Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Nonsense—”

  “Oh, it’s on account of my voice, not my morals, goose! I have rather a nice voice you know, and, if we can afford it, it would be a jolly good idea to have it cultivated …Isn’t this melon divine! What fun, Louis!… I believe you are a little happier. That crease between your eyes has quite disappeared — There! Don’t dare let it come back! It has no business there I tell you. I know it hasn’t — and you must trust my word. Will you?”

  She leaned swiftly toward him, placed both hands on his shoulders.

  “You’ve a perfectly new girl to deal with,” she said, looking him in the eyes;— “a miracle of meekness and patience that is rather certain to turn into a dreadful, frowsy old hausfrau some day. But that’s the kind you wanted…. It’s none of my doings—”

  “Valerie!”

  “What?”

  “You darling! — do you mean—”

  She closed his lips with hers.

  “Silence,” she said; “we have plenty to talk over before the hour arrives for me to be a door-mat. I won’t be a door-mat when I’m trying to be happy over a perfectly good supper!… Besides I want to torture you while there’s still time. I want to make you miserable by reminding you how disgracefully unmoral we are, here in your studio together at three in the morning—” She stretched out a slim, white ringless hand, and lifted the third finger for his inspection:

  “Not a sign of a ring! Shame!” She turned her pretty, daring face to his, eyes sparkling with audacity:

  “Besides, I’m not going back to-night.”

  He said tranquilly: “I should think not.”

  “I mean it, Kelly, I simply won’t go. And you may ring up the police and every ambulance in town — and the fire department—”

  “I’ve done it,” he said, “but the fire department refuses to put you out…. You don’t mean to say you’ve finished! — after fasting all day like a little idiot,” he exclaimed as she sprang to her feet and pushed away her chair.

  “I have. I am not an anaconda!” … She passed swiftly into the outer room where her own toilet necessaries were always ready, and presently came back, leisurely, her hands behind her back, sauntering toward, him with a provoking smile edging her lips:

  [Illustration: “‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it is really great.’”]

  “You may retire when you like, Kelly, and tie your red cotton night-cap under your chin. I shall sit up for the sun. It’s due in about an hour, you know.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “We’ll both, be dead in the morning.”

  “You offer me your guest-room?” she said in pretence of surprise. “How very nice of you, Mr. Neville. I — ah — will condescend to occupy it — for this evening only—” Her eyes brightened into laughter: “Oh, isn’t it delicious, Louis! Isn’t it perfectly heavenly to know that we are utterly and absolutely all right, — and to know that the world outside would be perfectly certain that we are not? What a darling you are!”

  Still holding her hands behind her back she bent forward and touched her lips to his, daintily, fastidious in the light contact,

  “Where is that picture of ‘Womanhood’?” she asked.

  He drew out the easel, adjusting the canvas to the light, and rolled a big chair up in front of it.

  “Please sit there,” she said; and seated herself on the padded arm, still keeping her hands behind her back.

  “Are you concealing anything from me?” he asked.

  “Never mind. I want to look at your picture,” she added slowly as her eyes fell upon the canvas.

  Minute after minute she sat there in silence, neither stirring nor offering comment. And after a long time he moved restlessly in the depths of the chair beside her.

  Then she turned and looked down at him:

  “Yes,” she said, “it is really great…. And, somehow, I am lonely.

  Take me, Louis.”

  He drew her into his arms. She lay very silent against his breast for a while, and at last raised her curiously troubled eyes.

  “You are going to be a very, very great painter, aren’t you, Louis?”

  He laughed and kissed her, watching her face.

  “Don’t be too great — so great that I shall feel too — too lonely,” she whispered.

  Then his eyes fell upon the ring which he had given her — and which she had gently put aside. She was wearing it on her betrothal finger.

  “Where did you — find it?” he said unsteadily.

  “In its box on your dresser.”

  “Do you realise what it means?”

  “Yes…. And I am wearing it.”

  “Valerie!”

  Her head nestled closer:

  “Because I am going to marry you, Louis…. You were right…. If I

  fail, as your wife, to win my way in your world, then it will be because

  I have attempted the impossible. Which is no crime…. Who was it said

  ‘Not failure, but low aim is crime’?”

  She sighed, nestling closer like a child seeking rest:

  “I am not coward enough to run away from you and destiny…. And if I stay, only two ways remain…. And the lawful is the better for us both….” She laid her flushed cheek against his: “Because,” she said dreamily, “there is one thing of which I never thought — children…. And I don’t, perhaps, exactly understand, but I realise that — such things have happened; — and that it could happen to — us.”

  She lay silent for a while, her fingers restless on his shoulder; then she spoke again in the same dreamy voice of a half-awakened child:

  “Each for the other’s sake is not enough. It must be broader, wider, more generous … it must be for the sake of all…. I have learned this…. We can learn it better together…. Louis, can you guess what I did the day your letter came to me at Estwich?”

  “What did you do, my darling?”

  “I went to Ashuelyn.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, dear. If it had not been for your letter which I could feel against my breast I should have been frightened…. Because all your family were together under the pergola…. As it was I could scarcely speak; I gave your mother the letter, and when she had read it and your father and your sister had read it, I asked them what I was to do.

  “It was so strange and still there under the pergola; and I scarcely knew what I was saying — and I didn’t realise that there were tears in my eyes — until I saw them in your mother’s, too.

  “Louis! Louis! I wonder if she can really ever care for me! — she was so good — so sweet to me…. And Mrs. Collis took me away to her own room — after your father had shaken hands with me — very stiffly but I think kindly — and I behaved very badly, dear — and your sister let me cry — all that I needed to.”

  She said nothing more for a while, resting in his arms, dark eyes fixed on space. Then:

  “They asked me to remain; your brother-in-law is a dear! — but I still had a long day of self-examination before me. Your father and mother walked with me to the gate. Your mother kissed me.”

  His eyes, blinded by tears, scarcely saw her; and she turned her head and smiled at him.

  “What they said to me was very sweet and patient, Louis…. I believe — I sometimes believe that I may, in time, win more than their consent, I believe that, some day, they will care to think of me as your wife — and think of me as such, kindly, without regret for what might have been if I had never known you.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Hélène d’Enver had gone back to the country, and Ogilvy dared not pursue her thither.

  From her fastness at Estwich she defied him in letters, but every letter of hers seemed to leave some loophole open for further argument, and Ogilvy replied valiantly from a perfectly safe distance, vowing that he meant to marry her some day in spite of herself and threatening to go up and tell her so to her face, until she became bored to death waiting for him to fulfil this threat.

  “There’s a perfectly good inn here
,” she wrote,— “for of course, under the circumstances, you would scarcely have the impudence to expect the hospitality of my own roof. But if you are determined to have a final ‘No’ for your answer, I am entirely competent to give it to you by word of mouth—”

  “And such a distractingly lovely mouth,” sighed Ogilvy, perusing the letter in his studio. He whistled a slow waltz, thoughtfully, and as slowly and solemnly kept step to it, turning round and round, buried in deepest reflection. He had a habit of doing this when profoundly perplexed.

  Annan discovered him waltzing mournfully all by himself:

  “What’s up?” he inquired cheerfully.

  “It’s all up, I suppose.”

  “With you and your countess?”

  “Yes, Harry.”

  “Rot! Why don’t you go and talk to her?”

  “Because if I remain invisible she might possibly forget my face. I stand a better chance by letter, Harry.”

  “Now you’re not bad-looking,” insisted Annan, kindly. “And besides, a man’s face doesn’t count with a girl. Half of ’em are neurotics, anyway, and they adore the bizarre—”

  “Damn it,” snapped Sam, “do you mean that my countenance resembles a gargoyle? If you do, say so in English.”

  “No, no, no,” said Annan soothingly,— “I’ve seen more awful mugs — married mugs, too. What woman has done woman may do again. Buck up! Beauty and the beast is no idle jest—”

  “I’ll punch you good and plenty,” began Sam wrathfully, but Annan fled, weak with laughter.

  “There’s no vainer man than an ugly one!” he called back, and slammed the door to escape a flight of paint brushes hurled by a maddened man.

  “I’ll go! By jinks, I’ll go, anyway!” he exclaimed; “and I don’t care what she thinks of my face … only I think I’ll take Annan with me — just for company — or — dummy bridge on the way up…. Harry!” he shouted.

  Annan cautiously appeared, ready for rapid flight.

  “Aw come on in! My face suits me. Besides, thank Heaven I’ve got a reputation back of it; but yours breaks the speed laws. Will you go up there with me — like a man?”

  “Where?”

  “To Estwich?”

  “When?” inquired Annan, sceptically.

  “Now! — b’ jinks!”

  “Have you sufficient nerve, this time?”

  “Watch me.”

  And he dragged out a suit-case and began wildly throwing articles of toilet and apparel into it,

  “Come on, Harry!” he shouted, hurling a pair of tennis shoes at the suit-case; “I’ve got to go while I’m excited or I’ll never budge!”

  But when, ten minutes later, Annan arrived, suit-case in hand, ready for love’s journey, he could scarcely contrive to kick and drag Sam into the elevator, and, later, into a taxicab.

  Ogilvy sat there alternately shivering and attempting to invent imperative engagements in town which he had just remembered, but Annan said angrily:

  “No, you don’t. This makes the seventh time I’ve started with you for Estwich, and I’m going to put it through or perish in a hand-to-hand conflict with you.”

  And he started for the train, dragging Sam with him, talking angrily all the time.

  He talked all the way to Estwich, too, partly to reassure Ogilvy and give him no time for terrified reflection, partly because he liked to talk. And when they arrived at the Estwich Arms he shoved Ogilvy into a room, locked the door, and went away to telephone to the Countess d’Enver.

  “Yes?” she inquired sweetly, “who is it?”

  “Me,” replied Annan, regardless of an unpopular grammatical convention.

  “I’m here with Ogilvy. May we come to tea?”

  “Is Mr. Ogilvy here?”

  “Yes, here at the Estwich Arms. May I — er — may he bring me over to call on you?”

  “Y-yes. Oh, with pleasure, Mr. Annan…. When may I expect hi — you?”

  “In about ten minutes,” replied Annan firmly.

  Then he went back and looked into Ogilvy’s room. Sam was seated, his head clasped in his hands.

  “I thought you might tear up your sheets and let yourself out of the window,” said Annan sarcastically. “You’re a fine specimen! Why you’re actually lantern-jawed with fright. But I don’t care! Come on; we’re expected to tea! Get into your white flannels and pretty blue coat and put on your dinkey rah-rah, and follow me. Or, by heaven! — I’ll do murder right now!”

  Ogilvy’s knees wavered as they entered the gateway.

  “Go on!” hissed Annan, giving him a violent shove.

  Then, to Ogilvy, came that desperate and hysterical courage that comes to those whose terrors have at last infuriated them.

  “By jinks!” he said with an unearthly smile, “I will come on!”

  And he did, straight through the door and into the pretty living room where Hélène d’Enver rose in some slight consternation to receive this astonishingly pale and rather desperate-faced young man.

  “Harry,” said Ogilvy, calmly retaining Hélène’s hand, “you go and play around the yard for a few moments. I have something to tell the Countess d’Enver; and then we’ll all have tea.”

  “Mr. Ogilvy!” she said, amazed.

  But Annan had already vanished; and she looked into a pair of steady eyes that suddenly made her quail.

  “Hélène,” he said, “I really do love you.”

  [Illustration: “‘I am scared blue. That’s why I’m holding on to your hand so desperately.’”]

  “Please—”

  “No! I love you! Are you going to let me?”

  “I — how on earth — what a perfectly senseless—”

  “I know it. I’m half senseless from fright. Yes, I am, Hélène! Now! here! at this very minute, I am scared blue. That’s why I’m holding on to your hand so desperately; I’m afraid to let go.”

  She flushed brightly with annoyance, or something or other — but he held fast to her hand and put one arm around her waist.

  “Sam!” she said, exasperated. That was the last perfectly coherent word she uttered for several minutes. And, later, she was too busy to say very much.

  * * * * *

  When Annan returned, Hélène rose from the couch where she and Ogilvy had been seated and came across the floor, blushing vividly.

  “I don’t know what on earth you think of me, Mr. Annan, and I suppose I will have to learn to endure the consequences of Mr. Ogilvy’s eccentricities—”

  “Oh, I’m terribly glad!” said Annan, grinning, and taking her hand in both of his.

  They had tea on the veranda. Ogilvy was too excited and far too happy to be dignified, and Hélène was so much embarrassed by his behaviour and so much in love that she made a distractingly pretty picture between the two young men who, as Rita had said, would never, never be old enough to grow up.

  “Do you know,” said Hélène, “that your friends the Nevilles have recently been very nice to me? They have called, and have returned my call, and have asked me to dinner. I suppose cordiality takes longer to arrive at maturity in New York State than in any other part of the Union. But when New York people make up their minds to be agreeable, they certainly are delightful.”

  “They’re a bunch of snobs,” said Ogilvy, calmly.

  “Oh!” said Hélène with a distressed glance at Annan.

  “He’s one, too,” observed her affianced, coolly nodding toward Annan. “We’re a sickening lot, Hélène — until some charming and genuine person like you comes along to jounce us out of our smiling and imbecile self-absorption.”

  “I,” said Annan gravely, “am probably the most frightful snob that ever wandered, in a moment of temporary aberration, north of lower Fifth Avenue.”

  “I’m worse,” observed Sam gloomily. “Help us, Hélène, toward loftier aspirations. Be our little uplift girl—”

  “You silly things!” she said indignantly.

  Later two riders passed the house, Cameron and Stephanie
Swift, who saluted Hélène most cordially, and waved airy recognition to the two men.

  “More snobs,” commented Sam.

  “They are very delightful people!” retorted Hélène hotly.

  “Most snobs are when they like you.”

  “Sam! I won’t have you express such sentiments!”

  He bent nearer to her:

  “Dearest, I never had any sentiments except for you. And only the inconvenient propinquity of that man Annan prevents me from expressing them.”

  “Please, Sam—”

  “Don’t be afraid; I won’t. He wouldn’t care; — but I won’t…. Hello! Why look who’s here!” he exclaimed, rising. “Why it’s the great god Kelly and little Sunshine!” — as Neville and Valerie sprang out of Mrs. Collis’s touring car and came up the walk.

  Hélène went forward to meet them, putting one arm around Valerie and holding out the other to Neville.

  “When did you arrive, darling?” she exclaimed. “How do you do, Mr. Neville? Valerie, child, I’m perfectly enchanted to see you. But where in the world are you stopping?”

  “At Ashuelyn,” said the girl, looking straight into Hélène’s eyes. A faint flash of telepathy passed between them; then, slowly, Hélène turned and looked at Neville.

  “Will you wish us happiness?” he said, smiling.

  “Oh-h,” whispered Hélène under her breath— “I do — I do — God knows. I wish you everything that makes for happiness in all the world!” she stammered, for the wonder of it was still on her.

  Then Sam’s voice sounded close at hand:

  “Why,” he said admiringly, “it looks like lovey and dovey!”

  “It is,” said Valerie, laughing.

  “You! — and Kelly!”

  “We two.”

  Sam in his excitement became a little wild and incongruous:

  ”’My wife’s gone to the country!

  Hooray! Hooray!’”

  he shouted, holding hands with Annan and swinging back and forth.

  “Sam!” exclaimed Hélène, mortified.