Semicircles of weariness hollowed Robert Osterhout's eyes as he opened the door and entered Mona's room. It had been a hard night for him. Memory had been delicately dissecting his nerves. Striving in vain to lose himself in his experiments he had turned, early in the morning, to his communion with the dead woman. The letter, that pitiful solace for the unremitting pain of loss and loneliness, was in his hand now as he closed the door behind him.
" ... As for Pat," he had written, "she is one of those born to trouble the hearts of men and to take fire from their trouble. Of the tribe of Helen! If I could see her safely married—— Safely! As if there were any safety in marriage! Not under our present system. Look at Connie. Though, for that matter, my misgivings about her and Cary Scott seem to have been misplaced. That flame has flickered out. She will perhaps settle down from sheer inertia. But hers is hardly what one would call a safe or successful marriage. Dee's may be better. Not that she is specially in love with James. But her training at sports will stand her in good stead. She will go through with it. Dee is first and last a good sport. Nevertheless, I sometimes wish she had waited for the really right man, if there be any such for her.
"Mona, there are times when I could believe in trial marriage, with suitable safeguards, of course, against children. If I were a philosopher instead of a medical man I should certainly favour the system. But my technical training prejudices my judgment. Of course, we dohave trial marriages, and commonly; or trial alliances, which is the same thing without the same name. If the truth were known I suppose that most men who marry the second time, marry their mistresses. How many other experiments may previously have gone into the discard as having proved unsuitable, is another question. Selection of the fittest. The notion that men never marry the women who give themselves is fictional cant, one of those many falsities which society propagates under the silly delusion that they are safeguards of virtue.
"What an experiment it would be to bring up a young girl in an atmosphere clear of all the common lies and illusions! You had begun to do it with Pat, I think. I wish that I could carry on. But it is too blind a venture for a worn and uncertain bachelor like myself. Nevertheless, when Pat does put questions to me I give her the truth. And she has a flair for truth. An enquiring and pioneering sort of mind, too, which would be a fine equipment if only it were trained and disciplined. As it is, it is a danger. She will explore, and exploration, with her temperament—Pat ought to marry some man much older than herself; a man of thirty at least, clever enough to understand her, patient enough to bear with her caprices, and strong enough to compel her respect. He could make something real of her, for there is essential character in Pat. Or is it only the charm of her personality that makes one think so? I could wish that Cary Scott were not married. Though, of course, he is too old for her. He takes a great deal of interest in her and has much influence over her mind; but his interest is not that kind of interest, naturally. He has been talking to me about her; very shrewdly, too. He thinks her of the dangerously inflammable type. I fancy that she has been making a confidant of him. He thinks that I should talkto her plainly. I feel rather alarmed at the prospect; the modern flapper knows so formidably much!"
Opening the safe to add this letter to the accumulating pile in the centre compartment, Osterhout was conscious of a subtle and troubling impression. He felt that some alien hand had intruded there, some alien eye had seen those words, so sacredly confidential, sealed in the inviolable silences of death. Yet that, he knew, was impossible. No one in the world except himself had the combination of the safe. Could Mona herself, Mona's spirit, returning to the room she had so loved and so permeated with her personality, have entered there to absorb the essence of the confidences which she had demanded of him? But if that were so, why should he feel that sense of invasion, since the letters belonged more to Mona than to him? Nevertheless, the thought was a blessed appeasement to the thirst of his heart. He clasped it to him. But presently his underlying materialistic hard sense reasserted its ascendancy. He set it all down to imagination; smiled tolerantly at himself for a sentimental self-deluder.
For a long time Pat did not come to pay him the expected visit. But the day before her return to school she appeared in his laboratory.
"Bobs," she announced pathetically, "I've got a sore throat."
"Let's have a look at it," he directed, leading her to the window.
She tilted back her face, while he explored the recesses of the accused organ.
"Sore throat, eh?" he remarked. "At least your mouth is clean, which is more than could have been said of it a year ago. You've got a breath like a cow."
"'Snice," purred Pat. "I'm a good little dieter. But what about my throat?"
"Well," answered the physician judicially, "it might be diphtheria or it might be scarlet fever, butIthink it's that guilty feeling that comes of telling lies about itself. Your throat is no more sore than my pipe."
"I know it isn't," admitted the unabashed Pat. "But I'm kind of wrong inside. Way-way inside, I mean."
"The patient must be more specific if the physician is to be of use."
"Bobs, am I a fool?"
"I suppose so. Most people are."
"Am I a dam' fool?"
"As to degree we come to a consideration of definition which——"
"Mr. Scott thinks I am."
"Hello! Who's making this diagnosis? Cary Scott, or you, or I?"
"Do you think I ought to go to college?"
"Too late. You couldn't get in now, thanks to that infernal, mind-coddling, brain-softening school of yours."
"It isn't! I love the school. They let you do whatever you like."
"Which is, of course, the best possible course for a finished product like you."
"Oh,well! Who cares? I don't."
"Then why come to me?"
"I don't think I'm getting everything out of—of things that I might," said Pat plaintively.
"That's the beginning of wisdom. Why this divine discontent? Have the movies begun to pall?"
"Oh,haveyou seen Doug Fairbanks in his last? He'stooflawless."
"Evidently they haven't begun to pall. If I could be assured of its being his last I would gladly go to see the too-flawless Doug. But my dull artistic appreciationsdo not rise above Charley Chaplin. But we wander. We were discussing your way-way inside, weren't we? Why its sudden discomposure?"
"I thought you could tell me. You know so much, Bobs. I'm getting bored with the things I used to like. I think it's talking with Mr. Scott. He's so different, and he makes the rest seem dull."
"Yes; Scott is a bit of a prig," said Osterhout with intention.
"He isn't!" flashed Pat indignantly. "He's the best dressed man at the club. Jimmie James says so." As the physician smiled at this naïve refutation she added: "Well, a man can't be a prig and look the way Mr. Scott always does, can he?"
"Obviously not."
"It's only because he's been about the world so much and knows such a lot about music and art and books and—and things."
"Well, you've had the advantages of a liberal and ladylike education yourself. Kindred spirits. Don't fall in love with Cary Scott, Infant. Remember he's a married man," smiled Osterhout.
"Fall inlovewith him? Why, I'd as soon think of falling in love with you! He's old enough to be my grandfather! But I think he's awfully good for me," she added naïvely. "Don't you love to talk with Mr. Scott, Bobs?"
"Oh, I justadoreit!" simpered the doctor, clasping fervent hands.
"Now you're laughing at me," she pouted. "He's always laughing at me. That doesn't help much."
"Sometimes it does, Bambina. It might even teach you to laugh at yourself."
"I do that, too. And sometimes I cry at myself. All night."
"Do you?" He scrutinised her. "At your age? What do you cry about?"
"Just about myself. Because nothing seems worth while except—except queer things."
"That's morbid. Or else it's a pose."
"It isn't a pose. I even don't like school as much as I did. Bobs, I want to leave after this term. D'you think if you went to Dad you could talk him into letting me?"
"Much more likely that you could. What's your plan? Launch yourself socially on a waiting world?"
"Don't be spit-catty; it doesn't suit you. No; I want to come back home and run the house for Dad and have some fun. I've been taking domestic science, and I know I could do it better than Con. She'd be glad to be rid of the bother, anyway. I thought I'd work at music, too. Do you think I could do anything with my voice, Bobs?"
"Don't ask me. Any crow knows more music than I do. I think it would be good for you to tackle anything steady and regular. It would keep you from being too introspective."
"Nice Bobs, to give me all the big words for nothing! That means that I think too much about myself, doesn't it? I know I do. And I talk too much about myself, too. I came over here just to talk about myself and to get you to talk about me," she confessed simply. With an air of considered maturity, she added: "It isn't much fun for me to talk to boys of my own age. They're always wanting to tell you about themselves, or else to make love to you. Generally it's love-stuff."
"Indeed! Do you go in much for that particular indoor sport, Pat?"
"Oh, it isn't all indoors. There's porch swings, and limousines; all that helps. Are you shocked, Bobs?"
"I'm interested. The habits of the young of the species are bound to be interesting to a scientist."
"You said something when you said 'habits.' Everybody does it. Didn't you when you were young?"
"It's so long ago that I've forgotten. But I don't think my sisters did. Not promiscuously."
"If they did you'd be the last one that knew about it," the sapient Pat informed him. "And I hate the word 'promiscuously.' Besides, it isn't true. I don't. Not any more."
"Great grief, Infant! You talk as if you'd been at this sort of thing for uncounted years!"
"I've been over twelve for some time, you know," she observed lightly.
"Perhaps it's as well that you reminded me. You seem so permanently young to me. However, speaking medically, I should say cut it out, Infant. Cut it out for good. It's no good for you. It's no good for any young girl; but particularly not for you."
She knitted her pretty brows at him, thinking it through. "I get you, Stephen," she said presently. "Though I'm not so different from other girls, only a little more so than some, maybe. But you're right. Sometimes I've felt like a nervous wreck. I wish that I didn't know so much about myself. Or else that I knew a little more."
"You know quite enough. At any rate you spend quite enough time thinking about yourself. Where do you suppose all this leads to, Pat?"
"I don't know. Lots of time to think about that, isn't there? I suppose I'll get married and have a lot of kids some day. I like kids."
"It would probably be the best thing for you."
"Do you think so? But I'd be a rotten wife, Bobs," she added, a cloud settling down upon her expressive face. "What kind of a training have I had to marry and have children to bring up?"
"About the same as most of your set, haven't you?"
"Yes; and look at them! There isn't one of them that's true to her husband."
"Great Lord, Pat——"
"Now, Ihaveshocked you."
"Yes, you have. Not the fact—though it isn't a fact so sweepingly—but that you at your age should know it or think it."
"Oh, I don't mean necessarily that they go the limit. But they're all out for a flutter with any attractive suitor that comes along. Bobs, tell me something; if a married woman goes necking around isn't she more likely to—to go farther than a girl is?"
"Depends on the individual. It isn't the safest of pastimes for anyone, as I've suggested to you."
"But it's such fun to make 'em crazy," returned the irrepressible Pat. "Only," she added pensively, "it isn't such fun when you feel kind of crazy yourself. Yet it is, too. When I get married I'm going to everlastingly settle down and never look sideways at any other man. Bobs, what makes you think I ought to marry a man thirty years old?"
"It's about the right age for you. It will take a man of some wisdom and self-control to manage you, little Pat."
"More grandfather stuff!" she muttered fretfully. "I don't want to marry a settled old thing. I want someone with some fun left in him."
"Two or three years from now thirty won't look so senile."
"Probably not. Dee's marrying a man over thirty. Bobs, do you like Dee's engagement?"
"No; I don't," he answered, and straightway wished that he had not been betrayed into that frankness.
"Neither do I. Jimmie James thinks he's first cousin to the Almighty. Dee won't stand for that."
"She seems devoted to him."
"Oh, she'll see it through. Dee's a good old girl. But I wish she wouldn't. Have you told her what you think about it?"
"Certainly not!"
"Well, don't bite me. Would you have if she'd asked you?"
"Perhaps. I doubt it."
"I'd have thought she'd have come to you. Dee's awfully impressed with you, Bobs. Lots more than I am. Would you tellmeif I came to you?"
"Of course."
"Why the difference, I wonder? Never mind, old dear. I'll make you a promise right here that I won't marry anyone without your consent. Only, you'll have to give your consent if I want it very much, you know. Won't you, Bobs?"
"Probably," he said.
She waved him a kiss and was gone. He returned to his interrupted task.
In the midst of a test which should have absorbed all his attention a sudden query jarred itself into his brain. How had Pat known that he thought it desirable for her to marry a man of thirty? Certainly he had never told her so. He had never told anyone so. Except Mona.
Consciousness of virtue warmed Pat's heart as she jumped from the train at Dorrisdale and sniffed the shrewd October air with nostrils that quivered like a kitten's. She had been working hard at school, ever so much harder than there was any real need for, on her music and domestic science, and now she was to enjoy some deserved recreation. For this was the week of Dee's wedding and she had five days of unmitigated gaiety in prospect. She peopled her plans with the figures of those who were to be participants of and ministers to her pleasurings, nearly all of them, it is significant to note, of the masculine gender. There were the local youth of her own "crowd," with half a dozen of whom she had "had a flutter" more or less ardent, in the last year; the out-of-town contingent whom she had long known from the viewpoint of childhood and upon whom she aspired confidently to try her burgeoning charms; and two or three unknowns who were to be of the wedding party. Cary Scott had a place in the mosaic, too; but not an overshadowing one. The easy effacements of time, so potent upon a youthful mind, had dimmed, though they had not erased, his image. She was expectant of livelier excitements than association with him afforded. Nevertheless there was an abiding feeling of assurance in having him for a secure background: she looked forward happily to being approved by him for having worked so hard, much as a playful puppy looks for a tidbit as reward of a trick cleverly performed. Furthermore she had a surprise in store for him.
"What's doing to-night?" was her first question of Dee, after their greetings.
"Dinner-dance at the Vaughns'."
"Everybody going to be there?"
"All that are on hand. Some of the party aren't here yet."
"Who's back of my crowd?"
"Selden Thorpe, Billy Grant, Monty Standish; he was asking to-day about you."
"That stiff!" commented Pat, doing a pirouette. "No more pep than a jumping-jack."
"Neither would you have if you'd been brought up in a bandbox. But he's begun to lift the lid and look around. And he's a winner to look at."
"Maybe I'll have a shot at him. Dee, I'm out for trouble this trip. I've been being good so long it hurts."
"You look it; the trouble-hunting, I mean," commented the elder, appraising her maid-of-honour. "They ought to put a danger signal over you, Pat. Where do you get the stuff that you work on the men? Your features are nothing to hire out to an artist, you know. And yet——"
Pat laughed delightedly. "Aren't they? Well, you and Con have got enough cold and haughty beauty for the family. Being a bride is becoming to you, Dee. You look stunning."
Indeed, Dee's clean-cut, attractive athleticism seemed to have taken on a new quality. Her eyes had grown more brilliant; there was a higher glow of colour in the clear skin; but a more analytical observer than Pat might have discerned in the little, straightening lines at the corners of the firm, sweet mouth, a conscious effort at nervous control.
"Oh, I'm all right," said she, carelessly. "When's Cissie coming?"
Cissie Parmenter was the Philadelphia schoolmate whom Pat had adopted as "b.f." "To-morrow night. You're a peach to let me have her. What'll we do with her Wednesday, Dee? Only the actual wedding party are asked to the Dangerfields', aren't they?"
"That's all. I'll get Cary Scott to run her in town for luncheon."
"Isn't Mr. Scott one of the ushers?"
"No. He and Jimmy aren't very strong for each other. I'm using him as my general utility man for the show. Dad's no good for that, and Bobs is too busy."
"Cissie'll be all fired up about Mr. Scott. I've told her about him."
"Did you tell her he was married?"
"Of course. You don't think that would cramp Cissie's style, do you? She'll show him some thrill if he gives her half a chance. Not that he's too brisk a pacer, himself. How's his little flutter with Con going?"
"All off," answered Dee, laconically.
"Does Con miss it much?"
"No. She's having a mild whirl with Emslie Selfridge. He's safer."
"Safer than Mr. Scott? Couldn't be. I think Scottie invented Safety First."
"Do you?" returned Dee drily. "Well, you've still gotsomethingto learn about men, Infant."
"I've got something to teach 'em, too," laughed Pat impishly. "Will he be there to-night?"
"Who? Cary? No; he's in Washington. Gets back to-morrow noon."
This suited Pat well enough for her projected surprise. It went with her temperament that she should have a taste for dramatic effect. Assuming that Mr. Scott would report himself at the house shortly after hisarrival, she planned to keep the early afternoon free. Watchful at her window, on pretence of taking a nap, she saw his car come up the drive and hurried down to the music room where she seated herself at the piano and began to strum casually, taking up the accompaniment of a song as he entered the front door. It was sketchy and sloppy, that accompaniment, the performance of a jerry-trained hand, but it served as background to the fresh, deep, unforgotten voice, which met his ears and checked his footsteps.
"If love were what the rose isAnd you were like the leaf."
"If love were what the rose isAnd you were like the leaf."
"If love were what the rose isAnd you were like the leaf."
"If love were what the rose is
And you were like the leaf."
She completed the stanza, conscious, through her woman's sense, of every slow step that brought him nearer to her. All the falsity of method, the cheap trickery of intonation which had been coached into her for the song, could not wholly devitalise the velvety passion of the voice. As the final word died away she whirled about.
"Mr. Scott! I didn't knowyouwere there."
"Didn't you?" He smiled down into her eyes with that quietly ironic look of his which seemed to mock at himself as much as at that to which it was directed, taking her outstretched hand. "I'm glad to see you, Pat. But—didn't you?"
"You know I did," she confessed. "I was singing at you. Did you like it?"
"Yes."
Unsated of her lust for praise, she persisted: "Don't you think my lessons have done me good?"
"Have you been taking lessons?"
"Certainly I have. You told me you wanted me to. I've been workingterriblyhard."
"How hard?"
"A whole hour, some days. Or pretty nearly."
"Thatistoil! Under whom?"
"One of the teachers at school. She'sverygood."
"A professional?"
"She used to sing in a choir. She says," Pat dropped her voice impressively, "there are lots of voices on the stage not as good as mine."
"Doubtless."
"I wish I knew what you mean when you say that, that funny way," she said pathetically. "I think you're awfully queer to-day, anyway." Her manner changed from petulance to pleading. "Do you think I've got a terrible lot to learn before I could try?"
"Try? What?"
"Going on the stage."
"I think you've got everything to unlearn," he said calmly.
Silently she gazed at him. The tender upper curve of her lip quivered. She turned back to the piano, jangled a discord which was intended to be a sad and melting harmony, and told her little, feminine lie in a muffled voice:
"And I did it all on your account, too."
"Were you going on the stage on my account?"
Around she whisked again, jumped from the seat and went to him, her face alight. "That's what Iadoreabout you. You never let me put over any bunk. What makes you so awfully clever about girls, Mr. Scott?"
"Not clever at all," he disclaimed. "I'm simply being honest with you. And," he supplemented, "hoping that you're one of those rare human beings with whom one can be honest successfully."
"Oh, I am," she averred fervently. "But you simplysmearedmy feelings. I thought you were going to be perfectly thrilled and I get no come-back at all! Don't you like my voice even a little bit any more, Mr. Scott? You did, before."
"There's a quality in it that—that—— But what's the use! You won't do any honest work with it."
"You don't think I'm any good at all, do you?" she said peevishly.
"We were talking about your music, weren't we?"
"Ah, but I've done a lot besides music since I saw you. And I've been fearfully good and proper. Aren't you proud?"
"Of you? Very," he smiled.
"Of your influence." She took a fold of his sleeve between finger and thumb and idly pleated at it, keeping her intent gaze fixed there. "Nobody's ever had half so much over me. I've always done exactly what I liked and never done anything I didn't like."
"It's a delightful world, isn't it, Pat? But sometimes those things have to be paid for."
At this she raised her eyes, thoughtful and honest eyes, now a little shadowed. "I've always known that. And I'll always be ready to pay. Whatever else I may be, I'm not yellow, Mr. Scott. I'll take what I can get, and if there's a—a come-back, I'll take that, too."
"Yes. You've got courage.Ça se voit.That sees itself." He had dropped unconsciously into the emphatic French idiom.
"Does it? How can you tell? You don't know me so well."
"No; I don't."
"Yes, you do," she contradicted him and herself. "I think you know me better than anyone ever has." Again she let her glance fall.
"I know that you will face whatever comes, unafraid. That is in your face. No; it's in the way you bear yourself. In any event, there it is."
"But you did hurt my feelings. Terribly! I thought you'd like my music—and maybe pat me on the head—and say 'Nice little girl'—and give me a kiss and a stick of candy." She slipped her fingers down to his wrist, let them creep to the palm of his hand where they clung. "Say you're glad to see me again, Mr. Scott," she murmured.
"Very glad."
"But"—she tilted her face toward his, turned it away, whispered—"I don't think you act so—very."
His free hand clamped strongly, friendlily down upon hers for a moment, then released it with a tap. "Are you trying to flirt with your grandfather, Pat?" he mocked.
Not for the first time in their intercourse Pat said savagely, "I hate you!" But this time she said it to herself, with the wrath of disappointment and shamed uncertainty. She turned to take her music from the piano. It fluttered from her grasp to the floor whence he retrieved it. Pat's heart gave a bound of exultation. She had seen his hand shake as it held the sheet out to her.
"Wouldn't Grandpa like a dance with Granddaughter this evening?" she challenged gaily.
"As many as Granddaughter can spare from her little playmates."
"Come early then and avoid the rush," she advised. "I'll keep what I can out of the wreckage. Now I must send Dee down to you. She's got a million things for you to do."
The million things proved exacting enough to keep Scott in town so long that the dance was well under waywhen he reached it. Pat passed him on the floor, floating beatifically in the arms of this or that partner, never for more than a few turns with anyone, for the rush was on for her favours. After dancing contentedly enough with such partners as he could pick up, for several numbers, Scott looked about to see whether there was any hope of his cutting in on Pat, but failed to find her on the floor; so, as the rooms were rather close, he wandered outside to smoke a cigarette. The soft carpet of the lawn tempted his tired feet. He strolled around the house, intending to re-enter by the far end of the vine-shrouded piazza, when, turning the corner, he came abruptly upon a couple deep in shadow which did not prevent his making out that they were close-clasped. Noiselessly though he stepped back he saw the girl's face strain back in attentiveness. Pat's startled eyes peered after him in the dark, unrecognising.
Cary Scott swore. Then he laughed. The laughter was more bitter than the curse.
Miss Cissie Parmenter strolled down the broad stairs at Holiday Knoll, looking neither to the left nor the right. She was freshly painted with considerable taste, and arrayed with such precision and perfection that she would have suggested a handsome and expensive species of toy but for the sleepy and dangerous eyes which were as profoundly human and natural as the rest of her was delicately artificial. In their depths one could surmise volcanic possibilities. She was small, daintily made, and languid of movement, not without a hint of feline strength. Though her regard was apparently fixed upon far-away things, she had at once observed the man in the library.
"You're Mr. Scott, aren't you?" she said in a cool and lazy voice, advancing with hand outstretched.
"Yes." He took the hand. "And you're Miss Parmenter?"
"Yes; I'm Cissie. You know, Mr. Scott, I'm a social outcast for the afternoon."
"It wouldn't strike one as having weighed on your spirits."
"Buoyed up by the prospect of meeting you. Aren't you appalled at having a total stranger on your hands all afternoon?"
"On the contrary, I'm thrilled," he returned with the conventional answer.
She let her slow gaze sweep over him estimatingly. "You're not a bit like I figured out," she murmured, having decided upon the direct-personality gambit, as promising the best and promptest returns.
"No? Well, youth survives these disappointments."
"Fishing," she retorted. "No; I shan't tell you how much nicer you are than the prospectus. What are you going to do with me?"
"Whatever you permit."
"Oh, have a care of yourself! That might take you far. But I can decide better after eating. Where do we go for that?"
"How would the Ritz do?"
"Music to my ears. Can you get a cocktail there?"
"I think it might be managed, confidentially."
"That'll do nicely for a starter."
"A starter? I see. And for continuance?"
"I'm feeling a little down to-day. What would you prescribe?"
"I've heard that that medicine with bubbles in it possesses a self-raising quality."
"From now on you're my family physician. But I'm sinking rapidly."
He contemplated her curiously. "Believe me, Miss Parmenter, I don't want to spoil sport before it begins, but—how old are you?"
"Twenty-one. Beyond the age of consent—for drinks. It's all right; I know how to say 'when' to a bottle. And I'm not so old but that you might call me Cissie if you like. I think it would help pass the time."
"And as I'm still short of forty, I suppose, on the same principle, you'd better call me Cary."
"How nicely you play back! And Pat told me you were slow; nice, but slow."
At the mention of Pat's name a little surge of anger and contempt went through Scott's veins. But he answered lightly: "I'm a plodding old party, it's true. But I domy best. Now, as to practical details I'm afraid that the Ritz would draw the line at champagne."
"That's a blow."
"But I bethink me that there's a locker at a Country Club up toward the frozen north that I have entry to, if that isn't too far."
"If you'd said Albany it wouldn't be too far for me."
"What would be too far for you, Cissie?"
She gave him her eyes, alight with gleams of mirth and appreciation. "Don't let me stop you," she laughed. "There are days when my brakes need re-lining. Let's go!"
Throughout the drive, Cissie alternated between urging her companion to put more speed on the car, and light, slangy, clever, suggestive chatter about theatres, athletics, movies, and the sort of thing that fills the society columns of the daily newspapers. At the luncheon she drank two cocktails, half of the pint of champagne which was all that she would permit to be provided, and then declared herself fit for life again. "What'll we do now?" was her way of putting it.
"What time do they expect you back?"
"Five sharp. So, of course, I shan't be there. I never am. Play golf, Mr. Scott?"
"Just an average game, Miss Parmenter."
"All right, Cary; I'll take you on for twenty on our handicaps."
"You bet fairly high, don't you?"
"Yes; and what's more, I pay up when I lose. If the bet isn't good enough, just to make it more interesting, I'll throw in the odds of a kiss if you win. Do you know anyone here who'd loan me a pair of shoes?"
That matter being arranged, Cissie, playing with cool precision, proceeded to beat him by three and one.
"Now I'll have a highball, please, and we'll trail for home," she directed. "We won't be more than an hour late if you hit it up with that hearse you drive. Are you going to claim the loser's end of the purse?"
"The loser's? Oh, I see. But I thought that was the winner's."
"Don't fall all over yourself with unbridled enthusiasm," she jeered. "You've got to give three more rousing cheers than that to wake me up."
"Just at present I'm busy with the car. But to-night is coming. What dances will you give me?"
"The lucky numbers. Seven and Eleven. Aren't you flattered?"
"Almost as much flattered as I am delighted."
She twisted in her seat to confront him. "Cary Scott, you're a good bluffer, but it doesn't go with me. You haven't fallen for me one little bit!"
"I? Like an avalanche," he protested. "I find you as charming as you are—startling."
"Ah, that startling stuff; you know what that is, don't you?"
"I'm not sure that I do."
"I'm showing you my line; that's all."
"And now I find you bewildering. Be kind to the stupidity of one who has not yet become fully acclimated to his own amazing country."
"Yes; anyone could tell that you don't fully belong with us. You see, every girl has her special line to show, nowadays."
"Like a commercial traveller?"
"You've said it! It's whatever is supposed to fit her personality best. You go to a character reader—there's a wiz in Carnegie Hall, who lays you out a complete mapfor twenty-five dollars—and she sizes you up and lays out your line for you."
"Is this line, perhaps, equipped with a hook?"
"Eh? Oh, sure!" Cissie laughed. "Hook and bait. Yes; it's a fish-line, all right."
"And what is your specialty?"
"Haven't I shown it plain enough? It's the lively and risky with just enough restraint to lead 'em on. I'm supposed to have passionate eyes, you know."
Scott laughed aloud. "I like you, Cissie."
"It's about time!" she exclaimed. "You haven't, up to now. And I've been working pretty hard on you."
"That's very shrewd of you. I mean it, this time. It's realler than the thing we've been playing at."
"Good man! It's mutual. You can have the kiss if you want it, just for liking."
"But you'd rather I wouldn't."
"Andthat'svery shrewd ofyou. You're right; I like you that much ... Cary, I don't wonder Pat's batty over you."
"Pat? You're quite wrong."
"And I'm wrong in thinking you're crazy about her, I suppose."
"Equally."
"Pat's line," remarked the astute Miss Parmenter thoughtfully, "is the Minnesota shift up to date; all tomboy, you're-another, take-it-or-leave-it one minute, and the next you know she's a clinging vine and you're it. She can do it with those wonderful eyes and that throaty, croaky, heart-breaky voice of hers. It knocks the boys cold. And I'd think it would be just the line to catch an old—a man of the world like——"
"An old man like you, you started to say," prompted Scott. "No occasion for embarrassment on my account."
"Don't fool yourself by thinking that age makes such a difference to girls, these days. They think it does at Pat's age, but a couple of years more makes a big diff. Most of the boys I used to be crazy about look like sapheads to me now. They're too easy. There's more pep in experience; and," remarked the youthful philosopher, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Pat's a pretty wise kid, at that. She isn't all 'petite gamine.'"
"Evidently she has no secrets from you," said Scott, vexed.
"We're b.f.'s, you know. I suppose you think Dirty Me for trying to cut in on her with you."
"I don't know that I'd thought of it at all."
"Now we're very old and stately," said the girl with mischievous alarm. "It makes us coldly dignified to be teased.... Heavens! Are we home already? Good-bye, and thank you for a corking afternoon. See you to-night."
She waved him a farewell, but reappeared as his car came back around the curve at the side of the house. "Don't forget the lucky numbers, Cary," she called, in her high, sweet drawl.
"No danger," he answered, wondering just why she had come back to say that.
He understood when, in the hallway back of Cissie, he caught sight of Pat's surprised and frowning face.
"The little devil!" he chuckled. But, he thought the moment after, was Cissie playing her own game, or Pat's?
Within doors Pat rushed the tardy guest upstairs and followed into her room.
"Do hustle," she said crossly. "You're gumming the game."
"Hustle is my ancestral name," stated Cissie. "I'm right in high to-day."
"I'll bet a bet you are," was the reply with a tinge of bitterness in it.
Miss Parmenter's pleasantly decorated face took on an expression of innocent frankness. "What ever made you tell me that your Scottie man was slow? I think he's a winner. I've fallen for him like—like an avalanche."
"You can have him. But where do you get that Cary stuff you were working?"
"Start a bath for me, will you, Mike? Oh,that. He asked me to. We're awful pals. Just like that." She crooked her two perfectly manicured little fingers together
Pat grunted.
"You know you told me to go as far as I liked,dee-rie."
"Well, you did, didn't you?"
"Oh, not half," cooed the b.f. "He's going to drive me back home after the wedding."
"That won't break up my summer!" shouted Pat, from the bathroom, above the seethe of the foaming faucets.
She felt a definite sense of injury, not against Cissie so much as against Mr. Scott, who represented, to her annoyed mind, a defection on the part of her own presumptive property. Had Cissie really lured his interest away? Or had he lost interest in her, Pat, anyway? Upon this point her misgivings were allayed by calling to mind the tremulous hand with which he had recovered that sheet of music. Yet he had resisted the lure of her touch, the mute offer of her lips. Accustomed to the potency of physical appeal upon men, she felt at a loss. True, what had drawn her to Scott had been his enjoyment of that in her which underlay the surface, his capacity for appreciating in her qualities and potentialities which she herself felt only dimly and doubtfully when the influence of his presence was remote. Yet that he should find herattractive on this side, while holding himself under restraint against her more direct advances, puzzled and discouraged her. Especially if he were, in fact, embarking upon a whirl with Cissie Parmenter. Pat knew Cissie's methods—or thought she did. In truth she decidedly underestimated the b.f.'s acumen as well as her adaptability to various kinds of camaraderie.
Pat determined to make herself extra-specially attractive to Mr. Scott that evening at the dance.
Unfortunately to be extra-specially or even ordinarily attractive to a person, you must first draw that person within the radius of attraction. To Pat's discomfiture Mr. Scott evinced no interest whatsoever in her; barely any cognisance of her existence and presence at the dance. With the other girls in the wedding party he had early dances, to their obvious satisfaction, for in some occult way, though not of the party proper, he had come to be a central figure of interest. He was deemed "unusual," fascinating, "relieving"—a word which had recently come much into vogue in that set. Cissie Parmenter had been exploiting him.
The party was notable for its pretty girls; but Pat, though on the score of actual beauty she was far behind in the running, glowed among them with her dark, exotic radiance, like a flame among flowers. She was beset with admirers competing for such fractions of dances as they could get. Every man in the room had been a suppliant except Mr. Scott. In that atmosphere of adulation Pat seemed to become more quiveringly, femininely, alluringly alive. She exhaled delight, like a perfume of her ardent soul. Yet in all the excitement of her pleasures, she was waiting and hoping and manœuvring.... Twice Cary Scott had danced with Dee; three times with Connie, who was her old, lovely, wistful self for the occasion; Pat didn'tfeel any too comfortable about that. Once he had danced with Cissie, and once sat out with her on the piazza; and Pat didn't feel at all comfortable about that. Here it was the twelfth dance and he hadn't come near her. Between two numbers she caught sight of him just outside a door, and then and there deserted a lamenting partner.
"MisterScott!"
He turned, and, in spite of himself, felt his breath quicken. She was so superb in the sure luxuriance of her youth; so appealing in the poise of her body, the turn of her head.
"Having a good time?" he asked courteously.
"Gorgeous!" she said mechanically, "Who you taking in to supper?"
"Your very charming little friend, Miss Parmenter."
"Oh!" said Pat. "That's terribly nice of you. If it weren't for you," she added viciously, "I'm afraid Cissie'd be having a dull time."
"I haven't noticed that she's had many dull moments," he answered, smiling slightly.
Pat stamped her foot. "Then you've been watching her all the time. I think you might have——" She choked a little.
"Night air too much for you, Pat?" he inquired solicitously.
"No; it isn't....Aren'tyou going to ask me for a dance, Mr. Scott? You didn't last night, either."
"Surely your programme is already full to overflowing."
"It is. But I might do some shifty work with it."
"Thoughtful of you. But you would doubtless find it more amusing to sit out, or perhaps I should say stand out, the later dances in some remote nook with some attractive youth." He was speaking quite slowly and softly. "I might even say ... any attractive youth."
She moved closer to him, with puzzled eagerness in her eyes. "Won't you please tell me what you mean?"
"Consult your memory," he suggested. "Surely it will go back for twenty-four hours."
Illumination came to her. "Was it you who came around the corner last night?"
"It was."
Pat's eyes fell. But there was a light in them which he would have found hard to interpret, harder than he thought her next plaintive, exculpatory words: "It's been so long since anyone has petted me."
"And you require a certain amount of petting to keep you up to form," he remarked with cold contempt.
"You've got themeanestway of speaking," she muttered, before making direct response. "Well, if nobody ever pets you, you get to feeling like a social leper; as if nobody cared about you. That's a ghastly feeling."
"I'm sure you're quite competent to guard yourself against it."
"Well, you wouldn't pet me," she said very low, "when you'd hurt my feelings. In the music room."
"How very remiss of me!"
Her attitude changed. Her boyish shoulders straightened. Her firm little chin went up. "How much did you see last night?"
"Sufficient to suggest that I was in the way."
"Were Monty and I clinched?"
"Quite so."
"And you went on right away?"
"Naturally."
"If you had stayed," she said calmly, "you might have been of some use. Monty was pickled. He was just going to crash when I grabbed him."
"Is that true, Pat?"
She met his searching look with unwavering eyes, her nostrils wide with pride. "Do you think I'm so afraid of you—or of anyone—that I'd lie about it?"
To look at her and disbelieve was impossible.
"Besides," she added, her voice breaking a little in self-pity, "I told you I was through with that necking game."
"How do you want me to apologise, little Pat?"
Her unerring instinct for the charming, the compelling move inspired her. "I don't want you to apologise. I want you to dance with me."
"Any and all that you'll give me—and with all gratitude and contrition."
"I'll filch out two; the fifteenth and the fifth extra. You must be watching. And—about supper—couldn't you?"
"No. Not possibly. How could I?"
She smiled, ruefully yet with a shining quality in her disappointment. "Of course you couldn't. It wouldn't be you if you did. I don't care—now."
Until the fifteenth number Scott did not return to the ballroom but wandered outside in dreamy and restless expectation. What he expected, he could not have told. He was conscious chiefly of an enormous relief in the discovery that Pat had not gone back on her good resolutions. But this was only part of what he felt. The callowest sophomore could hardly have found himself more eager or less certain of his ground, than did Cary Scott, man of ripened wisdom and wide experience of women though he was, as he entered to claim his appointment.
"But I tell you, Monty," Pat was saying to a tall and particularly handsome youth who stood before her, programme in hand and a look of almost ludicrousdisappointment on his face, "you've made a mistake. You've mixed your dates with cocktails."
"I told you last night I'd stay off it," muttered the youth, "and I've done it. And now you're throwing me down."
"Oh, come around later," said Pat carelessly. She slipped into Scott's arms, whispering:
"Don't letanyonecut in." After a few turns she continued: "Do you know it's ever and ever so long since we've had a dance together."
"It might be a thousand years in its effect on you. You were almost a little girl then and I—what was it you called me?—your wise and guiding friend."
"Aren't you that now? You must always be," she returned quickly. "And for me only. Do you like Cissie, Mr. Scott?"
"Immensely. She's charming."
"Better than me?" challenged Pat.
In the measure of the dance he caught her close to him for a moment and felt the little, excited access of laughter which ran through her body like a tearless sob. "What do you think?" he queried.
Her cheek fluttered against his. "Then that's all right," she breathed.
"You dear!" whispered Scott. He felt himself losing his head; told himself that this was inexcusable foolishness, unfair, unworthy, sterile trifling with evil chance. Yet he lacked the force to draw back.
"Would you mind very much," asked Pat deprecatingly after a pause, "if I renigged on the fifth extra?"
"Indeed I should! Unless"—he tried for a light tone—"there's some special reason for it, such as that you don't want to give it to me."
"Oh, I want toterribly. But I'm in such a mix-up and that dance would straighten me out ... I thought perhapsyou'd wait and take me home. I'm going quite early; about three. Will you?"
"Yes."
"We'll walk through the lawns; it's only three minutes. Watch out for my signal."
She was giving him orders as one with a proprietary claim. Scott thrilled to it. He would not let himself think to what it was leading. His mind was absorbed in the delight of her, that dark radiance of personality, the sweet compulsion of her charm. He would have waited all night, though a little time before he had thought himself beginning to be bored. It did not seem long when he saw her coming toward him, her wrap over her arm.
"Quick!" she directed. "Or there'll be a howl about my leaving. I'm not even going to say good-night."
Then they were in the autumn-spiced darkness together, her arm linked in his. It seemed quite natural that her fingers should slip into and twine themselves about his palm.
"Isn't it a grand little world!" she chuckled softly. "I've had such fun to-night."
"You're a wonderful little Pat," he replied unsteadily.
"D'you really think I'm wonderful? Sometimes I think so myself. Other times"—she hunched her shoulders in a gesture peculiar to her—"I think I'm just like everyone else."
"Like no one else in the world."
"Because no two people are alike, of course. I'd hate to be exactly somebody's twin.... You're that way, too. You don't remind me of anyone I've ever seen. Most men do."
They had come to a gate which resisted Pat's attempt, being locked. "Oh, very well!" she said, addressing it, "I'll just climbyou."
She attained the top, agile as a cat. But in gettingdown she tore her frock. "Oh, hell!" she cried lamentably. "Are you shocked, Mr. Scott? You don't like me to swear, do you?"
"I like you to be your very self, Pat."
"It's easy to be that with you. You're an easy person to be with," she meditated.
She stopped under the shelter of a small arbour spanning one of the sideyard paths of Holiday Knoll. Clematis in full glory covered it. The faint, rich odour of its late blossoming, dewy and fresh and virginal as if the aging year, after all its fecund maternity of summer, had again put forth its claim to imperishable maidenhood in the blooms, enveloped them. She turned upon him the slant challenge of her eyes from beneath the clouding mass of hair.
"Do you truly like me," she wheedled, "better than Cissie?"
As if the words were torn from the depths of him and forced through his constricted throat, he answered:
"I'm mad about you."
"Oh-h-h-h-h," she crooned, and there was both dismay and delight in the sound. "I didn'twantyou to say that."
"I didn't want to say it," he muttered. "I didn't mean to say it."
He stared intently before him; his brain felt numb. There was an appalled sense of inner catastrophe, wholly unforeseen, inherent in the impossible situation.
"Oh, why did you have to go and say it?" she wailed in childish resentment. "It spoils everything."
He made no reply. Her intonation changed, became daring and seductive. "It's just a—a—sort of fatherly interest, isn't it?"
"No."
"Now you're angry. But it ought to be."
"Do you want it to be?"
"No, I want it to be—as it is. Yet I don't."
He gathered himself together. "I'm sorry, little Pat. Suppose we agree to forget it."
"I won't," she mutinied. "I don't want to forget it."
"I do," he said moodily.
"Then I won't let you."
Slowly she lifted her hands and held them out to him. The finger tips were icy cold to his clasp. He could hear her quick, unsteady breathing.
"Pat! Little Pat!" he whispered.
A smile blossomed upon her curved mouth, tender, tremulous, persuasive. She swayed forward, lifting her face, half closing her eyes.
With the gasp of a man whose last strength of restraint is shattered, he enfolded her, crushing his lips down upon hers.
Only the one long, slow kiss in the breathless silence, and all the world forgotten in its ecstasy.
Then Pat pressed herself gently back from him, looked eagerly, curiously, triumphantly into his face, and stood clear.
"My God, Pat!" he groaned. "I didn't mean to do that."
"I did," she said.
From the roses drooping below her breast she detached a bud, crushed to a perfumed splotch of colour in the fierce pressure of their embrace, and held it out to him.
"Keepsake," she breathed. "It's red, red, red. It's the colour of life. My colour. Pat's colour. Good-night, Mr. Scott."
"Mister" Scott! After that fusion of lips and longings.
Insistent jangling of the telephone woke Scott next morning at the club. He was prepared for the rough sweetness of Pat's voice in his ear.
"Is that you, Mr. Scott? Aren't you up yet? Lazy!"
"Good-morning, little Pat. What time is it?"
"I did wake you up, then. It's terribly early—for me. Only nine. Aren't you surprised to hear me?"
"Not a bit."
"Oh! You expected me to call up. Boasting, aren't you? I didn't intend to call you."
"But I intended to call you. What changed your mind?"
"Oh, I don't know," she said evasively. "I woke up early myself, and I suppose I felt lonely. When are you coming out?"
"Just as soon as I can get there."
Her soft, elfin chuckle was the reception which this announcement got. "Quick, then! I want awfully to see you now. And I might change my mind later."
Throughout the hurried processes of dressing while he breakfasted, Scott strove to quiet and command his thoughts, to find some clue to this tangle of passion wherein he had become ensnared. Incredible that he should so have lost himself, after the warning of the earlier experience. She, too, had been carried beyond her depth by a feeling presumably uninterpretable to her inexperience; so he believed. True, she had been through sentimental encounters before, by her own admission, but he too fatuously assumed that these were of minor andtransient import, that it had remained to him to awaken her. "Boasting," Pat would have said.
She was awaiting him in the music room. "I thought you werenevercoming," she sighed. "But the others aren't up yet." She half lifted her arms, expectant, enticing.
"Wait," said he.
She gave him a quick glance, puzzled, apprehensive, a little angry. "You're going to scold me. It was all your fault."
"Absolutely. If there is anyone to be scolded it's I."
"Itwasn't," she declared with one of her vehement and point-blank reversals. "I did it." Her face took on its most impish expression. "Bad bunny! I don't care."
"I care," he said evenly. "More than I could have believed it possible to care. I love you, Pat."
"Oh, no!" she protested. "I didn't want you to say that."
"What did you expect?" he demanded, taken aback. "Did you want this to be just a cheap and easy little flirtation—a flutter, as you call it?"
"No-o. I didn't want it to be that. I wanted you to—to like me. But why did you have to saythat?"
"As a justification. No, not quite that; nothing can justify me. But as an excuse, not for myself, but for you."
"For me? I don't understand."
"Think, Pat." His voice was very gentle.
Her dark, delicate brows drew down in concentration. "Yes; I think I do see. You mean you would not have kissed me that way without—without thinking a lot of me."
"I mean that I should not be here now if I were not deeply and wholly in love with you."
"And you're telling me to keep me from feeling ashamed of myself."
"Yes. There is nothing shameful in my feeling for you, inexcusable as it is."
"I think," she pronounced slowly, "you'rethemost divine man I've ever met."
"Oh, no," he refuted bitterly. "Just a weakling. But I give you my word, dear love, if I could have foreseen this I would have gone to the farthest corner of the earth rather than have it come about."
She lifted startled and wondering eyes to his. "Why?"
"You know how things are with me, Pat. You know I'm not free."
A lively interest animated her expression. "Oh, yes. Though I've never thought of it much. Tell me about your wife."
He winced. "What is there to tell?"
"Tell me what she is like? Is she dark or fair? Are you very much in love with her?"
"Pat!"
"Well, you must have loved her or you wouldn't have married her, would you? Doesn't she care for you?"
"I will tell you this much," he said after a pause. "We are completely estranged. But as she is still my wife in name and likely to remain so, I cannot discuss her. Not even with you."
"Oh, very well!" Pat's familiar imp had taken possession of her face again. "It's none of my business, of course."
"That is not quite fair of you, is it?"
"Of course it isn't." She caught his hand, pressed her cheek down into it, and was violently crushed into his arms, her mouth quivering beneath his kiss.
"My God, how I love you!" he groaned.
This time she accepted it. "Do you?" she crooned. Releasing herself she drew him over to the divan, where she snuggled close to him. "I believe you do. It seems so funny. But I don't see that it makes much difference, your being married."
"This difference; that it's all wrong, and unfair to you, and only means suffering later on."
"That isn't what I meant." With lowered face she plucked nervously at his coat sleeve. "I mean—suppose you were free; you wouldn't want to marry me, would you?"
"Good God, Pat! I want it more than anything else in the world."
"Little Me?" she crowed in delight. "That seems awfully funny. You're so—so different, and you know so much, and I don't know anything." She pondered the matter. "If I was ten years older, or you were ten years younger I think it would bethrilling! But of course there's nothing in that," she added briskly. "You're married and that's settled. Am I acting like a rotter?"
"I am," he answered hoarsely. "I'm sorry, little Pat. I've been a beast. But I think I've got your point of view, now. It's rather a shock—but there won't be any more of that kind of love-making from me."
Like a little, lithe tigress she pounced upon him. "There will!" she panted rebelliously. "I want it to be so. I love to have you pet me."
"And I haven't even the strength to resist that," he muttered. "I love you so."
"Then you must be very nice to me all the rest of the party, and I'll save out as many dances as I can for you, and you can take me home again to-night. Couldn't you come back a little while this afternoon, late?"
"I'd go anywhere in the world and give up anything in the world for a moment with you, Pat."
"Then be here at five o'clock. All the others will be dressing or bathing or gabbling. We'll have the place to ourselves again. Aren't I nice to you, Mr. Scott?"
"How can you call me Mister, after this?"
"I don't know," she said pensively. "It seems more natural. But I suppose Icouldcall you Cary. Cissie did. I was furious at her."
"No need. There's no room for anyone else in my heart or thought but you."
"But you're going to run her over to Philadelphia in your car."
"Am I? I hadn't heard about it."
"Aren't you? What a liar Cissie is! Then you're going to run me over when I go back to school. Will you?"
"Of course. But what will the family think of all this?"
"Nothing. I'm only the Infant to them. If they did think anything about it it wouldn't make any special difference. They'd think it was a lovely joke."
"You mean even if they knew that I am in love with you?"
She gave him a glowing glance. "They'd say, 'Little Pat's gone and snared herself a real live man.' You don't know this family." Suddenly she drew away from him, jumped to her feet, and darted to the door, where she stood smiling and poised. "What's it all coming to, anyway?" she laughed.
What, indeed? Scott put the question to himself, but in no spirit of laughter.
Toward womankind Cary Scott had much of the continental attitude. Since the separation from his wifeand the freedom of action which it implied, he had played the game of passion, real or counterfeit, in sundry places and with sundry partners, always married women hitherto, and always within the code as he interpreted it. But there remained in him enough of the American to inhibit him from the thought of a purposeful siege upon a young, unmarried girl of a household wherein he was a professed friend. Besides, he loved Pat too well, he told himself, to harm her.
It was incredible; it was shameful; it was damnable; but this child, thispetite gamine, this reckless, careless, ignorant, swift-witted, unprincipled, selfish, vain, lovable, impetuous, bewildering, seductive, half-formed girl had taken his heart in her two strong, shapely woman-hands, and claimed it away from him—for what? A toy? A keepsake? A treasure?
What future was there for this abrupt and blind encounter of his manhood and her womanhood?
He could find no answer. But of one fact he was appallingly certain: that all the radiance, the glamour wherewith he had surrounded the figure of Mona, all the desire which the soft loveliness, the reluctant half-yielding of Constance had inspired in him, were merged and submerged in the passion that had swept him into Pat's eager and clinging arms.
To what bitter and perhaps absurd end? For he was bound, and she hardly more than a playful child. He recalled her strange look as she had left him. What might one read in it? A glow of possessiveness? A gleam of bright mockery? Or the undecipherable Sphinxhood of the woman triumphant who knows herself loved?