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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Stars Incline, by Jeanne Judson
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll
-have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
-this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: The Stars Incline
-
-Author: Jeanne Judson
-
-Release Date: October 3, 2019 [EBook #60413]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STARS INCLINE ***
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-Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
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-
-                           THE STARS INCLINE
-
-
-                                   BY
-
-                             JEANNE JUDSON
-
-                      AUTHOR OF “BECKONING ROADS”
-
-[Illustration]
-
-                          McCLELLAND & STEWART
-
-                        PUBLISHERS       TORONTO
-
-                                  1920
-
-
-
-
-                            COPYRIGHT, 1919
-
-                    BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
-
-
-                        PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
-
-
-                       The Quinn & Boden Company
-
-                           BOOK MANUFACTURERS
-                        RAHWAY       NEW JERSEY
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
-
-
-                           THE STARS INCLINE
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER I
-
-
-One can be nineteen and still know a great deal of the world. Ruth
-Mayfield felt that she knew a great deal of the world. She could judge
-character, and taking care of Mother’s business affairs had helped a
-lot, and like most young women of nineteen she knew that if marriage
-offered no more to her than it had offered to her parents, she did not
-want to marry. Of course they hadn’t quarrelled or anything, but they
-lived such dull lives, and there were always money worries—and
-everything.
-
-Ruth had never told her mother any of these things, especially after her
-father died and her mother had cried so much and had seemed to feel even
-worse than Ruth did, for Ruth _had_ felt badly. She had been awfully
-fond of her father, really fonder of him than of her mother. He
-understood her better and it was he who had encouraged her to study art.
-
-That was one of the things that set her apart from other girls in
-Indianapolis. She was an art student. One day she would do great things,
-she knew.
-
-When she was a very little girl she had intended to write. She decided
-this because nothing gave her so much pleasure as reading, not the sort
-of books that delight the hours of the average childhood, but books
-which, had her mother ever taken the trouble to look at them, would have
-made her rather concerned for the future of the small reader. But Mrs.
-Mayfield never troubled to look. The books all came from the
-Indianapolis public library, so they must be all right. They were fairy
-tales at first and later mythology. The mythology of the Greeks and
-Romans which somehow never stepped out of the marble for her; and the
-intensely human mythology of the Icelanders and of the Celts which she
-liked better, and later the mythology of India which fascinated her most
-of all because it had apparently neither beginning nor end. While her
-mother and her mother’s friends were dabbling in Christian Science and
-“New Thought” she was lost in the mysteries of the transmigration of
-souls. Perhaps it was all this delving into the past that gave to her
-wide brown eyes what is called the spirituelle look—a look decidedly
-contradicted by her sturdy body; perhaps, too, it was extensive reading
-that finally decided her not to try to write, but to express herself in
-painting, a medium through which she could depict emotions and dramas
-rather than ideas and facts.
-
-There came to her at the age of fourteen a development which, while it
-increased her faith in things supernormal and for a while fascinated her
-into a deeper delving into the religions of the East, had the final
-effect of frightening her away from things of the mind and turning her
-activities into more beautiful channels. She had read of the
-objectification of ideas and the materialization of thoughts and wanted
-to try to do these things herself, without quite knowing what exercise
-she should make of her knowledge even though it came to her. Like many
-people of a spiritual yet intense nature, of her five senses the sense
-of smell was the keenest. She liked flowers for their odour more than
-for colour or form. One winter day when she had returned home from
-school and was sitting alone with her books—looking out at the
-snow-laden trees instead of studying—she thought of spring and violets;
-she was tired of winter, eager for the spring to come again, and she
-tried to see violets, to catch their scent and their colour. She closed
-her eyes and shut out the winter room and the frost-rimmed window—all
-around her in great warm waves of fragrance rose the odour of
-violets—exquisite English violets with the freshness of the woods in
-them. She took deep breaths, keeping her eyes closed lest the miracle
-should fade. Then when she had quite satisfied herself that she really
-did smell violets she opened her eyes. All about her on the floor, on
-the table, covering her schoolbooks, they lay, great heaps of odorous
-purple blossoms mingled with rich green leaves. With a little cry of
-pleasure and amazement she stretched out her hands to gather them in and
-they were gone. The room was as it had been before, but the odour was
-not gone. For many minutes the fragrance of violets filled her nostrils.
-She was afraid to close her eyes again to bring back the vision, but the
-following day she tried again, and many times afterward. She tried
-different flowers, carnations and Chinese lilies. She could not always
-see the flowers, but she seldom failed with the odour. The game
-fascinated her so that she spent every moment that she could find alone
-in materializing flowers. Then came to her the desire to take the next
-step—to make other people realize her power. Her mother, being the least
-imaginative person she knew as well as the one most conveniently near,
-she decided to try with her. It was one evening when her father was not
-at home. Her mother was busy embroidering—one of those never to be
-finished articles of no conceivable use, which occupy the hands of women
-who have no active interest in life. Ruth was pretending to read. She
-dared not shut her eyes lest her mother should observe. But she bent
-unseeing eyes over her book and concentrated on the inner vision of the
-mystic—shutting out everything except the thought of violets. They were
-her mother’s favourite flower. For many seconds after she herself was
-surrounded by the odour of violets and could see them on her book, her
-mother did not speak. Then she looked up restlessly from her embroidery.
-
-“Have you been using perfume, Ruth?—you know I don’t approve of young
-girls—”
-
-“No, Mother, I haven’t. I haven’t any to use.”
-
-“I smell perfume—violet perfume—it’s more like real violets than just
-perfume—don’t you notice it? The whole room is heavy with it.”
-
-She dropped her embroidery and moved about the room as if hunting for
-the flowers though she knew there were none there.
-
-“It must have been my imagination—it’s gone now. Strange, I was sure I
-smelt violets. I must ask Doctor Gorton about it. It may be a dangerous
-symptom.”
-
-Ruth did not speak. She was rather ashamed and not a little frightened.
-There was nothing of the mischievous about her. She did not want to play
-tricks. She had just wanted to test her power, but this was the last
-time that she consciously tried to use it. For some time the illusion of
-flowers persisted whenever she thought of them, but she tried not to
-think of them and before many months the experiment was a thing of the
-past. It persisted in Ruth only in a deep-rooted faith in the power of
-mind, and in the truth of many things that the average person considered
-superstition. When she heard of deaths and births and marriages—of good
-luck and bad luck—of coincidences and accidents, it seemed to her that
-behind the obvious and accepted causes of all these things she could
-trace an inner and spiritual reason—the working of forces that laughed
-at the clumsy working of material machinery. Yet she no longer delved.
-For a while she actually made a conscious effort to look at life in the
-ordinary way. She was helped in this by the death of her father, which
-placed her in a position of responsibility toward her invalid mother,
-and made her life too full of reality to leave much room for the occult
-and supernatural.
-
-She hadn’t realized quite how much she had loved her mother until she
-died. Mother had been old-fashioned and fussy, but then all invalids
-were fussy, and she had been a dear about letting her go on with her
-studies after Father died, even though she wouldn’t move to Chicago as
-Ruth wished. They could have lived as cheaply in Chicago and Ruth could
-have gone to the art institute there, but Mother wouldn’t consent to the
-move. She wanted to stay near her friends. Ruth couldn’t understand
-that. Her mother’s friends were all such ordinary people. Kind-hearted,
-but quite hopelessly ordinary. It was curious that her mother’s death
-had realized for her one of her most cherished dreams. Mother knew that
-she was going to die. The doctors had told her so, and she had told
-Ruth. It made Ruth cry, but her mother didn’t shed any tears. That was
-why Ruth did. If her mother had cried Ruth would have been more
-controlled, but her mother was so unnaturally calm.
-
-“When I am gone I want you to go to your father’s sister, Gloria
-Mayfield. I hate to send you there, but there’s no one else of your
-blood, and you’re too young to live alone. Gloria has retired from the
-stage and they say she is quite respectable now, and besides you won’t
-be dependent on her. Now that there will be no more doctors’ bills to
-pay, there will be enough money for you to live on, more than any young
-girl ought to have in her own hands. It is all in trust and you will
-have just the income until you are twenty-one.” Ruth made no comment to
-this. Having handled her mother’s business affairs she knew that her
-income would be very small indeed, but she and her mother had different
-ideas as to how much a young girl should spend. “Of course I expect you
-to pay your way with your aunt,” her mother went on. “But you must live
-with some older woman and she is your father’s sister.”
-
-She said it as if the fact that Gloria Mayfield was her father’s sister
-answered all arguments.
-
-“Where does Aunt Gloria live, Mother?” asked Ruth. She accepted the fact
-that her mother would die soon without making an effort to persuade
-either herself or her mother that there was any hope that the doctors
-might be mistaken. She had known for years that her mother would not
-live long. Doctors, New Thought, Christian Science, and Theosophy had
-all been appealed to without having any appreciable effect on her
-mother’s health. Ruth being perfectly healthy was inclined to have faith
-in the New Thought. She disliked the Science because of the word
-Christian, but was inclined to believe that any one of these numerous
-things might have helped if used alone. When her father had died first
-it had seemed unreal—impossible almost, for Ruth and her father had
-always expected her mother to go first, though neither of them would
-have put such a thought into words. It was just an unspoken
-understanding between them.
-
-“In New York,” Mrs. Mayfield had answered; and Ruth was ashamed that her
-first thought on hearing this amazing news was that in New York she
-could study in the best American art schools.
-
-“How old is she?” asked Ruth. She had been a bit troubled by her
-mother’s words about an older woman. Ruth had no desire to go to New
-York to be controlled by some elderly female relative.
-
-“I don’t know. I never saw her. In her younger days she was abroad a
-great deal, and then I never cared to meet her. She was younger than
-your father, quite a lot younger, but she must have reached years of
-discretion by this time. I hope so for your sake. Perhaps I’m not doing
-the right thing by telling you to go to her, but after all she is your
-father’s sister and will be your only relative after I am gone.”
-
-“Have you written to her—do you want me to write?”
-
-“No. I didn’t write to her before and I can’t start now. You will go to
-her after I’m gone as your father’s daughter. Your claim on her is
-through him, not me. You can write to her yourself as soon—as soon as
-you know. Her address is in that little red book on the desk—at least
-that was her address five years ago, when your poor father died. She
-didn’t come to the funeral, though she did write to me, and she may have
-moved since. She probably has. I think on the whole you’d better write
-now so that the letter will have time to follow her.”
-
-Ruth did write and her aunt had not moved, for by a curious coincidence
-Aunt Gloria’s answer came on the very day that her mother died. At the
-time, concerned with her grief, Ruth didn’t read the letter very
-carefully, but afterward—after the funeral, and after all the
-innumerable details had been settled, she went back to it and read it
-again. She didn’t know exactly what to think of it. It filled her with
-doubts. Almost she persuaded herself to disregard her mother’s wish and
-not go to Aunt Gloria at all, but she had already told all her mother’s
-kind friends that that was what she would do. It gave her a logical
-excuse for refusing all of the offers of the well-meaning women who
-asked her to come and stop with them “for a few weeks at least until you
-are more yourself.”
-
-Ruth realized that she had never felt so much herself as she did
-now—rather hopelessly alone and independent in a way that frightened
-her. These kind women were all her mother’s friends, not hers. She had
-none. She had always prided herself on being different from other girls
-and not interested in the things they cared for—boys and parties and
-dress. Even at the art school she had found the other students
-disappointingly frivolous. They had not taken their art seriously as she
-did. The letter was curious:
-
-“My dear child,” she had written, “by all means come to me in New York
-if your mother dies. But why anticipate? She’ll probably live for years.
-I hope so. To say I hope so sounds almost like a lack of hospitality and
-to send you an urgent invitation to come, under the circumstances,
-sounds—This is getting too complicated. Come whenever you need me, I’m
-always at home now.”
-
-And the letter was signed with her full name, Gloria Mayfield. She had
-not even called Ruth niece, or signed herself “your loving aunt,” or
-anything that might be reasonably expected.
-
-Ruth might have lingered on at home, but she had refused the hospitality
-of her mother’s friends and the house was empty and desolate and she was
-dressed in black. She hadn’t wanted to dress in black, but she hadn’t
-the courage to shock people by continuing to wear colours, so she
-hurriedly finished all the ghastly business that some one must always
-finish after a funeral, and then she packed her trunks, putting in all
-the pictures and books that she liked best, and took a train for New
-York. She had a plan in the back of her mind about a studio there. She
-had never seen a real studio, but she had read about them, and if Aunt
-Gloria proved disagreeable, she would go and live in one. She wondered a
-bit what sort of a place Aunt Gloria lived in. The address sounded
-aristocratic and sort of English, Gramercy Square. She liked the sound
-of it.
-
-Her mother’s death had hurt her cruelly, but she was so young that
-already she was beginning to rebound. The journey helped to revive her
-spirits. Everything interested her, but her first sight of New York
-disappointed her vaguely. If she had known, her disappointment was
-caused only because the cab driver took her down Fourth Avenue instead
-of Fifth, and there was little to interest her in the dull publishing
-buildings and wholesale houses, and she missed even the shabby green of
-Madison Square. Her spirits rose a bit when the cab turned into Gramercy
-Square. All the fresh greenness of it, the children playing within the
-iron-barred enclosure, the old-fashioned houses and clubs and the big,
-new apartment buildings looking so clean and quiet in the morning
-sunlight, appealed to her. She rather expected the cab to stop before
-one of the apartment houses, but instead it stopped on the north side of
-the park. Her aunt lived in a house then. This was also cheering. The
-cab driver carried her bag for her up the high steps and she rang the
-bell with a fast-beating heart. She didn’t know exactly what she had
-expected—perhaps that Aunt Gloria would open the door in person—and she
-started back when it was opened by a tall negro who looked as startled
-as herself.
-
-“Is Aunt Gloria—is Miss Mayfield at home?”
-
-“Are you expected?”
-
-He spoke in a soft, precise voice unlike the voice of any nigger Ruth
-had ever heard before. She knew he must be a servant though he was not
-in livery, and she looked at him as she answered, suddenly impressed by
-his regular features, his straight hair, and yellow-brown skin.
-
-“She didn’t know exactly when I’d come, but she knew I was coming. I am
-her niece.”
-
-The servant picked up her bag, which the cab driver had left beside her
-and opened the door wider for her to come in.
-
-“Miss Mayfield is at home. I’ll let her know that you are here if you
-will wait a few moments.”
-
-She was in a wide hall now from which an open staircase rose to rooms
-above. The hall was very cheerful with white woodwork and grey walls
-hung with etchings in narrow black frames. Uninvited Ruth perched
-hesitatingly on the edge of a Chippendale chair and waited. The coloured
-man walked to the far end of the hall, opened a door there and called:
-
-“Amy, come here, you.”
-
-Amy came, a round, short, black woman of the type most familiar to Ruth.
-
-To her the man evidently explained the situation, but his soft voice did
-not carry to Ruth’s end of the hall; not so the voice of Amy. Ruth could
-hear her replies quite plainly.
-
-“Mis’ Mayfiel’ a’n yit had her breakfus’—I’se jes now makin’ de tray—ef
-you sez so I’ll tell her, but dis a’n no hour to be talkin’ to Mis’
-Mayfiel’.”
-
-Both Amy and the man disappeared through the door and soon Amy emerged
-again carrying a breakfast tray. She went past Ruth and up the stairs.
-Ruth was growing impatient and rather offended. Of course she should
-have sent a wire, but even so, Gloria Mayfield was her aunt and she
-should have been taken to her at once. Evidently her aunt ate breakfast
-in bed. Perhaps she was an invalid like her mother. Ruth hoped not.
-Evidently too she had a lot more money than Ruth had supposed. Her
-impatience was not alleviated when Amy came down the stairs again
-without speaking to her. It was unbearable that she should sit here in
-the hall of her aunt’s house, ignored like a book agent. In another
-moment the man had reappeared.
-
-“Miss Mayfield will see you as soon as she can dress, Miss, and would
-you like breakfast in your room or downstairs?”
-
-He had picked up Ruth’s bag as he spoke.
-
-“I’ve had breakfast,” said Ruth. She had indeed eaten breakfast in Grand
-Central Station. It was only seven o’clock in the morning when she
-arrived in New York, and that had seemed rather an early hour for even a
-relative to drop into her aunt’s home unexpectedly.
-
-She followed the servant up the stairs, mentally commenting on how she
-hated “educated niggers.” Yet she had to admit there was nothing
-disrespectful in his manner. He set her bag down in one of the rooms
-opening out of the circular landing and asked for her trunk checks, and
-suggested sending Amy up to make her comfortable. She gave him the trunk
-checks, refused the offer of Amy’s help, and when he had closed the door
-sat down to examine her surroundings and wait for the appearance of her
-aunt.
-
-There had been a certain charm about the entrance hall and stairway of
-the house, but the room in which she found herself was as uninteresting
-as possible. It was large and high-ceiled and almost empty and streamers
-of loosened and discoloured wall paper hung from the walls. It was in
-the rear of the house. The few essential pieces of furniture in the room
-made it look even larger than it really was. It looked like what it was,
-a very much unused bedroom in a house very much too large for its
-inhabitants. She walked to the window and looked out, but the view did
-not interest her. It was only of the rear of the houses on Twenty-second
-Street. The house opposite had a tiny back garden that ran out to meet a
-similar back garden in the rear of her aunt’s house. Ruth did not call
-this plot of ground a garden, because it had nothing growing in it
-except one stunted, twisted tree on the branches of which September had
-left a dozen pale green leaves. It made her think of an anæmic slum
-child. Looking at it Ruth felt suddenly very sad and neglected. She had
-hoped that her aunt would not be too much like a relative, but now she
-began to persuade herself that she had looked forward to the embracing
-arms of a motherly aunt, and her cold reception had quite broken her
-heart. Instead of a fussy, motherly relative she had found a cold,
-selfish woman living in a house much too large, surrounded by
-servants—Ruth had only seen two but there were probably more. She was
-unwelcome; she had been shoved off into the shabbiest room in the house
-by an insolent servant. But she was not a pauper. She would tell her
-aunt very coldly that she had only come to pay her respects and was
-going immediately to an hotel.
-
-“Oh no, Aunt Gloria; I couldn’t think of imposing on you,” she could
-hear herself saying, and of course then her aunt would urge her to stay,
-but she wouldn’t. What could her aunt do in such a big house? It was
-four floors and a basement. It must be full of shabby, unused rooms like
-this one. Just then there was a knock at the door, and she hadn’t even
-smoothed her hair or powdered her nose as she had intended doing before
-her aunt sent for her.
-
-“Come in,” she said. Her voice sounded husky and unused. The words were
-scarcely out of her mouth when the door opened and a woman swept into
-the room—the tallest woman she had ever seen, at least six feet tall and
-slender without being thin—a graceful tiger lily of a woman with masses
-of auburn hair and big grey, black-lashed eyes and a straight white nose
-and a crushed flower of a mouth. With one hand she was holding a
-gorgeous, nameless garment of amber silk and lace and the other hand was
-held out to Ruth. Even as she took it Ruth realized that it would have
-been preposterous to have expected the goddess to kiss her.
-
-“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting—Ruth,” she said. Her voice was
-like silver bells ringing.
-
-“I should have wired,” admitted Ruth. Her voice sounded flat and
-toneless after hearing her aunt speak.
-
-“It would have been awkward if I hadn’t happened to be in town, but I
-was, so it’s all right. You’re older than I thought, I was afraid that
-you’d turn out a little girl.”
-
-“And you’re ever so much younger than I thought, Aunt Gloria,” said
-Ruth, beginning to gain her composure.
-
-“Thirty-five last birthday,” said her aunt.
-
-Immediately Ruth realized that thirty-five was the only possible age for
-a woman. To be older or younger than thirty-five was infinitely dull.
-She herself at nineteen, which only a few moments ago she had considered
-a very interesting age indeed, was quite hopeless.
-
-“But come, we mustn’t stay in this awful room. I didn’t tell George just
-where to take you. Certainly not here. I’ll have a room fixed up for
-you. Did George send for your trunks? He said you’d had breakfast, but
-that can’t be true—coffee perhaps, but not breakfast—I only had coffee
-myself. So we can eat together while they’re getting a room ready for
-you.” She was sweeping Ruth along with her down the stairs as she
-talked, not waiting for answers to anything she said. At the foot she
-turned and opened a door at the left of the staircase and peered in.
-
-“Too gloomy in the dining-room in the morning. We’ll go in here,” and
-she turned to the other side, opening a door into a big room, all
-furnished in soft grey and dull gold. Ruth’s artist eye perceived how
-such a neutral-tinted background was just the thing to enhance the
-colourful appearance and personality of her aunt. The only touch of
-vivid colour in the room was in the hangings at the deep, high windows
-that looked out on the park.
-
-“Have Amy bring our breakfast in here,” said Gloria, and then Ruth saw
-that George was standing in the doorway of the room they had just
-entered, though she had not heard her aunt call him. Later she observed
-the same thing many times, that George always appeared as if by magic
-and seemingly without being called whenever her aunt wanted him.
-
-The room was full of comfortable, low, cushioned chairs, and seated on
-two of them with a table between, on which George had laid a white
-cloth, Ruth and her aunt Gloria gave each other that full scrutiny which
-surprise and embarrassment had previously denied them.
-
-Ruth could see now that her aunt was not really so young as she had at
-first appeared. There were fine lines around her large eyes and art, not
-nature had painted her lashes black. Her fine brows had been “formed”
-and there were little, pale freckles gleaming on her white nose and
-across her long, cleanly moulded hands. Ruth saw all these things and
-they only strengthened her belief that Aunt Gloria was the most
-beautiful and charming woman in the world. She hoped very much that her
-aunt would like her, but she was not sanguine about it. She tried to
-tell herself that this woman was only her father’s sister, but it was
-hard to believe.
-
-“Now, tell me all about it,” said Gloria.
-
-“There’s very little to tell. Mother died on the tenth—your letter
-arrived on the same day. Of course it wasn’t unexpected. She had been an
-invalid for almost ten years, so it wasn’t a shock. I was the only
-relative at the funeral, but Mother had ever so many friends—”
-
-She paused, wondering if she ought to tell Aunt Gloria about the
-flowers, the Eastern Star wreath, and—
-
-“I don’t mean that,” Gloria interrupted her thoughts. “I mean how your
-mother happened to suggest that you come here. You know Jack’s wife
-didn’t approve of me—refused to meet me even, and I can’t understand.
-Was there some sort of deathbed forgiveness, or what?”
-
-There was the faintest trace of mockery in her voice, but somehow Ruth
-could not be angry, though she knew that this woman, her father’s
-sister, was laughing at her dead mother and her dead mother’s
-conventions and moralities. She decided that she would be as frank as
-her aunt.
-
-“No, Aunt Gloria, I don’t think Mother’s views had changed at all. She
-sent me here because you are my only living relative and she thought I
-was too young to live alone—and I came,” she continued bravely, “because
-New York is the best place in America to study art and I want to be a
-great painter. But if you don’t want me here I’ll live alone—I have
-money you know, and Mother intended that I should pay my own way.”
-
-“I understand,” said Gloria, nodding. “That would be in character—a sort
-of blood is stronger than Bohemia idea.”
-
-“And then,” continued Ruth, determined to be absolutely frank, “I think
-Mother was under the impression that you were older than you are, and
-had settled down—you have retired from the stage?”
-
-Again Gloria laughed.
-
-“My dear child, I’ve done nothing but retire from the stage ever since I
-first went on it, but that doesn’t matter. I agree with your mother that
-you will be much better off here with me than alone, and I shall be very
-glad to have you—it means one more permanent resident in this huge barn
-of a house. Only please don’t call me Aunt. Call me Gloria. My being
-your aunt is more or less of an accident. The fact that I like you is of
-vastly more importance, and if you like me we shall get on very well
-together.”
-
-“I think you’re wonderful,” admitted Ruth, blushing deeply.
-
-“Very well, then, you shall stay here—you can have two rooms or more if
-you want ’em, fixed up to suit yourself, and you can spend your income
-on your clothes and your education—but you will be here as my guest, not
-as my relative. I dislike relatives inordinately—don’t you?”
-
-Without giving Ruth time to reply she went on:
-
-“Have you thought about where you’re going to study?”
-
-“No; I suppose there are a number of places.”
-
-“There are, of course; the Art Students’ League is one of the best. The
-associations there should be good. You’ll be working with the
-strugglers. How old are you?”
-
-“Nineteen.”
-
-“Nineteen and the whole world before you, work and failure and success
-and New York and Paris and your first love affair—you’re young and you
-don’t have to nibble at the loaf; you can take big, hungry bites, and
-when the time for nibbling does come, you’ll have a banquet to
-remember.”
-
-“Where is the Art Students’ League?” asked Ruth.
-
-Her aunt fascinated her; she talked “like a book,” Ruth thought, but
-Ruth herself was practical despite her dreaming and the talk of art
-schools interested her.
-
-“Oh, it’s a school with small fees—if you have a lot of talent they give
-scholarships—I don’t really know much about it, except that it’s on
-Fifty-seventh Street some place, and that it is supposed to be proper
-and good. You might try it for a year—then you’ll probably be wanting
-Paris. In another year I may feel old enough to chaperon you.”
-
-After breakfast they went through the house, planning where Ruth should
-establish herself, finally deciding on two rooms on the fourth floor,
-because one of them had a skylight and could be used as a studio, where
-Ruth could work undisturbed.
-
-The next few days were spent in buying furniture, in having the rooms
-redecorated, and in becoming familiar with New York.
-
-Ruth was determined not to be impressed by anything, a determination
-that led Gloria Mayfield to suspect that her niece was of a phlegmatic
-temperament, and to wonder why she wanted to be an artist. Only the
-quiet sense of humour that Ruth displayed at rare intervals, encouraged
-her to believe that having her niece with her might not be a bad
-arrangement.
-
-Ruth on her part discovered that her Aunt Gloria had a wide and varied
-circle of friends and no particularly well-defined scheme of existence.
-And she discovered a little of Gloria Mayfield’s past, the past that had
-been so shrouded in mystery in her mother’s house. It was when Ruth had
-made a remark about her aunt living alone in such a large house.
-
-“Yes, it is large, but what am I to do?” said Gloria. “My second husband
-wished it on me and my third was kind enough to settle enough income on
-me to pay the taxes, and there you are. Of course I could let it to some
-one else, but it’s nice to have a lot of room.”
-
-Ruth could not disguise her shock and astonishment.
-
-“Oh, didn’t you know?” asked Gloria, smiling cheerfully.
-
-“I didn’t know you’d been married at all,” said Ruth.
-
-“Only once, really—the others were almost too casual. I supposed your
-mother had told you.”
-
-“Did they die?” asked Ruth.
-
-“Not to my knowledge—I never killed any of them,” said Gloria.
-
-And Ruth put this conversation away in the back of her brain for future
-reference, along with several dozen other things that she didn’t exactly
-understand.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER II
-
-
-Ruth would have liked a scholarship—not because she could not easily
-afford the small fees at the Art Students’ League, but because a
-scholarship would have meant that she had unusual talent; but she didn’t
-get one. No one seemed particularly interested in her work. The woman
-who enrolled her in the League was as casual as a clerk in an hotel.
-
-The manner of the enrolment clerk and the grandeur of the Fine Arts
-Building produced a feeling of insignificance in Ruth that was far from
-pleasant. She engaged her locker for the year, and when she was led to
-it to put her board and paints away, and saw the rows upon rows of other
-lockers, she felt even smaller. Was it possible that all those lockers
-were needed? That so many other girls and boys were also art students?
-If there was an art student for every locker and each of them shared her
-determination to become a great painter, the world would be so flooded
-with splendid art that one might better be a stenographer. Then she
-comforted herself that all of the students could not possibly succeeded.
-Some of them, the girls especially, would doubtless give up art for
-marriage and babies. Some of the men would become commercialized, go in
-for illustrating or even advertising, but she would go “onward and
-upward,” as her instructor in Indianapolis had so thrillingly said. She
-felt better after that; and seeing her reflection in a shop window she
-felt better still. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was interesting
-looking, she told herself. The way she combed her almost black hair down
-over her ears Madonna fashion, her little low-heeled shoes, her complete
-absence of waist line, all marked her as “different.”
-
-She had enrolled for the morning class in portrait painting from 9:00 to
-12:30 and the afternoon class in life drawing from 1:00 to 4:30 and she
-would attend the Friday afternoon lectures on anatomy. They began at
-4:30, after the first of November, so she could go direct from her life
-class to the lecture. She would have liked to attend some of the evening
-classes, too, but Gloria had suggested that she wait a bit.
-
-“My word, child, it’s all right to work hard. One must work hard, but
-don’t spend twenty-four hours a day at it. It’s bad enough to begin at
-the unearthly hour of nine in the morning without spending your evenings
-there, too.”
-
-Afterward Ruth was glad that she had not enrolled in any of the evening
-classes. She usually returned to the house on Gramercy Square about five
-o’clock in the afternoon, just when Gloria’s day seemed to be properly
-begun, and there were always people there who interested Ruth, though
-she took little part in the conversation. Ruth would come into the hall,
-her sketches under her arm, and Gloria would call to her and she would
-walk into the big comfortable room and be introduced to half a dozen
-people, whose names she seldom remembered. The people would nod to her
-and go on with their conversation, and she would sit back listening and
-watching, feeling more like an audience at a play than one of the group
-of people in a drawing-room.
-
-Most of the conversation was quite meaningless to her, but there was one
-man, one of the few who did not change in the ever-changing group, who
-interested her intensely. She gathered that he was a playwright and that
-he had written the book and lyrics for a musical comedy that was to have
-its New York _première_ soon. One of the other men called him a show
-doctor, and said that he had written lines into over half the shows on
-Broadway.
-
-All of the other people seemed to think him “terribly clever,” but Ruth
-didn’t understand all of the things at which they laughed. They were
-always begging him to sing his latest song, and he never demurred,
-though any one could tell with half an ear that he hadn’t any voice at
-all. He sang in a queer, half-chanty voice, with a curious appealing
-note in it.
-
-“Do you really like his singing?” she once asked Gloria.
-
-“His voice, you mean?” Gloria looked at her with the little frown
-between her eyes and the amused twist to her mouth that Ruth often
-observed when her aunt was explaining things to her. “Of course not;
-it’s not his voice, it’s his song. He’s the cleverest song writer in New
-York, and he’s already written two fairly successful plays. He’s young,
-you know.”
-
-“Is he? I thought he must be thirty at least.”
-
-Then Gloria laughed outright.
-
-“He is about thirty, but that isn’t old. He’s a funny, old dear, don’t
-you think so?”
-
-“Yes,” admitted Ruth. “He dresses oddly—that is—”
-
-“I know what you mean, but you see a man like Terry Riordan doesn’t have
-to keep his trousers pressed. No other man is worth listening to while
-Terry is in the room.”
-
-Ruth decided that she would pay particular attention to Terry Riordan
-the next time she met him.
-
-Her opportunity came the next day. She had gone out to lunch that day
-and had been a little late at life class in consequence, and had to
-stand up at an easel in the back instead of sitting among the more
-fortunate ones in the front rows, where early arrival had usually placed
-her. The model was a man—“Krakowski, the wrestler,” one of the girls had
-whispered to her. “He’s got a wonderful body; we’re lucky to get him.”
-
-Ruth could not control a little gasp of admiration when he stepped on
-the model throne. He looked like a statue with his shining
-smooth-muscled body, and he stood almost as still. It was several
-minutes before Ruth could get the proper, impersonal attitude toward
-him. Most of the models had quite uninteresting faces, but Krakowski had
-a face almost as handsome as his body, and there was a half smile on his
-lips as if he were secretly amused at the students. For a second Ruth
-saw them through his eyes—thin, earnest-eyed girls, dressed in “arty”
-garments, squinting at him over drawing-boards as if the fate of nations
-depended on their work, well-dressed dabblers and shabby strugglers
-after beauty. She noted again the two old women, the fat one with the
-dyed hair, and the ribbons and art jewelry and the thin one whose hair
-was quite frankly grey. The fat one had attracted Ruth’s attention the
-very first day because in the rest period she ran around insisting that
-every one near her should look at her work and offer criticism, and when
-the instructor came through she monopolized as much of his time as
-possible to his obvious annoyance.
-
-Why didn’t they think of studying art twenty years ago? Ruth wondered.
-It seemed to her that the model was thinking the same thing. Then she
-forgot his face and began to block in her sketch.
-
-The girl next to her had a scholarship, her name was Dorothy Winslow, a
-rather pretty, widemouthed girl with a shock of corn-coloured bobbed
-hair and very merry blue eyes. Out of the corner of her eye Ruth watched
-her work. She had large, beautiful hands and the ends of her slim
-fingers were always smudged with charcoal or blotted up with paint. She
-wore a painting-smock of purple and green batik. Ruth was tremendously
-impressed, but tried not to be. She was torn between a desire to dress
-in the same manner and a determination to consider herself superior to
-such affectations and remain smug in the consciousness of her
-conventional dress. Still she did wonder how she would look with her
-hair bobbed. How fast Dorothy Winslow worked. Her pencil seemed so sure.
-Never mind, she must not be jealous.
-
-“Facility? Facility is dangerous—big things aren’t done in a few
-minutes—Rome wasn’t built in a day,” she said to herself in the best
-manner of her instructor in Indianapolis. One thing that puzzled her was
-the way the instructors left the students alone. They were there to
-teach, why didn’t they do it? Instead, they passed around about twice a
-week and looked at the drawings and said something like “You’re getting
-on all right—just keep it up,” or now and then really gave a criticism,
-but more often just looked and passed on to the next without a word in
-the most tantalizing manner possible. The reticence of the instructors
-was amply balanced by the loquacity of the students. They looked at each
-other’s work and criticized or praised in the frankest manner possible,
-and seemingly without a hint of jealousy or self-consciousness. It was
-time to rest. The model left the throne and immediately the students all
-left their drawing-boards to talk.
-
-Dorothy Winslow leaned over Ruth’s shoulder.
-
-“That’s really awfully nice, the way you’ve got that line,—” she pointed
-with one long, slim charcoal-smudged finger.
-
-“Do you think so? Thank you,” said Ruth.
-
-“Krakowski’s lovely to work from, anyway. I’d love to paint him. He’s
-got such an interesting head.”
-
-“Yes—it distracted me from my work a little,” admitted Ruth. “Why,
-you’ve almost got a finished sketch,” she continued, looking at
-Dorothy’s board.
-
-“I always work fast,” admitted Dorothy, “but I’ll do it all over again a
-dozen times before the week is finished.”
-
-“I wonder how she happened to take up art,” said Ruth, nodding toward
-the broad back of the fat lady with the dyed hair.
-
-“Oh, she’s—she’s just one of the perpetual students—they say she’s been
-coming here for ten years—didn’t they have any perpetual students where
-you came from? But perhaps this is your first year?”
-
-“No, I studied a year in the Indianapolis Art School and we didn’t have
-any perpetual art students. Is the one with grey hair a perpetual
-student, too?”
-
-“Yes; we had one, a man too, in San Francisco where I came from.”
-
-“Why do they do it? Isn’t it rather pitiful, or are they rich women with
-a fad?”
-
-“No, indeed, they’re not rich. I never heard of a perpetual student who
-was rich. Why, Camille De Muth, the fat one, sometimes has to pose in
-the portrait class to earn money to pay for her life.”
-
-“How does she live?” asked Ruth.
-
-“Dear Lord, as well ask me why is an art student as how does one
-live—how do any of us live, except of course the lucky ones with an
-allowance from home?”
-
-All the time she was talking, Dorothy Winslow was moving her hands,
-defying all the laws of physiology by bending her long fingers back over
-the tops of them, and by throwing one white thumb out of joint.
-
-“But you haven’t told me why they do it—why they keep on studying year
-after year. Don’t they try to make any use of what they’ve learned?”
-
-“Not that I ever heard of—they’re just—just art artists. They spend
-their lives in class and at exhibitions, but I’ve never tried to
-understand them—too busy trying to understand myself.”
-
-“What do they do when they’re not here?” asked Ruth.
-
-“They spend their leisure in the cool marble twilight of the
-Metropolitan, making bad copies of old masters.”
-
-The model had reappeared and they went back to their boards, but after
-class Ruth found that Dorothy Winslow was walking by her side toward
-Fifth Avenue.
-
-“Do you go downtown?” asked Dorothy.
-
-“Yes,” admitted Ruth. She was really very much interested in Dorothy,
-but she was a bit afraid that the girl would attract attention on the
-street. She now had a vivid blue tam with a yellow tassel on her fluffy
-hair.
-
-“How do you go?”
-
-“On the ’bus,” said Ruth.
-
-“So do I, when I can afford it; when I can’t I walk, but I guess I can
-spend the dime today. I got some fashion work to do last week.”
-
-“Fashions?” Ruth could not keep the scorn out of her voice.
-
-“Oh, I know how you feel about that, but one can’t become Whistler or
-Sargent all in a day, and paint and Michelet paper and canvas cost
-money.”
-
-“You must be awfully clever to be able to earn money with your work
-already,” admitted Ruth, a bit ashamed of herself.
-
-“I have talent,” admitted Dorothy, “but then so many people have talent.
-I’ve got an idea that work counts a whole lot more than talent, but of
-course that’s an awfully practical, inartistic idea—only I can’t help
-it. I had to come to New York and I couldn’t come without a scholarship,
-so I worked and got it. What do you think about it?”
-
-“Work counts of course, but without the divine spark of genius—one must
-have talent and genius, and then work added makes the ideal combination.
-Why, if only hard work were necessary, any one, any stevedore or common
-labourer or dull bookkeeper, could become a great artist.”
-
-“That doesn’t sound so silly to me. I really think they could, if the
-idea only occurred to them and they didn’t give up. I think any one can
-be anything they please, if they only please it long enough.”
-
-It was like Ruth to answer this with a quotation.
-
-“I don’t think so,” she said. “‘There is a destiny that shapes our ends,
-rough-hew them as we may.’”
-
-“Perhaps, but some people do a lot more rough-hewing than others, and
-I’m going to hew my way to a position as the greatest American portrait
-painter, and it won’t be so rough either.”
-
-Before such blind self-confidence Ruth was dumb. She also intended to be
-a great something or other in the world of art, but she had never
-thought definitely enough about it to decide just what it would be. She
-did think now, or spoke without thinking.
-
-“Then I’ll be the greatest landscape painter—landscapes with figures.”
-
-Before they parted at Twentieth Street, Ruth had promised to go to an
-exhibition with Dorothy on the following Saturday.
-
-Gloria had given her a latch key and she went into the house on Gramercy
-Square without ringing the bell. She expected to hear her aunt’s voice,
-but instead a man’s voice called out:
-
-“That you, Gloria?”
-
-She answered by walking into the drawing-room, disappointed at not
-finding Gloria there.
-
-“Where is Gloria?”
-
-They both said it at once, and then they both laughed. Terry Riordan was
-very appealing when he laughed. He had risen at her entrance, and was
-standing loose-limbed yet somehow graceful in his formless tweeds.
-
-“I’ve been waiting at least an hour for her, though it was obvious that
-George didn’t want me here. He quite overpowered me with big words and
-proper English to explain why he thought my waiting quite uncalled for.”
-
-“He’s like that, but Gloria is sure to come if you wait long enough,”
-said Ruth, sinking wearily into a chair and dropping her sketches beside
-her on the floor.
-
-“Even if she doesn’t I couldn’t find a more comfortable place than this
-to loaf. I’m too nervous to be any place else in comfort. The show opens
-tonight. It was all right at the tryout in Stamford, but that doesn’t
-mean much. I want a cigarette, and George frightened me so that I didn’t
-dare ask him where they are.”
-
-“Frightened? You, Mr. Riordan?”
-
-“There, you looked like Gloria then. You are relatives, of course, same
-name and everything, but I never noticed any resemblance before. Suppose
-you must be distant relatives.”
-
-“Gloria says we must be very distant relatives in order to be close
-friends,” said Ruth, dodging the invitation to tell the extent of her
-relationship to Gloria.
-
-“As for the cigarettes, there should be some in the blue Ming jar over
-there, or, if you prefer, you can roll your own. There’s tobacco in the
-box—Gloria’s own tobacco.”
-
-“Thanks; I suppose I could have found it myself, but I was actually
-afraid to look around—George gave me such a wicked look—he did indeed,”
-said Terry. “What a wonderful woman Gloria Mayfield is,” he continued as
-he lit a cigarette.
-
-“I know,” said Ruth. “No wonder she has so many friends.”
-
-“Every one loves Gloria,” continued Terry.
-
-“You love her?” asked Ruth. She felt that this man was confiding in her.
-She wondered if he had proposed to Gloria and if his suit was hopeless.
-She felt sorry for him, but even while she sympathized she could not
-keep the three husbands out of her mind. Three husbands were rather
-overwhelming, but four! Somehow, it didn’t seem quite right, even for so
-amazing a woman as Gloria.
-
-“I should say I do love Gloria. Why, she lets me read everything I’ve
-written and always applauds. That’s one of the things I came for today.
-I’ve written that number for Dolly Derwent. Want to hear it?”
-
-“Yes, please; I’d love to hear it.”
-
-“Got to tell some one,” said Terry, and without waiting for further
-encouragement, he began singing in his queer, plaintive voice, that made
-his words sound even more nonsensical than they were, a song the refrain
-of which was:
-
-          “_Any judge can recognize
-          A perfect lady by her eyes,
-          And they ain’t got nothing, they ain’t got nothing,
-          They ain’t got nothing on me._”
-
-“Do you think that’ll get across? You know Dolly Derwent. Don’t you
-think that will suit her?”
-
-Now, Ruth had never seen Dolly Derwent, and looking at Terry Riordan she
-suddenly decided to drop pretence.
-
-“I’ve never seen her,” she admitted, “and while I suppose your songs are
-awfully clever and funny, I don’t know anything about the stage and half
-the time I don’t know what you’re all talking about. You see I haven’t
-been in New York long and I spend most of my time at the Art Students’
-League and I’m afraid I’m not much good as a critic.”
-
-For a few moments Terry did not answer. He just looked at her, smiling.
-His smile diffused a warm glow all round her heart as if he were telling
-her that he understood all about her and rather admired her for not
-understanding all the stage patter.
-
-“Suppose you show me your sketches. I don’t know any more about art than
-you do about the stage, so then we’ll be even,” he said.
-
-“There’s nothing here that would interest you—just studies from the life
-class.”
-
-“I say there’s an idea for a number—chorus of art students in smocks and
-artists’ caps and a girl with an awfully good figure on a model
-throne—no, that’s been used. Still there ought to be some sort of an
-original variation of the theme.” He took out his notebook and wrote
-something in it.
-
-“Shall I bring tea, Miss Ruth?”
-
-George was standing in the doorway, having appeared suddenly from
-nowhere.
-
-“Yes, thank you, George—”
-
-“Perhaps if we go on just as if we weren’t waiting for Gloria, she’ll
-come.”
-
-“I’d forgotten that we were waiting for her,” said Terry. “Do you know,
-I think that nigger is jealous of me—you know, as dogs are sometimes
-jealous of their mistress’ friends—and he’s only being civil now because
-I’m talking to you instead of Gloria. Some day he’s going to put
-something in my high ball.”
-
-“What a terrible thing to say,” said Ruth. “I’m sure George is perfectly
-harmless. It’s only that he doesn’t talk like other niggers.”
-
-“Don’t call him a nigger!” exclaimed Terry, pretending to be shocked.
-“Hasn’t Gloria told you that he is a Hindoo—half-caste I imagine, and he
-came from some weird place, and I heartily wish he’d return to it.”
-
-A Hindoo—that explained George’s appearance, but it made him more
-puzzling as a servant than before. He was not like the imaginations of
-Hindoos that her reading had built up, but perhaps as Terry said he was
-a half-caste. Terry’s words, for the moment, surprised her out of
-speech.
-
-“Here’s Gloria now,” he said. “We must stop talking treason. She thinks
-she has the best servants in the world.”
-
-Gloria came in, filling the room with cold outer air mingled with the
-odour of the violets pinned on her sables.
-
-“Just look who’s here,” she said, holding a small, plump, frizzled,
-blond woman of about forty in front of her. “Billie Irwin—she came over
-from London with the unfortunate ‘Love at First Sight’ company, and here
-she is with no more engagement than a trapeze performer with a broken
-leg—you know her, don’t you, Terry?—well, anyway you know her now, and
-this is Ruth Mayfield—not in the profession, an artist of a different
-kind.”
-
-“How interesting!” murmured Billie Irwin.
-
-“Tea? Take it away, George—we don’t want tea. I want dinner just as soon
-as Amy can get it. We’re all going to see the opening of ‘Three Merry
-Men.’ You thought I was going to fail you, didn’t you, Terry? But we’re
-not, we’ll all be there. And, George, do get a room ready for Miss
-Irwin. She’s going to stay for a few days with me.”
-
-“She means a few months,” whispered Terry to Ruth, thereby establishing
-between them a secret confidence.
-
-That night Ruth got a new impression of Terry Riordan. He did not stay
-to dinner, though Gloria asked him, but he met them at the theatre.
-Every one seemed to know him and treated him as quite an important
-person. It was her first experience of a first night, and she got the
-impression that these people were waiting through the acts for the
-intermissions instead of waiting through the intermissions for the acts.
-Terry wasn’t in their box, he had a seat in the back of the theatre with
-Philip Noel, who had written the music, but he slipped in and out during
-the evening to chat and to hear words of praise.
-
-“How do you think it’s going to go?” Gloria asked him when he returned
-to their box after the first intermission.
-
-“Badly, I’m afraid; I met several of the newspaper men out there, and
-they seemed to like it. If the critics like it, it’s almost sure to
-close in three weeks,” said Terry.
-
-“I won’t believe it. It is sure to have a long run,” said Gloria.
-
-“God knows I did my best to lower the moral tone of the thing and make
-it successful,” said Terry. “If it will only run long enough to give me
-some royalties, just long enough to keep me going until my comedy is
-finished, I won’t care.”
-
-They chatted on, commenting on the people on the stage until Ruth lost
-all sense of illusion. They took away from her the fairyland sense that
-had formerly made the theatre a joy, and as yet she had not acquired the
-knowledge of stagecraft that gives the stage a stronger fascination for
-theatrical folk than for the people who have never seen it in any way
-except from “out front.”
-
-She knew that the music was all stolen from something else, for a
-composer, a rival of Philip Noel, who had dropped in to chat with
-Gloria, had said so; that in an effort to do something original the
-costumer had produced frightful results, for Terry Riordan had commented
-on it, and Billie Irwin had spoken of how often the leading woman
-flatted her notes. Her voice had been bad enough when she started ten
-years ago, and now it was quite hopeless.
-
-Terry Riordan had not spoken to Ruth since their arrival, when he had
-pretended to be quite overcome with the grandeur of her gown. Since then
-he had devoted himself entirely to Gloria. Ruth couldn’t blame him for
-that. Gloria made every one else appear colourless. No wonder Terry
-Riordan loved her. It was foolish of her to let him occupy her thoughts.
-No man in his right mind would give her a second thought in the presence
-of Gloria. Even the thought that she was an art student no longer
-brought comfort. There were so many art students in New York. Still she
-could not keep Terry out of her mind. It was not that she thought him a
-genius. Indeed, she rather scorned his slapstick lyrics. New York might
-bow down before his frayed cuff cleverness, but she was from the Middle
-West, where men are rated by what they have done, not what they are
-going to do. She couldn’t analyse exactly what it was about Terry
-Riordan that stirred her emotions,—some sympathetic quality in his voice
-perhaps, his never-failing cheerfulness and his absolute confidence in
-his own future. She was rather glad that he didn’t talk to her very
-much, for she blushed whenever he spoke to her. She had blushed when he
-spoke about her frock and old John Courtney had commented on it in his
-absurd exaggerated manner.
-
-“How charmingly you blush, Miss Mayfield,” he had said. “You must pardon
-an old gentleman for speaking of it, my dear, but I dare say it is the
-only genuine blush that Broadway has seen these forty years.”
-
-If it had been possible to be annoyed by anything the ancient matinée
-idol said, Ruth would have been annoyed, especially as it momentarily
-attracted the attention of every one to the party, to herself.
-
-John Courtney was another of Gloria’s admirers.
-
-“The best actress in New York,” he whispered to Ruth. “But she hasn’t
-had an engagement for three years. She won’t take anything but leads,
-and there isn’t a man who dares play opposite her. It’s not alone that
-she’s so tall—though no man likes to play opposite a woman from one to
-five inches taller than he—it’s her personality. She fills the stage.
-The other players are just so much background.”
-
-Later even John Courtney seemed to forget the existence of Ruth, and she
-sat back in the crowded box in the crowded theatre quite alone. She
-could not even watch the stage—for they had reduced the people on it to
-a group of ordinary individuals working at their trade. She had a little
-sketch pad and a pencil with her and began making caricatures of the
-principals. She became absorbed in this and forgot to feel alone.
-
-“That nose is wonderful and that’s just her trick with her hands. I
-didn’t know you were a cartoonist.”
-
-It was Terry Riordan looking over her shoulder. She had not known he was
-in the box.
-
-“I’m not a cartoonist,” she said, making an effort to hide her sketch
-pad. “I was only doing it for fun.”
-
-“But they’re great; let me see the others. I had no idea you were so
-talented. I thought you just daubed around with paint.”
-
-From any one else the words would have been cruel enough, but from Terry
-Riordan they were almost unbearable. She could hardly keep the tears
-back.
-
-“That isn’t talent,” she managed to articulate. “It’s just facility. I
-am studying painting—I never do this sort of thing seriously—I was just
-playing.”
-
-He had taken the sketches from her and was looking at her in puzzled
-wonder.
-
-“Do you mean to say you don’t want to do this sort of thing—that you
-consider it beneath your talent?”
-
-“It doesn’t interest me.” She spoke with as much dignity as she could
-muster. For a moment he looked troubled, then his irresistible smile
-came.
-
-“Never mind, I understand,” he said. “Ten years ago I intended to be a
-modern Shakespeare—and just see the awful end to which I’ve come.”
-
-Just then the curtain went up, and she did not notice that he had not
-returned her sketches.
-
-Up to this time Gloria had been the gayest person there—so gay that Ruth
-thought that she had forgotten her existence. She was in the chair in
-front of Ruth, and had apparently been absorbed in the play and the
-conversation of the people with her. Suddenly she rose and left the box,
-pausing just long enough to whisper in Ruth’s ear, “I’m going home;
-Billie will explain.”
-
-The others in the box didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps they thought Gloria
-had gone back stage to see some friend and would return. It was only
-when the final curtain fell and Terry came back to ask them to go to
-supper that her absence was explained.
-
-“Where’s Gloria?” he asked.
-
-“Gone home,” said Billie. “She asked me to explain to you that she had
-to go.”
-
-“But why?” asked Terry.
-
-“Because she wanted to—you know Gloria—sudden fit of depression, because
-she isn’t working and wants to work. Why don’t you write a play for her,
-Terry?”
-
-“I will one day perhaps—if I can, but I so wanted her tonight. Let’s
-follow her home and drag her out again.”
-
-“Not if you value her friendship,” said Billie. “Aren’t there enough of
-us here to make a supper party?” She smiled coyly at him, shrugging her
-plump shoulders and turning her pale eyes at him in an ingénue ogle.
-
-“Of course—we’ll try to be as merry as possible without her.”
-
-“I think if you’ll help me find a cab I’ll go home to Gloria,” said
-Ruth.
-
-“You too?” Terry looked at her reproachfully.
-
-“I’d rather if you don’t mind.”
-
-“We can’t allow you to go alone. I shall be most happy,” said John
-Courtney.
-
-“No indeed. I know that you don’t want to miss a word of what they say
-about Terry’s play, and I’d rather go alone. The others would never
-forgive me for taking you away.”
-
-After that it was easy for her to slip away into the darkness and
-seclusion of a cab, alone with the thousands in the checked
-thoroughfare. She wanted to get away from Terry Riordan and his success.
-She thought she was escaping for the same reason that Gloria had run
-away, but Gloria could not be as unhappy as she, for Gloria had had her
-success. Terry Riordan knew that Gloria was a great actress, but he
-didn’t know that she, Ruth Mayfield, was a great painter, at least a
-potential great painter. He had suggested that she was a cartoonist and
-he had thought that he was paying her a compliment. Years from now, when
-she became a beautiful, fascinating woman of thirty like Gloria, even in
-imagination she couldn’t make herself quite thirty-five—they would meet
-again. It would be at a private view at the Academy, and he would be
-standing lost in wonder before the picture she would have hung there.
-Every one would be talking about her and her work, and then they would
-meet face to face. There would be no condescension in his words and
-smile then—
-
-She was imagining childish nonsense. By the time she had won her
-success, Terry would be married to Gloria. It was easy to see that he
-loved Gloria. Why not? No one could be so beautiful or so charming as
-Gloria. It was silly to dream of Terry Riordan’s love, but she would win
-his admiration and respect. After all, marriage had never held any place
-in her plans. She didn’t want to marry. She wanted to be a great
-painter. One must make some sacrifices for that. The cab turned into the
-great quiet of Gramercy Square. A soft mist hung over the trees, like
-quiet tears of renunciation.
-
-She was startled to see lights gleaming in all the lower windows of the
-house. Inside she found George sitting on the lower step of the stairs.
-He rose as she entered, but did not respond when she spoke to him. The
-doors into the drawing-room were open and she looked in. Lying face down
-on the floor, still fully dressed, was Gloria and scattered around her
-were the violets from the bouquet she had been wearing. She was quite
-motionless, and Ruth dared not speak to her. Evidently George was
-keeping watch.
-
-“Can I do anything?” she whispered to him.
-
-He shook his head and pointed silently up the stairs. She went, hurrying
-up the three flights as if the act of going up lifted her above her own
-discontent and above the unhappiness of Gloria. She went into the studio
-and looked at the canvas on which she had been working. It was hard to
-wait until morning to begin on it again. It had been a week since she
-had touched it. When she began she had intended rising early to get an
-hour’s work before breakfast, but evenings in the company of Gloria and
-her friends had kept her up late and youth claimed its need of rest
-despite her firmest resolves. It was no good, the picture, anyway. She
-would paint it all out and begin over again. She would spend her Sundays
-in the country with the other art students, sketching. She had not
-entered into the student life enough. And she had entered into Gloria’s
-life too much. If she had been taking her work more seriously she would
-not have had time to fall in love with Terry Riordan. She did not
-question that it was love that had come into her life to complicate
-things. In Indianapolis it had all seemed so simple. There were paint
-and canvas and her hands to work with, and she would study and work and
-exhibit and become famous. Now it was made plain to her that art itself
-was not a matter of paint and canvas and exhibitions, or even of work as
-Dorothy Winslow had said, but a matter of men and women, and competition
-and struggle and love and hate and jealousy and thwarted ambitions like
-those of the woman who lay down there prostrate with defeat. The defeat
-that was such a tragic jest—a great talent useless because the actress
-was too tall. If success was dependent on such things as that of what
-use to struggle and work? Crouched on the floor before her canvas she
-looked up through the skylight at a star, and soft tears moved slowly
-down her cheeks, tears for herself and for Gloria and for all the
-unfruitful love and labour in the world.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER III
-
-
-Ever since her conversation with Dorothy Winslow, Ruth had wondered
-whether it would not be better if she had taken painting and composition
-instead of portrait painting in the morning. But she didn’t like to give
-up the portrait painting and she knew that if she suggested attending
-one of the evening classes Gloria would object that she was working too
-hard. Of course she was her own mistress, but it wasn’t pleasant to meet
-with opposition nevertheless.
-
-She spoke to Dorothy about it.
-
-“You can’t get everything in a year, and it all counts. I don’t think
-one can tell exactly what one’s forte is until one has studied for some
-time. Better keep on as you are. Certainly don’t give up the portrait
-class. Bridgelow is wonderful,” Dorothy had assured her, “and you may
-not get a chance to study under him again.”
-
-It seemed to Ruth that she was living a sort of double life, her hours
-among the art students were so separate from her life with the people at
-the house on Gramercy Square. And in a way she was not actually a part
-of either life. Among the students she felt a certain reticence, because
-they were most of them, at least the ones she had met, very obviously
-poor. They were paying their own way by working at things far removed
-from art. One of the girls painted stereopticon slides for illustrated
-songs, and some of the boys worked at night as waiters. They lived in
-studios and cooked their own meals, and Ruth was ashamed to let them
-know exactly where or how she lived. She heard their chatter of parties
-to which she had not been invited, and she could not control the feeling
-that she was inferior to these people because she had an assured income.
-
-The morning following the opening of Terry Riordan’s play Ruth had left
-the house without seeing Gloria, and the thought of her aunt as she had
-last seen her, was with her all morning. In the brief time between
-classes she was glad to join the group of students who always hurried to
-a little restaurant on Eighth Avenue for a bite of lunch, or a “bolt of
-lunch” as Nels Zord called it. Nels was a Norwegian, possibly
-twenty-five years old who spent every other year studying. He was
-supposed to have a great amount of talent and he sometimes sold
-things—seascapes mostly, small canvases of a delicacy that seemed
-incredible in view of his huge, thick hands. When he was not in New
-York, he went on long voyages as a sailor before the mast, where he
-satisfied his muscles with hard work and his soul with adventure and
-gathered material to be painted from half finished sketches and from
-memory when he returned to New York. He had gone to sea first as a boy
-of fifteen, from his home in Seattle and always chose sailing vessels
-from preference. He had two passions, art and food, and had never yet
-been known to give a girl anything but the most comradely attentions,
-which was, perhaps, why he was so much sought after by them.
-
-Ruth, Dorothy, and Nels walked together to the lunch room. All of the
-students were talking about the water colour show that was to open at
-the Academy the following Tuesday. On Monday evening there was to be a
-private view, and Nels Zord, by virtue of being an exhibitor was one of
-the few students who would be admitted. He was permitted one guest and
-had surprised every one by inviting Dorothy Winslow. She told the news
-to Ruth as they walked along.
-
-“I didn’t,” said Nels with what seemed to Ruth unnecessary rudeness.
-“You invited yourself, and I hadn’t asked any one else. Might as well
-take you as any one.”
-
-“Far be it from me to care how I get there,” said Dorothy with perfect
-good nature. “It’s a shame that Ruth can’t go too. You’ve never been to
-a private view at a big show like this, have you?”
-
-“No, and I’d love to go, but I suppose there’s no chance.”
-
-“I’ll tell you what; I think I know how you can get it,” said Nels. “I
-know a chap, old fellow, one of the patrons. He always goes and he’s
-always alone. I don’t see why he wouldn’t take you—he’s not one of those
-old birds who goes in for young girls—not old enough I guess—and you’re
-quiet looking and everything. You know he ought to be proud to take
-you,” he ended up in what was for him a burst of enthusiasm, but Ruth
-was rather inclined to be offended.
-
-“Really, I’d much rather not go than to go in that way—” she began
-explaining.
-
-“Now don’t be foolish,” interrupted Dorothy. “You know that any one of
-us will go in any way possible. It doesn’t matter how we get there so
-long as we do get there. At the private view we’ll have a chance to
-really see the pictures and to hear the criticisms of the people whose
-opinion counts. Do be sensible and come with us.”
-
-“Of course I want to go, just as all of us do,” admitted Ruth, “but not
-badly enough to go as the unwelcome guest of a man I’ve never met.”
-
-“You don’t understand,” said Nels. “He won’t be taking you there,
-exactly. It’s just this way. He’s allowed one guest, I’ve never known
-him to bring one. Some one might just as well use that guest card. He’s
-a friend of mine and I’ll ask him for it. If it’s necessary for him to
-appear with you, we can all meet at the Academy. By the way, a private
-view is awfully dressy—have you got evening things?”
-
-Ruth wasn’t surprised at the question. She knew that lots of the
-students considered themselves lucky to possess one costume suitable for
-the street. She knew two girls who shared a studio and one evening gown
-together. They wore the gown turn about, and couldn’t both accept an
-invitation to the same party. Knowing these things she nodded without
-comment.
-
-“Of course, she has everything,” explained Dorothy.
-
-“Well, I haven’t you know—always put on my Latin quartier clothes,
-things I never dared wear in Paris, but they go big enough here,
-especially when worn by an exhibitor,” said Nels.
-
-“I don’t know what I shall wear—probably borrow a frock from some one.”
-
-“Would you—do you think you could wear one of mine?” asked Ruth
-hesitatingly.
-
-“D’you mean to say you’ve got two?” asked Dorothy with mock amazement.
-
-“If you think it can be arranged without too much trouble, I would like
-to go,” admitted Ruth.
-
-“Simplest thing in the world,” said Nels who was rather proud of his
-influential friend.
-
-The conversation about the water colour show drove thoughts of Gloria
-out of Ruth’s mind until she started homeward from the League. She
-wondered how Gloria would look, whether she would dare speak of the
-happening of the night before, whether Gloria would be shut in her own
-room and refuse to see her.
-
-Gloria’s voice called joyously to her as she opened the door. She was
-standing in the midst of innumerable garments, frocks, hats, shoes,
-lingerie, gloves, all in a state of wild confusion, while George dragged
-huge trunks into the few empty spaces on the floor, and Amy stood by,
-trying to fold and classify garments as Gloria threw them about.
-
-“I’m going to Palm Beach—want to come along?” she called cheerfully.
-
-“I can’t very well leave school, Gloria, but if you want to close the
-house I can go to an hotel for a few weeks. How long are you going to be
-gone—when are you going?”
-
-“I don’t know. I just know I’ve got to get away for a while. I hate New
-York. I’m going as soon as I can get packed, but there’s no reason for
-closing the house. You’re here and Billie will be here at least until
-she gets an engagement, and I’ll leave George and Amy. I just thought if
-you wanted to come you might.”
-
-“Of course I’d love to go; I’ve never been to Florida, but I can’t leave
-school just now. Can I help?”
-
-“Dive in; the sooner the trunks are packed the sooner I go.”
-
-“Have you bought a ticket and made reservations?” asked Ruth
-practically.
-
-“Time enough for that later. I can’t go today anyway you know. I just
-thought of it an hour ago.”
-
-“If Miss Mayfield will pardon a suggestion from me,” said George, “I
-would suggest that Palm Beach will be very dull just now—It is too early
-for the season to have begun and the hotels will be quite deserted.”
-
-“That’s just why I’m going—I’m fed up with people,” said Gloria, and
-George subsided into sullen silence.
-
-One of the few things about Gloria that Ruth did not quite like was her
-treatment of her servants. She was quite as apt to ask the advice of
-George or Amy as one of her friends, and in consequence they often
-offered it unsolicited. With Amy this course was all right. She would
-storm and scold in true Southern negro fashion and take the resulting
-scolding in good part, but if Gloria reprimanded George he would retire
-sullenly to the lower regions of the house and pack his luggage and then
-appear with great dignity to offer his resignation. Whereupon Gloria
-would beg him to stay and he would consent to do so with apparent
-reluctance. Once Ruth had seen her put her hand on his arm with a
-familiar gesture while she pleaded with him to stay. The sight sent a
-cold shudder over her. To Ruth there was something sinister and
-repulsive about George, and she was almost sure that her feeling of
-distrust and dislike was fully returned.
-
-He went out now in answer to the ringing door bell, and returned with
-Terry Riordan, who stood looking in with wide, questioning eyes. Ruth
-watched his face intently, keen to see whether he would show regret at
-Gloria’s going away.
-
-“Glad I got here in time to say good-bye,” he said, smiling. “Who’s
-going away?”
-
-“I thought George told you over the ’phone that I couldn’t see any one
-today,” said Gloria. “I’m packing to go to Palm Beach, and now that
-you’ve satisfied your curiosity, perhaps you’ll run along.”
-
-“Not at all; I’m going to stay to argue with you. In the first place why
-go away and in the second why go to Palm Beach when there are so many
-interesting places to go?”
-
-“I’m going away because I’m tired of playwrights and actors and
-actresses, and Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and if you have any better
-place than Palm Beach to suggest, I will be very glad to go there—only
-don’t say the North Pole, for I’ve been packing summer clothing and
-don’t want to do it all over again.”
-
-“Can’t you say anything to her?” he asked, smiling at Ruth.
-
-She shook her head, answering him with her eyes and again she had the
-feeling of a secret understanding between herself and Terry.
-
-“Haven’t you any control over this house, George?” he asked perching on
-top of one of the trunks and lighting a cigarette.
-
-George made no answer, but Amy grinned her delight. With her mistress
-gone George would assume more upper servant airs than ever and she would
-have no court of justice to which she could refer in time of domestic
-strife.
-
-“Please get off that trunk, Terry; there are chairs to sit on,” said
-Gloria, drawing the red flower of her lip under her white teeth.
-
-“How can I sit on a chair when there are hats and boots on every one?”
-
-“Here, I’ll clear one for you,” said Gloria, and sent a hat sailing
-across the room.
-
-Ruth would never dare throw a hat across the room, no matter how much
-she felt like it. She watched Gloria in a perfect passion of admiration
-that half drowned the sharp pain in her heart because she knew that
-Terry also saw Gloria’s beauty and felt the charm of her.
-
-“If you really must go away, and I can understand that too, for I’d like
-to get away myself, why not take a sea voyage—that’s the real thing in
-rest cures. Go to San Francisco by rail and then take one of those boats
-that run to Hawaii and Samoa and on to Sydney if you don’t want to stop
-at Samoa. Let me see, five days to San Francisco, eighteen days to
-Sydney, not counting a long stopover in Hawaii and Samoa, and by the
-time you return I’ll have a comedy written for you,—a comedy in which
-the entire plot rests on the heroine’s being not less than six feet
-tall—”
-
-“Don’t tease me, Terry—it isn’t fair—you’ve been writing that comedy for
-three years now—if you only would write it I wouldn’t care even if I had
-to play opposite a giant from a circus—”
-
-She was near tears, so near that Ruth could hardly restrain an impulse
-to go to her and throw her arms about her, when Terry evidently with the
-same impulse went to her and did throw one arm about her shoulders. Ruth
-saw now that they were exactly the same height.
-
-“My dear girl, I’m not teasing. The comedy is half finished now, only I
-wanted to keep it for a surprise, and you won’t play opposite a circus
-giant. If necessary I’ll play opposite you myself and wear French
-heels.”
-
-“Don’t believe him, Ruth,” said Gloria, smiling now. “He’s always
-promising to write a comedy for me, but he doesn’t mean it.”
-
-“Wait and see,” said Terry. “You do believe me, don’t you Ruth?”
-
-But Ruth, gazing hopelessly on the splendid beauty of her aunt, and
-seeing Terry’s arm across her shoulder could not answer.
-
-“I’ll give you four weeks more to make good, Terry,” said Gloria. “Clear
-all the junk away, George; I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going away for
-a while.”
-
-Terry Riordan forebore to laugh, but his eyes again sought Ruth’s in
-secret understanding.
-
-“I think I’ll go up and work a while before dinner,” she said. It was
-better to leave them alone, and she must work! she must work! she must
-work!
-
-Pursuant to her conversation with Dorothy Winslow in which she had
-announced her intention of painting landscapes with figures, Ruth had
-begun a new canvas—a corner of the park with two children playing under
-the trees. She had been trying to get an effect of sunlight falling
-through green leaves. It was badly done. She could see that now.
-Besides, she didn’t want to paint children. She painted them out with
-great sweeps of her brush. They were stiff, horrid, complacent little
-creatures. Instead she would have only one figure, a shabby, old woman
-crouching on a park bench, and she would take out the sunlight too. A
-thin mist of rain would be falling and the sky would be murky with a
-faint, coppery glow where the sun sought to penetrate through the
-clouds, but the chief interest of the picture would centre about the
-figure of the old woman, holding her tattered cloak about her under the
-uncertain shelter of the trees.
-
-If only she had the colour sense of Nels Zord—she would get it in time.
-It was only a question of more work and more work. Would Terry Riordan
-really play opposite Gloria in the new comedy? The play was the task
-that Gloria had set him and when it was produced Terry could claim his
-reward. She would go to the wedding and no one would ever guess that her
-heart was broken. Afterward she would live in retirement and paint; or
-perhaps she would travel and one day be thirty-five years old and
-beautiful with a strange, sad beauty and men would love her, but she
-would refuse them all ever so gently.
-
-She worked steadily for almost an hour and then she began to wonder
-whether Amy would have a very good dinner and how many would be there.
-Perhaps Terry Riordan would stay. And she decided to put on a new dinner
-frock that she had bought and wondered if she could dress her hair as
-Gloria did, and tried it, but found it unsuccessful and reverted to her
-own simple coiffure.
-
-When she went down she found that Terry had indeed stayed for dinner and
-Gloria had changed to a gorgeous gown and Billie Irwin, who had come in
-late from the hair-dresser’s, had acquired a splendid aureole of golden
-hair in place of the streaked blond of yesterday, and Philip Noel was
-trying out some new music and they had all promised to stay to dinner
-and afterward there was a play that they simply must see, at least the
-second act. There was really nothing worth listening to after the second
-act, and all conversation about going away or about the new comedy
-seemed to be forgotten.
-
-“You’ll have a surprise on Sunday morning,” Terry told her.
-
-“What kind of a surprise?” asked Ruth.
-
-“Can’t tell now; it’s a secret. Gloria knows, though.”
-
-“It’s a very nice surprise,” said Gloria.
-
-Ruth glanced quickly from one to the other. Perhaps they were going to
-be married and would announce the fact on Sunday.
-
-“Can’t I guess?” she asked, trying to imitate their gay mood.
-
-“No! you’d never guess,” said Gloria, “but it’s really a wonderful
-surprise. Only you mustn’t ask questions—you’ll find out at breakfast
-Sunday morning and not a moment sooner.”
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER IV
-
-
-Sunday breakfast was a ceremony at the house on Gramercy Square. Then
-Gloria broke away from her rule of breakfast in bed, and clad in the
-most alluring of French negligées, she presided at the coffee urn in the
-big dining-room, while around her were ranged friends expected and
-unexpected in harmonious Sunday comfort. There was a delightful
-untidiness about the entire room that was particularly cheering—ash
-trays with half-smoked cigarettes on the white cloth and Sunday
-newspapers scattered at random by casual hands. Conversation for the
-first half hour was confined to nods and sleepy smiles, but when the
-second cup of coffee had been poured people really began to talk. There
-was always, when the weather permitted, a fire in the grate, and after
-breakfast there was an hour of intimate chat in which all the stage
-gossip of the season was told and analysed, and careers were made and
-unmade.
-
-Breakfast was at eleven o’clock, but Ruth had been up for hours, working
-away in her studio at the top of the house. At eleven she came down, for
-George was intolerant of late comers. Gloria, Billie Irwin, Terry
-Riordan, and John Courtney were already there. They raised their heads
-from their newspapers and greeted her with smiles, for Gloria considered
-it the worst taste possible for any one to speak before she had had her
-first cup of coffee, and particularly she disliked “Good morning” spoken
-in a cheery tone.
-
-“There is no such thing as a good morning,” she always averred. “Morning
-is never good, except for sleep.”
-
-At the moment that Ruth entered George placed the coffee urn on the
-table and Gloria proceeded to pour the cups, looking very lovely with
-the dusk of sleep still in her eyes.
-
-Ruth thought it very odd to be at a table with four other people none of
-whom spoke a word. No one else seemed to mind, they all devoted
-themselves to their breakfast with the same earnestness that a few
-moments before had been bestowed on the Sunday newspapers.
-
-“Now, Terry, you can give Ruth her surprise,” said Gloria presently.
-
-Ruth had almost forgotten but now she remembered, seeing them all look
-at her beamingly, as if she had done something very nice.
-
-Terry reached down to the floor and picked up a section of newspaper. It
-was the theatrical section, Ruth saw, even before he handed it to her,
-and then, that it contained a story about “Three Merry Men,” with a
-photograph of the leading woman and grouped around it the sketches that
-Ruth had made caricaturing the players. The sketches had not been signed
-but under them was a printed caption, “Sketched by Ruth Mayfield.” She
-stared at the page for some moments, realizing that they were all
-looking at her and expecting some sort of an outburst. Finally when she
-sat silent, Billie Irwin, less sensitive than the others, spoke:
-
-“Isn’t it wonderful, Ruth—we’re all so proud and glad for you—to think
-of seeing your work reproduced, and you’ve only been in New York a few
-weeks.” She put her plump hand on Ruth’s shoulder with an impulsive
-gesture.
-
-Ruth restrained an impulse to throw it off. She still kept her head
-bent, instinctively hiding her eyes until she should gain control of
-their expression. She realized that every one there thought that Terry
-had done a fine thing in getting the sketches printed, that Terry
-himself thought he had done a nice thing. It would be impossible to
-explain to these people that she considered such work beneath her—that
-she, the future great painter, did not want to dabble in cartooning. But
-to them she was only an obscure art student. She must say something
-soon—her silence was past the limit of surprise.
-
-“How good of you, Mr. Riordan,” she said at last. “I had no idea that
-you were going to do this when you took my sketches. It’s quite
-wonderful to see them—to see them in a newspaper like this—”
-
-“My word,” laughed Terry, “I believe that Ruth doesn’t really like it at
-all, though I meant well, I did indeed, child, and though you don’t know
-it, cartooning is quite as much art as painting, and quite as difficult
-if one had not the particular genius for it. I gave the sketches to the
-_Sun_ critic and he was quite enthusiastic. I dare say you might get a
-chance to do it right along if you wanted to.”
-
-“Ruth is an ungrateful little wretch if she isn’t both pleased and
-proud,” said Gloria, smiling fondly at Ruth.
-
-“I am pleased and grateful,” protested Ruth, “but I don’t want to be a
-cartoonist, not until I’m quite sure that I can never be a painter.”
-
-“Better far be a clever cartoonist than a bad painter,” said John
-Courtney, “though I understand just how you feel. As a young man, when I
-first entered the profession I wanted to be a great comedian—I still
-think I could have been one, for I have a keen sense of humour, but it
-was not to be, I was, you will pardon me for speaking of it, I was too
-handsome—my appearance forced me to be a romantic hero—”
-
-He passed one white hand over his grey, curled hair, as he spoke, with a
-gesture as one who should say, “you can see that I am still handsome and
-can judge for yourselves of my youth.”
-
-“Your fatal beauty was your ruin,” said Gloria.
-
-He smiled good-naturedly.
-
-“No, not my ruin, I have done very well, but I did want to be a great
-comedian, and I’ve never seen a comedian who did not secretly long for
-tragic rôles, but ‘there is a destiny that shapes our ends—’ What is
-that quotation?”
-
-“‘Rough-hew them as we will,’” Ruth finished for him. “I quoted that
-myself to a girl last week and she answered me by saying that she
-intended to do a lot of rough-hewing.”
-
-“Still, even if you do want to paint I think you ought to follow this
-newspaper thing up,” said Billie Irwin who was a bit vague as to the
-trend of the conversation. “Your name is in quite large type and nothing
-counts like keeping one’s name before the public. If only I had not been
-so retiring when I first started!”
-
-Just here George came in with a letter which he laid beside Ruth’s
-plate.
-
-“It just came by hand,” he explained.
-
-Ruth lost no time in opening the large, square envelope, addressed in a
-precise, old-fashioned, masculine hand.
-
-Inside was a square engraved card of admission to the private view of
-the water colour show at the Academy on Monday evening. With it was
-another card with the name Professor Percival Pendragon engraved on it,
-and the words “compliments of” written above.
-
-“Oh, isn’t this splendid!” she exclaimed, passing the contents of the
-envelope to Gloria. “You know all of the students are crazy to go to the
-private view tomorrow night, but it’s awfully exclusive and only the
-members of the Academy and the exhibitors have cards, but each one is
-permitted one guest. Nels Zord, one of the student exhibitors is taking
-Dorothy Winslow and he’s asked this man, a friend and patron of his, to
-send me his guest card. Hasn’t he got a queer name? You know I’ve never
-met him at all. He must be really fond of Nels—quite an old chap I
-suppose and perhaps I’ll meet him at—”
-
-Just then Ruth was stopped by the expression on Gloria’s face. She was
-holding the card away from her as if it were something dangerous and her
-face had grown quite pale, her big, blue eyes staring out with an
-expression that Ruth could not analyse.
-
-“What is it—are you ill?” In her fright Ruth has risen from her place at
-the table and moved to Gloria’s side.
-
-Gloria waved her away with a movement of her arm, and seeming to recover
-a part of her composure began to smile.
-
-“It’s nothing at all, Ruth,” she said. “I was just startled for a
-moment—you see Professor Percival Pendragon is—was, my husband.”
-
-Ruth sank back into her chair.
-
-“Then I suppose—perhaps you’d prefer—I can send the card back to him and
-tell that I am unable to use it.”
-
-“Not at all,” said Gloria, twisting her round, red mouth in the
-whimsical way she had. “If you haven’t met him he doesn’t know that you
-are a relative of mine and you needn’t tell. Besides he’s an awfully
-good sort really. I always did like Percy. I didn’t know he was in
-America. The last I knew he was in Oxford, associated with the
-observatory there. He’ll probably talk to you about the great star map.”
-
-“The great star map?” questioned Terry.
-
-“Oh, I don’t know what the thing really is,” said Gloria. “Something
-that the astronomers are working on now. It takes about twenty years to
-make one, but it’s no particular use to them after it’s finished. They
-just make it with great work—but that’s merely a rehearsal. Their
-children make another one, which I suppose is the dress rehearsal; and
-their grandchildren make a third, which is I suppose the _première_.
-Then they compare their map with the one made by their parents and
-grandparents and by some process discover that the planets have moved.
-They have a wild hope that they may discover where the planets have
-moved and why, but if that doesn’t materialize the great-grandchildren’s
-children make a new star map, devoting their entire lives to it, and
-some time, two thousand years from now, perhaps, some grey-whiskered old
-man some place will know something exact about the stars, or will not
-know something exact about the stars, as the case may be.”
-
-Every one except Ruth laughed at this description. She felt that these
-people with all their years must be in some ways younger than herself.
-
-“They are working for posterity,” she said reprovingly. “All great art
-and science is like that.”
-
-“Yes, but you mustn’t expect player folk to appreciate anything but the
-transitory in art,” said John Courtney. “It is the tragedy of the
-profession that the art of every one of us dies with us. The tones of
-Gloria’s marvellous speaking voice will not be heard by our descendants.
-Booth is nothing but a memory in spite of his statue out there in the
-park. It is the life of a butterfly.”
-
-Courtney had used his deepest emotional voice in speaking, and despite
-custom and knowledge of his many harmless affectations, Billie Irwin
-shuddered and looked pained.
-
-“Butterflies are very beautiful at least,” said Terry, reflecting in his
-face the concern that Ruth also felt as she noted that Gloria was still
-looking quite pale, with a strained expression in her eyes as if she
-were seeing things far removed from the breakfast room. She determined
-to again ask her aunt if it would not be better to give up the private
-view, as soon as she had an opportunity to speak with her alone.
-
-The opportunity did not come until late that afternoon, and then Gloria
-shrugged her shoulders in a careless manner and laughed at Ruth.
-
-“Certainly not, foolish child. He doesn’t know that you live with me. I
-doubt if he even knows that I am alive. I’ve been off the stage so long
-and besides he never goes to the theatre. This art thing must be a new
-fad with him. Still he must have noticed the name. Even Percy can
-scarcely have forgotten my last name. Only don’t tell him about me.
-Don’t let him know that you are a relative, and don’t let him come to
-the house.”
-
-“The others are coming—Dorothy and Nels. I’m going to lend Dorothy a
-gown.”
-
-“Do they know anything about me?” asked Gloria.
-
-“No; you see I’ve been afraid to tell them just how happily I am
-situated. They are all so poor and I’ve been afraid that they’d not take
-me seriously if I told them that I have never been hungry or afraid of a
-landlord or any of the interesting things that seem to be common in
-their lives. They rather look down on the students that have an
-allowance from home, so I’ve never told them anything about myself.
-Probably I shan’t meet Mr. Pendragon at all. If he had wanted to meet me
-he would have come with Nels instead of sending the admission card,
-don’t you think so?”
-
-“Perhaps,” said Gloria.
-
-Then curiosity overcoming delicacy, Ruth asked her the question that had
-been in her mind all day.
-
-“Which one is Professor Pendragon?”
-
-“Which one?” Gloria’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Oh yes, I know what
-you mean, which one on my list. Percy was number one. I was very young
-when I married Percy and very ambitious. It was—let me see—eleven years
-ago and we were married just one year. I haven’t seen him for nine years
-or heard of him for at least five, and if you love me, Ruth, you won’t
-let him know who you are or you won’t mention me. You see I’ve been
-married twice since then and I don’t want to meet Percy. It would be
-painful to both of us. He can’t have any interest in me, and certainly l
-have none in him.”
-
-Her voice grew hard as she spoke the last words and her mouth set in a
-line that made her lips look almost thin, but her eyes were not hard.
-Some deep emotion looked out of them, but whether it was pain or hate,
-Ruth could not decide.
-
-She could understand that Gloria would be embarrassed at seeing her
-first husband, especially in view of the fact that he had had two
-successors, and that Gloria was contemplating a fourth marriage. As
-Ruth’s own admiration for Terry Riordan increased she found it
-increasingly difficult to believe that Gloria would reject him, so the
-fourth marriage seemed quite possible.
-
-Gloria was going to dine out that night and they were together in her
-room where she was dressing. Her auburn hair fell over her shoulders and
-Ruth decided that now she looked like the pictures of Guinevere in “The
-Idylls of the King.” Ruth knew that Gloria had been disturbed by the
-knowledge that her former husband was in New York and that she might
-meet him at any time, but she did not seem to be averse to talking about
-it, and Ruth was one of those persons, who, seemingly shy and reserved,
-actually so about her own affairs, could yet ask with impunity,
-questions that from any other person would have seemed prying and almost
-impertinent. This was really because Ruth never asked out of idle
-curiosity, but because she had a real interest. Her aunt was to her a
-fascinating book, the pages of which she must turn and turn until she
-had read the entire story.
-
-“Had any of the people this morning ever met Professor Pendragon?” she
-asked.
-
-“No; that is no one but George—I acquired George in London, you know,
-just about the same time that I married Percy. Husbands come and
-husbands go, but a good servant is not so easily replaced, so I’ve
-managed to keep George, though he hates New York.”
-
-“Then,” continued Ruth, more to herself than to Gloria, “it was not
-Professor Pendragon who gave you this house.”
-
-“No, as I told you, I don’t think he even knows that I’m in New York. I
-didn’t know he was here. I was fond of Percy and naturally I don’t let
-him give me anything, because that would have given him pleasure and I
-wanted to hurt him—”
-
-In the mirror she caught the shocked expression in Ruth’s eyes, and
-turned swiftly to face her.
-
-“Of course you think all this is terrible, but after a few years you’ll
-understand, not me, but something of life itself and of how helpless we
-all are. I know that you have a very clearly defined plan of
-life—certain things that you will do—certain things that ‘could never
-happen to me.’ I know because we’re all like that. And then one day,
-utterly without your own volition, knowing that you’re doing the wrong
-thing, you’ll do and say things that simply aren’t written in your
-lines. Do you suppose that at your age I planned to love a human
-observatory that observed everything except me, or that I expected to
-divorce him and marry a tired business man who expected to use me as a
-perpetual advertisement for toilet preparations, or that I expected when
-I divorced him that I’d do it all over again with a man more lifeless
-than his family portraits? You don’t know what you’re going to do when
-you start out. I know just that much now—that I don’t know. I may commit
-matrimony again tomorrow.”
-
-“But didn’t you love any of these men?” gasped Ruth.
-
-“Of course—I loved Percy, and Percy loved the stars—perhaps that’s why
-he married me. I was a star of a kind at the time.”
-
-“Then why—”
-
-“Oh, I don’t know; I think the final break came because of Eros— Isn’t
-that the bell? Do run and tell Terry that I’ll be with him in a minute.
-I wonder why he will persist in always being on time?”
-
-It was Terry. He was trying to engage the dignified George in
-conversation.
-
-“Hello—you look as if you’d been reading fairy tales,” he exclaimed.
-
-“No, just talking to Gloria,” said Ruth. “She’ll be down in a few
-minutes.”
-
-“It must have been an exciting conversation from the size of your young
-eyes.”
-
-“We were talking,” said Ruth, “we were talking about—about Eros.”
-
-“The God of Love?” asked Terry.
-
-“If you will pardon me,” said George, “Eros is also the name of a small
-planet discovered in our solar system in the year 1898.”
-
-Completing which amazing piece of information, George silently departed,
-leaving the two staring after him.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER V
-
-
-Ruth had intended asking permission to have Dorothy and Nels to dinner
-on the night of the private view, but if she did that they would learn
-that her aunt was Gloria Mayfield and there was every chance that Nels
-would refer to that fact in talking to Professor Pendragon, for Ruth had
-already discovered that the art students were ardent celebrity seekers
-and Gloria Mayfield, though she had not appeared on any stage for three
-seasons, was still something of a celebrity.
-
-She compromised by eating an early dinner with Dorothy at the little
-restaurant on Eighth Avenue, at least Dorothy called it dinner, though
-it was eaten at tea time and both girls were too excited to care what
-they ate. Then they went home to dress. It was the first time that Ruth
-had taken any one of the students to her house and she wondered just how
-she would avoid telling Dorothy about her aunt.
-
-George opened the door for them and they went on up to Ruth’s room
-without seeing any one else, though Ruth could hear voices from the
-drawing-room.
-
-“This doesn’t look like a rooming house,” said Dorothy.
-
-“It isn’t. I live here with friends. What do you think of my work room?”
-
-“Great!—warm, too. There isn’t any heat where I live and I have to use a
-little oil stove, but it’s expensive. You know I don’t think much of
-that—one might as well be frank—” She was looking at the canvas Ruth had
-on her easel. “Nels and I were talking about it yesterday. We think you
-ought to follow up the cartoon thing. You know they make a lot of money,
-cartoonists. You could take it up seriously, you know—”
-
-“But I don’t want to take it up seriously. I don’t want to be a
-cartoonist. I want to be a landscape painter, and if you will allow me
-to be frank, too, I don’t think that you are in a position to judge
-whether I have talent or not.”
-
-Ruth had been very much surprised to find that her friends at school
-seemed to think that she had achieved something by having her sketches
-in a Sunday newspaper. What she had thought would make her lose caste
-among them had in reality given her distinction, but it had had another
-effect also. If she was a caricaturist she could also be a painter, they
-reasoned, and less frankly than Dorothy, Nels Zord had expressed the
-opinion that she would never be a great painter.
-
-“Better be a successful cartoonist than an unsuccessful painter,” he had
-said.
-
-She had made no protest until now and Dorothy looked at her in
-amazement.
-
-“Don’t be angry. I didn’t mean anything, only it’s always a pity when
-any one has a real talent and then insists on some other method of
-expression. Of course you may be a great painter. As you say, I’m not a
-critic and besides you haven’t been studying long. Only the painting is
-all a gamble and the sketches are a success right now if you care to go
-on with them.”
-
-“So are your fashions if you care to go on with them,” said Ruth, still
-hurt.
-
-“Speaking of fashions, let me see the frock I’m to wear,” said Dorothy,
-changing the subject with more abruptness than skill.
-
-“They’re in my other room,” said Ruth. “You can have anything you want
-except what I’m going to wear myself.”
-
-Then followed two hours of dressing and redressing. There were only two
-gowns to choose from, but Dorothy had to try both of them many times,
-rearranging her bobbed hair each time, and finally deciding on the blue
-one because “it makes my eyes so lovely and Nels is crazy about that
-blue.”
-
-She was so interested in her own appearance that she forgot to ask
-questions about the friends with whom Ruth lived and long before Nels
-called for them, Ruth knew that Gloria would have gone out for she was
-dining with the Peyton-Russells. Mrs. Peyton-Russell had been a chorus
-girl who after she married John Peyton-Russell had the good taste to
-remember that Gloria Mayfield had befriended her, the result being that
-Gloria was often invited to dinner parties at their place in town and
-had a standing invitation to whatever country place happened to be
-housing the Peyton-Russells, all invitations that Gloria often accepted,
-though she complained that Angela Peyton-Russell took her new position
-far more seriously than she had ever taken her profession. She was
-almost painfully respectable and correct. She dressed more plainly than
-a grand duchess, and having no children, was making strenuous efforts to
-break into public work. One of the most amusing of her activities, at
-least to Gloria, was in connection with a drama uplift movement.
-
-Nels Zord came promptly at half-past eight, dressed as he had
-threatened, “like a musical comedy art student.” His wide trousers,
-short velvet jacket and flowing tie created in the mind of Ruth much the
-same wonder that Dorothy’s unaccustomed elegance created in the mind of
-Nels. Only Dorothy herself was unimpressed by their combined
-magnificence. To her everything was but a stepping stone on the upward
-path of her career.
-
-“Don’t I look spiffy, Nels? And aren’t you going to make sure that I
-meet Professor Pendragon, and be sure and tell him that I do portraits
-and then I’ll do the rest. If one can’t make use of one’s friends, of
-whom can one make use?” The last addressed to Ruth.
-
-“I wouldn’t miss the opportunity of letting him meet you for anything,”
-agreed Nels. “Only do try and be a little bit careful, Dot, you are
-strenuous, you know. Anyway you’d have met him without asking. He seemed
-curious to meet Ruth. Asked how she looked and if she was tall and
-beautiful, and seemed awfully disappointed when I told him that she was
-only short and pretty. Are you all ready? There’s the cab waiting.”
-
-From somewhere George appeared to open the door for them, and as Ruth
-paused to wrap her cloak more closely about her bare shoulders, his
-soft, lisping voice whispered in her ear:
-
-“Take care what you say to Pendragon, Miss.”
-
-She nodded and followed Nels and Dorothy into the cold, outer air. In
-the cab Nels and Dorothy chatted of the exhibitors—great artists whom
-they knew by sight, while Ruth to whom they were only names, listened in
-breathless admiration.
-
-When they had arrived and had left off their wraps, Dorothy protested:
-
-
-“Do we have to go down the line, or can we duck to the left?”
-
-“No nonsense like that; remember you’re with an exhibitor, and besides
-Professor Pendragon may be waiting for us. We can pay for the privilege
-of looking at the pictures by breaking through the line of receiving
-dowagers. It’s only fair.”
-
-“Oh, very well—but it’s really awful, Ruth. Lots of the students just
-duck the line and slip in at the left, but I suppose we’re too dignified
-tonight.”
-
-Professor Pendragon was not waiting for them, but the long line of
-dowagers was. If Dorothy had not been with her, Ruth would merely have
-looked at them as a long line of middle aged and elderly women in
-evening dress, but Dorothy saw them with far different eyes. She knew
-the names of some of them, and whispered them to Ruth while they waited
-to follow some people who had arrived before them.
-
-“Just look at the third one from the end—the one with the Valeska Suratt
-make-up on the Miss Hazy frame—”
-
-And then Ruth looked puzzled.
-
-“You know Miss Hazy in ‘Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch’—I say, wouldn’t
-you think she’d choke with all those beads—the one with the neck like a
-turtle. The ones with the antique jewelry are from Philadelphia—you can
-tell them with their evening cloaks on, too. They always have evening
-cloaks made out of some grand, old piece of tapestry taken from the top
-of the piano—”
-
-Then Nels led them forward and in a very few seconds they had passed the
-line of patronesses, thin and stout, there seemed to be no
-intermediates, and were free to look at the pictures and talk to their
-friends.
-
-Not for the world would Nels have dashed immediately to his own picture,
-though he knew to a fraction of an inch just where it was hung. But
-gradually they went to it, hung on the eye line and in the honour room,
-and there the three stood, the girls telling Nels how proud they were,
-and Nels, gratified at their praise, yet half fearing that some one
-would overhear, with the blood coming and going in his blond face until
-he looked like a girl despite his heavy shoulders and the big hands that
-looked more fitted for handling bricks than for painting delicate
-seascapes in water colour.
-
-Other people seeing their interest in the picture came and looked at it
-also. The “outsiders,” as Dorothy called them, standing up as close as
-their lorgnettes would permit, the artists, standing far off and closing
-one eye in absurd postures, while murmurs of “atmosphere,” “divine
-colour,” and other phrases and words entered the pink ears of Nels like
-incense in the nostrils of a god.
-
-So much engrossed was he in his little ceremony of success that he did
-not see Professor Pendragon approaching, though Dorothy and Ruth,
-without knowing his identity, were both conscious that the very tall,
-distinguished looking man was watching them, Ruth even guessed who he
-was before he laid his hand on Nels’ shoulder and spoke. It was not
-alone that he was tall—very tall even with the slight stoop with which
-he carried his shoulders; it was his face that first attracted Ruth’s
-attention, a keen, dark face with a high bridged nose and eyes from
-which a flame of perpetual youth seemed to flash. Yet it was a lined
-face, too, full of unexpected laugh wrinkles and creases and there were
-streaks of grey in the hair.
-
-“Well, Nels, you can’t complain of how the picture was hung this time.”
-His voice was like his face, poetic and with a hidden laugh in it.
-
-Nels turned, flushing redder than before.
-
-“Professor Pendragon, we’ve been looking for you. I knew you’d turn up
-here sooner or later and just waited. Here is Dot, I mean Miss Winslow,
-and Miss Mayfield.”
-
-“Thank you so much for letting me use your guest card. It was very kind
-of you, Professor Pendragon, and I’m having such a good time.”
-
-“Not at all! I was delighted to be able to make such good use of it.
-Have you seen Alice Schille’s children or Mary Cassatt’s charming
-pastel? The women artists are rather outshining the men this year. If
-Nels can break away from his own work we’ll go and see them. Then
-there’s John Sloan and Steinlen, and a Breckenridge thing with wonderful
-colour.” He led them off, smiling down with a funny little stooping
-movement of his head that in a smaller man might have been described as
-birdlike. He seemed to know every one and was continually being stopped
-by men and women who wanted his opinion about this or that piece of
-work. Ruth tried hard to look at the pictures, but her mind was
-continually wandering to the people and especially to Professor
-Pendragon. Dorothy noticed this.
-
-“Don’t try to look at things tonight. None of us ever do. The people are
-too funny. The dragon seems to be on intimate terms with all of them,”
-she whispered. “Nels tells me that he’s a great swell with ever so much
-money. I wish you could mention that I paint portraits. If I could get
-him to sit it would be a start. You mention portraits and I’ll do the
-rest.”
-
-Much embarrassed and in great fear that Dorothy’s whispers would be
-overheard, Ruth tried to make an opportunity for mentioning that Dorothy
-painted portraits. Professor Pendragon himself made it.
-
-“What sort of work are you doing, Miss Mayfield?” he asked.
-
-“Nothing now, I’m just a student, but I hope to do landscapes. Dorothy
-is to be a great portrait painter.”
-
-“You know I’d love to paint you, Professor Pendragon. You have such an
-interesting face—you have really,” she ended as Nels laughed.
-
-“Some day when I have lots of time—and thank you for saying that my face
-is interesting! Or perhaps I can do even better and get some beautiful
-woman to sit for you. Wouldn’t you like that?”
-
-“No; I’d rather have you,” said Dorothy, raising her large blue eyes
-with ingenuous confidence.
-
-“There’s a very interesting picture in the ‘morgue,’ by a new artist of
-course, that I’d like to have you see, Nels.” He broke off, for Nels had
-been drawn away by some fellow students and Dorothy had followed him,
-leaving him alone with Ruth.
-
-“Never mind; perhaps you’ll be interested, Miss Mayfield.”
-
-Ruth thought she detected the faintest trace of hesitancy in his voice
-whenever he pronounced her name.
-
-“Is New York your home?” he asked.
-
-“It is now. I came from Indiana, but my mother died a few months ago and
-I am living with friends here.”
-
-“How sad; you have no relatives then?”
-
-“No.”
-
-His eyes were searching her face and she felt that he must see that she
-was lying.
-
-“Do you paint?” she asked.
-
-“Oh no, this art thing is a new fad with me—that is of course I’ve
-always been interested in beautiful things, but it’s only recently that
-I’ve been actively interested. I’m afraid I’m a dilettante—rather an
-awkward confession for a man of forty-one to make, but it’s true. I
-thought I had a career as an astronomer, but I gave that up some years
-ago, and since then I’ve tried a bit of everything. One must play some
-sort of game, you know. It must be wonderful to be like that little girl
-with Nels. Her game will be earning a living for some time to come—”
-
-Another pause gave Ruth a clue to his thoughts.
-
-“No; I’m not exactly in that position—of course I want to earn money,
-too, but only because that is the world’s stamp of success,” she said.
-
-He had evidently forgotten the picture they went to see, for he asked
-her if she was hungry, and when she said “No,—”
-
-“I thought young things were always hungry, especially art students, but
-if you’re not hungry let’s sit here and talk. Nels and Miss Winslow will
-be sure to find us soon.”
-
-“Astronomy must be an awfully interesting study,” she said, wondering
-how any man once having married Gloria could ever have let her go, and
-why Gloria once having loved a man like this, could ever have sent him
-away.
-
-“Yes, interesting, but like art it is very long. I sometimes think I
-would have done better to take up astrology.”
-
-“You’re joking,” said Ruth. “Surely you don’t believe in that sort of
-thing.”
-
-“Why not? There’s a grain of truth at the bottom of all old beliefs, and
-it is as easy to believe that one’s destiny is controlled by the stars
-as to believe in a Divine Providence, sometimes much easier. The stars
-are cold, passionless things, inexorable and fixed, each moving in its
-appointed round—passing and repassing other stars, meeting and
-parting—alone as human lives are alone. There are satellites powerless
-to leave the planet around which they circle and here and there twin
-stars that seem one light from this distance, but doubtless are really
-millions of miles separated in space—”
-
-He caught the intent look on her face and smiled:
-
-“No, on the whole I think astrology would not have been any more
-satisfactory than astronomy, for even there, there is nothing clear cut,
-‘The stars incline but do not compel.’ Just one thing is really sure,
-one must play with something.”
-
-“Here comes Nels,” said Ruth.
-
-“Just in time to keep me from persuading you that I am quite insane,”
-said Professor Pendragon. “I was going to show you a wonderful picture
-in the morgue, but it’s too late, Nels, for you’ll never be able to find
-it alone, and I am going to buy it. Some day, if you’ll come and have
-tea with me—all of you—you can advise me about the proper place to hang
-it.”
-
-“We’ll do that, but I’ll bet I can find it by myself—go ahead and buy it
-and when we come to your house I’ll be able to describe the picture and
-tell you who painted it.”
-
-“Of course, if some one tells you.”
-
-“No, not that; if there’s anything in the morgue worth your attention,
-I’ll be sure to notice it.”
-
-“So will I,” said Dorothy. “Come on, Ruth, let’s look.”
-
-Ruth had been wondering whether Pendragon would go out with them and how
-she could avoid his going to the house on Gramercy Square, but evidently
-he was as informal as a student, for he only nodded a careless farewell
-and strolled off while they went in search of the picture.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER VI
-
-
-Ruth entered the house with her own key, which she had taken, not
-wanting to keep George waiting up to open the door for her. The house
-was quite silent and dark, save for one dim light burning in the hall,
-and this light seemed to illumine a thick blue haze or smoke that
-floated out enveloping her as she paused on the threshold. At the same
-moment she was conscious of an almost overpowering odour of incense,
-something that Gloria never used, she knew. She stood a moment peering
-through the blue haze until she made out a figure crouching on the
-stairs, not George as she at first supposed, but Amy, who seldom showed
-herself in the front of the house. She was huddled up, with clasped
-arms, weaving to and fro and moaning inarticulate prayers, while her
-eyes rolled wildly about in her head.
-
-“Amy, what’s wrong? Are you ill?”
-
-Amy paused in her weaving and moaning to shake her head negatively.
-
-“Then what’s wrong? Is Miss Mayfield ill?”
-
-Again the negative shake.
-
-“I’se waitin’ up for yo’, Mis’ Ruth. I want you to let me sleep upstairs
-with you all tonight. There’s a couch in the room what you all paint. I
-kin use that,—please, Mis’ Ruth, I’se a dead woman ef you says no.”
-
-“What nonsense!” said Ruth, trying to speak sharply and at the same time
-in a low tone. Amy, for all her agitation, kept her voice almost a
-whisper and kept turning her head over her shoulder as if she feared
-that some one was coming up behind her.
-
-“Why do you want to sleep in my studio? Aren’t you comfortable
-downstairs? If you’re ill I’ll send for a doctor. You’ll have to give me
-some reason.”
-
-She saw that the negro woman’s distress was very real, however foolish,
-and laid her hand on her trembling shoulder.
-
-“Doan ask me no questions now—jes let me come,” she said rising as if
-she would accompany Ruth upstairs against her will, and still looking
-over her shoulder.
-
-“I can’t let you come unless you tell me why,” said Ruth, her voice
-growing louder in spite of her efforts to keep it low.
-
-The negress laid a warning finger on her lips and shot a look of such
-terror over her shoulder that Ruth felt a sympathetic thrill of horror
-down her own spine and peered into the blackness beyond the stairway,
-half expecting to see some apparition there. Then struggling as much to
-control her own nerves as those of the servant, she put both hands on
-Amy’s shoulders and forced her down on the stairway again.
-
-“If there’s any real reason why you should sleep upstairs you can, but
-you must tell me first what you’re afraid of.”
-
-The negress leaned toward her, whispering:
-
-“It’s him—that devil-man, George; he a voodoo and he’s practisin’ black
-magic down there. I cain’t sleep in the same paht of the house. I’m
-goin’ to give notice in the mawnin’—please, Mis’ Ruth, take me up with
-yo’—”
-
-For a moment Ruth did not know what to say. She knew that all negroes
-are superstitious, but looking into the rolling eyes of Amy, there in
-the midnight silence of the house, she was not able to laugh.
-
-“I’m surprised at you, Amy. I thought you were more sensible. What’s
-George doing? He hasn’t tried to hurt you, has he?”
-
-“No, not me, he ain’t goin’ hu’t me—I don’t expec’ you-all to
-understand. I don’t care whether you understands or not, jus’ let me go
-up with yo’.”
-
-“What’s George doing?” demanded Ruth again. She would much rather have
-given consent at once and ended the argument, but she could not control
-a feeling both of curiosity and nervousness, and was now protesting more
-against her own fears than those of Amy.
-
-“He tol’ me to go to baid. He orders me roun’ li’e I was his nigger, and
-I went, but I could see him through the keyhole—he’s in our
-settin’-room—it’s between his room and mine. There’s another do’ to my
-room and I wen’ right out through it. I didn’t waste no time. But don’t
-you-all try to stop him. He’s at black magic—oh-o-o-o-o-o—”
-
-Her tense whisper trailed off into a suppressed wail.
-
-“Come with me,” said Ruth with sudden determination. “I’ll see for
-myself.”
-
-She started off down the hall, through the thick blue haze which she
-could now tell was issuing from the servants’ quarters, and Amy,
-protesting, but evidently fearing to remain behind, walked behind her.
-Ruth had never been in the servants’ quarters, but she knew that they
-had rooms on the first floor, which was partly below the street level.
-As she passed she switched on the lights in the hall, illuminating the
-short flight of steps that led below. The door at the bottom was closed.
-At the top of the steps, Amy caught her arm.
-
-“Don’t go, Mis’ Ruth—jes’ look through the keyhole once. The do’s
-locked—don’t knock, jes’ look once—”
-
-Ruth shook off her restraining arm, but unconsciously she softened her
-footsteps, creeping almost noiselessly down the steps, while the black
-woman waited above. In the silence she could hear her frightened
-breathing. She had no intention of following Amy’s advice, but intended
-to knock boldly at the door and then to scold George for frightening his
-fellow servant. She was determined to do that even if George complained
-to his mistress, but when her foot touched the last step, something
-stronger than herself restrained her. She stood a moment with her heart
-beating against her ribs, and then, Ruth Mayfield, daughter of
-respectable parents, bent down in the attitude of a curious and
-untrustworthy servant and applied her eye to the keyhole. She knelt thus
-for many minutes before she finally rose and came back up the steps
-controlling by a strong effort of her will the inclination to look back
-over her shoulder as she had seen Amy do. At the top Amy took her arm
-and together they walked back through the hall.
-
-At the foot of the stairway she turned her white face to Amy.
-
-“You can come with me if you’ll promise not to say anything about this
-to Miss Mayfield, or to leave for a while at least.”
-
-“I’ll promise anything, Mis’ Ruth, only take me with you—an’ I won’
-tell—I ain’ ready to die yit.”
-
-“It’s all just nonsense, Amy, only I don’t want to worry Gloria with it
-just now. You understand, it’s just nonsense,” she repeated with lips
-that trembled.
-
-She slept fitfully that night, waking in the morning to the sound of
-Amy’s knocking at her door. She called to the servant to come in, eager
-to talk with her again before she had an opportunity to speak to Gloria.
-She came in with the breakfast tray, looking much as usual and
-apparently only too eager to ignore the events of the night before. She
-set the tray down and began rubbing her shoulders.
-
-“I got a misery,” she whined, “the wu’k in this house is too ha’ad.
-They’se wu’uk enough here for foah and only two to do it all. I’se neber
-wu’uked in a big house like this befo’ less they was at least foah kep’.
-I’se a cook, I is, not a maid, and what not. Nex’ thing she’ll be askin’
-me to do laundry.”
-
-“Now, Amy, that isn’t fair. The house is big, but Miss Mayfield only
-uses about half of it, and you know she dines out almost more than in.
-Besides I don’t want you to go away yet. If you’ll stay I’ll ask Miss
-Mayfield to let you sleep up here all the time. I can tell her that I’m
-nervous up here so far away from every one and I’m sure she won’t mind.”
-
-Amy’s face beamed with pleasure. “Is you-all goin’ speak to her ’bout
-Go’ge?”
-
-“Not at once—I must have time to think about that, and you must be
-quiet, too.”
-
-“Don’ you fret; I ain’ goin’ say anything ef you-all doan’.”
-
-At the door she turned again and looked at Ruth as if she would like to
-ask a question, but Ruth pretended not to see, and she went out without
-speaking.
-
-What Ruth had seen could not be ignored, yet she could not go to Gloria
-and tell her that she had deliberately peeked through keyholes,
-especially as there was no way of proving that she had seen what she had
-seen. George did not practise his rites every night or Amy would have
-long since fled in terror. The only thing to do was to try and persuade
-Gloria to discharge George for some other cause, or failing that, to
-watch an opportunity to show Gloria what she had seen. But perhaps
-Gloria already knew. That did not seem exactly probable, but Gloria was
-a strange woman and she said that George had been in her service a long
-time—before her marriage to Professor Pendragon. Perhaps Professor
-Pendragon—
-
-Her thoughts lost themselves in trying to unravel the tangled skein of
-Professor Pendragon, Gloria and her marriages, George and his evident
-connection with everything. She remembered George’s warning whisper of
-the night before. Pendragon might be able to explain everything to her,
-but she could not ask him about George without also giving him
-information of Gloria, a thing she had promised not to do. The night
-before she had thought that she might go direct to Gloria with her story
-about George, but in the light of morning it sounded both fantastic and
-unreal—as foolish as the fears of the superstitious Amy had seemed
-before she, herself, had investigated her wild story.
-
-She would be late to class this morning, for she had waked late and had
-dressed slowly with her thoughts. On her way downstairs she passed
-Gloria’s room. The door was open and Gloria was sitting up in bed
-surrounded by innumerable papers.
-
-“Are you in a hurry?” she called.
-
-“No, not much,” which was true, for being already late, Ruth was
-wondering whether it would be worth while to try and attend her first
-class.
-
-“Perhaps you can help me out—can’t make anything of all this,” said
-Gloria.
-
-“What is it?”
-
-“Bills and my bank account—they don’t seem to match somehow.”
-
-She thrust a mass of papers toward Ruth, who sat down on the side of the
-bed and began to look at them. She picked up an assortment of bills,
-some of them months old, some of them just arrived, some of them mere
-statements of indebtedness, others with pertinent phrases attached
-thereto, such as “An immediate settlement will be appreciated.”
-
-Ruth found a pencil and a pad and began to add up the various
-amounts—they totalled several thousand dollars. The idea of so much
-indebtedness frightened Ruth. All her life she had been accustomed to
-paying for things when she got them. Since coming to New York she had
-discovered that this was bourgeoise and inartistic, but training and
-heredity were stronger than environment with her and she still had a
-horror of debt. However, she tried to conceal her surprise.
-
-“Now, if you’ll let me see your check book and your pass book, perhaps
-we can discover why they don’t match,” she suggested.
-
-“Here they are—go as far as you like. I never could make anything of
-figures, except debts,” said Gloria.
-
-“But you haven’t made out more than half the stubs on your checks—how
-can I tell what you’ve spent unless you’ve kept some record of it?
-
-“I don’t know—they balance the book now and then at the bank, but I
-don’t know as it’s much use. The truth is I really can’t afford to keep
-up this house, even with only two servants.”
-
-“Why don’t you rent it and then get an apartment and let George go and
-keep Amy? You could do with one servant in a small apartment and I could
-pay half the expense—”
-
-“You could not! I thought I made that quite clear. I can’t have any one
-living with me except as a guest—”
-
-“But why?”
-
-“I don’t know why, except that it flatters my vanity. Besides I can’t
-give up the house. I’ve got to keep it whether I can afford it or not.
-Where would Billie and any number of other people live when they’re out
-of work if they didn’t have this big house to come to? I got a note from
-Ben Stark yesterday. His company broke up in Saint Louis last week and
-he’s coming on here. I wrote that I could put him up until he gets
-another engagement.”
-
-“But Gloria, don’t you see that you can’t afford to do that sort of
-thing? You’re too generous. No one likes to talk about money, but one
-must talk about money—it’s always coming in at the most inopportune
-moments and unless we recognize it politely at first it’s sure to show
-up at the worst time possible later. You can’t afford to be always
-giving and never taking anything from any one. If you’d only let me live
-here on a sensible basis—it would make me feel much more comfortable,
-and—”
-
-“It would not,” said Gloria. “If I’d known you were going to be sensible
-and practical and all that sort of thing, I wouldn’t have asked you to
-look at the silly, old bills. And I’m not generous at all. I’m selfish.
-Generous people are the sort of people who accept favors
-gracefully—people like Billie Irwin and Ben Stark. Besides we aren’t
-sure yet. I may have money enough to pay all this—only it’s such a bore
-writing checks.”
-
-She smiled cheerfully at the thought.
-
-“I’ll tell you what—I’ll take your book to the bank and have it balanced
-and then we can find out just what is wrong, and I’ll take care of it
-all for you. I did all that sort of thing for Mother, you know.”
-
-“You’re a dear, and just to show you that I can help myself too I’m
-going to do something that I suppose I should have done long ago.”
-
-One of Gloria’s pet extravagances was having telephone extensions in all
-the rooms that she herself used. She reached out now to the telephone by
-her bed and called a number.
-
-“Is Mr. Davis there?” she asked. “Tell him Miss Mayfield wants to talk
-to him.” Then after a pause: “Good morning—you remember you offered me a
-contract last week. Is it still open? Send it over and I’ll sign it—
-Tomorrow? Yes, I can begin tomorrow. Nine o’clock—that’s awfully early,
-but I can do it I suppose if other people do. Yes, thanks. Woman’s
-prerogative and I have changed mine. Tomorrow, then— Thank you—
-Good-bye.”
-
-“There now, I’ve promised to go to work in the movies and earn some
-money. Meantime if you can straighten out my financial puzzle I shall be
-most grateful.”
-
-“Have you ever worked in motion pictures before?” asked Ruth.
-
-“No, but we all come to it sooner or later, that is if they’ll take us.
-I haven’t any illusions about it. They may not like me at all. Being an
-actress on the speaking stage doesn’t always mean that one can make a
-picture actress. Half the down and out artists of the spoken drama who
-scorn the movies, couldn’t get in if they tried. But if they give me a
-contract for a few weeks I’ll have that at least, and then if I’m no
-good I won’t have to worry about it any more.”
-
-“Has Miss Irwin an engagement yet?”
-
-“No; but she’s doing her best, poor dear. It’s awfully hard in the
-middle of the season. Angela Peyton-Russell is going to give a Christmas
-party at their house in the Berkshires. I’ll have her invite you, too.
-If I work a few weeks in pictures I’ll be ready for a rest. By the way,
-did you see Percy last night?”
-
-Suddenly Ruth had a suspicion that this was the real reason why she had
-been called in. Gloria’s tone was almost too casual and she had asked
-her question without introduction, abruptly in the middle of other
-things.
-
-“Yes, I met him and he’s awfully nice and good looking, but I told him
-that I had no relatives and that I am living with friends.”
-
-“He asked then?”
-
-“Yes; I suppose the name made him curious.”
-
-“He isn’t married?”
-
-“If he is his wife was not with him and he didn’t mention her. I’m
-almost sure that he’s not.”
-
-“Did he talk about astronomy?”
-
-“No—that is yes—only to say that he’d given it up and art is his latest
-fad.”
-
-“Take care you don’t fall in love with him, he’s very fascinating,” said
-Gloria, smiling.
-
-“I know—why did you divorce him?”
-
-“How should I know?” Gloria frowned impatiently. “Oh, because he was
-quite impossible—as a husband. All men are.”
-
-“I’ll take your book to the bank now. I’ve missed my morning class
-anyway,” said Ruth rising. The weight of all the things she knew and
-guessed, and did not know, was pressing heavily on her and she longed
-for some one to whom she could tell everything and get advice. Obviously
-her temperamental aunt was not the one.
-
-At the door she paused again, making one last effort to simplify her
-problem.
-
-“Why don’t you discharge George anyway and get another woman? I’m sure
-he must be very expensive.”
-
-“You don’t like George, do you?”
-
-“No, I don’t. He’s not like any nigger I ever saw before. Where did he
-come from anyway?”
-
-“I don’t know exactly. He is a Hindoo, half-caste I imagine, or he
-wouldn’t work as a servant, and I found him in London. It was just
-before I married Percy. George had been working in one of the music
-halls as a magician and he was ill. I took care of him. His colour
-didn’t matter—he was in The Profession, in a way, you know, and when he
-got well he offered to work for me and he’s been with me ever since,
-about eleven years. I really couldn’t do without George, you know. Percy
-didn’t like him either.”
-
-“Why doesn’t he go back into vaudeville? He could make more money.”
-
-“Gratitude, I suppose—anyway, that wouldn’t make very much difference,
-and so long as I have any money at all, I shall keep George.”
-
-“How do you know that he is really a Hindoo?” asked Ruth.
-
-“He told me that when I first found him. You’re more curious about
-George than Percy was. Percy always said he looked like something come
-to life from a pyramid, but George never liked Percy and he won’t like
-you if you ask him questions.”
-
-“I shan’t ask him questions.”
-
-“I do wish you hadn’t met Percy—he keeps coming into my mind. Did he
-look well?”
-
-“Very well indeed.”
-
-“Happy?”
-
-“That’s more difficult—you know I’d never seen him before, so it would
-be hard to tell. If you—why didn’t you let me tell him the truth; then
-probably you’d have seen for yourself.”
-
-“No, I wouldn’t. He might have thought that I deliberately tried to see
-him. Anyway I don’t want to see him. I was only curious. Don’t speak
-about him again, even if I ask. I want to forget him.”
-
-Ruth went out with thoughts more conflicting than before. One moment she
-thought she detected in Gloria a sentimental interest in her former
-husband; the next she appeared to hate him, and apparently there was no
-hope of persuading her to send George away. She went to the restaurant
-on Eighth Avenue for lunch, where she met Nels and Dorothy.
-
-“What do you think?” said Nels. “I just heard that Professor Pendragon
-is ill—paralysis or something like that, and he certainly looked well
-last night. I can’t understand it.”
-
-“The news doesn’t seem to have affected your appetite any,” said
-Dorothy.
-
-“Certainly not—must keep up steam. Shouldn’t wonder if that was why he’s
-ill. He never eats anything much. One can’t paint greatly unless one
-eats greatly.”
-
-“When did he get ill, and how?” asked Ruth.
-
-“When he went home from the show last night—It’s extraordinary because
-he’s never been troubled that way and he was quite well just a short
-time before.”
-
-Ruth was thinking of George and of all the old tales she had ever heard
-of the evil eye and black magic. She was thinking of these things with
-one part of her brain, while with another part she scoffed at herself
-for being a superstitious, silly fool. If only Amy hadn’t persuaded her
-to look through the keyhole.
-
-“I’m going to go and see him tomorrow afternoon,” said Nels. “I’d go
-today, but I have to work.”
-
-“Take us with you,” said Dorothy. “He invited us to tea anyway and he
-seemed to be interested in Ruth.”
-
-“One can’t go to tea with a paralytic, Dot, besides, he lives in a
-hotel, unless they’ve moved him to a hospital. I’ll find out and if it’s
-all right of course you can go too.”
-
-“Just look at Ruth, Nels; she looks as concerned as if the dragon were a
-dear friend.”
-
-“I’m not at all; it’s just that it’s sudden—and I was thinking of
-something else too.”
-
-She was remembering Gloria’s last words about not mentioning Pendragon’s
-name again. Here was another piece of information that she must keep to
-herself. It was so annoying to be just one person with only one pair of
-eyes and ears and only one small brain. If she could only see inside and
-know what Gloria was really thinking, what depths of ignorance or
-wickedness were concealed behind George’s black brows, what secret
-Professor Pendragon knew—and even, yes, it might blight romance, but she
-would like to know just what Terry Riordan thought.
-
-Did Gloria love Terry or did her heart still belong to her first
-husband? And what of those other two whose names were never mentioned?
-If only she could be one of those wonderful detective girls one read
-about in magazine stories. How simply she would solve everything.
-
-She found Terry with Gloria when she reached home. They were talking
-interestedly as they always did, with eyes for no one else apparently,
-and her heart sank. George came in to ask come question about dinner. He
-did look like something that had stepped from the carvings on a pyramid.
-His fine features were inexpressibly cruel, yet there was something
-splendid about him too. He was so tall—taller than Gloria. Tall enough
-to play—she stopped affrighted at her unnatural thought.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER VII
-
-
-The entire régime of the house on Gramercy Square had been changed.
-Instead of rising at eleven o’clock Gloria now left the house shortly
-after eight, to be at the motion picture studios in New Jersey at nine,
-so that Ruth seldom saw her before dinner time. The balancing of
-Gloria’s bank book disclosed that she had been living at a rate far in
-excess of her income—news that did not seem to trouble Gloria at all.
-
-“I’ll make it all up again in a few weeks now that I’m working,” she
-said. “If you’ll only write out a book full of checks for my poor, dear
-creditors, I’ll sign them and then you can mail them out and everything
-will be lovely—for a few months at least.”
-
-“Yes, but don’t you think you ought to regulate your expenditures
-according to your assured income, Gloria? You know you aren’t always
-working,” said Ruth.
-
-“I can’t be troubled with that now. Wait until I get tangled up
-again—something always happens, and nothing could be worse than the
-pictures; regular hours like a shopgirl, and no audience.”
-
-Ruth returned from school to find Gloria not yet home and the
-drawing-room empty, except perhaps for Billie Irwin and Ben Stark, a
-tall, good-natured youth, who had followed hard upon his letter and who
-was perpetually asking Ruth to go to theatres with him, where he had
-“professional courtesy” due to having worked on Broadway the season
-before. If Ruth refused, as she sometimes did, he cheerfully turned his
-invitation to Billie Irwin, seemingly as pleased with her society as
-with that of the younger woman.
-
-It troubled Ruth to think of them all, herself and Miss Irwin and Ben
-Stark, all living here as if Gloria had unlimited wealth, while Gloria
-went out every morning to uncongenial work to keep up with the expenses
-of her too large ménage. Only that morning Amy had complained to her of
-having so many breakfasts to prepare for people who rose whenever they
-pleased and never remembered to make her any presents. If only George
-would grow dissatisfied—but he never seemed weary of serving Gloria’s
-impecunious guests, and if he was still engaged in midnight orgies of
-enchantment Ruth could not know. She dared not repeat the keyhole
-experiment. She wished that she had not taken Amy upstairs to sleep;
-then she would have had a spy below stairs. It was foolish of her to
-connect Professor Pendragon’s illness with George, but she could not
-help it. If she could only have some other opinion to go by—or perhaps
-when she had seen Professor Pendragon again, her illusion would be
-dispelled. Nels Zord had talked with him over the telephone and
-Professor Pendragon had made light of his illness and said he would be
-glad to have Nels and the two girls come and have tea with him the
-following Thursday. He said he was not going to a hospital and hoped to
-be quite well when they came. If he was well then Ruth could laugh at
-her superstitious fears. Thursday was a good day for all of them because
-there was no lecture Thursday afternoon and they could all leave the Art
-Students’ League at half-past four and go together to Professor
-Pendragon’s hotel.
-
-The idea of visiting a man in his hotel, even a man of forty who was
-ill, and in company with two other people did not seem quite proper to
-Ruth, but she did not say anything about it, having acquired the habit
-of taking customs and conventions as she found them. Nevertheless she
-was quite relieved to find that Professor Pendragon had a suite and that
-they were ushered into a pleasant room with no hint either of sickness
-or sleep in it. She even took time to wonder where the prejudice against
-sleeping rooms as places of ordinary social intercourse first
-originated.
-
-Professor Pendragon met them, leaning on a crutch, one foot lifted in
-the attitude of a delightful, old stork.
-
-“It’s really kind of you to come,” he said, after he had made them all
-comfortable. “You know I have hundreds of acquaintances but very few
-friends, as I have discovered since I became a victim of the evil eye.”
-
-Ruth could not restrain a start of surprise and he looked at her, his
-dark eyes wrinkling with mirth.
-
-“So you know about the evil eye?” he questioned.
-
-“No, I don’t. Only I suppose the phrase startled me. What really is the
-matter?”
-
-“I don’t know and neither do the doctors apparently; that’s why I call
-it the evil eye. I came home from the show that night and went to sleep
-like a good Christian with a quiet conscience, but when I woke I found
-that my right leg was paralysed to the knee. It was the dark of the moon
-that night. I know because I always think in more or less almanacal
-terms—that would be when the evil eye would be most effective, you know;
-and I’m waiting for the full moon to see if I will not be cured as
-mysteriously as I have been afflicted.”
-
-Nels and Dorothy were listening with puzzled eyes, not quite knowing
-whether Professor Pendragon was jesting or in earnest.
-
-“You mean all maniacal terms, if you believe such rubbish,” said Nels,
-“and you need a brain specialist, not a doctor.”
-
-“I think that’s our tea at the door, if you’ll please open it for me,
-Nels, and I promise not to talk about the evil eye in the presence of
-such moderns as you and Miss Winslow again.”
-
-“Why don’t you include Ruth in that?” asked Dorothy, as Nels rose to
-open the door.
-
-“Because Miss Mayfield is not a modern at all; she belongs to the dark
-middle ages.”
-
-“I’m afraid I’m a bit superstitious,” admitted Ruth, and then hoping to
-test his sincerity, for he had spoken throughout with a smile, and also
-to throw, if possible, some light on the uncanny suspicions that
-troubled her—“Even if you did believe in the evil eye, who would want to
-harm you?”
-
-“Please do stop,” said Dorothy. “You’re spoiling my tea with your
-gruesome talk. Where’s the picture that Nels was to point out and advise
-you about hanging?”
-
-“That is, perhaps, a more wholesome topic, but we were only joking, Miss
-Mayfield and I.”
-
-“I’ve found the picture already,” exclaimed Nels—“the one with the fat
-Bacchus—you see I picked it out of all the others—I don’t blame you for
-buying it; it’s delightful humour, depicting Bacchus as a modern
-business man, fat and bald, yet clad in a leopard skin with grape vines
-on his head, and tearing through the forest with a slim, young nymph in
-his arms—it’s grotesque and fascinating.”
-
-“I thought you’d approve,” said Professor Pendragon. “Now where shall we
-hang it?”
-
-“It’s all right where it is, unless you have a larger picture to hang
-there.”
-
-“Now, while you’re unable to walk around, why don’t you sit for a
-portrait—you’ll never have another time when the sittings will be less
-irksome. I’d come here and Ruth could come with me as a chaperon, not
-that I need one, but we might as well be perfectly proper when it’s just
-as pleasant—you know,” she continued, slightly embarrassed by the smiles
-on the faces of Nels, Professor Pendragon, and Ruth. “I’m not looking
-for a commission at all; I just want to paint you because you will make
-an interesting subject, and because, if I can hang you—I mean get your
-picture hung in the Academy, I will get real commissions, just because
-you sat for me. Now I’ve been perfectly frank,” she finished.
-
-Pendragon held out his hand to her, laughing:
-
-“Any of those numerous reasons ought to be enough,” he said, “and if my
-infirmity lasts long enough, I’ll be glad to have you come and help me
-kill time.”
-
-“Better start before next dark of the moon,” said Ruth mischievously.
-
-“That gives you only ten more days,” said Pendragon.
-
-“You don’t really believe in those things?”—Dorothy’s blue eyes were
-wide with distress—“Please tell me the truth; Nels, they’re just
-teasing, aren’t they?”
-
-“Of course, you know they are; don’t be a silly goose, Dot,” said Nels.
-
-“I know they are, but even if they don’t believe in all they say, they
-believe in something that I don’t understand, now, don’t you?—confess.”
-
-She turned to Ruth, but it was Pendragon who answered.
-
-“If mind is stronger than matter, and most of us believe that now, then
-an evil thought has power over matter just as surely as a good thought
-has power, and the power of the evil thought will continue until it is
-dispelled by good thought. There if you like is black and white magic. I
-believe that there are people in the world so crushed by fear and
-wickedness that every breath of their bodies and every glance of their
-eyes is a blight on all who come near them, and I believe that there are
-people who are so fearless and good that where they walk, health and
-happiness spreads round them as an aura, as sunlight on every life that
-touches them. Does that satisfy you, Miss Dorothy?”
-
-“Oh yes, that’s very beautiful, I’m sure,” said Dorothy, looking a bit
-uncomfortable as if she had been listening to a sermon. “When will you
-let me come for your first sitting?”
-
-“Sunday morning if you like; that won’t interfere with your classes, and
-it’s a good day for me too, because I am duller than usual on Sunday.”
-
-As they were leaving, Ruth lingered for a moment.
-
-“If you did have an enemy who was trying to harm you, what would you do,
-Professor Pendragon?” she asked.
-
-“Evil works like good, can only be accomplished with faith; if I had an
-enemy, I would destroy his faith in his own power,” he answered.
-
-Ruth found the entire family, as Gloria called her household, assembled
-when she reached the house on Gramercy Park. Terry Riordan was among
-them.
-
-“Please, Ruth, won’t you go to the theatre with Terry tonight? He has a
-perfect passion for first nights, but as an honest working woman I need
-my rest and I’m too tired to go tonight,” said Gloria.
-
-“I’d like to, but—” Ruth glanced in the direction of Ben Stark.
-
-“Oh, don’t mind me,” said that youth. “The fact that you have refused me
-three times won’t make any difference. I’m accustomed to such treatment
-from the fair sex.”
-
-“Why don’t you come with us?” said Terry. “I have three tickets and
-intended taking both Gloria and Ruth if they would go.”
-
-“Please, Miss Ruth, will you let me go with you? I’ll walk a few paces
-in the rear and be a good little boy,” said Ben. “You really must be
-kind to me, because I’m going into rehearsals for another trip to the
-coast with a company that will probably go at least as far as Buffalo.
-You’ll miss my cheery smile when I am far away.”
-
-“Then we’ll all go together,” agreed Ruth, rather annoyed that Terry
-should have suggested that Ben go with them. Evidently he considered her
-too young to be an interesting companion and would be glad to have
-another man to talk to. It was perhaps for this reason that when they
-started out she directed most of her smiles and conversation to the
-erstwhile neglected Ben, making that young man beam with pleasure, while
-Terry seemed not to observe his neglected state at all.
-
-“What’s wrong, old chap? You are as solemn as an owl and you ought to be
-as happy as larks are supposed to be, with a real, honest-to-goodness
-show on Broadway,” said Ben.
-
-“It’s going off next week,” said Terry. “It’s been nothing but a paper
-house for a week, and they’re going to try it on the road; I don’t seem
-to have the trick or the recipe for success.”
-
-“I’m so sorry; perhaps it will go well on the road,” said Ruth.
-
-“Don’t feel sorry; it doesn’t matter very much; I’ll write another. A
-man must do something and if I grow very successful I might be tempted
-to stop.”
-
-“Yes, one must play some game; that’s what Professor Pendragon says.”
-
-“That’s right, you met Gloria’s husband, didn’t you? What’s he like?”
-
-“Very nice; I’ll tell you later all about it.”
-
-They were entering the theatre now and Ruth wanted to talk to Terry
-about Professor Pendragon when no one else was listening. Ben Stark was
-a jarring note that precluded absolute revealment of her hopes and
-fears. Nevertheless she forgot to be annoyed at his presence in the
-theatre for he amused her with his comments about people on and off the
-stage and Terry was strangely silent. The play was a particularly inane
-bit of fluff and seemed to be making a great hit. Ruth could imagine the
-trend of his thoughts, the discouragement attendant upon doing his best
-and seeing it fail, and watching the success of an inferior endeavour,
-yet she envied him, for he at least believed in his own work, and the
-more she studied and compared her work with that of other students, the
-more a creeping doubt of her own ability filled her brain.
-
-“I need cheering up! Won’t you go to supper with me?” he asked as they
-passed out of the theatre.
-
-His invitation was addressed to both Ben and Ruth, but Ben, with motives
-which Ruth understood only too well begged off.
-
-“You know I have to report for rehearsals tomorrow morning, if you don’t
-mind I’ll run along.”
-
-He evidently thought that Terry would like to be alone with Ruth, and
-Ruth, realizing his mistake, was yet too timid to protest, even had she
-not secretly desired to be alone with Terry. She had never gone to
-supper with a man alone. It would be an adventure, and the fact that she
-loved the man even though he did not know or care, made it even more
-thrilling. She bethought herself of her costume and wished that she were
-in evening clothes.
-
-“I think I’d better take you some place near home,” said Terry. “If we
-use a cab we can save time, and there won’t be so many people downtown
-and we’ll be served quicker. I feel a bit guilty about keeping you out
-late.”
-
-“I’m not a child,” said Ruth, pouting.
-
-“I know you’re not, but you are—you’ll always be one, I hope.”
-
-She was about to ask why, but they were entering a cab now and she did
-not ask. She wanted to ask where they were going, but she did not ask
-that either. She found herself with Terry afflicted with a strange
-inability to talk. They rode almost in silence to Fourteenth Street and
-entered a most disappointing place.
-
-Ruth’s idea of supper after the theatre was a place of soft lights and
-music with beautifully dressed women and flowers, and sparkling wine.
-She didn’t want to drink the sparkling wine herself or even to wear the
-beautiful gowns, but she wanted to see them.
-
-The place they entered was a low ceiled, dark paneled room with no music
-visible or audible. There were white spread tables, but the women around
-them were far from beautiful, the men undistinguished in the
-extreme—matrons on the heavy order with men who were quite obviously,
-even to Ruth’s untrained gaze, their lawful spouses. Both men and women
-were giving more attention to their food, than to their companions and
-they were drinking—beer.
-
-“It’s quiet here and we can talk,” said Terry, quite oblivious to Ruth’s
-disappointment, but when they were seated he did not talk.
-
-“Tell me about the new comedy you’re writing,” said Ruth, remembering
-the axiom that it is always tactful to talk to a man about his own work.
-
-“No; I want to forget my work and myself. Let’s gossip. Tell me about
-Gloria’s husband.”
-
-In this Ruth thought she detected the interest of a jealous suitor.
-
-“Professor Pendragon is very charming and very clever and good looking.
-He is taller than Gloria, and apparently has no particular vocation, for
-he has given up astronomy. His interest in art he calls a fad; he lives
-alone in a suite in the Belton Hotel and about ten days ago he became
-mysteriously paralysed—his right leg up to the knee. That’s all I know,”
-said Ruth, “except that he’s one of the most fascinating men I’ve ever
-seen and I can’t understand why any woman would ever give him up. He’s
-almost as wonderful as Gloria herself. I’d like to say that he is ugly
-and old and disagreeable for your sake, but he isn’t.”
-
-Terry looked at her uncomprehendingly for a moment and then ignored her
-inference if he understood it at all.
-
-“That’s a lot of information to have collected all about one person,” he
-said. “They say it was a great love match and that they disagreed over
-some trifle. They met and were married in London and Gloria got a
-divorce in Paris less than a year later. Curious his turning up just
-now.”
-
-“Why just now?” asked Ruth.
-
-“Because Gloria is a woman who must at all times have some absorbing
-interest, and recently she hasn’t had one and it’s telling on her. She
-has fits of moodiness, and wild ideas that she never carries out—like
-the proposed sudden trip to Palm Beach. Two years ago when I first met
-Gloria she would have gone. If only I could finish my comedy and make it
-a real success with Gloria in the star rôle—”
-
-“You would really like to do things for Gloria,” said Ruth.
-
-“Yes; I’m awfully fond of her. She’s been my friend and has helped me
-ever since I first met her.”
-
-“Then, please, can’t you persuade her to get rid of George?”
-
-There was an intense appeal in Ruth’s voice that surprised Terry more
-than her request.
-
-“Why? How would that help her?”
-
-“I can’t explain it exactly. There are several reasons. One is that
-Gloria has been living quite beyond her income—I suppose I shouldn’t
-tell these things even to you, but I am worried about her and perhaps
-you can help—and she simply refuses to give up her big house because it
-serves as a refuge for professional people, friends of hers, out of an
-engagement. Of course all these people think that Gloria has unlimited
-means or they wouldn’t come. She won’t even let me help her, though I
-could quite easily. It’s because she really needs money that she’s gone
-to work in motion pictures. I imagine that George is an expensive
-servant and I thought if we could make her discharge him, she could get
-some one else for less money. Of course that wouldn’t make much
-difference in her expenses—I understand that—but it would be a start.
-It’s a lot of small economies that count, you know,” she said gravely.
-
-“I had no idea that Gloria didn’t have lots of money. Her second husband
-was Darral Knight, a man who had made a fortune in toilet preparations.
-It was he who gave her the house on Gramercy Square. Then she married
-Brooks Grosvenor and he settled an income on her when they were
-divorced. I always supposed that it was ample. Certainly from what I’ve
-heard of the man he would have it fixed so that she could not get
-anything but the income, and even that would be forfeited if she married
-again.”
-
-“The income isn’t large, not really large enough to afford such a big
-house, and Gloria has gone in debt a lot and now she’s working to pay it
-off. You see she’d have enough money if she would consent to live
-differently.”
-
-“But Gloria is not the sort of person who will ever live differently. I
-have often wondered how she got by in such a big house with perpetual
-guests and only two servants, but I suppose she just didn’t want to
-bother with any more. But that isn’t the reason you want her to get rid
-of George, is it? It really wouldn’t make any appreciable difference,
-would it?”
-
-“No—there are other reasons too, but I’m afraid to tell you.”
-
-“Something you don’t like to put into words?”
-
-Ruth nodded.
-
-“I think I know. I’ve thought of it myself and I don’t like to put it
-into words either, but I will, so that we can understand each other
-perfectly—a necessary thing if we are to help Gloria.” He paused looking
-at her, and seemingly trying to gather courage for what he was about to
-say.
-
-“You think that George is in love with his mistress.”
-
-Ruth’s horrified face revealed that Terry had put into words something
-quite foreign to anything in her thoughts.
-
-“Don’t look so horrified, it sounds terrible to us—it is terrible, but
-you must remember that George is a Hindoo, not a nigger, and that he is
-well educated, and that in many parts of the world, the idea of a black
-man loving a white woman is not so repugnant as it is here. I wouldn’t
-admit it for a long time myself, but it’s the only plausible explanation
-of a lot of things. Perhaps Gloria has told you that when she first met
-George he was a magician mahatma, who had been playing in London music
-halls and that he had been out of work for some time on account of
-illness. Out of gratitude, apparently, he offered to serve her. Later
-when he had quite recovered his health he could easily have gone back to
-his former work, but he didn’t go, though regardless of what Gloria pays
-him, it must be much less than he could make on the stage. If you’ve
-observed too, you will have seen that his attitude, while quite
-respectful, is never the attitude of a servant, and toward Gloria’s men
-friends his attitude is almost offensively disrespectful, especially
-when she is not present. He even hates me. I’ve thought for a long time
-that she ought to get rid of him, but I can’t go to her and tell her
-what I think, for certainly Gloria doesn’t suspect anything like that.”
-
-During this explanation, Ruth, recovered from the first shock of his
-words, was thinking rapidly. All her fears and superstitions came back
-one hundred fold in the light of Terry’s revelation. They gave reason
-and purpose to what she had seen and what she had suspected. She debated
-in her mind whether she dare tell everything to Terry.
-
-“But evidently you had something else in mind—some other reason,” he
-continued. “What was it?”
-
-She looked at his grey blue eyes and brown hair, his clear, fair skin
-and firm chin—he was Western of the West—he would never understand or
-believe.
-
-“Nothing,” she answered. “I suppose it’s just that I sensed what you
-have said, without ever daring to put it into words even in my own
-thoughts. Couldn’t you try and tempt George back on to the stage?”
-
-“I don’t know—I couldn’t, because he doesn’t like me, but I might get
-some one else to do it, that is if he hasn’t forgotten all his old
-tricks. Eleven years is a long time, you know.”
-
-“Oh, he hasn’t—” but she decided not to finish her sentence.
-
-The restaurant was almost deserted now, and Terry bethought himself,
-with many apologies, of his resolve not to keep Ruth out too late. He
-would have hurried into another cab, but Ruth protested that it was such
-a short distance and she wanted to walk. In reality she thought that in
-the darkness when she could not see his face so clearly she might find
-the courage to tell him. Yet she walked silent by his side, unable to
-speak. She was lost in the wonder of being alone with him—he was so tall
-and wonderful. She looked up at the stars and gratitude filled her
-heart. It was good to love, even when love was unreciprocated. She
-pitied women who had never loved, as she did, unselfishly—a love more
-like adoration than earthly passion. She wanted to help Terry and
-Gloria. She would rejoice in their marriage. If she could only solve
-their problems, she would not care what life held for her after that. It
-was an exalted mood for a girl of nineteen years, some months and days,
-and Terry, all unsuspecting, broke into it with words:
-
-“I wish we could arrange to have Gloria and Professor Pendragon meet
-again,” he said. “Pendragon was the big love of her life, and no man
-ever having once loved Gloria could possibly be quite free of her sway.
-She made the other marriages just for excitement, I think. I can’t
-imagine any other reason. I’d like to have them meet again. It would be
-interesting to say the least. I’m horribly unmodern, but I believe that
-men and women love once and once only.”
-
-It seemed to Ruth that there was a note of sad resignation and generous
-resolve in his voice.
-
-“But I’ve promised Gloria that I will not let him know anything about
-her. It’s very generous of you to want to—to bring them together.”
-
-For a moment Terry did not speak. He seemed to be considering her words
-and looked at her in a curious way that she did not understand.
-
-“It’s not generosity—perhaps only curiosity,” he said. “Gloria and I
-have been such good friends—and I am tremendously fond of her. She is so
-beautiful and charming and talented, but just now I think she needs
-something, some one, bigger than her work.”
-
-They had reached home, Ruth in a state of exalted pain and happiness.
-Terry loved Gloria; that was evident, but for some reason he did not
-hope to win her. With noble generosity he was hoping only for Gloria’s
-happiness—planning to bring her and Professor Pendragon together.
-Somehow it seemed that she and Terry were sharing sacrifice—he his love
-for Gloria, she her love for him. It gave her a feeling of sweet
-comradeship with him, that almost compensated for the pain of knowing
-that he did not love her. Perhaps behind her thoughts too there was the
-faint hope that if Gloria went back to her first husband, Terry might
-change the object of his affections, but this thought was only half
-defined, for at nineteen the idea of a man loving twice is very
-inartistic. To Ruth all real love was of the _Abelard and Heloise, Paul
-and Virginia_ type.
-
-Thus she thought in silence while Terry waited for her to unlock the
-door. The door opened to her key and she turned to say good-night to
-him, when her nostrils caught the overpowering perfume of some strange
-incense, and in the hall she saw the same blue haze that she had seen
-that night when she found Amy on the stairs. Terry, too, had smelled the
-incense, and paused, looking at her for explanation. Her heart was
-beating at a tremendous rate. Here was the opportunity that she had been
-seeking to secure an unbiased witness. She put her finger to her lips in
-sign of silence, as Amy had done that night, and drew him with her into
-the hall. Then she closed the door silently behind them. Without knowing
-why he imitated her example in silence. Inside the hall was heavy with
-the blue smoke and the perfume that seemed to be smothering them.
-
-“Now I can show you why I want Gloria to send George away. He’s
-downstairs now, I think,” she was speaking in a low whisper. “I want you
-to see for yourself. I haven’t dared to tell any one for fear they
-wouldn’t believe. He’s down there,” she pointed. “Don’t knock or let him
-know you’re coming—I want you to see everything. Perhaps—I know it
-sounds a terrible thing to do, but if you could just look through the
-keyhole—”
-
-She stopped abruptly, seeing Terry’s look of amazement at such a
-request.
-
-“Believe me—it is better to do that—just look once and you’ll
-understand.”
-
-She moved toward the rear of the house, tiptoeing noiselessly and
-beckoning him to follow. At the top of the short flight of steps she
-stopped again.
-
-“Down there, behind that door,” she whispered.
-
-As one preparing to dispel the foolish fears of a nervous woman, Terry
-advanced down the steps, yet such was the influence of the hour, the
-strange incense and Ruth’s manner that he walked softly. Ruth followed
-him, but at the bottom Terry did not bend down to look through the
-keyhole. Before Ruth’s frightened eyes he put his hand to the handle of
-the door, which swung inward at his touch.
-
-A deeper blue haze than that above filled the room into which they
-looked. In the centre of the room George was kneeling—about his head a
-white turban was wound and he was wrapped in a long, black robe on which
-the signs of the zodiac were picked out in gold thread. Before him was
-placed an altar, which rose in a series of seven steps. At the bottom a
-lamp was burning with a blue flame, from which the clouds of incense
-were rising, almost obscuring what lay coiled on the topmost step which
-spread into a flat platform—an enormous serpent coiled, with its head
-lifted from the centre of the mass and swaying from side to side,
-seemingly in accompaniment to a low monotonous chant that George was
-singing, while he too swayed back and forth, for some moments seeming
-not to know that the door had been opened. Ruth could not understand the
-words of the chant, but from the tone they sounded like an invocation.
-George was praying to his reptile! Suddenly, as if he had just seen
-them, he lifted his hands and his voice rose, and the snake reared its
-head far into the air, so that they could see its darting, forked
-tongue. Then as George’s voice suddenly stopped on a high note the snake
-subsided again, and George rose to his feet and greeted them.
-
-“Good evening,” he said, “I was just practising my box of tricks. You
-know I used to be a professional magician and Miss Mayfield has asked me
-to accompany her to the Christmas party in the country to help entertain
-the guests of the Peyton-Russells. The snake is quite harmless,” he
-continued, picking it up on both hands and dropping it over his
-shoulders. “Would you like to touch it?”
-
-“Oh, no, no,” said Ruth, drawing back and instinctively clutching
-Terry’s arm. Terry did not accept the invitation either, but to Ruth’s
-surprise he seemed to accept George’s explanation of the strange scene
-as truth.
-
-“We were attracted by the smell of the incense,” he explained, “thought
-it might be fire and we’d better investigate.”
-
-“Certainly, quite right.” Never had George’s voice sounded so silky and
-lisping and sinister. He stood quite still, seemingly waiting for them
-to go, the snake coiled round his shoulders. Ruth was only too glad to
-make her escape and Terry followed her. In the hall he turned to her
-smiling.
-
-“No wonder you were frightened if that’s what you saw, but you see it’s
-quite all right—Gloria knows about it and it hasn’t any significance. Of
-course snakes aren’t pleasant things to have in the house, but this one
-is harmless, so I hope it won’t disturb your sleep.”
-
-“Do you believe what George said,” she asked.
-
-“Of course, why not?”
-
-“Because I don’t. He may be practising tricks for the Christmas
-party—that may be true, but there was no trick to what we saw just
-now—the snake was real, and the altar and the incense—and George was
-praying—he was praying to that snake.”
-
-“Even so,” said Terry. “We’re not missionaries that we should try to
-convert the heathen. I don’t care how many snake worshippers there are
-in New York.”
-
-“It isn’t that, Terry—I know it sounds weird, but the night I saw him
-before, was the night Professor Pendragon was stricken with paralysis—”
-
-She stopped frightened by the lack of comprehension in Terry’s face.
-
-“Don’t you see if George will worship a snake, he is the sort of person
-who will pray calamities on his enemies. If he loves Gloria, then he
-hates Professor Pendragon, because he is the only man Gloria has loved.
-When Pendragon’s name was first mentioned, you remember the Sunday
-morning I got the card to the water colour show, George was even more
-concerned than Gloria, and when I went he warned me to be careful what I
-said. I believe that he is responsible for Pendragon’s illness.”
-
-Comprehension had dawned in Terry’s face, but with it Ruth could see a
-tolerant incredulity and a wonder that she could believe such nonsense.
-
-“It’s reasonable enough that George hates Pendragon, but even if he does
-hate him and even if he was actually praying for him to be harmed, that
-doesn’t give a prop snake the power to carry out his wishes.”
-
-“It isn’t the snake; it’s the power of George’s concentrated thought.”
-
-“Thoughts can’t harm people,” said Terry.
-
-“But they can—thoughts are things and evil thoughts are as powerful as
-good ones.”
-
-She could almost see the thoughts passing through Terry’s brain. He was
-looking at her, assuring himself that she really was sane and had been
-up to this night quite normal, almost uninterestingly normal, and even
-while she tried to make her beliefs clear she was conscious of a feeling
-of exultation because for the first time she was actually interesting
-the man.
-
-“I’ve heard of Indian fakirs who could paralyse parts of their own
-bodies so that knives could be thrust into them without causing the
-slightest pain, but I never heard of one who exercised such power over
-another person, but even if that were possible how would it help to send
-George away? If Gloria sent him away, he could still keep on thinking
-and worshipping snakes, too, for that matter,” he said, smiling.
-
-“Professor Pendragon told me that if he had an enemy who was trying to
-harm him, he would try and destroy that enemy’s faith in his ability to
-harm. What we must do is destroy the snake first. George worships the
-snake or some power of which the snake is a symbol. Either way if we
-destroy the snake we destroy George’s confidence in his ability to
-harm.”
-
-“I haven’t any objections to killing snakes. In my opinion that’s what
-the horrid beasts were created for, but this particular snake is
-probably very valuable—he belongs to the profession and everything.”
-
-“Please don’t jest about it, Terry; it may be a matter of life and
-death. If I hear that Professor Pendragon is worse instead of better
-tomorrow, I will be sure. Then we must do something before it is too
-late. You must promise to help me.”
-
-She laid her hand on his arm and looked up at him with such genuine fear
-and entreaty in her eyes that for a moment he understood and sympathized
-with all of her beliefs.
-
-“Of course I’ll help,” he promised, “but now I’d best go, and you must
-go to bed and try not to dream of snakes.”
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER VIII
-
-
-Ruth waited impatiently for the noon hour, so that she might ask Nels
-what news he had of Professor Pendragon, but when she finally met him he
-had not seen nor heard from the Professor since the day they all had tea
-together. On Sunday morning Dorothy was to go to him to begin his
-portrait and Ruth was to accompany her. Until then she probably would
-get no news. In the afternoon when she returned to the house she found
-Gloria there before her, having returned early from the motion picture
-studios. Terry was there too, reading the last of his new comedy which
-was now completed. Gloria was enthusiastic about it and Billie Irwin,
-who had been quite depressed for over a fortnight, was now as cheery as
-if the contract was already signed, for Gloria had picked out a part
-that must certainly be given to Billie if she, herself, was to play the
-lead.
-
-They all talked as if the production of the play was assured, and as if
-no one but the author would have a word to say about how it should be
-cast, a thing that seemed quite logical to Ruth until Terry himself
-explained that he would have very little to say about it, except as to
-Gloria, and she would be given the leading rôle when the play was
-produced, not so much because Terry wanted her, as because she was the
-only well-known actress who could possibly fit it.
-
-To hear the others talking one would think that the play was going into
-rehearsals tomorrow with all the parts distributed among Gloria’s
-friends. Even Ben Stark begged Terry to try and hold out one of the
-parts until he saw how his road tour was coming out, and they were all
-discussing how the various parts ought to be dressed.
-
-Terry had no opportunity to talk to Ruth alone, but they exchanged
-significant glances when George appeared with tea, looking so correct
-and conventional that it was difficult to believe that they had seen him
-the night before burning incense and kneeling to a snake.
-
-“Any news?” Terry whispered, and Ruth could only shake her head.
-
-When George had left the room Terry ventured to speak of him:
-
-“What’s all this that George is telling me about going up to the
-Peyton-Russells’ with you to amuse the guests with vaudeville magic?” he
-asked.
-
-“Oh, he’s been telling!” exclaimed Gloria. “I intended it to be a
-surprise. He’s really quite wonderful, you know, or at least he was
-quite wonderful if he hasn’t forgotten.”
-
-“It can’t do any harm, my knowing, as I’m not to be one of them,” said
-Terry.
-
-“I’d get you an invitation, if there was the slightest chance that you’d
-accept,” said Gloria.
-
-“You know I’d like to go, just to see George.”
-
-“Consider yourself invited then. Angela will ask any one that I tell her
-I want. They’ve got loads of room and men are never too numerous even in
-the trail of the fair Angela.”
-
-“Don’t you think that George ought to go back to his profession? If he’s
-as good as you say it ought to be easy to get him signed up on the
-Orpheum circuit. If he doesn’t know the ropes here in the States I’ll be
-glad to help him,” said Terry.
-
-“It can’t be done—the biggest salary in the world wouldn’t tempt George
-away from my service. It’s the Eastern idea of gratitude. We had that
-all argued out ten years ago. I told George that he ought not to give up
-his career to serve me, but he wouldn’t listen to me at all. He said
-that I had saved his life, therefore it belonged to me. He almost wept
-at the idea of having to go, and yet I sometimes think that it is my
-life that belongs to George instead of his life that belongs to me. He
-is a most despotic servant and tries to rule all of my actions. If my
-conduct displeases him he inconsistently threatens to leave, but of
-course he doesn’t mean it.”
-
-Gloria was smiling, reciting the peculiarities of an amusing servant,
-but to Ruth her words were appalling. She seemed to see Gloria as a
-bright plumaged bird, charmed by a snake. Once, years ago when she was a
-little girl visiting in the country, she had seen a bird thus charmed,
-circling, circling, downward toward the bright-eyed snake that waited
-for it. She had been unable to move or help, as fascinated as the bird
-itself. She felt the same sensation of helplessness now. She dared not
-look at Terry, but a few minutes later he came to her side and whispered
-to her:
-
-“Meet me at Mori’s tomorrow at five.”
-
-She had never heard of Mori’s, but she could look it up in the telephone
-directory. Evidently Terry had some plan. The thought cheered her
-immeasurably.
-
-The situation in the house was a curious one, for Amy shrank with terror
-whenever George came near her, at the same time leaping to do his
-slightest bidding. Ruth, so far as possible, ignored George completely
-and he never spoke to her directly unless it was absolutely necessary,
-and Gloria did not seem to either observe or sense that there was a
-strained atmosphere in the house.
-
-The distrust of George and foreboding of the future descended on Ruth
-the moment she entered the house in the afternoon and remained with her,
-colouring all her thoughts until she entered the Art Students’ League in
-the morning. Here she forgot everything in passionate pursuit of art,
-daily lifting her ambition to higher ideals and daily seeming to
-demonstrate more and more her lack of talent for the career which she
-had chosen.
-
-Seeing her earnestness her fellow students strove to help her, giving
-her advice and criticism and now and then a word of encouragement, and
-Ruth, whose confidence in herself was fast slipping, listened to
-everything, following the advice last received and struggling to “find
-herself.”
-
-The thing that hurt her most was the fact that as yet she had seemed to
-attract no particular notice from her instructors. In Indianapolis she
-had been rather important and she could not think that the greater
-attention she had received there was entirely due to there not being so
-large a number of students. She longed to ask one of the instructors,
-but it was hard to do that. They came through, looked impersonally at
-her work and made brief comments about drawing, proportion, composition,
-etc. Finally the courage came to her very suddenly in the portrait class
-one morning. She had come early and was in the front row. Very slowly
-the instructor, the most frank and vitriolic of all the instructors,
-according to Nels, was coming toward her. Suddenly she knew that she
-would speak to him that day. As he stopped from time to time, her
-courage did not desert her. She waited quite calmly until he reached her
-side. She rose to let him have her chair, and for some seconds he looked
-at her work without speaking. Then he began:
-
-“Don’t you see that your values are all wrong? And the entire figure is
-out of drawing; it’s a caricature!”
-
-Ruth listened almost without emotion. It was as if he was speaking to
-some one else.
-
-“By the way,” continued the instructor, looking up at her suddenly,
-“didn’t I see some work of yours in one of the Sunday newspapers about a
-month ago?”
-
-Ruth nodded; she could not speak.
-
-“I thought so; I was pleased and surprised at the time to see how much
-better your work in that line was than anything you have done here.
-That’s what is the trouble with this; it’s a cartoon.”
-
-“But I want to be a portrait painter; I’m interested more in landscapes.
-Please tell me the truth. Do you think I have talent—possibilities—will
-I ever do anything?”
-
-He looked at her, frowning, yet with a half smile on his lips.
-
-“Tell me first, what are you studying for? Are you collecting canvases
-to take home and show Mother, or do you intend to try for a career—to
-make a profession of painting?”
-
-“It is my profession—I’ve never wanted to do anything else—I must be a
-great painter.”
-
-She spoke with almost hysterical intensity.
-
-A shadow passed over the instructor’s face.
-
-“It is difficult to say who has and who has not talent. So far I have
-seen no signs of it in your work here. Unquestionably you have the
-cartoon gift, but as for painting—still a great desire may do much. Rome
-wasn’t built in a day.”
-
-She had listened attentively, almost hopefully, until those last
-words. Then she knew that he was doing what Nels would have called
-“stalling.” He did not believe that there was any chance for her. He
-rose and went on about his tour of inspection, and Ruth sank down into
-the empty chair. She did not work any more, but sat still, looking at
-her work, but not thinking of it—not thinking of anything. She was
-roused by seeing the other students filing out at the luncheon hour.
-She did not want to see Nels and Dorothy; she would not go to their
-restaurant, instead she would eat the “cheap and wholesome” lunch
-offered in the building. There she would be with strangers. She ate
-something, she did not know what, and returned to her life class, but
-again she could not work. She was beginning to think definitely now.
-She had no talent—no future. If she could not be a great artist, a
-great painter, there was nothing in life for her. She didn’t want
-anything else, not even love. If she could come to Terry with a great
-gift, she would not stop hoping that he would love her, but to be just
-an ordinary woman—just a wife. If she was not to be a great painter,
-then what was she to be? Very carefully she went over every word of
-the professor. He had admitted that it was difficult to say exactly
-whether she had talent or not; he had only said that he had discovered
-no signs of it. Yet he was only one man. Thousands of geniuses in
-every field of endeavour had been discouraged by their elders simply
-because the new genius worked in a different manner from those who had
-gone before. But that didn’t apply to herself. She had no new and
-original methods. She changed her style of work every day in response
-to something she had heard or had seen. She had no knowledge, no ideas
-about art, in herself. Yet all beginners must be swayed by what they
-saw and heard, influenced by this or that painter from day to day,
-until they found themselves. Then she wondered if she had a self to
-find. She was vaultingly ambitious; she was industrious and something
-of a dreamer, but with all this Ruth was practical. She thought of
-perpetual students—did she want to become one of them? That was what
-it meant, following a muse who had not called. Art is not chosen. It
-chooses its own. Dorothy Winslow was wrong—fame could not be achieved
-merely by ambition, energy, and determination—neither is genius the
-art of taking pains, she thought. Sometimes it is achieved with
-infinite carelessness. The hour was afternoon, class was over and she
-had not touched crayon to paper. Not until she was on the street,
-hurrying out to avoid speaking to Nels or Dorothy, did she remember
-her engagement with Terry. Mori’s was on Forty-second Street. If she
-walked she would arrive at the right time. She was no longer curious
-as to what Terry would have to say. Gloria and George did not interest
-her. She was arrived at branching roads and she must choose. She
-realized that. Not that she could not keep on with her studies,
-regardless of whether she had talent or not. She could, for she was
-responsible to no one. No one counted on her to make good, nor was
-there any one to warn her against mistakes. She only knew that she did
-not want to devote her life to something for which she was not
-intended. She did not want to fail, even less did she want to be a
-mediocre success. She must live on Olympus or in the valley. It
-occurred to her that her very thoughts were proof of her unworthiness.
-If she were really a great artist she would not be thinking of either
-fame or failure, but only of her work. She was walking rapidly so that
-she arrived at Mori’s before five. She glanced at the watch on her
-wrist before entering and he was beside her, coming from the opposite
-direction.
-
-“On time,” he said with mock surprise.
-
-“No, I am ahead of time. I just came from the League.”
-
-They went in together—a big room crowded with innumerable tiny tables
-and many people, yet when she found herself seated opposite him, pouring
-tea, they seemed to be quite alone together. Perhaps it was because the
-tables were so tiny, perhaps because of the small, soft, rose-shaded
-light on each one, that she seemed to be nearer him than ever before,
-both physically and spiritually.
-
-“You were looking quite downcast when we met; I hope you aren’t worrying
-too much about George,” he said.
-
-His tone was friendly, intimate, comforting, inviting confidence.
-
-“No, it’s not that. Much more selfish. I was thinking of my own
-troubles.”
-
-“I didn’t know you had any.”
-
-“Yes, it’s art. You know I have thought for years—three years to be
-exact—that I would one day be a great painter and today I discovered
-that I have no talent.”
-
-“You can’t know that; you’re discouraged over some little failure. I
-don’t know anything about art, but you’ve only been studying a few years
-and that’s not time enough to tell.”
-
-“Yes, it is—I’ve compared my work with that of other students and I’ve
-been afraid for some time. Today I asked Burroughs, one of the
-instructors, and now I know.”
-
-“But that’s only one man’s opinion. Just what did he say?—I know the
-pedagogue-al formula, three words of praise and one of censure to keep
-you from being too happy, or three words of adverse criticism and one of
-praise to keep you from being too discouraged. Wasn’t it like that?”
-
-“No; he just said very frankly that he would not say that I had no
-future at all, but he did say that if I had any my work at school had
-never given any indication of it. He said my portraits looked like
-cartoons, and then he remembered those awful sketches in the _Express_—”
-She stopped embarrassed.
-
-“You never will live that down, will you?” said Terry, smiling.
-
-“That isn’t fair, I didn’t mean that, only it’s all so discouraging, to
-want to paint masterpieces and to be told to draw cartoons.”
-
-“Did he tell you that?” Terry spoke eagerly.
-
-“Not in so many words, but that’s what he meant.”
-
-“Then he rather admired your ability to do cartoons?”
-
-“I suppose so.”
-
-“Then why don’t you go in for that? One must do something, you know—play
-some game and that is better than most.”
-
-Ruth did not answer.
-
-“If you’d like I dare say you could do theatrical caricatures for the
-Sunday _Express_ every week. It wouldn’t take much time. Of course you’d
-soon get as fed up with the theatre as a dramatic critic, but it would
-be interesting for a time and you could continue to study, to take time
-to prove whether or not you have talent. If you say I may, I’ll speak to
-Daly about it the next time I see him.”
-
-“I’d like it I think—after all, as Mr. Courtenay said, it’s better to be
-a good cartoonist than a bad painter, and I can always keep on studying.
-It will not be exactly giving up my ambition, only I won’t be gambling
-everything on it.” Then, as if half ashamed of her surrender, and
-wishing to change the subject, “But we didn’t intend to talk about me,
-we were going to talk about Gloria, weren’t we?”
-
-“Is it absolutely necessary that we should have something very definite
-to talk about?” he asked, smiling. “Suppose I just asked you to meet me
-for tea, because.”
-
-Was he teasing her, she wondered.
-
-“But now that we are together, because, let’s talk about Gloria. I won’t
-know anything more about Professor Pendragon until Sunday. I’m going
-there with Dorothy Winslow, who is going to do a portrait of him, but in
-the meantime I’d feel very much happier if he was out of the house, or
-if not George, at least the snake. Couldn’t you kill it, Terry? That
-might make George so angry that he’d leave. And anyway, the snake is the
-important thing. Without the snake George would be comparatively
-harmless. You must kill the snake.”
-
-“But, my dear girl, how do you propose that I am to make away with
-George’s little pet? It belongs to George, you know. I don’t even know
-where he keeps it, and if I did it is his property and it wouldn’t be
-legal, you know—”
-
-“I wish you wouldn’t laugh at me—”
-
-“I’m not laughing at you. Even if I can’t quite believe all the things
-that you believe, I can still see that the situation is serious, but I
-can’t see how killing the snake would help any. My idea is a bit
-different and perhaps quite as bizarre in its way. I’ve been thinking
-that if we could bring Gloria and Professor Pendragon together again,
-then he would take her away from George and the snake and save us the
-trouble of taking George and the snake away from her.”
-
-“It sounds good, but there’s no way to do it. I’ve given Gloria my word
-that I’ll not mention her name to him and the other day she even made me
-promise not to mention his name to her again.”
-
-“Even so, there must be other people who know both of them.”
-
-“He’s only been in America two years—they’d move in different circles,
-naturally.”
-
-“Yes, but circles cross—and look here, those pictures will be coming out
-soon.”
-
-“I don’t imagine he goes to the movies, certainly not now that he’s
-ill.”
-
-“Yes, but he reads the newspapers; he’ll see her pictures.”
-
-“But that isn’t meeting her. If he’s at all like Gloria, he’ll be too
-proud to look her up; besides we may be talking nonsense. How do we know
-that they don’t really hate each other?”
-
-“That’s not the worst. People don’t usually hate over ten years. They
-may be utterly indifferent. I realize that possibility, but I don’t
-believe they are indifferent. It’s all just guessing.”
-
-“The simplest way would be to get rid of the snake,” persisted Ruth.
-
-“Yes, I know, but who’s to do it, and how?”
-
-“You’re to do it, and I suppose that I, being in the house, should plan
-the means—find out where he keeps his pet and how to kidnap it.”
-
-“Even if it has the significance you suppose, what’s to prevent him
-getting a new one?”
-
-“They don’t sell them in the department stores, you know,” said Ruth,
-smiling.
-
-“Let’s wait until you see Pendragon again before we do anything rash,”
-Terry closed the discussion.
-
-He came home with Ruth, who wondered if Gloria would observe them coming
-together, and if it might not wake in Gloria some latent jealousy.
-
-“I’ve persuaded Ruth to take up cartooning as a profession,” he
-announced. His putting it into words like that before all of them seemed
-to make it final.
-
-“You mean those political things of fat capitalists and paper-capped
-labouring men?” asked Ben Stark.
-
-“Certainly not,” said Terry. “You’re horribly behind the times. That
-sort of thing isn’t done. If she goes in for political cartoons at all
-she will draw pictures of downtrodden millionaires defending themselves
-from Bolsheviki, rampant on a field of red, or of a mob of infuriated
-factory owners throwing stones at the home of a labour leader—she may
-draw a series of pictures showing in great detail how a motion picture
-actress makes up to conceal the wart on her nose before facing the
-camera.”
-
-“It isn’t at all settled yet,” said Ruth. “I may not be able to get a—a
-job.” She hated the word, but pronounced it in a perfect fury of
-democratic renunciation.
-
-“I don’t think there’ll be any trouble,” said Terry. “There’s always a
-demand for that sort of thing.”
-
-Altogether, however, the announcement produced surprisingly little
-comment from Gloria and her friends. They seemed to take it as a matter
-of course, like Gloria’s going into motion pictures. She had been,
-despite her fears, rather successful, and had been offered a new
-contract, which, however, she was unwilling to sign until she knew more
-about the production of Terry’s comedy. If Terry’s play really got a New
-York production, Gloria would be only too glad to desert the camera.
-
-The revelation of Ruth’s duplicity to Professor Pendragon was threatened
-in a most unexpected manner, Sunday morning. First Dorothy called for
-her at the house, and this time, manifested more curiosity about her
-surroundings than she had done previously, because this time her mind
-was not on the more important matter of frocks.
-
-“Who do you live with here?” she asked Ruth, as she waited for her to
-put on her hat and coat.
-
-Ruth hesitated; she hated deception of any kind, or making mysteries.
-After all it was very silly of Gloria. If one must leave ex-husbands
-scattered around the world, one should contemplate the possibility of
-running across them now and then with equanimity. And then the stupid
-idea of concealing their relationship. It was all most annoying.
-
-“With a woman who was a friend of my father,” she answered at last, but
-Dorothy was not to be put off so easily.
-
-“I mean what’s her name?” she asked with frank curiosity.
-
-“Gloria Mayfield—she’s really my aunt,” said Ruth with a desperate
-realization that she might as well speak now as have her secret come out
-later under less favourable circumstances. After all, Dorothy didn’t
-know that Pendragon was one of Gloria’s husbands and she might not
-mention their relationship to him anyway.
-
-“The actress?” asked Dorothy, with a rising inflection composed of
-astonishment, envy, and doubt in her voice.
-
-“Uh—huh.” She tried not to be pleased at the look in Dorothy’s blue
-eyes.
-
-“She’s in pictures, isn’t she, now? I saw her picture in at least three
-newspapers this morning.”
-
-“I don’t know—I’ve not seen any newspapers this morning,” she answered.
-
-“Will I meet her?” asked Dorothy. She was a most distressingly natural
-and unaffected person. She always said what she thought and asked for
-what she wanted without the slightest effort at concealment.
-
-“I dare say you will if you come often enough. She’s asleep now, but
-she’s not at all difficult to meet.”
-
-“Perhaps I could paint her,” again suggested Dorothy.
-
-“I don’t think Gloria could sit still long enough.”
-
-Things were developing too rapidly for Ruth. She had known that Dorothy
-would be interested, but she had not thought that her interest would
-take this turn, though she might have guessed, for Dorothy looked at
-everything and every person as so much available material. She worked
-incessantly with both hands and brain. She didn’t just study art; she
-lived it in the most practical manner possible. She was becoming quite
-well known as a fashion artist and could have been busy all the time,
-had she not continued her studies. As it was she did quite as much work
-as many fashion artists who devoted all their time to it. And she never
-for a moment let herself think that being a fashion artist today would
-debar her from becoming a famous portrait painter tomorrow. She was
-building high hopes on Professor Pendragon.
-
-On the way to his hotel Ruth told her about her decision to go in for
-cartooning professionally, and she rather hoped that Dorothy would
-discourage her, but she was disappointed.
-
-“Splendid! You’re doing the right thing. You know I don’t think you’ll
-ever get any place with painting. Nels thinks that, too, but you have a
-genius for caricature. Those things in the _Express_ were really clever.
-Lots of character and good action. You’ll be famous.”
-
-“Famous!” Ruth put as much scorn as possible into the one word.
-
-“Of course—beginning with Cruickshank there have been ever so many
-caricature artists in the last two centuries whose names will last as
-long and longer than most of the painters.”
-
-Ruth did not respond to this. She was wondering if after all she might
-not one day, not only be reconciled to the work destiny had given her,
-but be actually rather proud of it.
-
-They were expected by Professor Pendragon and were conducted immediately
-to his apartment, but when the boy knocked at his door, he did not open
-it as on the former occasion, instead they were met by a white uniformed
-nurse.
-
-“Professor Pendragon begs to be excused from his appointment. He is very
-much worse. The paralysis has extended from his knee to his hip. He
-asked me to say that he will be glad to make good his promise as soon as
-he is well.”
-
-The effect of this announcement was bad enough on Dorothy, who naturally
-was bitterly disappointed, but its effect on Ruth was much worse.
-Professor Pendragon’s misfortune had fallen upon him on the night that
-she first watched George, and a repetition of George’s ceremonial had
-brought with it the increased misfortune to him that she had feared. She
-was eager to hurry away and find an opportunity to tell Terry of this
-new development, but Dorothy lingered at the door, expressing sympathy,
-which Ruth suspected was more for herself than for Professor Pendragon.
-
-Professor Pendragon called to the nurse to let them come in. He was
-propped up on a chaise longue, with newspapers and the remains of
-breakfast scattered about on the floor and on a low table beside him.
-His face was very pale and Ruth thought that he looked as if he had not
-slept. She tried not to look at some photographs of Gloria prominently
-displayed on the scattered sheets. Evidently he had seen them, so now he
-knew that she was in New York, or at least in America.
-
-“I’m awfully sorry to disappoint you and myself. But you see a man can’t
-have his portrait painted in a pose like this,” he said. “I can’t
-imagine what’s wrong with me, but of course it won’t last long. A friend
-of mine has asked me out to his place in the Berkshires and I think I’ll
-go. Perhaps this may be the result of nerves, and anyway, lots of cold
-air and altitude and quiet can’t do any harm. When I return I’ll be very
-glad to make good, but perhaps by that time you will have so many
-commissions that you won’t have time for me.”
-
-“No chance,” said Dorothy. “I shall be waiting for you.” And then: “How
-long do you think it will be?”
-
-“You’ll know definitely after Christmas eve, next dark of the moon, you
-know.” He was smiling, the smile that Ruth had grown to suspect hid a
-serious thought. “Either the paralysis will have crept up to my heart,
-or it will have gone entirely. I am waiting.”
-
-Dorothy laughed nervously.
-
-“What nonsense; of course you’ll get well and the moon hasn’t anything
-to do with it anyway. We’re awfully sorry that you’re ill, and don’t
-forget to let me know when you get back to town.”
-
-When Ruth took his hand to say good-bye she thought he looked at her
-reproachfully, but she dared not meet his eyes. Dorothy was looking down
-at the pictured face of Gloria that was smiling up at them, but
-apparently she looked with unseeing eyes, for she did not say anything.
-
-In a way it would have relieved Ruth’s conscience if Dorothy had spoken.
-She might then have discovered whether Pendragon knew of her deception
-and what he thought. One thing she knew. Professor Pendragon was really
-facing death—a mysterious, relentless death that could not be overcome
-or even combated. When he died no one would search for his murderer—no
-one would believe that his death was anything but natural, and the force
-that had killed him would still go on through the world, too mysterious
-and unbelievable for modern minds to compass.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER IX
-
-
-It was the first time that Ruth had seen Prince Aglipogue, though
-apparently he was on the most congenial and intimate terms of friendship
-with Gloria. He was at the piano now, accompanying himself, while he
-sang in Italian. He had glossy black eyes, glossy red lips, glossy black
-hair, smooth glossy cheeks and what Terry described as a grand opera
-figure. He was a Roumanian, and while he sang magnificently, was a
-passable pianist and a really good violinist, he was at present earning
-his living as a painter.
-
-Gloria had finished her motion picture contract and was relaxing. Ruth
-had just come home from the League and found Gloria, Terry, Billie
-Irwin, Prince Aglipogue and Angela Peyton-Russell at the house. Ben
-Stark had at last started out on tour, or he would also have been there.
-Ruth often thought that her aunt’s house was more like a club than a
-home. Of course Ruth did not immediately learn all the foregoing details
-about Prince Aglipogue, whom Gloria called Aggie, and the others called
-Prince. Her information came in scraps gathered from the conversation of
-the others. She had slipped quietly into the room while Prince Aglipogue
-was singing and was introduced to him when he had finished. He bowed
-with surprising depth and grace for a man with no waist line to speak
-of, and regarded her out of his glossy, black eyes. He spoke entirely
-without accent, but constructed his sentences curiously, Ruth thought.
-
-As always when there were many people Ruth did not talk, but listened.
-Mrs. Peyton-Russell had come to talk over with Gloria the details of her
-Christmas party. As at present arranged she would have one more man than
-woman, and it appeared that her party must be conducted strictly on the
-Ark principle, with pairs. She was deeply distressed. She had invited
-Billie Irwin in a patronizing burst of generosity, but Billie had also
-secured an engagement that would take her out of town and could not
-come.
-
-“I don’t know who to have,” Angela complained. “Of course there are
-dozens of people I could ask, but I wanted this to be just our little
-Bohemian circle—no swank, no society people—just friends.”
-
-No one seemed to mind this remark. George had come in with a tea wagon
-and the Prince was engaged in the, to Ruth, alarming, procedure of
-drinking whiskey and soda and eating cake. Witnessing this catholic
-consumption of refreshment she could easily conceive that an invitation
-to any party under any circumstances, would be welcome to him. As for
-Gloria, she was accustomed to Angela, and did not mind her airs. Since
-her marriage Angela had consistently referred to all her old friends as
-“our little Bohemian circle,” a circle, to which she was constantly
-reverting for amusement, after unsuccessful attempts to gain access to
-the more conventional circles described as Society.
-
-“Angela’s heart is as good as her complexion,” Gloria always said, and
-that was indeed high praise.
-
-“Just tea, please, Gloria,” Angela was saying. “I never drink anything
-stronger any more—no, no real principle, but people in our position must
-set an example, you know. Not sweets—I really don’t dare, well just a
-tiny bit. You know there is a tendency to stoutness in our family.”
-
-“There is, I suppose, in that, nothing personal,” said Prince Aglipogue,
-hastily swallowing a _petit fours_.
-
-Angela laughed gaily. She pretended to believe everything the Prince
-said to be extremely clever.
-
-“But that doesn’t solve my problem,” said Angela. “You are all to come
-up on the Friday night train. We’ll meet you at the station at North
-Adams. You must be sure and dress warmly, because it’s a twenty-mile
-drive through the hills and while there’ll be lots of robes in the
-sleigh, one can’t have too much.”
-
-“It will remind me of Russia,” said the Prince.
-
-“You’ll be sure to bring your violin and some music,” said Angela.
-
-Prince Aglipogue assented carelessly.
-
-“I really think it will be tremendously successful,” said Angela, “not a
-dull person in the party, only John has invited one of his friends—he’s
-coming up early. I forget his name, but anyway I haven’t the slightest
-idea what he’s like and he makes my party uneven. Come to think, though,
-John said something about his being ill—lungs, I suppose, so perhaps he
-won’t want to talk to any one. Anyway I’ll try and think of some one
-congenial before it’s too late.”
-
-She rambled on, sipping her tea and forgetting her diet to the extent of
-two more cakes, while George moved in and out among them apparently a
-model of what a perfect servant could be.
-
-“Of course you’ll sing for us,” she demanded of the Prince.
-
-“You will inspire my best efforts,” he assured her, looking at Gloria.
-
-“And you’ll be sure to have some clever stories, Mr. Riordan.”
-
-Evidently every one would have to pay for their entertainment. Ruth
-wondered if she would be expected to draw.
-
-“And the best part of the entertainment is to be a secret.”
-
-“I’m afraid it isn’t to most of them,” said Gloria. “Professional pride
-got the better of George’s discretion and he told Terry and Terry told
-Ruth.”
-
-“What is it?” asked the Prince, evidently fearing a rival attraction.
-
-“It’s George,” explained Gloria. “He used to be a music hall magician
-and he’s going to do his tricks for us.”
-
-“Oh!” Prince Aglipogue shrugged his fat shoulders.
-
-“You won’t be so scornful when you’ve seen him. He was one of the best
-and if he hasn’t forgotten he’ll astonish you. George is a Hindoo, you
-know, and he doesn’t need a lot of props to work with.”
-
-“And he is working here as your—as your butler.” It was indeed difficult
-to classify George. His duties were so numerous and varied.
-
-“Yes, Aggie, as my butler, footman, and he will be cook and maid as
-well, I’m afraid, for Amy has given notice. She’s leaving at the end of
-the week, unless Ruth can persuade her to stay.”
-
-“Why Ruth?” asked Terry.
-
-“I don’t know. Servants always have favourites and while George is
-devoted to me, Amy is devoted to Ruth.”
-
-“Devotion? Among servants!” Angela threw out her hands in a despairing
-gesture and then launched forth on a discussion of servants to which no
-one paid much attention, with the possible exception of Billie Irwin,
-who listened to every one on every subject, showing her keen attention
-to their words by sundry nods, smiles, and shakes of the head.
-
-Angela was taking Gloria away with her to dinner and Prince Aglipogue,
-finally having consumed the last scrap of cake, and convinced that he
-would not be asked to come with them, took his departure. Billie Irwin
-went up to her room to rest, Gloria and Angela went away and Terry also
-departed, leaving Ruth alone. She rather hated these evenings when
-Gloria was away and she had to dine alone. Amy usually served her on
-these occasions, George hardly thinking that one person at the table
-justified his appearance. She was wondering whether she should tell her
-not to trouble with dinner and go out, when George came in to take away
-the tea things. Ruth was almost as much afraid of George as Amy, but she
-nerved herself to speak to him now, because she questioned whether she
-would again have such a good opportunity.
-
-“How is your pet?” she asked.
-
-“I beg your pardon,” said George, capturing a glass from the piano and a
-tea cup from the floor with what looked like one movement.
-
-“I mean the snake that you use in your—in your tricks.”
-
-“I do not perform _tricks_ with the daughter of Shiva.”
-
-“But you said you were rehearsing the day Mr. Riordan and I looked in on
-you?”
-
-“You knew that I was not speaking the truth.”
-
-As he talked he went on about his duties. There was in his attitude
-toward her nothing of the servant. He did not pronounce her name once,
-but spoke as one speaks to an equal.
-
-“Why should I think that you were speaking anything but the truth? If
-you were not telling the truth I must speak to Miss Mayfield. I don’t
-think she would like the idea of having a snake in the house.”
-
-He put down the cup in his hand and turned to her.
-
-“Miss Mayfield is well aware that the daughter of Shiva is with me. She
-has been with me since my birth and was with my father before me, and
-she is sacred.”
-
-“George, you ought to be ashamed to believe all that superstition—an
-educated—” she stopped, the word nigger on her lips—“man like you. It’s
-nothing short of idolatry.” She was trying to talk to him as she would
-have scolded at one of her mother’s coloured servants.
-
-“You prefer the mythology of the Hebrews?” asked George.
-
-Ruth decided to ignore this.
-
-“And now you’ve frightened poor Amy so that she is leaving. That ought
-to concern you, for it may be some time before Miss Mayfield can find
-any one to take her place.”
-
-“That is of no importance, for on the first of the year the house will
-revert to its original owner and she will not need servants. She will be
-travelling with her new husband.”
-
-“Her what?” Ruth forgot that she was talking to George. She stared at
-him wide eyed, unwilling to believe that she had heard him rightly.
-
-His blue lips curled up in a thin smile:
-
-“Certainly—wait and you will see that I am right. She herself does not
-know it, but she will marry Prince Aglipogue on the first of the new
-year.”
-
-“She will do nothing of the sort—she can’t—he’s fat!”
-
-Ruth was protesting not to George but to herself, for even against her
-reason she believed everything George said to her. He shrugged his
-shoulders, still smiling at her, and it seemed to her that the iris of
-his eyes was red, concentrating in tiny points of flame at the pupils.
-
-“You are speaking foolishly out of the few years of your present
-existence; back of that you have the unerring knowledge of many
-incarnations and you know that what I say is true. Has she not already
-had three husbands? I tell you she will have one more before she finally
-finds her true mate. She has suffered, but before she knows the truth
-she must suffer more. Through the Prince she will come to poverty and
-disgrace, and when these things are completed she will see her true
-destiny and follow it.”
-
-A mist was swimming before Ruth’s eyes so that she no longer saw the
-room or the figure of George—only his red eyes glowed in the deepening
-shadows of the room, holding her own. She struggled to move her gaze,
-but her head would not turn; she tried to rise, to leave him as if his
-words were the silly ravings of a demented servant, but her limbs were
-paralysed. Only her lips moved and she heard words coming from them, or
-echoing in her brain. She could not be sure that she really made a
-sound.
-
-“What do you mean?”
-
-“In the whole world there are only two men who are fit to walk beside
-her—and of those one is slowly dying of an unknown disease. He whom the
-gods chose will soon be gone, but I remain because I have knowledge. In
-the _Mahabharata_ it is written, ‘Even if thou art the greatest sinner
-among all that are sinful, thou shalt yet cross over all transgressions
-by the raft of knowledge,’ and the Vedas tell of men who armed with
-knowledge have defied the gods themselves—”
-
-He paused and turned on her almost fiercely:
-
-“Do you think that I have renounced my caste, that I have lived with the
-unclean and served the unclean for nothing—the price has been too high
-for me to lose—but no price will seem too high after I have won!”
-
-
-Ruth woke to find herself alone and in darkness, save for the light from
-the street lamps that shone through the curtained windows. With her
-hands stretched out in front of her to ward off obstacles she moved
-cautiously through the room until she found a light to turn on. She felt
-weak and dizzy, but she remembered everything that George had said. It
-could not be true—it could not, but with her denials she still heard
-George’s voice speaking of the raft of knowledge and she half remembered
-the incomprehensible contradictions of Indian mythology—of heroes and
-holy Brahmans who had actually fought with gods and conquered, but these
-men had only won power through self-denial. Possibly George thought that
-by living as a servant for eleven years he was performing
-austerities—possibly did not know what he believed. Certainly modern
-Hindoos did not believe as he did. His mind seemed to be a confused mass
-of knowledge and superstition, ancient and modern, but one thing he
-had—faith and absolute confidence in his power, and she remembered some
-words she had read, when, as a child, she pored over books of mythology
-instead of fairy tales: “All this, whatever exists, rests absolutely on
-mind,” and “That man succeeds whom thus knowing the power of austere
-abstraction, practises it.”
-
-She was roused from her thoughts by the entrance of Amy.
-
-“Ain’ yo’ goin’ eat dinnah? That voodoo man, he’s gone out, an’ I saw
-you-all sleepin’ here and didn’t like to disturb yo’. Yo’ dinnah’s cold
-by now, but I’ll warm it up—now he’s gone I ain’ ’fraid to go in the
-kitchen.”
-
-“I’m not hungry, Amy, and I’m sorry you’re going.”
-
-“Dat’s all right. I ain’ so anxious fo’ wu’k as that. I don’ haf to wu’k
-with devils. An’ yo’ bettah eat. You-all too thin. It’s a shame you-all
-havin’ ter eat alone heah while Mis’ Glorie go out to pahties. She don’
-treat yo’ like folks. Dat devil man he’s hoodooed her. I’ve seen him
-lookin’ at her with his red eyes.”
-
-She went on muttering and returned with dinner on a tray, and Ruth
-knowing the uselessness of resistance dutifully ate, while Amy hovered
-near.
-
-“Tell me all about it, Amy. What has George been doing now? I thought
-you would be satisfied when I let you sleep upstairs.”
-
-“No, sir, I ain’ satisfied nohow. I wouldn’t wu’k heah or sleep heah
-’nother night not for all the money in the worl’. Dat man he sets an’
-sets lookin’ at nothin’ an’ then he runs knives inter his hans—an’ he
-don’ bleed. He ain’ human—that’s what.”
-
-“I’m sorry, Amy—I don’t want you to go and neither does Gloria, but of
-course we can’t keep you. Let me know if you don’t get another place or
-if anything goes wrong. Perhaps later George may go and then you can
-come back.”
-
-“He won’t go. One mawnin’ you-all will wake up dade—that’s what goin’
-happen.”
-
-She shook her head, looking at Ruth with real tears in her eyes.
-Apparently she thought she looked at one doomed to early death, and
-Ruth, though she knew the threatened evil was not for herself, had long
-since lost the ability to laugh at Amy’s superstitions.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER X
-
-
-Terry Riordan arranged an interview for Ruth with the Sunday editor of
-the _Express_, with the result that she found herself promised to do a
-weekly page of theatrical sketches, beginning the first of the year, and
-she discovered the unique joy of having real work which was wanted and
-for which she would receive money. Also she discovered that association
-with a newspaper and connection with a weekly stipend gave her a
-prestige with her fellow students which no amount of splendid amateur
-effort would have won for her. Dorothy and Nels told every one they knew
-about “Ruth Mayfield’s splendid success,” and Professor Burroughs
-congratulated her.
-
-“It is always sad to see a student with a real gift neglecting it for a
-fancied talent,” he said, “and it is equally satisfying when any of our
-students wisely follow the line of work for which they are fitted. We
-don’t want to turn out dabblers, and too often that’s what art students
-become.”
-
-Ruth would have looked forward to the beginning of the next year
-eagerly, had she been thinking only of herself, for her new work was
-throwing her much in the company of Terry Riordan, who was taking her to
-the theatre every night, so that she would become familiar with the
-appearance and mannerisms of the popular actresses and actors. Of course
-he was doing it only because he was such a kind-hearted man and because
-he wanted to help her, but even Ruth knew that if she had not been a
-rather pleasant companion he would not have taken so much interest in
-helping her. His cheerfulness puzzled her. He seemed so brave and
-happy—but perhaps it was merely the forced gaiety of a man who is trying
-to forget.
-
-It was not, however, her own affairs that interested her most. Terry had
-found a producer for his play and despite the lateness of the season,
-rehearsals for it were to begin in January. Gloria had been offered the
-leading rôle, and with characteristic perverseness had said that she was
-not at all sure that she wanted it, information that Terry refused to
-convey to the manager. This, coupled with the fact that Gloria was now
-constantly in the company of Prince Aglipogue, made Ruth remember
-vividly her conversation with George. Her beauty, her restlessness, her
-changeful moods seemed to increase from day to day. She was always kind
-to Ruth, but she was very seldom with her. Invitations that a month
-before would have been thrown away unread were now accepted and Gloria
-dashed about from one place to another, always with Prince Aglipogue in
-her wake. His ponderous attentions seemed to surround her like a cage
-and she, like a darting humming-bird, seemed ever to be struggling to
-escape and ever recognizing the bars that enclosed her.
-
-Terry and Ruth, returning very late from supper after the theatre, would
-sometimes find her sitting in semi-darkness, while the Prince sang to
-her, but in such brief glimpses there was no chance for intimate
-conversation between the two women. Alone with Terry at the theatre or
-in some restaurant, Ruth almost forgot the shadow hanging over the house
-on Gramercy Park. Terry was so gay and amusing, so healthful and normal
-in his outlook, and wherever they went they met his friends, until Ruth
-began to feel like a personage. It was all very pleasant. Late hours had
-forced her to appear less and less often at the morning class, but she
-was always at the League in the afternoon and she began to wonder
-whether she would not give it up altogether as soon as she actually
-began her work for the _Express_. She had tried to tell Terry about her
-talk with George; but a few hours away from George and his snake worship
-and the sight of George in his rôle of servant had restored what Terry
-called his mental balance, and he no longer regarded him as dangerous.
-He was beginning to be a bit ashamed of even listening to Ruth’s fears.
-
-“It’s only natural that you should be nervous—that we should both have
-been a bit impressed, it was so weird and unexpected, but after all
-George is just a servant, and the snake is probably a harmless reptile,
-such as one sees in any circus. I do not think that he is a bad servant
-and that he does not regard Gloria as a servant should; he’s impertinent
-and disagreeable, if you like, but I don’t believe he has the slightest
-thing to do with Professor Pendragon’s illness. How could he?”
-
-He talked thus until Ruth despaired of securing his assistance. Terry
-had given Gloria a contract to sign, which she persistently refused to
-consider. Finally he appealed to Ruth about it.
-
-“Can’t you make Gloria sign it?” he said. “She seemed keen enough before
-we found a producer and before the thing was cast, and now that she has
-the contract before her, she seems to have lost all interest. I can’t
-imagine what’s wrong. Of course temperament covers a multitude of sins,
-but she never was temperamental about her work.”
-
-“Perhaps she’s decided to really abandon the stage,” said Ruth.
-
-They were having supper together—Ruth didn’t know where. One of the
-delightful things about Terry was that he never asked her where she
-wanted to go. He didn’t even tell her where they were going. He just
-took her.
-
-Terry looked at her in amazement. “Leave the stage?”
-
-“Did it ever occur to you that Gloria might marry Prince Aglipogue?” she
-asked.
-
-Terry answered with a laugh:
-
-“My dear child, you’ve thought so much about Gloria and George that
-you’re beginning to think of impossibilities. Gloria wouldn’t marry a
-man like that, and if she did she’d have to stay on the stage to support
-him. The house, of course, belongs to her, but the income from her other
-husband—I forget his name—would certainly stop if she remarried.”
-
-“I know; I thought it was preposterous too, but she’s always with him,
-and George told me that Gloria would marry Aglipogue.”
-
-“Servants’ gossip, or perhaps he did it to annoy you. Did you tell
-Gloria?”
-
-“No; I never get a chance to talk to her any more.”
-
-“If you told her it might make her angry enough to dismiss him. Gloria
-hates being discussed. Is the Prince going to the Christmas party?”
-
-“Of course; he goes everywhere that Gloria goes. I know you think that I
-am foolish and superstitious, but I can’t help thinking that George has
-some power over Gloria—that what he says is true—that he’s forcing her
-to marry Prince Aglipogue and that he is responsible for Professor
-Pendragon’s strange illness. The first time I saw George with the snake
-was almost three months ago—that same night Professor Pendragon became
-paralysed; the next time was just a month later and at the same time
-Professor Pendragon’s paralysis became suddenly worse. It was at the
-dark of the moon—”
-
-The last words were spoken almost in a whisper and when she paused Terry
-did not speak, but sat waiting for her to go on.
-
-“I know George hasn’t worshipped the snake since that time, for I’ve
-been in the house every night and you can always tell because of the
-incense that fills the hall and lingers there for hours. Christmas Eve
-will be the next dark of the moon. I know, for I’ve looked it up. We’ll
-all be in the Berkshires then, at the Peyton-Russells’. George will be
-there, too—and I’m afraid—I’m afraid.”
-
-Terry still sat silent looking at her with an expression of helpless
-amazement. His blue eyes were troubled and doubting and she knew that
-while he did not quite disbelieve her, he was by no means convinced,
-that her fears were justified. It was all too bizarre and unusual. The
-only trace of fear in his eyes was for herself, not for Gloria, or
-Professor Pendragon. She had been bending eagerly toward him. Now she
-sank back with a little helpless sigh. Instantly Terry’s hand reached
-across the table and caught her own in a comforting grip.
-
-“Tell me what you want me to do, Ruth; I’ll do anything. I’ll do
-anything for you—anything in or out of reason. I don’t understand all
-this talk about snakes and black magic, but whatever you want done, you
-can depend on me.”
-
-The blood rushed into Ruth’s cheeks in a glow of happiness. Something
-deeper than friendship thrilled in his voice. For a moment she forgot
-Gloria, and believed that she was looking into the eyes of her own
-acknowledged lover. Then she remembered. His words, even his eyes told
-her that he did, but it could not be true. For a moment she could not
-speak. She must think of Gloria first and herself afterward, but she
-wanted to prolong her dream a little while. Finally she told him what
-she had decided in her own mind was the only thing that Terry could do
-for her. She knew that he did not believe that George was menacing the
-life of Professor Pendragon, or that he was influencing Gloria to marry
-Prince Aglipogue, but even though he did not love her, he would do
-whatever she asked.
-
-“I want you to get me a revolver, Terry; I want a revolver—one of those
-little ones—before we go to the Christmas party.”
-
-She did not quite understand the curious “let down” expression on
-Terry’s face, when she made her request.
-
-“You don’t want to shoot George or the snake?” he asked, smiling.
-
-“I don’t want to shoot any one or any thing unless—anyway I’d feel much
-more comfortable if I had a little revolver.”
-
-“You shall have one; I’ll call it a Christmas present; but can you
-shoot?”
-
-“I don’t know. I suppose I could hit things if they weren’t too far away
-or too small.”
-
-“If you accidentally kill any of your friends I shall feel morally
-responsible, but I suppose I’ll just have to take a chance. Do you by
-any chance want the thing to be loaded?”
-
-“Of course,” said Ruth, ignoring his frivolous tone.
-
-They went home together almost in silence. Ruth did not know what
-occupied Terry’s thoughts, but she herself was wondering if she could
-find the courage to ask Terry to save Gloria from George and Aglipogue,
-by marrying her himself. It was all very well to be unselfish in love,
-but for some weeks at least it seemed to her that Terry had given up all
-effort to interest Gloria. If he would only make an effort he might save
-Gloria from the Prince and win happiness for himself, but despite her
-generous resolves, she could not bring herself to advise him to “speak
-for himself.”
-
-They could hear Prince Aglipogue singing as she unlocked the door of the
-house on Gramercy Square. The sound of his voice and the piano covered
-the opening and closing of the door, so that they stood looking in on
-Gloria and her guest without themselves being observed. The song was
-just ending—Prince Aglipogue at the piano, her eyes wide and if she
-heard the music she did not see the singer. There was a trance-like
-expression in her eyes and when, the song ending, they saw Aglipogue
-draw her to the seat beside him and lift his face to kiss her, with one
-movement Terry and Ruth drew back toward the outer door.
-
-“Guess I’d better go,” whispered Terry.
-
-“Yes; you saw George was right. They didn’t see us—don’t forget my
-revolver.”
-
-She closed the door after Terry, this time with a loud bang that could
-not fail to be heard and as she turned back she saw, far down the hall,
-two red eyes gleaming at her, like the eyes of a cat. She wondered if
-George had been watching too, and if his quick ears caught her whispered
-words to Terry.
-
-Gloria called her name before she entered the room, almost like old
-times, but Prince Aglipogue did not seem to be particularly pleased to
-see her.
-
-“You were singing,” she said to him. “Please don’t stop because I’ve
-come. I love to hear you.”
-
-“Thank you, but it is late for more music; and it is late, too, for
-little girls who study, to be up even for the sake of music.”
-
-Even a week ago he would not have dared speak to her like that. He sat
-staring at her now, out of his insolent, oily black eyes, as if she were
-really a troublesome child. For a moment anger choked her voice and she
-half expected Gloria to speak for her, but Gloria was still looking at
-Aglipogue, the strange trance-like expression in her eyes, and Ruth
-became calm. If Prince Aglipogue chose to be rude she could be
-impervious to rudeness.
-
-“I’m not trying to make the morning classes any more, Prince Aglipogue,
-so I can stay up as long as I like, but perhaps you’re tired of
-singing.”
-
-It was Aglipogue who looked at Gloria now as if he expected her to send
-Ruth away, but she said nothing, sitting quite still with her long hands
-folded in her lap, a most uncharacteristic pose, and a faint smile on
-her lips. She seemed to have forgotten both of them. It seemed
-incredible that less than five minutes before Ruth had seen her bend her
-head to meet the lips of the fat singer—incredible and horrible.
-
-“Yes, I’m tired—of singing,” said Aglipogue after a pause. He rose and
-lifted one of Gloria’s lovely hands and kissed it. Simultaneously George
-appeared at the door with his hat and stick. It seemed to Ruth that
-under his air of great deference and humility George was sneering at the
-Prince. Gloria, seemingly only half roused from her trance or reverie,
-rose also in farewell and seemed to struggle to concentrate on her
-departing guest.
-
-“Tomorrow,” he said, bending again over her hand.
-
-“Yes, tomorrow.”
-
-He went out without again speaking to Ruth, who waited breathless until
-she heard the closing of the outer door. Gloria watched him disappear,
-and then lifted her arms high above her head, stretching her superb body
-up to its full length like a great Persian cat just waking from a nap.
-
-“What are you doing up at this hour, Ruth?” She spoke as if seeing Ruth
-for the first time.
-
-“I went to the theatre with Terry, you know, and then we went to supper
-afterward and I came in fifteen minutes ago. I’m not a bit tired.”
-
-“I am, horribly, of everything.”
-
-“It’s only Prince Aglipogue who’s been boring you. No wonder you’re
-tired of him. If he’d only sing behind a curtain so that one didn’t have
-to look at him, he would be quite lovely,” said Ruth. She spoke thus
-with the intention of making Gloria tell what she really thought of the
-Prince. Gloria sank back on her chair by the piano and rested her chin
-on her folded hands, her elbows on her knees. Unlike most large women
-she seemed able to assume any attitude she chose without appearing
-ungraceful.
-
-“You don’t like Aggie, do you?”
-
-She was looking at Ruth now with something of her normal expression in
-her eyes.
-
-“I don’t exactly dislike him,” said Ruth. “He’s all right as a singer or
-a pianist or a painter, but as a man he is singularly uninteresting,
-isn’t he?”
-
-“He is horribly stupid—I—” Suddenly her expression changed and she was
-on her feet again, walking restlessly up and down the room: “I’m going
-to marry him; he’s going to South America on a concert tour and I’ll go
-with him—I’m so tired of everything; I want to get away.”
-
-Involuntarily Ruth had also risen, bewildered at the sudden change in
-Gloria’s manner. Through the open doorway she could see George standing
-in the dimly lighted hall beyond, his red eyes gleaming, fixed on
-Gloria’s moving figure. She thought she understood, at least in part,
-the reason for the sudden change and though she was trembling with the
-unreasoning fear that assails the bravest in the face of the mysterious
-and unknown, she forced herself to move across the room so that she
-stood between George in the hall, and Gloria. She could almost feel his
-malignant gaze on her back as she stood in the doorway, but she did not
-falter.
-
-“If you do that, Gloria, it will mean that you can’t work in Terry’s
-play—It will mean giving up everything—your career and your income. Does
-Prince Aglipogue know that?”
-
-Gloria paused in her restless walk and looked at her from beneath her
-troubled brows.
-
-“I don’t care about the career; I’m tired of the stage, but what
-difference will the income make? It’s such a little one, you know.”
-
-“Still it may make a difference with Aglipogue, and if you give up your
-career and your income you will be dependent on him. That should make a
-difference to you.”
-
-Ruth wondered afterward where she got all this worldly knowledge and how
-she was able to say it, with George’s eyes burning into her back.
-
-“What a practical child you are; but let’s not talk about it tonight.
-I’m awfully tired. We were going to announce our engagement Christmas
-Eve, but there’s no harm in your knowing.”
-
-“Gloria, you can’t—you can’t marry him. He’s fat and selfish and
-horrid!” In her excitement she forgot George and moved to Gloria’s side.
-“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
-
-Gloria’s eyes looked across her, over her head and the trance-like look
-came back into them.
-
-“When you are as old as I you will know that physical appearance doesn’t
-matter much. I don’t know why I’m marrying Aggie, but it seems to be
-happening. So many things happen—I need a change; I want to travel in a
-new country. Besides it’s all fixed—it’s too late now—too late—”
-
-She threw off Ruth’s detaining hands and swept past her through the hall
-and up the stairway, and Ruth did not try to follow her. Somewhere
-beyond the shadows she knew that George was still standing, his red eyes
-gleaming like those of a cat. She waited a few minutes to give Gloria
-time to go to her room and to give him time to retire to his own
-quarters. She did not want to pass him in the hall, and when at last she
-also went up, she thought she caught the sounds of suppressed sobs,
-coming from Gloria’s room. It would do no good to stop. In two days more
-they would be going to the Berkshires and there either George would win
-in his curious twisted plans or she would defeat him. If only she knew
-where to find Professor Pendragon. Terry could not help. He was too
-modern and practical. He couldn’t understand, his mind was fresh and
-clean and honest and western. If she could see Pendragon again she would
-tell him everything and he might help. She decided to telephone his
-hotel in the morning and find out, if possible, just where he had gone.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER XI
-
-
-When Ruth telephoned Professor Pendragon’s hotel she found that he had
-not left any address and would not be expected back before the first of
-the year. Her next thought was of Nels Zord. He might know, but much to
-her surprise she did not see Nels at the League, and sought out Dorothy
-instead. She found her easily enough, but it was not until she had asked
-about Nels that she observed that Dorothy’s eyes were red and her cheeks
-swollen as if from recent weeping. It was luncheon time and they were
-walking toward their restaurant together.
-
-“I don’t know where Nels is,” said Dorothy. Her voice was almost a sob.
-
-“Haven’t you seen him today?”
-
-“I never see him any more—haven’t you seen? He’s too busy with that
-Alice Winn girl. Oh, you know her, Ruth, the insipid creature with the
-carefully nurtured southern accent, who always has some highbrow Russian
-or Swedish book under her arm, and begins reading it every time she
-thinks a man is looking.”
-
-“I think I know the one you mean, but what about her and why is Nels
-busy with her and why have you been crying? You _have_ been crying.”
-
-“I suppose I have; it’s most unmanly of me, but I must do something. All
-men you know are irresistibly attracted to the weakest, cheapest sort of
-women. They all prefer sham to reality, and they are all snobs at
-heart.”
-
-“I’m afraid I don’t know much about men,” admitted Ruth.
-
-“Well, I’m telling you about them now. You might as well know. And the
-better a man is the more he likes imitation women, and Nels is just as
-bad as any of them, and that’s why he’s fallen so hard for Alice Winn.
-First he fell for the highbrow books. He really believes that she reads
-’em. Then she told him all about her aristocratic family in Kentucky,
-who fought and fought to keep her from being an artist, but she must
-‘live her own life,’ even if she had to brave the hardships of a great
-city with not a thing to live on except the income she gets from home.
-And then, of course, she scorns everything except real art—she would
-never stoop to a fashion drawing or commercial art of any kind. Her
-artistic temperament would not allow it. She is working on a mural—yes,
-indeed—of course it never has and never will go any further than a rough
-sketch and a lot of conversation in her comfortable studio, but Nels
-doesn’t know that. He and every other man she talks to believes that she
-is really working on something big. And then she is _such_ a lover of
-beauty. She must have flowers in her studio at all times. She simply
-couldn’t live without flowers. And Nels—Nels who never bought me even a
-bunch of violets at Easter time—is pawning his clothes to buy her roses.
-I think that’s what hurts most. I’m just a practical old thing, and I’ve
-never wanted to do anything at all but work with him and for him, and go
-to dinner with him ‘Dutch’—and so you see I am of no value—and she, who
-has never done a useful thing in her whole life, has completely
-fascinated him. He isn’t worth all this. I ought not to care—I don’t
-care—I’m just plain angry.”
-
-Tears were overflowing the blue eyes of the “just plain angry” girl and
-Ruth feared a public exhibition. They had reached the restaurant and she
-feared the curious eyes inside.
-
-“Let’s not eat here today, Dorothy. You need a change, that’s all, so
-why not take the afternoon off? We could go to your studio. I’ve never
-been there, you know. Couldn’t we have lunch there?”
-
-“We could buy it at the ‘delly’ ’round the corner,” said Dorothy, her
-round face clearing a bit.
-
-“And let’s buy some flowers first; if Nels shows up we can pretend a man
-sent them.”
-
-“That’s ‘woman stuff’; I don’t think I ought—but—”
-
-“Just for this once,” persisted Ruth, leading the way into the nearest
-flower shop.
-
-“I don’t like to have you spend money on me. I don’t like to have
-anything that I can’t pay for myself.”
-
-“That’s selfish, and vain. Perhaps that’s why Nels is with Alice.”
-
-“I suppose so. You know they’re so stupid, men. They believe everything
-you tell them. I’ve told Nels what a practical worker I am and how
-independent I am and he believes me, without ever trying to prove it;
-and she’s told him that she is an impractical, artistic dreamer and he
-believes that, too, though if he’d only think for just a minute he’d
-know that she’s a mercenary schemer, not an artistic dreamer.”
-
-“Do you like these pink ones?”
-
-“Oh, and those unusual pale yellow roses—the combination is wonderful,
-and the scent.”
-
-She buried her nose in the flowers in an ecstasy of delight that made
-her forget that Ruth was paying for them.
-
-“Now we’ll ride down on the ’bus,” said Ruth. “But you haven’t told me
-just where Nels is—is Alice Winn pretty?”
-
-Questions of this sort are perfectly intelligible to women and Dorothy
-answered in her own way as they climbed into the Fifth Avenue ’bus.
-
-“He’s gone with her to the Met—to look over some costumes she wants to
-use in this mural she’s supposed to be doing; and of course she is
-pretty—an anæmic, horrid, little dark-skinned vamp—and she lisps—all the
-time except when she forgets it or when there aren’t any men around.
-It’s not nice for me to talk like this. Probably she’s all right, only
-she isn’t good for Nels. I know that. What I’m afraid of is that she’ll
-use him. Lots of girls do, you know, use men like that. She’ll ask his
-advice about things and before he knows it he’ll be painting her old
-mural for her and she’ll sign it, and he’ll sit back and let her get the
-credit for doing it. It’s been done before, you know.”
-
-“Nels is too sensible for that. He’ll wake up before it’s gone that
-far.”
-
-“I don’t think so; she _is_ attractive to men.”
-
-They fell silent for a short space, looking out at the grey December
-streets on which no snow had yet fallen. Now a thin, cold rain began
-falling, making the pavements glisten, and giving even well-dressed
-pedestrians a shabby appearance as they hurried up and down—a thick
-stream of holiday shoppers.
-
-“My room isn’t much, but at least I live on Washington Square and that
-is something,” said Dorothy. “I love it all the year round, even now
-when there aren’t any leaves on the trees or any Italian children
-playing and when this beastly rain falls. I rather like rain anyway, but
-I’m awfully glad we’ve got the roses. We’ll get off here and walk around
-to the ‘delly’ first. It’s on Bleecker Street. I’m not supposed to cook
-anything in my room, but of course I do. All of us do.”
-
-Their purchases, though guided by the practical Dorothy, were rather
-like a college girl’s spread. Dorothy lived in an old-fashioned white
-house on the south side of the square—a house in which every piece of
-decrepit furniture seemed to have been dragged from its individual attic
-and assembled here in vast inharmony. Yet mingled with the 1830
-atrocities were a few “good” things, left from time to time by artists
-and writers whom prosperity had called to better quarters. Dorothy lived
-at the top of the house in one of the two rooms facing the square.
-
-“You see it isn’t really a studio,” she explained apologetically. “But
-it has got north light and the sloping room and that bit of skylight
-makes it quite satisfactory, and then, too, I face the Square and can
-always see the fountain and the Washington arch and the first green that
-comes on the trees in May, and I like it. And just because we’re
-celebrating I’ll put a charcoal fire in the grate and we’ll make tea in
-the samovar, but first we must take care of the flowers.”
-
-For a few minutes she seemed to have forgotten all her troubles.
-
-“I do wish I had a pretty vase. It’s almost criminal to put roses in
-this old jug. Don’t you think the samovar’s pretty? Nels did get me
-that. Wait a minute; I’ll show you his studio. It’s the next room to
-this and just like it. He never locks his door.”
-
-She stepped out, Ruth following, and pushed open the only half closed
-door of a room, the exact counterpart in size of her own, but rather
-more comfortable as to furnishings.
-
-“That’s her picture; she must have given it to him last week. I haven’t
-been in his studio for days and we used to have such corking times
-together—I worked here more often than in my own room and he always
-seemed to like having me—”
-
-Fearing a return of tears Ruth hastily retreated to Dorothy’s room.
-Besides she didn’t feel quite comfortable about entering a man’s room
-during his absence and examining his pictures.
-
-“Let’s not think about her; it’s just a phase and he’ll recover and come
-back to you,” she comforted.
-
-“You make the tea and I’ll spread this little table,” she continued,
-removing a pile of sketches to the floor.
-
-In a short space of time there was a real fire burning in the tiny
-grate, throwing a ruddy glow on the burnished brass of the samovar; in
-the small room the roses shed a heavy sweet perfume and the two girls
-chatted cosily over their tea cups. Dorothy smoked a cigarette.
-
-“Cigarettes are a party to me,” she exclaimed. “If I could afford to
-smoke I might not care for it at all, but I can’t, so when I want to be
-extravagant I smoke; it’s just a symbol.”
-
-Now that Dorothy seemed to have put her grief into the background Ruth
-was beginning to feel restless. On the following day the party was to
-leave for the Christmas party. They would arrive at their destination on
-the twenty-third of December and the imminence of the solution of all
-Ruth’s worries, for either good or evil, made her feel that she should
-be at the house as much as possible. Could she have done so she would
-have followed Gloria wherever she went. Most of all she wanted to find
-out where Professor Pendragon was stopping; and she ought to telephone
-Terry again to remind him not to forget the revolver. In her own mind
-she was not exactly sure what she would do with the gun when she got it.
-
-“I think I’ll have to run along,” she said.
-
-“Oh, and we were having such a good time. I was beginning to be quite
-cheered up. Wait a minute; that’s him.”
-
-Regardless of grammar, Ruth knew that the masculine pronoun could refer
-to only one person. Down three flights of stairs she could hear a
-tuneless but valiant whistle.
-
-“I wonder why he’s coming home so soon?” continued Dorothy. “I’ll shut
-the door tight so he won’t see us. I’m not going to make it easy for him
-to come back.”
-
-She closed the door as she spoke and the two girls waited, trying to
-keep up a hum of conversation. Dorothy’s agitation communicated itself
-to Ruth.
-
-“Will he come here?” she asked.
-
-“I don’t know; he always did before, but now, he may just be coming in
-to get something and then dash out again to meet her.” She walked to the
-window and looked out:
-
-“There’s no one down there waiting for him.” She came back to her place
-at the tiny table.
-
-The whistle had mounted all three flights now, and paused a moment
-before their door. Dorothy began talking unconcernedly. They heard him
-enter his own studio. The whistle was resumed and they could hear him
-moving restlessly about. A match was struck, then another; then silence,
-then footsteps and a knock at the door.
-
-“Come in,” called Dorothy, and the door opened, disclosing a rather
-shame-faced Nels, who, however, was determined to appear as if nothing
-had happened.
-
-“Looks like a party,” he said.
-
-“It is a party,” said Ruth.
-
-“I hope I’m not intruding—I thought Dorothy was alone.”
-
-“We were chattering continuously enough for any one to hear us,” said
-Dorothy. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
-
-“Thanks—I suppose that means, too, that I can come in and sit down and
-share your gossip, and everything,” said Nels, seating himself forthwith
-on the couch-bed—not a chaise longue—but an ugly bed disguised as a
-couch—without which no cheap studio or hall bedroom is complete.
-
-Much is written about the “feminine touch” which makes home of the most
-ordinary surroundings. Ruth thought of it as she looked at Dorothy’s
-room. Perhaps, she decided, artistic women are an exception to this
-rule. Dorothy had knowledge of beautiful things, more knowledge than the
-average woman, but no one would have guessed it from the untidy
-shabbiness of her studio. Only the bright samovar and the roses, thrown
-into relief by the firelight, which with the same magic threw dusty
-corners into shadow and seemed to gild the ugly, broken-down furniture
-into beauty, threw a glamour over the place now and made it seem quite
-different from the cheerless room they had entered over an hour before.
-The rain was bringing a premature twilight which made the firelight
-doubly welcome. Nels felt the change and looked about him as if in
-unfamiliar surroundings.
-
-“This is certainly cheery,” he said, taking the cup Dorothy offered him.
-“And roses!” He looked inquiringly at Ruth.
-
-“No, I’m not the lucky girl; some admirer of Dorothy’s.”
-
-There was an embarrassed pause. Ruth blushed because she had told what
-in childhood she had called a “white lie”; Dorothy because she accepted
-the deception that she would not herself have instigated, and Nels for
-many reasons.
-
-“Whoever he is he’s not a poor artist,” he said. “I know the price of
-roses in December,” whereupon he blushed more redly in remembrance.
-
-“I thought you were going to spend the entire day at the Metropolitan,”
-said Dorothy, beginning to enjoy the situation.
-
-“So did I,” said Nels, and then with a sudden burst of resolution, “I
-don’t mind telling you all about it—I’ve been an awful fool, and if
-you’ve decided to play with some one else, I don’t blame you. We walked
-to the Met this morning; Alice lives way uptown and I thought it would
-be a pleasant hike, but when we got there she was quite worn out, and
-then some fellow she knows came along with a car and offered to take her
-home and she went; said the walk had made her too tired to work. Of
-course he offered to ‘pick me up,’ too, but I preferred to walk and I
-did—all the way from the Metropolitan to Washington Square—now you know
-the entire story and can laugh to your heart’s content.”
-
-But neither of the girls laughed. Nels had evidently learned his lesson,
-and they were in no mood to increase his discomfiture.
-
-“I wanted to see you to ask if you know where Professor Pendragon went
-when he left town. He said some place in the country, but I’ve forgotten
-where,” said Ruth.
-
-“Yes; I got a note from him only this morning. He’s visiting a friend of
-his in the Berkshires. North Adams is the post-office and I’ve forgotten
-the name of the house. One of those big country places with a fancy
-name—wait and I’ll get the note from my room.”
-
-“He believed that about the roses and now that he’s sane again, my
-conscience hurts,” whispered Dorothy when he had left them.
-
-“Let it hurt a bit; I wouldn’t tell him,” whispered Ruth.
-
-“Here it is,” said Nels, returning. “Professor Percival Pendragon, care
-of Mr. John Peyton-Russell, Fir Tree Farm, North Adams,
-Massachusetts—some address, but anyway it will reach him.”
-
-“Peyton-Russell—he’s at the Peyton-Russell’s?”
-
-“You know them?”
-
-“Yes, that is, I know Mrs. Peyton-Russell a bit; she’s a friend of my
-aunt’s, and we’re going there for Christmas—going tomorrow.”
-
-“Really; that’s splendid, for you can save me writing a note. I hate
-writing letters. You see Pendragon has been trying to interest this
-Peyton-Russell in my work. He’s one of these men who’s spent two-thirds
-of a lifetime making money, and now he doesn’t know exactly what to do
-with it. He’s only been married about two years. I know Pendragon hadn’t
-met his wife, but Mr. Peyton-Russell depends on Pendragon to tell him
-when things are good, and when Professor Pendragon bought one of my
-pictures Mr. Peyton-Russell thought he ought to buy one, too. If you’d
-just tell Professor Pendragon that I don’t care what he pays for the
-picture he has—I let him borrow one to see whether he grew tired of it
-after it was hung—you’ll save me a lot of trouble.”
-
-“Of course; did you say Professor Pendragon hasn’t met Mrs.
-Peyton-Russell?”
-
-“He hadn’t; but I suppose he has now that he’s a guest in her house.
-John Peyton-Russell used to try to get him out to dinner in town, but
-Pen wouldn’t go; he hates society. But he was ill, you know, and
-Peyton-Russell was so anxious to do something for him, and promised that
-it would be quiet—no one out there, and the doctor seemed to think it
-might be good—he took the nurse along, of course, so Pen went.”
-
-“Did he say how he was getting on, in his last letter?”
-
-“Yes; just the same, no better and no worse, but didn’t say anything
-about coming back at once. You’re more interested than Dot.”
-
-“No; only it seems strange, a coincidence, his being at the same house
-we’re going to.”
-
-“While you’re delivering messages for Nels, deliver one for me too,
-Ruth,” said Dorothy. “Tell him I’m waiting very patiently to make that
-portrait and that when it’s finished if he wants to sell it to his rich
-collectors he can. What is he, Nels, a sort of dealer?”
-
-“My word, no—he’s a—just a man who happens to have a little money and a
-lot of appreciation. He’s just helping me to success, and helping
-Peyton-Russell to a reputation as a collector—he is quite disinterested.
-He could be anything, that man. I don’t know why he isn’t. Something
-went wrong some place along his route, I guess, and he just got
-side-tracked, you understand.” He finished with a wave of his hand.
-
-“Now I really must go—one must do a few things even before a short
-journey.”
-
-Ruth was more anxious than ever to get away now, and neither Nels nor
-Dorothy made any great effort to keep her. Nels was looking at the roses
-with sad eyes and Dorothy was looking at him with eyes that made Ruth
-fear that the secret of the flowers would not be kept long. Dorothy was
-too generous and honest to want to keep up even so tiny a deception.
-
-The one stupendous fact that stood out in her brain as she walked
-homeward was that Gloria and Professor Pendragon would meet. What would
-they do? Would Pendragon leave or would Gloria come back to town? What
-would they say to each other? How amazing that Mr. Peyton-Russell should
-be a friend of Pendragon’s and that Angela should be a friend of
-Gloria’s and that they had never before all met. Still it was
-understandable. Angela had only been married a year. George would be
-there, too, and Prince Aglipogue.
-
-She thought of Pendragon’s tall, clean-cut figure and fine face, and of
-Aglipogue’s heavy countenance and elephantine form—the contrast. Surely
-Gloria would see and withdraw before too late. It would be, too, the
-time of test—the dark of the moon.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XII
-
-
-It had been planned that they would all take the morning train together
-for North Adams, Gloria and Ruth, Terry and Prince Aglipogue and George,
-but Gloria, despite her motion picture experience, proved unequal to the
-early rising.
-
-“It’s no use,” she explained to Ruth, who went to her room to wake her.
-“I simply can’t get up this early in the morning. You go on and meet
-Aggie and Terry at the station and tell them that I’m coming up on the
-sleeper tonight. Tell George to go along, too, just as he planned. He’s
-got his ticket and will take care of your luggage and the others’, and
-everything will go just as we planned it except that I’ll show up
-tomorrow morning.”
-
-“Suppose there isn’t any sleeping train?”
-
-“There will be; anyway as far as Pittsfield. Do go down and tell George
-and explain to Angela when you get there.”
-
-What the trip would have been had Gloria not decided to wait for the
-night train, Ruth could not guess. What it was was most unexpected.
-George, being first told, was the first person to show sulky displeasure
-at Gloria’s decision. For a moment Ruth thought that he was actually
-going to knock on Gloria’s door and remonstrate with her, but even
-George dared not do that, so instead he preceded Ruth to the station,
-heavily laden with boxes and bags. He was there when she arrived, as was
-also Terry, who laughed without any apparent regret at Gloria’s revolt.
-
-“I rather hated to get up myself,” he said, “but a holiday is a holiday,
-and it’s part of the game to climb out of bed from one to ten hours
-earlier than usual. Besides, think how tired we’ll be tonight and what
-wonderful sleep we’ll get up there in the fresh air. There’ll be lots of
-snow, too. A few flakes fell here this morning, and that means that up
-in the mountains it will be thick and wonderful. I only hope it won’t be
-too cold.”
-
-“Here comes Prince Aglipogue,” said Ruth.
-
-The Prince was approaching, his great bulk thrusting aside the lesser
-human atoms in the station. Ruth was amazed to see that his curious
-travelling costume was finished by a top hat and wondered whether he
-would wear it in the train and in the sleigh from North Adams. Over the
-collar of his fur-lined overcoat his huge face rose, placid and
-self-satisfied, until he spied the waiting group with Gloria not among
-them.
-
-“Has she not yet come?” he asked. “The time of the train is immediate;
-we will miss it.”
-
-“Gloria has decided to take the evening train,” said Terry.
-
-“Then I also will wait.”
-
-“No, she especially asked that we all go ahead just as planned. Here’s
-George to take care of everything,” said Ruth.
-
-“Did she send to me no personal message?”
-
-“No; just that,” Ruth took pleasure in watching his face, like a
-cloud-flecked moon, in its annoyance. “We were all to go ahead and
-explain to Mrs. Peyton-Russell that Gloria will arrive in the morning.”
-
-Just then the gate was opened and Prince Aglipogue, still frowning,
-followed them reluctantly through it, in front of George and the two
-porters, who were helping him carry travelling bags.
-
-When they were all comfortably disposed in their seats Ruth began to
-fear that it would be rather an unpleasant journey, for Prince
-Aglipogue, unhappy himself, was determined that the others should be,
-too, if he could make them so.
-
-Only the amused light in Terry’s eyes gave her courage. Prince Aglipogue
-began with a monologue about rotten trains, stupid country houses,
-beastly cold and the improbability of Gloria’s coming at all, and
-finally worked himself up into a state of agitation bordering on tears,
-which would have made Ruth laugh had she not been afraid.
-
-“It is unkind of her to leave us this way. For herself she sleeps
-comfortably at home, while I rise at this unchristian hour for her
-sake,” he protested, more to himself than to the others, for he seemed
-determined to ignore them. His next phase was one of annoyance at his
-own discomfort.
-
-Why had not the Peyton-Russells themselves provided a drawing-room for
-him? They were “filthy” with money, and he was not accustomed to
-travelling in this public manner in spite of the fact that he was only a
-poor artist. Then he became worried about his luggage, which had
-consisted of a single dressing-case. He had entrusted it to George, and
-who knew what had become of it? He lurched off in search of George some
-place in the rear cars to find out.
-
-“I’d buy him a drawing-room just to get rid of him, if there was any
-graceful way of doing it,” said Terry. “I’m afraid this is not going to
-be the pleasantest of parties.”
-
-“For more reasons than one,” said Ruth. “I discovered yesterday that
-Professor Pendragon is already a guest of the Peyton-Russells. What will
-happen when Gloria arrives and they meet? Ought I to tell him, do you
-think, that she’s coming?” She had been thinking of nothing else since
-her talk with Nels and was delighted to have an opportunity to tell some
-one.
-
-“This is going to be fun! How do you know, and why do you suppose Angela
-Peyton-Russell is doing it—some idea of bringing them together again?”
-
-“I don’t see any fun in it with that beast Aglipogue along. And Angela
-didn’t know—at least, I’m quite sure she didn’t, and doesn’t. Professor
-Pendragon is a friend of Mr. Peyton-Russell and had never met his wife,
-and I don’t think Angela was going to the house many days before her
-guests. Mr. Peyton-Russell asked Professor Pendragon there because
-they’re old friends and Pendragon was ill. He thought the air and quiet
-would be good for him. He took a nurse along. I only learned yesterday
-from Nels Zord. Unless Angela has mentioned the names of all her guests,
-it’s possible that Professor Pendragon doesn’t know she’s coming. It’s
-going to be awfully awkward—meeting that way. I suppose one of them will
-return to New York. Perhaps he would if we warned him. Do you think I
-ought?”
-
-“You didn’t warn Gloria, and you had time for that; I don’t see why you
-should warn her ex-husband. Besides, it isn’t such an awful thing.
-Ex-husbands and wives meet every day in New York and don’t seem to
-mind.”
-
-“In a way I suppose I didn’t tell Gloria because she told me not to
-mention his name again, and besides I’d like to have her meet him,
-providing she didn’t make a scene. If she saw him again I don’t think
-she could go on with the Prince.”
-
-“Do you think she really is going to marry him?” asked Terry.
-
-“Of course she is, unless you or some one stops her; I don’t see how you
-can stand by quietly and see it done.”
-
-“It’s no affair—here he comes now.”
-
-Their conversation, thus broken off by the reappearance of Prince
-Aglipogue, they turned to the scenery outside, while their heavy
-companion, turning his back upon them as much as possible, pretended to
-read a magazine. The snow that had been falling in thin flakes in New
-York was coming down in great, feathery “blobs,” as Terry descriptively
-called them. At first they did not see any hills, but the movement of
-the train and the stertorous puffing of the engine told them that they
-were going steadily upgrade. Now the ground was entirely covered with
-snow, and the train twisted so continuously around the hills that
-sometimes they could see the engine curving in front of them, through
-the window.
-
-“If the snow continues like this, I’m afraid we’ll be many hours late,”
-said Terry.
-
-“It won’t matter much. We’re to be there at two o’clock, and we couldn’t
-be delayed more than a few hours at most, could we?”
-
-“You are pleased to be cheerful,” said the Prince. Evidently he had not
-been so deeply engaged with his magazine as he pretended. “If I am
-forced on this train to remain a moment longer than is necessary I shall
-perish.”
-
-“They do get snow bound, sometimes, you know,” said Terry cheerfully.
-“It won’t be so bad if we’re near some town. We can just get off and
-spend the night in an hotel.”
-
-At this the Prince only glared.
-
-“That would be an adventure—I think I’d rather like it,” said Ruth.
-
-As if he could bear no more the Prince again departed.
-
-“Presently he’ll come back, saying that the air in the smoking car has
-made his head ache.”
-
-“Don’t you want to go yourself for a smoke? You know you mustn’t think
-you have to stay here and amuse me,” said Ruth.
-
-“I can live ever so long without a cigarette. Besides I’d rather go when
-he isn’t there. I’ve been thinking about Gloria. Do you suppose she
-could have found out about Pendragon and isn’t coming? It would be like
-her. She could telephone that she’s ill or something.”
-
-“I don’t think so, but of course I don’t know. I don’t know anything.
-Perhaps Pendragon himself has left and all my worry is for nothing.
-Who’d ever think an aunt could be such a responsibility?”
-
-She said it so seriously and with such a wistful look that Terry
-restrained his impulse to laugh.
-
-“An aunt is almost as difficult to chaperon as a modern mother,” he
-admitted gravely; “but if the snow doesn’t stop snowing she may arrive
-as soon as we do, and you’ll not have to decide whether to warn the
-professor or not. After all, it’s no affair of yours. If they’re to meet
-this way they will meet this way, and it may be rather amusing.”
-
-It was difficult to answer him when he talked like that. Probably his
-words were prompted by bitterness, but it was maddening to have him sit
-back as if he were helpless to do anything. If only he would make an
-effort he could win Gloria away from her present course. He was
-attractive enough to win any woman. Whether he talked or sat silent, it
-was good to be with him. Then she remembered the gift he had promised
-her.
-
-“Oh, you’ve forgotten! I was afraid you would.”
-
-“No, I haven’t. You mean the revolver, but I thought it was to be a
-Christmas gift.”
-
-“It was—only I’d like to have it now if you don’t mind.”
-
-“What are you afraid of—train robbers? This isn’t a western movie in
-spite of the wild nature of our journey.”
-
-“I know, but please let me have it. You don’t know what a comfort it
-would be just to look at it.”
-
-“All right; just to show you how much I thought of it I didn’t pack it
-at all. It’s here in my overcoat.”
-
-An eager porter anticipated his movement to reach up to the rack on
-which the coat had been put, and brought it down for him, and he reached
-inside the pocket and brought out a box which he put in her hands.
-
-For a moment she did not open it, though he waited, smiling. She was
-conscious of the movement of the train, of the white flakes flashing
-past the window, half obscuring the rolling, tree-crowned hills that
-were fast merging into mountains; of the smell of the Pullman car,—a
-combination of steam-heated varnish and dusty upholstery—and most of all
-of Terry, seated opposite her, a half eager, half amused light dancing
-in his eyes.
-
-“It’s rather an odd gift to give a woman,” he said as she hesitated. She
-opened the box now, realizing herself more than anything else, as the
-central figure in a little drama. Inside she found a leather case—pale
-blue leather, more fit to contain jewels than a weapon of defence, and
-inside that the tiniest revolver she had ever seen, an exquisite thing
-with gold mountings.
-
-“Will—will it really shoot?” she gasped. “And it must have been horribly
-expensive—you shouldn’t have done it.”
-
-Her pleasure was so apparent in her face that her words, which she felt
-were ill chosen, did not really matter.
-
-“Of course it will shoot; and it’s loaded now, so please do be careful.
-Here, I’ll show you how it works—see, you open it this way, and here’s
-the way to empty the shells out—you see there are six—this revolves so
-that when you’ve shot one the next one moves into place all ready; it’s
-quite as deadly as a big one, I assure you. Do you think you’ll feel
-quite safe with this?”
-
-“It isn’t myself I want to protect,” she answered, and just then, she
-saw Prince Aglipogue returning, and some instinct prompted her to take
-the gun from his hands and put it back in its case and conceal it behind
-her. She need not have concealed it, for Prince Aglipogue was in no mood
-to observe details. His oily, black eyes were standing out in his head
-and his face had turned a sickly green. His three chins seemed to be
-trembling with fright.
-
-“That nigger of Gloria’s; he’s in the baggage car with a snake—a snake
-as big as”—he threw out his fat arms as if he could think of no word to
-describe the size of the snake. His voice was a thin whisper. “You must
-the conductor tell—it is not allowed. They do not know the trunk’s
-contents—I tell you I am speaking truth—a snake—as big as the
-engine—will you do nothing?” He grasped Terry’s shoulder and shook him.
-
-“It’s all right. We know all about it. Miss Mayfield knew he was
-bringing it. He uses it in his vaudeville stunts.”
-
-“I tell you I will not go on—to travel with a snake—it is horrible.”
-
-“He’s always had it,” soothed Terry. “It was in the house on Gramercy
-Square and never came out and bit any one. I guess you’re safe.”
-
-“If I had known——” He shuddered through all his fat frame and rolled his
-eyes upward.
-
-“How is he taking it?” asked Terry. “It’s bad enough to travel with a
-pet dog, but what one does with a pet snake I don’t know, and I’ve been
-curious.”
-
-Prince Aglipogue, frightened into friendliness, broke into a torrent of
-words from which they gathered that George had the snake in a trunk, the
-sides of which were warmed by electricity; that the train officials had
-no idea of the contents of the trunk, that George had gained access to
-the baggage car though it was against the rules, and that the Prince,
-being still worried about his luggage, though he had seen it safely
-aboard, had claimed the right to follow him there and had found George
-kneeling beside the opened trunk, from which the snake, artificially
-warmed to activity, was rearing a head which the Prince protested was as
-large as that of a cow. As he saw that his hearers were unmoved and that
-they had known about the snake and seemed to consider it quite ordinary,
-he was a bit ashamed of his agitation, though by no means convinced that
-there was no cause for it.
-
-“It’s a harmless variety,” Terry assured him. “If it were dangerous
-Gloria wouldn’t have allowed George to keep it in the house.”
-
-“For the bite, yes; it may be of no harm, but the shock to the nerves! I
-should have been warned.”
-
-“We didn’t know that you were going into the baggage car,” protested
-Terry.
-
-“What a terrible journey—look at the snow,” said the Prince, sinking
-into his seat.
-
-They looked out. The movement of the train exaggerated the whirling of
-the snow until it seemed like a frozen, white whirlwind, sweeping past
-them, or a drove of wild, white horses whose manes brushed the window
-panes. Beyond the whirling drift they could see nothing.
-
-Terry looked at his watch. Down the aisle Ruth heard a man asking how
-late they were, but could not catch the answer.
-
-“Let’s have something to eat; even if we’re on time, we won’t want to
-wait luncheon until our arrival. A twelve-mile drive through this
-doesn’t sound very alluring, and we may die of starvation on the way.”
-
-Terry’s glance included both Ruth and Prince Aglipogue.
-
-“Food I cannot face after what I have witnessed,” said the Prince.
-“Perhaps I may have something—a cup of tea—something to keep up my—what
-did you say—two hours late?”
-
-He clutched the arm of a passing conductor.
-
-“Yes, sir; two hours late now—only two hours,” he answered wearily,
-freeing his arm and passing on. Prince Aglipogue sank back in his chair
-as if he would never rise again.
-
-“Cheer up; that’s not bad. What can you expect with this snow? Two hours
-only means that we’ll arrive about five o’clock and get to Fir Tree
-Lodge—I think that’s what they call it—in time for dinner. Better come
-on and eat with us.”
-
-But Prince Aglipogue shook his huge head sadly, much to the relief of
-both Terry and Ruth, and they walked out together. Ruth was beginning to
-feel that she was having an adventure. Something in the restlessness of
-the other passengers on the train, who were beginning to look frequently
-at watches and to stop the train officials every time they appeared,
-something in the sight of the whirling clouds of snow, the thought of
-George, some place back there with his strange travelling companion, all
-contributed to the undercurrent of excitement, and with it was that
-comforting feeling of security that always comes from looking at storm
-and snow from a place of warmth and shelter.
-
-Because it was the holiday season the train was crowded and they were
-compelled to wait in the narrow hallway with other people in line before
-they could get a table.
-
-“Isn’t it wonderful and Christmasy?” she asked, “especially as I’ve
-already got one gift; see, I brought it with me. I’d like to look at it
-again, only I’m afraid if any of the other passengers saw it they might
-suspect me of being a train robber.”
-
-“Yes; you look so much like one. But perhaps it would be just as well
-not to look at it now. I’m glad you like it.”
-
-“It’s beautiful, and somehow I feel safer—I mean safer and happier about
-Gloria now that I have it.”
-
-“It’s a curious gift to give a girl, but I couldn’t exactly imagine
-giving you—”
-
-“Table for two,” interrupted the steward. Ruth wondered what it was that
-Terry couldn’t imagine giving her.
-
-Luncheon was like a party. Terry seemed to be making as much effort to
-amuse her as he would have made for Gloria, or perhaps he was so
-charming that he couldn’t help being charming all the time, she
-reflected. He had the most wonderful eyes in the world, and the kindest,
-strongest mouth, but she must stop looking at them. Still just for today
-she might pretend that he was her lover and that they were engaged,
-and—why not pretend that they were actually married and on their wedding
-journey? The thought made her gasp.
-
-“Is something wrong? I’ll call the waiter.”
-
-“No, nothing! I was just thinking—of something.”
-
-“Something nice, I hope.”
-
-“Yes, no—I don’t know.” It was horrible to blush like that. If she were
-only older and poised and sophisticated. Perhaps then she wouldn’t have
-to be pretending. But she would pretend, no matter how bold and
-unladylike it was to pretend such things and perhaps she would never be
-with him again in just this way, and it would be nice to remember.
-
-In her reckless mood she surprised herself by saying things like Gloria
-sometimes. They lingered as long as they dared because it was such a
-good way of killing time, and when they had finished she made Terry go
-back to the smoker.
-
-“They ought to have smoking cars for women,” she said. It was what
-Gloria might have said.
-
-“But you don’t smoke,” said Terry, smiling.
-
-“I know, but I shall learn.”
-
-“Not right away, I hope,” he said, smiling.
-
-Ruth found that Prince Aglipogue had controlled his nervous shock to the
-extent of having a very substantial lunch brought to him, which he
-seemed to be enjoying as much as if snakes had never been created, but
-he showed no more disposition to be sociable than before, for which Ruth
-was grateful. It would have spoiled her illusion that she and Terry were
-travelling alone together. Even she did not think he was gone long. He
-came back looking rather sober.
-
-“Would you be very much frightened if we didn’t reach North Adams
-tonight at all?” he asked.
-
-“No, not frightened; but why?”
-
-“It looks as though we couldn’t go much farther. We may have to stop.
-You can see how slowly we’re moving now. If they can get to the next
-station we can all stop at an hotel, but if not we may have to sit up
-all night.”
-
-“I think it’ll be rather fun—only won’t Angela Peyton-Russell be
-worried?”
-
-“She’ll probably have telephoned the station at North Adams and will
-know that we’re late. Gloria was wise. The track may be clear by the
-time her train leaves and she’ll arrive as soon as we.”
-
-“Then I won’t have to decide about warning Professor Pendragon. He’ll
-learn the news less gently.”
-
-“He may have left,” said Terry.
-
-“I don’t know whether to wish that he has or has not,” said Ruth. She
-could not bear the thought of Gloria’s marrying Prince Aglipogue, but
-every hour it seemed to grow more difficult to entertain the thought of
-her marrying Terry. Of course it wasn’t absolutely necessary for her to
-marry any one, but she must be in a marrying mood, or she wouldn’t think
-of Aglipogue, and she’d done it so often before that it ought to be
-easier every time. If only she could ask Terry what he thought, but of
-course she couldn’t do that.
-
-Prince Aglipogue had heard Terry’s first words and had lumbered off to
-secure the first-hand information. All the other men in the coach seemed
-to be doing the same thing. The snow had brought on a premature darkness
-and the lights were lit so that now they could see nothing outside. One
-could almost feel the struggles of the engine, which seemed to grow
-greater and greater as the speed of the train grew less. Finally it
-stopped altogether with a sound of grinding wheels. The conductor told
-them not to be alarmed. It was nothing but a few hours’ delay. A steam
-plough was already on its way. It was impossible to say how long.
-
-For a few minutes the passengers all talked to each other. Some of the
-men thought that if they could reach the road they might hail a passing
-sleigh that might convey some of them to the nearest town, but the road
-was half a mile away and there would be few vehicles abroad in such a
-storm, and the idea was abandoned. Terry went back to see how George was
-faring, and reported him still in the baggage car, sleeping on the trunk
-which doubtless contained “the daughter of Shiva.”
-
-People settled down to waiting; some of them read, and others slept,
-among them Prince Aglipogue. He snored unrebuked. Ruth heard a man
-inviting Terry to a poker game in the smoking car and was relieved when
-he refused. It would have been lonely without him. She tried to read,
-but the car was growing steadily colder. Terry insisted that she put on
-her cloak, but even that didn’t help much, when she was stiff with
-inaction. She tried to read, and finally curled up in the chair to
-sleep. Her last conscious thought was a protest when she felt rather
-than saw Terry wrapping his cloak around her.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XIII
-
-
-Ruth awakened to the sound of grinding brakes and opened her eyes to
-look into the eyes of Terry, which seemed very near as he bent over her.
-Her muscles were horribly cramped. She did not fully remember until he
-spoke.
-
-“We’ll be on our way in less than an hour, and if you want some coffee
-you’d better hurry. The train was only prepared for one meal, but there
-is some coffee and perhaps a piece of toast, if we get there before the
-hungry mob has finished it,” he said.
-
-“You gave me your coat,” she said, looking down at the garment that was
-wrapped about her. “You shouldn’t have done that; I had my own, and you
-must have frozen.”
-
-“Not at all; I’ve slept beautifully. Did it keep you warm?”
-
-“Yes, but—”
-
-“That’s all that counts; come on and get some coffee.”
-
-“Can’t I even wait to wash my face, or shall I wash it afterward, cat
-fashion?”
-
-“If it’s really necessary, you may; but you look remarkably clean and
-fresh considering—a few grains of dust, perhaps—”
-
-He looked at her with his head on one side, smiling.
-
-She was on her feet in an instant, but discovering that one foot was
-asleep, did not make such swift progress as she had expected. There were
-two other women in the dressing-room. Yesterday they would have looked
-at her as silently and impersonally as at the mirror or the wash basin
-or the black “prop” comb that is always found in Pullman dressing-rooms
-and that no one has ever been known to use, but now they were talking to
-her and to each other. The stout lady who was going home from a day’s
-Christmas shopping in New York was most voluble. She was worried about
-her husband and children, especially her husband.
-
-“What I’ll ever say to Henry, I don’t know. He told me that I could do
-just as well in Pittsfield as in New York. They have everything there,
-and such accommodating sales people—not like New York, where every one
-is too busy to be polite—and I didn’t get a thing I went after—and then
-this horrible experience. It’s added ten years to my life—I know it
-has.”
-
-“After all, it was only a delay,” comforted Ruth. “Suppose the train had
-been wrecked. I think it was rather fun.”
-
-“Fun! Fun!” the tall thin woman fairly shrieked at her, and the eyebrow
-pencil she was using slipped and made a long mark down her nose that she
-had to rub off subsequently with cold cream, producing a fine, high
-polish, which in turn had to be removed with powder, so thickly applied
-that Ruth thought she looked as if her nose was made of plaster of Paris
-and had been fastened on after the rest of her face was finished. It was
-difficult to do anything in the tiny crowded space, but she finally
-completed a hasty toilet and hurried out to rejoin Terry, who, in her
-absence, had secured two cups of coffee and some toast and brought them
-to their seats in the Pullman.
-
-“Where’s the Prince?” she asked suddenly, remembering his unwelcome
-existence.
-
-“In the dining-car; he got there early and managed to secure what little
-food there was aboard.”
-
-“Gloria’s train is right behind us,” he continued, “so we’ll wait for
-her at the station and all go up together.”
-
-The increasing warmth in the train was beginning to clear the frosted
-windows, and Ruth could see that the snow had stopped falling. A
-wonderful pink glow was resting on top of the softly rounded mountains,
-and where the clouds were herded between two high crests it looked like
-a rose-coloured lake with fir trees on its banks. She forgot her
-uncomfortable night and felt new-born like the sun. Everything was
-simple and easy. Everything would be solved; Gloria would not marry
-Prince Aglipogue. She certainly would not, for he came in now, unshaved,
-with bloodshot eyes and rumpled linen. He did not speak at all, but
-slumped in his chair, his chins resting on his bulging shirt bosom.
-
-“Have you seen George?” she asked Terry.
-
-“Yes; he’s all right. I only hope the daughter of Shiva froze to death,
-but I fear not.”
-
-“Will it be long now?”
-
-“We’ll be into North Adams in less than an hour.”
-
-“I’m afraid you didn’t get any sleep at all,” said Ruth, observing that
-his eyes looked tired.
-
-“Do I look as badly as that?” he parried. “Never mind, wait until we
-reach Fir Tree Farm and I’ve had a mug of hot Scotch.”
-
-“What’s hot Scotch?”
-
-“It’s something that no one would think of drinking at any time except
-the Christmas holiday—and the only thing that it seems quite correct to
-drink on a Christmas holiday, especially in a country house. It’s hot,
-and sweet and full of Captain Kidd’s own brand of rum, and spice,
-and—oh, ever so many things. You’ll see.”
-
-“Perhaps Gloria won’t let me drink it,” said Ruth.
-
-“Don’t ask her—from now on you must ask me—and if I say you may, it’s
-all right.”
-
-“Why?”
-
-“Haven’t I tucked you in and watched over you like a mother?” said
-Terry. “That gives me the right to say yes and no about things. I shall
-explain my new position just as soon as the stately Gloria steps off the
-train.”
-
-“This is North Adams; I heard a man say so—”
-
-“Yes; we’re here. I wonder if there’s food in the station. I’m starving
-already.”
-
-There was not food at the station, but there was a huge sleigh drawn by
-two powerful horses, with bells on their harness that tinkled merrily in
-the sharp air, and a man from Fir Tree Farm. Inquiry revealed the fact
-that Gloria’s train would be in within fifteen minutes and Terry told
-the man to wait. Meantime George appeared, looking as calm and
-imperturbable as if he had just stepped out of the house on Gramercy
-Square. They all sat on hard benches in the railway station, or looking
-through the soiled windows at other passengers driving gaily off to
-their homes—and breakfast, as Terry said quite wistfully. Prince
-Aglipogue paced up and down in melancholy silence. Ruth could imagine
-that he was preparing dignified reproaches to hurl at the auburn head of
-Gloria. Her train came in finally and she stepped off swathed in furs,
-exhaling the perfume of violets, followed by respectful porters and
-greeted by George, who took possession of everything, before the
-vicarious servitors quite knew what was happening.
-
-Gloria looked so fresh and beautiful, so perfectly groomed and so
-rested, that they all felt shabbier than ever and more dishevelled. They
-made a rush for her, and when George had stepped aside she greeted them
-with bright smiles.
-
-“Hello, people. You see I was right! What a wonderful morning! Hello,
-Aggie—you look as if you’d been in a wreck, and Ruth and Terry as if
-they’d been, oh, on an adventure. I actually believe you liked it. What
-did you sleep on?”
-
-“It has been a terrible experience,” Prince Aglipogue began, trying to
-look reproachful, but only succeeding in looking ridiculous. He could
-get no further in his speech, for Ruth and Terry were both talking.
-
-“We did enjoy it; wish you’d been along.”
-
-“We slept in our chairs, at least I did, but I don’t believe Terry slept
-at all. You look gorgeous, Gloria—there’s a sleigh out there with bells
-on.”
-
-“Come on, then; I’m famished. Didn’t you get up in time for breakfast
-even if there’d been any to get? Have you eaten?”
-
-“No; only a cup of coffee—very bad, too.”
-
-They followed George, all talking at once, and piled into the sleigh.
-There was straw on the bottom and many fur robes, the heaviest of which
-Aglipogue managed to collect for himself and Gloria, who were in the
-back of the sleigh. Ruth would have loved to sit in front with the
-driver, but, of course, George had to sit there.
-
-“My word, why did you wear that?” Gloria burst into peals of laughter,
-and lifted the silk hat from the head of Prince Aglipogue.
-
-“Naturally I supposed that the millionaires, your friends, would send a
-conveyance suitable—an enclosed car. How was I to know—straw, farm
-horses?” He almost snorted in his disgust.
-
-“You’re so funny, Aggie! Don’t you know there isn’t a motor built that
-could drive through these mountains in winter time? We’re lucky that the
-sleigh can make it.”
-
-Ruth noted with horror that in her laughter there was a tender note as
-if she were talking to an attractive, big boy. Instinctively she turned
-to look at George’s straight back, and long, narrow head. It seemed to
-her that his ears were visibly listening.
-
-From somewhere Terry produced a long, knitted scarf, and this Gloria
-tied around the Prince’s head, laying his hat tenderly down in the
-middle of the sleigh. He looked like a huge, ugly boy with mumps, Ruth
-thought, and Gloria, whose sense of humour even her Titania-like love
-could not quite quench, burst into renewed peals of laughter. Perhaps
-he’ll get angry and break his engagement, Ruth thought, hopefully, but
-his resentment seemed to be at things in general rather than at Gloria.
-
-They were really very comfortable in spite of the keen wind and the
-country round them was magnificent, hill melting into hill in endless
-procession like the waves on a limitless ocean. The sky was a vivid blue
-and the rich green of the fir and hemlock trees shone warm in contrast
-to the white snow. The clear ringing of the bells on the horses seemed
-like fairy music leading them over the hills and far away to some
-tremendous adventure. Just what that adventure would be Ruth could not
-guess, but she knew that Gloria would be its heroine and George the
-villain. As for Prince Aglipogue, with his fat face swathed in the
-scarf, she would concede him no other rôle than that of buffoon. The
-hero? Perhaps Professor Pendragon, perhaps Terry, but she would rather
-save Terry for another story.
-
-If only she knew whether Professor Pendragon was still at Fir Tree
-Lodge. It would have been easy to ask the driver, who was an inquisitive
-New Englander and was making desperate attempts to talk with George,
-but, of course, she dared not do that because of Gloria. After all she
-was not supposed to know anything about the guests. That was Angela
-Peyton-Russell’s affair.
-
-The heavy snow rather helped than impeded their progress, but they were
-all rather cold and tremendously hungry before they reached the gates of
-Fir Tree Farm. Then there was a slow pull up to the top of the hill on
-which it was built, a huge stone house, almost hidden in a forest of fir
-trees.
-
-Prince Aglipogue shuddered when he looked at it.
-
-“How is it heated?” he asked in tragic tones.
-
-“Very old-fashioned—no furnace or steam heat—just fire places like your
-dear castles in Europe,” said Gloria, which was not true, but served its
-purpose of making him look even more melancholy and making Gloria laugh
-again. She was quite the gayest person in the party and didn’t even
-complain of hunger.
-
-Angela Peyton-Russell was not at the door to greet them, but a
-maidservant and a man servant were. Angela had read some place that it
-was not smart to greet one’s guests in country homes that way, so she
-did what she thought was the correct thing.
-
-“Though she’s probably watching us from some point of vantage,” Gloria
-whispered to Ruth, as they followed the maid up a wide staircase, at the
-top of which she separated them, leading Ruth into what looked like the
-most cheerful room in the world.
-
-“Your luggage will be up directly,” she told Ruth, “and as soon as you
-can you’re to come down to breakfast. Mrs. Peyton-Russell has waited it
-for you.”
-
-She left at once, evidently going to attendance on Gloria, who any
-servant could see at a glance was the more important guest of the two.
-While she was waiting for her bags Ruth warmed herself before a
-wonderful wood fire, in front of which a blue satin-covered day bed
-tempted her to further rest. Through the wide windows the tops of the
-mountains that had looked so cold when she was driving to the house
-resumed the almost warm beauty that she had admired on the train. Snow
-always looks thus, infinitely attractive when one is safely indoors
-before a fire, but rather cold and lonely when one is travelling through
-it. She had hardly had time to remove her cloak and hat when a tap at
-the door announced her bags, and another maid came in to help her
-unpack. Ruth let her stay because she took rather kindly to being
-served, an inheritance from her mother, who came from Virginia, and
-because she might, without appearing too curious, learn something of the
-other guests.
-
-“Are there many people here?” she asked. It sounded rather unsubtle
-after she had said it, but the maid was evidently a country girl, not
-like the one who had brought her up, who had probably come from the
-Peyton-Russell town house, and she did not seem surprised, but rather
-glad to talk.
-
-“Only Mr. and Mrs. Peyton-Russell, and Miss Mayfield—but you came with
-her—you’re Miss Ruth Mayfield? and the foreign prince, and Mr. Riordan
-and Professor Pendragon, a poor sick man who’s been here almost a month,
-and a Miss Gilchrist, a singer. Perhaps you know her?”
-
-“No, I don’t think so,” said Ruth, almost sorry she had spoken, for the
-maid seemed to consider it an invitation to talk at length.
-
-“You’ll be surprised when you meet her, Miss; she’s that odd—not at all
-like you other ladies. She sings beautiful—do you want to change for
-breakfast? I wouldn’t if I were you. The breakfast’s waiting—here, let
-me smooth your hair—no, I want it for practice—one day I want to be a
-lady’s maid—a personal maid.”
-
-She laid great stress on the first syllable of the word personal.
-
-“They say some of these personal maids in big houses gets lovely
-tips—not that I want tips; I’m glad to serve some people, but a working
-girl’s got to take care of herself. If they was all like Miss Gilchrist
-life _would_ be hard.”
-
-She had a curious way of talking, with a rising and falling inflection,
-stressing unexpected words and syllables, so that in listening to her
-voice Ruth scarcely heard her words and forgot that she ought not to
-encourage servant’s gossip.
-
-“She’s terrible homely for one thing, and I think looking at herself in
-the mirror has soured her disposition. She wears her hair short, and at
-first I thought it was toifide fever. You should seen her glare at me
-when I ast. You better run right down; I’ll finish unpacking for you.
-You look too sweet; clothes ain’t everything.” With which doubtful
-compliment ringing in her ears, Ruth passed out, but instead of “running
-right down” she knocked at Gloria’s door. She had the feeling that if
-they were to walk down and meet Professor Pendragon face to face she
-wanted to be with Gloria. She had a vague fear that Gloria might faint,
-and she wanted to be there to bear her up. Gloria was herself all ready
-for descent, but she had changed her travelling costume for a charming
-frock. Hunger had doubtless prompted speed and a theatrical woman’s
-facility had aided her. She looked stunning, Ruth thought, and her heart
-swelled with pride at the thought that at least her Gloria was looking
-her very best for the encounter.
-
-“Afraid to go down alone?” Gloria asked. “You needn’t be; you’re looking
-ducky. I hope she has a millionaire for you to meet, but no such luck.
-That would spoil ‘our Bohemian circle.’”. She mimicked Angela’s gurgling
-voice perfectly. “I dare say those hungry brutes of men are waiting
-now—if they have the grace to wait, which I doubt; I could eat almost
-anything myself.”
-
-Angela, having done her conventional duty by not meeting them at the
-door, now yielded to her emotions and ran halfway up the stairs to meet
-them, hurling herself into Gloria’s arms and even kissing Ruth on the
-cheek to make her feel that she was welcome and really belonged.
-
-“Come on, we’re having breakfast in the sun parlour; it’s the loveliest
-room in the house. Every one is waiting. I’ve only two other guests, and
-I didn’t tell them who was coming. You’ll be such a welcome surprise,”
-she gurgled.
-
-“We will, indeed,” thought Ruth.
-
-“This is the library,” she waved her hand at an enormous room with
-gloomy furniture, the door of which was open. “Cosy little place, don’t
-you think? But here—”
-
-She paused dramatically before she threw open the door of the sun
-parlour. She was after all such a fluffy, good-hearted child that her
-pride in her possessions was no more offensive than the pride of a child
-in new toys, and Ruth couldn’t blame her for being proud of the room
-they entered. They all stood at the open door looking at it a moment
-before entering—a long, narrow room, evidently running the full length
-of the house from north to south, with two sides of glass, window after
-window with drawn-back draperies of amber silk, and between each window
-a bird cage, hung above a tall blue vase filled with cut flowers. At one
-end of the room the breakfast table was spread and at the other, where
-there were no windows, was a fireplace, round which the men were
-standing—Terry, Prince Aglipogue and John Peyton-Russell. There was a
-lady seated there, too, and in another big, wing chair Ruth thought she
-could discern the top of Professor Pendragon’s head.
-
-They had satisfied Angela with their admiration, and as they came in the
-three standing men advanced to meet them, and the woman turned her head.
-Ruth looked at her, and her brain working by a sort of double process,
-she had time to compare her with the maid’s description, even while her
-heart was standing still because of the imminent meeting of Gloria and
-Professor Pendragon. Miss Gilchrist did have short hair, not a fluffy
-mass like Dorothy Winslow’s, but lank, dank, soiled-brown locks that
-framed a lank, soiled-brown countenance. Her gown also seemed to be of a
-dusty black, and Ruth could easily imagine that if her manners were no
-more attractive than her appearance, she would be quite as disagreeable
-as the maid described her. A closer view showed an out-thrust foot in a
-long, flat, soiled-brown shoe, and Ruth remembered what Dorothy had once
-told her:
-
-“Never trust a woman who wears common sense shoes—there is something
-radically wrong with her.”
-
-She was being introduced to Mr. Peyton-Russell now. She had never met
-him before. He was a large man who looked as if he took his material
-wealth very seriously indeed and thought he owed some reparation to the
-public from which he had extracted it, but he had a heavy cordiality
-that was rather charming because it was so obviously sincere.
-
-“And now you must meet the others,” chirped Angela.
-
-Ruth realized for the first time that Angela was like a yellow canary.
-The birds, singing gaily in the sunshine, made the comparison almost
-compulsory.
-
-“You’ll have to come to them, and anyway, I always have cocktails in
-front of the fireplace. After that lone, cold ride, you must need one,
-though it is only ten o’clock in the morning.”
-
-They followed her across the long room, Ruth walking a step behind
-Gloria, watching her face, waiting for the moment when she should see
-around the high-backed chair. They must have seen him at the same
-moment, for Ruth’s heart gave a little thump and it seemed that Gloria
-missed a step, her body swaying just perceptibly for a second, while one
-hand flew to her throat in a gesture that Ruth had seen before. Her
-colour did not change, but with the sophistication of four months in New
-York Ruth knew that Gloria’s colour did not “come and go” for very good
-reason. The biggest change was in her eyes. They seemed to have turned a
-dark violet and to have opened wider than Ruth had ever seen them
-before, in a fixed stare. They were standing before him now. In her
-anxiety about Gloria she had not thought of him at all. His face was
-quite white and he seemed to be nerving himself for some tremendous
-ordeal.
-
-“Pardon me for not rising,”—he indicated the crutches beside his chair.
-
-“Professor Pendragon’s not a bit like a real invalid—one forgets it the
-moment one talks to him,” apologized Angela, rather tactlessly. “He and
-John are such good friends that I used to be jealous of him, and when I
-heard he was ill I insisted that John make him come, and do you know, he
-wanted to run away before, but I told him what clever people were coming
-and made him stay—aren’t you glad now that you’ve met Gloria Mayfield,
-and Ruth?”
-
-“Miss Ruth Mayfield and I have met before,” he said.
-
-She was almost afraid to look at him. There was in his eyes a look of
-questioning, almost of reproach. He had grown thinner and she wondered
-how Gloria could be so heartless. Still it wasn’t all Gloria’s fault.
-Ruth had seen her dark eyes melt with pity at sight of the crutches—pity
-and a sort of bewildered fright, but when he spoke as if he had never
-seen her before, the soft look faded and her eyes changed from violet to
-the coldest grey imaginable, and her mouth set in a cold line, quite
-unlike its natural form.
-
-“I’m sure you’ll like our little Bohemian circle,” she said.
-
-Ruth wondered how she dared make fun of Angela that way in her own
-house. Somehow or other they had all been presented to Miss Gilchrist,
-too, but she proved to be one of those persons one habitually forgets,
-and who is perpetually trying to call back the wandering attention of
-others, like a friendless pup rubbing his nose in the hands of
-strangers, hoping some place to find a master. Of course Miss Gilchrist
-hadn’t that kind of nose, but there was a pitiful look in her
-dust-coloured brown eyes that simply plead for attention. Evidently
-Terry saw it, for he was talking to her now, or perhaps he was only
-trying to relieve what was an awkward moment for him as well as for
-Ruth.
-
-The cocktails came and though Ruth had never seen Gloria drink anything
-stronger than coffee before four o’clock in the afternoon, she took this
-one in the way that Ruth had sometimes seen men drink, almost pouring it
-down. They all moved off to the breakfast table then, Gloria with John
-Peyton-Russell, Angela beside Prince Aglipogue, and Terry with Miss
-Gilchrist. Ruth waited while Professor Pendragon picked up his crutches.
-Evidently he could get about very well by himself.
-
-“I want to see you after breakfast—as soon as possible,” she whispered
-to him.
-
-“The enclosed veranda at five o’clock,” he whispered back.
-
-She wanted to ask him what and where the enclosed veranda was, but there
-was no chance. Every one was talking at once, it seemed; that is, every
-one except Professor Pendragon and herself. She tried to catch Terry’s
-eyes, but when she did, he only lifted one eyebrow as who should say:
-
-“You see, your anxiety was needless; they are sophisticated New Yorkers
-and didn’t mind a bit.”
-
-But they did mind; she knew that. If they had recognized each other—that
-would have been the sophisticated thing to do. Instead they had taken
-the romantic course and met as strangers, though unlike strangers they
-did not talk to each other. All around her she could hear snatches of
-conversation. Terry seemed to have quite won the formidable Miss
-Gilchrist.
-
-“Yes; I sing,” she could hear her saying; “but I prefer poetry to any of
-the arts.”
-
-“Really?” said Terry politely.
-
-“Yes; I say that poetry is my chief métier. I have a poem this month in
-_Zaneslie’s_.”
-
-“I must read it,” murmured Terry.
-
-“You should hear me recite to really appreciate; don’t you think that
-one is always the best interpreter of one’s own work?”
-
-Terry nodded understandingly, and then in a voice that amused Ruth even
-while she thought it rather cruel of him to laugh at the serious Miss
-Gilchrist:
-
-“Do you write rhymed poetry or do you prefer free verse?” he asked.
-
-Miss Gilchrist deserted her grape fruit and gave him her undivided
-attention.
-
-“You know, Mr. Riordan, for years I have written rhymed poetry, but
-recently, quite recently, I have felt a definite urge toward the free
-medium. I have not relinquished the rhyme, but I am expressing myself in
-both forms. The free medium—”
-
-Her voice went on, and on, but Ruth could not hear her now because
-Gloria’s voice, clear and high like the sleigh bells, rose above
-everything else for the moment.
-
-“No; I can’t work in Terry’s play; I’ve decided never to go back to the
-stage. I want to travel—South America, perhaps.”
-
-“But you’re going there on a concert tour, aren’t you, Prince?” said
-Angela. “Perhaps—if you have a secret from me, Gloria, I don’t know what
-I shall do to you.”
-
-For a moment Ruth’s eyes met those of Professor Pendragon. She saw a
-strange light flash into them, like a sword half withdrawn from its
-sheath and then replaced, as he dropped his eyes.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XIV
-
-
-It was easy to slip away alone. Ruth knew that Gloria, who had gone to
-her own room, expected to be followed, but she did not want to talk
-alone with Gloria until she had seen Professor Pendragon. She found the
-enclosed veranda, a sleeping porch above the sun room. She threw a heavy
-cloak about her shoulders and passed unobserved down the hall and
-through the narrow doorway leading outside. He was there, waiting for
-her in his wheel chair. There was another chair beside him, perhaps for
-the nurse. She could look out over a wide circle of white hills with
-masses of dark green where fir trees clustered in the hollows. The outer
-edge of the circle was stained a deep rose, so that hill and cloud lay
-heaped against the sunset bathed in cold flame.
-
-She moved toward him slowly, wondering how she would begin now that she
-had kept her rendezvous. He laid down the pipe he had been smoking and
-held out a hand to her, a hand through which the light seemed to shine,
-it was so pale and thin.
-
-She sat down beside him without speaking at once and looked for a moment
-at the sunset hills. They seemed so quiet and cold and peaceful. What
-she was going to say would sound strange and unreal here—more strange
-even than it sounded in New York.
-
-“I want to talk to you about Gloria,” she began, but he did not speak
-when she paused, so she went on:
-
-“When you sent me that card to the water colour show—it was at breakfast
-I got it—Gloria told me that she’d been married to you. She’s my aunt—my
-father’s sister, but I’d never seen her until after father and mother
-both died and I came here to study art. Mother sent me to her because
-she is my only living relative. She didn’t know you were in New York
-until I got that card, and she asked me not to tell you about her, so I
-lied when you asked me about myself, or at least didn’t tell the truth.
-Then just before we came here I saw Nels Zord and he told me you were
-here too. At first I thought of telling Gloria, but I didn’t because I
-want you to help me. I want you to save Gloria.”
-
-“I’m afraid I can’t save Gloria, my child, any more than Gloria can save
-me—she perhaps has lost her soul—tomorrow I lose my life. It is all set
-and we have as little to do with it as with that thin thread of waning
-moon up there, which tomorrow night will be utterly dark.”
-
-“But don’t you see, Gloria doesn’t understand and that’s why she is
-helpless; but you do understand and can prevent things. You said
-yourself to me once, ‘The stars incline but do not compel.’ If you won’t
-help me I must do everything alone, but you must tell me the truth,
-isn’t George the cause of your illness?”
-
-He leaned suddenly toward her.
-
-“Why do you think that?”
-
-“You talked about the evil eye and the dark of the moon; the others,
-Nels and Dorothy, thought you were joking or talking in riddles, but I
-didn’t. The night of the show, when you were first stricken, I saw
-George performing incantations before a horrible snake—a black cobra, I
-think; a month later he worshipped the snake again and your illness
-increased. He has come here because Angela wants him to entertain us
-with his music hall magic. I am afraid that he will use the snake. You
-say you are to lose your life tomorrow; if George is the cause of your
-illness, then that is true.”
-
-He was still leaning toward her, searching her face in the waning light.
-He spoke slowly as if his words were but a surface ripple over a deep
-lake of thought.
-
-“It is true that my illness is mind-born—I have known that from the
-beginning—and that it is not of myself, and I have tried to discover who
-could have thought it on me. It may be, as you suggest, that George has
-done it. It is an answer, but why?”
-
-“Because of Gloria,” she said. With another man it would have been
-difficult to tell her beliefs, but for the moment it seemed as if they
-two were hanging suspended in the dusk-blue bowl of mountain and sky,
-and the soul, eager yet indifferent of life, that looked out of his
-eyes, commanded absolute truth.
-
-“George loves her—he is a Hindoo, and for no other reason would he have
-been her servant all these years. At first he understood the prejudices
-of a Western woman and realized that he couldn’t marry her, but I think
-if you will look back perhaps now you can see how he separated you and
-Gloria. I have never seen the two men who followed, but I think he must
-have hypnotized her into marrying them, and then himself broken the
-marriages, and now she is going to marry this horrible Prince Aglipogue.
-George is forcing her to do that. He boasted that it was so to me. It
-will ruin her career and make her poor, and break her heart with shame
-when she wakes to what she has done. Then George will claim his reward.
-He did not mention your name when he talked to me, but he said, ‘There
-is only one other fit to walk beside her, and he is slowly dying of an
-unknown disease.’ You see there is only one link gone from my story and
-that is how you let Gloria go at first. Why did you, why did you?”
-
-In the retelling of the story that had occupied her mind all these
-weeks, putting all her fears into words, it seemed that the danger she
-told had grown fourfold. When she had tried to tell Terry his very
-attitude of uncomprehension had made her story sound unreal, but when
-she told it now, she saw belief and understanding in Pendragon’s eyes,
-and something else—a resignation that maddened her. It was as if he
-watched Gloria being murdered and made no movement to protect her.
-
-“Why, why?” she demanded again, grasping his arm with tense fingers. She
-could almost have shaken him.
-
-He seemed quite unmoved by her excitement.
-
-“Gloria had met George before we were married,” he said in his quiet
-voice. “She found him ill, you know, and paid his debts and got him a
-doctor, and when he was well he wanted to serve her. I didn’t like him
-and advised her not to take him; it would have been much better for him
-to go back to his profession, but he begged to come and she liked him;
-perhaps his devotion flattered her. Everything went well until the night
-when Gloria was to open in a new play. I never went much to the theatre.
-I thought it better to leave her alone in her professional life, and on
-this night the planet Eros—a small planet discovered quite recently in
-our new solar system—was to be very near—much nearer than it had ever
-been but once before, much nearer than it would be again for many years.
-The first time the astronomers of the world had missed a wonderful
-opportunity; this time they were all watching. We were to take
-photographs if the weather permitted; by means of Eros and comparative
-calculations we would discover something exact about the distance and
-weight of many other planets. It was the opportunity of a century.
-
-“We had a small flat in London and George was acting as a sort of butler
-and sometimes valeting me as well. I hated having him around, but Gloria
-said he was happier when he was busy. I remember now everything that
-happened and how he looked at me. ‘You are going to the theatre tonight,
-Sir?’ he said, and I had the impression that he often gave me, that he
-was being impertinent, almost insulting, though there was neither
-impertinence nor insult in his words or manner.
-
-“‘No; I’m due at the observatory,’ I answered. There had been no idea of
-my going to the opening in my mind, or in Gloria’s, I think, until that
-moment, but when George had left us she turned on me with reproaches.
-She said that I took no interest in her work; that I was jealous of her
-career and that I must choose between her and the stars that night. I
-dare say I was very stupid, but she seemed quite strange and
-unreasonable as I had never seen her before, and I said some rather
-nasty things. She said if I did not go to the theatre she would never
-return to the flat. Of course I said that was unnecessary—that I would
-go. I did; expecting a message from her every day. The only message I
-got was from her lawyers in Paris, where she had gone for a divorce.
-That’s the story.”
-
-He stopped talking now, but Ruth waited. Over the hills the rose flush
-had faded, the thin, keen blade of the almost disappearing moon hung
-like a scimitar in a field of dark purple and resting above it a star
-hung, trembling, as if waiting for the cold arms of a laggard lover.
-
-“I suppose half confidences won’t do,” he said at last. “I still love
-Gloria; what man once having loved her could forget? ‘Time cannot change
-nor custom stale her infinite variety’; but of what use to fight one’s
-destiny—in another incarnation, perhaps. I cannot believe all that you
-say of George. That he is a Mahatma is doubtless true, that he loves
-Gloria is gruesomely natural, that he hates me and has put upon me this
-mind-born malady is reasonable, but that he should possess, or even
-aspire to possess, Gloria is incredible.”
-
-There was a sadness on his face, another worldness in his eyes, but
-there was no light of battle there, and Ruth, whose youth and energy
-cried out for action, felt as if she were beating with futile hands
-against a stone wall.
-
-“But he does want her, and he’s going to succeed if you don’t do
-something. If he has the power to kill you, he has the power to do these
-other things too. Even if you don’t believe this, you must do something
-to save your own life.”
-
-“I’m afraid I’m not very keen about living; if I die now it is an easy
-way out—”
-
-She wanted to protest that if he had courage he might yet win Gloria
-again, but she did not dare raise hopes that might never be fulfilled.
-Even if Gloria were saved from the Prince who could tell that she might
-not marry Terry?
-
-“That’s weak, and cowardly,” she said, “and if you believe in the wisdom
-of the East you know that in the next life you will not enjoy the fruit
-of any joy for which you have not struggled in this. You are selfish,
-too. Even if you no longer care for your own life, you must do what you
-can to help Gloria.”
-
-“She no longer wants anything from me; she would only resent my
-interference.”
-
-“You are thinking only of yourself—what difference can her attitude make
-now? Promise me that you will do something—promise—”
-
-“Perhaps the voice of youth is the voice to follow—I am afraid I have
-grown old and age does not love knighthood, but I promise that if I see
-any way in which to change her destiny and mine, I will make what effort
-I can. I will think about it.”
-
-It was almost dark now, and Gloria was standing beside them before they
-saw her.
-
-“Angela’s been looking for you; she wants you to play billiards, Ruth.”
-
-“But I don’t know how.”
-
-“That doesn’t make any difference; neither do I and neither does Miss
-Gilchrist; you just stand around and make the men wish that you’d go
-away and let them have a good game—but don’t go just yet,” as Ruth
-started away. “I want to say something to Professor Pendragon and I
-don’t want to be alone with him.”
-
-Ruth could not see his face very clearly, but she saw his long white
-hands clenching over the arms of his chair.
-
-“I thought, of course, when we met this morning, that you would find
-some excuse for going away on the next train, Percy.”
-
-“Why should I do that, Gloria? I did not know you were coming; you did
-not know I was here. We have been thrown together for a brief time.
-Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Peyton-Russell knows that we have met before. I
-have promised to stay over the New Year. John knows I haven’t any
-particular business interest to call me away. I thought the least
-conspicuous thing would be to stay. My illness makes it easy for me to
-stay much in my own rooms. We need not meet often, but if you wish, of
-course, I can go tomorrow.”
-
-There was no trace of bitterness or anger in his voice. He spoke in a
-cold, casual way as if he were discussing some rather boring detail of
-business.
-
-“I do wish it very much—Prince Aglipogue has asked Angela to announce
-our engagement tomorrow night. Of course no one but Ruth and Mr. Riordan
-knows that we have ever met before, but it will be awkward for me, even
-though you seem to have forgotten everything.”
-
-Her voice, as cold as his at the beginning, deepened and trembled on the
-last words, whether with tears or anger Ruth could not tell. She only
-knew that both of these people were suffering as only proud people can
-suffer and she did not want to watch. She tried to slip away, but
-Gloria’s hand on her arm restrained her.
-
-“Really, Gloria, I don’t see why you should announce a thing like that;
-you might as well make an announcement every time you buy a new frock.”
-
-The words could not have cut Gloria more than they did Ruth. Surely this
-was not the man who not fifteen minutes earlier had told her that he
-still loved Gloria? If he had hated her he could have said nothing more
-rude. She felt Gloria’s hand tighten on her arm as if for support.
-
-“I will go, then; you need not trouble,” she said in a low voice.
-
-“No; forgive me—I will go on the early train.”
-
-But already Gloria had turned and was walking away, and Ruth, not
-knowing what to say, followed, her heart aching for both the woman and
-the lonely man outside. Gloria did not pause nor look back and Ruth
-suspected that she dared not turn her face for fear of disclosing tears.
-
-The warm air inside made Ruth realize for the first time that, though
-sheltered, it was very cold outside. She hesitated, wondering whether to
-follow Gloria or to go back and beg Professor Pendragon not to remain
-longer out of doors. Gloria decided her by walking steadily forward and
-turning into her own room, closing the door behind her.
-
-He was still sitting where they had left him, staring out into the
-blue-black sky. Even his hands still clung tightly to the arms of his
-chair as they had when she had left him.
-
-“I’ve just discovered that it’s terrifically cold out here and you ought
-to come in,” she said, trying to speak as if nothing had happened.
-
-“The nurse was to have come out for me a long time ago; I dare say she
-saw us talking and went back. If you think you could push the chair for
-me—I haven’t any crutches here—I will go in,” he answered in the same
-tone.
-
-Without speaking she moved to the back of the chair and began wheeling
-him toward the door. It really moved very easily. She stopped at the
-door, opened it and pushed him through.
-
-“Which door?” she asked.
-
-“That one,” he pointed.
-
-It was next to Gloria’s room and across the hall from her own. The
-obvious thought came to her of how these two, apparently so near, were
-separated by a bridgeless ocean of misunderstanding.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER XV
-
-
-“It’s a worse storm than the one that held up your train; it’s rather
-Christmasy and all that, but it’s rather unfortunate, because the nurse
-has become alarmed about Professor Pendragon and he wanted to take the
-early train back to New York. We’ve telephoned Dr. Gerstens, and if it’s
-possible for anything to travel five miles through this snow storm he’ll
-be here.”
-
-Ruth glanced across the breakfast table at Gloria while Angela was
-speaking, but there was no annoyance on Gloria’s face, only a desperate
-fear looked out of her eyes. Again it seemed to Ruth that she was a
-trapped bird.
-
-“How about the children?” asked Mr. Peyton-Russell.
-
-“Oh, these storms never last more than a few hours; by noon it will be
-over and most of them can get here—those that only live a few miles
-away. They’re accustomed to weather like this—unless James refuses to
-take out the horses—James, you know, thinks more of the horses than he
-does of us,” she continued, turning to the others. “You know every
-Christmas John has the most beautiful custom. He gees around to all the
-farm houses and collects the children and brings them here to play games
-and enjoy our Christmas tree. I expect you to help entertain them, Ruth.
-You’re the youngest person here.”
-
-“I’m afraid I don’t know much about children, but I’ll try.”
-
-“I’ll help,” said Terry quickly.
-
-“I knew you would,” said Angela, and they all laughed, though Ruth could
-see nothing to laugh at. She was beginning to fear that the events of
-the last weeks had dulled her wits.
-
-“Can’t Pendragon take the afternoon train if it clears up?” asked Mr.
-Peyton-Russell.
-
-“The nurse won’t let him; says he can’t stand sleeping cars. She simply
-won’t let him go until morning—and perhaps when Dr. Gerstens comes he’ll
-say it isn’t necessary—though he has looked rather badly the last few
-days. You know at first I quite forgot that he was ill until he would
-try to walk. I like him so much—don’t you think it’s awfully sweet of me
-to like John’s friends, Gloria?”
-
-Angela was in one of her juvenile moods in which Gloria usually
-encouraged her, but now she only answered:
-
-“Yes, very.”
-
-“It is the duty of a good wife to like the friends of her husband,” said
-Prince Aglipogue, who by this time had sufficiently satisfied the first
-keen edge of the appetite acquired through the night to begin taking
-part in the conversation.
-
-This remark was a challenge to Miss Gilchrist, who began a long talk on
-the duty of every woman to retain her individuality after marriage,
-illustrating her talk with examples of what the unfortunate man who
-married her might expect. And no one was rude enough or brave enough to
-tell her that all these plans and warnings on her part were unnecessary.
-Ruth didn’t even listen. She had discovered that Miss Gilchrist never
-required an answer to anything she said. She was content if only allowed
-to go on talking.
-
-It was at such times as these that everything that Ruth had seen in the
-past and everything she feared for the future seemed most unreal and
-incredible.
-
-Surely here in this warm room with its glowing fire, its flowers and
-birds, among these every-day people, eating breakfast and chatting of
-ordinary things, there could be nothing more sinister than the snow
-storm outside; and that only seemed to add to the comfort and good cheer
-within.
-
-Then she saw George glide across the far end of the long room, silent,
-dark-clad, swift, and she remembered that this was not only Christmas
-Eve; it was also the dark of the moon. The children would come to play
-before the Christmas tree in the afternoon—and at night the doom of the
-daughter of Shiva would fall. Later she knew that it was in this moment
-that she thought again of the words of Professor Pendragon: “If I had an
-enemy I would destroy his faith in his power to harm,” and she knew what
-it was that she must do.
-
-Angela was right. The snow stopped falling before ten o’clock. They had
-all been keeping country hours and had breakfasted at eight, and they
-all watched James drive off in the huge sleigh that was to bring the
-children to the Christmas party.
-
-There would not be as many as usual, for James had been forced to make a
-late start and he could not travel very rapidly in the deep snow and the
-children must be there at three o’clock if they were to start home early
-in the evening. For these very good reasons he could not stop at more
-than four or five of the very nearest farms. However, as each farm could
-provide from two to six children, there promised to be quite enough to
-keep Ruth busy if she was to amuse them.
-
-The idea of amusing children rather frightened Ruth, but she was
-relieved when Angela took them to see the tree. It had all been very
-nicely arranged with enough mechanical amusement to relieve her of any
-very great responsibility. The tree—a very big one—was in a large room
-from which most of the furniture, except a few chairs, had been
-thoughtfully removed. Aside from the candles and tinsel ornaments there
-were dozens of small gifts, of little value, but suitable almost for any
-child, together with the usual “Christian sweets,” as Terry called them,
-which Ruth remembered to have received herself from Church Christmas
-trees, and to have seen nowhere else at any time. Then there was to be
-tea with lots of cakes and chocolate and nuts and fruit, and altogether
-Ruth could see that there would not be more than one torturing hour in
-which she would have to “amuse the children.” Besides they would
-probably amuse themselves.
-
-“Why not teach them poetry games?” suggested Miss Gilchrist, “those
-lovely things of Vachel Lindsay’s, where the poetry is interpreted by
-motion—”
-
-“Better let them play games they know,” said Angela. “They only have an
-hour or two, and there won’t be time to teach them anything new.”
-
-“Oh, very well. I was only suggesting; of course if you prefer the
-old-fashioned, undirected play—but it seemed to me a splendid
-opportunity to bring beauty into the lives of children who might never
-have another opportunity of studying it. I have gone in for child study,
-you know, quite deeply; I may say that child culture is my—”
-
-Ruth feared that she was going to say it was her chief métier, but
-Angela interrupted with:
-
-“I think I’ll have some little tables brought in for the tea. Children
-are so awkward about cups and things, and perhaps they’ll feel less shy
-if they’re all sitting together round a table.”
-
-Though her ideas about modern child culture seemed to meet with so
-little approval, Miss Gilchrist did not absent herself from the party.
-She was with Ruth and Terry and Mr. and Mrs. Peyton-Russell while they
-watched the arrival of the sleigh load of shouting children. Prince
-Aglipogue was, of course, far too dignified to take any interest and
-Gloria had absented herself since breakfast as if she feared that she
-would have to meet Pendragon again.
-
-“They didn’t seem to mind meeting at all,” Terry had said to her the day
-before, but when Angela had spoken of Professor Pendragon’s dangerous
-condition and his plan of returning to the city, Ruth had caught his
-glance and knew that he understood at least in part—at least as much as
-any one else could understand. She did not intend to tell him anything
-about her own conversation with Pendragon or the scene between him and
-Gloria which she had witnessed. She knew that she had been there, not so
-much as a confidante, as an artificial barrier between two people who
-otherwise could not have borne the pain of meeting. The experience had
-made her feel very old, and now the idea of entertaining children seemed
-almost preposterous.
-
-The door was opened and the little guests came trooping into the big
-hall, but something seemed to have happened when they clambered out of
-the sleigh. They had been laughing after the most approved manner of
-childhood. Ruth could swear to that. She had seen their faces and some
-of the shrill shouts had penetrated into the house. Now they stood, with
-wide, curious eyes and solemn demeanour, the little ones were huddling
-close behind the older ones and all looking like shy, frightened wood
-things. They followed Mr. Peyton-Russell into the room of the Christmas
-tree; they looked, but where were the cries of delight with which Ruth
-had expected them to hail this wonder? Beyond shy “yes” and “no” to
-questions they said nothing. They stood like little, wooden images while
-the maids separated them from vast quantities of little coats, sweaters,
-knitted caps, hoods, mufflers, and overshoes. Ruth hoped that they would
-breathe sighs of relief and begin to look happy after that, but they
-didn’t. They stood quite solemnly where they were and Angela and her
-husband, who were to return later to distribute the gifts, fled, leaving
-them to be “amused.” The electric candles on the tree had been lighted,
-though it was a bright day, and some of the bolder children drew near to
-it, but still they did not talk. It seemed that entrance into the house
-had made them strangers to each other as well as to their hosts, and
-they looked so dull Ruth wondered, remembering the hordes of dark-faced
-children she had seen playing in Washington Square, if country children
-were duller than city children.
-
-“Let me start them,” said Miss Gilchrist, talking quite audibly as if
-the children could not hear. “I have a great way with children.” She
-threw an ogreish smile at them as she spoke and one little girl
-instinctively drew near to Terry as if for protection.
-
-“Now, children, what shall we play?” she asked in what was doubtless
-intended to be an engaging tone of voice.
-
-For a long time no one spoke; then a little girl—the tallest little girl
-there—whispered just audibly:
-
-“Kissing games.”
-
-Terry grinned delightedly, but Miss Gilchrist flushed a dark purple.
-
-“No, indeed,” she said, still in her schoolteacher voice. “I’m sure the
-other children do not want to play games like that. Tell me what you
-play at school.” But again there was silence. Though some of the little
-boys had giggled, there were indications that most of the children did
-want to play “kissing games,” probably because those were the only
-indoor games they knew.
-
-“Why not let them play the games they’re accustomed to playing—isn’t
-there one called—er—post-office?” he questioned the little girl. She
-nodded emphatically, and Miss Gilchrist, casting looks expressive of
-deep disgust at both Terry and Ruth, departed. In her absence the
-children seemed to gain confidence. They told Terry their names and
-recalled to him such details of the fascinating game of post-office as
-he had forgotten.
-
-“D’you really mean you never played it?” he asked Ruth.
-
-“I’m sorry; I didn’t know it was so important.”
-
-“No child’s education complete without it; but it’s never too late to
-mend your ways, so you can learn now.”
-
-At first Ruth couldn’t help feeling rather ridiculous, but the children
-after five minutes of play seemed to regard her as one of them, and
-Terry was perhaps a bit younger than the youngest boy there. They
-progressed from one game to another, and to Ruth it seemed that every
-game, no matter how harmless on the surface, called for some declaration
-in rhyme about “the un that I luf best,” followed by a kiss to prove it,
-and she was in constant fear that the etiquette of play would require
-that she kiss Terry, but it never did. Evidently Terry understood these
-things far better than she did, for while he kissed every little maid in
-the room and every little boy made declaration of his love for her, they
-never had to kiss each other.
-
-Still it was a relief when tea was brought in; a relief to the children
-as well, if one could judge by the enthusiasm with which they greeted
-it, and afterward John Peyton-Russell and Angela and Gloria and even
-Prince Aglipogue came in to see the distribution of gifts.
-
-They all sat in rows, “Like in Sunday School,” as Ruth heard one of the
-little girls whisper, while Mr. Peyton-Russell made a little speech and
-gave out the gifts. Gloria’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes were
-unnaturally bright, Ruth thought, but as always under stress of emotion,
-she was hiding behind words, amusing words with a touch of acid behind
-them.
-
-“He used to invite the parents, too,” she told Ruth; “sort of lord of
-the manor pose; but he found that American farmers do not lend
-themselves well to the tenantry idea; they came and then sent him
-invitations as a return of hospitality. They simply would not be
-faithful retainers, and then”—
-
-“I’m afraid Aggie’s being bored—not enough to drink for one thing—Angela
-is so conservative—dinner tonight will cheer him—some more people
-coming; the Brixtons and their guests, I think. Hope Percy has the good
-grace to keep to his rooms even though he didn’t leave.”
-
-“He couldn’t, you know, because of the storm this morning,” defended
-Ruth.
-
-“I say, is he going to die, do you think?” she asked suddenly.
-
-“No—what made you ask that?” Ruth felt her eyes shifting in spite of her
-efforts to meet Gloria’s clear gaze.
-
-“I don’t know—something in the look of him when we left him there in his
-wheel chair—you know everything is finished for us, but still it would
-be terrible! I should hate to have Percy die, though God knows I have
-enough ex-husbands to be able to spare just one.”
-
-Her shrill, mirthless laughter rose above the chatter of the children’s
-voices.
-
-“Don’t, Gloria—please don’t—I can’t bear it!”
-
-“Look here, child—are you—do you love Percy?” Her voice had changed now,
-all the hardness gone from it—it was almost the mother tone. Her words
-startled Ruth more than anything that had gone before.
-
-“Love Professor Pendragon? Of course not. I like him awfully well—I’m
-afraid I think you’ve treated him very badly and perhaps I’m sorry for
-him, but I never thought of him in any other way. What made you ask
-that?”
-
-Gloria listened, at first with a little puzzled line between her perfect
-brows, and then, convinced of Ruth’s sincerity, her face cleared.
-
-“I don’t know—something Terry said first gave me the idea. I think he
-got the impression from something you said. And it wouldn’t be so
-strange, would it? Percy _is_ attractive.”
-
-“Much more attractive than that horrible creature,” said Ruth, glancing
-in Prince Aglipogue’s direction.
-
-Gloria shrugged her shoulders and did not reply. One could say anything
-to Gloria. She was never offended because people did not agree with her,
-nor did the opinions of other people change or influence her own actions
-or beliefs in any way.
-
-Ruth did not try to talk any more. She was thinking of what Gloria had
-said about Terry. If Terry thought that she was interested in
-Pendragon—if she could have made a mistake like this—wasn’t it possible
-that she had made a mistake in thinking that Terry loved Gloria? Somehow
-since their adventure on the train together he had not seemed so
-inaccessible. Reason had told her that he was unattainable, but
-something stronger than reason had told another story. There had been an
-indefinable something different in his attitude toward her during the
-last few days—something like a prelude—something for which they were
-both waiting. Still, she must not deceive herself with false hopes.
-There were so many things for which she was waiting—things that would
-happen now she knew within a very few hours.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XVI
-
-
-The other guests had come, so that there were twelve people around the
-Christmas Eve dinner table, among them Professor Pendragon, in whose
-quiet face Ruth thought she read some new resolve. Surely he must have
-some purpose in thus joining the others when he knew that tonight
-Gloria’s engagement to Prince Aglipogue would be announced, and when his
-illness would have made his absence seem quite plausible. He moved about
-so unobtrusively as to make his infirmity almost unnoticed, and now,
-seated beside Ruth, she found it difficult to believe that he was really
-paralysed. She talked to him of trivial things, ordinary dinner chat, or
-listened to the others, wondering within herself what secrets lay behind
-those smiling masks of triviality.
-
-If Gloria and Pendragon, who had once been married, could meet thus as
-strangers, if she and Terry knowing their secret, or at least a part of
-it, could calmly pretend to the world that they did not know, might not
-all these other people have secrets, too—old memories that wine would
-not drown, meetings and partings whose pleasure or pain even time could
-not dim—immortal loves and hates still living, but sealed securely in
-coffins of conventionality?
-
-Hundreds of candles flashed against dark walls, stained to a semblance
-of old age; bright scarlet holly berries nestled against their green
-waxen leaves, and dark, red roses shed their heavy perfume over
-everything. The dinner was being a great success, for there were no
-awkward lulls in conversation, and, while Ruth in her youth and
-innocence did not know it, Angela Peyton-Russell was blessed with an
-excellent cook, without whose services the faces of the men present
-would not have been so happy. Ruth did not even observe what she ate,
-but Prince Aglipogue, upon whose face sat heavy satisfaction, could have
-told to the smallest grain of condiment exactly what each dish
-contained.
-
-Some one suggested that there were enough people to dance, and Angela,
-realizing the advantages of spontaneity in entertainment, eagerly
-acquiesced. They would dance for an hour or two after dinner and she
-would have her little “show” later; but the guests themselves would have
-to supply the music.
-
-The Prince, who could be agreeable when he chose, immediately offered
-his services and his violin if Miss Gilchrist would accompany him with
-the piano.
-
-It would all be just like an old-fashioned country dance, and “so
-delightfully Bohemian,” Angela thought. She was tremendously happy over
-the success of her Christmas party, and her husband was tremendously
-satisfied because of the success of his beautiful wife in the luxury of
-his beautiful home; but Ruth’s heart ached whenever she heard Gloria’s
-liquid laughter because there were tears in it, and in the steady fire
-of Professor Pendragon’s dark eyes she saw a flame more pitiful than the
-funeral pyre of a Sati.
-
-He talked a little, very quietly of trivial things, sometimes to her,
-sometimes to the others, and Ruth took courage from his calmness. Only
-as the party grew more gay it seemed to her that under all the sparkle
-and the gaiety there was a silence louder than the noise, like the heavy
-hush that falls on nature before the thunder clap and the revealing
-flash have ushered in a storm. So strong was this sense of waiting that
-when their host stood with upraised glass, her hand instinctively went
-out and rested for a brief second on Professor Pendragon’s arm, as if
-she would shield him. Then she saw Terry looking at her, and remembering
-what Angela had said to her that afternoon, she quickly withdrew it.
-There had been no need to touch him, for Pendragon, like the others at
-the table, turned his attention to John Peyton-Russell, listening to his
-words as if they held no especial significance for him.
-
-“I want John to make the announcement,” Angela had said. “It gives him
-such pleasure to make speeches. He simply adores it.”
-
-Evidently she knew her husband’s tastes, for with the halting words and
-awkward phraseology of the man accustomed to addressing nothing gayer
-than a board of directors’ meeting, he stumbled at great length and with
-obvious self-satisfaction through a speech in which he proposed that
-they drink to the approaching marriage of Gloria Mayfield and Prince
-Aglipogue.
-
-His words were greeted with enthusiasm by all those to whom they meant
-nothing except that a more or less famous actress was to marry a fat
-foreign prince. Ruth heard a woman near her whisper to the man at her
-right:
-
-“Will this make her third or her fourth?”
-
-And the response:
-
-“I’ve lost count.”
-
-The Prince was responding now—something stilted and elaborate, but Ruth
-did not hear. The dinner had become a nightmare. She wanted to escape.
-Concealed in the girdle of her frock was the little revolver that Terry
-had given her. She could feel its weight, and it comforted her.
-
-Somehow the dinner ended and Ruth with the others followed Angela to a
-drawing-room that had been denuded of rugs for dancing. A few months
-before Ruth would have thought all these people charming, the women
-beautiful, the men distinguished. Now they were repulsive to her. How
-could they listen unprotesting to the announcement that Gloria, the
-beautiful and good (no power on earth could have persuaded Ruth that
-Gloria was not good), was to marry an ugly ogre like Prince Aglipogue?
-
-His fat face wreathed in smiles now, he stood, tucking his violin under
-his third chin, and then he played—he played, and even Ruth forgot the
-source of the music. It was not Prince Aglipogue that played, but some
-slender, dark Hungarian gypsy whose music was addressed to an
-unattainable princess, ’neath whose window he stood, bathed in
-moonlight. She threw a rose to him and he crushed it against a heart
-that broke with joyous pain of loving.
-
-Some little time he played before any one danced; then the insensate
-callousness of people who “must be amused” triumphed over the music and
-the stupid gyrations of the modern dance which every one had been forced
-to learn in self-protection—for those who do not dance must watch, and
-the insult to the eyes is too great to be borne.
-
-Perhaps after all the music of Aglipogue’s violin did move them; perhaps
-it was only that they had dined too well; perhaps because the company
-was so small that twice men found themselves dancing with their own
-wives; for any, or all, or none of these reasons, they tired of dancing
-early and were ready for Angela’s much-advertised “show.”
-
-Terry had been dancing with Ruth, and she knew that there was something
-that he wanted to say to her. She guessed that it was something about
-Gloria, but she did not want to talk to Terry about Gloria. He could not
-understand and she regretted that she had tried to make him understand.
-She could not discuss Gloria with any one, not even Terry. She knew what
-she had to do and her whole mind was set on that. If she talked to Terry
-his lack of faith would weaken her purpose. She left him now, abruptly,
-ignoring the look of reproach in his eyes, and walked beside Professor
-Pendragon, who was moving slowly on his crutches, a little behind the
-others. She meant to stay close beside him through the rest of the
-night.
-
-In the room that had been the scene of the children’s party that
-afternoon a stage had been put up—a low platform covered with a black
-velvet carpet and divided in half by a black curtain on which the signs
-of the Zodiac were embroidered in gold thread. The Christmas tree was
-still in the room, but unlighted and shoved away into an obscure corner.
-To Ruth it looked pitiful, like an old man, Father Christmas perhaps,
-who sat back watching with sorrowful eyes the unchristmas-like
-amusements of modern humanity. There was a piano on the stage. For a
-woman who was herself “unmusical,” Angela had more pianos in her house
-than any one in the world, Ruth decided.
-
-In a semicircle, very close to the stage, chairs had been placed, and
-here the company seated themselves, with much more or less witty comment
-about what they might expect from behind the mysterious curtain. Behind
-them was another row of chairs, which, carrying out Mr. Peyton-Russell’s
-“lord of the manor” pose, the household servants had been invited to
-occupy. They came, with quiet curiosity, one or two of the maids
-stifling yawns that led Ruth to suspect they would much rather have gone
-to bed.
-
-The semi-circular arrangement of the chairs made those at the ends of
-the row much closer to the stage than those in the centre. On one of
-these end chairs sat Professor Pendragon, his crutches resting beside
-him on the floor, and next to him sat Ruth. Then came some of the dinner
-guests, the other house guests, including Gloria and Prince Aglipogue,
-being at the farther end of the row; the room was dimly lighted and the
-stage itself had only one light, a ghostly green lamp, seemingly
-suspended in the middle of the black curtain, in the shape of a waning
-moon. Instinctively voices were hushed and people talked to each other
-in whispers. Only Ruth and Professor Pendragon did not speak. She could
-not know of what he was thinking, but she knew that in herself thought
-was suspended. She sat watching her hand clasping the tiny revolver
-concealed in her girdle.
-
-John Peyton-Russell then announced that Miss Gilchrist (if she had a
-Christian name no one ever heard it) had consented to recite some of her
-own poems. The relaxation of the company, almost visible, was half
-disappointment, half relief. The stage set had led them to expect
-something unusual, and they were only going to be bored.
-
-Miss Gilchrist seated herself at the piano, on which she accompanied
-herself. Ruth did not know if her words were as bad as her music, for
-she did not understand them, and from certain whispered comments she
-knew that no one else did, with the possible exception of Miss Gilchrist
-herself.
-
-Some one else—a pretty, blond young thing with a “parlour voice,” sang
-an old English Christmas carol that sounded like sacrilege. Then Prince
-Aglipogue sang. Ruth never hated him so much as when he sang because
-then as at no other time he created the illusion of an understanding
-soul. His painting was obvious trickery; his violin playing of a quality
-that did not discredit the composer, for he had been trained to a
-parrot-like perfection; but when he sang he created the illusion of
-greatness—Purcell, Brahms, Richard Strauss—it did not matter whose music
-he sang; one felt that he understood, and it angered Ruth that when she
-closed her eyes she forgot the singer and could understand how Gloria
-might marry and even love the possessor of this voice.
-
-Aglipogue always maintained that the war had ruined his career. He had
-an opera engagement in Germany in 1914, and when the war came he could
-not go to fill it. So he had remained in the States, and his amazing
-versatility had enabled him to earn a living as an artist. Now the end
-of the war had opened new opportunities and he was going to South
-America in concert work. Ruth had never quite believed his boasting. She
-did not think that any man’s work could be bigger than himself—that any
-artist could express something bigger than that contained in his own
-soul; and the soul of Prince Aglipogue was a weak, cowardly, hateful
-thing. Yet his voice moved her, attracted and repelled, cast a spell
-over her, exotic, fascinating, yet sinister as if the music were only a
-prelude to the wicked necromancy of the Hindoo that was to follow.
-
-The voice ceased, and Prince Aglipogue, alone of all the company unmoved
-by his own voice, resumed his place at Gloria’s side. For a brief
-breathing minute no one moved. John Peyton-Russell seemed to have
-forgotten his cue. Then he rose and told them that the real surprise was
-to come, an exhibition of magic by Karkotaka, a famous Indian Mahatma.
-It was the first time that Ruth had ever heard George’s Hindoo name and
-she suspected that it was no more his real name than was George. She
-thought she remembered an Indian story in which a certain Karkotaka
-figured as king of the serpents, a sort of demi-god.
-
-All eyes were on the dark curtain now, but if they expected it to rise
-or to be drawn aside they were disappointed. Instead, it parted silently
-and Karkotaka, George, glided through, dressed not in the costume of a
-Brahman, but of a mediæval prince of India. Instead of a turban he wore
-a high jewelled headdress. A single piece of cloth, dark blue in colour
-and gemmed with small gold stars, was draped about him, leaving one arm
-and shoulder bare, and descending to his feet, which were encased in
-jewelled sandals. Even Ruth, who had expected something extraordinary,
-gasped as he stood bowing before them. The dignity that had shown even
-through his servant’s dress was now one hundred times more apparent. He
-moved with a lithe grace as became the king of the serpents, slowly
-moving his bare bronze arms until it seemed to Ruth they coiled and
-writhed like living snakes. Under his headdress his eyes gleamed more
-brightly than the jewels above.
-
-He had come upon the stage with nothing in his hands, and except for the
-piano it was empty, certainly empty of all the paraphernalia of
-legerdemain. Then, suddenly he held in his hand a small brass bowl. He
-made a sign to some one in the back of the room, who had evidently been
-detailed to help him, and a servant gave him a carafe of ice water. This
-he set down beside the bowl. Then he offered the bowl to the spectators
-for examination. Ruth noticed that he was so close to them that it was
-not even necessary to step down from the low stage. Two or three men who
-“Never saw a trick yet I couldn’t see through” examined the bowl with
-sceptical eyes and pronounced it quite ordinary. Then George poured ice
-water from the carafe into the bowl and again offered it for inspection.
-Several people touched it with their hands and pronounced the water with
-which it was quite filled to be ice cold. Then George set the bowl down
-before him and covered it with a small silk handkerchief. He waved his
-hands over it three times, removed the handkerchief, and they saw steam
-rising from the ice water. Again George offered the bowl for inspection.
-Terry dipped his fingers into the water and as quickly removed them with
-an exclamation of pain. The water was almost too hot to touch.
-
-Then from nowhere appeared the little mound of sand and watering pot
-indispensable to any self-respecting Indian fakir. Several people
-whispered, “The mango tree—that’s an old one.” Throughout George had not
-spoken one word. He seemed to be unconscious of his audience except when
-he asked them to examine something. To Ruth there seemed in his studied
-leisure a conscious effort to disguise haste. He bent now over the sand,
-pouring water on it and pressing it up into a little hillock of mud;
-then he covered it with a cloth, beneath which his hands were still
-busy. Then he moved away and seemed to be muttering charms. When he
-returned and removed the cloth there was the little mango sprout with
-its two leathery leaves. Again the plant was covered, next time to
-appear several inches tall with more leaves, and so on until it had
-reached a height of more than a foot.
-
-It was all very wonderful, as was also the fountain of water that sprang
-from the tip of his index finger, until he seemed to chide it, whereupon
-it disappeared from his hand and was seen spouting from the top of the
-piano. Dissatisfied, he lit a candle and, calling to the water, made it
-spring from the candle flame itself. Then he called again, spread out
-his arms, and the stream, leaving the still lighted candle, separated
-and sprang from his five outspread fingertips.
-
-In an ordinary music hall the people who watched would doubtless have
-conceded that it was clever, but here in an ordinary drawing-room in an
-ordinary country house in the Berkshires on Christmas Eve, the
-performance became something more than legerdemain. It bordered on the
-supernatural and they sat silent and fascinated.
-
-Suddenly with an annoyed gesture he threw up his hands, apparently
-throwing off the water, which instantaneously began to flow in myriad
-streams from his headdress, reminding Ruth of Shiva, who, with his hair,
-separated the flow of the sacred river when it came down from the
-Himalayas. George removed his headdress, disclosing a close white turban
-beneath, and the flow of the fountain died as unceremoniously as it had
-begun.
-
-The servant who was standing nearby waiting for his signal now handed
-George an ordinary walking stick, which George silently offered for
-inspection. After some examination it was agreed that it was a very
-ordinary walking stick indeed. George whirled it about his head and
-dropped it before his feet—it was a writhing snake. Several women
-screamed. Fountains were pretty, but they were in no mood for snakes.
-George picked up the snake again and whirled it around his head. It was
-an ordinary walking stick, though the men hesitated to re-examine it for
-proof.
-
-George balanced the stick on his finger, holding his arm out straight
-before him, and it began to writhe and twist, a snake with open, hissing
-mouth and darting tongue. He dropped it—the same women screamed again,
-then laughed hysterically as they saw the common piece of wood before
-them.
-
-“This sort of thing is all very well from a distance, but I don’t really
-care for snakes at such close quarters,” Ruth heard some one whisper.
-
-Ruth glanced at Professor Pendragon beside her, but his eyes were fixed
-on George. There was an eager light in his eyes as if he, too, were
-waiting, and his firm set lips were curved in a smile. Again her hand
-sought Terry’s gift. If all these people here were the victims of
-hypnotic illusions, she at least must keep one corner of her brain free
-and untouched. Pendragon’s presence there was proof that he had decided
-to fight, and she must help him. In the semi-darkness of the room she
-could not see Gloria, but she heard her laughter like thin bells over
-snow-covered hills—it seemed to echo round the room, and she fancied
-that George, bending over the task of clearing away the things with
-which he had been working, winced as he heard it, as if the frost of her
-mirth had bitten into his heart.
-
-The stage was all clear again now, and he bowed deeply before them three
-times. There was a restless movement among the watchers. Perhaps they
-thought this was the end, but Ruth waited, her heart high up in her
-throat and standing still with fear that she would somehow fail to do
-the thing she had decided upon.
-
-George moved slowly backward toward the curtain and parted it with his
-two hands, still facing them. Then reaching back he grasped a heavy
-object behind him and dragged it into the centre of the stage, the
-curtains closing behind him. He stood back now and they could see what
-looked like a large ebony chest. He knelt before it, and Ruth could see
-that there was more of reverence than utility in his attitude, as he
-lifted the deep lid that seemed to divide the chest in half. Before her
-eyes she saw forming the altar she had twice seen before. The side of
-the lifted top made a wide platform. It was there that _It_ would lie.
-From a compartment in the lifted half he took an antique lamp, which he
-set on what now looked like the base of the altar. Ruth had removed the
-revolver from her girdle—the cold metal saved her from screaming aloud
-as George lit the lamp—a pale blue flame from which, on the instant,
-heavy, odorous spirals of smoke began to rise, filling the silent room
-with the insidious perfume of idolatry. For a moment the smoke seemed to
-blind her eyes. Then she saw—
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER XVII
-
-
-A sigh, more like a gasp, ran through the room—from nowhere apparently,
-by some trick of slight of hand, by some optical illusion, by some power
-of hypnosis, they all saw a huge snake coiled on top of what had been an
-ebony chest, but was now an altar, and before it knelt a priest whose
-last incarnation had surely been thousands of years before kind Buddha
-came to bless or curse the world with his doctrine of annihilation.
-
-Then for the first time Karkotaka moved his lips in audible
-speech—swaying on his knees before the altar, he chanted what no one
-could doubt was a hymn of praise and supplication to the snake that lay
-coiled inert above the lamp. For some moments he chanted while they
-waited with held breath, fascinated, repelled, frightened, for once in
-their sophisticated lives, into silence.
-
-Then the coiled mass began to move—its head was raised and they could
-see its cold, glittering eyes; it seemed to be swaying as Karkotaka
-swayed in time to the chant. The clouds of incense grew thicker and they
-could scarcely see each other’s faces had they looked, but their eyes
-were held by the tableau on the stage, the kneeling, swaying, chanting
-priest and the reptile that swayed in response. Ever higher and higher
-reared the evil head, swaying always further and further toward the end
-of the semicircle at which Ruth and Pendragon were sitting. Ruth sensed
-his presence at her side and knew the tenseness of his waiting, but she
-dared not turn her eyes toward him for one moment. Higher and higher
-rose the chant until with a swift movement and a shout Karkotaka stood
-upon his feet. In the same moment the snake reared to its full height,
-hissing with open mouth toward them. In that instant Ruth shot. In the
-confusion she was conscious of thinking that she must have hit the snake
-right between the eyes, for it fell to the floor with scarcely a
-movement, and George stood, staring stupidly down at it. Every one was
-on their feet—every one speaking at once, though she could not
-understand what they said. She could only stare at the revolver in her
-hand. It all happened in such a swift moment—then her head was
-clear—Gloria had fainted—they were trying to give her air. Some one of
-the bewildered, frightened servants turned on the lights. Professor
-Pendragon strode past her, and though Ruth saw the smoking revolver in
-his hand, it carried no message to her brain. Thrusting aside Prince
-Aglipogue, who was kneeling futilely over Gloria, he picked her up in
-his arms and carried her out, and in the general excitement no one
-thought to wonder at his miraculous cure. Angela had followed Pendragon,
-but Ruth with the others stood gazing at the horrible enchantment.
-
-“Who did it?—who shot the thing?” she heard some one ask.
-
-“I did.” She held up her revolver. “I killed it.”
-
-“Let me see.” It was Terry standing beside her. He took the revolver
-from her hands.
-
-“Sorry, Ruth, but I’m afraid you didn’t. It was Pendragon. I was
-watching him and saw him aim and fire. It was a splendid shot even for
-an expert and at such short range, for the filthy brute was moving and
-he hit it right between the eyes. You see, child—” he opened the
-revolver for her to look—“there hasn’t been a single shot fired from
-your gun.”
-
-“Oh, I’m so glad.”
-
-And then, though she had never done anything so mid-Victorian in her
-life before, she swayed and for the smallest fraction of a second lost
-consciousness, then woke to the realization that Terry was supporting
-her and straightened up with protestations that she was all right.
-
-“But why did you, why did he do it? We were going to see something quite
-wonderful—I think the Indian snake dances are—”
-
-It was Miss Gilchrist, but no one had to answer her, for Mr.
-Peyton-Russell came in just then to tell them that Miss Mayfield was
-quite all right.
-
-“Angela’s going to stay with her for a while, but if any of you don’t
-feel that your nerves are quite ready for bed, come on down to the
-billiard room. There’s a little drink—real, old-fashioned hot Scotch,
-waiting for you.”
-
-He was trying hard to be the imperturbable jovial host and perhaps he
-succeeded for there was a general exodus. Terry looked questioningly at
-Ruth.
-
-She shook her head. She wanted above everything to get away from them.
-They would sit over their drinks and gossip discreetly—discuss George,
-why Pendragon had killed the snake, his sudden return to health, his
-usurpation of Aglipogue’s place at Gloria’s side. She had not killed the
-snake but she had gone through all the nervous strain of preparing to
-kill it—of thinking she had killed it and she was very tired.
-
-Terry walked with her as far as the staircase.
-
-“Tomorrow,” he said, but she did not know what he meant. Yet she slept
-that night. She was in that state of weariness mental and physical in
-which one stretches out like a cat, feeling the cool, clean linen like a
-caress and thanking God for the greatest blessing in all this tired
-world—sleep.
-
-
-She woke late with a sense of happiness and relief even before she was
-sufficiently conscious to remember the events of the past night. It was
-a wonderful Christmas day—sunshiny and bright. She lay quietly thinking,
-looking at the holly wreaths at her windows and watching some snow birds
-on her sill. She wished lazily that she had some crumbs to feed them.
-She felt very young, almost like a child. It would be nice to be a child
-again, to get up and explore the contents of a stocking hung before the
-chimney place in the living-room of a Middle West home. She thought of
-her mother, as one inevitably thinks of the dead on days of home
-gathering, and soft tears filled her eyes.
-
-She answered a discreet knock on the door and a maid entered with a
-tray. It was the gossipy maid of her first day. How she knew that she
-was awake Ruth could not guess.
-
-“I thought you’d rather have breakfast in bed this morning, Miss,” and
-then as an afterthought, “Merry Christmas, Miss.”
-
-“Merry Christmas— It is a Merry Christmas after all, and I would like
-breakfast in bed, though it makes me feel awfully lazy. How did you
-think of it?”
-
-“The mistress left orders last night, but I’d thought of it anyway—after
-what we all went through last night—”
-
-She shook her head and compressed her lips solemnly. Ruth looked at her,
-willing to be interested in anything or anybody. She could not have been
-much older than Ruth herself, but hard work and a coiffure composed of
-much false hair surmounted by a preposterously small maid’s cap, made
-her seem much more mature. As Ruth did not answer she went on:
-
-“Such goings on—it’s a wonder we’re all alive to tell of it.”
-
-“Then you didn’t like the show?” asked Ruth.
-
-“Such things ain’t Christian, especially on the Lord’s birthday. Tell
-me, Miss, was it you killed it—some said it was you and some said it was
-the poor paralysed gentleman, who was cured so miraculous like.”
-
-“It was Professor Pendragon. Have you seen him today?”
-
-“Indeed, we’ve all seen him. He’s walking round all over the place, and
-he’s give ev-er-ey servant in the house a five dollar gold piece!”
-
-This amazing piece of information gave Ruth a shock. In her selfish
-absorption in Gloria and herself she hadn’t thought of the servants and
-the inevitable toll of Christmas gifts.
-
-“Do you know, Jennie, I didn’t buy any gifts before I came up here and I
-almost forgot, but I want to give you a present—” She was just about to
-offer money, and then something in the kind, stolid face warned her that
-this would be wrong. “I’d like to give you something of my own that you
-like. If you’ll just tell me what you want you can have anything of
-mine—any dress or hat or—well, just anything you like.”
-
-The girl’s eyes spread wide.
-
-“Anything?”
-
-“Yes, anything, that is, if I have anything you like. If not I’ll have
-to follow Professor Pendragon’s example and give you money to buy your
-own gift.”
-
-“You’ve got such lots of pretty clothes—”
-
-Ruth thought her wardrobe very limited, but waited.
-
-“There is one dress—not a party dress—I’ve always wanted one—there ain’t
-any place to wear it, but if you could—do you really mean it—anything?”
-
-“Of course,” said Ruth, expecting a request for one of her three
-presentable evening gowns.
-
-“Then I’d like that blue silk thing with the lots of lace—the thing you
-wear here in your own room.”
-
-She pointed to a negligée thrown over a chair by the dressing-table.
-
-“Take it; it will make me very happy to know that you have it.” She
-tried to visualize Jennie in the negligée, but the picture was not
-funny. She turned her head away so that Jennie should not see the tears
-in her eyes.
-
-“You’ll most likely be getting a lot of things yourself, Miss; a man’s
-gone down to the village for the mail. You’ll be getting a lot of things
-from the city.”
-
-“I’m afraid not; still I may get some letters which will be welcome.”
-
-“I’ll go down and see—he may be back. He went early.”
-
-She was back in an incredibly short space of minutes bearing one letter,
-from Dorothy Winslow.
-
-“And Miss Mayfield wants to know if you’ll come to her room when you’re
-dressed,” said Jennie, who, seeing that Ruth was going to read her
-letter, left her with another hurried, awkward “thank you, Miss,”
-delivered through the door as she hurried off with her blue silk prize.
-
-Dorothy’s Christmas letter fairly bubbled over with happiness, and with
-an affection for Ruth which she had never suspected.
-
-“It seems ages since you went away,” she wrote, “and I’m just dying to
-tell you everything—how Nels was awfully humble and admitted he’s been a
-perfect silly over that imitation high siren, and then he was
-jealous—furiously jealous over your roses. It was hard not to tell him
-the truth, but I didn’t—not until afterward, when he asked me to marry
-him. Yes, he did! And we’ve done it. Neither of us had any money, but
-that didn’t really make any difference. He’s always been able to buy his
-own cigarettes and so have I and there’s no reason why we can’t do it
-together just as well as apart. We’ve got the funniest little apartment
-on Thirty-fourth Street—just a room with an alcove and a bath and a
-kitchenette. Nels is going to get another place to work—one room some
-place—very business-like and all that sort of thing and I’ll work at
-home. But please do hurry back and have dinner with us sometime. You’ll
-see! I _can_ cook. But I must work, too, else Nels will get ever so many
-leagues ahead of me. And please have you delivered my message to the
-Dragon? You did give him Nels’ message I know for Nels heard from him
-and that man with the double name who is so splendidly entertaining you
-over the holidays is going to buy the picture. You must get back in time
-for the party we’ll put on to celebrate when the check comes. You know I
-feel that you made it all happen.”
-
-She chatted on over ten pages of art school gossip that made Ruth rather
-homesick, and eager to get back to New York, especially as the first
-object of her visit had been accomplished. But had it been accomplished?
-The snake was killed and Professor Pendragon was cured. To her the
-connection seemed obvious. Professor Pendragon had been cured because
-the object of George’s faith had been destroyed and with it the
-mind-born malady which, through faith, he had put upon the man who was
-his rival. But this did not accomplish all of Ruth’s desire. There still
-remained the Prince. Even though George’s power over Pendragon had been
-destroyed, might he not still exercise the same influence over Gloria?
-And would George calmly submit to the insult that had been put upon him?
-Her whole trust was now in Pendragon. He had shown that he could fight.
-Having gone so far he must go further and drive away Prince Aglipogue.
-Then every one would be happy—that is, every one except herself and
-Terry. She was no longer sure that Terry loved Gloria. Probably he had
-loved her because no man could be indifferent to Gloria, but perhaps he
-had resigned himself to the unromantic rôle of friend. He had suspected
-her of being interested in Pendragon for herself. That might mean
-anything—his thought might have been fathered by the hope that some one
-would remove Pendragon, one of his own rivals; or perhaps she had
-betrayed her love for him and he wanted to turn her attention toward
-another object, or perhaps—but men were such curious creatures and who
-could tell? At least he did not love her which was all that really
-mattered now. Nels and Dorothy could go working and playing together
-through the future, but she must content herself to be wedded for life
-to her art; and such art—newspaper cartoons!
-
-While she thought she was dressing, for she was really very curious to
-see Gloria and hear what she had to say. The door of Gloria’s room was
-half open and Ruth knocked and went inside at the same moment. Gloria
-was fully dressed and seemed to be in the midst of packing. There were
-dark circles under her eyes as if she had not slept.
-
-“Ruth, I want you to do something for me,” was her abrupt greeting.
-
-Ruth waited for an explanation.
-
-“Will you?”
-
-“Of course, Gloria,—anything.”
-
-“I believe you would at that—you’re an awfully nice child; sometimes I
-suspect that you’re older than I am; but this is something rather nasty,
-so don’t be too sure that you’ll want to do it. I want you to tell Aggie
-that I can’t marry him—that I must have been insane when I said I would,
-that the whole thing is utterly impossible—that it would please me if he
-would go back to New York at once. I don’t want to see him any more.”
-
-Ruth struggled to conceal her joy at this announcement.
-
-“Don’t you think, Gloria, that it would be more effective if you told
-him yourself?”
-
-“No; and besides I don’t want to see the brute—he—he— Oh, I can’t bear
-to look at him—to remember everything—”
-
-“Suppose he doesn’t believe me?”
-
-“He will.”
-
-“You could write a note.”
-
-“Then he wouldn’t believe; a note would be too gentle. He’d want to see
-me and talk, but if you tell him he’ll know that it’s final or I
-wouldn’t have chosen to tell him through a third person. Will you do
-it?”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“I was going to leave myself,” explained Gloria with a wave of her hand
-toward the evidences of packing. “But I can’t. George has
-disappeared—absolutely disappeared—”
-
-“When—where?”
-
-“I said disappeared; that doesn’t mean he left a forwarding address. He
-slipped off into the nowhere, sometime between midnight and morning and
-of course I can’t move until we hear from him.”
-
-“You can, too!” Ruth was intense in her excitement. “You can—you’ve
-given up the Prince; the next thing is to give up George. He’s been the
-cause of all your troubles. I know you don’t believe it, but he has—he’s
-hypnotized you—and if he’s disappeared you ought to be glad of it.”
-
-Gloria looked at her curiously from between half-closed lids.
-
-“Why do you think I won’t believe you? I don’t believe or disbelieve, I
-know that I have been hypnotized, or mad, or ill—something. I woke up
-this morning quite new— Perhaps it’s religion—” She laughed with
-something of her old careless mirth. “Anyway I’m quite sane now, and I
-do want to get back to New York so that I can begin rehearsals in
-Terry’s new play. I feel like working hard, like beginning all over
-again— I feel—so—so free, that’s the word, as if I had been in prison—a
-prison with mirror walls, every one of which reflected a distorted
-vision of myself. That’s all I could see—myself, always myself and
-always wrong.”
-
-“May I come in?”
-
-It was Angela at the still half-open door.
-
-“Why, you’re not leaving?”
-
-“No; I only thought I was. Changed my mind again.”
-
-“And you’re quite well. The poor, dear Prince has been quite frantic.
-He’s so anxious to see you for himself before he will be assured that
-you’re really all right, after the shock last night. He’s waiting for
-you now. The other men have gone off on a hike through the snow. John
-has such a passion for exercise—afraid of getting stout, though he won’t
-admit it. I told the Prince that I would try and send you down to him.”
-
-“I can’t go now. Ruth will go down and talk to him.”
-
-“Ruth? But he wants you.”
-
-A sign from Gloria counselled Ruth to go now before the discussion, and
-she slipped out unnoticed by Angela whose blue eyes were fixed on
-Gloria, awaiting explanations.
-
-Prince Aglipogue was not difficult to find. She could hear his heavy
-pacing before she had reached the bottom of the stairs. He stopped
-abruptly when he saw her approaching, waving his cigarette frantically
-with one hand while he twisted his moustache with the other.
-
-“Gloria, Miss Mayfield, she is well; you have news from her? She is
-coming down?”
-
-“Miss Mayfield is well, but she is not coming down just now. She wants
-to be alone, but she sent me—”
-
-It was impossible to tell him. Much as she hated the man she did not
-quite have the courage to deliver Gloria’s message without
-preliminaries.
-
-“Yes? Yes?—speak, tell me; she is ill, is it not?”
-
-There was a nervous apprehension in his voice and manner that made Ruth
-suspect that the news would not be altogether unexpected.
-
-“No; she is not ill. As I said she is quite well, but she asked me to
-say—to tell you—it’s awfully hard to say it, but she asked me to tell
-you that she cannot marry you and that it would be very tactful if you
-would go back to New York at once without trying to see her.”
-
-It was blunderingly done, but she could think of no other way to tell
-it. Unwelcome truths are only made more ugly by any effort to soften
-their harshness.
-
-His cigarette dropped unnoticed upon the rug and his jaw dropped in a
-stupid way that made him look like a great pig. One part of Ruth’s brain
-was really sorry for him, for he had doubtless been fond of Gloria in
-his own way; the other half of her brain wanted to laugh, but she only
-stood with bent head, as if, having struck him she was waiting for his
-retaliation. It came with a rush as soon as he had assimilated the full
-meaning of her words:
-
-“I do not believe—it is a plot—she would not send a message such as that
-to me—it is the work of that Riordan— He is jealous—. I will sue her for
-breach of promise—one can do that, is it not?”
-
-“Women sometimes sue men for breach of promise,” said Ruth, who was
-quite calm now, “but men seldom sue women; besides, you can’t sue
-Gloria, because she has no money.”
-
-“No money?” He laughed and lit another cigarette to give point to his
-carelessness and unbelief.
-
-“You say she has no money? With a house on Gramercy Park, she is poor?”
-
-Behind his words and his nonchalant air Ruth caught the uneasiness in
-his small eyes and knew that she had struck the right note.
-
-“It is true that she has a house on Gramercy Square, but it takes her
-entire income to pay the taxes. She got the house from her second
-husband; the third was more careful. He only gave her a small income,
-which, of course, she loses when she remarries.”
-
-For a moment he stared at her incredulous, but there was nothing but
-honesty in her face.
-
-“It is the truth, you are speaking? Come, let us sit and talk—here a
-cigarette? No? You do not smoke? I had forgotten. We have not been such
-friends as I might have desired. Now explain—Miss Mayfield wishes to
-break her engagement with me?”
-
-“She has broken it,” said Ruth tersely.
-
-“It is, you can understand, a shock of the greatest—I loved—but no
-matter—tell me again of the affairs financial of Miss Mayfield. As a
-friend only—I am resigned—as a friend only I am interested.”
-
-She looked at him, his heavy body, his fat face, his oily brown eyes,
-and was tempted to tell him the truth of what she thought. He laid one
-fat hand on hers with a familiar gesture and involuntarily she drew back
-as if something unclean had touched her. He saw but pretended not to
-see. He had an object to achieve and could not afford to be sensitive.
-She understood and thought it all out before she spoke. If she followed
-her impulse he would cause trouble, or annoyance to Gloria at the least.
-If she told him the truth he would believe her and would go away without
-further urging. Evidently he had thought that Gloria had money, and
-Gloria, to whom money meant nothing, had never thought to tell him
-anything of her affairs. It was a repulsive task but Ruth decided to
-give him the information he wanted.
-
-“You must understand,” she said, “that Gloria is merely a professional
-woman, an actress, not an heiress. She has no money except what she
-earns. One of her husbands gave her the house on Gramercy Park. A year
-later she married again and when she was divorced from her last husband
-he settled on her a small income—hardly sufficient to keep up the house
-when she is not working. If she marries again she loses even that.”
-
-She rose to leave him, having finished with her mission, but he caught
-her hand.
-
-“You are speaking the truth, Miss Ruth?”
-
-She drew away her hand without answering.
-
-“But you? Perhaps you have been helping her?”
-
-“I have even less than Gloria.”
-
-His amazing lack of finesse—his appalling vulgarity stunned her into
-making a reply.
-
-“There is a train in the morning—”
-
-“There is one this afternoon that you can catch if you will hurry. I
-advise you to take it.”
-
-“Thank you, I will—you have saved me a great deal of annoyance. I am
-grateful—if—”
-
-But Ruth did not wait for the end of his remarks. She could not bear to
-look at him for another second. He was even worse than she had supposed.
-Evidently he had not cared for Gloria at all, and she had always
-conceded to him that much—that Gloria had touched some one small bit of
-fineness in his sordid nature.
-
-She dared not return to Gloria just then, for she knew that Gloria in
-her usual frank manner had doubtless told Angela of her changed plans;
-even now Angela might be protesting with her and urging her not to
-dispose of a real title so carelessly. Even without the title Angela
-would not approve of the broken engagement, for it had been announced in
-her house; therefore, she had, in a way, been sponsor for it, and would
-want to see it go through to a successful conclusion.
-
-She made her way to the enclosed veranda where she had kept her
-rendezvous with Pendragon on the afternoon of her arrival. It was quite
-deserted now, but far out on the crest of one of the near hills she saw
-a moving, black splotch against the snow that as she watched gradually
-resolved itself into three figures—John Peyton-Russell, Terry and
-Professor Pendragon. It gave her a strange thrill to see them
-thus—Pendragon striding along with the rest. Surely this was a miracle—a
-Christmas miracle, and she remembered a sentence in an old book of
-witchcraft that she had once read:
-
-“Verily there be magic both black and white, but of these two, the white
-magic prevaileth ever over the black.”
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XVIII
-
-
-Ruth did not see Gloria until just before luncheon.
-
-“I told him, and he’s going,” she said.
-
-“Did he make much of a row?”
-
-“Not after I explained that you hadn’t any money.”
-
-“Let’s not talk about him any more—only has he gone yet?”
-
-“Yes; he wouldn’t even wait until train time. Said he could get luncheon
-in the village and started out as soon as he could pack. I’m so happy
-about it—now you can marry Professor Pendragon again.”
-
-She realized at once that she shouldn’t have said it, but she had left
-so much unsaid during the last few weeks and now with both George and
-Prince Aglipogue gone she felt that the seal had been removed from her
-lips. She felt too, in a curious way, that Gloria though so many years
-older, was in a way her special charge—that she was entering a new life
-and must be guided.
-
-Gloria looked at her with startled eyes.
-
-“What nonsense! You’re too romantic, Ruth!”
-
-“But, Gloria, you do love him; you can’t deny it. Didn’t you tell me
-once that he is the only one you’ve ever really loved?”
-
-“It takes two to make a marriage, Ruth.”
-
-“But he loves you too.”
-
-“What makes you think that?”
-
-“He told me so.”
-
-“Even so, and even if I would marry again, you must realize that men
-very rarely marry the women they love. That’s why we separated, I think.
-We married for love and that is always disastrous. I should never have
-married at all. Tomorrow we’ll go back to town and Percy and I will each
-go our separate ways and forget the horrible nightmare of this place. It
-was just chance that we met—a weird freak of coincidence. He didn’t want
-it; neither did I.”
-
-There was nothing that Ruth could answer and presently Gloria went on:
-
-“No woman was meant to have both a career and a husband; lots of them
-try it—most women in fact, but usually they come to grief. It isn’t
-written in the stars that one woman should have both loves, art and a
-husband.”
-
-Ruth thought of Nels and Dorothy. Would they come to grief she wondered.
-As for herself she didn’t have to choose—love didn’t come and art had
-turned its back on her. She wondered if it was written in the stars that
-she should have neither art nor love. Then she remembered Pendragon’s
-quotation, “The stars incline, but do not compel.” So many things had
-happened here perhaps another miracle would be performed. She wondered
-why Gloria said nothing about Pendragon’s sudden recovery.
-
-It was a relief not to see Prince Aglipogue at the luncheon table. The
-dinner guests of the night before had all returned to their own homes.
-Aglipogue was gone, and Ruth wondered if Angela would be troubled,
-because, for once, there was an uneven number of people at the table.
-She did look a bit troubled, though she was trying hard to conceal it.
-An engagement announced and broken within twenty-four hours was rather
-trying. Still she was smiling:
-
-“We’ve got news of your servant, Gloria dear,—rather horrid news. It’s
-quite a shock—a bad way to end a pleasant Christmas party, even though
-he was only a servant, and not a very good one.” She paused, but no one
-came to her rescue with questions or information and she went on:
-
-“They found him in the snow—he must have tried to walk to the station
-and got lost—he was dead—frozen—and he had the—that horrible beast with
-him—the dead snake wound round his body.”
-
-Her voice broke hysterically and she shivered with horror.
-
-“They didn’t bring him here—thank God—but took him to an undertaker’s in
-the village. If he has any relatives that you could wire—”
-
-“None that I know of—they wouldn’t be in America anyway,” said Gloria,
-quite calmly, though her face was pale.
-
-“Then Terry said he’d arrange things, you know—one place is as good as
-another. I’m glad you take it so quietly—it’s an awful ending.”
-
-“He must have been furious because Pendragon shot the snake,” said
-Terry.
-
-“Still, if the excitement of killing a snake could cure Pen, Miss
-Mayfield ought to be willing to sacrifice her servant,” said John
-Peyton-Russell.
-
-“It really was remarkable—though I have heard of similar instances—of
-paralytics leaving their beds during the excitement of a fire, and that
-sort of thing— I trust there will be no relapse.”
-
-Miss Gilchrist’s tone left no doubt in the minds of her hearers that she
-was prepared for the worst. Indeed, her eyes were constantly fastened on
-Professor Pendragon as if she expected him to fall down at any minute.
-
-“There will be none, thank you,” said Pendragon.
-
-Ruth and Terry exchanged glances. Ruth’s eyes asked Terry, “Do you
-believe me now?” and Terry’s answered, “I don’t know— I don’t understand
-it at all.”
-
-“Of course we’re all very happy over Professor Pendragon’s recovery,”
-said Gloria in her most conventional voice, “and of course I don’t
-really feel any loss about George, though I am sorry he died that way.”
-
-“It is tragic, but now he’s really gone, Gloria,” said Terry. “I’m
-awfully glad to be rid of him. He was the most disagreeable servant I
-ever met, if one can be said to meet servants. I don’t think George ever
-really accepted me. He used to snub me most horribly and I don’t like
-being snubbed.”
-
-“That reminds me that you haven’t any servant at all, Gloria, so you
-really must stay here a few days longer. Perhaps I can find some for
-you—she really can’t go back now, can she, John?”
-
-“Really, Angela, that’s unfair; of course I want Miss Mayfield to
-stay—we planned to have everybody over the New Year. Perhaps Professor
-Pendragon can persuade her.”
-
-“I have had little luck in persuading women to do anything—if Prince
-Aglipogue had not left us so suddenly he might have been more
-successful.”
-
-There was a little embarrassed silence around the table after Pendragon
-had spoken, then Angela began talking of some irrelevant subject and the
-conversation went on, but always Ruth observed that neither Gloria nor
-Pendragon ever spoke directly to each other, though the omission was so
-cleverly disguised that no one at the table observed it except Terry and
-Ruth who always seemed to see everything together. Ruth had been so busy
-with Gloria and her affairs that she had talked very little to Terry and
-never alone; but they conversed nevertheless, constantly reading each
-other’s eyes as clearly as they would a printed page. The same things
-seemed to amuse them both and except in the realm of mystery which
-Ruth’s childhood had built about her, they understood each other
-perfectly. She knew now that he wanted to talk to her, but she pretended
-not to see, for having begun her task of managing the happiness of
-Gloria, she was determined to go on, and the person she wanted to see
-alone was Professor Pendragon.
-
-Angela who always advertised her house as “one of those places where you
-can do exactly what you please,” and therefore never on any occasion let
-any one do as they pleased if she could possibly prevent it by a
-continuous program of “amusement” and “entertainment,” was trying to
-interest them in a plan to go skating that evening by moonlight on a
-little lake that lay halfway between Fir Tree Farm and the village. Some
-one had reported that the ice was clear of snow and what was the good of
-being in the country in winter time if one didn’t go in for winter
-sport?
-
-Her plans fell on rather unenthusiastic ears. The men, having enjoyed a
-long hike in the morning, were not eager for more exercise; Gloria
-wanted to spend the afternoon preparing to leave the next morning; Ruth
-was not interested in anything that did not seem to offer any
-furtherance of her plans for Gloria; and Miss Gilchrist didn’t skate.
-
-The very atmosphere seemed to say that the party was finished; that
-these people had, for the time being, said all they had to say to each
-other and for the time, and wanted to be gone along their several roads.
-It is a wise hostess who recognizes this situation and apparently Angela
-did recognize it, for she finally stopped urging her scheme and when
-Gloria asked Ruth to help her pack—Gloria always went on a week-end
-equipped as for transcontinental travel—Angela made no effort to detain
-them or to go with them.
-
-Gloria’s moment of confidences had passed. She talked now, but of
-Terry’s play. She had told him of her changed decision and he seemed
-very happy about it.
-
-“Perhaps you’ll have a chance to make sketches of us,” she said to Ruth,
-awakening again Ruth’s interest in the work to which she also was
-returning.
-
-“We’ll find two women servants some place and go on as before, Ruth.
-Except that I’m not going to see quite so many people—only people I
-really like after this. You know I really love the old house—as near
-home as anything I’ll ever have. Wish we could get Amy back.”
-
-“We can,” said Ruth. “Amy and I had an agreement when she left that she
-would come back if you ever got rid of George. I have her address.”
-
-“Really, Ruth!” said Gloria, looking at her with genuine admiration,
-“You are the most amazing young person I’ve ever met. You ought to write
-a book on the care and training of aunts. It would be a great success.”
-
-Of this Ruth was not so sure. They were to leave on the morning train
-and while she had accomplished half her purpose she had not wholly
-succeeded. Gloria and Pendragon had met and now they were going to part
-more widely separated than ever before, because their opportunity had
-come and for some stupid reason they were both letting it go without
-reaching out a hand or saying one word to make it their own. And Gloria
-wasn’t happy—she was just normal at last, and a normal Gloria was rather
-a pitiful thing. She was like stale champagne—all the sparkle gone out
-of her. It seemed to Ruth that she could not live through another meal
-with Gloria and Pendragon talking across and around each other—Pendragon
-with his grave, quiet face in which the lines of pain seemed to be set
-forever—Gloria, changed and quiet, determined to work and succeed again,
-not for the joy of her work, but because it seemed the right thing to
-do. Yet she did live through another dinner, a most unhappy meal at
-which John and Angela sat trying to talk, realizing that something more
-than they could quite understand had gone wrong and not knowing exactly
-what to do about it. Terry and Miss Gilchrist relieved the tension
-somewhat, Terry consciously, Miss Gilchrist unconsciously, because no
-one else seemed able to talk, drew her out and once started on modern
-child training, there was no reason for any one else making any effort.
-She ran on endlessly with no more encouragement than an occasional, “Oh
-quite, Really, Yes indeed, or How interesting!” from Terry or Pendragon.
-
-What hurt more than anything was that Terry no longer signalled Ruth
-with his eyes. There was no longer any interest or invitation in them.
-If he had had anything to say to her he had forgotten it or lost
-interest, for now he seemed to avoid exchange of words or glances with
-her as much as Gloria and Pendragon avoided each other.
-
-There was a feeble attempt on the part of Angela to start a conversation
-with some semblance of animation over the coffee cups in the library
-afterward, but finally even she surrendered as one by one they made
-excuses of weariness, the early train or no excuse at all and drifted
-away.
-
-Ruth watched for Pendragon’s going and followed him. He made his way to
-the enclosed veranda. She stood a moment looking through the glass door,
-watching him as he paced up and down, smoking a pipe. What she was going
-to do required courage; she might only meet with the cold rebuff that is
-due to meddlesome persons, but Gloria’s happiness was at stake and she
-could only fail, so she walked timidly out to him.
-
-She waited patiently until he turned and faced her. She thought she saw
-a look of disappointment cross his face when he saw who had interrupted
-his solitude. That look, fancied or real, encouraged her to go on.
-
-“I wanted to thank you for doing what you did—for not giving up, and to
-tell you how happy I am that you’re well again,” she began.
-
-“Yes—I am well again—I walk and eat and sleep and wake again—I am
-alive.”
-
-“And I wanted to ask you if you’re going to stop now— You’ve saved
-Gloria from George and from the Prince—are you going to let her go away
-now that you have accomplished so much?”
-
-“My dear child, I can’t kidnap Gloria—she’s not the sort of woman one
-kidnaps—not even the sort one woos and wins. She is the other sort—the
-only sort worth while I think—the princess who calls her own swayamvara,
-and makes her own choice.”
-
-“But she did choose.”
-
-“She has chosen too often.”
-
-“Do you mean that even if Gloria still loved you you would not marry her
-just because she has—because she has—”
-
-All her old ideas and training rose up and kept her from finishing the
-sentence “because she has had two other husbands.”
-
-“If Gloria had married one hundred men I would still want her—don’t you
-understand that?” He spoke almost fiercely. “But you don’t
-understand—you’re too young; it isn’t that; but Gloria doesn’t love me.
-If she did she would tell me so. She knows that I love her and she has
-shown very plainly that she doesn’t want my love. I appreciate your
-kindness,” he went on in a calmer tone, “but don’t trouble any more—what
-is written is written and can’t be changed no matter how one tries.”
-
-“If I give you my word of honour that Gloria does love you, what then?
-She told me so—she does know that you love her, but she thinks you
-don’t—she thinks the husbands make a difference. She doesn’t believe
-that a man could understand that they were just—just incidents.”
-
-Neither laughed at the idea of this twenty-year old girl speaking of two
-husbands as incidents, though later Ruth remembered it herself, and
-thought it rather funny.
-
-He did not answer,—he was standing quite rigidly, staring at the door,
-and, turning, Ruth saw Gloria approaching them:
-
-“I’m sorry; I thought you were alone, Ruth,” she said and hesitated as
-if she would have gone back.
-
-“I’ve just remembered,” said Pendragon, “that the small star Eros is
-supposed to be visible again about this time, but we have no telescope.
-Ruth has not found it, though she has young eyes— Perhaps you and I,
-together, Gloria—if we looked very closely—”
-
-Under the clear starlight she saw them in each other’s arms. There was
-one very bright star, that seemed to hang lower in the sky than winter
-stars are wont to hang. Surely it was the star of love, though doubtless
-no astronomer had ever named it so. She did not know exactly where she
-was going when she left them there, but she was very happy. And then
-halfway down the stairs she sat down because her happiness was
-overflowing from her eyes in tears and she couldn’t see, and suddenly
-she felt very tired. It was there that Terry, ascending, found her.
-
-“I say—what’s wrong? You’re crying. I saw you with Pendragon—has he done
-anything to hurt you? I’ll—”
-
-“No-it’s not that—I’m crying because I’m so happy—”
-
-“Oh!”
-
-He looked at her half-disappointed, half-relieved and wholly bewildered.
-
-“It’s Gloria and Pendragon—they’ve made up.” She reverted to the
-vernacular of childhood. “I’m so happy because they’re happy.”
-
-“But I thought—I thought you cared for Pendragon,” stumbled Terry.
-
-“That’s funny—what made you think that? I do like him but mostly for
-Gloria’s sake.”
-
-“Look here,” said Terry. “If you don’t love Pendragon who do you love?”
-
-She was smiling through her tears now.
-
-“Is it absolutely necessary that I should love some one? You know I
-always thought that you loved Gloria. If you don’t love Gloria, whom do
-you love?”
-
-For a moment he looked down into her upturned face, struggling against
-the provocation of her lips.
-
-“I love the most charming, youngest, most mature, most unselfish, most
-winsome—oh, there aren’t adjectives enough. Who do you love?”
-
-“The nicest—the very nicest and cleverest man in the world,” she
-answered demurely.
-
-“Nicest—I’m not quite sure that I like that adjective applied to a man.”
-
-“I can’t help it—we can’t all have playwright’s vocabularies, you know.
-I could draw him better.”
-
-He bent over very near to her while her clever fingers made rapid
-strokes. When it was finished she looked up at him with shy daring in
-her eyes.
-
-“Is my nose really like that?” he asked.
-
-“How did you guess who it was meant for?” she teased, and turned her
-head quickly, because she was not quite sure even now that she was ready
-for that wonderful first kiss.
-
-“I’ve always wanted to kiss you just below that little curl anyway,”
-whispered Terry. “And now your lips, please.”
-
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-
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-
-
-                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
-
-
- 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- 2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as
-      printed.
- 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
-
-
-
-
-
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