“I’m glad you wondered,” he said gravely. “I think I’d like to be wondered about — by you — very much.”
Claire stared at him incredulously, for he seemed to mean what he said; and she remembered how quickly desolated gentlemen are caught, sometimes, on the rebound. This thought disturbed her, not because she was at all a dog in the manger, or could be jealous of another’s seizing upon what she, herself, rejected, but because she had a liking for Walter that was almost a fondness, and she admired him. His native talent and a genius for work had made him one of the best young architects in New York; he was kind, generous and able — a man much too good to be caught on the rebound by an eighteen-year-old bit of peach-bloom. And here Claire consoled herself with a difference between eighteen and twenty-five. “Never a thought in that little head except about herself — not one! She’s making poor old Walter believe she’s thinking of him; but eighteen can’t think of anything except itself. The poor thing ought to know better than to trust her — she might actually marry him! Such things have happened often enough.”
Ah, that peach-bloom! Dangerous to any man of any age, if it wished to be Claire knew. Peach-bloom! Alas — twenty-five!
The explorer was speaking to her. “There’s another thing I’d like to ask you if you can stand.”
“Well then, ask me. I’ll answer you.”
“I’m asking because of my loneliness,” he said seriously. “You see, a civilized thinking man is naturally lonely among savages, no matter how much he may find to interest him. Well, I discovered long ago that he can be quite as lonely in civilized quarters of the world, and I’ve just been making a re-discovery of that uncomfortable fact. The truth is that I’m a peculiar man; I’ve never been at all like anyone else I’ve ever known, and, naturally, as queer a person as I can’t expect many people to understand him, nor can he hope to find many true companions. Yet that’s what I’ve yearned for all my life, understanding and companionship. I’m as abrupt as I am frank, Miss Ambler; I always make up my mind about people at my first glance and I’ve already told you I saw understanding in your face. What I want to ask you is if you think you could stand seeing something of me. Do you think you could?”
She laughed. “We might mutually have some burdens to bear, if I could, Mr. Peale.”
“No,” he said, leaning toward her earnestly. “I’m serious. Perhaps I’d better tell you a little about myself.” And with this he began an autobiography that seemed to Claire to be one of perfect candour yet strongly favourable to its subject. Half an hour later, when musicians had begun to play in the next room, Mr. Peale’s memoirs had not reached his adult period. Nevertheless, in spite of his naïve self-absorption, Claire did not consider him a fiasco; the narrative was vigorous and undeniably interesting; moreover, she saw that she had no further need to exert herself. All she had to do was to listen with a deeply understanding expression and, if she did this often enough he would presently wish her listening to be continuous. Before they parted, to-day, he would ask her how soon he could see her again: she set his proposal of marriage — if she chose — at about a month in the future; less than that — if she chose. But she did not choose; for already she knew the brown-faced man was not He. There was no He; no true mate awaited her or ever would come out of space to claim her — twenty-five was all that claimed her!
She jumped up to the first dancer who presented himself, and departed from Mr. Peale with a word of apology so quickly spoken that he had no opportunity to ask her when he might continue his narrative. He meant to “cut in,” and hovered in the offing, waiting to do so; whereupon, finding herself swept near a door, she said hurriedly, “That’s all; I’m going home,” slid from her partner’s arms and out into the hallway. But just as she effected this evasion, Miss Kitty Peale dancing near her with Walter, was claimed, and left him for another.
Kitty somewhat recklessly allowed it to become evident that she was reluctant to make the exchange, and as she was borne onward her eyes lingered upon her previous partner.
“Don’t forget,” she called sweetly. “Eight-thirty to-night.”
And Claire, as she went toward the outer door of the apartment, heard Walter’s response, a single word: “Forget?”
The incredulity he expressed was sufficient.
“Idiot!” Claire said reminiscently, as she waited for the elevator; and when she had reached her own apartment, and, after a dexterous avoidance of her mother, was in her own room, she said “Idiot!” again.
She looked at a little clock of lapus lazuli and gold upon a table, and sat down before a mirror to remove her shoes: she must undress, then dress for a dinner. “Dress, undress, dress, undress!” she murmured wretchedly, half-aloud. “Undress, then dress again. And what the devil is it all about?”
She had taken off one shoe; she held it in her hand and sat staring at it, her head bent over it, until she noticed a tiny drop of water upon the shining black surface of its long, curved heel; — a tear had fallen there without her being aware of it in her eye.
She hurled the pretty shoe across the room, so that it struck noisily against the wall. “Oh, my gosh!” she whispered in sharp despair. “Twenty-five! I can’t stand it and it can’t be stopped! Nothing in the world can stop it! Twenty-five!”
XXVI
SHE HAD BEEN twenty-five for a month and a week; it was bearable as is everything that must be borne; but it was still incredible. “My twenty-sixth year!” she said to herself. “That’s the same as the twenty-seventh — or twenty-eighth—”
And she thought of herself as “outside of life” now, forever. “I’ve chosen not to live,” she thought. “What’s the difference between that and suicide?” Her mother had gone to a concert; Claire was alone in the apartment and she stood at a window, from this high cliffside looking forth upon tower and abyss illumined by the prodigious night flares. The new skyline, staggering with the new sky-scrapers, rose even above her, overwhelming the stars with the blatant giantism of the new New York. She felt its huge provincial commonness, its stupendous materialism and its frantic magnificence; but in the main it seemed to her a Titanic honeycomb of lighted cells, with open doors through which flitted hordes and hordes of girls breathlessly hungry for the approval of men who sat in the cells appraising stodgily, or, roused by some cunning appeal, succumbing to it with repulsive flaccidity. Yet all these were ephemera; skyscrapers, hungry girls and the men they sought already partook of the dust they would soon become. She had learned how suddenly the quicksilver years run out, carrying youth and life itself with them.
She turned from the window, took up a book and sat down with it in an exquisite but comfortable Louis Sixteenth chair. “What on earth is this stuff?” she inquired petulantly when her eye, not her mind, had read a paragraph blindly the third time. Then she left the book upon the chair, went to the “concert grand” piano, and sang half of a song in her rich and moving voice; but she stopped in the middle of a note; her hands dropped from the keys. Frowning, she rose and began to pace the floor.
“I ought to have gone out,” she said aloud. “I don’t believe I should be alone to-night. I feel as if I might be going to do something crazy.”
Then, upon the instant, she did the thing she feared she might do. She went to the telephone and called Walter Rackbridge at a club. He was there; his voice indicated surprise when she let him know who spoke to him, and it was significant that she had to let him know this. For the first time he failed to recognize her voice.
“Are you busy just now?” she asked, with some sharpness.
“No, not for an hour or so. I have an appointment later. Why?”
“I thought if you cared to come and see me—”
“You mean now?”
“Yes, if you—”
“Why of course, if you wish,” he said politely. “I’ll be there immediately.”
He was there within ten minutes, in fact, and when he came in, still obviously surprised, he found her seated in the pretty chair an
d apparently reading. She looked up languidly; then, as he sat down, facing her, she murmured a word of thanks for his coming. “Good of you to be so obliging, Walter.”
“Not at all,” he said cordially. “You wanted to see me about something?”
Her eyes opened wide with the full look she gave him then. “I’m not sure,” she said slowly, “that it’s necessary to add ‘about something.’”
He was mystified; plainly so. “You wanted to see “What about?” the simple creature inquired.
At that, she looked away and shook her head ruefully; but made no reply.
“Ah—” he began uncomfortably. “I suppose you — I haven’t seen you since — well, I suppose you wanted to talk to me about something.”
“Is it inconvenient for you to be here?”
“Not at all. I have to turn up at a party after the theatre.”
“You ‘have to’?” she asked. “You mean you promised to? You mustn’t let me keep you.”
“There’s plenty of time,” he assured her, and then, in silence, waited for her to explain why she had summoned him. No explanation appeared to be forthcoming; she sat looking before her at the fireplace where above a nether ruddiness small blue flames wavered upon the anthracite coal; but she did not speak, and appeared to have settled definitely into this brooding contemplation. More and more puzzled, he continued to wait, until it began to seem to him that he was engaged in a form of endurance contest. If he was, he failed to win it, for finally, after coughing slightly several times, he said, “Oh — by the way—” then stopped.
“Yes?” she said. “‘By the way’ — what?”
“I’ve been seeing quite a little of Sherman Peale lately and I’ve wondered if you appreciate what an extraordinary person he is.”
“What?” she said lifelessly. “Oh, yes; I believe I do my?”
“He doesn’t think so,” Walter explained. “He’s rather mystified by your treatment of him, though I’m sure you haven’t meant to be rude.”
“Rude?”
“Hasn’t he written you twice asking when he could see you?”
“Yes. Three times. Another note came to-day ‘in case the others had miscarried,’ he mentioned.”
“And you haven’t answered any of them? I imagine he’s a little taken aback.”
“Do you?” she asked, still gazing absently at the fire. “How did you find all this out? Did Mr. Peale tell you?”
“No. His daughter told me. She was secretly terribly amused, and laughed about it. I’m afraid she doesn’t take her father very seriously?”
“No,” Claire said. “What does she take seriously?”
“I’m not sure. Why?”
“Because there’s only one thing she can.”
“Only one thing she can take seriously? A person, you mean?”
“Yes,” Claire said; and now, as she spoke, she turned her head and looked at him with a clear and friendly regard. “I hear you’ve been everywhere with her lately and by this time you probably feel that you know her pretty well. Don’t you?”
“Why, yes; of course.”
Claire shook her head. “You don’t. Nobody does. She doesn’t, herself. She last of all, indeed!”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” Claire said quietly. “She’s eighteen. I know what I was like at eighteen and it’s what I’ve been more or less like ever since, until I found twenty-five coming down on me. Of course I was a little less like eighteen with every advancing year, yet sometimes I feel that I’ve only lately quite got over being Miss Kitty Peale. Well, you see, I know her, and she’s not good enough for you, Walter.”
“Why, what—”
“Wait a moment. A girl of eighteen can’t take you seriously; she can’t take anything seriously, except herself; she can’t think of anything except herself. It isn’t her fault; she doesn’t know how. She can’t be in love with anyone but herself; and that isn’t her fault, either; she merely doesn’t know how. All she can actually see is herself. She wants to have everybody in love with her that she can possibly get into that condition; but she really doesn’t understand that her lovers are human beings, her fellow-beings — not even when she singles one out and believes that she adores him. It’s only another way of adoring herself. I’ve really given you more feeling, just as your friend, than Kitty Peale is capable of giving you, even if she should let you marry her. I’m giving you so much friendship at this very moment, Walter, that I dare take the risk of asking you if you couldn’t see her as she is, for your own sake, and cease to be one of her squadron. Her father told me she has a ‘squadron’ of boys about her. They’ll content her and they won’t get much hurt, but you might — especially if she should decide she wanted you to marry her.”
Walter stared, and his colour heightened visibly. “See here,” he said. “Do you mean you’re advising me to stop seeing her?”
“Yes. I take that risk.”
“I think you might very well call it a risk!” he said bitterly.
“I’ll define it if you like,” she rejoined, giving him a wan and rather wavering smile. “I told you I would never take you myself and I never shall. I know now that I’ll never be married — never — not ever at all, Walter. And since I won’t take you, myself, you want to know how it gets to be my affair that you may wish to marry someone else. How dare I warn you to keep away from another girl, against whom there’s nothing in the world to be said except that she’s in the very perfection of the peach-bloom age? Well, I do warn you, because I know what trouble I made for a few boys and men when I had that age, myself, and I dare the risk of what you’ll think of me for my warning. You’ll very likely only think me a jealous dog in the manger.” She rose suddenly, went to the other end of the room and stood with her back to him. “Well, if you care to think it, go ahead and think it!”
“What do you want me to think?” he asked, not moving from his chair.
“Anything you like!”
His reddened brow was corrugated by a frown of reflection; he shook his head ruefully, baffled, and then he was startled for she turned and spoke sharply to him.
“That’s all I have to say. I think you’d better go.”
“Go?” he repeated, and his bewilderment was so great that he could only inquire, feebly, “Go where?”
“Back to your club,” she said angrily. “Or to keep your engagement with Miss Peale. Or anywhere you like!”
He got up and came to her. “What is it you want me to do, Claire? Do you mean that though you won’t have me you’re advising me not to marry anybody else?”
“Good heavens!” she cried. “Would that be so hard for a man? Plenty of women bear it. Couldn’t you?”
“I don’t see why I should,” he said. “There’s no reason in the world why I shouldn’t marry if I wish to. Why shouldn’t I now — if I wish to?”
“You poor goose!” she cried. “Because you’ll only be marrying on the rebound after I refused you! Because you’ll only be falling for peach-bloom that’ll be gone forever in an hour or so! Because you’ll have been caught by a self-centred little monkey’s knowing how to say ‘The first time I saw you I wondered who you were!’ Wait till you find a woman who can take some interest in you for yourself and not in your merely being in love with her! Then marry her, marry her as quickly as you can, in heaven’s name!”
“But if I should never find her?”
“Well, couldn’t you bear it?” she said fiercely. “I bear it! Couldn’t you?”
“Never marrying?”
“Don’t you know how much easier that is for a man? Don’t you understand — don’t you see—”
Then, without warning and almost to his horror, for he had never seen her weep, she dropped down upon a sofa and burst into tears. “Don’t you know,” she sobbed, “don’t you know that for a woman it’s the same as suicide?”
He sat beside her and took her hand; but she jerked it away. “Let me alone!” she cried. “I told you to go! I wa
nt to be left by myself.”
In high distress he rubbed his forehead. “Look here,” he said. “This is terrible; I’ve never seen you like this and never dreamed you could be. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, I tell you, if you’ll just go!”
“But there is something the matter,” he insisted thoughtfully. “Your nerves are probably to blame and you oughtn’t to let them get unstrung like this. You ought to—”
But, crying out, she interrupted him. “Ah! Will you please go back to your club before you tell me to see a nerve specialist?”
“All right; if you want to be let alone, I’ll go.” And with that, he rose and went decisively toward the door; but paused before he reached it. “You knew that when one girl asks a man not to let himself be carried away by another girl he’s likely to think her merely jealous, didn’t you?”
“Oh, glory!” Claire groaned. “I told you I took that risk knowingly.”
“It’s a long time — a long, long time” — he said, and his voice had become a little tremulous; “It’s a long, long time since you cared to have me in love with you. But you take enough interest in me now for myself to risk anything I might think of you.”
“What?” she said in a low voice; then she lifted her head from between her two hands where it had been drooping; and with wet, wide eyes, she stared at him. “What?” she repeated more loudly; and a third time she said the word, louder still. “What?” He came and stood before her. “You care enough for me on my own account to take that risk. How much more do you expect to care for anybody?” Startled, disturbed to the depths of her being, wretched, yet vaguely illumined by what at first seemed a mirage of happiness, she rose and moved as though to put a greater distance between them; but after one step away, she halted — she put a gentle and trembling hand softly upon his shoulder.
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 432
