The Deluge

by David Graham Phillips

  XII. ANITA

  On my first day in long trousers I may have been more ill at ease than Iwas that Sunday evening at the Ellerslys'; but I doubt it.

  When I came into their big drawing-room and took a look round at theassembled guests, I never felt more at home in my life. "Yes," said Ito myself, as Mrs. Ellersly was greeting me and as I noted the friendlyinterest in the glances of the women, "this is where I belong. I'mbeginning to come into my own."

  As I look back on it now, I can't refrain from smiling at my ownsimplicity--and snobbishness. For, so determined was I to believe whatI was working for was worth while, that I actually fancied there wereupon these in reality ordinary people, ordinary in looks, ordinary inintelligence, some subtle marks of superiority, that made them at a glancesuperior to the common run. This ecstasy of snobbishness deluded me as tothe women only--for, as I looked at the men, I at once felt myself theirsuperior. They were an inconsequential, patterned lot. I even was betterdressed than any of them, except possibly Mowbray Langdon; and, if heshowed to more advantage than I, it was because of his manner, which, as Ihave probably said before, is superior to that of any human being I've everseen--man or woman.

  "You are to take Anita in," said Mrs. Ellersly. With a laughable sense thatI was doing myself proud, I crossed the room easily and took my stand infront of her. She shook hands with me politely enough. Langdon was sittingbeside her; I had interrupted their conversation.

  "Hello, Blacklock!" said Langdon, with a quizzical, satirical smile withthe eyes only. "It seems strange to see you at such peaceful pursuits."His glance traveled over me critically--and that was the beginning of mytrouble. Presently, he rose, left me alone with her.

  "You know Mr. Langdon?" she said, obviously because she felt she must saysomething.

  "Oh, yes," I replied. "We are old friends. What a tremendous swell heis--really a swell." This with enthusiasm.

  She made no comment. I debated with myself whether to go on talking ofLangdon. I decided against it because all I knew of him had to do withmatters down town--and Monson had impressed it upon me that down town wastaboo in the drawing-room. I rummaged my brain in vain for another andsuitable topic.

  She sat, and I stood--she tranquil and beautiful and cold, I every instantmore miserably self-conscious. When the start for the dining-room wasmade I offered her my left arm, though I had carefully planned beforehandjust what I would do. She--without hesitation and, as I know now, out ofsympathy for me in my suffering--was taking my wrong arm, when it flashedon me like a blinding blow in the face that I ought to be on the other sideof her. I got red, tripped in the far-sprawling train of Mrs. Langdon, toreit slightly, tried to get to the other side of Miss Ellersly by walking infront of her, recovered myself somehow, stumbled round behind her, walkedon her train and finally arrived at her left side, conscious in everyred-hot atom of me that I was making a spectacle of myself and that thewhole company was enjoying it. I must have seemed to them an ignorantboor; in fact, I had been about a great deal among people who knew how tobehave, and had I never given the matter of how to conduct myself on thatparticular occasion an instant's thought, I should have got on without theleast trouble.

  It was with a sigh of profound relief that I sank upon the chair betweenMiss Ellersly and Mrs. Langdon, safe from danger of making "breaks,"so I hoped, for the rest of the evening. But within a very few minutesI realized that my little misadventure had unnerved me. My hands weretrembling so that I could scarcely lift the soup spoon to my lips, and mythroat had got so far beyond control that I had difficulty in swallowing.Miss Ellersly and Mrs. Langdon were each busy with the man on the otherside of her; I was left to my own reflections, and I was not sure whetherthis made me more or less uncomfortable. To add to my torment, I grewangry, furiously angry, with myself. I looked up and down and across thebig table noted all these self-satisfied people perfectly at their ease;and I said to myself: "What's the matter with you, Matt? They're only menand women, and by no means the best specimens of the breed. You've got morebrains than all of 'em put together, probably; is there one of the lot thatcould get a job at good wages if thrown on the world? What do you carewhat they think of you? It's a damn sight more important what you think ofthem; as it won't be many years before you'll hold everything they value,everything that makes them of consequence, in the hollow of your hand."

  But it was of no use. When Miss Ellersly finally turned her face towardme to indicate that she would be graciously pleased to listen if I hadanything to communicate, I felt as if I were slowly wilting, felt my throatcontracting into a dry twist. What was the matter with me? Partly, ofcourse, my own snobbishness, which led me to attach the same importance tothose people that the snobbishness of the small and silly had got them inthe way of attaching to themselves. But the chief cause of my inabilitywas Monson and his lessons. I had thought I was estimating at its propervalue what he was teaching. But so earnest and serious am I by nature,and so earnest and serious was he about those trivialities that he hadbeen brought up to regard as the whole of life, that I had unconsciouslyabsorbed his attitude; I was like a fellow who, after cramming hard foran examination, finds that all the questions put to him are on things hehasn't looked at. I had been making an ass of myself, and that eveningI got the first instalment of my sound and just punishment. I who hadprided myself on being ready for anything or anybody, I who had laughedcontemptuously when I read how men and women, presented at European courts,made fools of themselves--I was made ridiculous by these people who, as Iwell know, had nothing to back their pretensions to superiority but abarefaced bluff.

  Perhaps, had I thought this out at the table, I should have got back tomyself and my normal ease; but I didn't, and that long and terrible dinnerwas one long and terrible agony of stage fright. When the ladies withdrew,the other men drew together, talking of people I did not know and ofthings I did not care about--I thought then that they were avoiding medeliberately as a flock of tame ducks avoids a wild one that some wind hasaccidentally blown down among them. I know now that my forbidding aspectmust have been responsible for my isolations, However, I sat alone,sullenly resisting old Ellersly's constrained efforts to get me intothe conversation, and angrily suspicious that Langdon was enjoying mydiscomfiture more than the cigarette he was apparently absorbed in.

  Old Ellersly, growing more and more nervous before my dark and sullen look,finally seated himself beside me. "I hope you'll stay after the others havegone," said he. "They'll leave early, and we can have a quiet smoke andtalk."

  All unstrung though I was, I yet had the desperate courage to resolve thatI'd not leave, defeated in the eyes of the one person whose opinion Ireally cared about. "Very well," said I, in reply to him.

  He and I did not follow the others to the drawing-room, but turned intothe library adjoining. From where I seated myself I could see part of thedrawing-room--saw the others leaving, saw Langdon lingering, ignoringthe impatient glances of his wife, while he talked on and on with MissEllersly. Her face was full toward me; she was not aware that I waslooking at her, I am sure, for she did not once lift her eyes. As I satstudying her, everything else was crowded out of my mind. She was indeedwonderful--too wonderful and fine and fragile, it seemed to me at thatmoment, for one so plain and rough as I. "Incredible," thought I, "that sheis the child of such a pair as Ellersly and his wife--but again, has sheany less in common with them than she'd have with any other pair of humancreatures?" Her slender white arms, her slender white shoulders, the bloomon her skin, the graceful, careless way her hair grew round her foreheadand at the nape of her neck, the rather haughty expression of her smallface softened into sweetness and even tenderness, now that she was talkingat her ease with one whom she regarded as of her own kind--"but he isn't!"I protested to myself. "Langdon--none of these men--none of these women,is fit to associate with her. They can't appreciate her. She belongs to mewho can." And I had a mad impulse then and there to seize her and bear heraway--home--to the home she could make for me out of what I would show
erupon her.

  At last Langdon rose. It irritated me to see her color under thatindifferent fascinating smile of his. It irritated me to note that he heldher hand all the time he was saying good-by, and the fact that he held itas if he'd as lief not be holding it hardly lessened my longing to rush inand knock him down. What he did was all in the way of perfect good manners,and would have jarred no one not supersensitive, like me--and like hiswife. I saw that she, too, was frowning. She looked beautiful that evening,in spite of her too great breadth for her height--her stoutness was notaltogether a defect when she was wearing evening dress. While she seemedfriendly and smiling to Miss Ellersly, I saw, whether others saw it or not,that she quivered with apprehension at his mildly flirtatious ways. Heacted toward any and every attractive woman as if he were free and wereregarding her as a possibility, and didn't mind if she flattered herselfthat he regarded her as a probability.

  In an aimless sort of way Miss Ellersly, after the Langdons haddisappeared, left the drawing-room by the same door. Still aimlesslywandering, she drifted into the library by the hall door. As I rose, shelifted her eyes, saw me, and drove away the frown of annoyance which cameover her face like the faintest haze. In fact, it may have existed only inmy imagination. She opened a large, square silver box on the table, tookout a cigarette, lighted it and holding it, with the smoke lazily curlingup from it, between the long slender first and second fingers of her whitehand, stood idly turning the leaves of a magazine. I threw my cigar intothe fireplace. The slight sound as it struck made her jump, and I saw that,underneath her surface of perfect calm, she was in a nervous state full astense as my own.

  "You smoke?" said I.

  "Sometimes," she replied. "It is soothing and distracting. I don't know howit is with others, but when I smoke, my mind is quite empty."

  "It's a nasty habit--smoking," said I.

  "Do you think so?" said she, with the slightest lift to her tone and hereyebrows.

  "Especially for a woman," I went on, because I could think of nothing elseto say, and would not, at any cost, let this conversation, so hard tobegin, die out.

  "You are one of those men who have one code for themselves and another forwomen," she replied.

  "I'm a man," said I. "All men have the two codes."

  "Not all," said she after a pause.

  "All men of decent ideas," said I with emphasis.

  "Really?" said she, in a tone that irritated me by suggesting that what Isaid was both absurd and unimportant.

  "It is the first time I've ever seen a respectable woman smoke," I went on,powerless to change the subject, though conscious I was getting tedious."I've read of such things, but I didn't believe."

  "That is interesting," said she, her tone suggesting the reverse.

  "I've offended you by saying frankly what I think," said I. "Of course,it's none of my business."

  "Oh, no," replied she carelessly. "I'm not in the least offended.Prejudices always interest me."

  I saw Ellersly and his wife sitting in the drawing-room, pretending totalk to each other. I understood that they were leaving me alone with herdeliberately, and I began to suspect she was in the plot. I smiled, and mycourage and self-possession returned as summarily as they had fled.

  "I'm glad of this chance to get better acquainted with you," said I. "I'vewanted it ever since I first saw you."

  As I put this to her directly, she dropped her eyes and murmured somethingshe probably wished me to think vaguely pleasant.

  "You are the first woman I ever knew," I went on, "with whom it was hardfor me to get on any sort of terms. I suppose it's my fault. I don't knowthis game yet. But I'll learn it, if you'll be a little patient; and when Ido, I think I'll be able to keep up my end."

  She looked at me--just looked. I couldn't begin to guess what was going onin that gracefully-poised head of hers.

  "Will you try to be friends with me?" said I with directness.

  She continued to look at me in that same steady, puzzling way.

  "Will you?" I repeated.

  "I have no choice," said she slowly.

  I flushed. "What does that mean?" I demanded.

  She threw a hurried and, it seemed to me, frightened glance toward thedrawing-room. "I didn't intend to offend you," she said in a low voice."You have been such a good friend to papa--I've no right to feel anythingbut friendship for you."

  "I'm glad to hear you say that," said I. And I was; for those words of herswere the first expression of appreciation and gratitude I had ever got fromany member of that family which I was holding up from ruin. I put out myhand, and she laid hers in it.

  "There isn't anything I wouldn't do to earn your friendship, Miss Anita," Isaid, holding her hand tightly, feeling how lifeless it was, yet feeling,too, as if a flaming torch were being borne through me, were lighting afire in every vein.

  The scarlet poured into her face and neck, wave on wave, until I thoughtit would never cease to come. She snatched her hand away and from her facestreamed proud resentment. God, how I loved her at that moment!

  "Anita! Mr. Blacklock!" came from the other room, in her mother's voice."Come in here and save us old people from boring each other to sleep."

  She turned swiftly and went into the other room, I following. There were afew minutes of conversation--a monologue by her mother. Then I ceased todisregard Ellersly's less and less covert yawns, and rose to take leave. Icould not look directly at Anita, but I was seeing that her eyes were fixedon me, as if by some compulsion, some sinister compulsion. I left in highspirits. "No matter why or how she looks at you," said I to myself. "Allthat is necessary is to get yourself noticed. After that, the rest is easy.You must keep cool enough always to remember that under this glamour thatintoxicates you, she's a woman, just a woman, waiting for a man."