A Man's Hearth

by Eleanor M. Ingram

  CHAPTER II

  HIS NEIGHBOR'S WIFE

  During the next few days, Tony Adriance several times saw the girl inblack. But he did not venture to approach or speak to her. It was toosoon; moreover, he was not altogether certain that he wished to be withher. She was too disturbing, too concrete an evidence of otherpossibilities in life than those he had been taught. He remembered thestory of the Grecian lake that was only muddy when stirred. Probablythose who lived within view of its waters seldom "disturbed Comarina."

  Nevertheless, he always regarded the girl with a keen interest he couldnot have explained even to himself. He would glimpse her from hisautomobile in passing, or observe her from the opposite sidewalk as hewent in or out of his father's house. She always had the child with her,and always wore the same frock. Usually, she was to be found in thewhite stone pavilion, established on the curved stone bench with a bitof sewing or a book. He never had imagined so quietly monotonous a lifeas hers seemed to be.

  It was at the end of the first week after their meeting that Adriance,riding slowly along the bridle-path through the park, saw an itinerantvendor of toy balloons and pinwheels wander into the pavilion where girland baby were ensconced.

  The sunlight glittered bravely on the gaudy colors of fluted paperwheels, the plump striped sides of bobbing globes, and the sleepy, brownface of the Syrian pedler who mutely presented his wares. The girllifted her smiling eyes to meet the man's questioning glance, and shookher head with a pretty gesture that somehow implied admiration and a gayfriendliness which made her refusal more gracious than another'spurchase. The pedler smiled, also, and lingered to hoist the strapssupporting his tray into a new position upon his bent, velveteen-cladshoulders, before moving on his way.

  The baby had not been consulted. But his attention had been none theless enchained. Those pink and yellow things set spinning by the freshmorning breeze, those red balloons tugging at their cords like unwillingcaptives hungry for the clear upper spaces of blue--to see all thisradiance departing was too much! He spread wide both chubby arms andplunged in pursuit.

  "Holly!" the girl cried, arresting his flight from the coach. "Why,Holly?"

  Holly hurled himself into magnificent rage. Halted by the outburst, theSyrian turned back with an air of experienced victory.

  "_Now_ you buy?" he interrogated.

  The girl shook her head, struggling to appease the younginsurrectionist.

  "No, no. Please go away, and he will forget."

  The man took a step away. The baby's screams redoubled; he stamped withsmall, fat feet and brandished small, fat fists.

  "You buy?" the pedler blandly insisted.

  "No!" the girl panted. "Please do go. I cannot; I have no money with me.Holly, dear----!"

  Adriance had found a boy to hold his horse, and came up in time tooverhear the last statement. He halted the Syrian with a gesture.

  "I have," he made his presence known to the combatants. "Won't you letme gratify a fellowman? Here, bring those things nearer. Which shall itbe, young chap--or both?"

  The girl turned to him with candid relief warming her surprise.

  "Oh!" she exclaimed her recognition. "You are very good. I am afraid,really afraid it will have to be both. _Oh_----!"

  Holly had deliberately lunged forward and clutched a double handful ofthe alluring wares.

  By the time calm was re-established and the amused Adriance had paid, itseemed altogether natural that he should take his place on the seatbeside the girl; as natural as the pedler's placid departure. Holly layback on his cushions in vast content, two balloons floating from theirtethers at the foot of his coach and a pinwheel clasped in his hand.

  "I should like to say that he is not often like this," remarked thegirl, gathering together her scattered sewing, "But he likes having hisown way as much as Mait' Raoul Galvez; and everyone knows what _he_raised."

  "I don't," Adriance confessed. He noticed for the first time a softeningof her words, not enough to be called an accent, far less a lisp, butyet a trick of speech, unfamiliar to him. "What did he raise?"

  "Satan," she gravely told him. "Mait' Raoul knew more about voodooismand black magic than any white man ever should. It is said he vowed thathe would have the devil up in person to play cards with him, or never becontent on earth or under it. And he did, although he knew well enoughSatan never gambles except for souls."

  "Who won?"

  "Satan did. Yet he lost again, for Mait' Raoul tricked him in thecontract so cleverly that it did not bind and the soul was free. Thereis a great split rock near Galvez Bayou where they say the demon stampedin his rage so fiercely the stone burst."

  "Then Maitre Raoul escaped Hades, after all?"

  "Oh, no! He went there, but merely as a point of honor. He was agambler, but he always paid his losses."

  Adriance laughed, yet winced a little, too. A baffled, helplessbitterness darkened across his expression, as it had done on theevening of their first meeting. He looked down at the pavement as if infear of accidentally encountering his companion's clear glance.

  "I never read that story," he acknowledged. "Thank you."

  "I fancy it never was written," she returned. "There is a song about it;a sleepy, creepy song which should never be sung between midnight anddawn."

  He watched her draw the thread in and out, for a space. She wasembroidering an intricate monogram in the centre of a square of finelinen, working with nice exactitude and daintiness.

  "What is it?" he wondered, finally.

  Her glance traced the direction of his.

  "A net for goldfish," she replied.

  It was not until long afterward he understood she had told him that shesold her work.

  The river glittered, breaking into creamy furrows of foam under theploughing traffic. The sunshine was warm and sank through Adriance witha lulling sense of physical pleasure and tranquil laziness. How brightand clean a world he seemed to view, seated here! He felt a pang oflonging, keen as pain, when he thought that he might have had suchcontent as this as an abiding state, instead of a brief respite. How hadhe come to shut himself away from peace, all unaware? How was it that henever had valued the colorless blessing, until it was lost?

  After a while he fell to envying Maitre Raoul, who had gone to the devilhonorably.

  A long sigh from Holly, slumbering amid his trophies, awoke Adriance torealization that his companion possessed the gift of being silentgracefully. He had not spoken to her for quite half an hour, yet sheappeared neither bored nor offended, but as if she had been engaged infollowing out some pleasant theme of meditation. A sparrow tilted andpreened itself on the rail, not a yard from her bent, dark head. Over atthe curbstone, the boy who guarded Adriance's horse had slipped thebridle over one arm and was playing marbles with two cheerful comradeswho made calculated allowances for his handicap, based on his comingreward from the rider.

  "I am afraid I am very dull," Adriance presently offered vague apology.

  "Are you?"

  "I mean, I am not entertaining."

  She lifted her eyes from her sewing to regard him with delicateraillery.

  "No. If you had been the entertaining sort of person, I could never havelet you talk to me," she said. "But I think you had better go, please,now. Two imported nursemaids in bat-wing cloaks have been glowering atus for some time as it is. Holly and I shall be grateful to you athousand years for this morning's rescue."

  He rose reluctantly, with a feeling of being ejected from the onlyserene spot on earth.

  "Thank you for letting me stay," he answered. "You are very kind. I----"

  His lowered glance had encountered her little feet, demurely crossedunder the edge of her sober skirt. They were very small, serious shoesindeed; not a touch of the day's capricious fancy in decoration relievedthem. But what struck to the man's heart was their brave blackness, theblackness of polish that could not quite conceal that they had beenmended. Of course, he at once looked away, but the impression remained.

 
; "I hope Holly will not imitate Mait' Raoul any more," he finishedlamely.

  The girl frankly turned to watch him ride away. Her natural interestseemed to the man more modest than any pose of indifference.

  But it seemed that she was appointed by Chance to make Tony Adriancedissatisfied and restive. It was altogether absurd, but the fancifullegend she had told him taunted and hunted his sullen thoughts. He tookit with him to his home, when he changed into suitable attire to keep aluncheon engagement with Mrs. Masterson. It still accompanied him whenhe entered the great apartment house where the Mastersons lived.

  He had not wanted to act as Lucille Masterson's escort on this occasion.His attendance had been skilfully compelled. But now he hated the dutyso much that he was dangerously near rebellion. He hesitated on thethreshold of the building, half inclined not to enter; to go, instead,to a telephone and excuse himself for desertion on some pretext.

  It was too late. Already the door was held open for him by a footmanwhose discreetly familiar smile Adriance saw, and resented. He wincedagain when the elevator boy stopped at the Mastersons' floor withoutbeing told, implying the impossibility of Mr. Adriance's call beingintended for any other household. He never had noticed these thingsbefore; now, he felt himself disgracefully exposed before these blackmen.

  He was altogether in a mood of bitter exasperation, when he was usheredinto Mrs. Masterson's little drawing-room. He recognized this conditionwith a vague sense of surprise at himself underlying the dominantemotion. All his life he had been singularly even-tempered. Now hecombated a wish to say ugly, caustic things to the woman who had broughthim here. He did not want to see her.

  Yet she was very pleasant to see. Indeed, both the scene and his hostesswere charming, as they met his view. Mrs. Masterson was standing beforea long mirror, surveying herself, so that Adriance saw her twice; oncein fact, and once as a reflection. Sunlight filled the room, which wasfurnished and draped in a curious shade of deep blue with a shimmeringrichness of color, so that the lady's gray-clad figure stood out inclear and precise detail. But Mrs. Masterson could bear that stronglight, and knew it. Without turning, she smiled into the mirror towardthe man whose image she saw there.

  "How do you like the last Viennese fancy, Tony?" she composedly greetedhim.

  Her voice was not one of her good points. It was naturally toohigh-pitched and harsh, and although by careful training she hadaccustomed herself to speak with a suppressed evenness of tone thatsmothered the defect to most ears, there resulted a lack of expressionor modulation perilously near monotony. Adriance listened now, with afresh sense of irritation, to the fault he only had observed recently.Before answering, he surveyed critically the decided lines of thecostume offered for his approval; its audacious little waistcoat ofcerise-and-black checked velvet, the diminutive hat that seemed to havealighted like a butterfly on the shining yellow hair brushed smoothlyback from Mrs. Masterson's pink ears, and the high-buttoned gray bootswith a silk tassel pendant at each ankle. Those exquisite and costlyboots taunted him with their sharp contrast to those he had studied anhour before; they spurred him on to rudeness as if actual rowels wereaffixed to their little French heels.

  "The skirt is too extreme," he stated perversely.

  "They are going to be so; this is quite a bit in advance," she returned."Do you like it?"

  "Not so well! It makes a woman look like a child; except for her face."

  Lucille Masterson's tact was often at fault from her lack of humor.Instead of retorting with laughter or silence, she opposed offence tohis wilfulness.

  "Thank you," she answered freezingly. "I seem to have aged rathersuddenly."

  "You know well enough how handsome you are," he said, a trifle ashamed."Of course I did not mean what you imply. But, after all, we are notchildren, Lucille, either of us. We are a man and a woman who aregoing----"

  "Well?"

  "To gather a rather nasty apple!" He forced a smile to temper thestatement.

  She slowly turned around and regarded him.

  "What do you mean?" she demanded, lifting her narrow, arched eyebrows."My _costume trottoir_, and apples----? Aren't you considerablyconfused, Tony?"

  "Can't we at least face what we are doing?" he countered. "If we areable to do a thing, we ought to be able to look at it, surely. We canput through this thing, and our friends will think none the less of us;they are that kind. But they are not all the people on earth, you know.What the maid who brushes your gown or the man who opens the door for mesays of us downstairs may come nearer the general opinion. Perhaps wewould better have considered that. For I am afraid the majority of thewhite man's world cannot be altogether wrong."

  There was a quality in his voice that alarmed her. He had flung himselfinto a chair beside her desk, and sat nervously moving back and forththe trinkets nearest his hand. She stood quite still, studying himbefore committing herself by a reply. This was a Tony Adriance strangeto her.

  "It seems very cowardly, to me, to be afraid of what people will say,"she slowly answered. "And I will not have you speak to me as if I were awicked woman, Tony. You know that I am not. You know I have borne withFred's neglect and extravagance much longer than other women would."

  He flushed dark-red at the taunt of cowardice, but he spoke doggedly,tenacious of his purpose.

  "You could not give Fred another chance? You remember, he and I werefriends, once. He has played too much with the stock market. Well, Imight get my father to help him there; we might fix it so that he wonsometimes, instead of lost. You do not know how hard it is for me tocome into Fred's house this way."

  A flash of blended anger and fear crossed Mrs. Masterson's large,light-colored eyes.

  "Is it?" she doubted, cuttingly. "You have been coming here for a wholeyear, Tony."

  She had found the one retort he could not answer. Adriance opened hislips, then closed them with a grim recognition of defeat. Who wouldbelieve he had come here innocently? How could he tell this beautifuland sophisticated woman that he had been vaguely, romantically charmedby her without ever dreaming of any issue to the affair or of lettingher suspect his mild sentimentality? How could he hope she would creditthe tale, if he did tell her?

  She had been watching his changing expression; herself paled by a verygenuine dread. Now, suddenly she was beside him, her hands on hisshoulders.

  "Don't you love me any more, Tony? You come in here to-day and rage atme----! Have you taught me for months to need you and count on you forall the future, only to leave me, now? Oh, I believed _you_ were strongand true!"

  A caress from her was so rare an event, so unfamiliar a concession, thather mere nearness fired Adriance. Her fragrant face was close to his;he looked into her eyes, like jewels under water, suffused by her terrorof losing him.

  His kiss was her victory. Instantly she was away from him; half acrossthe room and sending furtive glances toward the curtained doorways, eventoward the windows five stories above the street. The guilt implied inthe action made it to Adriance as if a hand had struck the kiss from hislips.

  "We must be careful," she cautioned. "Suppose someone were coming in?You didn't mean all that, Tony? You love me as much as ever?"

  Adriance moved toward her.

  "I won't answer that in Masterson's house," he said, his voice shaken."Lucille, you have got to do now what I asked you to do weeks ago: youmust leave here at once and marry me as soon as it can be done. Since wehave begun this thing, we must carry it through as decently as possible.And it is not decent for you to stay here or for me to come here. If youcome with me now, to-day, I will put you with someone who can act aschaperon until the divorce is obtained; one of my aunts, perhaps. Ifyou do this, and help me to keep what honestly is left, I give you myword that I never will fail you as long as I live, come what may."

  She drew back from his vehemence. Assured of herself and him, now, shepermitted a frown to tangle her fair brow in half-amused rebuke.

  "My dear boy, what a dramatic tirade! Of course I will come to y
ou thefirst moment possible--but, to-day? And just now you were deprecatinggossip! You must let me arrange this affair. I am not ready to leaveFred, yet. Do you not understand? I must wait until he makes another oneof his scenes; I must have a fresh reason for going, not a past onealready tacitly overlooked."

  "You will not come?"

  She turned from his darkened face to the mirror.

  "You really are very selfish, Tony. Pray think a little of me instead ofyourself. But I will try to do as you wish; next month, perhaps. I couldgo to Florida for the winter."

  Adriance sat down again beside the desk and took a cigarette from asmall lacquered tray that stood there. He was beaten, but he was notsubmissive. He bent his head to the yoke with a bitter, sick reluctance.Yet he understood that it was too late to draw out. Lucille loved him;whether intentionally or not, he had won her. No, he must finish what hehad begun.

  The cigarette was perfumed, and nauseated him. He dropped it into anash-receiver, but it had given him a moment to steady himself. Afterall, Masterson did neglect his wife. If he could not keep his own, whyshould Tony Adriance turn altruist and try to do it for him? At least,Lucille might be happy.

  Mrs. Masterson had touched her hat into place, surveying her vividreflection. She was wise enough to take her triumph casually.

  "Shall we go?" she questioned. "Nan Madison hates late arrivals, youknow. Do make your man throw away that cravat you are wearing, Tony.Gray is not your color. It makes you look too pale; too much----"

  "Like Maitre Raoul Galvez?" he dryly supplied, rising.

  "Who was he?"

  "A man who raised the Devil. I am quite ready if you wish to go."