[image]"It won't be many days before we find scandal rearing its head at us.""Impossible," said Beatrix, quietly."Why?""Simply because it is. I'm going to play that part and I'm going to look very nice in the clothes. Also, I'm looking forward to a great deal of fun with the matinée idol, shaved or unshaved."Franklin whipped round upon her. "It isn't for you to say what you'll do or not do. For your sake, as well as for mine, I must take charge of this business, and you'll please carry out my orders.""Orders!" She threw up her head. "That's a word that isn't and never will be contained in my dictionary.""You're wrong. I've just added it to that volume," he said.Beatrix gave a big laugh and stood up to him with her chin tilted, her eyes dancing and a look of triumph all over her lovely face. "Take charge—you!" she cried. "Think again. The whip is in my hand now and I shall use it. You dare not give me away. You're afraid of the laughter that will follow you wherever you go. I think you're right. But,—as to being your wife, not in this world, my good sir, for any reason that you can name. I'd rather die."And then she turned on her heel and swung away, with the roses seeming to bend towards her as she went.Franklin watched her, with his hands clenched and his mouth set. "By God," he said to himself, "we'll see about that!" And he would have added more angry words, thickly, to his mental outburst, if a new feeling,—bewildering, painful, intoxicating,—had not welled up to his heart. All round him, as he stood there in amazement, the air seemed to be filled with the song of birds. Then it came to him,—the answer to the question he had put to himself impatiently and jealously in his apartment in New York after Malcolm Fraser's little story. "I'm going to begin to live—I've met the woman who can make me give up freedom and peace of mind, take me to Heaven or draw me down into Hell!"XIIIThat rather charming haphazard air that is characteristic of afternoon tea in an English country house, to which young people from the tennis courts and golf links slack in just as they are and find the hostess presiding at a substantial table, assisted by all the younger men who are born to carry cups and cake—they always dance and generally play the piano—was missing from the West Terrace of the Vanderdyke mansion. Mrs. Vanderdyke "dressed" for tea. Her costume was a very beautiful and pompous affair, not cut low enough for dinner or for breakfast but quite low enough for the theatre, and she wore a considerable quantity of jewels. Brilliantly made up, she sat under the awning with her back to the sun chatting with royal condescension and studied charm. It was one of the best things that she did. It was also her first public appearance of the day, most of which had been devoted to a hard, stern and successful fight against Anno Domini.She was surrounded by members of the house party who took themselves and her seriously and she, and they, were under the expert attention of several footmen. Carefully chosen for their height and gravity and truth to type, these men wore a very distinguished livery with knee breeches and black silk stockings, and they hovered from person to person with a rather soothing quietude, moved by invisible machinery.The vivacious little Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves who talked continuously of "my daughter Lady Bramshaw and that sweet old place in Hampshire" was purring under the attentions of Admiral De Forrest Wontner. Although a grandmother, an event of which she spoke as if it were rather a malicious lie, Mrs. Reeves looked like a very young, blond, motion picture star who tames cave-men and broncho-busters with just one quick upward glance. Her laughter bubbled like boiling water and at odd moments she clapped her hands and opened her blue eyes very wide and pursed up her little red mouth. Of her tiny ankles she was very proud and hardly ever forgot to expose them. She underlined most of her words with gushing emphasis and everything, from a sunset to a new soap, was "perfectly wonderful." Wontner and she had been engaged to be married after a dance at Annapolis somewhere in the seventies, but while he was at sea on his first commission, Ettie Stanton met, danced and ran away with young E. L. Reeves of Baltimore and remained "terribly crazy" about him to the day of his death. It was indeed a peculiarly happy marriage, blessed with three fine manly boys and a girl who was always being mistaken for her mother. And now the retired sea-dog, celebrated for his early Victorian gallantry, one of the few remaining bucks in the country and a man of wit, chivalry and golden heart, carried on a St. Martin's summer flirtation with his former sweetheart, the very sight of whom dispelled his accumulation of years as the sun scatters the dew. Most people were amused at the affair and several were sympathetic.Talking to Mrs. Vanderdyke, or rather listening to Mrs. Vanderdyke, who either talked or went into a trance, was handsome Percy Campbell, the man who drank a bottle of whiskey before breakfast and played golf all day in order to drink another before going to bed. He owned three streets in New York; he had never done anything more serious than learn to play the violin, about which he talked to everybody. He was now dangerously near fifty-three but since passing out of Harvard he had not found time to practise more than a dozen times. He carried three beautiful Strads wherever he went, however, and whenever he became genuinely fuddled motored to the nearest town, day or night, to buy a new stack of strings and rosin. His wife went with him as well as his violins and received much less consideration although many more cases. They were popular people and Campbell's shooting box in Scotland near Cupar, Fife, from which his remote ancestors strayed, was always full. No altogether Scot could compete with him in his devotion to the national beverage.Then there were Mrs. Lucas D. Osterpath, in mourning for her son who had just married a Folly from the New Amsterdam Theatre roof; the William Bannermans, recently remarried after a most amusing divorce; Philip Kawbro in his inevitable blue and white striped collar and yellow waistcoat; Regina Westerhaus, as regal as her name, but still a spinster at the end of three seasons, and the Hon. Mrs. Claude Larpent, the centre of attraction for those three vieux marcheurs, Major Thresher, Roger Peek and Courtney Borner.The young people avoided this function and got whatever refreshment they needed from the bachelors' house.It was to this terrace that Beatrix made her way after flinging her triumphant refusal at Franklin. All the elation of a victor ran through her veins. What did she care about the possibility either of being blackmailed or shown up by Sutherland York? Why should she give the smallest consideration to Pelham Franklin or join him in any plan to save his name from scandal? He had said an unforgivable thing to her in her bedroom that memorable night, the sting of which still made her smart. She gloried in having been able to make him pay something on account of that huge debt and with characteristic high-handedness turned a Nelsonian eye to the black cloud that was moving up over the horizon. She had always taken chances. It was part and parcel of her nature. With a growing sense of exhilaration and the feeling that she was merely at the beginning of a great adventure she took a chance again. If the storm was fated to burst and Franklin gave her away to her parents, well, let it burst. There would be an epoch-making family row, and unless her wits protected her again she would be sent into the back of beyond. That was an appalling prospect which, however, she pushed aside. She trusted to her usual luck to carry her out of this tangle, if only by the skin of her teeth. The great point at the moment was that she had scored over Franklin and left him impotent. But for that parting remark of his before he left her room she might have considered the possibility of falling in with his plan. The humiliation of being made to obey his orders might have been lived down, greatly as she resented humiliation. But when it came to such a deliberate attack upon her vanity—that was altogether different.Miss Honoria Vanderdyke, who had been hard at work with a secretary all the afternoon organizing a new society to look after women released from penitentiaries, came out as Beatrix was passing. The graceful, white-haired woman put her arm round the girl's shoulders. "I've never seen you look so happy, dear child," she said, with an unusual touch of tenderness.Beatrix smiled at her and in her mind's eye saw Franklin's expression as he stood outside the summer-house with her refusal in his face. "I have every reason to be happy, Aunt Honoria," she answered, in a ringing voice. "Life has great compensations."They fell into step on their way to tea—the elder woman a little envious of what appeared to be her niece's romantic love affair, because her own had ended tragically and left her with a broken heart. Must a woman necessarily break her heart before she will devote her life to the relief of other people's sufferings? An old philosopher, who must have been something of a misogynist, once defined woman's happiness "as that state in which all their immediate desires were gratified, a self-satisfaction which left them blind to the fact that other people littered the earth." Maybe he was right.Aunt Honoria looked rather searchingly at the beautiful girl at her side who, alone among all the human beings that she knew, possessed the magic carpet. "Why do you talk of compensations?" she asked. "At your age, in your position? You puzzle me, child."Beatrix laughed the question off. "Oh, that's a long story. One of these fine days, when I am overmastered by a desire to confess, I'll tell you all about it. Look, isn't mother wonderful? It's almost absurd for me to call her by anything but her Christian name."Aunt Honoria smiled a little dryly. "My dear," she said, "all women could be as unnaturally young as your mother is if they gave up as much time to it. Tell me about that very striking person who is completely hemmed in by old men.""Mrs. Larpent? Isn't she attractive? Isn't she exactly like one's idea of a favorite in the Court of Louis Quinze? I don't know anything about her yet. Wait until to-night and I will give you my impressions." She kissed her hand to her aunt, touched her arm with an affectionate and respectful finger and crossed the terrace to Ida Larpent's chair. "May I join your admirers?" she asked.With a curious smile Mrs. Larpent drew closer the chair out of which Courtney Borner had done his best to spring. "I should like nothing so much," she said. It might be most useful to become the friend of the wife of the man who had stirred her calculating heart to love. Who could tell?In the meantime having immediately gained Mrs. Vanderdyke's permission to ask a friend of his to dine and sleep, Franklin shut himself up in the telephone room, asked for the number of his apartment in New York and told Johnson to call Malcolm Fraser."Old man," he said, when his friend's voice came rather anxiously over the wire, "will you do something for me? Will you get a car at once and pack your things for dinner and sleeping and rattle down here as quick as you can? I can't say anything now except that I need you worse than ever.... Thanks. I knew you would. So long."In a secret corner of his staunch heart Fraser had locked up his love for Beatrix. He was now to be consulted again as to how to put things right between her and his best pal. It's a queer world and full of paradox.XIVA few minutes later Franklin was exuberantly welcomed to tea by little Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves. "I'mterriblyglad to see you," she cried. "Come and tell meallabouteverything. I wasdistractedwhen I heard that you had gone to town. Admiral, have youeverseen such anintriguingtie as the boy's wearing?"Poor little comic lady! She had much the same effect on Franklin as that diabolical machine that drills holes in steel girders. He sat down at her side and made ready to endure the continual tapping of her uncontrollable tongue because he could see Beatrix with the sun on her hair and the nape of her neck. He didn't quite know why, but he was queerly disconcerted and annoyed to see that she was in animated conversation with Ida Larpent and the fact that he received an enigmatical glance through the latter lady's half-closed eyes did much to add to this uncomfortable feeling."I've been talking to Mrs. Vanderdyke about your unconventional behavior, Mr. Franklin," continued Mrs. Reeves."Unconventional," echoed Franklin, listening with half an ear. "In what way?""Well, isn't it the usual thing for two young people to enjoy a honeymoon after they are married, especially such young people?"The word honeymoon came strangely to Franklin. If it had been mentioned the day before in connection with this extraordinary business it would have caused him to scoff inwardly and do his best to pass it over with a forced smile. As it was, on top of his sudden realization that in Beatrix was the woman who called him to live bigly and love to distraction, but who had refused with utter scorn even to go through the form of marriage with him, it acted like the sting of a knife.But the word also gave him an idea and Mrs. Reeves' remark about having spoken to Mrs. Vanderdyke a new plan. For some little time he remained where he sat while the little woman babbled, going from subject to subject in her characteristically unconcentrated way. He nodded where he thought that a nod was due, smiled frequently and threw in a yes or no as it seemed necessary. Finally he got up, when the Admiral drew his old sweetheart's attention once more to himself, and went over to Aunt Honoria."May I take you for a little exercise in the garden?" he asked."With great pleasure," she said, rising at once. "I have been trying to catch your eye for some minutes. I want your advice."As they passed Beatrix she had the audacity to throw at Franklin a most connubial smile. It gave the elderly lady a thrill and very nearly threw Franklin off his feet. He heard the contralto of Mrs. Larpent's voice and Beatrix's ringing reply: "Yes, he's a darling." Ye gods, but this girl must surely be a surprise to Nature herself.Miss Vanderdyke refrained from saying a word until she was out of earshot of the cheerful group. Then she drew up at the top of the Italian steps that led into the geometrical gardens. "I want you to listen to this extraordinary epistle, Pelham," she said. "It was sent to my sister-in-law before she left her rooms this afternoon." She drew it out of its envelope and read it in her clear, incisive voice."Dear Mrs. Vanderdyke,"I have just received a telegram from a leading motion picture concern in Los Angeles offering me very big money to leave to-night to do a picture for them. Business before pleasure, you know, so I have just time before making a train to New York to write these few lines. I am sorry for the pastoral, but doubtless you will be able to find a substitute for me, though not, I fear, with an equal sense of rommance. Thanking you for your kindness and asuring you that I shall not require any fee for rehearsals."Sinceerely,"BRIAN YOUNG.""Good Lord!" said Franklin. "Pretty cool piece of impertinence.""I thought so. And look, he spells romance with two 'm's,' and assuring with one 's.' He also makes the inappropriate word, sincerely, look even quainter by a superfluous 'e' in the middle. Are all matinée idols quite so illiterate, I wonder?""Hardly," said Franklin. "What's to be done?"Aunt Honoria shrugged her shoulders. "Your mother-in-law and I, after consultation with my brother, who showed even less than his usual interest in the matter, have decided to cancel the pastoral, especially as we have all been discussing the advisability of your taking Beatrix away.""For a honeymoon?" asked Franklin involuntarily."Exactly," Aunt Honoria gave a little laugh. "Because you two young despots have broken the conventions by this secret marriage, I think it follows that you should do something to stop gossip and comment by conforming to an old custom. What do you say, my friend?"Franklin put a curb upon his eagerness. To get Beatrix to sea on his yacht—that was the thing. It would give him a chance, just a chance, to win his way to Beatrix's untouched and wilful heart, and go far to show York that his intuition and cunning reasoning were wrong."If you think so," he said, "I am perfectly willing to fall in with your wishes.""That's extremely nice of you!"Franklin showed his excellent teeth and gave a little bow. But not being a lady's man he failed to produce an Elizabethan compliment or one that might have proved that there is gallantry even in these careless days.Aunt Honoria took the word for the deed, and Franklin's arm down the steps. The sun was dipping into the Sound and the whole panorama of sky was striped and splashed with red. Young voices drifted toward them from the tennis courts and a flock of wild ducks high up in a wide V flew rapidly above their heads. The scent of flowers rose up to them as they walked and a very golden day slipped gently into evening."I don't know what Beatrix will have to say about it," said Franklin.There was a rather dry laugh. "Oh, I had not forgotten that Beatrix, although happily married, is a factor to be consulted."Franklin laughed too. "No," he said, with several memories very clear in his mind, "one could hardly forget that."And then the tall, white-haired, dignified woman, about whom there was an intellectual humanity very rarely met with, did an unexpected thing. She stopped suddenly and stood in front of Franklin, eye to eye with him. "My dear Pelham," she said, with a touch of propheticism, "you will not find the woman in Beatrix, nor will she have discovered the woman in herself, until that precious moment when, quite conscious of her abdication of a mock throne, she falls in with your wishes like a simple trusting child. When that moment comes, if ever it does, I shall give praise to God, because the woman in Beatrix will be very sweet and beautiful."And then they continued on their way through the sleepy gardens."So shall I," said Franklin quietly."The fact that the pastoral will not be given will help us considerably. Beatrix, who, by the way, has taken small part in the rehearsals, will turn for amusement to something else. Her father and mother both desire that she shall put an end to gossip and give our good friends no further excuse to hold her up as the most unconventional girl of the day. That sort of reputation so rightly belongs to young women of the stage whose success depends far more on advertisement than talent. Where is your yacht?""Lying in the river, fully commissioned.""Oh, well, then everything is easy! Surely nothing could be more delightful for Beatrix than to make a cruise under these romantic circumstances. Leave it all to me, my dear boy. I'll see that you get your wife to yourself, never fear."Beatrix ran her arm round Aunt Honoria's waist. "Well," she said, with the smile that she always used when it was urgently necessary to win a heart, "am I to be allowed in this conference, or am I a back number in the family now?" She had watched this intimate talk between Miss Vanderdyke and Franklin with growing uneasiness. Finally, in the middle of one of Ida Larpent's best stories, she had sprung up, made short work of the distance between herself and them and broken into the conversation."We were talking about you, my dear," said Aunt Honoria."No!" cried Beatrix. "Impossible!"Franklin caught her mocking glance and dug his heels into the path."We were making plans for you, charming plans, honeymoon plans as a matter of fact, and as the pastoral is cancelled you will no doubt fall in with them with enthusiasm.""The pastoral cancelled? Why?" The girl's voice was incredulous. "But I've been to all the trouble of getting a special costume, nearly all the younger people in the house-party have been chosen on purpose.""Our friend the matinée idol has flown away to pick up a bigger seed elsewhere."A flush of anger colored Beatrix's face and her eyes glinted. "He said something to me this morning about motion pictures. I thought he was endeavoring to advertise himself. I never dreamed he would have the impertinence to chuckus!""Well, his withdrawal simplified things, my dear, as I will tell you later. Come to my room ten minutes before dinner and I will give you the latest family plan. In the meantime, two's company, and I will get a few words with my old friend, the Admiral, who is wandering about like a lost soul." Aunt Honoria nodded and with her shoulders as square as those of a well-drilled man, went gracefully to where the septuagenarian lover was either chewing the cud of bitter reflection or recovering from a long bout of exaggerated and over-emphasized commonplaces.And then Beatrix turned sharply to Franklin. "Be good enough to tell me what all this means," she said.Franklin showed his teeth in his peculiar silent laugh. "Why put a pin through Miss Vanderdyke's little surprise?"Beatrix intended to know. Her curiosity was alight. It was so obvious that she had been under discussion and as the family was to be dragged in, so certain that she was going to be coerced into something totally against her wishes. But she changed her tactics."Oh, look," she cried, "isn't that sail perfectly charming against the sky?""Corking," said Franklin, not looking at it, but at her. By Jupiter, how lovely, how desirable, but how amazingly perverse she was! A man would have not lived for nothing who could break her and make her, even if she never returned his love."It's a good world," she said, with a little sigh, waiting to catch Franklin on the hop. "Sometimes I'm consumed with a longing to be right away in the middle of the sea—to get even with things."She caught him. It was uncanny. "The chance is yours," he said, easily beaten. "It has been decided that we go for our honeymoon on theGalatea."She whipped around. "Oh, so that's it, is it? You've been working up a conspiracy to get me on your yacht so that you may escape from gossip? I see. Quite clever to enrol my family against me, but my answer to you this afternoon holds good."For all the love that had come upon him so suddenly, Franklin lost patience. He put his hand on her arm and held her in a close grip. "Let it hold good," he said. "Stand out against being my wife until you see sense and learn that others deserve consideration besides yourself. But conform now to your people's wishes and put York off the scent. That's all you're required to do at the moment.""Take your hand away," said Beatrix icily. "This is not a woman's bedroom. I can call for help here remember."Franklin retained his grip. He was very angry. "You fool," he said, too completely out of control to choose his words. "Look at this thing sanely. Come out of your house of cards and play the game like a grown woman. The scandal that drove you into taking advantage of me will be ten thousand times worse if York gets to work.""That doesn't worry me," said Beatrix calmly. "I'll thank you for my arm.""You don't count," said Franklin. "Consideration must be given to your people and to me.""I'm perfectly willing and even anxious to protect my people, but"—and she gave him two fearless eyes—"I see no reason why I should worry about you.""Why not? Where would you be now but for my having come to the rescue?"Beatrix gave a most tantalizing laugh. "When you learned to play the trumpet you were a good pupil, Mr. Franklin. Any other man would have done as well, you know."Franklin dropped her arm. "Good God," he said, "you beat me. I can't compete with you. I might just as well try to drive sense into a lunatic."It was good, it was worth being alive to Beatrix to see this man, this fine, strong, clean-built, square-shouldered man, who had dared to conceive the remote possibility of humbling her for what she had done, who had had the sublime audacity to believe that he could teach her a lesson, standing impotent before her, self-confessedly her inferior, when it came to wits. She showed it in her smile, in her almost bland and child-like glee, in her frank pleasure. He had said a thing to her that no man should ever have said to a woman and expect to be forgiven. She would remember it as long as she lived and make him pay for it and pay and pay again."Even lunatics have their sane moments," she said. "Mine come whenever I think about you. Isn't that Malcolm Fraser on the terrace? How delightful. Suppose we go back now, after yet another of our little wrangles, shall we?"She stood silhouetted against the darkening sky, with her hands behind her back, her head held high, the very epitome of utter carelessness, the last word in individualism, the thoughtless and selfish enjoyment of the moment and of life generally so long as it was without responsibility, concentration, or a call to do anything for anybody but herself."Count me out, please," said Franklin. "You must get out of this business in your own way. I shall leave here to-night and go to sea. I wish you luck."He bowed, turned on his heel and walked away, and as he went, he hoped that he might never see that girl again.XV"Now, old man," said Franklin when at last he found himself with Malcolm Fraser, "let's get out of earshot of this chattering crowd and come up to things.""The sooner the better," said Fraser.They left the hall and passed the ball-room, to which everyone with a sense of rhythm, even if with no ear for music, had been drawn by the irresistible syncopation of a large banjo band of colored musicians. The drummer was already committing demented acts upon a scavenger collection of tins, boxes, and whistles. They went out into the moonlight and through the gardens to the summer house.The dynamic energy which radiated from Franklin did much, so far as Fraser was concerned, to spoil the exquisite peace and lassitude of the night. All the poet in him gave him the keys with which to open some of the unnoticed doors to Nature's storehouses of beauty and called him to stand very still and fill his brain and soul with the sight that met his eyes. He had never felt prouder of his country than when he revelled in the picture of the moon-touched Sound, magic with the reflection of a multitude of stars, and ran his eyes along the dim outline of shore to his right and caught the bright eyes of thousands of cheerful lights. It seemed to him that Nature, with the proud consciousness of her genius as an artist, had outdone herself in setting a scene for the human comedy in which he had been cast for the second male part. Water and moon and stars, the mystery of night, the feeling of illimitable space, the scent of sleeping flowers, the whisper of fairies, all as old and even older than the hills—surely this was an appropriate setting for the working out of the ancient and inevitable drama, the ever-recurring clash, between a man and a woman."Go ahead, Pel," he said. "This morning in New York you left this strange story of yours at the point where the entrance of York into it made you decide to marry Beatrix. I have not got the novelist's brain so I can't for the life of me see what can have happened in the chapter that has been begun since then.""My dear chap," said Franklin, flinging the end of a cigarette over the wall, "don't you know that more impossible things are done every hour in life than ever find their way into books?""Yes, I know that.""Well, the thing that I should have thought the very limit of impossibility happened here, on this very spot, this afternoon when I got back. Take a guess."Fraser's answer came quickly. "Beatrix loves you."There was no mirth in Franklin's laugh. "Guess again.""You love Beatrix.""A precious clever fellow, aren't you? What the devil made you get to love so quickly? I expected you to flounder through a dozen guesses and then be wide of the mark.""A man and a woman and love," said Fraser. "Why hire a detective to make a mystery of that? It's any poet's job."Franklin kicked the wall viciously. "There's nothing for a poet in this," he said. "I do love this girl. I wish to God I didn't. I'd give ten years of my life if she left me as cold as a flapping fish. You know what we talked over this morning. We decided that there was only one way for me to get out honestly of that fool maze in which I'd been caught. The reasons were pretty obvious. My family and the Vanderdykes were at the mercy of that glossy charlatan and because of the ungovernable impulses of this ... this—what in thunderisthe right word for Beatrix? I give it up.""Undiscovered girl. Will that do?""No," said Franklin. "Not a bit like it.""Well, then, dollar-ruined, misnamed victim of a false civilization. How's that?""Too long and too pedantic. I wanted one word. However, let it go. What's it matter? It's a waste of words to describe her and a waste of time to consider her. When I put things to her plainly and bluntly, she told me to go to the devil. I sent for you to use your influence, hoping, as of course you can see, that she might come down to solid things and see sense,—hoping too that, married, I might be able to force my way into her heart, if she's got one.""Oh, yes, she's got one.""I doubt it. Very highly finished watch works is all the heart she's got. However, since that first talk we've had another and that's made your kindness in coming here utterly useless."Fraser turned eagerly towards his friend. He had no hope of ever being any more to Beatrix than an art student can be to a very perfect Gainsborough at which he gazes from behind a rail. He could neither buy her nor win her. She was completely out of his reach. Not able to marry her himself, he would rather see her married to Franklin than any living man. "Why?" he asked."Because I'm off. I'm out. I'm through. I'm not an expert in love. As a matter of fact I'm a boob in the business. It's new to me. But it's hit me good and hard, old son, and with any encouragement or with half a chance, I'd go for it with everything decent that's in me.""Go for it," said Fraser, with an odd thrill in his voice. "You have all the luck."Franklin shook his head. "No. I've done. She has no use for me. She mocks me, twists me round her finger, holds me up by the scruff of the neck, gets more fun out of me than if I were a red-nosed comedian and nearly drives me to murder. I justhaveto get away. I'm going to-night.""To-night? But my dear old Pel, you—you only found out that you loved her a few hours ago.""Quite long enough.""But, good Lord, youmustlet me see what I can do. When we were kids I used to have some influence with her. That is, once or twice she did things for my sake. To chuck the whole thing now, when it looks far more serious than ever,—why Pel, my dear man, talk about ungovernable impulses——""Oh, I know," growled Franklin. "We're both tarred with the same brush. We're both money-maniacs. However, in perfectly cold blood, standing here to-night, I assure you that I am better out of her way. I can't help her. She won't be helped. She doesn't give a red cent for anything that may happen. All she cares about is just to go laughing through the moment. Well, let her. But she'll have to go alone. I love her in the sort of way that makes me want to choke her when she starts her tricks. That's the truth. I'm sorry. I don't want to be unsporting and all that but, Malcolm, she isn't safe with me." His voice shook as he said this thing."Wait until the morning," said Fraser urgently. "Let me show her the mess she's in.""Can't be done," said Franklin. "I've told Albert to put my things in the car and I'm off to town right away. I shall go aboard in the morning and weigh anchor at two o'clock. I'll wait for you till then and not a second later." He laid his hand on Fraser's shoulder. "Get your things and come now. There's nothing to do here, worse luck.""In any case," said Fraser, "I want to have a bit of a talk with Beatrix now that I'm here.""All right. Well, then, so long, Malcolm. It was mighty good of you to come. Don't fail to be in time to-morrow." He turned and went, walking quickly and waking all the flowers with his energy.Fraser watched him go,—his tall, wiry, square-shouldered, muscular figure thrown out against the moon-silvered stone-work of the terrace. Then he turned back to the scene that filled his brain with imagery and that inarticulate worship which is offered by all good students to the Master for the perfection of His work. The silence sang. Many of the shore lights had gone out. But the moon rode high and the stars were at their brightest. The faint breeze had fallen away. Fraser raised his hand above his head in a sort of salute and then wheeled round and followed Franklin toward the elephantine house that made a huge black patch against the transparent sky. As he got nearer to it the music of a Hula-Hula thing came to him,—a fascinating, hip-moving mixture that suggested both Hawaii and Broadway and he could see the dancers flitting past the open windows of the ball-room. Among them was Beatrix, in the arms of one of those spineless semi-professional dancing men, a new, curious and uncomfortable breed that has developed in New York since the craze carried it on to its feet. Her mouth was open and her teeth gleaming and her young body moving with exquisite grace and ease.Fraser went up to one of the windows and watched her until the tune came to an end. Every man has a dream. Somewhere or other in the life of men, all men, there is one precious, priceless thing tucked away in the secret drawer of the heart. Beatrix, as a little, frank, fearless girl, lived and was glorified, for Fraser.He allowed himself just one short sigh. "And now," he said to himself, "to show for the first time in history that a poet can be a man of action for the sake of a friend. If I fail, I'll, yes, I'll eat and drink my self-filling pen."It was one o'clock the next day when Franklin left the chart-room of theGalatea, where he had been planning out a cruise with the skipper. He went on deck. All hands had been busily at work since early morning, cleaning and polishing. The yacht looked like a beautiful woman, fresh from the hands of manicure and maid.There was a shout of "Galatea ahoy" from the port side. Franklin took no notice. It was probably the arrival of the last boat-load of stores. He stood with his arms behind him and his mind back in the Vanderdyke gardens with the afternoon sun aslant upon them, and as he watched the retreating figure of the imperious girl to whom he was less than the dust, a mere pawn to be moved when it was necessary in her game, the amazing thrill which had discovered to him the love that was to be the greatest thing in his life, ran all over him again, and shook him with its strength and passion.Well, he was bolting from her, bolting because he was afraid. It was the act of a coward, perhaps, but that girl had the power of making queer creatures of men. And he did not intend to be one of them. That was all.A laugh, taken up by the breeze and thrown past his ear like the petal of a flower, turned him round. Unable to believe his eyes, he saw Beatrix, Ida Larpent and Malcolm Fraser, standing on deck, while luggage was being piled about them. Fraser waved his hand triumphantly. Mrs. Larpent gave one of her slow smiles and Beatrix, with the expression of an angel and a touch of timidity and even humbleness that Franklin had never seen before, came forward. "Come aboard, sir," she said, with a very proper salute. "Malcolm showed me the error of my ways last night and like a good and faithful wife I am going on my honeymoon."And then the old Beatrix returned and a mocking smile turned Franklin's heart to ice.XVIFranklin was a man who inherited a horror of scenes. If he saw a crowd in the street reinforced by running figures he turned on his heel and went the other way. Anything in the nature of an argument sent him out into the street. He was at any time perfectly willing to fight, either for the sake of the exercise or to punish an offender, but he shied at a fracas, a domestic wrangle or the remote possibility of placing himself in a position of being surrounded by many people all talking at the same time. He had camped in solitary places, and communed with nature in her forest cathedrals. He liked the silences.The moment that this amazing boat-load came aboard theGalateahe saw himself plunged into a scene, if ever there was one. Malcolm Fraser was bursting with information and explanations. Mrs. Larpent gave every indication of the fact that she felt that some justification for her presence was required, and behind Beatrix's impish laugh there was a high-spirited story waiting to be told.Just for one moment Franklin stood bare-headed in front of Beatrix completely and utterly nonplussed. She was the last person on earth whom he had expected to see on the yacht. He had, indeed, made up his mind never to see her again.—to cut and run from the pain of her, the allurement, the overwhelming attraction. He gazed at her as if she had fallen from the clouds. He had been treated like a child again, "used" once more, and he was angry, but as he took in her charming appearance, the calm audacity of her expression, the indescribable loveliness of her face, he rejoiced. Then he pulled himself together and tried to perform the operation of smiling as a new husband should. "You're in excellent time," he said, and gave a shout, caught the eye of the mate and beckoned him to come forward. "Get everything ready for Mrs. Franklin and Mrs. Larpent. Look alive and have Mr. Fraser's things taken down to his stateroom at once."The mate was English. "Aye! Aye, sir!" He was also young and sandy and somewhat precocious, and from the tail-end of his eye there came a look of deep admiration for the owner's wife, whom he now saw for the first time."Stop a minute," said Franklin. "I don't see anything of your maid, Beatrix. You'll never be able to get along without her.""You're very thoughtful," said Beatrix, graciously. "Anyone would think you had been on a honeymoon before." And then she laughed. "For some reason or other Helene is very much afraid of you. I brought her, but evidently she's hidden behind something,—the baggage probably." She called "Helene," and the pretty face and compact figure of the young Breton appeared reluctantly from behind several huge innovation trunks, hat-boxes, boot-cases, cabin-trunks, and the Lord knows what besides,—enough, as it seemed to Franklin, to supply half a dozen wives with unnecessaries."Perhaps you'll go below with Mr. Jones and make your own arrangements. Otherwise, I'm afraid you won't be very comfortable."Beatrix smiled in her best social manner. "It's too bad to put you to all this inconvenience and worry," she said. "I'm so sorry, but I dare say we shall all fit in with perfect ease and comfort. More like a young liner than a yacht, isn't she? And who named her theGalatea? So terribly suitable, as little Mrs. Reeves would say. Lead the way, Mr. Jones."There was a touch of almost navy etiquette about the way in which the mate saluted and obeyed.Beatrix beckoned to Helene, who was as frightened as a rabbit at sight of dogs, and the little party went below. Franklin watched her go, saw her look about her with a touch of perfectly simple excitement, envied the sun as she put up her face to catch it and the friendly smile with which she rewarded the mate. "If only," he said to himself, "if only——"And then Mrs. Larpent came forward. There was a most curious little smile round her very red lips and wide nostrils, and a whole dictionary of meaning in her eyes. "You must be a little surprised to see——"Franklin cut her short. "Not at all. Delighted!" he said, bluntly. "Would you be good enough to follow Beatrix and take your choice of staterooms? I will endeavor to get a stewardess for you before we sail.""Thanks, so much!" said Ida Larpent, making no attempt to disguise her sense of triumph at being on the yacht. "How delightful it will be to get away from the land and its people for a time. I congratulate you on theGalatea."Franklin waited until she had disappeared and then strode over to Malcolm Fraser, who was watching the arriving baggage, took his arm and marched him out of ear-shot of the crew. "What the devil have you done? You call yourself a friend and land me in this mess!" His voice was thick with anger.Fraser looked as astonished as he felt. "But you called me down to the Vanderdykes to do this very thing," he said. "I've done it. What's the trouble?""You colossal idiot!" said Franklin. "Haven't you imagination enough to see it for yourself? Have you forgotten every blessed thing that I told you last night? You haven't persuaded this girl to come aboard to oblige her people or to keep my name out of the papers. She doesn't give a solitary curse whether hers is in them or not. She's come just to have the satisfaction of playing with fire, and has brought Ida Larpent because she knows instinctively that she is the last woman on earth I care to see her with or have on theGalatea."All the way back to town, Fraser had been congratulating himself on having achieved the impossible. He opened his mouth to speak."I think you'd better dry up," said Franklin, "and give me time to cool down. At this moment I feel like pitching you overboard." He turned on his heel, went forward and stood, with his hands thrust into his pockets, gazing down the river.Like all poets, Malcolm Fraser was a very sensitive person. He was deeply hurt at the way in which his efforts were received by the man for whom he had a very deep regard. Like all poets,—even those who confine themselves to gloomy verses, to graves and broken hearts and wind in the trees,—he was an optimist. He had made up his mind that he had only to get Beatrix away to sea with Franklin to bring romance into their very strange, exotic story. He held the belief,—shared by many philosophers,—that in most cases love is the outcome of propinquity,—especially at sea. He didn't possess much, but he would give it all to watch the girl he loved become a woman and find herself for love of his friend. He threw a sympathetic glance at the square shoulders of his friend, and went below to his own familiar stateroom. From this he could hear Beatrix's merry laugh. She, at any rate, seemed to be happy, and that was something. He could not for the life of him understand,—with his friend's confession still warm in his memory,—why, he, too, was not in the seventh heaven of delight at the fulfilment of what had yesterday seemed to be a dream. To the amazing unconventionality of the whole affair he gave no thought. He was an artist.Finally, and with a huge effort to master his anger and amazement, joy and sense of impending trouble, Franklin summed things up to the best of his ability: "Here's Beatrix," he said to himself, "not married to me,—supposedly on our honeymoon. I love her like an idiotic school-boy—she loathes me like the devil. Here's Ida Larpent, out for everything that she can get, playing her own hand with all the cunning of a card-sharp. Here's Fraser, one of the very best, a man with a heart of gold to whom friendship means loyalty, with a love for Beatrix which has outlasted his boyhood. And almost in sight of us all is the open sea. Great Scott, what a mess!"And then Captain McBean stood at his elbow. "Orders stand, sir?""Of course," said Franklin. "But before we put off do what you can to get a stewardess aboard for Mrs. Larpent. You had better send Jones ashore. He has a wide smile and does things pretty quick, and,—wait a second, Captain,—let him bring back all the latest novels that he can find. We shall need something to keep the ladies busy."The Captain chuckled. He had been married twice.
[image]"It won't be many days before we find scandal rearing its head at us."
[image]
[image]
"It won't be many days before we find scandal rearing its head at us."
"Impossible," said Beatrix, quietly.
"Why?"
"Simply because it is. I'm going to play that part and I'm going to look very nice in the clothes. Also, I'm looking forward to a great deal of fun with the matinée idol, shaved or unshaved."
Franklin whipped round upon her. "It isn't for you to say what you'll do or not do. For your sake, as well as for mine, I must take charge of this business, and you'll please carry out my orders."
"Orders!" She threw up her head. "That's a word that isn't and never will be contained in my dictionary."
"You're wrong. I've just added it to that volume," he said.
Beatrix gave a big laugh and stood up to him with her chin tilted, her eyes dancing and a look of triumph all over her lovely face. "Take charge—you!" she cried. "Think again. The whip is in my hand now and I shall use it. You dare not give me away. You're afraid of the laughter that will follow you wherever you go. I think you're right. But,—as to being your wife, not in this world, my good sir, for any reason that you can name. I'd rather die."
And then she turned on her heel and swung away, with the roses seeming to bend towards her as she went.
Franklin watched her, with his hands clenched and his mouth set. "By God," he said to himself, "we'll see about that!" And he would have added more angry words, thickly, to his mental outburst, if a new feeling,—bewildering, painful, intoxicating,—had not welled up to his heart. All round him, as he stood there in amazement, the air seemed to be filled with the song of birds. Then it came to him,—the answer to the question he had put to himself impatiently and jealously in his apartment in New York after Malcolm Fraser's little story. "I'm going to begin to live—I've met the woman who can make me give up freedom and peace of mind, take me to Heaven or draw me down into Hell!"
XIII
That rather charming haphazard air that is characteristic of afternoon tea in an English country house, to which young people from the tennis courts and golf links slack in just as they are and find the hostess presiding at a substantial table, assisted by all the younger men who are born to carry cups and cake—they always dance and generally play the piano—was missing from the West Terrace of the Vanderdyke mansion. Mrs. Vanderdyke "dressed" for tea. Her costume was a very beautiful and pompous affair, not cut low enough for dinner or for breakfast but quite low enough for the theatre, and she wore a considerable quantity of jewels. Brilliantly made up, she sat under the awning with her back to the sun chatting with royal condescension and studied charm. It was one of the best things that she did. It was also her first public appearance of the day, most of which had been devoted to a hard, stern and successful fight against Anno Domini.
She was surrounded by members of the house party who took themselves and her seriously and she, and they, were under the expert attention of several footmen. Carefully chosen for their height and gravity and truth to type, these men wore a very distinguished livery with knee breeches and black silk stockings, and they hovered from person to person with a rather soothing quietude, moved by invisible machinery.
The vivacious little Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves who talked continuously of "my daughter Lady Bramshaw and that sweet old place in Hampshire" was purring under the attentions of Admiral De Forrest Wontner. Although a grandmother, an event of which she spoke as if it were rather a malicious lie, Mrs. Reeves looked like a very young, blond, motion picture star who tames cave-men and broncho-busters with just one quick upward glance. Her laughter bubbled like boiling water and at odd moments she clapped her hands and opened her blue eyes very wide and pursed up her little red mouth. Of her tiny ankles she was very proud and hardly ever forgot to expose them. She underlined most of her words with gushing emphasis and everything, from a sunset to a new soap, was "perfectly wonderful." Wontner and she had been engaged to be married after a dance at Annapolis somewhere in the seventies, but while he was at sea on his first commission, Ettie Stanton met, danced and ran away with young E. L. Reeves of Baltimore and remained "terribly crazy" about him to the day of his death. It was indeed a peculiarly happy marriage, blessed with three fine manly boys and a girl who was always being mistaken for her mother. And now the retired sea-dog, celebrated for his early Victorian gallantry, one of the few remaining bucks in the country and a man of wit, chivalry and golden heart, carried on a St. Martin's summer flirtation with his former sweetheart, the very sight of whom dispelled his accumulation of years as the sun scatters the dew. Most people were amused at the affair and several were sympathetic.
Talking to Mrs. Vanderdyke, or rather listening to Mrs. Vanderdyke, who either talked or went into a trance, was handsome Percy Campbell, the man who drank a bottle of whiskey before breakfast and played golf all day in order to drink another before going to bed. He owned three streets in New York; he had never done anything more serious than learn to play the violin, about which he talked to everybody. He was now dangerously near fifty-three but since passing out of Harvard he had not found time to practise more than a dozen times. He carried three beautiful Strads wherever he went, however, and whenever he became genuinely fuddled motored to the nearest town, day or night, to buy a new stack of strings and rosin. His wife went with him as well as his violins and received much less consideration although many more cases. They were popular people and Campbell's shooting box in Scotland near Cupar, Fife, from which his remote ancestors strayed, was always full. No altogether Scot could compete with him in his devotion to the national beverage.
Then there were Mrs. Lucas D. Osterpath, in mourning for her son who had just married a Folly from the New Amsterdam Theatre roof; the William Bannermans, recently remarried after a most amusing divorce; Philip Kawbro in his inevitable blue and white striped collar and yellow waistcoat; Regina Westerhaus, as regal as her name, but still a spinster at the end of three seasons, and the Hon. Mrs. Claude Larpent, the centre of attraction for those three vieux marcheurs, Major Thresher, Roger Peek and Courtney Borner.
The young people avoided this function and got whatever refreshment they needed from the bachelors' house.
It was to this terrace that Beatrix made her way after flinging her triumphant refusal at Franklin. All the elation of a victor ran through her veins. What did she care about the possibility either of being blackmailed or shown up by Sutherland York? Why should she give the smallest consideration to Pelham Franklin or join him in any plan to save his name from scandal? He had said an unforgivable thing to her in her bedroom that memorable night, the sting of which still made her smart. She gloried in having been able to make him pay something on account of that huge debt and with characteristic high-handedness turned a Nelsonian eye to the black cloud that was moving up over the horizon. She had always taken chances. It was part and parcel of her nature. With a growing sense of exhilaration and the feeling that she was merely at the beginning of a great adventure she took a chance again. If the storm was fated to burst and Franklin gave her away to her parents, well, let it burst. There would be an epoch-making family row, and unless her wits protected her again she would be sent into the back of beyond. That was an appalling prospect which, however, she pushed aside. She trusted to her usual luck to carry her out of this tangle, if only by the skin of her teeth. The great point at the moment was that she had scored over Franklin and left him impotent. But for that parting remark of his before he left her room she might have considered the possibility of falling in with his plan. The humiliation of being made to obey his orders might have been lived down, greatly as she resented humiliation. But when it came to such a deliberate attack upon her vanity—that was altogether different.
Miss Honoria Vanderdyke, who had been hard at work with a secretary all the afternoon organizing a new society to look after women released from penitentiaries, came out as Beatrix was passing. The graceful, white-haired woman put her arm round the girl's shoulders. "I've never seen you look so happy, dear child," she said, with an unusual touch of tenderness.
Beatrix smiled at her and in her mind's eye saw Franklin's expression as he stood outside the summer-house with her refusal in his face. "I have every reason to be happy, Aunt Honoria," she answered, in a ringing voice. "Life has great compensations."
They fell into step on their way to tea—the elder woman a little envious of what appeared to be her niece's romantic love affair, because her own had ended tragically and left her with a broken heart. Must a woman necessarily break her heart before she will devote her life to the relief of other people's sufferings? An old philosopher, who must have been something of a misogynist, once defined woman's happiness "as that state in which all their immediate desires were gratified, a self-satisfaction which left them blind to the fact that other people littered the earth." Maybe he was right.
Aunt Honoria looked rather searchingly at the beautiful girl at her side who, alone among all the human beings that she knew, possessed the magic carpet. "Why do you talk of compensations?" she asked. "At your age, in your position? You puzzle me, child."
Beatrix laughed the question off. "Oh, that's a long story. One of these fine days, when I am overmastered by a desire to confess, I'll tell you all about it. Look, isn't mother wonderful? It's almost absurd for me to call her by anything but her Christian name."
Aunt Honoria smiled a little dryly. "My dear," she said, "all women could be as unnaturally young as your mother is if they gave up as much time to it. Tell me about that very striking person who is completely hemmed in by old men."
"Mrs. Larpent? Isn't she attractive? Isn't she exactly like one's idea of a favorite in the Court of Louis Quinze? I don't know anything about her yet. Wait until to-night and I will give you my impressions." She kissed her hand to her aunt, touched her arm with an affectionate and respectful finger and crossed the terrace to Ida Larpent's chair. "May I join your admirers?" she asked.
With a curious smile Mrs. Larpent drew closer the chair out of which Courtney Borner had done his best to spring. "I should like nothing so much," she said. It might be most useful to become the friend of the wife of the man who had stirred her calculating heart to love. Who could tell?
In the meantime having immediately gained Mrs. Vanderdyke's permission to ask a friend of his to dine and sleep, Franklin shut himself up in the telephone room, asked for the number of his apartment in New York and told Johnson to call Malcolm Fraser.
"Old man," he said, when his friend's voice came rather anxiously over the wire, "will you do something for me? Will you get a car at once and pack your things for dinner and sleeping and rattle down here as quick as you can? I can't say anything now except that I need you worse than ever.... Thanks. I knew you would. So long."
In a secret corner of his staunch heart Fraser had locked up his love for Beatrix. He was now to be consulted again as to how to put things right between her and his best pal. It's a queer world and full of paradox.
XIV
A few minutes later Franklin was exuberantly welcomed to tea by little Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves. "I'mterriblyglad to see you," she cried. "Come and tell meallabouteverything. I wasdistractedwhen I heard that you had gone to town. Admiral, have youeverseen such anintriguingtie as the boy's wearing?"
Poor little comic lady! She had much the same effect on Franklin as that diabolical machine that drills holes in steel girders. He sat down at her side and made ready to endure the continual tapping of her uncontrollable tongue because he could see Beatrix with the sun on her hair and the nape of her neck. He didn't quite know why, but he was queerly disconcerted and annoyed to see that she was in animated conversation with Ida Larpent and the fact that he received an enigmatical glance through the latter lady's half-closed eyes did much to add to this uncomfortable feeling.
"I've been talking to Mrs. Vanderdyke about your unconventional behavior, Mr. Franklin," continued Mrs. Reeves.
"Unconventional," echoed Franklin, listening with half an ear. "In what way?"
"Well, isn't it the usual thing for two young people to enjoy a honeymoon after they are married, especially such young people?"
The word honeymoon came strangely to Franklin. If it had been mentioned the day before in connection with this extraordinary business it would have caused him to scoff inwardly and do his best to pass it over with a forced smile. As it was, on top of his sudden realization that in Beatrix was the woman who called him to live bigly and love to distraction, but who had refused with utter scorn even to go through the form of marriage with him, it acted like the sting of a knife.
But the word also gave him an idea and Mrs. Reeves' remark about having spoken to Mrs. Vanderdyke a new plan. For some little time he remained where he sat while the little woman babbled, going from subject to subject in her characteristically unconcentrated way. He nodded where he thought that a nod was due, smiled frequently and threw in a yes or no as it seemed necessary. Finally he got up, when the Admiral drew his old sweetheart's attention once more to himself, and went over to Aunt Honoria.
"May I take you for a little exercise in the garden?" he asked.
"With great pleasure," she said, rising at once. "I have been trying to catch your eye for some minutes. I want your advice."
As they passed Beatrix she had the audacity to throw at Franklin a most connubial smile. It gave the elderly lady a thrill and very nearly threw Franklin off his feet. He heard the contralto of Mrs. Larpent's voice and Beatrix's ringing reply: "Yes, he's a darling." Ye gods, but this girl must surely be a surprise to Nature herself.
Miss Vanderdyke refrained from saying a word until she was out of earshot of the cheerful group. Then she drew up at the top of the Italian steps that led into the geometrical gardens. "I want you to listen to this extraordinary epistle, Pelham," she said. "It was sent to my sister-in-law before she left her rooms this afternoon." She drew it out of its envelope and read it in her clear, incisive voice.
"Dear Mrs. Vanderdyke,
"I have just received a telegram from a leading motion picture concern in Los Angeles offering me very big money to leave to-night to do a picture for them. Business before pleasure, you know, so I have just time before making a train to New York to write these few lines. I am sorry for the pastoral, but doubtless you will be able to find a substitute for me, though not, I fear, with an equal sense of rommance. Thanking you for your kindness and asuring you that I shall not require any fee for rehearsals.
"BRIAN YOUNG."
"Good Lord!" said Franklin. "Pretty cool piece of impertinence."
"I thought so. And look, he spells romance with two 'm's,' and assuring with one 's.' He also makes the inappropriate word, sincerely, look even quainter by a superfluous 'e' in the middle. Are all matinée idols quite so illiterate, I wonder?"
"Hardly," said Franklin. "What's to be done?"
Aunt Honoria shrugged her shoulders. "Your mother-in-law and I, after consultation with my brother, who showed even less than his usual interest in the matter, have decided to cancel the pastoral, especially as we have all been discussing the advisability of your taking Beatrix away."
"For a honeymoon?" asked Franklin involuntarily.
"Exactly," Aunt Honoria gave a little laugh. "Because you two young despots have broken the conventions by this secret marriage, I think it follows that you should do something to stop gossip and comment by conforming to an old custom. What do you say, my friend?"
Franklin put a curb upon his eagerness. To get Beatrix to sea on his yacht—that was the thing. It would give him a chance, just a chance, to win his way to Beatrix's untouched and wilful heart, and go far to show York that his intuition and cunning reasoning were wrong.
"If you think so," he said, "I am perfectly willing to fall in with your wishes."
"That's extremely nice of you!"
Franklin showed his excellent teeth and gave a little bow. But not being a lady's man he failed to produce an Elizabethan compliment or one that might have proved that there is gallantry even in these careless days.
Aunt Honoria took the word for the deed, and Franklin's arm down the steps. The sun was dipping into the Sound and the whole panorama of sky was striped and splashed with red. Young voices drifted toward them from the tennis courts and a flock of wild ducks high up in a wide V flew rapidly above their heads. The scent of flowers rose up to them as they walked and a very golden day slipped gently into evening.
"I don't know what Beatrix will have to say about it," said Franklin.
There was a rather dry laugh. "Oh, I had not forgotten that Beatrix, although happily married, is a factor to be consulted."
Franklin laughed too. "No," he said, with several memories very clear in his mind, "one could hardly forget that."
And then the tall, white-haired, dignified woman, about whom there was an intellectual humanity very rarely met with, did an unexpected thing. She stopped suddenly and stood in front of Franklin, eye to eye with him. "My dear Pelham," she said, with a touch of propheticism, "you will not find the woman in Beatrix, nor will she have discovered the woman in herself, until that precious moment when, quite conscious of her abdication of a mock throne, she falls in with your wishes like a simple trusting child. When that moment comes, if ever it does, I shall give praise to God, because the woman in Beatrix will be very sweet and beautiful."
And then they continued on their way through the sleepy gardens.
"So shall I," said Franklin quietly.
"The fact that the pastoral will not be given will help us considerably. Beatrix, who, by the way, has taken small part in the rehearsals, will turn for amusement to something else. Her father and mother both desire that she shall put an end to gossip and give our good friends no further excuse to hold her up as the most unconventional girl of the day. That sort of reputation so rightly belongs to young women of the stage whose success depends far more on advertisement than talent. Where is your yacht?"
"Lying in the river, fully commissioned."
"Oh, well, then everything is easy! Surely nothing could be more delightful for Beatrix than to make a cruise under these romantic circumstances. Leave it all to me, my dear boy. I'll see that you get your wife to yourself, never fear."
Beatrix ran her arm round Aunt Honoria's waist. "Well," she said, with the smile that she always used when it was urgently necessary to win a heart, "am I to be allowed in this conference, or am I a back number in the family now?" She had watched this intimate talk between Miss Vanderdyke and Franklin with growing uneasiness. Finally, in the middle of one of Ida Larpent's best stories, she had sprung up, made short work of the distance between herself and them and broken into the conversation.
"We were talking about you, my dear," said Aunt Honoria.
"No!" cried Beatrix. "Impossible!"
Franklin caught her mocking glance and dug his heels into the path.
"We were making plans for you, charming plans, honeymoon plans as a matter of fact, and as the pastoral is cancelled you will no doubt fall in with them with enthusiasm."
"The pastoral cancelled? Why?" The girl's voice was incredulous. "But I've been to all the trouble of getting a special costume, nearly all the younger people in the house-party have been chosen on purpose."
"Our friend the matinée idol has flown away to pick up a bigger seed elsewhere."
A flush of anger colored Beatrix's face and her eyes glinted. "He said something to me this morning about motion pictures. I thought he was endeavoring to advertise himself. I never dreamed he would have the impertinence to chuckus!"
"Well, his withdrawal simplified things, my dear, as I will tell you later. Come to my room ten minutes before dinner and I will give you the latest family plan. In the meantime, two's company, and I will get a few words with my old friend, the Admiral, who is wandering about like a lost soul." Aunt Honoria nodded and with her shoulders as square as those of a well-drilled man, went gracefully to where the septuagenarian lover was either chewing the cud of bitter reflection or recovering from a long bout of exaggerated and over-emphasized commonplaces.
And then Beatrix turned sharply to Franklin. "Be good enough to tell me what all this means," she said.
Franklin showed his teeth in his peculiar silent laugh. "Why put a pin through Miss Vanderdyke's little surprise?"
Beatrix intended to know. Her curiosity was alight. It was so obvious that she had been under discussion and as the family was to be dragged in, so certain that she was going to be coerced into something totally against her wishes. But she changed her tactics.
"Oh, look," she cried, "isn't that sail perfectly charming against the sky?"
"Corking," said Franklin, not looking at it, but at her. By Jupiter, how lovely, how desirable, but how amazingly perverse she was! A man would have not lived for nothing who could break her and make her, even if she never returned his love.
"It's a good world," she said, with a little sigh, waiting to catch Franklin on the hop. "Sometimes I'm consumed with a longing to be right away in the middle of the sea—to get even with things."
She caught him. It was uncanny. "The chance is yours," he said, easily beaten. "It has been decided that we go for our honeymoon on theGalatea."
She whipped around. "Oh, so that's it, is it? You've been working up a conspiracy to get me on your yacht so that you may escape from gossip? I see. Quite clever to enrol my family against me, but my answer to you this afternoon holds good."
For all the love that had come upon him so suddenly, Franklin lost patience. He put his hand on her arm and held her in a close grip. "Let it hold good," he said. "Stand out against being my wife until you see sense and learn that others deserve consideration besides yourself. But conform now to your people's wishes and put York off the scent. That's all you're required to do at the moment."
"Take your hand away," said Beatrix icily. "This is not a woman's bedroom. I can call for help here remember."
Franklin retained his grip. He was very angry. "You fool," he said, too completely out of control to choose his words. "Look at this thing sanely. Come out of your house of cards and play the game like a grown woman. The scandal that drove you into taking advantage of me will be ten thousand times worse if York gets to work."
"That doesn't worry me," said Beatrix calmly. "I'll thank you for my arm."
"You don't count," said Franklin. "Consideration must be given to your people and to me."
"I'm perfectly willing and even anxious to protect my people, but"—and she gave him two fearless eyes—"I see no reason why I should worry about you."
"Why not? Where would you be now but for my having come to the rescue?"
Beatrix gave a most tantalizing laugh. "When you learned to play the trumpet you were a good pupil, Mr. Franklin. Any other man would have done as well, you know."
Franklin dropped her arm. "Good God," he said, "you beat me. I can't compete with you. I might just as well try to drive sense into a lunatic."
It was good, it was worth being alive to Beatrix to see this man, this fine, strong, clean-built, square-shouldered man, who had dared to conceive the remote possibility of humbling her for what she had done, who had had the sublime audacity to believe that he could teach her a lesson, standing impotent before her, self-confessedly her inferior, when it came to wits. She showed it in her smile, in her almost bland and child-like glee, in her frank pleasure. He had said a thing to her that no man should ever have said to a woman and expect to be forgiven. She would remember it as long as she lived and make him pay for it and pay and pay again.
"Even lunatics have their sane moments," she said. "Mine come whenever I think about you. Isn't that Malcolm Fraser on the terrace? How delightful. Suppose we go back now, after yet another of our little wrangles, shall we?"
She stood silhouetted against the darkening sky, with her hands behind her back, her head held high, the very epitome of utter carelessness, the last word in individualism, the thoughtless and selfish enjoyment of the moment and of life generally so long as it was without responsibility, concentration, or a call to do anything for anybody but herself.
"Count me out, please," said Franklin. "You must get out of this business in your own way. I shall leave here to-night and go to sea. I wish you luck."
He bowed, turned on his heel and walked away, and as he went, he hoped that he might never see that girl again.
XV
"Now, old man," said Franklin when at last he found himself with Malcolm Fraser, "let's get out of earshot of this chattering crowd and come up to things."
"The sooner the better," said Fraser.
They left the hall and passed the ball-room, to which everyone with a sense of rhythm, even if with no ear for music, had been drawn by the irresistible syncopation of a large banjo band of colored musicians. The drummer was already committing demented acts upon a scavenger collection of tins, boxes, and whistles. They went out into the moonlight and through the gardens to the summer house.
The dynamic energy which radiated from Franklin did much, so far as Fraser was concerned, to spoil the exquisite peace and lassitude of the night. All the poet in him gave him the keys with which to open some of the unnoticed doors to Nature's storehouses of beauty and called him to stand very still and fill his brain and soul with the sight that met his eyes. He had never felt prouder of his country than when he revelled in the picture of the moon-touched Sound, magic with the reflection of a multitude of stars, and ran his eyes along the dim outline of shore to his right and caught the bright eyes of thousands of cheerful lights. It seemed to him that Nature, with the proud consciousness of her genius as an artist, had outdone herself in setting a scene for the human comedy in which he had been cast for the second male part. Water and moon and stars, the mystery of night, the feeling of illimitable space, the scent of sleeping flowers, the whisper of fairies, all as old and even older than the hills—surely this was an appropriate setting for the working out of the ancient and inevitable drama, the ever-recurring clash, between a man and a woman.
"Go ahead, Pel," he said. "This morning in New York you left this strange story of yours at the point where the entrance of York into it made you decide to marry Beatrix. I have not got the novelist's brain so I can't for the life of me see what can have happened in the chapter that has been begun since then."
"My dear chap," said Franklin, flinging the end of a cigarette over the wall, "don't you know that more impossible things are done every hour in life than ever find their way into books?"
"Yes, I know that."
"Well, the thing that I should have thought the very limit of impossibility happened here, on this very spot, this afternoon when I got back. Take a guess."
Fraser's answer came quickly. "Beatrix loves you."
There was no mirth in Franklin's laugh. "Guess again."
"You love Beatrix."
"A precious clever fellow, aren't you? What the devil made you get to love so quickly? I expected you to flounder through a dozen guesses and then be wide of the mark."
"A man and a woman and love," said Fraser. "Why hire a detective to make a mystery of that? It's any poet's job."
Franklin kicked the wall viciously. "There's nothing for a poet in this," he said. "I do love this girl. I wish to God I didn't. I'd give ten years of my life if she left me as cold as a flapping fish. You know what we talked over this morning. We decided that there was only one way for me to get out honestly of that fool maze in which I'd been caught. The reasons were pretty obvious. My family and the Vanderdykes were at the mercy of that glossy charlatan and because of the ungovernable impulses of this ... this—what in thunderisthe right word for Beatrix? I give it up."
"Undiscovered girl. Will that do?"
"No," said Franklin. "Not a bit like it."
"Well, then, dollar-ruined, misnamed victim of a false civilization. How's that?"
"Too long and too pedantic. I wanted one word. However, let it go. What's it matter? It's a waste of words to describe her and a waste of time to consider her. When I put things to her plainly and bluntly, she told me to go to the devil. I sent for you to use your influence, hoping, as of course you can see, that she might come down to solid things and see sense,—hoping too that, married, I might be able to force my way into her heart, if she's got one."
"Oh, yes, she's got one."
"I doubt it. Very highly finished watch works is all the heart she's got. However, since that first talk we've had another and that's made your kindness in coming here utterly useless."
Fraser turned eagerly towards his friend. He had no hope of ever being any more to Beatrix than an art student can be to a very perfect Gainsborough at which he gazes from behind a rail. He could neither buy her nor win her. She was completely out of his reach. Not able to marry her himself, he would rather see her married to Franklin than any living man. "Why?" he asked.
"Because I'm off. I'm out. I'm through. I'm not an expert in love. As a matter of fact I'm a boob in the business. It's new to me. But it's hit me good and hard, old son, and with any encouragement or with half a chance, I'd go for it with everything decent that's in me."
"Go for it," said Fraser, with an odd thrill in his voice. "You have all the luck."
Franklin shook his head. "No. I've done. She has no use for me. She mocks me, twists me round her finger, holds me up by the scruff of the neck, gets more fun out of me than if I were a red-nosed comedian and nearly drives me to murder. I justhaveto get away. I'm going to-night."
"To-night? But my dear old Pel, you—you only found out that you loved her a few hours ago."
"Quite long enough."
"But, good Lord, youmustlet me see what I can do. When we were kids I used to have some influence with her. That is, once or twice she did things for my sake. To chuck the whole thing now, when it looks far more serious than ever,—why Pel, my dear man, talk about ungovernable impulses——"
"Oh, I know," growled Franklin. "We're both tarred with the same brush. We're both money-maniacs. However, in perfectly cold blood, standing here to-night, I assure you that I am better out of her way. I can't help her. She won't be helped. She doesn't give a red cent for anything that may happen. All she cares about is just to go laughing through the moment. Well, let her. But she'll have to go alone. I love her in the sort of way that makes me want to choke her when she starts her tricks. That's the truth. I'm sorry. I don't want to be unsporting and all that but, Malcolm, she isn't safe with me." His voice shook as he said this thing.
"Wait until the morning," said Fraser urgently. "Let me show her the mess she's in."
"Can't be done," said Franklin. "I've told Albert to put my things in the car and I'm off to town right away. I shall go aboard in the morning and weigh anchor at two o'clock. I'll wait for you till then and not a second later." He laid his hand on Fraser's shoulder. "Get your things and come now. There's nothing to do here, worse luck."
"In any case," said Fraser, "I want to have a bit of a talk with Beatrix now that I'm here."
"All right. Well, then, so long, Malcolm. It was mighty good of you to come. Don't fail to be in time to-morrow." He turned and went, walking quickly and waking all the flowers with his energy.
Fraser watched him go,—his tall, wiry, square-shouldered, muscular figure thrown out against the moon-silvered stone-work of the terrace. Then he turned back to the scene that filled his brain with imagery and that inarticulate worship which is offered by all good students to the Master for the perfection of His work. The silence sang. Many of the shore lights had gone out. But the moon rode high and the stars were at their brightest. The faint breeze had fallen away. Fraser raised his hand above his head in a sort of salute and then wheeled round and followed Franklin toward the elephantine house that made a huge black patch against the transparent sky. As he got nearer to it the music of a Hula-Hula thing came to him,—a fascinating, hip-moving mixture that suggested both Hawaii and Broadway and he could see the dancers flitting past the open windows of the ball-room. Among them was Beatrix, in the arms of one of those spineless semi-professional dancing men, a new, curious and uncomfortable breed that has developed in New York since the craze carried it on to its feet. Her mouth was open and her teeth gleaming and her young body moving with exquisite grace and ease.
Fraser went up to one of the windows and watched her until the tune came to an end. Every man has a dream. Somewhere or other in the life of men, all men, there is one precious, priceless thing tucked away in the secret drawer of the heart. Beatrix, as a little, frank, fearless girl, lived and was glorified, for Fraser.
He allowed himself just one short sigh. "And now," he said to himself, "to show for the first time in history that a poet can be a man of action for the sake of a friend. If I fail, I'll, yes, I'll eat and drink my self-filling pen."
It was one o'clock the next day when Franklin left the chart-room of theGalatea, where he had been planning out a cruise with the skipper. He went on deck. All hands had been busily at work since early morning, cleaning and polishing. The yacht looked like a beautiful woman, fresh from the hands of manicure and maid.
There was a shout of "Galatea ahoy" from the port side. Franklin took no notice. It was probably the arrival of the last boat-load of stores. He stood with his arms behind him and his mind back in the Vanderdyke gardens with the afternoon sun aslant upon them, and as he watched the retreating figure of the imperious girl to whom he was less than the dust, a mere pawn to be moved when it was necessary in her game, the amazing thrill which had discovered to him the love that was to be the greatest thing in his life, ran all over him again, and shook him with its strength and passion.
Well, he was bolting from her, bolting because he was afraid. It was the act of a coward, perhaps, but that girl had the power of making queer creatures of men. And he did not intend to be one of them. That was all.
A laugh, taken up by the breeze and thrown past his ear like the petal of a flower, turned him round. Unable to believe his eyes, he saw Beatrix, Ida Larpent and Malcolm Fraser, standing on deck, while luggage was being piled about them. Fraser waved his hand triumphantly. Mrs. Larpent gave one of her slow smiles and Beatrix, with the expression of an angel and a touch of timidity and even humbleness that Franklin had never seen before, came forward. "Come aboard, sir," she said, with a very proper salute. "Malcolm showed me the error of my ways last night and like a good and faithful wife I am going on my honeymoon."
And then the old Beatrix returned and a mocking smile turned Franklin's heart to ice.
XVI
Franklin was a man who inherited a horror of scenes. If he saw a crowd in the street reinforced by running figures he turned on his heel and went the other way. Anything in the nature of an argument sent him out into the street. He was at any time perfectly willing to fight, either for the sake of the exercise or to punish an offender, but he shied at a fracas, a domestic wrangle or the remote possibility of placing himself in a position of being surrounded by many people all talking at the same time. He had camped in solitary places, and communed with nature in her forest cathedrals. He liked the silences.
The moment that this amazing boat-load came aboard theGalateahe saw himself plunged into a scene, if ever there was one. Malcolm Fraser was bursting with information and explanations. Mrs. Larpent gave every indication of the fact that she felt that some justification for her presence was required, and behind Beatrix's impish laugh there was a high-spirited story waiting to be told.
Just for one moment Franklin stood bare-headed in front of Beatrix completely and utterly nonplussed. She was the last person on earth whom he had expected to see on the yacht. He had, indeed, made up his mind never to see her again.—to cut and run from the pain of her, the allurement, the overwhelming attraction. He gazed at her as if she had fallen from the clouds. He had been treated like a child again, "used" once more, and he was angry, but as he took in her charming appearance, the calm audacity of her expression, the indescribable loveliness of her face, he rejoiced. Then he pulled himself together and tried to perform the operation of smiling as a new husband should. "You're in excellent time," he said, and gave a shout, caught the eye of the mate and beckoned him to come forward. "Get everything ready for Mrs. Franklin and Mrs. Larpent. Look alive and have Mr. Fraser's things taken down to his stateroom at once."
The mate was English. "Aye! Aye, sir!" He was also young and sandy and somewhat precocious, and from the tail-end of his eye there came a look of deep admiration for the owner's wife, whom he now saw for the first time.
"Stop a minute," said Franklin. "I don't see anything of your maid, Beatrix. You'll never be able to get along without her."
"You're very thoughtful," said Beatrix, graciously. "Anyone would think you had been on a honeymoon before." And then she laughed. "For some reason or other Helene is very much afraid of you. I brought her, but evidently she's hidden behind something,—the baggage probably." She called "Helene," and the pretty face and compact figure of the young Breton appeared reluctantly from behind several huge innovation trunks, hat-boxes, boot-cases, cabin-trunks, and the Lord knows what besides,—enough, as it seemed to Franklin, to supply half a dozen wives with unnecessaries.
"Perhaps you'll go below with Mr. Jones and make your own arrangements. Otherwise, I'm afraid you won't be very comfortable."
Beatrix smiled in her best social manner. "It's too bad to put you to all this inconvenience and worry," she said. "I'm so sorry, but I dare say we shall all fit in with perfect ease and comfort. More like a young liner than a yacht, isn't she? And who named her theGalatea? So terribly suitable, as little Mrs. Reeves would say. Lead the way, Mr. Jones."
There was a touch of almost navy etiquette about the way in which the mate saluted and obeyed.
Beatrix beckoned to Helene, who was as frightened as a rabbit at sight of dogs, and the little party went below. Franklin watched her go, saw her look about her with a touch of perfectly simple excitement, envied the sun as she put up her face to catch it and the friendly smile with which she rewarded the mate. "If only," he said to himself, "if only——"
And then Mrs. Larpent came forward. There was a most curious little smile round her very red lips and wide nostrils, and a whole dictionary of meaning in her eyes. "You must be a little surprised to see——"
Franklin cut her short. "Not at all. Delighted!" he said, bluntly. "Would you be good enough to follow Beatrix and take your choice of staterooms? I will endeavor to get a stewardess for you before we sail."
"Thanks, so much!" said Ida Larpent, making no attempt to disguise her sense of triumph at being on the yacht. "How delightful it will be to get away from the land and its people for a time. I congratulate you on theGalatea."
Franklin waited until she had disappeared and then strode over to Malcolm Fraser, who was watching the arriving baggage, took his arm and marched him out of ear-shot of the crew. "What the devil have you done? You call yourself a friend and land me in this mess!" His voice was thick with anger.
Fraser looked as astonished as he felt. "But you called me down to the Vanderdykes to do this very thing," he said. "I've done it. What's the trouble?"
"You colossal idiot!" said Franklin. "Haven't you imagination enough to see it for yourself? Have you forgotten every blessed thing that I told you last night? You haven't persuaded this girl to come aboard to oblige her people or to keep my name out of the papers. She doesn't give a solitary curse whether hers is in them or not. She's come just to have the satisfaction of playing with fire, and has brought Ida Larpent because she knows instinctively that she is the last woman on earth I care to see her with or have on theGalatea."
All the way back to town, Fraser had been congratulating himself on having achieved the impossible. He opened his mouth to speak.
"I think you'd better dry up," said Franklin, "and give me time to cool down. At this moment I feel like pitching you overboard." He turned on his heel, went forward and stood, with his hands thrust into his pockets, gazing down the river.
Like all poets, Malcolm Fraser was a very sensitive person. He was deeply hurt at the way in which his efforts were received by the man for whom he had a very deep regard. Like all poets,—even those who confine themselves to gloomy verses, to graves and broken hearts and wind in the trees,—he was an optimist. He had made up his mind that he had only to get Beatrix away to sea with Franklin to bring romance into their very strange, exotic story. He held the belief,—shared by many philosophers,—that in most cases love is the outcome of propinquity,—especially at sea. He didn't possess much, but he would give it all to watch the girl he loved become a woman and find herself for love of his friend. He threw a sympathetic glance at the square shoulders of his friend, and went below to his own familiar stateroom. From this he could hear Beatrix's merry laugh. She, at any rate, seemed to be happy, and that was something. He could not for the life of him understand,—with his friend's confession still warm in his memory,—why, he, too, was not in the seventh heaven of delight at the fulfilment of what had yesterday seemed to be a dream. To the amazing unconventionality of the whole affair he gave no thought. He was an artist.
Finally, and with a huge effort to master his anger and amazement, joy and sense of impending trouble, Franklin summed things up to the best of his ability: "Here's Beatrix," he said to himself, "not married to me,—supposedly on our honeymoon. I love her like an idiotic school-boy—she loathes me like the devil. Here's Ida Larpent, out for everything that she can get, playing her own hand with all the cunning of a card-sharp. Here's Fraser, one of the very best, a man with a heart of gold to whom friendship means loyalty, with a love for Beatrix which has outlasted his boyhood. And almost in sight of us all is the open sea. Great Scott, what a mess!"
And then Captain McBean stood at his elbow. "Orders stand, sir?"
"Of course," said Franklin. "But before we put off do what you can to get a stewardess aboard for Mrs. Larpent. You had better send Jones ashore. He has a wide smile and does things pretty quick, and,—wait a second, Captain,—let him bring back all the latest novels that he can find. We shall need something to keep the ladies busy."
The Captain chuckled. He had been married twice.