FIFTEENTH CHAPTER
QUENTIN CHARTER AND SELMA CROSS JOIN ISSUE ON A NEW BATTLE-GROUND, EACHLEAVING THE FIELD WITH OPEN WOUNDS
Charter was seized with vertigo. It was his sorry thought that the oldscar-tissues, however bravely they sufficed in the days of easy-going,could not endure a crux like this. But he was wrong. It was the shock tohis spirit, which made of Selma Cross a giantess of vague outlines in aroom filled with swimming objects. Need for the woman of his visions hadculminated in the outer hall. In the substitution there was an innerwrench, which to one of Charter's intense concentration was like astroke; and then, too, the horrible outburst of energy in adjusting theSkylark spirit to the eminent flesh of this old plaything of his, lefthim drained. He steadied himself into the music-room, and sank into adeep chair, where his heart pumped furiously, but light and empty, as ifit could not grip the blood locked in his veins.
He sat in a sort of trance, glimpses of many thoughts running throughhis brain. He deserved punishment. That was all very well, but somethingwas wrong here. The premonition became a reality in his consciousnessthat he had entered upon a great desert; that he was to endure again oneof his terrible thirsts; not a throat-thirst alone, but a soul-thirst.In the atmosphere of the woman, in the very odor of the room, he feltthe old impassioned lyric-maker crush back into the dominance of hismind with all the impish exultation of that lower self. Pride asserteditself now. What an idiot passage in the career of a rising writer! Heshould always remember with shame this coming to New York--a youthfulMarius in whose veins was injected mid-summer madness--coming to thiscity (where dollar-work is king and plumaged-woman queen) with anabortive conception from garret dreams.... A strong white light fellupon the leather cover of her reading-table, but their faces were inshadow, like the hundred actor faces in photograph upon the wall andmantel. Selma Cross was studying him keenly. The emptiness of it all wasso pervading--as his blood began to move again--that he laughed aloud.
"Do you know," Selma Cross said softly, "I thought at first you had beendrinking too much. I hardly knew you otherwise, remember. Shall I tellyou what added thought came to me, as you crossed the floor sounsteadily--looking so white?"
"Locomotor ataxia, I suppose. I hear it is getting quite the thing formiddle-generation New Yorkers.... I expected to see you a little laterin your new play, but not here--to-night----"
"That is what I thought--that incurable thing. You seem floored. Ididn't know a woman could do that. In the old days, you wereadaptable--if nothing else."
His collar felt tight, and he stretched it out, needing more air in hislungs and more blood in his brain. It was clear enough to him now howSkylark had been stricken. The real devastation was that she belonged tothis sort of thing at all; that she could consent to this trick, thistrap. It was all so different from the consummate fineness, thepervading delicacy, of all Skylark thoughts. Having consented to thetrick, _might she not be listening_?... He did not mind her hearing;indeed, he might say things which were needful for her to know--but thatshe should listen! He writhed. This was not his Skylark at all.... Itwas hardly Charter's way now to plunge into the centre of things. Therewas a feline elegance in the manner and movement of Selma Cross; sheseemed so delightfully at ease, that he was willing to make it a bitharder for her.
"I suppose I was more adaptable formerly," he said slowly. "It issomething, however, suddenly to encounter an old friend who has madegood so fearfully and tremendously in the past week. Of course, I hadread all about it. Still, I repeat it was an experience to encounteryour stardom actually on the boards; and more of an experience to findyou here. I'm really very glad that you secured the one great vehicle.As for your work--few know its quality better than I."
She studied him long, her eyes glowing behind the narrowed lids. "As forthat, you've been biting the flaky top-crust, too," she said finally. "Inever doubted what you could do in your game, but I confess I fearedthat whiskey would beat you to it.... Do you know you are wonderfullychanged--so white, so lean? Your work has come to me since you wentaway; what else have you been doing?--I mean, to change you so finely."
"Garret."
Her brow clouded at the word. It was as if she had expected to laugh athim long before this. "Did any woman ever tell you that you're rather amean sort, Quentin Charter?"
"Doubtless I have deserved it," he answered. "What are you thinking?"
"I was thinking of your garret--where you gather your victims forvivisection."
"That's put very clearly."
"Do you think this is big-man stuff?"
"My case is rather an ugly one to look back upon, truly," Chartergranted. "For a long time, it appeared to me that I must learn things atfirst-hand. With first-water talents, perhaps this is not necessary."
"A woman finally brings a man face to face," she said with sudden scorn,"and he becomes limp, agrees with everything she says.... 'Yes, it isquite true, I was an awful beast. What else, dear?'--ugh!"
Charter smiled. She was very swift and deft in supplying a man's evilmotives. It is a terrible feminine misfortune--this gift ofimputing--and happy women do not possess it. Few men, incidentally, aredeep enough to avail themselves of all the crafts and cunnings withwhich they may be accredited.
"I have no intention of destroying the slightest gratification you maydraw, Selma, from questioning me," he said. "If I appear limp, pleaseremember that I'm a bit in the dark as yet. I came to this floor on adifferent errand. I had this errand in mind--not self-examination.However, I'll attend now in all sincerity. You were speaking of myvictims for vivisection in the garret."
She appeared not to trust him in the least. "I've always wantedto know if you believed--what an apprentice I really was inlove--give-and-take--when you came?"
"That was easily believed, Selma----"
"Then you grant I wasn't acting--when I gave myself to you?"
"I didn't think you were acting----"
"Then _you_ were acting, because when the time came--you dropped mequite as easily as you would drop a street-cur you had been pleased tofeed."
"Just there you are a bit in error. I was furiously interested, andcertainly not acting altogether, until----"
"Enter--the wine," she said with a sneer.
"Yes, if you will." He was irritated for a second, having meant to saysomething entirely different.
"A woman so loves to hear that a man's passion for her depends upon hisdrinking!"
"I have always been very fond of and grateful to you. It was the wholelife that the drinking carried me into--that I had such horror for when,when I became well."
"You got well very suddenly after you left me," she told him. Her hugeface was livid, and her lips dry.
"On the contrary, I was a long time ill." Her temper chilled hisattempts at sincerity.
"It looked so from those first few--letters, is rather a dignifiedword."
"I say it with shame, I was practically unable to write. I was burnt outwhen I left here. I had been to Asia--gone from home seven months--andthe returning fool permitted the bars to welcome him----"
"You seized a moment to dictate a letter----"
"Silence would have been far better," he said. "I see that now. My onlyidea was to let you hear. Writing myself was out of the question by thattime."
"You wrote an article about stage people--with all the loftiness of ananaemic priest."
"That was written before I left here--written and delivered----"
"All the worse, that you could write such an article--while you werespending so much time with me."
"I have never belittled what you gave me, Selma. I could praise you,without admiring the stage. You are amazingly different. I think that'swhy New York is talking about you to-night. I had made many trips to NewYork and knew many stage people, before I met you. If you had belongedto the type familiar to me, I should have needed a stronger stimulusthan drink to force an interest. Had there been others like you--had Ieven encountered 'five holy ones in the city'--I should not have
writtenthat stage article, or others before it."
"You were one with the Broadway Glowworms, Quentin Charter. Few of themdrank so steadily as you."
"I have already told you that for a long time I was an unutterable fool.Until three years ago, I did not begin to know--the breath of life."
Selma Cross arose and paced the room, stretching out her great arms fromtime to time as she walked. "You're getting back your glibness," sheexclaimed, "your quick little sentences which fit in so nicely! Ah, Iknow them well, as other women are learning them. But I have thingswhich you cannot answer so easily--you of the garret penances.... Youfind a starved woman of thirty--play with her for a fortnight, showingher everything that she can desire, and seeming to have no thought, butof her. I discover that there was not a moment in which you were soardent that you forgot to be an analyst. I forgive that, as you mightforgive things in my day's work. You put on your gray garret-garb, andforget the hearts of my people, to uncover their weaknesses before theworld--you, so recently one of us, and none more drunk or drained withthe dawn--than you! Such preaching is not good to the nostrils, but Iforgive that. You are sick, and even the drink won't warm you, so youleave me at a moment's notice----"
"There was another reason."
"Hear me out, first," she commanded.... "To you, it is just, 'Adios, mydear'; to me, it is an uprooting--oh, I don't mind telling you. I wasoverturned in that furrow, left naked for the long burning day, but Iremembered my work--the work you despise! I, who had reason to know hownoble your pen can be, forgave even those first paltry letters, filledwith excuses such as a cheap clerk might write. I forgave the dictation,because it said you were ill--forgave the silences.... But when you cameto New York six months afterwards, and did not so much as 'phone or sendme a card of greeting--Selma called in her silly tears."
"It was vile ingratitude," he said earnestly. "That's where my big faultlay. I wonder if you would try to understand the only palliation. Youwere strangely generous and wonderful in your ways. I did not cease tothink of that. Personally, you are far above the things I came to abhor.No one understands but the victim, what alcohol does to a man when itgets him down. I tried to kill myself. I became convalescent literallyby force. Slowly approaching the normal again, I was glad enough tolive, but the horrors never leave the mind entirely. Everythingconnected with the old life filled me with shuddering fear. I tell youno one hates alcohol like a drunkard fresh in his reform."
"But I did not make you drink," she said impatiently. "I'm not adrink-loving woman."
Charter's face flushed. The interview was becoming a farce. It had beenagony for him to make this confession. She would not see that herealized his ingratitude; that it was his derangement caused byindulging low propensities which made him identify her with the days ofevil.
"I know that very well, Selma Cross," he said wearily, "but the stage isa part of that old life, that sick night-life that runs eternally aroundthe belt-line."
She hated him for reverting to this point. Holding fast to what shestill had to say, the actress picked up a broken thread. "You said therewas another reason why you left New York so suddenly."
Charter expected now to learn if any one were listening. He was coldwith the thought of the interview being weighed in the balances of athird mind.
"You've made a big point of my going away," he essayed. "The otherreason is not a pretty matter, and doubtless you will call anyrepugnance of mine an affectation----"
"Repugnance--what do you mean?" she asked savagely, yet she was afraid,afraid of his cool tongue. "I never lied to you."
"That may be true. I'm not curious for evidence to the contrary. The daybefore I left for the West, a friend told me that you and I were beingwatched; that all our movements were known. I didn't believe it; couldnot see the sense--until it was proved that same night by the deviouswalk we took.... You doubtless remember the face of that youngnight-bird whom we once laughed about. We thought it just one of thosecoincidences which frequently occur--a certain face bobbing upeverywhere for a number of days. I assured myself that night that youknew nothing of this remarkable outside interest in our affairs."
Selma Cross, with swift stealth, disappeared into the apartment-hall andclosed the outer door; then returned, facing him. Her yellow eyes werewide open, filled with a misty, tortured look. To Charter the place andthe woman had become haggard with emptiness. He missed the occasionalclick of the elevator in the outer-hall, for it had seemed to keep himin touch with the world's activities. The old carnal magnetism of SelmaCross stirred not a tissue in him now; the odor of her garments whichonce roused him, was forbidding. He had not the strength to believe thatthe door had been shut for any other reason than to prevent Skylark fromhearing. The actress had not minded how their voices carried, so long as_he_ was being arraigned.... The air was devitalized. It was as if theywere dying of heart-break--without a sound.... It had been sowonderful--this thought of finding his mate after the aeons, hiscompletion--a woman beautiful with soul-age and spiritual light....
Selma Cross was speaking. Charter stirred from his great trouble. Shewas changed, no longer the clever mistress of a dramatic hour.... Eachwas so burdened with a personal tragedy that pity for the other was slowto warm between them.
"Do you mean that old Villiers paid the night-bird to watch us--to learnwhere we went, and possibly what we said?" she was saying hoarsely.Selma Cross felt already that her cad was exploded.
"Yes, and that was unpleasant," Charter told her. "I didn't like thefeel of that procurer's eyes, but what revolted me was Villiers himself.I took pains to learn his name the next day--that last day. There isn'ta more unclean human package in New York.... It was so unlike you. Icouldn't adjust the two. I couldn't be where he had been. I was sickwith my own degradation. I went back to my garret."
Selma Cross was crippled; she saw there was no lie in this. At what aprice had been bought the restoration of faith for Paula Linster!... Shehad heard after their compact about Villiers' early days. There had beentimes when her fingers itched to tighten upon his scrawny throat. Tohave Quentin Charter hear this record was fire in her veins; it embracedthe added horror that Stephen Cabot might also hear.... There wasnothing further with which to charge the man before her. She nursed herwrath to keep from crying out.
"Was it a man's way to give me no chance to explain?" she demanded.
"Broadway knew Villiers."
"I did not!"
"Anyway, I couldn't get it straight in my mind, then," Charter saidhastily. "You're no vulgar woman, mad after colors and dollars. You loveyour work too much to be one of those insatiable deserts of passion. Norare you a creature of black evolution who prefers the soul, to the bodyof man, for a plaything.... You were all that was generous and normallyfervent with me.... Let's cut the subject. It does not excuse me for notcalling when I came to New York. You were nothing if not good to me."
"Then Villiers paid to find out things about us," she said slowly. "Hesaid you bragged about such matters to your friends."
Charter shivered. "I fail to see how you troubled about a man notwriting--if you could believe that about him."
"I didn't see how he could know our places of meeting--any other way. Ishould never have seen him again, if he hadn't made me believe this ofyou."
Charter scarcely heard her. The thought was inevitable now that theactress might have represented him to Skylark as one with the loathedhabit of talking about women to his friends. The quick inclination toinquire could not overcome his distaste for mentioning a dear name inthis room. The radiant, flashing spirit behind the letters did notbelong here.... His brain ached with emptiness; he wondered continuallyhow he could ever fill the spaces expanded by the Skylark's singing....
In the brain of Selma Cross a furious struggle was joined. Never beforehad she been given to see so clearly her own limitations--and this inthe high light of her great dramatic triumph. Her womanhood containedthat mighty quality of worshiping intellect. This, she had loved inCharter long ago; in Ste
phen Cabot now. The inner key to her greatnesswas her capacity to forget the animal in man--if he proved a brain.There is only one higher reverence--that of forgetting brain to worshipsoul. Perceiving the attitude of Quentin Charter to her old life, it wasmade clear to her that she must preserve a lie in her relation withStephen Cabot; if, indeed, the playwright did not learn outside, asCharter had done. It was plain that he did not know yet, since he hadnot run from her--to a garret somewhere. What a hideous mockery was thisnight--begun in pride! Distantly she was grateful that Paula Linster wasat hand to be restored, but her own mind was whipped and cowed by itsthoughts--so there was little energy for another's romance.... Charterhad made no comment on her last remark. She realized now that histhoughts were bearing him close to the truth.
"You say they forced you to cast out your enemy," she declared hoarsely."I cast out mine of my own accord. If there is palliation for you, thereshould be for a woman in her first experience. You asked me to stretchmy imagination about a drink-reaction making you avoid me. I ask you,how is a woman, for the first time alone with a man--to know that he isdifferent from other men? Add to this, a woman who has come up from thedregs--for years in the midst of the slum-blooms of the chorus? What Iheard from them of their nights--would have taxed the versatility ofeven Villiers--to make me see him lower than I expected! I ask you--howdid I know he was an exception--rather than the rule among theGlowworms?"
"I'm rather glad you said that," Charter declared quickly. "It's a pointof view I'm grateful for. Do you wonder that the life from which youhave risen to one of the regnant queens has become inseparable in mymind with shuddering aversion?"
In the extremity of her suffering, her mind had reverted, as an artist'salways does when desperately pressed, to thoughts of work--work, thehealer, the refuge where devils truly are cast out. Even in her work shenow encountered the lash, since Charter despised it. Literally, she wasat bay before him.
"Always that!" she cried. "It is detestable in you always to blame mywork. I broke training. I should have won without the damned angel. Youdegraded yourself for years in your work, but I don't hear you blamingart for your debaucheries! You have sat alone so long that you think allmen outside are foul. You sit high in your attic, so that all men looklike bugs below!"
"There is something in what you say," he answered, aroused by herbigness and strength. "Yet in my garret, I do not deal with rootlessabstractions. Everything has its foundation in actual observation. Imoved long among the play-managers, and found them men ofhuckster-minds--brainless money-bags, dependent upon every passing windof criticism. I tell you, when one talked to them or to theiroffice-apes--one felt himself, his inner-self, rushing forth as if tofill something bottomless----"
"You do not know Vhruebert----"
"Eliminate him. I am not speaking of any particular man. I do not meanall playwrights when I say that I found playwrights as a class, notliterary workers--but literary tricksters. I am not speaking of _TheThing_, nor of its author, of whom I have heard excellent word--when Isay that plays are not written, but rewritten by elementals, who,through their sheer coarseness, sense the slow vibrations of the mob,and feculate the original lines to suit."
"Bah--an idea from one of your nights, when you tried to drown the bluedevils! It broods over all your thinking! You forget the great army,that silent army, which is continually lifting itself artistically bywriting one after another--impossible plays. You forget the great heartsof the players--men and women who pull together for big results."
"I am not speaking of the vast library of manuscript failures, but of asmall proportion which get into the sinister glare of Broadway----"
"My God, Broadway is not New York!"
"For which I am powerfully glad," he answered with energy. "As for warmhuman hearts--there is warmth and loyalty, genuine tears and decenthopes in every brothel and bar--yet the black trends of their existencecourse on. This was so hard for me to learn, that I have it veryclearly.... I remember the opening night of Martha Boardman as astar--telegrams pouring in, critics besieging her dressing-room. Evenher manager didn't know what he had, until the critics told him the playwould stay in New York a year--yet his name was on the boards above thestar and bigger than the author's. I watched the bleak, painted faces ofthe women and heard their false voices acclaiming the new star. Whatthey had in their hearts was not praise, but envy. Their words weresham, indecency and lying. Eternally simulating--that's the stage life.Pity the women--poor Maachas, if you will--but their work is damnable,nevertheless. It is from such unhappy creatures evading motherhood thatyouths get the abominable notion that real manhood lies in the loins."
"Poor youths--go on! When you have finished I shall tell you something."
"Don't misunderstand me, Selma Cross. No one knows better than I--howthe sexes prey upon each other--how they drag each other to the ground.Only I was thinking of the poor things in ties, canes, cigarettes andcoatings--out catching!... I saw the whole horrid, empty game of thestage. You have come wonderfully and differently into the glare, but letme ask where is Martha Boardman to-night--a few short years later?"
"Yes, she was tired, her energy burned out, when she finally arrived.It's a stiff grade," Selma Cross said gently.
"I would explain it, that she was prostituted from _excessivesimulation_--season after season of simulation--emotion after emotionfalse to herself! The Law says, 'Live your own life.' The Stage says,'Act mine,'--so pitiably often a poor playwright's abortive sensations!What can happen to a body that continually makes of itself a lyinginstrument? Like the queen-bee whose whole life is made up ofegg-laying--the brain of this poor purveyor of emotions becomes a waxypulp. As for her soul--it is in God's hands--let us hope."
"It is good to laugh at you, Quentin Charter. You have another appetite.You wanted alcohol when I knew you first--now you thirst after puristsand winged women. I have a lover now who can live among men, soar justas high as you do, work with just as much greatness and strength,without ever having degraded himself or believed all human creaturesvile. The stage has its shams, its mockeries, but its glories, too. Itis not all deranged by money-bags. The most brilliant of your writersgive us our lines--the most wonderful of your mystics. It is true wesimulate; true that ours is a constant giving; but call in yourgarret-high logic now, Sir Prophet: Look at the tired empty faces of mycompany, look at mine, after we have finished _The Thing_; then look atthe strengthened grip on life and the lifted hopes which, each night,the multitude takes from out our breasts--and call ours a prostitution,if you can!"
Charter arose and extended his hand, which she took gracelessly, but wasinstantly sorry that she had misjudged his intent.
"Can't you see, Selma Cross, that you and I have no difference, no pointfor argument, if the general run of plays were like _The Thing_--as youmake me see it? We had eliminated this from the discussion, but I havenothing but praise for Vhruebert, nothing but enthusiasm for Mr. Cabotand for you--if the combination gives the people an expansion of hopeand a lifted ideal. Do that, and you need not reckon with critics."
Instantly she changed her point of view again, so that he was bothchilled and puzzled. "I should have been glad to come out in anysuccessful play," she said wearily. "_The Thing_ just happens to have anuplift----"
"So much is accomplished for you, then. You will never be content againwith a play that has not. Oh, I don't mean ostensible good,melodramatically contrasted with obvious bad, but the subtle inspirationof real artists--that marvellous flexibility of line and largeness ofmeaning that fits about every life! Just as you can draw fresh strengthagain and again from a great poem; so, in performing a great play--onedoes not act, but lives!"
"Are you going?" she questioned absently.
"Yes, I confess I haven't been so consumed in years----"
She drew close to him.... "It has been dramatic, if not literary, hasn'tit?" Her nostrils dilated and her lower lip was drawn back between herteeth.
He smiled.
"I feel burnt out, too,"
she went on softly. "It has been strangeto be with you again--almost like--those early mornings.... Did youever hear me calling you--'way off there in the West? I used to lieawake, all feverish after you went away, calling in a whisper,'Quentin--Quentin!...' It seemed you must come, if you were alive. Therewere times after you went away, that I would have given this week'svictory, which I saw from afar,--to have you rush in for just onehour!... In God's name," she cried suddenly, "is there really this sortof honor in living man--is it because you hate me--or do you have todrink to take a woman in your arms? You, who used to be--singingflames?"
Charter was not unattracted, but his self-command was strangelyimperious. There was magnetism now in the old passion--but a flutter ofwings broke the attraction.... Darkness covered the wings, and the songwas stilled; yet in that faint rustling, was enchantment which changedto brute matter--these open arms and the rising breast.
"I'm afraid it is as you said--about the anaemic priest," he mutteredlaughingly.... And then it occurred to him that there might have been atrick to her tempting.... From this point he was sexless and could pityher, though his nerves were raw from her verbal punishments. It wasaltogether new in his experience--this word-whipping; and though he hadnot sharpened a sentence in retaliation, he could not but see theghastly way in which a woman is betrayed by her temper, which checks aman's passion like a sudden fright. Between a woman given to rages andher lover--lies a naked sword. Consummate, in truth, is the siren whohas mastered the art of silence.... Selma Cross sank back into a chair.The world's wear was on her brow and under her eyes, as she laughedbitterly.
"You always had a way of making me sick of life," she said strangely. "Iwonder if ever there was a humiliation so artistically complete asmine?"
This was another facet to the prism of the woman. Charter could not bequite certain as to her present intent, so frequently alternating hadbeen the currents of her emotion during the interview. Typically anactress, she had run through her whole range of effects. He was notprepared yet to say which was trick, which reality; which was the woman,Selma Cross, or the tragedienne. He did not miss the thought that histheory was amazingly strengthened here--the theory that moralderangement results from excessive simulation.
"You--would--not--kiss--me," she repeated. "For my own sake, I'd like tobelieve--that you're trying to be true to some one,--but it's all rotthat there are men like that! It's because I no longer tempt you--youspook!"
"You said you had a lover----"
She shivered. "You left me unfinished." There was a tragic plaint in hertone, and she added hastily, "There was a reason for my trying you.... Ithink the most corroding of the knives you have left in me to-night, isthat you have refused to ask why I brought you here--refused even toutter the name--of the woman you expected to see--_in my presence_....You may be a man; you may be a cad; you may be a new appetite, or a Godresurrected out of a Glowworm. I either hate or love you--or both--tothe point of death! Either way--remember this--I'll be square as adie--to you and to my friend. You'll begin to see what Imean--to-morrow, I think...."
He was at the door. "Good-night," he said and touched the signal for theelevator.
She called him back, "Come and see me--at my best--at the_Herriot_--won't you?"
"Yes----"
"But tell me what performance--and where your seat is----"
"... Good-night."
The car stopped at the floor.