Valentine Corliss, having breakfasted in bed at a late hour that morning, dozed again, roused himself, and, making a toilet, addressed to the image in his shaving-mirror a disgusted monosyllable.
“Ass!”
However, he had not the look of a man who had played cards all night to a disastrous tune with an accompaniment in Scotch. His was a surface not easily indented: he was hard and healthy, clear-skinned and clear-eyed. When he had made himself point-device, he went into the “parlour” of his apartment, frowning at the litter of malodorous, relics, stumps and stubs and bottles and half-drained glasses, scattered chips and cards, dregs of a night session. He had been making acquaintances.
He sat at the desk and wrote with a steady hand in Italian:
We live but learn little. As to myself it appears that I learn nothing—nothing! You will at once convey to me bycablefive thousand lire. No; add the difference in exchange so as to make it one thousand dollars which I shall receive, taking that sum from the two-hundred and thirty thousand lire which I entrusted to your safekeeping by cable as the result of my enterprise in this place. I should have returned at once, content with that success, but as you know I am a very stupid fellow, never pleased with a moderate triumph, nor with a large one, when there is a possible prospect of greater. I am compelled to believe that the greater I had in mind in this case was an illusion: my gentle diplomacy avails nothing against a small miser—for we have misers even in these States, though you will not believe it. I abandon him to his riches! From the success of my venture I reserved four thousand dollars to keep by me and for my expenses, and it is humiliating to relate that all of this, except a small banknote or two, was taken from me last night by amateurs. I should keep away from cards—they hate me, and alone I can do nothing with them. Some young gentlemen of the place, whose acquaintance I had made at a ball, did me the honour of this lesson at the native game of poker, at which I—though also native—am not even so expert as yourself, and, as you will admit, Antonio, my friend, you are not a good player—when observed. Unaided, I was a child in their hands. It was also a painful rule that one paid for the counters upon delivery. This made me ill, but I carried it off with an air of carelessness creditable to an adopted Neapolitan. Upon receipt of the money you are to cable me, I shall leave this town and sail immediately. Come to Paris, and meet me there at the place on the Rue Auber within ten days from your reading this letter. You will have, remaining, two hundred and twenty-five thousand francs, which it will be safer to bring in cash, and I will deal well with you, as is our custom with each other. You have done excellently throughout; your cables and letters for exhibition concerning those famous oil wells have been perfection; and I shall of course not deduct what was taken by these thieves of poker players from the sum of profits upon which we shall estimate your commission. I have several times had the feeling that the hour for departure had arrived; now I shall delay not a moment after receiving your cable, though I may occupy the interim with a last attempt to interest my small miser. Various circumstances cause me some uneasiness, though I do not believe I could be successfully assailed by the law in the matter of oil. You do own an estate in Basilicata, at least your brother does—these good people here would not be apt to discover the difference—and the rest is a matter of plausibility. The odious coincidence of encountering the old cow, Pryor, fretted me somewhat (though he has not repeated his annoying call), and I have other small apprehensions—for example, that it may not improve my credit if my loss of last night becomes gossip, though the thieves professed strong habits of discretion. My little affair of gallantry grows embarrassing. Such affairs are so easy to inaugurate; extrication is more difficult. However, without it I should have failed to interest my investor and there is always the charm. Your last letter is too curious in that matter. Licentious man, one does not write of these things while under the banner of the illustrious Uncle Sam—I am assuming the American attitude while here, or perhaps my early youth returns to me—a thing very different from your own boyhood, Don Antonio. Nevertheless, I promise you some laughter in the Rue Auber. Though you will not be able to understand the half of what I shall tell you—particularly the portraits I shall sketch of my defeated rivals—your spirit shall roll with laughter.
To the bank, then, the instant you read. Cable me one thousand dollars, and be at the Rue Auber not more than ten days later. To the bank! Thence to the telegraph office. Speed! V. C.
He was in better spirits as he read over this letter, and he chuckled as he addressed it. He pictured himself in the rear room of the bar in the Rue Auber, relating, across the little marble-topped table, this American adventure, to the delight of that blithe, ne’er-do-well outcast of an exalted poor family, that gambler, blackmailer and merry rogue, Don Antonio Moliterno, comrade and teacher of this ductile Valentine since the later days of adolescence. They had been school-fellows in Rome, and later roamed Europe together unleashed, discovering worlds of many kinds. Valentine’s careless mother let her boy go as he liked, and was often negligent in the matter of remittances: he and his friend learned ways to raise the wind, becoming expert and making curious affiliations. At her death there was a small inheritance; she had not been provident. The little she left went rocketing, and there was the wind to be raised again: young Corliss had wits and had found that they could supply him—most of the time—with much more than the necessities of life. He had also found that he possessed a strong attraction for various women; already—at twenty-two—his experience was considerable, and, in his way, he became a specialist. He had a talent; he improved it and his opportunities. Altogether, he took to the work without malice and with a light heart. . . .
He sealed the envelope, rang for a boy, gave him the letter to post, and directed that the apartment should be set to rights. It was not that in which he had received Ray Vilas. Corliss had moved to rooms on another floor of the hotel, the day after that eccentric and somewhat ominous person had called to make an “investment.” Ray’s shadowy forebodings concerning that former apartment had encountered satire: Corliss was a “materialist” and, at the mildest estimate, an unusually practical man, but he would never sleep in a bed with its foot toward the door; southern Italy had seeped into him. He changed his rooms, a measure of which Don Antonio Moliterno would have wholly approved. Besides, these were as comfortable as the others, and so like them as even to confirm Ray’s statement concerning “A Reading from Homer”: evidently this work had been purchased by the edition.
A boy came to announce that his “roadster” waited for him at the hotel entrance, and Corliss put on a fur motoring coat and cap, and went downstairs. A door leading from the hotel bar into the lobby was open, and, as Corliss passed it, there issued a mocking shout:
“Tor’dor! Oh, look at the Tor’dor! Ain’t he the handsome Spaniard!”
Ray Vilas stumbled out, tousled, haggard, waving his arms in absurd and meaningless gestures; an amused gallery of tipplers filling the doorway behind him.
“Goin’ take Carmen buggy ride in the country, ain’t he? Good ole Tor’dor!” he quavered loudly, clutching Corliss’s shoulder. “How much you s’pose he pays f’ that buzz-buggy by the day, jeli’m’n? Naughty Tor’dor, stole thousand dollars from me—makin’ presents—diamond cresses. Tor’dor, I hear you been playing cards. Tha’s sn’t nice. Tor’dor, you’re not a goo’ boy at all—youknow you oughtn’t waste Dick Lindley’s money like that!”
Corliss set his open hand upon the drunkard’s breast and sent him gyrating and plunging backward. Some one caught the grotesque figure as it fell.
“Oh, my God,” screamed Ray, “I haven’t got a gun on me! HeknowsI haven’t got my gun with me!Whyhaven’t I got my gun with me?”
They hustled him away, and Corliss, enraged and startled, passed on. As he sped the car up Corliss Street, he decided to anticipate his letter to Moliterno by a cable. He had stayed too long.
Cora looked charming in a new equipment for November motoring; yet it cannot be said that either of them enjoyed the drive. They lunched a dozen miles out from the city at an establishment somewhat in the nature of a roadside inn; and, although its cuisine was quite unknown to Cora’s friend, Mrs. Villard (an eager amateur of the table), they were served with a meal of such unusual excellence that the waiter thought it a thousand pities patrons so distinguished should possess such poor appetites.
They returned at about three in the afternoon, and Cora descended from the car wearing no very amiable expression.
“Why won’t you come in now?” she asked, looking at him angrily. “We’ve got to talk things out. We’ve settled nothing whatever. I want to know why you can’t stop.”
“I’ve got some matters to attend to, and——”
“What matters?” She shot him a glance of fierce skepticism.
“Are you packing to get out?”
“Cora!” he cried reproachfully, “how can you say things like that tome!”
She shook her head. “Oh, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least! How doIknow what you’ll do? For all I know, you may be just that kind of a man. Yousaidyou ought to be going——”
“Cora,” he explained, gently, “I didn’t say I meant to go. I said only that I thought I ought to, because Moliterno will be needing me in Basilicata. I ought to be there, since it appears that no more money is to be raised here. I ought to be superintending operations in the oil-field, so as to make the best use of the little I have raised.”
“You?” she laughed. “Of courseIdidn’t have anything to do with it!”
He sighed deeply. “You know perfectly well that I appreciate all you did. We don’t seem to get on very well to-day——”
“No!” She laughed again, bitterly. “So you think you’ll be going, don’t you?”
“To my rooms to write some necessary letters.”
“Of course not to pack your trunk?”
“Cora,” he returned, goaded; “sometimes you’re just impossible. I’ll come to-morrow forenoon.”
“Then don’t bring the car. I’m tired of motoring and tired of lunching in that rotten hole. We can talk just as well in the library. Papa’s better, and that little fiend will be in school to-morrow. Come out about ten.”
He started the machine. “Don’t forget I love you,” he called in a low voice.
She stood looking after him as the car dwindled down the street.
“Yes, you do!” she murmured.
She walked up the path to the house, her face thoughtful, as with a tiresome perplexity. In her own room, divesting herself of her wraps, she gave the mirror a long scrutiny. It offered the picture of a girl with a hard and dreary air; but Cora saw something else, and presently, though the dreariness remained, the hardness softened to a great compassion. She suffered: a warm wave of sorrow submerged her, and she threw herself upon the bed and wept long and silently for herself.
At last her eyes dried, and she lay staring at the ceiling. The doorbell rang, and Sarah, the cook, came to inform her that Mr. Richard Lindley was below.
“Tell him I’m out.”
“Can’t,” returned Sarah. “Done told him you was home.” And she departed firmly.
Thus abandoned, the prostrate lady put into a few words what she felt about Sarah, and, going to the door, whisperingly summoned in Laura, who was leaving the sick-room, across the hall.
“Richard is downstairs. Will you go and tell him I’m sick in bed—or dead? Anything to make him go.” And, assuming Laura’s acquiescence, Cora went on, without pause: “Is father worse? What’s the matter with you, Laura?”
“Nothing. He’s a little better, Miss Peirce thinks.”
“You look ill.”
“I’m all right.”
“Then run along like a duck and get rid of that old bore for me.”
“Cora—please see him?”
“Not me! I’ve got too much to think about to bother with him.”
Laura walked to the window and stood with her back to her sister, apparently interested in the view of Corliss Street there presented. “Cora,” she said, “why don’t you marry him and have done with all this?”
Cora hooted.
“Why not? Why not marry him as soon as you can get ready? Why don’t you go down now and tell him you will? Why not, Cora?”
“I’d as soon marry a pail of milk—yes, tepid milk, skimmed! I——”
“Don’t you realize how kind he’d be to you?”
“I don’t know about that,” said Cora moodily. “He might object to some things—but it doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to try him. I don’t mind a man’s being a fool, but I can’t stand the absent-minded breed of idiot. I’ve worn his diamond in the pendant right in his eyes for weeks; he’s never once noticed it enough even to ask me about the pendant, but bores me to death wanting to know why I won’t wear the ring! Anyhow, what’s the use talking about him? He couldn’t marry me right now, even if I wanted him to—not till he begins to get something on the investment he made with Val. Outside of that, he’s got nothing except his rooms at his mother’s; she hasn’t much either; and if Richard should lose what he put in with Val, he couldn’t marry for years, probably. That’s what made him so obstinate about it. No; if I ever marry right off the reel it’s got to be somebody with——”
“Cora”—Laura still spoke from the window, not turning—“aren’t you tired of it all, of this getting so upset about one man and then another and——”
“Tired!” Cora uttered the word in a repressed fury of emphasis. “I’m sick ofeverything! I don’t care for anything or anybody on this earth—except—except you and mamma. I thought I was going to love Val. I thought Idid—but oh, my Lord, I don’t! I don’t think Icancare any more. Or else there isn’t any such thing as love. How can anybody tell whether there is or not? You get kind of crazy over a man and want to go the limit—or marry him perhaps—or sometimes you just want to make him crazy about you—and then you get over it—and what is there left but hell!” She choked with a sour laugh. “Ugh! For heaven’s sake, Laura, don’t make me talk. Everything’s gone to the devil and I’ve got to think. The best thing you can do is to go down and get rid of Richard for me. Ican’tsee him!”
“Very well,” said Laura, and went to the door.
“You’re a darling,” whispered Cora, kissing her quickly. “Tell him I’m in a raging headache—make him think I wanted to see him, but you wouldn’t let me, because I’m too ill.” She laughed. “Give me a little time, old dear: I may decide to take him yet!”
It was Mrs. Madison who informed the waiting Richard that Cora was unable to see him, because she was “lying down”; and the young man, after properly inquiring about Mr. Madison, went blankly forth.
Hedrick was stalking the front yard, mounted at a great height upon a pair of stilts. He joined the departing visitor upon the sidewalk and honoured him with his company, proceeding storkishly beside him.
“Been to see Cora?”
“Yes, Hedrick.”
“What’d you want to see her about?” asked the frank youth seriously.
Richard was able to smile. “Nothing in particular, Hedrick.”
“You didn’t come to tell her about something?”
“Nothing whatever, my dear sir. I wished merely the honour of seeing her and chatting with her upon indifferent subjects.”
“Why?”
“Did you see her?”
“No, I’m sorry to——”
“She’s home, all right,” Hedrick took pleasure in informing him.
“Yes. She was lying down and I told your mother not to disturb her.”
“Worn out with too much automobile riding, I expect,” Hedrick sniffed. “She goes out about every day with this Corliss in his hired roadster.”
They walked on in silence. Not far from Mrs. Lindley’s, Hedrick abruptly became vocal in an artificial laugh. Richard was obviously intended to inquire into its cause, but, as he did not, Hedrick, after laughing hollowly for some time, volunteered the explanation:
“I played a pretty good trick on you last night.”
“Odd I didn’t know it.”
“That’s why it was good. You’d never guess it in the world.”
“No, I believe I shouldn’t. You see what makes it so hard, Hedrick, is that I can’t even remember seeing you, last night.”
“Nobody saw me. Somebody heard me though, all right.”
“Who?”
“The nigger that works at your mother’s—Joe.”
“What about it? Were you teasing Joe?”
“No, it was you I was after.”
“Well? Did you get me?”
Hedrick made another somewhat ghastly pretence of mirth. “Well, I guess I’ve had about all the fun out of it I’m going to. Might as well tell you. It was that book of Laura’s you thought she sent you.”
Richard stopped short; whereupon Hedrick turned clumsily, and began to stalk back in the direction from which they had come.
“That book—I thought she—sent me?” Lindley repeated, stammering.
“She never sent it,” called the boy, continuing to walk away. “She kept it hid, and I found it. I faked her into writing your name on a sheet of paper, and made you think she’d sent the old thing to you. I just did it for a joke on you.”
With too retching an effort to simulate another burst of merriment, he caught the stump of his right stilt in a pavement crack, wavered, cut in the air a figure like a geometrical proposition gone mad, and came whacking to earth in magnificent disaster.
Richard took him to Mrs. Lindley for repairs. She kept him until dark: Hedrick was bandaged, led, lemonaded and blandished.
Never in his life had he known such a listener.
That was a long night for Cora Madison, and the morning found her yellow. She made a poor breakfast, and returned from the table to her own room, but after a time descended restlessly and wandered from one room to another, staring out of the windows. Laura had gone out; Mrs. Madison was with her husband, whom she seldom left; Hedrick had departed ostensibly for school; and the house was as still as a farm in winter—an intolerable condition of things for an effervescent young woman whose diet was excitement. Cora, drumming with her fingers upon a window in the owl-haunted cell, made noises with her throat, her breath and her lips not unsuggestive of a sputtering fuse. She was heavily charged.
“Now what in thunder doyouwant?” she inquired of an elderly man who turned in from the sidewalk and with serious steps approached the house.
Pryor, having rung, found himself confronted with the lady he had come to seek. Ensued the moment of strangers meeting: invisible antennae extended and touched;—at the contact, Cora’s drew in, and she looked upon him without graciousness.
“I just called,” he said placatively, smiling as if some humour lurked in his intention, “to ask how your father is. I heard downtown he wasn’t getting along quite so well.”
“He’s better this morning, thanks,” said Cora, preparing to close the door.
“I thought I’d just stop and ask about him. I heard he’d had another bad spell—kind of a second stroke.”
“That was night before last. The doctor thinks he’s improved very much since then.”
The door was closing; he coughed hastily, and detained it by speaking again. “I’ve called several times to inquire about him, but I believe it’s the first time I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to you, Miss Madison. I’m Mr. Pryor.” She appeared to find no comment necessary, and he continued: “Your father did a little business for me, several years ago, and when I was here on my vacation, this summer, I was mighty sorry to hear of his sickness. I’ve had a nice bit of luck lately and got a second furlough, so I came out to spend a couple of weeks and Thanksgiving with my married daughter.”
Cora supposed that it must be very pleasant.
“Yes,” he returned. “But I was mighty sorry to hear your father wasn’t much better than when I left. The truth is, I wanted to have a talk with him, and I’ve been reproaching myself a good deal that I didn’t go ahead with it last summer, when he was well, only I thought then it mightn’t be necessary—might be disturbing things without much reason.”
“I’m afraid you can’t have a talk with him now,” she said. “The doctor says——”
“I know, I know,” said Pryor, “of course. I wonder”—he hesitated, smiling faintly—“I wonder if I could have it with you instead.”
“Me?”
“Oh, it isn’t business,” he laughed, observing her expression. “That is, not exactly.” His manner became very serious. “It’s about a friend of mine—at least, a man I know pretty well. Miss Madison, I saw you driving out through the park with him, yesterday noon, in an automobile. Valentine Corliss.”
Cora stared at him. Honesty, friendliness, and grave concern were disclosed to her scrutiny. There was no mistaking him: he was a good man. Her mouth opened, and her eyelids flickered as from a too sudden invasion of light—the look of one perceiving the close approach of a vital crisis. But there was no surprise in her face.
“Come in,” she said.
* * *
. . . . When Corliss arrived, at about eleven o’clock that morning, Sarah brought him to the library, where he found Cora waiting for him. He had the air of a man determined to be cheerful under adverse conditions: he came in briskly, and Cora closed the door behind him.
“Keep away from me,” she said, pushing him back sharply, the next instant. “I’ve had enough of that for a while I believe.”
He sank into a chair, affecting desolation. “Caresses blighted in the bud! Cora, one would think us really married.”
She walked across the floor to a window, turned there, with her back to the light, and stood facing him, her arms folded.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed, noting this attitude. “Is it the trial scene from a faded melodrama?” She looked steadily at him without replying. “What’s it all about to-day?” he asked lightly. “I’ll try to give you the proper cues if you’ll indicate the general nature of the scene, Cora mine.”
She continued to look at him in silence.
“It’s very effective,” he observed. “Brings out the figure, too. Do forgive me if you’re serious, dear lady, but never in my life was I able to take the folded-arms business seriously. It was used on the stage of all countries so much that I believe most new-school actors have dropped it. They think it lacks genuineness.”
Cora waited a moment longer, then spoke. “How much chance have I to get Richard Lindley’s money back from you?”
He was astounded. “Oh, I say!”
“I had a caller, this morning,” she said, slowly. “He talked about you—quite a lot! He’s told me several things about you.”
“Mr. Vilas?” he asked, with a sting in his quick smile.
“No,” she answered coolly. “Much older.”
At that he jumped up, stepped quickly close to her, and swept her with an intense and brilliant scrutiny.
“Pryor, by God!” he cried.
“He knows you pretty well,” she said. “So do I now!”
He swung away from her, back to his chair, dropped into it and began to laugh. “Old Pryor! Doddering old Pryor! Doddering old ass of a Pryor! So he did! Blood of an angel! what a stew, what a stew!” He rose again, mirthless. “Well, what did he say?”
She had begun to tremble, not with fear. “He said a good deal.”
“Well, what was it? What did he tell you?”
“I think you’ll find it plenty!”
“Come on!”
“You!” She pointed at him.
“Let’s have it.”
“He told me”—she burst out furiously—“he said you were a professional sharper!”
“Oh, no. Old Pryor doesn’t talk like that.”
She came toward him. “He told me you were notorious over half of Europe,” she cried vehemently. “He said he’d arrested you himself, once, in Rotterdam, for smuggling jewels, and that you were guilty, but managed to squirm out of it. He said the police had put you out of Germany and you’d be arrested if you ever tried to go back. He said there were other places you didn’t dare set foot in, and he said he could have you arrested in this country any time he wanted to, and that he was going to do it if he found you’d been doing anything wrong. Oh, yes, he told me a few things!”
He caught her by the shoulder. “See here, Cora, do you believe all this tommy-rot?”
She shook his hand off instantly. “Believe it? I know it! There isn’t a straight line in your whole soul and mind: you’re crooked all over. You’ve been crooked withmefrom the start. The moment that man began to speak, I knew every word of it was true. He came to me because he thought it was right: he hasn’t anything against you on his own account; he said helikedyou! Iknewit was true, I tell you.”
He tried to put his hand on her shoulder again, beginning to speak remonstratingly, but she cried out in a rage, broke away from him, and ran to the other end of the room.
“Keep away! Do you suppose I like you to touch me? He told me you always had been a wonder with women! Said you were famous for `handling them the right way’—using them! Ah, that was pleasant information forme, wasn’t it! Yes, I could have confirmed him on that point. He wanted to know if I thought you’d been doing anything of that sort here. What he meant was: Had you been using me?”
“What did you tell him?” The question rang sharply on the instant.
“Ha! That gets into you, does it?” she returned bitterly. “You can’t overdo your fear of that man, I think, butIdidn’t tell him anything. I just listened and thanked him for the warning, and said I’d have nothing more to do with you. HowcouldI tell him? Wasn’t it I that made papa lend you his name, and got Richard to hand over his money? Where does that putme?” She choked; sobs broke her voice. “Every—every soul in town would point me out as a laughing-stock—the easiest fool out of the asylum! Do you supposeIwant you arrested and the whole thing in the papers? What I want is Richard’s money back, and I’m going to have it!”
“Can you be quiet for a moment and listen?” he asked gravely.
“If you’ll tell me what chance I have to get it back.”
“Cora,” he said, “you don’t want it back.”
“Oh? Don’t I?”
“No.” He smiled faintly, and went on. “Now, all this nonsense of old Pryor’s isn’t worth denying. I have met him abroad; that much is true—and I suppose I have rather a gay reputation——”
She uttered a jeering shout.
“Wait!” he said. “I told you I’d cut quite a swathe, when I first talked to you about myself. Let it go for the present and come down to this question of Lindley’s investment——”
“Yes. That’s what I want you to come down to.”
“As soon as Lindley paid in his check I gave him his stock certificates, and cabled the money to be used at once in the development of the oil-fields——”
“What! That man told me you’d `promoted’ a South American rubber company once, among people of the American colony in Paris. The details he gave me sounded strangely familiar!”
“You’d as well be patient, Cora. Now, that money has probably been partially spent, by this time, on tools and labour and——”
“What are you trying to——”
“I’ll show you. But first I’d like you to understand that nothing can be done to me. There’s nothing `on’ me! I’ve acted in good faith, and if the venture in oil is unsuccessful, and the money lost, I can’t be held legally responsible, nor can any one prove that I am. I could bring forty witnesses from Naples to swear they have helped to bore the wells. I’m safe as your stubborn friend, Mr. Trumble, himself. But now then, suppose that old Pryor is right—as of course he isn’t—suppose it, merely for a moment, because it will aid me to convey something to your mind. If I were the kind of man he says I am, and, being such a man, had planted the money out of reach, for my own use, what on earth would induce me to give it back?”
“I knew it!” she groaned. “I knew you wouldn’t!”
“You see,” he said quietly, “it would be impossible. We must go on supposing for a moment: if I had put that money away, I might be contemplating a departure——”
“You’d better!” she cried fiercely. “He’s going to find out everything you’ve been doing. He said so. He’s heard a rumour that you were trying to raise money here; he told me so, and said he’d soon——”
“The better reason for not delaying, perhaps. Cora, see here!” He moved nearer her. “Wouldn’t I need a lot of money if I expected to have a beautiful lady to care for, and——”
“You idiot!” she screamed. “Do you think I’m going with you?”
He flushed heavily. “Well, aren’t you?” He paused, to stare at her, as she wrung her hands and sobbed with hysterical laughter. “I thought,” he went on, slowly, “that you would possibly even insist on that.”
“Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord!” She stamped her foot, and with both hands threw the tears from her eyes in wide and furious gestures. “He told me you were married——”
“Did you let him think you hadn’t known that?” demanded Corliss.
“I tell you I didn’t let him thinkanything! He said you would never be able to get a divorce: that your wife hates you too much to get one from you, and that she’ll never——”
“See here, Cora,” he said harshly, “I told you I’d been married; I told you before I ever kissed you. You understood perfectly——”
“I did not! You said youhadbeen. You laughed about it. You made me think it was something that had happened a long time ago. I thought of course you’d been divorced——”
“But I told you——”
“You told me after! And then you made me think you could easily get one—that it was only a matter of form and——”
“Cora,” he interrupted, “you’re the most elaborate little self-deceiver I ever knew. I don’t believe you’ve ever faced yourself for an honest moment in——”
“Honest!youtalk about `honest’! You use that word and faceme?”
He came closer, meeting her distraught eyes squarely. “You love to fool yourself, Cora, but the role of betrayed virtue doesn’t suit you very well. You’re young, but you’re a pretty experienced woman for all that, and you haven’t done anything you didn’t want to. You’ve had both eyes open every minute, and we both know it. You are just as wise as——”
“You’re lying andyouknow it! What didIwant to make Richard go into your scheme for? You made a fool of me.”
“I’m not speaking of the money now,” he returned quickly. “You’d better keep your mind on the subject. Are you coming away with me?”
“What for?” she asked.
“Whatfor?” he echoed incredulously. “I want to know if you’re coming. I promise you I’ll get a divorce as soon as it’s possible——”
“Val,” she said, in a tone lower than she had used since he entered the room; “Val, do you want me to come?”
“Yes.”
“Much?” She looked at him eagerly.
“Yes, I do.” His answer sounded quite genuine.
“Will it hurt you if I don’t?”
“Of course it will.”
“Thank heaven for that,” she said quietly.
“You honestly mean you won’t?”
“It makes me sick with laughing just to imagine it! I’ve done some hard little thinking, lately, my friend—particularly last night, and still more particularly this morning since that man was here. I’d cut my throat before I’d go with you. If you had your divorce I wouldn’t marry you—not if you were the last man on earth!”
“Cora,” he cried, aghast, “what’s the matter with you? You’re too many for me sometimes. I thought I understood a few kinds of women! Now listen: I’ve offered to take you, and you can’t say——”
“Offered!” It was she who came toward him now. She came swiftly, shaking with rage, and struck him upon the breast. “`Offered’! Do you think I want to go trailing around Europe with you while Dick Lindley’s money lasts? What kind of a life are you `offering’ me? Do you suppose I’m going to have everybody saying Cora Madison ran away with a jail-bird? Do you think I’m going to dodge decent people in hotels and steamers, and leave a name in this town that—Oh, get out! I don’t want any help from you! I can take care of myself, I tell you; and I don’t have to marryyou! I’d kill you if I could—you made a fool of me!” Her voice rose shrilly. “You made a fool of me!”
“Cora——” he began, imploringly.
“You made a fool of me!” She struck him again.
“Strike me,” he said. “I love you!”
“Actor!”
“Cora, I want you. I want you more than I ever——”
She screamed with hysterical laughter. “Liar, liar, liar! The same old guff. Don’t you even see it’s too late for the old rotten tricks?”
“Cora, I want you to come.”
“You poor, conceited fool,” she cried, “do you think you’re the only man I can marry?”
“Cora,” he gasped, “you wouldn’t do that!”
“Oh, get out! Get outnow! I’m tired of you. I never want to hear you speak again.”
“Cora,” he begged. “For the last time——”
“No! You made a fool of me!” She beat him upon the breast, striking again and again, with all her strength. “Get out, I tell you! I’m through with you!”
He tried to make her listen, to hold her wrists: he could do neither.
“Get out—get out!” she screamed. She pushed and dragged him toward the door, and threw it open. Her voice thickened; she choked and coughed, but kept on screaming: “Get out, I tell you! Get out, get out, damn you! Damn you,damnyou! get out!”
Still continuing to strike him with all her strength, she forced him out of the door.
Cora lost no time. Corliss had not closed the front door behind him before she was running up the stairs. Mrs. Madison, emerging from her husband’s room, did not see her daughter’s face; for Cora passed her quickly, looking the other way.
“Was anything the matter?” asked the mother anxiously. “I thought I heard——”
“Nothing in the world,” Cora flung back over her shoulder. “Mr. Corliss said I couldn’t imitate Sara Bernhardt, and I showed him I could.” She began to hum; left a fragment of “rag-time” floating behind her as she entered her own room; and Mrs. Madison, relieved, returned to the invalid.
Cora changed her clothes quickly. She put on a pale gray skirt and coat for the street, high shoes and a black velvet hat, very simple. The costume was almost startlingly becoming to her: never in her life had she looked prettier. She opened her small jewel-case, slipped all her rings upon her fingers; then put the diamond crescent, the pendant, her watch, and three or four other things into the flat, envelope-shaped bag of soft leather she carried when shopping. After that she brought from her clothes-pantry a small travelling-bag and packed it hurriedly.
Laura, returning from errands downtown and glancing up at Cora’s window, perceived an urgently beckoning, gray-gloved hand, and came at once to her sister’s room.
The packed bag upon the bed first caught her eye; then Cora’s attire, and the excited expression of Cora’s face, which was high-flushed and moist, glowing with a great resolve.
“What’s happened?” asked Laura quickly. “You look exactly like a going-away bride. What——”
Cora spoke rapidly: “Laura, I want you to take this bag and keep it in your room till a messenger-boy comes for it. When the bell rings, go to the door yourself, and hand it to him. Don’t give Hedrick a chance to go to the door. Just give it to the boy;—and don’t say anything to mamma about it. I’m going downtown and I may not be back.”
Laura began to be frightened.
“What is it you want to do, Cora?” she asked, trembling.
Cora was swift and business-like. “See here, Laura, I’ve got to keep my head about me. You can do a great deal for me, if you won’t be emotional just now, and help me not to be. I can’t afford it, because I’ve got to do things, and I’m going to do them just as quickly as I can, and get it over. If I wait any longer I’ll go insane. Ican’T wait! You’ve been a wonderful sister to me; I’ve always counted on you, and you’ve never once gone back on me. Right now, I need you to help me more than I ever have in my life. Will you——”
“But I must know——”
“No, you needn’t! I’ll tell you just this much: I’ve got myself in a devil of a mess——”
Laura threw her arms round her: “Oh, my dear, dear little sister!” she cried.
But Cora drew away. “Now that’s just what you mustn’t do. I can’t stand it! You’ve got to bequiet. I can’t——”
“Yes, yes,” Laura said hurriedly. “I will. I’ll do whatever you say.”
“It’s perfectly simple: all I want you to do is to take charge of my travelling-bag, and, when a messenger-boy comes, give it to him without letting anybody know anything about it.”
“But I’ve got to know where you’re going—I can’t let you go and not——”
“Yes, you can! Besides, you’ve promised to. I’m not going to do anything foolish ——”
“Then why not tell me?” Laura began. She went on, imploring Cora to confide in her, entreating her to see their mother—to do a dozen things altogether outside of Cora’s plans.
“You’re wasting your breath, Laura,” said the younger sister, interrupting, “and wasting my time. You’re in the dark: you think I’m going to run away with Val Corliss and you’re wrong. I sent him out of the house for good, a while ago——”
“Thank heaven for that!” cried Laura.
“I’m going to take care of myself,” Cora went on rapidly. “I’m going to get out of the mess I’m in, and you’ve got to let me do it my own way. I’ll send you a note from downtown. You see that the messenger——”
She was at the door, but Laura caught her by the sleeve, protesting and beseeching.
Cora turned desperately. “See here. I’ll come back in two hours and tell you all about it. If I promise that, will you promise to send me the bag by the——”
“But if you’re coming back you won’t need——”
Cora spoke very quietly. “I’ll go to pieces in a moment. Really, I do think I’d better jump out of the window and have it over.”
“I’ll send the bag,” Laura quavered, “if you’ll promise to come back in two hours.”
“I promise!”
Cora gave her a quick embrace, a quick kiss, and, dry-eyed, ran out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house.
She walked briskly down Corliss Street. It was a clear day, bright noon, with an exhilarating tang in the air, and a sky so glorious that people outdoors were continually conscious of the blue overhead, and looked up at it often. An autumnal cheerfulness was abroad, and pedestrians showed it in their quickened steps, in their enlivened eyes, and frequent smiles, and in the colour of their faces. But none showed more colour or a gayer look than Cora. She encountered many whom she knew, for it was indeed a day to be stirring, and she nodded and smiled her way all down the long street, thinking of what these greeted people would say to-morrow. “Isaw her yesterday, walking down Corliss Street, about noon, in a gray suit and looking fairly radiant!” Some of those she met were enemies she had chastened; she prophesied their remarks with accuracy. Some were old suitors, men who had desired her; one or two had place upon her long list of boy-sweethearts: she gave the same gay, friendly nod to each of them, and foretold his morrow’s thoughts of her, in turn. Her greeting of Mary Kane was graver, as was aesthetically appropriate, Mr. Wattling’s engagement having been broken by that lady, immediately after his drive to the Country Club for tea. Cora received from the beautiful jilt a salutation even graver than her own, which did not confound her.
Halfway down the street was a drug-store. She went in, and obtained appreciative permission to use the telephone. She came out well satisfied, and went swiftly on her way. Ten minutes later, she opened the door of Wade Trumble’s office.
He was alone; her telephone had caught him in the act of departing for lunch. But he had been glad to wait—glad to the verge of agitation.
“By George, Cora!” he exclaimed, as she came quickly in and closed the door, “but youcanlook stunning! Believe me, that’s some get-up. But let me tell you right here and now, before you begin, it’s no use your tackling me again on the oil proposition. If there was any chance of my going into it which there wasn’t, not one on earth—why, the very fact of your asking me would have stopped me. I’m no Dick Lindley, I beg to inform you: I don’t spend my money helping a girl that I want, myself, to make a hit with another man. You treated me like a dog about that, right in the street, and you needn’t try it again, because I won’t stand for it. You can’t playme, Cora!”
“Wade,” she said, coming closer, and looking at him mysteriously, “didn’t you tell me to come to you when I got through playing?”
“What?” He grew very red, took a step back from her, staring at her distrustfully, incredulously.
“I’ve got through playing”, she said in a low voice. “And I’ve come to you.”
He was staggered. “You’ve come——” he said, huskily.
“Here I am, Wade.”
He had flushed, but now the colour left his small face, and he grew very white. “I don’t believe you mean it.”
“Listen,” she said. “I was rotten to you about that oil nonsense. Itwasnonsense, nothing on earth but nonsense. I tell you frankly I was a fool. I didn’t care the snap of my finger for Corliss, but—oh, what’s the use of pretending? You were always such a great `business man,’ always so absorbed in business, and put it before everything else in the world. You cared for me, but you cared for business more than for me. Well, no woman likesthat, Wade. I’ve come to tell you the whole thing: I can’t stand it any longer. I suffered horribly because—because——” She faltered. “Wade, that was no way towina girl.”
“Cora!” His incredulity was strong.
“I thought I hated you for it, Wade. Yes, I did think that; I’m telling you everything, you see just blurting it out as it comes, Wade. Well, Corliss asked me to help him, and it struck me I’d show that I could understand a business deal, myself. Wade, this is pretty hard to say, I was such a little fool, but you ought to know it. You’ve got a right to know it, Wade: I thought if I put through a thing like that, it would make a tremendous hit with you, and that then I could say: `So this is the kind of thing you put ahead ofme, is it? Simple little things like this, thatIcan do, myself, by turning over my little finger!’ So I got Richard to go in—that was easy; and then it struck me that the crowning triumph of the whole thing would be to get you to come in yourself. Thatwouldbe showing you, I thought! But you wouldn’t: you put me in my place—and I was angry—I never was so angry in my life, and I showed it.” Tears came into her voice. “Oh, Wade,” she said, softly, “it was the very wildness of my anger that showed what I really felt.”
“About—aboutme?” His incredulity struggled with his hope. He stepped close to her.
“What an awful fool I’ve been,” she sighed.
“Why, I thought I could show you I was yourequal! And look what it’s got me into, Wade!”
“What has it got you into, Cora?”
“One thing worth while: I can see what I really am when I try to meet you on your own ground.” She bent her head, humbly, then lifted it, and spoke rapidly. “All the rest is dreadful, Wade. I had a distrust of Corliss from the first; I didn’t like him, but I took him up because I thought he offered the chance to showyouwhat I could do. Well, it’s got me into a most horrible mess. He’s a swindler, a rank——”
“By George!” Wade shouted. “Cora, you’re talking out now like a real woman.”
“Listen. I got horribly tired of him after a week or so, but I’d promised to help him and I didn’t break with him; but yesterday I just couldn’t stand him any longer and I told him so, and sent him away. Then, this morning, an old man came to the house, a man named Pryor, who knew him and knew his record, and he told me all about him.” She narrated the interview.
“But you had sent Corliss away first?” Wade asked, sharply.
“Yesterday, I tell you.” She set her hand on the little man’s shoulder. “Wade, there’s bound to be a scandal over all this. Even if Corliss gets away without being arrested and tried, the whole thing’s bound to comeout. I’ll be the laughing-stock of the town—and I deserve to be: it’s all through having been ridiculous idiot enough to try and impress you with my business brilliancy. Well, I can’t stand it!”
“Cora, do you——” He faltered.
She leaned toward him, her hand still on his shoulder, her exquisite voice lowered, and thrilling in its sweetness. “Wade, I’m through playing. I’ve come to you at last because you’ve utterly conquered me. If you’ll take me away to-day, I’llmarryyou to-day!”
He gave a shout that rang again from the walls.
“Do you want me?” she whispered; then smiled upon his rapture indulgently.
Rapture it was. With the word “marry,” his incredulity sped forever. But for a time he was incoherent: he leaped and hopped, spoke broken bits of words, danced fragmentarily, ate her with his eyes, partially embraced her, and finally kissed her timidly.
“Such a wedding we’ll have!” he shouted, after that.
“No!” she said sharply. “We’ll be married by a Justice of the Peace and not a soul there but us, and it will be now, or it never will be! If you don’t——”
He swore she should have her way.
“Then we’ll be out of this town on the three o’clock train this afternoon,” she said. She went on with her plans, while he, growing more accustomed to his privilege, caressed her as he would. “You shall have your way,” she said, “in everything except the wedding-journey. That’s got to be a long one—I won’t come back here till people have forgotten all about this Corliss mix-up. I’ve never been abroad, and I want you to take me. We can stay a long, long time. I’ve brought nothing—we’ll get whatever we want in New York before we sail.”
He agreed to everything. He had never really hoped to win her; paradise had opened, dazing him with glory: he was astounded, mad with joy, and abjectly his lady’s servant.
“Hadn’t you better run along and get the license?” she laughed. “We’ll have to be married on the way to the train.” “Cora!” he gasped. “You angel!”
“I’ll wait here for you,” she smiled. “There won’t be too much time.”
He obtained a moderate control of his voice and feet. “Enfield—that’s my cashier—he’ll be back from his lunch at one-thirty. Tell him about us, if I’m not here by then. Tell him he’s got to manage somehow. Good-bye till I come back Mrs. Trumble!”
At the door he turned. “Oh, have you—you——” He paused uncertainly. “Have you sent Richard Lindley any word about——”
“Wade!” She gave his inquiry an indulgent amusement. “If I’m not worrying about him, do you think you need to?”
“I meant about——”
“You funny thing,” she said. “I never had any idea of really marrying him; it wasn’t anything but one of those silly half-engagements, and——”
“I didn’t mean that,” he said, apologetically. “I meant about letting him know what this Pryor told you about Corliss, so that Richard might do something toward getting his money back. We ought to—”
“Oh, yes,” she said quickly. “Yes, that’s all right.”
“You saw Richard?”
“No. I sent him a note. He knows all about it by this time, if he has been home this morning. You’d better start, Wade. Send a messenger to our house for my bag. Tell him to bring it here and then take a note for me. You’d really better start—dear!”
“Cora!” he shouted, took her in his arms, and was gone. His departing gait down the corridor to the elevator seemed, from the sounds, to be a gallop.
Left alone, Cora wrote, sealed, and directed a note to Laura. In it she recounted what Pryor had told her of Corliss; begged Laura and her parents not to think her heartless in not preparing them for this abrupt marriage. She was in such a state of nervousness, she wrote, that explanations would have caused a breakdown. The marriage was a sensible one; she had long contemplated it as a possibility; and, after thinking it over thoroughly, she had decided it was the only thing to do. She sent her undying love.
She was sitting with this note in her hand when shuffling footsteps sounded in the corridor; either Wade’s cashier or the messenger, she supposed. The door-knob turned, a husky voice asking, “Want a drink?” as the door opened.
Cora was not surprised—she knew Vilas’s office was across the hall from that in which she waited—but she was frightened.
Ray stood blinking at her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, at last.