“There is no use,” she said under her breath; “I can’t go back to Leila. Stephen, the dreadful part of it is that I — I wish she were in Jericho! I wish the whole world were in Ballyhoo, and you and I alone once more!”
Under their gay laughter quivered the undertone of excitement. Sylvia said:
“I’d like to talk to you all alone. It won’t do, of course; but I may say what I’d like — mayn’t I? What time is it? If I’m dining with you we’ve got to have Leila for convention’s sake, if not from motives of sheer decency, which you and I seem to lack, Stephen.”
“We lack decency,” said Siward, “and we’re proud of it. As for Leila, I am going to arrange for her very simply but very beautifully. Plank will take care of her. Sylvia! There’s not a soul in town and we can be as imprudent as we please.”
“No, we can’t. Agatha’s at the Santa Regina. She came down with us.”
“But we are not going to dine at the Santa Regina. We’re going where Agatha wouldn’t intrude her colourless nose — to a thoroughly unfashionable and selectly common resort overlooking the classic Harlem; and we’re going to whiz thither in Plank’s car, and remain thither until you yawn for mercy, whence we will return thence—”
“Stephen, you silly! I’m perfectly mad to go with you!”
“You’ll be madder when you get there, if the table has not improved.”
“Table! As though tables mattered on a night like this!” Then with sudden self-reproach and quick solicitude: “Am I making you walk too far? Wouldn’t you like to go in now?”
“No, I’m not tired; I’m millions of years younger, and I’m as strong as the nine gods of your friend Porsena. Besides, haven’t I waited for this?” and under his breath, fiercely, “Haven’t I waited!” he repeated, turning on her.
“Do — do you mean that as a reproach?” she asked, lowering her eyes.
“No. I knew you would not come on ‘the first sunny day.’”
“Why did you think I would not come? Did you know me for the coward I am?”
“I did not think you would come,” he repeated, halting to rest on his crutches. He stood, balanced, staring dreamily into the dim perspective; and again her fascinated eyes ventured to rest on the worn, white face, listless, sombre in its fixedness.
The tears were very near her eyes; the spasm in her throat checked speech. At length she stammered: “I did not come b-because I simply couldn’t stand it!”
His face cleared as he turned quietly: “Child, you must not confuse matters. You must not think of being sorry for me. The old order is passing — ticking away on every clock in the world. All that inverted order of things is being reversed. You don’t know what I mean, do you? Ah, well; you will know when I grow into something of what you think you remember in me, and when I grow out of what I really was.”
“Truly I don’t understand, Stephen. But then — I am out of training since you went — went out of things. Have I changed? Do I seem more dull? I — it has not been very gay with me. I don’t see — looking back across all the noise, all the chaos of the winter — I do not see how I stood it alone.”
“Alone?”
“N-not seeing you — sometimes.”
He looked at her with smiling, sceptical eyes. “Didn’t you enjoy the winter?”
“Do you enjoy being drugged with champagne?”
His face altered so quickly that, confused, she only stared at him, the fixed smile stamped on her lips; then, overwhelmed in the revelation:
“Stephen, surely, surely you know what I meant! I did not mean that! Dear, do you dream for one moment that — that I could—”
“No. You have not hurt me. Besides, I know what you mean.”
After a moment he swung forward on his crutches, biting his lip, the frown gathering between his temples.
They were passing the big, old-fashioned hotel with its white façade and green blinds, a lingering landmark of the older city.
“We’ll telephone here,” he said.
Side by side they went up the great, broad stoop and entered the lobby.
“If you’ll speak to Leila, I’ll get Plank on the wire. Say that we’ll stop for you at seven.”
She gave her number; then, at the nod of the operator, entered a small booth. Siward was given another booth in a few moments.
Plank answered from his office; his voice sounded grave and tired but it quickened, tinged with surprise, when Siward made known his plan for the evening.
“Is Mrs. Mortimer in town?” he demanded. “I had a wire from her that she expected to be here and I hoped to see her at the station to-morrow on her way to Lenox.”
“She’s stopping with Miss Landis. Can’t you manage to come?” asked Siward anxiously.
“I don’t know. Do you wish it particularly? I have just seen Quarrier and Harrington. I can’t quite understand Quarrier’s attitude. There’s a certain hint of defiance about it. Harrington is all caved in. He is ready to thank us for any mercies. But Quarrier — there’s something I don’t fancy, don’t exactly understand about his attitude. He’s like a dangerous man whom you’ve searched for concealed weapons, and who knows you’ve overlooked the knife up his sleeve. That’s why I’ve expected to spend a quiet evening, studying up the matter and examining every loophole.”
“You’ve got to dine somewhere,” said Siward. “If you could fix it to dine with us — But I won’t urge you.”
“All right. I don’t know why I shouldn’t. I don’t know why I feel this way about things. I — I rather felt — you’ll laugh, Siward! — that somehow I’d better not go out of my own house to-night; that I was safer, better off in my own house, studying this Quarrier matter out. I’m tired, I suppose; and this man Quarrier has come close to worrying me. But it’s all right, of course, if you wish it. You know I haven’t any nerves.”
“If you are tired—” began Siward.
“No, no, I’m not. I’ll go. Will you say that we’ll stop for them at seven? Really, it’s all right, Siward.”
“I don’t want to urge you,” repeated Siward.
“You’re not. I’ll go. But — wait one moment tell me, did Quarrier know that Mrs. Mortimer was to stop with Miss Landis?”
“Wait a moment. Hold the wire.”
He opened the door of the booth and saw Sylvia waiting for him, seated by the operator’s desk. She rose at once when she saw he wished to speak with her.
“Tell me something,” he said in a low voice; “did Mr. Quarrier know that Leila was to stay overnight with you?”
“Yes,” she answered quietly, surprised. “Why?”
Siward nodded vaguely, closed the door again, and said to Plank:
“Yes, Quarrier knows it. Do you think he’ll be there to-night? I don’t suppose Miss Landis and Mrs. Mortimer know he is in town.”
Plank’s troubled voice came back over the wire: “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I suppose I’m a little, just a trifle, overworked. Somebody once said that I had one nerve in me somewhere, and Quarrier’s probably found it; that’s all.”
“If you think it better not to come—”
“I’ll come. I’ll stop for you in the motor. Don’t worry, old fellow! And — take your fighting chance! Good-bye!”
Siward, absorbed in his own thoughts, rose and walked slowly out of the booth, utterly unconscious that he had left his crutches leaning upright in the corner. It was only the surprise dawning into tremulous delight on Sylvia’s face that at last arrested him.
“See what you have done!” he said, laughing through his own surprise. “I’ve a mind to leave them there now, and trust to your new cure.”
But she was instantly concerned and anxious, and entering the booth brought out the crutches and forced him to take them.
“No risks now!” she said decisively. “We have too much at stake this evening. Leila is coming. Isn’t it perfectly delightful?”
“Perfectly,” he said, his eyes full of the old laughing confidence
again; “and the most delightful part of it all is that you don’t know how delightful it is going to be.”
“Don’t I? Very well. Only I inform you that I mean to be perfectly happy! And that means that I’m going to do as I please! And that means — oh, it may mean anything! What are you laughing at, Stephen? I know I’m excited. I don’t care! What girl wouldn’t be? And I don’t know what’s ahead of me at all; and I don’t want to know — I don’t care!”
Her reckless, little laugh rang sweetly in the old-fashioned, deserted hall; her lovely, daring eyes met his undaunted.
“You won’t make love to me, will you, Stephen?”
“Will you promise me the same?”
“I don’t know, silly! How do I know what I might say to you, you big, blundering boy, who can’t take care of himself? I don’t know at all; I won’t promise. I’m likely to do anything to-night — even before Leila and Mr. Plank — when you are with me. Shame on you for the shameless girl you’ve educated!” Her voice fell, tremulously, and for an instant standing there she remembered her education and his part in it.
The slow colour in his face reflected the pink confusion in hers.
“O tongue! tongue!” she stammered, “I can’t hold you in! I can’t curb you, and I can’t make you say what you ought to be saying to that boy. There’s trouble coming for somebody; there’s trouble here already! Call me a cab, Stephen, or I’ll be dragging you into that big, old-fashioned parlour and planting you on a chair and placing myself opposite, to moon over you until somebody puts us out! There! Now will you call me a hansom?... And I will be all ready at seven.... And don’t dare to keep me waiting one second!... Come before seven. You don’t want to frighten me, do you? Very well then, at a quarter to seven — so I shall not be frightened. And, Stephen, Stephen, we’re doing exactly what we ought not to do. You know it, don’t you? So do I. Nothing can stop us, can it? Good-bye!”
CHAPTER XIV THE BARGAIN
If a man’s grief does not awaken his dignity, then he has none. In that event, grief is not even respectable. And so it was with Leroy Mortimer when Lydia at last turned on him. If you caress an Angora too long and too persistently it runs away. And before it goes it scratches.
Under all the physical degeneration of mind and flesh there had still remained in Mortimer the capacity for animal affection; and that does not mean sensuality alone, but generosity and a sort of routine devotion as characteristic components of a character which had now disintegrated into the simplest and most primitive elements.
Lydia Vyse left Saratoga when the financial stringency began to make it unpleasant for her to remain. She told Mortimer without the slightest compunction that she was going.
He did not believe her and he gave her the new car — the big yellow-and-black Serin-Chanteur. She sold it the same day to a bookmaker — an old friend of hers; withdrew several jewels from limbo — gems which Mortimer had given her — and gathered together everything for which, if he turned ugly, she might not be criminally liable.
She had never liked him — she had long disliked him. Such women have an instinct for their own kind, and no matter how low in the scale a man of the other kind sinks he can never entirely supply the type of running mate that such women require, understand, and usually conceive a passion for.
Not liking him she had no hesitation in the matter; disliking him, whatever unpleasant had occurred during their companionship remained as an irritant to poison memory. She resented a thousand little incidents that he scarcely knew had ever existed, but which she treasured without wasting emotion until the sum total and the time coincided to retaliate. Not that she would have cared to harm him seriously; she was willing enough to disoblige him, however — decorate him, before she left him, with one extra scratch for the sake of auld lang syne. So she wrote a note to the governors of the Patroons Club, saying that both Quarrier and Mortimer were aware that the guilt of her escapade could not be attached to Siward; that she knew nothing of Siward, had accepted his wager without meaning to attempt to win it, had never again seen him, and had, on the impulse of the moment, made her entry in the wake of several men. She added that when Quarrier, as governor, had concurred in Siward’s expulsion he knew perfectly well that Siward was not guilty, because she herself had so informed Quarrier. Since then she had also told Mortimer, but he had taken no steps to do justice to Siward, although he, Mortimer, was still a governor of the Patroons Club.
This being about all she could think of to make mischief for two men whose recent companionship had nourished and irritated her, she shipped her trunks by express, packed her jewel-case and valise, and met Desmond at the station.
Desmond had business in Europe; Lydia had as much business there as anywhere; and, although she had been faithless to Mortimer for a comparatively short time, within that time Desmond already had sworn at her and struck her. So she was quite ready to follow Desmond anywhere in this world or the next. And that, too, had not made her the more considerate toward Mortimer.
When the latter returned from the races to find her gone the last riddled props to what passed for his manhood gave way and the rotten fabric came crashing into the mud.
He had loved her as far as he had been capable of imitating that passion on the transposed plane to which he had fallen; he was stupefied at first, then grew violent with the furniture, then hysterically profane, then pitiable in the abandoned degradation of his grief. And, suspecting Desmond, he started to find him. They put him out of Desmond’s club-house when he became noisy; they refused him admittance to several similar resorts where his noise threatened to continue; his landlord lost no time in interviewing him upon the subject of damage to furniture from kicks and to the walls and carpets from the contents of smashed bottles.
Creditors with sharp noses scented the whirlwind afar off and hemmed him in with unsettled accounts, mostly hers. Somebody placed a lien on his horses; a deputy sheriff began to follow him about; all credit ceased as by magic, and men crossed the street to avoid meeting with an old companion in direst need.
Still, alternately stupefied by his own grief and maddened into the necessity for action, he packed a suitcase, crawled out of the rear door, toiled across country and found a farmer to drive him twenty miles over a sandy road to a local railroad crossing, where he managed to board a train for Albany.
At Albany, as he stood panting and sweating on the long, concrete platform which paralleled track No. 1, he saw a private car, switched from a Boston and Albany train, shunted to the rear of the Merchants’ Express.
The private car was lettered in gold on the central panel, “Algonquin.” He boarded the Pullman coupled to it forward, pushed through the vestibule, shoved aside the Japanese steward and darky cook, forcing his way straight into the private car. Quarrier, reading a magazine, looked up at him in astonishment. For a full moment neither spoke. Then Mortimer dropped his suit-case, sat down in an armchair opposite Quarrier, and leisurely mopped his reeking face and neck.
“Scotch and lithia!” he said hoarsely; the Japanese steward looked at Quarrier; then, at that gentleman’s almost imperceptible nod, went away to execute the commission.
He executed a great many similar commissions during the trip to New York. When they arrived there at five o’clock, Quarrier offered Mortimer his hand, and held the trembling, puffy fingers as he leaned closer, saying with cold precision and emotionless emphasis something that appeared to require the full concentration of Mortimer’s half-drugged faculties.
And when at length Mortimer drove away in a hansom, Quarrier’s Japanese steward went with him — perhaps to carry his suit case — a courtesy that did credit to Quarrier’s innate thoughtfulness and consideration for others. He was very considerate; he even called Agatha up on the telephone and talked with her for ten minutes. Then he telephoned to Plank’s office, learned that Harrington was already there, telephoned the garage for a Mercedes which he always kept ready in town, and presently went bowling away to a conference on which the
last few hours had put an entirely new aspect.
It had taken Plank only a few minutes to perceive that something had occurred to change a point of view which he had believed it impossible for Quarrier to change. Something had gone wrong in his own careful calculations; some cog had slipped, some rivet given way, some bed-plate cracked. And Harrington evidently had not been aware of it; but Quarrier knew it. There was something wrong.
It was too late now to go tinkering in the dark for trouble. Plank understood that. Coolly, as though utterly unaware that the machinery might not stand the strain, he started it full speed. And when he stopped it at last Harrington’s grist had been ground to atoms, and Quarrier had looked on without comment. There seemed to be little more for them to do except to pay the miller.
“To-morrow,” said Quarrier, rising to go. It was on the edge of Plank’s lips to say, “to-day!” — but he was silent, knowing that Harrington would speak for him. And the old man did, without words, turning his iron visage on Quarrier with the silent dignity of despair. But Quarrier coldly demanded a day before they reckoned with Plank. And Plank, profoundly disturbed, shrugged his massive shoulders in contemptuous assent.
So Quarrier and Harrington went away — the younger partner taking leave of the older with a sneer for an outworn prop which no man could ever again have use for. Old and beaten — that was all Harrington now stood for in Quarrier’s eyes. Never a thought of the past undaunted courage, never a memory of the old victories which had made the Quarrier fortune possible — only contempt for age, a sneer for the mind and body that had failed at last. The old robber was done for, his armour rotten, his buckler broken, his sword blade rusted to the core. The least of his victims might now finish him with a club where he swayed in his loosened saddle, or leave him to that horseman on the pale horse watching him yonder on the horizon.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 318
