But after they had gone and he had driven Nora back to New York the sun came out once more, though it was eleven minutes after midnight.
“I hate to go, Dimi,” Nora was saying in answer to something he had said, “but really I have to.”
“Gosh!” remarked Dimi eloquently. And later: “Nora, don’t you think we ought to go out somewhere and leave Van and Barry alone on their last night?”
Nora gave him an indescribable look.
“I think you’re the most thoughtful and considerate man in the world!”
All the next day he could without effort recall the delicious shock this sent through his entire mechanism. He did not draw a sane breath, thinking of Nora and of how he was to take her to Heathstone Inn that night. The atmosphere in the office irked him so that he put on his hat and went for a walk in the park.
“It’s too good to be true,” he kept saying to himself. “Something is bound to happen.”
Usually if you say that over and over it has a tendency to divert Nemesis. But Dimi’s hard luck was charm proof. Van met him at the door.
“Where were you all afternoon? I phoned your office like mad.”
“I was—out.”
“Oh! Well, listen! You know I gave a luncheon for Nora today. And Buck Connor dropped in for Madge, and when he heard it was Nora’s last day he said we ought to have a party for her. He was awfully sweet. He spent thousands of dollars phoning all round and he’s arranged a dance—at the club. Why, Dimi—what’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“But Dimi—you look positively ghastly!”
“Jelly beans! Where’s Nora?”
“Gone to get her evening clothes. Buck drove her over—she’s bringing a suitcase back. Dimi, you’re sure you’re not ill?”
“No! I tell you—”
“Oh, well, don’t bite! I was going to say the reason I tried so hard to get you was that Nora insisted she had some sort of date with you. We all told her you wouldn’t mind, but she had to speak to you. When we couldn’t get you I persuaded her it was all right. I hope you’re not going to have a bilious spell. Perhaps you’d better not go to the dance. Buck could take Nora over.”
“Hah!”
It was a perfect example of the laugh sardonic.
“In fact,” continued Van, “he did offer to.”
“Damn his hide!” muttered Dimi between his teeth.
“What?”
“I said, dancing aside, I expect to have a great time. I’m going up to have a look at my togs.”
He was decidedly out of sorts. But it was while he was tying his tie later that the real injustice of the thing made a successful captive of his goat. Buck Connor and his double-D dance! The more he thought of it the madder he got. He had a good mind just not to go to the darn thing at all, only then Buck would certainly—Van poked her head in the door.
“Nearly ready?”
“I am. But what’s the matter with you?”
“Oh, we’re not going! Barry doesn’t care for dances.”
Dimi sat down hard! The proverbial camel had not even a straw on him. The way that guy Barry got away with manslaughter! He didn’t care for dances! Well, he, Dimi, hated the darn things, but he had to go. Where did this guy Barry get off anyway, always getting his own way? By George, Van was right! The more you gave in the more you got it in the neck. It didn’t pay to be a gentleman. You got left. Be a hard-boiled egg. That was the dope. Cave-man stuff. Van had said it and he had sniffed, but here he saw it under his very eyes.
By Julius, he was going to change! He was going to be a roughneck. “Make them respect you,” Van had said. And wasn’t she right? If they had had any respect for him, would they have pulled this stunt tonight? By Waldemar, Van was right! “Treat ’em rough,” she had said. “Give ’em a thrill!” Gosh! He stopped suddenly. How did you treat ’em rough? And howinell did you give ’em a thrill?
And his sense of humor having suddenly come to life, he stopped being mad long enough to laugh at a picture of himself treating Nora rough. But, on the other hand, if she deserved it? If she danced all the dances with Buck Connor, for instance? By Ignatz, he could have it in him to treat her rough! You bet! It gave him quite a thrill to think about it.
That thrill startled him. Yes, there was something in what Van had said! But where to start? How to go about it? He felt a curious subterranean excitement. What would Barry do, for instance, under these very circumstances? What did Barry usually do? Why, he did what he wanted to do and he didn’t do what he didn’t want—Well, he, Dimi, wanted to go to Heathstone Inn and did not want to go to the club.
Having at this moment completed his dressing and being Dimi he meekly switched off his light and went out docilely to take Nora to the dance. And the sight of her in a maple-mousse-and-whipped-cream sort of an evening dress that did not make even the most transparent attempt at covering her arms and shoulders and ankles and things reduced him to the most abject doormatronage. When he helped Nora Barrow into his very presentable little roadster there wasn’t anybody in Locust Hills who felt less like a cave man than Dimi Brown, unless it was poor Eli Bates, who had St. Vitus’ dance and rheumatism. He was just a battlefield for conflicting impulses.
Just before he started off, however, Nora laid a hand on his arm. His inner apparatus turned a complete somersault.
“I’m sorry things turned out this way, Dimi. I’d rather they hadn’t arranged this dance.”
“Oh, Nora!”
“Honestly! I’d rather be going to Heathstone—with you.”
Bang!
An X-ray movie camera turned on Dimi at that moment would have recorded a bloody melodrama entitled The Downfall of Dimi or The Birth of a Cave Man or something like that. On his face, however, nothing showed beyond a slight pallor and a scarcely perceptible tightening of the lips.
After a while Nora asked: “How far is the club, anyway?”
“From where?”
“From here.”
“Oh, about twenty-five miles.”
“Twenty-five miles! I had no idea it was so far from the house!”
“It isn’t. It’s right round the corner from the house.”
“Oh, I see!” she rejoined, though she didn’t. Then: “Don’t you think we’d better be turning back?”
“No. Why?”
“To get to the dance.”
“We’re not going to the dance.”
“Not going to the dance? Where are we going?”
“To Heathstone.”
The plunge was taken. The die was cast. The Rubicon was crossed, and all the rest of it.
“But, Dimi—” He did not answer. “You’re only fooling, of course?”
Still no answer.
“Dimi, please turn back now. We’ll be late for the dance.”
“We’re not going to the dance.”
It was not hard after you got started. There was a certain momentum that carried you along. It was like rolling downhill. You gave yourself the first push and some accommodating natural force took care of the rest.
“Dimi, I don’t quite understand. But it doesn’t seem either funny or—or nice to play jokes on people who are trying—”
“It’s not a joke. Did you or did you not promise to go to Heathstone with me tonight?”
“I did—of course—but they—”
“They have nothing to do with it. They didn’t consult me about their old dance. I didn’t promise to go to it. I don’t dance and they know it.”
“But, Dimi, that’s outrageous! Those people were kind enough—”
“Kind nothing! It’s a pleasure for them to dance, isn’t it? Well, I’m not interfering with their pleasure. And I don’t recognize their right to interfere with mine.”
“Why, that’s the most preposterous thing I ever heard! I’m
surprised at you, Dimi. Even if you don’t want to go you might consider my preferences.”
“I am. You said yourself you’d rather go to Heathstone.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind.”
“Oh, what a pity!”
“Dimi Brown, you turn right round and take me back!”
“Don’t you think,” remarked Dimi conversationally, “that Dmitri suits me better than Dimi? It’s more masterful. I think I’d rather have you call me Dmitri.”
“I’ll call you nothing at all. I won’t even speak to you again as long as I live.”
Dimi’s very presentable roadster could hit seventy-five without help from the police, though not always without interference.
“Dimi, stop it. Don’t go so fast, Dimi!”
He did not slow down much.
“When I’m—mad,” he shouted, “always run—over sixty. Makes me mad—you won’t speak—”
His foot went down once more.
“Dimi!” shrieked Nora. “Stop it!”
“Going—speak—me?”
“Y-yes!” she screamed, clinging to her seat.
The amateur troglodyte lifted his foot and the roadster eased down to twenty-five.
“Don’t you like to go fast?” inquired Dimi, turning to her pleasantly.
“No! I’m sca—It musses up my hair,” she finished coldly.
“When we get out at Heathstone you can fix it.”
“I’m not going to get out at Heathstone.”
“Oh, yes you are!” replied Dimi confidently.
And she knew that she was. And he knew that she knew it. And oh, it was wonderful—wonderful! At last he knew something first-hand; something authoritative about the long-hidden mystery of thrills. In fact, he could at that moment have written a monograph upon the subject.
* * * *
It was fully twenty-four hours after Nora’s departure for the Middle West that Dimi began to waken to the fact that the world was just about the same place externally it had always been. Incredibly enough, there was the same work to be done, the same number and kind of meals to be eaten, the same amount of sleep to be slept—if one could, of course. It was terribly disconcerting; like stepping off the tail of a comet right into your own back yard. And the worst of it was you couldn’t even kick about the dizziness of the drop or the general flatness of the scenery, because trips on comets’ tails are not apt to be regarded seriously except by the taker. Actually Dimi found himself constrained to go on acting as if nothing had happened when everything in the world was so entirely changed!
It was probably a little later that the realization came that nothing was changed. He had spent two afternoons and seven evenings with a very charming girl, to put it in the meaningless jargon of the world. On the last night he had run off with her more or less against her will, and at the threat of carrying her in he had made her yield to his will and dine with him at Heathstone Inn. And at the moment of said yielding there had crept into her eyes a look! Because of that look, melting and burning into his answering look the entire evening, he had had the temerity to drive home with one hand, an accomplishment which heretofore had been to him more of a parlor trick than a useful habit. And in the quietest street of Locust Hills something had happened to the engine which necessitated his stopping, which necessitated her looking up at him with that look still in her eyes, which necessitated his—but only once. The engine then behaving properly, he had driven her home to face the excitement roused by their mysterious disappearance.
Viewed from the point of view of the world it was nothing. Engines stalled in quiet streets the world over. And people, unless they happened to be married to each other, took advantage of the fact, and probably thought no more about it. It did not constitute any kind of an engagement. He might not even ever see her again.
Ye gods!
He would go out to Kansas City, if need be, to see her. Yes, and get engaged to her, too, darn his fool hide for not having thought of it at the time! He’d pack up and go right away if he hadn’t promised Steinberger to see that campaign through. He wouldn’t be able to get away much before summer, but he could certainly go West during his vacation. Darn it all, August was a long way off! Lots of things could happen in four months. There were probably Buck Connors out in Kansas City too.
Ye gods!
The upshot of it was that he decided to write her a letter and the upshot of that was that he did write her sixty or seventy. And the upshot of it all was that he finally sent her a letter lacking only “Friend Nora” to make it a perfect example of his idea of no kind of a letter at all. And Nora in answering it took her tone from his. So, though they corresponded with regularity and precision, it was as though there had been no night of nights at Heathstone nor any look in her eyes nor any engine stalled in the quietest street.
It was during the fourth week of this Dear-Nora-Dear-Dimi correspondence that Van remarked one night: “It’s not awfully easy for you to change your habits, is it, Dimi?”
“M-m-m,” grunted Dimi, who was reading and smoking a pipe.
“We’ve been pretty comfortable here, haven’t we?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’ve always been awfully good to me, Dimi.”
“See here, Van”—he put down his book and looked over at her—“are you trying to tell me something or keep it from me? Because whichever you’re trying you’re doing the other.”
“Barry wants to get married,” announced Van.
Dimi controlled his face.
“I’m glad to hear,” he camouflaged flippantly, “that he means right by our Nell.”
“He wants to get married,” continued Van, “very soon.”
“How soon?” asked Dimi.
“Next month. He expects to be transferred to a shore post at San Pedro and he wants to take me with him.”
Dimi went to his room early. He felt very low. Van would be gone across the continent in a month and he would be left alone. For the first time in his life he became acquainted with envy. He simply could not refrain from thinking enviously of Barry, who took from life what he wished, when and how he wished. And little by little there crept into his thinking a wish that he could be as Barry was in order to do as Barry did. And, as so often happens, the wish was sire to the resolve. By midnight it amounted to that—a resolve to do what Barry had done, even as Barry had done it. Of course he did not approve unreservedly of all Barry’s methods. Proposing marriage by telegram, for instance, was a bit crude. But the general lines he had followed had been sound. When the affair had reached a climax in his own mind he had put it to the test, getting an answer one way or the other. This sort of uncertainty was unendurable.
The more he thought of it the more unendurable it seemed. He loved Nora. Either she loved him or she didn’t. If she did he ought to know about it. And if she didn’t—well, as he was saying, if she did he ought to know about it He would write a letter at once—that very night.
He did. At four in the morning he was still writing it—and then at seven, when he got up, he destroyed it. It was with the clearer vision of early morning, that his thoughts turned again to Barry—Barry who had staked his all on a telegram instead of a stupid letter that would not be written; that would take a week to answer and could then be answered evasively. He, too would send a telegram—immediate, decisive, masterful.
At seven-thirty he heard the bathroom door close behind Van. He had not found the composition of a telegram any descendant of the original sinecure. Stealthily he crept into Van’s room and with guilty fingers rummaged in her jewel case. He knew she kept that telegram there.
At nine o’clock he visited the jeweler’s. There were rings it fairly hurt him not to choose for Nora. One in particular—a square emerald—her birth stone. But Barry had sent a diamond solitaire. And Barry had become his Bible, his Baedeker, and his daily manual.
So a solitaire it was which went to Nora, nicely timed to arrive the same morning as a telegram worded—it must be admitted—on the prayerful assumption that Van and Barry had never taken Nora into the inmost chambers of their confidence. Word for word it resembled a certain other telegram, even to the final exhortation to “Wire yes.”
And Nora wired.
After the success of this coup, such was his superstitious faith in the technic of his guiding spirit that Dimi would take no smallest step without asking himself: “What, under the circumstances, would Barry do?” Barry’s dope had opened for him the very gates of paradise. And who was he to juggle with the keys? He actually stole Barry’s letters and modeled his own upon them. I do not condone this. I merely relate it.
His romantic tendencies he held firmly in leash. That is, he kept them where they would do the least harm. He could not stifle them entirely. For instance, the To Nora sequence of sonnets which later appeared in a weekly, signed D. Brown, could not possibly carry any disillusionment to Nora. And soon D. Brown became a safety valve for all the superfluous sentiment of Dimi.
Barry wrote suddenly that owing to a change of plans at Washington his transfer would not take place for another month. Finally he wrote: “We will positively be married some time in August.”
D. Brown was indignant.
“The beggar does not even consult her about it. He’s positively Oriental.”
But Dimi would brook no criticism of his idol.
“What do you know about women? What did you ever do except lie down on doorsteps and get yourself walked on?”
Dimi’s vacation was fixed for the first of August and forthwith he sent Nora a letter.
“We will positively be married some time in August.”
That night D. Brown, outraged, wrote If, the poem which, set by Stephens, was said to be the most tenderly appealing love song of the year.
The Viola Brothers Shore Mystery Page 18
