"I like the inside of it to-night, all right. But why Alaric?"
"Because it is so early-Gothic, of course. You must appreciate our front porch, Anthony. Oh, youarewet and cold! Hurry and change your things—I have them all laid out—and I will feed you, sir."
So the matter passed for that time, and was forgotten.
Christened Noel, in honor of the day of his arrival, the puppy thrived and grew toward young doghood in a household atmosphere of serene content. From Christmas to Easter the days flowed by in an untroubled current of time. Day after day, Anthony and Elsie Adriance grew into closer and fuller companionship. The winter was a hard and long one, but never dull to them.
THE WINTER WAS HARD AND LONG, BUT NEVER DULL TO THEMTHE WINTER WAS HARD AND LONG, BUT NEVER DULL TO THEM
They found so much to do. In return for his reading to her, Elsie sometimes put out the lamp and in the flickering firelight told him quaint, grotesque legends of Creole and negro lore. Her soft accents fell naturally into pâtois; she was a born mimic, and interspersed fragments of plaintive songs, old as the tragedy of slavery or the romance of a pre-Napoleonic France. Her voice could be drowsy as sunshine on a still lagoon, or instinct with life as the ring of a marching regiment's tread.
She taught him to play chess, too, with a wonderful set of jade-and-ivory men produced from among her few belongings.
"Do you know these must be mighty valuable?" Adriance exclaimed, the first time he saw them.
"I know they are mighty old," she mocked his seriousness. "And I wouldn't sell them, so the rest doesn't matter."
"Tell me about them."
"There is nothing very definite to tell." She regarded him askance from the corner of a laughing eye. "Can you bear the shock of hearing that one of your wife's ancestors was suspected of having secret relations with the notorious LaFitte?"
"Who was he?"
"LaFitte was a pirate and freebooter, sir, who had a stronghold below New Orleans, where the mouth of the Mississippi widens into the Gulf. Many a ship paid toll to him, many curious prizes fell into his greedy hands; and it was whispered that some of these strange, foreign things mysteriously appeared in the house of Martin Galvez. Negroes were heardto tell, with breath hushed and eyes rolling, of a swift-sailing sloop, black of hull and rigged in black canvas, lines, and all. It slipped up the river at midnight and down again before dawn, past all defences, they said—and its point of landing was Colonel Galvez's wharf, ten miles above the city. No one ever knew more than a rumor that ran untraced like the black sloop. But it was said the ivory-and-jade chessmen had travelled by that craft, as had great-great-grandmother's string of pink pearls which are painted around her neck in her portrait. Loud and often her husband laughed at the tales, inviting all who chose to watch his wharf between sunset and sunrise, any night. The chessmen, he declared, were presented to him by a prince of Cairo, whose enemies had betrayed him into the hands of a slave-trader. The Egyptian noble's dark skin and ignorance of Western speech had made him a helpless victim; he faced the final degradation of the lash when Colonel Galvez saw and rescued him. His gratitude sent the pretty playthings. As for the pink pearls, they came from Vienna, by lawful purchase. At least, so the worthy Colonel was fond of relating, with aconvincing detail, over his incomparable French wines and Havana cigars."
"But, what was truth? Which, I mean?" he questioned.
She shut her eyes in droll disclaimer.
"How should I know? The pink pearls disappeared before Josephine Galvez married Fairfax Murray, sixty years ago. The chessmen are dumb. But I know of many an old toy from overseas, around our house still. Nothing of great value! We are as poor as ecclesiastical mice; the family wealth long ago fled down the wind on the black sails of ill-luck. Yes, the Murrays usually held poor hands at cards. Will you move first, or shall I?"
"You," he invited. He looked at her with curiosity. "Why didn't you tell me before that you were a princess in disguise? I never knew you had an ancestor on record, and here you have a procession of them. You're a funny girl."
If you don't like me,Why do you, why do you,Whydo you stay around?
If you don't like me,Why do you, why do you,Whydo you stay around?
She sang the very modern verse to him with a mockery altogether tantalizing; and he upsetall the chessboard in answering her properly.
Little by little he learned a great deal about her home; which, he discovered, had once been the veritable home of the punctilious Maît' Raoul Galvez of surprising memory. He made acquaintance with her parents and her sisters, as Elsie brought before him a living simulacra of each one with her magician-like arts of description and mimicry. There were five sisters, it appeared: Lee, Roberta, Virginia, Clotilda and Nicolette.
"Mother named the first three of us and Daddy the last three," she explained. "Wasn't he right polite to wait so long? Mother is a rebel Confederate up to this minute, while Daddy altogether indorses the North and is a professional delver in romantic history."
"'Elsie' is not historical," he objected, much diverted.
"Oh, my truly name is Elcise; I come before Clotilda and Nicolette. But my grandfather insisted upon calling me Elsie as long as he lived, so in deference to him the first intention was abandoned. Poor Daddy lost one of his turns, after all. It happened very well, though! Elsieis more practical, and I am the most practical member of the whole family circle."
"Really?"
"Why, certainly! Lee married a dramatic poet, who is also the editor of a newspaper," she retorted upon his incredulity. "And one who lets his two vocations interfere with one another! Roberta has been engaged to an army officer these five years. He is stationed in the Philippines, where she is to join him and live in some jungle with him whenever he is sufficiently promoted to marry. Virginia is a beauty, who has the entire college full of young men vibrating around our house; and she declares that she is going into a convent when she is twenty-five. Clotilda and Nicolette are twin babies of eleven years. They still have plenty of time to do anything, you see. We were all perfectly happy as we were, but it became really necessary for someone to relieve Daddy, if only by supporting herself and leaving more for the others. So I began, and went as private secretary and companion with the old lady of whom I have told you. Wasn't that practical? Of course, Lee's husband supports her, usually.
"But the spring that I came away, Daddy had urged him to resign from the newspaper and come home for six months in order to write a poetic drama over which they both were enthusiastic. No one expects it to make much money, but, as Daddy said, we have always had enough for dignified simplicity, and it should be our duty as well as our glory to help Lee's husband to fame."
"Elsie's husband means to support her all the time."
"Oh, I told you Elsie was practical. She married sensibly."
"Should you call it that?" doubtingly.
"Her husband is quite kind to her, you know."
"Well, he is still in love. When that wears off as she grows tired of feeding him, and ill-tempered——?"
They laughed at one another across the hearth. But presently Adriance became serious.
"Elsie, I think that I should write to your father. One does not snatch a man's daughter in this barefaced fashion, without so much as a word to him, in civilized lands. Why haven't Ithought of that before? And I should like to be welcomed into your family, or at least tolerated there. Do you suppose we might visit them, some day when our finances permit? Or perhaps some of my sisters-in-law might come to see us? George, what a time we could have given those girls with some of the money that I had, and haven't!"
His wife leaned toward him, her gray eyes quite wet with her earnestness.
"Anthony, there is nothing in the world that would make me so happy as for you to write home and tell them that I belong to you. I have sohopedyou would think of it!"
"Why didn't you tell me to do so, long ago?" he asked reproachfully.
"Now, how could I tell you a thing like that?"
"Why not?" he wondered, densely.
She made an expressive gesture with her little hands, resigning the hopeless task of explanation.
"Never mind. But I shall be so glad! You see, they do not know that I am married at all. I have not dared tell them, because they have such stately, quaint ideas that they would beprofoundly offended if you did not write yourself. They would consider it a great slight to me. So I have just waited."
He gazed at her in utter marvel at such patience.
"Never do it again," he requested. "Please remember that you have deigned to wed a poor, dull animal who needs your constant guidance. Even yet, I have failed to grasp the delicate point of your not setting me to work at this weeks ago. But bring the writing things and sit beside me as expert critic; we will attend to this before we sleep."
They did so; and were drawn still closer together by the fulfillment of that act of courtesy and consideration which they unwittingly had neglected so long.
The warm, gay intimacy of their life together sank deeper into the fibre of both, as the days went by. They found a comradeship of minds as well as hearts, never failing in novelty and delight to the man.
"I never before had an intimate friend," he said, one morning, with a wondering realization of the fact. "I knew so many people that Inever guessed it, Elsie, but I've been lonely all my life. I can't see how I could be any happier than I am now."
They had just risen from the breakfast-table.
Across it Elsie met her husband's eyes; her own infinitely wise, splendidly happy as his, yet touched with that delicate raillery which caressed and laughed at him.
"Oh, yes!" she dissented. "Yes, Anthony."
Puzzled, he searched her meaning in her shining gaze.
"I could be happier?"
"Yes.Wecould be."
"But——?"
She came around the table and told him the answer, putting her hands into his. She did not speak shyly, but proudly, with frank courage and comradeship.
An hour later, when Adriance went down the long hill to his day's work, he carried himself with a dignity new as the blended exaltation and dread that paled his face. Once he stopped in the snapping March wind to bare his head and draw a full, deep breath, looking up at the bright-blue sky where tufts of white cloud sailed. Althoughthe season was so far advanced, new-fallen snow overlay road and hills, so that Adriance seemed to himself as standing between two surfaces of pure, glinting brightness. His thoughts were only now becoming articulate, yet a sense of final change had settled through him. His manhood had come to full dignity. Now he knew what he had done when he snatched Elsie Murray out of her cross-current of life and took her for himself. He had found love like a jewel on the road; content had reared a shelter for his inexperience. Now, he stood as protector and shelter as long as he should live for the weaker ones who were his. And with responsibility, ambition sprang fully grown to life and challenged him. Was his wife to rank as a chauffeur's wife, and nothing more? Was their child to be reared in that place, and he to give the two nothing better? Anthony Adriance passed his glance, with his father's cold accuracy of appraisal, over the great factory lying far down at the foot of the cliffs, where he himself was awaited to drive a truck.
Presently he went on, down the road. But he went differently.
Adriance had not spent half a year in the mill, even in the limited capacity of chauffeur, without observing many things. He had come to recognize flaws in that smooth-running mechanism of which he was a part. Might he not find in this fact an opportunity? He saw much that he himself, given authority, might do to promote efficiency. He did not delude himself with the idea that he could go into any factory as an efficiency expert; he did see that here he might fairly earn and ask for a salary that would give Elsie more luxuries than she had even known in her own home and more than he himself had learned to desire. After all, there had been no quarrel between his father and himself. When the young man had chosen a course that he knew to be disagreeable to the older, he simply had withdrawn from their life together as a matter of courtesy and self-respect. Since he no longer gave what was expected of Tony Adriance, hecould not take Tony's privileges; now however, knowledge of Elsie had changed the situation. His father had only to meet his wife, Anthony felt assured, for his marriage to explain itself. Even if Mr. Adriance were disappointed by the simplicity of his son's choice and ambitions, even if he preferred the brilliant Mrs. Masterson to the serene young gentlewoman as a daughter-in-law, why should there be rancor between the two men? For the first time it occurred to Adriance that his father might be lonely and welcome a reconciliation. They never had been intimate, but they had been companions, or at least pleasant acquaintances. The house on the Drive had not contained only servants, as now it must—servants who were merely servants, too, not the faithful, devoted, tactful servitors of romance, but the average modern hireling. The house-keeper engaged and dismissed them and was herself a shadowy automaton, who appeared only to receive special orders and render monthly accounts. For any atmosphere of home created in the house, the Adriances might as well have been established in a hotel. Anthony wondered if even Elsie could leaven that densemass of formality, or if her art was too delicate, too subtle a combination of heart and mind and personality to affect such conditions. He could not be certain. He could well imagine her, daintily gowned and demurely self-possessed, as mistress of that household; but he could not imagine the household itself as altered very much or made less stupidly ponderous by her presence. He had not thought of this before, but now he could not think his pleasure would be quite the same if they sat together in state in that drawing-room he knew so well, while she told him the tales he had learned to delight in. It could not be quite the same as a hearth of their own, and his pipe, burning with a coarse, outrageous energy, expressed in volumes of smoke, while Elsie leaned forward, little hands animated, gray eyes sparkling, and mimicked or drolled or sang as the mood swayed them or the tale demanded. He knew that he himself could never read aloud with enthusiasm and verve if Mr. Adriance listened with amused criticism. No, Anthony realized with some astonishment that he did not want to take his wife home.
Nevertheless, the thing must be done. It wasa duty. He could not selfishly continue in the way he liked so well. He must consider Elsie and the third who was to join their circle. He must pick up for them what he had thrown aside for himself.
But he refused to go back to his father like a defeated incompetent to plead for his inheritance. His pride recoiled from the certainty that his father would so regard his return; there must be a middle course. At the great gate to the factory yard he paused to survey again the enormous buildings with their teeming life. In more than one sense this was his workshop.
There was more than the usual hubbub and confusion in the shipping-room when he went down the stone incline to that vast subterranean apartment. The little wizened man in horn-rimmed spectacles, who vibrated around his long platform, checking rolls and bales and boxes as they were loaded into the trucks, had already the appearance of wearied distraction. His thin hair was flattened by perspiration across his knobby forehead, although it was not yet eight o'clock and freezing draughts of air swept the place as the doors swung unceasingly open and shut.Groups of grinning chauffeurs and porters loitered in corners or behind pillars, eying with enjoyment or indifference, as the case might be, the little man's bustling energy and anxiety.
This condition had already lasted two days, like a veritable festival of confusion. Adriance had watched it with the utter indifference of his mates, merely attending to the duties assigned him and leaving Mr. Cook to solve his own perplexities; but this morning he hesitated beside the fiery, streaming little man. The little man caught sight of his not unsympathetic face and hailed him, calling through the tumult of cars, rattling hand-trucks, pushed by blue-shirted porters, and the complex din of the place.
"Here, Andy—you know New York, how long should I allow this man to go to the Valparaiso dock, unload and get back? Three hours?"
"Two," responded Adriance, mounting the long platform beside his chief.
"Can't be done," the chauffeur of the waiting truck sullenly contradicted.
"Why not?"
"You ain't allowing for the ferry runningacross here only every half hour, nor for the traffic over on the other side."
The tone was insolent, and Adriance answered sharply, unconsciously speaking as Tony rather than as Andy:
"You don't know your business when you propose going that way. Go down the Jersey side here where the way is open, and take the down-town ferry, that runs every ten minutes. And come back by the same route."
"Who are you——" the chauffeur began, but was curtly checked by Mr. Cook:
"Do as you're told, Pedersen, and if I catch you at more tricks like that you're fired. You've got two hours. Next! Herman, get your truck loaded and take the same route and time; do you hear?"
"Yes, sir; but——"
"Get out, and the two of you come in together."
"Excuse me, Mr. Cook;" said Adriance, his glance taking appraisal of the second truck; "Herman has a cargo of heavy stuff, he can hardly get it unloaded in as short a time as Pedersen."
The little man turned on him wrathfully.
"Can't? Can't? They've got to get back for second trips."
"Then give him two extra helpers."
Mr. Cook stared at him through his spectacles, then turned and shouted the order. When he turned back he dried his forehead and relieved himself by a burst of confidence.
"There's a lot of stuff to go to South America by the boat sailing at three o'clock. A rush order, and just when we are rushed with other deliveries; and Ransome is home sick.Inever send out the trucks;Idon't know when they should come in or how they should go. I've got all my own work checking over every shipment that goes out, too. It's too much, it can't be done. The chauffeurs are playing me, I know they are. Look at the stuff left over that ought to have been got out yesterday, not moved yet! They tell me lies about the motors breaking down; I know they are lies; why should half the trucks in the place break down just when Ransome is away? But I can't prove it."
"Why not put a mechanic in a light machine to go out to any truck that breaks down, and thengive orders that any man whose truck stops is to 'phone in here at once?" suggested Adriance.
This time Mr. Cook regarded him steadily for a full minute. Seizing the advantage of the other man's attention, Adriance struck again:
"Would you like me to take Mr. Ransome's place for the day? I know both cities pretty well and I know your men. One of the other men can take out my truck; Russian Mike, for instance."
"He can't drive."
"I beg your pardon, he drives very well; I taught him myself this winter."
The little man jerked a telephone receiver from the wall beside him.
"Mr. Goodwin! Cook, sir. I've got a man here to fill Ransome's place for the present; one of our chauffeurs, sir. Oh, yes! Andy—I forget his last name. He's all right, yes. I've got to have help; can't handle the men, Mr. Goodwin. All right; thank you, sir."
He whirled about to Andy. In the brief moments of their talk the congestion had thickened appallingly, and Mr. Cook looked at the disorder aghast.
"Go over to Ransome's box," he snapped; "you're appointed; and I wish you luck! Fire them if they kick, and, you may count on it, I'll back you up."
Ransome's box was on a small pier run out upon the main floor, in such a situation that every vehicle leaving or entering must pass it and report. It was railed around and contained a desk, a telephone and a chair. Adriance slipped off his overcoat and cap as he walked out on the little elevation and took his place. The men lounging about the rooms straightened themselves and stared up at this new arrival. A little improvement in calmness came over the horde at the mere sight of a figure in the post of authority.
The invalided Ransome was missed no more. Opportunity had visited Adriance on the day when he was inspired to seize it and attuned to accord with it. He and his fellow chauffeurs had been very good friends, but only as their work for the same employer brought them together. None of them had been so intimate with him as to feel his present position a slight upon themselves. Indeed, they were a good-natured,hard-working set, whose heckling of Mr. Cook had been as much mischief as any desire to take a mean advantage of the present situation.
There was an authority in Adriance himself of which he was quite conscious, a personal force that grew with exercise. He stood on his elevation, sending out man after man with clear, reasonable orders, noting the distance, the time of departure and the time allowed for the errand of each. He acquainted each man with the new rule concerning machines broken down or temporarily disabled, wisely giving this as an order of Mr. Cook's. When Russian Mike came by with Andy's truck, the big man smiled up at the man on the pier.
"I ain't going to bust her," he assured him; "I guess I'm a pretty good driver?"
"Of course you are," laughed Adriance, leaning down to give him his slip and a hand-clasp by way of encouragement. "You're all right, Michael; take care of yourself and remember what I told you about going slow."
"Sure!" A smile widened the broad lips. "Say, I guess it's a pretty good thing we wasn'tbeing checked up this way when we met that actor lady, yes?"
"Never mind her." Adriance's color rose a trifle. "I am not holding any one down to too close time, either; but this is a rush morning. Go along now."
And Michael placidly went.
The room began to clear before the efforts of the excitable, nervous Mr. Cook at one end and the quiet management of the young man at the other extremity of the place. This was far more exacting work than driving one of those motor-trucks he dispatched in such imperious fashion, Adriance soon discovered. For he did not merely hand each driver a slip stating his destination, as was the custom of Ransome. Under that system Adriance knew from his own observation that hours a day were wasted by the men. Only if a chauffeur outrageously over-staid the reasonable time for his journey did he receive a sarcastic rebuke, which was sufficiently answered by the allegation of engine trouble. The new method was received with astonishment and some scowls, but without revolt. Instead of each truck sent out failing toreturn until the noon hour, two, and even three trips were completed during the morning. There were some complaints, of course. Adriance cut them off in their incipience. He was enjoying himself in spite of the strain.
In the middle of the morning, when the trucks first sent out began to come in again, Cook left his post for a few moments. Adriance did not see him leave, nor did he note that two other men returned with his temporary colleague and remained standing for some time in the shadow of the pillared arcade around the wall, watching the proceedings on the floor. During a lull in the coming and going, when Adriance was sorting his piles of slips, one of these men walked out to his raised enclosure.
"Good morning," the stranger opened.
"Good morning," Adriance absently replied; turning his head and perceiving his visitor to be a frail little old gentleman, he offered him the solitary chair. Of course he knew that his visitor must be connected with the factory, if only from the air of tranquil assurance with which he settled hispince-nezand surveyed the younger man.
"How do you keep all those apart?" he questioned, motioning toward the slips.
"Put them in order on a file as the men go out, then turn the heap over. The first one out should be the first one in," explained Adriance, smiling. "Of course, I have to keep together those who have approximately the same distance to cover. It is a very rough and ready method, I know; but it was devised under the stress of the moment. A row of boxes with a compartment for each truck numbered to correspond would be one better way that occurs to me; but, of course, I am merely a temporary interloper."
"My name is Goodwin; Mr. Cook did not tell me yours——?"
The manager of the factory and his father's associate! It was the purest chance that Tony and he never had met at the Adriance house. But Mr. Goodwin belonged to an older generation than the senior Adriance, his home was in Englewood and he rarely came to New York unless upon business—the great city was distasteful to him. Something of this Adriance recollected after his first dismay, and drewsuch reassurance from it as he might, as he answered:
"My name is Adriance, Mr. Goodwin."
"Adriance?"
"Yes, sir. It is not so odd; I am a distant connection of the New York family, I believe." He had a cloudy recollection of a witty Frenchman who alluded to an estranged member of his family as his "distant brother."
"I see, I see; after all, even somewhat unusual names are constantly repeated." Mr. Goodwin scrutinized the other in the glare of artificial light that rather confused vision. "But, excuse me, you hardly speak like a chauffeur."
"Does not that depend on the chauffeur?" Adriance parried pleasantly. "I hope not to remain one all my life, anyhow."
"Ah—certainly. Mr. Cook asked me to come down and observe the improvement in the conditions here this morning. I am pleased, much pleased. I should have regulated the system in this department before; but these modern innovations press upon me rather fast. I looked forward to retiring, I do indeed," hecoughed impatiently and glanced vaguely over the great room. "However, that is not the point. I should like you to keep this position, Adriance; at least until Mr. Ransome recovers. I hear he is threatened with pneumonia."
"I should be glad to do so, Mr. Goodwin."
"We might use him in the office to better advantage. Well, we will try your system first. Write an order for any filing cabinets or apparatus you deem necessary. Give it to Mr. Cook and I will see personally that all is supplied. This is a critical moment on which may depend a considerable trade with South America. Cook tells me that more goods have been moved this morning than in any entire day recently. We had thought of buying more trucks."
"I think that is not required, sir; I wish you would try my way for a week before doing so, at least. It is only a question of using to the full extent the materials on hand. I fancy new troubles grow up with new institutions, and an outsider may more easily see the remedy."
"Yes? Young blood in the business, you think? Perhaps, perhaps."
Two trucks roared into the place and up to Adriance's post. When he had finished with them and sent them on to Cook's end of the room, he turned back to Mr. Goodwin; but that gentleman, satisfied as to the improved conditions, was already stepping into the elevator to return to his own offices above.
"Seventy-three, the old top is," remarked Cook, running over to pass his fellow-worker a mass of memoranda. "Keen as ever, but not up-to-date, that is all. Here—these to the dock, these to the Erie yards; this straight to the decorator on Fifth Avenue, who is waiting for it—it's a special design landscape-paper for a club grill-room on Long Island. Rush the one to the steamer—Long Island and Buffalo can wait."
"You were mighty good to help me that way," said Adriance. He took the slip, regarding the little man with a glance in which many thoughts met. He smiled at one of these, and his face became warmly kind for an instant and rather startled Cook.
"You helped me out of a scrape by volunteering this morning," Cook answered, a trifleabruptly. "I only asked him to come see how things were going. You are to keep on here?"
"Yes, for the present."
"Glad of it! Ever do this kind of work before?"
"Handling trucks?"
"No; handling men."
Adriance considered.
"Only on a yacht, I think."
A group of four trucks came in. Outside a whistle began to blow; others joined the clamor and a gong clanged heavily through the intermittent shudder of the machinery-crowded building. Twelve o'clock! Cook hurried away to his own men, who had fallen idle with the surprising promptness of the true workmen; and the examination was ended. Adriance foresaw that it would recommence, but he was indifferent. He cared very little how soon his father discovered him, now that he had resolved to seek his father as soon as he saw his way a little more clearly.
He was profoundly gratified and excited by this morning's success. It gave him self-confidence, and it enabled him to ask a share in thefactory's management with something more tangible to offer his father than the mere assertion that he saw improvements to be made. He actually had accomplished something. He would save many thousands of dollars by utilizing the machines on hand instead of purchasing more of the costly motor-trucks, with their expenses of upkeep, additional chauffeurs, and inevitable deterioration from use.
He walked out into the cold, fresh air to glimpse the sunshine and cool his hot flush of satisfaction. He thought of Elsie with a passion of tenderness and triumph. He resolved that he would not tell her of his plans until they were better assured. He must begin to shelter her from excitement or possible disappointment. No, he would not speak of the reconciliation he hoped to effect with his father; not yet. But of course he would tell her of his new position in the factory, and they would exult over it together. Adriance decided he would wait until their dinner was over and cleared away, then he would draw her down beside him in the firelight and astonish her.
There was a little lunch cart across the way,much frequented by chauffeurs, car-conductors and ferry-men. He went there for his lunch, as he usually did when noon found him near the factory. It seemed to him that there was already a little difference in the way the fellow-workers whom he found there treated him. Already they seemed to feel that he was moving away from them—had taken the upper trail, as it were. Indeed, he felt a change in himself not to be denied. It was not arrogance, merely the assurance of a man who sees a definite path before him and follows it to his own end; he had ceased to live from day to day.
But he was quite sure that he would never forget this day. If he had a son he would tell him about this when he reached manhood. And he would be his son's guide to this satisfaction of work accomplished, lest he miss it altogether, as Tony himself so nearly had done. There were to be no worthless Adriances.
By a caprice of chance, it was that day Masterson came; almost at the hour when Adriance, tired and exultant, was rearing a structure of good dreams as he ate his cheap food at the counter of the lunch-cart under the shadow of the huge electric sign bearing his name.
Morning had arrived at noon, when Elsie was called to her front door by a clang of the bell; one of those small gongs favored years ago, that snap with a pulled handle. Down at the end of the straight path she heard laughter and the high-pitched voices of women above the soft roll of an automobile's motor. Surprised, she opened the door.
Before her, on the high, absurd little porch, a man in motoring furs stood and steadied himself by grasping the snow-powdered railing. Confronted by a woman, he lifted his cap, and a sunbeam piercing the old roof gleamed across his close-clipped auburn curls.
"I was told at the little shop that a chauffeur lived here," he explained, pleasantly enough. The glare of the sun on snow dazzled his first vision. "Our compressed air system is out of order, and my man forgot to put in a hand-pump. I——"
His voice trailed away into silence. He had seen her face.
"Elsie?" he doubted. "Elsie?"
She smiled at him with her serene composure, although deep color swept over her face with the startled movement of her blood.
"Mrs. Adriance," she corrected. "Will you not come in? I am sorry Mr. Adriance is not at home."
He crossed the threshold mechanically, his gaze not leaving her.
"I did not believe it," he exclaimed, under his breath. "I thought Lucille—lied."
"Mr. Masterson!"
He shook his head in deprecation of offense, continuing his scrutiny of her. He had the appearance of a man fevered by drink or illness; his eyes were bright behind a surface glaze, his face was haggard, yet flushed. Hisfeatures, always of a fineness almost suggesting effeminacy, had sharpened to an extreme delicacy that promised little for health or endurance.
"They told me a chauffeur lived here," he said, presently.
"Anthony is a chauffeur," she answered, compassion for the change in him making her voice very gentle. "But I am afraid we have no automobile tools to lend. All such things are kept at the factory or in the machine he drives."
He swept aside the subject of automobiles with an impatient movement of his hand, and slowly turned to look over the room.
It had gathered much of comfort during those last months, that room; and something more. Scarlet-flowered curtains hung at the windows, echoing the vivid note of scarlet salvia in bloom on the sills. A shelf of books had been put up; beneath, a small table held the jade-and-ivory chessmen drawn up in battle array on their field. As always, the fire glowed, and on the hearth the cat stretched drowsily. Cheer dwelt in the place, the atmosphere of comradeshipand assured love; and the pulse of it all was the girl who stood, tranquil of regard, rich in life and beautiful with health, princess in her own domain.
At her Masterson looked longest, his handsome, bitter mouth oddly twisted out of shape.
"You're different," he pronounced, finally.
"I am very happy."
"Happy? Here? You married a millionaire's son to live here?"
"I married to live with my husband," she proudly corrected him.
Again he looked around, and suddenly laughed out with an over-loud lack of control that in a woman would have been called hysterical.
"Tony Adriance's house!" he cried, striking his gloved hands together. "Tony—idle Tony, easy Tony, Tony of teas and tangos—Tony has built this! Why——," he bent toward her. "You have been matching work with God, Elsie Adriance; you have made a man!"
She drew back, aghast at the bold irreverence. He laughed again at her expression.
"You think I meant that wrongly? I didnot. I know well enough the way Tony is going, and the way I am. That is if he sticks to this! Are you never afraid he will not! Never afraid he will drift back to the easier ways?"
"No," she affirmed. A shining radiance lighted her confident eyes. She carried beneath her heart that which made Anthony and her forever one. Fear was done with; it no longer, wolf-like, hunted down her happiness.
"No? Do you think he will be content to be a chauffeur on a honeymoon all his life? I'm going to do something decent, Elsie; I'm going to help you clinch Tony Adriance. No, don't protest. I'm going to force my help on you both, wanted or not. Why, you can't keep him out of New York forever! Send him there to-night, to me, and I'll finish what you have begun."
Amazed and dismayed, she retreated from his urgency.
"Excuse me," she began a stiff refusal.
He cut her short with impatience.
"Then I'll leave a message for him. Don't look like that; I only want him to meet me in a public restaurant. Can't you trust me?"
"You do not understand."
"I understand more than you do," he retorted bluntly. "But if I am wrong, no harm will be done. I want to see him, anyhow. Are you afraid of me?"
"No."
"Well, then——?"
He pulled off his gloves and took a card and fountain pen from his pocket. Elsie watched him helplessly as he wrote, chilled in spite of herself by a return of the old dread. What, was she not able to hold Anthony certainly, even now? She tried to look around her, fortifying her spirit with all the prosaic evidences of their united life. After all, Masterson knew "Tony"; he knew nothing of the man Anthony was.
She was able to meet her visitor's glance with her usual calm, when he put the message he had written into her hand.
"Tell him to come," he pressed. "Have you forgotten he and I were friends? And I'll always be grateful to you for loving Holly. Did you know I had lost Holly?"
She paled, the baby face rising before her.
"Lost him! Not——?"
"Dead? No. I'm the one who is dead, to borrow a bit of slang."
His laugh was bitter as quassia; he turned his head toward the sound of the automobile horn that summoned him.
"A dead one!" he repeated. "I have to go, Mrs. Adriance. But send Tony over, to-night."
The door closed on the last word. Elsie heard the high, rather strident voices of the women calling salute and impatience; then Masterson's reply set in a key of strained merriment. The motor roared under the chauffeur's hand. They were departing; evidently a means of inflating the tire had been found.
The peace of Elsie's day had departed with them. The alteration in Masterson frightened her; the strangeness of his manner and of his invitation filled her with anxiety. Something was wrong; something she could not guess or understand. Why should he have spoken so of Holly? Why, too, did he want Anthony this night?
Was Mrs. Masterson to be one of the party at the restaurant? That idea came later. The mere possibility of such an event fixed Elsie'sdecision; she would not send Anthony to the meeting desired. She would let Masterson's accidental visit pass unnoticed.
But when evening came, and with it Adriance, ruddy with the March wind, boyishly hungry and gay; when he took his wife in his arms and kissed her with the deep tenderness that the morning had added to their first love, Elsie knew better. Better any misfortune than the barrier of deceit between them. And she remembered in time that it was not for her to deprive him of his right of decision and free-will.
She waited until supper was eaten and the blue-and-white dishes shining in their rack again beside the ten-cent-shop china.
"Shall we go on with our book?" Adriance proposed, when his pipe was lit. Now that the moment had come, it pleased him to dally with the surprise he held for her, to prolong his secret content. He stretched luxuriously in his arm-chair. "Lord, it's good to get home! Funny I never cared much about books until we took to reading aloud, isn't it? Come over and settle down. I think we'll turn in earlyto-night, if you don't mind, girl. I want to do some extra work, to-morrow."
She came to him rather slowly.
"Mr. Masterson was here to-day," she said reluctantly. "He came by chance, to borrow something for his automobile. I think it was a tire-pump. Of course he was surprised to find me. And he left this for you."
Astonished, he took the card, pulling her down beside him; and they read the message together. It was very brief, yet somehow carried a force of compulsion. Masterson urged his friend to go that night to the ball-room of a certain restaurant known to every New Yorker, and there wait until he, Masterson, joined him.
There was a pause after the reading. Adriance stared at the card with the knitted brow of perplexity, while Elsie watched his face in tense suspense.
"It would be too late, now, anyway," she murmured, tentatively. "It is eight o'clock."
Adriance aroused himself and laughed.
"Oh, innocence! That ball-room does not open until eleven, fair outlander. But you hadbetter get ready, for we have a quite respectable distance to go. Here vanishes our quiet evening!"
"We? You would take me?"
He regarded her curiously.
"Did you suppose I would go without you? We will have to go, because Fred means this; I know him well enough to tell. I'm afraid he is in some kind of trouble."
Elsie shut her eyes for a moment, mastering her passionate relief. She opened them to a new thought.
"Anthony, I haven't any clothes, for such a place."
"Neither have I," he calmly dismissed the matter. "We will go in street costume. It doesn't matter, since we do not want to dance. By the way, can you dance?"
"Certainly."
"The new dances?"
"Some of them," a dimple disturbed her smooth cheek. "Not the very new one."
"Well, I'll teach you. But you will only dance with me," he stated with finality.
Absurdly happy in the jealous prohibition, she went to make ready.
Elsie Murray had possessed one dress that Elsie Adriance never had worn. It was a year old, one brought from her distant home, but so simply made that its fashion would still pass. It was an afternoon, not evening gown; a clinging, black sheath of chiffon and net, covering her arms, but leaving bare the creamy pillar of her throat. The cloudy darkness echoed the dark softness of her hair and threw into relief her clear, health-tinted beauty of complexion. When she wore it into the room where her husband waited, he greeted her with a whistle of surprise and pleasure.
"Some lady!" he approved. "What did you mean—no clothes? Have I seen that before?"
"No. Do you like me this way?"
He put his hands on her shoulders, looking down into her eyes.
"Of course. But don't you know it doesn't matter what you wear or have?" he asked. "We have got away beyond that, you and I."
They walked to the ferry; two miles through the cold darkness. But they found the journeya pleasure, not a hardship. Elsie had taught Anthony her art of extracting amusement from each experience. On the ferryboat, they had sole possession of the deck. "Mollycoddles," Elsie called the passengers who huddled into the cabins. The wind painted her cheeks and lips scarlet, as she leaned over the rail to hear the crunch of drift ice under the boat's sides. The two evoked quite a sense of arctic voyage, between them. Anthony gravely insisted he had seen a polar bear on one tossing floe. They were happy enough to relish nonsense; and more excited by the coming meeting and place of meeting than either would have admitted.
It was eleven o'clock when they entered the revolving door of the restaurant appointed, and faced a group of lounging attendants in the lobby; cynical-eyed servitors, all. Tony Adriance was recognized by these with a vivifying promptness; at once he was surrounded, addressed by name, had officious service pressed upon him. It was strange to the girl to see him so familiar in this place where she never had been; strange, and a little disquieting. But her grave poise was undisturbed. She left her simple hat and coat with a maid, aware of their unsuitability for the place and hour.
They did not enter the crowded room to their right, where an orchestra was overwhelming all other and lesser din with a crashing one-step. Instead, Anthony turned up a shining marble stair with a plush-cushioned balustrade and too much gilding. Elsie viewed herself beside him in mirrors set in the wall at regular intervals.
The stairs ended at an arcaded hall, beyond which lay a long, brilliant room, comfortably filled with people at supper. Filled, that is, according to its arrangement: the entire central space of gleaming, ice-smooth floor was empty, the tables were ranged around the four walls. The guests here wore evening dress, for the most part, so that the room glowed with color, delicate, vivid or glaring, as the taste of the owner dictated. Here there was comparative quiet; the voices and laughter were lower in pitch than down-stairs.
"Is Mr. Masterson here?" Anthony questioned the head waiter, who hastened to meet the arriving couple.
"Not yet, Mr. Adriance," the man answered deferentially. "At twelve, he comes. May I show you a table, sir?"
"Yes. Not too near the music—Mrs. Adriance and I want to hear each other speak."
"Certainly, sir. The drumwillbe loud, sir; but the dancers like it."
Elsie caught the man's side glance of respectful curiosity and interest directed toward herself, and understood why Anthony deliberatelyhad fixed her identity as his wife. Pride warmed her, and love of his consideration for her; suddenly she was able to enjoy the scene around her. She felt no self-consciousness, even when the elaborately gowned and coifed women glanced over her appraisingly as she passed by their tables. She looked back at them, serenely sure of herself. She was not at all aware that many of the men stared at her with startled admiration of a visitor alien to this atmosphere. Adriance saw well enough, however. Elsie had an innocent dignity of carriage that, joined with her gravely candid gaze, was not a little imposing. Moreover her pure, bright color and clear eyes were disconcertingly natural beside the artificial beauties. Pride of possession tingled agreeably through him; he had not thought of this or expected the emotion.
When the two were seated opposite one another, the regard they exchanged was of glowing content. Adriance ordered supper with the interest of appetite and with a fine knowledge of her tastes and his own. Then, at ease, they smiled at each other. The extravagance of the feast was of no moment. The utter simplicityof their daily life made Anthony's salary more than sufficient; they already possessed the resource of a bank account.
So far, there had been no music, except faint echoes from the room below. Now a tinkle of strings sounded delicately, swelling from a single note into a full, minor waltz melody. Turning, Elsie saw the musicians. They were negroes; not a band or an orchestra, merely a pianist, two men with mandolins and as many with banjoes, and one who handled with amazing dexterity a whole set of sound producers; a drum, cymbals, bells, a gong, even an automobile horn. From one to another instrument, as the character of the piece demanded, this performer's hands and feet flew with accuracy and ludicrous speed. But the music was more than good, it was unique, inspired; it snared the feet and the senses. All round sounded the scraping of chairs pushed back, as men and women rose to answer the call. In one short moment the place changed from a restaurant to a ball-room.
It was such a ball-room as Elsie Adriance never had glimpsed in either her Louisiana orrestricted New York experiences. The women were costumed in the extreme fashions of a year when all fashion was extreme. As the dancers swayed past in the graceful, hesitating steps of the last new waltz, there were revelations;—of low-cut draperies, of skirts transparent to the knees, with ribbon-laced slippers jewelled at heel and buckle glancing through the thin veil of tinted chiffon or lace. The scene had an Oriental frankness without being blatant or coarse. At the tables there was much drinking of wine and liqueurs, but as yet no apparent intoxication. Some of the women who were not dancing smoked cigarettes as they chatted with their companions; not a few of these had white hair and were obviously matrons, respected and self-respecting.
"What do you think of it?" Adriance inquired, after watching his wife with mischief in his eyes.
"I don't know," she slowly confessed. "You know, I am an outlander. But I am not so stupid as to misunderstand too badly. These people are—all right?"
"Yes; most of them. This is the after-theatrecrowd. Some are from the stage, some from the audience. That lady in green chiffon who looks as if she had forgotten to put on most of her clothes is the wife of one of my father's business associates. Did you see her husband bow to us as we came in? The little black-eyed girl in the black velvet walking-suit, at the next table, is La Tanagra, who does classic dances in a yard of pink veil. She is a very nice girl, too. Of course, some of them——" He shrugged.
The music stopped. Through a press of laughing, flushed people returning to their tables, a waiter wound a difficult passage with the first course of the supper Adriance had ordered.
Guests entered the room in a thin, constant stream, as the hour advanced. But there was no sign of Masterson. Elsie wondered what he would say on finding her with Anthony. Would he be angry, indifferent, disconcerted? Perhaps he would not come alone.
A sharp, imperious clang of cymbals rang out abruptly, hushing the murmur of voices and laughter. Elsie started from her abstraction,and saw all eyes turned toward the centre of the room.
"Demonstration dance," smiled Adriance. "Now you'll see something!"
A short, dark man and a woman in yellow gauze through which showed her bare, dimpled knees, stood alone on the floor. At a second clang of cymbals they floated with the music into a strange, half-Spanish, half-savage dance; a dance vigorously, even crudely alive and swift as a flight. The woman was not beautiful, but she was incredibly graceful. Her small, arched, flashing feet in their gilded slippers recalled a half-forgotten line to Elsie.
"'And her sandals delighted his eyes——'" she quoted aloud. "Do you remember that, Anthony?"
But Adriance was laughing at her.
"Infant!" he mocked. "Wait until you've seen it as often as I have, and then you will not let your supper grow cold. There, it's over!"
It was. The dance ended with the dancers in each other's arms, glances knit, lips almost touching. The applause was courteous. The audience, like Adriance, was too sophisticatedto be readily excited. It really preferred to do its own dancing.
The preference was gratified during the next half hour. One-step, fox-trot and a Lulu Fado followed in smooth succession. The room was very full, now. One or two parties began to show too much exhilaration.
"I wish Fred would come," Adriance remarked, with a restive glance at the noisiest group. "I don't want you to be here much after midnight. I wonder——"
He was interrupted by a second crash of brazen cymbals that struck down the chatter and movement of the crowd. With the harsh, resonant clang, and continuing after it had ceased, came the soft chime of a clock striking twelve.
This time a more decided interest greeted the announcement. In fact, a distinct thrill ran through the room. Men and women abandoned forks and glasses, turning eagerly toward the entrance. A marked hush continued in the place.
"Some celebrity," Adriance interpreted, impatiently. "Confound Masterson's whims—whycouldn't he have seen me at home? Now he can't get in until this is over."
The music had commenced—a tripping languorous ballet suite from a famous opera. Into the large, square arch of the doorway a girl drifted and stood.
She was a sullen, magnificent creature, as she faced the audience. Her full, red mouth was straight-lipped, returning no smile to the welcoming applause. It was not possible to imagine a dimple breaking the firm curve of her rouged cheek. Elsie thought she never had seen a woman so indisputably handsome, or so utterly lacking in feminine allure. Heaps of satin-black hair framed her face and were held by jewelled bandeaux; her corsage was dangerously low, retained in place by narrow strings of brilliants over her strong, smooth, white shoulders. Her skirts were those of the conventional ballet: billows of spangled rose-colored tulle. As she began to dance, her eyes, very large and dark behind their darkened lashes, swept the spectators with a sombre alertness. Elsie felt the glance pass across her and rest on Anthony. Yes, rest there, for an instantof fixed attention! But Adriance showed no change of expression to his wife's questioning regard; he watched the dancer with a placid interest, without evincing any sign of recognition.
It was a curious dance, as singularly stripped of womanly allure as the girl's beauty. Yet it was graceful and clever. She bent and swayed through the measures, circling the room with a studied coquetry cold as indifference; posing now and then with a rose she lifted to touch lips or cheek. The audience looked on with a sustained tension of interest that the performance did not seem to warrant. Elsie noticed that the men laughed or evinced faint embarrassment if the dancer leaned toward them, but the women clapped enthusiastically and sent smiling glances. What was it that these people knew, but which she and Anthony did not? There was something——
Just opposite the Adriances the dancer had slipped in executing an intricate and difficult step. She staggered, catching herself, but not before she had reeled heavily against Elsie's chair.
"Pardon!" she panted, her voice low. "The floor is too polished!"
For a moment her eyes looked full into Elsie's, and they were not dark, but a very bright blue. The brush of her naked arm and shoulder left a streak of white powder on the other's sleeve; a heavy fragrance of heliotrope shook from her garments. Before Adriance could rise she was gone.
"Confounded clumsiness!" he exclaimed, with suppressed anger. "Did she hurt you, Elsie?"
"No. Oh, no! Anthony, I know her—I knew her eyes."
He stared at his wife.
"You know her!"
"I recognized her eyes. I do not know who she is, I cannot think; yet I know her. She knew me, too; I saw it in her face. And I believe she knows you."
"Elsie!"
"She looked—— Wait; she is finishing!"
The music was indeed rising to a finale. The dancer glided to the central arch through whichshe had entered, poised on the verge of taking flight, then raised both hands to her head.
The black wig came off with the sweeping gesture. The dancer was a man, whose short-clipped auburn hair tumbled in boyish disorder about his powdered forehead. But there was no look of boyhood in his face, as he turned it toward Adriance's table; the familiar, reckless face of Fred Masterson.
The room was in an uproar of laughter and applause. But the dancer disappeared without acknowledging or pausing to enjoy his success; indeed, as if escaping from it.
When Elsie ventured to look at her husband, he had one hand across his eyes. He dropped it at once, but avoided her gaze as if the humiliation were his own.
"Finish your coffee," he bade, his voice roughened by a dry hoarseness. "I want to get out of this—to get home."
"We have not spoken to Mr. Masterson," she hesitatingly reminded him. "He asked us to meet him."
"I suppose I have seen what he wanted me to see."
The waiter was beside them again, checking her answer. It seemed to Elsie that the man eyed Anthony with a furtive and malicious comprehension. Had he ever seen Tony Adriance with Mrs. Masterson, she wondered? Did he imagine—she thrust away the thought.
"After all, dear, aren't we prejudiced?" she essayed, unconvinced and unconvincing reason. "Isn't it really as if he were an actor?"
"No, it isn't! You know it's not. It isn't what he does that these people applaud; they applaud because he does it. He succeeds by making a show of himself, his name, his position. The grotesqueness of his being here succeeds, not his work. Well—are you ready?"
"Yes," she answered, submissive to his mood.
He paid the check, and they passed out. Elsie recovered her hat and coat from the maid, in the dressing-room below. She was too preoccupied to notice the attendant's inquisitive scrutiny, or the frank stare of a fair-haired girl who was making up her complexion with elaborate care before one of the mirrors. It would not have occurred to her, if she had, that wordhad passed down the staff of servants that the quiet girl in black was Mrs. Tony Adriance. But without knowing her own plain attire had the reflected lustre of cloth-of-gold, she was too feminine not to embrace with a glance of faintly wistful admiration the furs, velvets and shining satins of the wraps left in this place by the other women. No preoccupation could quite ignore that array. There was one coat of gray velvet that matched her own eyes, lined with poppy-hued silk that matched her lips. A trifle dismayed by her own frivolity, she hastened out from the place of temptation. Anthony was waiting for her.