CHAPTER XIII
They were married in the morning at St. George's in Stuyvesant Square.
Gay little flurries of snow, like wind-blown petals from an apple bough,were turning golden in the warm outbreak of brilliant sunshine; andthere was blue sky overhead and shining wet pavements under foot asJacqueline and Desboro came out of the shadows of the old-time churchinto the fresh splendour of the early morning.
The solemn beauty of the service still possessed and enthralled them.Except for a low word or two, they were inclined to silence.
But the mating sparrows were not; everywhere the little things, brownwings a-quiver, chattered and chirped in the throes of courtship; nowand then, from some high facade rang out the clear, sweet whistle of astarling; and along the warm, wet streets ragged children were sellingviolets and narcissus, and yellow tulips tinted as delicately as thepale spring sunshine.
A ragged little girl came to stare at Jacqueline, the last unsold bunchof wilted violets lying on her tray; and Jacqueline laid the clusterover the prayer-book which she was carrying, while Desboro slipped agolden coin into the child's soiled hand.
Down the street his chauffeur was cranking the car; and while theywaited for it to draw up along the curb, Jacqueline separated a fewviolets from the faintly fragrant cluster and placed them between theleaves of her prayer-book.
After a few moments he said, under his breath:
"Do you realise that we are married, Jacqueline?"
"No. Do you?"
"I'm trying to comprehend it, but I can't seem to. How soft the breezeblows! It is already spring in Stuyvesant Square."
"The Square is lovely! They will be setting out hyacinths soon, Ithink." She shivered. "It's strange," she said, "but I feel rather cold.Am I horridly pale, Jim?"
"You are a trifle colourless--but even prettier than I ever saw you," hewhispered, turning up the collar of her fur coat around her throat. "Youhaven't taken cold, have you?"
"No; it is--natural--I suppose. Miracles frighten one at first."
Their eyes met; she tried to smile. After a moment he said nervously:
"I sent out the announcements. The evening papers will have them."
"I want to see them, Jim."
"You shall. I have ordered all this evening's and to-morrow morning'spapers. They will be sent to Silverwood."
The car rolled up along the curb and stopped.
"Can't I take you to your office?" he whispered.
"No, dear."
She laid one slim hand on his arm and stood for a moment looking at him.
"How pale you are!" he said again, under his breath.
"Brides are apt to be. It's only a swift and confused dream to meyet--all that has happened to us to-day; and even this sunshine seemsunreal--like the first day of spring in paradise!"
She bent her proud little head and stood in silence as though unseenhands still hovered above her, and unseen lips were still pronouncingher his wife. Then, lifting her eyes, winningly and divinely beautiful,she looked again on this man whom the world was to call her husband.
"Will you be ready at five?" he whispered.
"Yes."
They lingered a moment longer; he said:
"I don't know how I am going to endure life without you until fiveo'clock."
She said seriously: "I can't bear to leave you, Jim. But you know youhave almost as many things to do as I have."
"As though a man could attend to _things_ on his wedding day!"
"This girl _has_ to. I don't know how I am ever going to go through thelast odds and ends of business--but it's got to be managed somehow. Doyou really think we had better go up to Silverwood in the car? Won'tthis snow make the roads bad? It may not have melted in the country."
"Oh, it's all right! And I'll have you to myself in the car----"
"Suppose we are ditched?" She shivered again, then forced a littlelaugh. "Do you know, it doesn't seem possible to me that I am going tobe your wife to-morrow, too, and the next day, and the next, and always,year after year. Somehow, it seems as though our dream were alreadyending--that I shall not see you at five o'clock--that it is allunreal----"
The smile faded, and into her blue eyes came something resemblingfear--gone instantly--but the hint of it had been there, whatever itwas; and the ghost of it still lingered in her white, flower-like face.
She whispered, forcing the smile again: "Happiness sometimes frightens;and it is making me a little afraid, I think. Come for me at five, Jim,and try to make me comprehend that nothing in the world can ever harmus. Tell your man where to take me--but only to the corner of my street,please."
He opened the limousine door; she stepped in, and he wrapped the robearound her. A cloud over the sun had turned the world grey for a moment.Again she seemed to feel the sudden chill in the air, and tried to shakeit off.
"Look at Mr. Cairns and Cynthia," she whispered, leaning forward fromher seat and looking toward the church.
He turned. Cairns and Miss Lessler had emerged from the portico and werelingering there in earnest consultation, quite oblivious of them.
"Do you like her, Jim?" she asked.
He smiled.
"I didn't notice her very much--or Jack either. A man isn't likely tonotice anybody at such a time--except the girl he is marrying----"
"Look at her now. Don't you think her expression is very sweet?"
"It's all right. Dear, do you suppose I can fix my attention on----"
"You absurd boy! Are you really as much in love with me as that? Pleasebe nice to her. Would you mind going back and speaking to her when Idrive away?"
"All right," he said.
Their glances lingered for a moment more; then he drew a quick, sharpbreath, closed the limousine door, and spoke briefly to the chauffeur.
As long as the car remained in sight across the square, he watched it;then, when it had disappeared, he turned toward the church. But Cairnsand Cynthia were already far down the street, walking side by side, veryleisurely, apparently absorbed in conversation. They must have seen him.Perhaps they had something more interesting to say to each other than tohim.
He followed them irresolutely for a few steps, then, as the ideapersisted that they might not desire his company, he turned and startedwest across the sunny, wet pavement.
* * * * *
It was quite true that Cairns and Cynthia had seen him; also it was afact that neither had particularly wanted him to join them at that exactmoment.
Meeting at St. George's for the first time in two years, and althoughprepared for the encounter, these two, who had once known each other sowell, experienced a slight shock when they met. The momentary contact ofher outstretched hand and his hand left them both very silent; even theformal commonplaces had failed them after the first swift, curiousglance had been exchanged.
Cairns noticed that she had grown taller and slenderer. And though thereseemed to be no more of maturity to her than to the young girl he hadonce known, her poise and self-control were now in marked contrast tothe impulsive and slightly nervous Cynthia he had found so amusing incallower days.
Once or twice during the ceremony he had ventured to glance sideways ather. In the golden half-light of the altar there seemed to be anunfamiliar dignity and sweetness about the girl that became her. And inthe delicate oval of her face he thought he discerned those finer,nobler contours made by endurance, by self-denial, and by sorrow.
Later, when he saw her kiss Jacqueline, something in the sweet sincerityof the salute suddenly set a hidden chord vibrating within him; and, tohis surprise, he found speech difficult for a moment, checked byemotions for which there seemed no reason.
And at last Jacqueline and Desboro went away, and Cynthia slowly turnedto him, offering her hand in adieu.
"Mr. Cairns," she said quietly, "this is the last place on earth thatyou and I ever thought to meet. Perhaps it is to be our last meetingplace. So--I will say good-bye----"
"May I not walk
home with you? Or, if you prefer to drive, my car ishere----" he began.
"Thank you; it's only to the theatre--if you care to walk with me----"
"Are you rehearsing?"
"There is a rehearsal called for eleven."
"Shall we drive or walk, Cynthia?"
"I prefer to walk. Please don't feel that you ought to go back with me."
He said, reddening: "I do not remember that my sense of duty toward youhas ever been persistent enough to embarrass either of us."
"Of course not. Why should you ever have felt that you owed any duty tome?"
"I did not say that I ever felt it."
"Of course not. You owed me none."
"That is a different matter. Obligations once sat very lightly on myshoulders."
"You owe me none," she repeated smilingly, as they emerged from thechurch into the warm March sunshine.
He was saying: "But isn't friendship an obligation, Cynthia?"
She laughed: "Friendship is merely an imaginary creation, and existsonly until the imagination wearies. That is not original," she added."It is in the new Barrie comedy we are rehearsing."
She turned her pretty head and glanced down the street where Jacquelineand Desboro still stood beside the car. Cairn's car was also waiting,and its owner made a signal to the chauffeur that he did not need him.
Looking at Jacqueline, Cynthia said:
"Long ago I knew that she was fitted for a marriage such as this--or abetter one," she added in a lower voice.
"A better one?" he repeated, surprised.
"Yes," she nodded calmly. "Can you not imagine a more desirable marriagefor a girl?"
"Don't you _like_ Desboro?" he demanded.
"I like him--considering the fact that I scarcely know him. He has veryhandsome and very reckless eyes, but a good mouth. To look at him forthe first time a woman would be inclined to like him--but he mighthesitate to trust him. I had hoped Jacqueline might marry a professionalman--considerably older than Mr. Desboro. That is all I meant."
He said, looking at her smilingly but curiously: "Have you any idea,Cynthia, how entirely you have changed in two years?"
She shook her head: "I haven't changed."
"Indeed you have----"
"Only superficially. What I was born I shall always be. Years teachendurance and self-control--if they teach anything. All one can learn ishow to control and direct what one already is."
"The years have taught you a lot," he murmured, astonished.
"I have been to school to many masters, Mr. Cairns; I have studied underSorrow; graduated under Poverty and Loneliness; and I am now taking afinishing course with Experience. Truly enough, I should have learned_something_, as you say, by this time. Besides, _you_, also, once werekind enough to be interested in my education. Why should I not havelearned something?"
He winced and bit his lip, watching Desboro and Jacqueline below. And,after a moment:
"Shall we walk?" she suggested, smilingly.
He fell into step beside her. Half way down the block she glanced back.Desboro was already crossing the square; the limousine had disappeared.
"I wonder sometimes," she remarked, "what has become of all thoseamusing people we once knew so well--Marianne Valdez, Jessie Dain,Reggie Ledyard, Van Alstyne. Do you ever see them any more?"
"Yes."
"And are they quite as gay and crazy as ever?"
"They're a bit wild--sometimes."
"Do they ever speak of me? I--wonder," she mused, aloud.
"Yes. They know, of course, what a clever girl you have turned into. Itisn't usual, you know, to graduate from a girlie show into the legit.And I was talking to Schindler the other evening; and he had to admitthat he had seen nothing extraordinary in you when you were with hisnoisy shows. It's funny, isn't it?"
"Slightly."
"Besides, you were such a wild little thing--don't you remember whatcrazy things we used to do, you and I----"
"Did I? Yes, I remember. In those days a good dinner acted on me likechampagne. You see I was very often hungry, and when I wasn't starved itwent to my head."
"You need not have wanted for anything!" he said sharply.
"Oh, no! But I preferred the pangs of hunger to the pangs ofconscience," she retorted gaily.
"I didn't mean that. There was no string to what I offered you, and youknow it! And you know it now!"
"Certainly I do," she said calmly. "You mean to be very kind, Jack."
"Then why the devil didn't----"
"Why didn't I accept food and warmth and raiment and lodging from agenerous and harebrained young man? I'll tell you now, if you wish. Itwas because my conscience forbade me to accept all and offer nothing inreturn."
"Nonsense! I didn't ask----"
"I know you didn't. But I couldn't give, so I wouldn't take. Besides, wewere together too much. I knew it. I think even you began to realise it,too. The situation was impossible. So I went on the road."
"You never answered any of those letters of mine."
"Mentally I answered every one."
"A lot of good that did me!"
"It did us both a lot of good. I meant to write to you some day--when mylife had become busy enough to make it difficult for me to find time towrite."
He looked up at her sharply, and she laughed and swung her muff.
"I suppose," he said, "now that the town talks about you a little, youwill have no time to waste on mere Johnnies."
"Well, I don't know. When a mere Johnnie is also a Jack, it makes adifference--doesn't it? Do you think that you would care to see meagain?"
"Of course I do."
"The tickets," she said demurely, "are three dollars--two weeks inadvance----"
"I know that by experience."
"Oh! Then you _have_ seen 'The Better Way'?"
"Certainly."
"Do you like--the show?"
"You are the best of it. Yes, I like it."
"It's my first chance. Did you know that? If poor little Graham hadn'tbeen so ill, I'd never have had a look in. They wouldn't give meanything--except in a way I couldn't accept it. I tell you, Jack, I wasdesperate. There seemed to be absolutely no chance unless I--paid."
"Why didn't you write me and let me----"
"You know why."
"It would have been reward enough to see you make good--and put it allover that bald-headed, dog-faced----"
"My employer, please remember," she said, pretending to reprove him."And, Jack, he's amusingly decent to me now. Men are really beginning tobe kind. Walbaum's people have written to me, and O'Rourke sent for me,and I'm just beginning to make professional enemies, too, which is thesurest sign that I'm almost out of the ranks. If I could only study! Nowis the time! I know it; I feel it keenly--I realise how much I lack ineducation! You see I only went to high-school. It's a mercy that myEnglish isn't hopeless----"
"It's good! It's better than I ever supposed it would be----"
"I know. I used to be careless. But what can you expect? After I lefthome you know the sort of girls I was thrown among. Fortunately, fatherwas educated--if he was nothing else. My degeneracy wasn't permanent.Also, I had been thrown with Jacqueline, and with you----"
"Fine educational model I am!"
"And," she continued, not heeding him, "when I met you, and men likeyou, I was determined that whatever else happened to me my Englishshould not degenerate. Jacqueline helped me so much. I tried to study,too, when I was not on the road with the show. But if only I couldstudy now--study seriously for a year or two!"
"What do you wish to study, Cynthia?" he asked carelessly.
"English! Also French and German and Italian. I would like to study whatgirls in college study. Then I'd like to learn stage dancing thoroughly.And, of course, I'm simply crazy to take a course in dramatic art----"
"But you already know a lot! Every paper spoke well of you----"
"Oh, Jack! Does that mean anything--when I know that I don't knowanything!"
"Rot! Ca
n you beat professional experience as an educator?"
"I'm not quite ready for it----"
"Very well. If you feel that way, will you be a good sort, Cynthia, andlet me----"
"No!"
"I ask you merely to let me take a flyer!"
"No, Jack."
"Why can't I take a flyer? Why can't I have the pleasure of speculatingon a perfectly sure thing? It's a million to nothing that you'll makegood. For the love of Mike, Cynthia, borrow the needful and----"
"From _you_?"
"Naturally."
"No, Jack!"
"Why not? Why cut off your nose to spite your face? What difference doesit make where you get it as long as it's a decent deal? You can't affordto take two or three years off to complete your education----"
"Begin it, you mean."
"I mean finish it! You can't afford to; but if you'll borrow the moneyyou'll make good in exactly one-tenth of the time you'd otherwise taketo arrive----"
"Jack, I won't discuss it with you. I know you are generous andkind----"
"I'm _not_! I'm anything _but_! For heaven's sake let a man indulge hisvanity, Cynthia. Imagine my pride when you are famous! Picture mybursting vanity as I sit in front and tell everybody near me that thecredit is all mine; that if it were not for me you would be nowhere!"
"It's so like you," she said sweetly. "You always were an inordinateboaster, so I am not going to encourage you."
"Can't you let me make you a business loan at exorbitant interestwithout expiring of mortification?"
They had reached the theatre; a few loafers sunning themselves by thestage entrance leered at them.
"Hush, Jack! I can't discuss it with you. But you know how grateful Iam, don't you?"
"No, I don't----" he said sulkily.
"You are cross now, but you'll see it as I do half an hour hence."
"No, I won't!" he insisted.
She laughed: "_You_ haven't changed, at all events, have you? It takesme back years to see that rather becoming scowl gather over the bridgeof your ornamental nose. But it is very nice to know that you haven'tentirely forgotten me; that we are still friends."
"Where are you living, Cynthia?"
She told him, adding: "Do you really mean to come?"
"Watch me!" he said, almost savagely, took off his hat, shook her handuntil her fingers ached, and marched off still scowling.
The stage loafers shifted quids and looked after him with sneers.
"Trun out!" observed one.
"All off!" nodded another.
The third merely spat and slowly closed his disillusioned andleisure-weary eyes.
* * * * *
Cairns' energetic pace soon brought him to the Olympian Club, where hewas accustomed to lunch, it being convenient to his office, which was onForty-sixth Street.
Desboro, who, at Jacqueline's request, had gone back to business,appeared presently and joined Cairns at a small table.
"Anything doing at the office?" inquired the latter. "I suppose you weretoo nervous and upset to notice the market though."
"Well, ask yourself how much _you'd_ feel like business after marryingthe most glorious and wonderful----"
"Ring off! I concede everything. It is going to make some splash in thepapers. Yes? Lord! I wish you could have had a ripping big weddingthough! Wouldn't she have looked the part? Oh, no!"
"It couldn't be helped," said Desboro in a low, chagrined voice. "I'dhave given the head off my shoulders to have had the sort of a weddingto which she was entitled. But--I couldn't."
Cairns nodded, not, however, understanding; and as Desboro offered noexplanation, he remained unenlightened.
"Rather odd," he remarked, "that she didn't wish to have Aunt Hannahwith her at the fatal moment. They're such desperate chums these days."
"She did want her. I wouldn't have her."
"Is that so?"
"It is. I'll tell you why some day. In fact, I don't mind telling younow. Aunt Hannah has it in for me. She's a devil sometimes. You know itand I do. She has it in for me just now. She's wrong; she's made amistake; but I couldn't tell her anything. You can't tell that sort of awoman anything, once she's made up her mind. And the fact is, Jack,she's already made up her mind that I was not to marry Jacqueline. And Iwas afraid of her. And _that's_ why I married Jacqueline this way."
Cairns stared.
"So now," added Desboro, "you know how it happened."
"Quite so. Rotten of her, wasn't it?"
"She didn't mean it that way. She got a fool idea into her head, that'sall. Only I was afraid she'd tell it to Jacqueline."
"I see."
"That's what scared me. I didn't know what she might tell Jacqueline.She threatened to tell her--things. And it would have involved aperfectly innocent woman and myself--put me in a corner where I couldn'tdecently explain the real facts to Jacqueline. Now, thank God, it's toolate for Aunt Hannah to make mischief."
Cairns nodded, thinking of Mrs. Clydesdale. And whatever he personallywas inclined to believe, he knew that gossip was not dealing veryleniently with that young wife and the man who sat on the other side ofthe table, nervously pulling to pieces his unlighted cigarette.
* * * * *
But it needed no rumour, no hearsay evidence, no lifted eyebrows, noshrugs, no dubious smiles, no half-hearted defence of Elena Clydesdale,to thoroughly convince Mrs. Hammerton of Desboro's utter unfitness as ahusband for the motherless girl she had begun to love with a devotion sofierce that at present it could brook no rival at all of either sex.
For Mrs. Hammerton had never before loved. She had once supposed thatshe loved her late husband, but soon came to regard him as a poor sortof thing. She had been extremely fond of Desboro, too, in her own way,but in the vivid fire of this new devotion to Jacqueline, any tendernessshe ever might have cherished for that young man was already consumedand sacrificed to a cinder in the fiercer flame.
Into her loneliness, into her childless solitude, into the hardness,cynicism, and barren emptiness of her latter years, a young girl hadstepped from nowhere, and she had suddenly filled her whole life withthe swift enchantment of love.
A word or two, a smile, the magic of two arms upon her bony shoulders,the shy touch of youthful lips--these were the very simple ingredientswhich apparently had transmuted the brass and tinsel and moral squalorof Aunt Hannah's life into charming reality.
From sudden tenderness to grim love, to jealous, watchful, passionateadoration--these were the steps Mrs. Hammerton had taken in the briefinterval of time that had elapsed since she had first seen Jacqueline.
Into the clear, truthful eyes she had looked, and had seen within onlyan honest mind and a clean young soul. Wisdom, too, only lacking inexperience, she divined there; and less of wisdom than of intelligence;and less of that than of courage. And it all was so clear, so perfectlyapparent to the cold and experienced scrutiny of the woman of the world,that, for a while, she could not entirely believe what she understood atthe first glance.
When she _was_ convinced, she surrendered. And never before in all herunbelieving, ironical, and material career had she experienced such athrill of overwhelming delight as when, that evening at Silverwood,Jacqueline had drawn her head down and had touched her dry forehead withwarm, young lips.
Everything about the girl fascinated her--her independence and courage;her adorable bashfulness in matters where experience had made otherscallous--in such little things, for example, as the response to aninvitation, the meeting with fashionable strangers--but it was only thenice, friendly, and thoroughbred shyness of inexperience, not theawkwardness of under-breeding or of that meaner vanity calledself-consciousness.
Poor herself, predatory, clever, hard as nails, her beady eyes everalert for the main chance, she felt for the first time in her life thereal bitterness of comparative poverty--which is the inability to givewhere one loves.
She had no illusions; she knew that what she had to offer
the girl wouldsoon pall; that Jacqueline would choose her own friends among the saneand simple and sincere, irrespective of social and worldlyconsiderations; that no glitter, no sham, no tinsel could permanentlyhold her attention; no lesser ambition seduce her; no folly ever awakeher laughter more than once. What the girl saw she would understand;and, in future, she would choose for herself what she cared to see andknow of a new world now gradually opening before her.
But in the meantime Jacqueline must see before she could learn, andbefore she could make up her mind what to discard and what to retain.
So Mrs. Hammerton had planned that Jacqueline should be very busy duringMarch and April; and her patience was sorely tried when she found that,for a week or two, the girl could give her only a very few minutes everyother day.
At first it was a grim consolation to her that Jacqueline still remainedtoo busy to see anybody, because that meant that Desboro, too, would beobliged to keep his distance.
For at first Mrs. Hammerton did not believe that the girl could beseriously interested in Desboro; in fact, she had an idea that, so far,all the sentiment was on Desboro's side. And both Jacqueline's reticenceand her calm cordiality in speaking of Desboro were at first mistaken byAunt Hannah for the symptoms of a friendship not sentimentallysignificant.
But the old lady's doubts soon became aroused; she began to watchJacqueline askance--began to test her, using all her sly cleverness andskill. Slowly her uncertainty, uneasiness, and suspicion changed toanger and alarm.
If she had been more than angry and suspicious--if she had beenpositive, she would not have hesitated an instant. For on one matter shewas coldly determined; the girl should not marry Desboro, or any suchman as Desboro. It made no difference to her whether Desboro might bereally in love with her. He was not fit for her; he was a man of weakcharacter, idle, useless, without purpose or ability, who would neveramount to anything or be anything except what he already was--anagreeable, graceful, amusing, acceptable item in the sort of societywhich he decorated.
She knew and despised that breed of youth; New York was full of them,and they were even less endurable to her than the similar species extantin England and on the Continent; for the New York sort were destitute ofthe traditions which had created the real kind--and there was no excusefor them, not even the sanction of custom. They were merely imitation ofa more genuine degeneracy. And she held them in contempt.
She told Jacqueline this, as she was saying good-night on Saturday, andwas alarmed and silenced by the girl's deep flush of colour; and shewent home in her scrubby brougham, scared and furious by turns, anddetermined to settle Desboro's business for him without furtherhesitation.
Sunday Jacqueline could not see her; and the suspicion that the girlmight be with Desboro almost drove the old lady crazy. Monday, too,Jacqueline told her over the telephone would be a very busy day; andAunt Hannah acquiesced grimly, determined to waste no further time atthe telephone and take no more chances, but go straight to Jacquelineand take her into her arms and tell her what a mother would tell herabout Desboro, and how, at that very hour perhaps, he was with Mrs.Clydesdale; and what the world suspected, and what she herself knew ofan intrigue that had been shamelessly carried into the very house whichhad sheltered Jacqueline within a day or two.
So on Monday morning Mrs. Hammerton went to see Jacqueline; and,learning that the girl had gone out early, marched home again, sat downat her desk, and wrote her a letter.
When she had finished she honestly believed that she had also finishedDesboro; and, grimly persuaded that she had done a mother's duty by themotherless, she summoned a messenger and sent off the letter to a girl,who, at that very moment, had returned to her desk, a wife.
The rapid reaction from the thrilling experience of the morning had madeJacqueline nervous and unfit for business, even before she arrived ather office. But she entered the office resolutely and seated herself ather desk, summoning all her reserve of self-control to aid her inconcentrating her mind on the business in hand.
First she read her morning's mail and dictated her answers to ared-headed stenographer. Next she received Lionel Sissly, disposed ofhis ladylike business with her; sent for Mr. Mirk, went over with himhis report of the shop sales, revised and approved the list of prices tobe ticketed on new acquisitions, re-read the sheaf of dictated letterslaid before her by the red-headed stenographer, signed them, and sentdown for the first client on the appointment-list.
The first on the list was a Mr. Hyman Dobky; and his three months' notehad gone to protest, and Mr. Dobky wept.
She was not very severe with him, because he was a Lexington Avenuedealer just beginning in a small way, and she believed him to be honestat heart. He retired comforted, swabbing his eyes with his cuff.
Then came a furtive pair, Orrin Munger, the "Cubist" poet, and hisloud-voiced, swaggering confrere, Adalbert Waudle, author of "BlackRoses" and other phenomena which, some people whispered, resembledblackmail.
It had been with greatest reluctance, and only because it was a matterconcerning a client, that she had consented to receive the dubious pair.She had not forgotten her experience with the "Cubist," and hissuggestion for an informal Italian trip, and had never again desired orexpected to see him.
He now offered her an abnormally flat and damp hand; and hers wentbehind her back and remained there clasped together, as she stoodinspecting Mr. Munger with level eyes that harboured lightning.
She said quietly: "My client, Mr. Clydesdale, recently requested myopinion concerning certain jades, crystals and Chinese porcelainspurchased by him from you and from Mr. Waudle. I have, so far, examinedsome twenty specimens. Every specimen examined by me is a forgery."
"Mr. Waudle gaped at her like a fat and expiring fish;the poet ... said not a word"]
Mr. Waudle, taken completely by surprise, gaped at her like a fat andexpiring fish; the poet turned a dull and muddy red, and said not aword.
"So," added Jacqueline coldly, "at Mr. Clydesdale's request I have askedyou to come here and explain the situation to me."
Waudle, writer of "Pithy Points" for the infamous _Tattler_, recoveredhis wits first.
"Miss Nevers," he said menacingly, "do you mean to insinuate that I am aswindler?"
"_Are_ you, Mr. Waudle?"
"That's actionable. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly. Please explain the forgeries."
The poet, who had sunk down upon a chair, now arose and began to makeelaborate gestures preliminary to a fluency of speech which had neveryet deserted him in any crisis where a lady was involved.
"My dear child----" he began.
"_What!_" cut in Jacqueline crisply.
"My--my dear and--and honored, but very youthful and inexperienced younglady," he stammered, a trifle out of countenance under the fierceglimmer in her eyes, "do you, for one moment, suppose that such a writeras Mr. Waudle would imperil his social and literary reputation for thesake of a few wretched dollars!"
"Fifteen thousand," commented Jacqueline quietly.
"Exactly. Fifteen thousand contemptible dollars--inartisticallydesigned," he added, betraying a tendency to wander from the main point;and was generously proceeding to instruct her in the art of coin designwhen she brought him back to the point with a shock.
"_You_, also, are involved in this questionable transaction," she saidcoldly. "Can you explain these forgeries?"
"F-forgeries!" he repeated, forcibly injecting indignation into theexclamation; but his eyes grew very round, as though frightened, and aspinal limpness appeared which threatened the stability of his knees.
But the poet's fluency had not yet deserted him; he opened both arms ina gesture suggesting absolute confidence in a suspicious and inartisticworld.
"I am quite guiltless of deception," he said, using a slight tremolo."Permit me to protest against your inexperienced judgment in the matterof these ancient and precious specimens of Chinese art; I protest!" heexclaimed earnestly. "I protest in the name of that symbol of mysteryand beauty
--that occult lunar _something_, my dear young lady, which weboth worship, and which the world calls the moon----"
"I beg your pardon----" she interrupted; but the poet was launched andshe could not check him.
"I protest," he continued shrilly, "in the name of Art! In the name ofall that is worth while, all that matters, all that counts, all that ismeaningful, sacred, precious beyond price----"
"Mr. Munger!"
"I protest in the name of----"
"_Mr. Munger!_"
"Eh!" he said, coming to and rolling his round, washed-out eyes towardher.
"Be kind enough to listen," she said curtly. "I am compelled tointerrupt you because to-day I am a very busy person. So I am going tobe as brief with you as possible. This, then, is the situation as Iunderstand it. A month or so ago you and your friend, Mr. Waudle,notified Mr. Clydesdale that you had just returned from Pekin with avery unusual collection of ancient Chinese art, purchased by you, as youstated, from a certain Chinese prince."
The faint note of scorn in her voice did not escape the poet, who turnedredder and muddier and made a picturesque gesture of world-wide appeal;but no words came from either manufacturer of literary phrases; Waudleonly closed his cod-like mouth, and the eyes set in his fat face becamesmall and cunning like something in the farthest corner of a trap.
Jacqueline continued gravely: "At your solicitation, I understand, anddepending upon your representations, my client, Mr. Clydesdale,purchased from you this collection----"
"We offered no guarantees with it," interrupted Waudle thickly."Besides, his wife advised him to buy the collection. I am an old andvalued friend of Mrs. Clydesdale. She would never dream of demanding aguarantee from _me_! Ask her if----"
"What _is_ a guarantee?" inquired Jacqueline. "I'm quite certain thatyou don't know, Mr. Waudle. And did you and Mr. Munger regard yourstatement concerning the Chinese prince as poetic license? Or asdiverting fiction? Or what? You were not writing romance, you know. Youwere engaged in business. So I must ask you again who is this prince?"
"There was a prince," retorted Waudle sullenly. "Can you prove therewasn't?"
"There are several princes in China. And now I am obliged to ask you tostate distinctly exactly how many of these porcelains, jades andcrystals which you sold to Mr. Clydesdale were actually purchased by youfrom this particular Chinese prince?"
"Most of them," said Waudle, defiantly. "Prove the contrary if you can!"
"Not _all_ of them, then--as you assured Mr. Clydesdale?"
"I didn't say all."
"I am afraid you did, Mr. Waudle. I am afraid you even _wrote_ it--overyour own signature."
"Very well," said Waudle, with a large and careless sweep of his hand,"if any doubt remains in Mr. Clydesdale's mind, I am fully prepared totake back whatever specimens may not actually have come from theprince----"
"There were _some_, then, which did not?"
"One or two, I believe."
"And who is this Chinese prince, Mr. Waudle?" she repeated, not smiling."What is his name?"
Munger answered; he knew exactly what answer to make, and how to deliverit with flowing gestures. He had practised it long enough:
"When I was travelling with His Excellency T'ang-K'ai-Sun by rail fromSzechuan to Pekin to visit Prince----"
"The railroad is not built," interrupted the girl drily. "You could nothave travelled that way."
Both men regarded her as though paralysed by her effrontery.
"Continue, please," she nodded.
The poet swallowed nothing very fast and hard, and waved his damp handat her:
"Tuan-Fang, Viceroy of Wuchang----"
"He happens to be Viceroy of Nanking," observed the girl.
Waudle, frightened, lost his temper and turned on her, exasperated:
"Be careful! Your insinuations involve our honour and are actionable! Doyou realise what you are saying?"
"Perfectly."
"I fear not. Do you imagine you are competent to speak with authorityabout China and its people and its complex and mysterious art when youhave never been in the country?"
"I have seen a little of China, Mr. Waudle. But I do not pretend tospeak with undue authority about it."
"You say you've been in China?" His tone of disbelief was loud andbullying.
"I was in China with my father when I was a girl of sixteen."
"Oh! Perhaps you speak Chinese!" he sneered.
She looked at him gravely, not answering.
He laughed: "Now, Miss Nevers, you have intimated that we are liars andswindlers. Let's see how much you know for an expert! You pretend to bean authority on things Chinese. You will then understand me when I say:'Jen chih ch'u, Hsing pen shan----'"
"I do understand you, Mr. Waudle," she cut in contemptuously. "You arerepeating the 'three-word-classic,' which every school-child in Chinaknows, and it merely means 'Men when born are naturally good.' I think Imay qualify in Chinese as far as San Tzu Ching and his nursery rhymes.And I think we have had enough of this dodging----"
The author flushed hotly.
"Do you speak Wenli?" he demanded, completely flustered.
"Do _you_?" she retorted impatiently.
"I do," he asserted boldly.
"Indeed!"
"I may even say that I speak very fluently the--the literary languageof China--or Wenli, as it is commonly called."
"That is odd," she said, "because the literary language of China,commonly called Wenli, is not and never has been spoken. It is only awritten language, Mr. Waudle."
The Cubist had now gone quite to pieces. From his colourless mop ofbushy hair to the fringe on his ankle-high trousers, he presented astudy in deep dejection. Only his round, pale, parrot-like eyes remainedon duty, staring unwinkingly at her.
"Were _you_ ever actually in China?" she asked, looking around at him.
The terrified poet feebly pointed to the author of "Black Roses."
"Oh!" she said. "Were _you_ in China, Mr. Waudle, or only in Japan?"
But Mr. Waudle found nothing further to say.
"Because," she said, "in Japan sometimes one is deceived into buyingalleged Chinese jades and crystals and porcelains. I am afraid that youwere deceived. I hope you were honestly deceived. What you have sold toMr. Clydesdale as jade is not jade. And the porcelains are not what yourepresented them to be."
"That's where _you_ make a mistake!" shouted Waudle loudly. "I've hadthe inscription on every vase translated, and I can prove it! How muchof an expert are you? Hey?"
"If _you_ were an expert," she explained wearily, "you would understandthat inscriptions on Chinese porcelains are not trustworthy. Evenhundreds of years ago forgeries were perpetrated by the Chinese whodesired to have their works of art mistaken for still more ancientmasterpieces; and so the ancient and modern makers of porcelainsinscribed them accordingly. Only when an antique porcelain itselfconforms to the inscription it bears do we venture to accept thatinscription. Never otherwise."
Waudle, hypnotised, stood blinking at her, bereft of speech, almost ofreason.
The poet piped feebly: "It was not our fault! We were brutally deceivedin Japan. And, oh! The bitter deception to me! The cruelty of theawakening!" He got up out of his chair; words and gestures were onceagain at his command; tears streaked his pasty cheeks.
"Miss Nevers! My dear and honoured young lady! You know--_you_ among allwomen must realise how precious to me is the moon! Sacred, worshipped,adored--desired far more than the desire for gold--yea, than much finegold! Sweeter, also, than honey in the honeycomb!" he sobbed. "And itwas a pair of moon vases, black as midnight, pearl-orbed, lacquered,mystic, wonderful, that lured me----"
"A damned Japanese in Tokio worked them off on us!" broke out the authorof "Black Roses," hoarsely. "That was the beginning. What are you goingto do about it? You've got us all right, Miss Nevers. The Jap did us. Wedid the next man. If you want to send us up, I suppose you can! I don'tcare. I can't keep soul and body together by selling what I write. Itel
l you I've starved half my life--and when I hear about the stuff thatsells--all these damned best sellers--all this cheap fiction that peoplebuy--while they neglect me--it breaks my heart----"
He turned sharply and passed his hand over his face. It was not anattitude; for a fraction of a second it was the real thing. Yet, evenwhile the astonished poet was peeping sideways at his guilty companion,a verse suggested itself to him; and, quite unconsciously, he began tofumble in his pockets for a pencil, while the tears still glistened onhis cheeks.
"Mr. Waudle," said Jacqueline, "I am really sorry for you. Because thisis a very serious affair."
There was a silence; then she reseated herself at her desk.
"My client, Mr. Clydesdale, is not vindictive. He has no desire tohumiliate you publicly. But he is justly indignant. And I know he willinsist that you return to him what money he paid you for yourcollection."
Waudle started dramatically, forgetting his genuine emotion of themoment before.
"Does this rich man mean to ruin me!" he demanded, making his resonantvoice tremble.
"On the contrary," she explained gently, "all he wants is the money hepaid you."
As that was the only sort of ruin which Mr. Waudle had been fearing, hepressed his clenched fists into his eyes. He had never before possessedso much money. The mere idea of relinquishing it infuriated him; and heturned savagely on Jacqueline, hesitated, saw it was useless. For thereremained nothing further to say to such a she-devil of an expert. He hadalways detested women anyway; whenever he had any money they had gottenit in one way or another. The seven thousand, his share, would have gonethe same way. Now it was going back into a fat, rich man's capaciouspockets--unless Mrs. Clydesdale might be persuaded to intervene. Shecould say that _she_ wanted the collection. Why not? She had aided himbefore in emergencies--unwillingly, it is true--but what of that? Nodoubt she'd do it again--if he scared her sufficiently.
Jacqueline waited a moment longer; then rose from her desk in signalthat the interview was at an end.
Waudle slouched out first, his oblong, evil head hanging in apicturesque attitude of noble sorrow. The Cubist shambled after him,wrapped in abstraction, his round, pale, bird-like eyes partly sheathedunder bluish eyelids that seemed ancient and wrinkled.
He was already quite oblivious to his own moral degradation; his mindwas completely obsessed by the dramatic spectacle which the despair ofhis friend had afforded him, and by the idea for a poem with which theepisode had inspired him.
He was still absently fishing for a pencil and bit of paper when hiscompanion jogged his elbow:
"If we fight this business, and if that damn girl sets Clydesdale afterus, we'll have to get out. But I don't think it will come to that."
"Can you stop her, Adalbert--and retain the money?"
"By God! I'm beginning to think I can. I believe I'll drop in to seeMrs. Clydesdale about it now. She is a very faithful friend of mine," headded gently. "And sometimes a woman will rush in to help a fellow whereangels fear to tread."
The poet looked at him, then looked away, frightened.
"Be careful," he said, nervously.
"Don't worry. I know women. And I have an idea."
The poet of the Cubists shrugged; then, with a vague gesture:
"My mistress, the moon," he said, dreamily, "is more to me than any ideaon earth or in Heaven."
"Very fine," sneered Waudle, "but why don't you make her keep you in pinmoney?"
"Adalbert," retorted the poet, "if you wish to prostitute your art, doso. Anybody can make a mistress of his art and then live off her. Butthe inviolable moon----"
"Oh, hell!" snapped the author of "Black Roses."
And they wandered on into the busy avenue, side by side, Waudle savagelybiting his heavy under-lip, both fists rammed deep into his overcoatpockets; the Cubist wandering along beside him, a little derby hatcrowning the bunch of frizzled hair on his head, his soiled drabtrousers, ankle high, flapping in the wind.
Jacqueline glanced at them as they passed the window at the end of thecorridor, and turned hastily away, remembering the old, unhappy daysafter her father's death, and how once from a window she had seen thepoet as she saw him now, frizzled, soiled, drab, disappearing into murkyperspective.
She turned wearily to her desk again. A sense of depression had beenimpending--but she knew it was only the reaction from excitement andfought it nervously.
They brought luncheon to her desk, but she sent away the tray untouched.People came by appointment and departed, only to give place to others,all equally persistent and wholly absorbed in their own affairs; and shelistened patiently, forcing her tired mind to sympathise andcomprehend. And, in time, everybody went away satisfied or otherwise,but in no doubt concerning the answer she had given, favourable orunfavourable to their desires. For that was her way in the business oflife.
At last, once more looking over her appointment list, she found thatonly Clydesdale remained; and almost at the same moment, and greatly toher surprise, Mrs. Clydesdale was announced.
"Is Mr. Clydesdale with her?" she asked the clerk, who had also handedher a letter with the visiting card of Mrs. Clydesdale.
"The lady is alone," he said.
Jacqueline glanced at the card again. Then, thoughtfully:
"Please say to Mrs. Clydesdale that I will receive her," she said; laidthe card on the desk and picked up the letter.
It was a very thick letter and had arrived by messenger.
The address on the envelope was in Mrs. Hammerton's familiar andvigorous back-stroke writing, and she had marked it "_Private! Personal!Important!_" As almost every letter from her to Jacqueline bore similaremphatic warnings, the girl smiled to herself and leisurely split theenvelope with a paper knife.
She was still intent on the letter, and was still seated at her deskwhen Mrs. Clydesdale entered. And Jacqueline slowly looked up, dazed anddeathly white, as the woman about whom she had at that moment beenreading came forward to greet her. Then, with a supreme effort, she rosefrom her chair, managing to find the ghost of a voice to welcome Elena,who seemed unusually vivacious, and voluble to the verge of excitement.
"'My dear!' she exclaimed. 'What a perfectly charmingoffice!'"]
"My dear!" she exclaimed. "What a perfectly charming office! It's reallytoo sweet for words, Miss Nevers! It's enough to drive us all intotrade! Are you very much surprised to see me here?"
"A--little."
"It's odd--the coincidence that brought me," said Elena gaily, "--andjust a trifle embarrassing to me. And as it is rather a confidentialmatter----" She drew her chair closer to the desk. "_May_ I speak to youin fullest candour and--and implicit confidence, Miss Nevers?"
"Yes."
"Then--there is a friend of mine in very serious trouble--a man I knewslightly before I was married. Since then I--have come to knowhim--better. And I am here now to ask you to help him."
"Yes."
"Shall I tell you his name at once?"
"If you wish."
"Then--his name is Adalbert Waudle."
Jacqueline looked up at her in weary surprise.
Elena laughed feverishly: "Adalbert is only a boy--a bad one, perhaps,but--you know that genius is queer--always unbalanced. He came to see meat noon to-day. It's a horrid mess, isn't it--what he did to my husband?I know all about it; and I know that Cary is wild, and that it was anoutrageous thing for Adalbert to do. But----"
Her voice trembled a little and she forced a laugh to conceal it:"Adalbert is an old friend, Miss Nevers. I knew him as a boy. But evenso, Cary couldn't understand if I pleaded for him. My husband means tosend him to jail if he does not return the money. And--and I am sorryfor Mrs. Waudle. Besides, I like the porcelains. And I want you topersuade Cary to keep them."
Through the whirling chaos of her thoughts, Jacqueline still strove tounderstand what this excited woman was saying; made a desperate effortto fix her attention on the words and not on the flushed and restlessyoung wife who was uttering them.
br /> "Will you persuade Cary to keep the collection, Miss Nevers?"
"That is for you to do, Mrs. Clydesdale."
"I tried. I called him up at his office and asked him to keep the jadesand porcelains because I liked them. But he was very obstinate. What youhave told him about--about being swindled has made him furious. That iswhy I came here. Something must be done."
"I don't think I understand you."
"There is nothing to understand. I want to keep the collection. I askyou to convince my husband----"
"How?"
"I d--don't know," stammered Elena, crimson again. "You ought to knowhow to--to do it."
"If Mr. Waudle returns your husband's money, no further action will betaken."
"He can not," said Elena, in a low voice.
"Why?"
"He has spent it."
"Did he tell you that?"
"Yes."
"Then I am afraid that Mr. Clydesdale will have him arrested."
There was an ominous silence. Jacqueline forced her eyes away from theterrible fascination of Elena's ghastly face, and said:
"I am sorry. But I can do nothing for you, Mrs. Clydesdale. The decisionrests with your husband."
"You _must_ help me!"
"I cannot."
"You _must_!" repeated Elena.
"How?"
"I--I don't care how you do it! But you must prevent my husband fromprosecuting Mr. Waudle! It--it has got to be done--somehow."
"What do you mean?"
Elena's face was burning and her lips quivered:
"It has got to be done! I can't tell you why."
"Can you not tell your husband?"
"No."
Jacqueline was quivering, too, clinging desperately to her self-controlunder the menace of an impending horror which had already partly stunnedher.
"Are you--_afraid_ of this man?" she asked, with stiffening lips.
Elena bowed her head in desperation.
"What is it? Blackmail?"
"Yes. He once learned something. I have paid him--not to--to write itfor the--the _Tattler_. And to-day he came to me straight from youroffice and made me understand that I would have to stop my husbandfrom--taking any action--even to recover the money----"
Jacqueline sat nervously clenching and unclenching her hands over theletter which lay under them on the blotter.
"What scandal is it you fear, Mrs. Clydesdale?" she asked, in an icyvoice.
Elena coloured furiously: "Is it necessary for me to incriminate myselfbefore you help me? I thought you more generous!"
"I can not help you. There is no way to do so."
"Yes, there is!"
"How?"
"By--by telling my husband that the--the jades are _not_ forgeries!"
Jacqueline's ashy cheeks blazed into colour.
"Mrs. Clydesdale," she said, "I would not do it to save myself--not evento save the dearest friend I have! And do you think I will lie to spare_you_?"
In the excitement and terror of what now was instantly impending, thegirl had risen, clutching Mrs. Hammerton's letter in her hand.
"You need not tell me why you--you are afraid," she stammered, herlovely lips already distorted with fear and horror, "because I--I_know_! Do you understand? I know what you are--what you have done--whatyou are doing!"
She fumbled in the pages of Mrs. Hammerton's letter, found an enclosure,and held it out to Elena with shaking fingers.
It was Elena's note to her husband, written on the night she left him,brought by her husband to Silverwood, left on the library table, used asa bookmark by Desboro, discovered and kept by its finder, Mrs.Hammerton, for future emergencies.
Elena re-read it now with sickened senses, and knew that in the eyes ofthis young girl she was utterly and irretrievably damned.
"Did you write that?" whispered Jacqueline, with lips scarcely undercontrol.
"I--you do not understand----"
"Did you know that when I was a guest under Mr. Desboro's roofeverything that he and you said in the library was overheard? Do youknow that you have been watched--not by me--but even long before I knewyou--watched even at the opera----"
Elena drew a quick, terrified breath; then the surging shame mantled herfrom brow to throat.
"That was Mrs. Hammerton!" she murmured. "I warned Jim--but he trustedher."
Jacqueline turned cold all over.
"He is your--lover," she said mechanically.
Elena looked at her, hesitated, came a step nearer, still staring. Hervisage and her bearing altered subtly. For a moment they gazed at eachother. Then Elena said, in a soft, but deadly, voice:
"Suppose he is my lover! Does that concern _you_?" And, as the girl madeno stir or sound: "However, if you think it does, you will scarcely careto know either of us any longer. I am quite satisfied. Do what youplease about the man who has blackmailed me. I don't care now. I wasfrightened for a moment--but I don't care any longer. Because the end ofall this nightmare is in sight; and I think Mr. Desboro and I arebeginning to awake at last."
* * * * *
Until a few minutes before five Jacqueline remained seated at her desk,motionless, her head buried in her arms. Then she got to her feetsomehow, and to her room, where, scarcely conscious of what she wasdoing, she bathed her face and arranged her hair, and strove to pinchand rub a little colour into her ghastly cheeks.