The Flirt

by Booth Tarkington

  “Well,” suggested Corliss, “you refused a drink in it.”

  “Even more wonderful than that,” said Ray, glancing about the place curiously. “It may be a sense of something painful that already has happened here—perhaps long ago, before your occupancy. It has a pathos.”

  “Most hotel rooms have had something happen in them,” said Corliss lightly. “I believe the managers usually change the door numbers if what happens is especially unpleasant. Probably they change some of the rugs, also.”

  “I feel–-” Ray paused, frowning. “I feel as if some one had killed himself here.”

  “Then no doubt some of the rugs HAVE been changed.”

  “No doubt.” The caller laughed and waved his hand in dismissal of the topic. “Well, Mr. Corliss,” he went on, shifting to a brisker tone, “I have come to make my fortune, too. You are Midas. Am I of sufficient importance to be touched?”

  Valentine Corliss gave him sidelong an almost imperceptibly brief glance of sharpest scrutiny—it was like the wink of a camera shutter—but laughed in the same instant. “Which way do you mean that?”

  “You have been quick,” returned the visitor, repaying that glance with equal swiftness, “to seize upon the American idiom. I mean: How small a contribution would you be willing to receive toward your support!”

  Corliss did not glance again at Ray; instead, he looked interested in the smoke of his cigar. “`Contribution,’” he repeated, with no inflection whatever. “`Toward my support.’”

  “I mean, of course, how small an investment in your oil company.”

  “Oh, anything, anything,” returned the promoter, with quick amiability. “We need to sell all the stock we can.”

  “All the money you can get?”

  “Precisely. It’s really a colossal proposition, Mr. Vilas.” Corliss spoke with brisk enthusiasm. “It’s a perfectly certain enormous profit upon everything that goes in. Prince Moliterno cables me later investigations show that the oil-field is more than twice as large as we thought when I left Naples. He’s on the ground now, buying up what he can, secretly.”

  “I had an impression from Richard Lindley that the secret had been discovered.”

  “Oh, yes; but only by a few, and those are trying to keep it quiet from the others, of course.”

  “I see. Does your partner know of your success in raising a large investment?”

  “You mean Lindley’s? Certainly.” Corliss waved his hand in light deprecation. “Of course that’s something, but Moliterno would hardly be apt to think of it as very large! You see he’s putting in about five times that much, himself, and I’ve already turned over to him double it for myself. Still, it counts—certainly; and of course it will be a great thing for Lindley.”

  “I fear,” Ray said hesitatingly, “you won’t be much interested in my drop for your bucket. I have twelve hundred dollars in the world; and it is in the bank—I stopped there on my way here. To be exact, I have twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents. My dear sir, will you allow me to purchase one thousand dollars’ worth of stock? I will keep the two hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents to live on—I may need an egg while waiting for you to make me rich. Will you accept so small an investment?”

  “Certainly,” said Corliss, laughing. “Why not? You may as well profit by the chance as any one. I’ll send you the stock certificates—we put them at par. I’m attending to that myself, as our secretary, Mr. Madison, is unable to take up his duties.”

  Vilas took a cheque-book and a fountain-pen from his pocket.

  “Oh, any time, any time,” said Corliss cheerfully, observing the new investor’s movement.

  “Now, I think,” returned Vilas quietly. “How shall I make it out?”

  “Oh, to me, I suppose,” answered Corliss indifferently. “That will save a little trouble, and I can turn it over to Moliterno, by cable, as I did Lindley’s. I’ll give you a receipt–-“

  “You need not mind that,” said Ray. “Really it is of no importance.”

  “Of course the cheque itself is a receipt,” remarked Corliss, tossing it carelessly upon a desk. “You’ll have some handsome returns for that slip of paper, Mr. Vilas.”

  “In that blithe hope I came,” said Ray airily.

  “I am confident of it. I have my own ways of divination, Mr. Corliss. I have gleams.” He rose as if to go, but stood looking thoughtfully about the apartment again. “Singular impression,” he murmured. “Not exactly as if I’d seen it in a dream; and yet—and yet–-“

  “You have symptoms of clairvoyance at times, I take it.” The conscious, smooth superiority of the dexterous man playing with an inconsequent opponent resounded in this speech, clear as the humming of a struck bell; and Vilas shot him a single open glance of fire from hectic eyes. For that instant, the frailer buck trumpeted challenge. Corliss—broad-shouldered, supple of waist, graceful and strong—smiled down negligently; yet the very air between the two men seemed charged with an invisible explosive. Ray laughed quickly, as in undisturbed good nature; then, flourishing his stick, turned toward the door.

  “Oh, no, it isn’t clairvoyance—no more than when I told you that your only real interest is women. He paused, his hand upon the door-knob. “I’m a quaint mixture, however: perhaps I should be handled with care.”

  “Very good of you,” laughed Corliss—“this warning. The afternoon I had the pleasure of meeting you I think I remember your implying that you were a mere marionette.”

  “A haggard harlequin!” snapped Vilas, waving his hand to a mirror across the room. “Don’t I look it?” And the phrase fitted him with tragic accuracy. “You see? What a merry wedding-guest I’ll be! I invite you to join me on the nuptial eve.”

  “Thanks. Who’s getting married: when the nuptial eve?”

  Ray opened the door, and, turning, rolled his eyes fantastically. “Haven’t you heard?” he cried. “When Hecate marries John Barleycorn!” He bowed low. “Mr. Midas, adieu.”

  Corliss stood in the doorway and watched him walk down the long hall to the elevator. There, Ray turned and waved his hand, the other responding with gayety which was not assumed: Vilas might be insane, or drunk, or both, but the signature upon his cheque was unassailable.

  Corliss closed the door and began to pace his apartment thoughtfully. His expression manifested a peculiar phenomenon. In company, or upon the street, or when he talked with men, the open look and frank eyes of this stalwart young man were disarming and his most winning assets. But now, as he paced alone in his apartment, now that he was not upon exhibition, now when there was no eye to behold him, and there was no reason to dissimulate or veil a single thought or feeling, his look was anything but open; the last trace of frankness disappeared; the muscles at mouth and eyes shifted; lines and planes intermingled and altered subtly; there was a moment of misty transformation—and the face of another man emerged. It was the face of a man uninstructed in mercy; it was a shrewd and planning face: alert, resourceful, elaborately perceptive, and flawlessly hard. But, beyond all, it was the face of a man perpetually on guard.

  He had the air of debating a question, his hands in his pockets, his handsome forehead lined with a temporary indecision. His sentry-go extended the length of his two rooms, and each time he came back into his bedroom his glance fell consideringly upon a steamer-trunk of the largest size, at the foot of his bed. The trunk was partially packed as if for departure. And, indeed, it was the question of departure which he was debating.

  He was a man of varied dexterities, and he had one faculty of high value, which had often saved him, had never betrayed him; it was intuitive and equal to a sixth sense: he always knew when it was time to go. An inner voice warned him; he trusted to it and obeyed it. And it had spoken now, and there was his trunk half-packed in answer. But he had stopped midway in his packing, because he had never yet failed to make a clean sweep where there was the slightest chance for one; he hated to leave a big job before it was completely
finished—and Mr. Wade Trumble had refused to invest in the oil-fields of Basilicata.

  Corliss paused beside the trunk, stood a moment immersed in thought; then nodded once, decisively, and, turning to a dressing-table, began to place some silver-mounted brushes and bottles in a leather travelling-case.

  There was a knock at the outer door. He frowned, set down what he had in his hands, went to the door and opened it to find Mr. Pryor, that plain citizen, awaiting entrance.

  Corliss remained motionless in an arrested attitude, his hand upon the knob of the opened door. His position did not alter; he became almost unnaturally still, a rigidity which seemed to increase. Then he looked quickly behind him, over his shoulder, and back again, with a swift movement of the head.

  “No,” said Pryor, at that. “I don’t want you. I just thought I’d have two minutes’ talk with you. All right?”

  “All right,” said Corliss quietly. “Come in.” He turned carelessly, and walked away from the door keeping between his guest and the desk. When he reached the desk, he turned again and leaned against it, his back to it, but in the action of turning his hand had swept a sheet of notepaper over Ray Vilas’s cheque—a too conspicuous oblong of pale blue. Pryor had come in and closed the door.

  “I don’t know,” he began, regarding the other through his glasses, with steady eyes, “that I’m going to interfere with you at all, Corliss. I just happened to strike you—I wasn’t looking for you. I’m on vacation, visiting my married daughter that lives here, and I don’t want to mix in if I can help it.”

  Corliss laughed, easily. “There’s nothing for you to mix in. You couldn’t if you wanted to.”

  “Well, I hope that’s true,” said Pryor, with an air of indulgence, curiously like that of a teacher for a pupil who promises improvement. “I do indeed. There isn’t anybody I’d like to see turn straight more than you. You’re educated and cultured, and refined, and smarter than all hell. It would be a big thing. That’s one reason I’m taking the trouble to talk to you.”

  “I told you I wasn’t doing anything,” said Corliss with a petulance as oddly like that of a pupil as the other’s indulgence was like that of a tutor. “This is my own town; I own property here, and I came here to sell it. I can prove it in half-a-minute’s telephoning. Where do you come in?”

  “Easy, easy,” said Pryor, soothingly. “I’ve just told you I don’t want to come in at all.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I came to tell you just one thing: to go easy up there at Mr. Madison’s house.”

  Corliss laughed contemptuously. “It’s MY house. I own it. That’s the property I came here to sell.”

  “Oh, I know,” responded Pryor. “That part of it’s all right. But I’ve seen you several times with that young lady, and you looked pretty thick, to me. You know you haven’t got any business doing such things, Corliss. I know your record from Buda Pesth to Copenhagen and–-“

  “See here, my friend,” said the younger man, angrily, “you may be a tiptop spotter for the government when it comes to running down some poor old lady that’s bought a string of pearls in the Rue de la Paix–-“

  “I’ve been in the service twenty-eight years,” remarked Pryor, mildly.

  “All right,” said the other with a gesture of impatience; “and you got me once, all right. Well, that’s over, isn’t it? Have I tried anything since?”

  “Not in that line,” said Pryor.

  “Well, what business have you with any other line?” demanded Corliss angrily. “Who made you general supervisor of public morals? I want to know–-“

  “Now, what’s the use your getting excited? I’m just here to tell you that I’m going to keep an eye on you. I don’t know many people here, and I haven’t taken any particular pains to look you up. For all I know, you’re only here to sell your house, as you say. But I know old man Madison a little, and I kind of took a fancy to him; he’s a mighty nice old man, and he’s got a nice family. He’s sick and it won’t do to trouble him; but—honest, Corliss—if you don’t slack off in that neighbourhood a little, I’ll have to have a talk with the young lady herself.”

  A derisory light showed faintly in the younger man’s eyes as he inquired, softly: “That all, Mr. Pryor?”

  “No. Don’t try anything on out here. Not in ANY of your lines.”

  “I don’t mean to.”

  “That’s right. Sell your house and clear out. You’ll find it healthy.” He went to the door. “So far as I can see,” he observed, ruminatively, “you haven’t brought any of that Moliterno crowd you used to work with over to this side with you.”

  “I haven’t seen Moliterno for two years,” said Corliss, sharply.

  “Well, I’ve said my say.” Pryor gave him a last word as he went out. “You keep away from that little girl.”

  “Ass!” exclaimed Corliss, as the door closed. He exhaled a deep breath sharply, and broke into a laugh. Then he went quickly into his bedroom and began to throw the things out of his trunk.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Hedrick Madison’s eyes were not of marble; his heart was not flint nor his skin steel plate: he was flesh and tender; he was a vulnerable, breathing boy, with highly developed capacities for pain which were now being taxed to their utmost. Once he had loved to run, to leap, to disport himself in the sun, to drink deep of the free air; he had loved life and one or two of his fellowmen. He had borne himself buoyantly, with jaunty self-confidence, even with some intolerance toward the weaknesses of others, not infrequently displaying merriment over their mischances; but his time had found him at last; the evil day had come. Indian Summer was Indian for him, indeed: sweet death were welcome; no charity was left in him. He leaped no more, but walked broodingly and sought the dark places. And yet it could not be said that times were dull for him: the luckless picket who finds himself in an open eighty-acre field, under the eye of a sharpshooter up a tree, would not be apt to describe the experience as dull. And Cora never missed a shot; she loved the work; her pleasure in it was almost as agonizing for the target as was the accuracy of her fire.

  She was ingenious: the horrible facts at her disposal were damaging enough in all conscience: but they did not content her. She invented a love-story, assuming that Hedrick was living it: he was supposed to be pining for Lolita, to be fading, day-by-day, because of enforced separation; and she contrived this to such an effect of reality, and with such a diabolical affectation of delicacy in referring to it, that the mere remark, with gentle sympathy, “I think poor Hedrick is looking a little better to-day,” infallibly produced something closely resembling a spasm. She formed the habit of never mentioning her brother in his presence except as “poor Hedrick,” a too obvious commiseration of his pretended attachment—which met with like success. Most dreadful of all, she invented romantic phrases and expressions assumed to have been spoken or written by Hedrick in reference to his unhappiness; and she repeated them so persistently, yet always with such apparent sincerity of belief that they were quotations from him, and not her inventions, that the driven youth knew a fear, sometimes, that the horrid things were actually of his own perpetration.

  The most withering of these was, “Torn from her I love by the ruthless hand of a parent… .” It was not completed; Cora never got any further with it, nor was there need: a howl of fury invariably assured her of an effect as satisfactory as could possibly have been obtained by an effort less impressionistic. Life became a series of easy victories for Cora, and she made them somehow the more deadly for Hedrick by not seeming to look at him in his affliction, nor even to be aiming his way: he never could tell when the next shot was coming. At the table, the ladies of his family might be deep in dress, or discussing Mr. Madison’s slowly improving condition, when Cora, with utter irrelevance, would sigh, and, looking sadly into her coffee, murmur, “Ah, FOND mem’ries!” or, “WHY am I haunted by the dead past?” or, the dreadful, “Torn from her I love by the ruthless hand of a parent… .”


  There was compassion in Laura’s eyes and in his mother’s, but Cora was irresistible, and they always ended by laughing in spite of themselves; and though they pleaded for Hedrick in private, their remonstrances proved strikingly ineffective. Hedrick was the only person who had ever used the high hand with Cora: she found repayment too congenial. In the daytime he could not go in the front yard, but Cora’s window would open and a tenderly smiling Cora lean out to call affectionately, “Don’t walk on the grass—darling little boy!” Or, she would nod happily to him and begin to sing:

  “Oh come beloved, love let me press thee,

  While I caress thee

  In one long kiss, Lolita… . ”

  One terror still hung over him. If it fell—as it might at any fatal moment—then the utmost were indeed done upon him; and this apprehension bathed his soul in night. In his own circle of congenial age and sex he was, by virtue of superior bitterness and precocity of speech, a chief—a moral castigator, a satirist of manners, a creator of stinging nicknames; and many nourished unhealed grievances which they had little hope of satisfying against him; those who attempted it invariably departing with more to avenge than they had brought with them. Let these once know what Cora knew… . The vision was unthinkable!

  It was Cora’s patent desire to release the hideous item, to spread the scandal broadcast among his fellows—to ring it from the school-bells, to send it winging on the hot winds of Hades! The boys had always liked his yard and the empty stable to play in, and the devices he now employed to divert their activities elsewhere were worthy of a great strategist. His energy and an abnormal ingenuity accomplished incredible things: school had been in session several weeks and only one boy had come within conversational distance of Cora;—him Hedrick bore away bodily, in simulation of resistless high spirits, a brilliant exhibition of stagecraft.

  And then Cora’s friend, Mrs. Villard, removed her son Egerton from the private school he had hitherto attended, and he made his appearance in Hedrick’s class, one morning at the public school. Hedrick’s eye lighted with a savage gleam; timidly the first joy he had known for a thousand years crept into his grim heart. After school, Egerton expiated a part of Cora’s cruelty. It was a very small part, and the exploit no more than infinitesimally soothing to the conqueror, but when Egerton finally got home he was no sight for a mother.