XVIII. ANITA BEGINS TO BE HERSELF
I had asked Sam Ellersly to dine with me; so preoccupied was I that notuntil ten minutes before the hour set did he come into my mind--he or anyof his family, even his sister. My first impulse was to send word that Icouldn't keep the engagement. "But I must dine somewhere," I reflected,"and there's no reason why I shouldn't dine with him, since I've doneeverything that can be done." In my office suite I had a bath anddressing-room, with a complete wardrobe. Thus, by hurrying a little overmy toilet, and by making my chauffeur crowd the speed limit, I was atDelmonico's only twenty minutes late.
Sam, who had been late also, as usual, was having a cocktail and wasordering the dinner. I smoked a cigarette and watched him. At business orat anything serious his mind was all but useless; but at ordering dinnerand things of that sort, he shone. Those small accomplishments of his hadoften moved me to a sort of pitying contempt, as if one saw a man of talentdevoting himself to engraving the Lord's Prayer on gold dollars. Thatevening, however, as I saw how comfortable and contented he looked, withnot a care in the world, since he was to have a good dinner and a goodcigar afterward; as I saw how much genuine pleasure he was getting out ofselecting the dishes and giving the waiter minute directions for the chef,I envied him.
What Langdon had once said came back to me: "We are under the tyranny ofto-morrow, and happiness is impossible." And I thought how true that was.But, for the Sammys, high and low, there is no to-morrow. He was somehowimpressing me with a sense that he was my superior. His face was weak, and,in a weak way, bad; but there was a certain fineness of quality in it,a sort of hothouse look, as if he had been sheltered all his life, andbrought up on especially selected food. "Men like me," thought I with acertain envy, "rise and fall. But his sort of men have got something thatcan't be taken away, that enables them to carry off with grace, poverty orthe degradation of being spongers and beggars."
This shows how far I had let that attack of snobbishness eat into me. Iglanced down at my hands. No delicateness there; certainly those fingers,though white enough nowadays, and long enough, too, were not made for fancywork and parlor tricks. They would have looked in place round the handleof a spade or the throttle of an engine, while Sam's seemed made for thekeyboard of a piano.
"You must come over to my rooms after dinner, and give me some music," saidI.
"Thanks," he replied, "but I've promised to go home and play bridge.Mother's got a few in to dinner, and more are coming afterward, I believe."
"Then I'll go with you, and talk to your sister--she doesn't play."
He glanced at me in a way that made me pass my hand over my face. I learnedat least part of the reason for my feeling at disadvantage before him. Ihad forgotten to shave; and as my beard is heavy and black, it has to belooked after twice a day. "Oh, I can stop at my rooms and get my face intocondition in a few minutes," said I.
"And put on evening dress, too," he suggested. "You wouldn't want to go ina dinner jacket."
I can't say why this was the "last straw," but it was.
"Bother!" said I, my common sense smashing the spell of snobbishness thathad begun to reassert itself as soon as I got into his unnatural, unhealthyatmosphere. "I'll go as I am, beard and all. I only make myself ridiculous,trying to be a sheep. I'm a goat, and a goat I'll stay."
That shut him into himself. When he re-emerged, it was to say: "Somethingdoing down town to-day, eh?"
A sharpness in his voice and in his eyes, too, made me put my mind on himmore closely, and then I saw what I should have seen before--that he wasmoody and slightly distant.
"Seen Tom Langdon this afternoon?" I asked carelessly.
He colored. "Yes--had lunch with him," was his answer.
I smiled--for his benefit. "Aha!" thought I. "So Tom Langdon has been foolenough to take this paroquet into his confidence." Then I said to him: "IsTom making the rounds, warning the rats to leave the sinking ship?"
"What do you mean, Matt?" he demanded, as if I had accused him.
I looked steadily at him, and I imagine my unshaven jaw did not make myaspect alluring.
"That I'm thinking of driving the rats overboard," replied I. "The ship'ssound, but it would be sounder if there were fewer of them."
"You don't imagine anything Tom could say would change my feelings towardyou?" he pleaded.
"I don't know, and I don't care a damn," replied I coolly. "But I do know,before the Langdons or anybody else can have Blacklock pie, they'll havefirst to catch their Blacklock."
I saw Langdon had made him uneasy, despite his belief in my strength. Andhe was groping for confirmation or reassurance. "But," thought I, "if hethinks I may be going up the spout, why isn't he more upset? He probablyhates me because I've befriended him, but no matter how much he hated me,wouldn't his fear of being cut off from supplies drive him almost crazy?" Istudied him in vain for sign of deep anxiety. Either Tom didn't tell himmuch, I decided, or he didn't believe Tom knew what he was talking about.
"What did Tom say about me?" I inquired.
"Oh, almost nothing. We were talking chiefly of--of club matters," heanswered, in a fair imitation of his usual offhand manner.
"When does my name come up there?" said I.
He flushed and shifted. "I was just about to tell you," he stammered. "Butperhaps you know?"
"Know what?"
"That--Hasn't Tom told you? He has withdrawn--and--you'll have to getanother second--if you think--that is--unless you--I suppose you'd havetold me, if you'd changed your mind?"
Since I had become so deeply interested in Anita, myambition--ambition!--to join the Travelers had all but dropped out of mymind.
"I had forgotten about it," said I. "But, now that you remind me, I want myname withdrawn. It was a passing fancy. It was part and parcel of a lot ofdamn foolishness I've been indulging in for the last few months. But I'vecome to my senses--and it's 'me to the wild,' where I belong, Sammy, fromthis time on."
He looked tremendously relieved, and a little puzzled, too. I thought I wasreading him like an illuminated sign. "He's eager to keep friends with me,"thought I, "until he's absolutely sure there's nothing more in it for himand his people." And that guess was a pretty good one. It is not to thediscredit of my shrewdness that I didn't see it was not hope, but fear,that made him try to placate me. I could not have possibly known then whatthe Langdons had done. But--Sammy was saying, in his friendliest tone:
"What's the matter, old man? You're sour to-night."
"Never in a better humor," I assured him, and as I spoke the wordsthey came true. What I had been saying about the Travelers and all itrepresented--all the snobbery, and smirking, and rotten pretense--my finaland absolute renunciation of it all--acted on me as I've seen religion acton the fellows that used to go up to the mourners' bench at the revivals. Ifelt as if I had suddenly emerged from the parlor of a dive and its stenchof sickening perfumes, into the pure air of God's Heaven.
I signed the bill, and we went afoot up the avenue. Sam, as I saw with agood deal of amusement, was trying to devise some subtle, tactful way ofattaching his poor, clumsy little suction-pump to the well of my secretthoughts.
"What is it, Sammy?" said I at last. "What do you want to know that you'reafraid to ask me?"
"Nothing," he said hastily. "I'm only a bit worried about--about you andTextile. Matt,"--this in the tone of deep emotion we reserve for theattempt to lure our friends into confiding that about themselves which willgive us the opportunity to pity them, and, if necessary, to sheer off fromthem--"Matt, I do hope you haven't been hard hit?"
"Not yet," said I easily. "Dry your tears and put away your black clothes.Your friend, Tom Langdon, was a little premature."
"I'm afraid I've given you a false impression," Sam continued, withan overeagerness to convince me that did not attract my attention atthe time. "Tom merely said, 'I hear Blacklock is loaded up with Textileshorts,'--that was all. A careless remark. I really didn't think of itagain until I saw you looking so black and glum
."
That seemed natural enough, so I changed the subject. As we entered hishouse, I said:
"I'll not go up to the drawing-room. Make my excuses to your mother, willyou? I'll turn into the little smoking-room here. Tell your sister--and sayI'm going to stop only a moment."
Sam had just left me when the butler came.
"Mr. Ball--I think that was the name, sir--wishes to speak to you on thetelephone."
I had given Ellerslys' as one of the places at which I might be found,should it be necessary to consult me. I followed the butler to thetelephone closet under the main stairway. As soon as Ball made sure it wasI, he began:
"I'll use the code words. I've just seen Fearless, as you told me to."
Fearless--that was Mitchell, my spy in the employ of Tavistock, who wasmy principal rival in the business of confidential brokerage for the highfinanciers. "Yes," said I. "What does he say?"
"There has been a great deal of heavy buying for a month past."
Then my dread was well-founded--Textiles were to be deliberately rocketed."Who's been doing it?" I asked.
"He found out only this afternoon. It's been kept unusually dark. It--"
"Who? Who?" I demanded.
"Intrepid," he answered.
Intrepid--that is, Langdon--Mowbray Langdon!
"The whole thing--was planned carefully," continued Ball, "and is comingoff according to schedule. Fearless overheard a final message Intrepid'sbrother brought from him to-day."
So it was no mischance--it was an assassination. Mowbray Langdon hadstabbed me in the back and fled.
"Did you hear what I said?" asked Ball. "Is that you?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Oh," came in a relieved tone from the other end of the wire. "You were solong in answering that I thought I'd been cut off. Any instructions?"
"No," said I. "Good-by."
I heard him ring off, but I sat there for several minutes, the receiverstill to my ear. I was muttering: "Langdon, Langdon--why--why--why?" againand again. Why had he turned against me? Why had he plotted to destroyme--one of those plots so frequent in Wall Street--where the assassinsteals up, delivers the mortal blow, and steals away without ever beingdetected or even suspected? I saw the whole plot now--I understood TomLangdon's activities, I recalled Mowbray Langdon's curious phrases andlooks and tones. But--why--why--why? How was I in his way?
It was all dark to me--pitch-dark. I returned to the smoking-room, lighteda cigar, sat fumbling at the new situation. I was in no worse plight thanbefore--what did it matter who was attacking me? In the circumstances,a novice could now destroy me as easily as a Langdon. Still, Ball'snews seemed to take away my courage. I reminded myself that I was usedto treachery of this sort, that I deserved what I was getting becauseI had, like a fool, dropped my guard in the fight that is always anevery-man-for-himself. But I reminded myself in vain. Langdon's smilingtreachery made me heart-sick.
Soon Anita appeared--preceded and heralded by a faint rustling from softand clinging skirts, that swept my nerves like a love-tune. I suppose forall men there is a charm, a spell, beyond expression, in the sight of adelicate beautiful young woman, especially if she be dressed in those finefabrics that look as if only a fairy loom could have woven them; and when aman loves the woman who bursts upon his vision, that spell must overwhelmhim, especially if he be such a man as was I--a product of life's roughestfactories, hard and harsh, an elbower and a trampler, a hustler and abluffer. Then, you must also consider the exact circumstances--I standingthere, with destruction hanging over me, with the sense that within a fewhours I should be a pariah to her, a masquerader stripped of his disguiseand cast out from the ball where he had been making so merry and so free.Only a few hours more! Perhaps now was the last time I should ever standso near to her! The full realization of all this swallowed me up asin a great, thick, black mist. And my arms strained to escape from mytightly-locked hands, strained to seize her, to snatch from her, reluctantthough she might be, at least some part of the happiness that was to bedenied me.
I think my torment must have somehow penetrated to her. For she was sweetand friendly--and she could not have hurt me worse! If I had followed myimpulse I should have fallen at her feet and buried my face, scorching, inthe folds of that pale blue, faintly-shimmering robe of hers.
"Do throw away that huge, hideous cigar," she said, laughing. And she tooktwo cigarettes from the box, put both between her lips, lit them, held onetoward me. I looked at her face, and along her smooth, bare, outstretchedarm, and at the pink, slender fingers holding the cigarette. I took it asif I were afraid the spell would be broken, should my fingers touch hers.Afraid--that's it! That's why I didn't pour out all that was in my heart. Ideserved to lose her.
"I'm taking you away from the others," I said. We could hear the murmurof many voices and of music. In fancy I could see them assembled roundthe little card-tables--the well-fed bodies, the well-cared-for skins,the elaborate toilets, the useless jeweled hands--comfortable, secure,self-satisfied, idle, always idle, always playing at the imitationgames--like their own pampered children, to be sheltered in the nurseriesof wealth their whole lives through. And not at all in bitterness, butwholly in sadness, a sense of the injustice, the unfairness of it all--asense that had been strong in me in my youth but blunted during the yearsof my busy prosperity--returned for a moment. For a moment only; my mindwas soon back to realities--to her and me--to "us." How soon it would neverbe "us" again!
"They're mama's friends," Anita was answering. "Oldish and tiresome. Whenyou leave I shall go straight on up to bed."
"I'd like to--to see your room--where you live," said I, more to myselfthan to her.
"I sleep in a bare little box," she replied with a laugh. "It's like acell. A friend of ours who has the anti-germ fad insisted on it. But mysitting-room isn't so bad."
"Langdon has the anti-germ fad," said I. She answered "Yes" after a pause,and in such a strained voice that I looked at her. A flush was just dyingout of her face. "He was the friend I spoke of," she went on.
"You know him very well?" I asked.
"We've known him--always," said she. "I think he's one of my earliestrecollections. His father's summer place and ours adjoin. And once--I guessit's the first time I remember seeing him--he was a freshman at Harvard,and he came along on a horse past the pony cart in which a groom wasdriving me. And I--I was very little then--I begged him to take me up, andhe did. I thought he was the greatest, most wonderful man that ever lived."She laughed queerly. "When I said my prayers, I used to imagine a god thatlooked like him to say them to."
I echoed her laugh heartily. The idea of Mowbray Langdon as a god struck meas peculiarly funny, though natural enough, too.
"Absurd, wasn't it?" said she. But her face was grave, and she let hercigarette die out.
"I guess you know him better than that now?"
"Yes--better," she answered, slowly and absently. "He's--anything but agod!"
"And the more fascinating on that account," said I. "I wonder why womenlike best the really bad, dangerous sort of man, who hasn't any respect forthem, or for anything."
I said this that she might protest, at least for herself. But her answerwas a vague, musing, "I wonder--I wonder."
"I'm sure _you_ wouldn't," I protested earnestly, for her.
She looked at me queerly.
"Can I never convince you that I'm just a woman?" said she mockingly. "Justa woman, and one a man with your ideas of women would fly from."
"I wish you were!" I exclaimed. "Then--I'd not find it so--so impossible togive you up."
She rose and made a slow tour of the room, halting on the rug before theclosed fireplace a few feet from me. I sat looking at her.
"I am going to give you up," I said at last.
Her eyes, staring into vacancy, grew larger and intenser with each long,deep breath she took.
"I didn't intend to say what I'm about to say--at least, not this evening,"I went on, and to me it seemed to be some other
than myself who wasspeaking. "Certain things happened down town to-day that have set me tothinking. And--I shall do whatever I can for your brother and your father.But you--you are free!"
She went to the table, stood there in profile to me, straight and slenderas a sunflower stalk. She traced the silver chasings in the lid of thecigarette box with her forefinger; then she took a cigarette and beganrolling it slowly and absently.
"Please don't scent and stain your fingers with that filthy tobacco," saidI rather harshly.
"And only this afternoon you were saying you had become reconciled to myvice--that you had canonized it along with me--wasn't that your phrase?"This indifferently, without turning toward me, and as if she were thinkingof something else.
"So I have," retorted I. "But my mood--please oblige me this once."
She let the cigarette fall into the box, closed the lid gently, leanedagainst the table, folded her arms upon her bosom and looked full at me.I was as acutely conscious of her every movement, of the very coming andgoing of the breath at her nostrils, as a man on the operating-table isconscious of the slightest gesture of the surgeon.
"You are--suffering!" she said, and her voice was like the flow of oil upona burn. "I have never seen you like this. I didn't believe you capableof--of much feeling."
I could not trust myself to speak. If Bob Corey could have looked in onthat scene, could have understood it, how amazed he would have been!
"What happened down town to-day?" she went on. "Tell me, if I may know."
"I'll tell you what I didn't think, ten minutes ago, I'd tell any humanbeing," said I. "They've got me strapped down in the press. At ten o'clockin the morning--precisely at ten--they're going to put on the screws." Ilaughed. "I guess they'll have me squeezed pretty dry before noon."
She shivered.
"So, you see," I continued, "I don't deserve any credit for giving you up.I only anticipate you by about twenty-four hours. Mine's a deathbedrepentance."
"I'd thought of that," said she reflectively. Presently she added: "Then,it is true." And I knew Sammy had given her some hint that prepared her formy confession.
"Yes--I can't go blustering through the matrimonial market," replied I."I've been thrown out. I'm a beggar at the gates."
"A beggar at the gates," she murmured.
I got up and stood looking down at her.
"Don't _pity_ me!" I said. "My remark was a figure of speech. I wantno alms. I wouldn't take even you as alms. They'll probably get me down,and stamp the life out of me--nearly. But not quite--don't you lose sightof that. They can't kill me, and they can't tame me. I'll recover, and I'llstrew the Street with their blood and broken bones."
She drew in her breath sharply.
"And a minute ago I was almost liking you!" she exclaimed.
I retreated to my chair and gave her a smile that must have been grim.
"Your ideas of life and of men are like a cloistered nun's," said I. "Ifthere are any real men among your acquaintances, you may find out someday that they're not so much like lapdogs as they pretend--and that youwouldn't like them, if they were."
"What--just what--happened to you down town to-day--after you left me?"
"A friend of mine has been luring me into a trap--why, I can't quitefathom. To-day he sprang the trap and ran away."
"A friend of yours?"
"The man we were talking about--your ex-god--Langdon."
"Langdon," she repeated, and her tone told me that Sammy knew and hadhinted to her more than I suspected him of knowing. And, with her armsstill folded, she paced up and down the room. I watched her slender feet inpale blue slippers appear and disappear--first one, then the other--at theedge of her trailing skirt.
Presently she stopped in front of me. Her eyes were gazing past me.
"You are sure it was he?" she asked.
I could not answer immediately, so amazed was I at her expression. I hadbeen regarding her as a being above and apart, an incarnation of youthand innocence; with a shock it now came to me that she was experienced,intelligent, that she understood the whole of life, the dark as fully asthe light, and that she was capable to live it, too. It was not a girl thatwas questioning me there; it was a woman.
"Yes--Langdon," I replied. "But I've no quarrel with him. My reverse isnothing but the fortune of war. I assure you, when I see him again, I'll beas friendly as ever--only a bit less of a trusting ass, I fancy. We're alot of free lances down in the Street. We fight now on one side, now on theother. We change sides whenever it's expedient; and under the code it's notnecessary to give warning. To-day, before I knew he was the assassin, I hadmade my plans to try to save myself at his expense, though I believed himto be the best friend I had down town. No doubt he's got some good reasonfor creeping up on me in the dark."
"You are sure it was he?" she repeated.
"He, and nobody else," replied I. "He decided to do me up--and I guesshe'll succeed. He's not the man to lift his gun unless he's sure the birdwill fall."
"Do you really not care any more than you show?" she asked. "Or is yourmanner only bravado--to show off before me?"
"I don't care a damn, since I'm to lose you," said I. "It'll be a godsendto have a hard row to hoe the next few months or years."
She went back to leaning against the table, her arms folded as before. Isaw she was thinking out something. Finally she said:
"I have decided not to accept your release."
I sprang to my feet.
"Anita!" I cried, my arms stretched toward her.
But she only looked coldly at me, folded her arms the more tightly andsaid:
"Do not misunderstand me. The bargain is the same as before. If you want meon those terms, I must--give myself."
"Why?" I asked.
A faint smile, with no mirth in it, drifted round the corners of her mouth.
"An impulse," she said. "I don't quite understand it myself. An impulsefrom--from--" Her eyes and her thoughts were far away, and her expressionwas the one that made it hardest for me to believe she was a child of thoseparents of hers. "An impulse from a sense of justice--of decency. I am thecause of your trouble, and I daren't be a coward and a cheat." She repeatedthe last words. "A coward--a cheat! We--I--have taken much from you, morethan you know. It must be repaid. If you still wish, I will--will keep tomy bargain."
"It's true, I'd not have got into the mess," said I, "if I'd been attendingto business instead of dangling after you. But you're not responsible forthat folly."
She tried to speak several times, before she finally succeeded in saying:
"It's my fault. I mustn't shirk."
I studied her, but I couldn't puzzle her out.
"I've been thinking all along that you were simple and transparent," Isaid. "Now, I see you are a mystery. What are you hiding from me?"
Her smile was almost coquettish as she replied:
"When a woman makes a mystery of herself to a man, it's for the man'sgood."
I took her hand--almost timidly.
"Anita," I said, "do you still--dislike me?"
"I do not--and shall not--love you," she answered. "But you are--"
"More endurable?" I suggested, as she hesitated.
"Less unendurable," she said with raillery. Then she added, "Lessunendurable than profiting by a-creeping up in the dark."
I thought I understood her better than she understood herself. And suddenlymy passion melted in a tenderness I would have said was as foreign to meas rain to a desert. I noticed that she had a haggard look. "You are verytired, child," said I. "Good night. I am a different man from what I waswhen I came in here."
"And I a different woman," said she, a beauty shining from her that was asfar beyond her physical beauty as--as love is beyond passion.
"A nobler, better woman," I exclaimed, kissing her hand.
She snatched it away.
"If you only knew!" she cried. "It seems to me, as I realize what sort ofwoman I am, that I am almost worthy of _you_!" And she blazed a loo
kat me that left me rooted there, astounded.
But I went down the avenue with a light heart. "Just like a woman," I wassaying to myself cheerfully, "not to know her own mind."
A few blocks, and I stopped and laughed outright--at Langdon's treachery,at my own credulity. "What an ass I've been making of myself!" said I tomyself. And I could see myself as I really had been during those monthsof social struggling--an ass, braying and gamboling in a lion's skin--toimpress the ladies!
"But not wholly to no purpose," I reflected, again all in a glow at thoughtof Anita.