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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11875-0.txt b/11875-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..924d675 --- /dev/null +++ b/11875-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4159 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11875 *** + +THE BLOOD RED DAWN + +by + +CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIE + +1920 + + + + + + + +To My Mother + + + + + +Book I + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The pastor's announcement had been swallowed up in a hum of truant +inattention, and as the heralded speaker made his appearance upon the +platform Claire Robson, leaning forward, said to her mother: + +"What?... Did you catch his name?" + +"A foreigner of some sort!" replied Mrs. Robson, with smug sufficiency. + +For a moment the elder woman's sneer dulled the edge of Claire's +anticipations, but presently the man began to speak, and at once she +felt a sense of power back of his halting words, a sudden bursting fort +of bloom amid the frozen assembly that sat ice-bound, refusing to be +melted by the fires of an alien enthusiasm. She could not help wondering +whether he felt how hopeless it would be to force a sympathetic response +from his audience. In ordinary times the Second Presbyterian Church of +San Francisco could not possibly have had any interest in Serbia except +as a field for foreign missionaries. Now, with America in the war and +speeding up the draft, these worthy people were too much concerned with +problems nearer their own hearthstones to be swept off their feet by a +specific and almost inarticulate appeal for an obscure country, made +only a shade less remote by the accident of being accounted an ally. + +Claire, straining at attention, found it hard to follow him. He talked +rapidly and with unfamiliar emphasis, and he waved his hands. Frankly, +people were bored. They had come to hear a concert and incidentally +swell the Red Cross fund, but they had not reckoned on quite this type +of harangue. Besides, an appetizing smell of coffee from the church +kitchen had begun to beguile their senses. And yet, the man talked on +and on, until quite suddenly Claire Robson began to have a strange +feeling of disquiet, an embarrassment for him, such as one feels when an +intimate friend or kinsman unconsciously makes a spectacle of himself. +She wished that he would stop. She longed to rise from her seat and +scream, to create an outlandish scene, to do anything, in short, that +would silence him. At this point he turned his eyes in her direction, +and she felt the scorch of an intense inner fire. Instinctively she +lowered her glance.... When she looked up again his gaze was still fixed +upon her. She felt her color rise. From that moment on she had a sense +that she was his sole audience. He was talking to her. The others did +not matter. She still did not have any very distinct idea what it was +all about, but the manner of it held her captive. But gradually the +mists cleared, he became more coherent, and slowly, imperceptibly, bit +by bit, he won the others. Yet never for an instant did he take his +eyes from _her_. When he finished, a momentary silence blocked the final +burst of applause. But Claire Robson's hands were locked tightly +together, and it was not until he had disappeared that she realized that +she had not paid him the tribute of even a parting glance. + +The pastor came back upon the platform and announced that refreshments +would be served at the conclusion of the next number. A heavy odor of +coffee continued to float from the church kitchen. A red-haired woman +stepped forward and began to sing. + +Already Claire Robson dreaded the ordeal of supper. The fact that tables +were being laid further disturbed her. This meant that she and her +mother would have to push their way into some group which, at best, +would remain indifferent to their presence. When coffee was served +informally things were not so awkward. To be sure, one had to balance +coffee-cup and cake-plate with an amazing and painful skill, but, on the +other hand, table-less groups did not emphasize one's isolation. Claire +had got to the point where she would have welcomed active hostility on +the part of her fellow church members, but their utter indifference was +soul-killing. She would have liked to remember one occasion when any one +had betrayed the slightest interest in either her arrival or departure, +or rather in the arrival and departure of her mother and herself. + +The solo came to an end, and the inevitable applause followed, but +before the singer could respond to the implied encore most of the +listeners began frank and determined advances upon the tables. The +concert was over. + +Mrs. Robson rose and faced Claire with a look of bewilderment. As usual, +mother and daughter stood irresolutely, caught like two trembling leaves +in the backwater of a swirling eddy. At last Claire made a movement +toward the nearest table. Mrs. Robson followed. They sat down. + +The scattered company speedily began to form into congenial groups. +There was a great deal of suddenly loosened chatter. Claire Robson sat +silently, rather surprised and dismayed to find that she and her mother +had chosen a table which seemed to be the objective of all the prominent +church members. The company facing her was elegant, if not precisely +smart, and there were enough laces and diamonds displayed to have done +excellent service if the proper background had been provided. Claire was +further annoyed to discover that her mother was regarding the situation +with a certain ruffling self-satisfaction which she took no pains to +conceal. Mrs. Robson bowed and smirked, and even called gaily to every +one within easy range. There was something distasteful in her mother's +sudden and almost aggressive self-assurance. + +Gradually the company adjusted itself; the tables were filled. The only +moving figures were those of young women carrying huge white pitchers of +steaming coffee. Claire Robson settled into her seat with a resignation +born of subtle inner misery. Across her brain flashed the insistent and +pertinent questions that such a situation always evoked. Why was she not +one of these young women engaged in distributing refreshments? Did the +circles close automatically so as to exclude her, or did her own +aloofness shut her out? What was the secret of these people about her +that gave them such an assured manner? No one spoke to her with cordial +enthusiasm.... It was not a matter of wealth, or brains, or prominent +church activity. It was not even a matter of obscurity. Like all large +organizations, the Second Presbyterian Church was made up of every +clique in the social calendar; the obscure circle was as clannish and +distinctive in its way as any other group. But Claire Robson was forced +to admit that she did not belong even to the obscure circle. She +belonged nowhere--that was the galling and oppressive truth that was +forced upon her. + +At this point she became aware that one of the most prominent church +members, Mrs. Towne, was making an unmistakably cordial advance in her +direction. Claire had a misgiving.... Mrs. Towne was never excessively +friendly except for a definite aim. + +"My dear Miss Robson," Mrs. Towne began, sweetly, drooping +confidentially to a whispering posture, "I am so sorry, but I shall have +to disturb you and your mother!... It just happens that this table has +been reserved for the elders and their wives.... I hope you'll +understand!" + +For a moment Claire merely stared at the messenger of evil news. Then, +recovering herself, she managed to reply: + +"Oh yes, Mrs. Towne! I understand perfectly.... I am sure we were very +stupid.... Come, mother!" + +Mrs. Robson responded at once to her daughter's command. The two women +rose. By this time the task of securing another place was quite +hopeless. Claire felt that every eye in the room was turned upon them. +Picking their way between a labyrinth of tables and chairs, they +literally were stumbling in the direction of an exit when Claire felt a +hand upon her arm. She turned. + +"Pardon me," the man opposite her was saying, "but may I offer you a +place at our table?" + +Claire said nothing; she followed blindly. Her mother was close upon her +heels. + +The table was a small one, and only two people were occupying it--the +man who had halted Claire, and a woman. The man, standing with one hand +on the chair which he had drawn up for Mrs. Robson, said, simply: + +"My name is Stillman, and of course you know Mrs. Condor--the lady who +has just sung for us." + +Claire gave a swift, inclusive glance. Yes, it was the same woman who +had attempted to beguile a weary audience from its impending repletion; +at close range one could not escape the intense redness of her hair or +the almost immoral whiteness of the shoulders and arms which she was at +such little pains to conceal. + +"Stillman?" Mrs. Robson was fluttering importantly. "Not the old Rincon +Hill family?" + +"Yes, the old Rincon Hill family," the man replied. + +Mrs. Robson sat down with preening self-satisfaction. Wearily the +daughter dropped into the seat which Mrs. Condor proffered. The name of +Ned Stillman was not unfamiliar to any San Franciscan who scanned the +social news with even a casual glance, and Claire had a vague +remembrance that Mrs. Condor also figured socially, but in a rather more +inclusive way than her companion. At all events, it was plain that her +mother, with unerring feminine insight, had placed the pair to her +satisfaction. Already the elder woman was contriving to let Stillman +know something of _her_ antecedents. _She_ was Emily Carrol, also of +Rincon Hill, and of course he knew her two sisters--Mrs. Thomas Wynne +and Mrs. Edward Finch-Brown! As Stillman returned a smiling assurance to +Mrs. Robson's attempts to be impressive, a young woman in white arrived +with ice-cream and messy layer-cake. Unconsciously Claire Robson began +to smile. She could not have said why, but somehow the presence of Ned +Stillman and Mrs. Condor at a table spread with such vacuous delights +seemed little short of ridiculous. They did not fit the picture any more +than her beetle-browed, red-lipped Serbian who.... She turned +deliberately and swept the room with her glance. Of course he had gone. +It was not to be expected that _he_ would descend to the level of such +puerile feasting. A sudden contempt for everything that only an hour ago +seemed so desirable rose within her, and, in answer to the young woman's +query as to whether she preferred coffee to ice-cream, she answered with +lip-curling aloofness: + +"Neither, thank you.... I am not hungry." + +Stillman looked at her searchingly. She returned his gaze without +flinching. + +Claire Robson did not sleep that night. She lay for hours, quite +motionless, staring into the gloom of her narrow bedroom, her mind +ruthlessly shaping formless, vague intuitions into definite convictions. +She could not put her finger upon the precise reason for her inquietude. +Was it chargeable to so trivial a circumstance as a stranger's formal +courtesy or had something more subtle moved her? If the depths of her +isolation had been thrown into too high relief by the almost shameful +sense of obligation she felt toward Stillman for his courtesy, what was +to be said of the uniqueness of the solitary position which the Serbian +awarded her by singling her out for a sympathetic response? Could it be +that a vague pity had stirred him, too? Had things reached a point where +her loneliness showed through the threadbare indifference of her glance? +In short, had both men been won to gallantry by her distress? In one +case, at least, she decided that there was a reasonable chance to doubt. +And that doubt quickened her pulse like May wine. + +But the humiliation of her last encounter with chivalry stuck with +profound irritation. She recalled the scene again and again. She +remembered her contemptuous silence before Stillman's obvious suavities, +the high, assured laugh which his companion, Mrs. Condor, threw out to +meet his quiet sallies, the ruffling satisfaction of her mother, +chattering on irrelevantly, but with the undisguised purpose of creating +a proper impression. How easily Stillman must have seen through Claire's +muteness and the elder woman's eager craving for an audience! And all +the time Mrs. Condor had been laughing, not ill-naturedly, but with the +irony of an experienced woman possessing a sense of humor. + +And at the end, when the four had left the church together, to be +whirled home in Stillman's car, the sudden nods and smiles and farewells +that had blossomed along the path of her mother's exit! Claire could +have laughed it all away if her mother had not betrayed such eagerness +to drink this snobbish flattery to the lees.... + +Claire's father had never entered very largely into her calculations, +but to-night her readjusted vision included him. Stubborn, kind, a bit +weak, and inclined to copying poetry in a red-covered album, he had been +no match for the disillusionments of married life. Her mother's people +had felt a sullen resentment at his downfall--he had taken to drink and +died ingloriously when Claire was still in her seventh year. Claire, +influenced by the family traditions, had shared this resentment. But now +she found herself wondering whether there was not a word or two to be +said in his behalf. Her father had been a cheap clerk in a wholesale +house when he had married. The uncertain Carrol fortunes were waning +swiftly at the time, and Emily Carrol had been thrown at him with all +the panic that then possessed a public schooled in the fallacy that +marriage was a woman's only career. The result was to have been +expected. Extravagance, debts, too much family, drink, death--the +sequence was complete. He had been captured, withered, cast aside, by a +tribe that had not even had the decency to grant his memory the +kindness of an excuse. + +Wide-eyed and restless, Claire Robson felt a sudden pity for her father. +Tears sprang to her eyes; it overwhelmed her to discover this new father +so full of human failings and yet so full of human provocation. In her +twenty-four years of life she had never shed a tear for him, or felt the +slightest pang for his failure. If she had ever doubted the Carrol +viewpoint, she had never given her lack of faith any scope. She had +taken their cast-off prejudices and threadbare convictions as docilely +as she had once received their stale garments. She had shrunk from +spiritual independence with all the obsequious arrogance of a poor +relation at a feast. Her diffidence, her self-consciousness, her +timidity, were the outward forms of an inbred snobbery. It was curious +how suddenly all this was made clear to her.... + +At length she fell into a troubled sleep.... When she awoke the room's +outlines were reviving before the advances of early morning. For the +first time in her life she caught the poetry of the new day at first +hand. For years she had reveled vicariously in the delights of morning. +But it had always been to her a thing apart, a matter which the writers +of romantic verse beheld and translated for the benefit of late +sleepers. It never occurred to her that the day crawling into the +light-well of her Clay Street flat was lit with precisely the same flame +that colored the far-flung peaks of the poet's song. And instantly a +phrase of the Serbian's harangue came to her--blood-red dawn! He had +repeated these words over and over again, and somehow under the heat of +his ardor and longing for his native land this hackneyed phrase took on +its real and dreadful value. In the sudden sweep of this vital +remembrance, Claire Robson rose for a moment above the fretful drip of +circumstance.... _Blood-red Dawn_!... She threw herself back upon her +bed and shuddered.... + +She rose at seven o'clock, but already the morning had grown pallid and +flecked with gray clouds. + +An apologetic tap came at the door, and the voice of Mrs. Robson +repeating a formula that she never varied: + +"Better hurry, Claire. If you don't you'll be late for the office!" + + + +CHAPTER II + + +As Claire stepped out into the cold sunlight of early November, she +smiled bitterly at the exaggeration of last night's mood. After the +first hectic flush of dawn there is nothing so sane and sweet and +commonplace as morning. The spectacle of Mrs. Finnegan, who lodged in +the flat below, slopping warm suds over the thin marble steps, added a +final note of homeliness, which divorced Claire completely from heroics. + +"Well, Miss Robson, so you really got home, last night," broke from the +industrious neighbor as she straightened up and tucked her lifted skirts +in more securely. "I thought you never would come!... A package came +from New York for you. The man nearly banged your door down. I had +Finnegan put it on your back stoop.... It's from that cousin of yours, I +guess. I was so excited about it I kept wishing you'd get home early so +that I could get a peep at all the pretty things. But I'll run up just +as soon as I get through with the breakfast dishes." + +Claire smiled wanly. "It was very good of you to take all that trouble, +I'm sure, Mrs. Finnegan!" + +"Oh, bother my trouble!" Mrs. Finnegan responded. "I just knew how crazy +I'd be about a box. I guess we women are all alike, Miss Robson. +Anyway, your mother and I are!" + +Mrs. Finnegan bent over her task again with a quick exasperated +movement, and Claire passed on. Her neighbor's abrupt rebuke gave Claire +a renewed sense of exclusion. She had meant to be warmly appreciative, +but she knew now that she had been only coldly polite. But, as a matter +of fact, the prospect of delving through a box of Gertrude Sinclair's +discarded finery moved her this morning to a dull fury. She felt +suddenly tired of cast-offs, of compromise, of all the other shabby +adjustments of genteel poverty. And by the time she reached the office +of the Falcon Insurance Company her soul was seething with a curious and +unreasonable revolt. The feminine office force seemed seething also, but +with an impersonal, quivering excitement. Nellie Whitehead had been +dismissed! + +This Nellie Whitehead, the stenographer-in-chief, was big, vigorous, +blond--vulgar, energetic, vivid; and Miss Munch, her assistant, a thin, +hollow-chested spinster, who loafed upon her job so that she might save +her sight for the manufacture of incredible yards of tatting, never +missed an opportunity to lift her eyes significantly behind her +superior's back. + +"And what do you suppose?" Miss Munch was querying as Claire stepped +into the dressing-room. "She told Mr. Flint to go to hell!... Yes, +positively, she used those very words. And I must say he was a gentleman +throughout it all. He told her gently but firmly that her example in the +office wasn't what it should be and that in justice to the other +girls...." + +Claire turned impatiently away. The fiction of Mr. Flint's belated +interest in the morals of his feminine office force was unconvincing +enough to be irritating. For a man who never missed an opportunity to +force his attentions, he was showing an amazingly ethical viewpoint. On +second thought, Claire remembered that Miss Munch was never the +recipient of Mr. Flint's attentions, which to the casual eye might have +seemed innocent enough--on rainy days gallantly bending his ample girth +in a rather too prolonged attempt to slip on the girls' rubbers, +insisting on the quite unnecessary task of incasing them in their +jackets and smoothing the sleeves of their shirt-waists in the process, +flicking imaginary threads where the feminine curves were most opulent. +Not that Mr. Flint was a wolf in sheep's clothing; he played the part of +sheep, but he needed no disguise for his performance; he merely lived up +to a sort of flock-mind consciousness where women were concerned. + +The group clustered about Miss Munch broke up at the approach of Mr. +Flint, who gave a significant glance in the direction of Claire Robson, +intent upon her morning work. But the excitement persisted in spite of +the scattered auditors, and the fact was mysteriously communicated that +Miss Munch's interest in the event was chargeable to her hopes. It +seemed impossible to Miss Munch that any one but herself could succeed +to the vacant post of stenographer-in-chief. + +At precisely eleven o'clock the buzzer on Claire Robson's desk hummed +three times. This announced that she was wanted by Mr. Flint. She +gathered her note-book and pencils and answered the call. + +Mr. Flint was busy at the telephone when Claire entered the private +office. She seated herself at the flat oak table in the center of the +room. + +Mr. Flint's office bore all the conventional signs of +business--commissions of authority from insurance companies, state +licenses in oak frames, an oil-painting of Thomas Sawyer Flint, the +founder of the firm, over a fireplace that maintained its useless +dignity in spite of the steam-radiator near the window. On his desk was +the inevitable picture of his wife framed in silver, a hand-illumined +platitude of Stevenson, an elaborate set of desk paraphernalia in beaten +brass that bore little evidence of service. In two green-glazed bowls of +Japanese origin, roses from Mr. Flint's garden at Yolanda scattered +faint pink petals on the Smyrna rug. These flowers were the only +concession to esthetics that Mr. Flint indulged. In spite of a masculine +distaste for carrying flowers, hardly a day went by when he did not +appear at the office with a huge harvest of blossoms from his country +home. + +Claire was bending over, intent on picking up the crumpled rose-petals, +when Mr. Flint finally spoke. She straightened herself slowly. Her +unhurried movements had a certain grace that did not escape the man +opposite her. She tossed the bruised leaves into a waste-basket and +reached for her pencil. Her heart was pounding, but she faced Mr. Flint +with a clear, direct gaze. + +"Miss Robson, of course you've heard all about the rumpus," Mr. Flint +was saying. "I had to fire Miss Whitehead.... I think you can fill the +bill." + +Claire rose without replying. Mr. Flint left his seat and crossed over +to her. + +"I hope," he said, flicking a thread from her shoulder, "that you're +game.... Some girls, of course, don't care a damn about getting on ... +especially if there's a Johnny somewhere in sight with enough cash in +his pocket for a marriage license." + +"I am very much taken by surprise," Claire faltered. "You see, the +change means a great deal to me." + +Mr. Flint moved closer. His manner was intimate and distasteful. +"Sometimes I think we business men ought to get more of a slant on our +employees.... You know what I mean, not exactly bothering about how many +lumps of sugar they take in their coffee, or their taste in after-dinner +cheese ... but, well, just how often they have to resole their boots and +turn the ribbons on their spring bonnets.... Now, in Miss Whitehead's +case.... But of course you're not interested in Miss Whitehead." + +"Why, I wouldn't say that," stammered Claire. Then, as she reached for +her shorthand book she said, more confidently: "To be quite frank, Mr. +Flint, I liked Miss Whitehead tremendously. She was so alive ... and +vivid." + +Flint beamed. "Do you know why I picked you instead of that Munch +dame?... It's because you had all the frills of a woman and none of the +nastiness. For instance, you wouldn't be bothered in the least if I took +a notion to overload the office with another pretty girl.... I've +watched you for some time. It has taken me six months to make up my mind +to fire Miss Whitehead and boost you into her job." + +He stood with an air of condescending arrogance, his thumbs bearing down +heavily on his trousers pockets, his broad fingers beating a +self-satisfied tattoo upon his thighs. Claire shrank nearer the table. +"You mean, Mr. Flint, that you dismissed Miss Whitehead merely to give +me her position?" + +Flint smiled. "Well, now you're coming down to brass-headed tacks. I'm +not keen on spelling out the whys and wherefores of anything I do.... +But one thing is certain enough--if Miss Munch had been the only +available candidate I _could_ have stood Miss Whitehead.... There ain't +much question about that." + +"Oh, Mr. Flint! I'm sorry!" + +He gave a wide guffaw. "That only makes you all the more of a corker!" +he answered, rubbing his hands together in narrow-eyed satisfaction. + +She escaped into the outer office, flushed, but with her head thrown +back in an attitude of instinctive defense, and the next instant she +literally ran into the arm of a man. + +"Why, Miss Robson, but this _is_ pleasant! I'm just dropping in to see +Mr. Flint." + +She drew back. Mr. Stillman stood smiling before her. + +Greetings and questions flowed with all the genial ease of one who is +never quite taken unawares. Claire, outwardly calm, felt overcome with +inner confusion. She passed rapidly to her desk and sat down. + +Miss Munch was upon her almost instantly. + +"Do _you_ know Ned Stillman?" Miss Munch asked, veiling her real +purpose. + +"Yes," replied Claire, with uncomfortable brevity. + +"I have a cousin who was housekeeper for his wife's father.... You know +about his wife, of course." + +Claire lifted her clear eyes in a startled glance that was almost as +instantly converted into a look of challenge. + +"Yes," she lied. + +Miss Munch hesitated, then plunged at once into the issue uppermost in +her mind. "It's too bad you've had to be bothered with Flint's +dictation, Miss Robson. It just happens I'm writing up a long +home-office report, otherwise I'm sure he wouldn't have annoyed you." + +Claire Robson fixed Miss Munch with a coldly polite stare. "You've made +a mistake, Miss Munch. Mr. Flint has given me no dictation." The speech +in itself was nothing, but Claire's tone gave it unmistakable point. +Miss Munch grew white and then flushed. She turned away without a word, +but Claire Robson knew that in a twinkling of an eye she had gained not +only an enemy, but an uncommon one. + + * * * * * + +That night Claire took an unusually long way round on her walk home. Her +path from the Falcon Insurance Company's office on California Street to +the Clay Street flat was never a direct one, first, because there were +hills to be avoided, and, second, because Claire found the streets at +twilight too full of charm for a rapid homeward flight. The year was on +the wane and the November days were coming to an early blackness. Claire +reveled in the light-flooded dusk of these late autumn evenings. To her, +the city became a vast theater, darkened suddenly for the purpose of +throwing the performers into sharper relief. Most clerks made their way +up Montgomery Street toward Market, but Claire climbed past the German +Bank to Kearny Street. She liked this old thoroughfare, struggling +vainly to pull itself up to its former glory. The Kearny Street crowd +was a varying quantity, frankly shabby or flashily prosperous, as far +south as Sutter Street, suddenly dignified and reserved for the two +blocks beyond. To-night Claire missed the direct appeal of the streets +lined with bright shops. They formed the proper background for her +broodings, but they scarcely entered into her mood. She could not have +said just what flight her mood was taking, or upon just which branch her +thought would alight. She was confused and puzzled and vaguely uneasy. +She had a sense that somehow, somewhere, a door had been opened and that +a strong, devastating wind was clearing the air and bringing dead things +to ground in a disorderly shower. She was stirred by twilights of +uneasiness. It was almost as if the monotonous truce of noonday had been +darkened by a huge, composite, masculine shadow, made up in some +mysterious way of the ridiculous Serbian and his blood-red dawn, and +this man Stillman, who had a wife, and Flint, with hands so ready to +flick threads from her sloping shoulders. Yesterday her outlook had been +peaceful and unhappy; to-day she felt stimulation of an impending +struggle. She was afraid, and yet she would not have turned back for one +swift moment. And suddenly the words of Mrs. Finnegan recurred, "I guess +we women are all alike." Were they? + +At which point she came upon a pastry-shop window and she went in and +bought a half-dozen French pastries. The thought of her mother's +pleasure at this unusual treat brought her in due time smiling to her +threshold. + +Mrs. Robson was not in her accustomed place at the head of the stairs; +about half-way up the long flight her voice sounded triumphantly: + +"Oh, Claire, do hurry and see what Gertrude has sent! Everything is +perfectly lovely." + +Claire quickened her pace and gained the cramped living-room. Thrown +about in a sort of joyous disorder, Gertrude Sinclair's finery quite lit +up the shabbiness. Hats, plumes, scraps of vivid silks, gilded slippers, +a spangled fan--their unrelated vividness struck Claire as fantastic as +a futurist painting. Her mother seemed suddenly young again. Claire +wondered whether, after the toll of sixty-odd years, she could be moved +to momentary youth by the mere sight of the prettiness that was +quickening her mother's pulse. + +Mrs. Robson held up a filmy evening gown of black net embroidered with a +rich design of dull gold. "Isn't this heavenly?" she demanded. "And it +will just fit you, Claire. I think Gertrude has spread herself this +time." + +"Yes, on finery, mother. But didn't she send anything sensible? What +possessed her to load us up with a lot of things we can never possibly +get a chance to wear?" + +Claire had not meant to be disagreeable, but there was rancor in her +voice. Mrs. Robson cast aside the dress with the carelessness of a +spoiled favorite; she always adapted her manner to the tone of her +background. + +"Claire Robson!" she cried, good-naturedly. "You're a regular old woman! +I'm sure _I_ haven't much to be cheerful about, but I just won't let +anything down me!... If I wanted to, I could give up right now. Where +would we have been, I'd like to know, if I hadn't held my head up? +Goodness knows, _my_ folks didn't help me. If they had had their way, +I'd been out manicuring people's nails and washing heads for a living. +And _you_ in an orphan-asylum! That's what my people did for me! As it +is, they shoved you out to work. What chance have you of meeting nice +people? No, Claire, I don't care how they have treated me, but they +might have given you a chance. I'll never forgive them for that!... I +thought last night when I was talking to Mrs. Condor and watching you +and Mr. Stillman how nice it would have been if.... Oh, that reminds me! +Who do you think has been here to-day?... Mrs. Towne! She came to +apologize about asking us to move our seats the other night. _She_ knows +the Stillmans well. The old people were pillars of the Second Church in +the 'sixties. I fancy he is dancing about that Mrs. Condor's heels a +bit. Of course, as Mrs. Towne said, _she_ wouldn't be likely to make +herself a permanent feature of Second Church entertainments. But now in +war-times _anything_ is possible. Mrs. Towne was telling me all about +Stillman and his wife. I _should_ have remembered, but somehow I forgot. +Get your things off and I'll tell you all about it." + +Claire handed her mother the package of pastries. "I heard about it +to-day," she said, coldly. + +"But Mrs. Towne knows the whole thing from A to Z," insisted Mrs. +Robson, genially. + +"I'm not interested in the details," Claire returned, doggedly. + +Mrs. Robson's face wore a puzzled, almost a harried, expression. Claire +moved away. Her mother gave a shrug and renewed her efforts to drag +further finery from the mysterious depths of the treasure-box. Her +daughter cast a last incurious glance back. The glow on Mrs. Robson's +face, which Claire had mistaken for youth, seemed now a thing hectic and +unpleasant, and gave an uncanny sense of a skeleton sitting among gauds +and baubles. + +A feeling of isolation swept Claire, such as she had never experienced. +The person who should have been closest suddenly had become a +stranger.... She went into her room and closed the door. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The following week Claire was surprised to find a letter on her desk at +the office. The few written favors that came her way usually were +addressed to the Clay Street flat, so that she was puzzled by this +innovation and the unfamiliar handwriting. Glancing swiftly at the +signature, she was surprised to see the name "Lily Condor," scrawled +loosely at the foot of the note. It seemed that Mrs. Condor was giving a +little musicale in Ned Stillman's apartments on the following Friday +night, and, if one could believe such a thing, the lady implied that the +evening would scarcely be complete without the presence of Claire +Robson--or, to put it more properly, Claire Robson and her _mother_. + +As Claire had scarcely said a half-dozen words to Mrs. Condor on the +night of the Red Cross concert, this invitation seemed little short of +extraordinary. But, as Claire thought it over, she recalled that there +had been some general conversation about music, in which she had +admitted a discreet passion for this form of entertainment, even going +so far as to confess that she played the piano herself upon occasion. +Her first impulse, clinched by the familiar feminine excuse that she had +nothing suitable to wear, was to send her regrets. At once she thought +of the scorned finery that Gertrude Sinclair had included in her last +box, and the more she thought about it the more convinced she became +that she had no real reason for refusing. But a swift, strange regret +that her mother had been included in the invitation took the edge off +her anticipations. She tried to dismiss this feeling, but it grew more +definite as the morning progressed. + +For days Claire had been striking at the shackles of habit with a rancor +bred of disillusionment. She had been on tiptoe for new and vital +experiences, and yet, for any outward sign, her life bid fair to escape +the surge of any torrential circumstance. Particularly, at the office, +things had gone on smoothly. The other clerks had accepted Claire's +advancement without either protest or enthusiasm. Even Miss Munch had +veiled her resentment behind the saving trivialities of daily +intercourse. She had gone so far as to introduce Claire to her cousin, a +Mrs. Richards, who had come in at the noon hour for a new tatting +design. This cousin was a large, red-faced woman, with an aggressively +capable manner. She had the quick, ferret-like eyes of Miss Munch and +the loose mouth of a perpetual gossip. + +"She's the one I told you about the other day," Miss Munch had explained +later--"the housekeeper for _your friend_ Stillman's father-in-law." She +gave nasty emphasis to this trivial speech. + +Flint had been direct and business-like almost to the point of +bruskness. But Claire knew that such moods were not unusual, so she took +little stock in the ultimate significance of his restrained manner. + +Perhaps the most indefinable change had come over Claire's home life. +Her mother's unfailing string of trivial gossip, formerly not without a +certain interest, now scarcely held her to even polite attention. +Indeed, her self-absorbed silence, while Mrs. Robson poured out the +latest news about Mrs. Finnegan's second sister's husband's mother--who +was suddenly stricken with some incurable disease, made all the more +mysterious by the fact that its nature was not divulged--was so apparent +that her mother, goaded on to a mild exasperation, would ask, +significantly: + +"What's the matter, Claire? Have you a headache?" + +Mrs. Robson was never so happy as in the discovery of some one with a +mysterious disease, particularly if the victim's relatives were loath to +discuss the issue. + +"They think they fool me!" she would say, triumphantly, to Claire, "but +I guess I know what ails her.... Didn't her mother, and her uncle, and +her sister's oldest child die of consumption? I tell you it's in the +family. The last time I saw her she nearly coughed her head off." + +Not that Mrs. Robson was unsympathetic; brought face to face with +suffering, she blossomed with every impulsive tenderness, but her +experiences had confirmed her in pessimism, and every fresh tragedy +testified to the soundness of her faith. Her pride at diagnosing +people's ills and pronouncing their death-sentences was almost +professional. And she had an irritating way of making comments such as +this: + +"Well, Claire, I see that old Mrs. Talbot is dead at last!... I knew she +wouldn't live another winter. They'll feel terribly, no doubt; but, of +course, it is a great relief." + +Or: + +"Why, here is the death notice of Isaac Rice! I thought he died _years_ +ago. My, but he was a trial! What a blessing!" + +This was the type of conversation that Claire was finding either empty +of meaning or illuminating to the point of annoyance. What amazed her +was the fact that she had remained blind so long to the slightest of the +conversational food upon which she had been fed. + +Claire did not tell her mother about the invitation to Mrs. Condor's +musical evening. + +"I'll wait," she said to herself. "Thursday will be time enough." +Although why delay would prove advantageous was not particularly +apparent. + +On Wednesday night at the dinner-table, Mrs. Robson, as if still puzzled +at her daughter's altered mood, said, rather cautiously: + +"There's to be a reception at the church on Friday night." + +"For whom?" inquired Claire, with pallid interest. + +"I didn't quite catch the name.... Some woman back from France. She's +been nursing in one of the British hospitals. She's to get Red Cross +work started at the church. It seems San Francisco is a bit slow over +taking up the work, but, then, you know, we're poked off here in a +corner and I suppose we don't quite realize yet.... Anyway, Mrs. Towne +wants us to help with the coffee. She says you should have been in the +church-work long ago. You look so self-contained and efficient.... I +told her we would be there at half past seven and get the dishes into +shape." + +Claire's heart beat violently. "Friday night? I'm sorry, mother; I have +another engagement." + +"Another engagement? Why, Claire, how funny! You never said anything +about it. I don't know what to say to Mrs. Towne." + +Claire felt calm again. "Just tell her the truth." + +"But she'll think so strange that I didn't know ... that I...." + +"You shouldn't have spoken for me until you found out whether I was +willing." + +"Willing! _Willing!_ I didn't suppose you'd be anything else. I've been +trying to get you in with the right people at the church for the last +fifteen years. I've tried so hard...." + +"Yes, mother, I know," said Claire, patiently. "But don't you see? +That's just it. You've tried too hard." + +Mrs. Robson began to whimper discreetly. "How you do talk, Claire! I +declare I don't know what to make of it. I suppose you're bitter about +Mrs. Towne the other night. I felt so at first, but I can see now we +were at the wrong table. And, after all, everything came out +beautifully. We sat with Mr. Stillman, and that had a very good effect, +I can tell you. Especially when everybody saw us leave with him. Why, it +brought Mrs. Towne to her feet." + +"Yes, and that's the humiliating part of it." + +"Well, Claire, when you've lived as long as I have you won't be so +uppish about making compromises," flung back Mrs. Robson. "Of course, if +you've got another engagement, you've got another engagement, but +if...." + +"I wouldn't have gone, anyway. I'm through with that sort of thing." + +"Why, Claire, how can you! It's your duty, _now_!--with your country at +war--and ... and ... Even that dreadful Serbian the other night made +_that_ plain." + +"I'll go with you to church on Sundays, of course, but--" + +"What am _I_ to do?" wailed Mrs. Robson. "At least you might think of +me! I've not had much pleasure in my life, goodness knows, and now just +as I...." + +Mrs. Robson broke off abruptly on a flood of tears. Two weeks ago these +tears would have overwhelmed Claire. As it was, she sat calmly stirring +her tea, surprised and a little ashamed of her coldness. The truth was +that Claire Robson was feeling all the fanatical cruelty that comes with +sudden conviction. The forms of her new faith had hardened too quickly +and left outlines sharp and uncompromising. + +For years Claire had found shelter from the glare of middle-class +snobbery beating about her head, by shrinking into her mother's +inadequate shadow as a desert bird shrinks into the thin shadow of a dry +reed by some burned-out watercourse. Now a full noon of disillusionment +had annihilated this shadow and given her the courage of necessity. And +there was something more than courage--there was an eagerness to stand +alone in the commonplace words with which she sought to temper her +refusal to assist at the coming church reception: + +"I can't see any good reason, mother, why you shouldn't go and help Mrs. +Towne.... What have my plans to do with it?" + +To which her mother answered: + +"I do so hate to be seen at such places alone, Claire." + +Claire made no reply. She did not want to give her mother's indecision a +chance to crystallize into a definite stand. She knew by long experience +that if this happened it would be fatal. But in a swift flash of +decision Claire made up her mind for one thing--she would either go to +Mrs. Condor's evening alone or she would send her regrets. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +By a series of neutral subterfuges and tactful evasions Claire Robson +won her point--she went to the Condor musicale at Ned Stillman's +apartments alone, and on that same night her mother wended a rather +grudging way to the Second Presbyterian Church reception. + +Acting under her mother's advice, Claire timed her arrival for nine +o'clock, an hour which seemed incredibly late to one schooled in the +temperate hour of church socials. Mrs. Condor herself opened the door in +answer to Claire's ring. + +"Oh, my dear, but I _am_ glad to see you!" burst from the elder woman as +she waved her in. But she did not so much as mention the absence of Mrs. +Robson, and Claire was divided between a feeling of wounded family +pride, and gratification at the intuition which had warned her to leave +her mother to her own devices. More people arrived on Claire's heels, +and in the lively bustle she was left to shed her wraps in one of the +bedrooms. Her heart was pounding with reaction at her outwardly +self-contained entrance. She let her rather shabby cloak slip to the +floor, revealing a strange, new Claire resplendent in the +gold-embroidered gown that had once so stirred her rancor. For a brief +instant she had an impulse to gather the discarded wrap securely about +her and make a quick exit. A swooning fear at the thought of meeting a +roomful of people assailed her. But there succeeded a courage born of +the realization that they all would be strangers. With a sense of +bravado she stepped out into the entrance hall again. + +Ned Stillman came forward. She halted and waited for him. His face had +lit with a sudden pleasure, which told Claire that for once in her life +her presence roused positive interest. He inquired after her health, why +her mother had not come, whether the abominable fog was clearing. His +easy formality put her, as usual, completely at ease. + +It was only when he asked her, with the most inconsequential tone in the +world, "whether she could read music at sight" that a sinking fear came +over her. And yet she found courage enough to be truthful and say yes. + +"That's fine!" he returned. "Our accompanist hasn't come yet and we want +to start off with a song or two." + +From this moment on the evening impressed itself on Claire in a series +of blurred hectic pictures.... She knew that Stillman was leading her +toward the piano, but the living-room and its toned lights gave her a +curious sense of unreality. She seated herself before the white keyboard +and folded her hands with desperate resignation while she waited for +Stillman to dictate the next move. + +"My dear Mrs. Condor," Stillman explained, as that lady came up to them, +"we sha'n't have to wait for Flora Menzies. Miss Robson will accompany +you." + +Claire sat unmoved. She was beyond so trivial a sensation as anxiety. +Stillman drifted away; Mrs. Condor began to run through the sheet music +lying on the piano. + +"Of course you know Schumann, Miss Robson. Shall we start at once? How +is the light? If you moved your stool a little--so. There, that's +better." + +Claire did not reply. She looked at the music before her. She was +conscious that it was a piece she knew, although its name registered no +other impression. She began to play. The opening bars almost startled +her. She felt a hush fall over the noisy room. Her fingers stumbled--she +caught the melody again with staggering desperation. Mrs. Condor was +singing.... The room faded; even the sound of Mrs. Condor's voice became +remote. Claire had a desire to laugh. + +All manner of strange, disconnected thoughts ran through her head. She +remembered a doll she had broken years ago and buried with great pomp +and circumstance, a pink parasol that had been given her as a child, the +gigantic and respectable wig which had incased the head of her old +German music-teacher, Frau Pfaff. And as she played on and on the music +further evoked the memory of this worthy lady who had given her services +in exchange for lodgings in an incredibly small hall bedroom, with +certain privileges at the kitchen stove. And pictures of this irritating +woman rose before her, stewing dried fruit, or preparing sour beef, or +borrowing the clothes boiler for a perennial wash. What compromises her +mother had made to give her child the gentle accomplishments that Mrs. +Robson associated with breeding! It came to Claire that it was almost +cruel to have denied this mother a share in the triumphs of that +evening. And with that, she realized that Mrs. Condor had ceased +singing. A hum broke loose, followed by applause. Claire grew faint. Her +head began to swirl. She clutched the piano stool and by sheer terror at +the thought of creating a scene she managed to keep her consciousness as +she felt Mrs. Condor's hand upon her shoulder and heard a voice that +just missed being patronizing: + +"My dear, you did it beautifully." + +Claire longed to burst into tears.... + +The concert was over shortly after eleven o'clock. Besides Mrs. Condor, +there had been a 'cellist, very masculine in his looks but rather +forceless in his playing, and a young, frail girl who brought great +breadth and vigor to her interpretations at the piano. But Claire was +really too excited for calm enjoyment. Supper followed--creamed minced +chicken and extraordinarily thin sandwiches, and a dry, pale wine that +Claire found at first rather distasteful. Claire sat with a little group +composed of Mrs. Condor, Ned Stillman, a fashionable young man, Phil +Edington, who frankly confessed boredom at all things musical except +one-steps and fox-trots, and two or three artistic-looking souls who +pretended to be quite shocked by young Edington's frankness. + +Conversation veered naturally to the subject of the war. Edington had +tried for a commission in an officers' training-camp and failed. He was +extraordinarily frank about it all, and good-natured at the chaffing +that Mrs. Condor and Stillman threw at him. + +"I'm going to wait now and be drafted," he announced. "As long as I +failed to make a high grade I want to begin at the bottom and see the +whole picture." + +Claire rather waited for a word from Stillman as to his convictions on +the subject. Of course one could see that he was over the draft age, +still.... For the most part she was silent, but happy and content. By +contributing her share to the evening's entertainment she had justified +her presence. Wine as a factor in midnight suppers was a new but not a +revolutionary experience to Claire Robson, but she gasped a bit when the +maid passed cigarettes to the ladies. And yet she felt a delicious sense +of being a party to something quite daring and _outré_, although she did +not have either courage or skill to enjoy one of the slender, +gold-tipped delights. + +The time for departure finally came. Claire rose reluctantly. Mrs. +Condor, slipping one arm in Phil Edington's and the other in Claire's, +sauntered with them toward the entrance hall. + +"I say," ventured Edington as Stillman caught up to the group. "What's +the matter with just us four dropping down to the Palace for a whirl or +two?" + +Claire stared. She had not grown used to the novelty of being included, +but any instinctive objections to the plan were promptly silenced by +Mrs. Condor's enthusiastic approval. + +They arrived at the Palace Hotel shortly before midnight. The Rose Room +was crowded. All the tables seemed filled, and Claire had a moment of +disappointment caused by the fear that their party would be unable to +gain admittance. But young Edington's presence soon set any uneasiness +on that score at rest, and a place was evolved with deftness and +despatch. The novelty of the situation to Claire was nothing compared +with her matter-of-fact acceptance of it. She was neither self-conscious +nor timid. Her three companions had a way of tacitly including her in +even their trivial chatter that was unmistakable, though hard to define. +She felt that she was one of them, and she blossomed in this strange new +warmth like a chilled blossom at the final approach of a belated spring. +All evening her starved sense of self-importance had been feeding +greedily upon the compliments that had come her way. There had been her +mother's rather apologetic words of approval at her appearance, to begin +with, then Mrs. Condor's appreciation at the piano, and finally a word +dropped by one of the women who had shared a mirror with her at the hour +of departure. + +"How do you manage your hair, Miss Robson?" the other had said, digging +viciously at her shifting locks with a hairpin. "I do declare you're the +only woman in the room that looks presentable." + +But it was Edington's words to Stillman while they stood waiting for the +hotel attendants to prepare the table that brought a quickened beat to +her heart. The conversation was low and not meant for her ears, but her +senses were too sharpened to miss Edington's furtive words as he +whispered to Stillman: + +"Where did ... amazing.... Miss Robson?" + +Claire did not catch the reply which must have also been something of a +query, but she heard Edington continue. + +"Well ... a little too silent, I must admit.... No, I don't dislike 'em +that way ... but I'm afraid of them." + +Stillman answered with a low laugh. + +They sat down. Edington ordered wine. The crowd at the tables was rather +a mixed one. There was plenty of elaborate gowning among the groups of +formal diners who had prolonged their feasting into the supper hour, but +many casuals, drifting in for a few drinks and a dance or two, robbed +the scene of its earlier brilliance. + +The orchestra struck up a one-step. Claire denied Stillman the dance, +explaining that she knew none of the new steps, and he whirled away with +Mrs. Condor. Edington, robbed of his chance, pouted unashamed. + +"I say, Miss Robson, can't you do a one-step--really? There isn't +anything to it! Come on--try; I'll pull you through." + +Claire's knowledge of dancing was instinctive, but not a matter of much +practice, yet his distress was so comic that she relented. She wondered +if he could feel her trembling as they swung into the dance. She +stumbled once or twice from timidity, but Edington guided unerringly. +Half-way round she suddenly struck the proper swing. + +"There--that's it," cried Edington, enthusiastically. "Now you've got +it! Fine!" + +His praise mounted to her brain like a heady wine, and suddenly, in the +twinkling of an eye, all the repressed youth within her awoke with a +sweet and terrible joy.... They danced madly, perfectly, the rhythm +entering into them like something at once fluid and flaming. Her ecstasy +awoke a vague response in her partner, who bent forward as he kept +repeating, monotonously: + +"And you said you couldn't, Miss Robson! Fancy, you said you couldn't!" + +The music stopped abruptly with a crash. Some of the dancers made their +way leisurely back among the tables, but the most of them wandered about +the polished' floor, clapping insistent hands for an encore. In this +brief interlude, groups arrived and departed. The musicians lifted their +instruments to chin and lip, struck an opening chord; couples began to +whirl and glide. Claire Robson, palpitant and eager, followed Edington's +lead, but almost at the first moment of their rhythmic flight they came +crashing into the overcoated bulk of a man cutting across the corner of +the ballroom in an attempt at a swift exit. A smothered protest escaped +Edington, and Claire detached herself from her partner long enough to +see the offender bow very low and hear his apology in a voice and manner +that seemed curiously familiar: + +"I beg your pardon. Pray forgive me! I should have known better." + +In the twinkling of an eye the interrupted dancers were sweeping on +again, and the apologetic stranger, hat in hand, turning for a farewell +look at the pair. Claire Robson felt an up-leap of the heart; a fresh +ecstasy quickened her. It was the Serbian! + +They finished the dance almost opposite their table and were met by a +patter of applause from Mrs. Condor and Stillman, who were already +seated. + +Claire was flaming with embarrassment as she faced Stillman. + +"I hope you'll understand, Mr. Stillman," she faltered. "But Mr. +Edington seemed willing to risk my ignorance." + +Mrs. Condor turned Claire's plaintive apology into a covert attack upon +Stillman's courage, but Stillman rescued Claire from further confusion +by laughing back: + +"Well, I'll have my revenge on Edington. I'll grant him all the +one-steps, but he can't have any of the waltzes, Miss Robson." + +The waiter began to pour out the champagne. Claire settled back in her +seat with a feeling of delightful languor. The dance had released all +the pent-up emotions that a night of vivid sensations had called into +her life. She had come into the Rose Room of the Palace Hotel quivering +in the leash of a restrained enjoyment; it had taken the quick lash of +opportunity to send her spirits hurtling forward in wild and headlong +abandon. She lifted her wine-glass in answer to the upraised glasses of +her companions, and the thought flashed over her that it would be +impossible for her to have quite her old vision again. In every life +there are culminating moments of joy or sorrow which either clear or +dim the horizon, and Claire felt that such moment was now hers. + +Stillman rose promptly in his seat at the first strains of the waltz, +which proved to be the next number. Claire stepped out upon the floor +with confidence. + +She did not need any word of reassurance this time to tell her that her +dancing was more than acceptable, and, true to her brief experience with +Stillman, he refrained from voicing the obvious. They had begun the +dance promptly and for the first whirl about they had the floor almost +to themselves. Claire's discreet sidelong glances detected many +approving nods in their direction; people were noticing them and making +favorable comment.... The floor filled, but even in the crowd Claire had +a sense that she and her partner were standing out distinctly. + +The very nature of the waltz contrasted sharply with the one-step. There +was less abandon and more art. The first dance had expressed a primitive +emotion; the present slow and measured whirl a discriminating sensation. +And slowly, under the spell of Stillman's calm and yet strangely glowing +manner, Claire recovered her poise. All night she had been inhaling +every fresh delight rapturously with the closed eyes and open senses +that one brings to the enjoyment of blossoms heavy with perfume. It took +Stillman's influence to rob the hours of their swooning delight by +recapturing her self-consciousness. Things became at once orderly and +reasonable. And as he led her back to their table she felt the flame +within cease its flarings and become steady, with a pleasurable glow. +For a moment she felt uneasy, as if she were being trapped by something +sweetfully insidious. Slowly, almost cautiously, she withdrew her arm +from his. He made no comment; it was doubtful if he really noticed her +recoil. + + * * * * * + +Long past its appointed time the hall light in the Robson flat continued +to burn dimly. Mrs. Robson, sleepless and a bit anxious, waited alertly +for the sound of Claire's key in the door. The welcome click came +finally, succeeded by the unmistakable slam of an automobile door and +the sharp, quick note of a machine speeding up. + +"She's come home in Stillman's car," flashed through Mrs. Robson's mind, +as she sat up in bed. At that moment Mrs. Finnegan's cuckoo clock, +sounding distinctly through the thin flooring, warbled twice with a +voice of friendly betrayal. "Mercy! it's two o'clock!" she muttered. "I +wonder if Mrs. Finnegan is awake?... I do hope she heard the +automobile!..." + +Seated at the foot of her mother's bed, Claire tried her best to give a +satisfactory report of the evening, but she found that she had +overlooked most of the details that her mother found interesting. Who +was there? What did Mrs. Condor wear? Did they have an elaborate +spread?--the questions rippled on in an endless flow. + +Under the acceleration of Claire's recital, Mrs. Robson found her +experiences at the church reception left far behind. Even with scant +details, Claire had managed to evolve a fascinating picture of a life +robbed sufficiently of puritanism to be properly piquant. There was a +tang of the swift, immoral, fascinating 'seventies in Claire's still +cautious reference to champagne and cigarettes. It was impossible for +any San Franciscan who had lived through those splendid madcap bonanza +days to deny the lure of gay wickedness. At least it was hard to keep +one's eyes on a prayer-book while the car of pleasure rattled by. And a +coffee-and-cake social was, after all, a rather tame experience in the +face of beverages more sparkling and eatables distinctly enticing.... Of +course, if Claire had been introduced to any of these questionable +delights by anybody short of a survivor of the Stillman clan, Mrs. +Robson might have had a misgiving. As it was, she was not above a +certain forewarning sense that made her say with an air of inconsequence +as Claire finished her recital: + +"Mrs. Towne tells me that there is a chance that Mr. Stillman's wife may +get well. She's in a private sanitarium, at Livermore, you know." She +stopped to draw up the bedclothes higher. "I do hope it's so!... But I'm +always skeptical about _crazy_ people ever amounting to anything again. +Seems to me they're better off dead." + + + +CHAPTER V + + +For Claire Robson, there followed after the memorable Condor-Stillman +musicale a period of slack-water. It seemed as if a deadly stagnation +was to poison her existence, so sharp and emphasized was her boredom. On +the other hand, Mrs. Robson seemed to have contrived, from years of +living among arid pleasures, the ability to conserve every happiness +that she chanced upon to its last drop. Claire's invitation to be one of +a distinguished group fed her vanity long after her daughter had outworn +the delights of retrospection. The memory of this incident filled Mrs. +Robson's thoughts, her dreams, her conversation. Gradually, as the days +dragged by, bit by bit, she gleaned detached details of what had +transpired, weaving them into a vivid whole, for the entertainment of +herself and the amazement of her neighbor, Mrs. Finnegan. + +Formerly Mrs. Finnegan's information regarding what went on in exclusive +circles was confined to society dramas on the screen and the Sunday +supplement. The personal note which Mrs. Robson brought to her recitals +was a new and pleasing experience. After listening to the authentic +gossip of Mrs. Robson, Mrs. Finnegan would return to her threshold with +a sense of having shared state secrets. On such occasions Mrs. Robson's +frankness had almost a challenge in it; she exaggerated many details and +concealed none. + +"Yes," she would repeat, emphatically, "they served cigarettes along +with the wine. They _always_ do." + +"Well, Mrs. Robson," Mrs. Finnegan inevitably returned, "far be it from +me to criticize what your daughter's friends do. But I don't approve of +women smoking." + +As a matter of fact, neither did Mrs. Robson, but she felt in duty bound +to resent Mrs. Finnegan's narrow attacks upon society. + +"Well, Mrs. Finnegan, that's only because you're not accustomed to it. +Now, if you had ever...." + +"Did Claire smoke?" + +"Why, of course _not_! How can you ask such a thing? I hope I've brought +my daughter up decently, Mrs. Finnegan." + +And with that, Mrs. Robson would deftly switch to a less exciting detail +of the Condor-Stillman musicale, before her neighbor had a chance to +pick flaws in her logic. But sooner or later the topic would again verge +on the controversial. Usually at the point where the scene shifted from +Ned Stillman's apartments to the Palace Hotel, Mrs. Finnegan's pug nose +was lifted with tentative disapproval, as she inquired: + +"How many did you say went down to the Palace?" + +"Only four--Mr. Stillman, Claire, Mrs. Condor, and a young fellow named +Edington." + +"I suppose _that_ Mrs. Condor was the chaperon. Finnegan knows her well! +She used to hire hacks when Finnegan was in the livery business years +ago. She's a gay one, I can tell you. When only the steam-dummy ran out +to the Cliff House...." + +"That's nothing. Everybody who was anybody had dinners at the Cliff +House in those days. I remember how my father...." + +"Yes, Mrs. Robson, maybe you do! But I'll bet _you_ never went to such a +place without your husband ... and ... with a _strange_ man." + +Mrs. Robson never had, and she would tell Mrs. Finnegan so decidedly. +This always had the effect of switching the subject again and Mrs. +Robson found her desire to know the real details of Mrs. Condor's +questionable gaieties offered up on the altar of class loyalty. For it +never occurred to Mrs. Robson to doubt that her social exile had nothing +to do with the inherent rights of her position. + +When everything else in the way of an irritating program failed to rouse +Mrs. Robson's dignified ire, her neighbor fell back upon the fact that +Stillman was a married man. Mrs. Finnegan really worshiped Mrs. Robson +to distraction, but she had a natural combative tendency that was at +odds with even her loyalty. + +"Mr. Stillman is a married man," Mrs. Finnegan would insist, doggedly. +"And I don't approve of married men taking an interest in young girls. +Who knows?--he may spoil your daughter's chances." + +This statement always had the effect of dividing Mrs. Robson against +herself. She resented Mrs. Finnegan's insinuations concerning Stillman, +because it was not in her nature to be anything but partizan, and at the +same time she was mollified by her neighbor's recognition of the fact +that Claire had such things as chances. She always managed cleverly at +this point by saying, patronizingly: + +"Why, how you talk, Mrs. Finnegan! Mr. Stillman is just like an old +friend. Not that we've known _him_ so long ... but the family, you know +... they're old-timers. Everybody knows the Stillmans! Really one +couldn't want a better friend." + +Thus did Mrs. Robson take meager and colorless realities and expand them +into things of blossoming promise. She was almost creative in the +artistry she brought to these transmutations. In the end she convinced +_herself_ of their existence and she was quite sure that Mrs. Finnegan +shared equally in the delights of her fancy. + +Meanwhile November passed, and the first weeks of December crowded the +old year to its death. November had been shrouded in clammy fogs, but no +rain had fallen, and everybody began to have the restless feeling +engendered by the usual summer drought in California prolonged beyond +its appointed season. The country and the people needed rain. Claire, +always responsive to the moods of wind and weather, longed for the +cleansing flood to descend and wash the dust-drab town colorful again. +She awoke one morning to the delicious thrill of the moisture-laden +southeast wind blowing into her room and the warning voice of her mother +at her bedroom door calling to her: + +"You'd better put on your thick shoes, Claire! We're in for a storm." + +She leaped out of bed joyously and hurried with her dressing. + +As she walked down to work the warm yet curiously refreshing wind flung +itself in a fine frenzy over the gray city. Dark-gray clouds were +closing in from the south, and in the east an ominous silver band of +light marked the sullen flight of the sun. People were scampering about +buoyantly, running for street-cars, chasing liberated hats, battling +with billowing skirts. It seemed as if the promise of rain had revived +laughter and motion to an extraordinary degree. At the office this +ecstasy of spirit persisted; even Miss Munch came in hair awry and +blowsy, her beady eyes almost laughing. + +Mr. Flint had not been to the office for two days. A sniffling cold had +kept him at home. Claire had rather looked for him to-day, and had +prepared herself for a flood of accumulated dictation. But the threat of +dampness evidently dissuaded him, for the noon hour came and went and +Mr. Flint did not put in an appearance. At about three o'clock in the +afternoon a long-distance call came on the telephone for Miss Robson. +Claire answered. Flint was on the other end of the wire. He wanted to +know if she could come at once over to Yolanda and take several pages of +dictation. His cold was uncertain and he might not get out for the rest +of the week. He realized that it was something of an imposition on her +good nature, but she would be doing him a great favor if.... She +interrupted him with her quick assent and he finished: + +"I'll have the car at the station, and of course you'll stay for +dinner." + +Claire hung up the receiver and looked at her watch. It was just half +after three. The next ferryboat connecting at Sausalito with the +electric train for Yolanda left at three-forty-five. She had no time to +lose; it was a good ten minutes' walk from the office to the ferry and +little to be gained by taking a street-car. She managed her preparations +for departure successfully, but in the end she had to ask Miss Munch to +telephone her mother. Miss Munch assented with an alarmingly sweet +smile. + +Claire walked briskly down California Street toward the ferry-building. +No rain had fallen, but the air was full of ominous promise. The wind +was even brisker than it had been in the morning, and its breath almost +tropically moist. + +"At sundown it will simply pour," thought Claire, as she exchanged fifty +cents for a ticket to Yolanda. + +She presented her ticket at the entrance to the waiting-room and passed +in. The passageway to the boat was already open; she went at once and +found a sheltered corner outside on the upper deck. A strong sea was +running and already the ferryboat was plunging and straining like a +restless bloodhound in leash. The air was full of screaming gulls and +the clipped whistling of restless bay craft. Claire was so intent on all +this elemental agitation that she took no notice of the people about +her, but as the boat slid lumberingly out of the slip she was recalled +by a voice close at hand saying: + +"Why, Miss Robson, who would think of seeing you here at this hour!" + +Claire turned and discovered Miss Munch's cousin sitting beside her, +intent on the inevitable tatting. + +"Oh, Mrs. Richards, how stupid of me! Have you been here long?" + +"About ten minutes. But I get so interested in my work I never have eyes +for anything else. How do you put in the time? A trip like this is so +tiresome!" + +Claire delved into her bag and brought out knitting-needles and an +unfinished sock. + +"I'm trying a hand at this," she admitted, holding her handiwork up +ruefully. "But I'm afraid I'm not very skilful." + +Mrs. Richards inspected the sock with critical disapproval. + +"Oh, well," she encouraged, "you'll learn ... practice makes perfect. +I've just finished a half-dozen pairs. I suppose I'm laying myself out +for a roast doing tatting in public _these_ war days! But it's restful +and I'm not one to pretend. As long as my conscience is clear I can +afford to be perfectly independent.... You don't make this trip every +night, do you?" + +"Oh my, no! I'm going over to Mr. Flint's to take some dictation. He's +home sick." + +"I saw Mrs. Flint and the children coming _off_ the boat just as I got +on." Mrs. Richards's voice took on a tone of casual directness. + +"You know Mrs. Flint?" + +"My dear girl, a trained nurse knows everybody--and everything about +them, too. You never get a real line on people until you live with +them. I've never nursed any of the Flint family, but I wouldn't have to +to get their reputation--or perhaps I should say, old Flint's." + +"_Old_ Flint's?" echoed Claire. + +"Well, of course he isn't so awfully old, but men like him always give +that impression. They're so awfully wise--about _some_ things. I _was_ +so relieved when Gertie didn't get that dreadful Miss Whitehead's +place. Being in the general office is bad enough, but in his _private_ +office...." Mrs. Richards lifted and dropped her tatting-filled hands +significantly. + +Claire felt the blood rush to her face. "I'm in the private office, Mrs. +Richards.... No doubt you forgot it." + +"Well now, you know I _had_ ... for the moment. But with a girl like you +it's different. Some women can handle men, but Gertie would be so +helpless!" + +The humor of Mrs. Richards's remark saved the situation for Claire. She +changed the subject deliberately. But somehow, with the conversation +forced from the particular to the general, Miss Munch's cousin lost +interest, and by the time the boat had passed Alcatraz Island Claire was +deep in her thoughts again and the other woman following the measured +flight of the tatting-shuttle with strained attention. + +The boat was romping through the stiff sea like a playful porpoise, +dipping and plunging. A half-score of adventuresome gulls were still +following in the foam-churned wake. In the face of all the pitching +about, Mrs. Richards had quite a battle to direct her shuttle to any +efficient purpose, and Claire was almost amused at the grim +determination she brought to the performance. + +Presently a warning whistle from the ferryboat betrayed the fact that +they were nearing Sausalito. Mrs. Richards began to gather up her +numerous bundles, and Claire and she made their way down the narrow +stairs to the lower deck. Their progress was slow and uncertain. The +southeaster was tearing across the open spaces and bending everything +before it; the lumbering boat dipped sideward in a stolid encounter with +its adversary. + +"Mercy! What a night!" gasped Mrs. Richards, clutching at Claire's arm. + +A gust of wind struck them with its force just as they reached the lower +deck. Mrs. Richards staggered and wrestled vainly with tatting-bag and +bundles and a refractory skirt. For the moment both women were stalled +in a desperate effort to retain their equilibrium. + +"Come!" gasped Claire. "Let's get over there in the shelter of that +automobile." + +They made the leeward side of the automobile in question, and while Mrs. +Richards began to recover her roughly handled dignity Claire turned her +attention to the car. It was a huge dark-red affair, evidently fresh +from the shop. Claire knew none of the fine points of automobiles, but +this one had unmistakable evidences of distinction. She was peering in +at its opulent depths when who should surprise her but Ned Stillman. + +"My dear Miss Robson!" he cried, in a tone of delight, as he faced her +from the opposite side of the car. "What do you think of it?" + +"Yours?" she queried. + +"Just out of the shop to-day. I couldn't wait until it cleared. I just +had to get out with it. And this kind of weather always puts me up on my +toes. Where are you going--to Ross? If you are, don't bother with the +train. Come along with me." + +He circled about the machine and came up to her with a frank, +outstretched hand. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" he murmured as Mrs. Richards +came into view. + +Claire began an introduction, but Mrs. Richards cut in with her odd, +challenging way. + +"Oh, _I_ know Mr. Stillman! But I guess he's forgotten _me_. It's been +some years, of course. At Mr. Faville's--your _wife's_ father's house." + +Stillman paled for the briefest of moments, but he recovered himself +cleverly. "Mrs. Richards--of course! How do you do? It _has_ been some +years." + +"I'm going to Mr. Flint's--at Yolanda," said Claire, "to take some +dictation. He's been ill, you know." + +"Ill? No, I hadn't heard it. Nothing serious, I hope." + +"Not serious enough to keep Mrs. Flint at home, anyway," volunteered +Mrs. Richards, in her characteristically disagreeable way. + +"Mrs. Richards saw Mrs. Flint and the children coming off the boat...." + +"As I got on," interrupted the lady again. + +"Oh, indeed, is that so?" Claire fancied that Stillman's tone held +something more than polite acceptance of what he had just heard. "I can +take you ladies to Yolanda if you'd like a spin in the open better than +a stuffy ride in the train." + +"Thank you," Mrs. Richards returned, "but I get off at Sausalito. I've +no doubt Miss Robson will be delighted." + +"I think I'd better not," said Claire. "Mr. Flint is sending his car to +the train for me. I shouldn't want to change my program and cause +confusion. But I'd like nothing better! The air is so bracing!" + +"You can excuse _me_!" put in Mrs. Richards, moving toward the forward +deck. "It's going to pour in less than ten minutes. I'm not one of those +amphibious creatures who like to get wringing wet just for the fun of +it!" + +Stillman lifted his hat. Claire stood for a moment undecided whether to +follow Mrs. Richards or remain for a chat with Stillman. + +"I'm an awful fool, I suppose," Stillman smiled at Claire, "bringing the +car out on a night like this. But the truth is Edington promised to +catch this boat and I wanted him to try out the new plaything. I might +have known he wouldn't make it. We're running over for dinner with +Edington's sister." + +At this moment the boat crashed clumsily against the Sausalito +ferry-slip, and in the sudden confusion of landing Claire was swept +along without further ado. + +She looked back. Stillman waved a genial good-by to her. She felt glad +that he was behind her, in a vague, impersonal, thoroughly inexplainable +way. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Claire was disappointed that Mrs. Flint was not to be at home. She had +caught glimpses of her now and then coming into the office and she was +interested in the hope of seeing her at closer range. Mrs. Flint was a +rather frumpish individual, who always gave the impression of pieced-out +dressmaking. + +"She must subscribe to the _Ladies' Home Journal_," Nellie Whitehead had +commented one day. "You know that 'go-up-into-the-garret-and-get-five- +yards-of-grandmother's-wedding-gown' column. Well, she's a walking ad +for it. She's no raving beauty, but if she would throw out her chest and +chuck those flat-heeled clogs of hers, and put a marcel wave in her +hair, maybe the old man would sit up and take notice." + +To which Miss Munch had replied: + +"Well, she's a mighty sweet woman, anyway!" in a tone calculated to +freeze the irrepressible Nellie Whitehead into silence. + +"Who says she isn't? And at that, a good tailor-made suit and a +decent-looking hat won't spoil her disposition any...." + +The children, too, were what Nellie Whitehead had termed "perfect guys." +On warm days Mrs. Flint would drag these two daughters of hers into the +office, dressed in plaid suits and velveteen hats; and when a cold north +wind blew it seemed inevitable that they would appear in gay and airy +costumes up to their knees, with impossible straw bonnets trimmed with +daisies and faded cornflowers, reminiscent of the white-leghorn-hat era. + +"Men don't marry women for their clothes," Miss Munch used to say, +challengingly, to Nellie. + +"Oh, don't they, indeed! Well, I've lived longer than sixteen and a half +years and I've noticed that it's the up-to-the-minute dame that gets +away with it and holds onto it every time, just the same. And any woman +silly enough to work the rag-bag game when her husband can afford seven +yards of taffeta and a Butterick pattern is a fool!" + +Claire knew women who looked dowdy on dress-parade and yet managed to be +quite charming in their own houses. She was wondering whether this might +not be Mrs. Flint's case; anyway, she had hoped for a chance to decide +this point, and now Mrs. Flint was not at home. + +As she settled into her matting-covered seat in the train she began to +wonder just who _would_ be home at the Flint establishment. And she +thought suddenly of the disagreeable emphasis that Mrs. Richards had +seen fit to give the fact that Mrs. Flint was bound cityward. At this +stage she became lost in discovering so many points of contact between +Mrs. Richards and her cousin, Miss Munch. Then the train started with a +quick lurch, and a view of the rapidly darkening landscape claimed her +utterly. + +Claire always took a childish delight in watching the panorama of the +countryside unroll swiftly before the space-conquering flight of a +train. And to-night the quick close of the December day warned her to +make the most of her opportunity. The wind was whipping the upper +reaches of the bay into a shallow fury, and the water in turn was +beating against the slimy mud and swallowing it up in gray, futile +anger. This part of the ride just out of Sausalito was always more or +less depressing unless a combination of full tide and vivid sunshine +gave its muddy stretches the enlivening grace of sky-blue reflections. +Worm-eaten and tottering piles, abandoned hulks, half-swamped skiffs, +all the water-logged dissolution of stagnant shore lines the world over, +flashed by, to be succeeded by the fresher green of channel-cut marshes. +The hills were wind-swept, huddling their scant oak covering into the +protecting folds of shallow canons. At intervals, clumps of +eucalyptus-trees banded together or drew out in long, thin, soldier-like +lines. + +Presently it began to rain. There was no preliminary patter, but the +storm broke suddenly, hurling great gray drops of moisture against the +windows. Claire withdrew from any further attempt to watch the whirling +landscape. It was now quite dark, the short December day dying even more +suddenly under a black pall of lowering clouds. + +She began to have distinctly uncomfortable thoughts about her visit to +the Flints'. But the more uncomfortable her thoughts became, the more +reason she brought to bear for conquering them. Surely one was not to be +persuaded into a panic by any such person as Mrs. Richards! And by the +time the brakeman announced the train's approach to Yolanda, Claire had +recovered her common sense. What of it if Mrs. Flint had gone to town? +There must be other women in the household--at least a maid. It was +absurd! The train stopped and Claire got off. + +Flint's car was waiting, and Jerry Donovan, the chauffeur, stood with a +dripping umbrella almost at Claire's elbow as she hopped upon the +platform. + +As they swished through the inky blackness, Claire said to Jerry, with +as inconsequential an air as she could muster: + +"I thought I saw Mrs. Flint get off the boat in town. But I guess I was +mistaken. She wouldn't be leaving Mr. Flint alone ... when he's ill." + +"Ill?" Jerry chuckled. "Well, he ain't dead by a long shot. Just a case +of sniffles, and a good excuse for hitting the booze. He's in prime +condition, I can tell you." + +Claire had never seen Flint in "prime condition," but she had it from +Nellie Whitehead that there were moments when the gentleman in question +could "go some," to use her predecessor's precise terms. + +"About twice a year," Nellie had once confided to Claire, "the old boy +starts in to cure a cold. I helped him cure one ... but _never_ again!" + +Jerry's observations aroused fresh anxiety, but they did not settle the +issue for Claire. She felt that she could not turn back at the eleventh +hour. There was nothing else for her to do but go through with the game. +Yet she still hoped for the best. + +"_Did_ Mrs. Flint go to town to-day?" she finally asked, point-blank. + +"Sure thing," said Jerry, swinging the car past the Flint gateway. + +Claire refused to be totally lacking in faith. + +"There must be a maid," flashed through her mind, as Jerry stopped the +car and swung down to help her out. + +A Japanese boy threw open the door as they scrambled up the rain-soaked +steps. But the fine, orderly, Colonial interior reassured Claire. The +few country homes she had seen had been of the rambling, unrelated +bungalow type, with paneled redwood walls either stained to a dismal +brown or quite frankly left to their rather characterless pink. This +home was different. Even the pungent oak logs crackling in the fireplace +did so with indefinable distinction. The general tone of the +surroundings was as little in keeping with the patchwork personality of +its mistress as one could imagine. It was as if the singular +completeness of Mrs. Flint's home left no time nor energy for a finished +individuality. Claire got all this in the briefest of flashes, just a +swift, inclusive glance about the entrance hall and through the doorways +leading into the rooms beyond. Particularly did she sense the severe +opulence of the dining-room, twinkling at a remoter distance than the +living-room--its perfectly polished silver, its spotless linen, its +wonderfully blue china, not to mention the disconcerting fact that the +table in the center was laid for but two. + +And then Flint himself came forward with a very red face and an absurdly +cordial greeting. + +"Well, I began to wonder whether you'd risk it. This will be a storm and +no mistake.... Here, let me have your coat. Come, you're quite wet.... +Shall you warm up on a hot toddy or something cooler--a cocktail?" + +She felt his hand sliding down her arm as she released the coat to his +too-eager fingers. "Oh no, Mr. Flint! Thank you, nothing. It's only a +bit of rain on the surface. I'm quite dry." + +"Quite dry!" He echoed her words with a guffaw. "Well, then, we'll have +to moisten you up. I always say everything's a good excuse for a drink. +If you're cold you take a drink to warm up; if you're warm you take one +to cool off. You dry out on one, and you wet up on one. I don't know of +any habit with so many good reasons back of it. I'm dry, too.... We'll +have a Bronx! That's a nice, ladylike drink." + +Claire weighed her reply. She did not want to strike the wrong note; she +wanted to let him have a feeling that she was accepting everything in a +normal, matter-of-fact way, as if she saw nothing extraordinary in the +situation. + +"You're very kind, but really you know ... if I'm to get my dictation +straight...." + +"Well, perhaps there won't be any dictation. We're not slaves, you and +I. Maybe it will be much pleasanter to sit before the fire and listen to +the storm. What do you say to that?" + +She turned from him deliberately, under the fiction of fluffing up her +hair before a gilt mirror near the door. She was thinking quickly and +with a tremendous, if concealed, agitation. "Why," she laughed back, +finally, "that _would_ be pleasant. But I came to take dictation, Mr. +Flint. And women ... women, you know, are so funny! If they make up +their minds to one thing, they can't switch suddenly to another idea." + +He was paying no attention to her remark, a remark which she felt would +have fallen flat in any event, since it was so palpably studied. + +"The living-room is in there," he said, pointing. "Make yourself at +home." + +She went in and sat before the fire. Flint disappeared. She tried hard +to analyze the situation. It was unthinkable that Mr. Flint had +deliberately planned this piece of foolishness. He must have had some +idea of work when he had telephoned her; perhaps he still had. It was +his way of being facetious, she argued, this fine pretense that it was +all to be a pleasant lark, or it may have been his idea of hospitality. +Of course he had been drinking, but she took comfort in the thought that +there must be instinctive standards in a man like Flint that even whisky +could not swamp. At least he must respect his wife--surely it was not +possible for Flint, drunk or sober, to offer such an affront to _her_, +however little he respected the women in his employ. She dismissed Mrs. +Richards's exaggerated insinuations with their well-deserved contempt, +but she could not thrust aside quite so readily the eye-lifting tone +with which Stillman had met the announcement of Mrs. Flint's absence +from home. + +This was the first time that Claire had seen Stillman since the +musicale. She had thought a great deal about him and particularly about +his problem. She felt a great desire to know everything--all the details +of the unfortunate circumstance that had driven his wife into a +madhouse, and yet whenever her mother broached the subject Claire +changed the topic with curious panic. She seemed to dread the hard, +almost triumphant manner that her mother assumed in tracking misfortune +to its lair and gloating over it. She began to wonder whether Stillman +would be swinging back to the city on a late boat ... or would the storm +keep him at Edington's sister's home all night? + +She was in the midst of this speculation when Flint came into the room. + +"We'll eat early and have that off our minds," he announced. His manner +was brusk and business-like again. Claire felt reassured. + +But she was disturbed to find a cocktail at her place at the table. + +"Well, here's glad to see you!" Flint raised his glass and tilted it +ever so slightly in her direction. Claire lifted the cocktail to her +lips and set it down untasted. "What's the matter? Getting unsociable +again?" + +"No, Mr. Flint. I don't care for cocktails." + +"Oh, all right! We'll send down-cellar and get some wine." + +"Thank you, not for me." + +"I suppose you don't care for wine, either?" His voice had a bantering +quality, with a shade of menace in it. "Or maybe the right party isn't +here. I've noticed that makes a difference. Females are damned moral +with the wrong fellow." + +His attack was so direct and insolent that Claire missed the trepidation +that might have come with a more covert move. She was no longer +uncertain. There was a sharp relief in realizing that all the cards were +on the table. She felt also that there was no immediate danger. Flint +was far from sober, but he was in his own home. She had the conviction +that he was merely skirmishing, testing the strength or weakness of the +line he hoped to penetrate. Her reply was rather more of a challenge +than she could have imagined herself giving under such a circumstance. + +"And if I were to tell you that I don't care for wine, Mr. Flint?" + +He threw open his napkin with a flourish. "You'd be telling me a damned +lie! You drink wine at the Palace with Stillman and Edington." + +She had felt that he was going to say some such thing and for a moment +it amused her. It was so ridiculous to find this rather wan and wistful +indiscretion assuming damaging proportions. But a nasty fear succeeded +her faint amusement. Could it be possible that Stillman had gossiped? + +"Who told you?" she demanded. + +"Oh, don't be afraid; it wasn't Stillman! You're like all women, you +moon about sentimentalizing over Ned until it makes a man like me sick! +I like Ned; I always have. But even when we went to college together it +was the same way. Everybody ... yes, even the men ... always gave him +credit for a high moral tone. Not that he ever took it.... I'll say that +for him.... Ned Stillman didn't tell me, for the simple reason that he +didn't have to. Nobody told me. I go to the Palace myself under +pressure, and I've got two eyes. As a matter of fact, there isn't any +reason why Edington or Stillman or the waiter who drew the corks +shouldn't have mentioned it. A glass of wine is no crime. But the thing +that makes me hot is to see any one pretending. If you drink with +Stillman, you haven't any license to refuse a glass with me." + +There was something more than wine-heated rancor back of his harangue. +Claire guessed instinctively that he both loved and hated Stillman with +a curious confusion of impulses. It was a feeling of affection torn by +the irritating superiority of its object. One gets the same thing in +families ... among children. It was at once subtle and extremely +primitive. + +"My dear Mr. Flint, this isn't quite the same thing. I've work to do for +one thing and, and...." + +"And ... and.... Why don't you say it? You're alone with me and all that +sort of rubbish! Want a chaperon, I suppose. Mrs. Condor, for +instance.... Good Lord!" + +Claire dipped her spoon into the steaming bouillon-cup in front of her. +She was growing quite calm under the directness of Flint's attack. + +"It isn't the same," she reiterated, stubbornly. "I've work to do, Mr. +Flint." + +"I tell you that you haven't!" Flint brought his fist down upon the +table. + +"Well, then, why did you send for me?" + +"I had something to say to you.... Gad! one can't talk in that ramping +office of mine. We've never even settled the matter of an increase in +salary for you. By the way, how much money do you get?" + +Claire had never seen any man look so crafty and disagreeable. He gave +her the impression of a petty tyrant about to bestow largess upon an +obsequious and fawning slave. + +"Sixty-five dollars a month." + +"Well, I don't exactly know.... I've been trying to figure out just how +valuable you are to me, Miss Robson. Or, rather, how valuable you're +likely to be." He thrust aside his soup and leaned heavily upon the +table. "That's why I invited you over to-night. I wanted to see you at a +little closer range. You live with your mother, don't you?" + +"Yes, Mr. Flint." + +"You ... you support your mother, I believe?" + +"Yes, Mr. Flint." + +"Well, sixty-five dollars don't leave much margin for hair ribbons and +the like, does it, now?" + +"No, Mr. Flint." + +"No, Mr. Flint.... Yes, Mr. Flint...." he mocked. "Good Lord! can't you +cut that school-girl-to-her-dignified-guardian attitude. I'm human. +Dammit all, I'm as human as your friend Ned Stillman. I'll bet you don't +yes-sir and no-sir him.... You know, that night I saw you at the Palace +you quite bowled me over. I'd been thinking of you as a shy, +unsophisticated young thing. But you were hitting the high places like a +veteran. Even old lady Condor didn't have anything on you. Except, of +course, that she looks the part. By the way, where did you meet +Stillman?" + +"At ... at a church social," Claire stammered. + +"At a church social! Say, I wasn't born yesterday. Ned Stillman doesn't +go to church. Tell me something easy." + +"It was really a Red Cross concert. He went with Mrs. Condor," Claire +found herself explaining in spite of her anger. "We sat at the same +table when the ice-cream was served." + +Flint was roaring with exaggerated laughter. Even Claire could not +restrain a smile. What made the statement so ridiculous, she found +herself wondering. Was she unconsciously reflecting Flint's attitude or +had she herself changed so tremendously in the last few weeks? + +"Stillman at a church social! But that _is_ good! And eating +ice-cream.... How long ago did all this happen, pray?" + +"Sometime in November." + +He stopped his senseless guffawing and looked at her keenly. "Where did +you get the church-social habit?" + +"I ... why, I guess I formed it early, Mr. Flint. As you say, sixty-five +dollars a month doesn't leave much for hair ribbons or anything else. +Going to church socials is about the cheapest form of recreation I can +think of." + +The bitterness of her tone seemed to pull Flint up with a round turn. +"Well, we're going to get you out of this silly church-social habit. +Dammit all, Stillman isn't the only possibility in sight. That's just +what I wanted to get at--your viewpoint. I take an interest in you, Miss +Robson--a tremendous interest. Good Lord! I can dance one-steps and +fox-trots and hesitations as well as anybody! I danced every bit as +well as Ned Stillman when we went to dancing-school together. But he +always got most of the applause. He _has_ an air, I don't deny that, but +he's working it overtime.... And he's not in any better position for +being friendly to you than I am--_he's_ married." + +The talk was sobering him a little. Claire was amazed to find that she +did not feel indignant. His tone was offensive, but at least it was +forthright. Besides, she had known instinctively that some day he would +force the issue, and she was rather glad to get it settled. And she +began to hope that she could persuade him skilfully against his warped +convictions. She was trembling inwardly, too, at the thought that she +might make a false step and find herself out of a position. Positions +were not easy to land these days. She knew a half-score of girls who had +tramped the town over in a desperate effort to find a vacancy. Two or +three months without salary meant debts piling up, clothes in ribbons, +and no end of hectic worries. + +"I think you've got a decidedly wrong impression of my friendship for +Mr. Stillman," she said, after some deliberation. "I really know him +only slightly. He was good enough, or rather I should say Mrs. Condor +was good enough, to include me in a little musical evening. That was on +the night you saw me at the Palace. We dropped down for a dance or two +after the music was over. I'd never been to such a place before, and I +dare say I'll never go again. It was just one of those experiences that +come to a person out of a clear sky. It's over as quickly as a shower." + +"Oh, don't you worry! There'll be other showers. I'm going to see to +that. You know, the more I talk to you the more amazing you are.... +Fancy your graduating from dinky church things into Stillman musicales, +and Palace dansants, and young Edington, and old lady Condor, all of a +sudden ... and getting away with it as if you were an old hand at the +game. Say, if you're that apt I'll give you a post-graduate course in +high life that'll make your hair curl forty-seven ways. I don't mean +anything vulgar or common ... _you_ understand. I'm a gentleman, Miss +Robson, at that." + +He stopped for a moment to ring the bell for the Japanese boy. Claire +maintained a discreet silence. She had a feeling that it would be just +as well to let him take his full rein. The servant came in and cleared +away the empty bouillon-cups. Fish was served. + +Flint took one taste of the fish and shoved it away impatiently. "You +know, a fellow like me gets awfully bored at all this sort of thing." He +swept the room with an inclusive gesture. "Not that my wife isn't the +best little woman in the world, but _you_ know. She's got standards and +convictions and all that sort of rot. I can't bundle _her_ off for +dinner and a little lark at the Red Paint or Bonini's or some other +Bohemian joint like them.... You know what I mean, no rough stuff ... +but a good feed, and two kinds of wine, and a cigarette with the small +black. Just gay and frivolous.... Of course I can get any number of +girls to run around and help eat up all the nourishment I care to +provide. But, good Lord! that isn't it! I'm looking for somebody with +human intelligence. Not that I want to discuss free verse and the Little +Theater movement. But I like to feel that if I took such a crazy notion +the person sitting opposite me could qualify for a good comeback.... I +like my home and everything, but.... Oh, well, what's the use in +pretending? I'm just as human as your friend Ned Stillman and I've got +just as keen an eye for class." + +He sat back in his seat with an air of satisfaction, waiting for +Claire's reply. She had been calm enough while he talked, but under the +tenseness of his silent expectancy she felt her heart bound. + +"Dammit all! Why don't you say something?" he blurted out. "I know, you +need a little wine. I'm going down-stairs and pick out the best in the +cellar ... _myself_." + +She did not attempt to dissuade him; as a matter of fact, she felt +relieved to be left alone for a moment. She must leave as soon as dinner +was over. She began to wonder about the trains. The storm was raging +outside. She could hear the frenzied trees flinging their branches about +and a noisy flood of rain against the windows. She spoke to the Japanese +boy as he was carrying away Flint's unfinished fish course. + +"Do you know what time the next train leaves?" + +He laid the tray on the serving-table. "Please.... I telephone. Please!" +He bobbed at her absurdly and went out into the hall. She listened. He +was ringing up the station-master. He came back promptly. + +"Please," he began, sucking in his breath, "please ... no train +to-night." + +"No train to-night? Why, what do you mean?" + +"Please ... very much water. Train track washed out. No train to-night. +To-morrow morning, maybe." + +"Oh, but I must go home to-night! I really must! I...." + +She broke off suddenly, realizing the futility of her protest. + +"To-morrow morning," replied the Japanese, blandly. "All right to-morrow +morning. You stay here.... I fix a place. You see.... I fix a very nice +place for young lady." + +He went out with the tray and Claire rose and walked to the window. +Flint broke into the room noisily. She turned--he had two dusty bottles +in his hand, and an air of triumph. + +"Mr. Flint, it seems that there has been a washout. I understand that no +trains are running. What can I do? I must get back; really I...." + +"Who says so?" Flint laid the bottles down with an irritating calmness. + +"The station-master. Your ... your servant just telephoned for me." + +"Oh, well, _we_ should worry! Sit down." + +"Mr. Flint, really, I must.... You know I can't.... I...." + +"Sit _down_!" + +His tone was a dash of cold water thrown in the face of her rising +hysteria. She sat down. Flint ignored the bottles on the table and, +crossing over to the Sheraton sideboard, poured himself a stiff drink +of whisky. His hair-towsled condition stood out sharply against the +precise background. + +He made no further comment, but he began to open the bottles of wine +deliberately. Then he rummaged in the china-closet for the wine-glasses +and set four, two at his place and two at Claire's, upon the table. + +"White wine with the entree and red wine with the roast," he muttered. +And he poured out the white wine without further ado. + +The servant came in with creamed sweetbreads. Claire forced herself to +make a pretense of eating, although her appetite had long since deserted +her. She was thinking, and thinking hard. + +She should never have come, in the first place--at least she should have +turned back upon the strength of Jerry's announcement. But she saw now, +with a clearness that surprised her, that the situation had really +challenged her imagination. She had been too calm, too collected, too +well-poised, full of smug over-confidence. She had read in the current +novels of the day how hysterically unsophisticated heroines conducted +themselves in tight corners and she had followed their writhings with +ill-concealed impatience. She never had really put herself in their +place, but she had had a vague notion that they carried on absurdly. Her +fear all evening had been not what Mr. Flint would do or say or even +suggest--she had been anxious merely to have the impending storm over, +the air cleared, and her position in the office assured upon a purely +business-like basis. She had really welcomed the forced issue; for weeks +her mind had been entertaining and dismissing the idea that Mr. Flint +had any questionable motives in yielding Nellie Whitehead's place to +her. With this fleeting trepidation had come the realization of her +dependence, the importance her sixty-five dollars a month in the scheme +of things, the compromises that she might be forced into accepting in +order to insure its continuance; not definite and soul-searing +compromises, it was true, but petty, irritating trucklings which wear +down self-esteem. + +It had been the primitive violence of Flint's commanding, "Sit down!" to +thrust the issue from the economic to the elemental. For the first time +in her life Claire was face to face with unstripped masculine brutality. +She had wondered why women of a lower order took men's blows without +striking back, without at least escaping from further torment. But she +was beginning to see, as her spirits tried to rise reeling from Flint's +verbal assault, the fawning submission, half admiration, half fear, that +could follow a frank, hard-fisted blow. And she had a terror, sitting +there trying to thrust food between her trembling lips, that the sheer +physical force of the male opposite her might shatter in one blow a will +that could have withstood any amount of spiritual or material attrition. +She had never seen Flint so clearly as at this moment; in fact, she had +never seen him _at all_. Formerly, he had been a conventionalized +masculine biped in a blue-serge covering who paid her salary and struck +attitudes that were symbols of predatory instincts rather than an +indication that such instincts existed. Life had, after all, been +peopled by the precisely labeled puppets of a morality play; they came +on, and declaimed, and made gestures--but they remained abstractions, +things apart from life, mere representations of the vices and virtues +they impersonated. She had entertained this idea particularly with +regard to Flint. She had felt that the day would come when he and she +would occupy the stage together. He would speak his part with a great +flourish of the hands and much high-sounding emphasis, and when he had +finished she would reply with a carefully worded retort, setting forth +the claims and rewards of virtue. Thus it would continue, argument +succeeding argument, a declamatory give and take, dignified, +passionless, theatrical. + +They were occupying the stage now, it was true, but there was something +warm and human and ragged about the performance. Flint was not a mere +spiritless allegory in red-satin doublet and hose to give flame to his +conventionality. Instead, she saw sitting opposite her a ponderous, +quick-breathing, drunken male, handsome in a coarse, rough-hewn way, +speaking in the quick, clipped speech of passion and striking her to the +ground with the energy of his stage business. She was afraid, almost for +the first time in her life, with a primitive, abandoned fear. And +suddenly her vista of womanhood narrowed to include the ugly foreground +of life that youth had looked over in its eager, far-flung scanning of +the horizon beyond. Suddenly she felt all the oppression and sorrow of +the sex bear down upon her and mark her with its relentless finger. +Because she was a woman she would pay for every joy with a corresponding +sorrow; receive a blow for every caress; know courage and fear with +equal intimacy.... She stopped eating and she began to realize with a +vivid terror that Flint was looking at her fixedly and beginning to +speak. + +"What's the matter with the sweetbreads? Don't you like 'em?... And the +wine?... Say, I'm going to get peeved in a minute. You don't suppose we +serve this French-restaurant style of meal every day do you? I should +say _not_! That's another one of the _frau's_ convictions. Plain living +at home so as to set the right example to the _girls_!" Flint threw his +head from side to side, mincing out his last statement. "Gad! I'm tired +of setting a good example!... And even Sing gets tired. Chinks, you +know, like to cook a bang-up meal once in a while. They like a chance to +show their speed and put in all the fancy trimmings." + +His mood, during this speech, had changed with drunken facility from +irritability to good humor. Claire, still attempting to marshal her +wits, picked up her fork again and murmured: + +"Oh, you have a Chinese cook, then? I had no idea.... The Japanese boy, +you know. They say that the two never get along." + +"That's a fairy-tale. Besides, it's next to impossible, these days, to +get a Chinese second-boy. And the missus _won't_ hire a girl." He winked +broadly. "Can't get one ugly enough, I guess. Sing's a wonder. I copped +him from the Tom Forsythes. _You_ know--young Edington's in-laws. +They've never quite forgiven me. Though they _will_ come back and tuck +away one of his dinners occasionally." + +Claire's mind closed nimbly over Flint's statement. "The--the Tom +Forsythes of Ross?" she asked. + +He nodded and tossed a glass of wine off in one gulp. The Tom Forsythes +of Ross ... Edington's sister ... Ned Stillman! The sequence of ideas +flashed through Claire's mind with flashing detachment. She leaned back +in her seat and raised the wine-glass in obvious pretense to her lips. +Flint was watching her keenly: an ugly gleam was in his eyes. + +"Well, Miss Robson, you might just as well make up your mind to finish +that glass of wine first as last. We're not going to have the next +course until you do." + +She measured him deliberately. She knew now that it was to be a fight to +a finish. She was honestly afraid and full of the courage of +realization. + +"I've had enough as it is, Mr. Flint. Besides, we must either be getting +to work or figuring how I am to make the boat at Sausalito. I suppose +you could send me in the car ... with Jerry." + +"Oh, with Jerry? So that's it!... No, not on your life! He's too +good-looking a boy for a job like that. No, Miss Robson, you are going +to stay _right_ here.... Now, understand me, I'm not a damn fool! You +seem to have an idea that because I've had a glass or two that I've lost +my reason. You're an attractive girl and all that, Miss Robson, and I am +interested in you! But please don't flatter yourself that I'm staking +everything on a throw like this. As a matter of fact, I'll see that you +are properly chaperoned. We've plenty of neighbors. You've got the best +excuse in the world for staying here and...." + +"But, my dear Mr. Flint, can't you see, I...." + +"No, I can't. I want you to stay _here_. My reasons are as good as +yours. Now let's get that off our mind and enjoy the meal." + +His manner struck her protests to the ground again. She was no longer +fearing the immediate outcome, in fact, she never had, but she knew that +if he broke her to his will now, all the safeguards, all the chaperons, +all the conventions in the world wouldn't save her from ultimate +consequences. This was the try-out that was to establish her pace in the +final contest; she would stand or fall upon the record she made at this +moment. For she was trying out something more than Flint's temper, +something greater than a mechanical adjustment of human +relationships--she was trying out _herself_. She sat for some moments, +thinking hard, one hand fingering the slender base of the wine-filled +glass in front of her, the other dropped in pensive limpness at her +side. Flint had cleared the space in front of him of everything but his +two wine-glasses. He had slipped down in his seat and his two bloodshot +eyes were fixing her with a level stare. + +She stirred finally and rose. + +He was on his feet in an instant. + +"I'm going to telephone," she said, calmly. + +"Telephone ... where?... What's the idea?" + +"Mr. Flint," she answered, a bit wearily, "at least I'm a guest in your +house, am I not?" + +He settled back in his seat with a grunt of acquiescence. She stood +dazed for a moment, surprised at the chance that had put such telling +words into her mouth. She had been fingering timidly for the key to his +chivalry; quite by accident she had hit upon it in the shape of this +appeal to her expectations of him in the rôle of host. She could have +lied, of course, and told him that she wished to telephone her mother, +but she had not yet been cornered sufficiently to resort to so +distasteful a weapon.... As she left the room she found herself +wondering whether Stillman had by any chance left the Tom Forsythes. She +looked at the clock. It was not quite eight o'clock. She felt reassured, +yet she was tremendously frightened.... Especially as she realized that +the telephone was in the entrance hall within earshot of the +dining-room.... + +She was decidedly more frightened when she got back from her +telephoning, and looked at Flint. He was clutching at the table with +both hands, his body tilted slightly forward, his lips ominously thin. + +"You telephoned to the Tom Forsythes, didn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"And you asked for Stillman.... Did you get him?" + +"Yes." + +"What did you want with him?" + +"If you heard that much, I guess you heard the rest, Mr. Flint." + +Claire stood at her place at the table. She decided not to sit. Flint +bore down on both hands until things began to creak. + +"Yes, I heard everything, but, dammit all, I couldn't believe my own +ears. You're like every woman I ever knew ... you don't play fair. You +appeal to my instinct as host and then you go and outrage every +privilege you've got me to concede. You're a pretty guest, you are! And +I sit here and let you 'play me for a fool.' Let you ring up Ned +Stillman and ask him to fetch you away from _my_ house in _his_ car!" He +stopped and took a deep breath; his words were no longer passionate; +instead, they were precise and cool and venomous. "Understand me, young +lady, I'm through with you. I wouldn't care, if I thought you were +really virtuous. But you're too clever for a virtuous woman.... Oh, I +dare say you subscribe to the letter of the law, all right. For +instance, you take care not to run around with married men whose +incumbrances are in plain view of the audience.... Oh, I've seen lots of +clever women in my time, but in the end they always took too much rope. +Remember, you'll have your bluff called some day." + +He pushed back his chair noisily and rose. The Japanese servant came +bobbing along. + +"Clear away the things!" Flint bellowed. "We're through!... Good night, +Miss Robson, and a pleasant journey to you--you and your _immaculate_ +friend Stillman." + +He left the room with a melodramatic flourish.... Presently Claire heard +him mounting the stairs. + +"He's drunk!" flashed through her mind, as if the idea had just struck +her. "Of course, he must be drunk, otherwise he wouldn't have dared +to...." + +She went out into the entrance hall and put on her hat. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Midway between Yolanda and Sausalito Stillman's machine died with +disconcerting suddenness The rain was coming down in sheets. Stillman +got out. + +"It's no use," he announced, lifting himself back into his seat. "I +can't do anything in this deluge." + +This was the first word that had been said since he and Claire had left +Flint's. + +"The worst will be over in a few moments," replied Claire, easily. But +she was far from reassured. + +The deluge was _not_ over in a few moments. It kept up with an +ever-increasing violence, until it seemed that even the stalled car +would be compelled to yield to its force. Claire had never seen it rain +harder; the storm had a vindictive fury that reminded her of the +dreadful tempest in "King Lear." + +Stillman maintained his usual well-bred calm and smoked cigarettes while +he chattered. He touched on every conceivable subject but the one +uppermost in Claire's mind, until she began to wonder whether delicacy +or contempt veiled his conversation. A half-hour passed ... an hour ... +two. Still the rain swept from the sullen sky. Twice Stillman made a +futile attempt to remedy the trouble with his engine, and twice he +retired defeated to the shelter of the car. Claire was relieved that +she was in the company of a man who did not emphasize the monotonous +hours by indiscriminate raillery against the tricks of chance. At first +he dismissed the situation with the most casual of shrugs; later he +acknowledged his annoyance by an expression of regret at his companion's +discomfort, but he stopped there. + +As the hours went on, with no abatement of the storm's devastating +energy, Claire grew less and less pleased at the prospect. She began to +wonder whether the shelter of Flint's roof had not been, after all, the +discreet thing. Was not her headlong flight in company with Stillman +more open to criticism than the frank acceptance of her employer's +hospitality? But these vagrant questions were the spawn of a colorless +spirit of social expediency which fastens itself on weak natures, and in +Claire's case they died still-born. She had been too well schooled in +loneliness to lean heavily on the crooked stick of public opinion. +Accustomed to standing alone, she had something of the spiritual +arrogance that goes with independence. People could think what they +liked. And it was more a realization of her mother's anxiety than any +thought of self which made her suggest to Stillman that they might get +out and walk into Sausalito. + +"I think the last boat leaves there at twelve-thirty," she finished. +"Surely we could make it if we keep going." + +Stillman thrust his arm out into the drenching rain, and withdrew it +instantly. "I'm afraid that's out of the question, so long as the rain +keeps up, Miss Robson," he said, in a tone of implied objection. +"Perhaps if it should stop...." + +Claire settled back in her seat. Stillman was right. The storm was too +furious to be lightly braved. + +It was eleven o'clock before a quick veering of the wind brought a +downpour so violent that what had gone before seemed little better than +a rather weak rehearsal. + +"It will clear presently," Stillman assured Claire. "Southeaster always +break up in a flurry like this from the west." + +In ten minutes the stars were peeping brilliantly through rents in the +torn clouds. Pungent odors floated up from the rain-trampled stubble of +the hillsides, the air was cleared of its stifling oppressiveness, the +first storm of the season was over. + +Both Claire and Stillman clambered out at the first signs of the storm's +exhaustion. Stillman switched on his pocket-light and began to +investigate the trouble with the engine. His decision was swift and +conclusive. + +"It's hopeless," he announced, turning to Claire with a slight grimace. +"We're stalled absolutely and no mistake. I guess we'd better strike out +and walk. No doubt we'll get a lift into Sausalito before we've gone +very far, but I dare say it's well to be on the safe side." + +They rolled the machine to one side of the roadway and struck out +hopefully. The rain had made a thin chocolate ooze of the highway, and +before they had gone a hundred yards their shoes were slimy with mud. It +appeared that Stillman had been something of an aimless wanderer for +many years, and as he talked on and on, giving detached glimpses of the +remote places he had visited, Claire had a curious sense of futility. + +She read between his clipped and vivid sentences the tragedy of a +personality worsted by the soft hands of circumstances. This man might +have done things. As it was he was an idler. He gave her the impression +of a man waiting vaguely for opportunity--like some traveler pacing +restlessly up and down a railway station platform in expectation of the +momentary arrival of a delayed train. She tried to imagine him as she +felt sure he must once have been--youthful, eager, ardent, a man of +charming enthusiasms that just missed being extravagances, who could +bring zest to his virtues as well as to his follies. + +"Surely," she thought, "something more than inclination must have pushed +him into this deadly stagnation." + +And at once Miss Munch's insinuating question leaped up to answer: + +"You know about his wife, of course!" + +Were men put out of countenance by such impersonal tricks of fortune? +Impersonal?... this domestic tragedy?... Yes, Claire felt that it must +be, otherwise the man tramping at her side would have wrestled so +passionately against fate as to have come away at least spattered with +the mud of defeat. No, Stillman was not defeated, he was merely +arrested, restrained, held for orders. + +He had been in London when the war broke out. He had stayed long enough +to watch the stolid, easy-going British public awake to the seriousness +of the encounter, coming home after the first air raids. + +"I didn't mind being killed," he laughed, in explanation of his sudden +flight. "But I didn't like being so frightfully messed up in the +process. I want a chance to strike back when I'm cornered. The Zeppelin +game was too much like a rabbit-drive to suit me." + +As he spoke of these experiences, Claire listened with a quickening of +the spirit. The prospect of finding Stillman vibrant was too stirring to +be denied. But he was still sober on this colossal subject of war ... a +bit judicial, always well poised. He had his sympathies, but they did +not appear vitalized by extravagances of feeling. Yet here and there +Claire was conscious of truant warmths, like brief flashes of sunlight +through a somber forest. + +"And the draft--what do you think of that?" The question rose to her +lips as if his answer might unlock the door to something deeper in the +way of convictions. + +He began with a shrug that chilled her; then his reply broke with sudden +refreshment: + +"It helps ... some of us. There are many who can't decide for +themselves. The obvious duty isn't always the correct one. In my +case...." + +He did not stop speaking suddenly, but his voice trailed off into a dim +region of musing. They both fell silent. But Claire knew. There was that +haunting hope, almost like a fear, that his wife might some day get +better. That was what he was waiting for! It might come to-morrow ... +next week ... in a year ... never! But when it did come he felt that he +must be there, ready. She wondered whether he loved his wife very much, +and she found herself hoping that he did.... It would help, somehow ... +yes, if that were so his sacrifice gained point. On the other hand.... +She put the thought away with a quick thrust, feeling that she had no +right to such a speculation, and presently she was aware that they were +swinging into Sausalito. + +Stillman looked at his watch. Twelve-thirty-five ... just five minutes +late for the boat! She could see that he was disturbed. + +"I thought sure we'd get a lift," he railed, tossing aside a mangled +cigar. "This _is_ luck!... I guess we'll have to rout out the Sherwins. +It's something of a pull up the hill, but any safe port in a storm, you +know." + +"The Sherwins?" + +"Another one of the Edington girls. They have a bungalow at the very +dizziest point in Sausalito." + +But Claire objected and held firm. "I couldn't think of it, Mr. +Stillman. No, really!... Please don't insist." + +They agreed on a lodging for Claire in a freshly painted but otherwise +rather decrepit lodging-house, just north of the ferry-slip. Its chief +advantage was that it seemed quite too stagnant to be anything but +respectable, and the suppressed grumbling of the old shrew whom they +routed out confirmed their estimate. She didn't approve of couples who +dragged God-fearing old women out of bed at unholy hours in the +morning, and it was only the generous tip from Stillman and the +assurance that he intended looking elsewhere for quarters for himself +that reconciled her to her loss of sleep and the compromise with her +convictions. + +For a good half-hour Claire sat with folded hands peering out from her +room upon the damp hillside to the west. From across the street came the +bawdy thumping of a mechanical piano and the swish of a sluggish tide. +Her encounter with Sawyer Flint had forced the door of her virginal +seclusion and thrust her at once into the primitive and elemental open. +She felt like one who was coming out of voluntary exile to the pathos of +a deferred heritage. Before her stretched the eagle's horizon, but she +had only the fledgling's strength of wing. She longed for the faith and +courage and daring to take life at its word, longed with all the +dangerous fierceness of one who had fed too long upon the husks of +existence. And, longing, she fell asleep, sitting in a chair before the +open window, without thought or preparation.... + + * * * * * + +The morning broke cloudless. All traces of the night's fury were +obliterated as completely as sorrow from the face of a smiling child. +The sun touched the open spaces with a tender, caressing warmth, but the +shadows held a keen-edged chill. + +Claire decided upon an early boat to town. + +"I'll be less likely to meet any of the California Street crowd," she +said to herself, as she picked her brief way toward the ferry. + +The boat was crowded, especially the lower cabin. It was the artisans' +boat and the air was heavy with the smoke of pipe-tobacco. Claire passed +rapidly to the dining-room. Perched upon the high revolving chairs +surrounding a horseshoe counter, a score or more of soft-shirted men sat +devouring huge greasy doughnuts and gulping coffee. The steward, taking +note of Claire's hesitation, came forward and led her to a seat at one +of the side tables. She was about to take advantage of the chair which +he had drawn out for her when she heard her name called. She turned. +Miss Munch's cousin, Mrs. Richards, was sitting alone at the table just +behind. Claire's first feeling was one of relief--she was glad to +discover an acquaintance. She thanked the steward for his trouble and +abandoned the proffered seat for the one opposite Mrs. Richards. Almost +at once she regretted her impulsive decision. + +"I didn't know you intended staying at Flint's all night," Mrs. Richards +began, fixing Claire with a challenging gaze. + +"I didn't intend to," returned Claire, her voice sharpened slightly. + +Mrs. Richards took the lid off the sugar-bowl and powdered her +grapefruit sparingly. "Have they a nice home?" she questioned. + +"Yes, very nice." + +"They gave you an early start, didn't they?... It's almost impossible to +get servants these days to consider such a thing as serving breakfast +much before eight o'clock." + +Claire glanced at the bill of fare. Mrs. Richards's tone was a trifle +too eager. "I suppose it is," Claire assented, placing the menu-card +back in its place between the vinegar and oil cruets. + +Mrs. Richards remained unabashed at her vis-à -vis's palpable +indirectness. "I guess I'm old-fashioned, but, servants or no servants, +I don't believe I could let a guest of mine leave the house without +breakfast. It seems to me that if I'd been Mrs. Flint I'd have gotten up +and made you a cup of coffee myself." + +Claire's growing annoyance was swallowed up in a feeling of faint +amusement. "Perhaps Mrs. Flint wasn't home," she said, beckoning the +waiter. + +"Oh!" Mrs. Richards exclaimed with shocked brevity. + +It was not until the arrival of Claire's order of toast and coffee that +Mrs. Richards found her voice again. + +"This business of wives staying from home all night gets me," Mrs. +Richards hazarded, boldly. "Why, I never remember the time when my +mother remained away overnight ... not under _any_ circumstances. My +father expected her to be there, and she always _was_." + +Claire distributed bits of butter over the surface of her toast. She +felt that in justice to the Flint family it was not right for her to +give Mrs. Richards's dangerous tongue any further scope, however +tempting was the prospect of leaving such venomous inquisitiveness +ungratified. + +"I think you misunderstood me, Mrs. Richards. I didn't say that Mrs. +Flint remained away from home last night. As a matter of fact I didn't +stay at Yolanda, so I don't know anything about it." + +"Oh!" faintly escaped Mrs. Richards for the second time that morning, +but Claire was conscious that there was more incredulity than surprise +registered in the lady's tone. + +"As a matter of fact," Claire continued, stung to incautious +exasperation, "I spent the night in Sausalito." + +Mrs. Richards met this information with a disarmingly bland smile. "I +didn't know you had friends in Sausalito," she said, letting a spoonful +of coffee trickle back into her cup. + +"I haven't. I spent the night in a lodging-house ... on the +water-front...." + +"My dear Miss Robson, really I.... Why, I hope you don't think I was +inquisitive!" + +It was the simplicity of the challenge that made it impossible to be +ignored. Claire knew that she was trapped, but she was angry enough to +decide on some reservation. + +"The storm put the track between Yolanda and Sausalito out of +commission," Claire found herself snapping back too eagerly at her +tormentor. "We tried to make the last boat by auto, but we got stalled +and missed it. We had to walk a good half of the way." + +"I shouldn't think that would have done Mr. Flint's cold any good," Mrs. +Richards said, drawlingly. + +"Mr. Flint's cold?... I don't quite see what that has to do with it." + +"Oh, you said 'we' I somehow got the impression...." + +"No, Mrs. Richards, you've misunderstood me again." Claire threw a +cool, even glance at her antagonist. "I made the trip from Yolanda to +Sausalito in Mr. Stillman's car." + +"Oh!" said Mrs. Richards for a third time, and in this instance her +voice was warm with gratification. + +Claire directed her attention to her plate of buttered toast and her cup +of coffee. She was chagrined to think that she had fallen so easily into +Mrs. Richards's very obvious traps. Not that it mattered. She was quite +sure that the truth could not harm Stillman, and she was equally sure +that her position in life was too obscure to stand out conspicuously +against the darts of Mrs. Richards's vindictive tongue. But she had the +pride of her reticences and she did not like to surrender these +privileges at the point of insolent curiosity. The two continued to eat +in silence. + +It was Mrs. Richards who finished first, and she dipped her fingers +hurriedly into the battered metal finger-bowl which the Japanese bus-boy +thrust before her. + +"Do you mind if I go along?" she inquired of Claire, with an air of +polite triumph. "I think I'll go forward where I can get a quick start +... before the crowd gets too thick. I've got a million errands to do +before nine o'clock. And I _do_ want to run into the office before +Gertie settles down to work. I haven't seen her for a week and I've got +_more_ things to tell her!" + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +"Why, Miss Claire, how could you! Where have you been? And your mother +in such a bad way!" Mrs. Finnegan broke into sudden tears. + +Claire, fumbling in her bag for the front-door key, looked up. Mrs. +Finnegan had swung open the door to the Robson flat and she stood like a +vision of disaster upon the threshold. + +"What has happened?" Claire's voice rose with a note of swift +apprehension. + +"Your mother ... she's paralyzed! She was taken last night. The doctor +says it would have happened, anyway. But I say it was worry, that's what +it was. With you away all night and never a word!" + +Claire climbed the stairs in silence, aware that Mrs. Finnegan was +following at a discreet distance. Already the house seemed permeated +with an atmosphere of tragedy and gloom in spite of the morning light +pouring in unscreened at every window. Mrs. Robson's room was the only +exception to this unusual excess of cold radiance--unusual, because it +was one of Mrs. Robson's prides to keep her window-shades lowered to a +uniform and genteel distance. + +Until Claire came face to face with her mother she almost had fancied +that her neighbor was indulging in a crude and terrible joke, but one +look sufficed. Mrs. Robson lay staring vacantly at the ceiling; she +could not move, she could not speak, and her spirit showed through the +veiled light in her eyes like a mysterious spot of sunshine in a shaded +well. Above a swooning sense of calamity Claire felt the strength of a +tender pretense struggling to communicate its vague hope to the stricken +form. She raised the window-shade slightly and sat down upon the bed. + +"Why, mother, what's all this?" she began, in a tone of gentle banter, +as she stroked the helpless hands. "Were you worried? I'm so sorry! I +asked Miss Munch to let you know. Didn't she?... I went over to Mr. +Flint's to take dictation. The storm washed out the track. I tried to +make the boat in Mr. Stillman's car, but we broke down and missed it.... +I had to stay all night in Sausalito." + +Mrs. Robson, stirring faintly, attempted to speak. Claire turned +helplessly to Mrs. Finnegan. "I can't make out what she is trying to +say." + +Mrs. Finnegan bent an attentive ear. "It's about Stillman," she +explained. "Your mother don't understand why...." + +The speaker stopped with significant discretion. It was plain to Claire +that _nobody_ understood, and she felt a dreary futility as she answered +both her mother and Mrs. Finnegan with: + +"It's a long story. Some other time, when ... when you're feeling +better." + +A look of gray disappointment crossed Mrs. Robson's face. Mrs. +Finnegan's upper lip seemed shaped suddenly with a suspicion that died +almost as quickly as it began. There was a ring at the bell. "That's the +doctor," said Mrs. Finnegan, and she left to open the door. + +The doctor chilled Claire with his steely nonchalance as she stood apart +while he went through the usual forms of a professional visit that was +obviously futile. She followed him to the front door. He answered her +eager inquiries with the cold triumph of authority. + +"How long will she last?... Well, Miss Robson, that is hard to say. She +might go off to-night. Then, again, she might live twenty years. She'll +scarcely get any better, though. No, a nurse isn't essential, unless you +can afford one. But you ought to have another woman about. If you have +any relatives you'd better send for them and let them help out." + +Claire did not find the doctor's announcement that her mother might die +at once nearly so brutal as his assurance that she had an equal chance +for existing twenty years. _Twenty years!_ Claire closed the door and +sank upon the steps overwhelmed. + +But there was scant leisure on this first dreadful day of Mrs. Robson's +illness for theatrical exuberances. Claire, unaccustomed to the routine +of household duties, took a thousand unnecessary steps. She tried to +work calmly, to bring an acquired philosophy to her tasks, but she went +through her paces with a feverish, though stolid, anxiety. The long +night which followed was inconceivably a thing of horror. Her wakeful +moments were dry-eyed with despair, and when she slept it was only to +come back to a shivering consciousness. + +Mrs. Finnegan found her next morning fresh from an attempt to rouse her +mother into accepting a few swallows of milk, which had ended in +pathetic and miserable failure. She had thrown herself in an abandon of +grief across the narrow kitchen table, and the coffee from an overturned +cup was trickling in a warm, thick stream to the floor. But the paroxysm +did her good. She rose to the kindly caresses of her neighbor like a +flower beaten to earth but refreshed by a relentless torrent. After +this, custom and habit began to reassert themselves in spite of the +crushing weight of circumstance. She 'phoned to the office. Mr. Flint +had returned, they told her. She explained her trouble to the cashier. +"I'll try to be back the first of the week," she finished, in a burst of +illogical hope. + +Later in the day Mrs. Robson's two sisters arrived in answer to Claire's +summons. Claire's impulse to send for them had been purely +instinctive--an atrophied survival of clan-spirit that persisted beyond +any real faith in its significance. Perhaps she had a feeling that her +mother wished it; certainly she had no illusions as to the manner in +which the unwelcome news of Mrs. Robson's illness would be received by +these two self-centered females. + +It was Mrs. Thomas Wynne who came in first, bundled mysteriously in her +furs and holding a glass of wine jelly as a conventional symbol of the +rôle of Lady Bountiful which she had for the moment assumed. Claire +could almost fancy how conspicuously she had contrived to carry this +overworked badge of the humanities, and the languid drawl of her voice +as she explained to her friends _en route_: + +"So sorry I can't stop and chat. But, as you see, I'm running along to a +sick-room.... Oh no, nothing serious, I hope! Just my sister.... Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown? Oh, dear no! A younger sister. I don't think you know her. +She's had a great deal of trouble and hasn't been about much for a +number of years." + +Mrs. Thomas Wynne had the trick of intrenching a stubborn family pride +by throwing back her head and daring all comers to uncover any of the +Carrol clan's shortcomings. But her selfishness had at least the virtue +of a live-and-let-live attitude that contrasted with the futile +aggressiveness of Mrs. Edward Ffinch-Brown. She asked Claire no +questions concerning her life or her prospects; she did not even pry +very deeply into the chances that her sister had for an ultimate +recovery. Her philosophy seemed to be founded on the knowledge that +uncovered cesspools were bound to be unpleasant, and, since she had no +desire to assist in their purification, she was quite content to keep +them properly screened. She came and deposited her wine jelly and patted +her sister's hand and went away again without leaving even a ripple in +her wake. As she departed she gave further proof of her insolent +insincerity by calling back at Claire: + +"Remember, Claire, if there is anything I can do, just let me know." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's visit was scarcely more comforting, but decidedly +more exciting. She had not the suavity of her indifferences. Mrs. +Robson's untimely tilt with fate irritated her, and she took no pains to +conceal this fact. + +"I suppose your mother is just as she's always been--a creature of +nerves," she said, as she dropped into a seat for a preliminary session +with Claire before venturing upon the unwelcome sight of her stricken +sister. "I don't know why it is, but she seems to be one of those people +who always has had something the matter with her. Poor Emily! Well, I +suppose we are all made differently." + +When she entered the sick-room she found fault with the arrangement of +the bed, the manner in which the covers slipped off, the uncovered glass +of medicine on the bureau. + +"You should braid your mother's hair, too. And why don't you pull the +window down from the top?" + +Claire stood in sullen silence while her aunt vented a personal +annoyance on the nearest objects. But when Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's +ill-natured ministrations brought a dumb but protesting misery to the +sufferer's face, Claire found the courage to say, as gently as she +could: + +"Why bother, Aunt Julia? Mother is really too sick now to care much +about appearances?" + +This was just what Claire's aunt had hoped for. It gave her a chance for +escape without any strain upon her conscience. She did not remain long +after what she was pleased to consider a rebuff. + +"Well, Claire, I see I can't be of much help," she announced as she +powdered her nose before the shabby hat-rack mirror and drew on her +gloves.... After she was gone Claire found a five-dollar bill on the +living-room table. She opened the gilt-edged copy of Tennyson that, +together with a calf edition of Ouida's _Moths_, had stood for years as +guard over the literary pretensions of the household, and thrust the +money midway between its covers. Doubtless a time was coming when she +would find it necessary to use this money, but the present moment was +too charged with the giver's resentful benevolence to make such a +compromise possible. + +For three consecutive days Mrs. Ffinch-Brown swooped down upon the +Robson household and gave vent to her pique. She had been divorced so +long from these melancholy relations of hers that she had really +forgotten their existence, and she displayed all the rancor of a woman +who discovers suddenly a moth hole in the long undisturbed folds of a +treasured cashmere shawl. Her precisely timed visits had not the +slightest suspicion of attentiveness back of them, and Claire guessed +almost at once that they were more in the nature of assaults carried on +in the hope that she would meet enough opposition to insure an honorable +retreat. Unlike Mrs. Thomas Wynne, Aunt Julia inquired minutely into +family matters, insisted on knowing Claire's plans, and was aggressively +free with advice. + +"You ought to be making plans, Claire," she said, at the conclusion of +her second visit. "You can't go on like this. I'd like to be able to do +more, but of course I can't spare much time. And next week you'll have +to be getting into harness again. You'd better think it over." + +And on the next day, finding that Claire obviously had _not_ thought it +over, she threw out a hint that was little save a thinly veiled threat. +She came in with a more genial manner than she was accustomed to waste +upon the desert air of penury, and Claire, well schooled in reading the +significance of proverbial calms, had a misgiving. + +"I've been talking to Miss Morton ... about your mother," Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown began, without bothering to lead up to the subject. "You +know Alice Morton.... Well, your mother does, anyway. I bumped into her +yesterday, quite by accident ... at a Red Cross meeting. It seems she's +one of the directors of The King's Daughters' Home for Incurables!" +Claire was sitting opposite her aunt, nervously fingering a +paper-cutter. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown eyed her niece sharply, and with an +obvious determination to drive her thrusts home before her victim +recovered from the first vicious stabs she continued: "It seems they +haven't a great deal of room out there, but she thinks she could arrange +things. They'll raise the price to two thousand dollars after the +fifteenth of the month, so I thought that--" + +"Oh, not quite yet, Aunt Julia!... Mother has a chance. Surely...." + +"Now, Claire, don't get hysterical. You're a business woman and _you_ +ought to be practical if any of us are. The price to-day is one thousand +dollars. Think of it! Care for life in a ward with only _three_ others! +Now I can't ask your uncle for any more than is necessary in a case +like this. If we make up our mind promptly we can save just one thousand +dollars." + +For the moment Claire felt the harried desperation of a cornered animal. +She had never seen anything more disagreeable than her aunt's sidelong +glance. She felt herself rise from her seat with cold dignity. + +"I'm afraid, Aunt Julia, I can't make up my mind as quickly as you wish. +It isn't so simple as it seems. I'm not above a plan like this if I'm +convinced it's necessary. But somehow.... Oh, I know what you're +thinking--you're thinking that beggars shouldn't be choosers. Well, I'm +not quite a beggar yet. But when I am, I won't choose.... I'll promise +you that." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rose also. She was in a position to triumph in any +case, and she was washing her hands of the situation with eager +satisfaction. "Oh, indeed! I'm glad you can say that _now_. But you +weren't always so independent. I suppose it never occurs to you to thank +me for what I did when you were younger." + +Claire felt quite calm. The events of the past twenty-four hours had +wrung her emotions dry. "Yes, Aunt Julia," she said, with an air of cool +defiance, "it occurred to me many times.... Perhaps if I'd had any +choice...." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown grew pale. "It's plain that I'm wasting my time here!" +she sneered. + +Claire went with her aunt to the door.... + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown did not cross the threshold of the Robson home again, +and when on the following day Claire saw the figure of Mrs. Thomas +Wynne outlined against the lace-screened front door she let the bell +ring unanswered. + + * * * * * + +The dismissal of the last of the Carrol clan from any participation in +the Robson destinies gave Claire a feeling at once independent and +solitary. There had been a vague hope that this crisis might germinate +some stray seeds of kinship, shriveled by the drought of uneventful +years. But the poisonous nettles of memory were the only harvest that +had sprung from the presence of Mrs. Robson's sisters, and Claire was +glad to uproot the arid product of their shallowness. + +The week came to a close with a rush of visitors. Suddenly it seemed as +if everybody knew of Mrs. Robson's illness. Fellow church members, old +school friends, casual acquaintances began to ring the front-door bell +insistently. Knowing her mother's instinctive craving for recognition, +it struck Claire that it was the height of irony to see this belated +crowd come swarming in on the heels of calamity at the moment when Mrs. +Robson was unable to so much as see them. Mrs. Robson would have so +liked to sit in even a threadbare pomp and receive the homage of her +visitors, but fate had been scurvy enough to withhold this scant +triumph. + +Nellie Whitehead breezed in on Saturday afternoon just as Mrs. +Finnegan's cuckoo clock cooed the stroke of three; immediately the air +began to move out of adversity's tragic current. It was impossible to be +wholly without hope under the impetus of Nellie Whitehead's flaming +good humor. + +"I'm all out of breath," she began, as she flopped into the first chair +that came handy. "I keep forgetting I ain't sweet sixteen any more and +never been kissed. I hate to walk slow, though. Don't you? Say, but you +_are_ up against it, ain't you! I saw that Munch dame on the street and +she nearly broke her old neck trying to catch up with me. I wondered +what was the matter, because she ain't usually so keen about flagging +_me_. But, _you_ know, she never misses a trick at spilling out the +calamity stuff, especially if it isn't on her.... 'Oh, Miss Whitehead,' +she called out before I had a chance to beat it, 'have you heard about +Miss Robson's mother?' ...When she got through I fixed her with that +trusty old eye of mine and I said, 'I suppose you see her quite often.' +And what do you think the old stiff said? 'Oh, I'd like to, Miss +Whitehead, but I really haven't had time. You know I'm doing all Mr. +Flint's dictation now.' And she had the nerve to try and slip me a hint +that she was going to keep on doing it. But I just said to myself: 'You +should kid yourself that way, old girl! When Flint picks a bloomer like +you to ornament the back office it will be because his eyesight's failed +him.' ...By the way, how do you manage to stand him off--with religious +tracts or a hat-pin?" + +She hardly waited for Claire's reply, but plunged at once into another +monologue. + +"Do you know what I'm up to? I got my eye on the swellest fur-lined coat +you ever saw ... at Magnin's. But you can bet I'm going to keep my eye +on it until after the holidays. They want a hundred and a quarter for it +now, but they'll be glad to take sixty-five when the gay festivities are +over, or I miss my guess. I go in every other day to have a look at it, +and when the girl's back is turned I hang it back in the case +myself--'way back where everybody else will overlook it. Oh, I know the +game all right. I did the same thing with a three piece suit last +summer. But I say, All is fair in war and the high cost of living. Maybe +you think I haven't had a time scraping the wherewithal for that coat +together. But I brought the total up to seventy the other day by getting +Billy Holmes to slip me a ten in advance for Christmas. I never trust a +man to invest in anything for me if I can help it. They usually run to +manicure sets in satin-lined cases or cut-glass cologne-bottles. Billy +Holmes?... Oh, you know him! He ran the reinsurance desk at the Royal +for years. They put him on the road last week. He's _some_ live wire. +And what's better, he has no incumbrances. I'll tell you what it is, +Robson, I'm getting kind of tired of the goings. I'm just about ready to +settle down by the old steam-radiator. And as long as I've got eyesight +enough to look the field over, I've decided on a traveling-man or a +sea-captain. They'll be sticking around home just about often enough to +suit me.... Not that I'm a man-hater, but I've never had 'em for a +steady diet and I'm not going to begin to get the habit this late day." + +Nellie Whitehead stayed about an hour, and, as Claire opened the front +door upon her friend's departure the letter-man thrust an envelope into +her hands. She opened it hastily and turned suddenly white. + +"Well, Robson, what's wrong now?" inquired Nellie. + +"Flint ... he's let me out ... Miss Munch was right!" + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +On the selfsame Saturday of Claire's dismissal from the office ranks of +the Falcon Insurance Company Ned Stillman was the recipient of an early +telephone message from Lily Condor. It appeared that Flora Menzies, the +young woman who usually accompanied her in her vocal flights, had been +laid low with pneumonia and she wanted Stillman to persuade Claire +Robson to succeed to the honorary position. + +"She did so famously on that night of our musicale," Lily Condor had +explained, "and Flora won't be in shape again for a good three months. +Of course, there isn't anything in it but glory. I'm just one of those +'sweet charity' artists. But I think she is a dear, and I know that +_you_ have influence." + +Stillman pretended to be annoyed at Mrs. Condor's assumption that his +word would carry any weight in the matter, but as a matter of fact he +felt pleased in secret masculine fashion. Chancing to pass Flint's +office at the noon hour, he dropped in. It happened that Miss Munch was +standing near the counter, and she answered his inquiries with suave +eagerness. + +"Oh, Miss Robson isn't with us any more. She hasn't been here for over +a week--not since her mother was taken sick. Oh, I thought you knew. +You're Mr. Stillman, aren't you? I've heard my cousin, Mrs. Richards, +speak of you. Miss Robson went over to Mr. Flint's on that night of the +storm and she missed the boat or something--_you_ know! And when she got +home next morning she found that her mother had worried herself into a +stroke. They say she is quite helpless.... I'm sure I don't know what +she intends doing. We mailed her check yesterday. It's always hard to +land another position when one is dismissed." + +Stillman escaped quickly. Miss Munch's venom was a thing too crude and +unconcealed to face with indifference. Her emphatic "_you_ know" was +pregnant with innuendo and malice. Still, it did not occur to Stillman +that he had any part in Claire Robson's misfortune. But he did know from +Miss Munch's tone that the unfortunate situation, growing out of the +automobile ride from Yolanda to Sausalito, had received due recognition +at the hands of those who made a business of blowing out bubbles of +scandal from the suds of chance. It was useless for him to deny that +Claire Robson from the first had been of more or less interest. She +seemed to rise in such a detached fashion from her environment. + +He had to admit, as later he sat in the cloistered silences of his club +library and blew contemplative smoke-rings into the air, that a certain +idle curiosity had been the mainspring of his concern for her. He had +been like a boy who captured a strange butterfly and clapped it under a +glass tumbler where he could watch how easily it would adapt itself to +its new surroundings. But, having caught the butterfly and held it a +brief captive, the dust from its wings still lingered upon the hands +that imprisoned it. He had made the mistake of imagining that one is +always master of casual incidents. To meet a young woman by the most +trivial chance, to extend a brief courtesy to her, these were matters +which hold scarcely the germs of a menacing situation, not menacing to +him, of course--they never could be menacing to him; he was still +thinking of things from the viewpoint of Claire Robson. + +To tell the truth, he was annoyed at having been mixed up in Claire's +flight from the Flint household. Had Flint been a complete stranger he +would not have minded so much. He was still divided by the appeal to his +chivalry and the sense of loyalty that a man feels to the masculine +friends of his youth. In her telephone message Claire had put the matter +very casually--the track was washed out and she was wondering whether he +contemplated returning to town that evening. But he guessed at once what +lay back of her matter-of-fact boldness. He had guessed so completely +that he had decided not only to return to town, but to start at once. + +He wondered now whether he had answered the appeal because a woman was +in a desperate situation or because that woman was Claire Robson. All +through the dinner hour at the Tom Forsythes he had thought about her, +had speculated vaguely what mischance or effrontery had been responsible +for her ill-timed visit to Flint's. He remembered trying to decide +whether the young woman was extraordinarily deep or extraordinarily +simple and frank. He did not like to concede that he could be influenced +by anything so transparently malicious as Mrs. Richards's statements +regarding the absence of Mrs. Flint, but he was bound to admit that they +did nothing to render the situation less innocent; what had particularly +annoyed him was the fact that he should have given the matter a second +thought. To begin with, it was none of his business and he was not a man +who presumed to judge or even speculate on other people's indiscretions. +Claire Robson was no sheltered schoolgirl. She was a full-grown woman, +in the thick of business life. Such women were not taken unawares. He +had just dismissed the whole affair from his mind on this basis when +Claire's telephone message came to him. Even now he marveled at the +sense of satisfaction that her appeal had given. But he had found no +savor in a situation that compelled him to interfere in Flint's program. +Such a move on his part was contrary to his standards, to his training +in comradeship, to all his acquired philosophy. He had the well-bred +man's distaste for getting into a mess. He abhorred scenes and +conspicuous complications. + +He had come through the incident with steadily waning enthusiasm and a +decision to wash his hands in the future of all such unprofitable +trifling. But the sudden knowledge that the young woman was in desperate +trouble revived his interest. He had no idea how serious Mrs. Robson's +illness was or whether Claire had any hopes for a new position. But +Miss Munch's words had been significant. Claire had been _dismissed_, +and Stillman knew enough about present business stagnation to conclude +that for the time, at least, Claire Robson faced a bleak outlook. He +realized the indelicacy of any definite move on his part, but it +occurred to him that it might be well to talk the situation over with +some one--preferably a woman. As he tossed his cigar butt aside, Lily +Condor appealed to him as just the person for the emergency. Therefore +he looked her up without further ado. + +He found her at home, curled up among the cushions of a davenport that +did service as a bed when the scenes were shifted. She was living in a +tiny apartment consisting of one room and a kitchenette that gave +Stillman the impression of a juggler's cabinet. Nothing in this room was +ever by any chance what it seemed. Things that looked like doors led +nowhere; bits of stationary furniture usually yielded to the slightest +pressure and revealed strange secrets. He had seen Mrs. Condor deftly +construct a card-table out of an easy-chair, and he had no doubt that +the oak table in the center of the room could have been converted into a +chiffonier or a chassis-lounge at a given signal. + +In repose, it struck Stillman that Mrs. Condor seemed very much like a +purring cat. He had never seen her quite so frankly behind the scenes, +robbed of both her physical and mental make-up. She was one of those +women in middle age who adapt themselves to the tone of their background +and while she contrived to strike a fairly vivid note, she took care not +to be discordant. She was clever enough to realize that her talents +were not sensational and that she could only hope for an indifferent +success as a professional. But in the rôle of a gracious amateur she +disarmed criticism and forced her way into circles that might otherwise +have been at some pains to exclude her. For, if the truth were known, +there had been certain phases of Mrs. Condor's earlier life which were +rather vaguely, and at the same time aptly, covered by Mrs. Finnegan's +term of "gay." A perfectly discreet woman, for instance, would have made +an effort to live down her flaming hair and almost immorally dazzling +complexion, but Mrs. Condor had been much more ready to live _up_ to +these conspicuous charms. In fact, she had lived up to them pretty +furiously, until time began to take a ruthless toll of her contrasting +points. From the concert-platform she still seemed to discount, almost +to flout, the years, but in secret she yielded unmistakably to their +pressure. + +It was this yielding, pliant attitude that struck Stillman as he came +upon her almost unawares on that early December afternoon, a yielding, +pliant attitude which gave a curious sense of tenacity under the +surface. And he thought, as he dropped into the chair she indicated, +that she was a woman who gained strength in these moments of relaxation. + +"Fancy your catching me like this!" she said, "I thought when the bell +rang that you were my dressmaker.... If you want a highball you'll have +to wait on yourself. Phil Edington brought an awfully good bottle of +Scotch last night. I declare I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have +a youngster or two on my staff. Old men are such bores, anyway, and, as +a matter of fact, they never waste time on any woman over thirty. Well, +I don't blame them. We're a sorry, patched-up mess at best.... Tell me, +did you get hold of Miss Robson?" + +"I dropped in, but she wasn't at the office," Stillman replied, tossing +his hat on the center-table. + +Mrs. Condor withdrew to the relaxation of her innumerable sofa pillows +again. "Wasn't at the office? How thrilling! Is she one of the Sultan's +favorites?... I've heard Sawyer Flint was an easy mark if you know how +to work him. Miss Robson didn't strike me that way, though. But I ought +to have known that silent women are always cleverer than they appear." + +Stillman caught the barest suggestion of a sneer in Mrs. Condor's +tone--the sneer of a woman relinquishing a stubborn hold upon the +gaieties. + +"Well, I guess Miss Robson didn't know how to work him, as a matter of +fact," Stillman said, quietly. "She lost her job to-day. I'm a little +bit worried about her.... I came here on purpose to talk the situation +over with you." + +His directness brought Lily Condor out of her languidness with a sharp +turn. She wriggled up and sat erectly on the edge of the davenport, one +slippered foot dangling just above the other. "Why, Ned Stillman, what +an old fraud you are! I didn't fancy you were interested in _anybody_. I +didn't think that you.... Oh, well, throw me a cigarette and let me hear +the worst in comfort!" + +He opened his cigarette-case and leaned over toward her. She made her +choice. He struck a match and she put her hand tightly on his wrist as +she bent over the flame and slowly drew in her breath. Even after she +had released her grasp his flesh still bore the imprint of the rings on +her fingers. For a moment he had an impulse to bow himself out of her +presence without further explanation, but already she seemed to have a +proprietary interest in him. Her smile was full of friendly malice. + +He ended by telling her everything, in spite of the conviction that he +had approached the wrong person. + +"Of course," she hazarded, boldly, when he had finished, "you mean to +help her out." + +Her presumption annoyed but rather refreshed him. "I'd like to do +something, but, hang it all, what can be done?" + +"What can be done? If that isn't like a man! Or I should say, a +_gentleman_!... Why don't you plunge in boldly and damn the +consequences?... It's just your sort that sends women into the arms of +men like Flint. You're so busy keeping an eye on the proprieties that +you miss all the danger signals." + +Her tone was extraordinarily familiar, and, to a man who rather prided +himself upon his ability to keep people at arm's-length, it was not +precisely agreeable. Yet he knew that it would be folly to give any hint +of his irritation. + +"Well," he contrived to laugh back at her, "so far as I can see, Miss +Robson's problems are quite too simple. After all, it's largely a +question of money.... I can't go and throw gold in her lap as if she +were some beggar on a street corner." + +"You mean, I suppose, that you are afraid to risk the outraged dignity +of this ward of yours. I think that's a lovely name for her. Don't +you?... You're acquiring such a benevolent old attitude. The only thing +to be done, I fancy, is to adopt some transparent ruse--some +sort of Daddy-Long-Leggish deception." She closed her eyes +thoughtfully--"_Hiring_ her as my accompanist, for instance." She rose +to dispense Scotch and soda. Stillman sat in thoughtful silence, while +Mrs. Condor talked to very trivial purpose. She seemed suddenly to have +grown tired of the subject of Claire Robson. The arrival of the expected +dressmaker broke in upon the rather one-sided tête-à -tête. + +"You'll have to go," Lily Condor announced with an intimate air of +dismissal to Stillman. "It would never do to let a mere man in on the +secrets of the sewing-room." + +At the door he hesitated awkwardly over his good-by. "I was wondering," +he said, "whether you were serious about ... about hiring Miss Robson as +your accompanist. You know I think the plan has possibilities." + +She threw back her head and smiled with hard satisfaction. "I've been +trying to figure if you had killed your imagination. Think it over." + +She gave him the tips of her fingers. He returned their languid pressure +and departed. + +As he drifted down the hall he heard her calling, half gaily, half +derisively, after him: + +"Don't decide on anything rash now.... Sleep over it!..." + + * * * * * + +He thought it over for three days and when he called on Lily Condor +again he found her divorced from her languishing mood. She was dressed +for dinner down-town, and he had to confess she had made the most of +what remained of her flaming hair and dazzling complexion. + +He felt that she guessed the reason for his visit, although she took +care to let him force the issue. + +"About Miss Robson," he said, finally, "I've concluded to take you at +your word." + +Lily Condor smoothed out her gloves and laid them aside. "Take me at +_my_ word? You're welcome to the suggestion, if that is what you mean. +As a matter of fact I wasn't serious." + +He was annoyed to feel that he was flushing. He could not fathom her, +but he had a conviction that she _had_ been serious and that this +attitude was a mere pose. "Nevertheless, I think it can be managed," he +insisted. "And I want you to help me." + +She listened to his plan. "What you will call a Daddy-Long-Leggish +pretense," he explained to her with an attempt at facetiousness. "You to +do the hiring and ... and yours truly to provide the wherewithal. Until +things look up a bit. Of course then ... why, naturally, when things +look up a bit for her...." + +But Lily remained lukewarm. She wasn't quite sure that it would be ... +oh, well, he knew what she meant! It seemed too absurd to think that he +had given an ear to anything so extravagant. She would like to be of +service to Miss Robson, of course, but, after all, she felt that it was +taking an unfair advantage of the girl. + +"If she's everything you say she is, she'd resent it all tremendously," +she put forth as a final objection. + +"But she isn't to know! That's the point of the whole thing," he +explained, with absurd simplicity. + +"Oh, my dear man, she isn't to know, but she _will_, ultimately. You +don't suppose the secret of a woman's meal-ticket is hidden very long, +do you? And, besides, you couldn't offer her enough to live on. That +would be absurd on the very face of it." + +"Oh, well, I could offer her enough to help out a bit, anyway, and half +a loaf you know...." + +He broke off, amazed at the determination her opposition had +crystallized. She looked at him sharply and rose. + +"I must be running along," she commented as she drew on her gloves. "I +tell you, I'll go call on Miss Robson--some day this week. A woman can +always get a better side-light on a situation like this. There are so +many angles to be considered. She must have relatives. You wouldn't want +to make a false move, would you, now?" + +He was too grateful to be suspicious at this sudden compromise with her +convictions. + +"You're tremendously good," he stammered. "It _will_ be a favor. And any +time that I can...." + +"You can be of service to me right now," she interrupted, gaily. "Order +me a taxi ... that's a good boy! I always do so like to pull up at a +place in style." + +Stillman paid Lily Condor a third visit that week--this time in answer +to the lady's telephone message. She had been to see Claire Robson and +her report was anything but rosy. + +"Her mother's perfectly helpless and will be for the rest of her life," +Lily volunteered almost cheerfully. "And, frankly, I don't see what is +going to become of them. It seems that Mrs. Robson is a sister of Mrs. +Tom Wynne and that dreadful Ffinch-Brown woman. They both have about as +much heart as a cast-iron stove. Miss Robson didn't say so in words, but +I gathered that she had called both of them off the relief job. I almost +cheered when I realized that fact. I threw out a hint about there being +a possibility of my needing an accompanist. I said Miss Menzies was ill +and perhaps ... and I intimated that there was something more than glory +in it." + +"And what did Miss Robson say to that?" + +"Oh, she was more self-contained than one would imagine under the +circumstances. She said she would like to think it over. She put it that +way on the score of leaving her mother alone nights. But, believe me, +that young lady is more calculating than she seems. Of course I didn't +mention terms or anything like that. I left a good loophole in case you +had changed your mind." + +For the moment Stillman was almost persuaded to tell Lily Condor that he +_had_ changed his mind. Not that he had lost interest in Claire, but +already he had another plan and there was something disagreeably +presumptuous in Mrs. Condor's tone. He never remembered having taken +anybody into his confidence regarding a personal matter. The trouble +was that he had begun the whole affair under the misapprehension that it +was a most _impersonal_ thing. He still tried to look at it from that +angle, but Lily Condor's manner seemed bent on forcing home the rather +disturbing conviction that he had a vital interest in the issue. She had +cut in upon his reserve and he would never quite be able to recover the +lost ground. He felt that she sensed his revulsion, for almost at once +she adroitly changed the subject and it did not come to life again +during the remainder of his call. + +But when he was leaving she thrust an idle finger into the lapel of his +coat and said: + +"I think it's awfully good of you, Ned, to be human enough to want to do +something for others. I watched you as a young man, and when you +married...." His startled look must have halted her, for she released +her hold upon him and finished with a shrug. + +He said good-by hastily and escaped. But he wondered, as he found his +way out into the street, how long it would be before Mrs. Condor would +acquire sufficient boldness to discuss with him what and whom she chose. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Christmas Day came and went with a host of bitter-sweet memories for +Claire Robson. Not that she could look back on any holiday season with +unalloyed happiness, but time had drawn the sting from the misfortune of +the old days. Through the mist of the years outlines softened, and she +was more prone to measure the results by the slight harvest that their +efforts had brought. For instance, they had never been too poor to deny +themselves the luxury of a tree. And a tree to Mrs. Robson meant none of +the scant, indifferent affairs that most of the neighbors found +acceptable strung with a few strands of dingy popcorn and pasteboard +ornaments. No, the Robson tree was always an opulent work of art, +freighted with bursting cornucopias and heavy glass balls and yards of +quivering tinsel. The money for all this dazzling beauty usually came a +fortnight or so before the eventful day in the shape of a ten-dollar +bill tucked away in the folds of Gertrude Sinclair's annual letter to +Mrs. Robson. As Claire had grown older she had grown also impatient of +the memory of her mother squandering what should have gone for thick +shoes and warm plaid dresses upon the ephemeral joys of a Christmas +tree. But now she suddenly understood, and she felt glad for a mother +courageous enough to lay hold upon the beautiful symbols of life at the +expense of all that was hideously practical. Shoes wore out and plaid +dresses finally found their way to the rag-bag, but the glories of the +spirit burned forever in the splendor of all this truant magnificence, +and the years stretched back in a glittering procession of light-ladened +fir-trees. + +Then some time between Christmas and New-Year came the Christmas +pantomime at the Tivoli, with its bewildering array of scantily clad +fairies and dashing Amazons and languishing princes in pale-blue tights; +to say nothing of the Queen Charlottes consumed between acts through +faintly yellow straws. How Claire would mark off each day on the +calendar which brought her nearer to this triumph! And what a hurry and +bustle always ensued to get dinner over and be fully dressed and down to +the box-office before even the doors were opened, so that they could get +first choice of the unreserved seats which sold at twenty-five cents. +Then there would ensue the long, tedious wait in the dimly lighted +cavern of the playhouse, smelling with a curious fascination of stale +cigars and staler beer, and the thrill that the appearance of the +orchestra produced, followed by the arrival of all the important +personages fortunate enough to afford fifty-cent seats, which gave them +the security to put off their appearance until the curtain was almost +ready to rise. And when the curtain really did rise upon the inevitable +spectacle of villagers dancing upon the village green! And Mrs. Robson +carefully picked out in the chorus the stout sister of a former servant +who had worked for her mother! And the wicked old witch swept from the +wings on the traditional broomstick! From that moment until the final +transformation scene, when scintillating sea-shells yielded up one by +one their dazzling burdens of female loveliness and a rather Hebraic +Cupid descended from an invisible wire to wish everybody a happy +New-Year in words appropriately rhymed, there was no halt to the wonders +disclosed. With what sharp and exquisite reluctance did Claire remain +glued to her seat, refusing to believe that it was all over! Even at +this late date Claire had only to close her eyes to revive the delights +of these rather covert excursions into the realm of fancy--covert, +because a Tivoli pantomime had not precisely the sanction of such a +respectable organization as the Second Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Robson, +while not definitely encouraging Claire to wilful dishonesty, always +managed to warn her daughter by saying: + +"I wouldn't tell any one about going to the Tivoli, Claire, if I were +you ... unless, of course, they should ask about it." + +Claire, in mortal terror lest any indiscretion on her part would put a +stop to this annual lapse into such delightful immoralities, held her +peace in spite of her desire to spread abroad the beauties which she had +beheld. She had a feeling that all the participants in the pantomime +must of necessity be rather wicked and abandoned creatures, and half the +pleasure she had felt in viewing them arose from a secret admiration at +the courage which permitted human beings to be so perfectly and +desperately sinful. Although she was almost persuaded that perhaps it +did not take quite such bravado to be wicked in blue-spangled gauze and +satin slippers as it did to lapse from the straight and narrow path in a +gingham dress and resoled boots. + +The only thrill that the present Christmas Day produced came in the +shape of a pot of flaming poinsettias bearing the card of Ned Stillman. +These were the first flowers that Claire ever remembered having +received. It pleased her also to realize that Stillman had been delicate +to the point of this thoroughly unpractical gift, especially as he had +every reason to assume that something more substantial would have been +acceptable. She was confident that by this time he had heard through +Mrs. Condor of her mother's illness and her loss of position. Claire was +still puzzled at Mrs. Condor's visit. For all that lady's skill at +subterfuge, there were implied evasions in her manner which Claire +sensed instinctively. And then Claire was not yet inured to the novelty +of being in demand. To have been forced by circumstance upon Mrs. Condor +as an accompanist was one thing; to be desired by her in a moment of +cold calculation was quite another; and there had been more uncertainty +than caution in Claire's plea for time in which to consider the offer. +But as the days flew by it became more and more apparent to Claire that +she was in no position to indulge in idle speculation. She had long +since given up the hope of fulfilling the demands of a regular office +position, even if one had been open to her. Mrs. Finnegan's enthusiasm +to be neighborly and helpful was more a matter of theory than practice, +and it did not take Claire many days to decide that she had no right to +impose upon a good nature which was made up largely of ignorance of a +sick-room's demands. Claire's final check from Flint was dwindling with +alarming rapidity; indeed, she was facing the first of the year with the +realization that there would be barely enough to pay the next month's +rent, let alone to settle the current bills. She had no idea what Mrs. +Condor intended paying, but she fancied that it must be little enough. +Surely Mrs. Condor did not receive any great sum for her singing and +there must be any number of gratuitous performances. She decided quite +suddenly, the day after Christmas, to take Mrs. Condor at her word, and +she was a bit disturbed at both the lady's reply and the manner of it. + +"Oh," Mrs. Condor had drawled rather disagreeably, "I thought you'd +given up the idea. I spoke to somebody else only this morning. But, of +course, I'm not certain about how it will turn out. I'll keep you in +mind and if the other falls through.... By the way, how is your mother? +I keep asking Ned Stillman every day what the news is, but he never +knows anything. All men are alike ... unless they've got some special +interest. Sometimes I marvel that he looks me up so regularly, but then +I've known him ever since.... But there, I'll be telling more than I +should! Do come and see me. I'm always in in the morning.... Yes, I can +imagine you do have a lot to do. I'm so sorry you didn't call up +sooner. But one never can tell. Good-by.... I hope you'll have a happy +New Year." + +Claire hung up the receiver. Well, she had lost an opportunity to turn +an easy dollar or two and she had no one to thank but herself. Why had +she delayed in accepting Mrs. Condor's offer? + +Fortunately the unexpected arrival of Nellie Whitehead cut short any +further repinings. Claire was frankly glad to see her and at once she +thought, "She has come to show me her new coat." + +But Nellie Whitehead was incased in a wrap that showed every evidence of +a good six months' wear. + +"My new coat?" the lady echoed, in answer to Claire's question. "There +ain't no such animal. Somebody else copped it. I didn't shove it back +far enough the last time I took a look at it, I guess. Oh, well, I +should worry! I can get along very well without it...." + +When Nellie Whitehead rose to leave, dusk had fallen and Claire was +fumbling for matches to light the hall gas, when she felt her friend's +hand close over hers. There followed the cold pressure of several coins +against Claire's palm and the voice of her visitor sounding a bit +tremulous in the dusk. + +"You'll need some extra money, Robson, or I miss my guess." + +Claire fell back with a gesture of protest. "Why, Nellie Whitehead, how +could you? It's your coat money, too! Well, _I_ never!" + +And with that they both burst into tears.... When Claire recovered +herself she found that Nellie Whitehead had escaped. She lit the gas +and opened her palm. Four twenty-dollar gold pieces glistened in the +light. + + * * * * * + +Next morning Claire received a telephone message from Mrs. Condor. The +position of accompanist was hers at forty dollars a month if she desired +it. + +"It won't be hard," Mrs. Condor had finished, reassuringly. "Some weeks +I've something on nearly every night. And then again there won't be +anything doing for days.... How can I afford to pay so much? Well, my +dear, that is a secret. But don't worry, you'll earn it...." + +And toward the close of the week there came another surprise for Claire +in the shape of a letter from Stillman, which ran: + + + MY DEAR MISS ROBSON.--I am going to take a little flier at the bean + market. + + That was my father's business and I know a few things about it--at + least to the extent of recognizing the commodity when the sack is + opened. Do you fancy you could arrange to give me a few hours a week + at the typewriter? If so, we can get together and arrange terms. + + Cordially, + + EDWARD STILLMAN. + + +"At last," flashed through Claire's mind, "he's going in for something +worth while." + +This time she decided promptly. Over the telephone she made an +appointment with Stillman, in his apartments, for beginning work on the +second Wednesday in January. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Shortly after the first of the year Claire received her initial summons +from Lily Condor--they were to appear at a concert in the Colonial +Ballroom of the St. Francis for the Belgian relief. Mrs. Condor had +intimated that the affair was to be smart, and so it proved. It was set +at a very late and very fashionable hour, and all through the program +groups of torpid, though rather audible, diners kept drifting in. Claire +was not slow to discover that Lily Condor was first on the bill, and she +remembered reading somewhere in a newspaper that among professionals the +first and last place were always loathsome positions. Judging from the +noise and confusion that accompanied their efforts, Claire could well +understand why this was so, and she expected to find Lily Condor +resentful. But to her surprise Mrs. Condor merely shrugged her shoulders +and said: + +"What difference does it make? They don't come to listen, anyway. +Besides, I always open the bill. I like to get it over quickly." + +But Claire had reason to suspect, as she followed the remainder of a +very excellent program, that the choice of position did not rest with +Mrs. Condor. Claire began to wonder how much money Mrs. Condor received +for an effort like this. And she became more puzzled as she gathered +from the conversation of the other artists about her that the talent had +been furnished gratuitously. + +"I understand," she heard a woman in front of her whisper to her +companion, "that Devincenzi, the 'cellist, is the only one in the crowd +who is getting a red cent. But he has a rule, you know--or is it a +contract? I'm sure I don't know. At any rate, they say that the +Ffinch-Browns donated his fee.... The Ffinch-Browns? Don't you know +them?... See, there they are ... over there by the Tom Forsythes. She +has on turquoise pendant earrings.... Oh, they're ever so charitable! +But they do say that she is something of a...." + +Claire lost the remainder of this stage whisper in a rather tremulous +anxiety to catch a glimpse of her aunt before she moved. Claire had to +acknowledge that at a distance her aunt gave a wonderful illusion of +arrested youth as she stood with one hand grasping the collar of her +gorgeous mandarin coat. But Claire was more interested in the turquoise +pendants than in her aunt. She had never seen the jewels before, but she +had heard about them almost from the time she was able to lisp. + +"They're mine," Mrs. Robson had repeated to Claire again and again. "My +father bought them for me when I was sixteen years old. I remember the +day distinctly, and how my mother said: 'Don't you think, John, that +Emily is a little young for anything like this? I'll keep them for her +until she is twenty.' I nearly cried myself sick, but of course mother +was right, _then_.... But like everything else, I never got my hands on +them again. And what is more, Julia Carrol Ffinch-Brown knows that they +are mine as well as anybody, because she stood right alongside of me +when I handed them over to mother. Not that I care.... It's the +principle of the thing!" + +Claire felt disappointed in the pendants. They seemed so +insignificant--to fall very far short of her mother's passionate +description of them, and she began to wonder which was the more +pathetic, Mrs. Robson's exaggerated notion of their worth or the +pettiness that gave Aunt Julia the tenacity to hold fast to such trivial +baubles. + +Ned Stillman was in the audience, also. Claire saw him sitting off at +the side. Indeed, she spotted him on the very moment of her entrance +upon the stage. She had been nervous until his friendly smile warmed her +into easy confidence; and though, while she played, her back had been +toward him, she felt the glow of his sympathy. As Lily Condor and she +swept back upon the stage for their rather perfunctory applause, and +still more perfunctory bouquets provided by the committee, Claire could +see him gently tapping his hands in her direction, and she was surprised +when the usher handed her a bouquet of dazzling orchids. + +"They must be for you," Claire said, innocently enough, to Mrs. Condor. +"I don't find any name on them." + +"That shows that you've got a discreet admirer, at any rate," Lily +Condor returned with that bantering sneer which Claire was just +beginning to notice. And the thought struck her at once that Stillman +had sent the flowers. She was pleased, but also a little annoyed to +think he had so deliberately ignored Mrs. Condor. + +The Flints were there, too; Flint looked uncomfortable and warm in his +scant full-dress suit and his wife frankly ridiculous in a low-cut gown +that exhibited every angle of a hopelessly scrawny neck. Claire did not +see them until she was leaving the stage, and she smiled as she saw +Flint lean over and pick up the opera-glasses from his wife's lap. But +this was not all. In a far corner sat Miss Munch and her cousin, Mrs. +Richards, their ferret eyes darting busily about and their tongues +clicking even more rapidly. Doubtless Flint had invested in a number of +tickets at the office for business reasons and passed them around for +any of the office force who felt a desire to see society at close range. + +Claire had not meant to stay beyond one or two numbers following her own +appearance, but she kept yielding to Mrs. Condor's insistent suggestions +that she "stay for just one more," until she discovered, to her dismay, +that it was past midnight. The last artists were taking their places +upon the stage. Claire resigned herself to the inevitable and sat out +the remainder of the performance. She was making a quick exit into the +dressing-room when she came face to face with her aunt. Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown betrayed her confusion by the merest lift of the eyebrows, +and she stepped back as if to get a clearer view of her niece, as she +said with an air of polite surprise: + +"You--_here_?" + +Claire carried her head confidently. "I was on the program," she +returned, consciously eying the turquoise pendants. + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rested a closed fan against her left ear as if to +screen at least one of the earrings from Claire's frank stare. "Oh, how +interesting! I must have missed you--I came in late. It's rather odd. I +thought I knew everybody on the program.... I helped arrange it." + +"Well," Claire smiled, "I wasn't what you would call one of the +head-liners. I played Mrs. Condor's accompaniments." + +"That accounts for it ... my not knowing, I mean. I dare say your mother +is better, otherwise you wouldn't be here." + +Claire met her aunt's thrust calmly. "No, mother is worse, if anything. +As a matter of fact, I'm here...." + +She broke off abruptly, realizing suddenly that she had left her orchids +behind. She turned to discover Stillman making his leisurely way toward +her. He had the orchids in his hand. + +"My dear Miss Robson," he said, gently, "Mrs. Condor came very near +appropriating your flowers." + +She could feel the color rising to her forehead. "I see you came to my +rescue again," she said, simply, taking them from him. "I think you know +Mr. Stillman, Aunt Julia." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown forced a too-sweet smile as she gave Stillman a nod of +recognition. "Fancy any girl forgetting so much gorgeousness!" she +exclaimed with an attempt at lightness, but Claire caught the covert +rancor in her voice, and as her aunt made a movement of escape she put +out a restraining hand and said: + +"I wanted you to know, Aunt Julia, that I'm here merely as a matter of +business. Mrs. Condor has hired me to play her accompaniments." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown shook off Claire impatiently. "_Hired_ you!" she +sneered. "How extraordinary!" + +And with that she swept past, giving Stillman a glance of farewell. + +Claire turned to Stillman. "What must you think of me? Leaving my +flowers behind. Confess--it was you who sent them.... I was in such a +rush to get away, though. I shouldn't have stayed so long. My mother is +alone.... Of course there are neighbors just below and they will look in +on her, but just the same...." + +His smile reassured her. "Are you forgetting about to-morrow?" he asked. +"Remember we are to begin business promptly at two o'clock. I hired a +typewriting-machine yesterday. I'm really thrilled at the idea of--of +going into business." + +She looked at him steadily as she gave him her hand: "My dear Mr. +Stillman," she said, quite frankly, "you are very kind." + +He answered by pressing her hand warmly and she covered her face with +the purple orchids. They were interrupted by Lily Condor sweeping rather +arrogantly toward them. + +"Haven't you gone yet?" she asked Claire. "I thought you were in a +hurry! I hope you've persuaded Ned to get us a taxi. I hate street-cars +at this hour." And in answer to Claire's embarrassed protest that she +had never given such a thing a thought, Mrs. Condor finished: "Well, +I've given it a thought, and don't you forget it. Come, Ned, is it a +go?" + +Claire fancied that a flicker of annoyance passed over Stillman's face +as he answered, with a dry laugh: + +"You might at least have given me time to prove my gallantry." + +"I'm not taking any chances," was the prompt reply. + +Claire turned away. What had contrived to give Mrs. Condor this +disagreeable air of assurance toward Ned Stillman, she found herself +wondering. It had not been apparent at the Condor-Stillman musicale.... + +She arrived home dismayed to find the front room illuminated, but the +rattle of the departing taxi brought Mrs. Finnegan to the top of the +stairs with a laughing apology. + +"I just looked in to see how your mother was, Miss Claire, and I found a +book on the front-room table"--Mrs. Finnegan held up Ouida's +_Moths_--"and I got so interested in it that I just naturally forgot to +go home. Finnegan's out, anyway. I was telling him about your good +fortune. And all he said was: 'Well, it beats me how an old crow like +Mrs. Condor gets paid for singing. I remember five years ago, when she +wasn't so uppish, we had her for a benefit performance of the Native +Sons, and she didn't get paid then. Her singing may be over my head. +Anyway, it didn't get to my ears.' But Finnegan is always like that. He +just likes to contradict. I got back at him. I said, 'Well, if she can +afford to pay Miss Claire forty a month for playing the piano, she must +get a good piece of money every time she opens her mouth.' ...Mercy, +look at the orchids! Well, you must have had a swell time. I'll bet you +wouldn't like to tell who sent them.... There wasn't any card? That's +not saying you don't know, Miss Claire.... I hope you won't think I'm a +meddler, but I'm an older woman and.... Well, just you keep a sharp eye +on the feller that sends you orchids, Miss Claire." + +She went down-stairs without further ado. Claire put the orchids in +water and set them on a sill near an open window. She did not feel in +the least resentful of Mrs. Finnegan's warnings. She was too confident +to be anything but faintly amused at her neighbor's middle-class +anxiety. But Finnegan's skepticism concerning Mrs. Condor annoyed her +and she remembered the disagreeable words of her aunt: + +"_Hired_ you? How extraordinary!" + + * * * * * + +"Two o'clock _sharp_!" The memory of Stillman's air of delicate banter +as he emphasized the hour for beginning his business venture struck +Claire ironically the more she pondered his words. She had a feeling +that there was something farcical in the prospect, and yet there seemed +nothing to do but to go through with the preliminaries. She presented +herself, therefore, at the appointed time at the Stanford Court +apartments. + +She found Stillman quite alone, his hands blue-black with the smudge +from a refractory typewriter ribbon which he was vainly endeavoring to +adjust. It took some time for him to get his hands clean again, and +Claire sharpened her pencils while she waited. But there really proved +to be nothing to do. + +"I'm all up in the air over this bean business," Stillman confessed, +nonchalantly. "The government, you know ... they're taking over all that +sort of thing ... regulating food and prices. Of course, in that +case...." + +Claire felt an enormous and illogical relief. "Then you really won't +need me," she ventured. + +"Oh, quite the contrary.... I have a certain amount of business, of a +sort. And I'm tired of dropping checks along the trail of public +stenographers.... Suppose we talk terms. We haven't fixed on any salary, +yet." + +Claire felt a rising impatience. His subterfuge seemed too childish and +obvious. "That will depend on how much of my time you expect, Mr. +Stillman." + +"Well, three times a week, anyway ... to start with. Say Mondays, +Wednesdays, and Fridays from two to five.... I was thinking that +something in the neighborhood of fifteen dollars a week would be fair." + +He turned a very frank gaze in her direction and she quizzically +returned his glance. + +"That's rather ridiculous, don't you think?" she said, trying to +disguise her furtive annoyance. "You can hire a substitute through any +typewriting agency on the basis of three dollars a day." + +"Yes, and I can buy two cigars for a nickel, but I shouldn't want to +smoke them." + +She clicked the keys of her machine idly. "That is hardly a fair +comparison. You can get any number of competent girls for three +dollars." + +He rested his chin on his upturned palm. "But, my dear Miss Robson, I +happen to want _you_." + +She thought of any number of cheap, obvious retorts that might have been +flung back at his straightforward admission, but instead she said, with +equal frankness: + +"That's just what I don't understand." + +He threw her a puzzled look and the usual placid light in his eyes +quickened to resentful impatience. + +"Is that a necessary part of the contract, Miss Robson?" + +She caught her breath. His tone of annoyance was sharp and unexpected. +There was a suggestion of Flint's masculine arrogance in his voice. She +felt how absurd was her cross-examination of him, of how absurd, under +the circumstances, would have been her cross-examination of anybody +ready and willing to give her work to do and an ample wage in the +bargain, and yet, for all the force of his reply, she knew it to be a +well-bred if not a deliberate evasion. + +"You mean it is none of my business, don't you?" she contrived to laugh +back at him. + +His reply was a further surprise. "Yes, precisely," he said, with an +ominous thinning of the lips. + +She rose instinctively to meet this thrust and she was conscious that +even Flint had never managed so to disturb her. She glanced about +hastily as if measuring the room in a swift impulse toward escape. +Stillman had chosen the dining-room for a temporary office, and upon the +polished surface of the antique walnut table the typewriter struck an +incongruous note; indeed, it was all incongruous, particularly Stillman +and his assumed business airs. Yes, it was absurd for her to either +cross-examine or protest, but it was equally absurd for him to pay her +such an outlandish sum for nine hours a week. + +"He's doing it for me," she thought, not without a sense of triumph. +Then, turning to him, she said, a bit awkwardly: + +"I guess there isn't any use to dissuade you, Mr. Stillman. If you say +fifteen dollars a week, I sha'n't argue with you." + +He smiled back at her, all his former suavity regained. She slid into +her seat again. Her mind was recalling vividly the one other time in her +life when she had grappled vigorously with the masculine spirit of +domination, and come away victorious. This time she had been defeated +and she had impulses toward relief and fear. She looked up suddenly and +trapped a solicitous glance from Stillman that rather annoyed her. And +it struck her, as she mentally compared Stillman with most of the men of +her acquaintance, how far he could have loomed above them if he had had +the will for such a performance. As it was he fell somewhat beneath them +in a curious, indefinable way. Had he been too finely tempered by +circumstances or had the flame of life lacked the proper heat for fusing +his virtues effectively? For the moment she found Flint's forthright +insolence more tolerable than Stillman's sterile deference. Suddenly she +began to think of home, not with any sense of security, but as something +unpleasant, dark, disquieting.... + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Toward six o'clock one afternoon in late February Ned Stillman, making +his way from the business district at California and Montgomery Streets +toward his club, suddenly remembered a forgotten luncheon engagement for +that day with Lily Condor. + +"Well," he muttered at once, "I'm in for it now! I guess I might as well +swing out and see her and get the thing over with." + +It was curious of late how often he was given to muttering. Previously, +petty annoyances had not moved him to these half-audible and solitary +comments which he had always found contemptuously amusing in others. He +wondered whether this new trick was the result of his business ventures, +his sly charities, or his approach toward the suggestive age of forty. +Associating the name of Lily Condor with his covert charities, he was +almost persuaded that they lay back of this preposterous habit. And the +more he thought about it the more he muttered and became convinced that +Lily Condor was usually the topic of these vocal self-communings. + +Ned Stillman had always prided himself upon his sense of personal +freedom concerning the trivial circumstances of life. Of course, like +any man of sensibility, he was bound by the chains that deeper impulses +forge, but he had never been hampered by any restraints directed at his +ordinary uprisings and downsittings. In short, he had answered the beck +and nod of no man, much less a woman, and he was not finding Lily +Condor's growing presumptions along this line altogether agreeable. + +He would not have minded so much if there was any personal gratification +in yielding to the lady's whip-hand commands. There are certain delights +in self-surrender which give a zest to slavery, but there is no joy in +being held a hostage. Looking back, Stillman marveled at the +indiscretion he had committed when he handed over not only his reserve, +but Claire Robson's reputation into the safekeeping of Lily Condor. Had +he ever had the simplicity to imagine that a woman of Mrs. Condor's +stamp would constitute herself a safe-deposit vault for hoarding secrets +without exacting a price? Well, perhaps he had expected to pay, but a +little less publicly. He had not looked to have the lady in question +ring every coin audibly in full view and hearing of the entire +market-place, and yet, if his experience had stood him in good stead, he +must have known that this was precisely what she would do. Stillman's +hidden gratitude, his private beneficences, did not serve her purpose, +but the spectacle of him in the rôle of her debtor was a sight that went +a long way to establishing a social credit impoverished by no end of +false ventures. + +Her command for him to take her to luncheon--and it had been a command, +however suavely she had managed to veil it--bore also the stamp of +urgency. Usually she was content to lay all her positive requests to the +charge of mere caprice, but on this occasion she took the trouble to +intimate that there was a particular reason for wanting to see him. It +did not take him long to conclude that this particular reason had to do +with Claire Robson. That was why he yielded with a better grace than he +had been giving to his troublesome friend's disagreeable pressure. + +Stillman knew that while Lily Condor was not precisely jealous of the +younger woman, she was distinctly envious--with the impersonal but acrid +envy of middle age for youth. The episode of the orchids still rankled. +He had to admit that in this instance his course had been tactless, but +he had ignored Mrs. Condor as a challenge to the presumption which he +had already begun to sense. She, while seeming definitely to evade the +real issue, had answered the challenge and he had paid for his temerity +a hundredfold. She had reminded him again and again in deft but none the +less positive terms that she was keeping a finger on the mainspring of +any advantage that came her way. Sometimes Stillman wondered whether she +would really be cattish enough to betray his confidence and bring Claire +Robson crashing down under the weight of the questionable position into +which his indiscretion had forced her. Would she really have the face to +publish abroad the pregnant fact that Ned Stillman was providing what +she had been pleased to designate as a meal-ticket for a young woman in +difficulty? For himself he cared little, except that he always shrank +instinctively from appearing ridiculous. + +He had been thinking a great deal of late as to the best course to +pursue in ridding himself and Claire of this menacing incubus. He had a +feeling that Claire, having exhausted the novelties of her position as +accompanist to Lily Condor, was beginning to find the affair irksome. + +The business venture had progressed in quite another direction from his +original intention. Suddenly, without knowing how it had all come about, +he found his plans clearly defined. The government needed him. Somehow, +it had never occurred to him that he could be of service at a point so +far from the center of war activities. He had been a good deal of an +idler, it was true, but the seeds of achievement were merely lying in +fallow soil. + +At first, he had been stung into action more by Claire's accusing +attitude than anything else. She used to come every other afternoon at +the appointed time and almost challenge him by her reproachful silence +to do something, if only to provide her with an illusion. It was as if +she said: + +"See, I have given in to you. I know that you are doing this for me, and +I am deeply grateful. But won't you please make the situation a little +less transparent? Won't you at least justify me in the eyes of those who +are watching our little performance?..." + +It had all ended by his offering his services to the Food +Administration. He knew something of his father's business. He felt that +he had a fair knowledge of beans, and he could learn more. He merely +asked a trial, and it surprised him to find what a sense of humility +suddenly possessed him. He was really overjoyed when a place was assured +him. But he had to admit that his acceptance was not accorded any great +enthusiasm. The newspapers mentioned it in a scant paragraph that was +not even given a prominent place. He had received greater recognition +for a brilliant play upon the golf-links! Well, in such stirring times +he was nobody. He did not complain, even to himself, but the knowledge +subconsciously rankled. + +He hired an office down-town, joined the Commercial Club, religiously +attended every meeting that had to do with food conservation, hunted +out, absorbed, appropriated all the economic secrets that served his +purpose.... Suddenly he found himself engrossed, enthusiastic, _busy_! +Finally Claire said to him one day: + +"Don't you think I ought to come to you every afternoon?" + +"If you can arrange it," he almost snapped back at her. + +She did arrange it, how he took no pains to inquire, and a little later +she said again: + +"You ought to have some one here all day. I guess you will have to look +for another stenographer." + +He remembered how menacingly he had darted at her. She was dressed for +the street, on her way home, and she had halted at the door. + +"Do you want to desert the work that you've inspired?" he demanded. + +"Inspired?... By _me_?" Her voice took on a note of triumph. + +"You didn't fancy that _I_ inspired it, did you?" he sneered at her. + +His vehemence confused her. "I hadn't thought.... Really, you know.... +Well, as you say.... But, of course, it is absurd when you can get any +number of girls to...." + +"But suppose I want _you_?" he demanded of her for a second time. + +She left without further reply. + +When she was gone he found himself in a nasty panic. It was as if the +lady who had called him to her lists had suddenly decided upon a new +defender. + +"Is she tired of it all ... or is there some one else? Can it be +possible that Flint...." + +He had stopped short, amazed to find his mind descending to such a +vulgar level. What had come over him? And he began to fancy things as +they once had been--empty, purposeless days, and nights that found him +too bored to even sleep. It seemed incredible that he could go back to +them again. What lay at the bottom of his sudden deep-breathed +satisfaction with life? For an instant, the truth which he had kept at +bay with his old trick of evasion swept toward him. + +"No ... no," he muttered. "Oh no!... That would be too absurd!" + +But when he had gone to the mirror to brush his hair before venturing on +the street he found thick beads of perspiration on his forehead and his +hand shook as he lifted the comb. + +The next day he told Claire that in the future her salary would be +twenty dollars a week. He stood expecting her to rail against the +increase, to try to put him to rout by explaining that she had received +less for a full day's work at Flint's. But to his surprise she thanked +him and went on with her work. + +It was shortly after this that he began to haunt the various +performances in which Lily Condor and Claire appeared. He always +contrived to slip in during the first number, which as a rule happened +to be Mrs. Condor's offering, and he sat in a far corner where nobody +but that lady could have chanced upon him. But he never knew her to fail +in locating him, or to miss the opportunity to sit out the remainder of +the program at his side, or to suggest crab-legs Louis at Tait's, +particularly if Claire were determined upon an early leave-taking. The +effect of all this was not lost upon the general public, and it was not +long before men of Stillman's acquaintance used to remark facetiously to +him over the lunch-table: + +"What's new in beans to-day?... Are _reds_ still a favorite?" + +Stillman would throw back an equally cryptic answer, thinking as he did +so: + +"What a wigging I must be getting over the teacups! I guess I'll cut it +all out in the future." + +But he usually went no farther than his impulsive resolves. + +Sometimes he wondered what Claire thought of his faithful appearance. +Did she fancy that he came to bask in the smiling impertinences of Lily +Condor? + +As he made his way to a street-car on this vivid February afternoon, he +called to mind that of late Claire had been bringing a fagged look to +her daily tasks. He hoped again that Mrs. Condor's desire to see him had +to do with Claire--more particularly with her dismissal as accompanist. +Miss Menzies had quite recovered and there was really no reason for +Claire to continue in her service. It struck him as he pondered all +these matters how strange it was to find him concerned about these +feminine adjustments--he who had always stared down upon trivial +circumstances with cold scorn. + +He arrived at Lily Condor's apartments almost upon the lady's heels. Her +hat was still ornamenting the center-table and her wrap lay upon a +wicker rocker, where, with a quick movement of irritation, it had been +cast aside. + +Her greeting was not reassuring. "Oh...." she began coldly. "Isn't this +rather late for lunch?" + +"I'm really very sorry," Stillman returned as he took a chair, "but to +be frank, I quite forgot about you." + +"Well," she tried to laugh back at him, "there isn't any virtue as +disagreeable as the truth. I expected you would at least attempt to be +polite enough to lie." + +"I hope you were not too greatly inconvenienced," he said, in a +deliberate attempt to ignore her irritation. + +"I waited two hours, if that is what you mean. But then, _my_ time isn't +particularly valuable." + +He rose suddenly. "I've told you that I was sorry," he began coldly, +reaching for his hat. "But evidently you are determined to be +disagreeable. I fancied you wanted to see me about something urgent, so +I came almost as soon as I remembered." + +She snatched the discarded wrap from its place on the wicker rocker as +she glared at him. "You're in something of a hurry, it seems.... Well, I +sha'n't detain you. The truth is there's a pretty kettle of fish stewed +up over this young woman, Claire Robson.... I want you to tell her that +she can't play at the Café Chantant next Friday night." + +"Want _me_ to tell her? I don't see where I come in.... Why don't you +tell her yourself?" + +"Because I don't choose to.... Besides, I think you might do it a little +more delicately. I can't tell her brutally that she isn't wanted." + +"Isn't wanted? Why, what do you mean?" + +"The committee informs me that she isn't the sort of person they are +accustomed to have featured in their entertainments. It seems that Mrs. +Flint...." + +"Mrs. Sawyer Flint?" + +"Precisely." + +"What is her objection?" + +"Do you really want me to tell you?" + +"Why not?" + +"It appears that some time last fall Miss Robson tried to get her +husband into a compromising position. She came over to the house one +night when Mrs. Flint was away. Flint promptly ordered her out. It seems +she went ... to be quite frank ... with _you_. And what is more, +she...." + +"It isn't necessary for you to go any farther. Tell me, do you mean to +say that you believe this thing? Didn't you lift a hand to defend her?" + +Lily Condor narrowed her eyes. "Oh, come now, Ned Stillman, don't be a +fool! You know as well as I do that I'm hanging on to my own reputation +by my finger-nails. I'm not taking any chances. As to whether it is so +... well, if I were to tell the committee everything I know it wouldn't +help her cause any. I could wreck her reputation like that," she snapped +her fingers, "with one solitary fact. If she hasn't wrecked it already +with her senseless chatter.... Only last week her aunt, Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown, said to me: 'So you're hiring my niece! I must say that is +handsome of you!' You were sitting talking to Claire and she looked +deliberately at you when she said it. Remember how I warned you, last +December. I told you then that the secret of a woman's meal-ticket was +never hidden very long." + +During this speech Mrs. Condor's voice had dropped from its original +tone of petty rancor to one of petulant self-justification. Stillman +knew at once that her ill-temper had caught her off-guard and she was +already trying to crawl slowly back into his favor. She had meant, no +doubt, to soften her news over a glass or two of chilled white wine +which she had counted on sipping during the noon hour. She might even +then have gone farther and decided to cast her fortunes with Stillman +and Claire if she had seen that her advantage lay in that direction. He +was not sure but that she still had some such notion in her mind. But he +felt suddenly sick of her past all hope of compromise, and he was +determined to be rid of her once and for all. + +"No doubt," he said, frigidly, "you will be glad to be relieved of Miss +Robson's presence permanently. I take it that you don't consider her +association exactly ... well ... shall we say discreet?" + +Her eyes took on a yellow tinge as she faced him. She must have sensed +the finality of his tone, the well-bred insolence that his query +suggested. + +"Discreet?" she echoed. "Well, I wouldn't say that that was quite what I +meant. Desirable--that would be better. I don't find her association +desirable.... I don't _want_ her, in other words." + +He had never been so angry in his life. Had she been a man he would have +struck her. He felt himself choking. "My dear Mrs. Condor," he warned, +"will you be good enough to take a little more respectful tone when you +speak of Miss Robson?" + +"Oh, indeed! And just what are your rights in the matter? You're not her +brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't know that it was +the fashion for a...." His look stopped her. She trembled a moment, +tossed back her head, and finished, defiantly, "Yes, that is what I want +to know, what _are_ your rights?" + +He took a step toward her. Instinctively she retreated. + +"A woman like you wouldn't understand even if I were to tell you," he +flung at her. + +She covered her face with both hands. + +He left the room. + +He himself was trembling as he reached the street--trembling for the +first time in years. As a child he had been given to these fits of +emotional tremors, but he had long since lost the faculty for recording +physically his intense moments. Or had he lost the faculty for the +intense moments themselves, he found himself wondering, as he walked +rapidly toward his home. The evening was warm with the perfume of a bit +of truant summer that had somehow escaped before its time to hearten a +winter-weary world against the bitter assaults of March. Birds of +passage sang among the hedges, the sun still cast a faint greenish glow +in the extreme west. + +His first thought was of the cowering woman he had just left. He had +meant to lash her keenly with his verbal whipcords, but he had not +expected to find her quite so sensitive to his cutting scorn. He +remembered the gesture with which she had lifted her hand as if to +screen herself from his insults. There was a whole life of futile +compromise in just the manner of that gesture, a growing helplessness to +give straightforward thrusts, a pitiful admission of defeat. But he knew +that this surrender was temporary--a quick lifting of the mask under a +relentless pressure. To-morrow, in an hour, in ten minutes, Lily Condor +would be her dangerous self again, lashed into the fury of a woman +scorned. For a moment he did not know whether to be relieved or dismayed +at the prospect of Mrs. Condor for an enemy. How much would she really +dare? + +He thought with a lowering anger of Flint. He had been ready to concede +everything but this former friend in the rôle of a cheap and nasty +gossip. No--gossip was a pale, sickly term. Flint was a malignant toad, +a nauseous mud-slinger, a deliberate liar. He had heard of men who had +justified themselves with vile tales to their insipid, disgustingly +virtuous wives, but he had not counted such among his acquaintances. By +the side of Flint, Lily Condor loomed a very paragon of the social +amenities. + +Stillman was conscious that his mental process was keyed to the highest +pitch of melodrama. It was not usual for him to indulge in mental abuse. +He had never quite understood the dark and moving processes of red-eyed +anger. There had been something absurd in the theatrical hauteur of his +manner in this last scene with Mrs. Condor--that is, if it were measured +by his own standards. His growing detachments from life had claimed him +almost to the point of complete indifference. But now, suddenly, as if +Fate had dealt him an insulting blow upon the face with her bare palm, +he felt not only rage, but a sense of its futility, its impotence. + +"Flint!" he thought again. And immediately he spewed forth the memory of +this man in a flood of indiscriminate epithets. + + * * * * * + +Later, in the refuge of his own four walls and under the brooding solace +of an after-dinner cigar, he lost some of the intensiveness of his +former humor. But the force of the vehemence which had shaken him filled +him with much wonder and some apprehension. He was too much a man of +experience to deny questions when they were put to him squarely by +circumstances. + +"You're not her brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't +know it was the fashion for a...." + +Lily Condor's clipped question struck him squarely now. Just what were +his expectations concerning Claire Robson? The thought turned him cold. +Essentially he was of Puritan mold, but he had always had a theory that +love of illicit pleasures must have been uncommonly strong in a people +who found it necessary to fight the flesh so uncompromisingly. Battling +with the elements upon the bleak shores of New England contributed, no +doubt, to the gray and chastened spirits that these grim folks had won +for themselves; spirits that colored and sometimes seeded swiftly under +the softer skies of California. San Francisco was full of these forced +blooms consumed and withered by the sudden heat of a free and +traditionless life. He knew scores of old-timers--his father's +friends--who had been gloriously wrecked by the passion with which they +met freedom's kiss. They had pursued pleasure with an energy overtrained +in wrestling with the devil and had paid the penalty of all ardent souls +lacking the prudence of weakness. There was at once something fine and +unlawful about the spirit of adventure: it implied courage, impatience +of restraint, wilfulness--in short, all the virtues and vices of +strength. He had felt at times the heritage of this strength, shorn of +its power by the softness of a wilderness that had been wooed instead +of conquered. His forefathers had found California a waiting, gracious +bride, but there had been almost a suggestion of the courtezan in the +lavishness of this land's response to the caresses of the invaders. + +There was something fantastic in the memory of his father, fresh from +the austere dawns of the little fishing village of Gloucester, +transplanted suddenly to the wine-red sunsets of the Golden Gate. He +felt that his father must have had the courage for substance-wasting +without the temptation. Most men in those early days had plunged unyoked +into the race--Ezra Stillman brought his bride, and therefore his +household goods, with him, and unconsciously custom drew its restraining +rein tight. Ezra Stillman came from a long line of salt-seasoned +tempters of the sea; their virtues had been rugged and their vices +equally robust; sin with them had been gaunt, sinewy, unlovely; there +was nothing insinuating and soft about the lure of pleasure in that +silver-nooned environment. Ezra had been the first of this long line to +turn his back upon the sea, and the land had rewarded him lavishly as if +determined to make his capture complete. Yet, he was not landsman enough +to wrest a living direct from the soil; instead, he set up his booth in +the market-place of the town and tr + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11875 *** diff --git a/11875-h/11875-h.htm b/11875-h/11875-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..33a836c --- /dev/null +++ b/11875-h/11875-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7495 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Blood Red Dawn, by Charles Caldwell Dobie</title> +<style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + <!-- + P { + text-indent: 1em; + text-align: justify; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; + } + HR { + width: 45%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + hr.full { width: 100%; + size: 5; } + BODY { + font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; + background:#FFFFFF; + color:#000000; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + BLOCKQUOTE { + margin-left: 4em; + margin-right: 4em; + } + .toc { + white-space: nowrap; + } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 9pt;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11875 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Blood Red Dawn, by Charles Caldwell Dobie</h1> +</pre> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr class="full" /> +<h1><font size="3">The</font><br /> + BLOOD RED DAWN</h1> +<h2><font size="3">by</font><br /> + CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIE</h2> +<br /> +<h6>1920</h6> +<br /> +<p><i>To My Mother</i></p> +<!-- TOC --> +<h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3> +<b>Book I</b><br /> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_I">Chapter I</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_II">Chapter II</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_III">Chapter III</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_IV">Chapter IV</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_V">Chapter V</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_VI">Chapter VI</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_VII">Chapter VII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_VIII">Chapter VIII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_IX">Chapter IX</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_X">Chapter X</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_XI">Chapter XI</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_XII">Chapter XII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_XIII">Chapter XIII</a></span> +<br /> +<br /> +<b>Book II</b><br /> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_I">Chapter I</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_II">Chapter II</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_III">Chapter III</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_IV">Chapter IV</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_V">Chapter V</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_VI">Chapter VI</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_VII">Chapter VII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_VIII">Chapter VIII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_IX">Chapter IX</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_X">Chapter X</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XI">Chapter XI</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XII">Chapter XII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XIII">Chapter XIII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XIV">Chapter XIV</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XV">Chapter XV</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XVI">Chapter XVI</a></span> +<!-- End TOC --> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Book I</h2> +<a name="I_I"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> +<p>The pastor's announcement had been swallowed up in a hum of truant inattention, + and as the heralded speaker made his appearance upon the platform Claire Robson, + leaning forward, said to her mother:</p> +<p>"What?... Did you catch his name?"</p> +<p>"A foreigner of some sort!" replied Mrs. Robson, with smug sufficiency.</p> +<p>For a moment the elder woman's sneer dulled the edge of Claire's anticipations, + but presently the man began to speak, and at once she felt a sense of power + back of his halting words, a sudden bursting fort of bloom amid the frozen assembly + that sat ice-bound, refusing to be melted by the fires of an alien enthusiasm. + She could not help wondering whether he felt how hopeless it would be to force + a sympathetic response from his audience. In ordinary times the Second Presbyterian + Church of San Francisco could not possibly have had any interest in Serbia except + as a field for foreign missionaries. Now, with America in the war and speeding + up the draft, these worthy people were too much concerned with problems nearer + their own hearthstones to be swept off their feet by a specific and almost inarticulate + appeal for an obscure country, made only a shade less remote by the accident + of being accounted an ally.</p> +<p>Claire, straining at attention, found it hard to follow him. He talked rapidly + and with unfamiliar emphasis, and he waved his hands. Frankly, people were bored. + They had come to hear a concert and incidentally swell the Red Cross fund, but + they had not reckoned on quite this type of harangue. Besides, an appetizing + smell of coffee from the church kitchen had begun to beguile their senses. And + yet, the man talked on and on, until quite suddenly Claire Robson began to have + a strange feeling of disquiet, an embarrassment for him, such as one feels when + an intimate friend or kinsman unconsciously makes a spectacle of himself. She + wished that he would stop. She longed to rise from her seat and scream, to create + an outlandish scene, to do anything, in short, that would silence him. At this + point he turned his eyes in her direction, and she felt the scorch of an intense + inner fire. Instinctively she lowered her glance.... When she looked up again + his gaze was still fixed upon her. She felt her color rise. From that moment + on she had a sense that she was his sole audience. He was talking to her. The + others did not matter. She still did not have any very distinct idea what it + was all about, but the manner of it held her captive. But gradually the mists + cleared, he became more coherent, and slowly, imperceptibly, bit by bit, he + won the others. Yet never for an instant did he take his eyes from <i>her</i>. + When he finished, a momentary silence blocked the final burst of applause. But + Claire Robson's hands were locked tightly together, and it was not until he + had disappeared that she realized that she had not paid him the tribute of even + a parting glance.</p> +<p>The pastor came back upon the platform and announced that refreshments would + be served at the conclusion of the next number. A heavy odor of coffee continued + to float from the church kitchen. A red-haired woman stepped forward and began + to sing.</p> +<p>Already Claire Robson dreaded the ordeal of supper. The fact that tables were + being laid further disturbed her. This meant that she and her mother would have + to push their way into some group which, at best, would remain indifferent to + their presence. When coffee was served informally things were not so awkward. + To be sure, one had to balance coffee-cup and cake-plate with an amazing and + painful skill, but, on the other hand, table-less groups did not emphasize one's + isolation. Claire had got to the point where she would have welcomed active + hostility on the part of her fellow church members, but their utter indifference + was soul-killing. She would have liked to remember one occasion when any one + had betrayed the slightest interest in either her arrival or departure, or rather + in the arrival and departure of her mother and herself.</p> +<p>The solo came to an end, and the inevitable applause followed, but before the + singer could respond to the implied encore most of the listeners began frank + and determined advances upon the tables. The concert was over.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson rose and faced Claire with a look of bewilderment. As usual, mother + and daughter stood irresolutely, caught like two trembling leaves in the backwater + of a swirling eddy. At last Claire made a movement toward the nearest table. + Mrs. Robson followed. They sat down.</p> +<p>The scattered company speedily began to form into congenial groups. There was + a great deal of suddenly loosened chatter. Claire Robson sat silently, rather + surprised and dismayed to find that she and her mother had chosen a table which + seemed to be the objective of all the prominent church members. The company + facing her was elegant, if not precisely smart, and there were enough laces + and diamonds displayed to have done excellent service if the proper background + had been provided. Claire was further annoyed to discover that her mother was + regarding the situation with a certain ruffling self-satisfaction which she + took no pains to conceal. Mrs. Robson bowed and smirked, and even called gaily + to every one within easy range. There was something distasteful in her mother's + sudden and almost aggressive self-assurance.</p> +<p>Gradually the company adjusted itself; the tables were filled. The only moving + figures were those of young women carrying huge white pitchers of steaming coffee. + Claire Robson settled into her seat with a resignation born of subtle inner + misery. Across her brain flashed the insistent and pertinent questions that + such a situation always evoked. Why was she not one of these young women engaged + in distributing refreshments? Did the circles close automatically so as to exclude + her, or did her own aloofness shut her out? What was the secret of these people + about her that gave them such an assured manner? No one spoke to her with cordial + enthusiasm.... It was not a matter of wealth, or brains, or prominent church + activity. It was not even a matter of obscurity. Like all large organizations, + the Second Presbyterian Church was made up of every clique in the social calendar; + the obscure circle was as clannish and distinctive in its way as any other group. + But Claire Robson was forced to admit that she did not belong even to the obscure + circle. She belonged nowhere—that was the galling and oppressive truth + that was forced upon her.</p> +<p>At this point she became aware that one of the most prominent church members, + Mrs. Towne, was making an unmistakably cordial advance in her direction. Claire + had a misgiving.... Mrs. Towne was never excessively friendly except for a definite + aim.</p> +<p>"My dear Miss Robson," Mrs. Towne began, sweetly, drooping confidentially + to a whispering posture, "I am so sorry, but I shall have to disturb you + and your mother!... It just happens that this table has been reserved for the + elders and their wives.... I hope you'll understand!"</p> +<p>For a moment Claire merely stared at the messenger of evil news. Then, recovering + herself, she managed to reply:</p> +<p>"Oh yes, Mrs. Towne! I understand perfectly.... I am sure we were very + stupid.... Come, mother!"</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson responded at once to her daughter's command. The two women rose. + By this time the task of securing another place was quite hopeless. Claire felt + that every eye in the room was turned upon them. Picking their way between a + labyrinth of tables and chairs, they literally were stumbling in the direction + of an exit when Claire felt a hand upon her arm. She turned.</p> +<p>"Pardon me," the man opposite her was saying, "but may I offer + you a place at our table?"</p> +<p>Claire said nothing; she followed blindly. Her mother was close upon her heels.</p> +<p>The table was a small one, and only two people were occupying it—the + man who had halted Claire, and a woman. The man, standing with one hand on the + chair which he had drawn up for Mrs. Robson, said, simply:</p> +<p>"My name is Stillman, and of course you know Mrs. Condor—the lady + who has just sung for us."</p> +<p>Claire gave a swift, inclusive glance. Yes, it was the same woman who had attempted + to beguile a weary audience from its impending repletion; at close range one + could not escape the intense redness of her hair or the almost immoral whiteness + of the shoulders and arms which she was at such little pains to conceal.</p> +<p>"Stillman?" Mrs. Robson was fluttering importantly. "Not the + old Rincon Hill family?"</p> +<p>"Yes, the old Rincon Hill family," the man replied.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson sat down with preening self-satisfaction. Wearily the daughter + dropped into the seat which Mrs. Condor proffered. The name of Ned Stillman + was not unfamiliar to any San Franciscan who scanned the social news with even + a casual glance, and Claire had a vague remembrance that Mrs. Condor also figured + socially, but in a rather more inclusive way than her companion. At all events, + it was plain that her mother, with unerring feminine insight, had placed the + pair to her satisfaction. Already the elder woman was contriving to let Stillman + know something of <i>her</i> antecedents. <i>She</i> was Emily Carrol, also + of Rincon Hill, and of course he knew her two sisters—Mrs. Thomas Wynne + and Mrs. Edward Finch-Brown! As Stillman returned a smiling assurance to Mrs. + Robson's attempts to be impressive, a young woman in white arrived with ice-cream + and messy layer-cake. Unconsciously Claire Robson began to smile. She could + not have said why, but somehow the presence of Ned Stillman and Mrs. Condor + at a table spread with such vacuous delights seemed little short of ridiculous. + They did not fit the picture any more than her beetle-browed, red-lipped Serbian + who.... She turned deliberately and swept the room with her glance. Of course + he had gone. It was not to be expected that <i>he</i> would descend to the level + of such puerile feasting. A sudden contempt for everything that only an hour + ago seemed so desirable rose within her, and, in answer to the young woman's + query as to whether she preferred coffee to ice-cream, she answered with lip-curling + aloofness:</p> +<p>"Neither, thank you.... I am not hungry."</p> +<p>Stillman looked at her searchingly. She returned his gaze without flinching.</p> +<p>Claire Robson did not sleep that night. She lay for hours, quite motionless, + staring into the gloom of her narrow bedroom, her mind ruthlessly shaping formless, + vague intuitions into definite convictions. She could not put her finger upon + the precise reason for her inquietude. Was it chargeable to so trivial a circumstance + as a stranger's formal courtesy or had something more subtle moved her? If the + depths of her isolation had been thrown into too high relief by the almost shameful + sense of obligation she felt toward Stillman for his courtesy, what was to be + said of the uniqueness of the solitary position which the Serbian awarded her + by singling her out for a sympathetic response? Could it be that a vague pity + had stirred him, too? Had things reached a point where her loneliness showed + through the threadbare indifference of her glance? In short, had both men been + won to gallantry by her distress? In one case, at least, she decided that there + was a reasonable chance to doubt. And that doubt quickened her pulse like May + wine.</p> +<p>But the humiliation of her last encounter with chivalry stuck with profound + irritation. She recalled the scene again and again. She remembered her contemptuous + silence before Stillman's obvious suavities, the high, assured laugh which his + companion, Mrs. Condor, threw out to meet his quiet sallies, the ruffling satisfaction + of her mother, chattering on irrelevantly, but with the undisguised purpose + of creating a proper impression. How easily Stillman must have seen through + Claire's muteness and the elder woman's eager craving for an audience! And all + the time Mrs. Condor had been laughing, not ill-naturedly, but with the irony + of an experienced woman possessing a sense of humor.</p> +<p>And at the end, when the four had left the church together, to be whirled home + in Stillman's car, the sudden nods and smiles and farewells that had blossomed + along the path of her mother's exit! Claire could have laughed it all away if + her mother had not betrayed such eagerness to drink this snobbish flattery to + the lees....</p> +<p>Claire's father had never entered very largely into her calculations, but to-night + her readjusted vision included him. Stubborn, kind, a bit weak, and inclined + to copying poetry in a red-covered album, he had been no match for the disillusionments + of married life. Her mother's people had felt a sullen resentment at his downfall—he + had taken to drink and died ingloriously when Claire was still in her seventh + year. Claire, influenced by the family traditions, had shared this resentment. + But now she found herself wondering whether there was not a word or two to be + said in his behalf. Her father had been a cheap clerk in a wholesale house when + he had married. The uncertain Carrol fortunes were waning swiftly at the time, + and Emily Carrol had been thrown at him with all the panic that then possessed + a public schooled in the fallacy that marriage was a woman's only career. The + result was to have been expected. Extravagance, debts, too much family, drink, + death—the sequence was complete. He had been captured, withered, cast + aside, by a tribe that had not even had the decency to grant his memory the + kindness of an excuse.</p> +<p>Wide-eyed and restless, Claire Robson felt a sudden pity for her father. Tears + sprang to her eyes; it overwhelmed her to discover this new father so full of + human failings and yet so full of human provocation. In her twenty-four years + of life she had never shed a tear for him, or felt the slightest pang for his + failure. If she had ever doubted the Carrol viewpoint, she had never given her + lack of faith any scope. She had taken their cast-off prejudices and threadbare + convictions as docilely as she had once received their stale garments. She had + shrunk from spiritual independence with all the obsequious arrogance of a poor + relation at a feast. Her diffidence, her self-consciousness, her timidity, were + the outward forms of an inbred snobbery. It was curious how suddenly all this + was made clear to her....</p> +<p>At length she fell into a troubled sleep.... When she awoke the room's outlines + were reviving before the advances of early morning. For the first time in her + life she caught the poetry of the new day at first hand. For years she had reveled + vicariously in the delights of morning. But it had always been to her a thing + apart, a matter which the writers of romantic verse beheld and translated for + the benefit of late sleepers. It never occurred to her that the day crawling + into the light-well of her Clay Street flat was lit with precisely the same + flame that colored the far-flung peaks of the poet's song. And instantly a phrase + of the Serbian's harangue came to her—blood-red dawn! He had repeated + these words over and over again, and somehow under the heat of his ardor and + longing for his native land this hackneyed phrase took on its real and dreadful + value. In the sudden sweep of this vital remembrance, Claire Robson rose for + a moment above the fretful drip of circumstance.... <i>Blood-red Dawn</i>!... + She threw herself back upon her bed and shuddered....</p> +<p>She rose at seven o'clock, but already the morning had grown pallid and flecked + with gray clouds.</p> +<p>An apologetic tap came at the door, and the voice of Mrs. Robson repeating + a formula that she never varied:</p> +<p>"Better hurry, Claire. If you don't you'll be late for the office!"</p> +<a name="I_II"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> +<p>As Claire stepped out into the cold sunlight of early November, she smiled + bitterly at the exaggeration of last night's mood. After the first hectic flush + of dawn there is nothing so sane and sweet and commonplace as morning. The spectacle + of Mrs. Finnegan, who lodged in the flat below, slopping warm suds over the + thin marble steps, added a final note of homeliness, which divorced Claire completely + from heroics.</p> +<p>"Well, Miss Robson, so you really got home, last night," broke from + the industrious neighbor as she straightened up and tucked her lifted skirts + in more securely. "I thought you never would come!... A package came from + New York for you. The man nearly banged your door down. I had Finnegan put it + on your back stoop.... It's from that cousin of yours, I guess. I was so excited + about it I kept wishing you'd get home early so that I could get a peep at all + the pretty things. But I'll run up just as soon as I get through with the breakfast + dishes."</p> +<p>Claire smiled wanly. "It was very good of you to take all that trouble, + I'm sure, Mrs. Finnegan!"</p> +<p>"Oh, bother my trouble!" Mrs. Finnegan responded. "I just knew + how crazy I'd be about a box. I guess we women are all alike, Miss Robson. Anyway, + your mother and I are!"</p> +<p>Mrs. Finnegan bent over her task again with a quick exasperated movement, and + Claire passed on. Her neighbor's abrupt rebuke gave Claire a renewed sense of + exclusion. She had meant to be warmly appreciative, but she knew now that she + had been only coldly polite. But, as a matter of fact, the prospect of delving + through a box of Gertrude Sinclair's discarded finery moved her this morning + to a dull fury. She felt suddenly tired of cast-offs, of compromise, of all + the other shabby adjustments of genteel poverty. And by the time she reached + the office of the Falcon Insurance Company her soul was seething with a curious + and unreasonable revolt. The feminine office force seemed seething also, but + with an impersonal, quivering excitement. Nellie Whitehead had been dismissed!</p> +<p>This Nellie Whitehead, the stenographer-in-chief, was big, vigorous, blond—vulgar, + energetic, vivid; and Miss Munch, her assistant, a thin, hollow-chested spinster, + who loafed upon her job so that she might save her sight for the manufacture + of incredible yards of tatting, never missed an opportunity to lift her eyes + significantly behind her superior's back.</p> +<p>"And what do you suppose?" Miss Munch was querying as Claire stepped + into the dressing-room. "She told Mr. Flint to go to hell!... Yes, positively, + she used those very words. And I must say he was a gentleman throughout it all. + He told her gently but firmly that her example in the office wasn't what it + should be and that in justice to the other girls...."</p> +<p>Claire turned impatiently away. The fiction of Mr. Flint's belated interest + in the morals of his feminine office force was unconvincing enough to be irritating. + For a man who never missed an opportunity to force his attentions, he was showing + an amazingly ethical viewpoint. On second thought, Claire remembered that Miss + Munch was never the recipient of Mr. Flint's attentions, which to the casual + eye might have seemed innocent enough—on rainy days gallantly bending + his ample girth in a rather too prolonged attempt to slip on the girls' rubbers, + insisting on the quite unnecessary task of incasing them in their jackets and + smoothing the sleeves of their shirt-waists in the process, flicking imaginary + threads where the feminine curves were most opulent. Not that Mr. Flint was + a wolf in sheep's clothing; he played the part of sheep, but he needed no disguise + for his performance; he merely lived up to a sort of flock-mind consciousness + where women were concerned.</p> +<p>The group clustered about Miss Munch broke up at the approach of Mr. Flint, + who gave a significant glance in the direction of Claire Robson, intent upon + her morning work. But the excitement persisted in spite of the scattered auditors, + and the fact was mysteriously communicated that Miss Munch's interest in the + event was chargeable to her hopes. It seemed impossible to Miss Munch that any + one but herself could succeed to the vacant post of stenographer-in-chief.</p> +<p>At precisely eleven o'clock the buzzer on Claire Robson's desk hummed three + times. This announced that she was wanted by Mr. Flint. She gathered her note-book + and pencils and answered the call.</p> +<p>Mr. Flint was busy at the telephone when Claire entered the private office. + She seated herself at the flat oak table in the center of the room.</p> +<p>Mr. Flint's office bore all the conventional signs of business—commissions + of authority from insurance companies, state licenses in oak frames, an oil-painting + of Thomas Sawyer Flint, the founder of the firm, over a fireplace that maintained + its useless dignity in spite of the steam-radiator near the window. On his desk + was the inevitable picture of his wife framed in silver, a hand-illumined platitude + of Stevenson, an elaborate set of desk paraphernalia in beaten brass that bore + little evidence of service. In two green-glazed bowls of Japanese origin, roses + from Mr. Flint's garden at Yolanda scattered faint pink petals on the Smyrna + rug. These flowers were the only concession to esthetics that Mr. Flint indulged. + In spite of a masculine distaste for carrying flowers, hardly a day went by + when he did not appear at the office with a huge harvest of blossoms from his + country home.</p> +<p>Claire was bending over, intent on picking up the crumpled rose-petals, when + Mr. Flint finally spoke. She straightened herself slowly. Her unhurried movements + had a certain grace that did not escape the man opposite her. She tossed the + bruised leaves into a waste-basket and reached for her pencil. Her heart was + pounding, but she faced Mr. Flint with a clear, direct gaze.</p> +<p>"Miss Robson, of course you've heard all about the rumpus," Mr. Flint + was saying. "I had to fire Miss Whitehead.... I think you can fill the + bill."</p> +<p>Claire rose without replying. Mr. Flint left his seat and crossed over to her.</p> +<p>"I hope," he said, flicking a thread from her shoulder, "that + you're game.... Some girls, of course, don't care a damn about getting on ... + especially if there's a Johnny somewhere in sight with enough cash in his pocket + for a marriage license."</p> +<p>"I am very much taken by surprise," Claire faltered. "You see, + the change means a great deal to me."</p> +<p>Mr. Flint moved closer. His manner was intimate and distasteful. "Sometimes + I think we business men ought to get more of a slant on our employees.... You + know what I mean, not exactly bothering about how many lumps of sugar they take + in their coffee, or their taste in after-dinner cheese ... but, well, just how + often they have to resole their boots and turn the ribbons on their spring bonnets.... + Now, in Miss Whitehead's case.... But of course you're not interested in Miss + Whitehead."</p> +<p>"Why, I wouldn't say that," stammered Claire. Then, as she reached + for her shorthand book she said, more confidently: "To be quite frank, + Mr. Flint, I liked Miss Whitehead tremendously. She was so alive ... and vivid."</p> +<p>Flint beamed. "Do you know why I picked you instead of that Munch dame?... + It's because you had all the frills of a woman and none of the nastiness. For + instance, you wouldn't be bothered in the least if I took a notion to overload + the office with another pretty girl.... I've watched you for some time. It has + taken me six months to make up my mind to fire Miss Whitehead and boost you + into her job."</p> +<p>He stood with an air of condescending arrogance, his thumbs bearing down heavily + on his trousers pockets, his broad fingers beating a self-satisfied tattoo upon + his thighs. Claire shrank nearer the table. "You mean, Mr. Flint, that + you dismissed Miss Whitehead merely to give me her position?"</p> +<p>Flint smiled. "Well, now you're coming down to brass-headed tacks. I'm + not keen on spelling out the whys and wherefores of anything I do.... But one + thing is certain enough—if Miss Munch had been the only available candidate + I <i>could</i> have stood Miss Whitehead.... There ain't much question about + that."</p> +<p>"Oh, Mr. Flint! I'm sorry!"</p> +<p>He gave a wide guffaw. "That only makes you all the more of a corker!" + he answered, rubbing his hands together in narrow-eyed satisfaction.</p> +<p>She escaped into the outer office, flushed, but with her head thrown back in + an attitude of instinctive defense, and the next instant she literally ran into + the arm of a man.</p> +<p>"Why, Miss Robson, but this <i>is</i> pleasant! I'm just dropping in to + see Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>She drew back. Mr. Stillman stood smiling before her.</p> +<p>Greetings and questions flowed with all the genial ease of one who is never + quite taken unawares. Claire, outwardly calm, felt overcome with inner confusion. + She passed rapidly to her desk and sat down.</p> +<p>Miss Munch was upon her almost instantly.</p> +<p>"Do <i>you</i> know Ned Stillman?" Miss Munch asked, veiling her + real purpose.</p> +<p>"Yes," replied Claire, with uncomfortable brevity.</p> +<p>"I have a cousin who was housekeeper for his wife's father.... You know + about his wife, of course."</p> +<p>Claire lifted her clear eyes in a startled glance that was almost as instantly + converted into a look of challenge.</p> +<p>"Yes," she lied.</p> +<p>Miss Munch hesitated, then plunged at once into the issue uppermost in her + mind. "It's too bad you've had to be bothered with Flint's dictation, Miss + Robson. It just happens I'm writing up a long home-office report, otherwise + I'm sure he wouldn't have annoyed you."</p> +<p>Claire Robson fixed Miss Munch with a coldly polite stare. "You've made + a mistake, Miss Munch. Mr. Flint has given me no dictation." The speech + in itself was nothing, but Claire's tone gave it unmistakable point. Miss Munch + grew white and then flushed. She turned away without a word, but Claire Robson + knew that in a twinkling of an eye she had gained not only an enemy, but an + uncommon one.</p> +<hr /> +<p>That night Claire took an unusually long way round on her walk home. Her path + from the Falcon Insurance Company's office on California Street to the Clay + Street flat was never a direct one, first, because there were hills to be avoided, + and, second, because Claire found the streets at twilight too full of charm + for a rapid homeward flight. The year was on the wane and the November days + were coming to an early blackness. Claire reveled in the light-flooded dusk + of these late autumn evenings. To her, the city became a vast theater, darkened + suddenly for the purpose of throwing the performers into sharper relief. Most + clerks made their way up Montgomery Street toward Market, but Claire climbed + past the German Bank to Kearny Street. She liked this old thoroughfare, struggling + vainly to pull itself up to its former glory. The Kearny Street crowd was a + varying quantity, frankly shabby or flashily prosperous, as far south as Sutter + Street, suddenly dignified and reserved for the two blocks beyond. To-night + Claire missed the direct appeal of the streets lined with bright shops. They + formed the proper background for her broodings, but they scarcely entered into + her mood. She could not have said just what flight her mood was taking, or upon + just which branch her thought would alight. She was confused and puzzled and + vaguely uneasy. She had a sense that somehow, somewhere, a door had been opened + and that a strong, devastating wind was clearing the air and bringing dead things + to ground in a disorderly shower. She was stirred by twilights of uneasiness. + It was almost as if the monotonous truce of noonday had been darkened by a huge, + composite, masculine shadow, made up in some mysterious way of the ridiculous + Serbian and his blood-red dawn, and this man Stillman, who had a wife, and Flint, + with hands so ready to flick threads from her sloping shoulders. Yesterday her + outlook had been peaceful and unhappy; to-day she felt stimulation of an impending + struggle. She was afraid, and yet she would not have turned back for one swift + moment. And suddenly the words of Mrs. Finnegan recurred, "I guess we women + are all alike." Were they?</p> +<p>At which point she came upon a pastry-shop window and she went in and bought + a half-dozen French pastries. The thought of her mother's pleasure at this unusual + treat brought her in due time smiling to her threshold.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson was not in her accustomed place at the head of the stairs; about + half-way up the long flight her voice sounded triumphantly:</p> +<p>"Oh, Claire, do hurry and see what Gertrude has sent! Everything is perfectly + lovely."</p> +<p>Claire quickened her pace and gained the cramped living-room. Thrown about + in a sort of joyous disorder, Gertrude Sinclair's finery quite lit up the shabbiness. + Hats, plumes, scraps of vivid silks, gilded slippers, a spangled fan—their + unrelated vividness struck Claire as fantastic as a futurist painting. Her mother + seemed suddenly young again. Claire wondered whether, after the toll of sixty-odd + years, she could be moved to momentary youth by the mere sight of the prettiness + that was quickening her mother's pulse.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson held up a filmy evening gown of black net embroidered with a rich + design of dull gold. "Isn't this heavenly?" she demanded. "And + it will just fit you, Claire. I think Gertrude has spread herself this time."</p> +<p>"Yes, on finery, mother. But didn't she send anything sensible? What possessed + her to load us up with a lot of things we can never possibly get a chance to + wear?"</p> +<p>Claire had not meant to be disagreeable, but there was rancor in her voice. + Mrs. Robson cast aside the dress with the carelessness of a spoiled favorite; + she always adapted her manner to the tone of her background.</p> +<p>"Claire Robson!" she cried, good-naturedly. "You're a regular + old woman! I'm sure <i>I</i> haven't much to be cheerful about, but I just won't + let anything down me!... If I wanted to, I could give up right now. Where would + we have been, I'd like to know, if I hadn't held my head up? Goodness knows, + <i>my</i> folks didn't help me. If they had had their way, I'd been out manicuring + people's nails and washing heads for a living. And <i>you</i> in an orphan-asylum! + That's what my people did for me! As it is, they shoved you out to work. What + chance have you of meeting nice people? No, Claire, I don't care how they have + treated me, but they might have given you a chance. I'll never forgive them + for that!... I thought last night when I was talking to Mrs. Condor and watching + you and Mr. Stillman how nice it would have been if.... Oh, that reminds me! + Who do you think has been here to-day?... Mrs. Towne! She came to apologize + about asking us to move our seats the other night. <i>She</i> knows the Stillmans + well. The old people were pillars of the Second Church in the 'sixties. I fancy + he is dancing about that Mrs. Condor's heels a bit. Of course, as Mrs. Towne + said, <i>she</i> wouldn't be likely to make herself a permanent feature of Second + Church entertainments. But now in war-times <i>anything</i> is possible. Mrs. + Towne was telling me all about Stillman and his wife. I <i>should</i> have remembered, + but somehow I forgot. Get your things off and I'll tell you all about it."</p> +<p>Claire handed her mother the package of pastries. "I heard about it to-day," + she said, coldly.</p> +<p>"But Mrs. Towne knows the whole thing from A to Z," insisted Mrs. + Robson, genially.</p> +<p>"I'm not interested in the details," Claire returned, doggedly.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson's face wore a puzzled, almost a harried, expression. Claire moved + away. Her mother gave a shrug and renewed her efforts to drag further finery + from the mysterious depths of the treasure-box. Her daughter cast a last incurious + glance back. The glow on Mrs. Robson's face, which Claire had mistaken for youth, + seemed now a thing hectic and unpleasant, and gave an uncanny sense of a skeleton + sitting among gauds and baubles.</p> +<p>A feeling of isolation swept Claire, such as she had never experienced. The + person who should have been closest suddenly had become a stranger.... She went + into her room and closed the door.</p> +<a name="I_III"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> +<p>The following week Claire was surprised to find a letter on her desk at the + office. The few written favors that came her way usually were addressed to the + Clay Street flat, so that she was puzzled by this innovation and the unfamiliar + handwriting. Glancing swiftly at the signature, she was surprised to see the + name "Lily Condor," scrawled loosely at the foot of the note. It seemed + that Mrs. Condor was giving a little musicale in Ned Stillman's apartments on + the following Friday night, and, if one could believe such a thing, the lady + implied that the evening would scarcely be complete without the presence of + Claire Robson—or, to put it more properly, Claire Robson and her <i>mother</i>.</p> +<p>As Claire had scarcely said a half-dozen words to Mrs. Condor on the night + of the Red Cross concert, this invitation seemed little short of extraordinary. + But, as Claire thought it over, she recalled that there had been some general + conversation about music, in which she had admitted a discreet passion for this + form of entertainment, even going so far as to confess that she played the piano + herself upon occasion. Her first impulse, clinched by the familiar feminine + excuse that she had nothing suitable to wear, was to send her regrets. At once + she thought of the scorned finery that Gertrude Sinclair had included in her + last box, and the more she thought about it the more convinced she became that + she had no real reason for refusing. But a swift, strange regret that her mother + had been included in the invitation took the edge off her anticipations. She + tried to dismiss this feeling, but it grew more definite as the morning progressed.</p> +<p>For days Claire had been striking at the shackles of habit with a rancor bred + of disillusionment. She had been on tiptoe for new and vital experiences, and + yet, for any outward sign, her life bid fair to escape the surge of any torrential + circumstance. Particularly, at the office, things had gone on smoothly. The + other clerks had accepted Claire's advancement without either protest or enthusiasm. + Even Miss Munch had veiled her resentment behind the saving trivialities of + daily intercourse. She had gone so far as to introduce Claire to her cousin, + a Mrs. Richards, who had come in at the noon hour for a new tatting design. + This cousin was a large, red-faced woman, with an aggressively capable manner. + She had the quick, ferret-like eyes of Miss Munch and the loose mouth of a perpetual + gossip.</p> +<p>"She's the one I told you about the other day," Miss Munch had explained + later—"the housekeeper for <i>your friend</i> Stillman's father-in-law." + She gave nasty emphasis to this trivial speech.</p> +<p>Flint had been direct and business-like almost to the point of bruskness. But + Claire knew that such moods were not unusual, so she took little stock in the + ultimate significance of his restrained manner.</p> +<p>Perhaps the most indefinable change had come over Claire's home life. Her mother's + unfailing string of trivial gossip, formerly not without a certain interest, + now scarcely held her to even polite attention. Indeed, her self-absorbed silence, + while Mrs. Robson poured out the latest news about Mrs. Finnegan's second sister's + husband's mother—who was suddenly stricken with some incurable disease, + made all the more mysterious by the fact that its nature was not divulged—was + so apparent that her mother, goaded on to a mild exasperation, would ask, significantly:</p> +<p>"What's the matter, Claire? Have you a headache?"</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson was never so happy as in the discovery of some one with a mysterious + disease, particularly if the victim's relatives were loath to discuss the issue.</p> +<p>"They think they fool me!" she would say, triumphantly, to Claire, + "but I guess I know what ails her.... Didn't her mother, and her uncle, + and her sister's oldest child die of consumption? I tell you it's in the family. + The last time I saw her she nearly coughed her head off."</p> +<p>Not that Mrs. Robson was unsympathetic; brought face to face with suffering, + she blossomed with every impulsive tenderness, but her experiences had confirmed + her in pessimism, and every fresh tragedy testified to the soundness of her + faith. Her pride at diagnosing people's ills and pronouncing their death-sentences + was almost professional. And she had an irritating way of making comments such + as this:</p> +<p>"Well, Claire, I see that old Mrs. Talbot is dead at last!... I knew she + wouldn't live another winter. They'll feel terribly, no doubt; but, of course, + it is a great relief."</p> +<p>Or:</p> +<p>"Why, here is the death notice of Isaac Rice! I thought he died <i>years</i> + ago. My, but he was a trial! What a blessing!"</p> +<p>This was the type of conversation that Claire was finding either empty of meaning + or illuminating to the point of annoyance. What amazed her was the fact that + she had remained blind so long to the slightest of the conversational food upon + which she had been fed.</p> +<p>Claire did not tell her mother about the invitation to Mrs. Condor's musical + evening.</p> +<p>"I'll wait," she said to herself. "Thursday will be time enough." + Although why delay would prove advantageous was not particularly apparent.</p> +<p>On Wednesday night at the dinner-table, Mrs. Robson, as if still puzzled at + her daughter's altered mood, said, rather cautiously:</p> +<p>"There's to be a reception at the church on Friday night."</p> +<p>"For whom?" inquired Claire, with pallid interest.</p> +<p>"I didn't quite catch the name.... Some woman back from France. She's + been nursing in one of the British hospitals. She's to get Red Cross work started + at the church. It seems San Francisco is a bit slow over taking up the work, + but, then, you know, we're poked off here in a corner and I suppose we don't + quite realize yet.... Anyway, Mrs. Towne wants us to help with the coffee. She + says you should have been in the church-work long ago. You look so self-contained + and efficient.... I told her we would be there at half past seven and get the + dishes into shape."</p> +<p>Claire's heart beat violently. "Friday night? I'm sorry, mother; I have + another engagement."</p> +<p>"Another engagement? Why, Claire, how funny! You never said anything about + it. I don't know what to say to Mrs. Towne."</p> +<p>Claire felt calm again. "Just tell her the truth."</p> +<p>"But she'll think so strange that I didn't know ... that I...."</p> +<p>"You shouldn't have spoken for me until you found out whether I was willing."</p> +<p>"Willing! <i>Willing!</i> I didn't suppose you'd be anything else. I've + been trying to get you in with the right people at the church for the last fifteen + years. I've tried so hard...."</p> +<p>"Yes, mother, I know," said Claire, patiently. "But don't you + see? That's just it. You've tried too hard."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson began to whimper discreetly. "How you do talk, Claire! I declare + I don't know what to make of it. I suppose you're bitter about Mrs. Towne the + other night. I felt so at first, but I can see now we were at the wrong table. + And, after all, everything came out beautifully. We sat with Mr. Stillman, and + that had a very good effect, I can tell you. Especially when everybody saw us + leave with him. Why, it brought Mrs. Towne to her feet."</p> +<p>"Yes, and that's the humiliating part of it."</p> +<p>"Well, Claire, when you've lived as long as I have you won't be so uppish + about making compromises," flung back Mrs. Robson. "Of course, if + you've got another engagement, you've got another engagement, but if...."</p> +<p>"I wouldn't have gone, anyway. I'm through with that sort of thing."</p> +<p>"Why, Claire, how can you! It's your duty, <i>now</i>!--with your country + at war—and ... and ... Even that dreadful Serbian the other night made + <i>that</i> plain."</p> +<p>"I'll go with you to church on Sundays, of course, but—"</p> +<p>"What am <i>I</i> to do?" wailed Mrs. Robson. "At least you + might think of me! I've not had much pleasure in my life, goodness knows, and + now just as I...."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson broke off abruptly on a flood of tears. Two weeks ago these tears + would have overwhelmed Claire. As it was, she sat calmly stirring her tea, surprised + and a little ashamed of her coldness. The truth was that Claire Robson was feeling + all the fanatical cruelty that comes with sudden conviction. The forms of her + new faith had hardened too quickly and left outlines sharp and uncompromising.</p> +<p>For years Claire had found shelter from the glare of middle-class snobbery + beating about her head, by shrinking into her mother's inadequate shadow as + a desert bird shrinks into the thin shadow of a dry reed by some burned-out + watercourse. Now a full noon of disillusionment had annihilated this shadow + and given her the courage of necessity. And there was something more than courage—there + was an eagerness to stand alone in the commonplace words with which she sought + to temper her refusal to assist at the coming church reception:</p> +<p>"I can't see any good reason, mother, why you shouldn't go and help Mrs. + Towne.... What have my plans to do with it?"</p> +<p>To which her mother answered:</p> +<p>"I do so hate to be seen at such places alone, Claire."</p> +<p>Claire made no reply. She did not want to give her mother's indecision a chance + to crystallize into a definite stand. She knew by long experience that if this + happened it would be fatal. But in a swift flash of decision Claire made up + her mind for one thing—she would either go to Mrs. Condor's evening alone + or she would send her regrets.</p> +<a name="I_IV"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> +<p>By a series of neutral subterfuges and tactful evasions Claire Robson won her + point—she went to the Condor musicale at Ned Stillman's apartments alone, + and on that same night her mother wended a rather grudging way to the Second + Presbyterian Church reception.</p> +<p>Acting under her mother's advice, Claire timed her arrival for nine o'clock, + an hour which seemed incredibly late to one schooled in the temperate hour of + church socials. Mrs. Condor herself opened the door in answer to Claire's ring.</p> +<p>"Oh, my dear, but I <i>am</i> glad to see you!" burst from the elder + woman as she waved her in. But she did not so much as mention the absence of + Mrs. Robson, and Claire was divided between a feeling of wounded family pride, + and gratification at the intuition which had warned her to leave her mother + to her own devices. More people arrived on Claire's heels, and in the lively + bustle she was left to shed her wraps in one of the bedrooms. Her heart was + pounding with reaction at her outwardly self-contained entrance. She let her + rather shabby cloak slip to the floor, revealing a strange, new Claire resplendent + in the gold-embroidered gown that had once so stirred her rancor. For a brief + instant she had an impulse to gather the discarded wrap securely about her and + make a quick exit. A swooning fear at the thought of meeting a roomful of people + assailed her. But there succeeded a courage born of the realization that they + all would be strangers. With a sense of bravado she stepped out into the entrance + hall again.</p> +<p>Ned Stillman came forward. She halted and waited for him. His face had lit + with a sudden pleasure, which told Claire that for once in her life her presence + roused positive interest. He inquired after her health, why her mother had not + come, whether the abominable fog was clearing. His easy formality put her, as + usual, completely at ease.</p> +<p>It was only when he asked her, with the most inconsequential tone in the world, + "whether she could read music at sight" that a sinking fear came over + her. And yet she found courage enough to be truthful and say yes.</p> +<p>"That's fine!" he returned. "Our accompanist hasn't come yet + and we want to start off with a song or two."</p> +<p>From this moment on the evening impressed itself on Claire in a series of blurred + hectic pictures.... She knew that Stillman was leading her toward the piano, + but the living-room and its toned lights gave her a curious sense of unreality. + She seated herself before the white keyboard and folded her hands with desperate + resignation while she waited for Stillman to dictate the next move.</p> +<p>"My dear Mrs. Condor," Stillman explained, as that lady came up to + them, "we sha'n't have to wait for Flora Menzies. Miss Robson will accompany + you."</p> +<p>Claire sat unmoved. She was beyond so trivial a sensation as anxiety. Stillman + drifted away; Mrs. Condor began to run through the sheet music lying on the + piano.</p> +<p>"Of course you know Schumann, Miss Robson. Shall we start at once? How + is the light? If you moved your stool a little—so. There, that's better."</p> +<p>Claire did not reply. She looked at the music before her. She was conscious + that it was a piece she knew, although its name registered no other impression. + She began to play. The opening bars almost startled her. She felt a hush fall + over the noisy room. Her fingers stumbled—she caught the melody again + with staggering desperation. Mrs. Condor was singing.... The room faded; even + the sound of Mrs. Condor's voice became remote. Claire had a desire to laugh.</p> +<p>All manner of strange, disconnected thoughts ran through her head. She remembered + a doll she had broken years ago and buried with great pomp and circumstance, + a pink parasol that had been given her as a child, the gigantic and respectable + wig which had incased the head of her old German music-teacher, Frau Pfaff. + And as she played on and on the music further evoked the memory of this worthy + lady who had given her services in exchange for lodgings in an incredibly small + hall bedroom, with certain privileges at the kitchen stove. And pictures of + this irritating woman rose before her, stewing dried fruit, or preparing sour + beef, or borrowing the clothes boiler for a perennial wash. What compromises + her mother had made to give her child the gentle accomplishments that Mrs. Robson + associated with breeding! It came to Claire that it was almost cruel to have + denied this mother a share in the triumphs of that evening. And with that, she + realized that Mrs. Condor had ceased singing. A hum broke loose, followed by + applause. Claire grew faint. Her head began to swirl. She clutched the piano + stool and by sheer terror at the thought of creating a scene she managed to + keep her consciousness as she felt Mrs. Condor's hand upon her shoulder and + heard a voice that just missed being patronizing:</p> +<p>"My dear, you did it beautifully."</p> +<p>Claire longed to burst into tears....</p> +<p>The concert was over shortly after eleven o'clock. Besides Mrs. Condor, there + had been a 'cellist, very masculine in his looks but rather forceless in his + playing, and a young, frail girl who brought great breadth and vigor to her + interpretations at the piano. But Claire was really too excited for calm enjoyment. + Supper followed—creamed minced chicken and extraordinarily thin sandwiches, + and a dry, pale wine that Claire found at first rather distasteful. Claire sat + with a little group composed of Mrs. Condor, Ned Stillman, a fashionable young + man, Phil Edington, who frankly confessed boredom at all things musical except + one-steps and fox-trots, and two or three artistic-looking souls who pretended + to be quite shocked by young Edington's frankness.</p> +<p>Conversation veered naturally to the subject of the war. Edington had tried + for a commission in an officers' training-camp and failed. He was extraordinarily + frank about it all, and good-natured at the chaffing that Mrs. Condor and Stillman + threw at him.</p> +<p>"I'm going to wait now and be drafted," he announced. "As long + as I failed to make a high grade I want to begin at the bottom and see the whole + picture."</p> +<p>Claire rather waited for a word from Stillman as to his convictions on the + subject. Of course one could see that he was over the draft age, still.... For + the most part she was silent, but happy and content. By contributing her share + to the evening's entertainment she had justified her presence. Wine as a factor + in midnight suppers was a new but not a revolutionary experience to Claire Robson, + but she gasped a bit when the maid passed cigarettes to the ladies. And yet + she felt a delicious sense of being a party to something quite daring and <i>outré</i>, + although she did not have either courage or skill to enjoy one of the slender, + gold-tipped delights.</p> +<p>The time for departure finally came. Claire rose reluctantly. Mrs. Condor, + slipping one arm in Phil Edington's and the other in Claire's, sauntered with + them toward the entrance hall.</p> +<p>"I say," ventured Edington as Stillman caught up to the group. "What's + the matter with just us four dropping down to the Palace for a whirl or two?"</p> +<p>Claire stared. She had not grown used to the novelty of being included, but + any instinctive objections to the plan were promptly silenced by Mrs. Condor's + enthusiastic approval.</p> +<p>They arrived at the Palace Hotel shortly before midnight. The Rose Room was + crowded. All the tables seemed filled, and Claire had a moment of disappointment + caused by the fear that their party would be unable to gain admittance. But + young Edington's presence soon set any uneasiness on that score at rest, and + a place was evolved with deftness and despatch. The novelty of the situation + to Claire was nothing compared with her matter-of-fact acceptance of it. She + was neither self-conscious nor timid. Her three companions had a way of tacitly + including her in even their trivial chatter that was unmistakable, though hard + to define. She felt that she was one of them, and she blossomed in this strange + new warmth like a chilled blossom at the final approach of a belated spring. + All evening her starved sense of self-importance had been feeding greedily upon + the compliments that had come her way. There had been her mother's rather apologetic + words of approval at her appearance, to begin with, then Mrs. Condor's appreciation + at the piano, and finally a word dropped by one of the women who had shared + a mirror with her at the hour of departure.</p> +<p>"How do you manage your hair, Miss Robson?" the other had said, digging + viciously at her shifting locks with a hairpin. "I do declare you're the + only woman in the room that looks presentable."</p> +<p>But it was Edington's words to Stillman while they stood waiting for the hotel + attendants to prepare the table that brought a quickened beat to her heart. + The conversation was low and not meant for her ears, but her senses were too + sharpened to miss Edington's furtive words as he whispered to Stillman:</p> +<p>"Where did ... amazing.... Miss Robson?"</p> +<p>Claire did not catch the reply which must have also been something of a query, + but she heard Edington continue.</p> +<p>"Well ... a little too silent, I must admit.... No, I don't dislike 'em + that way ... but I'm afraid of them."</p> +<p>Stillman answered with a low laugh.</p> +<p>They sat down. Edington ordered wine. The crowd at the tables was rather a + mixed one. There was plenty of elaborate gowning among the groups of formal + diners who had prolonged their feasting into the supper hour, but many casuals, + drifting in for a few drinks and a dance or two, robbed the scene of its earlier + brilliance.</p> +<p>The orchestra struck up a one-step. Claire denied Stillman the dance, explaining + that she knew none of the new steps, and he whirled away with Mrs. Condor. Edington, + robbed of his chance, pouted unashamed.</p> +<p>"I say, Miss Robson, can't you do a one-step—really? There isn't + anything to it! Come on—try; I'll pull you through."</p> +<p>Claire's knowledge of dancing was instinctive, but not a matter of much practice, + yet his distress was so comic that she relented. She wondered if he could feel + her trembling as they swung into the dance. She stumbled once or twice from + timidity, but Edington guided unerringly. Half-way round she suddenly struck + the proper swing.</p> +<p>"There—that's it," cried Edington, enthusiastically. "Now + you've got it! Fine!"</p> +<p>His praise mounted to her brain like a heady wine, and suddenly, in the twinkling + of an eye, all the repressed youth within her awoke with a sweet and terrible + joy.... They danced madly, perfectly, the rhythm entering into them like something + at once fluid and flaming. Her ecstasy awoke a vague response in her partner, + who bent forward as he kept repeating, monotonously:</p> +<p>"And you said you couldn't, Miss Robson! Fancy, you said you couldn't!"</p> +<p>The music stopped abruptly with a crash. Some of the dancers made their way + leisurely back among the tables, but the most of them wandered about the polished' + floor, clapping insistent hands for an encore. In this brief interlude, groups + arrived and departed. The musicians lifted their instruments to chin and lip, + struck an opening chord; couples began to whirl and glide. Claire Robson, palpitant + and eager, followed Edington's lead, but almost at the first moment of their + rhythmic flight they came crashing into the overcoated bulk of a man cutting + across the corner of the ballroom in an attempt at a swift exit. A smothered + protest escaped Edington, and Claire detached herself from her partner long + enough to see the offender bow very low and hear his apology in a voice and + manner that seemed curiously familiar:</p> +<p>"I beg your pardon. Pray forgive me! I should have known better."</p> +<p>In the twinkling of an eye the interrupted dancers were sweeping on again, + and the apologetic stranger, hat in hand, turning for a farewell look at the + pair. Claire Robson felt an up-leap of the heart; a fresh ecstasy quickened + her. It was the Serbian!</p> +<p>They finished the dance almost opposite their table and were met by a patter + of applause from Mrs. Condor and Stillman, who were already seated.</p> +<p>Claire was flaming with embarrassment as she faced Stillman.</p> +<p>"I hope you'll understand, Mr. Stillman," she faltered. "But + Mr. Edington seemed willing to risk my ignorance."</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor turned Claire's plaintive apology into a covert attack upon Stillman's + courage, but Stillman rescued Claire from further confusion by laughing back:</p> +<p>"Well, I'll have my revenge on Edington. I'll grant him all the one-steps, + but he can't have any of the waltzes, Miss Robson."</p> +<p>The waiter began to pour out the champagne. Claire settled back in her seat + with a feeling of delightful languor. The dance had released all the pent-up + emotions that a night of vivid sensations had called into her life. She had + come into the Rose Room of the Palace Hotel quivering in the leash of a restrained + enjoyment; it had taken the quick lash of opportunity to send her spirits hurtling + forward in wild and headlong abandon. She lifted her wine-glass in answer to + the upraised glasses of her companions, and the thought flashed over her that + it would be impossible for her to have quite her old vision again. In every + life there are culminating moments of joy or sorrow which either clear or dim + the horizon, and Claire felt that such moment was now hers.</p> +<p>Stillman rose promptly in his seat at the first strains of the waltz, which + proved to be the next number. Claire stepped out upon the floor with confidence.</p> +<p>She did not need any word of reassurance this time to tell her that her dancing + was more than acceptable, and, true to her brief experience with Stillman, he + refrained from voicing the obvious. They had begun the dance promptly and for + the first whirl about they had the floor almost to themselves. Claire's discreet + sidelong glances detected many approving nods in their direction; people were + noticing them and making favorable comment.... The floor filled, but even in + the crowd Claire had a sense that she and her partner were standing out distinctly.</p> +<p>The very nature of the waltz contrasted sharply with the one-step. There was + less abandon and more art. The first dance had expressed a primitive emotion; + the present slow and measured whirl a discriminating sensation. And slowly, + under the spell of Stillman's calm and yet strangely glowing manner, Claire + recovered her poise. All night she had been inhaling every fresh delight rapturously + with the closed eyes and open senses that one brings to the enjoyment of blossoms + heavy with perfume. It took Stillman's influence to rob the hours of their swooning + delight by recapturing her self-consciousness. Things became at once orderly + and reasonable. And as he led her back to their table she felt the flame within + cease its flarings and become steady, with a pleasurable glow. For a moment + she felt uneasy, as if she were being trapped by something sweetfully insidious. + Slowly, almost cautiously, she withdrew her arm from his. He made no comment; + it was doubtful if he really noticed her recoil.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Long past its appointed time the hall light in the Robson flat continued to + burn dimly. Mrs. Robson, sleepless and a bit anxious, waited alertly for the + sound of Claire's key in the door. The welcome click came finally, succeeded + by the unmistakable slam of an automobile door and the sharp, quick note of + a machine speeding up.</p> +<p>"She's come home in Stillman's car," flashed through Mrs. Robson's + mind, as she sat up in bed. At that moment Mrs. Finnegan's cuckoo clock, sounding + distinctly through the thin flooring, warbled twice with a voice of friendly + betrayal. "Mercy! it's two o'clock!" she muttered. "I wonder + if Mrs. Finnegan is awake?... I do hope she heard the automobile!..."</p> +<p>Seated at the foot of her mother's bed, Claire tried her best to give a satisfactory + report of the evening, but she found that she had overlooked most of the details + that her mother found interesting. Who was there? What did Mrs. Condor wear? + Did they have an elaborate spread?—the questions rippled on in an endless + flow.</p> +<p>Under the acceleration of Claire's recital, Mrs. Robson found her experiences + at the church reception left far behind. Even with scant details, Claire had + managed to evolve a fascinating picture of a life robbed sufficiently of puritanism + to be properly piquant. There was a tang of the swift, immoral, fascinating + 'seventies in Claire's still cautious reference to champagne and cigarettes. + It was impossible for any San Franciscan who had lived through those splendid + madcap bonanza days to deny the lure of gay wickedness. At least it was hard + to keep one's eyes on a prayer-book while the car of pleasure rattled by. And + a coffee-and-cake social was, after all, a rather tame experience in the face + of beverages more sparkling and eatables distinctly enticing.... Of course, + if Claire had been introduced to any of these questionable delights by anybody + short of a survivor of the Stillman clan, Mrs. Robson might have had a misgiving. + As it was, she was not above a certain forewarning sense that made her say with + an air of inconsequence as Claire finished her recital:</p> +<p>"Mrs. Towne tells me that there is a chance that Mr. Stillman's wife may + get well. She's in a private sanitarium, at Livermore, you know." She stopped + to draw up the bedclothes higher. "I do hope it's so!... But I'm always + skeptical about <i>crazy</i> people ever amounting to anything again. Seems + to me they're better off dead."</p> +<a name="I_V"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> +<p>For Claire Robson, there followed after the memorable Condor-Stillman musicale + a period of slack-water. It seemed as if a deadly stagnation was to poison her + existence, so sharp and emphasized was her boredom. On the other hand, Mrs. + Robson seemed to have contrived, from years of living among arid pleasures, + the ability to conserve every happiness that she chanced upon to its last drop. + Claire's invitation to be one of a distinguished group fed her vanity long after + her daughter had outworn the delights of retrospection. The memory of this incident + filled Mrs. Robson's thoughts, her dreams, her conversation. Gradually, as the + days dragged by, bit by bit, she gleaned detached details of what had transpired, + weaving them into a vivid whole, for the entertainment of herself and the amazement + of her neighbor, Mrs. Finnegan.</p> +<p>Formerly Mrs. Finnegan's information regarding what went on in exclusive circles + was confined to society dramas on the screen and the Sunday supplement. The + personal note which Mrs. Robson brought to her recitals was a new and pleasing + experience. After listening to the authentic gossip of Mrs. Robson, Mrs. Finnegan + would return to her threshold with a sense of having shared state secrets. On + such occasions Mrs. Robson's frankness had almost a challenge in it; she exaggerated + many details and concealed none.</p> +<p>"Yes," she would repeat, emphatically, "they served cigarettes + along with the wine. They <i>always</i> do."</p> +<p>"Well, Mrs. Robson," Mrs. Finnegan inevitably returned, "far + be it from me to criticize what your daughter's friends do. But I don't approve + of women smoking."</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, neither did Mrs. Robson, but she felt in duty bound to + resent Mrs. Finnegan's narrow attacks upon society.</p> +<p>"Well, Mrs. Finnegan, that's only because you're not accustomed to it. + Now, if you had ever...."</p> +<p>"Did Claire smoke?"</p> +<p>"Why, of course <i>not</i>! How can you ask such a thing? I hope I've + brought my daughter up decently, Mrs. Finnegan."</p> +<p>And with that, Mrs. Robson would deftly switch to a less exciting detail of + the Condor-Stillman musicale, before her neighbor had a chance to pick flaws + in her logic. But sooner or later the topic would again verge on the controversial. + Usually at the point where the scene shifted from Ned Stillman's apartments + to the Palace Hotel, Mrs. Finnegan's pug nose was lifted with tentative disapproval, + as she inquired:</p> +<p>"How many did you say went down to the Palace?"</p> +<p>"Only four—Mr. Stillman, Claire, Mrs. Condor, and a young fellow + named Edington."</p> +<p>"I suppose <i>that</i> Mrs. Condor was the chaperon. Finnegan knows her + well! She used to hire hacks when Finnegan was in the livery business years + ago. She's a gay one, I can tell you. When only the steam-dummy ran out to the + Cliff House...."</p> +<p>"That's nothing. Everybody who was anybody had dinners at the Cliff House + in those days. I remember how my father...."</p> +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Robson, maybe you do! But I'll bet <i>you</i> never went to + such a place without your husband ... and ... with a <i>strange</i> man."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson never had, and she would tell Mrs. Finnegan so decidedly. This + always had the effect of switching the subject again and Mrs. Robson found her + desire to know the real details of Mrs. Condor's questionable gaieties offered + up on the altar of class loyalty. For it never occurred to Mrs. Robson to doubt + that her social exile had nothing to do with the inherent rights of her position.</p> +<p>When everything else in the way of an irritating program failed to rouse Mrs. + Robson's dignified ire, her neighbor fell back upon the fact that Stillman was + a married man. Mrs. Finnegan really worshiped Mrs. Robson to distraction, but + she had a natural combative tendency that was at odds with even her loyalty.</p> +<p>"Mr. Stillman is a married man," Mrs. Finnegan would insist, doggedly. + "And I don't approve of married men taking an interest in young girls. + Who knows?—he may spoil your daughter's chances."</p> +<p>This statement always had the effect of dividing Mrs. Robson against herself. + She resented Mrs. Finnegan's insinuations concerning Stillman, because it was + not in her nature to be anything but partizan, and at the same time she was + mollified by her neighbor's recognition of the fact that Claire had such things + as chances. She always managed cleverly at this point by saying, patronizingly:</p> +<p>"Why, how you talk, Mrs. Finnegan! Mr. Stillman is just like an old friend. + Not that we've known <i>him</i> so long ... but the family, you know ... they're + old-timers. Everybody knows the Stillmans! Really one couldn't want a better + friend."</p> +<p>Thus did Mrs. Robson take meager and colorless realities and expand them into + things of blossoming promise. She was almost creative in the artistry she brought + to these transmutations. In the end she convinced <i>herself</i> of their existence + and she was quite sure that Mrs. Finnegan shared equally in the delights of + her fancy.</p> +<p>Meanwhile November passed, and the first weeks of December crowded the old + year to its death. November had been shrouded in clammy fogs, but no rain had + fallen, and everybody began to have the restless feeling engendered by the usual + summer drought in California prolonged beyond its appointed season. The country + and the people needed rain. Claire, always responsive to the moods of wind and + weather, longed for the cleansing flood to descend and wash the dust-drab town + colorful again. She awoke one morning to the delicious thrill of the moisture-laden + southeast wind blowing into her room and the warning voice of her mother at + her bedroom door calling to her:</p> +<p>"You'd better put on your thick shoes, Claire! We're in for a storm."</p> +<p>She leaped out of bed joyously and hurried with her dressing.</p> +<p>As she walked down to work the warm yet curiously refreshing wind flung itself + in a fine frenzy over the gray city. Dark-gray clouds were closing in from the + south, and in the east an ominous silver band of light marked the sullen flight + of the sun. People were scampering about buoyantly, running for street-cars, + chasing liberated hats, battling with billowing skirts. It seemed as if the + promise of rain had revived laughter and motion to an extraordinary degree. + At the office this ecstasy of spirit persisted; even Miss Munch came in hair + awry and blowsy, her beady eyes almost laughing.</p> +<p>Mr. Flint had not been to the office for two days. A sniffling cold had kept + him at home. Claire had rather looked for him to-day, and had prepared herself + for a flood of accumulated dictation. But the threat of dampness evidently dissuaded + him, for the noon hour came and went and Mr. Flint did not put in an appearance. + At about three o'clock in the afternoon a long-distance call came on the telephone + for Miss Robson. Claire answered. Flint was on the other end of the wire. He + wanted to know if she could come at once over to Yolanda and take several pages + of dictation. His cold was uncertain and he might not get out for the rest of + the week. He realized that it was something of an imposition on her good nature, + but she would be doing him a great favor if.... She interrupted him with her + quick assent and he finished:</p> +<p>"I'll have the car at the station, and of course you'll stay for dinner."</p> +<p>Claire hung up the receiver and looked at her watch. It was just half after + three. The next ferryboat connecting at Sausalito with the electric train for + Yolanda left at three-forty-five. She had no time to lose; it was a good ten + minutes' walk from the office to the ferry and little to be gained by taking + a street-car. She managed her preparations for departure successfully, but in + the end she had to ask Miss Munch to telephone her mother. Miss Munch assented + with an alarmingly sweet smile.</p> +<p>Claire walked briskly down California Street toward the ferry-building. No + rain had fallen, but the air was full of ominous promise. The wind was even + brisker than it had been in the morning, and its breath almost tropically moist.</p> +<p>"At sundown it will simply pour," thought Claire, as she exchanged + fifty cents for a ticket to Yolanda.</p> +<p>She presented her ticket at the entrance to the waiting-room and passed in. + The passageway to the boat was already open; she went at once and found a sheltered + corner outside on the upper deck. A strong sea was running and already the ferryboat + was plunging and straining like a restless bloodhound in leash. The air was + full of screaming gulls and the clipped whistling of restless bay craft. Claire + was so intent on all this elemental agitation that she took no notice of the + people about her, but as the boat slid lumberingly out of the slip she was recalled + by a voice close at hand saying:</p> +<p>"Why, Miss Robson, who would think of seeing you here at this hour!"</p> +<p>Claire turned and discovered Miss Munch's cousin sitting beside her, intent + on the inevitable tatting.</p> +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Richards, how stupid of me! Have you been here long?"</p> +<p>"About ten minutes. But I get so interested in my work I never have eyes + for anything else. How do you put in the time? A trip like this is so tiresome!"</p> +<p>Claire delved into her bag and brought out knitting-needles and an unfinished + sock.</p> +<p>"I'm trying a hand at this," she admitted, holding her handiwork + up ruefully. "But I'm afraid I'm not very skilful."</p> +<p>Mrs. Richards inspected the sock with critical disapproval.</p> +<p>"Oh, well," she encouraged, "you'll learn ... practice makes + perfect. I've just finished a half-dozen pairs. I suppose I'm laying myself + out for a roast doing tatting in public <i>these</i> war days! But it's restful + and I'm not one to pretend. As long as my conscience is clear I can afford to + be perfectly independent.... You don't make this trip every night, do you?"</p> +<p>"Oh my, no! I'm going over to Mr. Flint's to take some dictation. He's + home sick."</p> +<p>"I saw Mrs. Flint and the children coming <i>off</i> the boat just as + I got on." Mrs. Richards's voice took on a tone of casual directness.</p> +<p>"You know Mrs. Flint?"</p> +<p>"My dear girl, a trained nurse knows everybody—and everything about + them, too. You never get a real line on people until you live with them. I've + never nursed any of the Flint family, but I wouldn't have to to get their reputation—or + perhaps I should say, old Flint's."</p> +<p>"<i>Old</i> Flint's?" echoed Claire.</p> +<p>"Well, of course he isn't so awfully old, but men like him always give + that impression. They're so awfully wise—about <i>some</i> things. I <i>was</i> + so relieved when Gertie didn't get that dreadful Miss Whitehead's place. Being + in the general office is bad enough, but in his <i>private</i> office...." + Mrs. Richards lifted and dropped her tatting-filled hands significantly.</p> +<p>Claire felt the blood rush to her face. "I'm in the private office, Mrs. + Richards.... No doubt you forgot it."</p> +<p>"Well now, you know I <i>had</i> ... for the moment. But with a girl like + you it's different. Some women can handle men, but Gertie would be so helpless!"</p> +<p>The humor of Mrs. Richards's remark saved the situation for Claire. She changed + the subject deliberately. But somehow, with the conversation forced from the + particular to the general, Miss Munch's cousin lost interest, and by the time + the boat had passed Alcatraz Island Claire was deep in her thoughts again and + the other woman following the measured flight of the tatting-shuttle with strained + attention.</p> +<p>The boat was romping through the stiff sea like a playful porpoise, dipping + and plunging. A half-score of adventuresome gulls were still following in the + foam-churned wake. In the face of all the pitching about, Mrs. Richards had + quite a battle to direct her shuttle to any efficient purpose, and Claire was + almost amused at the grim determination she brought to the performance.</p> +<p>Presently a warning whistle from the ferryboat betrayed the fact that they + were nearing Sausalito. Mrs. Richards began to gather up her numerous bundles, + and Claire and she made their way down the narrow stairs to the lower deck. + Their progress was slow and uncertain. The southeaster was tearing across the + open spaces and bending everything before it; the lumbering boat dipped sideward + in a stolid encounter with its adversary.</p> +<p>"Mercy! What a night!" gasped Mrs. Richards, clutching at Claire's + arm.</p> +<p>A gust of wind struck them with its force just as they reached the lower deck. + Mrs. Richards staggered and wrestled vainly with tatting-bag and bundles and + a refractory skirt. For the moment both women were stalled in a desperate effort + to retain their equilibrium.</p> +<p>"Come!" gasped Claire. "Let's get over there in the shelter + of that automobile."</p> +<p>They made the leeward side of the automobile in question, and while Mrs. Richards + began to recover her roughly handled dignity Claire turned her attention to + the car. It was a huge dark-red affair, evidently fresh from the shop. Claire + knew none of the fine points of automobiles, but this one had unmistakable evidences + of distinction. She was peering in at its opulent depths when who should surprise + her but Ned Stillman.</p> +<p>"My dear Miss Robson!" he cried, in a tone of delight, as he faced + her from the opposite side of the car. "What do you think of it?"</p> +<p>"Yours?" she queried.</p> +<p>"Just out of the shop to-day. I couldn't wait until it cleared. I just + had to get out with it. And this kind of weather always puts me up on my toes. + Where are you going—to Ross? If you are, don't bother with the train. + Come along with me."</p> +<p>He circled about the machine and came up to her with a frank, outstretched + hand. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" he murmured as Mrs. Richards came into + view.</p> +<p>Claire began an introduction, but Mrs. Richards cut in with her odd, challenging + way.</p> +<p>"Oh, <i>I</i> know Mr. Stillman! But I guess he's forgotten <i>me</i>. + It's been some years, of course. At Mr. Faville's—your <i>wife's</i> father's + house."</p> +<p>Stillman paled for the briefest of moments, but he recovered himself cleverly. + "Mrs. Richards—of course! How do you do? It <i>has</i> been some + years."</p> +<p>"I'm going to Mr. Flint's—at Yolanda," said Claire, "to + take some dictation. He's been ill, you know."</p> +<p>"Ill? No, I hadn't heard it. Nothing serious, I hope."</p> +<p>"Not serious enough to keep Mrs. Flint at home, anyway," volunteered + Mrs. Richards, in her characteristically disagreeable way.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Richards saw Mrs. Flint and the children coming off the boat...."</p> +<p>"As I got on," interrupted the lady again.</p> +<p>"Oh, indeed, is that so?" Claire fancied that Stillman's tone held + something more than polite acceptance of what he had just heard. "I can + take you ladies to Yolanda if you'd like a spin in the open better than a stuffy + ride in the train."</p> +<p>"Thank you," Mrs. Richards returned, "but I get off at Sausalito. + I've no doubt Miss Robson will be delighted."</p> +<p>"I think I'd better not," said Claire. "Mr. Flint is sending + his car to the train for me. I shouldn't want to change my program and cause + confusion. But I'd like nothing better! The air is so bracing!"</p> +<p>"You can excuse <i>me</i>!" put in Mrs. Richards, moving toward the + forward deck. "It's going to pour in less than ten minutes. I'm not one + of those amphibious creatures who like to get wringing wet just for the fun + of it!"</p> +<p>Stillman lifted his hat. Claire stood for a moment undecided whether to follow + Mrs. Richards or remain for a chat with Stillman.</p> +<p>"I'm an awful fool, I suppose," Stillman smiled at Claire, "bringing + the car out on a night like this. But the truth is Edington promised to catch + this boat and I wanted him to try out the new plaything. I might have known + he wouldn't make it. We're running over for dinner with Edington's sister."</p> +<p>At this moment the boat crashed clumsily against the Sausalito ferry-slip, + and in the sudden confusion of landing Claire was swept along without further + ado.</p> +<p>She looked back. Stillman waved a genial good-by to her. She felt glad that + he was behind her, in a vague, impersonal, thoroughly inexplainable way.</p> +<a name="I_VI"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> +<p>Claire was disappointed that Mrs. Flint was not to be at home. She had caught + glimpses of her now and then coming into the office and she was interested in + the hope of seeing her at closer range. Mrs. Flint was a rather frumpish individual, + who always gave the impression of pieced-out dressmaking.</p> +<p>"She must subscribe to the <i>Ladies' Home Journal</i>," Nellie Whitehead + had commented one day. "You know that 'go-up-into-the-garret-and-get-five-yards-of-grandmother's-wedding-gown' + column. Well, she's a walking ad for it. She's no raving beauty, but if she + would throw out her chest and chuck those flat-heeled clogs of hers, and put + a marcel wave in her hair, maybe the old man would sit up and take notice."</p> +<p>To which Miss Munch had replied:</p> +<p>"Well, she's a mighty sweet woman, anyway!" in a tone calculated + to freeze the irrepressible Nellie Whitehead into silence.</p> +<p>"Who says she isn't? And at that, a good tailor-made suit and a decent-looking + hat won't spoil her disposition any...."</p> +<p>The children, too, were what Nellie Whitehead had termed "perfect guys." + On warm days Mrs. Flint would drag these two daughters of hers into the office, + dressed in plaid suits and velveteen hats; and when a cold north wind blew it + seemed inevitable that they would appear in gay and airy costumes up to their + knees, with impossible straw bonnets trimmed with daisies and faded cornflowers, + reminiscent of the white-leghorn-hat era.</p> +<p>"Men don't marry women for their clothes," Miss Munch used to say, + challengingly, to Nellie.</p> +<p>"Oh, don't they, indeed! Well, I've lived longer than sixteen and a half + years and I've noticed that it's the up-to-the-minute dame that gets away with + it and holds onto it every time, just the same. And any woman silly enough to + work the rag-bag game when her husband can afford seven yards of taffeta and + a Butterick pattern is a fool!"</p> +<p>Claire knew women who looked dowdy on dress-parade and yet managed to be quite + charming in their own houses. She was wondering whether this might not be Mrs. + Flint's case; anyway, she had hoped for a chance to decide this point, and now + Mrs. Flint was not at home.</p> +<p>As she settled into her matting-covered seat in the train she began to wonder + just who <i>would</i> be home at the Flint establishment. And she thought suddenly + of the disagreeable emphasis that Mrs. Richards had seen fit to give the fact + that Mrs. Flint was bound cityward. At this stage she became lost in discovering + so many points of contact between Mrs. Richards and her cousin, Miss Munch. + Then the train started with a quick lurch, and a view of the rapidly darkening + landscape claimed her utterly.</p> +<p>Claire always took a childish delight in watching the panorama of the countryside + unroll swiftly before the space-conquering flight of a train. And to-night the + quick close of the December day warned her to make the most of her opportunity. + The wind was whipping the upper reaches of the bay into a shallow fury, and + the water in turn was beating against the slimy mud and swallowing it up in + gray, futile anger. This part of the ride just out of Sausalito was always more + or less depressing unless a combination of full tide and vivid sunshine gave + its muddy stretches the enlivening grace of sky-blue reflections. Worm-eaten + and tottering piles, abandoned hulks, half-swamped skiffs, all the water-logged + dissolution of stagnant shore lines the world over, flashed by, to be succeeded + by the fresher green of channel-cut marshes. The hills were wind-swept, huddling + their scant oak covering into the protecting folds of shallow canons. At intervals, + clumps of eucalyptus-trees banded together or drew out in long, thin, soldier-like + lines.</p> +<p>Presently it began to rain. There was no preliminary patter, but the storm + broke suddenly, hurling great gray drops of moisture against the windows. Claire + withdrew from any further attempt to watch the whirling landscape. It was now + quite dark, the short December day dying even more suddenly under a black pall + of lowering clouds.</p> +<p>She began to have distinctly uncomfortable thoughts about her visit to the + Flints'. But the more uncomfortable her thoughts became, the more reason she + brought to bear for conquering them. Surely one was not to be persuaded into + a panic by any such person as Mrs. Richards! And by the time the brakeman announced + the train's approach to Yolanda, Claire had recovered her common sense. What + of it if Mrs. Flint had gone to town? There must be other women in the household—at + least a maid. It was absurd! The train stopped and Claire got off.</p> +<p>Flint's car was waiting, and Jerry Donovan, the chauffeur, stood with a dripping + umbrella almost at Claire's elbow as she hopped upon the platform.</p> +<p>As they swished through the inky blackness, Claire said to Jerry, with as inconsequential + an air as she could muster:</p> +<p>"I thought I saw Mrs. Flint get off the boat in town. But I guess I was + mistaken. She wouldn't be leaving Mr. Flint alone ... when he's ill."</p> +<p>"Ill?" Jerry chuckled. "Well, he ain't dead by a long shot. + Just a case of sniffles, and a good excuse for hitting the booze. He's in prime + condition, I can tell you."</p> +<p>Claire had never seen Flint in "prime condition," but she had it + from Nellie Whitehead that there were moments when the gentleman in question + could "go some," to use her predecessor's precise terms.</p> +<p>"About twice a year," Nellie had once confided to Claire, "the + old boy starts in to cure a cold. I helped him cure one ... but <i>never</i> + again!"</p> +<p>Jerry's observations aroused fresh anxiety, but they did not settle the issue + for Claire. She felt that she could not turn back at the eleventh hour. There + was nothing else for her to do but go through with the game. Yet she still hoped + for the best.</p> +<p>"<i>Did</i> Mrs. Flint go to town to-day?" she finally asked, point-blank.</p> +<p>"Sure thing," said Jerry, swinging the car past the Flint gateway.</p> +<p>Claire refused to be totally lacking in faith.</p> +<p>"There must be a maid," flashed through her mind, as Jerry stopped + the car and swung down to help her out.</p> +<p>A Japanese boy threw open the door as they scrambled up the rain-soaked steps. + But the fine, orderly, Colonial interior reassured Claire. The few country homes + she had seen had been of the rambling, unrelated bungalow type, with paneled + redwood walls either stained to a dismal brown or quite frankly left to their + rather characterless pink. This home was different. Even the pungent oak logs + crackling in the fireplace did so with indefinable distinction. The general + tone of the surroundings was as little in keeping with the patchwork personality + of its mistress as one could imagine. It was as if the singular completeness + of Mrs. Flint's home left no time nor energy for a finished individuality. Claire + got all this in the briefest of flashes, just a swift, inclusive glance about + the entrance hall and through the doorways leading into the rooms beyond. Particularly + did she sense the severe opulence of the dining-room, twinkling at a remoter + distance than the living-room—its perfectly polished silver, its spotless + linen, its wonderfully blue china, not to mention the disconcerting fact that + the table in the center was laid for but two.</p> +<p>And then Flint himself came forward with a very red face and an absurdly cordial + greeting.</p> +<p>"Well, I began to wonder whether you'd risk it. This will be a storm and + no mistake.... Here, let me have your coat. Come, you're quite wet.... Shall + you warm up on a hot toddy or something cooler—a cocktail?"</p> +<p>She felt his hand sliding down her arm as she released the coat to his too-eager + fingers. "Oh no, Mr. Flint! Thank you, nothing. It's only a bit of rain + on the surface. I'm quite dry."</p> +<p>"Quite dry!" He echoed her words with a guffaw. "Well, then, + we'll have to moisten you up. I always say everything's a good excuse for a + drink. If you're cold you take a drink to warm up; if you're warm you take one + to cool off. You dry out on one, and you wet up on one. I don't know of any + habit with so many good reasons back of it. I'm dry, too.... We'll have a Bronx! + That's a nice, ladylike drink."</p> +<p>Claire weighed her reply. She did not want to strike the wrong note; she wanted + to let him have a feeling that she was accepting everything in a normal, matter-of-fact + way, as if she saw nothing extraordinary in the situation.</p> +<p>"You're very kind, but really you know ... if I'm to get my dictation + straight...."</p> +<p>"Well, perhaps there won't be any dictation. We're not slaves, you and + I. Maybe it will be much pleasanter to sit before the fire and listen to the + storm. What do you say to that?"</p> +<p>She turned from him deliberately, under the fiction of fluffing up her hair + before a gilt mirror near the door. She was thinking quickly and with a tremendous, + if concealed, agitation. "Why," she laughed back, finally, "that + <i>would</i> be pleasant. But I came to take dictation, Mr. Flint. And women + ... women, you know, are so funny! If they make up their minds to one thing, + they can't switch suddenly to another idea."</p> +<p>He was paying no attention to her remark, a remark which she felt would have + fallen flat in any event, since it was so palpably studied.</p> +<p>"The living-room is in there," he said, pointing. "Make yourself + at home."</p> +<p>She went in and sat before the fire. Flint disappeared. She tried hard to analyze + the situation. It was unthinkable that Mr. Flint had deliberately planned this + piece of foolishness. He must have had some idea of work when he had telephoned + her; perhaps he still had. It was his way of being facetious, she argued, this + fine pretense that it was all to be a pleasant lark, or it may have been his + idea of hospitality. Of course he had been drinking, but she took comfort in + the thought that there must be instinctive standards in a man like Flint that + even whisky could not swamp. At least he must respect his wife—surely + it was not possible for Flint, drunk or sober, to offer such an affront to <i>her</i>, + however little he respected the women in his employ. She dismissed Mrs. Richards's + exaggerated insinuations with their well-deserved contempt, but she could not + thrust aside quite so readily the eye-lifting tone with which Stillman had met + the announcement of Mrs. Flint's absence from home.</p> +<p>This was the first time that Claire had seen Stillman since the musicale. She + had thought a great deal about him and particularly about his problem. She felt + a great desire to know everything—all the details of the unfortunate circumstance + that had driven his wife into a madhouse, and yet whenever her mother broached + the subject Claire changed the topic with curious panic. She seemed to dread + the hard, almost triumphant manner that her mother assumed in tracking misfortune + to its lair and gloating over it. She began to wonder whether Stillman would + be swinging back to the city on a late boat ... or would the storm keep him + at Edington's sister's home all night?</p> +<p>She was in the midst of this speculation when Flint came into the room.</p> +<p>"We'll eat early and have that off our minds," he announced. His + manner was brusk and business-like again. Claire felt reassured.</p> +<p>But she was disturbed to find a cocktail at her place at the table.</p> +<p>"Well, here's glad to see you!" Flint raised his glass and tilted + it ever so slightly in her direction. Claire lifted the cocktail to her lips + and set it down untasted. "What's the matter? Getting unsociable again?"</p> +<p>"No, Mr. Flint. I don't care for cocktails."</p> +<p>"Oh, all right! We'll send down-cellar and get some wine."</p> +<p>"Thank you, not for me."</p> +<p>"I suppose you don't care for wine, either?" His voice had a bantering + quality, with a shade of menace in it. "Or maybe the right party isn't + here. I've noticed that makes a difference. Females are damned moral with the + wrong fellow."</p> +<p>His attack was so direct and insolent that Claire missed the trepidation that + might have come with a more covert move. She was no longer uncertain. There + was a sharp relief in realizing that all the cards were on the table. She felt + also that there was no immediate danger. Flint was far from sober, but he was + in his own home. She had the conviction that he was merely skirmishing, testing + the strength or weakness of the line he hoped to penetrate. Her reply was rather + more of a challenge than she could have imagined herself giving under such a + circumstance.</p> +<p>"And if I were to tell you that I don't care for wine, Mr. Flint?"</p> +<p>He threw open his napkin with a flourish. "You'd be telling me a damned + lie! You drink wine at the Palace with Stillman and Edington."</p> +<p>She had felt that he was going to say some such thing and for a moment it amused + her. It was so ridiculous to find this rather wan and wistful indiscretion assuming + damaging proportions. But a nasty fear succeeded her faint amusement. Could + it be possible that Stillman had gossiped?</p> +<p>"Who told you?" she demanded.</p> +<p>"Oh, don't be afraid; it wasn't Stillman! You're like all women, you moon + about sentimentalizing over Ned until it makes a man like me sick! I like Ned; + I always have. But even when we went to college together it was the same way. + Everybody ... yes, even the men ... always gave him credit for a high moral + tone. Not that he ever took it.... I'll say that for him.... Ned Stillman didn't + tell me, for the simple reason that he didn't have to. Nobody told me. I go + to the Palace myself under pressure, and I've got two eyes. As a matter of fact, + there isn't any reason why Edington or Stillman or the waiter who drew the corks + shouldn't have mentioned it. A glass of wine is no crime. But the thing that + makes me hot is to see any one pretending. If you drink with Stillman, you haven't + any license to refuse a glass with me."</p> +<p>There was something more than wine-heated rancor back of his harangue. Claire + guessed instinctively that he both loved and hated Stillman with a curious confusion + of impulses. It was a feeling of affection torn by the irritating superiority + of its object. One gets the same thing in families ... among children. It was + at once subtle and extremely primitive.</p> +<p>"My dear Mr. Flint, this isn't quite the same thing. I've work to do for + one thing and, and...."</p> +<p>"And ... and.... Why don't you say it? You're alone with me and all that + sort of rubbish! Want a chaperon, I suppose. Mrs. Condor, for instance.... Good + Lord!"</p> +<p>Claire dipped her spoon into the steaming bouillon-cup in front of her. She + was growing quite calm under the directness of Flint's attack.</p> +<p>"It isn't the same," she reiterated, stubbornly. "I've work + to do, Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>"I tell you that you haven't!" Flint brought his fist down upon the + table.</p> +<p>"Well, then, why did you send for me?"</p> +<p>"I had something to say to you.... Gad! one can't talk in that ramping + office of mine. We've never even settled the matter of an increase in salary + for you. By the way, how much money do you get?"</p> +<p>Claire had never seen any man look so crafty and disagreeable. He gave her + the impression of a petty tyrant about to bestow largess upon an obsequious + and fawning slave.</p> +<p>"Sixty-five dollars a month."</p> +<p>"Well, I don't exactly know.... I've been trying to figure out just how + valuable you are to me, Miss Robson. Or, rather, how valuable you're likely + to be." He thrust aside his soup and leaned heavily upon the table. "That's + why I invited you over to-night. I wanted to see you at a little closer range. + You live with your mother, don't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>"You ... you support your mother, I believe?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>"Well, sixty-five dollars don't leave much margin for hair ribbons and + the like, does it, now?"</p> +<p>"No, Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>"No, Mr. Flint.... Yes, Mr. Flint...." he mocked. "Good Lord! + can't you cut that school-girl-to-her-dignified-guardian attitude. I'm human. + Dammit all, I'm as human as your friend Ned Stillman. I'll bet you don't yes-sir + and no-sir him.... You know, that night I saw you at the Palace you quite bowled + me over. I'd been thinking of you as a shy, unsophisticated young thing. But + you were hitting the high places like a veteran. Even old lady Condor didn't + have anything on you. Except, of course, that she looks the part. By the way, + where did you meet Stillman?"</p> +<p>"At ... at a church social," Claire stammered.</p> +<p>"At a church social! Say, I wasn't born yesterday. Ned Stillman doesn't + go to church. Tell me something easy."</p> +<p>"It was really a Red Cross concert. He went with Mrs. Condor," Claire + found herself explaining in spite of her anger. "We sat at the same table + when the ice-cream was served."</p> +<p>Flint was roaring with exaggerated laughter. Even Claire could not restrain + a smile. What made the statement so ridiculous, she found herself wondering. + Was she unconsciously reflecting Flint's attitude or had she herself changed + so tremendously in the last few weeks?</p> +<p>"Stillman at a church social! But that <i>is</i> good! And eating ice-cream.... + How long ago did all this happen, pray?"</p> +<p>"Sometime in November."</p> +<p>He stopped his senseless guffawing and looked at her keenly. "Where did + you get the church-social habit?"</p> +<p>"I ... why, I guess I formed it early, Mr. Flint. As you say, sixty-five + dollars a month doesn't leave much for hair ribbons or anything else. Going + to church socials is about the cheapest form of recreation I can think of."</p> +<p>The bitterness of her tone seemed to pull Flint up with a round turn. "Well, + we're going to get you out of this silly church-social habit. Dammit all, Stillman + isn't the only possibility in sight. That's just what I wanted to get at—your + viewpoint. I take an interest in you, Miss Robson—a tremendous interest. + Good Lord! I can dance one-steps and fox-trots and hesitations as well as anybody! + I danced every bit as well as Ned Stillman when we went to dancing-school together. + But he always got most of the applause. He <i>has</i> an air, I don't deny that, + but he's working it overtime.... And he's not in any better position for being + friendly to you than I am—<i>he's</i> married."</p> +<p>The talk was sobering him a little. Claire was amazed to find that she did + not feel indignant. His tone was offensive, but at least it was forthright. + Besides, she had known instinctively that some day he would force the issue, + and she was rather glad to get it settled. And she began to hope that she could + persuade him skilfully against his warped convictions. She was trembling inwardly, + too, at the thought that she might make a false step and find herself out of + a position. Positions were not easy to land these days. She knew a half-score + of girls who had tramped the town over in a desperate effort to find a vacancy. + Two or three months without salary meant debts piling up, clothes in ribbons, + and no end of hectic worries.</p> +<p>"I think you've got a decidedly wrong impression of my friendship for + Mr. Stillman," she said, after some deliberation. "I really know him + only slightly. He was good enough, or rather I should say Mrs. Condor was good + enough, to include me in a little musical evening. That was on the night you + saw me at the Palace. We dropped down for a dance or two after the music was + over. I'd never been to such a place before, and I dare say I'll never go again. + It was just one of those experiences that come to a person out of a clear sky. + It's over as quickly as a shower."</p> +<p>"Oh, don't you worry! There'll be other showers. I'm going to see to that. + You know, the more I talk to you the more amazing you are.... Fancy your graduating + from dinky church things into Stillman musicales, and Palace dansants, and young + Edington, and old lady Condor, all of a sudden ... and getting away with it + as if you were an old hand at the game. Say, if you're that apt I'll give you + a post-graduate course in high life that'll make your hair curl forty-seven + ways. I don't mean anything vulgar or common ... <i>you</i> understand. I'm + a gentleman, Miss Robson, at that."</p> +<p>He stopped for a moment to ring the bell for the Japanese boy. Claire maintained + a discreet silence. She had a feeling that it would be just as well to let him + take his full rein. The servant came in and cleared away the empty bouillon-cups. + Fish was served.</p> +<p>Flint took one taste of the fish and shoved it away impatiently. "You + know, a fellow like me gets awfully bored at all this sort of thing." He + swept the room with an inclusive gesture. "Not that my wife isn't the best + little woman in the world, but <i>you</i> know. She's got standards and convictions + and all that sort of rot. I can't bundle <i>her</i> off for dinner and a little + lark at the Red Paint or Bonini's or some other Bohemian joint like them.... + You know what I mean, no rough stuff ... but a good feed, and two kinds of wine, + and a cigarette with the small black. Just gay and frivolous.... Of course I + can get any number of girls to run around and help eat up all the nourishment + I care to provide. But, good Lord! that isn't it! I'm looking for somebody with + human intelligence. Not that I want to discuss free verse and the Little Theater + movement. But I like to feel that if I took such a crazy notion the person sitting + opposite me could qualify for a good comeback.... I like my home and everything, + but.... Oh, well, what's the use in pretending? I'm just as human as your friend + Ned Stillman and I've got just as keen an eye for class."</p> +<p>He sat back in his seat with an air of satisfaction, waiting for Claire's reply. + She had been calm enough while he talked, but under the tenseness of his silent + expectancy she felt her heart bound.</p> +<p>"Dammit all! Why don't you say something?" he blurted out. "I + know, you need a little wine. I'm going down-stairs and pick out the best in + the cellar ... <i>myself</i>."</p> +<p>She did not attempt to dissuade him; as a matter of fact, she felt relieved + to be left alone for a moment. She must leave as soon as dinner was over. She + began to wonder about the trains. The storm was raging outside. She could hear + the frenzied trees flinging their branches about and a noisy flood of rain against + the windows. She spoke to the Japanese boy as he was carrying away Flint's unfinished + fish course.</p> +<p>"Do you know what time the next train leaves?"</p> +<p>He laid the tray on the serving-table. "Please.... I telephone. Please!" + He bobbed at her absurdly and went out into the hall. She listened. He was ringing + up the station-master. He came back promptly.</p> +<p>"Please," he began, sucking in his breath, "please ... no train + to-night."</p> +<p>"No train to-night? Why, what do you mean?"</p> +<p>"Please ... very much water. Train track washed out. No train to-night. + To-morrow morning, maybe."</p> +<p>"Oh, but I must go home to-night! I really must! I...."</p> +<p>She broke off suddenly, realizing the futility of her protest.</p> +<p>"To-morrow morning," replied the Japanese, blandly. "All right + to-morrow morning. You stay here.... I fix a place. You see.... I fix a very + nice place for young lady."</p> +<p>He went out with the tray and Claire rose and walked to the window. Flint broke + into the room noisily. She turned—he had two dusty bottles in his hand, + and an air of triumph.</p> +<p>"Mr. Flint, it seems that there has been a washout. I understand that + no trains are running. What can I do? I must get back; really I...."</p> +<p>"Who says so?" Flint laid the bottles down with an irritating calmness.</p> +<p>"The station-master. Your ... your servant just telephoned for me."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, <i>we</i> should worry! Sit down."</p> +<p>"Mr. Flint, really, I must.... You know I can't.... I...."</p> +<p>"Sit <i>down</i>!"</p> +<p>His tone was a dash of cold water thrown in the face of her rising hysteria. + She sat down. Flint ignored the bottles on the table and, crossing over to the + Sheraton sideboard, poured himself a stiff drink of whisky. His hair-towsled + condition stood out sharply against the precise background.</p> +<p>He made no further comment, but he began to open the bottles of wine deliberately. + Then he rummaged in the china-closet for the wine-glasses and set four, two + at his place and two at Claire's, upon the table.</p> +<p>"White wine with the entree and red wine with the roast," he muttered. + And he poured out the white wine without further ado.</p> +<p>The servant came in with creamed sweetbreads. Claire forced herself to make + a pretense of eating, although her appetite had long since deserted her. She + was thinking, and thinking hard.</p> +<p>She should never have come, in the first place—at least she should have + turned back upon the strength of Jerry's announcement. But she saw now, with + a clearness that surprised her, that the situation had really challenged her + imagination. She had been too calm, too collected, too well-poised, full of + smug over-confidence. She had read in the current novels of the day how hysterically + unsophisticated heroines conducted themselves in tight corners and she had followed + their writhings with ill-concealed impatience. She never had really put herself + in their place, but she had had a vague notion that they carried on absurdly. + Her fear all evening had been not what Mr. Flint would do or say or even suggest—she + had been anxious merely to have the impending storm over, the air cleared, and + her position in the office assured upon a purely business-like basis. She had + really welcomed the forced issue; for weeks her mind had been entertaining and + dismissing the idea that Mr. Flint had any questionable motives in yielding + Nellie Whitehead's place to her. With this fleeting trepidation had come the + realization of her dependence, the importance her sixty-five dollars a month + in the scheme of things, the compromises that she might be forced into accepting + in order to insure its continuance; not definite and soul-searing compromises, + it was true, but petty, irritating trucklings which wear down self-esteem.</p> +<p>It had been the primitive violence of Flint's commanding, "Sit down!" + to thrust the issue from the economic to the elemental. For the first time in + her life Claire was face to face with unstripped masculine brutality. She had + wondered why women of a lower order took men's blows without striking back, + without at least escaping from further torment. But she was beginning to see, + as her spirits tried to rise reeling from Flint's verbal assault, the fawning + submission, half admiration, half fear, that could follow a frank, hard-fisted + blow. And she had a terror, sitting there trying to thrust food between her + trembling lips, that the sheer physical force of the male opposite her might + shatter in one blow a will that could have withstood any amount of spiritual + or material attrition. She had never seen Flint so clearly as at this moment; + in fact, she had never seen him <i>at all</i>. Formerly, he had been a conventionalized + masculine biped in a blue-serge covering who paid her salary and struck attitudes + that were symbols of predatory instincts rather than an indication that such + instincts existed. Life had, after all, been peopled by the precisely labeled + puppets of a morality play; they came on, and declaimed, and made gestures—but + they remained abstractions, things apart from life, mere representations of + the vices and virtues they impersonated. She had entertained this idea particularly + with regard to Flint. She had felt that the day would come when he and she would + occupy the stage together. He would speak his part with a great flourish of + the hands and much high-sounding emphasis, and when he had finished she would + reply with a carefully worded retort, setting forth the claims and rewards of + virtue. Thus it would continue, argument succeeding argument, a declamatory + give and take, dignified, passionless, theatrical.</p> +<p>They were occupying the stage now, it was true, but there was something warm + and human and ragged about the performance. Flint was not a mere spiritless + allegory in red-satin doublet and hose to give flame to his conventionality. + Instead, she saw sitting opposite her a ponderous, quick-breathing, drunken + male, handsome in a coarse, rough-hewn way, speaking in the quick, clipped speech + of passion and striking her to the ground with the energy of his stage business. + She was afraid, almost for the first time in her life, with a primitive, abandoned + fear. And suddenly her vista of womanhood narrowed to include the ugly foreground + of life that youth had looked over in its eager, far-flung scanning of the horizon + beyond. Suddenly she felt all the oppression and sorrow of the sex bear down + upon her and mark her with its relentless finger. Because she was a woman she + would pay for every joy with a corresponding sorrow; receive a blow for every + caress; know courage and fear with equal intimacy.... She stopped eating and + she began to realize with a vivid terror that Flint was looking at her fixedly + and beginning to speak.</p> +<p>"What's the matter with the sweetbreads? Don't you like 'em?... And the + wine?... Say, I'm going to get peeved in a minute. You don't suppose we serve + this French-restaurant style of meal every day do you? I should say <i>not</i>! + That's another one of the <i>frau's</i> convictions. Plain living at home so + as to set the right example to the <i>girls</i>!" Flint threw his head + from side to side, mincing out his last statement. "Gad! I'm tired of setting + a good example!... And even Sing gets tired. Chinks, you know, like to cook + a bang-up meal once in a while. They like a chance to show their speed and put + in all the fancy trimmings."</p> +<p>His mood, during this speech, had changed with drunken facility from irritability + to good humor. Claire, still attempting to marshal her wits, picked up her fork + again and murmured:</p> +<p>"Oh, you have a Chinese cook, then? I had no idea.... The Japanese boy, + you know. They say that the two never get along."</p> +<p>"That's a fairy-tale. Besides, it's next to impossible, these days, to + get a Chinese second-boy. And the missus <i>won't</i> hire a girl." He + winked broadly. "Can't get one ugly enough, I guess. Sing's a wonder. I + copped him from the Tom Forsythes. <i>You</i> know—young Edington's in-laws. + They've never quite forgiven me. Though they <i>will</i> come back and tuck + away one of his dinners occasionally."</p> +<p>Claire's mind closed nimbly over Flint's statement. "The—the Tom + Forsythes of Ross?" she asked.</p> +<p>He nodded and tossed a glass of wine off in one gulp. The Tom Forsythes of + Ross ... Edington's sister ... Ned Stillman! The sequence of ideas flashed through + Claire's mind with flashing detachment. She leaned back in her seat and raised + the wine-glass in obvious pretense to her lips. Flint was watching her keenly: + an ugly gleam was in his eyes.</p> +<p>"Well, Miss Robson, you might just as well make up your mind to finish + that glass of wine first as last. We're not going to have the next course until + you do."</p> +<p>She measured him deliberately. She knew now that it was to be a fight to a + finish. She was honestly afraid and full of the courage of realization.</p> +<p>"I've had enough as it is, Mr. Flint. Besides, we must either be getting + to work or figuring how I am to make the boat at Sausalito. I suppose you could + send me in the car ... with Jerry."</p> +<p>"Oh, with Jerry? So that's it!... No, not on your life! He's too good-looking + a boy for a job like that. No, Miss Robson, you are going to stay <i>right</i> + here.... Now, understand me, I'm not a damn fool! You seem to have an idea that + because I've had a glass or two that I've lost my reason. You're an attractive + girl and all that, Miss Robson, and I am interested in you! But please don't + flatter yourself that I'm staking everything on a throw like this. As a matter + of fact, I'll see that you are properly chaperoned. We've plenty of neighbors. + You've got the best excuse in the world for staying here and...."</p> +<p>"But, my dear Mr. Flint, can't you see, I...."</p> +<p>"No, I can't. I want you to stay <i>here</i>. My reasons are as good as + yours. Now let's get that off our mind and enjoy the meal."</p> +<p>His manner struck her protests to the ground again. She was no longer fearing + the immediate outcome, in fact, she never had, but she knew that if he broke + her to his will now, all the safeguards, all the chaperons, all the conventions + in the world wouldn't save her from ultimate consequences. This was the try-out + that was to establish her pace in the final contest; she would stand or fall + upon the record she made at this moment. For she was trying out something more + than Flint's temper, something greater than a mechanical adjustment of human + relationships—she was trying out <i>herself</i>. She sat for some moments, + thinking hard, one hand fingering the slender base of the wine-filled glass + in front of her, the other dropped in pensive limpness at her side. Flint had + cleared the space in front of him of everything but his two wine-glasses. He + had slipped down in his seat and his two bloodshot eyes were fixing her with + a level stare.</p> +<p>She stirred finally and rose.</p> +<p>He was on his feet in an instant.</p> +<p>"I'm going to telephone," she said, calmly.</p> +<p>"Telephone ... where?... What's the idea?"</p> +<p>"Mr. Flint," she answered, a bit wearily, "at least I'm a guest + in your house, am I not?"</p> +<p>He settled back in his seat with a grunt of acquiescence. She stood dazed for + a moment, surprised at the chance that had put such telling words into her mouth. + She had been fingering timidly for the key to his chivalry; quite by accident + she had hit upon it in the shape of this appeal to her expectations of him in + the rôle of host. She could have lied, of course, and told him that she + wished to telephone her mother, but she had not yet been cornered sufficiently + to resort to so distasteful a weapon.... As she left the room she found herself + wondering whether Stillman had by any chance left the Tom Forsythes. She looked + at the clock. It was not quite eight o'clock. She felt reassured, yet she was + tremendously frightened.... Especially as she realized that the telephone was + in the entrance hall within earshot of the dining-room....</p> +<p>She was decidedly more frightened when she got back from her telephoning, and + looked at Flint. He was clutching at the table with both hands, his body tilted + slightly forward, his lips ominously thin.</p> +<p>"You telephoned to the Tom Forsythes, didn't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"And you asked for Stillman.... Did you get him?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"What did you want with him?"</p> +<p>"If you heard that much, I guess you heard the rest, Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>Claire stood at her place at the table. She decided not to sit. Flint bore + down on both hands until things began to creak.</p> +<p>"Yes, I heard everything, but, dammit all, I couldn't believe my own ears. + You're like every woman I ever knew ... you don't play fair. You appeal to my + instinct as host and then you go and outrage every privilege you've got me to + concede. You're a pretty guest, you are! And I sit here and let you 'play me + for a fool.' Let you ring up Ned Stillman and ask him to fetch you away from + <i>my</i> house in <i>his</i> car!" He stopped and took a deep breath; + his words were no longer passionate; instead, they were precise and cool and + venomous. "Understand me, young lady, I'm through with you. I wouldn't + care, if I thought you were really virtuous. But you're too clever for a virtuous + woman.... Oh, I dare say you subscribe to the letter of the law, all right. + For instance, you take care not to run around with married men whose incumbrances + are in plain view of the audience.... Oh, I've seen lots of clever women in + my time, but in the end they always took too much rope. Remember, you'll have + your bluff called some day."</p> +<p>He pushed back his chair noisily and rose. The Japanese servant came bobbing + along.</p> +<p>"Clear away the things!" Flint bellowed. "We're through!... + Good night, Miss Robson, and a pleasant journey to you—you and your <i>immaculate</i> + friend Stillman."</p> +<p>He left the room with a melodramatic flourish.... Presently Claire heard him + mounting the stairs.</p> +<p>"He's drunk!" flashed through her mind, as if the idea had just struck + her. "Of course, he must be drunk, otherwise he wouldn't have dared to...."</p> +<p>She went out into the entrance hall and put on her hat.</p> +<a name="I_VII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3> +<p>Midway between Yolanda and Sausalito Stillman's machine died with disconcerting + suddenness The rain was coming down in sheets. Stillman got out.</p> +<p>"It's no use," he announced, lifting himself back into his seat. + "I can't do anything in this deluge."</p> +<p>This was the first word that had been said since he and Claire had left Flint's.</p> +<p>"The worst will be over in a few moments," replied Claire, easily. + But she was far from reassured.</p> +<p>The deluge was <i>not</i> over in a few moments. It kept up with an ever-increasing + violence, until it seemed that even the stalled car would be compelled to yield + to its force. Claire had never seen it rain harder; the storm had a vindictive + fury that reminded her of the dreadful tempest in "King Lear."</p> +<p>Stillman maintained his usual well-bred calm and smoked cigarettes while he + chattered. He touched on every conceivable subject but the one uppermost in + Claire's mind, until she began to wonder whether delicacy or contempt veiled + his conversation. A half-hour passed ... an hour ... two. Still the rain swept + from the sullen sky. Twice Stillman made a futile attempt to remedy the trouble + with his engine, and twice he retired defeated to the shelter of the car. Claire + was relieved that she was in the company of a man who did not emphasize the + monotonous hours by indiscriminate raillery against the tricks of chance. At + first he dismissed the situation with the most casual of shrugs; later he acknowledged + his annoyance by an expression of regret at his companion's discomfort, but + he stopped there.</p> +<p>As the hours went on, with no abatement of the storm's devastating energy, + Claire grew less and less pleased at the prospect. She began to wonder whether + the shelter of Flint's roof had not been, after all, the discreet thing. Was + not her headlong flight in company with Stillman more open to criticism than + the frank acceptance of her employer's hospitality? But these vagrant questions + were the spawn of a colorless spirit of social expediency which fastens itself + on weak natures, and in Claire's case they died still-born. She had been too + well schooled in loneliness to lean heavily on the crooked stick of public opinion. + Accustomed to standing alone, she had something of the spiritual arrogance that + goes with independence. People could think what they liked. And it was more + a realization of her mother's anxiety than any thought of self which made her + suggest to Stillman that they might get out and walk into Sausalito.</p> +<p>"I think the last boat leaves there at twelve-thirty," she finished. + "Surely we could make it if we keep going."</p> +<p>Stillman thrust his arm out into the drenching rain, and withdrew it instantly. + "I'm afraid that's out of the question, so long as the rain keeps up, Miss + Robson," he said, in a tone of implied objection. "Perhaps if it should + stop...."</p> +<p>Claire settled back in her seat. Stillman was right. The storm was too furious + to be lightly braved.</p> +<p>It was eleven o'clock before a quick veering of the wind brought a downpour + so violent that what had gone before seemed little better than a rather weak + rehearsal.</p> +<p>"It will clear presently," Stillman assured Claire. "Southeaster + always break up in a flurry like this from the west."</p> +<p>In ten minutes the stars were peeping brilliantly through rents in the torn + clouds. Pungent odors floated up from the rain-trampled stubble of the hillsides, + the air was cleared of its stifling oppressiveness, the first storm of the season + was over.</p> +<p>Both Claire and Stillman clambered out at the first signs of the storm's exhaustion. + Stillman switched on his pocket-light and began to investigate the trouble with + the engine. His decision was swift and conclusive.</p> +<p>"It's hopeless," he announced, turning to Claire with a slight grimace. + "We're stalled absolutely and no mistake. I guess we'd better strike out + and walk. No doubt we'll get a lift into Sausalito before we've gone very far, + but I dare say it's well to be on the safe side."</p> +<p>They rolled the machine to one side of the roadway and struck out hopefully. + The rain had made a thin chocolate ooze of the highway, and before they had + gone a hundred yards their shoes were slimy with mud. It appeared that Stillman + had been something of an aimless wanderer for many years, and as he talked on + and on, giving detached glimpses of the remote places he had visited, Claire + had a curious sense of futility.</p> +<p>She read between his clipped and vivid sentences the tragedy of a personality + worsted by the soft hands of circumstances. This man might have done things. + As it was he was an idler. He gave her the impression of a man waiting vaguely + for opportunity—like some traveler pacing restlessly up and down a railway + station platform in expectation of the momentary arrival of a delayed train. + She tried to imagine him as she felt sure he must once have been—youthful, + eager, ardent, a man of charming enthusiasms that just missed being extravagances, + who could bring zest to his virtues as well as to his follies.</p> +<p>"Surely," she thought, "something more than inclination must + have pushed him into this deadly stagnation."</p> +<p>And at once Miss Munch's insinuating question leaped up to answer:</p> +<p>"You know about his wife, of course!"</p> +<p>Were men put out of countenance by such impersonal tricks of fortune? Impersonal?... + this domestic tragedy?... Yes, Claire felt that it must be, otherwise the man + tramping at her side would have wrestled so passionately against fate as to + have come away at least spattered with the mud of defeat. No, Stillman was not + defeated, he was merely arrested, restrained, held for orders.</p> +<p>He had been in London when the war broke out. He had stayed long enough to + watch the stolid, easy-going British public awake to the seriousness of the + encounter, coming home after the first air raids.</p> +<p>"I didn't mind being killed," he laughed, in explanation of his sudden + flight. "But I didn't like being so frightfully messed up in the process. + I want a chance to strike back when I'm cornered. The Zeppelin game was too + much like a rabbit-drive to suit me."</p> +<p>As he spoke of these experiences, Claire listened with a quickening of the + spirit. The prospect of finding Stillman vibrant was too stirring to be denied. + But he was still sober on this colossal subject of war ... a bit judicial, always + well poised. He had his sympathies, but they did not appear vitalized by extravagances + of feeling. Yet here and there Claire was conscious of truant warmths, like + brief flashes of sunlight through a somber forest.</p> +<p>"And the draft—what do you think of that?" The question rose + to her lips as if his answer might unlock the door to something deeper in the + way of convictions.</p> +<p>He began with a shrug that chilled her; then his reply broke with sudden refreshment:</p> +<p>"It helps ... some of us. There are many who can't decide for themselves. + The obvious duty isn't always the correct one. In my case...."</p> +<p>He did not stop speaking suddenly, but his voice trailed off into a dim region + of musing. They both fell silent. But Claire knew. There was that haunting hope, + almost like a fear, that his wife might some day get better. That was what he + was waiting for! It might come to-morrow ... next week ... in a year ... never! + But when it did come he felt that he must be there, ready. She wondered whether + he loved his wife very much, and she found herself hoping that he did.... It + would help, somehow ... yes, if that were so his sacrifice gained point. On + the other hand.... She put the thought away with a quick thrust, feeling that + she had no right to such a speculation, and presently she was aware that they + were swinging into Sausalito.</p> +<p>Stillman looked at his watch. Twelve-thirty-five ... just five minutes late + for the boat! She could see that he was disturbed.</p> +<p>"I thought sure we'd get a lift," he railed, tossing aside a mangled + cigar. "This <i>is</i> luck!... I guess we'll have to rout out the Sherwins. + It's something of a pull up the hill, but any safe port in a storm, you know."</p> +<p>"The Sherwins?"</p> +<p>"Another one of the Edington girls. They have a bungalow at the very dizziest + point in Sausalito."</p> +<p>But Claire objected and held firm. "I couldn't think of it, Mr. Stillman. + No, really!... Please don't insist."</p> +<p>They agreed on a lodging for Claire in a freshly painted but otherwise rather + decrepit lodging-house, just north of the ferry-slip. Its chief advantage was + that it seemed quite too stagnant to be anything but respectable, and the suppressed + grumbling of the old shrew whom they routed out confirmed their estimate. She + didn't approve of couples who dragged God-fearing old women out of bed at unholy + hours in the morning, and it was only the generous tip from Stillman and the + assurance that he intended looking elsewhere for quarters for himself that reconciled + her to her loss of sleep and the compromise with her convictions.</p> +<p>For a good half-hour Claire sat with folded hands peering out from her room + upon the damp hillside to the west. From across the street came the bawdy thumping + of a mechanical piano and the swish of a sluggish tide. Her encounter with Sawyer + Flint had forced the door of her virginal seclusion and thrust her at once into + the primitive and elemental open. She felt like one who was coming out of voluntary + exile to the pathos of a deferred heritage. Before her stretched the eagle's + horizon, but she had only the fledgling's strength of wing. She longed for the + faith and courage and daring to take life at its word, longed with all the dangerous + fierceness of one who had fed too long upon the husks of existence. And, longing, + she fell asleep, sitting in a chair before the open window, without thought + or preparation....</p> +<hr /> +<p>The morning broke cloudless. All traces of the night's fury were obliterated + as completely as sorrow from the face of a smiling child. The sun touched the + open spaces with a tender, caressing warmth, but the shadows held a keen-edged + chill.</p> +<p>Claire decided upon an early boat to town.</p> +<p>"I'll be less likely to meet any of the California Street crowd," + she said to herself, as she picked her brief way toward the ferry.</p> +<p>The boat was crowded, especially the lower cabin. It was the artisans' boat + and the air was heavy with the smoke of pipe-tobacco. Claire passed rapidly + to the dining-room. Perched upon the high revolving chairs surrounding a horseshoe + counter, a score or more of soft-shirted men sat devouring huge greasy doughnuts + and gulping coffee. The steward, taking note of Claire's hesitation, came forward + and led her to a seat at one of the side tables. She was about to take advantage + of the chair which he had drawn out for her when she heard her name called. + She turned. Miss Munch's cousin, Mrs. Richards, was sitting alone at the table + just behind. Claire's first feeling was one of relief—she was glad to + discover an acquaintance. She thanked the steward for his trouble and abandoned + the proffered seat for the one opposite Mrs. Richards. Almost at once she regretted + her impulsive decision.</p> +<p>"I didn't know you intended staying at Flint's all night," Mrs. Richards + began, fixing Claire with a challenging gaze.</p> +<p>"I didn't intend to," returned Claire, her voice sharpened slightly.</p> +<p>Mrs. Richards took the lid off the sugar-bowl and powdered her grapefruit sparingly. + "Have they a nice home?" she questioned.</p> +<p>"Yes, very nice."</p> +<p>"They gave you an early start, didn't they?... It's almost impossible + to get servants these days to consider such a thing as serving breakfast much + before eight o'clock."</p> +<p>Claire glanced at the bill of fare. Mrs. Richards's tone was a trifle too eager. + "I suppose it is," Claire assented, placing the menu-card back in + its place between the vinegar and oil cruets.</p> +<p>Mrs. Richards remained unabashed at her vis-à-vis's palpable indirectness. + "I guess I'm old-fashioned, but, servants or no servants, I don't believe + I could let a guest of mine leave the house without breakfast. It seems to me + that if I'd been Mrs. Flint I'd have gotten up and made you a cup of coffee + myself."</p> +<p>Claire's growing annoyance was swallowed up in a feeling of faint amusement. + "Perhaps Mrs. Flint wasn't home," she said, beckoning the waiter.</p> +<p>"Oh!" Mrs. Richards exclaimed with shocked brevity.</p> +<p>It was not until the arrival of Claire's order of toast and coffee that Mrs. + Richards found her voice again.</p> +<p>"This business of wives staying from home all night gets me," Mrs. + Richards hazarded, boldly. "Why, I never remember the time when my mother + remained away overnight ... not under <i>any</i> circumstances. My father expected + her to be there, and she always <i>was</i>."</p> +<p>Claire distributed bits of butter over the surface of her toast. She felt that + in justice to the Flint family it was not right for her to give Mrs. Richards's + dangerous tongue any further scope, however tempting was the prospect of leaving + such venomous inquisitiveness ungratified.</p> +<p>"I think you misunderstood me, Mrs. Richards. I didn't say that Mrs. Flint + remained away from home last night. As a matter of fact I didn't stay at Yolanda, + so I don't know anything about it."</p> +<p>"Oh!" faintly escaped Mrs. Richards for the second time that morning, + but Claire was conscious that there was more incredulity than surprise registered + in the lady's tone.</p> +<p>"As a matter of fact," Claire continued, stung to incautious exasperation, + "I spent the night in Sausalito."</p> +<p>Mrs. Richards met this information with a disarmingly bland smile. "I + didn't know you had friends in Sausalito," she said, letting a spoonful + of coffee trickle back into her cup.</p> +<p>"I haven't. I spent the night in a lodging-house ... on the water-front...."</p> +<p>"My dear Miss Robson, really I.... Why, I hope you don't think I was inquisitive!"</p> +<p>It was the simplicity of the challenge that made it impossible to be ignored. + Claire knew that she was trapped, but she was angry enough to decide on some + reservation.</p> +<p>"The storm put the track between Yolanda and Sausalito out of commission," + Claire found herself snapping back too eagerly at her tormentor. "We tried + to make the last boat by auto, but we got stalled and missed it. We had to walk + a good half of the way."</p> +<p>"I shouldn't think that would have done Mr. Flint's cold any good," + Mrs. Richards said, drawlingly.</p> +<p>"Mr. Flint's cold?... I don't quite see what that has to do with it."</p> +<p>"Oh, you said 'we' I somehow got the impression...."</p> +<p>"No, Mrs. Richards, you've misunderstood me again." Claire threw + a cool, even glance at her antagonist. "I made the trip from Yolanda to + Sausalito in Mr. Stillman's car."</p> +<p>"Oh!" said Mrs. Richards for a third time, and in this instance her + voice was warm with gratification.</p> +<p>Claire directed her attention to her plate of buttered toast and her cup of + coffee. She was chagrined to think that she had fallen so easily into Mrs. Richards's + very obvious traps. Not that it mattered. She was quite sure that the truth + could not harm Stillman, and she was equally sure that her position in life + was too obscure to stand out conspicuously against the darts of Mrs. Richards's + vindictive tongue. But she had the pride of her reticences and she did not like + to surrender these privileges at the point of insolent curiosity. The two continued + to eat in silence.</p> +<p>It was Mrs. Richards who finished first, and she dipped her fingers hurriedly + into the battered metal finger-bowl which the Japanese bus-boy thrust before + her.</p> +<p>"Do you mind if I go along?" she inquired of Claire, with an air + of polite triumph. "I think I'll go forward where I can get a quick start + ... before the crowd gets too thick. I've got a million errands to do before + nine o'clock. And I <i>do</i> want to run into the office before Gertie settles + down to work. I haven't seen her for a week and I've got <i>more</i> things + to tell her!"</p> +<a name="I_VIII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3> +<p>"Why, Miss Claire, how could you! Where have you been? And your mother + in such a bad way!" Mrs. Finnegan broke into sudden tears.</p> +<p>Claire, fumbling in her bag for the front-door key, looked up. Mrs. Finnegan + had swung open the door to the Robson flat and she stood like a vision of disaster + upon the threshold.</p> +<p>"What has happened?" Claire's voice rose with a note of swift apprehension.</p> +<p>"Your mother ... she's paralyzed! She was taken last night. The doctor + says it would have happened, anyway. But I say it was worry, that's what it + was. With you away all night and never a word!"</p> +<p>Claire climbed the stairs in silence, aware that Mrs. Finnegan was following + at a discreet distance. Already the house seemed permeated with an atmosphere + of tragedy and gloom in spite of the morning light pouring in unscreened at + every window. Mrs. Robson's room was the only exception to this unusual excess + of cold radiance—unusual, because it was one of Mrs. Robson's prides to + keep her window-shades lowered to a uniform and genteel distance.</p> +<p>Until Claire came face to face with her mother she almost had fancied that + her neighbor was indulging in a crude and terrible joke, but one look sufficed. + Mrs. Robson lay staring vacantly at the ceiling; she could not move, she could + not speak, and her spirit showed through the veiled light in her eyes like a + mysterious spot of sunshine in a shaded well. Above a swooning sense of calamity + Claire felt the strength of a tender pretense struggling to communicate its + vague hope to the stricken form. She raised the window-shade slightly and sat + down upon the bed.</p> +<p>"Why, mother, what's all this?" she began, in a tone of gentle banter, + as she stroked the helpless hands. "Were you worried? I'm so sorry! I asked + Miss Munch to let you know. Didn't she?... I went over to Mr. Flint's to take + dictation. The storm washed out the track. I tried to make the boat in Mr. Stillman's + car, but we broke down and missed it.... I had to stay all night in Sausalito."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson, stirring faintly, attempted to speak. Claire turned helplessly + to Mrs. Finnegan. "I can't make out what she is trying to say."</p> +<p>Mrs. Finnegan bent an attentive ear. "It's about Stillman," she explained. + "Your mother don't understand why...."</p> +<p>The speaker stopped with significant discretion. It was plain to Claire that + <i>nobody</i> understood, and she felt a dreary futility as she answered both + her mother and Mrs. Finnegan with:</p> +<p>"It's a long story. Some other time, when ... when you're feeling better."</p> +<p>A look of gray disappointment crossed Mrs. Robson's face. Mrs. Finnegan's upper + lip seemed shaped suddenly with a suspicion that died almost as quickly as it + began. There was a ring at the bell. "That's the doctor," said Mrs. + Finnegan, and she left to open the door.</p> +<p>The doctor chilled Claire with his steely nonchalance as she stood apart while + he went through the usual forms of a professional visit that was obviously futile. + She followed him to the front door. He answered her eager inquiries with the + cold triumph of authority.</p> +<p>"How long will she last?... Well, Miss Robson, that is hard to say. She + might go off to-night. Then, again, she might live twenty years. She'll scarcely + get any better, though. No, a nurse isn't essential, unless you can afford one. + But you ought to have another woman about. If you have any relatives you'd better + send for them and let them help out."</p> +<p>Claire did not find the doctor's announcement that her mother might die at + once nearly so brutal as his assurance that she had an equal chance for existing + twenty years. <i>Twenty years!</i> Claire closed the door and sank upon the + steps overwhelmed.</p> +<p>But there was scant leisure on this first dreadful day of Mrs. Robson's illness + for theatrical exuberances. Claire, unaccustomed to the routine of household + duties, took a thousand unnecessary steps. She tried to work calmly, to bring + an acquired philosophy to her tasks, but she went through her paces with a feverish, + though stolid, anxiety. The long night which followed was inconceivably a thing + of horror. Her wakeful moments were dry-eyed with despair, and when she slept + it was only to come back to a shivering consciousness.</p> +<p>Mrs. Finnegan found her next morning fresh from an attempt to rouse her mother + into accepting a few swallows of milk, which had ended in pathetic and miserable + failure. She had thrown herself in an abandon of grief across the narrow kitchen + table, and the coffee from an overturned cup was trickling in a warm, thick + stream to the floor. But the paroxysm did her good. She rose to the kindly caresses + of her neighbor like a flower beaten to earth but refreshed by a relentless + torrent. After this, custom and habit began to reassert themselves in spite + of the crushing weight of circumstance. She 'phoned to the office. Mr. Flint + had returned, they told her. She explained her trouble to the cashier. "I'll + try to be back the first of the week," she finished, in a burst of illogical + hope.</p> +<p>Later in the day Mrs. Robson's two sisters arrived in answer to Claire's summons. + Claire's impulse to send for them had been purely instinctive—an atrophied + survival of clan-spirit that persisted beyond any real faith in its significance. + Perhaps she had a feeling that her mother wished it; certainly she had no illusions + as to the manner in which the unwelcome news of Mrs. Robson's illness would + be received by these two self-centered females.</p> +<p>It was Mrs. Thomas Wynne who came in first, bundled mysteriously in her furs + and holding a glass of wine jelly as a conventional symbol of the rôle + of Lady Bountiful which she had for the moment assumed. Claire could almost + fancy how conspicuously she had contrived to carry this overworked badge of + the humanities, and the languid drawl of her voice as she explained to her friends + <i>en route</i>:</p> +<p>"So sorry I can't stop and chat. But, as you see, I'm running along to + a sick-room.... Oh no, nothing serious, I hope! Just my sister.... Mrs. Ffinch-Brown? + Oh, dear no! A younger sister. I don't think you know her. She's had a great + deal of trouble and hasn't been about much for a number of years."</p> +<p>Mrs. Thomas Wynne had the trick of intrenching a stubborn family pride by throwing + back her head and daring all comers to uncover any of the Carrol clan's shortcomings. + But her selfishness had at least the virtue of a live-and-let-live attitude + that contrasted with the futile aggressiveness of Mrs. Edward Ffinch-Brown. + She asked Claire no questions concerning her life or her prospects; she did + not even pry very deeply into the chances that her sister had for an ultimate + recovery. Her philosophy seemed to be founded on the knowledge that uncovered + cesspools were bound to be unpleasant, and, since she had no desire to assist + in their purification, she was quite content to keep them properly screened. + She came and deposited her wine jelly and patted her sister's hand and went + away again without leaving even a ripple in her wake. As she departed she gave + further proof of her insolent insincerity by calling back at Claire:</p> +<p>"Remember, Claire, if there is anything I can do, just let me know."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's visit was scarcely more comforting, but decidedly more + exciting. She had not the suavity of her indifferences. Mrs. Robson's untimely + tilt with fate irritated her, and she took no pains to conceal this fact.</p> +<p>"I suppose your mother is just as she's always been—a creature of + nerves," she said, as she dropped into a seat for a preliminary session + with Claire before venturing upon the unwelcome sight of her stricken sister. + "I don't know why it is, but she seems to be one of those people who always + has had something the matter with her. Poor Emily! Well, I suppose we are all + made differently."</p> +<p>When she entered the sick-room she found fault with the arrangement of the + bed, the manner in which the covers slipped off, the uncovered glass of medicine + on the bureau.</p> +<p>"You should braid your mother's hair, too. And why don't you pull the + window down from the top?"</p> +<p>Claire stood in sullen silence while her aunt vented a personal annoyance on + the nearest objects. But when Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's ill-natured ministrations + brought a dumb but protesting misery to the sufferer's face, Claire found the + courage to say, as gently as she could:</p> +<p>"Why bother, Aunt Julia? Mother is really too sick now to care much about + appearances?"</p> +<p>This was just what Claire's aunt had hoped for. It gave her a chance for escape + without any strain upon her conscience. She did not remain long after what she + was pleased to consider a rebuff.</p> +<p>"Well, Claire, I see I can't be of much help," she announced as she + powdered her nose before the shabby hat-rack mirror and drew on her gloves.... + After she was gone Claire found a five-dollar bill on the living-room table. + She opened the gilt-edged copy of Tennyson that, together with a calf edition + of Ouida's <i>Moths</i>, had stood for years as guard over the literary pretensions + of the household, and thrust the money midway between its covers. Doubtless + a time was coming when she would find it necessary to use this money, but the + present moment was too charged with the giver's resentful benevolence to make + such a compromise possible.</p> +<p>For three consecutive days Mrs. Ffinch-Brown swooped down upon the Robson household + and gave vent to her pique. She had been divorced so long from these melancholy + relations of hers that she had really forgotten their existence, and she displayed + all the rancor of a woman who discovers suddenly a moth hole in the long undisturbed + folds of a treasured cashmere shawl. Her precisely timed visits had not the + slightest suspicion of attentiveness back of them, and Claire guessed almost + at once that they were more in the nature of assaults carried on in the hope + that she would meet enough opposition to insure an honorable retreat. Unlike + Mrs. Thomas Wynne, Aunt Julia inquired minutely into family matters, insisted + on knowing Claire's plans, and was aggressively free with advice.</p> +<p>"You ought to be making plans, Claire," she said, at the conclusion + of her second visit. "You can't go on like this. I'd like to be able to + do more, but of course I can't spare much time. And next week you'll have to + be getting into harness again. You'd better think it over."</p> +<p>And on the next day, finding that Claire obviously had <i>not</i> thought it + over, she threw out a hint that was little save a thinly veiled threat. She + came in with a more genial manner than she was accustomed to waste upon the + desert air of penury, and Claire, well schooled in reading the significance + of proverbial calms, had a misgiving.</p> +<p>"I've been talking to Miss Morton ... about your mother," Mrs. Ffinch-Brown + began, without bothering to lead up to the subject. "You know Alice Morton.... + Well, your mother does, anyway. I bumped into her yesterday, quite by accident + ... at a Red Cross meeting. It seems she's one of the directors of The King's + Daughters' Home for Incurables!" Claire was sitting opposite her aunt, + nervously fingering a paper-cutter. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown eyed her niece sharply, + and with an obvious determination to drive her thrusts home before her victim + recovered from the first vicious stabs she continued: "It seems they haven't + a great deal of room out there, but she thinks she could arrange things. They'll + raise the price to two thousand dollars after the fifteenth of the month, so + I thought that—"</p> +<p>"Oh, not quite yet, Aunt Julia!... Mother has a chance. Surely...."</p> +<p>"Now, Claire, don't get hysterical. You're a business woman and <i>you</i> + ought to be practical if any of us are. The price to-day is one thousand dollars. + Think of it! Care for life in a ward with only <i>three</i> others! Now I can't + ask your uncle for any more than is necessary in a case like this. If we make + up our mind promptly we can save just one thousand dollars."</p> +<p>For the moment Claire felt the harried desperation of a cornered animal. She + had never seen anything more disagreeable than her aunt's sidelong glance. She + felt herself rise from her seat with cold dignity.</p> +<p>"I'm afraid, Aunt Julia, I can't make up my mind as quickly as you wish. + It isn't so simple as it seems. I'm not above a plan like this if I'm convinced + it's necessary. But somehow.... Oh, I know what you're thinking—you're + thinking that beggars shouldn't be choosers. Well, I'm not quite a beggar yet. + But when I am, I won't choose.... I'll promise you that."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rose also. She was in a position to triumph in any case, + and she was washing her hands of the situation with eager satisfaction. "Oh, + indeed! I'm glad you can say that <i>now</i>. But you weren't always so independent. + I suppose it never occurs to you to thank me for what I did when you were younger."</p> +<p>Claire felt quite calm. The events of the past twenty-four hours had wrung + her emotions dry. "Yes, Aunt Julia," she said, with an air of cool + defiance, "it occurred to me many times.... Perhaps if I'd had any choice...."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown grew pale. "It's plain that I'm wasting my time here!" + she sneered.</p> +<p>Claire went with her aunt to the door....</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown did not cross the threshold of the Robson home again, and + when on the following day Claire saw the figure of Mrs. Thomas Wynne outlined + against the lace-screened front door she let the bell ring unanswered.</p> +<hr /> +<p>The dismissal of the last of the Carrol clan from any participation in the + Robson destinies gave Claire a feeling at once independent and solitary. There + had been a vague hope that this crisis might germinate some stray seeds of kinship, + shriveled by the drought of uneventful years. But the poisonous nettles of memory + were the only harvest that had sprung from the presence of Mrs. Robson's sisters, + and Claire was glad to uproot the arid product of their shallowness.</p> +<p>The week came to a close with a rush of visitors. Suddenly it seemed as if + everybody knew of Mrs. Robson's illness. Fellow church members, old school friends, + casual acquaintances began to ring the front-door bell insistently. Knowing + her mother's instinctive craving for recognition, it struck Claire that it was + the height of irony to see this belated crowd come swarming in on the heels + of calamity at the moment when Mrs. Robson was unable to so much as see them. + Mrs. Robson would have so liked to sit in even a threadbare pomp and receive + the homage of her visitors, but fate had been scurvy enough to withhold this + scant triumph.</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead breezed in on Saturday afternoon just as Mrs. Finnegan's cuckoo + clock cooed the stroke of three; immediately the air began to move out of adversity's + tragic current. It was impossible to be wholly without hope under the impetus + of Nellie Whitehead's flaming good humor.</p> +<p>"I'm all out of breath," she began, as she flopped into the first + chair that came handy. "I keep forgetting I ain't sweet sixteen any more + and never been kissed. I hate to walk slow, though. Don't you? Say, but you + <i>are</i> up against it, ain't you! I saw that Munch dame on the street and + she nearly broke her old neck trying to catch up with me. I wondered what was + the matter, because she ain't usually so keen about flagging <i>me</i>. But, + <i>you</i> know, she never misses a trick at spilling out the calamity stuff, + especially if it isn't on her.... 'Oh, Miss Whitehead,' she called out before + I had a chance to beat it, 'have you heard about Miss Robson's mother?' ...When + she got through I fixed her with that trusty old eye of mine and I said, 'I + suppose you see her quite often.' And what do you think the old stiff said? + 'Oh, I'd like to, Miss Whitehead, but I really haven't had time. You know I'm + doing all Mr. Flint's dictation now.' And she had the nerve to try and slip + me a hint that she was going to keep on doing it. But I just said to myself: + 'You should kid yourself that way, old girl! When Flint picks a bloomer like + you to ornament the back office it will be because his eyesight's failed him.' + ...By the way, how do you manage to stand him off—with religious tracts + or a hat-pin?"</p> +<p>She hardly waited for Claire's reply, but plunged at once into another monologue.</p> +<p>"Do you know what I'm up to? I got my eye on the swellest fur-lined coat + you ever saw ... at Magnin's. But you can bet I'm going to keep my eye on it + until after the holidays. They want a hundred and a quarter for it now, but + they'll be glad to take sixty-five when the gay festivities are over, or I miss + my guess. I go in every other day to have a look at it, and when the girl's + back is turned I hang it back in the case myself—'way back where everybody + else will overlook it. Oh, I know the game all right. I did the same thing with + a three piece suit last summer. But I say, All is fair in war and the high cost + of living. Maybe you think I haven't had a time scraping the wherewithal for + that coat together. But I brought the total up to seventy the other day by getting + Billy Holmes to slip me a ten in advance for Christmas. I never trust a man + to invest in anything for me if I can help it. They usually run to manicure + sets in satin-lined cases or cut-glass cologne-bottles. Billy Holmes?... Oh, + you know him! He ran the reinsurance desk at the Royal for years. They put him + on the road last week. He's <i>some</i> live wire. And what's better, he has + no incumbrances. I'll tell you what it is, Robson, I'm getting kind of tired + of the goings. I'm just about ready to settle down by the old steam-radiator. + And as long as I've got eyesight enough to look the field over, I've decided + on a traveling-man or a sea-captain. They'll be sticking around home just about + often enough to suit me.... Not that I'm a man-hater, but I've never had 'em + for a steady diet and I'm not going to begin to get the habit this late day."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead stayed about an hour, and, as Claire opened the front door + upon her friend's departure the letter-man thrust an envelope into her hands. + She opened it hastily and turned suddenly white.</p> +<p>"Well, Robson, what's wrong now?" inquired Nellie.</p> +<p>"Flint ... he's let me out ... Miss Munch was right!"</p> +<a name="I_IX"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3> +<p>On the selfsame Saturday of Claire's dismissal from the office ranks of the + Falcon Insurance Company Ned Stillman was the recipient of an early telephone + message from Lily Condor. It appeared that Flora Menzies, the young woman who + usually accompanied her in her vocal flights, had been laid low with pneumonia + and she wanted Stillman to persuade Claire Robson to succeed to the honorary + position.</p> +<p>"She did so famously on that night of our musicale," Lily Condor + had explained, "and Flora won't be in shape again for a good three months. + Of course, there isn't anything in it but glory. I'm just one of those 'sweet + charity' artists. But I think she is a dear, and I know that <i>you</i> have + influence."</p> +<p>Stillman pretended to be annoyed at Mrs. Condor's assumption that his word + would carry any weight in the matter, but as a matter of fact he felt pleased + in secret masculine fashion. Chancing to pass Flint's office at the noon hour, + he dropped in. It happened that Miss Munch was standing near the counter, and + she answered his inquiries with suave eagerness.</p> +<p>"Oh, Miss Robson isn't with us any more. She hasn't been here for over + a week—not since her mother was taken sick. Oh, I thought you knew. You're + Mr. Stillman, aren't you? I've heard my cousin, Mrs. Richards, speak of you. + Miss Robson went over to Mr. Flint's on that night of the storm and she missed + the boat or something—<i>you</i> know! And when she got home next morning + she found that her mother had worried herself into a stroke. They say she is + quite helpless.... I'm sure I don't know what she intends doing. We mailed her + check yesterday. It's always hard to land another position when one is dismissed."</p> +<p>Stillman escaped quickly. Miss Munch's venom was a thing too crude and unconcealed + to face with indifference. Her emphatic "<i>you</i> know" was pregnant + with innuendo and malice. Still, it did not occur to Stillman that he had any + part in Claire Robson's misfortune. But he did know from Miss Munch's tone that + the unfortunate situation, growing out of the automobile ride from Yolanda to + Sausalito, had received due recognition at the hands of those who made a business + of blowing out bubbles of scandal from the suds of chance. It was useless for + him to deny that Claire Robson from the first had been of more or less interest. + She seemed to rise in such a detached fashion from her environment.</p> +<p>He had to admit, as later he sat in the cloistered silences of his club library + and blew contemplative smoke-rings into the air, that a certain idle curiosity + had been the mainspring of his concern for her. He had been like a boy who captured + a strange butterfly and clapped it under a glass tumbler where he could watch + how easily it would adapt itself to its new surroundings. But, having caught + the butterfly and held it a brief captive, the dust from its wings still lingered + upon the hands that imprisoned it. He had made the mistake of imagining that + one is always master of casual incidents. To meet a young woman by the most + trivial chance, to extend a brief courtesy to her, these were matters which + hold scarcely the germs of a menacing situation, not menacing to him, of course—they + never could be menacing to him; he was still thinking of things from the viewpoint + of Claire Robson.</p> +<p>To tell the truth, he was annoyed at having been mixed up in Claire's flight + from the Flint household. Had Flint been a complete stranger he would not have + minded so much. He was still divided by the appeal to his chivalry and the sense + of loyalty that a man feels to the masculine friends of his youth. In her telephone + message Claire had put the matter very casually—the track was washed out + and she was wondering whether he contemplated returning to town that evening. + But he guessed at once what lay back of her matter-of-fact boldness. He had + guessed so completely that he had decided not only to return to town, but to + start at once.</p> +<p>He wondered now whether he had answered the appeal because a woman was in a + desperate situation or because that woman was Claire Robson. All through the + dinner hour at the Tom Forsythes he had thought about her, had speculated vaguely + what mischance or effrontery had been responsible for her ill-timed visit to + Flint's. He remembered trying to decide whether the young woman was extraordinarily + deep or extraordinarily simple and frank. He did not like to concede that he + could be influenced by anything so transparently malicious as Mrs. Richards's + statements regarding the absence of Mrs. Flint, but he was bound to admit that + they did nothing to render the situation less innocent; what had particularly + annoyed him was the fact that he should have given the matter a second thought. + To begin with, it was none of his business and he was not a man who presumed + to judge or even speculate on other people's indiscretions. Claire Robson was + no sheltered schoolgirl. She was a full-grown woman, in the thick of business + life. Such women were not taken unawares. He had just dismissed the whole affair + from his mind on this basis when Claire's telephone message came to him. Even + now he marveled at the sense of satisfaction that her appeal had given. But + he had found no savor in a situation that compelled him to interfere in Flint's + program. Such a move on his part was contrary to his standards, to his training + in comradeship, to all his acquired philosophy. He had the well-bred man's distaste + for getting into a mess. He abhorred scenes and conspicuous complications.</p> +<p>He had come through the incident with steadily waning enthusiasm and a decision + to wash his hands in the future of all such unprofitable trifling. But the sudden + knowledge that the young woman was in desperate trouble revived his interest. + He had no idea how serious Mrs. Robson's illness was or whether Claire had any + hopes for a new position. But Miss Munch's words had been significant. Claire + had been <i>dismissed</i>, and Stillman knew enough about present business stagnation + to conclude that for the time, at least, Claire Robson faced a bleak outlook. + He realized the indelicacy of any definite move on his part, but it occurred + to him that it might be well to talk the situation over with some one—preferably + a woman. As he tossed his cigar butt aside, Lily Condor appealed to him as just + the person for the emergency. Therefore he looked her up without further ado.</p> +<p>He found her at home, curled up among the cushions of a davenport that did + service as a bed when the scenes were shifted. She was living in a tiny apartment + consisting of one room and a kitchenette that gave Stillman the impression of + a juggler's cabinet. Nothing in this room was ever by any chance what it seemed. + Things that looked like doors led nowhere; bits of stationary furniture usually + yielded to the slightest pressure and revealed strange secrets. He had seen + Mrs. Condor deftly construct a card-table out of an easy-chair, and he had no + doubt that the oak table in the center of the room could have been converted + into a chiffonier or a chassis-lounge at a given signal.</p> +<p>In repose, it struck Stillman that Mrs. Condor seemed very much like a purring + cat. He had never seen her quite so frankly behind the scenes, robbed of both + her physical and mental make-up. She was one of those women in middle age who + adapt themselves to the tone of their background and while she contrived to + strike a fairly vivid note, she took care not to be discordant. She was clever + enough to realize that her talents were not sensational and that she could only + hope for an indifferent success as a professional. But in the rôle of + a gracious amateur she disarmed criticism and forced her way into circles that + might otherwise have been at some pains to exclude her. For, if the truth were + known, there had been certain phases of Mrs. Condor's earlier life which were + rather vaguely, and at the same time aptly, covered by Mrs. Finnegan's term + of "gay." A perfectly discreet woman, for instance, would have made + an effort to live down her flaming hair and almost immorally dazzling complexion, + but Mrs. Condor had been much more ready to live <i>up</i> to these conspicuous + charms. In fact, she had lived up to them pretty furiously, until time began + to take a ruthless toll of her contrasting points. From the concert-platform + she still seemed to discount, almost to flout, the years, but in secret she + yielded unmistakably to their pressure.</p> +<p>It was this yielding, pliant attitude that struck Stillman as he came upon + her almost unawares on that early December afternoon, a yielding, pliant attitude + which gave a curious sense of tenacity under the surface. And he thought, as + he dropped into the chair she indicated, that she was a woman who gained strength + in these moments of relaxation.</p> +<p>"Fancy your catching me like this!" she said, "I thought when + the bell rang that you were my dressmaker.... If you want a highball you'll + have to wait on yourself. Phil Edington brought an awfully good bottle of Scotch + last night. I declare I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have a youngster + or two on my staff. Old men are such bores, anyway, and, as a matter of fact, + they never waste time on any woman over thirty. Well, I don't blame them. We're + a sorry, patched-up mess at best.... Tell me, did you get hold of Miss Robson?"</p> +<p>"I dropped in, but she wasn't at the office," Stillman replied, tossing + his hat on the center-table.</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor withdrew to the relaxation of her innumerable sofa pillows again. + "Wasn't at the office? How thrilling! Is she one of the Sultan's favorites?... + I've heard Sawyer Flint was an easy mark if you know how to work him. Miss Robson + didn't strike me that way, though. But I ought to have known that silent women + are always cleverer than they appear."</p> +<p>Stillman caught the barest suggestion of a sneer in Mrs. Condor's tone—the + sneer of a woman relinquishing a stubborn hold upon the gaieties.</p> +<p>"Well, I guess Miss Robson didn't know how to work him, as a matter of + fact," Stillman said, quietly. "She lost her job to-day. I'm a little + bit worried about her.... I came here on purpose to talk the situation over + with you."</p> +<p>His directness brought Lily Condor out of her languidness with a sharp turn. + She wriggled up and sat erectly on the edge of the davenport, one slippered + foot dangling just above the other. "Why, Ned Stillman, what an old fraud + you are! I didn't fancy you were interested in <i>anybody</i>. I didn't think + that you.... Oh, well, throw me a cigarette and let me hear the worst in comfort!"</p> +<p>He opened his cigarette-case and leaned over toward her. She made her choice. + He struck a match and she put her hand tightly on his wrist as she bent over + the flame and slowly drew in her breath. Even after she had released her grasp + his flesh still bore the imprint of the rings on her fingers. For a moment he + had an impulse to bow himself out of her presence without further explanation, + but already she seemed to have a proprietary interest in him. Her smile was + full of friendly malice.</p> +<p>He ended by telling her everything, in spite of the conviction that he had + approached the wrong person.</p> +<p>"Of course," she hazarded, boldly, when he had finished, "you + mean to help her out."</p> +<p>Her presumption annoyed but rather refreshed him. "I'd like to do something, + but, hang it all, what can be done?"</p> +<p>"What can be done? If that isn't like a man! Or I should say, a <i>gentleman</i>!... + Why don't you plunge in boldly and damn the consequences?... It's just your + sort that sends women into the arms of men like Flint. You're so busy keeping + an eye on the proprieties that you miss all the danger signals."</p> +<p>Her tone was extraordinarily familiar, and, to a man who rather prided himself + upon his ability to keep people at arm's-length, it was not precisely agreeable. + Yet he knew that it would be folly to give any hint of his irritation.</p> +<p>"Well," he contrived to laugh back at her, "so far as I can + see, Miss Robson's problems are quite too simple. After all, it's largely a + question of money.... I can't go and throw gold in her lap as if she were some + beggar on a street corner."</p> +<p>"You mean, I suppose, that you are afraid to risk the outraged dignity + of this ward of yours. I think that's a lovely name for her. Don't you?... You're + acquiring such a benevolent old attitude. The only thing to be done, I fancy, + is to adopt some transparent ruse—some sort of Daddy-Long-Leggish deception." + She closed her eyes thoughtfully—"<i>Hiring</i> her as my accompanist, + for instance." She rose to dispense Scotch and soda. Stillman sat in thoughtful + silence, while Mrs. Condor talked to very trivial purpose. She seemed suddenly + to have grown tired of the subject of Claire Robson. The arrival of the expected + dressmaker broke in upon the rather one-sided tête-à-tête.</p> +<p>"You'll have to go," Lily Condor announced with an intimate air of + dismissal to Stillman. "It would never do to let a mere man in on the secrets + of the sewing-room."</p> +<p>At the door he hesitated awkwardly over his good-by. "I was wondering," + he said, "whether you were serious about ... about hiring Miss Robson as + your accompanist. You know I think the plan has possibilities."</p> +<p>She threw back her head and smiled with hard satisfaction. "I've been + trying to figure if you had killed your imagination. Think it over."</p> +<p>She gave him the tips of her fingers. He returned their languid pressure and + departed.</p> +<p>As he drifted down the hall he heard her calling, half gaily, half derisively, + after him:</p> +<p>"Don't decide on anything rash now.... Sleep over it!..."</p> +<hr /> +<p>He thought it over for three days and when he called on Lily Condor again he + found her divorced from her languishing mood. She was dressed for dinner down-town, + and he had to confess she had made the most of what remained of her flaming + hair and dazzling complexion.</p> +<p>He felt that she guessed the reason for his visit, although she took care to + let him force the issue.</p> +<p>"About Miss Robson," he said, finally, "I've concluded to take + you at your word."</p> +<p>Lily Condor smoothed out her gloves and laid them aside. "Take me at <i>my</i> + word? You're welcome to the suggestion, if that is what you mean. As a matter + of fact I wasn't serious."</p> +<p>He was annoyed to feel that he was flushing. He could not fathom her, but he + had a conviction that she <i>had</i> been serious and that this attitude was + a mere pose. "Nevertheless, I think it can be managed," he insisted. + "And I want you to help me."</p> +<p>She listened to his plan. "What you will call a Daddy-Long-Leggish pretense," + he explained to her with an attempt at facetiousness. "You to do the hiring + and ... and yours truly to provide the wherewithal. Until things look up a bit. + Of course then ... why, naturally, when things look up a bit for her...."</p> +<p>But Lily remained lukewarm. She wasn't quite sure that it would be ... oh, + well, he knew what she meant! It seemed too absurd to think that he had given + an ear to anything so extravagant. She would like to be of service to Miss Robson, + of course, but, after all, she felt that it was taking an unfair advantage of + the girl.</p> +<p>"If she's everything you say she is, she'd resent it all tremendously," + she put forth as a final objection.</p> +<p>"But she isn't to know! That's the point of the whole thing," he + explained, with absurd simplicity.</p> +<p>"Oh, my dear man, she isn't to know, but she <i>will</i>, ultimately. + You don't suppose the secret of a woman's meal-ticket is hidden very long, do + you? And, besides, you couldn't offer her enough to live on. That would be absurd + on the very face of it."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, I could offer her enough to help out a bit, anyway, and half + a loaf you know...."</p> +<p>He broke off, amazed at the determination her opposition had crystallized. + She looked at him sharply and rose.</p> +<p>"I must be running along," she commented as she drew on her gloves. + "I tell you, I'll go call on Miss Robson—some day this week. A woman + can always get a better side-light on a situation like this. There are so many + angles to be considered. She must have relatives. You wouldn't want to make + a false move, would you, now?"</p> +<p>He was too grateful to be suspicious at this sudden compromise with her convictions.</p> +<p>"You're tremendously good," he stammered. "It <i>will</i> be + a favor. And any time that I can...."</p> +<p>"You can be of service to me right now," she interrupted, gaily. + "Order me a taxi ... that's a good boy! I always do so like to pull up + at a place in style."</p> +<p>Stillman paid Lily Condor a third visit that week—this time in answer + to the lady's telephone message. She had been to see Claire Robson and her report + was anything but rosy.</p> +<p>"Her mother's perfectly helpless and will be for the rest of her life," + Lily volunteered almost cheerfully. "And, frankly, I don't see what is + going to become of them. It seems that Mrs. Robson is a sister of Mrs. Tom Wynne + and that dreadful Ffinch-Brown woman. They both have about as much heart as + a cast-iron stove. Miss Robson didn't say so in words, but I gathered that she + had called both of them off the relief job. I almost cheered when I realized + that fact. I threw out a hint about there being a possibility of my needing + an accompanist. I said Miss Menzies was ill and perhaps ... and I intimated + that there was something more than glory in it."</p> +<p>"And what did Miss Robson say to that?"</p> +<p>"Oh, she was more self-contained than one would imagine under the circumstances. + She said she would like to think it over. She put it that way on the score of + leaving her mother alone nights. But, believe me, that young lady is more calculating + than she seems. Of course I didn't mention terms or anything like that. I left + a good loophole in case you had changed your mind."</p> +<p>For the moment Stillman was almost persuaded to tell Lily Condor that he <i>had</i> + changed his mind. Not that he had lost interest in Claire, but already he had + another plan and there was something disagreeably presumptuous in Mrs. Condor's + tone. He never remembered having taken anybody into his confidence regarding + a personal matter. The trouble was that he had begun the whole affair under + the misapprehension that it was a most <i>impersonal</i> thing. He still tried + to look at it from that angle, but Lily Condor's manner seemed bent on forcing + home the rather disturbing conviction that he had a vital interest in the issue. + She had cut in upon his reserve and he would never quite be able to recover + the lost ground. He felt that she sensed his revulsion, for almost at once she + adroitly changed the subject and it did not come to life again during the remainder + of his call.</p> +<p>But when he was leaving she thrust an idle finger into the lapel of his coat + and said:</p> +<p>"I think it's awfully good of you, Ned, to be human enough to want to + do something for others. I watched you as a young man, and when you married...." + His startled look must have halted her, for she released her hold upon him and + finished with a shrug.</p> +<p>He said good-by hastily and escaped. But he wondered, as he found his way out + into the street, how long it would be before Mrs. Condor would acquire sufficient + boldness to discuss with him what and whom she chose.</p> +<a name="I_X"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER X</h3> +<p>Christmas Day came and went with a host of bitter-sweet memories for Claire + Robson. Not that she could look back on any holiday season with unalloyed happiness, + but time had drawn the sting from the misfortune of the old days. Through the + mist of the years outlines softened, and she was more prone to measure the results + by the slight harvest that their efforts had brought. For instance, they had + never been too poor to deny themselves the luxury of a tree. And a tree to Mrs. + Robson meant none of the scant, indifferent affairs that most of the neighbors + found acceptable strung with a few strands of dingy popcorn and pasteboard ornaments. + No, the Robson tree was always an opulent work of art, freighted with bursting + cornucopias and heavy glass balls and yards of quivering tinsel. The money for + all this dazzling beauty usually came a fortnight or so before the eventful + day in the shape of a ten-dollar bill tucked away in the folds of Gertrude Sinclair's + annual letter to Mrs. Robson. As Claire had grown older she had grown also impatient + of the memory of her mother squandering what should have gone for thick shoes + and warm plaid dresses upon the ephemeral joys of a Christmas tree. But now + she suddenly understood, and she felt glad for a mother courageous enough to + lay hold upon the beautiful symbols of life at the expense of all that was hideously + practical. Shoes wore out and plaid dresses finally found their way to the rag-bag, + but the glories of the spirit burned forever in the splendor of all this truant + magnificence, and the years stretched back in a glittering procession of light-ladened + fir-trees.</p> +<p>Then some time between Christmas and New-Year came the Christmas pantomime + at the Tivoli, with its bewildering array of scantily clad fairies and dashing + Amazons and languishing princes in pale-blue tights; to say nothing of the Queen + Charlottes consumed between acts through faintly yellow straws. How Claire would + mark off each day on the calendar which brought her nearer to this triumph! + And what a hurry and bustle always ensued to get dinner over and be fully dressed + and down to the box-office before even the doors were opened, so that they could + get first choice of the unreserved seats which sold at twenty-five cents. Then + there would ensue the long, tedious wait in the dimly lighted cavern of the + playhouse, smelling with a curious fascination of stale cigars and staler beer, + and the thrill that the appearance of the orchestra produced, followed by the + arrival of all the important personages fortunate enough to afford fifty-cent + seats, which gave them the security to put off their appearance until the curtain + was almost ready to rise. And when the curtain really did rise upon the inevitable + spectacle of villagers dancing upon the village green! And Mrs. Robson carefully + picked out in the chorus the stout sister of a former servant who had worked + for her mother! And the wicked old witch swept from the wings on the traditional + broomstick! From that moment until the final transformation scene, when scintillating + sea-shells yielded up one by one their dazzling burdens of female loveliness + and a rather Hebraic Cupid descended from an invisible wire to wish everybody + a happy New-Year in words appropriately rhymed, there was no halt to the wonders + disclosed. With what sharp and exquisite reluctance did Claire remain glued + to her seat, refusing to believe that it was all over! Even at this late date + Claire had only to close her eyes to revive the delights of these rather covert + excursions into the realm of fancy—covert, because a Tivoli pantomime + had not precisely the sanction of such a respectable organization as the Second + Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Robson, while not definitely encouraging Claire to + wilful dishonesty, always managed to warn her daughter by saying:</p> +<p>"I wouldn't tell any one about going to the Tivoli, Claire, if I were + you ... unless, of course, they should ask about it."</p> +<p>Claire, in mortal terror lest any indiscretion on her part would put a stop + to this annual lapse into such delightful immoralities, held her peace in spite + of her desire to spread abroad the beauties which she had beheld. She had a + feeling that all the participants in the pantomime must of necessity be rather + wicked and abandoned creatures, and half the pleasure she had felt in viewing + them arose from a secret admiration at the courage which permitted human beings + to be so perfectly and desperately sinful. Although she was almost persuaded + that perhaps it did not take quite such bravado to be wicked in blue-spangled + gauze and satin slippers as it did to lapse from the straight and narrow path + in a gingham dress and resoled boots.</p> +<p>The only thrill that the present Christmas Day produced came in the shape of + a pot of flaming poinsettias bearing the card of Ned Stillman. These were the + first flowers that Claire ever remembered having received. It pleased her also + to realize that Stillman had been delicate to the point of this thoroughly unpractical + gift, especially as he had every reason to assume that something more substantial + would have been acceptable. She was confident that by this time he had heard + through Mrs. Condor of her mother's illness and her loss of position. Claire + was still puzzled at Mrs. Condor's visit. For all that lady's skill at subterfuge, + there were implied evasions in her manner which Claire sensed instinctively. + And then Claire was not yet inured to the novelty of being in demand. To have + been forced by circumstance upon Mrs. Condor as an accompanist was one thing; + to be desired by her in a moment of cold calculation was quite another; and + there had been more uncertainty than caution in Claire's plea for time in which + to consider the offer. But as the days flew by it became more and more apparent + to Claire that she was in no position to indulge in idle speculation. She had + long since given up the hope of fulfilling the demands of a regular office position, + even if one had been open to her. Mrs. Finnegan's enthusiasm to be neighborly + and helpful was more a matter of theory than practice, and it did not take Claire + many days to decide that she had no right to impose upon a good nature which + was made up largely of ignorance of a sick-room's demands. Claire's final check + from Flint was dwindling with alarming rapidity; indeed, she was facing the + first of the year with the realization that there would be barely enough to + pay the next month's rent, let alone to settle the current bills. She had no + idea what Mrs. Condor intended paying, but she fancied that it must be little + enough. Surely Mrs. Condor did not receive any great sum for her singing and + there must be any number of gratuitous performances. She decided quite suddenly, + the day after Christmas, to take Mrs. Condor at her word, and she was a bit + disturbed at both the lady's reply and the manner of it.</p> +<p>"Oh," Mrs. Condor had drawled rather disagreeably, "I thought + you'd given up the idea. I spoke to somebody else only this morning. But, of + course, I'm not certain about how it will turn out. I'll keep you in mind and + if the other falls through.... By the way, how is your mother? I keep asking + Ned Stillman every day what the news is, but he never knows anything. All men + are alike ... unless they've got some special interest. Sometimes I marvel that + he looks me up so regularly, but then I've known him ever since.... But there, + I'll be telling more than I should! Do come and see me. I'm always in in the + morning.... Yes, I can imagine you do have a lot to do. I'm so sorry you didn't + call up sooner. But one never can tell. Good-by.... I hope you'll have a happy + New Year."</p> +<p>Claire hung up the receiver. Well, she had lost an opportunity to turn an easy + dollar or two and she had no one to thank but herself. Why had she delayed in + accepting Mrs. Condor's offer?</p> +<p>Fortunately the unexpected arrival of Nellie Whitehead cut short any further + repinings. Claire was frankly glad to see her and at once she thought, "She + has come to show me her new coat."</p> +<p>But Nellie Whitehead was incased in a wrap that showed every evidence of a + good six months' wear.</p> +<p>"My new coat?" the lady echoed, in answer to Claire's question. "There + ain't no such animal. Somebody else copped it. I didn't shove it back far enough + the last time I took a look at it, I guess. Oh, well, I should worry! I can + get along very well without it...."</p> +<p>When Nellie Whitehead rose to leave, dusk had fallen and Claire was fumbling + for matches to light the hall gas, when she felt her friend's hand close over + hers. There followed the cold pressure of several coins against Claire's palm + and the voice of her visitor sounding a bit tremulous in the dusk.</p> +<p>"You'll need some extra money, Robson, or I miss my guess."</p> +<p>Claire fell back with a gesture of protest. "Why, Nellie Whitehead, how + could you? It's your coat money, too! Well, <i>I</i> never!"</p> +<p>And with that they both burst into tears.... When Claire recovered herself + she found that Nellie Whitehead had escaped. She lit the gas and opened her + palm. Four twenty-dollar gold pieces glistened in the light.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Next morning Claire received a telephone message from Mrs. Condor. The position + of accompanist was hers at forty dollars a month if she desired it.</p> +<p>"It won't be hard," Mrs. Condor had finished, reassuringly. "Some + weeks I've something on nearly every night. And then again there won't be anything + doing for days.... How can I afford to pay so much? Well, my dear, that is a + secret. But don't worry, you'll earn it...."</p> +<p>And toward the close of the week there came another surprise for Claire in + the shape of a letter from Stillman, which ran:</p> +<blockquote> MY DEAR MISS ROBSON.—I am going to take a little flier at the + bean market. <br /> + <br /> + That was my father's business and I know a few things about it—at least + to the extent of recognizing the commodity when the sack is opened. Do you fancy + you could arrange to give me a few hours a week at the typewriter? If so, we + can get together and arrange terms. <br /> + <br /> + Cordially, <br /> + <br /> + EDWARD STILLMAN. </blockquote> +<p>"At last," flashed through Claire's mind, "he's going in for + something worth while."</p> +<p>This time she decided promptly. Over the telephone she made an appointment + with Stillman, in his apartments, for beginning work on the second Wednesday + in January.</p> +<a name="I_XI"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3> +<p>Shortly after the first of the year Claire received her initial summons from + Lily Condor—they were to appear at a concert in the Colonial Ballroom + of the St. Francis for the Belgian relief. Mrs. Condor had intimated that the + affair was to be smart, and so it proved. It was set at a very late and very + fashionable hour, and all through the program groups of torpid, though rather + audible, diners kept drifting in. Claire was not slow to discover that Lily + Condor was first on the bill, and she remembered reading somewhere in a newspaper + that among professionals the first and last place were always loathsome positions. + Judging from the noise and confusion that accompanied their efforts, Claire + could well understand why this was so, and she expected to find Lily Condor + resentful. But to her surprise Mrs. Condor merely shrugged her shoulders and + said:</p> +<p>"What difference does it make? They don't come to listen, anyway. Besides, + I always open the bill. I like to get it over quickly."</p> +<p>But Claire had reason to suspect, as she followed the remainder of a very excellent + program, that the choice of position did not rest with Mrs. Condor. Claire began + to wonder how much money Mrs. Condor received for an effort like this. And she + became more puzzled as she gathered from the conversation of the other artists + about her that the talent had been furnished gratuitously.</p> +<p>"I understand," she heard a woman in front of her whisper to her + companion, "that Devincenzi, the 'cellist, is the only one in the crowd + who is getting a red cent. But he has a rule, you know—or is it a contract? + I'm sure I don't know. At any rate, they say that the Ffinch-Browns donated + his fee.... The Ffinch-Browns? Don't you know them?... See, there they are ... + over there by the Tom Forsythes. She has on turquoise pendant earrings.... Oh, + they're ever so charitable! But they do say that she is something of a...."</p> +<p>Claire lost the remainder of this stage whisper in a rather tremulous anxiety + to catch a glimpse of her aunt before she moved. Claire had to acknowledge that + at a distance her aunt gave a wonderful illusion of arrested youth as she stood + with one hand grasping the collar of her gorgeous mandarin coat. But Claire + was more interested in the turquoise pendants than in her aunt. She had never + seen the jewels before, but she had heard about them almost from the time she + was able to lisp.</p> +<p>"They're mine," Mrs. Robson had repeated to Claire again and again. + "My father bought them for me when I was sixteen years old. I remember + the day distinctly, and how my mother said: 'Don't you think, John, that Emily + is a little young for anything like this? I'll keep them for her until she is + twenty.' I nearly cried myself sick, but of course mother was right, <i>then</i>.... + But like everything else, I never got my hands on them again. And what is more, + Julia Carrol Ffinch-Brown knows that they are mine as well as anybody, because + she stood right alongside of me when I handed them over to mother. Not that + I care.... It's the principle of the thing!"</p> +<p>Claire felt disappointed in the pendants. They seemed so insignificant—to + fall very far short of her mother's passionate description of them, and she + began to wonder which was the more pathetic, Mrs. Robson's exaggerated notion + of their worth or the pettiness that gave Aunt Julia the tenacity to hold fast + to such trivial baubles.</p> +<p>Ned Stillman was in the audience, also. Claire saw him sitting off at the side. + Indeed, she spotted him on the very moment of her entrance upon the stage. She + had been nervous until his friendly smile warmed her into easy confidence; and + though, while she played, her back had been toward him, she felt the glow of + his sympathy. As Lily Condor and she swept back upon the stage for their rather + perfunctory applause, and still more perfunctory bouquets provided by the committee, + Claire could see him gently tapping his hands in her direction, and she was + surprised when the usher handed her a bouquet of dazzling orchids.</p> +<p>"They must be for you," Claire said, innocently enough, to Mrs. Condor. + "I don't find any name on them."</p> +<p>"That shows that you've got a discreet admirer, at any rate," Lily + Condor returned with that bantering sneer which Claire was just beginning to + notice. And the thought struck her at once that Stillman had sent the flowers. + She was pleased, but also a little annoyed to think he had so deliberately ignored + Mrs. Condor.</p> +<p>The Flints were there, too; Flint looked uncomfortable and warm in his scant + full-dress suit and his wife frankly ridiculous in a low-cut gown that exhibited + every angle of a hopelessly scrawny neck. Claire did not see them until she + was leaving the stage, and she smiled as she saw Flint lean over and pick up + the opera-glasses from his wife's lap. But this was not all. In a far corner + sat Miss Munch and her cousin, Mrs. Richards, their ferret eyes darting busily + about and their tongues clicking even more rapidly. Doubtless Flint had invested + in a number of tickets at the office for business reasons and passed them around + for any of the office force who felt a desire to see society at close range.</p> +<p>Claire had not meant to stay beyond one or two numbers following her own appearance, + but she kept yielding to Mrs. Condor's insistent suggestions that she "stay + for just one more," until she discovered, to her dismay, that it was past + midnight. The last artists were taking their places upon the stage. Claire resigned + herself to the inevitable and sat out the remainder of the performance. She + was making a quick exit into the dressing-room when she came face to face with + her aunt. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown betrayed her confusion by the merest lift of the + eyebrows, and she stepped back as if to get a clearer view of her niece, as + she said with an air of polite surprise:</p> +<p>"You—<i>here</i>?"</p> +<p>Claire carried her head confidently. "I was on the program," she + returned, consciously eying the turquoise pendants.</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rested a closed fan against her left ear as if to screen + at least one of the earrings from Claire's frank stare. "Oh, how interesting! + I must have missed you—I came in late. It's rather odd. I thought I knew + everybody on the program.... I helped arrange it."</p> +<p>"Well," Claire smiled, "I wasn't what you would call one of + the head-liners. I played Mrs. Condor's accompaniments."</p> +<p>"That accounts for it ... my not knowing, I mean. I dare say your mother + is better, otherwise you wouldn't be here."</p> +<p>Claire met her aunt's thrust calmly. "No, mother is worse, if anything. + As a matter of fact, I'm here...."</p> +<p>She broke off abruptly, realizing suddenly that she had left her orchids behind. + She turned to discover Stillman making his leisurely way toward her. He had + the orchids in his hand.</p> +<p>"My dear Miss Robson," he said, gently, "Mrs. Condor came very + near appropriating your flowers."</p> +<p>She could feel the color rising to her forehead. "I see you came to my + rescue again," she said, simply, taking them from him. "I think you + know Mr. Stillman, Aunt Julia."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown forced a too-sweet smile as she gave Stillman a nod of recognition. + "Fancy any girl forgetting so much gorgeousness!" she exclaimed with + an attempt at lightness, but Claire caught the covert rancor in her voice, and + as her aunt made a movement of escape she put out a restraining hand and said:</p> +<p>"I wanted you to know, Aunt Julia, that I'm here merely as a matter of + business. Mrs. Condor has hired me to play her accompaniments."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown shook off Claire impatiently. "<i>Hired</i> you!" + she sneered. "How extraordinary!"</p> +<p>And with that she swept past, giving Stillman a glance of farewell.</p> +<p>Claire turned to Stillman. "What must you think of me? Leaving my flowers + behind. Confess—it was you who sent them.... I was in such a rush to get + away, though. I shouldn't have stayed so long. My mother is alone.... Of course + there are neighbors just below and they will look in on her, but just the same...."</p> +<p>His smile reassured her. "Are you forgetting about to-morrow?" he + asked. "Remember we are to begin business promptly at two o'clock. I hired + a typewriting-machine yesterday. I'm really thrilled at the idea of—of + going into business."</p> +<p>She looked at him steadily as she gave him her hand: "My dear Mr. Stillman," + she said, quite frankly, "you are very kind."</p> +<p>He answered by pressing her hand warmly and she covered her face with the purple + orchids. They were interrupted by Lily Condor sweeping rather arrogantly toward + them.</p> +<p>"Haven't you gone yet?" she asked Claire. "I thought you were + in a hurry! I hope you've persuaded Ned to get us a taxi. I hate street-cars + at this hour." And in answer to Claire's embarrassed protest that she had + never given such a thing a thought, Mrs. Condor finished: "Well, I've given + it a thought, and don't you forget it. Come, Ned, is it a go?"</p> +<p>Claire fancied that a flicker of annoyance passed over Stillman's face as he + answered, with a dry laugh:</p> +<p>"You might at least have given me time to prove my gallantry."</p> +<p>"I'm not taking any chances," was the prompt reply.</p> +<p>Claire turned away. What had contrived to give Mrs. Condor this disagreeable + air of assurance toward Ned Stillman, she found herself wondering. It had not + been apparent at the Condor-Stillman musicale....</p> +<p>She arrived home dismayed to find the front room illuminated, but the rattle + of the departing taxi brought Mrs. Finnegan to the top of the stairs with a + laughing apology.</p> +<p>"I just looked in to see how your mother was, Miss Claire, and I found + a book on the front-room table"—Mrs. Finnegan held up Ouida's <i>Moths</i>—"and + I got so interested in it that I just naturally forgot to go home. Finnegan's + out, anyway. I was telling him about your good fortune. And all he said was: + 'Well, it beats me how an old crow like Mrs. Condor gets paid for singing. I + remember five years ago, when she wasn't so uppish, we had her for a benefit + performance of the Native Sons, and she didn't get paid then. Her singing may + be over my head. Anyway, it didn't get to my ears.' But Finnegan is always like + that. He just likes to contradict. I got back at him. I said, 'Well, if she + can afford to pay Miss Claire forty a month for playing the piano, she must + get a good piece of money every time she opens her mouth.' ...Mercy, look at + the orchids! Well, you must have had a swell time. I'll bet you wouldn't like + to tell who sent them.... There wasn't any card? That's not saying you don't + know, Miss Claire.... I hope you won't think I'm a meddler, but I'm an older + woman and.... Well, just you keep a sharp eye on the feller that sends you orchids, + Miss Claire."</p> +<p>She went down-stairs without further ado. Claire put the orchids in water and + set them on a sill near an open window. She did not feel in the least resentful + of Mrs. Finnegan's warnings. She was too confident to be anything but faintly + amused at her neighbor's middle-class anxiety. But Finnegan's skepticism concerning + Mrs. Condor annoyed her and she remembered the disagreeable words of her aunt:</p> +<p>"<i>Hired</i> you? How extraordinary!"</p> +<hr /> +<p>"Two o'clock <i>sharp</i>!" The memory of Stillman's air of delicate + banter as he emphasized the hour for beginning his business venture struck Claire + ironically the more she pondered his words. She had a feeling that there was + something farcical in the prospect, and yet there seemed nothing to do but to + go through with the preliminaries. She presented herself, therefore, at the + appointed time at the Stanford Court apartments.</p> +<p>She found Stillman quite alone, his hands blue-black with the smudge from a + refractory typewriter ribbon which he was vainly endeavoring to adjust. It took + some time for him to get his hands clean again, and Claire sharpened her pencils + while she waited. But there really proved to be nothing to do.</p> +<p>"I'm all up in the air over this bean business," Stillman confessed, + nonchalantly. "The government, you know ... they're taking over all that + sort of thing ... regulating food and prices. Of course, in that case...."</p> +<p>Claire felt an enormous and illogical relief. "Then you really won't need + me," she ventured.</p> +<p>"Oh, quite the contrary.... I have a certain amount of business, of a + sort. And I'm tired of dropping checks along the trail of public stenographers.... + Suppose we talk terms. We haven't fixed on any salary, yet."</p> +<p>Claire felt a rising impatience. His subterfuge seemed too childish and obvious. + "That will depend on how much of my time you expect, Mr. Stillman."</p> +<p>"Well, three times a week, anyway ... to start with. Say Mondays, Wednesdays, + and Fridays from two to five.... I was thinking that something in the neighborhood + of fifteen dollars a week would be fair."</p> +<p>He turned a very frank gaze in her direction and she quizzically returned his + glance.</p> +<p>"That's rather ridiculous, don't you think?" she said, trying to + disguise her furtive annoyance. "You can hire a substitute through any + typewriting agency on the basis of three dollars a day."</p> +<p>"Yes, and I can buy two cigars for a nickel, but I shouldn't want to smoke + them."</p> +<p>She clicked the keys of her machine idly. "That is hardly a fair comparison. + You can get any number of competent girls for three dollars."</p> +<p>He rested his chin on his upturned palm. "But, my dear Miss Robson, I + happen to want <i>you</i>."</p> +<p>She thought of any number of cheap, obvious retorts that might have been flung + back at his straightforward admission, but instead she said, with equal frankness:</p> +<p>"That's just what I don't understand."</p> +<p>He threw her a puzzled look and the usual placid light in his eyes quickened + to resentful impatience.</p> +<p>"Is that a necessary part of the contract, Miss Robson?"</p> +<p>She caught her breath. His tone of annoyance was sharp and unexpected. There + was a suggestion of Flint's masculine arrogance in his voice. She felt how absurd + was her cross-examination of him, of how absurd, under the circumstances, would + have been her cross-examination of anybody ready and willing to give her work + to do and an ample wage in the bargain, and yet, for all the force of his reply, + she knew it to be a well-bred if not a deliberate evasion.</p> +<p>"You mean it is none of my business, don't you?" she contrived to + laugh back at him.</p> +<p>His reply was a further surprise. "Yes, precisely," he said, with + an ominous thinning of the lips.</p> +<p>She rose instinctively to meet this thrust and she was conscious that even + Flint had never managed so to disturb her. She glanced about hastily as if measuring + the room in a swift impulse toward escape. Stillman had chosen the dining-room + for a temporary office, and upon the polished surface of the antique walnut + table the typewriter struck an incongruous note; indeed, it was all incongruous, + particularly Stillman and his assumed business airs. Yes, it was absurd for + her to either cross-examine or protest, but it was equally absurd for him to + pay her such an outlandish sum for nine hours a week.</p> +<p>"He's doing it for me," she thought, not without a sense of triumph. + Then, turning to him, she said, a bit awkwardly:</p> +<p>"I guess there isn't any use to dissuade you, Mr. Stillman. If you say + fifteen dollars a week, I sha'n't argue with you."</p> +<p>He smiled back at her, all his former suavity regained. She slid into her seat + again. Her mind was recalling vividly the one other time in her life when she + had grappled vigorously with the masculine spirit of domination, and come away + victorious. This time she had been defeated and she had impulses toward relief + and fear. She looked up suddenly and trapped a solicitous glance from Stillman + that rather annoyed her. And it struck her, as she mentally compared Stillman + with most of the men of her acquaintance, how far he could have loomed above + them if he had had the will for such a performance. As it was he fell somewhat + beneath them in a curious, indefinable way. Had he been too finely tempered + by circumstances or had the flame of life lacked the proper heat for fusing + his virtues effectively? For the moment she found Flint's forthright insolence + more tolerable than Stillman's sterile deference. Suddenly she began to think + of home, not with any sense of security, but as something unpleasant, dark, + disquieting....</p> +<a name="I_XII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3> +<p>Toward six o'clock one afternoon in late February Ned Stillman, making his + way from the business district at California and Montgomery Streets toward his + club, suddenly remembered a forgotten luncheon engagement for that day with + Lily Condor.</p> +<p>"Well," he muttered at once, "I'm in for it now! I guess I might + as well swing out and see her and get the thing over with."</p> +<p>It was curious of late how often he was given to muttering. Previously, petty + annoyances had not moved him to these half-audible and solitary comments which + he had always found contemptuously amusing in others. He wondered whether this + new trick was the result of his business ventures, his sly charities, or his + approach toward the suggestive age of forty. Associating the name of Lily Condor + with his covert charities, he was almost persuaded that they lay back of this + preposterous habit. And the more he thought about it the more he muttered and + became convinced that Lily Condor was usually the topic of these vocal self-communings.</p> +<p>Ned Stillman had always prided himself upon his sense of personal freedom concerning + the trivial circumstances of life. Of course, like any man of sensibility, he + was bound by the chains that deeper impulses forge, but he had never been hampered + by any restraints directed at his ordinary uprisings and downsittings. In short, + he had answered the beck and nod of no man, much less a woman, and he was not + finding Lily Condor's growing presumptions along this line altogether agreeable.</p> +<p>He would not have minded so much if there was any personal gratification in + yielding to the lady's whip-hand commands. There are certain delights in self-surrender + which give a zest to slavery, but there is no joy in being held a hostage. Looking + back, Stillman marveled at the indiscretion he had committed when he handed + over not only his reserve, but Claire Robson's reputation into the safekeeping + of Lily Condor. Had he ever had the simplicity to imagine that a woman of Mrs. + Condor's stamp would constitute herself a safe-deposit vault for hoarding secrets + without exacting a price? Well, perhaps he had expected to pay, but a little + less publicly. He had not looked to have the lady in question ring every coin + audibly in full view and hearing of the entire market-place, and yet, if his + experience had stood him in good stead, he must have known that this was precisely + what she would do. Stillman's hidden gratitude, his private beneficences, did + not serve her purpose, but the spectacle of him in the rôle of her debtor + was a sight that went a long way to establishing a social credit impoverished + by no end of false ventures.</p> +<p>Her command for him to take her to luncheon—and it had been a command, + however suavely she had managed to veil it—bore also the stamp of urgency. + Usually she was content to lay all her positive requests to the charge of mere + caprice, but on this occasion she took the trouble to intimate that there was + a particular reason for wanting to see him. It did not take him long to conclude + that this particular reason had to do with Claire Robson. That was why he yielded + with a better grace than he had been giving to his troublesome friend's disagreeable + pressure.</p> +<p>Stillman knew that while Lily Condor was not precisely jealous of the younger + woman, she was distinctly envious—with the impersonal but acrid envy of + middle age for youth. The episode of the orchids still rankled. He had to admit + that in this instance his course had been tactless, but he had ignored Mrs. + Condor as a challenge to the presumption which he had already begun to sense. + She, while seeming definitely to evade the real issue, had answered the challenge + and he had paid for his temerity a hundredfold. She had reminded him again and + again in deft but none the less positive terms that she was keeping a finger + on the mainspring of any advantage that came her way. Sometimes Stillman wondered + whether she would really be cattish enough to betray his confidence and bring + Claire Robson crashing down under the weight of the questionable position into + which his indiscretion had forced her. Would she really have the face to publish + abroad the pregnant fact that Ned Stillman was providing what she had been pleased + to designate as a meal-ticket for a young woman in difficulty? For himself he + cared little, except that he always shrank instinctively from appearing ridiculous.</p> +<p>He had been thinking a great deal of late as to the best course to pursue in + ridding himself and Claire of this menacing incubus. He had a feeling that Claire, + having exhausted the novelties of her position as accompanist to Lily Condor, + was beginning to find the affair irksome.</p> +<p>The business venture had progressed in quite another direction from his original + intention. Suddenly, without knowing how it had all come about, he found his + plans clearly defined. The government needed him. Somehow, it had never occurred + to him that he could be of service at a point so far from the center of war + activities. He had been a good deal of an idler, it was true, but the seeds + of achievement were merely lying in fallow soil.</p> +<p>At first, he had been stung into action more by Claire's accusing attitude + than anything else. She used to come every other afternoon at the appointed + time and almost challenge him by her reproachful silence to do something, if + only to provide her with an illusion. It was as if she said:</p> +<p>"See, I have given in to you. I know that you are doing this for me, and + I am deeply grateful. But won't you please make the situation a little less + transparent? Won't you at least justify me in the eyes of those who are watching + our little performance?..."</p> +<p>It had all ended by his offering his services to the Food Administration. He + knew something of his father's business. He felt that he had a fair knowledge + of beans, and he could learn more. He merely asked a trial, and it surprised + him to find what a sense of humility suddenly possessed him. He was really overjoyed + when a place was assured him. But he had to admit that his acceptance was not + accorded any great enthusiasm. The newspapers mentioned it in a scant paragraph + that was not even given a prominent place. He had received greater recognition + for a brilliant play upon the golf-links! Well, in such stirring times he was + nobody. He did not complain, even to himself, but the knowledge subconsciously + rankled.</p> +<p>He hired an office down-town, joined the Commercial Club, religiously attended + every meeting that had to do with food conservation, hunted out, absorbed, appropriated + all the economic secrets that served his purpose.... Suddenly he found himself + engrossed, enthusiastic, <i>busy</i>! Finally Claire said to him one day:</p> +<p>"Don't you think I ought to come to you every afternoon?"</p> +<p>"If you can arrange it," he almost snapped back at her.</p> +<p>She did arrange it, how he took no pains to inquire, and a little later she + said again:</p> +<p>"You ought to have some one here all day. I guess you will have to look + for another stenographer."</p> +<p>He remembered how menacingly he had darted at her. She was dressed for the + street, on her way home, and she had halted at the door.</p> +<p>"Do you want to desert the work that you've inspired?" he demanded.</p> +<p>"Inspired?... By <i>me</i>?" Her voice took on a note of triumph.</p> +<p>"You didn't fancy that <i>I</i> inspired it, did you?" he sneered + at her.</p> +<p>His vehemence confused her. "I hadn't thought.... Really, you know.... + Well, as you say.... But, of course, it is absurd when you can get any number + of girls to...."</p> +<p>"But suppose I want <i>you</i>?" he demanded of her for a second + time.</p> +<p>She left without further reply.</p> +<p>When she was gone he found himself in a nasty panic. It was as if the lady + who had called him to her lists had suddenly decided upon a new defender.</p> +<p>"Is she tired of it all ... or is there some one else? Can it be possible + that Flint...."</p> +<p>He had stopped short, amazed to find his mind descending to such a vulgar level. + What had come over him? And he began to fancy things as they once had been—empty, + purposeless days, and nights that found him too bored to even sleep. It seemed + incredible that he could go back to them again. What lay at the bottom of his + sudden deep-breathed satisfaction with life? For an instant, the truth which + he had kept at bay with his old trick of evasion swept toward him.</p> +<p>"No ... no," he muttered. "Oh no!... That would be too absurd!"</p> +<p>But when he had gone to the mirror to brush his hair before venturing on the + street he found thick beads of perspiration on his forehead and his hand shook + as he lifted the comb.</p> +<p>The next day he told Claire that in the future her salary would be twenty dollars + a week. He stood expecting her to rail against the increase, to try to put him + to rout by explaining that she had received less for a full day's work at Flint's. + But to his surprise she thanked him and went on with her work.</p> +<p>It was shortly after this that he began to haunt the various performances in + which Lily Condor and Claire appeared. He always contrived to slip in during + the first number, which as a rule happened to be Mrs. Condor's offering, and + he sat in a far corner where nobody but that lady could have chanced upon him. + But he never knew her to fail in locating him, or to miss the opportunity to + sit out the remainder of the program at his side, or to suggest crab-legs Louis + at Tait's, particularly if Claire were determined upon an early leave-taking. + The effect of all this was not lost upon the general public, and it was not + long before men of Stillman's acquaintance used to remark facetiously to him + over the lunch-table:</p> +<p>"What's new in beans to-day?... Are <i>reds</i> still a favorite?"</p> +<p>Stillman would throw back an equally cryptic answer, thinking as he did so:</p> +<p>"What a wigging I must be getting over the teacups! I guess I'll cut it + all out in the future."</p> +<p>But he usually went no farther than his impulsive resolves.</p> +<p>Sometimes he wondered what Claire thought of his faithful appearance. Did she + fancy that he came to bask in the smiling impertinences of Lily Condor?</p> +<p>As he made his way to a street-car on this vivid February afternoon, he called + to mind that of late Claire had been bringing a fagged look to her daily tasks. + He hoped again that Mrs. Condor's desire to see him had to do with Claire—more + particularly with her dismissal as accompanist. Miss Menzies had quite recovered + and there was really no reason for Claire to continue in her service. It struck + him as he pondered all these matters how strange it was to find him concerned + about these feminine adjustments—he who had always stared down upon trivial + circumstances with cold scorn.</p> +<p>He arrived at Lily Condor's apartments almost upon the lady's heels. Her hat + was still ornamenting the center-table and her wrap lay upon a wicker rocker, + where, with a quick movement of irritation, it had been cast aside.</p> +<p>Her greeting was not reassuring. "Oh...." she began coldly. "Isn't + this rather late for lunch?"</p> +<p>"I'm really very sorry," Stillman returned as he took a chair, "but + to be frank, I quite forgot about you."</p> +<p>"Well," she tried to laugh back at him, "there isn't any virtue + as disagreeable as the truth. I expected you would at least attempt to be polite + enough to lie."</p> +<p>"I hope you were not too greatly inconvenienced," he said, in a deliberate + attempt to ignore her irritation.</p> +<p>"I waited two hours, if that is what you mean. But then, <i>my</i> time + isn't particularly valuable."</p> +<p>He rose suddenly. "I've told you that I was sorry," he began coldly, + reaching for his hat. "But evidently you are determined to be disagreeable. + I fancied you wanted to see me about something urgent, so I came almost as soon + as I remembered."</p> +<p>She snatched the discarded wrap from its place on the wicker rocker as she + glared at him. "You're in something of a hurry, it seems.... Well, I sha'n't + detain you. The truth is there's a pretty kettle of fish stewed up over this + young woman, Claire Robson.... I want you to tell her that she can't play at + the Café Chantant next Friday night."</p> +<p>"Want <i>me</i> to tell her? I don't see where I come in.... Why don't + you tell her yourself?"</p> +<p>"Because I don't choose to.... Besides, I think you might do it a little + more delicately. I can't tell her brutally that she isn't wanted."</p> +<p>"Isn't wanted? Why, what do you mean?"</p> +<p>"The committee informs me that she isn't the sort of person they are accustomed + to have featured in their entertainments. It seems that Mrs. Flint...."</p> +<p>"Mrs. Sawyer Flint?"</p> +<p>"Precisely."</p> +<p>"What is her objection?"</p> +<p>"Do you really want me to tell you?"</p> +<p>"Why not?"</p> +<p>"It appears that some time last fall Miss Robson tried to get her husband + into a compromising position. She came over to the house one night when Mrs. + Flint was away. Flint promptly ordered her out. It seems she went ... to be + quite frank ... with <i>you</i>. And what is more, she...."</p> +<p>"It isn't necessary for you to go any farther. Tell me, do you mean to + say that you believe this thing? Didn't you lift a hand to defend her?"</p> +<p>Lily Condor narrowed her eyes. "Oh, come now, Ned Stillman, don't be a + fool! You know as well as I do that I'm hanging on to my own reputation by my + finger-nails. I'm not taking any chances. As to whether it is so ... well, if + I were to tell the committee everything I know it wouldn't help her cause any. + I could wreck her reputation like that," she snapped her fingers, "with + one solitary fact. If she hasn't wrecked it already with her senseless chatter.... + Only last week her aunt, Mrs. Ffinch-Brown, said to me: 'So you're hiring my + niece! I must say that is handsome of you!' You were sitting talking to Claire + and she looked deliberately at you when she said it. Remember how I warned you, + last December. I told you then that the secret of a woman's meal-ticket was + never hidden very long."</p> +<p>During this speech Mrs. Condor's voice had dropped from its original tone of + petty rancor to one of petulant self-justification. Stillman knew at once that + her ill-temper had caught her off-guard and she was already trying to crawl + slowly back into his favor. She had meant, no doubt, to soften her news over + a glass or two of chilled white wine which she had counted on sipping during + the noon hour. She might even then have gone farther and decided to cast her + fortunes with Stillman and Claire if she had seen that her advantage lay in + that direction. He was not sure but that she still had some such notion in her + mind. But he felt suddenly sick of her past all hope of compromise, and he was + determined to be rid of her once and for all.</p> +<p>"No doubt," he said, frigidly, "you will be glad to be relieved + of Miss Robson's presence permanently. I take it that you don't consider her + association exactly ... well ... shall we say discreet?"</p> +<p>Her eyes took on a yellow tinge as she faced him. She must have sensed the + finality of his tone, the well-bred insolence that his query suggested.</p> +<p>"Discreet?" she echoed. "Well, I wouldn't say that that was + quite what I meant. Desirable—that would be better. I don't find her association + desirable.... I don't <i>want</i> her, in other words."</p> +<p>He had never been so angry in his life. Had she been a man he would have struck + her. He felt himself choking. "My dear Mrs. Condor," he warned, "will + you be good enough to take a little more respectful tone when you speak of Miss + Robson?"</p> +<p>"Oh, indeed! And just what are your rights in the matter? You're not her + brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't know that it was the + fashion for a...." His look stopped her. She trembled a moment, tossed + back her head, and finished, defiantly, "Yes, that is what I want to know, + what <i>are</i> your rights?"</p> +<p>He took a step toward her. Instinctively she retreated.</p> +<p>"A woman like you wouldn't understand even if I were to tell you," + he flung at her.</p> +<p>She covered her face with both hands.</p> +<p>He left the room.</p> +<p>He himself was trembling as he reached the street—trembling for the first + time in years. As a child he had been given to these fits of emotional tremors, + but he had long since lost the faculty for recording physically his intense + moments. Or had he lost the faculty for the intense moments themselves, he found + himself wondering, as he walked rapidly toward his home. The evening was warm + with the perfume of a bit of truant summer that had somehow escaped before its + time to hearten a winter-weary world against the bitter assaults of March. Birds + of passage sang among the hedges, the sun still cast a faint greenish glow in + the extreme west.</p> +<p>His first thought was of the cowering woman he had just left. He had meant + to lash her keenly with his verbal whipcords, but he had not expected to find + her quite so sensitive to his cutting scorn. He remembered the gesture with + which she had lifted her hand as if to screen herself from his insults. There + was a whole life of futile compromise in just the manner of that gesture, a + growing helplessness to give straightforward thrusts, a pitiful admission of + defeat. But he knew that this surrender was temporary—a quick lifting + of the mask under a relentless pressure. To-morrow, in an hour, in ten minutes, + Lily Condor would be her dangerous self again, lashed into the fury of a woman + scorned. For a moment he did not know whether to be relieved or dismayed at + the prospect of Mrs. Condor for an enemy. How much would she really dare?</p> +<p>He thought with a lowering anger of Flint. He had been ready to concede everything + but this former friend in the rôle of a cheap and nasty gossip. No—gossip + was a pale, sickly term. Flint was a malignant toad, a nauseous mud-slinger, + a deliberate liar. He had heard of men who had justified themselves with vile + tales to their insipid, disgustingly virtuous wives, but he had not counted + such among his acquaintances. By the side of Flint, Lily Condor loomed a very + paragon of the social amenities.</p> +<p>Stillman was conscious that his mental process was keyed to the highest pitch + of melodrama. It was not usual for him to indulge in mental abuse. He had never + quite understood the dark and moving processes of red-eyed anger. There had + been something absurd in the theatrical hauteur of his manner in this last scene + with Mrs. Condor—that is, if it were measured by his own standards. His + growing detachments from life had claimed him almost to the point of complete + indifference. But now, suddenly, as if Fate had dealt him an insulting blow + upon the face with her bare palm, he felt not only rage, but a sense of its + futility, its impotence.</p> +<p>"Flint!" he thought again. And immediately he spewed forth the memory + of this man in a flood of indiscriminate epithets.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Later, in the refuge of his own four walls and under the brooding solace of + an after-dinner cigar, he lost some of the intensiveness of his former humor. + But the force of the vehemence which had shaken him filled him with much wonder + and some apprehension. He was too much a man of experience to deny questions + when they were put to him squarely by circumstances.</p> +<p>"You're not her brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't + know it was the fashion for a...."</p> +<p>Lily Condor's clipped question struck him squarely now. Just what were his + expectations concerning Claire Robson? The thought turned him cold. Essentially + he was of Puritan mold, but he had always had a theory that love of illicit + pleasures must have been uncommonly strong in a people who found it necessary + to fight the flesh so uncompromisingly. Battling with the elements upon the + bleak shores of New England contributed, no doubt, to the gray and chastened + spirits that these grim folks had won for themselves; spirits that colored and + sometimes seeded swiftly under the softer skies of California. San Francisco + was full of these forced blooms consumed and withered by the sudden heat of + a free and traditionless life. He knew scores of old-timers—his father's + friends—who had been gloriously wrecked by the passion with which they + met freedom's kiss. They had pursued pleasure with an energy overtrained in + wrestling with the devil and had paid the penalty of all ardent souls lacking + the prudence of weakness. There was at once something fine and unlawful about + the spirit of adventure: it implied courage, impatience of restraint, wilfulness—in + short, all the virtues and vices of strength. He had felt at times the heritage + of this strength, shorn of its power by the softness of a wilderness that had + been wooed instead of conquered. His forefathers had found California a waiting, + gracious bride, but there had been almost a suggestion of the courtezan in the + lavishness of this land's response to the caresses of the invaders.</p> +<p>There was something fantastic in the memory of his father, fresh from the austere + dawns of the little fishing village of Gloucester, transplanted suddenly to + the wine-red sunsets of the Golden Gate. He felt that his father must have had + the courage for substance-wasting without the temptation. Most men in those + early days had plunged unyoked into the race—Ezra Stillman brought his + bride, and therefore his household goods, with him, and unconsciously custom + drew its restraining rein tight. Ezra Stillman came from a long line of salt-seasoned + tempters of the sea; their virtues had been rugged and their vices equally robust; + sin with them had been gaunt, sinewy, unlovely; there was nothing insinuating + and soft about the lure of pleasure in that silver-nooned environment. Ezra + had been the first of this long line to turn his back upon the sea, and the + land had rewarded him lavishly as if determined to make his capture complete. + Yet, he was not landsman enough to wrest a living direct from the soil; instead, + he set up his booth in the market-place of the town and trafficked in spoils + of the field, in full view of the impatient ships tugging at their anchor-chains. + While others dug for gold, or garnered the yellowing grain, or built railroads, + Ezra Stillman sat in his modest office and sold beans and potatoes and onions, + playing the rôle of merchant, husband, and father with genial and unsensational + success—a man of potential lawlessness, robbed of all wolfish tendencies + by the sobering influence of domestic responsibility, after the manner of a + shepherd-dog broken to guard the flock.</p> +<p>Ned Stillman used to wonder how much of this smoldering lawlessness had been + transmitted to him; for was not there an added heritage from his thin-lipped + mother who came of as hardy and masterful a stock as her husband?</p> +<p>Smoldering lawlessness—to-night the phrase struck him sharply. He had + failed at many points, but he had held uncompromisingly to his duty, almost + with a fury of self-conscious puritanical fanaticism. His wife ... yes, he had + always done his duty by her—more than his duty. Then, what was to prevent + him from gathering such flowers as he might.... Up to a point he could still + play the game squarely. <i>Up to a point!</i></p> +<p>He turned in futile anger and weariness from such thoughts to the tinkling + refuge of the evening paper.... Ah, the Russian Ballet was opening at the Valencia + Theater on Friday night! A fragrant memory of Paris blew in upon the breath + of this announcement—Paris, eternally young and as eternally glamorous! + And glancing swiftly at the next column, he chanced upon a full account of this + tiresome Café Chantant business that had occasioned so much bother ... + <i>for the benefit of the French Tobacco Fund</i>—France again!</p> +<p>Suddenly he grew thoughtful.</p> +<p>"A box for the Ballet and a table for the Café Chantant.... I'll + ask Edington and his sister ... that ought to make things look right.... Gad! + how the old ladies will stare!"</p> +<p>He threw the paper down and, as he chuckled, little malicious gleams darted + from his eyes. He would show them, all of them! And as for <i>her</i>.... What + did he expect?... He wanted her, wanted her, <i>wanted her</i>! And yet.... + Smoldering lawlessness.... Yes ... he would chance everything now, even that.</p> +<a name="I_XIII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3> +<p>The Russian Ballet opened with what was called on the program, "A ballet + comi-dramatic by Warslav Nijinsky, entitled '<i>Till Eulenspiegel</i>.'" + It would have been more to the point to have scheduled it as a pantomime; at + least, such a course would have proved somewhat illuminating to an audience + a little in the dark concerning the nature of the entertainment to be set before + it. San Francisco, schooled in the memory of hectic opera seasons with their + inevitable pirouetting, tarlatan-skirted ballets, had come to the performance + with a rather set notion as to what it had a right to expect. True, barefoot + dancers by the score had swept in upon the town, and it had been ravished by + the combined charms of Pavlova and Mordkin, but all of these novelties at least + had ministered to an unsophisticated desire to see the principals starred in + big type on the program and constantly in the limelight. Therefore when the + curtain fell upon a ballet that was neither danced nor postured, and with the + leading dancer of the troupe remaining in the picture instead of an arresting + and flamboyant spot upon it, there was little wonder that the applause was at + once perfunctory and puzzled.</p> +<p>Neither the dancers nor their new art was any novelty to Ned Stillman. He had + seen both in Paris, and again in New York. But he had to confess that this third + view was proving the most enjoyable of all, and he was amused and a trifle supercilious + at the air of frank disapproval throughout the audience. Indeed, he became so + interested in analyzing his fellow-townsmen's attitude that momentarily he forgot + his box party was a challenge to any and all who cared to interest themselves + in discovering his guests.</p> +<p>So far he had not been conscious of a single pair of opera-glasses turned their + way and he began to feel at once cheated, but, if the truth were told, a trifle + relieved. He knew almost as soon as he had committed to the venture that it + was cheap and in bad taste, and yet he could not bring himself to the point + of acknowledging his mistake. He had an uncomfortable feeling also that Claire + Robson was facing the ordeal of a box with silent heroism, not that she was + a woman vulgar enough to dread a conspicuous position in itself, but because + she had an instinctive sense of what was fitting. He had not mentioned a box + party when he had first asked her. He merely had said:</p> +<p>"How would you like a night off Friday?"</p> +<p>"A night off? I'm scheduled for a turn with Mrs. Condor."</p> +<p>"Well, and if she should be willing to let you go?"</p> +<p>She had assented eagerly, and when he mentioned the Russian Ballet she gave + a cry of delight.</p> +<p>"Edington and his sister, Mrs. Forsythe, are going, too," he explained, + rather hastily. "I.... I got a box this morning."</p> +<p>"A box?" Her voice had risen dubiously.</p> +<p>"There's nothing else left that is decent," he had lied to her.</p> +<p>But he saw that she was far from happy at the prospect, although she was too + proud to voice any further protests.</p> +<p>Curiously enough, even Phil Edington had demurred.</p> +<p>"A box? What's the big idea? Why don't you get some seats in the orchestra?... + Oh, I don't care a rap! Do as you want, but I thought that perhaps...."</p> +<p>At that point he had begun to grow irritated; he decided obstinately that his + guests would either go in a box or remain at home.</p> +<p>Well, they had come in a box, and the audience appeared to be ignoring them. + He had expected something more brilliant in the way of an assembly, but the + house was dressed, on the whole, rather illy for the occasion, as San Francisco + audiences quite often are. To begin with, the Valencia Theater was out of the + beaten path, and a heavy rain was falling. This had the effect of making the + prudent and frugal, who were denied the comfort of either limousines or taxis, + decide on street costume instead of evening fripperies. Only the very smartest + people could afford to ignore the elements, and even these were obliged to withstand + the chill of a draughty playhouse by snuggling close into their opera cloaks + and thus concealing the bare throats and flashing jewels that a more comfortable + environment might have disclosed. On the whole, he was disappointed. One of + his reasons for deciding upon a box was to give Claire the treat of a scintillating + audience seen from a perfect vantage-point. But he had forgotten that his native + town rarely dazzled the spectators except for grand opera at staggering prices, + and even then there were always plenty of recalcitrant males in their business + suits to spoil the picture. San Francisco had not yet reached the point where + its men consciously and as a whole dressed for the occasion; there was still + the sneer of effeminacy directed at those who insisted on taking seriously the + matter of suitable raiment.</p> +<p>To-night Claire had made an effort at extreme simplicity. She was in severe + black, open slightly at the throat, and a large artificial pink rose added a + single note of color. Having no jewels, she wore none, and her hair fell away + from her brow in a grace utterly natural and charming. He had always thought + of her hair vaguely as dark—to-night, standing just behind her where the + light searched out its half-tones, he discovered glinting bits that ran all + the way from burnished copper to shining gold. During the first number she sat + slightly forward, intent on letting no detail escape. When the curtain fell + upon the whimsical Till dangling from a gibbet in the medieval market-place, + Stillman leaned forward and said:</p> +<p>"What do you think of it?"</p> +<p>He did not realize how much it meant to have her strike just the proper note, + until his heart bounded with satisfaction at her frank and unstudied answer:</p> +<p>"I really don't know, Mr. Stillman. It's so different. You see, I was + looking for something more...."</p> +<p>She stopped suddenly as if it occurred to her that, after all, she could not + say precisely just what she had been looking for. "But it's tremendously + interesting, of course," she hastened to add.</p> +<p>He glowed even at her eagerness to make him understand that she was finding + her very indecision a joy.</p> +<p>"Yes, it was the same with me ... at first," he reassured her. "I've + seen this all before, you know ... abroad and in New York. Not precisely this + act, but something along the same lines."</p> +<p>"I almost missed placing Nijinsky," she hesitated. "It was all + rather mystical and vague.... And those subdued lights.... I wish I could see + it all again, now that I've caught my breath. It ... it rather...."</p> +<p>"Dazzles one," supplemented Stillman, leaning nearer and nearer.</p> +<p>A tremor ran through her and he realized with a start that his breath was falling + heavily upon her bare neck. He drew back. Mrs. Forsythe had stopped in a casual + survey of the house to fix upon an object of interest. She dropped the glasses + into her lap as she turned toward Stillman:</p> +<p>"Who can that be, down there in the lower box, staring so at us?" + she asked, indicating the position with an exaggerated glance.</p> +<p>Stillman stood up.</p> +<p>"The man with the bald head?" he heard Claire volunteer. "Why, + that is Mr. Flint—Mr. Sawyer Flint."</p> +<p>"Why, yes, of course," he caught Mrs. Forsythe drawling in a tone + of self-confessed stupidity. "Anybody ought to know him."</p> +<p>"Or his wife," broke in Edington. "One can't miss her.... Now, + <i>she's</i> getting the habit. I declare everybody seems to be interested. + I guess it's you, Miss Robson. You must be the attraction."</p> +<p>"The orchestra has come back," Stillman announced, deliberately. + "What's next?"</p> +<p>"'<i>Papillons</i>,' a ballet in one act," Edington called out, reading + from his program.</p> +<p>"Music by Robert Schumann," supplemented Mrs. Forsythe.</p> +<p>"Ah, now we shall see the wonderful Bolm!" Stillman said to Claire. + "They say he's the finest pantomimist on the stage." She turned slightly + toward him with a movement of appeal. "What is it?" he whispered.</p> +<p>"Just Flint," she answered, grasping his wrist in a swift, backward + gesture. "He keeps on staring."</p> +<p>"What? Shall we change places?"</p> +<p>"No. That would be too.... It's no matter. What did you say the star's + name was?... There, the curtain is going up!"</p> +<p>Stillman fell back, but as he did so he took a sweeping survey of the lower + box. Flint was still staring, and his wife was doing a great deal of vehement + talking and head-shaking to the other women sharing their hospitality.</p> +<p>"<i>Papillons</i>" proved more in the conventional manner and it + was charmingly danced by a score of pretty girls in early-eighteenth-century + costume, and wonderfully acted by Bolm in the character of Pierrot. The audience + warmed unmistakably at this number, and, the draughts somewhat subsiding, a + few venturesome ladies decided to shed their wraps. Chatter became more general + and less controversial; the house began to look about, taking note of itself, + assuming the critical airs of a peacock staring at its own reflection. Opera-glasses + circled the occupants of the boxes, and Stillman tried to single out all those + who let their gaze linger an insolent length of time upon his party. But the + occupants of Flint's box kept casting furtive glances in Claire's direction, + and Flint himself continued to look up every now and then, reaching for the + glasses, which always seemed in his wife's possession, every time he did so. + Stillman felt his anger rising. He knew that Claire was annoyed, but she had + recovered her poise and began to talk enthusiastically about the second number.</p> +<p>"I understood that better." She smiled at Stillman. "I know + the music, too. That always helps a great deal, don't you think?... What a tragic + face Bolm has! I thought his gesture of remorse at having broken the butterfly's + wing wonderfully expressive. Didn't you? The costumes were quaint and lovely. + Oh, I can't tell you how glad I am that I came!"</p> +<p>"La <i>Princesse Enchantée</i>," a duet featuring Nijinsky, + came next, and a gorgeous spectacle entitled "Cleopatra" concluded + the performance. By this time the audience had recovered its good-nature and + it poured forth into the violent shower with much animation and no end of laughter. + Stillman had ordered his car for eleven o'clock, but through some mischance + it was at least fifteen minutes late in appearing. This meant that his party + stood huddled in a little group by the box-office railing, and every one who + passed gave them either casual or pointed glances. Claire, lacking a suitable + wrap, looked rather disconsolate and dowdy in a long black ulster. Stillman + felt annoyed. As luck would have it, the Flints were for some reason in the + same predicament. They had swept bravely past to their intended swift departure, + only to find the call for their car unanswered, and had fallen back on the opposite + side of the foyer. Over the sea of faces the two groups stood and unconsciously + glared at one another—at least Stillman glared for his party, and Flint, + sensing his friend's antagonism, returned the compliment with added insolence.</p> +<p>Stillman's car came first.</p> +<p>Mrs. Forsythe, starting on ahead with Edington, called a gay farewell across + the now empty entrance-way to Mrs. Flint. The latter responded with freezing + politeness. Stillman gave Claire his arm. Flint broke into a laugh and turned + with a shrug to his wife.</p> +<p>Stillman heard the laugh and stopped short. He released Claire's arm and left + her standing almost in the drip of the awnings as he turned and walked rapidly + toward Flint.</p> +<p>"Will you be good enough to quit staring?" he said distinctly. "Your + attentions to my party have been extremely annoying all evening."</p> +<p>Flint looked at first stunned, then rather frightened. Stillman was conscious + that Edington had come up to him and was pulling at his coat sleeve.</p> +<p>Mrs. Forsythe and Claire were just stepping into the machine when the two men + followed. Stillman took his place beside Claire and he felt the trembling pressure + of her body as he reached over and slammed the door. Mrs. Forsythe made no comment.... + It was Edington who broke the silence.</p> +<p>"That Russian stuff may be art," he broke out, "but I'll take + a George M. Cohan rag-time revue any day!"</p> +<hr /> +<p>Stillman's brush with Flint was only the beginning of a series of misadventures. + At the Café Chantant it happened that the Flint table was next to the + Stillman party. Flint had recovered his bravado and he ordered another table + in unmistakable tones. It followed that every one in the room turned their attention + to the late-comers, and it was not long after Flint had been escorted in triumph + to a remote location that Stillman became aware how many eyes were being turned + at him and Claire Robson.</p> +<p>Presently Lily Condor sang, accompanied by Miss Menzies. Stillman knew that + she had sighted them with her usual keen eye, but he also saw that she was determined + to ignore Claire's friendly glances. When she finished she swept from the improvised + platform and walked deliberately past Stillman, seating herself at the table + which the Flints had deserted. Miss Menzies followed. Claire, turning after + them with a wistful look of recognition, bowed to Lily Condor as she took her + seat. The lady stared coldly ahead and beckoned a waiter. Claire blushed.</p> +<p>"What do you suppose," she said in a low voice to Stillman. "Are + you quite sure it was all right ... my deserting Mrs. Condor to-night? Perhaps + I ought to have rung her up myself. But you said...."</p> +<p>Stillman ordered wine. Edington chattered flippantly. Dancing commenced. Stillman + pushed back his chair and said to Claire:</p> +<p>"Shall we begin?"</p> +<p>She rose in answer, and they swung into a one-step. He could feel her trembling + under the glances which he realized were coming from every part of the room. + What was she imagining, he wondered. As they circled about for the second time, + Stillman became conscious that some one was walking across the floor in a deliberate + attempt to waylay them. He stopped. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown stood before them. She + had a deceitfully sweet smile on her lips and her small eyes were full of malicious + determination.</p> +<p>"My dear Mr. Stillman ... will you excuse me?" she said. "I + want a word with Claire ... about something important. Otherwise I shouldn't + have interrupted. You'll understand."</p> +<p>He released Claire and she went to the edge of the dancing-space. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown + turned her back upon Stillman, but Claire's face was unscreened from his gaze. + Whatever Mrs. Ffinch-Brown was saying, Claire made no reply. The younger woman + paled a trifle, Stillman thought, but otherwise she gave no sign. She returned + to Stillman and they finished the dance. As he held her hand, he could feel + her pulse beating with something more than the exertion of dancing.</p> +<p>Edington had been taking a turn himself with his sister.</p> +<p>"Did you know," he volunteered by way of conversation, "that + there had been a devil of a row among the women running this show? Sis says + that she understands they almost pulled one another's hair in committee over + some performer that Mrs. Flint didn't think desirable. That woman and her prejudices + are a scream! I'll bet it was some pretty girl caught making eyes at the old + man. Well, here's looking at you!"</p> +<p>They all lifted their glasses. Claire's hand trembled.</p> +<p>After that things grew more and more confused. He was wondering what Mrs. Ffinch-Brown + had found to say to her niece, and staring at Claire, when she leaned over toward + him with a gesture of apology and said:</p> +<p>"I don't want to break up your party, Mr. Stillman, but really I think + I must be going. My mother, you know.... She wasn't so well to-day. It doesn't + seem right for me to stay here enjoying myself ... under the circumstances."</p> +<p>It had ended in their all leaving, Mrs. Forsythe pleading boredom and Edington + insisting that he had planned to get home fairly early to go over his draft + questionnaire.</p> +<p>"When you see me again, Miss Robson, it's just possible that I'll be a + very grand party in uniform," Edington had announced, lightly, as they + rose from the table.</p> +<p>In the coat-room he said to Stillman:</p> +<p>"You ought to go slow, Ned.... That Miss Robson is a nice girl."</p> +<p>"Slow? What do you mean?"</p> +<p>"Just what I say.... She's a nice girl, I tell you—a damned nice + girl!"</p> +<p>Stillman smiled disagreeably.... He remembered a time when he would have resented + Edington's cryptic insinuations, but now he merely smiled, a wide smile, which + a betraying mirror duplicated unpleasantly. At the departure of Edington and + his sister he turned to Claire significantly:</p> +<p>"Are you really ready to go home?"</p> +<p>She turned a very candid gaze upon him. "No, I can't say that I am."</p> +<p>"Where shall it be, then?"</p> +<p>"Anywhere," she answered, almost passionately. "Anywhere at + all."</p> +<p>"Let's go to Tait's ... <i>first</i>!"</p> +<p>She assented indifferently, and presently Tait's was an accomplished pilgrimage. + They had chosen to go up-stairs to the Pavo Real. At this hour there was still + a fair crush going through the motions of dancing upon a crowded floor and the + scene assaulted Stillman's perceptions with a suggestion of flashy squalor. + It seemed an impossible place in which to indulge a mood, but he suffered the + steward to find them a small table in a far corner. He ordered a Bénédictine + and brandy for himself, Claire compromised on a crème de menthe, frappéed. + The pale green of this last rather innocuous drink shone out like a bit of liquid + jade against the black of Claire's gown as she bent over for a momentary sip. + To Stillman there had always been a heavy-lidded suggestion about the stilly-green + beauty of jade, a beauty glamorous with the Orient, white-heated as noon and + as cold as the yellow glances of the moon. And, sitting there, he remembered + the family tradition of a Stillman in the days when the first ships had come + from China, their holds bursting with strange treasures and the haunting odors + of sandalwood, a Stillman who brought a slave-girl back to affront and shock + the staid provincials of his native town.... Presently the green liquid was + gone and only the cool, white trickle of melting ice remained in the tiny glass + opposite his. Claire moved this symbol of spent delights to one side.</p> +<p>"I suppose you know," she said, calmly, "why I left the Palace + Hotel to-night."</p> +<p>He was not sure.</p> +<p>"My aunt asked me to leave.... She was very polite about it ... and very + cutting. It appears I'm not quite their sort."</p> +<p>"No?" Stillman found himself laughing uneasily. "How gratified + you must be!"</p> +<p>She put out a hand across the table, laying it lightly on his arm.</p> +<p>"Listen. It's really nothing to be flippant about.... Not that I care, + in a way. But really, you know, you should have told me about—about that + little arrangement with Mrs. Condor."</p> +<p>"Ah, then they dragged that in, too!" escaped him. "Your aunt + must be a rapid talker!"</p> +<p>"Oh, it doesn't take long to cover the ground when one female relation + decides to be nasty to another.... And, then, I'm not quite a fool—<i>now</i>.... + Understand, I'm not blaming you ... but it would have been fairer if I had known."</p> +<p>He leaned forward eagerly. "Would you, in that case, have...."</p> +<p>"It's possible," she broke in suddenly. "Of course I've suspected + something from the first ... and ... well, as a matter of fact...." She + shrugged and reached again for her frappé, sliding a cherry from the + crumpled straw, drooping over the glass's rim, toward her mouth. Stillman found + the gesture charming, but he was not sure whether her answer suited him or not. + Of course, she had seen through and accepted the transparencies of his first + business ruse. But she also had subtly urged its justification. In this case.... + In other words, she <i>might</i> accept gratuities under pressure! He felt that + he was narrowing his spiritual eyes as he watched her cutting the bright red + of the cherry with her white lips.</p> +<p>"And then," she went on, suddenly, touching the soft ice in the glass + before her with a shrinking finger, "aside from everything else, what you + planned to-night was stupid.... How could you have imagined that I cared."</p> +<p>"That <i>you</i> cared!" He felt that he was laughing with sneering + bitterness. "Do you always think of <i>yourself</i>? How about me? What + if <i>I</i> cared? It's possible, you know—just possible!"</p> +<p>She brought her hands suddenly up in a movement of clasped defense. He hung + on her reply with white-lipped eagerness.</p> +<p>"Possible?..." she echoed. "They say anything is possible, but + ... somehow men...."</p> +<p>She threw him a glance of thinly veiled mockery. His tension relaxed. She had + merely parried the blow and he felt disappointed.</p> +<p>"I realize now," she went on, "what a frightful nuisance I've + been.... The first time we met.... I was in trouble then, I remember. That sort + of thing grows to be a habit.... You meant it for the best, of course, but this + time you pushed me in pretty far ... I mean into your debt. I wish I knew how + I could repay you."</p> +<p>"I'm willing to accept a deferred payment," he chaffed. "I'll + take your note.... I'm very patient at waiting."</p> +<p>She looked at him clearly, almost too clearly, as if in one flashing moment + she saw behind the mask of his banter.... He began to wonder ... had he hoped + to have her flinch, recoil, or was this cool calm more acceptable?</p> +<p>"I see," she was saying, "you're determined to plunge me in + deeper and deeper, until one day ... well, one day I'll be a bankrupt, won't + I?"</p> +<p>He leaned across the trivial width of the table and he put two burning hands + upon her icy-cold fingers. "Ah, but think how rich <i>I</i> shall be!"</p> +<p>She said nothing. She did not even draw back from his scorching touch. But + this time she lowered her eyes, twisting in her left hand the crumpled straw + divested of its gaudy sweetmeat.... She was a tired woman, he could see that + plainly—a tired woman ... considering. And he was not even moved to pity.</p> +<p>"Come," he said, roughly. "Let's get out of <i>this</i> ghastly + hole."</p> +<p>She rose with a fluttering movement that gave him the impression of a trapped + bird. They made their way out in silence. A great primitive eagerness struck + down every acquired virtue within him. He put his hand at her elbow and held + it tight. He felt that she had clenched her fist.</p> +<p>In the doorway she shrank back suddenly as he stood waiting to lift her into + the flaming yellow taxi answering their call. He retraced his steps.</p> +<p>"What.... Are you ill?"</p> +<p>"No ... for the moment I thought I saw.... Really it's of no consequence!"</p> +<p>He narrowed his eyes upon her. She was lying ... it was of consequence! He + felt very ugly.... A man had just brushed past and now he stood with a finger + upon the elevator bell, waiting.</p> +<p>Claire darted out and gained the taxi.... Stillman followed. As he swung open + the door for her he felt her almost leap into its depths. Once inside, she faced + him, barring the eagerness of his entrance with a defiant arm.</p> +<p>"Go away!" she cried, in a sudden terror. "Go away! Can't you + see?... It's all over, I tell you!"</p> +<p>"All over?" He squared himself doggedly.</p> +<p>"Yes," she said, thickly. "Go away.... You had better go ... + to ... <i>to your wife</i>!"</p> +<p>He fell back as if she had given him a sharp push. His hat had fallen to the + ground. He stooped to pick it up. He heard the door slam and saw the taxi shoot + forward into the sadly glamorous beauty of the night.... He was alone!</p> +<p>He strode back into the café entrance. The man was still waiting before + the door of the tardy elevator. Stillman went up and put an insinuating hand + upon his shoulder. The man turned.</p> +<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon," Stillman stammered. "I thought you + were.... I see I am mistaken. Pray forgive me!"</p> +<p>A flash of white teeth answered Stillman's apology. The door of the elevator + opened. The stranger entered.</p> +<p>Stillman turned away. Where had he seen that face before? Where?... Oh yes, + the Serbian who had....</p> +<p>He felt cold.... The whole thing was absurd. Yet, she had seen some one who.... + He lit a cigarette.... Suddenly he laughed a smothered, choking, unpleasant + laugh.</p> +<p>He decided to go home.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Book II</h2> +<a name="II_I"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> +<p>"It ain't exactly what you would call a society job, Robson, but it will + pay the milkman and the baker, and that's something."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead kicked off a shoe that she had unbuttoned, resting her unshod + foot upon a chair as she sighed with luxurious satisfaction.</p> +<p>Claire Robson began to draw down the shades. A cold March rain was falling + outside and Claire felt that her shabby living-room seemed less bleak with the + night shut out. For the past three weeks Nellie Whitehead had been the only + point of contact with the outside world and Claire had grown to listen eagerly + for the three quick rings at the door-bell which announced her solitary visitor. + There was something about Nellie Whitehead which usually revived Claire's drooping + spirits to an extraordinary degree, but to-night she felt no reaction to the + slightly acrid optimism of her friend.</p> +<p>"A job?" Claire questioned, increduously, seating herself. "I'm + ready for anything in reason. Only.... Well, the truth is, the Finnegans are + moving. I heard about it to-day. I'll have to hire some one to look after mother, + and...." Her hands lifted and dropped in hopeless resignation.</p> +<p>"It ain't an office job," pursued Miss Whitehead; "it's playing + the piano. You know that little friend I told you about who sings at Tait's?... + Well, she had an offer to sing in the same place. But of course she's in pretty + soft where she is."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead was not given to indirectness, and Claire had a feeling that + for some reason her friend was finding it advisable to lead up to her project + rather cautiously.</p> +<p>"I'm ready for anything," she repeated.</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead settled back comfortably. "I suppose I might just as + well quit beating around the bush. You see, it isn't such a snap for the real + professional ... otherwise it wouldn't be going begging. It's ... it's in a + Greek café on Third Street."</p> +<p>A Greek café on Third Street! Claire Robson stared in amazement at her + friend. For a moment she had a feeling that Nellie Whitehead must be joking. + Claire Robson had heard of such places. Professional reformers always found + them a perennial source of exploitation when the vice crop in other quarters + failed, and every now and then the newspapers discovered, to their horror, that + young and tender girls were being hired to serve Turkish coffee and almond syrup + to the patrons of the Greek coffee-houses. Indeed, Claire had once listened + to an eager young woman describe for the young people's section of the Home + Missionary Society all the pitfalls to the weaker sex which lurked in this godless + section of the community where men drank thick coffee and smoked cigarettes + and even kissed pretty girls on provocation. Claire had never been prone to + pass snap judgment, but the very word Greek had an outlandish sound, and it + seemed quite possible that everything that had been said about the evils of + the Greek quarter must have some basis. Even the term Greek labor which she + chanced upon again and again in the daily news was full of sinister suggestion. + And she had a flashing picture of this café in search of a pianist crowded + with heavily-booted, sweating humanity fresh from construction-camps and fields.</p> +<p>"Well ... I don't know," she finally faltered. "I fancy they + won't find <i>my</i> playing to their taste."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead sat up challengingly. "You mean you don't find playing + in a Greek café to <i>your</i> taste.... As a matter of fact, I'm not + keen about suggesting such a thing to you. But lots of girls make a living that + way, and even if they don't move in select circles they're pretty human."</p> +<p>"Oh, it isn't the café side of it," Claire protested; "it's + the ... the...."</p> +<p>"The Greek side of it, eh? Well, as a matter of fact, Robson, I guess + a Greek café ain't any worse than what my little friend calls 'one of + them gilded vice-cages....' And even at that, any girl who lasted six weeks + in the private office of Sawyer Flint, Esquire, has run up against as much fancy + roller-skating as she's apt to. If you managed to keep your balance on a slippery + floor like that, I guess you'll be good for a spin on the asphalt pavement any + day in the week. It may be a little bit rougher, but it ain't a bit more dangerous. + In fact, I shouldn't wonder whether there wasn't a good deal more elbow room."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead leaned back again and closed her eyes. Claire was silent. + There was no logical answer to her friend's shrewd estimate, but prejudice dies + hard and Claire was still in the bondage of a vague distrust for the unknown.</p> +<p>"Good Lord! I know how you feel!" Miss Whitehead went on with a sudden + genial air of understanding. "I remember when I had my first Italian dinner + at Lombardi's. I thought the man who invited me had a grudge against my appetite. + Honest, in those days if you mentioned spaghetti most folks thought you were + talking about a deadly disease. And now...." Nellie Whitehead finished + with an eloquent and descriptive sweep of hands.</p> +<p>Claire put a thoughtful finger to her lips and was silent. After all, what + did it matter where she worked or what she did? She felt a dangerous indifference, + a negative contempt for life.</p> +<p>"I guess you're right," she said, finally, with a sudden hardening + of voice that made Nellie Whitehead look up quickly. "One can get accustomed + to almost anything. Where did you say the café was?"</p> +<hr /> +<p>Claire went next morning before nine o'clock to look up the Greek café + on Third Street. It was a raw, blustering, traditional March day, and she pulled + her shabby cloak about her in a vain attempt to shut out a chill which seemed + somehow to be clutching at her very heart. It was years since she had ventured + south of Market, and she was surprised to find its old atmosphere quite vanished. + She remembered the section of the town beyond Mission Street as a squalid mass + of tumbledown houses out of which issued a perennial stream of shawl-cloaked + women carrying empty white pitchers to the nearest corner grocery and retracing + their steps with the pitchers half hidden in the folds of the aforesaid shawls, + from which dripped betraying flecks of foam. Third Street was now by no means + an opulent thoroughfare, but it had the virtue of a certain cheap newness. The + frowsy women were no more. It was undeniably a street of men, stretching out + in a succession of lodging-houses, saloons, and cheap eating-places. Past Howard + Street the Greek coffee-houses began. Claire looked in at them curiously. In + the drowse of morning they seemed very lifeless and still. She noted, as she + passed, the prim rows of marble-topped tables with their old-fashioned call-bells + for signaling the waiter, the window-plants turning sickly green faces toward + the sun, the line of Oriental water-pipes setting in their racks over the coffee-shelves. + One café seemed very much like another, and in spite of the extreme simplicity + of their equipment they contrived to shed an air fascinating and strange.</p> +<p>Claire hurried on, eager to be through with the suspense of this plunge into + bizarre life which she could not realize would ever be her portion. She was + carrying the whole thing through in a spirit of bravado, and she was conscious + that her hopes leaned unmistakably toward finding the position filled or her + qualifications not up to the mark. Her glimpses into the coffee-houses led her + to expect that the café she was in search of might be some such place. + She was surprised then to come upon a totally different institution in the shape + of what appeared to be a saloon as she halted before the number that corresponded + to the address on the card she was carrying. Café Ithaca—she read + the sign twice before venturing through the swinging doors.</p> +<p>A long mahogany-colored bar ran the full length of the room; small tables fully + set for a meal filled the rest of the floor space. Claire decided at once upon + retreat. But suddenly at the back of the room a green curtain parted and a man + came toward her. He had a pale, round face and a mass of black hair that reminded + Claire of pictures of John the Baptist.</p> +<p>"I am looking for the proprietor," Claire began, desperately.</p> +<p>The man brought his right hand toward his heart, letting his head fall in salutation. + Claire took courage.</p> +<p>"I understand ... it seems you are looking for a pianist." The man + stared and bowed again. "To play.... Do you understand ... I play?" + She began instinctively to make the proper descriptive motions with her fingers.</p> +<p>"Ah, yes! Thank you ... thank you!" The man continued to keep his + hand over his heart and to bow deeply.</p> +<p>The sound of hammering floated from the space screened by the green curtains. + The man called to some one. A waiter appeared. The two conversed long and volubly. + Finally the waiter, turning to Claire, said, in excellent English:</p> +<p>"Mr. Lycurgus does not understand very well. What is it you want?"</p> +<p>"I hear he is looking for a pianist," Claire returned.</p> +<p>"Oh yes. In the back ... the piano is there."</p> +<p>The three passed through the screened opening and Claire found herself in a + huge room still in the process of being put into shape as a café in the + American fashion.</p> +<p>"Mr. Lycurgus," the waiter explained to Claire, "is fixing up + a swell place here. He bought a piano yesterday. After a while, when he gets + a permit, we shall have dancing. We want now somebody to play ... from six o'clock + to twelve."</p> +<p>Claire sat down to the piano. It was new and had a good tone. She ran over + a simple negro melody. The proprietor smiled and bowed again. "Thank you! + Thank you!" he kept repeating. Then he and the waiter began to talk again. + Claire waited.... She had to admit that the prospects were not so terrible. + And she rather liked Mr. Lycurgus with his sweeping and naïve bows and + his thick clustering black hair.</p> +<p>Finally the waiter turned to her and said:</p> +<p>"Do you sing?"</p> +<p>"Yes ... a little." And she made good her words with a sentimental + trifle that her mother had taught her years ago.</p> +<p>The waiter and the proprietor talked again.</p> +<p>"He thinks you will do, and he will pay you twenty dollars a week," + the waiter finally announced.</p> +<p>Claire rose from the piano stool.</p> +<p>"Thank you ... thank you!" said the proprietor.</p> +<p>"Thank <i>you</i>," replied Claire, at a loss for anything better + to say.</p> +<p>"Can you begin to-night?"</p> +<p>Claire hesitated. "Yes," she answered.</p> +<p>And as she said it she had a feeling that she suddenly had been transported + miles from all the familiar scenes and faces that had previously made up her + life.</p> +<hr /> +<p>She returned to the café promptly at six o'clock. But on this first + night there was really nothing to do. The carpenters were still busily laying + a tiny hardwood dancing-floor and a smell of fresh paint enveloped everything. + Claire contented herself with sitting idly at the piano and peering through + the green-curtained entrance into the saloon. The situation was still an extraordinary + one for her and she had not yet grasped it. The tables in the saloon proper + were crowded with diners, all men, and a huge orchestrion was grinding out strange + and unfamiliar melodies. She was not near enough to get any estimate of the + diners as individuals, but she had to confess that the composite impression + they made was far from unpleasant. They ate frankly and with despatch as men + in groups, undisturbed by feminine companionship, do the world over. She noticed + two things particularly—they all had extraordinary thick black hair and + their white teeth flashed pleasantly when they smiled.</p> +<p>At eight o'clock the proprietor came in and stood before her. The waiter was + behind him. Mr. Lycurgus in halting English was inviting her to have something + to eat. She was not hungry, but she decided to see what sort of cheer the Café + Ithaca provided.</p> +<p>The waiter cleared away some tools which the workmen had scattered on a side-table + and began to lay the cloth. Claire sat down and Mr. Lycurgus took a place opposite + her. Anchovies and ripe olives with a bitter but fascinating taste came first, + followed by a delicious soup flavored with lemon. Claire began to feel hungry. + The waiter explained the ingredients of the soup to her as she was finishing + the last mouthful.</p> +<p>"Chicken broth and the white of egg with paste and a dash of lemon," + he announced. Then he set a huge portion of boiled lamb before her, stewed up + with rice and lettuce leaves. It was plain that they were providing something + extra in the way of fare for her.</p> +<p>Mr. Lycurgus, who had eaten earlier in the evening, seemed to be keeping her + company from a sense of naïve and charming hospitality. Claire tried to + think of what to say to him. Finally she hit upon a subject.</p> +<p>"What part of Greece do you come from?" she asked.</p> +<p>He was uncertain as to her question, but the waiter translated it quickly. + Mr. Lycurgus began to talk. Claire did not understand one-half of what he was + saying, but she was conscious that she had struck the proper note. He had come + from Athens, he explained to her, and immediately he launched into lyrical praise + of his native city. Claire assumed an air of interest, asked more questions. + The waiter brought salad, and fried chicken, and a curd cheese, and finally + a cup of thick Turkish coffee. Mr. Lycurgus was called outside to join some + patrons in a drink. He left Claire with his hand upon his heart and his head + thrown forward in a suggestion of perfect surrender that was almost Oriental. + The waiter also grew friendly. It appeared that he came from the mountain districts + of Greece—from shepherd stock. He described the Greek mountains to her.</p> +<p>"Birds and flowers and sweet smells!" he told her. He had been a + bootblack in New York, at first. But he liked San Francisco better. He talked + about America and democracy.</p> +<p>"We Greeks, you understand, we come from a free people." And he began + to revive the glories of ancient Greece. It was plain to Claire that these people + were living in retrospection, harking back to a racial past very much in the + fashion of her mother trying to gather warmth from the memory of a former opulence.</p> +<p>Claire rose from the table, amazed at the extent of the meal which she had + been tempted to eat. But it had all been so frank and friendly and lacking any + savor of condescension. She did not make the mistake of fancying that just this + thing would be a regular occurrence, but there was a certain beauty about the + humanness of this welcome that had been given her, as if the rite of breaking + bread had suddenly made her a part of a large family.</p> +<p>Since there was nothing to do, she left early, at ten o'clock. The waiter followed + her to the door.</p> +<p>"In a day or two things will be different," he assured her.</p> +<p>"What is your name?" she asked.</p> +<p>"Demetrio—the same as Jimmy." He threw back his head, smiling.</p> +<p>She said good night and started off. Third Street was crowded. There was scarcely + a woman in sight. Men, men everywhere. And yet she felt not the slightest fear. + All evening she had felt detached, remote, cut off from the past, as one is + cut off from a familiar view by a sharp turn in the road. But as she swung into + Market Street and crossed over to the north side again the chill of reality + swept over her. She was coming back to familiar scenes, familiar problems, familiar + griefs. She began to think about her mother's hopeless condition, the fact that + Mrs. Finnegan was preparing to move away.</p> +<p>"She's tired of having mother on her hands so often," flashed through + Claire's mind. "She's moving to get out of it gracefully. Why did I permit + such a thing?"</p> +<p>Her cheeks burned with the shame of it. She would have to talk to Nellie Whitehead + about getting some one to come in and sit with her mother at night. Nellie Whitehead + would know of somebody; she always was equal to any emergency.... She needed + to have her shoes resoled, and her gloves were in a dreadful state. Well, fortunately, + she would not have to keep up much of an appearance now. Twenty dollars a week—eighty + dollars a month—she began to lay out plans for its expenditure. She owed + two months to the butcher, and even the grocery bill had been long overdue. + And there was Nellie Whitehead—she should have paid Nellie back. But there + seemed always to have been something else more pressing. She thought all these + things out swiftly, darting from one subject to another in a feverish anxiety + to fill her mind with food for impersonal thought.</p> +<p>When she got home she found a letter awaiting her. It bore a special-delivery + stamp and the envelope was in Stillman's handwriting. She felt suddenly weak + and she sat down.... She sat staring at the envelope a long time before she + gathered courage to open it. When she did, a thin blue slip of paper fluttered + out. It was a check for twenty dollars, payment for the last week she had spent + in Stillman's service. There was no other word from him, just this brief symbol + of what his decision was in regard to her.</p> +<p>She rose to her feet. She did not move, she stood staring ahead....</p> +<p>Presently she heard her mother call. She started guiltily.</p> +<p>"What am I wasting time here for?" she asked herself, with a strange + fierceness. She saw Stillman's blue check lying on the table. She caught it + up and tore it into bits.</p> +<p>Her mother's voice sounded again, this time querulously.</p> +<p>Claire Robson pushed her sagging hair from her forehead and went into her mother's + room.</p> +<a name="II_II"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> +<p>Mrs. Finnegan moved on the first of April. Claire, having by this time decided + that she was more or less committed to her new life, got track of a Miss Proll, + a middle-aged seamstress, who went out by the day, to come and occupy the little + hall bedroom, so that Mrs. Robson was no longer alone in the house nights.</p> +<p>Claire had been ten days at the Café Ithaca and the experiment was losing + its strangeness. There had been very little piano-playing to do. The new rooms + at the rear of the saloon were an experiment that the regular patrons of the + café had not yet accepted enthusiastically, and the looked-for patronage + from the bastard American bohemianism was still a matter of hope and conjecture. + The regular diners clung rather shyly to their old quarters opposite the bar, + and Claire had to be content with making a long-range estimate of them. But + she grew more and more friendly with Jimmy, and even Lycurgus got beyond the + point of clasping his right hand over his heart every time he approached her.</p> +<p>Obviously the Café Ithaca was not one of the ordinary Greek cafés + that vice-crusaders railed against. Claire discovered this quite early. To a + superficial observer the Ithaca was nothing more nor less than an American saloon, + and, as such, was too well established an institution to merit sensational disclosures. + But it was the cafés in which the men of the quarter gather to drink + coffee, and almond or cherry soda, and to listen to "outlandish" music, + that aroused the suspicion of Puritans. To their line of reasoning Greeks who + drank in saloons were <i>frankly</i> immoral; those who hid behind a screen + of sweetened coffee and innocuous syrups were immoral in a subtle and dangerous + way that challenged all the resources of virtue. As a matter of fact, the spectacle + of full-grown men indulging in any pleasure so innocent as coffee-drinking without + being coerced into it was quite too much of an affront for those who won virtue + only at the point of battle. Indeed, even Claire had something of this same + distrust as she nightly passed these masculine forgathering places and caught + glimpses through the unscreened windows of men dancing together between tables + with strange solemnity. She, too, had her suspicions, very much in the manner + of an adult who finds an unexplainable childish silence cause for distrust. + Her training and her own experiences had confirmed her in the faith that males + either singly or in groups were not to be lightly regarded. But she was willing + to concede one point which most of the others left out—she was not sure + that she saw any essential differences between these swarthy males who found + grenadine syrup or coffee to their taste and the less vivid masculine bipeds + who pretended that ice-cream and layer cake was an exciting experience. And + she remembered having seen the same sidelong glances directed at the young women + serving refreshments at a church social that she saw nightly cast at the waitresses + who placed little cups of sweetened coffee upon the cold marble-topped tables + of the Greek cafés.</p> +<p>It was in her midnight walks through the quarter that Claire got the rush of + sudden new lights and values. Alone on the streets after twelve o'clock was + a new experience, but any timidity was swallowed up in the sense of personal + freedom which she seemed to achieve. She could have boarded a car almost from + the Ithaca's doors, and, by transferring, arrived at her Clay Street flat without + taking more than a dozen steps; but on the first night she had overlooked this + possibility and the habit of walking up to Market Street became fixed. In this + brief flight she saw not only men, but men of every conceivable stamp and condition. + And it struck her how unified these masculine types were, how little they differed + in the mass from men that previously she had seen detached, or superficially + divided, from their kind by the varied intrusions of women. It seemed to her + now that the other sex presented a solid front which womankind was always attempting + to break through, and retreating sooner or later, according to the vigor of + the masculine defense. For she had a sudden conviction that each woman battled + singly and alone, but that men somehow braced themselves collectively for the + struggle. Men were not really ever vanquished—a solitary man falling by + the wayside did not spell defeat for the main body. But women—somehow + women were always routed, routed as a whole because they insisted on playing + the game in solitary aloofness. She found men presenting this same unbroken + front to all the tilts of fortune and women as consistently attempting to hold + every trick of fate at bay single-handed. But what she could not determine was + the relative values of these contrasting attitudes, which was the more soul-stirring + performance.</p> +<p>At the beginning of the second week of Claire's new life, a handful of the + Café Ithaca's regular patrons, wishing to indulge in a little celebration, + ordered a table laid in the new dining-room. This broke the ice, and there followed + no end of dinners and banquets and evening suppers. But so far the patrons were + confined to residents of the Greek quarter, and it puzzled Claire to discover + that there were never by any chance women present. She questioned Jimmy about + this.</p> +<p>"Greek women stay home," he replied, emphatically.</p> +<p>Claire had begun by playing simple and sprightly things on the piano. The patrons + responded by applauding her politely, but she could see that they were really + not finding her offerings entertaining. When the wheezy orchestrion started + up with Greek airs they were much more alert and appreciative. She gave an ear + to these melodies, and one night she surprised a company of diners by picking + out the national anthem on the piano. The result was unexpected. She was bombarded + by a shower of silver coins—mostly half-dollar pieces. She rose in her + seat, bowing her thanks for the applause, while Jimmy scrambled after the coins + and Lycurgus came forward with his hand over his heart. She drew back with a + gesture of instinctive refusal as Jimmy poured the money upon the keyboard of + the piano. But she ended by accepting it—there seemed nothing else to + do.</p> +<p>After this she mastered other Greek airs. She learned in time all the slow, + melancholy melodies that never failed to set the feet of dancers shuffling. + And upon the tiny hardwood floor that had been laid in the hope of luring rag-time + patrons to the Café Ithaca there was nightly a handful of men moving + with graceful precision in the steps of their ancient folk-dances. Jimmy, smiling + his satisfaction at Claire, would lean over the piano and say:</p> +<p>"Look, Miss Robson! Now they are dancing an old shepherd dance. They have + danced it so in my part of the country for the last thousand years. It is a + dance of greeting. The two men have not seen each other for five years."</p> +<p>Thus it was with everything—symbols running through the every-day experiences + of these people like a thread of gold through the woof and warp of some drab + garment. They were a people not only living in a past, but carrying this past + with them as they stormed the outposts of modern life, and for all their naïve + Christian piety, which they seemed to practise with a comfortable emotional + fervor, they had retained the courage to meet the deposed gods of another day + with a friendly and affectionate smile. They still danced the old pagan dances + on feast-days of the saints, and ranged pictures of the gods side by side with + the holy icons of the church.</p> +<p>Claire was in a mood to appreciate all these strange experiences; they removed + her so completely from all the soul-crushing memories that were ever struggling + to fasten themselves upon her. And every night when the street-car crossed over + to the south side of the city she shed her cares like one dropping a dripping + coat upon the threshold of a warm room. Between the hours of six and twelve + she gathered courage from forgetfulness. But, although she had entered more + or less gracefully into the demands of this new life, there were times when + the clutch of custom still laid its hand upon her. For one thing, she could + never quite get used to her Sunday night appearance at the café. This + setting of Sunday as a day different and apart was too much of an instinct to + be lightly dismissed. It had been one of Mrs. Robson's pet hobbies.</p> +<p>"Why should I go to the theater or dance on Sunday?" Claire remembered + hearing her mother argue time and again with Mrs. Finnegan. "I can do those + things any other day in the week."</p> +<p>Claire had a feeling that her mother's convictions upon this matter had become + largely a question of good form rather than of religious belief. She knew in + her own case that she could find no logic with which to bolster her emphatic + distaste for this café life on Sunday night, and yet it was only another + proof of the inflexibility of custom.</p> +<p>There were times, too, when she would halt before the swinging doors of the + Café Ithaca, incapable of realizing that she, Claire Robson, was a café + entertainer in the Greek quarter. At these moments she could not imagine anything + more removed from the hopes or even the fears which she had held for her future. + In her glimpses into life with Stillman and Lily Condor, from the lofty vantage-ground + of prejudice, she had looked down upon these women who sang or danced or played + their way into the torpid affections of an eating and drinking public. Once + at the conclusion of an indifferent concert, Stillman had whirled Claire and + Mrs. Condor and Edington out to one of the beach resorts. Claire had been struck + by all the tawdry gaiety of that evening, the flagging spirits of the dancers + reinforced by sloppy highballs, the rattle and bang of the "jazz" + orchestra, the rapacious horde of entertainers moving from table to table, wrestling + dimes and quarters and half-dollars from the open-handed assembly. She recalled + the contemptuous way in which the silver gratuities were flung at what seemed + to Claire these professional fawners.</p> +<p>Her impulse to refuse the money that had been hurled at her on that night when + she had essayed the Greek national anthem carried the sting of memories with + it. But there was something open-hearted and childlike about this latter performance + that robbed it of unpleasantness.</p> +<p>She was looking forward with more or less trepidation to the day when the San + Francisco public in its search for a new sensation would swoop down upon the + Café Ithaca. In a flash she saw all the beach-resort atmosphere duplicated—the + wine-blowsy dancers, the loose-jointed music, the shower of small change falling + significantly at the feet of red-lipped entertainers. Already she had received + a preliminary warning of its approach from Nellie Whitehead.</p> +<p>"Don't be surprised, Robson, if you see me and Billy Holmes skate into + your joint some night. Billy knows a young Greek doctor. He promised to blow + himself for a dinner in our honor any time we say the word. You'd better bone + up on your rag-time. <i>We</i> don't know any Greek shepherd dances."</p> +<p>Claire took the hint and "boned up" on her rag-time—or, rather, + began for the first time in her life really to attempt to play it. And one night, + true to her word, Nellie Whitehead came. Early in the evening a table had been + set for four, and Lycurgus had gone to the flower-stands in front of Lotta's + fountain and bought pink and white carnations for a centerpiece. Claire had + wondered at the reason for all this special preparation, but she made no inquiries. + Nellie Whitehead breezed in at about seven without any escort.</p> +<p>"Why don't they have a decent sign out? I almost went by the place," + she railed, as she released Claire from a hearty embrace. "The men will + be here in a minute. But I came on ahead for a chat. It's that doctor I was + telling you about ... he's giving the feed. He isn't a Greek at all ... he's + a Serbian or something. But, good Lord! What's the difference? They all look + alike to me. Only, this one seems more human ... his hair doesn't fuzz out as + much as some of them.... The fourth place? Why, that's been set for you!... + You can't spare the time? Now, don't you worry, little one; it's all been arranged. + This doctor fellow has some kind of a pull with the management. If he wants + the head entertainer to dine with him, all he has to do is to say so."</p> +<p>"A Serbian!" Claire found herself mentally exclaiming. "Can + it be possible that...."</p> +<p>And true to the commonplace and thoroughly unexplainable thing called "chance" + it <i>was</i> possible. For when Billy Holmes arrived at seven-thirty with his + Serbian friend, Dr. George Danilo, Claire felt herself scarcely surprised, although + for a moment she grew suddenly cold.</p> +<p>Claire had never met Billy Holmes, but she knew him by sight—a bluff, + genial, open-handed man with hair thinning about the temples and a rather swaggering + walk. He was just the proper foil for Danilo's thick-haired, beetle-browed, + red-lipped personality.</p> +<p>After the first chill of surprise, Claire somehow recovered herself. She wondered + whether Danilo remembered that tense moment six months ago when he had pulled + his audience out of a slough of indifference by fixing his passionate gaze upon + her. She had an impulse to ask, but there was something vaguely disturbing about + him. Was she fascinated, or repelled, or overwhelmed? She gave it up. But sitting + opposite him, so close that she could have touched his hand if she had dared, + she grew to feel that when he smiled nothing else really mattered. It was plain + that Lycurgus was his abject slave.</p> +<p>As the dinner progressed, Claire found that she was to be relieved of her post + at the piano by the continuous rumblings of the orchestrion. Between courses, + Nellie Whitehead and Billy Holmes danced, while Claire and the doctor talked—that + is, she let him talk—about himself and his work and his native land. It + was this last topic that flamed him most completely. Claire listened parted-lipped + as he poured out the history of Serbia's wrongs. He pictured his country ravaged, + broken, desolate, buffeted like a shuttlecock between the rackets of fate. His + own people were scattered like chaff. His mother—he merely raised his + hand at the mention of her name and let it fall again.</p> +<p>Boldly, with swift, sure strokes, he gave her glimpses of far-flung horizons, + community griefs, national sorrows, the bleeding of people <i>en masse</i>. + She had experienced something of this before, six months ago, when he had harangued + the Second Presbyterian Church into grudging applause, but now, to-night, he + was within reach, warm and personal and palpitant.</p> +<p>"I am going back ... in the fall ... to ... to...."</p> +<p>He stopped, fumbling for the proper word, as one not to the language born sometimes + does.</p> +<p>She felt a great courage sweep over her. She wanted him to remember.</p> +<p>"Yes," she cried, "I know! To a blood-red dawn! You are going + back to a blood-red dawn!"</p> +<p>How he smiled! "Ah," escaped him. "Then you remembered, too!... + You were the only one at first in the whole room who listened.... I had never + spoken to quite such a crowd before.... I saw you twice ... after. Once you + were dancing. The second time you were alone ... in a doorway.... But to-night, + here.... I was not prepared to find you here and so...."</p> +<p>She was both pleased and annoyed. Why had she not waited for him to spur <i>her</i> + memory?</p> +<p>Presently Lycurgus brought champagne. It appeared that this was a very special + date, although every one had forgotten it except the Greek.</p> +<p>"A year ago ... thank you ... thank you ... a year ago is the war for + America."</p> +<p>"A year ago since we went into the war!" exclaimed some one. "Can + it be possible?"</p> +<p>There followed toasts to Greece, and Serbia, and America, and President Wilson, + and finally to Danilo.</p> +<p>"That Danilo," Lycurgus informed the party—"that Danilo—he + saved my life. Now he can have everything I own. If I were dead, nothing would + be of any use. So now I give him everything ... you understand?—everything!"</p> +<p>Claire stared—she was not yet accustomed to the Oriental extravagances + which crept so naturally into the speech of Lycurgus.</p> +<p>Altogether it was a happy time, in spite of the shadow of world-wide tragedy + that lay in wait just beyond the truant light of personal cheer.</p> +<p>"You've made a hit, Robson!" Nellie Whitehead assured her at the + conclusion of the evening. "But how in Heaven's name could you listen to + all that Serbia stuff?... Dope about the little, old U.S.A. is good enough for + me.... But say, he isn't so bad-looking. If I didn't have Billy on my staff + I do believe...." She finished with a wink and gave Claire a playful shove.</p> +<p>On her way home that night Claire said to herself, "I'll have to look + up some books on Serbia at the library."</p> +<a name="II_III"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> +<p>Two days after Nellie Whitehead's invasion of the Café Ithaca a group + of insurance special agents came for dinner. There were six of them in the party + and they were accompanied by as many women. Calling loudly for Lycurgus, the + spokesman of the party explained their wishes:</p> +<p>"The same kind of a feed that you gave our friend Holmes the other night, + and all the fancy drinks.... You know us!"</p> +<p>Mr. Lycurgus bowed deeply and began to scurry about. Claire started a tune + on the piano.</p> +<p>"Oh, none of that sad stuff!" called out one of the party. "Give + us a little jazz!"</p> +<p>Claire obeyed to the best of her ability. They scrambled up and began to dance. + Appetizers were brought.... They downed them greedily and called for more.</p> +<p>"Give us another dance while we're waiting," they demanded of Claire.</p> +<p>She sat at her post all evening, grinding out tunes. The party continued to + eat and drink and dance until long past eleven o'clock. As they were leaving + one of the men threw Claire a dollar. It would have been quite as easy for him + to have walked over and laid it on the piano. But he threw it at her instead + and Claire remembered again the beach resorts and the contemptuously flung bits + of silver.</p> +<p>"She's a rotten jazz-player at that!" she heard one of the women + say as the party opened the side door and disappeared, followed by the bobbing + figure of Lycurgus.</p> +<p>Jimmy was in great spirits.</p> +<p>"This is the life—eh, Miss Robson? I cleaned up nearly two dollars. + These countrymen of yours—they spend the money! Now we shall see plenty + of good times."</p> +<p>For two or three days a reaction set in and Jimmy was disconsolate. As for + Claire, she found herself welcoming the return to the simpler life of the quarter. + Already she was resenting the intrusion of the outside world. But Saturday night + another crop of San Franciscans in search of novelty made the acquaintance of + the Café Ithaca, and after that there was no stemming the tide.</p> +<p>Gradually the Greek patrons retired to their former positions in the old barroom, + the Greek tunes on the orchestrion were discarded for popular successes from + the vaudeville houses, and the thin line of men dancing symbolically upon the + maple floor as Claire played for them became almost a memory.</p> +<p>Mr. Lycurgus began to talk about hiring entertainers, enlarging the dancing-space, + getting in an orchestra. Claire figured on dismissal. She knew that as a rag-time + performer she was not a success, and her only wonder was that Lycurgus did not + let her go at once. She voiced her fears to Jimmy one day.</p> +<p>"Oh, you should worry!" was Jimmy's comment as he flicked a fly with + his towel. "The boss he likes you!"</p> +<p>Claire smiled. She was becoming accustomed to these naïve and simple explanations + of conduct. Lycurgus liked her and therefore he would continue to retain her. + The question of ability was secondary. Lycurgus liked her because she asked + him questions about his native land and listened when he answered, because she + had learned the Greek anthem on the piano, because she had played peasant dances + for his countrymen. The Greek patrons liked her for the same reason, and it + was no longer a novelty for her to see Jimmy coming toward her with slices of + sesame seed and honey, or a bit of sugar-dusted pastry for her delight, the + gift of one of the diners on the other side of the green curtains.</p> +<p>She had heard in former days such slighting references to the morality of foreigners + in general that she was surprised to find how contemptuously some of these Greek + patrons of the Café Ithaca referred to American women. There was no mistaking + the quality of the smiles which they threw after the spectacle of men who permitted + their wives to indulge in public dancing.</p> +<p>"In my country," Jimmy had explained to her, "we do not even + touch a woman's hand when we dance with her. We give her the end of our handkerchief + instead of our fingers."</p> +<p>And another time he said:</p> +<p>"What is the matter with American mothers, Miss Robson? Last night my + wife found a boy and girl sitting on our door-steps long after ten o'clock. + She opened the door and said to them, 'Have you no home?' It is like that all + over. Young girls go about like men. I do not think that is right!"</p> +<p>Claire found herself blushing, and at once she remembered the eager social-settlement + worker who had pleaded before the Home Missionary Society for funds "to + help these wards of the nation to a keener appreciation of our institutions." + She wondered what the effect would be if Jimmy were to address this organization.</p> +<p>One night, exhausted by six hours of continuous playing for a hilarious crowd + of Americans, Claire crept into one of the coffee-houses and sat down. She was + really too tired to go home, and, besides, she had a sudden desire for contrasts + while the atmosphere which her own kind had brought to the Greek quarter was + already fresh. The appearance of a woman in the coffee-house, other than the + waitresses, was unusual, but Claire was surprised to find only the most casual + of glances directed her way. A man waited on her. She ordered Turkish coffee. + On a raised platform an orchestra was performing; in the clear space just below + a half-dozen men were dancing one of the folk-dances Claire was beginning to + know so well. The music had the sad, minor quality of highland music the world + over, and in addition there was an Oriental strain which recalled certain themes + that Rimsky-Korsokov had captured and woven into the Scheherazade suite. On + the ochestrion at the Café Ithaca these tunes had been more or less clipped + of their wild freedom—adapted to the scale of another set of musical conventions, + and Claire had sensed their novelty, but not their lack of precise musical form. + Even to-night Claire thought not only the music, but the way in which it was + presented, quite outlandish, but as she sat sipping her sweetened coffee the + notes and the rhythm gradually assumed a coherence, and unconsciously her own + feet began to tap the floor.</p> +<p>She looked about the room. It was crowded and the air was thick with cigarette + smoke and the odd, pungent aroma from the Oriental water-pipes. Claire had studied + Greek history in her high-school days, and she had always held a classical picture + of Greek life—flowing garments, marble courtyards, gods and goddesses + made flesh. It came to her sharply, as she sat in the coffee-house, that the + real flavor had a distinct tang of the Orient and that the picture spread before + her was more suggestive of the <i>Arabian Nights</i> than anything else she + could call to mind. She tried to fancy the men about her clothed in soft silks, + with jeweled turbans on their heads and slippers curving into sharp points. + One of the musicians began to sing in a low, monotonous, whining voice, striking + the strings of his zither-like instrument with long, graceful strokes. A girl + bearing a tray of grenadine syrup and a box of cigars passed her table. This + girl had features extraordinarily regular, and her skin was very clear and firm + and provocative. Claire could see that she was a favorite and that she left + a vague unrest in her wake.</p> +<p>"This," flashed through her mind, "is the danger that they speak + of. This is the sort of thing that makes these coffee-houses...."</p> +<p>Abruptly she stopped the course of her thoughts. The memory of Flint's office + suddenly recurred. She pictured this girl in a business environment.</p> +<p>"It would be the same!" she finished to herself, shrugging as she + did so.</p> +<p>And she became aware that the girl was something of a danger herself, in a + fascinating, ruthless, primitive way—a trap set by nature for inscrutable + ends. She thought of herself, and a company of pallid, crushed women who passed + milestone after milestone with the lagging footsteps that would never know either + victory or defeat—a company of wan, pallid women who went on and on without + even the respite of an occasional falling by the wayside, women sacrificing + everything, even life itself, to the arid joy of standards fixed and immovable.... + The girl emptied her tray and passed Claire again. This time she swaggered consciously + as if she realized the measure that another of her kind was taking. Claire felt + a sudden envy for all the instinctive courage back of the challenge which this + palpitating creature was throwing out. She leaned forward to the next table + and said to a man sitting there:</p> +<p>"This girl who has just passed ... is she Greek?"</p> +<p>The man rolled a cigarette insolently, and said in almost the precise words + of Jimmy:</p> +<p>"Greek? I should say not! Greek women stay home!"</p> +<p>He looked squarely at Claire as he said it, and she rose at once.</p> +<p>"They should thank God that they have a home to stay in," she said, + passionately.</p> +<p>The man stared, shrugged, and laughed. Claire went out into the street. She + did not know why she had spoken. The words had risen to her lips like a cry + of pain at the pressure of relentless fingers against a new-found wound. Until + this moment Claire had always fancied that <i>she</i> had a home. Now she knew + that it took something more than a refuge, walled in from the elements, to rise + to such a dignity. And in a flash she felt that this mysterious and indefinable + something was the lattice upon which the tendrils of a woman's soul climbed + toward the light. It was possible, of course, to push forward over the ramparts + of life without this aid, but it took all the vigor of a wild unfolding of the + spirit.... She remembered very few flashes of beauty in her mother's life, but + those few were the blossoming of efforts to create a home for her child, a shield + from the wind and weather to only the shallow vision, but something infinitely + more when the surface of things was scratched. Mrs. Robson's spirit had climbed + the lattice of her sacrifice, but it was not possible for Claire to follow; + like all children, she had outgrown the narrow confines that had served her + mother's need.</p> +<p>The night was clear and beautiful, touched with the mystery of spring. Claire + fancied that the crowds surging up and down Third Street seemed more restless, + more full of desire, more vaguely hopeful of wresting soul-stirring experiences + from life. There were many uniforms in the crush, and men wearing them stood + out clearly, striking a note of youth at once vibrant and pathetic. But the + older men seemed touched with a faded resignation, like spent pilgrims who see + the glistening spires of some holy city in a far distance which they never can + hope to attain. And somehow Claire's youth rose up and went out to meet the + vision which these weary souls so poignantly glimpsed. She longed herself for + these far-flung, golden-topped, opulent duties swimming in the purple twilight + of remoteness. She was tired of the drabness and clutter of crowded foregrounds. + Ah, how easy it would be to take up a march with the ugly highways of effort + veiled by the softness of a slanting sun!</p> +<p>She was hurrying across Mission Street when she felt an arm laid gently upon + her shoulder. She turned—Danilo stood behind her, smiling.</p> +<p>"Ah, you are late!" he said.</p> +<p>"I was too tired to go home at once," she admitted. "I dropped + into one of the coffee-houses to see the sights."</p> +<p>He stepped back to the curb. She followed him. "I have my car half-way + up the block," he explained to her. "I walked to the corner to get + cigarettes. Which way do you go?"</p> +<p>She told him.</p> +<p>"I will take you home, then. I am going in that direction myself. I am + to look in on a patient at the Stanford Court apartments."</p> +<p>"At the Stanford Court apartments?" Claire was conscious that her + tone betrayed a surprise bordering on incredulity.</p> +<p>He smiled back at her indulgently as he led the way to his car. "A man + who got caught in an automobile smash-up early this evening. I was on the spot + and he has asked me to finish the matter. He is rich, so I am very attentive." + He laughed, showing his white teeth. "I am taking him out something to + make him sleep, otherwise he will have a bad night."</p> +<p>Claire forced her interest to the point of inquiring, "Was he seriously + hurt?"</p> +<p>"Oh, not at all! He rode into a street-car and got a nasty blow—on + the head. But, of course, one can never tell. He is a countryman of yours. Perhaps + you have heard of him. His name is Stillman."</p> +<p>Claire did not reply. She was surprised into silence. She had fancied that + the Greek quarter would close the door on any vistas of her former life.</p> +<p>"I understand that he made a million dollars last week by a trick of fortune," + Danilo went on vivaciously. "Shares in a copper-mine ... or something quite + as wonderful.... I must interest him in the cause."</p> +<p>"The cause?... What cause?" Claire inquired.</p> +<p>"Why—why, the Serbian cause, of course! You do not mean to tell + me that you have forgotten our talk already?"</p> +<p>They had reached the car, and Danilo lifted Claire in.</p> +<p>"No, I haven't forgotten. As a matter of fact, I've been intending to + look up some books on Serbia."</p> +<p>His eyes were glowing. "No!... Did you, really? I tell you—I shall + bring you some books to-morrow."</p> +<p>"If you only would!... Yes, I'm sure that would be very kind of you."</p> +<a name="II_IV"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> +<p>The next evening when Claire arrived at the Café Ithaca she found that + the inevitable had happened. Lycurgus had engaged a staff of entertainers. There + were two women, a "professor" who played rag on the piano, and a man + with an assortment of percussion instruments, including drums, which he managed + to manipulate with extraordinary dexterity.</p> +<p>"We're just trying this as a kind of lay-off," explained one of the + women to Claire, with professional hauteur. "We've been doing all the best + places, and we're that worn out! What's your line?"</p> +<p>"I play the piano," returned Claire.</p> +<p>The woman shifted a gilt hairpin, sweeping the room as she did so with a critical + glance.</p> +<p>"Well, I shouldn't think they'd need more 'n one good rag-player here," + she announced, with impartial candor.</p> +<p>"They don't," said Claire. "I'm pretty bad at it myself."</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean nothing personal," threw back the other, + surprised and mollified by Claire's modest claims. "I guess you must have + <i>some</i> sort of class! Otherwise you wouldn't figure at <i>all</i>!"</p> +<p>Jimmy explained the new condition to Claire. "The boss wants you to play + Greek tunes. I told you not to worry."</p> +<p>Things moved rather furiously this first night, and the noise and bang lured + some of the Greek patrons into the back room. The women sang dreadfully—the + big blonde who had talked to Claire, in a deafening, female baritone; the other + woman with the painful self-consciousness of one struggling to retain the remnants + of a voice that had once had promise. This second woman had large, appealing + brown eyes that seemed always on the verge of tears, especially when she sang.</p> +<p>"She's got two kids and a sick sister to support," Claire's blond + friend volunteered during a pause in the evening's entertainment. "Kit's + had some pretty tough goings, all right, but then I guess we ain't none of us + been brought up in steam-heated go-carts. I've taken three fliers at getting + married myself, so I ought to qualify for a certificate from that old trouble + school. Oh, I'm nothing if not game! A gentleman friend said to me only last + night, 'Say, Madge, what I like about you is that you're always ready to take + a chance.' And I am—otherwise I wouldn't be here. What rake-off does the + old boy give you on the drinks you sell?"</p> +<p>"Drinks I sell?" echoed Claire. "Why, I don't sell drinks."</p> +<p>"Oh, come now, don't get haughty! Of course you don't draw 'em out at + the spigot. You're there with the big suggestion, ain't you, when the boys don't + know whether to order beer or White Rock?"</p> +<p>"No, I can't say that I am. You see, we haven't been running much of a + café here so far."</p> +<p>"Well, I should say you haven't! You've been running a Childs restaurant. + But you just watch me wake 'em up!" And with that Madge crossed over to + a table in the corner where six Greeks were having cognac and Turkish coffee, + and she sat down.... Presently Jimmy flew in with three bottles of beer. Madge + waved a triumphant hand to Claire, who had just begun to play a Greek shepherd + dance.</p> +<p>"Didn't I tell you I'd wake 'em up?" she called out, gaily.</p> +<p>Claire saw Lycurgus coming toward her, rubbing his hands with satisfaction.</p> +<p>"Ah, Miss Robson, that girl ... <i>she</i> knows how! I guess now we do + a good business, eh?"</p> +<p>Claire threw him a warped smile as she began to play. But in spite of the fact + that a score or more of the old patrons were within earshot, there was no attempt + at folk-dancing.</p> +<p>"This is the end!" thought Claire, as she yielded her place to the + "professor."</p> +<p>At that moment Doctor Danilo came in.</p> +<p>"Improvements?" he half questioned, lifting his eyebrows significantly + to Claire. "Let us sit down and have coffee."</p> +<p>He had brought her two books on Serbia—a brief history and a sketch of + modern conditions. Claire bent forward attentively as he opened first one and + then the other, explaining the pictures, tracing the war's progress on the inevitable + maps. Finally she said:</p> +<p>"Did you interest your patient?"</p> +<p>"Scarcely. He was not in good condition to-day. But then one never can + tell. Knocks upon the head are full of possibilities. He is indifferent. If + he were not an American, I would think him in love. But Americans, really, they + never have time for foolishness."</p> +<p>He sat with Claire until long after midnight. When she arose to leave he insisted + upon taking her home in his car.</p> +<p>The next evening Madge said to her:</p> +<p>"No wonder you don't waste your time on the other guys around here! Folks + who can make home-runs don't figure on stealing any bases."</p> +<p>There followed a hectic period of prosperity for the Café Ithaca. At + once it seemed that everybody in San Francisco knew of it and was determined + to lay violent hands upon its cut-to-measure gaiety. The entertainers were changed + rapidly. Madge departed one evening in a blaze of wrath because some "fresh + guy" laughed at her friend Kit's painful attempts at song. Kit threw herself + upon a chair in the dressing-room and sobbed her heart out.</p> +<p>"Don't you care, Kit, he wasn't no gentleman!" It had been pathetic + to discover what comfort these two women managed to extract from so frugal a + solace.</p> +<p>So this was the gay and frivolous life of the café entertainer at close + range! It never really had occurred to Claire to fancy that most of these women + were meeting the responsibilities of life with a ghastly smile. Even Madge had + her duties. There was a crippled child in some hospital, the sad spawn of a + weak relation, that Madge was sponsoring. Claire had heard of this quite by + accident one night when Madge's temper caught her off guard. A party of vaudeville + performers had come in for a midnight frolic, and in the course of the hilarity + one of the women stood up on her chair and sang a tear-starting ballad about + a gray-haired mother and a family mortgage and a wayward son who seemed to continue + his course merely to provide a becoming background for his mother's silver hair. + Quantities of loose change had met this effort, and the lady gathered up the + scant folds of her very red dress as she bent over and picked up every coin, + to the last penny.</p> +<p>"Can you beat that?" Madge had demanded fiercely of Claire. "I'm + getting kinder tired of the way Lycurgus lets this foreign talent walk away + with the goods. I don't care for myself, but I need every extra dime I pick + up." And she had explained to Claire about this warped fragment of humanity + and her responsibility. "I'm its god-mother, and I come through with all + the extra money I rake in."</p> +<p>After that Claire found the insolently flung coins assuming new values.</p> +<p>But all the entertainers were not cast in the heroic mold of self-sacrifice. + Claire discovered that there was just as much heartlessness, and greed, and + middle-class smugness among these people as there was in any other walk of life. + In short, Claire was learning something about the law of average, learning to + be unsurprised by a flash of gold in the dullest panful, or as equally unmoved + when some dazzling bit proved dross.</p> +<p>She began to wonder how long she could stand the new atmosphere of the Café + Ithaca. There was a certain irony in discovering herself on the verge of rout + by the intrusion of her own countrymen. There was no doubt that a corroding + influence was eating out the simplicity of the old life of the quarter. In the + coffee-houses the alien customs still persisted, and the men danced their dances + of greeting with all the old fervor, sipping their grenadine syrup and Turkish + coffee between-times, but in the Café Ithaca rag-time was king, and the + Greeks were learning that it was neither necessary nor desirable to leave untouched + the fingers of their female partners.</p> +<p>"That, in itself, means nothing," Danilo had said to Claire one evening, + as they sat discussing the subject; "but it is dangerous for a people to + lose its symbols ... unless there is offered something better, and I cannot + say...."</p> +<p>He swept the room with a significant glance.</p> +<p>Claire had to admit that nothing better had been offered, nor anything quite + so good. She had practically nothing to do, now. Once in a while some Greek + asked her to play one of the old folk tunes, but her efforts fell upon irresponsive + ears. She knew, also, that some of the entertainers resented her professional + aloofness. Not that she consciously stood apart from them. But they were quick + to measure the difference in her attitude, the fact that she appeared to have + very little to do, and that she was not expected to cajole the unattached male + frequenters into buying drinks. She could not have said just why this last service + was not insisted upon, now that she had so little opportunity to earn her salary, + but she concluded it was one of those intangible situations which continually + put to rout the theory that cold logic sways the world. Measured by every practical + standard, Claire should have either earned her way or been dismissed; but Lycurgus + for some mysterious reason saw fit to ignore the claims of expediency in Claire's + case.</p> +<p>Danilo had become a frequent—almost a nightly—visitor at the Café + Ithaca. He came with books for Claire, about Serbia, about the war, about the + place America was playing in the struggle. In the intervals she contrived to + learn something about Stillman. His accident had kept him indoors longer than + the doctor had expected. It appeared that these two suddenly had become warm + friends.</p> +<p>"I find he has been to my country," Danilo told her one night. "He + has been everywhere; but why not? One must pass the time in some way.... 'You + are a waster,' I said to him yesterday."</p> +<p>"And what did he say to that?" Claire asked, eagerly.</p> +<p>"He said: 'I am a reaction.... I come of a people who lived hard. The + race is resting up after the struggle. For over three hundred years we have + been subduing the wilderness. That is why we are willing to let the others step + in and do the work.' But he is not quite fair to himself, now.... I understand + that he is doing great things for his own government. His friends say he is + quite changed.... He is a fine man. Already I think of him as a brother."</p> +<p>Claire glimpsed a new Stillman in these fragments which the doctor brought + her. It was the man-to-man Stillman, without artifice and reservations. And + she had an added sense of masculine unity, of the impenetrable circle that men + draw about their conduct, so far as the other sex is concerned. She found that + he had been moved to even deeper revelations under the sympathetic intriguing + of one of his own kind. He even told the doctor about his wife.</p> +<p>"I do not think he is a man who has many confidants," Danilo explained. + "I do not know why he tells these things to me. Perhaps my profession has + something to do with it. It is not such a great step from physical to spiritual + confessions. And then I am really not a part of his intimate circle. He has + nothing to fear from finding himself betrayed in his own house, so to speak. + But there is one thing I have not yet learned. And what is more, I do not think + I shall—from <i>him</i>. There is a woman, somewhere. But a man like Stillman + does not speak of the thing near his heart."</p> +<p>She felt herself tremble. The doctor leaned forward.</p> +<p>"I am talking too much about this patient of mine," he laughed. "I'm + stirring your imagination. I keep forgetting that I have my own hand to play."</p> +<p>Claire drew back. His dark eyes were lit with sudden fire. She trembled again, + but this time like a blade of dry grass caught in the hot wind-eddies of a near-by + blaze.</p> +<p>"Ah, doctor! You are like them all!" suddenly escaped her.</p> +<p>"<i>All?</i>" His voice quivered with indignation. She had never + seen any one so wounded. For a moment she was stunned. She did not reply.</p> +<p>He rose with a quick, nervous movement.</p> +<p>"I must be going," he said, harshly. "A doctor, you know ... + yes, a doctor's time is never his own."</p> +<p>She knew that he was lying. His face had lost its glowing color, his full lips + had thinned. She had never experienced anything like this before. It was not + the grossness of Flint nor the restrained ardor of Stillman; it was desire charmed + by the hope of virtue and angered at the possibility of finding this hope a + mirage. And it was something even more exacting than this—it was desire + allied to egotism, a wish to be first in the field.... So it had come ... at + last! It had come and she felt afraid!...</p> +<p>On her way home that night she thought it all over. Yes, somehow, with joy + covering her parted lips tempestuously, she had the will to think calmly on + one point. To-morrow she would tell Danilo that she knew Stillman. She <i>must</i> + tell him. She had not meant to be deceitful, but for some reason it was not + easy for her to discuss even casual masculine relationships with Danilo. It + would be hard, but she must tell him ... everything! <i>Everything?...</i> Even + about that last night when.... Well, perhaps there were some things that still + belonged to her.... some secrets that were her very own.</p> +<p>Danilo stayed away from the Café Ithaca for two days. He came in again, + smiling. But he did not mention Stillman's name, and Claire's resolution to + tell him that she knew his patient was put to rout. Instead, he talked about + Claire's personal fortunes with a direct and puzzling sympathy. He wanted to + know everything—about herself, her prospects, her mother. Claire found + it impossible to resent his inquisitiveness. There was something bland and childlike + about it. At the conclusion of their talk he said:</p> +<p>"I should like to call on your mother, sometime. Not professionally ... + just as a friend."</p> +<p>He arrived at the Clay Street flat the next afternoon. Claire had prepared + her mother for the visit.</p> +<p>"A new doctor," she had explained, without going into any further + details. Mrs. Robson had got to a point where she asked no questions.</p> +<p>He stepped laughingly into Mrs. Robson's cramped bedroom, and as she turned + her face broke into a smile. It was the first laugh and the first smile that + this dreary room had seen for months. He talked about the weather, became interested + in a picture that hung on the wall, told an amusing story that he had chanced + upon that morning. It was as if a window suddenly had been opened to a cleansing + breeze.</p> +<p>After that he came every day. He was never empty-handed. He brought flowers, + or sweetmeats from the Greek quarter, or delicate morsels that he picked up + in the markets. Mrs. Robson grew to watch for his coming. He called her "Little + Mother" in the Russian fashion. She would smile warmly as she listened + to him linger caressingly over this term of endearment. He seemed to have the + greatest respect for Mrs. Robson, but he was brutally indifferent to the poor + little seamstress, Miss Proll, whom he ran into once or twice as he was leaving + the house.</p> +<p>"These spinsters!" he would say with scorn, as she passed him on + the stairs.</p> +<p>He seemed to concede anything to a woman who had fulfilled the obligations + of motherhood, but he found nothing to excuse the lack.</p> +<p>His visits quite transformed the atmosphere of the Robson household. It was + incredible that ten minutes a day in the thrall of a personality, hearty and + masculine, could so change the anemic current of gloom that had encompassed + these women. Mrs. Robson began to take a fragmentary interest in life. Indeed, + if it had not been for the noncommittal words of the doctor in answer to Claire's + inquiries regarding her mother's chance for improvement, she would have been + misled into hoping for better days.</p> +<p>It was plain that Danilo's own hearthstone was a tradition, something stretching + back into a misty past, and that he was finding a stimulation in crossing the + threshold of this far Western home. All his life had been spent in wanderings. + There was a touch of the nomad about him. He had starved in Paris, studied relentlessly + in Berlin, and walked the streets of New York penniless. He had lived in hospitals, + and wretched rooming-houses, and cold, impersonal hotels. The first years of + his youth had been surrendered ruthlessly to his profession. There was a shade + of cruelty in the pictures which he drew of his relentless ardor for learning, + in those soul-thirsty days. One would have thought that all these years of wandering + had taken the edge off any national feeling, but he seemed suddenly to have + flamed with the old folk-consciousness, as some bare twig bursts into a white + heat of bloom with the coming of spring. Now all the fury that moved him to + assault the ramparts of learning was being poured out in the prospect of personal + sacrifice for his native land. He was caught up in this cloud of fire and transfigured. + When he spoke of these things Claire felt awe. She had never yet beheld a man + gripped by an emotional enthusiasm.</p> +<p>"You are wondering, no doubt," he would say again and again, "why + I have not gone back ... before! But it seemed best ... to wait. My country + will need men of my profession, later.... Later, I shall do things. I shall + bind up wounds. Ah, it had not been easy to persuade myself to wait. It is never + easy. To move with the crowd, that is easy ... even when the crowd moves to + certain death. But to sit and wait for your appointed time ... with people sneering + beneath their smiles ... no, that is not easy!"</p> +<p>Once she asked him about his parents. His father, it appeared, had been a professor + of Greek in the university at Belgrade; his mother from peasant stock, the daughter + of a prosperous landed proprietor. He seemed more proud of this peasant stock + than of his father's high breeding. Claire was puzzled. To her American ears + the very word peasant savored of unequality, of a certain checkmated opportunity.</p> +<p>"My father saw my mother during the season of fruit blossoms. He was traveling + through the country after an illness, and my mother was standing in her father's + orchard, among the flowering plum-trees. My father was no longer a young man, + but it was the spring of the year!" he finished, with an eloquent gesture.</p> +<p>Now his father was dead. His mother ... he did not know. He had received no + tidings for months. But it appeared that news of his people had always been + infrequent. It was not precisely neglect—Claire was sure that the memory + of these kinsfolk was always with him, something almost too real and tangible + to call for confirmation in the shape of a formal exchange of greetings.</p> +<p>"Next fall, if she is still alive, I shall see this mother of mine," + he finished.</p> +<p>Claire had a picture of him enfolding, unashamed, a stooping, wrinkled peasant + woman in his eager arms—a peasant woman with a gaudy kerchief on her head. + But she was surprised when on the next day he brought a picture of his mother + to her.</p> +<p>She had a grave, handsome face, and her costume was at once simple and fashionable. + And she was anything but bowed with age.</p> +<p>"And here are my two brothers and a sister!"</p> +<p>Claire took the photographs from him. "Oh, then there are others!"</p> +<p>"Others? Did you fancy that my mother was an American?" He laughed....</p> +<p>One afternoon early in May he came in with an unusual amount of bundles.</p> +<p>"See, Little Mother!" he called out, gaily, to Mrs. Robson. "To-day + is my name-day and we shall have a feast!"</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson stared faintly.</p> +<p>"Ah, you do not understand! It is St. George's Day—the saint for + whom I am named. In my country there would be a celebration, I can tell you!"</p> +<p>He was brimming over with good spirits. He had brought a chicken, a small tub + of bitter, ripe olives, and three bottles of red wine and a ceremonial cake. + He had even invested in a cheap icon, and a tiny glass swinging-lamp to burn + before it, and he set the holy image up in a corner of the dining-room, much + to Mrs. Robson's weak dismay. Even Claire felt a measure of disapproval at this + act, as if acquiescence made her subscribe to something that she had no faith + in. Danilo really had prepared all this good cheer for Mrs. Robson, and he moved + a couch from the living-room into the dining-room and carried Mrs. Robson in.</p> +<p>He had flowers for the center of the table, too; not the flamboyant blossoms + of the florist shops, but a shy little bouquet of wild bloom that he had picked + only that morning in the sand-hills near Ingleside, where he had gone to see + a sick countryman.</p> +<p>"He lives in the most wretched hut imaginable," he told them. "But + such a view! Upon a hillside, and the whole Pacific Ocean at his feet. He leases + a patch of land from the water company, and grows violets and purple cabbages + and rows of pale-green lettuce. It is extraordinary how much he accomplishes + in such a small space. And he is in love ... it is too absurd!... with a little + short, squat Italian girl whose father has the bit of land adjoining. She is + pretending to be indifferent, the little baggage! And he has taken to his bed + and fancies he has an incurable disease. After all, there is nothing so foolish + as a man when he takes the notion!"</p> +<p>He helped lay the cloth, tugging in sly, boyish fashion at his end until he + brought the smiles to Claire's grave face.</p> +<p>"There, that is better! Now you look as if it were a feast-day!... Come, + do you realize that I am thirty-two to-day? Perhaps that is why you look so + sad!... Yes, there is no mistake, I am getting old. Wait, I will show you how + I wish that chicken cooked."</p> +<p>And he rushed Claire off her feet and into the kitchen. His spirits were contagious. + Claire found herself singing, and she heard her mother's laugh echoing like + a faint tinkling bell through the gloom of some sunless street.</p> +<p>By five o'clock the feast was over. For the first time since her illness Mrs. + Robson had been tempted beyond the mere duty of eating. She had even had some + wine—about a half-glassful which Danilo had held for her to sip. He had + fed her, too, with an unobtrusive, almost matter-of-fact tenderness which carried + no suggestion of her helplessness.</p> +<p>As he was leaving he said to Claire:</p> +<p>"There will be no end of celebrating at the Ithaca to-night. I shall see + you there. I am going to dinner with my rich patient.... You remember ... Stillman. + He asked me to have a meal at the St. Francis. I suppose we shall have champagne.... + Perhaps, if he is in the humor, I shall bring him down to the café."</p> +<p>Claire went back into the dining-room and began to clear away the litter. She + had an impulse to telephone Lycurgus and tell him that she could not come to + the café that night. To face Stillman seemed impossible. The afternoon + had been so full of cheer, so simple and pleasant. Was it all to end in some + dreary complication? Why was it her lot to always feel these sharp reactions + whenever she surrendered to happiness? But the more she thought about excusing + herself to Lycurgus the more distasteful such a course seemed. To-night was + a feast-night, and there would, doubtless, be a company of the old patrons looking + forward to the familiar dances and national tunes. No, there was nothing to + do but go through with it.</p> +<p>She debated over what to wear. So far, she had appeared at the café + in the simplest of street costumes. Perhaps that was why she had always been + able to maintain a certain air of standing out of the gaudy current of café + life. But she felt to-night it might be a graceful act if she went in braver + apparel, a tribute to these people who had been her friends. And suddenly she + remembered that Lycurgus's given name was George. Then it was a feast-day for + him, too! She threw Gertrude Sinclair's discarded finery on the bed and ran + through it. Here was the black gown that she had worn at the Russian Ballet, + and the gold-embroidered costume that had done such service during her nights + with Mrs. Condor. She passed them by and looked at a pale-blue scrap of a dress, + and a lacy trifle all white with a wide pink sash, and a barbaric-looking spangled + affair that she had never had quite the courage to wear. She would wear it to-night + and startle these friends of hers. She would wear it to-night and play her new + rôle to the limit. A café entertainer? Well, and why not?</p> +<p>She put the dress on and found herself startled by the effect. She had drawn + back her hair in the exaggerated simplicity that was the mode, allowing two + formal ringlets to escape and curl their suggestive way just below either temple. + At the corner of one eye a beauty patch gave her glance a sinister coquettishness. + She could not have imagined herself so changed. The gown was a shimmering blue-green + mass, cut very low, and with the narrowest of shoulder-straps. For a moment + Claire had a misgiving. What could she be thinking of to hazard such a costume? + But there succeeded a tempestuous wish to be daring, to try her feminine lure + to its utmost power, to dazzle for once in her life. And Danilo? What would + he think of her? <i>He</i> would be surprised!</p> +<p>She put on her shabby coat and wound a black-lace scarf about her hair. Then + she looked into the glass again. Now she might be the old Claire of church social + days, for any outside sign to the contrary. She had worn this very cloak and + scarf on the night when she had first seen Danilo, less than six months ago! + She pushed aside her lace head-covering, and the beauty patch and the intriguing + ringlets peeped out. Six months ago she would have been incapable of this deliberate + accentuation of her personality. She would not have lacked the desire, perhaps, + but she would have been without the skill to accomplish it. What had been taking + place in her soul? She had a feeling, as she stared at herself in the glass, + that defiance lay back of most of the broken rules of life. She was defiant—<i>defiant</i>! + She brought her fist down upon the bureau, and it came to her that she had put + this dress on, not to please her Greek friends, not to honor Lycurgus, not to + surprise Danilo! No, she had put it on because she hoped to see Stillman at + the Café Ithaca. She had put it on out of sheer bravado. She could not + bear to have Stillman feel that she was in that place under protest, playing + the game half-heartedly. No, she wanted him to think that she liked the life, + that she had no regrets, that she was proud and self-contained and reliant. + She wanted to wound him.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Outside, the evening was clear and cool. A wind had been blowing all day—the + first trade-wind of the season. Presently, she thought, summer would be upon + them with its misty, tremulous nights and its wind-swept days. She knew little + of the traditional summer of the calendar, warm and opulent. San Francisco had + a trick of ignoring climatic rules, playing the coquette with the sun, drawing + a veil from the sea across its gray-green face. But Claire had always liked + these wayward summer months, liked the swift changes, the salty tang in the + air, the voice of the wind in the afternoon among the eucalyptus-trees. There + was a certain robust melancholy about all these things, a wind-clean virility.</p> +<p>As she rode down Third Street it seemed to her that the sidewalks were less + crowded than usual. The younger men were already off to war. Only a broken few + remained, and summer was beckoning these afield, luring them from the paved + streets with glib, false promises. By the end of October they would be drifting + back again, disillusioned, betrayed by the wanton countryside, seeking to forget + all the fine things that had been their springtime hope. They would be drifting + back to the mercenary embraces of the town, like embittered lovers turning to + the husks of hired caresses for their solace. But spring would come again, and + all the old hope and faith and courage with it. Was not life, after all, a succession + of springs luminous with promise, and summers whose harvests must, of necessity, + fall far short of all the brave anticipations? What summer could possibly yield + the marvelously golden fruits of spring's devising?</p> +<p>And, thinking of these things, Claire had a passionate wish that spring might + be forever stayed; that life might be a keen, virgin hope, unrealized, but ever + ardent, and blinded with the light of fancy.</p> +<a name="II_V"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> +<p>Claire was late in arriving at the Café Ithaca. But in the excitement + of preparing a feast her absence had been overlooked. It turned out that St. + George's Day was a very special day indeed. Three large banquet-tables had been + set, and the general public, by a printed sign at the door, received the news + that it was excluded.</p> +<p>The company was just preparing to sit down as Claire entered. Concealed by + the folds of the green curtain which screened the saloon, she stood and glanced + curiously about. The walls had been transformed into a green bower of wild huckleberry, + the tables strewn with fern fronds and red carnations. It seemed that all the + old patrons were there, either as hosts or guests, and a strange mixture of + outsiders had been bidden to the feast. A few of the Greeks who had married + American girls had brought their wives with them, and, of course, among the + strangers, the women and men were about evenly divided. A Greek orchestra of + three pieces was tuning up.</p> +<p>"They will not need me!" flashed through Claire's mind.</p> +<p>She felt relieved. All at once it seemed quite impossible for her to face this + assembly, in the bizarre costume which had tempted her beyond discretion. As + she stepped aside, Lycurgus saw her. He inclined his head and put his hand to + his heart. It was plain that the formality of the occasion had revived his old + manner.</p> +<p>"Ah, Miss Robson! I have been waiting!" He bowed again as he spoke.</p> +<p>"Oh, I am sorry! Shall you want me to play?... I thought perhaps...."</p> +<p>"To play?... You are not to play to-night. This is my name-day, and to-night + you are to sit with me."</p> +<p>She was to be a guest, then! A feeling of swift pleasure came over her at the + realization that these people had taken thought of such a graceful courtesy.</p> +<p>She went into the dressing-room and took off her wrap. The other entertainers + had been in before her and the scraps of their finery were strewn about, a powder-box + was overturned, a jar of lip rouge uncovered. She knew that Lycurgus was waiting + for her, so she did not add many calculated touches to her toilet; but as she + tucked a strand of rebellious hair back into place it struck her that her lips + were somewhat pale for so vivid a costume. She put her finger into the rouge-pot + and deftly drew it across her mouth. Suddenly it seemed as if her whole personality + were flaming. She restrained an impulse to rub her lips pale again, and she + went into the café.</p> +<hr /> +<p>It was Jimmy who first saw her. He was carrying a tray of masticas and he stopped + as if arrested by an apparition. He set the tray down upon a serving-table, + and said:</p> +<p>"Whew, Miss Robson! What have you done? You are a different girl! I did + not know you. My, but the other women will be sore!" He chuckled gleefully, + and returned to his task.</p> +<p>At this moment Lycurgus came up to her.</p> +<p>"Miss Robson!... Thank you!... Thank you!..." he kept repeating, + in almost inarticulate amazement. "Come, you shall sit next to me <i>now</i>!"</p> +<p>And to her dismay he routed out his intended guest of honor, a countryman who + seemed not to mind the change in position in the least, and set Claire in the + place at his right.</p> +<p>The company began to eat. Claire glanced about. The other entertainers were + sitting at a solitary table near the piano.</p> +<p>"Can it be possible," thought Claire, "that Lycurgus expects + them to go through their parts to-night?"</p> +<p>Almost at once her query was answered, for the piano tinkled and a little French + Jewess named Doris, a new acquisition, got up and began to sing. But everybody + was too busy eating to give very much attention to any other form of entertainment, + and the song ended in apathetic fizzle. Claire's hands came together in instinctive + applause. This solitary clapping only emphasized the general indifference, and + Claire was rewarded by a malignant glance from Doris which seemed to say:</p> +<p>"You don't need to trouble yourself applauding <i>me</i>! I can get my + songs over without your help, thank you!"</p> +<p>When the Jewess seated herself all the other entertainers glared at Claire + also.</p> +<p>"They're hurt," said Claire to herself as she dropped her eyes. And + she felt the same regret she had experienced on the night when Stillman had + sent orchids to her and ignored Mrs. Condor.</p> +<p>Presently the Greek orchestra started up, swinging into a brave chanting rhythm + that started the men dancing. At first there were but three dancers in the swaying + line, but gradually the list grew and soon a score were upon their feet. The + music continued with hypnotic monotony, and the thread of men moved through + the growing complications of the dance like a gliding serpent.</p> +<p>Soup was brought on; the music stopped. A general scurry took place as the + men scampered to their seats again. The entertainer's table was animated by + sneering laughter. After the soup, the rag-time orchestra had its inning, and + the Americans in the company danced with an air of sophisticated superiority. + Then came more songs from the entertainers—received with a favor and warmth + which grew as the dinner progressed. Thus the events of the evening succeeded + one another, an incongruous mixture of New and Old World customs and diversions.</p> +<p>Claire was relieved to discover that no one expected her to dance. She was + beginning to feel conscious of her costume, and it was less embarrassing to + brave the thing out in solitary grandeur by Lycurgus's, side than to attract + the attention of the entire dancing-floor.</p> +<p>Lycurgus beamed upon every one and introduced Claire to all comers with an + affectionate enthusiasm. Put to the necessity of exercising his English, he + had developed quite a vocabulary in the last few weeks.</p> +<p>"Ah, this is my friend, Miss Robson!" he would announce. "Thank + you! Thank you! She has a dress made just for this ... my name-day! And so I + sit here where I can see her always.... All the night! She is a girl, I can + tell you! In two days she learns the Greek hymn, upon the piano! For me, mind + you! For me and no one else!... And you should hear her play for the dance.... + Not to-night! No, some other time! She is my guest to-night.... She has had + a dress, yes, sir ... yes, sir—made just for to-night. She has never worn + it before! I tell you I am somebody. Eh? Thank you! Thank you!"</p> +<p>Claire longed to escape, to hide herself in some screened corner. Had she come + in simpler clothes she would have found Lycurgus's delight childlike and winning, + but she felt embarrassed under the appraising glances which his words called + forth. The men measured her with frank pleasure; the women with cold, disturbed + disapproval.</p> +<p>At eleven o'clock the green curtains parted, and Danilo came in. Claire felt + a sudden faintness that just missed being nausea.... She looked down at her + plate.... When she glanced up again Danilo was making his way toward some vacant + seats at one of the side-tables, and Stillman was following.</p> +<p>"Ah!" cried Lycurgus. "There is Danilo! Excuse me!... Thank + you! Thank you!" and with that he rose and rushed over to Danilo.</p> +<p>The two men embraced, kissing each other on either cheek. Stillman stood apart, + a thin, tolerant smile on his lips. Claire had an absurd feeling of wishing + to fly to Danilo's defense. The greeting over, Lycurgus drew Danilo to one side. + He pointed in Claire's direction, waving his hands and chuckling audibly. He + was telling Danilo about Claire's dress. She blushed and tried to look in another + direction; but as her gaze hurriedly swept the room for an object on which to + fix her attention, she became aware that Stillman was looking at her. His glance + was not startled, nor disturbed, nor even surprised. Instead, he seemed to be + looking clear through her. She shivered, and unconsciously began to feel about + her shoulders in a futile effort to locate some scrap of covering with which + to screen her bare arms and breast. She was trembling violently. A woman sitting + opposite threw her a crêpe scarf with an air of triumph that seemed to + say:</p> +<p>"Well, you can see, now, what comes of such foolishness ... such indecency! + You might have known you would catch cold."</p> +<p>Claire had the impulse to toss the proffered covering back to its owner, but + she took it meekly, instead.</p> +<p>Stillman slowly withdrew his gaze. Claire transferred her glance to Danilo + and Lycurgus. The doctor was assenting perfunctorily to his friend's animated + harangue. He smiled at Claire, but she had a feeling that it was scarcely a + smile of approval. She lifted the scarf above her, and as her bare arms stood + out whitely against the glare, she fancied that she saw Stillman turn and fix + her with a wounded, almost harried stare. Even Danilo's pallid smile faded. + Claire dropped the covering on her shoulders and her arms sank down. Danilo + was introducing Stillman to Lycurgus. Claire began to make a pretense of eating.</p> +<p>"I must get away from all this!" she kept repeating to herself, as + she thrust the food between her lips. "I must get away from this life, + or else...."</p> +<p>And suddenly she began to wonder whether her position at Flint's was still + open to her. She threw back her head and laughed as the realization of what + she had been thinking flashed over her. The woman who had loaned her the scarf + stared. Claire went on eating more calmly.</p> +<p>She kept expecting Danilo to bring Stillman over and introduce him. A feeling + of curiosity mingled with fright possessed her. But as the evening progressed + it became apparent that this part of the feast-day was the men's part. Danilo + was being constantly caught up by groups of his male friends, toasted and wined + and embraced with fervor. As for Lycurgus, he did not return to his seat after + greeting Danilo, and Claire discovered that she was sitting quite alone—even + the men on her left had deserted the table for the noisier delights of the barroom. + She caught glimpses of Stillman, mingling perfunctorily with Danilo's comrades. + He wore his thin, tolerant smile during the whole evening. Was he disgusted, + or amused, or merely indulgent? He did not look again in Claire's direction. + She felt cold and sick and miserable.</p> +<p>Presently she saw Danilo come out of the telephone-booth. His eyes caught hers + and he walked over and dropped into Lycurgus's seat beside her.</p> +<p>"I wanted you to meet my friend ... but now I have been called away to + a patient—a dying woman. Did you see us come in together? I am sure he + thinks this all very queer."</p> +<p>She had an impulse to tell him then that she knew Stillman and that an introduction + was unnecessary. But he rose quickly, tossing a clean napkin in her direction + as he said:</p> +<p>"You must have been eating cherries. Your lips are all red."</p> +<p>She picked up the napkin and covered her lips. She had never been so humiliated + in her life. He stood watching her as she rubbed her mouth clean again.</p> +<p>"Ah, now you look better!" he said, simply, as she tried to smile.</p> +<p>He said good-by and left her. She watched him shake hands with Stillman. Evidently + Stillman had decided to remain. She looked down at the napkin and the red stain + upon it. The woman opposite her was eying the discarded napkin with a look of + contempt.</p> +<p>Claire heard some one pull back the chair that Danilo had just deserted. She + looked up. Stillman was sitting down beside her. At this moment the woman opposite + rose.</p> +<p>"Are you leaving?" Claire felt herself say.</p> +<p>The woman nodded. Claire slowly unwound the scarf from her shoulders and returned + it, murmuring her thanks. The woman left the table. Claire could feel the chill + of Stillman's glance sweeping over her bare shoulders and her white breast. + When he spoke she felt no surprise at his words—she knew at once what + he would say.</p> +<p>"I didn't expect to see <i>you</i> here!"</p> +<p>"I thought you had experience enough to be prepared for anything!"</p> +<p>He looked at her sharply. "Well, there are some things.... Are you a guest?"</p> +<p>Then Danilo had not spoken of her—pointed her out!... She toyed with + a fern frond. "For to-night, only. Otherwise I earn my living here."</p> +<p>He was ghastly pale. "<i>Here</i>?"</p> +<p>"Oh, don't be alarmed! It's respectable enough. I play the piano. It really + isn't gay at all. It's very stupid and dull when you get used to it."</p> +<p>She was conscious that her tone was hard-lipped, playing up to her costume.</p> +<p>"Every night? Is it possible that you come here every night, in this kind + of a place, and play?... Good God! No wonder...."</p> +<p>His eyes swept her again. She dropped her glance.</p> +<p>"No wonder you can dress yourself in this fashion!" was what she + knew he meant to imply. She threw back her head defiantly.</p> +<p>"You're mistaken," she said, coldly. "These people are very + good to me. As for playing the piano.... well, I've done that before. Only, + then I was exhibited on a <i>raised</i> platform!"</p> +<p>She knew that every word was wounding him, and yet she could not alter her + mood. She was heart-sick, and defiant, and bitter.</p> +<p>"And do you think that all this is quite fair to ... to your friends?"</p> +<p>"I have to earn my living, don't I?"</p> +<p>He brushed a cigarette stub off the table. "Last month I made a fortune. + I cleaned up something over a million dollars. And still I must sit here and + watch ... watch these Greeks fling money in your face!"</p> +<p>He swept the room with an angry gesture. Claire followed the swift flight of + his hand. One of the entertainers had finished singing and the usual shower + of coins was falling on the hard floor. His lips were quivering with indignation.</p> +<p>"Oh, <i>I'm</i> not a favorite! They don't bombard me in any such fashion. + Once in a while, perhaps, but...." She raised her hands slightly.</p> +<p>"Once in a while!" he echoed, with a bitter laugh, "Then they + <i>do</i> throw money at you! You ... you take all this from strangers, but + from me ... from me, who...." He brought his fist down upon the table.</p> +<p>She put her hand upon his. "I give these people pleasure and they repay + me as they can.... There is one thing about a <i>flung</i> coin—it is + frank and open and honest."</p> +<p>He glanced down. "And insulting, too," he muttered. "God knows + there have been times enough when I forgot myself.... I'm a man, after everything + is said and done. The mistakes I made were never deliberate ... calculating. + I <i>did</i> want to serve you!"</p> +<p>"What did you expect me to do?" she asked, more gently.</p> +<p>"I don't know. But I fancy it was almost anything but this. It seems that + almost anything else would be better."</p> +<p>"Even taking dictation from Flint?"</p> +<p>He winced.</p> +<p>"Oh, I know what you are thinking," she went on, passionately. "You're + thinking that it is this life that has given me the courage to be hard and bitter—to + dress myself in this ... to paint my lips red." She held up the rouge-stained + napkin and shrugged. "But you forget Flint and Mrs. Condor and all the + nastiness of the life that you seem to think desirable simply because it is + familiar.... I wouldn't go back to it now even if I could. I'd rather take a + chance here where they throw money frankly in your face and then promptly forget + about it; where they don't demand anything of you beyond just the passing moment. + Where one hasn't any standards to live up to and cheat for. Yes, cheat for! + Not that these people haven't standards—they're full of them. But they + don't expect <i>me</i> to live up to them. I can be as virtuous or as immoral + as I choose. They are willing to leave my soul in my own keeping!"</p> +<p>He shaded his face. "Just think," he said, as he raised his eyes + to her again. "I made a million dollars last month, and I am more helpless + than the meanest person here with ten cents in his pocket. If I were poor and + miserable and struggling, I could at least come and sit opposite you and throw + my last penny at you. I could throw my last coin at your feet and go away happy, + knowing that I must starve to-morrow, because of you. Why is it that others + may do what I—"</p> +<p>She stopped him with a quick gesture. "You know why," she said, simply.</p> +<p>He drew back as if she had dealt him a blow in the face. Claire felt an impulse + to rise and flee. Her defiance had spent itself and she was growing weak and + tremulous. She glanced about—Lycurgus was coming toward them.</p> +<p>"Ah, Mr. Stillman—thank you! Thank you!" Lycurgus's voice rang + out across the table. "I see you are here ... with Miss Robson. Did you + see her dress? For me ... she wears this dress just for me to-night, because + it is my name-day. She has never worn it before. She is some girl, I can tell + you!" Suddenly he bent across the table and, laying his hand upon Claire's + cold fingers, he ran his palm the full length of her arm.</p> +<p>She shook him off as she rose. But he continued to smile with wine-heated indulgence. + "For me," he repeated again. "She wears this beautiful dress + for me only!"</p> +<p>Claire glanced down at Stillman. His face was gray, his hands clenched at his + side. Lycurgus moved away.</p> +<p>"Good night," she said to Stillman.</p> +<p>He roused himself. "Then you are going?... Which way?... I have my car + here."</p> +<p>"Some other time," she repeated, mechanically. "I am not afraid. + I do this every night, you must remember."</p> +<p>He stood up. "I should be very glad indeed, but if you do not...."</p> +<p>"No, I would rather be alone."</p> +<p>He bowed. "And your mother—how is she?"</p> +<p>"A little better, thank you. We have a new doctor."</p> +<p>"Is that so? Remember me to her, will you?"</p> +<p>She said good night again, and escaped. The dressing-room was crowded with + women. Claire found her coat and scarf; she stepped out into the café + and slipped them on. Stillman had gone.</p> +<p>The Greek orchestra had started another tune and Lycurgus was leading the dance, + this time with great animation. Claire left unnoticed by the side door. The + night air was still sharp and rather cutting, and the stars twinkled brilliantly + overhead. The chill had driven most people indoors. Third Street was as good + as deserted.</p> +<p>She felt very cold, and she decided not to walk to Market Street, but to take + a car. Her spangled dress seemed suddenly to have grown heavy. She longed to + throw herself prone upon her narrow bed and let the dull longing at her heart + escape in a flood of tears....</p> +<p>She crawled up the long flight of stairs to her cheerless home. The stillness + was broken by the faint breathing of the little faded seamstress and the heavy + snores of her mother. She caught the flicker of a light from the dining-room. + She tiptoed toward it. The tiny lamp before Danilo's icon was still burning + fitfully. She stepped into the room. Something mysterious and peaceful seemed + to flood her soul.</p> +<p>Danilo?... Until this moment she had not thought of him. Here upon the table + lay the simple flowers that he had plucked for his feast. She bent over to smell + them. They were full of wild, uncultured perfume.</p> +<p>And suddenly his face rose before her and she heard the precise tones of his + voice as he had said:</p> +<p>"You must have been eating cherries. Your lips are red."</p> +<p>She tossed aside her coat and her lace scarf, and her imprisoned hair came + trembling in a wayward flood about her shoulders.</p> +<p>She sat down before the table and clasped her hands. In the dimness the holy + image seemed to grow palpitant and alive. Hot tears were gathering in her eyelashes. + She bowed her head.</p> +<p>The light in the lamp gave one brave flicker and went out. Claire Robson dropped + her head upon the table and sobs shook her.</p> +<a name="II_VI"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> +<p>At four o'clock in the morning Stillman turned his car about and began to return + to San Francisco. He did not feel tired, but he was chilled through. About him, + in the faint mist of early dawn, the prune-orchards of the Santa Clara Valley + stretched out in faintly green lines toward the foothills.</p> +<p>He had a sudden longing for companionship. If only Danilo were there to flame + him with vicarious enthusiasm! Danilo!... What was there about Danilo that never + failed to melt the cold forms of indifference and weary contempt? Was it the + man himself, his intensity for a cause, or the mere novelty of the unique atmosphere + which he radiated that had tempted Stillman beyond the pale boundaries of a + formal acquaintanceship? Last night's celebration, for instance, had held very + little that was traditionally appealing to a man of Stillman's upbringing, and + yet he had been tricked into accepting the curious forms through which a totally + strange people expressed themselves. In his travels abroad he had always enjoyed + the spectacle of foreign life, but he had scarcely felt any desire to enter + into it. He found the position of onlooker agreeable, and he was not indifferent + to the merit of other traditions, but he had lacked the naïveté + to surrender to their spell. When he was with Danilo it was different; the Serbian + seemed to be a crucible which fused the most diverse elements, investing everything + in life with simplicity and coherence. In Danilo's presence Stillman found himself + capable of the most amazing confidences. He could speak out boldly about his + hopes, his fears, even his shortcomings. He could discuss the magnitude of his + fortune, his carefully guarded indiscretions, his domestic tragedy.</p> +<p>And now, at this moment, as Stillman rode back to San Francisco in the faintly + spreading dawn, he had a vague feeling that if Danilo had been at his side he + would have poured out his soul and yielded up the most precious secret of his + heart. Well, perhaps it was best that Danilo was safely out of range. It was + not that he felt any precise mistrust concerning Danilo; all his uncertainty + had to do with the strange, hard, coldly flaming Claire that he had glimpsed + in that terrible moment when he had first come upon her, seated next to Lycurgus + at the Café Ithaca. He had never felt so impotent, so helpless as he + had felt at that moment. He remembered, now, every detail of her costume: the + blue-green iridescence that ran through every palpitation of her figure, the + black, sinister patch near her eye, the brilliant red of her lips. And against + all this color the amazing whiteness of her tapering arms had stood out too + clearly. He had seen her arms bared before, to the elbow, but never boldly stripped + clear to the shoulders. And her hair—that hair which always had graced + her head with such unaffected artlessness—she seemed suddenly to have + found the need to overdo, to strain for effective simplicity. Her words to him + had not helped matters. It was not the memory of her defiance that left him + cold; it was the indifference in her voice that froze his heart. She was indifferent—she + no longer cared!</p> +<p>He began now to feel not only cold, but weary. What had possessed him to leave + the Café Ithaca and flee down the peninsula like a thief in the night? + To ride ... ride furiously, madly, that had been his first impulse. Just motion! + It seemed that he could find no other outlet for his tumult. But now the leaping + flames of emotion had died. He was burned out.</p> +<p>The dawn grew rosier; meadowlarks began to sing; groups of blackbirds rose + in ardent, wheeling flights. The mist upon the hills parted and revealed pastoral + secrets. But all this full-blooded pageantry left him unmoved.</p> +<p>He thought about his wife; not indirectly, evasively, as had been his habit, + but with ruthless honesty. The bulletins from the sanatorium had grown less + hopeful. Still, there was always the possibility that the mental fog would clear + and leave her at the mercy of a wan sanity. Stillman could imagine nothing more + terrible than this return to a chill, stark reason. It would be as if some smiling + hillside had paid the toll of a devastating freshet, and was left a scarred + and naked waste that a belated sun could never clothe again. And always there + would be the sleeping and waking fear that the torrents would descend again + with even greater fury. Now, at least, she had the warmth of her hallucinations + to make life tolerable. What would be left her when these mirages melted into + the dreary void of actual life?... For a moment it seemed to Stillman that reality + was the greatest of all tragedies to face. The visions of youth, the ecstasies + of the witless, the crooning dreams of old age—how they softened the relentless + glare of things as they were! How they lured the traveler past the soul-killing + monotonies, the bleak disillusionments!</p> +<p>He left the orchards behind, and came into the region of pretty, artless homes + surrounded by gardens spilling their fragrance into the lap of morning. To the + west the land dimpled with laughing hills, green and tremulous in the young + light. Eucalyptus-trees bent gravely in the chance breezes or stood erectly + still where the calm of dawn remained inviolate. Stillman received the impression + of nature's calm contentment and took issue with it. He was in no mood to be + snared by the false promise of morning.</p> +<p>He began now to think about himself, and immediately all his raillery at fate + died. What had he ever done to prove his claim to happiness? Had he ever wrestled + with God for a blessing? He thought of Danilo, remembering all the details of + the doctor's hard-fisted battle with circumstances—starving days, shivering + nights. There must be a full-blooded joy in giving fate blow for blow; in having + to fight for every narrow foothold upon the ledge of fortune! Well, the heights + had been his without the toil of scaling, and he had looked down upon the promised + land with indifference. What had he been doing all these years, all these months, + all these weeks? He had done his duty, perhaps; but scarcely more. Widows who + cast their mite into the Lord's treasury did this much. He had never thought + of spilling the wine from his brimming cup upon the parched lips of the thirsty, + and he had measured the meal of obligation with too finely balanced a scale. + Now had come a time when his greatest wish was to be prodigal, and the hands + that should have received his outpouring were tied grimly. What would not he + have given to see the fruits of his inheritance replenishing the scant store + of the woman he loved! And yet, as he had said, the veriest beggar could do + more—could fling his penny at the feet of Claire Robson and go on his + starving way with a smile. Perhaps a man more trained in outwitting circumstances + would have found a way out of the difficulty, but Stillman could see only blind + alleys leading from every desire of his heart.... Danilo's ardent face rose + before him. Here was a man who could no doubt feel the ecstasy of personal passion + and yet have abundant thrill for bigger things. He had conquered a profession + and now he was to surrender to the outpouring of the spirit upon the altars + of his native land. <i>His native land!</i> Just what did an expression like + this mean to Ned Stillman?—a smiling country untouched by the stress of + nature, and only remotely disturbed by the grim expediency of war; a sky-blue + birthright that yielded up the easy harvests which had reduced him to such sleek + impotence. He felt suddenly tricked, cheated, as one does who looks back upon + indulgent parents with a feeling of accusing scorn. Danilo's native land had + made demands, forced the chains of loyalty in the white-heated fires of necessity. + Danilo loved his Serbia because he had wept with her—because the claims + of mutual tears are stronger than the claims of mutual laughter. Stillman felt + loyal to the land of his birth. And he had worked hard, too. He had made sacrifices, + of a kind, and he was prepared to do more. Yes, he would go the limit ... the + absolute limit. He had every reason to be grateful for his inheritance, and + yet, Danilo, penniless and tempered in the fires of a frugal birthright, had + the best of the bargain....</p> +<p>Stillman was nearing San Francisco now. The landscape had the moth-eaten look + that landscapes do when they make the transition from countryside to paved streets. + But at least the morning air was still fresh, as yet unpolluted by the foul + breath of drudgery and toil. He began to wonder vaguely whether Danilo would + be stirring so early. He felt a sudden desire to see him. Well, why not? He + remembered the doctor's address—a cheap lodging-house on Third Street. + He had never favored Danilo before with a visit. It seemed absurd to burst in + upon a man at the ungodly hour of six o'clock. But he had a wish to outrage + his own sense of conventionality.</p> +<p>He found Danilo up and stirring. The room was clean and unincumbered with personal + effects. A few photographs upon the bureau, a panorama of Belgrade, an American + and a Serbian flag intertwined—these were all the evidences of occupation. + Danilo himself was in a gay-flowered dressing-gown and he moved toward the door + with a graceful gliding movement as he said:</p> +<p>"Why, my dear fellow, you look ill! What can be the matter?"</p> +<p>Stillman sank into a chair. It had needed just this word of sympathy to upset + his poise utterly.</p> +<p>"I don't know," he answered. "I felt suddenly dizzy when I opened + the door. Forgive me for breaking in on you at such an hour!"</p> +<p>Danilo answered with a laugh, and brought out cigarettes. Stillman took one. + They began to smoke.</p> +<p>"I can't think what is the matter with me," Stillman began, awkwardly.</p> +<p>Danilo seated himself. "I can. You're in love. You are afraid to talk + about it.... Ah yes, I knew that I was not wrong! You are blushing like a school-boy. + Tell me, what is her name?"</p> +<p>Stillman breathed heavily. He made no answer.</p> +<p>Danilo rose. "Ah, my friend, forgive me!" he said, quickly. "I + didn't realize it was...."</p> +<p>Stillman made a little gesture of appeal. "I didn't myself until.... God, + it's all so horrible!"</p> +<p>"Your wife, you mean?... Well, perhaps there could be a way out."</p> +<p>"No, there's no way out!... What would you do if you saw the woman you + loved going down ... down ... down, and you were powerless to save her?"</p> +<p>"A question of money or morals?"</p> +<p>"Money first of all...."</p> +<p>"That ought not to be much of a problem in your case."</p> +<p>"Ah, you don't understand! Oh no! can't you see? In this case it would + be impossible!"</p> +<p>"Then it <i>is</i> a question of morals.... I know. Sometimes these things + happen—how do you say it?—in the best of regulated families. If + I were in your position and it happened to the woman.... Well, in my country + it is all very simple. We call the man out and shoot him. Here ... I suppose + here you tell your troubles to a policeman, do you not?"</p> +<p>Stillman darted a swift, searching look at Danilo.</p> +<p>"Not always.... Sometimes we commit the indiscretion of telling our friends."</p> +<p>Danilo rose quickly. He went over and put his hand caressingly on Stillman's + shoulder.</p> +<p>"<i>Indiscretion</i>, my brother?" he queried. "Ah, you do not + know me, even yet! Well, we are companions in misery, if it comes to that. But + in my case I do not think I shall need the pistol. I shall marry the girl. And + that will end everything."</p> +<p>Stillman pressed Danilo's hand. "A girl of your own people?"</p> +<p>"No—one of your American girls.... Some day, when it is all settled, + I shall invite you to meet her.... I came very near letting you see her last + night. But it happened otherwise, and I am as well pleased." He laughed, + showing his teeth pleasantly. "I do not want you as a rival, my brother. + That would be a nasty business between friends."</p> +<p>Stillman rose. "My dear Danilo, I wish you every happiness," he said. + He wanted to say more, to sound a warmer note, but the words would not shape + themselves. But Danilo seemed to divine his intent.</p> +<p>"And you, brother.... No, I shall not mock you with a return of the compliment. + But I shall hope that it will all come right for you, somehow. That this woman + you love shall be worthy of a good man. At least, then you will have your faith. + Cold comforts are better than none at all!"</p> +<p>Stillman smiled grayly. "And what is to become of the Serbian project, + now that you are to be...."</p> +<p>"My dear fellow, marriage is not the end of everything. A man still has + his duties—his enthusiasms! Everything will go on as I have planned it."</p> +<p>"You said she was an American.... Perhaps she will object to being left...."</p> +<p>"Left?... Why, she will go with me! Remember, I am marrying a wife, and, + naturally, a wife does what her husband—"</p> +<p>"Oh, of course, of course! That goes without saying." Stillman laughed + disagreeably. "Really, I must be running along. I am tired. I have been + riding all night."</p> +<p>"I am afraid my name-day celebration was disturbing," Danilo said, + giving Stillman his hand.</p> +<p>"Life is so full of unexpected turns," Stillman ventured as he swung + open the door. "I didn't think that your life and my life were touched + by the same currents."</p> +<p>"Are they?"</p> +<p>"Remotely ... by the merest chance."</p> +<p>Danilo looked puzzled. "Chance is like a deep pool; you never know what + ghastly thing it will yield up."</p> +<p>Stillman narrowed his eyes. He began to remember things. Again he heard the + sharp slam of a taxi door, again he felt his cheeks burn as he leaned forward + to pick up his hat, again he laid an inquisitive hand upon the shoulder of a + slim, beetle-browed figure standing with one finger upon the call-bell of an + elevator. And again that figure turned, fixing him with a red-lipped smile.... + Yes, at this moment, standing before Danilo, it all came back.</p> +<p>"An American girl.... So he is to marry an American girl!... I wonder + if...."</p> +<p>For a moment he felt the hot coals of smoldering lawlessness flare within him. + But a chill followed ... a bleak, dead, lifeless chill of resignation. He put + out his hand.</p> +<p>"I hope everything good for you, my friend," he said, sadly. "Everything + good for you ... and ... and this woman you are to marry."</p> +<a name="II_VII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3> +<p>"It is as I thought ... he is in love. He admitted as much to me this + morning.... What do you think of him?"</p> +<p>Danilo, standing before the kitchen window of the Robson home, looked out across + the dreary stretch of back yards and dizzy back stairways.</p> +<p>Claire stopped folding a dish-towel as she gave Danilo a sharp glance. Here + was the opportunity that she had longed for. Now she could tell him simply and + naturally that she had seen Stillman before, that she knew him, had worked for + him, in fact. But, instead, a sudden awkward silence fell.... Something at once + definite and intangible had come between these two.</p> +<p>Danilo fingered his hat and remembered a pressing engagement.</p> +<p>Claire followed him to the door.</p> +<p>"My patient died last night—the old woman I was called away to attend. + I thought of you all the while, wondering how you would get home. Indeed, at + one o'clock I went back for you, but you had gone."</p> +<p>"That was very kind," Claire returned, still moved by a vague resentment. + "I got home as usual ... on the street-car. I do it nearly every night, + you know."</p> +<p>Danilo looked at her squarely. "But last night was different. You—you—well, + to be frank, you were not dressed for the street."</p> +<p>She had been expecting some such thing and she decided to meet the issue nonchalantly. + "Oh, but you didn't see me leave! I was the most dowdy and respectable + thing imaginable. A shabby coat and a dingy lace scarf work wonders. I assure + you nobody looked twice at me."</p> +<p>Danilo frowned, and he stepped back upon the threshold as he said:</p> +<p>"Nobody would have looked at you even once if I had been along.... I do + not want you to dress again as you did last night."</p> +<p>"No?" she gasped.</p> +<p>"No. It makes me.... Well, perhaps you would not understand, now. But + later—later you will see why I take the trouble.... As a matter of fact, + I would have brought my friend Stillman over to meet you, but I decided to wait + for another time ... when you were more like yourself. I wanted him to see you + at your best.... I hope my words do not offend you. But you have no brother + and...."</p> +<p>He finished with a shrug. His words did not offend her—they struck deeper, + so deep that all her pride rose to meet the issue with a smiling acceptance + of his rebuke. "<i>Offended?</i> Oh, my dear, no! You are frank about it, + at all events." She forced a laugh. "I shall try to be good in the + future."</p> +<p>He did not succumb to her strained mirth. He merely looked at her with a note + almost disapproving as he gravely said good-by.</p> +<p>She went up-stairs into her mother's room. Mrs. Robson sat propped up in the + position that Claire always helped her assume for the doctor's daily visit. + Mrs. Robson's dull eyes brightened. She began her illusive mumblings. Claire + dropped at attentive ear to her mother's words.</p> +<p>"The doctor," Mrs. Robson was saying, "he should not come every + day. It—it is too expensive."</p> +<p>"I am not paying him, mother."</p> +<p>"Oh.... Then he is not coming to see me?"</p> +<p>"Why, of course he is coming to see you, mother! What else would...."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson shook her head. "I've been thinking, Claire.... Of course, + he is not just what I had hoped.... But he is a kind man, Claire. I don't know, + but perhaps...."</p> +<p>She tried to lift her helpless hands and draw her daughter's head toward her + lips. Claire met the effort half-way.</p> +<p>"He is a kind man, Claire, a kind man," Mrs. Robson kept repeating.</p> +<p>Claire's heart gave a sudden leap.</p> +<p>"We shall see, mother. We shall see."</p> +<hr /> +<p>One night toward the end of the week Claire Robson had a surprise. In the midst + of all the cut-to-measure gaiety of the Café Ithaca who should walk in + the side door but Sawyer Flint. Claire stared frankly. Instinctively Flint fell + back with a quick screening movement, not only obvious, but futile. His companion + proved to be Lily Condor. Claire, who was sitting idly at the piano, turned + away her head and began to play. The spectacle of Flint and Mrs. Condor together + was not unexpected; Nellie Whitehead had brought her the news of this latest + alliance not two weeks before.</p> +<p>"They go poking about to all the cheap joints where they're sure nobody + will get a line on them. Billy Holmes and I saw them at the Fior d'Italia last + Saturday."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead had said other things, too, complimentary to neither her former + employer nor his latest boon companion....</p> +<p>Claire did not look up again until she had finished the piece she was playing. + Flint and Lily Condor had retreated to an obscure corner where they seemed to + be sitting in rather furtive discomfort. Claire was human enough to enjoy her + triumph. She knew that the two were taking mental stock of the defenses that + they might be called upon to use.</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor looked older; her hair was losing its luster, and her complexion + showed unmistakable first-aid signs. There were about her mouth, too, lines + of spiritual rather than of physical fag, forerunners of a complete let-down. + Claire could but feel a measure of pity for this woman. She knew enough to realize + that in accepting the attentions of Sawyer Flint Lily Condor had reached the + ghastly plains of unrestrained compromise. At least there had been always something + bold and arresting about Mrs. Condor's indiscretions; she had not been given + to shielding her improprieties behind the screen of cheap delights. She reminded + Claire of some harried animal snatching joys at the expense of security. After + Flint washed his hands of her, what then?</p> +<p>Flint was making compromises, too. Lily Condor was not the woman he would have + picked for a dining companion if the field had been open to his choice. Flint + liked to exhibit his quarry rather openly and with a swagger. But Lily was no + conquest to brag of, and Claire could see that already his attitude was anything + but deferential. She had a feeling that Mrs. Condor would have been willing + to take the chance of dining with Sawyer Flint in the fashionable restaurants + of San Francisco, and that these shifts to less smart entertainments were more + a matter of Flint's lack of pride in his adventure rather than his companion's + desire to be furtive. And as for the discretion of sneaking in and out of badly + lighted side entrances—even this was questionable. After all, Flint and + Lily Condor could have played an open game to much better purpose, and Claire + was sensible that they both were aware of this fact—the lady to her inward + chagrin.</p> +<p>Flint ordered a salad and then rose and went out into the barroom. Mrs. Condor, + divesting herself of wraps, deliberately caught Claire's eye and beckoned her. + Claire left the piano stool.</p> +<p>"Claire Robson!" began Mrs. Condor, boldly. "Fancy—<i>you</i> + here!"</p> +<p>Claire looked at her with uncomfortable directness. "All my friends are + surprised," she answered, simply.</p> +<p>This reply left Mrs. Condor without any conversational lead. But she was not + inclined to retreat in the face of blocked advance. "I heard somewhere," + Lily lied, glibly, "that you were doing cabaret work, but of course it + never dawned on me to find you in the Greek quarter. How is it—very dreadful?"</p> +<p>Claire waved her hand. "You can see for yourself," she said.</p> +<p>"Oh, I dare say it is human enough. By the way, I suppose you're very + sore at me. But really, you know—"</p> +<p>"Sore at <i>you</i>! Why, my dear Mrs. Condor, I am sore at nobody. Why + should I be?"</p> +<p>"Well, I thought perhaps.... Oh, well, what is the use of pretending? + You know what I'm talking about."</p> +<p>"If you mean that silly tempest about the Café Chantant, please + dismiss it from your mind. I've done so long ago. You were put in an awkward + position and I don't blame you. You had to choose, of course, between me and + your friend, Mrs. Flint. I can't fancy any sane person doing differently."</p> +<p>Claire had never thought she could put so much cool insolence into a speech. + Lily Condor stared, fidgeted, tried to laugh. "<i>Mrs. Flint!</i> Well, + my dear, you know as well as I do that she's impossible. I really feel sorry + for Sawyer. He likes a little gaiety now and then ... just.... Well, you know + what I mean!"</p> +<p>"Yes ... he told me all about it the night I went over to take dictation. + 'No rough stuff, but a good feed, and two kinds of wine, and a cigarette with + the small black.' That was the way he put it, as I remember. It all sounded + very gay and exciting then. But I've seen a good deal since, and now it all + strikes me as quite dull."</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor was measuring Claire with a puzzled air. "Claire, you're getting + bitter, I'm afraid. I'm sorry to see that. I'm old enough, Heavens knows, but + I try to get peevish. As a matter of fact, you played your cards all wrong. + You had Ned Stillman going south. Do you know why I called you over to my table + to-night?"</p> +<p>Claire looked at her purring adversary from head to foot. "Yes, you wanted + to make sure that I wouldn't spread the news to Mrs. Flint about seeing you + here—with her husband. You needn't worry. The news won't get to Mrs. Flint + through me. I've got other things on my mind."</p> +<p>Claire moved away. Flint was coming back. He had the effrontery to bow to her, + but she stared at him coldly and resumed her seat at the piano. Presently she + was conscious that Flint had called the waiter. And a little later she saw Flint + and Lily Condor go out the side door.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Flint came back to the Café Ithaca the following night, alone. It was + after the dinner hour and there was a little lull between gaieties. The entertainers + sat huddled about the piano, but Claire was sitting in a far corner, at one + of the obscure tables. Since the St. George's Day celebration the other performers + had treated her with cool contempt, making pointed remarks about "up-stage" + airs and the people who indulged in them. Claire felt that it was only a matter + of time, now, that she would be forced to leave. Lycurgus had taken to drinking + more and more heavily and he had begun to intimate that perhaps it would be + a fairer proposition if Claire got in between numbers and hustled drinks with + the rest of them. He was still appreciative of the costume she had worn at his + feast, but she was finding it difficult to explain why she did not appear in + it every night.</p> +<p>Lycurgus saw Flint come in, and, scenting a generous patron, scurried up to + him obsequiously.</p> +<p>"Thank you—thank you! Where will you sit?"</p> +<p>Flint swept the room with his glance. "Over there," he said, loudly, + pointing to where Claire was sitting.</p> +<p>She was on her feet in an instant, but Flint bore down upon her swiftly. "Here! + Don't be in such a hurry! I've got something to say to you."</p> +<p>She shrugged wearily and resumed her seat. Lycurgus discreetly retreated.</p> +<p>Flint threw aside his overcoat and took a chair opposite her.</p> +<p>"What'll you have?" he demanded, beckoning the waiter.</p> +<p>"Nothing," she answered.</p> +<p>Flint ordered a cognac.</p> +<p>"Old friend Condor tells me that you insulted her last night. I'm glad + of it. I'm sick of her. I'm sick of everything. Cheer up! Have one with me, + won't you?... I say, but you are a nice little tombstone to be ornamenting a + place like this. What's the matter, don't you like me?"</p> +<p>Claire continued to stare dumbly at him. He had been drinking, she could see + that plainly, and she felt a remnant of the mixed fascination and fear that + she had experienced during that memorable hour at his dinner-table.</p> +<p>"No, you don't like me," he mused audibly, with an air of drunken + melancholy, as if the thought had just struck him. "That's why I'm running + around with the old girl ... just out of spite.... Say, but this is a hell of + a place for you to be in! On the square it is ... nothing but dirty, drunken + Greeks and painted females! Bah! this isn't any place for you! What I wanted + to say is this—any time you want your job back you can have it. It's there + waiting for you. And there ain't any strings on it, either.... I played you + a mean trick and I acknowledge it. Now I ask you, on the level, ain't that fair + enough?... I ain't the man to go crawling on all-fours, begging people's pardon. + But you've been pretty game and I take my hat off to you! I take my hat off + to anybody that's game, see? Anybody at all ... anybody that's game.... Well, + what you staring at? I know I'm losing my hair, but I don't have to have <i>you</i> + tell me that.... Is it a go? Your job back and everything nice and comfortable + again?"</p> +<p>Suddenly Claire felt sorry for him. She was beginning to feel sorry for any + one stripped of his illusions. And she had a conviction that this man before + her had treasured illusions that were no less poignant merely because they were + vulgar. He seemed sincere in spite of his befuddled state. Somehow, somewhere, + it had come upon him that he had done her a grave injustice and he was offering + her such reparation as his lights allowed. <i>Her job back and everything nice + and comfortable again!</i> How simple and naïve and masculine! Everything—all + the bitter, soul-stirring experiences of the past months to be swept aside by + the simple formula of restoring her to her old berth! It was absurd enough for + laughter, but tears trembled very near the surface of such a revelation. Yes, + it took a man to have the courage of any faith so direct and artless!</p> +<p>"I'm afraid," she said, looking at him clearly, "that it wouldn't + be possible ... to have the slate wiped clean again. And besides.... I have + to earn my living now at night, Mr. Flint. I have my mother to look after in + the daytime, you know."</p> +<p>She spoke so gently that she surprised even herself. And it came upon her that + she had no reason to feel any rancor against the man before her. It was he that + had given her the first opportunity to cross swords with life. And it struck + her with added force that she would not recall one moment of the last six months + even if she could.</p> +<p>He did not receive her reply with much grace. His fist came down upon the table + as he said:</p> +<p>"You always were damn full of excuses.... You worked in the daytime for + Ned Stillman.... But you can't get rid of me as quickly as you once did. This + is a public place and I'll come here and sit every night and order up drinks + until you change your mind."</p> +<p>Claire rose in her seat. "Sit down!" he commanded, thickly. "Sit + down, or by God! I'll start something!"</p> +<p>His voice had risen so that the entertainers grouped about the piano heard + him. Lycurgus came forward.</p> +<p>"Thank you! Thank you!... What is the matter?"</p> +<p>"This dame here," Flint cried, sweeping a sneering finger in Claire's + direction, "she's about as alive as a broiled pork chop. I come in here + for a good time and I can't even get her to drink with me. What kind of a dump + is this, anyway?"</p> +<p>A swooning fear came over Claire. What if Danilo were suddenly to come in the + side door? She looked in the direction of the entertainers. They were smiling + broadly. Lycurgus rubbed his hands together and fawned.</p> +<p>"Thank you!... Thank you! What is it, Miss Robson? If the gentleman wants + to buy a drink, surely...."</p> +<p>Claire saw Doris, the French Jewess, coming toward them. "Did I hear something + about some one wanting to buy a drink?" She turned a wide smile upon Flint. + "Here, let me sit down!" she demanded of Claire, who moved away.</p> +<p>Claire walked in the direction of the dressing-room. Lycurgus followed her.</p> +<p>"Miss Robson, thank you! Thank you! You see how it is? You spoil my trade! + Everybody else ... they dress gay ... plenty of color! They order drinks. I + am your friend, but you can see...."</p> +<p>"Yes, yes," she answered, hurriedly. "I see. It is all my fault. + I shall go home now, and not come back."</p> +<p>"Not come—<i>never</i>?" Lycurgus brought his hand forward + in the old familiar gesture. "Oh, Miss Robson, why do you make me so sorrowful? + For just a drink.... You would not even have to taste it! Ah, I do not understand + these American women!"</p> +<p>She escaped swiftly and put on her things. As she passed out through the café + again, shrill laughter followed her through the door. She hurried along Third + Street. At the crossing of Howard Street she was aware that some one had come + up to her. She turned. It was Sawyer Flint. His face was very red and his eyes + almost swallowed in rolls of puffy flesh.</p> +<p>"I'm drunk," he said, thickly. "I know that. You don't have + to tell me I'm drunk!... What was the matter? Did I spill the beans? I spilled + the beans, I know. You don't have to tell me I spilled the beans. You lost your + job, eh? On my account you lost it? Well, do you know I don't give a damn if + you did? That ain't any place for you.... That other dame ... she thought I + was going to buy <i>her</i> a drink. Well, she had another thought coming. I + don't buy drinks for any of them. I buy for you or not at all.... <i>For you + or not at all!</i> I think I'll go out and see old lady Condor now. I want to + get rid of her. No time like the present. That's my motto—no time like + the present! You don't have to tell me I made you lose your job. <i>I</i> know! + But I don't give a damn. Do you understand? Matter of fact, that's the only + decent thing I've done for twenty years. And remember, whenever you want your + job back.... You know, just because you're game. I take my hat off to anybody...."</p> +<p>He gave a sudden lurch and Claire escaped.</p> +<p>She thought at first of going directly home, but she discovered that it was + only nine o'clock and she dreaded to think of listening to the pallid chatter + of Miss Proll, the little seamstress. Then she would be forced to invent an + excuse for her early home-coming and she had grown tired of inventing excuses.</p> +<p>She decided to look up Nellie Whitehead. She found her at home, wielding an + electric iron and in a state of comfortable disorder from her straggling hair + down to her frayed Japanese straw slippers.</p> +<p>"Well, Robson, how goes it?" Nellie said, testing the heated iron + with a moist finger. "Don't tell me you've lost your job!"</p> +<p>"That's what I came to do," Claire returned as she threw her hat + and coat to one side.</p> +<p>Miss Whitehead with fine discrimination changed the subject. "I'm going + to get married next week," she announced.</p> +<p>"To ... to Billy Holmes?"</p> +<p>"The same. I sat down and figured things out the other day. This talk + about the independence of females may be all to the good, but I know how independent + I am now and how independent I'll be in twenty years from now. Just about as + independent as a barn-yard fowl. There's an old girl down where I work now, + and she's getting on the ragged edge of fifty, and what do you suppose her joy + in life consists of? Saving her dimes up so she will have enough money to dig + into an old people's home when she's sixty-five. Ain't that a glowing prospect? + Oh, she'll be independent, all right. Anybody is who is a guest of a public + institution. Say, I'll bet the old people's home has more rules than a hockey-game. + Of course, I suppose a man can lay down a lot of rules for his frau's conduct, + too, but the man who marries me will have the fun of laying 'em down and that's + about all.... So you've lost your job? Why don't you sign up a marriage contract? + You're not waiting to fall in love, are you? It's too bad old friend Stillman + has incumbrances. You and he would make a go of it! He's a pretty good kid, + all right. He's got his drawbacks, like the rest of 'em, but there must be something + fair about a man who stays by a rotten game.... Whatever became of that Serbian + doctor, Robson?... Strikes me you've kept pretty mum about him. Billy told me + the other day he saw him coming out of your house. On the square, why don't + you flag <i>him</i>?"</p> +<p>Claire tried to smile. "Well, at least wait until he asks me!" she + replied.</p> +<p>And they began to discuss Nellie Whitehead's trousseau.</p> +<a name="II_VIII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3> +<p>In the Robson flat the lights were still burning when Claire got home. Especially + in her mother's room there was an unusual brilliance for so late an hour. Claire + was frightened. She scrambled up the stairs. Danilo was leaving the sick-room. + "What?..." gasped Claire. "Has anything...."</p> +<p>He smiled mysteriously and shook his head. She went in.</p> +<p>She found her mother propped up and looking more animated than at any time + since her illness. Her eyes were glowing and two faint spots burned on either + cheek.</p> +<p>"Claire!... Claire!" she whispered, excitedly. "Danilo...."</p> +<p>"Yes!"</p> +<p>"It seems.... He wants to marry you, Claire.... He came to me because + ... it appears that is the custom in his country."</p> +<p>Claire felt the room whirling.</p> +<p>"Well, mother?"</p> +<p>"He is a kind man, Claire," she heard her mother say.</p> +<p>She went out into the hall. Danilo was standing calm and confident at the head + of the stairs.</p> +<p>"Your mother ... has she told you?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"You are not ready—is that it?"</p> +<p>"I...." She gave a startled look and fell back a trifle. Then more + quietly she finished: "Let us go somewhere.... This.... I cannot talk to + you here!"</p> +<p>They went down together ... out into the night. She wondered what she would + say ... what was there to talk about?... This was the moment she had been waiting + for all her life—the moment that every woman waited for ... and still + it appeared that it was a matter for calm discussion. Perhaps the formality + of Danilo's procedure had robbed the incident of its surge and sweep.... She + did not know.... All she knew was that she was trembling.... Afraid?... Well, + perhaps ... a trifle. Was it always so?</p> +<p>At the first corner they came upon Danilo's car. Danilo halted.</p> +<p>"No ... no ... let us walk!" she protested.</p> +<p>He yielded to her humor with a gracious shrug. She slipped her arm into his + and as quickly withdrew it—he was trembling, too!...</p> +<p>They walked down Clay Street in silence. Instinctively Claire turned toward + the quickened pulse of the town. They passed through the gaudy shops of Chinatown + into the Latin quarter.... Crossing Broadway, they came upon a flight of steps + that lost their way in the white fog which shrouded Telegraph Hill.</p> +<p>"Shall we go up?" said Danilo.</p> +<p>Claire turned for a moment and looked back at the light-blurred city.</p> +<p>"Yes," she answered, as she gave a little shiver.</p> +<p>She took his arm and they began to climb; the city fell beneath them, a faintly + luminous outline growing more and more remote. Dimmed by the sad and mysterious + tears of evening, the squalid hillside lost its harshness; the cold street-lamps + mellowed to gold in the still, thick air.</p> +<p>They reached the crest of the hill. A breeze from the west showered them with + a flurry of moisture. They looked up. A wind-tortured tree was bending wearily + forward, its dripping leaves trembling before the night's breath. The sound + of an accordion rose above the muffled moaning of fog-whistles.</p> +<p>The street had ended suddenly in rout and was running away in a disorderly + succession of aimless paths.</p> +<p>"Where shall we go now?" asked Danilo, as he halted.</p> +<p>"Toward the music," Claire replied, vaguely.</p> +<p>He listened a moment. "It is over on the east side of the hill somewhere," + he announced.</p> +<p>They dipped down. The way became more ragged and full of shifting rocks. The + air was warmer, screened from the sea's breath by the yellow hilltop. The sound + of the music grew nearer and nearer. A tawny light sprang up just ahead; snatches + of laughter reached them. Then, quite suddenly, they came to an abrupt and jagged + ledge.</p> +<p>"See, down there!" cried Danilo.</p> +<p>Claire looked. Just below them in a bowl-like depression that had once been + the clearing for an old-fashioned garden she saw black figures swaying rhythmically + about a bonfire. Danilo, taking a newspaper out of his overcoat pocket, spread + it on the ground. They sat down.</p> +<p><i>The curtain rises on villagers dancing on the village green.</i> Claire + remembered the old formula with which the printed synopsis of the Christmas + pantomime inevitably began. It had been to her nothing but an empty phrase like + the "once upon a time" of a folk-tale. Claire had never seen a village; + she had seen only cities and country towns, peopled by individuals too self-conscious + to do anything so naïve and simple as to dance open and unashamed upon + the bare earth.</p> +<p>The bonfire blazed up suddenly and the dim figures became more tangible and + alive. Claire could even see their faces. Remnants of a feast were scattered + about—blue-black mussel-shells, soiled tamale-husks, brown crusts of Italian + bread that had been baked in huge round loaves. The music stopped. The girls + detached themselves from their partners. Jugs of wine were now lifted up. The + men drank with heads thrown back, smacking their lips in greedy satisfaction. + The women, standing apart, began to smooth out their dresses and straighten + their hats. Somebody came forward to the women carrying a demijohn and tin cups. + The women drank coquettishly, tossing the last mouthful out upon the camp-fire. + Then the music began again.</p> +<p>Claire leaned forward, her lips parted with a spiritual hunger she could not + define. She felt Danilo's hand slowly closing over hers; she made no attempt + to withdraw it. As she sat there watching these women surrendering to their + transient joys she felt a strange envy, mixed with profound pity. These women + danced to-night; they would dance to-morrow night ... for a week, or a month, + or a year, as the case might be, but finally the reckoning would come. But at + least they danced! At least they would have their memories!</p> +<p>One brown wisp of a girl stood out from all the rest. She was not so deep-bosomed + and broad of hips as the other women, and she danced airily, darting here and + there like a blue-winged swallow. Her partner, too, was taller and thinner-flanked + than the other men. Her head was tilted back and her man bent forward as if + to imprison her very breath in the snare which his smile had set. Whenever the + music stopped they drank from the same tin cup, and when the dance began again + they whirled off like two leaves in the clutch of the autumn breeze.</p> +<p>Claire bent forward eagerly; a movement of her foot sent a detached stone tumbling + over the cliff into the midst of the dancers. They all halted, looked up in + surprise. Then the young woman, catching a glimpse of Claire and Danilo, waved + a welcome.</p> +<p>"Come!" she called, gaily. "Come and have a dance!"</p> +<p>The music, which had ceased for a brief instant, started up.</p> +<p>"Shall ... shall we go down?" asked Claire.</p> +<p>"Yes.... Why not?"</p> +<p>They circled down the hillside hand in hand.</p> +<p>When they came up to the bonfire wine was being poured and thick slices of + bread passed about. The little brown girl came forward, showing her white teeth.</p> +<p>"Here, Tony! This way with the wine!" she cried.</p> +<p>Her partner answered her call. He had two tin cups and a demijohn in his hand. + He filled both cups to the brim, passing one to Claire and one to the girl at + his side. Both women took a sip; the girl handed the cup back to her companion.</p> +<p>"You, too!" she said to Claire. "You and your man! You are like + us ... lovers! You must drink so ... from the same cup."</p> +<p>Claire looked at Danilo. He put out his hand and took the cup from her.... + They brought bread next, not sliced, but in a huge brown loaf. The youth broke + through the crisp crust and gave them each a piece. It seemed to Claire as if + she were partaking of some strange and beautiful sacrament. She looked away + from the firelight—the fog had grown whiter and more dense, and the city + below them had ceased to exist. It was as if care had died and this pallid mist + were a winding-sheet that would forever screen its ghastly face.</p> +<p>The music started up once more. The little brown girl and her lover whirled + away.</p> +<p>"Come," said Danilo, as he drew Claire gently toward him.</p> +<p>She tossed aside her hat, throwing it with joyful abandon upon the top of a + stunted rose-hedge which bent to receive it. They began to dance, simply, beautifully, + naturally, their feet planted firmly upon the yellow clay, their quick, ardent + breaths further whitening the evening air.</p> +<p>"Claire! Claire!" Danilo bent over, in the fashion of the lean-flanked + youth, toward her parted lips. "Claire, do you hear me?... I love you!"</p> +<p>"Yes," she answered, smiling back at him, "I hear you!"</p> +<p>"From the same cup, Claire ... joy or sorrow! We shall drink always from + the same cup."</p> +<p>"Yes, joy or sorrow! Joy or sorrow!" she repeated after him.</p> +<p>"When we mounted the stairs to-night, Claire, we did not know that we + were climbing to happiness."</p> +<p>"Let us stay up here always.... Let us never go down."</p> +<p>"Always, Claire, always. We shall never return."</p> +<p>The music stopped. They, too, stopped, out of breath and bewildered. The musician + was folding up his accordion.</p> +<p>"Ah," cried the little brown girl, running up to them, "it is + over too soon! But we cannot dance all night. There is work to-morrow."</p> +<p>"Yes," assented Claire, slowly. "You are right."</p> +<p>The wine-jugs were lifted and the wine-cups filled for the last time. Danilo + took a perfunctory sip and passed his cup to Claire; she put it to her lips—this + time the wine had a bitter taste. She thrust the drink from her at arm's-length + and poured a red flood upon the tawny, sun-baked ground.</p> +<p>Already the company was departing. Claire and Danilo stood apart and watched + them go. They dipped down the hillside, fading into the mists like a company + of devout and penitent pilgrims. The fire had sunk to a heap of red embers.</p> +<p>"We must be going, too," said Claire.</p> +<p>They made their way back to the flight of steps. The west wind had risen sharply, + and the fog parted in the breeze. The city was emerging from its gloom like + a bejeweled woman dropping a scarf from her gleaming shoulders.</p> +<p>"Must ... must we really go back?" Claire asked, suddenly, as she + drew away from the first downward step.</p> +<p>He took her hand. "Are you afraid ... with me?" he said, gently.</p> +<p>She pressed his hand. "Can it be over so soon?"</p> +<p>"Over? It has just begun, Claire. Have you forgotten?... From the same + cup!"</p> +<p>"Joy or sorrow," she repeated.</p> +<p>He led her back a short distance. They withdrew into the shelter of a twisted + acacia that seemed determined to escape from the imprisonment of its squalid + garden. She leaned against the fence.</p> +<p>"Ah, Claire!" she heard him say, and she felt the shadow of his upraised + arms fall upon her, "can you not picture our life together?... All the + brave things to do and accomplish?... This is as I have always dreamed it—to + share even my workday with my wife. To share my poverty with her. To share my + aspirations. Come, what is your answer?"</p> +<p>She raised her brimming eyes to his. "Yes," she answered.</p> +<p>He put his fingers to her temples and drew her face toward him. "My wife!" + he said, simply. And he let his lips fall upon her hair.</p> +<p>What had she come to talk about? Problems?... her mother?... her duties?... + How absurd, when nothing else mattered but just this ... nothing else in the + whole wide world!</p> +<p>They walked slowly to the brow of the hill.</p> +<p>"If every one could be as happy!" escaped her.</p> +<p>"Ah yes," he murmured, "but there is an end even to sorrow.... + To-day my friend Stillman's sorrow ended ... his wife is dead."</p> +<a name="II_IX"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3> +<p>It was decided that Claire and Danilo were to be married some time in August. + Danilo was for rushing off for a license at once, but Claire pleaded the usual + feminine lack of suitable apparel. Upon the question of finances in the mean + time, Danilo was extraordinarily frank:</p> +<p>"I might as well give up my lodgings in that wretched Third Street hotel + and come here. Cannot you shoo Miss Proll into another corner and let me have + the hall bedroom?"</p> +<p>Claire was on the point of reflecting, but Danilo finished, simply:</p> +<p>"You must live for the next three months, you must remember."</p> +<p>And so the thing was decided.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson was a bit disturbed at this arrangement. The excitement of Claire's + prospects had revived in her all her old sense of social expediency.... She + wasn't quite sure that people did such things. She could not remember one instance + where anybody of her acquaintance had permitted their daughter's fiancé + to share the same roof, and she was emphatic in her disapproval of allowing + Danilo to foot the bills. But Claire reminded her that Danilo came of different + stock and had other standards. At this, Mrs. Robson surrendered, but Claire + could see that her mother's old distrust for things "foreign" was + ready to flare up at the first provocation.</p> +<p>Miss Proll, established in a corner of the living-room, pleaded for the honor + of preparing the trousseau. Claire consented, as she said, with a rueful laugh:</p> +<p>"You won't have much to work on."</p> +<p>But a surprise was in store for Claire. In Mrs. Robson's room there had stood + for years a huge black trunk concealed under a discarded portière. Claire + had guessed that it was full of relics and memories of the Carrol family's former + grandeur, but she had never felt the slightest interest in exploring these melancholy + fragments of other days. But it proved otherwise. There were memories, plenty + of them, but they had to do with the touching struggle of a mother who had provided + against the day of what she felt to be her daughter's greatest need. The trunk + was full of every conceivable material that a bride would find necessary for + a brave showing—yards of silk, bolts of linen, quantities of lace.</p> +<p>"I didn't want my daughter to be a make-over bride," Mrs. Robson + explained to Miss Proll, who stood by Claire as she threw up the trunk's heavy + lid. "I wanted her to have everything fresh and new ... except perhaps + my wedding-dress."</p> +<p>Claire, blinded by tears, drew out the heavy white-satin gown, slightly yellowed + by the years. She held it up.</p> +<p>"What do you think?" Mrs. Robson continued to drawl, thickly. "I'm + afraid it won't do. They dress differently now ... fluffy, light things. I guess...."</p> +<p>But Claire had silenced her with a kiss. Miss Proll's cheeks were glowing with + vicarious nuptial excitement as she lifted the corded-satin skirt in her capable + fingers and said:</p> +<p>"Oh, you won't know this when I get through with it!"</p> +<p>There was the veil Mrs. Robson had worn, too, and the artificial orange-blossoms, + hoarded carefully in tissue-paper, even the thick, white kid gloves of a bygone + day.</p> +<p>"But mother ... all these other things ... how ever did you manage?"</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson smiled and shook her head. She was in no mood for explanations; + she was standing before the altar of all her sacrifices, and it was glowing + with the light of fulfilment.</p> +<p>From the moment that the old black trunk was opened a suppressed excitement + ran quivering through the house. Miss Proll, scorning fatigue, plied her needle + after her regular workday with all the enthusiasm of a bride-elect. Her joys + in the preparations softened Danilo, who had always expressed a contempt for + her solitary state.</p> +<p>Then there was shopping to do of a trivial sort. It seemed that scarcely a + day went by without a request from Miss Proll for some trifling but highly important + reinforcement to the regular treasure-chest. Claire, slipping on her things + to run down to the shops, felt the delicious thrill of a truant spendthrift.</p> +<p>"For myself," she said one day to Danilo, "I would much rather + be married in just a street dress. But mother would be—"</p> +<p>"A street dress!" Danilo echoed, incredulously. "No, your mother + is right! I am marrying a bride, remember!"</p> +<p>And she discovered that a wedding to Danilo meant everything the term implied—orange + wreaths, and veils, and huge cakes ... and a feast. There was nothing colorless + nor sophisticated about such a ceremony to him.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Nellie Whitehead married Billy Holmes. Claire and Danilo were among + those bidden to see the knot tied. It happened at the noon hour in the vestry + of St. Luke's Church, and a score or more of relations and friends gathered + about and sniffled during the performance. Claire, always moved by the sonorous + solemnity of the Anglican Prayer-book, was really touched by it all, in spite + of her Presbyterian training, and even Nellie Whitehead emerged from the ordeal + tremulously. There followed the usual kissing of the bride and the Anglo-Saxon + ignoring of the groom, a bit of half-hearted rice-throwing, and the thing was + over. No feast, no rejoicing, no laughter.</p> +<p>Danilo was puzzled and disapproving.</p> +<p>"Why did they not say mass for the dead and be done with it?" he + snorted.</p> +<p>Two days later he came in for dinner and announced:</p> +<p>"Now you shall see a real wedding!"</p> +<p>It appeared that two prominent members of the Greek colony were to be married + on the following Sunday night, and there was to be a feast at the Café + Ithaca. Claire had not been near her old haunts since the night when she had + dismissed herself. There had been really no excuse. Danilo had brought her the + money due from Lycurgus for the half-week she had served him. At first she had + an impulse to ask Danilo to excuse her. She did not feel sure that she cared + to see the Ithaca again, and she was equally undecided about the wedding. But + in the end she made up her mind to go. At the last moment Danilo was called + out suddenly to a sick-bed. This meant that they were late for the ceremony + at the church. But they arrived in time to see the bride and groom making their + triumphal exit from the altar. The air was musky and warm with incense and burning + candles, and for all its cheapness the church assumed a blue-veiled atmosphere + of mystery for the occasion. Outside, the steps were thronged with the curious, + and, instead of hastening coyly to the waiting taxicab, the bride graciously + stood for a moment in the doorway so that all the beauty-hungry mob below her + could catch a satisfying glimpse of her young loveliness. There was a simple + and generous pride about this little by-play that made it very charming to Claire.</p> +<p>Danilo and Claire swung on a passing car and arrived at the Ithaca almost with + the bridal party. A pushing, eager mob of children blocked the side entrance + and even spilled over into the banquet-hall upon the heels of the bride. The + room was arranged as it had been for the St. George's Day celebration and the + public was excluded. Lycurgus, catching sight of Claire, came forward with his + old sweeping manner, murmuring his clipped congratulations. Doris, spying her + from a far corner, rushed up with an impulsive kiss. It seemed as if everybody + was ready to sink all animosities and feuds before the glamour of Claire's new + estate.</p> +<p>The feast began. Claire looked about; many of the seats were not taken. She + remarked the fact to Danilo.</p> +<p>"Oh, they will fill up presently," he replied.</p> +<p>And it turned out that the wedding-supper was not a matter of cool calculation—so + many places for so many guests—but that the feast was spread beyond the + known partakers.</p> +<p>"Suppose some of the guests should bring their friends?" Claire inquired + of Danilo. "One must look to that. It would not do to turn any away."</p> +<p>A feast then was a feast, a thing to be eaten, it did not matter so much by + whom; indeed, strangers were better than no guests at all. There was something + biblical about it, and Claire thought at once of the parable in the New Testament + which began:</p> +<p>"A certain rich man made a great supper...." And ended: "Go + out into the highways and hedges and <i>compel</i> them to come in, <i>that + my house may be filled</i>."</p> +<p>"This," thought Claire, "is the real hospitality ... the real + democracy."</p> +<p>And it struck her forcibly that for the first time in her life she sensed in + a flash the meaning of equality and fraternity. In a Greek restaurant, at a + celebration of one of the sacraments of autocracy and authority, she had come + upon the underlying principles that she had been taught to murmur mechanically + since childhood.</p> +<p>Looking through the narrow aperture of a particular occasion, she had an illuminating + glimpse of larger issues, unessential differences, and essential things in common + that separated and bound the world together. Danilo ceased to be from a people + apart and peculiar. His people would be her people, not merely because she was + to become his wife, but because they would make claims upon her sympathy and + her love. The table of life was spread for certain feasts that could exclude + nobody.</p> +<p>She had been expecting some outlandish notes to be struck in the celebration, + but it all passed off with a certain joyous solemnity. The supper was delicious, + the wine abundant, the bride girlish and pleasantly conscious of her importance + and the beauty of her snow-white veil. The groom had a place, too, it seemed, + in the general spectacle—an unheard-of thing in Claire's experience. And + in addition to the bride's cake there was a special cake brought in for the + bachelors' table. It was curious to discover that the unattached males were + quite content to sit at a board of their own without the leaven of feminine + companionship.</p> +<p>Later in the evening the entertainers sang, and, of course, it was inevitable + that there would be dancing. Danilo and Claire left at midnight. The feast was + by no means ended, but Danilo had an early start scheduled for the next day, + and Claire was not unwilling to escape before the spirit of the occasion staled.</p> +<p>On the way home Danilo said:</p> +<p>"There, that is what I call getting married! Your people go about it as + if it were something to be ashamed of. You have another word for it ... well-bred, + that is how you say it. But we should all be natural once in a while.... I suppose + you will not care to have a feast?"</p> +<p>Claire glanced at him sharply before replying. He looked so wistful, so like + a boy trembling before the possibility of finding his fears confirmed, that + her lips broke into a smile as she said:</p> +<p>"I think it would be lovely. Let us do just whatever you would like."</p> +<p>He rewarded her with a flaming kiss upon her hand. He had never asked Claire + for her lips; there was a certain austerity about his attitude that at times + filled her with strange awe.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Every day with unfailing regularity Claire made a resolution.</p> +<p>"I shall tell Danilo that I know Stillman."</p> +<p>But it was easier to rehearse the scene than to carry it out. It all seemed + so simple in prospect. There was something awkward about forcing the subject, + and when Danilo opened the way with some casual reference to his friend, Claire + always had a feeling that the moment seemed almost too opportune.</p> +<p>One night she decided to make the plunge and hazard the truth. Danilo had run + in for a moment between professional visits. He had a trick of snatching at + these fragments of companionship, and Claire was getting used to his unexpected + appearance at all hours of the day.</p> +<p>"I've.... I've something I want to tell you," she blurted out suddenly, + as she stood before him.</p> +<p>Her melodramatic hesitancy must have made him apprehensive, for he returned, + with an uneasy laugh:</p> +<p>"You're not tired of your bargain already, are you?"</p> +<p>"No ... but.... Well, I hope you won't think it strange.... The truth + is...."</p> +<p>She stopped in confusion. He gave her a look of puzzled sympathy. It was plain + that she was disturbed, and unhappy.</p> +<p>He laid his hand lightly upon her shoulder. "Well, if you're not tired, + what does the rest matter? Unless, of course, there is some one else.... In + that case...." He had stopped breathing and his lips were parted anxiously.</p> +<p>"How absurd you are!" She found herself laughing at him.</p> +<p>After that the thing seemed impossible, and finally the moment that she had + been expecting and dreading came. Danilo said to her one morning, as he was + leaving:</p> +<p>"What night next week will be convenient for you to go out to dinner? + I want you to meet Mr. Stillman."</p> +<p>"To meet Mr. Stillman?... Must I?"</p> +<p>He flushed. "Well, it never occurred to me that you would object. I have + spoken about it to him."</p> +<p>"Oh, of course! Naturally for the moment I felt surprised. How would Tuesday + night do?"</p> +<p>Tuesday night did perfectly. Danilo decided on dinner at the St. Francis. Claire + was admonished to dress her prettiest.</p> +<p>They had set the hour at seven-thirty, but at the last moment a telephone message + came to the hotel that Stillman was detained. Danilo decided upon going into + the dining-room and waiting there rather than in the lobby.</p> +<p>Stillman came in at eight o'clock. Claire saw him standing in the entrance + to the dining-room, greeting a woman friend. He looked very well, she thought.</p> +<p>Danilo was for rushing up and escorting Stillman in triumph to Claire's side, + but she restrained him. Presently Stillman detached himself from his feminine + acquaintance and he stepped into the room. He caught Danilo's beckoning finger; + his face lit with a rare smile. Claire knew that he had not yet glimpsed her.</p> +<p>It was not until he was almost upon them that Claire noticed him start almost + imperceptibly. Then she heard Danilo's voice ringing out warmly:</p> +<p>"Ah, so there you are!... Claire, this is the Mr. Stillman that you have + heard me speak of so often.... Does he come up to your hopes?"</p> +<p>Claire inclined her head gently.</p> +<p>"You forget.... I have seen Mr. Stillman before," she chided.</p> +<p>"Oh yes ... at the Ithaca. I had forgotten," Danilo replied as he + waved his guest into a seat.</p> +<p>As for Stillman, he said nothing, but Danilo went on with vivacity:</p> +<p>"You see, my brother, it is as I told you—I shall not need a pistol."</p> +<p>"A pistol!" echoed Claire, in a nervous attempt to break the strain + of Stillman's silence. "And what use could you have for a pistol, pray?"</p> +<p>"That was for the other man in the case," Stillman said, suddenly, + looking up.</p> +<p>A quick flush overspread Danilo's face.</p> +<p>Claire did not know whether Stillman's tone was ironical or bitter, or just + thoughtless. But as she turned to help herself to the olives which the waiter + held out to her she had a feeling that the last door to the necessary understanding + between herself and Danilo concerning Stillman had been suddenly closed.</p> +<a name="II_X"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER X</h3> +<p>Meanwhile, among the countless war charities that loomed upon the local horizon + the name of Serbia began to be heard. There had been fêtes and kermesses + for starving Belgians, and lectures on Poland, and concerts for English widows + and orphans, and grand-opera benefits for the Italians, but so far Serbia seemed + to have made either a very faint outcry or to have been pushed into the background + by more spectacular petition. But an erstwhile famous dancer adopting the famous + Red Cross cap and gown in the interest of Danilo's birthplace, there began to + be a decided interest in that little country. A permanent organization for Serbian + relief was formed, and Danilo was made president.</p> +<p>There followed accounts in the daily press about Danilo; his picture was published; + his name even wandered into the social columns. Then, one day, when news was + slack and space abundant, an enterprising female reporter discovered that Danilo's + father had been a descendant of a famous Serbian king, or archbishop, or some + such imposing creature, and Danilo's reputation, social and professional, was + made. It seemed that civilization, although perfectly ready to dispense with + the empty formulas of state, was still hovering with a certain fascination about + the flickerings from the untrimmed lamps of the nobility. It appeared that any + descendant of royalty must of necessity have a romance hidden away in the folds + of his figurative ermine, and so it was not long before Danilo's secret was + made public, in a good half-column of social chatterings, together with a photograph + of the bride-elect. Suddenly San Francisco seemed to have discovered, or rather + the press did for it, that Miss Claire Robson was "talented, accomplished, + and a pronounced favorite of the younger set." Claire, reading the glowing + account, remembered that brides always were "pronounced favorites with + the younger set," whenever through accident or design their names became + mixed with the socially elect. And not only was she herself all these things, + but her mother before her "had been a member of the exclusive Southern + set of the 'seventies," and her two aunts, Mrs. Thomas Wynne and Mrs. Edward + Ffinch-Brown, were still "most prominent in social activities." Altogether + the alliance was the most distinguished and romantic affair imaginable. Only + one figure in the drama came out indifferently, and that was Claire's father. + Claire was merely the daughter of the late Mr. William Robson, and the recital + of this melancholy fact was accomplished with the haste of a regretful discretion.</p> +<p>Danilo was as pleased as a child.</p> +<p>"See," he would cry to Claire, "we are in the paper again! That + is a fine thing for Serbia! Now San Francisco will know that such a place exists."</p> +<p>Every day for a week there was fresh gossip concerning Claire in the newspapers. + Quite in the American fashion, not even the glamour of Danilo's ancestors could + secure for him the amount of space given to the woman he was to marry. The discovery + was made that Miss Robson was "a talented musician ... a pianist of no + mean ability ... a familiar figure to concert-goers ... an enthusiastic Red + Cross worker...." Indeed, it transpired that she offered her talents gratuitously + upon the altar of charity. In spite of the money spent upon a distinguished + musical education, she asked nothing better than to turn her abilities to the + account of the distressed. It went without saying that she was in perfect sympathy + with her prospective husband's plans for the relief of his native land, so much + so that she was scorning all pre-nuptial entertainment so that her time might + be free for the broader demands of philanthropy. It was all very smart and entertaining, + and the real facts of the case were concealed with a dexterous skill. It would, + of course, have been the height of impropriety to set in the column of a young + bride's virtues the facts that she had supported an invalid mother for six strenuous + months, that she had served her employers well, that she was modest and virtuous, + and withal courageous in the face of adversity! No, the truth would have made + dull reading for the rank and file who snatch romance and fiction between gulps + of morning coffee.</p> +<p>But the public's interest in kings and archbishops, and Serbian relief, and + Claire Robson went the way of all satisfied curiosity, and just at the moment + when it seemed that Danilo had ceased to be of any concern this same enterprising + reporter made another discovery. Danilo's father may have sprung from a line + of kings, but his mother was a product of the backbone of every nation—<i>the + common people</i>. Now there were more columns of interesting speculation. Democracy + came into its own. Here was an alliance between exclusive privilege and fundamental + rights, abstractions made flesh by the glib vagaries of the daily press. And + the result, of course, was Danilo, a sort of demigod who had combined all the + virtues of both classes. Chief among the items of interest, the most incredible + to a democratic community, seemed to be the fact that his same Danilo was not + only unashamed of his peasant stock, but proud of it. But then, he had been + basking in the warmth of the free and untrammeled institutions of America for + at least five years, and he had learned, no doubt, to revise his standards. + Indeed, it was due to the influence of American life, to say nothing of his + charming American bride-to-be, that he was bending all his endeavors toward + a rehabilitated Serbia. And it was hinted that there was even a possibility + that this adopted son of the Golden West might one day sit in the presidential + chair of an enlightened and enfranchised Serbian state. With this burst of tentative + prophecy, the hectic imaginings of the daily press concerning George Danilo, + Claire Robson, and their ancestors went out like a spent candle.</p> +<p>But the dust raised by all this journalistic flight lingered long after the + bustle and noise of the performance had subsided. Danilo sensed it in an ever-widening + circle of wealthy patients, and Claire in a rush of interested visitors. Almost + her first caller proved to be her pastor, Doctor Stoddard. He came in one Saturday + afternoon. Miss Proll had returned home early, and the living-room was a confusion + of dressmaking, so Claire ushered the reverend gentleman into the dining-room. + Almost the first thing that engaged his attention was the holy image and swinging + lamp before it that Danilo had set up on his name-day. He walked over and examined + it rather cautiously. Then he sat down with the air of one determined to meet + the devil without delay or compromise.</p> +<p>"The gentleman you are to marry," he said, looking squarely at the + icon as he spoke, "I presume he is ... I take it that he is of a different + faith."</p> +<p>"Doctor Danilo is a Greek Catholic," Claire answered.</p> +<p>There was an awkward pause in which it appeared that Doctor Stoddard was marshaling + all his wits for a serious encounter. Finally he said:</p> +<p>"I hope he is not insisting on your partaking of his communion."</p> +<p>"We have never even discussed the thing. Really, I hardly know what his + views are. As a matter of fact, it makes no difference."</p> +<p>"Makes no difference!... Why, my dear Miss Robson, it would seem to me + that it ought to make a very great difference. You don't mean to say that you + would sacrifice every conviction upon the altar of love?"</p> +<p>Claire, who had been standing, took a seat. "My dear Doctor Stoddard, + have you really ever met a woman seriously in love?"</p> +<p>The gentleman coughed and began to polish his finger-nails upon the glossy + surface of his coat-sleeve.</p> +<p>"I have been in the ministry for over thirty years." He stopped a + moment, measuring Claire for a supreme thrust as he finished with a certain + pompous satisfaction. "And you forget, Miss Robson, I am myself a married + man!"</p> +<p>Here was simple, conceited, masculine faith again! Claire could not restrain + a smile as she changed the subject. But it came to her as she did so that there + was something at once pathetic and terrible about so bland an assurance. She + thought of Stillman and quite unconsciously she found herself mentally repeating:</p> +<p>"I must tell Danilo in the morning."</p> +<p>Doctor Stoddard continued to make other polite inquiries, but in the end the + original question came to the fore again.</p> +<p>"I hope," he hazarded, upon leaving, "that you <i>will</i> ponder + seriously the spiritual side of your marriage. One should think twice before + deserting the faith of one's fathers. I cannot fancy that Doctor Danilo will + expect you to make the supreme sacrifice of being married out of your own fold."</p> +<p>After he had gone she felt uncomfortable. She had lost all sense of the authority + with which Doctor Stoddard felt himself invested, but in an intangible way he + did remain the symbol of those things unseen which made faith in life possible. + And somehow his presence revived the old hopes as well as the exquisite spiritual + fears of childhood. She had not been trained to refresh a soul wearied by sophistication + by the simple act of lighting a taper before a holy image, and she knew that + this never could be her portion. But Doctor Stoddard's presence itself gave + her a very real idea of what Danilo had felt when he had set up his little name-day + altar in the Robson dwelling. One could deny the precise terms of one's inbred + faith, but it would still remain the most tangible clue to a larger hope—the + slender thread which guided one through the maze.</p> +<p>Only one other person raised the question of what form of ceremony Claire had + decided upon for her wedding, and curiously enough that person was Nellie Whitehead + Holmes.</p> +<p>"I say, Robson," she flung out one day, "I hope you ain't going + to stand for any three-ringed circus stuff when you get hitched. Just you insist + on a straight old-fashioned get-away ... in plain English."</p> +<p>Claire made no reply and, Nellie, searching her friend's face sharply, said, + with no attempt to conceal her panic:</p> +<p>"You ain't thinking of changing your religion, are you?"</p> +<p>Claire smiled. "Well, why not? I'm changing my name. And after all...."</p> +<p>"Claire Robson, don't be a fool!... Why, I wouldn't change my religion + for the best man in the world!"</p> +<p>"No? And just what is your religion, Nell?"</p> +<p>"Why, I'm an Episcopalian! You ought to know that! You went to my wedding. + You didn't think Holmes had any say about that, did you? Well, I guess not! + No, sirree, I wouldn't change my religion for <i>anything</i>!"</p> +<hr /> +<p>Danilo was very busy now and Claire really saw little of him. He took an early + breakfast, almost on the run, and it was seldom that he came in at the dinner + hour. But somehow the atmosphere of the Robson flat was tremulous with his presence.</p> +<p>The month of June passed, unusually clear and unusually warm for early summer + in San Francisco. Claire never remembered a time when she had been busier. There + was the housework to do and sewing to be accomplished and her mother to attend + to. Not that Mrs. Robson was making any great demands, but Claire found herself + surrendering every spare moment to the invalid. At such times Claire had a shuddering + sense of keeping a watch for the coming of that thief which was to rob her of + the last link binding her to her old life. It was plain that Mrs. Robson was + failing fast. Complications were developing, the end could not be far off.</p> +<p>At night she took long walks while Miss Proll sewed feverishly. The old gray + city was like an old intimate friend and she was saying good-by to it as passionately + as if it had been a warm and living personality. She would stand for long stretches + upon the heights, watching the twilight lay its cloak gently upon the town's + curving limbs. And as night came on apace, the hills would twinkle with the + shameless gauds of evening. What a wanton, fascinating city it was! And how + she loved it!... All her life she had taken it for granted, as one takes for + granted the familiar things that grow commonplace by constant association. And + yet for all this new-found appreciation of her native city, she longed to leave + it, she wanted to hold the memory of its beauty as an ever-living thing, and + she was afraid to trust to the narrowing vision of bitter years. Sometimes in + these glowing moments she thought of Stillman, trying to dismiss the picture + of his face, sneering and cold before the realization that she was soon to be + lost to him forever. She had not seen him since that night when Danilo had invited + him to dinner at the St. Francis. He had recovered his old genial manner after + the first lapse, but she knew that the flimsy robes of pretense were at best + an indifferent covering for the wounds which were staining his pale contentment. + She did not like to remember that evening. It smacked of subterfuge and unworthiness.</p> +<p>She should have told Danilo—she must tell him to-morrow—that was + the thought that flashed over her every time she came face to face with the + question. But somehow to-morrow never came.</p> +<p>"I must tell him to-morrow!... I must tell him to-morrow!" It became + a stereotype formula which she repeated as one repeats a monotonous prayer in + the hope of dulling a keen sensation of guilt. She was in the grip of one of + those simple situations that grow complicated, through concealment. That was + the trouble, it was almost too simple, and she could find no convincing argument + to explain why she had been silent so long.</p> +<p>During the days when the papers had been full of her engagement to Danilo she + found her heart beating anxiously every time she opened the newspaper to the + society column. What if a hint of her friendship for Stillman were to be blazoned + forth there? It was just as likely that some such airy fiction as this would + grace the feast of gossip:</p> +<p>"Miss Robson is an unusually graceful dancer and she and Mr. Ned Stillman + were the sensation of the St. Francis supper dancers all last season."</p> +<p>If it were so curiously awkward to approach Danilo with the truth at first + hand, what could she say if, hearing the facts of the case from other sources, + Danilo were to suddenly demand an explanation? She could not say:</p> +<p>"It never occurred to me that it would matter...." Or, "I really + didn't think you would be interested."</p> +<p>One night Danilo came home, his lips parted in flushed pleasure, his black + eyes glowing.</p> +<p>"Have you heard what has happened? <i>Somebody</i> has donated a million + dollars to the Serbian cause."</p> +<p>"<i>Somebody</i>?" echoed Claire, but her heart stood still as she + said it.</p> +<p>"Well, it is not for general publication, but of course you can guess + who has done this thing.... There is only one man in San Francisco who <i>would</i> + do it."</p> +<p>Claire said nothing. But the old determination seized her.</p> +<p>"<i>Now</i>, I must tell him in the morning!" she thought.</p> +<p>But when next morning came Danilo had risen early and departed.</p> +<a name="II_XI"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3> +<p>A million dollars for the Serbian cause! The newspapers came out with the news + in bold head-lines, and interest in Danilo and his fiancée grew keen + again. It seemed incredible that a sane person could have given a million dollars + to any cause and withhold his name! It was a method of procedure that was neither + modern nor business-like nor sound, and after the fury and fun of speculation + had died the daily press grew a bit peevish at their balked opportunity to exploit + the donor. And not only had a million dollars been left like a love-child at + the door-step of charity, but there had been no provision made for the manner + of its disbursement. Dr. George Danilo was to have absolute and discretionary + power in spending this huge sum, and nothing further appeared to be suggested + or demanded.</p> +<p>Only one person ventured to hint to Claire Robson that they were in possession + of the secret, and this one person was Nellie Holmes.</p> +<p>"You can't fool me, Robson!" Nellie said, searching Claire with her + shrewd, kindly eyes. "I know who slipped that million dollars into the + poor-box. It was friend Stillman. You don't have to tell me! And it ain't because + he cares a whoop about Serbia or Dr. George Danilo, Esquire, either."</p> +<p>Claire paled and then flushed. "Really, Nell, you mustn't! That isn't + fair to...."</p> +<p>"Fair nothing! Danilo must have two eyes and a nose, and if...."</p> +<p>Claire cut her short with a quick gesture. "You don't understand. Danilo + doesn't know. I mean, I never have told him that ... that I even knew Ned Stillman."</p> +<p>A low whistle escaped Nellie Holmes. "My God! Robson, but you were a fool!"</p> +<p>"I know, but I mean to soon. As soon as I...."</p> +<p>"Look here, Robson, it's too late now! You'll just have to take a chance. + There are some things that cold storage improves, but a secret like that ain't + one of them. Now, with Billy it would be different. He'd take my word because + he knows that there are some things I wouldn't be mean enough to lie about. + But your friend ... well, he's in love up to his eyes. And a man like that is + dangerous. It wouldn't take much to bring him up to boiling-point. And you'd + better not turn on the blue-flame at this stage of the game."</p> +<p>But Claire was determined that she would get free of this figurative blood-clot + which was paralyzing her will, and that night when Danilo came home she made + up her mind to speak out. It was one of the nights when Danilo had denied all + other demands, so that he might have dinner with Claire, and after the coffee + she settled back in her seat and said:</p> +<p>"You have really never told me who gave that million dollars."</p> +<p>"But you know?"</p> +<p>"Well, after a fashion. It.... I presume it was Stillman."</p> +<p>This was not as she had planned the scene and she had a feeling that she was + making slight progress.</p> +<p>"Yes, you are right! I have never had anything in my life so touching! + Isn't it wonderful, Claire? This is a tribute to me, you understand. After all, + he can have no real interest in Serbia."</p> +<p>She drew back in her seat. His face was eager and full of simple faith and + enthusiasm.</p> +<p>"It is very curious," Danilo went on. "He could have given it + to some other cause. He is very fond of Belgium, for instance. But he picked + Serbia. Are you not proud of me, Claire?"</p> +<p>He held his hand out to her across the table. She gave him her fingers and + he pressed them warmly.</p> +<p>"Why do you not tell me that you are proud of me?" he insisted, as + she stared at him with silent, almost frightened eyes. "Do you not think + that a man who can inspire the gift of a million dollars for his native land + has reason to be conceited?"</p> +<p>"Every reason ... every reason," she forced herself to murmur.</p> +<p>"And, as you say in America, it is a very good ad. Why, checks are simply + pouring in! And there is to be a concert given next week. I was talking to some + of the ladies about it to-day. One of them knew you well. She said you played + accompaniments for her last winter. Mrs.... Mrs...."</p> +<p>"Mrs. Condor?" Claire asked, faintly.</p> +<p>"Yes, that is her name! She is going to open the program. And she was + saying how nice it would be if you would consent to play for her. You know I + never would have thought of that. I told her yes! Of course! You would be delighted."</p> +<p>Claire stared. Lily Condor's audacity was arresting enough in all conscience, + but Danilo's calm disposition of the matter rankled. Had it not occurred to + him that she might have something to say about such an arrangement?</p> +<p>"Well, really, you know," she began to stammer, in spite of a wish + to give her words an air of finality. "I don't think that I...."</p> +<p>"Nonsense!" he returned, genially. "It has all been decided + upon. In fact, we have had the announcements put in the hands of the printer + already. Mrs. Condor said you had played the same program before, so what was + the use in delaying? Remember," he finished, with a laugh, "you are + to be my wife, and in my country the first thing a wife learns is obedience."</p> +<p>It was impossible for her to explain her objections—they involved too + many issues—and she could not discuss Danilo's viewpoint without seeming + to be turning an inconsequential matter to very serious account. But she did + gather courage to say:</p> +<p>"Next time I wish you would speak to me before you make plans of that + kind."</p> +<p>Danilo frowned.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Lily Condor again! Claire pondered this unexpected circumstance all next day. + She had been hearing scraps of gossip from time to time concerning the lady + through Nellie Holmes, enough to indicate that her social position was bordering + on total eclipse. Capturing Danilo's patronage was a daring and characteristic + stroke, but Claire felt that Lily knew that any such move was essentially futile. + Was Mrs. Condor indulging a mere whim or was a subtle revenge back of her latest + move?</p> +<p>Claire had quickly abandoned all hope of denying her services in the face of + Danilo's obvious displeasure. But the prospect of having to face the situation + filled her with dread. There was no telling where the issue would lead. What + if Mrs. Condor were to acquaint Danilo with the secret which Claire had been + withholding? Nellie Holmes was right, as usual—there were some things + that cold storage did not improve. It was too late now to indulge in the selfish + luxury of a confession.</p> +<p>She felt sorry, too, in a way, for Lily Condor. There was a pathetic note in + the lady's very boldness. After all, what did it matter? Mrs. Condor had lived + a hard, reckless life, but who could say what spiritual pressure had driven + her down the barren highway of her pitiless pleasures? For Claire had learned + another thing, one must have wealth to be a spendthrift, and she was discovering + that the greatest spiritual bankrupts were those who had the courage to dare + magnificently and lose. And so she sat down and wrote Lily Condor a little note, + which read:</p> +<blockquote> I understand that I am to play for you next week. When shall I see + you and talk over the program? </blockquote> +<p>And on the same night she wrote to Ned Stillman:</p> +<blockquote> I must see you and have a talk—perhaps for the last time. </blockquote> +<p>Three days later she met Stillman at mid-afternoon in an obscure Italian restaurant + near the foot of Columbus Avenue. She had been somewhat humiliated by the prospect + of this covert meeting, but when the final moment came she felt suddenly calm. + As in the old days, his presence engendered confidence. He threw out a golden + circle of light like some mellow lamp that disdained a searching brilliance, + but was content to soften rather than to betray the secrets of its surroundings.</p> +<p>He ordered coffee and a pale amber liqueur and for a few moments they talked + about things that were of the least possible moment. He seemed a little older, + a little less suave and assured; it was as if the hands of his spirit were trembling + a trifle as they lifted life's cup.</p> +<p>"I have wanted to see you," he said, finally, when the stock of subterfuge + was exhausted. "There were so many things that remained unsaid."</p> +<p>"Perhaps it was as well," she faltered.</p> +<p>He touched her hand. "Ah no! There is such a thing as a corroding silence.... + I have learned in the past months!"</p> +<p><i>He, too!</i> She felt her pulses quickening, but she could not speak, she + could only clench her fist under the impulsive pressure of his fingers.</p> +<p>"What are your plans for the future?" she asked, suddenly.</p> +<p>He shrugged. "I had hoped to get away into the thick of it.... But it + seems that my duty is to stick by the home guns. Or, at least, so they tell + me. That's gratifying, of course ... to know that one accomplishes the appointed + task. The armies must be fed, and California is an opulent storehouse. There's + lots to do here.... Still.... Well, you understand, don't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes.... I think I do. I've heard you've done magnificently. And I've + felt proud of you because, after all, in a way, we started on that road together."</p> +<p>He leaned forward. "It was you who first inspired it.... And I've been + tremendously grateful. I've thrown down a rotten card or two in the course of + it all ... but it isn't always easy to play a straight, clean game. But now + that everything is over and you ... you are going to try your luck with the + very best fellow in the world. It was hard for me to figure it that way at first, + but when I saw it right ... well, I wanted to help in some way ... to do something + really big for you both."</p> +<p>"That million dollars to the cause," she assented. "That was + magnificent. Danilo is touched ... you must know that."</p> +<p>He swept the table with an impatient gesture. "Ah yes, I suppose he is + ... but it isn't the personal tribute I should have liked ... for you.... Forgive + me for speaking this way! But to-day for the last time ... surely you will let + me say a few things that are near my heart. That last night we were together—alone—well, + that was a dangerous moment for me. There are times when a man lifts up the + precious cup that holds his ideal and brings it crashing down into shattered + fragments on the floor. I raised my glass high that night for its destruction, + and you ... you.... Ah, well, I'm getting a bit too poetical ... but <i>you</i> + know!... The point is I want you to absolve me ... to wash me clean ... to forget + that night."</p> +<p>She stirred slightly. "I have the same favor to ask," she murmured. + "When you met me at the Ithaca ... my words to you were all very unworthy.... + And I have put you since in an awkward position. It's hard for me to explain + just why I haven't told Danilo.... I suppose some day I shall ... but now, well, + I've decided to let it rest as it is for the present. It's all absurd and pointless + and feminine.... But Danilo <i>is</i> different! One can't tell him certain + things, easily."</p> +<p>He drew his liqueur-glass toward him and looked down into its amber depths + with the air of a man catching his breath.</p> +<p>"Different!..." he returned, musingly. "Yes, you are right. + He is a flame that warms everything that comes in contact with him. But I fancy + he can wither, too."</p> +<p>"Yes, he can.... That's the reason why...."</p> +<p>He looked at her squarely.</p> +<p>"Claire ... do you mind if I call you 'Claire'?... I am afraid we <i>are</i> + playing with fire."</p> +<hr /> +<p>It was past six o'clock when Claire left the restaurant. The warm spell of + June was over, and a high ocean fog was drifting in on the breath of the west + wind. People hurried by muffled in overcoats and furs, their straw hats incongruously + accenting the almost wintry gloom. But Claire was in no mood to take account + of wind and weather.</p> +<p>This last intimate meeting with Stillman was full of irony. For the first time + they had met and talked of what was close to their hearts with perfect frankness, + and it was to be the last time! He had even spoken about his dead wife, in a + perfectly natural, simple way, as if Claire had known her all her life.</p> +<p>They had said farewell while the waiter was busying himself clearing away their + empty glasses. It seemed better so. But as Stillman took her hand he said:</p> +<p>"Try not to forget me, Claire—completely."</p> +<p>"I shall never forget," she answered.</p> +<p>She left him standing there while the waiter bowed over the generous tip which + lay upon the stained table-cloth.... At the door she turned for a last look. + He was smiling at her, but it was a twisted smile.... She opened the door and + went out....</p> +<p>When she arrived home Danilo was standing in the hall, slipping on his overcoat. + She had a fear that he would make some comment about her late home-coming, but + he said nothing—he merely nodded to her as he reached for his hat. She + stood puzzled at his silence; there was something ominous about it, and her + brain started guiltily as she thought, "Could it be possible that he has + seen us together this afternoon?"</p> +<p>She began to take off her wraps. "Are ... are you going out?" she + asked.</p> +<p>He stared at her. "Yes."</p> +<p>"Some one is ill.... I mean have you a sudden call?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>She did not know why she persisted in questioning him.</p> +<p>"You will be out late, then?"</p> +<p>"Yes.... I may not come home at all."</p> +<p>She moved nearer. The hall light struck him squarely. His look frightened her. + There was not a bit of color in his face, and his lips were thinned as upon + that first night when he had risen in his seat at the Café Ithaca and + betrayed his love for her.</p> +<p>"What is the matter?" she demanded, with desperate boldness. "You.... + Something <i>must</i> have gone wrong?"</p> +<p>He started back as if she had struck him a blow. "It is nothing. I am + not feeling well. That Serbian relief is getting on my nerves.... Money, money + pouring in ... and they do not care about the cause, either! It is just the + fashion, that is all!... Bah! Sometimes I hate the whole pretense!... I would + like to find <i>one</i> honest person!"</p> +<p>She shrank back. He walked past her quickly and he began to descend the stairs. + Half-way down he halted and called up to her:</p> +<p>"Your <i>friend</i>, Mrs. Condor, was in to see me to-day.... She will + be here to-morrow to talk over the program."</p> +<p>Claire ran to the head of the stairs. But the door slammed decisively.</p> +<p>"<i>Your friend, Mrs. Condor</i>," Claire mused. "What a nasty + tone!"</p> +<a name="II_XII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3> +<p>Danilo did not come home that night, but Claire was not disturbed. Morning + brought the usual sanity. She was convinced now that Danilo's manner of the + night before was more a matter of her own mood and interpretation than anything + else. But she was determined on one thing: she would ask Mrs. Condor quite frankly + to say nothing to Danilo about Stillman. Claire was still undecided about the + whole question. She had seen that Stillman was against the fine-spun theories + back of her silence, but she had not yet acquired the masculine directness of + conduct that made it easy for her to be either ruthless or perfectly just.</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor came in shortly after two o'clock. She was dressed with extraordinary + lack of spirit for her, in a black street dress that just escaped being dowdy, + and her face was incased in a thick, ugly veil.</p> +<p>"Well, my dear Claire," she said, as she threw back her veil with + something of her old spirit, "but this is good of you!"</p> +<p>The warmth of tone repaid Claire's effort to be generous.</p> +<p>"There is no use in us wasting time talking about the program," she + went on. "You play everything I'm going to sing. I don't know anything + new. I'm getting too old to learn other tricks. You know, of course, what I've + come for? To see all your pretty clothes. I'm still soft about such things."</p> +<p>Claire took her into the front room.</p> +<p>"You see," she said, "there isn't anything very grand."</p> +<p>"Oh, but Claire! What does it matter? You are in love.... If I were a + woman in love I wouldn't change places with the Empress of India. I was jealous + of you, Claire, once ... jealous because I thought you <i>were</i> in love ... + because I thought you <i>could</i> be.... Ah! You didn't think that <i>I</i> + cared for Ned Stillman?... Oh, I liked his attentions, perhaps—every woman + likes attention. And I was envious of your youth, and nasty because my nerves + were frayed.... But deep down I was jealous of your ability to fall in love + with somebody.... Believe me, Claire, the bitterest moment of any woman's life + is when she wakes up and finds that she loves no one. At least that was the + bitterest moment of my life.... I've tried to bring that feeling back again! + But trying doesn't do any good. It either comes or it stays away, and that's + all there is to it.... Oh, I've been <i>loved</i>, Claire, but that isn't the + same."</p> +<p>Claire, who had been folding her wedding-dress, stopped and looked up in surprise.</p> +<p>"I don't wonder you look at me that way!" Lily Condor resumed. "I've + played a rotten game, but I've never acknowledged it to myself, much less to + any one else.... Don't misunderstand me—I'm not crawling around on my + hands and knees sniffling like a repentant sinner.... I hate repentant sinners! + But I've been cheap and small and nasty. <i>Petty</i>—that's the word! + You may not believe it, but pettiness isn't a part of my original make-up. I've + acquired it ... like a false complexion.... I started in life with three things—a + clear skin, quantities of very red hair, and a decent feeling for others. Well, + I lost them all—so I powdered my cheeks and touched up my hair and filled + in the chinks in my disposition with a hard glaze. Oh, I'm not excusing myself! + Some people are willing to sit back and let time and misfortune do their worst, + but I wasn't one of them. I kept on fighting.... I didn't win, but it hardened + me. Fighting always does!"</p> +<p>Claire dropped her wedding-gown upon the couch and she said, very gently:</p> +<p>"Yes ... I know.... I've tasted something of that myself."</p> +<p>"I know you have.... I realized it that night at the café when + you had the courage of your bitterness and insulted me. I was furious, of course! + I wanted to strike back, to kick and scream and claw the air. And as a matter + of fact, I did ... after we ... Flint and I ... got home. He let me rave without + saying a word. Oh, he's a clever brute in his way, that man! And when I'd had + it all out he got up and he said: 'Take a look at yourself in the glass. If + that doesn't cure you, nothing will.' And he walked deliberately out.... I went + over to the mirror after he had gone, and I took a look, a long, hard look.... + Next night he came and pounded on my door—he was drunk. 'I did what you + told me last night,' I called to him. 'Go away! I'm cured!' But of course I + wasn't!... I've looked in the glass every day since.... I don't know just what + possessed me to go and offer my services to Doctor Danilo. A flash of the old + distemper, I fancy. I wanted to create a stir. I smiled when he disposed of + you with so much confidence. I thought: 'Wait until my lady hears; then there + will be some fun!... This will be the first difference, the first quarrel,' + I was mean enough to imagine.... Then, your note came.... My dear Claire, for + once in my life I was without a weapon.... Why didn't you strike back and give + me a chance to fight?"</p> +<p>"Well, to be frank, I wanted to ... at first. But I was afraid."</p> +<p>"Of what ... of <i>me</i>?"</p> +<p>"Oh, not that! But Danilo ... he.... You see, he is a foreigner. He has + other ideas about women and their place in the scheme of things. It isn't exactly + a feeling that he's superior, but marriage to him is a partnership ... a partnership + with a senior member. And senior members—well, they don't relish having + their authority questioned. I'm explaining it very clumsily. But you understand + I...."</p> +<p>"<i>Afraid</i>, Claire?... So soon? You must be very much in love to ... + to...."</p> +<p>Claire drew a deep breath. "And I've a favor to ask of you.... I hope + you won't say anything to Danilo about.... The truth of the matter is, I have + never mentioned Ned Stillman's name to him."</p> +<p>Well, she had said it and she stood staring, wondering at the look of dismay + that seemed to have fastened itself in an arrested flight upon Mrs. Condor's + face.</p> +<p>"You mean that ... that Danilo knows nothing—absolutely nothing? + I thought he was a friend of Ned's? Why, it isn't possible that...."</p> +<p>"He knows nothing," Claire repeated, desperately. "I mean to + tell him, of course, but just now...."</p> +<p>Lily Condor tapped her lips with an uneasy finger. "You should have warned + me sooner, Claire.... I said something yesterday. It was a trifle, but I remember + now how he stared."</p> +<p>"Yes, yes. What was it?"</p> +<p>"I said: 'You're a lucky man, Doctor Danilo. If Ned Stillman hadn't been + married you wouldn't have carried off your prize so easily.' It was stupid of + me, one of those indelicate things we say for want of sense enough to hold our + tongues. I felt for a moment that I had displeased him, but I had no idea.... + But, really, it's just possible that he didn't get my meaning, that...."</p> +<p>Claire shook her head. "I must tell him now—<i>everything</i>."</p> +<hr /> +<p>She did not see Danilo for two days. He came in finally at five o'clock one + afternoon to look up some surgical instruments that he was in need of. She was + busy in the kitchen when she heard him come up the stairs. She went quickly + to his door and tapped upon it.</p> +<p>"Mother has not been so well," she began, without waiting for his + greeting. "I have been longing to see you."</p> +<p>He followed her into Mrs. Robson's room. The patient hardly stirred. Her usual + interest in Danilo seemed to be eclipsed. Danilo looked grave.... When Claire + and he were in the hall again he turned to her and said:</p> +<p>"I suppose you are prepared?... Everything will soon be over."</p> +<p>His tone was dry, professional. He seemed to be making a deliberate effort + to wound. Had he been sympathetic Claire would have been overcome, but there + was something about the scene which chilled her emotions. She felt that the + time to speak had come.</p> +<p>"You have guessed, also," she began, "that I have wanted to + see you about other things, too. There are some things which I should like to + explain ... to...."</p> +<p>He shrugged contemptuously. "Explanations are dull affairs. At least I + find them so. And they usually never explain."</p> +<p>She was stunned. She had thought always of Danilo in terms of warmth, even + of passion. She had never imagined him capable of such steely malevolence.</p> +<p>"I have made a mistake," she went on, desperately. "I am willing + to admit that, but...."</p> +<p>"No, not a mistake, Claire. Mistakes are never deliberate."</p> +<p>She could almost feel herself grow pale. "Have you come to any decision?" + she asked.</p> +<p>"Decision?"</p> +<p>"Well, I suppose that you will wish to be released ... that our ... that + everything between us is finished."</p> +<p>His eyes flashed. "<i>Finished!</i> It isn't as simple as all that. Oh + no! A bargain with me is a bargain. When I make a deal it either goes through + or else there is a reckoning.... But I don't act as hastily as one might imagine. + I believe in sifting things. When I play a game I know every card I hold." + He looked at her steadily. "I am still looking over my hand!"</p> +<p>She leaned against the wall, overcome by a sudden faintness. He passed her + deliberately and went into his room. When he came out she had recovered herself.</p> +<p>"About mother?" she said, with a display of calmness. "What + am I to expect?"</p> +<p>"There is no immediate danger. But in two weeks' time at the most.... + However, I shall look in again this afternoon. And every morning. You may count + on that."</p> +<p>"Then you have decided to lodge somewhere else?"</p> +<p>"Yes ... for the present."</p> +<p>She let him go without further questions.</p> +<hr /> +<p>The week passed in an atmosphere of arrested events. It seemed to Claire as + if the currents of life had become ominously frozen, that they were storing + up a sinister flood in the icy chains of apprehension. Danilo came twice a day + to see Mrs. Robson. He was excessively polite, unbending, professional. Claire + was powerless before such premeditated cruelty. The night of the concert drew + near. Danilo never so much as mentioned it. Finally Claire gathered the courage + to telephone Mrs. Condor.</p> +<p>"I suppose," she said, "that everything is going according to + schedule. Really, I haven't had a chance to talk to Danilo about it. He has + been so busy."</p> +<p>The upshot of this telephone message was that Mrs. Condor called in the afternoon.</p> +<p>"Confess!" she said to Claire. "Things have gone wrong."</p> +<p>"He won't allow me to explain.... It is horrible! I don't know what to + do! And my mother is dying!... How much do you fancy he knows?"</p> +<p>"Everything or nothing! It is hard to say. But you must keep a stiff upper + lip now. No faltering!... Be as dignified as you can. Men like that are dangerous! + It may be that he is merely suffering, that he can't speak out yet! When he + does...." She gave a significant shrug.</p> +<p>Claire folded and unfolded her handkerchief, crumpled it into a ball, tore + at it with her firm finger-nails.</p> +<p>"Words ... insults ... anything would be better than this silence. I have + never been so frightened."</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor's visit relieved the strain somewhat, but Claire was still strung + with a tense emotion that found expression in a restless physical activity. + She even helped Miss Proll with the sewing, although there were moments when + the absurdity of all this preparation struck her with a force which almost brought + the laughter to her lips. But this wedding-trousseau had become a passion with + Miss Proll. Claire could not conceive of halting its preparation.</p> +<p>Once it struck her that there was a decided impropriety about appearing in + a concert, with her mother so near the gate of life's solution. <i>Impropriety?</i> + She pondered the word. And at once a revulsion swayed her. She was sick of all + these pallid phrases of expediency. One could act indifferently or harshly or + irreverently at such a crisis, but it was too dreadful and austere a circumstance + for so smug an indiscretion as impropriety. She knew what her mother would have + advised on a like occasion.</p> +<p>"I wouldn't, if I were you, Claire. People might think it strange."</p> +<p>This formula, then, was all that was left of the pomp and circumstance of death—of + even the glowing pageantry of life; love and hate and desire reduced to colorless + shadows blown monotonously about the lantern of existence by the steady heat + waves of public opinion!</p> +<p>It would have been so easy to excuse herself, to say to Danilo:</p> +<p>"You see it is impossible for me to play next Friday night. Please make + other arrangements."</p> +<p>In reality, she was waiting for him to release her, and, since he seemed determined + to make her cry for quarter, all her pride rose to meet the issue courageously. + It was pride that lifted her head above the choking dust of misfortune—arrogant, + blind, magnificent human pride.</p> +<p>" ...keep a stiff upper lip."</p> +<p>Claire Robson did not need this admonition from Mrs. Condor.</p> +<hr /> +<p>There were also moments of hectic retrospection. Incidents old but vital came + surging over Claire in a flood-tide. Looking back, it seemed as if no circumstance + was too trivial but that it yielded up some fragment which fitted into the intricate + pattern of her life. She had thought of this life of hers always in terms of + uneventfulness, mistaking mere incident for emotional experience. But she was + surprised to discover what depths she had sounded, what heights she had scaled + in the solitary excursions that her spirit had chanced.</p> +<p>People came and went like noonday ghosts—Mrs. Finnegan, Nellie Holmes, + Mrs. Towne, Doctor Stoddard. Claire felt their personalities moving about her, + but the wings of Death cast too heavy a shadow for her to do more than sense + their presence.</p> +<p>Only Danilo's passionately sneering face had the faculty of bringing Claire + up with a round turn to a sudden realization that she had escaped only temporarily + into a world of unrealities. It was as if the payment on a note had been suspended + with refined cruelty—the day of reckoning futilely postponed.</p> +<p>When she thought of him it was with a quickening of the heart, a swooning fear, + a feeling of dreadful nausea. <i>Afraid!</i> She knew the meaning of this word + now.</p> +<p>Lily Condor ran in again the day before the concert.</p> +<p>"I called at Danilo's office to-day," she said, "just out of + sheer curiosity.... I don't know ... perhaps it would be just as well if we + didn't go through with this farce of doing a turn to-morrow night.... What do + you think? I could pretend that I was ill?"</p> +<p>"Why?... What is it? Do you think...."</p> +<p>"I don't like his look. He was most polite.... I think he could have killed + me."</p> +<p>"Nonsense!" Claire returned, boldly. "You're drawing on your + imagination. I want to do it.... I have a reason."</p> +<p>She realized the absurdity of such a statement as soon as Mrs. Condor had departed. + A <i>reason</i>! And her mother was dying—<i>dying</i>! What would people + think? Unconsciously the old question framed itself.</p> +<p>Danilo came in as usual, close upon the heels of Mrs. Condor.</p> +<p>"Your mother is slightly better," he said to Claire. "She may + last another month."</p> +<p>Claire tried to ignore the insolence of his brevity.</p> +<p>"I wish you would do me a favor," she ventured, boldly. "I've + been trying to get Nellie Holmes on the telephone all day.... Would you mind + asking her if she could come and stay with mother to-morrow night from eight + o'clock to about ten? I hate to leave Miss Proll all the responsibility."</p> +<p>He merely bowed his acquiescence. She felt her cheeks burning. He had done + none of the things she had expected him to do—asked none of the questions. + At least she had expected him to say:</p> +<p>"Oh, then you have decided to appear to-morrow?"</p> +<p>No, he had insulted her with his silence, pretending to be neither surprised + nor shocked. But his attitude confirmed her in the determination to carry out + her part of the program.</p> +<p>On Friday morning the society columns of the newspapers were twittering with + the fact of Claire Robson's appearance upon the concert stage in aid of her + fiancé's native land. This was the last time the public would have a + chance to view her as Miss Robson. In fact, it might be the last time that San + Francisco would have a chance to view her publicly at all! These statements + carried an air of civic calamity that must have appalled every shop-girl who + thrilled to their romantic suggestion. Previously Claire had been able to smile + over the transparent fiction of the daily press concerning her obscure self, + but now she caught a suggestion of irony, of bitter cruelty, of withering scorn + running through all this silly chatter. She felt that it had been inspired by + Danilo; between the lines she could almost shape his sneering lips, thin and + pallid where they had once been full and scarlet.</p> +<p>That morning when he came to see his patient his eyes were burning like livid + coals, his cheeks were sunken, his hand shook as he drew back the covers to + look at Mrs. Robson's gray face. And as Claire watched him she saw a tear roll + down the full length of his cheek and drop unashamed upon the rumpled linen. + She felt a great longing then, a yearning to go up and put her hands upon his + cheeks and draw his face to hers and to sit while he knelt beside her and poured + out his full grief in a cleansing flood. But, instead, she stood proudly aloof + and the golden moment of opportunity was swallowed up.</p> +<p>"I will not come this afternoon," he said, at parting. "You + may expect a taxi at eight-thirty."</p> +<p>She felt an impulse to put out her hand to him. But again she could not rise + to such humility.</p> +<p>She watched him go slowly down the steps with the weak tread of one consumed + by a fever. He had changed completely overnight. He gave one look back before + he closed the door—the look of a wounded beast staggering through a welter + of heart's blood.</p> +<p>Claire Robson brought her hands quickly up to her eyes.</p> +<a name="II_XIII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3> +<p>"What would I wear if I were you?"</p> +<p>Miss Proll, echoing Claire's question, swept the array of finery upon the bed + with a critical eye and finally drew forth the iridescent peacock-blue dress + with which Claire had startled even the patrons of the Café Ithaca.</p> +<p>Claire shook her head. "It's cut rather too low," she said.</p> +<p>But Miss Proll would not listen to any such argument. "I've a black-lace + shawl ... my mother's. If you put that about your shoulders...."</p> +<p>Claire allowed herself to be persuaded. She had very little heart in the adventure, + anyway, and Miss Proll seemed to be taking such a tremulous joy in being daring + by proxy. In the end the results justified the choice. The black-lace shawl + tempered the gown's wanton splendor, and, lacking any exaggeration of hair or + complexion, Claire's personality glowed warmly but without flare. She emerged + neither the Claire of church-social evenings nor Café Ithaca midnights, + but a Claire tempered into the crucible of both these divergent experiences.</p> +<p>Nellie Holmes, answering the message sent through Danilo, arrived in time to + put one or two deft touches to the general effect, a twist here and a soft pat + there, that added a chic note to Miss Proll's rather prim efforts.</p> +<p>"Well, Robson," she said, standing off critically, "but you + <i>do</i> give swell clothes a chance, don't you? Friend Danilo ought to throw + his chest out about twelve inches when he gets his eyes on you to-night. By + the way, what is the matter with <i>him</i>? He looks like a sick kitten that's + been rained on. I never <i>did</i> see such a sad comedian. The face he's wearing + these days ain't much of a compliment to you."</p> +<p>The taxicab came promptly at half past eight.</p> +<p>Claire went in to say good-by to her mother. But Mrs. Robson merely opened + her eyes, and closed them again.</p> +<p>"I don't think she knows me," Claire faltered. "I wonder whether + I ought to go? What do you think, Nell? The whole thing seems such a farce!"</p> +<p>Her passionate exclamation brought a questioning lift of the eyebrows to Nellie + Holmes's face. "What do you mean, Robson? Your mother is all right.... + I don't think Danilo would let you leave if.... Tell me, have you and Danilo...."</p> +<p>"No. I'm just tired, Nell. Let me go and have it over with."</p> +<p>She released herself from her friend's implied embrace and went down to the + waiting taxi.</p> +<hr /> +<p>She met Lily Condor in the hallway of the St. Francis, almost at the door of + the dressing-room.</p> +<p>"I've just taken a look in at the audience," Mrs. Condor said. "The + place is packed. Even the real people have come early to-night. It's plain that + you're the attraction."</p> +<p>Claire tried to turn this observation off with a laugh, but she knew in her + heart that Lily Condor was right. The newspaper chatter had had its effect.</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor swept on the stage a little ahead of Claire at precisely fifteen + minutes past nine. A patter of applause greeted her. But a moment later Claire + came into view, and a clapping of hands, out of all proportion to her position + as accompanist, rippled through the room. Claire stood for the briefest of moments + facing the throng, bending slightly forward in acknowledgment of the recognition + given her. But in that short time it seemed that she had taken note of every + familiar face in the crowd below—Stillman, Flint without his wife, and, + farther back, Miss Munch and Mrs. Richards, Mrs. Finnegan and "the old + man," Doctor Stoddard, Mrs. Towne, even Lycurgus and a half-score of the + Ithaca patrons, including a few of the old entertainers headed by Doris, the + French Jewess. They were all applauding heartily, except Miss Munch and her + cousin.</p> +<p>"What irony!" flashed through Claire's mind as she took her seat + before the piano.</p> +<p>Six months ago she had been starving for just the recognition that was now + her portion. To-night she found applause empty of any real meaning. And the + presence of these people who had colored her life made her feel as if all the + joys and hopes and fears of her existence had been suddenly made flesh and were + sitting in judgment upon her. She began to play.</p> +<p>Presently Lily Condor's voice came to her—remote, unreal, a thin, clear + stream of song like the trickling of some screened fountain.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Condor is singing well to-night," she thought.</p> +<p>At the end of three numbers the applause was still insistent, but Mrs. Condor + denied the clamor with a smiling shake of the head. Flowers began to be handed + up—orchids and roses and carnations and flamboyant peonies. Claire passed + Mrs. Condor a share of the bloom and together they bowed their acknowledgments. + They came back upon the stage for a fourth and last time. It was then that Claire + caught glimpses of others whose presence had escaped her—her two aunts, + Billy Holmes sitting alone, and back, far back, standing with his hands folded + in a sort of dreadful resignation, Danilo, his lips still pallid and the hollows + in his cheeks showing up even in the distance.</p> +<p>"You did beautifully," Claire said to Mrs. Condor as they gained + the cloak-room.</p> +<p>"Yes ... I know.... Because I realized that it was for the last time.... + I'm through."</p> +<p>She tossed Claire's flowers upon a lounge and went back to hear the next number.</p> +<p>Claire looked over the cards attached to the bouquets. The orchids were from + Stillman, roses from Nellie Holmes, a flaming bunch of carnations from Lycurgus, + and—she looked twice at the card—the peonies bore Flint's name.... + Not a sign from Danilo!</p> +<p>She decided to go home. She looked about for the attendant in charge of the + wraps, and discovered that the room was empty. The sound of a violin floated + from the concert platform. She went out and glanced down the passageway. The + maid was standing in a screened position by the entrance to the hall, listening. + Claire went back and sat down upon the lounge beside her flowers, and as she + did so Danilo stepped into the room. She rose with a quick movement of protest.</p> +<p>"Really—you mustn't!" she objected. "This is the ladies' + dressing-room."</p> +<p>He ignored her with a malignant smile; he did not speak. But he walked rapidly + toward the heap of flowers and began to snatch at the attached cards with sudden + fury.</p> +<p>"Stillman!" he sneered. "Holmes—Lycurgus—<i>Flint</i>!" + He looked at her with glittering eyes. "Then it <i>is</i> so!"</p> +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> +<p>"<i>Flint!</i>" he cried. He tore the card into bits and flung them + to the ground. "So we men are all alike? Well, you ought to know! You have + had experience enough. What a fool I have been! <i>What a fool!</i> Well, <i>I</i> + am not like the rest of them!"</p> +<p>She drew away. His brow had curdled with bitter intensity. He took her arm + in a firm grip and drew a pistol from his pocket.</p> +<p>"Do you see that?" He held the weapon up to her. "I bought that + yesterday to call the man out and shoot him.... Then I heard that there was + another. Well, in my country we do not waste more than one bullet."</p> +<p>His eyes fell upon her with a mad fury, yet she faced him calmly, almost unafraid.</p> +<p>"Why don't I scream?" she asked herself. "He intends to kill + me ... here! And yet I am not even trying to...."</p> +<p>And suddenly she discovered that he had a great black smudge on his nose. She + wanted to laugh.</p> +<p>"In my country we do not waste more than one bullet!" he was repeating.</p> +<p>"Yes ... I heard you. You don't have to shout! I'm not deaf!" she + could hear herself saying.</p> +<p>He lifted the pistol higher, on a level with her mouth. She could see by the + glitter in his eyes that he was in the grip of a dreadful frenzy.</p> +<p>"Temporary insanity! That will be his defense!" she thought at once.</p> +<p>And she pictured herself lying before him in a crimson pool, saw a black, surging + crowd pushing into the dressing-room from the hotel corridors, felt herself + lifted up tenderly by some one. Would Ned Stillman pick her up? Or perhaps <i>Flint</i>?... + She imagined the trial—Danilo pale and grief-worn, incapable of caring + whether he lived or died, oblivious to his surroundings. Temporary insanity + ... that would be his lawyer's plea.... The black smudge was still there ... + it was too ridiculous! She fumbled with her free hand and, lifting the edge + of Miss Proll's lace shawl deliberately, wiped the spot from the tip of Danilo's + nose.</p> +<p>At that moment she heard a sharp report, glass came crashing to the floor.</p> +<p>"Well, at least his face is clean!" flashed through her mind.... + She felt herself sinking backward....</p> +<hr /> +<p>"Yes, a pistol-shot!" the maid was reiterating. Claire opened her + eyes. She was lying upon the lounge and the flowers had been thrown unceremoniously + upon the floor and were being trampled underfoot. The orchids, crushed and abandoned, + looked particularly sorry. She had an impulse to rise and rescue them.</p> +<p>"Nonsense!" It was Lily Condor's voice. "She merely fainted. + What you heard must have been falling glass. She struck the mirror as she fell."</p> +<p>An enormous relief came over Claire. She closed her eyes again. "Where + is Danilo?" she asked herself.... Suddenly she remembered every detail + of what had gone before—the pistol, the black smudge, the sharp report, + the crash of falling glass. It was the black smudge on Danilo's nose that had + saved her. She realized that now. What a ridiculous thing life was, anyway! + And what trivial circumstances determined its issues! The wrong seats at a church + social had yielded her Stillman. A black smudge upon the nose of an emotionally + shaken man had snatched her from death. What grotesque impulse had moved her + to reach forward at the critical moment and flick the tip of Danilo's nose with + Miss Proll's lace shawl? <i>Miss Proll's lace shawl!</i> Suppose she had not + worn it? Would she have attempted to remove the speck with a bare finger? She + doubted it. Then even Miss Proll's lace shawl had played its part! It was all + very puzzling; the pattern of life became too intricate, too full of flaming + colors that in the weaving seemed of dullest drab.... The muffled talking about + her began again.</p> +<p>"Excuse me for troubling you," she heard Mrs. Condor say, "but + Claire here.... I have looked all over for Danilo.... Oh, nothing serious!... + Her mother.... A little old maid? It must be the dressmaker who.... Yes, bring + her in, by all means."</p> +<p>Claire roused herself. She was sitting on the edge of the couch when Ned Stillman + came through the door with Miss Proll. Claire understood at once. She rose to + her feet. Lily Condor started toward her.</p> +<p>"Oh no—really, I am quite all right. What is the matter? Is my mother...."</p> +<p>"Yes," answered Miss Proll. "You had better come at once."</p> +<p>Stillman went to call a taxicab. Mrs. Condor helped Claire into her wrap. In + less than five minutes they were all standing at the curb, ready to step into + the vibrating car. Stillman lifted the ladies in. He was drawing back when Claire + thrust her head out and said:</p> +<p>"Won't you please come, too? I am not sure about Danilo, and...."</p> +<p>He climbed in, slamming the door.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Claire went into her mother's room alone. Nellie Holmes was bending anxiously + over the sufferer.</p> +<p>"You have come in time," Nellie was saying as she yielded her place + to Claire.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson looked up bewildered. For a moment her dull eyes roamed restlessly + about as if in search of some missing thing. Finally, with a great effort the + words shaped themselves. Claire listened attentively.</p> +<p>"Danilo ... where is Danilo?"</p> +<p>"Yes ... in a moment.... Presently."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson closed her eyes with a smile of satisfaction. It was her last conscious + moment. Slowly she fell into a stupor.... Toward midnight she died.</p> +<p>It was all very simple, Claire thought afterward. Much simpler than living.</p> +<a name="II_XIV"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3> +<p>It was not until people on the street began to stare that Danilo discovered + that he had come away from the hotel without his hat. He felt no discomfort, + but he was annoyed at being an object of curiosity. As a matter of fact, he + was curiously devoid of any emotional excitement; instead, his wits seemed to + have been sharpened by a cool cunning. All his powers of reasoning were reduced + to one impulse—flight. He decided that he must walk on and on without + a halt. His escape from the hotel had been extraordinarily easy. He merely had + shoved his smoking pistol into his hip pocket and walked calmly out. If he had + attempted to run, or looked about excitedly, or even slunk by the liveried flunky + at the revolving door, all would have been lost. But he had done none of these + things and he was feeling a certain arrogance at the thought of his bravado. + But he realized that he must get a covering for his head. It was ridiculous + to be sauntering along the street hatless. He beckoned a youth who stood near + the curb, smoking a cigarette.</p> +<p>"I should like to buy your cap," he said, simply.</p> +<p>The young man stared, then broke into a laugh. "All right!" he replied, + quickly, as if it were the best to humor a madman. "But it will cost you + money."</p> +<p>"How much?"</p> +<p>"Two dollars."</p> +<p>Danilo gravely counted out the money. The youth drew back, instinctively clapping + a hand upon his head.</p> +<p>"Come!" cried Danilo, roughly. "It will not do for you to trifle + with me. You set your price. Here is the money. I want that cap!"</p> +<p>The youth turned pale and attempted to run. Danilo grasped him firmly by the + shoulder.</p> +<p>"Give me that cap!" insisted Danilo.</p> +<p>The youth obeyed, trembling from head to foot. One or two passers-by halted, + stared a moment, and passed on, shrugging their shoulders indifferently.</p> +<p>"Thank you," said Danilo. "You have done me a great favor. Here + is the two dollars. May God reward you." As he said this he made the sign + of the cross in midair above the boy's head. The boy cowered and began to whimper. + Danilo put on the cap and walked away.</p> +<p>He felt more at ease now; no one was paying the slightest attention to him. + He decided to go into a saloon and buy something to drink. The bartender, stout + and genial and Irish, passed him the bottle of whisky. Danilo's hand shook as + he poured out his drink. The Irishman eyed him quizzically.</p> +<p>"I have just had an unpleasant experience," Danilo began, apologetically, + as he spilled some of the whisky. "I saw a woman shot." The barkeeper + seemed unimpressed. Danilo felt annoyed. "At the St. Francis Hotel ... + in the dressing-room, off the Colonial Ballroom.... She had been fooling a man. + I was so excited I walked out of the hotel without my hat.... This cap—I + bought it from a boy on the street. Is it not droll?"</p> +<p>The Irishman put the cork in the whisky-bottle and set it in its place under + the bar.</p> +<p>"The man was a fool!" he said, bluntly. "I'd like to see myself + take a chance at swinging for the likes of any woman."</p> +<p>"Oh, you are mistaken!" Danilo returned, mildly. "The man who + shot this woman will not swing."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, if she gets better, of course...."</p> +<p>Danilo leaned forward. "Better?... Oh no, my friend, she is dead, quite + dead. He aimed at her mouth.... I saw her fall.... But the man will not swing. + He is not that kind. He will shoot himself first."</p> +<p>"It is all the same," returned the barkeeper. "He was a fool!"</p> +<p>"You do not know what you are talking about!" Danilo cried, hotly.</p> +<p>"Neither do you!" said the other, with an indulgent laugh.</p> +<p>Danilo gulped the whisky in silence and went out with a morose air.</p> +<p>"A fool?... A fool?..." he kept repeating.</p> +<p>The issue was at once irritating and impersonal. He felt as if the barkeeper + had affronted the whole masculine sex. A man was a fool for allowing himself + to be taken in, he was quite ready to grant that. But no man was a fool for + collecting the full toll of feminine duplicity. Now this man, in the dressing-room + of the St. Francis Hotel, who had shot down a woman....</p> +<p>Danilo halted. Why, the man was he—himself! Somehow it had never occurred + to him. He had the same feeling that comes in dreams, when one is in some mysterious + way both the actor and the audience. He had been in the picture and out of it. + It was all very puzzling.</p> +<p>He tried to review the incidents of the evening. Nothing was very clear. The + sound of a pistol-shot was the most vivid memory; then somebody had fallen.... + The woman was dead—it could not be otherwise! Why had he walked away so + calmly? He should have stayed. After all, he was a physician and he had acted + unprofessionally. It was a physician's place to remain and serve, even in the + face of utter hopelessness. Well, he had come away and it was too late to turn + back. He was very tired. He looked about him. He had drifted down to the water-front.</p> +<p>He went into a cheap lodging-house and paid for a room. The place was frowzy + and ill-smelling, but he did not care. He threw himself upon the bed. The dreamlike + quality of what had transpired still persisted. He had added another rôle + to the drama, that of physician. He had been the murderer, the spectator, the + physician. But he could not get under the skin of the victim. He seemed to be + able to recall every detail but her face—the blue-green dress, the black-lace + shawl, the white tapering arm upraised as she flicked the end of his nose. It + was then, as the murderer, he had pulled the trigger.... In the rôle of + frightened spectator he had walked out of the hotel.... As physician he had + remembered his duty and chided himself.... He took a cigarette from his pocket + and began to smoke. He lay there for hours, thinking, thinking. But he could + not see the victim's face....</p> +<p>Suddenly toward morning he sat up.</p> +<p>"Ah, I have it! The woman was Claire.... Yes, it is Claire who is dead!..."</p> +<p>He fell back with the satisfaction of one who has solved an irritating puzzle.</p> +<hr /> +<p>He awoke at noon. He was neither surprised nor dazed at finding himself in + a strange environment. Sleep had settled all the dust-clouds of thought. He + remembered everything perfectly. He was a murderer, and he had killed a woman + because he had not been wise or prudent enough to content himself with the fruits + of a tempered, frugal passion. He did not rouse himself. He had no wish except + to lie still and think.</p> +<p>Looking back, he could see that he always had felt uncertain about Claire. + Somehow she was not altogether a virginal type. She was a woman who, lacking + any concrete experiences, would mentally create stimulating situations. Even + now he admired her, but love was mysteriously killed. Yet he had loved her last + night! And never so ardently, so completely as at that moment when he had brought + his pistol upon a level with her lips and done his worst.</p> +<p>But this morning he seemed swept clean of all feeling, love and hate and enthusiasm, + every sensation killed utterly—dead! Could it be possible that Claire + Robson had absorbed every hope, every expectation, making of them a living thing + in her own image that died with her? Had she betrayed not only him, but all + his visions? What had become of the far-flung horizons which he had always seen + so clearly? One black cloud had eclipsed them all.</p> +<p>He remembered the serene blueness of the day on which that black cloud had + sprung out of the south, a misty-white fledgling of the sky that grew with the + hours until the sun was wrapped in a dull gloom. How quickly Mrs. Condor's words + had expanded and drawn every drifting rumor to their confirmation! He had heard + it all—everything. It amazed him to discover how easily the truth was + uncovered. <i>Uncovered?</i> No, it had lacked even the virtue of concealment; + it lay, noxious and festering and unscreened, a rich feast for the scandalmongers + circling vulture-like above. But his flight toward happiness had been like the + eagle's, too swift and lofty and disdainful for such unlovely sights; eagerly, + blindly he had passed them by. He recalled with a shudder the morning that he + had gone and bought the pistol. This he had intended for Stillman. But the very + thought of it had cut him to the heart. It was only when he had reflected on + that million dollars for the Serbian cause that he found himself submerged in + bitterness. This was the crowning insult, the culminating deception! The wage + of Claire Robson's shame offered in the guise of a free gift! No wonder that + the donor withheld his name!</p> +<p>"In my country it is all very simple—we call the man out and shoot + him!"</p> +<p>How poignantly these words had come back to Danilo in his agony! But it had + not been simple.... He wondered if he were losing the naïve directness + of his forefathers. There had been moments when he was almost persuaded that + it was not his affair, after all. Claire Robson did not belong to him; she never + had. There was no logic in exacting a price from any one who had taken unclaimed + property. But there had been insolence and trickery back of the performance.... + <i>A million dollars for the Serbian cause!</i> Not only he, but his country, + was to have been smirched by the patronage of these two moral derelicts. The + purity of his passion for Claire Robson had sharpened his sense of human delinquency + and given him the uncompromising judgments of virtue.... Well, he had decided + upon Stillman. Some one must pay the price and the woman he loved did not yet + seem foul enough for the sacrifice.... Then it was that his ferretings had hunted + out the Flint story. From that moment he had been gripped by a blind fury. His + thoughts had grown black, formless, devastating. He had been deliberately betrayed—the + woman he loved did not exist, not even potentially. It was not a question of + what might have been. One did not gather figs from thistles. And above all this + angry tumult within him there rose something cool and malevolent and sinister, + the fruits of wounded vanity and outraged pride.... And now it was all over. + He wondered whether he would be capable of an emotion again. Would he continue + to think without the respite of being able to feel, to lie and stare unmoved + at the mangled form of his dead hopes? At the sound of the pistol he had closed + his eyes upon the horrid sight which he knew must follow. Blood was nothing + to him, but the vision of Claire's shattered loveliness was too terrible to + face. How easy it was to screen the senses from ugliness! Why was it not possible + to shut the inner vision as completely?</p> +<p>He lay for hours, thinking, thinking! He could do nothing else.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Night came on again. Danilo was still thinking. A tray of untasted food sent + in by a water-front chop-house drew a half-score of buzzing flies toward the + varnished bureau. He lay, still inert, but disquiet had begun to succeed the + first hours of emotional exhaustion. And he felt ill, also. His throat was burning + and his breathing labored and choked.</p> +<p>"I must have caught cold last night," he thought, "running about + without a hat."</p> +<p>Physical discomfort was swinging him back into the paths of every-day experiences. + He even had a fleeting impulse to prescribe for himself.</p> +<p>A fever set in. He began to dream.... It seemed to him that Claire was moving + about the room, waiting on him, serving him. She had on the peacock-blue dress, + but the shawl was gone and her white shoulders and tapering arms gleamed coldly + in the uncertain light. "Ah," thought he, "her lips will be red!" + He raised his eyes to her face, but he saw only something vague and gray and + formless. "She has wrapped her face in a veil," he said, aloud. "What + delicacy! She does not wish to remind me of last night.... Yes, that is it!... + Last night I pointed my pistol at her mouth. But her mouth was not red last + night ... not before I closed my eyes.... Her lips were red once, but she wiped + them clean again, for me.... Why did she do this thing for me? <i>I</i> was + not her love?" And suddenly the peacock-blue dress was gone and Claire + became a gray figure from head to foot, a gray figure with two red lips. Nothing + else was visible. She began to move toward him. He tried to turn from her, to + lift his body up, to fling himself downward upon his face. But he could not + move. She came nearer.... Her lips were widening with every step. She halted + by the bed ... she bent over ... she kissed him. Her lips were warm and moist + and horrible. He gave a deep, groan and woke up.</p> +<p>He fell asleep again. Now he dreamed of Serbia—his country, a beautiful + woman, golden in the morning light. She lay smiling like a blossom in the dawn + and her long hair was spread out on either side. Then suddenly a leprous sun + beat down upon her and she tried to lift her arms to screen herself from its + fury, but could not. Flies gathered, her body grew loathsome, her lips black. + Then, coming down a dust-stung road, he saw a gray figure—a gray figure + with two smiling red lips showing through a rent in its drab winding-sheet. + And his beloved country stirred faintly and gave a deep cry. The gray figure + stopped, bent over gently, and, taking two strands of the flowing hair in its + wan hands, drew a covering over the festering body.... He looked again. The + gray figure was holding out her hands to him! He went toward it joyfully. And + at that moment the gray winding-sheet fell away and Claire stood before him, + smiling. He dropped on his knees beside her.... He could feel himself being + lifted up. "Claire—always Claire!" he cried.... He awoke again, + sobbing.</p> +<p>Once he dreamed of Stillman, covered with the lizard-like scales of a million + dollars, a venomous creature that darted hither and thither and finally grew + confused with the personality of Flint and became a two-headed monster.... In + the end the reptile sat calmly down before the cheap varnished bureau and consumed + Danilo's untasted meal.</p> +<p>Thus they came and went, dream succeeding dream.</p> +<p>He was roused finally by a voice calling for him to get up. He opened his eyes. + The hotel clerk stood at the side of his bed. The tray of untasted food still + lay upon the bureau.</p> +<p>"What is the matter," the hotel clerk was saying. "Are you drunk?"</p> +<p>Danilo stirred. "No.... I have been ill. What time is it?"</p> +<p>"Do you realize that you have been here three nights? It is Monday morning. + I began to think you had committed suicide."</p> +<p>"No.... Everything is all right. Presently I shall get up."</p> +<p>The man went out, whistling, carrying the tray with him. Danilo felt weak and + helpless, but he drew himself to his feet and fell back into a chair.</p> +<p>Monday morning! He had been there since Friday, then. His patients—what + about his patients? He felt suddenly irritated at himself for this professional + lapse. Suppose some of his patients had died meanwhile? The possibility brought + a cold sweat to his forehead. He thought of the young mother whose bedside he + had quitted to appear at the Serbian Relief concert; a child who had been run + over by a street-car; the last man he had operated on; Mrs. Robson.</p> +<p>"I must see them all, once again," he muttered. "After that...." + He shrugged.</p> +<p>For three nights he had slept in his clothes. He had not even removed the pistol + from his hip pocket. He stood up and drew it from its place. There was something + fascinating and sinister about its cold gleam. The words of the hotel clerk + came to him—"<i>I began to think you had committed suicide!</i>"</p> +<p>He put the pistol back in its hiding-place—he had duties, duties. He + kept repeating this as he tried to gather strength for a supreme effort. He + was extraordinarily weak, and the fever still lit his eyes and burned the vivid + red of his lips to a dull, dry purple. He washed himself, tried to brush his + clothes, ran his trembling fingers through his hair. It was an hour before he + felt able to venture on the street.</p> +<p>It was a dull morning. The fog had mixed itself with the city's smoke, floating + like an enormous and malignant black bird whose poised body shut out the sun. + Danilo shivered. He still felt very weak.</p> +<p>He decided to go and call on Mrs. Robson. Not until then had he thought of + Claire in any concrete, personal way. Would he see her? He remembered now that + she was dead. But the thought that he would see her still persisted. Death and + Claire Robson were terms that he could repeat, but not really sense. It was + only when he had swung off the car at Larkin Street and turned the corner at + Clay Street that the horrid realization struck him with relentless force. A + hearse was drawn up to the curb in front of the Robson flat and a knot of curious + people were watching the pallbearers lift a flower-smothered casket down the + shallow steps. He did not go any farther, but stood, motionless, watching the + somber pageant.... Presently everything was settled; the hearse began to move + forward, followed by three limousines. The procession came toward Danilo. The + hearse passed the corner. Instinctively he removed his hat....</p> +<p>When it was all over he turned deliberately toward town.</p> +<p>"Claire is dead," he repeated. "What does the rest matter?"</p> +<p>Suddenly his professional consciousness, the last link that bound him to reality, + had snapped.</p> +<p>He went back to his lodgings—the old lodgings on Third Street, where + he had been staying for a week.</p> +<p>"Where have you been for three days?" asked the proprietor. "At + least a dozen people have been looking for you."</p> +<p>Danilo smiled grimly and said nothing.</p> +<p>"The police are on my trail!" he thought.</p> +<p>He went up to his room and began to pack. There was really very little to assemble; + most of his wardrobe still remained at the Robson fiat. After he had finished + he sat down. He seemed incapable of forming any plan. What should he do? Where + should he go? What did it matter? His thought moved in an irritating circle.... + Once he rose to his feet and drew the pistol from his pocket. He looked at it + a long time. Finally he laid it on the bureau. A beam of sunlight played upon + the polished barrel. Its glint irritated Danilo. He moved the weapon out of + the light.... Presently he heard the chimes from St. Patrick's Church. He knew + now that it was noon.... He began to count the money in his pocket. Seven dollars + and forty cents! How far would that take him? How much nearer would seven dollars + and forty cents carry him to Serbia?... He began to laugh.</p> +<p>The telephone tinkled. Danilo hesitated, then walked calmly over and took down + the receiver. The voice of the hotel clerk said:</p> +<p>"This is the office. Mr. Stillman is down-stairs."</p> +<p>"Mr. Stillman? Oh yes, of course. Tell him to come up."</p> +<p>This was the end! Well, what was he to do? Stand calmly and let Judas betray + him into the hands of his enemies? He fancied Stillman's entrance into the room, + the cool cordiality of his manner, the advance with outstretched hands. At that + moment the police would dart swiftly forward! Danilo had seen it all a thousand + times at the moving-picture shows. The trick was as old as Gethsemane and as + young as the screen drama!</p> +<p>He picked up the pistol. This was to have been Stillman's portion. Well, it + was not too late! The outlaw's instinct to barricade himself and defy everybody + up to the last moment came over him. A knock sounded upon the door.... He flung + himself about, bracing his body against the bureau. The pistol was grasped firmly + in his hand; he had but to raise it to cover his visitor successfully. He moistened + his lips.</p> +<p>"Come in!" The words snapped out with a command that was also a menace.</p> +<p>The door swung back. Stillman stood upon the threshold. Danilo felt his senses + reeling. He tried to lift the pistol. He had grown frightfully weak.</p> +<p>"George!" Suddenly Stillman's voice rang out.</p> +<p>The word echoed through the room. It was the first time that Stillman had ever + called Danilo by his Christian name. A great yearning came over Danilo, a sense + of futility, the feeling that everything, even life itself, was a horrible mistake!</p> +<p>"George!" Stillman was crying to him again, like a brother from the + depths of his heart.</p> +<p>Danilo roused himself with a supreme effort, crouched low, narrowed his eyes. + Claire was dead! What did it matter?... No, it was too late. He lifted the pistol + slowly but surely. Stillman gave one startled look and, throwing his head back, + seemed to say:</p> +<p>"Why don't you shoot? I am waiting."</p> +<p>Danilo looked down at the shining weapon. It was on a level with his own heart. + <i>Claire was dead!</i> Deliberately he turned the muzzle upon himself.... The + noise of the shot sounded far away. He felt Stillman's arms enfold him.</p> +<p>"What have you done? What have you done?... My God! but this <i>is</i> + a mistake!"</p> +<p>He heard Stillman's voice trembling with passionate protest. He opened his + eyes.</p> +<p>"My brother!" he said, and he lifted his hand to Stillman's wet brow.... + "My brother!" he felt himself murmur once more.... Suddenly he was + swallowed up in a merciful oblivion.</p> +<a name="II_XV"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XV</h3> +<p>"I have tried to get you by telephone without success. Danilo is asking + for you. I shall call with the machine at three-thirty."</p> +<p>Claire Robson dismissed the messenger-boy. Her heart was beating quickly. She + folded the note and climbed up-stairs. <i>Danilo is asking for you</i>.... What + tragedy and pathos lay in these simple words! She had been waiting for just + this moment ever since Stillman had said to her:</p> +<p>"We have found Danilo ... in his old lodgings. Can you guess what has + happened?"</p> +<p>She had known at once. Had intuition or the look in Stillman's eyes betrayed + the dreadful secret? Since then only scant messages had come to her from the + sick-room. Danilo still lay in his Third Street lodgings; his doctors had been + afraid to risk moving him. Stillman had not left his side. Claire begged to + be allowed to go to him, to see him if only for the briefest of moments, but + Stillman had been obdurate.</p> +<p>"He must have no excitement. The doctor would not hear of such a thing. + No, you must wait."</p> +<p>"But <i>you</i> are with him.... Do you realize...."</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>She said no more ... but she had suffered! Three long, unending days! And now + he had asked for her. She could not define the emotion which moved her. Was + it relief, or fear, or a sad hope? She dressed herself long before the appointed + time, in a cool, pleasant-looking white-serge suit that had been intended for + the trousseau. Miss Proll, coming upon her in the hall, gave a disapproving + glance.</p> +<p>"I couldn't wear black!" Claire explained. "I simply couldn't!..."</p> +<p>"Ah yes, of course! You are right."</p> +<p>Her lips quivered when she finally faced Stillman.</p> +<p>"You are in white, I see," he said, with an air of gentle approval. + "I am glad of that! It makes everything seem more cheerful."</p> +<p>They went down the stairs in silence. Stillman lifted her into the car—she + could feel his hand tremble. After they had started she looked searchingly at + Stillman's face. All his cool complacency was gone, his mouth had the parted + expression of a man whose lips could not quite shape the truths that had been + revealed to him, and his eyes shone like one who had been walking with visions. + This was the look, Claire fancied, that shepherds fresh from solitary upland + pastures must have, or a man who had walked into the shrapnel fire and come + out unscathed, or a young mother fresh from the crowning experience of her life....</p> +<p>At the door of Danilo's room they met a priest coming out. He bowed gravely + to Stillman and passed on without speaking. They went in. A thick, pleasant + odor of incense had killed the smell of antiseptics for the moment. The nurse + was washing her hands, an icon opposite the bed reflected unsteady flickerings + from the tiny lamp in front of it.</p> +<p>"You may stay five minutes," the nurse whispered, and passed out.</p> +<p>Claire stood back and let Stillman go up to the bed. She had a sudden feeling + that she was a stranger, that her presence made no difference, that these two + men were sufficient to themselves. She could not see Danilo's face, but she + had never imagined anything more gentle and tender than the hand which she saw + Stillman lay upon the sufferer's forehead.... Presently Stillman turned about + and beckoned to her. She went forward. She felt that her heart would burst.... + Suddenly she was face to face with Danilo! He looked at her and smiled. She + sat down upon the bed.</p> +<p>She could feel Danilo's hand searching for hers. "Claire ... fancy ... + <i>you</i>!"</p> +<p>He closed his eyes without another word. They sat in silence.</p> +<p>Stillman stood the whole time, bending over, his gentle hand hovering above + Danilo's black hair.... The nurse came back.</p> +<p>"Come," said Stillman.</p> +<p>Claire suffered him to withdraw her hand from Danilo's tight clasp. She rose. + Danilo opened his eyes again. His lips began to move. She brought her ear on + a level with his trembling mouth.</p> +<p>"Claire ... will you marry me now?"</p> +<p>"Yes," she answered.</p> +<p>He gave a contented sigh and turned his face to the wall. Stillman and Claire + went out....</p> +<p>"He is making a brave fight," Stillman said at parting. "The + bullet pierced the lung. But there are other complications. Bronchitis has developed. + One can never tell."</p> +<p>She could not speak. She did not even say good-by to him.</p> +<p>"I shall call again for you to-morrow."</p> +<p>She acknowledged his words with a brief nod.</p> +<hr /> +<p>When she got home she filled the swinging-lamp in front of Danilo's name-day + icon with oil and lit a floating taper. Miss Proll, who had been watching her + curiously, looked puzzled. Her glance seemed to imply:</p> +<p>"Can it be that you believe in such foolishness?"</p> +<p>Claire found that it was impossible to answer a question at once so simple + and so profound. There was every reasonable argument in the calendar to support + Miss Proll's skepticism, but Claire was learning that life upon a reasonable + basis was apt to be intolerable. It was the irrational, the impulsive, the imprudent + moments that gave existence color and swift movement.</p> +<p>"Claire ... will you marry me now?..." Danilo's words came back to + her with all their beautiful and daring simplicity. A child acknowledging a + fault, and trembling upon the threshold of a joy that was likely to be denied + in consequence, would have used the same tone. This was the manner of petition + that must swerve even a God of Wrath from his vengeance, she thought, that could + wring showers of mercy from the most pitilessly blue skies.</p> +<p>She thought of Stillman, too—this new Stillman, forged in the flame of + a perilous spiritual experience, still glowing and warm. He had never seemed + so human as at that moment when she had stood apart and watched his hands fluttering + above the head of the man they both loved.... <i>Loved?</i> Yes, he loved Danilo—as + Lycurgus loved him, as her mother had loved him. "Where is Danilo?" + This had been Mrs. Robson's last question—her last words.</p> +<p>She could not fancy her mother calling for Stillman. It was not given to many + to be a flint upon which the sparks of affection are readily struck.</p> +<hr /> +<p>She went every day with Stillman and sat for five minutes at Danilo's bedside, + and on the third day Danilo, opening his eyes wide, said to her in a clear voice, + so that even Stillman could hear:</p> +<p>"Claire, will you marry me to-morrow?"</p> +<p>Instinctively her eyes met Stillman's; he bowed his head for a moment, and + she could see that his hands were clenched.</p> +<p>"If you wish it," she answered.</p> +<p>Danilo turned to Stillman. "My brother, do you think it will be possible?"</p> +<p>Stillman smiled doubtfully. "To-morrow? That is rather soon ... but when + you are a little stronger...."</p> +<p>Danilo's face fell. At that moment the doctor came in.</p> +<p>It was not possible. The doctor would not hear to such a thing, and he scolded + Danilo gently as one scolds a sick child.</p> +<p>That night Danilo's fever increased. He was restless; nothing pleased him. + The doctor said next day to Stillman:</p> +<p>"I don't understand ... something must have irritated him. He is troubled + mentally."</p> +<p>"It is the wedding. I'm afraid he has set his heart upon it."</p> +<p>"Nonsense! Doctor Danilo has had enough professional experience to know + that.... Why, my dear fellow, he is a full-grown man, you must remember."</p> +<p>"Yes, and at heart a child.... He is like all big people."</p> +<p>Two more days dragged by. Danilo grew no better; in fact, he was worse, if + anything.</p> +<p>"I can't make it out," the doctor admitted. "Physically he seems + everything that one could hope for, but his mind is straining at something.... + Perhaps, after all, you are right. Well, I fancy we will have to risk the excitement."</p> +<p>When they told Danilo he fell back upon his pillow and his face grew suddenly + white.</p> +<p>"To-morrow!" he murmured. "Fancy!... No, it cannot be true!"</p> +<p>By the time Claire came he was glowing with a strange, new animation.</p> +<p>"Claire! Claire!" he cried. "Think, we are to be married to-morrow! + And you are to wear your wedding-dress ... a real wedding-dress ... the veil + and all!... Only there will be no feast. What a pity!... But no matter, when + I get well again then we will have a feast, Claire. Unless...." his voice + grew suddenly almost inaudible—"unless I die of joy, Claire!... of + joy!"</p> +<p>Stillman turned away. She fell on her knees beside the white bed.</p> +<p>"There, there!" she said, soothingly. "You mustn't get so excited. + You mustn't think about it!"</p> +<p>He closed his eyes. "Claire, I cannot wait until to-morrow. Will you kiss + me, <i>now</i>?"</p> +<p>And for the first time their lips met.</p> +<hr /> +<p>They had planned a daytime wedding at first, but it transpired that the priest + in charge of the Greek church had been called out of town and would not be back + until evening. When Danilo heard this he said:</p> +<p>"What is the difference? A priest is a small matter! Cannot Claire's minister...."</p> +<p>But Claire was wiser. "No," she said. "Let us wait for the priest."</p> +<p>And so it was settled for eight o'clock that evening.</p> +<p>At the news, Miss Proll quivered with excitement. "To think that it would + all end this way.... But I am so glad that you are to wear your wedding-dress."</p> +<p>Nellie Holmes flew over in great haste. "And who is to marry you? A priest?... + Well, I suppose it is best to humor a sick man, but I don't know—somehow + it seems too outlandish, all that incense and chanting and everything!... And + I'm coming to the wedding! Don't forget that. You can't shut me out.... Remember, + I introduced you. Come now, buck up! Don't look so anxious—it's a painless + ceremony. And you'll be a stunning-looking bride, Robson.... I tell you, friend + Danilo is going to be mighty glad that he was such a bad shot."</p> +<p>In the midst of all the excitement Claire suddenly remembered Mrs. Condor. + She rang her up.</p> +<p>"I am to be married to-night," she said. "Would you like to + come and go with us?"</p> +<p>"No, Claire. But if I might see you before you start...."</p> +<p>It was a busy day and almost before Claire realized it was time to dress.</p> +<hr /> +<p>At eight o'clock they heard the toot of Stillman's car, and to Claire's surprise + Stillman himself broke in upon them. She was all dressed and ready.... He came + up the stairs with a jaunty air. "This is Danilo's idea!" he cried + out. "It seems in his country a friend is always sent to fetch the bride.... + A <i>Dever</i> they call him.... I couldn't persuade him to let you come alone + and in peace. He said: 'My brother, let me have an Old World custom or two.... + You Americans have nothing worthy of the name, except that abominable rice-throwing + and old shoes.'"</p> +<p>"A <i>Dever</i>!" ejaculated Nellie Holmes, in mildly scandalized + tones. "Well, I <i>never</i>!"</p> +<p>It did seem rather ridiculous. Stillman's personality somehow didn't fit the + office. But the incident gave a touch of forced gaiety to the occasion—a + peg on which to hang the jester's cloak.</p> +<p>Claire and Miss Proll and Nellie Holmes went down first to the car, Mrs. Condor + and Stillman followed.</p> +<p>When Lily Condor reached the curb Claire leaned out to her farewell embrace.</p> +<p>"Claire ... Claire ... how foolish we've all been!"</p> +<p>"How foolish we are still," Claire whispered back. "Thank God + for that!..."</p> +<p>Presently they were off. The yellow street-lamps seemed to Claire to be melting + into a continuous ribbon of gold. She had expected to succumb to all manner + of emotions and vivid thoughts, but instead her mind seized upon a childish + memory.</p> +<p>"Once upon a time," she thought, "there lived in a certain city...." + Stillman was looking at her.... "And there came riding through the streets + a prince.... And so they were married and.... How foolish we are still.... Thank + God for that.... Thank God for that!"</p> +<p>"Come!" Stillman was saying. "We have arrived."</p> +<hr /> +<p>They had propped Danilo up as much as they dared and he lay, clean-shaven and + hollow-eyed, but burning with a fire that showed through his transparent pallor + like a candle set in a paper lantern. The priest had arrived promptly, and already + an altar had been contrived and set up before the bed, an altar white and gleaming. + Holy images were scattered about, reflecting the pale flicker of swinging lamps, + and through the haze of smoke from the censer the harsh outlines of the room + took on a soft, shadowy remoteness. "I had better cover my face," + Claire said as she stood upon the threshold of the room.</p> +<p>Miss Proll drew the veil down for her and they went in. The room was crowded + with men, mostly Danilo's countrymen. Lycurgus was there, and Jimmy. Claire + felt faint. She clutched at Stillman's arm. "Why, I had no idea!" + she said ... "so many people!"</p> +<p>"He wished it so.... Have courage!"</p> +<p>She threw her head back. "Yes," she answered.</p> +<p>They led her to his side. He touched her inert fingers gently. She felt crushed + at the passionate purity of his deference. She wanted to fling herself forward + on her face.... Danilo turned toward the priest. "Come!" he called, + a bit impatiently. "Let us begin."</p> +<p>Claire thought the priest would never end. She had fancied that the ceremony + would be cut short for Danilo's benefit, but apparently Danilo had asked for + every detail, every symbol. They even exchanged crowns after the fashion of + the Greek Catholic ritual. The incense grew thicker, the, tapers before the + holy icons flared more and more brightly, the sonorous chant of the priest droned + on and on and it seemed to Claire as if his fingers were raised continuously + in midair for the sign of the cross. She thought of her mother. How scandalized + her mother would have been—at the altar, at the curling incense, particularly + at the sign of the cross!</p> +<p>Finally it was all over. Danilo, pale to a point of swooning, his black hair + clustering moistly about his pillow, lay with arms outstretched like an ivory + crucifix, against which Claire pressed her pallid lips.... He did not stir at + her touch, but a slight color played about his cheek-bones and one hand trembled.... + She drew away.... She could hear the feet of the spectators moving toward the + door. She continued to kneel beside the bed. Danilo's hand was in her hair now.... + Presently she felt some one touch her shoulder. She rose. The nurse stood behind + her. The room was empty. She began to weep silently, almost without emotion. + Nellie Holmes and Miss Proll were coming back. They led her out....</p> +<p>Standing in the hall, they waited until the nurse called them in again. Danilo + had recovered his animation and his eyes were wide open and glowing.</p> +<p>"Ah, and so we are to have a feast, after all! Not I, of course ... but + you shall tell me of it to-morrow!... Come, has he said nothing about it?"</p> +<p>Stillman laughed. "At the Ithaca," he explained to Claire. "I + made arrangements to-day."</p> +<p>"A feast ... not really?" she stammered.</p> +<p>A slight cloud passed over Danilo's face. "There! She does not approve, + my brother.... I was afraid of that."</p> +<p>"I was surprised," she said, gravely. "And then you are not + to be with us."</p> +<p>Danilo smiled. "When I am well again.... You see, one cannot have too + many excuses for a feast." He gave Stillman his hand. "My brother, + what should we do without you?"</p> +<hr /> +<p>The Ithaca was crowded. The long tables had been set, and the usual decorations, + fern fronds and carnations, made splashes of green and red color upon the table-cloths. + Lycurgus came forward, bowing in his old manner.</p> +<p>"Ah, that Mr. Stillman," he whispered to Claire, "he is a man, + I can tell you! Thank you! thank you!... He says nothing about prices. Only + a feast ... the best to be had! And everybody invited.... I have worked myself + all day in the kitchen.... You shall see!... And you are a beautiful bride! + Never have I seen one more beautiful!... That Danilo is a lucky man ... and + you have made him happy. Let us pray God everything goes right."</p> +<p>A feeling of chill had succeeded Claire's poignant emotion, but now she felt + warmed—everything was so simple, so natural, so lacking in all pretense. + Lycurgus led Claire to the bride's seat, Stillman followed with Nellie Holmes + and Miss Proll. A little ripple of applause ran up and down the tables, but + the company was still a little uncertain of what was most fitting to do. A wedding-feast + without the groom was hard to sense. But presently mastica was served and the + first toast drunk.... After that, constraint was banished.</p> +<p>Now for the first time it came upon Claire that she was at her own wedding-feast, + and that Stillman was sitting beside her. It was almost as if he had yielded + her up to some austere duty, as if the feast that had been spread for him was + one not so much of joy as of renunciation—a last supper in the upper chamber + of his heart's desire. Before her lay Stillman's tribute—a wonderful golden + basket of white roses. She had never seen roses so white. What a touching thing + this feast was, after all! What a long distance Stillman had traveled in order + to appreciate the significance of such a childlike thing, of sensing just what + it meant to Danilo! And suddenly she felt how beautiful and how tragic life + was, how cleansed and scarred by the windstorms of emotion! Life was like a + landscape answering sunshine and cloud in its season, always beautiful, always + incomplete, veiled sometimes in the mists of morning and again palpitant and + fully revealed in the noonday sun, unchanging and yet never quite the same....</p> +<p>In the midst of the feast champagne was served, and the guests began to move + from table to table with their glasses lifted high and their lips smiling out + good will. The men stopped shyly opposite Claire's seat and for the most part + toasted her silently, but here and there a patron who had danced to the old + tunes that she had once played clasped her by the hand and called gaily to her. + Finally a young woman came forward.</p> +<p>"You do not remember me," she said to Claire. "But you were + here, at my wedding-feast.... Do you remember?... I hope your husband will soon + be well!"</p> +<p>Her <i>husband</i>! It took a woman to voice this new estate with calm simplicity. + This was the first time the phrase had been used. She turned to Stillman. He + looked away.</p> +<p>Now came music and dancing—Old World music and long lines of men swaying + to its rhythm. Lycurgus insisted upon Stillman joining them. Claire wondered + at him as he rose. It was purely a formality, and Stillman had nothing to do + beyond walk through his part, but Claire marveled that he could have been persuaded. + Nellie Holmes railed audibly, and even Miss Proll shook her head. But Claire's + inner vision pierced beyond the incongruity of Stillman's performance. And she + knew that he had done this thing because he understood. The fruits of a crucial + instance lay beneath the surface of his smiling acceptance of the situation. + When he was seated again, flushed and somewhat embarrassed for all his nonchalance, + she said, softly:</p> +<p>"If Danilo could have seen you he would have been very happy."</p> +<p>The bride's cake was brought on. Claire went through the formality of cutting + the first piece, and then Lycurgus bore it away to a serving-table. The company + rose to their feet with upraised glasses. It was Stillman's glass that touched + Claire's.</p> +<p>They left soon after this last formality. Lycurgus had gathered a box of sweetmeats + and dainties for Danilo, and a bottle of champagne. Stillman and Claire stopped + at the hotel. But the nurse denied them admittance to the sick-room.</p> +<p>"He is tired, as you can imagine," she explained. "And to tell + the truth, he has more fever than is good."</p> +<p>"I wonder if we did the right thing, after all?" Claire asked Stillman + as they went toward the elevator.</p> +<p>"We must believe so," he answered, gravely.</p> +<a name="II_XVI"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3> +<p>The next day was Sunday. Claire went to church. She had thought at first of + spending a holy hour wrapped in the misty-blue atmosphere of Danilo's faith, + of seeking out the little Greek house of worship on Seventh Street and lighting + a taper for the man who had made her his wife. But in the end impulse drew her + to the church of her fathers, and, sitting in the harsh, untoned light of Doctor + Stoddard's meeting-house, she caught moments of cold, austere beauty, veiled + and mystic with the incense of her rich experience.</p> +<p>She saw familiar faces about her—faces that had once had the power to + draw the fire of her envy, or fill her soul with fluttering dismay, or warm + her heart with their patronizing smiles. Could it be possible that there had + been a day when her hopes had flown no farther than the promise of a foothold + among this group bending their heads in self-satisfied prayer? For a moment + the cold rebellion of her childhood had brought to the surface a feeling of + fluttering scorn for them, but almost as quickly she repented her rancor. What + did she know concerning the fires that lit their inner life—the faiths + that supported, the sins that colored, the griefs that cleansed? How many months + had passed since she had sat in cankerous silence and envied the very girls + passing coffee and cake at a church social? Was it the fault of these people + that she had tuned her desires to so faint and tinkling an ambition?</p> +<p>The star of Bethlehem no longer burned in flickering gaslight above the choir-loft, + but as Claire prayerfully lifted up her eyes she could feel its almost forgotten + presence. It was the one beautiful memory of the religious life of her girlhood. + It had burned in sensuous beauty far above all the cold form, the ugly repressions, + the wan renunciations. It had made her eager and parted-lipped, and passionate + for all the brooding joys of existence. Such a star had led wise men to the + feet of living revelation, but was it not also possible that such a star had + lit the dim myrtle-hedged pathway in Eden down which the first courageous pair + had walked to self-respect and freedom? Was it not possible that God had veiled + his face in admiration instead of anger, leaving a yearning eye thus bared to + the night?</p> +<p>And suddenly her thoughts flew to Danilo and that wonderful night when they + had pledged their love in thin red wine. During the week she had climbed the + tawny slopes of Telegraph Hill and stood in the glare of noonday above the fret + of the town. The deserted garden where they had danced their love dance was + still there, a little more ragged, a little more rock-strewn, a little more + smothered under the litter of accomplished feasts. In the yellow light of midday + it lay a ravished husk, its dancing feet stilled, its music a wan memory, its + young ardent loves hidden like nightingales in the cool forests of the day. + The strains of the wine-cup made hectic flushes upon its saffron face, and the + showering petals of its lingering roses drifted in a melancholy flood before + the betraying west wind. She was glad that she had seen it so, glad that the + first picture was impossible to duplicate, to repeat. Life was meant to be a + progression.</p> +<p>Presently her musings leaped to wider stretches. The world was trembling upon + the threshold of peace, and, about her, people whispered sad hopes and held + their breath in a silent terror of expectation. Something remote, intangible, + ominous, hung in the air. She felt a great yearning for love and life and service, + a reaching out to meet the kiss of fellowship half-way. And in this hour of + consecration the figure of Danilo rose before her. She had never loved him so + completely as she did at this moment when the memory of his irrational and human + folly swept her like a waking dream.</p> +<p>"And now may the grace of God...." Doctor Stoddard's voice was ringing + out in the impressive moment of the benediction. Claire bowed her head.... Was + not life, after all, a succession of springs luminous with promise, and summers + whose harvests must of necessity fall far short of all the brave anticipations?... + What summer could possibly yield the marvelously golden fruits of spring's devising?</p> +<hr /> +<p>That afternoon Stillman came to the Robson flat early.</p> +<p>"I'm afraid," he began, "that they will not let us see Danilo + to-day."</p> +<p>"What?... Was it the excitement?"</p> +<p>"No.... Septic pneumonia has developed. You know he was in a bad condition + when.... He had bronchitis then."</p> +<p>She turned pale.... He pressed her hand.</p> +<p>"I am going back with you," she said, calmly, as he made a protesting + gesture.</p> +<p>He did not dissuade her further.</p> +<p>When they arrived at the hotel Danilo was unconscious. The priest had just + left and the fragrance of incense hung like a mysterious presence. Upon the + table a candle burned feebly....</p> +<p>The nurse, worn out, left the room at midnight. Claire sat calm and dry-eyed + at the bedside, holding Danilo's limp hand in hers.... He was very cold, she + thought.... Suddenly a low, wailing, mournful sound broke the somber stillness. + Claire sat rigid.</p> +<p>"A siren!" flashed through her mind.</p> +<p>And, in a twinkling, bits of broken noises, raucous with dry-throated joy, + broke forth—whistles ... the clanging of bells ... the hoarse cheers of + people ... the quick gasp of windows flung open to the night.</p> +<p>Danilo stirred. "Claire ... I hear ... yes, I hear ... a noise—a + great noise."</p> +<p>"Yes ... yes...." she soothed. "Be quiet.... Everything will + soon be right."</p> +<p>He turned away from her with a weary sigh. She went to the window. So it had + come ... at last ... <i>peace</i>! Below her, in the streets, a great composite, + black creature danced and sang and wept and rioted. It beat the air with sticks, + and flung its thousand arms up in gestures of abandon, and called upon its new + god with passionate supplications. It was a monster at once terrifying, sublime, + ridiculous! Claire shuddered. And as she stood there she had a sense of doubt + and faith and tenderness and brutality, such as comes only in swift moments + of revelation. She knew now that life could be as horrible and as beautiful + as it dared. The monster below was a genial monster for the moment, but who + could predict what <i>might</i> come if suddenly—Instinctively she covered + her eyes with a tremulous hand.... Below her the monster danced and sang and + laughed for hours and hours, and for hours and hours she stood spellbound watching + its turbulent antics.</p> +<p>Gradually a light began to quicken the east ... the morning star flickered + and died ... the clouds grew wrathful. Was it Danilo who called?</p> +<p>She went over to the bed. His eyes were open and shining. He knew her now.</p> +<p>"Lift me ... up," he faltered. "Lift me up...."</p> +<p>She drew his wasted form upward. A smile was on his lips.... Below, the monster + still bellowed.</p> +<p>"Did you know, dearest, that it had come?" she questioned. "It + is finished.... Peace has come!"</p> +<p>She went over and pushed back the curtain so he might glimpse the morning. + How red, how very red the sky had grown!</p> +<p>"Yes," she said again. "Peace has come. Now we can go back ... + to your people ... and bind up wounds.... Life has begun for us...."</p> +<p>He put out his arms. She went to him.</p> +<p>"Dawn—<i>blood-red dawn</i>!" he muttered. "See...."</p> +<p>She felt a sudden terrifying limpness of his body. She drew back. He slipped + from her soft caress, opened his eyes wide, drew in one long fluttering breath. + And, suddenly it was morning!...</p> +<p>When she raised her eyes Stillman was beside her.</p> +<p>"Everything is over," she said.</p> +<p>He lifted her up. "No—not everything.... We must see to it that + he lives on ... in <i>us</i>!"</p> +<br /> +<hr class="full" /> +<pre> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11875 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2506f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11875 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11875) diff --git a/old/11875-8.txt b/old/11875-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a16a394 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11875-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4584 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Blood Red Dawn, by Charles Caldwell Dobie + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Blood Red Dawn + +Author: Charles Caldwell Dobie + +Release Date: April 3, 2004 [eBook #11875] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD RED DAWN*** + + +E-text prepared by Hélène Poirier and Project Gutenberg Distributed +Proofreaders + + + +THE BLOOD RED DAWN + +by + +CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIE + +1920 + + + + + + + +To My Mother + + + + + +Book I + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The pastor's announcement had been swallowed up in a hum of truant +inattention, and as the heralded speaker made his appearance upon the +platform Claire Robson, leaning forward, said to her mother: + +"What?... Did you catch his name?" + +"A foreigner of some sort!" replied Mrs. Robson, with smug sufficiency. + +For a moment the elder woman's sneer dulled the edge of Claire's +anticipations, but presently the man began to speak, and at once she +felt a sense of power back of his halting words, a sudden bursting fort +of bloom amid the frozen assembly that sat ice-bound, refusing to be +melted by the fires of an alien enthusiasm. She could not help wondering +whether he felt how hopeless it would be to force a sympathetic response +from his audience. In ordinary times the Second Presbyterian Church of +San Francisco could not possibly have had any interest in Serbia except +as a field for foreign missionaries. Now, with America in the war and +speeding up the draft, these worthy people were too much concerned with +problems nearer their own hearthstones to be swept off their feet by a +specific and almost inarticulate appeal for an obscure country, made +only a shade less remote by the accident of being accounted an ally. + +Claire, straining at attention, found it hard to follow him. He talked +rapidly and with unfamiliar emphasis, and he waved his hands. Frankly, +people were bored. They had come to hear a concert and incidentally +swell the Red Cross fund, but they had not reckoned on quite this type +of harangue. Besides, an appetizing smell of coffee from the church +kitchen had begun to beguile their senses. And yet, the man talked on +and on, until quite suddenly Claire Robson began to have a strange +feeling of disquiet, an embarrassment for him, such as one feels when an +intimate friend or kinsman unconsciously makes a spectacle of himself. +She wished that he would stop. She longed to rise from her seat and +scream, to create an outlandish scene, to do anything, in short, that +would silence him. At this point he turned his eyes in her direction, +and she felt the scorch of an intense inner fire. Instinctively she +lowered her glance.... When she looked up again his gaze was still fixed +upon her. She felt her color rise. From that moment on she had a sense +that she was his sole audience. He was talking to her. The others did +not matter. She still did not have any very distinct idea what it was +all about, but the manner of it held her captive. But gradually the +mists cleared, he became more coherent, and slowly, imperceptibly, bit +by bit, he won the others. Yet never for an instant did he take his +eyes from _her_. When he finished, a momentary silence blocked the final +burst of applause. But Claire Robson's hands were locked tightly +together, and it was not until he had disappeared that she realized that +she had not paid him the tribute of even a parting glance. + +The pastor came back upon the platform and announced that refreshments +would be served at the conclusion of the next number. A heavy odor of +coffee continued to float from the church kitchen. A red-haired woman +stepped forward and began to sing. + +Already Claire Robson dreaded the ordeal of supper. The fact that tables +were being laid further disturbed her. This meant that she and her +mother would have to push their way into some group which, at best, +would remain indifferent to their presence. When coffee was served +informally things were not so awkward. To be sure, one had to balance +coffee-cup and cake-plate with an amazing and painful skill, but, on the +other hand, table-less groups did not emphasize one's isolation. Claire +had got to the point where she would have welcomed active hostility on +the part of her fellow church members, but their utter indifference was +soul-killing. She would have liked to remember one occasion when any one +had betrayed the slightest interest in either her arrival or departure, +or rather in the arrival and departure of her mother and herself. + +The solo came to an end, and the inevitable applause followed, but +before the singer could respond to the implied encore most of the +listeners began frank and determined advances upon the tables. The +concert was over. + +Mrs. Robson rose and faced Claire with a look of bewilderment. As usual, +mother and daughter stood irresolutely, caught like two trembling leaves +in the backwater of a swirling eddy. At last Claire made a movement +toward the nearest table. Mrs. Robson followed. They sat down. + +The scattered company speedily began to form into congenial groups. +There was a great deal of suddenly loosened chatter. Claire Robson sat +silently, rather surprised and dismayed to find that she and her mother +had chosen a table which seemed to be the objective of all the prominent +church members. The company facing her was elegant, if not precisely +smart, and there were enough laces and diamonds displayed to have done +excellent service if the proper background had been provided. Claire was +further annoyed to discover that her mother was regarding the situation +with a certain ruffling self-satisfaction which she took no pains to +conceal. Mrs. Robson bowed and smirked, and even called gaily to every +one within easy range. There was something distasteful in her mother's +sudden and almost aggressive self-assurance. + +Gradually the company adjusted itself; the tables were filled. The only +moving figures were those of young women carrying huge white pitchers of +steaming coffee. Claire Robson settled into her seat with a resignation +born of subtle inner misery. Across her brain flashed the insistent and +pertinent questions that such a situation always evoked. Why was she not +one of these young women engaged in distributing refreshments? Did the +circles close automatically so as to exclude her, or did her own +aloofness shut her out? What was the secret of these people about her +that gave them such an assured manner? No one spoke to her with cordial +enthusiasm.... It was not a matter of wealth, or brains, or prominent +church activity. It was not even a matter of obscurity. Like all large +organizations, the Second Presbyterian Church was made up of every +clique in the social calendar; the obscure circle was as clannish and +distinctive in its way as any other group. But Claire Robson was forced +to admit that she did not belong even to the obscure circle. She +belonged nowhere--that was the galling and oppressive truth that was +forced upon her. + +At this point she became aware that one of the most prominent church +members, Mrs. Towne, was making an unmistakably cordial advance in her +direction. Claire had a misgiving.... Mrs. Towne was never excessively +friendly except for a definite aim. + +"My dear Miss Robson," Mrs. Towne began, sweetly, drooping +confidentially to a whispering posture, "I am so sorry, but I shall have +to disturb you and your mother!... It just happens that this table has +been reserved for the elders and their wives.... I hope you'll +understand!" + +For a moment Claire merely stared at the messenger of evil news. Then, +recovering herself, she managed to reply: + +"Oh yes, Mrs. Towne! I understand perfectly.... I am sure we were very +stupid.... Come, mother!" + +Mrs. Robson responded at once to her daughter's command. The two women +rose. By this time the task of securing another place was quite +hopeless. Claire felt that every eye in the room was turned upon them. +Picking their way between a labyrinth of tables and chairs, they +literally were stumbling in the direction of an exit when Claire felt a +hand upon her arm. She turned. + +"Pardon me," the man opposite her was saying, "but may I offer you a +place at our table?" + +Claire said nothing; she followed blindly. Her mother was close upon her +heels. + +The table was a small one, and only two people were occupying it--the +man who had halted Claire, and a woman. The man, standing with one hand +on the chair which he had drawn up for Mrs. Robson, said, simply: + +"My name is Stillman, and of course you know Mrs. Condor--the lady who +has just sung for us." + +Claire gave a swift, inclusive glance. Yes, it was the same woman who +had attempted to beguile a weary audience from its impending repletion; +at close range one could not escape the intense redness of her hair or +the almost immoral whiteness of the shoulders and arms which she was at +such little pains to conceal. + +"Stillman?" Mrs. Robson was fluttering importantly. "Not the old Rincon +Hill family?" + +"Yes, the old Rincon Hill family," the man replied. + +Mrs. Robson sat down with preening self-satisfaction. Wearily the +daughter dropped into the seat which Mrs. Condor proffered. The name of +Ned Stillman was not unfamiliar to any San Franciscan who scanned the +social news with even a casual glance, and Claire had a vague +remembrance that Mrs. Condor also figured socially, but in a rather more +inclusive way than her companion. At all events, it was plain that her +mother, with unerring feminine insight, had placed the pair to her +satisfaction. Already the elder woman was contriving to let Stillman +know something of _her_ antecedents. _She_ was Emily Carrol, also of +Rincon Hill, and of course he knew her two sisters--Mrs. Thomas Wynne +and Mrs. Edward Finch-Brown! As Stillman returned a smiling assurance to +Mrs. Robson's attempts to be impressive, a young woman in white arrived +with ice-cream and messy layer-cake. Unconsciously Claire Robson began +to smile. She could not have said why, but somehow the presence of Ned +Stillman and Mrs. Condor at a table spread with such vacuous delights +seemed little short of ridiculous. They did not fit the picture any more +than her beetle-browed, red-lipped Serbian who.... She turned +deliberately and swept the room with her glance. Of course he had gone. +It was not to be expected that _he_ would descend to the level of such +puerile feasting. A sudden contempt for everything that only an hour ago +seemed so desirable rose within her, and, in answer to the young woman's +query as to whether she preferred coffee to ice-cream, she answered with +lip-curling aloofness: + +"Neither, thank you.... I am not hungry." + +Stillman looked at her searchingly. She returned his gaze without +flinching. + +Claire Robson did not sleep that night. She lay for hours, quite +motionless, staring into the gloom of her narrow bedroom, her mind +ruthlessly shaping formless, vague intuitions into definite convictions. +She could not put her finger upon the precise reason for her inquietude. +Was it chargeable to so trivial a circumstance as a stranger's formal +courtesy or had something more subtle moved her? If the depths of her +isolation had been thrown into too high relief by the almost shameful +sense of obligation she felt toward Stillman for his courtesy, what was +to be said of the uniqueness of the solitary position which the Serbian +awarded her by singling her out for a sympathetic response? Could it be +that a vague pity had stirred him, too? Had things reached a point where +her loneliness showed through the threadbare indifference of her glance? +In short, had both men been won to gallantry by her distress? In one +case, at least, she decided that there was a reasonable chance to doubt. +And that doubt quickened her pulse like May wine. + +But the humiliation of her last encounter with chivalry stuck with +profound irritation. She recalled the scene again and again. She +remembered her contemptuous silence before Stillman's obvious suavities, +the high, assured laugh which his companion, Mrs. Condor, threw out to +meet his quiet sallies, the ruffling satisfaction of her mother, +chattering on irrelevantly, but with the undisguised purpose of creating +a proper impression. How easily Stillman must have seen through Claire's +muteness and the elder woman's eager craving for an audience! And all +the time Mrs. Condor had been laughing, not ill-naturedly, but with the +irony of an experienced woman possessing a sense of humor. + +And at the end, when the four had left the church together, to be +whirled home in Stillman's car, the sudden nods and smiles and farewells +that had blossomed along the path of her mother's exit! Claire could +have laughed it all away if her mother had not betrayed such eagerness +to drink this snobbish flattery to the lees.... + +Claire's father had never entered very largely into her calculations, +but to-night her readjusted vision included him. Stubborn, kind, a bit +weak, and inclined to copying poetry in a red-covered album, he had been +no match for the disillusionments of married life. Her mother's people +had felt a sullen resentment at his downfall--he had taken to drink and +died ingloriously when Claire was still in her seventh year. Claire, +influenced by the family traditions, had shared this resentment. But now +she found herself wondering whether there was not a word or two to be +said in his behalf. Her father had been a cheap clerk in a wholesale +house when he had married. The uncertain Carrol fortunes were waning +swiftly at the time, and Emily Carrol had been thrown at him with all +the panic that then possessed a public schooled in the fallacy that +marriage was a woman's only career. The result was to have been +expected. Extravagance, debts, too much family, drink, death--the +sequence was complete. He had been captured, withered, cast aside, by a +tribe that had not even had the decency to grant his memory the +kindness of an excuse. + +Wide-eyed and restless, Claire Robson felt a sudden pity for her father. +Tears sprang to her eyes; it overwhelmed her to discover this new father +so full of human failings and yet so full of human provocation. In her +twenty-four years of life she had never shed a tear for him, or felt the +slightest pang for his failure. If she had ever doubted the Carrol +viewpoint, she had never given her lack of faith any scope. She had +taken their cast-off prejudices and threadbare convictions as docilely +as she had once received their stale garments. She had shrunk from +spiritual independence with all the obsequious arrogance of a poor +relation at a feast. Her diffidence, her self-consciousness, her +timidity, were the outward forms of an inbred snobbery. It was curious +how suddenly all this was made clear to her.... + +At length she fell into a troubled sleep.... When she awoke the room's +outlines were reviving before the advances of early morning. For the +first time in her life she caught the poetry of the new day at first +hand. For years she had reveled vicariously in the delights of morning. +But it had always been to her a thing apart, a matter which the writers +of romantic verse beheld and translated for the benefit of late +sleepers. It never occurred to her that the day crawling into the +light-well of her Clay Street flat was lit with precisely the same flame +that colored the far-flung peaks of the poet's song. And instantly a +phrase of the Serbian's harangue came to her--blood-red dawn! He had +repeated these words over and over again, and somehow under the heat of +his ardor and longing for his native land this hackneyed phrase took on +its real and dreadful value. In the sudden sweep of this vital +remembrance, Claire Robson rose for a moment above the fretful drip of +circumstance.... _Blood-red Dawn_!... She threw herself back upon her +bed and shuddered.... + +She rose at seven o'clock, but already the morning had grown pallid and +flecked with gray clouds. + +An apologetic tap came at the door, and the voice of Mrs. Robson +repeating a formula that she never varied: + +"Better hurry, Claire. If you don't you'll be late for the office!" + + + +CHAPTER II + + +As Claire stepped out into the cold sunlight of early November, she +smiled bitterly at the exaggeration of last night's mood. After the +first hectic flush of dawn there is nothing so sane and sweet and +commonplace as morning. The spectacle of Mrs. Finnegan, who lodged in +the flat below, slopping warm suds over the thin marble steps, added a +final note of homeliness, which divorced Claire completely from heroics. + +"Well, Miss Robson, so you really got home, last night," broke from the +industrious neighbor as she straightened up and tucked her lifted skirts +in more securely. "I thought you never would come!... A package came +from New York for you. The man nearly banged your door down. I had +Finnegan put it on your back stoop.... It's from that cousin of yours, I +guess. I was so excited about it I kept wishing you'd get home early so +that I could get a peep at all the pretty things. But I'll run up just +as soon as I get through with the breakfast dishes." + +Claire smiled wanly. "It was very good of you to take all that trouble, +I'm sure, Mrs. Finnegan!" + +"Oh, bother my trouble!" Mrs. Finnegan responded. "I just knew how crazy +I'd be about a box. I guess we women are all alike, Miss Robson. +Anyway, your mother and I are!" + +Mrs. Finnegan bent over her task again with a quick exasperated +movement, and Claire passed on. Her neighbor's abrupt rebuke gave Claire +a renewed sense of exclusion. She had meant to be warmly appreciative, +but she knew now that she had been only coldly polite. But, as a matter +of fact, the prospect of delving through a box of Gertrude Sinclair's +discarded finery moved her this morning to a dull fury. She felt +suddenly tired of cast-offs, of compromise, of all the other shabby +adjustments of genteel poverty. And by the time she reached the office +of the Falcon Insurance Company her soul was seething with a curious and +unreasonable revolt. The feminine office force seemed seething also, but +with an impersonal, quivering excitement. Nellie Whitehead had been +dismissed! + +This Nellie Whitehead, the stenographer-in-chief, was big, vigorous, +blond--vulgar, energetic, vivid; and Miss Munch, her assistant, a thin, +hollow-chested spinster, who loafed upon her job so that she might save +her sight for the manufacture of incredible yards of tatting, never +missed an opportunity to lift her eyes significantly behind her +superior's back. + +"And what do you suppose?" Miss Munch was querying as Claire stepped +into the dressing-room. "She told Mr. Flint to go to hell!... Yes, +positively, she used those very words. And I must say he was a gentleman +throughout it all. He told her gently but firmly that her example in the +office wasn't what it should be and that in justice to the other +girls...." + +Claire turned impatiently away. The fiction of Mr. Flint's belated +interest in the morals of his feminine office force was unconvincing +enough to be irritating. For a man who never missed an opportunity to +force his attentions, he was showing an amazingly ethical viewpoint. On +second thought, Claire remembered that Miss Munch was never the +recipient of Mr. Flint's attentions, which to the casual eye might have +seemed innocent enough--on rainy days gallantly bending his ample girth +in a rather too prolonged attempt to slip on the girls' rubbers, +insisting on the quite unnecessary task of incasing them in their +jackets and smoothing the sleeves of their shirt-waists in the process, +flicking imaginary threads where the feminine curves were most opulent. +Not that Mr. Flint was a wolf in sheep's clothing; he played the part of +sheep, but he needed no disguise for his performance; he merely lived up +to a sort of flock-mind consciousness where women were concerned. + +The group clustered about Miss Munch broke up at the approach of Mr. +Flint, who gave a significant glance in the direction of Claire Robson, +intent upon her morning work. But the excitement persisted in spite of +the scattered auditors, and the fact was mysteriously communicated that +Miss Munch's interest in the event was chargeable to her hopes. It +seemed impossible to Miss Munch that any one but herself could succeed +to the vacant post of stenographer-in-chief. + +At precisely eleven o'clock the buzzer on Claire Robson's desk hummed +three times. This announced that she was wanted by Mr. Flint. She +gathered her note-book and pencils and answered the call. + +Mr. Flint was busy at the telephone when Claire entered the private +office. She seated herself at the flat oak table in the center of the +room. + +Mr. Flint's office bore all the conventional signs of +business--commissions of authority from insurance companies, state +licenses in oak frames, an oil-painting of Thomas Sawyer Flint, the +founder of the firm, over a fireplace that maintained its useless +dignity in spite of the steam-radiator near the window. On his desk was +the inevitable picture of his wife framed in silver, a hand-illumined +platitude of Stevenson, an elaborate set of desk paraphernalia in beaten +brass that bore little evidence of service. In two green-glazed bowls of +Japanese origin, roses from Mr. Flint's garden at Yolanda scattered +faint pink petals on the Smyrna rug. These flowers were the only +concession to esthetics that Mr. Flint indulged. In spite of a masculine +distaste for carrying flowers, hardly a day went by when he did not +appear at the office with a huge harvest of blossoms from his country +home. + +Claire was bending over, intent on picking up the crumpled rose-petals, +when Mr. Flint finally spoke. She straightened herself slowly. Her +unhurried movements had a certain grace that did not escape the man +opposite her. She tossed the bruised leaves into a waste-basket and +reached for her pencil. Her heart was pounding, but she faced Mr. Flint +with a clear, direct gaze. + +"Miss Robson, of course you've heard all about the rumpus," Mr. Flint +was saying. "I had to fire Miss Whitehead.... I think you can fill the +bill." + +Claire rose without replying. Mr. Flint left his seat and crossed over +to her. + +"I hope," he said, flicking a thread from her shoulder, "that you're +game.... Some girls, of course, don't care a damn about getting on ... +especially if there's a Johnny somewhere in sight with enough cash in +his pocket for a marriage license." + +"I am very much taken by surprise," Claire faltered. "You see, the +change means a great deal to me." + +Mr. Flint moved closer. His manner was intimate and distasteful. +"Sometimes I think we business men ought to get more of a slant on our +employees.... You know what I mean, not exactly bothering about how many +lumps of sugar they take in their coffee, or their taste in after-dinner +cheese ... but, well, just how often they have to resole their boots and +turn the ribbons on their spring bonnets.... Now, in Miss Whitehead's +case.... But of course you're not interested in Miss Whitehead." + +"Why, I wouldn't say that," stammered Claire. Then, as she reached for +her shorthand book she said, more confidently: "To be quite frank, Mr. +Flint, I liked Miss Whitehead tremendously. She was so alive ... and +vivid." + +Flint beamed. "Do you know why I picked you instead of that Munch +dame?... It's because you had all the frills of a woman and none of the +nastiness. For instance, you wouldn't be bothered in the least if I took +a notion to overload the office with another pretty girl.... I've +watched you for some time. It has taken me six months to make up my mind +to fire Miss Whitehead and boost you into her job." + +He stood with an air of condescending arrogance, his thumbs bearing down +heavily on his trousers pockets, his broad fingers beating a +self-satisfied tattoo upon his thighs. Claire shrank nearer the table. +"You mean, Mr. Flint, that you dismissed Miss Whitehead merely to give +me her position?" + +Flint smiled. "Well, now you're coming down to brass-headed tacks. I'm +not keen on spelling out the whys and wherefores of anything I do.... +But one thing is certain enough--if Miss Munch had been the only +available candidate I _could_ have stood Miss Whitehead.... There ain't +much question about that." + +"Oh, Mr. Flint! I'm sorry!" + +He gave a wide guffaw. "That only makes you all the more of a corker!" +he answered, rubbing his hands together in narrow-eyed satisfaction. + +She escaped into the outer office, flushed, but with her head thrown +back in an attitude of instinctive defense, and the next instant she +literally ran into the arm of a man. + +"Why, Miss Robson, but this _is_ pleasant! I'm just dropping in to see +Mr. Flint." + +She drew back. Mr. Stillman stood smiling before her. + +Greetings and questions flowed with all the genial ease of one who is +never quite taken unawares. Claire, outwardly calm, felt overcome with +inner confusion. She passed rapidly to her desk and sat down. + +Miss Munch was upon her almost instantly. + +"Do _you_ know Ned Stillman?" Miss Munch asked, veiling her real +purpose. + +"Yes," replied Claire, with uncomfortable brevity. + +"I have a cousin who was housekeeper for his wife's father.... You know +about his wife, of course." + +Claire lifted her clear eyes in a startled glance that was almost as +instantly converted into a look of challenge. + +"Yes," she lied. + +Miss Munch hesitated, then plunged at once into the issue uppermost in +her mind. "It's too bad you've had to be bothered with Flint's +dictation, Miss Robson. It just happens I'm writing up a long +home-office report, otherwise I'm sure he wouldn't have annoyed you." + +Claire Robson fixed Miss Munch with a coldly polite stare. "You've made +a mistake, Miss Munch. Mr. Flint has given me no dictation." The speech +in itself was nothing, but Claire's tone gave it unmistakable point. +Miss Munch grew white and then flushed. She turned away without a word, +but Claire Robson knew that in a twinkling of an eye she had gained not +only an enemy, but an uncommon one. + + * * * * * + +That night Claire took an unusually long way round on her walk home. Her +path from the Falcon Insurance Company's office on California Street to +the Clay Street flat was never a direct one, first, because there were +hills to be avoided, and, second, because Claire found the streets at +twilight too full of charm for a rapid homeward flight. The year was on +the wane and the November days were coming to an early blackness. Claire +reveled in the light-flooded dusk of these late autumn evenings. To her, +the city became a vast theater, darkened suddenly for the purpose of +throwing the performers into sharper relief. Most clerks made their way +up Montgomery Street toward Market, but Claire climbed past the German +Bank to Kearny Street. She liked this old thoroughfare, struggling +vainly to pull itself up to its former glory. The Kearny Street crowd +was a varying quantity, frankly shabby or flashily prosperous, as far +south as Sutter Street, suddenly dignified and reserved for the two +blocks beyond. To-night Claire missed the direct appeal of the streets +lined with bright shops. They formed the proper background for her +broodings, but they scarcely entered into her mood. She could not have +said just what flight her mood was taking, or upon just which branch her +thought would alight. She was confused and puzzled and vaguely uneasy. +She had a sense that somehow, somewhere, a door had been opened and that +a strong, devastating wind was clearing the air and bringing dead things +to ground in a disorderly shower. She was stirred by twilights of +uneasiness. It was almost as if the monotonous truce of noonday had been +darkened by a huge, composite, masculine shadow, made up in some +mysterious way of the ridiculous Serbian and his blood-red dawn, and +this man Stillman, who had a wife, and Flint, with hands so ready to +flick threads from her sloping shoulders. Yesterday her outlook had been +peaceful and unhappy; to-day she felt stimulation of an impending +struggle. She was afraid, and yet she would not have turned back for one +swift moment. And suddenly the words of Mrs. Finnegan recurred, "I guess +we women are all alike." Were they? + +At which point she came upon a pastry-shop window and she went in and +bought a half-dozen French pastries. The thought of her mother's +pleasure at this unusual treat brought her in due time smiling to her +threshold. + +Mrs. Robson was not in her accustomed place at the head of the stairs; +about half-way up the long flight her voice sounded triumphantly: + +"Oh, Claire, do hurry and see what Gertrude has sent! Everything is +perfectly lovely." + +Claire quickened her pace and gained the cramped living-room. Thrown +about in a sort of joyous disorder, Gertrude Sinclair's finery quite lit +up the shabbiness. Hats, plumes, scraps of vivid silks, gilded slippers, +a spangled fan--their unrelated vividness struck Claire as fantastic as +a futurist painting. Her mother seemed suddenly young again. Claire +wondered whether, after the toll of sixty-odd years, she could be moved +to momentary youth by the mere sight of the prettiness that was +quickening her mother's pulse. + +Mrs. Robson held up a filmy evening gown of black net embroidered with a +rich design of dull gold. "Isn't this heavenly?" she demanded. "And it +will just fit you, Claire. I think Gertrude has spread herself this +time." + +"Yes, on finery, mother. But didn't she send anything sensible? What +possessed her to load us up with a lot of things we can never possibly +get a chance to wear?" + +Claire had not meant to be disagreeable, but there was rancor in her +voice. Mrs. Robson cast aside the dress with the carelessness of a +spoiled favorite; she always adapted her manner to the tone of her +background. + +"Claire Robson!" she cried, good-naturedly. "You're a regular old woman! +I'm sure _I_ haven't much to be cheerful about, but I just won't let +anything down me!... If I wanted to, I could give up right now. Where +would we have been, I'd like to know, if I hadn't held my head up? +Goodness knows, _my_ folks didn't help me. If they had had their way, +I'd been out manicuring people's nails and washing heads for a living. +And _you_ in an orphan-asylum! That's what my people did for me! As it +is, they shoved you out to work. What chance have you of meeting nice +people? No, Claire, I don't care how they have treated me, but they +might have given you a chance. I'll never forgive them for that!... I +thought last night when I was talking to Mrs. Condor and watching you +and Mr. Stillman how nice it would have been if.... Oh, that reminds me! +Who do you think has been here to-day?... Mrs. Towne! She came to +apologize about asking us to move our seats the other night. _She_ knows +the Stillmans well. The old people were pillars of the Second Church in +the 'sixties. I fancy he is dancing about that Mrs. Condor's heels a +bit. Of course, as Mrs. Towne said, _she_ wouldn't be likely to make +herself a permanent feature of Second Church entertainments. But now in +war-times _anything_ is possible. Mrs. Towne was telling me all about +Stillman and his wife. I _should_ have remembered, but somehow I forgot. +Get your things off and I'll tell you all about it." + +Claire handed her mother the package of pastries. "I heard about it +to-day," she said, coldly. + +"But Mrs. Towne knows the whole thing from A to Z," insisted Mrs. +Robson, genially. + +"I'm not interested in the details," Claire returned, doggedly. + +Mrs. Robson's face wore a puzzled, almost a harried, expression. Claire +moved away. Her mother gave a shrug and renewed her efforts to drag +further finery from the mysterious depths of the treasure-box. Her +daughter cast a last incurious glance back. The glow on Mrs. Robson's +face, which Claire had mistaken for youth, seemed now a thing hectic and +unpleasant, and gave an uncanny sense of a skeleton sitting among gauds +and baubles. + +A feeling of isolation swept Claire, such as she had never experienced. +The person who should have been closest suddenly had become a +stranger.... She went into her room and closed the door. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The following week Claire was surprised to find a letter on her desk at +the office. The few written favors that came her way usually were +addressed to the Clay Street flat, so that she was puzzled by this +innovation and the unfamiliar handwriting. Glancing swiftly at the +signature, she was surprised to see the name "Lily Condor," scrawled +loosely at the foot of the note. It seemed that Mrs. Condor was giving a +little musicale in Ned Stillman's apartments on the following Friday +night, and, if one could believe such a thing, the lady implied that the +evening would scarcely be complete without the presence of Claire +Robson--or, to put it more properly, Claire Robson and her _mother_. + +As Claire had scarcely said a half-dozen words to Mrs. Condor on the +night of the Red Cross concert, this invitation seemed little short of +extraordinary. But, as Claire thought it over, she recalled that there +had been some general conversation about music, in which she had +admitted a discreet passion for this form of entertainment, even going +so far as to confess that she played the piano herself upon occasion. +Her first impulse, clinched by the familiar feminine excuse that she had +nothing suitable to wear, was to send her regrets. At once she thought +of the scorned finery that Gertrude Sinclair had included in her last +box, and the more she thought about it the more convinced she became +that she had no real reason for refusing. But a swift, strange regret +that her mother had been included in the invitation took the edge off +her anticipations. She tried to dismiss this feeling, but it grew more +definite as the morning progressed. + +For days Claire had been striking at the shackles of habit with a rancor +bred of disillusionment. She had been on tiptoe for new and vital +experiences, and yet, for any outward sign, her life bid fair to escape +the surge of any torrential circumstance. Particularly, at the office, +things had gone on smoothly. The other clerks had accepted Claire's +advancement without either protest or enthusiasm. Even Miss Munch had +veiled her resentment behind the saving trivialities of daily +intercourse. She had gone so far as to introduce Claire to her cousin, a +Mrs. Richards, who had come in at the noon hour for a new tatting +design. This cousin was a large, red-faced woman, with an aggressively +capable manner. She had the quick, ferret-like eyes of Miss Munch and +the loose mouth of a perpetual gossip. + +"She's the one I told you about the other day," Miss Munch had explained +later--"the housekeeper for _your friend_ Stillman's father-in-law." She +gave nasty emphasis to this trivial speech. + +Flint had been direct and business-like almost to the point of +bruskness. But Claire knew that such moods were not unusual, so she took +little stock in the ultimate significance of his restrained manner. + +Perhaps the most indefinable change had come over Claire's home life. +Her mother's unfailing string of trivial gossip, formerly not without a +certain interest, now scarcely held her to even polite attention. +Indeed, her self-absorbed silence, while Mrs. Robson poured out the +latest news about Mrs. Finnegan's second sister's husband's mother--who +was suddenly stricken with some incurable disease, made all the more +mysterious by the fact that its nature was not divulged--was so apparent +that her mother, goaded on to a mild exasperation, would ask, +significantly: + +"What's the matter, Claire? Have you a headache?" + +Mrs. Robson was never so happy as in the discovery of some one with a +mysterious disease, particularly if the victim's relatives were loath to +discuss the issue. + +"They think they fool me!" she would say, triumphantly, to Claire, "but +I guess I know what ails her.... Didn't her mother, and her uncle, and +her sister's oldest child die of consumption? I tell you it's in the +family. The last time I saw her she nearly coughed her head off." + +Not that Mrs. Robson was unsympathetic; brought face to face with +suffering, she blossomed with every impulsive tenderness, but her +experiences had confirmed her in pessimism, and every fresh tragedy +testified to the soundness of her faith. Her pride at diagnosing +people's ills and pronouncing their death-sentences was almost +professional. And she had an irritating way of making comments such as +this: + +"Well, Claire, I see that old Mrs. Talbot is dead at last!... I knew she +wouldn't live another winter. They'll feel terribly, no doubt; but, of +course, it is a great relief." + +Or: + +"Why, here is the death notice of Isaac Rice! I thought he died _years_ +ago. My, but he was a trial! What a blessing!" + +This was the type of conversation that Claire was finding either empty +of meaning or illuminating to the point of annoyance. What amazed her +was the fact that she had remained blind so long to the slightest of the +conversational food upon which she had been fed. + +Claire did not tell her mother about the invitation to Mrs. Condor's +musical evening. + +"I'll wait," she said to herself. "Thursday will be time enough." +Although why delay would prove advantageous was not particularly +apparent. + +On Wednesday night at the dinner-table, Mrs. Robson, as if still puzzled +at her daughter's altered mood, said, rather cautiously: + +"There's to be a reception at the church on Friday night." + +"For whom?" inquired Claire, with pallid interest. + +"I didn't quite catch the name.... Some woman back from France. She's +been nursing in one of the British hospitals. She's to get Red Cross +work started at the church. It seems San Francisco is a bit slow over +taking up the work, but, then, you know, we're poked off here in a +corner and I suppose we don't quite realize yet.... Anyway, Mrs. Towne +wants us to help with the coffee. She says you should have been in the +church-work long ago. You look so self-contained and efficient.... I +told her we would be there at half past seven and get the dishes into +shape." + +Claire's heart beat violently. "Friday night? I'm sorry, mother; I have +another engagement." + +"Another engagement? Why, Claire, how funny! You never said anything +about it. I don't know what to say to Mrs. Towne." + +Claire felt calm again. "Just tell her the truth." + +"But she'll think so strange that I didn't know ... that I...." + +"You shouldn't have spoken for me until you found out whether I was +willing." + +"Willing! _Willing!_ I didn't suppose you'd be anything else. I've been +trying to get you in with the right people at the church for the last +fifteen years. I've tried so hard...." + +"Yes, mother, I know," said Claire, patiently. "But don't you see? +That's just it. You've tried too hard." + +Mrs. Robson began to whimper discreetly. "How you do talk, Claire! I +declare I don't know what to make of it. I suppose you're bitter about +Mrs. Towne the other night. I felt so at first, but I can see now we +were at the wrong table. And, after all, everything came out +beautifully. We sat with Mr. Stillman, and that had a very good effect, +I can tell you. Especially when everybody saw us leave with him. Why, it +brought Mrs. Towne to her feet." + +"Yes, and that's the humiliating part of it." + +"Well, Claire, when you've lived as long as I have you won't be so +uppish about making compromises," flung back Mrs. Robson. "Of course, if +you've got another engagement, you've got another engagement, but +if...." + +"I wouldn't have gone, anyway. I'm through with that sort of thing." + +"Why, Claire, how can you! It's your duty, _now_!--with your country at +war--and ... and ... Even that dreadful Serbian the other night made +_that_ plain." + +"I'll go with you to church on Sundays, of course, but--" + +"What am _I_ to do?" wailed Mrs. Robson. "At least you might think of +me! I've not had much pleasure in my life, goodness knows, and now just +as I...." + +Mrs. Robson broke off abruptly on a flood of tears. Two weeks ago these +tears would have overwhelmed Claire. As it was, she sat calmly stirring +her tea, surprised and a little ashamed of her coldness. The truth was +that Claire Robson was feeling all the fanatical cruelty that comes with +sudden conviction. The forms of her new faith had hardened too quickly +and left outlines sharp and uncompromising. + +For years Claire had found shelter from the glare of middle-class +snobbery beating about her head, by shrinking into her mother's +inadequate shadow as a desert bird shrinks into the thin shadow of a dry +reed by some burned-out watercourse. Now a full noon of disillusionment +had annihilated this shadow and given her the courage of necessity. And +there was something more than courage--there was an eagerness to stand +alone in the commonplace words with which she sought to temper her +refusal to assist at the coming church reception: + +"I can't see any good reason, mother, why you shouldn't go and help Mrs. +Towne.... What have my plans to do with it?" + +To which her mother answered: + +"I do so hate to be seen at such places alone, Claire." + +Claire made no reply. She did not want to give her mother's indecision a +chance to crystallize into a definite stand. She knew by long experience +that if this happened it would be fatal. But in a swift flash of +decision Claire made up her mind for one thing--she would either go to +Mrs. Condor's evening alone or she would send her regrets. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +By a series of neutral subterfuges and tactful evasions Claire Robson +won her point--she went to the Condor musicale at Ned Stillman's +apartments alone, and on that same night her mother wended a rather +grudging way to the Second Presbyterian Church reception. + +Acting under her mother's advice, Claire timed her arrival for nine +o'clock, an hour which seemed incredibly late to one schooled in the +temperate hour of church socials. Mrs. Condor herself opened the door in +answer to Claire's ring. + +"Oh, my dear, but I _am_ glad to see you!" burst from the elder woman as +she waved her in. But she did not so much as mention the absence of Mrs. +Robson, and Claire was divided between a feeling of wounded family +pride, and gratification at the intuition which had warned her to leave +her mother to her own devices. More people arrived on Claire's heels, +and in the lively bustle she was left to shed her wraps in one of the +bedrooms. Her heart was pounding with reaction at her outwardly +self-contained entrance. She let her rather shabby cloak slip to the +floor, revealing a strange, new Claire resplendent in the +gold-embroidered gown that had once so stirred her rancor. For a brief +instant she had an impulse to gather the discarded wrap securely about +her and make a quick exit. A swooning fear at the thought of meeting a +roomful of people assailed her. But there succeeded a courage born of +the realization that they all would be strangers. With a sense of +bravado she stepped out into the entrance hall again. + +Ned Stillman came forward. She halted and waited for him. His face had +lit with a sudden pleasure, which told Claire that for once in her life +her presence roused positive interest. He inquired after her health, why +her mother had not come, whether the abominable fog was clearing. His +easy formality put her, as usual, completely at ease. + +It was only when he asked her, with the most inconsequential tone in the +world, "whether she could read music at sight" that a sinking fear came +over her. And yet she found courage enough to be truthful and say yes. + +"That's fine!" he returned. "Our accompanist hasn't come yet and we want +to start off with a song or two." + +From this moment on the evening impressed itself on Claire in a series +of blurred hectic pictures.... She knew that Stillman was leading her +toward the piano, but the living-room and its toned lights gave her a +curious sense of unreality. She seated herself before the white keyboard +and folded her hands with desperate resignation while she waited for +Stillman to dictate the next move. + +"My dear Mrs. Condor," Stillman explained, as that lady came up to them, +"we sha'n't have to wait for Flora Menzies. Miss Robson will accompany +you." + +Claire sat unmoved. She was beyond so trivial a sensation as anxiety. +Stillman drifted away; Mrs. Condor began to run through the sheet music +lying on the piano. + +"Of course you know Schumann, Miss Robson. Shall we start at once? How +is the light? If you moved your stool a little--so. There, that's +better." + +Claire did not reply. She looked at the music before her. She was +conscious that it was a piece she knew, although its name registered no +other impression. She began to play. The opening bars almost startled +her. She felt a hush fall over the noisy room. Her fingers stumbled--she +caught the melody again with staggering desperation. Mrs. Condor was +singing.... The room faded; even the sound of Mrs. Condor's voice became +remote. Claire had a desire to laugh. + +All manner of strange, disconnected thoughts ran through her head. She +remembered a doll she had broken years ago and buried with great pomp +and circumstance, a pink parasol that had been given her as a child, the +gigantic and respectable wig which had incased the head of her old +German music-teacher, Frau Pfaff. And as she played on and on the music +further evoked the memory of this worthy lady who had given her services +in exchange for lodgings in an incredibly small hall bedroom, with +certain privileges at the kitchen stove. And pictures of this irritating +woman rose before her, stewing dried fruit, or preparing sour beef, or +borrowing the clothes boiler for a perennial wash. What compromises her +mother had made to give her child the gentle accomplishments that Mrs. +Robson associated with breeding! It came to Claire that it was almost +cruel to have denied this mother a share in the triumphs of that +evening. And with that, she realized that Mrs. Condor had ceased +singing. A hum broke loose, followed by applause. Claire grew faint. Her +head began to swirl. She clutched the piano stool and by sheer terror at +the thought of creating a scene she managed to keep her consciousness as +she felt Mrs. Condor's hand upon her shoulder and heard a voice that +just missed being patronizing: + +"My dear, you did it beautifully." + +Claire longed to burst into tears.... + +The concert was over shortly after eleven o'clock. Besides Mrs. Condor, +there had been a 'cellist, very masculine in his looks but rather +forceless in his playing, and a young, frail girl who brought great +breadth and vigor to her interpretations at the piano. But Claire was +really too excited for calm enjoyment. Supper followed--creamed minced +chicken and extraordinarily thin sandwiches, and a dry, pale wine that +Claire found at first rather distasteful. Claire sat with a little group +composed of Mrs. Condor, Ned Stillman, a fashionable young man, Phil +Edington, who frankly confessed boredom at all things musical except +one-steps and fox-trots, and two or three artistic-looking souls who +pretended to be quite shocked by young Edington's frankness. + +Conversation veered naturally to the subject of the war. Edington had +tried for a commission in an officers' training-camp and failed. He was +extraordinarily frank about it all, and good-natured at the chaffing +that Mrs. Condor and Stillman threw at him. + +"I'm going to wait now and be drafted," he announced. "As long as I +failed to make a high grade I want to begin at the bottom and see the +whole picture." + +Claire rather waited for a word from Stillman as to his convictions on +the subject. Of course one could see that he was over the draft age, +still.... For the most part she was silent, but happy and content. By +contributing her share to the evening's entertainment she had justified +her presence. Wine as a factor in midnight suppers was a new but not a +revolutionary experience to Claire Robson, but she gasped a bit when the +maid passed cigarettes to the ladies. And yet she felt a delicious sense +of being a party to something quite daring and _outré_, although she did +not have either courage or skill to enjoy one of the slender, +gold-tipped delights. + +The time for departure finally came. Claire rose reluctantly. Mrs. +Condor, slipping one arm in Phil Edington's and the other in Claire's, +sauntered with them toward the entrance hall. + +"I say," ventured Edington as Stillman caught up to the group. "What's +the matter with just us four dropping down to the Palace for a whirl or +two?" + +Claire stared. She had not grown used to the novelty of being included, +but any instinctive objections to the plan were promptly silenced by +Mrs. Condor's enthusiastic approval. + +They arrived at the Palace Hotel shortly before midnight. The Rose Room +was crowded. All the tables seemed filled, and Claire had a moment of +disappointment caused by the fear that their party would be unable to +gain admittance. But young Edington's presence soon set any uneasiness +on that score at rest, and a place was evolved with deftness and +despatch. The novelty of the situation to Claire was nothing compared +with her matter-of-fact acceptance of it. She was neither self-conscious +nor timid. Her three companions had a way of tacitly including her in +even their trivial chatter that was unmistakable, though hard to define. +She felt that she was one of them, and she blossomed in this strange new +warmth like a chilled blossom at the final approach of a belated spring. +All evening her starved sense of self-importance had been feeding +greedily upon the compliments that had come her way. There had been her +mother's rather apologetic words of approval at her appearance, to begin +with, then Mrs. Condor's appreciation at the piano, and finally a word +dropped by one of the women who had shared a mirror with her at the hour +of departure. + +"How do you manage your hair, Miss Robson?" the other had said, digging +viciously at her shifting locks with a hairpin. "I do declare you're the +only woman in the room that looks presentable." + +But it was Edington's words to Stillman while they stood waiting for the +hotel attendants to prepare the table that brought a quickened beat to +her heart. The conversation was low and not meant for her ears, but her +senses were too sharpened to miss Edington's furtive words as he +whispered to Stillman: + +"Where did ... amazing.... Miss Robson?" + +Claire did not catch the reply which must have also been something of a +query, but she heard Edington continue. + +"Well ... a little too silent, I must admit.... No, I don't dislike 'em +that way ... but I'm afraid of them." + +Stillman answered with a low laugh. + +They sat down. Edington ordered wine. The crowd at the tables was rather +a mixed one. There was plenty of elaborate gowning among the groups of +formal diners who had prolonged their feasting into the supper hour, but +many casuals, drifting in for a few drinks and a dance or two, robbed +the scene of its earlier brilliance. + +The orchestra struck up a one-step. Claire denied Stillman the dance, +explaining that she knew none of the new steps, and he whirled away with +Mrs. Condor. Edington, robbed of his chance, pouted unashamed. + +"I say, Miss Robson, can't you do a one-step--really? There isn't +anything to it! Come on--try; I'll pull you through." + +Claire's knowledge of dancing was instinctive, but not a matter of much +practice, yet his distress was so comic that she relented. She wondered +if he could feel her trembling as they swung into the dance. She +stumbled once or twice from timidity, but Edington guided unerringly. +Half-way round she suddenly struck the proper swing. + +"There--that's it," cried Edington, enthusiastically. "Now you've got +it! Fine!" + +His praise mounted to her brain like a heady wine, and suddenly, in the +twinkling of an eye, all the repressed youth within her awoke with a +sweet and terrible joy.... They danced madly, perfectly, the rhythm +entering into them like something at once fluid and flaming. Her ecstasy +awoke a vague response in her partner, who bent forward as he kept +repeating, monotonously: + +"And you said you couldn't, Miss Robson! Fancy, you said you couldn't!" + +The music stopped abruptly with a crash. Some of the dancers made their +way leisurely back among the tables, but the most of them wandered about +the polished' floor, clapping insistent hands for an encore. In this +brief interlude, groups arrived and departed. The musicians lifted their +instruments to chin and lip, struck an opening chord; couples began to +whirl and glide. Claire Robson, palpitant and eager, followed Edington's +lead, but almost at the first moment of their rhythmic flight they came +crashing into the overcoated bulk of a man cutting across the corner of +the ballroom in an attempt at a swift exit. A smothered protest escaped +Edington, and Claire detached herself from her partner long enough to +see the offender bow very low and hear his apology in a voice and manner +that seemed curiously familiar: + +"I beg your pardon. Pray forgive me! I should have known better." + +In the twinkling of an eye the interrupted dancers were sweeping on +again, and the apologetic stranger, hat in hand, turning for a farewell +look at the pair. Claire Robson felt an up-leap of the heart; a fresh +ecstasy quickened her. It was the Serbian! + +They finished the dance almost opposite their table and were met by a +patter of applause from Mrs. Condor and Stillman, who were already +seated. + +Claire was flaming with embarrassment as she faced Stillman. + +"I hope you'll understand, Mr. Stillman," she faltered. "But Mr. +Edington seemed willing to risk my ignorance." + +Mrs. Condor turned Claire's plaintive apology into a covert attack upon +Stillman's courage, but Stillman rescued Claire from further confusion +by laughing back: + +"Well, I'll have my revenge on Edington. I'll grant him all the +one-steps, but he can't have any of the waltzes, Miss Robson." + +The waiter began to pour out the champagne. Claire settled back in her +seat with a feeling of delightful languor. The dance had released all +the pent-up emotions that a night of vivid sensations had called into +her life. She had come into the Rose Room of the Palace Hotel quivering +in the leash of a restrained enjoyment; it had taken the quick lash of +opportunity to send her spirits hurtling forward in wild and headlong +abandon. She lifted her wine-glass in answer to the upraised glasses of +her companions, and the thought flashed over her that it would be +impossible for her to have quite her old vision again. In every life +there are culminating moments of joy or sorrow which either clear or +dim the horizon, and Claire felt that such moment was now hers. + +Stillman rose promptly in his seat at the first strains of the waltz, +which proved to be the next number. Claire stepped out upon the floor +with confidence. + +She did not need any word of reassurance this time to tell her that her +dancing was more than acceptable, and, true to her brief experience with +Stillman, he refrained from voicing the obvious. They had begun the +dance promptly and for the first whirl about they had the floor almost +to themselves. Claire's discreet sidelong glances detected many +approving nods in their direction; people were noticing them and making +favorable comment.... The floor filled, but even in the crowd Claire had +a sense that she and her partner were standing out distinctly. + +The very nature of the waltz contrasted sharply with the one-step. There +was less abandon and more art. The first dance had expressed a primitive +emotion; the present slow and measured whirl a discriminating sensation. +And slowly, under the spell of Stillman's calm and yet strangely glowing +manner, Claire recovered her poise. All night she had been inhaling +every fresh delight rapturously with the closed eyes and open senses +that one brings to the enjoyment of blossoms heavy with perfume. It took +Stillman's influence to rob the hours of their swooning delight by +recapturing her self-consciousness. Things became at once orderly and +reasonable. And as he led her back to their table she felt the flame +within cease its flarings and become steady, with a pleasurable glow. +For a moment she felt uneasy, as if she were being trapped by something +sweetfully insidious. Slowly, almost cautiously, she withdrew her arm +from his. He made no comment; it was doubtful if he really noticed her +recoil. + + * * * * * + +Long past its appointed time the hall light in the Robson flat continued +to burn dimly. Mrs. Robson, sleepless and a bit anxious, waited alertly +for the sound of Claire's key in the door. The welcome click came +finally, succeeded by the unmistakable slam of an automobile door and +the sharp, quick note of a machine speeding up. + +"She's come home in Stillman's car," flashed through Mrs. Robson's mind, +as she sat up in bed. At that moment Mrs. Finnegan's cuckoo clock, +sounding distinctly through the thin flooring, warbled twice with a +voice of friendly betrayal. "Mercy! it's two o'clock!" she muttered. "I +wonder if Mrs. Finnegan is awake?... I do hope she heard the +automobile!..." + +Seated at the foot of her mother's bed, Claire tried her best to give a +satisfactory report of the evening, but she found that she had +overlooked most of the details that her mother found interesting. Who +was there? What did Mrs. Condor wear? Did they have an elaborate +spread?--the questions rippled on in an endless flow. + +Under the acceleration of Claire's recital, Mrs. Robson found her +experiences at the church reception left far behind. Even with scant +details, Claire had managed to evolve a fascinating picture of a life +robbed sufficiently of puritanism to be properly piquant. There was a +tang of the swift, immoral, fascinating 'seventies in Claire's still +cautious reference to champagne and cigarettes. It was impossible for +any San Franciscan who had lived through those splendid madcap bonanza +days to deny the lure of gay wickedness. At least it was hard to keep +one's eyes on a prayer-book while the car of pleasure rattled by. And a +coffee-and-cake social was, after all, a rather tame experience in the +face of beverages more sparkling and eatables distinctly enticing.... Of +course, if Claire had been introduced to any of these questionable +delights by anybody short of a survivor of the Stillman clan, Mrs. +Robson might have had a misgiving. As it was, she was not above a +certain forewarning sense that made her say with an air of inconsequence +as Claire finished her recital: + +"Mrs. Towne tells me that there is a chance that Mr. Stillman's wife may +get well. She's in a private sanitarium, at Livermore, you know." She +stopped to draw up the bedclothes higher. "I do hope it's so!... But I'm +always skeptical about _crazy_ people ever amounting to anything again. +Seems to me they're better off dead." + + + +CHAPTER V + + +For Claire Robson, there followed after the memorable Condor-Stillman +musicale a period of slack-water. It seemed as if a deadly stagnation +was to poison her existence, so sharp and emphasized was her boredom. On +the other hand, Mrs. Robson seemed to have contrived, from years of +living among arid pleasures, the ability to conserve every happiness +that she chanced upon to its last drop. Claire's invitation to be one of +a distinguished group fed her vanity long after her daughter had outworn +the delights of retrospection. The memory of this incident filled Mrs. +Robson's thoughts, her dreams, her conversation. Gradually, as the days +dragged by, bit by bit, she gleaned detached details of what had +transpired, weaving them into a vivid whole, for the entertainment of +herself and the amazement of her neighbor, Mrs. Finnegan. + +Formerly Mrs. Finnegan's information regarding what went on in exclusive +circles was confined to society dramas on the screen and the Sunday +supplement. The personal note which Mrs. Robson brought to her recitals +was a new and pleasing experience. After listening to the authentic +gossip of Mrs. Robson, Mrs. Finnegan would return to her threshold with +a sense of having shared state secrets. On such occasions Mrs. Robson's +frankness had almost a challenge in it; she exaggerated many details and +concealed none. + +"Yes," she would repeat, emphatically, "they served cigarettes along +with the wine. They _always_ do." + +"Well, Mrs. Robson," Mrs. Finnegan inevitably returned, "far be it from +me to criticize what your daughter's friends do. But I don't approve of +women smoking." + +As a matter of fact, neither did Mrs. Robson, but she felt in duty bound +to resent Mrs. Finnegan's narrow attacks upon society. + +"Well, Mrs. Finnegan, that's only because you're not accustomed to it. +Now, if you had ever...." + +"Did Claire smoke?" + +"Why, of course _not_! How can you ask such a thing? I hope I've brought +my daughter up decently, Mrs. Finnegan." + +And with that, Mrs. Robson would deftly switch to a less exciting detail +of the Condor-Stillman musicale, before her neighbor had a chance to +pick flaws in her logic. But sooner or later the topic would again verge +on the controversial. Usually at the point where the scene shifted from +Ned Stillman's apartments to the Palace Hotel, Mrs. Finnegan's pug nose +was lifted with tentative disapproval, as she inquired: + +"How many did you say went down to the Palace?" + +"Only four--Mr. Stillman, Claire, Mrs. Condor, and a young fellow named +Edington." + +"I suppose _that_ Mrs. Condor was the chaperon. Finnegan knows her well! +She used to hire hacks when Finnegan was in the livery business years +ago. She's a gay one, I can tell you. When only the steam-dummy ran out +to the Cliff House...." + +"That's nothing. Everybody who was anybody had dinners at the Cliff +House in those days. I remember how my father...." + +"Yes, Mrs. Robson, maybe you do! But I'll bet _you_ never went to such a +place without your husband ... and ... with a _strange_ man." + +Mrs. Robson never had, and she would tell Mrs. Finnegan so decidedly. +This always had the effect of switching the subject again and Mrs. +Robson found her desire to know the real details of Mrs. Condor's +questionable gaieties offered up on the altar of class loyalty. For it +never occurred to Mrs. Robson to doubt that her social exile had nothing +to do with the inherent rights of her position. + +When everything else in the way of an irritating program failed to rouse +Mrs. Robson's dignified ire, her neighbor fell back upon the fact that +Stillman was a married man. Mrs. Finnegan really worshiped Mrs. Robson +to distraction, but she had a natural combative tendency that was at +odds with even her loyalty. + +"Mr. Stillman is a married man," Mrs. Finnegan would insist, doggedly. +"And I don't approve of married men taking an interest in young girls. +Who knows?--he may spoil your daughter's chances." + +This statement always had the effect of dividing Mrs. Robson against +herself. She resented Mrs. Finnegan's insinuations concerning Stillman, +because it was not in her nature to be anything but partizan, and at the +same time she was mollified by her neighbor's recognition of the fact +that Claire had such things as chances. She always managed cleverly at +this point by saying, patronizingly: + +"Why, how you talk, Mrs. Finnegan! Mr. Stillman is just like an old +friend. Not that we've known _him_ so long ... but the family, you know +... they're old-timers. Everybody knows the Stillmans! Really one +couldn't want a better friend." + +Thus did Mrs. Robson take meager and colorless realities and expand them +into things of blossoming promise. She was almost creative in the +artistry she brought to these transmutations. In the end she convinced +_herself_ of their existence and she was quite sure that Mrs. Finnegan +shared equally in the delights of her fancy. + +Meanwhile November passed, and the first weeks of December crowded the +old year to its death. November had been shrouded in clammy fogs, but no +rain had fallen, and everybody began to have the restless feeling +engendered by the usual summer drought in California prolonged beyond +its appointed season. The country and the people needed rain. Claire, +always responsive to the moods of wind and weather, longed for the +cleansing flood to descend and wash the dust-drab town colorful again. +She awoke one morning to the delicious thrill of the moisture-laden +southeast wind blowing into her room and the warning voice of her mother +at her bedroom door calling to her: + +"You'd better put on your thick shoes, Claire! We're in for a storm." + +She leaped out of bed joyously and hurried with her dressing. + +As she walked down to work the warm yet curiously refreshing wind flung +itself in a fine frenzy over the gray city. Dark-gray clouds were +closing in from the south, and in the east an ominous silver band of +light marked the sullen flight of the sun. People were scampering about +buoyantly, running for street-cars, chasing liberated hats, battling +with billowing skirts. It seemed as if the promise of rain had revived +laughter and motion to an extraordinary degree. At the office this +ecstasy of spirit persisted; even Miss Munch came in hair awry and +blowsy, her beady eyes almost laughing. + +Mr. Flint had not been to the office for two days. A sniffling cold had +kept him at home. Claire had rather looked for him to-day, and had +prepared herself for a flood of accumulated dictation. But the threat of +dampness evidently dissuaded him, for the noon hour came and went and +Mr. Flint did not put in an appearance. At about three o'clock in the +afternoon a long-distance call came on the telephone for Miss Robson. +Claire answered. Flint was on the other end of the wire. He wanted to +know if she could come at once over to Yolanda and take several pages of +dictation. His cold was uncertain and he might not get out for the rest +of the week. He realized that it was something of an imposition on her +good nature, but she would be doing him a great favor if.... She +interrupted him with her quick assent and he finished: + +"I'll have the car at the station, and of course you'll stay for +dinner." + +Claire hung up the receiver and looked at her watch. It was just half +after three. The next ferryboat connecting at Sausalito with the +electric train for Yolanda left at three-forty-five. She had no time to +lose; it was a good ten minutes' walk from the office to the ferry and +little to be gained by taking a street-car. She managed her preparations +for departure successfully, but in the end she had to ask Miss Munch to +telephone her mother. Miss Munch assented with an alarmingly sweet +smile. + +Claire walked briskly down California Street toward the ferry-building. +No rain had fallen, but the air was full of ominous promise. The wind +was even brisker than it had been in the morning, and its breath almost +tropically moist. + +"At sundown it will simply pour," thought Claire, as she exchanged fifty +cents for a ticket to Yolanda. + +She presented her ticket at the entrance to the waiting-room and passed +in. The passageway to the boat was already open; she went at once and +found a sheltered corner outside on the upper deck. A strong sea was +running and already the ferryboat was plunging and straining like a +restless bloodhound in leash. The air was full of screaming gulls and +the clipped whistling of restless bay craft. Claire was so intent on all +this elemental agitation that she took no notice of the people about +her, but as the boat slid lumberingly out of the slip she was recalled +by a voice close at hand saying: + +"Why, Miss Robson, who would think of seeing you here at this hour!" + +Claire turned and discovered Miss Munch's cousin sitting beside her, +intent on the inevitable tatting. + +"Oh, Mrs. Richards, how stupid of me! Have you been here long?" + +"About ten minutes. But I get so interested in my work I never have eyes +for anything else. How do you put in the time? A trip like this is so +tiresome!" + +Claire delved into her bag and brought out knitting-needles and an +unfinished sock. + +"I'm trying a hand at this," she admitted, holding her handiwork up +ruefully. "But I'm afraid I'm not very skilful." + +Mrs. Richards inspected the sock with critical disapproval. + +"Oh, well," she encouraged, "you'll learn ... practice makes perfect. +I've just finished a half-dozen pairs. I suppose I'm laying myself out +for a roast doing tatting in public _these_ war days! But it's restful +and I'm not one to pretend. As long as my conscience is clear I can +afford to be perfectly independent.... You don't make this trip every +night, do you?" + +"Oh my, no! I'm going over to Mr. Flint's to take some dictation. He's +home sick." + +"I saw Mrs. Flint and the children coming _off_ the boat just as I got +on." Mrs. Richards's voice took on a tone of casual directness. + +"You know Mrs. Flint?" + +"My dear girl, a trained nurse knows everybody--and everything about +them, too. You never get a real line on people until you live with +them. I've never nursed any of the Flint family, but I wouldn't have to +to get their reputation--or perhaps I should say, old Flint's." + +"_Old_ Flint's?" echoed Claire. + +"Well, of course he isn't so awfully old, but men like him always give +that impression. They're so awfully wise--about _some_ things. I _was_ +so relieved when Gertie didn't get that dreadful Miss Whitehead's +place. Being in the general office is bad enough, but in his _private_ +office...." Mrs. Richards lifted and dropped her tatting-filled hands +significantly. + +Claire felt the blood rush to her face. "I'm in the private office, Mrs. +Richards.... No doubt you forgot it." + +"Well now, you know I _had_ ... for the moment. But with a girl like you +it's different. Some women can handle men, but Gertie would be so +helpless!" + +The humor of Mrs. Richards's remark saved the situation for Claire. She +changed the subject deliberately. But somehow, with the conversation +forced from the particular to the general, Miss Munch's cousin lost +interest, and by the time the boat had passed Alcatraz Island Claire was +deep in her thoughts again and the other woman following the measured +flight of the tatting-shuttle with strained attention. + +The boat was romping through the stiff sea like a playful porpoise, +dipping and plunging. A half-score of adventuresome gulls were still +following in the foam-churned wake. In the face of all the pitching +about, Mrs. Richards had quite a battle to direct her shuttle to any +efficient purpose, and Claire was almost amused at the grim +determination she brought to the performance. + +Presently a warning whistle from the ferryboat betrayed the fact that +they were nearing Sausalito. Mrs. Richards began to gather up her +numerous bundles, and Claire and she made their way down the narrow +stairs to the lower deck. Their progress was slow and uncertain. The +southeaster was tearing across the open spaces and bending everything +before it; the lumbering boat dipped sideward in a stolid encounter with +its adversary. + +"Mercy! What a night!" gasped Mrs. Richards, clutching at Claire's arm. + +A gust of wind struck them with its force just as they reached the lower +deck. Mrs. Richards staggered and wrestled vainly with tatting-bag and +bundles and a refractory skirt. For the moment both women were stalled +in a desperate effort to retain their equilibrium. + +"Come!" gasped Claire. "Let's get over there in the shelter of that +automobile." + +They made the leeward side of the automobile in question, and while Mrs. +Richards began to recover her roughly handled dignity Claire turned her +attention to the car. It was a huge dark-red affair, evidently fresh +from the shop. Claire knew none of the fine points of automobiles, but +this one had unmistakable evidences of distinction. She was peering in +at its opulent depths when who should surprise her but Ned Stillman. + +"My dear Miss Robson!" he cried, in a tone of delight, as he faced her +from the opposite side of the car. "What do you think of it?" + +"Yours?" she queried. + +"Just out of the shop to-day. I couldn't wait until it cleared. I just +had to get out with it. And this kind of weather always puts me up on my +toes. Where are you going--to Ross? If you are, don't bother with the +train. Come along with me." + +He circled about the machine and came up to her with a frank, +outstretched hand. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" he murmured as Mrs. Richards +came into view. + +Claire began an introduction, but Mrs. Richards cut in with her odd, +challenging way. + +"Oh, _I_ know Mr. Stillman! But I guess he's forgotten _me_. It's been +some years, of course. At Mr. Faville's--your _wife's_ father's house." + +Stillman paled for the briefest of moments, but he recovered himself +cleverly. "Mrs. Richards--of course! How do you do? It _has_ been some +years." + +"I'm going to Mr. Flint's--at Yolanda," said Claire, "to take some +dictation. He's been ill, you know." + +"Ill? No, I hadn't heard it. Nothing serious, I hope." + +"Not serious enough to keep Mrs. Flint at home, anyway," volunteered +Mrs. Richards, in her characteristically disagreeable way. + +"Mrs. Richards saw Mrs. Flint and the children coming off the boat...." + +"As I got on," interrupted the lady again. + +"Oh, indeed, is that so?" Claire fancied that Stillman's tone held +something more than polite acceptance of what he had just heard. "I can +take you ladies to Yolanda if you'd like a spin in the open better than +a stuffy ride in the train." + +"Thank you," Mrs. Richards returned, "but I get off at Sausalito. I've +no doubt Miss Robson will be delighted." + +"I think I'd better not," said Claire. "Mr. Flint is sending his car to +the train for me. I shouldn't want to change my program and cause +confusion. But I'd like nothing better! The air is so bracing!" + +"You can excuse _me_!" put in Mrs. Richards, moving toward the forward +deck. "It's going to pour in less than ten minutes. I'm not one of those +amphibious creatures who like to get wringing wet just for the fun of +it!" + +Stillman lifted his hat. Claire stood for a moment undecided whether to +follow Mrs. Richards or remain for a chat with Stillman. + +"I'm an awful fool, I suppose," Stillman smiled at Claire, "bringing the +car out on a night like this. But the truth is Edington promised to +catch this boat and I wanted him to try out the new plaything. I might +have known he wouldn't make it. We're running over for dinner with +Edington's sister." + +At this moment the boat crashed clumsily against the Sausalito +ferry-slip, and in the sudden confusion of landing Claire was swept +along without further ado. + +She looked back. Stillman waved a genial good-by to her. She felt glad +that he was behind her, in a vague, impersonal, thoroughly inexplainable +way. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Claire was disappointed that Mrs. Flint was not to be at home. She had +caught glimpses of her now and then coming into the office and she was +interested in the hope of seeing her at closer range. Mrs. Flint was a +rather frumpish individual, who always gave the impression of pieced-out +dressmaking. + +"She must subscribe to the _Ladies' Home Journal_," Nellie Whitehead had +commented one day. "You know that 'go-up-into-the-garret-and-get-five- +yards-of-grandmother's-wedding-gown' column. Well, she's a walking ad +for it. She's no raving beauty, but if she would throw out her chest and +chuck those flat-heeled clogs of hers, and put a marcel wave in her +hair, maybe the old man would sit up and take notice." + +To which Miss Munch had replied: + +"Well, she's a mighty sweet woman, anyway!" in a tone calculated to +freeze the irrepressible Nellie Whitehead into silence. + +"Who says she isn't? And at that, a good tailor-made suit and a +decent-looking hat won't spoil her disposition any...." + +The children, too, were what Nellie Whitehead had termed "perfect guys." +On warm days Mrs. Flint would drag these two daughters of hers into the +office, dressed in plaid suits and velveteen hats; and when a cold north +wind blew it seemed inevitable that they would appear in gay and airy +costumes up to their knees, with impossible straw bonnets trimmed with +daisies and faded cornflowers, reminiscent of the white-leghorn-hat era. + +"Men don't marry women for their clothes," Miss Munch used to say, +challengingly, to Nellie. + +"Oh, don't they, indeed! Well, I've lived longer than sixteen and a half +years and I've noticed that it's the up-to-the-minute dame that gets +away with it and holds onto it every time, just the same. And any woman +silly enough to work the rag-bag game when her husband can afford seven +yards of taffeta and a Butterick pattern is a fool!" + +Claire knew women who looked dowdy on dress-parade and yet managed to be +quite charming in their own houses. She was wondering whether this might +not be Mrs. Flint's case; anyway, she had hoped for a chance to decide +this point, and now Mrs. Flint was not at home. + +As she settled into her matting-covered seat in the train she began to +wonder just who _would_ be home at the Flint establishment. And she +thought suddenly of the disagreeable emphasis that Mrs. Richards had +seen fit to give the fact that Mrs. Flint was bound cityward. At this +stage she became lost in discovering so many points of contact between +Mrs. Richards and her cousin, Miss Munch. Then the train started with a +quick lurch, and a view of the rapidly darkening landscape claimed her +utterly. + +Claire always took a childish delight in watching the panorama of the +countryside unroll swiftly before the space-conquering flight of a +train. And to-night the quick close of the December day warned her to +make the most of her opportunity. The wind was whipping the upper +reaches of the bay into a shallow fury, and the water in turn was +beating against the slimy mud and swallowing it up in gray, futile +anger. This part of the ride just out of Sausalito was always more or +less depressing unless a combination of full tide and vivid sunshine +gave its muddy stretches the enlivening grace of sky-blue reflections. +Worm-eaten and tottering piles, abandoned hulks, half-swamped skiffs, +all the water-logged dissolution of stagnant shore lines the world over, +flashed by, to be succeeded by the fresher green of channel-cut marshes. +The hills were wind-swept, huddling their scant oak covering into the +protecting folds of shallow canons. At intervals, clumps of +eucalyptus-trees banded together or drew out in long, thin, soldier-like +lines. + +Presently it began to rain. There was no preliminary patter, but the +storm broke suddenly, hurling great gray drops of moisture against the +windows. Claire withdrew from any further attempt to watch the whirling +landscape. It was now quite dark, the short December day dying even more +suddenly under a black pall of lowering clouds. + +She began to have distinctly uncomfortable thoughts about her visit to +the Flints'. But the more uncomfortable her thoughts became, the more +reason she brought to bear for conquering them. Surely one was not to be +persuaded into a panic by any such person as Mrs. Richards! And by the +time the brakeman announced the train's approach to Yolanda, Claire had +recovered her common sense. What of it if Mrs. Flint had gone to town? +There must be other women in the household--at least a maid. It was +absurd! The train stopped and Claire got off. + +Flint's car was waiting, and Jerry Donovan, the chauffeur, stood with a +dripping umbrella almost at Claire's elbow as she hopped upon the +platform. + +As they swished through the inky blackness, Claire said to Jerry, with +as inconsequential an air as she could muster: + +"I thought I saw Mrs. Flint get off the boat in town. But I guess I was +mistaken. She wouldn't be leaving Mr. Flint alone ... when he's ill." + +"Ill?" Jerry chuckled. "Well, he ain't dead by a long shot. Just a case +of sniffles, and a good excuse for hitting the booze. He's in prime +condition, I can tell you." + +Claire had never seen Flint in "prime condition," but she had it from +Nellie Whitehead that there were moments when the gentleman in question +could "go some," to use her predecessor's precise terms. + +"About twice a year," Nellie had once confided to Claire, "the old boy +starts in to cure a cold. I helped him cure one ... but _never_ again!" + +Jerry's observations aroused fresh anxiety, but they did not settle the +issue for Claire. She felt that she could not turn back at the eleventh +hour. There was nothing else for her to do but go through with the game. +Yet she still hoped for the best. + +"_Did_ Mrs. Flint go to town to-day?" she finally asked, point-blank. + +"Sure thing," said Jerry, swinging the car past the Flint gateway. + +Claire refused to be totally lacking in faith. + +"There must be a maid," flashed through her mind, as Jerry stopped the +car and swung down to help her out. + +A Japanese boy threw open the door as they scrambled up the rain-soaked +steps. But the fine, orderly, Colonial interior reassured Claire. The +few country homes she had seen had been of the rambling, unrelated +bungalow type, with paneled redwood walls either stained to a dismal +brown or quite frankly left to their rather characterless pink. This +home was different. Even the pungent oak logs crackling in the fireplace +did so with indefinable distinction. The general tone of the +surroundings was as little in keeping with the patchwork personality of +its mistress as one could imagine. It was as if the singular +completeness of Mrs. Flint's home left no time nor energy for a finished +individuality. Claire got all this in the briefest of flashes, just a +swift, inclusive glance about the entrance hall and through the doorways +leading into the rooms beyond. Particularly did she sense the severe +opulence of the dining-room, twinkling at a remoter distance than the +living-room--its perfectly polished silver, its spotless linen, its +wonderfully blue china, not to mention the disconcerting fact that the +table in the center was laid for but two. + +And then Flint himself came forward with a very red face and an absurdly +cordial greeting. + +"Well, I began to wonder whether you'd risk it. This will be a storm and +no mistake.... Here, let me have your coat. Come, you're quite wet.... +Shall you warm up on a hot toddy or something cooler--a cocktail?" + +She felt his hand sliding down her arm as she released the coat to his +too-eager fingers. "Oh no, Mr. Flint! Thank you, nothing. It's only a +bit of rain on the surface. I'm quite dry." + +"Quite dry!" He echoed her words with a guffaw. "Well, then, we'll have +to moisten you up. I always say everything's a good excuse for a drink. +If you're cold you take a drink to warm up; if you're warm you take one +to cool off. You dry out on one, and you wet up on one. I don't know of +any habit with so many good reasons back of it. I'm dry, too.... We'll +have a Bronx! That's a nice, ladylike drink." + +Claire weighed her reply. She did not want to strike the wrong note; she +wanted to let him have a feeling that she was accepting everything in a +normal, matter-of-fact way, as if she saw nothing extraordinary in the +situation. + +"You're very kind, but really you know ... if I'm to get my dictation +straight...." + +"Well, perhaps there won't be any dictation. We're not slaves, you and +I. Maybe it will be much pleasanter to sit before the fire and listen to +the storm. What do you say to that?" + +She turned from him deliberately, under the fiction of fluffing up her +hair before a gilt mirror near the door. She was thinking quickly and +with a tremendous, if concealed, agitation. "Why," she laughed back, +finally, "that _would_ be pleasant. But I came to take dictation, Mr. +Flint. And women ... women, you know, are so funny! If they make up +their minds to one thing, they can't switch suddenly to another idea." + +He was paying no attention to her remark, a remark which she felt would +have fallen flat in any event, since it was so palpably studied. + +"The living-room is in there," he said, pointing. "Make yourself at +home." + +She went in and sat before the fire. Flint disappeared. She tried hard +to analyze the situation. It was unthinkable that Mr. Flint had +deliberately planned this piece of foolishness. He must have had some +idea of work when he had telephoned her; perhaps he still had. It was +his way of being facetious, she argued, this fine pretense that it was +all to be a pleasant lark, or it may have been his idea of hospitality. +Of course he had been drinking, but she took comfort in the thought that +there must be instinctive standards in a man like Flint that even whisky +could not swamp. At least he must respect his wife--surely it was not +possible for Flint, drunk or sober, to offer such an affront to _her_, +however little he respected the women in his employ. She dismissed Mrs. +Richards's exaggerated insinuations with their well-deserved contempt, +but she could not thrust aside quite so readily the eye-lifting tone +with which Stillman had met the announcement of Mrs. Flint's absence +from home. + +This was the first time that Claire had seen Stillman since the +musicale. She had thought a great deal about him and particularly about +his problem. She felt a great desire to know everything--all the details +of the unfortunate circumstance that had driven his wife into a +madhouse, and yet whenever her mother broached the subject Claire +changed the topic with curious panic. She seemed to dread the hard, +almost triumphant manner that her mother assumed in tracking misfortune +to its lair and gloating over it. She began to wonder whether Stillman +would be swinging back to the city on a late boat ... or would the storm +keep him at Edington's sister's home all night? + +She was in the midst of this speculation when Flint came into the room. + +"We'll eat early and have that off our minds," he announced. His manner +was brusk and business-like again. Claire felt reassured. + +But she was disturbed to find a cocktail at her place at the table. + +"Well, here's glad to see you!" Flint raised his glass and tilted it +ever so slightly in her direction. Claire lifted the cocktail to her +lips and set it down untasted. "What's the matter? Getting unsociable +again?" + +"No, Mr. Flint. I don't care for cocktails." + +"Oh, all right! We'll send down-cellar and get some wine." + +"Thank you, not for me." + +"I suppose you don't care for wine, either?" His voice had a bantering +quality, with a shade of menace in it. "Or maybe the right party isn't +here. I've noticed that makes a difference. Females are damned moral +with the wrong fellow." + +His attack was so direct and insolent that Claire missed the trepidation +that might have come with a more covert move. She was no longer +uncertain. There was a sharp relief in realizing that all the cards were +on the table. She felt also that there was no immediate danger. Flint +was far from sober, but he was in his own home. She had the conviction +that he was merely skirmishing, testing the strength or weakness of the +line he hoped to penetrate. Her reply was rather more of a challenge +than she could have imagined herself giving under such a circumstance. + +"And if I were to tell you that I don't care for wine, Mr. Flint?" + +He threw open his napkin with a flourish. "You'd be telling me a damned +lie! You drink wine at the Palace with Stillman and Edington." + +She had felt that he was going to say some such thing and for a moment +it amused her. It was so ridiculous to find this rather wan and wistful +indiscretion assuming damaging proportions. But a nasty fear succeeded +her faint amusement. Could it be possible that Stillman had gossiped? + +"Who told you?" she demanded. + +"Oh, don't be afraid; it wasn't Stillman! You're like all women, you +moon about sentimentalizing over Ned until it makes a man like me sick! +I like Ned; I always have. But even when we went to college together it +was the same way. Everybody ... yes, even the men ... always gave him +credit for a high moral tone. Not that he ever took it.... I'll say that +for him.... Ned Stillman didn't tell me, for the simple reason that he +didn't have to. Nobody told me. I go to the Palace myself under +pressure, and I've got two eyes. As a matter of fact, there isn't any +reason why Edington or Stillman or the waiter who drew the corks +shouldn't have mentioned it. A glass of wine is no crime. But the thing +that makes me hot is to see any one pretending. If you drink with +Stillman, you haven't any license to refuse a glass with me." + +There was something more than wine-heated rancor back of his harangue. +Claire guessed instinctively that he both loved and hated Stillman with +a curious confusion of impulses. It was a feeling of affection torn by +the irritating superiority of its object. One gets the same thing in +families ... among children. It was at once subtle and extremely +primitive. + +"My dear Mr. Flint, this isn't quite the same thing. I've work to do for +one thing and, and...." + +"And ... and.... Why don't you say it? You're alone with me and all that +sort of rubbish! Want a chaperon, I suppose. Mrs. Condor, for +instance.... Good Lord!" + +Claire dipped her spoon into the steaming bouillon-cup in front of her. +She was growing quite calm under the directness of Flint's attack. + +"It isn't the same," she reiterated, stubbornly. "I've work to do, Mr. +Flint." + +"I tell you that you haven't!" Flint brought his fist down upon the +table. + +"Well, then, why did you send for me?" + +"I had something to say to you.... Gad! one can't talk in that ramping +office of mine. We've never even settled the matter of an increase in +salary for you. By the way, how much money do you get?" + +Claire had never seen any man look so crafty and disagreeable. He gave +her the impression of a petty tyrant about to bestow largess upon an +obsequious and fawning slave. + +"Sixty-five dollars a month." + +"Well, I don't exactly know.... I've been trying to figure out just how +valuable you are to me, Miss Robson. Or, rather, how valuable you're +likely to be." He thrust aside his soup and leaned heavily upon the +table. "That's why I invited you over to-night. I wanted to see you at a +little closer range. You live with your mother, don't you?" + +"Yes, Mr. Flint." + +"You ... you support your mother, I believe?" + +"Yes, Mr. Flint." + +"Well, sixty-five dollars don't leave much margin for hair ribbons and +the like, does it, now?" + +"No, Mr. Flint." + +"No, Mr. Flint.... Yes, Mr. Flint...." he mocked. "Good Lord! can't you +cut that school-girl-to-her-dignified-guardian attitude. I'm human. +Dammit all, I'm as human as your friend Ned Stillman. I'll bet you don't +yes-sir and no-sir him.... You know, that night I saw you at the Palace +you quite bowled me over. I'd been thinking of you as a shy, +unsophisticated young thing. But you were hitting the high places like a +veteran. Even old lady Condor didn't have anything on you. Except, of +course, that she looks the part. By the way, where did you meet +Stillman?" + +"At ... at a church social," Claire stammered. + +"At a church social! Say, I wasn't born yesterday. Ned Stillman doesn't +go to church. Tell me something easy." + +"It was really a Red Cross concert. He went with Mrs. Condor," Claire +found herself explaining in spite of her anger. "We sat at the same +table when the ice-cream was served." + +Flint was roaring with exaggerated laughter. Even Claire could not +restrain a smile. What made the statement so ridiculous, she found +herself wondering. Was she unconsciously reflecting Flint's attitude or +had she herself changed so tremendously in the last few weeks? + +"Stillman at a church social! But that _is_ good! And eating +ice-cream.... How long ago did all this happen, pray?" + +"Sometime in November." + +He stopped his senseless guffawing and looked at her keenly. "Where did +you get the church-social habit?" + +"I ... why, I guess I formed it early, Mr. Flint. As you say, sixty-five +dollars a month doesn't leave much for hair ribbons or anything else. +Going to church socials is about the cheapest form of recreation I can +think of." + +The bitterness of her tone seemed to pull Flint up with a round turn. +"Well, we're going to get you out of this silly church-social habit. +Dammit all, Stillman isn't the only possibility in sight. That's just +what I wanted to get at--your viewpoint. I take an interest in you, Miss +Robson--a tremendous interest. Good Lord! I can dance one-steps and +fox-trots and hesitations as well as anybody! I danced every bit as +well as Ned Stillman when we went to dancing-school together. But he +always got most of the applause. He _has_ an air, I don't deny that, but +he's working it overtime.... And he's not in any better position for +being friendly to you than I am--_he's_ married." + +The talk was sobering him a little. Claire was amazed to find that she +did not feel indignant. His tone was offensive, but at least it was +forthright. Besides, she had known instinctively that some day he would +force the issue, and she was rather glad to get it settled. And she +began to hope that she could persuade him skilfully against his warped +convictions. She was trembling inwardly, too, at the thought that she +might make a false step and find herself out of a position. Positions +were not easy to land these days. She knew a half-score of girls who had +tramped the town over in a desperate effort to find a vacancy. Two or +three months without salary meant debts piling up, clothes in ribbons, +and no end of hectic worries. + +"I think you've got a decidedly wrong impression of my friendship for +Mr. Stillman," she said, after some deliberation. "I really know him +only slightly. He was good enough, or rather I should say Mrs. Condor +was good enough, to include me in a little musical evening. That was on +the night you saw me at the Palace. We dropped down for a dance or two +after the music was over. I'd never been to such a place before, and I +dare say I'll never go again. It was just one of those experiences that +come to a person out of a clear sky. It's over as quickly as a shower." + +"Oh, don't you worry! There'll be other showers. I'm going to see to +that. You know, the more I talk to you the more amazing you are.... +Fancy your graduating from dinky church things into Stillman musicales, +and Palace dansants, and young Edington, and old lady Condor, all of a +sudden ... and getting away with it as if you were an old hand at the +game. Say, if you're that apt I'll give you a post-graduate course in +high life that'll make your hair curl forty-seven ways. I don't mean +anything vulgar or common ... _you_ understand. I'm a gentleman, Miss +Robson, at that." + +He stopped for a moment to ring the bell for the Japanese boy. Claire +maintained a discreet silence. She had a feeling that it would be just +as well to let him take his full rein. The servant came in and cleared +away the empty bouillon-cups. Fish was served. + +Flint took one taste of the fish and shoved it away impatiently. "You +know, a fellow like me gets awfully bored at all this sort of thing." He +swept the room with an inclusive gesture. "Not that my wife isn't the +best little woman in the world, but _you_ know. She's got standards and +convictions and all that sort of rot. I can't bundle _her_ off for +dinner and a little lark at the Red Paint or Bonini's or some other +Bohemian joint like them.... You know what I mean, no rough stuff ... +but a good feed, and two kinds of wine, and a cigarette with the small +black. Just gay and frivolous.... Of course I can get any number of +girls to run around and help eat up all the nourishment I care to +provide. But, good Lord! that isn't it! I'm looking for somebody with +human intelligence. Not that I want to discuss free verse and the Little +Theater movement. But I like to feel that if I took such a crazy notion +the person sitting opposite me could qualify for a good comeback.... I +like my home and everything, but.... Oh, well, what's the use in +pretending? I'm just as human as your friend Ned Stillman and I've got +just as keen an eye for class." + +He sat back in his seat with an air of satisfaction, waiting for +Claire's reply. She had been calm enough while he talked, but under the +tenseness of his silent expectancy she felt her heart bound. + +"Dammit all! Why don't you say something?" he blurted out. "I know, you +need a little wine. I'm going down-stairs and pick out the best in the +cellar ... _myself_." + +She did not attempt to dissuade him; as a matter of fact, she felt +relieved to be left alone for a moment. She must leave as soon as dinner +was over. She began to wonder about the trains. The storm was raging +outside. She could hear the frenzied trees flinging their branches about +and a noisy flood of rain against the windows. She spoke to the Japanese +boy as he was carrying away Flint's unfinished fish course. + +"Do you know what time the next train leaves?" + +He laid the tray on the serving-table. "Please.... I telephone. Please!" +He bobbed at her absurdly and went out into the hall. She listened. He +was ringing up the station-master. He came back promptly. + +"Please," he began, sucking in his breath, "please ... no train +to-night." + +"No train to-night? Why, what do you mean?" + +"Please ... very much water. Train track washed out. No train to-night. +To-morrow morning, maybe." + +"Oh, but I must go home to-night! I really must! I...." + +She broke off suddenly, realizing the futility of her protest. + +"To-morrow morning," replied the Japanese, blandly. "All right to-morrow +morning. You stay here.... I fix a place. You see.... I fix a very nice +place for young lady." + +He went out with the tray and Claire rose and walked to the window. +Flint broke into the room noisily. She turned--he had two dusty bottles +in his hand, and an air of triumph. + +"Mr. Flint, it seems that there has been a washout. I understand that no +trains are running. What can I do? I must get back; really I...." + +"Who says so?" Flint laid the bottles down with an irritating calmness. + +"The station-master. Your ... your servant just telephoned for me." + +"Oh, well, _we_ should worry! Sit down." + +"Mr. Flint, really, I must.... You know I can't.... I...." + +"Sit _down_!" + +His tone was a dash of cold water thrown in the face of her rising +hysteria. She sat down. Flint ignored the bottles on the table and, +crossing over to the Sheraton sideboard, poured himself a stiff drink +of whisky. His hair-towsled condition stood out sharply against the +precise background. + +He made no further comment, but he began to open the bottles of wine +deliberately. Then he rummaged in the china-closet for the wine-glasses +and set four, two at his place and two at Claire's, upon the table. + +"White wine with the entree and red wine with the roast," he muttered. +And he poured out the white wine without further ado. + +The servant came in with creamed sweetbreads. Claire forced herself to +make a pretense of eating, although her appetite had long since deserted +her. She was thinking, and thinking hard. + +She should never have come, in the first place--at least she should have +turned back upon the strength of Jerry's announcement. But she saw now, +with a clearness that surprised her, that the situation had really +challenged her imagination. She had been too calm, too collected, too +well-poised, full of smug over-confidence. She had read in the current +novels of the day how hysterically unsophisticated heroines conducted +themselves in tight corners and she had followed their writhings with +ill-concealed impatience. She never had really put herself in their +place, but she had had a vague notion that they carried on absurdly. Her +fear all evening had been not what Mr. Flint would do or say or even +suggest--she had been anxious merely to have the impending storm over, +the air cleared, and her position in the office assured upon a purely +business-like basis. She had really welcomed the forced issue; for weeks +her mind had been entertaining and dismissing the idea that Mr. Flint +had any questionable motives in yielding Nellie Whitehead's place to +her. With this fleeting trepidation had come the realization of her +dependence, the importance her sixty-five dollars a month in the scheme +of things, the compromises that she might be forced into accepting in +order to insure its continuance; not definite and soul-searing +compromises, it was true, but petty, irritating trucklings which wear +down self-esteem. + +It had been the primitive violence of Flint's commanding, "Sit down!" to +thrust the issue from the economic to the elemental. For the first time +in her life Claire was face to face with unstripped masculine brutality. +She had wondered why women of a lower order took men's blows without +striking back, without at least escaping from further torment. But she +was beginning to see, as her spirits tried to rise reeling from Flint's +verbal assault, the fawning submission, half admiration, half fear, that +could follow a frank, hard-fisted blow. And she had a terror, sitting +there trying to thrust food between her trembling lips, that the sheer +physical force of the male opposite her might shatter in one blow a will +that could have withstood any amount of spiritual or material attrition. +She had never seen Flint so clearly as at this moment; in fact, she had +never seen him _at all_. Formerly, he had been a conventionalized +masculine biped in a blue-serge covering who paid her salary and struck +attitudes that were symbols of predatory instincts rather than an +indication that such instincts existed. Life had, after all, been +peopled by the precisely labeled puppets of a morality play; they came +on, and declaimed, and made gestures--but they remained abstractions, +things apart from life, mere representations of the vices and virtues +they impersonated. She had entertained this idea particularly with +regard to Flint. She had felt that the day would come when he and she +would occupy the stage together. He would speak his part with a great +flourish of the hands and much high-sounding emphasis, and when he had +finished she would reply with a carefully worded retort, setting forth +the claims and rewards of virtue. Thus it would continue, argument +succeeding argument, a declamatory give and take, dignified, +passionless, theatrical. + +They were occupying the stage now, it was true, but there was something +warm and human and ragged about the performance. Flint was not a mere +spiritless allegory in red-satin doublet and hose to give flame to his +conventionality. Instead, she saw sitting opposite her a ponderous, +quick-breathing, drunken male, handsome in a coarse, rough-hewn way, +speaking in the quick, clipped speech of passion and striking her to the +ground with the energy of his stage business. She was afraid, almost for +the first time in her life, with a primitive, abandoned fear. And +suddenly her vista of womanhood narrowed to include the ugly foreground +of life that youth had looked over in its eager, far-flung scanning of +the horizon beyond. Suddenly she felt all the oppression and sorrow of +the sex bear down upon her and mark her with its relentless finger. +Because she was a woman she would pay for every joy with a corresponding +sorrow; receive a blow for every caress; know courage and fear with +equal intimacy.... She stopped eating and she began to realize with a +vivid terror that Flint was looking at her fixedly and beginning to +speak. + +"What's the matter with the sweetbreads? Don't you like 'em?... And the +wine?... Say, I'm going to get peeved in a minute. You don't suppose we +serve this French-restaurant style of meal every day do you? I should +say _not_! That's another one of the _frau's_ convictions. Plain living +at home so as to set the right example to the _girls_!" Flint threw his +head from side to side, mincing out his last statement. "Gad! I'm tired +of setting a good example!... And even Sing gets tired. Chinks, you +know, like to cook a bang-up meal once in a while. They like a chance to +show their speed and put in all the fancy trimmings." + +His mood, during this speech, had changed with drunken facility from +irritability to good humor. Claire, still attempting to marshal her +wits, picked up her fork again and murmured: + +"Oh, you have a Chinese cook, then? I had no idea.... The Japanese boy, +you know. They say that the two never get along." + +"That's a fairy-tale. Besides, it's next to impossible, these days, to +get a Chinese second-boy. And the missus _won't_ hire a girl." He winked +broadly. "Can't get one ugly enough, I guess. Sing's a wonder. I copped +him from the Tom Forsythes. _You_ know--young Edington's in-laws. +They've never quite forgiven me. Though they _will_ come back and tuck +away one of his dinners occasionally." + +Claire's mind closed nimbly over Flint's statement. "The--the Tom +Forsythes of Ross?" she asked. + +He nodded and tossed a glass of wine off in one gulp. The Tom Forsythes +of Ross ... Edington's sister ... Ned Stillman! The sequence of ideas +flashed through Claire's mind with flashing detachment. She leaned back +in her seat and raised the wine-glass in obvious pretense to her lips. +Flint was watching her keenly: an ugly gleam was in his eyes. + +"Well, Miss Robson, you might just as well make up your mind to finish +that glass of wine first as last. We're not going to have the next +course until you do." + +She measured him deliberately. She knew now that it was to be a fight to +a finish. She was honestly afraid and full of the courage of +realization. + +"I've had enough as it is, Mr. Flint. Besides, we must either be getting +to work or figuring how I am to make the boat at Sausalito. I suppose +you could send me in the car ... with Jerry." + +"Oh, with Jerry? So that's it!... No, not on your life! He's too +good-looking a boy for a job like that. No, Miss Robson, you are going +to stay _right_ here.... Now, understand me, I'm not a damn fool! You +seem to have an idea that because I've had a glass or two that I've lost +my reason. You're an attractive girl and all that, Miss Robson, and I am +interested in you! But please don't flatter yourself that I'm staking +everything on a throw like this. As a matter of fact, I'll see that you +are properly chaperoned. We've plenty of neighbors. You've got the best +excuse in the world for staying here and...." + +"But, my dear Mr. Flint, can't you see, I...." + +"No, I can't. I want you to stay _here_. My reasons are as good as +yours. Now let's get that off our mind and enjoy the meal." + +His manner struck her protests to the ground again. She was no longer +fearing the immediate outcome, in fact, she never had, but she knew that +if he broke her to his will now, all the safeguards, all the chaperons, +all the conventions in the world wouldn't save her from ultimate +consequences. This was the try-out that was to establish her pace in the +final contest; she would stand or fall upon the record she made at this +moment. For she was trying out something more than Flint's temper, +something greater than a mechanical adjustment of human +relationships--she was trying out _herself_. She sat for some moments, +thinking hard, one hand fingering the slender base of the wine-filled +glass in front of her, the other dropped in pensive limpness at her +side. Flint had cleared the space in front of him of everything but his +two wine-glasses. He had slipped down in his seat and his two bloodshot +eyes were fixing her with a level stare. + +She stirred finally and rose. + +He was on his feet in an instant. + +"I'm going to telephone," she said, calmly. + +"Telephone ... where?... What's the idea?" + +"Mr. Flint," she answered, a bit wearily, "at least I'm a guest in your +house, am I not?" + +He settled back in his seat with a grunt of acquiescence. She stood +dazed for a moment, surprised at the chance that had put such telling +words into her mouth. She had been fingering timidly for the key to his +chivalry; quite by accident she had hit upon it in the shape of this +appeal to her expectations of him in the rôle of host. She could have +lied, of course, and told him that she wished to telephone her mother, +but she had not yet been cornered sufficiently to resort to so +distasteful a weapon.... As she left the room she found herself +wondering whether Stillman had by any chance left the Tom Forsythes. She +looked at the clock. It was not quite eight o'clock. She felt reassured, +yet she was tremendously frightened.... Especially as she realized that +the telephone was in the entrance hall within earshot of the +dining-room.... + +She was decidedly more frightened when she got back from her +telephoning, and looked at Flint. He was clutching at the table with +both hands, his body tilted slightly forward, his lips ominously thin. + +"You telephoned to the Tom Forsythes, didn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"And you asked for Stillman.... Did you get him?" + +"Yes." + +"What did you want with him?" + +"If you heard that much, I guess you heard the rest, Mr. Flint." + +Claire stood at her place at the table. She decided not to sit. Flint +bore down on both hands until things began to creak. + +"Yes, I heard everything, but, dammit all, I couldn't believe my own +ears. You're like every woman I ever knew ... you don't play fair. You +appeal to my instinct as host and then you go and outrage every +privilege you've got me to concede. You're a pretty guest, you are! And +I sit here and let you 'play me for a fool.' Let you ring up Ned +Stillman and ask him to fetch you away from _my_ house in _his_ car!" He +stopped and took a deep breath; his words were no longer passionate; +instead, they were precise and cool and venomous. "Understand me, young +lady, I'm through with you. I wouldn't care, if I thought you were +really virtuous. But you're too clever for a virtuous woman.... Oh, I +dare say you subscribe to the letter of the law, all right. For +instance, you take care not to run around with married men whose +incumbrances are in plain view of the audience.... Oh, I've seen lots of +clever women in my time, but in the end they always took too much rope. +Remember, you'll have your bluff called some day." + +He pushed back his chair noisily and rose. The Japanese servant came +bobbing along. + +"Clear away the things!" Flint bellowed. "We're through!... Good night, +Miss Robson, and a pleasant journey to you--you and your _immaculate_ +friend Stillman." + +He left the room with a melodramatic flourish.... Presently Claire heard +him mounting the stairs. + +"He's drunk!" flashed through her mind, as if the idea had just struck +her. "Of course, he must be drunk, otherwise he wouldn't have dared +to...." + +She went out into the entrance hall and put on her hat. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Midway between Yolanda and Sausalito Stillman's machine died with +disconcerting suddenness The rain was coming down in sheets. Stillman +got out. + +"It's no use," he announced, lifting himself back into his seat. "I +can't do anything in this deluge." + +This was the first word that had been said since he and Claire had left +Flint's. + +"The worst will be over in a few moments," replied Claire, easily. But +she was far from reassured. + +The deluge was _not_ over in a few moments. It kept up with an +ever-increasing violence, until it seemed that even the stalled car +would be compelled to yield to its force. Claire had never seen it rain +harder; the storm had a vindictive fury that reminded her of the +dreadful tempest in "King Lear." + +Stillman maintained his usual well-bred calm and smoked cigarettes while +he chattered. He touched on every conceivable subject but the one +uppermost in Claire's mind, until she began to wonder whether delicacy +or contempt veiled his conversation. A half-hour passed ... an hour ... +two. Still the rain swept from the sullen sky. Twice Stillman made a +futile attempt to remedy the trouble with his engine, and twice he +retired defeated to the shelter of the car. Claire was relieved that +she was in the company of a man who did not emphasize the monotonous +hours by indiscriminate raillery against the tricks of chance. At first +he dismissed the situation with the most casual of shrugs; later he +acknowledged his annoyance by an expression of regret at his companion's +discomfort, but he stopped there. + +As the hours went on, with no abatement of the storm's devastating +energy, Claire grew less and less pleased at the prospect. She began to +wonder whether the shelter of Flint's roof had not been, after all, the +discreet thing. Was not her headlong flight in company with Stillman +more open to criticism than the frank acceptance of her employer's +hospitality? But these vagrant questions were the spawn of a colorless +spirit of social expediency which fastens itself on weak natures, and in +Claire's case they died still-born. She had been too well schooled in +loneliness to lean heavily on the crooked stick of public opinion. +Accustomed to standing alone, she had something of the spiritual +arrogance that goes with independence. People could think what they +liked. And it was more a realization of her mother's anxiety than any +thought of self which made her suggest to Stillman that they might get +out and walk into Sausalito. + +"I think the last boat leaves there at twelve-thirty," she finished. +"Surely we could make it if we keep going." + +Stillman thrust his arm out into the drenching rain, and withdrew it +instantly. "I'm afraid that's out of the question, so long as the rain +keeps up, Miss Robson," he said, in a tone of implied objection. +"Perhaps if it should stop...." + +Claire settled back in her seat. Stillman was right. The storm was too +furious to be lightly braved. + +It was eleven o'clock before a quick veering of the wind brought a +downpour so violent that what had gone before seemed little better than +a rather weak rehearsal. + +"It will clear presently," Stillman assured Claire. "Southeaster always +break up in a flurry like this from the west." + +In ten minutes the stars were peeping brilliantly through rents in the +torn clouds. Pungent odors floated up from the rain-trampled stubble of +the hillsides, the air was cleared of its stifling oppressiveness, the +first storm of the season was over. + +Both Claire and Stillman clambered out at the first signs of the storm's +exhaustion. Stillman switched on his pocket-light and began to +investigate the trouble with the engine. His decision was swift and +conclusive. + +"It's hopeless," he announced, turning to Claire with a slight grimace. +"We're stalled absolutely and no mistake. I guess we'd better strike out +and walk. No doubt we'll get a lift into Sausalito before we've gone +very far, but I dare say it's well to be on the safe side." + +They rolled the machine to one side of the roadway and struck out +hopefully. The rain had made a thin chocolate ooze of the highway, and +before they had gone a hundred yards their shoes were slimy with mud. It +appeared that Stillman had been something of an aimless wanderer for +many years, and as he talked on and on, giving detached glimpses of the +remote places he had visited, Claire had a curious sense of futility. + +She read between his clipped and vivid sentences the tragedy of a +personality worsted by the soft hands of circumstances. This man might +have done things. As it was he was an idler. He gave her the impression +of a man waiting vaguely for opportunity--like some traveler pacing +restlessly up and down a railway station platform in expectation of the +momentary arrival of a delayed train. She tried to imagine him as she +felt sure he must once have been--youthful, eager, ardent, a man of +charming enthusiasms that just missed being extravagances, who could +bring zest to his virtues as well as to his follies. + +"Surely," she thought, "something more than inclination must have pushed +him into this deadly stagnation." + +And at once Miss Munch's insinuating question leaped up to answer: + +"You know about his wife, of course!" + +Were men put out of countenance by such impersonal tricks of fortune? +Impersonal?... this domestic tragedy?... Yes, Claire felt that it must +be, otherwise the man tramping at her side would have wrestled so +passionately against fate as to have come away at least spattered with +the mud of defeat. No, Stillman was not defeated, he was merely +arrested, restrained, held for orders. + +He had been in London when the war broke out. He had stayed long enough +to watch the stolid, easy-going British public awake to the seriousness +of the encounter, coming home after the first air raids. + +"I didn't mind being killed," he laughed, in explanation of his sudden +flight. "But I didn't like being so frightfully messed up in the +process. I want a chance to strike back when I'm cornered. The Zeppelin +game was too much like a rabbit-drive to suit me." + +As he spoke of these experiences, Claire listened with a quickening of +the spirit. The prospect of finding Stillman vibrant was too stirring to +be denied. But he was still sober on this colossal subject of war ... a +bit judicial, always well poised. He had his sympathies, but they did +not appear vitalized by extravagances of feeling. Yet here and there +Claire was conscious of truant warmths, like brief flashes of sunlight +through a somber forest. + +"And the draft--what do you think of that?" The question rose to her +lips as if his answer might unlock the door to something deeper in the +way of convictions. + +He began with a shrug that chilled her; then his reply broke with sudden +refreshment: + +"It helps ... some of us. There are many who can't decide for +themselves. The obvious duty isn't always the correct one. In my +case...." + +He did not stop speaking suddenly, but his voice trailed off into a dim +region of musing. They both fell silent. But Claire knew. There was that +haunting hope, almost like a fear, that his wife might some day get +better. That was what he was waiting for! It might come to-morrow ... +next week ... in a year ... never! But when it did come he felt that he +must be there, ready. She wondered whether he loved his wife very much, +and she found herself hoping that he did.... It would help, somehow ... +yes, if that were so his sacrifice gained point. On the other hand.... +She put the thought away with a quick thrust, feeling that she had no +right to such a speculation, and presently she was aware that they were +swinging into Sausalito. + +Stillman looked at his watch. Twelve-thirty-five ... just five minutes +late for the boat! She could see that he was disturbed. + +"I thought sure we'd get a lift," he railed, tossing aside a mangled +cigar. "This _is_ luck!... I guess we'll have to rout out the Sherwins. +It's something of a pull up the hill, but any safe port in a storm, you +know." + +"The Sherwins?" + +"Another one of the Edington girls. They have a bungalow at the very +dizziest point in Sausalito." + +But Claire objected and held firm. "I couldn't think of it, Mr. +Stillman. No, really!... Please don't insist." + +They agreed on a lodging for Claire in a freshly painted but otherwise +rather decrepit lodging-house, just north of the ferry-slip. Its chief +advantage was that it seemed quite too stagnant to be anything but +respectable, and the suppressed grumbling of the old shrew whom they +routed out confirmed their estimate. She didn't approve of couples who +dragged God-fearing old women out of bed at unholy hours in the +morning, and it was only the generous tip from Stillman and the +assurance that he intended looking elsewhere for quarters for himself +that reconciled her to her loss of sleep and the compromise with her +convictions. + +For a good half-hour Claire sat with folded hands peering out from her +room upon the damp hillside to the west. From across the street came the +bawdy thumping of a mechanical piano and the swish of a sluggish tide. +Her encounter with Sawyer Flint had forced the door of her virginal +seclusion and thrust her at once into the primitive and elemental open. +She felt like one who was coming out of voluntary exile to the pathos of +a deferred heritage. Before her stretched the eagle's horizon, but she +had only the fledgling's strength of wing. She longed for the faith and +courage and daring to take life at its word, longed with all the +dangerous fierceness of one who had fed too long upon the husks of +existence. And, longing, she fell asleep, sitting in a chair before the +open window, without thought or preparation.... + + * * * * * + +The morning broke cloudless. All traces of the night's fury were +obliterated as completely as sorrow from the face of a smiling child. +The sun touched the open spaces with a tender, caressing warmth, but the +shadows held a keen-edged chill. + +Claire decided upon an early boat to town. + +"I'll be less likely to meet any of the California Street crowd," she +said to herself, as she picked her brief way toward the ferry. + +The boat was crowded, especially the lower cabin. It was the artisans' +boat and the air was heavy with the smoke of pipe-tobacco. Claire passed +rapidly to the dining-room. Perched upon the high revolving chairs +surrounding a horseshoe counter, a score or more of soft-shirted men sat +devouring huge greasy doughnuts and gulping coffee. The steward, taking +note of Claire's hesitation, came forward and led her to a seat at one +of the side tables. She was about to take advantage of the chair which +he had drawn out for her when she heard her name called. She turned. +Miss Munch's cousin, Mrs. Richards, was sitting alone at the table just +behind. Claire's first feeling was one of relief--she was glad to +discover an acquaintance. She thanked the steward for his trouble and +abandoned the proffered seat for the one opposite Mrs. Richards. Almost +at once she regretted her impulsive decision. + +"I didn't know you intended staying at Flint's all night," Mrs. Richards +began, fixing Claire with a challenging gaze. + +"I didn't intend to," returned Claire, her voice sharpened slightly. + +Mrs. Richards took the lid off the sugar-bowl and powdered her +grapefruit sparingly. "Have they a nice home?" she questioned. + +"Yes, very nice." + +"They gave you an early start, didn't they?... It's almost impossible to +get servants these days to consider such a thing as serving breakfast +much before eight o'clock." + +Claire glanced at the bill of fare. Mrs. Richards's tone was a trifle +too eager. "I suppose it is," Claire assented, placing the menu-card +back in its place between the vinegar and oil cruets. + +Mrs. Richards remained unabashed at her vis-à-vis's palpable +indirectness. "I guess I'm old-fashioned, but, servants or no servants, +I don't believe I could let a guest of mine leave the house without +breakfast. It seems to me that if I'd been Mrs. Flint I'd have gotten up +and made you a cup of coffee myself." + +Claire's growing annoyance was swallowed up in a feeling of faint +amusement. "Perhaps Mrs. Flint wasn't home," she said, beckoning the +waiter. + +"Oh!" Mrs. Richards exclaimed with shocked brevity. + +It was not until the arrival of Claire's order of toast and coffee that +Mrs. Richards found her voice again. + +"This business of wives staying from home all night gets me," Mrs. +Richards hazarded, boldly. "Why, I never remember the time when my +mother remained away overnight ... not under _any_ circumstances. My +father expected her to be there, and she always _was_." + +Claire distributed bits of butter over the surface of her toast. She +felt that in justice to the Flint family it was not right for her to +give Mrs. Richards's dangerous tongue any further scope, however +tempting was the prospect of leaving such venomous inquisitiveness +ungratified. + +"I think you misunderstood me, Mrs. Richards. I didn't say that Mrs. +Flint remained away from home last night. As a matter of fact I didn't +stay at Yolanda, so I don't know anything about it." + +"Oh!" faintly escaped Mrs. Richards for the second time that morning, +but Claire was conscious that there was more incredulity than surprise +registered in the lady's tone. + +"As a matter of fact," Claire continued, stung to incautious +exasperation, "I spent the night in Sausalito." + +Mrs. Richards met this information with a disarmingly bland smile. "I +didn't know you had friends in Sausalito," she said, letting a spoonful +of coffee trickle back into her cup. + +"I haven't. I spent the night in a lodging-house ... on the +water-front...." + +"My dear Miss Robson, really I.... Why, I hope you don't think I was +inquisitive!" + +It was the simplicity of the challenge that made it impossible to be +ignored. Claire knew that she was trapped, but she was angry enough to +decide on some reservation. + +"The storm put the track between Yolanda and Sausalito out of +commission," Claire found herself snapping back too eagerly at her +tormentor. "We tried to make the last boat by auto, but we got stalled +and missed it. We had to walk a good half of the way." + +"I shouldn't think that would have done Mr. Flint's cold any good," Mrs. +Richards said, drawlingly. + +"Mr. Flint's cold?... I don't quite see what that has to do with it." + +"Oh, you said 'we' I somehow got the impression...." + +"No, Mrs. Richards, you've misunderstood me again." Claire threw a +cool, even glance at her antagonist. "I made the trip from Yolanda to +Sausalito in Mr. Stillman's car." + +"Oh!" said Mrs. Richards for a third time, and in this instance her +voice was warm with gratification. + +Claire directed her attention to her plate of buttered toast and her cup +of coffee. She was chagrined to think that she had fallen so easily into +Mrs. Richards's very obvious traps. Not that it mattered. She was quite +sure that the truth could not harm Stillman, and she was equally sure +that her position in life was too obscure to stand out conspicuously +against the darts of Mrs. Richards's vindictive tongue. But she had the +pride of her reticences and she did not like to surrender these +privileges at the point of insolent curiosity. The two continued to eat +in silence. + +It was Mrs. Richards who finished first, and she dipped her fingers +hurriedly into the battered metal finger-bowl which the Japanese bus-boy +thrust before her. + +"Do you mind if I go along?" she inquired of Claire, with an air of +polite triumph. "I think I'll go forward where I can get a quick start +... before the crowd gets too thick. I've got a million errands to do +before nine o'clock. And I _do_ want to run into the office before +Gertie settles down to work. I haven't seen her for a week and I've got +_more_ things to tell her!" + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +"Why, Miss Claire, how could you! Where have you been? And your mother +in such a bad way!" Mrs. Finnegan broke into sudden tears. + +Claire, fumbling in her bag for the front-door key, looked up. Mrs. +Finnegan had swung open the door to the Robson flat and she stood like a +vision of disaster upon the threshold. + +"What has happened?" Claire's voice rose with a note of swift +apprehension. + +"Your mother ... she's paralyzed! She was taken last night. The doctor +says it would have happened, anyway. But I say it was worry, that's what +it was. With you away all night and never a word!" + +Claire climbed the stairs in silence, aware that Mrs. Finnegan was +following at a discreet distance. Already the house seemed permeated +with an atmosphere of tragedy and gloom in spite of the morning light +pouring in unscreened at every window. Mrs. Robson's room was the only +exception to this unusual excess of cold radiance--unusual, because it +was one of Mrs. Robson's prides to keep her window-shades lowered to a +uniform and genteel distance. + +Until Claire came face to face with her mother she almost had fancied +that her neighbor was indulging in a crude and terrible joke, but one +look sufficed. Mrs. Robson lay staring vacantly at the ceiling; she +could not move, she could not speak, and her spirit showed through the +veiled light in her eyes like a mysterious spot of sunshine in a shaded +well. Above a swooning sense of calamity Claire felt the strength of a +tender pretense struggling to communicate its vague hope to the stricken +form. She raised the window-shade slightly and sat down upon the bed. + +"Why, mother, what's all this?" she began, in a tone of gentle banter, +as she stroked the helpless hands. "Were you worried? I'm so sorry! I +asked Miss Munch to let you know. Didn't she?... I went over to Mr. +Flint's to take dictation. The storm washed out the track. I tried to +make the boat in Mr. Stillman's car, but we broke down and missed it.... +I had to stay all night in Sausalito." + +Mrs. Robson, stirring faintly, attempted to speak. Claire turned +helplessly to Mrs. Finnegan. "I can't make out what she is trying to +say." + +Mrs. Finnegan bent an attentive ear. "It's about Stillman," she +explained. "Your mother don't understand why...." + +The speaker stopped with significant discretion. It was plain to Claire +that _nobody_ understood, and she felt a dreary futility as she answered +both her mother and Mrs. Finnegan with: + +"It's a long story. Some other time, when ... when you're feeling +better." + +A look of gray disappointment crossed Mrs. Robson's face. Mrs. +Finnegan's upper lip seemed shaped suddenly with a suspicion that died +almost as quickly as it began. There was a ring at the bell. "That's the +doctor," said Mrs. Finnegan, and she left to open the door. + +The doctor chilled Claire with his steely nonchalance as she stood apart +while he went through the usual forms of a professional visit that was +obviously futile. She followed him to the front door. He answered her +eager inquiries with the cold triumph of authority. + +"How long will she last?... Well, Miss Robson, that is hard to say. She +might go off to-night. Then, again, she might live twenty years. She'll +scarcely get any better, though. No, a nurse isn't essential, unless you +can afford one. But you ought to have another woman about. If you have +any relatives you'd better send for them and let them help out." + +Claire did not find the doctor's announcement that her mother might die +at once nearly so brutal as his assurance that she had an equal chance +for existing twenty years. _Twenty years!_ Claire closed the door and +sank upon the steps overwhelmed. + +But there was scant leisure on this first dreadful day of Mrs. Robson's +illness for theatrical exuberances. Claire, unaccustomed to the routine +of household duties, took a thousand unnecessary steps. She tried to +work calmly, to bring an acquired philosophy to her tasks, but she went +through her paces with a feverish, though stolid, anxiety. The long +night which followed was inconceivably a thing of horror. Her wakeful +moments were dry-eyed with despair, and when she slept it was only to +come back to a shivering consciousness. + +Mrs. Finnegan found her next morning fresh from an attempt to rouse her +mother into accepting a few swallows of milk, which had ended in +pathetic and miserable failure. She had thrown herself in an abandon of +grief across the narrow kitchen table, and the coffee from an overturned +cup was trickling in a warm, thick stream to the floor. But the paroxysm +did her good. She rose to the kindly caresses of her neighbor like a +flower beaten to earth but refreshed by a relentless torrent. After +this, custom and habit began to reassert themselves in spite of the +crushing weight of circumstance. She 'phoned to the office. Mr. Flint +had returned, they told her. She explained her trouble to the cashier. +"I'll try to be back the first of the week," she finished, in a burst of +illogical hope. + +Later in the day Mrs. Robson's two sisters arrived in answer to Claire's +summons. Claire's impulse to send for them had been purely +instinctive--an atrophied survival of clan-spirit that persisted beyond +any real faith in its significance. Perhaps she had a feeling that her +mother wished it; certainly she had no illusions as to the manner in +which the unwelcome news of Mrs. Robson's illness would be received by +these two self-centered females. + +It was Mrs. Thomas Wynne who came in first, bundled mysteriously in her +furs and holding a glass of wine jelly as a conventional symbol of the +rôle of Lady Bountiful which she had for the moment assumed. Claire +could almost fancy how conspicuously she had contrived to carry this +overworked badge of the humanities, and the languid drawl of her voice +as she explained to her friends _en route_: + +"So sorry I can't stop and chat. But, as you see, I'm running along to a +sick-room.... Oh no, nothing serious, I hope! Just my sister.... Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown? Oh, dear no! A younger sister. I don't think you know her. +She's had a great deal of trouble and hasn't been about much for a +number of years." + +Mrs. Thomas Wynne had the trick of intrenching a stubborn family pride +by throwing back her head and daring all comers to uncover any of the +Carrol clan's shortcomings. But her selfishness had at least the virtue +of a live-and-let-live attitude that contrasted with the futile +aggressiveness of Mrs. Edward Ffinch-Brown. She asked Claire no +questions concerning her life or her prospects; she did not even pry +very deeply into the chances that her sister had for an ultimate +recovery. Her philosophy seemed to be founded on the knowledge that +uncovered cesspools were bound to be unpleasant, and, since she had no +desire to assist in their purification, she was quite content to keep +them properly screened. She came and deposited her wine jelly and patted +her sister's hand and went away again without leaving even a ripple in +her wake. As she departed she gave further proof of her insolent +insincerity by calling back at Claire: + +"Remember, Claire, if there is anything I can do, just let me know." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's visit was scarcely more comforting, but decidedly +more exciting. She had not the suavity of her indifferences. Mrs. +Robson's untimely tilt with fate irritated her, and she took no pains to +conceal this fact. + +"I suppose your mother is just as she's always been--a creature of +nerves," she said, as she dropped into a seat for a preliminary session +with Claire before venturing upon the unwelcome sight of her stricken +sister. "I don't know why it is, but she seems to be one of those people +who always has had something the matter with her. Poor Emily! Well, I +suppose we are all made differently." + +When she entered the sick-room she found fault with the arrangement of +the bed, the manner in which the covers slipped off, the uncovered glass +of medicine on the bureau. + +"You should braid your mother's hair, too. And why don't you pull the +window down from the top?" + +Claire stood in sullen silence while her aunt vented a personal +annoyance on the nearest objects. But when Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's +ill-natured ministrations brought a dumb but protesting misery to the +sufferer's face, Claire found the courage to say, as gently as she +could: + +"Why bother, Aunt Julia? Mother is really too sick now to care much +about appearances?" + +This was just what Claire's aunt had hoped for. It gave her a chance for +escape without any strain upon her conscience. She did not remain long +after what she was pleased to consider a rebuff. + +"Well, Claire, I see I can't be of much help," she announced as she +powdered her nose before the shabby hat-rack mirror and drew on her +gloves.... After she was gone Claire found a five-dollar bill on the +living-room table. She opened the gilt-edged copy of Tennyson that, +together with a calf edition of Ouida's _Moths_, had stood for years as +guard over the literary pretensions of the household, and thrust the +money midway between its covers. Doubtless a time was coming when she +would find it necessary to use this money, but the present moment was +too charged with the giver's resentful benevolence to make such a +compromise possible. + +For three consecutive days Mrs. Ffinch-Brown swooped down upon the +Robson household and gave vent to her pique. She had been divorced so +long from these melancholy relations of hers that she had really +forgotten their existence, and she displayed all the rancor of a woman +who discovers suddenly a moth hole in the long undisturbed folds of a +treasured cashmere shawl. Her precisely timed visits had not the +slightest suspicion of attentiveness back of them, and Claire guessed +almost at once that they were more in the nature of assaults carried on +in the hope that she would meet enough opposition to insure an honorable +retreat. Unlike Mrs. Thomas Wynne, Aunt Julia inquired minutely into +family matters, insisted on knowing Claire's plans, and was aggressively +free with advice. + +"You ought to be making plans, Claire," she said, at the conclusion of +her second visit. "You can't go on like this. I'd like to be able to do +more, but of course I can't spare much time. And next week you'll have +to be getting into harness again. You'd better think it over." + +And on the next day, finding that Claire obviously had _not_ thought it +over, she threw out a hint that was little save a thinly veiled threat. +She came in with a more genial manner than she was accustomed to waste +upon the desert air of penury, and Claire, well schooled in reading the +significance of proverbial calms, had a misgiving. + +"I've been talking to Miss Morton ... about your mother," Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown began, without bothering to lead up to the subject. "You +know Alice Morton.... Well, your mother does, anyway. I bumped into her +yesterday, quite by accident ... at a Red Cross meeting. It seems she's +one of the directors of The King's Daughters' Home for Incurables!" +Claire was sitting opposite her aunt, nervously fingering a +paper-cutter. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown eyed her niece sharply, and with an +obvious determination to drive her thrusts home before her victim +recovered from the first vicious stabs she continued: "It seems they +haven't a great deal of room out there, but she thinks she could arrange +things. They'll raise the price to two thousand dollars after the +fifteenth of the month, so I thought that--" + +"Oh, not quite yet, Aunt Julia!... Mother has a chance. Surely...." + +"Now, Claire, don't get hysterical. You're a business woman and _you_ +ought to be practical if any of us are. The price to-day is one thousand +dollars. Think of it! Care for life in a ward with only _three_ others! +Now I can't ask your uncle for any more than is necessary in a case +like this. If we make up our mind promptly we can save just one thousand +dollars." + +For the moment Claire felt the harried desperation of a cornered animal. +She had never seen anything more disagreeable than her aunt's sidelong +glance. She felt herself rise from her seat with cold dignity. + +"I'm afraid, Aunt Julia, I can't make up my mind as quickly as you wish. +It isn't so simple as it seems. I'm not above a plan like this if I'm +convinced it's necessary. But somehow.... Oh, I know what you're +thinking--you're thinking that beggars shouldn't be choosers. Well, I'm +not quite a beggar yet. But when I am, I won't choose.... I'll promise +you that." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rose also. She was in a position to triumph in any +case, and she was washing her hands of the situation with eager +satisfaction. "Oh, indeed! I'm glad you can say that _now_. But you +weren't always so independent. I suppose it never occurs to you to thank +me for what I did when you were younger." + +Claire felt quite calm. The events of the past twenty-four hours had +wrung her emotions dry. "Yes, Aunt Julia," she said, with an air of cool +defiance, "it occurred to me many times.... Perhaps if I'd had any +choice...." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown grew pale. "It's plain that I'm wasting my time here!" +she sneered. + +Claire went with her aunt to the door.... + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown did not cross the threshold of the Robson home again, +and when on the following day Claire saw the figure of Mrs. Thomas +Wynne outlined against the lace-screened front door she let the bell +ring unanswered. + + * * * * * + +The dismissal of the last of the Carrol clan from any participation in +the Robson destinies gave Claire a feeling at once independent and +solitary. There had been a vague hope that this crisis might germinate +some stray seeds of kinship, shriveled by the drought of uneventful +years. But the poisonous nettles of memory were the only harvest that +had sprung from the presence of Mrs. Robson's sisters, and Claire was +glad to uproot the arid product of their shallowness. + +The week came to a close with a rush of visitors. Suddenly it seemed as +if everybody knew of Mrs. Robson's illness. Fellow church members, old +school friends, casual acquaintances began to ring the front-door bell +insistently. Knowing her mother's instinctive craving for recognition, +it struck Claire that it was the height of irony to see this belated +crowd come swarming in on the heels of calamity at the moment when Mrs. +Robson was unable to so much as see them. Mrs. Robson would have so +liked to sit in even a threadbare pomp and receive the homage of her +visitors, but fate had been scurvy enough to withhold this scant +triumph. + +Nellie Whitehead breezed in on Saturday afternoon just as Mrs. +Finnegan's cuckoo clock cooed the stroke of three; immediately the air +began to move out of adversity's tragic current. It was impossible to be +wholly without hope under the impetus of Nellie Whitehead's flaming +good humor. + +"I'm all out of breath," she began, as she flopped into the first chair +that came handy. "I keep forgetting I ain't sweet sixteen any more and +never been kissed. I hate to walk slow, though. Don't you? Say, but you +_are_ up against it, ain't you! I saw that Munch dame on the street and +she nearly broke her old neck trying to catch up with me. I wondered +what was the matter, because she ain't usually so keen about flagging +_me_. But, _you_ know, she never misses a trick at spilling out the +calamity stuff, especially if it isn't on her.... 'Oh, Miss Whitehead,' +she called out before I had a chance to beat it, 'have you heard about +Miss Robson's mother?' ...When she got through I fixed her with that +trusty old eye of mine and I said, 'I suppose you see her quite often.' +And what do you think the old stiff said? 'Oh, I'd like to, Miss +Whitehead, but I really haven't had time. You know I'm doing all Mr. +Flint's dictation now.' And she had the nerve to try and slip me a hint +that she was going to keep on doing it. But I just said to myself: 'You +should kid yourself that way, old girl! When Flint picks a bloomer like +you to ornament the back office it will be because his eyesight's failed +him.' ...By the way, how do you manage to stand him off--with religious +tracts or a hat-pin?" + +She hardly waited for Claire's reply, but plunged at once into another +monologue. + +"Do you know what I'm up to? I got my eye on the swellest fur-lined coat +you ever saw ... at Magnin's. But you can bet I'm going to keep my eye +on it until after the holidays. They want a hundred and a quarter for it +now, but they'll be glad to take sixty-five when the gay festivities are +over, or I miss my guess. I go in every other day to have a look at it, +and when the girl's back is turned I hang it back in the case +myself--'way back where everybody else will overlook it. Oh, I know the +game all right. I did the same thing with a three piece suit last +summer. But I say, All is fair in war and the high cost of living. Maybe +you think I haven't had a time scraping the wherewithal for that coat +together. But I brought the total up to seventy the other day by getting +Billy Holmes to slip me a ten in advance for Christmas. I never trust a +man to invest in anything for me if I can help it. They usually run to +manicure sets in satin-lined cases or cut-glass cologne-bottles. Billy +Holmes?... Oh, you know him! He ran the reinsurance desk at the Royal +for years. They put him on the road last week. He's _some_ live wire. +And what's better, he has no incumbrances. I'll tell you what it is, +Robson, I'm getting kind of tired of the goings. I'm just about ready to +settle down by the old steam-radiator. And as long as I've got eyesight +enough to look the field over, I've decided on a traveling-man or a +sea-captain. They'll be sticking around home just about often enough to +suit me.... Not that I'm a man-hater, but I've never had 'em for a +steady diet and I'm not going to begin to get the habit this late day." + +Nellie Whitehead stayed about an hour, and, as Claire opened the front +door upon her friend's departure the letter-man thrust an envelope into +her hands. She opened it hastily and turned suddenly white. + +"Well, Robson, what's wrong now?" inquired Nellie. + +"Flint ... he's let me out ... Miss Munch was right!" + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +On the selfsame Saturday of Claire's dismissal from the office ranks of +the Falcon Insurance Company Ned Stillman was the recipient of an early +telephone message from Lily Condor. It appeared that Flora Menzies, the +young woman who usually accompanied her in her vocal flights, had been +laid low with pneumonia and she wanted Stillman to persuade Claire +Robson to succeed to the honorary position. + +"She did so famously on that night of our musicale," Lily Condor had +explained, "and Flora won't be in shape again for a good three months. +Of course, there isn't anything in it but glory. I'm just one of those +'sweet charity' artists. But I think she is a dear, and I know that +_you_ have influence." + +Stillman pretended to be annoyed at Mrs. Condor's assumption that his +word would carry any weight in the matter, but as a matter of fact he +felt pleased in secret masculine fashion. Chancing to pass Flint's +office at the noon hour, he dropped in. It happened that Miss Munch was +standing near the counter, and she answered his inquiries with suave +eagerness. + +"Oh, Miss Robson isn't with us any more. She hasn't been here for over +a week--not since her mother was taken sick. Oh, I thought you knew. +You're Mr. Stillman, aren't you? I've heard my cousin, Mrs. Richards, +speak of you. Miss Robson went over to Mr. Flint's on that night of the +storm and she missed the boat or something--_you_ know! And when she got +home next morning she found that her mother had worried herself into a +stroke. They say she is quite helpless.... I'm sure I don't know what +she intends doing. We mailed her check yesterday. It's always hard to +land another position when one is dismissed." + +Stillman escaped quickly. Miss Munch's venom was a thing too crude and +unconcealed to face with indifference. Her emphatic "_you_ know" was +pregnant with innuendo and malice. Still, it did not occur to Stillman +that he had any part in Claire Robson's misfortune. But he did know from +Miss Munch's tone that the unfortunate situation, growing out of the +automobile ride from Yolanda to Sausalito, had received due recognition +at the hands of those who made a business of blowing out bubbles of +scandal from the suds of chance. It was useless for him to deny that +Claire Robson from the first had been of more or less interest. She +seemed to rise in such a detached fashion from her environment. + +He had to admit, as later he sat in the cloistered silences of his club +library and blew contemplative smoke-rings into the air, that a certain +idle curiosity had been the mainspring of his concern for her. He had +been like a boy who captured a strange butterfly and clapped it under a +glass tumbler where he could watch how easily it would adapt itself to +its new surroundings. But, having caught the butterfly and held it a +brief captive, the dust from its wings still lingered upon the hands +that imprisoned it. He had made the mistake of imagining that one is +always master of casual incidents. To meet a young woman by the most +trivial chance, to extend a brief courtesy to her, these were matters +which hold scarcely the germs of a menacing situation, not menacing to +him, of course--they never could be menacing to him; he was still +thinking of things from the viewpoint of Claire Robson. + +To tell the truth, he was annoyed at having been mixed up in Claire's +flight from the Flint household. Had Flint been a complete stranger he +would not have minded so much. He was still divided by the appeal to his +chivalry and the sense of loyalty that a man feels to the masculine +friends of his youth. In her telephone message Claire had put the matter +very casually--the track was washed out and she was wondering whether he +contemplated returning to town that evening. But he guessed at once what +lay back of her matter-of-fact boldness. He had guessed so completely +that he had decided not only to return to town, but to start at once. + +He wondered now whether he had answered the appeal because a woman was +in a desperate situation or because that woman was Claire Robson. All +through the dinner hour at the Tom Forsythes he had thought about her, +had speculated vaguely what mischance or effrontery had been responsible +for her ill-timed visit to Flint's. He remembered trying to decide +whether the young woman was extraordinarily deep or extraordinarily +simple and frank. He did not like to concede that he could be influenced +by anything so transparently malicious as Mrs. Richards's statements +regarding the absence of Mrs. Flint, but he was bound to admit that they +did nothing to render the situation less innocent; what had particularly +annoyed him was the fact that he should have given the matter a second +thought. To begin with, it was none of his business and he was not a man +who presumed to judge or even speculate on other people's indiscretions. +Claire Robson was no sheltered schoolgirl. She was a full-grown woman, +in the thick of business life. Such women were not taken unawares. He +had just dismissed the whole affair from his mind on this basis when +Claire's telephone message came to him. Even now he marveled at the +sense of satisfaction that her appeal had given. But he had found no +savor in a situation that compelled him to interfere in Flint's program. +Such a move on his part was contrary to his standards, to his training +in comradeship, to all his acquired philosophy. He had the well-bred +man's distaste for getting into a mess. He abhorred scenes and +conspicuous complications. + +He had come through the incident with steadily waning enthusiasm and a +decision to wash his hands in the future of all such unprofitable +trifling. But the sudden knowledge that the young woman was in desperate +trouble revived his interest. He had no idea how serious Mrs. Robson's +illness was or whether Claire had any hopes for a new position. But +Miss Munch's words had been significant. Claire had been _dismissed_, +and Stillman knew enough about present business stagnation to conclude +that for the time, at least, Claire Robson faced a bleak outlook. He +realized the indelicacy of any definite move on his part, but it +occurred to him that it might be well to talk the situation over with +some one--preferably a woman. As he tossed his cigar butt aside, Lily +Condor appealed to him as just the person for the emergency. Therefore +he looked her up without further ado. + +He found her at home, curled up among the cushions of a davenport that +did service as a bed when the scenes were shifted. She was living in a +tiny apartment consisting of one room and a kitchenette that gave +Stillman the impression of a juggler's cabinet. Nothing in this room was +ever by any chance what it seemed. Things that looked like doors led +nowhere; bits of stationary furniture usually yielded to the slightest +pressure and revealed strange secrets. He had seen Mrs. Condor deftly +construct a card-table out of an easy-chair, and he had no doubt that +the oak table in the center of the room could have been converted into a +chiffonier or a chassis-lounge at a given signal. + +In repose, it struck Stillman that Mrs. Condor seemed very much like a +purring cat. He had never seen her quite so frankly behind the scenes, +robbed of both her physical and mental make-up. She was one of those +women in middle age who adapt themselves to the tone of their background +and while she contrived to strike a fairly vivid note, she took care not +to be discordant. She was clever enough to realize that her talents +were not sensational and that she could only hope for an indifferent +success as a professional. But in the rôle of a gracious amateur she +disarmed criticism and forced her way into circles that might otherwise +have been at some pains to exclude her. For, if the truth were known, +there had been certain phases of Mrs. Condor's earlier life which were +rather vaguely, and at the same time aptly, covered by Mrs. Finnegan's +term of "gay." A perfectly discreet woman, for instance, would have made +an effort to live down her flaming hair and almost immorally dazzling +complexion, but Mrs. Condor had been much more ready to live _up_ to +these conspicuous charms. In fact, she had lived up to them pretty +furiously, until time began to take a ruthless toll of her contrasting +points. From the concert-platform she still seemed to discount, almost +to flout, the years, but in secret she yielded unmistakably to their +pressure. + +It was this yielding, pliant attitude that struck Stillman as he came +upon her almost unawares on that early December afternoon, a yielding, +pliant attitude which gave a curious sense of tenacity under the +surface. And he thought, as he dropped into the chair she indicated, +that she was a woman who gained strength in these moments of relaxation. + +"Fancy your catching me like this!" she said, "I thought when the bell +rang that you were my dressmaker.... If you want a highball you'll have +to wait on yourself. Phil Edington brought an awfully good bottle of +Scotch last night. I declare I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have +a youngster or two on my staff. Old men are such bores, anyway, and, as +a matter of fact, they never waste time on any woman over thirty. Well, +I don't blame them. We're a sorry, patched-up mess at best.... Tell me, +did you get hold of Miss Robson?" + +"I dropped in, but she wasn't at the office," Stillman replied, tossing +his hat on the center-table. + +Mrs. Condor withdrew to the relaxation of her innumerable sofa pillows +again. "Wasn't at the office? How thrilling! Is she one of the Sultan's +favorites?... I've heard Sawyer Flint was an easy mark if you know how +to work him. Miss Robson didn't strike me that way, though. But I ought +to have known that silent women are always cleverer than they appear." + +Stillman caught the barest suggestion of a sneer in Mrs. Condor's +tone--the sneer of a woman relinquishing a stubborn hold upon the +gaieties. + +"Well, I guess Miss Robson didn't know how to work him, as a matter of +fact," Stillman said, quietly. "She lost her job to-day. I'm a little +bit worried about her.... I came here on purpose to talk the situation +over with you." + +His directness brought Lily Condor out of her languidness with a sharp +turn. She wriggled up and sat erectly on the edge of the davenport, one +slippered foot dangling just above the other. "Why, Ned Stillman, what +an old fraud you are! I didn't fancy you were interested in _anybody_. I +didn't think that you.... Oh, well, throw me a cigarette and let me hear +the worst in comfort!" + +He opened his cigarette-case and leaned over toward her. She made her +choice. He struck a match and she put her hand tightly on his wrist as +she bent over the flame and slowly drew in her breath. Even after she +had released her grasp his flesh still bore the imprint of the rings on +her fingers. For a moment he had an impulse to bow himself out of her +presence without further explanation, but already she seemed to have a +proprietary interest in him. Her smile was full of friendly malice. + +He ended by telling her everything, in spite of the conviction that he +had approached the wrong person. + +"Of course," she hazarded, boldly, when he had finished, "you mean to +help her out." + +Her presumption annoyed but rather refreshed him. "I'd like to do +something, but, hang it all, what can be done?" + +"What can be done? If that isn't like a man! Or I should say, a +_gentleman_!... Why don't you plunge in boldly and damn the +consequences?... It's just your sort that sends women into the arms of +men like Flint. You're so busy keeping an eye on the proprieties that +you miss all the danger signals." + +Her tone was extraordinarily familiar, and, to a man who rather prided +himself upon his ability to keep people at arm's-length, it was not +precisely agreeable. Yet he knew that it would be folly to give any hint +of his irritation. + +"Well," he contrived to laugh back at her, "so far as I can see, Miss +Robson's problems are quite too simple. After all, it's largely a +question of money.... I can't go and throw gold in her lap as if she +were some beggar on a street corner." + +"You mean, I suppose, that you are afraid to risk the outraged dignity +of this ward of yours. I think that's a lovely name for her. Don't +you?... You're acquiring such a benevolent old attitude. The only thing +to be done, I fancy, is to adopt some transparent ruse--some +sort of Daddy-Long-Leggish deception." She closed her eyes +thoughtfully--"_Hiring_ her as my accompanist, for instance." She rose +to dispense Scotch and soda. Stillman sat in thoughtful silence, while +Mrs. Condor talked to very trivial purpose. She seemed suddenly to have +grown tired of the subject of Claire Robson. The arrival of the expected +dressmaker broke in upon the rather one-sided tête-à-tête. + +"You'll have to go," Lily Condor announced with an intimate air of +dismissal to Stillman. "It would never do to let a mere man in on the +secrets of the sewing-room." + +At the door he hesitated awkwardly over his good-by. "I was wondering," +he said, "whether you were serious about ... about hiring Miss Robson as +your accompanist. You know I think the plan has possibilities." + +She threw back her head and smiled with hard satisfaction. "I've been +trying to figure if you had killed your imagination. Think it over." + +She gave him the tips of her fingers. He returned their languid pressure +and departed. + +As he drifted down the hall he heard her calling, half gaily, half +derisively, after him: + +"Don't decide on anything rash now.... Sleep over it!..." + + * * * * * + +He thought it over for three days and when he called on Lily Condor +again he found her divorced from her languishing mood. She was dressed +for dinner down-town, and he had to confess she had made the most of +what remained of her flaming hair and dazzling complexion. + +He felt that she guessed the reason for his visit, although she took +care to let him force the issue. + +"About Miss Robson," he said, finally, "I've concluded to take you at +your word." + +Lily Condor smoothed out her gloves and laid them aside. "Take me at +_my_ word? You're welcome to the suggestion, if that is what you mean. +As a matter of fact I wasn't serious." + +He was annoyed to feel that he was flushing. He could not fathom her, +but he had a conviction that she _had_ been serious and that this +attitude was a mere pose. "Nevertheless, I think it can be managed," he +insisted. "And I want you to help me." + +She listened to his plan. "What you will call a Daddy-Long-Leggish +pretense," he explained to her with an attempt at facetiousness. "You to +do the hiring and ... and yours truly to provide the wherewithal. Until +things look up a bit. Of course then ... why, naturally, when things +look up a bit for her...." + +But Lily remained lukewarm. She wasn't quite sure that it would be ... +oh, well, he knew what she meant! It seemed too absurd to think that he +had given an ear to anything so extravagant. She would like to be of +service to Miss Robson, of course, but, after all, she felt that it was +taking an unfair advantage of the girl. + +"If she's everything you say she is, she'd resent it all tremendously," +she put forth as a final objection. + +"But she isn't to know! That's the point of the whole thing," he +explained, with absurd simplicity. + +"Oh, my dear man, she isn't to know, but she _will_, ultimately. You +don't suppose the secret of a woman's meal-ticket is hidden very long, +do you? And, besides, you couldn't offer her enough to live on. That +would be absurd on the very face of it." + +"Oh, well, I could offer her enough to help out a bit, anyway, and half +a loaf you know...." + +He broke off, amazed at the determination her opposition had +crystallized. She looked at him sharply and rose. + +"I must be running along," she commented as she drew on her gloves. "I +tell you, I'll go call on Miss Robson--some day this week. A woman can +always get a better side-light on a situation like this. There are so +many angles to be considered. She must have relatives. You wouldn't want +to make a false move, would you, now?" + +He was too grateful to be suspicious at this sudden compromise with her +convictions. + +"You're tremendously good," he stammered. "It _will_ be a favor. And any +time that I can...." + +"You can be of service to me right now," she interrupted, gaily. "Order +me a taxi ... that's a good boy! I always do so like to pull up at a +place in style." + +Stillman paid Lily Condor a third visit that week--this time in answer +to the lady's telephone message. She had been to see Claire Robson and +her report was anything but rosy. + +"Her mother's perfectly helpless and will be for the rest of her life," +Lily volunteered almost cheerfully. "And, frankly, I don't see what is +going to become of them. It seems that Mrs. Robson is a sister of Mrs. +Tom Wynne and that dreadful Ffinch-Brown woman. They both have about as +much heart as a cast-iron stove. Miss Robson didn't say so in words, but +I gathered that she had called both of them off the relief job. I almost +cheered when I realized that fact. I threw out a hint about there being +a possibility of my needing an accompanist. I said Miss Menzies was ill +and perhaps ... and I intimated that there was something more than glory +in it." + +"And what did Miss Robson say to that?" + +"Oh, she was more self-contained than one would imagine under the +circumstances. She said she would like to think it over. She put it that +way on the score of leaving her mother alone nights. But, believe me, +that young lady is more calculating than she seems. Of course I didn't +mention terms or anything like that. I left a good loophole in case you +had changed your mind." + +For the moment Stillman was almost persuaded to tell Lily Condor that he +_had_ changed his mind. Not that he had lost interest in Claire, but +already he had another plan and there was something disagreeably +presumptuous in Mrs. Condor's tone. He never remembered having taken +anybody into his confidence regarding a personal matter. The trouble +was that he had begun the whole affair under the misapprehension that it +was a most _impersonal_ thing. He still tried to look at it from that +angle, but Lily Condor's manner seemed bent on forcing home the rather +disturbing conviction that he had a vital interest in the issue. She had +cut in upon his reserve and he would never quite be able to recover the +lost ground. He felt that she sensed his revulsion, for almost at once +she adroitly changed the subject and it did not come to life again +during the remainder of his call. + +But when he was leaving she thrust an idle finger into the lapel of his +coat and said: + +"I think it's awfully good of you, Ned, to be human enough to want to do +something for others. I watched you as a young man, and when you +married...." His startled look must have halted her, for she released +her hold upon him and finished with a shrug. + +He said good-by hastily and escaped. But he wondered, as he found his +way out into the street, how long it would be before Mrs. Condor would +acquire sufficient boldness to discuss with him what and whom she chose. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Christmas Day came and went with a host of bitter-sweet memories for +Claire Robson. Not that she could look back on any holiday season with +unalloyed happiness, but time had drawn the sting from the misfortune of +the old days. Through the mist of the years outlines softened, and she +was more prone to measure the results by the slight harvest that their +efforts had brought. For instance, they had never been too poor to deny +themselves the luxury of a tree. And a tree to Mrs. Robson meant none of +the scant, indifferent affairs that most of the neighbors found +acceptable strung with a few strands of dingy popcorn and pasteboard +ornaments. No, the Robson tree was always an opulent work of art, +freighted with bursting cornucopias and heavy glass balls and yards of +quivering tinsel. The money for all this dazzling beauty usually came a +fortnight or so before the eventful day in the shape of a ten-dollar +bill tucked away in the folds of Gertrude Sinclair's annual letter to +Mrs. Robson. As Claire had grown older she had grown also impatient of +the memory of her mother squandering what should have gone for thick +shoes and warm plaid dresses upon the ephemeral joys of a Christmas +tree. But now she suddenly understood, and she felt glad for a mother +courageous enough to lay hold upon the beautiful symbols of life at the +expense of all that was hideously practical. Shoes wore out and plaid +dresses finally found their way to the rag-bag, but the glories of the +spirit burned forever in the splendor of all this truant magnificence, +and the years stretched back in a glittering procession of light-ladened +fir-trees. + +Then some time between Christmas and New-Year came the Christmas +pantomime at the Tivoli, with its bewildering array of scantily clad +fairies and dashing Amazons and languishing princes in pale-blue tights; +to say nothing of the Queen Charlottes consumed between acts through +faintly yellow straws. How Claire would mark off each day on the +calendar which brought her nearer to this triumph! And what a hurry and +bustle always ensued to get dinner over and be fully dressed and down to +the box-office before even the doors were opened, so that they could get +first choice of the unreserved seats which sold at twenty-five cents. +Then there would ensue the long, tedious wait in the dimly lighted +cavern of the playhouse, smelling with a curious fascination of stale +cigars and staler beer, and the thrill that the appearance of the +orchestra produced, followed by the arrival of all the important +personages fortunate enough to afford fifty-cent seats, which gave them +the security to put off their appearance until the curtain was almost +ready to rise. And when the curtain really did rise upon the inevitable +spectacle of villagers dancing upon the village green! And Mrs. Robson +carefully picked out in the chorus the stout sister of a former servant +who had worked for her mother! And the wicked old witch swept from the +wings on the traditional broomstick! From that moment until the final +transformation scene, when scintillating sea-shells yielded up one by +one their dazzling burdens of female loveliness and a rather Hebraic +Cupid descended from an invisible wire to wish everybody a happy +New-Year in words appropriately rhymed, there was no halt to the wonders +disclosed. With what sharp and exquisite reluctance did Claire remain +glued to her seat, refusing to believe that it was all over! Even at +this late date Claire had only to close her eyes to revive the delights +of these rather covert excursions into the realm of fancy--covert, +because a Tivoli pantomime had not precisely the sanction of such a +respectable organization as the Second Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Robson, +while not definitely encouraging Claire to wilful dishonesty, always +managed to warn her daughter by saying: + +"I wouldn't tell any one about going to the Tivoli, Claire, if I were +you ... unless, of course, they should ask about it." + +Claire, in mortal terror lest any indiscretion on her part would put a +stop to this annual lapse into such delightful immoralities, held her +peace in spite of her desire to spread abroad the beauties which she had +beheld. She had a feeling that all the participants in the pantomime +must of necessity be rather wicked and abandoned creatures, and half the +pleasure she had felt in viewing them arose from a secret admiration at +the courage which permitted human beings to be so perfectly and +desperately sinful. Although she was almost persuaded that perhaps it +did not take quite such bravado to be wicked in blue-spangled gauze and +satin slippers as it did to lapse from the straight and narrow path in a +gingham dress and resoled boots. + +The only thrill that the present Christmas Day produced came in the +shape of a pot of flaming poinsettias bearing the card of Ned Stillman. +These were the first flowers that Claire ever remembered having +received. It pleased her also to realize that Stillman had been delicate +to the point of this thoroughly unpractical gift, especially as he had +every reason to assume that something more substantial would have been +acceptable. She was confident that by this time he had heard through +Mrs. Condor of her mother's illness and her loss of position. Claire was +still puzzled at Mrs. Condor's visit. For all that lady's skill at +subterfuge, there were implied evasions in her manner which Claire +sensed instinctively. And then Claire was not yet inured to the novelty +of being in demand. To have been forced by circumstance upon Mrs. Condor +as an accompanist was one thing; to be desired by her in a moment of +cold calculation was quite another; and there had been more uncertainty +than caution in Claire's plea for time in which to consider the offer. +But as the days flew by it became more and more apparent to Claire that +she was in no position to indulge in idle speculation. She had long +since given up the hope of fulfilling the demands of a regular office +position, even if one had been open to her. Mrs. Finnegan's enthusiasm +to be neighborly and helpful was more a matter of theory than practice, +and it did not take Claire many days to decide that she had no right to +impose upon a good nature which was made up largely of ignorance of a +sick-room's demands. Claire's final check from Flint was dwindling with +alarming rapidity; indeed, she was facing the first of the year with the +realization that there would be barely enough to pay the next month's +rent, let alone to settle the current bills. She had no idea what Mrs. +Condor intended paying, but she fancied that it must be little enough. +Surely Mrs. Condor did not receive any great sum for her singing and +there must be any number of gratuitous performances. She decided quite +suddenly, the day after Christmas, to take Mrs. Condor at her word, and +she was a bit disturbed at both the lady's reply and the manner of it. + +"Oh," Mrs. Condor had drawled rather disagreeably, "I thought you'd +given up the idea. I spoke to somebody else only this morning. But, of +course, I'm not certain about how it will turn out. I'll keep you in +mind and if the other falls through.... By the way, how is your mother? +I keep asking Ned Stillman every day what the news is, but he never +knows anything. All men are alike ... unless they've got some special +interest. Sometimes I marvel that he looks me up so regularly, but then +I've known him ever since.... But there, I'll be telling more than I +should! Do come and see me. I'm always in in the morning.... Yes, I can +imagine you do have a lot to do. I'm so sorry you didn't call up +sooner. But one never can tell. Good-by.... I hope you'll have a happy +New Year." + +Claire hung up the receiver. Well, she had lost an opportunity to turn +an easy dollar or two and she had no one to thank but herself. Why had +she delayed in accepting Mrs. Condor's offer? + +Fortunately the unexpected arrival of Nellie Whitehead cut short any +further repinings. Claire was frankly glad to see her and at once she +thought, "She has come to show me her new coat." + +But Nellie Whitehead was incased in a wrap that showed every evidence of +a good six months' wear. + +"My new coat?" the lady echoed, in answer to Claire's question. "There +ain't no such animal. Somebody else copped it. I didn't shove it back +far enough the last time I took a look at it, I guess. Oh, well, I +should worry! I can get along very well without it...." + +When Nellie Whitehead rose to leave, dusk had fallen and Claire was +fumbling for matches to light the hall gas, when she felt her friend's +hand close over hers. There followed the cold pressure of several coins +against Claire's palm and the voice of her visitor sounding a bit +tremulous in the dusk. + +"You'll need some extra money, Robson, or I miss my guess." + +Claire fell back with a gesture of protest. "Why, Nellie Whitehead, how +could you? It's your coat money, too! Well, _I_ never!" + +And with that they both burst into tears.... When Claire recovered +herself she found that Nellie Whitehead had escaped. She lit the gas +and opened her palm. Four twenty-dollar gold pieces glistened in the +light. + + * * * * * + +Next morning Claire received a telephone message from Mrs. Condor. The +position of accompanist was hers at forty dollars a month if she desired +it. + +"It won't be hard," Mrs. Condor had finished, reassuringly. "Some weeks +I've something on nearly every night. And then again there won't be +anything doing for days.... How can I afford to pay so much? Well, my +dear, that is a secret. But don't worry, you'll earn it...." + +And toward the close of the week there came another surprise for Claire +in the shape of a letter from Stillman, which ran: + + + MY DEAR MISS ROBSON.--I am going to take a little flier at the bean + market. + + That was my father's business and I know a few things about it--at + least to the extent of recognizing the commodity when the sack is + opened. Do you fancy you could arrange to give me a few hours a week + at the typewriter? If so, we can get together and arrange terms. + + Cordially, + + EDWARD STILLMAN. + + +"At last," flashed through Claire's mind, "he's going in for something +worth while." + +This time she decided promptly. Over the telephone she made an +appointment with Stillman, in his apartments, for beginning work on the +second Wednesday in January. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Shortly after the first of the year Claire received her initial summons +from Lily Condor--they were to appear at a concert in the Colonial +Ballroom of the St. Francis for the Belgian relief. Mrs. Condor had +intimated that the affair was to be smart, and so it proved. It was set +at a very late and very fashionable hour, and all through the program +groups of torpid, though rather audible, diners kept drifting in. Claire +was not slow to discover that Lily Condor was first on the bill, and she +remembered reading somewhere in a newspaper that among professionals the +first and last place were always loathsome positions. Judging from the +noise and confusion that accompanied their efforts, Claire could well +understand why this was so, and she expected to find Lily Condor +resentful. But to her surprise Mrs. Condor merely shrugged her shoulders +and said: + +"What difference does it make? They don't come to listen, anyway. +Besides, I always open the bill. I like to get it over quickly." + +But Claire had reason to suspect, as she followed the remainder of a +very excellent program, that the choice of position did not rest with +Mrs. Condor. Claire began to wonder how much money Mrs. Condor received +for an effort like this. And she became more puzzled as she gathered +from the conversation of the other artists about her that the talent had +been furnished gratuitously. + +"I understand," she heard a woman in front of her whisper to her +companion, "that Devincenzi, the 'cellist, is the only one in the crowd +who is getting a red cent. But he has a rule, you know--or is it a +contract? I'm sure I don't know. At any rate, they say that the +Ffinch-Browns donated his fee.... The Ffinch-Browns? Don't you know +them?... See, there they are ... over there by the Tom Forsythes. She +has on turquoise pendant earrings.... Oh, they're ever so charitable! +But they do say that she is something of a...." + +Claire lost the remainder of this stage whisper in a rather tremulous +anxiety to catch a glimpse of her aunt before she moved. Claire had to +acknowledge that at a distance her aunt gave a wonderful illusion of +arrested youth as she stood with one hand grasping the collar of her +gorgeous mandarin coat. But Claire was more interested in the turquoise +pendants than in her aunt. She had never seen the jewels before, but she +had heard about them almost from the time she was able to lisp. + +"They're mine," Mrs. Robson had repeated to Claire again and again. "My +father bought them for me when I was sixteen years old. I remember the +day distinctly, and how my mother said: 'Don't you think, John, that +Emily is a little young for anything like this? I'll keep them for her +until she is twenty.' I nearly cried myself sick, but of course mother +was right, _then_.... But like everything else, I never got my hands on +them again. And what is more, Julia Carrol Ffinch-Brown knows that they +are mine as well as anybody, because she stood right alongside of me +when I handed them over to mother. Not that I care.... It's the +principle of the thing!" + +Claire felt disappointed in the pendants. They seemed so +insignificant--to fall very far short of her mother's passionate +description of them, and she began to wonder which was the more +pathetic, Mrs. Robson's exaggerated notion of their worth or the +pettiness that gave Aunt Julia the tenacity to hold fast to such trivial +baubles. + +Ned Stillman was in the audience, also. Claire saw him sitting off at +the side. Indeed, she spotted him on the very moment of her entrance +upon the stage. She had been nervous until his friendly smile warmed her +into easy confidence; and though, while she played, her back had been +toward him, she felt the glow of his sympathy. As Lily Condor and she +swept back upon the stage for their rather perfunctory applause, and +still more perfunctory bouquets provided by the committee, Claire could +see him gently tapping his hands in her direction, and she was surprised +when the usher handed her a bouquet of dazzling orchids. + +"They must be for you," Claire said, innocently enough, to Mrs. Condor. +"I don't find any name on them." + +"That shows that you've got a discreet admirer, at any rate," Lily +Condor returned with that bantering sneer which Claire was just +beginning to notice. And the thought struck her at once that Stillman +had sent the flowers. She was pleased, but also a little annoyed to +think he had so deliberately ignored Mrs. Condor. + +The Flints were there, too; Flint looked uncomfortable and warm in his +scant full-dress suit and his wife frankly ridiculous in a low-cut gown +that exhibited every angle of a hopelessly scrawny neck. Claire did not +see them until she was leaving the stage, and she smiled as she saw +Flint lean over and pick up the opera-glasses from his wife's lap. But +this was not all. In a far corner sat Miss Munch and her cousin, Mrs. +Richards, their ferret eyes darting busily about and their tongues +clicking even more rapidly. Doubtless Flint had invested in a number of +tickets at the office for business reasons and passed them around for +any of the office force who felt a desire to see society at close range. + +Claire had not meant to stay beyond one or two numbers following her own +appearance, but she kept yielding to Mrs. Condor's insistent suggestions +that she "stay for just one more," until she discovered, to her dismay, +that it was past midnight. The last artists were taking their places +upon the stage. Claire resigned herself to the inevitable and sat out +the remainder of the performance. She was making a quick exit into the +dressing-room when she came face to face with her aunt. Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown betrayed her confusion by the merest lift of the eyebrows, +and she stepped back as if to get a clearer view of her niece, as she +said with an air of polite surprise: + +"You--_here_?" + +Claire carried her head confidently. "I was on the program," she +returned, consciously eying the turquoise pendants. + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rested a closed fan against her left ear as if to +screen at least one of the earrings from Claire's frank stare. "Oh, how +interesting! I must have missed you--I came in late. It's rather odd. I +thought I knew everybody on the program.... I helped arrange it." + +"Well," Claire smiled, "I wasn't what you would call one of the +head-liners. I played Mrs. Condor's accompaniments." + +"That accounts for it ... my not knowing, I mean. I dare say your mother +is better, otherwise you wouldn't be here." + +Claire met her aunt's thrust calmly. "No, mother is worse, if anything. +As a matter of fact, I'm here...." + +She broke off abruptly, realizing suddenly that she had left her orchids +behind. She turned to discover Stillman making his leisurely way toward +her. He had the orchids in his hand. + +"My dear Miss Robson," he said, gently, "Mrs. Condor came very near +appropriating your flowers." + +She could feel the color rising to her forehead. "I see you came to my +rescue again," she said, simply, taking them from him. "I think you know +Mr. Stillman, Aunt Julia." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown forced a too-sweet smile as she gave Stillman a nod of +recognition. "Fancy any girl forgetting so much gorgeousness!" she +exclaimed with an attempt at lightness, but Claire caught the covert +rancor in her voice, and as her aunt made a movement of escape she put +out a restraining hand and said: + +"I wanted you to know, Aunt Julia, that I'm here merely as a matter of +business. Mrs. Condor has hired me to play her accompaniments." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown shook off Claire impatiently. "_Hired_ you!" she +sneered. "How extraordinary!" + +And with that she swept past, giving Stillman a glance of farewell. + +Claire turned to Stillman. "What must you think of me? Leaving my +flowers behind. Confess--it was you who sent them.... I was in such a +rush to get away, though. I shouldn't have stayed so long. My mother is +alone.... Of course there are neighbors just below and they will look in +on her, but just the same...." + +His smile reassured her. "Are you forgetting about to-morrow?" he asked. +"Remember we are to begin business promptly at two o'clock. I hired a +typewriting-machine yesterday. I'm really thrilled at the idea of--of +going into business." + +She looked at him steadily as she gave him her hand: "My dear Mr. +Stillman," she said, quite frankly, "you are very kind." + +He answered by pressing her hand warmly and she covered her face with +the purple orchids. They were interrupted by Lily Condor sweeping rather +arrogantly toward them. + +"Haven't you gone yet?" she asked Claire. "I thought you were in a +hurry! I hope you've persuaded Ned to get us a taxi. I hate street-cars +at this hour." And in answer to Claire's embarrassed protest that she +had never given such a thing a thought, Mrs. Condor finished: "Well, +I've given it a thought, and don't you forget it. Come, Ned, is it a +go?" + +Claire fancied that a flicker of annoyance passed over Stillman's face +as he answered, with a dry laugh: + +"You might at least have given me time to prove my gallantry." + +"I'm not taking any chances," was the prompt reply. + +Claire turned away. What had contrived to give Mrs. Condor this +disagreeable air of assurance toward Ned Stillman, she found herself +wondering. It had not been apparent at the Condor-Stillman musicale.... + +She arrived home dismayed to find the front room illuminated, but the +rattle of the departing taxi brought Mrs. Finnegan to the top of the +stairs with a laughing apology. + +"I just looked in to see how your mother was, Miss Claire, and I found a +book on the front-room table"--Mrs. Finnegan held up Ouida's +_Moths_--"and I got so interested in it that I just naturally forgot to +go home. Finnegan's out, anyway. I was telling him about your good +fortune. And all he said was: 'Well, it beats me how an old crow like +Mrs. Condor gets paid for singing. I remember five years ago, when she +wasn't so uppish, we had her for a benefit performance of the Native +Sons, and she didn't get paid then. Her singing may be over my head. +Anyway, it didn't get to my ears.' But Finnegan is always like that. He +just likes to contradict. I got back at him. I said, 'Well, if she can +afford to pay Miss Claire forty a month for playing the piano, she must +get a good piece of money every time she opens her mouth.' ...Mercy, +look at the orchids! Well, you must have had a swell time. I'll bet you +wouldn't like to tell who sent them.... There wasn't any card? That's +not saying you don't know, Miss Claire.... I hope you won't think I'm a +meddler, but I'm an older woman and.... Well, just you keep a sharp eye +on the feller that sends you orchids, Miss Claire." + +She went down-stairs without further ado. Claire put the orchids in +water and set them on a sill near an open window. She did not feel in +the least resentful of Mrs. Finnegan's warnings. She was too confident +to be anything but faintly amused at her neighbor's middle-class +anxiety. But Finnegan's skepticism concerning Mrs. Condor annoyed her +and she remembered the disagreeable words of her aunt: + +"_Hired_ you? How extraordinary!" + + * * * * * + +"Two o'clock _sharp_!" The memory of Stillman's air of delicate banter +as he emphasized the hour for beginning his business venture struck +Claire ironically the more she pondered his words. She had a feeling +that there was something farcical in the prospect, and yet there seemed +nothing to do but to go through with the preliminaries. She presented +herself, therefore, at the appointed time at the Stanford Court +apartments. + +She found Stillman quite alone, his hands blue-black with the smudge +from a refractory typewriter ribbon which he was vainly endeavoring to +adjust. It took some time for him to get his hands clean again, and +Claire sharpened her pencils while she waited. But there really proved +to be nothing to do. + +"I'm all up in the air over this bean business," Stillman confessed, +nonchalantly. "The government, you know ... they're taking over all that +sort of thing ... regulating food and prices. Of course, in that +case...." + +Claire felt an enormous and illogical relief. "Then you really won't +need me," she ventured. + +"Oh, quite the contrary.... I have a certain amount of business, of a +sort. And I'm tired of dropping checks along the trail of public +stenographers.... Suppose we talk terms. We haven't fixed on any salary, +yet." + +Claire felt a rising impatience. His subterfuge seemed too childish and +obvious. "That will depend on how much of my time you expect, Mr. +Stillman." + +"Well, three times a week, anyway ... to start with. Say Mondays, +Wednesdays, and Fridays from two to five.... I was thinking that +something in the neighborhood of fifteen dollars a week would be fair." + +He turned a very frank gaze in her direction and she quizzically +returned his glance. + +"That's rather ridiculous, don't you think?" she said, trying to +disguise her furtive annoyance. "You can hire a substitute through any +typewriting agency on the basis of three dollars a day." + +"Yes, and I can buy two cigars for a nickel, but I shouldn't want to +smoke them." + +She clicked the keys of her machine idly. "That is hardly a fair +comparison. You can get any number of competent girls for three +dollars." + +He rested his chin on his upturned palm. "But, my dear Miss Robson, I +happen to want _you_." + +She thought of any number of cheap, obvious retorts that might have been +flung back at his straightforward admission, but instead she said, with +equal frankness: + +"That's just what I don't understand." + +He threw her a puzzled look and the usual placid light in his eyes +quickened to resentful impatience. + +"Is that a necessary part of the contract, Miss Robson?" + +She caught her breath. His tone of annoyance was sharp and unexpected. +There was a suggestion of Flint's masculine arrogance in his voice. She +felt how absurd was her cross-examination of him, of how absurd, under +the circumstances, would have been her cross-examination of anybody +ready and willing to give her work to do and an ample wage in the +bargain, and yet, for all the force of his reply, she knew it to be a +well-bred if not a deliberate evasion. + +"You mean it is none of my business, don't you?" she contrived to laugh +back at him. + +His reply was a further surprise. "Yes, precisely," he said, with an +ominous thinning of the lips. + +She rose instinctively to meet this thrust and she was conscious that +even Flint had never managed so to disturb her. She glanced about +hastily as if measuring the room in a swift impulse toward escape. +Stillman had chosen the dining-room for a temporary office, and upon the +polished surface of the antique walnut table the typewriter struck an +incongruous note; indeed, it was all incongruous, particularly Stillman +and his assumed business airs. Yes, it was absurd for her to either +cross-examine or protest, but it was equally absurd for him to pay her +such an outlandish sum for nine hours a week. + +"He's doing it for me," she thought, not without a sense of triumph. +Then, turning to him, she said, a bit awkwardly: + +"I guess there isn't any use to dissuade you, Mr. Stillman. If you say +fifteen dollars a week, I sha'n't argue with you." + +He smiled back at her, all his former suavity regained. She slid into +her seat again. Her mind was recalling vividly the one other time in her +life when she had grappled vigorously with the masculine spirit of +domination, and come away victorious. This time she had been defeated +and she had impulses toward relief and fear. She looked up suddenly and +trapped a solicitous glance from Stillman that rather annoyed her. And +it struck her, as she mentally compared Stillman with most of the men of +her acquaintance, how far he could have loomed above them if he had had +the will for such a performance. As it was he fell somewhat beneath them +in a curious, indefinable way. Had he been too finely tempered by +circumstances or had the flame of life lacked the proper heat for fusing +his virtues effectively? For the moment she found Flint's forthright +insolence more tolerable than Stillman's sterile deference. Suddenly she +began to think of home, not with any sense of security, but as something +unpleasant, dark, disquieting.... + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Toward six o'clock one afternoon in late February Ned Stillman, making +his way from the business district at California and Montgomery Streets +toward his club, suddenly remembered a forgotten luncheon engagement for +that day with Lily Condor. + +"Well," he muttered at once, "I'm in for it now! I guess I might as well +swing out and see her and get the thing over with." + +It was curious of late how often he was given to muttering. Previously, +petty annoyances had not moved him to these half-audible and solitary +comments which he had always found contemptuously amusing in others. He +wondered whether this new trick was the result of his business ventures, +his sly charities, or his approach toward the suggestive age of forty. +Associating the name of Lily Condor with his covert charities, he was +almost persuaded that they lay back of this preposterous habit. And the +more he thought about it the more he muttered and became convinced that +Lily Condor was usually the topic of these vocal self-communings. + +Ned Stillman had always prided himself upon his sense of personal +freedom concerning the trivial circumstances of life. Of course, like +any man of sensibility, he was bound by the chains that deeper impulses +forge, but he had never been hampered by any restraints directed at his +ordinary uprisings and downsittings. In short, he had answered the beck +and nod of no man, much less a woman, and he was not finding Lily +Condor's growing presumptions along this line altogether agreeable. + +He would not have minded so much if there was any personal gratification +in yielding to the lady's whip-hand commands. There are certain delights +in self-surrender which give a zest to slavery, but there is no joy in +being held a hostage. Looking back, Stillman marveled at the +indiscretion he had committed when he handed over not only his reserve, +but Claire Robson's reputation into the safekeeping of Lily Condor. Had +he ever had the simplicity to imagine that a woman of Mrs. Condor's +stamp would constitute herself a safe-deposit vault for hoarding secrets +without exacting a price? Well, perhaps he had expected to pay, but a +little less publicly. He had not looked to have the lady in question +ring every coin audibly in full view and hearing of the entire +market-place, and yet, if his experience had stood him in good stead, he +must have known that this was precisely what she would do. Stillman's +hidden gratitude, his private beneficences, did not serve her purpose, +but the spectacle of him in the rôle of her debtor was a sight that went +a long way to establishing a social credit impoverished by no end of +false ventures. + +Her command for him to take her to luncheon--and it had been a command, +however suavely she had managed to veil it--bore also the stamp of +urgency. Usually she was content to lay all her positive requests to the +charge of mere caprice, but on this occasion she took the trouble to +intimate that there was a particular reason for wanting to see him. It +did not take him long to conclude that this particular reason had to do +with Claire Robson. That was why he yielded with a better grace than he +had been giving to his troublesome friend's disagreeable pressure. + +Stillman knew that while Lily Condor was not precisely jealous of the +younger woman, she was distinctly envious--with the impersonal but acrid +envy of middle age for youth. The episode of the orchids still rankled. +He had to admit that in this instance his course had been tactless, but +he had ignored Mrs. Condor as a challenge to the presumption which he +had already begun to sense. She, while seeming definitely to evade the +real issue, had answered the challenge and he had paid for his temerity +a hundredfold. She had reminded him again and again in deft but none the +less positive terms that she was keeping a finger on the mainspring of +any advantage that came her way. Sometimes Stillman wondered whether she +would really be cattish enough to betray his confidence and bring Claire +Robson crashing down under the weight of the questionable position into +which his indiscretion had forced her. Would she really have the face to +publish abroad the pregnant fact that Ned Stillman was providing what +she had been pleased to designate as a meal-ticket for a young woman in +difficulty? For himself he cared little, except that he always shrank +instinctively from appearing ridiculous. + +He had been thinking a great deal of late as to the best course to +pursue in ridding himself and Claire of this menacing incubus. He had a +feeling that Claire, having exhausted the novelties of her position as +accompanist to Lily Condor, was beginning to find the affair irksome. + +The business venture had progressed in quite another direction from his +original intention. Suddenly, without knowing how it had all come about, +he found his plans clearly defined. The government needed him. Somehow, +it had never occurred to him that he could be of service at a point so +far from the center of war activities. He had been a good deal of an +idler, it was true, but the seeds of achievement were merely lying in +fallow soil. + +At first, he had been stung into action more by Claire's accusing +attitude than anything else. She used to come every other afternoon at +the appointed time and almost challenge him by her reproachful silence +to do something, if only to provide her with an illusion. It was as if +she said: + +"See, I have given in to you. I know that you are doing this for me, and +I am deeply grateful. But won't you please make the situation a little +less transparent? Won't you at least justify me in the eyes of those who +are watching our little performance?..." + +It had all ended by his offering his services to the Food +Administration. He knew something of his father's business. He felt that +he had a fair knowledge of beans, and he could learn more. He merely +asked a trial, and it surprised him to find what a sense of humility +suddenly possessed him. He was really overjoyed when a place was assured +him. But he had to admit that his acceptance was not accorded any great +enthusiasm. The newspapers mentioned it in a scant paragraph that was +not even given a prominent place. He had received greater recognition +for a brilliant play upon the golf-links! Well, in such stirring times +he was nobody. He did not complain, even to himself, but the knowledge +subconsciously rankled. + +He hired an office down-town, joined the Commercial Club, religiously +attended every meeting that had to do with food conservation, hunted +out, absorbed, appropriated all the economic secrets that served his +purpose.... Suddenly he found himself engrossed, enthusiastic, _busy_! +Finally Claire said to him one day: + +"Don't you think I ought to come to you every afternoon?" + +"If you can arrange it," he almost snapped back at her. + +She did arrange it, how he took no pains to inquire, and a little later +she said again: + +"You ought to have some one here all day. I guess you will have to look +for another stenographer." + +He remembered how menacingly he had darted at her. She was dressed for +the street, on her way home, and she had halted at the door. + +"Do you want to desert the work that you've inspired?" he demanded. + +"Inspired?... By _me_?" Her voice took on a note of triumph. + +"You didn't fancy that _I_ inspired it, did you?" he sneered at her. + +His vehemence confused her. "I hadn't thought.... Really, you know.... +Well, as you say.... But, of course, it is absurd when you can get any +number of girls to...." + +"But suppose I want _you_?" he demanded of her for a second time. + +She left without further reply. + +When she was gone he found himself in a nasty panic. It was as if the +lady who had called him to her lists had suddenly decided upon a new +defender. + +"Is she tired of it all ... or is there some one else? Can it be +possible that Flint...." + +He had stopped short, amazed to find his mind descending to such a +vulgar level. What had come over him? And he began to fancy things as +they once had been--empty, purposeless days, and nights that found him +too bored to even sleep. It seemed incredible that he could go back to +them again. What lay at the bottom of his sudden deep-breathed +satisfaction with life? For an instant, the truth which he had kept at +bay with his old trick of evasion swept toward him. + +"No ... no," he muttered. "Oh no!... That would be too absurd!" + +But when he had gone to the mirror to brush his hair before venturing on +the street he found thick beads of perspiration on his forehead and his +hand shook as he lifted the comb. + +The next day he told Claire that in the future her salary would be +twenty dollars a week. He stood expecting her to rail against the +increase, to try to put him to rout by explaining that she had received +less for a full day's work at Flint's. But to his surprise she thanked +him and went on with her work. + +It was shortly after this that he began to haunt the various +performances in which Lily Condor and Claire appeared. He always +contrived to slip in during the first number, which as a rule happened +to be Mrs. Condor's offering, and he sat in a far corner where nobody +but that lady could have chanced upon him. But he never knew her to fail +in locating him, or to miss the opportunity to sit out the remainder of +the program at his side, or to suggest crab-legs Louis at Tait's, +particularly if Claire were determined upon an early leave-taking. The +effect of all this was not lost upon the general public, and it was not +long before men of Stillman's acquaintance used to remark facetiously to +him over the lunch-table: + +"What's new in beans to-day?... Are _reds_ still a favorite?" + +Stillman would throw back an equally cryptic answer, thinking as he did +so: + +"What a wigging I must be getting over the teacups! I guess I'll cut it +all out in the future." + +But he usually went no farther than his impulsive resolves. + +Sometimes he wondered what Claire thought of his faithful appearance. +Did she fancy that he came to bask in the smiling impertinences of Lily +Condor? + +As he made his way to a street-car on this vivid February afternoon, he +called to mind that of late Claire had been bringing a fagged look to +her daily tasks. He hoped again that Mrs. Condor's desire to see him had +to do with Claire--more particularly with her dismissal as accompanist. +Miss Menzies had quite recovered and there was really no reason for +Claire to continue in her service. It struck him as he pondered all +these matters how strange it was to find him concerned about these +feminine adjustments--he who had always stared down upon trivial +circumstances with cold scorn. + +He arrived at Lily Condor's apartments almost upon the lady's heels. Her +hat was still ornamenting the center-table and her wrap lay upon a +wicker rocker, where, with a quick movement of irritation, it had been +cast aside. + +Her greeting was not reassuring. "Oh...." she began coldly. "Isn't this +rather late for lunch?" + +"I'm really very sorry," Stillman returned as he took a chair, "but to +be frank, I quite forgot about you." + +"Well," she tried to laugh back at him, "there isn't any virtue as +disagreeable as the truth. I expected you would at least attempt to be +polite enough to lie." + +"I hope you were not too greatly inconvenienced," he said, in a +deliberate attempt to ignore her irritation. + +"I waited two hours, if that is what you mean. But then, _my_ time isn't +particularly valuable." + +He rose suddenly. "I've told you that I was sorry," he began coldly, +reaching for his hat. "But evidently you are determined to be +disagreeable. I fancied you wanted to see me about something urgent, so +I came almost as soon as I remembered." + +She snatched the discarded wrap from its place on the wicker rocker as +she glared at him. "You're in something of a hurry, it seems.... Well, I +sha'n't detain you. The truth is there's a pretty kettle of fish stewed +up over this young woman, Claire Robson.... I want you to tell her that +she can't play at the Café Chantant next Friday night." + +"Want _me_ to tell her? I don't see where I come in.... Why don't you +tell her yourself?" + +"Because I don't choose to.... Besides, I think you might do it a little +more delicately. I can't tell her brutally that she isn't wanted." + +"Isn't wanted? Why, what do you mean?" + +"The committee informs me that she isn't the sort of person they are +accustomed to have featured in their entertainments. It seems that Mrs. +Flint...." + +"Mrs. Sawyer Flint?" + +"Precisely." + +"What is her objection?" + +"Do you really want me to tell you?" + +"Why not?" + +"It appears that some time last fall Miss Robson tried to get her +husband into a compromising position. She came over to the house one +night when Mrs. Flint was away. Flint promptly ordered her out. It seems +she went ... to be quite frank ... with _you_. And what is more, +she...." + +"It isn't necessary for you to go any farther. Tell me, do you mean to +say that you believe this thing? Didn't you lift a hand to defend her?" + +Lily Condor narrowed her eyes. "Oh, come now, Ned Stillman, don't be a +fool! You know as well as I do that I'm hanging on to my own reputation +by my finger-nails. I'm not taking any chances. As to whether it is so +... well, if I were to tell the committee everything I know it wouldn't +help her cause any. I could wreck her reputation like that," she snapped +her fingers, "with one solitary fact. If she hasn't wrecked it already +with her senseless chatter.... Only last week her aunt, Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown, said to me: 'So you're hiring my niece! I must say that is +handsome of you!' You were sitting talking to Claire and she looked +deliberately at you when she said it. Remember how I warned you, last +December. I told you then that the secret of a woman's meal-ticket was +never hidden very long." + +During this speech Mrs. Condor's voice had dropped from its original +tone of petty rancor to one of petulant self-justification. Stillman +knew at once that her ill-temper had caught her off-guard and she was +already trying to crawl slowly back into his favor. She had meant, no +doubt, to soften her news over a glass or two of chilled white wine +which she had counted on sipping during the noon hour. She might even +then have gone farther and decided to cast her fortunes with Stillman +and Claire if she had seen that her advantage lay in that direction. He +was not sure but that she still had some such notion in her mind. But he +felt suddenly sick of her past all hope of compromise, and he was +determined to be rid of her once and for all. + +"No doubt," he said, frigidly, "you will be glad to be relieved of Miss +Robson's presence permanently. I take it that you don't consider her +association exactly ... well ... shall we say discreet?" + +Her eyes took on a yellow tinge as she faced him. She must have sensed +the finality of his tone, the well-bred insolence that his query +suggested. + +"Discreet?" she echoed. "Well, I wouldn't say that that was quite what I +meant. Desirable--that would be better. I don't find her association +desirable.... I don't _want_ her, in other words." + +He had never been so angry in his life. Had she been a man he would have +struck her. He felt himself choking. "My dear Mrs. Condor," he warned, +"will you be good enough to take a little more respectful tone when you +speak of Miss Robson?" + +"Oh, indeed! And just what are your rights in the matter? You're not her +brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't know that it was +the fashion for a...." His look stopped her. She trembled a moment, +tossed back her head, and finished, defiantly, "Yes, that is what I want +to know, what _are_ your rights?" + +He took a step toward her. Instinctively she retreated. + +"A woman like you wouldn't understand even if I were to tell you," he +flung at her. + +She covered her face with both hands. + +He left the room. + +He himself was trembling as he reached the street--trembling for the +first time in years. As a child he had been given to these fits of +emotional tremors, but he had long since lost the faculty for recording +physically his intense moments. Or had he lost the faculty for the +intense moments themselves, he found himself wondering, as he walked +rapidly toward his home. The evening was warm with the perfume of a bit +of truant summer that had somehow escaped before its time to hearten a +winter-weary world against the bitter assaults of March. Birds of +passage sang among the hedges, the sun still cast a faint greenish glow +in the extreme west. + +His first thought was of the cowering woman he had just left. He had +meant to lash her keenly with his verbal whipcords, but he had not +expected to find her quite so sensitive to his cutting scorn. He +remembered the gesture with which she had lifted her hand as if to +screen herself from his insults. There was a whole life of futile +compromise in just the manner of that gesture, a growing helplessness to +give straightforward thrusts, a pitiful admission of defeat. But he knew +that this surrender was temporary--a quick lifting of the mask under a +relentless pressure. To-morrow, in an hour, in ten minutes, Lily Condor +would be her dangerous self again, lashed into the fury of a woman +scorned. For a moment he did not know whether to be relieved or dismayed +at the prospect of Mrs. Condor for an enemy. How much would she really +dare? + +He thought with a lowering anger of Flint. He had been ready to concede +everything but this former friend in the rôle of a cheap and nasty +gossip. No--gossip was a pale, sickly term. Flint was a malignant toad, +a nauseous mud-slinger, a deliberate liar. He had heard of men who had +justified themselves with vile tales to their insipid, disgustingly +virtuous wives, but he had not counted such among his acquaintances. By +the side of Flint, Lily Condor loomed a very paragon of the social +amenities. + +Stillman was conscious that his mental process was keyed to the highest +pitch of melodrama. It was not usual for him to indulge in mental abuse. +He had never quite understood the dark and moving processes of red-eyed +anger. There had been something absurd in the theatrical hauteur of his +manner in this last scene with Mrs. Condor--that is, if it were measured +by his own standards. His growing detachments from life had claimed him +almost to the point of complete indifference. But now, suddenly, as if +Fate had dealt him an insulting blow upon the face with her bare palm, +he felt not only rage, but a sense of its futility, its impotence. + +"Flint!" he thought again. And immediately he spewed forth the memory of +this man in a flood of indiscriminate epithets. + + * * * * * + +Later, in the refuge of his own four walls and under the brooding solace +of an after-dinner cigar, he lost some of the intensiveness of his +former humor. But the force of the vehemence which had shaken him filled +him with much wonder and some apprehension. He was too much a man of +experience to deny questions when they were put to him squarely by +circumstances. + +"You're not her brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't +know it was the fashion for a...." + +Lily Condor's clipped question struck him squarely now. Just what were +his expectations concerning Claire Robson? The thought turned him cold. +Essentially he was of Puritan mold, but he had always had a theory that +love of illicit pleasures must have been uncommonly strong in a people +who found it necessary to fight the flesh so uncompromisingly. Battling +with the elements upon the bleak shores of New England contributed, no +doubt, to the gray and chastened spirits that these grim folks had won +for themselves; spirits that colored and sometimes seeded swiftly under +the softer skies of California. San Francisco was full of these forced +blooms consumed and withered by the sudden heat of a free and +traditionless life. He knew scores of old-timers--his father's +friends--who had been gloriously wrecked by the passion with which they +met freedom's kiss. They had pursued pleasure with an energy overtrained +in wrestling with the devil and had paid the penalty of all ardent souls +lacking the prudence of weakness. There was at once something fine and +unlawful about the spirit of adventure: it implied courage, impatience +of restraint, wilfulness--in short, all the virtues and vices of +strength. He had felt at times the heritage of this strength, shorn of +its power by the softness of a wilderness that had been wooed instead +of conquered. His forefathers had found California a waiting, gracious +bride, but there had been almost a suggestion of the courtezan in the +lavishness of this land's response to the caresses of the invaders. + +There was something fantastic in the memory of his father, fresh from +the austere dawns of the little fishing village of Gloucester, +transplanted suddenly to the wine-red sunsets of the Golden Gate. He +felt that his father must have had the courage for substance-wasting +without the temptation. Most men in those early days had plunged unyoked +into the race--Ezra Stillman brought his bride, and therefore his +household goods, with him, and unconsciously custom drew its restraining +rein tight. Ezra Stillman came from a long line of salt-seasoned +tempters of the sea; their virtues had been rugged and their vices +equally robust; sin with them had been gaunt, sinewy, unlovely; there +was nothing insinuating and soft about the lure of pleasure in that +silver-nooned environment. Ezra had been the first of this long line to +turn his back upon the sea, and the land had rewarded him lavishly as if +determined to make his capture complete. Yet, he was not landsman enough +to wrest a living direct from the soil; instead, he set up his booth in +the market-place of the town and tr + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD RED DAWN*** + + +******* This file should be named 11875-8.txt or 11875-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/8/7/11875 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a> + +Title: The Blood Red Dawn + +Author: Charles Caldwell Dobie + +Release Date: April 3, 2004 [eBook #11875] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD RED DAWN*** +</pre> +<br /> +<br /> +<center><h3>E-text prepared by Hélène Poirier<br /> + and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders</h3></center> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr class="full" /> +<h1><font size="3">The</font><br /> + BLOOD RED DAWN</h1> +<h2><font size="3">by</font><br /> + CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIE</h2> +<br /> +<h6>1920</h6> +<br /> +<p><i>To My Mother</i></p> +<!-- TOC --> +<h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3> +<b>Book I</b><br /> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_I">Chapter I</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_II">Chapter II</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_III">Chapter III</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_IV">Chapter IV</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_V">Chapter V</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_VI">Chapter VI</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_VII">Chapter VII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_VIII">Chapter VIII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_IX">Chapter IX</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_X">Chapter X</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_XI">Chapter XI</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_XII">Chapter XII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#I_XIII">Chapter XIII</a></span> +<br /> +<br /> +<b>Book II</b><br /> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_I">Chapter I</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_II">Chapter II</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_III">Chapter III</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_IV">Chapter IV</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_V">Chapter V</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_VI">Chapter VI</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_VII">Chapter VII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_VIII">Chapter VIII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_IX">Chapter IX</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_X">Chapter X</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XI">Chapter XI</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XII">Chapter XII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XIII">Chapter XIII</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XIV">Chapter XIV</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XV">Chapter XV</a> |</span> +<span class="toc"><a href="#II_XVI">Chapter XVI</a></span> +<!-- End TOC --> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Book I</h2> +<a name="I_I"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> +<p>The pastor's announcement had been swallowed up in a hum of truant inattention, + and as the heralded speaker made his appearance upon the platform Claire Robson, + leaning forward, said to her mother:</p> +<p>"What?... Did you catch his name?"</p> +<p>"A foreigner of some sort!" replied Mrs. Robson, with smug sufficiency.</p> +<p>For a moment the elder woman's sneer dulled the edge of Claire's anticipations, + but presently the man began to speak, and at once she felt a sense of power + back of his halting words, a sudden bursting fort of bloom amid the frozen assembly + that sat ice-bound, refusing to be melted by the fires of an alien enthusiasm. + She could not help wondering whether he felt how hopeless it would be to force + a sympathetic response from his audience. In ordinary times the Second Presbyterian + Church of San Francisco could not possibly have had any interest in Serbia except + as a field for foreign missionaries. Now, with America in the war and speeding + up the draft, these worthy people were too much concerned with problems nearer + their own hearthstones to be swept off their feet by a specific and almost inarticulate + appeal for an obscure country, made only a shade less remote by the accident + of being accounted an ally.</p> +<p>Claire, straining at attention, found it hard to follow him. He talked rapidly + and with unfamiliar emphasis, and he waved his hands. Frankly, people were bored. + They had come to hear a concert and incidentally swell the Red Cross fund, but + they had not reckoned on quite this type of harangue. Besides, an appetizing + smell of coffee from the church kitchen had begun to beguile their senses. And + yet, the man talked on and on, until quite suddenly Claire Robson began to have + a strange feeling of disquiet, an embarrassment for him, such as one feels when + an intimate friend or kinsman unconsciously makes a spectacle of himself. She + wished that he would stop. She longed to rise from her seat and scream, to create + an outlandish scene, to do anything, in short, that would silence him. At this + point he turned his eyes in her direction, and she felt the scorch of an intense + inner fire. Instinctively she lowered her glance.... When she looked up again + his gaze was still fixed upon her. She felt her color rise. From that moment + on she had a sense that she was his sole audience. He was talking to her. The + others did not matter. She still did not have any very distinct idea what it + was all about, but the manner of it held her captive. But gradually the mists + cleared, he became more coherent, and slowly, imperceptibly, bit by bit, he + won the others. Yet never for an instant did he take his eyes from <i>her</i>. + When he finished, a momentary silence blocked the final burst of applause. But + Claire Robson's hands were locked tightly together, and it was not until he + had disappeared that she realized that she had not paid him the tribute of even + a parting glance.</p> +<p>The pastor came back upon the platform and announced that refreshments would + be served at the conclusion of the next number. A heavy odor of coffee continued + to float from the church kitchen. A red-haired woman stepped forward and began + to sing.</p> +<p>Already Claire Robson dreaded the ordeal of supper. The fact that tables were + being laid further disturbed her. This meant that she and her mother would have + to push their way into some group which, at best, would remain indifferent to + their presence. When coffee was served informally things were not so awkward. + To be sure, one had to balance coffee-cup and cake-plate with an amazing and + painful skill, but, on the other hand, table-less groups did not emphasize one's + isolation. Claire had got to the point where she would have welcomed active + hostility on the part of her fellow church members, but their utter indifference + was soul-killing. She would have liked to remember one occasion when any one + had betrayed the slightest interest in either her arrival or departure, or rather + in the arrival and departure of her mother and herself.</p> +<p>The solo came to an end, and the inevitable applause followed, but before the + singer could respond to the implied encore most of the listeners began frank + and determined advances upon the tables. The concert was over.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson rose and faced Claire with a look of bewilderment. As usual, mother + and daughter stood irresolutely, caught like two trembling leaves in the backwater + of a swirling eddy. At last Claire made a movement toward the nearest table. + Mrs. Robson followed. They sat down.</p> +<p>The scattered company speedily began to form into congenial groups. There was + a great deal of suddenly loosened chatter. Claire Robson sat silently, rather + surprised and dismayed to find that she and her mother had chosen a table which + seemed to be the objective of all the prominent church members. The company + facing her was elegant, if not precisely smart, and there were enough laces + and diamonds displayed to have done excellent service if the proper background + had been provided. Claire was further annoyed to discover that her mother was + regarding the situation with a certain ruffling self-satisfaction which she + took no pains to conceal. Mrs. Robson bowed and smirked, and even called gaily + to every one within easy range. There was something distasteful in her mother's + sudden and almost aggressive self-assurance.</p> +<p>Gradually the company adjusted itself; the tables were filled. The only moving + figures were those of young women carrying huge white pitchers of steaming coffee. + Claire Robson settled into her seat with a resignation born of subtle inner + misery. Across her brain flashed the insistent and pertinent questions that + such a situation always evoked. Why was she not one of these young women engaged + in distributing refreshments? Did the circles close automatically so as to exclude + her, or did her own aloofness shut her out? What was the secret of these people + about her that gave them such an assured manner? No one spoke to her with cordial + enthusiasm.... It was not a matter of wealth, or brains, or prominent church + activity. It was not even a matter of obscurity. Like all large organizations, + the Second Presbyterian Church was made up of every clique in the social calendar; + the obscure circle was as clannish and distinctive in its way as any other group. + But Claire Robson was forced to admit that she did not belong even to the obscure + circle. She belonged nowhere—that was the galling and oppressive truth + that was forced upon her.</p> +<p>At this point she became aware that one of the most prominent church members, + Mrs. Towne, was making an unmistakably cordial advance in her direction. Claire + had a misgiving.... Mrs. Towne was never excessively friendly except for a definite + aim.</p> +<p>"My dear Miss Robson," Mrs. Towne began, sweetly, drooping confidentially + to a whispering posture, "I am so sorry, but I shall have to disturb you + and your mother!... It just happens that this table has been reserved for the + elders and their wives.... I hope you'll understand!"</p> +<p>For a moment Claire merely stared at the messenger of evil news. Then, recovering + herself, she managed to reply:</p> +<p>"Oh yes, Mrs. Towne! I understand perfectly.... I am sure we were very + stupid.... Come, mother!"</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson responded at once to her daughter's command. The two women rose. + By this time the task of securing another place was quite hopeless. Claire felt + that every eye in the room was turned upon them. Picking their way between a + labyrinth of tables and chairs, they literally were stumbling in the direction + of an exit when Claire felt a hand upon her arm. She turned.</p> +<p>"Pardon me," the man opposite her was saying, "but may I offer + you a place at our table?"</p> +<p>Claire said nothing; she followed blindly. Her mother was close upon her heels.</p> +<p>The table was a small one, and only two people were occupying it—the + man who had halted Claire, and a woman. The man, standing with one hand on the + chair which he had drawn up for Mrs. Robson, said, simply:</p> +<p>"My name is Stillman, and of course you know Mrs. Condor—the lady + who has just sung for us."</p> +<p>Claire gave a swift, inclusive glance. Yes, it was the same woman who had attempted + to beguile a weary audience from its impending repletion; at close range one + could not escape the intense redness of her hair or the almost immoral whiteness + of the shoulders and arms which she was at such little pains to conceal.</p> +<p>"Stillman?" Mrs. Robson was fluttering importantly. "Not the + old Rincon Hill family?"</p> +<p>"Yes, the old Rincon Hill family," the man replied.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson sat down with preening self-satisfaction. Wearily the daughter + dropped into the seat which Mrs. Condor proffered. The name of Ned Stillman + was not unfamiliar to any San Franciscan who scanned the social news with even + a casual glance, and Claire had a vague remembrance that Mrs. Condor also figured + socially, but in a rather more inclusive way than her companion. At all events, + it was plain that her mother, with unerring feminine insight, had placed the + pair to her satisfaction. Already the elder woman was contriving to let Stillman + know something of <i>her</i> antecedents. <i>She</i> was Emily Carrol, also + of Rincon Hill, and of course he knew her two sisters—Mrs. Thomas Wynne + and Mrs. Edward Finch-Brown! As Stillman returned a smiling assurance to Mrs. + Robson's attempts to be impressive, a young woman in white arrived with ice-cream + and messy layer-cake. Unconsciously Claire Robson began to smile. She could + not have said why, but somehow the presence of Ned Stillman and Mrs. Condor + at a table spread with such vacuous delights seemed little short of ridiculous. + They did not fit the picture any more than her beetle-browed, red-lipped Serbian + who.... She turned deliberately and swept the room with her glance. Of course + he had gone. It was not to be expected that <i>he</i> would descend to the level + of such puerile feasting. A sudden contempt for everything that only an hour + ago seemed so desirable rose within her, and, in answer to the young woman's + query as to whether she preferred coffee to ice-cream, she answered with lip-curling + aloofness:</p> +<p>"Neither, thank you.... I am not hungry."</p> +<p>Stillman looked at her searchingly. She returned his gaze without flinching.</p> +<p>Claire Robson did not sleep that night. She lay for hours, quite motionless, + staring into the gloom of her narrow bedroom, her mind ruthlessly shaping formless, + vague intuitions into definite convictions. She could not put her finger upon + the precise reason for her inquietude. Was it chargeable to so trivial a circumstance + as a stranger's formal courtesy or had something more subtle moved her? If the + depths of her isolation had been thrown into too high relief by the almost shameful + sense of obligation she felt toward Stillman for his courtesy, what was to be + said of the uniqueness of the solitary position which the Serbian awarded her + by singling her out for a sympathetic response? Could it be that a vague pity + had stirred him, too? Had things reached a point where her loneliness showed + through the threadbare indifference of her glance? In short, had both men been + won to gallantry by her distress? In one case, at least, she decided that there + was a reasonable chance to doubt. And that doubt quickened her pulse like May + wine.</p> +<p>But the humiliation of her last encounter with chivalry stuck with profound + irritation. She recalled the scene again and again. She remembered her contemptuous + silence before Stillman's obvious suavities, the high, assured laugh which his + companion, Mrs. Condor, threw out to meet his quiet sallies, the ruffling satisfaction + of her mother, chattering on irrelevantly, but with the undisguised purpose + of creating a proper impression. How easily Stillman must have seen through + Claire's muteness and the elder woman's eager craving for an audience! And all + the time Mrs. Condor had been laughing, not ill-naturedly, but with the irony + of an experienced woman possessing a sense of humor.</p> +<p>And at the end, when the four had left the church together, to be whirled home + in Stillman's car, the sudden nods and smiles and farewells that had blossomed + along the path of her mother's exit! Claire could have laughed it all away if + her mother had not betrayed such eagerness to drink this snobbish flattery to + the lees....</p> +<p>Claire's father had never entered very largely into her calculations, but to-night + her readjusted vision included him. Stubborn, kind, a bit weak, and inclined + to copying poetry in a red-covered album, he had been no match for the disillusionments + of married life. Her mother's people had felt a sullen resentment at his downfall—he + had taken to drink and died ingloriously when Claire was still in her seventh + year. Claire, influenced by the family traditions, had shared this resentment. + But now she found herself wondering whether there was not a word or two to be + said in his behalf. Her father had been a cheap clerk in a wholesale house when + he had married. The uncertain Carrol fortunes were waning swiftly at the time, + and Emily Carrol had been thrown at him with all the panic that then possessed + a public schooled in the fallacy that marriage was a woman's only career. The + result was to have been expected. Extravagance, debts, too much family, drink, + death—the sequence was complete. He had been captured, withered, cast + aside, by a tribe that had not even had the decency to grant his memory the + kindness of an excuse.</p> +<p>Wide-eyed and restless, Claire Robson felt a sudden pity for her father. Tears + sprang to her eyes; it overwhelmed her to discover this new father so full of + human failings and yet so full of human provocation. In her twenty-four years + of life she had never shed a tear for him, or felt the slightest pang for his + failure. If she had ever doubted the Carrol viewpoint, she had never given her + lack of faith any scope. She had taken their cast-off prejudices and threadbare + convictions as docilely as she had once received their stale garments. She had + shrunk from spiritual independence with all the obsequious arrogance of a poor + relation at a feast. Her diffidence, her self-consciousness, her timidity, were + the outward forms of an inbred snobbery. It was curious how suddenly all this + was made clear to her....</p> +<p>At length she fell into a troubled sleep.... When she awoke the room's outlines + were reviving before the advances of early morning. For the first time in her + life she caught the poetry of the new day at first hand. For years she had reveled + vicariously in the delights of morning. But it had always been to her a thing + apart, a matter which the writers of romantic verse beheld and translated for + the benefit of late sleepers. It never occurred to her that the day crawling + into the light-well of her Clay Street flat was lit with precisely the same + flame that colored the far-flung peaks of the poet's song. And instantly a phrase + of the Serbian's harangue came to her—blood-red dawn! He had repeated + these words over and over again, and somehow under the heat of his ardor and + longing for his native land this hackneyed phrase took on its real and dreadful + value. In the sudden sweep of this vital remembrance, Claire Robson rose for + a moment above the fretful drip of circumstance.... <i>Blood-red Dawn</i>!... + She threw herself back upon her bed and shuddered....</p> +<p>She rose at seven o'clock, but already the morning had grown pallid and flecked + with gray clouds.</p> +<p>An apologetic tap came at the door, and the voice of Mrs. Robson repeating + a formula that she never varied:</p> +<p>"Better hurry, Claire. If you don't you'll be late for the office!"</p> +<a name="I_II"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> +<p>As Claire stepped out into the cold sunlight of early November, she smiled + bitterly at the exaggeration of last night's mood. After the first hectic flush + of dawn there is nothing so sane and sweet and commonplace as morning. The spectacle + of Mrs. Finnegan, who lodged in the flat below, slopping warm suds over the + thin marble steps, added a final note of homeliness, which divorced Claire completely + from heroics.</p> +<p>"Well, Miss Robson, so you really got home, last night," broke from + the industrious neighbor as she straightened up and tucked her lifted skirts + in more securely. "I thought you never would come!... A package came from + New York for you. The man nearly banged your door down. I had Finnegan put it + on your back stoop.... It's from that cousin of yours, I guess. I was so excited + about it I kept wishing you'd get home early so that I could get a peep at all + the pretty things. But I'll run up just as soon as I get through with the breakfast + dishes."</p> +<p>Claire smiled wanly. "It was very good of you to take all that trouble, + I'm sure, Mrs. Finnegan!"</p> +<p>"Oh, bother my trouble!" Mrs. Finnegan responded. "I just knew + how crazy I'd be about a box. I guess we women are all alike, Miss Robson. Anyway, + your mother and I are!"</p> +<p>Mrs. Finnegan bent over her task again with a quick exasperated movement, and + Claire passed on. Her neighbor's abrupt rebuke gave Claire a renewed sense of + exclusion. She had meant to be warmly appreciative, but she knew now that she + had been only coldly polite. But, as a matter of fact, the prospect of delving + through a box of Gertrude Sinclair's discarded finery moved her this morning + to a dull fury. She felt suddenly tired of cast-offs, of compromise, of all + the other shabby adjustments of genteel poverty. And by the time she reached + the office of the Falcon Insurance Company her soul was seething with a curious + and unreasonable revolt. The feminine office force seemed seething also, but + with an impersonal, quivering excitement. Nellie Whitehead had been dismissed!</p> +<p>This Nellie Whitehead, the stenographer-in-chief, was big, vigorous, blond—vulgar, + energetic, vivid; and Miss Munch, her assistant, a thin, hollow-chested spinster, + who loafed upon her job so that she might save her sight for the manufacture + of incredible yards of tatting, never missed an opportunity to lift her eyes + significantly behind her superior's back.</p> +<p>"And what do you suppose?" Miss Munch was querying as Claire stepped + into the dressing-room. "She told Mr. Flint to go to hell!... Yes, positively, + she used those very words. And I must say he was a gentleman throughout it all. + He told her gently but firmly that her example in the office wasn't what it + should be and that in justice to the other girls...."</p> +<p>Claire turned impatiently away. The fiction of Mr. Flint's belated interest + in the morals of his feminine office force was unconvincing enough to be irritating. + For a man who never missed an opportunity to force his attentions, he was showing + an amazingly ethical viewpoint. On second thought, Claire remembered that Miss + Munch was never the recipient of Mr. Flint's attentions, which to the casual + eye might have seemed innocent enough—on rainy days gallantly bending + his ample girth in a rather too prolonged attempt to slip on the girls' rubbers, + insisting on the quite unnecessary task of incasing them in their jackets and + smoothing the sleeves of their shirt-waists in the process, flicking imaginary + threads where the feminine curves were most opulent. Not that Mr. Flint was + a wolf in sheep's clothing; he played the part of sheep, but he needed no disguise + for his performance; he merely lived up to a sort of flock-mind consciousness + where women were concerned.</p> +<p>The group clustered about Miss Munch broke up at the approach of Mr. Flint, + who gave a significant glance in the direction of Claire Robson, intent upon + her morning work. But the excitement persisted in spite of the scattered auditors, + and the fact was mysteriously communicated that Miss Munch's interest in the + event was chargeable to her hopes. It seemed impossible to Miss Munch that any + one but herself could succeed to the vacant post of stenographer-in-chief.</p> +<p>At precisely eleven o'clock the buzzer on Claire Robson's desk hummed three + times. This announced that she was wanted by Mr. Flint. She gathered her note-book + and pencils and answered the call.</p> +<p>Mr. Flint was busy at the telephone when Claire entered the private office. + She seated herself at the flat oak table in the center of the room.</p> +<p>Mr. Flint's office bore all the conventional signs of business—commissions + of authority from insurance companies, state licenses in oak frames, an oil-painting + of Thomas Sawyer Flint, the founder of the firm, over a fireplace that maintained + its useless dignity in spite of the steam-radiator near the window. On his desk + was the inevitable picture of his wife framed in silver, a hand-illumined platitude + of Stevenson, an elaborate set of desk paraphernalia in beaten brass that bore + little evidence of service. In two green-glazed bowls of Japanese origin, roses + from Mr. Flint's garden at Yolanda scattered faint pink petals on the Smyrna + rug. These flowers were the only concession to esthetics that Mr. Flint indulged. + In spite of a masculine distaste for carrying flowers, hardly a day went by + when he did not appear at the office with a huge harvest of blossoms from his + country home.</p> +<p>Claire was bending over, intent on picking up the crumpled rose-petals, when + Mr. Flint finally spoke. She straightened herself slowly. Her unhurried movements + had a certain grace that did not escape the man opposite her. She tossed the + bruised leaves into a waste-basket and reached for her pencil. Her heart was + pounding, but she faced Mr. Flint with a clear, direct gaze.</p> +<p>"Miss Robson, of course you've heard all about the rumpus," Mr. Flint + was saying. "I had to fire Miss Whitehead.... I think you can fill the + bill."</p> +<p>Claire rose without replying. Mr. Flint left his seat and crossed over to her.</p> +<p>"I hope," he said, flicking a thread from her shoulder, "that + you're game.... Some girls, of course, don't care a damn about getting on ... + especially if there's a Johnny somewhere in sight with enough cash in his pocket + for a marriage license."</p> +<p>"I am very much taken by surprise," Claire faltered. "You see, + the change means a great deal to me."</p> +<p>Mr. Flint moved closer. His manner was intimate and distasteful. "Sometimes + I think we business men ought to get more of a slant on our employees.... You + know what I mean, not exactly bothering about how many lumps of sugar they take + in their coffee, or their taste in after-dinner cheese ... but, well, just how + often they have to resole their boots and turn the ribbons on their spring bonnets.... + Now, in Miss Whitehead's case.... But of course you're not interested in Miss + Whitehead."</p> +<p>"Why, I wouldn't say that," stammered Claire. Then, as she reached + for her shorthand book she said, more confidently: "To be quite frank, + Mr. Flint, I liked Miss Whitehead tremendously. She was so alive ... and vivid."</p> +<p>Flint beamed. "Do you know why I picked you instead of that Munch dame?... + It's because you had all the frills of a woman and none of the nastiness. For + instance, you wouldn't be bothered in the least if I took a notion to overload + the office with another pretty girl.... I've watched you for some time. It has + taken me six months to make up my mind to fire Miss Whitehead and boost you + into her job."</p> +<p>He stood with an air of condescending arrogance, his thumbs bearing down heavily + on his trousers pockets, his broad fingers beating a self-satisfied tattoo upon + his thighs. Claire shrank nearer the table. "You mean, Mr. Flint, that + you dismissed Miss Whitehead merely to give me her position?"</p> +<p>Flint smiled. "Well, now you're coming down to brass-headed tacks. I'm + not keen on spelling out the whys and wherefores of anything I do.... But one + thing is certain enough—if Miss Munch had been the only available candidate + I <i>could</i> have stood Miss Whitehead.... There ain't much question about + that."</p> +<p>"Oh, Mr. Flint! I'm sorry!"</p> +<p>He gave a wide guffaw. "That only makes you all the more of a corker!" + he answered, rubbing his hands together in narrow-eyed satisfaction.</p> +<p>She escaped into the outer office, flushed, but with her head thrown back in + an attitude of instinctive defense, and the next instant she literally ran into + the arm of a man.</p> +<p>"Why, Miss Robson, but this <i>is</i> pleasant! I'm just dropping in to + see Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>She drew back. Mr. Stillman stood smiling before her.</p> +<p>Greetings and questions flowed with all the genial ease of one who is never + quite taken unawares. Claire, outwardly calm, felt overcome with inner confusion. + She passed rapidly to her desk and sat down.</p> +<p>Miss Munch was upon her almost instantly.</p> +<p>"Do <i>you</i> know Ned Stillman?" Miss Munch asked, veiling her + real purpose.</p> +<p>"Yes," replied Claire, with uncomfortable brevity.</p> +<p>"I have a cousin who was housekeeper for his wife's father.... You know + about his wife, of course."</p> +<p>Claire lifted her clear eyes in a startled glance that was almost as instantly + converted into a look of challenge.</p> +<p>"Yes," she lied.</p> +<p>Miss Munch hesitated, then plunged at once into the issue uppermost in her + mind. "It's too bad you've had to be bothered with Flint's dictation, Miss + Robson. It just happens I'm writing up a long home-office report, otherwise + I'm sure he wouldn't have annoyed you."</p> +<p>Claire Robson fixed Miss Munch with a coldly polite stare. "You've made + a mistake, Miss Munch. Mr. Flint has given me no dictation." The speech + in itself was nothing, but Claire's tone gave it unmistakable point. Miss Munch + grew white and then flushed. She turned away without a word, but Claire Robson + knew that in a twinkling of an eye she had gained not only an enemy, but an + uncommon one.</p> +<hr /> +<p>That night Claire took an unusually long way round on her walk home. Her path + from the Falcon Insurance Company's office on California Street to the Clay + Street flat was never a direct one, first, because there were hills to be avoided, + and, second, because Claire found the streets at twilight too full of charm + for a rapid homeward flight. The year was on the wane and the November days + were coming to an early blackness. Claire reveled in the light-flooded dusk + of these late autumn evenings. To her, the city became a vast theater, darkened + suddenly for the purpose of throwing the performers into sharper relief. Most + clerks made their way up Montgomery Street toward Market, but Claire climbed + past the German Bank to Kearny Street. She liked this old thoroughfare, struggling + vainly to pull itself up to its former glory. The Kearny Street crowd was a + varying quantity, frankly shabby or flashily prosperous, as far south as Sutter + Street, suddenly dignified and reserved for the two blocks beyond. To-night + Claire missed the direct appeal of the streets lined with bright shops. They + formed the proper background for her broodings, but they scarcely entered into + her mood. She could not have said just what flight her mood was taking, or upon + just which branch her thought would alight. She was confused and puzzled and + vaguely uneasy. She had a sense that somehow, somewhere, a door had been opened + and that a strong, devastating wind was clearing the air and bringing dead things + to ground in a disorderly shower. She was stirred by twilights of uneasiness. + It was almost as if the monotonous truce of noonday had been darkened by a huge, + composite, masculine shadow, made up in some mysterious way of the ridiculous + Serbian and his blood-red dawn, and this man Stillman, who had a wife, and Flint, + with hands so ready to flick threads from her sloping shoulders. Yesterday her + outlook had been peaceful and unhappy; to-day she felt stimulation of an impending + struggle. She was afraid, and yet she would not have turned back for one swift + moment. And suddenly the words of Mrs. Finnegan recurred, "I guess we women + are all alike." Were they?</p> +<p>At which point she came upon a pastry-shop window and she went in and bought + a half-dozen French pastries. The thought of her mother's pleasure at this unusual + treat brought her in due time smiling to her threshold.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson was not in her accustomed place at the head of the stairs; about + half-way up the long flight her voice sounded triumphantly:</p> +<p>"Oh, Claire, do hurry and see what Gertrude has sent! Everything is perfectly + lovely."</p> +<p>Claire quickened her pace and gained the cramped living-room. Thrown about + in a sort of joyous disorder, Gertrude Sinclair's finery quite lit up the shabbiness. + Hats, plumes, scraps of vivid silks, gilded slippers, a spangled fan—their + unrelated vividness struck Claire as fantastic as a futurist painting. Her mother + seemed suddenly young again. Claire wondered whether, after the toll of sixty-odd + years, she could be moved to momentary youth by the mere sight of the prettiness + that was quickening her mother's pulse.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson held up a filmy evening gown of black net embroidered with a rich + design of dull gold. "Isn't this heavenly?" she demanded. "And + it will just fit you, Claire. I think Gertrude has spread herself this time."</p> +<p>"Yes, on finery, mother. But didn't she send anything sensible? What possessed + her to load us up with a lot of things we can never possibly get a chance to + wear?"</p> +<p>Claire had not meant to be disagreeable, but there was rancor in her voice. + Mrs. Robson cast aside the dress with the carelessness of a spoiled favorite; + she always adapted her manner to the tone of her background.</p> +<p>"Claire Robson!" she cried, good-naturedly. "You're a regular + old woman! I'm sure <i>I</i> haven't much to be cheerful about, but I just won't + let anything down me!... If I wanted to, I could give up right now. Where would + we have been, I'd like to know, if I hadn't held my head up? Goodness knows, + <i>my</i> folks didn't help me. If they had had their way, I'd been out manicuring + people's nails and washing heads for a living. And <i>you</i> in an orphan-asylum! + That's what my people did for me! As it is, they shoved you out to work. What + chance have you of meeting nice people? No, Claire, I don't care how they have + treated me, but they might have given you a chance. I'll never forgive them + for that!... I thought last night when I was talking to Mrs. Condor and watching + you and Mr. Stillman how nice it would have been if.... Oh, that reminds me! + Who do you think has been here to-day?... Mrs. Towne! She came to apologize + about asking us to move our seats the other night. <i>She</i> knows the Stillmans + well. The old people were pillars of the Second Church in the 'sixties. I fancy + he is dancing about that Mrs. Condor's heels a bit. Of course, as Mrs. Towne + said, <i>she</i> wouldn't be likely to make herself a permanent feature of Second + Church entertainments. But now in war-times <i>anything</i> is possible. Mrs. + Towne was telling me all about Stillman and his wife. I <i>should</i> have remembered, + but somehow I forgot. Get your things off and I'll tell you all about it."</p> +<p>Claire handed her mother the package of pastries. "I heard about it to-day," + she said, coldly.</p> +<p>"But Mrs. Towne knows the whole thing from A to Z," insisted Mrs. + Robson, genially.</p> +<p>"I'm not interested in the details," Claire returned, doggedly.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson's face wore a puzzled, almost a harried, expression. Claire moved + away. Her mother gave a shrug and renewed her efforts to drag further finery + from the mysterious depths of the treasure-box. Her daughter cast a last incurious + glance back. The glow on Mrs. Robson's face, which Claire had mistaken for youth, + seemed now a thing hectic and unpleasant, and gave an uncanny sense of a skeleton + sitting among gauds and baubles.</p> +<p>A feeling of isolation swept Claire, such as she had never experienced. The + person who should have been closest suddenly had become a stranger.... She went + into her room and closed the door.</p> +<a name="I_III"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> +<p>The following week Claire was surprised to find a letter on her desk at the + office. The few written favors that came her way usually were addressed to the + Clay Street flat, so that she was puzzled by this innovation and the unfamiliar + handwriting. Glancing swiftly at the signature, she was surprised to see the + name "Lily Condor," scrawled loosely at the foot of the note. It seemed + that Mrs. Condor was giving a little musicale in Ned Stillman's apartments on + the following Friday night, and, if one could believe such a thing, the lady + implied that the evening would scarcely be complete without the presence of + Claire Robson—or, to put it more properly, Claire Robson and her <i>mother</i>.</p> +<p>As Claire had scarcely said a half-dozen words to Mrs. Condor on the night + of the Red Cross concert, this invitation seemed little short of extraordinary. + But, as Claire thought it over, she recalled that there had been some general + conversation about music, in which she had admitted a discreet passion for this + form of entertainment, even going so far as to confess that she played the piano + herself upon occasion. Her first impulse, clinched by the familiar feminine + excuse that she had nothing suitable to wear, was to send her regrets. At once + she thought of the scorned finery that Gertrude Sinclair had included in her + last box, and the more she thought about it the more convinced she became that + she had no real reason for refusing. But a swift, strange regret that her mother + had been included in the invitation took the edge off her anticipations. She + tried to dismiss this feeling, but it grew more definite as the morning progressed.</p> +<p>For days Claire had been striking at the shackles of habit with a rancor bred + of disillusionment. She had been on tiptoe for new and vital experiences, and + yet, for any outward sign, her life bid fair to escape the surge of any torrential + circumstance. Particularly, at the office, things had gone on smoothly. The + other clerks had accepted Claire's advancement without either protest or enthusiasm. + Even Miss Munch had veiled her resentment behind the saving trivialities of + daily intercourse. She had gone so far as to introduce Claire to her cousin, + a Mrs. Richards, who had come in at the noon hour for a new tatting design. + This cousin was a large, red-faced woman, with an aggressively capable manner. + She had the quick, ferret-like eyes of Miss Munch and the loose mouth of a perpetual + gossip.</p> +<p>"She's the one I told you about the other day," Miss Munch had explained + later—"the housekeeper for <i>your friend</i> Stillman's father-in-law." + She gave nasty emphasis to this trivial speech.</p> +<p>Flint had been direct and business-like almost to the point of bruskness. But + Claire knew that such moods were not unusual, so she took little stock in the + ultimate significance of his restrained manner.</p> +<p>Perhaps the most indefinable change had come over Claire's home life. Her mother's + unfailing string of trivial gossip, formerly not without a certain interest, + now scarcely held her to even polite attention. Indeed, her self-absorbed silence, + while Mrs. Robson poured out the latest news about Mrs. Finnegan's second sister's + husband's mother—who was suddenly stricken with some incurable disease, + made all the more mysterious by the fact that its nature was not divulged—was + so apparent that her mother, goaded on to a mild exasperation, would ask, significantly:</p> +<p>"What's the matter, Claire? Have you a headache?"</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson was never so happy as in the discovery of some one with a mysterious + disease, particularly if the victim's relatives were loath to discuss the issue.</p> +<p>"They think they fool me!" she would say, triumphantly, to Claire, + "but I guess I know what ails her.... Didn't her mother, and her uncle, + and her sister's oldest child die of consumption? I tell you it's in the family. + The last time I saw her she nearly coughed her head off."</p> +<p>Not that Mrs. Robson was unsympathetic; brought face to face with suffering, + she blossomed with every impulsive tenderness, but her experiences had confirmed + her in pessimism, and every fresh tragedy testified to the soundness of her + faith. Her pride at diagnosing people's ills and pronouncing their death-sentences + was almost professional. And she had an irritating way of making comments such + as this:</p> +<p>"Well, Claire, I see that old Mrs. Talbot is dead at last!... I knew she + wouldn't live another winter. They'll feel terribly, no doubt; but, of course, + it is a great relief."</p> +<p>Or:</p> +<p>"Why, here is the death notice of Isaac Rice! I thought he died <i>years</i> + ago. My, but he was a trial! What a blessing!"</p> +<p>This was the type of conversation that Claire was finding either empty of meaning + or illuminating to the point of annoyance. What amazed her was the fact that + she had remained blind so long to the slightest of the conversational food upon + which she had been fed.</p> +<p>Claire did not tell her mother about the invitation to Mrs. Condor's musical + evening.</p> +<p>"I'll wait," she said to herself. "Thursday will be time enough." + Although why delay would prove advantageous was not particularly apparent.</p> +<p>On Wednesday night at the dinner-table, Mrs. Robson, as if still puzzled at + her daughter's altered mood, said, rather cautiously:</p> +<p>"There's to be a reception at the church on Friday night."</p> +<p>"For whom?" inquired Claire, with pallid interest.</p> +<p>"I didn't quite catch the name.... Some woman back from France. She's + been nursing in one of the British hospitals. She's to get Red Cross work started + at the church. It seems San Francisco is a bit slow over taking up the work, + but, then, you know, we're poked off here in a corner and I suppose we don't + quite realize yet.... Anyway, Mrs. Towne wants us to help with the coffee. She + says you should have been in the church-work long ago. You look so self-contained + and efficient.... I told her we would be there at half past seven and get the + dishes into shape."</p> +<p>Claire's heart beat violently. "Friday night? I'm sorry, mother; I have + another engagement."</p> +<p>"Another engagement? Why, Claire, how funny! You never said anything about + it. I don't know what to say to Mrs. Towne."</p> +<p>Claire felt calm again. "Just tell her the truth."</p> +<p>"But she'll think so strange that I didn't know ... that I...."</p> +<p>"You shouldn't have spoken for me until you found out whether I was willing."</p> +<p>"Willing! <i>Willing!</i> I didn't suppose you'd be anything else. I've + been trying to get you in with the right people at the church for the last fifteen + years. I've tried so hard...."</p> +<p>"Yes, mother, I know," said Claire, patiently. "But don't you + see? That's just it. You've tried too hard."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson began to whimper discreetly. "How you do talk, Claire! I declare + I don't know what to make of it. I suppose you're bitter about Mrs. Towne the + other night. I felt so at first, but I can see now we were at the wrong table. + And, after all, everything came out beautifully. We sat with Mr. Stillman, and + that had a very good effect, I can tell you. Especially when everybody saw us + leave with him. Why, it brought Mrs. Towne to her feet."</p> +<p>"Yes, and that's the humiliating part of it."</p> +<p>"Well, Claire, when you've lived as long as I have you won't be so uppish + about making compromises," flung back Mrs. Robson. "Of course, if + you've got another engagement, you've got another engagement, but if...."</p> +<p>"I wouldn't have gone, anyway. I'm through with that sort of thing."</p> +<p>"Why, Claire, how can you! It's your duty, <i>now</i>!--with your country + at war—and ... and ... Even that dreadful Serbian the other night made + <i>that</i> plain."</p> +<p>"I'll go with you to church on Sundays, of course, but—"</p> +<p>"What am <i>I</i> to do?" wailed Mrs. Robson. "At least you + might think of me! I've not had much pleasure in my life, goodness knows, and + now just as I...."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson broke off abruptly on a flood of tears. Two weeks ago these tears + would have overwhelmed Claire. As it was, she sat calmly stirring her tea, surprised + and a little ashamed of her coldness. The truth was that Claire Robson was feeling + all the fanatical cruelty that comes with sudden conviction. The forms of her + new faith had hardened too quickly and left outlines sharp and uncompromising.</p> +<p>For years Claire had found shelter from the glare of middle-class snobbery + beating about her head, by shrinking into her mother's inadequate shadow as + a desert bird shrinks into the thin shadow of a dry reed by some burned-out + watercourse. Now a full noon of disillusionment had annihilated this shadow + and given her the courage of necessity. And there was something more than courage—there + was an eagerness to stand alone in the commonplace words with which she sought + to temper her refusal to assist at the coming church reception:</p> +<p>"I can't see any good reason, mother, why you shouldn't go and help Mrs. + Towne.... What have my plans to do with it?"</p> +<p>To which her mother answered:</p> +<p>"I do so hate to be seen at such places alone, Claire."</p> +<p>Claire made no reply. She did not want to give her mother's indecision a chance + to crystallize into a definite stand. She knew by long experience that if this + happened it would be fatal. But in a swift flash of decision Claire made up + her mind for one thing—she would either go to Mrs. Condor's evening alone + or she would send her regrets.</p> +<a name="I_IV"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> +<p>By a series of neutral subterfuges and tactful evasions Claire Robson won her + point—she went to the Condor musicale at Ned Stillman's apartments alone, + and on that same night her mother wended a rather grudging way to the Second + Presbyterian Church reception.</p> +<p>Acting under her mother's advice, Claire timed her arrival for nine o'clock, + an hour which seemed incredibly late to one schooled in the temperate hour of + church socials. Mrs. Condor herself opened the door in answer to Claire's ring.</p> +<p>"Oh, my dear, but I <i>am</i> glad to see you!" burst from the elder + woman as she waved her in. But she did not so much as mention the absence of + Mrs. Robson, and Claire was divided between a feeling of wounded family pride, + and gratification at the intuition which had warned her to leave her mother + to her own devices. More people arrived on Claire's heels, and in the lively + bustle she was left to shed her wraps in one of the bedrooms. Her heart was + pounding with reaction at her outwardly self-contained entrance. She let her + rather shabby cloak slip to the floor, revealing a strange, new Claire resplendent + in the gold-embroidered gown that had once so stirred her rancor. For a brief + instant she had an impulse to gather the discarded wrap securely about her and + make a quick exit. A swooning fear at the thought of meeting a roomful of people + assailed her. But there succeeded a courage born of the realization that they + all would be strangers. With a sense of bravado she stepped out into the entrance + hall again.</p> +<p>Ned Stillman came forward. She halted and waited for him. His face had lit + with a sudden pleasure, which told Claire that for once in her life her presence + roused positive interest. He inquired after her health, why her mother had not + come, whether the abominable fog was clearing. His easy formality put her, as + usual, completely at ease.</p> +<p>It was only when he asked her, with the most inconsequential tone in the world, + "whether she could read music at sight" that a sinking fear came over + her. And yet she found courage enough to be truthful and say yes.</p> +<p>"That's fine!" he returned. "Our accompanist hasn't come yet + and we want to start off with a song or two."</p> +<p>From this moment on the evening impressed itself on Claire in a series of blurred + hectic pictures.... She knew that Stillman was leading her toward the piano, + but the living-room and its toned lights gave her a curious sense of unreality. + She seated herself before the white keyboard and folded her hands with desperate + resignation while she waited for Stillman to dictate the next move.</p> +<p>"My dear Mrs. Condor," Stillman explained, as that lady came up to + them, "we sha'n't have to wait for Flora Menzies. Miss Robson will accompany + you."</p> +<p>Claire sat unmoved. She was beyond so trivial a sensation as anxiety. Stillman + drifted away; Mrs. Condor began to run through the sheet music lying on the + piano.</p> +<p>"Of course you know Schumann, Miss Robson. Shall we start at once? How + is the light? If you moved your stool a little—so. There, that's better."</p> +<p>Claire did not reply. She looked at the music before her. She was conscious + that it was a piece she knew, although its name registered no other impression. + She began to play. The opening bars almost startled her. She felt a hush fall + over the noisy room. Her fingers stumbled—she caught the melody again + with staggering desperation. Mrs. Condor was singing.... The room faded; even + the sound of Mrs. Condor's voice became remote. Claire had a desire to laugh.</p> +<p>All manner of strange, disconnected thoughts ran through her head. She remembered + a doll she had broken years ago and buried with great pomp and circumstance, + a pink parasol that had been given her as a child, the gigantic and respectable + wig which had incased the head of her old German music-teacher, Frau Pfaff. + And as she played on and on the music further evoked the memory of this worthy + lady who had given her services in exchange for lodgings in an incredibly small + hall bedroom, with certain privileges at the kitchen stove. And pictures of + this irritating woman rose before her, stewing dried fruit, or preparing sour + beef, or borrowing the clothes boiler for a perennial wash. What compromises + her mother had made to give her child the gentle accomplishments that Mrs. Robson + associated with breeding! It came to Claire that it was almost cruel to have + denied this mother a share in the triumphs of that evening. And with that, she + realized that Mrs. Condor had ceased singing. A hum broke loose, followed by + applause. Claire grew faint. Her head began to swirl. She clutched the piano + stool and by sheer terror at the thought of creating a scene she managed to + keep her consciousness as she felt Mrs. Condor's hand upon her shoulder and + heard a voice that just missed being patronizing:</p> +<p>"My dear, you did it beautifully."</p> +<p>Claire longed to burst into tears....</p> +<p>The concert was over shortly after eleven o'clock. Besides Mrs. Condor, there + had been a 'cellist, very masculine in his looks but rather forceless in his + playing, and a young, frail girl who brought great breadth and vigor to her + interpretations at the piano. But Claire was really too excited for calm enjoyment. + Supper followed—creamed minced chicken and extraordinarily thin sandwiches, + and a dry, pale wine that Claire found at first rather distasteful. Claire sat + with a little group composed of Mrs. Condor, Ned Stillman, a fashionable young + man, Phil Edington, who frankly confessed boredom at all things musical except + one-steps and fox-trots, and two or three artistic-looking souls who pretended + to be quite shocked by young Edington's frankness.</p> +<p>Conversation veered naturally to the subject of the war. Edington had tried + for a commission in an officers' training-camp and failed. He was extraordinarily + frank about it all, and good-natured at the chaffing that Mrs. Condor and Stillman + threw at him.</p> +<p>"I'm going to wait now and be drafted," he announced. "As long + as I failed to make a high grade I want to begin at the bottom and see the whole + picture."</p> +<p>Claire rather waited for a word from Stillman as to his convictions on the + subject. Of course one could see that he was over the draft age, still.... For + the most part she was silent, but happy and content. By contributing her share + to the evening's entertainment she had justified her presence. Wine as a factor + in midnight suppers was a new but not a revolutionary experience to Claire Robson, + but she gasped a bit when the maid passed cigarettes to the ladies. And yet + she felt a delicious sense of being a party to something quite daring and <i>outré</i>, + although she did not have either courage or skill to enjoy one of the slender, + gold-tipped delights.</p> +<p>The time for departure finally came. Claire rose reluctantly. Mrs. Condor, + slipping one arm in Phil Edington's and the other in Claire's, sauntered with + them toward the entrance hall.</p> +<p>"I say," ventured Edington as Stillman caught up to the group. "What's + the matter with just us four dropping down to the Palace for a whirl or two?"</p> +<p>Claire stared. She had not grown used to the novelty of being included, but + any instinctive objections to the plan were promptly silenced by Mrs. Condor's + enthusiastic approval.</p> +<p>They arrived at the Palace Hotel shortly before midnight. The Rose Room was + crowded. All the tables seemed filled, and Claire had a moment of disappointment + caused by the fear that their party would be unable to gain admittance. But + young Edington's presence soon set any uneasiness on that score at rest, and + a place was evolved with deftness and despatch. The novelty of the situation + to Claire was nothing compared with her matter-of-fact acceptance of it. She + was neither self-conscious nor timid. Her three companions had a way of tacitly + including her in even their trivial chatter that was unmistakable, though hard + to define. She felt that she was one of them, and she blossomed in this strange + new warmth like a chilled blossom at the final approach of a belated spring. + All evening her starved sense of self-importance had been feeding greedily upon + the compliments that had come her way. There had been her mother's rather apologetic + words of approval at her appearance, to begin with, then Mrs. Condor's appreciation + at the piano, and finally a word dropped by one of the women who had shared + a mirror with her at the hour of departure.</p> +<p>"How do you manage your hair, Miss Robson?" the other had said, digging + viciously at her shifting locks with a hairpin. "I do declare you're the + only woman in the room that looks presentable."</p> +<p>But it was Edington's words to Stillman while they stood waiting for the hotel + attendants to prepare the table that brought a quickened beat to her heart. + The conversation was low and not meant for her ears, but her senses were too + sharpened to miss Edington's furtive words as he whispered to Stillman:</p> +<p>"Where did ... amazing.... Miss Robson?"</p> +<p>Claire did not catch the reply which must have also been something of a query, + but she heard Edington continue.</p> +<p>"Well ... a little too silent, I must admit.... No, I don't dislike 'em + that way ... but I'm afraid of them."</p> +<p>Stillman answered with a low laugh.</p> +<p>They sat down. Edington ordered wine. The crowd at the tables was rather a + mixed one. There was plenty of elaborate gowning among the groups of formal + diners who had prolonged their feasting into the supper hour, but many casuals, + drifting in for a few drinks and a dance or two, robbed the scene of its earlier + brilliance.</p> +<p>The orchestra struck up a one-step. Claire denied Stillman the dance, explaining + that she knew none of the new steps, and he whirled away with Mrs. Condor. Edington, + robbed of his chance, pouted unashamed.</p> +<p>"I say, Miss Robson, can't you do a one-step—really? There isn't + anything to it! Come on—try; I'll pull you through."</p> +<p>Claire's knowledge of dancing was instinctive, but not a matter of much practice, + yet his distress was so comic that she relented. She wondered if he could feel + her trembling as they swung into the dance. She stumbled once or twice from + timidity, but Edington guided unerringly. Half-way round she suddenly struck + the proper swing.</p> +<p>"There—that's it," cried Edington, enthusiastically. "Now + you've got it! Fine!"</p> +<p>His praise mounted to her brain like a heady wine, and suddenly, in the twinkling + of an eye, all the repressed youth within her awoke with a sweet and terrible + joy.... They danced madly, perfectly, the rhythm entering into them like something + at once fluid and flaming. Her ecstasy awoke a vague response in her partner, + who bent forward as he kept repeating, monotonously:</p> +<p>"And you said you couldn't, Miss Robson! Fancy, you said you couldn't!"</p> +<p>The music stopped abruptly with a crash. Some of the dancers made their way + leisurely back among the tables, but the most of them wandered about the polished' + floor, clapping insistent hands for an encore. In this brief interlude, groups + arrived and departed. The musicians lifted their instruments to chin and lip, + struck an opening chord; couples began to whirl and glide. Claire Robson, palpitant + and eager, followed Edington's lead, but almost at the first moment of their + rhythmic flight they came crashing into the overcoated bulk of a man cutting + across the corner of the ballroom in an attempt at a swift exit. A smothered + protest escaped Edington, and Claire detached herself from her partner long + enough to see the offender bow very low and hear his apology in a voice and + manner that seemed curiously familiar:</p> +<p>"I beg your pardon. Pray forgive me! I should have known better."</p> +<p>In the twinkling of an eye the interrupted dancers were sweeping on again, + and the apologetic stranger, hat in hand, turning for a farewell look at the + pair. Claire Robson felt an up-leap of the heart; a fresh ecstasy quickened + her. It was the Serbian!</p> +<p>They finished the dance almost opposite their table and were met by a patter + of applause from Mrs. Condor and Stillman, who were already seated.</p> +<p>Claire was flaming with embarrassment as she faced Stillman.</p> +<p>"I hope you'll understand, Mr. Stillman," she faltered. "But + Mr. Edington seemed willing to risk my ignorance."</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor turned Claire's plaintive apology into a covert attack upon Stillman's + courage, but Stillman rescued Claire from further confusion by laughing back:</p> +<p>"Well, I'll have my revenge on Edington. I'll grant him all the one-steps, + but he can't have any of the waltzes, Miss Robson."</p> +<p>The waiter began to pour out the champagne. Claire settled back in her seat + with a feeling of delightful languor. The dance had released all the pent-up + emotions that a night of vivid sensations had called into her life. She had + come into the Rose Room of the Palace Hotel quivering in the leash of a restrained + enjoyment; it had taken the quick lash of opportunity to send her spirits hurtling + forward in wild and headlong abandon. She lifted her wine-glass in answer to + the upraised glasses of her companions, and the thought flashed over her that + it would be impossible for her to have quite her old vision again. In every + life there are culminating moments of joy or sorrow which either clear or dim + the horizon, and Claire felt that such moment was now hers.</p> +<p>Stillman rose promptly in his seat at the first strains of the waltz, which + proved to be the next number. Claire stepped out upon the floor with confidence.</p> +<p>She did not need any word of reassurance this time to tell her that her dancing + was more than acceptable, and, true to her brief experience with Stillman, he + refrained from voicing the obvious. They had begun the dance promptly and for + the first whirl about they had the floor almost to themselves. Claire's discreet + sidelong glances detected many approving nods in their direction; people were + noticing them and making favorable comment.... The floor filled, but even in + the crowd Claire had a sense that she and her partner were standing out distinctly.</p> +<p>The very nature of the waltz contrasted sharply with the one-step. There was + less abandon and more art. The first dance had expressed a primitive emotion; + the present slow and measured whirl a discriminating sensation. And slowly, + under the spell of Stillman's calm and yet strangely glowing manner, Claire + recovered her poise. All night she had been inhaling every fresh delight rapturously + with the closed eyes and open senses that one brings to the enjoyment of blossoms + heavy with perfume. It took Stillman's influence to rob the hours of their swooning + delight by recapturing her self-consciousness. Things became at once orderly + and reasonable. And as he led her back to their table she felt the flame within + cease its flarings and become steady, with a pleasurable glow. For a moment + she felt uneasy, as if she were being trapped by something sweetfully insidious. + Slowly, almost cautiously, she withdrew her arm from his. He made no comment; + it was doubtful if he really noticed her recoil.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Long past its appointed time the hall light in the Robson flat continued to + burn dimly. Mrs. Robson, sleepless and a bit anxious, waited alertly for the + sound of Claire's key in the door. The welcome click came finally, succeeded + by the unmistakable slam of an automobile door and the sharp, quick note of + a machine speeding up.</p> +<p>"She's come home in Stillman's car," flashed through Mrs. Robson's + mind, as she sat up in bed. At that moment Mrs. Finnegan's cuckoo clock, sounding + distinctly through the thin flooring, warbled twice with a voice of friendly + betrayal. "Mercy! it's two o'clock!" she muttered. "I wonder + if Mrs. Finnegan is awake?... I do hope she heard the automobile!..."</p> +<p>Seated at the foot of her mother's bed, Claire tried her best to give a satisfactory + report of the evening, but she found that she had overlooked most of the details + that her mother found interesting. Who was there? What did Mrs. Condor wear? + Did they have an elaborate spread?—the questions rippled on in an endless + flow.</p> +<p>Under the acceleration of Claire's recital, Mrs. Robson found her experiences + at the church reception left far behind. Even with scant details, Claire had + managed to evolve a fascinating picture of a life robbed sufficiently of puritanism + to be properly piquant. There was a tang of the swift, immoral, fascinating + 'seventies in Claire's still cautious reference to champagne and cigarettes. + It was impossible for any San Franciscan who had lived through those splendid + madcap bonanza days to deny the lure of gay wickedness. At least it was hard + to keep one's eyes on a prayer-book while the car of pleasure rattled by. And + a coffee-and-cake social was, after all, a rather tame experience in the face + of beverages more sparkling and eatables distinctly enticing.... Of course, + if Claire had been introduced to any of these questionable delights by anybody + short of a survivor of the Stillman clan, Mrs. Robson might have had a misgiving. + As it was, she was not above a certain forewarning sense that made her say with + an air of inconsequence as Claire finished her recital:</p> +<p>"Mrs. Towne tells me that there is a chance that Mr. Stillman's wife may + get well. She's in a private sanitarium, at Livermore, you know." She stopped + to draw up the bedclothes higher. "I do hope it's so!... But I'm always + skeptical about <i>crazy</i> people ever amounting to anything again. Seems + to me they're better off dead."</p> +<a name="I_V"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> +<p>For Claire Robson, there followed after the memorable Condor-Stillman musicale + a period of slack-water. It seemed as if a deadly stagnation was to poison her + existence, so sharp and emphasized was her boredom. On the other hand, Mrs. + Robson seemed to have contrived, from years of living among arid pleasures, + the ability to conserve every happiness that she chanced upon to its last drop. + Claire's invitation to be one of a distinguished group fed her vanity long after + her daughter had outworn the delights of retrospection. The memory of this incident + filled Mrs. Robson's thoughts, her dreams, her conversation. Gradually, as the + days dragged by, bit by bit, she gleaned detached details of what had transpired, + weaving them into a vivid whole, for the entertainment of herself and the amazement + of her neighbor, Mrs. Finnegan.</p> +<p>Formerly Mrs. Finnegan's information regarding what went on in exclusive circles + was confined to society dramas on the screen and the Sunday supplement. The + personal note which Mrs. Robson brought to her recitals was a new and pleasing + experience. After listening to the authentic gossip of Mrs. Robson, Mrs. Finnegan + would return to her threshold with a sense of having shared state secrets. On + such occasions Mrs. Robson's frankness had almost a challenge in it; she exaggerated + many details and concealed none.</p> +<p>"Yes," she would repeat, emphatically, "they served cigarettes + along with the wine. They <i>always</i> do."</p> +<p>"Well, Mrs. Robson," Mrs. Finnegan inevitably returned, "far + be it from me to criticize what your daughter's friends do. But I don't approve + of women smoking."</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, neither did Mrs. Robson, but she felt in duty bound to + resent Mrs. Finnegan's narrow attacks upon society.</p> +<p>"Well, Mrs. Finnegan, that's only because you're not accustomed to it. + Now, if you had ever...."</p> +<p>"Did Claire smoke?"</p> +<p>"Why, of course <i>not</i>! How can you ask such a thing? I hope I've + brought my daughter up decently, Mrs. Finnegan."</p> +<p>And with that, Mrs. Robson would deftly switch to a less exciting detail of + the Condor-Stillman musicale, before her neighbor had a chance to pick flaws + in her logic. But sooner or later the topic would again verge on the controversial. + Usually at the point where the scene shifted from Ned Stillman's apartments + to the Palace Hotel, Mrs. Finnegan's pug nose was lifted with tentative disapproval, + as she inquired:</p> +<p>"How many did you say went down to the Palace?"</p> +<p>"Only four—Mr. Stillman, Claire, Mrs. Condor, and a young fellow + named Edington."</p> +<p>"I suppose <i>that</i> Mrs. Condor was the chaperon. Finnegan knows her + well! She used to hire hacks when Finnegan was in the livery business years + ago. She's a gay one, I can tell you. When only the steam-dummy ran out to the + Cliff House...."</p> +<p>"That's nothing. Everybody who was anybody had dinners at the Cliff House + in those days. I remember how my father...."</p> +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Robson, maybe you do! But I'll bet <i>you</i> never went to + such a place without your husband ... and ... with a <i>strange</i> man."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson never had, and she would tell Mrs. Finnegan so decidedly. This + always had the effect of switching the subject again and Mrs. Robson found her + desire to know the real details of Mrs. Condor's questionable gaieties offered + up on the altar of class loyalty. For it never occurred to Mrs. Robson to doubt + that her social exile had nothing to do with the inherent rights of her position.</p> +<p>When everything else in the way of an irritating program failed to rouse Mrs. + Robson's dignified ire, her neighbor fell back upon the fact that Stillman was + a married man. Mrs. Finnegan really worshiped Mrs. Robson to distraction, but + she had a natural combative tendency that was at odds with even her loyalty.</p> +<p>"Mr. Stillman is a married man," Mrs. Finnegan would insist, doggedly. + "And I don't approve of married men taking an interest in young girls. + Who knows?—he may spoil your daughter's chances."</p> +<p>This statement always had the effect of dividing Mrs. Robson against herself. + She resented Mrs. Finnegan's insinuations concerning Stillman, because it was + not in her nature to be anything but partizan, and at the same time she was + mollified by her neighbor's recognition of the fact that Claire had such things + as chances. She always managed cleverly at this point by saying, patronizingly:</p> +<p>"Why, how you talk, Mrs. Finnegan! Mr. Stillman is just like an old friend. + Not that we've known <i>him</i> so long ... but the family, you know ... they're + old-timers. Everybody knows the Stillmans! Really one couldn't want a better + friend."</p> +<p>Thus did Mrs. Robson take meager and colorless realities and expand them into + things of blossoming promise. She was almost creative in the artistry she brought + to these transmutations. In the end she convinced <i>herself</i> of their existence + and she was quite sure that Mrs. Finnegan shared equally in the delights of + her fancy.</p> +<p>Meanwhile November passed, and the first weeks of December crowded the old + year to its death. November had been shrouded in clammy fogs, but no rain had + fallen, and everybody began to have the restless feeling engendered by the usual + summer drought in California prolonged beyond its appointed season. The country + and the people needed rain. Claire, always responsive to the moods of wind and + weather, longed for the cleansing flood to descend and wash the dust-drab town + colorful again. She awoke one morning to the delicious thrill of the moisture-laden + southeast wind blowing into her room and the warning voice of her mother at + her bedroom door calling to her:</p> +<p>"You'd better put on your thick shoes, Claire! We're in for a storm."</p> +<p>She leaped out of bed joyously and hurried with her dressing.</p> +<p>As she walked down to work the warm yet curiously refreshing wind flung itself + in a fine frenzy over the gray city. Dark-gray clouds were closing in from the + south, and in the east an ominous silver band of light marked the sullen flight + of the sun. People were scampering about buoyantly, running for street-cars, + chasing liberated hats, battling with billowing skirts. It seemed as if the + promise of rain had revived laughter and motion to an extraordinary degree. + At the office this ecstasy of spirit persisted; even Miss Munch came in hair + awry and blowsy, her beady eyes almost laughing.</p> +<p>Mr. Flint had not been to the office for two days. A sniffling cold had kept + him at home. Claire had rather looked for him to-day, and had prepared herself + for a flood of accumulated dictation. But the threat of dampness evidently dissuaded + him, for the noon hour came and went and Mr. Flint did not put in an appearance. + At about three o'clock in the afternoon a long-distance call came on the telephone + for Miss Robson. Claire answered. Flint was on the other end of the wire. He + wanted to know if she could come at once over to Yolanda and take several pages + of dictation. His cold was uncertain and he might not get out for the rest of + the week. He realized that it was something of an imposition on her good nature, + but she would be doing him a great favor if.... She interrupted him with her + quick assent and he finished:</p> +<p>"I'll have the car at the station, and of course you'll stay for dinner."</p> +<p>Claire hung up the receiver and looked at her watch. It was just half after + three. The next ferryboat connecting at Sausalito with the electric train for + Yolanda left at three-forty-five. She had no time to lose; it was a good ten + minutes' walk from the office to the ferry and little to be gained by taking + a street-car. She managed her preparations for departure successfully, but in + the end she had to ask Miss Munch to telephone her mother. Miss Munch assented + with an alarmingly sweet smile.</p> +<p>Claire walked briskly down California Street toward the ferry-building. No + rain had fallen, but the air was full of ominous promise. The wind was even + brisker than it had been in the morning, and its breath almost tropically moist.</p> +<p>"At sundown it will simply pour," thought Claire, as she exchanged + fifty cents for a ticket to Yolanda.</p> +<p>She presented her ticket at the entrance to the waiting-room and passed in. + The passageway to the boat was already open; she went at once and found a sheltered + corner outside on the upper deck. A strong sea was running and already the ferryboat + was plunging and straining like a restless bloodhound in leash. The air was + full of screaming gulls and the clipped whistling of restless bay craft. Claire + was so intent on all this elemental agitation that she took no notice of the + people about her, but as the boat slid lumberingly out of the slip she was recalled + by a voice close at hand saying:</p> +<p>"Why, Miss Robson, who would think of seeing you here at this hour!"</p> +<p>Claire turned and discovered Miss Munch's cousin sitting beside her, intent + on the inevitable tatting.</p> +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Richards, how stupid of me! Have you been here long?"</p> +<p>"About ten minutes. But I get so interested in my work I never have eyes + for anything else. How do you put in the time? A trip like this is so tiresome!"</p> +<p>Claire delved into her bag and brought out knitting-needles and an unfinished + sock.</p> +<p>"I'm trying a hand at this," she admitted, holding her handiwork + up ruefully. "But I'm afraid I'm not very skilful."</p> +<p>Mrs. Richards inspected the sock with critical disapproval.</p> +<p>"Oh, well," she encouraged, "you'll learn ... practice makes + perfect. I've just finished a half-dozen pairs. I suppose I'm laying myself + out for a roast doing tatting in public <i>these</i> war days! But it's restful + and I'm not one to pretend. As long as my conscience is clear I can afford to + be perfectly independent.... You don't make this trip every night, do you?"</p> +<p>"Oh my, no! I'm going over to Mr. Flint's to take some dictation. He's + home sick."</p> +<p>"I saw Mrs. Flint and the children coming <i>off</i> the boat just as + I got on." Mrs. Richards's voice took on a tone of casual directness.</p> +<p>"You know Mrs. Flint?"</p> +<p>"My dear girl, a trained nurse knows everybody—and everything about + them, too. You never get a real line on people until you live with them. I've + never nursed any of the Flint family, but I wouldn't have to to get their reputation—or + perhaps I should say, old Flint's."</p> +<p>"<i>Old</i> Flint's?" echoed Claire.</p> +<p>"Well, of course he isn't so awfully old, but men like him always give + that impression. They're so awfully wise—about <i>some</i> things. I <i>was</i> + so relieved when Gertie didn't get that dreadful Miss Whitehead's place. Being + in the general office is bad enough, but in his <i>private</i> office...." + Mrs. Richards lifted and dropped her tatting-filled hands significantly.</p> +<p>Claire felt the blood rush to her face. "I'm in the private office, Mrs. + Richards.... No doubt you forgot it."</p> +<p>"Well now, you know I <i>had</i> ... for the moment. But with a girl like + you it's different. Some women can handle men, but Gertie would be so helpless!"</p> +<p>The humor of Mrs. Richards's remark saved the situation for Claire. She changed + the subject deliberately. But somehow, with the conversation forced from the + particular to the general, Miss Munch's cousin lost interest, and by the time + the boat had passed Alcatraz Island Claire was deep in her thoughts again and + the other woman following the measured flight of the tatting-shuttle with strained + attention.</p> +<p>The boat was romping through the stiff sea like a playful porpoise, dipping + and plunging. A half-score of adventuresome gulls were still following in the + foam-churned wake. In the face of all the pitching about, Mrs. Richards had + quite a battle to direct her shuttle to any efficient purpose, and Claire was + almost amused at the grim determination she brought to the performance.</p> +<p>Presently a warning whistle from the ferryboat betrayed the fact that they + were nearing Sausalito. Mrs. Richards began to gather up her numerous bundles, + and Claire and she made their way down the narrow stairs to the lower deck. + Their progress was slow and uncertain. The southeaster was tearing across the + open spaces and bending everything before it; the lumbering boat dipped sideward + in a stolid encounter with its adversary.</p> +<p>"Mercy! What a night!" gasped Mrs. Richards, clutching at Claire's + arm.</p> +<p>A gust of wind struck them with its force just as they reached the lower deck. + Mrs. Richards staggered and wrestled vainly with tatting-bag and bundles and + a refractory skirt. For the moment both women were stalled in a desperate effort + to retain their equilibrium.</p> +<p>"Come!" gasped Claire. "Let's get over there in the shelter + of that automobile."</p> +<p>They made the leeward side of the automobile in question, and while Mrs. Richards + began to recover her roughly handled dignity Claire turned her attention to + the car. It was a huge dark-red affair, evidently fresh from the shop. Claire + knew none of the fine points of automobiles, but this one had unmistakable evidences + of distinction. She was peering in at its opulent depths when who should surprise + her but Ned Stillman.</p> +<p>"My dear Miss Robson!" he cried, in a tone of delight, as he faced + her from the opposite side of the car. "What do you think of it?"</p> +<p>"Yours?" she queried.</p> +<p>"Just out of the shop to-day. I couldn't wait until it cleared. I just + had to get out with it. And this kind of weather always puts me up on my toes. + Where are you going—to Ross? If you are, don't bother with the train. + Come along with me."</p> +<p>He circled about the machine and came up to her with a frank, outstretched + hand. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" he murmured as Mrs. Richards came into + view.</p> +<p>Claire began an introduction, but Mrs. Richards cut in with her odd, challenging + way.</p> +<p>"Oh, <i>I</i> know Mr. Stillman! But I guess he's forgotten <i>me</i>. + It's been some years, of course. At Mr. Faville's—your <i>wife's</i> father's + house."</p> +<p>Stillman paled for the briefest of moments, but he recovered himself cleverly. + "Mrs. Richards—of course! How do you do? It <i>has</i> been some + years."</p> +<p>"I'm going to Mr. Flint's—at Yolanda," said Claire, "to + take some dictation. He's been ill, you know."</p> +<p>"Ill? No, I hadn't heard it. Nothing serious, I hope."</p> +<p>"Not serious enough to keep Mrs. Flint at home, anyway," volunteered + Mrs. Richards, in her characteristically disagreeable way.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Richards saw Mrs. Flint and the children coming off the boat...."</p> +<p>"As I got on," interrupted the lady again.</p> +<p>"Oh, indeed, is that so?" Claire fancied that Stillman's tone held + something more than polite acceptance of what he had just heard. "I can + take you ladies to Yolanda if you'd like a spin in the open better than a stuffy + ride in the train."</p> +<p>"Thank you," Mrs. Richards returned, "but I get off at Sausalito. + I've no doubt Miss Robson will be delighted."</p> +<p>"I think I'd better not," said Claire. "Mr. Flint is sending + his car to the train for me. I shouldn't want to change my program and cause + confusion. But I'd like nothing better! The air is so bracing!"</p> +<p>"You can excuse <i>me</i>!" put in Mrs. Richards, moving toward the + forward deck. "It's going to pour in less than ten minutes. I'm not one + of those amphibious creatures who like to get wringing wet just for the fun + of it!"</p> +<p>Stillman lifted his hat. Claire stood for a moment undecided whether to follow + Mrs. Richards or remain for a chat with Stillman.</p> +<p>"I'm an awful fool, I suppose," Stillman smiled at Claire, "bringing + the car out on a night like this. But the truth is Edington promised to catch + this boat and I wanted him to try out the new plaything. I might have known + he wouldn't make it. We're running over for dinner with Edington's sister."</p> +<p>At this moment the boat crashed clumsily against the Sausalito ferry-slip, + and in the sudden confusion of landing Claire was swept along without further + ado.</p> +<p>She looked back. Stillman waved a genial good-by to her. She felt glad that + he was behind her, in a vague, impersonal, thoroughly inexplainable way.</p> +<a name="I_VI"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> +<p>Claire was disappointed that Mrs. Flint was not to be at home. She had caught + glimpses of her now and then coming into the office and she was interested in + the hope of seeing her at closer range. Mrs. Flint was a rather frumpish individual, + who always gave the impression of pieced-out dressmaking.</p> +<p>"She must subscribe to the <i>Ladies' Home Journal</i>," Nellie Whitehead + had commented one day. "You know that 'go-up-into-the-garret-and-get-five-yards-of-grandmother's-wedding-gown' + column. Well, she's a walking ad for it. She's no raving beauty, but if she + would throw out her chest and chuck those flat-heeled clogs of hers, and put + a marcel wave in her hair, maybe the old man would sit up and take notice."</p> +<p>To which Miss Munch had replied:</p> +<p>"Well, she's a mighty sweet woman, anyway!" in a tone calculated + to freeze the irrepressible Nellie Whitehead into silence.</p> +<p>"Who says she isn't? And at that, a good tailor-made suit and a decent-looking + hat won't spoil her disposition any...."</p> +<p>The children, too, were what Nellie Whitehead had termed "perfect guys." + On warm days Mrs. Flint would drag these two daughters of hers into the office, + dressed in plaid suits and velveteen hats; and when a cold north wind blew it + seemed inevitable that they would appear in gay and airy costumes up to their + knees, with impossible straw bonnets trimmed with daisies and faded cornflowers, + reminiscent of the white-leghorn-hat era.</p> +<p>"Men don't marry women for their clothes," Miss Munch used to say, + challengingly, to Nellie.</p> +<p>"Oh, don't they, indeed! Well, I've lived longer than sixteen and a half + years and I've noticed that it's the up-to-the-minute dame that gets away with + it and holds onto it every time, just the same. And any woman silly enough to + work the rag-bag game when her husband can afford seven yards of taffeta and + a Butterick pattern is a fool!"</p> +<p>Claire knew women who looked dowdy on dress-parade and yet managed to be quite + charming in their own houses. She was wondering whether this might not be Mrs. + Flint's case; anyway, she had hoped for a chance to decide this point, and now + Mrs. Flint was not at home.</p> +<p>As she settled into her matting-covered seat in the train she began to wonder + just who <i>would</i> be home at the Flint establishment. And she thought suddenly + of the disagreeable emphasis that Mrs. Richards had seen fit to give the fact + that Mrs. Flint was bound cityward. At this stage she became lost in discovering + so many points of contact between Mrs. Richards and her cousin, Miss Munch. + Then the train started with a quick lurch, and a view of the rapidly darkening + landscape claimed her utterly.</p> +<p>Claire always took a childish delight in watching the panorama of the countryside + unroll swiftly before the space-conquering flight of a train. And to-night the + quick close of the December day warned her to make the most of her opportunity. + The wind was whipping the upper reaches of the bay into a shallow fury, and + the water in turn was beating against the slimy mud and swallowing it up in + gray, futile anger. This part of the ride just out of Sausalito was always more + or less depressing unless a combination of full tide and vivid sunshine gave + its muddy stretches the enlivening grace of sky-blue reflections. Worm-eaten + and tottering piles, abandoned hulks, half-swamped skiffs, all the water-logged + dissolution of stagnant shore lines the world over, flashed by, to be succeeded + by the fresher green of channel-cut marshes. The hills were wind-swept, huddling + their scant oak covering into the protecting folds of shallow canons. At intervals, + clumps of eucalyptus-trees banded together or drew out in long, thin, soldier-like + lines.</p> +<p>Presently it began to rain. There was no preliminary patter, but the storm + broke suddenly, hurling great gray drops of moisture against the windows. Claire + withdrew from any further attempt to watch the whirling landscape. It was now + quite dark, the short December day dying even more suddenly under a black pall + of lowering clouds.</p> +<p>She began to have distinctly uncomfortable thoughts about her visit to the + Flints'. But the more uncomfortable her thoughts became, the more reason she + brought to bear for conquering them. Surely one was not to be persuaded into + a panic by any such person as Mrs. Richards! And by the time the brakeman announced + the train's approach to Yolanda, Claire had recovered her common sense. What + of it if Mrs. Flint had gone to town? There must be other women in the household—at + least a maid. It was absurd! The train stopped and Claire got off.</p> +<p>Flint's car was waiting, and Jerry Donovan, the chauffeur, stood with a dripping + umbrella almost at Claire's elbow as she hopped upon the platform.</p> +<p>As they swished through the inky blackness, Claire said to Jerry, with as inconsequential + an air as she could muster:</p> +<p>"I thought I saw Mrs. Flint get off the boat in town. But I guess I was + mistaken. She wouldn't be leaving Mr. Flint alone ... when he's ill."</p> +<p>"Ill?" Jerry chuckled. "Well, he ain't dead by a long shot. + Just a case of sniffles, and a good excuse for hitting the booze. He's in prime + condition, I can tell you."</p> +<p>Claire had never seen Flint in "prime condition," but she had it + from Nellie Whitehead that there were moments when the gentleman in question + could "go some," to use her predecessor's precise terms.</p> +<p>"About twice a year," Nellie had once confided to Claire, "the + old boy starts in to cure a cold. I helped him cure one ... but <i>never</i> + again!"</p> +<p>Jerry's observations aroused fresh anxiety, but they did not settle the issue + for Claire. She felt that she could not turn back at the eleventh hour. There + was nothing else for her to do but go through with the game. Yet she still hoped + for the best.</p> +<p>"<i>Did</i> Mrs. Flint go to town to-day?" she finally asked, point-blank.</p> +<p>"Sure thing," said Jerry, swinging the car past the Flint gateway.</p> +<p>Claire refused to be totally lacking in faith.</p> +<p>"There must be a maid," flashed through her mind, as Jerry stopped + the car and swung down to help her out.</p> +<p>A Japanese boy threw open the door as they scrambled up the rain-soaked steps. + But the fine, orderly, Colonial interior reassured Claire. The few country homes + she had seen had been of the rambling, unrelated bungalow type, with paneled + redwood walls either stained to a dismal brown or quite frankly left to their + rather characterless pink. This home was different. Even the pungent oak logs + crackling in the fireplace did so with indefinable distinction. The general + tone of the surroundings was as little in keeping with the patchwork personality + of its mistress as one could imagine. It was as if the singular completeness + of Mrs. Flint's home left no time nor energy for a finished individuality. Claire + got all this in the briefest of flashes, just a swift, inclusive glance about + the entrance hall and through the doorways leading into the rooms beyond. Particularly + did she sense the severe opulence of the dining-room, twinkling at a remoter + distance than the living-room—its perfectly polished silver, its spotless + linen, its wonderfully blue china, not to mention the disconcerting fact that + the table in the center was laid for but two.</p> +<p>And then Flint himself came forward with a very red face and an absurdly cordial + greeting.</p> +<p>"Well, I began to wonder whether you'd risk it. This will be a storm and + no mistake.... Here, let me have your coat. Come, you're quite wet.... Shall + you warm up on a hot toddy or something cooler—a cocktail?"</p> +<p>She felt his hand sliding down her arm as she released the coat to his too-eager + fingers. "Oh no, Mr. Flint! Thank you, nothing. It's only a bit of rain + on the surface. I'm quite dry."</p> +<p>"Quite dry!" He echoed her words with a guffaw. "Well, then, + we'll have to moisten you up. I always say everything's a good excuse for a + drink. If you're cold you take a drink to warm up; if you're warm you take one + to cool off. You dry out on one, and you wet up on one. I don't know of any + habit with so many good reasons back of it. I'm dry, too.... We'll have a Bronx! + That's a nice, ladylike drink."</p> +<p>Claire weighed her reply. She did not want to strike the wrong note; she wanted + to let him have a feeling that she was accepting everything in a normal, matter-of-fact + way, as if she saw nothing extraordinary in the situation.</p> +<p>"You're very kind, but really you know ... if I'm to get my dictation + straight...."</p> +<p>"Well, perhaps there won't be any dictation. We're not slaves, you and + I. Maybe it will be much pleasanter to sit before the fire and listen to the + storm. What do you say to that?"</p> +<p>She turned from him deliberately, under the fiction of fluffing up her hair + before a gilt mirror near the door. She was thinking quickly and with a tremendous, + if concealed, agitation. "Why," she laughed back, finally, "that + <i>would</i> be pleasant. But I came to take dictation, Mr. Flint. And women + ... women, you know, are so funny! If they make up their minds to one thing, + they can't switch suddenly to another idea."</p> +<p>He was paying no attention to her remark, a remark which she felt would have + fallen flat in any event, since it was so palpably studied.</p> +<p>"The living-room is in there," he said, pointing. "Make yourself + at home."</p> +<p>She went in and sat before the fire. Flint disappeared. She tried hard to analyze + the situation. It was unthinkable that Mr. Flint had deliberately planned this + piece of foolishness. He must have had some idea of work when he had telephoned + her; perhaps he still had. It was his way of being facetious, she argued, this + fine pretense that it was all to be a pleasant lark, or it may have been his + idea of hospitality. Of course he had been drinking, but she took comfort in + the thought that there must be instinctive standards in a man like Flint that + even whisky could not swamp. At least he must respect his wife—surely + it was not possible for Flint, drunk or sober, to offer such an affront to <i>her</i>, + however little he respected the women in his employ. She dismissed Mrs. Richards's + exaggerated insinuations with their well-deserved contempt, but she could not + thrust aside quite so readily the eye-lifting tone with which Stillman had met + the announcement of Mrs. Flint's absence from home.</p> +<p>This was the first time that Claire had seen Stillman since the musicale. She + had thought a great deal about him and particularly about his problem. She felt + a great desire to know everything—all the details of the unfortunate circumstance + that had driven his wife into a madhouse, and yet whenever her mother broached + the subject Claire changed the topic with curious panic. She seemed to dread + the hard, almost triumphant manner that her mother assumed in tracking misfortune + to its lair and gloating over it. She began to wonder whether Stillman would + be swinging back to the city on a late boat ... or would the storm keep him + at Edington's sister's home all night?</p> +<p>She was in the midst of this speculation when Flint came into the room.</p> +<p>"We'll eat early and have that off our minds," he announced. His + manner was brusk and business-like again. Claire felt reassured.</p> +<p>But she was disturbed to find a cocktail at her place at the table.</p> +<p>"Well, here's glad to see you!" Flint raised his glass and tilted + it ever so slightly in her direction. Claire lifted the cocktail to her lips + and set it down untasted. "What's the matter? Getting unsociable again?"</p> +<p>"No, Mr. Flint. I don't care for cocktails."</p> +<p>"Oh, all right! We'll send down-cellar and get some wine."</p> +<p>"Thank you, not for me."</p> +<p>"I suppose you don't care for wine, either?" His voice had a bantering + quality, with a shade of menace in it. "Or maybe the right party isn't + here. I've noticed that makes a difference. Females are damned moral with the + wrong fellow."</p> +<p>His attack was so direct and insolent that Claire missed the trepidation that + might have come with a more covert move. She was no longer uncertain. There + was a sharp relief in realizing that all the cards were on the table. She felt + also that there was no immediate danger. Flint was far from sober, but he was + in his own home. She had the conviction that he was merely skirmishing, testing + the strength or weakness of the line he hoped to penetrate. Her reply was rather + more of a challenge than she could have imagined herself giving under such a + circumstance.</p> +<p>"And if I were to tell you that I don't care for wine, Mr. Flint?"</p> +<p>He threw open his napkin with a flourish. "You'd be telling me a damned + lie! You drink wine at the Palace with Stillman and Edington."</p> +<p>She had felt that he was going to say some such thing and for a moment it amused + her. It was so ridiculous to find this rather wan and wistful indiscretion assuming + damaging proportions. But a nasty fear succeeded her faint amusement. Could + it be possible that Stillman had gossiped?</p> +<p>"Who told you?" she demanded.</p> +<p>"Oh, don't be afraid; it wasn't Stillman! You're like all women, you moon + about sentimentalizing over Ned until it makes a man like me sick! I like Ned; + I always have. But even when we went to college together it was the same way. + Everybody ... yes, even the men ... always gave him credit for a high moral + tone. Not that he ever took it.... I'll say that for him.... Ned Stillman didn't + tell me, for the simple reason that he didn't have to. Nobody told me. I go + to the Palace myself under pressure, and I've got two eyes. As a matter of fact, + there isn't any reason why Edington or Stillman or the waiter who drew the corks + shouldn't have mentioned it. A glass of wine is no crime. But the thing that + makes me hot is to see any one pretending. If you drink with Stillman, you haven't + any license to refuse a glass with me."</p> +<p>There was something more than wine-heated rancor back of his harangue. Claire + guessed instinctively that he both loved and hated Stillman with a curious confusion + of impulses. It was a feeling of affection torn by the irritating superiority + of its object. One gets the same thing in families ... among children. It was + at once subtle and extremely primitive.</p> +<p>"My dear Mr. Flint, this isn't quite the same thing. I've work to do for + one thing and, and...."</p> +<p>"And ... and.... Why don't you say it? You're alone with me and all that + sort of rubbish! Want a chaperon, I suppose. Mrs. Condor, for instance.... Good + Lord!"</p> +<p>Claire dipped her spoon into the steaming bouillon-cup in front of her. She + was growing quite calm under the directness of Flint's attack.</p> +<p>"It isn't the same," she reiterated, stubbornly. "I've work + to do, Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>"I tell you that you haven't!" Flint brought his fist down upon the + table.</p> +<p>"Well, then, why did you send for me?"</p> +<p>"I had something to say to you.... Gad! one can't talk in that ramping + office of mine. We've never even settled the matter of an increase in salary + for you. By the way, how much money do you get?"</p> +<p>Claire had never seen any man look so crafty and disagreeable. He gave her + the impression of a petty tyrant about to bestow largess upon an obsequious + and fawning slave.</p> +<p>"Sixty-five dollars a month."</p> +<p>"Well, I don't exactly know.... I've been trying to figure out just how + valuable you are to me, Miss Robson. Or, rather, how valuable you're likely + to be." He thrust aside his soup and leaned heavily upon the table. "That's + why I invited you over to-night. I wanted to see you at a little closer range. + You live with your mother, don't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>"You ... you support your mother, I believe?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>"Well, sixty-five dollars don't leave much margin for hair ribbons and + the like, does it, now?"</p> +<p>"No, Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>"No, Mr. Flint.... Yes, Mr. Flint...." he mocked. "Good Lord! + can't you cut that school-girl-to-her-dignified-guardian attitude. I'm human. + Dammit all, I'm as human as your friend Ned Stillman. I'll bet you don't yes-sir + and no-sir him.... You know, that night I saw you at the Palace you quite bowled + me over. I'd been thinking of you as a shy, unsophisticated young thing. But + you were hitting the high places like a veteran. Even old lady Condor didn't + have anything on you. Except, of course, that she looks the part. By the way, + where did you meet Stillman?"</p> +<p>"At ... at a church social," Claire stammered.</p> +<p>"At a church social! Say, I wasn't born yesterday. Ned Stillman doesn't + go to church. Tell me something easy."</p> +<p>"It was really a Red Cross concert. He went with Mrs. Condor," Claire + found herself explaining in spite of her anger. "We sat at the same table + when the ice-cream was served."</p> +<p>Flint was roaring with exaggerated laughter. Even Claire could not restrain + a smile. What made the statement so ridiculous, she found herself wondering. + Was she unconsciously reflecting Flint's attitude or had she herself changed + so tremendously in the last few weeks?</p> +<p>"Stillman at a church social! But that <i>is</i> good! And eating ice-cream.... + How long ago did all this happen, pray?"</p> +<p>"Sometime in November."</p> +<p>He stopped his senseless guffawing and looked at her keenly. "Where did + you get the church-social habit?"</p> +<p>"I ... why, I guess I formed it early, Mr. Flint. As you say, sixty-five + dollars a month doesn't leave much for hair ribbons or anything else. Going + to church socials is about the cheapest form of recreation I can think of."</p> +<p>The bitterness of her tone seemed to pull Flint up with a round turn. "Well, + we're going to get you out of this silly church-social habit. Dammit all, Stillman + isn't the only possibility in sight. That's just what I wanted to get at—your + viewpoint. I take an interest in you, Miss Robson—a tremendous interest. + Good Lord! I can dance one-steps and fox-trots and hesitations as well as anybody! + I danced every bit as well as Ned Stillman when we went to dancing-school together. + But he always got most of the applause. He <i>has</i> an air, I don't deny that, + but he's working it overtime.... And he's not in any better position for being + friendly to you than I am—<i>he's</i> married."</p> +<p>The talk was sobering him a little. Claire was amazed to find that she did + not feel indignant. His tone was offensive, but at least it was forthright. + Besides, she had known instinctively that some day he would force the issue, + and she was rather glad to get it settled. And she began to hope that she could + persuade him skilfully against his warped convictions. She was trembling inwardly, + too, at the thought that she might make a false step and find herself out of + a position. Positions were not easy to land these days. She knew a half-score + of girls who had tramped the town over in a desperate effort to find a vacancy. + Two or three months without salary meant debts piling up, clothes in ribbons, + and no end of hectic worries.</p> +<p>"I think you've got a decidedly wrong impression of my friendship for + Mr. Stillman," she said, after some deliberation. "I really know him + only slightly. He was good enough, or rather I should say Mrs. Condor was good + enough, to include me in a little musical evening. That was on the night you + saw me at the Palace. We dropped down for a dance or two after the music was + over. I'd never been to such a place before, and I dare say I'll never go again. + It was just one of those experiences that come to a person out of a clear sky. + It's over as quickly as a shower."</p> +<p>"Oh, don't you worry! There'll be other showers. I'm going to see to that. + You know, the more I talk to you the more amazing you are.... Fancy your graduating + from dinky church things into Stillman musicales, and Palace dansants, and young + Edington, and old lady Condor, all of a sudden ... and getting away with it + as if you were an old hand at the game. Say, if you're that apt I'll give you + a post-graduate course in high life that'll make your hair curl forty-seven + ways. I don't mean anything vulgar or common ... <i>you</i> understand. I'm + a gentleman, Miss Robson, at that."</p> +<p>He stopped for a moment to ring the bell for the Japanese boy. Claire maintained + a discreet silence. She had a feeling that it would be just as well to let him + take his full rein. The servant came in and cleared away the empty bouillon-cups. + Fish was served.</p> +<p>Flint took one taste of the fish and shoved it away impatiently. "You + know, a fellow like me gets awfully bored at all this sort of thing." He + swept the room with an inclusive gesture. "Not that my wife isn't the best + little woman in the world, but <i>you</i> know. She's got standards and convictions + and all that sort of rot. I can't bundle <i>her</i> off for dinner and a little + lark at the Red Paint or Bonini's or some other Bohemian joint like them.... + You know what I mean, no rough stuff ... but a good feed, and two kinds of wine, + and a cigarette with the small black. Just gay and frivolous.... Of course I + can get any number of girls to run around and help eat up all the nourishment + I care to provide. But, good Lord! that isn't it! I'm looking for somebody with + human intelligence. Not that I want to discuss free verse and the Little Theater + movement. But I like to feel that if I took such a crazy notion the person sitting + opposite me could qualify for a good comeback.... I like my home and everything, + but.... Oh, well, what's the use in pretending? I'm just as human as your friend + Ned Stillman and I've got just as keen an eye for class."</p> +<p>He sat back in his seat with an air of satisfaction, waiting for Claire's reply. + She had been calm enough while he talked, but under the tenseness of his silent + expectancy she felt her heart bound.</p> +<p>"Dammit all! Why don't you say something?" he blurted out. "I + know, you need a little wine. I'm going down-stairs and pick out the best in + the cellar ... <i>myself</i>."</p> +<p>She did not attempt to dissuade him; as a matter of fact, she felt relieved + to be left alone for a moment. She must leave as soon as dinner was over. She + began to wonder about the trains. The storm was raging outside. She could hear + the frenzied trees flinging their branches about and a noisy flood of rain against + the windows. She spoke to the Japanese boy as he was carrying away Flint's unfinished + fish course.</p> +<p>"Do you know what time the next train leaves?"</p> +<p>He laid the tray on the serving-table. "Please.... I telephone. Please!" + He bobbed at her absurdly and went out into the hall. She listened. He was ringing + up the station-master. He came back promptly.</p> +<p>"Please," he began, sucking in his breath, "please ... no train + to-night."</p> +<p>"No train to-night? Why, what do you mean?"</p> +<p>"Please ... very much water. Train track washed out. No train to-night. + To-morrow morning, maybe."</p> +<p>"Oh, but I must go home to-night! I really must! I...."</p> +<p>She broke off suddenly, realizing the futility of her protest.</p> +<p>"To-morrow morning," replied the Japanese, blandly. "All right + to-morrow morning. You stay here.... I fix a place. You see.... I fix a very + nice place for young lady."</p> +<p>He went out with the tray and Claire rose and walked to the window. Flint broke + into the room noisily. She turned—he had two dusty bottles in his hand, + and an air of triumph.</p> +<p>"Mr. Flint, it seems that there has been a washout. I understand that + no trains are running. What can I do? I must get back; really I...."</p> +<p>"Who says so?" Flint laid the bottles down with an irritating calmness.</p> +<p>"The station-master. Your ... your servant just telephoned for me."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, <i>we</i> should worry! Sit down."</p> +<p>"Mr. Flint, really, I must.... You know I can't.... I...."</p> +<p>"Sit <i>down</i>!"</p> +<p>His tone was a dash of cold water thrown in the face of her rising hysteria. + She sat down. Flint ignored the bottles on the table and, crossing over to the + Sheraton sideboard, poured himself a stiff drink of whisky. His hair-towsled + condition stood out sharply against the precise background.</p> +<p>He made no further comment, but he began to open the bottles of wine deliberately. + Then he rummaged in the china-closet for the wine-glasses and set four, two + at his place and two at Claire's, upon the table.</p> +<p>"White wine with the entree and red wine with the roast," he muttered. + And he poured out the white wine without further ado.</p> +<p>The servant came in with creamed sweetbreads. Claire forced herself to make + a pretense of eating, although her appetite had long since deserted her. She + was thinking, and thinking hard.</p> +<p>She should never have come, in the first place—at least she should have + turned back upon the strength of Jerry's announcement. But she saw now, with + a clearness that surprised her, that the situation had really challenged her + imagination. She had been too calm, too collected, too well-poised, full of + smug over-confidence. She had read in the current novels of the day how hysterically + unsophisticated heroines conducted themselves in tight corners and she had followed + their writhings with ill-concealed impatience. She never had really put herself + in their place, but she had had a vague notion that they carried on absurdly. + Her fear all evening had been not what Mr. Flint would do or say or even suggest—she + had been anxious merely to have the impending storm over, the air cleared, and + her position in the office assured upon a purely business-like basis. She had + really welcomed the forced issue; for weeks her mind had been entertaining and + dismissing the idea that Mr. Flint had any questionable motives in yielding + Nellie Whitehead's place to her. With this fleeting trepidation had come the + realization of her dependence, the importance her sixty-five dollars a month + in the scheme of things, the compromises that she might be forced into accepting + in order to insure its continuance; not definite and soul-searing compromises, + it was true, but petty, irritating trucklings which wear down self-esteem.</p> +<p>It had been the primitive violence of Flint's commanding, "Sit down!" + to thrust the issue from the economic to the elemental. For the first time in + her life Claire was face to face with unstripped masculine brutality. She had + wondered why women of a lower order took men's blows without striking back, + without at least escaping from further torment. But she was beginning to see, + as her spirits tried to rise reeling from Flint's verbal assault, the fawning + submission, half admiration, half fear, that could follow a frank, hard-fisted + blow. And she had a terror, sitting there trying to thrust food between her + trembling lips, that the sheer physical force of the male opposite her might + shatter in one blow a will that could have withstood any amount of spiritual + or material attrition. She had never seen Flint so clearly as at this moment; + in fact, she had never seen him <i>at all</i>. Formerly, he had been a conventionalized + masculine biped in a blue-serge covering who paid her salary and struck attitudes + that were symbols of predatory instincts rather than an indication that such + instincts existed. Life had, after all, been peopled by the precisely labeled + puppets of a morality play; they came on, and declaimed, and made gestures—but + they remained abstractions, things apart from life, mere representations of + the vices and virtues they impersonated. She had entertained this idea particularly + with regard to Flint. She had felt that the day would come when he and she would + occupy the stage together. He would speak his part with a great flourish of + the hands and much high-sounding emphasis, and when he had finished she would + reply with a carefully worded retort, setting forth the claims and rewards of + virtue. Thus it would continue, argument succeeding argument, a declamatory + give and take, dignified, passionless, theatrical.</p> +<p>They were occupying the stage now, it was true, but there was something warm + and human and ragged about the performance. Flint was not a mere spiritless + allegory in red-satin doublet and hose to give flame to his conventionality. + Instead, she saw sitting opposite her a ponderous, quick-breathing, drunken + male, handsome in a coarse, rough-hewn way, speaking in the quick, clipped speech + of passion and striking her to the ground with the energy of his stage business. + She was afraid, almost for the first time in her life, with a primitive, abandoned + fear. And suddenly her vista of womanhood narrowed to include the ugly foreground + of life that youth had looked over in its eager, far-flung scanning of the horizon + beyond. Suddenly she felt all the oppression and sorrow of the sex bear down + upon her and mark her with its relentless finger. Because she was a woman she + would pay for every joy with a corresponding sorrow; receive a blow for every + caress; know courage and fear with equal intimacy.... She stopped eating and + she began to realize with a vivid terror that Flint was looking at her fixedly + and beginning to speak.</p> +<p>"What's the matter with the sweetbreads? Don't you like 'em?... And the + wine?... Say, I'm going to get peeved in a minute. You don't suppose we serve + this French-restaurant style of meal every day do you? I should say <i>not</i>! + That's another one of the <i>frau's</i> convictions. Plain living at home so + as to set the right example to the <i>girls</i>!" Flint threw his head + from side to side, mincing out his last statement. "Gad! I'm tired of setting + a good example!... And even Sing gets tired. Chinks, you know, like to cook + a bang-up meal once in a while. They like a chance to show their speed and put + in all the fancy trimmings."</p> +<p>His mood, during this speech, had changed with drunken facility from irritability + to good humor. Claire, still attempting to marshal her wits, picked up her fork + again and murmured:</p> +<p>"Oh, you have a Chinese cook, then? I had no idea.... The Japanese boy, + you know. They say that the two never get along."</p> +<p>"That's a fairy-tale. Besides, it's next to impossible, these days, to + get a Chinese second-boy. And the missus <i>won't</i> hire a girl." He + winked broadly. "Can't get one ugly enough, I guess. Sing's a wonder. I + copped him from the Tom Forsythes. <i>You</i> know—young Edington's in-laws. + They've never quite forgiven me. Though they <i>will</i> come back and tuck + away one of his dinners occasionally."</p> +<p>Claire's mind closed nimbly over Flint's statement. "The—the Tom + Forsythes of Ross?" she asked.</p> +<p>He nodded and tossed a glass of wine off in one gulp. The Tom Forsythes of + Ross ... Edington's sister ... Ned Stillman! The sequence of ideas flashed through + Claire's mind with flashing detachment. She leaned back in her seat and raised + the wine-glass in obvious pretense to her lips. Flint was watching her keenly: + an ugly gleam was in his eyes.</p> +<p>"Well, Miss Robson, you might just as well make up your mind to finish + that glass of wine first as last. We're not going to have the next course until + you do."</p> +<p>She measured him deliberately. She knew now that it was to be a fight to a + finish. She was honestly afraid and full of the courage of realization.</p> +<p>"I've had enough as it is, Mr. Flint. Besides, we must either be getting + to work or figuring how I am to make the boat at Sausalito. I suppose you could + send me in the car ... with Jerry."</p> +<p>"Oh, with Jerry? So that's it!... No, not on your life! He's too good-looking + a boy for a job like that. No, Miss Robson, you are going to stay <i>right</i> + here.... Now, understand me, I'm not a damn fool! You seem to have an idea that + because I've had a glass or two that I've lost my reason. You're an attractive + girl and all that, Miss Robson, and I am interested in you! But please don't + flatter yourself that I'm staking everything on a throw like this. As a matter + of fact, I'll see that you are properly chaperoned. We've plenty of neighbors. + You've got the best excuse in the world for staying here and...."</p> +<p>"But, my dear Mr. Flint, can't you see, I...."</p> +<p>"No, I can't. I want you to stay <i>here</i>. My reasons are as good as + yours. Now let's get that off our mind and enjoy the meal."</p> +<p>His manner struck her protests to the ground again. She was no longer fearing + the immediate outcome, in fact, she never had, but she knew that if he broke + her to his will now, all the safeguards, all the chaperons, all the conventions + in the world wouldn't save her from ultimate consequences. This was the try-out + that was to establish her pace in the final contest; she would stand or fall + upon the record she made at this moment. For she was trying out something more + than Flint's temper, something greater than a mechanical adjustment of human + relationships—she was trying out <i>herself</i>. She sat for some moments, + thinking hard, one hand fingering the slender base of the wine-filled glass + in front of her, the other dropped in pensive limpness at her side. Flint had + cleared the space in front of him of everything but his two wine-glasses. He + had slipped down in his seat and his two bloodshot eyes were fixing her with + a level stare.</p> +<p>She stirred finally and rose.</p> +<p>He was on his feet in an instant.</p> +<p>"I'm going to telephone," she said, calmly.</p> +<p>"Telephone ... where?... What's the idea?"</p> +<p>"Mr. Flint," she answered, a bit wearily, "at least I'm a guest + in your house, am I not?"</p> +<p>He settled back in his seat with a grunt of acquiescence. She stood dazed for + a moment, surprised at the chance that had put such telling words into her mouth. + She had been fingering timidly for the key to his chivalry; quite by accident + she had hit upon it in the shape of this appeal to her expectations of him in + the rôle of host. She could have lied, of course, and told him that she + wished to telephone her mother, but she had not yet been cornered sufficiently + to resort to so distasteful a weapon.... As she left the room she found herself + wondering whether Stillman had by any chance left the Tom Forsythes. She looked + at the clock. It was not quite eight o'clock. She felt reassured, yet she was + tremendously frightened.... Especially as she realized that the telephone was + in the entrance hall within earshot of the dining-room....</p> +<p>She was decidedly more frightened when she got back from her telephoning, and + looked at Flint. He was clutching at the table with both hands, his body tilted + slightly forward, his lips ominously thin.</p> +<p>"You telephoned to the Tom Forsythes, didn't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"And you asked for Stillman.... Did you get him?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"What did you want with him?"</p> +<p>"If you heard that much, I guess you heard the rest, Mr. Flint."</p> +<p>Claire stood at her place at the table. She decided not to sit. Flint bore + down on both hands until things began to creak.</p> +<p>"Yes, I heard everything, but, dammit all, I couldn't believe my own ears. + You're like every woman I ever knew ... you don't play fair. You appeal to my + instinct as host and then you go and outrage every privilege you've got me to + concede. You're a pretty guest, you are! And I sit here and let you 'play me + for a fool.' Let you ring up Ned Stillman and ask him to fetch you away from + <i>my</i> house in <i>his</i> car!" He stopped and took a deep breath; + his words were no longer passionate; instead, they were precise and cool and + venomous. "Understand me, young lady, I'm through with you. I wouldn't + care, if I thought you were really virtuous. But you're too clever for a virtuous + woman.... Oh, I dare say you subscribe to the letter of the law, all right. + For instance, you take care not to run around with married men whose incumbrances + are in plain view of the audience.... Oh, I've seen lots of clever women in + my time, but in the end they always took too much rope. Remember, you'll have + your bluff called some day."</p> +<p>He pushed back his chair noisily and rose. The Japanese servant came bobbing + along.</p> +<p>"Clear away the things!" Flint bellowed. "We're through!... + Good night, Miss Robson, and a pleasant journey to you—you and your <i>immaculate</i> + friend Stillman."</p> +<p>He left the room with a melodramatic flourish.... Presently Claire heard him + mounting the stairs.</p> +<p>"He's drunk!" flashed through her mind, as if the idea had just struck + her. "Of course, he must be drunk, otherwise he wouldn't have dared to...."</p> +<p>She went out into the entrance hall and put on her hat.</p> +<a name="I_VII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3> +<p>Midway between Yolanda and Sausalito Stillman's machine died with disconcerting + suddenness The rain was coming down in sheets. Stillman got out.</p> +<p>"It's no use," he announced, lifting himself back into his seat. + "I can't do anything in this deluge."</p> +<p>This was the first word that had been said since he and Claire had left Flint's.</p> +<p>"The worst will be over in a few moments," replied Claire, easily. + But she was far from reassured.</p> +<p>The deluge was <i>not</i> over in a few moments. It kept up with an ever-increasing + violence, until it seemed that even the stalled car would be compelled to yield + to its force. Claire had never seen it rain harder; the storm had a vindictive + fury that reminded her of the dreadful tempest in "King Lear."</p> +<p>Stillman maintained his usual well-bred calm and smoked cigarettes while he + chattered. He touched on every conceivable subject but the one uppermost in + Claire's mind, until she began to wonder whether delicacy or contempt veiled + his conversation. A half-hour passed ... an hour ... two. Still the rain swept + from the sullen sky. Twice Stillman made a futile attempt to remedy the trouble + with his engine, and twice he retired defeated to the shelter of the car. Claire + was relieved that she was in the company of a man who did not emphasize the + monotonous hours by indiscriminate raillery against the tricks of chance. At + first he dismissed the situation with the most casual of shrugs; later he acknowledged + his annoyance by an expression of regret at his companion's discomfort, but + he stopped there.</p> +<p>As the hours went on, with no abatement of the storm's devastating energy, + Claire grew less and less pleased at the prospect. She began to wonder whether + the shelter of Flint's roof had not been, after all, the discreet thing. Was + not her headlong flight in company with Stillman more open to criticism than + the frank acceptance of her employer's hospitality? But these vagrant questions + were the spawn of a colorless spirit of social expediency which fastens itself + on weak natures, and in Claire's case they died still-born. She had been too + well schooled in loneliness to lean heavily on the crooked stick of public opinion. + Accustomed to standing alone, she had something of the spiritual arrogance that + goes with independence. People could think what they liked. And it was more + a realization of her mother's anxiety than any thought of self which made her + suggest to Stillman that they might get out and walk into Sausalito.</p> +<p>"I think the last boat leaves there at twelve-thirty," she finished. + "Surely we could make it if we keep going."</p> +<p>Stillman thrust his arm out into the drenching rain, and withdrew it instantly. + "I'm afraid that's out of the question, so long as the rain keeps up, Miss + Robson," he said, in a tone of implied objection. "Perhaps if it should + stop...."</p> +<p>Claire settled back in her seat. Stillman was right. The storm was too furious + to be lightly braved.</p> +<p>It was eleven o'clock before a quick veering of the wind brought a downpour + so violent that what had gone before seemed little better than a rather weak + rehearsal.</p> +<p>"It will clear presently," Stillman assured Claire. "Southeaster + always break up in a flurry like this from the west."</p> +<p>In ten minutes the stars were peeping brilliantly through rents in the torn + clouds. Pungent odors floated up from the rain-trampled stubble of the hillsides, + the air was cleared of its stifling oppressiveness, the first storm of the season + was over.</p> +<p>Both Claire and Stillman clambered out at the first signs of the storm's exhaustion. + Stillman switched on his pocket-light and began to investigate the trouble with + the engine. His decision was swift and conclusive.</p> +<p>"It's hopeless," he announced, turning to Claire with a slight grimace. + "We're stalled absolutely and no mistake. I guess we'd better strike out + and walk. No doubt we'll get a lift into Sausalito before we've gone very far, + but I dare say it's well to be on the safe side."</p> +<p>They rolled the machine to one side of the roadway and struck out hopefully. + The rain had made a thin chocolate ooze of the highway, and before they had + gone a hundred yards their shoes were slimy with mud. It appeared that Stillman + had been something of an aimless wanderer for many years, and as he talked on + and on, giving detached glimpses of the remote places he had visited, Claire + had a curious sense of futility.</p> +<p>She read between his clipped and vivid sentences the tragedy of a personality + worsted by the soft hands of circumstances. This man might have done things. + As it was he was an idler. He gave her the impression of a man waiting vaguely + for opportunity—like some traveler pacing restlessly up and down a railway + station platform in expectation of the momentary arrival of a delayed train. + She tried to imagine him as she felt sure he must once have been—youthful, + eager, ardent, a man of charming enthusiasms that just missed being extravagances, + who could bring zest to his virtues as well as to his follies.</p> +<p>"Surely," she thought, "something more than inclination must + have pushed him into this deadly stagnation."</p> +<p>And at once Miss Munch's insinuating question leaped up to answer:</p> +<p>"You know about his wife, of course!"</p> +<p>Were men put out of countenance by such impersonal tricks of fortune? Impersonal?... + this domestic tragedy?... Yes, Claire felt that it must be, otherwise the man + tramping at her side would have wrestled so passionately against fate as to + have come away at least spattered with the mud of defeat. No, Stillman was not + defeated, he was merely arrested, restrained, held for orders.</p> +<p>He had been in London when the war broke out. He had stayed long enough to + watch the stolid, easy-going British public awake to the seriousness of the + encounter, coming home after the first air raids.</p> +<p>"I didn't mind being killed," he laughed, in explanation of his sudden + flight. "But I didn't like being so frightfully messed up in the process. + I want a chance to strike back when I'm cornered. The Zeppelin game was too + much like a rabbit-drive to suit me."</p> +<p>As he spoke of these experiences, Claire listened with a quickening of the + spirit. The prospect of finding Stillman vibrant was too stirring to be denied. + But he was still sober on this colossal subject of war ... a bit judicial, always + well poised. He had his sympathies, but they did not appear vitalized by extravagances + of feeling. Yet here and there Claire was conscious of truant warmths, like + brief flashes of sunlight through a somber forest.</p> +<p>"And the draft—what do you think of that?" The question rose + to her lips as if his answer might unlock the door to something deeper in the + way of convictions.</p> +<p>He began with a shrug that chilled her; then his reply broke with sudden refreshment:</p> +<p>"It helps ... some of us. There are many who can't decide for themselves. + The obvious duty isn't always the correct one. In my case...."</p> +<p>He did not stop speaking suddenly, but his voice trailed off into a dim region + of musing. They both fell silent. But Claire knew. There was that haunting hope, + almost like a fear, that his wife might some day get better. That was what he + was waiting for! It might come to-morrow ... next week ... in a year ... never! + But when it did come he felt that he must be there, ready. She wondered whether + he loved his wife very much, and she found herself hoping that he did.... It + would help, somehow ... yes, if that were so his sacrifice gained point. On + the other hand.... She put the thought away with a quick thrust, feeling that + she had no right to such a speculation, and presently she was aware that they + were swinging into Sausalito.</p> +<p>Stillman looked at his watch. Twelve-thirty-five ... just five minutes late + for the boat! She could see that he was disturbed.</p> +<p>"I thought sure we'd get a lift," he railed, tossing aside a mangled + cigar. "This <i>is</i> luck!... I guess we'll have to rout out the Sherwins. + It's something of a pull up the hill, but any safe port in a storm, you know."</p> +<p>"The Sherwins?"</p> +<p>"Another one of the Edington girls. They have a bungalow at the very dizziest + point in Sausalito."</p> +<p>But Claire objected and held firm. "I couldn't think of it, Mr. Stillman. + No, really!... Please don't insist."</p> +<p>They agreed on a lodging for Claire in a freshly painted but otherwise rather + decrepit lodging-house, just north of the ferry-slip. Its chief advantage was + that it seemed quite too stagnant to be anything but respectable, and the suppressed + grumbling of the old shrew whom they routed out confirmed their estimate. She + didn't approve of couples who dragged God-fearing old women out of bed at unholy + hours in the morning, and it was only the generous tip from Stillman and the + assurance that he intended looking elsewhere for quarters for himself that reconciled + her to her loss of sleep and the compromise with her convictions.</p> +<p>For a good half-hour Claire sat with folded hands peering out from her room + upon the damp hillside to the west. From across the street came the bawdy thumping + of a mechanical piano and the swish of a sluggish tide. Her encounter with Sawyer + Flint had forced the door of her virginal seclusion and thrust her at once into + the primitive and elemental open. She felt like one who was coming out of voluntary + exile to the pathos of a deferred heritage. Before her stretched the eagle's + horizon, but she had only the fledgling's strength of wing. She longed for the + faith and courage and daring to take life at its word, longed with all the dangerous + fierceness of one who had fed too long upon the husks of existence. And, longing, + she fell asleep, sitting in a chair before the open window, without thought + or preparation....</p> +<hr /> +<p>The morning broke cloudless. All traces of the night's fury were obliterated + as completely as sorrow from the face of a smiling child. The sun touched the + open spaces with a tender, caressing warmth, but the shadows held a keen-edged + chill.</p> +<p>Claire decided upon an early boat to town.</p> +<p>"I'll be less likely to meet any of the California Street crowd," + she said to herself, as she picked her brief way toward the ferry.</p> +<p>The boat was crowded, especially the lower cabin. It was the artisans' boat + and the air was heavy with the smoke of pipe-tobacco. Claire passed rapidly + to the dining-room. Perched upon the high revolving chairs surrounding a horseshoe + counter, a score or more of soft-shirted men sat devouring huge greasy doughnuts + and gulping coffee. The steward, taking note of Claire's hesitation, came forward + and led her to a seat at one of the side tables. She was about to take advantage + of the chair which he had drawn out for her when she heard her name called. + She turned. Miss Munch's cousin, Mrs. Richards, was sitting alone at the table + just behind. Claire's first feeling was one of relief—she was glad to + discover an acquaintance. She thanked the steward for his trouble and abandoned + the proffered seat for the one opposite Mrs. Richards. Almost at once she regretted + her impulsive decision.</p> +<p>"I didn't know you intended staying at Flint's all night," Mrs. Richards + began, fixing Claire with a challenging gaze.</p> +<p>"I didn't intend to," returned Claire, her voice sharpened slightly.</p> +<p>Mrs. Richards took the lid off the sugar-bowl and powdered her grapefruit sparingly. + "Have they a nice home?" she questioned.</p> +<p>"Yes, very nice."</p> +<p>"They gave you an early start, didn't they?... It's almost impossible + to get servants these days to consider such a thing as serving breakfast much + before eight o'clock."</p> +<p>Claire glanced at the bill of fare. Mrs. Richards's tone was a trifle too eager. + "I suppose it is," Claire assented, placing the menu-card back in + its place between the vinegar and oil cruets.</p> +<p>Mrs. Richards remained unabashed at her vis-à-vis's palpable indirectness. + "I guess I'm old-fashioned, but, servants or no servants, I don't believe + I could let a guest of mine leave the house without breakfast. It seems to me + that if I'd been Mrs. Flint I'd have gotten up and made you a cup of coffee + myself."</p> +<p>Claire's growing annoyance was swallowed up in a feeling of faint amusement. + "Perhaps Mrs. Flint wasn't home," she said, beckoning the waiter.</p> +<p>"Oh!" Mrs. Richards exclaimed with shocked brevity.</p> +<p>It was not until the arrival of Claire's order of toast and coffee that Mrs. + Richards found her voice again.</p> +<p>"This business of wives staying from home all night gets me," Mrs. + Richards hazarded, boldly. "Why, I never remember the time when my mother + remained away overnight ... not under <i>any</i> circumstances. My father expected + her to be there, and she always <i>was</i>."</p> +<p>Claire distributed bits of butter over the surface of her toast. She felt that + in justice to the Flint family it was not right for her to give Mrs. Richards's + dangerous tongue any further scope, however tempting was the prospect of leaving + such venomous inquisitiveness ungratified.</p> +<p>"I think you misunderstood me, Mrs. Richards. I didn't say that Mrs. Flint + remained away from home last night. As a matter of fact I didn't stay at Yolanda, + so I don't know anything about it."</p> +<p>"Oh!" faintly escaped Mrs. Richards for the second time that morning, + but Claire was conscious that there was more incredulity than surprise registered + in the lady's tone.</p> +<p>"As a matter of fact," Claire continued, stung to incautious exasperation, + "I spent the night in Sausalito."</p> +<p>Mrs. Richards met this information with a disarmingly bland smile. "I + didn't know you had friends in Sausalito," she said, letting a spoonful + of coffee trickle back into her cup.</p> +<p>"I haven't. I spent the night in a lodging-house ... on the water-front...."</p> +<p>"My dear Miss Robson, really I.... Why, I hope you don't think I was inquisitive!"</p> +<p>It was the simplicity of the challenge that made it impossible to be ignored. + Claire knew that she was trapped, but she was angry enough to decide on some + reservation.</p> +<p>"The storm put the track between Yolanda and Sausalito out of commission," + Claire found herself snapping back too eagerly at her tormentor. "We tried + to make the last boat by auto, but we got stalled and missed it. We had to walk + a good half of the way."</p> +<p>"I shouldn't think that would have done Mr. Flint's cold any good," + Mrs. Richards said, drawlingly.</p> +<p>"Mr. Flint's cold?... I don't quite see what that has to do with it."</p> +<p>"Oh, you said 'we' I somehow got the impression...."</p> +<p>"No, Mrs. Richards, you've misunderstood me again." Claire threw + a cool, even glance at her antagonist. "I made the trip from Yolanda to + Sausalito in Mr. Stillman's car."</p> +<p>"Oh!" said Mrs. Richards for a third time, and in this instance her + voice was warm with gratification.</p> +<p>Claire directed her attention to her plate of buttered toast and her cup of + coffee. She was chagrined to think that she had fallen so easily into Mrs. Richards's + very obvious traps. Not that it mattered. She was quite sure that the truth + could not harm Stillman, and she was equally sure that her position in life + was too obscure to stand out conspicuously against the darts of Mrs. Richards's + vindictive tongue. But she had the pride of her reticences and she did not like + to surrender these privileges at the point of insolent curiosity. The two continued + to eat in silence.</p> +<p>It was Mrs. Richards who finished first, and she dipped her fingers hurriedly + into the battered metal finger-bowl which the Japanese bus-boy thrust before + her.</p> +<p>"Do you mind if I go along?" she inquired of Claire, with an air + of polite triumph. "I think I'll go forward where I can get a quick start + ... before the crowd gets too thick. I've got a million errands to do before + nine o'clock. And I <i>do</i> want to run into the office before Gertie settles + down to work. I haven't seen her for a week and I've got <i>more</i> things + to tell her!"</p> +<a name="I_VIII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3> +<p>"Why, Miss Claire, how could you! Where have you been? And your mother + in such a bad way!" Mrs. Finnegan broke into sudden tears.</p> +<p>Claire, fumbling in her bag for the front-door key, looked up. Mrs. Finnegan + had swung open the door to the Robson flat and she stood like a vision of disaster + upon the threshold.</p> +<p>"What has happened?" Claire's voice rose with a note of swift apprehension.</p> +<p>"Your mother ... she's paralyzed! She was taken last night. The doctor + says it would have happened, anyway. But I say it was worry, that's what it + was. With you away all night and never a word!"</p> +<p>Claire climbed the stairs in silence, aware that Mrs. Finnegan was following + at a discreet distance. Already the house seemed permeated with an atmosphere + of tragedy and gloom in spite of the morning light pouring in unscreened at + every window. Mrs. Robson's room was the only exception to this unusual excess + of cold radiance—unusual, because it was one of Mrs. Robson's prides to + keep her window-shades lowered to a uniform and genteel distance.</p> +<p>Until Claire came face to face with her mother she almost had fancied that + her neighbor was indulging in a crude and terrible joke, but one look sufficed. + Mrs. Robson lay staring vacantly at the ceiling; she could not move, she could + not speak, and her spirit showed through the veiled light in her eyes like a + mysterious spot of sunshine in a shaded well. Above a swooning sense of calamity + Claire felt the strength of a tender pretense struggling to communicate its + vague hope to the stricken form. She raised the window-shade slightly and sat + down upon the bed.</p> +<p>"Why, mother, what's all this?" she began, in a tone of gentle banter, + as she stroked the helpless hands. "Were you worried? I'm so sorry! I asked + Miss Munch to let you know. Didn't she?... I went over to Mr. Flint's to take + dictation. The storm washed out the track. I tried to make the boat in Mr. Stillman's + car, but we broke down and missed it.... I had to stay all night in Sausalito."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson, stirring faintly, attempted to speak. Claire turned helplessly + to Mrs. Finnegan. "I can't make out what she is trying to say."</p> +<p>Mrs. Finnegan bent an attentive ear. "It's about Stillman," she explained. + "Your mother don't understand why...."</p> +<p>The speaker stopped with significant discretion. It was plain to Claire that + <i>nobody</i> understood, and she felt a dreary futility as she answered both + her mother and Mrs. Finnegan with:</p> +<p>"It's a long story. Some other time, when ... when you're feeling better."</p> +<p>A look of gray disappointment crossed Mrs. Robson's face. Mrs. Finnegan's upper + lip seemed shaped suddenly with a suspicion that died almost as quickly as it + began. There was a ring at the bell. "That's the doctor," said Mrs. + Finnegan, and she left to open the door.</p> +<p>The doctor chilled Claire with his steely nonchalance as she stood apart while + he went through the usual forms of a professional visit that was obviously futile. + She followed him to the front door. He answered her eager inquiries with the + cold triumph of authority.</p> +<p>"How long will she last?... Well, Miss Robson, that is hard to say. She + might go off to-night. Then, again, she might live twenty years. She'll scarcely + get any better, though. No, a nurse isn't essential, unless you can afford one. + But you ought to have another woman about. If you have any relatives you'd better + send for them and let them help out."</p> +<p>Claire did not find the doctor's announcement that her mother might die at + once nearly so brutal as his assurance that she had an equal chance for existing + twenty years. <i>Twenty years!</i> Claire closed the door and sank upon the + steps overwhelmed.</p> +<p>But there was scant leisure on this first dreadful day of Mrs. Robson's illness + for theatrical exuberances. Claire, unaccustomed to the routine of household + duties, took a thousand unnecessary steps. She tried to work calmly, to bring + an acquired philosophy to her tasks, but she went through her paces with a feverish, + though stolid, anxiety. The long night which followed was inconceivably a thing + of horror. Her wakeful moments were dry-eyed with despair, and when she slept + it was only to come back to a shivering consciousness.</p> +<p>Mrs. Finnegan found her next morning fresh from an attempt to rouse her mother + into accepting a few swallows of milk, which had ended in pathetic and miserable + failure. She had thrown herself in an abandon of grief across the narrow kitchen + table, and the coffee from an overturned cup was trickling in a warm, thick + stream to the floor. But the paroxysm did her good. She rose to the kindly caresses + of her neighbor like a flower beaten to earth but refreshed by a relentless + torrent. After this, custom and habit began to reassert themselves in spite + of the crushing weight of circumstance. She 'phoned to the office. Mr. Flint + had returned, they told her. She explained her trouble to the cashier. "I'll + try to be back the first of the week," she finished, in a burst of illogical + hope.</p> +<p>Later in the day Mrs. Robson's two sisters arrived in answer to Claire's summons. + Claire's impulse to send for them had been purely instinctive—an atrophied + survival of clan-spirit that persisted beyond any real faith in its significance. + Perhaps she had a feeling that her mother wished it; certainly she had no illusions + as to the manner in which the unwelcome news of Mrs. Robson's illness would + be received by these two self-centered females.</p> +<p>It was Mrs. Thomas Wynne who came in first, bundled mysteriously in her furs + and holding a glass of wine jelly as a conventional symbol of the rôle + of Lady Bountiful which she had for the moment assumed. Claire could almost + fancy how conspicuously she had contrived to carry this overworked badge of + the humanities, and the languid drawl of her voice as she explained to her friends + <i>en route</i>:</p> +<p>"So sorry I can't stop and chat. But, as you see, I'm running along to + a sick-room.... Oh no, nothing serious, I hope! Just my sister.... Mrs. Ffinch-Brown? + Oh, dear no! A younger sister. I don't think you know her. She's had a great + deal of trouble and hasn't been about much for a number of years."</p> +<p>Mrs. Thomas Wynne had the trick of intrenching a stubborn family pride by throwing + back her head and daring all comers to uncover any of the Carrol clan's shortcomings. + But her selfishness had at least the virtue of a live-and-let-live attitude + that contrasted with the futile aggressiveness of Mrs. Edward Ffinch-Brown. + She asked Claire no questions concerning her life or her prospects; she did + not even pry very deeply into the chances that her sister had for an ultimate + recovery. Her philosophy seemed to be founded on the knowledge that uncovered + cesspools were bound to be unpleasant, and, since she had no desire to assist + in their purification, she was quite content to keep them properly screened. + She came and deposited her wine jelly and patted her sister's hand and went + away again without leaving even a ripple in her wake. As she departed she gave + further proof of her insolent insincerity by calling back at Claire:</p> +<p>"Remember, Claire, if there is anything I can do, just let me know."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's visit was scarcely more comforting, but decidedly more + exciting. She had not the suavity of her indifferences. Mrs. Robson's untimely + tilt with fate irritated her, and she took no pains to conceal this fact.</p> +<p>"I suppose your mother is just as she's always been—a creature of + nerves," she said, as she dropped into a seat for a preliminary session + with Claire before venturing upon the unwelcome sight of her stricken sister. + "I don't know why it is, but she seems to be one of those people who always + has had something the matter with her. Poor Emily! Well, I suppose we are all + made differently."</p> +<p>When she entered the sick-room she found fault with the arrangement of the + bed, the manner in which the covers slipped off, the uncovered glass of medicine + on the bureau.</p> +<p>"You should braid your mother's hair, too. And why don't you pull the + window down from the top?"</p> +<p>Claire stood in sullen silence while her aunt vented a personal annoyance on + the nearest objects. But when Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's ill-natured ministrations + brought a dumb but protesting misery to the sufferer's face, Claire found the + courage to say, as gently as she could:</p> +<p>"Why bother, Aunt Julia? Mother is really too sick now to care much about + appearances?"</p> +<p>This was just what Claire's aunt had hoped for. It gave her a chance for escape + without any strain upon her conscience. She did not remain long after what she + was pleased to consider a rebuff.</p> +<p>"Well, Claire, I see I can't be of much help," she announced as she + powdered her nose before the shabby hat-rack mirror and drew on her gloves.... + After she was gone Claire found a five-dollar bill on the living-room table. + She opened the gilt-edged copy of Tennyson that, together with a calf edition + of Ouida's <i>Moths</i>, had stood for years as guard over the literary pretensions + of the household, and thrust the money midway between its covers. Doubtless + a time was coming when she would find it necessary to use this money, but the + present moment was too charged with the giver's resentful benevolence to make + such a compromise possible.</p> +<p>For three consecutive days Mrs. Ffinch-Brown swooped down upon the Robson household + and gave vent to her pique. She had been divorced so long from these melancholy + relations of hers that she had really forgotten their existence, and she displayed + all the rancor of a woman who discovers suddenly a moth hole in the long undisturbed + folds of a treasured cashmere shawl. Her precisely timed visits had not the + slightest suspicion of attentiveness back of them, and Claire guessed almost + at once that they were more in the nature of assaults carried on in the hope + that she would meet enough opposition to insure an honorable retreat. Unlike + Mrs. Thomas Wynne, Aunt Julia inquired minutely into family matters, insisted + on knowing Claire's plans, and was aggressively free with advice.</p> +<p>"You ought to be making plans, Claire," she said, at the conclusion + of her second visit. "You can't go on like this. I'd like to be able to + do more, but of course I can't spare much time. And next week you'll have to + be getting into harness again. You'd better think it over."</p> +<p>And on the next day, finding that Claire obviously had <i>not</i> thought it + over, she threw out a hint that was little save a thinly veiled threat. She + came in with a more genial manner than she was accustomed to waste upon the + desert air of penury, and Claire, well schooled in reading the significance + of proverbial calms, had a misgiving.</p> +<p>"I've been talking to Miss Morton ... about your mother," Mrs. Ffinch-Brown + began, without bothering to lead up to the subject. "You know Alice Morton.... + Well, your mother does, anyway. I bumped into her yesterday, quite by accident + ... at a Red Cross meeting. It seems she's one of the directors of The King's + Daughters' Home for Incurables!" Claire was sitting opposite her aunt, + nervously fingering a paper-cutter. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown eyed her niece sharply, + and with an obvious determination to drive her thrusts home before her victim + recovered from the first vicious stabs she continued: "It seems they haven't + a great deal of room out there, but she thinks she could arrange things. They'll + raise the price to two thousand dollars after the fifteenth of the month, so + I thought that—"</p> +<p>"Oh, not quite yet, Aunt Julia!... Mother has a chance. Surely...."</p> +<p>"Now, Claire, don't get hysterical. You're a business woman and <i>you</i> + ought to be practical if any of us are. The price to-day is one thousand dollars. + Think of it! Care for life in a ward with only <i>three</i> others! Now I can't + ask your uncle for any more than is necessary in a case like this. If we make + up our mind promptly we can save just one thousand dollars."</p> +<p>For the moment Claire felt the harried desperation of a cornered animal. She + had never seen anything more disagreeable than her aunt's sidelong glance. She + felt herself rise from her seat with cold dignity.</p> +<p>"I'm afraid, Aunt Julia, I can't make up my mind as quickly as you wish. + It isn't so simple as it seems. I'm not above a plan like this if I'm convinced + it's necessary. But somehow.... Oh, I know what you're thinking—you're + thinking that beggars shouldn't be choosers. Well, I'm not quite a beggar yet. + But when I am, I won't choose.... I'll promise you that."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rose also. She was in a position to triumph in any case, + and she was washing her hands of the situation with eager satisfaction. "Oh, + indeed! I'm glad you can say that <i>now</i>. But you weren't always so independent. + I suppose it never occurs to you to thank me for what I did when you were younger."</p> +<p>Claire felt quite calm. The events of the past twenty-four hours had wrung + her emotions dry. "Yes, Aunt Julia," she said, with an air of cool + defiance, "it occurred to me many times.... Perhaps if I'd had any choice...."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown grew pale. "It's plain that I'm wasting my time here!" + she sneered.</p> +<p>Claire went with her aunt to the door....</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown did not cross the threshold of the Robson home again, and + when on the following day Claire saw the figure of Mrs. Thomas Wynne outlined + against the lace-screened front door she let the bell ring unanswered.</p> +<hr /> +<p>The dismissal of the last of the Carrol clan from any participation in the + Robson destinies gave Claire a feeling at once independent and solitary. There + had been a vague hope that this crisis might germinate some stray seeds of kinship, + shriveled by the drought of uneventful years. But the poisonous nettles of memory + were the only harvest that had sprung from the presence of Mrs. Robson's sisters, + and Claire was glad to uproot the arid product of their shallowness.</p> +<p>The week came to a close with a rush of visitors. Suddenly it seemed as if + everybody knew of Mrs. Robson's illness. Fellow church members, old school friends, + casual acquaintances began to ring the front-door bell insistently. Knowing + her mother's instinctive craving for recognition, it struck Claire that it was + the height of irony to see this belated crowd come swarming in on the heels + of calamity at the moment when Mrs. Robson was unable to so much as see them. + Mrs. Robson would have so liked to sit in even a threadbare pomp and receive + the homage of her visitors, but fate had been scurvy enough to withhold this + scant triumph.</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead breezed in on Saturday afternoon just as Mrs. Finnegan's cuckoo + clock cooed the stroke of three; immediately the air began to move out of adversity's + tragic current. It was impossible to be wholly without hope under the impetus + of Nellie Whitehead's flaming good humor.</p> +<p>"I'm all out of breath," she began, as she flopped into the first + chair that came handy. "I keep forgetting I ain't sweet sixteen any more + and never been kissed. I hate to walk slow, though. Don't you? Say, but you + <i>are</i> up against it, ain't you! I saw that Munch dame on the street and + she nearly broke her old neck trying to catch up with me. I wondered what was + the matter, because she ain't usually so keen about flagging <i>me</i>. But, + <i>you</i> know, she never misses a trick at spilling out the calamity stuff, + especially if it isn't on her.... 'Oh, Miss Whitehead,' she called out before + I had a chance to beat it, 'have you heard about Miss Robson's mother?' ...When + she got through I fixed her with that trusty old eye of mine and I said, 'I + suppose you see her quite often.' And what do you think the old stiff said? + 'Oh, I'd like to, Miss Whitehead, but I really haven't had time. You know I'm + doing all Mr. Flint's dictation now.' And she had the nerve to try and slip + me a hint that she was going to keep on doing it. But I just said to myself: + 'You should kid yourself that way, old girl! When Flint picks a bloomer like + you to ornament the back office it will be because his eyesight's failed him.' + ...By the way, how do you manage to stand him off—with religious tracts + or a hat-pin?"</p> +<p>She hardly waited for Claire's reply, but plunged at once into another monologue.</p> +<p>"Do you know what I'm up to? I got my eye on the swellest fur-lined coat + you ever saw ... at Magnin's. But you can bet I'm going to keep my eye on it + until after the holidays. They want a hundred and a quarter for it now, but + they'll be glad to take sixty-five when the gay festivities are over, or I miss + my guess. I go in every other day to have a look at it, and when the girl's + back is turned I hang it back in the case myself—'way back where everybody + else will overlook it. Oh, I know the game all right. I did the same thing with + a three piece suit last summer. But I say, All is fair in war and the high cost + of living. Maybe you think I haven't had a time scraping the wherewithal for + that coat together. But I brought the total up to seventy the other day by getting + Billy Holmes to slip me a ten in advance for Christmas. I never trust a man + to invest in anything for me if I can help it. They usually run to manicure + sets in satin-lined cases or cut-glass cologne-bottles. Billy Holmes?... Oh, + you know him! He ran the reinsurance desk at the Royal for years. They put him + on the road last week. He's <i>some</i> live wire. And what's better, he has + no incumbrances. I'll tell you what it is, Robson, I'm getting kind of tired + of the goings. I'm just about ready to settle down by the old steam-radiator. + And as long as I've got eyesight enough to look the field over, I've decided + on a traveling-man or a sea-captain. They'll be sticking around home just about + often enough to suit me.... Not that I'm a man-hater, but I've never had 'em + for a steady diet and I'm not going to begin to get the habit this late day."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead stayed about an hour, and, as Claire opened the front door + upon her friend's departure the letter-man thrust an envelope into her hands. + She opened it hastily and turned suddenly white.</p> +<p>"Well, Robson, what's wrong now?" inquired Nellie.</p> +<p>"Flint ... he's let me out ... Miss Munch was right!"</p> +<a name="I_IX"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3> +<p>On the selfsame Saturday of Claire's dismissal from the office ranks of the + Falcon Insurance Company Ned Stillman was the recipient of an early telephone + message from Lily Condor. It appeared that Flora Menzies, the young woman who + usually accompanied her in her vocal flights, had been laid low with pneumonia + and she wanted Stillman to persuade Claire Robson to succeed to the honorary + position.</p> +<p>"She did so famously on that night of our musicale," Lily Condor + had explained, "and Flora won't be in shape again for a good three months. + Of course, there isn't anything in it but glory. I'm just one of those 'sweet + charity' artists. But I think she is a dear, and I know that <i>you</i> have + influence."</p> +<p>Stillman pretended to be annoyed at Mrs. Condor's assumption that his word + would carry any weight in the matter, but as a matter of fact he felt pleased + in secret masculine fashion. Chancing to pass Flint's office at the noon hour, + he dropped in. It happened that Miss Munch was standing near the counter, and + she answered his inquiries with suave eagerness.</p> +<p>"Oh, Miss Robson isn't with us any more. She hasn't been here for over + a week—not since her mother was taken sick. Oh, I thought you knew. You're + Mr. Stillman, aren't you? I've heard my cousin, Mrs. Richards, speak of you. + Miss Robson went over to Mr. Flint's on that night of the storm and she missed + the boat or something—<i>you</i> know! And when she got home next morning + she found that her mother had worried herself into a stroke. They say she is + quite helpless.... I'm sure I don't know what she intends doing. We mailed her + check yesterday. It's always hard to land another position when one is dismissed."</p> +<p>Stillman escaped quickly. Miss Munch's venom was a thing too crude and unconcealed + to face with indifference. Her emphatic "<i>you</i> know" was pregnant + with innuendo and malice. Still, it did not occur to Stillman that he had any + part in Claire Robson's misfortune. But he did know from Miss Munch's tone that + the unfortunate situation, growing out of the automobile ride from Yolanda to + Sausalito, had received due recognition at the hands of those who made a business + of blowing out bubbles of scandal from the suds of chance. It was useless for + him to deny that Claire Robson from the first had been of more or less interest. + She seemed to rise in such a detached fashion from her environment.</p> +<p>He had to admit, as later he sat in the cloistered silences of his club library + and blew contemplative smoke-rings into the air, that a certain idle curiosity + had been the mainspring of his concern for her. He had been like a boy who captured + a strange butterfly and clapped it under a glass tumbler where he could watch + how easily it would adapt itself to its new surroundings. But, having caught + the butterfly and held it a brief captive, the dust from its wings still lingered + upon the hands that imprisoned it. He had made the mistake of imagining that + one is always master of casual incidents. To meet a young woman by the most + trivial chance, to extend a brief courtesy to her, these were matters which + hold scarcely the germs of a menacing situation, not menacing to him, of course—they + never could be menacing to him; he was still thinking of things from the viewpoint + of Claire Robson.</p> +<p>To tell the truth, he was annoyed at having been mixed up in Claire's flight + from the Flint household. Had Flint been a complete stranger he would not have + minded so much. He was still divided by the appeal to his chivalry and the sense + of loyalty that a man feels to the masculine friends of his youth. In her telephone + message Claire had put the matter very casually—the track was washed out + and she was wondering whether he contemplated returning to town that evening. + But he guessed at once what lay back of her matter-of-fact boldness. He had + guessed so completely that he had decided not only to return to town, but to + start at once.</p> +<p>He wondered now whether he had answered the appeal because a woman was in a + desperate situation or because that woman was Claire Robson. All through the + dinner hour at the Tom Forsythes he had thought about her, had speculated vaguely + what mischance or effrontery had been responsible for her ill-timed visit to + Flint's. He remembered trying to decide whether the young woman was extraordinarily + deep or extraordinarily simple and frank. He did not like to concede that he + could be influenced by anything so transparently malicious as Mrs. Richards's + statements regarding the absence of Mrs. Flint, but he was bound to admit that + they did nothing to render the situation less innocent; what had particularly + annoyed him was the fact that he should have given the matter a second thought. + To begin with, it was none of his business and he was not a man who presumed + to judge or even speculate on other people's indiscretions. Claire Robson was + no sheltered schoolgirl. She was a full-grown woman, in the thick of business + life. Such women were not taken unawares. He had just dismissed the whole affair + from his mind on this basis when Claire's telephone message came to him. Even + now he marveled at the sense of satisfaction that her appeal had given. But + he had found no savor in a situation that compelled him to interfere in Flint's + program. Such a move on his part was contrary to his standards, to his training + in comradeship, to all his acquired philosophy. He had the well-bred man's distaste + for getting into a mess. He abhorred scenes and conspicuous complications.</p> +<p>He had come through the incident with steadily waning enthusiasm and a decision + to wash his hands in the future of all such unprofitable trifling. But the sudden + knowledge that the young woman was in desperate trouble revived his interest. + He had no idea how serious Mrs. Robson's illness was or whether Claire had any + hopes for a new position. But Miss Munch's words had been significant. Claire + had been <i>dismissed</i>, and Stillman knew enough about present business stagnation + to conclude that for the time, at least, Claire Robson faced a bleak outlook. + He realized the indelicacy of any definite move on his part, but it occurred + to him that it might be well to talk the situation over with some one—preferably + a woman. As he tossed his cigar butt aside, Lily Condor appealed to him as just + the person for the emergency. Therefore he looked her up without further ado.</p> +<p>He found her at home, curled up among the cushions of a davenport that did + service as a bed when the scenes were shifted. She was living in a tiny apartment + consisting of one room and a kitchenette that gave Stillman the impression of + a juggler's cabinet. Nothing in this room was ever by any chance what it seemed. + Things that looked like doors led nowhere; bits of stationary furniture usually + yielded to the slightest pressure and revealed strange secrets. He had seen + Mrs. Condor deftly construct a card-table out of an easy-chair, and he had no + doubt that the oak table in the center of the room could have been converted + into a chiffonier or a chassis-lounge at a given signal.</p> +<p>In repose, it struck Stillman that Mrs. Condor seemed very much like a purring + cat. He had never seen her quite so frankly behind the scenes, robbed of both + her physical and mental make-up. She was one of those women in middle age who + adapt themselves to the tone of their background and while she contrived to + strike a fairly vivid note, she took care not to be discordant. She was clever + enough to realize that her talents were not sensational and that she could only + hope for an indifferent success as a professional. But in the rôle of + a gracious amateur she disarmed criticism and forced her way into circles that + might otherwise have been at some pains to exclude her. For, if the truth were + known, there had been certain phases of Mrs. Condor's earlier life which were + rather vaguely, and at the same time aptly, covered by Mrs. Finnegan's term + of "gay." A perfectly discreet woman, for instance, would have made + an effort to live down her flaming hair and almost immorally dazzling complexion, + but Mrs. Condor had been much more ready to live <i>up</i> to these conspicuous + charms. In fact, she had lived up to them pretty furiously, until time began + to take a ruthless toll of her contrasting points. From the concert-platform + she still seemed to discount, almost to flout, the years, but in secret she + yielded unmistakably to their pressure.</p> +<p>It was this yielding, pliant attitude that struck Stillman as he came upon + her almost unawares on that early December afternoon, a yielding, pliant attitude + which gave a curious sense of tenacity under the surface. And he thought, as + he dropped into the chair she indicated, that she was a woman who gained strength + in these moments of relaxation.</p> +<p>"Fancy your catching me like this!" she said, "I thought when + the bell rang that you were my dressmaker.... If you want a highball you'll + have to wait on yourself. Phil Edington brought an awfully good bottle of Scotch + last night. I declare I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have a youngster + or two on my staff. Old men are such bores, anyway, and, as a matter of fact, + they never waste time on any woman over thirty. Well, I don't blame them. We're + a sorry, patched-up mess at best.... Tell me, did you get hold of Miss Robson?"</p> +<p>"I dropped in, but she wasn't at the office," Stillman replied, tossing + his hat on the center-table.</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor withdrew to the relaxation of her innumerable sofa pillows again. + "Wasn't at the office? How thrilling! Is she one of the Sultan's favorites?... + I've heard Sawyer Flint was an easy mark if you know how to work him. Miss Robson + didn't strike me that way, though. But I ought to have known that silent women + are always cleverer than they appear."</p> +<p>Stillman caught the barest suggestion of a sneer in Mrs. Condor's tone—the + sneer of a woman relinquishing a stubborn hold upon the gaieties.</p> +<p>"Well, I guess Miss Robson didn't know how to work him, as a matter of + fact," Stillman said, quietly. "She lost her job to-day. I'm a little + bit worried about her.... I came here on purpose to talk the situation over + with you."</p> +<p>His directness brought Lily Condor out of her languidness with a sharp turn. + She wriggled up and sat erectly on the edge of the davenport, one slippered + foot dangling just above the other. "Why, Ned Stillman, what an old fraud + you are! I didn't fancy you were interested in <i>anybody</i>. I didn't think + that you.... Oh, well, throw me a cigarette and let me hear the worst in comfort!"</p> +<p>He opened his cigarette-case and leaned over toward her. She made her choice. + He struck a match and she put her hand tightly on his wrist as she bent over + the flame and slowly drew in her breath. Even after she had released her grasp + his flesh still bore the imprint of the rings on her fingers. For a moment he + had an impulse to bow himself out of her presence without further explanation, + but already she seemed to have a proprietary interest in him. Her smile was + full of friendly malice.</p> +<p>He ended by telling her everything, in spite of the conviction that he had + approached the wrong person.</p> +<p>"Of course," she hazarded, boldly, when he had finished, "you + mean to help her out."</p> +<p>Her presumption annoyed but rather refreshed him. "I'd like to do something, + but, hang it all, what can be done?"</p> +<p>"What can be done? If that isn't like a man! Or I should say, a <i>gentleman</i>!... + Why don't you plunge in boldly and damn the consequences?... It's just your + sort that sends women into the arms of men like Flint. You're so busy keeping + an eye on the proprieties that you miss all the danger signals."</p> +<p>Her tone was extraordinarily familiar, and, to a man who rather prided himself + upon his ability to keep people at arm's-length, it was not precisely agreeable. + Yet he knew that it would be folly to give any hint of his irritation.</p> +<p>"Well," he contrived to laugh back at her, "so far as I can + see, Miss Robson's problems are quite too simple. After all, it's largely a + question of money.... I can't go and throw gold in her lap as if she were some + beggar on a street corner."</p> +<p>"You mean, I suppose, that you are afraid to risk the outraged dignity + of this ward of yours. I think that's a lovely name for her. Don't you?... You're + acquiring such a benevolent old attitude. The only thing to be done, I fancy, + is to adopt some transparent ruse—some sort of Daddy-Long-Leggish deception." + She closed her eyes thoughtfully—"<i>Hiring</i> her as my accompanist, + for instance." She rose to dispense Scotch and soda. Stillman sat in thoughtful + silence, while Mrs. Condor talked to very trivial purpose. She seemed suddenly + to have grown tired of the subject of Claire Robson. The arrival of the expected + dressmaker broke in upon the rather one-sided tête-à-tête.</p> +<p>"You'll have to go," Lily Condor announced with an intimate air of + dismissal to Stillman. "It would never do to let a mere man in on the secrets + of the sewing-room."</p> +<p>At the door he hesitated awkwardly over his good-by. "I was wondering," + he said, "whether you were serious about ... about hiring Miss Robson as + your accompanist. You know I think the plan has possibilities."</p> +<p>She threw back her head and smiled with hard satisfaction. "I've been + trying to figure if you had killed your imagination. Think it over."</p> +<p>She gave him the tips of her fingers. He returned their languid pressure and + departed.</p> +<p>As he drifted down the hall he heard her calling, half gaily, half derisively, + after him:</p> +<p>"Don't decide on anything rash now.... Sleep over it!..."</p> +<hr /> +<p>He thought it over for three days and when he called on Lily Condor again he + found her divorced from her languishing mood. She was dressed for dinner down-town, + and he had to confess she had made the most of what remained of her flaming + hair and dazzling complexion.</p> +<p>He felt that she guessed the reason for his visit, although she took care to + let him force the issue.</p> +<p>"About Miss Robson," he said, finally, "I've concluded to take + you at your word."</p> +<p>Lily Condor smoothed out her gloves and laid them aside. "Take me at <i>my</i> + word? You're welcome to the suggestion, if that is what you mean. As a matter + of fact I wasn't serious."</p> +<p>He was annoyed to feel that he was flushing. He could not fathom her, but he + had a conviction that she <i>had</i> been serious and that this attitude was + a mere pose. "Nevertheless, I think it can be managed," he insisted. + "And I want you to help me."</p> +<p>She listened to his plan. "What you will call a Daddy-Long-Leggish pretense," + he explained to her with an attempt at facetiousness. "You to do the hiring + and ... and yours truly to provide the wherewithal. Until things look up a bit. + Of course then ... why, naturally, when things look up a bit for her...."</p> +<p>But Lily remained lukewarm. She wasn't quite sure that it would be ... oh, + well, he knew what she meant! It seemed too absurd to think that he had given + an ear to anything so extravagant. She would like to be of service to Miss Robson, + of course, but, after all, she felt that it was taking an unfair advantage of + the girl.</p> +<p>"If she's everything you say she is, she'd resent it all tremendously," + she put forth as a final objection.</p> +<p>"But she isn't to know! That's the point of the whole thing," he + explained, with absurd simplicity.</p> +<p>"Oh, my dear man, she isn't to know, but she <i>will</i>, ultimately. + You don't suppose the secret of a woman's meal-ticket is hidden very long, do + you? And, besides, you couldn't offer her enough to live on. That would be absurd + on the very face of it."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, I could offer her enough to help out a bit, anyway, and half + a loaf you know...."</p> +<p>He broke off, amazed at the determination her opposition had crystallized. + She looked at him sharply and rose.</p> +<p>"I must be running along," she commented as she drew on her gloves. + "I tell you, I'll go call on Miss Robson—some day this week. A woman + can always get a better side-light on a situation like this. There are so many + angles to be considered. She must have relatives. You wouldn't want to make + a false move, would you, now?"</p> +<p>He was too grateful to be suspicious at this sudden compromise with her convictions.</p> +<p>"You're tremendously good," he stammered. "It <i>will</i> be + a favor. And any time that I can...."</p> +<p>"You can be of service to me right now," she interrupted, gaily. + "Order me a taxi ... that's a good boy! I always do so like to pull up + at a place in style."</p> +<p>Stillman paid Lily Condor a third visit that week—this time in answer + to the lady's telephone message. She had been to see Claire Robson and her report + was anything but rosy.</p> +<p>"Her mother's perfectly helpless and will be for the rest of her life," + Lily volunteered almost cheerfully. "And, frankly, I don't see what is + going to become of them. It seems that Mrs. Robson is a sister of Mrs. Tom Wynne + and that dreadful Ffinch-Brown woman. They both have about as much heart as + a cast-iron stove. Miss Robson didn't say so in words, but I gathered that she + had called both of them off the relief job. I almost cheered when I realized + that fact. I threw out a hint about there being a possibility of my needing + an accompanist. I said Miss Menzies was ill and perhaps ... and I intimated + that there was something more than glory in it."</p> +<p>"And what did Miss Robson say to that?"</p> +<p>"Oh, she was more self-contained than one would imagine under the circumstances. + She said she would like to think it over. She put it that way on the score of + leaving her mother alone nights. But, believe me, that young lady is more calculating + than she seems. Of course I didn't mention terms or anything like that. I left + a good loophole in case you had changed your mind."</p> +<p>For the moment Stillman was almost persuaded to tell Lily Condor that he <i>had</i> + changed his mind. Not that he had lost interest in Claire, but already he had + another plan and there was something disagreeably presumptuous in Mrs. Condor's + tone. He never remembered having taken anybody into his confidence regarding + a personal matter. The trouble was that he had begun the whole affair under + the misapprehension that it was a most <i>impersonal</i> thing. He still tried + to look at it from that angle, but Lily Condor's manner seemed bent on forcing + home the rather disturbing conviction that he had a vital interest in the issue. + She had cut in upon his reserve and he would never quite be able to recover + the lost ground. He felt that she sensed his revulsion, for almost at once she + adroitly changed the subject and it did not come to life again during the remainder + of his call.</p> +<p>But when he was leaving she thrust an idle finger into the lapel of his coat + and said:</p> +<p>"I think it's awfully good of you, Ned, to be human enough to want to + do something for others. I watched you as a young man, and when you married...." + His startled look must have halted her, for she released her hold upon him and + finished with a shrug.</p> +<p>He said good-by hastily and escaped. But he wondered, as he found his way out + into the street, how long it would be before Mrs. Condor would acquire sufficient + boldness to discuss with him what and whom she chose.</p> +<a name="I_X"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER X</h3> +<p>Christmas Day came and went with a host of bitter-sweet memories for Claire + Robson. Not that she could look back on any holiday season with unalloyed happiness, + but time had drawn the sting from the misfortune of the old days. Through the + mist of the years outlines softened, and she was more prone to measure the results + by the slight harvest that their efforts had brought. For instance, they had + never been too poor to deny themselves the luxury of a tree. And a tree to Mrs. + Robson meant none of the scant, indifferent affairs that most of the neighbors + found acceptable strung with a few strands of dingy popcorn and pasteboard ornaments. + No, the Robson tree was always an opulent work of art, freighted with bursting + cornucopias and heavy glass balls and yards of quivering tinsel. The money for + all this dazzling beauty usually came a fortnight or so before the eventful + day in the shape of a ten-dollar bill tucked away in the folds of Gertrude Sinclair's + annual letter to Mrs. Robson. As Claire had grown older she had grown also impatient + of the memory of her mother squandering what should have gone for thick shoes + and warm plaid dresses upon the ephemeral joys of a Christmas tree. But now + she suddenly understood, and she felt glad for a mother courageous enough to + lay hold upon the beautiful symbols of life at the expense of all that was hideously + practical. Shoes wore out and plaid dresses finally found their way to the rag-bag, + but the glories of the spirit burned forever in the splendor of all this truant + magnificence, and the years stretched back in a glittering procession of light-ladened + fir-trees.</p> +<p>Then some time between Christmas and New-Year came the Christmas pantomime + at the Tivoli, with its bewildering array of scantily clad fairies and dashing + Amazons and languishing princes in pale-blue tights; to say nothing of the Queen + Charlottes consumed between acts through faintly yellow straws. How Claire would + mark off each day on the calendar which brought her nearer to this triumph! + And what a hurry and bustle always ensued to get dinner over and be fully dressed + and down to the box-office before even the doors were opened, so that they could + get first choice of the unreserved seats which sold at twenty-five cents. Then + there would ensue the long, tedious wait in the dimly lighted cavern of the + playhouse, smelling with a curious fascination of stale cigars and staler beer, + and the thrill that the appearance of the orchestra produced, followed by the + arrival of all the important personages fortunate enough to afford fifty-cent + seats, which gave them the security to put off their appearance until the curtain + was almost ready to rise. And when the curtain really did rise upon the inevitable + spectacle of villagers dancing upon the village green! And Mrs. Robson carefully + picked out in the chorus the stout sister of a former servant who had worked + for her mother! And the wicked old witch swept from the wings on the traditional + broomstick! From that moment until the final transformation scene, when scintillating + sea-shells yielded up one by one their dazzling burdens of female loveliness + and a rather Hebraic Cupid descended from an invisible wire to wish everybody + a happy New-Year in words appropriately rhymed, there was no halt to the wonders + disclosed. With what sharp and exquisite reluctance did Claire remain glued + to her seat, refusing to believe that it was all over! Even at this late date + Claire had only to close her eyes to revive the delights of these rather covert + excursions into the realm of fancy—covert, because a Tivoli pantomime + had not precisely the sanction of such a respectable organization as the Second + Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Robson, while not definitely encouraging Claire to + wilful dishonesty, always managed to warn her daughter by saying:</p> +<p>"I wouldn't tell any one about going to the Tivoli, Claire, if I were + you ... unless, of course, they should ask about it."</p> +<p>Claire, in mortal terror lest any indiscretion on her part would put a stop + to this annual lapse into such delightful immoralities, held her peace in spite + of her desire to spread abroad the beauties which she had beheld. She had a + feeling that all the participants in the pantomime must of necessity be rather + wicked and abandoned creatures, and half the pleasure she had felt in viewing + them arose from a secret admiration at the courage which permitted human beings + to be so perfectly and desperately sinful. Although she was almost persuaded + that perhaps it did not take quite such bravado to be wicked in blue-spangled + gauze and satin slippers as it did to lapse from the straight and narrow path + in a gingham dress and resoled boots.</p> +<p>The only thrill that the present Christmas Day produced came in the shape of + a pot of flaming poinsettias bearing the card of Ned Stillman. These were the + first flowers that Claire ever remembered having received. It pleased her also + to realize that Stillman had been delicate to the point of this thoroughly unpractical + gift, especially as he had every reason to assume that something more substantial + would have been acceptable. She was confident that by this time he had heard + through Mrs. Condor of her mother's illness and her loss of position. Claire + was still puzzled at Mrs. Condor's visit. For all that lady's skill at subterfuge, + there were implied evasions in her manner which Claire sensed instinctively. + And then Claire was not yet inured to the novelty of being in demand. To have + been forced by circumstance upon Mrs. Condor as an accompanist was one thing; + to be desired by her in a moment of cold calculation was quite another; and + there had been more uncertainty than caution in Claire's plea for time in which + to consider the offer. But as the days flew by it became more and more apparent + to Claire that she was in no position to indulge in idle speculation. She had + long since given up the hope of fulfilling the demands of a regular office position, + even if one had been open to her. Mrs. Finnegan's enthusiasm to be neighborly + and helpful was more a matter of theory than practice, and it did not take Claire + many days to decide that she had no right to impose upon a good nature which + was made up largely of ignorance of a sick-room's demands. Claire's final check + from Flint was dwindling with alarming rapidity; indeed, she was facing the + first of the year with the realization that there would be barely enough to + pay the next month's rent, let alone to settle the current bills. She had no + idea what Mrs. Condor intended paying, but she fancied that it must be little + enough. Surely Mrs. Condor did not receive any great sum for her singing and + there must be any number of gratuitous performances. She decided quite suddenly, + the day after Christmas, to take Mrs. Condor at her word, and she was a bit + disturbed at both the lady's reply and the manner of it.</p> +<p>"Oh," Mrs. Condor had drawled rather disagreeably, "I thought + you'd given up the idea. I spoke to somebody else only this morning. But, of + course, I'm not certain about how it will turn out. I'll keep you in mind and + if the other falls through.... By the way, how is your mother? I keep asking + Ned Stillman every day what the news is, but he never knows anything. All men + are alike ... unless they've got some special interest. Sometimes I marvel that + he looks me up so regularly, but then I've known him ever since.... But there, + I'll be telling more than I should! Do come and see me. I'm always in in the + morning.... Yes, I can imagine you do have a lot to do. I'm so sorry you didn't + call up sooner. But one never can tell. Good-by.... I hope you'll have a happy + New Year."</p> +<p>Claire hung up the receiver. Well, she had lost an opportunity to turn an easy + dollar or two and she had no one to thank but herself. Why had she delayed in + accepting Mrs. Condor's offer?</p> +<p>Fortunately the unexpected arrival of Nellie Whitehead cut short any further + repinings. Claire was frankly glad to see her and at once she thought, "She + has come to show me her new coat."</p> +<p>But Nellie Whitehead was incased in a wrap that showed every evidence of a + good six months' wear.</p> +<p>"My new coat?" the lady echoed, in answer to Claire's question. "There + ain't no such animal. Somebody else copped it. I didn't shove it back far enough + the last time I took a look at it, I guess. Oh, well, I should worry! I can + get along very well without it...."</p> +<p>When Nellie Whitehead rose to leave, dusk had fallen and Claire was fumbling + for matches to light the hall gas, when she felt her friend's hand close over + hers. There followed the cold pressure of several coins against Claire's palm + and the voice of her visitor sounding a bit tremulous in the dusk.</p> +<p>"You'll need some extra money, Robson, or I miss my guess."</p> +<p>Claire fell back with a gesture of protest. "Why, Nellie Whitehead, how + could you? It's your coat money, too! Well, <i>I</i> never!"</p> +<p>And with that they both burst into tears.... When Claire recovered herself + she found that Nellie Whitehead had escaped. She lit the gas and opened her + palm. Four twenty-dollar gold pieces glistened in the light.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Next morning Claire received a telephone message from Mrs. Condor. The position + of accompanist was hers at forty dollars a month if she desired it.</p> +<p>"It won't be hard," Mrs. Condor had finished, reassuringly. "Some + weeks I've something on nearly every night. And then again there won't be anything + doing for days.... How can I afford to pay so much? Well, my dear, that is a + secret. But don't worry, you'll earn it...."</p> +<p>And toward the close of the week there came another surprise for Claire in + the shape of a letter from Stillman, which ran:</p> +<blockquote> MY DEAR MISS ROBSON.—I am going to take a little flier at the + bean market. <br /> + <br /> + That was my father's business and I know a few things about it—at least + to the extent of recognizing the commodity when the sack is opened. Do you fancy + you could arrange to give me a few hours a week at the typewriter? If so, we + can get together and arrange terms. <br /> + <br /> + Cordially, <br /> + <br /> + EDWARD STILLMAN. </blockquote> +<p>"At last," flashed through Claire's mind, "he's going in for + something worth while."</p> +<p>This time she decided promptly. Over the telephone she made an appointment + with Stillman, in his apartments, for beginning work on the second Wednesday + in January.</p> +<a name="I_XI"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3> +<p>Shortly after the first of the year Claire received her initial summons from + Lily Condor—they were to appear at a concert in the Colonial Ballroom + of the St. Francis for the Belgian relief. Mrs. Condor had intimated that the + affair was to be smart, and so it proved. It was set at a very late and very + fashionable hour, and all through the program groups of torpid, though rather + audible, diners kept drifting in. Claire was not slow to discover that Lily + Condor was first on the bill, and she remembered reading somewhere in a newspaper + that among professionals the first and last place were always loathsome positions. + Judging from the noise and confusion that accompanied their efforts, Claire + could well understand why this was so, and she expected to find Lily Condor + resentful. But to her surprise Mrs. Condor merely shrugged her shoulders and + said:</p> +<p>"What difference does it make? They don't come to listen, anyway. Besides, + I always open the bill. I like to get it over quickly."</p> +<p>But Claire had reason to suspect, as she followed the remainder of a very excellent + program, that the choice of position did not rest with Mrs. Condor. Claire began + to wonder how much money Mrs. Condor received for an effort like this. And she + became more puzzled as she gathered from the conversation of the other artists + about her that the talent had been furnished gratuitously.</p> +<p>"I understand," she heard a woman in front of her whisper to her + companion, "that Devincenzi, the 'cellist, is the only one in the crowd + who is getting a red cent. But he has a rule, you know—or is it a contract? + I'm sure I don't know. At any rate, they say that the Ffinch-Browns donated + his fee.... The Ffinch-Browns? Don't you know them?... See, there they are ... + over there by the Tom Forsythes. She has on turquoise pendant earrings.... Oh, + they're ever so charitable! But they do say that she is something of a...."</p> +<p>Claire lost the remainder of this stage whisper in a rather tremulous anxiety + to catch a glimpse of her aunt before she moved. Claire had to acknowledge that + at a distance her aunt gave a wonderful illusion of arrested youth as she stood + with one hand grasping the collar of her gorgeous mandarin coat. But Claire + was more interested in the turquoise pendants than in her aunt. She had never + seen the jewels before, but she had heard about them almost from the time she + was able to lisp.</p> +<p>"They're mine," Mrs. Robson had repeated to Claire again and again. + "My father bought them for me when I was sixteen years old. I remember + the day distinctly, and how my mother said: 'Don't you think, John, that Emily + is a little young for anything like this? I'll keep them for her until she is + twenty.' I nearly cried myself sick, but of course mother was right, <i>then</i>.... + But like everything else, I never got my hands on them again. And what is more, + Julia Carrol Ffinch-Brown knows that they are mine as well as anybody, because + she stood right alongside of me when I handed them over to mother. Not that + I care.... It's the principle of the thing!"</p> +<p>Claire felt disappointed in the pendants. They seemed so insignificant—to + fall very far short of her mother's passionate description of them, and she + began to wonder which was the more pathetic, Mrs. Robson's exaggerated notion + of their worth or the pettiness that gave Aunt Julia the tenacity to hold fast + to such trivial baubles.</p> +<p>Ned Stillman was in the audience, also. Claire saw him sitting off at the side. + Indeed, she spotted him on the very moment of her entrance upon the stage. She + had been nervous until his friendly smile warmed her into easy confidence; and + though, while she played, her back had been toward him, she felt the glow of + his sympathy. As Lily Condor and she swept back upon the stage for their rather + perfunctory applause, and still more perfunctory bouquets provided by the committee, + Claire could see him gently tapping his hands in her direction, and she was + surprised when the usher handed her a bouquet of dazzling orchids.</p> +<p>"They must be for you," Claire said, innocently enough, to Mrs. Condor. + "I don't find any name on them."</p> +<p>"That shows that you've got a discreet admirer, at any rate," Lily + Condor returned with that bantering sneer which Claire was just beginning to + notice. And the thought struck her at once that Stillman had sent the flowers. + She was pleased, but also a little annoyed to think he had so deliberately ignored + Mrs. Condor.</p> +<p>The Flints were there, too; Flint looked uncomfortable and warm in his scant + full-dress suit and his wife frankly ridiculous in a low-cut gown that exhibited + every angle of a hopelessly scrawny neck. Claire did not see them until she + was leaving the stage, and she smiled as she saw Flint lean over and pick up + the opera-glasses from his wife's lap. But this was not all. In a far corner + sat Miss Munch and her cousin, Mrs. Richards, their ferret eyes darting busily + about and their tongues clicking even more rapidly. Doubtless Flint had invested + in a number of tickets at the office for business reasons and passed them around + for any of the office force who felt a desire to see society at close range.</p> +<p>Claire had not meant to stay beyond one or two numbers following her own appearance, + but she kept yielding to Mrs. Condor's insistent suggestions that she "stay + for just one more," until she discovered, to her dismay, that it was past + midnight. The last artists were taking their places upon the stage. Claire resigned + herself to the inevitable and sat out the remainder of the performance. She + was making a quick exit into the dressing-room when she came face to face with + her aunt. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown betrayed her confusion by the merest lift of the + eyebrows, and she stepped back as if to get a clearer view of her niece, as + she said with an air of polite surprise:</p> +<p>"You—<i>here</i>?"</p> +<p>Claire carried her head confidently. "I was on the program," she + returned, consciously eying the turquoise pendants.</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rested a closed fan against her left ear as if to screen + at least one of the earrings from Claire's frank stare. "Oh, how interesting! + I must have missed you—I came in late. It's rather odd. I thought I knew + everybody on the program.... I helped arrange it."</p> +<p>"Well," Claire smiled, "I wasn't what you would call one of + the head-liners. I played Mrs. Condor's accompaniments."</p> +<p>"That accounts for it ... my not knowing, I mean. I dare say your mother + is better, otherwise you wouldn't be here."</p> +<p>Claire met her aunt's thrust calmly. "No, mother is worse, if anything. + As a matter of fact, I'm here...."</p> +<p>She broke off abruptly, realizing suddenly that she had left her orchids behind. + She turned to discover Stillman making his leisurely way toward her. He had + the orchids in his hand.</p> +<p>"My dear Miss Robson," he said, gently, "Mrs. Condor came very + near appropriating your flowers."</p> +<p>She could feel the color rising to her forehead. "I see you came to my + rescue again," she said, simply, taking them from him. "I think you + know Mr. Stillman, Aunt Julia."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown forced a too-sweet smile as she gave Stillman a nod of recognition. + "Fancy any girl forgetting so much gorgeousness!" she exclaimed with + an attempt at lightness, but Claire caught the covert rancor in her voice, and + as her aunt made a movement of escape she put out a restraining hand and said:</p> +<p>"I wanted you to know, Aunt Julia, that I'm here merely as a matter of + business. Mrs. Condor has hired me to play her accompaniments."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ffinch-Brown shook off Claire impatiently. "<i>Hired</i> you!" + she sneered. "How extraordinary!"</p> +<p>And with that she swept past, giving Stillman a glance of farewell.</p> +<p>Claire turned to Stillman. "What must you think of me? Leaving my flowers + behind. Confess—it was you who sent them.... I was in such a rush to get + away, though. I shouldn't have stayed so long. My mother is alone.... Of course + there are neighbors just below and they will look in on her, but just the same...."</p> +<p>His smile reassured her. "Are you forgetting about to-morrow?" he + asked. "Remember we are to begin business promptly at two o'clock. I hired + a typewriting-machine yesterday. I'm really thrilled at the idea of—of + going into business."</p> +<p>She looked at him steadily as she gave him her hand: "My dear Mr. Stillman," + she said, quite frankly, "you are very kind."</p> +<p>He answered by pressing her hand warmly and she covered her face with the purple + orchids. They were interrupted by Lily Condor sweeping rather arrogantly toward + them.</p> +<p>"Haven't you gone yet?" she asked Claire. "I thought you were + in a hurry! I hope you've persuaded Ned to get us a taxi. I hate street-cars + at this hour." And in answer to Claire's embarrassed protest that she had + never given such a thing a thought, Mrs. Condor finished: "Well, I've given + it a thought, and don't you forget it. Come, Ned, is it a go?"</p> +<p>Claire fancied that a flicker of annoyance passed over Stillman's face as he + answered, with a dry laugh:</p> +<p>"You might at least have given me time to prove my gallantry."</p> +<p>"I'm not taking any chances," was the prompt reply.</p> +<p>Claire turned away. What had contrived to give Mrs. Condor this disagreeable + air of assurance toward Ned Stillman, she found herself wondering. It had not + been apparent at the Condor-Stillman musicale....</p> +<p>She arrived home dismayed to find the front room illuminated, but the rattle + of the departing taxi brought Mrs. Finnegan to the top of the stairs with a + laughing apology.</p> +<p>"I just looked in to see how your mother was, Miss Claire, and I found + a book on the front-room table"—Mrs. Finnegan held up Ouida's <i>Moths</i>—"and + I got so interested in it that I just naturally forgot to go home. Finnegan's + out, anyway. I was telling him about your good fortune. And all he said was: + 'Well, it beats me how an old crow like Mrs. Condor gets paid for singing. I + remember five years ago, when she wasn't so uppish, we had her for a benefit + performance of the Native Sons, and she didn't get paid then. Her singing may + be over my head. Anyway, it didn't get to my ears.' But Finnegan is always like + that. He just likes to contradict. I got back at him. I said, 'Well, if she + can afford to pay Miss Claire forty a month for playing the piano, she must + get a good piece of money every time she opens her mouth.' ...Mercy, look at + the orchids! Well, you must have had a swell time. I'll bet you wouldn't like + to tell who sent them.... There wasn't any card? That's not saying you don't + know, Miss Claire.... I hope you won't think I'm a meddler, but I'm an older + woman and.... Well, just you keep a sharp eye on the feller that sends you orchids, + Miss Claire."</p> +<p>She went down-stairs without further ado. Claire put the orchids in water and + set them on a sill near an open window. She did not feel in the least resentful + of Mrs. Finnegan's warnings. She was too confident to be anything but faintly + amused at her neighbor's middle-class anxiety. But Finnegan's skepticism concerning + Mrs. Condor annoyed her and she remembered the disagreeable words of her aunt:</p> +<p>"<i>Hired</i> you? How extraordinary!"</p> +<hr /> +<p>"Two o'clock <i>sharp</i>!" The memory of Stillman's air of delicate + banter as he emphasized the hour for beginning his business venture struck Claire + ironically the more she pondered his words. She had a feeling that there was + something farcical in the prospect, and yet there seemed nothing to do but to + go through with the preliminaries. She presented herself, therefore, at the + appointed time at the Stanford Court apartments.</p> +<p>She found Stillman quite alone, his hands blue-black with the smudge from a + refractory typewriter ribbon which he was vainly endeavoring to adjust. It took + some time for him to get his hands clean again, and Claire sharpened her pencils + while she waited. But there really proved to be nothing to do.</p> +<p>"I'm all up in the air over this bean business," Stillman confessed, + nonchalantly. "The government, you know ... they're taking over all that + sort of thing ... regulating food and prices. Of course, in that case...."</p> +<p>Claire felt an enormous and illogical relief. "Then you really won't need + me," she ventured.</p> +<p>"Oh, quite the contrary.... I have a certain amount of business, of a + sort. And I'm tired of dropping checks along the trail of public stenographers.... + Suppose we talk terms. We haven't fixed on any salary, yet."</p> +<p>Claire felt a rising impatience. His subterfuge seemed too childish and obvious. + "That will depend on how much of my time you expect, Mr. Stillman."</p> +<p>"Well, three times a week, anyway ... to start with. Say Mondays, Wednesdays, + and Fridays from two to five.... I was thinking that something in the neighborhood + of fifteen dollars a week would be fair."</p> +<p>He turned a very frank gaze in her direction and she quizzically returned his + glance.</p> +<p>"That's rather ridiculous, don't you think?" she said, trying to + disguise her furtive annoyance. "You can hire a substitute through any + typewriting agency on the basis of three dollars a day."</p> +<p>"Yes, and I can buy two cigars for a nickel, but I shouldn't want to smoke + them."</p> +<p>She clicked the keys of her machine idly. "That is hardly a fair comparison. + You can get any number of competent girls for three dollars."</p> +<p>He rested his chin on his upturned palm. "But, my dear Miss Robson, I + happen to want <i>you</i>."</p> +<p>She thought of any number of cheap, obvious retorts that might have been flung + back at his straightforward admission, but instead she said, with equal frankness:</p> +<p>"That's just what I don't understand."</p> +<p>He threw her a puzzled look and the usual placid light in his eyes quickened + to resentful impatience.</p> +<p>"Is that a necessary part of the contract, Miss Robson?"</p> +<p>She caught her breath. His tone of annoyance was sharp and unexpected. There + was a suggestion of Flint's masculine arrogance in his voice. She felt how absurd + was her cross-examination of him, of how absurd, under the circumstances, would + have been her cross-examination of anybody ready and willing to give her work + to do and an ample wage in the bargain, and yet, for all the force of his reply, + she knew it to be a well-bred if not a deliberate evasion.</p> +<p>"You mean it is none of my business, don't you?" she contrived to + laugh back at him.</p> +<p>His reply was a further surprise. "Yes, precisely," he said, with + an ominous thinning of the lips.</p> +<p>She rose instinctively to meet this thrust and she was conscious that even + Flint had never managed so to disturb her. She glanced about hastily as if measuring + the room in a swift impulse toward escape. Stillman had chosen the dining-room + for a temporary office, and upon the polished surface of the antique walnut + table the typewriter struck an incongruous note; indeed, it was all incongruous, + particularly Stillman and his assumed business airs. Yes, it was absurd for + her to either cross-examine or protest, but it was equally absurd for him to + pay her such an outlandish sum for nine hours a week.</p> +<p>"He's doing it for me," she thought, not without a sense of triumph. + Then, turning to him, she said, a bit awkwardly:</p> +<p>"I guess there isn't any use to dissuade you, Mr. Stillman. If you say + fifteen dollars a week, I sha'n't argue with you."</p> +<p>He smiled back at her, all his former suavity regained. She slid into her seat + again. Her mind was recalling vividly the one other time in her life when she + had grappled vigorously with the masculine spirit of domination, and come away + victorious. This time she had been defeated and she had impulses toward relief + and fear. She looked up suddenly and trapped a solicitous glance from Stillman + that rather annoyed her. And it struck her, as she mentally compared Stillman + with most of the men of her acquaintance, how far he could have loomed above + them if he had had the will for such a performance. As it was he fell somewhat + beneath them in a curious, indefinable way. Had he been too finely tempered + by circumstances or had the flame of life lacked the proper heat for fusing + his virtues effectively? For the moment she found Flint's forthright insolence + more tolerable than Stillman's sterile deference. Suddenly she began to think + of home, not with any sense of security, but as something unpleasant, dark, + disquieting....</p> +<a name="I_XII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3> +<p>Toward six o'clock one afternoon in late February Ned Stillman, making his + way from the business district at California and Montgomery Streets toward his + club, suddenly remembered a forgotten luncheon engagement for that day with + Lily Condor.</p> +<p>"Well," he muttered at once, "I'm in for it now! I guess I might + as well swing out and see her and get the thing over with."</p> +<p>It was curious of late how often he was given to muttering. Previously, petty + annoyances had not moved him to these half-audible and solitary comments which + he had always found contemptuously amusing in others. He wondered whether this + new trick was the result of his business ventures, his sly charities, or his + approach toward the suggestive age of forty. Associating the name of Lily Condor + with his covert charities, he was almost persuaded that they lay back of this + preposterous habit. And the more he thought about it the more he muttered and + became convinced that Lily Condor was usually the topic of these vocal self-communings.</p> +<p>Ned Stillman had always prided himself upon his sense of personal freedom concerning + the trivial circumstances of life. Of course, like any man of sensibility, he + was bound by the chains that deeper impulses forge, but he had never been hampered + by any restraints directed at his ordinary uprisings and downsittings. In short, + he had answered the beck and nod of no man, much less a woman, and he was not + finding Lily Condor's growing presumptions along this line altogether agreeable.</p> +<p>He would not have minded so much if there was any personal gratification in + yielding to the lady's whip-hand commands. There are certain delights in self-surrender + which give a zest to slavery, but there is no joy in being held a hostage. Looking + back, Stillman marveled at the indiscretion he had committed when he handed + over not only his reserve, but Claire Robson's reputation into the safekeeping + of Lily Condor. Had he ever had the simplicity to imagine that a woman of Mrs. + Condor's stamp would constitute herself a safe-deposit vault for hoarding secrets + without exacting a price? Well, perhaps he had expected to pay, but a little + less publicly. He had not looked to have the lady in question ring every coin + audibly in full view and hearing of the entire market-place, and yet, if his + experience had stood him in good stead, he must have known that this was precisely + what she would do. Stillman's hidden gratitude, his private beneficences, did + not serve her purpose, but the spectacle of him in the rôle of her debtor + was a sight that went a long way to establishing a social credit impoverished + by no end of false ventures.</p> +<p>Her command for him to take her to luncheon—and it had been a command, + however suavely she had managed to veil it—bore also the stamp of urgency. + Usually she was content to lay all her positive requests to the charge of mere + caprice, but on this occasion she took the trouble to intimate that there was + a particular reason for wanting to see him. It did not take him long to conclude + that this particular reason had to do with Claire Robson. That was why he yielded + with a better grace than he had been giving to his troublesome friend's disagreeable + pressure.</p> +<p>Stillman knew that while Lily Condor was not precisely jealous of the younger + woman, she was distinctly envious—with the impersonal but acrid envy of + middle age for youth. The episode of the orchids still rankled. He had to admit + that in this instance his course had been tactless, but he had ignored Mrs. + Condor as a challenge to the presumption which he had already begun to sense. + She, while seeming definitely to evade the real issue, had answered the challenge + and he had paid for his temerity a hundredfold. She had reminded him again and + again in deft but none the less positive terms that she was keeping a finger + on the mainspring of any advantage that came her way. Sometimes Stillman wondered + whether she would really be cattish enough to betray his confidence and bring + Claire Robson crashing down under the weight of the questionable position into + which his indiscretion had forced her. Would she really have the face to publish + abroad the pregnant fact that Ned Stillman was providing what she had been pleased + to designate as a meal-ticket for a young woman in difficulty? For himself he + cared little, except that he always shrank instinctively from appearing ridiculous.</p> +<p>He had been thinking a great deal of late as to the best course to pursue in + ridding himself and Claire of this menacing incubus. He had a feeling that Claire, + having exhausted the novelties of her position as accompanist to Lily Condor, + was beginning to find the affair irksome.</p> +<p>The business venture had progressed in quite another direction from his original + intention. Suddenly, without knowing how it had all come about, he found his + plans clearly defined. The government needed him. Somehow, it had never occurred + to him that he could be of service at a point so far from the center of war + activities. He had been a good deal of an idler, it was true, but the seeds + of achievement were merely lying in fallow soil.</p> +<p>At first, he had been stung into action more by Claire's accusing attitude + than anything else. She used to come every other afternoon at the appointed + time and almost challenge him by her reproachful silence to do something, if + only to provide her with an illusion. It was as if she said:</p> +<p>"See, I have given in to you. I know that you are doing this for me, and + I am deeply grateful. But won't you please make the situation a little less + transparent? Won't you at least justify me in the eyes of those who are watching + our little performance?..."</p> +<p>It had all ended by his offering his services to the Food Administration. He + knew something of his father's business. He felt that he had a fair knowledge + of beans, and he could learn more. He merely asked a trial, and it surprised + him to find what a sense of humility suddenly possessed him. He was really overjoyed + when a place was assured him. But he had to admit that his acceptance was not + accorded any great enthusiasm. The newspapers mentioned it in a scant paragraph + that was not even given a prominent place. He had received greater recognition + for a brilliant play upon the golf-links! Well, in such stirring times he was + nobody. He did not complain, even to himself, but the knowledge subconsciously + rankled.</p> +<p>He hired an office down-town, joined the Commercial Club, religiously attended + every meeting that had to do with food conservation, hunted out, absorbed, appropriated + all the economic secrets that served his purpose.... Suddenly he found himself + engrossed, enthusiastic, <i>busy</i>! Finally Claire said to him one day:</p> +<p>"Don't you think I ought to come to you every afternoon?"</p> +<p>"If you can arrange it," he almost snapped back at her.</p> +<p>She did arrange it, how he took no pains to inquire, and a little later she + said again:</p> +<p>"You ought to have some one here all day. I guess you will have to look + for another stenographer."</p> +<p>He remembered how menacingly he had darted at her. She was dressed for the + street, on her way home, and she had halted at the door.</p> +<p>"Do you want to desert the work that you've inspired?" he demanded.</p> +<p>"Inspired?... By <i>me</i>?" Her voice took on a note of triumph.</p> +<p>"You didn't fancy that <i>I</i> inspired it, did you?" he sneered + at her.</p> +<p>His vehemence confused her. "I hadn't thought.... Really, you know.... + Well, as you say.... But, of course, it is absurd when you can get any number + of girls to...."</p> +<p>"But suppose I want <i>you</i>?" he demanded of her for a second + time.</p> +<p>She left without further reply.</p> +<p>When she was gone he found himself in a nasty panic. It was as if the lady + who had called him to her lists had suddenly decided upon a new defender.</p> +<p>"Is she tired of it all ... or is there some one else? Can it be possible + that Flint...."</p> +<p>He had stopped short, amazed to find his mind descending to such a vulgar level. + What had come over him? And he began to fancy things as they once had been—empty, + purposeless days, and nights that found him too bored to even sleep. It seemed + incredible that he could go back to them again. What lay at the bottom of his + sudden deep-breathed satisfaction with life? For an instant, the truth which + he had kept at bay with his old trick of evasion swept toward him.</p> +<p>"No ... no," he muttered. "Oh no!... That would be too absurd!"</p> +<p>But when he had gone to the mirror to brush his hair before venturing on the + street he found thick beads of perspiration on his forehead and his hand shook + as he lifted the comb.</p> +<p>The next day he told Claire that in the future her salary would be twenty dollars + a week. He stood expecting her to rail against the increase, to try to put him + to rout by explaining that she had received less for a full day's work at Flint's. + But to his surprise she thanked him and went on with her work.</p> +<p>It was shortly after this that he began to haunt the various performances in + which Lily Condor and Claire appeared. He always contrived to slip in during + the first number, which as a rule happened to be Mrs. Condor's offering, and + he sat in a far corner where nobody but that lady could have chanced upon him. + But he never knew her to fail in locating him, or to miss the opportunity to + sit out the remainder of the program at his side, or to suggest crab-legs Louis + at Tait's, particularly if Claire were determined upon an early leave-taking. + The effect of all this was not lost upon the general public, and it was not + long before men of Stillman's acquaintance used to remark facetiously to him + over the lunch-table:</p> +<p>"What's new in beans to-day?... Are <i>reds</i> still a favorite?"</p> +<p>Stillman would throw back an equally cryptic answer, thinking as he did so:</p> +<p>"What a wigging I must be getting over the teacups! I guess I'll cut it + all out in the future."</p> +<p>But he usually went no farther than his impulsive resolves.</p> +<p>Sometimes he wondered what Claire thought of his faithful appearance. Did she + fancy that he came to bask in the smiling impertinences of Lily Condor?</p> +<p>As he made his way to a street-car on this vivid February afternoon, he called + to mind that of late Claire had been bringing a fagged look to her daily tasks. + He hoped again that Mrs. Condor's desire to see him had to do with Claire—more + particularly with her dismissal as accompanist. Miss Menzies had quite recovered + and there was really no reason for Claire to continue in her service. It struck + him as he pondered all these matters how strange it was to find him concerned + about these feminine adjustments—he who had always stared down upon trivial + circumstances with cold scorn.</p> +<p>He arrived at Lily Condor's apartments almost upon the lady's heels. Her hat + was still ornamenting the center-table and her wrap lay upon a wicker rocker, + where, with a quick movement of irritation, it had been cast aside.</p> +<p>Her greeting was not reassuring. "Oh...." she began coldly. "Isn't + this rather late for lunch?"</p> +<p>"I'm really very sorry," Stillman returned as he took a chair, "but + to be frank, I quite forgot about you."</p> +<p>"Well," she tried to laugh back at him, "there isn't any virtue + as disagreeable as the truth. I expected you would at least attempt to be polite + enough to lie."</p> +<p>"I hope you were not too greatly inconvenienced," he said, in a deliberate + attempt to ignore her irritation.</p> +<p>"I waited two hours, if that is what you mean. But then, <i>my</i> time + isn't particularly valuable."</p> +<p>He rose suddenly. "I've told you that I was sorry," he began coldly, + reaching for his hat. "But evidently you are determined to be disagreeable. + I fancied you wanted to see me about something urgent, so I came almost as soon + as I remembered."</p> +<p>She snatched the discarded wrap from its place on the wicker rocker as she + glared at him. "You're in something of a hurry, it seems.... Well, I sha'n't + detain you. The truth is there's a pretty kettle of fish stewed up over this + young woman, Claire Robson.... I want you to tell her that she can't play at + the Café Chantant next Friday night."</p> +<p>"Want <i>me</i> to tell her? I don't see where I come in.... Why don't + you tell her yourself?"</p> +<p>"Because I don't choose to.... Besides, I think you might do it a little + more delicately. I can't tell her brutally that she isn't wanted."</p> +<p>"Isn't wanted? Why, what do you mean?"</p> +<p>"The committee informs me that she isn't the sort of person they are accustomed + to have featured in their entertainments. It seems that Mrs. Flint...."</p> +<p>"Mrs. Sawyer Flint?"</p> +<p>"Precisely."</p> +<p>"What is her objection?"</p> +<p>"Do you really want me to tell you?"</p> +<p>"Why not?"</p> +<p>"It appears that some time last fall Miss Robson tried to get her husband + into a compromising position. She came over to the house one night when Mrs. + Flint was away. Flint promptly ordered her out. It seems she went ... to be + quite frank ... with <i>you</i>. And what is more, she...."</p> +<p>"It isn't necessary for you to go any farther. Tell me, do you mean to + say that you believe this thing? Didn't you lift a hand to defend her?"</p> +<p>Lily Condor narrowed her eyes. "Oh, come now, Ned Stillman, don't be a + fool! You know as well as I do that I'm hanging on to my own reputation by my + finger-nails. I'm not taking any chances. As to whether it is so ... well, if + I were to tell the committee everything I know it wouldn't help her cause any. + I could wreck her reputation like that," she snapped her fingers, "with + one solitary fact. If she hasn't wrecked it already with her senseless chatter.... + Only last week her aunt, Mrs. Ffinch-Brown, said to me: 'So you're hiring my + niece! I must say that is handsome of you!' You were sitting talking to Claire + and she looked deliberately at you when she said it. Remember how I warned you, + last December. I told you then that the secret of a woman's meal-ticket was + never hidden very long."</p> +<p>During this speech Mrs. Condor's voice had dropped from its original tone of + petty rancor to one of petulant self-justification. Stillman knew at once that + her ill-temper had caught her off-guard and she was already trying to crawl + slowly back into his favor. She had meant, no doubt, to soften her news over + a glass or two of chilled white wine which she had counted on sipping during + the noon hour. She might even then have gone farther and decided to cast her + fortunes with Stillman and Claire if she had seen that her advantage lay in + that direction. He was not sure but that she still had some such notion in her + mind. But he felt suddenly sick of her past all hope of compromise, and he was + determined to be rid of her once and for all.</p> +<p>"No doubt," he said, frigidly, "you will be glad to be relieved + of Miss Robson's presence permanently. I take it that you don't consider her + association exactly ... well ... shall we say discreet?"</p> +<p>Her eyes took on a yellow tinge as she faced him. She must have sensed the + finality of his tone, the well-bred insolence that his query suggested.</p> +<p>"Discreet?" she echoed. "Well, I wouldn't say that that was + quite what I meant. Desirable—that would be better. I don't find her association + desirable.... I don't <i>want</i> her, in other words."</p> +<p>He had never been so angry in his life. Had she been a man he would have struck + her. He felt himself choking. "My dear Mrs. Condor," he warned, "will + you be good enough to take a little more respectful tone when you speak of Miss + Robson?"</p> +<p>"Oh, indeed! And just what are your rights in the matter? You're not her + brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't know that it was the + fashion for a...." His look stopped her. She trembled a moment, tossed + back her head, and finished, defiantly, "Yes, that is what I want to know, + what <i>are</i> your rights?"</p> +<p>He took a step toward her. Instinctively she retreated.</p> +<p>"A woman like you wouldn't understand even if I were to tell you," + he flung at her.</p> +<p>She covered her face with both hands.</p> +<p>He left the room.</p> +<p>He himself was trembling as he reached the street—trembling for the first + time in years. As a child he had been given to these fits of emotional tremors, + but he had long since lost the faculty for recording physically his intense + moments. Or had he lost the faculty for the intense moments themselves, he found + himself wondering, as he walked rapidly toward his home. The evening was warm + with the perfume of a bit of truant summer that had somehow escaped before its + time to hearten a winter-weary world against the bitter assaults of March. Birds + of passage sang among the hedges, the sun still cast a faint greenish glow in + the extreme west.</p> +<p>His first thought was of the cowering woman he had just left. He had meant + to lash her keenly with his verbal whipcords, but he had not expected to find + her quite so sensitive to his cutting scorn. He remembered the gesture with + which she had lifted her hand as if to screen herself from his insults. There + was a whole life of futile compromise in just the manner of that gesture, a + growing helplessness to give straightforward thrusts, a pitiful admission of + defeat. But he knew that this surrender was temporary—a quick lifting + of the mask under a relentless pressure. To-morrow, in an hour, in ten minutes, + Lily Condor would be her dangerous self again, lashed into the fury of a woman + scorned. For a moment he did not know whether to be relieved or dismayed at + the prospect of Mrs. Condor for an enemy. How much would she really dare?</p> +<p>He thought with a lowering anger of Flint. He had been ready to concede everything + but this former friend in the rôle of a cheap and nasty gossip. No—gossip + was a pale, sickly term. Flint was a malignant toad, a nauseous mud-slinger, + a deliberate liar. He had heard of men who had justified themselves with vile + tales to their insipid, disgustingly virtuous wives, but he had not counted + such among his acquaintances. By the side of Flint, Lily Condor loomed a very + paragon of the social amenities.</p> +<p>Stillman was conscious that his mental process was keyed to the highest pitch + of melodrama. It was not usual for him to indulge in mental abuse. He had never + quite understood the dark and moving processes of red-eyed anger. There had + been something absurd in the theatrical hauteur of his manner in this last scene + with Mrs. Condor—that is, if it were measured by his own standards. His + growing detachments from life had claimed him almost to the point of complete + indifference. But now, suddenly, as if Fate had dealt him an insulting blow + upon the face with her bare palm, he felt not only rage, but a sense of its + futility, its impotence.</p> +<p>"Flint!" he thought again. And immediately he spewed forth the memory + of this man in a flood of indiscriminate epithets.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Later, in the refuge of his own four walls and under the brooding solace of + an after-dinner cigar, he lost some of the intensiveness of his former humor. + But the force of the vehemence which had shaken him filled him with much wonder + and some apprehension. He was too much a man of experience to deny questions + when they were put to him squarely by circumstances.</p> +<p>"You're not her brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't + know it was the fashion for a...."</p> +<p>Lily Condor's clipped question struck him squarely now. Just what were his + expectations concerning Claire Robson? The thought turned him cold. Essentially + he was of Puritan mold, but he had always had a theory that love of illicit + pleasures must have been uncommonly strong in a people who found it necessary + to fight the flesh so uncompromisingly. Battling with the elements upon the + bleak shores of New England contributed, no doubt, to the gray and chastened + spirits that these grim folks had won for themselves; spirits that colored and + sometimes seeded swiftly under the softer skies of California. San Francisco + was full of these forced blooms consumed and withered by the sudden heat of + a free and traditionless life. He knew scores of old-timers—his father's + friends—who had been gloriously wrecked by the passion with which they + met freedom's kiss. They had pursued pleasure with an energy overtrained in + wrestling with the devil and had paid the penalty of all ardent souls lacking + the prudence of weakness. There was at once something fine and unlawful about + the spirit of adventure: it implied courage, impatience of restraint, wilfulness—in + short, all the virtues and vices of strength. He had felt at times the heritage + of this strength, shorn of its power by the softness of a wilderness that had + been wooed instead of conquered. His forefathers had found California a waiting, + gracious bride, but there had been almost a suggestion of the courtezan in the + lavishness of this land's response to the caresses of the invaders.</p> +<p>There was something fantastic in the memory of his father, fresh from the austere + dawns of the little fishing village of Gloucester, transplanted suddenly to + the wine-red sunsets of the Golden Gate. He felt that his father must have had + the courage for substance-wasting without the temptation. Most men in those + early days had plunged unyoked into the race—Ezra Stillman brought his + bride, and therefore his household goods, with him, and unconsciously custom + drew its restraining rein tight. Ezra Stillman came from a long line of salt-seasoned + tempters of the sea; their virtues had been rugged and their vices equally robust; + sin with them had been gaunt, sinewy, unlovely; there was nothing insinuating + and soft about the lure of pleasure in that silver-nooned environment. Ezra + had been the first of this long line to turn his back upon the sea, and the + land had rewarded him lavishly as if determined to make his capture complete. + Yet, he was not landsman enough to wrest a living direct from the soil; instead, + he set up his booth in the market-place of the town and trafficked in spoils + of the field, in full view of the impatient ships tugging at their anchor-chains. + While others dug for gold, or garnered the yellowing grain, or built railroads, + Ezra Stillman sat in his modest office and sold beans and potatoes and onions, + playing the rôle of merchant, husband, and father with genial and unsensational + success—a man of potential lawlessness, robbed of all wolfish tendencies + by the sobering influence of domestic responsibility, after the manner of a + shepherd-dog broken to guard the flock.</p> +<p>Ned Stillman used to wonder how much of this smoldering lawlessness had been + transmitted to him; for was not there an added heritage from his thin-lipped + mother who came of as hardy and masterful a stock as her husband?</p> +<p>Smoldering lawlessness—to-night the phrase struck him sharply. He had + failed at many points, but he had held uncompromisingly to his duty, almost + with a fury of self-conscious puritanical fanaticism. His wife ... yes, he had + always done his duty by her—more than his duty. Then, what was to prevent + him from gathering such flowers as he might.... Up to a point he could still + play the game squarely. <i>Up to a point!</i></p> +<p>He turned in futile anger and weariness from such thoughts to the tinkling + refuge of the evening paper.... Ah, the Russian Ballet was opening at the Valencia + Theater on Friday night! A fragrant memory of Paris blew in upon the breath + of this announcement—Paris, eternally young and as eternally glamorous! + And glancing swiftly at the next column, he chanced upon a full account of this + tiresome Café Chantant business that had occasioned so much bother ... + <i>for the benefit of the French Tobacco Fund</i>—France again!</p> +<p>Suddenly he grew thoughtful.</p> +<p>"A box for the Ballet and a table for the Café Chantant.... I'll + ask Edington and his sister ... that ought to make things look right.... Gad! + how the old ladies will stare!"</p> +<p>He threw the paper down and, as he chuckled, little malicious gleams darted + from his eyes. He would show them, all of them! And as for <i>her</i>.... What + did he expect?... He wanted her, wanted her, <i>wanted her</i>! And yet.... + Smoldering lawlessness.... Yes ... he would chance everything now, even that.</p> +<a name="I_XIII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3> +<p>The Russian Ballet opened with what was called on the program, "A ballet + comi-dramatic by Warslav Nijinsky, entitled '<i>Till Eulenspiegel</i>.'" + It would have been more to the point to have scheduled it as a pantomime; at + least, such a course would have proved somewhat illuminating to an audience + a little in the dark concerning the nature of the entertainment to be set before + it. San Francisco, schooled in the memory of hectic opera seasons with their + inevitable pirouetting, tarlatan-skirted ballets, had come to the performance + with a rather set notion as to what it had a right to expect. True, barefoot + dancers by the score had swept in upon the town, and it had been ravished by + the combined charms of Pavlova and Mordkin, but all of these novelties at least + had ministered to an unsophisticated desire to see the principals starred in + big type on the program and constantly in the limelight. Therefore when the + curtain fell upon a ballet that was neither danced nor postured, and with the + leading dancer of the troupe remaining in the picture instead of an arresting + and flamboyant spot upon it, there was little wonder that the applause was at + once perfunctory and puzzled.</p> +<p>Neither the dancers nor their new art was any novelty to Ned Stillman. He had + seen both in Paris, and again in New York. But he had to confess that this third + view was proving the most enjoyable of all, and he was amused and a trifle supercilious + at the air of frank disapproval throughout the audience. Indeed, he became so + interested in analyzing his fellow-townsmen's attitude that momentarily he forgot + his box party was a challenge to any and all who cared to interest themselves + in discovering his guests.</p> +<p>So far he had not been conscious of a single pair of opera-glasses turned their + way and he began to feel at once cheated, but, if the truth were told, a trifle + relieved. He knew almost as soon as he had committed to the venture that it + was cheap and in bad taste, and yet he could not bring himself to the point + of acknowledging his mistake. He had an uncomfortable feeling also that Claire + Robson was facing the ordeal of a box with silent heroism, not that she was + a woman vulgar enough to dread a conspicuous position in itself, but because + she had an instinctive sense of what was fitting. He had not mentioned a box + party when he had first asked her. He merely had said:</p> +<p>"How would you like a night off Friday?"</p> +<p>"A night off? I'm scheduled for a turn with Mrs. Condor."</p> +<p>"Well, and if she should be willing to let you go?"</p> +<p>She had assented eagerly, and when he mentioned the Russian Ballet she gave + a cry of delight.</p> +<p>"Edington and his sister, Mrs. Forsythe, are going, too," he explained, + rather hastily. "I.... I got a box this morning."</p> +<p>"A box?" Her voice had risen dubiously.</p> +<p>"There's nothing else left that is decent," he had lied to her.</p> +<p>But he saw that she was far from happy at the prospect, although she was too + proud to voice any further protests.</p> +<p>Curiously enough, even Phil Edington had demurred.</p> +<p>"A box? What's the big idea? Why don't you get some seats in the orchestra?... + Oh, I don't care a rap! Do as you want, but I thought that perhaps...."</p> +<p>At that point he had begun to grow irritated; he decided obstinately that his + guests would either go in a box or remain at home.</p> +<p>Well, they had come in a box, and the audience appeared to be ignoring them. + He had expected something more brilliant in the way of an assembly, but the + house was dressed, on the whole, rather illy for the occasion, as San Francisco + audiences quite often are. To begin with, the Valencia Theater was out of the + beaten path, and a heavy rain was falling. This had the effect of making the + prudent and frugal, who were denied the comfort of either limousines or taxis, + decide on street costume instead of evening fripperies. Only the very smartest + people could afford to ignore the elements, and even these were obliged to withstand + the chill of a draughty playhouse by snuggling close into their opera cloaks + and thus concealing the bare throats and flashing jewels that a more comfortable + environment might have disclosed. On the whole, he was disappointed. One of + his reasons for deciding upon a box was to give Claire the treat of a scintillating + audience seen from a perfect vantage-point. But he had forgotten that his native + town rarely dazzled the spectators except for grand opera at staggering prices, + and even then there were always plenty of recalcitrant males in their business + suits to spoil the picture. San Francisco had not yet reached the point where + its men consciously and as a whole dressed for the occasion; there was still + the sneer of effeminacy directed at those who insisted on taking seriously the + matter of suitable raiment.</p> +<p>To-night Claire had made an effort at extreme simplicity. She was in severe + black, open slightly at the throat, and a large artificial pink rose added a + single note of color. Having no jewels, she wore none, and her hair fell away + from her brow in a grace utterly natural and charming. He had always thought + of her hair vaguely as dark—to-night, standing just behind her where the + light searched out its half-tones, he discovered glinting bits that ran all + the way from burnished copper to shining gold. During the first number she sat + slightly forward, intent on letting no detail escape. When the curtain fell + upon the whimsical Till dangling from a gibbet in the medieval market-place, + Stillman leaned forward and said:</p> +<p>"What do you think of it?"</p> +<p>He did not realize how much it meant to have her strike just the proper note, + until his heart bounded with satisfaction at her frank and unstudied answer:</p> +<p>"I really don't know, Mr. Stillman. It's so different. You see, I was + looking for something more...."</p> +<p>She stopped suddenly as if it occurred to her that, after all, she could not + say precisely just what she had been looking for. "But it's tremendously + interesting, of course," she hastened to add.</p> +<p>He glowed even at her eagerness to make him understand that she was finding + her very indecision a joy.</p> +<p>"Yes, it was the same with me ... at first," he reassured her. "I've + seen this all before, you know ... abroad and in New York. Not precisely this + act, but something along the same lines."</p> +<p>"I almost missed placing Nijinsky," she hesitated. "It was all + rather mystical and vague.... And those subdued lights.... I wish I could see + it all again, now that I've caught my breath. It ... it rather...."</p> +<p>"Dazzles one," supplemented Stillman, leaning nearer and nearer.</p> +<p>A tremor ran through her and he realized with a start that his breath was falling + heavily upon her bare neck. He drew back. Mrs. Forsythe had stopped in a casual + survey of the house to fix upon an object of interest. She dropped the glasses + into her lap as she turned toward Stillman:</p> +<p>"Who can that be, down there in the lower box, staring so at us?" + she asked, indicating the position with an exaggerated glance.</p> +<p>Stillman stood up.</p> +<p>"The man with the bald head?" he heard Claire volunteer. "Why, + that is Mr. Flint—Mr. Sawyer Flint."</p> +<p>"Why, yes, of course," he caught Mrs. Forsythe drawling in a tone + of self-confessed stupidity. "Anybody ought to know him."</p> +<p>"Or his wife," broke in Edington. "One can't miss her.... Now, + <i>she's</i> getting the habit. I declare everybody seems to be interested. + I guess it's you, Miss Robson. You must be the attraction."</p> +<p>"The orchestra has come back," Stillman announced, deliberately. + "What's next?"</p> +<p>"'<i>Papillons</i>,' a ballet in one act," Edington called out, reading + from his program.</p> +<p>"Music by Robert Schumann," supplemented Mrs. Forsythe.</p> +<p>"Ah, now we shall see the wonderful Bolm!" Stillman said to Claire. + "They say he's the finest pantomimist on the stage." She turned slightly + toward him with a movement of appeal. "What is it?" he whispered.</p> +<p>"Just Flint," she answered, grasping his wrist in a swift, backward + gesture. "He keeps on staring."</p> +<p>"What? Shall we change places?"</p> +<p>"No. That would be too.... It's no matter. What did you say the star's + name was?... There, the curtain is going up!"</p> +<p>Stillman fell back, but as he did so he took a sweeping survey of the lower + box. Flint was still staring, and his wife was doing a great deal of vehement + talking and head-shaking to the other women sharing their hospitality.</p> +<p>"<i>Papillons</i>" proved more in the conventional manner and it + was charmingly danced by a score of pretty girls in early-eighteenth-century + costume, and wonderfully acted by Bolm in the character of Pierrot. The audience + warmed unmistakably at this number, and, the draughts somewhat subsiding, a + few venturesome ladies decided to shed their wraps. Chatter became more general + and less controversial; the house began to look about, taking note of itself, + assuming the critical airs of a peacock staring at its own reflection. Opera-glasses + circled the occupants of the boxes, and Stillman tried to single out all those + who let their gaze linger an insolent length of time upon his party. But the + occupants of Flint's box kept casting furtive glances in Claire's direction, + and Flint himself continued to look up every now and then, reaching for the + glasses, which always seemed in his wife's possession, every time he did so. + Stillman felt his anger rising. He knew that Claire was annoyed, but she had + recovered her poise and began to talk enthusiastically about the second number.</p> +<p>"I understood that better." She smiled at Stillman. "I know + the music, too. That always helps a great deal, don't you think?... What a tragic + face Bolm has! I thought his gesture of remorse at having broken the butterfly's + wing wonderfully expressive. Didn't you? The costumes were quaint and lovely. + Oh, I can't tell you how glad I am that I came!"</p> +<p>"La <i>Princesse Enchantée</i>," a duet featuring Nijinsky, + came next, and a gorgeous spectacle entitled "Cleopatra" concluded + the performance. By this time the audience had recovered its good-nature and + it poured forth into the violent shower with much animation and no end of laughter. + Stillman had ordered his car for eleven o'clock, but through some mischance + it was at least fifteen minutes late in appearing. This meant that his party + stood huddled in a little group by the box-office railing, and every one who + passed gave them either casual or pointed glances. Claire, lacking a suitable + wrap, looked rather disconsolate and dowdy in a long black ulster. Stillman + felt annoyed. As luck would have it, the Flints were for some reason in the + same predicament. They had swept bravely past to their intended swift departure, + only to find the call for their car unanswered, and had fallen back on the opposite + side of the foyer. Over the sea of faces the two groups stood and unconsciously + glared at one another—at least Stillman glared for his party, and Flint, + sensing his friend's antagonism, returned the compliment with added insolence.</p> +<p>Stillman's car came first.</p> +<p>Mrs. Forsythe, starting on ahead with Edington, called a gay farewell across + the now empty entrance-way to Mrs. Flint. The latter responded with freezing + politeness. Stillman gave Claire his arm. Flint broke into a laugh and turned + with a shrug to his wife.</p> +<p>Stillman heard the laugh and stopped short. He released Claire's arm and left + her standing almost in the drip of the awnings as he turned and walked rapidly + toward Flint.</p> +<p>"Will you be good enough to quit staring?" he said distinctly. "Your + attentions to my party have been extremely annoying all evening."</p> +<p>Flint looked at first stunned, then rather frightened. Stillman was conscious + that Edington had come up to him and was pulling at his coat sleeve.</p> +<p>Mrs. Forsythe and Claire were just stepping into the machine when the two men + followed. Stillman took his place beside Claire and he felt the trembling pressure + of her body as he reached over and slammed the door. Mrs. Forsythe made no comment.... + It was Edington who broke the silence.</p> +<p>"That Russian stuff may be art," he broke out, "but I'll take + a George M. Cohan rag-time revue any day!"</p> +<hr /> +<p>Stillman's brush with Flint was only the beginning of a series of misadventures. + At the Café Chantant it happened that the Flint table was next to the + Stillman party. Flint had recovered his bravado and he ordered another table + in unmistakable tones. It followed that every one in the room turned their attention + to the late-comers, and it was not long after Flint had been escorted in triumph + to a remote location that Stillman became aware how many eyes were being turned + at him and Claire Robson.</p> +<p>Presently Lily Condor sang, accompanied by Miss Menzies. Stillman knew that + she had sighted them with her usual keen eye, but he also saw that she was determined + to ignore Claire's friendly glances. When she finished she swept from the improvised + platform and walked deliberately past Stillman, seating herself at the table + which the Flints had deserted. Miss Menzies followed. Claire, turning after + them with a wistful look of recognition, bowed to Lily Condor as she took her + seat. The lady stared coldly ahead and beckoned a waiter. Claire blushed.</p> +<p>"What do you suppose," she said in a low voice to Stillman. "Are + you quite sure it was all right ... my deserting Mrs. Condor to-night? Perhaps + I ought to have rung her up myself. But you said...."</p> +<p>Stillman ordered wine. Edington chattered flippantly. Dancing commenced. Stillman + pushed back his chair and said to Claire:</p> +<p>"Shall we begin?"</p> +<p>She rose in answer, and they swung into a one-step. He could feel her trembling + under the glances which he realized were coming from every part of the room. + What was she imagining, he wondered. As they circled about for the second time, + Stillman became conscious that some one was walking across the floor in a deliberate + attempt to waylay them. He stopped. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown stood before them. She + had a deceitfully sweet smile on her lips and her small eyes were full of malicious + determination.</p> +<p>"My dear Mr. Stillman ... will you excuse me?" she said. "I + want a word with Claire ... about something important. Otherwise I shouldn't + have interrupted. You'll understand."</p> +<p>He released Claire and she went to the edge of the dancing-space. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown + turned her back upon Stillman, but Claire's face was unscreened from his gaze. + Whatever Mrs. Ffinch-Brown was saying, Claire made no reply. The younger woman + paled a trifle, Stillman thought, but otherwise she gave no sign. She returned + to Stillman and they finished the dance. As he held her hand, he could feel + her pulse beating with something more than the exertion of dancing.</p> +<p>Edington had been taking a turn himself with his sister.</p> +<p>"Did you know," he volunteered by way of conversation, "that + there had been a devil of a row among the women running this show? Sis says + that she understands they almost pulled one another's hair in committee over + some performer that Mrs. Flint didn't think desirable. That woman and her prejudices + are a scream! I'll bet it was some pretty girl caught making eyes at the old + man. Well, here's looking at you!"</p> +<p>They all lifted their glasses. Claire's hand trembled.</p> +<p>After that things grew more and more confused. He was wondering what Mrs. Ffinch-Brown + had found to say to her niece, and staring at Claire, when she leaned over toward + him with a gesture of apology and said:</p> +<p>"I don't want to break up your party, Mr. Stillman, but really I think + I must be going. My mother, you know.... She wasn't so well to-day. It doesn't + seem right for me to stay here enjoying myself ... under the circumstances."</p> +<p>It had ended in their all leaving, Mrs. Forsythe pleading boredom and Edington + insisting that he had planned to get home fairly early to go over his draft + questionnaire.</p> +<p>"When you see me again, Miss Robson, it's just possible that I'll be a + very grand party in uniform," Edington had announced, lightly, as they + rose from the table.</p> +<p>In the coat-room he said to Stillman:</p> +<p>"You ought to go slow, Ned.... That Miss Robson is a nice girl."</p> +<p>"Slow? What do you mean?"</p> +<p>"Just what I say.... She's a nice girl, I tell you—a damned nice + girl!"</p> +<p>Stillman smiled disagreeably.... He remembered a time when he would have resented + Edington's cryptic insinuations, but now he merely smiled, a wide smile, which + a betraying mirror duplicated unpleasantly. At the departure of Edington and + his sister he turned to Claire significantly:</p> +<p>"Are you really ready to go home?"</p> +<p>She turned a very candid gaze upon him. "No, I can't say that I am."</p> +<p>"Where shall it be, then?"</p> +<p>"Anywhere," she answered, almost passionately. "Anywhere at + all."</p> +<p>"Let's go to Tait's ... <i>first</i>!"</p> +<p>She assented indifferently, and presently Tait's was an accomplished pilgrimage. + They had chosen to go up-stairs to the Pavo Real. At this hour there was still + a fair crush going through the motions of dancing upon a crowded floor and the + scene assaulted Stillman's perceptions with a suggestion of flashy squalor. + It seemed an impossible place in which to indulge a mood, but he suffered the + steward to find them a small table in a far corner. He ordered a Bénédictine + and brandy for himself, Claire compromised on a crème de menthe, frappéed. + The pale green of this last rather innocuous drink shone out like a bit of liquid + jade against the black of Claire's gown as she bent over for a momentary sip. + To Stillman there had always been a heavy-lidded suggestion about the stilly-green + beauty of jade, a beauty glamorous with the Orient, white-heated as noon and + as cold as the yellow glances of the moon. And, sitting there, he remembered + the family tradition of a Stillman in the days when the first ships had come + from China, their holds bursting with strange treasures and the haunting odors + of sandalwood, a Stillman who brought a slave-girl back to affront and shock + the staid provincials of his native town.... Presently the green liquid was + gone and only the cool, white trickle of melting ice remained in the tiny glass + opposite his. Claire moved this symbol of spent delights to one side.</p> +<p>"I suppose you know," she said, calmly, "why I left the Palace + Hotel to-night."</p> +<p>He was not sure.</p> +<p>"My aunt asked me to leave.... She was very polite about it ... and very + cutting. It appears I'm not quite their sort."</p> +<p>"No?" Stillman found himself laughing uneasily. "How gratified + you must be!"</p> +<p>She put out a hand across the table, laying it lightly on his arm.</p> +<p>"Listen. It's really nothing to be flippant about.... Not that I care, + in a way. But really, you know, you should have told me about—about that + little arrangement with Mrs. Condor."</p> +<p>"Ah, then they dragged that in, too!" escaped him. "Your aunt + must be a rapid talker!"</p> +<p>"Oh, it doesn't take long to cover the ground when one female relation + decides to be nasty to another.... And, then, I'm not quite a fool—<i>now</i>.... + Understand, I'm not blaming you ... but it would have been fairer if I had known."</p> +<p>He leaned forward eagerly. "Would you, in that case, have...."</p> +<p>"It's possible," she broke in suddenly. "Of course I've suspected + something from the first ... and ... well, as a matter of fact...." She + shrugged and reached again for her frappé, sliding a cherry from the + crumpled straw, drooping over the glass's rim, toward her mouth. Stillman found + the gesture charming, but he was not sure whether her answer suited him or not. + Of course, she had seen through and accepted the transparencies of his first + business ruse. But she also had subtly urged its justification. In this case.... + In other words, she <i>might</i> accept gratuities under pressure! He felt that + he was narrowing his spiritual eyes as he watched her cutting the bright red + of the cherry with her white lips.</p> +<p>"And then," she went on, suddenly, touching the soft ice in the glass + before her with a shrinking finger, "aside from everything else, what you + planned to-night was stupid.... How could you have imagined that I cared."</p> +<p>"That <i>you</i> cared!" He felt that he was laughing with sneering + bitterness. "Do you always think of <i>yourself</i>? How about me? What + if <i>I</i> cared? It's possible, you know—just possible!"</p> +<p>She brought her hands suddenly up in a movement of clasped defense. He hung + on her reply with white-lipped eagerness.</p> +<p>"Possible?..." she echoed. "They say anything is possible, but + ... somehow men...."</p> +<p>She threw him a glance of thinly veiled mockery. His tension relaxed. She had + merely parried the blow and he felt disappointed.</p> +<p>"I realize now," she went on, "what a frightful nuisance I've + been.... The first time we met.... I was in trouble then, I remember. That sort + of thing grows to be a habit.... You meant it for the best, of course, but this + time you pushed me in pretty far ... I mean into your debt. I wish I knew how + I could repay you."</p> +<p>"I'm willing to accept a deferred payment," he chaffed. "I'll + take your note.... I'm very patient at waiting."</p> +<p>She looked at him clearly, almost too clearly, as if in one flashing moment + she saw behind the mask of his banter.... He began to wonder ... had he hoped + to have her flinch, recoil, or was this cool calm more acceptable?</p> +<p>"I see," she was saying, "you're determined to plunge me in + deeper and deeper, until one day ... well, one day I'll be a bankrupt, won't + I?"</p> +<p>He leaned across the trivial width of the table and he put two burning hands + upon her icy-cold fingers. "Ah, but think how rich <i>I</i> shall be!"</p> +<p>She said nothing. She did not even draw back from his scorching touch. But + this time she lowered her eyes, twisting in her left hand the crumpled straw + divested of its gaudy sweetmeat.... She was a tired woman, he could see that + plainly—a tired woman ... considering. And he was not even moved to pity.</p> +<p>"Come," he said, roughly. "Let's get out of <i>this</i> ghastly + hole."</p> +<p>She rose with a fluttering movement that gave him the impression of a trapped + bird. They made their way out in silence. A great primitive eagerness struck + down every acquired virtue within him. He put his hand at her elbow and held + it tight. He felt that she had clenched her fist.</p> +<p>In the doorway she shrank back suddenly as he stood waiting to lift her into + the flaming yellow taxi answering their call. He retraced his steps.</p> +<p>"What.... Are you ill?"</p> +<p>"No ... for the moment I thought I saw.... Really it's of no consequence!"</p> +<p>He narrowed his eyes upon her. She was lying ... it was of consequence! He + felt very ugly.... A man had just brushed past and now he stood with a finger + upon the elevator bell, waiting.</p> +<p>Claire darted out and gained the taxi.... Stillman followed. As he swung open + the door for her he felt her almost leap into its depths. Once inside, she faced + him, barring the eagerness of his entrance with a defiant arm.</p> +<p>"Go away!" she cried, in a sudden terror. "Go away! Can't you + see?... It's all over, I tell you!"</p> +<p>"All over?" He squared himself doggedly.</p> +<p>"Yes," she said, thickly. "Go away.... You had better go ... + to ... <i>to your wife</i>!"</p> +<p>He fell back as if she had given him a sharp push. His hat had fallen to the + ground. He stooped to pick it up. He heard the door slam and saw the taxi shoot + forward into the sadly glamorous beauty of the night.... He was alone!</p> +<p>He strode back into the café entrance. The man was still waiting before + the door of the tardy elevator. Stillman went up and put an insinuating hand + upon his shoulder. The man turned.</p> +<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon," Stillman stammered. "I thought you + were.... I see I am mistaken. Pray forgive me!"</p> +<p>A flash of white teeth answered Stillman's apology. The door of the elevator + opened. The stranger entered.</p> +<p>Stillman turned away. Where had he seen that face before? Where?... Oh yes, + the Serbian who had....</p> +<p>He felt cold.... The whole thing was absurd. Yet, she had seen some one who.... + He lit a cigarette.... Suddenly he laughed a smothered, choking, unpleasant + laugh.</p> +<p>He decided to go home.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Book II</h2> +<a name="II_I"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> +<p>"It ain't exactly what you would call a society job, Robson, but it will + pay the milkman and the baker, and that's something."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead kicked off a shoe that she had unbuttoned, resting her unshod + foot upon a chair as she sighed with luxurious satisfaction.</p> +<p>Claire Robson began to draw down the shades. A cold March rain was falling + outside and Claire felt that her shabby living-room seemed less bleak with the + night shut out. For the past three weeks Nellie Whitehead had been the only + point of contact with the outside world and Claire had grown to listen eagerly + for the three quick rings at the door-bell which announced her solitary visitor. + There was something about Nellie Whitehead which usually revived Claire's drooping + spirits to an extraordinary degree, but to-night she felt no reaction to the + slightly acrid optimism of her friend.</p> +<p>"A job?" Claire questioned, increduously, seating herself. "I'm + ready for anything in reason. Only.... Well, the truth is, the Finnegans are + moving. I heard about it to-day. I'll have to hire some one to look after mother, + and...." Her hands lifted and dropped in hopeless resignation.</p> +<p>"It ain't an office job," pursued Miss Whitehead; "it's playing + the piano. You know that little friend I told you about who sings at Tait's?... + Well, she had an offer to sing in the same place. But of course she's in pretty + soft where she is."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead was not given to indirectness, and Claire had a feeling that + for some reason her friend was finding it advisable to lead up to her project + rather cautiously.</p> +<p>"I'm ready for anything," she repeated.</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead settled back comfortably. "I suppose I might just as + well quit beating around the bush. You see, it isn't such a snap for the real + professional ... otherwise it wouldn't be going begging. It's ... it's in a + Greek café on Third Street."</p> +<p>A Greek café on Third Street! Claire Robson stared in amazement at her + friend. For a moment she had a feeling that Nellie Whitehead must be joking. + Claire Robson had heard of such places. Professional reformers always found + them a perennial source of exploitation when the vice crop in other quarters + failed, and every now and then the newspapers discovered, to their horror, that + young and tender girls were being hired to serve Turkish coffee and almond syrup + to the patrons of the Greek coffee-houses. Indeed, Claire had once listened + to an eager young woman describe for the young people's section of the Home + Missionary Society all the pitfalls to the weaker sex which lurked in this godless + section of the community where men drank thick coffee and smoked cigarettes + and even kissed pretty girls on provocation. Claire had never been prone to + pass snap judgment, but the very word Greek had an outlandish sound, and it + seemed quite possible that everything that had been said about the evils of + the Greek quarter must have some basis. Even the term Greek labor which she + chanced upon again and again in the daily news was full of sinister suggestion. + And she had a flashing picture of this café in search of a pianist crowded + with heavily-booted, sweating humanity fresh from construction-camps and fields.</p> +<p>"Well ... I don't know," she finally faltered. "I fancy they + won't find <i>my</i> playing to their taste."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead sat up challengingly. "You mean you don't find playing + in a Greek café to <i>your</i> taste.... As a matter of fact, I'm not + keen about suggesting such a thing to you. But lots of girls make a living that + way, and even if they don't move in select circles they're pretty human."</p> +<p>"Oh, it isn't the café side of it," Claire protested; "it's + the ... the...."</p> +<p>"The Greek side of it, eh? Well, as a matter of fact, Robson, I guess + a Greek café ain't any worse than what my little friend calls 'one of + them gilded vice-cages....' And even at that, any girl who lasted six weeks + in the private office of Sawyer Flint, Esquire, has run up against as much fancy + roller-skating as she's apt to. If you managed to keep your balance on a slippery + floor like that, I guess you'll be good for a spin on the asphalt pavement any + day in the week. It may be a little bit rougher, but it ain't a bit more dangerous. + In fact, I shouldn't wonder whether there wasn't a good deal more elbow room."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead leaned back again and closed her eyes. Claire was silent. + There was no logical answer to her friend's shrewd estimate, but prejudice dies + hard and Claire was still in the bondage of a vague distrust for the unknown.</p> +<p>"Good Lord! I know how you feel!" Miss Whitehead went on with a sudden + genial air of understanding. "I remember when I had my first Italian dinner + at Lombardi's. I thought the man who invited me had a grudge against my appetite. + Honest, in those days if you mentioned spaghetti most folks thought you were + talking about a deadly disease. And now...." Nellie Whitehead finished + with an eloquent and descriptive sweep of hands.</p> +<p>Claire put a thoughtful finger to her lips and was silent. After all, what + did it matter where she worked or what she did? She felt a dangerous indifference, + a negative contempt for life.</p> +<p>"I guess you're right," she said, finally, with a sudden hardening + of voice that made Nellie Whitehead look up quickly. "One can get accustomed + to almost anything. Where did you say the café was?"</p> +<hr /> +<p>Claire went next morning before nine o'clock to look up the Greek café + on Third Street. It was a raw, blustering, traditional March day, and she pulled + her shabby cloak about her in a vain attempt to shut out a chill which seemed + somehow to be clutching at her very heart. It was years since she had ventured + south of Market, and she was surprised to find its old atmosphere quite vanished. + She remembered the section of the town beyond Mission Street as a squalid mass + of tumbledown houses out of which issued a perennial stream of shawl-cloaked + women carrying empty white pitchers to the nearest corner grocery and retracing + their steps with the pitchers half hidden in the folds of the aforesaid shawls, + from which dripped betraying flecks of foam. Third Street was now by no means + an opulent thoroughfare, but it had the virtue of a certain cheap newness. The + frowsy women were no more. It was undeniably a street of men, stretching out + in a succession of lodging-houses, saloons, and cheap eating-places. Past Howard + Street the Greek coffee-houses began. Claire looked in at them curiously. In + the drowse of morning they seemed very lifeless and still. She noted, as she + passed, the prim rows of marble-topped tables with their old-fashioned call-bells + for signaling the waiter, the window-plants turning sickly green faces toward + the sun, the line of Oriental water-pipes setting in their racks over the coffee-shelves. + One café seemed very much like another, and in spite of the extreme simplicity + of their equipment they contrived to shed an air fascinating and strange.</p> +<p>Claire hurried on, eager to be through with the suspense of this plunge into + bizarre life which she could not realize would ever be her portion. She was + carrying the whole thing through in a spirit of bravado, and she was conscious + that her hopes leaned unmistakably toward finding the position filled or her + qualifications not up to the mark. Her glimpses into the coffee-houses led her + to expect that the café she was in search of might be some such place. + She was surprised then to come upon a totally different institution in the shape + of what appeared to be a saloon as she halted before the number that corresponded + to the address on the card she was carrying. Café Ithaca—she read + the sign twice before venturing through the swinging doors.</p> +<p>A long mahogany-colored bar ran the full length of the room; small tables fully + set for a meal filled the rest of the floor space. Claire decided at once upon + retreat. But suddenly at the back of the room a green curtain parted and a man + came toward her. He had a pale, round face and a mass of black hair that reminded + Claire of pictures of John the Baptist.</p> +<p>"I am looking for the proprietor," Claire began, desperately.</p> +<p>The man brought his right hand toward his heart, letting his head fall in salutation. + Claire took courage.</p> +<p>"I understand ... it seems you are looking for a pianist." The man + stared and bowed again. "To play.... Do you understand ... I play?" + She began instinctively to make the proper descriptive motions with her fingers.</p> +<p>"Ah, yes! Thank you ... thank you!" The man continued to keep his + hand over his heart and to bow deeply.</p> +<p>The sound of hammering floated from the space screened by the green curtains. + The man called to some one. A waiter appeared. The two conversed long and volubly. + Finally the waiter, turning to Claire, said, in excellent English:</p> +<p>"Mr. Lycurgus does not understand very well. What is it you want?"</p> +<p>"I hear he is looking for a pianist," Claire returned.</p> +<p>"Oh yes. In the back ... the piano is there."</p> +<p>The three passed through the screened opening and Claire found herself in a + huge room still in the process of being put into shape as a café in the + American fashion.</p> +<p>"Mr. Lycurgus," the waiter explained to Claire, "is fixing up + a swell place here. He bought a piano yesterday. After a while, when he gets + a permit, we shall have dancing. We want now somebody to play ... from six o'clock + to twelve."</p> +<p>Claire sat down to the piano. It was new and had a good tone. She ran over + a simple negro melody. The proprietor smiled and bowed again. "Thank you! + Thank you!" he kept repeating. Then he and the waiter began to talk again. + Claire waited.... She had to admit that the prospects were not so terrible. + And she rather liked Mr. Lycurgus with his sweeping and naïve bows and + his thick clustering black hair.</p> +<p>Finally the waiter turned to her and said:</p> +<p>"Do you sing?"</p> +<p>"Yes ... a little." And she made good her words with a sentimental + trifle that her mother had taught her years ago.</p> +<p>The waiter and the proprietor talked again.</p> +<p>"He thinks you will do, and he will pay you twenty dollars a week," + the waiter finally announced.</p> +<p>Claire rose from the piano stool.</p> +<p>"Thank you ... thank you!" said the proprietor.</p> +<p>"Thank <i>you</i>," replied Claire, at a loss for anything better + to say.</p> +<p>"Can you begin to-night?"</p> +<p>Claire hesitated. "Yes," she answered.</p> +<p>And as she said it she had a feeling that she suddenly had been transported + miles from all the familiar scenes and faces that had previously made up her + life.</p> +<hr /> +<p>She returned to the café promptly at six o'clock. But on this first + night there was really nothing to do. The carpenters were still busily laying + a tiny hardwood dancing-floor and a smell of fresh paint enveloped everything. + Claire contented herself with sitting idly at the piano and peering through + the green-curtained entrance into the saloon. The situation was still an extraordinary + one for her and she had not yet grasped it. The tables in the saloon proper + were crowded with diners, all men, and a huge orchestrion was grinding out strange + and unfamiliar melodies. She was not near enough to get any estimate of the + diners as individuals, but she had to confess that the composite impression + they made was far from unpleasant. They ate frankly and with despatch as men + in groups, undisturbed by feminine companionship, do the world over. She noticed + two things particularly—they all had extraordinary thick black hair and + their white teeth flashed pleasantly when they smiled.</p> +<p>At eight o'clock the proprietor came in and stood before her. The waiter was + behind him. Mr. Lycurgus in halting English was inviting her to have something + to eat. She was not hungry, but she decided to see what sort of cheer the Café + Ithaca provided.</p> +<p>The waiter cleared away some tools which the workmen had scattered on a side-table + and began to lay the cloth. Claire sat down and Mr. Lycurgus took a place opposite + her. Anchovies and ripe olives with a bitter but fascinating taste came first, + followed by a delicious soup flavored with lemon. Claire began to feel hungry. + The waiter explained the ingredients of the soup to her as she was finishing + the last mouthful.</p> +<p>"Chicken broth and the white of egg with paste and a dash of lemon," + he announced. Then he set a huge portion of boiled lamb before her, stewed up + with rice and lettuce leaves. It was plain that they were providing something + extra in the way of fare for her.</p> +<p>Mr. Lycurgus, who had eaten earlier in the evening, seemed to be keeping her + company from a sense of naïve and charming hospitality. Claire tried to + think of what to say to him. Finally she hit upon a subject.</p> +<p>"What part of Greece do you come from?" she asked.</p> +<p>He was uncertain as to her question, but the waiter translated it quickly. + Mr. Lycurgus began to talk. Claire did not understand one-half of what he was + saying, but she was conscious that she had struck the proper note. He had come + from Athens, he explained to her, and immediately he launched into lyrical praise + of his native city. Claire assumed an air of interest, asked more questions. + The waiter brought salad, and fried chicken, and a curd cheese, and finally + a cup of thick Turkish coffee. Mr. Lycurgus was called outside to join some + patrons in a drink. He left Claire with his hand upon his heart and his head + thrown forward in a suggestion of perfect surrender that was almost Oriental. + The waiter also grew friendly. It appeared that he came from the mountain districts + of Greece—from shepherd stock. He described the Greek mountains to her.</p> +<p>"Birds and flowers and sweet smells!" he told her. He had been a + bootblack in New York, at first. But he liked San Francisco better. He talked + about America and democracy.</p> +<p>"We Greeks, you understand, we come from a free people." And he began + to revive the glories of ancient Greece. It was plain to Claire that these people + were living in retrospection, harking back to a racial past very much in the + fashion of her mother trying to gather warmth from the memory of a former opulence.</p> +<p>Claire rose from the table, amazed at the extent of the meal which she had + been tempted to eat. But it had all been so frank and friendly and lacking any + savor of condescension. She did not make the mistake of fancying that just this + thing would be a regular occurrence, but there was a certain beauty about the + humanness of this welcome that had been given her, as if the rite of breaking + bread had suddenly made her a part of a large family.</p> +<p>Since there was nothing to do, she left early, at ten o'clock. The waiter followed + her to the door.</p> +<p>"In a day or two things will be different," he assured her.</p> +<p>"What is your name?" she asked.</p> +<p>"Demetrio—the same as Jimmy." He threw back his head, smiling.</p> +<p>She said good night and started off. Third Street was crowded. There was scarcely + a woman in sight. Men, men everywhere. And yet she felt not the slightest fear. + All evening she had felt detached, remote, cut off from the past, as one is + cut off from a familiar view by a sharp turn in the road. But as she swung into + Market Street and crossed over to the north side again the chill of reality + swept over her. She was coming back to familiar scenes, familiar problems, familiar + griefs. She began to think about her mother's hopeless condition, the fact that + Mrs. Finnegan was preparing to move away.</p> +<p>"She's tired of having mother on her hands so often," flashed through + Claire's mind. "She's moving to get out of it gracefully. Why did I permit + such a thing?"</p> +<p>Her cheeks burned with the shame of it. She would have to talk to Nellie Whitehead + about getting some one to come in and sit with her mother at night. Nellie Whitehead + would know of somebody; she always was equal to any emergency.... She needed + to have her shoes resoled, and her gloves were in a dreadful state. Well, fortunately, + she would not have to keep up much of an appearance now. Twenty dollars a week—eighty + dollars a month—she began to lay out plans for its expenditure. She owed + two months to the butcher, and even the grocery bill had been long overdue. + And there was Nellie Whitehead—she should have paid Nellie back. But there + seemed always to have been something else more pressing. She thought all these + things out swiftly, darting from one subject to another in a feverish anxiety + to fill her mind with food for impersonal thought.</p> +<p>When she got home she found a letter awaiting her. It bore a special-delivery + stamp and the envelope was in Stillman's handwriting. She felt suddenly weak + and she sat down.... She sat staring at the envelope a long time before she + gathered courage to open it. When she did, a thin blue slip of paper fluttered + out. It was a check for twenty dollars, payment for the last week she had spent + in Stillman's service. There was no other word from him, just this brief symbol + of what his decision was in regard to her.</p> +<p>She rose to her feet. She did not move, she stood staring ahead....</p> +<p>Presently she heard her mother call. She started guiltily.</p> +<p>"What am I wasting time here for?" she asked herself, with a strange + fierceness. She saw Stillman's blue check lying on the table. She caught it + up and tore it into bits.</p> +<p>Her mother's voice sounded again, this time querulously.</p> +<p>Claire Robson pushed her sagging hair from her forehead and went into her mother's + room.</p> +<a name="II_II"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> +<p>Mrs. Finnegan moved on the first of April. Claire, having by this time decided + that she was more or less committed to her new life, got track of a Miss Proll, + a middle-aged seamstress, who went out by the day, to come and occupy the little + hall bedroom, so that Mrs. Robson was no longer alone in the house nights.</p> +<p>Claire had been ten days at the Café Ithaca and the experiment was losing + its strangeness. There had been very little piano-playing to do. The new rooms + at the rear of the saloon were an experiment that the regular patrons of the + café had not yet accepted enthusiastically, and the looked-for patronage + from the bastard American bohemianism was still a matter of hope and conjecture. + The regular diners clung rather shyly to their old quarters opposite the bar, + and Claire had to be content with making a long-range estimate of them. But + she grew more and more friendly with Jimmy, and even Lycurgus got beyond the + point of clasping his right hand over his heart every time he approached her.</p> +<p>Obviously the Café Ithaca was not one of the ordinary Greek cafés + that vice-crusaders railed against. Claire discovered this quite early. To a + superficial observer the Ithaca was nothing more nor less than an American saloon, + and, as such, was too well established an institution to merit sensational disclosures. + But it was the cafés in which the men of the quarter gather to drink + coffee, and almond or cherry soda, and to listen to "outlandish" music, + that aroused the suspicion of Puritans. To their line of reasoning Greeks who + drank in saloons were <i>frankly</i> immoral; those who hid behind a screen + of sweetened coffee and innocuous syrups were immoral in a subtle and dangerous + way that challenged all the resources of virtue. As a matter of fact, the spectacle + of full-grown men indulging in any pleasure so innocent as coffee-drinking without + being coerced into it was quite too much of an affront for those who won virtue + only at the point of battle. Indeed, even Claire had something of this same + distrust as she nightly passed these masculine forgathering places and caught + glimpses through the unscreened windows of men dancing together between tables + with strange solemnity. She, too, had her suspicions, very much in the manner + of an adult who finds an unexplainable childish silence cause for distrust. + Her training and her own experiences had confirmed her in the faith that males + either singly or in groups were not to be lightly regarded. But she was willing + to concede one point which most of the others left out—she was not sure + that she saw any essential differences between these swarthy males who found + grenadine syrup or coffee to their taste and the less vivid masculine bipeds + who pretended that ice-cream and layer cake was an exciting experience. And + she remembered having seen the same sidelong glances directed at the young women + serving refreshments at a church social that she saw nightly cast at the waitresses + who placed little cups of sweetened coffee upon the cold marble-topped tables + of the Greek cafés.</p> +<p>It was in her midnight walks through the quarter that Claire got the rush of + sudden new lights and values. Alone on the streets after twelve o'clock was + a new experience, but any timidity was swallowed up in the sense of personal + freedom which she seemed to achieve. She could have boarded a car almost from + the Ithaca's doors, and, by transferring, arrived at her Clay Street flat without + taking more than a dozen steps; but on the first night she had overlooked this + possibility and the habit of walking up to Market Street became fixed. In this + brief flight she saw not only men, but men of every conceivable stamp and condition. + And it struck her how unified these masculine types were, how little they differed + in the mass from men that previously she had seen detached, or superficially + divided, from their kind by the varied intrusions of women. It seemed to her + now that the other sex presented a solid front which womankind was always attempting + to break through, and retreating sooner or later, according to the vigor of + the masculine defense. For she had a sudden conviction that each woman battled + singly and alone, but that men somehow braced themselves collectively for the + struggle. Men were not really ever vanquished—a solitary man falling by + the wayside did not spell defeat for the main body. But women—somehow + women were always routed, routed as a whole because they insisted on playing + the game in solitary aloofness. She found men presenting this same unbroken + front to all the tilts of fortune and women as consistently attempting to hold + every trick of fate at bay single-handed. But what she could not determine was + the relative values of these contrasting attitudes, which was the more soul-stirring + performance.</p> +<p>At the beginning of the second week of Claire's new life, a handful of the + Café Ithaca's regular patrons, wishing to indulge in a little celebration, + ordered a table laid in the new dining-room. This broke the ice, and there followed + no end of dinners and banquets and evening suppers. But so far the patrons were + confined to residents of the Greek quarter, and it puzzled Claire to discover + that there were never by any chance women present. She questioned Jimmy about + this.</p> +<p>"Greek women stay home," he replied, emphatically.</p> +<p>Claire had begun by playing simple and sprightly things on the piano. The patrons + responded by applauding her politely, but she could see that they were really + not finding her offerings entertaining. When the wheezy orchestrion started + up with Greek airs they were much more alert and appreciative. She gave an ear + to these melodies, and one night she surprised a company of diners by picking + out the national anthem on the piano. The result was unexpected. She was bombarded + by a shower of silver coins—mostly half-dollar pieces. She rose in her + seat, bowing her thanks for the applause, while Jimmy scrambled after the coins + and Lycurgus came forward with his hand over his heart. She drew back with a + gesture of instinctive refusal as Jimmy poured the money upon the keyboard of + the piano. But she ended by accepting it—there seemed nothing else to + do.</p> +<p>After this she mastered other Greek airs. She learned in time all the slow, + melancholy melodies that never failed to set the feet of dancers shuffling. + And upon the tiny hardwood floor that had been laid in the hope of luring rag-time + patrons to the Café Ithaca there was nightly a handful of men moving + with graceful precision in the steps of their ancient folk-dances. Jimmy, smiling + his satisfaction at Claire, would lean over the piano and say:</p> +<p>"Look, Miss Robson! Now they are dancing an old shepherd dance. They have + danced it so in my part of the country for the last thousand years. It is a + dance of greeting. The two men have not seen each other for five years."</p> +<p>Thus it was with everything—symbols running through the every-day experiences + of these people like a thread of gold through the woof and warp of some drab + garment. They were a people not only living in a past, but carrying this past + with them as they stormed the outposts of modern life, and for all their naïve + Christian piety, which they seemed to practise with a comfortable emotional + fervor, they had retained the courage to meet the deposed gods of another day + with a friendly and affectionate smile. They still danced the old pagan dances + on feast-days of the saints, and ranged pictures of the gods side by side with + the holy icons of the church.</p> +<p>Claire was in a mood to appreciate all these strange experiences; they removed + her so completely from all the soul-crushing memories that were ever struggling + to fasten themselves upon her. And every night when the street-car crossed over + to the south side of the city she shed her cares like one dropping a dripping + coat upon the threshold of a warm room. Between the hours of six and twelve + she gathered courage from forgetfulness. But, although she had entered more + or less gracefully into the demands of this new life, there were times when + the clutch of custom still laid its hand upon her. For one thing, she could + never quite get used to her Sunday night appearance at the café. This + setting of Sunday as a day different and apart was too much of an instinct to + be lightly dismissed. It had been one of Mrs. Robson's pet hobbies.</p> +<p>"Why should I go to the theater or dance on Sunday?" Claire remembered + hearing her mother argue time and again with Mrs. Finnegan. "I can do those + things any other day in the week."</p> +<p>Claire had a feeling that her mother's convictions upon this matter had become + largely a question of good form rather than of religious belief. She knew in + her own case that she could find no logic with which to bolster her emphatic + distaste for this café life on Sunday night, and yet it was only another + proof of the inflexibility of custom.</p> +<p>There were times, too, when she would halt before the swinging doors of the + Café Ithaca, incapable of realizing that she, Claire Robson, was a café + entertainer in the Greek quarter. At these moments she could not imagine anything + more removed from the hopes or even the fears which she had held for her future. + In her glimpses into life with Stillman and Lily Condor, from the lofty vantage-ground + of prejudice, she had looked down upon these women who sang or danced or played + their way into the torpid affections of an eating and drinking public. Once + at the conclusion of an indifferent concert, Stillman had whirled Claire and + Mrs. Condor and Edington out to one of the beach resorts. Claire had been struck + by all the tawdry gaiety of that evening, the flagging spirits of the dancers + reinforced by sloppy highballs, the rattle and bang of the "jazz" + orchestra, the rapacious horde of entertainers moving from table to table, wrestling + dimes and quarters and half-dollars from the open-handed assembly. She recalled + the contemptuous way in which the silver gratuities were flung at what seemed + to Claire these professional fawners.</p> +<p>Her impulse to refuse the money that had been hurled at her on that night when + she had essayed the Greek national anthem carried the sting of memories with + it. But there was something open-hearted and childlike about this latter performance + that robbed it of unpleasantness.</p> +<p>She was looking forward with more or less trepidation to the day when the San + Francisco public in its search for a new sensation would swoop down upon the + Café Ithaca. In a flash she saw all the beach-resort atmosphere duplicated—the + wine-blowsy dancers, the loose-jointed music, the shower of small change falling + significantly at the feet of red-lipped entertainers. Already she had received + a preliminary warning of its approach from Nellie Whitehead.</p> +<p>"Don't be surprised, Robson, if you see me and Billy Holmes skate into + your joint some night. Billy knows a young Greek doctor. He promised to blow + himself for a dinner in our honor any time we say the word. You'd better bone + up on your rag-time. <i>We</i> don't know any Greek shepherd dances."</p> +<p>Claire took the hint and "boned up" on her rag-time—or, rather, + began for the first time in her life really to attempt to play it. And one night, + true to her word, Nellie Whitehead came. Early in the evening a table had been + set for four, and Lycurgus had gone to the flower-stands in front of Lotta's + fountain and bought pink and white carnations for a centerpiece. Claire had + wondered at the reason for all this special preparation, but she made no inquiries. + Nellie Whitehead breezed in at about seven without any escort.</p> +<p>"Why don't they have a decent sign out? I almost went by the place," + she railed, as she released Claire from a hearty embrace. "The men will + be here in a minute. But I came on ahead for a chat. It's that doctor I was + telling you about ... he's giving the feed. He isn't a Greek at all ... he's + a Serbian or something. But, good Lord! What's the difference? They all look + alike to me. Only, this one seems more human ... his hair doesn't fuzz out as + much as some of them.... The fourth place? Why, that's been set for you!... + You can't spare the time? Now, don't you worry, little one; it's all been arranged. + This doctor fellow has some kind of a pull with the management. If he wants + the head entertainer to dine with him, all he has to do is to say so."</p> +<p>"A Serbian!" Claire found herself mentally exclaiming. "Can + it be possible that...."</p> +<p>And true to the commonplace and thoroughly unexplainable thing called "chance" + it <i>was</i> possible. For when Billy Holmes arrived at seven-thirty with his + Serbian friend, Dr. George Danilo, Claire felt herself scarcely surprised, although + for a moment she grew suddenly cold.</p> +<p>Claire had never met Billy Holmes, but she knew him by sight—a bluff, + genial, open-handed man with hair thinning about the temples and a rather swaggering + walk. He was just the proper foil for Danilo's thick-haired, beetle-browed, + red-lipped personality.</p> +<p>After the first chill of surprise, Claire somehow recovered herself. She wondered + whether Danilo remembered that tense moment six months ago when he had pulled + his audience out of a slough of indifference by fixing his passionate gaze upon + her. She had an impulse to ask, but there was something vaguely disturbing about + him. Was she fascinated, or repelled, or overwhelmed? She gave it up. But sitting + opposite him, so close that she could have touched his hand if she had dared, + she grew to feel that when he smiled nothing else really mattered. It was plain + that Lycurgus was his abject slave.</p> +<p>As the dinner progressed, Claire found that she was to be relieved of her post + at the piano by the continuous rumblings of the orchestrion. Between courses, + Nellie Whitehead and Billy Holmes danced, while Claire and the doctor talked—that + is, she let him talk—about himself and his work and his native land. It + was this last topic that flamed him most completely. Claire listened parted-lipped + as he poured out the history of Serbia's wrongs. He pictured his country ravaged, + broken, desolate, buffeted like a shuttlecock between the rackets of fate. His + own people were scattered like chaff. His mother—he merely raised his + hand at the mention of her name and let it fall again.</p> +<p>Boldly, with swift, sure strokes, he gave her glimpses of far-flung horizons, + community griefs, national sorrows, the bleeding of people <i>en masse</i>. + She had experienced something of this before, six months ago, when he had harangued + the Second Presbyterian Church into grudging applause, but now, to-night, he + was within reach, warm and personal and palpitant.</p> +<p>"I am going back ... in the fall ... to ... to...."</p> +<p>He stopped, fumbling for the proper word, as one not to the language born sometimes + does.</p> +<p>She felt a great courage sweep over her. She wanted him to remember.</p> +<p>"Yes," she cried, "I know! To a blood-red dawn! You are going + back to a blood-red dawn!"</p> +<p>How he smiled! "Ah," escaped him. "Then you remembered, too!... + You were the only one at first in the whole room who listened.... I had never + spoken to quite such a crowd before.... I saw you twice ... after. Once you + were dancing. The second time you were alone ... in a doorway.... But to-night, + here.... I was not prepared to find you here and so...."</p> +<p>She was both pleased and annoyed. Why had she not waited for him to spur <i>her</i> + memory?</p> +<p>Presently Lycurgus brought champagne. It appeared that this was a very special + date, although every one had forgotten it except the Greek.</p> +<p>"A year ago ... thank you ... thank you ... a year ago is the war for + America."</p> +<p>"A year ago since we went into the war!" exclaimed some one. "Can + it be possible?"</p> +<p>There followed toasts to Greece, and Serbia, and America, and President Wilson, + and finally to Danilo.</p> +<p>"That Danilo," Lycurgus informed the party—"that Danilo—he + saved my life. Now he can have everything I own. If I were dead, nothing would + be of any use. So now I give him everything ... you understand?—everything!"</p> +<p>Claire stared—she was not yet accustomed to the Oriental extravagances + which crept so naturally into the speech of Lycurgus.</p> +<p>Altogether it was a happy time, in spite of the shadow of world-wide tragedy + that lay in wait just beyond the truant light of personal cheer.</p> +<p>"You've made a hit, Robson!" Nellie Whitehead assured her at the + conclusion of the evening. "But how in Heaven's name could you listen to + all that Serbia stuff?... Dope about the little, old U.S.A. is good enough for + me.... But say, he isn't so bad-looking. If I didn't have Billy on my staff + I do believe...." She finished with a wink and gave Claire a playful shove.</p> +<p>On her way home that night Claire said to herself, "I'll have to look + up some books on Serbia at the library."</p> +<a name="II_III"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> +<p>Two days after Nellie Whitehead's invasion of the Café Ithaca a group + of insurance special agents came for dinner. There were six of them in the party + and they were accompanied by as many women. Calling loudly for Lycurgus, the + spokesman of the party explained their wishes:</p> +<p>"The same kind of a feed that you gave our friend Holmes the other night, + and all the fancy drinks.... You know us!"</p> +<p>Mr. Lycurgus bowed deeply and began to scurry about. Claire started a tune + on the piano.</p> +<p>"Oh, none of that sad stuff!" called out one of the party. "Give + us a little jazz!"</p> +<p>Claire obeyed to the best of her ability. They scrambled up and began to dance. + Appetizers were brought.... They downed them greedily and called for more.</p> +<p>"Give us another dance while we're waiting," they demanded of Claire.</p> +<p>She sat at her post all evening, grinding out tunes. The party continued to + eat and drink and dance until long past eleven o'clock. As they were leaving + one of the men threw Claire a dollar. It would have been quite as easy for him + to have walked over and laid it on the piano. But he threw it at her instead + and Claire remembered again the beach resorts and the contemptuously flung bits + of silver.</p> +<p>"She's a rotten jazz-player at that!" she heard one of the women + say as the party opened the side door and disappeared, followed by the bobbing + figure of Lycurgus.</p> +<p>Jimmy was in great spirits.</p> +<p>"This is the life—eh, Miss Robson? I cleaned up nearly two dollars. + These countrymen of yours—they spend the money! Now we shall see plenty + of good times."</p> +<p>For two or three days a reaction set in and Jimmy was disconsolate. As for + Claire, she found herself welcoming the return to the simpler life of the quarter. + Already she was resenting the intrusion of the outside world. But Saturday night + another crop of San Franciscans in search of novelty made the acquaintance of + the Café Ithaca, and after that there was no stemming the tide.</p> +<p>Gradually the Greek patrons retired to their former positions in the old barroom, + the Greek tunes on the orchestrion were discarded for popular successes from + the vaudeville houses, and the thin line of men dancing symbolically upon the + maple floor as Claire played for them became almost a memory.</p> +<p>Mr. Lycurgus began to talk about hiring entertainers, enlarging the dancing-space, + getting in an orchestra. Claire figured on dismissal. She knew that as a rag-time + performer she was not a success, and her only wonder was that Lycurgus did not + let her go at once. She voiced her fears to Jimmy one day.</p> +<p>"Oh, you should worry!" was Jimmy's comment as he flicked a fly with + his towel. "The boss he likes you!"</p> +<p>Claire smiled. She was becoming accustomed to these naïve and simple explanations + of conduct. Lycurgus liked her and therefore he would continue to retain her. + The question of ability was secondary. Lycurgus liked her because she asked + him questions about his native land and listened when he answered, because she + had learned the Greek anthem on the piano, because she had played peasant dances + for his countrymen. The Greek patrons liked her for the same reason, and it + was no longer a novelty for her to see Jimmy coming toward her with slices of + sesame seed and honey, or a bit of sugar-dusted pastry for her delight, the + gift of one of the diners on the other side of the green curtains.</p> +<p>She had heard in former days such slighting references to the morality of foreigners + in general that she was surprised to find how contemptuously some of these Greek + patrons of the Café Ithaca referred to American women. There was no mistaking + the quality of the smiles which they threw after the spectacle of men who permitted + their wives to indulge in public dancing.</p> +<p>"In my country," Jimmy had explained to her, "we do not even + touch a woman's hand when we dance with her. We give her the end of our handkerchief + instead of our fingers."</p> +<p>And another time he said:</p> +<p>"What is the matter with American mothers, Miss Robson? Last night my + wife found a boy and girl sitting on our door-steps long after ten o'clock. + She opened the door and said to them, 'Have you no home?' It is like that all + over. Young girls go about like men. I do not think that is right!"</p> +<p>Claire found herself blushing, and at once she remembered the eager social-settlement + worker who had pleaded before the Home Missionary Society for funds "to + help these wards of the nation to a keener appreciation of our institutions." + She wondered what the effect would be if Jimmy were to address this organization.</p> +<p>One night, exhausted by six hours of continuous playing for a hilarious crowd + of Americans, Claire crept into one of the coffee-houses and sat down. She was + really too tired to go home, and, besides, she had a sudden desire for contrasts + while the atmosphere which her own kind had brought to the Greek quarter was + already fresh. The appearance of a woman in the coffee-house, other than the + waitresses, was unusual, but Claire was surprised to find only the most casual + of glances directed her way. A man waited on her. She ordered Turkish coffee. + On a raised platform an orchestra was performing; in the clear space just below + a half-dozen men were dancing one of the folk-dances Claire was beginning to + know so well. The music had the sad, minor quality of highland music the world + over, and in addition there was an Oriental strain which recalled certain themes + that Rimsky-Korsokov had captured and woven into the Scheherazade suite. On + the ochestrion at the Café Ithaca these tunes had been more or less clipped + of their wild freedom—adapted to the scale of another set of musical conventions, + and Claire had sensed their novelty, but not their lack of precise musical form. + Even to-night Claire thought not only the music, but the way in which it was + presented, quite outlandish, but as she sat sipping her sweetened coffee the + notes and the rhythm gradually assumed a coherence, and unconsciously her own + feet began to tap the floor.</p> +<p>She looked about the room. It was crowded and the air was thick with cigarette + smoke and the odd, pungent aroma from the Oriental water-pipes. Claire had studied + Greek history in her high-school days, and she had always held a classical picture + of Greek life—flowing garments, marble courtyards, gods and goddesses + made flesh. It came to her sharply, as she sat in the coffee-house, that the + real flavor had a distinct tang of the Orient and that the picture spread before + her was more suggestive of the <i>Arabian Nights</i> than anything else she + could call to mind. She tried to fancy the men about her clothed in soft silks, + with jeweled turbans on their heads and slippers curving into sharp points. + One of the musicians began to sing in a low, monotonous, whining voice, striking + the strings of his zither-like instrument with long, graceful strokes. A girl + bearing a tray of grenadine syrup and a box of cigars passed her table. This + girl had features extraordinarily regular, and her skin was very clear and firm + and provocative. Claire could see that she was a favorite and that she left + a vague unrest in her wake.</p> +<p>"This," flashed through her mind, "is the danger that they speak + of. This is the sort of thing that makes these coffee-houses...."</p> +<p>Abruptly she stopped the course of her thoughts. The memory of Flint's office + suddenly recurred. She pictured this girl in a business environment.</p> +<p>"It would be the same!" she finished to herself, shrugging as she + did so.</p> +<p>And she became aware that the girl was something of a danger herself, in a + fascinating, ruthless, primitive way—a trap set by nature for inscrutable + ends. She thought of herself, and a company of pallid, crushed women who passed + milestone after milestone with the lagging footsteps that would never know either + victory or defeat—a company of wan, pallid women who went on and on without + even the respite of an occasional falling by the wayside, women sacrificing + everything, even life itself, to the arid joy of standards fixed and immovable.... + The girl emptied her tray and passed Claire again. This time she swaggered consciously + as if she realized the measure that another of her kind was taking. Claire felt + a sudden envy for all the instinctive courage back of the challenge which this + palpitating creature was throwing out. She leaned forward to the next table + and said to a man sitting there:</p> +<p>"This girl who has just passed ... is she Greek?"</p> +<p>The man rolled a cigarette insolently, and said in almost the precise words + of Jimmy:</p> +<p>"Greek? I should say not! Greek women stay home!"</p> +<p>He looked squarely at Claire as he said it, and she rose at once.</p> +<p>"They should thank God that they have a home to stay in," she said, + passionately.</p> +<p>The man stared, shrugged, and laughed. Claire went out into the street. She + did not know why she had spoken. The words had risen to her lips like a cry + of pain at the pressure of relentless fingers against a new-found wound. Until + this moment Claire had always fancied that <i>she</i> had a home. Now she knew + that it took something more than a refuge, walled in from the elements, to rise + to such a dignity. And in a flash she felt that this mysterious and indefinable + something was the lattice upon which the tendrils of a woman's soul climbed + toward the light. It was possible, of course, to push forward over the ramparts + of life without this aid, but it took all the vigor of a wild unfolding of the + spirit.... She remembered very few flashes of beauty in her mother's life, but + those few were the blossoming of efforts to create a home for her child, a shield + from the wind and weather to only the shallow vision, but something infinitely + more when the surface of things was scratched. Mrs. Robson's spirit had climbed + the lattice of her sacrifice, but it was not possible for Claire to follow; + like all children, she had outgrown the narrow confines that had served her + mother's need.</p> +<p>The night was clear and beautiful, touched with the mystery of spring. Claire + fancied that the crowds surging up and down Third Street seemed more restless, + more full of desire, more vaguely hopeful of wresting soul-stirring experiences + from life. There were many uniforms in the crush, and men wearing them stood + out clearly, striking a note of youth at once vibrant and pathetic. But the + older men seemed touched with a faded resignation, like spent pilgrims who see + the glistening spires of some holy city in a far distance which they never can + hope to attain. And somehow Claire's youth rose up and went out to meet the + vision which these weary souls so poignantly glimpsed. She longed herself for + these far-flung, golden-topped, opulent duties swimming in the purple twilight + of remoteness. She was tired of the drabness and clutter of crowded foregrounds. + Ah, how easy it would be to take up a march with the ugly highways of effort + veiled by the softness of a slanting sun!</p> +<p>She was hurrying across Mission Street when she felt an arm laid gently upon + her shoulder. She turned—Danilo stood behind her, smiling.</p> +<p>"Ah, you are late!" he said.</p> +<p>"I was too tired to go home at once," she admitted. "I dropped + into one of the coffee-houses to see the sights."</p> +<p>He stepped back to the curb. She followed him. "I have my car half-way + up the block," he explained to her. "I walked to the corner to get + cigarettes. Which way do you go?"</p> +<p>She told him.</p> +<p>"I will take you home, then. I am going in that direction myself. I am + to look in on a patient at the Stanford Court apartments."</p> +<p>"At the Stanford Court apartments?" Claire was conscious that her + tone betrayed a surprise bordering on incredulity.</p> +<p>He smiled back at her indulgently as he led the way to his car. "A man + who got caught in an automobile smash-up early this evening. I was on the spot + and he has asked me to finish the matter. He is rich, so I am very attentive." + He laughed, showing his white teeth. "I am taking him out something to + make him sleep, otherwise he will have a bad night."</p> +<p>Claire forced her interest to the point of inquiring, "Was he seriously + hurt?"</p> +<p>"Oh, not at all! He rode into a street-car and got a nasty blow—on + the head. But, of course, one can never tell. He is a countryman of yours. Perhaps + you have heard of him. His name is Stillman."</p> +<p>Claire did not reply. She was surprised into silence. She had fancied that + the Greek quarter would close the door on any vistas of her former life.</p> +<p>"I understand that he made a million dollars last week by a trick of fortune," + Danilo went on vivaciously. "Shares in a copper-mine ... or something quite + as wonderful.... I must interest him in the cause."</p> +<p>"The cause?... What cause?" Claire inquired.</p> +<p>"Why—why, the Serbian cause, of course! You do not mean to tell + me that you have forgotten our talk already?"</p> +<p>They had reached the car, and Danilo lifted Claire in.</p> +<p>"No, I haven't forgotten. As a matter of fact, I've been intending to + look up some books on Serbia."</p> +<p>His eyes were glowing. "No!... Did you, really? I tell you—I shall + bring you some books to-morrow."</p> +<p>"If you only would!... Yes, I'm sure that would be very kind of you."</p> +<a name="II_IV"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> +<p>The next evening when Claire arrived at the Café Ithaca she found that + the inevitable had happened. Lycurgus had engaged a staff of entertainers. There + were two women, a "professor" who played rag on the piano, and a man + with an assortment of percussion instruments, including drums, which he managed + to manipulate with extraordinary dexterity.</p> +<p>"We're just trying this as a kind of lay-off," explained one of the + women to Claire, with professional hauteur. "We've been doing all the best + places, and we're that worn out! What's your line?"</p> +<p>"I play the piano," returned Claire.</p> +<p>The woman shifted a gilt hairpin, sweeping the room as she did so with a critical + glance.</p> +<p>"Well, I shouldn't think they'd need more 'n one good rag-player here," + she announced, with impartial candor.</p> +<p>"They don't," said Claire. "I'm pretty bad at it myself."</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean nothing personal," threw back the other, + surprised and mollified by Claire's modest claims. "I guess you must have + <i>some</i> sort of class! Otherwise you wouldn't figure at <i>all</i>!"</p> +<p>Jimmy explained the new condition to Claire. "The boss wants you to play + Greek tunes. I told you not to worry."</p> +<p>Things moved rather furiously this first night, and the noise and bang lured + some of the Greek patrons into the back room. The women sang dreadfully—the + big blonde who had talked to Claire, in a deafening, female baritone; the other + woman with the painful self-consciousness of one struggling to retain the remnants + of a voice that had once had promise. This second woman had large, appealing + brown eyes that seemed always on the verge of tears, especially when she sang.</p> +<p>"She's got two kids and a sick sister to support," Claire's blond + friend volunteered during a pause in the evening's entertainment. "Kit's + had some pretty tough goings, all right, but then I guess we ain't none of us + been brought up in steam-heated go-carts. I've taken three fliers at getting + married myself, so I ought to qualify for a certificate from that old trouble + school. Oh, I'm nothing if not game! A gentleman friend said to me only last + night, 'Say, Madge, what I like about you is that you're always ready to take + a chance.' And I am—otherwise I wouldn't be here. What rake-off does the + old boy give you on the drinks you sell?"</p> +<p>"Drinks I sell?" echoed Claire. "Why, I don't sell drinks."</p> +<p>"Oh, come now, don't get haughty! Of course you don't draw 'em out at + the spigot. You're there with the big suggestion, ain't you, when the boys don't + know whether to order beer or White Rock?"</p> +<p>"No, I can't say that I am. You see, we haven't been running much of a + café here so far."</p> +<p>"Well, I should say you haven't! You've been running a Childs restaurant. + But you just watch me wake 'em up!" And with that Madge crossed over to + a table in the corner where six Greeks were having cognac and Turkish coffee, + and she sat down.... Presently Jimmy flew in with three bottles of beer. Madge + waved a triumphant hand to Claire, who had just begun to play a Greek shepherd + dance.</p> +<p>"Didn't I tell you I'd wake 'em up?" she called out, gaily.</p> +<p>Claire saw Lycurgus coming toward her, rubbing his hands with satisfaction.</p> +<p>"Ah, Miss Robson, that girl ... <i>she</i> knows how! I guess now we do + a good business, eh?"</p> +<p>Claire threw him a warped smile as she began to play. But in spite of the fact + that a score or more of the old patrons were within earshot, there was no attempt + at folk-dancing.</p> +<p>"This is the end!" thought Claire, as she yielded her place to the + "professor."</p> +<p>At that moment Doctor Danilo came in.</p> +<p>"Improvements?" he half questioned, lifting his eyebrows significantly + to Claire. "Let us sit down and have coffee."</p> +<p>He had brought her two books on Serbia—a brief history and a sketch of + modern conditions. Claire bent forward attentively as he opened first one and + then the other, explaining the pictures, tracing the war's progress on the inevitable + maps. Finally she said:</p> +<p>"Did you interest your patient?"</p> +<p>"Scarcely. He was not in good condition to-day. But then one never can + tell. Knocks upon the head are full of possibilities. He is indifferent. If + he were not an American, I would think him in love. But Americans, really, they + never have time for foolishness."</p> +<p>He sat with Claire until long after midnight. When she arose to leave he insisted + upon taking her home in his car.</p> +<p>The next evening Madge said to her:</p> +<p>"No wonder you don't waste your time on the other guys around here! Folks + who can make home-runs don't figure on stealing any bases."</p> +<p>There followed a hectic period of prosperity for the Café Ithaca. At + once it seemed that everybody in San Francisco knew of it and was determined + to lay violent hands upon its cut-to-measure gaiety. The entertainers were changed + rapidly. Madge departed one evening in a blaze of wrath because some "fresh + guy" laughed at her friend Kit's painful attempts at song. Kit threw herself + upon a chair in the dressing-room and sobbed her heart out.</p> +<p>"Don't you care, Kit, he wasn't no gentleman!" It had been pathetic + to discover what comfort these two women managed to extract from so frugal a + solace.</p> +<p>So this was the gay and frivolous life of the café entertainer at close + range! It never really had occurred to Claire to fancy that most of these women + were meeting the responsibilities of life with a ghastly smile. Even Madge had + her duties. There was a crippled child in some hospital, the sad spawn of a + weak relation, that Madge was sponsoring. Claire had heard of this quite by + accident one night when Madge's temper caught her off guard. A party of vaudeville + performers had come in for a midnight frolic, and in the course of the hilarity + one of the women stood up on her chair and sang a tear-starting ballad about + a gray-haired mother and a family mortgage and a wayward son who seemed to continue + his course merely to provide a becoming background for his mother's silver hair. + Quantities of loose change had met this effort, and the lady gathered up the + scant folds of her very red dress as she bent over and picked up every coin, + to the last penny.</p> +<p>"Can you beat that?" Madge had demanded fiercely of Claire. "I'm + getting kinder tired of the way Lycurgus lets this foreign talent walk away + with the goods. I don't care for myself, but I need every extra dime I pick + up." And she had explained to Claire about this warped fragment of humanity + and her responsibility. "I'm its god-mother, and I come through with all + the extra money I rake in."</p> +<p>After that Claire found the insolently flung coins assuming new values.</p> +<p>But all the entertainers were not cast in the heroic mold of self-sacrifice. + Claire discovered that there was just as much heartlessness, and greed, and + middle-class smugness among these people as there was in any other walk of life. + In short, Claire was learning something about the law of average, learning to + be unsurprised by a flash of gold in the dullest panful, or as equally unmoved + when some dazzling bit proved dross.</p> +<p>She began to wonder how long she could stand the new atmosphere of the Café + Ithaca. There was a certain irony in discovering herself on the verge of rout + by the intrusion of her own countrymen. There was no doubt that a corroding + influence was eating out the simplicity of the old life of the quarter. In the + coffee-houses the alien customs still persisted, and the men danced their dances + of greeting with all the old fervor, sipping their grenadine syrup and Turkish + coffee between-times, but in the Café Ithaca rag-time was king, and the + Greeks were learning that it was neither necessary nor desirable to leave untouched + the fingers of their female partners.</p> +<p>"That, in itself, means nothing," Danilo had said to Claire one evening, + as they sat discussing the subject; "but it is dangerous for a people to + lose its symbols ... unless there is offered something better, and I cannot + say...."</p> +<p>He swept the room with a significant glance.</p> +<p>Claire had to admit that nothing better had been offered, nor anything quite + so good. She had practically nothing to do, now. Once in a while some Greek + asked her to play one of the old folk tunes, but her efforts fell upon irresponsive + ears. She knew, also, that some of the entertainers resented her professional + aloofness. Not that she consciously stood apart from them. But they were quick + to measure the difference in her attitude, the fact that she appeared to have + very little to do, and that she was not expected to cajole the unattached male + frequenters into buying drinks. She could not have said just why this last service + was not insisted upon, now that she had so little opportunity to earn her salary, + but she concluded it was one of those intangible situations which continually + put to rout the theory that cold logic sways the world. Measured by every practical + standard, Claire should have either earned her way or been dismissed; but Lycurgus + for some mysterious reason saw fit to ignore the claims of expediency in Claire's + case.</p> +<p>Danilo had become a frequent—almost a nightly—visitor at the Café + Ithaca. He came with books for Claire, about Serbia, about the war, about the + place America was playing in the struggle. In the intervals she contrived to + learn something about Stillman. His accident had kept him indoors longer than + the doctor had expected. It appeared that these two suddenly had become warm + friends.</p> +<p>"I find he has been to my country," Danilo told her one night. "He + has been everywhere; but why not? One must pass the time in some way.... 'You + are a waster,' I said to him yesterday."</p> +<p>"And what did he say to that?" Claire asked, eagerly.</p> +<p>"He said: 'I am a reaction.... I come of a people who lived hard. The + race is resting up after the struggle. For over three hundred years we have + been subduing the wilderness. That is why we are willing to let the others step + in and do the work.' But he is not quite fair to himself, now.... I understand + that he is doing great things for his own government. His friends say he is + quite changed.... He is a fine man. Already I think of him as a brother."</p> +<p>Claire glimpsed a new Stillman in these fragments which the doctor brought + her. It was the man-to-man Stillman, without artifice and reservations. And + she had an added sense of masculine unity, of the impenetrable circle that men + draw about their conduct, so far as the other sex is concerned. She found that + he had been moved to even deeper revelations under the sympathetic intriguing + of one of his own kind. He even told the doctor about his wife.</p> +<p>"I do not think he is a man who has many confidants," Danilo explained. + "I do not know why he tells these things to me. Perhaps my profession has + something to do with it. It is not such a great step from physical to spiritual + confessions. And then I am really not a part of his intimate circle. He has + nothing to fear from finding himself betrayed in his own house, so to speak. + But there is one thing I have not yet learned. And what is more, I do not think + I shall—from <i>him</i>. There is a woman, somewhere. But a man like Stillman + does not speak of the thing near his heart."</p> +<p>She felt herself tremble. The doctor leaned forward.</p> +<p>"I am talking too much about this patient of mine," he laughed. "I'm + stirring your imagination. I keep forgetting that I have my own hand to play."</p> +<p>Claire drew back. His dark eyes were lit with sudden fire. She trembled again, + but this time like a blade of dry grass caught in the hot wind-eddies of a near-by + blaze.</p> +<p>"Ah, doctor! You are like them all!" suddenly escaped her.</p> +<p>"<i>All?</i>" His voice quivered with indignation. She had never + seen any one so wounded. For a moment she was stunned. She did not reply.</p> +<p>He rose with a quick, nervous movement.</p> +<p>"I must be going," he said, harshly. "A doctor, you know ... + yes, a doctor's time is never his own."</p> +<p>She knew that he was lying. His face had lost its glowing color, his full lips + had thinned. She had never experienced anything like this before. It was not + the grossness of Flint nor the restrained ardor of Stillman; it was desire charmed + by the hope of virtue and angered at the possibility of finding this hope a + mirage. And it was something even more exacting than this—it was desire + allied to egotism, a wish to be first in the field.... So it had come ... at + last! It had come and she felt afraid!...</p> +<p>On her way home that night she thought it all over. Yes, somehow, with joy + covering her parted lips tempestuously, she had the will to think calmly on + one point. To-morrow she would tell Danilo that she knew Stillman. She <i>must</i> + tell him. She had not meant to be deceitful, but for some reason it was not + easy for her to discuss even casual masculine relationships with Danilo. It + would be hard, but she must tell him ... everything! <i>Everything?...</i> Even + about that last night when.... Well, perhaps there were some things that still + belonged to her.... some secrets that were her very own.</p> +<p>Danilo stayed away from the Café Ithaca for two days. He came in again, + smiling. But he did not mention Stillman's name, and Claire's resolution to + tell him that she knew his patient was put to rout. Instead, he talked about + Claire's personal fortunes with a direct and puzzling sympathy. He wanted to + know everything—about herself, her prospects, her mother. Claire found + it impossible to resent his inquisitiveness. There was something bland and childlike + about it. At the conclusion of their talk he said:</p> +<p>"I should like to call on your mother, sometime. Not professionally ... + just as a friend."</p> +<p>He arrived at the Clay Street flat the next afternoon. Claire had prepared + her mother for the visit.</p> +<p>"A new doctor," she had explained, without going into any further + details. Mrs. Robson had got to a point where she asked no questions.</p> +<p>He stepped laughingly into Mrs. Robson's cramped bedroom, and as she turned + her face broke into a smile. It was the first laugh and the first smile that + this dreary room had seen for months. He talked about the weather, became interested + in a picture that hung on the wall, told an amusing story that he had chanced + upon that morning. It was as if a window suddenly had been opened to a cleansing + breeze.</p> +<p>After that he came every day. He was never empty-handed. He brought flowers, + or sweetmeats from the Greek quarter, or delicate morsels that he picked up + in the markets. Mrs. Robson grew to watch for his coming. He called her "Little + Mother" in the Russian fashion. She would smile warmly as she listened + to him linger caressingly over this term of endearment. He seemed to have the + greatest respect for Mrs. Robson, but he was brutally indifferent to the poor + little seamstress, Miss Proll, whom he ran into once or twice as he was leaving + the house.</p> +<p>"These spinsters!" he would say with scorn, as she passed him on + the stairs.</p> +<p>He seemed to concede anything to a woman who had fulfilled the obligations + of motherhood, but he found nothing to excuse the lack.</p> +<p>His visits quite transformed the atmosphere of the Robson household. It was + incredible that ten minutes a day in the thrall of a personality, hearty and + masculine, could so change the anemic current of gloom that had encompassed + these women. Mrs. Robson began to take a fragmentary interest in life. Indeed, + if it had not been for the noncommittal words of the doctor in answer to Claire's + inquiries regarding her mother's chance for improvement, she would have been + misled into hoping for better days.</p> +<p>It was plain that Danilo's own hearthstone was a tradition, something stretching + back into a misty past, and that he was finding a stimulation in crossing the + threshold of this far Western home. All his life had been spent in wanderings. + There was a touch of the nomad about him. He had starved in Paris, studied relentlessly + in Berlin, and walked the streets of New York penniless. He had lived in hospitals, + and wretched rooming-houses, and cold, impersonal hotels. The first years of + his youth had been surrendered ruthlessly to his profession. There was a shade + of cruelty in the pictures which he drew of his relentless ardor for learning, + in those soul-thirsty days. One would have thought that all these years of wandering + had taken the edge off any national feeling, but he seemed suddenly to have + flamed with the old folk-consciousness, as some bare twig bursts into a white + heat of bloom with the coming of spring. Now all the fury that moved him to + assault the ramparts of learning was being poured out in the prospect of personal + sacrifice for his native land. He was caught up in this cloud of fire and transfigured. + When he spoke of these things Claire felt awe. She had never yet beheld a man + gripped by an emotional enthusiasm.</p> +<p>"You are wondering, no doubt," he would say again and again, "why + I have not gone back ... before! But it seemed best ... to wait. My country + will need men of my profession, later.... Later, I shall do things. I shall + bind up wounds. Ah, it had not been easy to persuade myself to wait. It is never + easy. To move with the crowd, that is easy ... even when the crowd moves to + certain death. But to sit and wait for your appointed time ... with people sneering + beneath their smiles ... no, that is not easy!"</p> +<p>Once she asked him about his parents. His father, it appeared, had been a professor + of Greek in the university at Belgrade; his mother from peasant stock, the daughter + of a prosperous landed proprietor. He seemed more proud of this peasant stock + than of his father's high breeding. Claire was puzzled. To her American ears + the very word peasant savored of unequality, of a certain checkmated opportunity.</p> +<p>"My father saw my mother during the season of fruit blossoms. He was traveling + through the country after an illness, and my mother was standing in her father's + orchard, among the flowering plum-trees. My father was no longer a young man, + but it was the spring of the year!" he finished, with an eloquent gesture.</p> +<p>Now his father was dead. His mother ... he did not know. He had received no + tidings for months. But it appeared that news of his people had always been + infrequent. It was not precisely neglect—Claire was sure that the memory + of these kinsfolk was always with him, something almost too real and tangible + to call for confirmation in the shape of a formal exchange of greetings.</p> +<p>"Next fall, if she is still alive, I shall see this mother of mine," + he finished.</p> +<p>Claire had a picture of him enfolding, unashamed, a stooping, wrinkled peasant + woman in his eager arms—a peasant woman with a gaudy kerchief on her head. + But she was surprised when on the next day he brought a picture of his mother + to her.</p> +<p>She had a grave, handsome face, and her costume was at once simple and fashionable. + And she was anything but bowed with age.</p> +<p>"And here are my two brothers and a sister!"</p> +<p>Claire took the photographs from him. "Oh, then there are others!"</p> +<p>"Others? Did you fancy that my mother was an American?" He laughed....</p> +<p>One afternoon early in May he came in with an unusual amount of bundles.</p> +<p>"See, Little Mother!" he called out, gaily, to Mrs. Robson. "To-day + is my name-day and we shall have a feast!"</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson stared faintly.</p> +<p>"Ah, you do not understand! It is St. George's Day—the saint for + whom I am named. In my country there would be a celebration, I can tell you!"</p> +<p>He was brimming over with good spirits. He had brought a chicken, a small tub + of bitter, ripe olives, and three bottles of red wine and a ceremonial cake. + He had even invested in a cheap icon, and a tiny glass swinging-lamp to burn + before it, and he set the holy image up in a corner of the dining-room, much + to Mrs. Robson's weak dismay. Even Claire felt a measure of disapproval at this + act, as if acquiescence made her subscribe to something that she had no faith + in. Danilo really had prepared all this good cheer for Mrs. Robson, and he moved + a couch from the living-room into the dining-room and carried Mrs. Robson in.</p> +<p>He had flowers for the center of the table, too; not the flamboyant blossoms + of the florist shops, but a shy little bouquet of wild bloom that he had picked + only that morning in the sand-hills near Ingleside, where he had gone to see + a sick countryman.</p> +<p>"He lives in the most wretched hut imaginable," he told them. "But + such a view! Upon a hillside, and the whole Pacific Ocean at his feet. He leases + a patch of land from the water company, and grows violets and purple cabbages + and rows of pale-green lettuce. It is extraordinary how much he accomplishes + in such a small space. And he is in love ... it is too absurd!... with a little + short, squat Italian girl whose father has the bit of land adjoining. She is + pretending to be indifferent, the little baggage! And he has taken to his bed + and fancies he has an incurable disease. After all, there is nothing so foolish + as a man when he takes the notion!"</p> +<p>He helped lay the cloth, tugging in sly, boyish fashion at his end until he + brought the smiles to Claire's grave face.</p> +<p>"There, that is better! Now you look as if it were a feast-day!... Come, + do you realize that I am thirty-two to-day? Perhaps that is why you look so + sad!... Yes, there is no mistake, I am getting old. Wait, I will show you how + I wish that chicken cooked."</p> +<p>And he rushed Claire off her feet and into the kitchen. His spirits were contagious. + Claire found herself singing, and she heard her mother's laugh echoing like + a faint tinkling bell through the gloom of some sunless street.</p> +<p>By five o'clock the feast was over. For the first time since her illness Mrs. + Robson had been tempted beyond the mere duty of eating. She had even had some + wine—about a half-glassful which Danilo had held for her to sip. He had + fed her, too, with an unobtrusive, almost matter-of-fact tenderness which carried + no suggestion of her helplessness.</p> +<p>As he was leaving he said to Claire:</p> +<p>"There will be no end of celebrating at the Ithaca to-night. I shall see + you there. I am going to dinner with my rich patient.... You remember ... Stillman. + He asked me to have a meal at the St. Francis. I suppose we shall have champagne.... + Perhaps, if he is in the humor, I shall bring him down to the café."</p> +<p>Claire went back into the dining-room and began to clear away the litter. She + had an impulse to telephone Lycurgus and tell him that she could not come to + the café that night. To face Stillman seemed impossible. The afternoon + had been so full of cheer, so simple and pleasant. Was it all to end in some + dreary complication? Why was it her lot to always feel these sharp reactions + whenever she surrendered to happiness? But the more she thought about excusing + herself to Lycurgus the more distasteful such a course seemed. To-night was + a feast-night, and there would, doubtless, be a company of the old patrons looking + forward to the familiar dances and national tunes. No, there was nothing to + do but go through with it.</p> +<p>She debated over what to wear. So far, she had appeared at the café + in the simplest of street costumes. Perhaps that was why she had always been + able to maintain a certain air of standing out of the gaudy current of café + life. But she felt to-night it might be a graceful act if she went in braver + apparel, a tribute to these people who had been her friends. And suddenly she + remembered that Lycurgus's given name was George. Then it was a feast-day for + him, too! She threw Gertrude Sinclair's discarded finery on the bed and ran + through it. Here was the black gown that she had worn at the Russian Ballet, + and the gold-embroidered costume that had done such service during her nights + with Mrs. Condor. She passed them by and looked at a pale-blue scrap of a dress, + and a lacy trifle all white with a wide pink sash, and a barbaric-looking spangled + affair that she had never had quite the courage to wear. She would wear it to-night + and startle these friends of hers. She would wear it to-night and play her new + rôle to the limit. A café entertainer? Well, and why not?</p> +<p>She put the dress on and found herself startled by the effect. She had drawn + back her hair in the exaggerated simplicity that was the mode, allowing two + formal ringlets to escape and curl their suggestive way just below either temple. + At the corner of one eye a beauty patch gave her glance a sinister coquettishness. + She could not have imagined herself so changed. The gown was a shimmering blue-green + mass, cut very low, and with the narrowest of shoulder-straps. For a moment + Claire had a misgiving. What could she be thinking of to hazard such a costume? + But there succeeded a tempestuous wish to be daring, to try her feminine lure + to its utmost power, to dazzle for once in her life. And Danilo? What would + he think of her? <i>He</i> would be surprised!</p> +<p>She put on her shabby coat and wound a black-lace scarf about her hair. Then + she looked into the glass again. Now she might be the old Claire of church social + days, for any outside sign to the contrary. She had worn this very cloak and + scarf on the night when she had first seen Danilo, less than six months ago! + She pushed aside her lace head-covering, and the beauty patch and the intriguing + ringlets peeped out. Six months ago she would have been incapable of this deliberate + accentuation of her personality. She would not have lacked the desire, perhaps, + but she would have been without the skill to accomplish it. What had been taking + place in her soul? She had a feeling, as she stared at herself in the glass, + that defiance lay back of most of the broken rules of life. She was defiant—<i>defiant</i>! + She brought her fist down upon the bureau, and it came to her that she had put + this dress on, not to please her Greek friends, not to honor Lycurgus, not to + surprise Danilo! No, she had put it on because she hoped to see Stillman at + the Café Ithaca. She had put it on out of sheer bravado. She could not + bear to have Stillman feel that she was in that place under protest, playing + the game half-heartedly. No, she wanted him to think that she liked the life, + that she had no regrets, that she was proud and self-contained and reliant. + She wanted to wound him.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Outside, the evening was clear and cool. A wind had been blowing all day—the + first trade-wind of the season. Presently, she thought, summer would be upon + them with its misty, tremulous nights and its wind-swept days. She knew little + of the traditional summer of the calendar, warm and opulent. San Francisco had + a trick of ignoring climatic rules, playing the coquette with the sun, drawing + a veil from the sea across its gray-green face. But Claire had always liked + these wayward summer months, liked the swift changes, the salty tang in the + air, the voice of the wind in the afternoon among the eucalyptus-trees. There + was a certain robust melancholy about all these things, a wind-clean virility.</p> +<p>As she rode down Third Street it seemed to her that the sidewalks were less + crowded than usual. The younger men were already off to war. Only a broken few + remained, and summer was beckoning these afield, luring them from the paved + streets with glib, false promises. By the end of October they would be drifting + back again, disillusioned, betrayed by the wanton countryside, seeking to forget + all the fine things that had been their springtime hope. They would be drifting + back to the mercenary embraces of the town, like embittered lovers turning to + the husks of hired caresses for their solace. But spring would come again, and + all the old hope and faith and courage with it. Was not life, after all, a succession + of springs luminous with promise, and summers whose harvests must, of necessity, + fall far short of all the brave anticipations? What summer could possibly yield + the marvelously golden fruits of spring's devising?</p> +<p>And, thinking of these things, Claire had a passionate wish that spring might + be forever stayed; that life might be a keen, virgin hope, unrealized, but ever + ardent, and blinded with the light of fancy.</p> +<a name="II_V"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> +<p>Claire was late in arriving at the Café Ithaca. But in the excitement + of preparing a feast her absence had been overlooked. It turned out that St. + George's Day was a very special day indeed. Three large banquet-tables had been + set, and the general public, by a printed sign at the door, received the news + that it was excluded.</p> +<p>The company was just preparing to sit down as Claire entered. Concealed by + the folds of the green curtain which screened the saloon, she stood and glanced + curiously about. The walls had been transformed into a green bower of wild huckleberry, + the tables strewn with fern fronds and red carnations. It seemed that all the + old patrons were there, either as hosts or guests, and a strange mixture of + outsiders had been bidden to the feast. A few of the Greeks who had married + American girls had brought their wives with them, and, of course, among the + strangers, the women and men were about evenly divided. A Greek orchestra of + three pieces was tuning up.</p> +<p>"They will not need me!" flashed through Claire's mind.</p> +<p>She felt relieved. All at once it seemed quite impossible for her to face this + assembly, in the bizarre costume which had tempted her beyond discretion. As + she stepped aside, Lycurgus saw her. He inclined his head and put his hand to + his heart. It was plain that the formality of the occasion had revived his old + manner.</p> +<p>"Ah, Miss Robson! I have been waiting!" He bowed again as he spoke.</p> +<p>"Oh, I am sorry! Shall you want me to play?... I thought perhaps...."</p> +<p>"To play?... You are not to play to-night. This is my name-day, and to-night + you are to sit with me."</p> +<p>She was to be a guest, then! A feeling of swift pleasure came over her at the + realization that these people had taken thought of such a graceful courtesy.</p> +<p>She went into the dressing-room and took off her wrap. The other entertainers + had been in before her and the scraps of their finery were strewn about, a powder-box + was overturned, a jar of lip rouge uncovered. She knew that Lycurgus was waiting + for her, so she did not add many calculated touches to her toilet; but as she + tucked a strand of rebellious hair back into place it struck her that her lips + were somewhat pale for so vivid a costume. She put her finger into the rouge-pot + and deftly drew it across her mouth. Suddenly it seemed as if her whole personality + were flaming. She restrained an impulse to rub her lips pale again, and she + went into the café.</p> +<hr /> +<p>It was Jimmy who first saw her. He was carrying a tray of masticas and he stopped + as if arrested by an apparition. He set the tray down upon a serving-table, + and said:</p> +<p>"Whew, Miss Robson! What have you done? You are a different girl! I did + not know you. My, but the other women will be sore!" He chuckled gleefully, + and returned to his task.</p> +<p>At this moment Lycurgus came up to her.</p> +<p>"Miss Robson!... Thank you!... Thank you!..." he kept repeating, + in almost inarticulate amazement. "Come, you shall sit next to me <i>now</i>!"</p> +<p>And to her dismay he routed out his intended guest of honor, a countryman who + seemed not to mind the change in position in the least, and set Claire in the + place at his right.</p> +<p>The company began to eat. Claire glanced about. The other entertainers were + sitting at a solitary table near the piano.</p> +<p>"Can it be possible," thought Claire, "that Lycurgus expects + them to go through their parts to-night?"</p> +<p>Almost at once her query was answered, for the piano tinkled and a little French + Jewess named Doris, a new acquisition, got up and began to sing. But everybody + was too busy eating to give very much attention to any other form of entertainment, + and the song ended in apathetic fizzle. Claire's hands came together in instinctive + applause. This solitary clapping only emphasized the general indifference, and + Claire was rewarded by a malignant glance from Doris which seemed to say:</p> +<p>"You don't need to trouble yourself applauding <i>me</i>! I can get my + songs over without your help, thank you!"</p> +<p>When the Jewess seated herself all the other entertainers glared at Claire + also.</p> +<p>"They're hurt," said Claire to herself as she dropped her eyes. And + she felt the same regret she had experienced on the night when Stillman had + sent orchids to her and ignored Mrs. Condor.</p> +<p>Presently the Greek orchestra started up, swinging into a brave chanting rhythm + that started the men dancing. At first there were but three dancers in the swaying + line, but gradually the list grew and soon a score were upon their feet. The + music continued with hypnotic monotony, and the thread of men moved through + the growing complications of the dance like a gliding serpent.</p> +<p>Soup was brought on; the music stopped. A general scurry took place as the + men scampered to their seats again. The entertainer's table was animated by + sneering laughter. After the soup, the rag-time orchestra had its inning, and + the Americans in the company danced with an air of sophisticated superiority. + Then came more songs from the entertainers—received with a favor and warmth + which grew as the dinner progressed. Thus the events of the evening succeeded + one another, an incongruous mixture of New and Old World customs and diversions.</p> +<p>Claire was relieved to discover that no one expected her to dance. She was + beginning to feel conscious of her costume, and it was less embarrassing to + brave the thing out in solitary grandeur by Lycurgus's, side than to attract + the attention of the entire dancing-floor.</p> +<p>Lycurgus beamed upon every one and introduced Claire to all comers with an + affectionate enthusiasm. Put to the necessity of exercising his English, he + had developed quite a vocabulary in the last few weeks.</p> +<p>"Ah, this is my friend, Miss Robson!" he would announce. "Thank + you! Thank you! She has a dress made just for this ... my name-day! And so I + sit here where I can see her always.... All the night! She is a girl, I can + tell you! In two days she learns the Greek hymn, upon the piano! For me, mind + you! For me and no one else!... And you should hear her play for the dance.... + Not to-night! No, some other time! She is my guest to-night.... She has had + a dress, yes, sir ... yes, sir—made just for to-night. She has never worn + it before! I tell you I am somebody. Eh? Thank you! Thank you!"</p> +<p>Claire longed to escape, to hide herself in some screened corner. Had she come + in simpler clothes she would have found Lycurgus's delight childlike and winning, + but she felt embarrassed under the appraising glances which his words called + forth. The men measured her with frank pleasure; the women with cold, disturbed + disapproval.</p> +<p>At eleven o'clock the green curtains parted, and Danilo came in. Claire felt + a sudden faintness that just missed being nausea.... She looked down at her + plate.... When she glanced up again Danilo was making his way toward some vacant + seats at one of the side-tables, and Stillman was following.</p> +<p>"Ah!" cried Lycurgus. "There is Danilo! Excuse me!... Thank + you! Thank you!" and with that he rose and rushed over to Danilo.</p> +<p>The two men embraced, kissing each other on either cheek. Stillman stood apart, + a thin, tolerant smile on his lips. Claire had an absurd feeling of wishing + to fly to Danilo's defense. The greeting over, Lycurgus drew Danilo to one side. + He pointed in Claire's direction, waving his hands and chuckling audibly. He + was telling Danilo about Claire's dress. She blushed and tried to look in another + direction; but as her gaze hurriedly swept the room for an object on which to + fix her attention, she became aware that Stillman was looking at her. His glance + was not startled, nor disturbed, nor even surprised. Instead, he seemed to be + looking clear through her. She shivered, and unconsciously began to feel about + her shoulders in a futile effort to locate some scrap of covering with which + to screen her bare arms and breast. She was trembling violently. A woman sitting + opposite threw her a crêpe scarf with an air of triumph that seemed to + say:</p> +<p>"Well, you can see, now, what comes of such foolishness ... such indecency! + You might have known you would catch cold."</p> +<p>Claire had the impulse to toss the proffered covering back to its owner, but + she took it meekly, instead.</p> +<p>Stillman slowly withdrew his gaze. Claire transferred her glance to Danilo + and Lycurgus. The doctor was assenting perfunctorily to his friend's animated + harangue. He smiled at Claire, but she had a feeling that it was scarcely a + smile of approval. She lifted the scarf above her, and as her bare arms stood + out whitely against the glare, she fancied that she saw Stillman turn and fix + her with a wounded, almost harried stare. Even Danilo's pallid smile faded. + Claire dropped the covering on her shoulders and her arms sank down. Danilo + was introducing Stillman to Lycurgus. Claire began to make a pretense of eating.</p> +<p>"I must get away from all this!" she kept repeating to herself, as + she thrust the food between her lips. "I must get away from this life, + or else...."</p> +<p>And suddenly she began to wonder whether her position at Flint's was still + open to her. She threw back her head and laughed as the realization of what + she had been thinking flashed over her. The woman who had loaned her the scarf + stared. Claire went on eating more calmly.</p> +<p>She kept expecting Danilo to bring Stillman over and introduce him. A feeling + of curiosity mingled with fright possessed her. But as the evening progressed + it became apparent that this part of the feast-day was the men's part. Danilo + was being constantly caught up by groups of his male friends, toasted and wined + and embraced with fervor. As for Lycurgus, he did not return to his seat after + greeting Danilo, and Claire discovered that she was sitting quite alone—even + the men on her left had deserted the table for the noisier delights of the barroom. + She caught glimpses of Stillman, mingling perfunctorily with Danilo's comrades. + He wore his thin, tolerant smile during the whole evening. Was he disgusted, + or amused, or merely indulgent? He did not look again in Claire's direction. + She felt cold and sick and miserable.</p> +<p>Presently she saw Danilo come out of the telephone-booth. His eyes caught hers + and he walked over and dropped into Lycurgus's seat beside her.</p> +<p>"I wanted you to meet my friend ... but now I have been called away to + a patient—a dying woman. Did you see us come in together? I am sure he + thinks this all very queer."</p> +<p>She had an impulse to tell him then that she knew Stillman and that an introduction + was unnecessary. But he rose quickly, tossing a clean napkin in her direction + as he said:</p> +<p>"You must have been eating cherries. Your lips are all red."</p> +<p>She picked up the napkin and covered her lips. She had never been so humiliated + in her life. He stood watching her as she rubbed her mouth clean again.</p> +<p>"Ah, now you look better!" he said, simply, as she tried to smile.</p> +<p>He said good-by and left her. She watched him shake hands with Stillman. Evidently + Stillman had decided to remain. She looked down at the napkin and the red stain + upon it. The woman opposite her was eying the discarded napkin with a look of + contempt.</p> +<p>Claire heard some one pull back the chair that Danilo had just deserted. She + looked up. Stillman was sitting down beside her. At this moment the woman opposite + rose.</p> +<p>"Are you leaving?" Claire felt herself say.</p> +<p>The woman nodded. Claire slowly unwound the scarf from her shoulders and returned + it, murmuring her thanks. The woman left the table. Claire could feel the chill + of Stillman's glance sweeping over her bare shoulders and her white breast. + When he spoke she felt no surprise at his words—she knew at once what + he would say.</p> +<p>"I didn't expect to see <i>you</i> here!"</p> +<p>"I thought you had experience enough to be prepared for anything!"</p> +<p>He looked at her sharply. "Well, there are some things.... Are you a guest?"</p> +<p>Then Danilo had not spoken of her—pointed her out!... She toyed with + a fern frond. "For to-night, only. Otherwise I earn my living here."</p> +<p>He was ghastly pale. "<i>Here</i>?"</p> +<p>"Oh, don't be alarmed! It's respectable enough. I play the piano. It really + isn't gay at all. It's very stupid and dull when you get used to it."</p> +<p>She was conscious that her tone was hard-lipped, playing up to her costume.</p> +<p>"Every night? Is it possible that you come here every night, in this kind + of a place, and play?... Good God! No wonder...."</p> +<p>His eyes swept her again. She dropped her glance.</p> +<p>"No wonder you can dress yourself in this fashion!" was what she + knew he meant to imply. She threw back her head defiantly.</p> +<p>"You're mistaken," she said, coldly. "These people are very + good to me. As for playing the piano.... well, I've done that before. Only, + then I was exhibited on a <i>raised</i> platform!"</p> +<p>She knew that every word was wounding him, and yet she could not alter her + mood. She was heart-sick, and defiant, and bitter.</p> +<p>"And do you think that all this is quite fair to ... to your friends?"</p> +<p>"I have to earn my living, don't I?"</p> +<p>He brushed a cigarette stub off the table. "Last month I made a fortune. + I cleaned up something over a million dollars. And still I must sit here and + watch ... watch these Greeks fling money in your face!"</p> +<p>He swept the room with an angry gesture. Claire followed the swift flight of + his hand. One of the entertainers had finished singing and the usual shower + of coins was falling on the hard floor. His lips were quivering with indignation.</p> +<p>"Oh, <i>I'm</i> not a favorite! They don't bombard me in any such fashion. + Once in a while, perhaps, but...." She raised her hands slightly.</p> +<p>"Once in a while!" he echoed, with a bitter laugh, "Then they + <i>do</i> throw money at you! You ... you take all this from strangers, but + from me ... from me, who...." He brought his fist down upon the table.</p> +<p>She put her hand upon his. "I give these people pleasure and they repay + me as they can.... There is one thing about a <i>flung</i> coin—it is + frank and open and honest."</p> +<p>He glanced down. "And insulting, too," he muttered. "God knows + there have been times enough when I forgot myself.... I'm a man, after everything + is said and done. The mistakes I made were never deliberate ... calculating. + I <i>did</i> want to serve you!"</p> +<p>"What did you expect me to do?" she asked, more gently.</p> +<p>"I don't know. But I fancy it was almost anything but this. It seems that + almost anything else would be better."</p> +<p>"Even taking dictation from Flint?"</p> +<p>He winced.</p> +<p>"Oh, I know what you are thinking," she went on, passionately. "You're + thinking that it is this life that has given me the courage to be hard and bitter—to + dress myself in this ... to paint my lips red." She held up the rouge-stained + napkin and shrugged. "But you forget Flint and Mrs. Condor and all the + nastiness of the life that you seem to think desirable simply because it is + familiar.... I wouldn't go back to it now even if I could. I'd rather take a + chance here where they throw money frankly in your face and then promptly forget + about it; where they don't demand anything of you beyond just the passing moment. + Where one hasn't any standards to live up to and cheat for. Yes, cheat for! + Not that these people haven't standards—they're full of them. But they + don't expect <i>me</i> to live up to them. I can be as virtuous or as immoral + as I choose. They are willing to leave my soul in my own keeping!"</p> +<p>He shaded his face. "Just think," he said, as he raised his eyes + to her again. "I made a million dollars last month, and I am more helpless + than the meanest person here with ten cents in his pocket. If I were poor and + miserable and struggling, I could at least come and sit opposite you and throw + my last penny at you. I could throw my last coin at your feet and go away happy, + knowing that I must starve to-morrow, because of you. Why is it that others + may do what I—"</p> +<p>She stopped him with a quick gesture. "You know why," she said, simply.</p> +<p>He drew back as if she had dealt him a blow in the face. Claire felt an impulse + to rise and flee. Her defiance had spent itself and she was growing weak and + tremulous. She glanced about—Lycurgus was coming toward them.</p> +<p>"Ah, Mr. Stillman—thank you! Thank you!" Lycurgus's voice rang + out across the table. "I see you are here ... with Miss Robson. Did you + see her dress? For me ... she wears this dress just for me to-night, because + it is my name-day. She has never worn it before. She is some girl, I can tell + you!" Suddenly he bent across the table and, laying his hand upon Claire's + cold fingers, he ran his palm the full length of her arm.</p> +<p>She shook him off as she rose. But he continued to smile with wine-heated indulgence. + "For me," he repeated again. "She wears this beautiful dress + for me only!"</p> +<p>Claire glanced down at Stillman. His face was gray, his hands clenched at his + side. Lycurgus moved away.</p> +<p>"Good night," she said to Stillman.</p> +<p>He roused himself. "Then you are going?... Which way?... I have my car + here."</p> +<p>"Some other time," she repeated, mechanically. "I am not afraid. + I do this every night, you must remember."</p> +<p>He stood up. "I should be very glad indeed, but if you do not...."</p> +<p>"No, I would rather be alone."</p> +<p>He bowed. "And your mother—how is she?"</p> +<p>"A little better, thank you. We have a new doctor."</p> +<p>"Is that so? Remember me to her, will you?"</p> +<p>She said good night again, and escaped. The dressing-room was crowded with + women. Claire found her coat and scarf; she stepped out into the café + and slipped them on. Stillman had gone.</p> +<p>The Greek orchestra had started another tune and Lycurgus was leading the dance, + this time with great animation. Claire left unnoticed by the side door. The + night air was still sharp and rather cutting, and the stars twinkled brilliantly + overhead. The chill had driven most people indoors. Third Street was as good + as deserted.</p> +<p>She felt very cold, and she decided not to walk to Market Street, but to take + a car. Her spangled dress seemed suddenly to have grown heavy. She longed to + throw herself prone upon her narrow bed and let the dull longing at her heart + escape in a flood of tears....</p> +<p>She crawled up the long flight of stairs to her cheerless home. The stillness + was broken by the faint breathing of the little faded seamstress and the heavy + snores of her mother. She caught the flicker of a light from the dining-room. + She tiptoed toward it. The tiny lamp before Danilo's icon was still burning + fitfully. She stepped into the room. Something mysterious and peaceful seemed + to flood her soul.</p> +<p>Danilo?... Until this moment she had not thought of him. Here upon the table + lay the simple flowers that he had plucked for his feast. She bent over to smell + them. They were full of wild, uncultured perfume.</p> +<p>And suddenly his face rose before her and she heard the precise tones of his + voice as he had said:</p> +<p>"You must have been eating cherries. Your lips are red."</p> +<p>She tossed aside her coat and her lace scarf, and her imprisoned hair came + trembling in a wayward flood about her shoulders.</p> +<p>She sat down before the table and clasped her hands. In the dimness the holy + image seemed to grow palpitant and alive. Hot tears were gathering in her eyelashes. + She bowed her head.</p> +<p>The light in the lamp gave one brave flicker and went out. Claire Robson dropped + her head upon the table and sobs shook her.</p> +<a name="II_VI"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> +<p>At four o'clock in the morning Stillman turned his car about and began to return + to San Francisco. He did not feel tired, but he was chilled through. About him, + in the faint mist of early dawn, the prune-orchards of the Santa Clara Valley + stretched out in faintly green lines toward the foothills.</p> +<p>He had a sudden longing for companionship. If only Danilo were there to flame + him with vicarious enthusiasm! Danilo!... What was there about Danilo that never + failed to melt the cold forms of indifference and weary contempt? Was it the + man himself, his intensity for a cause, or the mere novelty of the unique atmosphere + which he radiated that had tempted Stillman beyond the pale boundaries of a + formal acquaintanceship? Last night's celebration, for instance, had held very + little that was traditionally appealing to a man of Stillman's upbringing, and + yet he had been tricked into accepting the curious forms through which a totally + strange people expressed themselves. In his travels abroad he had always enjoyed + the spectacle of foreign life, but he had scarcely felt any desire to enter + into it. He found the position of onlooker agreeable, and he was not indifferent + to the merit of other traditions, but he had lacked the naïveté + to surrender to their spell. When he was with Danilo it was different; the Serbian + seemed to be a crucible which fused the most diverse elements, investing everything + in life with simplicity and coherence. In Danilo's presence Stillman found himself + capable of the most amazing confidences. He could speak out boldly about his + hopes, his fears, even his shortcomings. He could discuss the magnitude of his + fortune, his carefully guarded indiscretions, his domestic tragedy.</p> +<p>And now, at this moment, as Stillman rode back to San Francisco in the faintly + spreading dawn, he had a vague feeling that if Danilo had been at his side he + would have poured out his soul and yielded up the most precious secret of his + heart. Well, perhaps it was best that Danilo was safely out of range. It was + not that he felt any precise mistrust concerning Danilo; all his uncertainty + had to do with the strange, hard, coldly flaming Claire that he had glimpsed + in that terrible moment when he had first come upon her, seated next to Lycurgus + at the Café Ithaca. He had never felt so impotent, so helpless as he + had felt at that moment. He remembered, now, every detail of her costume: the + blue-green iridescence that ran through every palpitation of her figure, the + black, sinister patch near her eye, the brilliant red of her lips. And against + all this color the amazing whiteness of her tapering arms had stood out too + clearly. He had seen her arms bared before, to the elbow, but never boldly stripped + clear to the shoulders. And her hair—that hair which always had graced + her head with such unaffected artlessness—she seemed suddenly to have + found the need to overdo, to strain for effective simplicity. Her words to him + had not helped matters. It was not the memory of her defiance that left him + cold; it was the indifference in her voice that froze his heart. She was indifferent—she + no longer cared!</p> +<p>He began now to feel not only cold, but weary. What had possessed him to leave + the Café Ithaca and flee down the peninsula like a thief in the night? + To ride ... ride furiously, madly, that had been his first impulse. Just motion! + It seemed that he could find no other outlet for his tumult. But now the leaping + flames of emotion had died. He was burned out.</p> +<p>The dawn grew rosier; meadowlarks began to sing; groups of blackbirds rose + in ardent, wheeling flights. The mist upon the hills parted and revealed pastoral + secrets. But all this full-blooded pageantry left him unmoved.</p> +<p>He thought about his wife; not indirectly, evasively, as had been his habit, + but with ruthless honesty. The bulletins from the sanatorium had grown less + hopeful. Still, there was always the possibility that the mental fog would clear + and leave her at the mercy of a wan sanity. Stillman could imagine nothing more + terrible than this return to a chill, stark reason. It would be as if some smiling + hillside had paid the toll of a devastating freshet, and was left a scarred + and naked waste that a belated sun could never clothe again. And always there + would be the sleeping and waking fear that the torrents would descend again + with even greater fury. Now, at least, she had the warmth of her hallucinations + to make life tolerable. What would be left her when these mirages melted into + the dreary void of actual life?... For a moment it seemed to Stillman that reality + was the greatest of all tragedies to face. The visions of youth, the ecstasies + of the witless, the crooning dreams of old age—how they softened the relentless + glare of things as they were! How they lured the traveler past the soul-killing + monotonies, the bleak disillusionments!</p> +<p>He left the orchards behind, and came into the region of pretty, artless homes + surrounded by gardens spilling their fragrance into the lap of morning. To the + west the land dimpled with laughing hills, green and tremulous in the young + light. Eucalyptus-trees bent gravely in the chance breezes or stood erectly + still where the calm of dawn remained inviolate. Stillman received the impression + of nature's calm contentment and took issue with it. He was in no mood to be + snared by the false promise of morning.</p> +<p>He began now to think about himself, and immediately all his raillery at fate + died. What had he ever done to prove his claim to happiness? Had he ever wrestled + with God for a blessing? He thought of Danilo, remembering all the details of + the doctor's hard-fisted battle with circumstances—starving days, shivering + nights. There must be a full-blooded joy in giving fate blow for blow; in having + to fight for every narrow foothold upon the ledge of fortune! Well, the heights + had been his without the toil of scaling, and he had looked down upon the promised + land with indifference. What had he been doing all these years, all these months, + all these weeks? He had done his duty, perhaps; but scarcely more. Widows who + cast their mite into the Lord's treasury did this much. He had never thought + of spilling the wine from his brimming cup upon the parched lips of the thirsty, + and he had measured the meal of obligation with too finely balanced a scale. + Now had come a time when his greatest wish was to be prodigal, and the hands + that should have received his outpouring were tied grimly. What would not he + have given to see the fruits of his inheritance replenishing the scant store + of the woman he loved! And yet, as he had said, the veriest beggar could do + more—could fling his penny at the feet of Claire Robson and go on his + starving way with a smile. Perhaps a man more trained in outwitting circumstances + would have found a way out of the difficulty, but Stillman could see only blind + alleys leading from every desire of his heart.... Danilo's ardent face rose + before him. Here was a man who could no doubt feel the ecstasy of personal passion + and yet have abundant thrill for bigger things. He had conquered a profession + and now he was to surrender to the outpouring of the spirit upon the altars + of his native land. <i>His native land!</i> Just what did an expression like + this mean to Ned Stillman?—a smiling country untouched by the stress of + nature, and only remotely disturbed by the grim expediency of war; a sky-blue + birthright that yielded up the easy harvests which had reduced him to such sleek + impotence. He felt suddenly tricked, cheated, as one does who looks back upon + indulgent parents with a feeling of accusing scorn. Danilo's native land had + made demands, forced the chains of loyalty in the white-heated fires of necessity. + Danilo loved his Serbia because he had wept with her—because the claims + of mutual tears are stronger than the claims of mutual laughter. Stillman felt + loyal to the land of his birth. And he had worked hard, too. He had made sacrifices, + of a kind, and he was prepared to do more. Yes, he would go the limit ... the + absolute limit. He had every reason to be grateful for his inheritance, and + yet, Danilo, penniless and tempered in the fires of a frugal birthright, had + the best of the bargain....</p> +<p>Stillman was nearing San Francisco now. The landscape had the moth-eaten look + that landscapes do when they make the transition from countryside to paved streets. + But at least the morning air was still fresh, as yet unpolluted by the foul + breath of drudgery and toil. He began to wonder vaguely whether Danilo would + be stirring so early. He felt a sudden desire to see him. Well, why not? He + remembered the doctor's address—a cheap lodging-house on Third Street. + He had never favored Danilo before with a visit. It seemed absurd to burst in + upon a man at the ungodly hour of six o'clock. But he had a wish to outrage + his own sense of conventionality.</p> +<p>He found Danilo up and stirring. The room was clean and unincumbered with personal + effects. A few photographs upon the bureau, a panorama of Belgrade, an American + and a Serbian flag intertwined—these were all the evidences of occupation. + Danilo himself was in a gay-flowered dressing-gown and he moved toward the door + with a graceful gliding movement as he said:</p> +<p>"Why, my dear fellow, you look ill! What can be the matter?"</p> +<p>Stillman sank into a chair. It had needed just this word of sympathy to upset + his poise utterly.</p> +<p>"I don't know," he answered. "I felt suddenly dizzy when I opened + the door. Forgive me for breaking in on you at such an hour!"</p> +<p>Danilo answered with a laugh, and brought out cigarettes. Stillman took one. + They began to smoke.</p> +<p>"I can't think what is the matter with me," Stillman began, awkwardly.</p> +<p>Danilo seated himself. "I can. You're in love. You are afraid to talk + about it.... Ah yes, I knew that I was not wrong! You are blushing like a school-boy. + Tell me, what is her name?"</p> +<p>Stillman breathed heavily. He made no answer.</p> +<p>Danilo rose. "Ah, my friend, forgive me!" he said, quickly. "I + didn't realize it was...."</p> +<p>Stillman made a little gesture of appeal. "I didn't myself until.... God, + it's all so horrible!"</p> +<p>"Your wife, you mean?... Well, perhaps there could be a way out."</p> +<p>"No, there's no way out!... What would you do if you saw the woman you + loved going down ... down ... down, and you were powerless to save her?"</p> +<p>"A question of money or morals?"</p> +<p>"Money first of all...."</p> +<p>"That ought not to be much of a problem in your case."</p> +<p>"Ah, you don't understand! Oh no! can't you see? In this case it would + be impossible!"</p> +<p>"Then it <i>is</i> a question of morals.... I know. Sometimes these things + happen—how do you say it?—in the best of regulated families. If + I were in your position and it happened to the woman.... Well, in my country + it is all very simple. We call the man out and shoot him. Here ... I suppose + here you tell your troubles to a policeman, do you not?"</p> +<p>Stillman darted a swift, searching look at Danilo.</p> +<p>"Not always.... Sometimes we commit the indiscretion of telling our friends."</p> +<p>Danilo rose quickly. He went over and put his hand caressingly on Stillman's + shoulder.</p> +<p>"<i>Indiscretion</i>, my brother?" he queried. "Ah, you do not + know me, even yet! Well, we are companions in misery, if it comes to that. But + in my case I do not think I shall need the pistol. I shall marry the girl. And + that will end everything."</p> +<p>Stillman pressed Danilo's hand. "A girl of your own people?"</p> +<p>"No—one of your American girls.... Some day, when it is all settled, + I shall invite you to meet her.... I came very near letting you see her last + night. But it happened otherwise, and I am as well pleased." He laughed, + showing his teeth pleasantly. "I do not want you as a rival, my brother. + That would be a nasty business between friends."</p> +<p>Stillman rose. "My dear Danilo, I wish you every happiness," he said. + He wanted to say more, to sound a warmer note, but the words would not shape + themselves. But Danilo seemed to divine his intent.</p> +<p>"And you, brother.... No, I shall not mock you with a return of the compliment. + But I shall hope that it will all come right for you, somehow. That this woman + you love shall be worthy of a good man. At least, then you will have your faith. + Cold comforts are better than none at all!"</p> +<p>Stillman smiled grayly. "And what is to become of the Serbian project, + now that you are to be...."</p> +<p>"My dear fellow, marriage is not the end of everything. A man still has + his duties—his enthusiasms! Everything will go on as I have planned it."</p> +<p>"You said she was an American.... Perhaps she will object to being left...."</p> +<p>"Left?... Why, she will go with me! Remember, I am marrying a wife, and, + naturally, a wife does what her husband—"</p> +<p>"Oh, of course, of course! That goes without saying." Stillman laughed + disagreeably. "Really, I must be running along. I am tired. I have been + riding all night."</p> +<p>"I am afraid my name-day celebration was disturbing," Danilo said, + giving Stillman his hand.</p> +<p>"Life is so full of unexpected turns," Stillman ventured as he swung + open the door. "I didn't think that your life and my life were touched + by the same currents."</p> +<p>"Are they?"</p> +<p>"Remotely ... by the merest chance."</p> +<p>Danilo looked puzzled. "Chance is like a deep pool; you never know what + ghastly thing it will yield up."</p> +<p>Stillman narrowed his eyes. He began to remember things. Again he heard the + sharp slam of a taxi door, again he felt his cheeks burn as he leaned forward + to pick up his hat, again he laid an inquisitive hand upon the shoulder of a + slim, beetle-browed figure standing with one finger upon the call-bell of an + elevator. And again that figure turned, fixing him with a red-lipped smile.... + Yes, at this moment, standing before Danilo, it all came back.</p> +<p>"An American girl.... So he is to marry an American girl!... I wonder + if...."</p> +<p>For a moment he felt the hot coals of smoldering lawlessness flare within him. + But a chill followed ... a bleak, dead, lifeless chill of resignation. He put + out his hand.</p> +<p>"I hope everything good for you, my friend," he said, sadly. "Everything + good for you ... and ... and this woman you are to marry."</p> +<a name="II_VII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3> +<p>"It is as I thought ... he is in love. He admitted as much to me this + morning.... What do you think of him?"</p> +<p>Danilo, standing before the kitchen window of the Robson home, looked out across + the dreary stretch of back yards and dizzy back stairways.</p> +<p>Claire stopped folding a dish-towel as she gave Danilo a sharp glance. Here + was the opportunity that she had longed for. Now she could tell him simply and + naturally that she had seen Stillman before, that she knew him, had worked for + him, in fact. But, instead, a sudden awkward silence fell.... Something at once + definite and intangible had come between these two.</p> +<p>Danilo fingered his hat and remembered a pressing engagement.</p> +<p>Claire followed him to the door.</p> +<p>"My patient died last night—the old woman I was called away to attend. + I thought of you all the while, wondering how you would get home. Indeed, at + one o'clock I went back for you, but you had gone."</p> +<p>"That was very kind," Claire returned, still moved by a vague resentment. + "I got home as usual ... on the street-car. I do it nearly every night, + you know."</p> +<p>Danilo looked at her squarely. "But last night was different. You—you—well, + to be frank, you were not dressed for the street."</p> +<p>She had been expecting some such thing and she decided to meet the issue nonchalantly. + "Oh, but you didn't see me leave! I was the most dowdy and respectable + thing imaginable. A shabby coat and a dingy lace scarf work wonders. I assure + you nobody looked twice at me."</p> +<p>Danilo frowned, and he stepped back upon the threshold as he said:</p> +<p>"Nobody would have looked at you even once if I had been along.... I do + not want you to dress again as you did last night."</p> +<p>"No?" she gasped.</p> +<p>"No. It makes me.... Well, perhaps you would not understand, now. But + later—later you will see why I take the trouble.... As a matter of fact, + I would have brought my friend Stillman over to meet you, but I decided to wait + for another time ... when you were more like yourself. I wanted him to see you + at your best.... I hope my words do not offend you. But you have no brother + and...."</p> +<p>He finished with a shrug. His words did not offend her—they struck deeper, + so deep that all her pride rose to meet the issue with a smiling acceptance + of his rebuke. "<i>Offended?</i> Oh, my dear, no! You are frank about it, + at all events." She forced a laugh. "I shall try to be good in the + future."</p> +<p>He did not succumb to her strained mirth. He merely looked at her with a note + almost disapproving as he gravely said good-by.</p> +<p>She went up-stairs into her mother's room. Mrs. Robson sat propped up in the + position that Claire always helped her assume for the doctor's daily visit. + Mrs. Robson's dull eyes brightened. She began her illusive mumblings. Claire + dropped at attentive ear to her mother's words.</p> +<p>"The doctor," Mrs. Robson was saying, "he should not come every + day. It—it is too expensive."</p> +<p>"I am not paying him, mother."</p> +<p>"Oh.... Then he is not coming to see me?"</p> +<p>"Why, of course he is coming to see you, mother! What else would...."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson shook her head. "I've been thinking, Claire.... Of course, + he is not just what I had hoped.... But he is a kind man, Claire. I don't know, + but perhaps...."</p> +<p>She tried to lift her helpless hands and draw her daughter's head toward her + lips. Claire met the effort half-way.</p> +<p>"He is a kind man, Claire, a kind man," Mrs. Robson kept repeating.</p> +<p>Claire's heart gave a sudden leap.</p> +<p>"We shall see, mother. We shall see."</p> +<hr /> +<p>One night toward the end of the week Claire Robson had a surprise. In the midst + of all the cut-to-measure gaiety of the Café Ithaca who should walk in + the side door but Sawyer Flint. Claire stared frankly. Instinctively Flint fell + back with a quick screening movement, not only obvious, but futile. His companion + proved to be Lily Condor. Claire, who was sitting idly at the piano, turned + away her head and began to play. The spectacle of Flint and Mrs. Condor together + was not unexpected; Nellie Whitehead had brought her the news of this latest + alliance not two weeks before.</p> +<p>"They go poking about to all the cheap joints where they're sure nobody + will get a line on them. Billy Holmes and I saw them at the Fior d'Italia last + Saturday."</p> +<p>Nellie Whitehead had said other things, too, complimentary to neither her former + employer nor his latest boon companion....</p> +<p>Claire did not look up again until she had finished the piece she was playing. + Flint and Lily Condor had retreated to an obscure corner where they seemed to + be sitting in rather furtive discomfort. Claire was human enough to enjoy her + triumph. She knew that the two were taking mental stock of the defenses that + they might be called upon to use.</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor looked older; her hair was losing its luster, and her complexion + showed unmistakable first-aid signs. There were about her mouth, too, lines + of spiritual rather than of physical fag, forerunners of a complete let-down. + Claire could but feel a measure of pity for this woman. She knew enough to realize + that in accepting the attentions of Sawyer Flint Lily Condor had reached the + ghastly plains of unrestrained compromise. At least there had been always something + bold and arresting about Mrs. Condor's indiscretions; she had not been given + to shielding her improprieties behind the screen of cheap delights. She reminded + Claire of some harried animal snatching joys at the expense of security. After + Flint washed his hands of her, what then?</p> +<p>Flint was making compromises, too. Lily Condor was not the woman he would have + picked for a dining companion if the field had been open to his choice. Flint + liked to exhibit his quarry rather openly and with a swagger. But Lily was no + conquest to brag of, and Claire could see that already his attitude was anything + but deferential. She had a feeling that Mrs. Condor would have been willing + to take the chance of dining with Sawyer Flint in the fashionable restaurants + of San Francisco, and that these shifts to less smart entertainments were more + a matter of Flint's lack of pride in his adventure rather than his companion's + desire to be furtive. And as for the discretion of sneaking in and out of badly + lighted side entrances—even this was questionable. After all, Flint and + Lily Condor could have played an open game to much better purpose, and Claire + was sensible that they both were aware of this fact—the lady to her inward + chagrin.</p> +<p>Flint ordered a salad and then rose and went out into the barroom. Mrs. Condor, + divesting herself of wraps, deliberately caught Claire's eye and beckoned her. + Claire left the piano stool.</p> +<p>"Claire Robson!" began Mrs. Condor, boldly. "Fancy—<i>you</i> + here!"</p> +<p>Claire looked at her with uncomfortable directness. "All my friends are + surprised," she answered, simply.</p> +<p>This reply left Mrs. Condor without any conversational lead. But she was not + inclined to retreat in the face of blocked advance. "I heard somewhere," + Lily lied, glibly, "that you were doing cabaret work, but of course it + never dawned on me to find you in the Greek quarter. How is it—very dreadful?"</p> +<p>Claire waved her hand. "You can see for yourself," she said.</p> +<p>"Oh, I dare say it is human enough. By the way, I suppose you're very + sore at me. But really, you know—"</p> +<p>"Sore at <i>you</i>! Why, my dear Mrs. Condor, I am sore at nobody. Why + should I be?"</p> +<p>"Well, I thought perhaps.... Oh, well, what is the use of pretending? + You know what I'm talking about."</p> +<p>"If you mean that silly tempest about the Café Chantant, please + dismiss it from your mind. I've done so long ago. You were put in an awkward + position and I don't blame you. You had to choose, of course, between me and + your friend, Mrs. Flint. I can't fancy any sane person doing differently."</p> +<p>Claire had never thought she could put so much cool insolence into a speech. + Lily Condor stared, fidgeted, tried to laugh. "<i>Mrs. Flint!</i> Well, + my dear, you know as well as I do that she's impossible. I really feel sorry + for Sawyer. He likes a little gaiety now and then ... just.... Well, you know + what I mean!"</p> +<p>"Yes ... he told me all about it the night I went over to take dictation. + 'No rough stuff, but a good feed, and two kinds of wine, and a cigarette with + the small black.' That was the way he put it, as I remember. It all sounded + very gay and exciting then. But I've seen a good deal since, and now it all + strikes me as quite dull."</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor was measuring Claire with a puzzled air. "Claire, you're getting + bitter, I'm afraid. I'm sorry to see that. I'm old enough, Heavens knows, but + I try to get peevish. As a matter of fact, you played your cards all wrong. + You had Ned Stillman going south. Do you know why I called you over to my table + to-night?"</p> +<p>Claire looked at her purring adversary from head to foot. "Yes, you wanted + to make sure that I wouldn't spread the news to Mrs. Flint about seeing you + here—with her husband. You needn't worry. The news won't get to Mrs. Flint + through me. I've got other things on my mind."</p> +<p>Claire moved away. Flint was coming back. He had the effrontery to bow to her, + but she stared at him coldly and resumed her seat at the piano. Presently she + was conscious that Flint had called the waiter. And a little later she saw Flint + and Lily Condor go out the side door.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Flint came back to the Café Ithaca the following night, alone. It was + after the dinner hour and there was a little lull between gaieties. The entertainers + sat huddled about the piano, but Claire was sitting in a far corner, at one + of the obscure tables. Since the St. George's Day celebration the other performers + had treated her with cool contempt, making pointed remarks about "up-stage" + airs and the people who indulged in them. Claire felt that it was only a matter + of time, now, that she would be forced to leave. Lycurgus had taken to drinking + more and more heavily and he had begun to intimate that perhaps it would be + a fairer proposition if Claire got in between numbers and hustled drinks with + the rest of them. He was still appreciative of the costume she had worn at his + feast, but she was finding it difficult to explain why she did not appear in + it every night.</p> +<p>Lycurgus saw Flint come in, and, scenting a generous patron, scurried up to + him obsequiously.</p> +<p>"Thank you—thank you! Where will you sit?"</p> +<p>Flint swept the room with his glance. "Over there," he said, loudly, + pointing to where Claire was sitting.</p> +<p>She was on her feet in an instant, but Flint bore down upon her swiftly. "Here! + Don't be in such a hurry! I've got something to say to you."</p> +<p>She shrugged wearily and resumed her seat. Lycurgus discreetly retreated.</p> +<p>Flint threw aside his overcoat and took a chair opposite her.</p> +<p>"What'll you have?" he demanded, beckoning the waiter.</p> +<p>"Nothing," she answered.</p> +<p>Flint ordered a cognac.</p> +<p>"Old friend Condor tells me that you insulted her last night. I'm glad + of it. I'm sick of her. I'm sick of everything. Cheer up! Have one with me, + won't you?... I say, but you are a nice little tombstone to be ornamenting a + place like this. What's the matter, don't you like me?"</p> +<p>Claire continued to stare dumbly at him. He had been drinking, she could see + that plainly, and she felt a remnant of the mixed fascination and fear that + she had experienced during that memorable hour at his dinner-table.</p> +<p>"No, you don't like me," he mused audibly, with an air of drunken + melancholy, as if the thought had just struck him. "That's why I'm running + around with the old girl ... just out of spite.... Say, but this is a hell of + a place for you to be in! On the square it is ... nothing but dirty, drunken + Greeks and painted females! Bah! this isn't any place for you! What I wanted + to say is this—any time you want your job back you can have it. It's there + waiting for you. And there ain't any strings on it, either.... I played you + a mean trick and I acknowledge it. Now I ask you, on the level, ain't that fair + enough?... I ain't the man to go crawling on all-fours, begging people's pardon. + But you've been pretty game and I take my hat off to you! I take my hat off + to anybody that's game, see? Anybody at all ... anybody that's game.... Well, + what you staring at? I know I'm losing my hair, but I don't have to have <i>you</i> + tell me that.... Is it a go? Your job back and everything nice and comfortable + again?"</p> +<p>Suddenly Claire felt sorry for him. She was beginning to feel sorry for any + one stripped of his illusions. And she had a conviction that this man before + her had treasured illusions that were no less poignant merely because they were + vulgar. He seemed sincere in spite of his befuddled state. Somehow, somewhere, + it had come upon him that he had done her a grave injustice and he was offering + her such reparation as his lights allowed. <i>Her job back and everything nice + and comfortable again!</i> How simple and naïve and masculine! Everything—all + the bitter, soul-stirring experiences of the past months to be swept aside by + the simple formula of restoring her to her old berth! It was absurd enough for + laughter, but tears trembled very near the surface of such a revelation. Yes, + it took a man to have the courage of any faith so direct and artless!</p> +<p>"I'm afraid," she said, looking at him clearly, "that it wouldn't + be possible ... to have the slate wiped clean again. And besides.... I have + to earn my living now at night, Mr. Flint. I have my mother to look after in + the daytime, you know."</p> +<p>She spoke so gently that she surprised even herself. And it came upon her that + she had no reason to feel any rancor against the man before her. It was he that + had given her the first opportunity to cross swords with life. And it struck + her with added force that she would not recall one moment of the last six months + even if she could.</p> +<p>He did not receive her reply with much grace. His fist came down upon the table + as he said:</p> +<p>"You always were damn full of excuses.... You worked in the daytime for + Ned Stillman.... But you can't get rid of me as quickly as you once did. This + is a public place and I'll come here and sit every night and order up drinks + until you change your mind."</p> +<p>Claire rose in her seat. "Sit down!" he commanded, thickly. "Sit + down, or by God! I'll start something!"</p> +<p>His voice had risen so that the entertainers grouped about the piano heard + him. Lycurgus came forward.</p> +<p>"Thank you! Thank you!... What is the matter?"</p> +<p>"This dame here," Flint cried, sweeping a sneering finger in Claire's + direction, "she's about as alive as a broiled pork chop. I come in here + for a good time and I can't even get her to drink with me. What kind of a dump + is this, anyway?"</p> +<p>A swooning fear came over Claire. What if Danilo were suddenly to come in the + side door? She looked in the direction of the entertainers. They were smiling + broadly. Lycurgus rubbed his hands together and fawned.</p> +<p>"Thank you!... Thank you! What is it, Miss Robson? If the gentleman wants + to buy a drink, surely...."</p> +<p>Claire saw Doris, the French Jewess, coming toward them. "Did I hear something + about some one wanting to buy a drink?" She turned a wide smile upon Flint. + "Here, let me sit down!" she demanded of Claire, who moved away.</p> +<p>Claire walked in the direction of the dressing-room. Lycurgus followed her.</p> +<p>"Miss Robson, thank you! Thank you! You see how it is? You spoil my trade! + Everybody else ... they dress gay ... plenty of color! They order drinks. I + am your friend, but you can see...."</p> +<p>"Yes, yes," she answered, hurriedly. "I see. It is all my fault. + I shall go home now, and not come back."</p> +<p>"Not come—<i>never</i>?" Lycurgus brought his hand forward + in the old familiar gesture. "Oh, Miss Robson, why do you make me so sorrowful? + For just a drink.... You would not even have to taste it! Ah, I do not understand + these American women!"</p> +<p>She escaped swiftly and put on her things. As she passed out through the café + again, shrill laughter followed her through the door. She hurried along Third + Street. At the crossing of Howard Street she was aware that some one had come + up to her. She turned. It was Sawyer Flint. His face was very red and his eyes + almost swallowed in rolls of puffy flesh.</p> +<p>"I'm drunk," he said, thickly. "I know that. You don't have + to tell me I'm drunk!... What was the matter? Did I spill the beans? I spilled + the beans, I know. You don't have to tell me I spilled the beans. You lost your + job, eh? On my account you lost it? Well, do you know I don't give a damn if + you did? That ain't any place for you.... That other dame ... she thought I + was going to buy <i>her</i> a drink. Well, she had another thought coming. I + don't buy drinks for any of them. I buy for you or not at all.... <i>For you + or not at all!</i> I think I'll go out and see old lady Condor now. I want to + get rid of her. No time like the present. That's my motto—no time like + the present! You don't have to tell me I made you lose your job. <i>I</i> know! + But I don't give a damn. Do you understand? Matter of fact, that's the only + decent thing I've done for twenty years. And remember, whenever you want your + job back.... You know, just because you're game. I take my hat off to anybody...."</p> +<p>He gave a sudden lurch and Claire escaped.</p> +<p>She thought at first of going directly home, but she discovered that it was + only nine o'clock and she dreaded to think of listening to the pallid chatter + of Miss Proll, the little seamstress. Then she would be forced to invent an + excuse for her early home-coming and she had grown tired of inventing excuses.</p> +<p>She decided to look up Nellie Whitehead. She found her at home, wielding an + electric iron and in a state of comfortable disorder from her straggling hair + down to her frayed Japanese straw slippers.</p> +<p>"Well, Robson, how goes it?" Nellie said, testing the heated iron + with a moist finger. "Don't tell me you've lost your job!"</p> +<p>"That's what I came to do," Claire returned as she threw her hat + and coat to one side.</p> +<p>Miss Whitehead with fine discrimination changed the subject. "I'm going + to get married next week," she announced.</p> +<p>"To ... to Billy Holmes?"</p> +<p>"The same. I sat down and figured things out the other day. This talk + about the independence of females may be all to the good, but I know how independent + I am now and how independent I'll be in twenty years from now. Just about as + independent as a barn-yard fowl. There's an old girl down where I work now, + and she's getting on the ragged edge of fifty, and what do you suppose her joy + in life consists of? Saving her dimes up so she will have enough money to dig + into an old people's home when she's sixty-five. Ain't that a glowing prospect? + Oh, she'll be independent, all right. Anybody is who is a guest of a public + institution. Say, I'll bet the old people's home has more rules than a hockey-game. + Of course, I suppose a man can lay down a lot of rules for his frau's conduct, + too, but the man who marries me will have the fun of laying 'em down and that's + about all.... So you've lost your job? Why don't you sign up a marriage contract? + You're not waiting to fall in love, are you? It's too bad old friend Stillman + has incumbrances. You and he would make a go of it! He's a pretty good kid, + all right. He's got his drawbacks, like the rest of 'em, but there must be something + fair about a man who stays by a rotten game.... Whatever became of that Serbian + doctor, Robson?... Strikes me you've kept pretty mum about him. Billy told me + the other day he saw him coming out of your house. On the square, why don't + you flag <i>him</i>?"</p> +<p>Claire tried to smile. "Well, at least wait until he asks me!" she + replied.</p> +<p>And they began to discuss Nellie Whitehead's trousseau.</p> +<a name="II_VIII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3> +<p>In the Robson flat the lights were still burning when Claire got home. Especially + in her mother's room there was an unusual brilliance for so late an hour. Claire + was frightened. She scrambled up the stairs. Danilo was leaving the sick-room. + "What?..." gasped Claire. "Has anything...."</p> +<p>He smiled mysteriously and shook his head. She went in.</p> +<p>She found her mother propped up and looking more animated than at any time + since her illness. Her eyes were glowing and two faint spots burned on either + cheek.</p> +<p>"Claire!... Claire!" she whispered, excitedly. "Danilo...."</p> +<p>"Yes!"</p> +<p>"It seems.... He wants to marry you, Claire.... He came to me because + ... it appears that is the custom in his country."</p> +<p>Claire felt the room whirling.</p> +<p>"Well, mother?"</p> +<p>"He is a kind man, Claire," she heard her mother say.</p> +<p>She went out into the hall. Danilo was standing calm and confident at the head + of the stairs.</p> +<p>"Your mother ... has she told you?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"You are not ready—is that it?"</p> +<p>"I...." She gave a startled look and fell back a trifle. Then more + quietly she finished: "Let us go somewhere.... This.... I cannot talk to + you here!"</p> +<p>They went down together ... out into the night. She wondered what she would + say ... what was there to talk about?... This was the moment she had been waiting + for all her life—the moment that every woman waited for ... and still + it appeared that it was a matter for calm discussion. Perhaps the formality + of Danilo's procedure had robbed the incident of its surge and sweep.... She + did not know.... All she knew was that she was trembling.... Afraid?... Well, + perhaps ... a trifle. Was it always so?</p> +<p>At the first corner they came upon Danilo's car. Danilo halted.</p> +<p>"No ... no ... let us walk!" she protested.</p> +<p>He yielded to her humor with a gracious shrug. She slipped her arm into his + and as quickly withdrew it—he was trembling, too!...</p> +<p>They walked down Clay Street in silence. Instinctively Claire turned toward + the quickened pulse of the town. They passed through the gaudy shops of Chinatown + into the Latin quarter.... Crossing Broadway, they came upon a flight of steps + that lost their way in the white fog which shrouded Telegraph Hill.</p> +<p>"Shall we go up?" said Danilo.</p> +<p>Claire turned for a moment and looked back at the light-blurred city.</p> +<p>"Yes," she answered, as she gave a little shiver.</p> +<p>She took his arm and they began to climb; the city fell beneath them, a faintly + luminous outline growing more and more remote. Dimmed by the sad and mysterious + tears of evening, the squalid hillside lost its harshness; the cold street-lamps + mellowed to gold in the still, thick air.</p> +<p>They reached the crest of the hill. A breeze from the west showered them with + a flurry of moisture. They looked up. A wind-tortured tree was bending wearily + forward, its dripping leaves trembling before the night's breath. The sound + of an accordion rose above the muffled moaning of fog-whistles.</p> +<p>The street had ended suddenly in rout and was running away in a disorderly + succession of aimless paths.</p> +<p>"Where shall we go now?" asked Danilo, as he halted.</p> +<p>"Toward the music," Claire replied, vaguely.</p> +<p>He listened a moment. "It is over on the east side of the hill somewhere," + he announced.</p> +<p>They dipped down. The way became more ragged and full of shifting rocks. The + air was warmer, screened from the sea's breath by the yellow hilltop. The sound + of the music grew nearer and nearer. A tawny light sprang up just ahead; snatches + of laughter reached them. Then, quite suddenly, they came to an abrupt and jagged + ledge.</p> +<p>"See, down there!" cried Danilo.</p> +<p>Claire looked. Just below them in a bowl-like depression that had once been + the clearing for an old-fashioned garden she saw black figures swaying rhythmically + about a bonfire. Danilo, taking a newspaper out of his overcoat pocket, spread + it on the ground. They sat down.</p> +<p><i>The curtain rises on villagers dancing on the village green.</i> Claire + remembered the old formula with which the printed synopsis of the Christmas + pantomime inevitably began. It had been to her nothing but an empty phrase like + the "once upon a time" of a folk-tale. Claire had never seen a village; + she had seen only cities and country towns, peopled by individuals too self-conscious + to do anything so naïve and simple as to dance open and unashamed upon + the bare earth.</p> +<p>The bonfire blazed up suddenly and the dim figures became more tangible and + alive. Claire could even see their faces. Remnants of a feast were scattered + about—blue-black mussel-shells, soiled tamale-husks, brown crusts of Italian + bread that had been baked in huge round loaves. The music stopped. The girls + detached themselves from their partners. Jugs of wine were now lifted up. The + men drank with heads thrown back, smacking their lips in greedy satisfaction. + The women, standing apart, began to smooth out their dresses and straighten + their hats. Somebody came forward to the women carrying a demijohn and tin cups. + The women drank coquettishly, tossing the last mouthful out upon the camp-fire. + Then the music began again.</p> +<p>Claire leaned forward, her lips parted with a spiritual hunger she could not + define. She felt Danilo's hand slowly closing over hers; she made no attempt + to withdraw it. As she sat there watching these women surrendering to their + transient joys she felt a strange envy, mixed with profound pity. These women + danced to-night; they would dance to-morrow night ... for a week, or a month, + or a year, as the case might be, but finally the reckoning would come. But at + least they danced! At least they would have their memories!</p> +<p>One brown wisp of a girl stood out from all the rest. She was not so deep-bosomed + and broad of hips as the other women, and she danced airily, darting here and + there like a blue-winged swallow. Her partner, too, was taller and thinner-flanked + than the other men. Her head was tilted back and her man bent forward as if + to imprison her very breath in the snare which his smile had set. Whenever the + music stopped they drank from the same tin cup, and when the dance began again + they whirled off like two leaves in the clutch of the autumn breeze.</p> +<p>Claire bent forward eagerly; a movement of her foot sent a detached stone tumbling + over the cliff into the midst of the dancers. They all halted, looked up in + surprise. Then the young woman, catching a glimpse of Claire and Danilo, waved + a welcome.</p> +<p>"Come!" she called, gaily. "Come and have a dance!"</p> +<p>The music, which had ceased for a brief instant, started up.</p> +<p>"Shall ... shall we go down?" asked Claire.</p> +<p>"Yes.... Why not?"</p> +<p>They circled down the hillside hand in hand.</p> +<p>When they came up to the bonfire wine was being poured and thick slices of + bread passed about. The little brown girl came forward, showing her white teeth.</p> +<p>"Here, Tony! This way with the wine!" she cried.</p> +<p>Her partner answered her call. He had two tin cups and a demijohn in his hand. + He filled both cups to the brim, passing one to Claire and one to the girl at + his side. Both women took a sip; the girl handed the cup back to her companion.</p> +<p>"You, too!" she said to Claire. "You and your man! You are like + us ... lovers! You must drink so ... from the same cup."</p> +<p>Claire looked at Danilo. He put out his hand and took the cup from her.... + They brought bread next, not sliced, but in a huge brown loaf. The youth broke + through the crisp crust and gave them each a piece. It seemed to Claire as if + she were partaking of some strange and beautiful sacrament. She looked away + from the firelight—the fog had grown whiter and more dense, and the city + below them had ceased to exist. It was as if care had died and this pallid mist + were a winding-sheet that would forever screen its ghastly face.</p> +<p>The music started up once more. The little brown girl and her lover whirled + away.</p> +<p>"Come," said Danilo, as he drew Claire gently toward him.</p> +<p>She tossed aside her hat, throwing it with joyful abandon upon the top of a + stunted rose-hedge which bent to receive it. They began to dance, simply, beautifully, + naturally, their feet planted firmly upon the yellow clay, their quick, ardent + breaths further whitening the evening air.</p> +<p>"Claire! Claire!" Danilo bent over, in the fashion of the lean-flanked + youth, toward her parted lips. "Claire, do you hear me?... I love you!"</p> +<p>"Yes," she answered, smiling back at him, "I hear you!"</p> +<p>"From the same cup, Claire ... joy or sorrow! We shall drink always from + the same cup."</p> +<p>"Yes, joy or sorrow! Joy or sorrow!" she repeated after him.</p> +<p>"When we mounted the stairs to-night, Claire, we did not know that we + were climbing to happiness."</p> +<p>"Let us stay up here always.... Let us never go down."</p> +<p>"Always, Claire, always. We shall never return."</p> +<p>The music stopped. They, too, stopped, out of breath and bewildered. The musician + was folding up his accordion.</p> +<p>"Ah," cried the little brown girl, running up to them, "it is + over too soon! But we cannot dance all night. There is work to-morrow."</p> +<p>"Yes," assented Claire, slowly. "You are right."</p> +<p>The wine-jugs were lifted and the wine-cups filled for the last time. Danilo + took a perfunctory sip and passed his cup to Claire; she put it to her lips—this + time the wine had a bitter taste. She thrust the drink from her at arm's-length + and poured a red flood upon the tawny, sun-baked ground.</p> +<p>Already the company was departing. Claire and Danilo stood apart and watched + them go. They dipped down the hillside, fading into the mists like a company + of devout and penitent pilgrims. The fire had sunk to a heap of red embers.</p> +<p>"We must be going, too," said Claire.</p> +<p>They made their way back to the flight of steps. The west wind had risen sharply, + and the fog parted in the breeze. The city was emerging from its gloom like + a bejeweled woman dropping a scarf from her gleaming shoulders.</p> +<p>"Must ... must we really go back?" Claire asked, suddenly, as she + drew away from the first downward step.</p> +<p>He took her hand. "Are you afraid ... with me?" he said, gently.</p> +<p>She pressed his hand. "Can it be over so soon?"</p> +<p>"Over? It has just begun, Claire. Have you forgotten?... From the same + cup!"</p> +<p>"Joy or sorrow," she repeated.</p> +<p>He led her back a short distance. They withdrew into the shelter of a twisted + acacia that seemed determined to escape from the imprisonment of its squalid + garden. She leaned against the fence.</p> +<p>"Ah, Claire!" she heard him say, and she felt the shadow of his upraised + arms fall upon her, "can you not picture our life together?... All the + brave things to do and accomplish?... This is as I have always dreamed it—to + share even my workday with my wife. To share my poverty with her. To share my + aspirations. Come, what is your answer?"</p> +<p>She raised her brimming eyes to his. "Yes," she answered.</p> +<p>He put his fingers to her temples and drew her face toward him. "My wife!" + he said, simply. And he let his lips fall upon her hair.</p> +<p>What had she come to talk about? Problems?... her mother?... her duties?... + How absurd, when nothing else mattered but just this ... nothing else in the + whole wide world!</p> +<p>They walked slowly to the brow of the hill.</p> +<p>"If every one could be as happy!" escaped her.</p> +<p>"Ah yes," he murmured, "but there is an end even to sorrow.... + To-day my friend Stillman's sorrow ended ... his wife is dead."</p> +<a name="II_IX"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3> +<p>It was decided that Claire and Danilo were to be married some time in August. + Danilo was for rushing off for a license at once, but Claire pleaded the usual + feminine lack of suitable apparel. Upon the question of finances in the mean + time, Danilo was extraordinarily frank:</p> +<p>"I might as well give up my lodgings in that wretched Third Street hotel + and come here. Cannot you shoo Miss Proll into another corner and let me have + the hall bedroom?"</p> +<p>Claire was on the point of reflecting, but Danilo finished, simply:</p> +<p>"You must live for the next three months, you must remember."</p> +<p>And so the thing was decided.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson was a bit disturbed at this arrangement. The excitement of Claire's + prospects had revived in her all her old sense of social expediency.... She + wasn't quite sure that people did such things. She could not remember one instance + where anybody of her acquaintance had permitted their daughter's fiancé + to share the same roof, and she was emphatic in her disapproval of allowing + Danilo to foot the bills. But Claire reminded her that Danilo came of different + stock and had other standards. At this, Mrs. Robson surrendered, but Claire + could see that her mother's old distrust for things "foreign" was + ready to flare up at the first provocation.</p> +<p>Miss Proll, established in a corner of the living-room, pleaded for the honor + of preparing the trousseau. Claire consented, as she said, with a rueful laugh:</p> +<p>"You won't have much to work on."</p> +<p>But a surprise was in store for Claire. In Mrs. Robson's room there had stood + for years a huge black trunk concealed under a discarded portière. Claire + had guessed that it was full of relics and memories of the Carrol family's former + grandeur, but she had never felt the slightest interest in exploring these melancholy + fragments of other days. But it proved otherwise. There were memories, plenty + of them, but they had to do with the touching struggle of a mother who had provided + against the day of what she felt to be her daughter's greatest need. The trunk + was full of every conceivable material that a bride would find necessary for + a brave showing—yards of silk, bolts of linen, quantities of lace.</p> +<p>"I didn't want my daughter to be a make-over bride," Mrs. Robson + explained to Miss Proll, who stood by Claire as she threw up the trunk's heavy + lid. "I wanted her to have everything fresh and new ... except perhaps + my wedding-dress."</p> +<p>Claire, blinded by tears, drew out the heavy white-satin gown, slightly yellowed + by the years. She held it up.</p> +<p>"What do you think?" Mrs. Robson continued to drawl, thickly. "I'm + afraid it won't do. They dress differently now ... fluffy, light things. I guess...."</p> +<p>But Claire had silenced her with a kiss. Miss Proll's cheeks were glowing with + vicarious nuptial excitement as she lifted the corded-satin skirt in her capable + fingers and said:</p> +<p>"Oh, you won't know this when I get through with it!"</p> +<p>There was the veil Mrs. Robson had worn, too, and the artificial orange-blossoms, + hoarded carefully in tissue-paper, even the thick, white kid gloves of a bygone + day.</p> +<p>"But mother ... all these other things ... how ever did you manage?"</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson smiled and shook her head. She was in no mood for explanations; + she was standing before the altar of all her sacrifices, and it was glowing + with the light of fulfilment.</p> +<p>From the moment that the old black trunk was opened a suppressed excitement + ran quivering through the house. Miss Proll, scorning fatigue, plied her needle + after her regular workday with all the enthusiasm of a bride-elect. Her joys + in the preparations softened Danilo, who had always expressed a contempt for + her solitary state.</p> +<p>Then there was shopping to do of a trivial sort. It seemed that scarcely a + day went by without a request from Miss Proll for some trifling but highly important + reinforcement to the regular treasure-chest. Claire, slipping on her things + to run down to the shops, felt the delicious thrill of a truant spendthrift.</p> +<p>"For myself," she said one day to Danilo, "I would much rather + be married in just a street dress. But mother would be—"</p> +<p>"A street dress!" Danilo echoed, incredulously. "No, your mother + is right! I am marrying a bride, remember!"</p> +<p>And she discovered that a wedding to Danilo meant everything the term implied—orange + wreaths, and veils, and huge cakes ... and a feast. There was nothing colorless + nor sophisticated about such a ceremony to him.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Nellie Whitehead married Billy Holmes. Claire and Danilo were among + those bidden to see the knot tied. It happened at the noon hour in the vestry + of St. Luke's Church, and a score or more of relations and friends gathered + about and sniffled during the performance. Claire, always moved by the sonorous + solemnity of the Anglican Prayer-book, was really touched by it all, in spite + of her Presbyterian training, and even Nellie Whitehead emerged from the ordeal + tremulously. There followed the usual kissing of the bride and the Anglo-Saxon + ignoring of the groom, a bit of half-hearted rice-throwing, and the thing was + over. No feast, no rejoicing, no laughter.</p> +<p>Danilo was puzzled and disapproving.</p> +<p>"Why did they not say mass for the dead and be done with it?" he + snorted.</p> +<p>Two days later he came in for dinner and announced:</p> +<p>"Now you shall see a real wedding!"</p> +<p>It appeared that two prominent members of the Greek colony were to be married + on the following Sunday night, and there was to be a feast at the Café + Ithaca. Claire had not been near her old haunts since the night when she had + dismissed herself. There had been really no excuse. Danilo had brought her the + money due from Lycurgus for the half-week she had served him. At first she had + an impulse to ask Danilo to excuse her. She did not feel sure that she cared + to see the Ithaca again, and she was equally undecided about the wedding. But + in the end she made up her mind to go. At the last moment Danilo was called + out suddenly to a sick-bed. This meant that they were late for the ceremony + at the church. But they arrived in time to see the bride and groom making their + triumphal exit from the altar. The air was musky and warm with incense and burning + candles, and for all its cheapness the church assumed a blue-veiled atmosphere + of mystery for the occasion. Outside, the steps were thronged with the curious, + and, instead of hastening coyly to the waiting taxicab, the bride graciously + stood for a moment in the doorway so that all the beauty-hungry mob below her + could catch a satisfying glimpse of her young loveliness. There was a simple + and generous pride about this little by-play that made it very charming to Claire.</p> +<p>Danilo and Claire swung on a passing car and arrived at the Ithaca almost with + the bridal party. A pushing, eager mob of children blocked the side entrance + and even spilled over into the banquet-hall upon the heels of the bride. The + room was arranged as it had been for the St. George's Day celebration and the + public was excluded. Lycurgus, catching sight of Claire, came forward with his + old sweeping manner, murmuring his clipped congratulations. Doris, spying her + from a far corner, rushed up with an impulsive kiss. It seemed as if everybody + was ready to sink all animosities and feuds before the glamour of Claire's new + estate.</p> +<p>The feast began. Claire looked about; many of the seats were not taken. She + remarked the fact to Danilo.</p> +<p>"Oh, they will fill up presently," he replied.</p> +<p>And it turned out that the wedding-supper was not a matter of cool calculation—so + many places for so many guests—but that the feast was spread beyond the + known partakers.</p> +<p>"Suppose some of the guests should bring their friends?" Claire inquired + of Danilo. "One must look to that. It would not do to turn any away."</p> +<p>A feast then was a feast, a thing to be eaten, it did not matter so much by + whom; indeed, strangers were better than no guests at all. There was something + biblical about it, and Claire thought at once of the parable in the New Testament + which began:</p> +<p>"A certain rich man made a great supper...." And ended: "Go + out into the highways and hedges and <i>compel</i> them to come in, <i>that + my house may be filled</i>."</p> +<p>"This," thought Claire, "is the real hospitality ... the real + democracy."</p> +<p>And it struck her forcibly that for the first time in her life she sensed in + a flash the meaning of equality and fraternity. In a Greek restaurant, at a + celebration of one of the sacraments of autocracy and authority, she had come + upon the underlying principles that she had been taught to murmur mechanically + since childhood.</p> +<p>Looking through the narrow aperture of a particular occasion, she had an illuminating + glimpse of larger issues, unessential differences, and essential things in common + that separated and bound the world together. Danilo ceased to be from a people + apart and peculiar. His people would be her people, not merely because she was + to become his wife, but because they would make claims upon her sympathy and + her love. The table of life was spread for certain feasts that could exclude + nobody.</p> +<p>She had been expecting some outlandish notes to be struck in the celebration, + but it all passed off with a certain joyous solemnity. The supper was delicious, + the wine abundant, the bride girlish and pleasantly conscious of her importance + and the beauty of her snow-white veil. The groom had a place, too, it seemed, + in the general spectacle—an unheard-of thing in Claire's experience. And + in addition to the bride's cake there was a special cake brought in for the + bachelors' table. It was curious to discover that the unattached males were + quite content to sit at a board of their own without the leaven of feminine + companionship.</p> +<p>Later in the evening the entertainers sang, and, of course, it was inevitable + that there would be dancing. Danilo and Claire left at midnight. The feast was + by no means ended, but Danilo had an early start scheduled for the next day, + and Claire was not unwilling to escape before the spirit of the occasion staled.</p> +<p>On the way home Danilo said:</p> +<p>"There, that is what I call getting married! Your people go about it as + if it were something to be ashamed of. You have another word for it ... well-bred, + that is how you say it. But we should all be natural once in a while.... I suppose + you will not care to have a feast?"</p> +<p>Claire glanced at him sharply before replying. He looked so wistful, so like + a boy trembling before the possibility of finding his fears confirmed, that + her lips broke into a smile as she said:</p> +<p>"I think it would be lovely. Let us do just whatever you would like."</p> +<p>He rewarded her with a flaming kiss upon her hand. He had never asked Claire + for her lips; there was a certain austerity about his attitude that at times + filled her with strange awe.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Every day with unfailing regularity Claire made a resolution.</p> +<p>"I shall tell Danilo that I know Stillman."</p> +<p>But it was easier to rehearse the scene than to carry it out. It all seemed + so simple in prospect. There was something awkward about forcing the subject, + and when Danilo opened the way with some casual reference to his friend, Claire + always had a feeling that the moment seemed almost too opportune.</p> +<p>One night she decided to make the plunge and hazard the truth. Danilo had run + in for a moment between professional visits. He had a trick of snatching at + these fragments of companionship, and Claire was getting used to his unexpected + appearance at all hours of the day.</p> +<p>"I've.... I've something I want to tell you," she blurted out suddenly, + as she stood before him.</p> +<p>Her melodramatic hesitancy must have made him apprehensive, for he returned, + with an uneasy laugh:</p> +<p>"You're not tired of your bargain already, are you?"</p> +<p>"No ... but.... Well, I hope you won't think it strange.... The truth + is...."</p> +<p>She stopped in confusion. He gave her a look of puzzled sympathy. It was plain + that she was disturbed, and unhappy.</p> +<p>He laid his hand lightly upon her shoulder. "Well, if you're not tired, + what does the rest matter? Unless, of course, there is some one else.... In + that case...." He had stopped breathing and his lips were parted anxiously.</p> +<p>"How absurd you are!" She found herself laughing at him.</p> +<p>After that the thing seemed impossible, and finally the moment that she had + been expecting and dreading came. Danilo said to her one morning, as he was + leaving:</p> +<p>"What night next week will be convenient for you to go out to dinner? + I want you to meet Mr. Stillman."</p> +<p>"To meet Mr. Stillman?... Must I?"</p> +<p>He flushed. "Well, it never occurred to me that you would object. I have + spoken about it to him."</p> +<p>"Oh, of course! Naturally for the moment I felt surprised. How would Tuesday + night do?"</p> +<p>Tuesday night did perfectly. Danilo decided on dinner at the St. Francis. Claire + was admonished to dress her prettiest.</p> +<p>They had set the hour at seven-thirty, but at the last moment a telephone message + came to the hotel that Stillman was detained. Danilo decided upon going into + the dining-room and waiting there rather than in the lobby.</p> +<p>Stillman came in at eight o'clock. Claire saw him standing in the entrance + to the dining-room, greeting a woman friend. He looked very well, she thought.</p> +<p>Danilo was for rushing up and escorting Stillman in triumph to Claire's side, + but she restrained him. Presently Stillman detached himself from his feminine + acquaintance and he stepped into the room. He caught Danilo's beckoning finger; + his face lit with a rare smile. Claire knew that he had not yet glimpsed her.</p> +<p>It was not until he was almost upon them that Claire noticed him start almost + imperceptibly. Then she heard Danilo's voice ringing out warmly:</p> +<p>"Ah, so there you are!... Claire, this is the Mr. Stillman that you have + heard me speak of so often.... Does he come up to your hopes?"</p> +<p>Claire inclined her head gently.</p> +<p>"You forget.... I have seen Mr. Stillman before," she chided.</p> +<p>"Oh yes ... at the Ithaca. I had forgotten," Danilo replied as he + waved his guest into a seat.</p> +<p>As for Stillman, he said nothing, but Danilo went on with vivacity:</p> +<p>"You see, my brother, it is as I told you—I shall not need a pistol."</p> +<p>"A pistol!" echoed Claire, in a nervous attempt to break the strain + of Stillman's silence. "And what use could you have for a pistol, pray?"</p> +<p>"That was for the other man in the case," Stillman said, suddenly, + looking up.</p> +<p>A quick flush overspread Danilo's face.</p> +<p>Claire did not know whether Stillman's tone was ironical or bitter, or just + thoughtless. But as she turned to help herself to the olives which the waiter + held out to her she had a feeling that the last door to the necessary understanding + between herself and Danilo concerning Stillman had been suddenly closed.</p> +<a name="II_X"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER X</h3> +<p>Meanwhile, among the countless war charities that loomed upon the local horizon + the name of Serbia began to be heard. There had been fêtes and kermesses + for starving Belgians, and lectures on Poland, and concerts for English widows + and orphans, and grand-opera benefits for the Italians, but so far Serbia seemed + to have made either a very faint outcry or to have been pushed into the background + by more spectacular petition. But an erstwhile famous dancer adopting the famous + Red Cross cap and gown in the interest of Danilo's birthplace, there began to + be a decided interest in that little country. A permanent organization for Serbian + relief was formed, and Danilo was made president.</p> +<p>There followed accounts in the daily press about Danilo; his picture was published; + his name even wandered into the social columns. Then, one day, when news was + slack and space abundant, an enterprising female reporter discovered that Danilo's + father had been a descendant of a famous Serbian king, or archbishop, or some + such imposing creature, and Danilo's reputation, social and professional, was + made. It seemed that civilization, although perfectly ready to dispense with + the empty formulas of state, was still hovering with a certain fascination about + the flickerings from the untrimmed lamps of the nobility. It appeared that any + descendant of royalty must of necessity have a romance hidden away in the folds + of his figurative ermine, and so it was not long before Danilo's secret was + made public, in a good half-column of social chatterings, together with a photograph + of the bride-elect. Suddenly San Francisco seemed to have discovered, or rather + the press did for it, that Miss Claire Robson was "talented, accomplished, + and a pronounced favorite of the younger set." Claire, reading the glowing + account, remembered that brides always were "pronounced favorites with + the younger set," whenever through accident or design their names became + mixed with the socially elect. And not only was she herself all these things, + but her mother before her "had been a member of the exclusive Southern + set of the 'seventies," and her two aunts, Mrs. Thomas Wynne and Mrs. Edward + Ffinch-Brown, were still "most prominent in social activities." Altogether + the alliance was the most distinguished and romantic affair imaginable. Only + one figure in the drama came out indifferently, and that was Claire's father. + Claire was merely the daughter of the late Mr. William Robson, and the recital + of this melancholy fact was accomplished with the haste of a regretful discretion.</p> +<p>Danilo was as pleased as a child.</p> +<p>"See," he would cry to Claire, "we are in the paper again! That + is a fine thing for Serbia! Now San Francisco will know that such a place exists."</p> +<p>Every day for a week there was fresh gossip concerning Claire in the newspapers. + Quite in the American fashion, not even the glamour of Danilo's ancestors could + secure for him the amount of space given to the woman he was to marry. The discovery + was made that Miss Robson was "a talented musician ... a pianist of no + mean ability ... a familiar figure to concert-goers ... an enthusiastic Red + Cross worker...." Indeed, it transpired that she offered her talents gratuitously + upon the altar of charity. In spite of the money spent upon a distinguished + musical education, she asked nothing better than to turn her abilities to the + account of the distressed. It went without saying that she was in perfect sympathy + with her prospective husband's plans for the relief of his native land, so much + so that she was scorning all pre-nuptial entertainment so that her time might + be free for the broader demands of philanthropy. It was all very smart and entertaining, + and the real facts of the case were concealed with a dexterous skill. It would, + of course, have been the height of impropriety to set in the column of a young + bride's virtues the facts that she had supported an invalid mother for six strenuous + months, that she had served her employers well, that she was modest and virtuous, + and withal courageous in the face of adversity! No, the truth would have made + dull reading for the rank and file who snatch romance and fiction between gulps + of morning coffee.</p> +<p>But the public's interest in kings and archbishops, and Serbian relief, and + Claire Robson went the way of all satisfied curiosity, and just at the moment + when it seemed that Danilo had ceased to be of any concern this same enterprising + reporter made another discovery. Danilo's father may have sprung from a line + of kings, but his mother was a product of the backbone of every nation—<i>the + common people</i>. Now there were more columns of interesting speculation. Democracy + came into its own. Here was an alliance between exclusive privilege and fundamental + rights, abstractions made flesh by the glib vagaries of the daily press. And + the result, of course, was Danilo, a sort of demigod who had combined all the + virtues of both classes. Chief among the items of interest, the most incredible + to a democratic community, seemed to be the fact that his same Danilo was not + only unashamed of his peasant stock, but proud of it. But then, he had been + basking in the warmth of the free and untrammeled institutions of America for + at least five years, and he had learned, no doubt, to revise his standards. + Indeed, it was due to the influence of American life, to say nothing of his + charming American bride-to-be, that he was bending all his endeavors toward + a rehabilitated Serbia. And it was hinted that there was even a possibility + that this adopted son of the Golden West might one day sit in the presidential + chair of an enlightened and enfranchised Serbian state. With this burst of tentative + prophecy, the hectic imaginings of the daily press concerning George Danilo, + Claire Robson, and their ancestors went out like a spent candle.</p> +<p>But the dust raised by all this journalistic flight lingered long after the + bustle and noise of the performance had subsided. Danilo sensed it in an ever-widening + circle of wealthy patients, and Claire in a rush of interested visitors. Almost + her first caller proved to be her pastor, Doctor Stoddard. He came in one Saturday + afternoon. Miss Proll had returned home early, and the living-room was a confusion + of dressmaking, so Claire ushered the reverend gentleman into the dining-room. + Almost the first thing that engaged his attention was the holy image and swinging + lamp before it that Danilo had set up on his name-day. He walked over and examined + it rather cautiously. Then he sat down with the air of one determined to meet + the devil without delay or compromise.</p> +<p>"The gentleman you are to marry," he said, looking squarely at the + icon as he spoke, "I presume he is ... I take it that he is of a different + faith."</p> +<p>"Doctor Danilo is a Greek Catholic," Claire answered.</p> +<p>There was an awkward pause in which it appeared that Doctor Stoddard was marshaling + all his wits for a serious encounter. Finally he said:</p> +<p>"I hope he is not insisting on your partaking of his communion."</p> +<p>"We have never even discussed the thing. Really, I hardly know what his + views are. As a matter of fact, it makes no difference."</p> +<p>"Makes no difference!... Why, my dear Miss Robson, it would seem to me + that it ought to make a very great difference. You don't mean to say that you + would sacrifice every conviction upon the altar of love?"</p> +<p>Claire, who had been standing, took a seat. "My dear Doctor Stoddard, + have you really ever met a woman seriously in love?"</p> +<p>The gentleman coughed and began to polish his finger-nails upon the glossy + surface of his coat-sleeve.</p> +<p>"I have been in the ministry for over thirty years." He stopped a + moment, measuring Claire for a supreme thrust as he finished with a certain + pompous satisfaction. "And you forget, Miss Robson, I am myself a married + man!"</p> +<p>Here was simple, conceited, masculine faith again! Claire could not restrain + a smile as she changed the subject. But it came to her as she did so that there + was something at once pathetic and terrible about so bland an assurance. She + thought of Stillman and quite unconsciously she found herself mentally repeating:</p> +<p>"I must tell Danilo in the morning."</p> +<p>Doctor Stoddard continued to make other polite inquiries, but in the end the + original question came to the fore again.</p> +<p>"I hope," he hazarded, upon leaving, "that you <i>will</i> ponder + seriously the spiritual side of your marriage. One should think twice before + deserting the faith of one's fathers. I cannot fancy that Doctor Danilo will + expect you to make the supreme sacrifice of being married out of your own fold."</p> +<p>After he had gone she felt uncomfortable. She had lost all sense of the authority + with which Doctor Stoddard felt himself invested, but in an intangible way he + did remain the symbol of those things unseen which made faith in life possible. + And somehow his presence revived the old hopes as well as the exquisite spiritual + fears of childhood. She had not been trained to refresh a soul wearied by sophistication + by the simple act of lighting a taper before a holy image, and she knew that + this never could be her portion. But Doctor Stoddard's presence itself gave + her a very real idea of what Danilo had felt when he had set up his little name-day + altar in the Robson dwelling. One could deny the precise terms of one's inbred + faith, but it would still remain the most tangible clue to a larger hope—the + slender thread which guided one through the maze.</p> +<p>Only one other person raised the question of what form of ceremony Claire had + decided upon for her wedding, and curiously enough that person was Nellie Whitehead + Holmes.</p> +<p>"I say, Robson," she flung out one day, "I hope you ain't going + to stand for any three-ringed circus stuff when you get hitched. Just you insist + on a straight old-fashioned get-away ... in plain English."</p> +<p>Claire made no reply and, Nellie, searching her friend's face sharply, said, + with no attempt to conceal her panic:</p> +<p>"You ain't thinking of changing your religion, are you?"</p> +<p>Claire smiled. "Well, why not? I'm changing my name. And after all...."</p> +<p>"Claire Robson, don't be a fool!... Why, I wouldn't change my religion + for the best man in the world!"</p> +<p>"No? And just what is your religion, Nell?"</p> +<p>"Why, I'm an Episcopalian! You ought to know that! You went to my wedding. + You didn't think Holmes had any say about that, did you? Well, I guess not! + No, sirree, I wouldn't change my religion for <i>anything</i>!"</p> +<hr /> +<p>Danilo was very busy now and Claire really saw little of him. He took an early + breakfast, almost on the run, and it was seldom that he came in at the dinner + hour. But somehow the atmosphere of the Robson flat was tremulous with his presence.</p> +<p>The month of June passed, unusually clear and unusually warm for early summer + in San Francisco. Claire never remembered a time when she had been busier. There + was the housework to do and sewing to be accomplished and her mother to attend + to. Not that Mrs. Robson was making any great demands, but Claire found herself + surrendering every spare moment to the invalid. At such times Claire had a shuddering + sense of keeping a watch for the coming of that thief which was to rob her of + the last link binding her to her old life. It was plain that Mrs. Robson was + failing fast. Complications were developing, the end could not be far off.</p> +<p>At night she took long walks while Miss Proll sewed feverishly. The old gray + city was like an old intimate friend and she was saying good-by to it as passionately + as if it had been a warm and living personality. She would stand for long stretches + upon the heights, watching the twilight lay its cloak gently upon the town's + curving limbs. And as night came on apace, the hills would twinkle with the + shameless gauds of evening. What a wanton, fascinating city it was! And how + she loved it!... All her life she had taken it for granted, as one takes for + granted the familiar things that grow commonplace by constant association. And + yet for all this new-found appreciation of her native city, she longed to leave + it, she wanted to hold the memory of its beauty as an ever-living thing, and + she was afraid to trust to the narrowing vision of bitter years. Sometimes in + these glowing moments she thought of Stillman, trying to dismiss the picture + of his face, sneering and cold before the realization that she was soon to be + lost to him forever. She had not seen him since that night when Danilo had invited + him to dinner at the St. Francis. He had recovered his old genial manner after + the first lapse, but she knew that the flimsy robes of pretense were at best + an indifferent covering for the wounds which were staining his pale contentment. + She did not like to remember that evening. It smacked of subterfuge and unworthiness.</p> +<p>She should have told Danilo—she must tell him to-morrow—that was + the thought that flashed over her every time she came face to face with the + question. But somehow to-morrow never came.</p> +<p>"I must tell him to-morrow!... I must tell him to-morrow!" It became + a stereotype formula which she repeated as one repeats a monotonous prayer in + the hope of dulling a keen sensation of guilt. She was in the grip of one of + those simple situations that grow complicated, through concealment. That was + the trouble, it was almost too simple, and she could find no convincing argument + to explain why she had been silent so long.</p> +<p>During the days when the papers had been full of her engagement to Danilo she + found her heart beating anxiously every time she opened the newspaper to the + society column. What if a hint of her friendship for Stillman were to be blazoned + forth there? It was just as likely that some such airy fiction as this would + grace the feast of gossip:</p> +<p>"Miss Robson is an unusually graceful dancer and she and Mr. Ned Stillman + were the sensation of the St. Francis supper dancers all last season."</p> +<p>If it were so curiously awkward to approach Danilo with the truth at first + hand, what could she say if, hearing the facts of the case from other sources, + Danilo were to suddenly demand an explanation? She could not say:</p> +<p>"It never occurred to me that it would matter...." Or, "I really + didn't think you would be interested."</p> +<p>One night Danilo came home, his lips parted in flushed pleasure, his black + eyes glowing.</p> +<p>"Have you heard what has happened? <i>Somebody</i> has donated a million + dollars to the Serbian cause."</p> +<p>"<i>Somebody</i>?" echoed Claire, but her heart stood still as she + said it.</p> +<p>"Well, it is not for general publication, but of course you can guess + who has done this thing.... There is only one man in San Francisco who <i>would</i> + do it."</p> +<p>Claire said nothing. But the old determination seized her.</p> +<p>"<i>Now</i>, I must tell him in the morning!" she thought.</p> +<p>But when next morning came Danilo had risen early and departed.</p> +<a name="II_XI"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3> +<p>A million dollars for the Serbian cause! The newspapers came out with the news + in bold head-lines, and interest in Danilo and his fiancée grew keen + again. It seemed incredible that a sane person could have given a million dollars + to any cause and withhold his name! It was a method of procedure that was neither + modern nor business-like nor sound, and after the fury and fun of speculation + had died the daily press grew a bit peevish at their balked opportunity to exploit + the donor. And not only had a million dollars been left like a love-child at + the door-step of charity, but there had been no provision made for the manner + of its disbursement. Dr. George Danilo was to have absolute and discretionary + power in spending this huge sum, and nothing further appeared to be suggested + or demanded.</p> +<p>Only one person ventured to hint to Claire Robson that they were in possession + of the secret, and this one person was Nellie Holmes.</p> +<p>"You can't fool me, Robson!" Nellie said, searching Claire with her + shrewd, kindly eyes. "I know who slipped that million dollars into the + poor-box. It was friend Stillman. You don't have to tell me! And it ain't because + he cares a whoop about Serbia or Dr. George Danilo, Esquire, either."</p> +<p>Claire paled and then flushed. "Really, Nell, you mustn't! That isn't + fair to...."</p> +<p>"Fair nothing! Danilo must have two eyes and a nose, and if...."</p> +<p>Claire cut her short with a quick gesture. "You don't understand. Danilo + doesn't know. I mean, I never have told him that ... that I even knew Ned Stillman."</p> +<p>A low whistle escaped Nellie Holmes. "My God! Robson, but you were a fool!"</p> +<p>"I know, but I mean to soon. As soon as I...."</p> +<p>"Look here, Robson, it's too late now! You'll just have to take a chance. + There are some things that cold storage improves, but a secret like that ain't + one of them. Now, with Billy it would be different. He'd take my word because + he knows that there are some things I wouldn't be mean enough to lie about. + But your friend ... well, he's in love up to his eyes. And a man like that is + dangerous. It wouldn't take much to bring him up to boiling-point. And you'd + better not turn on the blue-flame at this stage of the game."</p> +<p>But Claire was determined that she would get free of this figurative blood-clot + which was paralyzing her will, and that night when Danilo came home she made + up her mind to speak out. It was one of the nights when Danilo had denied all + other demands, so that he might have dinner with Claire, and after the coffee + she settled back in her seat and said:</p> +<p>"You have really never told me who gave that million dollars."</p> +<p>"But you know?"</p> +<p>"Well, after a fashion. It.... I presume it was Stillman."</p> +<p>This was not as she had planned the scene and she had a feeling that she was + making slight progress.</p> +<p>"Yes, you are right! I have never had anything in my life so touching! + Isn't it wonderful, Claire? This is a tribute to me, you understand. After all, + he can have no real interest in Serbia."</p> +<p>She drew back in her seat. His face was eager and full of simple faith and + enthusiasm.</p> +<p>"It is very curious," Danilo went on. "He could have given it + to some other cause. He is very fond of Belgium, for instance. But he picked + Serbia. Are you not proud of me, Claire?"</p> +<p>He held his hand out to her across the table. She gave him her fingers and + he pressed them warmly.</p> +<p>"Why do you not tell me that you are proud of me?" he insisted, as + she stared at him with silent, almost frightened eyes. "Do you not think + that a man who can inspire the gift of a million dollars for his native land + has reason to be conceited?"</p> +<p>"Every reason ... every reason," she forced herself to murmur.</p> +<p>"And, as you say in America, it is a very good ad. Why, checks are simply + pouring in! And there is to be a concert given next week. I was talking to some + of the ladies about it to-day. One of them knew you well. She said you played + accompaniments for her last winter. Mrs.... Mrs...."</p> +<p>"Mrs. Condor?" Claire asked, faintly.</p> +<p>"Yes, that is her name! She is going to open the program. And she was + saying how nice it would be if you would consent to play for her. You know I + never would have thought of that. I told her yes! Of course! You would be delighted."</p> +<p>Claire stared. Lily Condor's audacity was arresting enough in all conscience, + but Danilo's calm disposition of the matter rankled. Had it not occurred to + him that she might have something to say about such an arrangement?</p> +<p>"Well, really, you know," she began to stammer, in spite of a wish + to give her words an air of finality. "I don't think that I...."</p> +<p>"Nonsense!" he returned, genially. "It has all been decided + upon. In fact, we have had the announcements put in the hands of the printer + already. Mrs. Condor said you had played the same program before, so what was + the use in delaying? Remember," he finished, with a laugh, "you are + to be my wife, and in my country the first thing a wife learns is obedience."</p> +<p>It was impossible for her to explain her objections—they involved too + many issues—and she could not discuss Danilo's viewpoint without seeming + to be turning an inconsequential matter to very serious account. But she did + gather courage to say:</p> +<p>"Next time I wish you would speak to me before you make plans of that + kind."</p> +<p>Danilo frowned.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Lily Condor again! Claire pondered this unexpected circumstance all next day. + She had been hearing scraps of gossip from time to time concerning the lady + through Nellie Holmes, enough to indicate that her social position was bordering + on total eclipse. Capturing Danilo's patronage was a daring and characteristic + stroke, but Claire felt that Lily knew that any such move was essentially futile. + Was Mrs. Condor indulging a mere whim or was a subtle revenge back of her latest + move?</p> +<p>Claire had quickly abandoned all hope of denying her services in the face of + Danilo's obvious displeasure. But the prospect of having to face the situation + filled her with dread. There was no telling where the issue would lead. What + if Mrs. Condor were to acquaint Danilo with the secret which Claire had been + withholding? Nellie Holmes was right, as usual—there were some things + that cold storage did not improve. It was too late now to indulge in the selfish + luxury of a confession.</p> +<p>She felt sorry, too, in a way, for Lily Condor. There was a pathetic note in + the lady's very boldness. After all, what did it matter? Mrs. Condor had lived + a hard, reckless life, but who could say what spiritual pressure had driven + her down the barren highway of her pitiless pleasures? For Claire had learned + another thing, one must have wealth to be a spendthrift, and she was discovering + that the greatest spiritual bankrupts were those who had the courage to dare + magnificently and lose. And so she sat down and wrote Lily Condor a little note, + which read:</p> +<blockquote> I understand that I am to play for you next week. When shall I see + you and talk over the program? </blockquote> +<p>And on the same night she wrote to Ned Stillman:</p> +<blockquote> I must see you and have a talk—perhaps for the last time. </blockquote> +<p>Three days later she met Stillman at mid-afternoon in an obscure Italian restaurant + near the foot of Columbus Avenue. She had been somewhat humiliated by the prospect + of this covert meeting, but when the final moment came she felt suddenly calm. + As in the old days, his presence engendered confidence. He threw out a golden + circle of light like some mellow lamp that disdained a searching brilliance, + but was content to soften rather than to betray the secrets of its surroundings.</p> +<p>He ordered coffee and a pale amber liqueur and for a few moments they talked + about things that were of the least possible moment. He seemed a little older, + a little less suave and assured; it was as if the hands of his spirit were trembling + a trifle as they lifted life's cup.</p> +<p>"I have wanted to see you," he said, finally, when the stock of subterfuge + was exhausted. "There were so many things that remained unsaid."</p> +<p>"Perhaps it was as well," she faltered.</p> +<p>He touched her hand. "Ah no! There is such a thing as a corroding silence.... + I have learned in the past months!"</p> +<p><i>He, too!</i> She felt her pulses quickening, but she could not speak, she + could only clench her fist under the impulsive pressure of his fingers.</p> +<p>"What are your plans for the future?" she asked, suddenly.</p> +<p>He shrugged. "I had hoped to get away into the thick of it.... But it + seems that my duty is to stick by the home guns. Or, at least, so they tell + me. That's gratifying, of course ... to know that one accomplishes the appointed + task. The armies must be fed, and California is an opulent storehouse. There's + lots to do here.... Still.... Well, you understand, don't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes.... I think I do. I've heard you've done magnificently. And I've + felt proud of you because, after all, in a way, we started on that road together."</p> +<p>He leaned forward. "It was you who first inspired it.... And I've been + tremendously grateful. I've thrown down a rotten card or two in the course of + it all ... but it isn't always easy to play a straight, clean game. But now + that everything is over and you ... you are going to try your luck with the + very best fellow in the world. It was hard for me to figure it that way at first, + but when I saw it right ... well, I wanted to help in some way ... to do something + really big for you both."</p> +<p>"That million dollars to the cause," she assented. "That was + magnificent. Danilo is touched ... you must know that."</p> +<p>He swept the table with an impatient gesture. "Ah yes, I suppose he is + ... but it isn't the personal tribute I should have liked ... for you.... Forgive + me for speaking this way! But to-day for the last time ... surely you will let + me say a few things that are near my heart. That last night we were together—alone—well, + that was a dangerous moment for me. There are times when a man lifts up the + precious cup that holds his ideal and brings it crashing down into shattered + fragments on the floor. I raised my glass high that night for its destruction, + and you ... you.... Ah, well, I'm getting a bit too poetical ... but <i>you</i> + know!... The point is I want you to absolve me ... to wash me clean ... to forget + that night."</p> +<p>She stirred slightly. "I have the same favor to ask," she murmured. + "When you met me at the Ithaca ... my words to you were all very unworthy.... + And I have put you since in an awkward position. It's hard for me to explain + just why I haven't told Danilo.... I suppose some day I shall ... but now, well, + I've decided to let it rest as it is for the present. It's all absurd and pointless + and feminine.... But Danilo <i>is</i> different! One can't tell him certain + things, easily."</p> +<p>He drew his liqueur-glass toward him and looked down into its amber depths + with the air of a man catching his breath.</p> +<p>"Different!..." he returned, musingly. "Yes, you are right. + He is a flame that warms everything that comes in contact with him. But I fancy + he can wither, too."</p> +<p>"Yes, he can.... That's the reason why...."</p> +<p>He looked at her squarely.</p> +<p>"Claire ... do you mind if I call you 'Claire'?... I am afraid we <i>are</i> + playing with fire."</p> +<hr /> +<p>It was past six o'clock when Claire left the restaurant. The warm spell of + June was over, and a high ocean fog was drifting in on the breath of the west + wind. People hurried by muffled in overcoats and furs, their straw hats incongruously + accenting the almost wintry gloom. But Claire was in no mood to take account + of wind and weather.</p> +<p>This last intimate meeting with Stillman was full of irony. For the first time + they had met and talked of what was close to their hearts with perfect frankness, + and it was to be the last time! He had even spoken about his dead wife, in a + perfectly natural, simple way, as if Claire had known her all her life.</p> +<p>They had said farewell while the waiter was busying himself clearing away their + empty glasses. It seemed better so. But as Stillman took her hand he said:</p> +<p>"Try not to forget me, Claire—completely."</p> +<p>"I shall never forget," she answered.</p> +<p>She left him standing there while the waiter bowed over the generous tip which + lay upon the stained table-cloth.... At the door she turned for a last look. + He was smiling at her, but it was a twisted smile.... She opened the door and + went out....</p> +<p>When she arrived home Danilo was standing in the hall, slipping on his overcoat. + She had a fear that he would make some comment about her late home-coming, but + he said nothing—he merely nodded to her as he reached for his hat. She + stood puzzled at his silence; there was something ominous about it, and her + brain started guiltily as she thought, "Could it be possible that he has + seen us together this afternoon?"</p> +<p>She began to take off her wraps. "Are ... are you going out?" she + asked.</p> +<p>He stared at her. "Yes."</p> +<p>"Some one is ill.... I mean have you a sudden call?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>She did not know why she persisted in questioning him.</p> +<p>"You will be out late, then?"</p> +<p>"Yes.... I may not come home at all."</p> +<p>She moved nearer. The hall light struck him squarely. His look frightened her. + There was not a bit of color in his face, and his lips were thinned as upon + that first night when he had risen in his seat at the Café Ithaca and + betrayed his love for her.</p> +<p>"What is the matter?" she demanded, with desperate boldness. "You.... + Something <i>must</i> have gone wrong?"</p> +<p>He started back as if she had struck him a blow. "It is nothing. I am + not feeling well. That Serbian relief is getting on my nerves.... Money, money + pouring in ... and they do not care about the cause, either! It is just the + fashion, that is all!... Bah! Sometimes I hate the whole pretense!... I would + like to find <i>one</i> honest person!"</p> +<p>She shrank back. He walked past her quickly and he began to descend the stairs. + Half-way down he halted and called up to her:</p> +<p>"Your <i>friend</i>, Mrs. Condor, was in to see me to-day.... She will + be here to-morrow to talk over the program."</p> +<p>Claire ran to the head of the stairs. But the door slammed decisively.</p> +<p>"<i>Your friend, Mrs. Condor</i>," Claire mused. "What a nasty + tone!"</p> +<a name="II_XII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3> +<p>Danilo did not come home that night, but Claire was not disturbed. Morning + brought the usual sanity. She was convinced now that Danilo's manner of the + night before was more a matter of her own mood and interpretation than anything + else. But she was determined on one thing: she would ask Mrs. Condor quite frankly + to say nothing to Danilo about Stillman. Claire was still undecided about the + whole question. She had seen that Stillman was against the fine-spun theories + back of her silence, but she had not yet acquired the masculine directness of + conduct that made it easy for her to be either ruthless or perfectly just.</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor came in shortly after two o'clock. She was dressed with extraordinary + lack of spirit for her, in a black street dress that just escaped being dowdy, + and her face was incased in a thick, ugly veil.</p> +<p>"Well, my dear Claire," she said, as she threw back her veil with + something of her old spirit, "but this is good of you!"</p> +<p>The warmth of tone repaid Claire's effort to be generous.</p> +<p>"There is no use in us wasting time talking about the program," she + went on. "You play everything I'm going to sing. I don't know anything + new. I'm getting too old to learn other tricks. You know, of course, what I've + come for? To see all your pretty clothes. I'm still soft about such things."</p> +<p>Claire took her into the front room.</p> +<p>"You see," she said, "there isn't anything very grand."</p> +<p>"Oh, but Claire! What does it matter? You are in love.... If I were a + woman in love I wouldn't change places with the Empress of India. I was jealous + of you, Claire, once ... jealous because I thought you <i>were</i> in love ... + because I thought you <i>could</i> be.... Ah! You didn't think that <i>I</i> + cared for Ned Stillman?... Oh, I liked his attentions, perhaps—every woman + likes attention. And I was envious of your youth, and nasty because my nerves + were frayed.... But deep down I was jealous of your ability to fall in love + with somebody.... Believe me, Claire, the bitterest moment of any woman's life + is when she wakes up and finds that she loves no one. At least that was the + bitterest moment of my life.... I've tried to bring that feeling back again! + But trying doesn't do any good. It either comes or it stays away, and that's + all there is to it.... Oh, I've been <i>loved</i>, Claire, but that isn't the + same."</p> +<p>Claire, who had been folding her wedding-dress, stopped and looked up in surprise.</p> +<p>"I don't wonder you look at me that way!" Lily Condor resumed. "I've + played a rotten game, but I've never acknowledged it to myself, much less to + any one else.... Don't misunderstand me—I'm not crawling around on my + hands and knees sniffling like a repentant sinner.... I hate repentant sinners! + But I've been cheap and small and nasty. <i>Petty</i>—that's the word! + You may not believe it, but pettiness isn't a part of my original make-up. I've + acquired it ... like a false complexion.... I started in life with three things—a + clear skin, quantities of very red hair, and a decent feeling for others. Well, + I lost them all—so I powdered my cheeks and touched up my hair and filled + in the chinks in my disposition with a hard glaze. Oh, I'm not excusing myself! + Some people are willing to sit back and let time and misfortune do their worst, + but I wasn't one of them. I kept on fighting.... I didn't win, but it hardened + me. Fighting always does!"</p> +<p>Claire dropped her wedding-gown upon the couch and she said, very gently:</p> +<p>"Yes ... I know.... I've tasted something of that myself."</p> +<p>"I know you have.... I realized it that night at the café when + you had the courage of your bitterness and insulted me. I was furious, of course! + I wanted to strike back, to kick and scream and claw the air. And as a matter + of fact, I did ... after we ... Flint and I ... got home. He let me rave without + saying a word. Oh, he's a clever brute in his way, that man! And when I'd had + it all out he got up and he said: 'Take a look at yourself in the glass. If + that doesn't cure you, nothing will.' And he walked deliberately out.... I went + over to the mirror after he had gone, and I took a look, a long, hard look.... + Next night he came and pounded on my door—he was drunk. 'I did what you + told me last night,' I called to him. 'Go away! I'm cured!' But of course I + wasn't!... I've looked in the glass every day since.... I don't know just what + possessed me to go and offer my services to Doctor Danilo. A flash of the old + distemper, I fancy. I wanted to create a stir. I smiled when he disposed of + you with so much confidence. I thought: 'Wait until my lady hears; then there + will be some fun!... This will be the first difference, the first quarrel,' + I was mean enough to imagine.... Then, your note came.... My dear Claire, for + once in my life I was without a weapon.... Why didn't you strike back and give + me a chance to fight?"</p> +<p>"Well, to be frank, I wanted to ... at first. But I was afraid."</p> +<p>"Of what ... of <i>me</i>?"</p> +<p>"Oh, not that! But Danilo ... he.... You see, he is a foreigner. He has + other ideas about women and their place in the scheme of things. It isn't exactly + a feeling that he's superior, but marriage to him is a partnership ... a partnership + with a senior member. And senior members—well, they don't relish having + their authority questioned. I'm explaining it very clumsily. But you understand + I...."</p> +<p>"<i>Afraid</i>, Claire?... So soon? You must be very much in love to ... + to...."</p> +<p>Claire drew a deep breath. "And I've a favor to ask of you.... I hope + you won't say anything to Danilo about.... The truth of the matter is, I have + never mentioned Ned Stillman's name to him."</p> +<p>Well, she had said it and she stood staring, wondering at the look of dismay + that seemed to have fastened itself in an arrested flight upon Mrs. Condor's + face.</p> +<p>"You mean that ... that Danilo knows nothing—absolutely nothing? + I thought he was a friend of Ned's? Why, it isn't possible that...."</p> +<p>"He knows nothing," Claire repeated, desperately. "I mean to + tell him, of course, but just now...."</p> +<p>Lily Condor tapped her lips with an uneasy finger. "You should have warned + me sooner, Claire.... I said something yesterday. It was a trifle, but I remember + now how he stared."</p> +<p>"Yes, yes. What was it?"</p> +<p>"I said: 'You're a lucky man, Doctor Danilo. If Ned Stillman hadn't been + married you wouldn't have carried off your prize so easily.' It was stupid of + me, one of those indelicate things we say for want of sense enough to hold our + tongues. I felt for a moment that I had displeased him, but I had no idea.... + But, really, it's just possible that he didn't get my meaning, that...."</p> +<p>Claire shook her head. "I must tell him now—<i>everything</i>."</p> +<hr /> +<p>She did not see Danilo for two days. He came in finally at five o'clock one + afternoon to look up some surgical instruments that he was in need of. She was + busy in the kitchen when she heard him come up the stairs. She went quickly + to his door and tapped upon it.</p> +<p>"Mother has not been so well," she began, without waiting for his + greeting. "I have been longing to see you."</p> +<p>He followed her into Mrs. Robson's room. The patient hardly stirred. Her usual + interest in Danilo seemed to be eclipsed. Danilo looked grave.... When Claire + and he were in the hall again he turned to her and said:</p> +<p>"I suppose you are prepared?... Everything will soon be over."</p> +<p>His tone was dry, professional. He seemed to be making a deliberate effort + to wound. Had he been sympathetic Claire would have been overcome, but there + was something about the scene which chilled her emotions. She felt that the + time to speak had come.</p> +<p>"You have guessed, also," she began, "that I have wanted to + see you about other things, too. There are some things which I should like to + explain ... to...."</p> +<p>He shrugged contemptuously. "Explanations are dull affairs. At least I + find them so. And they usually never explain."</p> +<p>She was stunned. She had thought always of Danilo in terms of warmth, even + of passion. She had never imagined him capable of such steely malevolence.</p> +<p>"I have made a mistake," she went on, desperately. "I am willing + to admit that, but...."</p> +<p>"No, not a mistake, Claire. Mistakes are never deliberate."</p> +<p>She could almost feel herself grow pale. "Have you come to any decision?" + she asked.</p> +<p>"Decision?"</p> +<p>"Well, I suppose that you will wish to be released ... that our ... that + everything between us is finished."</p> +<p>His eyes flashed. "<i>Finished!</i> It isn't as simple as all that. Oh + no! A bargain with me is a bargain. When I make a deal it either goes through + or else there is a reckoning.... But I don't act as hastily as one might imagine. + I believe in sifting things. When I play a game I know every card I hold." + He looked at her steadily. "I am still looking over my hand!"</p> +<p>She leaned against the wall, overcome by a sudden faintness. He passed her + deliberately and went into his room. When he came out she had recovered herself.</p> +<p>"About mother?" she said, with a display of calmness. "What + am I to expect?"</p> +<p>"There is no immediate danger. But in two weeks' time at the most.... + However, I shall look in again this afternoon. And every morning. You may count + on that."</p> +<p>"Then you have decided to lodge somewhere else?"</p> +<p>"Yes ... for the present."</p> +<p>She let him go without further questions.</p> +<hr /> +<p>The week passed in an atmosphere of arrested events. It seemed to Claire as + if the currents of life had become ominously frozen, that they were storing + up a sinister flood in the icy chains of apprehension. Danilo came twice a day + to see Mrs. Robson. He was excessively polite, unbending, professional. Claire + was powerless before such premeditated cruelty. The night of the concert drew + near. Danilo never so much as mentioned it. Finally Claire gathered the courage + to telephone Mrs. Condor.</p> +<p>"I suppose," she said, "that everything is going according to + schedule. Really, I haven't had a chance to talk to Danilo about it. He has + been so busy."</p> +<p>The upshot of this telephone message was that Mrs. Condor called in the afternoon.</p> +<p>"Confess!" she said to Claire. "Things have gone wrong."</p> +<p>"He won't allow me to explain.... It is horrible! I don't know what to + do! And my mother is dying!... How much do you fancy he knows?"</p> +<p>"Everything or nothing! It is hard to say. But you must keep a stiff upper + lip now. No faltering!... Be as dignified as you can. Men like that are dangerous! + It may be that he is merely suffering, that he can't speak out yet! When he + does...." She gave a significant shrug.</p> +<p>Claire folded and unfolded her handkerchief, crumpled it into a ball, tore + at it with her firm finger-nails.</p> +<p>"Words ... insults ... anything would be better than this silence. I have + never been so frightened."</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor's visit relieved the strain somewhat, but Claire was still strung + with a tense emotion that found expression in a restless physical activity. + She even helped Miss Proll with the sewing, although there were moments when + the absurdity of all this preparation struck her with a force which almost brought + the laughter to her lips. But this wedding-trousseau had become a passion with + Miss Proll. Claire could not conceive of halting its preparation.</p> +<p>Once it struck her that there was a decided impropriety about appearing in + a concert, with her mother so near the gate of life's solution. <i>Impropriety?</i> + She pondered the word. And at once a revulsion swayed her. She was sick of all + these pallid phrases of expediency. One could act indifferently or harshly or + irreverently at such a crisis, but it was too dreadful and austere a circumstance + for so smug an indiscretion as impropriety. She knew what her mother would have + advised on a like occasion.</p> +<p>"I wouldn't, if I were you, Claire. People might think it strange."</p> +<p>This formula, then, was all that was left of the pomp and circumstance of death—of + even the glowing pageantry of life; love and hate and desire reduced to colorless + shadows blown monotonously about the lantern of existence by the steady heat + waves of public opinion!</p> +<p>It would have been so easy to excuse herself, to say to Danilo:</p> +<p>"You see it is impossible for me to play next Friday night. Please make + other arrangements."</p> +<p>In reality, she was waiting for him to release her, and, since he seemed determined + to make her cry for quarter, all her pride rose to meet the issue courageously. + It was pride that lifted her head above the choking dust of misfortune—arrogant, + blind, magnificent human pride.</p> +<p>" ...keep a stiff upper lip."</p> +<p>Claire Robson did not need this admonition from Mrs. Condor.</p> +<hr /> +<p>There were also moments of hectic retrospection. Incidents old but vital came + surging over Claire in a flood-tide. Looking back, it seemed as if no circumstance + was too trivial but that it yielded up some fragment which fitted into the intricate + pattern of her life. She had thought of this life of hers always in terms of + uneventfulness, mistaking mere incident for emotional experience. But she was + surprised to discover what depths she had sounded, what heights she had scaled + in the solitary excursions that her spirit had chanced.</p> +<p>People came and went like noonday ghosts—Mrs. Finnegan, Nellie Holmes, + Mrs. Towne, Doctor Stoddard. Claire felt their personalities moving about her, + but the wings of Death cast too heavy a shadow for her to do more than sense + their presence.</p> +<p>Only Danilo's passionately sneering face had the faculty of bringing Claire + up with a round turn to a sudden realization that she had escaped only temporarily + into a world of unrealities. It was as if the payment on a note had been suspended + with refined cruelty—the day of reckoning futilely postponed.</p> +<p>When she thought of him it was with a quickening of the heart, a swooning fear, + a feeling of dreadful nausea. <i>Afraid!</i> She knew the meaning of this word + now.</p> +<p>Lily Condor ran in again the day before the concert.</p> +<p>"I called at Danilo's office to-day," she said, "just out of + sheer curiosity.... I don't know ... perhaps it would be just as well if we + didn't go through with this farce of doing a turn to-morrow night.... What do + you think? I could pretend that I was ill?"</p> +<p>"Why?... What is it? Do you think...."</p> +<p>"I don't like his look. He was most polite.... I think he could have killed + me."</p> +<p>"Nonsense!" Claire returned, boldly. "You're drawing on your + imagination. I want to do it.... I have a reason."</p> +<p>She realized the absurdity of such a statement as soon as Mrs. Condor had departed. + A <i>reason</i>! And her mother was dying—<i>dying</i>! What would people + think? Unconsciously the old question framed itself.</p> +<p>Danilo came in as usual, close upon the heels of Mrs. Condor.</p> +<p>"Your mother is slightly better," he said to Claire. "She may + last another month."</p> +<p>Claire tried to ignore the insolence of his brevity.</p> +<p>"I wish you would do me a favor," she ventured, boldly. "I've + been trying to get Nellie Holmes on the telephone all day.... Would you mind + asking her if she could come and stay with mother to-morrow night from eight + o'clock to about ten? I hate to leave Miss Proll all the responsibility."</p> +<p>He merely bowed his acquiescence. She felt her cheeks burning. He had done + none of the things she had expected him to do—asked none of the questions. + At least she had expected him to say:</p> +<p>"Oh, then you have decided to appear to-morrow?"</p> +<p>No, he had insulted her with his silence, pretending to be neither surprised + nor shocked. But his attitude confirmed her in the determination to carry out + her part of the program.</p> +<p>On Friday morning the society columns of the newspapers were twittering with + the fact of Claire Robson's appearance upon the concert stage in aid of her + fiancé's native land. This was the last time the public would have a + chance to view her as Miss Robson. In fact, it might be the last time that San + Francisco would have a chance to view her publicly at all! These statements + carried an air of civic calamity that must have appalled every shop-girl who + thrilled to their romantic suggestion. Previously Claire had been able to smile + over the transparent fiction of the daily press concerning her obscure self, + but now she caught a suggestion of irony, of bitter cruelty, of withering scorn + running through all this silly chatter. She felt that it had been inspired by + Danilo; between the lines she could almost shape his sneering lips, thin and + pallid where they had once been full and scarlet.</p> +<p>That morning when he came to see his patient his eyes were burning like livid + coals, his cheeks were sunken, his hand shook as he drew back the covers to + look at Mrs. Robson's gray face. And as Claire watched him she saw a tear roll + down the full length of his cheek and drop unashamed upon the rumpled linen. + She felt a great longing then, a yearning to go up and put her hands upon his + cheeks and draw his face to hers and to sit while he knelt beside her and poured + out his full grief in a cleansing flood. But, instead, she stood proudly aloof + and the golden moment of opportunity was swallowed up.</p> +<p>"I will not come this afternoon," he said, at parting. "You + may expect a taxi at eight-thirty."</p> +<p>She felt an impulse to put out her hand to him. But again she could not rise + to such humility.</p> +<p>She watched him go slowly down the steps with the weak tread of one consumed + by a fever. He had changed completely overnight. He gave one look back before + he closed the door—the look of a wounded beast staggering through a welter + of heart's blood.</p> +<p>Claire Robson brought her hands quickly up to her eyes.</p> +<a name="II_XIII"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3> +<p>"What would I wear if I were you?"</p> +<p>Miss Proll, echoing Claire's question, swept the array of finery upon the bed + with a critical eye and finally drew forth the iridescent peacock-blue dress + with which Claire had startled even the patrons of the Café Ithaca.</p> +<p>Claire shook her head. "It's cut rather too low," she said.</p> +<p>But Miss Proll would not listen to any such argument. "I've a black-lace + shawl ... my mother's. If you put that about your shoulders...."</p> +<p>Claire allowed herself to be persuaded. She had very little heart in the adventure, + anyway, and Miss Proll seemed to be taking such a tremulous joy in being daring + by proxy. In the end the results justified the choice. The black-lace shawl + tempered the gown's wanton splendor, and, lacking any exaggeration of hair or + complexion, Claire's personality glowed warmly but without flare. She emerged + neither the Claire of church-social evenings nor Café Ithaca midnights, + but a Claire tempered into the crucible of both these divergent experiences.</p> +<p>Nellie Holmes, answering the message sent through Danilo, arrived in time to + put one or two deft touches to the general effect, a twist here and a soft pat + there, that added a chic note to Miss Proll's rather prim efforts.</p> +<p>"Well, Robson," she said, standing off critically, "but you + <i>do</i> give swell clothes a chance, don't you? Friend Danilo ought to throw + his chest out about twelve inches when he gets his eyes on you to-night. By + the way, what is the matter with <i>him</i>? He looks like a sick kitten that's + been rained on. I never <i>did</i> see such a sad comedian. The face he's wearing + these days ain't much of a compliment to you."</p> +<p>The taxicab came promptly at half past eight.</p> +<p>Claire went in to say good-by to her mother. But Mrs. Robson merely opened + her eyes, and closed them again.</p> +<p>"I don't think she knows me," Claire faltered. "I wonder whether + I ought to go? What do you think, Nell? The whole thing seems such a farce!"</p> +<p>Her passionate exclamation brought a questioning lift of the eyebrows to Nellie + Holmes's face. "What do you mean, Robson? Your mother is all right.... + I don't think Danilo would let you leave if.... Tell me, have you and Danilo...."</p> +<p>"No. I'm just tired, Nell. Let me go and have it over with."</p> +<p>She released herself from her friend's implied embrace and went down to the + waiting taxi.</p> +<hr /> +<p>She met Lily Condor in the hallway of the St. Francis, almost at the door of + the dressing-room.</p> +<p>"I've just taken a look in at the audience," Mrs. Condor said. "The + place is packed. Even the real people have come early to-night. It's plain that + you're the attraction."</p> +<p>Claire tried to turn this observation off with a laugh, but she knew in her + heart that Lily Condor was right. The newspaper chatter had had its effect.</p> +<p>Mrs. Condor swept on the stage a little ahead of Claire at precisely fifteen + minutes past nine. A patter of applause greeted her. But a moment later Claire + came into view, and a clapping of hands, out of all proportion to her position + as accompanist, rippled through the room. Claire stood for the briefest of moments + facing the throng, bending slightly forward in acknowledgment of the recognition + given her. But in that short time it seemed that she had taken note of every + familiar face in the crowd below—Stillman, Flint without his wife, and, + farther back, Miss Munch and Mrs. Richards, Mrs. Finnegan and "the old + man," Doctor Stoddard, Mrs. Towne, even Lycurgus and a half-score of the + Ithaca patrons, including a few of the old entertainers headed by Doris, the + French Jewess. They were all applauding heartily, except Miss Munch and her + cousin.</p> +<p>"What irony!" flashed through Claire's mind as she took her seat + before the piano.</p> +<p>Six months ago she had been starving for just the recognition that was now + her portion. To-night she found applause empty of any real meaning. And the + presence of these people who had colored her life made her feel as if all the + joys and hopes and fears of her existence had been suddenly made flesh and were + sitting in judgment upon her. She began to play.</p> +<p>Presently Lily Condor's voice came to her—remote, unreal, a thin, clear + stream of song like the trickling of some screened fountain.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Condor is singing well to-night," she thought.</p> +<p>At the end of three numbers the applause was still insistent, but Mrs. Condor + denied the clamor with a smiling shake of the head. Flowers began to be handed + up—orchids and roses and carnations and flamboyant peonies. Claire passed + Mrs. Condor a share of the bloom and together they bowed their acknowledgments. + They came back upon the stage for a fourth and last time. It was then that Claire + caught glimpses of others whose presence had escaped her—her two aunts, + Billy Holmes sitting alone, and back, far back, standing with his hands folded + in a sort of dreadful resignation, Danilo, his lips still pallid and the hollows + in his cheeks showing up even in the distance.</p> +<p>"You did beautifully," Claire said to Mrs. Condor as they gained + the cloak-room.</p> +<p>"Yes ... I know.... Because I realized that it was for the last time.... + I'm through."</p> +<p>She tossed Claire's flowers upon a lounge and went back to hear the next number.</p> +<p>Claire looked over the cards attached to the bouquets. The orchids were from + Stillman, roses from Nellie Holmes, a flaming bunch of carnations from Lycurgus, + and—she looked twice at the card—the peonies bore Flint's name.... + Not a sign from Danilo!</p> +<p>She decided to go home. She looked about for the attendant in charge of the + wraps, and discovered that the room was empty. The sound of a violin floated + from the concert platform. She went out and glanced down the passageway. The + maid was standing in a screened position by the entrance to the hall, listening. + Claire went back and sat down upon the lounge beside her flowers, and as she + did so Danilo stepped into the room. She rose with a quick movement of protest.</p> +<p>"Really—you mustn't!" she objected. "This is the ladies' + dressing-room."</p> +<p>He ignored her with a malignant smile; he did not speak. But he walked rapidly + toward the heap of flowers and began to snatch at the attached cards with sudden + fury.</p> +<p>"Stillman!" he sneered. "Holmes—Lycurgus—<i>Flint</i>!" + He looked at her with glittering eyes. "Then it <i>is</i> so!"</p> +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> +<p>"<i>Flint!</i>" he cried. He tore the card into bits and flung them + to the ground. "So we men are all alike? Well, you ought to know! You have + had experience enough. What a fool I have been! <i>What a fool!</i> Well, <i>I</i> + am not like the rest of them!"</p> +<p>She drew away. His brow had curdled with bitter intensity. He took her arm + in a firm grip and drew a pistol from his pocket.</p> +<p>"Do you see that?" He held the weapon up to her. "I bought that + yesterday to call the man out and shoot him.... Then I heard that there was + another. Well, in my country we do not waste more than one bullet."</p> +<p>His eyes fell upon her with a mad fury, yet she faced him calmly, almost unafraid.</p> +<p>"Why don't I scream?" she asked herself. "He intends to kill + me ... here! And yet I am not even trying to...."</p> +<p>And suddenly she discovered that he had a great black smudge on his nose. She + wanted to laugh.</p> +<p>"In my country we do not waste more than one bullet!" he was repeating.</p> +<p>"Yes ... I heard you. You don't have to shout! I'm not deaf!" she + could hear herself saying.</p> +<p>He lifted the pistol higher, on a level with her mouth. She could see by the + glitter in his eyes that he was in the grip of a dreadful frenzy.</p> +<p>"Temporary insanity! That will be his defense!" she thought at once.</p> +<p>And she pictured herself lying before him in a crimson pool, saw a black, surging + crowd pushing into the dressing-room from the hotel corridors, felt herself + lifted up tenderly by some one. Would Ned Stillman pick her up? Or perhaps <i>Flint</i>?... + She imagined the trial—Danilo pale and grief-worn, incapable of caring + whether he lived or died, oblivious to his surroundings. Temporary insanity + ... that would be his lawyer's plea.... The black smudge was still there ... + it was too ridiculous! She fumbled with her free hand and, lifting the edge + of Miss Proll's lace shawl deliberately, wiped the spot from the tip of Danilo's + nose.</p> +<p>At that moment she heard a sharp report, glass came crashing to the floor.</p> +<p>"Well, at least his face is clean!" flashed through her mind.... + She felt herself sinking backward....</p> +<hr /> +<p>"Yes, a pistol-shot!" the maid was reiterating. Claire opened her + eyes. She was lying upon the lounge and the flowers had been thrown unceremoniously + upon the floor and were being trampled underfoot. The orchids, crushed and abandoned, + looked particularly sorry. She had an impulse to rise and rescue them.</p> +<p>"Nonsense!" It was Lily Condor's voice. "She merely fainted. + What you heard must have been falling glass. She struck the mirror as she fell."</p> +<p>An enormous relief came over Claire. She closed her eyes again. "Where + is Danilo?" she asked herself.... Suddenly she remembered every detail + of what had gone before—the pistol, the black smudge, the sharp report, + the crash of falling glass. It was the black smudge on Danilo's nose that had + saved her. She realized that now. What a ridiculous thing life was, anyway! + And what trivial circumstances determined its issues! The wrong seats at a church + social had yielded her Stillman. A black smudge upon the nose of an emotionally + shaken man had snatched her from death. What grotesque impulse had moved her + to reach forward at the critical moment and flick the tip of Danilo's nose with + Miss Proll's lace shawl? <i>Miss Proll's lace shawl!</i> Suppose she had not + worn it? Would she have attempted to remove the speck with a bare finger? She + doubted it. Then even Miss Proll's lace shawl had played its part! It was all + very puzzling; the pattern of life became too intricate, too full of flaming + colors that in the weaving seemed of dullest drab.... The muffled talking about + her began again.</p> +<p>"Excuse me for troubling you," she heard Mrs. Condor say, "but + Claire here.... I have looked all over for Danilo.... Oh, nothing serious!... + Her mother.... A little old maid? It must be the dressmaker who.... Yes, bring + her in, by all means."</p> +<p>Claire roused herself. She was sitting on the edge of the couch when Ned Stillman + came through the door with Miss Proll. Claire understood at once. She rose to + her feet. Lily Condor started toward her.</p> +<p>"Oh no—really, I am quite all right. What is the matter? Is my mother...."</p> +<p>"Yes," answered Miss Proll. "You had better come at once."</p> +<p>Stillman went to call a taxicab. Mrs. Condor helped Claire into her wrap. In + less than five minutes they were all standing at the curb, ready to step into + the vibrating car. Stillman lifted the ladies in. He was drawing back when Claire + thrust her head out and said:</p> +<p>"Won't you please come, too? I am not sure about Danilo, and...."</p> +<p>He climbed in, slamming the door.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Claire went into her mother's room alone. Nellie Holmes was bending anxiously + over the sufferer.</p> +<p>"You have come in time," Nellie was saying as she yielded her place + to Claire.</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson looked up bewildered. For a moment her dull eyes roamed restlessly + about as if in search of some missing thing. Finally, with a great effort the + words shaped themselves. Claire listened attentively.</p> +<p>"Danilo ... where is Danilo?"</p> +<p>"Yes ... in a moment.... Presently."</p> +<p>Mrs. Robson closed her eyes with a smile of satisfaction. It was her last conscious + moment. Slowly she fell into a stupor.... Toward midnight she died.</p> +<p>It was all very simple, Claire thought afterward. Much simpler than living.</p> +<a name="II_XIV"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3> +<p>It was not until people on the street began to stare that Danilo discovered + that he had come away from the hotel without his hat. He felt no discomfort, + but he was annoyed at being an object of curiosity. As a matter of fact, he + was curiously devoid of any emotional excitement; instead, his wits seemed to + have been sharpened by a cool cunning. All his powers of reasoning were reduced + to one impulse—flight. He decided that he must walk on and on without + a halt. His escape from the hotel had been extraordinarily easy. He merely had + shoved his smoking pistol into his hip pocket and walked calmly out. If he had + attempted to run, or looked about excitedly, or even slunk by the liveried flunky + at the revolving door, all would have been lost. But he had done none of these + things and he was feeling a certain arrogance at the thought of his bravado. + But he realized that he must get a covering for his head. It was ridiculous + to be sauntering along the street hatless. He beckoned a youth who stood near + the curb, smoking a cigarette.</p> +<p>"I should like to buy your cap," he said, simply.</p> +<p>The young man stared, then broke into a laugh. "All right!" he replied, + quickly, as if it were the best to humor a madman. "But it will cost you + money."</p> +<p>"How much?"</p> +<p>"Two dollars."</p> +<p>Danilo gravely counted out the money. The youth drew back, instinctively clapping + a hand upon his head.</p> +<p>"Come!" cried Danilo, roughly. "It will not do for you to trifle + with me. You set your price. Here is the money. I want that cap!"</p> +<p>The youth turned pale and attempted to run. Danilo grasped him firmly by the + shoulder.</p> +<p>"Give me that cap!" insisted Danilo.</p> +<p>The youth obeyed, trembling from head to foot. One or two passers-by halted, + stared a moment, and passed on, shrugging their shoulders indifferently.</p> +<p>"Thank you," said Danilo. "You have done me a great favor. Here + is the two dollars. May God reward you." As he said this he made the sign + of the cross in midair above the boy's head. The boy cowered and began to whimper. + Danilo put on the cap and walked away.</p> +<p>He felt more at ease now; no one was paying the slightest attention to him. + He decided to go into a saloon and buy something to drink. The bartender, stout + and genial and Irish, passed him the bottle of whisky. Danilo's hand shook as + he poured out his drink. The Irishman eyed him quizzically.</p> +<p>"I have just had an unpleasant experience," Danilo began, apologetically, + as he spilled some of the whisky. "I saw a woman shot." The barkeeper + seemed unimpressed. Danilo felt annoyed. "At the St. Francis Hotel ... + in the dressing-room, off the Colonial Ballroom.... She had been fooling a man. + I was so excited I walked out of the hotel without my hat.... This cap—I + bought it from a boy on the street. Is it not droll?"</p> +<p>The Irishman put the cork in the whisky-bottle and set it in its place under + the bar.</p> +<p>"The man was a fool!" he said, bluntly. "I'd like to see myself + take a chance at swinging for the likes of any woman."</p> +<p>"Oh, you are mistaken!" Danilo returned, mildly. "The man who + shot this woman will not swing."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, if she gets better, of course...."</p> +<p>Danilo leaned forward. "Better?... Oh no, my friend, she is dead, quite + dead. He aimed at her mouth.... I saw her fall.... But the man will not swing. + He is not that kind. He will shoot himself first."</p> +<p>"It is all the same," returned the barkeeper. "He was a fool!"</p> +<p>"You do not know what you are talking about!" Danilo cried, hotly.</p> +<p>"Neither do you!" said the other, with an indulgent laugh.</p> +<p>Danilo gulped the whisky in silence and went out with a morose air.</p> +<p>"A fool?... A fool?..." he kept repeating.</p> +<p>The issue was at once irritating and impersonal. He felt as if the barkeeper + had affronted the whole masculine sex. A man was a fool for allowing himself + to be taken in, he was quite ready to grant that. But no man was a fool for + collecting the full toll of feminine duplicity. Now this man, in the dressing-room + of the St. Francis Hotel, who had shot down a woman....</p> +<p>Danilo halted. Why, the man was he—himself! Somehow it had never occurred + to him. He had the same feeling that comes in dreams, when one is in some mysterious + way both the actor and the audience. He had been in the picture and out of it. + It was all very puzzling.</p> +<p>He tried to review the incidents of the evening. Nothing was very clear. The + sound of a pistol-shot was the most vivid memory; then somebody had fallen.... + The woman was dead—it could not be otherwise! Why had he walked away so + calmly? He should have stayed. After all, he was a physician and he had acted + unprofessionally. It was a physician's place to remain and serve, even in the + face of utter hopelessness. Well, he had come away and it was too late to turn + back. He was very tired. He looked about him. He had drifted down to the water-front.</p> +<p>He went into a cheap lodging-house and paid for a room. The place was frowzy + and ill-smelling, but he did not care. He threw himself upon the bed. The dreamlike + quality of what had transpired still persisted. He had added another rôle + to the drama, that of physician. He had been the murderer, the spectator, the + physician. But he could not get under the skin of the victim. He seemed to be + able to recall every detail but her face—the blue-green dress, the black-lace + shawl, the white tapering arm upraised as she flicked the end of his nose. It + was then, as the murderer, he had pulled the trigger.... In the rôle of + frightened spectator he had walked out of the hotel.... As physician he had + remembered his duty and chided himself.... He took a cigarette from his pocket + and began to smoke. He lay there for hours, thinking, thinking. But he could + not see the victim's face....</p> +<p>Suddenly toward morning he sat up.</p> +<p>"Ah, I have it! The woman was Claire.... Yes, it is Claire who is dead!..."</p> +<p>He fell back with the satisfaction of one who has solved an irritating puzzle.</p> +<hr /> +<p>He awoke at noon. He was neither surprised nor dazed at finding himself in + a strange environment. Sleep had settled all the dust-clouds of thought. He + remembered everything perfectly. He was a murderer, and he had killed a woman + because he had not been wise or prudent enough to content himself with the fruits + of a tempered, frugal passion. He did not rouse himself. He had no wish except + to lie still and think.</p> +<p>Looking back, he could see that he always had felt uncertain about Claire. + Somehow she was not altogether a virginal type. She was a woman who, lacking + any concrete experiences, would mentally create stimulating situations. Even + now he admired her, but love was mysteriously killed. Yet he had loved her last + night! And never so ardently, so completely as at that moment when he had brought + his pistol upon a level with her lips and done his worst.</p> +<p>But this morning he seemed swept clean of all feeling, love and hate and enthusiasm, + every sensation killed utterly—dead! Could it be possible that Claire + Robson had absorbed every hope, every expectation, making of them a living thing + in her own image that died with her? Had she betrayed not only him, but all + his visions? What had become of the far-flung horizons which he had always seen + so clearly? One black cloud had eclipsed them all.</p> +<p>He remembered the serene blueness of the day on which that black cloud had + sprung out of the south, a misty-white fledgling of the sky that grew with the + hours until the sun was wrapped in a dull gloom. How quickly Mrs. Condor's words + had expanded and drawn every drifting rumor to their confirmation! He had heard + it all—everything. It amazed him to discover how easily the truth was + uncovered. <i>Uncovered?</i> No, it had lacked even the virtue of concealment; + it lay, noxious and festering and unscreened, a rich feast for the scandalmongers + circling vulture-like above. But his flight toward happiness had been like the + eagle's, too swift and lofty and disdainful for such unlovely sights; eagerly, + blindly he had passed them by. He recalled with a shudder the morning that he + had gone and bought the pistol. This he had intended for Stillman. But the very + thought of it had cut him to the heart. It was only when he had reflected on + that million dollars for the Serbian cause that he found himself submerged in + bitterness. This was the crowning insult, the culminating deception! The wage + of Claire Robson's shame offered in the guise of a free gift! No wonder that + the donor withheld his name!</p> +<p>"In my country it is all very simple—we call the man out and shoot + him!"</p> +<p>How poignantly these words had come back to Danilo in his agony! But it had + not been simple.... He wondered if he were losing the naïve directness + of his forefathers. There had been moments when he was almost persuaded that + it was not his affair, after all. Claire Robson did not belong to him; she never + had. There was no logic in exacting a price from any one who had taken unclaimed + property. But there had been insolence and trickery back of the performance.... + <i>A million dollars for the Serbian cause!</i> Not only he, but his country, + was to have been smirched by the patronage of these two moral derelicts. The + purity of his passion for Claire Robson had sharpened his sense of human delinquency + and given him the uncompromising judgments of virtue.... Well, he had decided + upon Stillman. Some one must pay the price and the woman he loved did not yet + seem foul enough for the sacrifice.... Then it was that his ferretings had hunted + out the Flint story. From that moment he had been gripped by a blind fury. His + thoughts had grown black, formless, devastating. He had been deliberately betrayed—the + woman he loved did not exist, not even potentially. It was not a question of + what might have been. One did not gather figs from thistles. And above all this + angry tumult within him there rose something cool and malevolent and sinister, + the fruits of wounded vanity and outraged pride.... And now it was all over. + He wondered whether he would be capable of an emotion again. Would he continue + to think without the respite of being able to feel, to lie and stare unmoved + at the mangled form of his dead hopes? At the sound of the pistol he had closed + his eyes upon the horrid sight which he knew must follow. Blood was nothing + to him, but the vision of Claire's shattered loveliness was too terrible to + face. How easy it was to screen the senses from ugliness! Why was it not possible + to shut the inner vision as completely?</p> +<p>He lay for hours, thinking, thinking! He could do nothing else.</p> +<hr /> +<p>Night came on again. Danilo was still thinking. A tray of untasted food sent + in by a water-front chop-house drew a half-score of buzzing flies toward the + varnished bureau. He lay, still inert, but disquiet had begun to succeed the + first hours of emotional exhaustion. And he felt ill, also. His throat was burning + and his breathing labored and choked.</p> +<p>"I must have caught cold last night," he thought, "running about + without a hat."</p> +<p>Physical discomfort was swinging him back into the paths of every-day experiences. + He even had a fleeting impulse to prescribe for himself.</p> +<p>A fever set in. He began to dream.... It seemed to him that Claire was moving + about the room, waiting on him, serving him. She had on the peacock-blue dress, + but the shawl was gone and her white shoulders and tapering arms gleamed coldly + in the uncertain light. "Ah," thought he, "her lips will be red!" + He raised his eyes to her face, but he saw only something vague and gray and + formless. "She has wrapped her face in a veil," he said, aloud. "What + delicacy! She does not wish to remind me of last night.... Yes, that is it!... + Last night I pointed my pistol at her mouth. But her mouth was not red last + night ... not before I closed my eyes.... Her lips were red once, but she wiped + them clean again, for me.... Why did she do this thing for me? <i>I</i> was + not her love?" And suddenly the peacock-blue dress was gone and Claire + became a gray figure from head to foot, a gray figure with two red lips. Nothing + else was visible. She began to move toward him. He tried to turn from her, to + lift his body up, to fling himself downward upon his face. But he could not + move. She came nearer.... Her lips were widening with every step. She halted + by the bed ... she bent over ... she kissed him. Her lips were warm and moist + and horrible. He gave a deep, groan and woke up.</p> +<p>He fell asleep again. Now he dreamed of Serbia—his country, a beautiful + woman, golden in the morning light. She lay smiling like a blossom in the dawn + and her long hair was spread out on either side. Then suddenly a leprous sun + beat down upon her and she tried to lift her arms to screen herself from its + fury, but could not. Flies gathered, her body grew loathsome, her lips black. + Then, coming down a dust-stung road, he saw a gray figure—a gray figure + with two smiling red lips showing through a rent in its drab winding-sheet. + And his beloved country stirred faintly and gave a deep cry. The gray figure + stopped, bent over gently, and, taking two strands of the flowing hair in its + wan hands, drew a covering over the festering body.... He looked again. The + gray figure was holding out her hands to him! He went toward it joyfully. And + at that moment the gray winding-sheet fell away and Claire stood before him, + smiling. He dropped on his knees beside her.... He could feel himself being + lifted up. "Claire—always Claire!" he cried.... He awoke again, + sobbing.</p> +<p>Once he dreamed of Stillman, covered with the lizard-like scales of a million + dollars, a venomous creature that darted hither and thither and finally grew + confused with the personality of Flint and became a two-headed monster.... In + the end the reptile sat calmly down before the cheap varnished bureau and consumed + Danilo's untasted meal.</p> +<p>Thus they came and went, dream succeeding dream.</p> +<p>He was roused finally by a voice calling for him to get up. He opened his eyes. + The hotel clerk stood at the side of his bed. The tray of untasted food still + lay upon the bureau.</p> +<p>"What is the matter," the hotel clerk was saying. "Are you drunk?"</p> +<p>Danilo stirred. "No.... I have been ill. What time is it?"</p> +<p>"Do you realize that you have been here three nights? It is Monday morning. + I began to think you had committed suicide."</p> +<p>"No.... Everything is all right. Presently I shall get up."</p> +<p>The man went out, whistling, carrying the tray with him. Danilo felt weak and + helpless, but he drew himself to his feet and fell back into a chair.</p> +<p>Monday morning! He had been there since Friday, then. His patients—what + about his patients? He felt suddenly irritated at himself for this professional + lapse. Suppose some of his patients had died meanwhile? The possibility brought + a cold sweat to his forehead. He thought of the young mother whose bedside he + had quitted to appear at the Serbian Relief concert; a child who had been run + over by a street-car; the last man he had operated on; Mrs. Robson.</p> +<p>"I must see them all, once again," he muttered. "After that...." + He shrugged.</p> +<p>For three nights he had slept in his clothes. He had not even removed the pistol + from his hip pocket. He stood up and drew it from its place. There was something + fascinating and sinister about its cold gleam. The words of the hotel clerk + came to him—"<i>I began to think you had committed suicide!</i>"</p> +<p>He put the pistol back in its hiding-place—he had duties, duties. He + kept repeating this as he tried to gather strength for a supreme effort. He + was extraordinarily weak, and the fever still lit his eyes and burned the vivid + red of his lips to a dull, dry purple. He washed himself, tried to brush his + clothes, ran his trembling fingers through his hair. It was an hour before he + felt able to venture on the street.</p> +<p>It was a dull morning. The fog had mixed itself with the city's smoke, floating + like an enormous and malignant black bird whose poised body shut out the sun. + Danilo shivered. He still felt very weak.</p> +<p>He decided to go and call on Mrs. Robson. Not until then had he thought of + Claire in any concrete, personal way. Would he see her? He remembered now that + she was dead. But the thought that he would see her still persisted. Death and + Claire Robson were terms that he could repeat, but not really sense. It was + only when he had swung off the car at Larkin Street and turned the corner at + Clay Street that the horrid realization struck him with relentless force. A + hearse was drawn up to the curb in front of the Robson flat and a knot of curious + people were watching the pallbearers lift a flower-smothered casket down the + shallow steps. He did not go any farther, but stood, motionless, watching the + somber pageant.... Presently everything was settled; the hearse began to move + forward, followed by three limousines. The procession came toward Danilo. The + hearse passed the corner. Instinctively he removed his hat....</p> +<p>When it was all over he turned deliberately toward town.</p> +<p>"Claire is dead," he repeated. "What does the rest matter?"</p> +<p>Suddenly his professional consciousness, the last link that bound him to reality, + had snapped.</p> +<p>He went back to his lodgings—the old lodgings on Third Street, where + he had been staying for a week.</p> +<p>"Where have you been for three days?" asked the proprietor. "At + least a dozen people have been looking for you."</p> +<p>Danilo smiled grimly and said nothing.</p> +<p>"The police are on my trail!" he thought.</p> +<p>He went up to his room and began to pack. There was really very little to assemble; + most of his wardrobe still remained at the Robson fiat. After he had finished + he sat down. He seemed incapable of forming any plan. What should he do? Where + should he go? What did it matter? His thought moved in an irritating circle.... + Once he rose to his feet and drew the pistol from his pocket. He looked at it + a long time. Finally he laid it on the bureau. A beam of sunlight played upon + the polished barrel. Its glint irritated Danilo. He moved the weapon out of + the light.... Presently he heard the chimes from St. Patrick's Church. He knew + now that it was noon.... He began to count the money in his pocket. Seven dollars + and forty cents! How far would that take him? How much nearer would seven dollars + and forty cents carry him to Serbia?... He began to laugh.</p> +<p>The telephone tinkled. Danilo hesitated, then walked calmly over and took down + the receiver. The voice of the hotel clerk said:</p> +<p>"This is the office. Mr. Stillman is down-stairs."</p> +<p>"Mr. Stillman? Oh yes, of course. Tell him to come up."</p> +<p>This was the end! Well, what was he to do? Stand calmly and let Judas betray + him into the hands of his enemies? He fancied Stillman's entrance into the room, + the cool cordiality of his manner, the advance with outstretched hands. At that + moment the police would dart swiftly forward! Danilo had seen it all a thousand + times at the moving-picture shows. The trick was as old as Gethsemane and as + young as the screen drama!</p> +<p>He picked up the pistol. This was to have been Stillman's portion. Well, it + was not too late! The outlaw's instinct to barricade himself and defy everybody + up to the last moment came over him. A knock sounded upon the door.... He flung + himself about, bracing his body against the bureau. The pistol was grasped firmly + in his hand; he had but to raise it to cover his visitor successfully. He moistened + his lips.</p> +<p>"Come in!" The words snapped out with a command that was also a menace.</p> +<p>The door swung back. Stillman stood upon the threshold. Danilo felt his senses + reeling. He tried to lift the pistol. He had grown frightfully weak.</p> +<p>"George!" Suddenly Stillman's voice rang out.</p> +<p>The word echoed through the room. It was the first time that Stillman had ever + called Danilo by his Christian name. A great yearning came over Danilo, a sense + of futility, the feeling that everything, even life itself, was a horrible mistake!</p> +<p>"George!" Stillman was crying to him again, like a brother from the + depths of his heart.</p> +<p>Danilo roused himself with a supreme effort, crouched low, narrowed his eyes. + Claire was dead! What did it matter?... No, it was too late. He lifted the pistol + slowly but surely. Stillman gave one startled look and, throwing his head back, + seemed to say:</p> +<p>"Why don't you shoot? I am waiting."</p> +<p>Danilo looked down at the shining weapon. It was on a level with his own heart. + <i>Claire was dead!</i> Deliberately he turned the muzzle upon himself.... The + noise of the shot sounded far away. He felt Stillman's arms enfold him.</p> +<p>"What have you done? What have you done?... My God! but this <i>is</i> + a mistake!"</p> +<p>He heard Stillman's voice trembling with passionate protest. He opened his + eyes.</p> +<p>"My brother!" he said, and he lifted his hand to Stillman's wet brow.... + "My brother!" he felt himself murmur once more.... Suddenly he was + swallowed up in a merciful oblivion.</p> +<a name="II_XV"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XV</h3> +<p>"I have tried to get you by telephone without success. Danilo is asking + for you. I shall call with the machine at three-thirty."</p> +<p>Claire Robson dismissed the messenger-boy. Her heart was beating quickly. She + folded the note and climbed up-stairs. <i>Danilo is asking for you</i>.... What + tragedy and pathos lay in these simple words! She had been waiting for just + this moment ever since Stillman had said to her:</p> +<p>"We have found Danilo ... in his old lodgings. Can you guess what has + happened?"</p> +<p>She had known at once. Had intuition or the look in Stillman's eyes betrayed + the dreadful secret? Since then only scant messages had come to her from the + sick-room. Danilo still lay in his Third Street lodgings; his doctors had been + afraid to risk moving him. Stillman had not left his side. Claire begged to + be allowed to go to him, to see him if only for the briefest of moments, but + Stillman had been obdurate.</p> +<p>"He must have no excitement. The doctor would not hear of such a thing. + No, you must wait."</p> +<p>"But <i>you</i> are with him.... Do you realize...."</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>She said no more ... but she had suffered! Three long, unending days! And now + he had asked for her. She could not define the emotion which moved her. Was + it relief, or fear, or a sad hope? She dressed herself long before the appointed + time, in a cool, pleasant-looking white-serge suit that had been intended for + the trousseau. Miss Proll, coming upon her in the hall, gave a disapproving + glance.</p> +<p>"I couldn't wear black!" Claire explained. "I simply couldn't!..."</p> +<p>"Ah yes, of course! You are right."</p> +<p>Her lips quivered when she finally faced Stillman.</p> +<p>"You are in white, I see," he said, with an air of gentle approval. + "I am glad of that! It makes everything seem more cheerful."</p> +<p>They went down the stairs in silence. Stillman lifted her into the car—she + could feel his hand tremble. After they had started she looked searchingly at + Stillman's face. All his cool complacency was gone, his mouth had the parted + expression of a man whose lips could not quite shape the truths that had been + revealed to him, and his eyes shone like one who had been walking with visions. + This was the look, Claire fancied, that shepherds fresh from solitary upland + pastures must have, or a man who had walked into the shrapnel fire and come + out unscathed, or a young mother fresh from the crowning experience of her life....</p> +<p>At the door of Danilo's room they met a priest coming out. He bowed gravely + to Stillman and passed on without speaking. They went in. A thick, pleasant + odor of incense had killed the smell of antiseptics for the moment. The nurse + was washing her hands, an icon opposite the bed reflected unsteady flickerings + from the tiny lamp in front of it.</p> +<p>"You may stay five minutes," the nurse whispered, and passed out.</p> +<p>Claire stood back and let Stillman go up to the bed. She had a sudden feeling + that she was a stranger, that her presence made no difference, that these two + men were sufficient to themselves. She could not see Danilo's face, but she + had never imagined anything more gentle and tender than the hand which she saw + Stillman lay upon the sufferer's forehead.... Presently Stillman turned about + and beckoned to her. She went forward. She felt that her heart would burst.... + Suddenly she was face to face with Danilo! He looked at her and smiled. She + sat down upon the bed.</p> +<p>She could feel Danilo's hand searching for hers. "Claire ... fancy ... + <i>you</i>!"</p> +<p>He closed his eyes without another word. They sat in silence.</p> +<p>Stillman stood the whole time, bending over, his gentle hand hovering above + Danilo's black hair.... The nurse came back.</p> +<p>"Come," said Stillman.</p> +<p>Claire suffered him to withdraw her hand from Danilo's tight clasp. She rose. + Danilo opened his eyes again. His lips began to move. She brought her ear on + a level with his trembling mouth.</p> +<p>"Claire ... will you marry me now?"</p> +<p>"Yes," she answered.</p> +<p>He gave a contented sigh and turned his face to the wall. Stillman and Claire + went out....</p> +<p>"He is making a brave fight," Stillman said at parting. "The + bullet pierced the lung. But there are other complications. Bronchitis has developed. + One can never tell."</p> +<p>She could not speak. She did not even say good-by to him.</p> +<p>"I shall call again for you to-morrow."</p> +<p>She acknowledged his words with a brief nod.</p> +<hr /> +<p>When she got home she filled the swinging-lamp in front of Danilo's name-day + icon with oil and lit a floating taper. Miss Proll, who had been watching her + curiously, looked puzzled. Her glance seemed to imply:</p> +<p>"Can it be that you believe in such foolishness?"</p> +<p>Claire found that it was impossible to answer a question at once so simple + and so profound. There was every reasonable argument in the calendar to support + Miss Proll's skepticism, but Claire was learning that life upon a reasonable + basis was apt to be intolerable. It was the irrational, the impulsive, the imprudent + moments that gave existence color and swift movement.</p> +<p>"Claire ... will you marry me now?..." Danilo's words came back to + her with all their beautiful and daring simplicity. A child acknowledging a + fault, and trembling upon the threshold of a joy that was likely to be denied + in consequence, would have used the same tone. This was the manner of petition + that must swerve even a God of Wrath from his vengeance, she thought, that could + wring showers of mercy from the most pitilessly blue skies.</p> +<p>She thought of Stillman, too—this new Stillman, forged in the flame of + a perilous spiritual experience, still glowing and warm. He had never seemed + so human as at that moment when she had stood apart and watched his hands fluttering + above the head of the man they both loved.... <i>Loved?</i> Yes, he loved Danilo—as + Lycurgus loved him, as her mother had loved him. "Where is Danilo?" + This had been Mrs. Robson's last question—her last words.</p> +<p>She could not fancy her mother calling for Stillman. It was not given to many + to be a flint upon which the sparks of affection are readily struck.</p> +<hr /> +<p>She went every day with Stillman and sat for five minutes at Danilo's bedside, + and on the third day Danilo, opening his eyes wide, said to her in a clear voice, + so that even Stillman could hear:</p> +<p>"Claire, will you marry me to-morrow?"</p> +<p>Instinctively her eyes met Stillman's; he bowed his head for a moment, and + she could see that his hands were clenched.</p> +<p>"If you wish it," she answered.</p> +<p>Danilo turned to Stillman. "My brother, do you think it will be possible?"</p> +<p>Stillman smiled doubtfully. "To-morrow? That is rather soon ... but when + you are a little stronger...."</p> +<p>Danilo's face fell. At that moment the doctor came in.</p> +<p>It was not possible. The doctor would not hear to such a thing, and he scolded + Danilo gently as one scolds a sick child.</p> +<p>That night Danilo's fever increased. He was restless; nothing pleased him. + The doctor said next day to Stillman:</p> +<p>"I don't understand ... something must have irritated him. He is troubled + mentally."</p> +<p>"It is the wedding. I'm afraid he has set his heart upon it."</p> +<p>"Nonsense! Doctor Danilo has had enough professional experience to know + that.... Why, my dear fellow, he is a full-grown man, you must remember."</p> +<p>"Yes, and at heart a child.... He is like all big people."</p> +<p>Two more days dragged by. Danilo grew no better; in fact, he was worse, if + anything.</p> +<p>"I can't make it out," the doctor admitted. "Physically he seems + everything that one could hope for, but his mind is straining at something.... + Perhaps, after all, you are right. Well, I fancy we will have to risk the excitement."</p> +<p>When they told Danilo he fell back upon his pillow and his face grew suddenly + white.</p> +<p>"To-morrow!" he murmured. "Fancy!... No, it cannot be true!"</p> +<p>By the time Claire came he was glowing with a strange, new animation.</p> +<p>"Claire! Claire!" he cried. "Think, we are to be married to-morrow! + And you are to wear your wedding-dress ... a real wedding-dress ... the veil + and all!... Only there will be no feast. What a pity!... But no matter, when + I get well again then we will have a feast, Claire. Unless...." his voice + grew suddenly almost inaudible—"unless I die of joy, Claire!... of + joy!"</p> +<p>Stillman turned away. She fell on her knees beside the white bed.</p> +<p>"There, there!" she said, soothingly. "You mustn't get so excited. + You mustn't think about it!"</p> +<p>He closed his eyes. "Claire, I cannot wait until to-morrow. Will you kiss + me, <i>now</i>?"</p> +<p>And for the first time their lips met.</p> +<hr /> +<p>They had planned a daytime wedding at first, but it transpired that the priest + in charge of the Greek church had been called out of town and would not be back + until evening. When Danilo heard this he said:</p> +<p>"What is the difference? A priest is a small matter! Cannot Claire's minister...."</p> +<p>But Claire was wiser. "No," she said. "Let us wait for the priest."</p> +<p>And so it was settled for eight o'clock that evening.</p> +<p>At the news, Miss Proll quivered with excitement. "To think that it would + all end this way.... But I am so glad that you are to wear your wedding-dress."</p> +<p>Nellie Holmes flew over in great haste. "And who is to marry you? A priest?... + Well, I suppose it is best to humor a sick man, but I don't know—somehow + it seems too outlandish, all that incense and chanting and everything!... And + I'm coming to the wedding! Don't forget that. You can't shut me out.... Remember, + I introduced you. Come now, buck up! Don't look so anxious—it's a painless + ceremony. And you'll be a stunning-looking bride, Robson.... I tell you, friend + Danilo is going to be mighty glad that he was such a bad shot."</p> +<p>In the midst of all the excitement Claire suddenly remembered Mrs. Condor. + She rang her up.</p> +<p>"I am to be married to-night," she said. "Would you like to + come and go with us?"</p> +<p>"No, Claire. But if I might see you before you start...."</p> +<p>It was a busy day and almost before Claire realized it was time to dress.</p> +<hr /> +<p>At eight o'clock they heard the toot of Stillman's car, and to Claire's surprise + Stillman himself broke in upon them. She was all dressed and ready.... He came + up the stairs with a jaunty air. "This is Danilo's idea!" he cried + out. "It seems in his country a friend is always sent to fetch the bride.... + A <i>Dever</i> they call him.... I couldn't persuade him to let you come alone + and in peace. He said: 'My brother, let me have an Old World custom or two.... + You Americans have nothing worthy of the name, except that abominable rice-throwing + and old shoes.'"</p> +<p>"A <i>Dever</i>!" ejaculated Nellie Holmes, in mildly scandalized + tones. "Well, I <i>never</i>!"</p> +<p>It did seem rather ridiculous. Stillman's personality somehow didn't fit the + office. But the incident gave a touch of forced gaiety to the occasion—a + peg on which to hang the jester's cloak.</p> +<p>Claire and Miss Proll and Nellie Holmes went down first to the car, Mrs. Condor + and Stillman followed.</p> +<p>When Lily Condor reached the curb Claire leaned out to her farewell embrace.</p> +<p>"Claire ... Claire ... how foolish we've all been!"</p> +<p>"How foolish we are still," Claire whispered back. "Thank God + for that!..."</p> +<p>Presently they were off. The yellow street-lamps seemed to Claire to be melting + into a continuous ribbon of gold. She had expected to succumb to all manner + of emotions and vivid thoughts, but instead her mind seized upon a childish + memory.</p> +<p>"Once upon a time," she thought, "there lived in a certain city...." + Stillman was looking at her.... "And there came riding through the streets + a prince.... And so they were married and.... How foolish we are still.... Thank + God for that.... Thank God for that!"</p> +<p>"Come!" Stillman was saying. "We have arrived."</p> +<hr /> +<p>They had propped Danilo up as much as they dared and he lay, clean-shaven and + hollow-eyed, but burning with a fire that showed through his transparent pallor + like a candle set in a paper lantern. The priest had arrived promptly, and already + an altar had been contrived and set up before the bed, an altar white and gleaming. + Holy images were scattered about, reflecting the pale flicker of swinging lamps, + and through the haze of smoke from the censer the harsh outlines of the room + took on a soft, shadowy remoteness. "I had better cover my face," + Claire said as she stood upon the threshold of the room.</p> +<p>Miss Proll drew the veil down for her and they went in. The room was crowded + with men, mostly Danilo's countrymen. Lycurgus was there, and Jimmy. Claire + felt faint. She clutched at Stillman's arm. "Why, I had no idea!" + she said ... "so many people!"</p> +<p>"He wished it so.... Have courage!"</p> +<p>She threw her head back. "Yes," she answered.</p> +<p>They led her to his side. He touched her inert fingers gently. She felt crushed + at the passionate purity of his deference. She wanted to fling herself forward + on her face.... Danilo turned toward the priest. "Come!" he called, + a bit impatiently. "Let us begin."</p> +<p>Claire thought the priest would never end. She had fancied that the ceremony + would be cut short for Danilo's benefit, but apparently Danilo had asked for + every detail, every symbol. They even exchanged crowns after the fashion of + the Greek Catholic ritual. The incense grew thicker, the, tapers before the + holy icons flared more and more brightly, the sonorous chant of the priest droned + on and on and it seemed to Claire as if his fingers were raised continuously + in midair for the sign of the cross. She thought of her mother. How scandalized + her mother would have been—at the altar, at the curling incense, particularly + at the sign of the cross!</p> +<p>Finally it was all over. Danilo, pale to a point of swooning, his black hair + clustering moistly about his pillow, lay with arms outstretched like an ivory + crucifix, against which Claire pressed her pallid lips.... He did not stir at + her touch, but a slight color played about his cheek-bones and one hand trembled.... + She drew away.... She could hear the feet of the spectators moving toward the + door. She continued to kneel beside the bed. Danilo's hand was in her hair now.... + Presently she felt some one touch her shoulder. She rose. The nurse stood behind + her. The room was empty. She began to weep silently, almost without emotion. + Nellie Holmes and Miss Proll were coming back. They led her out....</p> +<p>Standing in the hall, they waited until the nurse called them in again. Danilo + had recovered his animation and his eyes were wide open and glowing.</p> +<p>"Ah, and so we are to have a feast, after all! Not I, of course ... but + you shall tell me of it to-morrow!... Come, has he said nothing about it?"</p> +<p>Stillman laughed. "At the Ithaca," he explained to Claire. "I + made arrangements to-day."</p> +<p>"A feast ... not really?" she stammered.</p> +<p>A slight cloud passed over Danilo's face. "There! She does not approve, + my brother.... I was afraid of that."</p> +<p>"I was surprised," she said, gravely. "And then you are not + to be with us."</p> +<p>Danilo smiled. "When I am well again.... You see, one cannot have too + many excuses for a feast." He gave Stillman his hand. "My brother, + what should we do without you?"</p> +<hr /> +<p>The Ithaca was crowded. The long tables had been set, and the usual decorations, + fern fronds and carnations, made splashes of green and red color upon the table-cloths. + Lycurgus came forward, bowing in his old manner.</p> +<p>"Ah, that Mr. Stillman," he whispered to Claire, "he is a man, + I can tell you! Thank you! thank you!... He says nothing about prices. Only + a feast ... the best to be had! And everybody invited.... I have worked myself + all day in the kitchen.... You shall see!... And you are a beautiful bride! + Never have I seen one more beautiful!... That Danilo is a lucky man ... and + you have made him happy. Let us pray God everything goes right."</p> +<p>A feeling of chill had succeeded Claire's poignant emotion, but now she felt + warmed—everything was so simple, so natural, so lacking in all pretense. + Lycurgus led Claire to the bride's seat, Stillman followed with Nellie Holmes + and Miss Proll. A little ripple of applause ran up and down the tables, but + the company was still a little uncertain of what was most fitting to do. A wedding-feast + without the groom was hard to sense. But presently mastica was served and the + first toast drunk.... After that, constraint was banished.</p> +<p>Now for the first time it came upon Claire that she was at her own wedding-feast, + and that Stillman was sitting beside her. It was almost as if he had yielded + her up to some austere duty, as if the feast that had been spread for him was + one not so much of joy as of renunciation—a last supper in the upper chamber + of his heart's desire. Before her lay Stillman's tribute—a wonderful golden + basket of white roses. She had never seen roses so white. What a touching thing + this feast was, after all! What a long distance Stillman had traveled in order + to appreciate the significance of such a childlike thing, of sensing just what + it meant to Danilo! And suddenly she felt how beautiful and how tragic life + was, how cleansed and scarred by the windstorms of emotion! Life was like a + landscape answering sunshine and cloud in its season, always beautiful, always + incomplete, veiled sometimes in the mists of morning and again palpitant and + fully revealed in the noonday sun, unchanging and yet never quite the same....</p> +<p>In the midst of the feast champagne was served, and the guests began to move + from table to table with their glasses lifted high and their lips smiling out + good will. The men stopped shyly opposite Claire's seat and for the most part + toasted her silently, but here and there a patron who had danced to the old + tunes that she had once played clasped her by the hand and called gaily to her. + Finally a young woman came forward.</p> +<p>"You do not remember me," she said to Claire. "But you were + here, at my wedding-feast.... Do you remember?... I hope your husband will soon + be well!"</p> +<p>Her <i>husband</i>! It took a woman to voice this new estate with calm simplicity. + This was the first time the phrase had been used. She turned to Stillman. He + looked away.</p> +<p>Now came music and dancing—Old World music and long lines of men swaying + to its rhythm. Lycurgus insisted upon Stillman joining them. Claire wondered + at him as he rose. It was purely a formality, and Stillman had nothing to do + beyond walk through his part, but Claire marveled that he could have been persuaded. + Nellie Holmes railed audibly, and even Miss Proll shook her head. But Claire's + inner vision pierced beyond the incongruity of Stillman's performance. And she + knew that he had done this thing because he understood. The fruits of a crucial + instance lay beneath the surface of his smiling acceptance of the situation. + When he was seated again, flushed and somewhat embarrassed for all his nonchalance, + she said, softly:</p> +<p>"If Danilo could have seen you he would have been very happy."</p> +<p>The bride's cake was brought on. Claire went through the formality of cutting + the first piece, and then Lycurgus bore it away to a serving-table. The company + rose to their feet with upraised glasses. It was Stillman's glass that touched + Claire's.</p> +<p>They left soon after this last formality. Lycurgus had gathered a box of sweetmeats + and dainties for Danilo, and a bottle of champagne. Stillman and Claire stopped + at the hotel. But the nurse denied them admittance to the sick-room.</p> +<p>"He is tired, as you can imagine," she explained. "And to tell + the truth, he has more fever than is good."</p> +<p>"I wonder if we did the right thing, after all?" Claire asked Stillman + as they went toward the elevator.</p> +<p>"We must believe so," he answered, gravely.</p> +<a name="II_XVI"></a> +<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3> +<p>The next day was Sunday. Claire went to church. She had thought at first of + spending a holy hour wrapped in the misty-blue atmosphere of Danilo's faith, + of seeking out the little Greek house of worship on Seventh Street and lighting + a taper for the man who had made her his wife. But in the end impulse drew her + to the church of her fathers, and, sitting in the harsh, untoned light of Doctor + Stoddard's meeting-house, she caught moments of cold, austere beauty, veiled + and mystic with the incense of her rich experience.</p> +<p>She saw familiar faces about her—faces that had once had the power to + draw the fire of her envy, or fill her soul with fluttering dismay, or warm + her heart with their patronizing smiles. Could it be possible that there had + been a day when her hopes had flown no farther than the promise of a foothold + among this group bending their heads in self-satisfied prayer? For a moment + the cold rebellion of her childhood had brought to the surface a feeling of + fluttering scorn for them, but almost as quickly she repented her rancor. What + did she know concerning the fires that lit their inner life—the faiths + that supported, the sins that colored, the griefs that cleansed? How many months + had passed since she had sat in cankerous silence and envied the very girls + passing coffee and cake at a church social? Was it the fault of these people + that she had tuned her desires to so faint and tinkling an ambition?</p> +<p>The star of Bethlehem no longer burned in flickering gaslight above the choir-loft, + but as Claire prayerfully lifted up her eyes she could feel its almost forgotten + presence. It was the one beautiful memory of the religious life of her girlhood. + It had burned in sensuous beauty far above all the cold form, the ugly repressions, + the wan renunciations. It had made her eager and parted-lipped, and passionate + for all the brooding joys of existence. Such a star had led wise men to the + feet of living revelation, but was it not also possible that such a star had + lit the dim myrtle-hedged pathway in Eden down which the first courageous pair + had walked to self-respect and freedom? Was it not possible that God had veiled + his face in admiration instead of anger, leaving a yearning eye thus bared to + the night?</p> +<p>And suddenly her thoughts flew to Danilo and that wonderful night when they + had pledged their love in thin red wine. During the week she had climbed the + tawny slopes of Telegraph Hill and stood in the glare of noonday above the fret + of the town. The deserted garden where they had danced their love dance was + still there, a little more ragged, a little more rock-strewn, a little more + smothered under the litter of accomplished feasts. In the yellow light of midday + it lay a ravished husk, its dancing feet stilled, its music a wan memory, its + young ardent loves hidden like nightingales in the cool forests of the day. + The strains of the wine-cup made hectic flushes upon its saffron face, and the + showering petals of its lingering roses drifted in a melancholy flood before + the betraying west wind. She was glad that she had seen it so, glad that the + first picture was impossible to duplicate, to repeat. Life was meant to be a + progression.</p> +<p>Presently her musings leaped to wider stretches. The world was trembling upon + the threshold of peace, and, about her, people whispered sad hopes and held + their breath in a silent terror of expectation. Something remote, intangible, + ominous, hung in the air. She felt a great yearning for love and life and service, + a reaching out to meet the kiss of fellowship half-way. And in this hour of + consecration the figure of Danilo rose before her. She had never loved him so + completely as she did at this moment when the memory of his irrational and human + folly swept her like a waking dream.</p> +<p>"And now may the grace of God...." Doctor Stoddard's voice was ringing + out in the impressive moment of the benediction. Claire bowed her head.... Was + not life, after all, a succession of springs luminous with promise, and summers + whose harvests must of necessity fall far short of all the brave anticipations?... + What summer could possibly yield the marvelously golden fruits of spring's devising?</p> +<hr /> +<p>That afternoon Stillman came to the Robson flat early.</p> +<p>"I'm afraid," he began, "that they will not let us see Danilo + to-day."</p> +<p>"What?... Was it the excitement?"</p> +<p>"No.... Septic pneumonia has developed. You know he was in a bad condition + when.... He had bronchitis then."</p> +<p>She turned pale.... He pressed her hand.</p> +<p>"I am going back with you," she said, calmly, as he made a protesting + gesture.</p> +<p>He did not dissuade her further.</p> +<p>When they arrived at the hotel Danilo was unconscious. The priest had just + left and the fragrance of incense hung like a mysterious presence. Upon the + table a candle burned feebly....</p> +<p>The nurse, worn out, left the room at midnight. Claire sat calm and dry-eyed + at the bedside, holding Danilo's limp hand in hers.... He was very cold, she + thought.... Suddenly a low, wailing, mournful sound broke the somber stillness. + Claire sat rigid.</p> +<p>"A siren!" flashed through her mind.</p> +<p>And, in a twinkling, bits of broken noises, raucous with dry-throated joy, + broke forth—whistles ... the clanging of bells ... the hoarse cheers of + people ... the quick gasp of windows flung open to the night.</p> +<p>Danilo stirred. "Claire ... I hear ... yes, I hear ... a noise—a + great noise."</p> +<p>"Yes ... yes...." she soothed. "Be quiet.... Everything will + soon be right."</p> +<p>He turned away from her with a weary sigh. She went to the window. So it had + come ... at last ... <i>peace</i>! Below her, in the streets, a great composite, + black creature danced and sang and wept and rioted. It beat the air with sticks, + and flung its thousand arms up in gestures of abandon, and called upon its new + god with passionate supplications. It was a monster at once terrifying, sublime, + ridiculous! Claire shuddered. And as she stood there she had a sense of doubt + and faith and tenderness and brutality, such as comes only in swift moments + of revelation. She knew now that life could be as horrible and as beautiful + as it dared. The monster below was a genial monster for the moment, but who + could predict what <i>might</i> come if suddenly—Instinctively she covered + her eyes with a tremulous hand.... Below her the monster danced and sang and + laughed for hours and hours, and for hours and hours she stood spellbound watching + its turbulent antics.</p> +<p>Gradually a light began to quicken the east ... the morning star flickered + and died ... the clouds grew wrathful. Was it Danilo who called?</p> +<p>She went over to the bed. His eyes were open and shining. He knew her now.</p> +<p>"Lift me ... up," he faltered. "Lift me up...."</p> +<p>She drew his wasted form upward. A smile was on his lips.... Below, the monster + still bellowed.</p> +<p>"Did you know, dearest, that it had come?" she questioned. "It + is finished.... Peace has come!"</p> +<p>She went over and pushed back the curtain so he might glimpse the morning. + How red, how very red the sky had grown!</p> +<p>"Yes," she said again. "Peace has come. Now we can go back ... + to your people ... and bind up wounds.... Life has begun for us...."</p> +<p>He put out his arms. She went to him.</p> +<p>"Dawn—<i>blood-red dawn</i>!" he muttered. "See...."</p> +<p>She felt a sudden terrifying limpness of his body. She drew back. He slipped + from her soft caress, opened his eyes wide, drew in one long fluttering breath. + And, suddenly it was morning!...</p> +<p>When she raised her eyes Stillman was beside her.</p> +<p>"Everything is over," she said.</p> +<p>He lifted her up. "No—not everything.... We must see to it that + he lives on ... in <i>us</i>!"</p> +<br /> +<hr class="full" /> +<pre> + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD RED DAWN*** + +******* This file should be named 11875-h.txt or 11875-h.zip ******* + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/8/7/11875">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/8/7/11875</a> + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Blood Red Dawn + +Author: Charles Caldwell Dobie + +Release Date: April 3, 2004 [eBook #11875] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD RED DAWN*** + + +E-text prepared by Helene Poirier and Project Gutenberg Distributed +Proofreaders + + + +THE BLOOD RED DAWN + +by + +CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIE + +1920 + + + + + + + +To My Mother + + + + + +Book I + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The pastor's announcement had been swallowed up in a hum of truant +inattention, and as the heralded speaker made his appearance upon the +platform Claire Robson, leaning forward, said to her mother: + +"What?... Did you catch his name?" + +"A foreigner of some sort!" replied Mrs. Robson, with smug sufficiency. + +For a moment the elder woman's sneer dulled the edge of Claire's +anticipations, but presently the man began to speak, and at once she +felt a sense of power back of his halting words, a sudden bursting fort +of bloom amid the frozen assembly that sat ice-bound, refusing to be +melted by the fires of an alien enthusiasm. She could not help wondering +whether he felt how hopeless it would be to force a sympathetic response +from his audience. In ordinary times the Second Presbyterian Church of +San Francisco could not possibly have had any interest in Serbia except +as a field for foreign missionaries. Now, with America in the war and +speeding up the draft, these worthy people were too much concerned with +problems nearer their own hearthstones to be swept off their feet by a +specific and almost inarticulate appeal for an obscure country, made +only a shade less remote by the accident of being accounted an ally. + +Claire, straining at attention, found it hard to follow him. He talked +rapidly and with unfamiliar emphasis, and he waved his hands. Frankly, +people were bored. They had come to hear a concert and incidentally +swell the Red Cross fund, but they had not reckoned on quite this type +of harangue. Besides, an appetizing smell of coffee from the church +kitchen had begun to beguile their senses. And yet, the man talked on +and on, until quite suddenly Claire Robson began to have a strange +feeling of disquiet, an embarrassment for him, such as one feels when an +intimate friend or kinsman unconsciously makes a spectacle of himself. +She wished that he would stop. She longed to rise from her seat and +scream, to create an outlandish scene, to do anything, in short, that +would silence him. At this point he turned his eyes in her direction, +and she felt the scorch of an intense inner fire. Instinctively she +lowered her glance.... When she looked up again his gaze was still fixed +upon her. She felt her color rise. From that moment on she had a sense +that she was his sole audience. He was talking to her. The others did +not matter. She still did not have any very distinct idea what it was +all about, but the manner of it held her captive. But gradually the +mists cleared, he became more coherent, and slowly, imperceptibly, bit +by bit, he won the others. Yet never for an instant did he take his +eyes from _her_. When he finished, a momentary silence blocked the final +burst of applause. But Claire Robson's hands were locked tightly +together, and it was not until he had disappeared that she realized that +she had not paid him the tribute of even a parting glance. + +The pastor came back upon the platform and announced that refreshments +would be served at the conclusion of the next number. A heavy odor of +coffee continued to float from the church kitchen. A red-haired woman +stepped forward and began to sing. + +Already Claire Robson dreaded the ordeal of supper. The fact that tables +were being laid further disturbed her. This meant that she and her +mother would have to push their way into some group which, at best, +would remain indifferent to their presence. When coffee was served +informally things were not so awkward. To be sure, one had to balance +coffee-cup and cake-plate with an amazing and painful skill, but, on the +other hand, table-less groups did not emphasize one's isolation. Claire +had got to the point where she would have welcomed active hostility on +the part of her fellow church members, but their utter indifference was +soul-killing. She would have liked to remember one occasion when any one +had betrayed the slightest interest in either her arrival or departure, +or rather in the arrival and departure of her mother and herself. + +The solo came to an end, and the inevitable applause followed, but +before the singer could respond to the implied encore most of the +listeners began frank and determined advances upon the tables. The +concert was over. + +Mrs. Robson rose and faced Claire with a look of bewilderment. As usual, +mother and daughter stood irresolutely, caught like two trembling leaves +in the backwater of a swirling eddy. At last Claire made a movement +toward the nearest table. Mrs. Robson followed. They sat down. + +The scattered company speedily began to form into congenial groups. +There was a great deal of suddenly loosened chatter. Claire Robson sat +silently, rather surprised and dismayed to find that she and her mother +had chosen a table which seemed to be the objective of all the prominent +church members. The company facing her was elegant, if not precisely +smart, and there were enough laces and diamonds displayed to have done +excellent service if the proper background had been provided. Claire was +further annoyed to discover that her mother was regarding the situation +with a certain ruffling self-satisfaction which she took no pains to +conceal. Mrs. Robson bowed and smirked, and even called gaily to every +one within easy range. There was something distasteful in her mother's +sudden and almost aggressive self-assurance. + +Gradually the company adjusted itself; the tables were filled. The only +moving figures were those of young women carrying huge white pitchers of +steaming coffee. Claire Robson settled into her seat with a resignation +born of subtle inner misery. Across her brain flashed the insistent and +pertinent questions that such a situation always evoked. Why was she not +one of these young women engaged in distributing refreshments? Did the +circles close automatically so as to exclude her, or did her own +aloofness shut her out? What was the secret of these people about her +that gave them such an assured manner? No one spoke to her with cordial +enthusiasm.... It was not a matter of wealth, or brains, or prominent +church activity. It was not even a matter of obscurity. Like all large +organizations, the Second Presbyterian Church was made up of every +clique in the social calendar; the obscure circle was as clannish and +distinctive in its way as any other group. But Claire Robson was forced +to admit that she did not belong even to the obscure circle. She +belonged nowhere--that was the galling and oppressive truth that was +forced upon her. + +At this point she became aware that one of the most prominent church +members, Mrs. Towne, was making an unmistakably cordial advance in her +direction. Claire had a misgiving.... Mrs. Towne was never excessively +friendly except for a definite aim. + +"My dear Miss Robson," Mrs. Towne began, sweetly, drooping +confidentially to a whispering posture, "I am so sorry, but I shall have +to disturb you and your mother!... It just happens that this table has +been reserved for the elders and their wives.... I hope you'll +understand!" + +For a moment Claire merely stared at the messenger of evil news. Then, +recovering herself, she managed to reply: + +"Oh yes, Mrs. Towne! I understand perfectly.... I am sure we were very +stupid.... Come, mother!" + +Mrs. Robson responded at once to her daughter's command. The two women +rose. By this time the task of securing another place was quite +hopeless. Claire felt that every eye in the room was turned upon them. +Picking their way between a labyrinth of tables and chairs, they +literally were stumbling in the direction of an exit when Claire felt a +hand upon her arm. She turned. + +"Pardon me," the man opposite her was saying, "but may I offer you a +place at our table?" + +Claire said nothing; she followed blindly. Her mother was close upon her +heels. + +The table was a small one, and only two people were occupying it--the +man who had halted Claire, and a woman. The man, standing with one hand +on the chair which he had drawn up for Mrs. Robson, said, simply: + +"My name is Stillman, and of course you know Mrs. Condor--the lady who +has just sung for us." + +Claire gave a swift, inclusive glance. Yes, it was the same woman who +had attempted to beguile a weary audience from its impending repletion; +at close range one could not escape the intense redness of her hair or +the almost immoral whiteness of the shoulders and arms which she was at +such little pains to conceal. + +"Stillman?" Mrs. Robson was fluttering importantly. "Not the old Rincon +Hill family?" + +"Yes, the old Rincon Hill family," the man replied. + +Mrs. Robson sat down with preening self-satisfaction. Wearily the +daughter dropped into the seat which Mrs. Condor proffered. The name of +Ned Stillman was not unfamiliar to any San Franciscan who scanned the +social news with even a casual glance, and Claire had a vague +remembrance that Mrs. Condor also figured socially, but in a rather more +inclusive way than her companion. At all events, it was plain that her +mother, with unerring feminine insight, had placed the pair to her +satisfaction. Already the elder woman was contriving to let Stillman +know something of _her_ antecedents. _She_ was Emily Carrol, also of +Rincon Hill, and of course he knew her two sisters--Mrs. Thomas Wynne +and Mrs. Edward Finch-Brown! As Stillman returned a smiling assurance to +Mrs. Robson's attempts to be impressive, a young woman in white arrived +with ice-cream and messy layer-cake. Unconsciously Claire Robson began +to smile. She could not have said why, but somehow the presence of Ned +Stillman and Mrs. Condor at a table spread with such vacuous delights +seemed little short of ridiculous. They did not fit the picture any more +than her beetle-browed, red-lipped Serbian who.... She turned +deliberately and swept the room with her glance. Of course he had gone. +It was not to be expected that _he_ would descend to the level of such +puerile feasting. A sudden contempt for everything that only an hour ago +seemed so desirable rose within her, and, in answer to the young woman's +query as to whether she preferred coffee to ice-cream, she answered with +lip-curling aloofness: + +"Neither, thank you.... I am not hungry." + +Stillman looked at her searchingly. She returned his gaze without +flinching. + +Claire Robson did not sleep that night. She lay for hours, quite +motionless, staring into the gloom of her narrow bedroom, her mind +ruthlessly shaping formless, vague intuitions into definite convictions. +She could not put her finger upon the precise reason for her inquietude. +Was it chargeable to so trivial a circumstance as a stranger's formal +courtesy or had something more subtle moved her? If the depths of her +isolation had been thrown into too high relief by the almost shameful +sense of obligation she felt toward Stillman for his courtesy, what was +to be said of the uniqueness of the solitary position which the Serbian +awarded her by singling her out for a sympathetic response? Could it be +that a vague pity had stirred him, too? Had things reached a point where +her loneliness showed through the threadbare indifference of her glance? +In short, had both men been won to gallantry by her distress? In one +case, at least, she decided that there was a reasonable chance to doubt. +And that doubt quickened her pulse like May wine. + +But the humiliation of her last encounter with chivalry stuck with +profound irritation. She recalled the scene again and again. She +remembered her contemptuous silence before Stillman's obvious suavities, +the high, assured laugh which his companion, Mrs. Condor, threw out to +meet his quiet sallies, the ruffling satisfaction of her mother, +chattering on irrelevantly, but with the undisguised purpose of creating +a proper impression. How easily Stillman must have seen through Claire's +muteness and the elder woman's eager craving for an audience! And all +the time Mrs. Condor had been laughing, not ill-naturedly, but with the +irony of an experienced woman possessing a sense of humor. + +And at the end, when the four had left the church together, to be +whirled home in Stillman's car, the sudden nods and smiles and farewells +that had blossomed along the path of her mother's exit! Claire could +have laughed it all away if her mother had not betrayed such eagerness +to drink this snobbish flattery to the lees.... + +Claire's father had never entered very largely into her calculations, +but to-night her readjusted vision included him. Stubborn, kind, a bit +weak, and inclined to copying poetry in a red-covered album, he had been +no match for the disillusionments of married life. Her mother's people +had felt a sullen resentment at his downfall--he had taken to drink and +died ingloriously when Claire was still in her seventh year. Claire, +influenced by the family traditions, had shared this resentment. But now +she found herself wondering whether there was not a word or two to be +said in his behalf. Her father had been a cheap clerk in a wholesale +house when he had married. The uncertain Carrol fortunes were waning +swiftly at the time, and Emily Carrol had been thrown at him with all +the panic that then possessed a public schooled in the fallacy that +marriage was a woman's only career. The result was to have been +expected. Extravagance, debts, too much family, drink, death--the +sequence was complete. He had been captured, withered, cast aside, by a +tribe that had not even had the decency to grant his memory the +kindness of an excuse. + +Wide-eyed and restless, Claire Robson felt a sudden pity for her father. +Tears sprang to her eyes; it overwhelmed her to discover this new father +so full of human failings and yet so full of human provocation. In her +twenty-four years of life she had never shed a tear for him, or felt the +slightest pang for his failure. If she had ever doubted the Carrol +viewpoint, she had never given her lack of faith any scope. She had +taken their cast-off prejudices and threadbare convictions as docilely +as she had once received their stale garments. She had shrunk from +spiritual independence with all the obsequious arrogance of a poor +relation at a feast. Her diffidence, her self-consciousness, her +timidity, were the outward forms of an inbred snobbery. It was curious +how suddenly all this was made clear to her.... + +At length she fell into a troubled sleep.... When she awoke the room's +outlines were reviving before the advances of early morning. For the +first time in her life she caught the poetry of the new day at first +hand. For years she had reveled vicariously in the delights of morning. +But it had always been to her a thing apart, a matter which the writers +of romantic verse beheld and translated for the benefit of late +sleepers. It never occurred to her that the day crawling into the +light-well of her Clay Street flat was lit with precisely the same flame +that colored the far-flung peaks of the poet's song. And instantly a +phrase of the Serbian's harangue came to her--blood-red dawn! He had +repeated these words over and over again, and somehow under the heat of +his ardor and longing for his native land this hackneyed phrase took on +its real and dreadful value. In the sudden sweep of this vital +remembrance, Claire Robson rose for a moment above the fretful drip of +circumstance.... _Blood-red Dawn_!... She threw herself back upon her +bed and shuddered.... + +She rose at seven o'clock, but already the morning had grown pallid and +flecked with gray clouds. + +An apologetic tap came at the door, and the voice of Mrs. Robson +repeating a formula that she never varied: + +"Better hurry, Claire. If you don't you'll be late for the office!" + + + +CHAPTER II + + +As Claire stepped out into the cold sunlight of early November, she +smiled bitterly at the exaggeration of last night's mood. After the +first hectic flush of dawn there is nothing so sane and sweet and +commonplace as morning. The spectacle of Mrs. Finnegan, who lodged in +the flat below, slopping warm suds over the thin marble steps, added a +final note of homeliness, which divorced Claire completely from heroics. + +"Well, Miss Robson, so you really got home, last night," broke from the +industrious neighbor as she straightened up and tucked her lifted skirts +in more securely. "I thought you never would come!... A package came +from New York for you. The man nearly banged your door down. I had +Finnegan put it on your back stoop.... It's from that cousin of yours, I +guess. I was so excited about it I kept wishing you'd get home early so +that I could get a peep at all the pretty things. But I'll run up just +as soon as I get through with the breakfast dishes." + +Claire smiled wanly. "It was very good of you to take all that trouble, +I'm sure, Mrs. Finnegan!" + +"Oh, bother my trouble!" Mrs. Finnegan responded. "I just knew how crazy +I'd be about a box. I guess we women are all alike, Miss Robson. +Anyway, your mother and I are!" + +Mrs. Finnegan bent over her task again with a quick exasperated +movement, and Claire passed on. Her neighbor's abrupt rebuke gave Claire +a renewed sense of exclusion. She had meant to be warmly appreciative, +but she knew now that she had been only coldly polite. But, as a matter +of fact, the prospect of delving through a box of Gertrude Sinclair's +discarded finery moved her this morning to a dull fury. She felt +suddenly tired of cast-offs, of compromise, of all the other shabby +adjustments of genteel poverty. And by the time she reached the office +of the Falcon Insurance Company her soul was seething with a curious and +unreasonable revolt. The feminine office force seemed seething also, but +with an impersonal, quivering excitement. Nellie Whitehead had been +dismissed! + +This Nellie Whitehead, the stenographer-in-chief, was big, vigorous, +blond--vulgar, energetic, vivid; and Miss Munch, her assistant, a thin, +hollow-chested spinster, who loafed upon her job so that she might save +her sight for the manufacture of incredible yards of tatting, never +missed an opportunity to lift her eyes significantly behind her +superior's back. + +"And what do you suppose?" Miss Munch was querying as Claire stepped +into the dressing-room. "She told Mr. Flint to go to hell!... Yes, +positively, she used those very words. And I must say he was a gentleman +throughout it all. He told her gently but firmly that her example in the +office wasn't what it should be and that in justice to the other +girls...." + +Claire turned impatiently away. The fiction of Mr. Flint's belated +interest in the morals of his feminine office force was unconvincing +enough to be irritating. For a man who never missed an opportunity to +force his attentions, he was showing an amazingly ethical viewpoint. On +second thought, Claire remembered that Miss Munch was never the +recipient of Mr. Flint's attentions, which to the casual eye might have +seemed innocent enough--on rainy days gallantly bending his ample girth +in a rather too prolonged attempt to slip on the girls' rubbers, +insisting on the quite unnecessary task of incasing them in their +jackets and smoothing the sleeves of their shirt-waists in the process, +flicking imaginary threads where the feminine curves were most opulent. +Not that Mr. Flint was a wolf in sheep's clothing; he played the part of +sheep, but he needed no disguise for his performance; he merely lived up +to a sort of flock-mind consciousness where women were concerned. + +The group clustered about Miss Munch broke up at the approach of Mr. +Flint, who gave a significant glance in the direction of Claire Robson, +intent upon her morning work. But the excitement persisted in spite of +the scattered auditors, and the fact was mysteriously communicated that +Miss Munch's interest in the event was chargeable to her hopes. It +seemed impossible to Miss Munch that any one but herself could succeed +to the vacant post of stenographer-in-chief. + +At precisely eleven o'clock the buzzer on Claire Robson's desk hummed +three times. This announced that she was wanted by Mr. Flint. She +gathered her note-book and pencils and answered the call. + +Mr. Flint was busy at the telephone when Claire entered the private +office. She seated herself at the flat oak table in the center of the +room. + +Mr. Flint's office bore all the conventional signs of +business--commissions of authority from insurance companies, state +licenses in oak frames, an oil-painting of Thomas Sawyer Flint, the +founder of the firm, over a fireplace that maintained its useless +dignity in spite of the steam-radiator near the window. On his desk was +the inevitable picture of his wife framed in silver, a hand-illumined +platitude of Stevenson, an elaborate set of desk paraphernalia in beaten +brass that bore little evidence of service. In two green-glazed bowls of +Japanese origin, roses from Mr. Flint's garden at Yolanda scattered +faint pink petals on the Smyrna rug. These flowers were the only +concession to esthetics that Mr. Flint indulged. In spite of a masculine +distaste for carrying flowers, hardly a day went by when he did not +appear at the office with a huge harvest of blossoms from his country +home. + +Claire was bending over, intent on picking up the crumpled rose-petals, +when Mr. Flint finally spoke. She straightened herself slowly. Her +unhurried movements had a certain grace that did not escape the man +opposite her. She tossed the bruised leaves into a waste-basket and +reached for her pencil. Her heart was pounding, but she faced Mr. Flint +with a clear, direct gaze. + +"Miss Robson, of course you've heard all about the rumpus," Mr. Flint +was saying. "I had to fire Miss Whitehead.... I think you can fill the +bill." + +Claire rose without replying. Mr. Flint left his seat and crossed over +to her. + +"I hope," he said, flicking a thread from her shoulder, "that you're +game.... Some girls, of course, don't care a damn about getting on ... +especially if there's a Johnny somewhere in sight with enough cash in +his pocket for a marriage license." + +"I am very much taken by surprise," Claire faltered. "You see, the +change means a great deal to me." + +Mr. Flint moved closer. His manner was intimate and distasteful. +"Sometimes I think we business men ought to get more of a slant on our +employees.... You know what I mean, not exactly bothering about how many +lumps of sugar they take in their coffee, or their taste in after-dinner +cheese ... but, well, just how often they have to resole their boots and +turn the ribbons on their spring bonnets.... Now, in Miss Whitehead's +case.... But of course you're not interested in Miss Whitehead." + +"Why, I wouldn't say that," stammered Claire. Then, as she reached for +her shorthand book she said, more confidently: "To be quite frank, Mr. +Flint, I liked Miss Whitehead tremendously. She was so alive ... and +vivid." + +Flint beamed. "Do you know why I picked you instead of that Munch +dame?... It's because you had all the frills of a woman and none of the +nastiness. For instance, you wouldn't be bothered in the least if I took +a notion to overload the office with another pretty girl.... I've +watched you for some time. It has taken me six months to make up my mind +to fire Miss Whitehead and boost you into her job." + +He stood with an air of condescending arrogance, his thumbs bearing down +heavily on his trousers pockets, his broad fingers beating a +self-satisfied tattoo upon his thighs. Claire shrank nearer the table. +"You mean, Mr. Flint, that you dismissed Miss Whitehead merely to give +me her position?" + +Flint smiled. "Well, now you're coming down to brass-headed tacks. I'm +not keen on spelling out the whys and wherefores of anything I do.... +But one thing is certain enough--if Miss Munch had been the only +available candidate I _could_ have stood Miss Whitehead.... There ain't +much question about that." + +"Oh, Mr. Flint! I'm sorry!" + +He gave a wide guffaw. "That only makes you all the more of a corker!" +he answered, rubbing his hands together in narrow-eyed satisfaction. + +She escaped into the outer office, flushed, but with her head thrown +back in an attitude of instinctive defense, and the next instant she +literally ran into the arm of a man. + +"Why, Miss Robson, but this _is_ pleasant! I'm just dropping in to see +Mr. Flint." + +She drew back. Mr. Stillman stood smiling before her. + +Greetings and questions flowed with all the genial ease of one who is +never quite taken unawares. Claire, outwardly calm, felt overcome with +inner confusion. She passed rapidly to her desk and sat down. + +Miss Munch was upon her almost instantly. + +"Do _you_ know Ned Stillman?" Miss Munch asked, veiling her real +purpose. + +"Yes," replied Claire, with uncomfortable brevity. + +"I have a cousin who was housekeeper for his wife's father.... You know +about his wife, of course." + +Claire lifted her clear eyes in a startled glance that was almost as +instantly converted into a look of challenge. + +"Yes," she lied. + +Miss Munch hesitated, then plunged at once into the issue uppermost in +her mind. "It's too bad you've had to be bothered with Flint's +dictation, Miss Robson. It just happens I'm writing up a long +home-office report, otherwise I'm sure he wouldn't have annoyed you." + +Claire Robson fixed Miss Munch with a coldly polite stare. "You've made +a mistake, Miss Munch. Mr. Flint has given me no dictation." The speech +in itself was nothing, but Claire's tone gave it unmistakable point. +Miss Munch grew white and then flushed. She turned away without a word, +but Claire Robson knew that in a twinkling of an eye she had gained not +only an enemy, but an uncommon one. + + * * * * * + +That night Claire took an unusually long way round on her walk home. Her +path from the Falcon Insurance Company's office on California Street to +the Clay Street flat was never a direct one, first, because there were +hills to be avoided, and, second, because Claire found the streets at +twilight too full of charm for a rapid homeward flight. The year was on +the wane and the November days were coming to an early blackness. Claire +reveled in the light-flooded dusk of these late autumn evenings. To her, +the city became a vast theater, darkened suddenly for the purpose of +throwing the performers into sharper relief. Most clerks made their way +up Montgomery Street toward Market, but Claire climbed past the German +Bank to Kearny Street. She liked this old thoroughfare, struggling +vainly to pull itself up to its former glory. The Kearny Street crowd +was a varying quantity, frankly shabby or flashily prosperous, as far +south as Sutter Street, suddenly dignified and reserved for the two +blocks beyond. To-night Claire missed the direct appeal of the streets +lined with bright shops. They formed the proper background for her +broodings, but they scarcely entered into her mood. She could not have +said just what flight her mood was taking, or upon just which branch her +thought would alight. She was confused and puzzled and vaguely uneasy. +She had a sense that somehow, somewhere, a door had been opened and that +a strong, devastating wind was clearing the air and bringing dead things +to ground in a disorderly shower. She was stirred by twilights of +uneasiness. It was almost as if the monotonous truce of noonday had been +darkened by a huge, composite, masculine shadow, made up in some +mysterious way of the ridiculous Serbian and his blood-red dawn, and +this man Stillman, who had a wife, and Flint, with hands so ready to +flick threads from her sloping shoulders. Yesterday her outlook had been +peaceful and unhappy; to-day she felt stimulation of an impending +struggle. She was afraid, and yet she would not have turned back for one +swift moment. And suddenly the words of Mrs. Finnegan recurred, "I guess +we women are all alike." Were they? + +At which point she came upon a pastry-shop window and she went in and +bought a half-dozen French pastries. The thought of her mother's +pleasure at this unusual treat brought her in due time smiling to her +threshold. + +Mrs. Robson was not in her accustomed place at the head of the stairs; +about half-way up the long flight her voice sounded triumphantly: + +"Oh, Claire, do hurry and see what Gertrude has sent! Everything is +perfectly lovely." + +Claire quickened her pace and gained the cramped living-room. Thrown +about in a sort of joyous disorder, Gertrude Sinclair's finery quite lit +up the shabbiness. Hats, plumes, scraps of vivid silks, gilded slippers, +a spangled fan--their unrelated vividness struck Claire as fantastic as +a futurist painting. Her mother seemed suddenly young again. Claire +wondered whether, after the toll of sixty-odd years, she could be moved +to momentary youth by the mere sight of the prettiness that was +quickening her mother's pulse. + +Mrs. Robson held up a filmy evening gown of black net embroidered with a +rich design of dull gold. "Isn't this heavenly?" she demanded. "And it +will just fit you, Claire. I think Gertrude has spread herself this +time." + +"Yes, on finery, mother. But didn't she send anything sensible? What +possessed her to load us up with a lot of things we can never possibly +get a chance to wear?" + +Claire had not meant to be disagreeable, but there was rancor in her +voice. Mrs. Robson cast aside the dress with the carelessness of a +spoiled favorite; she always adapted her manner to the tone of her +background. + +"Claire Robson!" she cried, good-naturedly. "You're a regular old woman! +I'm sure _I_ haven't much to be cheerful about, but I just won't let +anything down me!... If I wanted to, I could give up right now. Where +would we have been, I'd like to know, if I hadn't held my head up? +Goodness knows, _my_ folks didn't help me. If they had had their way, +I'd been out manicuring people's nails and washing heads for a living. +And _you_ in an orphan-asylum! That's what my people did for me! As it +is, they shoved you out to work. What chance have you of meeting nice +people? No, Claire, I don't care how they have treated me, but they +might have given you a chance. I'll never forgive them for that!... I +thought last night when I was talking to Mrs. Condor and watching you +and Mr. Stillman how nice it would have been if.... Oh, that reminds me! +Who do you think has been here to-day?... Mrs. Towne! She came to +apologize about asking us to move our seats the other night. _She_ knows +the Stillmans well. The old people were pillars of the Second Church in +the 'sixties. I fancy he is dancing about that Mrs. Condor's heels a +bit. Of course, as Mrs. Towne said, _she_ wouldn't be likely to make +herself a permanent feature of Second Church entertainments. But now in +war-times _anything_ is possible. Mrs. Towne was telling me all about +Stillman and his wife. I _should_ have remembered, but somehow I forgot. +Get your things off and I'll tell you all about it." + +Claire handed her mother the package of pastries. "I heard about it +to-day," she said, coldly. + +"But Mrs. Towne knows the whole thing from A to Z," insisted Mrs. +Robson, genially. + +"I'm not interested in the details," Claire returned, doggedly. + +Mrs. Robson's face wore a puzzled, almost a harried, expression. Claire +moved away. Her mother gave a shrug and renewed her efforts to drag +further finery from the mysterious depths of the treasure-box. Her +daughter cast a last incurious glance back. The glow on Mrs. Robson's +face, which Claire had mistaken for youth, seemed now a thing hectic and +unpleasant, and gave an uncanny sense of a skeleton sitting among gauds +and baubles. + +A feeling of isolation swept Claire, such as she had never experienced. +The person who should have been closest suddenly had become a +stranger.... She went into her room and closed the door. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The following week Claire was surprised to find a letter on her desk at +the office. The few written favors that came her way usually were +addressed to the Clay Street flat, so that she was puzzled by this +innovation and the unfamiliar handwriting. Glancing swiftly at the +signature, she was surprised to see the name "Lily Condor," scrawled +loosely at the foot of the note. It seemed that Mrs. Condor was giving a +little musicale in Ned Stillman's apartments on the following Friday +night, and, if one could believe such a thing, the lady implied that the +evening would scarcely be complete without the presence of Claire +Robson--or, to put it more properly, Claire Robson and her _mother_. + +As Claire had scarcely said a half-dozen words to Mrs. Condor on the +night of the Red Cross concert, this invitation seemed little short of +extraordinary. But, as Claire thought it over, she recalled that there +had been some general conversation about music, in which she had +admitted a discreet passion for this form of entertainment, even going +so far as to confess that she played the piano herself upon occasion. +Her first impulse, clinched by the familiar feminine excuse that she had +nothing suitable to wear, was to send her regrets. At once she thought +of the scorned finery that Gertrude Sinclair had included in her last +box, and the more she thought about it the more convinced she became +that she had no real reason for refusing. But a swift, strange regret +that her mother had been included in the invitation took the edge off +her anticipations. She tried to dismiss this feeling, but it grew more +definite as the morning progressed. + +For days Claire had been striking at the shackles of habit with a rancor +bred of disillusionment. She had been on tiptoe for new and vital +experiences, and yet, for any outward sign, her life bid fair to escape +the surge of any torrential circumstance. Particularly, at the office, +things had gone on smoothly. The other clerks had accepted Claire's +advancement without either protest or enthusiasm. Even Miss Munch had +veiled her resentment behind the saving trivialities of daily +intercourse. She had gone so far as to introduce Claire to her cousin, a +Mrs. Richards, who had come in at the noon hour for a new tatting +design. This cousin was a large, red-faced woman, with an aggressively +capable manner. She had the quick, ferret-like eyes of Miss Munch and +the loose mouth of a perpetual gossip. + +"She's the one I told you about the other day," Miss Munch had explained +later--"the housekeeper for _your friend_ Stillman's father-in-law." She +gave nasty emphasis to this trivial speech. + +Flint had been direct and business-like almost to the point of +bruskness. But Claire knew that such moods were not unusual, so she took +little stock in the ultimate significance of his restrained manner. + +Perhaps the most indefinable change had come over Claire's home life. +Her mother's unfailing string of trivial gossip, formerly not without a +certain interest, now scarcely held her to even polite attention. +Indeed, her self-absorbed silence, while Mrs. Robson poured out the +latest news about Mrs. Finnegan's second sister's husband's mother--who +was suddenly stricken with some incurable disease, made all the more +mysterious by the fact that its nature was not divulged--was so apparent +that her mother, goaded on to a mild exasperation, would ask, +significantly: + +"What's the matter, Claire? Have you a headache?" + +Mrs. Robson was never so happy as in the discovery of some one with a +mysterious disease, particularly if the victim's relatives were loath to +discuss the issue. + +"They think they fool me!" she would say, triumphantly, to Claire, "but +I guess I know what ails her.... Didn't her mother, and her uncle, and +her sister's oldest child die of consumption? I tell you it's in the +family. The last time I saw her she nearly coughed her head off." + +Not that Mrs. Robson was unsympathetic; brought face to face with +suffering, she blossomed with every impulsive tenderness, but her +experiences had confirmed her in pessimism, and every fresh tragedy +testified to the soundness of her faith. Her pride at diagnosing +people's ills and pronouncing their death-sentences was almost +professional. And she had an irritating way of making comments such as +this: + +"Well, Claire, I see that old Mrs. Talbot is dead at last!... I knew she +wouldn't live another winter. They'll feel terribly, no doubt; but, of +course, it is a great relief." + +Or: + +"Why, here is the death notice of Isaac Rice! I thought he died _years_ +ago. My, but he was a trial! What a blessing!" + +This was the type of conversation that Claire was finding either empty +of meaning or illuminating to the point of annoyance. What amazed her +was the fact that she had remained blind so long to the slightest of the +conversational food upon which she had been fed. + +Claire did not tell her mother about the invitation to Mrs. Condor's +musical evening. + +"I'll wait," she said to herself. "Thursday will be time enough." +Although why delay would prove advantageous was not particularly +apparent. + +On Wednesday night at the dinner-table, Mrs. Robson, as if still puzzled +at her daughter's altered mood, said, rather cautiously: + +"There's to be a reception at the church on Friday night." + +"For whom?" inquired Claire, with pallid interest. + +"I didn't quite catch the name.... Some woman back from France. She's +been nursing in one of the British hospitals. She's to get Red Cross +work started at the church. It seems San Francisco is a bit slow over +taking up the work, but, then, you know, we're poked off here in a +corner and I suppose we don't quite realize yet.... Anyway, Mrs. Towne +wants us to help with the coffee. She says you should have been in the +church-work long ago. You look so self-contained and efficient.... I +told her we would be there at half past seven and get the dishes into +shape." + +Claire's heart beat violently. "Friday night? I'm sorry, mother; I have +another engagement." + +"Another engagement? Why, Claire, how funny! You never said anything +about it. I don't know what to say to Mrs. Towne." + +Claire felt calm again. "Just tell her the truth." + +"But she'll think so strange that I didn't know ... that I...." + +"You shouldn't have spoken for me until you found out whether I was +willing." + +"Willing! _Willing!_ I didn't suppose you'd be anything else. I've been +trying to get you in with the right people at the church for the last +fifteen years. I've tried so hard...." + +"Yes, mother, I know," said Claire, patiently. "But don't you see? +That's just it. You've tried too hard." + +Mrs. Robson began to whimper discreetly. "How you do talk, Claire! I +declare I don't know what to make of it. I suppose you're bitter about +Mrs. Towne the other night. I felt so at first, but I can see now we +were at the wrong table. And, after all, everything came out +beautifully. We sat with Mr. Stillman, and that had a very good effect, +I can tell you. Especially when everybody saw us leave with him. Why, it +brought Mrs. Towne to her feet." + +"Yes, and that's the humiliating part of it." + +"Well, Claire, when you've lived as long as I have you won't be so +uppish about making compromises," flung back Mrs. Robson. "Of course, if +you've got another engagement, you've got another engagement, but +if...." + +"I wouldn't have gone, anyway. I'm through with that sort of thing." + +"Why, Claire, how can you! It's your duty, _now_!--with your country at +war--and ... and ... Even that dreadful Serbian the other night made +_that_ plain." + +"I'll go with you to church on Sundays, of course, but--" + +"What am _I_ to do?" wailed Mrs. Robson. "At least you might think of +me! I've not had much pleasure in my life, goodness knows, and now just +as I...." + +Mrs. Robson broke off abruptly on a flood of tears. Two weeks ago these +tears would have overwhelmed Claire. As it was, she sat calmly stirring +her tea, surprised and a little ashamed of her coldness. The truth was +that Claire Robson was feeling all the fanatical cruelty that comes with +sudden conviction. The forms of her new faith had hardened too quickly +and left outlines sharp and uncompromising. + +For years Claire had found shelter from the glare of middle-class +snobbery beating about her head, by shrinking into her mother's +inadequate shadow as a desert bird shrinks into the thin shadow of a dry +reed by some burned-out watercourse. Now a full noon of disillusionment +had annihilated this shadow and given her the courage of necessity. And +there was something more than courage--there was an eagerness to stand +alone in the commonplace words with which she sought to temper her +refusal to assist at the coming church reception: + +"I can't see any good reason, mother, why you shouldn't go and help Mrs. +Towne.... What have my plans to do with it?" + +To which her mother answered: + +"I do so hate to be seen at such places alone, Claire." + +Claire made no reply. She did not want to give her mother's indecision a +chance to crystallize into a definite stand. She knew by long experience +that if this happened it would be fatal. But in a swift flash of +decision Claire made up her mind for one thing--she would either go to +Mrs. Condor's evening alone or she would send her regrets. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +By a series of neutral subterfuges and tactful evasions Claire Robson +won her point--she went to the Condor musicale at Ned Stillman's +apartments alone, and on that same night her mother wended a rather +grudging way to the Second Presbyterian Church reception. + +Acting under her mother's advice, Claire timed her arrival for nine +o'clock, an hour which seemed incredibly late to one schooled in the +temperate hour of church socials. Mrs. Condor herself opened the door in +answer to Claire's ring. + +"Oh, my dear, but I _am_ glad to see you!" burst from the elder woman as +she waved her in. But she did not so much as mention the absence of Mrs. +Robson, and Claire was divided between a feeling of wounded family +pride, and gratification at the intuition which had warned her to leave +her mother to her own devices. More people arrived on Claire's heels, +and in the lively bustle she was left to shed her wraps in one of the +bedrooms. Her heart was pounding with reaction at her outwardly +self-contained entrance. She let her rather shabby cloak slip to the +floor, revealing a strange, new Claire resplendent in the +gold-embroidered gown that had once so stirred her rancor. For a brief +instant she had an impulse to gather the discarded wrap securely about +her and make a quick exit. A swooning fear at the thought of meeting a +roomful of people assailed her. But there succeeded a courage born of +the realization that they all would be strangers. With a sense of +bravado she stepped out into the entrance hall again. + +Ned Stillman came forward. She halted and waited for him. His face had +lit with a sudden pleasure, which told Claire that for once in her life +her presence roused positive interest. He inquired after her health, why +her mother had not come, whether the abominable fog was clearing. His +easy formality put her, as usual, completely at ease. + +It was only when he asked her, with the most inconsequential tone in the +world, "whether she could read music at sight" that a sinking fear came +over her. And yet she found courage enough to be truthful and say yes. + +"That's fine!" he returned. "Our accompanist hasn't come yet and we want +to start off with a song or two." + +From this moment on the evening impressed itself on Claire in a series +of blurred hectic pictures.... She knew that Stillman was leading her +toward the piano, but the living-room and its toned lights gave her a +curious sense of unreality. She seated herself before the white keyboard +and folded her hands with desperate resignation while she waited for +Stillman to dictate the next move. + +"My dear Mrs. Condor," Stillman explained, as that lady came up to them, +"we sha'n't have to wait for Flora Menzies. Miss Robson will accompany +you." + +Claire sat unmoved. She was beyond so trivial a sensation as anxiety. +Stillman drifted away; Mrs. Condor began to run through the sheet music +lying on the piano. + +"Of course you know Schumann, Miss Robson. Shall we start at once? How +is the light? If you moved your stool a little--so. There, that's +better." + +Claire did not reply. She looked at the music before her. She was +conscious that it was a piece she knew, although its name registered no +other impression. She began to play. The opening bars almost startled +her. She felt a hush fall over the noisy room. Her fingers stumbled--she +caught the melody again with staggering desperation. Mrs. Condor was +singing.... The room faded; even the sound of Mrs. Condor's voice became +remote. Claire had a desire to laugh. + +All manner of strange, disconnected thoughts ran through her head. She +remembered a doll she had broken years ago and buried with great pomp +and circumstance, a pink parasol that had been given her as a child, the +gigantic and respectable wig which had incased the head of her old +German music-teacher, Frau Pfaff. And as she played on and on the music +further evoked the memory of this worthy lady who had given her services +in exchange for lodgings in an incredibly small hall bedroom, with +certain privileges at the kitchen stove. And pictures of this irritating +woman rose before her, stewing dried fruit, or preparing sour beef, or +borrowing the clothes boiler for a perennial wash. What compromises her +mother had made to give her child the gentle accomplishments that Mrs. +Robson associated with breeding! It came to Claire that it was almost +cruel to have denied this mother a share in the triumphs of that +evening. And with that, she realized that Mrs. Condor had ceased +singing. A hum broke loose, followed by applause. Claire grew faint. Her +head began to swirl. She clutched the piano stool and by sheer terror at +the thought of creating a scene she managed to keep her consciousness as +she felt Mrs. Condor's hand upon her shoulder and heard a voice that +just missed being patronizing: + +"My dear, you did it beautifully." + +Claire longed to burst into tears.... + +The concert was over shortly after eleven o'clock. Besides Mrs. Condor, +there had been a 'cellist, very masculine in his looks but rather +forceless in his playing, and a young, frail girl who brought great +breadth and vigor to her interpretations at the piano. But Claire was +really too excited for calm enjoyment. Supper followed--creamed minced +chicken and extraordinarily thin sandwiches, and a dry, pale wine that +Claire found at first rather distasteful. Claire sat with a little group +composed of Mrs. Condor, Ned Stillman, a fashionable young man, Phil +Edington, who frankly confessed boredom at all things musical except +one-steps and fox-trots, and two or three artistic-looking souls who +pretended to be quite shocked by young Edington's frankness. + +Conversation veered naturally to the subject of the war. Edington had +tried for a commission in an officers' training-camp and failed. He was +extraordinarily frank about it all, and good-natured at the chaffing +that Mrs. Condor and Stillman threw at him. + +"I'm going to wait now and be drafted," he announced. "As long as I +failed to make a high grade I want to begin at the bottom and see the +whole picture." + +Claire rather waited for a word from Stillman as to his convictions on +the subject. Of course one could see that he was over the draft age, +still.... For the most part she was silent, but happy and content. By +contributing her share to the evening's entertainment she had justified +her presence. Wine as a factor in midnight suppers was a new but not a +revolutionary experience to Claire Robson, but she gasped a bit when the +maid passed cigarettes to the ladies. And yet she felt a delicious sense +of being a party to something quite daring and _outre_, although she did +not have either courage or skill to enjoy one of the slender, +gold-tipped delights. + +The time for departure finally came. Claire rose reluctantly. Mrs. +Condor, slipping one arm in Phil Edington's and the other in Claire's, +sauntered with them toward the entrance hall. + +"I say," ventured Edington as Stillman caught up to the group. "What's +the matter with just us four dropping down to the Palace for a whirl or +two?" + +Claire stared. She had not grown used to the novelty of being included, +but any instinctive objections to the plan were promptly silenced by +Mrs. Condor's enthusiastic approval. + +They arrived at the Palace Hotel shortly before midnight. The Rose Room +was crowded. All the tables seemed filled, and Claire had a moment of +disappointment caused by the fear that their party would be unable to +gain admittance. But young Edington's presence soon set any uneasiness +on that score at rest, and a place was evolved with deftness and +despatch. The novelty of the situation to Claire was nothing compared +with her matter-of-fact acceptance of it. She was neither self-conscious +nor timid. Her three companions had a way of tacitly including her in +even their trivial chatter that was unmistakable, though hard to define. +She felt that she was one of them, and she blossomed in this strange new +warmth like a chilled blossom at the final approach of a belated spring. +All evening her starved sense of self-importance had been feeding +greedily upon the compliments that had come her way. There had been her +mother's rather apologetic words of approval at her appearance, to begin +with, then Mrs. Condor's appreciation at the piano, and finally a word +dropped by one of the women who had shared a mirror with her at the hour +of departure. + +"How do you manage your hair, Miss Robson?" the other had said, digging +viciously at her shifting locks with a hairpin. "I do declare you're the +only woman in the room that looks presentable." + +But it was Edington's words to Stillman while they stood waiting for the +hotel attendants to prepare the table that brought a quickened beat to +her heart. The conversation was low and not meant for her ears, but her +senses were too sharpened to miss Edington's furtive words as he +whispered to Stillman: + +"Where did ... amazing.... Miss Robson?" + +Claire did not catch the reply which must have also been something of a +query, but she heard Edington continue. + +"Well ... a little too silent, I must admit.... No, I don't dislike 'em +that way ... but I'm afraid of them." + +Stillman answered with a low laugh. + +They sat down. Edington ordered wine. The crowd at the tables was rather +a mixed one. There was plenty of elaborate gowning among the groups of +formal diners who had prolonged their feasting into the supper hour, but +many casuals, drifting in for a few drinks and a dance or two, robbed +the scene of its earlier brilliance. + +The orchestra struck up a one-step. Claire denied Stillman the dance, +explaining that she knew none of the new steps, and he whirled away with +Mrs. Condor. Edington, robbed of his chance, pouted unashamed. + +"I say, Miss Robson, can't you do a one-step--really? There isn't +anything to it! Come on--try; I'll pull you through." + +Claire's knowledge of dancing was instinctive, but not a matter of much +practice, yet his distress was so comic that she relented. She wondered +if he could feel her trembling as they swung into the dance. She +stumbled once or twice from timidity, but Edington guided unerringly. +Half-way round she suddenly struck the proper swing. + +"There--that's it," cried Edington, enthusiastically. "Now you've got +it! Fine!" + +His praise mounted to her brain like a heady wine, and suddenly, in the +twinkling of an eye, all the repressed youth within her awoke with a +sweet and terrible joy.... They danced madly, perfectly, the rhythm +entering into them like something at once fluid and flaming. Her ecstasy +awoke a vague response in her partner, who bent forward as he kept +repeating, monotonously: + +"And you said you couldn't, Miss Robson! Fancy, you said you couldn't!" + +The music stopped abruptly with a crash. Some of the dancers made their +way leisurely back among the tables, but the most of them wandered about +the polished' floor, clapping insistent hands for an encore. In this +brief interlude, groups arrived and departed. The musicians lifted their +instruments to chin and lip, struck an opening chord; couples began to +whirl and glide. Claire Robson, palpitant and eager, followed Edington's +lead, but almost at the first moment of their rhythmic flight they came +crashing into the overcoated bulk of a man cutting across the corner of +the ballroom in an attempt at a swift exit. A smothered protest escaped +Edington, and Claire detached herself from her partner long enough to +see the offender bow very low and hear his apology in a voice and manner +that seemed curiously familiar: + +"I beg your pardon. Pray forgive me! I should have known better." + +In the twinkling of an eye the interrupted dancers were sweeping on +again, and the apologetic stranger, hat in hand, turning for a farewell +look at the pair. Claire Robson felt an up-leap of the heart; a fresh +ecstasy quickened her. It was the Serbian! + +They finished the dance almost opposite their table and were met by a +patter of applause from Mrs. Condor and Stillman, who were already +seated. + +Claire was flaming with embarrassment as she faced Stillman. + +"I hope you'll understand, Mr. Stillman," she faltered. "But Mr. +Edington seemed willing to risk my ignorance." + +Mrs. Condor turned Claire's plaintive apology into a covert attack upon +Stillman's courage, but Stillman rescued Claire from further confusion +by laughing back: + +"Well, I'll have my revenge on Edington. I'll grant him all the +one-steps, but he can't have any of the waltzes, Miss Robson." + +The waiter began to pour out the champagne. Claire settled back in her +seat with a feeling of delightful languor. The dance had released all +the pent-up emotions that a night of vivid sensations had called into +her life. She had come into the Rose Room of the Palace Hotel quivering +in the leash of a restrained enjoyment; it had taken the quick lash of +opportunity to send her spirits hurtling forward in wild and headlong +abandon. She lifted her wine-glass in answer to the upraised glasses of +her companions, and the thought flashed over her that it would be +impossible for her to have quite her old vision again. In every life +there are culminating moments of joy or sorrow which either clear or +dim the horizon, and Claire felt that such moment was now hers. + +Stillman rose promptly in his seat at the first strains of the waltz, +which proved to be the next number. Claire stepped out upon the floor +with confidence. + +She did not need any word of reassurance this time to tell her that her +dancing was more than acceptable, and, true to her brief experience with +Stillman, he refrained from voicing the obvious. They had begun the +dance promptly and for the first whirl about they had the floor almost +to themselves. Claire's discreet sidelong glances detected many +approving nods in their direction; people were noticing them and making +favorable comment.... The floor filled, but even in the crowd Claire had +a sense that she and her partner were standing out distinctly. + +The very nature of the waltz contrasted sharply with the one-step. There +was less abandon and more art. The first dance had expressed a primitive +emotion; the present slow and measured whirl a discriminating sensation. +And slowly, under the spell of Stillman's calm and yet strangely glowing +manner, Claire recovered her poise. All night she had been inhaling +every fresh delight rapturously with the closed eyes and open senses +that one brings to the enjoyment of blossoms heavy with perfume. It took +Stillman's influence to rob the hours of their swooning delight by +recapturing her self-consciousness. Things became at once orderly and +reasonable. And as he led her back to their table she felt the flame +within cease its flarings and become steady, with a pleasurable glow. +For a moment she felt uneasy, as if she were being trapped by something +sweetfully insidious. Slowly, almost cautiously, she withdrew her arm +from his. He made no comment; it was doubtful if he really noticed her +recoil. + + * * * * * + +Long past its appointed time the hall light in the Robson flat continued +to burn dimly. Mrs. Robson, sleepless and a bit anxious, waited alertly +for the sound of Claire's key in the door. The welcome click came +finally, succeeded by the unmistakable slam of an automobile door and +the sharp, quick note of a machine speeding up. + +"She's come home in Stillman's car," flashed through Mrs. Robson's mind, +as she sat up in bed. At that moment Mrs. Finnegan's cuckoo clock, +sounding distinctly through the thin flooring, warbled twice with a +voice of friendly betrayal. "Mercy! it's two o'clock!" she muttered. "I +wonder if Mrs. Finnegan is awake?... I do hope she heard the +automobile!..." + +Seated at the foot of her mother's bed, Claire tried her best to give a +satisfactory report of the evening, but she found that she had +overlooked most of the details that her mother found interesting. Who +was there? What did Mrs. Condor wear? Did they have an elaborate +spread?--the questions rippled on in an endless flow. + +Under the acceleration of Claire's recital, Mrs. Robson found her +experiences at the church reception left far behind. Even with scant +details, Claire had managed to evolve a fascinating picture of a life +robbed sufficiently of puritanism to be properly piquant. There was a +tang of the swift, immoral, fascinating 'seventies in Claire's still +cautious reference to champagne and cigarettes. It was impossible for +any San Franciscan who had lived through those splendid madcap bonanza +days to deny the lure of gay wickedness. At least it was hard to keep +one's eyes on a prayer-book while the car of pleasure rattled by. And a +coffee-and-cake social was, after all, a rather tame experience in the +face of beverages more sparkling and eatables distinctly enticing.... Of +course, if Claire had been introduced to any of these questionable +delights by anybody short of a survivor of the Stillman clan, Mrs. +Robson might have had a misgiving. As it was, she was not above a +certain forewarning sense that made her say with an air of inconsequence +as Claire finished her recital: + +"Mrs. Towne tells me that there is a chance that Mr. Stillman's wife may +get well. She's in a private sanitarium, at Livermore, you know." She +stopped to draw up the bedclothes higher. "I do hope it's so!... But I'm +always skeptical about _crazy_ people ever amounting to anything again. +Seems to me they're better off dead." + + + +CHAPTER V + + +For Claire Robson, there followed after the memorable Condor-Stillman +musicale a period of slack-water. It seemed as if a deadly stagnation +was to poison her existence, so sharp and emphasized was her boredom. On +the other hand, Mrs. Robson seemed to have contrived, from years of +living among arid pleasures, the ability to conserve every happiness +that she chanced upon to its last drop. Claire's invitation to be one of +a distinguished group fed her vanity long after her daughter had outworn +the delights of retrospection. The memory of this incident filled Mrs. +Robson's thoughts, her dreams, her conversation. Gradually, as the days +dragged by, bit by bit, she gleaned detached details of what had +transpired, weaving them into a vivid whole, for the entertainment of +herself and the amazement of her neighbor, Mrs. Finnegan. + +Formerly Mrs. Finnegan's information regarding what went on in exclusive +circles was confined to society dramas on the screen and the Sunday +supplement. The personal note which Mrs. Robson brought to her recitals +was a new and pleasing experience. After listening to the authentic +gossip of Mrs. Robson, Mrs. Finnegan would return to her threshold with +a sense of having shared state secrets. On such occasions Mrs. Robson's +frankness had almost a challenge in it; she exaggerated many details and +concealed none. + +"Yes," she would repeat, emphatically, "they served cigarettes along +with the wine. They _always_ do." + +"Well, Mrs. Robson," Mrs. Finnegan inevitably returned, "far be it from +me to criticize what your daughter's friends do. But I don't approve of +women smoking." + +As a matter of fact, neither did Mrs. Robson, but she felt in duty bound +to resent Mrs. Finnegan's narrow attacks upon society. + +"Well, Mrs. Finnegan, that's only because you're not accustomed to it. +Now, if you had ever...." + +"Did Claire smoke?" + +"Why, of course _not_! How can you ask such a thing? I hope I've brought +my daughter up decently, Mrs. Finnegan." + +And with that, Mrs. Robson would deftly switch to a less exciting detail +of the Condor-Stillman musicale, before her neighbor had a chance to +pick flaws in her logic. But sooner or later the topic would again verge +on the controversial. Usually at the point where the scene shifted from +Ned Stillman's apartments to the Palace Hotel, Mrs. Finnegan's pug nose +was lifted with tentative disapproval, as she inquired: + +"How many did you say went down to the Palace?" + +"Only four--Mr. Stillman, Claire, Mrs. Condor, and a young fellow named +Edington." + +"I suppose _that_ Mrs. Condor was the chaperon. Finnegan knows her well! +She used to hire hacks when Finnegan was in the livery business years +ago. She's a gay one, I can tell you. When only the steam-dummy ran out +to the Cliff House...." + +"That's nothing. Everybody who was anybody had dinners at the Cliff +House in those days. I remember how my father...." + +"Yes, Mrs. Robson, maybe you do! But I'll bet _you_ never went to such a +place without your husband ... and ... with a _strange_ man." + +Mrs. Robson never had, and she would tell Mrs. Finnegan so decidedly. +This always had the effect of switching the subject again and Mrs. +Robson found her desire to know the real details of Mrs. Condor's +questionable gaieties offered up on the altar of class loyalty. For it +never occurred to Mrs. Robson to doubt that her social exile had nothing +to do with the inherent rights of her position. + +When everything else in the way of an irritating program failed to rouse +Mrs. Robson's dignified ire, her neighbor fell back upon the fact that +Stillman was a married man. Mrs. Finnegan really worshiped Mrs. Robson +to distraction, but she had a natural combative tendency that was at +odds with even her loyalty. + +"Mr. Stillman is a married man," Mrs. Finnegan would insist, doggedly. +"And I don't approve of married men taking an interest in young girls. +Who knows?--he may spoil your daughter's chances." + +This statement always had the effect of dividing Mrs. Robson against +herself. She resented Mrs. Finnegan's insinuations concerning Stillman, +because it was not in her nature to be anything but partizan, and at the +same time she was mollified by her neighbor's recognition of the fact +that Claire had such things as chances. She always managed cleverly at +this point by saying, patronizingly: + +"Why, how you talk, Mrs. Finnegan! Mr. Stillman is just like an old +friend. Not that we've known _him_ so long ... but the family, you know +... they're old-timers. Everybody knows the Stillmans! Really one +couldn't want a better friend." + +Thus did Mrs. Robson take meager and colorless realities and expand them +into things of blossoming promise. She was almost creative in the +artistry she brought to these transmutations. In the end she convinced +_herself_ of their existence and she was quite sure that Mrs. Finnegan +shared equally in the delights of her fancy. + +Meanwhile November passed, and the first weeks of December crowded the +old year to its death. November had been shrouded in clammy fogs, but no +rain had fallen, and everybody began to have the restless feeling +engendered by the usual summer drought in California prolonged beyond +its appointed season. The country and the people needed rain. Claire, +always responsive to the moods of wind and weather, longed for the +cleansing flood to descend and wash the dust-drab town colorful again. +She awoke one morning to the delicious thrill of the moisture-laden +southeast wind blowing into her room and the warning voice of her mother +at her bedroom door calling to her: + +"You'd better put on your thick shoes, Claire! We're in for a storm." + +She leaped out of bed joyously and hurried with her dressing. + +As she walked down to work the warm yet curiously refreshing wind flung +itself in a fine frenzy over the gray city. Dark-gray clouds were +closing in from the south, and in the east an ominous silver band of +light marked the sullen flight of the sun. People were scampering about +buoyantly, running for street-cars, chasing liberated hats, battling +with billowing skirts. It seemed as if the promise of rain had revived +laughter and motion to an extraordinary degree. At the office this +ecstasy of spirit persisted; even Miss Munch came in hair awry and +blowsy, her beady eyes almost laughing. + +Mr. Flint had not been to the office for two days. A sniffling cold had +kept him at home. Claire had rather looked for him to-day, and had +prepared herself for a flood of accumulated dictation. But the threat of +dampness evidently dissuaded him, for the noon hour came and went and +Mr. Flint did not put in an appearance. At about three o'clock in the +afternoon a long-distance call came on the telephone for Miss Robson. +Claire answered. Flint was on the other end of the wire. He wanted to +know if she could come at once over to Yolanda and take several pages of +dictation. His cold was uncertain and he might not get out for the rest +of the week. He realized that it was something of an imposition on her +good nature, but she would be doing him a great favor if.... She +interrupted him with her quick assent and he finished: + +"I'll have the car at the station, and of course you'll stay for +dinner." + +Claire hung up the receiver and looked at her watch. It was just half +after three. The next ferryboat connecting at Sausalito with the +electric train for Yolanda left at three-forty-five. She had no time to +lose; it was a good ten minutes' walk from the office to the ferry and +little to be gained by taking a street-car. She managed her preparations +for departure successfully, but in the end she had to ask Miss Munch to +telephone her mother. Miss Munch assented with an alarmingly sweet +smile. + +Claire walked briskly down California Street toward the ferry-building. +No rain had fallen, but the air was full of ominous promise. The wind +was even brisker than it had been in the morning, and its breath almost +tropically moist. + +"At sundown it will simply pour," thought Claire, as she exchanged fifty +cents for a ticket to Yolanda. + +She presented her ticket at the entrance to the waiting-room and passed +in. The passageway to the boat was already open; she went at once and +found a sheltered corner outside on the upper deck. A strong sea was +running and already the ferryboat was plunging and straining like a +restless bloodhound in leash. The air was full of screaming gulls and +the clipped whistling of restless bay craft. Claire was so intent on all +this elemental agitation that she took no notice of the people about +her, but as the boat slid lumberingly out of the slip she was recalled +by a voice close at hand saying: + +"Why, Miss Robson, who would think of seeing you here at this hour!" + +Claire turned and discovered Miss Munch's cousin sitting beside her, +intent on the inevitable tatting. + +"Oh, Mrs. Richards, how stupid of me! Have you been here long?" + +"About ten minutes. But I get so interested in my work I never have eyes +for anything else. How do you put in the time? A trip like this is so +tiresome!" + +Claire delved into her bag and brought out knitting-needles and an +unfinished sock. + +"I'm trying a hand at this," she admitted, holding her handiwork up +ruefully. "But I'm afraid I'm not very skilful." + +Mrs. Richards inspected the sock with critical disapproval. + +"Oh, well," she encouraged, "you'll learn ... practice makes perfect. +I've just finished a half-dozen pairs. I suppose I'm laying myself out +for a roast doing tatting in public _these_ war days! But it's restful +and I'm not one to pretend. As long as my conscience is clear I can +afford to be perfectly independent.... You don't make this trip every +night, do you?" + +"Oh my, no! I'm going over to Mr. Flint's to take some dictation. He's +home sick." + +"I saw Mrs. Flint and the children coming _off_ the boat just as I got +on." Mrs. Richards's voice took on a tone of casual directness. + +"You know Mrs. Flint?" + +"My dear girl, a trained nurse knows everybody--and everything about +them, too. You never get a real line on people until you live with +them. I've never nursed any of the Flint family, but I wouldn't have to +to get their reputation--or perhaps I should say, old Flint's." + +"_Old_ Flint's?" echoed Claire. + +"Well, of course he isn't so awfully old, but men like him always give +that impression. They're so awfully wise--about _some_ things. I _was_ +so relieved when Gertie didn't get that dreadful Miss Whitehead's +place. Being in the general office is bad enough, but in his _private_ +office...." Mrs. Richards lifted and dropped her tatting-filled hands +significantly. + +Claire felt the blood rush to her face. "I'm in the private office, Mrs. +Richards.... No doubt you forgot it." + +"Well now, you know I _had_ ... for the moment. But with a girl like you +it's different. Some women can handle men, but Gertie would be so +helpless!" + +The humor of Mrs. Richards's remark saved the situation for Claire. She +changed the subject deliberately. But somehow, with the conversation +forced from the particular to the general, Miss Munch's cousin lost +interest, and by the time the boat had passed Alcatraz Island Claire was +deep in her thoughts again and the other woman following the measured +flight of the tatting-shuttle with strained attention. + +The boat was romping through the stiff sea like a playful porpoise, +dipping and plunging. A half-score of adventuresome gulls were still +following in the foam-churned wake. In the face of all the pitching +about, Mrs. Richards had quite a battle to direct her shuttle to any +efficient purpose, and Claire was almost amused at the grim +determination she brought to the performance. + +Presently a warning whistle from the ferryboat betrayed the fact that +they were nearing Sausalito. Mrs. Richards began to gather up her +numerous bundles, and Claire and she made their way down the narrow +stairs to the lower deck. Their progress was slow and uncertain. The +southeaster was tearing across the open spaces and bending everything +before it; the lumbering boat dipped sideward in a stolid encounter with +its adversary. + +"Mercy! What a night!" gasped Mrs. Richards, clutching at Claire's arm. + +A gust of wind struck them with its force just as they reached the lower +deck. Mrs. Richards staggered and wrestled vainly with tatting-bag and +bundles and a refractory skirt. For the moment both women were stalled +in a desperate effort to retain their equilibrium. + +"Come!" gasped Claire. "Let's get over there in the shelter of that +automobile." + +They made the leeward side of the automobile in question, and while Mrs. +Richards began to recover her roughly handled dignity Claire turned her +attention to the car. It was a huge dark-red affair, evidently fresh +from the shop. Claire knew none of the fine points of automobiles, but +this one had unmistakable evidences of distinction. She was peering in +at its opulent depths when who should surprise her but Ned Stillman. + +"My dear Miss Robson!" he cried, in a tone of delight, as he faced her +from the opposite side of the car. "What do you think of it?" + +"Yours?" she queried. + +"Just out of the shop to-day. I couldn't wait until it cleared. I just +had to get out with it. And this kind of weather always puts me up on my +toes. Where are you going--to Ross? If you are, don't bother with the +train. Come along with me." + +He circled about the machine and came up to her with a frank, +outstretched hand. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" he murmured as Mrs. Richards +came into view. + +Claire began an introduction, but Mrs. Richards cut in with her odd, +challenging way. + +"Oh, _I_ know Mr. Stillman! But I guess he's forgotten _me_. It's been +some years, of course. At Mr. Faville's--your _wife's_ father's house." + +Stillman paled for the briefest of moments, but he recovered himself +cleverly. "Mrs. Richards--of course! How do you do? It _has_ been some +years." + +"I'm going to Mr. Flint's--at Yolanda," said Claire, "to take some +dictation. He's been ill, you know." + +"Ill? No, I hadn't heard it. Nothing serious, I hope." + +"Not serious enough to keep Mrs. Flint at home, anyway," volunteered +Mrs. Richards, in her characteristically disagreeable way. + +"Mrs. Richards saw Mrs. Flint and the children coming off the boat...." + +"As I got on," interrupted the lady again. + +"Oh, indeed, is that so?" Claire fancied that Stillman's tone held +something more than polite acceptance of what he had just heard. "I can +take you ladies to Yolanda if you'd like a spin in the open better than +a stuffy ride in the train." + +"Thank you," Mrs. Richards returned, "but I get off at Sausalito. I've +no doubt Miss Robson will be delighted." + +"I think I'd better not," said Claire. "Mr. Flint is sending his car to +the train for me. I shouldn't want to change my program and cause +confusion. But I'd like nothing better! The air is so bracing!" + +"You can excuse _me_!" put in Mrs. Richards, moving toward the forward +deck. "It's going to pour in less than ten minutes. I'm not one of those +amphibious creatures who like to get wringing wet just for the fun of +it!" + +Stillman lifted his hat. Claire stood for a moment undecided whether to +follow Mrs. Richards or remain for a chat with Stillman. + +"I'm an awful fool, I suppose," Stillman smiled at Claire, "bringing the +car out on a night like this. But the truth is Edington promised to +catch this boat and I wanted him to try out the new plaything. I might +have known he wouldn't make it. We're running over for dinner with +Edington's sister." + +At this moment the boat crashed clumsily against the Sausalito +ferry-slip, and in the sudden confusion of landing Claire was swept +along without further ado. + +She looked back. Stillman waved a genial good-by to her. She felt glad +that he was behind her, in a vague, impersonal, thoroughly inexplainable +way. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Claire was disappointed that Mrs. Flint was not to be at home. She had +caught glimpses of her now and then coming into the office and she was +interested in the hope of seeing her at closer range. Mrs. Flint was a +rather frumpish individual, who always gave the impression of pieced-out +dressmaking. + +"She must subscribe to the _Ladies' Home Journal_," Nellie Whitehead had +commented one day. "You know that 'go-up-into-the-garret-and-get-five- +yards-of-grandmother's-wedding-gown' column. Well, she's a walking ad +for it. She's no raving beauty, but if she would throw out her chest and +chuck those flat-heeled clogs of hers, and put a marcel wave in her +hair, maybe the old man would sit up and take notice." + +To which Miss Munch had replied: + +"Well, she's a mighty sweet woman, anyway!" in a tone calculated to +freeze the irrepressible Nellie Whitehead into silence. + +"Who says she isn't? And at that, a good tailor-made suit and a +decent-looking hat won't spoil her disposition any...." + +The children, too, were what Nellie Whitehead had termed "perfect guys." +On warm days Mrs. Flint would drag these two daughters of hers into the +office, dressed in plaid suits and velveteen hats; and when a cold north +wind blew it seemed inevitable that they would appear in gay and airy +costumes up to their knees, with impossible straw bonnets trimmed with +daisies and faded cornflowers, reminiscent of the white-leghorn-hat era. + +"Men don't marry women for their clothes," Miss Munch used to say, +challengingly, to Nellie. + +"Oh, don't they, indeed! Well, I've lived longer than sixteen and a half +years and I've noticed that it's the up-to-the-minute dame that gets +away with it and holds onto it every time, just the same. And any woman +silly enough to work the rag-bag game when her husband can afford seven +yards of taffeta and a Butterick pattern is a fool!" + +Claire knew women who looked dowdy on dress-parade and yet managed to be +quite charming in their own houses. She was wondering whether this might +not be Mrs. Flint's case; anyway, she had hoped for a chance to decide +this point, and now Mrs. Flint was not at home. + +As she settled into her matting-covered seat in the train she began to +wonder just who _would_ be home at the Flint establishment. And she +thought suddenly of the disagreeable emphasis that Mrs. Richards had +seen fit to give the fact that Mrs. Flint was bound cityward. At this +stage she became lost in discovering so many points of contact between +Mrs. Richards and her cousin, Miss Munch. Then the train started with a +quick lurch, and a view of the rapidly darkening landscape claimed her +utterly. + +Claire always took a childish delight in watching the panorama of the +countryside unroll swiftly before the space-conquering flight of a +train. And to-night the quick close of the December day warned her to +make the most of her opportunity. The wind was whipping the upper +reaches of the bay into a shallow fury, and the water in turn was +beating against the slimy mud and swallowing it up in gray, futile +anger. This part of the ride just out of Sausalito was always more or +less depressing unless a combination of full tide and vivid sunshine +gave its muddy stretches the enlivening grace of sky-blue reflections. +Worm-eaten and tottering piles, abandoned hulks, half-swamped skiffs, +all the water-logged dissolution of stagnant shore lines the world over, +flashed by, to be succeeded by the fresher green of channel-cut marshes. +The hills were wind-swept, huddling their scant oak covering into the +protecting folds of shallow canons. At intervals, clumps of +eucalyptus-trees banded together or drew out in long, thin, soldier-like +lines. + +Presently it began to rain. There was no preliminary patter, but the +storm broke suddenly, hurling great gray drops of moisture against the +windows. Claire withdrew from any further attempt to watch the whirling +landscape. It was now quite dark, the short December day dying even more +suddenly under a black pall of lowering clouds. + +She began to have distinctly uncomfortable thoughts about her visit to +the Flints'. But the more uncomfortable her thoughts became, the more +reason she brought to bear for conquering them. Surely one was not to be +persuaded into a panic by any such person as Mrs. Richards! And by the +time the brakeman announced the train's approach to Yolanda, Claire had +recovered her common sense. What of it if Mrs. Flint had gone to town? +There must be other women in the household--at least a maid. It was +absurd! The train stopped and Claire got off. + +Flint's car was waiting, and Jerry Donovan, the chauffeur, stood with a +dripping umbrella almost at Claire's elbow as she hopped upon the +platform. + +As they swished through the inky blackness, Claire said to Jerry, with +as inconsequential an air as she could muster: + +"I thought I saw Mrs. Flint get off the boat in town. But I guess I was +mistaken. She wouldn't be leaving Mr. Flint alone ... when he's ill." + +"Ill?" Jerry chuckled. "Well, he ain't dead by a long shot. Just a case +of sniffles, and a good excuse for hitting the booze. He's in prime +condition, I can tell you." + +Claire had never seen Flint in "prime condition," but she had it from +Nellie Whitehead that there were moments when the gentleman in question +could "go some," to use her predecessor's precise terms. + +"About twice a year," Nellie had once confided to Claire, "the old boy +starts in to cure a cold. I helped him cure one ... but _never_ again!" + +Jerry's observations aroused fresh anxiety, but they did not settle the +issue for Claire. She felt that she could not turn back at the eleventh +hour. There was nothing else for her to do but go through with the game. +Yet she still hoped for the best. + +"_Did_ Mrs. Flint go to town to-day?" she finally asked, point-blank. + +"Sure thing," said Jerry, swinging the car past the Flint gateway. + +Claire refused to be totally lacking in faith. + +"There must be a maid," flashed through her mind, as Jerry stopped the +car and swung down to help her out. + +A Japanese boy threw open the door as they scrambled up the rain-soaked +steps. But the fine, orderly, Colonial interior reassured Claire. The +few country homes she had seen had been of the rambling, unrelated +bungalow type, with paneled redwood walls either stained to a dismal +brown or quite frankly left to their rather characterless pink. This +home was different. Even the pungent oak logs crackling in the fireplace +did so with indefinable distinction. The general tone of the +surroundings was as little in keeping with the patchwork personality of +its mistress as one could imagine. It was as if the singular +completeness of Mrs. Flint's home left no time nor energy for a finished +individuality. Claire got all this in the briefest of flashes, just a +swift, inclusive glance about the entrance hall and through the doorways +leading into the rooms beyond. Particularly did she sense the severe +opulence of the dining-room, twinkling at a remoter distance than the +living-room--its perfectly polished silver, its spotless linen, its +wonderfully blue china, not to mention the disconcerting fact that the +table in the center was laid for but two. + +And then Flint himself came forward with a very red face and an absurdly +cordial greeting. + +"Well, I began to wonder whether you'd risk it. This will be a storm and +no mistake.... Here, let me have your coat. Come, you're quite wet.... +Shall you warm up on a hot toddy or something cooler--a cocktail?" + +She felt his hand sliding down her arm as she released the coat to his +too-eager fingers. "Oh no, Mr. Flint! Thank you, nothing. It's only a +bit of rain on the surface. I'm quite dry." + +"Quite dry!" He echoed her words with a guffaw. "Well, then, we'll have +to moisten you up. I always say everything's a good excuse for a drink. +If you're cold you take a drink to warm up; if you're warm you take one +to cool off. You dry out on one, and you wet up on one. I don't know of +any habit with so many good reasons back of it. I'm dry, too.... We'll +have a Bronx! That's a nice, ladylike drink." + +Claire weighed her reply. She did not want to strike the wrong note; she +wanted to let him have a feeling that she was accepting everything in a +normal, matter-of-fact way, as if she saw nothing extraordinary in the +situation. + +"You're very kind, but really you know ... if I'm to get my dictation +straight...." + +"Well, perhaps there won't be any dictation. We're not slaves, you and +I. Maybe it will be much pleasanter to sit before the fire and listen to +the storm. What do you say to that?" + +She turned from him deliberately, under the fiction of fluffing up her +hair before a gilt mirror near the door. She was thinking quickly and +with a tremendous, if concealed, agitation. "Why," she laughed back, +finally, "that _would_ be pleasant. But I came to take dictation, Mr. +Flint. And women ... women, you know, are so funny! If they make up +their minds to one thing, they can't switch suddenly to another idea." + +He was paying no attention to her remark, a remark which she felt would +have fallen flat in any event, since it was so palpably studied. + +"The living-room is in there," he said, pointing. "Make yourself at +home." + +She went in and sat before the fire. Flint disappeared. She tried hard +to analyze the situation. It was unthinkable that Mr. Flint had +deliberately planned this piece of foolishness. He must have had some +idea of work when he had telephoned her; perhaps he still had. It was +his way of being facetious, she argued, this fine pretense that it was +all to be a pleasant lark, or it may have been his idea of hospitality. +Of course he had been drinking, but she took comfort in the thought that +there must be instinctive standards in a man like Flint that even whisky +could not swamp. At least he must respect his wife--surely it was not +possible for Flint, drunk or sober, to offer such an affront to _her_, +however little he respected the women in his employ. She dismissed Mrs. +Richards's exaggerated insinuations with their well-deserved contempt, +but she could not thrust aside quite so readily the eye-lifting tone +with which Stillman had met the announcement of Mrs. Flint's absence +from home. + +This was the first time that Claire had seen Stillman since the +musicale. She had thought a great deal about him and particularly about +his problem. She felt a great desire to know everything--all the details +of the unfortunate circumstance that had driven his wife into a +madhouse, and yet whenever her mother broached the subject Claire +changed the topic with curious panic. She seemed to dread the hard, +almost triumphant manner that her mother assumed in tracking misfortune +to its lair and gloating over it. She began to wonder whether Stillman +would be swinging back to the city on a late boat ... or would the storm +keep him at Edington's sister's home all night? + +She was in the midst of this speculation when Flint came into the room. + +"We'll eat early and have that off our minds," he announced. His manner +was brusk and business-like again. Claire felt reassured. + +But she was disturbed to find a cocktail at her place at the table. + +"Well, here's glad to see you!" Flint raised his glass and tilted it +ever so slightly in her direction. Claire lifted the cocktail to her +lips and set it down untasted. "What's the matter? Getting unsociable +again?" + +"No, Mr. Flint. I don't care for cocktails." + +"Oh, all right! We'll send down-cellar and get some wine." + +"Thank you, not for me." + +"I suppose you don't care for wine, either?" His voice had a bantering +quality, with a shade of menace in it. "Or maybe the right party isn't +here. I've noticed that makes a difference. Females are damned moral +with the wrong fellow." + +His attack was so direct and insolent that Claire missed the trepidation +that might have come with a more covert move. She was no longer +uncertain. There was a sharp relief in realizing that all the cards were +on the table. She felt also that there was no immediate danger. Flint +was far from sober, but he was in his own home. She had the conviction +that he was merely skirmishing, testing the strength or weakness of the +line he hoped to penetrate. Her reply was rather more of a challenge +than she could have imagined herself giving under such a circumstance. + +"And if I were to tell you that I don't care for wine, Mr. Flint?" + +He threw open his napkin with a flourish. "You'd be telling me a damned +lie! You drink wine at the Palace with Stillman and Edington." + +She had felt that he was going to say some such thing and for a moment +it amused her. It was so ridiculous to find this rather wan and wistful +indiscretion assuming damaging proportions. But a nasty fear succeeded +her faint amusement. Could it be possible that Stillman had gossiped? + +"Who told you?" she demanded. + +"Oh, don't be afraid; it wasn't Stillman! You're like all women, you +moon about sentimentalizing over Ned until it makes a man like me sick! +I like Ned; I always have. But even when we went to college together it +was the same way. Everybody ... yes, even the men ... always gave him +credit for a high moral tone. Not that he ever took it.... I'll say that +for him.... Ned Stillman didn't tell me, for the simple reason that he +didn't have to. Nobody told me. I go to the Palace myself under +pressure, and I've got two eyes. As a matter of fact, there isn't any +reason why Edington or Stillman or the waiter who drew the corks +shouldn't have mentioned it. A glass of wine is no crime. But the thing +that makes me hot is to see any one pretending. If you drink with +Stillman, you haven't any license to refuse a glass with me." + +There was something more than wine-heated rancor back of his harangue. +Claire guessed instinctively that he both loved and hated Stillman with +a curious confusion of impulses. It was a feeling of affection torn by +the irritating superiority of its object. One gets the same thing in +families ... among children. It was at once subtle and extremely +primitive. + +"My dear Mr. Flint, this isn't quite the same thing. I've work to do for +one thing and, and...." + +"And ... and.... Why don't you say it? You're alone with me and all that +sort of rubbish! Want a chaperon, I suppose. Mrs. Condor, for +instance.... Good Lord!" + +Claire dipped her spoon into the steaming bouillon-cup in front of her. +She was growing quite calm under the directness of Flint's attack. + +"It isn't the same," she reiterated, stubbornly. "I've work to do, Mr. +Flint." + +"I tell you that you haven't!" Flint brought his fist down upon the +table. + +"Well, then, why did you send for me?" + +"I had something to say to you.... Gad! one can't talk in that ramping +office of mine. We've never even settled the matter of an increase in +salary for you. By the way, how much money do you get?" + +Claire had never seen any man look so crafty and disagreeable. He gave +her the impression of a petty tyrant about to bestow largess upon an +obsequious and fawning slave. + +"Sixty-five dollars a month." + +"Well, I don't exactly know.... I've been trying to figure out just how +valuable you are to me, Miss Robson. Or, rather, how valuable you're +likely to be." He thrust aside his soup and leaned heavily upon the +table. "That's why I invited you over to-night. I wanted to see you at a +little closer range. You live with your mother, don't you?" + +"Yes, Mr. Flint." + +"You ... you support your mother, I believe?" + +"Yes, Mr. Flint." + +"Well, sixty-five dollars don't leave much margin for hair ribbons and +the like, does it, now?" + +"No, Mr. Flint." + +"No, Mr. Flint.... Yes, Mr. Flint...." he mocked. "Good Lord! can't you +cut that school-girl-to-her-dignified-guardian attitude. I'm human. +Dammit all, I'm as human as your friend Ned Stillman. I'll bet you don't +yes-sir and no-sir him.... You know, that night I saw you at the Palace +you quite bowled me over. I'd been thinking of you as a shy, +unsophisticated young thing. But you were hitting the high places like a +veteran. Even old lady Condor didn't have anything on you. Except, of +course, that she looks the part. By the way, where did you meet +Stillman?" + +"At ... at a church social," Claire stammered. + +"At a church social! Say, I wasn't born yesterday. Ned Stillman doesn't +go to church. Tell me something easy." + +"It was really a Red Cross concert. He went with Mrs. Condor," Claire +found herself explaining in spite of her anger. "We sat at the same +table when the ice-cream was served." + +Flint was roaring with exaggerated laughter. Even Claire could not +restrain a smile. What made the statement so ridiculous, she found +herself wondering. Was she unconsciously reflecting Flint's attitude or +had she herself changed so tremendously in the last few weeks? + +"Stillman at a church social! But that _is_ good! And eating +ice-cream.... How long ago did all this happen, pray?" + +"Sometime in November." + +He stopped his senseless guffawing and looked at her keenly. "Where did +you get the church-social habit?" + +"I ... why, I guess I formed it early, Mr. Flint. As you say, sixty-five +dollars a month doesn't leave much for hair ribbons or anything else. +Going to church socials is about the cheapest form of recreation I can +think of." + +The bitterness of her tone seemed to pull Flint up with a round turn. +"Well, we're going to get you out of this silly church-social habit. +Dammit all, Stillman isn't the only possibility in sight. That's just +what I wanted to get at--your viewpoint. I take an interest in you, Miss +Robson--a tremendous interest. Good Lord! I can dance one-steps and +fox-trots and hesitations as well as anybody! I danced every bit as +well as Ned Stillman when we went to dancing-school together. But he +always got most of the applause. He _has_ an air, I don't deny that, but +he's working it overtime.... And he's not in any better position for +being friendly to you than I am--_he's_ married." + +The talk was sobering him a little. Claire was amazed to find that she +did not feel indignant. His tone was offensive, but at least it was +forthright. Besides, she had known instinctively that some day he would +force the issue, and she was rather glad to get it settled. And she +began to hope that she could persuade him skilfully against his warped +convictions. She was trembling inwardly, too, at the thought that she +might make a false step and find herself out of a position. Positions +were not easy to land these days. She knew a half-score of girls who had +tramped the town over in a desperate effort to find a vacancy. Two or +three months without salary meant debts piling up, clothes in ribbons, +and no end of hectic worries. + +"I think you've got a decidedly wrong impression of my friendship for +Mr. Stillman," she said, after some deliberation. "I really know him +only slightly. He was good enough, or rather I should say Mrs. Condor +was good enough, to include me in a little musical evening. That was on +the night you saw me at the Palace. We dropped down for a dance or two +after the music was over. I'd never been to such a place before, and I +dare say I'll never go again. It was just one of those experiences that +come to a person out of a clear sky. It's over as quickly as a shower." + +"Oh, don't you worry! There'll be other showers. I'm going to see to +that. You know, the more I talk to you the more amazing you are.... +Fancy your graduating from dinky church things into Stillman musicales, +and Palace dansants, and young Edington, and old lady Condor, all of a +sudden ... and getting away with it as if you were an old hand at the +game. Say, if you're that apt I'll give you a post-graduate course in +high life that'll make your hair curl forty-seven ways. I don't mean +anything vulgar or common ... _you_ understand. I'm a gentleman, Miss +Robson, at that." + +He stopped for a moment to ring the bell for the Japanese boy. Claire +maintained a discreet silence. She had a feeling that it would be just +as well to let him take his full rein. The servant came in and cleared +away the empty bouillon-cups. Fish was served. + +Flint took one taste of the fish and shoved it away impatiently. "You +know, a fellow like me gets awfully bored at all this sort of thing." He +swept the room with an inclusive gesture. "Not that my wife isn't the +best little woman in the world, but _you_ know. She's got standards and +convictions and all that sort of rot. I can't bundle _her_ off for +dinner and a little lark at the Red Paint or Bonini's or some other +Bohemian joint like them.... You know what I mean, no rough stuff ... +but a good feed, and two kinds of wine, and a cigarette with the small +black. Just gay and frivolous.... Of course I can get any number of +girls to run around and help eat up all the nourishment I care to +provide. But, good Lord! that isn't it! I'm looking for somebody with +human intelligence. Not that I want to discuss free verse and the Little +Theater movement. But I like to feel that if I took such a crazy notion +the person sitting opposite me could qualify for a good comeback.... I +like my home and everything, but.... Oh, well, what's the use in +pretending? I'm just as human as your friend Ned Stillman and I've got +just as keen an eye for class." + +He sat back in his seat with an air of satisfaction, waiting for +Claire's reply. She had been calm enough while he talked, but under the +tenseness of his silent expectancy she felt her heart bound. + +"Dammit all! Why don't you say something?" he blurted out. "I know, you +need a little wine. I'm going down-stairs and pick out the best in the +cellar ... _myself_." + +She did not attempt to dissuade him; as a matter of fact, she felt +relieved to be left alone for a moment. She must leave as soon as dinner +was over. She began to wonder about the trains. The storm was raging +outside. She could hear the frenzied trees flinging their branches about +and a noisy flood of rain against the windows. She spoke to the Japanese +boy as he was carrying away Flint's unfinished fish course. + +"Do you know what time the next train leaves?" + +He laid the tray on the serving-table. "Please.... I telephone. Please!" +He bobbed at her absurdly and went out into the hall. She listened. He +was ringing up the station-master. He came back promptly. + +"Please," he began, sucking in his breath, "please ... no train +to-night." + +"No train to-night? Why, what do you mean?" + +"Please ... very much water. Train track washed out. No train to-night. +To-morrow morning, maybe." + +"Oh, but I must go home to-night! I really must! I...." + +She broke off suddenly, realizing the futility of her protest. + +"To-morrow morning," replied the Japanese, blandly. "All right to-morrow +morning. You stay here.... I fix a place. You see.... I fix a very nice +place for young lady." + +He went out with the tray and Claire rose and walked to the window. +Flint broke into the room noisily. She turned--he had two dusty bottles +in his hand, and an air of triumph. + +"Mr. Flint, it seems that there has been a washout. I understand that no +trains are running. What can I do? I must get back; really I...." + +"Who says so?" Flint laid the bottles down with an irritating calmness. + +"The station-master. Your ... your servant just telephoned for me." + +"Oh, well, _we_ should worry! Sit down." + +"Mr. Flint, really, I must.... You know I can't.... I...." + +"Sit _down_!" + +His tone was a dash of cold water thrown in the face of her rising +hysteria. She sat down. Flint ignored the bottles on the table and, +crossing over to the Sheraton sideboard, poured himself a stiff drink +of whisky. His hair-towsled condition stood out sharply against the +precise background. + +He made no further comment, but he began to open the bottles of wine +deliberately. Then he rummaged in the china-closet for the wine-glasses +and set four, two at his place and two at Claire's, upon the table. + +"White wine with the entree and red wine with the roast," he muttered. +And he poured out the white wine without further ado. + +The servant came in with creamed sweetbreads. Claire forced herself to +make a pretense of eating, although her appetite had long since deserted +her. She was thinking, and thinking hard. + +She should never have come, in the first place--at least she should have +turned back upon the strength of Jerry's announcement. But she saw now, +with a clearness that surprised her, that the situation had really +challenged her imagination. She had been too calm, too collected, too +well-poised, full of smug over-confidence. She had read in the current +novels of the day how hysterically unsophisticated heroines conducted +themselves in tight corners and she had followed their writhings with +ill-concealed impatience. She never had really put herself in their +place, but she had had a vague notion that they carried on absurdly. Her +fear all evening had been not what Mr. Flint would do or say or even +suggest--she had been anxious merely to have the impending storm over, +the air cleared, and her position in the office assured upon a purely +business-like basis. She had really welcomed the forced issue; for weeks +her mind had been entertaining and dismissing the idea that Mr. Flint +had any questionable motives in yielding Nellie Whitehead's place to +her. With this fleeting trepidation had come the realization of her +dependence, the importance her sixty-five dollars a month in the scheme +of things, the compromises that she might be forced into accepting in +order to insure its continuance; not definite and soul-searing +compromises, it was true, but petty, irritating trucklings which wear +down self-esteem. + +It had been the primitive violence of Flint's commanding, "Sit down!" to +thrust the issue from the economic to the elemental. For the first time +in her life Claire was face to face with unstripped masculine brutality. +She had wondered why women of a lower order took men's blows without +striking back, without at least escaping from further torment. But she +was beginning to see, as her spirits tried to rise reeling from Flint's +verbal assault, the fawning submission, half admiration, half fear, that +could follow a frank, hard-fisted blow. And she had a terror, sitting +there trying to thrust food between her trembling lips, that the sheer +physical force of the male opposite her might shatter in one blow a will +that could have withstood any amount of spiritual or material attrition. +She had never seen Flint so clearly as at this moment; in fact, she had +never seen him _at all_. Formerly, he had been a conventionalized +masculine biped in a blue-serge covering who paid her salary and struck +attitudes that were symbols of predatory instincts rather than an +indication that such instincts existed. Life had, after all, been +peopled by the precisely labeled puppets of a morality play; they came +on, and declaimed, and made gestures--but they remained abstractions, +things apart from life, mere representations of the vices and virtues +they impersonated. She had entertained this idea particularly with +regard to Flint. She had felt that the day would come when he and she +would occupy the stage together. He would speak his part with a great +flourish of the hands and much high-sounding emphasis, and when he had +finished she would reply with a carefully worded retort, setting forth +the claims and rewards of virtue. Thus it would continue, argument +succeeding argument, a declamatory give and take, dignified, +passionless, theatrical. + +They were occupying the stage now, it was true, but there was something +warm and human and ragged about the performance. Flint was not a mere +spiritless allegory in red-satin doublet and hose to give flame to his +conventionality. Instead, she saw sitting opposite her a ponderous, +quick-breathing, drunken male, handsome in a coarse, rough-hewn way, +speaking in the quick, clipped speech of passion and striking her to the +ground with the energy of his stage business. She was afraid, almost for +the first time in her life, with a primitive, abandoned fear. And +suddenly her vista of womanhood narrowed to include the ugly foreground +of life that youth had looked over in its eager, far-flung scanning of +the horizon beyond. Suddenly she felt all the oppression and sorrow of +the sex bear down upon her and mark her with its relentless finger. +Because she was a woman she would pay for every joy with a corresponding +sorrow; receive a blow for every caress; know courage and fear with +equal intimacy.... She stopped eating and she began to realize with a +vivid terror that Flint was looking at her fixedly and beginning to +speak. + +"What's the matter with the sweetbreads? Don't you like 'em?... And the +wine?... Say, I'm going to get peeved in a minute. You don't suppose we +serve this French-restaurant style of meal every day do you? I should +say _not_! That's another one of the _frau's_ convictions. Plain living +at home so as to set the right example to the _girls_!" Flint threw his +head from side to side, mincing out his last statement. "Gad! I'm tired +of setting a good example!... And even Sing gets tired. Chinks, you +know, like to cook a bang-up meal once in a while. They like a chance to +show their speed and put in all the fancy trimmings." + +His mood, during this speech, had changed with drunken facility from +irritability to good humor. Claire, still attempting to marshal her +wits, picked up her fork again and murmured: + +"Oh, you have a Chinese cook, then? I had no idea.... The Japanese boy, +you know. They say that the two never get along." + +"That's a fairy-tale. Besides, it's next to impossible, these days, to +get a Chinese second-boy. And the missus _won't_ hire a girl." He winked +broadly. "Can't get one ugly enough, I guess. Sing's a wonder. I copped +him from the Tom Forsythes. _You_ know--young Edington's in-laws. +They've never quite forgiven me. Though they _will_ come back and tuck +away one of his dinners occasionally." + +Claire's mind closed nimbly over Flint's statement. "The--the Tom +Forsythes of Ross?" she asked. + +He nodded and tossed a glass of wine off in one gulp. The Tom Forsythes +of Ross ... Edington's sister ... Ned Stillman! The sequence of ideas +flashed through Claire's mind with flashing detachment. She leaned back +in her seat and raised the wine-glass in obvious pretense to her lips. +Flint was watching her keenly: an ugly gleam was in his eyes. + +"Well, Miss Robson, you might just as well make up your mind to finish +that glass of wine first as last. We're not going to have the next +course until you do." + +She measured him deliberately. She knew now that it was to be a fight to +a finish. She was honestly afraid and full of the courage of +realization. + +"I've had enough as it is, Mr. Flint. Besides, we must either be getting +to work or figuring how I am to make the boat at Sausalito. I suppose +you could send me in the car ... with Jerry." + +"Oh, with Jerry? So that's it!... No, not on your life! He's too +good-looking a boy for a job like that. No, Miss Robson, you are going +to stay _right_ here.... Now, understand me, I'm not a damn fool! You +seem to have an idea that because I've had a glass or two that I've lost +my reason. You're an attractive girl and all that, Miss Robson, and I am +interested in you! But please don't flatter yourself that I'm staking +everything on a throw like this. As a matter of fact, I'll see that you +are properly chaperoned. We've plenty of neighbors. You've got the best +excuse in the world for staying here and...." + +"But, my dear Mr. Flint, can't you see, I...." + +"No, I can't. I want you to stay _here_. My reasons are as good as +yours. Now let's get that off our mind and enjoy the meal." + +His manner struck her protests to the ground again. She was no longer +fearing the immediate outcome, in fact, she never had, but she knew that +if he broke her to his will now, all the safeguards, all the chaperons, +all the conventions in the world wouldn't save her from ultimate +consequences. This was the try-out that was to establish her pace in the +final contest; she would stand or fall upon the record she made at this +moment. For she was trying out something more than Flint's temper, +something greater than a mechanical adjustment of human +relationships--she was trying out _herself_. She sat for some moments, +thinking hard, one hand fingering the slender base of the wine-filled +glass in front of her, the other dropped in pensive limpness at her +side. Flint had cleared the space in front of him of everything but his +two wine-glasses. He had slipped down in his seat and his two bloodshot +eyes were fixing her with a level stare. + +She stirred finally and rose. + +He was on his feet in an instant. + +"I'm going to telephone," she said, calmly. + +"Telephone ... where?... What's the idea?" + +"Mr. Flint," she answered, a bit wearily, "at least I'm a guest in your +house, am I not?" + +He settled back in his seat with a grunt of acquiescence. She stood +dazed for a moment, surprised at the chance that had put such telling +words into her mouth. She had been fingering timidly for the key to his +chivalry; quite by accident she had hit upon it in the shape of this +appeal to her expectations of him in the role of host. She could have +lied, of course, and told him that she wished to telephone her mother, +but she had not yet been cornered sufficiently to resort to so +distasteful a weapon.... As she left the room she found herself +wondering whether Stillman had by any chance left the Tom Forsythes. She +looked at the clock. It was not quite eight o'clock. She felt reassured, +yet she was tremendously frightened.... Especially as she realized that +the telephone was in the entrance hall within earshot of the +dining-room.... + +She was decidedly more frightened when she got back from her +telephoning, and looked at Flint. He was clutching at the table with +both hands, his body tilted slightly forward, his lips ominously thin. + +"You telephoned to the Tom Forsythes, didn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"And you asked for Stillman.... Did you get him?" + +"Yes." + +"What did you want with him?" + +"If you heard that much, I guess you heard the rest, Mr. Flint." + +Claire stood at her place at the table. She decided not to sit. Flint +bore down on both hands until things began to creak. + +"Yes, I heard everything, but, dammit all, I couldn't believe my own +ears. You're like every woman I ever knew ... you don't play fair. You +appeal to my instinct as host and then you go and outrage every +privilege you've got me to concede. You're a pretty guest, you are! And +I sit here and let you 'play me for a fool.' Let you ring up Ned +Stillman and ask him to fetch you away from _my_ house in _his_ car!" He +stopped and took a deep breath; his words were no longer passionate; +instead, they were precise and cool and venomous. "Understand me, young +lady, I'm through with you. I wouldn't care, if I thought you were +really virtuous. But you're too clever for a virtuous woman.... Oh, I +dare say you subscribe to the letter of the law, all right. For +instance, you take care not to run around with married men whose +incumbrances are in plain view of the audience.... Oh, I've seen lots of +clever women in my time, but in the end they always took too much rope. +Remember, you'll have your bluff called some day." + +He pushed back his chair noisily and rose. The Japanese servant came +bobbing along. + +"Clear away the things!" Flint bellowed. "We're through!... Good night, +Miss Robson, and a pleasant journey to you--you and your _immaculate_ +friend Stillman." + +He left the room with a melodramatic flourish.... Presently Claire heard +him mounting the stairs. + +"He's drunk!" flashed through her mind, as if the idea had just struck +her. "Of course, he must be drunk, otherwise he wouldn't have dared +to...." + +She went out into the entrance hall and put on her hat. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Midway between Yolanda and Sausalito Stillman's machine died with +disconcerting suddenness The rain was coming down in sheets. Stillman +got out. + +"It's no use," he announced, lifting himself back into his seat. "I +can't do anything in this deluge." + +This was the first word that had been said since he and Claire had left +Flint's. + +"The worst will be over in a few moments," replied Claire, easily. But +she was far from reassured. + +The deluge was _not_ over in a few moments. It kept up with an +ever-increasing violence, until it seemed that even the stalled car +would be compelled to yield to its force. Claire had never seen it rain +harder; the storm had a vindictive fury that reminded her of the +dreadful tempest in "King Lear." + +Stillman maintained his usual well-bred calm and smoked cigarettes while +he chattered. He touched on every conceivable subject but the one +uppermost in Claire's mind, until she began to wonder whether delicacy +or contempt veiled his conversation. A half-hour passed ... an hour ... +two. Still the rain swept from the sullen sky. Twice Stillman made a +futile attempt to remedy the trouble with his engine, and twice he +retired defeated to the shelter of the car. Claire was relieved that +she was in the company of a man who did not emphasize the monotonous +hours by indiscriminate raillery against the tricks of chance. At first +he dismissed the situation with the most casual of shrugs; later he +acknowledged his annoyance by an expression of regret at his companion's +discomfort, but he stopped there. + +As the hours went on, with no abatement of the storm's devastating +energy, Claire grew less and less pleased at the prospect. She began to +wonder whether the shelter of Flint's roof had not been, after all, the +discreet thing. Was not her headlong flight in company with Stillman +more open to criticism than the frank acceptance of her employer's +hospitality? But these vagrant questions were the spawn of a colorless +spirit of social expediency which fastens itself on weak natures, and in +Claire's case they died still-born. She had been too well schooled in +loneliness to lean heavily on the crooked stick of public opinion. +Accustomed to standing alone, she had something of the spiritual +arrogance that goes with independence. People could think what they +liked. And it was more a realization of her mother's anxiety than any +thought of self which made her suggest to Stillman that they might get +out and walk into Sausalito. + +"I think the last boat leaves there at twelve-thirty," she finished. +"Surely we could make it if we keep going." + +Stillman thrust his arm out into the drenching rain, and withdrew it +instantly. "I'm afraid that's out of the question, so long as the rain +keeps up, Miss Robson," he said, in a tone of implied objection. +"Perhaps if it should stop...." + +Claire settled back in her seat. Stillman was right. The storm was too +furious to be lightly braved. + +It was eleven o'clock before a quick veering of the wind brought a +downpour so violent that what had gone before seemed little better than +a rather weak rehearsal. + +"It will clear presently," Stillman assured Claire. "Southeaster always +break up in a flurry like this from the west." + +In ten minutes the stars were peeping brilliantly through rents in the +torn clouds. Pungent odors floated up from the rain-trampled stubble of +the hillsides, the air was cleared of its stifling oppressiveness, the +first storm of the season was over. + +Both Claire and Stillman clambered out at the first signs of the storm's +exhaustion. Stillman switched on his pocket-light and began to +investigate the trouble with the engine. His decision was swift and +conclusive. + +"It's hopeless," he announced, turning to Claire with a slight grimace. +"We're stalled absolutely and no mistake. I guess we'd better strike out +and walk. No doubt we'll get a lift into Sausalito before we've gone +very far, but I dare say it's well to be on the safe side." + +They rolled the machine to one side of the roadway and struck out +hopefully. The rain had made a thin chocolate ooze of the highway, and +before they had gone a hundred yards their shoes were slimy with mud. It +appeared that Stillman had been something of an aimless wanderer for +many years, and as he talked on and on, giving detached glimpses of the +remote places he had visited, Claire had a curious sense of futility. + +She read between his clipped and vivid sentences the tragedy of a +personality worsted by the soft hands of circumstances. This man might +have done things. As it was he was an idler. He gave her the impression +of a man waiting vaguely for opportunity--like some traveler pacing +restlessly up and down a railway station platform in expectation of the +momentary arrival of a delayed train. She tried to imagine him as she +felt sure he must once have been--youthful, eager, ardent, a man of +charming enthusiasms that just missed being extravagances, who could +bring zest to his virtues as well as to his follies. + +"Surely," she thought, "something more than inclination must have pushed +him into this deadly stagnation." + +And at once Miss Munch's insinuating question leaped up to answer: + +"You know about his wife, of course!" + +Were men put out of countenance by such impersonal tricks of fortune? +Impersonal?... this domestic tragedy?... Yes, Claire felt that it must +be, otherwise the man tramping at her side would have wrestled so +passionately against fate as to have come away at least spattered with +the mud of defeat. No, Stillman was not defeated, he was merely +arrested, restrained, held for orders. + +He had been in London when the war broke out. He had stayed long enough +to watch the stolid, easy-going British public awake to the seriousness +of the encounter, coming home after the first air raids. + +"I didn't mind being killed," he laughed, in explanation of his sudden +flight. "But I didn't like being so frightfully messed up in the +process. I want a chance to strike back when I'm cornered. The Zeppelin +game was too much like a rabbit-drive to suit me." + +As he spoke of these experiences, Claire listened with a quickening of +the spirit. The prospect of finding Stillman vibrant was too stirring to +be denied. But he was still sober on this colossal subject of war ... a +bit judicial, always well poised. He had his sympathies, but they did +not appear vitalized by extravagances of feeling. Yet here and there +Claire was conscious of truant warmths, like brief flashes of sunlight +through a somber forest. + +"And the draft--what do you think of that?" The question rose to her +lips as if his answer might unlock the door to something deeper in the +way of convictions. + +He began with a shrug that chilled her; then his reply broke with sudden +refreshment: + +"It helps ... some of us. There are many who can't decide for +themselves. The obvious duty isn't always the correct one. In my +case...." + +He did not stop speaking suddenly, but his voice trailed off into a dim +region of musing. They both fell silent. But Claire knew. There was that +haunting hope, almost like a fear, that his wife might some day get +better. That was what he was waiting for! It might come to-morrow ... +next week ... in a year ... never! But when it did come he felt that he +must be there, ready. She wondered whether he loved his wife very much, +and she found herself hoping that he did.... It would help, somehow ... +yes, if that were so his sacrifice gained point. On the other hand.... +She put the thought away with a quick thrust, feeling that she had no +right to such a speculation, and presently she was aware that they were +swinging into Sausalito. + +Stillman looked at his watch. Twelve-thirty-five ... just five minutes +late for the boat! She could see that he was disturbed. + +"I thought sure we'd get a lift," he railed, tossing aside a mangled +cigar. "This _is_ luck!... I guess we'll have to rout out the Sherwins. +It's something of a pull up the hill, but any safe port in a storm, you +know." + +"The Sherwins?" + +"Another one of the Edington girls. They have a bungalow at the very +dizziest point in Sausalito." + +But Claire objected and held firm. "I couldn't think of it, Mr. +Stillman. No, really!... Please don't insist." + +They agreed on a lodging for Claire in a freshly painted but otherwise +rather decrepit lodging-house, just north of the ferry-slip. Its chief +advantage was that it seemed quite too stagnant to be anything but +respectable, and the suppressed grumbling of the old shrew whom they +routed out confirmed their estimate. She didn't approve of couples who +dragged God-fearing old women out of bed at unholy hours in the +morning, and it was only the generous tip from Stillman and the +assurance that he intended looking elsewhere for quarters for himself +that reconciled her to her loss of sleep and the compromise with her +convictions. + +For a good half-hour Claire sat with folded hands peering out from her +room upon the damp hillside to the west. From across the street came the +bawdy thumping of a mechanical piano and the swish of a sluggish tide. +Her encounter with Sawyer Flint had forced the door of her virginal +seclusion and thrust her at once into the primitive and elemental open. +She felt like one who was coming out of voluntary exile to the pathos of +a deferred heritage. Before her stretched the eagle's horizon, but she +had only the fledgling's strength of wing. She longed for the faith and +courage and daring to take life at its word, longed with all the +dangerous fierceness of one who had fed too long upon the husks of +existence. And, longing, she fell asleep, sitting in a chair before the +open window, without thought or preparation.... + + * * * * * + +The morning broke cloudless. All traces of the night's fury were +obliterated as completely as sorrow from the face of a smiling child. +The sun touched the open spaces with a tender, caressing warmth, but the +shadows held a keen-edged chill. + +Claire decided upon an early boat to town. + +"I'll be less likely to meet any of the California Street crowd," she +said to herself, as she picked her brief way toward the ferry. + +The boat was crowded, especially the lower cabin. It was the artisans' +boat and the air was heavy with the smoke of pipe-tobacco. Claire passed +rapidly to the dining-room. Perched upon the high revolving chairs +surrounding a horseshoe counter, a score or more of soft-shirted men sat +devouring huge greasy doughnuts and gulping coffee. The steward, taking +note of Claire's hesitation, came forward and led her to a seat at one +of the side tables. She was about to take advantage of the chair which +he had drawn out for her when she heard her name called. She turned. +Miss Munch's cousin, Mrs. Richards, was sitting alone at the table just +behind. Claire's first feeling was one of relief--she was glad to +discover an acquaintance. She thanked the steward for his trouble and +abandoned the proffered seat for the one opposite Mrs. Richards. Almost +at once she regretted her impulsive decision. + +"I didn't know you intended staying at Flint's all night," Mrs. Richards +began, fixing Claire with a challenging gaze. + +"I didn't intend to," returned Claire, her voice sharpened slightly. + +Mrs. Richards took the lid off the sugar-bowl and powdered her +grapefruit sparingly. "Have they a nice home?" she questioned. + +"Yes, very nice." + +"They gave you an early start, didn't they?... It's almost impossible to +get servants these days to consider such a thing as serving breakfast +much before eight o'clock." + +Claire glanced at the bill of fare. Mrs. Richards's tone was a trifle +too eager. "I suppose it is," Claire assented, placing the menu-card +back in its place between the vinegar and oil cruets. + +Mrs. Richards remained unabashed at her vis-a-vis's palpable +indirectness. "I guess I'm old-fashioned, but, servants or no servants, +I don't believe I could let a guest of mine leave the house without +breakfast. It seems to me that if I'd been Mrs. Flint I'd have gotten up +and made you a cup of coffee myself." + +Claire's growing annoyance was swallowed up in a feeling of faint +amusement. "Perhaps Mrs. Flint wasn't home," she said, beckoning the +waiter. + +"Oh!" Mrs. Richards exclaimed with shocked brevity. + +It was not until the arrival of Claire's order of toast and coffee that +Mrs. Richards found her voice again. + +"This business of wives staying from home all night gets me," Mrs. +Richards hazarded, boldly. "Why, I never remember the time when my +mother remained away overnight ... not under _any_ circumstances. My +father expected her to be there, and she always _was_." + +Claire distributed bits of butter over the surface of her toast. She +felt that in justice to the Flint family it was not right for her to +give Mrs. Richards's dangerous tongue any further scope, however +tempting was the prospect of leaving such venomous inquisitiveness +ungratified. + +"I think you misunderstood me, Mrs. Richards. I didn't say that Mrs. +Flint remained away from home last night. As a matter of fact I didn't +stay at Yolanda, so I don't know anything about it." + +"Oh!" faintly escaped Mrs. Richards for the second time that morning, +but Claire was conscious that there was more incredulity than surprise +registered in the lady's tone. + +"As a matter of fact," Claire continued, stung to incautious +exasperation, "I spent the night in Sausalito." + +Mrs. Richards met this information with a disarmingly bland smile. "I +didn't know you had friends in Sausalito," she said, letting a spoonful +of coffee trickle back into her cup. + +"I haven't. I spent the night in a lodging-house ... on the +water-front...." + +"My dear Miss Robson, really I.... Why, I hope you don't think I was +inquisitive!" + +It was the simplicity of the challenge that made it impossible to be +ignored. Claire knew that she was trapped, but she was angry enough to +decide on some reservation. + +"The storm put the track between Yolanda and Sausalito out of +commission," Claire found herself snapping back too eagerly at her +tormentor. "We tried to make the last boat by auto, but we got stalled +and missed it. We had to walk a good half of the way." + +"I shouldn't think that would have done Mr. Flint's cold any good," Mrs. +Richards said, drawlingly. + +"Mr. Flint's cold?... I don't quite see what that has to do with it." + +"Oh, you said 'we' I somehow got the impression...." + +"No, Mrs. Richards, you've misunderstood me again." Claire threw a +cool, even glance at her antagonist. "I made the trip from Yolanda to +Sausalito in Mr. Stillman's car." + +"Oh!" said Mrs. Richards for a third time, and in this instance her +voice was warm with gratification. + +Claire directed her attention to her plate of buttered toast and her cup +of coffee. She was chagrined to think that she had fallen so easily into +Mrs. Richards's very obvious traps. Not that it mattered. She was quite +sure that the truth could not harm Stillman, and she was equally sure +that her position in life was too obscure to stand out conspicuously +against the darts of Mrs. Richards's vindictive tongue. But she had the +pride of her reticences and she did not like to surrender these +privileges at the point of insolent curiosity. The two continued to eat +in silence. + +It was Mrs. Richards who finished first, and she dipped her fingers +hurriedly into the battered metal finger-bowl which the Japanese bus-boy +thrust before her. + +"Do you mind if I go along?" she inquired of Claire, with an air of +polite triumph. "I think I'll go forward where I can get a quick start +... before the crowd gets too thick. I've got a million errands to do +before nine o'clock. And I _do_ want to run into the office before +Gertie settles down to work. I haven't seen her for a week and I've got +_more_ things to tell her!" + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +"Why, Miss Claire, how could you! Where have you been? And your mother +in such a bad way!" Mrs. Finnegan broke into sudden tears. + +Claire, fumbling in her bag for the front-door key, looked up. Mrs. +Finnegan had swung open the door to the Robson flat and she stood like a +vision of disaster upon the threshold. + +"What has happened?" Claire's voice rose with a note of swift +apprehension. + +"Your mother ... she's paralyzed! She was taken last night. The doctor +says it would have happened, anyway. But I say it was worry, that's what +it was. With you away all night and never a word!" + +Claire climbed the stairs in silence, aware that Mrs. Finnegan was +following at a discreet distance. Already the house seemed permeated +with an atmosphere of tragedy and gloom in spite of the morning light +pouring in unscreened at every window. Mrs. Robson's room was the only +exception to this unusual excess of cold radiance--unusual, because it +was one of Mrs. Robson's prides to keep her window-shades lowered to a +uniform and genteel distance. + +Until Claire came face to face with her mother she almost had fancied +that her neighbor was indulging in a crude and terrible joke, but one +look sufficed. Mrs. Robson lay staring vacantly at the ceiling; she +could not move, she could not speak, and her spirit showed through the +veiled light in her eyes like a mysterious spot of sunshine in a shaded +well. Above a swooning sense of calamity Claire felt the strength of a +tender pretense struggling to communicate its vague hope to the stricken +form. She raised the window-shade slightly and sat down upon the bed. + +"Why, mother, what's all this?" she began, in a tone of gentle banter, +as she stroked the helpless hands. "Were you worried? I'm so sorry! I +asked Miss Munch to let you know. Didn't she?... I went over to Mr. +Flint's to take dictation. The storm washed out the track. I tried to +make the boat in Mr. Stillman's car, but we broke down and missed it.... +I had to stay all night in Sausalito." + +Mrs. Robson, stirring faintly, attempted to speak. Claire turned +helplessly to Mrs. Finnegan. "I can't make out what she is trying to +say." + +Mrs. Finnegan bent an attentive ear. "It's about Stillman," she +explained. "Your mother don't understand why...." + +The speaker stopped with significant discretion. It was plain to Claire +that _nobody_ understood, and she felt a dreary futility as she answered +both her mother and Mrs. Finnegan with: + +"It's a long story. Some other time, when ... when you're feeling +better." + +A look of gray disappointment crossed Mrs. Robson's face. Mrs. +Finnegan's upper lip seemed shaped suddenly with a suspicion that died +almost as quickly as it began. There was a ring at the bell. "That's the +doctor," said Mrs. Finnegan, and she left to open the door. + +The doctor chilled Claire with his steely nonchalance as she stood apart +while he went through the usual forms of a professional visit that was +obviously futile. She followed him to the front door. He answered her +eager inquiries with the cold triumph of authority. + +"How long will she last?... Well, Miss Robson, that is hard to say. She +might go off to-night. Then, again, she might live twenty years. She'll +scarcely get any better, though. No, a nurse isn't essential, unless you +can afford one. But you ought to have another woman about. If you have +any relatives you'd better send for them and let them help out." + +Claire did not find the doctor's announcement that her mother might die +at once nearly so brutal as his assurance that she had an equal chance +for existing twenty years. _Twenty years!_ Claire closed the door and +sank upon the steps overwhelmed. + +But there was scant leisure on this first dreadful day of Mrs. Robson's +illness for theatrical exuberances. Claire, unaccustomed to the routine +of household duties, took a thousand unnecessary steps. She tried to +work calmly, to bring an acquired philosophy to her tasks, but she went +through her paces with a feverish, though stolid, anxiety. The long +night which followed was inconceivably a thing of horror. Her wakeful +moments were dry-eyed with despair, and when she slept it was only to +come back to a shivering consciousness. + +Mrs. Finnegan found her next morning fresh from an attempt to rouse her +mother into accepting a few swallows of milk, which had ended in +pathetic and miserable failure. She had thrown herself in an abandon of +grief across the narrow kitchen table, and the coffee from an overturned +cup was trickling in a warm, thick stream to the floor. But the paroxysm +did her good. She rose to the kindly caresses of her neighbor like a +flower beaten to earth but refreshed by a relentless torrent. After +this, custom and habit began to reassert themselves in spite of the +crushing weight of circumstance. She 'phoned to the office. Mr. Flint +had returned, they told her. She explained her trouble to the cashier. +"I'll try to be back the first of the week," she finished, in a burst of +illogical hope. + +Later in the day Mrs. Robson's two sisters arrived in answer to Claire's +summons. Claire's impulse to send for them had been purely +instinctive--an atrophied survival of clan-spirit that persisted beyond +any real faith in its significance. Perhaps she had a feeling that her +mother wished it; certainly she had no illusions as to the manner in +which the unwelcome news of Mrs. Robson's illness would be received by +these two self-centered females. + +It was Mrs. Thomas Wynne who came in first, bundled mysteriously in her +furs and holding a glass of wine jelly as a conventional symbol of the +role of Lady Bountiful which she had for the moment assumed. Claire +could almost fancy how conspicuously she had contrived to carry this +overworked badge of the humanities, and the languid drawl of her voice +as she explained to her friends _en route_: + +"So sorry I can't stop and chat. But, as you see, I'm running along to a +sick-room.... Oh no, nothing serious, I hope! Just my sister.... Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown? Oh, dear no! A younger sister. I don't think you know her. +She's had a great deal of trouble and hasn't been about much for a +number of years." + +Mrs. Thomas Wynne had the trick of intrenching a stubborn family pride +by throwing back her head and daring all comers to uncover any of the +Carrol clan's shortcomings. But her selfishness had at least the virtue +of a live-and-let-live attitude that contrasted with the futile +aggressiveness of Mrs. Edward Ffinch-Brown. She asked Claire no +questions concerning her life or her prospects; she did not even pry +very deeply into the chances that her sister had for an ultimate +recovery. Her philosophy seemed to be founded on the knowledge that +uncovered cesspools were bound to be unpleasant, and, since she had no +desire to assist in their purification, she was quite content to keep +them properly screened. She came and deposited her wine jelly and patted +her sister's hand and went away again without leaving even a ripple in +her wake. As she departed she gave further proof of her insolent +insincerity by calling back at Claire: + +"Remember, Claire, if there is anything I can do, just let me know." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's visit was scarcely more comforting, but decidedly +more exciting. She had not the suavity of her indifferences. Mrs. +Robson's untimely tilt with fate irritated her, and she took no pains to +conceal this fact. + +"I suppose your mother is just as she's always been--a creature of +nerves," she said, as she dropped into a seat for a preliminary session +with Claire before venturing upon the unwelcome sight of her stricken +sister. "I don't know why it is, but she seems to be one of those people +who always has had something the matter with her. Poor Emily! Well, I +suppose we are all made differently." + +When she entered the sick-room she found fault with the arrangement of +the bed, the manner in which the covers slipped off, the uncovered glass +of medicine on the bureau. + +"You should braid your mother's hair, too. And why don't you pull the +window down from the top?" + +Claire stood in sullen silence while her aunt vented a personal +annoyance on the nearest objects. But when Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's +ill-natured ministrations brought a dumb but protesting misery to the +sufferer's face, Claire found the courage to say, as gently as she +could: + +"Why bother, Aunt Julia? Mother is really too sick now to care much +about appearances?" + +This was just what Claire's aunt had hoped for. It gave her a chance for +escape without any strain upon her conscience. She did not remain long +after what she was pleased to consider a rebuff. + +"Well, Claire, I see I can't be of much help," she announced as she +powdered her nose before the shabby hat-rack mirror and drew on her +gloves.... After she was gone Claire found a five-dollar bill on the +living-room table. She opened the gilt-edged copy of Tennyson that, +together with a calf edition of Ouida's _Moths_, had stood for years as +guard over the literary pretensions of the household, and thrust the +money midway between its covers. Doubtless a time was coming when she +would find it necessary to use this money, but the present moment was +too charged with the giver's resentful benevolence to make such a +compromise possible. + +For three consecutive days Mrs. Ffinch-Brown swooped down upon the +Robson household and gave vent to her pique. She had been divorced so +long from these melancholy relations of hers that she had really +forgotten their existence, and she displayed all the rancor of a woman +who discovers suddenly a moth hole in the long undisturbed folds of a +treasured cashmere shawl. Her precisely timed visits had not the +slightest suspicion of attentiveness back of them, and Claire guessed +almost at once that they were more in the nature of assaults carried on +in the hope that she would meet enough opposition to insure an honorable +retreat. Unlike Mrs. Thomas Wynne, Aunt Julia inquired minutely into +family matters, insisted on knowing Claire's plans, and was aggressively +free with advice. + +"You ought to be making plans, Claire," she said, at the conclusion of +her second visit. "You can't go on like this. I'd like to be able to do +more, but of course I can't spare much time. And next week you'll have +to be getting into harness again. You'd better think it over." + +And on the next day, finding that Claire obviously had _not_ thought it +over, she threw out a hint that was little save a thinly veiled threat. +She came in with a more genial manner than she was accustomed to waste +upon the desert air of penury, and Claire, well schooled in reading the +significance of proverbial calms, had a misgiving. + +"I've been talking to Miss Morton ... about your mother," Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown began, without bothering to lead up to the subject. "You +know Alice Morton.... Well, your mother does, anyway. I bumped into her +yesterday, quite by accident ... at a Red Cross meeting. It seems she's +one of the directors of The King's Daughters' Home for Incurables!" +Claire was sitting opposite her aunt, nervously fingering a +paper-cutter. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown eyed her niece sharply, and with an +obvious determination to drive her thrusts home before her victim +recovered from the first vicious stabs she continued: "It seems they +haven't a great deal of room out there, but she thinks she could arrange +things. They'll raise the price to two thousand dollars after the +fifteenth of the month, so I thought that--" + +"Oh, not quite yet, Aunt Julia!... Mother has a chance. Surely...." + +"Now, Claire, don't get hysterical. You're a business woman and _you_ +ought to be practical if any of us are. The price to-day is one thousand +dollars. Think of it! Care for life in a ward with only _three_ others! +Now I can't ask your uncle for any more than is necessary in a case +like this. If we make up our mind promptly we can save just one thousand +dollars." + +For the moment Claire felt the harried desperation of a cornered animal. +She had never seen anything more disagreeable than her aunt's sidelong +glance. She felt herself rise from her seat with cold dignity. + +"I'm afraid, Aunt Julia, I can't make up my mind as quickly as you wish. +It isn't so simple as it seems. I'm not above a plan like this if I'm +convinced it's necessary. But somehow.... Oh, I know what you're +thinking--you're thinking that beggars shouldn't be choosers. Well, I'm +not quite a beggar yet. But when I am, I won't choose.... I'll promise +you that." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rose also. She was in a position to triumph in any +case, and she was washing her hands of the situation with eager +satisfaction. "Oh, indeed! I'm glad you can say that _now_. But you +weren't always so independent. I suppose it never occurs to you to thank +me for what I did when you were younger." + +Claire felt quite calm. The events of the past twenty-four hours had +wrung her emotions dry. "Yes, Aunt Julia," she said, with an air of cool +defiance, "it occurred to me many times.... Perhaps if I'd had any +choice...." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown grew pale. "It's plain that I'm wasting my time here!" +she sneered. + +Claire went with her aunt to the door.... + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown did not cross the threshold of the Robson home again, +and when on the following day Claire saw the figure of Mrs. Thomas +Wynne outlined against the lace-screened front door she let the bell +ring unanswered. + + * * * * * + +The dismissal of the last of the Carrol clan from any participation in +the Robson destinies gave Claire a feeling at once independent and +solitary. There had been a vague hope that this crisis might germinate +some stray seeds of kinship, shriveled by the drought of uneventful +years. But the poisonous nettles of memory were the only harvest that +had sprung from the presence of Mrs. Robson's sisters, and Claire was +glad to uproot the arid product of their shallowness. + +The week came to a close with a rush of visitors. Suddenly it seemed as +if everybody knew of Mrs. Robson's illness. Fellow church members, old +school friends, casual acquaintances began to ring the front-door bell +insistently. Knowing her mother's instinctive craving for recognition, +it struck Claire that it was the height of irony to see this belated +crowd come swarming in on the heels of calamity at the moment when Mrs. +Robson was unable to so much as see them. Mrs. Robson would have so +liked to sit in even a threadbare pomp and receive the homage of her +visitors, but fate had been scurvy enough to withhold this scant +triumph. + +Nellie Whitehead breezed in on Saturday afternoon just as Mrs. +Finnegan's cuckoo clock cooed the stroke of three; immediately the air +began to move out of adversity's tragic current. It was impossible to be +wholly without hope under the impetus of Nellie Whitehead's flaming +good humor. + +"I'm all out of breath," she began, as she flopped into the first chair +that came handy. "I keep forgetting I ain't sweet sixteen any more and +never been kissed. I hate to walk slow, though. Don't you? Say, but you +_are_ up against it, ain't you! I saw that Munch dame on the street and +she nearly broke her old neck trying to catch up with me. I wondered +what was the matter, because she ain't usually so keen about flagging +_me_. But, _you_ know, she never misses a trick at spilling out the +calamity stuff, especially if it isn't on her.... 'Oh, Miss Whitehead,' +she called out before I had a chance to beat it, 'have you heard about +Miss Robson's mother?' ...When she got through I fixed her with that +trusty old eye of mine and I said, 'I suppose you see her quite often.' +And what do you think the old stiff said? 'Oh, I'd like to, Miss +Whitehead, but I really haven't had time. You know I'm doing all Mr. +Flint's dictation now.' And she had the nerve to try and slip me a hint +that she was going to keep on doing it. But I just said to myself: 'You +should kid yourself that way, old girl! When Flint picks a bloomer like +you to ornament the back office it will be because his eyesight's failed +him.' ...By the way, how do you manage to stand him off--with religious +tracts or a hat-pin?" + +She hardly waited for Claire's reply, but plunged at once into another +monologue. + +"Do you know what I'm up to? I got my eye on the swellest fur-lined coat +you ever saw ... at Magnin's. But you can bet I'm going to keep my eye +on it until after the holidays. They want a hundred and a quarter for it +now, but they'll be glad to take sixty-five when the gay festivities are +over, or I miss my guess. I go in every other day to have a look at it, +and when the girl's back is turned I hang it back in the case +myself--'way back where everybody else will overlook it. Oh, I know the +game all right. I did the same thing with a three piece suit last +summer. But I say, All is fair in war and the high cost of living. Maybe +you think I haven't had a time scraping the wherewithal for that coat +together. But I brought the total up to seventy the other day by getting +Billy Holmes to slip me a ten in advance for Christmas. I never trust a +man to invest in anything for me if I can help it. They usually run to +manicure sets in satin-lined cases or cut-glass cologne-bottles. Billy +Holmes?... Oh, you know him! He ran the reinsurance desk at the Royal +for years. They put him on the road last week. He's _some_ live wire. +And what's better, he has no incumbrances. I'll tell you what it is, +Robson, I'm getting kind of tired of the goings. I'm just about ready to +settle down by the old steam-radiator. And as long as I've got eyesight +enough to look the field over, I've decided on a traveling-man or a +sea-captain. They'll be sticking around home just about often enough to +suit me.... Not that I'm a man-hater, but I've never had 'em for a +steady diet and I'm not going to begin to get the habit this late day." + +Nellie Whitehead stayed about an hour, and, as Claire opened the front +door upon her friend's departure the letter-man thrust an envelope into +her hands. She opened it hastily and turned suddenly white. + +"Well, Robson, what's wrong now?" inquired Nellie. + +"Flint ... he's let me out ... Miss Munch was right!" + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +On the selfsame Saturday of Claire's dismissal from the office ranks of +the Falcon Insurance Company Ned Stillman was the recipient of an early +telephone message from Lily Condor. It appeared that Flora Menzies, the +young woman who usually accompanied her in her vocal flights, had been +laid low with pneumonia and she wanted Stillman to persuade Claire +Robson to succeed to the honorary position. + +"She did so famously on that night of our musicale," Lily Condor had +explained, "and Flora won't be in shape again for a good three months. +Of course, there isn't anything in it but glory. I'm just one of those +'sweet charity' artists. But I think she is a dear, and I know that +_you_ have influence." + +Stillman pretended to be annoyed at Mrs. Condor's assumption that his +word would carry any weight in the matter, but as a matter of fact he +felt pleased in secret masculine fashion. Chancing to pass Flint's +office at the noon hour, he dropped in. It happened that Miss Munch was +standing near the counter, and she answered his inquiries with suave +eagerness. + +"Oh, Miss Robson isn't with us any more. She hasn't been here for over +a week--not since her mother was taken sick. Oh, I thought you knew. +You're Mr. Stillman, aren't you? I've heard my cousin, Mrs. Richards, +speak of you. Miss Robson went over to Mr. Flint's on that night of the +storm and she missed the boat or something--_you_ know! And when she got +home next morning she found that her mother had worried herself into a +stroke. They say she is quite helpless.... I'm sure I don't know what +she intends doing. We mailed her check yesterday. It's always hard to +land another position when one is dismissed." + +Stillman escaped quickly. Miss Munch's venom was a thing too crude and +unconcealed to face with indifference. Her emphatic "_you_ know" was +pregnant with innuendo and malice. Still, it did not occur to Stillman +that he had any part in Claire Robson's misfortune. But he did know from +Miss Munch's tone that the unfortunate situation, growing out of the +automobile ride from Yolanda to Sausalito, had received due recognition +at the hands of those who made a business of blowing out bubbles of +scandal from the suds of chance. It was useless for him to deny that +Claire Robson from the first had been of more or less interest. She +seemed to rise in such a detached fashion from her environment. + +He had to admit, as later he sat in the cloistered silences of his club +library and blew contemplative smoke-rings into the air, that a certain +idle curiosity had been the mainspring of his concern for her. He had +been like a boy who captured a strange butterfly and clapped it under a +glass tumbler where he could watch how easily it would adapt itself to +its new surroundings. But, having caught the butterfly and held it a +brief captive, the dust from its wings still lingered upon the hands +that imprisoned it. He had made the mistake of imagining that one is +always master of casual incidents. To meet a young woman by the most +trivial chance, to extend a brief courtesy to her, these were matters +which hold scarcely the germs of a menacing situation, not menacing to +him, of course--they never could be menacing to him; he was still +thinking of things from the viewpoint of Claire Robson. + +To tell the truth, he was annoyed at having been mixed up in Claire's +flight from the Flint household. Had Flint been a complete stranger he +would not have minded so much. He was still divided by the appeal to his +chivalry and the sense of loyalty that a man feels to the masculine +friends of his youth. In her telephone message Claire had put the matter +very casually--the track was washed out and she was wondering whether he +contemplated returning to town that evening. But he guessed at once what +lay back of her matter-of-fact boldness. He had guessed so completely +that he had decided not only to return to town, but to start at once. + +He wondered now whether he had answered the appeal because a woman was +in a desperate situation or because that woman was Claire Robson. All +through the dinner hour at the Tom Forsythes he had thought about her, +had speculated vaguely what mischance or effrontery had been responsible +for her ill-timed visit to Flint's. He remembered trying to decide +whether the young woman was extraordinarily deep or extraordinarily +simple and frank. He did not like to concede that he could be influenced +by anything so transparently malicious as Mrs. Richards's statements +regarding the absence of Mrs. Flint, but he was bound to admit that they +did nothing to render the situation less innocent; what had particularly +annoyed him was the fact that he should have given the matter a second +thought. To begin with, it was none of his business and he was not a man +who presumed to judge or even speculate on other people's indiscretions. +Claire Robson was no sheltered schoolgirl. She was a full-grown woman, +in the thick of business life. Such women were not taken unawares. He +had just dismissed the whole affair from his mind on this basis when +Claire's telephone message came to him. Even now he marveled at the +sense of satisfaction that her appeal had given. But he had found no +savor in a situation that compelled him to interfere in Flint's program. +Such a move on his part was contrary to his standards, to his training +in comradeship, to all his acquired philosophy. He had the well-bred +man's distaste for getting into a mess. He abhorred scenes and +conspicuous complications. + +He had come through the incident with steadily waning enthusiasm and a +decision to wash his hands in the future of all such unprofitable +trifling. But the sudden knowledge that the young woman was in desperate +trouble revived his interest. He had no idea how serious Mrs. Robson's +illness was or whether Claire had any hopes for a new position. But +Miss Munch's words had been significant. Claire had been _dismissed_, +and Stillman knew enough about present business stagnation to conclude +that for the time, at least, Claire Robson faced a bleak outlook. He +realized the indelicacy of any definite move on his part, but it +occurred to him that it might be well to talk the situation over with +some one--preferably a woman. As he tossed his cigar butt aside, Lily +Condor appealed to him as just the person for the emergency. Therefore +he looked her up without further ado. + +He found her at home, curled up among the cushions of a davenport that +did service as a bed when the scenes were shifted. She was living in a +tiny apartment consisting of one room and a kitchenette that gave +Stillman the impression of a juggler's cabinet. Nothing in this room was +ever by any chance what it seemed. Things that looked like doors led +nowhere; bits of stationary furniture usually yielded to the slightest +pressure and revealed strange secrets. He had seen Mrs. Condor deftly +construct a card-table out of an easy-chair, and he had no doubt that +the oak table in the center of the room could have been converted into a +chiffonier or a chassis-lounge at a given signal. + +In repose, it struck Stillman that Mrs. Condor seemed very much like a +purring cat. He had never seen her quite so frankly behind the scenes, +robbed of both her physical and mental make-up. She was one of those +women in middle age who adapt themselves to the tone of their background +and while she contrived to strike a fairly vivid note, she took care not +to be discordant. She was clever enough to realize that her talents +were not sensational and that she could only hope for an indifferent +success as a professional. But in the role of a gracious amateur she +disarmed criticism and forced her way into circles that might otherwise +have been at some pains to exclude her. For, if the truth were known, +there had been certain phases of Mrs. Condor's earlier life which were +rather vaguely, and at the same time aptly, covered by Mrs. Finnegan's +term of "gay." A perfectly discreet woman, for instance, would have made +an effort to live down her flaming hair and almost immorally dazzling +complexion, but Mrs. Condor had been much more ready to live _up_ to +these conspicuous charms. In fact, she had lived up to them pretty +furiously, until time began to take a ruthless toll of her contrasting +points. From the concert-platform she still seemed to discount, almost +to flout, the years, but in secret she yielded unmistakably to their +pressure. + +It was this yielding, pliant attitude that struck Stillman as he came +upon her almost unawares on that early December afternoon, a yielding, +pliant attitude which gave a curious sense of tenacity under the +surface. And he thought, as he dropped into the chair she indicated, +that she was a woman who gained strength in these moments of relaxation. + +"Fancy your catching me like this!" she said, "I thought when the bell +rang that you were my dressmaker.... If you want a highball you'll have +to wait on yourself. Phil Edington brought an awfully good bottle of +Scotch last night. I declare I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have +a youngster or two on my staff. Old men are such bores, anyway, and, as +a matter of fact, they never waste time on any woman over thirty. Well, +I don't blame them. We're a sorry, patched-up mess at best.... Tell me, +did you get hold of Miss Robson?" + +"I dropped in, but she wasn't at the office," Stillman replied, tossing +his hat on the center-table. + +Mrs. Condor withdrew to the relaxation of her innumerable sofa pillows +again. "Wasn't at the office? How thrilling! Is she one of the Sultan's +favorites?... I've heard Sawyer Flint was an easy mark if you know how +to work him. Miss Robson didn't strike me that way, though. But I ought +to have known that silent women are always cleverer than they appear." + +Stillman caught the barest suggestion of a sneer in Mrs. Condor's +tone--the sneer of a woman relinquishing a stubborn hold upon the +gaieties. + +"Well, I guess Miss Robson didn't know how to work him, as a matter of +fact," Stillman said, quietly. "She lost her job to-day. I'm a little +bit worried about her.... I came here on purpose to talk the situation +over with you." + +His directness brought Lily Condor out of her languidness with a sharp +turn. She wriggled up and sat erectly on the edge of the davenport, one +slippered foot dangling just above the other. "Why, Ned Stillman, what +an old fraud you are! I didn't fancy you were interested in _anybody_. I +didn't think that you.... Oh, well, throw me a cigarette and let me hear +the worst in comfort!" + +He opened his cigarette-case and leaned over toward her. She made her +choice. He struck a match and she put her hand tightly on his wrist as +she bent over the flame and slowly drew in her breath. Even after she +had released her grasp his flesh still bore the imprint of the rings on +her fingers. For a moment he had an impulse to bow himself out of her +presence without further explanation, but already she seemed to have a +proprietary interest in him. Her smile was full of friendly malice. + +He ended by telling her everything, in spite of the conviction that he +had approached the wrong person. + +"Of course," she hazarded, boldly, when he had finished, "you mean to +help her out." + +Her presumption annoyed but rather refreshed him. "I'd like to do +something, but, hang it all, what can be done?" + +"What can be done? If that isn't like a man! Or I should say, a +_gentleman_!... Why don't you plunge in boldly and damn the +consequences?... It's just your sort that sends women into the arms of +men like Flint. You're so busy keeping an eye on the proprieties that +you miss all the danger signals." + +Her tone was extraordinarily familiar, and, to a man who rather prided +himself upon his ability to keep people at arm's-length, it was not +precisely agreeable. Yet he knew that it would be folly to give any hint +of his irritation. + +"Well," he contrived to laugh back at her, "so far as I can see, Miss +Robson's problems are quite too simple. After all, it's largely a +question of money.... I can't go and throw gold in her lap as if she +were some beggar on a street corner." + +"You mean, I suppose, that you are afraid to risk the outraged dignity +of this ward of yours. I think that's a lovely name for her. Don't +you?... You're acquiring such a benevolent old attitude. The only thing +to be done, I fancy, is to adopt some transparent ruse--some +sort of Daddy-Long-Leggish deception." She closed her eyes +thoughtfully--"_Hiring_ her as my accompanist, for instance." She rose +to dispense Scotch and soda. Stillman sat in thoughtful silence, while +Mrs. Condor talked to very trivial purpose. She seemed suddenly to have +grown tired of the subject of Claire Robson. The arrival of the expected +dressmaker broke in upon the rather one-sided tete-a-tete. + +"You'll have to go," Lily Condor announced with an intimate air of +dismissal to Stillman. "It would never do to let a mere man in on the +secrets of the sewing-room." + +At the door he hesitated awkwardly over his good-by. "I was wondering," +he said, "whether you were serious about ... about hiring Miss Robson as +your accompanist. You know I think the plan has possibilities." + +She threw back her head and smiled with hard satisfaction. "I've been +trying to figure if you had killed your imagination. Think it over." + +She gave him the tips of her fingers. He returned their languid pressure +and departed. + +As he drifted down the hall he heard her calling, half gaily, half +derisively, after him: + +"Don't decide on anything rash now.... Sleep over it!..." + + * * * * * + +He thought it over for three days and when he called on Lily Condor +again he found her divorced from her languishing mood. She was dressed +for dinner down-town, and he had to confess she had made the most of +what remained of her flaming hair and dazzling complexion. + +He felt that she guessed the reason for his visit, although she took +care to let him force the issue. + +"About Miss Robson," he said, finally, "I've concluded to take you at +your word." + +Lily Condor smoothed out her gloves and laid them aside. "Take me at +_my_ word? You're welcome to the suggestion, if that is what you mean. +As a matter of fact I wasn't serious." + +He was annoyed to feel that he was flushing. He could not fathom her, +but he had a conviction that she _had_ been serious and that this +attitude was a mere pose. "Nevertheless, I think it can be managed," he +insisted. "And I want you to help me." + +She listened to his plan. "What you will call a Daddy-Long-Leggish +pretense," he explained to her with an attempt at facetiousness. "You to +do the hiring and ... and yours truly to provide the wherewithal. Until +things look up a bit. Of course then ... why, naturally, when things +look up a bit for her...." + +But Lily remained lukewarm. She wasn't quite sure that it would be ... +oh, well, he knew what she meant! It seemed too absurd to think that he +had given an ear to anything so extravagant. She would like to be of +service to Miss Robson, of course, but, after all, she felt that it was +taking an unfair advantage of the girl. + +"If she's everything you say she is, she'd resent it all tremendously," +she put forth as a final objection. + +"But she isn't to know! That's the point of the whole thing," he +explained, with absurd simplicity. + +"Oh, my dear man, she isn't to know, but she _will_, ultimately. You +don't suppose the secret of a woman's meal-ticket is hidden very long, +do you? And, besides, you couldn't offer her enough to live on. That +would be absurd on the very face of it." + +"Oh, well, I could offer her enough to help out a bit, anyway, and half +a loaf you know...." + +He broke off, amazed at the determination her opposition had +crystallized. She looked at him sharply and rose. + +"I must be running along," she commented as she drew on her gloves. "I +tell you, I'll go call on Miss Robson--some day this week. A woman can +always get a better side-light on a situation like this. There are so +many angles to be considered. She must have relatives. You wouldn't want +to make a false move, would you, now?" + +He was too grateful to be suspicious at this sudden compromise with her +convictions. + +"You're tremendously good," he stammered. "It _will_ be a favor. And any +time that I can...." + +"You can be of service to me right now," she interrupted, gaily. "Order +me a taxi ... that's a good boy! I always do so like to pull up at a +place in style." + +Stillman paid Lily Condor a third visit that week--this time in answer +to the lady's telephone message. She had been to see Claire Robson and +her report was anything but rosy. + +"Her mother's perfectly helpless and will be for the rest of her life," +Lily volunteered almost cheerfully. "And, frankly, I don't see what is +going to become of them. It seems that Mrs. Robson is a sister of Mrs. +Tom Wynne and that dreadful Ffinch-Brown woman. They both have about as +much heart as a cast-iron stove. Miss Robson didn't say so in words, but +I gathered that she had called both of them off the relief job. I almost +cheered when I realized that fact. I threw out a hint about there being +a possibility of my needing an accompanist. I said Miss Menzies was ill +and perhaps ... and I intimated that there was something more than glory +in it." + +"And what did Miss Robson say to that?" + +"Oh, she was more self-contained than one would imagine under the +circumstances. She said she would like to think it over. She put it that +way on the score of leaving her mother alone nights. But, believe me, +that young lady is more calculating than she seems. Of course I didn't +mention terms or anything like that. I left a good loophole in case you +had changed your mind." + +For the moment Stillman was almost persuaded to tell Lily Condor that he +_had_ changed his mind. Not that he had lost interest in Claire, but +already he had another plan and there was something disagreeably +presumptuous in Mrs. Condor's tone. He never remembered having taken +anybody into his confidence regarding a personal matter. The trouble +was that he had begun the whole affair under the misapprehension that it +was a most _impersonal_ thing. He still tried to look at it from that +angle, but Lily Condor's manner seemed bent on forcing home the rather +disturbing conviction that he had a vital interest in the issue. She had +cut in upon his reserve and he would never quite be able to recover the +lost ground. He felt that she sensed his revulsion, for almost at once +she adroitly changed the subject and it did not come to life again +during the remainder of his call. + +But when he was leaving she thrust an idle finger into the lapel of his +coat and said: + +"I think it's awfully good of you, Ned, to be human enough to want to do +something for others. I watched you as a young man, and when you +married...." His startled look must have halted her, for she released +her hold upon him and finished with a shrug. + +He said good-by hastily and escaped. But he wondered, as he found his +way out into the street, how long it would be before Mrs. Condor would +acquire sufficient boldness to discuss with him what and whom she chose. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Christmas Day came and went with a host of bitter-sweet memories for +Claire Robson. Not that she could look back on any holiday season with +unalloyed happiness, but time had drawn the sting from the misfortune of +the old days. Through the mist of the years outlines softened, and she +was more prone to measure the results by the slight harvest that their +efforts had brought. For instance, they had never been too poor to deny +themselves the luxury of a tree. And a tree to Mrs. Robson meant none of +the scant, indifferent affairs that most of the neighbors found +acceptable strung with a few strands of dingy popcorn and pasteboard +ornaments. No, the Robson tree was always an opulent work of art, +freighted with bursting cornucopias and heavy glass balls and yards of +quivering tinsel. The money for all this dazzling beauty usually came a +fortnight or so before the eventful day in the shape of a ten-dollar +bill tucked away in the folds of Gertrude Sinclair's annual letter to +Mrs. Robson. As Claire had grown older she had grown also impatient of +the memory of her mother squandering what should have gone for thick +shoes and warm plaid dresses upon the ephemeral joys of a Christmas +tree. But now she suddenly understood, and she felt glad for a mother +courageous enough to lay hold upon the beautiful symbols of life at the +expense of all that was hideously practical. Shoes wore out and plaid +dresses finally found their way to the rag-bag, but the glories of the +spirit burned forever in the splendor of all this truant magnificence, +and the years stretched back in a glittering procession of light-ladened +fir-trees. + +Then some time between Christmas and New-Year came the Christmas +pantomime at the Tivoli, with its bewildering array of scantily clad +fairies and dashing Amazons and languishing princes in pale-blue tights; +to say nothing of the Queen Charlottes consumed between acts through +faintly yellow straws. How Claire would mark off each day on the +calendar which brought her nearer to this triumph! And what a hurry and +bustle always ensued to get dinner over and be fully dressed and down to +the box-office before even the doors were opened, so that they could get +first choice of the unreserved seats which sold at twenty-five cents. +Then there would ensue the long, tedious wait in the dimly lighted +cavern of the playhouse, smelling with a curious fascination of stale +cigars and staler beer, and the thrill that the appearance of the +orchestra produced, followed by the arrival of all the important +personages fortunate enough to afford fifty-cent seats, which gave them +the security to put off their appearance until the curtain was almost +ready to rise. And when the curtain really did rise upon the inevitable +spectacle of villagers dancing upon the village green! And Mrs. Robson +carefully picked out in the chorus the stout sister of a former servant +who had worked for her mother! And the wicked old witch swept from the +wings on the traditional broomstick! From that moment until the final +transformation scene, when scintillating sea-shells yielded up one by +one their dazzling burdens of female loveliness and a rather Hebraic +Cupid descended from an invisible wire to wish everybody a happy +New-Year in words appropriately rhymed, there was no halt to the wonders +disclosed. With what sharp and exquisite reluctance did Claire remain +glued to her seat, refusing to believe that it was all over! Even at +this late date Claire had only to close her eyes to revive the delights +of these rather covert excursions into the realm of fancy--covert, +because a Tivoli pantomime had not precisely the sanction of such a +respectable organization as the Second Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Robson, +while not definitely encouraging Claire to wilful dishonesty, always +managed to warn her daughter by saying: + +"I wouldn't tell any one about going to the Tivoli, Claire, if I were +you ... unless, of course, they should ask about it." + +Claire, in mortal terror lest any indiscretion on her part would put a +stop to this annual lapse into such delightful immoralities, held her +peace in spite of her desire to spread abroad the beauties which she had +beheld. She had a feeling that all the participants in the pantomime +must of necessity be rather wicked and abandoned creatures, and half the +pleasure she had felt in viewing them arose from a secret admiration at +the courage which permitted human beings to be so perfectly and +desperately sinful. Although she was almost persuaded that perhaps it +did not take quite such bravado to be wicked in blue-spangled gauze and +satin slippers as it did to lapse from the straight and narrow path in a +gingham dress and resoled boots. + +The only thrill that the present Christmas Day produced came in the +shape of a pot of flaming poinsettias bearing the card of Ned Stillman. +These were the first flowers that Claire ever remembered having +received. It pleased her also to realize that Stillman had been delicate +to the point of this thoroughly unpractical gift, especially as he had +every reason to assume that something more substantial would have been +acceptable. She was confident that by this time he had heard through +Mrs. Condor of her mother's illness and her loss of position. Claire was +still puzzled at Mrs. Condor's visit. For all that lady's skill at +subterfuge, there were implied evasions in her manner which Claire +sensed instinctively. And then Claire was not yet inured to the novelty +of being in demand. To have been forced by circumstance upon Mrs. Condor +as an accompanist was one thing; to be desired by her in a moment of +cold calculation was quite another; and there had been more uncertainty +than caution in Claire's plea for time in which to consider the offer. +But as the days flew by it became more and more apparent to Claire that +she was in no position to indulge in idle speculation. She had long +since given up the hope of fulfilling the demands of a regular office +position, even if one had been open to her. Mrs. Finnegan's enthusiasm +to be neighborly and helpful was more a matter of theory than practice, +and it did not take Claire many days to decide that she had no right to +impose upon a good nature which was made up largely of ignorance of a +sick-room's demands. Claire's final check from Flint was dwindling with +alarming rapidity; indeed, she was facing the first of the year with the +realization that there would be barely enough to pay the next month's +rent, let alone to settle the current bills. She had no idea what Mrs. +Condor intended paying, but she fancied that it must be little enough. +Surely Mrs. Condor did not receive any great sum for her singing and +there must be any number of gratuitous performances. She decided quite +suddenly, the day after Christmas, to take Mrs. Condor at her word, and +she was a bit disturbed at both the lady's reply and the manner of it. + +"Oh," Mrs. Condor had drawled rather disagreeably, "I thought you'd +given up the idea. I spoke to somebody else only this morning. But, of +course, I'm not certain about how it will turn out. I'll keep you in +mind and if the other falls through.... By the way, how is your mother? +I keep asking Ned Stillman every day what the news is, but he never +knows anything. All men are alike ... unless they've got some special +interest. Sometimes I marvel that he looks me up so regularly, but then +I've known him ever since.... But there, I'll be telling more than I +should! Do come and see me. I'm always in in the morning.... Yes, I can +imagine you do have a lot to do. I'm so sorry you didn't call up +sooner. But one never can tell. Good-by.... I hope you'll have a happy +New Year." + +Claire hung up the receiver. Well, she had lost an opportunity to turn +an easy dollar or two and she had no one to thank but herself. Why had +she delayed in accepting Mrs. Condor's offer? + +Fortunately the unexpected arrival of Nellie Whitehead cut short any +further repinings. Claire was frankly glad to see her and at once she +thought, "She has come to show me her new coat." + +But Nellie Whitehead was incased in a wrap that showed every evidence of +a good six months' wear. + +"My new coat?" the lady echoed, in answer to Claire's question. "There +ain't no such animal. Somebody else copped it. I didn't shove it back +far enough the last time I took a look at it, I guess. Oh, well, I +should worry! I can get along very well without it...." + +When Nellie Whitehead rose to leave, dusk had fallen and Claire was +fumbling for matches to light the hall gas, when she felt her friend's +hand close over hers. There followed the cold pressure of several coins +against Claire's palm and the voice of her visitor sounding a bit +tremulous in the dusk. + +"You'll need some extra money, Robson, or I miss my guess." + +Claire fell back with a gesture of protest. "Why, Nellie Whitehead, how +could you? It's your coat money, too! Well, _I_ never!" + +And with that they both burst into tears.... When Claire recovered +herself she found that Nellie Whitehead had escaped. She lit the gas +and opened her palm. Four twenty-dollar gold pieces glistened in the +light. + + * * * * * + +Next morning Claire received a telephone message from Mrs. Condor. The +position of accompanist was hers at forty dollars a month if she desired +it. + +"It won't be hard," Mrs. Condor had finished, reassuringly. "Some weeks +I've something on nearly every night. And then again there won't be +anything doing for days.... How can I afford to pay so much? Well, my +dear, that is a secret. But don't worry, you'll earn it...." + +And toward the close of the week there came another surprise for Claire +in the shape of a letter from Stillman, which ran: + + + MY DEAR MISS ROBSON.--I am going to take a little flier at the bean + market. + + That was my father's business and I know a few things about it--at + least to the extent of recognizing the commodity when the sack is + opened. Do you fancy you could arrange to give me a few hours a week + at the typewriter? If so, we can get together and arrange terms. + + Cordially, + + EDWARD STILLMAN. + + +"At last," flashed through Claire's mind, "he's going in for something +worth while." + +This time she decided promptly. Over the telephone she made an +appointment with Stillman, in his apartments, for beginning work on the +second Wednesday in January. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Shortly after the first of the year Claire received her initial summons +from Lily Condor--they were to appear at a concert in the Colonial +Ballroom of the St. Francis for the Belgian relief. Mrs. Condor had +intimated that the affair was to be smart, and so it proved. It was set +at a very late and very fashionable hour, and all through the program +groups of torpid, though rather audible, diners kept drifting in. Claire +was not slow to discover that Lily Condor was first on the bill, and she +remembered reading somewhere in a newspaper that among professionals the +first and last place were always loathsome positions. Judging from the +noise and confusion that accompanied their efforts, Claire could well +understand why this was so, and she expected to find Lily Condor +resentful. But to her surprise Mrs. Condor merely shrugged her shoulders +and said: + +"What difference does it make? They don't come to listen, anyway. +Besides, I always open the bill. I like to get it over quickly." + +But Claire had reason to suspect, as she followed the remainder of a +very excellent program, that the choice of position did not rest with +Mrs. Condor. Claire began to wonder how much money Mrs. Condor received +for an effort like this. And she became more puzzled as she gathered +from the conversation of the other artists about her that the talent had +been furnished gratuitously. + +"I understand," she heard a woman in front of her whisper to her +companion, "that Devincenzi, the 'cellist, is the only one in the crowd +who is getting a red cent. But he has a rule, you know--or is it a +contract? I'm sure I don't know. At any rate, they say that the +Ffinch-Browns donated his fee.... The Ffinch-Browns? Don't you know +them?... See, there they are ... over there by the Tom Forsythes. She +has on turquoise pendant earrings.... Oh, they're ever so charitable! +But they do say that she is something of a...." + +Claire lost the remainder of this stage whisper in a rather tremulous +anxiety to catch a glimpse of her aunt before she moved. Claire had to +acknowledge that at a distance her aunt gave a wonderful illusion of +arrested youth as she stood with one hand grasping the collar of her +gorgeous mandarin coat. But Claire was more interested in the turquoise +pendants than in her aunt. She had never seen the jewels before, but she +had heard about them almost from the time she was able to lisp. + +"They're mine," Mrs. Robson had repeated to Claire again and again. "My +father bought them for me when I was sixteen years old. I remember the +day distinctly, and how my mother said: 'Don't you think, John, that +Emily is a little young for anything like this? I'll keep them for her +until she is twenty.' I nearly cried myself sick, but of course mother +was right, _then_.... But like everything else, I never got my hands on +them again. And what is more, Julia Carrol Ffinch-Brown knows that they +are mine as well as anybody, because she stood right alongside of me +when I handed them over to mother. Not that I care.... It's the +principle of the thing!" + +Claire felt disappointed in the pendants. They seemed so +insignificant--to fall very far short of her mother's passionate +description of them, and she began to wonder which was the more +pathetic, Mrs. Robson's exaggerated notion of their worth or the +pettiness that gave Aunt Julia the tenacity to hold fast to such trivial +baubles. + +Ned Stillman was in the audience, also. Claire saw him sitting off at +the side. Indeed, she spotted him on the very moment of her entrance +upon the stage. She had been nervous until his friendly smile warmed her +into easy confidence; and though, while she played, her back had been +toward him, she felt the glow of his sympathy. As Lily Condor and she +swept back upon the stage for their rather perfunctory applause, and +still more perfunctory bouquets provided by the committee, Claire could +see him gently tapping his hands in her direction, and she was surprised +when the usher handed her a bouquet of dazzling orchids. + +"They must be for you," Claire said, innocently enough, to Mrs. Condor. +"I don't find any name on them." + +"That shows that you've got a discreet admirer, at any rate," Lily +Condor returned with that bantering sneer which Claire was just +beginning to notice. And the thought struck her at once that Stillman +had sent the flowers. She was pleased, but also a little annoyed to +think he had so deliberately ignored Mrs. Condor. + +The Flints were there, too; Flint looked uncomfortable and warm in his +scant full-dress suit and his wife frankly ridiculous in a low-cut gown +that exhibited every angle of a hopelessly scrawny neck. Claire did not +see them until she was leaving the stage, and she smiled as she saw +Flint lean over and pick up the opera-glasses from his wife's lap. But +this was not all. In a far corner sat Miss Munch and her cousin, Mrs. +Richards, their ferret eyes darting busily about and their tongues +clicking even more rapidly. Doubtless Flint had invested in a number of +tickets at the office for business reasons and passed them around for +any of the office force who felt a desire to see society at close range. + +Claire had not meant to stay beyond one or two numbers following her own +appearance, but she kept yielding to Mrs. Condor's insistent suggestions +that she "stay for just one more," until she discovered, to her dismay, +that it was past midnight. The last artists were taking their places +upon the stage. Claire resigned herself to the inevitable and sat out +the remainder of the performance. She was making a quick exit into the +dressing-room when she came face to face with her aunt. Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown betrayed her confusion by the merest lift of the eyebrows, +and she stepped back as if to get a clearer view of her niece, as she +said with an air of polite surprise: + +"You--_here_?" + +Claire carried her head confidently. "I was on the program," she +returned, consciously eying the turquoise pendants. + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rested a closed fan against her left ear as if to +screen at least one of the earrings from Claire's frank stare. "Oh, how +interesting! I must have missed you--I came in late. It's rather odd. I +thought I knew everybody on the program.... I helped arrange it." + +"Well," Claire smiled, "I wasn't what you would call one of the +head-liners. I played Mrs. Condor's accompaniments." + +"That accounts for it ... my not knowing, I mean. I dare say your mother +is better, otherwise you wouldn't be here." + +Claire met her aunt's thrust calmly. "No, mother is worse, if anything. +As a matter of fact, I'm here...." + +She broke off abruptly, realizing suddenly that she had left her orchids +behind. She turned to discover Stillman making his leisurely way toward +her. He had the orchids in his hand. + +"My dear Miss Robson," he said, gently, "Mrs. Condor came very near +appropriating your flowers." + +She could feel the color rising to her forehead. "I see you came to my +rescue again," she said, simply, taking them from him. "I think you know +Mr. Stillman, Aunt Julia." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown forced a too-sweet smile as she gave Stillman a nod of +recognition. "Fancy any girl forgetting so much gorgeousness!" she +exclaimed with an attempt at lightness, but Claire caught the covert +rancor in her voice, and as her aunt made a movement of escape she put +out a restraining hand and said: + +"I wanted you to know, Aunt Julia, that I'm here merely as a matter of +business. Mrs. Condor has hired me to play her accompaniments." + +Mrs. Ffinch-Brown shook off Claire impatiently. "_Hired_ you!" she +sneered. "How extraordinary!" + +And with that she swept past, giving Stillman a glance of farewell. + +Claire turned to Stillman. "What must you think of me? Leaving my +flowers behind. Confess--it was you who sent them.... I was in such a +rush to get away, though. I shouldn't have stayed so long. My mother is +alone.... Of course there are neighbors just below and they will look in +on her, but just the same...." + +His smile reassured her. "Are you forgetting about to-morrow?" he asked. +"Remember we are to begin business promptly at two o'clock. I hired a +typewriting-machine yesterday. I'm really thrilled at the idea of--of +going into business." + +She looked at him steadily as she gave him her hand: "My dear Mr. +Stillman," she said, quite frankly, "you are very kind." + +He answered by pressing her hand warmly and she covered her face with +the purple orchids. They were interrupted by Lily Condor sweeping rather +arrogantly toward them. + +"Haven't you gone yet?" she asked Claire. "I thought you were in a +hurry! I hope you've persuaded Ned to get us a taxi. I hate street-cars +at this hour." And in answer to Claire's embarrassed protest that she +had never given such a thing a thought, Mrs. Condor finished: "Well, +I've given it a thought, and don't you forget it. Come, Ned, is it a +go?" + +Claire fancied that a flicker of annoyance passed over Stillman's face +as he answered, with a dry laugh: + +"You might at least have given me time to prove my gallantry." + +"I'm not taking any chances," was the prompt reply. + +Claire turned away. What had contrived to give Mrs. Condor this +disagreeable air of assurance toward Ned Stillman, she found herself +wondering. It had not been apparent at the Condor-Stillman musicale.... + +She arrived home dismayed to find the front room illuminated, but the +rattle of the departing taxi brought Mrs. Finnegan to the top of the +stairs with a laughing apology. + +"I just looked in to see how your mother was, Miss Claire, and I found a +book on the front-room table"--Mrs. Finnegan held up Ouida's +_Moths_--"and I got so interested in it that I just naturally forgot to +go home. Finnegan's out, anyway. I was telling him about your good +fortune. And all he said was: 'Well, it beats me how an old crow like +Mrs. Condor gets paid for singing. I remember five years ago, when she +wasn't so uppish, we had her for a benefit performance of the Native +Sons, and she didn't get paid then. Her singing may be over my head. +Anyway, it didn't get to my ears.' But Finnegan is always like that. He +just likes to contradict. I got back at him. I said, 'Well, if she can +afford to pay Miss Claire forty a month for playing the piano, she must +get a good piece of money every time she opens her mouth.' ...Mercy, +look at the orchids! Well, you must have had a swell time. I'll bet you +wouldn't like to tell who sent them.... There wasn't any card? That's +not saying you don't know, Miss Claire.... I hope you won't think I'm a +meddler, but I'm an older woman and.... Well, just you keep a sharp eye +on the feller that sends you orchids, Miss Claire." + +She went down-stairs without further ado. Claire put the orchids in +water and set them on a sill near an open window. She did not feel in +the least resentful of Mrs. Finnegan's warnings. She was too confident +to be anything but faintly amused at her neighbor's middle-class +anxiety. But Finnegan's skepticism concerning Mrs. Condor annoyed her +and she remembered the disagreeable words of her aunt: + +"_Hired_ you? How extraordinary!" + + * * * * * + +"Two o'clock _sharp_!" The memory of Stillman's air of delicate banter +as he emphasized the hour for beginning his business venture struck +Claire ironically the more she pondered his words. She had a feeling +that there was something farcical in the prospect, and yet there seemed +nothing to do but to go through with the preliminaries. She presented +herself, therefore, at the appointed time at the Stanford Court +apartments. + +She found Stillman quite alone, his hands blue-black with the smudge +from a refractory typewriter ribbon which he was vainly endeavoring to +adjust. It took some time for him to get his hands clean again, and +Claire sharpened her pencils while she waited. But there really proved +to be nothing to do. + +"I'm all up in the air over this bean business," Stillman confessed, +nonchalantly. "The government, you know ... they're taking over all that +sort of thing ... regulating food and prices. Of course, in that +case...." + +Claire felt an enormous and illogical relief. "Then you really won't +need me," she ventured. + +"Oh, quite the contrary.... I have a certain amount of business, of a +sort. And I'm tired of dropping checks along the trail of public +stenographers.... Suppose we talk terms. We haven't fixed on any salary, +yet." + +Claire felt a rising impatience. His subterfuge seemed too childish and +obvious. "That will depend on how much of my time you expect, Mr. +Stillman." + +"Well, three times a week, anyway ... to start with. Say Mondays, +Wednesdays, and Fridays from two to five.... I was thinking that +something in the neighborhood of fifteen dollars a week would be fair." + +He turned a very frank gaze in her direction and she quizzically +returned his glance. + +"That's rather ridiculous, don't you think?" she said, trying to +disguise her furtive annoyance. "You can hire a substitute through any +typewriting agency on the basis of three dollars a day." + +"Yes, and I can buy two cigars for a nickel, but I shouldn't want to +smoke them." + +She clicked the keys of her machine idly. "That is hardly a fair +comparison. You can get any number of competent girls for three +dollars." + +He rested his chin on his upturned palm. "But, my dear Miss Robson, I +happen to want _you_." + +She thought of any number of cheap, obvious retorts that might have been +flung back at his straightforward admission, but instead she said, with +equal frankness: + +"That's just what I don't understand." + +He threw her a puzzled look and the usual placid light in his eyes +quickened to resentful impatience. + +"Is that a necessary part of the contract, Miss Robson?" + +She caught her breath. His tone of annoyance was sharp and unexpected. +There was a suggestion of Flint's masculine arrogance in his voice. She +felt how absurd was her cross-examination of him, of how absurd, under +the circumstances, would have been her cross-examination of anybody +ready and willing to give her work to do and an ample wage in the +bargain, and yet, for all the force of his reply, she knew it to be a +well-bred if not a deliberate evasion. + +"You mean it is none of my business, don't you?" she contrived to laugh +back at him. + +His reply was a further surprise. "Yes, precisely," he said, with an +ominous thinning of the lips. + +She rose instinctively to meet this thrust and she was conscious that +even Flint had never managed so to disturb her. She glanced about +hastily as if measuring the room in a swift impulse toward escape. +Stillman had chosen the dining-room for a temporary office, and upon the +polished surface of the antique walnut table the typewriter struck an +incongruous note; indeed, it was all incongruous, particularly Stillman +and his assumed business airs. Yes, it was absurd for her to either +cross-examine or protest, but it was equally absurd for him to pay her +such an outlandish sum for nine hours a week. + +"He's doing it for me," she thought, not without a sense of triumph. +Then, turning to him, she said, a bit awkwardly: + +"I guess there isn't any use to dissuade you, Mr. Stillman. If you say +fifteen dollars a week, I sha'n't argue with you." + +He smiled back at her, all his former suavity regained. She slid into +her seat again. Her mind was recalling vividly the one other time in her +life when she had grappled vigorously with the masculine spirit of +domination, and come away victorious. This time she had been defeated +and she had impulses toward relief and fear. She looked up suddenly and +trapped a solicitous glance from Stillman that rather annoyed her. And +it struck her, as she mentally compared Stillman with most of the men of +her acquaintance, how far he could have loomed above them if he had had +the will for such a performance. As it was he fell somewhat beneath them +in a curious, indefinable way. Had he been too finely tempered by +circumstances or had the flame of life lacked the proper heat for fusing +his virtues effectively? For the moment she found Flint's forthright +insolence more tolerable than Stillman's sterile deference. Suddenly she +began to think of home, not with any sense of security, but as something +unpleasant, dark, disquieting.... + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Toward six o'clock one afternoon in late February Ned Stillman, making +his way from the business district at California and Montgomery Streets +toward his club, suddenly remembered a forgotten luncheon engagement for +that day with Lily Condor. + +"Well," he muttered at once, "I'm in for it now! I guess I might as well +swing out and see her and get the thing over with." + +It was curious of late how often he was given to muttering. Previously, +petty annoyances had not moved him to these half-audible and solitary +comments which he had always found contemptuously amusing in others. He +wondered whether this new trick was the result of his business ventures, +his sly charities, or his approach toward the suggestive age of forty. +Associating the name of Lily Condor with his covert charities, he was +almost persuaded that they lay back of this preposterous habit. And the +more he thought about it the more he muttered and became convinced that +Lily Condor was usually the topic of these vocal self-communings. + +Ned Stillman had always prided himself upon his sense of personal +freedom concerning the trivial circumstances of life. Of course, like +any man of sensibility, he was bound by the chains that deeper impulses +forge, but he had never been hampered by any restraints directed at his +ordinary uprisings and downsittings. In short, he had answered the beck +and nod of no man, much less a woman, and he was not finding Lily +Condor's growing presumptions along this line altogether agreeable. + +He would not have minded so much if there was any personal gratification +in yielding to the lady's whip-hand commands. There are certain delights +in self-surrender which give a zest to slavery, but there is no joy in +being held a hostage. Looking back, Stillman marveled at the +indiscretion he had committed when he handed over not only his reserve, +but Claire Robson's reputation into the safekeeping of Lily Condor. Had +he ever had the simplicity to imagine that a woman of Mrs. Condor's +stamp would constitute herself a safe-deposit vault for hoarding secrets +without exacting a price? Well, perhaps he had expected to pay, but a +little less publicly. He had not looked to have the lady in question +ring every coin audibly in full view and hearing of the entire +market-place, and yet, if his experience had stood him in good stead, he +must have known that this was precisely what she would do. Stillman's +hidden gratitude, his private beneficences, did not serve her purpose, +but the spectacle of him in the role of her debtor was a sight that went +a long way to establishing a social credit impoverished by no end of +false ventures. + +Her command for him to take her to luncheon--and it had been a command, +however suavely she had managed to veil it--bore also the stamp of +urgency. Usually she was content to lay all her positive requests to the +charge of mere caprice, but on this occasion she took the trouble to +intimate that there was a particular reason for wanting to see him. It +did not take him long to conclude that this particular reason had to do +with Claire Robson. That was why he yielded with a better grace than he +had been giving to his troublesome friend's disagreeable pressure. + +Stillman knew that while Lily Condor was not precisely jealous of the +younger woman, she was distinctly envious--with the impersonal but acrid +envy of middle age for youth. The episode of the orchids still rankled. +He had to admit that in this instance his course had been tactless, but +he had ignored Mrs. Condor as a challenge to the presumption which he +had already begun to sense. She, while seeming definitely to evade the +real issue, had answered the challenge and he had paid for his temerity +a hundredfold. She had reminded him again and again in deft but none the +less positive terms that she was keeping a finger on the mainspring of +any advantage that came her way. Sometimes Stillman wondered whether she +would really be cattish enough to betray his confidence and bring Claire +Robson crashing down under the weight of the questionable position into +which his indiscretion had forced her. Would she really have the face to +publish abroad the pregnant fact that Ned Stillman was providing what +she had been pleased to designate as a meal-ticket for a young woman in +difficulty? For himself he cared little, except that he always shrank +instinctively from appearing ridiculous. + +He had been thinking a great deal of late as to the best course to +pursue in ridding himself and Claire of this menacing incubus. He had a +feeling that Claire, having exhausted the novelties of her position as +accompanist to Lily Condor, was beginning to find the affair irksome. + +The business venture had progressed in quite another direction from his +original intention. Suddenly, without knowing how it had all come about, +he found his plans clearly defined. The government needed him. Somehow, +it had never occurred to him that he could be of service at a point so +far from the center of war activities. He had been a good deal of an +idler, it was true, but the seeds of achievement were merely lying in +fallow soil. + +At first, he had been stung into action more by Claire's accusing +attitude than anything else. She used to come every other afternoon at +the appointed time and almost challenge him by her reproachful silence +to do something, if only to provide her with an illusion. It was as if +she said: + +"See, I have given in to you. I know that you are doing this for me, and +I am deeply grateful. But won't you please make the situation a little +less transparent? Won't you at least justify me in the eyes of those who +are watching our little performance?..." + +It had all ended by his offering his services to the Food +Administration. He knew something of his father's business. He felt that +he had a fair knowledge of beans, and he could learn more. He merely +asked a trial, and it surprised him to find what a sense of humility +suddenly possessed him. He was really overjoyed when a place was assured +him. But he had to admit that his acceptance was not accorded any great +enthusiasm. The newspapers mentioned it in a scant paragraph that was +not even given a prominent place. He had received greater recognition +for a brilliant play upon the golf-links! Well, in such stirring times +he was nobody. He did not complain, even to himself, but the knowledge +subconsciously rankled. + +He hired an office down-town, joined the Commercial Club, religiously +attended every meeting that had to do with food conservation, hunted +out, absorbed, appropriated all the economic secrets that served his +purpose.... Suddenly he found himself engrossed, enthusiastic, _busy_! +Finally Claire said to him one day: + +"Don't you think I ought to come to you every afternoon?" + +"If you can arrange it," he almost snapped back at her. + +She did arrange it, how he took no pains to inquire, and a little later +she said again: + +"You ought to have some one here all day. I guess you will have to look +for another stenographer." + +He remembered how menacingly he had darted at her. She was dressed for +the street, on her way home, and she had halted at the door. + +"Do you want to desert the work that you've inspired?" he demanded. + +"Inspired?... By _me_?" Her voice took on a note of triumph. + +"You didn't fancy that _I_ inspired it, did you?" he sneered at her. + +His vehemence confused her. "I hadn't thought.... Really, you know.... +Well, as you say.... But, of course, it is absurd when you can get any +number of girls to...." + +"But suppose I want _you_?" he demanded of her for a second time. + +She left without further reply. + +When she was gone he found himself in a nasty panic. It was as if the +lady who had called him to her lists had suddenly decided upon a new +defender. + +"Is she tired of it all ... or is there some one else? Can it be +possible that Flint...." + +He had stopped short, amazed to find his mind descending to such a +vulgar level. What had come over him? And he began to fancy things as +they once had been--empty, purposeless days, and nights that found him +too bored to even sleep. It seemed incredible that he could go back to +them again. What lay at the bottom of his sudden deep-breathed +satisfaction with life? For an instant, the truth which he had kept at +bay with his old trick of evasion swept toward him. + +"No ... no," he muttered. "Oh no!... That would be too absurd!" + +But when he had gone to the mirror to brush his hair before venturing on +the street he found thick beads of perspiration on his forehead and his +hand shook as he lifted the comb. + +The next day he told Claire that in the future her salary would be +twenty dollars a week. He stood expecting her to rail against the +increase, to try to put him to rout by explaining that she had received +less for a full day's work at Flint's. But to his surprise she thanked +him and went on with her work. + +It was shortly after this that he began to haunt the various +performances in which Lily Condor and Claire appeared. He always +contrived to slip in during the first number, which as a rule happened +to be Mrs. Condor's offering, and he sat in a far corner where nobody +but that lady could have chanced upon him. But he never knew her to fail +in locating him, or to miss the opportunity to sit out the remainder of +the program at his side, or to suggest crab-legs Louis at Tait's, +particularly if Claire were determined upon an early leave-taking. The +effect of all this was not lost upon the general public, and it was not +long before men of Stillman's acquaintance used to remark facetiously to +him over the lunch-table: + +"What's new in beans to-day?... Are _reds_ still a favorite?" + +Stillman would throw back an equally cryptic answer, thinking as he did +so: + +"What a wigging I must be getting over the teacups! I guess I'll cut it +all out in the future." + +But he usually went no farther than his impulsive resolves. + +Sometimes he wondered what Claire thought of his faithful appearance. +Did she fancy that he came to bask in the smiling impertinences of Lily +Condor? + +As he made his way to a street-car on this vivid February afternoon, he +called to mind that of late Claire had been bringing a fagged look to +her daily tasks. He hoped again that Mrs. Condor's desire to see him had +to do with Claire--more particularly with her dismissal as accompanist. +Miss Menzies had quite recovered and there was really no reason for +Claire to continue in her service. It struck him as he pondered all +these matters how strange it was to find him concerned about these +feminine adjustments--he who had always stared down upon trivial +circumstances with cold scorn. + +He arrived at Lily Condor's apartments almost upon the lady's heels. Her +hat was still ornamenting the center-table and her wrap lay upon a +wicker rocker, where, with a quick movement of irritation, it had been +cast aside. + +Her greeting was not reassuring. "Oh...." she began coldly. "Isn't this +rather late for lunch?" + +"I'm really very sorry," Stillman returned as he took a chair, "but to +be frank, I quite forgot about you." + +"Well," she tried to laugh back at him, "there isn't any virtue as +disagreeable as the truth. I expected you would at least attempt to be +polite enough to lie." + +"I hope you were not too greatly inconvenienced," he said, in a +deliberate attempt to ignore her irritation. + +"I waited two hours, if that is what you mean. But then, _my_ time isn't +particularly valuable." + +He rose suddenly. "I've told you that I was sorry," he began coldly, +reaching for his hat. "But evidently you are determined to be +disagreeable. I fancied you wanted to see me about something urgent, so +I came almost as soon as I remembered." + +She snatched the discarded wrap from its place on the wicker rocker as +she glared at him. "You're in something of a hurry, it seems.... Well, I +sha'n't detain you. The truth is there's a pretty kettle of fish stewed +up over this young woman, Claire Robson.... I want you to tell her that +she can't play at the Cafe Chantant next Friday night." + +"Want _me_ to tell her? I don't see where I come in.... Why don't you +tell her yourself?" + +"Because I don't choose to.... Besides, I think you might do it a little +more delicately. I can't tell her brutally that she isn't wanted." + +"Isn't wanted? Why, what do you mean?" + +"The committee informs me that she isn't the sort of person they are +accustomed to have featured in their entertainments. It seems that Mrs. +Flint...." + +"Mrs. Sawyer Flint?" + +"Precisely." + +"What is her objection?" + +"Do you really want me to tell you?" + +"Why not?" + +"It appears that some time last fall Miss Robson tried to get her +husband into a compromising position. She came over to the house one +night when Mrs. Flint was away. Flint promptly ordered her out. It seems +she went ... to be quite frank ... with _you_. And what is more, +she...." + +"It isn't necessary for you to go any farther. Tell me, do you mean to +say that you believe this thing? Didn't you lift a hand to defend her?" + +Lily Condor narrowed her eyes. "Oh, come now, Ned Stillman, don't be a +fool! You know as well as I do that I'm hanging on to my own reputation +by my finger-nails. I'm not taking any chances. As to whether it is so +... well, if I were to tell the committee everything I know it wouldn't +help her cause any. I could wreck her reputation like that," she snapped +her fingers, "with one solitary fact. If she hasn't wrecked it already +with her senseless chatter.... Only last week her aunt, Mrs. +Ffinch-Brown, said to me: 'So you're hiring my niece! I must say that is +handsome of you!' You were sitting talking to Claire and she looked +deliberately at you when she said it. Remember how I warned you, last +December. I told you then that the secret of a woman's meal-ticket was +never hidden very long." + +During this speech Mrs. Condor's voice had dropped from its original +tone of petty rancor to one of petulant self-justification. Stillman +knew at once that her ill-temper had caught her off-guard and she was +already trying to crawl slowly back into his favor. She had meant, no +doubt, to soften her news over a glass or two of chilled white wine +which she had counted on sipping during the noon hour. She might even +then have gone farther and decided to cast her fortunes with Stillman +and Claire if she had seen that her advantage lay in that direction. He +was not sure but that she still had some such notion in her mind. But he +felt suddenly sick of her past all hope of compromise, and he was +determined to be rid of her once and for all. + +"No doubt," he said, frigidly, "you will be glad to be relieved of Miss +Robson's presence permanently. I take it that you don't consider her +association exactly ... well ... shall we say discreet?" + +Her eyes took on a yellow tinge as she faced him. She must have sensed +the finality of his tone, the well-bred insolence that his query +suggested. + +"Discreet?" she echoed. "Well, I wouldn't say that that was quite what I +meant. Desirable--that would be better. I don't find her association +desirable.... I don't _want_ her, in other words." + +He had never been so angry in his life. Had she been a man he would have +struck her. He felt himself choking. "My dear Mrs. Condor," he warned, +"will you be good enough to take a little more respectful tone when you +speak of Miss Robson?" + +"Oh, indeed! And just what are your rights in the matter? You're not her +brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't know that it was +the fashion for a...." His look stopped her. She trembled a moment, +tossed back her head, and finished, defiantly, "Yes, that is what I want +to know, what _are_ your rights?" + +He took a step toward her. Instinctively she retreated. + +"A woman like you wouldn't understand even if I were to tell you," he +flung at her. + +She covered her face with both hands. + +He left the room. + +He himself was trembling as he reached the street--trembling for the +first time in years. As a child he had been given to these fits of +emotional tremors, but he had long since lost the faculty for recording +physically his intense moments. Or had he lost the faculty for the +intense moments themselves, he found himself wondering, as he walked +rapidly toward his home. The evening was warm with the perfume of a bit +of truant summer that had somehow escaped before its time to hearten a +winter-weary world against the bitter assaults of March. Birds of +passage sang among the hedges, the sun still cast a faint greenish glow +in the extreme west. + +His first thought was of the cowering woman he had just left. He had +meant to lash her keenly with his verbal whipcords, but he had not +expected to find her quite so sensitive to his cutting scorn. He +remembered the gesture with which she had lifted her hand as if to +screen herself from his insults. There was a whole life of futile +compromise in just the manner of that gesture, a growing helplessness to +give straightforward thrusts, a pitiful admission of defeat. But he knew +that this surrender was temporary--a quick lifting of the mask under a +relentless pressure. To-morrow, in an hour, in ten minutes, Lily Condor +would be her dangerous self again, lashed into the fury of a woman +scorned. For a moment he did not know whether to be relieved or dismayed +at the prospect of Mrs. Condor for an enemy. How much would she really +dare? + +He thought with a lowering anger of Flint. He had been ready to concede +everything but this former friend in the role of a cheap and nasty +gossip. No--gossip was a pale, sickly term. Flint was a malignant toad, +a nauseous mud-slinger, a deliberate liar. He had heard of men who had +justified themselves with vile tales to their insipid, disgustingly +virtuous wives, but he had not counted such among his acquaintances. By +the side of Flint, Lily Condor loomed a very paragon of the social +amenities. + +Stillman was conscious that his mental process was keyed to the highest +pitch of melodrama. It was not usual for him to indulge in mental abuse. +He had never quite understood the dark and moving processes of red-eyed +anger. There had been something absurd in the theatrical hauteur of his +manner in this last scene with Mrs. Condor--that is, if it were measured +by his own standards. His growing detachments from life had claimed him +almost to the point of complete indifference. But now, suddenly, as if +Fate had dealt him an insulting blow upon the face with her bare palm, +he felt not only rage, but a sense of its futility, its impotence. + +"Flint!" he thought again. And immediately he spewed forth the memory of +this man in a flood of indiscriminate epithets. + + * * * * * + +Later, in the refuge of his own four walls and under the brooding solace +of an after-dinner cigar, he lost some of the intensiveness of his +former humor. But the force of the vehemence which had shaken him filled +him with much wonder and some apprehension. He was too much a man of +experience to deny questions when they were put to him squarely by +circumstances. + +"You're not her brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't +know it was the fashion for a...." + +Lily Condor's clipped question struck him squarely now. Just what were +his expectations concerning Claire Robson? The thought turned him cold. +Essentially he was of Puritan mold, but he had always had a theory that +love of illicit pleasures must have been uncommonly strong in a people +who found it necessary to fight the flesh so uncompromisingly. Battling +with the elements upon the bleak shores of New England contributed, no +doubt, to the gray and chastened spirits that these grim folks had won +for themselves; spirits that colored and sometimes seeded swiftly under +the softer skies of California. San Francisco was full of these forced +blooms consumed and withered by the sudden heat of a free and +traditionless life. He knew scores of old-timers--his father's +friends--who had been gloriously wrecked by the passion with which they +met freedom's kiss. They had pursued pleasure with an energy overtrained +in wrestling with the devil and had paid the penalty of all ardent souls +lacking the prudence of weakness. There was at once something fine and +unlawful about the spirit of adventure: it implied courage, impatience +of restraint, wilfulness--in short, all the virtues and vices of +strength. He had felt at times the heritage of this strength, shorn of +its power by the softness of a wilderness that had been wooed instead +of conquered. His forefathers had found California a waiting, gracious +bride, but there had been almost a suggestion of the courtezan in the +lavishness of this land's response to the caresses of the invaders. + +There was something fantastic in the memory of his father, fresh from +the austere dawns of the little fishing village of Gloucester, +transplanted suddenly to the wine-red sunsets of the Golden Gate. He +felt that his father must have had the courage for substance-wasting +without the temptation. Most men in those early days had plunged unyoked +into the race--Ezra Stillman brought his bride, and therefore his +household goods, with him, and unconsciously custom drew its restraining +rein tight. Ezra Stillman came from a long line of salt-seasoned +tempters of the sea; their virtues had been rugged and their vices +equally robust; sin with them had been gaunt, sinewy, unlovely; there +was nothing insinuating and soft about the lure of pleasure in that +silver-nooned environment. Ezra had been the first of this long line to +turn his back upon the sea, and the land had rewarded him lavishly as if +determined to make his capture complete. Yet, he was not landsman enough +to wrest a living direct from the soil; instead, he set up his booth in +the market-place of the town and tr + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD RED DAWN*** + + +******* This file should be named 11875.txt or 11875.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/8/7/11875 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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