierce
glimmer in her eyes, "do you, for one moment, suppose that such a writer
as Mr. Waudle would imperil his social and literary reputation for the
sake of a few wretched dollars!"
"Fifteen thousand," commented Jacqueline quietly.
"Exactly. Fifteen thousand contemptible dollars--inartistically
designed," he added, betraying a tendency to wander from the main point;
and was generously proceeding to instruct her in the art of coin design
when she brought him back to the point with a shock.
"_You_, also, are involved in this questionable transaction," she said
coldly. "Can you explain these forgeries?"
"F-forgeries!" he repeated, forcibly injecting indignation into the
exclamation; but his eyes grew very round, as though frightened, and a
spinal limpness appeared which threatened the stability of his knees.
But the poet's fluency had not yet deserted him; he opened both arms in
a gesture suggesting absolute confidence in a suspicious and inartistic
world.
"I am quite guiltless of deception," he said, using a slight tremolo.
"Permit me to protest against your inexperienced judgment in the matter
of these ancient and precious specimens of Chinese art; I protest!" he
exclaimed earnestly. "I protest in the name of that symbol of mystery
and beauty--that occult lunar _something_, my dear young lady, which we
both worship, and which the world calls the moon----"
"I beg your pardon----" she interrupted; but the poet was launched and
she could not check him.
"I protest," he continued shrilly, "in the name of Art! In the name of
all that is worth while, all that matters, all that counts, all that is
meaningful, sacred, precious beyond price----"
"Mr. Munger!"
"I protest in the name of----"
"_Mr. Munger!_"
"Eh!" he said, coming to and rolling his round, washed-out eyes toward
her.
"Be kind enough to listen," she said curtly. "I am compelled to
interrupt you because to-day I am a very busy person. So I am going to
be as brief with you as possible. This, then, is the situation as I
understand it. A month or so ago you and your friend, Mr. Waudle,
notified Mr. Clydesdale that you had just returned from Pekin with a
very unusual collection of ancient Chinese art, purchased by you, as you
stated, from a certain Chinese prince."
The faint note of scorn in her voice did not escape the poet, who turned
redder and muddier and made a picturesque gesture of world-wide appeal;
but no words came from either manufacturer of literary phrases; Waudle
only closed his cod-like mouth, and the eyes set in his fat face became
small and cunning like something in the farthest corner of a trap.
Jacqueline continued gravely: "At your solicitation, I understand, and
depending upon your representations, my client, Mr. Clydesdale,
purchased from you this collection----"
"We offered no guarantees with it," interrupted Waudle thickly.
"Besides, his wife advised him to buy the collection. I am an old and
valued friend of Mrs. Clydesdale. She would never dream of demanding a
guarantee from _me_! Ask her if----"
"What _is_ a guarantee?" inquired Jacqueline. "I'm quite certain that
you don't know, Mr. Waudle. And did you and Mr. Munger regard your
statement concerning the Chinese prince as poetic license? Or as
diverting fiction? Or what? You were not writing romance, you know. You
were engaged in business. So I must ask you again who is this prince?"
"There was a prince," retorted Waudle sullenly. "Can you prove there
wasn't?"
"There are several princes in China. And now I am obliged to ask you to
state distinctly exactly how many of these porcelains, jades and
crystals which you sold to Mr. Clydesdale were actually purchased by you
from this particular Chinese prince?"
"Most of them," said Waudle, defiantly. "Prove the contrary if you can!"
"Not _all_ of them, then--as you assured Mr. Clydesdale?"
"I didn't say all."
"I am afraid you did, Mr. Waudle. I am afraid you even _wrote_ it--over
your own signature."
"Very well," said Waudle, with a large and careless sweep of his hand,
"if any doubt remains in Mr. Clydesdale's mind, I am fully prepared to
take back whatever specimens may not actually have come from the
prince----"
"There were _some_, then, which did not?"
"One or two, I believe."
"And who is this Chinese prince, Mr. Waudle?" she repeated, not smiling.
"What is his name?"
Munger answered; he knew exactly what answer to make, and how to deliver
it with flowing gestures. He had practised it long enough:
"When I was travelling with His Excellency T'ang-K'ai-Sun by rail from
Szechuan to Pekin to visit Prince----"
"The railroad is not built," interrupted the girl drily. "You could not
have travelled that way."
Both men regarded her as though paralysed by her effrontery.
"Continue, please," she nodded.
The poet swallowed nothing very fast and hard, and waved his damp hand
at her:
"Tuan-Fang, Viceroy of Wuchang----"
"He happens to be Viceroy of Nanking," observed the girl.
Waudle, frightened, lost his temper and turned on her, exasperated:
"Be careful! Your insinuations involve our honour and are actionable! Do
you realise what you are saying?"
"Perfectly."
"I fear not. Do you imagine you are competent to speak with authority
about China and its people and its complex and mysterious art when you
have never been in the country?"
"I have seen a little of China, Mr. Waudle. But I do not pretend to
speak with undue authority about it."
"You say you've been in China?" His tone of disbelief was loud and
bullying.
"I was in China with my father when I was a girl of sixteen."
"Oh! Perhaps you speak Chinese!" he sneered.
She looked at him gravely, not answering.
He laughed: "Now, Miss Nevers, you have intimated that we are liars and
swindlers. Let's see how much you know for an expert! You pretend to be
an authority on things Chinese. You will then understand me when I say:
'Jen chih ch'u, Hsing pen shan----'"
"I do understand you, Mr. Waudle," she cut in contemptuously. "You are
repeating the 'three-word-classic,' which every school-child in China
knows, and it merely means 'Men when born are naturally good.' I think I
may qualify in Chinese as far as San Tzu Ching and his nursery rhymes.
And I think we have had enough of this dodging----"
The author flushed hotly.
"Do you speak Wenli?" he demanded, completely flustered.
"Do _you_?" she retorted impatiently.
"I do," he asserted boldly.
"Indeed!"
"I may even say that I speak very fluently the--the literary language
of China--or Wenli, as it is commonly called."
"That is odd," she said, "because the literary language of China,
commonly called Wenli, is not and never has been spoken. It is only a
written language, Mr. Waudle."
The Cubist had now gone quite to pieces. From his colourless mop of
bushy hair to the fringe on his ankle-high trousers, he presented a
study in deep dejection. Only his round, pale, parrot-like eyes remained
on duty, staring unwinkingly at her.
"Were _you_ ever actually in China?" she asked, looking around at him.
The terrified poet feebly pointed to the author of "Black Roses."
"Oh!" she said. "Were _you_ in China, Mr. Waudle, or only in Japan?"
But Mr. Waudle found nothing further to say.
"Because," she said, "in Japan sometimes one is deceived into buying
alleged Chinese jades and crystals and porcelains. I am afraid that you
were deceived. I hope you were honestly deceived. What you have sold to
Mr. Clydesdale as jade is not jade. And the porcelains are not what you
represented them to be."
"That's where _you_ make a mistake!" shouted Waudle loudly. "I've had
the inscription on every vase translated, and I can prove it! How much
of an expert are you? Hey?"
"If _you_ were an expert," she explained wearily, "you would understand
that inscriptions on Chinese porcelains are not trustworthy. Even
hundreds of years ago forgeries were perpetrated by the Chinese who
desired to have their works of art mistaken for still more ancient
masterpieces; and so the ancient and modern makers of porcelains
inscribed them accordingly. Only when an antique porcelain itself
conforms to the inscription it bears do we venture to accept that
inscription. Never otherwise."
Waudle, hypnotised, stood blinking at her, bereft of speech, almost of
reason.
The poet piped feebly: "It was not our fault! We were brutally deceived
in Japan. And, oh! The bitter deception to me! The cruelty of the
awakening!" He got up out of his chair; words and gestures were once
again at his command; tears streaked his pasty cheeks.
"Miss Nevers! My dear and honoured young lady! You know--_you_ among all
women must realise how precious to me is the moon! Sacred, worshipped,
adored--desired far more than the desire for gold--yea, than much fine
gold! Sweeter, also, than honey in the honeycomb!" he sobbed. "And it
was a pair of moon vases, black as midnight, pearl-orbed, lacquered,
mystic, wonderful, that lured me----"
"A damned Japanese in Tokio worked them off on us!" broke out the author
of "Black Roses," hoarsely. "That was the beginning. What are you going
to do about it? You've got us all right, Miss Nevers. The Jap did us. We
did the next man. If you want to send us up, I suppose you can! I don't
care. I can't keep soul and body together by selling what I write. I
tell you I've starved half my life--and when I hear about the stuff that
sells--all these damned best sellers--all this cheap fiction that people
buy--while they neglect me--it breaks my heart----"
He turned sharply and passed his hand over his face. It was not an
attitude; for a fraction of a second it was the real thing. Yet, even
while the astonished poet was peeping sideways at his guilty companion,
a verse suggested itself to him; and, quite unconsciously, he began to
fumble in his pockets for a pencil, while the tears still glistened on
his cheeks.
"Mr. Waudle," said Jacqueline, "I am really sorry for you. Because this
is a very serious affair."
There was a silence; then she reseated herself at her desk.
"My client, Mr. Clydesdale, is not vindictive. He has no desire to
humiliate you publicly. But he is justly indignant. And I know he will
insist that you return to him what money he paid you for your
collection."
Waudle started dramatically, forgetting his genuine emotion of the
moment before.
"Does this rich man mean to ruin me!" he demanded, making his resonant
voice tremble.
"On the contrary," she explained gently, "all he wants is the money he
paid you."
As that was the only sort of ruin which Mr. Waudle had been fearing, he
pressed his clenched fists into his eyes. He had never before possessed
so much money. The mere idea of relinquishing it infuriated him; and he
turned savagely on Jacqueline, hesitated, saw it was useless. For there
remained nothing further to say to such a she-devil of an expert. He had
always detested women anyway; whenever he had any money they had gotten
it in one way or another. The seven thousand, his share, would have gone
the same way. Now it was going back into a fat, rich man's capacious
pockets--unless Mrs. Clydesdale might be persuaded to intervene. She
could say that _she_ wanted the collection. Why not? She had aided him
before in emergencies--unwillingly, it is true--but what of that? No
doubt she'd do it again--if he scared her sufficiently.
Jacqueline waited a moment longer; then rose from her desk in signal
that the interview was at an end.
Waudle slouched out first, his oblong, evil head hanging in a
picturesque attitude of noble sorrow. The Cubist shambled after him,
wrapped in abstraction, his round, pale, bird-like eyes partly sheathed
under bluish eyelids that seemed ancient and wrinkled.
He was already quite oblivious to his own moral degradation; his mind
was completely obsessed by the dramatic spectacle which the despair of
his friend had afforded him, and by the idea for a poem with which the
episode had inspired him.
He was still absently fishing for a pencil and bit of paper when his
companion jogged his elbow:
"If we fight this business, and if that damn girl sets Clydesdale after
us, we'll have to get out. But I don't think it will come to that."
"Can you stop her, Adalbert--and retain the money?"
"By God! I'm beginning to think I can. I believe I'll drop in to see
Mrs. Clydesdale about it now. She is a very faithful friend of mine," he
added gently. "And sometimes a woman will rush in to help a fellow where
angels fear to tread."
The poet looked at him, then looked away, frightened.
"Be careful," he said, nervously.
"Don't worry. I know women. And I have an idea."
The poet of the Cubists shrugged; then, with a vague gesture:
"My mistress, the moon," he said, dreamily, "is more to me than any idea
on earth or in Heaven."
"Very fine," sneered Waudle, "but why don't you make her keep you in pin
money?"
"Adalbert," retorted the poet, "if you wish to prostitute your art, do
so. Anybody can make a mistress of his art and then live off her. But
the inviolable moon----"
"Oh, hell!" snapped the author of "Black Roses."
And they wandered on into the busy avenue, side by side, Waudle savagely
biting his heavy under-lip, both fists rammed deep into his overcoat
pockets; the Cubist wandering along beside him, a little derby hat
crowning the bunch of frizzled hair on his head, his soiled drab
trousers, ankle high, flapping in the wind.
Jacqueline glanced at them as they passed the window at the end of the
corridor, and turned hastily away, remembering the old, unhappy days
after her father's death, and how once from a window she had seen the
poet as she saw him now, frizzled, soiled, drab, disappearing into murky
perspective.
She turned wearily to her desk again. A sense of depression had been
impending--but she knew it was only the reaction from excitement and
fought it nervously.
They brought luncheon to her desk, but she sent away the tray untouched.
People came by appointment and departed, only to give place to others,
all equally persistent and wholly absorbed in their own affairs; and she
listened patiently, forcing her tired mind to sympathise and
comprehend. And, in time, everybody went away satisfied or otherwise,
but in no doubt concerning the answer she had given, favourable or
unfavourable to their desires. For that was her way in the business of
life.
At last, once more looking over her appointment list, she found that
only Clydesdale remained; and almost at the same moment, and greatly to
her surprise, Mrs. Clydesdale was announced.
"Is Mr. Clydesdale with her?" she asked the clerk, who had also handed
her a letter with the visiting card of Mrs. Clydesdale.
"The lady is alone," he said.
Jacqueline glanced at the card again. Then, thoughtfully:
"Please say to Mrs. Clydesdale that I will receive her," she said; laid
the card on the desk and picked up the letter.
It was a very thick letter and had arrived by messenger.
The address on the envelope was in Mrs. Hammerton's familiar and
vigorous back-stroke writing, and she had marked it "_Private! Personal!
Important!_" As almost every letter from her to Jacqueline bore similar
emphatic warnings, the girl smiled to herself and leisurely split the
envelope with a paper knife.
She was still intent on the letter, and was still seated at her desk
when Mrs. Clydesdale entered. And Jacqueline slowly looked up, dazed and
deathly white, as the woman about whom she had at that moment been
reading came forward to greet her. Then, with a supreme effort, she rose
from her chair, managing to find the ghost of a voice to welcome Elena,
who seemed unusually vivacious, and voluble to the verge of excitement.
[Illustration: "'My dear!' she exclaimed. 'What a perfectly charming
office!'"]
"My dear!" she exclaimed. "What a perfectly charming office! It's really
too sweet for words, Miss Nevers! It's enough to drive us all into
trade! Are you very much surprised to see me here?"
"A--little."
"It's odd--the coincidence that brought me," said Elena gaily, "--and
just a trifle embarrassing to me. And as it is rather a confidential
matter----" She drew her chair closer to the desk. "_May_ I speak to you
in fullest candour and--and implicit confidence, Miss Nevers?"
"Yes."
"Then--there is a friend of mine in very serious trouble--a man I knew
slightly before I was married. Since then I--have come to know
him--better. And I am here now to ask you to help him."
"Yes."
"Shall I tell you his name at once?"
"If you wish."
"Then--his name is Adalbert Waudle."
Jacqueline looked up at her in weary surprise.
Elena laughed feverishly: "Adalbert is only a boy--a bad one, perhaps,
but--you know that genius is queer--always unbalanced. He came to see me
at noon to-day. It's a horrid mess, isn't it--what he did to my husband?
I know all about it; and I know that Cary is wild, and that it was an
outrageous thing for Adalbert to do. But----"
Her voice trembled a little and she forced a laugh to conceal it:
"Adalbert is an old friend, Miss Nevers. I knew him as a boy. But even
so, Cary couldn't understand if I pleaded for him. My husband means to
send him to jail if he does not return the money. And--and I am sorry
for Mrs. Waudle. Besides, I like the porcelains. And I want you to
persuade Cary to keep them."
Through the whirling chaos of her thoughts, Jacqueline still strove to
understand what this excited woman was saying; made a desperate effort
to fix her attention on the words and not on the flushed and restless
young wife who was uttering them.
"Will you persuade Cary to keep the collection, Miss Nevers?"
"That is for you to do, Mrs. Clydesdale."
"I tried. I called him up at his office and asked him to keep the jades
and porcelains because I liked them. But he was very obstinate. What you
have told him about--about being swindled has made him furious. That is
why I came here. Something must be done."
"I don't think I understand you."
"There is nothing to understand. I want to keep the collection. I ask
you to convince my husband----"
"How?"
"I d--don't know," stammered Elena, crimson again. "You ought to know
how to--to do it."
"If Mr. Waudle returns your husband's money, no further action will be
taken."
"He can not," said Elena, in a low voice.
"Why?"
"He has spent it."
"Did he tell you that?"
"Yes."
"Then I am afraid that Mr. Clydesdale will have him arrested."
There was an ominous silence. Jacqueline forced her eyes away from the
terrible fascination of Elena's ghastly face, and said:
"I am sorry. But I can do nothing for you, Mrs. Clydesdale. The decision
rests with your husband."
"You _must_ help me!"
"I cannot."
"You _must_!" repeated Elena.
"How?"
"I--I don't care how you do it! But you must prevent my husband from
prosecuting Mr. Waudle! It--it has got to be done--somehow."
"What do you mean?"
Elena's face was burning and her lips quivered:
"It has got to be done! I can't tell you why."
"Can you not tell your husband?"
"No."
Jacqueline was quivering, too, clinging desperately to her self-control
under the menace of an impending horror which had already partly stunned
her.
"Are you--_afraid_ of this man?" she asked, with stiffening lips.
Elena bowed her head in desperation.
"What is it? Blackmail?"
"Yes. He once learned something. I have paid him--not to--to write it
for the--the _Tattler_. And to-day he came to me straight from your
office and made me understand that I would have to stop my husband
from--taking any action--even to recover the money----"
Jacqueline sat nervously clenching and unclenching her hands over the
letter which lay under them on the blotter.
"What scandal is it you fear, Mrs. Clydesdale?" she asked, in an icy
voice.
Elena coloured furiously: "Is it necessary for me to incriminate myself
before you help me? I thought you more generous!"
"I can not help you. There is no way to do so."
"Yes, there is!"
"How?"
"By--by telling my husband that the--the jades are _not_ forgeries!"
Jacqueline's ashy cheeks blazed into colour.
"Mrs. Clydesdale," she said, "I would not do it to save myself--not even
to save the dearest friend I have! And do you think I will lie to spare
_you_?"
In the excitement and terror of what now was instantly impending, the
girl had risen, clutching Mrs. Hammerton's letter in her hand.
"You need not tell me why you--you are afraid," she stammered, her
lovely lips already distorted with fear and horror, "because I--I
_know_! Do you understand? I know what you are--what you have done--what
you are doing!"
She fumbled in the pages of Mrs. Hammerton's letter, found an enclosure,
and held it out to Elena with shaking fingers.
It was Elena's note to her husband, written on the night she left him,
brought by her husband to Silverwood, left on the library table, used as
a bookmark by Desboro, discovered and kept by its finder, Mrs.
Hammerton, for future emergencies.
Elena re-read it now with sickened senses, and knew that in the eyes of
this young girl she was utterly and irretrievably damned.
"Did you write that?" whispered Jacqueline, with lips scarcely under
control.
"I--you do not understand----"
"Did you know that when I was a guest under Mr. Desboro's roof
everything that he and you said in the library was overheard? Do you
know that you have been watched--not by me--but even long before I knew
you--watched even at the opera----"
Elena drew a quick, terrified breath; then the surging shame mantled her
from brow to throat.
"That was Mrs. Hammerton!" she murmured. "I warned Jim--but he trusted
her."
Jacqueline turned cold all over.
"He is your--lover," she said mechanically.
Elena looked at her, hesitated, came a step nearer, still staring. Her
visage and her bearing altered subtly. For a moment they gazed at each
other. Then Elena said, in a soft, but deadly, voice:
"Suppose he is my lover! Does that concern _you_?" And, as the girl made
no stir or sound: "However, if you think it does, you will scarcely care
to know either of us any longer. I am quite satisfied. Do what you
please about the man who has blackmailed me. I don't care now. I was
frightened for a moment--but I don't care any longer. Because the end of
all this nightmare is in sight; and I think Mr. Desboro and I are
beginning to awake at last."
* * * * *
Until a few minutes before five Jacqueline remained seated at her desk,
motionless, her head buried in her arms. Then she got to her feet
somehow, and to her room, where, scarcely conscious of what she was
doing, she bathed her face and arranged her hair, and strove to pinch
and rub a little colour into her ghastly cheeks.