The Flirt

by Booth Tarkington

  The stricken Hedrick knew not whither to direct his flight: he dared not dash for the street with this imminent tattered incubus—she was almost upon him—and he frantically made for the kitchen door, only to swerve with a gasp of despair as his foot touched the step, for she was at his heels, and he was sickeningly assured she would cheerfully follow him through the house, shouting that damning refrain for all ears. A strangling fear took him by the throat—if Cora should come to be a spectator of this unspeakable flight, if Cora should hear that horrid plea for love! Then farewell peace; indeed, farewell all joy in life forever!

  Panting sobbingly, he ducked under the amorous vampire’s arm and fled on. He zigzagged desperately to and fro across the broad, empty backyard, a small hand ever and anon managing to clutch his shoulder, the awful petition in his ears:

  “Kiss me some more, darling little boy!”

  “HEDRICK!”

  Emerging from the kitchen door, Laura stood and gazed in wonder as the two eerie figures sped by her, circled, ducked, dodged, flew madly on. This commonplace purlieu was become the scene of a witch-chase; the moonlight fell upon the ghastly flitting face of the pursued, uplifted in agony, white, wet, with fay eyes; also it illumined the unreal elf following close, a breeze-blown fantasy in rags.

  “Kiss me some more, darling little boy!”

  Laura uttered a sharp exclamation. “Stand still, Hedrick!” she called. “You must!”

  Hedrick made a piteous effort to increase his speed.

  “It’s Lolita Martin,” called Laura. “She must have her way or nothing can be done with her. Stand STILL!”

  Hedrick had never heard of Lolita Martin, but the added information concerning her was not ineffective: it operated as a spur; and Laura joined the hunt.

  “Stand still!” she cried to the wretched quarry. She’s run away. She must be taken home. Stop, Hedrick! You MUST stop!”

  Hedrick had no intention of stopping, but Laura was a runner, and, as he dodged the other, caught and held him fast. The next instant, Lolita, laughing happily, flung her arms round his neck from behind.

  “Lemme go!” shuddered Hedrick. “Lemme go!”

  “Kiss me again, darl–-“

  “I—woof!” He became inarticulate.

  “She isn’t quite right,” his sister whispered hurriedly in his ear. “She has spells when she’s weak mentally. You must be kind to her. She only wants you to–-“

  “`ONLY’!” he echoed hoarsely. “I won’t ki–-” He was unable to finish the word.

  “We must get her home,” said Laura anxiously. “Will you come with me, Lolita, dear?”

  Apparently Lolita had no consciousness whatever of Laura’s presence. Instead of replying, she tightened her grasp upon Hedrick and warmly reiterated her request.

  “Shut up, you parrot!” hissed the goaded boy.

  “Perhaps she’ll go if you let her walk with her arms round your neck,” suggested Laura.

  “If I WHAT?”

  “Let’s try it. We’ve got to get her home; her mother must be frantic about her. Come, let’s see if she’ll go with us that way.”

  With convincing earnestness, Hedrick refused to make the experiment until Laura suggested that he remain with Lolita while she summoned assistance; then, as no alternative appeared, his spirit broke utterly, and he consented to the trial, stipulating with a last burst of vehemence that the progress of the unthinkable pageant should be through the alley.

  “Come, Lolita,” said Laura coaxingly. “We’re going for a nice walk.” At the adjective, Hedrick’s burdened shoulders were racked with a brief spasm, which recurred as his sister added: “Your darling little boy will let you keep hold of him.”

  Lolita seemed content. Laughing gayly, she offered no opposition, but, maintaining her embrace with both arms and walking somewhat sidewise, went willingly enough; and the three slowly crossed the yard, passed through the empty stable and out into the alley. When they reached the cross-street at the alley’s upper end, Hedrick balked flatly.

  Laura expostulated, then entreated. Hedrick refused with sincere loathing to be seen upon the street occupying his present position in the group. Laura assured him that there was no one to see; he replied that the moon was bright and the evening early; he would die, and readily, but he would not set foot in the street. Unfortunately, he had selected an unfavourable spot for argument: they were already within a yard or two of the street; and a strange boy, passing, stopped and observed, and whistled discourteously.

  “Ain’t he the spooner!” remarked this unknown with hideous admiration.

  “I’ll thank you,” returned Hedrick haughtily, “to go on about your own business.”

  “Kiss me some more, darling little boy!” said Lolita.

  The strange boy squawked, wailed, screamed with laughter, howled the loving petition in a dozen keys of mockery, while Hedrick writhed and Lolita clung. Enriched by a new and great experience, the torturer trotted on, leaving viperish cachinna-tions in his wake.

  But the martyrdom was at an end. A woman, hurrying past, bareheaded, was greeted by a cry of delight from Lolita, who released Hedrick and ran to her with outstretched arms.

  “We were bringing her home, Mrs. Martin,” said Laura, reassuringly. “She’s all right; nothing’s the matter except that her dress got torn. We found her playing in our yard.”

  “I thank you a thousand times, Miss Madison,” cried Lolita’s mother, and flutteringly plunged into a description of her anxiety, her search for Lolita, and concluded with renewed expressions of gratitude for the child’s safe return, an outpouring of thankfulness and joy wholly incomprehensible to Hedrick.

  “Not at all,” said Laura cheerfully. “Come, Hedrick. We’ll go home by the street, I think.” She touched his shoulder, and he went with her in stunned obedience. He was not able to face the incredible thing that had happened to him: he walked in a trance of horror.

  “Poor little girl!” said Laura gently, with what seemed to her brother an indefensibly misplaced compassion. “Usually they have her live in an institution for people afflicted as she is, but they brought her home for a visit last week, I believe. Of course you didn’t understand, but I think you should have been more thoughtful. Really, you shouldn’t have flirted with her.”

  Hedrick stopped short.

  “`FLIRTED’!” His voice was beginning to show symptoms of changing, this year; it rose to a falsetto wail, flickered and went out.

  With the departure of Lolita in safety, what had seemed bizarre and piteous became obscured, and another aspect of the adventure was presented to Laura. The sufferings of the arrogant are not wholly depressing to the spectator; and of arrogance Hedrick had ever been a master. She began to shake; a convulsion took her, and suddenly she sat upon the curbstone without dignity, and laughed as he had never seen her.

  A horrid distrust of her rose within him: he began to realize in what plight he stood, what terrors o’erhung.

  “Look here,” he said miserably, “are you—you aren’t—you don’t have to go and—and TALK about this, do you?”

  “No, Hedrick,” she responded, rising and controlling herself somewhat. “Not so long as you’re good.”

  This was no reassuring answer.

  “And politer to Cora,” she added.

  Seemingly he heard the lash of a slave-whip crack in the air. The future grew dark.

  “I know you’ll try”—she said; and the unhappy lad felt that her assurance was justified; but she had not concluded the sentence—“darling little boy,” she capped it, choking slightly.

  “No other little girl ever fell in love with you, did there, Hedrick?” she asked, and, receiving an incoherent but furious reply, she was again overcome, so that she must lean against the fence to recover. “It seems—so—so CURIOUS,” she explained, gasping, “that the first one—the—the only one—should be an—a—an–-” She was unable to continue.

  Hedrick’s distrust became painfully increased: he began to f
eel that he disliked Laura.

  She was still wiping her eyes and subject to recurrent outbursts when they reached their own abode; and as he bitterly flung himself into a chair upon the vacant front porch, he heard her stifling an attack as she mounted the stairs to her own room. He swung the chair about, with its back to the street, and sat facing the wall. He saw nothing. There are profundities in the abyss which reveal no glimpse of the sky.

  Presently he heard his father coughing near by; and the sound was hateful, because it seemed secure and unshamed. It was a cough of moral superiority; and just then the son would have liked to believe that his parent’s boyhood had been one of degradation as complete as his own; but no one with this comfortable cough could ever have plumbed such depths: his imagination refused the picture he was bitterly certain that Mr. Madison had never kissed an idiot.

  Hedrick had a dread that his father might speak to him; he was in no condition for light conversation. But Mr. Madison was unaware of his son’s near presence, and continued upon his purposeless way. He was smoking his one nightly cigar and enjoying the moonlight. He drifted out toward the sidewalk and was accosted by a passing acquaintance, a comfortable burgess of sixty, leading a child of six or seven, by the hand.

  “Out taking the air, are you, Mr. Madison? said the pedestrian, pausing.

  “Yes; just trying to cool off,” returned the other. “How are you, Pryor, anyway? I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

  “Not since last summer,” said Pryor. “I only get here once or twice a year, to see my married daughter. I always try to spend August with her if I can. She’s still living in that little house, over on the next street, I bought for her through your real-estate company. I suppose you’re still in the same business?”

  “Yes. Pretty slack, these days.”

  “I suppose so, I suppose so,” responded Mr. Pryor, nodding. “Summer, I suppose it usually is. Well, I don’t know when I’ll be going out on the road again myself. Business is pretty slack all over the country this year.”

  “Let’s see—I’ve forgotten,” said Madison ruminatively. “You travel, don’t you?”

  “For a New York house,” affirmed Mr. Pryor. He did not, however, mention his “line.” “Yes-sir,” he added, merely as a decoration, and then said briskly: “I see you have a fine family, Mr. Madison; yes-sir, a fine family; I’ve passed here several times lately and I’ve noticed ‘em: fine family. Let’s see, you’ve got four, haven’t you?”

  “Three,” said Madison. “Two girls and a boy.”

  “Well, sir, that’s mighty nice,” observed Mr. Pryor; MIGHTY nice! I only have my one daughter, and of course me living in New York when I’m at home, and her here, why, I don’t get to see much of her. You got both your daughters living with you, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, right here at home.”

  “Let’s see: neither of ‘em’s married, I believe?”

  “No; not yet.”

  “Seems to me now,” said Pryor, taking off his glasses and wiping them, “seems to me I did hear somebody say one of ‘em was going to be married engaged, maybe.”

  “No,” said Madison. “Not that I know of.”

  “Well, I suppose you’d be the first to know! Yes-sir.” And both men laughed their appreciation of this folly. “They’re mighty good-looking girls, THAT’S certain,” continued Mr. Pryor. “And one of ‘em’s as fine a dresser as you’ll meet this side the Rue de la Paix.

  “You mean in Paris?” asked Madison, slightly surprised at this allusion. “You’ve been over there, Pryor?”

  “Oh, sometimes,” was the response. “My business takes me over, now and then. “I THINK it’s one of your daughters I’ve noticed dresses so well. Isn’t one of ‘em a mighty pretty girl about twenty-one or two, with a fine head of hair sort of lightish brown, beautiful figure, and carries a white parasol with a green lining sometimes?”

  “Yes, that’s Cora, I guess.”

  “Pretty name, too,” said Pryor approvingly. “Yes-sir. I saw her going into a florist’s, downtown, the other day, with a fine-looking young fellow—I can’t think of his name. Let’s see: my daughter was with me, and she’d heard his name—said his family used to be big people in this town and–-“

  “Oh,” said Madison, “young Corliss.”

  “Corliss!” exclaimed Mr. Pryor, with satisfaction. “That’s it, Corliss. Well, sir,” he chuckled, “from the way he was looking at your Miss Cora it struck me he seemed kind of anxious for her name to be Corliss, too.”

  “Well, hardly I expect,” said the other. “They just barely know each other: he’s only been here a few weeks; they haven’t had time to get much acquainted, you see.”

  “I suppose not,” agreed Mr. Pryor, with perfect readiness. “I suppose not. “I’ll bet HE tries all he can to get acquainted though; he looked pretty smart to me. Doesn’t he come about as often as the law allows?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Madison indifferently. “He doesn’t know many people about here any more, and it’s lonesome for him at the hotel. But I guess he comes to see the whole family; I left him in the library a little while ago, talking to my wife.”

  “That’s the way! Get around the old folks first!” Mr. Pryor chuckled cordially; then in a mildly inquisitive tone he said: “Seems to be a fine, square young fellow, I expect?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Pretty name, `Cora’,” said Pryor.

  “What’s this little girl’s name?” Mr. Madison indicated the child, who had stood with heroic patience throughout the incomprehensible dialogue.

  “Lottie, for her mother. She’s a good little girl.”

  “She is SO! I’ve got a young son she ought to know,” remarked Mr. Madison serenely, with an elderly father’s total unconsciousness of the bridgeless gap between seven and thirteen. “He’d like to play with her. I’ll call him.”

  “I expect we better be getting on,” said Pryor. “It’s near Lottie’s bedtime; we just came out for our evening walk.”

  “Well, he can come and shake hands with her anyway,” urged Hedrick’s father. “Then they’ll know each other, and they can play some other time.” He turned toward the house and called loudly:

  “Hedrick!”

  There was no response. Behind the back of his chair Hedrick could not be seen. He was still sitting immovable, his eyes torpidly fixed upon the wall.

  “Hed-RICK!”

  Silence.

  “Oh, HED-rick!” shouted his father. “Come out here! I want you to meet a little girl! Come and see a nice little girl!”

  Mr. Pryor’s grandchild was denied the pleasure. At the ghastly words “LITTLE GIRL,” Hedrick dropped from his chair flat upon the floor, crawled to the end of the porch, wriggled through the railing, and immersed himself in deep shadow against the side of the house.

  Here he removed his shoes, noiselessly mounted to the sill of one of the library windows, then reconnoitred through a slit in the blinds before entering.

  The gas burned low in the “droplight”—almost too dimly to reveal the two people upon a sofa across the room. It was a faint murmur from one of them that caused Hedrick to pause and peer more sharply. They were Cora and Corliss; he was bending close to her; her face was lifting to his.

  “Ah, kiss me! Kiss me!” she whispered.

  Hedrick dropped from the sill, climbed through a window of the kitchen, hurried up the back-stairs, and reached his own apartment in time to be violently ill in seclusion.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Villages are scattered plentifully over the unstable buttresses of Vesuvius, and the inhabitants sleep o’ nights: Why not? Quite unaware that he was much of their condition, Mr. Madison bade his incidental gossip and the tiny Lottie good-night, and sought his early bed. He maintained in good faith that Saturday night was “a great night to sleep,” because of the later hour for rising; probably having also some factitious conviction that there prevailed a hush preparative of the Sabbath. As a matter
of fact, in summer, the other members of his family always looked uncommonly haggard at the Sunday breakfast-table. Accepting without question his preposterous legend of additional matutinal slumber, they postponed retiring to a late hour, and were awakened—simultaneously with thousands of fellow-sufferers—at about half-after five on Sunday morning, by a journalistic uprising. Over the town, in these early hours, rampaged the small vendors of the manifold sheets: local papers and papers from greater cities, hawker succeeding hawker with yell upon yell and brain-piercing shrillings in unbearable cadences. No good burgher ever complained: the people bore it, as in winter they bore the smoke that injured their health, ruined their linen, spoiled their complexions, forbade all hope of beauty and comfort in their city, and destroyed the sweetness of their homes and of their wives. It is an incredibly patient citizenry and exalts its persecutors.

  Of the Madison family, Cora probably suffered most; and this was the time when it was no advantage to have the front bedroom. She had not slept until close upon dawn, and the hawkers woke her irreparably; she could but rage upon her hot pillow. By and by, there came a token that another anguish kept company with hers. She had left her door open for a better circulation of the warm and languid air, and from Hedrick’s room issued an “OOF!” of agonized disgust. Cora little suspected that the youth reeked not of newsboys: Hedrick’s miseries were introspective.

  The cries from the street were interminable; each howler in turn heard faintly in the distance, then in crescendo until he had passed and another succeeded him, and all the while Cora lay tossing and whispering between clenched teeth. Having ample reason, that morning, to prefer sleep to thinking, sleep was impossible. But she fought for it: she did not easily surrender what she wanted; and she struggled on, with closed eyes, long after she had heard the others go down to breakfast.

  About a hundred yards from her windows, to the rear, were the open windows of a church which fronted the next street, and stood dos-a-dos to the dwelling of the Madisons. The Sunday-school hour had been advanced for the hot weather, and, partly on this account, and partly because of the summer absence of many families, the attendants were few. But the young voices were conducted, rather than accompanied, in pious melody by a cornetist who worthily thought to amend, in his single person, what lack of volume this paucity occasioned. He was a slender young man in hot black clothes; he wore the unfacaded collar fatally and unanimously adopted by all adam’s-apple men of morals; he was washed, fair, flat-skulled, clean-minded, and industrious; and the only noise of any kind he ever made in the world was on Sunday.