Who Cares? A Story of Adolescence

  II

  Gilbert Palgrave turned back to his dressing table. An hour gave himample time to get ready.

  "Don't let that bath get cold," he said. "And look here. You may takethose links out. I'll wear the pearls instead."

  The small, eel-like Japanese murmured sibilantly and disappeared intothe bathroom.

  This virginal girl, who imagined herself able to play with fire withoutburning her fingers, was providing him with most welcome amusement. Andhe needed it. He had been considerably bored of late--always adangerous mood for him to fall into. He was thirty-one. For ten yearshe had paid far more than there had been any necessity to keepconstantly amused, constantly interested. Thanks to a shrewd ancestorwho had bought large tracts of land in a part of Manhattan which hadthen been untouched by bricks and mortar, and to others, equallyshrewd, who had held on and watched a city spreading up the Island likea mustard plant, he could afford whatever price he was asked to pay.Whole blocks were his where once the sheep had grazed.

  Ingenuity to spend his income was required of Palgrave. He possessedthat gift to an expert degree. But he was no easy mark, no meredegenerate who hacked off great chunks of a splendid fortune for thesake of violent exercise. He was too indolent for violence, tooinherently fastidious for degeneracy. And deep down somewhere in anature that had had no incentive to develop, there was the fag end ofthat family shrewdness which had made the early Palgraves envied andmaligned. Tall and well built, with a handsome Anglo-Saxon type offace, small, soft, fair mustache, large, rather bovine gray eyes, and adeep cleft in his chin, he gave at first sight an impression ofstrength--which left him, however, when he spoke to pretty women. Itwas not so much the things he said,--light, jesting, personalthings,--as the indications they gave of the overweening vanity of thespoiled boy and of a brain which occupied itself merely with the fluffand thistledown of life. He was, and he knew it and made no effort todisguise the fact, a typical specimen of the very small class ofindolent bystanders made rich by the energy of other men who are to befound in every country. He was, in fact, the peculiar type ofaristocrat only to be found in a democracy--the aristocrat not of bloodand breeding or intellect, but of wealth. He was utterly without anyambition to shine either in social life or politics, or to achieveadvertisement by the affectation of a half-genuine interest in anycause. On the contrary, he reveled in being idle and indifferent, andunlike the aristocrats of Europe he refused to catch that archaichabit, encouraged at Eton and Oxford, of relating everything in theuniverse to the standards and prejudices of a single class.

  Palgrave was triumphantly one-eyed and selfish; but he waited, with asort of satirical wistfulness, for the time when some one person shouldcause him to stand eager and startled in a chaos of individualism andindolence and shake him into a Great Emotion. He had looked for her atall times and places, though without any troublesome optimism orpersonal energy, and had almost come to believe that she was to himwhat the end of the rainbow is to the idealist. In marrying Alice hehad followed the path of least resistance. She was young, pretty andcharming, and had been very much in love with him. Also it pleased hismother, and she had been worth pleasing. He gave his wife all that shecould possibly need, except very much of himself. She was a perfectlydear little soul.

  Joan only kept him waiting about fifteen minutes. With perfect patiencehe stood in front of an Italian mirror in the drawing-room, smoking acigarette through a long tortoise-shell holder. He regarded himselfwith keen and friendly interest, not in the least surprised that hiswife's little friend from the country so evidently liked him. He foundthat he looked up to his best form, murmured a word of praise for themanner in which his evening coat was cut and smiled once or twice inorder to have the satisfaction of getting a glimpse of his peculiarlygood teeth. Then he laughed, called himself a conceited ass and wentover to examine a rather virile sketch of a muscular, deep-chestedyoung man in rowing costume which occupied an inconspicuous place amongmany well-chosen pictures. He recognized Martin, whom he had seenseveral times following the hounds, and tried to remember if Alice hadtold him whether Joan had run away with this strenuous young fellow orbeen run away with by him. There was much difference between the twomethods.

  He heard nothing, but caught the scent of Peau d'Espagne. It carriedhis mind back to a charming little suite in the Hotel de Crillon inParis. He turned and found Joan standing in the doorway, watching him.

  "Did you ever row?" she asked.

  "No," he said, "never. Too much fag. I played squash and roulette. Youlook like a newly risen moon in her first quarter. Where would you liketo go?"

  "I don't know," said Joan. "Let's break away from the conventionalplaces. I rather want to see queer people and taste different food. Butdon't let's discuss it. I leave it to you." She went downstairs. Shemight have been living in that house for years.

  He followed, admiring the way her small, patrician head was set on hershoulders, and the rich brown note of her hair. Extraordinary littleperson, this! He told his chauffeur to drive to the Brevoort, and gotinto the car. It was possible at that hour to deal with the Avenue as astreet and not as a rest-cure interrupted by short spurts.

  "Would you rather the windows were up, Gehane?" he asked, looking ather through his long lashes.

  "No. The air's full of new ferns. But why Gehane?"

  "You remind me of her, and I'm pretty certain that you also could doyour hair in the same two long braids. Given the chance, I can see youdeveloping into some-thing like medievalism and joining the ranks ofwomen who loved greatly."

  They passed the Plaza with all its windows gleaming, like a giant'shouse in a fairy tale.

  Joan shook her head. "No," she said. "No. I'm just the last word ofthis very minute. Everybody in America for a hundred and fifty yearshas worked to make me. I'm the reward of mighty effort. I'm thedream-child of the pioneers, as far removed from them as the chimney ofthe highest building from the rock on which it's rooted."

  Palgrave laughed a little. "It appears that you did some thinking outthere in your country cage."

  "Thinking! That's all I had to do! I spent a lifetime standing on thehill with the woods behind me trying to catch the music of this street,the sound of this very car, and I thought it all out, every bit of it."

  "Every bit of what?"

  "Life and death and the great hereafter," she said, "principally life.That's why I'm going out to dinner with you instead of going early tobed."

  The glare of a lamp silvered her profile and the young curve of herbosom. Somewhere, at some time, Palgrave had knelt humbly, with strangeanguish and hunger, at the feet of a girl with just that young proudface and those unawakened eyes. The memory of it was like an echo of anecho.

  "Why," said Joan, halting for a moment on her way to the steps of theold hotel, "this looks like a picture postcard of a bit of Paris."

  "Yes, on the other side of the Seine, near the Odeon. Our grandfathersimagined that they were very smart when they stayed here. It's one ofthe few places in town that has atmosphere."

  "I like it," said Joan.

  The hall was alive with people, laughing and talking, and the wallswith the rather bold designs of the posters. A band, which made up invim and go what it lacked in numbers, was playing a selection from "TheChocolate Soldier." The place was full of the smell of garlic andcigarette smoke and coffee. There was a certain dramatic animationamong the waiters, characteristically Latin. Few of the diners woreevening clothes. The walls were refreshingly free from the hideous golddecorations of the average hotel.

  Men stared at Joan with undisguised interest and approbation. Hervirginity was like the breath of spring in the room. Women looked afterPalgrave in the same way. Into that semi-Bohemianism he struck a rathersurprising note, like the sudden advent of caviar and champagne upon atable of beer and pickles.

  They were given a table near the wall by the window, far too close toother tables for complete comfort. Waiters were required to be gymnaststo slide between them and avoid an accident. Palgra
ve ordered withoutany hesitation, like a newspaper man finding his way through a dailypaper.

  "How do you like it?" he said.

  Joan looked about her. Mostly the tables were occupied by a man and awoman, but at a few were four and six of both in equal numbers, andhere and there parties of men. At one or two, women with eccentricheads sat together in curious garments which had the appearance ofbeing made at home on the spur of the moment. They smoked betweenmouthfuls and laughed without restraint. Some of the men wore longishhair and the double tie of those who wish to be mistaken fordramatists. Others affected a poetic disarrangement of collar, andfantastic beards. There were others who had wandered over the border ofmiddle age and who were bald and strangely adipose, with mackerel eyesand unpleasant mouths. They were with young girls, gaudily but shabbilydressed, shopgirls perhaps, or artists' models or stenographers, who indull and sordid lives grappled any chance to obtain a square meal, evenif it had to be accessory to such companionship. The minority of menpresent was made up of honest, clean, commonplace citizens who werethere for a good dinner in surroundings that offered a certain stimulusto the imagination.

  "Who are they all?" asked Joan, beating time with a finger to thelilting tune which the little band had just begun, with obviousenjoyment. "Adventurers, mostly, I imagine," replied Palgrave, notunpleased to play Baedeker to a girl who was becoming more and moreattractive to him. "I mean people who live by their wits--writers,illustrators, actors, newspaper men, with a smattering of Wall Streetbrokers seeking a little mild diversion as we are, and foreigners towhom this place has a sentimental interest because it reminds them ofhome. Sophisticated children, most of them, optimists with moments ofhideous pessimism, enthusiasts at various stages of Parnassus, the peakof which is lighted with a huge dollar sign. A friendly, kindly lot,hard-working and temperamental, with some brilliance and a rather highlevel of cleverness--slaves of the magazine, probably, and thereforenot able to throw stones farther into the future than the end of themonth. This is not a country in which literature and art can ever growbig; the cost of living is too high. The modern Chatterton detestsgarrets and must drive something with an engine in it, whatever thename it goes by."

  There was one electrical moment during the next hour which shook thecomplacency of every one in the larger room and forced the thoughts,even of those who deliberately turned their backs to the drama ofEurope, out across the waters which they fondly and fatuously hoped cutoff the United States from ever being singed by the blaze. The littleband was playing one of those rather feeble descriptive pieces whichbegin with soft, peaceful music with the suggestion of the life of afarmyard, and the sound of church bells, swing into the approach ofarmed men with shrill bugle calls, become chaotic with the rush offearful women and children, and the commencement of heavy artillery,and wind up with the broad triumphant strains of a national anthem. Ithappened, naturally enough, that the particular national anthem chosenby the energetic and patriotic man who led the band at the piano was"The Marseillaise."

  The incessant chatter and laughter went on as usual. The music had nomore effect upon the closely filled room than a hackneyed ragtime.Suddenly, as the first few notes of that immortal air rang out, alittle old white-haired man, dining in a corner with a much-bosomed,elderly woman, sprang to his feet and in a voice vibrating with thefervor of emotion screamed "Vive la France--vive la patrie!" again andagain.

  Instantly, from here and there, other men, stout and middle-aged,lifted out of their chairs by this intense and beautiful burst offeeling, joined in that old heart-cry, and for two or three shatteringminutes the air was rent with hoarse shouts of "Vive Joffre," "Vive laFrance," "Vive la patrie," to the louder and louder undercurrent ofmusic. Indifference, complacency, neutrality, gave way. There was ageneral uprising and uproar; and America, as represented by that ollapodrida of the professions, including the one which is the oldest inthe world, paid homage and tribute and yelled sympathy to those fewFrenchmen among them whose passionate love of country found almosthysterical vent at the sound of the hymn which had stirred all Franceto a height of bravery and sacrifice never before reached in thehistory of nations.

  There were one or two hisses and several scoffing laughs, but thesewere instantly drowned by vigorous hand-clapping. The next moment theroom resumed its normal appearance.

  When Palgrave, who had been surprised to find himself on his feet, satdown again, he saw that Joan's lips were trembling and that there weretears in her eyes. He gave a little laugh, but before he could say anything, her hand was on his arm. "No, don't," she said. "Let it gowithout a single word. It was too good for sarcasm."

  "Oddly enough, I had no sarcasm ready," replied Palgrave. "When ourtime comes, I wonder whether we shall have an eightieth part of thatenthusiasm for our little old tune. What do you think?"

  "Our time? What time?"

  "The time when we have to get into this melee or become the pariah dogamong countries. I don't profess to any knowledge of internationalaffairs, but any fool can see that our sham neutrality will be the mostcostly piece of political blundering ever perpetrated in history. Herewe are in 1915. The war's nine months old. For every day we stand asidewe shall eventually pay a year's bill."

  "That's all too deep for me," said Joan. "And anyway, I shan't be askedto pay anything. What shall we do now?"

  "What would you like to do? Go on to the Ritz and dance?" He had asudden desire to hold this girl in his arms.

  "Why not? I'm on the verge of getting fed up with this place. Let'sgive civilization a turn."

  "I think so." He beckoned to his waiter. "The check," he said. "Sharp'sthe word, please."

  The Crystal Room was not content with one band. Even musicians mustsometimes pause for breath, and anything like a break in the jangle andnoise might bring depression to the diners who had crowded in to dance.As soon, therefore, as the left band was exhausted, the one on theright sprang in with renewed and feverish energy. Whatever melody theremight have been in the incessant ragtime and fox trots was lost beneaththe bang and clang of drum and cymbals, to which had been added othermore ingenious ear tortures in the shape of rattles and whistles.Broken-collared men and faded women struggled for elbow room like amass of flies caught on sticky paper. There was something bothheathenish and pathetic in the whole thing. The place was reekingly hot.

  "Come on," said Joan, her blood stirred by the movement and sound.

  Palgrave held her close and edged his way into the crowd betweenpointed bare elbows and tightly clasped hands.

  "They call this dancing!" he said.

  "What do you call it?"

  "A bullfight in Hades." And he laughed and put his cheek against herhair and held her young slim body against his own. What did he carewhat it was or where they were? He had all the excuse that he needed toget the sense and scent of her. His utter distaste of being bruised andbumped, and of adding himself to a heterogeneous collection of peoplewith no more individuality than sheep, who followed each other fromplace to place in flocks after the manner of sheep, left him. This girlwas something more than a young, naive creature from the country,childishly keen to do everything and go everywhere at feverheat--something more than the very epitome of triumphant youth as cleanand sweet as apple blossoms, with whom to flirt and pose as being theblase man of the world, the Mr. Know-All of civilization, a wild flowerin a hot house. Attracted at once by her exquisite coloring anddelicious profile, and amused by her imperative manner and intolerantpoint of view, he had now begun to be piqued and intrigued by herinsurgent way of treating marriage and of ignoring her husband--by herassumption of sexlessness and the fact that she was unmoved by hiscompliments and looked at him with eyes in which there was no remotesuggestion of physical interest.

  And it was this attitude, new to him hitherto on his easy way, thatbegan to challenge him, to stir in him a desire to bring her down tohis own level, to make her fall in love and become what he calledhuman. He had given her several evenings, and had put himself out tocater to her eager
demand to see life and burn the night away in crowdsand noise. He had treated her, this young, new thing, as he was in thehabit of treating any beautiful woman with whom he was on the verge ofan affair and who realized the art of give and take. But more than evershe conveyed the impression of sex detachment to which he was whollyunaccustomed. He might have been any inarticulate lad of her own age,useful as a companion, to be ordered to fetch and carry, dance or walk,go or come. At that moment there was no woman in the city for whom hewould undergo the boredom and the bruising and the dementia of such aplace as the one to which she had drawn him. He was not a provincialwho imagined that it was the smart thing to attend this dull orgy andstruggle on a polished floor packed as in a sardine tin. Years ago hehad outgrown cabaret mania and recovered from the fascination ofsyncopation. And yet here he was, once more, against all hisfastidiousness, playing the out-of-town lad to a girl who tookeverything and gave nothing in return. It was absurd, fantastic. He wasGilbert Palgrave, the man who picked and chose, for whose attentionsmany women would give their ears, who stood in satirical aloofness fromthe general ruck; and as he held Joan in his arms and made sporadicefforts to dance whenever there was a few inches of room in which to doso, using all his ingenuity to dodge the menace of the elbows and feetof people who pushed and forced as though they were in a subway crush,he told himself that he would make it his business from that momentonward to lay siege to Joan, apply to her all his well-proved gifts ofattraction and eventually make her pay his price for services rendered.

  He had just arrived at this cold-blooded determination when, to hiscomplete astonishment and annoyance, a strong, muscular form thrustitself roughly between himself and Joan and swept her away.