CHAPTER XXI
When Maxwell finally turned his car cityward it was with the feeling of a naughty boy who had run away from duty and was suddenly confronted by retribution.
He glanced at the clock in the car and noted that the hour was getting very late, and compunction seized upon him. Now that he had done the thing it suddenly seemed atrocious. He had ignored a lady in trouble and gone on a tangent. It wasn’t even the excuse of a previous engagement, or the plea of old friends. It was utterly unnecessary. He had followed an impulse and accepted an utter stranger’s invitation to dinner, and then had stayed all the evening, and gone back to wash dishes afterward. As he thought it over he felt that either he was crazy or a coward. Was it actually true that he, a man full grown, with a will of his own, was afraid to trust himself for an hour in the company of the woman who had once been supreme in his life? What was he afraid of? Not that he would yield to her wiles after two years absence; not that he would break his promise to himself and marry her in spite of husbands and laws either moral or judicial. It must be that he was afraid to have his own calm disturbed. He had been through seas of agony and reached a haven of peace where he could endure and even enjoy life, and he was so selfish that he wished to remain within that haven even though it meant a breach of courtesy, and an outraging of all his finer instincts.
He forgot that his struggle earlier in the evening had been in an exactly opposite line, and that the finer feelings had urged him to remain away from the woman who had once been almost his undoing. However, now that it was almost too late to mend the matter he felt that he ought to have gone. Even if her plea of asking his advice had merely been a trumped-up excuse to bring him to her side, yet was it not the part of a gentleman to go? A true gentleman should never let a lady ask for help in vain. And he had promised always to be her friend. It might be that it had been an ill-advised promise, but a promise was a promise, etc.
By that time he had arrived at his apartment and was hastening through a rapid evening toilet. The evening and its simple experiences seemed like a pleasant dream that waking obliterates. It might return later, but now the present was upon him, and he knew Evadne when she was kept waiting. If she had not changed there was no pleasant interview in store for him. However, he need not tell her that he had been enjoying himself all the evening and had forgotten how fast time was flying.
Arrived at the hotel he went at once to the desk and asked for the lady. The clerk asked his name and called a bell-boy. “Go page Miss Chantry,” he said. “She’s in the ballroom.” Then turning to Maxwell, he said: “She left word you were to wait for her in the reception room over there.”
“No, don’t page her,” said Maxwell sharply, “I’ll go and find her myself.”
“Oh, all right! Just as you please! Those were her orders.”
Maxwell turned toward the elevators, half inclined after all not to see her. She had not been in such distress but that she could amuse herself after all. But that was Evadne, of course. He must expect that. Besides, she was doubtless angry at his delay.
Maxwell got off at the gallery floor expecting to find the lady seated in one of the little quiet nooks overlooking the gay throng, but he made the rounds without finding her, and paused at the last door to look down on the moving, throbbing, colorful life below.
The orchestra was beating out a popular bit of elevated jazz and the floor below was like a kaleidoscope as the couples wove their many colored patterns in and out among each other.
Maxwell watched the dancers idly for a moment. He was not a dancer himself and not particularly interested in it. As he looked he was suddenly struck with the contrast between this scene and the quiet little home where he had spent the evening. How hard these people were trying to enjoy themselves, and how excited and restless and almost unhappy many of them looked.
A group of ladies seated near the railing quite close to where he stood were discussing one of the couples on the floor.
“She is disgusting,” said one, “I wonder who she is? How dare she come to a respectable place and dance in that way?”
His eyes followed their glances and he easily singled out the two who were under their criticism. The man, a tall, dark, bizarre looking fellow he knew by sight, with money enough and family irreproachable enough to get away with anything in these days.
But the woman! Why did there seem to be something familiar about her? Sleek, black hair wound closely about a small, languid head, lizard-like body inadequately sheathed in gold brocade, sparkle of jewels from lazy graceful feet.
A break in the throng as some one went off the floor, and the two swept around facing him. The woman looked up and met his eyes.It was Evadne!
Something clicked and locked in his soul as if the machinery could not go on any longer without readjustment. He stood staring down at her, a growing wonder in his face, aware that she was looking at him and waving, aware that he was expected to smile. Instead he felt as if he were glaring. Was this the woman for whom he had spent two years of agony and struggle? This little empty faced creature with a smile upon her painted selfish mask? As he stood looking at her he was struck with a fleeting fancy that she resembled Clytie, poor featherbrained Clytie trying to exploit her own little self in the best way she knew, to play the game of life to her own best advantage. What was the difference between them?
Was it for a woman like this that he had wasted two of the best years out of his young manhood? He used to call her beautiful, but now her face seemed so vapid.Was it just the years that had come between or had she changed, grown coarser, less ethereal? A vision of Cornelia Copley floated in his mind. Why hadn’t he known sooner that there was a girl like that some where in the world? What a fool he had been!
Evadne had signalled to him and led her partner off the floor. Now they were coming to him. He wished he might vanish somewhere. Why had he come? This girl had no real need of him. She was merely enjoying herself.
“What made you so late?” she challenged gaily, “We’ve been waiting supper for an age. I met an old friend tonight. Bob, meet Artie Maxwell. Come on, I’ve had the food served in my suite, and I’ve ordered lobster Newburg and all the things you used to like.”
“I’ll answer for the drinks,” broke in the one called Bob, “I’ve sampled them already.”
“Sh! Naughty! Naughty! Bob!” hushed Evadne with her finger on her lips. “Artie is a good little boy. He doesn’t break the law—” she laughed. “Come on, Artie, I’m nearly starved. I thought you never would get here. Ring for the elevator, Bob, please.”
Maxwell’s whole being simply froze.
He didn’t want to remain, and he didn’t like the other man, but he could not ask her point blank what she wanted of him in the presence of this stranger. He was gravely silent as the elevator carried them to the right floor and Evadne did the talking. But when the door opened into the apartment and showed a table set for three withflowers and lights and preparations for a feast he made a stand.
“I can’t possibly stay for supper,” he declared, “I’ve dined only a little while ago, and I must leave for New York on business very early in the morning. I only dropped in to explain—”
“Indeed, you are not going to leave in that way!” she flashed upon him angrily, “I told you in my note that I had something very important to tell you.”
Maxwell looked at the other man politely:
“If we could have just a word together now,” he said, turning back to the girl. “I really must get back to my apartment at once. I have important papers to prepare for tomorrow.”
The other man turned away toward the table haughtily, with a scornful: “Why certainly,” and poured himself a glass from the flask that stood there.
Maxwell turned to the angry girl:
“Now, what can I do for you? I shall be very glad to do anything in my power of course.” He spoke stiffly as to a stranger. The girl perceived that her power over him was waning. Yet she was too subtle to let him see it.
“I am in deep trouble,” she sighed with a quiver of the lips, “but I can’t tell it in a moment. It is a long story.” Her eyelids fluttered down on her lovely painted cheeks. She knew the line that would touch him most.
“What sort of trouble?” he asked almost gently. He never could bear to see a woman suffer.
She clasped her little jewelled hands together fiercely and bent her head dejectedly.
“I cannot tell you all now,” she answered desperately, “you would have to hear the whole before you could understand. Wait until we are alone.”
“Is it financial trouble?” he urged after a pause with a gentle persistence in his voice.
“Yes, that—and—other things!” Evadne forced a tear to the fringes of her almond lids.
He studied her gravely:
“I’ll tell you what I want you to do,” he said at last, “I will not be here tomorrow nor possibly for several days, but I would like you to talk with our old family lawyer. He was a friend of my father’s, and is very wise and kind. Anything you could tell to me you can tell to him. He knows you and will fully understand. I can call him tonight when I get back and explain, and he will be glad to come here and see you I am sure; or if you prefer you can go to his office.”
But Evadne lifted her sleek, black head wrathfully, flicked off the tear, flung out her chin, and looked him down with her almond eyes as if from a great height:
“Thank you!” she said crisply, “When I want a family lawyer I can get one! AndYOU—can—GO!”
She pointed to the door with her jewelled hand imperiously and Maxwell arose with dignity, his eyes upon her as if he would force himself to see the worst, and went.
“Bob!” said Evadne to the bibulous man at the table when the elevator door had clanged shut after her one-timelover, “I’m not sure but I shall come back to Philadelphia after a few days and stay awhile. I wonder if you could keep track of that man for me and tell me just where he goes and what he does. I’ll make it worth your while you know.”
“Surely, old dear, I’ll be delighted. No trouble at all. I know a private detective who would be tickled to death for the job. What did you say the poor fish’s name is? Seemed a harmless sort of chump. Not quite your kind is he? Come, Vaddie, let’s have another drink.”
But Evadne’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she took the glass and drank slowly. She was not one to take lightly any loss.
Out in the night the young man drew a deep breath of the clean air thankfully. It seemed as though he had escaped from something unwholesome and tainted. He was glad that he had the sense to know it, and he thought back again with relief to the happy evening in the simple, natural home.