CHAPTER VIII.
A PARLEY AND A PRAYER.
May was close upon the heels of June before there came a change, but oneafternoon, as Andrew paused in his playing, an atmosphere of newintimacy seemed to touch him. He had been alone with Margery for half anhour, and something in the music--or was it only fancy?--told him thather thoughts were occupied with him. She had greeted him with a littleair of weariness--but not unfriendly--and, as he took her hand, shelooked at him with some indefinite question in her eyes. The impressionmade by this gained on him as they talked, and, more strongly, as heplayed. Once or twice he was upon the point of turning abruptly andseeking the clue, but he had been so long perplexed, so long uncertain,that he hesitated still. If only she would give him an opening, if shewould but come, as she had often come at Beverly, to lean above him,humming the words of some song into which he had unconsciously drifted,then had he had the courage to turn, to grip her hands, to ask her....
"I wonder if we would, even if we could," she said.
"What?" asked Andrew.
"How should you be expected to know? I've been a thousand milesaway--thinking of Omar. I mean whether we would 'shatter it to bits, andthen remould it nearer to the heart's desire.'"
Andrew swung round on the piano-stool, slowly chafing his palmstogether. He did not dare trust himself to look at her. For the firsttime since they had met in Paris, he caught an echo of the old life inher tone.
"I wonder if we could, even if we would," he answered. "I thinkso--perhaps. Whatever set you thinking about that?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Margery, with a short laugh. "Sometimes,in my own little way, I'm quite a philosopher! I was just thinking thatif any of us were given the chance to change things--everything--shatter'the sorry scheme of things' into bits, as Omar says--we should perhapsmake an equally sorry bungle of the task of reconstruction. We're alwayssaying 'If!' but when it actually came to the point, do you suppose we'dreally want anything to be different?"
Again that singular, appealing query in her eyes. It was the old Margeryat last, simple, serious, and candid. There was a responsive light inAndrew's face as he replied:
"Some things, no doubt. I don't think I could suggest a desirable changein you--except one. Will you let me tell you?"
Margery nodded.
"It's more of a restoration than a change," continued Andrew. "I'd liketo see you, in every respect, precisely as you were at Beverly."
"And am I not? A little older, of course, and bound to be moredignified, as becomes a young woman in society; but for the rest, I'd besorry to think you find a change in me."
Andrew wheeled back to the piano, and refingered a few chords.
"Now that you've seen the world," he said presently, "tell me whatpleases you most in life."
And he faced her again, smiling.
"Motion!" replied Margery promptly. "I can't explain that, but I knowit's so. Motion! I don't care what kind, just so long as it shows thatthe world is alive and happy. I love to see things run and leap--a man,or a horse, or a dog. I love the surf, the trees in a wind; allevidences of strength, of activity, of--well, of _life_ in every and anyform. Not so much dancing. That always seems to me to be a forced, anartificial kind of movement, unless it's _very_ smoothly done--and youknow, almost every one hops! But I could watch swimming and driving androwing for hours, and, for that matter, any outdoor sport--racing,football, lacrosse--anything which gives one the idea that men are gladto be alive!"
"How curious!" said Andrew.
"Curious? Why?"
"Because that's a man's point of view, not a girl's. I ask you whatpleases you most in life, and I expect that you're going to say music,or flowers, or the play. Instead, you cut out remorselessly everythingwhich one naturally associates with a woman's way of amusing herself,and give me an answer which sounds as if it came from one of the lads atSt. Paul's. That's the way they used to talk, exactly. It was all rush,vim, get-up-and-get-out, with them. If you know what I mean, theybreathed so hard and talked so fast that it always seemed to me as ifthey'd just come in from running in a high wind."
"Yes," agreed Margery, with a nod. "I know. That's what I like. That'swhat I call the glad-to-be-alive atmosphere."
There fell a little silence. Andrew's fine eyes were tiptoeing frompoint to point of the big, over-furnished _salon_ with a kind of amazeddisgust. He had not known that there were so many hideous things in theworld. Madame Palffy worshipped at the twin altars of velvet and giltpaint. Much of what now encumbered the room and smote the eye had beenpicked up in Venice, at the time of her ponderous honeymoon with theapoplectic Palffy. That was twenty years before, when the _calle_ backof the Piazza were filled with those incalculable treasures of tapestry,carved wood, and ivory now in the _palazzi_ of rich Venetians--if,indeed, they are not in Cluny. But the Palffys were as stupid as theywere pompous. They moved heavily round and round the Piazza, andfurnished their prospective _salon_ out of the front windows of smirkingcharlatans. The irreparable and damning results of their selection, asAndrew now surveyed them, had been modified--or, more exactly,exaggerated--by the subsequent purchases of two decades in theflamboyant bazars of the Friedrichs Strasse, in the "art departments" ofthe big shops on Regent and Oxford streets, and in the degenerategalleries of the Palais Royal. Madame Palffy's idea of statuary was awhite marble greyhound asleep upon a cushion of red _sarrancolin_: andher taste ran to Bohemian glass, to onyx vases, and to plaques withbroad borders of patterned gilt, enclosing heads of simpering Neapolitangirls--these last to hang upon the wall. There were spindle-leggedchairs, with backs like golden harps, and seats of brocade whereinsalmon-pink and turquoise-blue wrestled for supremacy; and in front ofthe huge mantel (logically decked with a red lambrequin) there was avelvet ottoman in the form of a mushroom, whereon when Monsieur Palffysat, his resemblance to a suffocating frog became absolutely startling.The rest of the furniture was so massive as to suggest that it couldhave been moved to its present position by no agency less puissant thana glacier, and, for the most part, the upholstery was tufted, and sotightly stuffed that one slid about on the chairs and sofas as if theyhad been varnished. The room contained four times as much of everythingas was appropriate or even decent, and this gave all the furnishings theair of being on exhibition and for sale. One's imagination, however, wasnot apt to embrace the possibility, under any conceivablecircumstances, of voluntary purchase.
Presently Andrew's eyes came back to Margery. It was evident that shehad been watching him: for she smiled whimsically.
"Well?" she suggested.
"Can you guess what I was thinking?" he asked, with a slightlyembarrassed laugh.
"In part, I imagine," said Margery. "Wasn't it something like this:that, as a matter of fact, I _have_ pretty well shattered my scheme ofthings to bits and remoulded it--and that the new arrangement is notaltogether a success?"
"I don't seem to see you in these surroundings," returned Andrewevasively. "At Beverly you seemed to 'belong': you were all of a piecewith the life. Here--well, it's different. That was why I asked you thatquestion, and that was why I thought there was something about you whichI wanted to see changed--or restored. You know we used to be very openwith each other, very good friends in every sense of the word; but nowsomething's come between us. I've felt it all along, and I thoughtperhaps it was that you'd stopped caring for the things that used tomean most to you, that new interests, and perhaps your success and thecompliments that people pay you, had cut the old ties, and that you hadnew ideas and ideals. I've felt--I've felt, Miss Palffy, that I'dforfeited even the small place I had in your life. You've been holdingme at a distance, haven't you? I've thought so. I asked you thatquestion to see if I was right or wrong, and to my surprise I find thatyou are apparently the same as ever. You still love all that made thesympathy between us. Well, then, the fault must be in me. Tell me: whathave I done, that you treat me almost as a stranger?"
"I'm sorry, very sorry," said Margery earnestly. "If I've given you a
nysuch impression, believe me, it was quite without reason or evenintention. I've always looked upon you as one of my best friends.Surely, I've not been holding you at a distance: that must have been afancy of yours. You must know that you're always welcome here, that I'malways glad to see you. Please believe that."
But the little restraint was there!
"I can't quite explain what I mean," said Andrew. "You see, Paris is aqueer sort of place. It upsets all one's notions. There's so much that'sstrange and interesting and new all about us that we're apt to find theold things growing dim. I know, in my own case, that I'm wiser for thesefew weeks, and perhaps"--he laughed unevenly--"sadder! Forgive me forthinking that it might have been the same with you. This big city is sofull of fascinations of one sort or another, that one can hardly beblamed if one is distracted at the first. Until I saw you that Sunday atMrs. Carnby's, I'd never realized what a difference a few months mightmake. Your voice brought back--a lot! I forgot that it was all in thepast, that we couldn't pick up things as they were in Beverly--thesailing, the bathing, the horseback rides, the golf, and all the rest.Those months had made you a woman and me a man. Much that we used to doand say was done and said and finished with forever. But I _did_ hopethat the spirit of the thing would remain, that we'd 'grown parallel toeach other,' as Mrs. Carnby says, and that we'd be nearer together,instead of farther apart, for the separation. But no! It isn't a fancyon my part. There's something changed. Do you remember Wordsworth?'There hath passed away a glory from the earth'--and, Miss Palffy, therehas, there _has_! I know I'm not wrong--something's come between us, andthat something is just what I've said--Paris! Isn't it?"
"Yes!" she answered, with her eyes on his.
But Andrew Vane, the blind, did not understand.
Margery rose, almost with a shudder, crossed the room, and stood at thewindow opening upon the balcony. Below, a whirling stream of cabs, boundin from Longchamp, split around the island in the centre of the _place_,merged again upon the opposite side, and went rocking and rattling on,up the Avenue Victor Hugo, toward the Arc. In curious contrast to thiscontinuous and flippant clatter, the harsh bell of St. Honore d'Eylauwas striking six.
"I hate it!" said the girl. "I couldn't attempt to make you understandhow I loathe Paris, and how home-sick for America I am. Here--I can'texpress it, but the shallowness and the insincerity and the--theimmorality of these people gets into one's blood. It's all pretence,sham, and heartless, cynical impurity. At first I didn't see it--Ididn't understand. I was dazzled with the lights, and the fountains, andthe gaiety. I was lonely--yes: but when I remembered all there was tosee and do, remembered that here is the best in art and music and whatnot, I thought I should be happy. But it's the beauty of a tropicalswamp, Mr. Vane--there's poison in the air! You wouldn't think I'd feelthat, would you?--but I do. It's all around me. I can't shut it out. Imeet it here, there--everywhere. It sickens me. It chokes me. It's justas if something that I couldn't fight against, that was bound to conquerme in the end, struggle as I might, were trying to rob me of all mybeliefs, and ideals, and trust in the honour of men and the goodness ofwomen. I hate it! I'd give--oh, what _wouldn't_ I give!--to be back inAmerica, on the good, clean North Shore, where things--where things are_straight_!"
She turned upon him suddenly, her eyes full of a strange trouble thatwas almost fear.
"Do you see?" she added.
"Yes," said Andrew slowly. "I think I see. That's what I meant; that'show I thought you would feel. I'm sorry. You're right, of course: Parisis no place for a girl--like you."
"It's no place for any one who loves what's clean and decent," saidMargery hotly. "It's no place for a _man_! I'm not supposed to know, amI, about such things? And perhaps I don't. I couldn't tell you exactlywhat I mean, even if I wanted to. But I feel it here." She laid her handupon her throat. "I feel the danger that I can't describe. It stranglesme. I'm afraid. I'm afraid for its influence upon any one for whom--forwhom I might care. I'm afraid for myself. It's nothing definite, yousee, and that's just where it seems to me to be so dangerous. Do youremember when we were reading Tennyson at Beverly--'The Lotus Eaters'?"
She paused for an instant, and then, looking away from him again,recited the lines:
"'For surely now our household hearths are cold: Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Or else the island princes over-bold Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings, Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things, Is there confusion in the little isle? Let what is broken so remain.'"
There was something in her voice more eloquent than the music of thewords. Andrew came forward a step, as if he would have touched her, butshe looked up and met his eyes.
"And you're afraid--?" he began.
"I'm afraid," she answered, "that we've come to a land where it seemsalways afternoon; and that if we don't take heed, my friend, we may notfight a good fight, we may not keep the faith."
She made an odd little weary gesture.
"Will you play some of the 'Garden' now?" she asked. "I think I shouldlike it. I'm just the least bit blue."
Andrew hesitated, but the words he wanted would not come. He turned backto the piano, fingered the music doubtfully for a moment, and then beganto play. There was no need to voice the words. They both knew them well,and they fitted, as, somehow, the verse of Omar has a knack of doing.
"Strange, is it not, that of the myriads who Before us passed the Door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the Road Which to discover we must travel too."
"I'm glad I know you," he broke in impulsively, with his fingers on thekeys. "You're a good friend."
Margery made no reply.
"My grandfather, who's the best old chap in all the world," continuedAndrew, playing the following crescendo softly, "is the only otherperson of whom I can feel that as you make me feel it. He always callsme 'Andy.' I rather like that silly little name. I wonder--"
He swung round, facing her.
"I think we're both of us a trifle homesick, Miss Palffy. I wonder ifyou'd mind--calling me--that?"
He looked down for a second, and in that second Margery Palffy moistenedher lips. When she spoke, it seemed to her that her voice sounded harshand dry.
"I shall be very glad, if you wish it--Andy."
"Thank you. And I--?"
"If you like--yes. After all, as you say, we're friends--and a littlehomesick."
"Thank you, Margery."
Andrew resumed his playing, turning a few pages.
"Ah, Love, could you and I with Fate conspire To grasp the sorry scheme of things entire, Would we not shatter it to bits--and then Remould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!"
Behind him, the girl, unseen, unheard, was whispering a word for everychord. Once, her hand went out toward the smooth, close-cropped head,bent in eager attention above the score.
"Ah, Love!" said the music.
"Ah, love!" whispered Margery Palffy.
"What a _lot_ there is in this!" exclaimed Andrew, crashing into twosharps.
"Yes."
Once more, to Margery, her voice seemed cold and hard.
"The good old days at Beverly--what?" said Andrew.
"Yes."
Andrew dawdled with the _andante_.
"Ah, Moon of my Delight, that knows no wane--"
"I must be going," he said, and rose to take her hand.
"I wonder," he added, retaining it, "if you know that I would give theworld to ask you just one question--and be certain of the answer?"
"Not now," said Margery steadily, "not now, please. I have many thingsto think of. Listen. I'm going down to Poissy--to the Carnbys',to-morrow. I know they mean to ask you over Sunday; and then, my friend,you can ask me--whatever you will. No, please. Good-by."
From the window she watched him stroll across to the little island inthe centre of the _place_, there pause to await the coming of t
he tram,and then, mounting to the _imperiale_, light a cigarette. Presently,with hee-hawing of its donkey-horn, the tram swerved into the avenueagain.
The girl leaned her cheek against the heavy curtain. The tram dwindledinto the distance--toward the Arc--toward the brilliant centre ofParis--toward danger! Then, in a still small voice, she prayed:
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who--who trespassagainst us. And lead us--lead us not into temptation: but deliver usfrom evil...."