80CHAPTER VIIIA CHANGE IMPENDS
The racing season at Saratoga drew toward its close, and Brandes had appeared there only twice in person, both times with a very young girl.
“If you got to bring her here to the races, can’t you get her some clothes?” whispered Stull in his ear. “That get-up of hers is something fierce.”
Late hours, hot weather, indiscreet nourishment, and the feverish anxiety incident to betting other people’s money had told on Stull. His eyes were like two smears of charcoal on his pasty face; sourly he went about the business which Brandes should have attended to, nursing resentment—although he was doing better than Brandes had hoped to do.
Their joint commission from his winnings began to assume considerable proportions; at track and club and hotel people were beginning to turn and stare when the little man with the face of a sick circus clown appeared, always alone, greeting with pallid indifference his acquaintances, ignoring overtures, noticing neither sport, nor fashion, nor political importance, nor yet the fair and frail whose curiosity and envy he was gradually arousing.
Obsequiousness from club, hotel, and racing officials made no impression on him; he went about his business alone, sullen, preoccupied, deathly pale, asking no information, requesting no favours, conferring with nobody, doing no whispering and enduring none.81
After a little study of that white, sardonic, impossible face, people who would have been glad to make use of him became discouraged. And those who first had recognised him in Saratoga found, at the end of the racing month, nothing to add to their general identification of him as “Ben Stull, partner of Eddie Brandes—Western sports.”
Stull, whispering in Brandes’ ear again, where he sat beside him in the grand stand, added to his earlier comment on Ruhannah’s appearance:
“Why don’t you fix her up, Eddie? It looks like you been robbing a country school.”
Brandes’ slow, greenish eyes marked sleepily the distant dust, where Mr. Sanford’s Nick Stoner was leading a brilliant field, steadily overhauling the favourite, Deborah Glenn.
“When the time comes for me to fix her up,” he said between thin lips which scarcely moved, “she’ll look like Washington Square in May—not like Fifth Avenue and Broadway.”
Nick Stoner continued to lead. Stull’s eyes resembled two holes burnt in a sheet; Brandes yawned. They were plunging the limit on the Sanford favourite.
As for Ruhannah, she sat with slender gloved hands tightly clasped, lips parted, intent, fascinated with the sunlit beauty of the scene.
Brandes looked at her, and his heavy, expressionless features altered subtly:
“Some running!” he said.
A breathless nod was her response. All around them repressed excitement was breaking out; men stood up and shouted; women rose, and the club house seemed82suddenly to blossom like a magic garden of wind-tossed flowers.
Through the increasing cheering Stull looked on without a sign of emotion, although affluence or ruin, in the Sanford colours, sat astride the golden roan.
Suddenly Ruhannah stood up, one hand pressed to the ill-fitting blue serge over her wildly beating heart. Brandes rose beside her. Not a muscle in his features moved.
“Gawd!” whispered Stull in his ear, as they were leaving.
“Some killing, Ben!” nodded Brandes in his low, deliberate voice. His heavy, round face was deeply flushed; Fortune, the noisy wanton, had flung both arms around his neck. But his slow eyes were continually turned on the slim young girl whom he was teaching to walk beside him without taking his arm.
“Ain’t she on to us?” Stull had enquired. And Brandes’ reply was correct; Ruhannah never dreamed that it made a penny’s difference to Brandes whether Nick Stoner won or whether it was Deborah Glenn which the wild-voiced throng saluted.
They did not remain in Saratoga for dinner. They took Stull back to his hotel on the rumble of the runabout, Brandes remarking that he thought he should need a chauffeur before long and suggesting that Stull look about Saratoga for a likely one.
Halted in the crush before the United States Hotel, Stull decided to descend there. Several men in the passing crowds bowed to Brandes; one, Norton Smawley, known to the fraternity as “Parson” Smawley, came out to the curb to shake hands. Brandes83introduced him to Rue as “Parson” Smawley—whether with some sinister future purpose already beginning to take shape in his round, heavy head, or whether a perverted sense of humour prompted him to give Rue the idea that she had been in godly company, it is difficult to determine.
He added that Miss Carew was the daughter of a clergyman and a missionary. And the Parson took his cue. At any rate Rue, leaning from her seat, listened to the persuasive and finely modulated voice of Parson Smawley with pleasure, and found his sleek, graceful presence and courtly manners most agreeable. There were no such persons in Gayfield.
She hoped, shyly, that if he were in Gayfield he would call on her father. Once in a very long while clergymen called on her father, and their rare visits remained a pleasure to the lonely invalid for months.
The Parson promised to call, very gravely. It would not have embarrassed him to do so; it was his business in life to have a sufficient knowledge of every man’s business to enable him to converse convincingly with anybody.
He took polished leave of her; took leave of Brandes with the faintest flutter of one eyelid, as though he understood Brandes’ game. Which he did not; nor did Brandes himself, entirely.
They had thirty miles to go in the runabout. So they would not remain to dinner. Besides, Brandes did not care to make himself conspicuous in public just then. Too many people knew more or less about him—the sort of people who might possibly be in communication with his wife. There was no use slapping chance in the face. Two quiet visits to the races with Ruhannah84was enough for the present. Even those two visits were scarcely discreet. It was time to go.
Stull and Brandes stood consulting together beside the runabout; Rue sat in the machine watching the press of carriages and automobiles on Broadway, and the thronged sidewalks along which brilliant, animated crowds were pouring.
“I’m not coming again, Ben,” said Brandes, dropping his voice. “No use to hunt the limelight just now. You can’t tell what some of these people might do. I’ll take no chances that some fresh guy might try to start something.”
“Stir up Minna?” Stull’s lips merely formed the question, and his eyes watched Ruhannah.
“They couldn’t. What would she care? All the same, I play safe, Ben. Well, be good. Better send me mine on pay day. I’ll need it.”
Stull’s face grew sourer:
“Can’t you wait till she gets her decree?”
“And lose a month off? No.”
“It’s all coming your way, Eddie. Stay wise and play safe. Don’t start anything now––”
“It’s safe. If I don’t take September off I wait a year for my—honeymoon. And I won’t. See?”
They both looked cautiously at Ruhannah, who sat motionless, absorbed in the turmoil of vehicles and people.
Brandes’ face slowly reddened; he dropped one hand on Stull’s shoulder and said, between thin lips that scarcely moved:
“She’s all I’m interested in. You don’t think much of her, Ben. She isn’t painted. She isn’t dolled up the way you like ’em. But there isn’t anything else that matters very much to me. All I want in the world is85sitting in that runabout, looking out of her kid eyes at a thousand or two people who ain’t worth the pair of run-down shoes she’s wearing.”
But Stull’s expression remained sardonic and unconvinced.
So Brandes got into his car and took the wheel; and Stull watched them threading a tortuous path through the traffic tangle of Broadway.
They sped past the great hotels, along crowded sidewalks, along the park, and out into an endless stretch of highway where hundreds of other cars were travelling in the same direction.
“Did you have a good time?” he inquired, shifting his cigar and keeping his narrow eyes on the road.
“Yes; it was beautiful—exciting.”
“Some horse, Nick Stoner! Some race, eh?”
“I was so excited—with everybody standing up and shouting. And such beautiful horses—and such pretty women in their wonderful dresses! I—I never knew there were such things.”
He swung the car, sent it rushing past a lumbering limousine, slowed a little, gripped his cigar between his teeth, and watched the road, both hands on the wheel.
Yes, things were coming his way—coming faster and faster all the while. He had waited many years for this—for material fortune—for that chance which every gambler waits to seize when the psychological second ticks out. But he never had expected that the chance was to include a very young girl in a country-made dress and hat.
As they sped westward the freshening wind from distant pine woods whipped their cheeks; north, blue hills and bluer mountains beyond took fairy shape against the sky; and over all spread the tremendous heavens86where fleets of white clouds sailed the uncharted wastes, and other fleets glimmered beyond the edges of the world, hull down, on vast horizons.
“I want to make you happy,” said Brandes in his low, even voice. It was, perhaps, the most honest statement he had ever uttered.
Ruhannah remained silent, her eyes riveted on the far horizon.
It was a week later, one hot evening, that he telegraphed to Stull in Saratoga:
“Find me a chauffeur who will be willing to go abroad. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to get him here.”
The next morning he called up Stull on the telephone from the drug store in Gayfield:
“Get my wire, Ben?”
“Yes. But I––”
“Wait. Here’s a postscript. I also want Parson Smawley. I want him to get a car and come over to the Gayfield House. Tell him I count on him. And he’s to wear black and a white tie.”
“Yes. But about that chauffeur you want––”
“Don’t argue. Have him here. Have the Parson, also. Tell him to bring a white tie. Understand?”
“Oh, yes, I understand you, Eddie! You don’t want anything of me, do you! Go out and get that combination? Just like that! What’ll I do? Step into the street and whistle?”
“It’s up to you. Get busy.”
“Asusual,” retorted Stull in an acrid voice. “All the same. I’m telling you there ain’t a chauffeur you’d have in Saratoga. Who handed you that dope?”
“Try. I need the chauffeur part of the combine,87anyway. If he won’t go abroad, I’ll leave him in town. Get a wiggle on, Ben. How’s things?”
“All right. We had War-axe and Lady Johnson. Some killing, eh? That stable is winning all along. We’ve got Adriutha and Queen Esther today. The Ocean Belle skate is scratched. Doc and Cap and me is thick with the Legislature outfit. We’ll trim ’em tonight. How are you feeling, Eddie?”
“Never better. I’ll call you up in the morning. Ding-dong!”
“Wait! Are you really going abroad?” shouted Stull.
But Brandes had already hung up.
He walked leisurely back to Brookhollow through the sunshine. He had never been as happy in all his life.
88CHAPTER IXNONRESISTANCE
“Long distance calling you, Mr. Stull. One moment, please.... Here’s your party,” concluded the operator.
Stull, huddled sleepily on his bed, picked up the transmitter from the table beside him with a frightful yawn.
“Who is it?” he inquired sourly.
“It’s me—Ben!”
“Say, Eddie, have a heart, will you! I need the sleep––”
Brandes’ voice was almost jovial:
“Wake up, you poor tout! It’s nearly noon––”
“Well, wasn’t I singing hymns with Doc and Cap till breakfast time? And believeme, we trimmed the Senator’s bunch! They’ve got their transportation back to Albany, and that’s about all––”
“Careful what you say. I’m talking from the Gayfield House. The Parson got here all right. He’s just left. He’ll tell you about things. Listen, Ben, the chauffeur you sent me from Saratoga got here last evening, too. I went out with him and he drives all right. Did you look him up?”
“Now, how could I look him up when you gave me only a day to get him for you?”
“Did he have references?”
“Sure, a wad of them. But I couldn’t verify them.”
“Who is he?”
“I forget his name. You ought to know it by now.”89
“How did you get him?”
“Left word at the desk. An hour later he came to my room with a couple of bums. I told him about the job. I told him you wanted a chauffeur willing to go abroad. He said he was all that and then some. So I sent him on. Anything you don’t fancy about him?”
“Nothing, I guess. He seems all right. Only I like to know about a man––”
“How can I find out if you don’t give me time?”
“All right, Ben. I guess he’ll do. By the way, I’m starting for town in ten minutes.”
“What’s the idea?”
“Ask the Parson. Have you any other news except that you killed that Albany bunch of grafters?”
“No....Yes! But it ain’t good news. I was going to call you soon as I waked up––”
“What’s the trouble?”
“There ain’t any trouble—yet. But a certain party has showed up here—a very smooth young man whose business is hunting trouble. Get me?”
After a silence Stull repeated:
“Get me, Eddie?”
“No.”
“Listen. A certain slippery party––”
“Who, damn it? Talk out. I’m in a hurry.”
“Very well, then. Maxy Venem is here!”
The name of his wife’s disbarred attorney sent a chill over Brandes.
“What’s he doing in Saratoga?” he demanded.
“I’m trying to find out. He was to the races yesterday. He seen Doc. Of course Doc hadn’t laid eyes on you for a year. Oh, no, indeed! Heard you was somewhere South, down and out. I don’t guess Maxy was90fooled none. What we done here in Saratoga is growing too big to hush up––”
“Whatwe’vedone? Whad’ye mean,we? I told you to work by yourself quietly, Ben, and keep me out of it.”
“That’s what I done. Didn’t I circulate the news that you and me had quit partnership? And even then you wouldn’t take my advice. Oh, no. You must show up here at the track with a young lady––”
“How long has Maxy Venem been in Saratoga?” snapped Brandes.
“He told Doc he just come, but Cap found out he’d been here a week. All I hope is he didn’t see you with the Brookhollow party––”
“Do you think hedid?”
“Listen, Eddie. Max is a smooth guy––”
“Find out what he knows! Do you hear?”
“Who? Me? Me try to make Maxy Venem talk? That snake? If he isn’t on to you now, that would be enough to put him wise. Act like you had sense, Eddie. Call thatother matteroff and slide for town––”
“I can’t, Ben.”
“You got to!”
“Ican’t, I tell you.”
“You’re nutty in the head! Don’t you suppose that Max is wise to what I’ve been doing here? And don’t you suppose he knows damn well that you’re back of whatever I do? If you ain’t crazy you’ll call that party off for a while.”
Brandes’ even voice over the telephone sounded a trifle unnatural, almost hoarse:
“I can’t call it off.It’s done.”
“What’s done?”
“What I told you I was going to do.”91
“That!”
“The Parson married us.”
“Oh!”
“Wait! Parson Smawley married us, in church, assisted by the local dominie. I didn’t count on the dominie. It was her father’s idea. He butted in.”
“Then is it—is it––?”
“That’s what I’m not sure about. You see, the Parson did it, but the dominie stuck around. Whether he got a half nelson on me I don’t know till I ask. Anyway, I expected to clinch things—later—so it doesn’t really matter, unless Max Venem means bad. Does he, do you think?”
“Healwaysdoes, Eddie.”
“Yes, I know. Well, then, I’ll wait for a cable from you. And if I’ve got to take three months off in Paris, why I’ve got to—that’s all.”
“Good God! What about Stein? What about the theaytre?”
“You’llhandle it for the first three months.... Say, I’ve got to go, now. I think she’s waiting––”
“Who?”
“My—wife.”
“Oh!”
“Yes. The chauffeur took her back to the house in the car to put something in her suitcase that she forgot. I’m waiting for her here at the Gayfield House. We’re on our way to town. Going to motor in. Our trunks have gone by rail.”
After a silence, Stull’s voice sounded again, tense, constrained:
“You better go aboard tonight.”
“That’s right, too.”
“What’s your ship?”92
“Lusitania.”
“What’ll I tell Stein?”
“Tell him I’ll be back in a month. You look out for my end. I’ll be back in time.”
“Will you cable me?”
“Sure. And if you get any later information about Max today, call me at the Knickerbocker. We’ll dine there and then go aboard.”
“I get you.... Say, Eddie, I’m that worried! If this break of yours don’t kill our luck––”
“Don’t you believe it! I’m going to fight for what I got till someone hands me the count. She’s the first thing I ever wanted. I’ve got her and I guess I can keep her.... And listen: there’s nothing like her in all God’s world!”
“When did you do—it?” demanded Stull, coldly.
“This morning at eleven. I just stepped over here to the garage. I’m talking to you from the bar. She’s back by this time and waiting, I guess. So take care of yourself till I see you.”
“Same to you, Eddie. And be leery of Max. He’sbad. When they disbar a man like that he’s twice as dangerous as he was. His ex-partner, Abe Grittlefeld, is a certain party’s attorney of record. Ask yourself what you’d be up against if that pair of wolves get started after you! You know what Max would do to you if he could. And Minna, too!”
“Don’t worry.”
“Iamworrying! And you ought to. You know what you done to Max. Don’t think he ever forgets. He’ll do you if he can, same as Minna will.”
Brandes’ stolid face lost a little of its sanguine colour, where he stood in the telephone box behind the bar of the Gayfield House.93
Yes, he knew well enough what he had once done to the disbarred lawyer out in Athabasca when he was handling the Unknown and Venem, the disbarred, was busy looking out for the Athabasca Blacksmith, furnishing the corrupt brains for the firm of Venem and Grittlefeld, and paying steady court to the prettiest girl in Athabasca, Ilse Dumont.
And Brandes’ Unknown had almost killed Max Venem’s blacksmith; Brandes had taken all Venem’s money, and then his girl; more than that, he had “made” this girl, in the theatrical sense of the word; and he had gambled on her beauty and her voice and had won out with both.
Then, while still banking her salary to reimburse himself for his trouble with her, he had tired of her sufficiently to prove unfaithful to his marriage vows at every opportunity. And opportunities were many. Venem had never forgiven him; Ilse Dumont could not understand treachery; and Venem’s detectives furnished her with food for thought that presently infuriated her.
And now she was employing Max Venem, once senior partner in the firm of Venem and Grittlefeld, to guide her with his legal advice. She wanted Brandes’ ruin, if that could be accomplished; she wanted her freedom anyway.
Until he had met Rue Carew he had taken measures to fight the statutory charges, hoping to involve Venem and escape alimony. Then he met Ruhannah, and became willing to pay for his freedom. And he was still swamped in the vile bog of charges and countercharges, not yet free from it, not yet on solid ground, when the eternal gambler in him suggested to him that he take the chance of marrying this young girl before he was legally free to do so.94
Why on earth did he want to take such a chance? He had only a few months to wait. He had never before really cared for any woman. He loved her—as he understood love—as much as he was capable of loving. If in all the world there was anything sacred to him, it was his sentiment regarding Rue Carew. Yet, he was tempted to take the chance. Even she could not escape his ruling passion; at the last analysis, even she represented to him a gambler’s chance. But in Brandes there was another streak. He wanted to take the chance that he could marry her before he had a right to, and get away with it. But his nerve failed. And, at the last moment, he had hedged, engaging Parson Smawley to play the lead instead of an ordained clergyman.
All these things he now thought of as he stood undecided, worried, in the telephone booth behind the bar at the Gayfield House. Twice Stull had spoken, and had been bidden to wait and to hold the wire.
Finally, shaking off the premonition of coming trouble, Brandes called again:
“Ben?”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
“I’ll stay in Paris if there’s trouble.”
“And throw Stein down?”
“What else is there to do?”
“Well, you can wait, can’t you? You don’t seem to be able to do that any more, but you better learn.”
“All right. What next?”
“Make a quick getaway.Now!”
“Yes, I’m going at once. Keep me posted, Ben. Be good!”
He hung up and went out to the wide, tree-shaded street where Ruhannah sat in the runabout95awaiting him, and the new chauffeur stood by the car.
He took off his straw hat, pulled a cap and goggles from his pocket. His man placed the straw hat in the boot.
“Get what you wanted, Rue?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Been waiting long?”
“I—don’t think so.”
“All right,” he said cheerily, climbing in beside her. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting. Had a business matter to settle. Hungry?”
Rue, very still and colourless, said no, with a mechanical smile. The chauffeur climbed to the rumble.
“I’ll jam her through,” nodded Brandes as the car moved swiftly westward. “We’ll lunch in Albany on time.”
Half a mile, and they passed Neeland’s Mills, where old Dick Neeland stood in his boat out on the pond and cast a glittering lure for pickerel.
She caught a glimpse of him—his sturdy frame, white hair, and ruddy visage—and a swift, almost wistful memory of young Jim Neeland passed through her mind.
But it was a very confused mind—only the bewildered mind of a very young girl—and the memory of the boy flashed into its confusion and out again as rapidly as the landscape sped away behind the flying car.
Dully she was aware that she was leaving familiar and beloved things, but could not seem to realise it—childhood, girlhood, father and mother, Brookhollow, the mill, Gayfield, her friends, all were vanishing in the flying dust behind her, dwindling, dissolving into an infinitely growing distance.
They took the gradual slope of a mile-long hill as96swallows take the air; houses, barns, woods, orchards, grain fields, flew by on either side; other cars approaching passed them like cannon balls; the sunlit, undulating world flowed glittering away behind; only the stainless blue ahead confronted them immovably—a vast, magnificent goal, vague with the mystery of promise.
“On this trip,” said Brandes, “we may only have time to see the Loove and the palaces and all like that. Next year we’ll fix it so we can stay in Paris and you can study art.”
Ruhannah’s lips formed the words, “Thank you.”
“Can’t you learn to call me Eddie?” he urged.
The girl was silent.
“You’re everything in the world to me, Rue.”
The same little mechanical smile fixed itself on her lips, and she looked straight ahead of her.
“Haven’t you begun to love me just a little bit, Rue?”
“I like you. You are very kind to us.”
“Don’t your affection seem to grow a little stronger now?” he urged.
“You are so kind to us,” she repeated gratefully; “I like you for it.”
The utterly unawakened youth of her had always alternately fascinated and troubled him. Gambler that he was, he had once understood that patience is a gambler’s only stock in trade. But now for the first time in his career he found himself without it.
“You said,” he insisted, “that you’d love me when we were married.”
She turned her child’s eyes on him in faint surprise:
“A wife loves her husband always, doesn’t she?”
“Doyou?”
“I suppose I shall.... I haven’t been married very long—long enough to feel as though I am really97married. When I begin to realise it I shall understand, of course, that I love you.”
It was the calm and immature reply of a little girl playing house. He knew it. He looked at her pure, perplexed profile of a child and knew that what he had said was futile—understood that it was meaningless to her, that it was only confusing a mind already dazed—a mind of which too much had been expected, too much demanded.
He leaned over and kissed the cold, almost colourless cheek; her little mechanical smile came back. Then they remembered the chauffeur behind them and Brandes reddened. He was unaccustomed to a man on the rumble.
“Could I talk to mother on the telephone when we get to New York?” she asked presently, still painfully flushed.
“Yes, darling, of course.”
“I just want to hear her voice,” murmured Rue.
“Certainly. We can send her a wireless, too, when we’re at sea.”
That interested her. She enquired curiously in regard to wireless telegraphy and other matters concerning ocean steamers.
In Albany her first wave of loneliness came over her in the stuffy dining-room of the big, pretentious hotel, when she found herself seated at a small table alone with this man whom she seemed, somehow or other, to have married.
As she did not appear inclined to eat, Brandes began to search the card for something to tempt her. And, glancing up presently, saw tears glimmering in her eyes.
For a moment he remained dumb as though stunned98by some sudden and terrible accusation—for a moment only. Then, in an unsteady voice:
“Rue, darling. You must not feel lonely and frightened. I’ll do anything in the world for you. Don’t you know it?”
She nodded.
“I tell you,” he said in that even, concentrated voice of his which scarcely moved his narrow lips, “I’m just crazy about you. You’re my own little wife. You’re all I care about. If I can’t make you happy somebody ought to shoot me.”
She tried to smile; her full lips trembled; a single tear, brimming, fell on the cloth.
“I—don’t mean to be silly.... But—Brookhollow seems—ended—forever....”
“It’s only forty miles,” he said with heavy joviality. “Shall we turn around and go back?”
She glanced up at him with an odd expression, as though she hoped he meant it; then her little mechanical smile returned, and she dried her eyes naïvely.
“I don’t know why I cannot seem to get used to being married,” she said. “I never thought that getting married would make me so—so—lonely.”
“Let’s talk about art,” he suggested. “You’re crazy about art and you’re going to Paris. Isn’t that fine.”
“Oh, yes––”
“Sure, it’s fine. That’s where art grows. Artville is Paris’ other name. It’s all there, Rue—the Loove, the palaces, the Latin Quarter, the statues, the churches, and all like that.”
“What is the Louvre like?” she asked, tremulously, determined to be brave.
As he had seen the Louvre only from the outside, his imaginary description was cautious, general, and brief.99
After a silence, Rue asked whether he thought that their suitcases were quite safe.
“Certainly,” he smiled. “I checked them.”
“And you’re sure they are safe?”
“Of course, darling. What worries you?”
And, as she hesitated, he remembered that she had forgotten to put something into her suitcase and that the chauffeur had driven her back to the house to get it while he himself went into the Gayfield House to telephone Stull.
“What was it you went back for, Rue?” he asked.
“One thing I went back for was my money.”
“Money? What money?”
“Money my grandmother left me. I was to have it when I married—six thousand dollars.”
“You mean you have it in your suitcase?” he asked, astonished.
“Yes, half of it.”
“A cheque?”
“No, in hundreds.”
“Bills?”
“Yes. I gave father three thousand. I kept three thousand.”
“In bills,” he repeated, laughing. “Is your suitcase locked?”
“Yes. I insisted on having my money in cash. So Mr. Wexall, of the Mohawk Bank, sent a messenger with it last evening.”
“But,” he asked, still immensely amused, “why do you want to travel about with three thousand dollars in bills in your suitcase?”
She flushed a little, tried to smile:
“I don’t know why. I never before had any money. It is—pleasant to know I have it.”100
“But I’ll give you all you want, Rue.”
“Thank you.... I have my own, you see.”
“Of course. Put it away in some bank. When you want pin money, ask me.”
She shook her head with a troubled smile.
“I couldn’t ask anybody for money,” she explained.
“Then you don’t have to. We’ll fix your allowance.”
“Thank you, but I have my money, and I don’t need it.”
This seemed to amuse him tremendously; and even Rue laughed a little.
“You are going to take your money to Paris?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“To buy things?”
“Oh, no. Just to have it with me.”
His rather agreeable laughter sounded again.
“Sothatwas what you forgot to put in your suitcase,” he said. “No wonder you went back for it.”
“There was something else very important, too.”
“What, darling?”
“My drawings,” she explained innocently.
“Your drawings! Do you mean you’ve got them, too?”
“Yes. I want to take them to Paris and compare them with the pictures I shall see there. It ought to teach me a great deal. Don’t you think so?”
“Are you crazy to study?” he asked, touched to the quick by her utter ignorance.
“It’s all I dream about. If I could work that way and support myself and my father and mother––”
“But, Rue! Wake up! We’re married, little girl. You don’t have to work to support anybody!”101
“I—forgot,” said the girl vaguely, her confused grey eyes resting on his laughing, greenish ones.
Still laughing, he summoned the waiter, paid the reckoning; Ruhannah rose as he did; they went slowly out together.
On the sidewalk beside their car stood the new chauffeur, smoking a cigarette which he threw away without haste when he caught sight of them. However, he touched the peak of his cap civilly, with his forefinger.
Brandes, lighting a cigar, let his slow eyes rest on the new man for a moment. Then he helped Rue into the tonneau, got in after her, and thoughtfully took the wheel, conscious that there was something or other about his new chauffeur that he did not find entirely to his liking.
102CHAPTER XDRIVING HEAD-ON
It was mid-afternoon when they began to pass through that series of suburbs which the city has flung like a single tentacle northward for a hundred miles along the eastern banks of the Hudson.
A smooth road of bluestone with a surface like velvet, rarely broken by badly paved or badly worn sections, ran straight south. Past mansions standing amid spacious lawns all ablaze with late summer and early autumn flowers they sped; past parks, long stretches of walls, high fences of wrought iron through which brief glimpses of woodlands and splendid gardens caught Rue’s eye. And, every now and then, slowing down to traverse some village square and emerging from the further limits, the great river flashed into view, sometimes glassy still under high headlands or along towering parapets of mountains, sometimes ruffled and silvery where it widened into bay or inland sea, with a glimmer of distant villages on the further shore.
Over the western bank a blinding sun hung in a sky without a cloud—a sky of undiluted azure; but farther south, and as the sun declined, traces of vapours from the huge but still distant city stained the heavens. Gradually the increasing haze changed from palest lavender and lemon-gold to violet and rose with smouldering undertones of fire. Beneath it the river caught the stains in deeper tones, flowing in sombre washes of flame103or spreading wide under pastel tints of turquoise set with purple.
Now, as the sun hung lower, the smoke of every river boat, every locomotive speeding along the shores below, lay almost motionless above the water, tinged with the delicate enchantment of declining day.
And into this magic veil Rue was passing already through the calm of a late August afternoon, through tree-embowered villages and towns, the names of which she did not know—swiftly, inexorably passing into the iris-grey obscurity where already the silvery points of arc-lights stretched away into intricate geometrical designs—faint traceries as yet sparkling with subdued lustre under the sunset heavens.
Vast shadowy shapes towered up ahead—outlying public buildings, private institutions, industrial plants, bridges of iron and steel, the ponderous bowed spans of which crossed wildernesses of railroad tracks or craft-crowded waters.
Two enormous arched viaducts of granite stretched away through sparkling semi-obscurity—High Bridge and Washington Bridge. Then it became an increasing confusion of phantom masses against a fading sky—bridges, towers, skyscrapers, viaducts, boulevards, a wilderness of streets outlined by the growing brilliancy of electric lamps.
Brandes, deftly steering through the swarming maze of twilight avenues, turned east across the island, then swung south along the curved parapets and spreading gardens of Riverside Drive.
Perhaps Brandes was tired; he had become uncommunicative, inclined to silence. He did point out to her the squat, truncated mass where the great General slept; called her attention to the river below, where104three grey battleships lay. A bugle call from the decks came faintly to her ears.
If Rue was tired she did not know it as the car swept her steadily deeper amid the city’s wonders.
On her left, beyond the trees, the great dwellings and apartments of the Drive were already glimmering with light in every window; to the right, under the foliage of this endless necklace of parks and circles, a summer-clad throng strolled and idled along the river wall; and past them moved an unbroken column of automobiles, taxicabs, and omnibuses.
At Seventy-second Street they turned to the east across the park, then into Fifth Avenue south once more. She saw the name of the celebrated avenue on the street corner, turned to glance excitedly at Brandes; but his preoccupied face was expressionless, almost forbidding, so she turned again in quest of other delightful discoveries. But there was nothing to identify for her the houses, churches, hotels, shops, on this endless and bewildering avenue of grey stone; as they swung west into Forty-second Street, she caught sight of the great marble mass of the Library, but had no idea what it was.
Into this dusky cañon, aflame with light, they rolled, where street lamps, the lamps of vehicles, and electric signs dazzled her unaccustomed eyes so that she saw nothing except a fiery vista filled with the rush and roar of traffic.
When they stopped, the chauffeur dropped from the rumble and came around to where a tall head porter in blue and silver uniform was opening the tonneau door.
Brandes said to his chauffeur:
“Here are the checks. Our trunks are at the Grand105Central. Get them aboard, then come back here for us at ten o’clock.”
The chauffeur lifted his hand to his cap, and looked stealthily between his fingers at Brandes.
“Ten o’clock,” he repeated; “very good, sir.”
Rue instinctively sought Brandes’ arm as they entered the crowded lobby, then remembered, blushed, and withdrew her hand.
Brandes had started toward the desk with the intention of registering and securing a room for the few hours before going aboard the steamer; but something halted him—some instinct of caution. No, he would not register. He sent their luggage to the parcels room, found a maid who took Rue away, then went on through into the bar, where he took a stiff whisky and soda, a thing he seldom did.
In the toilet he washed and had himself brushed. Then, emerging, he took another drinken passant, conscious of an odd, dull sense of apprehension for which he could not account.
At the desk they told him there was no telephone message for him. He sauntered over to the news stand, stared at the display of periodicals, but had not sufficient interest to buy even an evening paper.
So he idled about the marble-columned lobby, now crowded with a typical early-autumn throng in quest of dinner and the various nocturnal amusements which the city offers at all times to the frequenters of its thousand temples.
Rue came out of the ladies’ dressing room, and he went to her and guided her into the dining-room on the left, where an orchestra was playing. In her blue, provincial travelling gown the slender girl looked oddly out of place amid lace and jewels and the delicate tints106of frail evening gowns, but her cheeks were bright with colour and her grey eyes brilliant, and the lights touched her thick chestnut hair with a ruddy glory, so that more than one man turned to watch her pass, and the idly contemptuous indifference of more than one woman ended at her neck and chin.
What Rue ate she never afterward remembered. It was all merely a succession of delicious sensations for the palate, for the eye, for the ear when the excellent orchestra was playing some gay overture from one of the newer musical comedies or comic operas.
Brandes at times seemed to shake off a growing depression and rouse himself to talk to her, even jest with her. He smoked cigarettes occasionally during dinner, a thing he seldom did, and, when coffee was served, he lighted one of his large cigars.
Rue, excited under an almost childishly timid manner, leaned on the table with both elbows and linked fingers, listening, watching everything with an almost breathless intelligence which strove to comprehend.
People left; others arrived; the music continued. Several times people passing caught Brandes’ eye, and bowed and smiled. He either acknowledged such salutes with a slight and almost surly nod, or ignored them altogether.
One of his short, heavy arms lay carelessly along the back of his chair, where he was sitting sideways looking at the people in the lobby—watching with that same odd sensation of foreboding of which he had been conscious from the first moment he had entered the city line.
What reason for apprehension he had he could not understand. Only an hour lay between him and the107seclusion of the big liner; a few hours and he and this girl beside him would be at sea.
Once he excused himself, went out to the desk, and made an inquiry. But there was no telephone or telegraph message for him; and he came back chewing his cigar.
Finally his uneasiness drew him to his feet again:
“Rue,” he said, “I’m going out to telephone to Mr. Stull. It may take some little time. You don’t mind waiting, do you?”
“No,” she said.
“Don’t you want another ice or something?”
She confessed that she did.
So he ordered it and went away.
As she sat leisurely tasting her ice and watching with unflagging interest the people around her, she noticed that the dining-room was already three-quarters empty. People were leaving for café, theatre, or dance; few remained.
Of these few, two young men in evening dress now arose and walked toward the lobby, one ahead of the other. One went out; the other, in the act of going, glanced casually at her as he passed, hesitated, halted, then, half smiling, half inquiringly, came toward her.
“Jim Neeland!” she exclaimed impulsively. “—I meanMr.Neeland––” a riot of colour flooding her face. But her eager hand remained outstretched. He took it, pressed it lightly, ceremoniously, and, still standing, continued to smile down at her.
Amid all this strange, infernal glitter; amid a city of six million strangers, suddenly to encounter a familiar face—to see somebody—anybody—from Gayfield—seemed a miracle too delightful to be true.
“You are Rue Carew,” he said. “I was not certain108for a moment. You know we met only once before.”
Rue, conscious of the startled intimacy of her first greeting, blushed with the memory. But Neeland was a tactful young man; he said easily, with his very engaging smile:
“It was nice of you to remember me so frankly and warmly. You have no idea how pleasant it was to hear a Gayfield voice greet me as ‘Jim.’”
“I—didn’t intend to––”
“Please intend it in future, Rue. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No.”
“And will you ever forget that magnificent winter night when we drove to Brookhollow after the party?”
“I have—remembered it.”
“So have I.... Are you waiting for somebody? Of course you are,” he added, laughing. “But may I sit down for a moment?”
“Yes, I wish you would.”
So he seated himself, lighted a cigarette, glanced up at her and smiled.
“When did you come to New York?” he asked.
“Tonight.”
“Well, isn’t that a bit of luck to run into you like this! Have you come here to study art?”
“No.... Yes, I think, later, I am to study art here.”
“At the League?”
“I don’t know.”
“Better go to the League,” he said. “Begin there anyway. Do you know where it is?”
“No,” she said.
He called a waiter, borrowed pencil and pad, and wrote down the address of the Art Students’ League.109He had begun to fold the paper when a second thought seemed to strike him, and he added his own address.
“In case I can do anything for you in any way,” he explained.
Rue thanked him, opened her reticule, and placed the folded paper there beside her purse.
“I do hope I shall see you soon again,” he said, looking gaily, almost mischievously into her grey eyes. “This certainly resembles fate. Don’t you think so, Rue—this reunion of ours?”
“Fate?” she repeated.
“Yes. I should even call it romantic. Don’t you think our meeting this way resembles something very much like romance?”
She felt herself flushing, tried to smile:
“It couldn’t resemble anything,” she explained with quaint honesty, “because I am sailing for Europe tomorrow morning; I am going on board in less than an hour. And also—also, I––”
“Also?”—he prompted her, amused, yet oddly touched by her childishly literal reply.
“I am—married.”
“Good Lord!” he said.
“This morning,” she added, tasting her ice.
“And you’re sailing for Europe on your honeymoon!” he exclaimed. “Well, upon my word! And what is your ship?”
“TheLusitania.”
“Really! I have a friend who is sailing on her—a most charming woman. I sent flowers to her only an hour ago.”
“Did you?” asked Rue, interested.
“Yes. She is a widow—the Princess Mistchenka—a delightful and pretty woman. I am going to send a110note to the steamer tonight saying that—that my veryparticularfriend, Ruhannah Carew, is on board, and won’t she ask you to tea. You’d love her, Rue. She’s a regular woman.”
“But—oh, dear!—a Princess!”
“You won’t even notice it,” he said reassuringly. “She’s a corker; she’s an artist, too. I couldn’t begin to tell you how nice she has been to me. By the way, Rue, whom did you marry?”
“Mr. Brandes.”
“Brandes? I don’t remember—was he from up-state?”
“No; New York—I think––”
As she bent forward to taste her ice again he noticed for the first time the childlike loveliness of her throat and profile; looked at her with increasing interest, realising that she had grown into a most engaging creature since he had seen her.
Looking up, and beyond him toward the door, she said:
“I think your friend is waiting for you. Had you forgotten him?”
“Oh, that’s so!” he exclaimed. Then rising and offering his hand: “I wish you happiness, Rue. You have my address. When you return, won’t you let me know where you are? Won’t you let me know your husband?”
“Yes.”
“Please do. You see you and I have a common bond in art, another in our birthplace. Gayfield folk are your own people and mine. Don’t forget me, Rue.”
“No, I won’t.”
So he took his leave gracefully and went away through the enthralling, glittering unreality of it all111leaving a young girl thrilled, excited, and deeply impressed with his ease and bearing amid awe-inspiring scenes in which she, too, desired most ardently to find herself at ease.
Also she thought of his friend, the Princess Mistchenka. And again, as before, the name seemed to evoke within her mind a recollection of having heard it before, very long ago.
She wondered whether Neeland would remember to write, and if he did she wondered whether a real princess would actually condescend to invite her to take tea.