There was a slight fragrance of tobacco in the room mingling with the
fresh, spring-like scent of lilacs--great pale clusters of them
decorated mantel and table, and the desk where Athalie sat writing to
Captain Dane in the semi-dusk of a May evening.
Here and there dim figures loomed in the big square room; the graceful
shape of a young girl at the piano detached itself from the gloom; a
man or two dawdled by the window, vaguely silhouetted against the
lilac-tinted sky.
Athalie wrote on: "I had not supposed you had landed until Cecil Reeve
told me this evening. If you are not too tired to come, please do so.
Do you realise that you have been away over a year? Do you realise
that I am now twenty-four years old, and that I am growing older every
minute? You had better hasten, then, because very soon I shall be too
old to believe your magic fairy tales of field and flood and all your
wonder lore of travel in those distant golden lands I dream of.
"Who was your white companion? Cecil tells me that you said you had
one. Bring him with you this evening; you'll need corroboration, I
fear. And mostly I desire to know if you are well, and next I wish to
hear whether you did really find the lost city of Yhdunez."
A maid came to take the note to Dane's hotel, the Great Eastern, and
Cecil Reeve looked up and laid aside his cigarette.
"Come on, Athalie," he said, "tell Peg to turn on one of those
Peruvian dances."
Peggy Brooks at the piano struck a soft sensuous chord or two, but
Francis Hargrave would not have it, and he pulled out the proper
phonographic record and cranked the machine while Cecil rolled up the
Beluch rugs.
The somewhat muffled air that exuded from the machine was the lovely
Miraflores, gay, lively, languorous, sad by turns--and much danced at
the moment in New York.
A new spring moon looked into the room from the west where like
elegant and graceful phantoms the dancers moved, swayed, glided, swung
back again with sinuous grace into the suavely delicate courtship of
the dance.
The slender feet and swaying figure of Athalie seemed presently to
bewitch the other couple, for they drew aside and stood together
watching that exquisite incarnation of youth itself, gliding, bending,
floating in the lilac-scented, lilac-tinted dusk under the young moon.
The machine ran down in the course of time, and Hargrave went over to
re-wind it, but Peggy Brooks waved him aside and seated herself at the
piano, saying she had enough of Hargrave.
She was still playing the quaint, sweet dance called "The Orchid," and
Hargrave was leaning on the piano beside her watching Cecil and Athalie
drifting through the dusk to the music's rhythm, when the door opened
and somebody came in.
Athalie, in Cecil's arms, turned her head, looking back over her
shoulder. Dane loomed tall in the twilight.
"Oh!" she exclaimed; "I am so glad!"--slipping out of Cecil's arms and
wheeling on Dane, both hands outstretched.
The others came up, also, with quick, gay greetings, and after a
moment or two of general and animated chatter Athalie drew Dane into a
corner and made room for him beside her on the sofa. Peggy had turned
on the music machine again and, snubbing Hargrave, was already
beginning the Miraflores with Cecil Reeve.
Athalie said: "_Are_ you well? That's the first question."
He said he was well.
"And did you find your lost city?"
He said, quietly: "We found Yhdunez."
"We?"
"I and my white companion."
"Why didn't you bring him with you this evening?" she asked. "Did you
tell him I invited him?"
"Yes."
"Oh.... Couldn't he come?"
And, as he made no answer: "Couldn't he?" she repeated. "Who is he,
anyway--"
"Clive Bailey."
She sat motionless, looking at him, the question still parting her
lips. Dully in her ears the music sounded. The pallor which had
stricken her face faded, grew again, then waned in the faint return of
colour.
Dane, who was looking away from her rather fixedly, spoke first, still
not looking at her: "Yes," he said in even, agreeable tones, "Clive
was my white companion.... I gave him your note to read.... He did not
seem to think that he ought to come."
"Why?" Her lips scarcely formed the word.
"--As long as you were not aware of whom you were inviting.... There
had been some misunderstanding between you and him--or so I
gathered--from his attitude."
A few moments more of silence; then she was fairly prepared.
"Is he well?" she asked coolly.
"Yes. He had one of those nameless fevers, down there. He's coming out
of it all right."
"Is he--his appearance--changed?"
"He's changed a lot, judging from the photographs he showed me taken
three or four years ago. He's changed in other ways, too, I fancy."
"How?"
"Oh, I only surmise it. One hears about people--and their
characteristics.... Clive is a good deal of a man.... I never had a
better companion.... There were hardships--tight corners--we had a bad
time of it for a while, along the Andes.... And the natives are
treacherous--every one of them.... He was a good comrade. No man can
say more than that, Miss Greensleeve. That includes about everything I
ever heard of--when a man proves to be a good comrade. And there is no
place on earth where a man can be so thoroughly tried out as in that
sunless wilderness."
"Is he stopping at the Great Eastern?"
"Yes. I believe he's going back on Saturday."
She looked up sharply: "Back? Where?"
"Oh, not to Peru. Only to England," said Dane, forcing a laugh.
After a moment she said: "And he wouldn't come.... It is only three
blocks, isn't it?"
"It wasn't the distance, of course--"
"No; I remember. He thought I might not have cared to see him."
"That was it."
Another silence; then in a lower voice which sounded a little hard:
"His wife is living in England, I suppose."
"She is living--I don't know where."
"Have they--children?"
"I believe not."
She remained silent for a while, then, coolly enough:
"I suppose he is sailing on Saturday to see his wife."
"I think not," said Dane, gravely.
"You say he is sailing for England."
"Yes, but I imagine it's because he has nowhere else to go."
"Why doesn't he stay here?"
"I don't know."
"He is American. His friends live here. Why doesn't he remain here?"
Dane shook his head: "He's a restless man, Miss Greensleeve. That kind
of man can't stay anywhere. He's got to go on--somewhere."
"I see."
There came a pause; then they talked of other things for a while until
other people began to drop in, Arthur Ensart, Anne Randolph, and young
Welter--Helter Skelter Welter, always, metaphorically speaking,
redolent of saddle leather and reeking of sport. His theme happened to
be his own wonderful trap record, that evening; and the fat,
good-humoured, ardent young man prattled on about "unknown angles,"
and "incomers," until Dane, who had been hunting jaguars and cannibals
along the unknown Andes, concealed his yawns with difficulty.
Ensart insisted on turning on the lights and starting the machine; and
presently Anne Randolph and Peggy were dancing the Miraflores with
Cecil and Ensart.
Welter had cornered Hargrave and Dane and was telling them all about
it, and Athalie went slowly through the passage-way and into her own
bedroom, where she stood quite motionless for a while, looking at the
floor. Hafiz, dozing on the bed, awoke, gazed at his mistress gravely,
yawned, and went to sleep again.
[Illustration: "His theme happened to be his own wonderful trap
record, that evening."]
Presently she dropped onto a chair by her little ivory-tinted Louis
XVI desk. There was a telephone there and a directory.
When she had decided to open the latter, and had found the number she
wanted, she unhooked the receiver and called for it.
After a few minutes somebody said that he was not in his room, but
that he was being paged.
She waited, dully attentive to the far noises which sounded over the
wire; then came a voice:
"Yes; who is it?"
She said: "I wished to speak to Mr. Bailey--Mr. Clive Bailey."
"I am Mr. Bailey."
For a moment the fact that she had not recognised his voice seemed to
strike her speechless. And it was only when he spoke again,
inquiringly, that she said in a low voice: "Clive!"
"Yes.... Is--is it _you_!"
"Yes."
And in the next heavily pulsating moment her breath came back with her
self-control:
"Why didn't you come, Clive?"
"I didn't imagine you wanted me."
"I asked Captain Dane to invite you."
"Did you know whom you were inviting?"
"No.... But I do now. Will you come?"
"Yes. When?"
"When you like. Come now if you like--unless you were engaged--"
"No--"
"What were you doing when I called you?"
"Nothing.... Walking about the lobby."
"Did you find it interesting?"
She heard him laugh--such a curious, strange, shaken laugh.
She said: "I shall be very glad to see you, Clive. There are some of
your friends here, too, who will be glad to see you."
"Then I'll wait until--"
"No; I had rather meet you for the first time when others are here--if
you don't mind. Do you?"
"No," he said, coolly; "I'll come."
"Now?"
"Yes, immediately."
Her heart was going at a terrific pace when she hung up the receiver.
She went to her mirror, turned on the side-lights, and looked at
herself. From the front room came the sound of the dance music, a
ripple or two of laughter. Welter's eager voice singing still of arms
and the man.
Long she stood there, motionless, studying herself, so that, when the
moment came that was coming now so swiftly upon her, she might know
what she appeared like in his eyes.
All, so far, was sheer, fresh youth with her; her eyes had not lost
their dewy beauty; the splendour of her hair remained unchanged. There
were no lines, nothing lost, nothing hardened in contour. Clear and
smooth her snowy chin; perfect, so far, the lovely throat: nothing of
blemish was visible, no souvenirs of grief, of pain.
And, as she looked, and all the time she was looking, she felt,
subtly, that the ordered routine of her thoughts was changing; that a
transformation was beginning somewhere deep within her--a new
character emerging--a personality unfamiliar, disturbing, as though
not entirely to be depended on.
And in the mirror she saw her lips, scarcely parted, more vivid than
she had ever seen them, and her eyes two wells of azure splendour; saw
the smooth young bosom rise and fall; felt her heart, rapid,
imperious, beating the "colours" into her cheeks.
Suddenly, as she stood there, she heard him come in;--heard the
astonished and joyous exclamations--Cecil's bantering, cynical voice,
Welter's loud welcome. She pressed both hands to her hot cheeks,
stared at herself a moment, then turned and walked leisurely toward
the living-room.
In her heart a voice was crying, crying: "Let the world see so that
there may be no mistake! This man who was friendless is my friend. Let
there be no mistake that he is more or less than that." But she only
said with a quick smile, and offering her hand: "I am so glad to see
you, Clive. I am so glad you came." And stood, still smiling, looking
into the lean, sun-tanned face, under the concentrated eyes of her
friends around them both.
For a second it was difficult for him to speak; but only she saw the
slight quiver of the mouth.
"You are--quite the same," he said; "no more beautiful, no less. Time
is not the essence of your contract with Venus."
"Oh, Clive! And I am twenty-four! Tell me--_are_ you a trifle
grey!--just above the temples?--or is it the light?"
"He's grey," said Cecil; "don't flatter him, Athalie. And Oh, Lord,
what a thinness!"
Peggy Brooks, professionally curious, said naïvely: "Are you still
rather full of bacilli, Mr. Bailey? And would you mind if I took a
drop of blood from you some day?"
"Not at all," said Clive, laughing away the strain that still fettered
his speech a little. "You may have quarts if you like, Dr. Brooks."
"How was the shooting?" inquired Welter, bustling up like a judge at a
bench-show when the awards are applauded.
"Oh--there was shooting--of course," said Clive with an involuntary
and half-humorous glance at Captain Dane.
"Good nigger hunting," nodded Dane. "Unknown angles, Welter. You ought
to run down there."
"Any incomparable Indian maidens wearing nothing but ornaments of
gold?" inquired Cecil.
"That is partly true," said Clive, laughing.
"If you put a period after 'nothing,' I suppose," suggested Peggy.
"About that."
He turned to Athalie; but her silent, smiling gaze confused him so
that he forgot what he had meant to say, and stood without a word amid
the chatter that rose and ebbed about him.
Anne Randolph and Arthur Ensart had joined hands, their restless feet
sketching the first steps of the Miraflores; and presently somebody
cranked the machine.
"Come on!" said Peggy imperiously to Dane; "you've been too long in
the jungle dancing with Indian maidens!"
Other people dropped in--Adele Millis, young Grismer, John Lyndhurst,
Jeanne Delauny.
When Clive saw Rosalie Faithorn saunter in with James Allys he stared,
but that young seceder from his own set greeted him without
embarrassment and lighted a cigarette.
"Where's Winifred?" she asked nonchalantly. "Still on the outs? Yes?
Why not shuffle and draw again? Winifred was always a pig."
Clive flushed at the girl's frankness although he could have expected
nothing less from her.
Rosalie continued to smoke and to inspect him critically: "You're a
bit seedy and a bit weedy, Clive, but you'll come around with feeding.
You're really all right. I'd have you myself if I was marrying young
men these days."
"That's nice of you, Rosalie.... But I'm full of rare bacilli."
"The rarer the better--if you must have them. Give me the unusual,
whether it's a disease or a gown. I believe I will take you, Clive--if
you are not expected to live long."
"That's the trouble. Nothing seems to be able to get me."
Dane said as he passed with Peggy: "He's immune, Miss Faithorn. The
prettiest woman I ever saw, he side-stepped in Lima. And even then
every man wanted to shoot him up because she made eyes at him."
"I think I'll go there," said Cecil. "Her name and quality if you
please, Dane."
"Ask Clive," he called back.
Athalie, still smiling, said: "Shall I ask you, Clive?"
"Don't ask that South American adventurer anything," interrupted
Cecil, "but come and dance this Miraflores with me, Athalie--"
"No, I don't wish to--"
"Come on! You must!"
"Oh, Cecil--please--"
But he had his way; and, as usual, everybody watched her while the
charming music lasted,--Clive among the others, standing a little
apart, lean, erect, his dark gaze fixed.
She came back to him after the dance, delicately flushed and a trifle
breathless.
"Do you dance that in England?" she asked.
"It's danced--not at Court functions, I believe."
"You never did care to dance, did you?"
"No--" he shrugged, "I used to mess about some."
"And what do you do to amuse yourself in these days?"
"Nothing--much."
"You must do _something_, Clive!"
"Oh, yes ... I travel,--go about."
"Is that all?"
"That's about all."
She had stepped aside to let the dancers pass; he moved with her.
She said in a low, even voice: "Is it pleasant to be back, Clive?"
He nodded in silence.
"Nothing has changed very much since you went away. There's a new
administration at the City Hall, a number of new sky-scrapers in town;
people danced the Tango day before yesterday, the Maxixe yesterday,
the Miraflores to-day, the Orchid to-morrow. That's about all, Clive."
And as he merely acquiesced in silence, she glanced up sideways at
him, and remained watching this new, sun-browned, lean-visaged version
of the boy she had first known and the boyish man who had gone out of
her life four years before.
"Would you like to see Hafiz?" she asked.
He turned quickly toward her: "Yes," he said, the ghost of a smile
lining the corners of his eyes.
"He's on my bed, asleep. Will you come?"
Slipping along the edges of the dancing floor and stepping daintily
over the rolled rugs, she led the way through the passage to her rose
and ivory bedroom, Clive following.
Hafiz opened his eyes and looked across at them from the pillow, stood
up, his back rounding into a furry arch; yawned, stretched first one
hind leg and then the other, and finally stood, flexing his forepaws
and uttering soft little mews of recognition and greeting.
"I wonder," she said, smilingly, "if you have any idea how much Hafiz
has meant to me?"
He made no reply; but his face grew sombre and he laid a lean,
muscular hand on the cat's head.
Neither spoke again for a little while. Finally his hand fell from the
appreciative head of Hafiz, dropping inert by his side, and he stood
looking at the floor. Then there was the slightest touch on his arm,
and he turned to go; but she did not move; and they confronted each
other, alone, and after many years.
Suddenly she stretched out both hands, looking him full in the eyes,
her own brilliant with tears:
"I've got you back--haven't I?" she said unsteadily. But he could not
speak, and stood savagely controlling his quivering lip with his
teeth.
"I just want you as I had you, Clive--my first boy friend--who turned
aside from the bright highway of life to speak to a ragged child.... I
have had the boy; I have had the youth; I want the man, Clive,--honestly,
in perfect innocence.
"Would you care what might be said of us--as long as we know our
friendship is blameless? I am not taking you from _her_, am I? I am
not taking anything away from her, am I?
"I have not always played squarely with men. I don't think it is
possible. They have hoped for--various eventualities. I have not
encouraged them; I have merely let them hope. Which is not square.
"But I wish always to play square with women. Unless a woman does,
nobody will.... And that is why I ask you, Clive--am I robbing her--if
you come back to me--as you were?--nothing more--nothing less, Clive,
but just exactly as you were."
It was impossible for him to control his voice or his words or even
his thoughts just yet; he stood with his lean head turned partly from
her, motionless as a rock, in the desperate grip of self-mastery,
crushing the slender hands that alternately yielded and clasped his
own.
"Oh, Clive," she said, "Clive! You don't know--you never can know what
loneliness means to such a woman as I am.... I thought once--many
times--that I could never again speak to you--that I never again could
care to hear about you.... But I was wrong, pitifully wrong.
"It was not jealousy of her, Clive; you know that, don't you? There
had never been any question of such sentiment between you and
me--excepting once--one night--that last night when you said
good-bye--and you were very much overwrought.
"So it was not jealousy.... It was loneliness. I wanted you, even if
you had fallen in love. That sort of love had nothing to do with us!
"There was nothing in it that ought to have come between you and
me?... Besides, if such an ephemeral thought ever drifted through my
idle mind, I knew on reflection that you and I could never be destined
to marry, even if such sentiment ever inclined us. I knew it and
accepted it without troubling to analyse the reasons. I had no desire
to invade your world--less desire now that I have penetrated it
professionally and know a little about it.
"It was not jealousy, Clive."
He swung around, bent swiftly and pressed his lips to her hands. And
she abandoned them to him with all her heart and soul in an
overwhelming passion of purest emotion.
"I couldn't stand it, Clive," she said, "when I heard you were at your
hotel alone.... And all the unhappiness I had heard of--your married
life--I--I couldn't stand it; I couldn't let you remain there all
alone!
"And when you came here to-night, and I saw in your face how these
four years had altered you--how it had been with you--I wanted you
back--to let you know I am sorry--to let you know I care for the man
who has known unhappiness, as I cared for the boy who had known only
happiness.
"Do you understand, Clive? Do you, dear? Don't you see what I see?--a
man standing all alone by a closed door behind which his hopes lie
dead.
"Clive, that is where you came to me, offering sympathy and
friendship. That is where I come to you in my turn, offering whatever
you care to take of me--if there is in me anything that may comfort
you."
He bent and laid his lips to her hands again, remaining so, curbed
before her; and she looked down at his lean and powerful head and
shoulders, and saw the hint of grey edging the crisp, dark hair, and
the dark stain of tropic suns, that never could be effaced.
So far no passion, other than innocent, had she ever known for any
man,--nothing of lesser emotion, nothing physical. And, had she
thought of it at all she must have believed that it was that way with
her still. For no thought concerning it disturbed her tender,
tremulous happiness with this man beside her who still held her hands
imprisoned against his breast.
And presently they were seated on the couch at the foot of her bed,
excited, garrulous, exchanging gossip, confidences, ideas long
unuttered, desires long unexpressed.
Under the sweeping flashlight of her intelligence the four years of
his absence were illuminated, and passed swiftly in review for his
inspection. Of loneliness, perplexity, grief, deprivation, she made
light, laughingly, shrugging her smooth young shoulders.
"All that was yesterday," she said. "There is only to-day, now--until
to-morrow becomes to-day. You won't go away, will you, Clive?"
"No."
"There is no need of your going, is there?--no reason for you to
go--no duty--moral obligation--is there, Clive?"
"None."
"You wouldn't say so just because I wish you to, would you?"
"I wouldn't be here at all if there were any reason for me to
be--there."
"Then I am not robbing her of you?--I am not depriving her of the
tiniest atom of anything that you owe to her? Am I, Clive?"
"I can't see how. There is only one thing I can do for--my wife. And
that is to keep away from her."
"Oh, Clive! How desperately sad! And, she is young and beautiful,
isn't she? Oh, I am so sorry for you--for you both. Don't you see,
dear, that I am not jealous? If you could be happy with her, and if
she could understand me and let me be your friend,--that would be
wonderful, Clive!"
He remained silent, thinking of Winifred and of her quality of
"understanding"; and of the miserable matter of business which had
made her his wife--and of his own complacent and smug indifference,
and his contemptible weakness under pressure.
Always in the still and secret depths of him he had remained conscious
that he had never cared for any woman except Athalie. All else had
been but a vague realisation of axioms and theorems,--of premises that
had rusted into his mind,--of facts which he accepted as
self-evident,--such as the immutable fact that he couldn't marry
Athalie, couldn't mortify his family, couldn't defy his friends,
couldn't affront his circle with impunity.
To invite disaster would be to bring an avalanche upon himself which,
if it wounded, isolated, even marooned him, would certainly bury
Athalie out of sight forever.
His parents had so reasoned with him; his mother continued the
inculcation after his father's death. And then Winifred and her mother
came floating into his cosmic ken like two familiar planets.
For a while, far away in interstellar space, Athalie glimmered like a
fading comet. Then orbits narrowed; adhesion and cohesion followed
collision; the bi-maternal pressure never lessened. And he gave up.
Of this he was thinking now as he sat there in her rose and ivory
room, gazing at the grey silk carpet underfoot; and all the while
exquisitely, vitally conscious of Athalie--of her nearness to him--to
tears at moments--to that happiness akin to tears.
"Clive, do you remember--" and she breathlessly recalled some gay and
long forgotten incident of that never to be forgotten winter together
when the theatres and restaurants knew them so well, and the day-world
and night-world both credited them with being to each other everything
that they had never been.
"Where will you live?" she asked.
He said: "You know I have sold our old house.... I don't know--" He
looked at her gravely and ashamed: "I think I will take your old
apartment."
She blushed to her hair: "Were you annoyed with me because I left it?"
"It hurt."
"But Clive!--I _couldn't_ remain,--after you had become engaged to
marry."
"Did you need to leave everything you owned?"
"They were not mine," she said in a low, embarrassed voice.
"Whose then?"
"Yours. I never considered them mine.... As though I were a girl of
little consideration ... who paid herself, philosophically, for what
she had lost.... Like a man's mistress after the inevitable break has
come--"
"Don't say that!"
She shrugged her pretty shoulders: "I am a woman old enough to know
what the world is, and what women do in it sometimes; and what men
do.... And I am this sort of woman, Clive: I can give, I can receive,
too, but only because of the happiness it bestows on the giver. And
when the sympathy which must exist between giver and receiver ends,
then also possession ends, for me.... Why do you look at me so
seriously?"
But he dared not say. And presently she went on, happily, and at
random: "Of course I kept Hafiz and the first thing you ever gave
me--the gun-metal wrist-watch. Here it is--" leaning across him and
pulling out a drawer in her dresser. "I wear it every day when I am
out. It keeps excellent time. Isn't it a darling, Clive?"
He examined it in silence, nodded, and returned it to her. And she
laid it away again, saying:
"So you think of taking my old apartment? How odd! And how very
sentimental of you, Clive."
He said, forcing a light tone: "Nothing has ever been disturbed there.
It's all as it was when you left. Even your gowns are hanging in the
closets--"
"Clive!"
"We'll go around if you like. Would you care to see it again?"
"Y--yes."
"Then we'll go together, and you can investigate closets and bureaus
and dressers--"
"Clive! Why did you let those things remain?"
"I didn't care to have anybody else take that place."
"Do you know that what you have done is absurdly and frightfully
sentimental?"
"Is it?" he said, trying to laugh. "Well that snivelling and false
sort of sentiment is about the best that such men as I know how to
comfort themselves with--when it's too late for the real thing."
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I am saying. Cheap minds are fed with false sentiment; and
are comforted.... I made out of that place a smug little monument to
you--while you were living alone and almost penniless in a shabby
rooming house on--"
"Oh, Clive! You didn't know that! And anyway it would not have altered
things for me."
"I suppose not.... Well, Athalie; you are very wonderful to
me--merciful, forgiving, nobly blind--God!" he muttered under his
breath, "I don't understand how you can be so generous and gentle with
me,--I don't, indeed."
"If you only knew how easy it is to care for you," she said with that
sweet fearlessness so characteristic of her.
He bit his lips in silence.
Presently she said: "I suppose there'll be gossip in the other room.
Rosalie and Cecil will be cynical and they also will try to be witty
at our expense. But I don't care. Do you?"
"Shall we go in?"
"No.... I haven't had you for four years. If you don't care what is
said about us, I don't." And she looked up at him with the most
engaging candour.
"I'm only thinking about you, Athalie--"
"Don't bother to, Clive. Pretty nearly everything has been said about
me, I fancy. And, unless it might damage you I'll go anywhere with
you, do anything with you. _I_ know that I'm all right; and I care no
longer what others say or think."
"But you know," he said, "that is a theory which will not work--"
"You are wrong, Clive. Nobody cares what sort of character a popular
actress may have. Her friends are not disturbed by her reputation; the
public crowds to see her. And it's about that way with me, I imagine.
Because I don't suppose many people believe me to be respectable.
Only--there is no man alive who can say of his own knowledge that I am
not,--whatever he and his brothers and sisters may imagine."
"So why should I care?--as long as the public affords me an honest
living! _I_ know what I am, and have been. And the knowledge, so far,
does not keep me awake at night."
She laughed--the sweet, fresh, unembarrassed laugh of innocence,--not
that ignorance and stupidity which is called innocence, but innocence
based on a worldly wisdom which neither her intelligence nor her
experience permitted her to escape.
After a short silence he bent forward and laid one hand on a crystal
which stood clasped by a tiny silver tripod on the table beside her
bed.
"So you did develop your--qualities--after all, Athalie."
"Yes.... It happened accidentally." And she told him about the old
gentleman who had come to her rooms when she stood absolutely
penniless and at bay before the world.
After she had ended he asked her whether she had ever again seen his
father. She told him. She told him also about seeing his mother.
"Have they anything to say to me, Athalie?" he asked wistfully.
"I don't know, Clive. Some day--when you feel like it--if you will
come to me--"
"Thank you, dear ... you are wonderful--wonderfully good--"
"Oh, Clive, I'm not! I'm careless, pleasure-loving, inclined to
laziness--and even to dissipation--"
"You!"
"Within certain limits," she added demurely. "I dance a lot: I know I
smoke too much and drink too much champagne. I'm no angel, Clive. I
won altogether too much at auction last night; ask Jim Allys. And
really, if I didn't have a mind and feel a desire to cultivate it, I'd
be the limit I suppose." She laughed and tossed her chin; and the pure
loveliness of her child-like throat was suddenly and exquisitely
revealed.
"I'm too intelligent to go wrong I suppose," she said. "I adore
cultivating my mental faculties even more than I like to misbehave."
She added a trifle shyly. "I speak French and Italian and German very
nicely. And I sing a little and play acceptably. Please compliment me,
Clive."
But her quick smile died out as she looked into his eyes--eyes haunted
by the vision of all that he had denied his manhood and this girl's
young womanhood--all that he had lost, irretrievably and forever on
that day he married another woman.
"What is the matter, Clive?" she asked with sweet concern.
He answered: "Nothing, I guess ... except--you are very--wonderful--to
me."