The erratic flame
by Ysabel De Teresa · English · Gutenberg #45842 · 519,977 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The erratic flame
Author: Ysabel De Teresa
Release date: May 31, 2014 [eBook #45842]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45842
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ERRATIC FLAME ***
THE ERRATIC FLAME
by
YSABEL DE TERESA
New York
The Macaulay Company
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1926, by The Macaulay Company
Printed in the United States of America
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
I THE SCORCHING LIMELIGHT
II ESCAPADE
III LIFE'S GLAMOUR
IV THE PAWN
V CLAIRE'S RENUNCIATION
VI DARK DESPAIR
VII THE LOST GIRL
VIII MORTAL SIN
IX YOUTH'S TEMPEST
X MERRY-GO-ROUND
XI ANNE'S VIGIL
XII THE HEALING VISION
XIII BALM
XIV RAPTURE
XV "DUG DEEP INTO MY HEART--"
XVI IRREVOCABLE
XVII STRANGE AND SINISTER
XVIII DISCORD
XIX A CRESCENDO
XX OFFERINGS TO THE GOD OF GENIUS
XXI TRIUMPH
XXII ANTI-CLIMAX
XXIII DISSONANCE
XXIV TRICKERY
XXV SACRIFICIAL
XXVI "WILL YOU TAKE ME--"
XXVII CLAIRE'S CHILD
XXVIII "PITY THAT PAINS"
EPILOGUE: PURPLE AND GOLD
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ERRATIC FLAME
CHAPTER I
THE SCORCHING LIMELIGHT
As the mountain mist, caressing and desultory, resolved into a steady
downpour, Anne glimpsed just above her the outlines of a hut. Crouched
behind sodden boughs, decrepit, ramshackle, it tottered upon the lip of
the ravine. With an amused sense of relief she trudged up towards it,
her feet sinking amongst a welter of brown leaves, her whole being
cleansed within the gray mantle of the rain. After a hectic summer of
bridge and dancing this solitude of dripping trees and drenched leaves,
fell upon her bruised spirit like a benediction. Anne thanked her very
modern and somewhat pagan gods for having inspired her to escape from
the inglorious rut. To-day, the New York season ahead of her, shone
meretricious in the face of the crystal cleanliness of bathing woods.
Perhaps she would give it all up and open the villa in Florence
immediately instead of waiting until after Christmas. The very thought
rested her. She attained the top of the ravine with renewed serenity.
Its gaunt outlines blurred by rain, the hut stood before her. Assailed
by a feeling of almost girlish excitement she smiled with inward
amusement. Surfeited, world-weary, surely she was not foolish enough to
expect a thrill lurking within the walls of a dilapidated mountain
cabin?
The careless little smile on her lips, she stepped upon the crazy porch
and tried the door. Obstinate in mood it resisted her onslaught with
almost personal violence. But she braced her back upon its gray
stubbornness, and giving a vigorous push, burst into the room.
Dim, inhospitable, alien, its opaque shadows menaced vaguely. Still
smiling, Anne ventured boldly forward. Then, as her eyes fell upon the
hearth, hesitated, for from the embers rose a nebulous tube of smoke.
Its faint, acrid tang rode the stale air challengingly. Anne darted a
keen glance about her, focusing upon the extreme corner of the room
where a denser blackness prevailed, which as she approached resolved
itself into a couch and a mass of tossed blankets from which emerged a
head; a tumbled, lolling head, which drooped towards the floor as if in
pursuit of its own heavy, trailing hand. Pathetic, remote behind closed
lids, it carried to Anne a summons both tragic and impelling.
She drew nearer and peered down into the pallid features. It was the
face of a dissipated young god, glistening with a pallor of unhealth,
beautiful in its decadence, with the pagan beauty of a Praxiteles.
A wave of pity and excitement surged over her. A boy, ill and alone; a
boy with the face of a fallen Lucifer! She leaned over and placed her
hand upon the pale forehead. It was cold and moist beneath a tangle of
tumbled curls. She shivered slightly at the contact.
Ephemeral as was her touch, the leaden lids rose beneath it, and she
found herself gazing down into a pair of weary, indifferent young eyes.
She backed away hastily.
The boy intercepted her recoil with a harsh laugh. Sitting up, he
clasped his head, and gazed at her from under long and pallid fingers.
"Did you think I was dead?" he said with a mocking air. "And what would
you have done if I had been?" He shot her a look of impish hostility.
Anne assumed an air of indifference.
"There would have been a lot of red tape, I suppose," she said curtly
over her shoulder. She turned and walked slowly toward the door.
Arms clasped about his knees, he looked after her with dawning interest.
"Where are you going?" he said brusquely. "You can't leave now in this
rain." He looked up at the roof against which rushing waters beat a
thunderous tattoo. Scrambling to his feet, he started towards her.
She met the haggard young eyes with composure.
"When I came in here, I thought the place was deserted," she said
simply, "and then, when I saw you----"
"You thought I was dead!" he interposed with a repetition of the short,
dry laugh. "No such luck!" He checked himself. "Seriously, you won't be
so foolish as to go out again until the rain stops, will you? Just
because you find me offensive? I'll make up the fire, and you must dry
yourself."
As he said this, a sudden child-like smile lighted up the somber face.
Anne decided it would be ridiculous not to stay. After all, the young
brute could not eat her. It was only a few weeks since she had recovered
from summer flu and she shrank from inviting another attack of the
insidious enemy. Besides, in spite or perhaps because of his haggard
young impudence, there welled up from her subconscious a primitive
desire to see the adventure to the finish. And as she watched the slight
figure busying itself at the hearth, she was smitten with a vague sense
of familiarity. Where had she seen that pale face, those uptilted,
faunlike eyebrows? That classic throat, which rose columnar from the
négligée shirt? And above all, those hands, those square, elongated
fingers? In some ancient bronze or marble?
She took the chair nearest the hearth and stretching her hands to the
blaze, watched his impassive features as the firelight played upon them.
"That's right," he said non-committally, "better take off your sweater,
it's dripping. I'll lend you one in the meanwhile."
With a quick gesture, he lighted the lamp upon the table, and opening a
drawer in the ramshackle bureau, drew out a heavy wool sweater, and with
a casual gesture, threw it about her shoulders.
"What a beauty!" She met his indifference with an amused smile as she
caressed the smooth texture.
The eyes beneath the heavy lids mocked her. She realized with amused
dismay that he evidently thought she was trying to flirt with him.
"I'm going to make tea," he said abruptly. "All women like tea." His
voice was contemptuous.
The callow brutality roused her sense of humor. She removed her hat and
ran her hands through hair which glistened like burnished chestnuts in
the firelight. She smiled as she caught his eyes resting upon it
unwillingly.
"What have women done to you?" she inquired softly.
He gave her a quick, menacing look.
"You are tyrants, all of you," he sneered savagely. "Greedy for
everything. For money, flattery, love, especially love. Insatiable!
Demanding, always demanding but--I promised you tea, I believe." He
finished somewhat lamely, and striding to the cupboard produced a tin, a
loaf of bread and some butter.
She looked at him from beneath inscrutable lashes.
"I'm sorry you're unhappy," she said simply.
"We are all unhappy," he evaded. He poured water into the dingy kettle
hanging over the fire. "You are unhappy because you are wet, and like a
civilized lady want your tea. I am unhappy because my head aches most
damnably! For me there is no help but time, but for you there is orange
pekoe."
She laughed.
"For a soulless creature like a woman there is always food, eh?" she
teased. "But a masculine intellect demands only spiritual sustenance?"
He laughed more naturally, as he met her mocking glance. "I must seem an
awful fool to you," he said somewhat sheepishly.
She shook her head, still smiling.
"Oh, no, I was merely thinking what a mixture of sullen boy and
embittered cynic you are. Do you know you are a very odd person,
indeed?"
He looked at once flattered and woebegone.
"I suppose it's this damned forcing-house I've lived in." He muttered as
he sliced the bread rather clumsily, with his most unclumsy-looking
hands. "Limelight doesn't mellow, it scorches!" Then as he met her
astonished gaze, he checked himself abruptly. "Bread and butter and
cigarettes are all I can offer, unless the storm has whetted you
sufficiently for bacon and eggs?"
She laughed a denial, and springing up, lifted the chuckling kettle off
the hearth. The boy hurried to her assistance and their flesh met over
the handle.
"So you're a celebrity?" she thrust at him, as he took the kettle from
her and placed it on a table. Beneath her scrutiny his features again
became a mask, except for the eyes, which gleamed liquid in the
firelight.
"You flatter me," he laughed with forced lightness. "Must I decrease my
importance and the romance of the occasion by revealing my humble
identity?"
"No indeed!" exclaimed Anne, "that would spoil everything."
But the odd little speech about the limelight had challenged her
curiosity, and as she continued to observe him, that strange sense of
familiarity which the first impression of his face had given, insinuated
itself into her consciousness more securely.
"No," she murmured without an appreciable pause. "Let's just be two
stray cats crawling into shelter from the rain."
An expression of relief thawed his frozen young face.
"But the Persian must not be shocked if the alley-cat does not know how
to behave and laps up his milk rudely." He laughed as he poured out her
tea, and handed her the bread and butter. For the moment he looked
almost happy, altogether boyish. He seated himself on the other side of
the table, and gazed into the fire, which crackled up into their faces
with the officiousness of an elderly chaperon. Its self-conscious
sputter neutralized the clamor of the rain and somehow pleased him.
"How elemental," he threw out his hands in an expressive gesture. "A
storm, a fire, and a cave," he looked about the shadowy room
whimsically. "A man and a woman--food--. We might be in the Stone Age."
His cynical gaze probed her.
Anne's laugh was a rippling murmur.
"A moment ago we were cats. Our evolution has been rapid!"
She pushed aside her chair, rose, and walking quickly to the window,
peered through the crooked panes, at the dusky woods beyond.
"The rain is letting up," she announced briefly. "I must go home, or
Regina will worry herself into a fever."
His somber laugh rang harshly. "So you prefer cats to cavemen?" He
joined her in a couple of lazy strides. "That isn't at all up to date!
May I inquire who is Regina, and still preserve our charming incognito?"
"She is my Italian maid. We are alone here this fall and she will be
wild if I don't hurry. She has been with me since I was a child and I'm
scarcely allowed to breathe without her permission," she replied rather
more expansively than she had intended.
"Well, if you must!" he shrugged. "I suppose I ought to say something
romantic about 'ships that pass in the night,' etc. But as I am a
misogynist"--he hesitated, looking at her with a sarcastic smile.
She took him up gaily.
"You merely hand me my hat, and tell me I look old enough to take care
of myself!" She drew the flabby object down over her head, and met his
smouldering gaze with a smile.
"You're really not so glad to have me go as you pretend," she
challenged. Then she caught her breath, for he had thrown out his arms
with a savage look, and for a moment she thought he was going to crush
her within them. But, letting them drop abruptly, he turned, and pulling
his mackintosh off the wall, thrust it about her shoulders.
"Let's go, since you wish it," he said shortly.
A moment later they were stumbling down the mountainside. Almost
obliterated by rain the path had become precipitous. Masses of dead
leaves choked their progress. At every step they slid and waded,
ankle-deep in scaly moisture, until Anne wanted to scream at the
reptilian contact.
"There's something corpse-like about them," she said, as she stumbled
along behind the blinding rays of the lantern.
"Why not? That's exactly what they are," he replied grimly. He held
aside a sodden branch for her to pass under. "Corpses, heaped victims of
the storm, as dead as you and I shall be some day, as dead as I wish I
were myself this moment!" He laughed harshly. Then as her hand touched
his arm, added more gently, "Surely, you are not afraid of death."
"No, of course not." She huddled more closely to his side, "Only you're
so young it seems a shame----"
He interrupted her savagely.
"All the better! Life is sufficiently drab without having to pass
through the horrors of decrepitude and senility. Death is the only
apology the gods can offer, for having thrust us into it."
As he spoke they emerged from the dripping woods on to the road, and the
walking became easier.
"Don't you want to get somewhere, to do something worthwhile before you
die?" she asked looking pityingly into the young face so white and set
in the lantern rays.
His lips curled.
"Get somewhere! Do something! That is meaningless jargon. There is
really no goal, no destination. We merely fool ourselves into thinking
there is. Work is only a drug, a means of forgetting. A good drug, I
admit, and at times even heady, but a drug, nevertheless!"
Her hold upon his arm tightened.
"Oh, how unhappy you must be! How sorry I am for you!" she cried with
unmistakable sincerity. "Do tell me what is the matter. I am sure I
could help you. You're so young, you probably exaggerate." She caught
herself up for fear of wounding him. "I mean I'm older than you."
She held her hand out pleadingly towards him.
He clasped it in his long fingers.
"Thank you," he replied more quietly, "I believe you mean it, but I
cannot, indeed I cannot!"
She did not urge, and they walked on in silence. The rain had stopped so
gradually, that neither of them remembered when it had ceased to fall.
Presently, they turned a bend in the road and came upon lights close at
hand.
"Here's my cottage," said Anne, in a slightly surprised tone. "I didn't
know we were so near. Come in and Regina will get us some supper. Then
you can rest awhile before returning home."
One foot on the step, he looked up at her, as she stood on the porch
above him.
"No, the play is over, the lights are out. I must return to my hut
and--" beneath his breath--"my devils."
Although he had already turned about, Anne heard.
"Your devils can get along perfectly well without you. Besides I have
one myself. Let us share them together. Come, I see we need each other
badly tonight."
Compassionate beneath her light manner, she caught him by the back of
the coat with both hands, and pulled him forcibly about. "Besides, I
have your mackintosh and your sweater. You mustn't be so reckless with
your property."
He followed her up the steps with obvious reluctance. She opened the
door and drew him in through the glowing aperture.
"See, there's a fire," she cried gaily. "And after supper I'll play to
you." She pointed to an upright in the corner. "I can play even on an
old country piano," she boasted.
And then she saw his face. It was paler than the hands which sought to
conceal it.
"No, no music! Never again!" he muttered. He fell weakly into the
nearest chair, and with a low moan laid his head on the arm.
Sudden intuition flooded Anne's being. How blind she had been! How was
it possible that she had not recognized him sooner? A figure so well
known, seen and listened to by her so many times?
She approached and laid her hand on the bowed head.
"I know you now, Mr. Petrovskey. It was very stupid of me not to have
guessed before, only the light in the hut was so very poor. But please
don't be worried," she added gently, as his drawn young face looked up
into hers. "I can keep a secret very well indeed, and my one desire is
to help you. You are not fit to go back to that lonely cabin to-night.
You must stay here, and we will see how you are in the morning."
He cast a wild glance about the rustic little room, as if he feared
someone might spring out upon him from behind the pretty chintz
curtains.
"You cannot know how terrible this is," he said. "It is only a few weeks
now--since it happened." He choked over the words. "And I feel as if I
should like to hide forever."
"But there is nothing to be ashamed of--" she commenced. "Ashamed," he
cried, savagely. "I'm not ashamed! Only I'm full of hatred, of disgust
for everyone and everything. I wish I could die!"
The tortured voice sent a lump into Anne's throat. She knelt beside the
chair and laid a compassionate arm about the shaking shoulders.
"Come," said she. "You are ill and over-wrought. We will go upstairs and
Regina and I will help you to bed. There's a good boy!"
The protective gesture, the kind words were too much. Utterly beside
himself, he turned and laid his head upon the refuge of her breast.
"You are good, good," he whispered. "You are not disappointed in me
because I'm a failure. You are not greedy like the others, who only want
what they can get out of me. Yes, I will trust you and I will stay."
As he raised his head, she felt her neck was moistened with his tears.
CHAPTER II
ESCAPADE
After a sleepless night, Anne dozed late. So when Regina brought in her
coffee about nine o'clock as usual, she awakened gropingly to fog. Fog,
which filtered in at the windows in layers of pale moonlight, and
wreathed about the house an ectoplasmic shroud until for a long moment
Anne had the illusion of floating through clouds in a dreamship.
Then Regina spoke.
"Dio mio, it's as chill as the finger of death in here!" She closed the
windows violently. "When will you learn to take care of yourself,
carina?"
Anne smiled. She was accustomed to these wild admonitions. She sat up in
bed and slipped into the green silk kimono which Regina was holding out
to her. The contrast between her own slim white arms and the woman's
knotted brown hands pleased her impersonally. She allowed her fingers to
rest upon Regina's sleeve. Relaxed and peaceful, the enshrouding fog
rose like a protecting wall between her and an irksome world. She sighed
luxuriantly at the thought of having left it all behind her.
Then the memory of last night swooped down upon her with the clamorous
beat of wings and sleep departed. She clasped Regina's wrist with tense
fingers.
"Regina, how is he? Where is he this morning?" she exclaimed wide awake
and anxious. "I had forgotten all about him, poor boy!"
The woman smiled benevolently. She placed the tray upon a table beside
the bed.
"He sleeps, cara, he sleeps. I but this moment popped my head in at the
door and he was lying there as still and quiet as a child, poverino. So
don't worry your little head about him, but eat your breakfast before it
freezes to a jelly."
But Anne did not hesitate. With a lithe movement she was out of bed.
Twisting the brazen rope of hair about her small head, she fastened it
with a massive gold hairpin. Then, a mediæval princess, in trailing
green draperies, she swept from the room.
Left alone, Regina thrust hands and eyes to heaven and called out upon
her picturesque God. Then she shrugged with Italian fatalism and
despair. What else could she have expected? It had been so from the very
first. Anne had always had her own way, ever since she herself had gone
to her as nurse when as a little girl they had lived in the palazzo in
Florence and her father had been the American consul. Married and a
widow, she still remained the same wilful child in the eyes of the
faithful, long-suffering, old woman.
With a shake of the white head, she followed her mistress out into the
narrow hallway and watched disapprovingly, as she disappeared into the
opposite room.
It was cold in there and Anne shivered a little as she entered. The fog
shimmered in from the open window, writhing itself between her and the
recumbent figure on the bed. Like Regina, she closed the window,
although less violently, smiling the while to herself at the similarity
of their action. Approaching the bed, she looked down upon the sleeper.
He was flushed and breathing irregularly, and Anne was glad she had not
trusted to Regina's optimistic inspection. For his hand and forehead
were burning and her touch did not arouse him. Rather alarmed, she took
him by the shoulders and shook him gently. He muttered, and opening his
eyes, gazed up at her, at first vacantly, then with dawning dread.
Although her heart beat a little faster, she smiled serenely down upon
him. "Well?"
He turned his head away quickly, and for a moment the unnatural flush
was replaced by the glistening pallor of the day before.
"I must get up. I must go back," he said self-consciously. "I have
trespassed upon you most shamefully. What can you think of me?" Still
avoiding her eye, he sat up in bed and ran an unsteady hand through his
tumbled hair.
The serene smile upon her lips, she shook her head.
"Do you really want to know what I think? I think you are going to stay
right here, young man, for unless I am much mistaken, you have fever,
and if that is the case, I shall not permit you to get up at all!"
He tossed his blonde mane impatiently.
"Fever? Nonsense! I'm perfectly all right. There's nothing the matter
with me at all, and I am going to get up!" Flushed and unsteady, he
stared at her defiantly, prepared to throw off the clothes and jump out
of bed. Then remembered with horror that he was attired in one of
Regina's ample and unpoetic nightrobes, and inhibited the impulse with a
groan.
Repressing her amusement, Anne approached and took his wrist in cool,
silken fingers. "I'm going to take your temperature, and if you have any
fever, I shall send for a doctor at once," she announced composedly.
Horror stalked across the young face.
"No, no, you mustn't do that!" he exclaimed. "Nobody must see me, nobody
must know where I am! I'll do anything you want, if only you won't send
for a doctor, or let anyone know I am here!"
His feverish clasp about her hands, Anne encountered his imploring look
with gravity.
"Very well, I have your promise. I don't know just how much it is worth,
of course, it is up to you to show me. Now lie down again, and be a good
patient while I get the thermometer and change my dress."
Head obediently on the pillow, his eyes rested upon her wistfully as she
moved toward the door.
"Must you change, you look so beautiful like that," he said simply.
"Your lines are so flowing, so fluid, like music. A Débussy prelude."
Her hand on the knob, she laughed a little tremulously.
"Your temperature must be even higher than I feared," she said lightly;
looking at him rather shyly over her shoulder, she left the room.
The next two days she and Regina were in constant attendance. His fever
had risen rapidly at first and Anne had feared that after all she might
have to break her word and call in a doctor. She could even have done so
without his knowledge, for most of the time he had lain in a heavy
slumber, from which she and Regina had difficulty in arousing him for
his medicine. But she resisted the temptation. And when the fever
finally commenced to drop, experienced a triumph disproportionately
disturbing, which she explained to herself as relief from the
intolerable responsibility of her position.
The afternoon of the second day, as she sat beside the window the sense
of relief filtering through her, Regina came into the room, and with a
great show of excitement and mystery, handed her the New York paper.
She pointed to a picture on the second page, with excitement.
"Ecco lo, there he is!" she exclaimed in a whisper. "And I guessed it
the moment I set eyes on him. For haven't I sat a dozen times in the
gallery and listened to him while he played, poor angel!" She approached
and looked down at the boy with a mixture of compassion and adoration.
"Poverino, how he has suffered," she added, as she smoothed the
bedclothes beneath the unshaven young chin.
Anne took the paper and looked at the photograph. It was indeed he,
violin under one arm, who looked at her with cryptic eyes, eyes laden
with all the tragedy of genius.
She sighed. A little shiver passed through her, as she glanced toward
the bed. Why was genius inevitably companioned by suffering? Why did
those who possess it harbor such strange magnetism, even when their
personalities were often repellent and ugly? And as she looked upon the
sleeping boy, an emotion to which she was not accustomed stole upon Anne
and kindled a flame, which scorched as well as warmed. An embryonic
temperament, drugged with artificial activities, somnolent from ennui,
stirred within her. With a flutter of self-ridicule she focussed her
attention upon the newspaper in her hand, and read through the headlines
mechanically.
FAMOUS YOUNG MUSICIAN STILL MISSING
IN SPITE OF FRANTIC SEARCH BY
ANXIOUS RELATIVES
Alexis Petrovskey, who escaped ten days ago from the sanitarium
where he had gone to recuperate from nervous shock following
upon his unfortunate breakdown in Carnegie Hall last April, is
still missing, and a lake near the sanitarium is being dragged
for his body, as it is feared that in his state of acute
melancholia he may have made away with himself. Etc., etc.
There followed encomiums upon his art and the great loss his death would
be to the musical world in general.
So he had relatives, mused Anne, and for some cryptic reason was
unpleasantly stirred by the fact. That ought to have occurred to her in
the beginning and they were--how had the newspaper put it?--frantic?
Yes, that was it. They would be, of course. And she was aiding and
abetting this unnatural young man to make them so. Put in that way, the
fact sounded very disagreeable, and yet--? She finished the article with
an impatient sigh, and turning her head, saw that the mysterious object
of her speculation was awake and looking at her. There was an odd little
smile upon his lips and his eyes were very lucid. Conscious of a flaming
and obnoxiously juvenile blush, she folded the paper quickly and threw
it aside.
"Too late!" he exclaimed in a rather weak voice. "I have caught a
glimpse of my beauteous self and know the worst. So they haven't been
able to keep it out of the papers, after all? Please show it to me."
He held out a long thin hand and she gave him the paper without further
parley. He sat up in bed and read the article from start to finish.
"Damn it!" he exclaimed, but rather placidly she thought. Somehow he had
the air of a naughty and triumphant small boy. "This is an awful bore.
What can I do to stop this parrots' talk?"
"Let them know of your whereabouts, I suppose," she replied laconically.
She walked to the window and looked out through the vista of trees. "It
is quite natural they should be worried," she added non-committally.
"I suppose you think I'm a brute." His eyes lingered upon the pearly
nape of neck, where the copper tendrils coiled so densely. "But if you
knew all the circumstances, I believe you would understand."
The effort at self-command, the something piteous in his voice thawed
her superficial coldness. A gentle rush of emotion coursed through her.
She turned toward him impulsively.
"Of course I don't think you're a brute! What right would I have to do
that, when I am ignorant of the facts? Only I do think you ought to let
them know----"
He sat up in bed interrupting her savagely.
"I can't go back--I won't go back!" he cried in a desperate voice. "You
don't know what you are asking of me!"
A pang of curiosity shot through Anne against her will. Why and of what
was he so full of hatred and fear? But her manner was calm and
impersonal as she approached him.
"Perhaps you might let them know that you are safe and with friends, and
let it go at that?" she suggested soothingly.
He shot her a strange look.
"Much she cares about my safety!" he muttered under his breath. Anne
heard with an unacknowledged but irritating pang. So there was a wife,
after all, in spite of his almost adolescent appearance!
"Shall I send your wife a telegram?" she inquired in a matter-of-fact
tone.
"My wife!" he stared at her in surprise. "My mother, you mean!"
Relief welled up in Anne's heart, but she chose to ignore its
humiliating presence. "Your mother, then?" she pursued evenly.
"Yes I suppose we had better," he acknowledged grudgingly. "But she is
absolutely not to know where I am, or to try to communicate with me
until I myself make the first move. That is to be understood."
"Very well," said Anne with composure. "I'm sure we can manage that. It
might be a good idea to write a letter and have my chauffeur take it
down to New York and mail it from there? Or perhaps it would be even
better if he took it to your house and left it there. Then there would
be no postmark."
"You're wonderful," he cried enthusiastically. "I never would have
thought of that!"
She met his look of admiration demurely.
"Oh no, it is really a very simple idea. I'll go and get some notepaper
and you had better write it yourself, so that your mother can be sure
that the letter is absolutely genuine."
Acting as curb to his impetuosity and anger, she helped him to concoct
one of the strangest letters that a mother ever received. Such a glacial
letter, in spite of her own compassionate tempering, that at the end
Anne was loath to send it at all.
"It will break her heart," she said sorrowfully.
But he laughed at her with bitter emphasis.
"Heart? She doesn't possess one! All she cares about is what she can get
out of me, not only in money, but in vicarious fame, as the fond mother
of a musical prodigy!"
Shocked and pitiful, Anne regarded him. His flushed cheeks and gleaming
eyes warned of the ever-present danger of recurring fever. She spoke
kindly as if to a sick child.
"I'm sure you're exciting yourself unnecessarily. This will never do.
You're not at all well, and things appear exaggeratedly awful. I'm sure
your mother loves you, how could she help it?"
"Loves me? That is good! Why, she has bled me since I was seven years
old. She has sometimes kept me at my violin until I have fainted from
exhaustion. She has purposely isolated me from all friends and interests
so that I might have no outside influences to distract me. Because of
her, my life has been as narrow and as bleak as that of a Trappist Monk.
We have never had any home, any ties. We have traveled from city to
city, like a couple of strolling players, and lived almost as poorly,
although ever since my twelfth year I have brought in thousands. But she
wanted to hoard. It is her passion. She's very greedy. In fact, she's
insatiable. She has always insisted upon being my business manager, and
it wasn't until a couple of years ago when I was twenty-one that I was
allowed the use of some of my own money. And then it was only because
the doctors frightened her!"
Anne met the triumph in his eyes with an inward shiver.
"Were you so ill?" she inquired, curiosity struggling with repugnance.
"No, but I was so damned neurotic and unsociable and had acquired so
many complexes that they were afraid I would develop dementia praecox if
my chains weren't slackened up a bit."
"Poor boy, what happened then?" Anne seated herself on the foot of his
bed and prepared to listen to the end. Very possibly, mental catharsis
might succeed where the rest-cure had failed.
He continued vehemently.
"What happened? I took a three months' vacation from my music, which I
had begun to detest in a furtive, unacknowledged, sort of way, and for a
time ran completely wild. I was like an animal let out of a cage. I ran
around with a pack of fools who took me into every sort of imaginable
den and got me into every kind of imaginable scrape. In fact, it was
only the force of money and my mother's constant watchfulness which kept
me out of the newspapers at least a dozen times."
"But--but didn't she try to interfere? To reason with you?" Anne was
remotely angry at herself for being offended by this recital.
His laugh was sinister. The expression on his young face
mephistophelian.
"Interfere? Why no, of course not. This fling was part of her own plans,
and according to the psycho-analyst for whom she was going in heavily at
the time, I would come out a better money-making proposition. In other
words, she expected to reap from my wild oats a bounteous harvest for
the future!"
Amused at Anne's horrified expression, he chuckled sardonically.
"Motherly of her, don't you think? But unfortunately, for her tender
intentions, the experiment was an awful fluke. I came out of it as
suddenly as I went in, only more melancholy, more morose than before,
utterly disgusted and sickened with the whole scheme of creation. I
wouldn't touch my violin for days, and for similar periods they couldn't
get me away from it long enough to eat or sleep. I gave a few recitals,
brilliant but uneven, and the critics were less kind than usual. My
mother was in a perfect funk, but I was utterly indifferent. Nothing
interested me at all. It was too much trouble even to live, and if I had
condescended to anything so positive as a wish, it would have been for
death."
He paused, and threw himself back wearily upon the pillow. "In fact,
that is the way I am now, only the longing is intense instead of
indifferent." He closed his eyes. An expression of fatigue and disdain
brooded over his drawn features.
Anne leaned forward impulsively and took his long, hot hand in both of
hers. "Don't," she begged, "I cannot bear to hear you speak so. It
wrings something in my soul. Surely, you will not remain so unhappy
always. Your music, your beautiful music will console you. It cannot
fail!"
His fingers twined about hers almost painfully.
"My music, my beautiful music," he murmured. He turned his head on the
pillow restlessly. "I shall not make it any more. I'm not fit, I have
dishonored it, and it will not come to me any more. That night--" he
faltered and turned his head away from her pitying eyes. "When I failed,
you know?" His voice demanded her help.
"Yes, yes, I know," she whispered. "I was not there, but I read about it
in the paper. I felt so sorry, so heartbroken for you. I had heard you
so often, and with such joy."
Tears in his eyes, he looked up at her gratefully and continued, "That
night I was playing as usual, in fact a little better than usual, when
all of a sudden every note went out of my head completely, and left
nothing but a blank. It was as if music had ceased to exist. I wasn't
frightened or ill, I simply couldn't play the violin any more. That was
all. Since then I haven't touched it."
Drawing his hand abruptly out of hers, he turned on his side and hid his
face in the pillow. She rose, and standing by the head of the bed, put
her fingers on his tumbled, blonde head.
"Poor boy, how horribly you have suffered! But I know you are going to
come out of it better and stronger than ever. You are so young! The
saying ought to be, 'Where there is youth there is hope.'" She sighed
inaudibly, remembering her thirty-three years with a pang. "Besides, you
are really lucky to have gone through your hell so early, while you can
still reap the benefits from it. For most of us it comes too late and we
retire defeated into middle age and spiritual death. But," she patted
his head lightly, "I don't want to preach. It isn't my métier at all!
I'm supposed to be frivolous! However, tell me, I simply must know
before I leave you, why did you run away from the sanitarium like that
without letting anyone know, and how did you ever find the hut?"
Beneath his laughter there lay an undercurrent of almost fierce despair.
"Because I should have gone completely mad if I had stayed another
minute. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I was scarcely capable of
thought, and yet they tried to cheer me up as if I were an automaton,
and all they had to do was to turn a crank. I was supposed to sit on the
lawn and drink iced postum and be sociable with my fellow pariahs. Then
the radio was turned on every night and those who could still hobble
were expected to dance. So wholesome, you know. Half crazed already, the
canned music and canned joviality finished me. The jazz sounded in my
ears all night. I felt as if my soul were being pounded into a jelly. I
couldn't sleep a wink. So I packed my things and stole away without
saying a word. I think I had some delirious idea of losing myself and my
identity forever. I hiked for the first few days, keeping to the woods
for fear of being found. I got my meals at stray farmhouses and slept
once or twice in a barn. When I came to the hut I was pretty well
exhausted and decided to rest up for a day or two. That's all," he
sighed wearily.
Anne's eyes were full of compassionate horror.
"Poor boy, it must have been ghastly. I scarcely wonder you wanted to
end it all. And it was I who awakened you from your first good sleep.
Will you ever forgive me for bringing you back to this sordid old
world?"
He looked up at her with worshipping eyes.
"Not sordid with you in it," he caught at her hand and retained it. "You
are the fairy princess, you know, who broke the evil spell. To-day I
feel--almost healed."
The mournful young voice went to her heart. With an assumption of gayety
she ran to the window and pulled down the shade.
"Very pretty indeed from a sick child. But now I am really going. You
must sleep. Later on I will bring you a little supper, your first real
meal under my roof, and we will discuss the future. Meanwhile I will
give your letter to my chauffeur, who is going into New York anyway, to
bring back some necessary things for the house. And now, sweet dreams."
She turned to leave the room, but before she could stop him he drew her
hand to his lips and kissed the palm passionately and with reverence.
The next day he was so much better that he was allowed to sit up in bed
and dictate to Regina as to the proper disposal of the contents of his
suitcase which Anne's chauffeur had packed and brought down from the hut
before leaving for New York. Attired in a pair of his own pajamas, hair
brushed, face and hands washed by the delighted and flustered old woman,
Alexis was seriously contemplating a shave, when at the bottom of the
suitcase beneath some silk socks he came upon Claire's picture.
He drew it out slowly, an expression of shrinking upon his face. Where
had it come from? He certainly would never consciously have packed it
among his things. And neither would his mother have done so. The girl
herself, pitiful, sentimental little fool must have secreted it among
his things hoping that he would come upon it, and perhaps cast her a
random thought, as one throws a bone to a dog. For Claire was like a
dog, with the same beseeching, tragic gaze that looked up at him now
from the photograph so reproachfully. A tremor of rage swept over him as
he met those wistful eyes. Damn it, what right had she to reproach him
and to look so woebegone! As if he, Alexis, were to blame for
everything. Hadn't she fallen in with his mother's plans with alacrity,
with indecency even? Yes, they had tricked him nicely between them.
Claire's visit to his room in the dead of night and his mother's
neatly-timed discovery, and accusations. What else had there been to do
after that, but to marry the girl though they were both innocent even in
thought? No, Claire had no right to reproach him, for she had deceived
him, too. His mother, for her own cryptic purposes and Claire in
self-deluded passion. He had done the only thing possible under the
circumstances. Was it his fault that he had never been able to love her?
He had told her so from the beginning, hadn't he? She had nothing to
complain of. If he had neglected her, he at least had been faithful in a
technical sense. What mattered it if the faithfulness had proceeded from
indifference, rather than from a sense of strict virtue? The fact
remained, he had been faithful. And to what? A tool of his insatiable
mother; a toy thrown to serve as outlet for hitherto-repressed physical
desires; a stuffed doll to appease nascent passion.
He threw the picture from him with a savage gesture and laughed aloud,
much to Regina's alarm. She hastened to his side.
"The signorino is feeling gay?" she said hopefully, but with a tinge of
suspicion. The young man's expression was anything but gay! "Shall I
call my signora?"
He looked at the woman oddly.
"Please do," he mocked. "I want her to laugh with me!"
His wild look frightened the woman, she ran out of the room, and
presently Anne came in.
"Do you want me?" she asked quietly, with a quick glance at his excited
face.
He nodded grimly.
"I want to show you something. Do you see this picture?" He held out the
photograph. Anne approached the bed.
"Is it your sister?" she noted the trembling fingers with apprehension.
A sudden knife-like foreboding pierced her.
"My sister!" he laughed. "No, unfortunately, no. This," he pointed a
trembling, contemptuous finger at the small tragic face, "this is a
photograph of my wife."
Anne's smile was a triumph of indifference.
"Indeed?" she said coolly. "She looks like quite a child, doesn't she?"
She sat down calmly upon the chair beside the bed.
Angered by her serenity, he flung her a look of mingled hatred and
remorse.
"I suppose you are wondering why I didn't tell you about her yesterday?"
he grumbled.
She lifted her brows in astonishment, her green eyes met his coolly
beneath unfathomable lashes.
"Not at all, it is your own affair, isn't it?" her voice was icy.
"Ah, you are angry!" he exclaimed with satisfaction. "I can see you are.
I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you that I completely forgot
all about her?"
"Hardly!" Anne's lips tightened unconsciously.
"Well, believe it or not, that is the truth! My so-called wife counts
for so little in my life, I seldom even think of her, and when you asked
to whom we should write yesterday, she never entered my head. That is
the only explanation I have to offer."
Anne returned his pleading glance with perfect composure. She took the
photograph out of his hand and gazed at it. As she met the girl's eyes,
a tremor of sympathy quivered through her.
"She seems a pitiful little creature," she murmured almost against her
will. "Why are you so hard on her?" She avoided his eyes.
"Because I don't love her, I suppose!" he exclaimed harshly. "And when
one doesn't love a woman, one hates her. It is her own fault. She thrust
herself into my life of her own accord when my will was crushed and
almost dead, and I never shall forgive her for it. That is all."
Once more Anne interposed in the other woman's behalf.
"How pitiless you are! I don't believe you understand her at all.
Perhaps she loves you? Indeed I am sure she must love you."
"Loves me," he jeered, "she thinks she does, she is a born satellite.
Her docility fills me with hatred, lowers me. When I am with her I feel
that I am having intercourse with a slave, a chattel." He flung his
hands out before him, in excess of emotion, then added more quietly,
"but that is all over now. For weeks I have barely spoken to her, and it
is my intention never to see her again if possible."
Anne shook her head gently.
"Unfortunately, one cannot end things like that."
He looked at her angrily.
"Why not? If she is such a fool as to refuse to divorce me, at least I
can refuse to see her!"
"Have you spoken to her of divorce?"
"Of course. But she will not listen. You see she is a Roman Catholic and
something of a mystic to boot. But why do we bother about her so much?"
He shrugged cynically. "She is negligible. I have often forgotten her
existence for weeks at a time. That is why I don't understand why the
very thought of her can upset me so."
There was something uncanny in the comprehending look which Anne cast at
him.
"That is because you cannot forgive her the injury you have done her. It
is her pain and not her love which bores you. It is the memory of your
own suffering and debased self which you hate in her. She is so
associated with your weakness that the very mention of her name fills
you with hatred and humiliation. It is not her fault at all."
The calm voice ceased. Alexis faced the compassionate eyes with horror
in his own.
"No, you are wrong, you are wrong. You do not understand." Then, as she
continued to look at him as from a great distance, "Don't make me loathe
myself more than I do already!" he pleaded.
With an odd little smile she turned to leave the room.
"Perhaps I am mistaken," she said softly, her hand on the knob. "But
somehow I don't believe I am. Think it over."
The odd smile lingering about her lips, she pulled the door slowly
between them and was gone.
A sense of void surged over him, in a sickening sweep. He fell back upon
the pillow with a suppressed groan. She had gone, misunderstanding in
her heart. To explain fully and in detail would be the act of a cad, an
act of which even he was incapable. For a moment his very center of
gravity seemed to disintegrate. Then came the familiar blankness of
despair.
CHAPTER III
LIFE'S GLAMOUR
With the death of her husband, freedom had descended upon Anne like a
gift of the gods. A divine ointment, it penetrated her bruised spirit,
allaying the stored-up bitterness of years. Her heart emptied itself of
poison and welled with compassion for the pitiful ending of a futile
life. As her husband lay back upon the pillows, broken beyond all aid,
unbelievably aged, she almost forgave the insult to her youth that their
common life had proved. If it had only been a case of disparity of age,
no question of forgiveness would have existed at all. The twenty odd
years between them might have been forged into the strongest instead of
the weakest link that bound them together. It was this very disparity,
in fact, which at first had attracted her to him, with the enormous
flattery it implied. Her immaturity had thrilled to the condescension as
it could never thrill for the horde of barbaric youngsters who formed
the guard-gallant of her first New York season. Emerging from an
environment entirely continental, she was accustomed to the attentions
of men belonging to an older race, whose suave courtesy had its roots in
the antique. From the consulates in Rome and Florence which her father
had occupied ingloriously but with utter content, she had brought an
old-world respect and appreciation for maturity utterly foreign to young
America of even fifteen years ago. And in these respects Julius Schuyler
had satisfied her entirely. In her eyes he was not only a polished,
traveled and well-read man of the world, he was brilliant. He dominated.
His sketches were not the mere fads of a supremely idle and blasé man.
They flamed with talent. Their very unfinished condition proved it. When
so much can be suggested by the mere sweep of a line, why satiate the
spectator further? So she had accepted him at her own adolescent
valuation, glowing dewily beneath his tired, vivacious gaze.
For it was his forte to be sprightly. The ready repartee was ever on his
lips, nor was the pun scorned. No matter how trite, how forced the
shaft, it played the most important rôle in his armory. To the ears of
eighteen the pompous straining was inaudible, the weary dissatisfaction
which it served to conceal, practically invisible. It was not until the
forcing-house of marriage, the constant companionship, had opened her
eyes that she glimpsed the actual man through the shallow smoke-screen
behind which he strove to cover an aching ennui, an intolerable
insufficiency.
Meanwhile his admiration had gone completely to her young head. The
fumes of it were sweet to her unaccustomed nostrils. Almost before she
was aware of it, she had consented to marry him. So it came about that
before the end of her first season she had acquired a husband
twenty-five years her senior, still active, distinguished in appearance,
although already gray, and incidentally wealthy, besides whose fortune
her father's very comfortable means dwindled ludicrously.
And yet perhaps it had not been so bad in the long run. After all,
Julius Schuyler had been a gentleman and always acquitted himself as
such. For Anne there had been no brutality, no animalism to encounter.
Only the monotony of an endless and artificial vivacity, the ever
forcing of herself to keep up her rôle of amused and humble spectator
and playmate.
He was so small, so finicky, with his endless devices for passing the
time. His double solitaire, his dominoes, his checkers which he would
always produce at the hint of an empty half hour. Multi-subterfuges for
cheating the gnawing ennui which with the years had fastened itself upon
him like a cancer. Disliking all games intensely, Anne had at first
absolutely refused to share in these puerile feints against time. But,
after a while, when all effort at conversation languished in the anæmic
soil of his irritating triteness, she had capitulated. They played
checkers in Amalfi, his back turned to the glorious bay, her
subconscious bathing in its blue flame; dominoes in Luxor with the Tombs
of the Kings beckoning on the glamorous horizon line; two-handed bridge
on the terrace of their villa in Florence, while the setting sun tinted
the Arno and set afire the mammoth dome of the old cathedral.
However, there had been compensations. The silver lining to her cloud
had provided a background of decided luxury. Travel brought contact with
a cosmopolitan, ever-changing, group who gave the beautiful American
that delicate homage, tinged with desire, which is stimulating to a
feminine ego, dissatisfied and unawakened. Intervals between tête-à-tête
games were sometimes brilliant and prolonged. The buying of the villa in
Florence was a joy, almost unmitigated by the fussy alterations of
Julius who imagined he understood old furniture, and the Cinque-Cento.
It was sheer rapture to return to Florence, to resume old friendships,
revisit in stealth old haunts.
But her vitality was sapped by Julius' greedy monopoly. He clung with
the persistency of an âme damnée. He accompanied her to the dressmaker,
where she was draped according to his finicky conception of her type.
He chose her hats. He bought her underwear, all of the very finest,
of course. But when she wore it beneath his complacent eyes,
self-consciousness became an agony which habit refused to dull. If
passion had underlain the complacence, she would not have minded even
this. But Julius never forgot himself in his love for her. His natural
diffidence was a perpetual audience, the unwelcome third in all their
intercourse. Never impulsive, his caresses lacked the white heat of
passion which is clean because spontaneous. Beneath his touch, Anne felt
herself perpetually under the microscope. It seemed as if he were vain,
not of his prowess, but of still being capable of harboring sensation at
all. And habit made her quick to notice that these lapses into anæmic
appetite usually followed the prodding of some erotic book or play, and
were seldom occasioned by her own desirability. She became practiced in
the art of retreat and withdrawal, so that the whole nature of love was
distorted. Still, a sort of pity for his maimed spirit kept her silent.
She closed her eyes and tried deliberately to become callous. However,
she made up her mind that if so precious a commodity as freedom ever
came within her grasp again, she would never permit it to escape.
And now that this freedom had been hers for almost five years, its
realization had exceeded her keenest expectations. Evading every
opportunity of remarriage, she had skilfully apportioned her seasons
between the United States and Europe. The New York season was invariably
followed by a few weeks in Egypt or the Riviera and capped by three
sensuous months in the Florentine villa. And this was the best-loved
time of all, in which she renewed body and soul, absorbing peace and
serenity from the olive-crusted hills upon whose sides multi-colored
villas gleamed like jewels in dark tresses.
Within her small but cherished garden, rose a terrace paved with bricks.
One attained it by a narrow flight of moss-grown steps. Here she would
sit for hours, basking beneath the sun which rode the heavens like an
impartial god, while beyond the pallid balustrade, cypress-studded hills
merged into the horizontal purple.
Here it was that she received her friends for tea, listening indulgently
to lascivious, Tuscan, gossip. Then, alone once more, after her late
dinner, or companioned by the man of the hour, it was here she would
pace up and down in the sweet-scented dusk while myriads of fireflies
like a flaming milky way disbanded at her approach. And high above the
swarthy cypresses the sun's paramour, the moon, shamelessly flaunted in
his reflected rays.
Those were enchanted nights into which Julius's memory intruded like the
sordid wraith from another existence; a warning wraith with finger on
lips, whose image tempered Anne's blood. Not that she was discreet, for
that was a quality Anne had never troubled to acquire. In fact, her
dealings were so recklessly above-board that she was suspected of untold
depths of wickedness. A beautiful woman who paces under the stars at
midnight with now one man, now another, cannot hope to escape slander.
Although perfectly aware of this fact, Anne chose to ignore it. Even the
nominal chaperonage of some poor, but genteel, relative seemed
insupportable to the fierce and rapturous reaction through which she was
passing. She remained defiantly alone. Her charm, her elegance, and most
certainly her wealth (in that way Florentines are most human) carried
her through. But rumor was building a wall of eccentricity about her and
she was rapidly becoming known, both on the Continent and in America, as
rather terrifyingly individual, and an image-breaker.
The most conservative began to drop off almost imperceptibly, leaving a
large circle of spirits who prided themselves upon a freedom akin to
looseness, and a small band of intimates too close to be affected by the
whispers of the scurrilous. Among the latter, the Marchese Torrigiani
and his mother refused steadfastly to believe anything but the best of
Anne. Their friendship of years continued undisrupted, and both mother
and son looked forward with eagerness to the day when Anne would weary
of her precarious liberty, and consent to become Vittorio's wife. But
although she admitted to an affection for Vittorio which at times
flickered into transient tenderness, her marriage with Julius had
developed a complex which made it impossible for her to contemplate the
subject without a shrinking horror. Meanwhile the Marchese waited,
hoping almost against hope, that with the passing of time the lacerating
memory would fade away. But so far it had refused to do so and there
were hours when it seemed to the steadfast man as if the scar were
branded into Anne's very soul. Accepting his homage as a matter of
course, she had continued to drift along the path of least resistance.
But latterly, a new restlessness was creeping in, and life had somehow
lost its savour. The New York season was becoming a grind. Her friends
were either blatantly rich, meretricious and over-fed, mere excitement
chasers, or else pretenders, art fainéants, who dabbled in cubes and
sex. Neurotic composers who dribbled mediocrities over the piano keys.
Pseudo writers who reveled in the drab, perhaps because any further
flight was beyond their stunted wings. Anne was growing to hate them
all, and herself the most, because she had remained too indolent or too
powerless to rise above their level. There were superior beings, of
course, who were achieving the real thing somewhere. But they dwelt on a
different plane, in a workers' world of their own, whose fastnesses she
had never as yet been able to scale. Her music was good, even excellent,
almost professional, but that irritating adverb "almost" rose like an
impassable Chinese wall, thrusting her forever into the destinationless
region of the dilettantes.
Beautiful, brilliant, talented, she remained negligible in her own
hypercritical eyes.
To oust this growing dissatisfaction which had sifted into the indolent
drift of her life and was gradually embittering it, Anne had literally
taken to her heels. Two weeks alone with the mountains had brought a
certain serenity. Already the miserly future looked less blank. Soothed
by solitudes and distance, her inflamed ego was content to sink into the
great whole. After all, there were compensations. She might not be a
genius, but that did not prevent genius from existing! And personality
was only an illusion after all, a hollow shell, within which the Great
Spirit differentiated. Who was she to grumble in the the face of this
universal oneness, into which her littleness merged so superbly? The
healing breath of the forest swept her clean of vanity. Her soul
rejoiced in the vigor of its new-found simplicity. She spent her days
roaming in the woods, or paddling about in a canoe on the unrippled
waters of the chaste little lake. She re-read one or two favorite books,
but all the time her mind remained contentedly empty and receptive, like
an airing room whose windows are unclosed to the winds of heaven.
It was in this mood she had come upon the hut and Alexis. Her sleeping
self had reawakened and once more taken her into possession. But it was
a rested and less inverted self, a younger and more ingenuous self, who
still admitted the futility of happiness but dimly craved it. In her
present chastened mood she was determined to oust the personal factor.
There had been too much of that in all her previous dealings with men.
It had always been to that quality of pervasive femininity to which they
had succumbed, and consciously or unconsciously, she had never failed to
assert it. She was going to change all that. Here was a boy, probably
ten years her junior, whose plight would arouse the sympathy of the
veriest egotist. Whose unhappiness, combined with his genius, stirred
the stagnant pool of her soul. Her quickened spirit responded to his
need with almost complete self-forgetfulness. That genius should come to
her door in the guise of a postulant, just as she herself had become
resigned to her own lack of it, seemed the culminating miracle to her
new-found peace of mind. To heal this bruised spirit and send it back to
the world in the glory of renewed splendor was her job. And nothing less
than success would satisfy her. For once she would step out of the
amateur class and prove that she could do one thing thoroughly and well,
even if it were so infinitesimal a thing as the rescue of a soul.
CHAPTER IV
THE PAWN
It was one of those crystal October days, when the air is crisp and
clean, tempered by a kindly sun and Central Park is etched in russet and
gold against a sky of opalescent clouds.
Huddled against the cushions of a high window seat, Claire gazed down
upon it all from the eleventh story of the huge apartment building in
59th Street where she and Mme. Petrovskey had been installed for the
last year. It was the customary, rather sumptuous, decidedly
characteristic studio apartment which they had been in the habit of
occupying for the last five or six years, ever since Alexis had
commenced to be known. Walnut paneling, canopied bed, old blue brocade
covers and hangings, reeked of the interior decorator; the only personal
touches which had survived Claire's listlessness being a carved ivory
rosary hanging over the bedpost, a few French and Italian novels of the
emotional school, and a large photograph of Alexis which scowled out
upon the world from the dressing table.
At first glance, the crouching girl upon the window seat seemed as
nondescript as the room. Almost frighteningly fragile in her dark street
dress, she would have been entirely insignificant if it had not been for
the appalling misery of her eyes. They brimmed with the sorrowfulness of
a kicked puppy. In their heavy-lidded gaze was mirrored the atavistic
agony of womankind. Weary, all-revealing, they stared down upon the
brilliant park below, while she listlessly stroked the bizarre head of a
Brussels Griffon curled upon her skirts.
It was the creature next to Alexis which she loved the best in the
world, both because Alexis had bought it for her himself on a sudden
boyish impulse, and because it loved her with all the devotion in its
tiny body. And love was to Claire the food and drink for which her soul
was starving. Not that she had ever been cruelly treated. Hers had been
a negative sort of misery. When she was a child of six, her mother had
died, leaving her in the charge of her aunt, Mme. Petrovskey, in whose
boarding house they were then living. Of her father she knew nothing.
But sometimes she suspected his official existence. All she knew was
that her name was the same as that of her aunt before she had married
Nicholas Petrovskey, that strange and exotic Russian musician, who had
invaded the boarding house one day before she herself was born, and had
never left it until his death several years later.
How well she remembered that boarding house in old London. How
scrupulously clean and unutterably dreary it had all been! And how well
she remembered her aunt's foreign husband who filled the house from
morning till night with the weird sobbings of his violin, until it
almost seemed to her child's understanding that one were not in a London
boarding house at all, but in an enchanted castle which continually
bewailed its pristine glories. It was this music and the author of it
which had supplied the only romance of a childhood singularly dull and
colorless. And strange to say, the frail, emaciated figure of the
musician stood out more clearly in her memory than that of his little
boy Alexis, who had been her playmate ever since the beginning of
things. It was not until several years later, when his father had died
and Alexis was almost ten years old, that he had become the greatest
interest and only affection of her lonely little life.
And then the music had come between them. He was always at his violin
and the old house echoed plaintively as in the years gone by; only as
Claire grew older the wailing ceased to be fairy strains and seemed to
be flowing from her own over-charged heart. Then they had suddenly sold
the boarding house and gone to Berlin, where Alexis' ambitious mother
had put him under one of the best masters. Followed years of traveling
and recitals while the boy's fame grew and spread until the outbreak of
the great war, when Alexis was fourteen and she a few months younger.
They had come to the United States and made it more or less their
headquarters while they toured South America, Mexico, and the West
Indies.
Now, at the age of twenty-three, Alexis was an idol, not only in every
large city of the United States, but in Paris and London as well. Since
the end of the war they had returned to the Continent several times and
it was while on a visit to Paris, five or six years before, that Alexis
had bought Bébé for her.
How well Claire remembered it all. He had been away almost all day,
playing for the wounded soldiers in Auteuil and had returned to the
hotel downcast and tragic, as always after the sight of the brave
poilus. She had induced him to go for a walk and had led him along the
arcade in the Rue de Rivoli as people and shops always amused and
distracted him. They had passed by a dog-fancier's and he had insisted
upon going in and buying for her the small Brussels Griffon which stared
at them with bulging and egocentric eyes from the shop window. They had
been quite gay when they returned to the hotel with the new member of
the family, saying they had been married and acquired progeny in the
short space of an hour and a half. Mme. Petrovskey had watched them
grimly, a strange look in her small eyes, and perhaps, who knows, at
least Claire had always imagined that it was then that she conceived the
idea of their marriage? But it was not until years after, six months ago
in fact, that it had actually occurred, and then so quietly, so almost
clandestinely, that it had hardly seemed like a marriage at all. Except
for necessary witnesses, the small chapel had been deserted, the priest
a stranger. Claire had timidly requested for old Father Gregory to
officiate. But her aunt's manner had been so unapproachable that she had
not dared to insist. And Alexis so unlike himself that he had scarcely
spoken to her for days, barely said more than a few words, in fact,
since the night she had gone to his room and Mme. Petrovskey had found
her there and acted so strangely. And yet there had been nothing wrong
in her going to Alexis like that. She had often done so in the years
gone by, especially after a concert, when she knew it would be hours
before his tension could relax into sleep. She would sit beside the bed
and rub his burning forehead, and they would talk a little in soft
whispers, not because they feared his mother might hear, but so as not
to break the calm which was stealing over him. Time and time again
Alexis had fallen asleep beneath her fingers.
And so, on this particular night, when she heard the restless pacing in
the room near hers, it had been purely instinctive to get up and go to
his aid. And indeed he had seemed glad to see her as usual, that is
until her aunt had come in upon them and ordered her out so
peremptorily. She never knew exactly what passed between them, although
the sound of their muffled voices had penetrated to her room for almost
an hour, and she herself had not been able to sleep all night for sheer
bewilderment.
The next day Alexis had come to her and asked her to marry him. His face
was very pale and his manner more distant than she had ever known it,
not with the familiar absent-minded air behind which she knew lurked
affection and kindness, but vested with a new hostile courtesy that
would have struck her as sinister if she had not been too utterly dazed
with joy to be analytical.
Since then she had often wondered in secret, and an icy fear had invaded
her at times. Could Mme. Petrovskey have had anything to do with it? Was
it possible that she had forced Alexis to ask her to marry him, because
she had discovered them together in his room? But if that was the case,
would he not have told her about it in one of those unguarded moments
when it seemed as if her love had suddenly struck flint to his steel?
One of those abandoned moments when he lay in her arms with closed eyes,
identity swamped in a vast surge of primitive passion? Ah, yes, he would
have told her then. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. She
shuddered. The months passed like a delirious moment. Perched on a
see-saw of rapture and terror, she had been flung to the heavens and
then plunged into the abyss according to Alexis' moods. And he had
become more eccentric every day. His passion, spasmodic from the first,
had quickly degenerated into the old absent-minded kindliness at best.
At times, his irritability had been frightful, but she had always
excused it, attributing everything to nerves, constantly strained from
excitement and overwork. Then had come his breakdown in Carnegie Hall
and the collapse of the world. The doctors had sent him to a sanitarium
in the mountains and all had gone well for a few weeks. Until about ten
days ago when Alexis had disappeared suddenly off the face of the earth,
since when Claire and his mother had existed on the verge of despair. Of
course, Mme. Petrovskey had tried to keep it quiet, but it had leaked
out as things always do, and the newspapers had been headlining it for
the last week.
Thus it was that Claire's eyes, always plaintive at best, brimmed with
the age-old sorrow of the world, and she lay upon the window-sill, heavy
with misery, recalling the scenes of childhood, clinging pitifully to
their memory like an old woman for whom life has already withdrawn all
hope of a future. While at her side, his small soul vaguely troubled,
the Griffon whined and tugged at her skirts. Her weary eyes falling upon
him presently, a sudden pity seized her for his helplessness. Her hand
closed fondly upon his small head.
"Poor Bébé," she murmured, following the little dog's longing glance
into the street below. "Shall I take you for a walk?"
At her words, he leaped up into her face rapturously, his furry body
vibrant with joyful tail-waggings. She smiled wanly at his eagerness.
"Poor Bébé, I've neglected you, haven't I? But I'm so miserable, so
miserable!" She caught him up in her arms and hugged him to her so
tightly that he yelped in shrill remonstrance. Setting him down with a
patient smile she sat down at her toilet table and put on her hat, an
uninteresting dark blue turban which emphasized disastrously her
insignificance.
As she met her weary eyes in the mirror, her pallor deepened. "No wonder
Alexis couldn't love me," she exclaimed in a bitter whisper. "I am ugly,
no----" she paused, beating her little fist upon the toilet table. "I am
worse than ugly, I am nothing, nobody! How could I expect to hold a
genius, a man of fire? And now," she bent her head upon her arms and
burst into low, suppressed weeping, "he is lost, perhaps dead! But I
can't believe it," she raised her head and gazed at her reflection
savagely. "He is not dead, he is only hiding somewhere--from her," she
added in a tense whisper. "From us both! Perhaps he has met another
woman whom he can really love. If that should happen I wonder what I
would do? Kill her? God knows I would want to!" The clenched fists rose
to her mouth in a passionate gesture.
The little dog tugged at her skirts. An odd smile upon her lips, she
controlled herself with an effort, caught up gloves and bag and led him
out of the room.
As they reached the entrance-hall, the doorbell whirred noisily.
Claire's heart leaped, and then fell leadenly. Could it, might it be
Alexis, at last?
Ito opened the door. A chauffeur was standing there, a letter in his
hand. With a gasp of disappointment Claire signed to the Jap to give it
to her.
It was from Alexis.
The beloved hieroglyphics sprawled before her eyes in a happy mist.
Addressed not to herself but to Mme. Petrovskey, they gave her a
momentary pang, that vanished quickly beneath the certainty of Alexis'
safety. She spoke to the man as steadily as she could.
"Is there--any answer?"
He hesitated. "I don't think so, but I can wait if you like." He stepped
through a doorway and sat down gingerly upon a chair which Claire
pointed out to him.
A joyful tattoo beating against her ribs, Claire ran down the long
vaulted corridor and knocked upon the door of Mme. Petrovskey's study.
A deep voice boomed permission to enter. Claire burst into the room
almost violently.
"It's a letter from Alexis, Aunt. Do please read it and tell me what he
says!"
"Give it to me!"
A large woman, seated at a roll-top desk, revolved round in her chair,
took the letter without a word and started to read it.
Hands clasped tightly together, Claire watched her eagerly. It was one
of those bland, non-committal faces, full and inclined to be
weather-beaten, which are often called motherly because they top a large
motherly body, and have the smooth expressionless surface of a rag doll.
But Claire knew the face very well indeed, had studied it since
childhood, so that the minutest pinching of the puckered lips, the
slightest increase in color, spoke volumes. And the letter was evidently
disturbing indeed, judging from the mottled purple on her aunt's cheeks,
the angry clutch of the broad fingers upon the crumpled sheets.
As Mme. Petrovskey turned the last page she laid the letter deliberately
upon the desk, and turned her back upon Claire.
"Well," faltered the girl. "Is Alexis all right and is--is he coming
back soon? Shall I tell the chauffeur to wait for your answer?"
"There is no answer!"
The voice was harsh and self-contained. For the first time she looked at
Claire, who shrank beneath the stare of the small glassy eyes.
"What are you doing in here?" she asked, pinching her lips. "Where you
know you are not permitted, you and your dog?" she added with a
contemptuous glare, at the microscopic Griffon.
Claire stooped and gathered Bébé up in her arms.
"The--the letter, it is from Alexis!" she stammered. "Please--please
read it to me, Aunt!" She trembled visibly at her own boldness.
Her evident fear irritated Mme. Petrovskey.
"Yes, it is from Alexis," she replied glacially, "but there is no
message in it for you." She revolved once more in her chair, and
commenced to write again fast and furiously.
A low cry of despair and rage escaped Claire.
"You are cruel," she cried chokingly. "I have a right to know! Am I not
his wife!"
The revolving chair remained immovable. Mme. Petrovskey bent a purple
face over her writing.
"He says he is better, but is taking a further rest-cure, and doesn't
wish us to know his address. He will communicate with us later," she
replied in suppressed and uneven tones, her obstinate back still turned
upon the girl.
Claire gasped with relief.
"Then when he is better, he will come back?" she insisted in a firmer
voice.
Mme. Petrovskey threw her pen from her in a violent gesture. The face
she turned upon her niece was pale and convulsed.
"He is never coming back!" she cried with suppressed fury. "He is going
to manage his own life after this. He says now that he cannot play the
violin any more, he is free to live as he likes!"
She rose to her feet, shadowing the stricken girl with her enormous
bulk. Her face stared stonily in front of her.
"This is what it has come to," she muttered. "This is his gratitude for
a lifetime of devotion and sacrifice. I have worked myself to the bone
that his genius might have every chance to develop. Now he throws me
aside, as if I were an outgrown toy, and tells me he is going to manage
his own life. He who couldn't even make out a check for himself or
remember his own address!"
Paralyzed with misery, Claire watched her aunt in a stupor of surprise.
This was the first time she had ever known her to reveal any emotion
stronger than contempt or a cold sort of anger. And the sight was
shattering. Gathering herself together through sheer force of will, she
helped her aunt back into the chair and patted the large veined hand
timidly.
"He can't mean it," she murmured. "He has been like this before, you
know. He really couldn't leave you. Why, he'd be helpless all alone, and
without his music." She choked back a sob. Alexis without his violin
would be like another man bereft of all five senses. "No, no, he'll come
back," she faltered pluckily. "Not for me. He doesn't need me, but for
you, his mother."
Mme. Petrovskey looked up into the piteous little face with a sort of
hard compassion.
"Poor Claire," she said more gently than she had spoken to her for
years, "I sacrificed you for nothing, didn't I?"
A slow blush spread over the girl's transparent features. She raised her
head.
"It was no sacrifice," she whispered. "It was my joy, my glory. I--I
have always loved him so!"
Then suddenly her eyes flashed.
"If only we could write to him. If only we could get hold of him and
tell him how broken you are. It was cruel of him not to leave us his
address. Do you think we might inveigle it out of the chauffeur? What do
you think, Aunt?"
"That would be a confession of failure," answered the older woman.
"Besides, you may be sure he was bound to secrecy. Now, leave me,
Claire. I must be alone. I want to think. Take your dog and go out in
the park. It will do you good. Perhaps, who knows, things aren't as
hopeless as they look?"
With a sudden return of her imperious manner, she waved Claire away.
Heavy with dread, the girl put down Bébé, fastened the leash on to his
bright collar and left the room.
The strange chauffeur was still waiting by the hall door. He seemed her
only hope now. She approached him with trembling knees.
"If--if you will tell me where Mr. Petrovskey is I will make it worth
your while," she said with a pathetic assumption of firmness.
He stood up as she spoke. His nice blue eyes evaded hers apologetically.
"I'm sorry, miss, but my orders were not to say anything. If there is no
answer I must be going." He fidgeted, one hand on the door-knob.
"Very well," she turned away to hide trembling lips. "There is no
answer. You may go."
"Very well, miss."
He opened the door and going out into the hall, rang for the elevator.
She looked after him hopelessly. Then a sudden idea flashed like a ray
of lightning into the black confusion of her mind. She followed him out
into the hall quickly.
"Wait a minute, I am going too."
He stood aside, as she entered the elevator in front of him.
They emerged into the pretentious entrance-hall and Claire, still
preceding him with Bébé in her arms went out into the sun-lit street.
Hand to his cap, the chauffeur jumped nimbly into a large Cadillac by
the curb and drove away. Claire looked after him with an air of
frightened triumph. A small pad in her hand, she had hastily scrawled
down the license number.
CHAPTER V
CLAIRE'S RENUNCIATION
For days the sun had shone brilliantly upon the mountainside, and the
lodge had long since emerged from its heavy swathing of fog. No longer a
boat floating through mystic seas, it was divested of a certain glamour.
But remained, nevertheless, a very comfortable and picturesque shelter.
Perched pertly beside the road that overhung the valley, it afforded a
bird's-eye view of checkered fields and a winding river, that gleamed
like a silver girdle about the base of purple hills.
Alexis revelled in the glorious sunshine. Weak, but quiescent after his
fever, he was content to sit on the rustic porch, a rug about his knees,
and gaze through the brilliant foliage at the vivid valley, which
sparkled in the thin autumn air with all the detailed perfection of a
mosaic.
This particular morning was the most perfect of them all. With a sigh of
enjoyment Alexis stretched his limbs in a perfection of relaxation which
he had not known for years.
"It is strange," he said, "how rested and peaceful I feel. All the
terrible irritability seems to have left me entirely."
"It went away with the fever-devil," laughed Anne, who was sketching a
stunted pine beside the roadway. "A most suitable match, don't you
think?"
Alexis laughed uncertainly.
"I only hope it never returns," he said, somewhat uneasily. "Nerves have
as many lives as a cat, you know, and an unerring instinct for home. One
never can tell when they will spring upon one again from the dark."
"I suppose the moral of that is to always keep a light handy," said Anne
gaily, but with a quick glance of pity for the worn boyish face.
"That's all very well, but what if your stock of matches has run out and
you're groping about in the dark?" he exclaimed whimsically, but with a
significant tightening of the lips.
Anne leaned over and laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Then you must ask someone else to give you a light," she said softly.
He caught her fingers in his and pressed them.
"Some good Samaritan like you," he cried. His eyes filled with nervous
tears.
Anne drew her hand away quietly. This sort of thing was not to be
encouraged if she were to obtain the impersonal influence over him which
she had intended from the first.
"That is very pretty, but I don't deserve it," she said lightly. "Come,
tell me more about yourself. I want to know all about your life. It must
be thrilling to be a genius!"
He smiled mournfully.
"Thrilling, I should say not! It is the most narrow life possible. At
least mine has been so. Merely a record of travel and hard work. When I
was a child we were never long enough in any one place to make any
friends, besides my mother always feared they would interfere with my
practicing, and later, I had become so pent-up within myself and my
music that I had no further desire for them. Claire was the only person
I ever saw, outside of my mother, and most of the time I was practically
unconscious of her existence."
"Claire--is that your wife?" inquired Anne in spite of herself. She
blocked in the background of her sketch with nervous strokes.
"Yes," he cast her a quick, guilty glance. Then, after a pause, "You
mustn't think I meant all the rotten things I said about her the other
night. I've always been very fond of the poor little thing, only as a
wife she meant nothing to me. I suppose you wonder why I married her,
and I admit it must seem pitiably weak, only I was in such a state at
the time that I really wasn't responsible. Everything was a nightmare of
jangled nerves." The vision of his mother threatening to put Claire out
upon the streets if he refused to marry her, came before him. An uneven
flush spread over his face. His hands clenched the arms of the chair.
"Sometimes I wonder if there isn't a taint of madness in me somewhere, a
rotten spot in my brain that is spreading----" He threw out his hands in
a gesture of despair.
She met the frantic appeal in his eyes with firm denial.
"You're talking introspective drivel. Summoning prehistoric monsters out
of your subconscious cavern. Don't let yourself be frightened by a few
dead bones. There is neither madness nor method about you. You are
simply too highly organized for your own comfort. In other words, you
are a genius and must pay the penalty."
He laughed more naturally.
"So in your opinion every genius must be a poor fool?"
"According to some standards, yes. He was made to walk on the heights,
and when he is forced to descend to the valley and mingle with the rest
of us his head often remains in the clouds, and he stumbles woefully."
"Don't count yourself in with the rest of them, for heaven's sakes!"
exclaimed Alexis, his eyes hypnotized by the bronze aureole of her hair.
She encountered his gaze with a poised smile which for some inexplicable
reason, angered him.
"But unfortunately, or fortunately, that is precisely where I belong,"
she said without a tinge of her old bitterness.
"You may not have any talent for doing any one special thing," he
interrupted hotly, "but you, yourself, are so perfect, such a work of
art. It must take genius to be just you. Let us say you are genius in
the abstract." He smiled at her in sheer pleasure at his own happy
phrase.
She rose and putting her sketch on the table, smiled down upon him.
"You're only a baby, after all, aren't you? I think I shall call you my
changeling. Come, changeling, how would you like to take a little stroll
down to the lake? It is only a moment's walk from here. We will take
some cushions and you can lie back in my canoe and I'll paddle you about
for a while."
He stood up eagerly and held out his arms for the gay cushions which she
threw at him from the chaise-longue.
"I shall have to learn how to walk all over again," he laughed as they
started down the steps.
"Didn't I say you were a baby?" She took his arm with a protecting
gesture.
They strolled slowly forward while the brilliant foliage flaunted high
overhead and formed an exotic carpet beneath their feet.
From an upper window Regina looked after them and shook a disapproving
head.
"Dio mio, it begins all over again," she sighed, "and this time with a
babe! Will she never be content to settle down? And I who had such fine
hopes for the Signor Marchese, so rich and so very respectable!"
* * * * *
There's an intimacy about a canoe which once shared, can change a slight
acquaintance into something warm and perhaps enduring.
Anne and Alexis had reached a focus where it seemed to fuse their points
of contact perilously. Not that either of them had analyzed it as yet.
Alexis as he lay back upon his cushions, was conscious only of the
beauty of burnished hair, glamorous eyes and skin, of the god-like frame
of trees and lake and sky; the unutterable bliss of such companionship
in such surroundings. To him it was like a divine interlude from
Purgatory.
Anne was more experienced in such affairs. Her instinct had long ago
hinted of danger. But she chose to ignore it, trusting to practice and
savoir faire to avoid forthcoming pitfalls. As before, she determined to
remain mistress of the situation. But it was only natural that the boy's
budding worship should stir her. After all, he was no ordinary young man
but a genius with a power to move thousands, and had, moreover, a
compelling, if somewhat neurotic, personal appeal. And he possessed one
quality which Anne had never been able to resist. That of physical
beauty. With the classical features of a Greek faun, he combined a
fragility, a certain decadent charm, which intrigued her fatigued
senses.
And the morning flew by with flashing swiftness. All too soon, they were
crunching back over the regal carpet of tinted leaves which showered
down upon their heads from the trees like a flock of brittle
butterflies.
"I feel like Danae," laughed Anne, as she shook down a golden cluster
from a branch above her head.
Alexis regarded her ecstatically.
"They match your hair exactly. But alas, I am not Jupiter. I cannot pour
myself upon you in a golden rain."
His eyes met hers with a new audacity. "But I'll dissolve into tears,
which will amount to the same thing, if you look at me like that!" he
added hastily.
Anne hated herself for flushing. She averted her head.
"You absurd boy! Come, we must hurry, or Regina's lunch will be spoiled.
It's so nice and warm today, she promised to serve it on the porch.
Won't that be jolly? It's supposed to be a great surprise, but I suspect
a risotto à la Milanese."
She led the way to the house. A puzzled frown between his straight
brows, Alexis followed.
"You are in a great hurry," he said, in hurt tones. "You forget the baby
is still learning to walk!" His voice was plaintive in the extreme.
She turned about in quick repentance. His laughing eyes were roguish.
"Changeling!" she murmured. She disdained the arm he held out in feigned
weakness. "What shall I do with you, you are incorrigible!"
There was a note of triumph in his laugh. Taking her arm masterfully in
his, he looked down upon her teasingly.
"The lady lion-tamer mustn't mind a scratch or two, especially in the
beginning, before the animals learn how to behave nicely." He mocked,
but the light in his eyes was tender.
Annoyed and amused, Anne laughed in spite of herself.
"Touchée," she admitted gaily, "I see the cub is developing teeth and a
mane, and I'd better look out for myself."
Alexis tightened her arm against his side. He emitted a low, but
ferocious growl. With a laugh and a delicate shiver, she freed herself
deftly and ran up the cottage steps.
"Why, lunch isn't ready after all----" she commenced, and then stopped
short, for finger on lips, like a sibyl, Regina stood in the doorway and
pointed mysteriously towards the end of the porch.
Astonished and amused, Anne's eyes followed the melodramatic finger. At
the end of the verandah sat a small limp figure. What a bore, who could
it possibly be? She had not given her address to a soul, and not even
her mail was being forwarded. Couldn't people ever leave one alone?
But she moved forward graciously as usual.
The small figure rose at her approach. A pale face, a pair of enormous
haunted eyes, confronted Anne. An inexplicable spasm contracted Anne's
heart. She concealed sudden apprehension beneath a formal nod, and
waited for the other to speak.
The girl commenced timidly.
"Is this Mrs. Schuyler?" she inquired in a low, uneven voice. The soft
brown eyes met Anne's. "I came to----" then she stopped short, with a
breathless gasp. Her glance had swept beyond Anne and lighted upon
Alexis, just as he stepped on to the porch.
A sudden flush beautified the wan little face.
"Alexis!" she cried and brushed past Anne tempestuously.
"Alexis," she repeated. "I had to come. Please forgive me!"
"Claire!" Alexis gazed at her stormily.
She approached him pleadingly. "Is that all you have to say to me,
Alexis?"
"What do you expect me to say?" he braced himself visibly, "except that
I am speechless with surprise?"
Drawing forward a porch chair, he motioned her toward it. "Won't you sit
down? It is a long journey from New York and you must be tired." His
voice was cold with restrained anger.
Her knees bent beneath her, and she sank into the chair with a tired
sigh.
"Thank you, Alexis," the small voice was pathetic.
"But I forget," Alexis added as Anne approached them rather
hesitatingly, "this is my hostess, Mrs. Schuyler. Mrs. Schuyler, my
wife."
The girl rose and bowed formally. Then fell back into her chair.
Anne came to her side. With quick pity, saying the first thing that came
into her head. "It's a frightful trip up here, isn't it? You must be
simply starving, I will order luncheon immediately."
She was about to enter the house, but Claire stopped her with a quick
little gesture of refusal.
"Thank you, that is very kind. But I really couldn't eat anything--that
is-----" she faltered bravely. "I had a sandwich on the train."
Her pathetic attempt at dignity went to Anne's heart.
"Oh, yes, of course," she said, "and now if you will excuse me, I will
leave you two alone. I'm sure you have a great deal to talk about."
With a nod and a kind little smile, she disappeared into the house.
Her perfect exit irritated Claire. With a sudden excess of pride, she
turned to Alexis and looked at him coldly.
"You're very fortunate in your hostess," she said with unexpected poise.
"How did you happen to meet her?"
Alexis sat down on the railing and faced his wife.
"It's a long story, Claire, but not so strange as you probably imagine.
I was ill when Mrs. Schuyler found me, and she was good enough to take
me in. She is a charming woman," he continued tactlessly. "And very
comme il faut."
"Oh, I have no doubt about that," Claire interrupted bitterly. "Very
comme il vous faut, I am sure." Her emphasis of the "vous" was both
angry and insulting.
Alexis sprang to his feet with an exclamation of rage.
"How dare you insinuate such a thing, Claire?" he darted an angry glance
toward the doorway. "Mrs. Schuyler is an angel!" he finished with
emphasis.
Claire winced beneath the adoration in his tone.
"You love her, don't you?" she said wistfully. Her great hopeless eyes
rested on his flushed face.
Completely startled, he rose to his feet and stood over her almost
menacingly.
"Five minutes ago I didn't know it," he announced brutally, "it remained
for you to teach me."
"I!" The cry was wrung from blanched lips.
He met her anguished eyes with insolence.
"And now, if you will be so good as to tell me what you came for," he
began, "and how you discovered my whereabouts. Did the chauffeur----?"
"Oh, no. He didn't say a word. I took down the number of the car, and
then, it was fairly easy for your mother to discover the rest."
"And so she sent you after me?"
She shook her head, miserably.
"Oh, no. She really didn't want me to come. But I had to. I felt I must
talk to you once more. But please don't think I have come for myself, I
haven't. I don't want you to come back to me if--if you don't wish to. I
know you have never loved me." She paused, then continued, "It is only
for your mother's sake that I am here. She is entirely broken up since
your letter. Please, please." She got up and coming close to him,
clasped his arm. "Please return to her! If you don't, I'm sure something
dreadful will happen. I never saw her so upset in my life. She is really
ill, Alexis." He withdrew his arm, but not ungently. The girl's
unselfishness had touched him in spite of himself.
"I simply cannot return, Claire. My mother has dominated me too long,
and my soul aches for freedom. After this I must be my own master. It's
not as if she really cared for me personally. All I meant to her was my
career and what it brought in!" he ended bitterly. "Tell her that is
finished forever, and she will be quite satisfied to do without me. For
of what use is a dry cow?"
He laughed sardonically.
Tears streaming down her face, Claire answered brokenly.
"It breaks my heart to hear you speak so about your music, you who lived
for nothing else. Oh, my poor Alexis, what madness has come over you?"
He looked before him with bewildered eyes.
"It is gone, gone forever," he muttered. "Can't you see it is torturing
me, too?"
His shattered look lurked so near to madness that once more Claire
forgot herself. She started up with a cry and threw her arms about him.
"Oh, Alexis, don't give up like that. Go back. Try once more. If you
find yourself again in your old surroundings, it may all return to you.
I'm sure you will be able to come to some arrangement with your mother,
which will leave you more independent, and as for me I promise to do
anything you ask. If it will make you happier, and make you feel less
tied, I'll go away somewhere, and you need never see me again!"
A cry of pity broke from his lips. He placed her back in her chair.
"Poor little Claire, it hurts to hear you talk like that. Did you think
it was you who had driven me from home? Why, I shall remember your
affection and sweetness always."
A flash of joy irradiated her face as he spoke. He continued with an
effort.
"But even you, whom I have always loved as a little sister," he
emphasized the last word, "even you couldn't bring me home. Do you
understand, Claire?"
She nodded slowly. Her pallor, if possible, increased.
"Do you wish a separation?" she asked quietly.
His heart contracted at her lifeless tone. He evaded her eyes.
"Yes, Claire. I think it would be best. I must be free. And you'll admit
our marriage was rather a farce, wasn't it?" He tried to speak lightly,
but the effort was palpable even to Claire.
"I didn't know that it was, but perhaps you are right," she assented
with a sort of deathly quiet. Her veins seemed to be suddenly sucked dry
of blood, her limbs became reed-like. After a dragging moment she spoke.
Her mouth was dry, and it was difficult to enunciate.
"It must be time to go back to the station," she said somewhat thickly.
"My taxi is waiting around at the back of the house. Will you please
call it, Alexis?"
"But you can't go like this, without talking things over. Besides,
you're not fit to go back yet. You look done up. You ought really to
spend the night here!" His tone was full of compunction.
The words sent a quick revulsion through her. An indignant strength
flowed through her weakened limbs. She rose to her feet almost
violently.
"Oh no, Alexis. You can't mean what you are saying. I must return at
once. I couldn't bear to stay another minute. If there's anything to
talk over, any arrangements to make, you can write me. Please, please
call my car at once!"
But Alexis still hesitated.
"I do not want to part in anger and I can't bear to have you not
understand----" he glanced deprecatingly towards the house.
She forced herself to smile at him valiantly.
"It is all right, Alexis. I quite understand. She is both good and
lovely." She faltered pitifully. "Be happy if you can. I want you to
be!"
She held out a tiny, trembling hand and he kissed it with affection and
regret.
A moment more, and the dust from her taxi rose in a white cloud between
the gleaming valley and his smarting eyes.
CHAPTER VI
DARK DESPAIR
It was a six mile drive to the station. Cleaving to the lip of the
precipice, the road wound into the cup of the valley, where toy-like
houses gleamed white from out checkered fields, and the serpentine river
writhed sinuously.
Heedless of stones and ruts, Claire's taxi swayed recklessly onward.
Wan, drawn, she huddled in the back seat, clinging mechanically whenever
a bump threatened to precipitate her into the ravine below. Clinging
mechanically and instinctively only, for lurking destruction held no
terror now. Indeed, had she been conscious of the dangerous opportunity,
she would probably have permitted herself to be flung to death several
hundred feet below.
But she was as impervious to her peril as to the beauty about her. And
every turn of the road revealed the valley in a new vista. Unseen hills
and forests emerged magically, casting gorgeous patches of purple shadow
before them. Incense of balsam and fir rose to the heavens in heady
draughts like distilled sunshine. But Claire, swathed in her garment of
misery, saw, felt nothing.
With Alexis lost to her forever, life offered a terrifying nothingness.
She realized perhaps for the first time what he had meant to her ever
since she could remember. Without him, existence would be a nightmare of
emptiness, and yet with every revolution of the wheels she was leaving
him further and further behind, progressing into the wintry region of
exile where lay her bleak future. And her days and years had been so
filled with his presence that it was almost impossible for her to
believe that this could be so. It was as if some vital organ had been
torn out of her living body and she was expected to go on without it. It
was humanly impossible! In another moment she must speak to the driver,
tell him to turn back up the mountain before it was too late. Back to
Alexis and the beautiful, hateful woman, whom he had grown to love--this
superior goddess, this Brunhilde of burnished tresses, who would have it
all her own way on her mountain top, above the clouds, while she herself
rode down into the dark valley.
But she could not bring herself to utter the necessary word. And she
knew that it would never be spoken, trifle as she might with the
illusion. The unalterable had occurred. She would make no further effort
to mend the shattered pieces.
But how to face the lacerated future? To resume a negative existence
with a contemptuous aunt who had never loved her and whom she had
failed, would be beyond bearing. To accept her charity and Alexis' had
not been difficult before because she had made herself indispensable,
and she knew that she had more than earned her keep. Besides, she had
been Alexis' only companion in his leisure moments and he had depended
upon her more than anyone realized. But everything was changed. To
continue to eat his bread and salt would be unspeakable now that he
loved another woman. She had not only failed miserably as a wife, but he
loved another woman.
Looking blindly into the forest on either side, Claire repeated the
words to herself below her breath. "He loves another woman." They dinned
into her soul with a persistency that maddened, with the relentless
monotony of the drop of water which tortures the Chinese criminal. She
crouched further back into the seat and covered her ears. If the
repetition continued much longer, she would surely go mad, if she had
not done so already. The wheels took up the rhythm and creaked it
mockingly. As they rattled over the wooden bridge and entered the
village it rose to a hoarse shout. Then with a jerk, stopped as suddenly
and ominously as it had commenced.
Claire looked up startled, and saw they were at the station. The New
York train was already there, snorting impatiently. She came to her
senses with a bound, paid her driver, got aboard the Pullman and in less
than a minute was leaving the country station and Alexis, as she told
herself, forever.
Numbed by fatigue and suffering, the trip soon became a nightmare of
swift darkness. Heavy stupor descended upon her. It was not until hours
later, when skirting along the shores of the Hudson, that she emerged to
full consciousness. Night had already fallen and the river heaved black
and silver, like a huge snake beneath the pale light of the stars. They
were stopping at a station near the water's edge, and as Claire peered
out of the window, there came to her a violent temptation to run down
the corridor and leap out into the inky, rippleless, depths. Why not? It
would be the best thing that could happen for everybody as well as for
herself.
Life was hateful, bitter, terrifying. Here was, if not rest and peace,
at least cessation of agony. Her aunt would hardly feel the difference
and as for Alexis? He would be free to marry again, and this time not
blunderingly, like a dazed unhappy child, but with his senses awakened,
and for love. A lump stabbed her in the throat like a dagger-thrust. She
staggered to her feet and started to lurch out into the aisle. There
came a sudden roaring as of a high wind and darkness fell upon her.
When consciousness returned, the train was entering the Grand Central
station. Life still clung heavily upon her weary soul, but she was too
torn, too utterly distraught to think of any new means of
self-destruction. She took a taxi to the apartment in 59th Street and
with the connivance of Ito gained her room without her aunt's knowledge.
Welcomed rapturously by the disconsolate Bébé, she fell upon the bed
fully clothed, and into the deep, dreamless, sleep of utter exhaustion.
* * * * *
She awakened towards morning, shocked into consciousness by the upward
surge of a hitherto suppressed and unbelievable fear. Could it be
possible that the uneasy suspicion which had vaguely disturbed her for
weeks, and which she had entirely forgotten in the last twenty-four
hours, was to be realized after all? That would indeed be the climax of
irony. But it seemed to be the only explanation of the physical state
through which she was struggling. Nerves and anxiety might account for
general malaise and headaches. Fatigue and an empty stomach for the
faint on the train, but that was not the first time she had lost
consciousness in the last three months, and she had other reasons
besides to fear the worst. The worst! To think that it should have to be
called that, when it should have proved so beautiful. To be the mother
of Alexis' child, and to have to look forward to the fact with shrinking
and with shame. What could be more bitterly ridiculous than that? And
what would become of the baby if it lived? Unwanted, unloved, it would
probably lead the same negative existence as she herself with all its
joy dependent upon one being, who would undoubtedly betray it in the
end. The thought brought scalding tears. Claire beat her pillow with
tiny fists. It was too much! She refused to give birth to such ignominy.
With a bound, she sprang from the bed and ran across the room to the
open window. Crouching upon the window seat, she gazed down, wide-eyed
and trembling, to where, eleven stories below yawned the cavernous
street. Her stomach turned at the sight. But creeping flesh commanded by
indomitable spirit, she stumbled to her feet and stood upon the sill.
However, as soon as she did so, she realized her mistake. To jump out,
she would have to bend over almost double, as the opening was not
sufficiently high. It would be necessary to sit and dangle her feet into
the chasm. Somehow, the idea seemed terrifying. Once more mastering her
shrinking body, she crumpled down upon the sill and thrust one foot and
leg through the aperture. With a long shudder she closed her eyes and
cautiously lowered the other leg.
For an endless moment she sat suspended between heaven and earth.
There came a feeble tug at her skirt from behind, a plaintive cry. And
Claire's swooning senses were aware of interruption. With a flash of
lucidity she realized that Bébé had awakened and was trying in dumb
fashion to attract her attention. A new fear seized her. Suppose the
little dog were to see her fall and jump out after her? She leaned back
into the room perilously, and tried to push him from her. But as if he
realized her purpose, he only whined more loudly and crawling up her
skirts, crept around into her lap. Claire found herself gazing into the
eyes of the only being who had ever loved her. Horror in her heart, she
clutched the little creature to her breast. For a nightmare moment, they
rocked on the rim of annihilation. Then with a groan of relinquishment,
she fell back into the room.
As soon as her trembling limbs would permit, she crawled back on to the
bed and lay sleepless until morning.
But the sun, although brilliant and mocking, brought counsel.
She arose and tidied herself. It was not a long process, as she had gone
to bed fully dressed. Ringing for Ito, she ordered coffee and a taxi.
Then in the face of his obvious disapproval, she gulped down a few
swallows, ate a roll, and patting Bébé lingeringly, left the apartment.
CHAPTER VII
THE LOST GIRL
Cold rain fell in leaden streaks. Clouds, black and wind-swollen,
encircled the mountain-top. A ferocious wind shrieked and whistled about
the lodge like an unleashed demon.
Crouched over the fire, Alexis gazed at Anne. Relaxed, slim, on the
chaise-longue by the hearth, she was looking into the flames with an
inscrutable expression.
Alexis stirred uneasily.
What was she thinking of, behind those drooping lids? What inimical
thought stirred beneath those silken coils which shone like burnished
metal in the firelight? He sighed. Was she criticizing him for the way
in which he had parted from Claire the day before yesterday? She
doubtless considered him a blackguard. And was he very far removed from
one, after all? Emphatically no! And yet things like this happened every
day. Other men were being separated from wives whom they had once
professed to cherish. Surely, there was more excuse for him? His own
case was so different, he who had been practically tricked into
matrimony?
Yet, ever since yesterday constraint had fallen between him and this
woman, whose personality obsessed him. Constraint, of which they had
never been conscious in those first feverish days of illness. It must be
that Anne had become suddenly antagonistic towards him. At any rate, it
was plainly to be seen that he had outstayed his welcome, that she no
longer desired his presence. He must go away immediately, to-morrow,
perhaps. But where? Certainly not to the cabin. A refuge at first, it
had soon become a prison of maddened and inarticulate fears. To return
would be unthinkable. Yet to go back to civilization would be almost
equally difficult. He was so tired, so unutterably soul-weary that the
very idea of having to meet people and cope with their curiosity turned
him cold. He shivered and drew his breath with a hissing sound.
"What is the matter, Alexis?" Anne's tones fell upon the silence like
the ringing of a bell.
He started uncontrollably.
"What did you say?"
She looked at him pityingly. His egotistical young misery at once
touched and annoyed her. To-night she was a little weary, a trifle bored
with both him and the situation.
"I merely asked what was the matter," she repeated gently enough. "A
silly question, as it is self-evident. You have been miserable ever
since yesterday. I think you regret the parting from your wife more than
you realize. It has made me very unhappy, too. I hope you were not
harsh, and that you said nothing final. Please forgive me for
interfering!" She smiled apologetically into his glum face and held out
her hand.
Bridging the distance in one stride, he bent over the proffered hand and
kissed it with an intensity that took Anne off her guard.
"As if you could ever interfere!" he exclaimed forcibly. "You are an
angel for bearing with me and my boorish moods! It is a debt I never can
repay," he concluded rather formally.
"Nonsense," Anne laughed with less constraint. "I have done nothing. But
if you insist upon an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, you can
repay me by doing nothing rash just at present. You see I worry about
you terribly, don't I?" She smiled up at him with disengaging frankness.
"You are so good, so wise." He sat down upon the floor at her feet. "I
am not worth all your trouble." He tried unsuccessfully to regain
possession of her hand.
"Indeed you are," she interposed, "and even if you were not, your art
is!" she added significantly.
His eyes, which had been fixed worshippingly on her face, hardened.
"My art! And I flattered myself that you took a personal interest in me.
You're just like the others, after all!"
He rose angrily, and began to pace up and down the room.
Both hurt and amused, she watched him with an indulgent smile.
"It is naturally the artist in you which interests me the most," she
replied quietly. "Anything further would be an impertinence," she
finished rather cruelly.
The furious pacing stopped. He glared down upon her.
"Then you are impertinent!" he cried brutally. "For unless you are a
consummate actress, you are beginning to care for me, me personally,
more than for any fiddling I ever have or am ever likely to do!"
A marble goddess looked suddenly forth from Anne's stony face.
"If you were not ill, and only a boy, I would send you away for saying
that!" Her voice was metallic.
The icy tones congealed his blood. In an excess of remorse, he fell down
at her feet and hid his face on the chaise-longue.
"Forgive me," he muttered. "But if you only knew how much it means to
have someone take an interest in me outside of my music! To feel that I
myself mean something to someone! My music has always been first with
everyone. I have been like a rich man's son, who is afraid to believe
that anyone cares for anything except his millions."
Raising his face, he looked pleadingly into her eyes. His misery melted
her heart, but her tone remained cold.
"I think you are forgetting your wife," she said quietly. "Surely you
cannot believe that your music came first with her!"
He evaded her reproachful gaze.
"Poor Claire, yes she did care!" His voice was at once reassured and
remorseful.
Anne smiled down upon him ironically. The colossal egotism of these
geniuses! But her voice was unruffled as she proceeded.
"Does care, you mean! Alexis, look at me." She sat up and took his
reluctant face into her hands. "I want you to go back to Claire. I want
you to make up to her for all your past unkindness. Will you do it to
please me?"
He jerked his head away violently and rose to his feet.
"No, ten thousand times no," he cried. "Does a prisoner ever return to
his dungeon? How can you ask such a thing? It is only because you are
tired of me. Want to get rid of me. Well, I am going any time you say.
This minute, if you wish!"
She shook her head with a low laugh.
"What, in all this rain?" she asked, as a sudden gust of wind tore at
the windows. "You are so excitable, my poor Alexis! Come, you know I
don't want you to go. I shall miss you sadly. But I can't help thinking
how much happier you might be if you only would." She looked wistfully
into the angry face.
He returned her glance with scorn.
"Happier? There's no such thing as happiness. At least for me; I'm not
so exacting as to demand it! But at least I can be free, and I shall!"
"There is nothing to prevent you, poor Alexis," she replied gently.
He hung his head and the light suddenly went out of his face.
"You are offended with me? I don't blame you----" his voice was low and
broken. "I suppose this is good-bye?"
A new pain bit into Anne's heart.
"Oh no, Alexis, no! How can you say so?" she broke in contritely. "If
you don't feel you can go back to the others"--she hesitated uncertainly
for a moment, "you may remain here with me. I have taken the lodge until
the first of November. There still remain almost ten days. Do you think
you could bear it?"
She looked at him less frankly. Her flush and the new uncertainty of her
voice enraptured Alexis.
"Anne, Anne," he cried impetuously, calling her by her name for the
first time. "Why, being with you is the only happiness I have ever had!
It was the terrible fear of losing it that has upset me so tonight."
His face was radiant. In another moment, Anne feared he might become
demonstrative. With a slight flutter of regret and excitement, she rose
and ran to the piano.
"I insist upon playing!" She ran her fingers over the keys lightly,
avoiding his tortured expression. "I've restrained myself for ten days
on your account, and now that it is decided you are remaining, I refuse
to go without my piano any longer! Besides, I simply must drown out this
wind if I can. It is getting on my nerves!"
Too astonished to remonstrate, slightly sick at his stomach, Alexis fell
into the nearest chair and steeled himself to listen. From the corner of
her eye, Anne admired his unexpected control. Nothing in his polite
attitude betrayed the nervous torture she knew he was undergoing. But
she chose to ignore it.
She broke into one of Chopin's preludes and continued to watch him
furtively. His pallor turned a sickly gray. Small beads of moisture
stood out upon his forehead. The clenched hands, the twisted lips, made
Anne feel like an executioner. But still she continued playing. And as
she had hoped, the ruse proved successful.
After a few minutes, the nervous hands relaxed. A smile loosened the
tension of his lips. For a while he listened in seeming content. Then
evidently he could contain himself no longer. Still pale, but no longer
in agony, he was obviously in the throes of a new and more vital
emotion.
With an awakened, exultant expression, he sprang out of the chair and
striding over behind her, swept her off the piano stool and into the
armchair.
"Very good indeed!" he cried with unconscious condescension. "But let me
show you how it ought to be done."
He gave the stool a professional twist or two, and sat down and
commenced to play. Slightly crestfallen, Anne composed herself to
listen.
He took up the prelude where she had left off.
She had not known that he had it in him. Acknowledged master of the
violin, he was a pianist of undoubted technique and power as well. A
month ago, such a performance from a mere boy would have racked and
humiliated, but now it was sheer, unadulterated, pleasure.
"Why didn't you tell me you could play the piano like that?" she
exclaimed almost peevishly.
He wheeled about on the piano-stool and smiled at her rather sheepishly.
"I can't," he said simply. "It is merely a side issue, a relaxation."
Anne came and stood beside him.
"I could slap you!" she retorted with mock anger. "The idea of calling a
talent like that a side issue! Why you could make a career for yourself
as a pianist if you wished."
He laughed almost light-heartedly.
"Oh no, you are making too much allowance for the country piano. I'm
afraid the small career I've had already will have to last me the rest
of my life!"
Anne sighed.
"And you want me to believe that you've forgotten how to play the violin
after this exhibition?" she asked crossly.
He gave her a startled look.
"You think I've been trying to deceive you? You believe that of me? Oh
Anne!" he cried in anguished tones.
She leaned over him remorsefully and patted the weary-looking shoulder.
"Poor Alexis," she murmured. "I didn't mean to hurt you! Of course I
know you wouldn't deceive me intentionally."
He glanced up at her through grateful tears.
"Poor useless Alexis," he replied under his breath, "who cumbers the
earth with his wasteful presence. What are you going to do with him?"
His eyes held the plaintive appeal of a lost child.
Anne moved away hastily.
"Spank him and send him to bed," she laughed, uneasy at his tone.
A sudden and more angry blast shook the house. Anne went to the window
and drew up the shade. She looked out into the uproarious night. The
rain beat against the panes like waves washing over a porthole. Anne
shivered.
"I had almost forgotten the storm while you were playing, hadn't you?
Come, see how weirdly the trees are behaving!"
He strolled up behind her and they stood, looking out into the
blackness. Beaten beneath leaden shafts of rain, torn by a diabolic
wind, the placid forest had become an inferno of twisting branches.
Tossing limbs writhed in seeming agony under each shrieking gust.
"They look like a company of maddened demons," Anne shuddered and pulled
down the shade. "I could almost believe it is they and not the wind,
which whistle and scream. It reminds one of a witch's Sabbath!"
She went to the table, gathered up a book or two, and prepared to go
upstairs, when the brusque whirr of the telephone stopped her.
"What can that be?" she cried completely startled. She ran across the
room and took down the receiver.
"Yes, this is Mrs. Schuyler. Who is this? Oh--a telegram?"
As she waited for the message, she encountered Alexis' eyes with a
startled inquiry in her own.
"It is for you, Alexis," she whispered. She held out the receiver and
moved aside. He backed away with nervous horror.
"Please take the message for me, Anne!"
She nodded curtly and resumed her listening. A moment passed before she
spoke.
"Oh, yes, I'm responsible," she said shortly, evidently in answer to
some remonstrance from the other end. "You may give me the message quite
safely. I'll write it down word for word."
She held out an imperious hand. Alexis rushed across the room to the
desk, secured pencil and paper and prepared to write at her dictation.
When she spoke her voice seemed strangely flat and monotonous.
"Claire missing since yesterday morning. Traced to St. Patrick's
by Ito. Then clue lost. Fear worst. Return immediately.
Your Mother"
Anne replaced the receiver in silence and she and Alexis looked into
each other's faces.
"You must go back at once," she whispered finally.
"And leave you?" he exclaimed huskily. "Never! Besides I don't believe a
word. It is merely a hoax, a clever trick of my mother's to get me back
into her clutches. She's quite capable of it! But she can't fool me so
easily. I'll not go!"
Anne met his wild young eyes with something akin to horror.
"Oh no, Alexis, you are deceiving yourself! This message rings only too
true, and I should never forgive myself if I didn't urge you to go,
especially after what happened yesterday."
He shook his head stubbornly.
"You don't know my mother!"
She placed her hand upon his arm with an urgent gesture.
"Alexis, you are behaving like a spoiled child! You would never forgive
yourself if something happened to Claire because of you. The least you
can do is to return immediately. If it should turn out to be a hoax,
which is unbelievable, why you can come back again. Nobody can force you
to stay, you know!"
At her appeal, a sudden sense of shame flooded him. He nodded his head
in bitter acquiescence.
"Yes, I suppose I must go," he said slowly. "But how can I leave you,
how can I live without you?" His eyes devoured her. She turned away to
hide sudden tears.
"Hush, Alexis, you must not think of yourself now. Remember poor Claire.
Come, you must be brave." Her voice was gentle.
"You make me ashamed!" he cried. "But I love you so. I don't know what
would become of me if I should have to lose you, Anne!"
He raised her hands to his lips and kissed them over and over.
"Promise that you will not forsake me, that you will let me remain your
friend."
Tears trembling on her lids, she looked down upon his bent head.
"I promise," she murmured.
With a smothered cry he released her. He turned his back abruptly and
strode across the room.
"What time does the early train leave?" he inquired huskily from the
doorway.
"At six, I believe," responded Anne faintly. "Regina will pack for you
and of course Howard will drive you down to the village," she continued
more firmly.
"Thank you."
His despairing eyes caught the regret in hers.
"You will let me hear from you?" his voice was full of suppressed
suffering.
"Of course," she replied. "Please telegraph if there is any news. I'll
be going down myself in a few days probably. It is becoming rather
cheerless here now." She cast a nervous glance towards the windows
against which the rain continued to pound relentlessly.
Her unconcealed trouble kindled a light in Alexis' eyes. "She is
beginning to love me," he thought. A sense of fear and joy permeated
him, but he continued speaking calmly.
"I shall say good-bye to-night, then, so as not to disturb you so early
in the morning. Good-bye, Anne--thank you." His voice broke. He turned
and escaped up the stairs.
Pale, a little wistful, Anne watched the boyish figure disappear around
the landing.
CHAPTER VIII
MORTAL SIN
Joy irradiating the small, wan features, Claire looked up into Alexis'
face. At the pathetic bewilderment in her eyes, a spasm of contrition
shot through him. He sat down beside the bed and took her hand in his.
Dim and bare, the hospital room was stereotyped but comfortable.
However, it struck a chill to Alexis' heart and he shuddered a little,
as he returned the feeble pressure of the cold fingers.
"Poor Claire, what a horrible time you've had!" he whispered.
She shook her head and smiled up at him faintly.
"Oh, no, Alexis, it might have been so much worse. Everybody has been so
good to me here. The sisters are wonderful!" Her eyes left his face for
a moment and travelled to the window where a nun was sitting. The
flaring coif, the white kerchief, framed a beautiful serenity and Claire
sighed as her gaze rested upon the folded hands. Would such peace ever
be hers? she wondered enviously. Alexis' eyes, following hers, flashed
sudden distaste. To him the serenity spelt stupidity; the folded hands,
laziness. Hatred of all dogma had obsessed him since childhood, and was
still one of the few prejudices which had survived his habitual
indifference. It had always proved a bone of contention between him and
Claire, who during a three-year sojourn in a French convent, had become
an ardent, if somewhat spasmodic, convert.
Swift as was the expression of antagonism, Claire perceived it. She
clasped his fingers nervously and sought to distract his attention.
"But, Alexis, how did you ever find me? You must think I am crazy not to
have asked you immediately!"
He smiled down upon her.
"Oh no, I knew you would come to it eventually," he paused.
"Well, how did you?" she insisted. "You see I didn't really come to
myself until yesterday, and early this morning when I told them to
notify Aunt, they said that my family already knew where I was and had
ordered me to be put in a private room. I was in the ward before." She
looked at him gravely.
Alexis regarded her with pity.
"Yes, poor little girl, I know. It must have been awful. I never can
forgive myself for all you've suffered." He stooped suddenly and kissed
her on the cheek.
Tears streaming down her face, she turned her head away.
"You don't have to do that, Alexis," she whispered.
His lips salty with her tears, he continued somewhat unsteadily.
"Do you want to know how I found you, little cousin? It was really very
simple although long drawn out. Ito watched you from the window as you
left the house. He saw you enter a taxi. (Something odd in your
appearance and manner had frightened him. Let me see, that was three
days ago, wasn't it?)"
She nodded mutely, and he continued.
"When you didn't arrive home that night, he called up the taxi company
and they traced you to the church door. Knowing your religious
proclivities," they smiled tremulously at each other, "I interviewed
several of the priests and finally found the one to whom you had
confessed."
"That must have been horrible!" Claire interrupted with forced levity. A
growing fear was in her eyes. "What did he tell you?" She sat up in bed.
A deep flush suddenly replaced her former pallor.
Her agonized embarrassment did not escape Alexis. He broke in quickly,
"Nothing at all, of course. Secrecy of the confessional and all that,
you know."
She collapsed upon the pillows. Disregarding her obvious agitation,
Alexis went on quietly.
"He merely told me that you seemed ill. That perhaps you had fainted in
the street and been taken to some hospital. I thought it an excellent
suggestion, and after calling up about four or five hospitals and
describing you and your clothes (you can thank Ito for that--he knew
what you had on to the last detail), we finally succeeded in discovering
you here. That is all." Releasing her hand, which he had held in his all
this time, he patted it gently.
She looked up into his face with grateful eyes.
"Oh Alexis, how good of you to take so much trouble for me. How can I
ever thank you?"
"It wasn't good of me, and you know it. I've been a brute all along. But
if you want to please me you must take care of yourself. As soon as you
are able to leave the hospital and go back to the apartment you must
take one of these sisters home with you and keep her as long as
necessary. But I will consult the doctor about that," he added with a
business-like air, which contrasted oddly with his usual lack of
responsibility.
Claire sat up suddenly and clasped his arm.
"That won't be necessary at all. Please don't consult the doctor about
me. I'm perfectly well, only a little tired and not quite myself
since----since you went to the sanitarium. Now that you are all right, I
shall pick up quickly and--and Alexis," she continued bravely, "whenever
you want the separation you can have it, of course!" She spoke in a low
voice so that the nun might not hear.
He flushed painfully.
"We won't think about that now, Claire. I want you to get well before we
decide upon anything. Who knows, we may change our minds?" he added with
a weak desire to please her.
She winced. When she replied her voice was still low, but almost hard.
"Please don't try to deceive me, Alexis. I know you too well. You are
sorry for me now. But you don't love me any more than you did a week
ago. I am willing to go back to your mother if you desire it. You are my
husband and I must obey you. But I beg of you not to pretend--that is
more than I can bear!" With a stifled sob she fell back upon the pillow.
Torn with shame and pity, Alexis started to speak, but before he could
say a word, the sister rose from her seat in the window and approached
the bed.
"I'm afraid you are exciting my patient," she said pleasantly.
Alexis met her gentle gaze with a guilty expression.
"I'm afraid I am, but I didn't mean to," he stammered contritely.
"Perhaps I'd better go?"
The sister nodded.
"It would be best, but I'll give you a minute or two to say goodbye in,"
she added with a lenient smile. The young couple interested her, and her
old maid's heart was gripped by their very evident problem. With
punctilious courtesy, she turned and walked back to the window.
Alexis knelt quickly beside the bed and laid his face against Claire's
head. His lips upon the thick, black hair, he whispered in the averted
ear.
"Can you ever forgive me, Claire? I must have been born an utter cad. I
just can't seem to help it!"
She turned her face towards him indignantly and put her hand upon his
lips.
"Don't say such a thing," she murmured beneath her breath, but with
startling intensity. "You are Alexis, and that is all I ask. And now go,
my dear, I am tired."
She pushed him away feebly. He rose to his feet and kissed remorsefully
the little hand she extended.
"I am not fit to live!" he exclaimed, unconsciously expounding man's
most stereotyped phrase, and filling her woman's soul thereby with the
usual illogical pity.
When he had left and the nun had gone to her supper, she broke down
completely. Poor Alexis, poor Claire, she thought bitterly, into what a
miserable tangle they had blundered. And what a wretched fool she
herself had been. Such a beautiful bond had existed between them, and in
her greedy effort to draw it still closer, she had snapped it asunder.
For her aunt, the real instigator of it all, she had scarcely a thought
of blame. Even if she had known the entire truth, she probably would not
have reproached her. Her instinct told her that it was her own blissful
acquiescence by which she had been betrayed. She accepted her
responsibility very simply and without thought of contradiction.
It was with this idea uppermost in her mind that she had gone to St.
Patrick's, instead of her own little chapel, in the hope of finding a
priest to whom she would not have to reveal her identity. It had been
easy enough to find him and to recount her simple tragedy as briefly as
possible. But the verdict had not been the one for which she had hoped,
although the adviser had proved more gentle and more wise than the
average haphazard priest upon whom she and her problem might have
fallen. And she had kept nothing back, from the casual nature of the
marriage itself, to the unforeseen but natural and physical consequences
buried deep within her body. Even when she came to the pitiful attempt
at suicide she had drawn forth scarcely a reproach from the other side
of the confessional. The old man had listened to similar stories so
often. His heart had been bruised by a thousand vicarious sorrows. It
was not until she hinted at her desire for escape that he raised a
protest. She had whispered brokenly of Alexis' love for another woman
and had ventured to ask if it wouldn't be possible for the church to
grant a divorce, or even to annul the marriage. The old man had told her
very sternly that that would be a sin almost as mortal as suicide, in
the face of the life which she was carrying. Did she want to add another
fatherless waif to the unnamed legions already encumbering the world?
Her duty was to the new life, to make its inception as happy as
possible, and through it to bring her mistaken young husband back into
the pathway of duty. At those last words, Claire recalled that she had
almost smiled. Alexis and the pathway of duty had seemed so ludicruously
unakin, somehow! No, the only thing to do, the priest had continued
somewhat droningly, was to take up her life again as she had left it. If
her husband did not wish to live with her, that was not her fault.
Probably when the child was born, he would have a change of heart, etc.,
etc.
Only partly convinced, but too weary to resist the age-old arguments,
she had left the confessional with a half-formulated resolve of drifting
for a while and seeing whether time might not alter the situation.
But out on the church steps the brilliant sunshine seemed to pierce into
her brain. She had been seized with familiar giddiness. A merciful veil
of blackness suddenly obscured her vision, and she knew no more until
yesterday afternoon when she had awakened to find herself in a hospital
ward.
It had been a rather horrifying sensation to lose an entire day and
night out of existence. To suddenly discover oneself in the public ward
of a great hospital! A horror mitigated by the kindness of the sisters
and the concern of the visiting young doctor, who had taken it for
granted that Claire had realized the exact nature of her condition.
Since then, before seeing Alexis, she had had time to think. She had
lain awake all night over her problem. In spite of the frightful wrench
to spirit and pride, she had come to the same inevitable conclusion as
the day before. Because of the child that was coming she would sacrifice
her own desires and return to Alexis' mother. However, she allowed
herself one reservation, of which she knew the old priest would not
approve, but to which pride obstinately clung. Neither Alexis nor his
mother should be told of her "hopes" as the sister so chastely put it,
until it was no longer possible to conceal it from anyone. As soon as
she heard that Alexis was coming to the hospital, she had made both the
doctor and the nurse promise solemnly not to divulge her secret. A
request acceded to with small reluctance, as similar whims constantly
arose within their province.
How devoutly she hoped they were keeping their word!
For probably at this very moment Alexis was interviewing the doctor on
her behalf and making arrangements for the return to the apartment. That
return which she dreaded from the bottom of her soul. That apartment
where her aunt, Mme. Petrovskey held sway and was waiting to encompass
her with the cold and bland silence which was hers habitually, and
which, characteristically, she had not broken since Claire's
disappearance.
She had not dared to ask Alexis if he would be there, too. She hardly
knew whether she desired it. An appalling weariness warned her that she
would be unable to cope with the emotions his presence involved. Yet
without him life was void, the future a terrifying blank.
Too spent for tears, she turned her leaden body and burying her face
against the pillow, sank into a lethargy as deep and almost as peaceful
as the elusive death which had failed her.
CHAPTER IX
YOUTH'S TEMPEST
Anne looked up into the Marchese's face with a quizzical smile. Beneath
the staccato uproar of piano and laughter his voice flowed liquid and
unbroken. Interesting and even thrilling as were his recent adventures,
somehow his account lacked the usual fire. It was difficult to focus her
attention. The fervid charm of their intercourse seemed to have
vanished. Anne's smile stiffened upon her lips. Her eyes wandered rather
vaguely about the crowded room.
It was the usual olla podrida of mixed professions and nationalities
that had gathered in her drawing room for the last four or five years.
One or two genuine artists and musicians, a writer of indubitable
distinction, an actress of greater renown than ability, several clever
pretenders, and the man at her side, whose fame as an archæologist,
stood undisputed, and whose dignity and charm were a byword on two
continents. A man whose friendship had gratified her for years and whose
attentions had more than satisfied a fastidious and pampered vanity.
But somehow, he failed to thrill her to-night. His virile and rather
grave personality was overshadowed by one weaker, yet more compelling.
Between her and the dark, high-bred face, intruded a pale, sensitive
silhouette; the memory of burning, youthful words. Not accustomed to
float upon the tide of emotions, Anne was conscious of a bewildered
self-contempt.
With a determined effort she shepherded her truant thoughts and turned
to the Marchese just as the boy at the piano had banged the last
smashing cord of a Sowerby Medley.
"Rather relentless, wasn't it?" she laughed above the raucous applause.
"Blasphemy, pure and simple," shuddered the Marchese. "Like a visit to
the dentist. The buzzer, you know?" He rolled his r's and waved a
graphic hand. "It sets my teeth on edge completely. How can you bear it,
carissima?"
She laughed again.
"It's rather amusing, don't you think? Poor Vittorio, are you so
old-fashioned as to enjoy a perpetual Celeste Aïda?"
"Yes, thank God," he exclaimed fervently. "Do you suppose Orpheus would
ever have rescued his Eurydice by playing jazz? No, no, the old guardian
beasts were too artistic for that!"
She waved her fan gaily.
"But nowadays we don't even believe in Hades!"
"Ah, but it is always Paradise when with you, Cara Anna," he murmured
somewhat bromidically.
She looked up into his face.
"You are always so good, Vittorio! I--I'm afraid I don't deserve it."
She paled a little beneath the earnest gaze of the red-brown eyes.
He laughed indulgently beneath his breath.
"How is that, don't deserve it? But what has entered into you, dear
lady, since your return from the mountain? Have you met a god that you
are so uncharacteristically humble?"
Failing to meet her eyes, his own became suddenly troubled. Had Anne
perhaps indeed received the coup de foudre which he had been dreading
all these years?
"Do fallen gods dwell upon the mountain-tops?" There was a trace of
uncertainty in Anne's smile. Her eyes grew misty as the pale obsessive
silhouette rose once more between them. "And if I had?" she challenged.
His lids veiled sudden apprehension.
"Met a fallen god?" he inquired lightly.
She nodded, meeting his searching gaze with an innocent stare.
"Then, unconquered lady, beware!" he shook a solemn finger, not at all
reassured by the innocent stare. Experience had taught him that even the
best of women lie when occasion demands it. "The fallen god is the most
dangerous of all. His halo may be crooked, but it dazzles. His poor,
stumbling feet of clay inspire that pity which poets claim is akin to
love."
He finished with a mock heroic flourish. They both laughed aloud.
"Don't be niggards. Share the joke," came a husky drawl from behind
them, as the long, but prodigious, Ellen Barnes sank into the nearest
chair. An actress of the foremost rank, of greater personal than
artistic appeal, her ample shoulders had assumed the regal mantle of
Broadway. Her reign undisputed, her manner was more royal than the
queen's.
The Marchese smiled upon the intruder suavely. He thought her acting
execrable, and knew she would be hissed off any worth-while French or
Italian stage, but her regular, well-nourished beauty was reposeful, her
languid air tickled his humor.
"The Marchese was discussing feet," said Anne slyly, rather relieved at
the interruption.
The other woman stared incredulously.
"Feet? Metrical or unpoetic like mine?" she threw out a large, but
shapely foot, and regarded it with satisfaction.
"Ellen, your vanity is incorrigible!" laughed Anne lightly as she rose.
"But if you promise to be a good girl and not corrupt the Marchese I'll
trust you alone with him for a while. They are waving to me from the
piano."
The Marchese surveyed her retreat with a whimsical smile.
"I am very much frightened," he said, turning towards the delighted
Ellen, who sprawled largely nonchalant upon her cushions. "Was it not
Hedda Gabler to-night?"
"Oh yes, a revival," exclaimed Ellen eagerly. "Do you think the part
suits me?"
The Marchese's reply was more than satisfactory. But his eyes followed
the figure of the other woman.
Her apple green dress, clinging closely about her, Anne was crossing the
room. They will want me to dance, I suppose, she thought, looking about
her with dissatisfaction. She felt suddenly un-at-home, almost ill at
ease. The familiar surroundings still appealed with the claim of long
association. The tempera walls still soothed, the carved Florentine
furniture had lost no dignity, but somehow tonight the carefully chosen
austerity rang false. Or was it merely that she was bored? Yes, bored
almost to tears by the deafening prattle of the puppets she had gathered
together? Yes, that was it. Why had she never sensed their incongruity
so strongly before?
She approached the multi-colored group at the piano and looked down into
the face of the boy seated at the keyboard. Brilliant, degenerate, his
playing just escaped the professional. As he returned her gaze,
something wistful and defiant within the tired eyes suddenly struck at
Anne's heart. Something that seemed to cry: "there is a devil within me,
but I did not put him there. Besides, who cares?"
Anne leaned over him. Her emerald earrings tinkled gaily in his face. A
faint perfume swept his façile senses.
"How goes it, Gerald?" she said quietly.
"Oh, life's a dirge, as usual." A smile painted upon the wistfulness, he
flung back his head and with distended nostrils seemed to inhale her
into his consciousness. Then springing up, he held out his arms.
"Let us drown sorrow in a dance," he begged. Pushing a rather naked and
wild-eyed young woman into his seat he commanded her to play. "A waltz,
anything so long as it is immediate!"
With a toss of the bobbed-head and a mechanical grab at a recalcitrant
shoulder-strap, the girl broke into a grotesque cancan.
Rather wearily, Anne permitted herself to be swept into Gerald's arms.
Joined by six or seven other couples they wheeled around the room, like
a flock of gaily-feathered pigeons.
Anne felt herself studied by the weary young eyes.
"What is the matter?" she said a little peevishly. "Have you discovered
a wrinkle?"
The boy pressed her to him with spasmodic strength. She marvelled at the
force of the doll-like creature, and at herself for ever having been,
even momentarily, swayed by his puerile passion.
"Don't be foolish, Gerald," she added crossly, as he continued to crush
her against him. The music stopped with a staccato crash. They circled
to a finish near the alcove where Ellen Barnes and the Marchese were
bolstering a dwindling conversation by forced inanities.
Anne accepted the Marchese's chair with gratitude. Vittorio was a real
man and a relief after the hectic Gerald. She looked up at the latter
with a rather tired smile.
"Do get yourself a drink, Gerald, you look so hot. Thompson is serving
them in the library, I believe. You may bring me one, too, if you like,"
she added to mitigate the rather abrupt dismissal. Personally, she
loathed cocktails.
Ellen was looking almost animated.
"The Marchese has been showing me a chain he dug up somewhere in
Persia," she drawled between puffs of a scented cigarette. "He tells me
I may wear it in my next play, which is taken from the Arabian nights or
the Bible, I never can remember exactly which. At any rate, it's antique
and oriental!"
She held the chain up for Anne's approval. It was of hammered gold,
studded at intervals with monstrous uncut turquoise. A flush rising in
her pale face, Anne fingered it lovingly.
"How unbelievably beautiful," she murmured, almost reproachfully. What
could have come over Vittorio? He did not usually juggle his treasures
promiscuously. Could he have become infatuated with Ellen? "I'm sure it
must have a story. Do tell it to us, Vittorio."
He met her uncertain smile with concealed amusement. How could he tell
her how openly the woman had angled for the bauble?
"It's rather a long story, I'm afraid," he commenced with his usual
amiability. "However, if you command-----"
But at this moment Gerald appeared with a small tray of cocktails and as
they helped themselves the doorbell pealed shrilly.
A glass raised halfway to her lips, Anne paused almost imperceptibly,
while the butler strode solemnly down the hall, and opening the street
door, indulged in a prolonged but discreet parley.
Gerald noted Anne's abstraction with malicious curiosity.
"Is any of the gang missing?" he said. "Shall I go and see who it is,
Anne?"
But Anne had risen. With a disconcerting little smile she swept by him;
as he started to follow she looked back over her shoulder and laughed
softly.
"No, you can't come with me, Gerald. You mustn't be so curious! Perhaps
I have a mystery in my life, who knows? At any rate, I promise to call
for help if it's a burglar!"
As she swept out of the arched doorway, the boy looked after her in
chagrined anger.
Heart knocking against her side, she emerged into the high narrow hall.
Thompson was at the door, and as she had surmised, the tall stranger
with whom he was discreetly parleying was Alexis.
Muffled in a great coat, a soft hat pulled over his eyes, he presented
the appearance of a conspirator in the movies, and Anne did not wonder
that Thompson had hesitated to permit him to enter. Suppressing a
hysterical desire to laugh, she interposed herself between the two men.
"It's quite all right, Thompson," she said in a low voice, "you may go."
As the surprised man disappeared down the corridor, she held out her
hands to Alexis. He seized and covered them with kisses.
"Be careful." A pulse hammering faintly in her throat, she drew him
swiftly into the house. "The house is full of people and someone may
come out here at any moment!"
He cast a hunted look about him. A sudden shriek of laughter rose
shrilly above the rest.
"Isn't there any place where we can be undisturbed?" His lowering gaze
rested upon her angrily. But it was the first time he had seen her in
evening dress and as her beauty penetrated through his irritation, his
expression melted suddenly.
"You are like an alabaster lamp!" he exclaimed. "Your skin is luminous,
as if a light were glowing from within. I think you are the most
beautiful woman I have ever seen!"
She gave a husky little laugh and catching hold of his hand, pulled him
after her up the stairs.
"We will go to my sitting-room, which Thompson insists upon calling the
'budwar,' and Regina the salotino," she whispered gaily.
She led the way up the curved, stone, stairway. He followed
submissively, an absent eye upon the tapestries that covered the stone
walls. They entered the sitting-room at the top of the stairs and Anne
closed the door firmly.
"Enfin seuls!" she exclaimed sinking with a comic little air into a
chair before the fire. Throwing aside his hat and coat, Alexis glowered
somberly down upon her.
"It is a week since we parted, and I've been starving for the sight of
you," he cried with a catch in his voice. "Why didn't you let me know
that you had returned?"
His agitated face reproached her. She laughed rather nervously.
"I only arrived yesterday afternoon, impatient one. Besides, I had
received your telegram and knew that everything was all right. I was
going to call you up to-morrow morning. But now I shan't have to, shall
I?" She drew herself up briskly. "Come, don't stand there glowering at
me. Sit down, tell me your news."
Wounded at her sudden change of tone, Alexis sank upon a stool at her
feet. Putting his arms about his knees, he stared gloomily into the
flames. "What do you want to know?" he inquired sullenly.
Anne repressed an impatient sigh.
"Tell me about Claire," she said quietly. "Will she be able to leave the
hospital soon?"
"She seems to be perfectly all right, now, and expects to return home in
a few days," he replied.
Anne leaned forward tensely.
"Shall you be there, Alexis?" she inquired.
He looked up into her face with utter surprise.
"I? Of course not. I've already taken an apartment on Gramercy Park, and
shall probably go away as soon as my affairs are settled."
Anne nodded.
"Where are you thinking of going?" she murmured conversationally.
At her indifferent tone, he shrugged nonchalantly.
"Anywhere, nowhere! The South Sea Islands--Russia, perhaps!"
Anne nodded again.
"A little touch of Bolshevism would be akin at present," she commented
drily.
He crimsoned.
"You think I'm impossible, don't you, Anne?"
Encountering his angry, pleading gaze, she laughed uncertainly.
"I think you make life impossible for yourself--and others!"
He wheeled about and faced the fire with tragic, sullen eyes.
"You are right. I'm a curse to myself and everyone else. The sooner I am
out of it the better for all."
A tug of pain at her heart, Anne leaned forward and laid her hand upon
his thick, blonde hair. "My dear, my poor dear," her voice was
compassionate and caressing.
With a guttural cry, Alexis turned, and flinging himself at Anne's feet,
buried his face in her lap.
"Don't hate me! If you do, I shall kill myself. Say you won't hate me.
Say it!"
Tears welled up into Anne's eyes. Taking his face in her hands, she
raised it to her own. "My poor Alexis, my poor boy!"
"Why, you are crying, you love me!" he exclaimed naïvely.
She shook her head. A faint smile traversed her quivering lips.
"I don't know. I'm afraid not."
Seizing her hands, he showered kisses into the upturned palms. "Anne,
Anne, I love you."
The tremulous smile still lifting her lips, she pushed him from her, and
rose to her feet.
"No, Alexis, this won't do. We must pull ourselves together, or you will
have to go."
He faced her incredulously, as she leaned, pale and enigmatic, against
the mantel.
"You wouldn't send me away now?"
She nodded.
"You would ruin our lives for the sake of a convention?" He strode
towards her menacingly. But his melodramatic manner had stirred her
dormant cynicism. She laughed.
"Poor Alexis, don't take it so seriously. We would be utterly miserable
together. You know it. Come, let us be content to be friends."
She held out her hand, but he backed away angrily.
"You are heartless--cruel." He threw himself down upon the small divan
before the fire, flinging his head back amongst the cushions. "You know
that you are the only thing in the world that makes life worth living
for me, and yet you deny yourself to me, just because you are afraid of
what people will say. Of what that cackling crowd of snickerers
downstairs might think of you. I thought you were bigger than that,
Anne."
She looked down into the wrathful face with recovered self-possession.
"That crowd of snickerers, as you so politely call them, means very
little in my life. But my own self-respect happens to mean a great deal.
If you expect me to become your mistress just because you appeal to my
compassion, you are doomed to disappointment! If my friendship will
content you, that is another thing."
Her coldness fell upon him like a revivifying shower. The apathetic
young figure sprang from the divan with a bound.
"What an ass I've made of myself! Just because you were kind, I was fool
enough to imagine you loved me. I suppose it didn't seem possible that I
could feel about you the way I do without any return from you. I--I
think I'd better go."
"No, no, Alexis, you don't understand."
He ignored her imploring gesture, and taking up his hat and coat,
started for the door. But it was too late.
A languid footfall fell outside in the corridor. Before Anne could reach
the door, it opened to admit Ellen Barnes, a rising wave of voices
mounting in her wake.
With a swift movement, Anne sprang forward and closed the door behind
the other woman. Standing with her back against it, she looked at Ellen
with a mixture of command and appeal.
"Did you think I was never coming?" she asked. "Do go downstairs again
and tell the others I'll be there directly. I'll explain later."
With a keen glance into Alexis' face, a lazy smile upon her lips, Ellen
lounged into the room.
"Won't you introduce us first? Don't worry, I won't give you away!" she
purred. She sat down, prepared to light a cigarette.
Anne concealed her anger beneath a casual smile.
"There's nothing to give away, as you call it, Ellen. This gentleman is
calling upon me on private matters. If you will excuse us, I'll come
down as soon as he has finished telling me what he came to say."
Ellen rose, a quizzical gleam in her eye.
"Sorry to have interrupted a business conference," she waved her
unlighted cigarette languidly. "Since when has Mr. Petrovskey given up
music for stocks and bonds? Mr. Petrovskey, won't you please become my
adviser, too?"
She turned towards Alexis, good-natured mockery in her large, infantile
gaze.
He stepped forward with a rueful laugh.
"I'm afraid I'm not qualified. You see, poor Mrs. Schuyler was only
trying to shield me. Since--since my illness," he choked a little and
then continued swiftly, "it has been very difficult for me to meet
people, and so she was kind enough to bring me up here. I--I didn't know
she was receiving tonight."
Ellen's eyes softened. Her façile sympathy was touched by the haggard
young face, the pitiful and manly attempt at explanation.
"I understand perfectly, and I'm sorry I blundered in upon you like the
great cow in a China shop that I am. But now that I'm here, won't you
let me say that I hope you'll soon be better, and giving us some more of
your wonderful music. I've heard you so many times, and of course I
couldn't help recognizing you the minute I saw your face."
Going to the door, she put her hand on the knob. "I guess I'll be going
now. Stay as long as you like, Anne. I'll tell them you're dead, or have
acquired a sick headache from the Bacardi."
Anne moved forward swiftly and joined her.
"Oh, no, don't make things out quite so black as that. I'll come with
you. And we'll see if we can't get rid of them. It is almost two o'clock
and they ought to be leaving any minute? Then, we can return and visit
with Mr. Petrovskey again. How about it?"
"Great!" said Ellen. "I want to know just how you met 'an' everythin','
as Briggs says."
Anne looked back at Alexis pleadingly.
"Will you wait for us? I'm sure we shan't be long. Just make yourself
comfortable."
"Thank you, I shall be all right."
He bowed stiffly as they left the room.
For a moment his hatred of the world almost included Anne. Did she think
he was going to remain placidly by while she and this handsome, hulking,
creature discussed his affairs? No, that was too much to ask him as yet.
He must get out of here at once. When Anne did not find him she would
understand. Yes, he must leave at once. But how? The front stairs were
impossible, judging from the voices and laughter below. To sneak down
the back way like a thief, even if he knew the way, would be utterly
detestable. But what else could he do? Snatching up hat and coat, he
once more muffled himself to unrecognition and was starting for the door
when his eye fell upon the bell-rope. The idea of summoning Thompson to
show him out the back way proved a comfortable compromise to his ruffled
dignity. He pulled at the pretty tasseled vanity, and awaited the
outcome with inward trepidation.
But it was Regina, not Thompson, who answered the summons.
At sight of the muffled figure the old woman nearly screamed. But before
she could utter a sound Alexis seized her by the arm.
"Don't you know me, Regina?" he whispered.
"The signorino Alexis!" exclaimed the old woman softly. "Does the
signora know?"
Alexis nodded. "I have just seen her, Regina, it's all right. She has
gone downstairs again. And now I must go. Will you--will you please show
me the back stairs and help me to get out without being seen? You,--you
know----"
Distressed at his confusion, the old woman broke in eagerly.
"Si, si, Signorino, of course I understand. The signorino is not well,
he does not wish to see a lot of strangers! If he will follow me?"
Running lightly down the corridor, she preceded him to a green baize
door and held it open while he passed within. Ill at ease, raw from the
recent encounter, he followed her down the back stairs and out to the
side entrance.
"I hope the signorino is better?" queried Regina, as he passed by her
into the areaway. "Shall he be making the music again soon?" she added
eagerly.
As her meaning penetrated his misery, Alexis started, as if she had
inadvertently touched some spiritual reflex. With a muttered excuse he
strode out on to the sidewalk in front of the house.
The air had suddenly become raw and damp, and a blustering wind raged
down the narrow street, tearing away in its passage the few last leaves
from the small, sickly trees. Rain had commenced to fall in large,
scattered drops.
Alexis shivered. He cast a reluctant look up at the luminous windows of
the house. Voices and laughter floated out into the empty street.
Shadows flitted and mingled, behind the opaque shades. He lingered
uncertainly for a moment, the prey of undefinable desires.
Suddenly an excess of hilarity burst from the open door and the figure
of a man and woman emerged on to the sidewalk. They passed Alexis and he
instinctively crouched against the shadow of the house.
"Anne is becoming secretive in her dangerous thirties," the woman was
murmuring as they made their way towards a motor brougham that stood
waiting by the curb. "You'll have to be careful, Marchese. You know they
say she's had quite a vampish past."
The man laughed politely.
"I'm afraid I'm too old a friend to be frightened off as easily as that,
Miss Barnes. As Mrs. Schuyler knows, I am one of those tiresome fellows
who never listens to scandal. It has been a pleasant evening, hasn't
it?"
The man deposited the discomfited lady within the brougham and watched
the car drive off. Then, turning on his heel, he reëntered the house.
Before the door closed behind him Alexis heard Anne's voice plaintively
playful.
"Was she maligning me, Vittorio?"
But the man's answer, caressing, muffled, was lost within the house.
Shivering and dazed, Alexis pulled his collar up about his throat.
Lowering his head against the rain, in a bull-like, butting gesture, he
strode toward Fifth Avenue.
What a fool he had been to imagine he could interest a woman like Anne,
an idolized doll, surrounded by male and female sycophants, who probably
took advantage of her wealth and loneliness. A woman, whimsical as a pet
kitten, who had enjoyed him like a new toy for a while, but as soon as
he became hackneyed, would drop him as casually as she had taken him up.
Really, it would be too callow of him to expect more! In her eyes he was
only a thwarted musician who had enjoyed a flashing, comet-like success,
only to be swallowed once more into the nethermost void. It was not that
he grudged her elegant and expensive surroundings. He could not conceive
of her in any other milieu (for instance, how uncomfortable she would be
in the gorgeous, ready-made, apartment on 59th Street!) But it had all
frightened him a little. He had missed the leveling camaraderie of the
mountain lodge. The contrast had proved too glaring for his flimsy
nerves, and he had swaggered before her like a bully. What must she
think of him? What an ill-bred pup he must appear in contrast with this
Marchese, this stalwart, suave man of the world who had known how to put
a gossiping woman in her place without loss of temper or dignity, who
had hinted of his friendship with Anne as of something too solid and
enduring to be shaken by trivialities. Who was this man? What place did
he occupy in Anne's life? Was he an unacknowledged lover, or a future
husband? And what chance had he, Alexis Petrovskey, the musical waif,
against a man of her own caste, who not only could give her the position
suited to her, but the honor which it is in the power of the poorest to
bestow? While he himself had actually had the temerity to offer the
ironic gift of a broken life and an illicit love. The wonder was not
that she had laughed at his egotistical insanity, but that she had
tempered her refusal with kindliness.
Invaded by a desolate humility, he strode out from the ravine-like
street on to the avenue. Disregarding a taxi which like a benevolent but
unwieldy carrier-pigeon would have taken him safely home to Gramercy
Square, he hurried across the wet and glistening pavement to where the
park, naked, shorn, welcomed him drearily. Entering one of the windswept
paths, he sank heavily on to a bench.
This was the end. He would not try to see Anne any more. He refused to
draw her down into the slough of his misery again. He would finish up
his affairs, settle a certain sum upon his mother and Claire, as much as
he could afford, leaving only a meager allowance for his own future.
Then he would go abroad and drag out the bathos of his days in some
obscure corner of the old world, where his face and name had not
penetrated. And perhaps the end would not be long in coming. For he had
always felt that his would not be a long life. For the candle to blow
out before it had spluttered to its ignominious finish, seemed suddenly
both beautiful and fitting. The thought soothed his whirling senses like
a promise of peace; a colossal lullaby from the infinite. Enfolded
within its majestic irony, he drifted into a reverie in which all sense
of time and space was lost. Chin sunk into the clammy collar of his
overcoat, he gazed before him into the dripping branches of the trees.
Gazed so long and remained so motionless that he did not notice when the
rain ceased to fall. Nor observed that it had gradually solidified into
a jelly-like fog which coiled about the trees in sickly wreaths.
He did not even look up when a hulking shadow moved between him and the
enswathed world. It was not until a mechanical "move along, move along,
man, the park ain't no dormitory," penetrated his dull senses, that he
became aware of his chilled and paralyzed body. Looking stupidly up into
the dim round face of the policeman, he broke into a short, hysterical
laugh, rose unsteadily to his feet and laughing and coughing, wended his
way down the wind-swept path in the wake of the scattering leaves.
CHAPTER X
MERRY-GO-ROUND
"Confess it, Anne. You are bored unspeakably, is it not so?" exclaimed
the Marchese, as he poured a few drops of Bacardi into a cup of tea,
before handing it to Anne. "As for me, who have only been in New York
for two weeks, I am a ruin! Not a reposeful ruin like those I am digging
up in Sicily, but rather like those of Pompeii, racked by earthquake and
volcanic eruptions. How can you stand it?"
Anne smiled indulgently. The Marchese's symbolic hyperboles always
amused her. Nestling into her cushions, she sipped her doctored tea.
"I am tired, Vittorio! But what else is there to do? One has got to go
through the gestures, you know."
"Gestures? Contortions, you mean! The life you are leading is about as
restful, not to say dignified, as that of a trapeze performer or an
animal trainer. You will break down if you don't look out. And it
doesn't suit you, carissima, this perpetual chasing. You were intended
to be a grande dame, a----"
"A Florentine Marchesa?" broke in Anne maliciously. "I believe you would
like to see me, old and settled with a flock of bambini clustered about
my gouty knees, and a mustache bristling above my dewy lips!"
Not at all crestfallen, the Marchese gazed merrily into her stormy eyes.
"How we hate to be tied up!" he laughed. "And how we loathe the idea of
being respectable and dowagerly. The bambini, of course, I couldn't
answer for, but as to the mustache, there is always Zip!"
"Wretch!" she laughed.
The firelight played upon her pale features, as she returned his gaze. A
tea-gown of claret-colored velvet clung to her relaxed body in suave
folds, emphasizing the gardenia pallor of throat and arms, the russet
splendor of her hair. He gave vent to his adoration.
"If you were not so slim, you'd make a gorgeous Titian as you lie there,
Anne. There's something Sixteenth Century and magnificent about you. A
Bianca Cappello smiling over the rim of a poisoned goblet. There's
nothing modern about you, except your mode of life, which is as lurid
and reposeful as a cubist daub. Let's see, what was to-day's hectic
program?"
Anne laughed and reached for a crumpet. "Dressmaker's this morning and
hats. Lunch with Gerald and a matinée. Inquisitorial tea at present.
Later, dinner at the Ritz with you and Ellen and that new Hindoo of
hers, the theater again and the new dance club. That's all. A nice
little merry-go-round, warranted to keep on whirling forever, to the
same tenpenny tune. With no disconcerting progress whatsoever. What more
can you ask of life?" she added with a cynical little laugh.
His compassionate eyes embarrassed her, but she shrugged disdainfully.
"I admit I would have liked to do nothing to-night but sit before the
fire and read one of my memoirs. But what can I do? The tickets were
bought, the party arranged, so I suppose I must sip the bitter dregs of
anti-climax philosophically."
"And so unfortunately must I," he sighed resignedly. "But the dance
club, to watch you being ogled by an amorous Hindoo! I shudder. Anne,
Anne, when will you put an end to my misery? Leave this, what do you
call it, half-baked existence. Come with me to Florence, to Sicily. Let
us lead a fuller life. A life of travel and repose, with a horizon wide
enough for study and meditation, and an occasional oasis, if you desire,
of theaters and dance clubs. Let our friends be those who dare to think
and to do, who have learned to appreciate the exquisiteness of leisure,
and not to fritter it away. You Americans treat an idle hour as if it
were a horrible void that might engulf you if you didn't diligently fill
it in with little nothings."
Much amused, Anne lit a cigarette.
"A proposal and a sermon in one breath! Really, Vittorio, you are
certainly an original. You come all the way from Italy to drag me back
to your prehistoric caves and then preach to me in a thoroughly mediæval
and unprehistoric manner. You spoil your own effects. I had almost made
up my mind to return to Florence before Christmas--but now!"
She rolled her eyes and gestured comically.
"Don't be capricious, Anne darling. You know I'm no preacher. And you
would look adorable attired in white linen knickerbockers, riding on the
back of a donkey----"
"Supporting a heavy white umbrella with one hand, and brushing off a
horde of cannibalistic flies with the other--so restful and inspiring!"
Anne blew smoke rings into his eager, dark face.
"There are no flies in winter, and where I've been working it is
sometimes very cold. The white umbrella would be entirely unnecessary.
My villa is an antique dream of old-rose marble and its terrace and
garden seem to sweep right out into the ardent blue of the sea."
"What about modern improvements?" inquired Anne flippantly. But at his
description her pupils had expanded, her whole face had taken on a
softer, more rested, expression.
"There is a bath," he replied simply. "But of course no electricity.
Hanging lamps and an army of candles shed a soft benediction over the
old walls. I promise you, you will be very comfortable. It is a foolish
gardener who transplants an exotic into the soil of unprotected fields."
He leaned forward earnestly. Her eyes cloudy with feeling, she laid her
hand upon his.
"You are so adorably literal, Vittorio. Such a boy in spite of all your
experience! Any woman who couldn't trust herself to go with you to the
ends of the earth, would be a blind fool."
"Then you will make up your mind? You will come?" he cried eagerly.
She shook her head with a maternal smile.
"Who knows, Vittorio? My emotions seem to be as unstable as the weather.
I'm about as reliable as a will-o'-the-wisp. Better place your
allegiance elsewhere, dear friend. I have kept you waiting too long
already."
He rose to his feet and stood over her vehemently.
"Never, never. There's no woman who can compare with you, bellissima
donna. And if there is, I do not want her!"
Anne's eyes twinkled.
"How about the statuesque Ellen? One doesn't shed turquoise necklaces
for nothing."
He blushed like a guilty school boy.
"Were you jealous, Anne?" His eyes were uncontrollably eager.
"Perhaps a little. If it would please you, Vittorio?" she teased.
He threw back his head, laughing ruefully.
"It is impossible to get the better of you. I retire defeated, as
usual." He pointed with an expressive forefinger at the clock. "I
imagine Regina is fuming outside in the corridor, waiting to slip some
new magnificence upon you, to dazzle us all with to-night. But she
cannot improve upon perfection."
Indicating the claret velvet with a quick gesture, he bent over her hand
and kissed it lightly.
As the door closed behind him, Anne's smile faded. She dropped back onto
the chaise-longue and closed her eyes.
The last ten days had been horrible. A kaleidoscopic nightmare with
about as much plot and sequence as a Broadway revue. The only consoling
factor being the large and sane devotion of Vittorio. Gerald had made an
amorous bore of himself, and she had had to snub him. And Ellen, well it
had been too detestable of her to recognize Alexis at sight like that.
And her way of accepting Anne's explanation, more than irritating.
Indulging in one or two lovers a year, she was delighted to catch Anne
in what she transparently considered a similar frailty. It had been
still more humiliating to have to demand secrecy. But in order to
protect Alexis, it had been the only thing to do. And although Ellen's
good nature was proverbial, so was her indiscretion. To expect her to
keep eternal silence upon her discovery of the return of Alexis
Petrovskey, over whom the entire musical world was agog, would be
demanding a stoical repression of which the woman was incapable. It was
only a question of time before Alexis' secret would be common property.
Meanwhile the only thing to do was to keep Ellen in a good humor and
watch her like a hawk, which was more difficult than usual, as she was
resting between plays and insisted upon attending every show and dance
club in New York, until Anne's nerves were frayed and existence had
become a monotonous nightmare of jazz and naked shoulders.
And the worst of it was that Anne had neither seen nor heard from Alexis
since he had disappeared from the house on that ghastly night of his
coming. She had returned to her sitting room after the others had all
gone, to find it empty except for Regina, whose explanation of his
hurried flight had not proved very comforting. Evidently, he had been
wounded to the quick, not only by her coldness, but by the entire
ignominious situation. Her offer of a tepid friendship had driven him
away perhaps forever. Otherwise how could his continued silence be
accounted for? He had mistaken hesitation for anger, ridicule as
dismissal. Although he must have been exposed for years, ever since
adolescence, to that greedy feminine horde who prey upon the matinée
idol, he had remained almost virginal. Even marriage had not destroyed a
certain quality of innocence, at once boyish and pathetic. A quality
which appealed to Anne's disillusionment more strongly than any amount
of savoir faire. And she knew instinctively that his love for her,
although young as yet, was genuine. Yes, he loved her, and yet, he had
found the courage not to break silence for ten days. And she, herself,
had permitted matters to drag along, expecting a message from him any
moment.
But if the silence continued much longer, she would have to do
something. Gramercy Park is limited after all, and she would find him if
she had to canvass every house on the Square.
Meanwhile, what had happened to him? Had her defection driven him back
to the old misery and despair? Was he lonely and hag-ridden, in a
music-less hell that might peradventure drive him to suicide? Or had he
perhaps come to his senses and returned to his wife in sheer cynical
weariness? Of course, that would be the best thing that could happen to
him and she, Anne, sincerely tried to hope that it had.
Probably at this moment, while she was worrying herself almost sick over
him, he was partaking of the fatted calf at the family board.
The thought set her suddenly upon her feet. She stood and looked down
into the flames moodily. Why had she permitted herself to get into such
a state of nerves? Why worry about a neurotic, love-sick boy whom, a few
weeks ago, she had never even met? Why not take the whole thing as an
incident, interesting no doubt while it lasted, but now closed? She
shrugged. She knew all the time that she was desperately unhappy, and
would remain so until she was sure of Alexis' whereabouts.
Meanwhile, life must go on, and if she did not dress immediately she
would hold up the whole party. While she had been mooning over Alexis
like a love-sick school-girl, the time had flown by relentlessly, and
soon poor Vittorio would be back to take up the weary grind once more.
A smile of self-ridicule upon her lips, she went into the adjoining
bedroom and submitted herself to the impatient ministrations of Regina.
"I know I am late," she admitted impenitently. "But I had my bath before
tea and there isn't really much to do." She slipped out of the tea-gown
and handed it to the woman. "I know just how cross you are. Just how
much you hate New York, and all the rest of it. So do cheer up, there's
a dear!"
Sitting on the edge of the white bed, she held out a long, slim leg
which Regina vested with stocking and slipper the ripe hue of old gold.
"The signora will be sick if she goes on like this!" muttered the old
woman. "And the poor Signor Marchese looks like death!"
Anne rose and looked at herself in the cheval-glass with a laugh. Slim
and boyish in her silken slip-ons, gold stockings glimmering on rounded
calves, she was particularly alluring. How absurd to indulge in
melodramatics when one was looking exactly like a glove-silk undervest
advertisement in Vogue or Harper's Bazaar!
"Poor Regina, how she loves her Marchese," she teased. She threw a
négligée over polished shoulders and sat down before the gay little
toilet table.
"Do my hair as quickly as you can," she added. "The poor man will be
back for me within the half hour."
Regina sighed pleasurably.
"He's a gallantuomo," she murmured. Pulling out the large shell pins,
she allowed Anne's hair to fall over her shoulders in a copper cascade.
"Is the signora thinking of returning to Florence before Christmas this
year?" she hinted, brush in hand.
Anne laughed again.
"What a shameless propagandist you are, Regina! Would it please you if I
did?" she added, avoiding the eyes in the mirror almost shyly.
Her cherished hopes for the Marchese flaming upwards, the Italian
manipulated the golden coils deftly. "The signora knows only too well!"
she replied with naïve dignity. She placed a jeweled bandeau about
Anne's head. "The hair is a marvel to-night, and in the gown of gold
brocade the Signora will be magnificent. She should be going to Court
and not wasting herself upon Broadway."
Her characteristic snort of contempt delighted Anne. She led her on to
more flagrant abuse, wriggling into the golden gown in high amusement.
Then very regal in a Kolinsky evening coat, she swept down upon the
waiting Marchese.
"Regina has been so funny," she said.
He took her hand and looked down into her mocking face with renewed
enchantment.
"The poor thing will never rest until she sees your coronet pressing
down my auburn locks."
His laugh was tender.
"I shall have to pension her handsomely, shall I not?" he said lightly,
as the butler opened the door for them to pass out.
The night was clear but unexpectedly cold. Over the tops of the high,
narrow houses a hard heaven was studded with metallic stars. Anne
shivered and drew closer to the Marchese.
"This hateful cold, it chills me to the marrow," she murmured, between
chattering teeth, as they went towards the car.
He stopped in his tracks, and bent over her.
"Let us leave it all behind us, Anne. Come with me to Italy!"
The entreaty was almost a command. Anne looked up into his face with
growing decision. After all,--why not? She had kept him waiting long
enough. She was about to speak, to put an end to his doubts, when a
yellow taxi grazed the corner and stopped noisily back of Anne's motor.
A slight figure jumped out and hurried across the sidewalk towards them.
"Is this Mrs. Schuyler?" inquired an eager young voice. Anne turned
about in surprise. Where had she heard that intense voice, those words
before? Apprehension descended upon her. She drew still closer to
Vittorio.
"Yes, this is Mrs. Schuyler," she answered mechanically. "What is it,
what is the matter?"
An insistent hand was laid upon Anne's sleeve.
"This is Claire Petrovskey. I have come to tell you that Alexis is very
ill, and to ask if you will come to him at once. He wants you." The
voice faltered. Then as Anne continued to look down at her in a daze,
continued harshly, "Oh, don't you understand? Alexis is ill and he needs
you!"
She shook Anne by the arm.
A sudden light came into Anne's clouded eyes. A spasm of fear gripped
her. She threw an arm about the girl's shoulders and hurried her towards
the motor.
"Of course I will come," she cried unevenly. "Here, get into the car.
Where to?"
She pushed the girl into the limousine and paused a moment beside
Vittorio to collect herself.
"I'm so sorry, Vittorio," she said hurriedly. "But you see I cannot
possibly go with you to-night. A--a friend of mine is very ill and I
must go to him at once. I'm sure you understand. I hate to drop you this
way, but you'll take the taxi? Won't you? And go without me?"
A quiver passed over the Marchese's face. He bowed rather stiffly.
"Of course, Anne. You must do what is right. But it will be a great
disappointment to us all." He hesitated. "Shall I see you again soon?"
Compunction seized her.
"Come to tea with me to-morrow," she said with renewed composure. "I
wish I could explain all this to you now, but I simply haven't the
time."
She touched him lightly on the arm and then stepped into the car. A
moment later she and Claire Petrovskey were whisked around the corner
and into Park Avenue.
The Italian stared after them with a strange expression. He settled with
the taxi-driver, then turned to reënter the house. He would telephone
immediately to Ellen and tell her to procure another couple for the
night's festivities. A walk down the length of Fifth Avenue, a solitary
tâble d'hôte at some obscure Italian restaurant were more to his mood.
CHAPTER XI
ANNE'S VIGIL
As the car swerved from the curb, Anne sank against the cushions.
Turning to the immobile figure at her side, she questioned anxiously.
"Is Alexis--is Mr. Petrovskey very ill?"
The shadowy form retained its frozen quiescence.
"He is perhaps dying," said the light, harsh voice.
"Oh!" Anne's cry was involuntary. Conscious of the flood of hatred
beating against her, she steeled herself. When she spoke her voice was
well under control.
"Surely you can't mean that! Why, what is the matter?"
The delicate profile beside her, momentarily illuminated by a street
lamp, acquired the translucent hardness of carved, white jade. "He has
pneumonia." Once more in shadow, the mask turned towards Anne. A pair of
eyes gleamed from out of dark caverns. "It developed several days ago.
He had had a bad cough for about two weeks, and of course had taken no
care of it." The dull voice ceased.
Beneath her fur cape, Anne clasped gloved hands convulsively together.
"Oh, poor boy, and he never let me know!" she murmured contritely. She
faced with shame a thrill of relief. So Alexis had not neglected her
wilfully after all.
"Where is he now? Is he--alone?"
The answer came deliberately, from averted lips.
"Yes, he is in his apartment in Gramercy Park. He is alone with the
exception of a day and night nurse. He--he prefers it that way." She
faltered for the first time, then continued with a resumption of
hardness. "Women have always been superfluous to Alexis. I have heard
all geniuses are the same."
The sheer, foolish bravado of it pierced Anne's heart. The impulse to
put her arms about the proud, suffering, little creature was almost
irresistible, but she repelled it scornfully. Why cheapen the child's
dignity by histrionics? This was obviously neither the time nor place
for explanations. Let those come later. The important thing at present
was to get to Alexis as quickly as possible, and with as little
friction. So she said nothing, but gazed steadily at the stream of
motors which glutted Park Avenue like an endless chain of monster
glowworms.
Without turning perceptibly, Claire cast a surreptitious glance in her
direction. In the constant glare from passing motors, Anne emerged,
doubly magnificent in regal furs, and jeweled band glowing within the
copper meshes of her hair, the proud face of a patrician, charmingly
insolent, utterly non-committal. Beside her, Claire felt smitten with
mediocrity as with a hopeless disease. And yet it was she herself who
was bringing this woman to Alexis. Why not? He desired her. Perhaps his
very life depended upon her presence. When existence narrowed down to a
primal factor such as death, one shed all fears except one. Her eyes
fixed upon Anne, she suddenly laughed aloud.
"I startled you, didn't I?" she said harshly, in response to Anne's look
of surprise, "but the mirthfulness of the occasion suddenly overcame me.
It--it is funny, isn't it? Just----" her voice faltered ever so
slightly, "just like the movies?"
Anne looked back at her gently. "I doubt if real life could ever be as
complicated as Hollywood imagines, don't you?" she replied impersonally.
Bitterly ashamed of her outburst, Claire was about to reply with the
same aloofness, when the motor turned into 21st Street and glided toward
Gramercy Square. It stopped before a tall, narrow house with an English
basement.
"Are we there?" asked Anne.
Her face fiery with chagrin, Claire nodded laconically.
They mounted in the elevator and were admitted into the studio by Mme.
Petrovskey.
"This is very good of you to take pity upon my poor boy," said a suave
voice.
Anne felt herself drawn swiftly into the room. An inscrutable China-doll
face gazed blankly into her own.
"Not at all," she replied quietly. "I am distressed to hear of your
son's illness and only hope I shall be of some use."
The small, blue eyes urbanely veiled, were fixed upon Anne's face.
"I'm afraid you're too modest," continued the bland voice. Dislike,
tinged with a hint of curiosity lurked beneath the perfect manner. "The
doctor seems to think you are necessary for my son's recovery, and we,
his wife and mother," the eyes ceased to bore through Anne momentarily
and swept ironically over Claire's shrinking figure, "are only too
grateful." She came a little nearer and laid a massive hand on Anne's
cloak. "Perhaps you'd better keep your wrap on. The sick-room is very
cold, and you're not exactly dressed for the occasion, are you, dear
lady?"
"Perhaps not," replied Anne, a frozen anger accumulating in her voice.
"You see I was on my way to the theater. But isn't this delay
unnecessary, Mme. Petrovskey? Won't you please take me in to your son?
That is, if the doctor permits?"
Perfect urbanity descended once more upon Mme. Petrovskey.
"Certainly," she said in brisk, business-like tones. "Just wait a minute
and I'll call the nurse."
She crossed the large studio with ponderous agility and tapped upon a
glass paneled door. It opened just enough to permit the emerging of a
white-capped head. Whispered words were exchanged, and Anne was beckoned
forward.
With a glance of commiseration for Claire, who had sunk into a chair
next the wall and was leaning forward like a broken thing, Anne passed
by her swiftly.
The next moment she knelt at Alexis's bedside.
Emaciated, a spot of crimson beneath each glowing eye, his labored
breathing filled the room with tragic effort. Suppressing a cry of pity,
Anne took one of the burning hands and held it between her cool palms,
as if to quench the inward fire. But the glittering eyes, as they fell
upon her, held no gleam of recognition. The monotonous agony of ingoing
and outgoing breath continued as before.
"Will he die?" she whispered to the nurse who had closed the door upon
Mme. Petrovskey, and tiptoed back again to the bedside.
The woman looked non-committal. In the shaded glare from the night
light, green rings about her eyes cut into her face like spherical
eclipses.
"If the fever goes down he ought to live," she said. "The congestion in
the lung is bad, but so far has not spread to the other. If the cause of
cerebral excitement can be removed"--her eyes rested upon Anne
curiously--"he will probably get well."
"He doesn't seem to be particularly excited? I understood that----" Anne
broke off in some confusion, and then continued sturdily, "that he had
been asking for me?"
The nurse nodded.
"Oh, he has asked for you! That is, he has asked for some lady named
'Anne' almost constantly, and I suppose that means you? You see he has
his quiet moments, and this is one of them. A sort of unconsciousness,
you know. I guess it's Nature's way of giving him a rest."
"How long do these periods usually last?"
"Anywhere from ten minutes to an hour. You'd better stay all night. I'll
make up the daybed for you in the studio. The doctor will be here soon
again and will probably want to talk things over with you. If you can
only be here when one of his spells comes on, it may make all the
difference!"
"Very well." Anne put Alexis' hand back on to the cover and rose to her
feet. "I will stay, of course. If you'll show me where the telephone is,
I'll call up my maid and have her send me a few necessary things for the
night. By the way," she hesitated a moment as she reached the door, "are
the other two ladies spending the night here also?"
The nurse looked surprised.
"Oh no, ma'am. They always go home at night. They've probably left
already. The telephone's right in the studio by the front door. Yes,
that's it."
So they had gone! With a sensation of reprieve, Anne crossed the empty
room quickly and got into communication with Regina.
Half an hour later she was installed in the raised alcove off the
studio.
But it would be days before Anne would see her own house again. Days in
which she and the doctor and the nurse would wrestle with fiery death
for the life of Alexis Petrovskey.
CHAPTER XII
THE HEALING VISION
The heavy glass door rang beneath the tap of impatient knuckles. Aroused
abruptly from fitful unconsciousness into which she had drifted
unawares, Anne sat up in bed and pressed both hands to her pounding
heart.
"Yes, yes, what is it?" she cried in muffled terror. Was Alexis perhaps
dying?
"Don't be scared. It's only me, Miss Wilson," replied the nurse's rather
uncouth voice. "Mr. Petrovskey is conscious and I thought you'd better
come."
Anne sprang out of bed and donned slippers and dressing gown.
"Is he asking for me?" Her voice was unsteady, as she opened the door
and went out into the studio.
"No ma'am, he seems quite rational for the moment. Asked for a drink of
water. But I thought----"
"Yes, yes," whispered Anne. She brushed by the woman impatiently.
"You were quite right to call me." She stumbled across the shadowy
studio and entered the dimly-lit bedroom beyond.
Hair ruffled above the unshaven young face, Alexis' eyes stared into
vacancy.
Gliding forward, Anne slipped on to her knees by the bed.
"Alexis," she murmured beneath her breath. "Alexis," she repeated barely
louder than the pounding of her own heart.
The sunken eyes turned slowly and met hers in a blur of bewilderment.
"Anne?" he whispered, above his rough breathing. "Anne?"
Blinded by a mist of tears, she nodded at him reassuringly.
"Yes, dear, it is I. It is Anne."
The sound of her voice seemed to puzzle him. He frowned helplessly. The
uneven breathing broke suddenly, then became more clamorous than before.
"Strange, you have never spoken before? And your hair--your hair?" He
leaned towards her abruptly, and placed his hand upon the hair which
streamed about her shoulders in a golden rain.
"Your hair--I have never dreamed of it like this before to-night!" His
fingers plunged into the gleaming tendrils. "It actually feels alive."
He shuddered violently and closed his eyes.
Anne feared he was losing consciousness again. Loosening the clutching
fingers from her hair, she placed his hand upon her face.
"This is not a dream, Alexis," she murmured, lips against his parched
palm. "Am I not real? Can you not feel as well as hear me speak to you?"
At the moist pressure of Anne's lips, a second shudder coursed through
Alexis.
"No, no," he pleaded hoarsely. "I must not awaken. I shall not awaken. I
want to go on dreaming--dreaming forever." His voice trailed into a
husky murmur. Then ceased. His head fell back heavily upon the pillow.
Terror tugged at Anne's heartstrings. She called into the other room for
Miss Wilson.
"Oh come, quickly, I'm afraid he has fainted."
Her sobbing cry brought the nurse in immediately. She bent over the bed,
then turned a reassuring smile upon Anne.
"He is asleep," she whispered, finger upon lips. "The best sleep he has
had, poor young man, since I've been here. See, his forehead is moist.
He will get well now. Aren't you glad you stayed?" She looked at Anne
meaningly.
Anne smiled back at her with quivering lips.
"But had we not better call up the doctor, just to be on the safe side?"
she whispered, hesitant in spite of the woman's evident confidence.
The nurse looked at her with condescension. She pursed her lips.
"Not at all, ma'am. Don't worry. All Mr. Petrovskey needs now is sleep.
No doctor could do as much for him. And it looks as if he'd sleep for
hours now. Poor boy, he surely needs it." Then noting Anne's pallor and
look of fatigue, "You look as if you needed it, too. Come right back to
bed now and I'll tuck you up. Shall I make you a cup of tea?"
Anne shook her head, smiling faintly.
"Oh no, thank you, Miss Wilson. You have enough to do without taking
care of me. But don't you think I ought to stay up in case he should
awaken again?"
She shivered slightly as she spoke. And the nurse led her out of the
room and closed the door gently.
"You're catching cold in this icebox," she said peremptorily. "We have
to keep the sick room quite cold, you know. But I'm dressed suitably and
you're not." She touched the silken négligée with a mixture of scorn and
longing. "Better get yourself a flannel wrapper like mine." She smiled
grimly. "Not beautiful, but useful, you know."
With an undefined feeling of shame, Anne trotted obediently back to bed,
accepting thankfully a cup of tea and the hot water bag insisted upon by
Miss Wilson.
"You can't afford to take any risk, and pneumonia is contagious, you
know." She tucked the blankets about Anne almost caressingly.
"You make me feel so useless and foolish going back to bed, when you're
preparing to stay up all night!" protested Anne.
Miss Wilson's smile seemed oddly motherly upon her spinster-like face.
"That's my business. We all have our duties, you know. And I guess you
have more than done yours to-night."
One more pat to the bedclothes, and she was gone. As the door closed
behind her, Anne's eyelids drooped. In a moment she was drifting on the
same uncharted sea as Alexis Petrovskey.
In the morning Alexis was rational for the first time in days and his
fever had gone down several degrees. Anne heard the joyful news from
Miss Wilson just as the day-nurse was preparing to take the other's
place.
"All the same, you had better not go in to see him until after you have
asked the doctor's advice. Last night was the psychological moment, and
it would be a shame for you to undo all your good work," whispered Miss
Wilson, her hand on the front door. "You haven't long to wait, the
doctor will be here any minute now. Bye-by until to-night."
Anne stationed herself at the window, and looked down into Gramercy
Park. A mantle of snow overlay everything. And in the carefully dug-out
paths children were playing. They had erected a snow fort, over which
the statue of Edwin Booth brooded like an austere and arctic angel. A
hail of snowballs from which arose shrill cries and laughter showered
about the statue furiously. Anne smiled. What a picture the children
made, with their rosy faces and brilliant-colored sweaters, against the
blue-shadowed snow! She saw a nurse-girl approach and open the iron gate
with a large key. How small the paradise! How carefully guarded! How
long before these very children would be thrust forth from the gates
into the sordid business of living?
As if to reassure her, the big clock in the Madison Square tower boomed
goldenly. Nine o'clock, and the doctor had not arrived yet. Anne sighed
impatiently. She was not looking forward to her interview with the
doctor. The situation was awkward. The more she thought about it, the
more ill at ease she became. The febrile excitement of the past night,
under control, she faced the situation dispassionately. Where was she
drifting, and into what? In coming to Alexis' rescue, was she perhaps
jeopardizing against the rocks her own hitherto well-steered little
bark? Perhaps! She shrugged fatalistically, and going to the table, was
about to take up a book when the door-bell rang. It was the doctor. The
day-nurse, a plump and pleasant little person, let him in. Casting one
penetrating glance at Anne, he passed through the studio hurriedly and
entered the bedroom.
With a feeling of relief, Anne reopened her book and tried not to
listen. But Alexis' voice, though hoarse and weak, reached her plainly.
It somehow conveyed a message of peace, as if its owner had attained
some unhoped-for refuge.
He is really better. He is going to live, she thought, exultantly. Oh, I
only hope it keeps up. She clasped her hands in her lap feverishly,
letting the three voices in the next room sweep over her.
The dreaded interview proved absurdly simple after all. Brusquely
uninterested in Anne, except for the effect he hoped she would have on
his patient, the little doctor barked his orders without ceremony.
The patient was decidedly better, but not yet out of danger. All unhappy
excitement must be avoided. His mother and wife were not to see him
until further orders, and, Anne herself, only for five minutes at a
time. And at that as seldom as possible. However, she was to remain
within call, as her presence was obviously of benefit to the case.
Anne listened in acquiescent silence, her manner dry as the doctor's
own. When the door closed upon his plump assurance, she smiled rather
wryly. So she was to remain virtually a prisoner for days! What would
people think? What could she say to put them off the track? She would
have to invent some tale of having been called out of town, down to
Virginia perhaps, to see her ailing, old aunt? She did not like it at
all, this having to lie! With a helpless little shake of the head she
walked over to the oval mirror and gazed rather cynically at her own
reflection.
She was glad Regina had sent the green jersey dress. It was becoming and
informal, and brought out the russet tints in her hair. What a pity she
was so pale this morning! It would have pleased her to look her most
beautiful for Alexis' sake, but perhaps he wouldn't even notice? She
patted her hair into order, a new and searching humility in her eyes.
The door opened and the nurse stood upon the threshold.
"Mr. Petrovskey is ready to see you," she said, her admiring gaze upon
Anne's hair. "You don't mind if I time you? The doctor's orders were for
five minutes only."
Anne turned and faced the girl, outwardly serene, but her heart was
knocking against her side.
"Of course not. Please consider me absolutely under your orders, nurse.
Shall I go in?" With a regal inclination of the head and shaky knees she
swept by into the sick-room.
Alexis greeted her from amidst freshened pillows.
"I had a dream last night," he whispered huskily. His eyes leapt to hers
like wind-blown flames. "They tell me it was true?"
She approached the bed and stood looking down upon him.
"If your dream was of me, I was here," she said simply, almost shyly.
They continued to look at each other in silence. He put forth a thin
hand and fingered her dress.
"Anne--Anne?" he queried weakly. "Can I believe my eyes?"
"Is it so difficult?" she replied. "My dear, they told me you were ill,
and so I came."
Sinking down into the chair next the bed, she took his groping fingers
and stroked them gently. "Poor dear, poor dear."
The fingers crept about her slender wrist and clung feebly. "I thought
I'd lost you forever," he muttered.
The gentle stroke continued.
"That was foolish, Alexis." Her voice was barely audible.
"You sent me from you in anger," he insisted mournfully.
Anne shook her head, smiling at him with reproach.
"Oh no, you were mistaken. I never sent you away. It was you who never
came to see me again, or called me up! What was I to think or do? In a
case like that a woman cannot, does not, want to take the initiative.
Besides, I didn't even have your address."
The searching eyes had not left her face for a moment, and as she
concluded, they kindled hungrily.
"Did you really want me to come back?" The question was an entreaty.
"Of course, foolish one. I was awfully worried about you." She laughed
softly. "But now I must go. Your nurse will be dragging me out in
another minute. And we must obey orders."
"Oh, don't go, don't go!" He flushed deeply. "Promise me you will stay?"
Sitting up in bed, he clasped both arms about her shoulders and buried
his burning face in her neck.
Anne disentangled herself.
"I shall be in the next room, within call," she said rather
breathlessly. "You must be good and do as the doctor says, or you won't
get well."
He fell back upon the pillow and looked up at her.
"Is it as bad as that?" he whispered with a wry smile. "Six weeks ago I
would have welcomed the tidings, but now, that you are here, that you
have forgiven me, I am afraid. Promise, promise you will not leave me?"
A lump in Anne's throat, she nodded. "I will not leave the apartment
until you are entirely out of danger, Alexis," she whispered, her hand
on his tumbled hair.
He heaved a sigh of satisfaction, and drawing her fingers to his
fever-smitten lips, kissed them pleadingly.
"Now you may go. If it is only into the other room? But first prove that
you were really here last night."
She knitted her brows.
"But how can I, Alexis, if you won't take my word?"
"Take down your hair," was his whispered command. "Let me see if it
looks the same as in my dream."
She blushed.
"No, no, I cannot. What would the nurse think?" She hesitated a moment
with puzzled brows. "But yes, I'll tell you what I will do." Her eyes
laughed down at him reassuringly.
"What?" he whispered joyously.
"I can show you the dressing-gown I had on. Do you remember what it
looked like?"
"Golden as honey," he murmured, his eyes upon her hair. "Yes, 'seeing is
believing.'"
She laughed, and running out of the room, returned with the négligée on
her arm. At the sight his smouldering eyes flared anew.
"Yes, that is it," he whispered. "Will you put it on for me to-night,
dear Anne?"
The flush still upon her cheeks, Anne nodded weakly. After all, had not
the doctor said he must be humored?
"And now good-bye for the present, Alexis. See, here's your nurse
waiting to drag me out by the hair." She tried to
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