He cast a swift, anxious glance at Geraldine; her vivid colour, the splendour of her eyes, her feverish laughter were ominous. With her were Gray and Sylvia, rather noisy in their gaiety, and the boisterous Pink ‘uns, and Jack Dysart, lingering near, the make-up on his face in ghastly contrast to his ashen pallor and his fixed and unvaried grin.
“I’m waiting, Duane,” said Naïda plaintively.
So he turned away with her through the woods, where one by one the brilliant lantern flames were dying out, and where already in the east a silvery lustre heralded the coming dawn.
When he returned, Geraldine was gone. At the house somebody said she had come in with Kathleen, not feeling well.
“The trouble with that girl,” said a man whom he did not know, “is that she’s had too much champagne.”
“You lie,” said Duane quietly. “Is that perfectly plain to you?”
For a full minute the young man stood rigid, crimson, glaring at Duane. Then, having the elements of decency in him, he said:
“I don’t know who you are, but you are perfectly right. I did lie. And I’ll see that nobody else does.”
CHAPTER XII. THE LOVE OF THE GODS
Two days later the majority of the people had left Roya-Neh, and the remainder were preparing to make their adieux to the young chatelaine by proxy; for Geraldine had kept her room since the night of the masked fête, and nobody except Kathleen and Dr. Bailey had seen her.
“Fashionable fidgets,” said Dr. Bailey, in answer to amiable inquiries; “the girl has been living on her nerves, like the rest of you, only she can’t stand as much as you can.”
To Duane he said, in reply to persistent questions:
“As a plain and unromantic proposition, young man, it may be her liver. God alone knows with what young women stuff their bodies in those bucolic solitudes.”
To Kathleen he said, after questioning her and listening in silence to her guarded replies:
“I don’t know what is the matter, Mrs. Severn. The girl is extremely nervous. She acts, to me, as though she had something on her mind, but she insists that she hasn’t. If I were to be here, I might come to some conclusion within the next day or two.”
Which frightened Kathleen, and she asked whether anything serious might be anticipated.
“Not at all,” he said.
So, as he was taking the next train, there was nothing to do. He left a prescription and whizzed away to the railroad station with the last motor-load of guests.
There remained only Duane, Rosalie Dysart, Grandcourt, and Sylvia Quest, a rather subdued and silent group on the terrace, unresponsive to Scott’s unfeigned gaiety to find himself comparatively alone and free to follow his own woodland predilections once more.
“A cordial host you are,” observed Rosalie; “you’re guests are scarcely out of sight before you break into inhuman chuckles.”
“Speed the parting,” observed Scott, in excellent spirits; “that’s the truest hospitality.”
“I suppose your unrestrained laughter will be our parting portion in a day or two,” she said, amused.
“No; I don’t mind a few people. Do you want to come and look for scarabs?”
“Scarabs? Do you imagine you’re in Egypt, my poor friend?”
Scott sniffed: “Didn’t you know we had a few living species around here? Regular scarabs. Kathleen and I found three the other day — one a regular beauty with two rhinoceros horns on the thorax and iridescent green and copper tinted wing-covers. Do you want to help me hunt for some more? You’ll have to put on overshoes, for they’re in the cow-yards.”
Rosalie, intensely bored, thanked him and declined. Later she opened a shrimp-pink sunshade and, followed by Grandcourt, began to saunter about the lawn in plain sight, as people do preliminary to effacing themselves without exciting comment.
But there was nobody to comment on what they did; Duane was reading a sporting-sheet, souvenir of the departed Bunbury; Sylvia sat pallid and preoccupied, cheek resting against her hand, looking out over the valley. Her brother, her only living relative, was supposed to have come up that morning to take her to the next house party on the string which linked the days of every summer for her. But Stuyvesant had not arrived; and the chances were that he would turn up within a day or two, if not too drunk to remember her.
So Sylvia, who was accustomed to waiting for her brother, sat very colourless and quiet by the terrace parapet, pale blue eyes resting on the remoter hills — not always, for at intervals she ventured a furtive look at Duane, and there was something of stealth and of fright in the stolen glance.
As for Scott, he sat on the parapet, legs swinging, fussing with a pair of binoculars and informing the two people behind him — who were not listening — that he could distinguish a black-billed cuckoo from a thrasher at six hundred yards.
Which edified neither Sylvia nor Duane, but the boy continued to impart information with unimpaired cheerfulness until Kathleen came out from the house.
“How’s Sis?” he inquired.
“I think she has a headache,” replied Kathleen, looking at Duane.
“Could I see her?” he asked.
Kathleen said gently that Geraldine did not feel like seeing anybody at that time. A moment later, in obedience to Scott’s persistent clamouring for scarabs, she went across the lawn with the young master of Roya-Neh, resigned to the inevitable in the shape of two-horned scarabs or black-billed cuckoos.
It had always been so with her; it would always be so. Long ago the Seagrave twins had demanded all she had to give; now, if Geraldine asked less, Scott exacted double. And she gave — how happily, only her Maker and her conscience knew.
Duane was still reading — or he had all the appearance of reading — when Sylvia lifted her head from her hand and turned around with an effort that cost her what colour had remained under the transparent skin of her oval face.
“Duane,” she said, “it occurred to me just now that you might have really mistaken what I said and did the other night.” She hesitated, nerving herself to encounter his eyes, lifted and levelled across the top of his paper at her.
He waited; she retained enough self-command to continue with an effort at lightness:
“Of course it was all carnival fun — my pretending to mistake you for Mr. Dysart. You understood it, didn’t you?”
“Why, of course,” he said, smiling.
She went on: “I — don’t exactly remember what I said — I was trying to mystify you. But it occurred to me that perhaps it was rather imprudent to pretend to be on — on such impossible terms with Mr. Dysart — —”
There was something too painful in her effort for him to endure. He said laughingly, not looking at her:
“Oh, I wasn’t ass enough to be deceived, Sylvia. Don’t worry, little girl.” And he resumed the study of his paper.
Minutes passed — terrible minutes for one of them, who strove to find relief in his careless reassurance, tried desperately to believe him, to deceive that intuition which seldom fails her sex.
He, with the print blurred and meaningless before him, sat miserable, dumb with the sympathy he could not show, hot with the anger he dared not express. He thought of Dysart as he had revealed himself, now gone back to town to face that little crop of financial rumours concerning the Algonquin that persisted so wickedly and would not be quieted. For the first time in his life, probably, Dysart was compelled to endure the discomforts of a New York summer — more discomforts this summer than mere dust and heat and noise. For men who had always been on respectful financial terms with Dysart and his string of banks and his Algonquin enterprise were holding aloof from him; men who had figured for years in the same columns of print where his name was so often seen as director and trustee and secretary — fellow-members who served for the honour of serving on boards of all sorts, charity boards, hospital, museum, civic societies — these men, too, seemed to be politely, pleasantly, even smilingly edging away from him in some indefinable manner.
Which seemed to force him toward certain comparatively newcomers among the wealthy financiers of the metropolis — brilliant, masterful, restless men from the West, whose friendship in the beginning he had sought, deeming himself farsighted.
Now that his vision had become normally adjusted he cared less for this intimacy which it was too late to break — at least this was not the time to break it with money becoming unbelievably scarcer every day and a great railroad man talking angrily, and another great railroad man preaching caution at a time when the caution of the man in the Street might mean something so serious to Dysart that he didn’t care to think about it.
Dysart had gone back to New York in company with several pessimistic gentlemen — who were very open about backing their fancy; and their fancy fell on that old, ramshackle jade, Hard Times, by Speculation out of Folly. According to them there was no hope of her being scratched or left at the post.
“She’ll run like a scared hearse-horse,” said young Grandcourt gloomily. There was reason for his gloom. Unknown to his father he had invested heavily in Dysart’s schemes. It was his father’s contempt that he feared more than ruin.
So Dysart had gone to town, leaving behind him the utter indifference of a wife, the deep contempt of a man; and a white-faced girl alone with her memories — whatever they might be — and her thoughts, which were painful if one might judge by her silent, rigid abstraction, and the lower lip which, at moments, escaped, quivering, from the close-set teeth.
When Duane rose, folding his paper with a carelessly pleasant word or two, she looked up in a kind of naïve terror — like a child startled at prospect of being left alone. It was curious how those adrift seemed always to glide his way. It had always been so; even stray cats followed him in the streets; unhappy dogs trotted persistently at his heels; many a journey had he made to the Bide-a-wee for some lost creature’s sake; many a softly purring cat had he caressed on his way through life — many a woman.
As he strolled toward the eastern end of the terrace, Sylvia looked after him; and, suddenly, unable to endure isolation, she rose and followed as instinctively as her lesser sisters-errant.
It was the trotting of little footsteps behind him on the gravel that arrested him. A glance at her face was enough; vexed, shocked, yet every sympathy instantly aroused, he resigned himself to whatever might be required of him; and within him a bitter mirth stirred — acrid, unpleasant; but his smile indicated only charmed surprise.
“I didn’t suppose you’d care for a stroll with me,” he said; “it is exceedingly nice of you to give me the chance.”
“I didn’t want to be left alone,” she said.
“It is rather quiet here since our gay birds have migrated,” he said in a matter-of-fact way. “Which direction shall we take?”
“I — don’t care.”
“The woods?”
“No,” with a shudder so involuntary that he noticed it.
“Well, then, we’ll go cross country — —”
She looked at her thin, low shoes and then at him.
“Certainly,” he said, “that won’t do, will it?”
She shook her head.
They were passing the Lodge now where his studio was and where he had intended to pack up his canvases that afternoon.
“I’ll brew you a cup of tea if you like,” he said; “that is, if it’s not too unconventional to frighten you.”
She smiled and nodded. Behind the smile her heavy thoughts throbbed on: How much did this man know? How much did he suspect? And if he suspected, how good he was in every word to her — how kind and gentle and high-minded! And the anguish in her smile caused him to turn hastily to the door and summon old Miller to bring the tea paraphernalia.
There was nothing to look at in the studio; all the canvases lay roped in piles ready for the crates; but Sylvia’s gaze remained on them as though even the rough backs of the stretchers fascinated her.
“My father was an artist. After he married he did not paint. My mother was very wealthy, you know.... It seems a pity.”
“What? Wealth?” he asked, smiling.
“N-no. I mean it seems a little tragic to me that father never continued to paint.”
Miller’s granddaughter came in with the tea. She was a very little girl with yellow hair and big violet eyes. After she had deposited everything, she went over to Duane and held up her mouth to be kissed. He laughed and saluted her. It was a reward for service which she had suggested when he first came to Roya-Neh; and she trotted away in great content.
Sylvia’s indifferent gaze followed her; then she sipped the tea Duane offered.
“Do you remember your father?” he asked pleasantly.
“Why, yes. I was fourteen when he died. I remember mother, too. I was seven.”
Duane said, not looking at her: “It’s about the toughest thing that can happen to a girl. It’s tough enough on a boy.”
“It was very hard,” she said simply.
“Haven’t you any relatives except your brother Stuyvesant—” he began, and checked himself, remembering that a youthful aunt of hers had eloped under scandalous circumstances, and at least one uncle was too notorious even for the stomachs of the society that whelped him.
She let it pass in silence, as though she had not heard. Later she declined more tea and sat deep in her chair, fingers linked under her chin, lids lowered.
After a while, as she did not move or speak, he ventured to busy himself with collecting his brushes, odds and ends of studio equipment. He scraped several palettes, scrubbed up some palette-knives, screwed the tops on a dozen tubes of colour, and fussed and messed about until there seemed to be nothing further to do. So he came back and seated himself, and, looking up, saw the big tears stealing from under her closed lids.
He endured it as long as he could. Nothing was said. He leaned nearer and laid his hand over hers; and at the contact she slipped from the chair, slid to her knees, and laid her head on the couch beside him, both hands covering her face, which had turned dead white.
Minute after minute passed with no sound, no movement except as he passed his hand over her forehead and hair. He knew what to do when those who were adrift floated into Port Mallett. And sometimes he did more than was strictly required, but never less. Toward sundown she began to feel blindly for her handkerchief. He happened to possess a fresh one and put it into her groping hand.
When she was ready to rise she did so, keeping her back toward him and standing for a while busy with her swollen eyes and disordered hair.
“Before we go we must have tea together again,” he said with perfectly matter-of-fact cordiality.
“Y-yes.” The voice was very, very small.
“And in town, too, Sylvia. I had no idea what a companionable girl you are — how much we have in common. You know silence is the great test of mutual confidence and understanding. You’ll let me see you in town, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That will be jolly. I suppose now that you and I ought to be thinking about dressing for dinner.”
She assented, moved away a step or two, halted, and, still with her back turned, held out her hand behind her. He took it, bent and kissed it.
“See you at dinner,” he said cheerfully.
And she went out very quietly, his handkerchief pressed against her eyes.
He came back into the studio, swung nervously toward the couch, turned and began to pace the floor.
“Oh, Lord,” he said; “the rottenness of it all — the utter rottenness.”
Dinner that night was not a very gay function; after coffee had been served, the small group seemed to disintegrate as though by some prearrangement, Rosalie and Grandcourt finding a place for themselves in the extreme western shadow of the terrace parapet, Kathleen returning to the living-room, where she had left her embroidery.
Scott, talking to Sylvia and Duane, continued to cast restless glances toward the living-room until he could find the proper moment
to get away. And in a few minutes Duane saw him seated, one leg crossed over the other, a huge volume on “Scientific Conservation of Natural Resources” open on his knees, seated as close to Kathleen as he could conveniently edge, perfectly contented, apparently, to be in her vicinity.
From moment to moment, as her pretty hands performed miracles in tinted silks, she lifted her eyes and silently inspected the boy who sat absorbed in his book. Perhaps old memories of a child seated in the schoolroom made tender the curve of her lips as she turned again to her embroidery; perhaps a sentiment more recent made grave the beautiful lowered eyes.
Sylvia, seated at the piano, idly improvising, had unconsciously drifted into the “Menuet d’Exaudet,” and Duane’s heart began to quicken as he stood listening and looking out through the open windows at the stars.
How long he stood there he did not know; but when, at length, missing the sound of the piano, he looked around, Sylvia was already on the stairs, looking back at him as she moved upward.
“Good-night,” she called softly; “I am very tired,” and paused as he came forward and mounted to the step below where she waited.
“Good-night, Miss Quest,” he said, with that nice informality that women always found so engaging. “If you have nothing better on hand in the morning, let’s go for a climb. I’ve discovered a wild-boar’s nest under the Golden Dome, and if you’d like to get a glimpse of the little, furry, striped piglings, I think we can manage it.”
She thanked him with her eyes, held out her thin, graceful hand of a schoolgirl, then turned slowly and continued her ascent.
As he descended, Kathleen, looking up from her embroidery, made him a sign, and he stood still.
“Where are you going?” asked Scott, as she rose and passed him.
“I’m coming back in a moment.”
Scott restlessly resumed his book, raising his head from time to time as though listening for her return, fidgeting about, now examining the embroidery she had left on the lamp-lit table, now listlessly running over the pages that had claimed his close attention while she had been near him.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 444
