She touched a rosebud in the vase that stood beside her, broke the stem absently, and sat examining it in silence. And, after a few moments:
“As a child I was too imaginative.... We do not change — we women. Married, unmarried, too wise, or too innocent, we remain what we were when our mothers bore us.... Whatever we do, we never change within: we remain, in our souls, what we first were. And unaltered we die.... In morgue or prison or Potter’s Field, where lies a dead female thing in a tattered skirt, there, hidden somewhere under rag and skin and bone, lies a dead girl-child.”
She laid the unopened rosebud on Palla’s knees; her preoccupied gaze wandered around that silent, sunlit place.
“I could have taken my pistol,” she said softly, “and I could have killed a few among those whose doctrines at last slew Vanya.... Or I could have killed myself.”
She turned and her remote gaze came back to fix itself on Palla.
“But, somehow, I think that Vanya would grieve.... And he has grieved enough. Do you think so, Palla?”
“Yes.”
Ilse said thoughtfully: “There is always enough death on earth. And to live honestly, and love undauntedly, and serve humanity with a clean heart is the most certain way to help the slaying of that thing which murdered Vanya.”
Palla gazed at Marya, profoundly preoccupied by the astounding revelation that she had been Vanya’s legal wife; and in her brown eyes the stunned wonder of it still remained, nor could she seem to think of anything except of that amazing fact.
When they stood up to take leave of Marya, the rosebud dropped from Palla’s lap, and Marya picked it up and offered it again.
“It should open,” she said, her strange smile glimmering. “Cold water and a little salt, my Palla — that is all rosebuds need — that is all we women need — a little water to cool and freshen us; a little salt for all the doubtful worldly knowledge we imbibe.”
She took Palla’s hands and bent her lips to them, then lifted her tawny head:
“What do words matter? Slava, slava, under the moon! Words are but symbols of needs — your need and Ilse’s and mine — and Jack’s and Vanya’s — and the master-word differs as differ our several needs. And if I say Christ and Buddha and I are one, let me so believe, if that be my need. Or if, from some high minarette, I lift my voice proclaiming the unity of God! — or if I confess the Trinity! — or if, for me, the god-fire smoulders only within my own accepted soul — what does it matter? Slava, slava — the word and the need spell Love — whatever the deed, Palla — my Palla! — whatever the deed, and despite it.”
* * * * *
As they came, together, to Palla’s house and entered the empty drawing-room, Ilse said:
“In mysticism there seems to be no reasoning — nothing definite save only an occult and overwhelming restlessness.... Marya may take the veil ... or nurse lepers ... or she may become a famous courtesan.... I do not mean it cruelly. But, in the mystic, the spiritual, the intellectual and the physical seem to be interchangeable, and become gradually indistinguishable.”
“That is a frightful analysis,” murmured Palla. A little shiver passed over her and she laid the rosebud against her lips.
Ilse said: “Marya is right: love is the world’s overwhelming need. The way to love is to serve; and if we serve we must renounce something.”
They locked arms and began to pace the empty room.
“What should I renounce?” asked Palla faintly.
Ilse smiled that wise, wholesome smile of hers:
“Suppose you renounce your own omniscience, darling,” she suggested.
“I do not think myself omniscient,” retorted the girl, colouring.
“No? Well, darling, from where then do you derive your authority to cancel the credentials of the Most High?”
“What!”
“On what authority except your own omniscience do you so confidently preach the non-existence of omnipotence?”
Palla turned her flushed face in sensitive astonishment under the gentle mockery.
Ilse said: “Love has many names; and so has God. And all are good. If, to you, God means that little flame within you, then that is good. And so, to others, according to their needs.... And it is the same with love.... So, if for the man you love, love can be written only as a phrase — if the word love be only one element in a trinity of which the other two are Law and Wedlock — does it really matter, darling?”
“You mean I — I am to renounce my — creed?”
Ilse shook her head: “Who cares? The years develop and change everything — even creeds. Do you think your lover would care whether, at twenty-odd, you worship the flaming godhead itself, or whether you guard in spirit that lost spark from it which has become entangled with your soul? — whether you really do believe the man-made law that licenses your mating; or whether you reject it as a silly superstition? To a business man, convention is merely a safe procedure which, ignored, causes disaster — he knows that whenever he ignores it — as when he drives a car bearing no license; and the police stop him.”
“I never expected to hear this from you, Ilse.”
“Why?”
“You are unmarried.”
“No, Palla.”
The girl stared at her: “Did you marry Jack?” she gasped.
“Yes. In the hospital.”
“Oh, Ilse! — —”
“He asked me.”
“But—” her mouth quivered and she bent her head and placed her hand on Ilse’s arm for guidance, because the starting tears were blinding her now. And at last she found her voice: “I meant I am so thankful — darling — it’s been a — a nightmare — —”
“It would have been one to me if I had refused him. Except that Jack wished it, I did not care.... But I have lately learned — some things.”
“You — you consented because he wished it?”
“Of course. Is not that our law?”
“Do you so construe the Law of Love and Service? Does it permit us to seek protection under false pretences; to say yes when we mean no; to kneel before a God we do not believe in; to accept immunity under a law we do not believe in?”
“If all this concerned only one’s self, then, no! Or, if the man believed as we do, no! But even then—” she shook her head slowly, “unless all agree, it is unfair.”
“Unfair?”
“Yes, it is unfair if you have a baby. Isn’t it, darling? Isn’t it unfair and tyrannical?”
“You mean that a child should not arbitrarily be placed by its parents at what it might later consider a disadvantage?”
“Of course I mean just that. Do you know, Palla, what Jack once said of us? He said — rather brutally, I thought — that you and I were immaturely un-moral and pitiably unbaked; and that the best thing for both of us was to marry and have a few children before we tried to do any more independent thinking.”
Palla’s reply was: “He was such a dear!” But what she said did not seem absurd to either of them.
Ilse added: “You know yourself, darling, what a relief it was to you to learn that I had married Jack. I think you even said something like, ‘Thank God,’ when you were choking back the tears.”
Palla flushed brightly: “I meant—” but her voice ended in a sob. Then, all of a sudden, she broke down — went all to pieces there in the dim and empty little drawing-room — down on her knees, clinging to Ilse’s skirts....
She wished to go to her room alone; and so Ilse, watching her climb the stairs as though they led to some dread calvary, opened the front door and went her lonely way, drawing the mourning veil around her face and throat.
CHAPTER XXIV
Leila Vance, lunching with Elorn Sharrow at the Ritz, spoke of Estridge:
“There seem to be so many of these well-born men who marry women we never heard of.”
“Perhaps we ought to have heard of them,” suggested Elorn, smilingly. “The trouble may lie with us.”
“It does, dear. But it�
�s something we can’t help, unless we change radically. Because we don’t stand the chance we once did. We never have been as attractive to men as the other sort. But once men thought they couldn’t marry the other sort. Now they think they can. And they do if they have to.”
“What other sort?” asked Elorn, not entirely understanding.
“The sort of girl who ignores the customs which make us what we are. We don’t stand a chance with professional women any more. We don’t compare in interest to girls who are arbiters of their own destinies.
“Take the stage as an illustration. Once the popularity of women who made it their profession was due partly to glamour, partly because that art drew to it and concentrated the very best-looking among us. But it’s something else now that attracts men; it’s the attraction of women who are doing something — clever, experienced, interesting, girls who know how to take care of themselves and who are not afraid to give to men a frank and gay companionship outside those conventional limits which circumscribe us.”
Elorn nodded.
“It’s quite true,” said Leila. “The independent professional girl to-day, whatever art or business engages her, is the paramount attraction to men.
“A few do sneak back to us after a jolly caper in the open — a few timid ones, or snobs of sorts — thrifty, perhaps, or otherwise material, or cautious. But that’s about all we get as husbands in these devilish days of general feminine bouleversement. And it’s a sad and instructive fact, Elorn. But there seems to be nothing to do about it.”
Elorn said musingly: “The main thing seems to be that men admire a girl’s effort to get somewhere — when she happens to be good-looking.”
“It’s a cynical fact, dear; they certainly do. And now that they realise they have to marry these girls if they want them — why, they do.”
Elorn dissected her ice. “You know Stanley Wardner,” she remarked.
“Mortimer Wardner’s son?”
Elorn nodded. “He became a queer kind of sculptor. I think it is called a Concentrationist. Well, he’s concentrated for life, now.”
“Whom did he marry?” asked Leila, laughing.
“A girl named Questa Terrett. You never heard of her, did you?”
“No. And I can imagine the moans and groans of the Mortimer Wardners.”
“I have heard so. She lives — they live now, together, in Abdingdon Square, where she possesses a studio and nearly a dozen West Highland terriers.”
“What else does she do?” inquired Leila, still laughing.
“She writes cleverly when she needs an income; otherwise, she produces obscure poems with malice aforethought, and laughs in her sleeve, they say, when the precious-minded rave.”
Leila reverted to Estridge:
“I had no idea he was married,” she said. “Palla Dumont introduced his widow to me the other day — a most superb and beautiful creature. But, oh dear I — can you fancy her having once served as a girl-soldier in the Russian Battalion of Death!”
The slightest shadow crossed Elorn’s face.
“By the way,” added Leila, following quite innocently her trend of thought, “Helen Shotwell tells me that her son is going back to the army if he can secure a commission.”
“Yes, I believe so,” said Elorn serenely.
Leila went on: “I fancy there’ll be a lot of them. A taste of service seems to spoil most young men for a piping career of peace.”
“He cares nothing for his business.”
“What is it?”
“Real estate. He is with my father, you know.”
“Of course. I remember—” She suddenly seemed to recollect something else, also — not, perhaps, quite certain of it, but instinctively playing safe. So she refrained from saying anything about this young man’s recent devotion to her friend, Palla Dumont, although that was the subject which she had intended to introduce.
And, smiling to herself, she thought it a close call, because she had meant to ask Elorn whether she knew why the Shotwell boy had so entirely deserted her little friend Palla.
The Shotwell boy himself happened to be involved at that very moment, in matters concerning a friend of Mrs. Vance’s little friend Palla — in fact, he had been trying, for the last half hour, to find this friend of Palla’s on the telephone. The friend in question was Alonzo D. Pawling. And he was being vigorously paged at the Hotel Rajah.
As for Jim, he remained seated in the private office of Angelo Puma, whither he had been summoned in professional capacity by one Skidder, the same being Elmer, and partner of the Puma aforesaid.
The door was locked; the room in disorder. Safe, letter-files, cupboards, desks had been torn open and their contents littered the place.
Skidder, in an agony of perspiring fright, kept running about the room like a distracted squirrel. Jim watched him, darkly preoccupied with other things, including the whereabouts of Mr. Pawling.
“You say,” he said to Skidder, “that Mr. Pawling will confirm what you have told me?”
“John D. Pawling knows damn well I own this plant!”
Jim shook his head: “I’m sorry, but that isn’t sufficient. I can only repeat to you that there is no point in calling me in at present. You have no legal right to offer this property for sale. It belongs, apparently, to the creditors of your firm. What you require first of all is a lawyer — —”
“I don’t want a lawyer and I don’t want publicity before I get something out of this dirty mess that scoundrel left behind!” cried Skidder, snapping his eyes like mad and swinging his arms. “I got to get something, haven’t I? Isn’t this property mine? Can’t I sell it?”
“Apparently not, under the terms of your agreement with Puma,” replied Jim, wearily. “However, I’m willing to hear what Mr. Pawling has to say.”
“You mean to tell me, Puma fixed it so I’m stuck with all his debts? You mean to say my own personal property is subject to seizure to satisfy — —”
“I certainly do mean just that, Mr. Skidder. But I’m not a lawyer — —”
“I tell you I want to get something for myself before I let loose any lawyers on the premises! I’ll make it all right with you — —”
“It’s out of the question. We wouldn’t touch the property — —”
“I’ll take a quarter of its value in spot cash! I’ll give you ten thousand to put it through to-day!”
“Why can’t you understand that what you suggest would amount to collusion?”
“What I propose is to get a slice of what’s mine!” yelled Skidder, fairly dancing with fury. “D’yeh think I’m going to let that crooked wop, Puma, do this to me just like that! D’yeh think he’s going to get away with all my money and all Pawling’s money and leave me planted on my neck while about a million other guys come and sell me out and fill their pants pockets with what’s mine?”
Jim said: “If Mr. Pawling is the very rich man you say he is, he’s not going to let the defalcation of this fellow, Puma, destroy such a paying property.”
“Damn it, I don’t want him to buy it in for himself and freeze me out! I can’t stop him, either; Puma’s got all my money except what’s in this parcel. And you betcha life I hang onto this, creditors or no creditors, and Pawling to the contrary! He knows damn well it belongs to me. Try him again at the Rajah — —”
“They’re paging him. I left the number. But I tell you the proper thing for you to do is to go to a lawyer, and then to the police,” repeated Jim. “There’s nothing else to do. This fellow, Puma, may have run for the Mexican border, or he may still be in the United States. Without a passport he couldn’t very easily get on any trans-Atlantic boat or any South American boat either. The proper procedure is to notify the police — —”
“Nix on the police!” shouted Skidder. “That’ll start the land-slide, and the whole shooting-match will go. I want this property. If the papers show it’s subject to the firm’s liabilities, then that dirty skunk altered the thing. It’s forgery.
&n
bsp; “I never was fool enough to lump this parcel in with our assets. Not me. It’s forgery; that’s what it is, and this parcel belongs to me, privately — —”
“See an attorney,” repeated Jim patiently. “You can’t keep a thing like this out of the papers, Mr. Skidder. Why, here’s a man, Angelo Puma, who pounces on every convertible asset of his firm, stuffs a valise full of real money, and beats it for parts unknown.
“That’s a matter for the police. You can’t hope to hide it for more than a day or two longer. Your firm is bankrupt through the rascality of a partner. He’s gone with all the money he could scrape together. He converted everything into cash; he lied, swindled, stole, and skipped. And what he didn’t take must remain to satisfy the firm’s creditors. You can’t conceal conditions, slyly pocket what Puma has left and then call in an attorney. That’s criminal. You have your contracts to fulfil; you have a studio full of people whose salaries are nearly due; you have running expenses; you have notes to meet; you have obligations to face when a dozen or so contractors for your new theatre come to you on Saturday — —”
“You mean that’s all up to me?” shrieked Skidder, squinting horribly at a framed photograph of Puma. And suddenly he ran at it and hurled it to the floor and began to kick it about with strange, provincial maledictions:
“Dern yeh, yeh poor blimgasted thing! I’ll skin yeh, yeh dumb-faced, ring-boned, two-edged son-of-a-skunk! — —”
The telephone’s clamour silenced him. Jim answered:
“Who? Oh, long-distance. All right.” And he waited. Then, again: “Who wants him?... Yes, he’s here in the office, now.... Yes, he’ll come to the ‘phone.”
And to Skidder: “Shadow Hill wants to speak to you.”
“I won’t go. By God, if this thing is out! — Who the hell is it wants to speak to me? Wait! Maybe it’s Alonzo D. Pawling! — —”
“Shall I inquire?” And he asked for further information over the wire. Then, presently, and turning again to Skidder:
“You’d better come to the wire. It seems to be the Chief of Police who wants you.”
Skidder’s unhealthy skin became ghastly. He came over and took the instrument:
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 947
