VI
Youth suffers more than age. No blow that comes to age can be moresevere than the happening to a child which, to its elders, seems mosttrivial. Each passing year adds toughness to the human's spiritual skin.But with toughness comes loss of resiliency.
Clancy was neither seven nor seventy; she was twenty. She had not yetacquired spiritual toughness, nor had she lost childhood's resiliency.The blows that she had received in the forty-eight hours since she hadarrived in New York--the loss, as she believed, of her hoped-for career,the fear of arrest on the hideous charge of murder, and, last, though byno means least, the inability to draw upon the funds that she had soproudly deposited in the Thespian Bank--all these were enough to bendher. But not to break!
Her tears finally ceased. She had thrown herself upon the bed with anabandon that would have made an observer of the throwing think her oneentirely surrendered to despair. Yet, before this apparently desperate,hysterical hurling of her slim body upon a not too soft couch, Clancyhad carefully removed her jacket and skirt. She was not unique in thisregard for her apparel; she was simply a woman.
So, when, in the natural course of the passing hours, hunger attackedClancy, and she rose from the narrow bed that Mrs. Gerand provided forthe tenant of her "third-floor front" room, she had only to remove thetraces of tears, "fix" her hair, and don her waist and skirt to beprepared to meet the public eye.
She had been lying down for hours, alternating between impulses towardpanic and toward brazen defiance. She compromised, of course, as peoplealways compromise upon impulses, by a happy medium. She would neitherflee as far from New York as seven dollars would take her nor surrenderto the searching police. She would do as she had intended to do when shecame down, earlier in the day, to Washington Square. She would look fora job to-morrow, and as soon as she found one, she'd go to work atanything that would keep her alive until the police captured themurderer of Morris Beiner and rendered her free to resume her career.And just now she would eat.
It was already dark. Somehow, although she was positive that she couldnot have been traced to Washington Square, she had been timid aboutventuring out in the daylight. But that very darkness which bringsdisquiet to the normal person brought calmness and a sense of securityto Clancy. For she was now a different person from the girl who hadarrived in New York from Zenith two days before. She was now that socialabnormality--a person sought by the officers of justice. Her innocenceof any wrong-doing in no way restored her to normality.
So, instead of a frank-eyed girl, fresh from the damp breezes of Zenith,it was an almost furtive-eyed girl that entered the Trevor, shortlyafter six o'clock, and, carrying an evening paper that she had acquiredat the news-stand, sat down at a table in the almost vacant dining-room.Her step was faltering and her glance wary. It is fear that changescharacter, not sin.
She had entered the down-stairs dining-room of the Trevor, that hotelwhich once catered to the French residents of New York, but that now isthe most prominent resort of the Greenwich Village bohemian ornear-bohemian. It held few guests now. It was the hour between tea anddinner.
Clancy looked hastily over the menu that the smiling, courteous captainof waiters handed her. With dismay, she saw that the Trevor chargedprices that were staggering to a person with only seven dollars in theworld. Nevertheless, the streak of stubbornness in Clancy made her fightdown the impulse to leave the place. She would not confess, byimplication, to any waiter that she had not money enough to eat in hisrestaurant.
So she ordered the cheapest things on the menu. A veal cutlet, breaded,cost ninety-five cents; a glass of milk, twenty; a baked potato,twenty-five; bread and butter, ten. One dollar and a half for a mealthat could have been bought in Bangor for half the money.
The evening paper had a column, surmounted by a scare-head half a pagewide, about the Beiner murder. Clancy shivered apprehensively. But therewas nothing in the feverish, highly adjectived account to indicate thatFlorine Ladue had been identified as the woman for whom Beiner had madethe engagement with Hildebloom, of the Rosebush studios. Clancy threwcare from her shoulders. She would be cautious, yes; but fearful--no!This, after she had eaten a few mouthfuls of the veal cutlet and drunkhalf of her glass of milk. A full stomach brings courage.
She turned the pages of the newspaper and found the "Help Wanted" page.It was encouraging to note that scores of business firms neededstenographers. She folded the paper carefully for later study andresumed her dinner. Finished, finally, she reached for the paper. And,for the first time, she became conscious that a couple across the roomwas observing her closely.
Courage fled from her. A glimmering of what her position would continueto be until her relation to the Beiner murder was definitely and for alltime settled flashed through her brain. She would be always afraid.
She had not paid her check. Otherwise, she would have fled the room.Then she stiffened, while, mechanically, she returned David Randall'sbow.
What ill fate had sent her to this place? Then, as Randall, havingflashed her a smile that showed a row of extremely white although ratherlarge teeth, turned to the woman with whom he was dining, Clancy'scourage raced back to her.
What on earth was there to be nervous about? Why should this young man,whose knowledge of her was confined to the fact that, two nights ago, hehad conveyed her in his runabout from somewhere on Park Avenue to theNapoli, cause her alarm? She forced herself to glance again in Randall'sdirection.
But the woman interested Clancy more than the young man who hadintroduced himself two nights ago as David Randall. A blonde, withreddish brown hair, most carefully combed, with a slightly tilted noseand a mouth that turned up at the corners, she was, Clancy conceded, farabove the average in good looks. She was dressed for the evening. Twodays ago, Clancy would have thought that only a woman of loose moralswould expose so much back. But an evening spent at the Chateau de laReine had taught her that New York women exposed their backs, if theexposure were worth while. This one was. And the severe lines of herblack gown set off the milky whiteness of her back.
Her eyes were envious as the woman, with a word to Randall, rose. Shelowered them as the woman approached her table. Then she started andpaled. For the woman had stopped before her.
"This is Sophie Carey," she said.
Clancy looked up at her blankly. Behind her blank expression, fearrioted. The other woman smiled down upon her.
"I have been dining," she said, "with a most impetuous young man. He hastold me of a somewhat unconventional meeting with you, and he wishes meto expurgate from that meeting everything that is socially sinful. Inother words, he pays me the doubtful compliment of thinking me agedenough to throw a halo of respectability about any action of his--ormine--or yours. Will you let me present him to you?"
Back in Zenith, no one had ever spoken to Clancy like this. She wassuddenly a little girl. New York was big and menacing. This woman seemedfriendly, gracious, charming. She had about her something that Clancycould not define, and which was cosmopolitanism, worldliness.
"Why--why--it's awfully kind of you----"
The woman turned. One hand rested on the table--her left hand. Awedding-ring was on it, and Clancy somehow felt relieved. With her righthand, Mrs. Carey beckoned Randall. He was on his feet and at Clancy'stable in a moment.
"This," said Mrs. Carey, "is David Randall. He is twenty-nine years old;his father was for three terms congressman from Ohio. David is a broker;he was worth, the last time he looked at the ticker, four hundred andninety thousand dollars. He plays a good game of golf and a poor game oftennis. He claims that he is a good shot, but he can't ride a horse. He_can_ run a motor-car, but he doesn't know anything about a catboat."
"I could teach him that," laughed Clancy. Mrs. Carey's nonsense put herat her ease. And all fear of Randall had vanished before he had reachedthe table. How _could_ he know anything of her and her connection witheither Zenda or Beiner?
Randall held out a very large hand.
"You sail a boat, Miss--" He pa
used confusedly.
"Deane," said Clancy. She had thought, when she left Zenith, to haveleft forever behind her the name of Deane. Ladue was the name underwhich she had intended to climb the heights. "Yes, indeed, I can sail aboat."
"You'll teach me?" asked Randall.
Mrs. Carey laughed.
"Lovely weather for boating, David. Where do you do your sailing, MissDeane?"
"Zenith Harbor. It's in Maine," said Clancy.
"But you don't live in Maine!" cried Randall.
Mrs. Carey laughed again.
"Don't be misled by his frank eyes and his general expression of innatenobility and manliness, Miss Deane. That agony in his voice, which haslured so many young girls to heartbreak, means nothing at all exceptthat he probably had an Irish grandmother. He really isn't worried aboutyour living in Maine. He feels that, no matter where you live, he canpersuade you to move to New York. And I hope he can."
Her last five words were uttered with a cordiality that won Clancy'sheart. And then she colored for having, even for the minutest fractionof a second, taken Mrs. Carey's words seriously. Was she, Clancy Deane,lacking in a sense of humor?
"Thank you," she said. Then, "I have an Irish grandfather myself," sheadded slyly.
Mrs. Carey's face assumed an expression of sorrow.
"Oh, David, David! When you picked up a lone and lorn young lady in yourmotor-car, mayhap you picked up revenge for a score of sad damsels whowere happy till they met you." She smiled down at Clancy. "If the highgods of convention are wrathful at me, perhaps some other gods willforgive me. Anyway, I'm sure that David will. And perhaps, after you'vehad a cup of tea with me, you'll forgive me, too. For if you don't likeDavid, you're sure to like me."
"I know that," said Clancy.
Indeed, she already liked Mrs. Carey. Perhaps the sight of thewedding-ring on Mrs. Carey's left hand made for part of the liking.Still, that was ridiculous. She hardly knew this Randall person.
"I leave you in better company, David," said Mrs. Carey. "No, my dearboy; I wouldn't be so cruel as to make you take me to the door. The caris outside. You stay here and improve upon the introduction that I,without a jealous bone in my body--well, without jealousy I haveacquainted myself with Miss Deane, and then passed on the acquaintanceto you." She lifted her slim hand. "No; I insist that you remain here."She smiled once more at Clancy. "Did you notice that I used the word'insist'?" She leaned over and whispered. "To save my pride, my harshand bitter pride, Miss Deane, don't forget to come to tea."
And then Clancy was left alone with Randall.