The Deluge

  XIII. "UNTIL TO-MORROW"

  On the following Tuesday afternoon, toward five o'clock, I descended frommy apartment on my way to my brougham. In the entrance hall I met Monsoncoming in.

  "Hello, you!" said he. "Slipping away to get married?"

  "No, I'm only making a call," replied I, taking alarm instantly.

  "Oh, is _that_ all?" said he with a sly grin. "It must be a mightyserious matter."

  "I'm in no hurry," said I. "Come up with me for a few minutes."

  As soon as we were alone in my sitting-room, I demanded: "What's wrong withme?"

  "Nothing--not a thing," was his answer, in a tone I had a struggle withmyself not to resent. "I've never seen any one quite so grand--tophat, latest style, long coat ditto, white buckskin waistcoat,twenty-thousand-dollar pearl in pale blue scarf, white spats, spotlessvarnish boots just from the varnishers, cream-colored gloves. You_will_ make a hit! My eye, I'll bet she won't be able to resist you."

  I began to shed my plumage. "I thought this was the thing when you'recalling on people you hardly know."

  "I should say you'd have to know 'em uncommon well to give 'em such atreat. Rather!"

  "What shall I wear?" I asked. "You certainly told me the other day thatthis was proper."

  "Proper--so it is--too damn proper," was his answer. "That'd be all rightfor a bridegroom or a best man or an usher--or perhaps for a wedding guest.It wouldn't do any particular harm even to call in it, if the people wereused to you. But--"

  "I look dressed up?"

  "Like a fashion plate--like a tailor--like a society actor."

  "What shall I wear?"

  "Oh, just throw yourself together any old way. Business suit's goodenough."

  "But I barely know these people--socially. I never called there," Iobjected.

  "Then don't call," he advised. "Send your valet in a cab to leave a cardat the door. Calling has gone clean out--unless a man's got something veryespecial in mind. Never show that you're eager. Keep your hand hid."

  "They'd know I had something especial in mind if I called?"

  "Certainly, and if you'd gone in those togs, they'd have assumed you hadcome to--to ask the old man for his daughter--or something like that."

  I lost no time in getting back into a business suit.

  A week passed and, just as I was within sight of my limit of patience,Bromwell Ellersly appeared at my office. "I can't put my hand on thenecessary cash, Mr. Blacklock--at least, not for a few days. Can I counton your further indulgence?" This in his best exhibit of old-fashionedcourtliness--the "gentleman" through and through, ignorant of anythinguseful.

  "Don't let that matter worry you, Ellersly," said I, friendly, for I wantedto be on a somewhat less business-like basis with that family. "Themarket's steady, and will go up before it goes down."

  "Good!" said he. "By the way, you haven't kept your promise to call."

  "I'm a busy man," said I. "You must make my excuses to your wife. But--inthe evenings. Couldn't we get up a little theater-party--Mrs. Ellersly andyour daughter and you and I--Sam, too, if he cares to come?"

  "Delightful!" cried he.

  "Whichever one of the next five evenings you say," I said. "Let me knowby to-morrow morning, will you?" And we talked no more of the neglectedmargins; we understood each other. When he left he had negotiated a threemonths' loan of twenty thousand dollars.

  * * * * *

  They were so surprised that they couldn't conceal it, when they wereushered into my apartment on the Wednesday evening they had fixed upon. Ifmy taste in dress was somewhat too pronounced, my taste in my surroundingswas not. I suppose the same instinct that made me like the music and thepictures and the books that were the products of superior minds had guidedme right in architecture, decoration and furniture. I know I am one ofthose who are born with the instinct for the best. Once Monson got inthe way of free criticism, he indulged himself without stint, after thecustomary human fashion; in fact, so free did he become that had I notfeared to frighten him and so bring about the defeat of my purposes, Ishould have sat on him hard very soon after we made our bargain. As it was,I stood his worst impudences without flinching, and partly consoled myselfwith the amusement I got out of watching his vanity lead him on intothinking his knowledge the most vital matter in the world--just as yousometimes see a waiter or a clerk with the air of sharing the care of theuniverse with the Almighty.

  But even Monson could find nothing to criticize either in my apartmentor in my country house. And, by the way, he showed his limitations byremarking, after he had inspected: "I must say, Blacklock, your architectsand decorators have done well by you." As if a man's surroundings were notthe unfailing index to himself, no matter how much money he spends or howgood architects and the like he hires. As if a man could ever buy goodtaste.

  I was pleased out of all proportion to its value by what Ellersly and hiswife looked and said. But, though I watched Miss Ellersly closely, though Itried to draw from her some comment on my belongings--on my pictures, on mysuperb tapestries, on the beautiful carving of my furniture--I got nothingfrom her beyond that first look of surprise and pleasure. Her face resumedits statuelike calm, her eyes did not wander; her lips, like a crimson bowpainted upon her clear, white skin, remained closed. She spoke only whenshe was spoken to, and then as briefly as possible. The dinner--and amighty good dinner it was--would have been memorable for strain and silencehad not Mrs. Ellersly kept up her incessant chatter. I can't recall a wordshe said, but I admired her for being able to talk at all. I knew she wasin the same state as the rest of us, yet she acted perfectly at her ease;and not until I thought it over afterward did I realize that she had doneall the talking, except answers to her occasional and cleverly-sprinkleddirect questions.

  Ellersly sat opposite me, and I was irritated, and thrown into confusion,too, every time I lifted my eyes, by the crushed, criminal expression ofhis face. He ate and drank hugely--and extremely bad manners it wouldhave been regarded in me had I made as much noise as he, or lifted suchquantities at a time into my mouth. But through his noisy gluttony hemanaged somehow to maintain that hang-dog air--like a thief who has gonethrough the house and, on his way out, has paused at the pantry, with thesack of plunder beside him, to gorge himself.

  I looked at Anita several times, each time with a carefully-framed remarkready; each time I found her gaze on me--and I could say nothing, couldonly look away in a sort of panic. Her eyes were strangely variable. I haveseen them of a gray, so pale that it was almost silver--like the steelylight of the snow-line at the edge of the horizon; again, and they wereso that evening, they shone with the deepest, softest blue, and made onethink, as one looked at her, of a fresh violet frozen in a block of clearice.

  I sat behind her in the box at the theater. During the first andsecond intermissions several men dropped in to speak to her mother andher--fellows who didn't ever come down town, but I could tell they knew whoI was by the way they ignored me. It exasperated me to a pitch of fury,that coldly insolent air of theirs--a jerky nod at me without so much as aglance, and no notice of me when they were leaving _my_ box beyond afaint, supercilious smile as they passed with eyes straight ahead. I knewwhat it meant, what they were thinking--that the "Bucket-Shop King," as thenewspapers had dubbed me, was trying to use old Ellersly's necessities as a"jimmy" and "break into society." When the curtain went down for the lastintermission, two young men appeared; I did not get up as I had before, butstuck to my seat--I had reached that point at which courtesy has becomecowardice.

  They craned and strained at her round me and over me, presently gave upand retired, disguising their anger as contempt for the bad manners of abounder. But that disturbed me not a ripple, the more as I was delightingin a consoling discovery. Listening and watching as she talked with theseyoung men, whom she evidently knew well, I noted that she was distant andonly politely friendly in manner habitually, that while the ice mightthicken for me, it was there always. I knew enough about wome
n to knowthat, if the woman who can thaw only for one man is the most difficult, sheis also the most constant. "Once she thaws toward me!" I said to myself.

  When the young men had gone, I leaned forward until my head was close tohers, to her hair--fine, soft, abundant, electric hair. Like the infatuatedfool that I was, I tore out all the pigeon-holes of my brain in search ofsomething to say to her, something that would start her to thinking wellof me. She must have felt my breath upon her neck, for she moved awayslightly, and it seemed to me a shiver visibly passed over that wonderfulwhite skin of hers.

  I drew back and involuntarily said, "Beg pardon." I glanced at her motherand it was my turn to shudder. I can't hope to give an accurate impressionof that stony, mercenary, mean face. There are looks that paint upon thehuman countenance the whole of a life, as a flash of lightning paints uponthe blackness of the night miles on miles of landscape. That look of Mrs.Ellersly's--stern disapproval at her daughter, stern command that she bemore civil, that she unbend--showed me the old woman's soul. And I say thatno old harpy presiding over a dive is more full of the venom of the hideouscalculations of the market for flesh and blood than is a woman whose lifeis wrapped up in wealth and show.

  "If you wish it," I said, on impulse, to Miss Ellersly in a low voice, "Ishall never try to see you again."

  I could feel rather than see the blood suddenly beating in her skin, andthere was in her voice a nervousness very like fright as she answered: "I'msure mama and I shall be glad to see you whenever you come."

  "You?" I persisted.

  "Yes," she said, after a brief hesitation.

  "Glad?" I persisted.

  She smiled--the faintest change in the perfect curve of her lips. "You arevery persistent, aren't you?"

  "Very," I answered. "That is why I have always got whatever I wanted."

  "I admire it," said she.

  "No, you don't," I replied. "You think it is vulgar, and you think I amvulgar because I have that quality--that and some others."

  She did not contradict me.

  "Well, I _am_ vulgar--from your standpoint," I went on. "I havepurposes and passions. And I pursue them. For instance, you."

  "I?" she said tranquilly.

  "You," I repeated. "I made up my mind the first day I saw you that I'd makeyou like me. And--you will."

  "That is very flattering," said she. "And a little terrifying. For"--shefaltered, then went bravely on--"I suppose there isn't anything you'd stopat in order to gain your end."

  "Nothing," said I, and I compelled her to meet my gaze.

  She drew a long breath, and I thought there was a sob in it--like afrightened child.

  "But I repeat," I went on, "that if you wish it, I shall never try to seeyou again. Do you wish it?"

  "I--don't--know," she answered slowly. "I think--not."

  As she spoke the last word, she lifted her eyes to mine with a look offorced friendliness in them that I'd rather not have seen there. I wishedto be blind to her defects, to the stains and smutches with which hersurroundings must have sullied her. And that friendly look seemed to mean unmistakable hypocrisy in obedience to her mother. However, it had theeffect of bringing her nearer to my own earthy level, of putting me at easewith her; and for the few remaining minutes we talked freely, I indifferentwhether my manners and conversation were correct. As I helped her intotheir carriage, I pressed her arm slightly, and said in a voice for heronly, "Until to-morrow."