186
To Mr. Puma’s elaborate leave-taking she vouchsafed a quick, amused nod, then hurried away eastward to keep her appointment at the Canteen.
About five o’clock she experienced a healthy inclination for tea and wavered between the Plaza and home. Ilse and Marya were with her, but an indefinable something caused her to hesitate, and finally to let them go to the Plaza without her.
What might be the reason of this sudden whim for an unpremeditated cup of tea at home she scarcely took the trouble to analyse. Yet, she was becoming conscious of a subtle and increasing exhilaration as she approached her house and mounted the steps.
Suddenly, as she fitted the latch-key, her heart leaped and she knew why she had come home.
For a moment her fast pulse almost suffocated her. Was she mad to return here on the wildest chance that Jim might have come––might be inside, waiting? And what in the world made her suppose so?––for she had neither seen him nor heard from him in many days.
“I’m certainly a little crazy,” she thought as she opened the door. At the same moment her eyes fell on his overcoat and hat and stick.
Her skirt was rather tight, but her limbs were supple and her feet light, and she ran upstairs to the living room.
As he rose from an armchair she flung her arms out with a joyous little cry and wrapped them tightly around his neck, muff, reticule and all.
“You darling,” he was saying over and over in a happy but rather stupid voice, and crushing her narrow hands between his; “––you adorable child, you wonderful girl–––”
187
“Oh, I’m so glad, Jim! Shall we have tea?... You dear fellow! I’m so very happy that you came! Wait a moment––” she leaned wide from him and touched an electric bell. “Now you’ll have to behave properly,” she said with delightful malice.
He released her; she spoke to the maid and then went over with him to the sofa, flinging muff, stole and purse on a chair.
“Pure premonition,” she explained, stripping the gloves from her hands. “Ilse and Marya were all for the Plaza, but something sent me homeward! Isn’t it really very strange, Jim? Why, I almost had an inclination to run when I turned into our street––not even knowing why, of course–––”
“You’re so sweet and generous!” he blurted out. “Why don’t you raise hell with me?”
“You know,” she said demurely, “I don’t raise hell, dear.”
“But I’ve behaved so rottenly–––”
“It really wasn’t friendly to neglect me so entirely.”
He looked down––laid one hand on hers in silence.
“I understand, Jim,” she said sweetly. “Is it all right now?”
“It’s all right.... Of course I haven’t changed.”
“Oh.”
“But it’s all right.”
“Really?”
“Yes.... What is there for me to do but to accept things as they are?”
“You mean, ‘acceptmeas I am!’ Oh, Jim, it’s so dear of you. And you know well enough that I care for no other man as I do for you–––”
The waitress with the tea-tray cut short that sort of188conversation. Palla’s appetite was a healthy one. She unpinned her hat and flung it on the piano. Then she nestled down sideways on the sofa, one leg tucked under the other knee, her hair in enough disorder to worry any other girl––and began to tuck away tea and cakes. Sometimes, in animated conversation, she gesticulated with a buttered bun––once she waved her cup to emphasise her point:
“The main idea, of course, is to teach the eternal law of Love and Service,” she explained. “But, Jim, I have become recently, and in a measure, militant.”
“You’re going to love the unwashed with a club?”
“You very impudent boy! We’re going to combat this new and terrible menace––this sinister flood that threatens the world––the crimson tide of anarchy!”
“Good work, darling! I enlist for a machine gun uni–––”
“Listen! The battle is to be entirely verbal. Our Combat Club No. 1, the first to be established––is open to anybody and everybody. All are at liberty to enter into the discussions. We who believe in the Law of Love and Service shall have our say every evening that the club is open–––”
“The Reds may come and take a crack at you.”
“The Reds are welcome. We wish to face them across the rostrum, not across a barricade!”
“Well, you dear girl, I can’t see how any Red is going to resist you. And if any does, I’ll knock his bally block off–––”
“Oh, Jim, you’re so vernacularly inclined! And you’re very flippant, too–––”
“I’m not really,” he said in a lower voice. “Whatever you care about could not fail to appeal to me.”
189
She gave him a quick, sweet glance, then searched the tea-tray to reward him.
As she gave him another triangle of cinnamon toast, she remembered something else. It was on the tip of her tongue, now; and she checked herself.
Hehad not spoken of it. Had his mother mentioned meeting her at the Red Cross? If not––was it merely a natural forgetfulness on his mother’s part? Was her silence significant?
Nibbling pensively at her cinnamon toast, Palla pondered this. But the girl’s mind worked too directly for concealment to come easy.
“I’m wondering,” she said, “whether your mother mentioned our meeting at the Red Cross.” And she knew immediately by his expression that he heard it for the first time.
“I was introduced at our headquarters by Leila Vance,” said Palla, in her even voice; “and your mother and she are acquaintances. That is how it happened, Jim.”
He was still somewhat flushed but he forced a smile: “Did you find my mother agreeable, Palla?”
“Yes. And she is so beautiful with her young face and pretty white hair. She always sits between Leila and me while we sew.”
“Did you say you knew me?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Of course,” he repeated, reddening again.
No man ever has successfully divined any motive which any woman desires to conceal.
Why his mother had not spoken of Palla to him he did not know. He was aware, of course, that nobody within the circle into which he had been born would tolerate Palla’s social convictions. Had she casually190and candidly revealed a few of them to his mother in the course of the morning’s conversation over their sewing?
He gave Palla a quick look, encountered her slightly amused eyes, and turned redder than ever.
“You dear boy,” she said, smiling, “I don’t think your very charming mother would be interested in knowing me. The informality of ultra-modern people could not appeal to her generation.”
“Did you––talk to her about–––”
“No. But it might happen. You know, Jim, I have nothing to conceal.”
The old troubled look had come back into his face. She noticed it and led the conversation to lighter themes.
“We danced last night after dinner,” she said. “There were some amusing people here for dinner. Then we went to see such a charming play––Tea for Three––and then we had supper at the Biltmore and danced.... Will you dine with me to-morrow?”
“Of course.”
“Do you think you’d enjoy it?––a lot of people who entertain the same shocking beliefs that I do?”
“All right!” he said with emphasis. “I’m through playing the rôle of death’s-head at the feast. I told you that I’m going to take you as you are and enjoy you and our friends––and quit making an ass of myself–––”
“Dear, you never did!”
“Oh, yes, I did. And maybe I’m a predestined ass. But every ass has a pair of heels and I’m going to flourish mine very gaily from now on!”
She protested laughingly at his self-characterisation, and bent toward him a little, caressing his sleeve in191appeal, or shaking it in protest as he denounced himself and promised to take the world more gaily in the future.
“You’ll see,” he remarked, rising to take his leave: “I may even call the bluff of some of your fluffy ultra-modern friends and try a few trial marriages with each of ’em–––”
“Oh, Jim, you’re absolutely horrid! As if my friends believed in such disgusting ideas!”
“They do––some of ’em.”
“They don’t!”
“Well, then, I do!” he announced so gravely that she had to look at him closely in the rather dim lamplight to see whether he was jesting.
She walked to the top of the staircase with him; let him take her into his arms; submitted to his kiss. Always a little confused by his demonstrations, nevertheless her hand retained his for a second longer, as though shyly reluctant to let him go.
“I am so glad you came,” she said. “Don’t neglect me any more.”
And so he went his way.
His mother discovered him in the library, dressed for dinner. Something, as he rose––his manner of looking at her, perhaps––warned her that they were not perfectlyen rapport. Then the subtle, invisible antennæ, exploring caressingly what is so palpable in the heart of man, told her that once more she was to deal with the girl in black.
When his mother was seated, he said: “I didn’t know you had met Palla Dumont, mother.”
Helen hesitated: “Mrs. Vance’s friend? Oh, yes; she comes to the Red Cross with Leila Vance.”
192
“Do you like her?”
In her son’s eyes she was aware of that subtle and unconscious appeal which all mothers of boys are, some day, fated to see and understand.
Sometimes the appeal is disguised, sometimes it is so subtle that only mothers are able to perceive it.
But what to do about it is the perennial problem. For between lack of sympathy and response there are many nuances; and opposition is always to be avoided.
Helen said, pleasantly, that the girl appeared to be amiable and interesting.
“I know her merely in that way,” she continued. “We sit there sewing slings, pads, compresses, and bandages, and we gossip at random with our neighbours.”
“I like her very much,” said Jim.
“She does seem to be an attractive girl,” said his mother carelessly.... “Are you going to Yama Farms for the week end?”
“No.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. The Speedwells’ party is likely to be such a jolly affair, and I hear there’s lots of snow up there.”
“I haven’t met Mrs. Vance,” said her son. “Is she nice?”
“Leila Vance? Why, of course.”
“Who is she?”
“She married an embassy attaché, Captain Vance. He was in the old army––killed at Mons four years ago.”
“She and Palla are intimate?”
“I believe they are good friends,” remarked his mother, deciding not to attempt to turn the current of conversation for the moment.
193
“Mother?”
“Yes, dear.”
“I am quite sure I never met a girl I like as well.”
Helen laughed: “That is a trifle extravagant, isn’t it?”
“No.... I asked her to marry me.”
Helen’s heart stood still, then a bright flush stained her face.
“She refused me,” said the boy.
His mother said very quietly: “Of course this is news to us, Jim.”
“Yes, I didn’t tell you. I couldn’t, somehow. But I’ve told you now.”
“Dearest,” she said, dropping her hand over his, “don’t think me unsympathetic if I say that it really is better that she refused you.”
“I understand, mother.”
“I hope you do.”
“Oh, yes. But I don’t think you do. Because I am still in love with her.”
“You poor dear!”
“It’s rotten luck, isn’t it?”
“Time heals––” She checked herself, turned and kissed him.
“After all,” she said, “a soldier learns how to take things.”
And presently: “I do wish you’d go up to Yama Farms.”
“That,” he said, “would be the obvious thing to do. Anything to keep going and keep your mind ticking away until you’re safely wound up again.... But I’m not going, dear.”
Helen looked at him in silence, not wondering what194he might be going to do with his week-end instead, because she already guessed.
Before she said anything more his father came in; and a moment later dinner was announced.
Jim slept soundly for the first night in a long time. His mother scarcely closed her eyes at all.
195CHAPTER XIV
There had been a row at the Red Flag Club––a matter of differing opinions between members––nothing sufficient to attract the police, but enough to break several heads, benches and windows. And it was evident that some gentleman’s damaged nose had bled all over the linoleum in the lobby.
Elmer Skidder, arriving at the studio next morning in his brand new limousine, heard about the shindy and went into the club to inspect the wreckage. Then, mad all through, he started out to find Puma. But a Sister Art had got the best of Angelo Puma in a questionable cabaret the night before, and he had not yet arrived at the studio of the Super-Picture Corporation.
Skidder, thrifty by every instinct, and now smarting under his wrongs at the hands––and feet––of the Red Flag Club, went away in his gorgeous limousine to find Sondheim, who paid the rental and who lived in the Bronx.
It was a long way; every mile and every gallon of gasoline made Skidder madder; and when at length he arrived at the brand new, jerry-built apartment house inhabited by Max Sondheim, he had concluded that the Red Flag Club was an undesirable tenant and that it must be summarily kicked out.
Sondheim was still in bed, but a short-haired and196pallid young woman, with assorted spots on her complexion, bade Skidder enter, and opened the chamber door for him.
The bedroom, which smelled of sour fish, was very cold, very dirty, and very blue with cigar smoke. The remains of a delicatessen breakfast stood on a table near the only window, which was tightly shut, and under the sill of which a radiator emitted explosive symptoms of steam to come.
Sondheim sprawled under the bed-covers, smoking; two other men sat on the edge of the bed––Karl Kastner and Nathan Bromberg. Both were smoking porcelain pipes. Three slopping quarts of beer decorated the wash stand.
Skidder, who had halted in the doorway as the full aroma of the place smote him, now entered at the curt suggestion of Sondheim, but refused a chair.
“Say, Sondheim,” he began, “I been to the club this morning, and I’ve seen what you’ve done to the place.”
“Well?” demanded Sondheim, in a growling voice, “what haf we done?”
“Oh, nothing;––smashed the furniture f’r instance. That’s all. But it don’t go with me. See?”
Kastner got up and gave him a sinister, near-sighted look: “If ve done damach ve pay,” he remarked.
“Sure you’ll pay!” blustered Skidder. “And that’s all right, too. But no more for yours truly. I’m through. Here’s where your bunch quits the hall for keeps. Get me?”
“Please?” inquired Kastner, turning a brick red.
“I say I’m through!” blustered Skidder. “You gotta get other quarters. It don’t pay us to keep on buying benches and mending windows, even if you cough up for ’em. It don’t pay us to rent the hall to your club197and get all this here notoriety, what with your red flags and thepo-lice hanging around and nosin’ into everything–––”
“Ach wass!” snapped Kastner, “of vat are you speaking? Iss it for you to concern yourself mit our club und vat iss it ve do?”
“Say, who d’yeh think you’re talkin’ to?” retorted Skidder, his eyes snapping furiously. “Grab this from me, old scout?––I’m half owner of that hall and I’m telling you to get out! Is that plain?”
“So?” Kastner sneered at him and nudged Sondheim, who immediately sat up in bed and levelled an unwashed hand at Skidder.
“You think you fire us?” he shouted, his eyes inflamed and his dirty fingers crisping to a talon. “You go home and tell Puma what you say to us. Then you learn something maybe, what you don’t know already!”
“I’ll learnyousomething!” retorted Skidder. “Just wait till I show Puma the wreckage–––”
“Let him look at it and be damned!” roared Bromberg. “Go home and show it to him! And see if he talks about firing us!”
“Say,” demanded Skidder, astonished, “do you fellows think you got any drag with Angy Puma?”
“Go back and ask him!” growled Bromberg. “And don’t try to come around here and get fresh again. Listen! You go buy what benches you say we broke and send the bill to me, and keep your mouth shut and mind your fool business!”
“I’ll mind my own and yours too!” screamed Skidder, seized by an ungovernable access of fury. “Say, you poor nut!––you sick mink!––you stale hunk of cheese!––if you come down my way again I’ll kick your shirttail198for you! Get that?” And he slammed the door and strode out in a flaming rage.
But when, still furiously excited, he arrived once more at the office,––and when Puma, who had just entered, had listened in sullen consternation to his story, he received another amazing and most unpleasant shock. For Puma told him flatly that the tenancy of the Red Flag Club suited him; that no lease could be broken, except by mutual consent of partners; and that he, Skidder, had had no business to go to Sondheim with any such threat of eviction unless he had first consulted his partner’s wishes.
“Well, what––what––” stammered Skidder––“what the hell drag have those guys got with you?”
“Why is it you talk foolish?” retorted Puma sharply. “Drag? Did Sondheim say–––”
“No!Isay it. I ask you what have those crazy nuts got on you that you stand for all this rumpus?”
Puma’s lustrous eyes, battered but still magnificent, fixed themselves on Skidder.
“Go out,” he said briefly to his stenographer. Then, when the girl had gone, and the glass door closed behind her, he turned heavily and gazed at Skidder some more. And, after a few moments’ silence: “Go on,” he said. “What did Sondheim say about me?”
Skidder’s small, shifty eyes were blinking furiously and his essentially suspicious mind was also operating at full speed. When he had calculated what to say he took the chance, and said:
“Sondheim gave me to understand that he’s got such a hell of a pull with you that I can’t kick him out of my property. What do you know about that, Angelo?”
199
“Go on,” said Puma impatiently, “what else did he say about me?”
“Ain’t I telling you?”
“Tell more.”
Skidder had no more to tell, so he manufactured more.
“Well,” he continued craftily, “I didn’t exactly get what that kike said.” But his grin and his manner gave his words the lie, as he intended they should. “Something about your being in dutch––” He checked himself as Puma’s black eyes lighted with a momentary glare.
“What? He tells you I am in with Germans!”
“Naw;––in dutch!”
Puma’s sanguinary skin reddened; his puffy fingers fished for a cigar in the pocket of his fancy waistcoat; he found one and lighted it, not looking at his partner. Then he picked up the morning paper.
Skidder shrugged; stood up, pretending to yawn; started to open the door.
“Elmer?”
“Yeh? What y’want?”
“I want to know exactly what Max Sondheim said to you about me.”
“Well, you better go ask Sondheim.”
“No. I ask you––my friend––my associate in business–––”
“A fine associate!––when I can’t kick in when I want to kick out a bunch of nuts that’s wrecking the hall, just because they got a drag with you–––”
“Listen. I am frank like there never was a–––”
“Sure. Go on!”
“I say it! Yes! I am frank like hell. From my friend and partner I conceal nothing–––”
200
“Not even the books,” grinned Skidder.
“Elmer. You pain me. I who am all heart! Elmer, I ask it of you if you will so kindly tell me what it is that Sondheim has said to you about this ‘drag.’”
“He said,” replied the other viciously, “that he had you cinched. He said you’d hand me the ha-ha when I saw you. And you’ve done it.”
“Pardon. I did not say to you a ha-ha, Elmer. I was surprised when you have told me how you have gone to Sondheim so roughly, without one word to me–––”
“You was soused to the gills last night. I didn’t know when you’d show up at the studio–––”
“It was not just to me that you go to Sondheim in this so surprising manner, without informing me.” He looked at his cigar; the wrapper was broken and he licked the place with a fat tongue. “Elmer?”
“That’s me,” replied the other, who had been slyly watching him. “Spit it out, Angy. What’s on your mind?”
“I tell you, Elmer!”
Puma’s face became suddenly wreathed in guileless smiles: “Me, I am frank like there never––but no matter,” he added; “listen attentively to what I shall say to you secretly, that I also desire to be rid of this Red Flag Club.”
“Well, then–––”
“A moment! I am embarrass. Yes. You ask why? I shall tell you. It is this. Formerly I have reside in Mexico. My business has been in Mexico City. I have there a little cinema theatre. In 1913 I arrive in New York. You ask me why I came? And I am frank like––” his full smile burst on Skidder––“like a heaven angel! But it is God’s truth I came here to make of the cinema a monument to Art.”
201
“And make your little pile too, eh, Angy?”
“As you please. But this I affirm to you, Elmer; of politics I am innocent like there never was a cherubim! Yes! And yet your Government has question me. Why? you ask so naturally. My God! I know no one in New York. I arrive. I repair to a recommended hotel. I make acquaintance––unhappily––with people who are under a suspicion of German sympathy!”
“What the devil did you do that for?” demanded Skidder.
Puma spread his jewelled fingers helplessly.
“How am I to know? I encounter people. I seek capital for my art. Me, I am all heart: I suspect nobody. I say: ‘Gentlemen, my art is my life. Without it I cease to exist. I desire capital; I desire sympathy; I desire intelligent recognition and practical aid.’ Yes. In time some gentlemen evince confidence. I am offered funds. I produce, with joy, my first picture. Ha! The success is extravagant! But––alas!”
“What tripped you?”
“Alas,” repeated Puma, “your Government arrests some gentlemen who have lend to me much funds. Why? Imagine my grief, my mortification! They are suspect of German propaganda! Oh, my God!”
“How is it they didn’t pinchyou?” asked Skidder coldly, and beginning to feel very uneasy.
“Me? No! They investigate. They discover only Art!”
Skidder squinted at him nervously. If he had heard anything of that sort in connection with Puma he never would have flirted with him financially.
“Well, then, what’s this drag they got with you?––Sondheim and the other nuts?”
202
“I tell you. Letters quite innocent but polite they have in possession–––”
“Blackmail, by heck!”
“I must be considerate of Sondheim.”
“Or he’ll squeal on you. Is that it?”
Puma’s black eyes were flaring up again; the heavy colour stained his face.
“Me, I am–––”
“All right. Sondheim’s got something on you, then. Has he?”
“It is nothing. Yet, it has embarrass me–––”
“That ratty kike! I get you, Angy. You were played. Or maybe you did some playing too. Aw! wait!”––as Puma protested––“I’m getting you, by gobs. Sure. And you’re rich, now, and business is pretty good, and you wish Sondheim would let you alone.”
“Yes, surely.”
“How much hush-cash d’yeh pay him?”
“I?”
“Yaas, you! Come on, now, Angy. What does he stick you up for per month?”
Puma’s face became empurpled: “He is a scoundrel,” he said thickly. “Me––I wish to God and Jesus Christ I saw the last of him!” He got up, and his step was lithe as a leopard’s as he paced the room, ranging the four walls as though caged. And, for the first time, then Skidder realised that this velvet-eyed, velvet-footed man might possibly be rather dangerous––dangerous to antagonise, dangerous to be associated with in business.
“Say,” he blurted out, “what else did you let me in for when I put my money into your business? Think I’m going to be held up by any game like that? Think203I’m going to stand for any shake-down from that gang? Watch me.”
Puma stopped and looked at him stealthily: “What is it you would do, Elmer?”
But Skidder offered no suggestion. He remained, however, extremely uneasy. For it was plain enough that Puma had been involved in dealings sufficiently suspicious to warrant Government surveillance.
All Skidder’s money and real estate were now invested in Super-Pictures. No wonder he was anxious. No wonder Puma, also, seemed worried.
For, whatever he might have done in the past of a shady nature, now he had become prosperous and financially respectable and, if let alone, would doubtless continue to make a great deal of money for Skidder as well as for himself. And Skidder, profoundly troubled, wondered whether his partner had ever been guiltily involved in German propaganda, and had escaped Government detection only to fall a victim, in his dawning prosperity, to blackmailing associates of earlier days.
“That mutt Sondheim looks like a bad one to me, and the other guy––Kastner,” he observed gloomily.
“It is better that we should not offend them.”
“Just as you say, brother.”
“I say it. Yes. We shall be wise to turn to them a pleasing face.”
“Sure. The best thing to do for a while is to stall along,” nodded Skidder, “––but always be ready for a chance to hand it to them. That’s safest; wait till we get the goods on them. Then slam it to ’em plenty!”
“If they annoy me too much,” purred Puma, displaying every dazzling tooth, “it may not be so agreeable204for them. I am bad man to crowd.... Meanwhile–––”
“Sure; we’ll stall along, Angy!”
They opened the glass door and went out into the studio. And Puma began again on his favourite theme, the acquiring of Broadway property and the erection of a cinema theatre. And Skidder, with his limited imagination of a cross-roads storekeeper, listened cautiously, yet always conscious of agreeable thrills whenever the subject was mentioned.
And, although he knew that capital was shy and that conditions were not favourable, his thoughts always reverted to a man he might be willing to go into such a scheme with––the president of the Shadow Hill Trust Company, Alonzo Pawling.
At that very moment, too, it chanced that Mr. Pawling’s business had brought him to New York––in fact, his business was partly with Palla Dumont, and they were now lunching together at the Ritz.
Alonzo Pawling stood well over six feet. He still had all his hair––which was dyed black––and also an inky pair of old-fashioned side whiskers. For the beauty of his remaining features less could be said, because his eyes were a melancholy and faded blue, his nose very large and red, and his small, loose mouth seemed inclined to sag, as though saturated with moisture.
Many years a widower he had, when convenient opportunity presented itself, never failed to offer marriage to Palla Dumont. And when, as always, she refused him in her frank, amused fashion, they returned without embarrassment to their amiable footing of many years––she as child of his old friend and neighbour,205Judge Dumont, he as her financial adviser, and banker.
As usual, Mr. Pawling had offered Palla his large, knotty hand in wedlock that morning. And now that this inevitable preliminary was safely over, they were approaching the end of a business luncheon on entirely amiable terms with each other.
Financial questions had been argued, investments decided upon, news of the town discussed, and Palla was now telling him about Elmer Skidder and his new and apparently prosperous venture into moving pictures.
“He came to see me last evening,” she said, smiling at the recollection, “and he arrived in a handsome limousine with an extra man on the front––oh, very gorgeous, Mr. Pawling!––and we had tea and he told me how prosperous he had become in the moving picture business.”
“I guess,” said Mr. Pawling, “that there’s a lot of money in moving pictures. But nobody ever seems to get any of it except the officials of the corporation and their favourite stars.”
“It seems to be an exceedingly unattractive business,” said Palla, recollecting her unpleasant impressions at the Super-Picture studios.
“The right end of it,” said Mr. Pawling, “is to own a big theatre.”
She smiled: “You wouldn’t advise me to make such an investment, would you?”
Mr. Pawling’s watery eyes rested on her reflectively and he sucked in his lower lips as though trying to extract the omnipresent moisture.
“I dunno,” he said absently.
“Mr. Skidder told me that he would double his invested capital in a year,” she said.
206
“I guess he was bragging.”
“Perhaps,” she rejoined, laughing, “but I should not care to make such an investment.”
“Did he ask you?”
“No. But it seemed to me that he hinted at something of that nature. And I was not at all interested because I am contented with my little investments and my income as it is. I don’t really need much money.”
Mr. Pawling’s pendulous lip, released, sagged wetly and his jet-black eyebrows were lifted in a surprised arch.
“You’re the first person I ever heard say they had enough money,” he remarked.
“But I have!” she insisted gaily.
Mr. Pawling’s sad horse-face regarded her with faded surprise. He passed for a rich man in Shadow Hill.
“Where is Elmer’s place of business?” he inquired finally, producing a worn note-book and a gold pencil. And he wrote down the address.
There was in all the world only one thing that seriously worried Mr. Pawling, and that was this worn note-book. Almost every day of his life he concluded to burn it. He lived in a vague and daily fear that it might be found on him if he died suddenly. Such things could happen––automobile or railroad accidents––any one of numberless mischances.
And still he carried it, and had carried it for years––always in a sort of terror while the recent Mrs. Pawling was still alive––and in dull but perpetual anxiety ever since.
There were in it pages devoted to figures. There were, also, memoranda of stock transactions. There were many addresses, too, mostly feminine.
Now he replaced it in the breast pocket of his frock-coat,207and took out a large wallet strapped with a rubber band.
While he was paying the check, Palla drew on her gloves; and, at the Madison Avenue door, stood chatting with him a moment longer before leaving for the canteen.
Then, smilingly declining his taxi and offering her slender hand in adieu, she went westward on foot as usual. And Mr. Pawling’s directions to the chauffeur were whispered ones as though he did not care to have the world at large share in his knowledge of his own occult destination.
Palla’s duty at the canteen lasted until six o’clock that afternoon, and she hurried on her way home because people were dining there at seven-thirty.
With the happy recollection that Jim, also, was dining with her, she ran lightly up the steps and into the house; examined the flowers which stood in jars of water in the pantry, called for vases, arranged a centre-piece for the table, and carried other clusters of blossoms into the little drawing-room, and others still upstairs.
Then she returned to criticise the table and arrange the name-cards. And, this accomplished, she ran upstairs again to her own room, where her maid was waiting.
Two or three times in a year––not oftener––Palla yielded to a rare inclination which assailed her only when unusually excited and happy. That inclination was to whistle.
She whistled, now, while preparing for the bath; whistled like a blackbird as she stood before the pier-glass before the maid hooked her into a filmy, rosy208evening gown––her first touch of colour since assuming mourning.
The bell rang, and the waitress brought an elaborate florist’s box. There were pink orchids in it and Jim’s card;––perfection.
How could he have known! She wondered rapturously, realising all the while that they’d have gone quite as well with her usual black.
Would he come early? She had forgotten to ask it. Would he? For, in that event––and considering his inclination to take her into his arms––she decided to leave off the orchids until the more strenuous rites of friendship had been accomplished.
She was carrying the orchids and the long pin attached, in her left hand, when the sound of the doorbell filled her with abrupt and delightful premonitions. She ventured a glance over the banisters, then returned hastily to the living room, where he discovered her and did exactly what she had feared.
Her left hand, full of orchids, rested on his shoulder; her cool, fresh lips rested on his. Then she retreated, inviting inspection of the rosy dinner gown; and fastened her orchids while he was admiring it.
Her guests began to arrive before either was quite ready, so engrossed were they in happy gossip. And Palla looked up in blank surprise that almost amounted to vexation when the bell announced that their tête-à-tête was ended.
Shotwell had met the majority of Palla’s dinner guests. Seated on her right, he received from his hostess information concerning some of those he did not know.
“That rather talkative boy with red hair is Larry Rideout,” she said in a low voice. “He edits a weekly209calledThe Coming Race. The Post Office authorities have refused to pass it through the mails. It’s rather advanced, you know.”
“Who is the girl on his right––the one with the chalky map?”
“Questa Terrett. Don’t you think her pallor is fascinating?”
“No. What particular stunt does she perform?”
“Don’t be flippant. She writes.”
“Ads?”
“Jim! She writes poems. Haven’t you seen any of them?”
“I don’t think so.”
“They’re rather modern poems. The lines don’t rhyme and there’s no metrical form,” explained Palla.
“Are they any good?”
“They’re a little difficult to understand. She leaves out so many verbs and nouns–––”
“I know. It’s a part of her disease–––”
“Jim, please be careful. She is taken seriously–––”
“Taken seriously ill? There, dear, I won’t guy your guests. What an absolutely deathly face she has!”
“She is considered beautiful.”
“She has the profile of an Egyptian. She’s as dead-white as an Egyptian leper–––”
“Hush!”
“Hush it is, sweetness! Who’s the good-looking chap over by Ilse?”
“Stanley Wardner.”
“And his star trick?”
“He’s a secessionist sculptor.”
“What’s that?”
“He is one of the ultra-modern men who has seceded210from the Society of American Sculptors to form, with a few others, a new group.”
“Is he any good?”
“Well, Jim, I don’t know,” she said candidly. “I don’t think I am quite in sympathy with his work.”
“What sort is it?”
“If I understand him, he is what is termed, I believe, a concentrationist. For instance, in a nude figure which he is exhibiting in his studio, it’s all a rough block of marble except, in the middle of the upper part, there is a nose.”
“A nose!”
“Really, it is beautifully sculptured,” insisted Palla.
“But––good heavens!––isn’t there any other anatomical feature to that block of marble?”
“I explained that he is a concentrationist. His school believes in concentrating on a single feature only, and in rendering that feature as minutely and perfectly as possible.”
Jim said: “He looks as sane as a broker, too. You never can tell, can you, sweetness?”
He glanced at several other people whose features were not familiar, but Palla’s explanations of her friends had slightly discouraged him and he made no further inquiries.
Vanya Tchernov was there, dreamy and sweet-mannered; Estridge sat by Ilse, looking a trifle careworn, as though hospital work were taking it out of him. Marya Lanois was there, too, with her slightly slanting green eyes and her tiger-red hair––attracting from him a curious sort of stealthy admiration, inexplicable to him because he knew he was so entirely in love with Palla.
A woman of forty sat on his right––he promptly211forgot her name each time he heard it––who ate fastidiously and chose birth-control as the subject for conversation. And he dodged it in vain, for her conversation had become a monologue, and he sat fiddling with his food, very red, while the silky voice, so agreeable in pitch and intonation, slid smoothly on.
Afterward Palla explained that she was a celebrated sociologist, but Jim remained shy of her.
Other people came in after dinner. Vanya seated himself at the piano and played from one of his unpublished scores. Ilse sang two Scandinavian songs in her fresh, wholesome, melodious voice––the song calledYgdrasil, and theSong of Thokk. Wardner had brought a violin, and he and Vanya accompanied Marya’s Asiatic songs, but with some difficulty on the sculptor’s part, as modern instruments are scarcely adapted to the sort of Russian music she chose to sing.
Marya had a way, when singing, which appeared almost insolent. Seated, or carelessly erect, her supple figure fell into lines of indolently provocative grace; and the warm, golden notes welling from her throat seemed to be flung broadcast and indifferently to her listeners, as alms are often flung, without interest, toward abstract poverty and not to the poor breathing thing at one’s elbow.
She sang, in her preoccupied way, one of her savage, pentatonic songs, more Mongol than Cossack; then she sang an impudentburlatskiyalazily defiant of her listeners; then a so-called “dancing song,” in which there was little restraint in word or air.
The subtly infernal enchantment of girl and music was felt by everybody; but several among the illuminati and the fair ultra-modernettes had now reached their limit of breadth and tolerance, and were becoming212bored and self-conscious, when abruptly Marya’s figure straightened to a lovely severity, her mouth opened sweetly as a cherub’s, and, looking up like a little, ruddy bird, she sang one of the ancientKolyadki, Vanya alone understanding as his long, thin fingers wandered instinctively into an improvised accompaniment:
I
“Young tearsYour fears disguise;He is not coming!Sweet lipsLet slip no sighs;Cease, heart, your drumming!He is not coming,[A]Lada!He is not coming.Lada oy Lada!“Gaze not in wonder,––Yonder no rider comes;Hark how the kettle-drumsMock his hoofs’ thunder;Hark to their thudding,Pretty breasts budding,––Setting the Buddhist bellsClanking and banging,––Wheels at the hidden wellsClinking and clanging!(Lada oy Lada!)Plough the flower under;Tear it asunder!“Young eyesIn swift surprise,What terror veils you?Clear eyes,Who gallops here?213What wolf assails you?What horseman hails you,Lada!What pleasure pales you?Lada oy Lada!“Knight who rides boldly,May Erlik impale you,––Your mother bewail you,If you use her coldly!Health to the wedding!Joy to the bedding!Set all the Christian bellsSwinging and ringing––Monks in their stony cellsChanting and singing(Lada oy Lada!)Bud of the rose,Gently unclose!”
Marya, her gemmed fingers bracketed on her hips, the last sensuous note still afloat on her lips, turned her head so that her rounded chin rested on her bare shoulder; and looked at Shotwell. He rose, applauding with the others, and found a chair for her.
But when she seated herself, she addressed Ilse on the other side of him, leaning so near that he felt the warmth of her hair.
“Who was it wrestled with Loki? Was it Hel, goddess of death? Or was it Thor who wrestled with that toothless hag, Thokk?”
Ilse explained.
The conversation became general, vaguely accompanied by Vanya’s drifting improvisations, where he still sat at the piano, his lost gaze on Marya.
Bits of the chatter around him came vaguely to Shotwell––the birth-control lady’s placid inclination toward214obstetrics; Wardner on concentration, with Palla listening, bending forward, brown eyes wide and curious and snowy hands framing her face; Ilse partly turned where she was seated, alert, flushed, half smiling at what John Estridge, behind her shoulder, was saying to her,––some improvised nonsense, of which Jim caught a fragment:
“If he who dwells in MidgardWith cunning can not floor her,What hope that Mistress WestgardWill melt if I implore her?“And yet I’ve come to Asgard,And hope I shall not bore herIf I tell Mistress WestgardHow deeply I adore her–––”
Through the hum of conversation and capricious laughter, Vanya’s vague music drifted like wind-blown thistle-down, and his absent regard never left Marya, where she rested among the cushions in low-voiced dialogue with Jim.
“I had hoped,” she smiled, “that you had perhaps remembered me––enough to stop for a word or two some day at tea-time.”
He had had no intention of going; but he said that he had meant to and would surely do so,––the while she was leisurely recognising the lie as it politely uncoiled.
“Why won’t you come?” she asked under her breath.
“I shall certainly–––”
“No; you won’t come.” She seemed amused: “Tell me, are you too a concentrationist?” And her beryl-green eyes barely flickered toward Palla. Then she smiled and laid her hand lightly on her breast: “I, on the contrary, am a Diffusionist. It’s merely a215matter of how God grinds the lens. But prisms colour one’s dull white life so gaily!”
“And split it up,” he said, smiling.
“And disintegrate it,” she nodded, “––so exquisitely.”
“Into rainbows.”
“You do not believe that there is hidden gold there?” And, looking at him, she let one hand rest lightly against her hair.
“Yes. I believe it,” he said, laughing at her enchanting effrontery. “But, Marya, when the rainbow goes a-glimmering, the same old grey world is there again. It’s always there–––”
“Awaiting another rainbow!”
“But storms come first.”
“Is another rainbow not worth the storm?”
“Is it?” he demanded.
“Shall we try?” she asked carelessly.
He did not answer. But presently he looked across at Vanya.
“Who is there who would not love him?” said Marya serenely.
“I was wondering.”
“No need. All love Vanya. I, also.”
“I thought so.”
“Think so. For it is quite true.... Will you come to tea alone with me some afternoon?”
He looked at her; reddened. Marya turned her head leisurely, to hear what Palla was saying to her. At the sound of her voice, Jim turned also, and saw Palla bending near his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she was saying to Marya, “but Questa Terrett desires to know Jim–––”
“Is it any wonder,” said Marya, “that women should216desire to know him? Alas!––” She laughed and turned to Ilse, who seated herself as Jim stood up.
Palla, her finger-tips resting lightly on his arm, said laughingly: “Our youthful and tawny enchantress seemed unusually busy with you this evening. Has she turned you into anything very disturbing?”
“Would you care?”
“Of course.”
“Enough to come to earth and interfere?”
“Good heavens, has it gone as far as that!” she whispered in gay consternation. “And could I really arrive in time, though breathless?”
He laughed: “You don’t need to stir from your niche, sweetness. I swept your altar once. I’ll keep the fire clean.”
“You adorable thing––” He felt the faintest pressure of her fingers; then he heard himself being presented to Questa Terrett.
The frail and somewhat mortuary beauty of this slim poetess, with her full-lipped profile of an Egyptian temple-girl and her pale, still eyes, left him guessing––rather guiltily––recollecting his recent but meaningless disrespect.
“I don’t know,” she said, “just why you are here. Soldiers are no novelty. Is somebody in love with you?”
It was a toss-up whether he’d wither or laugh, but the demon of gaiety won out.
She also smiled.
“I asked you,” she added, “because you seem to be quite featureless.”
“Oh, I’ve a few eyes and noses and that sort–––”
“I mean psychologically accentless.”
“Just plain man?”
“Yes. That is all you are, isn’t it?”