NocturneThe moonlight slips in silence through the bars,The iron bars which lend a strange romanceTo my wide windows, open to the stars,Which, like gold fire-flies, imprisoned, danceCaught in the dark mantilla of the Night;That flowing veil of jewelled, enchanting laceFrom careless, faery finger-tips flung lightTo veil the tropic Moon's pale, ardent face.My windows give on gardens dim, a-gleamAnd freshly fragrant with night-growing things,On gardens where the sleeping flowers dreamTill, cradled on the errant wind's cool wingsTheir little souls are wafted to far lands,While all their dreams like incense, float and riseTo where some garden goddess with white hands,Gems with bright dew her nurslings' sleep-kissed eyes.In shadowed groves, with brilliant moon, blood-stained,A bird is sobbing for a distant star,In golden longing for the Unattained....While at some window, pleading, a guitarTouched by brown fingers, throbs in serenade.And still the moonbeams fling a silvern dart,Straight through my window's iron barricade....Thus Love steals, silent, to the prisoned heart,And, smiling, with a mockery divineSlips softly to some unguessed, secret shrine,To set the Altar Fires flaming high!
Nocturne
The moonlight slips in silence through the bars,The iron bars which lend a strange romanceTo my wide windows, open to the stars,Which, like gold fire-flies, imprisoned, danceCaught in the dark mantilla of the Night;That flowing veil of jewelled, enchanting laceFrom careless, faery finger-tips flung lightTo veil the tropic Moon's pale, ardent face.
My windows give on gardens dim, a-gleamAnd freshly fragrant with night-growing things,On gardens where the sleeping flowers dreamTill, cradled on the errant wind's cool wingsTheir little souls are wafted to far lands,While all their dreams like incense, float and riseTo where some garden goddess with white hands,Gems with bright dew her nurslings' sleep-kissed eyes.
In shadowed groves, with brilliant moon, blood-stained,A bird is sobbing for a distant star,In golden longing for the Unattained....While at some window, pleading, a guitarTouched by brown fingers, throbs in serenade.And still the moonbeams fling a silvern dart,Straight through my window's iron barricade....Thus Love steals, silent, to the prisoned heart,And, smiling, with a mockery divineSlips softly to some unguessed, secret shrine,To set the Altar Fires flaming high!
I closed the drawer—spent, unsatisfied. The thingwas halting and superficial. It did not seem possible that there were people who could find release in words, or peace in beauty.
I had not reread Richard Warren's letters since my marriage. And this was a night I dared not read them, for all that my resolve weakened. For, in some inexplicable way, he had become very real to me—in Cuba. And I knew that he could not be anyone save himself, could not be anything save strong and fine and understanding.
I took my trouble into Peter's room and sat with it for a long time, by his bedside. But it was Dawn, before, in my cool, deep alcove, I had ceased tossing and slept.
CHAPTER XI
A week slipped by before we returned the Howells' call. Then, one brilliant morning, I drove with Bill into Havana and together we transacted some embarrassing monetary business at the bank. After which I expressed a desire to go shopping. The sidewalks were quite impassable: so narrow that, for the most part, the pedestrians, unhurried, strolled in the hardly wider streets. The shops held me, fascinated. And I was not a little annoyed at the manner in which Bill conducted my purchases—here a gorgeous feather fan, there a piece of lace: and in another spot a deadly and lovely bit of Toledo workmanship, executed with rare finesse on the hilt of a stiletto. Yet, I too, was determined not to return to Green Hill without a trunk laden with gifts for my dear people there. Once, I slipped away from my husband, who was deep in conversation ... of a political nature, judging from the volubility of the shop-keeper who engaged his attention ... and, entering a store some five or six houses away, I tried out my absurd and garbled knowledge of Spanish, with terrifying results. For the little lady who guarded the delicate linens flooded me with such an impressive flow of wholly unintelligible syllables, that, baffled, I beat an ignominious retreat, followed by her to the very door. On the street I met Bill, hatless and disturbed out of all proportion.
"Please never do that again, Mavis," he commanded,taking my arm. "I am not willing to have you roam the streets of Havana alone."
I drew my arm away.
"I am quite capable of taking care of myself," I said with frigidity, "especially in broad daylight."
"This is not Green Hill," he answered enigmatically, "nor yet New York."
I started to reply, but a glance from a passing dark-eyed individual, immaculately attired in white, quelled me. I had never before encountered anything quite so sweeping, so totally inventorying, so insolent. I had the immediate sensation that I was in one of those nightmare dreams, in which one walks upon a public highway, quite unclothed. Unconsciously, I cast a reassuring glance at my lavender linen, and breathed again. I must have gasped, for Bill looked from my blazing cheeks to the wayfaring gentleman. Something belligerent came into his eyes, and then he looked into mine, lifting his brows.
"You see?" he remarked.
It was plain that I had seen. I said nothing, but hastened my steps.
"Where did you leave your hat?" I asked sweetly.
We retrieved the object and went to where we had left the car, driving to a restaurant, high over the harbor, where, on the second floor, we lunched deliciously, on palatable creatures sinisterly named Morro crabs, and other delicacies. A gun boat lay, far off, at rest on the blue waters, and here and there the black funnels of steamers lifted darkly against a burning sky. People at neighboring tables bowed to my companion. Several came over to us and were presented to me: a ruddy-faced Englishman, of military bearing, and with an ineffable air of detachment from his surroundings: a member of theAmerican Legation, a lean, bearded man, with an unamerican name and a dark face, reminding me of an ancient Spanish nobleman whose picture I had once seen: a fair-haired, attractive boy, and others whom I have forgotten. And the meal could hardly have been termed a tête-à-tête. I was heartily glad of it.
Until the calling hour came, we amused ourselves with a survey of the crowded districts of the city. An appalling number of tourists passed and repassed us, obviously bent on the same idle occupation. Pretty girls in bright sweaters and tennis-shoes: fat mothers, similarly clad: and patient, bored men, silent or loquacious, chewing black Cuban cigars, following their women folk in and out the shops. And on the broader thoroughfares, I saw the Cuban women driving in open victorias, powdered and wonderfully dressed, regarding the "touristen" with slightly cynical, always beautiful, eyes.
The Howells' great house, a stone structure on the Vadado, was a revelation of formal and chilling luxury. As we waited for Mrs. Howell to come to us in the drawing-room, Bill murmured under his breath,
"'I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls!' Isn't it amazing?"
Before I could answer, our hostess swept in, accompanied, almost preceded, by an overpowering wave of perfume. I had no time to reply, but found myself nodding at him in sympathetic appreciation. All through the somewhat stilted conversation which followed, the stately tea, and the meteoric appearance of Mercedes, as chatty and brilliant as some tropical bird, I seemed to cling to the solidity and confident familiarity of my husband as the one real thing in an unreal room.
But, leaving, I was forced to confess to myself thereal friendliness and cordiality of these alien people towards me, a stranger at their imposing gates.
It was Mercedes who explained to me that the feminine quality of Havana did not go a-shopping in sport clothes.
"You would not do it," she said, "on your Fifth Avenue. We do not do it here. It is not the custom. We wear our smartest gowns and our highest-heeled shoes."
She made an entrancing little moue at the thought of sweaters and rubber soles. And, with a feeling of commiseration toward my comfortably sport-clad compatriots, dashing through Havana streets, lavish of exclamation and of purse I was foolishly glad that something had prompted me to look my coolest and prettiest before setting forth on the expedition.
I remember that day well, for it was on the same evening, back once more in the palm-enclosed gardens of my new home, that Juan, the native workman appeared, shortly after dinner, a broad-brimmed hat clutched to his sunken chest, his face working oddly, demanding to speak to the doctor.
I heard scattered words—"fiebre" and "agonia," and the name "Annunciata" repeated again and again. And, finally, when Bill rose with a quiet, brief sentence, I caught a long-drawn "ah-h" and "Dios! muchisimas gracias, Senor!" from the old man.
"Juan's daughter is ill," Bill told me quickly. "I'm going with him. Shan't be long. Go to bed, Mavis, you look done up. It's been a long day."
Stopping only to get his hat and an emergency case, he was gone with the excited, anxious old man, and I was alone in the big room.
Something he had said to me, far back in what now seemed the past ages, came to me vaguely, something about the "poetry of healing." And I pondered upon it for a long time, till a falling log roused me, and I went to bed. But not until I heard a familiar step on the path did I consider sleeping. I slipped on a negligée and went to my door. He was coming toward me, tired, I thought, and troubled.
"Bill!" I called softly.
He stopped a moment, peering into the dim light which streamed through the half-open door into the narrow, long hall which separated our rooms.
"Mavis!" and then, reproachfully. "Why aren't you in bed?"
"You've been gone hours," I said, conscious of a childish petulance. "How is she?"
With a hand on the latch of his own door, he considered me. I must have looked a sight, half-asleep, my hair in braids down my thinly-clad back. But if he thought so, he did not say it.
"All right now," he answered. "But she was a pretty sick girl. And, of course, they had applied home-made remedies, liberally sprinkled with superstition! It looked like a case of ptomaine to me. Anyway, she'll be on the road to recovery—and more beatings—tomorrow. It was," he concluded with a smile, "a rather disconcerting evening. Half a dozen people praying all over the place, and, when I left, kissing my hands! Lucky I've had some experience in dealing with the natives before this."
"I'm glad," I said. "Poor old Juan!"
"It was nice of you to wait up," said Bill suddenly. "Thanks!"
I became acutely conscious of the hour and of my appearance.
"I—I was interested," I said lamely.
"Yes, that's it," he answered, a smile lighting up his worn face, "it's not often that you—honor me."
It was on the tip of my tongue to reply, "my interest is solely in old Juan and his daughter." But I didn't. It didn't seem quite fair, and wasn't strictly true.
"Good-night," I said, withdrawing, "I'm glad she's all right."
From his closing door his words floated back to me,
"Buenas noches, cara mia!"
Annunciata recovered, and to Sarah's outspoken disapproval I had her come often to the house. She sewed excellently, and embroidered even better, and I was glad to be able to give her small odds and ends of work to do. She was a lovely thing: rounded, and supple, with a clear, creamy-brown skin. But chancing one day to observe her mother on the road below the house I was smitten with a prophetic horror for Annunciata's future. For the woman, who could not have been more than thirty-five was as bent and gnarled as a Northerner of sixty, wrinkled like a monkey and with something of that creature's patient, if malicious wisdom in her eyes. I began to realize that Juan, too was according to our standards a man still in his early prime. I was confused by such an ordering of Nature. I said something of this to Bill but he only answered, knocking the ashes from his pipe.
"Southern fruit ripens quickly."
"It doesn't seem fair," I said, rebelliously, thinking of Annunciata and her slow, indolent grace. At sixteen I—but perhaps I was not a good example.
"Our girls are children at sixteen," I told him.
"You are a child at—what is it—twenty-two," he answered.
I did not pursue the personal application further. But it was not right that this young thing should be a woman so soon, and so shortly destined to be old. Youth—and Age. There are no timid blossomings, no gracious gradations in the South.
We were, very quietly, rather gay those days. I had been several times to luncheon at the Country Club and had met a number of delightful Americans there. It was all very new and exciting. And so invariably beautiful! And I was absurdly glad that Bill ranked very high in the estimation of the other men, as a golfer. Watching remnants of the game from the long, wide Club-porch, I was astounded by the seriousness with which grown men pursued an innocuous white ball for miles and miles of green turf. Once, in the late afternoon, together with a party of several women including Mercedes Howell, I followed a match game for a time. The exotic view, the stunted palms, the small lizards that ran almost from under our feet, animate emeralds, the glimpse of blue water from a hill, enthralled me. But I think that the small, black or tan boys who carried the clubs and who bet their prospective fees with whole-hearted enthusiasm on the respective merits of their employers amused me more than anything I had ever seen. And it was of course solely from sympathy with my husband's ebony attendant that I knew a certain triumph, when, long after we women had tired and returned to the club-house, the men came in, hot and shrieking for cool drinks, proclaiming Bill as victor. He had "saved the game by supernatural putting" his partner, the fair haired boy I had met in the Havana restaurant, announced enviously.
"You should be proud of him," he added, sitting down beside me.
"I am," I said dutifully.
Bill, en route to a mysterious thing called a locker, paused to cast a mirthful look at me, and quite against my will I laughed. I am certain that the blond one, who answered to the name of Bobby Willard, thought me demented.
A number of people called upon us almost every day, motoring out for luncheon or tea. Our little household ran smoothly, and happily. Sarah and Nora gradually became excellent friends, and, evenings, I would often hear Silas's low voice in the kitchen, and going in to consult Nora, would surprise his lean form, sprawled in a kitchen chair, two legs of it off the floor, smoking his inevitable cigar, a coffee-cup at his elbow. To Wing and Fong, Sarah, to my astonishment, perceptibly unbent. It was apparent that the two silent little Asiatics regarded her with admiration and awe. Bill suggested that she was doubtless trying to convert them. But I could not believe that!
Peter was perhaps, the most whole-heartedly happy of any of us. Never very far from Silas's side, he assumed a lordly dictatorship over the natives, and picked up an amazing amount of Spanish, in his excursions about the plantation. Silas taught him to ride, too, on a lean little Cuban horse, and would ride out with him, in the early mornings, tremendously amused at the grave manner in which Peter would return the white-toothed salutations of the passersby. In those days, also, I elected to oversee Peter's neglected education, and, with more ambition than efficiency, would devote the half hour before his supper time to teaching him to read. Bill, with his pipe and hisnewspaper, would attend these sessions, from a far corner of the room. And I could not refrain from reflecting how, to an unenlightened observer, very domestic we would appear. That the thought had not escaped Bill, too, was apparent by a remark he made one evening. Coming to the mantel-piece, he looked at the two of us for some time, and said,
"You make a charming picture, you two children. Exemplary," he added with a smile.
I made no comment, but bent lower over the page on which the pregnant legend, "This is a cat," appeared in large letters, flanking an appropriate illustration.
Those were days, even, and uneventful in the larger sense. There were varying episodes, incidents, which however did not break into the continuity of a life that seemed a half-waking dream. Once, I went fishing with Bill and Bobby Willard. It was pleasant, drifting over the peacock-blue waters, and of our not inconsiderable catch nothing remains in my memory save the almost unnatural beauty of certain gorgeous fish, colored red and blue and purple, with little sail-like fins.
I had my first swimming lesson in many years, at that time too. And the picture of the beach, the feel of the velvet-soft, brilliantly blue water, the laughing people and the many children, stayed with me for a long time. At my second dip, I actually swam three strokes, not, however, without Bill's solidly protective arm. He swam magnificently himself. Mercedes Howells, transformed into a most seductive mermaid by a bright green bathing suit, was most outspoken in her admiration.
"What a wonderful figure," she said, in a wholly audible aside to me.
I was forced to agree, but swallowed a good deal more water than was comfortable in the process.
Bill, in spite of his vigorous exploits in the water, seemed content to spend most of his swimming hour with Peter and me. But after he had sent us to the bathing pavilion to dress, he swam far out to join Mercedes, and when I came from my cubicle again, they were just coming out of the water together, a splendidly matched pair, laughing, vital. A curious languor came over me as I watched them walking across the beach.
"You're tired," said Bill, dripping before me.
"A little," I admitted.
So after that, I swam rarely. The ride in from Guayabal was long and tiring. And once or twice a week, I stayed at home, while Bill went forth in the motor, to golf and swim, coming back in time for dinner.
I was never bored. There were letters from Father to answer: a difficult diplomatic task; letters too, from the Goodriches, who were dashing about the Continent at a breath-taking speed. Peter had half an album filled with postcards before his parents had been on the other side two weeks! And of course I had to take innumerable snapshots with the little kodak Bill bought me in Havana, in order to pictorially report Peter's progress. Uncle John wrote often, sometimes to Bill, sometimes to me, and now and then to us both jointly. The advent of the mail was a real joy. No one seemed to forget us, everyone demanded an immediate reply. And it was difficult not to put off letter writing until the morrow. For I had not been in Cuba more than twenty-eight hours before the "manana philosophy" had laid hold of me.
In my secret drawer a little pile of poems grew. I was amazed at the way the songs came to me, sang in my brainand would not be still until I had put them on paper. In my heart, I harbor a timid ambition of one day showing them to Uncle John. If he would publish them, privately, I could send a copy to Richard Warren. After all—they were his: his and Cuba's and mine own.
Between tea and dinner, the days when Bill was not at home, I would walk. Sometimes with little Peter, or with Annunciata, sometimes alone, save for little Wiggles. Little by little I grew to know the natives by name and station: went, even into their one-roomed houses, dark and smoky, thatched with palm leaves, and odorous with charcoal stoves. One amusing acquaintance I made was that of old Manuel, who lived not for from our gates. Annunciata took me there, affirming that of all the Guayablan sights, this was one I must not miss. Bill was horrified to hear of my call at Manuel's pitifully poor dwelling. But he went there himself later, to see if in any way, he could alleviate the very obvious poverty and probable suffering of the ancient creature. For the tradition had it that Manuel was one hundred and twenty years old. Certain it was that he remembered Havana when it was little more than a cow-pasture. Age had shrunken him to the stature of a child, but his eye were still bright, his features cleancut, his grey hair and beard still curling and vigorous. The village people took a certain pride in their ancient, and he did not lack for visitors. Propped up on a make-shift bed, wrapped in rags, from which his bare thin legs protruded, he received me with great dignity. And we talked for fully half an hour: that is to say, Annunciata talked, and Manuel talked, and now and then the former would translate a phrase or two into her scanty English. Itwas from Bill, however, that I heard most of the old man's story.
It was on one of my solitary excursions that the sudden night surprised me, a quarter of a mile from home. The smoke-blue rim of mountains grew black and menacing, and the song of the light winds in the palms turned to a sinister whispering. With Wiggles at my hurrying heels, I fairly fled through the night, ashamed of my unreasoning terror. A group of Rurales, the native soldiers, passed me with a clatter of hoofs. Later, a bare-footed native, riding saddleless, singing in a curious, eerie monotone, to ward off the evil spirits, rode slowly by. There was a heavy perfume in the air, and a young moon swung delicately into view. But I had no heart for beauty, and almost stumbling into the hedge of Spanish Bayonets which fringed our property, I came through the open gates into the light from the house, with a half-sob of relief, and an exceedingly youthful fear of justifiable chastisement. But it was some ten minutes after I had come home, that I heard the car, with Bill at the wheel, swing up to the portico. That evening, discussing the past day, I refrained from mentioning my little adventure. For it was an adventure, mysterious, strange, and somehow terrifying.
The evenings were pleasant. We read a great deal, aloud, and I was surprised to find my husband no mean critic, widely read, and with keen appreciation. We sat, always before the fire, and much of the time I would forget to listen to the sense of the words, hearing only the sound of the attractive, flexible voice, and watching the flames on the big hearth. I never wearied of that. There was a wonderful poem in the logs, flowering blueand rose, gold and scarlet: charring to white and red, which seemed like some extraordinary fungus-growth: singing and flickering, intensely alive in disintegration.
And so the days drew into March, and still we lingered. Bill, persuaded by neighbors that even May was bearable in Cuba, spoke of staying at least until the middle of April. I did not care. Father was still in Canada, and Green Hill would have been empty without him. It was a Lotus-eater's life and I was content. The sight of the great, purple orchids, fragile and almost unbelievably beautiful, clinging to the palm-trees, was enough to keep me happy for a whole day. To look from the windows through the luxuriance of the bourginvilla vines to the golden-freighted orange-trees was a rare delight. To see the cane-fields in the wind, the hibiscus under a noon sun, the peacocks pacing the white walks before sunset, was to live a poem. If, now and then, on still nights, a restlessness and nostalgia for something keener, sharper, something unnamable and unknown, would seize me, it would vanish again before the breathless, expectant dawn. And, if one grew melancholy, there was always Arthur to turn to—a bird, philosophic and unexpected, who had developed a feud with Wiggles. To watch the two of them, Arthur resplendent and mocking on his perch, Wiggles, a black lump of outrage dashing up and down before the door of the wire cage, which was as big as a small room, was a sight to dispel dull care. And from someone, Arthur had learned endearing names. "Pretty darling!" he would articulate, his head flirtatiously to one side, his beady eyes fixed on mine, his claw extended with quite the grand manner. And, when, nettled by his tone, I would advance to the cage, he would slide off to the other end ofhis perch and demand bleakly, "Coffee! Gol dern! Bow wow wow!" a climax that never failed to arouse Wiggles to frenzy.
And so, between beauty and laughter, firelight and sunshine, we trod, all unknowing, perilously close to tragedy.
CHAPTER XII
Cactus
Twisted, deformed, and stretching thorny handsTo mock the golden beauty of the SouthEmbodied Evil, set in glowing landsLike some black curse within a lovely mouth,The sullen cactus, lone and brooding, stands.Yet Earth, All-Just, All-Wise, All-Tender, deemsHer crippled offspring worthy still to bearThe crown of perfect blossoms: as beseems,Some dark misshapen souls, in secret wearThe splendid Flower of their silent Dreams!
It was, of course, the tall cactus, to the left of the house, which set me to singing. For a long time it had affronted me. Pallid, sickly, abnormal, flowering suddenly into crimson blossom, it was for me, an actual blot on the lovely landscape gardening of the Palms. But one day I said something of this to Bill, and he said,
"It may start out in ugliness, but it's rooted in strength and ends in beauty, doesn't it?"
This gave me "furiously to think." In an early letter to me, Richard Warren had said something very much the same, not, however, apropos of cactus plants. And here was my matter-of-fact, mocking husband preaching the same doctrine of "beauty everywhere." After that, I tried to make friends with the uncouth cactus, and, as so often happens, grew quite attached to it. Nights, it stood like a sentinel ghost, its deformities softened, and itsflowers courageous and gay in the moonlight. My growing sense of comradeship with Bill was materially increased at that half-minute remark of his. We were really quite friendly, by that time, playing together like two children, not much older than Peterkins, and the rather ironic attitude toward me which I had so resented, seemed to lessen, or at least to be less noticeable.
If it hadn't been for Peter—or, if it hadn't been for me—and if Bill hadn't said—
Anyway, our even, sunny life and relationship came to an abrupt end.
On a day when Bill elected to golf with Mr. Howells—Mercedes had developed wonderfully as a gallery of one!—I chose to stay at home and attend to a number of small neglected duties. The day before we had spent near Mariano, with one of the secretaries at the American Legation and his wife. We had had a delightful day, in a most fascinating house, all cool, wide patios, and flat roofs, over which the palms waved. It seemed to me as if I were not in Cuba or even Spain, but somewhere in the Far East. At tea-time, the wife of the Chinese Minister called, a tiny lady, exquisite and low-voiced, looking far too young to be the mother of seven sturdy children, as she proudly assured me she was. To hear her talk of "my boy in Yale" seemed positively absurd. It was, as I have said, a delightful day, but tiring, and I was content to stay at home when the next day dawned, very hot and still.
Peter rode in the morning and chased, hatless, about the grounds in the afternoon. He had made many friends among themuchachos. I saw him at luncheon and then, not until after tea. Something, perhaps the very oppressive atmosphere, made me restless and out ofsorts. I started about half-past four, to walk aimlessly toward the gates and encountering Peter and Wiggles invited them to accompany me. Afterwards, it occurred to me that Peter seemed very quiet. He walked along beside me, his hands in the pockets of his sailor-suit, with none of his usual flow of general misinformation. But I was preoccupied more so than I had been in weeks. Father had been in my thoughts all day, and back in my brain there were other thoughts—vague and unformed, but curiously disturbing. I was beset with a desire, a longing for something—I knew not what. It was, perhaps, a species of Spring-fever, of wanderlust, which seized upon me and set me to walking now over-fast, now languidly.
We had gone perhaps a half a mile when a strange little sound escaped from Peter's lips. For the first time I looked at his little mouth, a white line stood out against the dark red color.
"It's the heat," I said to myself, and asked him anxiously,
"Do you feel very warm, Peterkins?"
His answer was almost inaudible, and he drooped wearily against my side, as we stood there in the white road, with the distant fringe of mountains almost dancing under quivering waves of heat.
Wiggles, panting, looked at us anxiously, his scrap of a tongue between his crooked teeth.
"We'll go right home," said I, feigning an unconcern I did not feel.
I took his hand and was terrified at the burning touch of it, realizing that the child was ill, perhaps seriously so, and that we were half a mile from home.
Something like despair came over me. It was out ofthe question that I could carry Peter—he was a tall boy for his age and very heavy. It only remained to put my arm about him and to coax him along, a slow and painful task.
We had covered the first half of the distance when I heard a car behind us, and turned hopefully to hail it. And when the long green body shot clearly into sight, I was suddenly faint with relief. Bill, coming back early from the club! Bill, at the wheel, his hat off, and the wind blowing his dark hair.
The car stopped.
"Mavis! It's too hot for you and Peter to be out. I didn't play—what's the matter?"
I lifted Peter in my arms.
"It's Peter, Bill," I said. "He's—ill."
In two minutes I was in the back seat with the half-delirious boy in my arms, and Bill was urging the car to her utmost speed, and we were suddenly home.
Between them, Bill and Sarah got Peter into bed. I was too frightened to be of any use. I kept thinking of the little Reynolds boy who had died of fever in that very house ... and of Peter's mother. But I didn't dare think of her long, because I could see her eyes so plainly as they looked when she said,
"You'll take good care of Peter for me, won't you, Mavis?"
Good care of Peter! For a week I had hardly thought of him. I kissed him mornings and nights, gave him his lessons, listened to his chatter, not really heeding. And I had been away so much, drunken with my new freedom, my strength, blooming like a plant in the climate that tried so many other people sorely: utterly wrapped up in my own sensations and impressions.
I went softly into the room Peter shared with Sarah. It was a different boy tossing on the bed, with that curious flush, the groping hands, talking incessantly, incoherently.
Bill, bending over him, looked up as I came in. His face was strange to me too. No, not quite. I had seen that intense, almost grim, look on that face once before—as I came out of a dark hour of agony and looked, for the first time, into two steel-blue eyes.
"Oh, what is it?" I asked very low. "Is he dangerously ill?"
"A touch of sun," he answered. "Yes, he's pretty sick."
There was nothing I could do. All that night I went in and out of the room, glad if they would let me bring them little things: water, a glass, a spoon.
It made matters worse to find Nora praying loudly in the kitchen, and Silas, his lean face all broken up into soft lines of anxiety and sorrow, watching up with her.
The news spread, in some indeterminable fashion. During the night, a number of the men on the plantation came to the door to ask for news. Peter had endeared himself to half Guayabal—
About three o'clock in the morning, worn out, I went into the bathroom for something for Bill. As I did not reappear with it he came to look for me presently, and found me, huddled against the wall, my hands at my throat, an abject picture of cowardice and fright.
I was not alone in the room. A few yards away from me, on the tiled floor, a spider was sprawling, regarding me with almost human, terribly malicious eyes. The creature was as large as a tea-cup, black, horribly spotted with red, it's many legs twitching with vicious life.
"Are you ill?" Bill asked as I pointed with a shakinghand to the spider, which at the sound of another step had taken itself quickly to another corner of the room.
My husband put his arm about me, and conducted me safely to my own room,
"You poor child!" was all he said, and closed the door into the bathroom. A few minutes later I heard him occupied in there, with what seemed, or sounded, like a golf-club. There was a scuffle. Once I heard Bill curse, and then finally silence.
Presently, my door opened and Bill came in.
"I've disposed of your visitor," he said, quite cheerfully. "Nasty mess. And Peter is better. He'll be all right, I'm sure, only we shall have to be very careful of him after this. And now, I want you to go to bed or I shall have another patient on my hands."
I went to bed; but not until the rain came, about five, and Peter's room became quiet, did I fall into a troubled sleep.
It was past noon before I woke. Sarah looking very tired came in with some coffee and the assurance that Peter was out of all danger and was sleeping quietly with the fever broken.
"Oh, Sarah," I said, "you haven't had any sleep."
"Dr. Denton sent me to bed at five," she answered, "but he never took his own clothes off until about eight. I slept in the guest room, the other side of Peter's, and when I woke, about seven, again, I got some coffee for him from Norah. And he left me with Peter then, and went into his own room."
"Is he asleep now?" I asked getting out of bed.
"No, for I heard the water running in his bath, half an hour ago."
While I was dressing I heard Bill in Peter's room.Heard too, with what gratitude, Peter's own normal voice, weak but sane again.
I slipped on a frock hastily and went in to them. Of the two, I thought that Bill looked the worst, very white and drawn.
After luncheon when Wing had disappeared in the pantry, Bill told me that Peter had had a very close call.
"I don't like to blame anyone, of course," he said, with knitted brows, "but if Sarah didn't have sense enough—well, Silas has lived in Cuba long enough to have known that the heat yesterday was sufficient to knock out a strong man, much less a little boy, if he became over-tired."
"I'm afraid it was my fault," I answered, slowly, "Peter was riding all morning and romping all afternoon. And then I took him for a walk—"
"Did you know then that he had been playing hard all day?" Bill asked me.
"Why, yes," I said honestly, "but I was thinking about something else, and—"
Bill's hand went out in an impatient gesture.
"Didn'tyoufeel the heat?" he asked.
"I suppose so," I answered, "but I had been in the house all day—"
"And Peter hadn't!" he finished for me, somewhat irrelevantly, I thought.
I was silent.
"It's incredible," said my husband, with extreme irritation, "that you shouldn't have noticed."
"But—" I began, and stopped. It was true. I hadn't noticed; and it was equally true that the fact was incredible.
Conscious of my guilt, I was still able to be resentful of my husband's tone.
"Do you think for a minute—" I began indignantly, with no clear idea of how I was going to finish: so perhaps it was just as well that I was interrupted.
"I don't think anything at all," he said, "but Iknowthat I shouldn't have gone away. Had I known the day was going to turn out such a scorcher, I would have stayed."
His tone implied that what he should have known was that I was not fit to be trusted alone. I didn't like the implication, and I said so.
After which, at the end of ten minutes, I had positively flounced from the room, after the manner of our grandmothers, and left him sitting there.
I didn't see him again until dinner. It was not a particularly joyful meal.
During the rather silent progress of dinner, I had the grace to be rather ashamed of some of the things I had said. In the cooler light of reason, I looked on a number of the statements I had made and found them unconvincing.
Our sporadic conversation was of trivial things. Not until Wing had departed kitchenward, and Bill lighted his after-luncheon cigarette, was our late unpleasantness alluded to.
"Mavis," said my husband, with a hint of the old, ironic smile I had not seen in many weeks, and which immediately alienated me from him, "I'm afraid that we were both a little tired and over-wrought this morning. And for anything I said which may have offended you, I am quite ready to ask your pardon. However, it is, perhaps, just as well that I understand the way you feelabout me. I am, admittedly then, a 'brute': and I have 'presumed' to criticize you, unfairly and without cause—or so you have said. Let that pass. The most important thing is that you are becoming bored with this solitary confinement, and it so happens that it is within my power to offer you more congenial companionship. I had a letter this morning from Wright Penny—you recall him, do you not? He is in Santiago, and proposes to come to Havana and run out to see us. If it is agreeable to you, I shall wire him to come on prepared to stay, and to return North with us when we go. Would you like that?"
Seven times seven little devils entered into me then, and I clasped my hands on the table and made my eyes round with pleasure.
"I would be delighted," I said, sincerely enough. "I liked Mr. Penny—what little I saw of him. And I am sure that he would be a congenial house-guest."
"Our first," remarked Bill, with a wholly wicked grin. And I felt as if we had slipped back several months, to a time when enmity was the only possible thing between us, and our weeks of pleasant comradeship were the shadow of a dream.
There must be, I thought, a very real antagonism for one another in our natures: for otherwise, so deep and unspoken a breach could not have been made in ten minutes of foolish anger.
"Wright says," Bill continued, "that he hesitates to intrude upon our 'happy honeymoon hours.' A pretty alliteration. It is not necessary, I hope, to inform him of his mistake."
"He may have eyes—" I suggested.
"Being a poet," he objected, "he is probably myopic."
I ignored this.
"I must find him some pretty girls to play with," I said idly.
"Mercedes," said Bill, "might fit the case."
I was conscious of a sudden flare of anger.
"Bobby Willard's little sister," I said, "seems more Mr. Penny's type. She is very gentle and lovely."
"Meow?" said my husband, with a rising inflection.
The bright color came to my cheeks.
"Not at all," I said indignantly. "I like Mercedes Howell very much. But—"
Bill raised an eyebrow, smiled at the glowing end of the cigarette in his hand and said nothing.
He got up from the table and went toward the door.
"Have Miss Willard out here by all means," he said, "but she's milk and water. For my own amusement, in my own humble opinion, Mercedes is more stimulating to the Tired Business Man."
He stopped to light another cigarette.
"Of course," he said, through the first breath of smoke, "Wright will naturally suspect you of match-making. All young, happily married women have that benign tendency."
I was stricken dumb with sudden hatred, and before my lips could open again, Bill, with Wiggles at his heels, went out into the sunshine, whistling the challenging song from the first act of "Carmen."
I went to my room and wrote a letter, which, however, I was destined never to send, to Richard Warren.
Peter's convalescence kept me occupied for several days. He had a number of sympathetic callers, from Annunciata to the Howells. I told Mercedes that I would expect her out often to amuse our impending poet, and she preenedher bright plumage a little and vowed that a new man would be a "God-send," looking at Bill the while. At which, with that long-drawn "Me-ow!" still ringing in my ears, I asked her and her parents to join us at dinner the night following Mr. Penny's expected arrival.
On the morning of that arrival Bill tossed over to me a letter from Uncle John Denton.
"There are messages in it for you," he said, and opened his long-stale New YorkTimes.
I read the letter, and, as I returned it to the envelope, saw a second sheet which I had not noticed. Uncle John often sent me little enclosures in Bill's letters. Innocently I drew it out, unfolded it, and started to read.
"Damn!" said my husband without apology, reaching my side in two long steps, "I thought I had taken that out. Give it to me, Mavis!"
But I had already read enough.
"Have you unmasked 'Richard Warren' for Mavis yet?" wrote Uncle John, "and how does she like being the wife of her favorite poet? When are we to have the manuscript of the new volume? You're long overdue now, you miserable creature!"
"Give it to me!" said Bill.
I handed the note to him without a word. I couldn't have spoken, had my life depended on it.
He followed me to the door of my room.
"Mavis!" he said once or twice.
I put my hand on the latch.
"Don't speak to me!" I said.
In my room, I sat down by the window and tried to think what it all meant. For a time, I was incapable of directed thought. My dream came to me, the dream I had had so long ago, that nightmare in which my unknownpoet had changed to the semblance of the man I had met and disliked on meeting, William Denton. So it was true then! After a little, I thought of my letters, my silly, fragile girl-dreams, written for the One, mercilessly exposed to the eyes of the Other. In my desk drawer lay yet another letter, unmailed, thank God! A letter in which I had said I wanted him back, wanted the comfort and the understanding his letters had brought me once again. Fool—fool and blind! And all the time, this talented trickster had known and laughed: had written me the friendly, lovely letters with his tongue in his cheek: had even spoken to me of love!
I went over to the drawer and took out my Diary. All lies! Some day I must burn it. But not yet. It was like a living thing to me. The little blue book fell open and certain words leaped out at me: "Diary, I have found him.... I've the heart and brain and beautiful spirit of him, and all day long his name makes a happy spot in my consciousness. Richard Warren! Richard Warren!..."
I closed the book and laid it back with the letters. A great sheaf of thin, typewritten pages ... all lies....
Uncle John had been in the plot then: and Wright Penny. It was very clear to me now.
I took from my neck the jade lucky-charm which "Richard Warren" had sent me and flung it out of the window. Wiggles, prowling beneath, barked happily and set out to retrieve it. Even Wiggles was not mine! Nothing I had had was mine!
I laid my head on the desk and cried bitterly. It's hard to see the dreams go: to watch the castle you have builded on the shifting sands crumble and fall. These things had meant so much to me, ill and prisoned, and had continuedto make a little, inner life for me, after the physical prison doors had opened.
If only by a miracle I could have been back in Green Hill, in my rose-grey room, never to walk again, and with Richard Warren's letters coming to me, out of the Unknown.
Then I remembered ... there was no Richard Warren.
CHAPTER XIII
After a long time, I heard a knock at my door.
"May I speak with you, Mavis, just for a moment?" said my husband.
I steadied my voice with an effort.
"I can't imagine that you have anything of interest to tell me," I answered, "Isn't it time you went to Havana to meet Mr. Penny?"
There was an exclamation, and suddenly the door was flung open and Bill came in.
"Look here," he said, "we've got to have this thing out once and for all."
I was standing, my wet handkerchief in a tight, hard wad in my hand.
"Please leave my room," I said coldly.
"Not till I've said what I want to. I'm sorry you found out—about the book. I was going to tell you—later. But now that you have, we can't ignore it. It was the merest coincidence that I met you before your first letter came. And I was deep in it, before I realized that you were bound to dislike me, as I really am,—and then I couldn't tell you. Things you said in your letters made it absolutely impossible for me. And for reasons of my own, I had preserved my incognito very carefully. Only Uncle John knew, and Wright and my Mother—and—your Father—"
Father! And his mother! The little "red-haired, blue-eyed" lady who had written to me: to whom I had confided my admiration for her son!
Minute by minute, shame was flooding me: shame and a terribly tired feeling.
"Does your mother know—?" I asked.
"That we are married? No," he answered, "I had reasons for not telling her just yet. She knows I am in Cuba, of course. You have never asked me about my people so I hardly thought it worth while to mention her to you—under the circumstances."
"I'm sorry it has turned out as it has," he said, after a pause. "You don't understand—"
I could agree with him there.
"I'm afraid not," I said.
He lifted his shoulders ever so slightly, a gesture of defeat.
"Please—" he said, but something in my eyes stopped him. His face grew very hard.
"I think," he said, "that you are making a mountain out of a molehill. A range of mountains. Because I wrote a few verses that struck your fancy: because you did not like the actual, flesh-and-blood author: because I preferred to hide behind my nom-de-plume, and because you choose to honor Richard Warren with your friendly regard—" he shrugged again, "and because, perhaps foolishly, I want to be liked for what I am, and not for what I set down on paper—I preferred to play what I fancied was a very charming little game—and now you accuse me of having cheated."
"I have nothing of the sort," I answered. "But did it not occur to you, during your 'little game' that you were playing with an opponent wholly innocent of the fact that she was playing blindfolded, and that the cards were—stacked?"
We both heard the car drive up to the front door.
"Well," he said, "my cards are on the table now, Mavis."
"The car is waiting," I said. "You had best go. As far as I am concerned, the game is over. Richard Warren, as I knew him, never existed,—only a very clever young doctor who amused himself at my expense. Here," I said, turning to the open drawer, "are your letters. Take them, please. They would make good reading of the type which is called 'light fiction.'"
"Careful," said Bill, under his breath, and his hand shot out and caught my arm, "careful, Mavis! You are going just a little too far."
I twisted my arm away.
"And you—?" I asked furiously, "and—you?"
"I beg your pardon," he said, and the clear flame of anger leaped into the steel-blue eyes.
The door closed behind him. I stood for a moment, quite still, rubbing the bruised place on my arm which his fingers had made.
Richard Warren's letters lay on the floor. I caught them up, hurried to the living room. There was a burning log on the hearth, and under Bill's hostile eyes, as he gathered up his hat and gloves, I put the sheets in the fire.
They writhed, shot high in flame, and blackening, fell to ashes. Something in me cried out at that—they had been so dear, so dear.
"Have you my letters?" I asked him, rising and dusting off my hands.
"No," he replied, "I never keep letters."
It was the one redeeming fact that had come to my knowledge that day. I mentioned this, and went past him, into my own room again.
It seemed to me that, in an hour's space, I had lived many years and grown very old.
When I heard the car drive off, I went out on the verandah with Peter and played with him for a time before I dressed. I wanted to look my prettiest for Mr. Penny. And I blessed a kindly Providence that he was to interrupt my wholly impossibleménage-à-deux. And one determination I made: as soon as I returned to Green Hill, I would take steps to be free again. Father would soon get used to the idea: it would hurt him, of course, but someone is always being hurt. Travel—perhaps Father would take me to the Continent. But never again to the tropics. I had had enough of their soft, friendly ways and their treachery. When it was necessary that Uncle John Denton be told of the predestined fiasco of my marriage, I for one, would not shirk it. Bill was his nephew, but I was the daughter of his dearest friend, and he had cared for me since I was a baby. Sometimes, quite recently, I had fancied that he had cared, too, for my mother. But at all events, he would not be angry with me when he knew. Of that much I was certain.
It was a very cordial and sparkling hostess who met her guest and her husband at the door. I had put on the little white voile which, of all my daytime frocks, I thought the most becoming. I had dressed my hair high and thrust a wonderful orchid through my mauve belt. My cheeks were burning and I had a moment of stage-fright as I heard the wheels of the car on the drive. It would not be easy to carry it off, to hide my hurt and my shame—but pride helps wonderfully, always, in any situation, and I was quite satisfied with the girl who looked back at me from the long mirror in the living-room,as I passed it on my way to the verandah. But although all the stains of crying had gone from my eyes and left them bright, they were different eyes than the ones which had read the first lines of Uncle John's letter. Brown eyes, and big—but with all the dreams washed from them. Perhaps it was better so.
"A very hearty welcome, Mr. Penny," I said, smiling, as our slight, blonde guest untangled himself from his bags and jumped to the step, "it's good to see you again."
"For heaven's sake, Mrs. Denton," he expostulated, not heeding my greeting, but taking both my hands in his, "don't ruin my first impression of this ripping place and of this miraculous You by pinning that awful label on me. Do you think," he begged, "that you could manage 'Wright'?"
"In fair exchange for 'Mavis,'" I answered, smiling.
"You're on!" he said, dropping my hands after a vigorous clasp, "that is to say, if Bill has no objection."
Bill turned from a colloquy with Wing and Silas and waved benevolently in our direction.
"Not an objection," he answered gaily. "Mavis has me trained. Her word is, naturally, my law."
If that was the tone he wished to adopt, I was convinced that here, at least, was a game which two could play.
"Bill is a very satisfactory husband," I confided to Wright, pleasantly. "He and I have discovered the best basis possible for matrimony."
"What's that?" asked Wright, as we went into the living-room. "Lord, you lucky people, what a wonderful house!"
"Isn't it?" I said, and then, answering the question, "A mutual platform of Liberty, Independence and—"
"Love!" said Wright, triumphantly.
"How did you guess it?" asked Bill, following his guest.
I laughed, a little hysterically, and bade Bill show Wright to his room. After which, with a sense of having scored, I waited for the men near the dining-table, luncheon having been announced.
"We're late today," I said, as we all sat down. "I postponed the sacred meal a little to allow you to arrive."
"It's only one-thirty," objected Wright, looking at his watch.
"I know, but one does things differently in Guayabal," I said, explaining our usual routine.
"Some life!" said the newly initiated. "Suits me. Let's stay on here forever. I imagine," he went on, turning to include us both in his remark, "that nothing could have been more perfect for thelune de miel."
Bill was silent, but I agreed hastily.
"And now tell us about Santiago," I said.
The recital occupied most of the conversational part of the meal pleasantly enough.
"See my pretty senoritas?" asked Bill, passing the cigarettes.
"Cuban?" inquired Wright, taking one. "That's good—I've developed a passion for them. No, not a senorita. All I saw were at least ninety and weighed a ton."
"I've got just the girl for you!" said Bill and I, simultaneously.
Wright laughed.
"The same one?" he asked, with interest.
"No, our tastes differ," I answered, "the one I havein mind is little and round and brown-haired. She's delightful."
"And mine," said Bill, "is just the right height, just the right shape, and as dark-haired and creamy-skinned as a Spanish princess. She is half Spanish, too, which means—temperament."
"Very interesting," said Wright. "Bring 'em both on. But I like amber-colored hair and brown eyes myself. Did you corner the market on the combination, Bill?"
"Of course," answered Bill gravely, "there aren't two like Mavis. That mould was broken."
"Lucky for me," agreed Wright, sighing. "I want to stay a carefree bachelor. I'm susceptible enough, Lord knows,—and very guileless. But my appearance protects me, as well as a certain modesty, not to say timidity, of manner. I've not your looks, nor your way with the wimmin, you handsome bridegroom," he concluded affectionately, smiling at Bill.
"Do tell me," I asked, leaning back in my great, carved chair, quite conscious that it served as an effective background for my hair, "about Bill's past. I can't get a word out of him on the subject."
There was a spark of admiration in the glance Bill shot me—an involuntary tribute.
"Wait till we're alone," whispered Wright, mysteriously. "I could a tale unfold—! Enough to turn your hair grey. Broken hearts all over the place—he just stepped on 'em. Anonymous letters, begging for a lock of hair or an old glove! There have been times when your husband, Madame, has been forced to assume a disguise!"
"You colossal idiot," said Bill amiably.
"Don't listen to him, Mavis," urged Bill's best friend. "Listen to me instead!"
"I'm willing to be convinced," I answered. "And now that you're both on your second cigarette, shall we walk about the place a little? Bill," I went on, turning to him, very sweetly, "would you mind running to my room and getting my big, lavender shade hat—? It's right on the bureau."
For a moment I thought that he would shake me. I knew he wanted to. But, instead, he swung obediently away and took his revenge in a careless "All right, dear!" as he went off.
"Isn't he a peach!" mused Wright aloud, watching admiringly the broad-shouldered figure across the room.
"You've known him long?" I asked, in order to avoid answering.
"Roommates at Princeton," he replied. "Those were the good old days! There never was a more popular man in college than old Bill! I basked in reflected glory all the time. He was always the King Pin among us, whether it was football, or writing skits, or drumming the piano."
"You must have a lot in common," I suggested, "especially your poetry—"
Wright's round, blue eyes grew rounder than ever.
"He's told you!" he gasped.
"Certainly," I said, smiling to cover the pain in my heart, "did you think he could keep it from me? Besides, I half-guessed it all the time."
"I told Bill that," said my guest, triumphantly, and then, as Bill emerged from my room, gingerly carrying the hat, as if it were a species of lavender lydite, "WellRichard Warren, I suppose by now your wife is your severest critic!"
The hat fluttered from Bill's grasp. I shrieked. But he caught it again deftly.
"Here you are," he said, handing it to me, and went on, "My kindest critic, you mean, but—my critic always."
"What do you think of the new book?" asked Wright of me, as stopping only to collect Peterkins, we went from the house, down the long avenue of palms. "I've only seen a bit, but I tell him it's better than the first—surer, more mature, bigger in every way."
"She hasn't seen it," answered Bill, hastily. "I don't want her to for a while yet."
"Oh," Wright nodded understandingly, "I see."
Just what he saw was beyond me, but I said, with a little sigh,
"I'm so impatient—"
"You couldn't be that," said my husband, "not even when it comes to my new book."
"Very pretty," observed Wright, regarding us both, impartially.
"Isn't she?"
This was too much. I turned the conversation in the direction of our coming dinner party and to a discussion of hibiscus-bloom. But all through that afternoon through the banter, the sparkling surface talk, of dinner that night, through the hours before I fell asleep, I was trying to adjust myself to the fact that it was, after all, Bill who had writtenThe Lyric Hour; who had so beautifully said so many true and lovely things: who was a very high-hearted poet.
No matter how little of his real self he had shown mein his letters, regardless of the obvious misfit of his poems and his living personality, he had written those poems: they were his. And they must have sprung from some eternal and true fount of beauty in his nature, or else all books lied and all the poets who ever lived to gladden the world with their songs were tricksters and jesters, with a command of rythmical English and no more. I could not believe that. And so, I must believe that my husband had written truly and sung faithfully, from his heart. And that is what I could not understand, could not reconcile with him, himself. He had hurt me, had wounded my pride beyond endurance: I hated him, I wished myself free of his mere presence: but I was, in the last analysis, forced to admit his genius, and forced to acknowledge his power. Richard Warren had never existed, not the Richard Warren I had built up from a slender volume of verse and a drawer-full of letters. But William Denton did exist, very solidly, and for me, distastefully. And William Denton had writtenThe Lyric Hour.
It may not be difficult, given certain conditions, to hate a poet, but it seemed too bad.
The following night our very informal dinner took place. We had asked some other people, to make up a party of ten, and so we had quite a formidable array of "valor and beauty" around the long, refectory table. Mr. and Mrs. Howells and their daughter, the Chinese Minister and his wife, Bobby Willard and his sister Ruth, Wright, Bill and myself, all rather diplomatically placed, made up the group. It was a rather amusing, and incidentally, an excellent meal. Over the massed orchids on the table, I could see Wright almost feverishly attentivealternately, to Ruth Willard in pale-blue on his left, and to Mercedes, in an amazing frock of black lace, a cluster of orange flowers at her girdle, seated between him and my husband. At my end of the table I had Mr. Howells and the courteous gentleman from the Orient. And Mrs. Howells, at Bill's right, watched indolently her daughter's radiant progress and applied herself, mutely, to the business of eating. In consequence, Mercedes, during the greater part of the meal, drove tandem; and it was really pretty to watch—only, by the salad course, it had grown monotonous.
After dinner we had two tables of bridge. Fortunately, I played rather a good game, Father having taught me patiently, in order to provide one more time-killer, during my shut-inism. As we were ten, two were left to play the piano, to sit out on the verandah, to stroll about the grounds. I had cleverly manoeuvered that Wright and Ruth be left, but something went wrong, and Bill, announcing that he did not care to play, was joined by Mercedes, who insisted that the only rule she knew was "not to trump her partner's ace." I fancied, however, that she was well equipped with the finesse instinct.
"And even that I often forget," she said, laughing. "Me, I have so little use for rules!"
So it eventually and naturally came about that Bill and Mercedes stayed out of the game, joined now and then by whoever was dummy.
For a while they remained at the far end of the room, at the piano—Bill, black and white in his dinner clothes, dreaming over the keys, Mercedes, leaning on the piano, her huge orange feather fan at her lips, singing snatches of Spanish songs from behind its shelter, her dark eyes glowing. It was, I was forced to admit to Mrs. Howells,playing at my table, a pretty picture, softened and romantic in the flicker of fire light which shone over the two and danced on the mahogany case of the Steinway.
Later, they went out: Wright followed them presently, in his momentary freedom as dummy, for "a breath of air and a cigarette."
I made a Grand Slam.
Wright, returning, to take his place, paused to regard the score over my shoulder, and to whisper,
"Is that the girl Bill picked out for me? What does he take me for, a lion-tamer?"
"Hush!" I said, conscious of Mrs. Howells' proximity. But she was criticizing her husband's last play and did not hear us.
It was twelve o'clock before our guests left. Mercedes, in a gorgeous black and orange cloak, seemed reluctant to depart.
"I've hadsucha wonderful evening!" she told me, "and Billy wassoentertaining!"
I had always disliked the schoolgirl manner of talking in exclamations and italics.
Wright, bidding me good-night, remarked, with mock gravity,
"I'm going to buy a whip and a gun tomorrow, Mavis! That Howells girl needs a dressing down."
"Dressing down?" I asked, not a little maliciously, recalling with inner amusement, Mercedes' somewhat revealing gown.
But if Wright did not understand me, as I hoped he would not, my husband did, and his inevitable "Meow!" followed me into my room and lingered there for some time.
War to the knife—!
CHAPTER XIV