Doré went to bed at once—not to sleep, for she felt in her mind a cold clarity that seemed impervious to fatigue, but in order to avoid conversation with Snyder. She did not at once return over the surprising moments of the night. From her pillow the flushed clock-face of the Metropolitan Tower came bulging into the room. She watched it with a contented numbness of the senses, striving to follow the jerky advance of the minute-hand, conscious only of the fragrance and pleasure of the cool bed-linen, dreamily awake, prey to a delicious mental languor. She asked herself no questions ... she wished no answers. The emotional self which had so violently awakened within her, overturning all her mentalqui vive, returned, but in a gentle warm dominion. She drew her arm under the pillow ... and her embrace was tightening about his neck again. She felt herself caught, rudely imprisoned, struggling—dominated, convulsively yielding. She moved restlessly, rearranging the pillows—returning impatiently into the illusion, feeling herself always in his arms.
"The great elemental forces of nature will decide for you," he had said....
She remembered the words confusedly. She had never quite believed in these forces ... though oftenin her lawless imagination she had sought to comprehend them, never convinced, always puzzled. She had permitted half stolen embraces, furtive clasps of the hand, wondering, always disillusioned. She had perceived, it is true, some inexplicable emotional madness in the men who sought her ... and sometimes roughly it had repelled her to great distances. This abrupt disorder which she could call forth with a tone of her voice, a quick lingering glance or a certain reclining languor, had excited her curiosity. There was a certain mental exhilaration in it, the cruel teasing of the feline, playing with its prey. It gave her an excited sense of power ... that was all. The slightest acquiring advance had roused in her a fury of resistance.... And now, at last, she knew! This was the force that had made playthings of men and women, that sent them where they did not wish to go, that could upset all coldly logical calculations, that gave the frailest little women irresistible weapons against the strongest men ... or made them throw all opportunities to the wind and follow incomprehensible husbands.
She heard the cautious entering of Snyder, and instantly closed her eyes, breathing deep—a light word would have seemed a sacrilege. She waited, irritated and nervous, until her room-mate, undressing in the pale reflections, had noiselessly curled herself on the couch.
What would she have done if he had remained? Now the languor that had stolen treacherously over her senses was gone, dissipated by the presence of anotherhuman being. Her mind threw itself feverishly on the problem, encircling it, trying it from a hundred points of view. What did it mean? Was her liberty, her freedom of action suddenly jeopardized? And the thought of this overpowering new force made her violently react ... striving to escape its verity ... just as her body had whipped around in his arms when they had suddenly closed about her. What was it frightened her?... the man, or something awakened within her?
She sat up in bed, her head in her palms, throbbingly awake. What would have happened if he had stayed?... But he had not stayed—and she had not allowed him to return. She said it to herself victoriously ... illogically evading an answer ... momentarily satisfied. And if he came again? Would there be a new danger?
She sank wearily on her pillow. No ... of that she was sure ... never again would she be so vulnerable.... It had been the unknown—the thing she had not believed in—which had taken her by surprise ... unprepared.
Then he had made the mistake of returning. Massingale, strong and unyielding, had had a fearfully attractive force over her will and her vanity, but the other ... the Massingale who had returned, was human, and therefore could be subjected. No!... she would never fear him again!
Did she love him?... She did not know ... at least she insisted that it could not be so—not all at once—perhaps, later. But she knew this—that shelonged to see him again, to have the dragging night end, to awaken to the morning and to hear his coming,... to go hurriedly with him out of the discordant city, somewhere, where it was peaceful and solitary,... somewhere where they could turn and look in each other's eyes and know what had happened.
At other moments she said to herself with profound conviction that it must be love, that that was the way, the only way, that love could come, overpowering the reason, despite the reason, beating down all reason. Then if it were love? Would she submit, renounce all her defiantly proclaimed liberty? Characteristically, she did not answer. Instead, she projected herself into this submission, and her imagination, volatile as a dream, whisked her from one fancy to another. She imagined what it would be like to fill a feverish letter, each night after he had gone, with all the tender, passionate, jealous, or yearning fancies that he had left tumultuously stirring in her breast—a letter which she herself would carry hastily out into the night, running to the letter-box at the corner, that he might wake to a surprise. And each morning she, too, would awake to his call, his voice over the telephone. At other times, sentimentally urged, she visualized him as ill, sadly stricken, herself at his bedside.
"So, after all, I am going to marry—like all the rest!" she said, suddenly roused. This one word—"marriage"—pierced through all the fancied illusions. Marriage—one man; nothing but one man every day, year in and year out—was it possible? Could she resign herself? No more excitement, nomore gambling with opportunity, no more dramatizing herself to each new situation, no more luring and evasion, no more sporting with dull brute strength or matching of wits—nothing but the expected, the routine—yes, the inevitable commonplace? Could she give this up—so soon? She rose fiercely against the sacrifice. Never! She preferred her youth.
All at once a sound broke across the hot flights of her conflicting fancies. She sat up instantly, bending forward, listening. She had heard a sob, muffled but unmistakable, from the adjoining room—then another. She slipped quickly to the floor. Snyder too had risen.
"Be quiet, Snyder. Let me go," she said to her in a whisper, forcing her back.
She felt her way to the door, and opening it quietly, passed into Winona's room.
"Who's that?" asked a frightened voice.
"Hush! It's I—Dodo. I heard you," she said, groping. "What's wrong, Winona?"
But the figure in the bed, without answer, buried itself face down in the covers, striving to choke back the sobs.
Doré put her arm about her, endeavoring to calm her, wondering and a little apprehensive.
"But this is frightful! Winona, you mustn't!" she said helplessly. "Winona, can't you tell me? Can't you speak?"
The girl grasped her hand, pressing it convulsively. Doré waited, seized by the mystery of the heavy night, the stillness and the little animal sound of sorrow.Between Salamanders real confidences are rare. What did she know of this life which only a wall divided from her? A suspicion flashed into her mind, knowing the perilous ways that sometimes had to be run. All at once she remembered.
"Winona!" she cried joyfully. "What a fool I am! I've good news! It's all settled—Blainey to-morrow!" And as the girl, buried in her pillow, continued to struggle against the sobs, she shook her by the shoulder, repeating: "Blainey wants to see you; he's giving you a chance. Do you hear?"
"Chance! Ah, I've had a thousand chances! What's the use!" exclaimed the girl, twisting in the bed. "It's always the same! Don't I know it—know it!"
"But you won't throw away this one?"
"Chance! Yes, that's all it is—chance!" she cried uncontrollably. "If I wasn't such a fool! What's the use of trying, anyhow? It don't make any difference. Nothing ever does! Ah, I'll give up. I'll go back!" She continued, repeating herself endlessly, beating the pillow with her fist; and as she abandoned herself to despair, old errors of speech, forgotten accents, mingled in her cries. "It ain't right! No, it ain't right—nothing ever comes of nothing! Nothing works out—nothing! Ah, no! I'll go back—I'll go back—I'll go back to it!"
"What do you mean? Back to what?"
Winona caught her throat, silenced suddenly.
"Can't you tell me?"
"I'm all right now," said Winona, shaking her head.She disengaged herself bruskly, sitting up, twisting her fingers in the physical effort at control. She turned, clutching Doré.
"Did Blainey—he—what did he say?"
Doré, inventing details, building up a favorable incident, exaggerated the importance, recounted the interview.
"I told him Zeller was after you. You know how he hates Zeller! He's crazy to steal you! You'll see! Everything will work like a charm—and the part just for you!"
She continued optimistically pouring out encouragement. Winona allowed herself to be convinced, grasping at straws. They remained talking deeply of difficulties and discouragements, always avoiding the questions that lay below. Once Doré had said tentatively:
"Winona, wouldn't it help you just to talk out everything—tell me everything? I'd understand. Do trust me!"
But the girl, resisting, answered hastily:
"No! no! Not now! Some day, perhaps."
Doré made no further effort. She drew her arm about her.
"Then let me quiet you," she said softly.
Winona, without resistance, allowed herself to go into her arms. They ceased speaking, clinging to each other there in the dark, and a strange sensation came to Doré at the touch of the body clinging to her, these unseen arms so tenaciously taut: it seemed to her almost that she heard another voice, mastering herphysically and morally, making her suddenly flexible and without defense, a voice saying:
"Now, stop acting!"
"All right. Better now. I can sleep," said the girl in her arms. "Thanks."
Dodo rose and went gliding back. Snyder, open-eyed, made no sound. She was grateful to her for this, divining the reason. Back in her bed, huddling under the covers, she recalled Winona with a feeling of horror. To lose one's courage like that—how terrible! And if she herself were thus to be transformed, if all her indomitable audacity should suddenly go—
"There's some man back of it all," she said, thinking of Winona. "There always is a man."
Yet she had been on the point of rapturously hugging the first dream that had come to her in an uncomprehended moment, of submitting to a man—the very thought flung her back into intuitive revolt.
"But, if it isn't love, how could he have such power over me? Could there be such a vertigo without true love? Could such a thing be possible?" Time and time again she put these questions, finding different answers. At times she let herself go deliciously, stretching out her arms, conjuring up that first penetrating embrace. At others, fiercely aroused, she resisted him with every fiber of her body, rejecting submission, resolved to combat him, to subordinate him, to retain always her defiant supremacy, to revenge her momentary defeat by some future victory.
Neither in the yielding nor in the revolt was thereany conviction—no peace and no calm. What there was, was all disorder, and the insistent drumming note of his voice, which drew her to him, had in it the confusion of a fever.
Though she had fallen asleep late, she awoke early, with a start. It was half past eight by the clock. She rose abruptly on her elbow at a sound that had startled her from her slumber—the slippery rustle of letters gliding under the crack of the door. There were two, white and mysterious against the faded blue of the carpet. She was about to spring to them when she perceived Snyder watching her. She contained herself with a violent effort, waiting, with eyes that were averted not to betray their eagerness, until they were brought to her. She was certain that he had written, and something within her began to tremble and grow cold with the suspense of awaiting his first letter. At her first glance she fell from the clouds. One was in Mr. Peavey's disciplined hand, the other in Joe Gilday's boyish scrawl, each announcing expected gifts. She had a sudden weak desire for tears.
"Gee! eggs and cream! Who is the fairy godmother?" said Snyder. "Say, you must have a wishing-cap!"
"It's Mr. Peavey, bless his heart!" said Doré. At that moment, in her first exaggerated pang of disappointment, she had an affectionate inclination to the elderly bachelor. He would not have treated her so, had the rôles been shifted.
"Going to be a habit?"
"Hope so."
"I'm strong for that boy; I like his style!"
Doré smiled; she comprehended the thought. She cast a hasty glance at Gilday's disordered pages. It was, as she had surmised, the humble tender of bouquets to come. She dissembled her disappointment as best she could, seeking excuses. He might have posted his letter after midnight, from his club. It would come in the late morning mail. Or perhaps he had preferred to telephone. It must be that! Of course, that was the explanation. He wished to hear her voice, as she longed for his, and then they would take rendezvous at once. Yes, he would telephone—now—at any moment. She glanced again at the clock. Ten long minutes had elapsed. The excuse so convinced her that she felt a sudden access of unreasoning happiness, as if already, by some sense, she had divined his coming.
She had promised over the telephone the night before to pay a morning visit to Harrigan Blood in the editorial rooms of theFree Press, and then there was the appointment for luncheon with Sassoon. These acceptances did not disturb her in the least. When anything was offered, her invariable tactics were to accept—provisionally. For her tactics were simple, but formed on the basic strategy of the Salamanders: acceptance that raises hopes, then an excuse that brings tantalizing disorder, but whets the appetite. To-day she had not the slightest intention of keeping either appointment. She was only glad that she had contracted them. It was a little bit of treachery which she would offer up to Massingale.
She chose her simplest costume—blue, the invariable Russian blouse, white collar open at the neck, and a bit of red in the slim belt. She wished to come to him girlish, without artifice. She felt so gaily elated that she turned tenderly toward the happiness of others. Winona would sleep until ten at least. She wheeled suddenly, and putting her arm around Snyder, embraced her. In the confusion, a locket became entangled in her lace.
"What's that? You've never shown me," she said, catching the chain.
Snyder silently touched the spring. Inside was the face of a child of four or five.
"Yours?"
"Yes."
"How pretty! What's her name?"
"Betty."
They stood close together, looking at the uncomprehending childish gaze.
"Where is she?"
"With my mother."
"Aren't you going to take her—ever?"
"Never!"
"Why not?" She dropped the locket, glancing at this half woman, half girl, who continually perplexed her. "She is so sweet—how can you do without her?"
"Want her to have a home," said Snyder abruptly. She turned, as if the conversation were distasteful. "Can't be dragging her all over the continent, can I?"
A great pity came to Doré, that any one should be unhappy in such a bright world. A fantastic thought followed. She knew only that Snyder was divorced—a child, a broken home. Yet persons often divorced for the absurdest reasons; perhaps it had only been a misunderstanding. If she could reconcile them, bring them together again! She approached the subject timidly.
"Do me a favor?"
"What?"
"Let me see Betty; bring her here!"
Snyder's agitation was such that she came near pushing over the coffee-pot.
"You really—you want me to—"
"Yes. Why not? I adore children!"
She continued to watch her, surprised at the emotion she had aroused.
"Yes, she is unhappy—frightfully unhappy!" she thought, and taking courage, she added: "Snyder, tell me something?"
Snyder shook her head, but, despite the objection, Doré continued:
"You have never told me of him—your husband. Are you sure it couldn't be patched up? Are you sure you don't care?"
"I don't want to talk about it—it's ended!" said Snyder, so abruptly that Doré drew back.
"I only asked—"
"Don't want help—don't want to talk!" Snyder broke in, in the same embittered tone.
"Not to me?" said Doré gently.
Snyder drew a long breath, and turned to her swiftly, with an appealing look, in which, however, there was no weakness.
Then she laid her finger across her lips.
"Here—breakfast is ready; sit down!"
"Snyder, I don't understand you; you hurt me!" said Doré, opening her eyes.
The woman stood a moment, locking and unlocking her hands, swinging from foot to foot.
"Can't help it. You can't make me over. I've got my rut!" She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm damned unsociable—perhaps I'd better dig out."
"Snyder!" exclaimed Doré, bounding to her side. She took her in her arms, crying: "Why, it was only to help you!"
"Well, you can't!" said the other, with a forcible shake of her head, her body stiff against the embrace. And there the conversation ended.
It was after nine, and still no sound at the telephone. Doré began to feel an uneasy impatience. At any minute, now, certainly he must summon her. Snyder made an excuse and went out. But she ceased to think of her. Her thoughts were no longer keen to another's suffering, but sensitive to her own.
She grew tired of pacing restlessly, and flung herself down on the couch, her head turned toward the clock, watching it wearily. Why didn't he telephone—or, at least, come? This sensation of suspense and waiting, which she had so often dealt out to others, was new to her. It disarranged her whole self, aroused fierce resentful thoughts in her. He wishedto tantalize her, to draw her on, as he had the night before—to be cruel, to make her suffer! Well, she too could be cruel. She would do something to hurt him, too.
"Very well! Now Iwillgo to see Harrigan Blood," she said all at once, choking with something that was not entirely anger.
And hastily slipping into her coat, she went hurriedly to Ida Summers' room, awoke her and took her with her.
Mr. Peavey's automobile was waiting. Doré had telephoned for it while Ida Summers, protesting, had made a quick toilet. She had at first thought of availing herself for the day of the car so insistently pressed upon her; but she was not yet quite sure of Brennon, the chauffeur. If by any chance she should decide to keep her appointment with Sassoon, it would not be wise to accept such escort. So she supplemented the day's preparations by a message to Stacey, who was given a later rendezvous.
"Down-town! TheFree Pressbuilding. Hope I didn't get you up too early, Brennon?"
He grinned at her ideas of morning values.
"He looks as if he were a good sort," Doré thought, meditating on the possibilities long after she and Ida had tucked themselves in.
"I say, Do, what's the game? Give us the cue!" said Ida Summers, making heroic efforts to get her eyes open.
"Your cue is to be real sisterly," said Doré. "Stick close, unless I give you the wink."
"Oh, I'll cling! Arm in arm, eh?" said Ida, beginning to laugh. "Conversation high-toned. I say, Do, I'm quite excited. Harrigan Blood! You do move in the swellest circles!"
Doré allowed her to chat away without paying attention, a fact that did not disturb her companion in the least.
"Well, he'll be furious!" she was thinking, delighted at paying Massingale back in coin. Nevertheless, she had mitigated the retaliation by taking a companion. Then, too, the effect on Harrigan Blood would not be at all bad—Blood, who expected a tête-à-tête, and who could thus be taught the value of such favors.
But now that she was finally embarked on her impulse, she began to consider more calmly, even with a willingness to see Massingale's side. All at once the perfectly obvious explanation occurred to her. How could he be expected to telephone, when she had not given him the number? Why had she never thought of this before? Probably he had been frantically seeking it! Of course he could not telephone—and of course he could not come personally; he would have to be in court all the morning. Perhaps at this very moment a letter was waiting for her, by the post, or by a messenger! She must indeed be in love, to be such a fool!
"Thank heaven," she thought, "I had the sense to bring Ida! I'll confess to him—or, no! He mustn't know what it has meant!"
The sudden joyful release, the calm of content that came to her from this explanation, surprised her. For a moment she felt like renouncing the visit; but a new turn strengthened her resolve. She could hardly believe in what had happened. Perhaps it was onlyanother case of self-deception. She would try to revolt, to be interested in another man, to see if the old game could still attract.
"Lordy! I'd forgotten there was so much New York!" said Ida Summers, who lived, like her thousand sisters, between the Flatiron and the park.
They entered lower Broadway, random flowers on the foul truck-strewn flood, advancing by inches, surrounded by polyglot sounds, traversing revolted Europe in a block, closing their ears against the shrieking cries of imprisoned industries, the sordid struggle in the streets, the conflict in the air, where stone flights strove for supremacy.
All at once she remembered—this roaring entrance. She remembered the evening, not two years before, when she herded from the ferry, satchel in hand, oppressed by the jargon of a thousand tongues, she had arrived, hustled and jostled, barely making head against the outflowing tide of humanity which flushed the street in its roaring homeward scramble.
That first breathless impression of New York! How she had feared it, that first dusky evening, when, shrinking in a doorway before the onrush of driven multitudes, she had felt the very air dragged from her nostrils, obliterating her individuality, routing her courage, stunning her senses. She had stood a long time, clinging to her meager sheltering, disheartened at the fury at her feet, awed by the flaming ladders to the impending stars—no inanimate stones, but living rocks, endlessly climbing, which must end by toppling over on her in an obliterating crash. NewYork! How different from what she had imagined in the tugging, liberty-seeking aspirations of her soul!
She had never lacked courage before, in all her adventurous progress toward the Mecca of her dreams; but that night she had been defeated, overwhelmed before the issue, even. She had come, sublimely confident in a fanciful project she had conceived, a series of impressions—A Western Girl in New York—a western girl arriving undaunted, satchel in hand, ten dollars in her purse, to seek fortune in the great city of Mammon—surely a daring story to fill a woman's column. And she had gone to the sameFree Press, standing in the outer office, talking to a tired sub-editor, vainly striving to interest him, to revive in herself a necessary spark of enthusiasm and audacity which had expired in that first brutal confrontation of the world in terms of thousands. Yes, she had lost even before she had opened her plea, convinced of the futility of making an impression on those frantic halls, where her voice was pitched not alone against the tired indifference of a routine mind, but against the invading storm of outer sounds, the clang of brazen bells, the honk of automobiles, the shaking rush of invisible iron forces tearing through the air, the grinding roll of traffic over the complaining cobblestones, the mammoth roar of the populace endlessly washing reverberating shores.
She had talked and talked, without interruption, clenching her fist, growing weaker and weaker, stumbling in her phrases, until at last, convinced, without waiting for an objection, she had stopped short, saying: "It's no use, is it?"
Then he had gone to a file of papers, and returning, spread before her a gaily colored page, placing his finger on another face in silhouette, gay, jaunty. Another had had the same idea! How many others? She was no longer an individual—only one of a thousand who came, with the same ideas, to face the same struggle.
That first leaden closing of the doors of hope, as if no other doors remained! And now she was to enter that sameFree Press, no longer daunted, clinging to a satchel, but rolling luxuriously, triumphant: no longer a suppliant, but amused, at the insistent invitation of the chief, the genius of the machine, whom once she had clamored so fruitlessly to see. Then and now.... Harrigan Blood—society itself, on which she was to take a delicious revenge. She forgot Massingale, remembering only a hopeless little figure, ready for tears, standing, a tiny black dot against the electric windows of the press, gazing into the wilderness of the strident crowded unknown.
A quick descent, a sudden volcanic propulsion upward, and they were transferred a hundred feet above strife, into a noisy anteroom, gazing down at the gray-and-white tapestry of the spread city.
"Hello! What are you doing here?"
They turned. Estelle Monks, of the second floorfront at Miss Pim's, owner of the white fox stole and the circulating garments, was standing beside them, jauntily alert.
"Goodness' sakes, it's Estelle!" exclaimed Ida. "Well, what areyoudoing—?"
"Oh, I contribute," said Estelle evasively.
She was in a short tailored suit, Eton collar, Alpine hat and feather. With her hands in her side pockets, she was very direct, at ease, mannish, but not disagreeably so—rather attractive with her dark eyes, which, as Ida expressed it, had the "real come-hither" in their mocking depths.
A boy came shuffling out, saying nasally:
"Mr. Blood will see you naow."
They left Estelle Monks indulging in a long whistle of surprise, traversed a long chorus of clicking machines, and discovered a room of comparative quiet, spacious, with embattled desks. Harrigan Blood was waiting, a smile on his face as he fingered thetwocards.
"Very nice of you to bring Miss Summers," he said jerkily, making his own introduction. "Added pleasure, I'm sure!"
Doré, who had expected some show of irritation, wondered in an amused way how he would manage to procure the tête-à-tête which she had just rendered impossible. In ten minutes Blood, without seeming to have considered the question, had resolved the knot by calling in Tony Rex, one of the younger cartoonists, a boyish person who eyed them with malicious curiosity, and having consigned Ida to him for a tourof inspection, had availed himself of the first interval to say:
"Come, you can see all this any time. You are not going to get out of a talk with me by any such tricks."
She consented, laughing, to be led back.
Why did you do this?
"Why did you do this?"
"Why did you do this?"
"Why did you do this?" he said, irritated.
"Do what?"
"Bring a governess?"
"Because I'm a very proper person."
"It annoys me. I hate women who annoy me!" he said abruptly.
She smiled in provoking silence, while, with a quick excusing gesture, he lighted a cigar.
"You seem more natural here," she said, glancing at his ruffled hair and careless tie. "I'd like to see you at work."
He rose to get a copy of the editorial sheet for the day, and handed it to her.
"You inspired that."
She took the editorial, which was entitled "Waste," and ran down its heavily leaded phrases, smiling to herself at these moralizations of the devil turned friar. He saw her amusement, and took the editorial abruptly.
"You won't understand—that's what Ibelieve!"
He drew a chair opposite and flung into it; then, with an erect stiffening of his body, clasped his hands eagerly between his knees, releasing them in sudden flights, returning them always to their tenacious grip. There was something in the combustibility of the gesture that was significant of the whole man.
"By George!" he said suddenly, without relevancy, "why haven't I the right to stretch out my hand and take you?"
Doré burst out laughing, immensely flattered.
"What a nuisance you are!" he continued savagely. "What good do you do in the world? All you women do is to interfere! And to think that this sentimental civilization—idiotic civilization—is going to experiment for a few hundred years with pretending that women are made to share the progress of the world with men!"
"So you're not a woman's—"
"I'm absolutely against the whole feminine twaddle!" he broke in. "Man's the only thing that counts! We're suffocated with feminism already—over-sentimentalized; can't think but in the terms of an individual." He stopped, and glaring at her, said, with a furious gesture: "And now, here you are, an impudent little girl who doesn't do the world a bit of good, sitting back there and laughing contentedly because you've suddenly popped up to raise Cain with me!"
The originality of his attack delighted her. It pleased her immensely to feel her attraction for such a man, for it seemed to her a promise that with another she would not lack charm and fascination.
"What a strange method of courting," she said demurely. "If that's the way you're going on, I think I prefer to be shown the—"
"The machines, of course," he cut in. "That's the trouble with you. That's all they ever understand—the things they see. But, my dear girl,Iam the paper; all the rest is only wheels, chains, links; every man here is only part of the machine. I only am the indispensable force."
He had found an idea, and was off on its exposition, starting up, pacing and gesturing.
"Yes, all the rest is only a machine. I can change every bolt in twenty-four hours and it will go on just the same. I pay a cartoonist twenty thousand dollars a year, and he thinks he's indispensable; but I can take another and make him famous in a month. I give him the ideas! Yes, they are lieutenants here—editors of Sunday supplements, special writers, women's columns, sporting experts. I can change 'em all, take a handful of boys, and whip them into shape in six weeks! That's not journalism. What is? I'll tell you. Others have copied me; I found it out—emotionsandideas! You don't get it? Listen! They're two heads: the news column and the editorial page."
He paused at the table, and taking up a paper, struck it disdainfully.
"Trash! I know it! News? No! That's not what the public wants—not my public! It wants fiction, it wants emotions! You don't know what the multitude is; I do! A great sunken city, a million stifling, starved existences, hurried through, railroaded through life. News? Bah! They want a taste of dreams! I make their dreams live in my paper. It's everything to them, melodrama, society, romance; it's a peep-hole into the worlds they can't touch. I show 'em millionaires moving behind theirhouse-walls, rolling in wealth, fighting one another, battling for one another's wives, flinging a billion against a billion, ruining thousands for a whim. 'Monte Cristo'? It's tame to what I serve 'em. 'Mr. X Gives a Hundred Thousand Dollar Lunch'—'Secret Drama of Oil Trust's Home'—'Deserts Millionaire Husband for Chauffeur'—'Ten Millions in Five Years'! That's life—that's emotion! That's what makes 'em go on! Look here, did you ever stop to think what does make the five million slaves go on, day in and day out, driven, groaning? Hope! the belief that in some miraculous way life is going to change."
He stopped, and with a drop to cold analysis, laying his hand on the editorial sheet, said:
"This is what does count. This is real—ideas! The other is just tom-tom-beating to get the crowd around—yes, just that: the band outside the circus. But this is different; this is true. America, the future—the glorious future when I've stirred up their imagination and taught them to think! There! Now do you understand what kind of man I am?"
She had understood one thing clearly, in this stupendous flurry of egotism—that, as Sassoon had sought to tempt her with the lure of his wealth, Harrigan Blood was seeking to overwhelm her with the brilliancy of his mind. She did not oppose him, seeking flattery, needing fresh proofs of her power, thinking: "If he wants me, Massingale—Massingale, who is so clever and strong—will want me too."
"You lunch with me," he said confidently.
She shook her head. "Previous engagement."
"Where?"
"Tenafly's at one."
"Sassoon?" he said, sitting up with a jerk.
"Yes," she answered, with malice aforethought.
"What—you're going to be caught by that whited sepulcher?"
"And you, Mr. Blood?" she said softly.
"I? I'm loyal!"
"But not monogamous."
"Sassoon only wants to be stung out of a lethargy. Women—I need them to help me. I have the right! That's why I want you!"
"I'm not the kind you want," she said, drawing back, for his precipitation gave her the feeling of being crowded into a corner.
"You would if I could make you love me!"
"Indeed! Are you considering—matrimony?"
"Never!" he said angrily. "Marriage is a reciprocal tyranny. I don't want to own a woman, or have her own me! What, you can have a career, and you want to marry?"
She defended herself, laughing, assuring him that was not the case.
"You have your career; I have mine. I'll educate you! Ten thousand men will give you money—I'll give you brains! My little girl, I wonder if you know what opportunity is dangling on your little finger-tips. Break your engagement!"
"I can't!"
"Interested?"
"Um! Very curious. Certain sides are amusing!" Then she turned, assuming an air of dignity, repeating her defensive formula: "Mr. Blood, I am not like other girls. I play fair. I give one warning—and one only. Then take the consequences."
"What's your warning?" he said abruptly, with a bullish stare.
"You will lose your time," she said calmly. "You think you know me. You may, and you may not. I won't give you the slightest hint, but I tell you frankly now, and only once, you will lose your time!"
"But," he said contemptuously, "you don't know what a real man is! There's nothing real in your life. I'm going to give you realities!"
"How charming!" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "And in the same breath you let me know it won't last. Thanks; I don't enjoy being an episode!"
"That depends on you."
"Frank!"
"Don't you know," he said suddenly, coming toward her, "what is true about a man like myself?—yes, about all men? They say we're naturally polygamous. Rats! nothing of the sort! We want to be true to one woman only. Look here. The real tragedy in life is that a man can't find in one woman all he wants,—all the time!"
At this moment, much to Doré's relief, Ida Summers and her companion returned. As they went out to the elevator, Blood made another opportunity for a final word:
"I haven't said half that I wanted to. When can I get a chance really to talk with you?"
A malicious suggestion, prompted by some devil of intrigue within her, suddenly rose in her imagination.
"Come and get me after luncheon."
"I thought you said you were lunching with Sassoon," he said suspiciously.
"I am. What of it?—or don't you dare?"
He looked at her fixedly, divining her reason.
"I warned you to beware of me," she said demurely. "I love scenes—dramatic temperament, you know. Think how furious Sassoon will be! Well?"
"What time?" he said, with a snap of his jaws.
"Oh, half past two."
"I'll come!"
Tony Rex descended to place them in their automobile. He was a short youth in loose pepper-and-salt clothes, with a pointed nose and a quantity of tow hair tumbling over a freckled forehead. Doré hardly noticed him. Not so Ida, who, in true Salamander fashion, had already established a permanent intimacy.
"Why did you desert me?" said Doré, with hypocritical severity, when they had left their escort, hat in hand, on the curb.
"My dear, I couldn't help it!" said Ida volubly. "I was having such a wonderful party with Mr. Rex. My dear, I'm crazy about him! Did you ever see those funny little cartoons of his? Screams! Just think of it, he comes from almost the same place I do! We've made a date for to-morrow. Lord! I do like some one who talks English you can understand!"
Doré, impatient to be home, fed her with rapture-inciting questions and retired into her own speculations. Chance had played her a trick. She had had no intention of keeping her appointment with Sassoon; but now the dramatic possibilities of a clash between her host and Harrigan Blood, which had risen out of a light answer, had so whetted her curiosity that she found herself in sudden perplexity. Her encounterwith Blood had awakened in her all the mischievous, danger-seeking enthusiasms. They had scarcely passed half an hour, and yet he had left her breathless at his breakneck pace, the abrupt charge of his attack, his unconventionality, his stripping away of artifices. He had interested her more than she had foreseen.
Yesterday how her eyes would have sparkled with delight at having inveigled such a thrashing fish into her cunning nets! And even now it was hard to forego the excitement of such a game. Her dramatic self, once aroused by the tête-à-tête, was not easily subdued. After all, too easy a compliance with Massingale's ideas, too patient a waiting for his summons, was dangerous. Better to teach him how sought after was the prize. Besides, if she kept him waiting until the evening, she could tell by the first glance of his eyes how much he had suffered, how much he cared. She did not doubt in the least that, when she reached Miss Pim's, there on the mahogany hall table she would find his note; and blowing hot and cold, she ended up by saying to herself that if in that letter were things that could make her close her eyes with delight, she might possibly, on a mad impulse, go flying off to him. Only, it would depend; there would have to be things in that letter—
When, at last, she went tumultuously into the boarding-house, she ran through the heap of letters twice fruitlessly.
"It came by messenger; Josephus must have taken it up-stairs," she thought.
She ran up breathlessly, anxious and yet afraid,flinging open the door, gazing blankly at the floor, then ransacking rapidly the table, the bureau-tops, the mantelpiece. Nothing had come—he had not written! She sat down furiously. She could not comprehend! On the table a great bouquet of orchids, with "Pouffé" in golden letters on the purple ribbon, was waiting. She saw it heedlessly.
He had not written! Why? She could not understand—could find no explanation. How could any one be so thoughtless, so cruel?
"I will telephone him myself!" she thought angrily, springing up.
She went to the door precipitately, before she could control herself. Then she stopped, wringing her hands, shaking her head. Perhaps he had come in person. She rang for Josephus. Had any one called? Had there been a message? None. Perhaps he had telephoned, and Winona had made a note of it. She went hastily to the pad where such notes were jotted down. But the page, to her dismay, was blank. She sat down quietly, folding her arms across her breast, gazing out of the window. All at once she bounded up, went rapidly down the hall, and entered Ida Summers' room.
"Come on. You're lunching with me. No excuses!"
"Where? With whom?"
"Doesn't matter—come! I'll tell you later!"
"Good heavens! what's the matter, Do?"
"Nothing! I'm a fool—I don't know. Only let's get out!"
Yes, she was a fool! The explanation was obvious! While she had been soaring with her dreams, he had gone quietly about his day. What had set her in a whirl had meant nothing to him—nothing at all! And for the moment, forgetting what had happened, forgetting how he had at the last returned, seeking admittance, she said to herself bitterly that she must have gone mad to imagine for an instant that there had been anything more than a moment's amusement between Judge Massingale and a crazy little fool living in the third floor front of a cheap boarding-house.
"Now to do as I please," she said recklessly. "We'll see if I'm of so little consequence. Sassoon and Blood shall pay for this!"
Ida Summers, overwhelmed at the prospect of meeting Alfred Edward Sassoon, was excitedly clamoring:
"But, Do, heavens! Give me a pointer; I'll never be able to say a word to a swell like that! What do you talk about?"
"Anything!" said Doré savagely. "What does he care what you talk about! Or any of them! Look him in the eyes, smile, flirt! Did you ever flirt with a butcher's boy?"
"Heavens! Dodo!"
"Well, I did! They're all the same!"
"What's happened?"
Doré shrugged her shoulders. But by the time they had drawn up in front of Tenafly's she had regained her calm in a dangerous coldness bent on mischief.
Sassoon came up softly, looking questions at this unexpected presentation of a third.
"I thought you would be more comfortable in public this way, instead of tête-à-tête," said Doré briefly, making the introduction. "You see how considerate I am!"
"Delighted, of course," said Sassoon, in his low unvarying tones. "Don't you think we'd be better up-stairs?"
"I said in the restaurant," answered Doré peremptorily.
Sassoon bowed, signaled a waiter, and led the way. She had gone hardly twenty steps into the chattering curious room, which stared at this public spectacle of Sassoon, when her eye fell on the figure of Judge Massingale. Their eyes met. She felt a sudden burning shame there before every one, wavered, and went hurriedly to her seat.
He had seen her! What would he think? Would he misunderstand her at seeing her thus publicly flaunted by Sassoon? What awful conclusions might not come into his mind at this persistent dogging of her steps? And after what had happened last night, with the memory of her blind clinging to him, the soft confession of her voice, what would he think now? Let him think what he wished, so long as he should suffer a little! If he were here, he could have come to her! If he were so mechanical, she would teach him jealousy.