Early in April C. Bailey, Jr., overdrew his account, was politely
notified of that oversight by the bank. He hunted about, casually, for
stray funds, but to his intense surprise discovered nothing
immediately available.
Which annoyed him, and he explained the situation to his father; who
demanded further and sordidly searching explanations concerning the
expenditure on his son's part of an income more than adequate for any
unmarried young man.
They undertook this interesting line of research together, but there
came a time in the proceedings when C. Bailey, Jr., betrayed violent
inclinations toward reticence, non-communication, and finally secrecy;
in fact he declined to proceed any further or to throw any more light
upon his reasons for not proceeding, which symptoms were
characteristic and perfectly familiar to his father.
"The trouble is," concluded Bailey, Sr., "you have been throwing away
your income on that Greensleeve girl! What is she--your private
property?"
"No."
The two men looked at each other, steadily enough. Bailey, Sr., said:
"If _that's_ the case--why in the name of common sense do you spend so
much money on her?" Naïve logic on the part of Bailey, Sr., Clive
replied:
"I didn't suppose I was spending very much. I like her. I like her
better than any other girl. She is really wonderful, father. You won't
believe it if I say she is charming, well-bred, clever--"
"I believe _that_!"
--"And," continued Clive--"absolutely unselfish and non-mercenary."
"If she's all that, too, it certainly seems to pay her--materially
speaking."
"You don't understand," said his son patiently. "From the very
beginning of our friendship it has been very difficult for me to make
her accept anything--even when she was in actual need. Our friendship
is not on _that_ basis. She doesn't care for me because of what I do
for her. It may surprise you to hear me--"
"My son, nothing surprises me any more, not even virtue and honesty.
This girl may be all you think her. Personally I never met any like
her, but I've read about them in sentimental fiction. No doubt there's
a basis for such popular heroines. There may have been such paragons.
There may be yet. Perhaps you've collided with one of these feminine
curiosities."
"I have."
"All right, Clive. Only, why linger longer in the side-show than the
price of admission warrants? The main tent awaits you. In more modern
metaphor; it's the same film every hour, every day, the same
orchestrion, the same environment. You've seen enough. There's nothing
more--if I clearly understand your immaculate intentions. Do I?"
"Yes," said Clive, reddening.
"All right; there's nothing more, then. It's time to retire. You've
had your amusement, and you've paid for it like a gentleman--very much
like a gentleman--rather exorbitantly. That's the way a gentleman
always pays. So now suppose you return to your own sort and coyly
reappear amid certain circles recently neglected, and which, at one
period of your career, you permitted yourself to embellish and adorn
with your own surpassing personality."
They both laughed; there had been, always, a very tolerant
understanding between them.
Then Clive's face grew graver.
"Father," he said, "I've tried remaining away. It doesn't do any good.
The longer I stay away from her, the more anxious I am to go back....
It's really friendship I tell you."
"You're not in love with her, are you, Clive?"
The son hesitated: "No!... No, I can't be. I'm very certain that I am
not."
"What would you do if you were?"
"But--"
"What would you _do_ about it?"
"I don't know."
"Marry her?"
"I couldn't do that!" muttered Clive, startled. Then he remained
silent, his mind crowded with the component parts of that vague
sum-total which had so startled him at the idea of marrying Athalie
Greensleeve.
Partly his father's blunt question had jarred him, partly the idea of
marrying anybody at all. Also the mere idea of the storm such a
proceeding would raise in the world he inhabited, his mother being the
storm-centre, dispensing anathema, thunder, and lightning, appalled
him.
"What!"
"I couldn't do _that_," he repeated, gazing rather blankly at his
father.
"You could if you _had_ to," said his father, curtly. "But I take your
word it couldn't come to that."
The boy flushed hotly, but said nothing. He shrank from comprehending
such an impossible situation, ashamed for himself, ashamed for
Athalie, resenting even the exaggerated and grotesque possibility of
such a thing--such a monstrous and horrible thing playing any part in
her life or in his.
The frankness and cynicism of Bailey, Sr., had possibly been pushed
too far. Clive became restless; and the calm entente cordiale ended
for a while.
Ended also his visits to Athalie for a while, the paternal
conversation having, somehow, chilled his desire to see her and
spoiled, for the time anyway, any pleasure in being with her.
Also his father offered to help him out financially; and, somehow, he
felt as though Bailey, Sr., was paying for his own gifts to Athalie.
Which idea mortified him, and he resolved to remain away from her
until he recovered his self-respect--which would be duly recovered,
he felt certain, when the next coupons fell due and he could detach
them and extinguish the parental loan.
For a week or two he did not even wish to see her, so ashamed and
sullied did he feel after the way his father had handled and bruised
the delicate situation, and the name of the young girl who so
innocently adorned it.
No, something had been spoiled for him, temporarily. He felt it.
Something of the sweetness, the innocence, the candour of this
blameless friendship had been marred. The bloom was rubbed off; the
piquant freshness and fragrance gone for the present.
It is true that an unexpected boom in his business kept him and his
father almost feverishly active and left them both fatigued at night.
This lasted for a week or two--long enough to excite all real estate
men with a hope for future prosperity not yet entirely dead. But at
the end of two or three weeks that hope began to die its usual,
lingering death.
Dulness set in; the talk was of Harlem, Westchester, and the Bronx: a
private bank failed, then three commercial houses went to the wall;
and a seat was sold for $25,000 on the Exchange. Business resumed its
normal and unexaggerated course. The days of boom were surely ended;
and vacant lots on Fifth Avenue threatened to remain vacant for a
while longer.
Clive began to drop in at his clubs again. One was a Whipper-Snapper
Club to which young Manhattan aspired when freshly released from
college; the others were of the fashionable and semi-fashionable sort,
tedious, monotonous, full of the aimless, the idle, or of that
bustling and showy smartness which is perhaps even less admirable and
less easy to endure.
Men destitute of mental resources and dependent upon others for their
amusement, disillusioned men, lazy men, socially ambitious men, men
gluttonously or alcoholically predisposed haunted these clubs. To one
of them repaired those who were inclined to racquettes, squash,
tennis, and the swimming tank. It was a sort of social clearing house
for other clubs.
But The Geyser was the least harmless of the clubs affected by C.
Bailey, Jr.,--it being an all-night resort and the haunt of the
hopeless sport. Here dissipation, futile, aimless, meaningless, was on
its native heath. Here, on his own stamping ground, prowled the
youthful scion of many a dissipated race--nouveau riche and
Knickerbocker alike. All that was required of anybody was money and a
depthless capacity.
It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil Reeve one stormy
midnight.
"You don't come here often, do you?" said the latter.
Clive said he didn't.
"Neither do I. But when I do there's a few doing. Will you have a high
one, Clive? In deference to our late and revered university?"
Clive would so far consent to degrade himself for the honour of Alma
Mater.
There was much honour done her that evening.
Toward the beginning of the end Clive said: "I can't sit up all night,
Cecil. What do you do for a living, anyway?"
"Bank a bit."
[Illustration: "It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil
Reeve one stormy midnight."]
"Oh, that's just amusement. What do you work at?"
"I didn't mean that kind of bank!" said Reeve, annoyed. All sense of
humour fled him when hammerlocked with Bacchus. At such psychological
moments, too, he became indiscreet. And now he proposed to Clive an
excursion amid what he termed the "high lights of Olympus," which the
latter discouraged.
"All right then. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give a Byzantine
party! I know a little girl--"
"Oh, shut up!"
"She's a fine little girl, Clive--"
"This is no hour to send out invitations."
"Why not? Her name is Catharine--"
"Dry up!"
"Catharine Greensleeve--"
"What!"
"Certainly. She's a model at Winton's joint. She's a peach.
Appropriately crowned with roses she might have presided for
Lucullus."
Clive said: "By that you mean she's all right, don't you? You'd better
mean it anyway!"
"Is that so?"
"Yes, that's so. I know her sister. She's a charming girl. All of them
are all right. You understand, don't you?"
"I understand numerous things. One of 'em's Catharine Greensleeve. And
she's some plum, believe _me_!"
"That's all right, too, so stop talking about it!" retorted Clive
sharply.
"Sure it's all right. Don't worry, just because you know her sister,
will you?"
Clive shrugged. Reeve was in a troublesome mood, and he left him and
went home feeling vaguely irritated and even less inclined than ever
to see Athalie; which state of mind perplexed and irritated him still
further.
* * * * *
He went to one or two dances during the week--a thing he had not done
lately. Then he went to several more; also to a number of débutante
theatre parties and to several suppers. He rather liked being with his
own sort again; the comfortable sense of home-coming, of
conventionalism, of a pleasant social security, appealed to him after
several months' irresponsible straying from familiar paths. And he
began to go about the sheep-walks and enjoy it, slipping back rather
easily into accustomed places and relations with men and women who
belonged in a world never entered, never seen by Athalie Greensleeve,
and of the existence of which she was aware only through the daily
papers.
He wrote to her now and then. Always she answered his letter the
following day.
About the end of April he wrote:
"DEAR ATHALIE,
"About everything seems to conspire to keep me from seeing
you; business--in a measure,--social duties; and, to tell the
truth, a mistaken but strenuous opposition on my mother's
part.
"She doesn't know you, and refuses to. But she knows me,
and ought to infer everything delightful in the girl who has
become my friend. Because she knows that I don't, and never
did affect the other sort.
[Illustration: "He rather liked being with his own sort again."]
"Every day, recently, she has asked me whether I have seen
you. To avoid unpleasant discussions I haven't gone to see
you. But I am going to as soon as this unreasonable alarm
concerning us blows over.
"It seems very deplorable to me that two young people cannot
enjoy an absolutely honest friendship unsuspected and
undisturbed.
"I miss you a lot. Is the apartment comfortable? Does Michael
do everything you wish? Did the cat prove a good one? I sent
for the best Angora to be had from the Silver Cloud Cattery.
"Now tell me, Athalie, what can I do for you? _Please!_ What
is it you need; what is it you would like to have? Are you
saving part of your salary?
"Tell me also what you do with yourself after business hours.
Have you seen any shows? I suppose you go out with your
sisters now and then.
"As for me I go about more or less. For a while I didn't:
business seemed to revive and everybody in real estate became
greatly excited. But it all simmered down again to the usual
routine. So I've been going about to various affairs, dances
and things. And, consequently, there's peace and quiet at
home for me.
"Always yours,
"C BAILEY, JR."
"P.S. As I sit here writing you the desire seizes me to drop
my pen, put on my hat and coat and go to see you. But I
can't. There's a dinner on here, and I've got to stay for it.
Good night, dear Athalie!
"CLIVE."
His answer came by return mail as usual:
"DEAR CLIVE,
"Your letter has troubled me so much. If your mother feels
that way about me, what are we to do? Is it right for us to
see each other?
"It is true that I am not conscious of any wrong in seeing
you and in being your friend. I know that I never had an
unworthy thought concerning you. And I feel confident that
your thoughts regarding our friendship and me are blameless.
Where lies the wrong?
"_Some_ aspects of the affair _have_ troubled me lately.
Please do not be sensitive and take offence, Clive, if I
admit to you that I never have quite reconciled myself to
accepting anything from you.
"What I have accepted has been for your own sake--for the
pleasure you found in giving, not for my own sake.
"I wanted only your friendship. That was enough--more than
enough to make me happy and contented.
"I was not in want; I had sufficient; I lived better than I
had ever lived; I was self-reliant, self-supporting,
and--forgive and understand me, Clive--a little more
self-respecting than I now am.
"It is true I had saved very little; but I am young and life
is before me.
"This seems very ungrateful of me, very ungenerous after all
you have done for me--all I have taken from you.
"But, Clive, it is the truth, and I think it ought to be
told. Because this is, and has always been, a source of
self-reproach to me, whether rightly or wrongly, I don't
know. I am a novice at confession, but I feel that, if I am
to make a clean breast to you, partial confession is not
worth while, not really honest, not worthy of the very sacred
friendship that inspires it.
"So I shall shrive myself as well as I know how and continue
to admit to you my further doubts and misgivings. They are
these: my sisters do not understand your friendship for me
even if they understand mine for you--which they say they do.
"I don't think they believe me dishonest; but they cannot see
any reason for your generosity to me unless you ultimately
expect me to be dishonest.
"This has weakened my influence with them. I know I am the
youngest, yet until recently I had a certain authority in
matters regarding the common welfare and the common policy.
But this is nearly gone. They point out with perfect truth
that I myself do, with you, the very things for which I
criticise them and against which I warn them.
"Of course the radical difference is that I do these things
with _you_; but they can't understand why you are any better,
any finer, any more admirable, any further to be trusted than
the men they go about with alone.
"It is quite in vain that I explain to them what sort of man
you are. They retort that I merely _think_ so.
"There is a man who takes Catharine out more frequently, and
keeps her out much later than I like. I mean Cecil Reeve. But
what I say only makes my sister sullen. She knows he is a
friend of yours.... And, Clive, I am rather afraid she is
beginning to care more for him than is quite safe for her to
ever care for any man of that class.
"And Doris has met other men of the same kind--I don't know
who they are, for she won't tell me. But after the theatre
she goes out with them; and it is doing her no good.
"There is only one more item in my confession, then I'm done.
"It is this: I have heard recently from various sources that
my being seen with you so frequently is causing much gossip
concerning you among your friends.
"Is this true? And if it is, will it damage you? I don't care
about myself. I know very few people and it doesn't matter.
Besides I care enough about our companionship to continue it,
whatever untruths are said or thought about me. But how about
_you_, Clive? Because I also care enough for you to give you
up if my being seen with you is going to disgrace you.
"This is my confession. I have told you all. Now, could you
tell me what it is best for us to do?
"Think clearly; act wisely; don't even dream of sacrificing
yourself with your usual generosity--if it is indeed to be a
case for self-sacrifice. Let me do that by giving you up. I
shall do it anyway if ever I am convinced that my
companionship is hurting your reputation.
"Be just to us both by being frank with me. Your decision
shall be my law.
"This is a long, long letter. I can't seem to let it go to
you--as though when I mail it I am snapping one more bond
that still seems to hold us together.
"My daily life is agreeable if a trifle monotonous. I have
been out two or three times, once to see the Morgan
Collection at the Metropolitan Museum--very dazzling and
wonderful. What strange thoughts it evoked in me--thrilling,
delightful, exhilarating--as though inspiring me to some
blind effort or other. Isn't it ridiculous?--as though _I_
had it in me to do anything or be anybody! I'm merely telling
you how all that exquisite art affected me--_me_--a working
girl. And Oh, Clive! I don't think anything ever gave me as
much pleasure as did the paintings by the French masters,
Lancret, Drouais, and Fragonard! (You see I had a catalogue!)
"Another evening I went out with Catharine. Mr. Reeve asked
us, and another man. We went to see 'Once Upon a Time' at the
Half-Moon Theatre, and afterward we went to supper at the
Café Columbine.
"Another evening the other man, Mr. Reeve's friend, a Mr.
Hargrave, asked me to see 'Under the Sun' at the Zig-Zag
Theatre. It was a tiresome show. We went to supper afterward
to meet Catharine and Mr. Reeve.
"That is all except that I've dined out once or twice with
Mr. Hargrave. And, somehow or other I felt queer and even
conspicuous going to the Regina with him and to other places
where you and I have been so often together...Also I felt a
little depressed. Everything always reminded me of you and of
happy evenings with you. I can't seem to get used to going
about with other men. But they seem to be very nice, very
kind, and very amusing.
"And a girl ought to be thankful to almost anybody who will
take her out of her monotony.
"I'm afraid you've given me a taste for luxury and amusement.
You _have_ spoiled me I fear. I am certainly an ungrateful
little beast, am I not, to lay the blame on you! But it is
dull, Clive, after working all day to sit every evening
reading alone, or lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling,
waiting for the others to come home.
"If it were not for that darling cat you gave me I'd perish
of sheer solitude. But he is such a comfort, Hafiz; and his
eyes are the bluest blue and his long, winter fur the
snowiest white, and his ruff is wonderful and his tail
magnificent. Also he is _very_ affectionate to me. For which,
with perfect reverence, I venture to thank God.
"Good night, Clive. If you've struggled through this letter
so far you won't mind reading that I am faithfully and always
your friend,
"ATHALIE GREENSLEEVE."
Her letter thoroughly aroused Clive and he was all for going straight
to her--only he couldn't go that evening because he dared not break a
dinner engagement or fail to appear with his mother at the opera. In
fact he was already involved in a mess of social obligations for two
weeks ahead,--not an evening free--and Athalie worked during the day.
It gave him an odd, restless sensation to hear of her going about with
Francis Hargrave--dining alone with him. He felt almost hurt as though
she had done him a personal injustice, yet he knew that it was absurd
for him to resent anything of that sort. His monopoly of her happened
to be one merely because she, at that time, knew no other man of his
sort, and would not go out with any other kind of man.
Why should he expect her to remain eternally isolated except when he
chose to take her out? No young girl could endure that sort of thing
too long. Certainly Athalie was inevitably destined to meet other men,
be admired, admire in her turn, accept invitations. She was unusually
beautiful,--a charming, intelligent, clean-cut, healthy young girl.
She required companionship and amusement; she would be unhuman if she
didn't.
Only--men were men. And safe and sane friendships between men of his
own caste, and girls like Athalie Greensleeve, were rare.
Clive chafed and became restive and morose. In vain he repeated to
himself that what Athalie was doing was perfectly natural. But it
didn't make the idea of her going out with other men any more
attractive to him.
His clever mother, possibly aware of what ferment was working in her
son, watched him out of the tail of her ornamental eyes, but wisely
let him alone to fidget his own way out of it. She had heard that the
Greensleeve girl was raising hob with Cecil Reeve and Francis
Hargrave. They were other people's sons, however. And it might have
worked itself out of Clive--this restless ferment which soured his
mind and gave him an acid satisfaction in being anything but cordial
in his own family circle.
But there was a girl--a débutante, very desirable for Clive his mother
thought--one Winifred Stuart--and very delightful to look upon.
And Clive had seen just enough of her to like her exceedingly; and, at
dances, had even wandered about to look for her, and had evinced
boredom and dissatisfaction when she had not been present.
Which inspired his mother to give a theatre party for little Miss
Stuart and two dozen other youngsters, and a supper at the Regina
afterward.
It was an excellent idea; and it went as wrong as such excellent ideas
so often go. For as Clive in company with the others sauntered into
the splendid reception room of the Regina, he saw Athalie come in with
a man whom he had never before seen.
The shock of recognition--for it was a shock--was mutual. Athalie's
dark eyes widened and a little colour left her cheeks: and Clive
reddened painfully.
It was, perhaps, scarcely the thing to do, but as she advanced he
stepped forward, and their hands met.
"I am so very glad to see you again," he said.
"I too, Clive. Are you well?"
"And you?"
"Quite," she hesitated; there was a moment's pause while the two men
looked coolly at each other.
"May I present Mr. Bailey, Captain Dane?" Further she did not account
for Captain Dane, who presently took her off somewhere leaving Clive
to return to his smiling but enraged mother.
Never had he found any supper party so noisy, so mirthless, and so
endless. Half the time he didn't know what he was saying to Winifred
Stuart or to anybody else. Nor could he seem to see anybody very
distinctly, for the mental phantoms of Athalie and Captain Dane
floated persistently before him, confusing everything at moments
except the smiling and deadly glance of his mother.
Afterward they went to their various homes in various automobiles, and
Clive was finally left with his mother in his own drawing-room.
"What you did this evening," she said to her son, "was not exactly the
thing to do under the circumstances, Clive."
"Why not?" he asked wearily as her maid relieved her of her sables and
lace hood.
"Because it was not necessary.... That girl you spoke to was the
Greensleeve girl I suppose?"
"Yes, Athalie Greensleeve."
"Who was the man?"
"I don't know--a Captain Dane I believe."
"Wasn't a civil bow enough?"
"Enough? Perhaps; I don't know, mother. I don't seem to know how much
is due her from me. She's never had anything from me so far--anything
worth having--"
"Don't be a fool, Clive."
He said, absently: "It's too late for such advice! I _am_ a fool. And
I don't quite understand how not to be one."
His mother, rather fearful of arousing in him any genuine emotion,
discreetly kissed him good night.
"You're a slightly romantic boy," she said. "There is nothing else the
matter with you."
They mounted the velvet-covered stairway together, her arm around his
neck, his encircling a slender, pliant waist that a girl of sixteen
might have envied. Her maid followed with furs and hood.
"Come into my bedroom and smoke, Clive," she smiled. "We can talk
through the dressing-room door."
"No; I think I'll turn in."
The maid continued on through the rose and ivory bedroom and into the
dressing-room. Mrs. Bailey lingered, intuition and experience
preparing her for what a boy of that age was very sure to say.
And after some fidgeting about he said it:
"Mother, honestly what did you think of her?"
His mother's smile remained unaltered: "Do you mean the Greensleeve
girl?"
"I mean Athalie Greensleeve."
"She is pretty in a rather common way."
"Common!"
"Did you think she is not?"
"Common," he repeated in boyish astonishment. "What is there common
about her?"
"If _you_ can't see it any woman of your own class can."
[Illustration: "'Wasn't a civil bow enough?'"]
Which remark aroused all that was dramatic and poetic in the boy, and
he spoke with a slightly exaggerated phraseology:
"What is there common about this very beautiful girl? Surely not her
features. Her head, her figure, her hands, her feet are delicate and
very exquisitely formed; in her bearing there is an unconscious and
sweet dignity; her voice is soft, charming, well-bred. What is there
about her that you find common?"
His mother, irritated and secretly dismayed, maintained, however, her
placid mask and her attitude of toleration.
She said: "I distinguish between a woman to the manner born, and a
woman who is not. The difference is as subtle as intuition and as wide
as the ocean. And, dear, no young man, however clever, is clever
enough to instruct his mother concerning such matters."
"I was asking you to instruct me," he said.
"Very well. If you wish to know the difference between the imitation
and the real, compare that young woman with Winifred Stuart."
Clive's gaze shifted from his mother and became fixed on space.
After a moment his pretty mother moved toward the dressing-room: "If
you will find a chair and light a cigarette, Clive, we can continue
talking."
His absent eyes reverted to her: "I think I'll go, mother. Good
night."
"Good night, dear."
He went to his own room. From the room adjoining came his father's
heavy breathing where he lay asleep.
The young fellow listened for a moment, then walked into the library
where only a dim night-light was burning. He still wore his overcoat
over his evening clothes, and carried his hat and stick.
For a while he stood in the dim library, head bent, staring at the rug
under foot.
Then he turned, went out and down the stairs, and opened the door of
the butler's pantry. The service telephone was there. He unhooked the
receiver and called. Almost immediately he got his "party."
"Yes?" came the distant voice distinctly.
"Is it you, Athalie?"
"Yes.... Oh, _Clive!_"
"Didn't you recognise my voice?"
"Not immediately."
"When did you come in?"
"Just this moment. I still have on my evening wrap."
"Did you have an agreeable evening?"
"Yes."
"Are you tired?"
"No."
"May I come around and see you for a few minutes?"
"Yes."
"All right," he said briefly.