diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:48:20 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:48:20 -0700 |
| commit | 762f1f39a987d61a5ef6d080f53ee7733d7283b5 (patch) | |
| tree | c82e29a817ff9b947705da25195f1cd92d75c30b | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29847-8.txt | 11047 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29847-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 191696 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29847-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 196377 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29847-h/29847-h.htm | 11201 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29847.txt | 11047 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29847.zip | bin | 0 -> 191571 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
9 files changed, 33311 insertions, 0 deletions
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/29847-8.txt b/29847-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0185694 --- /dev/null +++ b/29847-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11047 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Paliser case, by Edgar Saltus + +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 Paliser case + +Author: Edgar Saltus + +Release Date: August 29, 2009 [EBook #29847] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PALISER CASE *** + + + + +Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + THE PALISER CASE + + BY EDGAR SALTUS + + +BONI AND LIVERIGHT +NEW YORK 1919 + +COPYRIGHT, 1919, +BY EDGAR SALTUS + +_Printed in the U. S. A._ + + + _Then headlong down the stair of life he fell, while up + that stairway others laughed and mounted and all were + drunken with the wine of youth._ + + + + +THE PALISER CASE + + + + +I + + +The murder of Monty Paliser, headlined that morning in the papers, shook +the metropolis at breakfast, buttered the toast, improved the taste of +the coffee. + +Murdered! It seemed too bad to be false. Moreover, there was his +picture, the portrait of a young man obviously high-bred and insolently +good-looking. In addition to war news and the financial page, what more +could you decently ask for a penny? Nothing, perhaps, except the address +of the murderer. But that detail, which the morning papers omitted, +extras shortly supplied. Meanwhile in the minds of imaginative New +Yorkers, visions of the infernal feminine surged. The murdered man's +name was evocative. + +His father, Montagu Paliser, generally known as M. P., had lived in that +extensive manner in which New York formerly took an indignant delight. +Behind him, extending back to the remotest past when Bowling Green was +the centre of fashion, always there had been a Paliser, precisely as +there has always been a Livingston. These people and a dozen others +formed the landed gentry--a gentry otherwise landed since. But not the +Paliser clan. The original Paliser was very wealthy. All told he had a +thousand dollars. Montagu Paliser, the murdered man's father, had stated +casually, as though offering unimportant information, that, by Gad, sir, +you can't live like a gentleman on less than a thousand dollars a day. +That was years and years ago. Afterward he doubled his estimate. +Subsequently, he quadrupled it. It made no hole in him either. In spite +of his yacht, his racing stable, his town house, his country residences +and formerly in the great days, or rather in the great nights, his +ladies of the ballet, in spite of these incidentals his wealth +increased. No end to it, is about the way in which he was currently +quoted. + +All New Yorkers knew him, at any rate by repute, precisely as the least +among us knows Mr. Carnegie, though perhaps more intimately. The tales +of his orgies, of his ladies, of that divorce case and of the yacht +scandal which burst like a starball, tales Victorian and now legendary, +have, in their mere recital, made many an old reprobate's mouth +champagne. But latterly, during the present generation that is, the +ineffable Paliser--M. P. for short--who, with claret liveries and a yard +of brass behind him had tooled his four-in-hand, or else, in his superb +white yacht, gave you something to talk about, well, from living very +extensively he had renounced the romps and banalities of this life. + +Old reprobates could chuckle all they liked over the uproar he had +raised in the small and early family party that social New York used to +be. But in club windows there were no new tales of him to tell. Like a +potentate outwearied with the circumstance of State, he had chucked it, +definitely for himself, and recently in favour of his son, Monty, who, +in the month of March, 1917, arrived from Havana at the family +residence, which in successive migrations had moved, as the heart of +Manhattan has moved, from the neighbourhood of the Battery to that of +the Plaza. + +In these migrations the Palisers had not derogated from their high +estate. Originally, one of the first families here, the centuries, few +but plural, had increased what is happily known as their prestige. Monty +Paliser was conscious of that, but not unwholesomely. The enamellings +that his father had added gave him no concern whatever. On the contrary. +He knew that trade would sack the Plaza, as long since it had razed the +former citadels of fashion, and he foresaw the day when the family +residence, ousted from upper Fifth Avenue, would be perched on a peak of +Washington Heights, where the Palisers would still be among the first +people in New York--to those coming in town that way. + +That result it was for him to insure. Apart from second cousins, to whom +he had never said a word and never proposed to address, apart from them, +apart too from his father and himself, there was only his sister, Sally +Balaguine, who, one night, had gone to bed in Petersburg and, on the +morrow, had awakened in Petrograd. Though, in addition to this much +surprised lady, before whose eyes Petrograd subsequently dissolved into +Retrograd and afterward into delirium, there was her son, a boy of +three. Mme. Balaguine's prince did not count, or rather had ceased to. +As lieutenant of the guards he had gone to the front where a portion of +him had been buried, the rest having been minutely dispersed. + +To perpetuate the clan in its elder branch, there was therefore but this +young man, a circumstance which, on his return from Havana, his father +advanced. + +They were then at luncheon. For the father there was biscuit and milk. +For the son there was an egg cooked in a potato. Yet, in the kitchen, +or, if not there, somewhere about, were three chefs. Moreover on the +walls were Beauvais. The ceiling was the spoil of a Venetian palace. The +luncheon however simple was not therefore disagreeable. + +With an uplift of the chin, the elder man flicked a crumb and sat back. +The action was a signal. Three servants filed out. + +Formerly his manner had been cited and imitated. To many a woman it had +been myrrh and cassia. It had been deadly nightshade as well. After a +fashion of long ago, he wore a cavalry moustache which, once black, now +was white. He was tall, bald, very thin. But that air of his, the air of +one accustomed to immediate obedience, yet which could be very urbane +and equally insolent, that air endured. + +In sitting back he looked at his son for whom he had no affection. For +no human being had he ever had any affection, except for himself, and +latterly even that unique love had waned. + +The chefs, originally retained on shifts of eight hours each, in order +that this man might breakfast or sup whenever he so desired, that he +might breakfast, as a gentleman may, at four in the afternoon, or sup at +seven in the morning, these chefs were useless. His wife, who had died, +not as one might suppose of a broken heart but of fatty degeneration, +had succumbed to their delicately toxic surprises with groans but also +with thanksgiving. + +That is ancient history. At present her widower supped on powdered +charcoal and breakfasted on bismuth. The cooks he still retained, not to +prepare these triumphs, but for the benefit of his heir, for whom he had +no affection but whom he respected as the next incumbent and treated +accordingly, that is to say, as one gentleman treats another. + +On this high noon, when the servants had gone, the father sat back and +looked at his son, who, it then occurred to him, astonishingly resembled +his mother. He had the same eyes, too big, too blue; the same lashes, +too long, too dark; the same ears, too small and a trifle too far +forward. In addition he had the same full upper-lip, the same cleft in +the chin, the same features refined almost to the point of degeneracy. +But the ensemble was charming--too charming, as was his voice, which he +had acquired at Oxford where, at the House, he had studied, though what, +except voice culture, one may surmise and never know. Men generally +disliked him and accounted the way he spoke, or the way he looked, the +reason. But what repelled them was probably his aura of which, though +unaware, they were not perhaps unconscious. + +His father motioned: "Thank God, you are here. At any moment now we may +be in it and you will have to go. You are not a divinity student and you +cannot be a slacker." + +The old man paused and added: "Meanwhile you will have to marry. If +anything should happen to you, there would be but Sally and the +Balaguine brat and I shouldn't like that. God knows why I care, but I +do. There has always been a Paliser here and it is your turn now--which +reminds me. I have made over some property to you. You would have had it +any way, but the transfer will put you on your feet, besides saving the +inheritance tax." + +"Thank you. What is it?" + +"The Place, the Wall Street and lower Broadway property, that damned +hotel and the opera-box. Jeroloman wrote you about it. Didn't you get +his letter?" + +"I may have. I don't know that I read it." + +"When you have a moment look in on him. He will tell you where you are." + +"And where is that?" + +The old man summarised it. Even with the increased cost of matrimony, it +was enough for a Mormon, for a tribe of them. But the young man omitted +to say so. He said nothing. + +His father nodded at him. "You think marriage a nuisance. So it is. So +is everything. By Gad, sir, I wish I were well out of it. I go +nowhere--not even to church. I have grown thin through the sheer +nuisance of things. But if nothing happens over there and you don't make +a mess of it, the next twenty years of your life ought not to be +profoundly disagreeable. Now I dislike to be a nuisance myself, but in +view of the war, it is necessary that there should be another Paliser, +if not here, at least en route." + +"I will think it over," said this charming young man, who had no +intention of doing anything of the kind. + +"The quicker the better then, and while you are at it select a girl with +good health and no brains. They wear best. I did think of Margaret +Austen for you, but she has become engaged. Lennox his name is. Her +mother told me. Told me too she hated it. Said you must come to dinner +and she'd have a girl or two for you to look at. Oblige me by going. +Plenty of others though. Girls here are getting healthier and stupider +and uglier every year. By Gad, sir, I remember----" + +The old man rambled on. He was back in the days when social New York +foamed with beauty, when it held more loveliness to the square inch than +any other spot on earth. He was back in the days when Fifth Avenue was +an avenue and not a ghetto. + +With an air of interest the young man listened. The air was not feigned. +Yet what interested him was not the outworn tale but the pathological +fact that the reminiscences of the aged are symptomatic of hardening of +the arteries. + +Mentally he weighed his father, gave him a year, eighteen months, and +that, not because he was anxious for his shoes, but out of sheer +dilettantism. + +The idea that his father would survive him, that it was he who was +doomed, that already behind the curtains of life destiny was staging his +death--and what a death!--he could no more foresee than he foresaw the +Paliser Case, which, to the parties subsequently involved, was then +unimaginable, yet which, at that very hour, a court of last resort was +deciding. + +He looked over at his father. "Palmerston asked everybody, particularly +when he didn't know them from Adam, 'How's the old complaint?' How is +yours?" + +With that air that had won so many hearts, and broken them too, the old +man smiled. + +"When I don't eat anything and sit perfectly still, it is extraordinary +how well I feel." + +How he felt otherwise, he omitted to state. A gentleman never talks of +disagreeable matters. + + + + +II + + +In the shouted extras that succeeded the initial news of the murder, +Margaret Austen was mentioned, not as the criminal, no one less criminal +than the girl could be imagined, but as being associated with the +parties involved. + +That was her misfortune and a very grievous misfortune, though, however +grievous, it was as nothing to other circumstances for which she +subsequently blamed herself, after having previously attributed them to +fate, or rather, as fate is more modernly known, to karma. + +Any belief may console. A belief in karma not only consoles, it +explains. As such it is not suited to those who accept things on faith, +which is a very good way to accept to them. It may be credulous to +believe that Jehovah dictated the ten commandments. But the commandments +are sound. Moreover it is perhaps better to be wrong in one's belief's +than not to have any. + +Margaret Austen believed in karma and in many related and wonderful +things. Her face showed it. It showed other things; appreciation, +sympathy, unworldliness, good-breeding and that minor charm that beauty +is. It showed a girl good to look at, good through and through; a girl +tall, very fair, who smiled readily, rarely laughed and never +complained. + +It is true that at the time this drama begins it would have been +captious of her to have complained of anything were it not that life is +so ordered that it has sorrow for shadow. The shadow on this human rose +was her mother. + +Mrs. Austen had seen worse days and never proposed to see them again. +Among the chief assets of her dear departed was a block of New Haven. +The stock, before collapsing, shook. Then it tripped, fell and kept at +it. Through what financial clairvoyance the dear departed's trustee got +her out, just in time, and, quite illegally but profitably, landed her +in Standard Oil is not a part of this drama. But meanwhile she had +shuddered. Like many another widow, to whom New Haven was as good as +Governments, she might have been in the street. Pointing at her had been +that spectre--Want! + +It was just that which she never proposed to see again. The spectre in +pointing had put a mark on this woman who was arrogant, ambitious and +horribly shrewd. + +A tall woman with a quick tongue, a false front, an air of great +affability and, when on parade, admirably sent out, she ruled her +daughter, or thought she did, which is not quite the same thing. + +Margaret Austen was ruled by her conscience and her beautiful beliefs. +These were her masters. This human rose was their lovely slave. But +latterly a god had enthralled her. It was with wonder and thanksgiving +that she recognised the overlordship of that brat of a divinity, whom +poets call Eros, and thinkers the Genius of the Species. + +Mrs. Austen, who had danced many a time before his shrine, had no +objection whatever to the godlet, except only when he neglected to +appear Olympianly, as divinity should, with a nimbus of rentrolls and +gold. + +In view of the fact that he had come to Margaret in déshabille, that is +to say without any discernible nimbus, he affronted Mrs. Austen's +ambitious eyes. + +Of that she said nothing to Margaret. But at dinner one evening she +summarised it to Peter Verelst who sat at her right. + +The room, which was furnished with tolerable taste, gave on Park Avenue +where she resided. At her left was Monty Paliser. Farther down were +Margaret, Lennox and Kate Schermerhorn. Coffee had been served. Paliser +was talking to Miss Schermerhorn; Lennox to Margaret. + +"I don't like it," Mrs. Austen said evenly to Peter Verelst. "But what +can I do?" + +Peter Verelst was an old New Yorker and an old beau. Mrs. Austen had +known him when she was in shorter frocks than those then in vogue. Even +as a child she had been ahead of the fashion. + +"Do?" Verelst repeated. "Do nothing." + +"I am a snob," she resumed, expecting him to contradict her. "I did hope +that Margaret, with her looks, would marry brilliantly." + +Peter Verelst bent over his coffee. "The young man next door?" + +Out of the corner of an eye Mrs. Austen glanced at Paliser and then back +at Verelst. "Well, something of the kind." + +Verelst raised his cup. He had known Lennox' father. He knew and liked +the son. For Margaret he had an affection that was almost--and which +might have been--paternal. But, noting the barometer, he steered into +the open. + +"Have Lennox here morning, noon and night. See to it that Margaret has +every opportunity to get sick to death of him. Whereas if you +interfere----" + +Mrs. Austen, as though invoking the saints, lifted her eyes. "Ah, I +know! If I had not been interfered with I would not have taken Austen. +Much good it did me!" + +Verelst, his hand on the tiller, nodded. "There you are! That locksmith +business is very sound. Love revels in it. But give him his head and +good-bye. Sooner or later he is bound to take to his heels, but, the +more he is welcomed, the sooner he goes. The history of love is a +history of farewells." + +Paliser, who had caught the last phrase, felt like laughing and +consequently looked very serious. The spectacle of two antiques +discussing love seemed to him as hilarious as two paupers discussing +wealth. He patted his tie. + +"Very interesting topic, Mrs. Austen." + +The woman smiled at him. "Love? Yes. How would you define it?" + +Paliser returned her smile. "A mutual misunderstanding." + +Mrs. Austen's smile deepened. "Would you like to have one?" + +"With your daughter, yes." + +Et moi donc! thought this lady, who, like others of our aristocracy, +occasionally lapsed into French. But she said: "Why not enter the +lists?" + +"I thought they were closed." + +"Are they ever?" + +But now Verelst addressed the too charming young man. "How is your +father?" + +"In his usual poor health, thank you." + +"What does he say about the war?" + +"Nothing very original--that the Kaiser ought to be sent to Devil's +Island. But that I told him would be an insult to Dreyfus, who was +insulted enough. The proper place for the beast is the zoo. At the same +time, the fellow is only a pawn. The blame rests on Rome--rests on her +seven hills." + +Verelst drew back. In the great days, or more exactly in the great +nights, he had been a pal of M. P. That palship he had no intention of +extending to M. P.'s son, and it was indifferently that he asked: "In +what way?" + +Kate Schermerhorn, who had been talking to Margaret and to Lennox, +turned. Lennox also had turned. Paliser had the floor, or rather the +table. He made short work of it. + +"It was Cæsar's policy to create a solitude and call it peace. That +policy Rome abandoned. Otherwise, that is if she had continued to turn +the barbarians into so many dead flies, their legs in the air, there +would be no barbarian now on the throne of Prussia. There would be no +Prussia, no throne, no war." + +You ought to write for the comic papers, thought Verelst, who said: +"Well, there is one comfort. It can't last forever." + +With feigned sympathy Mrs. Austen took it up. "Ah, yes, but meanwhile +there is that poor Belgium!" + +"By the way," Paliser threw in. "I have a box or two for the Relief Fund +at the Splendor to-night. Would anybody care to go?" + +Kate Schermerhorn, who looked like a wayward angel, exclaimed at it: +"Oh, do let's. There's to be a duck of a medium and I am just dying to +have my fortune told." + +Verelst showed his handsome false teeth. "No need of a medium for that, +my dear. Your path is one of destruction. You will bowl men over as you +go." + +Kate laughed at him. "You seem very upright." + +Mrs. Austen turned to Margaret. "If you care to go, we might get our +wraps." + +A moment later, when the women had left the room and the men were +reseated, Verelst stretched a hand to Lennox. "Again I congratulate you +and with all my heart." + +Keith Lennox grasped that hand, shook it, smiled. The smile illuminated +a face which, sombre in repose, then was radiant. Tall and straight, +hard as nails, he had the romantic figure. In a costume other than +evening clothes, he might have walked out of a tapestry. + +With ambiguous amiability, Paliser smiled also. Already Margaret's +beauty had stirred him. Already it had occurred to him that Lennox was +very invitingly in the way. + + + + +III + + +The ballrooms of the Splendor, peopled, as Mrs. Austen indulgently +noted, with Goodness knows who from Heaven knows where, received her and +her guests. + +Not all of them, however. At the entrance, Verelst, pretexting a +pretext, sagely dropped out. Within, a young man with ginger hair and +laughing eyes, sprang from nowhere, pounced at Kate, floated her away. + +Mrs. Austen, Margaret, Lennox and Paliser moved on. + +In one room there was dancing; in another, a stage. It was in the first +room that Kate was abducted. On the stage in the room beyond, a fat +woman, dressed in green and gauze, was singing faded idiocies. Beyond, +at the other end of the room was a booth above which was a sign--The +Veiled Lady of Yucatan. Beneath the sign was a notice: All ye that enter +here leave five dollars at the door. + +The booth, hung with black velvet, was additionally supplied with +hierograms in burnished steel. What they meant was not for the profane, +or even for the initiate. Champollion could not have deciphered them. +Fronting the door stood a young woman with a dark skin, a solemn look +and a costume which, at a pinch, might have been Maya. + +In those accents which the Plaza shares with Mayfair, she hailed +Margaret. "Hello, dear! Your turn next." + +For a moment, the dark skin, the solemn look, the costume puzzled +Margaret. Then at once she exclaimed: "Why, Poppet!" She paused and +added: "This is Mr. Paliser--Miss Bleecker. You know Mr. Lennox." + +But now, from the booth, a large woman with high colour, grey hair and a +jewelled lorgnette rushed out and fastened herself on the sultry girl. + +"Gimme back my money. Your veiled lady is a horror! Said I'd marry +again!" + +She raised her glasses. "Mary Austen, as I'm a sinner! Go in and have +your misfortunes told. How do do Margaret? Marry again indeed! Oughtn't +I to have my money back?" + +"Poppet ought to make you pay twice," Mrs. Austen heartlessly retorted +at this woman, the relict of Nicholas Amsterdam, concerning whom a story +had come out and who had died, his friends said, of exposure. + +Mrs. Amsterdam turned on Paliser whom she had never seen before. "What +do you say?" + +"I am appalled," he answered. + +She turned again. "There, Poppet, you hear that? Gimme back my money." + +But Miss Bleecker occupied herself with Lennox, who was paying for +Margaret. + +Margaret entered the booth where a little old woman, very plainly +dressed, sat at a small deal table. From above hung a light. Beside her +was a vacant chair. + +"Sit there, please," the medium, in a low voice, told the girl. "And +now, if you please, your hand." + +Margaret, seating herself, removed a glove. The hand in which she then +put hers was soft and warm and she feared that it might perspire. She +looked at the woman who looked at her, sighed, closed her eyes and +appeared to go to sleep. Then, presently, her lips parted and in a voice +totally different from that in which she had just spoken, a voice that +was thin and shrill, words came leapingly. + +"You are engaged to be married. Your engagement will be broken. You will +be very unhappy. Later, you will be thankful. Later you will realise +that sorrow is sent to make us nobler than we were." + +With an intake of the breath, the medium started, straightened, opened +her eyes. + +At the shock of it Margaret had started also. "But----" + +The medium, in her former voice, low and gentle, interrupted. + +"I can tell you nothing else. I do not know what was said. But I am +sorry if you have had bad news." + +Margaret stood up, replacing her glove. She knew, as we all know, that +certain gifted organisms hear combinations of sound to which the rest of +us are deaf. She knew, as many of us also know, that there are other +organisms that can foresee events to which the rest of us are blind. But +she knew too that in the same measure that the auditions of composers +are not always notable, the visions of clairvoyants are not always +exact. The knowledge steadied and partially comforted, but partially +only. + +At the entrance, Lennox stood with Miss Bleecker. A little beyond were +Paliser and her mother. Mrs. Amsterdam, minus her money, must have +rushed away. + +Poppet Bleecker laughed and questioned: "No horrors?" + +Lennox questioned also, but with his eyes. + +Margaret hesitated. Then she got it. Taking the girl's hand she patted +it and to Lennox said, and lightly enough: "Do go in. I want to see if +what the medium says to you conforms with what she said to me." + +Yet, however lightly she spoke, behind her girdle was that sensation +which only the tormented know. + +Beyond on the stage, the fat woman, now at the piano, was accompanying a +girl who was singing a brindisi. The girl was young, good-looking, +unembarrassed, very much at home. Her dress, a black chiffon, became +her. + +Then, in a moment, as Lennox entered the booth, Margaret joined her +mother and looked at the girl. + +"What is she singing?" + +Paliser covered her with his eyes. "Verdi's _Segreto per esser +felice_--the secret of happiness. Such a simple secret too." + +"Yes?" Margaret absently returned. She was looking now at the booth. +Quite as vaguely she added: "In what does it consist?" + +"In getting what we do not deserve." + +There was nothing in that to offend. But the man's eyes, of which +already she had been conscious, did offend. They seemed to disrobe her. +Annoyedly she turned. + +Paliser turned with her. "Verdi's bric-à-brac is very banal. Perhaps you +prefer Strauss. His dissonances are more harmonic than they sound." + +Now though there was applause. With a roulade the brindisi had ceased +and the singer as though pleased, not with herself but with the +audience, bowed. The fat woman twisting on her bench, was also smiling. +She looked cheerful and evil. + +"I do believe that's the Tamburini," Mrs. Austen remarked. "I heard her +at the Academy, ages ago." The usual touch followed. "How she has gone +off!" + +The fat woman stood up, and, preceded by the girl, descended into the +audience. + +Margaret looked again at the booth. Lennox was coming out. He said a +word to Miss Bleecker and glanced about the room. + +Margaret motioned. He did not notice. The girl who had been singing was +bearing down on him, a hand outstretched and, in her face, an expression +which Margaret could not interpret. But she saw Lennox smile, take her +hand and say--what? Margaret could not tell, but it was something to +which the girl was volubly replying. + +"Who's his little friend?" Mrs. Austen in her even voice inquired. "Mr. +Paliser," she added. "Would you mind telling--er--my daughter's young +man that we are waiting." + +Margaret winced. She had turned from Paliser and she turned then from +her mother. + +Paliser, whom the phrase "my daughter's young man" amused, sauntered +away. He strolled on to where Lennox stood with the girl. The fat woman +joined them. + +Lennox must have introduced Paliser, for Margaret could see them all +talking at once. Then Lennox again looked about, saw Margaret and her +mother, and came over. + +"Who's your friend?" Mrs. Austen asked. + +Lennox' eyes caressed Margaret. Then he turned to her mother. "She is a +Miss Cara. Cassy Cara her name is. I know her father. He is a +violinist." + +And my daughter is second fiddle, thought Mrs. Austen, who said: "How +interesting!" + +With his sombre air, Lennox summarised it. "She is studying for the +opera. The woman with her, Madame Tamburini, is her coach. You may have +heard of her." + +"A fallen star," Mrs. Austen very pleasantly remarked. Quite as +pleasantly she added: "The proper companion for a soiled dove." + +The charm of that was lost. Margaret, who had not previously seen this +girl but who had heard of her from Lennox, was speaking to him. + +"It was her father, was it?" Then, dismissing it, she asked anxiously: +"But do tell me, Keith, what did the medium say?" + +"That I would be up for murder." + +Margaret's eyes widened. But, judging it ridiculous, she exclaimed: "Was +that all?" + +"All!" Lennox grimly repeated. "What more would you have?" Abruptly he +laughed. "I don't wonder Mrs. Amsterdam wanted her money back." + +On the stage, from jungles of underwear, legs were tossing. The +orchestra had become frankly canaille. Moreover the crowd of Goodness +knows who had increased. A person had the temerity to elbow Mrs. Austen +and the audacity to smile at her. It was the finishing touch. + +She poked at Margaret. "Come." + +As they moved on, a man smiled at Lennox, who, without stopping, gave +him a hand. + +He was an inkbeast. But there was nothing commercial in his appearance. +Ordinarily, he looked like a somnambulist. When he was talking, he +resembled a comedian. In greeting Lennox he seemed to be in a pleasant +dream. The crowd swallowed him. + +"Who was that?" Mrs. Austen enquired. + +"Ten Eyck Jones." + +"The writer?" asked this lady, who liked novels, but who preferred to +live them. + +Meanwhile Paliser was talking to Cassy Cara and the Tamburini. The +latter listened idly, with her evil smile. Yet Paliser's name was very +evocative. The syllables had fallen richly on her ears. + +Cassy Cara had not heard them and they would have conveyed nothing to +her if she had. She was a slim girl, with a lot of auburn hair which was +docked. The careless-minded thought her pretty. She was what is far +rarer; she was handsome. Her features had the surety of an intaglio. +Therewith was an air and a look that were not worldly or even superior, +but which, when necessary as she sometimes found it, could reduce a man, +and for that matter a woman, to proportions really imperceptible. + +A little beauty and a little devil, thought Paliser, who was an expert. +But leisurely, in his Oxford voice, he outlined for her a picture less +defined. "You remind me of something." + +With entire brevity and equal insolence, she returned it. "I dare say." + +"Yes. Of supper." + +"An ogre, are you?" + +Paliser, ruminating the possibilities of her slim beauty served Régence, +smiled at this girl who did not smile back. "Not Nebuchadnezzar at any +rate. Vegetarianism is not my forte. Won't you and Madame Tamburini take +potluck with me? There must be a restaurant somewhere." + +The fallen star moistened her painted lips. "Yes, why not?" + +Born in California, of foreign parents, she had neither morals or accent +and spoke in a deep voice. She spoke American and English. She spoke the +easy French of the boulevards, the easier Italian of the operatic stage. +She never spoke of Tamburini. She left him to be imagined, which perhaps +he had been. + +From the room they went on into a wide, crowded hall, beyond which was +another room, enclosed in glass, where there were tables and palms. + +As they entered, a captain approached. There was a smell of pineapple, +the odour of fruit and flowers. From a gallery came the tinkle of +mandolins. Mainly the tables were occupied. But the captain, waving the +way, piloted them to a corner, got them seated and stood, pad in hand. + +Paliser looked at Cassy Cara. She was hungry as a wolf, but she said +indifferently: "A swallow of anything." + +"One swallow does not make a supper," Paliser retorted and looked at the +Tamburini who appeared less indifferent. + +"Ham and eggs." + +Without a quiver, the captain booked it. + +"Also," Paliser told him, "caviare, woodcock, Ruinart." From the man he +turned to the girl. "It was very decent of Lennox to introduce me to +you." + +Cassy put her elbows on the table. "He could not be anything else than +decent. Don't you know him well?" + +Paliser shrugged. "Our intimacy is not oppressive." + +"He saved her father's life," the Tamburini put in. "Her father is a +musician--and authentically marquis," she added, as though that +explained everything. + +"We are Portuguese," said Cassy, "or at least my father is. He used to +play at the Metro. But he threw it up and one night, when he was coming +home from a private house where he had been giving a concert, he was +attacked. There were two of them. They knocked him down----" + +"Before he had time to draw his sword-cane," the fat woman interrupted. + +"Yes," Cassy resumed, "and just then Mr. Lennox came along and knocked +them down and saved his violin which was what they were after." + +"It's a Cremona," said the Tamburini who liked details. + +"But that is not all of it," the girl continued. "My father's arm was +broken. He has not been able to play since. Mr. Lennox brought him home +and sent for his own physician. He's a dear." + +"Who is?" Paliser asked. "The physician?" + +But now a waiter was upon them with a bottle which he produced with a +pop! Dishes followed to which Cassy permitted the man to help her. Her +swallow of anything became large spoonfuls of rich blackness and the +tenderness of savorous flesh. She was not carnal, but she was hungry and +at her home latterly the food had been vile. + +The Tamburini, with enigmatic ideas in the back of her head, ate her +horrible dish very delicately, her little finger crooked. But she drank +nobly. + +Paliser too had ideas which, however, were not enigmatic in the least +and not in the back of his head either. They concerned two young women, +one of whom was patently engaged to Lennox and the other probably in +love with him. The situation appealed to this too charming young man to +whom easy conquests were negligible. + +He had been looking at Cassy. On the table was a vase in which there +were flowers. He took two of them and looked again at the girl. + +"Sunday is always hateful. Couldn't you both dine with me here?" + +The former prima donna wiped her loose mouth. She could, she would, and +she said so. + +Paliser put the flowers before Cassy. + +"Le parlate d'amor," the ex-diva began and, slightly for a moment, her +deep voice mounted. + +Cassy turned on her. "You're an imbecile." + +With an uplift of the chin--a family habit--Paliser summoned the waiter. +While he was paying him, Cassy protested. She had nothing to wear. + +She had other objections which she kept to herself. If it had been +Lennox she would have had none at all. But it was not Lennox. It was a +man whom she had never seen before and who was entirely too free with +his eyes. + +"Come as you are," said the Tamburini, who massively stood up. + +Paliser also was rising. "Let me put you in a cab and on Sunday----" + +Cassy gave him a little unsugared look. "You take a great deal for +granted." + +Behind the girl's back the Tamburini gave him another look. Cheerful and +evil and plainer than words it said: "Leave it to me." + +Cassy, her perfect nose in the air, announced that she must get her +things. + +Through the emptying restaurant Paliser saw them to the entrance. There, +as he waited, the captain hurried to him. + +"Everything satisfactory, sir?" + +"I want a private dining-room on Sunday." + +"Yes, sir. For how many?" + +"Two." + +"Sorry, sir. It's against the rules." + +Paliser surveyed him. "Whom does this hotel belong to? You?" + +The captain smiled and caressed his chin. "No, sir, the hotel does not +belong to me. It is owned by Mr. Paliser." + +"Thank you. So I thought. I am Mr. Paliser. A private dining-room on +Sunday for two." + +But now Cassy and the Tamburini, hatted and cloaked, were returning. The +chastened waiter moved aside. Through the still crowded halls, Paliser +accompanied them to the street where, a doorkeeper assiduously +assisting, he got them into a taxi, asked the addresses, paid the +mechanician, saw them off. + +Manfully, as the cab veered, the Tamburini swore. + +"You damn fool, that man is rich as all outdoors." + + + + +IV + + +The house in which Cassy lived was what is agreeably known as a walk-up. +There was no lift, merely the stairs, flight after flight, which +constituted the walk-up, one that ascended to the roof, where you had a +fine view of your neighbours' laundry. Such things are not for +everybody. Cassy hated them. + +On this night when the taxi, after reaching Harlem, landed her there +and, the walk-up achieved, she let herself into a flat on the fifth +floor, a "You're late!" filtered out at her. + +It was her father, who, other things being equal, you might have +mistaken for Zuloaga's "Uncle." The lank hair, the sad eyes, the wan +face, the dressing-gown, there he sat. Only the palette was absent. +Instead was an arm in a sling. There was another difference. Beyond, in +lieu of capricious manolas, was a piano and, above it, a portrait with +which Zuloaga had nothing to do. The portrait represented a man who +looked very fierce and who displayed a costume rich and unusual. Beneath +the portrait was a violin. Beside the piano was a sword-cane. Otherwise, +barring a rose-wood table, the room contained nothing to boast of. + +"You're late," he repeated. + +His name was Angelo Cara. When too young to remember it, he had come to +New York from Lisbon. With him had come the swashbuckler in oil. He grew +up in New York, developed artistic tastes, lost the oil man, acquired a +wife, lost her also, but not until she had given him a daughter who was +named Bianca, a name which, after elongating into Casabianca, shortened +itself into Cassy. + +Meanwhile, on Madison Avenue, then unpolluted, there was a brown-stone +front, a landau, other accessories, the flower of circumstances not +opulent but easy, the rents and increments of the swashbuckler's estate, +which by no means had come from Lisbon but which, the rich and unusual +costume boxed in camphor, had been acquired in the import and sale of +wine. + +The fortune that the swashbuckler made descended to his son, who went to +Wall Street with it. There the usual cropper wiped him out, affected his +health, drove him, and not in a landau either, from Madison Avenue, left +him the portrait, the violin, the table and nothing else. + +But that is an exaggeration. To have debts is to have something. They +stir you. They stirred him. Besides there was Cassy. To provide for both +was the violin which in his hands played itself. For years it sufficed. +Then, with extreme good sense, he fought with the Union, fought with +Toscanini, disassociated himself from both. Now, latterly, with his arm +in a sling, the wolf was not merely at the door, it was in the +living-room of this Harlem flat which Cassy had just entered. + +It was then that he repeated it. "You're late!" + +For the past hour he had sat staring at things which the room did not +contain--a great, glowing house; an orchestra demoniacally led by a +conductor whom he strangely resembled; a stage on which, gracile in the +violet and silver of doublet and hose, the last of the Caras bowed to +the vivas. + +Then abruptly the curtain had fallen, the lights had gone out, the +vision faded, banished by the quick click of her key. + +But not entirely. More or less the dream was always with him. When +to-day is colourless, where can one live except in the future? To-day is +packed with commonplaces which, could we see them correctly, are +probably false for in the future only beautiful things are true. It is +stupid not to live among them, particularly if you have the ability, and +what artist lacks it? In the future, there is fame for the painter, +there is posterity for the poet and much good may it do them. But for +the musician, particularly for the song-bird, there is the vertigo of +instant applause. In days like these, days that witness the fall of +empires, the future holds for the donna, for the prima donna, for the +prima donna assoluta, the grandest of earthly careers. + +That career, Angelo Cara foresaw for his daughter, foresaw it at least +in the hypnogogic visions which the artist always has within beck and +call. In the falsifying commonplaces of broad daylight he was not so +sure. Her upper register had in it a parterre of flowers, but elsewhere +it lacked volume, lacked line, lacked colour, and occasionally he +wondered whether her voice would not prove to be a voix de salon and not +the royal organ that fills a house. Yet in the strawberry of her throat, +the orifice was wide, the larynx properly abnormal. In addition the +Tamburini was prophetically comforting. + +But did the woman know her trade? He did not believe it. He believed +though that she had no morals, never had had any, even as a child. It +was the same way with Rachel and the fact left him cold. He was +artistically indifferent to what the putana did or omitted, to what +anybody omitted or did. But anybody by no means included his daughter. +At the thought of anything amiss with her, presto! his sad eyes flamed. +Very needlessly too. Cassy was as indifferent to other people's +conceptions of decorum as he was himself. The matter did not touch her. +Clear-eyed, clean-minded, she was straight as a string. + +"How did it go?" he asked. + +Cassy laughed. She had had a glass of champagne. She had too, what is +far headier, the wine of youth. + +"Well, I didn't see any showmen tumbling over each other. Mr. Lennox was +there. He asked after you, and introduced a man who had us out to +supper. It was very good. I did so wish for you, poor dear." + +"What man? What is his name?" + +"Paliser, I think. Something of the kind. Ma Tamby told me." + +"Not old M. P.?" + +"Perhaps, I don't know. He has hair like a looking-glass. He did not +seem old; he seemed very impudent. Ma Tamby says he's rich as all +outdoors." + +"That's the son then. Don't have anything to do with him. They're a bad +lot." + +"As if I cared! Ma Tamby said he could get me an engagement." + +"Ha! In vaudeville with acrobats and funny men and little suppers to +follow." + +"Why not big ones?" + +"Big what?" + +"Big goose!" replied Cassy, who removed her gloves, took off her hat, +ran a pin through it, put it down. + +Her father stared. Behind the girl stood a blonde brute whom the supper +had evoked. He wore a scowl and a bloody apron. In his hand was a bill. +Behind him was the baker, the candlestickmaker. Behind these was the +agent, punctual and pertinacious, who had come for the rent. Though but +visions, they were real. Moreover, though they evaporated at once, +solidly they would return. He had been staring at her, and through her, +at them. In staring his eyes filled. Immediately they leaked. + +Cassy bit her lip. The tumbril and the guillotine would not have made +her weep. Dry-eyed she would have gone from one to the other. Besides, +what on earth was he wowing about? But immediately it occurred to her +that he might be experiencing one of the attacks to which he was +subject. She leaned over him. "You poor dear, is it your heart?" + +He brushed his eyes. Dimly they lighted. With artistic mobility his face +creased in a smile. "No, farther down." + +Cassy moved back. "What in the world----" + +But now his face clouded again. "I am glad you had supper. To-morrow +we'll starve." + +The exaggeration annoyed her, she exclaimed at it and then stopped +short. Already she had envisaged the situation. But it was idle, she +thought, to excite him additionally. + +"Well?" he almost whinnied. + +But as he would have to know, she out with it. "There's the portrait, +there's the violin. Either would tide us over." + +In speaking she had approached him again. He shoved her aside. With a +jerk he got to his feet, struck an attitude, tapped himself on the +breast. + +"I, Marquis de Casa-Evora, sell my father's picture! I, Angelo Cara, +sell my violin! And you, my daughter, suggest such a thing! But are you +my daughter? Are you--oh!" + +It trailed away. The noble anger, real or assumed, fell from him. No +longer the outraged father, he was but a human being in pain. + +Cassy hurried to the mantel where, in provision of these attacks, were +glass tubes with amyl in them. She took and broke one and had him inhale +it. + +Then, though presently the spasm passed, the wolf remained. But the +beast had no terrors for Cassy. Buoyant, as youth ever is, his fangs +amused her. They might close on her, but they would not hurt, at any +rate very much, or, in any case, very long. Meanwhile she had had supper +and for the morrow she had a plan. That night she dreamed of it. From +the dream she passed into another. She dreamed she was going about +giving money away. The dream of a dream, it was very beautiful, and +sometimes, to exceptional beings, beautiful dreams come true, not in the +future merely, but in a walk-up. + + + + +V + + +In Park Avenue that night there was no dramatic father in waiting. There +were no bills, no scenes, no thought of secret errands; merely a +drawing-room in which a fire was burning and where, presently, Margaret +and Lennox were alone. + +"I have letters to write," Mrs. Austen told them. + +She had no letters to write, but she did have a thing or two to +consider. What the wolf was to Cassy's father, Lennox was to her. + +At dinner, Peter Verelst's advice to do nothing had seemed strategic. At +the Splendor, it had seemed stupid. The spectacle of that girl +hobnobbing with Lennox had interested her enormously. If a spectacle can +drip, that had dripped and with possibilities which, if dim as yet, were +none the less providential, particularly when viewed spaciously, in the +light of other possibilities which Paliser exhaled. Mrs. Austen was a +woman of distinction. You had only to look at her to be aware of it. +Yet, at the possible possibilities, she licked her chops. + +Meanwhile, with the seriousness of those to whom love is not the +sentiment that it once was, or the sensation that it has become, but the +dense incarnate mystery that it ever should be, Margaret and Lennox were +also occupied with the future. + +In connection with it, Lennox asked: "Can you come to-morrow?" + +As he spoke, Margaret released her hand. Her mother was entering and he +stood up. + +"Mrs. Austen," he resumed, "won't you and Margaret have tea at my +apartment to-morrow?" + +He would have reseated himself but the lady saw to it that he did not. + +"You have such pleasant programmes, Mr. Lennox. You are not going +though, are you? Well, if you must, good-night." + +It was boreal, yet, however arctic, it was smiling, debonair. As such, +Lennox had no recourse but to accept it. He bent over Margaret's hand, +touched two of Mrs. Austen's fingers. In a moment, he had gone. + +Mrs. Austen, smiling still, sat down. + +"Nice young man. Very nice. Nice hats, nice ties, nice coats. Then also +he is a theosophist, I suppose, or, if not, then by way of becoming one. +What more could the heart desire? Would you mind putting out one of +those lights? Not that one--the other." + +Gowned in grey which in spite of its hue contrived to be brilliant, Mrs. +Austen rustled ever so slightly. Always a handsome woman and well aware +of it, she was of two minds about her daughter's looks. They far +surpassed her own and she did not like that. On the other hand they were +an asset on which she counted. + +She rustled, quite as slightly again. + +"And such a taking way with him! That little singing-girl whom we saw +to-night, quite a pretty child, didn't you think? She seemed quite +smitten. Then there are others, one may suppose. Yes, certainly, a very +nice young man." + +"Mother!" + +"Well, what? Young men will be young men. Only a theosophist could +imagine that they would be young girls. I make every allowance from +him--as doubtless he does for others. This is quite as it should be. I +have no patience with model young men. Model young men delight their +mothers' hearts and ruin their wives' temper. They remodel themselves +after marriage. Whereas a young man who is not model at all, one who has +had his fling beforehand, settles down and becomes quite fat. You have +chosen very wisely, my dear. If you had waited you might have had +Paliser and I should not have liked that. He is too good." + +Margaret stretched a hand to the fire. She was not cold and the movement +was mechanical. But she made no reply. In Matthew we are told that for +every idle word we utter we shall answer at the day of judgment. That +passage she had longly meditated. She did not believe that Matthew wrote +it and she did not believe in a day of judgment. Matthew was a peasant +who spoke Syro-Chaldaic. It was not supposable that he could write in +Greek. It was not supposable that there can be a specific day of +judgment, since every moment of our days is judged. But through Margaret +had her tolerant doubts, she knew that the message itself was sound. It +did not condemn evil and vulgar words, for they condemn themselves. What +it condemned was idle words and she regretted that her mother employed +them. But theosophy is, primarily, a school of good manners. The Gospel +condemns idle words, theosophy forbids disagreeable ones. + +To her mother's remarks, she made therefore no reply. Instead, she +changed the subject. + +"Will you care to go with me to his rooms to-morrow?" + +With a mimic of surprise and of gentle remonstrance that was admirably +assumed, Mrs. Austen lifted a hand. + +"But, my dear! Were you thinking of going alone?" + +The remonstrance, however gentle, was absurd and she knew it. Margaret +could go where she liked. It would all be chaste as a piano-recital. But +the flea that she had been trying to put in the girl's ear seemed very +ineffective. She is just as I was at her age, thought this lady, who, in +so thinking, flattered herself extraordinarily. + +She shook her head. "For if you were, it would not do. Such things may +pass in London, they don't here. But to-morrow is Saturday, isn't it? +Yes, to-morrow is Saturday. At three I have an appointment with the +dentist. I'll telephone though. That always pains them and, where a +dentist is concerned, I do think turn about is fair play." + +It was pleasantly said. To make it pleasanter, she stood up and added: +"Are you to sit here and read? There is a French book lying around +somewhere that belonged to your dear father. I don't remember who wrote +it and I have forgotten the title, but you are sure to like it. There! I +have it. It is called: 'L'art de tromper les femmes.'" + +Mrs. Austen moved to the door and looked back. + +"But if you don't find it readily, let it go for to-night. Your young +man is sure to have a copy. No nice young man is without one." + + + + +VI + + +Lennox was a broker, a vocation which he practised in Wall Street. Early +on the following afternoon, while returning from there, he sat wedged +between a gunman and a Hun. He was unconscious of either. The uncertain +market; the slump, momentarily undiscernible, but mathematically +inevitable; customers, credulous or sceptical, but always avid; the +pulse of the feverish street which the ticker indifferently registered; +the atmosphere of tobacco and greed; the trailing announcements; "Steel, +three-fourths; Pennsy, a half," these things were forgotten. The train +crashed on. Of that too he was unconscious. + +Before him a panorama had unrolled--the day he first saw her, the hour +he first loved her, the moment he first thought she might care for +him--the usual panorama that unfolds before any one fortunate enough to +love and to be loved in return. + +"Grand Central!" + +The gunman disappeared, the Hun had gone, the car emptied itself on a +platform from which it was at once refilled. Lennox ascended the stair, +reached the street, boarded a taxi, drove to his home. + +The latter, situated on the ground floor of an apartment house a step +from Park Avenue, was entirely commonplace, fitted with furniture large +and ugly, yet minutely relieved by a photograph which showed the almost +perfect oval of Margaret's almost perfect face. + +The photograph stood on a table in the sitting-room beyond which +extended other rooms that, in addition to being ugly, were dark. But +Lennox had no degrading manias for comfort. Pending the great day he +camped in these rooms, above which, on an upper storey was a duplex +apartment which, if Margaret liked, he proposed to take. + +It was for her opinion regarding it that he had asked her to come. In +the forenoon she had telephoned that she and her mother would both be +with him. He had instructed his servant accordingly and now a silver +tea-service that had belonged to his grandmother and which, being +Victorian, was hideous, gleamed at him as he entered the rooms. + +Something else gleamed also. On a rug, a puddle of sunlight had spilled. + +Above, on the embossed platter, were petits fours, watercress +sandwiches, a sack of sweetmeats, a bunch of violets, a scatter of cups. +Beneath was the puddle. + +Lennox looked. It seemed all right. + +Harris, his servant, a little man, thin as an umbrella, sidled silently +by. The vestibule took him. From it came the sound of a voice, limpid, +clear, which Lennox knew and knew too was not Margaret's. + +"A lady to see you, sir," Harris, reappearing and effacing himself, +announced. + +The doorway framed her. There, with her shock of auburn hair, her cameo +face, her slim figure and her costume which, though simple, was not the +ruinous simplicity that Fifth Avenue achieves, Cassy presented a picture +very different from that on the table, a picture otherwise +differentiated by a bundle that was big as a baby. + +Lennox did not know but that it might contain a baby and the possibility +alarmed this man who was afraid of nobody. + +"Hello!" he exclaimed. + +In exclaiming, he stared. He liked the girl. But at the moment she was +in the way. Moreover, why she had come to these rooms of his, where she +had not been invited, and where she had not ventured before, was a +mystery. + +"How's your father?" he added. + +There are people, as there are animals, that cannot be awkward and are +never ridiculous. Cassy was one of them. None the less she stood on one +foot. The tea-table had become very talkative. It told her that it was +expecting somebody; that watercress sandwiches were not for her; no, nor +Victorian horrors either. + +"Be off!" it shouted. + +"Sit down," said Lennox. + +Cassy, hugging the bundle, remained in the doorway. It was not the +tea-table merely, but something else, the indefinable something which +one may feel and not describe that was telling her to hurry. Afterward, +with that regret which multiplies tears and subtracts nothing, she +wished she had hurried, wished rather that she had not come, wished that +she had defied the wolf, outfaced the butcher, done anything except +enter these rooms. + +She shifted the bundle. "I have been gadding about in Wall Street. I +never was there before, but it is so nice and windy I may go there +again. This is just a good-day and good-bye." + +As she spoke she turned, and as she turned Lennox' heart smote him. He +hurried to her. + +"See here! You can't go like this. Have a cup of tea." + +Cassy gave him the rare seduction of her smile. "Thank you. I am out on +business and I never drink in business hours." + +But now Lennox had got himself between her and the vestibule. + +"Business!" he repeated. "What is it? Anything in my line? Let's +transact it here. Wall Street is no place"--for a pretty girl he was +about to say but, desisting, he substituted--"for you." + +"But you are expecting people." + +"How in the world did you know? Anyway, they are not here yet and if +they were they would be glad to meet you." + +"I wonder!" said Cassy, whose wonder concerned not their pleasure but +her own, and concerned it because she hated snobs, among whom she knew +that Lennox moved. + +"Now, tell me," he resumed. + +Cassy, realising that it must be then or never, looked up at him. + +"You remember father's violin?" + +"I should say I did." + +"Well, my business in Wall Street was to offer it as--what do you call +it?--as collateral." + +Lennox indicated the bundle. "Is that it?" + +Cassy nodded. "I had to hide it and smuggle it out without his knowing +it. He thinks it stolen. If he knew, he would kill me. As it is, he has +gone crazy. To quiet him, I said I would go to the police." + +Lennox laughed. "And I am the police!" + +"Yes, you're the police." + +"All right then. The police have recovered it. Take it back to him. How +much do you need? Will a hundred do?" + +That was not Cassy's idea. She shook her docked head at it. "You're the +police but I am a business man. If you make the loan, you must keep the +collateral." + +"You are a little Jew, that's what you are," Lennox, affecting +annoyance, replied. + +Cassy smiled, "I like your jeu d'esprit. But not well enough to accept +money as a gift." + +"Good Lord!" Lennox protested. "Look here! I am not giving money away. I +don't mean it as a gift. Pay me back whenever you like. Until then, what +do you expect me to do with that thing? Give serenades? No, take it back +to your father. I know just how he feels about it. He told me." + +Cassy shifted the bundle. "Good-bye then." But as he still blocked the +way, she added: "Will you let me pass?" + +Moralists maintain that a man should never argue with a woman, +particularly when she is young and good-looking. He should yield, they +assert. Cassy's youth and beauty said nothing audible to Lennox. They +said nothing of which he was then aware. In addition he was not a +moralist. But there are influences, as there are bacilli, which +unconsciously we absorb. For some time he had been absorbing a few. He +did not realise it then. When he did, he was in prison. That though was +later. At the moment he threw up his hands. + +"I surrender. Will you mind putting it down somewhere?" + +Cassy turned. Beyond was a table and near it a chair to which she went. +There she dumped the violin. In so doing she saw Margaret's picture. + +"What a lovely girl!" + +Lennox, who had followed, nodded. "That is Miss Austen to whom I am +engaged." + +"Oh!" said Cassy. She did not know that Lennox was engaged. But suddenly +the room had become uncomfortably warm and she blurted it: "How happy +she must be!" + +At the slip, for he thought it one, Lennox laughed. + +"You mean how happy I must be," exclaimed this rare individual to whom +the verb to be happy had a present tense, yet one which even then it was +losing. + +He had been fumbling in a pocket. From it he drew a wad of bills, fives +and tens, and made another wad. "Here you are. I will mail you a receipt +for the collateral." + +Cassy, taking the money in one hand, extended the other. "May I say +something?" + +"Why, of course." + +Cassy could talk and very fluently. But at the moment she choked. What +is worse, she flushed. Conscious of which and annoyed at it, she +withdrew her hand and said: "It's so hot here!" + +Lennox looked about, then at her. "Is it? Was that what you wanted to +say?" + +Cassy shook herself. "No, and it was very rude of me. I wanted to thank +you. Good-bye, Mr. Policeman." + +"Good-bye," he threw after the girl, who, in leaving the room, must have +taken the sunlight with her. As she passed over the rug, the puddle +passed too. It followed her out like a dog. + +That phenomenon, to which Lennox then attached no significance, he +afterward recalled. For the moment he busied himself with pen and ink. +Presently he touched a button. + +From regions beyond the little old man appeared. + +Lennox motioned at the bundle. "Take that to this address. Ask for Mr. +Cara and say it comes from the police. From the police, don't forget, +Harris." + +"I'll not forget, sir." + +"And go now. When the ladies come, I'll open the door." + +As it happened, only shadows came. The shadows lengthened. They lapped +the floor, devoured the silver, turned the rug into a pit, the room into +darkness. Apart from shadows, no one came, no one rang. But, though +Lennox was unaware of it, two people did come, and of the two one would +have rung, had not the other prevented. + +Lennox did not know that. On the inaccessible planes where events are +marshalled, it was perhaps prearranged that he should not. + + + + +VII + + +Margaret, on her way to Lennox that afternoon, wondered whether it might +not be possible for them to live elsewhere. + +Born and bred in the sordid hell with a blue sky that New York was +before the war, latterly the sky itself had darkened. The world in which +she moved, distressed her. Its parure of gaiety shocked. Those who +peopled it were not sordid, they were not even blue. Europe agonised and +they dined and danced, displayed themselves at the opera, summarised the +war as dreadful, dismissed it, gossiped and laughed. It was that +attitude which distressed this girl who, had she been capable of wishing +ill to any one, might have wished them treated as were the élegantes of +Brussels. + +Margaret had no such evil wish. But she did hope that when married, she +might reside elsewhere. + +"There goes that Mrs. Tomlinson," said her mother. "Last night at the +Bazaar--what do you suppose? She asked me to dinner. She actually did! +The woman must be mad." + +Margaret made no reply. Park Avenue was very bright. To her also for the +moment the scientific savagery of the Huns was remote. The brightness of +the April day was about her. + +"I am in rags," continued Mrs. Austen, who was admirably dressed. "On +Monday I must really look in on Marguerite. She is an utter liar, but +then you feel so safe with her. Where is it that your young man lives? +Somebody said that lies whiten the teeth. It must be there, isn't it? Or +is it here? These places all look alike, none of them seems to have any +numbers and that makes it so convenient." + +They had reached a chalk cliff, on the face of which were windows, +balconies and, at the base, two low steps. On the upper step, in large +black letters, was the cliff's name. + +Through glasses, which she did not need, Mrs. Austen surveyed it. "The +Sandringham! Why not The Throne?" + +Margaret went on and up. Mrs. Austen followed. At once they were in a +large, marble-flagged hall. Beyond, from a lift, a boy in green and +gilt, peered greedily. At the left was a door with a brass plate that +said: "Dr. Winship." Opposite was another door with another plate on +which was "Lennox." + +That, also, Mrs. Austen surveyed. "I did not know your young man was an +earl, but perhaps he is merely a duke. Shall we send that boy or do we +ring? In bachelor quarters one hardly knows what to do--or what goes on +in them either," she immediately and suggestively added. + +The door at the right had opened. Cassy was coming out. The flush was +still on her face and in her hand was the money. Mechanically she +thumbed it. She had looked down at the roll of bills and through them at +the butcher, the baker, the candlestickmaker. She looked up and saw +Margaret whose photograph she had seen a moment before. Instantly she +recognised her. Instantly she realised that it was for her the violets +and the sack of bonbons were waiting. As quickly she understood why the +teapot had shouted: "Be off!" + +From Margaret she glanced at Mrs. Austen, who was well worth it. In and +about her eyes and mouth there was an expression of such lofty +aloofness, an air of such aristocratic disdain, that though she stood +without motion, movement, or gesture; though, too, there was no draught, +the skirt of her admirable frock seemed to lift and avert itself. It was +the triumph of civilised life. Yet that triumph she contrived to +heighten. Raising the glasses which she did not need, she levelled them +at Cassy. + +Cassy, who had but glanced at her, arrested the glance and, for a +second, held it on her, but with an unconcern so obliterating that it +had the effect of blotting-paper. Mrs. Austen felt herself disappearing. +It was as though Cassy had looked at her and had seen nothing whatever. + +And that to Mrs. Austen! The lady squirmed but she rallied, the more +readily perhaps since now Cassy had gone, and she said and pleasantly +enough: "What a charming vestal! Such an engaging manner! Seemed, too, +so at home! Let me see? It was she, was it not, who was singing last +night? Rather a coincidence, don't you think?" + +Margaret made no reply. The incident, though long in the telling, had +barely outlasted a moment, and crossing the hall, she was approaching +Lennox' door. + +Without haste, Mrs. Austen circumvented her. "Not to-day, my dear. As it +is, it is fortunate we came on foot. Otherwise, it would have been +awkward and that is always so distressing. Another day." + +Quietly, easily she had got herself in front of Margaret who, without +shoving, could not reach the bell. + +With candid eyes she looked at her mother. "You seem to be +suggesting----" + +"Perish the thought!" Mrs. Austen sweetly and quickly cut in. "I would +not even suggest that one and two make three, for perhaps they don't. +No, my dear, I suggest nothing. I merely insist. To-day we must postpone +our little visit and to-night, when he comes, you can have it out with +him. A lover's quarrel! What more could you wish? But here now is the +lift-boy. We must dissemble. It's quite like a play. + +"No," she interrupted herself to remark at the approaching, greedy and +enquiring youth, "I want nothing whatever except not to be engaged in +conversation." + +"Whachyer mean?" asked the boy, who, however, promptly blighted by her +level stare, omitted to pursue it. + +She turned again to Margaret. "We will find a taxi at the corner. These +first spring days are so enervating." + +Margaret faced her. "I am going in." + +The sight of Cassy issuing from Lennox' rooms had surprised her, as the +unexpected will surprise. But in saying that she was going in, it was +not at all for explanations. Explanations are for strangers. Love +understands--or should understand, and Margaret divined that Cassy had +come on some errand from her father, of whose waylaying and rescue +Lennox had long since told her. + +"Will you please move a little?" she added. + +Mrs. Austen, after routing the boy, had lowered her glasses. She raised +them again. "Look there!" + +At the entrance were two women with a child between them. On the stair +was a man. The door marked "Dr. Winship" had opened. The wide hall was +suddenly full of people. + +Mrs. Austen lowered her lorgnette. "Don't make a scene, my dear. At +least, don't make one over my dead body." + +Resistance was easy, but to what end? Margaret felt that she could +persist, insist, ring and go in, but now only to be accompanied by her +mother's mocking and stilted sneers. The consciousness of that +subtracted the brightness from the day, the pleasure from the visit. +Then, too, that evening he would come. Then they would be alone. + +She turned. A moment more and both were in the street, where Mrs. Austen +forgot about the taxi. Other matters occupied the good woman and +occupied her very agreeably. She had been playing a game, and a rare +game it is, with destiny. The stakes were extravagant, but her cards +were poor. Then abruptly, in one of the prodigious shuffles that fate +contrives, a hand, issuing from nowhere, had dealt her a flush. She +purred at it, at the avenue, at the world, at her daughter. + +"I am so glad we are not going anywhere to-night." A car flew by, a +gloved hand waved and the purr continued. "Wasn't that Sarah Amsterdam? +By the way, what did the medium tell you? Anything about a dark man +crossing your path? If not, it was very careless of her. But what was I +talking about? Oh, yes, I am so glad we are to be at home. You can have +a nice, quiet evening with your young man. Only, do you know, I wouldn't +say anything about that little vestal. He might not like it. Men are so +queer. They hate to be misunderstood and to be understood makes them +furious. No, I wouldn't mention it. But now isn't he as full of +surprises as a grab-bag? I thought him a model of the most perfect +propriety, and that only shows how wrong it is to judge by appearances. +Model young men always remind me of floor-walkers. Who was that that +just bowed? Dear me, so it was, and he looked so down in the mouth he +might have been a dentist. On Monday I really must go to my dentist. He +does hurt terribly and that is so reassuring. You feel that you are +getting your money's worth. Don't your teeth need attending to? Ah, here +we are at last! God bless our home!" + +Entering the hall, she looked at a little room to the right in which the +manager awed prospecting tenants. Usually it was empty. It was empty +then. Mrs. Austen looked, passed on and, preceding Margaret, entered a +lift that floated them to the home on which she had asked a blessing. + + + + +VIII + + +The Italians have a proverb about waiting for some one who does not +come. They call it deadly. Among the lapping shadows Lennox felt the +force of it. But concluding that visitors had detained his guests, he +dressed and went around a corner or two to the Athenæum Club where +usually he dined. + +In the main room which gives on Fifth Avenue, he found Ten Eyck Jones +talking war. Jones was a novelist, but he did not look like one. There +was nothing commercial in his appearance, which was that of a man +half-asleep, except when he talked and then he seemed very much awake. +He was not fat and though an inkbeast, he dressed after the manner of +those who put themselves in the best hands and then forget all about it. +But for Lennox he had a superior quality, he was a friend. With him was +Harry Cantillon, who, the night before, had danced away with Kate +Schermerhorn. Straddling an arm of Cantillon's chair was Fred Ogston, a +young man of a type that, even before the war, was vanishing and which +was known as about town. Adjacently sat Peter Verelst. Servants brought +little decanters and removed others. In a corner an old man glared with +envious venom at the liquors of which he had consumed too many and of +which, at the price of his eyesight, he could consume no more. + +Jones waved at Lennox. "I have been telling these chaps that before they +are much older they will be in khaki." + +"Houp!" cried Cantillon. He sprang up, ran to the arched entrance, +where, lightly, without effort, he turned a somersault and was gone. + +The old man in the corner raised himself, shuffled to a table, sat down +and wrote to the house committee. Such conduct could not be tolerated! +Having said it, he raised himself again and shuffled over with the +letter to Dunwoodie, a lawyer with the battered face of a bulldog and a +ruffian's rumpled clothes. + +Dunwoodie, instead of taking the letter, gave the old man a look, one +look, his famous look, the look with which--it was said--he reversed the +Bench. Angrily the old man turned tail, collided with Paliser, +apologised furiously, damning him beneath his breath, damning Dunwoodie, +damning the house committee, damning the club. + +"Are you to dine here?" Jones asked Ogston, who swore gently, declaring +that, worse luck, he was due at his aunt's. + +"But you are," Jones told Lennox. "Come on and I'll make your hair stand +on end." He turned: "And yours, too." + +Peter Verelst smoothed the back of his head. "Thank you, Ten Eyck. But +such hair as I have I prefer should remain as it is." + +The two men went on and up into another room, spacious, high-ceiled, set +with tables, where a captain got them seated, took their orders, +carefully transmitted them to a careful waiter, an omnibus meanwhile +producing ice-water which Jones had promptly removed. + +He smiled at Lennox. "Who was the jeunesse you and Paliser were talking +to last night? She had been singing." + +Lennox unfolded a napkin. "I thought you were to make my hair stand on +end." + +"Well," said the novelist, who spoke better than he knew, "she may make +Paliser's. There's a young man with plenty of perspective. I saw him in +London just before the deluge. He was then en route for the Marquesas. I +envied him that. I envied him the vanilla-scented nights; the skies, a +solid crust of stars, and also, and particularly, the tattooed ghosts. +But I am forgetting your hair. Were you ever in Berlin?" + +Lennox scowled. "Yes. Once." + +"And once is too often. The last time I was there, I looked down the +Wilhelmstrasse and it got up and threatened me. Barring the +possibilities of future avatars, I shall not promenade there again. But +I would give a red pippin, I would give two of them, to have been in +Potsdam on that night, that cloudless night, the night in July, when in +a room, gorgeous as only vulgarity could made it, there was sounded the +crack of doom." + +Jones gestured and a waiter hurried to him. He motioned him away. + +"You can picture it, Lennox, or, if not, who am I to refuse my aid? At +the doors were lackeys; at the gates were guards. Without and beyond, to +the four points of the compass, an unsuspecting world slept, toiled, +feasted, fasted, occupied with its soap-bubble hates and loves. But, in +that room, saurians, with titles as long as your arm, were contriving a +cataclysm that was to exceed the deluge. Since then, and though it be +but through the headlines, you and I stand witness to events that no +mortal ever saw before. That night, in that room they were concocted. By +comparison, what are the mythical exploits of Homer's warriors, the +fabulous achievements of Charlemagne's paladins, the fading memories of +Napoleon's campaigns? What are they all by comparison to a world in +flames? Hugo, with his usual sobriety, said that Napoleon inconvenienced +God. Napoleon wanted Europe. These gunmen want the earth. They won't get +it. Hell is their portion. But, while they were planning the +crib-cracking, I would give a red pippin to have been in their joint +that night. A little more trout?" + +Jones turned to the waiter. "Take it away and fetch the roast." + +He was about to give other orders, yet these Lennox interrupted. + +"But look here. You spoke of an unsuspecting world. The Kaiser had been +rattling the sabre for years. Everybody knew that." + +"So he had," said Jones, who contradicted no one. "But England did not +take him seriously, nor did this country either. Consequently, when the +war began it was regarded as but another robber-raid which shortly would +be over. That was an idea that everybody shared, even to the Kaiser, who +afterward said that he had not wanted this war. Incredible as it may +seem he spoke the truth. He did not want a war in which he would be +tripped on the Marne, blocked on the Yser and foiled at Verdun. He +wanted a war in which France would be felled, Russia rolled back, a war +in which, over Serbia's ravaged corpse, his legions could pour down +across the Turkish carpet into the realm where Sardanapalus throned, +beyond to that of Haroun-al-Raschid, on from thence to Ormus and the +Ind, and, with the resulting thralls and treasure, overwhelm England, +gut the United States, destroy civilisation and, on the ruins, set +Deutschland über Alles!" + +"Hear! Hear!" said Lennox from between bites. + +Jones, after a momentary interlude with a fork, got back at it. "That is +what he wanted! But to get it, he lacked one thing, one thing only. He +had everything else, he had everything that forethought, ingenuity and +science could provide. The arsenals were stocked. The granaries were +packed, the war-chests replete. Grey-green uniforms were piled endlessly +in heaps. Kiel--previously stolen from Denmark, but then reconstructed +and raised to the war degree--at last was open. The navy was ready. The +army was ready. Against any possible combination of European forces, the +oiled machine was prepared. In addition, clairvoyance had supplied the +pretext and stupidity the chance. Petersburg was then in the throes of a +general strike--which the Wilhelmstrasse had engineered. In Paris, the +slipshod condition of the army had been publicly denounced. England and +Ireland were nearly at each other's throats. Yet, had they been in each +other's arms, the Kaiser was convinced that England would not interfere. +Moreover in France, mobilisation required weeks; in Russia, months; and +even then the Russian army, otherwise unequipped, the Tsarina had +supplied with two hundred Teuton generals. That woman used to exclaim at +her resemblance to Marie Antoinette. She flattered herself. It is +Bazaine whom she resembled. But where was I? Oh, yes. The opportunity +was so obvious and everything so neatly prepared that, for good measure, +the pretext was added. An archduke, sinister when living and still more +sinister dead, was, by the Kaiser's orders, bombed to bits and the +bombing fastened on Serbia. Allied stupidity provided the opportunity, +imperial forethought supplied the rest. Since highwayry began, never was +there such a chance. On the last gaiter was the last button. The Kaiser +lacked but one thing." + +Lennox shoved at his plate. "So you have said." + +Jones, abandoning his fork, repeated it. "One thing! In Potsdam, on that +cloudless July night, when the world, on which he proposed to batten, +slept, toiled, feasted, fasted, occupied with its futile loves and +hates, that thing must have occurred to him." + +"Yes, but confound it, what was it?" + +Jones lit a cigar. "Bernstorff said, or is said to have said--I do not +count him among my acquaintances--that on that night this supercanaille +showed symptoms of what I think I have seen described as vacillation. +That is quite on the cards. It bears out my theory. In any event the +fellow had his ambitions. He wanted to descend into the red halls of +history disguised. He might have succeeded. History is very careless and +to-day barely recalls that at five o'clock on the morning succeeding his +marriage to a dowdy fat girl, he treated his regiment to a drill. The +fact is uninteresting and would be equally unimportant were it not for +the note that it struck. Subsequently, when he leaped on the throne, he +shouted that those who opposed him he would smash. "There is no other +law than mine"; he later announced--a fine phrase and yet but a modern +variant of Domitian's: "Your god and master orders it." Incidentally, in +addition to the Garter, an honorific which the Duke of Cambridge +admirably summarised as "having, sir, none of the damned nonsense of +merit about it," he had other distinctions. He had--and has--uranomania, +that is to say, a flight of fancy in which the patient believes himself +associated with God. He had also defilirium tremens, which manifested +itself in those man[oe]uvres that are war's image and in which the +troops defile. Yet, when it came to the real thing, it may be that this +paradomaniac lacked the stomach. Apart from the Kruger incident, and one +or two other indecencies, his observance of international etiquette was +relatively correct. The lackeys of history might therefore have +deodorised him. With a sow's ear a lot may be done. Have a cigar?" + +Lennox laughed. "I would prefer the point." + +"Now, how greedy you are. Well then, here it is. On that fatidic night +in July, this fellow was fifty-five." + +"What of it?" + +"Everything. At his age Alexander had been dead twenty years." + +As Jones spoke he raised his hands. "Spirit of the Great Sinner, forgive +me! This scrofulous dwarf has no kinship with thee!" + +"No," Jones, dropping his hands, resumed. "None. His kin are Herod, +Caracalla, Attila, Genghis Khan, and Cloacus, Lord of Sewers. Those are +his kin. To the shade of the Lampsacene, whom the world had forgotten; +to that of Cloacus, whom civilisation had ignored, subsequently he +devoted the army. For the troops he invoked them. But that night the +ghosts of the others gave him pause. At his age, Caracalla, Attila, +Genghis, were dead. They had died hideous, monstrous--but young. Herod +alone may have seemed a promising saint to swear by, though, in the +obscurities of Syrian chronology, even of him he could not be sure. The +one kindred hyena who, at fifty-five, had defied the world was Tsi An, +the Chinese Empress, and he had helped to squelch her. Do you see it +now? To burglarise the world, this thug had every advantage. The police +were asleep. The coast was clear. The jimmies and the dynamite sticks +were ready. Even the dark lantern was packed. The kit was complete. He +had everything. He lacked nothing, except the one essential--Youth! The +eyes of youth are clear. His were too dimmed to foresee that the +allies----" + +Lennox was rising. + +Amiably Jones switched on and off again. "Hold on a minute. You have not +given me the "Who's Who" of that young woman." + +In Lennox' brain, instantly cells latent, alert, and of which he was +entirely unconscious, functioned actively. Before him Cassy stood. +Beside her was another. This other, very lovely, was a saint. Yet, +prompted still by the cells and equally unaware of it, it occurred to +him that a lovely saint may resemble a vase that is exquisite, but +unresilient and perhaps even empty. Whereas a siren, like Cassy---- + +Abruptly he caught himself up. The unawaited disloyalty into which he +had floundered, surprised and annoyed him. He could not account for the +delicate infidelity and perplexedly he looked at Jones who still was at +it. + +"The diva I mean. The diva in duodecimo who sang at the Bazaar." + +Lennox shook himself and sat down again. Modestly then the thrice-told +tale was repeated--Angelo Cara, a violin in one hand, a sword-cane in +the other, trudging home. The attack, the rout, the rescue, the +acquaintance with Cassy that ensued. + +Jones, absorbing the story, pigeonholed his memory with the details +which, sometime, for copy purposes, might be of use. + +"They are Portuguese," Lennox, rising again, concluded. + +Jones peered about. The great room was filled with members, eating, +drinking, laughing, talking--talking mainly of nothing whatever. He +motioned. "Isn't that Cantillon over there with--of all +people!--Dunwoodie?" + +Lennox looked and nodded. "Cantillon is in Dunwoodie's office. He asked +me to give him my law business." Indifferently, with the air of one +considering the improbable, Lennox added: "Some day I may. Good-night." + +But in the night into which he then went, already that day was breaking. + + + + +IX + + +That same evening, as Lennox was leaving the club, Mrs. Austen, rising +from the dinner-table, preceded Margaret into the drawing-room and +looked at the clock, a prostrate nymph, balancing a dial on the soles of +her feet. At the figures on the dial, the nymph pointed a finger. + +From the clock Mrs. Austen turned and exclaimed at the windows which she +had already examined. "The jardinières have not yet been attended to! It +is inconceivable!" + +Margaret, who had seated herself, said: "You might send for the +manager." + +"He would only keep me waiting and then expect me to tell him what I +wanted. He ought to know. Besides, I might have forgotten. It is very +tiresome." + +Margaret stood up. "I will tell him." + +With a click, Mrs. Austen unfurled a fan and, with another click, +refurled it. "No. I will see him myself. I am quite in the humour." + +Margaret looked after her mother, who was leaving the room. The sudden +tempest in a flowerpot surprised her. But the outer door closed. +Margaret reseated herself. Presently he would come and together they +would make those plans that lovers make--and then unmake, unless, +elsewhere, they have been made for them. + +Meanwhile she waited. The incident at the Sandringham, the sight of +Cassy, her mother's facile insinuations, these things had distressed +her, because, and only because, they had prevented her from enjoying the +innocent pleasure of the innocent visit to the rooms of her betrothed, +whom she loved with a love that was too pure and too profound, to +harbour doubt and suspicion and that evil child of theirs which jealousy +is. Her faith was perfect. That faith showed in her face and heightened +her beauty with a candour that should have disarmed her mother, who, in +the hall below, was, at that moment, instructing a man and not about +flower-boxes either. + +"Mr. Lennox, you may know him, by sight I mean, will be coming here +shortly. Please have him shown into that room there." + +Mrs. Austen passed on. The little room at which she had glanced that +afternoon received her--a hospitality in which a mirror joined. The +latter welcomed her with a glimpse of herself. It was like meeting an +old friend. But no; a friend certainly, yet not an old one. Age had not +touched this lady, not impudently at least, though where it may have had +the impertinence to lay a finger, art had applied another, a moving +finger that had written a parody of youth on her face which was then +turning to some one behind her whom the mirror disclosed. + +In turning, she smiled. + +"It is so good of you, Mr. Lennox, to look in on me. The door-man told +you about Margaret, did he not? No? How careless of him. The dear child +has a headache and has gone to bed." + +"Has she?" said Lennox. He found but that. But at least he understood +why Margaret had not come to his rooms. The headache had prevented her. + +"It is nothing." Mrs. Austen was telling him. "To-morrow she will be +herself again. Nice weather we are having." + +"Very," Lennox answered. + +As he would have said the same thing if Mrs. Austen had declared that +the weather was beastly, the reply did not matter. It did not matter to +her; it did not matter to him. She was thinking of something else and he +was also. He was thinking of Margaret, wondering whether he might not go +to her. Were it not for the strait-jacket that conventionality is and +which pinions the sturdiest, he would have gone. He was a little afraid +of Mrs. Austen, as an intelligent man sometimes is afraid of an imbecile +woman. But his fear of her fainted beside the idea that if, disregarding +the bagatelles of the door, he made his way to Margaret, she herself +might not like it. That alone restrained him. Afterward he wished he had +let nothing prevent him. Afterward he regretted it. It is the misery of +life--and sometimes its reward--that regret should be futile. + +But, at the moment, grim and virile, a hat in one hand, a stick in the +other, his white tie just showing between the lapels of his overcoat, +already he was consoling himself. He had not seen Margaret in the +afternoon, and he was not to see her this evening. No matter. The morrow +would repay--that morrow which is falser than the former day. + +Pleasantly at him and at his thoughts, Mrs. Austen played the flute. +"Won't you sit down?" In speaking, she sank on a sofa which she occupied +amply. + +Lennox, shifting his stick, took a chair. Later, in one of those evil +moods that come to the best, as well as to the worst, he wished he had +brained her with it. + +With the magic flute, Mrs. Austen continued: "To-morrow is Sunday, is it +not? You must be sure to come. Dear me! I can remember when everybody +went to church on Sunday and then walked up and down Fifth Avenue. Fifth +Avenue had trees then instead of shops and on the trees were such funny +little worms. They used to hang down and crawl on you. The houses, too, +were so nice. They all had piazzas and on the piazzas were honeysuckles. +But I fear I am boasting. I don't really remember all that. It was my +father who told me. Those must have been the good old days!" + +Lennox again shifted his stick. "To-day I had hoped that you would look +in on me." + +The flute caressed the strain. "Yes. It was too bad! We had quite +counted on it. Bachelor quarters must be so exciting." + +"Well, not mine at any rate. They are rather dark." + +"But that must make them all the more exciting! Blindman's buff! Hide +and go seek! What fun you must have with your friends romping about!" + +"My friends are too busy for that. Though to-day----" + +"Yes?" + +Lennox hesitated. He knew that this woman took no interest in him +whatever, but he had intended to tell Margaret about Cassy. + +Pleasantly Mrs. Austen prodded him. "Yes?" + +"Nothing of any moment. This afternoon, Miss Cara, the girl who sang +last night, came to see me. You may remember I told you I knew her +father." + +"It seems to me I do." + +"Things have not gone well there and I advanced her a trifle for him." + +Mrs. Austen unfurled her fan. It was all Honest Injun. She had not a +doubt of it and never had. But if she had thought it a Sioux and +Comanche story, it would have been the same to her. + +"I am sorry you did not meet her," Lennox continued. "You might have +lent her a hand." + +"Professionally, you mean?" + +"Yes." + +"I might have her sing here," replied Mrs. Austen, who would have seen +Cassy hanged first. + +Lennox considered the picture: Mrs. Austen in the rôle of shepherdess, +herding for Cassy's benefit the flock of sheep that society is. But the +picture did not detain him. He stood up. + +"That would be very good of you. Please tell Margaret I am sorry she has +a headache and that I will look in on her to-morrow." + +No you won't, thought Mrs. Austen, who said: "Yes, do." + +In a moment, when he had gone, she looked again in the mirror. It showed +her a woman who would not steal, unless she could do so undetectably; a +woman who would not forge, because she did not know how. Crimes +ridiculous or merely terrific she was too shrewd to commit. But there +are crimes that the law cannot reach. There are cards, too, that fate +may deal. + +After looking at the woman, she looked at the cards. They were +dreamlike. Even so, they needed stacking. Mrs. Austen arranged them +carefully, ran them up her sleeve and floated to the room where Margaret +waited. + +As she entered, Margaret turned to her. Her face had that disquieting +loveliness which Spanish art gave to the Madonna, the loveliness of +flesh eclipsed certainly by the loveliness of the soul, but still flesh, +still lovely. + +At sight of it Mrs. Austen experienced the admiration tinctured with the +vitriol of jealousy that some mothers inject. Mrs. Austen had been a +belle in the nights when there were belles but her belledom, this girl, +who was not a belle, outshone. Yet the glow of it while necessarily +physical had in it that which was moral. Unfortunately the radiance of +moral beauty only those who are morally beautiful can perceive. Mrs. +Austen was blind to it. It was her daughter's physical beauty that she +always saw and which, though she was jealous of it, had, she knew, a +value, precisely as beauty had a value in Circassia where, before the +war, it fetched as much as a hundred Turkish pounds. In New York, where +amateurs are keener and beauty is more rare, it may run into millions. + +Commercially conscious of that, Mrs. Austen felt for the cards and +carelessly produced one. + +"Do you know, I believe we are to have a shower. Your young man got off +just in time." + +Margaret, who had glanced at the prostrate nymph, looked at her upright +mother. "Do you mean that Keith has come--and gone?" + +Mrs. Austen sat down and extracted another card. "My dear, when I went +below he was coming in. We----" + +Margaret, with her usual directness, interrupted. "But he is coming +back?" + +"That depends on you." + +"On me? How? What do you mean?" + +"That you must do as you like, of course. But if you elect to see him, +for goodness' sake don't refer to it." + +"Refer to it!" Margaret exclaimed. "Refer to what?" + +"The vestal whom we saw this afternoon." + +"I don't understand." + +Indulgently Mrs. Austen motioned. "It is hardly proper that you should." + +Margaret winced and coloured. "Your insinuation is horrible." + +Cheerfully Mrs. Austen smiled. Margaret's start, her heightened colour, +her visible annoyance, these things comforted her. A grandee of Spain +warmed his hands at the auto-da-fé. There are people just like him. +There are people that take comfort in another's distress. Mrs. Austen +did not know that she resembled them. She had nothing but Margaret's +welfare in view. Nothing but that and her own. Her own though came +first. + +She raised the fan. "My dear, you misjudge me. I always said that he is +a good young man and I stick to it. He is good, far too good, too good +to be true." With that, lowering the fan, she produced a trump. +"Downstairs, a moment ago, he told me so." + +Margaret gasped. "He told you--he told you----" + +"Precisely. That is just what he did tell me." + +Margaret straightened. "I don't believe it." + +Mrs. Austen waved at her. "Oh, I don't mean that he has deceived you. He +has done nothing of the kind. It is you who have deceived yourself. That +was to be expected. At your age I deceived myself quite as thoroughly. I +thought your father a conquering hero and he was merely a bore. But he +pointed a moral, though he adorned no tale. He married to settle down. +That is this young man's idea and I must give him credit for the fact +that while he has not deceived you, he did deceive me. I thought him a +tedious person; whereas, not a bit of it. He is exceedingly lively. If +he keeps it up, his wife will be blessed among women. But that is just +it. He won't keep it up. He swore he would not and I believe him. He has +turned over a new leaf. I can't cry over it, but it is really too bad." + +Margaret, who had straightened, stiffened. "If I believed a word of what +you tell me, I would forgive him entirely." + +Mrs. Austen, unprepared for that, leaned forward. "My dear, I had no +idea you were so sensible." + +"I would forgive entirely," Margaret continued. "But I would never see +him again." + +How good that tasted! Mrs. Austen swallowed it contentedly. "Of course +you will see him. You are not going blind, I suppose. But when you do +see him, it will be only decent of you to ignore the matter which is not +a fit subject for you to discuss." + +Margaret, who had straightened and stiffened, now was rigid. "I +certainly shall ignore it. It is not worth talking about." + +Mrs. Austen leaned back. "Ah, my dear, how right you are. He could not +tell you that he had loved wisely, it would not be very flattering. He +could not say he had loved too well, for that would be embarrassing. +What a pretty frock you have on. Did Marguerite make it? Of course he +could not. It would not be nice at all. But to me he made a soiled +breast of it. Don't you think the skirt a bit too long? Stand up a +minute." + +Margaret coloured again. She coloured with a flush that put two red +spots on her. She did not believe it. She could not and would not. Yet +credence, like the wind, bloweth where it listeth. + +Mrs. Austen, noting the spots, knew that the card had been well played +and leisurely selected another. + +"Perhaps it is the way you are sitting. Yes, altogether it is quite +ducky. I really must go to Marguerite on Monday. Don't let me forget +about it or the dentist either. I shall have my hands full and my mouth +also. The proper caper, too, apparently. That little dollymop, whom we +saw this afternoon, had her hands full. Did you notice the roll of bills +that she was counting? Such an enjoyable occupation! But it won't last. +You need not worry on that score. He had been paying her off. He assured +me of that and so unnecessarily. Why, I saw the whole thing at a glance. +Anybody but you would have seen it too. But you are so theosophically +nearsighted. It was for that reason I took you away. Now, though, he is +going to begin on a clean slate. Those were his very words, and you, I +suppose, are the clean slate. He has such original expressions, hasn't +he? But there! I forgot. He did not mean me to tell you. In fact, he +begged me not to." + +From Margaret's face the flush retreating left it white with that +whiteness which dismay creates. A bucket of mud had drenched her. It did +more, it dazed her. The idea that the bucket was imaginary, the mud +non-existent, that every word she had heard was a lie, did not occur to +this girl who, if a Psyche, was not psychic. In her heart was the mud; +in her mother's hand was the bucket. But the mire itself, he had put +there. The evidence of her own eyes she might have questioned. But he +had admitted it and the fact that he had induced in her the purely +animal feeling to get away, to be alone and to suffer unseen. + +She left the room, went to her own, closed the door and at a prie-Dieu +fell on her knees, not to pray--she knew that the Lords of Karma are not +to be propitiated or coerced--but in humiliation. + +In humiliation there may be self-pity and that is always degrading. With +uncertain hands she tried to transform that pity into sorrow, not for +herself, but for him. The burnt offering seared her. In the secret +chambers of her being her young soul tripped and fell. For support she +clutched at her creed. Ordinarily it would have sustained her. +Ordinarily it would have told her that her suffering was the penalty for +suffering which she had caused, a penalty that the gods of the doors +that close behind our birth were measuring to her. Ordinarily she would +have realised that in some anterior, enigmatic and forgotten life, she, +too, had debased herself and that this cross was the punishment for that +debasement. Ordinarily the creed would have sustained her. But as she +clutched at it, it receded. Only the cross remained and that was too +heavy. + +In the drawing-room an indifferent nymph pointed a finger at hours, all +of which wound and of which the last one kills. + +In that room Mrs. Austen was writing a note. Addressed to Montagu +Paliser, Jr., esqre., it asked him to dinner. + + + + +X + + +In the subway, the following evening, Cassy saw a man eyeing her. She +turned and saw another man who also was eyeing her. On the seat opposite +two women were discussing her clothes. + +The clothes, her own manufacture, were not of the fashion, not behind +it, or ahead of it, but above it. A mode, or a mood of her own, they +consisted in a blue silk smock and a yellow cloth skirt. On the sleeves +and about the neck of the smock there was also yellow, touches of it, +with which the skirt married. Therewith she was hatless, rebellious and +handsome. + +Accustomed to the inquisitiveness of appraising eyes, she ignored the +women as, already, she had ignored the men. With obliterating unconcern, +she reduced them to the fluidity of the inchoate. Other matters occupied +her, and, primarily, a trick, an extremely shabby one, from which she +had not yet recovered. + +The day before, after paying the butcher, the baker, and the punctual +and pertinacious agent, she had scaled the walk-up where she found her +father with the violin, on which, an hour earlier, Lennox had loaned her +the money. + +The spectacle flabbergasted her. Then, realising what Lennox had done, +his iniquity struck her as hateful. At once, in an effort to account, +however imaginatively, for the apparent sorcery of it all, she tried to +invent a fairy-tale. But the tale would not come. Nor was it needed. Her +father dispensed with any. Impatient of detail, as the artist usually +is, he required none. The extraordinary perspicacity of the police who +had nailed and returned the violin instanter, this wizardry that would +have thrown any one else into stupors of bewilderment, interested him +not at all. He had the violin. That sufficed. The rest did not matter. + +It mattered though and monumentally to Cassy. To owe the butcher, the +baker, the candlestickmaker, and to have them look slantingly at you, +that was disgusting. But to be beholden for a gift, which you had +refused to accept, and which then, behind your back, was dumped in on +you, that was degrading. Consequently, while conjecturing new versions +of Perrault, versions which it relieved her to find were not wanted, she +gnashed her milk-white teeth at Lennox, felt that she hated him, yet +felt, too, and the feeling was maddening, that the hatred was very +tender. + +All this was irritating enough and the Tamburini had contrived to add to +the irritation. It had been arranged that the fallen star was to come to +the walk-up and accompany Cassy to the Splendor. Instead of which, at +the last moment, the ex-diva had telephoned that she would join her at +the hotel, and Cassy foresaw a tedious sitting about in the lobby, for +Ma Tamby was always late. But when have misfortunes come singly? Cassy +foresaw, too, that the tedium would not be attenuated by Paliser's +conversation. + +It was not for that, or for him, that she was then in the subway, but +for dinner. Young, healthy and consequently carnal, though not otherwise +carnal than hunger can make you, she liked food, on condition that she +had not prepared it, and--in particular, and why not?--she liked the +savorously truffled menus that walk-ups lack. She had another reason for +being in the subway, one that Ma Tamby had lodged, like a flea, in her +ear. + +But now, near the heart of Manhattan, the train had stopped. Cassy got +out, looked at her white gloves, wondered if they smelled of benzine, +decided that they did, took them off and went on to the Splendor where +Paliser was waiting. + +Other people appeared to be similarly occupied. In the high, wide hall +were groups of careful men and careless women, the latter very +scrumptious in their imported frocks. The sight of these Parisianisms +abashed Cassy no more than her appearance abashed Paliser. Etiquette, +Formality, the Proper Thing, the great inane gods of the ante-bellum +heavens, he had never acknowledged and now, though locally their altars +remained and their worship persisted, he knew they were forever dead, +blown into the dust-bin of the things that were, tossed there in +derision by that atheist, the War. + +The careless women looked at Cassy and carefully looked away. The +careful men looked at her and carelessly looked again. In the severity +of the wide, high hall, the girl with her rebellious beauty and +harlequin gown, struck a note which it lacked, struck two of them, the +go-and-be-hanged-to-you and originality. + +In evening clothes that said Savile Row, Paliser approached. "You are +punctual as a comet and equally luminous." + +Cassy, ignoring the remark, ignoring, too, the hand that accompanied it, +cut him short. "Haven't seen Madame Tamburini, have you?" + +Paliser's hair had the effect of a mirror. He smoothed the back of it. +The ex-diva he had certainly seen and not later than just before she +telephoned to Cassy. But it is injudicious, and also tiresome, to tell +everything. With the wave of a cheque, the complicity of the former +first-lady had been assured, and assured moreover without a qualm on her +part. Ma Tamby did not know what it is to have a qualm--which she could +not have spelled if she had known. She was differently and superiorly +educated. In the university that life is, she had acquired encyclopedias +of recondite learning. She knew that ice is not all that it is cracked +up to be: that a finger in the pie is better than two in the fire, and +that angels have been observed elsewhere than at Mons--learning which, +as you may see, is surprising. + +Over the ham and eggs of an earlier evening, the syllables of Paliser's +name had awakened echoes of old Academy nights and Mapleson's "grand +revivals" of the Trovatore, echoes thin and quavering, yet still +repeating hymns in glory of the man's angelic papa. On the way from ham +and eggs to Harlem, she had, in consequence, conjured, for Cassy's +benefit, with performing fleas. But when, on this afternoon, M. P. Jr., +had come and waved cheques at her, she had felt that her worst hopes +were realised, that her finger was really in the pie, and she had agreed +to everything, which, however, for the moment, was nothing at all, +merely to abandon Cassy that evening; merely also to collaborate later +in the evocation of a myth, and meanwhile to keep at it with the fleas. + +Now, in the hall of the Splendor, as Paliser patted the back of his +head, he was enjoying Cassy's open-air appearance that needed only a +tennis-racket to be complete. + +Cassy glanced about. She had a penny or two more than her carfare and +yet, if she had owned the shop, she could not have appeared more at ease +in this smartest of smart inns, a part of which, destiny, in its +capriciousness, was to offer her. + +"No," he answered. "But I have a private room somewhere. She can find +her way there, unless you prefer palms and an orchestra." + +"I do," said Cassy, to whom a room with this man said only boredom and +who liked to see what was going on. + +Then when, presently, they were seated at a table, to which the +chastened captain of the ham-and-egg night had piloted the way, Cassy +beheld what she had never beheld before, and what few mortals ever do +behold, a cradled bottle of Clos de Vougeot. But to her, the royal crû +was very much like the private room. It said nothing. A neighbouring +table was more eloquent. + +Among the people seated there was an imperial woman with an imperial +manner, whom Cassy instantly recognised. She was prima donna, prima +donna assoluta, and though Cassy did not know it--nor would it have +interested her if she had known--dissoluta also. + +To be in her shoes! + +In that seven-leagued dream, she forgot Paliser, the delinquent +Tamburini, the trick that Lennox had played. In a golden gloom, on a +wide stage, to a house packed to the roof, Cassy was bowing. Her final +roulade had just floated on and beyond, lost now in cyclonic bravas. + +"It was the Duc d'Aumale," Paliser was saying. + +"Eh?" Abruptly Cassy awoke. + +"Or, if not, some other chap who, recognising it, ordered his regiment +to halt and present arms." + +"To whom?" + +"To the vineyard where the grape in that bottle was grown." + +Cassy shook out a napkin. "You talk just like my janitress. I never +understand a word she says." + +But now a waiter was bringing delicacies other than those obtainable in +Harlem; in particular, a dish that had the merit of pleasing Cassy. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"Muskrat." + +"What!" + +"Muskrat with terrapin for a pseudonym. The pseudonym shows imagination. +Let us be thankful for that. Gastronomy is bankrupt. Formerly it was +worshipped. Formerly gastronomy was a goddess. To-day the sole tributes +consist in bills-of-fare that are just like the Sahara minus the oases. +It is the oases we want and it is muskrat we get. That is all wrong. The +degree of culture that any nation may claim is shown in its cookery and +if there is anything viler than what we get here it must be served in +Berlin. It must have been Solon who said: 'Tell me what you eat and I +will tell you who you are.' He added, or should have, that animals feed, +man dines and, when permitted, dines devoutly. There are dishes, as +there are wines, to which one should rise and bow. But hereabouts it is +only by special dispensation that one gets them. In a hotel such as this +there is an outward show of reverence, but it is sheer hypocrisy; of +real piety there is none, a sham attempt to observe the sacred rites +without knowing how. I admit I don't know either. From me the divine +afflatus has been withheld. But elsewhere I have been conscious of the +presence. Once or twice I was blessed. Here, though, in default of +shrines there should be chairs. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, should +establish a few. When I was in college I was taught everything that it +is easiest to forget. If the youth of the land were instructed in +gastronomy we would all be wiser and better. Chairs on gastronomy, that +is what we need!" + +Cassy laughed. "Why not tables?" + +Paliser laughed with her. The laughter was a bond. It joined them +however tenuously. It was what he had been driving at. Accustomed to +easy successes, Cassy's atmosphere, with its flavour of standoffishness +and indifference, appealed to this man, who had supped on the facile and +who wanted the difficult. Cassy, he could have sworn, would supply it +and, if he had, he would have sworn very truly. + +Meanwhile the muskrat had gone. Dishes less false but equally fair had +followed. Now, with the air of a conjurer, the waiter just showed them +an entremets which he hastened to serve. It was a soufflée. + +At it, Cassy, just showing the point of her strawberry tongue, exclaimed +without rancour: "Ma Tamby has thrown us over." + +Paliser lit a cigarette. "She may be singing in the private room." + +Cassy laughed again. "Yes. 'Una voce poco fa!' That would be just the +thing--wouldn't it?--to sing privately in private." + +Paliser answered, though what, she did not hear. The orchestra drowned +it and for a moment she considered him, conscious that he was less +objectionable than he had seemed, yet entirely unconscious that such +objection as she had experienced was due to his extreme good-looks, +which in a man are always objectionable to a woman when she herself is +handsome, for they make him resemble her and, in so doing, constitute an +encroachment on her prerogatives, which, in itself, is an affront. + +Cassy, ignorant of the psychology of it, equally unaware that +familiarity which may breed contempt can also dissolve dislike, and +feeling merely a lessening of her instinctive hostility, told herself +that he was perhaps not as cocky as he looked and drank of the glass +before her. + +The Clos de Vougeot which, to the educated palate, is art, literature +and song combined, meant nothing more to her than if it had been Médoc. +She drank it because it was there at her hand, as she would have drunk +water, without savouring it, without any realisation of the enormity of +the crime. Yet though it meant nothing, nothing at least of which she +was aware, the royal crû was affecting her. It modified and mollified, +admonishing her that this man was an inoffensive insect who, +circumstances favouring, might, as Ma Tamby when inserting the flea had +told her, put her father on his feet. + +In just what the favouring circumstances could consist, the fallen star +had not bothered to indicate, and she had not bothered because they were +too obvious and also because she was sure that Cassy was not insane. + +Paliser abandoned his cigarette. "If you like, we might look in at the +Metropolitan. I believe I have a box." + +Apart from down-stage and the centre of it, apart, too, from the flys +and the dressing-rooms, Cassy's imagination had not as yet conceived +anything more beckoning than a box at the opera, even though, as on this +occasion, the opera happened to be a concert. "Why, yes. Only----" +Pausing, she looked about. The imperial lady had gone. + +"Only what?" Paliser very needlessly asked for he knew. + +"I fear I am a bit overdressed." + +"Not for Sunday. The house will be full and nobody in it. Besides, what +do you care?" + +Cassy shrugged. "Personally, not a rap. It was of you I was thinking." + +Paliser, who had been signing the check and feeing the waiter, looked at +her. "I did not know that you were so considerate." + +Cassy, in surprise not at him, but at herself, laughed. "Nor did I." + +Paliser stood up and drew back her chair. "Be careful. You might become +cynical. It is in thinking of others that cynicism begins." + +The platitude slipped from him absently. He had no wish for the concert, +no wish to hear Berlinese trulls and bubonic bassi bleat. But, for the +tolerably delicate enterprise that he had in hand, there were the +preliminary steps which could only be hastened slowly and anything +slower than the Metropolitan on a Sunday night, it was beyond him to +conjecture. + +But though on that evening a basso did bleat, it may be that he was not +bubonic. Moreover he was followed by a soprano who, whether trullish or +not, at any rate was not Berlinese and whose voice had the lusciousness +of a Hawaiian pineapple. But the selections, which were derived from old +Italian cupboards, displeased Paliser, who called them painted mush. + +But not twice! Cassy turned her back on him. The painted mush shook +stars in her ears, opened vistas on the beyond. Save for him she would +have been quite happy. But his remark annoyed her. It caused her to +revise her opinion. Instead of an inoffensive insect he was an offensive +fool. None the less, as the concert progressed, she revised it again. On +entering the box she had seen his name on the door. The memory of that, +filtering through the tinted polenta from the ancient cupboards, +softened her. A man so gifted could express all the imbecilities he +liked. Elle s'enfichait. + +As a result, before it was over, in lieu of her back, she gave him the +seduction of her smile, and, later when, in his car, on the way to the +walk-up, he spoke of future dinners, fresher songs, she had so far +forgotten the painted mush insult, that momentarily she foresaw but one +objection. She had nothing to wear and frankly, with entire unconcern, +she out with it. + +For that he had a solution which he kept to himself. The promptly +obliterating stare with which she would have reduced him to +non-existence, he dodged in advance. + +Apparently changing the subject, he said: "You know--or know of--Mrs. +Beamish, don't you?" + +"Never heard of her," said Cassy, entirely unaware that no one else ever +had either. + +"She was at the Bazaar the other night and admired your singing." + +"Very good of her I am sure," replied Cassy, who, a born anarchist and +by the same token a born autocrat, loathed condescension. + +Paliser corrected it. "No, not good--appreciative. She wants you to sing +at her house. If you are willing, could she arrange about it through +Madame Tamburini?" + +"If she tried very hard, I suppose she might," Cassy, with the same +loftiness, answered. + +But the loftiness was as unreal as Mrs. Beamish. Inwardly she jubilated, +wondering how much she would get. A hundred? In that case she could +repay Lennox at once. At the thought of it, again she revised her +opinion. Paliser was young and in her judgment all young men were +insects. On the other hand he was serviceable. Moreover, though he +looked cocky, he did not presume. He talked rot, but he did not argue. +Then, too, his car was a relief. + +But now the car, after bolting through the Park and flying along the +Riverside, had swerved. It was mounting the upper reaches of the longest +highway on the planet. There it swerved again. From Broadway it barked +loudly into a side-street where easily, with a soapy slide, it stopped. + +Paliser got out, preceded Cassy to the steps of the walk-up and smiled +in her face. "When?" + +Cassy, the revised opinion of him about her, gave him her hand. "Ask the +telephone." + +The hall took her. She was scaling the stairs. On the way Mrs. Beamish +accompanied her. She wished she could tell her father. Yet, if she told +him, how could she account for what she did with the money? And would it +be a hundred? Perhaps fifty, perhaps less. + +But Paliser saw to it that Mrs. Beamish behaved properly. On the morrow +Ma Tamby dumped in Cassy's astonished lap two hundred and fifty--less +ten per cent., business is business--for samples of the bel canto which +Mrs. Beamish was not to hear, and for an excellent reason, there was no +such person. + + + + +XI + + +Mrs. Austen looked at Lennox, who had been looking at her, but who was +then looking at the rug, in the border of which were arabesques. He did +not see them. The rug was not there. The room itself had disappeared. +The nymph, the dial, the furniture, the decorations and costly +futilities with which the room was cluttered, all these had gone. Mrs. +Austen had ceased to be. In that pleasant room, in the presence of this +agreeable woman, Lennox was absolutely alone, as, in any great crisis of +the emotions, we all are. + +Of one thing he was conscious. He was suffering atrociously. Pain +blanketed him. But though the blanket had the poignancy of thin knives, +he kept telling himself that it was all unreal. + +He raised his eyes. During the second in which they had been lowered, a +second that had been an eternity in hell, his expression had not +altered. He was taking it, apparently at least, unmoved. + +Mrs. Austen, who was looking at him, saw it and thought: He is a +gentleman. The reflection encouraged her and she sighed and said: +"Believe me, I am sorry." + +Lennox did not believe her, but he let it go. What he did believe was +that Margaret could not see him. But whether she would, if she could, +was another matter. On Saturday he had expected her at his rooms. She +had not come. In the evening he had called. She had a headache. On the +following day he had returned. She was not feeling well. Now on this +third day, Mrs. Austen, who on the two previous occasions had received +him, once more so far condescended, yet on this occasion to tell him +that he was free, that it was Margaret's wish, that the engagement was +ended. + +In so telling him, Mrs. Austen told, for a wonder, the truth, though as +will sometimes happen even to the best of us, not all the truth. It were +extravagant to have expected it of her. But she told all that she +thought good for him; more exactly good for Margaret; more precisely for +herself. + +It was then that the pleasant room with its clutter of costly futilities +disappeared and this agreeable woman ceased to be. The avalanche of the +modulated announcement sent Lennox reeling not merely out of the room, +but out of the world, deeply into hell. + +It was then, too, that with a sigh, modulated also, Mrs. Austen had +added: "Believe me, I am sorry." + +Lennox looked at her. "You say that Margaret wants our engagement +broken. Why?" + +"She has changed her mind." + +"So I infer. But why?" + +"Because she is a woman." + +"But not the ordinary woman. It is the ordinary woman who changes her +mind--when she has one to change. Margaret is not of that kind. Margaret +is not the kind to promise herself to a man and then throw him over. You +will forgive me if I speak heatedly, but I do not believe it." + +With frosty indulgence Mrs. Austen reassured him. "You do not believe +that I will forgive you? But, really, there is nothing to forgive. +Though, whether Margaret is ordinary or superior, has nothing to do with +it. Dear me, no. Women are not what they were. One often hears that and +often, too, one hears people wondering why. That always amuses me. The +reason is so simple, isn't it? Women are not what they were because they +used to be girls. Before that they were children. At one time they were +babes. Naturally they change. They can't help it. It must be a general +law. Or at least one may suppose so. One may suppose, too, that, in +changing, they develop and in developing acquire the extraordinary +ability to think things over. That is just what Margaret had done. It is +no reflection on you, Mr. Lennox, and I should be very sorry if you +thought so. I am sure Margaret has the highest esteem for you. I know +that I have." + +Mrs. Austen, smiling frostily as she lied, thought: Now why doesn't he +take it and go? I hope he won't be tedious. + +Lennox too had his thoughts. She is trying to swamp me in words, he told +himself. That angered him and he showed it. + +"What are these things? When I last saw Margaret she said nothing about +any things. There was no change in her then. I would stake my life that +she had no idea of breaking our engagement. There must be a reason for +it. What is it?" + +Arrogantly Mrs. Austen took it up. "There is no reason for your raising +your voice, at any rate. As for the things, they ought to be obvious. In +addition to habits and customs, very suitable in Wall Street no doubt, +but not otherwise appealing, Margaret has found you a bit rough, +high-tempered, domineering for all I know to the contrary, and----" + +That's a damned lie, thought Lennox, who aggressively cut in: "Margaret +never found me anything of the kind. What is more I will thank you to +understand that I will not accept this dismissal--if it be one--from +you." + +There is a show of decency that is due to any woman. But the veneer of +civilisation is very thin. From beneath it, the potential troglodyte, +that lurks in us all, is ready enough to erupt. Ready and eager then, he +was visible in Lennox' menacing eyes, manifest in his threatening voice. + +Mrs. Austen saw the brute, saw rather that little, if anything, +restrained Lennox from jumping up, banging about, hunting for Margaret's +room, entering there and catechising her violently. Margaret was ill but +never too ill to tell the truth. Once he learned that, there was the fat +in the fire. + +She had no time to lose. From the wardrobe of the actress that she was, +she snatched at an oleaginous mask and with the mucilage of it smiled at +him. + +"Why, of course not. Not for a moment would I have you accept it from +me. I never dreamed of such a thing. It wouldn't be right. Margaret +shall tell you herself. She would be here now, but the poor child had +such a wretched night. You never had neuralgia, have you? At her age I +was a martyr to it. I remember I took something that ended in 'ine.' +Yesterday I suggested it but the doctor would not hear of it. Said she +needed building up. Spoke of her just as though she were a town out +West; so unsympathetic I thought him, but of course I did not say so. He +might have charged extra and he is expensive enough as it is, and always +so ready to talk about his own affairs, just like my dentist. I told him +once--the dentist I mean--that I really could not afford to pay him +thirty dollars an hour to hear about his wife and I don't think he liked +it. I know I didn't when I got his bill. But where was I? Oh, yes. +To-morrow or the next day, as soon as Margaret is the least bit better, +you will be sure to have a line from her and if you do not, and you care +to, you must certainly look in. For you must always regard us as +friends. Me at any rate. Won't you, Mr. Lennox?" + +Moistening her lips, mentally she continued: Yes, count on that. But +inwardly she relaxed. Such danger as there may have been had gone. Under +the dribble of the mucilage the fire in his eyes had flickered and sunk. +He was too glued now for revolt. So she thought, but she did not know +him. + +During the sticky flow of her words, he knew she was trying to gammon +him. But he knew quite as well that Margaret would make no such attempt, +and he knew it for no other reason than because he knew she was +incapable of it. Incidentally he determined what he would do. Having +determined it, he stood up. + +"Very good. I shall expect to hear from Margaret to-morrow. If I do not +hear I will come, and when I come----" + +Lennox paused and compressed his lips. The compression finished the +sentence. If come he did, no power of hers, or of any one else, would +budge him an inch until he saw Margaret and had it out with her. + +"Good-evening," he added and Mrs. Austen found herself looking at his +retreating back which, even in retreat, was a menace. + +"Merciful fathers!" she exclaimed, and, with that sense of humour which +is the saving grace, the dear woman put her hand to her stays. She was +feeling for her heart. She had none. Or any appetite, she presently told +a servant who came to say that dinner was served. + +She misjudged herself. For twenty-five minutes, in an adjoining room, +she ate steadily and uncomplainingly. She had bouillon, skate in black +butter, cutlets in curl-papers, sweetbread and cockscombs, a cold +artichoke, hot almond pudding, an apricot, a bit of roquefort, a pint of +claret, a thimble of bénédictine and not a twinge, none of the +indigestion of square-dealing, none of gastritis of good faith. She was +a well-dressed ambition, intent on her food. No discomfort therefore. On +the contrary. Margaret was in bed--safe there. Fate and the cook were +kind. + +With the taste of the liqueur still in her mouth, she went to her +daughter who was ill with one of those maladies which, being primarily +psychical, science cannot treat. Science is a classification of human +ignorance. It has remedies for the flesh, it has none for the soul. The +remedies exist, but they are dispensed only by the great apothecaries +that time and philosophy are. + +At the moment neither was available. Behind Margaret's forehead a +monster crouched and crunched. That was nothing. It was in the tender +places of her heart that the girl agonised and by comparison to the +torture there, the monster was benign. + +Margaret was nineteen, which is a very mature age; perhaps the most +mature, since all girlhood lies behind it. Beyond are the +pharmacop[oe]ias of time and, fortune favouring, the sofas of +philosophy. But these sofas, even when within reach, are not adapted to +everybody. To the young, they are detestable. Reposefully they admonish +that nothing is important. They whisper patience to the impatient. To +hope, they say, "Be still"; to desire, "Be quiet"; to wisdom, "Be +foolish." + +Conversation of that kind is very irritating, when you have heard it, +which Margaret never had. She was otherwise ignorant. She did not know +that a sage wrote a book in praise of folly. But she acted as though she +knew it by heart. She believed, as many of us do believe, that love +confers the right to run a fence around the happy mortals for whom we +care. It is a very astounding belief. Margaret, who believed in many +wonderful things, believed in that and, being credulous, believed also +that her betrothed had crawled under the fence and into what mire! It +polluted her, soiled her thoughts, followed and smeared her in the +secret chambers of her being. Any cross is heavy. This cross was +degrading. + +In her darkened room, on her bed of pain, she had shrunk from it. Her +forehead was a coronet of fire. That was nothing. A greater pain +suppresses a lesser one. The burn of her soul was a moxa to the burn of +the flesh. + +The cross, at first, seemed to her more than she could bear. She tried +to put it from her. Failing in that, she tried to endure it. But there +are times and occasions when resignation in its self-effacement +resembles suicide. She tried to resign herself, but she could not, her +young heart rebelled. + +In that rebellion, evil came, peered at her, sat at her side, pulled at +her sleeve, sprang at her. The evil was hatred for this man who had +taken her love and despoiled it. She clasped it to her. It bruised but +it comforted. It dulled both the flame in her forehead and the shame in +her soul. Then as suddenly she began to cry. + +Philosophy she lacked, but theosophy, which is a pansophy, she +possessed--when she did not need it. Now, when she needed it most, it +was empty as the noise in the street. Even otherwise it could not have +changed the unchangeable course of events. + +There are sins that are scarlet. There are others, far worse, that are +drab. Melancholy tops them. It is a mere duty to be serene. That she +could not be. She could not face life, as life perhaps is. She could not +smile at a lover who loved elsewhere. It was not herself, it was he who +prevented her. So she thought and for hours in her darkened room she +washed her hands of him, washed them in tears. It took a wise man to +write the praise of folly. + +The door of the room opened. It opened slowly, noiselessly, obviously. +With exasperating precautions Mrs. Austen entered. The taste of +bénédictine was still in her mouth and, savouring it, she whispered: + +"Are you asleep?" + +"No." + +"Will you eat anything?" + +"No." + +"Are you able to talk?" + +Margaret turned. She could talk, but to what end and to whom? Certainly +not to her mother, who possessed in its perfection, the household art of +misinterpreting everything. Margaret had tried to love her. But perhaps +any affection is a habit when it does not happen to be an instinct. The +habit had never been formed, the instinct had been repressed. Always her +mother had treated her with that indulgence which is as empty as an +unfilled grate. There was no heat there. You could not warm your heart +at it. But a child must love some one. Margaret had begun by loving her +mother. That is the way with children. They begin by loving their +parents. Later they judge them. Sometimes, though not always, they +forgive. One should not judge anybody. Margaret knew that, but she was a +human being. She thought her mother a worldly woman. The fact that she +was false as Judas was not apparent to this girl whose knowledge of +Iscariotism was as hearsay as her knowledge of gorillas. + +Now, as she turned in her bed, it was in defence against intrusion. +Deference to her mother she had always observed. But she could not admit +her to the privacy of her thoughts and, in turning her face to the wall, +she told herself that she would not be cross-questioned. + +Mrs. Austen had no intention of putting her daughter in the +confessional. Anything of the kind would have bored her. Besides, what +she thought was unimportant. It was what she did or might do that +mattered. + +Vacating the door she approached the bed. "Are you feeling any better?" + +Margaret was feeling, if possible, worse. But she never complained, or, +if she had to complain, then the complaint was solely by way of +explanation. She turned again. + +"For if you are," Mrs. Austen continued, "I ought to say something." + +Margaret put a hand to her forehead. + +But Mrs. Austen persisted. "It is important." + +Margaret's eyes were open. She closed them and said: "Yes, mother, what +is it?" + +Through the door came light from the hall. Mrs. Austen looked about. +Nearby was a chair on which was one of those garments, made of +franfreluches, which the French call a Jump-from-bed. Removing it, she +sat down. + +"It is too bad. I know you don't feel like discussing affairs of State, +but it is Luxemburg all over again. If I were alone concerned, I am sure +I would capitulate. But where the State is concerned, and by that I mean +you, I am like the little grand-duchess--pretty child, from her +pictures, didn't you think?--and I must resist the invader. It is true, +I don't know exactly what the grand-duchess did do, though they said she +sat in a motor on a bridge and flourished a revolver. But you never can +tell. I daresay she and her maids of honour hid in a cellar. Perhaps we +may have to." + +Margaret lowered her hand. "Mother, what are you talking about?" + +"Your young man, of course. What else? A half-hour ago, he was roaring +and stamping about and calling me a liar. If it had not been for my dead +body, he would have rushed in here and killed you. My dead body, or what +I told him about passing over it, was the revolver that I flourished. He +has gone, but he swore he would return. Now, unless you rally to the +colours, we will have to hide in the cellar, or rather, as we haven't +any, in the pantry. Don't you think you could eat a bit of sweetbread, +or perhaps some almond pudding?" + +Again Margaret put her hand to her forehead. "Don't say that, mother. +Keith did not call you a liar and it is not like him to roar and stamp +about." + +"My dear, I don't wonder you don't believe me. He went on like a madman. +He could not get over the fact that his dollymop was one too many for +you. He seemed to think that it was none of your business." + +"Don't." + +"My dear Margaret, you must do me the justice to admit that I stood up +for him. I said he was an attractive young man. So he is. But that is +just it. Attractive young men are most unreliable and reliable young men +are most unattractive. At your age, I used to like them fair and false. +That was your father's fault. He perverted me. He was so domestic!" + +It was an old wound that Mrs. Austen touched then and under it Margaret +winced. "The poor dear! He was a saint and you know it." + +"Know it! I should say I did. I know too that he made me hate saints. +But you love them and thought you had one, instead of which you got a +devil. Your luck is far better than mine. If you take my advice, you +will hang on to him like grim death. It is not too late. To-morrow he +will be here, thundering at the gates." + +Dimly at the moment the girl's creed turned a ray on her. She lifted her +head. + +"He will not thunder at the gates and he is not what you say. But +perhaps I am. I may have done worse than he has and what he has done is +my punishment." + +It was very little but it was too much. Mrs. Austen, in spite of her +facile digestion, gagged at it. + +"If that is theosophy, I will believe it when I am old, fat and a Hun." + +Margaret sank back. "But I am sorry you have been annoyed. It won't +happen again. I will write to him." + +Later, she did write. + + Forgive me, dear Keith, if I cause you pain, but I feel that I am + not suited to you. Forgive me therefore for not recognising it + sooner. I have thought it all over and, though it wrings my heart + to say it, I cannot see you again. Forgive me and forget. + + MARGARET. + + + + +XII + + +Hell was supposed to be very hot, very red, full of pugnacious demons. +Educated people do not believe in it any more. It is curious how +ignorant educated people have become. Hell is an actual plane, less +vivid than was formerly imagined, not hot but cold, grey rather than +red, but amply provided with demons, with the devils of self-accusation, +with the fiends of insoluble queries. Very real and very actual, it is +surprising how many educated people are there. The oddity of that is +increased by the fact that they regard it as a private establishment. +They regard their hell as unique. Perhaps the idea flatters them. Yet +sooner or later everybody enters it. Hell may seem private. It is +universal. + +Headlong into it, Margaret's letter precipitated Lennox. Being a man, he +struggled up. But not out. In hell there are no signposts. It takes time +to find one's way. It takes more, it takes resignation. When both have +been acquired, the walls part of themselves. The aspect of life has +altered, but you are free. + +Lennox, in struggling up, encountered the demons of enigmatic riddles. +Each word of Margaret's letter they converted into a Why? They thrust it +at him, demanding an answer. But the answer her heart alone possessed. +That heart had been his. It was his no longer. The heart that she had +given him, she had taken away. Nothing could be simpler and nothing more +mysterious. The mystification was complete, but not the suffering. +Suffering is never complete. However deep the hell, there is always a +deeper one. + +From the letter he looked at the walls. They were dumb. There was no +answer for the demons there, not anywhere, perhaps, except among +werewolves, basilisks and Mrs. Austens. These monsters did not occur to +him. The monstrous letter sufficed. But Margaret was still too near, her +vows were too recent for him to credit it, and the fact that he could +not disclosed itself in those words which all have uttered, all at least +before whom the inexplicable has sprung. + +"It is impossible!" + +Yet there it was. Yet there too was something else. But what? At once he +was back again in the issueless circle of infernal questions. + +The day before he had known that something was amiss. The attitude of +Mrs. Austen had been too assured, too venomous, too smiling, for him to +doubt it. But though he did not doubt that, not for a second did he +doubt Margaret either. Always aware of the woman's hostility, he had +been equally aware that it could not influence the girl. Not for a +moment therefore had he accepted the statement that the engagement was +broken. At the time he had thought that when next he had a word with +Margaret it would all be explained. But all what? His life was as clean +as his face. It was not that then. On the other hand he was not rich. By +the same token, Margaret's only idea of money was to help others with +it. It was not that then either. Nor was it that she had not loved him. +She had loved him. He could have sworn it and not out of vanity, for he +had none, but because never could she have promised herself to him if +she had not. None the less, she could not see him again. She had thought +it over. She was not suited to him. He was told to forget her. Why? + +That Why, repeating itself, forced him deeper into the circles of which +hell is made. + +But even in hell despair is brief. Unless it consume you utterly, and it +would not be hell if it did, it goads. It compels you to seek an issue. +Apart from time, which is very slow, and resignation, which is never +prompt, there is another portal. + +A poet, who discovered it, scrawled on it: "Lascia la donna e studia la +matematica"--a cryptogram which subsequent pilgrims variously +deciphered. To some, it spelled Thought; to others, Action. Action is +thought put in motion. + +Lennox, to whom time was too dilatory and resignation too remote, +happened on the device which he translated after his manner. + +But however you construe the hierograph, the door must be demolished +before you get out. Across the door is written: Hope. It is a very hard +door to crack. When you succeed you are covered with splinters. They +cling to you and pierce you. Joiners, carpenters, pilgrims, poets and +fiends have a name for them. They call the splinters Regrets. Though you +have escaped, they accompany you. Hell encircles you still. + +It was on the day following the conversation with Mrs. Austen that +Lennox received Margaret's letter. In his dark rooms it was waiting. A +moment previous he had intended to go to her. He had it all planned. +Mrs. Austen could say what she liked; the physician might interfere; he +would submit to no one. He proposed to see her, to adjust it, to swing +up and out from the circles which already were closing about him. + +On leaving Mrs. Austen he had gone to dinner. He could not eat. He had +gone to bed. He could not sleep. In the morning his face was flushed. +Always fit, hard as nails, these phenomena perplexed. Yet he knew it was +not illness that produced them. What he did not know was that poison +had. The poison was anger, an unphilosophic emotion which disturbs the +circulation, the stomach and social intercourse. He could have wrung +Mrs. Austen's neck. + +In that murderous mood he went to Wall Street and in that mood returned. +Already hell was gaping. Headlong into it the letter threw him. Being a +man he sought and found the door, smashed it and passed out. Not at once +however. It took him many a sleepless hour before he deciphered the +device Lascia la donna. Leave the lady? Certainly. Since she so wished, +what else in decency could he do? Go and badger her with complaints and +questions? Not he. But how do you translate: Studia la matematica? The +dictionary that is in every man, who is a man, told him. Then he knew. +Meanwhile the flush in departing left him grey. + +In every affection there is the germ of hate. Margaret, confronted by +the unawaited, hated Lennox. Lennox, confronted by the inexplicable, +hated Margaret. Hatred is love turned inside out. Love is perhaps a +fermentation of the molecules of the imagination. In that case so also +is hate. Of all things mystery disturbs the imagination most. Margaret +could not understand how Lennox could have acted as he had. Lennox could +not understand how Margaret could act as she did. Dual misunderstanding, +in which the imagination fermented. Hence the hate. Yet each, in hating, +loved the other. Each felt the splinters which, as Browning somewhere +noted, kept fresh and fine. Only a touch and the splinters would have +joined. + +Mrs. Austen, for all her horrible shrewdness, could not have prevented +that. But pride, that gives so many of us a fall, was more potent than +she. Margaret, insulted, could but turn away. Lennox, dismissed, could +but let her go. + +Any emotion is unbecoming. Pride is merely ridiculous. It resides in the +youthful-minded, however old. In residing in these young people, it +resisted the touch that would have combined them and, through its +opposition, made one of them ill and the other grey. To be proud! How +splendid it seems and how stupid it is. Hell is paved with just such +imbecilities. + +It is said of Dante that children peered at him and whispered: "That man +has been in hell." + +None of the children that clubmen are, pointed at Lennox, though two of +them whispered. The others did not know, not yet at least. But Verelst +knew and Jones guessed. The guess was due to the romantic profession +that endows a novelist with the wonderful faculty of putting two and two +together. + +Hitherto, that is since the engagement was announced and, for that +matter, long previously, Lennox had passed the evening in Park Avenue. +Where else would he have passed it? After the rupture he sat about and +read all the papers. When a man is down and out that is just what he +does do, though not necessarily in the Athenæum Club. + +Jones, noticing it, rapidly divined the reason which Verelst confirmed. + +"Yes, her mother told me." + +It was in a club window, of an afternoon. Before them was Fifth Avenue +which, in the Aprils of not so long ago, used to be a horse-show of fair +faces, ravishing hats, discreet liveries, folded arms and yards of +yodeling brass. + +Verelst, eyeing the usurping motors, added: "It is because of some girl +I believe, or rather I don't believe it." + +Jones sat back. Instantly the motors were replaced by the picture of a +girl whose face was noble and reserved. He had seen the face at the +Bazaar. He had seen Lennox talking to it. Afterward Lennox had told him +that the girl was Portuguese. The picture was attractive but +unconvincing. In agreement with Verelst he was about to say so. But +behind him he heard a voice that he knew and he switched and said: + +"What a remarkable country Portugal is! Born dumb, she spoke twice: once +when she gave Asia to Europe, again when she presented the Lusiades to +the world. Her history is resumed in two miracles, a discovery and a +masterpiece. But when the Cape of Good Hope was succeeded by Camoens, +once more she relapsed into a silence that was broken only when she +shouted her defiance at the Huns." + +Now though that voice was addressing them. Both turned and Lennox asked: +"What are you talking about--war?" + +"Sit down," said Verelst, who gave him a hand. + +Jones gave him another. "What else is there to talk about? It will be +talked of forever. So will that scrofulous Kaiser. Unfortunately he +knows it and that pleases him. Last year or the year before he called +for the death and destruction of all who opposed him. With singular +modesty he added: 'God who speaks through my mouth so orders!' Loti +claims that what spoke through him was a hyena. Loti is lacking in +literary sobriety. When a hyena has eaten he is at peace with the world. +But when was bestiality ever filled? It is insatiable and so is this +thug whom God, at most, may have permitted to look in the mirror without +vomiting. Meanwhile we stand by. A generation ago we fought for Cuba. +What is Hecuba to us in comparison to the Anima Mundi?" + +Verelst turned on the novelist. "And what is literary sobriety? You are +hurling words in massed formation." + +Jones smiled at him. "Where is my harp?" + +"You mean your megaphone," Lennox put in. "You are always rehearsing +copy. One of these days I may give you some." + +"From the front?" Jones asked. + +"Yes, though I don't see how you knew. The President has asked for war. +Why aren't we up and at 'em? If Congress hems and haws over it much +longer, I'll get my gun and join the Foreign Legion." + +Jones nodded. He had guessed that also and he said: "Wait and join the +legions here. At present, the country is alarmingly apathetic. The man +in the subway is muddled. The call to arms does not stir him. The +issues, clear enough to us, seem to him mixed as macaroni. He does not +understand a war that is three thousand miles away. But in a year, every +man in the country--a country that has never been beaten!--will be in it +body and soul. Undividedly, shoulder to shoulder, we will be in it as we +have never been in anything before." + +The novelist touched a bell. "Lennox, have a Bronx. Verelst, what will +you take? I'll wager a pippin that war is declared to-morrow." + +"Done," said Verelst--who lost it. + + + + +XIII + + +The two hundred and fifty--less ten per cent--which an imaginary Mrs. +Beamish had paid for the pleasure of not hearing Cassy sing, transported +the girl who was not given to transports. These subsiding, she viewed +the matter from its business aspect. She needed a frock, a wrap, a hat, +gloves, shoes and certain things that are nowhere visible except in +advertisements, shop-windows and extreme privacy. Also, her hair +required tralalaing. Meanwhile, first and foremost, Lennox must be paid. +The subsidy was not too much by a penny. These considerations occupied +but an instant. + +"When is it?" she asked the Tamburini, who, a moment before, had +dumbfounded her with the money. + +"When is what?" inquired the ex-star who already had forgotten Mrs. +Beamish. + +"Why, the concert!" + +Carlotta Tamburini was dressed like a fat idol, in silk and false +pearls. There the idolatry ceased. In her hand was an umbrella and on +her head a hat of rose-leaves which a black topknot surmounted. About +her shoulders was a feather boa. It seemed a bit mangy. Seated on +Cassy's bed she looked at a window that gave on a wall. Cassy was +standing. Behind Cassy was a door which the extinguished light had +closed. Beyond, in the living-room, was the marquis. Anything that he +did not hear would not hurt him. + +"Oh, she'll let us know." + +"What sort of a catamount is she?" + +At that the former prima donna's imagination balked. But she got +something out. "Nice enough. What do you care?" + +"I hate all those snobs." + +"So do I," said the Tamburini, who worshipped the breed even when +non-existent. "But don't go and include him. If it hadn't been for +him----" + +"Was he with her?" + +"You ought to have heard the way he went on about you. She said: 'Why, +Monty, I do believe you'd like to marry her.'" + +Cassy's mouth twitched as she munched it. "She presumed to say that! +She's an insolent beast." + +"He shut her up, I can tell you. He said if he got on his knees, you +wouldn't dust your feet on him." + +"That jackanapes! I should say not!" + +"You might say worse. Take the Metro. You're spat on if you're down and +spat at if you're up. A dog's own life." Lifting her voice, the fat +woman sang: "Croyez-moi car j'ai passé par la." + +"What has that to do with it?" + +Nothing whatever, the Tamburini truthfully reflected but omitted to say +so. Paliser, in producing Mrs. Beamish, had also produced the programme. +With both was a cheque. With the cheque was the assurance of another and +a bigger one. She had only to earn it. To earn it she had only to follow +the programme. The poor soul was trying to. The job was not easy. Cassy +was skittish. A pull on the rein and she would kick the apple-cart over. + +Femininely she discounted it all. Cassy was not worth the time, the +trouble, particularly the careful handling. There were girls in plenty, +quite as good-looking, who, without stopping to count two, or even one, +would jump at it. But there you were! Paliser did not want partridges +that flew broiled into his mouth. A true sportsman, he liked to snare +the bird. The feminine in her understood that also. Besides it was all +grist for her mill. But the grist was uphill, and if the noble marquis +got so much as an inkling of it, he was just the sort of damn fool to +whip out his sword-cane and run her through. The honour of the +Casa-Evora, what? Yet, being on the job, she buckled to it. + +"What will you get, dearie?" + +Cassy sat down. Her previous ruminations returned. Escorting them was a +vision of a baronial castle. In the hall, a guest-book in which you +wrote your name. A squad of lackeys that showed you into a suite of +salons. Rugs on which there was peace; sofas on which there was ease; +étagères on which there were reveries. Nothing else. No cupboards hung +with confections. No models sailing in and out. Nothing so commercial as +anything for sale. Nothing but patrician repose and the châtelaine--a +duchess disguised as a dressmaker--who might, or might not, ask you +upstairs. + +In war time at that! Though, it is true, Congress had only just declared +it. + +But, Cassy reflected, two hundred and fifty, with Lennox deducted and +less ten per cent, would not take her as far as the drawbridge. The +fleeting vision of the castle passed, replaced by the bargain seductions +of department-stores. + +Fingering the money, she said: "Where does this person live? She ought +to send a taxi." + +"Certamente," replied the fat woman, lapsing, as she occasionally did +lapse, into the easy Italian of the lyric stage. "She certainly will." + +Cassy jumped up. "Well, then, you come along while I take a look about. +Afterward we will have lunch. I'll eat, you can watch me and I'll tell +you how it tastes. There's the telephone!" + +Cassy opened the door, went out into the narrow and shadowy hall and +took the receiver. + +"Yes? Oh! None the better for the asking. To-night? Impossible. +To-morrow? Perhaps. Good-bye." + +"Who was that?" the noble marquis called from the room beyond. + +"An imbecile who wants me to dine and go to the opera." + +"Not that Paliser?" + +Cassy, poking her head in at him, threw him a kiss and returned to the +Tamburini with whom, a little later, she was praying among the +worshippers that thread the sacred and silent way where Broadway and +Sixth Avenue meet. + +In an adjacent basilica, the atmosphere charged with pious emanations, +with envy, malice, greed and all other charitableness, choked the girl. +But at last the holy rites were ended. To the voluntary of $109.99, she +passed into the peace of Herald Square where the ex-diva swayed, stopped +and holding her umbrella as one holds a guitar, looked hopelessly and +helplessly about. + +"You're not preparing to serenade the Elevated?" Cassy bawled in her +ear. + +In the slam-bang of trains and the metallic howls of surface cars that +herded and volplaned about them, the fat lady, now apparently gone mad, +was gesticulating insanely. Yet she was but indicating, or trying to +indicate, the relative refuge of a side street in which there was a +cook-shop. + +Then, presently, after all the dangers that may be avoided in remaining +at home, and supplied with such delights as clam fritters offer, she +savorously remarked: "I hope I am not going to be sick." + +The charm of scented streets, the sedatives of shopping, the joy of +lightsome fritters, these things, combined with the job, the unearned +cheque and the fear of losing both, made her ghastly. + +Cassy, devoid of pity, said: "Have some beer." + +The Tamburini gulped. "I couldn't talk to you this morning and I've got +to. It's for your own good, dearie; it is, so help me! Supposing he is a +jackanapes. What do you want? A prize-fighter? Take it from me, whether +he is one or the other, in no time it will be quite the same." + +Cassy's lips curled. "Croyez-moi car j'ai passé par la." But, in mocking +the woman, she frowned. "What business is it of yours?" + +The fallen star gulped again. Conscious that she had struck the wrong +note, she struck another. "Your papa is no better, is he? Between you +and me and the bedpost, I doubt if he ever will be. I doubt if he plays +again. You'll have to look after him. How're you going to? You can't +expect to sing every night to the tune of two hundred and fifty. Not +with war marching in on us. Not with everybody hard up." + +Cassy had been about to order a chocolate éclair. The new note stayed +her. But though new, it was not novel. She had heard it before. It rang +true. Absently she shoved at her plate. + +In theory she knew her way about. The migratory systems of domestic +experience said nothing to her, nor, thus far, had the charts of +matrimony either. In the sphere of life to which a walk-up leads, the +charts were dotted with but the postman and the corner druggist. Men and +plenty of them she had met, but they too said nothing and not at all +because they were dumb, but because, as the phrase is, they did not talk +her language. But for every exception there is perhaps a rule. The one +man who did speak her language, had held his tongue. + +Now, as she shoved at her plate, she saw him, saw the tea-caddy, saw his +rooms and saw too, as she left them, the girl to whom he was engaged. In +the memory of that she lingered and looked down. + +"Why, he could lead an orchestra of his own, your papa could." + +Cassy looked up. She had been far away, too far, in a land where dreams +do not come true. Impatiently she twisted. "What?" + +"Didn't you hear me, dearie? I was talking about money--bushels of it." + +About the bushels the woman rolled her tongue. They tasted better than +the fritters. + +A waiter approached. The room was long, dark, narrow, slovenly, spaced +with tables on which were maculate cloths and lamps with faded shades. +Greasily the waiter produced the bill. + +"Bushels!" she appetisingly repeated. + +Cassy paid. The waiter slouched away. + +"You will drive through life in a hundred horsepower car and be fined +for speeding. The papers will say: 'Mrs. Pal----'" + +"What did he pay you to tell me that?" Cassy exploded at her. + +Unruffled by the shot, which was part and parcel of the job, and +realising that any denial would only confirm what at most could be but a +suspicion, the former diva fingered her pearls and assumed an air of +innocence. + +But already Cassy had covered her with her blotting-paper look. "As if I +cared!" + +"Dearie, he did pay me. He paid me the compliment of supposing that I +take an interest in you. But he said nothing except what I said he said. +He said if he got down on his knees you would turn your back on him." + +"Then he is cleverer than he looks." + +"Well, anyway, he is clever enough to have bushels of money and that is +the greatest cleverness there is." + +"In New York," retorted Cassy, who had never been anywhere else, +physically at least, though mentally her little feet had trod the +streets of Milan, the boards of the Scala. + +"It can't be much different in Patagonia," replied this lady, who, to +save her life, could not have told whether the land was Asiatic or +African, nor who, to save her soul--if the latter were still +salvable--could not have told that it was neither. "Besides," she added, +"I was only thinking of your poor, dear papa." + +Cassy said nothing. She stood up. She was making for the door and the +charm of the scented streets. + +Ma Tamby sighed, rose and followed. It was the devil's own job. +Housebreaking must be easier! + + + + +XIV + + +Cassy's department-store investments reached her the next day. Her +father, who opened the door to them, fell back before the sum total of +the C. O. D. With an arm in a sling, he could not hold the packages, +much less pay for them, and he gasped as he called for aid. + +The money that Cassy then produced seemed to him darkly mysterious and +although he believed as firmly in her virtue, as, before the break, he +had believed in the maestria of his own right hand, none the less, in +addition to aid, he exacted light. + +Cassy, dumping the packages on her bed, occupied herself in verifying +the change which amounted to one cent. Then she sketched it. + +His surprise fell away. The mythical catamount, the imaginary concert, +the ponderable subsidy--two hundred and fifty, less ten per +cent.--seemed to him natural and an unnatural world. + +"And there's about ten dollars remaining," Cassy resumed. "Ten dollars +and a penny. You can have the penny and I will keep the ten, or I'll +keep the ten and you can have the penny." + +That also seemed natural. But the addition or subtraction disclosed a +deficit and he exclaimed at it. "You said two hundred and fifty!" + +Cassy too saw the hole, but she could not lie out of it. "Well, I owed +the difference." + +In speaking she turned. Before her was a mirror in which she glanced +at her hair that had been superiorly tralala'd. She turned again, +reflecting that Lennox must have already received the postal-order, +which she had mailed the night before, and wondering whether he had +liked her little scrawl of indignant thanks. + +"I'll tell you about it later," she added. "Now I must get your dinner. +How would you like a tenderloin, a salad, and a box of Camembert?" + +He shuffled. "There is no Camembert any more." The tragedy of that +seemed to overwhelm him. "I wish I were dead." + +Cassy laughed. "Now it's the cheese. On Saturday it was the violin. +Well, you got it back. What will you say if I find some Camembert? Do +stop meowing. Any one might think you didn't have me." + +At her young laughter, he groaned. "Formerly if I let a day go without +practising, I noticed it. If I let two days go, Toscanini noticed it. +Now it's weeks and weeks. It's killing me." + +To cheer him, Cassy said gaily: "The artist never dies." + +But it did not cheer him. Besides, though Cassy had laughed, there had +been a tugging at her heartstrings. Shabby, unkempt, in a frayed +dressing-gown, his arm in a dismal sling, he looked so out of it, so +forlorn, so old. + +He had shuffled away. She bit her lip. Later, when he had had his +tenderloin and she had department-stored herself, a pint of grocer's +burgundy had reduced him to tears. + +The day before it had seemed to her that the frock would do. But her +judgment had been hurried. Shops, crowds, the vibrations of both, +devitalised and confused her. In choosing the frock she had not +therefore given it the consideration which it perhaps did not merit, and +now her mirror shrieked it. The frock was not suited to her. Nothing was +suited to her, except the produce of baronial halls, where the simplest +thing exceeded the dreams of avarice, or else the harlequinades which +she herself devised. None the less she would have liked to have had her +father exclaim and tell her how smart she looked. He omitted it. + +"Where are you going?" + +"I told you. Dinner and the opera." + +"Opera! There is no opera to-night. What do you mean? What did you tell +me?" + +On the table were dishes and the lamentable bottle. Cassy, in doubt +whether to clear them then or later, hesitated. The hesitation he +misconstrued. + +"You told me nothing. You tell me nothing. I am kept in the dark." + +Cassy, adjusting the wrap which she had left open that he might admire +the unadmirable, moved to where he sat and touched him. "You're the +silliest kind of a silly. I told you yesterday. Perhaps the opera was +last night. But how could I go? Except that old black rag I had nothing +to wear. If there is no opera to-night, there will be a concert or +something. Don't you remember now? I was at the telephone." + +He did remember, but apparently the recollection displeased. He growled. +"Yes. It was that Paliser." + +"Well, why not? If it had not been for him, I would not have got the +catamount's money and you would not have had the burgundy." + +But he was not to be mollified. The growl sharpened into a snarl. +"Paliser! I don't like the breed. By God, if----" + +The peradventure of that Cassy got before he could utter it. Paliser! Of +all men! The absurdity convulsed her. Her laughter ran up and down the +scale. + +"You're the dearest old duck of a goose I ever heard of." She turned. +Her wrap swished. "I only wish you were going too." + +Below, in the street, a man, precipitatingly vacating the box of a +machine, touched his cap at her. "Beg pardon, mem. Miss Cara? Mr. +Paliser's compliments and he's sent a car." + +Cassy glanced at the man, who looked like a Roman emperor. From the man +she turned to the car. Superiorly and soberly finished, it beckoned. +Now, though, the Cæsar was holding open the door. Cassy got in. The +emperor hopped up. The car leaped. + +On the front seat was a box with her name on it. In it was a handful of +orchids. The luxury of the car, the beauty of the demon-flowers, the +flight from the walk-up, yet more, perhaps, the caresses and surrenders +of spring, affected her. If, she thought, if only the things that might +be could be the things that are! If only---- + +On the pale cushions she leaned back. Before her a curtain parted. In a +wide, marble-flagged hall she was looking at a girl who was looking at +her. A moment before he had said: "That is Miss Austen to whom I am +engaged." A moment before she had seen her picture. The girl was good to +look at, so good that, without further acquaintance, you knew she was +good through and through. There was no mistaking that. But was she good +enough? Was any girl good enough for him? And who was that with her? +Probably her mother who probably too was the catamount's sister. They +had a family likeness. Then at once the scene shifted. Cassy was in a +room floored with thick rugs, hung with heavy draperies, and in that +room the catamount had hired her to sing! But the disgust of it passed. +The curtain fell. Cassy turned to the window, through which a breath of +lilac blew. + +She sniffed and stared. Where was she? Where was the Riverside? Where, +for that matter, was the roar of the glittering precinct in which the +Splendor tossed its turrets to the sky? Here were dirty and reeling +goblins; budding trees that bowed and fainted; a stretch of empty road +that the scudding car devoured. Afar was a house that instantly +approached and as suddenly vanished. Dimly beyond was another. + +Cassy, leaning forward, poked at the emperor. "I will thank you to tell +me where you are going. Don't you know where the Splendor is?" + +Back at her he mumbled, but what she could not hear. + +"Stop at once," she called. + +Easily, without a quiver, almost within its own length, the car drew in +and the Cæsar, touching his cap, was looking at her. "Beg pardon, mem. +There was a note for you in the box. Mr. Paliser said----" + +But now Cassy had it. + + Chère demoiselle--though I do not know why I call you that, except + that it sounds less perfunctory than dear Miss Cara, who, I hope + will do me the honour of dining in the country, if for no better + reason than because there is no opera to-night and I am her + obedient servant. + + M. P., Jr. + +Cassy looked up from it. "Country! He says country. What country? What +does this mean?" + +"The Place, mem. Paliser Place. It's not far now." + +Cassy had not bargained for that. Stories of girls decoyed, drugged, +spirited away, never heard of again, sprang at her. Quite as quickly she +dismissed them. But, being human, she had to find fault. + +"You should have told me before. That will do. Drive on." + +She sank back. The car leaped and she smiled. Paliser in the rôle of +white-slaver! Her momentary alarm was now a mile behind her. But would +they be alone? Though, after all, what did it matter? Yet in Harlem +there was a broken old man who would not like it. And the basilica +investments! If she had known she would have worn the black rag. But +they would do for that tiresome Mrs. Beamish. As yet she had not decided +what she would sing. The _Caro nome_ occurred to her. Under her breath +she began it and abruptly desisted. The _Dear Name_ suggested another. + +For it she substituted the _Ombra leggiera_. In its scatter of trills +that mount, as birds mount, there were no evocations, though she did +begin wondering again about Mrs. Beamish's music-room. If it were not +too impossible she might give the _Ernani involame_. But at that and +very unintentionally she thought of Lennox again. + +She made a face and looked through the window. As usual she was hungry. +The car now was bellowing through opening gates which, as she looked +back, a man in brown was closing. On either side was a high stone wall, +but beyond, as she looked again, was an avenue bordered with trees and +farther on a white house with projecting wings in which was a court, an +entrance and, above and about the latter, a pillared perron. + +From the entrance she could see a man in livery hastening. Behind him, a +man in black appeared. The car stopped. The first man opened the door. +Cassy got out. The other man additionally assisted by looking on and +moving aside. Cassy went into a hall where a young person who did not +resemble the Belle Chocolatière but whose costume suggested her, +diligently approached. + +"Would madame care to go upstairs?" + +No, madame would not. But Cassy, instinctively insolent to +pretentiousness, was very simple with the simple. "Thank you. Will you +mind taking my wrap? Thank you again." + +She looked about the hall. Before she could inventory it, here was +another man. "A nice trick you played on me," Cassy threw at him. "I was +half-way before I discovered it. The orchids reconciled me. Thank you +for them. Who is here?" + +Smiling, deferential, apparently modest, perfectly sent out in perfectly +cut evening clothes, Paliser took her hand. "You are and, incidentally, +I am." + +Cassy withdrew her hand. "I suppose you think you are a host in +yourself." + +"Merely the most fortunate of mortals," replied Paliser, who could be +eighteenth-century when he liked, but who seldom bothered to keep it up. + +Already he had been doing a little inventorying on his own account. The +basilica frock did not say much and what it did say was not to his +taste. The Sunday night fantasy he much preferred. It was rowdy, but it +was artistic. But beauty may be dishonoured, it cannot be vulgarised. +Even in pseudo-Parisianisms Cassy was a gem. A doubt though, one that +had already visited him, returned. Was the game worth the possible +scandal? + +But now Cassy was getting back at him. "To stand about with the most +fortunate of mortals ought to be a shape of bliss. As it happens, I +would rather sit." + +"Naturally. Only, worse luck, there is no throne." + +Cassy gave it to him again: "There is a court fool, though. Where are +your cap and bells?" + +"Not on you at any rate." + +He motioned and Cassy passed on into a room beyond which other rooms +extended, each different, but all in the same key, a monotone attenuated +by lustres and the atmosphere, infinitely relaxing, which wealth +exhales. + +Cassy's thin nostrils quivered. Since childhood, it was her first breath +of anything similar. It appeased and disarmed this anarchist who was +also an autocrat. + +"Will you sit here?" + +Paliser was drawing a chair. The table before it lacked the adjacent +severity. On it were dishes of Sèvres and of gold. Adjacently were three +men. Their faces were white and sensual. They moved as forms move in a +dream. + +The stories of girls decoyed, spirited away, never heard of again, +returned to Cassy. She had put the orchids beside her. Her flexible +mouth framed a smile. + +"You know, for a moment, I had the rare emotion of feeling and fearing +that I was being eloped with." + +A pop interrupted. She turned to a man at her elbow. "Only half a glass, +please, and fill it with water." She returned to Paliser, who was +opposite. "I had been thinking of something. I had not noticed where the +car was going; and all of a sudden, I found myself I did not know where. +Then, houp! It got me." + +Paliser helped himself to a clam. "The charm of elopements passed with +the post-chaise. Then they had the dignity of danger and pistol shots +through the windows. Nowadays you go off in a Pullman and return as +prosaic as you started." + +"Sometimes even more so," Cassy put in. + +Paliser helped himself to another clam. "You speak feelingly and that is +only right. This is a very important matter. It is a shame that romance +should have passed with the post-chaise. Why should it not revisit us in +the motor?" + +Cassy sipped and considered it. "There ought to be a law on the +subject." + +"There is one. You may be summoned for speeding and get your name in the +papers." + +"Then the dignity of danger remains." + +"But not in clams. Aren't you going to eat any?" + +Cassy laughed. "I had some yesterday with Ma Tamby. They did not seem to +agree with her. She became very noisy about a Mrs. Beamish. Who is she?" + +"Mrs. Beamish?" Paliser repeated. He also had forgotten. But, with a +click, memory raised a latch. From behind it the lady emerged. "Oh, +she's a cousin of mine." + +"Rather distant, I should fancy," said Cassy, who was conscious of the +delay, though not of the click. The delay she had noticed without, +however, divining the cause. But how could she possibly imagine that +Mrs. Beamish had been evolved for the sole purpose of providing her with +basilica opportunities? Yet the fault, if fault there were, resided in +her education. She had never read Eliphas Levi. She did not know that +genii can be evoked. + +"Well, she is more my sister's cousin than mine," Paliser anxious to get +out of it, threw in. "I mean my sister has a more cousinly nature." + +"I did not know you had a sister," said Cassy, who not only did not know +but did not care. "Though, come to think of it, a sister with a cousinly +nature must be so gratifying. Another distant relative, isn't she?" + +"Very. She is in Petrograd." + +That too was evocative. Cassy began talking about the biggest cropper +that history has beheld--a tsar tossed from the saddle to Siberia! + +Paliser, glad to be rid of Mrs. Beamish, took it up. The sordid story of +the Russian chief of staff, bought by Hindenburg and shot by the +Grand-Duke Nicholas, whom the tsar then exiled, was told once more. + +"What else could you expect of that Hun?" Paliser concluded. + +"A Hun!" Cassy exclaimed. "Why he is a Romanov." + +"No more than you are," Paliser replied. "The last of the Romanovs +married Catherine the Greater. There the breed ended. Paul, who followed +and who married a German drab, was Catherine's son but not her +husband's. The rest of the litter, down to the father of the recent +incumbent, all married German drabs. The father of the ex-tsar married a +Dane. The fellow is therefore one-eighth Dane and seven-eighths Hun. +Totally apart from which, a grocer who knew his business would not have +had him for clerk. His family knew that and, before he had time to be +tsar, tried to poison him. To the misfortune, not of Russia merely, but +of Christendom, they failed. If they had succeeded the eastern front +would be secure. As for his wife, I saw her once. It was in the Winter +Palace which, before it was sacked, was a palace. Since the palace of +the Caliphs of Cordova crumbled, there has never been a palace like it. +It outshone them all. Well, that woman tarnished it." + +Meanwhile dishes were brought and removed by servants, wooden-faced, yet +with ears alert. The subject of elopements had seemed promising, but it +led to nothing. At their own table, talk was gayer. + +Cassy enjoyed the food, the diluted wine, Paliser's facile touch. He +appeared to know a lot and she surprised herself by so telling him. "I +wish I did," she added. "I am ignorant as a carp." + +"You know how to charm," he replied. But, seeing her stiffen, he +resumed, "With your voice. That is enough. It would be a mistake for you +to be versatile. Versatility is for the amateur. The artist is a flower, +never a bouquet." + +It was decently said. In the decency of it, the agreeable insult which a +compliment usually is was so chastened that Cassy flushed and felt that +she had. It annoyed her, and she attributed it to the wine. + +It was not the wine. Other influences were at work on this girl, born to +a forsaken purple and whose soul was homesick for it. But purple is +perhaps picturesque. It was not that for which her soul sighed, but the +dream that hides behind it, the dream of going about and giving money +away. To her the dream had been the dream of a dream, realisable only on +the top rungs of the operatic ladder, which, later, she felt she was not +destined to scale. None the less there are dreams that do come true, +though usually, beforehand, there is a desert to cross. + +"I wonder if I might have a cavatina?" Paliser asked, rising and moving +to her. + +Cassy shrugged. I have to pay for my dinner, she thought, but she too +got up. + +Preceding her, he led the way to a room of which the floor, inlaid and +waxed, was rugless. The windows were not curtained, they were shuttered. +In the centre was a grand and a bench. Afar, at the other end, masking a +door, was a portière, the colour of hyacinth. Near it, were two +unupholstered chairs; one, white; the other, black. Save for these, save +too for a succession of mirrors and of lights, the room was bare. In +addition, it was spacious, a long oblong, ceiled high with light +frescoes, the proper aviary for a song-bird. + +Cassy curtsied to it. At table she had not wanted to sing. The mere +sight of this room inspired. + +Paliser opened the piano and, seating himself, ran his long thin fingers +over the keys. He was heating them, preluding a score, passing from it +to another. Presently he looked up; she nodded and the _Ah, non giunge_ +floated from her. + +"Brava!" Paliser muttered as the final trill drifted away. Again he +looked up. "You will be a very great artist." + +He did not mean it. He judged her voice colourful but lacking in +carriage. + +Cassy, leaning forward, struck the keys, giving him the note and again +she sang, this time the _Libiamo_, which, old as the hills, claptrap, +utterly detestable, none the less served to display the bravura quality +of her voice. + +When it passed, Paliser sprang up, faced her. "Open your mouth! There! +Wide!" + +Cassy, familiar with the ritual, obeyed. Paliser peered into the +strawberry of her throat. It was deep as a well and he moved back. + +"You have the organ but you do not know how to use it. You don't know +how to breathe." + +Cassy forgot that he was young, that she was, that in the great room in +the great house they were alone. Through the shutters came the smell of +lilacs, the sorceries of spring. In the sexlessness of art these things +were unnoticed. For the first time she liked him. It was his frankness +that drew her, though if he had been a frank old woman she would have +liked him as well. + +"My father says that. He says it is Ma Tamby's fault. He can't bear +her." + +For a while they discussed it. Paliser maintaining that were it not for +the war she ought to go to Paris and Cassy asserting, though without +conviction, that the specialty of the Conservatoire consisted in dried +fruit. + +Finally she said: "It must be late. I have a wrap somewhere and oh! my +orchids." + +The young person was summoned. The wrap was recovered, the orchids +reappeared. + +Paliser, helping Cassy with the wrap, said: "Shall I see it here again?" +He knew he would but he thought it civil to ask. + +Cassy too had her thoughts. The freedom with which, during the +ham-and-eggs episode, his eyes had investigated her, where was it? On +Sunday he had bored her to tears. That also had gone. During the past +hour or two he had shown himself reasonably intelligent, unpresuming, +without offensiveness of any kind. With a movement of the hand she +lifted the wrap at her neck. "Here?" + +It occurred to her that she did not know where the polished and inlaid +floor on which she stood was located. Nor did she particularly care. +Besides if her geography were vague, the floor was pleasant, a bit +slippery perhaps, though just how slippery she was yet to learn. + +"Yes. The day after to-morrow. Why not? I would like to run over a score +or two with you." + +"Good heavens! You are not composing an opera, are you?" + +Paliser laughed. "I want to lead you away from painted mush into the +arms of----" + +"Not Strauss?" Cassy interrupted. "Art does not recognise frontiers but +the Huns do not either and I will not recognise a Hun. Is the car at the +door?" + +He saw her out and away, and reentering the house went to a room in the +wing. It was lined with bookcases that you did not have to break your +back to examine. They began four feet from the floor and ended two feet +higher. The room contained other objects of interest. + +From among the latter, Paliser helped himself to a brandy and soda. It +had been dry work. The drink refreshed him. It stimulated too. Also it +suggested. He put the glass down and lightly swore at it. + +"Damn Benny! He has only one thumb." + +For a moment he eyed the glass. Then taking from a shelf Gautier's very +spiritual account of the de Maupin, he eyed that. Not for long though. +He put it back. He did not want to read. He did not want to drink. There +were several things that he did not want. In particular he did not want +to be alone. + +He rang, ordered out a car and went sailing in town, to a brown-stone +front where you could lose as much money as you liked and not in +solitude either. On the way, the thought of the damned and thumbless +Benny accompanied him. + + + + +XV + + +Through the inflated proprieties of social New York, Paliser's father +had driven four-in-hand, and at a pace so klinking that social New York +cut him dead. A lot he cared! The high-steppers in their showy harness +flung along as brazenly as before. He did not care. He had learned to +since. Age is instructive. It teaches that though a man defy the world, +he cannot ignore it. But tastes are inheritable. Monty Paliser came in +for a few, but not for the four-in-hand. Less vigorous than his father, +though perhaps more subtle, he preferred the tandem. + +In preparation for one that he had in view, he looked in, not at a mart, +but at a shrine. + +It was on the afternoon succeeding Cassy's visit to his slippery floor. +The day was radiant, a day not of spring, or of summer, but of both. +Above was a sky of silk wadded with films of white cotton. From below +there ascended a metallic roar, an odour of gasoline--the litanies and +incense of the temple, Semitic and Lampsacene, that New York long since +became. + +Lampsacus worshipped a very great god and worshipped him uniquely. New +York, more devout and less narrow, has worshipped him also and has knelt +too to a god almost as great. Their combined rituals have exalted the +temple into a department-store where the pilgrim obtains anything he can +pay for, which is certainly a privilege. Youth, beauty, virtue, even +smiles, even graciousness, Priapus and Mammon bestow on the faithful +that garland the altars with cash. + +In Park Avenue, on this radiant afternoon, Mrs. Austen and Paliser were +occupied with their devotions. Mrs. Austen was priestess and Paliser was +saying his prayers; that is, he was jingling his money, not audibly, but +none the less potently in the lady's uplifted eyes. + +"Yes," said the lady, who as usual did not mean it. "It is too bad. +Margaret, the dear child, is so inexperienced that I feel that I must +blame myself. I have kept from her--how shall I put it? Well, +everything, and when she learned about this, I could not tell her that +it was all very usual. It would have offended her modesty too much." + +Pausing, Mrs. Austen smiled her temple smile. "I could not tell her, as +somebody expressed it, that actresses happen in the best of families, +but I left her to decide whether she cared to have them happen in her +ménage." + +The priestess, looking to the north and south, resumed: "It might have +been different if she had been older, more experienced and had really +cared for him. But how could she care? The child's nature is dormant. +She does not know what love is. He is very nice, I have not a word to +say against him, not one, but a lamp-post would be quite as capable of +arousing her affection. She accepted him, I grant you that and you may +well ask why. I know I asked myself the same thing, until I remembered +that Mr. Austen offered to take me to Niagara Falls and I married him +just to go there. At the time I was a mere chit and Margaret is little +more. Now, I am not, I hope, censorious and I do not say that she had a +lucky escape, but I can say she thinks so. It was such a relief that it +gave her neuralgia. But the child will be up and about in no time and +then you must come and dine. You got my note?" + +Paliser stifled a yawn. The priestess was, he knew, entirely willing to +deliver whatever he wanted at temple rates. But he knew, too, there were +forms and ceremonies to be observed. Being bored was one of them. + +At another portal he has been obliged to go through the forms with +Carlotta Tamburini. She also had wearied him, though less infernally +than Mrs. Austen, and of the two he preferred her. The ex-diva was +certainly canaille, but her paw was open and ready, whereas this woman's +palm, while quite as itching, was delicately withheld. Their gods were +identical. It was the shrines that differed. The one at which the +Tamburini presided was plain as a pikestaff. The Austen's was bedecked +like a girl on her wedding-day. Behind each Priapus leered. Above both +was the shining face of Mammon. + +In the present rites, that which wearied Paliser was the recital of the +reason of the broken engagement. It was broken, that was the end of it, +an end which, in ordinary circumstances, he would have regretted. +Ordinarily it would have made the running too easy. The hurdles were +gone. There were no sticks, no fences. It would not even have been a +race, just a canter. The goal remained but the sporting chance of +beating Lennox to it would have departed. That is the manner in which +ordinarily he would have regarded it. But the war, that was to change us +all, already had changed his views. The draft act had not then been +passed, yet it was realised that some such act would be passed, and +generally it was assumed that among the exempt would be men with wives +dependent on them and cogently he had reflected that if he married that +would be his case precisely. At the same time he could not take a +possible bride by the scruff of the neck and drag her off to a +clergyman. Though it be to save your hide, such things are not done. +Even in war-time there are wearisome preliminaries and these +preliminaries, which a broken engagement abridged, the neuralgia of a +possible bride prolonged. That was distinctly annoying and a moment +later, when he had the chance, he vented the annoyance on Lennox. + +"You got my note?" Mrs. Austen was asking. + +"Yes," he replied, "and I will come with pleasure. Meanwhile, if my +sympathy is not indiscreet, please convey it to your daughter." The kick +followed. "Though, to be sure, Lennox is a loose fish." + +"He is?" Mrs. Austen unguardedly exclaimed. Not for a moment had she +suspected it and, in her surprise, her esteem for him jumped. Good +heavens! she thought. How I have maligned him! + +In the exclamation and the expression which her eyes took on, Paliser +divined some mental somersault, divined too that behind it was something +obscure, something that she was keeping back. Warily he backed. + +"Oh, as for that, loose fish may mean anything. It is a term that has +been applied to me and I dare say very correctly. If I did not live like +a monk, I should be jailed for my sins." + +He is his father all over again, Mrs. Austen cheerfully reflected and +absently asked: "How is he?" + +"Lennox? I haven't an idea." + +"I mean your father." + +"In a great hurry, thank you. The war has gone to his head." + +"At his age? Surely----" + +"He wants me to go," said Paliser, who had no intention of it whatever +and whom subsequent events completely exempted. "He is in a hurry for me +to enlist and in a greater hurry to have me marry." + +Austerely, this pleasant woman grabbed it. "It is your duty!" + +That was too much for Paliser, who, knowing as well as she did what she +was driving at, wanted to laugh. Like the yawn, he suppressed it. + +The priestess's austerity faded. A very fair mimic of exaltation +replaced it. "Whoever she is, how proud she will be! A war-bride!" + +But Paliser, who had his fill, was rising and, abandoning histrionics, +she resumed: "The 24th at eight; don't forget!" Then as he passed from +the portal, the priestess lifted her hands. "What a fish! Fast or loose, +what a fish!" + +Above her Mammon glowed, behind her leered Priapus. + +Through the sunny streets, Paliser drove to the Athenæum, where +everybody was talking war. The general consensus of ignorance was quite +normal. + +Lennox, seated with Jones at a window, was summarising his own point of +view. "In a day or two I shall run down to Mineola, Perhaps they will +take me on at the aviation field. Anyway I can try." + +Jones crossed himself. He is signing his death-warrant, he thought. But +he said: "Take you, Icarus. They will fly away with you. You will become +a cavalier of the clouds, a toreador of the aerial arena, an archangel +soaring among the Eolian melodies of shrapnel. I envy, I applaud, but I +cannot emulate. The upper circles are reserved for youth and over musty +tomes I have squandered mine. I am thirty-two by the clock and I should +hie me to the grave-digger that he may take my measure. And yet if I +could--if I could!--I would like to be one of the liaison chaps and fall +if I must in a shroud of white swords." + +Sombrely Lennox considered his friend. "Your shroud of white swords is +ridiculous." + +Jones agreed with him. To change the subject, he rattled a paper. "Have +you seen this? There is an account here of a man who shot his girl. He +thought her untrue. Probably she was." + +"Reason enough then," said Lennox, who latterly had become very +murderous. + +"I wonder! Anyway, though the paper does not say so, that was not his +reason. The poor devil killed her not because she had been untrue, but +because he loved her. He killed the thing he loved the best out of sheer +affection. Unfortunately, for his virtues, he loved her innocently, +ignorantly, as most men do love, without any idea that the one affection +worth giving is a love that nothing can alter, a love that can not only +forgive but console." + +"Is that what you call originality?" Lennox severely enquired. "If so, I +have never run across any of it in your books." + +"Heaven forbid that you should, dear boy. I live by the sweat of my pen. +Originality never has, and never will make a best-seller." + +It was while Jones was airing these platitudes that Paliser entered the +room. He approached the two men. Lennox at once got up, turned his back, +marched away. + +A few days later, Jones, in reviewing the incident, wondered whether +Lennox could, even then, have suspected. But, at the moment, in apology +for him, he merely lied. + +"I frightened him off with shop-talk." + +Paliser took the vacant seat "What are you writing?" + +"Cheques. There is nothing simpler and, except cash, nothing so easily +understood. To keep my hand in I will write one now." + +Then Jones too got up. Paliser, to whom solitude was always irksome, +found himself alone. But his solitude was not prolonged. A man joined +him. Another followed. Presently there was a group. + +From the table where Jones had gone, the inkbeast saw and seeing +thought: Empires may totter, nations fall. The face of the earth will be +changed. But the toady endureth forever. + + + + +XVI + + +It was another perfect day, a forenoon after Veronese, a day of which +the charm was heightened by the witcheries that Harlem knows--the +shouted temptations of push-carts; the pastimes of children, so noisy, +so dirty, so dear! the engaging conversation of German ladies; the +ambient odour of cabbage and the household linen fluttering gaily on the +roofs. It was rapturous. Just beyond was a sewer--the Hudson. But above +was the turquoise of the mid-April day. + +Cassy went by and on, turned a corner, crossed the street, descended +into a cave, smiled sweetly at a man who was closing a door and who, +seeing that smile, smiled at it, smiled wantonly, held the door open, +yet, noting then but an arid blankness where her smile had been, banged +the door and shouted fiercely: "Hundred-thirty-seven-street-next." + +The train crashed on. Cassy, her nose in the air, assumed a barbed-wire +attitude, her usual defensive against the conjecturing eyes of old men +and the Hello, Kid! glances of New York's subtle youth. This attitude, +which enabled her to ignore everything and everybody, enabled her also +to think of what she liked, or of what she did not like, a circumstance +that happened to her then and which was induced by her father. + +That day he had been terrible. The tragedies of the fated Atrides, what +were they to his? A lamentation longer than Jeremiah's followed. His +arm, his skill, his art, his strength, his money, everything, for all he +knew even his daughter, was taken from him. How long, O Lord, how long! +And presto! da capo, all over and afresh she had it. + +Then, shaking a finger, he cried: "Where were you last night?" + +Cassy, reduced to tears, exclaimed at him. "Why here. Where else?" + +Darkly he eyed her. "Yes, but earlier, before you came in, where were +you?" + +Cassy could not help it, she shook. A moment before she had been crying +whole-heartedly, associating herself, as a daughter may, in her father's +woe. But that was too much. With the tears still in her eyes, she +laughed. "Gracious goodness! You don't take me for a fly-by-night?" + +The noble marquis, who had been standing, sat down. Before him, on the +ginger of the wall, hung the portrait of the gorgeous swashbuckler. +Behind the latter were portraits, dim, remote, visionary, of other +progenitors who probably never existed. But he was convinced that they +had, convinced that always, sword in hand, they had upheld the honour of +the Casa-Evora. No, surely, his daughter had not forfeited that. No, +certainly, he did not suspect her. But there was much that he did not +understand. The misery of the mystery of things overcame him. He wept +noisily. + +Cassy, who had been seated, stood up. She had on her rowdy frock. She +also had on a hat--if you can call a tam-o'-shanter a hat. Therewith +were white gloves which she had got at the basilica and which as yet +were free from benzine. Her father had distressed her inhumanly, but she +had survived it, as youth survives anything, and she looked then, not +tear-stained in the least, but, as usual, very handsome. + +Bending forward, she touched him. "There, you dear old thing, don't take +on so. I have been planning something fat for you. Everything will come +out right Just wait and see--and when you're hungry, there's some nice +cold veal in the kitchy." + +But though in the kitchen there was cold veal, which it were perhaps +poetic to describe as nice, yet even the poetry of that was exceeded by +the poetry of the plan. Cassy had planned nothing lean or fat, nothing +whatever. She had spoken as a little mother may, in an effort to +console, though perhaps prompted subconsciously by the inscrutable +possibilities of life. Anything may happen. Already on the stage of +which destiny is the scene-shifter, the fates, in their eternal rôle of +call-boy, were summoning the actors to the drama in which the leading +rôle was hers and on which the curtain was about to rise. + +Her father, comforted by the imaginary, looked up. She had gone. From +the sling he took his arm. The elbow was stiff, though less stiff than +it had been. Moreover the wrist moved readily and the fingers were as +flexible as before. Consoled by that, comforted already, he shuffled +into the kitchen and consumed the cold veal. + +Now, in the crashing car, Cassy's thoughts went forward and back. Her +father's question, that had succeeded in being both pointed and +pointless, returned. She smiled at it. It would take another Don Juan +than Mozart's to entice me, she serenely reflected. Yet, after all, +would he have to be so remarkable? At any rate he would have to be fancy +free and not engaged as was a certain person who had not so much as said +Boo! + +Cassy coloured. Always corsetless, she was not straight-laced. Given the +attraction and with it the incentive, and that tam-o'-shanter might have +gone flying over the windmill. The tam was very safe. There was no +incentive and, though there was no moral corset either, she was +temperamentally unable to go poaching on another's preserves. Barring +the chimerical, that any girl may consider and most girls do, she was +straight as a string. A shabby old man had no need to ask. + +"Seventy-second!" The trainman bawled unmollifiably at her. + +Cassy left a certain person there. Into her thoughts another man had +hopped. She surveyed him. He was good-looking. He was rich. These +attributes said nothing. A beautiful male--always an anomaly--never +attracts a beautiful woman. That other anomaly, a man of inherited +wealth, is disgusting to the anarchist. Cassy was a beauty and an +anarchist. She was also an aristocrat. The tattered portières of the +House of Casa-Evora, the bedrabbled robes of the marquisate, all that +was ridiculous to her. She was an aristocrat none the less. She had a +high disdain for low things. In the kitchen, which she called the +kitchy, she bent her back but not her head. Her head was unbowed. She +sullied her hands but not her conscience. A dirty act she could not +perform. Aristocrat and anarchist, she was also an artist. With simple +things and simple people, she was simple as you please. Stupidity and +pretentiousness enraged her. The philistine and the ignoble she loathed. + +Now, through the windows of her soul, she surveyed him. His looks, his +money, said nothing. On the other hand there was about him an aroma that +appealed. The aroma was not the odour that local society exhales. At +that Cassy's nose was in the air. A lot of nobodies occupied with +nothing--and talking about it! Such was her opinion of the gilded gang, +an opinion which Paliser--to do him the justice that the historian +should--would have had put to music and arranged for trumpets. It was +not that, therefore. The aroma was more fetching. The man talked her +language, liked what she liked, never presumed. In considering these +factors, she considered her gloves. Thank God, they did not smell of +benzine! + +"Grand Central!" + +Cassy, abandoning Paliser there, went on to Fifth Avenue, where, with +the protection of cross-town traffic, she attempted to get to the other +side. But half-way, she saw, or thought she saw, the young woman to whom +a certain person was engaged. She turned to look, backed into the +traffic-sign and put it in motion. Instantly motors were careering at +each other. Instantly a purple policeman grown suddenly black, was +smitten with St. Vitus. + +Dancing and bellowing as he danced, he righted the sign and swore at +Cassy, who, for added outrage, had flung herself at him and was smiling +sweetly in his swollen face. About them the torrent poured. Then all at +once, in a riot that afterwards seemed to her phantasmagoric, the +policeman raised a forefinger in salute. From the maelstrom she was +hoisted bodily into a car. Somebody, the policeman probably, was +boosting her from behind. Never had she suffered such indignities! To +accentuate them, somebody else was shouting in her face. + +"I've saved your life, you'll have to marry me." + +"Well, I declare!" Cassy, horribly ruffled, exclaimed at Paliser, who +had the impudence to laugh. She smoothed the smock, patted the hat, +passed a gloved hand over her nose. + +"You're all there," Paliser, amused by the mimic, was telling her. "What +is more, one pick-me-up deserves another." + +With his stick, he poked at the mechanician, gestured with it, +indicating a harbour. + +The car veered and stopped at a restaurant that had formerly resided in +Fourteenth Street, but which had moved, as the heart of Manhattan moved, +and was then thinking of moving again. + +In the entrance were Cantillon and Ogston, agreeable young men, who +stood aside for Cassy, raised their hats at Paliser, nudging each other +with unfathomable good-fellowship. + +"A peach!" + +"No, a pair!" + +Their pleasantries were lost. Cassy and Paliser moved on and in to the +Fifth Avenue room, crowded as usual on this high noon. But what are +head-waiters for? Promptly there was a table, one not too near the +orchestra and yet which gave on the street. + +"What would you dislike the least?" Paliser from over a bill-of-fare +inquired. He had brought his hat and stick with him and, in spite of a +waiter's best efforts, had put both on the floor. + +I am not fit to be seen, thought Cassy, looking about at two and three +hundred dollar frocks and at blouses that were almost as cheap. + +Paliser, turning to the waiter, translated passages from the menu. +"Surprised tomatoes, cocottish eggs, suprême on a sofa, ice Aurora +Borealis. And a baked potato." He turned to Cassy. "Barring the ice, a +baked potato is the only thing in which they can't stick grease." + +"Et comme vin, monsieur?" enquired the waiter who ought to have been at +the front. + +"Aqua pura. But probably you have not got it. Celestial Vichy, then." He +looked again at Cassy. "What else might displease your ladyship?" + +"Do stop talking like a low comedian," Cassy vexatiously retorted. "If +you had not used force I would not be here. I could not make a row at +the door." + +"No, one scene on Fifth Avenue is enough for one day." + +"I should say so and it was you who made it. I was going quietly about +my business when I was derricked into your car." + +"Not at all. You threw yourself at my head. If it had not been for me, +the policeman would have marched you off to prison." + +Cassy laughed. "The dear man! He knew I would be worse off with you." + +"Yes. He was certainly perspicacious. Where did you say you were going?" + +Cassy removed her gloves. "Before I was attacked? To a music-shop. There +is a song I want to get for Mrs. Thingumagig's, Mrs. Beamish----" + +"Mrs. Who?" Paliser asked. Again he had forgotten the lady. But from one +of memory's pantries her wraith peered out. "Ah, yes, of course! Well, +we can stop by for it and you can run it over in the country to-night. +You remember that you are to dine with me, don't you?" + +Cassy lifted a lip as a dog does when about to bite. "Remember it, I +have thought of nothing else." + +But now the waiter put a dish between them and Paliser said: "You make +me feel like this surprised tomato." + +Then came the bite. "While you are about it, you can feel like both of +them. I am not going." + +Argument weakens everything and wearies everybody--except the young. The +mouths of youth are naturally full of objections and insults. Were it +otherwise, young people would be too servile to the past, too respectful +to the present and the future would not know them as guides. + +Paliser, young in years, but old at heart, omitted to argue. He did what +is perhaps superior, he changed the subject. "What is this song you were +speaking of? Why not try that thing of Rimsky-Korsakov, the 'Chanson +Hindoue'?" + +Then, throughout that course and the courses that followed, peace +descended upon them. Even to talk music soothes the savage breast. It +soothed Cassy and to such an extent that, finally, when the ice came she +made no bones about admitting it was her favourite dish. + +"Du café, monsieur? Des liqueurs?" the slacker asked. + +But no, Paliser did not wish anything else, nor did Cassy. The ice +sufficed. She ate it slowly, a little forkful at a time, wishing that +her father could share it, wishing that he, too, could have sofa'd +suprêmes and some one to pay for them. She raised her napkin. + +Paliser lit a cigarette and said: "You made no reply to that statement +of mine." + +She stared. "What statement?" + +"About saving your life." + +"And ruining my reputation?" + +"Well, life comes first. I said you would have to marry me to pay for +it. Will you?" + +Cassy lowered the napkin. He was talking in jest she knew, or thought +she knew, but the subject was not to her taste, though if he had been +serious she would have disliked it still more. She wanted to give it to +him, but no fitting insolence occurred to her and she turned to the +window before which two Japanese were passing, with the air, certainly +feigned, which these Asiatics display, of being hilarious and naïf. + +"Will you?" he repeated. + +"Will I what?" + +"Marry me?" + +Perhaps he did mean it, she thought. He was cheeky enough for anything. +But now he was prodding her. "Say yes. Say to-morrow; say to-day." + +She turned on him. "Why not yesterday? Or is it just another of your +pearls of thought? You are simply ridiculous." + +Paliser put down his cigarette. "That is the proper note. Marriage is +ridiculous. But it is the most ancient of human institutions. Divorce +must have been invented at least three weeks later." + +Cassy did not mean to laugh and did not want to, but she could not help +herself and she exploded it. "You are so ardent!" + +Innocently Paliser caressed his chin. He had made her laugh and that was +a point gained. But such pleasure as he may have experienced he +succeeded in concealing. + +"Again the proper note! I am ardent. Yet--shall I admit it?--formerly I +walked in darkness. It is all due to my father. I have forgotten the +prophet preaching on the hillside who denounced respectability as a low +passion. But my father, while deeply religious, has views more advanced. +He dotes on respectability. He tried to instil it into me and, alas! how +vainly! I was as the blind, the light was withheld and continued to be +until, well, until a miracle occurred. You appeared, I was healed, I saw +and I saw but you. What do you say?" + +"That your conversation is singularly edifying." In speaking, Cassy +gathered her gloves with an air slightly hilarious but not in the least +naïf. Before Paliser could cut in, she added: "If I don't hurry, Ma +Tamby will be out and I shall lose my lesson." + +Paliser shifted. She is devilish pretty, he thought. But is she worth +it? For a second he considered the possible scandal which he had +considered before. + +He stood up. "Let me take you. We can stop for the song on the way." + + + + +XVIII + + +"My Carlottatralala! Dear Carlottatralala!" + +Lightly at the door, Cassy strung the words to a mazourka. Her voice +twisted, swung, danced into a trill that was captured by echoes that +carried it diminishingly down the stairway of the mansion where Carlotta +Tamburini lived. + +"Eh?" + +Partially the door opened. A fat slovenly woman showed an unpowdered +nose, a loose unpainted mouth, and, at sight of Paliser, backed. "For +God's sake! One moment, dearie. Straight ahead. With you in two shakes." + +Cassy, her yellow frock swishing, led the way to a room furnished with +heaped scores, with a piano, a bench, chairs and a portrait, on foot, of +a star before the fall. Adjacently were framed programmes, the faded +tokens of forgetless and forgotten nights, and, with them, the usual +portraits of the usual royalties, but perhaps unusually signed. The +ex-diva had attended to that herself. + +Paliser, straddling the bench, put his hat on the piano and looked at +Cassy, who had gone to the window. It was not the palaces opposite that +she saw. Before her was a broken old man revamped. In his hand was a +baton which he brandished demoniacally at an orchestra of his own. The +house foamed with faces, shook with applause, and without, at the +glowing gates, a chariot carried him instantly to the serenities of +elaborate peace. + +"It won't take over an hour." + +The vision vanished. Across the way, in a window opposite, a young man +was dandling, twirling one side of a moustache, cocking a conquering +eye. Cassy did not see him. Directly behind her another young man was +talking. She did not hear. + +On leaving the restaurant and, after it, the music-shop, the car had +taken them into the Park where Paliser, alleging that he was out of +matches, had handed her into another restaurant where more Vichy was put +before her and, with it, that question. + +The air was sweet with lilacs. On the green beyond Cassy could see them, +could see, too, a squirrel there that had gone quite mad. It flew around +and around, stopped suddenly short, chattered furiously and with a +flaunt of the tail, disappeared up a tree. + +"What a dear!" was Cassy's reply to that question. + +But Paliser gave her all the rope that she wanted. He had no attraction +for her, he knew it, and in view of other experiences, the fact +interested him. It had the charm of novelty to this man who, though +young, was old; who, perhaps, was born old; born, as some are, too old +in a world too young. + +He struck a match and watched the little blue-gold flame flare and +subside. It may have seemed to him typical. Then he looked up. + +"Frankly, I have no inducements to offer, and, by the same token, no +lies. It would be untrue if I said I loved you. Love is not an emotion, +it is a habit, one which it takes time to form. I have had no +opportunity to acquire it, but I have acquired another. I have formed +the habit of admiring you. The task was not difficult. Is there anything +in your glass?" + +"A bit of cork, I think," said Cassy, who was holding the glass to the +light and who was holding it moreover as though she had thoughts for +nothing else. + +But her thoughts were agile as that squirrel. A why not? Why not? Why +not? was spinning in them, spinning around and around so quickly that it +dizzied her. Then, like the squirrel, up a tree she flew. For herself, +no. She did not want him, never had wanted him, never could. + +"May I have it?" Paliser took the glass. Save for subsiding bubbles, and +the bogus water, there was nothing there. "Will you take mine? I have +not touched it." + +Cassy took it from him, drank it, drank it all. Her thoughts raced on. +She was aware of that, though with what they were racing she could not +tell. + +"I don't know why I am so thirsty." + +Paliser knew. He knew that the taste of perplexity is very salt. She was +considering it, he saw, and he payed out the rope. + +"People who claim to be wise are imbeciles. But people who claim to be +happy are in luck. I have no pretensions to wisdom but I can claim to be +lucky if----" + +Cassy, her steeple-chasing thoughts now out of hand, was saying +something and he stopped. + +"It is very despicable of me even to listen to you. I don't think I +would have listened, if you had not been frank. But you have had the +honesty not to pretend. I must be equally sincere. I----" + +It was Paliser's turn. With a laugh he interrupted. "Don't. A little +sincerity is a dangerous thing and a great deal of it must be fatal. +Besides I know it all by heart. I am the son of rich and disreputable +people. That is not my fault, and, anyway, it is all one to you. But +what you mean is that, should you consent, the consideration will not +be--er--personal with me or--er--spiritual with you, but--er--just plain +and simple materialism." + +Cassy looked wonderingly at him. It was surprising how quickly and how +completely he had nailed it. But into the bewilderment there crept +something else. "Yes, and I am ashamed to look myself in the face." + +Paliser gave a tug at the rope. "Then don't do that either. Look at me. +Matrimony is no child's play. It is like a trip to England--close +confinement with the chance of being torpedoed. Interference is the +submarine that sinks good ships. If you consent, there is only one thing +on which I shall insist, but I shall insist on it absolutely." + +Visibly the autocrat stiffened. "Shall you, indeed!" + +Paliser pounded, or affected to pound, on the table. "Yes, absolutely." + +You may go to Flanders then, thought Cassy, but, with that look which +she could summon and which was tolerably blighting, she said, "Ah! The +drill sergeant!" + +"Yes, and here is the goose-step. The drill sergeant orders that you +must always have your own way in everything." + +Considerably relaxed by that, Cassy laughed. "You are very rigorous. But +don't you think it is rather beside the mark?" + +"Beside it!" Paliser exclaimed. "It tops it, goes all over it, covers +it, covers the grass, covers everything--except a fair field, a free +rein and every favour." + +Cassy was gazing beyond where the squirrel had been. A limousine passed. +A surviving victoria followed. Both were superior. So also were the +occupants. They were very smart people. You could tell it from the way +they looked. They had an air contemptuous and sullen. The world is not +good enough for them, Cassy thought. In an hour, car and carriage would +stop. The agreeable occupants would alight. They would enter fastidious +homes. Costly costumes they would exchange for costumes that were +costlier. They would sit at luxurious boards, lead the luxurious life +and continue to, until they died of obesity of the mind. + +None of that! Cassy decided. But already the picture was fading, +replaced by another that showed a broken old man, without a penny to his +name, or a hope save in her. + +From the screen, she turned to Paliser, who, aware of her absence, had +omitted to recall her. Now, though, that she again condescended to be +present, he addressed her in his Oxford voice. + +"But what was I saying? Yes, I remember, something that somebody said +before me. Nowadays every one marries except a few stupid women and a +few very wise men. Yet, then, as I told you, I have no pretensions to +wisdom." + +"Nor I to stupidity," Cassy thoughtlessly retorted. Yet at once, +realising not merely the vanity of the boast but what was far worse, the +construction that it invited, she tried to recall it, tangled her +tongue, got suddenly red and turned away. + +"You do me infinite honour then," said Paliser, who spoke better than he +knew. But her visible discomfort delighted him. He saw that she wanted +to wriggle out of it and, like a true sportsman, he gave her an opening +in which she would trip. + +"Matrimony is temporary insanity with permanent results. You must not +incur them blindfolded. Do me the favour to look this way. Before you +sits a pauper." + +In the surprise of that, Cassy did look and walked straight into it. +"What?" + +"Precisely." In sheer enjoyment he began lying frankly and freely. He +lied because lying is a part of the game, because it is an agreeable +pastime and because, too, if she swallowed it--and why shouldn't +she?--it might put a spoke in such wheels as she might otherwise and +subsequently set going. + +"Precisely," he repeated. "It is different with my father. My father has +what is called a regular income. One of these days I shall inherit it. +It will keep us out of the poorhouse. But meanwhile I have only the +pittance that he allows me." + +Yes, Cassy sagaciously reflected. What with Paliser Place, its upkeep +and the rest of it, it must be a pittance. But the lie behind it, which +she mistook for honesty, tripped her as it was intended to do. A moment +before she might have backed out. Now, in view of the lie that she +thought was truth, how could she? It would be tantamount to +acknowledging she was for sale but that he hadn't the price. Red +already, at the potential shame of that she got redder. + +Paliser, who saw everything, saw the heightening flush, knew what it +meant, knew that he was landing her, but knew, too, that he must bear +the honours modestly. + +"Bread and cheese in a cottage and with you!" he exclaimed. "But, +forgive me, I am becoming lyrical." He turned, summoned the waiter, paid +for the water, paid for the service and took from the man his stick. + +Cassy went with him to the car. She had made no reply. If she were to +take the plunge, there was no use shivering on the brink. But what would +her father say? He would be furious of course, though how his fury would +change into benedictions when he found himself transported from the +walk-up, lifted from Harlem and cold veal! Presently there would be a +flower in his button-hole and everything that went with the flower. +Moreover, if the poor dear wanted to be absurd, she would let him parade +his marquisate; while, as for herself, she would have to say good-bye to +so much that had been so little. Good-bye! Addio per sempre! The phrase +from La Tosca came to her. It told of kisses and caresses that she had +never had. Yet, beneath her breath, she repeated it. Addio per sempre! + +Then suddenly, without transition, she felt extraordinarily at peace +with herself, with everybody, with everything. After all, she did not +know, stranger things had happened, she might even learn to care for him +and to care greatly. But whether she did or she did not, she would be +true as steel--truer! He had been so nice about it! Yes, she might, +particularly since she had made a clean breast of it and he knew she was +marrying him for what it pleased him to describe as his pittance. + +The car now was flying up the Riverside. An omnibus passed. From the +roof, a country couple spotted the handsome girl and the handsome young +man who were lolling back so sumptuously, and the lady stranger, +pointing, said to her gentleman: "Vanderbilt folk, I guess, ain't they +dandy!" Behind the lady sat a novelist who was less enthusiastic. +Another girl gone gay, was his mental comment. Well, why not? he +reflected, for Jones' prejudices were few and far between. Besides, he +added: Les Portugais sont toujours gais. But he had other things to +think about and he dismissed the incident, which, in less than a week, +he had occasion to recall. + +Cassy, meanwhile, after serenading a fat woman's door and looking from a +palatial window at the moving-pictures of her thoughts, at last heard +Paliser, who, already, had twice addressed her. + +"It won't take over an hour or so." + +But now the Tamburini, ceremoniously attired in a wrapper, strode in and +Paliser, who had been straddling the music-bench, stood up. + +The fact that they had come together and were together, had already +darkly enlightened the fallen star and as she strode in she exclaimed +with poetry and fervour: "Two souls with but a single thought!" + +Paliser took his hat. "We are a trifle better provided. I have as many +as three or four thoughts and one of them concerns a license. I am going +to get it." + +His face was turned from Cassy and his eyes, which he had fastened on +his hostess, held caveats, commands, rewards. + +Massively she flung herself on Cassy. "Dearie, I weep for joy!" + +Cassy shoved her away. "Not on me, Tamby." + +But the dear lady, in attacking her, shot a glance at Paliser. It was +very voluble. + +Cassy, too, was looking at him. Her education had been thorough. She +knew any number of useless things. In geography, history, and the +multiplication-table she was versed. But Kent's Commentaries, passionate +as they are, were beyond her ken. The laws to which they relate were +also. None the less, on the subject of one law she had an inkling, +vague, unprecised, and, for all she knew to the contrary, incorrect. She +blurted it. "Don't I have to go, too?" + +Ma Tamby grabbed it. "Go where, dearie?" + +"For the license?" + +Ma Tamby tittered. "Not unless you love the song of the subway. The +license is a man's job." Twisting, she giggled at Paliser. "But not hard +labour, he, he!" + +"A life-term, though," he answered and added: "I'll go at once." + +That settled it for Cassy. A chair stretched its arms to her. She sat +down. + +Wildly the fat woman gesticulated. "Dearie, no! But how it gets me! As +true as gospel I dreamed so much about it that it kept me awake. I do +believe I have a pint of champy. Shall I fetch it? I must." + +Coldly Cassy considered her. "Don't. You'll only get tight." + +Paliser, making for the door, called back: "Save a drop for me." + +"May the Lord forgive me," sighed the fat woman. "I was that flustered I +forgot to congratulate him. But how it takes me back! Dearie, I too was +young! I too have loved! Ah, gioventu primavera della vita! Ah, l'amore! +Ah! Ah!" + +"You make me sick," said Cassy. + +"Dearie----" + +"Be quiet. My father won't like it and I can't lie to him about it. But +I shall need some things and you will have to go for them. What will you +tell him?" + +With one hand, the fat woman could have flattened Cassy's father out. +But not his tongue. The nest of vipers there, even then hissed at her. + +"Why, dearie, to-morrow you'll have your pick of Fifth Avenue and until +then, if you need a tooth-brush, I'll get one for you around the +corner." + +"But my father will have to be told something. He'll worry to death. I +might write though, and put on a special delivery. Look here. Have you +any note paper that isn't rotten with scent? If not, I do believe I'll +chuck it." + +"For God's sake, dearie!" + +Hastily, in search of scentless paper, the fat woman made off. + + + + +XIX + + +Over the way, on the jimcrack of the stately mansion opposite, the +westering sun had put an aigrette of gold. The young man with the +conquering eye had gone. A lovely Jewess, leaning like a gargoyle, +violently threatened some Ikey in the unlovely street below. Above was a +pallid green. Beyond, across the river, the sun, poised on a hill-top, +threw from its eternal palette shades of salmon and ochre that tinted an +archipelago of slender clouds. But in the street was the music of +carefree lads, playing baseball, exchanging chaste endearments. There +too was the gaiety of little trulls, hasty and happy on their +roller-skates. While perhaps to generalise these delights, a trundled +organ tossed a ragtime. The charm was certainly affecting and that charm +the horn of Paliser's approaching car merely increased. + +Long since the letter had gone and, with it, another to Mrs. Yallum. In +the former, Cassy had tried to gild the pill, yet without succeeding in +disguising it. + + Dear Daddy: + + You are the best man in the world and the next best your little + girl is to marry now, right away, and become Mrs. Monty Paliser. + But my heart will be with you and so will Mrs. Yallum. Don't fuss + with her, there's a dear, and take your medicine regularly and be + ready to give me your blessing as soon as I can run in, which will + be at the first possible moment, when I shall have more news, good + news, better news, best of daddies, for thee. + + A whirlwind of kisses, + + CASSY. + +Adjacently, on the upper reaches of Broadway, Ma Tamby was shopping. The +sun now, gone from the river, was painting other spheres. From a corner, +shadows crept. They devoured the floor, absorbed the piano, assimilated +the room. They left pits where they passed. They enveloped Cassy. + +Suddenly, she shivered. + +She had been far away, outside of the world, in a region to which the +clamouring street could not mount. Her thoughts had lifted her to a land +that had the colours, clear and yet capricious, of which dreams are +made. There beauty stood, and truth with beauty, and so +indistinguishably that the two were one. But truth, detaching herself, +showed her candid face. The shadows elongating, reached up and darkened +it. The candour remained, but the candour had become terrible. Cassy saw +it. She saw that the land to which she had been lifted was the land of +beauty and horror. It was then she shivered. + +Instantly something touched her. There was no one. The land, the beauty, +the horror had faded. No longer on the heights, she was in a trivial +room in Harlem. She was awake. She was absolutely alone. None the less +something that was nothing, something invisible, inaudible, intangible, +imperceptible, something emanating from the depths where events crouch, +prepared to pounce, had touched her. She knew it, she felt it. Her +impulse was to scream, to rush away. But from what? It was all +imaginary. Common-sense, that can be so traitorous, told her that. Then, +immediately, before the wireless from the unknown, which modern +occultism calls the impact, could impel her, the room was invaded. + +Ma Tamby, tramping in, switching on the lights, was exclaiming and +gesticulating at her and at Paliser, who had followed and who was +standing in the doorway. + +"Dearie! For God's sake! The child's asleep! In all my born days I never +knew the likes of that!" + +Icily Cassy eyed her. "What have you there?" + +"Where? What? This?" Feelingly the woman exhibited a nice, big package. +"Why, the things I bought for you!" + +"And do you for a moment suppose that I am going to carry a bundle?" + +"Saints alive, child! Didn't you tell me----" + +But now Paliser, in his cultured voice, intervened. "If I may have it?" +He took it, moved to the window, leaned from it, called: "Mike! You see +this? Then see too that you don't muff it." + +The bundle vanished. + +He turned to Cassy. "I telephoned to Dr. Grantly. He is a clergyman. It +might seem uncivil to keep him waiting." + +Cassy saw him at once--a starchy old man, with a white tie and little +side whiskers, who lived--and would die--in a closed circle of thought. + +Then again that nothing touched her, though, because of the others, more +lightly, less surely. But it touched her. She was quite conscious of it, +equally conscious that there was still time, that she could still +desist, that she had only to say that she would not, that she had +changed her mind and tell them no, right out and be hanged to them. On +the strawberry of her tongue it trembled. At once before her there +floated another picture, the picture of a shabby old man, without a +penny in the world, or a hope save in her. + +She stood up. + +"Dearie, dearie, I wish you joy, I do!" the fat woman sobbed, or +appeared to sob, and everything being possible, it may be that she did +not sob. La joie fait peur. She had done her part. On the morrow a +cheque would reach her. "Dearie, dearie!" + +"Don't be a fool," Cassy frigidly threw at her. + +"Will you take my arm?" Paliser asked. + +"Don't be a fool either," she threw at him and bravely, head up, went on +to the events that waited. + +In the street below a strain overtook her. Ma Tamby was amusing herself +with "Lohengrin." + + + + +XX + + +Paliser, alighting, turned to help Cassy. But Cassy could get out +unassisted. + +The gravel crunched beneath the wheels of the retreating car. From afar +came the bark of a dog, caught up and repeated. Otherwise the air was +still, very sweet. The house too was silent. In the hall and in the +windows there were lights, but there seemed to be nobody about and that +and the quiet gave her the delicious impression that the house was +enchanted. It was a very nonsensical impression, but it was the nonsense +that made it delicious. + +Paliser was saying something, though what she did not hear. The sky now +was indigo and in it hung a yellow feather. On the Hudson it had been +very pale, the ghost of a feather. But, as Harlem receded, it had ridden +higher and brightened in the ride. Cassy had watched it, wishing that +Paliser would not talk. He had sat next to her, on the same seat, yet if +the portion of it which he occupied had been in a Queensland back-block, +he could not have been farther from her heart. He took her hand and she +let him. He kissed her and she submitted to that. But she wondered +whether courtesans do not hate the men who pay them, more than they hate +themselves. Was she any better? However a priest mumbled at her, she was +selling herself. Love alone is marriage. She had none, nor had he. The +whole thing was abominable, and, as he held her hand and pressed her +lips, her young soul rebelled. Even for her father's sake, this cup was +too much. + +Now though, the empty hall and the great silent house took on the +atmosphere of the Palace of the White Cat. The cup became a philtre. The +abomination changed into deliciousness. There are fairy-tales that are +real. For all she knew, Paliser might change into Prince Charming and +certainly he looked it. + +He had been saying something, what she did not hear. But on the steps +beneath the perron, she turned and saw that which previously she had not +realised, he was extraordinarily good-looking, and about her closed a +consciousness that her rowdy frock was a tissue of diamonds and that he +was in doublet and hose. + +A moment only. But during it something melted about her. Immediately +aware of the phenomenon, she felt that she ought to freeze. She tried to +and failed. The atmosphere of deliciousness prevented and, though she +did not know the reason, she did know that she had failed and the fact +instead of annoying, amused. Then, as she followed Paliser into the +house, she told herself that she was an imbecile, that she did not know +her own mind and, without transition, wondered how her father was taking +it. + +From the hall, they passed through a succession of rooms vacant, +subdued, rich, and on into that other room where she had sung. At the +farther end was a hyacinth curtain that masked a door. But near the +entrance through which she had come was an ivory chair. Cassy, seating +herself on it, wondered what had become of the bundle. She was sure that +it held everything except what she wanted. Then suddenly behind her blue +smock came a gnawing. She thought she would ask Paliser to have somebody +fetch her a sandwich, two sandwiches, or else some bread and butter, +but, now that she looked for him, he had gone. + +She got up, crossed the room and sat down on another chair which was +black, probably ebony. It had a curial appearance that suggested the +senate, not the senate at Washington, but the S. P. Q. of Rome. It was +quite near the hyacinth curtain and behind the latter she heard voices. +Like the rooms they were subdued. She could distinguish nothing. Yet +there must be a bell somewhere and she decided that if Paliser did not +shortly return, she would ring. The gnawing was sharper. She was very +hungry. + +Again she got up and looked from a window. It gave on a garden in which +there was underbush that the moon was chequering with amber spots. After +all, it was a queer sort of a wedding. But what had she expected? Grace +Church? St. Thomas'? Invitations a fortnight in advance, aisles banked +with flowers, filled with snobs and the garbage of the Wagner score that +Ma Tamby had tossed after her? Not by a long shot! + +She turned. Paliser was entering. But the gnawing had nibbled away the +enchantment and, as she turned, she looked rather cross. + +Paliser, noticing that but mistaking the cause, said very +sympathetically: "During the Terror, a princess jogged along, smelling a +rose. Marriage is no worse than the guillotine, besides being much less +summary. Will you come?" + +"Less summary? I should say so!" Cassy retorted. "It is far too +lingering." + +But she followed him out into another hall, one that was hung with +tapestries. They were dim and embroidered with what seemed to be pearls. +On the floor was a rug, dim also, narrow, very long, that extended to a +room, lined with high-placed bookcases and set with low-placed lights. +In the room stood a man. He wore a long black coat and a waistcoat that +reached to his collar. In his hand was a book. + +"Dr. Grantly," said Paliser, who added, "Miss Cara." + +Dr. Grantly bowed but without distinction. Because of the position of +the lights, his face was obscured and what Cassy could discern of it she +judged young and uninteresting. When Paliser had first mentioned +him--and how long ago it seemed!--she had fancied him old. She had +fancied too that he would have little side whiskers. The fact that he +was young was not a disappointment. Clergymen, whether old or young, did +not interest her. She did not care for them, or for churches, or the +services in them. The ceremonial of worship seemed to her empty. Creeds +professed but not practised seemed to her vain. But she would carry an +injured cat for miles. A lost dog was found the moment she spotted it. +She did what good she could, not because it is a duty, but for a +superior reason. She liked to do it. One may be a Christian without +caring for churches. + +"Dearly beloved----" + +In the depths over which she had passed, excitement and the novelty of +it had, until then, supported her. But at that exordium, instantly, they +fell away; instantly fear, like a wave, swept over her. Instantly she +felt, and the feeling is by no means agreeable, that she was struggling +with the intangible in a void. But she had not intended to drown, or no, +that was not it, she had not wanted to marry. Aware of the depths, not +until then had she known their peril. Until that moment she had not +realised their menace. Then abruptly it caught and submerged her. + +"I require and charge you both as ye will answer at the dreadful day of +judgment----" + +The solemnity of the sonorous exhortation was water in her ears. The +sound of it reached her confusedly, in a jumble. She was drowning and it +was unconsciously, in this condition, that poked by Paliser, she heard +herself uttering the consenting words that are so irrevocable and so +fluid. + +It was over then--or nearly! The thought of it shook her from the mental +swoon. Behind her some one spoke and she wondered who it could be. But a +movement distracted her. Dr. Grantly had shifted the book from one hand +to the other and as absently she followed the movement, she saw that the +hand that now held the book was maimed or else malformed. + +But what immediately occupied her were other words which, prompted by +him, she was automatically repeating. The words are very beautiful, +really exalting, they are words that spread peace as dawn spreads upon +the sea. Yet, in their delivery, twice Dr. Grantly tripped and, though +on each occasion he pulled himself up and went on again without +embarrassment, it seemed to Cassy that he did so without dignity. + +The impression, which was but momentary, drifted; another distraction +intervened, her finger was being ringed. I'm done for! she despairingly +thought. + +"Amen!" + +"Ouf!" Cassy gasped. It was really over, over at last, and still a +little bewildered, she turned. The butler and the maid were leaving the +room, which they must have entered when the ceremony first over-whelmed +her. From the hall a slight cackle floated back. + +It amused them, she generously reflected. + +Paliser did not notice. He was addressing the clergyman. "Thank you very +much, doctor." He turned to his bride. "Cutting your head off may have +been worse, don't you think?" + +If I can't be gay at least I should appear so, she told herself and +desperately she laughed. + +Meanwhile the man of God, relapsing into the man of the world, or of its +neighbourhood, did not seem to know what to do with himself. He dropped +the book, picked it up, put it on the table. Considerately, in his +Oxford voice, Paliser instructed him. + +"You must be going? Ah, well, I appreciate. Let me thank you again." + +Dr. Grantly mumbled something, smiled at the bride, smiled at the happy +man or, more exactly, he smiled at an envelope which the happy man was +giving him and which, Cassy divined, contained his fee. How much? she +wondered. However much or little, it was excessive. + +The hall took him and the groom grappled with the bride, embracing her +with that rudimentary paranoia which lawful passion comports. + +She struggled free and, a bit breathless, but with the same desperate +gaiety, exclaimed: "If this is matrimony, give me war!" + +"Perhaps you would prefer dinner first," Paliser, with recovered calm, +replied. + +Wouldn't she, though! Now that she was definitely dished, hunger again +bit at her and she accompanied Paliser through the dim hall, through the +music-room, through the long suite, into the dining-room where, as +before, three men, with white sensual faces, stood waiting. + +Paliser motioned. "Mrs. Paliser will sit there. Move the other chair +here." He drew a seat for her and gave additional instructions. "There +will be people here to-morrow. If we are motoring, have them wait." + +"What people?" asked Cassy, before whom an uncomfortable vision of her +father and Ma Tamby jumped. + +Paliser replied in French. "A man and a woman or two from Fifth Avenue." + +I wonder where that bundle is, thought Cassy who said: "A man? What +man?" + +"Oh, just a clerk. That is almond soup. Do you care for it?" He looked +down at his plate which appeared to engross him. + +Cassy raised her spoon. "A penny for your thoughts." + +He looked up. "They are worth far more. I was thinking of the night I +first met you." + +Cassy laughed. "And Ma Tamby's ham and eggs?" + +Paliser, raising his own spoon, added: "It was Lennox who introduced us. +You knew he was engaged to Miss Austen? Well, she has broken it." + +Cassy must have swallowed the soup the wrong way. She coughed, lifted +her napkin and saw a road, long, dark, infinitely fatiguing on which she +was lost. But the soup adjusted itself, the road turned to the right. +Lennox had never so much as said boo! In anger at herself she rubbed her +mouth hard and put the napkin down. + +Paliser, who had been tasting and sniffing at a glass, looked at the +butler. "What is this? Take it away. It is not fit for a convict." He +looked over at Cassy. "I am sorry." + +"One gets so bored with good wine," said Cassy, who recently had been +reading Disraeli. Yet she said it absently, the unscrambled eggs about +her. + +But the saying was new to Paliser, to whom few things were. He relished +it accordingly and the more particularly because of its fine flavour of +high-bred insolence. + +From where he sat, he eyed her. Although she was eating, which is never +a very engaging occupation, her face had an air that was noble and +reserved. At the moment, a scruple in which there was a doubt, presented +itself. In view of the coming draft act, it occurred to him that he +might have gone the wrong way about it. But the scruple concerned merely +the expediency of the adventure. It was not related to his conscience. +He had none. + +Now, though, a new decanter was before him; he tried it, drank of it, +judged it decent and drank again. Being decent, it was not heady. It did +not affect him. Cassy had done that. In her was a bouquet which the +vineyard of youth and beauty alone produces. He had hankered for it. +Now, like the decanter, it was before him. He could drink his fill. Then +like the other wine, he could send it away. + + + + +XXI + + +The elder Paliser, seated in the hall of his town house, held a cup. In +the chair, a doge had throned. On the bottom of the cup was an N topped +by a crown. The cup contained hot milk. + +Returning, a little before, from a drive, he had been helped up the +steps, into the hall, into the chair. He had not wished to be helped +farther. In the hall, the milk had been brought. As he sipped it, he +looked placid, dignified, evil. He looked very much like a wicked old +doge. + +"When I don't move, it is remarkable how well I feel." + +His son, to whom he spoke, sat in a sedan-chair which, delicately +enamelled without, was as delicately upholstered within. Through the +window of the chair, only the young man's face showed. If you had not +known better you might have mistaken it for the face of a lady of an +earlier, a politer, though not of a bloodier age. But you would have +known better. The hair, powdered white, was absent; so too were the +patches; so also was the rouge. + +Behind the doge's chair a servant stood. Adjacently was a malachite +bench. Beyond was a malachite stairway. The elder Paliser, finishing +with the milk, extended the cup. The servant took it and turned. +Recesses, back of the stairway, engulfed him. + +Monty Paliser straightened. The movement disclosed his collar, the white +of his tie. + +It was the evening of the fourth day since the wedding. He had motored +in to dine at the Austens'. Cassy had seen him go and had seen too +uninterrupted hours in the music-room. The prospect was consoling. + +But, pending the dinner and with an ample quarter of an hour to the +good, he had looked in on his father whom he had found in the hall. +Nothing filial had motived this looking-in. On the surface, it was a +visit of circumstance such as one gentleman may pay to another. But, +beneath the surface, was an object which, when the servant and the cup +had gone, he approached. + +"I hope Benny has not been in your way." + +"Not in the least. I told him to go back to you." + +"Is he still here?" + +"I haven't an idea." + +"You might send him to Newport." + +"You want to be rid of him, eh?" + +"The Place does not need three gardeners." + +The old man, who seemed to be feeling about for something, scowled. +"What it does not need is the atmosphere that you are giving it. You may +go to the devil your own way. I sha'n't stop you. But it puts a bad +taste in my mouth to have you turn it into a road-house. Damn it, sir, +you were born there." + +Through the window of the sedan-chair, the young man was watching. He +saw it coming and masked himself. + +"How funny of Benny to give you such an idea." + +Then, straight at him, went the bomb. + +"It was not a gift. What I got, I extracted. Why don't you marry? Eh? +Why don't you? In order that you might, I made over to you a thing or +two. I wish to God, I hadn't. But perhaps you are satisfied. If you are, +well and good. As it is, unless you marry, I'll leave the property to +Sally's brat and have him change his name. By Gad, sir, if I don't have +some assurance from you and have it now, I'll send for Jeroloman. I will +make a new will and I'll make it to-night. If you came here to dine, you +can stop on and listen to it." + +The bomb was full of fumes. In the still air they floated. But in +throwing it, the old man's scowl had deepened. It had become a grimace +that creased every wrinkle into prominence. His hand had gone to his +chest. Gasping, he held it there. Then presently it fell. His features +relaxed and dryly, in an even tone, he resumed: "It is remarkable how +well I feel, if I don't talk. Any excitement suffocates me." + +In the trench, that the sedan-chair had become, Monty Paliser tightened +the mask. "There is no need for any excitement. I will marry. You have +my word." + +On the great blasoned throne, the old man shifted. The easy victory +mollified him. "Ah! You dine here?" + +"Thank you, no. I am dining at the Austens'." + +"Where?" the elder Paliser asked. He had heard but he wanted it +repeated. It seemed vaguely promising. + +"At the Austens'. You may remember that the pearl of the household was +engaged. It's off." + +Slowly the old man twisted. "What is? The engagement?" + +"So her mother told me." + +"And you are dining there." + +"In a few minutes." + +The old man took it in, turned it over. It seemed not only victory but +peace, and peace with annexation. + +"Very good then. I draw the veil over your road-house. Put the young +woman in a flat. Put her in two flats. Nobody who is anybody ever sees +anything that was not intended for them. Don't beat the drum. That is +all that the right people ask and all I require, except----" + +He paused, considered the annexation and added: "I wish you an excellent +appetite. Austen himself was a drivelling idiot and his wife used to be +a rare old girl--is still, I daresay--but they came of good stock, and +the daughter has looks and no brains. You couldn't do better." + +He paused again, appeared to lose himself in the past, looked up and +suddenly exclaimed: "You are ridiculous in that damned thing! Oblige me +by getting out." + +The young man extracted himself and sat down on the malachite bench. It +was more exposed than the trench and the fumes of the gas bomb that his +father had hurled were hazardous still. Additional protection from them +was needed and he said: "What will you do about Benny?" + +The old man disliked to be questioned. On the arm of his chair he beat +with his fingers a quick, brief tattoo. + +"Benny belongs to the Place. His father served me there. His grandfather +served yours. You don't get such people nowadays." + +Negligently the young man smoothed his tie. "Very picturesque and +feudal. But I don't want him." + +His father did not seem to hear, or to care. He was afar, wandering from +it. "Ever notice that he has only one thumb? Same way with his father. +Probably a family trait. I wish there were more families like 'em. This +house is full of trollops and rascals. So is Newport. The house at +Newport is full of rapscallions. Believe I'll offer it to the Government +for a hospital. I wish to God Sally would come over and run it. Do you +ever hear from her?" + +The young man stood up. "Never." + +"I don't doubt she is well rid of Balaguine. I've run into a baker's +dozen of Russian princes. All canaille. What she wanted to marry him +for, God only knows, and in saying that I exaggerate. Nice mess they +have made of things there. Are you going? Oblige me by touching the +bell." + +The young man touched it and, while he was at it, something else. +"Couldn't you oblige me by shipping Benny to Newport?" + +The old man motioned. It was as though he dismissed it. "My compliments +to her mother and remember that I have your word. Don't dilly-dally. +Good God, sir, can't you realise that any day now you may be drafted? +You've no time to lose. If I were your age, I'd enlist to-morrow. Don't +stand on one foot, you make me nervous." + +The son, putting on a white glove, got back at it. "I was asking you +about Benny." + +Again the old man shifted. "Hum! Well! Since you make a point of it. +Yes. I'll send him to Newport." + +"You won't forget?" + +"I never forget," replied the old man, who, from that moment, forgot it +utterly--until the following night when throttlingly it leaped at him. + +Even if he had remembered, it could only have delayed the course of +events. Benny went the next day and, in going, merely accelerated a +drama which perhaps was preordered. + +But now, from behind the recesses of the malachite stairway, a rascal +appeared and approached and opened a bronze door, from which a young +gentleman passed out and entered his car. + +It was dark then, darker than convenient. There are ways that are +obscure. The martyr who discovered that virtue is its own reward, died +unwept, unhonoured, unsung. History does not know him. Perhaps he was an +editor. But he bequeathed a valid idea. + +As the car swam on, Monty Paliser was conscious of it. It would, he +reflected, simplify matters very much if his father died immediately. He +had no ill-feeling toward him, no good-feeling, no feeling whatever. For +the property conveyed to him and otherwise bestowed, he had no +gratitude. These gifts were in the nature of things. Gifts similar or +cognate his father had received, as also had his grandfather, his +great-grandfather and so on ab initio. They were possessions handed down +and handed over for the greater glory of the House. He had therefore no +gratitude for them. When the time came he would repeat the process and +expect no gratitude either. Meanwhile though the gifts were adequate, +there were more en route, so many that they would lift him within +hailing distance of the richest men in the world. Though whether that +were worth five minutes of perplexity, ten minutes of tears, a row and, +possibly, your name in the papers, depended on the point of view. + +In considering it, he found himself--and very much to his +disgust--rememorating a moral axiom: Great wealth is a great burden. The +axiom was a favourite with his father, who had sickened him with it. But +on its heels always there had trod a variant. "By Gad, sir, you can say +what you like, it puts you in a position to tell anybody to go to hell." + +The variant had a lilt, a go, a flourish. To employ a vulgarism of the +hour, it had the punch. It landed you and between the eyes. It required +neither commentaries nor explanation. It was all there. It was tangible +as a brickbat, self-evident as the sun. + +In admiring it, the young man philosophised stoically. Did he not have +enough for that already? + +Yes, but later? Later might he not want to philosophise less stoically +and more luxuriously? It was a problem. Meanwhile there was Cassy. He +had no wish to lose her. Yet about him already was the shadow of the +inevitable draft act. That was not a problem merely, it was a pit. + +Meanwhile there was Cassy whom he did not wish to lose. She was +delightful, delectable, delicious. Not divine though, thank heaven! The +gleam in her eyes could be quite infernal. The gleam heightened a charm +which in itself was fugitive. He recognised that. However delicious a +dish may be, no man can feed on it always. Not he at any rate. But, for +the time being, it was very appetising. For the present, it did very +well. On the other hand, Margaret Austen represented a succession of +courses which, in addition to being appetising, would lift him to a +parity with the super-rich. + +It was certainly perplexing. But it is a long turning that has no lane. +He was a decent whip and a string made up of Margaret and Cassy was one +that, let him alone for it, he could handle. + +But now the car had stopped. Abandoning perplexity, he went on and up. + + + + +XXII + + +"Here you are! Bright and late as usual!" + +In her fluted voice, with her agreeable smile, Mrs. Austen greeted him. +The lady was attired in a manner that left her glitteringly and +splendidly bare. With her, in the cluttered drawing-room, were Margaret, +Kate Schermerhorn, Poppet Bleecker, Verelst, Cantillon and Ogston. + +"Will you take my daughter out?" Mrs. Austen, with that smile, +continued. "Oh!" she interrupted herself to remark. "You have not +congratulated Mr. Cantillon. Has no little bird told you? It's this dear +child Kate. Just now--don't you think?--engagements, like lilacs, are in +the air." She turned to Verelst. "Grey deceiver!" + +Verelst crooked his arm. "However much I tried to deceive, I got grey +before I could." + +"What are you laughing at?" Mrs. Austen with her tireless smile enquired +of Paliser, who, after speaking to the girls, had said something to +Cantillon. + +"Somersaults being a specialty of his, I was telling him that now is the +time for a triple one." + +Paliser turned to Margaret. She had said nothing. She was very pale. +Mute, white, blonde, she was a vision. + +At table, Verelst, addressing him, asked: "How is your father?" + +"Thank you. Enjoying his usual poor health." He turned again to +Margaret. "No one could mistake my father for an auctioneer. He has so +few admirations. But he knew your father and admired him greatly." + +Margaret made no reply. She was thinking of the land of Splendours and +Terrors, where the princess sat in chains. Margaret envied her. Over the +hill the true knight was hastening and Margaret knew, as we all know, +what happened then. It is a very pretty story, but it can be equally sad +to a sorrowing girl who has no true knight, or who had one, and who +found that he was neither knightly nor true. + +Paliser misconstrued her silence. About her eyes and mouth was an +expression that is displayed by those who have suffered from some long +malady or from some perilous constraint. That also he misconstrued. He +had been told she had washed her hands of Lennox and had washed them +with the soap of indifference, which is the most effective of all. He +was not credulous but he had believed it. The idea that her throat was +choked and her heart a haunt of regret, did not occur to this subtle +young man. He attributed both her silence and her expression to +neuralgia. The latter did not disturb him. But her loveliness did. It +inundated him. The gallery of his memory was hung with fair faces. Her +face exceeded them all. + +The dinner proceeded. Presently, Kate Schermerhorn called over at him. +"Who was the damsel I saw you making up to in the Park the other day?" + +Paliser turned to her. "I have forgotten." + +"I don't wonder. You seemed to have lost your head." + +"Probably then because it wasn't you." + +"Fiddlesticks! You looked as though you could cut your throat for her. +Didn't you feel that way? I am sure you did." + +"You must be thinking of Cantillon. That's the way he looks at you. If +he didn't, he wouldn't have any feeling at all. One might even say he +was quite heartless." + +Kate was laughing. In laughing she showed her red mouth and her teeth, +small, white, a trifle uneven, and, though she continued to show them, +her laughter ceased. With her red mouth open, she stared. That mouth +closed, opened again. She was saying something. + +Everybody was exclaiming. All were hurriedly getting up. + +Paliser turned to Margaret. She had gone. + +Verelst now was between him and her chair. He was bending over. Bending +also was Mrs. Austen. On the other side were Cantillon, Ogston and Miss +Bleecker. + +Then, as the surprise of it lifted Paliser, he saw that they were +lifting her. + +"Brandy!" said Verelst. "Tell the man." + +"Permit me!" Without officiousness, without noticeable shoves, Paliser +got among them and got on his knees beside the girl whom Verelst and +Mrs. Austen were supporting. + +Mrs. Austen wanted to wink at him. Instead, she made way. He took her +place, took the girl in his arms and thought he would like to keep her +there--though not, of course, forever. But he said: "The other room, +perhaps." + +Margaret's head was on his shoulder. She raised it. Her eyes had opened. +She looked at him, at the arms that were about her. A shudder shook her. +Verelst stretched a hand, Ogston another. With them, but otherwise +without effort, she stood up. + +Cantillon exclaimed at her. "Right as rain again! I say, Miss Austen, +you did give us a start!" + +Yet at once, and so endearingly, with the air of an elder sister, Mrs. +Austen resumed the maternal functions. "Dearest child, you have been +overdoing it!" + +Kate patted the girl. "Margaret! I nearly fainted too. I was looking at +you. You went over like that!" + +"Sorry," said Margaret evenly. Her hands had gone to the back of her +head. She dropped them and added: "If you will excuse me." + +Lovingly her mother dismissed her. "The smelling-salts! You will find +them somewhere." The lady looked about. "Shall we have coffee in the +other room? You men can smoke there if you like, or here if you prefer." + +It was quite modern. But Verelst was old, therefore old-fashioned. He +preferred the dining-room. Already the girls had followed Margaret. Mrs. +Austen passed out. Verelst sat down. So also did Cantillon and Ogston. +But Paliser, who had nothing to say to them, accompanied Mrs. Austen. + +"It never happened to her before," she told him. "Where shall you sit? +Here, by me?" In speaking she made room on the sofa and with amiable +suspicion eyed him. "You hadn't said anything to her, had you?" + +Paliser shook his handsome head. "I wanted to." + +Pleasantly she invited it. "Yes?" + +"I wanted to ask her to marry me." + +There he was dangling, and what a fish! The dear woman licked her chops, +not vulgarly, of course, but mentally. + +Paliser, who knew perfectly well what she was at, smiled tantalisingly. +"It is beastly to boast, but I am an epicure." + +What in the world does he mean? the dear woman wondered. But she said: +"Of course you are." + +Paliser, who was enjoying himself hugely, resumed: "An epicure, you +know, postpones the finest pleasures. He does so sometimes because of +the enchantment of distance and again because he can't help himself. +That has been my case." + +It was fully a moment before Mrs. Austen got it. Then she said: "But I +told you, didn't I? Mr. Lennox is dead and buried." + +It was quick work. Paliser, admiring her agility, laughed. "So recently +though! The immortelles have not had time to fade." + +That would have made a saint swear! Not being a saint, Mrs. Austen +contented herself with virtuous surprise. "But there were none! I told +you that. I told you that any attraction he may have had for my child, +he shocked straight out of her. Not deliberately. Dear me, I would not +have you fancy such a thing for a moment. Nor would I misjudge him. I +hope I am too conscientious. But such interest as the child had in +him--an interest I need hardly say that was girlish and immature--he +destroyed." + +The picture, bold but crude, had its defects. To remedy them, Mrs. +Austen applied the brush. "That singing-girl! You know whom I mean. I +saw you with her the night we went to the Bazaar." + +Paliser nodded. He knew indeed! He knew too that, for a moment, he had +fancied that Cassy was in love with Lennox. But that idea he had long +since abandoned and what she could now be doing in this galley intrigued +him. + +With a free hand Mrs. Austen laid on the colours. "You will hardly +credit it, but we as good as caught him with her. As good or as bad. It +is a matter of taste. For me it was very painful. A woman should be +spared such an experience. As for Margaret, while the child certainly +did not understand--how could she?--yet, even in her innocence, she +realised--well--that he is just what you said." + +It was a bit thick and Paliser began to laugh. + +Mrs. Austen saw that he did not believe her. The fact annoyed and in +vexation she piled it on. "Afterward, in this very room, I taxed him +with it and he admitted it." + +What a lie! thought Paliser, who specialised in that article. But, a +second thought prompting, he wondered whether it were a lie. His +knowledge of Cassy refuted it. At the same time, where women are +concerned, you never know. One thing, however, he did know. In his +quality of expert he knew that there are statements which, whether true +or false, may come in handy and, comfortably, he smiled. + +"So that was the reason why the engagement was broken." + +"What more would you have?" replied the candid creature, who now felt +that he had swallowed it. + +Quite as comfortably, Paliser returned to his muttons. "I may cease then +to be an epicure?" + +There was the fish again, but how to land him? The glittering fisherlady +could not bind and gag the bait and drop her into his mouth. At any such +attempt, the bait would pack and go, might even go without packing. Yet +there was the fish, eager, willing, the gills awiggle. Barring a few +gold-fish in Bradstreet, in Burke and in Lemprière, this fish was the +pick of the basket. To see him glide away, and for no other earthly +reason than because the bait refused to be hooked, was simply inhuman. +Flesh and blood could not stand it. No, nor ingenuity either. Instantly +the angler saw that in default of bait, a net may do the trick and, with +the ease of a prestidigitateur, she produced one. + +"You have my blessing!" + +Paliser laughed and bowed. He was in it, it was where he wanted to be +and he liked it. But in view of existing domestic arrangements, he was +in it a bit too soon and, wriggling through a mesh, he stopped laughing +and looked solemn. + +"You are very good. But beforehand my father will expect to be consulted +and, just at present, that is impossible. The physicians would forbid +it." + +"The poor dear old man! You don't mean----" + +Paliser half raised a hand. The gesture was slight but expressive. One +never knew! + +But so much the better, thought Mrs. Austen. Pending the delay she could +so bombard the bait, bombard her day in, day out, and the whole night +through, that, like Liège and Namur, her resistance would crumble, and +meanwhile he would come in for everything, or nearly everything, she +reflected, and the reflection prompting, she affected concern. + +"Has your sister been informed?" + +"I cabled her to-day," said Paliser, who had done nothing of the kind. + +With the same concern, Mrs. Austen lied as freely. "It is too sad for +words." But at once the air of the sympathiser departed, replaced by +that of the hostess. Through one door the men were entering. Through +another came the girls. + +Kate Schermerhorn approached. "Dear Mrs. Austen, Margaret's all right, +but she has a headache." As she spoke, she threw a glance at Cantillon. + +Poppet Bleecker also approached. "It is too bad, Margaret is such a +dear! I would like to stop on but they tell me my maid is here. Thank +you so much, dear Mrs. Austen." + +The lady stood up. "But you are not all going!" They all were though. +She knew it and was glad of it. The object of the dinner was achieved +and achievement, however satisfactory, is fatiguing. "You too!" she +successively exclaimed at Ogston and Cantillon. "And you also!" she +exclaimed at Paliser, to whom, dropping her voice, she added: "If +possible, remember me to him." + +As they went, Verelst surveyed her. He stood against the mantel, his +back to the empty grate. + +Turning she saw him. "Well, what now?" + +Verelst, adjusting his glasses, said, and distantly enough: "What now? +No, what next?" + +Mrs. Austen sat down. "Peter, if you ever loved me, don't adopt that +tone." + +"It is not the tone, it is the tune and the tune is yours." + +"Tune? What tune? What on earth are you talking about?" + +"The tune to which the dinner was set. I heard it. Margaret heard it. It +knocked her out." + +She raised her eyes to him, made them pathetic. "Peter, I haven't a +penny." + +"You have twenty thousand a year." + +"Nineteen, not a dollar more, and that is genteel poverty and there's +nothing genteel in poverty now." + +Verelst tugged at his moustache. "Tell me this. Is she to marry him?" + +In affected surprise, she started. "How you do jump at conclusions." + +Angrily he nodded. "I appear to have jumped at the correct one." + +But his anger had gained her. She faced him. "Heavens and earth! What +have you against him? What have you all against him? My eyes are as good +as any one's. I can't see it." + +"You might feel it then." + +"Feel what?" + +Verelst tugged again at his moustache. He had never heard of elementals +and, if he had heard, he would not have believed in them. He knew +nothing of auræ--which photography has captured. He was very old fogy. +But he knew an honest man when he saw one and a gentleman before he +opened his mouth. + +"Feel what?" Mrs. Austen repeated. + +Verelst, thrashing about, could not get it, but he said: "I can't +describe it, but it's something. His father had it. He----" + +"His father is at death's door." + +"Ah! Is he? Well, I'm sorry for that. M. P. used to be no better than +the law allows--and the law is very lenient." + +"You were too." + +"I daresay. But M. P. has got over it. Without boasting, I think I have +also. But that is neither here nor there. In the old days, I have seen +people shrink from him." + +"Nonsense! Precious little shrinking I ever did." + +"Timidity was never one of your many virtues." + +"Don't be coarse, Peter, and if possible don't be stupid. If you know +anything against Monty, say it I may find it in his favour." + +Impatiently Verelst motioned. "Decent men avoid him." + +"And you!" Mrs. Austen retorted. "What do you call yourself? You are +always civil to him." + +Verelst showed his teeth. "One of the few things life has taught me is +to be civil to everybody." + +"Except to me. Now do sit down and make yourself uncomfortable. You have +made me uncomfortable enough. Any one might think you a country parson." + +But Verelst, scowling at the dial which the legs of the nymph upheld, +removed his glasses. "I am going." He moved to the door, stopped, half +turned, motioned again. "Tell Margaret I would rather see her in her +coffin." + +Angrily she started. "I'll tell her nothing of the kind." + +It was his back that she addressed. She saw him go, saw too her anger go +with him. The outer door had not closed before the tune of which he had +spoken was dispersing it. + +But was it a tune? It seemed something far rarer. In it was a whisper of +waters, the lap of waves, the muffled voice of a river, which, winding +from hill to sea, was pierced by a note very high, very clear, entirely +limpid, a note that had in it the gaiety of a sunbeam, a note that +mounted in loops of light, expanding as it mounted, until, bursting into +jets of fire, it drew from the stream's deepest depths the sonority and +glare of its riches. + +The ripple of it ran down the spine of this woman, who at heart was a +Hun and to whom the harmonies disclosed, not the mythical gleam of the +Rheingold, but the real radiance of the Paliser wealth. + +At the glow of it she rubbed her hands. + + + + +XXIII + + +In the club window, on the following afternoon, Jones was airing copy. + +"Capua must have been packed with yawns. It is the malediction of +mortals to want what they lack until they get it, when they want it no +more. Epicurus said that or, if he did not, Lucretius said it for him. +'Surgit amari aliquid.' But here I am running into quotations when the +only ones that interest anybody are those in the Street. Conditions here +are revolting. Nowhere at any time has there been a metropolis that so +stank to heaven. The papers drip with stocks and scandals and over +there, before the massed artillery, the troops are wheeling down to +death. But wheeling is perhaps poetic. The Marne was the last battle in +the grand style." + +"I don't see what that has to do with Capua," said Verelst. + +"Nor I," Jones replied. "But, come to think of it, there is a +connection. In Capua everybody yawned their heads off. In Flanders and +Champagne they are shot off. Life swings like a pendulum between boredom +and pain. When the world is not anæmic, it is delirious. If ever again +its pulse registers normal, sensible people will go back to Epicurus, +whose existence was one long lesson in mental tranquillity. By the Lord +Harry, the more I consider it, the more convinced I become that there is +nothing else worth having. Niente, nada, rien. Nothing whatever." + +Verelst smiled. "In that case it is hardly worth while getting excited +over it." He raised the lapel of his coat. There were violets in it. He +took a whiff and added: "Has Lennox been here to-day?" + +But Jones did not know. + +Regretfully, Verelst continued: "He goes to Mineola to-morrow and soon +he will be over the top." + +Jones lit a cigarette. "Assuming that he gets back, the women will be +mad about him. Some of them at any rate." + +Verelst rolled an enquiring eye. + +"Of course they will," Jones resumed. "Times have changed precious +little since Victor Hugo. + + 'Les belles out le goût des héros. Le sabreur + Effroyable, trainant après lui tant d'horreur + Qu'il ferait reculer jusqu'à la sombre Hécate, + Charme la plus timide et la plus delicate. + Sur ce, battez tambours! Ce qui plait à la bouche + De la blonde aux yeux doux, c'est le baiser farouche. + La femme se fait faire avec joie un enfant, + Par l'homme qui tua, sinistre et triomphant. + Et c'est la volupté de toutes ces colombes + D'ouvrir leur lit à ceux qui font ouvrir les tombes.' + +"What rhythm! What music! The score is Napoleonic but----" + +"Hello!" Verelst interrupted. Before the window a car had passed. He was +looking at it. On the back seat was a man in a high hat and an overcoat. +"M. P.!" he exclaimed. + +"What of it?" Jones asked. + +Verelst removed his glasses and looked distrustfully at them. It was as +though he doubted their vision. Then, after a moment he said: "Last +night I heard he was dying." + +"Which," Jones remarked, "is the aim, the object and the purpose of +life. But apparently he has not achieved it yet. Apparently also you are +a futurist. The Napoleonic score did not interest you." + +Verelst, resuming his glasses, replied: "It would not interest Lennox, +if that is what you mean. He has been hit too hard." + +Jones nodded. He knew all about it. It had even suggested a story, a +famous story; one that was told in Babylon and has been retold ever +since; the story of lovers vilely parted in the beginning and virtuously +united at the end. It is a highly original story, to which anybody can +give a fresh twist and Jones had planned to have the hero killed at the +front and the heroine marry the villain, but only to divorce the latter +before the hero--whose death had been falsely gazetted--limps in. + +But Jones knew his trade. He knew that the reader always balks unless +the hero gets the heroine firsthand and he had thought of making the +villain an invalid. Yet at that too he knew the reader would balk. The +reader is so nice-minded! + +Now, the plot recurring, he said to Verelst: "Your knowledge of women +has, I am sure, made you indulgent." + +"Not in the least." + +"But----" + +"Look here," Verelst interrupted. "When I was young and consequently +very experienced, I was indulgent. But monsters change you. Last night I +dined with one." + +"Enviable mortal!" + +"You remember Abraham?" Verelst continued. "His name was Abraham--wasn't +it?--that benevolent old man in the Bible who made the sacrifice of +sacrificing an animal instead of his son? Well, last night it seemed to +me that there are women Abrahams, only less benevolent. The altar was +veiled, the knife was concealed, but the victim was there--a girl for +whom, at your age, I would have died, or offered to die, which amounts +to the same thing. What is more to the point, at your age, or no, for +you are much older than your conversation would lead one to believe, but +in my careless days I offered to die for her mother. I swore I could not +live without her. That is always a mistake. It is too flattering, +besides being untrue. Perhaps she so regarded it. In any event another +man fared better or worse. Afterward, time and again, he said to me: +'Peter, for God's sake, run away with her.' Am I boring you?" + +"Enormously." + +"Well, he was very gentlemanly about it. Without making a fuss at home, +he went away and died in a hospital. She was very grateful to him for +that. But her gratitude waned when she came in for his money. It was +adequate but not opulent, the result being that she tried to train her +daughter for the great matrimonial steeplechase. Just here the plot +thickens. Recently the filly shied, took the bit in her teeth +and--hurrah, boys!--she was off on her own, until her mother jockied her +up to a hurdle that she could not take and the filly came a cropper. But +her mother was still one too many for her. She had her up in a jiffy and +now she is heading her straight for the sweepstakes." + +"Excuse me," Jones with affected meekness put in. "I assume that the +sacrificial victim and the filly are one and the same." + +"Your perspicacity does you much credit." + +Jones laughed. "I have my little talents. But you! The wizardry with +which you mix metaphors is beautiful. You produce a dinner-table and +transform it into an altar which instantly becomes a racecourse. That is +what I call genius. But to an every-day sort of chap like me, would you +mind being less cryptic?" + +"Can you keep a secret?" + +"Yes." + +"So can I." + +Again Jones laughed. "Not in my neighbourhood. You were talking of +Lennox and drifted from him into the Bible. Your thoughts of the one +recalled studies of the other and at once you had Abraham's daughter +downed on the racecourse. Well, she won't be." + +"Why do you say that?" + +"Because it is my business to see things before they occur. Miss +Austen----" + +"I never mentioned her," Verelst heatedly exclaimed. "You have no right +to----" + +"I admit it. But because of Lennox the whole matter has preoccupied me +and quite as much, I daresay, as it has distressed you." + +"I don't see at all what you have to do with it." + +"Perhaps not. But preoccupation may lead to crystal-gazing. Now I will +wager a red pippin that I can tell what you said at the steeplechase to +the steeplestakes. You asked after his father." + +Verelst stared. A man of the world and, as such, at his ease in any +circumstances, none the less he was startled. "How in God's name did you +get that?" + +"It is very simple. Five minutes ago his father sailed by. You made a +remark about him. The remark suggested a train of thought which landed +you at the racecourse where you saw, or intimated that you saw, the +steeplestakes. But what visible sweepstakes are there except M. P.'s +son? You and M. P. are friends. It is only natural that you should ask +about him." + +Verelst turned uneasily. "I don't yet see how you got it. The only thing +I said is that I heard he was dying." + +"And five minutes ago you exclaimed at his resurrection. There is a +discrepancy there that is very suggestive." + +"It is none of my making then." + +"It is none the less suggestive. The death-bed was invented." + +"M. P. may have recovered." + +"Yes, men of his age make a practice of jumping into their death-bed and +then jumping out. It is good for them. It keeps them in training." + +"Oh, rubbish!" Verelst resentfully exclaimed. + +"No," Jones pursued. "The story was invented and the invention had a +reason. If you like, you may ask what it is." + +"You seem to be very good at invention yourself. I shall ask nothing of +the kind." + +"But you would like to know and I will tell you. It was invented to +delay a possible announcement. It could have had no other object." + +"I said nothing of any announcement," Verelst angrily protested. "What +announcement are you talking about?" + +"The heading of the filly for the sweepstakes. The expression--very +graphic by the way--is your own." + +"Graphic or not I wish you would drop it. Besides----" + +"Besides what?" + +"Why, confound it, admitting the engagement, which I ought not to admit +for it is not out yet, why should he play for delay?" + +"Ha!" exclaimed Jones, whom the spectacle of Paliser and Cassy sailing +up the Riverside had supplied with an impression or two. "I thought I +would interest you. He played for delay because he feared that if it +were known, a pitcher of ice-water might come dashing over it." + +"Why do you say that?" asked Verelst, eager and anxious enough for a +spoke--if spoke there could be--to shove in a certain lady's wheels. + +"Given the man and the deduction is easy." + +The spoke was receding. Verelst, swallowing his disappointment, +retorted: "Incoherence is easy too." + +"Well, you are right there," Jones, lighting another cigarette, replied. +"But there is nothing incoherent in the fact that fear is magnetic. What +we dread, we attract. If our winning young friend fears the pitcher, the +pitcher will probably land on him. That is the reason why, to vary your +various metaphors, I declared that there would be no downing on the +racecourse. On the contrary and look here. I will wager you not one +pippin or two pippins, I will go so far as to lay a whole basket that +Miss Austen becomes Mrs. Lennox." + +Verelst sniffed. "You don't know her mother." + +"No. I have not that honour. But I enjoy a bowing acquaintance with +logic." + +"Do you, now? I wonder if it bows back. I'll book your bet." + +"Very good. Make it fancy pippins." + +Verelst stood up. "Fancy is the only term that could be applied them." + +"And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," Jones told himself as the old +man moved away. + +He looked about. The great room had filled. Stocks, money, war, the +odour of alcohol, the smell of cigars, the rustling of evening papers, +the sound of animated talk about nothing whatever, the usual atmosphere +had reassembled itself. + +From it he turned to the window, to the westering sun, to the motors, +the smart gowns and the women who looked so delightful and of whom all +had their secrets--secrets trivial, momentous, perverse or merely +horrible. + +Again he turned. Lennox, who had approached, was addressing him. "You +were at the law school. I have to make a will. Will you help me?" + +Serviceably Jones sprang up. "Come to my shop. It is just around the +corner." + + + + +XXIV + + +Among the old brocades with which the room was fitted and which, +together with the silver bed and the enamelled faïence, gave it an +earlier century air, Cassy stood before a cheval-glass. + +She was properly dressed. Her costume, light cloth, faintly blue, was +exquisitely embroidered. Beneath it was lingerie of the kind which, it +is said, may be drawn through a ring. Behind and between was Cassy, on +whose docked hair sat a hat that was very unbecoming and therefore +equally smart. + +A moment before she had thanked and dismissed Emma. Emma was the maid. +With a slant of the eye, that said and suppressed many things, Emma had +gone. + +Through the open windows came the call of birds, the smell of fresh +turf. A patch of sky was visible. It was tenderly blue. There was a +patch too of grass that showed an asparagus green. + +From the mirror Cassy went to a table and, from a jade platter, took a +ring. It was made of six little hoops each set with small stones. She +put it on. The platter held other rings. There was a sapphire, +inch-long, deep and dark. She put that on. There was also an Australian +opal and an Asian emerald, the latter greener than the grass. She put +these on. Together with the wedding-ring they made quite a show. Too +much of a show, she thought. + +Like the costume, the hat, like other costumes, more hats and box after +box of lingerie, they had all surprisingly dumped themselves, there, at +her feet, the day after the wedding. The bundle, which she had brought +with her, she had found very useless and so awkward that she would have +given it to Emma, had it not seemed unsuited to a young person +manifestly so fine. Since then it had been tucked away in a cupboard, +safely out of sight. + +That was just five days ago, a brief eternity, during which life seemed +to be driving her headlong to some unimagined goal. Until the evening +previous she had had barely a moment. But on that evening, Paliser, who +was dining at the Austens', had given her a few hours to herself. + +Now, on this afternoon, he was again in town. + +The air was very still. Afar, a train bellowed, rumbled, died away. From +the garage came the bark of a dog, caught up and repeated on the +hillside beyond. On the lawn, a man in an apron was at work. Otherwise +the air was still, fragrant, freighted with spring. + +Cassy, turning from the table, went to the mirror again and tilted the +hat. However unbecoming, it was certainly smart, and Cassy wondered what +her father would think of Mrs. Monty Paliser. + +In the spaciousness of the name, momentarily she lost herself. It is +appalling to be a snob. But there are attributes that pour balm all over +you. In the deference of the bored yet gracious young women who, with +robes et manteaux, had come all the way from Fifth Avenue, there had +been a flagon or two of that balm. In the invariable "Thank you, mem's" +of the Paliser personnel there had been more. It is appalling to be a +snob. There are perfumes that appeal. + +Then also, particularly after Harlem, the great, grave, silent house had +a charm that was enveloping, almost enchanted. Apparently uncommanded, +it ran itself, noiselessly, in ordered grooves. Cassy fancied that +somewhere about there must be a majordomo who competently saw to +everything and kept out of the way. But she did not know. In her own +rooms she was now at home, as she was also at home in the state chambers +on the floor below. In regard to the latter, she had an idea--entirely +correct, by the way--that at Lisbon, the royal palace--when there was +one--could not have been more suave. But the rest of the house was as +yet unexplored, though in regard to the upper storey she had another +idea, that there was a room there close-barred, packed with coffins. + +The idea delighted her. In this Palace of the White Cat it was the note +macabre, the proper note, the note that synchronised the circumambient +enchantments. In the historical nights of which Perrault told, the +princess had but a gesture to make, the offender sank dead. At once a +bier was produced, the corpse was hurried away, and the veils of charm +restored fell languorously. + +Yet, in that historical epoch, there subsisted--perhaps as a reminder of +the vanities even of fairyland--the rose-leaf suggestively crumpled. The +crumple affected Cassy but far less than she had expected. Paliser had +been very gentlemanly. He had deferred to her in all things, agreed with +her about everything, and though none the less he always had his own +way, yet the pedestal was so obvious that if she had not known otherwise +she might have thought herself continuously upon it. + +The crumple was not there, or at least only such crumple as she had +naturally awaited. The discomfort of the leaf consisted in the fact that +married she was not mated, that she did not love him, and probably never +could. + +Now, as she tilted her hat, the spaciousness of the name recurred to +her. Its potentialities she had considered before she accepted it, but +only because of her father. The idea that it would lift him out of the +walk-up, out of Harlem and cold veal, was the one excuse for her voyage +to Cytherea. The voyage had been eminently respectable. Undertaken with +full ecclesiastical sanction, Aphrodite and her free airs had had +nothing to do with it. None the less it was to Cytherea that she had +gone--and to Lampsacus also, for all she and her geography knew to the +contrary. + +Now, though, in tilting her hat, the disreputable beauty of the land was +forgotten. She was in another and a fairer realm. A modern garden of the +Hesperides lay about her. She saw herself distributing the golden fruit. +The mirror showed her a red-crossed Lady Bountiful in an ambulance, in +two ambulances, in a herd of ambulances, at the front. There was no end +to the golden fruit, no end to his father's money, no end to the good he +might allow her to do. + +The picture so delighted her that she flushed and in the emotion of it +two tears sprang to her eyes that were not of the crying kind. + +She dried them, telling herself that if he framed the picture, she could +love him, and she would. + +It would be all so perfect, not the loving, but the giving, the joy of +giving, the joy of always giving, of giving with both hands, of just +shovelling it out and keeping at it, of never saying "No," of saying, +"Yes, and here is more and here is more," of saying, too, "Don't thank +me, it is for me to thank you." What joy ever was there, or ever will +be, that can compare to that! + +Why, I'm crazy, she thought, and thought also, he never will but he +might, he could and if he should---- + +Then at once the Paliser of the Savile Row clothes and the St. James's +Street boots, the Paliser of the looking-glass hair and the Oxford +voice, assumed the hue and stature of a deva. Love him! It would be +something higher. It would be worship! + +She made a face. It was sheer nonsense. He had an allowance which, +obviously, was very liberal and with which he was liberal enough. Unlike +many rich men he was not close. But to fancy him beneficent was +laughable. Cassy could not imagine him in the rôle of Lord Bountiful. +Then too there was something queer about him. He hated to be alone. +There are people who kill silence and he was one of them. He was always +talking. Cassy could not understand it. To be silent with any one +procures an intimacy which talk cannot supply. Moreover solitude was as +necessary to her and as refreshing as her bath. Silence and solitude he +could not endure. She tilted her nose and went to the window. + +That night they were to go to the opera. But in a moment she was to +motor in and see her father. Since she put Harlem behind her, she had +wondered and worried about him. The condition of his heart was hazardous +and she had been told that any excitement might be fatal. She had +worried over that, over his sudden rages at tradespeople, and she had +been fearful lest Mrs. Yallum, the janitress, who spoke no known tongue, +had, instead of being of use, only enraged him further. + +She would see to it, though. It was for that she was going in. As yet +she had no money. But there were the rings and one more or one less, +what did it matter? Of the lot she preferred the string of hoops. It was +quaint, there was nothing philistine about it and probably it had not +cost so very much. The emerald was different. It was a stone that would +please any woman with plenty of money and a modicum of taste. Probably +it had cost a thousand on Fifth Avenue, in which case it would fetch a +hundred on Broadway. Or if not, then the sapphire would. Either or both +she would hock very willingly. But not the hoop-ring and not the opal, +unless she had to, and if Paliser, who apparently noticed nothing and +saw everything, asked concerning them, why then she would out with it. +Her father was a beggar! Did he expect her to let him starve? But what +on earth do you suppose I married you for? For yourself? Take a walk. I +sold myself for bread--and butter, and you can fork them over. + +At the possibility of any such conversation--and of such language!--she +flushed afresh and again called herself a fool. There could be no such +conversation. Paliser would never question. He was too indifferent The +consciousness comforted, precisely as, a moment before, the picture of +herself shovelling gold had moved her to tears. + +Then absently she found herself looking in the garden where the aproned +man was at work. But it was Lennox that she saw. Again and again since +the wedding-evening, when Paliser had told her of the unscrambled eggs, +she had wondered about the broken engagement. On that evening she had +felt that she had taken the wrong road and had lost her way. The feeling +was momentary. If Lennox had never been engaged, the result would have +been the same. Not once had he so much as said boo! He had not even +looked it. At table, on the wedding-evening, the unscrambled eggs had +not tasted very good, but reflection had salted them and since then, in +reviewing the matter, it had occurred to her that it was none of her +business. + +Now as she looked out on the garden she wondered whether he had cared +very greatly for this girl, for if he had, what then did she mean by +throwing over a man who was too good for her, too good for anybody? + +She sighed and absently looked again at the gardener. He was bending +down, occupied in planting something. Since she had first noticed him he +had half-circled a parterre and she was about to telephone and ask if +the car were ready when he straightened, turned, extracted a pipe and +attempted to light it. + +The air was very still, there was no breeze, but the match was +ineffective. On his trousers, with a backward movement, he struck +another match and raised it to the bowl. The flame, faintly blue, +mounted and, with it, a curl of smoke. But it was not Cassy or, more +exactly, it was not her objective self, that saw it. It was her +subjective self that registered and afterward reproduced that momentary +and entirely commonplace incident. What the objective Cassy saw was not +the flame or the smoke or the pipe, but the hand that held the match. It +was thumbless. Many hands are. From the hand she looked at the man's +face and gave a little scream, instantly suppressed. + +But her mouth twitched, she tried to swallow and she experienced, what +was new to her, an odd sensation in the epiglottis. She did not remember +that she had ever been what is called sick at the stomach, none the less +she realised that she was on the point of becoming so. Like the little +scream, she choked it back. But the immanence of nausea stifled her, and +she sat down on a brocade-covered chair. + +Her hand had gone to her throat and though almost at once the sensation +subsided, she held it there. The gold bands of the rings that were +pressed against her throat cooled it, but the palm of the hand was wet. +Unconscious of that, she was unaware that she could not think. A crack +on the head makes you dizzy and into her dizziness a somnolence had +entered. The somnolence dulled all the cells of the brain save one and +that one cell, vehemently active, was inciting her to some effort, +though to what she did not know. + +"I must get up," she presently told herself and told it once more. + +In the repetition of the words there was the effect of a spray. The +irritability of the one active cell subsided, that of the others was +aroused. Somnambulism ceased. The entire brain awoke. But the truth had +not yet fully permeated all the cerebral convolutions and the fact that +it had not, manifested itself in the melodramatic phrase which, a week +previous, Lennox had uttered, which all have uttered, all at least +before whom the unforseen has sprung. + +"It is impossible!" + +She got up, went to the window, looked again. There was no impossibility +there, no doubt even, or the peradventure of one. There was only the +ineluctable truth. The aproned man disclosed it. His thumbless hand had +held the book. From his mouth, in which there was a pipe, had come the +benediction. He was Dr. Grantly. That was the ineluctable truth, the +truth which already perhaps she had intercepted in the land of Beauty +and Horror. + +The first sight of it had sickened. Now the physical effect had gone. +But the nausea in passing had been replaced by another sensation, +deadlier, equally human, that made her red and hot, blurred her eyes, +set her quivering, shook her, put her thoughts on fire, vitriolised her +with hate. + +Nietzsche said that a woman's ability to hate is in proportion to her +inability to charm. The brute omitted to add that a woman's ability to +charm corresponds to her evolution. + +There was nothing evolved about Cassy then. She had lapsed back into the +primitive. Like Armide, she could have burned the palace that enchanted +her. None the less, she did nothing. To do nothing may be very +important. The inactivity saved her. During it, the vitriol vaporised; +the hate fell by. She was still trembling, her hands were unsteady, but +the fever was departing, the crisis had passed, the primitive had slunk +back into the cellars of the subconscious, and, in the chair, to which +without knowing it she had returned, she faced it. + +Without, some one knocked and, getting no answer, accepted the +invitation as most people do. + +"Beg pardon, Mrs. Paliser. The car is at the door." + +Cassy half turned. "What?" + +Emma reconstructed it. "Whenever you are ready, mem, the car will be +waiting." + +Cassy turned away. "That will do." + +"Thank you, mem." + +With that air which servants assume, Emma pursed her lips, reopened +them, thought better of it, closed them and closed too the door. + +Facing it still, Cassy sat in the brocaded chair. Anger had shaken her +and gone, taking with it its spawn which hatred is. What inhabited her +then was disgust. + +I am in a nice mess, she told herself. But she told it without surprise, +as though all along it was something which she might have known, could +have avoided, but into which she had put her foot. A momentary vision of +the red-crossed Lady Bountiful returned and she even smiled at it. It +was a sad little smile though. + +Abstractedly, she had been turning and twisting the rings. The motion +aroused her. It drew her attention to them. They also had something to +say. Something which they had been saying ever since the smoke curled +from the pipe. She had not heard it then. There had been too many things +tumbling about her. But now she did hear. She took them off, stood up +and dropped them on the table where they fell between gold-backed +brushes and a vase, gorgeous in delicacy, the colour of ox-blood. + +From a cupboard she took the rowdy frock, the tam, the basilica +underwear and, for a moment, searched and searched vainly for a pair of +stockings. In hunting for them she unearthed the bundle, and that +together with the other things, she threw on the bed, which was not +brocaded, or even daised. It was silver. A few days before, when she had +first seen it, she had clapped her hands. The vase too she had +applauded. Now the lovely room, that had seemed so lovely, a curl of +smoke had turned into a lupanar. + +Quickly, one after another, the modish hat, the delicious frock, the +things that could be drawn through a ring, were removed and replaced. In +the mirror she looked, stopped, looked again, adjusted the tam and was +going to the bed for the bundle when she heard a horn. Head-drawn, she +listened. + +She would have so much preferred to leave without seeing him or speaking +to him. If she could, she would have gone without a word, silently, in +the only dignified manner that was possible. But, apparently, matters +had arranged themselves otherwise. She went to the bed, took the bundle, +moved back to the table and waited. + +She did not wait long. Paliser, with the pretence of a knock and a smile +on his lips walked in--but not far. That frock, that bundle, the sight +of her there, sufficed. He knew. With an awkwardness that was unusual +with him, he closed the door and twisted his hat. The smile had gone +from his lips. They were dry. + +Then as he looked at her and she looked at him--and with what a +look!--words seemed such poor things. It was as though already +everything had been said, as perhaps in the silent temples of their +being, everything, accusations, recriminations, all the futilities of +speech had been uttered, impotently, a moment since. A moment earlier +she had said her say. As he looked at her he knew that she had and knew +too, that before he entered the room, already she had heard his replies. + +The consciousness of this, equally shared by both, was so intense that, +for a second, Cassy felt that everything happening then had happened +ages ago, that she was taking part in a drama rehearsed on a stage that +memory cannot reconstruct but which stood, and, it may be, still stands, +back of those doors that close behind our birth. + +The hallucination, if it be one, and which, given certain crises of the +emotions, is common enough, vanished abruptly as it had come. But two +seconds had gone since Paliser entered the room, yet, in those seconds, +both recognised that eternity had begun between them. + +With his hat, a hat studiously selected, made to order, Paliser motioned +and with the same studiousness, selecting a platitude, he produced it. +"I was going to take you out." + +"After taking me in," Cassy in reviewing the situation subsequently +commented. But at the time she said nothing. She merely looked. Her rage +was gone, her anger spent. Only disgust remained. It was that which her +face expressed. It was withering. + +Paliser, steadying himself and, as was perhaps only natural, hedging +still, resumed: "But apparently you have other intentions." + +What a cad that blackguard is! thought Cassy who still said nothing. + +"May I ask what they are?" + +Cassy threw up her chin. "My intentions are to leave----" + +"But why?" + +"Don't presume to interrupt me. My intentions are to leave your +assignation-house and have you horsewhipped." + +Paliser had been served with strong drink before, but none ever as +strong as that. It steadied him. He had expected that when it got to +her, as eventually it must, there would be the passionate upbraidings, +the burst of sobs, the Oh! Oh's!, the What will become of me?, the usual +run up and down the scale and the usual remedies which a bank account +supplies. He had expected all that. He had prescribed for it often. +There was not a symptom for which he did not know the proper dose and +just when to administer it. But barely had he crossed the threshold +before he realised that all his science would be in default. + +Cassy presented an entirely new case, but, fortunately, in the drink +which she had served, he saw or thought he saw how to treat it. + +He gestured again. "I never cared for scenes. But this house, which it +has pleased you to describe from your knowledge of other establishments, +is----" + +Whatever he may have intended to add, was interrupted. Cassy, previously +inexorable as fate, but converted then into a fury, dropped the bundle +and caught up the vase. Missing him, it hit the door, where musically it +crashed and shattered. + +He turned, looked at it, looked at her, at the table. Barring the +gold-backed brushes, the jade platter and that bundle, there was nothing +that she could conveniently shy, and, in his Oxford voice, but civilly +enough, he gave it to her. + +"Allow me. There is no necessity whatever for your acting in this +manner. The situation, such as it is, it had been my intention to +remedy. It had been my intention, I say. But yesterday it came to my +knowledge that it is because of your relations with Lennox that his +engagement is broken." + +Take that, he mentally added and continued aloud: "I might not have +believed the story, but I was told that Lennox admitted it." Take that, +too, he mentally resumed. I shall be treated to tears in a minute and in +no time it will be "Kamerad!" + +Sidewise he looked at the ruin of the vase, on which Daughters of Heaven +and an ablated dynasty may have warmed their eyes. It affronted his own. +Insult, yes, that could be tossed about, but not art, not at least the +relatively unique. + +With a crease in his lips which now were dry no longer, he looked at +Cassy. The awaited tears were not yet visible. But the blood-madness +that had seized her, must have let her go, routed, as hæmatomania may +be, by the trivial and, in this instance, by a lie. That lie suffocated +her. It was as though, suddenly, she had been garroted. + +The condition was only momentary, but, during it, a curtain fell on this +vulgar drama, which was to affect so many lives. Before the girl a +panorama passed. She saw herself leaving Lennox' rooms. She saw Margaret +Austen, saw the woman with her, saw the former's candid eyes; saw the +latter's ridiculous airs, saw the construction which between them they +had reached and saw, too, the consequences that had resulted. The dirt +with which she had been besplattered she did not see. The panorama did +not display it. What it alone revealed was Lennox' disaster. Of herself +she did not think and regarding Margaret she did not care. That which +occupied her was Lennox. + +But was it true? In Paliser nothing was true, not even his lies. For it +was unaccountable that a matter so simple could not have been cleared +with a word. But it was not unaccountable at all. It was obvious. +Margaret, a born snob, had given Lennox no chance for that word. Some +one, Paliser probably, had invented the admission and she had refused to +see him, after condemning him unheard. + +I will attend to that, Cassy decided. + +At once the suffocation ceased, the panorama sank, the scene shifted, +the curtain parted, the drama proceeded and she found herself staring at +Paliser, who was staring at her. + +"As it is----" he tentatively resumed and would have said more, a lot, +anything to coerce the tears to her eyes and with them surrender. + +She gave him no chance. She took the bundle and, before he could +continue, she passed him, opened the door, slammed it with a din that +had in it the clatter of muskets, went down the stair and out to the +perron, before which stood a car. + +"The station!" she threw at the mechanician. + +The house now, jarred a moment earlier by the crash of porcelain and the +slamming door, had recovered its silence. + +From within, Emma, very agreeably intrigued, a footman with a white +sensual face beside her, looked out with slanting eyes. + + + + +XXV + + +Harris, wrinkled as a sweetbread and thin as an umbrella, blinked at +Cassy. "Mr. Lennox is out, mem." + +"Then go and fetch him." + +Past the servant, Cassy forced her way through the vestibule, into the +sitting-room, where the usual gloom abided, but where, unusually, were a +smell of camphor, two overcoats, two trunks and a bag. + +Cassy, putting down the bundle, exclaimed at them. "He is not leaving +town?" + +"Yes, mem, to-morrow morning, for Mineola." He spoke grudgingly, looking +as he spoke like a little old mule at bay. + +Cassy, noticing that, said: "See here, I don't mean to bully you, but it +is most important that I should see Mr. Lennox--important for him, do +you hear?" + +"I hear you, mem, but I don't know where he is." + +"Then find out. There must be a telephone." + +Harris scratched his head but otherwise he did nothing. + +"Come!" Cassy told him. "Hurry!" + +Harris shifted. "I don't know as how he'd like it. He's been that upset +these last few days. I----" He hesitated. Visibly an idea had visited +him with which he was grappling. "You're not from Miss Austen, now, are +you?" + +Cassy caught at it. To confirm it would be fanciful. To deny it would be +extravagant. Choosing an in-between for the benefit of this servant whom +she knew to be English, she produced it. + +"I am the Viscountess of Casa-Evora." + +Harris wiped his mouth. A viscountess who had come only the other day +with a bundle, and who now forced her way in with another bundle, did +not coincide with such knowledge as he had of the nobility. But she was +certainly overbearing enough to be anybody. + +He turned. "Very good, your ladyship, I'll telephone." + +Don't ladyship me, Cassy was about to reply, but judging that impolitic, +she sat down. + +On the train in she had debated whether she would go first to Harlem or +to Lennox and in either case what afterward she should do. She had a few +dollars which her father would need. The thought of these assets +reminded her that in changing her clothes she had omitted to change back +into her own stockings. Well, when she changed again she would return +the pair which she had on and, as she determined on that, she saw +Paliser's face as she had seen it when she threw the vase. That relapse +into the primitive shamed her. She had behaved like a fish-wife. But +though she regretted the violence, she regretted even more deeply the +vase. The destruction of art is so despicably Hun! For moxa, she evoked +the Grantly masquerade. + +The entire lack of art in that seemed to her incongruous with the +surface Paliser whom she had known. But had she even known the surface +which itself was a mask? Yet behind the mask was an intelligence which +at least was not ordinary, yet which, none the less, had descended to +that! She could not understand it. She could not understand, what some +one later explained to her, that a high order of intellect does not of +itself prevent a man from soiling it and, with it, himself and his +hands. The explanation came later, when other matters were occupying her +and when Paliser, headlined in the papers, was dead. + +Meanwhile the train had landed her in the Grand Central and she decided +to go to Lennox first. + +Now as she sat in his sitting-room where, for all she knew, she might +have to sit for hours, it comforted her to think that she had so +decided. If she had put it off until the morrow, Lennox would, by then, +have gone to the aviation-field, where he might be killed before she +could patch things up. At thought of that, she wondered whether he might +not stay out undiscoverably all night and send for his things to be +fetched to the station. + +But in that case, Cassy promptly reflected, I'll go to her, pull her out +of bed, drag her there--and no thanks either. I didn't do it for you, I +did it for him. He's too good for you. + +On the mantel, a clock struck, while thinly, through a lateral entrance, +Harris emerged. + +"The hall-porter at Mr. Lennox' club says he's just gone out with Mr. +Jones. Yes, ma'am." + +"Mr. Jones! What Mr. Jones? The novelist?" + +"I'm thinking so, ma'am. A very haffable gentleman." + +"Try to get him. Ask if Mr. Lennox, is there. Or, no, I'll do the +talking." + +Then presently she was doing it, collaborating rather in the dialogue +that ensued. + +"Mr. Jones?" + +"Yes, darling." + +Cassy, swallowing it, resumed: "Mr. Jones, forgive a stranger for +intruding, I----" + +"Beautiful voice, forgive me. Triple brute that I am, I thought it was +my aunt." + +"Then let me introduce myself. This is Miss Cara." + +"Casta diva! You do me infinite honour!" + +"Mr. Jones, I must see Mr. Lennox. It is a matter of life and death." + +"Lennox is engaged with death now." + +"What!" + +"He is preparing for the great adventure. At this moment he is making +his will. Miss Cara?" + +"Yes?" + +"Lennox takes even serious matters gravely." + +"But he is with you?" + +"In my workshop and at your service as I am." + +"You will let me come there?" + +"Enthusiastically and yet with all humility for I have no red carpet to +run down the stair." + +"Then hold on to him, please." + +Ouf! sighed Cassy, as she hung it up. Another man who might be Mrs. +Yallum's husband! She took the telephone-book, found and memorised the +address and turned to Harris. "Thank you very much. Will you mind giving +me that package?" + +"Beg pardon, ma'am," the little man said, as he opened the door for her. +"There's nothing more amiss, is there?" + +Cassy covered him with her lovely eyes. "When Mr. Lennox comes back +here, he may tell you to unpack." + +"Then may God bless your ladyship." + +Cassy went on. + +At Jones' shop, a floor in a reconstructed private house, a man who had +the air of performing a feat, showed her into a room that was summarily, +but not spartanly, furnished. On one side was a bookcase supported by +caryatides. Above, hung a stretch of silk on which was a flight of +dragons. Above the silk was an ivory mask. Fronting the bookcase was the +biggest table that Cassy had ever seen. + +Jones, vacating the table, advanced to greet her. Perched on his +shoulder, was a cat that peered at her. It had long hair, the colour of +smoke; a bushy tail; the eyes of an angel and a ferocious moustache. + +Although Cassy had other matters in hand, she exclaimed at it. "What a +duck!" + +Jones, who saw, and at once, that she had not come to ask the time of +day, exclaimed also: "Yes, but ducky is as ducky does. That cat talks in +her sleep." + +But now Lennox, advancing too, had taken her hand. + +Withdrawing it, she put the bundle on the table, on which were papers, +and, noticeably, a dagger, brilliant, wicked, thin as a shadow. On the +blade was a promise--Penetrabo. + +She looked up. Jones and the cat had gone. She looked at Lennox. "I +don't know where to begin." + +Lennox could not tell her. On learning that she wanted to see him, he +had supposed it was about her father and he had said as much to Jones. +But in greeting her, the novelist knew from her vibrations that whatever +her object might be, at least it was not ordinary. Then, taking the cat, +he had gone. + +Now, though, Cassy was at it. "The day you loaned me a hundred, you +remember? As I went out I had the money in my hand. In the hall was Miss +Austen. You had just shown me her picture. I recognised her at once. +With her was a woman, thin-faced, thin-lipped, thin-minded. She saw me, +saw the money, gave me a look. I did not forget it. But it is only +to-day that I learned what it meant. It meant that I am no better than I +ought to be--or you either." + +Lennox had one hand on the table. He raised the other. "Who told you +this?" + +"Paliser. He said it was the reason your engagement was broken." + +In the palm of the upraised hand, the fingers moved forward and back, +regularly, methodically, mechanically. Lennox was unaware of it. He was +unaware of anything except the monstrous perversity of the tale. + +"I came directly from him to your rooms. Your man said you were going +away. Thank goodness, I am not too late." + +Cassy had seated herself, but now, reaching for the bundle, she stood +up. Across the street, in the house opposite, a boy was lowering a +shade. It seemed to Cassy that she had raised one. But there are +explanations that explain nothing. To Lennox there was a shade suspended +before Margaret, who had judged him unheard. It obscured her. He could +not see her at all. + +Over the way, the boy lowered a second shade and Cassy, as though +prompted by it, raised another. "Paliser said you admitted it." + +From the obscurity Lennox turned, but it was still about him. "Admitted +what?" + +Cassy reddened. "What I told you." + +With the movement of the head that a bull has when he is going for you, +Lennox bent his own. The movement, which was involuntary, was momentary. +The shade had lifted. He saw Margaret, but behind her he saw others +holding her back, telling her he was not fit to be spoken to. He was +going for them. Meanwhile he had forgotten Cassy. He looked up, saw her, +remembered the part attributed to her in the story and struck the table. + +"It is damnable that such a thing should be said of you." + +"Oh," Cassy put in. "It was not at all on my account that I told you. +I----" She stopped short. The promised horsewhipping occurred to her. + +Lennox took up the knife, gave it a turn, shoved it away. It was very +much as though he had twisted it in somebody's gizzards. The idea had +come to him that Paliser had concocted the admission. But, as he was +unable to conceive what his object could be, he dismissed it. None the +less, for what the man had said, he deserved to be booted down the club +steps. + +Cassy had stopped short. The story behind the story did not concern +Lennox, yet as he might wonder how Paliser had ventured with her on such +a subject, she began at it again. + +"We were married recently, or anyway I thought so. To-day I discovered +that the ceremony was bogus. Then I told him a thing or two and he told +me that." + +Lennox stared. Angry already, angry ever since the rupture, angry with +that intensity of anger which only those who love--or who think they +do--and who are thwarted in it ever know, and all the angrier because he +had no one and could have no one to vent it on, until he got to the +front and got at the Huns, at that last fillip from Cassy he saw some +one on whom he could vent it, and yet to whom none the less he felt +strangely grateful. For, whatever Paliser had done or omitted, at any +rate, he had completely clarified the situation. + +"I must run," said Cassy. "But you can tell Miss Austen, can't you?" + +Lennox, controlling himself, motioned. "Would you mind repeating this to +Jones?" + +Cassy's eyebrows arched themselves. "It was hard enough to tell you. +Were it not for your engagement, I wouldn't have said anything. When +dreadful things happen to a girl, people always think that she must be +dreadful herself. Isn't that nice of them? I----" + +"See here," Lennox interrupted, "you can't leave it like this. Something +has got to be done. I can give Paliser a hiding and I will. But that +isn't enough. I don't know whether a criminal action will lie, but I do +know that you can get damages and heavy ones." + +Cassy's lovely eyes searched the room. "Who was that speaking? It wasn't +you, was it?" + +Lennox, recognising the rebuke, acknowledged it. "Forgive me. I forgot +whom I was addressing. Jones will be less stupid. Let us have him in." + +But when Jones, immediately requisitioned, appeared, Cassy again putting +down her bundle, protested. "Mr. Lennox regards me as an Ariadne and +expects me to act like a young lady in a department-store. Either rôle +is too up-stage." + +Jones, taken with her mobile mouth, her lovely eyes, the oval of her +handsome face, said lightly: "It seems to me that you might assume any +part." + +Lennox struck out. "Paliser hocuspocused her with a fake marriage. +He----" + +"Oh," Cassy gently put in, "I have no one to blame but myself. I ought +to have known better." + +Jones nodded. "Probably you did know. The misadventure is rare of which +we are not warned in advance. We cannot see the future but the future +sees us. It sends us messages which we call premonitions." + +Instantly Cassy was back in the Tamburini's room, where she had seen +both beauty and horror. She had not reached the latter yet and the +sudden vision Lennox dissipated. + +"Stuff and nonsense! Haven't you anything else to say?" + +Amiably Jones turned to him. "I can say that no one is wise on an empty +stomach." He turned to Cassy. "The Splendor is not far. Will you dine +with us, Mrs. Paliser?" + +Violently Lennox repeated it; "Mrs. Paliser! Miss Cara is no more Mrs. +Paliser than you are." + +"To err is highly literary," Jones with great meekness replied. "I hear +that it is even human." + +Cassy reached again for the bundle. "It is only natural. If I had been +told in advance, I could not have believed it. I could not have believed +that mock marriages occur anywhere except in cheap fiction. But we live +and unlearn. Now I must run." + +Lennox took her hand. "I owe you a debt. Count on me." + +He spoke gravely and the gravity of it, the force that he exhaled, +comforted Cassy's bruised little heart and the comfort, the first that +she had had, made her lip twitch. None of that, though! Reacting she +rallied and smiled. + +"Good-bye--and good luck!" + +Jones saw her to the door, followed her out, followed her down to the +street, where for a moment he detained her. + +"Just a word, if you don't mind. You have been abominably treated and +you seek no revenge. That is very fine. You have been abominably treated +and you bear no malice. That is superior. You have been abominably +treated and you accept it with a smile. That is alchemy. It is only a +noble nature that can extract the beautiful from the base. Where do you +live?" + +At the change of key Cassy laughed but she told him. "Good-bye," she +added. "My love to your cat." + +She passed on into the sunset. The bundle seemed heavy now, but her +heart was lighter. She had got it off, Lennox knew, presently a young +woman would be informed and though she could not be expected to dance at +the wedding, yet, after all---- + +The Park took her. + + + + +XXVI + + +When Cassy had gone, Jones went back to his rooms. He went absently, his +mind not on her story, which was old as the Palisades, but on a +situation, entirely new, which it had suggested. + +"Nice girl," he remarked as he re-entered the workshop. "Suppose we go +and have dinner." + +Sombrely Lennox looked up. At the table where he sat, he had been +fingering some papers. He threw them down. + +"I am going to have a word with Paliser." + +Jones cocked an eye at him. "See here, you are not a knight-errant. The +age of chivalry is over." The novelist paused and exclaimed: "What am I +saying! The age of chivalry is not over. It can't be. Last night, +Verelst dined with a monster!" + +Lennox pushed at the papers. "If I were alone concerned, I would thank +Paliser. He has done me a good turn. He has set me straight." + +Then, to the listening novelist, who later found the story very useful, +Lennox repeated Cassy's version of the rhyme and reason of the broken +engagement. + +The tale of it concluded, Lennox flicked at a speck. "I am grateful to +Paliser for that, but for the manner in which he treated her, I shall +have a word with him. Just one." + +Jones sat down. "A word, eh? Well, why not? Flipping a man in the face +with a glove was fashionable in the days of Charles II. Tweaking the +nose was Georgian. The horsewhip went out with Victoria. Posting your +man was always rather coffee-house and a rough-and-tumble very hooligan. +If I were you, which I am not, but if I were, I would adopt +contemporaneous methods. To-day we just sit about and backbite. That is +progress. Let me commend it to you." + +With a wide movement, Lennox swept the papers, shoved them into a pocket +and stood up. + +Jones also stood up. "Got an appetite? Well, dining has the great +disadvantage of taking it away. Come along." + +Lennox put on his hat. "I am going first to Park Avenue." + +No you're not, thought Jones, who, with an agility which for him was +phenomenal, hurried to the door and backed against it. + +Lennox motioned him aside. + +Jones, without budging, lied. "They're out of town." It was very +imbecile. He knew it was, knew, too, that Lennox knew it, and, for the +imbecile lie, he substituted another. "I mean they are dining out." + +"What the devil are you driving at?" Lennox asked, and not very civilly +either. + +"A windmill, I suppose. You look like one. I----" + +Jones broke off. The expression on Lennox' face arrested him. The +attempt at interference, the stupid evasions, the conviction which these +things produced, that there was something behind them, something +secreted, something about Margaret that Jones knew and which he was +concealing, made him livid. + +"Out with it." + +Jones looked at him, looked away, adjusted his neckcloth, vacated the +door, crossed the room and sat down. He did not know to what saint to +vow himself. But realising that it was all very useless, that everything +is, except such solicitude as one pilgrim may show to another, and that, +anyway, Lennox would soon hear it, he gave it to him. + +"She is engaged to Paliser." + +Lennox, who was approaching, stopped short. "Miss Austen is?" + +Jones nodded. + +"To Paliser?" + +But it seemed too rough and, to take the edge off, Jones added. "It may +not be true." + +"How did you hear?" + +"Verelst told me. He dined there last night." + +Lennox turned on his heel. Futilely in that hell to which one may look +back and see that it was not hell but purgatory prior to paradise, +futilely there he had sought the reason of his damnation. A few minutes +before he had thought that Cassy's story revealed it. In the light of it +he had seen himself condemned, as many another has been, for crimes +which he had not committed. But he had seen, too, the order of release. +He had only a word to say. He was going to Park Avenue to say it. + +When Jones was below with Cassy so he had thought and not without +gratitude to Paliser either. If the cad had held his tongue, +enlightenment might have been withheld until to his spirit, freed +perhaps in Flanders, had come the revelation. Personally he was +therefore grateful to Paliser. But vicariously he was bitter. For his +treatment of that girl, punishment should follow. + +That girl! Obscurely, in the laboratory of the senses where, without our +knowledge, often against our will, our impulses are dictated, a process, +intricate and interesting, which Stendhal called crystallisation, was at +work. + +Unaware of that, conscious only of the moment, to his face had come the +look and menace of the wolf. + +Now----! + +"There is a book over there," Jones, who was watching him, cut in. "It +is Seneca's 'De animæ tranquilitate.' Take a peek at it. It will tell +you, what it has told me, that whatever happens, happens because it had +to happen and because it could not happen otherwise. There is no sounder +lesson in mental tranquillity." + +But for all Lennox heard of that he might then have been dead. Without +knowing what he was doing, he sat down. Paliser, Margaret! Margaret, +Paliser! Before him, on encephalic films, their forms and faces moved as +clearly as though both were in the room. He saw them approaching, saw +them embrace. The obsession of jealousy that creates the image, +projected it. He closed his eyes, covered his face with his hands. The +image got behind them. It persisted but less insistently. The figures +were still there. It was their consistence that seemed to fade. Where +they had been were shadows--evil, shallow, malign, perverse, lurid as +torches and yet but shades. For the jealousy that inflames love can also +consume it and, when it does, it leaves ashes that are either sterile +with indifference or potent with hate. At the shadows that were torches +Lennox looked with closed eyes. Obscurely, without his knowledge, in the +laboratory of his senses, crystallisation was at work. + +Jones, leaning forward, touched him. "I say, old chap!" + +Lennox had been far away, on a journey from which some men return, but +never as they went. At Jones' touch he dropped his hands. The innate +sentiment of form repossessed him. He straightened, looked about and, +after the manner of the deeply preoccupied, who answer a question ten +minutes after it is put, said evenly: + +"Suppose we do." + +Do what? But Jones, getting it at once, stood up. "Come along, then." + +On the way to the neighbourly Athenæum, the novelist talked endlessly +about the disadvantages of not being born, which is a very safe subject. +Talking still, he piloted Lennox to the dining-room where, the +advantages of sedatives occurring to him, he ordered a bottle of +Pommard, which is mother's milk. + +But when it was brought Lennox would not touch it. He wanted brandy and +soda and told Johnson, a captain, to see to it. + +In the great high-ceiled room, other members were dining. From one of +the tables Ogston sauntered over and, noting that Jones and Lennox had +not dressed, which he had, and very beautifully, remarked brilliantly: +"You fellers aren't going to the opera, are you? It's the last night." + +It was another safe subject and Jones smiled falsely at him. "But you +are, eh? Sit down." + +Ogston put a hand on the novelist's chair. "No. I'm off to a +theatre-party. But I have a ticket for the Metropolitan. You don't +either of you want it, do you?" + +"Let me see, what is it, to-night?" Jones, with that same false smile, +enquired. "And where is the seat?" + +"In Paliser's box. He's to be alone and left it here with a note asking +me to join him." + +Deeply, beneath his breath, Jones swore, but with the same smile, he +tried to shift the subject. "You're quite a belle, aren't you?" + +"See here, Ogston," Lennox put in, "let me have it." + +Ogston, fumbling in his white waistcoat, extracted the ticket and handed +it over. + +"By the way, Lennox, do you mind my doing a little touting for +Cantillon? He's with Dunwoodie. Give him your law business--some of it, +anyhow." + +"I'll give him some, when I have it," answered Lennox, who was to have +some, and sooner and far more monumentally, than either he, or even +Jones, suspected. + +"Good for you, Lennox. Good-night, Jones." The brilliant and beautifully +dressed young man nodded and passed on. + +But now the captain was bearing down on them. + +Jones looked at Lennox. "You will have to come back to my shop after +dinner. There is a phrase in your will that I omitted. I forgot the +'seized and possessed.'" + +Lennox drank before he spoke. Then he said: "After dinner, I shall do +for Paliser." + +Jones, waiting until the captain had gone, looked at Lennox again. "The +greatest revenge is the disdain of any." + +Lennox made no reply. A waiter put a plate before him and another before +Jones. Members passed, going to their tables or leaving them. +Occasionally one of them stopped, exchanged the time of day and then +passed on. In each exchange Jones collaborated. Lennox said nothing. The +food before him he tormented, poking at it with a fork, but not eating +it. + +Presently he asked for coffee, drank a cup and got up. + +Jones, too, got up and, to stay him, put out a hand. + +Lennox, treating it, and him, like a cobweb, went on. + +Afterward, Jones thought of the Wild Women of whom Æschylus tells, the +terrible Daughters of Hazard that lurk in the shadows of coming events +which, it may be, they have marshalled. + +Afterward he thought of them. But at the moment, believing that Lennox +would do nothing and realising that, in any case, nothing can be more +futile than an attempt to avert the inevitable, he was about to resume +his seat, when something on the floor attracted him. He bent over, took +it, looked at it and tucked it in a pocket. + +Then, sitting down again, mentally he followed Lennox, whom later he was +to follow farther, whom he was to follow deep in the depths where the +Wild Women, lurking in wait, had thrown him. + + + + +XXVII + + +The Park that had taken Cassy and from which, at that hour, children and +nursemaids had gone, was green, fragrant, quiet. Its odorous peace +enveloped the girl who had wanted to cry. In hurrying on she had choked +it back. But you cannot always have your way with yourself. The tears +would come and she sat down on a bench, from behind which a squirrel +darted. + +Before her the grass departed, the trees disappeared, the path wound +into nothingness. In their place was the empty vastness that sorrow is. +The masquerade that had affected her physically, had affected her +psychically and in each instance profoundly. It had first sickened and +then stabbed. There had been no place for sorrow in the double assault. +There had been no time for it either. Occupied as she had almost at once +become with the misadventures of another, she had no opportunity to +consider her own. Yet now the aspect that sorrow took was not that of +disaster. What it showed was the loneliness of the soul, solitary as it +ever is in that desert which, sooner or later, we all must cross. Vast, +arid, empty, before her it stretched. + +Nearby, on the bench, crouching there, eager, anxious, wary, a squirrel, +its fluffy tail and tiny nostrils aquiver, watched her with eyes of +bead. From the desert she turned and seeing the little gracious thing, +stretched her hand. She would have liked to take it and pet it. It would +have made her solitude less acute. At the movement, a ball of misty fur +bounded. Where it had been, there was air. + +The abrupt evaporation distracted her. Before her the desert lay, but in +it now was her father. She had been going to him. Previously, she had +thought that, when she did go, her hands would be filled with gifts. +Instead they were bruised, bare to the bone. They would madden him and +she wondered whether she could endure it. The long, green afternoon, +that had been so brief, had been so torturesome that she doubted her +ability. But he would have to be told. She could not lie to him and +humanly she wished that it were to-morrow, the day after, the day after +that, when it would be over and done for, put away, covered by woes of +his own, though inevitably to be dragged out again and shown her, and +shown her, too, with the unconscious cruelty that those who love you +display. + +It would be crucifying, but there was no help for it. Reaching for the +bundle, she stood up and went her way, across the Park, to the subway, +from which she got out in Harlem. + +The loveliness of that land of love seemed to have changed, though the +change, she then recognised, was in herself. But at least the walk-up +was unaltered. In the grimy entrance was Mrs. Yallum, a fat Finn, who +looked like a dirty horse, and who yapped at her volubly, +incomprehensibly, but with such affection that Cassy, yapping back, felt +less lonely as she ascended the stair. + +The comfort was mediocre. In the afternoon she had gone from a ruin. Now +she had the sensation of entering another, one from which she had also +gone, but to which she was returning and with a spirit so dulled in the +journey! Had she, she wondered, any spirit left at all? At least enough +remained to prevent any wish for the reconstruction of the ruin behind +her. About the fallen walls were forms of filth; in the crevices there +were vermin, and though, before her, the desert stretched, it was clean. +However arid, it was wholesome. + +But now she was at the door. She let herself in, hurried to the +living-room, where, with the feigned cheerfulness of the unselfish, she +beamed at her father and bent over him. + +"Here I am to look after you again! How well you look. I am so glad and +oh! where is your sling?" + +In speaking she stroked him. His skin was clearer, she thought, and the +abandoned sling was a relief. + +He looked up at her. "You got married without me. I ought to have been +there. Why didn't you tell me? It was for me to give you away. Who did?" + +"Who did what?" + +"Who gave you in marriage?" + +With the mimic of gaiety, Cassy laughed. "Why, you old dear, all that +has gone out. Hereabouts, nowadays, a father never goes to a +wedding--only to funerals." + +She paused and, with the idea of breaking it to him in bits, resumed: +"Besides, it was all done in a hurry, in too much of a hurry." + +He took it in, but at the wrong end. "Sick of him already, eh? Well, it +isn't because I did not warn you. Where is he?" + +Cassy moved back. Should she give it to him then or later? But the +question, repeating itself, followed her. + +"Where is your husband?" + +Now for it, she thought. But at once he switched. "There was nothing in +the papers. Why is that? What is that package?" + +Cassy looked at the bundle which she still held. It gave her courage. + +"I am not married." + +For a second he stared. It was obvious that he had not got it. "Where +have you been, then?" + +Cassy fingered the bundle. Always she had hated to explain and of all +possible explanations what could be more hateful than this? If only he +would guess it, flare up, stamp about, get it over, let it go. But the +cup was there and she drank it. + +"I thought I was married. I am a fool." + +For the awaited curse, she braced herself. The explosion did not come, +but his eyes had widened. They covered her. Then, with an intake of the +breath and of understanding, he lowered them. Apparently he was weighing +it and Cassy thought he was trying to restrain himself, and she blessed +him for it. It was less terrible than she had feared. But immediately it +occurred to her that instead of trying to restrain himself, he was +seeking the strength wherewith to rend her. And I am so innocent, she +despairfully thought. + +Her eyes were upon him and he looked up into hers. + +"Why did you think you were married?" + +"I told you, because I am a fool. There was a clergyman and a ceremony. +Afterwards I found that the clergyman was not a clergyman and that the +ceremony was a sham." + +"When was that?" + +"This afternoon." + +"What did you do?" + +"What was there for me to do? I left him." + +"Where is he now?" + +Cassy put down the bundle. She had no idea. But she said: "This evening +we were to go to the opera. I hardly fancy he will miss it on my +account." She paused and with a little catch in her voice continued: "I +know it is all my fault, I ought to have known better and I shall be so +unhappy if you mind. Won't you try not to?" + +As she spoke, he stood up and she thought that the delayed volcano of +his wrath was about to burst. To smother it, she touched him. "Of course +you will mind. But I would not have been such a fool if I had not +believed that everything would be so much nicer for you. Can't you see +that and, if you do, can't you forgive me?" + +He had moved from her to the piano; there he turned and looked. "There +is nothing to forgive, Cassy. You have been a good girl always. I am +sorry, of course I am sorry, but you are not to blame." + +Understanding instead of maledictions! Sympathy in lieu of abuse! Such +things are affecting. The tears swam to her eyes and wretchedly and yet +thankfully she wept. + +He did not seem to notice. In the narrow space he was moving about, +shifting things on the piano, displacing and replacing a score, which, +finally, he let fall. He stooped for it. As he raised it, Cassy saw +through her tears that his hand was shaking. He, too, may have seen it. +He left the room and she heard him pottering in the kitchen. + +She wiped her eyes. Across the court was another kitchen in which were a +woman and a child. Often she had seen them there, but if she had seen +them elsewhere she would not have recognised them. They were but forms, +the perceptions of a perceiver, and though Cassy had never read Fichte +and was unacquainted with Berkeley, the idea visited her that they had +no real existence, that, it might be, she had none either, that all she +had endured was a dream drifting by, with nothing past which to drift. + +It was her father's attitude that had induced these metaphysical +hysterics. She had expected that some demon within him would spring out +and gibber. Instead of which he had told her, and so gently, that she +was not to blame. It is words like these that bring tears swiftest. The +tears had come, but the words had also sufficed to reduce the people +across the way into baseless appearances, in which, for the moment, she +included herself. + +But now at least her father was actual. He was coming in with glasses +and a bottle which he put on the table. + +"You are tired," he said. "Have a little." + +Seating himself, he drank and Cassy feared that if the liquor exerted +the authority that liquor has, he might go back into it and exact from +her details which it would revolt her to supply. In helping himself, he +had poured a glass for her. She did not want it. What she wanted was bed +and the blanket of long, dreamless sleep. It could not be too long. She +was tired, as he had said, but more so than he knew, tired with the +immense fatigue that emotions and their crises create. + +She moved over to where he sat. Several minutes had gone since he spoke +yet it seemed to her but the moment before. + +"Yes, I am tired, but you're a good daddy and I love you." + +She bent over him, went to the kitchen, got a glass of milk and a +biscuit, which she carried to her room, where she opened the window and +closed the door. + +Long later, when she awoke, it was with the consciousness of something +there, something waiting, something evil, something that had jeered and +pummelled her in her sleep. But what? Then, instantly, she knew. A +palace of falsehoods had tumbled about her and the lies had laughed and +bruised her as they fell. They had been laughing and falling the whole +night through. + +The light distracted her. In the morning, because of the building +opposite, her room was dark. Now it was bright. The sun had scaled the +roof. A gleam looked in and told her it was noon. + +How could I have slept so long? she wondered. She put some things on and +opening the door smelled coffee. The poor dear! she thought, he had to +make it himself. + +She went on into the living-room. There her father sat. On the table +before him was a paper. + +Without speaking he pointed at a headline. The letters squirmed. They +leaped and sprang at her. From before them she backed. But what +nonsense! It was impossible. She could not believe it. Yet there it was! +Abruptly there also was something else. An electric chair, the man of +all men in it! + +From before the horror of that she reeled, steadied herself, looked at +her father, looked without seeing him. + +"God of gods! And I did it!" + + + + +XXVIII + + +In high red boots, wide purple breeches and a yellow mandarin jacket, +Jones entered the workshop. + +His appearance did not alarm him. He was invisible. Lloyd George and +Clémenceau might have called. Mr. Ten Eyck Jones was not at home, sir. +If necessary he was dead. Always, while he dressed, his servant put, +unseen, a tray on the workshop table and, still unseen, disappeared. +With the tray was the morning paper and the usual letters, which Jones +never read. Morning in the workshop meant work. No interruptions +permitted. On one occasion the house got on fire. His servant did not +venture to tell him, though the firemen did. Apart from such outrages, +necessarily infrequent, the only intrusion was the morning paper and the +cat that talked in her sleep. The cat had many privileges, the paper had +few. Sometimes it was briefly considered, more often it was not even +looked at, but its great privilege consisted in being stacked. + +On this morning Jones did look, but quite involuntarily, and only +because a headline caught his eye. It was the same headline from before +which Cassy backed. The leaping words shouted at the girl. They shouted +at the novelist, a circumstance which did not prevent him from +breakfasting. + +The fruit, the crescents, the coffee he consumed, not as was customary, +with his thoughts on his own copy, but on that which the paper supplied. +It was very colourful. At the opera, the night before, Monty Paliser had +been killed. + +In New York, many men are killed, but not so many are murdered and of +those that are murdered, few are millionaires and fewer still have a box +at the Metropolitan, where, apart from stage business, no one up to then +had been done for. The case was therefore unique and, save for the +assassination of Abraham Lincoln, without a parallel. In the +circumstances, the leaded line of leaping words was justified. + +According to the story that followed and which, Jones realised, must +have reached the city editor just as the paper was going to press, an +attendant, whose duty it was to visit the boxes after the performance +and see what, if anything, the occupants had forgotten, had, on entering +Paliser's box, found him at the back of it, unconscious, on the floor. +There were no external marks of violence, but a commandeered physician +pronounced him dead and, on examination, further pronounced that death +was due to internal hemorrhage, superinduced by heart-puncture, which +itself had been caused by some instrument, presumably a stiletto. + +A picturesque detail followed. The box at the right was owned by the +Leroy Thompsons. The box at the left was the Harriwells'. At the late +hour, an attempt to communicate with the former had failed, but over the +wire, Mr. Legrand Harriwell stated that the deceased had come in during +the third act, that he had spoken to Mrs. Harriwell, after which he had +moved back and had either gone, or remained in the rear of the box. Mr. +Harriwell knew nothing else, he had been unaware of anything occurring, +he was not in the habit of spying about and he wished it distinctly +understood that he must not be mixed up in the matter, or Mrs. Harriwell +either. + +The dear thing! thought Jones, who saw him, a tall, thin-lipped beast of +a brute, with a haw-haw manner and an arrogant air. God bless him! + +But, Jones resumed to himself, voyons! The opera was Aïda. Paliser came +in during the third act. The house then is brilliant. But during the +fourth--the duo in the crypt--it is dark. It was then that he was done +for and with what is assumed to have been a stiletto. + +To cut out the account, Jones turned in search of a dagger, long, thin, +wicked, which, one adventurous night in Naples, he had found--just in +time--in his back. On the blade was inscribed a promise, Penetrabo. Now +his eyes roamed the table. He lifted the tray, lifted his copy, looked +on the floor. Yet only the evening before, when Lennox was there and +Cassy Cara had come, he had seen it. Since then it had gone. + +The disappearance did not disturb him. Occasionally, in hunting for an +object, he found it in his hand. It is somewhere, he cogently reflected +and, taking a pencil, set to work. + +But the muse was timorous as a chicken. The metaphor is entirely +metaphorical. Jones had no faith in the wanton. He believed in regular +hours, in silence and no interruptions. No intrusions of any kind. A +letter was an intrusion, so also was the news of the day. These things +he considered, when he did consider them, after his work was done. +Sometimes he ignored them entirely. Usually he had a bushel of letters +that he had not opened, a bale of papers at which he had not looked. Of +such is the life known as literary or, at any rate, such was the life +led by Jones. + +On this morning, his copy, ordinarily fluent enough, would not come. +Ideas fluttered away just out of reach. The sequence of a chapter had +been in his head. Like the dagger, it had gone. He could not account for +that disappearance, nor did he try. It would turn up again. So, +ultimately, would the ousted sequence. For the latter's departure he did +not try to account either. The effort was needless. He knew. An +interruption had occurred. The news of the day had intruded itself upon +him. A headline had entangled his thoughts. + +Abandoning the pencil, he lit a cigarette. Across the room, above the +bookcase, was a stretch of silk, a flight of dragons that he had got in +Rangoon. Above the silk was an ivory mask, the spoil of a sarcophagus, +which he had found in Seville. He looked at them. The dragons fled on, +the mask fell asleep. Something else took their place. + +On the wall was the scene at the opera. + +In the golden gloom of the darkened house, it showed Paliser, sitting +back in his box, presumably enjoying the _Terra addio_, for which Caruso +had, as usual, been saving himself. Without, in the corridor, a figure +furtively peering at the names on the doors. Then the voice of the +soprano blending with that of the tenor and, during the divine duo, the +door of the box opening, letting in a thread of light; Paliser turning +to look and beholding that figure and a hand which, instantly +descending, deepened the gloom forever. + +It was certainly _Terra addio_, Jones reflected. Certainly, too, the +scene is easy enough to reconstruct But whose was the hand? + +Flicking his ashes, he looked about and saw two hands, between which, he +also saw, he was entirely free to pick and choose. One hand, slight and +fragile, was Cassy Cara's. The other, firm and virile, was Lennox'. + +Lennox had threatened. He had been acidly murderous. He had a motive. He +had the opportunity. He knew where Paliser would be. He had been +supplied with a seat in that box. The hand was his. It was a clear case. +That was obvious, particularly to Jones, who regarded the obvious as +very misleading. + +Given the chance, he reflected, and Lennox might have done for Paliser, +but he would have done for him with bare fists, never with a knife. It +was not Lennox to use one. It was not Lennox at all. + +Jones threw him out and pulled in Cassy Cara. + +The case against her was equally clear. Presumably she owned the +stiletto which a hat pin is. In addition, she also had a motive. If ever +a girl had cause to up and do it, she had. Then, too, the risk was +negligible. Any jury would acquit and tumble over each other to shake +hands with her. For equity has justice that the law does not know. +Moreover there are crimes that jurists have not codified. Some are too +inhuman, others too human. Cassy's righting of her own wrongs belonged +among the latter. Cassy's, that is, provided she had done it. But had +she? Logically, yes. If the police could look behind the scenes, +logically they would say to her, "Thou art the man." + +But, Jones resumed, logic when pushed far enough becomes incoherence. +The psychologist prefers vision and it would display none to believe +that she did it. In the abstract, that is to be regretted. A lovely +assassin! A beautiful girl slaying a recreant lover! A future prima +donna killing a local millionaire! Monty Paliser murdered by the +Viscountess of Casa-Evora! And at the opera! If I had ever put anything +of the kind in my copy, reviewers would have indolently asked: "Why +doesn't this imbecile study life?" + +Jones laughed. The enjoyment of one's own ideas--or of the absence of +them--is a literary trait. When Dumas wrote, he roared. + +Here it is, then, Jones continued. If the police knew certain things +they would nab Lennox. If they knew others, they would nab Cassy Cara. +If they knew more, they would nab me. I should be held as a witness. +This is cheerful, particularly as my sole complicity in the matter has +been due to a desire to be of use. But that is just it. Through the +enigmatic laws of life, any kindness is repaid in pain. + +Pleasurably, for a moment, he considered the altruism of that aphorism. +Then he got back at the murder which, he decided, must have been +premeditated by some one who knew where Paliser would be. That +conclusion reached, he groped for another. Lennox knew, but did Cassy +know, and, if she did, had she utilised the knowledge? + +To decide the point he reviewed the visit of the previous evening. + +Ostensibly Cassy's visit had been occasioned not by any wish to relate +what had happened to her, but to acquaint Lennox with the cause of what +had happened to him. In view of what had befallen her, the proceeding +was certainly considerate. In the misadventures of life, the individual +is usually so obsessed by his own troubles that they blind him to those +of another. But ostensibly Cassy had sunk her troubles and had pulled +them up, not to exhibit them, but to show Lennox the lay of the land as +it affected not her at all but him. The proceeding was certainly +considerate--unless it were astute, unless her object had been to employ +Lennox for the wreaking of her own revenge. + +That was possible, but was it probable? + +An ordinary young woman would have gone at it differently, gone at it +hammer and tongs. Cassy's methods were merely finer. That was the common +sense view. But was it psychology? The common sense view that is +applicable to the average individual is inapplicable to a problematic +nature and, consequently, not to Cassy, who must therefore have had +another incentive for her visit, an incentive stronger than the +primitive instinct for revenge. + +But, Jones asked himself, what are the fundamental principles of human +activity? They are self-preservation and the perpetuation of the +species. Every idea that has existed, or does exist, in the mind of man +is the result of the permutations and combinations of those two +principles, of which the second is the stronger and its basis is sex. +That is what actuated Cassy. She is, or was, in love with Lennox, and +told him for no other reason. + +That is it, Jones decided. But the course of her true love could not +have run very smooth and, knowing that Lennox was otherwise interested, +she took up with Paliser out of pique. + +Pique! he repeated. But no, that is not Cassy Cara either. She---- + +Like a thread snapped suddenly, the novelist's meditations ceased. On +the wall before him the dragons alighted, the mask awoke. Between them a +canvas was emerging. Dim, shadowy, uncertain, it hesitated, wavered, +advanced. + +Then, as it hung unsupported in the air--far too unsupported, he +presently thought--he looked it over. + +To apparitions he was accustomed. They were part of his equipment. +Unsummoned, without incantations they came, sent, one might think, by +the muse whom he derided, but more naturally and very simply produced by +the machinery in his brain. + +Now, as he examined the canvas, its imprecision diminished, the shadows +passed, the obscurity lifted, the penumbra brightened, outlines defined +themselves, the colouring appeared, a colouring, after the manner of +Rembrandt, composed of darkness in which there is light and which, as +such, reveals. + +Jones stood up, turned around and sat down again as gamblers, disquieted +by their luck, will do. + +Before him still the picture floated. He disavowed it, disowned it. Yet +there it was, the child of his fancy, the first-born of the morning, the +fruit of his concentrated thought, and as, surprisedly, he considered +it, it took on such semblances of legitimacy, that the disavowals +ceased. Then, slowly disintegrating, its consistence lessened. It was +departing, vaporously as it had come. Jones waved at it, omitting out of +sheer abstraction to say Au revoir, yet omitting also, and through equal +modesty, to say Eureka! + +He pressed a button. Instantly, as though sprung from a trap, his +servant appeared. + +"Get Mr. Lennox on the telephone." + +The minutes lengthened. Finally the servant reappeared. + +"Mr. Lennox is not at home, sir. His man says he's gone to Centre +Street. He's been arrested. Mr. Lennox has been arrested. Yes, sir." + +Pausing, the servant cocked an ear and added: "They're calling extras, +sir. Would you wish one?" + +Circuitously, through the open door, the cat, her tail in the air, +approached and wowed. + +Jones leaned over and tickled her in the stomach. The cat hopped up on +him. He put a finger to his forehead, held it there, removed it and +looked at the man. + +"In war-time, with the price of everything going up, it is a criminal +waste of money to buy an extra--particularly when you know what isn't in +it." + +"Yes, sir." + +Jones motioned. "Look through the old newspapers. Among the March issues +there is one that has an article entitled 'The Matter of Ziegler.' Let +me have it." + +The cat, now on his shoulder, purred profusely in his ear. Raising a +hand, he tickled her again. + +"Mimi-Meow, this Matter of Ziegler may interest us very much and after +we have looked it over, I will attend to our friend von Lennox, who +seems to have become a Hun." + + + + +XXIX + + +Already over the picked-up codfish, flapjacks, Hamburg steaks and +cognate enticements on which the Bronx and Harlem breakfasts, the news +of it had buttered the toast, flavoured the coffee, added a sweetness to +this April day and provided a cocktail to people who did not know +Paliser from the Pierrot in the moon. That he was spectacularly wealthy +was a tid-bit, that he had been killed at the Metropolitan was a +delight, the war news was nothing to the fact that the party with the +stiletto had escaped "unbeknownst." These people were unacquainted with +Paliser. But here was a young man with an opera-box of his own, and +think of that! Here was the mythological monster that the Knickerbocker +has become. Here was the heir to unearned and untold increments. These +attributes made him as delectable to the majority who did not know him, +as he had become to the privileged few who did. + +Elsewhere, and particularly in and about fashion's final citadel which +the Plaza is, solemn imbeciles viewed the matter vehemently. "Young +Paliser! Why, there is no better blood in town! By Jove, I believe we +are related!" + +Or else: "That's M. P.'s son, isn't it? Yes, here it is. I never met the +old cock but I heard of him long before we came East. A damned outrage, +that's what I call it." + +Or again: "Dear me, what is the world coming to? What a blessing it is +we were not there. They might have come and murdered us all!" + +Adjacently, in clubland, old men with one foot in the grave and the +other on Broadway, exchanged reminiscences of the nights when social New +York was a small and early family party and M. P. led the ball, and at a +pace so klinking that he danced beyond the favours of the cotillon--the +german as it, the cotillon, was then lovingly called--into assemblies, +certainly less select, but certainly, too, more gay, and had horrified +scrumptious sedateness with the uproar of his orgies. + +The indicated obituaries followed. "Well, at any rate, they didn't +murder him for it." "The son now, a chip of the old block, eh?" "Nothing +of the kind, a quiet young prig." "The papers say----" "Damn the papers, +they never know anything." "You mean they don't print what they do +know." "I mean they don't give us the woman. For it was a woman. I'll +eat my hat it was a woman." "Let's have lunch instead." + +Generally, for the moment, that was the verdict, one in which the police +had already collaborated. But what woman? And, assuming the woman, +whence had she come? Where had she gone?--problems, momentarily +insoluble but which investigations, then in progress, would probably +decide. + +At the great white house on upper Fifth Avenue, the servants knew only +that they knew nothing. Nothing at all. Already coached, they were sure +and unshakable in their knowledge of that. A Mr. Harvey--from +Headquarters--could not budge them an inch. Not one! + +The night before, at the first intelligence of it, M. P. came nearer to +giving up the ghost than is commonly advisable. Suffocation seized him. +An incubus within was pushing his life-springs out. So can emotion and +an impaired digestion affect a father. The emotion was not caused by +grief. It was fear. For weeks, for months, during the tedium and terror +of the trial, his name, Paliser, would top the page! It had topped it +before, very often, but that was years ago. Then he had not cared. Then +the wine of youth still bubbled. No, he had not cared. But that was long +ago. Since then the wine of youth had gone, spilled in those orgies +which he had survived, yet, in the survival, abandoned more and more to +solitude and making him seek, what the solitary ever do seek, +inconspicuousness. For years he had courted obscurity as imbeciles court +fame. And now! + +If only the boy had had the decency to die of pneumonia! + +It was then the incubus gripped him. For a second he saw the visage, +infinitely consoling, that Death can display and possibly, but for an +immediate drug, there too would have echoed the _Terra addio_! + +He was then in white velvet. A preparation of menthe, dripping from a +phial, spotted it green. He did not notice. At the moment the spasm had +him. Then as that clicked and passed, he looked in the expressionless +face of the butler who had told him. + +The spasm had shaken him into a chair. + +The room, an oblong, was furnished after a fashion of long ago. The +daised bed was ascended by low, wide steps. Beyond stood a table of +lapis-lazuli. A mantel of the same material was surmounted by a mirror +framed in jasper. Beneath the mirror, a fire burned dimly. The lights +too were dim. They were diffused by tall wax candles that stood shaded +in high gold sticks. On the table there were three of them. + +The chair was near this table, at which M. P. had been occupied very +laboriously, in doing nothing, a task that he performed in preparation +for the bed, which was always ready for him, and for sleep, which seldom +was. There he had been told. It had shaken him to his feet, shaken +apoplexy at him and shaken him back in the chair. + +Now, as he looked at the servant's wooden mask, for a moment he relived +an age, not a pleasant one either and of which this blow, had he known +it, was perhaps the karma. He did not know it. He knew nothing of karma. +None the less, with that curious intuition which the great crises +induce, he too divined the woman and wished to God that he had kept his +hands off, wished that he had not interfered and told Monty to put her +in a flat and be damned to her! It was she, he could have sworn it. At +once, precisely as he wished he had let her alone, he hoped and quite as +fervently that she had covered her tracks, that there would be no trial, +nothing but inept conjectures and that forgetfulness in which all +things, good and bad, lose their way. + +The futility of wishing passed. The time for action had come. He +motioned. "Is Benny here?" + +"He left this noon, sir." + +"Did he say anything?" + +The butler did not know whether to lie or not, but seeing no personal +advantage in either course, he hedged. "Very little, sir." + +That little, the old man weighed. A little is often enough. It may be +too much. + +"He spoke about a girl, eh?" + +"He said a lady was stopping there. Yes, sir." + +"What else?" + +The butler shuffled. "He said she was very pretty, sir." + +"Go on, Canlon." + +"Well, sir, it seems there was a joke about it. The young lady thought +she was married." + +"How was that?" + +"I'm not supposed to know, sir. But from what was let on, Benny was +rigged out as a dominie and it made 'em laugh." + +The old man ran his head out like a turtle. "Damnation, what has that to +do with it?" + +"Why, sir, he pretended to marry her." + +"Benny did?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"He pretended that she was his wife." + +"No, sir, he pretended to marry her to Mr. Monty." + +"Good God!" the old man muttered and sank back. The blackness was +blacker than any black he had entered. In days gone by, he had agreeably +shocked New York with the splendid uproar of his orgies. He had left +undone those things which he ought to have done and done those things +which he should have avoided. He had been whatever you like--or +dislike--but never had he been dishonest. Little that would avail him +now. If this turpitude were published, it would be said that he had +fathered it. At the prospect, he felt the incubus returning. In a moment +it would have him and, spillingly, he drank the green drug. + +The agony receded, but the nightmare confronted him. He grappled with +it. + +"The coat I had on at dinner. There is a card-case in the pocket. Give +it to me." + +Probably it was all very useless. Probably no matter what he contrived, +the police would ferret her out. There was just one chance though which, +properly taken, might save the situation. + +The card-case, pale damask, lined with pale silk, the man brought him. +He put it on the table. + +"Canlon!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Benny said nothing." + +"Very good, sir." + +"I have a few hundred for you here, between eight and nine, I think." + +"Thank you, sir." + +"To-morrow there will be more." + +"I am sure I am very grateful, sir." + +"Don't interrupt me. Recently my son returned from Cuba. Occasionally he +went visiting. Where he went, he did not tell you. That is all you know. +You know nothing else. You heard nothing. Nobody here heard anything. +Nobody, in this house, knows anything at all. You understand?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Then see to it. The police will come. You must be at the door. You know +now what to say. They will want a word with me. I am too prostrated to +see anybody." + +"Thank you, sir." + +"Telephone to the Place. Get Benny. Repeat my orders. Say I will do as +well by him as I shall by you." + +"Thank you, sir." + +"Take the money. You may have the case also." + +"I thank you, sir." + +"Tell Peters to fetch me some brandy. The 1810. That will do." + +Presently, when the police did come and, several hours later, in the +person of Mr. Harvey, came again, they came upon the barriers, invisible +and unscalable, which ignorance, properly paid, can erect. With an empty +bag, Mr. Harvey made off; not far, however, a few squares below to the +Athenæum Club. + +There, the hall-porter succeeded in being magnificent The strange and +early visitor he rebuked. It was not customary for members to be +murdered! + +A badge, carelessly disclosed, disconcerted him. For a second only. +However unusual a member might be, no information could be supplied +concerning him. There was another rule, equally strict. Strangers were +not admitted. Though, whether the rule applied to a bull, he was +uncertain. Momentarily, the hall-porter, previously magnificent, became +an unhappy man. Misery is fertile. A compromise surprised him. + +He crooked a thumb. "Here! Go 'round by the back way and ask for Mr. +Johnson--he's one of the captains." + +From the steps, in the slanting rays of the morning sun, he saw him off. +But the gaiety of the eager rays that charged the air with little gold +motes, did not cheer him. The lustre of his office was tarnished. A +member had been murdered! It was most unusual. + +Meanwhile, down the area steps, a hostile and hasty youth in +shirt-sleeves and a slashed waistcoat barred the way. The barring was +brief. The badge and a smile demolished it. Within, beneath a low +ceiling, at a long table, other youths, equally slashed but less +hostile, were at breakfast. + +Affably, the intruder raised a hand. "Gentlemen, don't let me disturb +you. I'm just having a look-in on Mr. Johnson." + +Mr. Johnson did not breakfast with slashed young men; it would have been +subversive to discipline, and it was negligently, through a lateral +entrance, that presently he appeared. In evening clothes on this early +morning, he surveyed his visitor, a big fellow with a slight moustache, +an easy way and a missing front tooth, who went straight at it. + +"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Johnson. My name's Harvey. It's about young +Paliser. There may be something in it for you. I'm from Headquarters." + +The captain coughed. "It's awful. I can't tell you anything though. He +wasn't here often. Doubt if I've seen him in a week." He looked about. +The slashed youths were edging up. "Come in here." + +In an adjoining room, he took a chair, waved politely at another, +coughed again and resumed. "You say there may be something in it for +me?" + +Mr. Harvey sat down. "Cert. There'll be a reward--a big one." + +The captain turned it over. "It is as much as my place is worth, but +last evening one of the members was talking fierce about him." + +"Yes, so I heard," said Mr. Harvey, who had heard nothing of the kind +and who, not for an instant, had expected to tumble on a fierce-talking +member. "I heard his name too. It's--er----" + +"Lennox," the captain put in. + +"Lennox, yes, that's it, and just to see how my account tallies with +yours, what did he say?" + +"He said he'd do for him. I could have laughed." + +"It was funny, I laughed myself, and about a woman, wasn't it?" + +"I don't know. But he was engaged to be married. I saw it in the +papers." + +"And this young Paliser butted in?" + +"I couldn't say. But he threw up his business and sat around and last +night he was going to do for him." + +"At the opera?" + +"He was talking random-like. He had just had a B. and S. I didn't hear +anything about the opera. He wasn't got up for it. Just a business suit. +But, Lord bless you, he didn't do it. He isn't that kind. Nice, +free-handed feller." + +"No, of course not. I wouldn't believe it, not if you told me so. Let me +see. Where did I hear he lives?" + +"I don't rightly know. Somewhere in the neighbourhood." + +"So I thought and his first name is?" + +"I've forgotten. Hold on! Keith! That's it. Keith Lennox. Are you going +to see him? P'raps he can set you straight." + +"P'raps he can." + +"But don't let on about me, my friend." + +"Not on your life," replied his friend, who added: "Where's your hat?" + +"My hat!" Mr. Johnson surprisedly exclaimed. + +Affably that friend of his nodded. "Ever been to Headquarters? Well, +you're going there now!" + +Then, presently, the captain and his friend ascended a stairway, down +which, a few hours later, hoarse voices came. + +"Extra! Extra!" + + + + +XXX + + +At the Athenæum, that afternoon, members gathered together, buttonholed +each other, talked it over and so importantly that, if you had not known +better, you might have thought the war a minor event. It gave one rather +a clear idea of the parochialism of clubland. But then, to discuss the +affairs of people who never heard of you is, essentially, a social act. + +Meanwhile the shouted extras had told of Lennox' arrest. The evening +papers supplied the evidence. + +In them you read that Lennox had said he would "do" for Paliser, that in +his possession had been found a stiletto, an opera-check, together with +a will, and that, when apprehended, he had been effecting what is called +a getaway. + +There you had the threat, the instrument, the opportunity and what more +could you ask, except the motive? As for the rest, it was damning. On +that point foregathering members agreed--with one exception. + +In a seated group was Jones. His neighbours alarmed him. They belonged, +he thought, to a very dangerous class, to a class which a sociologist +defined as the most dangerous of all--to the stupid. According to them, +Lennox was not merely guilty, he was worse. He had besplattered the club +with the blood of a man who, hang it all, whether you liked him or not, +was also a member. The Athenæum would become a byword. Already, no +doubt, it was known as the Assassin's. Et cetera and so forth. + +The group thinned, increased, thinned again, scattered. + +Jones, alone with a survivor, addressed him. "How is my handsome friend +to-day?" + +Verelst turned impatiently. "In no mood for jesting. I ought to have +hurried him off. Now he is in jail." + +Jones lit a cigarette. "There are honest men everywhere, even in jail, +perhaps particularly in jail. Whom has he, do you know?" + +"To defend him? Dunwoodie. Ogston told me. Ogston says----" + +"I daresay he does. His remarks are always very poignant." + +"But look here. Before the arrest was known, Ogston was in this room +telling everybody that, last night, he gave Lennox a seat in Paliser's +box. He will have to testify to it. He can't help himself." + +"Perhaps I can help him though. I was with Lennox at the time." + +"You were? That's awkward. You may have to corroborate him." + +"I certainly shall. I have the seat." + +"What?" + +"Lennox dropped the ticket. After he had gone, I found it on the floor. +It is in my shop now." + +"Well, well!" Verelst astoundedly exclaimed. "But, here, hold on. The +papers say he had a return check." + +Jones flicked his ashes. "I have one or two myself. Probably you have. +Even otherwise return checks tell no tales, or rather no dates." + +"I never thought of that." + +"Think of it now, then." + +"Yes, but confound it, there is the stiletto." + +"As you say, there it is and I wish it were here. It is mine." + +Verelst adjusted his glasses. "What are you talking about?" + +"The war," Jones answered. "What else? In my shop last evening, Lennox +was drawing his will. In gathering up the sheets, the knife must have +got among them and, without knowing it, he carried it off. This morning +I missed it. The loss affected me profoundly. It is an old friend." + +"You don't tell me." + +"Don't I? I'll go so far as to lay you another basket of pippins that +the police can't produce another like it. On the blade is inscribed +Penetrabo--which is an endearing device." + +"But see here," Verelst excitedly exclaimed. "You must tell Dunwoodie. +You----" In sheer astonishment he broke off. + +Innocently Jones surveyed him. "You think it important as all that?" + +"Important? Important isn't the word." + +With the same air of innocence, Jones nodded. "I thought it wasn't the +word. I should have said trivial." + +"But----" + +Wickedly Jones laughed. "If you feel reckless enough to go another +basket of pippins, I will wager that if I tell Dunwoodie anything--and +mind the 'if'--he will agree that the paper-cutter is of no +consequence--except to its lawful owner, who wants it back." + +"But tell me----" + +"Anything you like. For the moment, though, tell me something." + +"What?" + +Jones blew a ring of smoke. "Do you happen to know whether Paliser had +anything?" + +"What on earth has that to do with it?" + +Jones blew another ring. "I had an idea that his mother might have left +him something. You knew her, didn't you? Any way, you still know M. P. +Did he ever say anything about it?" + +"He did not need to. It was in the papers. He made over to him the +Splendor, the Place, and some Wall Street and lower Broadway property +that has been part of the Paliser estate since the year One." + +"What is it all worth?" Jones asked. "Ten or twenty million?" + +"Thirty, I should say. Perhaps more. But what has it to do with Lennox?" + +Negligently Jones flicked his ashes. "Well, it changes the subject. I +can't talk about the same thing all the time. It is too fatiguing." + +As he spoke, he stood up. + +Verelst put out a hand. "Dunwoodie is sure to look in. Where are you off +to?" + +Jones smiled at him. "I am going to gaze in a window where there are +pippins on view." + +"Go to the devil!" said Verelst, who also got up. + +Fabulists tell strange tales. It is their business to tell them. Jones +had no intention of looking at pippins. What he had in mind was fruit of +another variety. It was some distance away. Before he could make an +appreciable move toward it, Verelst, who had turned from him, turned +back. + +"There!" + +Beyond, through the high-arched entrance, a man was limping. He had the +battered face of an old bulldog and the rumpled clothes of a young +ruffian. + +"There's Dunwoodie!" + +Verelst, a hand on Jones' elbow, propelled him toward the lawyer, who +gratified them with the look, very baleful and equally famous, with +which he was said to reverse the Bench. + +But Verelst, afraid of nothing except damp sheets, stretched a hand. +"You know Ten Eyck Jones. He has something very important to tell you." + +"Yes," said Jones. "In March, on the eighth or ninth, I have forgotten +which, but it must be in the 'Law Journal,' a decision was rendered----" + +He got no farther. Other members, crowding about, were questioning, +surmising, eager for a detail, a prediction, an obiter dictum, for +anything they could take away and repeat concerning the murder, in which +all knew that the great man was to appear. + +But Dunwoodie was making himself heard, and not gently either. It was as +though already he was at the district attorney's throat. + +"Where is the evidence? Where is it? Where is the evidence? There is not +a shred, not a scintilla. On the absence of facts adduced, I shall +maintain what I assert until the last armed Court of Appeals expires. +Hum! Ha!" + +Fiercely he turned on Jones. "What were you saying, sir?" + +Before Jones could reply, Verelst cut in. "The stiletto is his. He has +the opera-ticket. He----" + +"Imbeciles tell each other that great men think alike," Jones, +interrupting, remarked at Dunwoodie. "I merely happened to be +forestalling your views, when a recent decision occurred to me and----" + +Jones' remarks were lost, drowned by others, by questions, exclamations, +the drivel that amazement creates. + +"But, I say----" "Tell me this----" "No evidence!" "The stiletto his!" +"How did Lennox get it?" "Then what about----" + +Dunwoodie, fastening on Jones, roared at him. "You tell me the +instrument is yours?" + +Jones patted his chin. "I did not, but I will." + +"How do you know, sir?" + +"It has a little love message on it." + +"Hum! Ha!" Dunwoodie barked. "Come to my office to-morrow. Come before +ten." + +Dreamily Jones tilted his hat. "I am not up before ten. Where do you +live? In the Roaring Forties?" + +But, in the mounting clamour, the answer, if answer there were, was +submerged. Jones went out to the street, entered a taxi, gave an address +and sailed away, up and across the Park, along the Riverside and into +the longest thoroughfare--caravan routes excepted--on the planet. + +On a corner was a drug-shop, where anything was to be had, even to +umbrellas and, from a sign that hung there, apparently a notary public +also. Opposite was a saloon, the Ladies Entrance horribly hospitable. +Jones' trained eye--the eye of a novelist--gathered these things which +it dropped in that bag which the subconscious is. Meanwhile the car, +scattering children, tooted, turned and stopped before a leprous door. + +In the hall, a girl of twelve, with the face of a seraph, and the voice +of a fiend, was shrieking at a switchboard. Jones fearing, if he +addressed her, that she might curse him, went on and up, higher, still +higher, and began to feel quite birdlike. On the successive landings +were doors and he wondered what tragedies, what comedies, what aims, +lofty, mean or merely diabolic, they concealed. They were all labelled +with names, Hun or Hebrew, usually both. But one name differed. It +caressed. + +There he rang. + +When it opened, a strawberry mouth opened also. "Oh!" Cassy's blue eyes +were red. There was fright in them. "It is horrible! Tell me, do you +think it was he?" + +Jones removed his hat. "I know it was not." + +That mouth opened again, opened for breath, opened with relief. Gasping, +she stared. "Thank God! I was afraid----But are you sure? It was I who +told him--I thought it my fault. It was killing me. Tell me. Are you +really sure?" + +Jones motioned. "His lawyer is. I have just seen him." + +"He is! Thank God then! Thank God! And my father! It has made him ill. +He liked him so! I am going for medicine now. Will you go in and speak +to him?" + +She turned and called. "It is Mr. Jones--a friend of Mr. Lennox." She +turned again. "I will be back in a minute." + +Beyond, in the room with the piano and the painted warrior, the musician +lay on a sofa, bundled in a rug. There was not much space on the sofa, +yet, as Jones entered, he seemed to recede. Then, cavernously, he spoke. + +"Forgive me for not rising. This business has been too much for me. Sit +down." + +Jones put his hat on the table and drew a chair. "I am sorry it has +upset you. It amounts to nothing." + +Perplexedly the musician repeated it. "Nothing?" + +"I was referring to our friend Lennox." + +"You call his arrest nothing?" + +"Well, everything is relative. It may seem unusual to be held without +bail and yet, if we all were, it would be commonplace." + +The musician plucked at the rug. "I suppose everybody thinks he did it?" + +"Everybody, no. I don't think so and I am sure your daughter doesn't." + +"I wish she would hurry." + +"Nor do you." + +"No, I don't think so." + +"I doubt if the police do either." + +"After jailing him!" + +Jones, who had been taking in the room, the piano, the portrait, the +table, sketched a gesture. + +"We are all in jail. The opinion of the world is a prison, our own ideas +are another. We are doubly jailed, and very justly. We are depraved +animals. We think, or think we think, and what we think others have +thought for us and, as a rule, erroneously." + +From a phonograph somewhere, in some adjacent den, there floated a tenor +aria, the _Bella figlia del amore_, pierced suddenly and beautifully by +a contralto's rich voice. + +Jones turned. "That's Caruso. I don't know who the Maddelena is. Do you +remember Campanini?" + +"Yes, I remember him. He was a better actor than Caruso." + +"And so ugly that he was good-looking. Caruso is becoming uneven." + +Vaguely the musician considered the novelist. "You think so?" + +"It rather looked that way last night." + +Angelo Cara plucked again at the rug. + +"But," Jones continued, "in the 'Terra addio' he made up for it. What an +enchantment that duo is!" + +The musician's hand moved from the rug to his face. "You were there +then?" + +I was this morning, thought Jones, but he said: "How sinful Rigoletto is +by comparison to Aïda--by comparison I mean to the last act." + +The other duo now had become a quartette. The voices of Gilda and +Rigoletto were fusing with those of the figlia and the duke. + +The musician appeared to be listening. His sunken eyes were lifted. +Slowly he turned them on Jones. + +"You didn't see anything, did you?" + +"Last night? I did not see Lennox, if that is what you mean, or +Paliser--except for a moment, during the crypt scene." + +Chokingly the musician drew breath. In the effort he gasped. "Then you +know." + +"Yes, I know." + +The rug rose and fell. It was as though there were a wave beneath it. + +With an air of detachment, Jones added: "Paliser turned to see who was +there. A sword-cane told him." + +The musician's lips twitched, his face had contracted, his hand now was +on his breast. "I wish Cassy would hurry. She's gone for amyl." + +"Is it far?" + +"The corner. Are you going to do anything?" + +Jones shook his head. "I don't need to." + +The sunken eyes were upon him. "Why do you say that?" + +"You are an honest man." + +The sunken eyes wavered. "At least I never supposed they would arrest +Lennox. How could I?" + +"No one could have supposed it. Besides, in your own conscience you were +justified, were you not?" + +"You know about that, too?" + +"Yes, I know about that." + +The Rigoletto disc now had been replaced by another, one from which a +voice brayed, a voice nasal, jocular, felonious. + +"That beast ought to be shot," Jones added. + +The musician raised himself a little. "You don't misjudge her, do you?" + +Jones, annoyed at the swill tossed about, had turned from him. He turned +back. "Believe me, Mr. Cara, there is no one for whom I have a higher +respect." + +A spasm seized the musician. For a moment, save for the effort at +breath, he was silent. Then feebly he said: "I wish she would hurry." + +"Can I do anything?" + +"Yes, tell me. Do you condemn me?" + +The novelist hesitated. "There are no human scales for any soul. Though, +to be sure----" + +"What?" + +"It might have been avoided. As it is, they will suspect her." + +"Cassy?" + +"Naturally. They can't hold Lennox on a paper-cutter--that belongs to +me, and a few empty words said in my presence and which, if necessary, I +did not hear. They can't hold him on that. But when they learn, as they +will, the circumstances of your daughter's misadventure, they will +arrest her." + +"Merciful God!" + +The jeopardy to her, a jeopardy previously undiscerned, but which then +shaken at him, instantly took shape, twisted his mouth into the +appalling grimace that mediæval art gave to the damned. + +"And you don't want that," Jones remotely resumed. + +"Want it!" Galvanised by the shock, the musician sat suddenly up. "Last +night, after I got back, I slept like a log. This morning, I felt if I +had not done it, I would still have it to do and that satisfied me. But +afterwards, when I learned about Lennox, it threw me here. Now----My +God!" + +He fell back. + +The poor devil is done for, thought Jones, who, wondering whether he +could get it over in time, leaned forward. + +"Mr. Cara, don't you think you had best make it plain sailing for +everybody, and let me draw up a declaration?" + +The disc now had run out. The grunt of the beast was stilled. From +beyond came the quick click of a key. Almost at once Cassy appeared. + +She hurried to her father. "There were people ahead of me. They took +forever. Has Mr. Jones told you? Mr. Lennox did not do it." + +Breaking a tube in a handkerchief, she was administering the amyl and +Jones wondered whether she could then suspect. But her face was turned +from him, he could not read it, and realising that, in any event, she +must be spared the next act, he cast about for an excuse to get her +away. At once, remembering the notary, he produced him. + +"Your father wants me to draw a paper on which his signature should be +attested. If I am not asking too much, would you mind going back to the +druggist for the notary whose sign I saw there?" + +Cassy turned from her father. "A paper? What paper?" + +Bravely Jones lied. "A will." + +Cassy looked from one to the other. "The poor dear often has these +attacks. He will be better soon--now that he knows. Won't you, daddy?" + +Angelo Cara's eyes had in them an expression infinitely tender, equally +vacant. It was as though, in thinking of her, he was thinking too of +something else. Though, as Jones afterward decided, he probably was not +thinking at all. + +Cassy exclaimed at him. "Besides, what have you--except me?" + +"Everybody has to make a will," Jones, lying again, put in. "There has +been a new law passed. The eternal revenue collector requires it." + +Cassy smoothed the rug, put the handkerchief on the table, opened a +drawer, got out some paper, a pen, a bottle of ink. + +In a moment she had gone. + +Jones seated himself at the table. "Forgive me for asking, but may I +assume that you believe in God, a life hereafter and in the rewards and +punishments which, we are told, await us?" + +The musician closed his eyes. + +"Thank you," said Jones, who began to write: + + I, Angelo Cara, being in full possession of my senses and conscious + of the immanence of death, do solemnly swear to the truth of this + my dying declaration, which, I also solemnly swear, is made by me + without any collusion with Keith Lennox. First; I firmly believe in + God, in a life hereafter, and in future rewards and punishments. + Second; I alone am guilty of the murder of Montagu Paliser, Jr., + whom I killed without aid or accomplices and without the privity or + knowledge of any other person. + +Jones, wishing that in his law-school days he had crammed less and +studied more, looked up. + +"I cannot compliment you on your pen, Mr. Cara. But then, pen and ink +always seem so emphatic. Personally, I prefer a pencil. Writing with a +pencil is like talking in a whisper." + +It was in an effort to deodorise the atmosphere, charged with the +ghastly, that he said it. The declarant did not appear to notice. His +sunken eyes had been closed. Widely they opened. + +"The other side!" + +Jones blotted the declaration. "The other side cannot be very different +from this side. Not that part of it at least which people, such as you +and I, first visit. A bit farther on, I suppose we prepare for our +return here. For that matter, it will be very careless of us, if we +don't. We relive and redie and redie and relive, endlessly, ad +infinitum. The Church does not put it in just that manner, but the +allegory of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting +amounts, perhaps, to the same thing. 'Never the spirit was born, the +spirit shall cease to be never.' That is the way Edwin Arnold expressed +it, after the 'Gita' had expressed it for him. But probably you have not +frequented the 'Gita,' Mr. Cara. It is an exceedingly----" + +"Cassy's lace dress is all torn. It was so pretty." + +He is in the astral now, thought Jones, who said: "She will have a much +prettier one." + +But now again from the hall came that quick click and Cassy appeared, a +little fat man behind her. + +Jones stood up. "How do you do. You know Mr. Cara. Mr. Cara wants his +signature attested." + +The little man exhibited his gold teeth. "With a will that is not the +way. I told this young lady so but she would have it that I come along." + +The young lady, who was taking her hat off, left the room. + +Jones fished in a pocket. "It is very good of you. Here, if you please, +is your fee. The document is not a will, it is a release." + +As the novelist spoke, he put the pen in the musician's hand and, +finding it necessary, or thinking that it was, for, as he afterward +realised, it was not, he guided it. + +"You acknowledge this----" the notary began. But at the moment Cassy +returned and, it may be, distracted by her, he mumbled the rest, took +the reply for granted, applied the stamp, exhibited his teeth. Then, at +once, the hall had him. + +Cassy turned to Jones. Her face disclosed as many emotions as an opal +has colours. Relief, longing, uncertainty, and distress were there, +ringed in beauty. + +"Miss Austen ought to know how she has misjudged him. Do you suppose she +would let me see her?" + +Bully for you! thought Jones, who said: "I cannot imagine any one +refusing you anything." + +In speaking, he heard something. Cassy turned. She too had heard it. But +what? + +With a cry she ran to the sofa. "Daddy!" + +His face was grey, the grey that dawn has, the grey than which there is +nothing greyer and yet in which there is light. That light was there. +His upper-lip was just a little raised. It was as though he had seen +something that pleased him and of which he was about to tell. + +"Daddy!" + +Jones followed her. He drew down the rug and bent over. After a moment, +he drew the rug up, well up, and, with a forefinger, saluted. + +Cassy, tearing the covering back, flung herself there. Jones could not +see her tears. He heard them. Her slim body shook. + + + + +XXXI + + +On leaving the walk-up Jones discovered a restaurant that he judged +convenient and vile. But the convenience appealed, and the villainy of +the place did not extend to the telephone-book, which was the first +thing he ordered. + +While waiting for it, it occurred to him that in a novel the death he +had witnessed would seem very pat. Why is life so artificial? he +wonderingly asked. + +The query suggested another. It concerned not the decedent but his +daughter. + +By the Lord Harry, he told himself, her linen shall not be washed in +public if I can prevent it, and what is the use in being a novelist if +you can't invent? + +But now the book was before him. In it he found that Dunwoodie resided +near Columbia University. It was ages since he had ventured in that +neighbourhood, which, when finally he got there, gave him the agreeable +sensation of being in a city other than New York. + +Hic Labor, Haec Quies, he saw written on the statue of a tall maiden, +and though, in New York, quiet is to be had only in the infrequent +cemeteries, deep down, yet with the rest of the inscription he had been +engaged all day. + +Gravely saluting the maiden, who was but partly false, he passed on to +an apartment-house and to Dunwoodie's door, which was opened by +Dunwoodie himself. In slippers and a tattered gown, he was Hogarthian. + +"I thought it a messenger!" he bitterly exclaimed. + +Jones smiled at him. "When a man of your eminence is not wrong, he is +invariably right. I am a messenger." + +In the voice of an ogre, Dunwoodie took it up. "What is the message, +sir?" + +Jones pointed at the ceiling. Involuntarily, Dunwoodie looked up and +then angrily at the novelist. + +"An order of release," the latter announced. + +Dunwoodie glared. "I suppose, sir, I must let you in, but allow me to +tell you----" + +Urbanely Jones gestured. "Pray do not ask my permission, it is a +privilege to listen to anything you may say." + +Dunwoodie turned. Through a winding hall he led the way to a room in +which a lane went from the threshold to a table. The lane was bordered +with an underbush of newspapers, pamphlets, magazines. Behind the +underbush was a forest of books. Beside the table were an armchair and a +stool. From above, hung a light. Otherwise, save for cobwebs, the room +was bare and very relaxing. + +Dunwoodie taking the chair, indicated the stool. "Now, sir!" + +Jones gave him the declaration. + +With not more than a glance Dunwoodie possessed himself of the contents. +He put it down. + +"If I had not known you had studied law, not for a moment would that +rigamarole lead me to suspect it." + +In a protest which was quite futile, Jones raised a hand. "The notary is +unnecessary, I know that. I know also that a dying declaration is not +the best evidence, but----" + +"Do you at least know that the declarant is dead?" + +Jones, who favoured the dramatic, nodded. "He died in my arms." + +Dunwoodie took it in and took it out. "It is curious how crime leads to +bad taste." + +Jones leaned forward. "I may tell you for your information----" + +"Spare me, I am overburdened with information as it is." + +Jones sat back. He had no intention of taking Dunwoodie then behind the +scenes. That would come later. But he did want to try out an invention +that had occurred to him. He sighed. + +"Don't you care to hear why he did it?" + +"Not in the least." + +"But----" + +Dunwoodie fumbled in a pocket. "The district attorney may be more +receptive. I shall go to him in the morning and I will thank you to go +with me." + +"I am not up in the morning." + +"Then don't go to bed." + +From the pocket, Dunwoodie extracted an enormous handkerchief. It +fascinated Jones. He had never seen one that resembled it. + +"You dispose of me admirably. The district attorney, I suppose, will +enter a nolle prosequi." + +In that handkerchief, Dunwoodie snorted. "You may suppose what you +like." + +Jones laughed. "It is my business to suppose. I suppose, when the murder +was committed, that Lennox was at home. If I am right, he has an alibi +which his servant can confirm." + +Dunwoodie stared. "Whatever your business may be, it is not to teach me +mine." + +Jones drew out a cigarette-case. "Let me sit at your feet then. What +does Lennox say?" + +"How inquisitive you are! But to be rid of you, he----" + +"May I smoke?" Jones interrupted. + +"Good God, sir! You are not preparing to make a night of it?" + +"I have one or two other little matters in hand. But since I may suppose +all I like, I take it that Lennox intended to go to the opera, though I +fancy also that he had no intention of going to Paliser's box. I suppose +that he intended to wait about and go for him hot and heavy when he came +out. I suppose also that, while dressing, he changed his mind. And, by +the way, isn't there such a writ as a mandamus, or a duces tecum? I +would like my paper-cutter returned." + +"Confound your paper-cutter! You don't deserve to have me admit it, but +Lennox' account of it is that before going on to the opera, he stopped +to write a letter to Miss--er--Hum! Ha!" + +"Miss Austen?" + +"And when he got through it was midnight." + +"I'll lay a pippin he didn't send it." + +"What, sir?" + +"Lennox had a lot to say. It was gagging him. He would have suffocated +if he had kept it in. The effect of getting it on black and white was an +emetic. He read it over, judged it inadequate, tore it up. I have done +the same thing. I daresay you have." + +The great man sat back. "His scrap-basket has been visited. The letter +was there." + +"Well, then, I suppose the short and long of it is, you will have him +out to-morrow." + +"As I said, you may suppose all you like." + +"Without indiscretion then, may I suppose that you live here alone?" + +Dunwoodie flourished his handkerchief. It was cotton and big as a towel. + +"I am not as young as you are, sir, and whether erroneously or not, I +believe myself better informed." + +"Ah!" Jones put in. "Your physiognomy corroborates you. I have sometimes +thought that it were difficult for the Seven Sages to be as wise as you +look--which is the reason, perhaps, why I do not quite follow you." + +"I did not imagine that you would. You are a sociable being. Every +imbecile is pitiably sociable. But for a thinking man, a man without +vices and without virtues, what is there except solitude?" + +Appreciatively Jones motioned. "Thank you for descending to my level. As +it happens, I also have a cloister where I have the double advantage of +being by myself and of not being with others. But now that I am in your +hermitage, there is this Matter of Ziegler, concerning which I would +like the benefit of your professional advice." + +"Hum! Ha! Got yourself mixed up with a woman and want me to pull you +out. Well, sir, you will find it expensive. But a hermitage is not an +office. I shall expect you at mine to-morrow. I shall expect you before +ten." + +Dunwoodie stood up. "To-morrow, though, your turpitudes will have to +wait. Have you been served?" + +Jones laughed. "Not yet." + +"Time enough then. You can find the door?" + +Through the lane, bordered by rubbish, and on through the winding hall, +Jones went out. As Dunwoodie had said, there was time enough. There had +been no service--no summons, no complaint. It might be that there would +be none. The matter might adjust itself without any. It might be that +there was no ground for action. Jones could not tell. After the manner +of those who have crammed for a law examination, there had been a moment +when he knew, or thought he knew, it all. But also after the manner of +those who have not taken the post-graduate course which practice is, the +crammed knowledge had gone. Only remnants and misfits remained. It was +on these that he had conjectured the suit which, meanwhile, constituted +a nut to crack. There was time and to spare though. Besides, for the +moment, he had other things to do. + +Then, as he went on to attend to them, he wondered why Dunwoodie, who, +he thought, must make a hundred thousand a year, lived like a ragpicker. + +Before him, the starshell, which imagination projects, burst suddenly. + +He said he had no virtues and probably told the truth, Jones decided. In +which case he cannot be a miser. But he also said he had no vices and +probably lied like a thief. The old scoundrel is a philanthropist. I +would wager an orchard of pippins on that, but there is no one to take +me up--except this policeman. + +"Officer," he resumed aloud. "Behold a stranger in a strange land. By +any miracle, is there a taxi-stand nearby?" + +Then presently Jones was directing a driver. + +"The Tombs!" + + + + +XXXII + + +In a dirty cell Lennox sat on a dirty cot. Through a door, dirty too, +but barred, came a shuffle of feet, the sound of the caged at bay and +that odour, perhaps unique, which prisons share, the smell of dry-rot, +perspiration, disinfectants and poisoned teeth. In addition to the odour +there was light, not much, but some. Nearby was a sink. Altogether it +was a very nice cell, fit for the Kaiser. Lennox took no pleasure in it. +Rage enveloped him. The rage was caused not by the cell but by his +opinion of it. That was only human. + +Events in themselves are empty. It is we who fill them. They become +important or negligible, according to the point of view. We give them +the colours, violent, agreeable, or merely neutral, that they obtain. It +is the point of view that fills and affects them. The point of view can +turn three walls and a door into a madhouse. It can convert them into an +ivory tower. To Lennox they were merely revolting. + +That morning he had laughed. His arrest amused him. He laughed at it, +laughed at the police. They took no offence. Instead they took the +cigars that he offered and a few accessories which they grabbed. It is a +way the police have. Still Lennox laughed. He knew of course that at +Headquarters he would be at once released, the entire incident properly +regretted. When he found himself not only elaborately wrong but in +court, laughter ceased. Anger replaced it. He had been first amused, +then surprised, afterwards exasperated, emotions that finally addled +into rage, not at others but at himself, which was rather decent. In any +of the defeats of life, the simple blame others; the wise blame +themselves; the evolved blame nobody. Lennox had not reached that high +plane then but in directing his anger at himself he showed the +advantages of civilisation which the war has put in such admirable +relief. + +Now, on that cot, in that cell, ragingly he retraced his steps. He saw +himself loving Margaret Austen as though he were to love her forever. A +hero can do no more. He saw her loving him with a love so light that a +breath had blown it away. A nymph in the brake could do no worse. Yet +whether on her part it were perversity or mere shallowness, the result +was the same. It had landed him in jail. For that he acquitted her +completely. What he could not forgive was his own stupidity in +persisting in loving her after she had turned away. + +The night before, while, at the opera, the _Terra Addio_ was being sung, +he had been writing her one of the endless letters that only those +vomiting in an attack of indignation morbus ever produce. In the relief +of getting it in black and white, the nausea abated. Then judging it all +very idle, he tore the letter in two. It was a gesture made before +relapsing into a silence which he had intended should be eternal. At the +very moment when Paliser was being run through the gizzards, he, turning +a page of life, had scrawled on it Hic jacet. + +Now, on that cot, Paliser recurring, he thought of him with so little +animosity that he judged his spectacular death inadequate. But who, he +wondered, had staged it? Not Cassy. Cassy took things with too high a +hand and reasonably perhaps, since she took them from where her +temperament had placed her. Then, without further effort at the riddle, +his thoughts drifted back to that afternoon when, from his rooms, the +sunlight had followed her out like a dog. + +He had been looking at the floor, but without seeing it. Then at once, +without seeing it either, he saw something else, something which for a +long time must have been there, something that had been acting on him +and in him without his knowledge. It was the key to another prison, the +key to the prison that life often is and which, in the great defeats, +every man who is a man finds at his feet and usually without looking for +it either. + +"But I love her!" he suddenly exclaimed. + +There is a magic in those words. No sooner were they uttered than his +mind became a rendezvous of apparitions. He saw Cassy as he had seen her +first, as he had seen her last, as he had seen her through all the +changes and mutations of their acquaintance, saw her eyes lifted to his, +saw her face turned from him. + +The crystallisation which, operating in the myriad cells of the brain, +creates our tastes, our temptations, our desires; creates them unknown +to us, creates them even against our will, and which without his will or +knowledge, had, like a chemical precipitate, been acting on him, then +was complete. + +"I love her!" he repeated. + +The dirty cot, the dirty cell, the dirty floor, a point of view was +transforming. At the moment they ceased to be revolting. Then +immediately another view restored their charm. + +"She won't have me!" + +The dirty cell reshaped itself and he thought of life, a blind fate +treacherous always. + +"Good Lord, how I envy you!" + +Lennox turned. Wriggling through the bars a hand which a keeper checked, +stood Jones. + +"When Cervantes enjoyed the advantages that you possess, the walls +parted and through them cavalcaded the strumpet whose name is Fame. In +circumstances equally inspiring Bunyan entertained that hussy. Verlaine +too. From a dungeon she lifted him to Parnassus, lifted him to the top. +If I only had their luck--and yours! It is too good for you. You don't +appreciate it. Besides you will be out to-morrow." + +"I ought not to be here at all," Lennox indignantly retorted. + +"No, you are most undeserving. Mais écoute. C'est le père de la petite +qui a fait le coup. Il me l'a avoué, ensuite il a claqué et depuis j'ai +vu ton avocat. C'est une brute mais----" + +"Can that," put in the keeper, a huge creature with a cauliflower face, +dingy and gnarled. "You guys got to cough English." + +Ingratiatingly Jones turned to him. "I mistook you for a distinguished +foreigner. Dear me, my life is too full of pleasure!" + +He turned to Lennox. "That's it. You are here to-day and gone to-morrow. +Now that I have envied you insufficiently I'll go too. While I am about +it I'll go to Park Avenue. Any message?" + +"None." + +"Make it briefer. Besides, look here. I'll wager a wilderness of pippins +that Park Avenue was not and never thought of being engaged to what's +his name. I'll wager because it is not in the picture. Do you hear me?" + +"I hear you." + +"You are very gifted. Nothing wrong with your tongue, though, is there?" + +"Nothing whatever." + +"Behold then the messenger awaiting the message." + +"Very good. I'm through. Absolutely, completely, entirely. If you must +be a busybody say that. I'm through." + +But that was not Jones' idea of the game and he out with it. "I'll do +nothing of the kind." + +"Won't you?" Lennox retorted. He had remained seated. But rising then, +he looked at the keeper, motioned at Jones. + +"If that man asks for me again, say I'm out." + +Jones laughed. "Wow-wow, old cock! I wish I could have said that but I +probably shall. Meanwhile book this: Dinner to-morrow, Athenæum at +eight. By-bye. Remember Cervantes. Don't forget Verlaine. Sweet dreams." + +Lennox sat down, looked at the key, tried to turn it. That door too was +barred. + + + + +XXXIII + + +The offices of Dunwoodie, Bramwell, Strawbridge and Cohen were supplied +with a rotunda in which Jones sat waiting, and Jones loved to sit and +wait. + +Since the musician's tenement had crumbled and the soul of the violinist +had gone forth, gone to the unseen assessors who pityingly, with +indulgent hands, weigh our stupid sins, since then a week had passed. +During it, a paper signed by the dead had been admitted by the living, a +prisoner had been discharged and for no other imaginable reason than +because he had killed nobody, Lennox became a hero. + +New York is very forgetful. Lennox sank back into the blank anonymity to +which humanity in the aggregate is eternally condemned and from which, +at a bound, he had leaped. The papers were to tell of him again, but +casually, without scareheads, among the yesterdays and aviators in +France. That though was later. + +Meanwhile an enigma remained. Very heroically a young man had done +nothing. Hurrah and good-bye! The calciums of curiosity turned on an +obscure fiddler who, after murdering another young man, had succeeded in +bilking the chair. + +But why had he killed him? That was the enigma, one which would have +been exciting, if the solution had not been so prompt and so tame. At +the proceedings which resulted in Lennox' discharge, it was testified +that Angelo Cara had been temporarily deranged. + +The testimony, expertly advanced by a novelist who was not an expert, +the reporters grabbed before the court could rule it out. The grabbing +was natural. The decedent's declaration had been made to Jones who, +though not an alienist, was the teller of tales that have been +translated into every polite language, including the Japanese, which is +the politest of all. Moreover, have not the mendacious been properly +subdivided into liars, damned liars and expert witnesses? To Verdun with +the lot! Mr. Ten Eyck Jones was certainly not an expert, but certainly +too he was somebody, he was a best-seller and in the way we live now, +the testimony of the best-seller is entitled to every editorial respect. +The court might rule his testimony out, city editors saluted it. + +Jones' little invention did wash therefore and, in the washing, poured +balm by the bucket over the father of the murdered man. + +Then, gradually, like everything else, except war and the taxes, both +murderer and murdered were dropped in the great dust-bin of oblivion +that awaits us all. + +In the rotunda, meanwhile, Jones sat kicking his heels. It was in the +morning, and always in the morning Jones was invisibly at work. Now, his +routine upset, loathingly he kicked his heels. But Jones had ways of +consoling himself that were very commonplace. + +I am doing all the evil I can, he vindictively reflected, and it was +with the comfort of his animosity about him that, ultimately, he was +shown into an office--bright and, on this May forenoon, very airy--that +gave on Broad Street. + +Dunwoodie, twisting in a chair, glared at him. + +"Ecce iterum Crispinus!" Jones tritely began. "What price retainers +to-day?" + +"I hoped to God I had seen the last of you," Dunwoodie, with elaborate, +old-fashioned courtesy, replied. + +Jones, disdaining to be asked, drew a chair. + +Viciously Dunwoodie eyed him. "What the devil do you want?" + +Jones smiled at him. "That decision." + +"What decision, sir?" + +"The one I cited when I brought you the paper that secured Lennox' +discharge." + +"Damme, sir, nothing of the kind. I would have had him discharged any +way." + +Jones' smile broadened. "You seem capable of anything. It is a great +quality. Believe me, if I thought you lacked it, you would not now be +enjoying my society." + +"You flatter yourself strangely, sir. If you have nothing to say, don't +keep on saying it." + +"On the contrary, I am here to listen to you," Jones agreeably put in. +"I want your views on that case, 'The Matter of Ziegler.'" + +"Hum! Ha! Got yourself in a mess. Yaas. I remember. Been served yet? +Give me the facts." + +One after another, Jones produced them. + +During their recital, Dunwoodie twirled his thumbs. At their conclusion, +he expressed himself with entire freedom. After which, he saw Jones to +the door, an act which he performed only when he felt particularly +uncivil. At the moment the old bulldog's lip was lifted. But not at +Jones. + +Broad Street was very bright that day. Its brilliance did not extend to +the market. Values were departing. The slump was on. Speculators, +investors, the long and the shorts, bank-messengers, broker's-clerks, +jostled Jones, who went around the corner, where a cavern gaped and +swallowed him. + +Crashingly the express carried him uptown. He did not know but that he +might have lingered. There is always room at the top, though perhaps it +is unwise to buy there. At the bottom, there is room too, much more. It +is very gloomy, but it is the one safe place. Jones did not think that +the market had got there yet. None the less it was inviting. On the +other hand, he did think he might eat something. There was a restaurant +that he wot of where, the week before, he had had a horrible bite. The +restaurant was nauseating, but convenient. To that dual attraction he +succumbed. + +At table there, he meditated on the inscrutable possibilities of life +which, he decided, is full of changes, particularly in the subway; +whereupon a tale in Perrault's best manner occurred to him. + +A waiter, loutish and yet infinitely dreary, intervened. Jones paid and +went out on the upper reaches of Broadway. The fairy-tale that he had +evoked accompanied him. It was charmful as only a fairy-tale can be. But +the end, while happy, was hazy. He did not at all know whether it would +do. + +Abruptly he awoke. + +"Will you come in?" Cassy was saying. + +She had her every-day manner, her every-day clothes, her usual hat. +Jones, noting these details, inwardly commended them. But at once, +another detail was apparent. The entrance to the room where the _Bella +figlia_ had been succeeded by a dirge, was blocked. There was a table in +it. + +Cassy motioned. "I was trying to get it out when it got itself wedged +there. Will you crawl under it, as I have to, or would you prefer to use +it as a divan?" + +"Where your ladyship crawleth, I will crawl," Jones gravely replied. "I +just love going on all fours." + +As he spoke he went under. With a sad little smile she followed. + +"I know I ought to be in mourning," she told him as he brushed his +knees. + +She hesitated and sat down. She did not say that she lacked the money to +buy the suits and trappings. She did not want to say that she had sold +the table, which was the last relic of her early home, nor yet that she +had been trying to get it out, in order to prevent the Jew purchaser +from again coming in. Instead, she fingered her smock. + +"I have been looking for an engagement and they don't want you in +black." + +Jones took a chair. "War has made mourning an anachronism in Europe. If +it lasts long enough, it will do the same here and do the same with art. +But you are very brave." He looked about. "I understood your father had +a Cremona." + +"The poor dear thought so, but a dealer to whom I took it said it was a +Tyrolean copy." + +Jones put down his hat. "The brutes always say something of the kind. +What did it look like?" + +Cassy glanced at him. "A flute, of course. What else would a violin look +like?" + +"You are quite right. I meant the colour." + +"Oh, the colour! Madeira with a sheen in it." + +"Yes!" Jones exclaimed. "That is the exact and precise description of +the Amati varnish, of which the secret is lost. I hope you did not let +the brute have it." + +Cassy did not want to tell him that either. But when you are very +forlorn it is hard to keep everything in. + +"I needed a little for the funeral and he gave it to me." + +"And it was worth thousands! Have you found an engagement?" + +"The season is ending. Then too, either I have lost confidence or I am +not up to it, not yet at least." + +"I can understand that." + +Cassy gestured. "It is not this empty room, it is the doors that slam. +We know we should hasten to love those whom we do love, lest they leave +us forever before we have loved them enough. But do we? We think we have +time and to spare. I know I thought so. I was careless, forgetful, +selfish. That is one of the doors. I can't close it." + +"Time will." + +"Perhaps. Meanwhile I am told I should change my name. At first, I felt +very bitterly toward you for what you did here. It seemed inhuman of +you. Since then I have realised that you could not have done otherwise. +It saved Mr. Lennox. I would have done that." + +"I am sure of it." + +"But I won't change my name. I won't put such an affront on the poor +dear who thought--yet there! I shall never know what he thought, but +who, however wrongly, did it because of me. If only I had not told him! +I ought never to have said a word. Never! That door slams the loudest. +It wakes me. It is slamming all the time." + +"That too shall pass." + +Cassy doubted it. The door and the noise of it hurt. Her eyes filled. +Yet, too sensitive to weep at anybody, even at an inkbeast, she stood +up, went to the window and, while reabsorbing her tears, looked, or +affected to look, at a lean stripe of blue sky. + +Meditatively Jones considered her. "Fine day for a walk." + +It was as though he had offered her a handkerchief. Tearful no longer, +but annoyed, she turned and sat down. + +"You seem very original." + +"It is absentmindedness, I think. I meant to ask, are you ever down near +the Stock Exchange?" + +"That is where Mr. Lennox goes, isn't it?" + +"There are others that frequent the neighbourhood. Among them is a +deacon named Dunwoodie." + +"Isn't he the lawyer who acted for Mr. Lennox?" + +"Now you mention it, I believe he is. Anyway, I wonder if you would care +to have him act for you?" + +Cassy crossed her hands. "I don't understand you." + +"For a moment or two, he didn't either. Then he said he would like to +see you. That was an hour ago. I have just come from his office." + +"But what in the world does he want of me? Everything is over now, isn't +it? Or are there more doors? Really, if there are, I don't think I can +stand it. I don't think I can, Mr. Jones." + +"Yes, but there are doors that don't slam, doors that are closed and +locked and barred. Sometimes there is romance behind them, sometimes +there are santal-wood boxes crammed with rubies; sometimes there are +secrets, sometimes there are landscapes of beckoning palms. One never +quite knows what there is behind closed doors. He may open one or two +for you. Wouldn't it interest you to let him try?" + +Cassy's eyelids had been a trifle tremulous, in her under-lip there had +been also a little uncertainty. But at the vistas which the novelist +dangled at her, she succeeded in looking, as she could look, +immeasurably remote. + +"That sort of thing is chorus-girl!" + +Blankly Jones stared. "What sort of thing?" + +"Why, you want me to bring an action. I will do nothing of the kind. +Even if he were living, I would rather be dead. Besides, it was all my +fault. I ought to have known better." + +"Better than what?" enquired the novelist, who now had got his bearings. + +"Mr. Jones, I told you all about it." + +"Forgive me, if I seem to contradict you. You did not tell all." + +Cassy stiffened. + +"How could you?" Jones continued. "Details are so tiresome. To-day when +I was talking to Dunwoodie, I advanced a few. Dunwoodie is a very +ordinary person. Details bore you, they bore me. He dotes on them. By +the way, you said something about changing your name. I wish you would. +Couldn't you take mine?" + +"You are ridiculous." + +"As you like. Any one else would call me mercenary." + +He's crazy, Cassy uncomfortably reflected. What shall I do? + +Modestly the novelist motioned. "Ten Eyck Jones now! It doesn't rhyme +with Victor Hugo or even with Andrew Carnegie, but it has a lilt. It +might be worse." + +"What are you talking about?" Cassy, with increasing discomfort, put in. + +"There is a little thing that turns men into flint and women into putty. +That's what I am talking about. I am talking money." + +"Thank you. The subject does not interest me." + +"Ah, but you are evolved! Would that the butcher were! We all have to +consider his incapacities and money helps us. I have an idea that your +dear departed may have left you a trifle." + +"Really, Mr. Jones, you are talking nonsense." + +"It is a specialty of mine." + +"Besides, it is impossible." + +"Impossible is a word that intelligent young women never employ." + +"Very good. Admitting the possibility, I won't take it." + +"It might be paid into your bank." + +"I haven't any bank." + +"One could be found for you." + +"I would tell them not to accept it." + +"The bank that won't accept money does not exist." + +Cassy flushed. "I rather liked you. Couldn't you be less hateful?" + +"You are trying to pick a quarrel with me." + +"Nothing of the kind." + +"Then will you let me take you to Dunwoodie?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Then will you go alone?" + +"But why? Why should I? What does this man with an absurd name want of +me?" + +Jones pulled at a cuff. "Well, look at it from this angle. Before you +discovered that your marriage was a sham, you were prepared to assume a +few obligations and some of them may still subsist. The man with the +absurd name can tell you what they are. Surely you are not a slacker. +This is war-time." + +With that abandonment which is so gracious in a woman, Cassy half raised +a hand. "My front line is wavering." + +Jones reached for his hat. "Over the top then!" + +Under the table they crawled. + + + + +XXXIV + + +"Your very obedient servant, madam." + +With that and a fine bow, Dunwoodie greeted Cassy when Jones had +succeeded in getting her into the inner and airy office. The old ruffian +drew a chair. + +"Do me the honour." + +Cassy sat down. What a funny old man, she thought. + +Jones addressing the door, remarked dreamily: "Pendente lite, I will +renew my acquaintance with Swinburne's 'Espousals.'" + +Dunwoodie glared. "You will find it in the library." Then he sat down, +folded his hands on his waistcoat and smiled at Cassy. "Nice day." + +"Very." + +"Down here often?" + +Cassy shook her docked hair. "No, and I don't at all know why I am here +now. I do know though, and I may as well tell you at once, I have no +intention of making a fuss." + +Dunwoodie's smile, a smile quasi-ogrish, semi-paternal, expanded. "If +our Potsdam friend only resembled you!" + +For a young woman so recently and doubly bereaved, Cassy's blue smock +and yellow skirt seemed to him properly subdued. Moreover, from a word +that Jones had dropped, he realised that wealth had not presided at +their selection. + +He twirled his thumbs. "But let me ask, what may your full name be?" + +"Bianca Cara." + +"Hum! Ha! Most becoming. And how young are you?" + +Well, I like that! thought Cassy, who answered: "Twenty-one." + +Dunwoodie crossed his legs. "You think me an impertinent old man. I +don't mean to be impertinent. I take a great interest in you." + +"Very good of you, I'm sure." + +"Not at all. Is your grandmother living?" + +"For heaven's sake! You did not know her, did you?" + +"No, but I stand ready to take her place." + +"You would find it difficult. She is buried in Portugal." + +"The place of your grandfather then, the place of any one whom you can +trust." + +"But why?" + +"Well, let me ask. What are your plans?" + +"My plans? Mr. Jones asked me that. I have a sort of a voice and I am +looking for an engagement. But the season is ending. Then too I am told +I ought to change my name. I won't do it." + +"Hum! Ha! But it appears that you have." + +He's crazy too, thought Cassy, who said: "I don't know what you are +talking about." + +Dunwoodie extracted his towel. "Why, my dear young lady, you are Mrs. +Paliser." + +Cassy flushed. "I am nothing of the kind. I don't know how you got such +an idea." + +Dunwoodie, quite as though he were doing some hard thinking, folded and +refolded that towel which was his handkerchief. "Yet you married Montagu +Paliser, Jr., did you not?" + +"Not at all. That is I thought I did, but the man who performed the +ceremony was a gardener." + +"Dear me! Is it possible! And where was this?" + +What is it to you? thought Cassy. "At Paliser Place, if you must know." + +"And when did it occur?" + +"Really, Mr. Dunwoodie, I can't see why you are putting me through this +examination, but if it is of any benefit to you, it happened just five +days before he died." + +"Anybody about?" + +"Oh, yes. There were two other servants who enjoyed it very much. I +heard them laughing and I don't blame them. It was a rare treat. A child +would have laughed at it. All my fault too. I behaved like a ninny. But +my great mistake was in telling my father. I would give the world if I +had not. Won't you please send for Mr. Jones? As I told you, I don't +know why I am here." + +Dunwoodie shook out the towel. "You must blame him then. He said you +were Paliser's widow." + +"Well, you see I am not." + +"Yet you consented to be his wife." + +"Whose? Mr. Jones'?" + +"Paliser's, my dear young lady. However fictitious the ceremony, you +consented to be Paliser's wife." + +"What if I did? It has nothing to do with it now." + +"Just a little, perhaps. Did you hear Jones say that he would renew his +acquaintance with Swinburne?" + +"From the way he talks, one might think he knew him by heart." + +"Yaas, he is very objectionable. But you are referring to the poet. He +was referring to the jurist. The jurist wrote a very fine book. Let me +quote a passage from it. 'It is the present and perfect consent the +which alone maketh matrimony, without either solemnisation or'--here, +Dunwoodie, skipping the frank old English, substituted--'or anything +else, for neither the one nor the other is the essence of matrimony, but +consent only. Consensus non concubitus facit matrimoniam.' Hum! Ha! In +other words, whether marriage is or is not contracted in facie ecclesiæ, +it is consent alone that constitutes its validity. You understand +Latin?" + +Cassy laughed. "I dream in it." + +Dunwoodie laughed too. "Pleasant dreams to you always. But what I have +quoted was the common law, and so remained until altered by the Revised +Statutes, with which no doubt you are equally familiar." + +Cassy smoothed her frock. "I was brought up on them." + +"I don't need to tell you then that when adopted here they provided that +marriage should be a civil contract. In so providing, they merely +reaffirmed the existing common law. Subsequently, the law was changed. +The legislature enacted that a marriage must be solemnised by certain +persons--ecclesiastic, judicial or municipal--or else, that it should be +entered into by written contract, which contract was to be filed in the +office of the town clerk. Coincidentally the legislature prohibited any +marriage contracted otherwise than in the manner then prescribed." + +That morning Cassy had been to an agent, a saponacious person with a +fabulous nose. At the moment the nose was before her. She was wondering +whether it would scent out for her an engagement. + +"However," Dunwoodie, twisting the edge of his towel, continued, +"various amendments were afterward adopted and certain sections +repealed. Among the latter was the one containing the prohibition which +I have cited. In my opinion, it was not the intention of the legislature +to repeal it. Yet, however that may be, repealed it was. Since then, or, +more exactly, a few weeks ago, the enactments regarding the manner in +which marriage must be solemnised were held to be not mandatory but +directory, the result being that the law originally prevailing has now +come again into operation, common-law marriages are as valid as before +and----" + +Here Dunwoodie flaunted the towel. + +"And you are Mrs. Paliser." + +Of the entire exposition, Cassy heard but that. It ousted the agent and +his fabulous nose. She bristled. + +"I can't be. I don't want to be. You don't seem to see that the +clergyman was not a clergyman at all. He was one of the help there. I +thought I told you. Why, there was not even a license! That man said he +had one. It was only another of the whimsicalities that took me in." + +Dunwoodie repocketing the towel, showed his yellow teeth. "A young +gentlewoman who dreams in Latin, and who was brought up on the Revised +Statutes, must be familiar with Byron. 'Men were deceivers ever.' Not +long ago, a Lovelace whose history is given in the New York Reports +conducted himself in a manner that would be precisely analogous to that +of your late husband, were it not that, instead of dying, he did what +was less judicious, he married again--and was sent up for bigamy. He too +had omitted to secure a license. He also entertained a lady with a +fancy-ball. None the less, the Supreme Court decided that he had legally +tied the matrimonial noose about him and that decision the Court of +Appeals affirmed." + +Cassy shook her pretty self. "Well, even so, I don't see what difference +it makes, now at any rate. He is dead and that is the end of it." + +"Hum! Not entirely. As widow you are entitled to a share in such +property as your late husband possessed. How much, or how little, he did +possess I cannot say. But I assume that such share of it as may accrue, +will be--ha!--adequate for you." + +"But he hadn't anything. He told me so." + +"He didn't always tell you the truth though, did he? In any event it is +probable that he left enough to provide for your maintenance." + +Cassy threw up her hands. "Never in the world." + +Dunwoodie again ran his eyes over the severity of her costume. "You +think it would be inadequate?" + +But Cassy was angry. "I don't think anything about it. Whether it would +or would not be adequate, does not make the slightest difference. I +won't take it." + +"Ha! And why not?" + +Cassy fumed. "Why not? But isn't it evident? That man had no intention +of marrying me, no intention whatever of leaving me a cent." + +"As it happens, he did both." + +Cassy clenched her small fist. "No matter. He did not intend to and +don't you see if I were to accept a ha'penny of his wretched money, I +would be benefiting by a crime for which may God forgive my poor, dear +father." + +There was a point which the legislature had not considered, which not +one of all the New York Reports construed, a point not of law but of +conscience, a point for a tribunal other than that which sits in banco. +It floored Dunwoodie. + +Damnation, she's splendid, he decided as, mentally, he picked himself +up. But it would never do to say so and he turned on her his famous +look. + +"Madam, once your marriage is established, the money becomes rightfully +and legally yours, unless----" + +With that look he was frowning at this handsome girl who took law and +order with such a high hand. But behind the frown was a desire, which he +restrained, to hug her. + +Frowning still he looked from Cassy to the door and there at a boy, who +was poking through it a nose on which freckles were strewn thick as +bran. + +"Mr. Rymple, sir, says he has an appointment." + +The old ruffian, rising, turned to Cassy. "One moment, if you please." + +The door, caught in a draught, slammed after him, though less violently +than other doors that were slamming still. Would they never stop? Cassy +wondered. Would they slam forever? Were there no rooms in life where she +might enter and find the silence that is peace? Surely, some time, +somewhere that silence might be hers. + +She turned. Jones, looking extremely disagreeable, was walking in. + +Cassy, closing her ears to those doors, exclaimed at him. "Here's a +pretty how d'ye do. Mr. Dunwoodie says I am Mrs. Paliser." + +"That afternoon, when you sent your love to my cat, I could have told +you that. In fact I did." + +From Jones' air and manner you would have said that he was willing and +able to bite a ten-penny nail. + +Cassy did not notice. "It appears, too, that I am entitled to some of +his wretched money." + +"It is unfortunate I did not know that also." + +"I believe you did. But I sha'n't take it." + +Jones drew a chair. Hatefully he looked her up and down. + +"You are quite right. Sixty years ago there was but one millionaire in +the country. The plutocrat had not appeared in the street, he had not +even appeared in the dictionary. The breed was unknown. To-day there are +herds of such creatures. I was reading the statistics recently and they +depressed me beyond words. It is always depressing to know how much +money other people have. You are quite right not to suffer poor devils +to be depressed by you." + +Mrs. Yallum! thought Cassy, who said as much; "I don't know what you are +talking about." + +"You are very intelligent. I am talking small change." + +Cassy gave a shrug. "Mr. Dunwoodie said I would have enough to live on. +I can do as well as that myself, thank you." + +"No doubt," Jones snarled. "I am even sure you could do worse. It is +extraordinary how much one can accomplish in refusing a dollar or two +that might save another man's life. To hell with everybody! That is the +noble attitude. I admire your spirit. A handful of bank-notes are crying +at you: 'I'm yours, take me, give me to the wounded, to the starving!' +Not a bit of it. The Viscountess of Casa-Evora is too proud. That's +superb." + +Cassy turned on him. "See here, young man----" + +"Don't you young man me," Jones irritably cut in. "In the rotunda out +there, Dunwoodie gave me a foretaste of your swank and I can tell you I +relished it. You won't look at a penny of this money because, if you +did, you would be benefiting by an act committed by your father, who, as +sure as you live, was impelled by the powers invisible to rid the earth +of Paliser and to rid it of him for no other reason than that this money +might serve a world in flames. Refused by you it will only revert to an +old rounder who never did a good deed in his life; whereas, instead, it +could call down blessings on your father's grave. But no, perish the +thought! All that is leather and prunella to a young woman who regards +herself as the arbiter of destiny. By God, you are prodigious!" + +"I think you are horrid." + +"So are you. You are the heiress to millions and millions. No wonder you +put on airs." + +Occasionally, to exceptional beings, a hand issuing from nowhere offers +a cup brimming with madness, filled to the top with follies and dreams. + +At that cup Cassy stared. It was unreal. If she tried to touch it, it +would vanish. + +"It is impossible!" she cried. + +Jones looked about. "Where is my harp?" + +Cassy did not know, she could not tell him. She had not even heard. A +crater in the Wall Street sky had opened and from it, in an enchanted +shower, fell sequins, opals, perfumes and stars. + +But Jones must have found his harp. To that shower he was strumming an +accompaniment. + +"In to-day's paper there is a Red Cross appeal which says that what we +give is gone. It is incredible, but educated people believe it. The +ignorance of educated people is affecting. By reason of their education, +which now and then includes mythology, they believe that happiness is +the greatest of all the gifts that the gods can bestow. Being mortal, +they try to obtain it. Being ignorant, they fail. Ignorance confounds +pleasure with happiness. Pleasure comes from without, happiness from +within. People may be very gay and profoundly miserable, really rich and +terribly poor. In either case their condition is due to the fact that +the happiness which they sought, they sought for themselves. Their error +would be stupid were it not pathetic. In seeking happiness for +themselves they fail to find it, but when they succeed in securing it +for others, they find that on them also it has been bestowed. The money +we give is not gone. It comes back to us. It returns in happiness and +all the happiness that the richest, the poorest, the wisest, the +stupidest can ever possess, is precisely that happiness which they have +given away." + +Where now where those doors? Cassy, the cascade of flowers and stars +about her, looked at the harper. In listening to him, the doors had +ceased to slam. About them there was peace. But her eyes had filled. + +Jones was still at it. + +"The greatest happiness is the cessation of pain. That pagan aphorism +the Red Cross might put on its banners. Spiritually it is defective, but +practically it is sound and some relief the Red Cross supplies. Give to +it. You can put your money to no fairer use. It will hallow the grave +where your father lies." + +From beyond, from the adjacent Curb, came the shouts of brokers. + +Jones, abandoning his harp, looked over at the girl. "What are you +crying about?" + +"I am not crying," spluttered Cassy, who was blubbering like a baby. "I +never cry. It is disgusting of you to say so." + +"You are crying." + +"I am not crying," Cassy, indignantly sniffing and sobbing, snapped at +him. Fiercely she rubbed her eyes. "It is none of your business, +anyhow." Pausing, she choked, recovered and blearily added: "And, +anyway, if the money is mine, really mine, honestly mine, I will give it +away, all of it, every p--penny." + +"No, no, not all of it," Jones hastily threw in, for now the door was +opening and Dunwoodie appeared. "Keep a pear for your thirst, put a +little million aside." + +He turned to the lawyer. "Mrs. Paliser accepts her responsibilities." + +"Hum! Ha!" The great man sat down and looked at Cassy. He looked many +things but he said very few. "My dear young lady, familiar as you are +with Latin, with law and with literature, who am I to remind you that +chickens should first be hatched? Your rights may be contested. The +Paliser Case, as it will be called, may----" + +"The Paliser Case!" interjected Jones, who could see the headline from +where he sat. "Shade of Blackstone! It will be famous! It will be +filmed! The eminent jurist here will be screened and you, too, my lady." + +Balefully Dunwoodie shot a glance at the inkbeast and another at Cassy. + +"It may last some time. I have no doubt of the result. None whatever. +But in spite of your legal knowledge I suggest that you have associate +counsel. Now, permit me to ask, would you care to retain me or would +you prefer some one else?" + +Cassy, who had dried her eyes, looked at him and it was remarkable how +pretty she looked. + +"Why, no, Mr. Dunwoodie, I would much rather have you, only----" +Uncertainly she paused. + +The eminent jurist took it up. "Only what?" + +"Well, all I know about law is that it is very expensive and I have +nothing except my grandfather's portrait." + +Dunwoodie touched a button. "Ha! One moment." + +A thin young man, with a pasty face and a slight stoop, opened the door. + +The old ruffian raised a stubby finger. "Purdy, a cheque for a thousand +dollars, to the order of Bianca Paliser, is to be mailed to this lady +to-night." + +"But, Mr. Dunwoodie!" Cassy exclaimed. + +"You must allow me to be your banker," he told her, and turned again to +the clerk. "Get Mr. Jeroloman. Say, with my compliments, I shall be +obliged if he will look in here. And, Purdy, see to it that that cheque +is attended to. Mrs. Paliser will give you her address." + +"But, Mr. Dunwoodie!" Cassy exclaimed again, as the sallow youth went +out. + +To distract her attention, instantly Jones improvised a limerick. "There +was a young man named Purdy, who was not what you'd call very sturdy. To +be more of a sport, he drank gin by the quart, and danced on a +hurdy-gurdy." + +"You're insane," announced Cassy, who was a trifle demented herself. + +Dunwoodie extracted his towel. "Jeroloman is the attorney for the other +side. He will want to meet Mrs. Paliser, but that honour will not be his +to-day." + +Cassy stood up. "I should hope not. He would be the last camel on the +straw--I mean the last straw on the camel." + +Dunwoodie, rising also, gave her his fine bow and to Jones a hand. + +Then as the two made for the door, from over her shoulder she smiled +back at him. + +"My grandmother could not have been nicer." + +"What do you mean by that?" Jones absently inquired. + +But, in the rotunda now, Mr. Purdy was asking her address. If he had +dared he would have followed her there. Fortune favouring, he would have +followed her to the ends of the earth. It was what one of our allies +calls the thunderbolt. Never before had he beheld such a face. Earnestly +he prayed that he might behold it again. Allah is great. The prayer was +granted. + +In the cañon below, Jones, as he piloted her to the subway, pulled at +his gloves. + +"If I had the ability, I would write an opera, call it 'Danaë' and +offer you the title-rôle." + +Cassy, her thoughts on her grandmother, repeated it. "Danaë?" + +"Yes, the lady disconnected by marriage with Jupiter who tubbed her in +gold--gold ink, I suppose. But as I am not a composer I shall put you +between the sheets--of a novel I mean. Fiction has its consolations." + +But now, leaving the cañon, they entered a cavern which a tunnel fluted. +There Cassy looked up at the inkbeast. "How is Mr. Lennox? Do you see +him?" + +"I find it very difficult not to. Unattached people are sticky as +flies. When Lennox was engaged, he was invisible. Now he is all over the +place." + +From the tunnel a train erupted. It came with the belch of a monstrous +beetle, red-eyed and menacing, hastening terribly to some horrible task. + +Jones, shoving the girl into its bowels, added: "I was happier when he +was jugged." + +A corner beckoned. There, as the beetle resumed its flight, the novelist +spread his wings. + +"I would have wagered a red pippin that you couldn't say Jack Robinson +before he and that young woman were convoluting joyously. I even planned +to be best man. Saw my tailor about it. Whether it were on that account +or not the Lords of Karma only know, but he told Miss Austen to go to +hell." + +Cassy started. From before her everything was receding. + +Jones noting the movement, interpreted it naturally and therefore +stupidly. He apologised. + +"Forgive me. I picture you as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conversation. +Forgive me, then. Besides, what Lennox did say, he said with less +elegance. He said: 'I'm through.' Yes and asked me to repeat it to her. +I studiously omitted to, but as Proteus--Mr. Blount in private +life--somewhere expressed it, 'Hell has no more fixed or absolute +decree.'" + +Because of the crashing beetle Jones had to shout it. He shouted it in +Cassy's ear. It was a lovely ear and Jones was aware of it. But only +professionally. Since that night in Naples when, by way of keepsake, he +got a dagger in his back, he had entertained the belief that a novelist +should have everything, even to sex, in his brain. Such theories are +very safe. Jones' admirations were not therefore carnal. To Balzac, a +pretty woman was a plot. Cassy was a plot to Jones, who continued to +shout. + +"If Lennox and Margaret Austen moved and had their being in a novel of +mine, the wedding-bells would now be ringing at a cradle in the last +chapter. Commercially it would be my duty to supply that happy and +always unexpected touch. I even made a bet about it, which shows how +iniquitous gambling is. What's more, it shows that I must have an +unsuspected talent for picture-plays. As it was in heaven, so it is now +in the movies. It is there that marriages are made. But forgive me +again. I am talking shop." + +The renewed apology was needless. Though Jones shouted, Cassy did not +hear. It was not the clattering beetle that interfered. To that also +Cassy was deaf. She heard nothing. The echo of noisy millions had gone. +The slamming doors were silent. But her face was pale as running water +when, the beetle at last abandoned, she thanked Jones for seeing her all +the way. + +All the way to where? God, if she only knew! + + + + +XXXV + + +Later that day, Jeroloman, the attorney for the other side, who at the +time had no idea that there was another side, or any side at all, +entered the rotunda and asked for Dunwoodie. + +In asking, he removed his hat, glanced at its glisten, put it on again. +The hat was silk. It topped iron grey hair, steel-blue eyes, a +turn-under nose, a thin-lipped mouth, a pointed chin, a stand-up collar, +a dark neckcloth, a morning coat, grey gloves, grey trousers, drab spats +and patent-leather boots. These attributes gave him an air that was +intensely respectable, equally tiresome. One pitied his wife. + +"This way, sir." + +In the inner and airy office, Dunwoodie nodded, motioned at a chair. + +"Ha! Very good of you to trouble." + +Jeroloman, seating himself, again removed his hat. Before he could +dispose of it, Dunwoodie was at him. + +"Young Paliser's estate. In round figures what does it amount to?" + +Jeroloman, selecting a safe place on the table, put the hat on it and +answered, not sparringly, there was nothing to spar about, but with +civil indifference: "Interested professionally?" + +"His widow is my client." + +Jeroloman's eyes fastened themselves on Dunwoodie, who he knew was +incapable of anything that savoured, however remotely, of shysterism. +But it was a year and a day since he had been closeted with him. In the +interim, time had told. Diverting those eyes, he displayed a smile that +was chill and dental. + +"Well, well! We all make mistakes. There is no such person." He paused, +awaiting the possible protest. None came and he added: "The morning +after the murder, his father told me that the young man contemplated +marriage with a lady who had his entire approval. Unfortunately----" + +"Yaas," Dunwoodie broke in. "Unfortunately, as you say. The morning +after was the 26th. On the 21st, a gardener, who pretended to be a +clergyman, officiated at his marriage to my client." + +Dryly but involuntarily Jeroloman laughed. Dunwoodie was getting on, +getting old. In his day he had been remarkably able. That day had gone. + +"Well, well! Even admitting that such a thing could have happened, it +must have been only by way of a lark." + +Dunwoodie whipped out his towel. "You don't say so!" + +Carelessly Jeroloman surveyed him. He was certainly senile, yet, because +of his laurels, entitled to all the honours of war. + +"Look here, Mr. Dunwoodie. You are not by any chance serious, are you?" + +"Oh, I'm looking. While I was about it, I looked into the case. Per +verba de præsenti, my client consented to be young Paliser's wife. Now +she is his widow." + +Jeroloman weighed it. The weighing took but an instant. Dunwoodie was +living in the past, but there was no use in beating about the bush and +he said as much. + +"You are thinking of the common law, sir." + +Absently Dunwoodie creased his towel. "Now you mention it, I believe I +am." + +Jeroloman glanced at his watch. It was getting late. His residence was +five miles away. He was to dress, dine early and take his wife to the +theatre. He would have to hurry and he reached for his hat. + +"The common law was abrogated long ago." + +Dunwoodie rumpled the towel. "Why, so it was!" + +Jeroloman took the hat and with a gloved finger rubbed at the brim. +"Even otherwise, the term common-law wife is not legally recognised. The +law looks with no favour on the connection indicated by it. The term is +synonymous for a woman who, having lived illicitly with a man, seeks to +assume the relationship of wife after his death and thereby share in the +proceeds of his property." + +From under beetling brows, Dunwoodie looked at him. "Thanks for the +lecture, Jeroloman. My client has no such desire. In this office, an +hour ago, she refused them." + +Jeroloman stood up. "Very sensible of her, I'm sure." He twirled the +hat. "Who is she?" + +"I thought I told you. She is Mrs. Paliser." + +Jeroloman waved that hat. "Well, well! I thought I told you. As it is, +if you will take the trouble to look at the laws of 1901, you will find +that common-law marriages are inhibited." + +"Hum! Ha! And if you will trouble to look at the Laws of 1907, you will +find they are inhibited no longer." + +Jeroloman stared. "I have yet to learn of it." + +Dunwoodie repocketed his towel. "Is it possible? Then when the +opportunity occurs you might inform yourself. At the same time let me +recommend the Court of Appeals for March. You may find there additional +instruction. But I see you are going. Don't let me detain you." + +Jeroloman sat down. "What case are you referring to?" + +"The Matter of Ziegler." + +Uncertainly Jeroloman's steel-blue eyes shifted. "It seems to me I read +the syllabus." + +"Then your powers of concealment are admirable." + +"But just what does it hold?" + +"Can it be that you don't remember? Well, well!--to borrow your own +agreeable mode of expression--it holds that common-law marriages that +were valid before and until the enactments which you were good enough to +cite, were again made valid by their appeal in Chapter 742 of the Laws +of 1907." + +"But," Jeroloman began and paused. "But----" He paused again. + +Comfortably Dunwoodie helped him. "Yes?" + +"You say that marriages valid before and until the Laws of 1901 are, by +virtue of a repeal, now valid again?" + +"That is what I say, Jeroloman. Merely that and nothing more. In +addition to the Ziegler case, let me commend to you 'The Raven.'" + +"Let's get down to facts, sir. From your account of it, this alleged +marriage never could have been valid." + +Dunwoodie wiped his mouth. "Dear me! I had no idea that my account of it +could lead to such interesting views. You do surprise me." + +"Mr. Dunwoodie, you said the ceremony was performed by a gardener who +pretended to be a clergyman. Those were your very words." + +"Yaas. Let the cat out of the bag, didn't I?" + +Archly but chillily Jeroloman smiled. "Well, no, I would not care to put +it in that way, but your office-boy must know that false representations +void it." + +"Good Lord!" Dunwoodie exclaimed. It was as though he had been hit in +the stomach. + +Jeroloman, who was eyeing him, gave a little nod that was tantamount to +saying, "Take that!" + +But Dunwoodie was recovering. He sat back, looked admiringly at +Jeroloman, clasped his hands and twirled his thumbs. + +Jeroloman, annoyed at the attitude and in haste to be going, pursed his +thin lips. "Well, sir?" + +With an affability that was as unusual as it was suspicious, Dunwoodie +smiled at him. "Your objection is well taken. Not an hour ago, in that +chair in which you are sitting, this lady, my client, who not once in +her sweet life has opened the Revised Statutes, and who, to save it, +could not tell the difference between them and the Code, well, sir, she +entered that same objection." + +"I don't see----" + +"Nor did she, God bless her! And I fear I wearied her with my reasons +for not sustaining it. But I did not tell her, what I may confide in +you, that in Hays versus The People--25 New York--it is held immaterial +whether a person who pretended to solemnise a marriage contract, was or +was not a clergyman, or whether either party to the contract was +deceived by false representations of this character. Hum! Ha!" + +Jeroloman pulled at his long chin. In so doing he rubbed his hat the +wrong way. He did not notice. That he was to dress, dine early, take his +wife to the theatre, that it was getting late and that his residence was +five miles away, all these things were forgotten. What he saw were +abominations that his client would abhor--the suit, the notoriety, the +exposure, the whole dirty business dumped before the public's greedy and +shining eyes. + +"Who is she?" he suddenly asked. + +"Who was she?" Dunwoodie corrected. "Miss Cara." + +Jeroloman started and dropped his hat. "Not----?" + +Dunwoodie nodded. "His daughter." + +Jeroloman, bending over, recovered his hat. Before it, a picture +floated. It represented an assassin's child gutting the estate of a son +whom the father had murdered. It was a bit too cubist. Somewhere he had +seen another picture of that school. It showed a young woman falling +downstairs. He did not know but that he might reproduce it. At least he +could try. Meanwhile it was just as well to take the model's measure and +again his eyes fastened on Dunwoodie. + +"What do you suggest?" + +Dunwoodie, loosening his clasped hands, beat with the fingers a tattoo +on his waistcoat. + +"Let me see. There is 'The Raven,' the first primer, the multiplication +table. Is it for your enlightenment that you ask?" + +Jeroloman moistened his lips. Precise, careful, capable, intensely +respectable, none the less he could have struck him. A moment only. From +the sleeve of his coat he flicked, or affected to flick, a speck. + +"Yes, thank you, for my enlightenment. You have not told me what your +client wants." + +"What a woman wants is usually beyond masculine comprehension." + +Methodically Jeroloman dusted his hat. "You might enquire. We, none of +us, favour litigation. In the interests of my client I always try to +avoid it and, while at present. I have no authority, yet----Well, well! +Between ourselves, how would a ponderable amount, four or five thousand, +how would that do?" + +Blandly Dunwoodie looked at this man, who was trying to take Cassy's +measure. + +"For what?" + +"To settle it." + +That bland air, where was it? In its place was the look which +occasionally the ruffian turned on the Bench. + +"Hum! Ha! Then for your further enlightenment let me inform you that my +client will settle it for what she is legally entitled to, not one +ponderable dollar more, not one ponderable copper less." + +Mentally, from before that look, Jeroloman was retreating. Mentally as +well, already he had reversed himself. He had judged Dunwoodie old, +back-number, living in the past. Instead of which the fossil was what he +always had been--just one too many. Though not perhaps for him. Not for +Randolph F. Jeroloman. Not yet, at any rate. The points advanced were +new, undigested, perhaps inexact, filled with discoverable flaws. +Though, even so, how M. P. would view them was another kettle of fish. +But that was as might be. He put on his hat and stood up. + +"Very good. I will give the matter my attention." + +"Do," Dunwoodie, with that same look, retorted, "And meanwhile I will +apply for letters of administration. Hum! Ha! My compliments to your +good lady." + +He turned in his chair. Attention, indeed! He knew what that meant. The +matter would be submitted to M. P. The old devil had not a leg to stand +on, he lacked even a crutch, and in that impotent, dismembered and +helpless condition he would be thrown out of court. A ponderable amount! +Hum! + +For a moment he considered the case. But it may be that already it had +been heard and adjudged. Long since, perhaps, at some court of last +resort, the Paliser Case had been decided. + + + + +XXXVI + + +On the morrow, Jeroloman waited on his client, who received him in the +library, an agreeable room in which there was nothing literary, but +which succeeded at once in becoming extremely unpleasant. + +M. P. was in tweeds. When his late lamented departed this life, he wore +crêpe on his hat for ninety days. It was a tribute that he paid, not to +the lady's virtues, which were notoriously absent; nor to any love of +her, for he had disliked her exceedingly; nor yet because it was +conventional, he hated conventionality; but, by Gad, sir, because it +bucks the women up! All that was long ago. Since then he had become less +fastidious. At his son's funeral he appeared in black. + +Now, on this day, dressed in tweeds, he greeted Jeroloman with his usual +cordiality. + +"I hope to God you are not going to bother me about anything?" + +The wicked old man, who had faced wicked facts before, faced a few of +them then. The stench of the main fact had been passing from him, +deodorised by the fumigating belief that his son had been killed by a +lunatic. Now here it was again, more mephitic than ever, and for the +whiffs of it with which Jeroloman was spraying him, he hated the man. + +"Whom has she?" + +"Dunwoodie." + +He reviewed the bar. There was Bancroft, whose name was always in the +papers and to whom clients flocked. There was Gwathmay, whom the papers +ignored and whom only lawyers consulted. He might have either or both, +the rest of the crew as well, and in spite of them all, unless he +permitted himself to be done, the publicity would be just as resounding. + +In the old nights, when social New York was a small and early, threats +had amused him. "I have my hours for being blackmailed, this is not one +of them," he had lightly remarked at a delightful gang. "Do your +damnedest." + +They took him at his word and so completely that the small and early saw +him no more. What was that to him? There were other pastures, less +scrumptious perhaps, but also far less fatiguing. He had not cared, not +a rap. Behind him the yard of brass yodled in a manner quite as lordly +as before. His high-steppers lost none of their sheen; his yacht +retained all its effulgence; so, too, did the glare of his coin. No, he +had not cared. But that was long ago, so long that it might have +happened in an anterior existence. He had not cared then. Age is +instructive. He had learned to since. Moreover, in testimony of his +change of heart, a miracle had been vouchsafed. The affair at the Opera, +attributed to a lunatic, had been buried safely, like his son, the +scandal tossed in for shroud. How freely he had breathed since then! The +little green bottle of menthe he had barely touched. He might live to +see everything forgiven or, what is quite as satisfactory, forgotten. +And now! Columns and columns, endlessly, day in, day out; the Paliser +Case dragged from one court to another, the stench of it exceeded only +by that of the Huns! But, by comparison, blackmail, however bitter, was +sweet. When one may choose between honey and gall, decision is swift. + +"What'll she take?" + +Jeroloman, who had left his hat on the malachite bench in the hall, +smoothed his gloves. He was about to reply. Before he could, his client +shook a fist at him. + +"The slut hasn't a cent. Came to the Place with a bundle, damn her. A +suit like this costs something. Where's she going to get it? What'll she +take?" + +Jeroloman looked up from his gloves. "I don't know." + +"Then find out." + +"I offered Dunwoodie a ponderable amount." + +"Well?" + +"He refused it." + +"Double it, then, triple it." + +"Mr. Paliser, I'm sorry, but it won't do." + +"Damnation, why not?" + +"It is all or nothing with him and maybe nothing in the end. I told him +so. I told him that the courts view with no favour a woman who, having +lived illicitly with a man, claims, on his demise, to be his widow. Such +a claim is but the declaration of a woman entered after the death of her +alleged husband and, as such, is inadmissible under Section 829 of the +Code. I have posted myself very thoroughly in the matter, though I find +it has been held----" + +"Damn what has been held. It's all or nothing, is it?" + +Jeroloman pulled at his long chin. + +All, the wicked old man reflected. All! All would be ten million and ten +million was less than a tenth of his wealth--ten million for which he +had no earthly need, which it would fatigue him to spend, burden him to +hoard, disgrace him to fight for, and which, normally, would go to a +brat whom he had never seen and whom, as next in line, he hated. + +Already he had decided. Though, it may be that on planes of which he +knew nothing, long since it had been decided for him. + +None the less it hurt. It hurt horribly. From a pocket, he drew a little +bottle. + +"Settle it then." + +"On what basis?" + +"All and be damned to her." + +But now the menthe that he had raised to his lips was trickling from the +bottle, staining his tweeds. He hiccoughed, gasped, motioned. + +"And good-day to you." + +Below, on the malachite bench, a silk hat was waiting. When that hat +again appeared in Dunwoodie's office, the Paliser Case was over. It had +ended before it began. + + + + +XXXVII + + +Cassy sat in the kitchen. Before her were a cheque and a letter. The +letter was from the theatre-man. The cheque was Dunwoodie's. The cheque +begged to be cashed, the letter begged her to call. + +During the night she had gone looking along an avenue where there were +houses with candid windows from which faces peered and smiled. But it +was not for these that she was looking and she awoke in a tempest of +farewells. + +Now, across the court, in the kitchen opposite, were two inoffensive +beings. On that evening when her father had made her cry, they had +seemed unreal. On this forenoon their baseless appearance persisted. But +their unreality was not confined to them. Their kitchen, the court, the +building shared it. They were all unreal, everything was, except one +thing only, which perhaps was more unreal than all things else. + +She looked at the letter and from it at the cheque. The day before, on +returning from the shower of millions that had caught and drenched her +in Broad Street, she was not entirely dry. The glisten of the golden +rain hung all about her. None the less on reaching the walk-up she +forgot it. There were other matters, more important, that she had in +mind. But only a philosopher could be drenched as she had been and +remain unaffected. The bath is too voluptuous for the normal heart. On +its waters float argosies crimson-hulled, purple-rigged, freighted with +dreams come true. You have but a gesture to make. Those dreams are +spaniels crouching at your feet. At a bath not dissimilar but +financially far shallower, Monte Cristo cried: "The world is mine!" It +was very amusing of him. But though, since then, values have varied, a +bagatelle of ten millions is deep enough for any girl, sufficiently deep +at least for its depths to hold strange things. + +At those things, strange indeed and yet not unfamiliar, Cassy beckoned. +In their embrace she saw herself, as Jones had pictured her, going +about, giving money away, strewing it full-handed, changing sobs into +smiles. The picture lacked novelty. Often she had dreamed it. Only +recently, on the afternoon just before the clock struck twelve, just +before the gardener lit his pipe and the mask had fallen, only then, +and, relatively, that was but yesterday, she had promenaded in it. It +was a dream she had dreamed when a child, that had haunted her girlhood, +that had abided since then. It was the dream of a dream she had dreamed +without daring to believe in its truth. Now, from the core of the web +that is spun by the spiderous fates, out it had sprung. There, before +her eyes, within her grasp was that miracle, a rainbow solidified, +vapour made tangible, a dream no longer a dream but a palette and a +palette that you could toss in the air, put in the bank, secrete or +squander, a palette with which you could paint the hours and make them +twist to jewelled harps. No more walk-up! Good-bye, kitchy! Harlem, +addio! The gentleman with the fabulous nose could whistle. Vaudeville, +indeed! She could buy the shop, buy a dozen of them, tear them down, +build them up, throw them into one and sing there, sing what she liked, +when she liked, as she liked. Yes, but for whom? God of gods, for whom? + +A local newspaper bears--or bore--a sage device: La nuit porte conseil. +That night, on her white bed, in her black room, Cassy sought it. But +the counsel that night brings is not delivered while you toss about. +Night waits until you sleep. Then, to the subjective self that never +sleeps, the message is delivered. It may be fallible, often it is and, +in our scheme of things, what is there that is not? Yet in any dilemma +bad advice may be better than none. Then, without transition, the black +room changed into an avenue where faces peered and smiled. It was not +though for these that she was looking, but for her way. It must have +been very narrow. Though she looked and looked she could not find it. +Yet it was near, perhaps just around the corner. But in some manner, she +could not reach it. Sleep sank her deeper. When she awoke, there it was. + +Now as she sat in the kitchen, before which, in the kitchen opposite, +bundles of baseless appearances came and went, she began counting her +wealth on her fingers. Youth! Up went her thumb. Health! The forefinger. +Lungs! The second finger. Not being a fright! The fourth. How rich she +was! But was there not something else? Oh, yes! Sadly she smiled. A +clear conscience! She had forgotten that and that came first. Youth, +health, lungs, looks, these were gamblers' tokens in the great roulette +of life. In the hazards of chance at any moment she might lose one or +all, as eventually she must lose them and remain no poorer than before. +But her first asset which she had counted last, that was her fortune, +the estate she held by virtue of a trust so guardedly created that if +she lost one mite, the whole treasure was withdrawn. + +On the washtub--covered admirably with linoleum--at which she sat, were +the cheque for a thousand dollars and the bid from the vaudeville man. +The bid, she knew, meant money. But the cheque would beggar her. + +She drew breath and sat back. From above a filter of sunlight fell and +told her it was noon. Across the court the bundles of baseless +appearances transformed themselves into a real woman, an actual child. +The kitchen in which they moved, the house in which they dwelled were no +longer the perceptions of a perceiver. They also were real. So, too, was +life. + +An hour and Mr. Purdy's pasty face turned feebly red. He stammered it. + +No, unfortunately, Mr. Dunwoodie was out. Would Mrs. Paliser wait? In +Mr. Dunwoodie's private office? And the 'Herald' perhaps or the +'Times'--or--or---- + +Everything there, Broad Street to boot, the Stock Exchange included, Mr. +Purdy was ready and anxious to offer. + +No, Mrs. Paliser would not wait--and mentally she thanked her stars for +it. But would Mr. Purdy do something for her? + +Would he! The brave spirit of Talleyrand must have animated that sickly +young man. If what Mrs. Paliser desired were possible it would be done: +if impossible, it was done already. + +Cassy gave him the rare seduction of her smile. She also was +entertaining an emotion or two. She had not at all known where she would +find the strength to confront and confute a grandmotherly old ruffian. +But luck was with her. He was out. + +So very good of Mr. Purdy then and would he please give Mr. Dunwoodie +this cheque and say she's sorry she can't accept it or the other money +either? She had said she would, but, really, it was not intended for +her. Supposing she took it. She would feel like a thief in a fog. +Exactly that. A thief in a fog. No, she couldn't. Couldn't and wouldn't. +Just as grateful though to Mr. Dunwoodie. Her regrets to him and a +thousand thanks. + +"And good-day, Mr. Purdy. I thank you also." + +Mr. Purdy, flushing feebly, saw her to the door, saw her to the hall +without. There, while he waited with her for a descending lift, a silk +hat that had just come from a malachite bench, alighted from an +ascending one. Immediately the other lift took her. + +"Who was that?" the hat's owner alertly asked. + +Mr. Purdy rubbed his perspiring hands. "Mrs. Paliser." + +Jeroloman wheeled like a rat. He looked at the cage. It had vanished. He +looked at the other. Above it a moving finger pointed upward. +Cold-blooded, meticulously precise, intensely respectable, none the +less, for one delirious second, madness seized him. He wished to God he +could hurry down, overtake the impostor, lure her into his own office, +frighten her out of such wits as she possessed and buy her off for +tuppence. Instantly Respectability had him by the collar. He could not. +Precision gave him a kick. Wouldn't stand if he did. + +Deeply he swore. The millions were gone. Hands down, without a struggle, +the Paliser estate was rooked. No fault of his though, and mechanically +he adjusted that hat. Damn her! + +In the street below, superbly, with sidereal indifference, the sun shone +down on the imbecile activities of man. The storm of the day before that +had drenched Cassy so abundantly, had been blown afar, blown from her +forever. The sky in which a volcano had formed was remote and empty. + +"Ouf!" Cassy muttered in relief and muttered, too: "Now for the agent!" + +She had reached the corner. Just beyond was the subway. It would land +her within two squares of the man's greasy office. Now, though, +suddenly, she felt a gnawing. A sandwich would taste good. Two +sandwiches would taste better. Then, quite as suddenly, that vision, the +street with it, everything, except one thing only, vanished. + +Blocking the way stood Lennox. + +"Where to in such a hurry?" + +Easily she smiled and told him. "I'm going to buy a rhinoceros." But for +all the easiness of it her tongue nearly tripped. "And what are you +doing?" + +"I? Oh! Cleaning up." + +Wall Street is not a Japanese tea-garden. It lacks the klop-klop of +fountains. Yet, even in its metallic roar there may--for exceptional +beings--be peace there. Not for Cassy, though. She could have screamed. + +A moment only. Lennox turned and both moved on. + +"Let's get out of this." + +Cassy looked up at him. "You forget my little errand." + +"Ah, yes! The rhinoceros. Couldn't you ask me to meet him?" + +"I shall be giving dinner-parties for him every evening. Would you care +to come?" + +They had reached cavernous steps down which Cassy was going. + +Lennox raised his hat. "I will come to-night." + +Through the metallic roar, the four words dropped and hummed. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +"It is going to be splendid. There will be candles!"--a young person, +dead since but still living, exclaimed of her poet's fête. The fête, +however lavish, and which you will find reported by Murger, was not held +in a kitchen. The poet's garret did not contain a kitchen. That was +Paris. + +Hereabouts, nowadays, walk-ups are more ornate. Cassy's dinner that +night was served on rich linoleum and not out of snobbishness either but +because the table had gone from the living-room and though the piano +remained one could not very well dine on that, or, for that matter, on +the sofa. There are details into which a hostess never enters. Cassy--in +black chiffon--did not offer any and Lennox--in evening clothes--did not +ask. He had never dined in a kitchen before and, so far as the present +historian knows not to the contrary, he did not dine in one again. But +he enjoyed the experience. There was cold chicken, a salad, youth, +youth's wine and running laughter. For dessert, a remark. + +The rich linoleum then had been abandoned for the other room where Cassy +sat on the sofa and Lennox on the one surviving chair. Beyond was the +piano. Additionally, in some neighbourly flat, a phonograph performed. + +Among these luxuries sweets were served. A question preceded them. + +"Do you remember the afternoon you were in my rooms?" + +Yes, Cassy remembered it. + +Then came the remark. "That afternoon I laughed. Until to-night--except +once--I haven't laughed since then." + +Very good dessert, with more to follow. + +"When you went, the sunlight went with you. It went out at your heels +like a dog. I was thinking about it recently. I don't seem to have seen +the sunlight again, until it played about your rhinoceros." + +There are sweets that are bitter. Cassy took one. + +"Mr. Jones told me. It does seem such a pity, such a great pity. I saw +her once and I could see she was not merely good to look at but really +good, good through and through." + +"May I smoke?" Lennox asked. + +Had he wished he could have stood on his head. Cassy nodded at him. He +got out a cigar. + +"Miss Austen is all you say. She is a saint. A man doesn't want a saint. +A man wants flesh and blood." + +Cassy took another bitter-sweet. "She's that. Any one would know it." + +Lennox bit at the cigar. "Too good for me, though. So good that she +threw me over." + +Cassy put a finger through it. "She did not understand. Any girl might +have done the same." + +Sombrely Lennox considered her. "Would you? You say she did not +understand. I know well enough she did not. But if you cared for a man, +would you throw him over because of a charge which you could not be sure +was true and without giving him a chance to disprove it? Would you?" + +He could stand on his head, yes, but it was unfair to grill her. She +flushed. + +"I don't see what that has to do with it." + +"How, you don't see?" + +"Isn't it obvious? Miss Austen and I move in different worlds. On any +subject our views might differ and I don't mean at all but that hers +would be superior." + +"There can be but one view of what's square." + +"I am sure she meant to be." + +Unconcernedly, Lennox smiled. The smile lit his face. From sombre it +became radiant. + +"That's all very well. The point is what you would think. Would you +think it square to throw a man over as she threw me?" + +Cassy showed her teeth. "If I didn't care for him, certainly I would." + +"But if you did?" + +That was too much. Cassy exclaimed at it. "If! If! How can I tell? I +don't know. I lack experience." + +"But not heart." + +He was right about that, worse luck. How it beat, too! It would kill her +though to have him suspect it. + +"I do wish you would tell me," he added. + +Cassy, casting about, felt like an imbecile and said brilliantly: +"Haven't you a match? Shall I fetch one?" + +Lennox extracted a little case. "Thanks. It's an answer I'd like." + +It was enough to drive you mad and again casting about, but not getting +it, she hedged. + +"It will have to be in the abstract, then." + +"Very good. Let's have it in the abstract." + +Yet even in the abstract! However, with an uplift of the chin that gave +her, she felt, an air of discussing a matter in which she had no concern +at all, she plunged. + +"One never knows, don't you know, but it seems to me that if by any +chance I did care for a man--not that it is in the least presumable that +I ever shall--but if I did, why, then, no. He couldn't get rid of me, +not unless he tried very hard, but if he didn't, then no matter what I +heard, no matter how true it might be, I would cling to his coat-tails, +that is, if he wore them, and if, also, he cared for a ninny like me." + +Cassy paused, shook her docked hair and solemnly resumed: "Which, of +course, he couldn't." + +"I knew you would say that." + +"Say what?" Previously flushed, she reddened. But there is a God. The +room had grown dim. + +"That you wouldn't cut and run." + +She could have slapped him. "Then why did you ask me?" + +Lennox blew a ring of smoke. + +"To have you see it as I do. To have you see that at the first flurry +Miss Austen ran to cover. I am quite sure I could show her that she ran +too quick, but I am equally sure it is a blessing that she did run. It +is not ambitious of a man to want a girl who will stand her ground. +Sooner or later some other flurry would have knocked the ground from +under and then it might have been awkward. This one let me out." + +He stood up, opened the window, dropped the cigar from it. The cigar +might have been Margaret Austen. + +"What are your plans?" he asked and sat again. + +Ah, how much safer that was! Cassy grabbed at it. + +"You are the third person to ask me. First, Mr. Jones. Then--then----" +But she did not want to mention Dunwoodie or anything about the great +cascade of gorgeous follies and she jumped them both. "Then an agent. He +asked me yesterday and to-day he had a contract for me and a cheque in +advance. He is a very horrid little man but so decent!" + +"When does it begin?" + +"The engagement? Next week. What plans have you?" + +"A few that have been made for me. Presently we sail." + +"For France?" + +"For France." + +It was cooler now, at least her face was, and she got up and switched +the light. + +"I wish I might go, too," she told him. "But I lack the training to be +nurse and the means to be vivandière--canteener, I think they call it." +She hesitated and added, "Shall I see you before you go?" + +But now from the phonograph in the neighbourly flat, the _Non te +scordar_ drifted, sung nobly by some fat tenor who probably loathed it. + +Lennox, who had risen with her, asked: "May I come to-morrow?" + +The aria enveloped them and for a moment Cassy trilled in. + +"Perhaps to-morrow you will sing for me," he continued. + +"Yes, I'll sing." + +Later, in the black room on the white bed, the fat tenor's tuneful +prayer floated just above her. Cassy repeated the words and told herself +she was silly. She may have been, but also she was tired. She knew it +and for a moment wondered why. Painted hours dancing to jewelled harps +are not to be sneezed at. But when they are not yours, when you have +really no right to them, it is not fatiguing to say so. A gesture does +not fatigue. It is certainly taxing to go to a greasy office, sign your +name and receive a cheque. Taxing but endurable. It is not that that +does you up. It is argument that tires you, particularly when there is +no need for any and you are forced to turn yourself inside out. How +fortunate it was, though, that the room had been dark! In the balm of +that, sleep took her. + +The next day she had many things to do and succeeded in botching most of +them. I have no mind for anything, she decided. What is the matter with +me? But, at least, when at last she opened the door for him, there was +nothing amiss with her appearance. + +In the room where the piano was, she sat down on the bench and smiled up +at him. "Shall I sing now?" + +Lennox put his hat on the sofa. "If you don't mind my talking to you." + +"Very good, we will have a duo." + +Over the keys her fingers moved, sketching a melody, passing from it +into another. + +Beside the bench Lennox had drawn the only chair. He looked about, then +at her. + +"I remember so well the first time I came here." + +Her lips tightened, but, suppressing the smile, she turned to him and +said and so patiently: + +"Is it a song without words you want, or words without song?" + +Lennox leaned toward her. It was then or, it might be, never. + +"It is you I want." + +Cassy turned from him. Her fingers, prompted by a note, had gone from it +into Gounod. + +"Will you marry me?" + +"Certainly not." + +It was as though he had asked her to go skating. To mark the absurdity +of it her voice mounted. + +"_Le printemps chasse les hivers----_" + +The words are imbecile but the air, which is charming, seemed to occupy +her wholly. + +"_Et sourit dans les arbres verts_----" + +"I know you don't care for me but couldn't you try?" + +"Eh?" Cassy stayed her fingers, reached for a score on the top of the +upright. "I thought you wanted me to sing." + +"I want to know whether you can't ever care for me." + +It sang about her like a flute. Something else was singing, not the bird +in her throat, for she had hushed it, but a bird in her heart. It had +been singing ever since he had entered the room. It had been singing +with her the duo of which lightly she had spoken. But it was singing too +loud. + +Hastily she replaced the score, pulled at another, shoved it back. + +"Won't you tell me?" Lennox was asking. + +It will burst, she thought. Sidling from the bench, she went to the +sofa, looked at it as though she had never seen it before, and sat down. + +"Won't you?" he repeated. + +She glanced over at him. Apparently now she was calm as you please. + +"People marry out of optimism, or at any rate I did. I have had my +lesson, thank you." + +Lennox stood up. "You have suffered----" + +"I read somewhere," she cut in, "that we have to suffer terribly before +we learn not to suffer at all." Pausing, she added: "I suppose then we +are dead." + +She was getting away from it and he rounded on her. + +"See here! We have both been in hell, but that's over. Even otherwise, +hell would not be hell to me if I were in it with you." + +Thump! Thump! It was worse than ever. None the less she looked cool as a +cucumber. + +"The prospect is not very tempting. Besides, even if it were----" Again +she paused, but this time without getting on with it. + +He came toward her. "Even if it were what?" + +"Temptation has its dangers. It may lead to captivity." + +"And you fear that?" + +"For you, yes." + +"For me!" he exclaimed. + +How it thumped! It thumped so that it hurt, yet spartanly she contrived +to smile. + +"You or any one. I was speaking generally. Then, too, you know, hell may +not be all your fancy pictures it." + +He floundered in it. "What do you mean?" + +"In no time you might get sick to death of me." + +"Never!" + +The denial exploded with such violence that the walls fell. Or at least +so it seemed to Cassy. It seemed to her that the room had become a tent +of fulgurant colours. They were blinding. She could not look at them. +How delicious it all was, though! In spite of which, she sighed. + +"Well, there is no telling. Some day I may go and take a look there." + +With mounting astonishment he repeated it. "Some day! But, if you ever +will, why not now?" + +Her eyes then were on him. "To find out." + +"Find out what?" + +"How you felt about it." + +"But how could you, if you don't care for me?" + +"Why do you say that?" + +"Because you told me so." + +Innocently, with an air of wonder, she took it up. "Did I? I don't think +so. I am sure I did not. I am convinced that I would not have +volunteered it and I am certain you did not ask." + +"I asked you a moment ago." + +If I don't make it stop, she thought, it will jump out. What shall I do? + +"And I ask you again," he gravely continued. + +It was in her throat. Try as she might she could not choke it back. Out +it came. + +"I have never cared for any one else." + +Lennox stared. It was incredible. Like many another it was incredible to +him that he should have sought afar for what was at his side. + +But not having finished, she resumed. "And I never shall." + +To that there could be but one reply. It was rough enough. Cassy did not +mind, but she freed herself, undulantly, as a woman can. + +Unrebuffably Lennox renewed it. "Let's be married at once." + +Cassy smoothed her rumpled hair. "No." The monosyllable fell like a +stone. + +Lennox kicked it. "In God's name, why not?" + +Cassy turned away. It was the hardest of all. Beside it, what was the +gesture of the day before? + +"Because. Just because." + +"Because why?" + +"Because I could not live to see you regret it." + +"But why should I? I never shall." His hands on her shoulders, violently +his eyes probed her own. + +She thought him so dear, but she said: "I have not cared for any one +else. You have. The growth of love is slow. You cannot love me now as +I love you." + +He wanted to shake her and nearly did. "But when you find I do?" + +"Ah, when that day comes, I will." + +"And meanwhile?" + +She just plucked at his sleeve. Nothing could have been more yielding. +It was yielding as water, and yielding still, her eyes fell. + +"For your sake only. Later--if--if----" + +Any great astonishment is dumb and, at the moment, a whirlwind tossed +his thoughts. In the swirling gale were sudden pictures; the girl's fair +arms, the delight of her lips, his own desire. Tumultuously they passed. +Before him flew the hazards of life, of death, and, curling there, the +iniquity of leaving her afterward, as leave her he must, alone to face +them. The counter-blast steadied him. Astonishment may be dumb, love is +clairvoyant. + +"For your own sake, no. The war cannot last forever and if I return, +then--then----" + + * * * * * + +Shortly, among the Victorian horrors of his gloomy rooms, she came to +see him off. + +Mrs. Austen, who heard of everything, heard of that. "I always knew it!" +she exclaimed. The dear woman had known nothing of the kind and her +perspicacity amazed her. + +But this has nothing to do with the Paliser Case which ended before it +began. + + * * * * * + +_BY EDGAR SALTUS_ + + HISTORIA AMORIS + + IMPERIAL PURPLE + + MARY MAGDALEN + + THE POMPS OF SATAN + + THE LORDS OF THE GHOSTLAND + + DAUGHTERS OF THE RICH + + + _In preparation_ + + SCAFFOLDS AND ALTARS + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Printer's error - No Chapter XVII header in text. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Paliser case, by Edgar Saltus + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PALISER CASE *** + +***** This file should be named 29847-8.txt or 29847-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/4/29847/ + +Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +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. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/29847-8.zip b/29847-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3d33eaf --- /dev/null +++ b/29847-8.zip diff --git a/29847-h.zip b/29847-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c538a64 --- /dev/null +++ b/29847-h.zip diff --git a/29847-h/29847-h.htm b/29847-h/29847-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e9457a --- /dev/null +++ b/29847-h/29847-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11201 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Paliser Case, by Edgar Saltus. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +--> + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Paliser case, by Edgar Saltus + +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 Paliser case + +Author: Edgar Saltus + +Release Date: August 29, 2009 [EBook #29847] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PALISER CASE *** + + + + +Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h1>THE PALISER CASE</h1> + +<h2>BY EDGAR SALTUS</h2> + +<h3>BONI AND LIVERIGHT<br /> +NEW YORK 1919</h3> + +<h4><i>Then headlong down the stair of life he fell, while up that stairway +others laughed and mounted and all were drunken with the wine of youth.</i></h4> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1919,<br /> +By Edgar Saltus</span></h4> + +<h4><i>Printed in the U. S. A.</i></h4> + + + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p> +<a href="#I">I</a><br /> +<a href="#II">II</a><br /> +<a href="#III">III</a><br /> +<a href="#IV">IV</a><br /> +<a href="#V">V</a><br /> +<a href="#VI">VI</a><br /> +<a href="#VII">VII</a><br /> +<a href="#VIII">VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#IX">IX</a><br /> +<a href="#X">X</a><br /> +<a href="#XI">XI</a><br /> +<a href="#XII">XII</a><br /> +<a href="#XIII">XIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XIV">XIV</a><br /> +<a href="#XV">XV</a><br /> +<a href="#XVI">XVI</a><br /> +<a href="#XVIII">XVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XIX">XIX</a><br /> +<a href="#XX">XX</a><br /> +<a href="#XXI">XXI</a><br /> +<a href="#XXII">XXII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXIII">XXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXIV">XXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#XXV">XXV</a><br /> +<a href="#XXVI">XXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#XXVII">XXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXIX">XXIX</a><br /> +<a href="#XXX">XXX</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXI">XXXI</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXII">XXXII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXV">XXXV</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PALISER_CASE" id="THE_PALISER_CASE"></a>THE PALISER CASE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + + +<p>The murder of Monty Paliser, headlined that morning in the papers, shook +the metropolis at breakfast, buttered the toast, improved the taste of +the coffee.</p> + +<p>Murdered! It seemed too bad to be false. Moreover, there was his +picture, the portrait of a young man obviously high-bred and insolently +good-looking. In addition to war news and the financial page, what more +could you decently ask for a penny? Nothing, perhaps, except the address +of the murderer. But that detail, which the morning papers omitted, +extras shortly supplied. Meanwhile in the minds of imaginative New +Yorkers, visions of the infernal feminine surged. The murdered man's +name was evocative.</p> + +<p>His father, Montagu Paliser, generally known as M. P., had lived in that +extensive manner in which New York formerly took an indignant delight. +Behind him, extending back to the remotest past when Bowling Green was +the centre of fashion, always there had been a Paliser, precisely as +there has always been a Livingston. These people and a dozen others +formed the landed gentry—a gentry otherwise landed since. But not the +Paliser clan. The original Paliser was very wealthy. All told he had a +thousand dollars. Montagu Paliser, the murdered man's father, had stated +casually, as though offering unimportant information, that, by Gad, sir, +you can't live like a gentleman on less than a thousand dollars a day. +That was years and years ago. Afterward he doubled his estimate. +Subsequently, he quadrupled it. It made no hole in him either. In spite +of his yacht, his racing stable, his town house, his country residences +and formerly in the great days, or rather in the great nights, his +ladies of the ballet, in spite of these incidentals his wealth +increased. No end to it, is about the way in which he was currently +quoted.</p> + +<p>All New Yorkers knew him, at any rate by repute, precisely as the least +among us knows Mr. Carnegie, though perhaps more intimately. The tales +of his orgies, of his ladies, of that divorce case and of the yacht +scandal which burst like a starball, tales Victorian and now legendary, +have, in their mere recital, made many an old reprobate's mouth +champagne. But latterly, during the present generation that is, the +ineffable Paliser—M. P. for short—who, with claret liveries and a yard +of brass behind him had tooled his four-in-hand, or else, in his superb +white yacht, gave you something to talk about, well, from living very +extensively he had renounced the romps and banalities of this life.</p> + +<p>Old reprobates could chuckle all they liked over the uproar he had +raised in the small and early family party that social New York used to +be. But in club windows there were no new tales of him to tell. Like a +potentate outwearied with the circumstance of State, he had chucked it, +definitely for himself, and recently in favour of his son, Monty, who, +in the month of March, 1917, arrived from Havana at the family +residence, which in successive migrations had moved, as the heart of +Manhattan has moved, from the neighbourhood of the Battery to that of +the Plaza.</p> + +<p>In these migrations the Palisers had not derogated from their high +estate. Originally, one of the first families here, the centuries, few +but plural, had increased what is happily known as their prestige. Monty +Paliser was conscious of that, but not unwholesomely. The enamellings +that his father had added gave him no concern whatever. On the contrary. +He knew that trade would sack the Plaza, as long since it had razed the +former citadels of fashion, and he foresaw the day when the family +residence, ousted from upper Fifth Avenue, would be perched on a peak of +Washington Heights, where the Palisers would still be among the first +people in New York—to those coming in town that way.</p> + +<p>That result it was for him to insure. Apart from second cousins, to whom +he had never said a word and never proposed to address, apart from them, +apart too from his father and himself, there was only his sister, Sally +Balaguine, who, one night, had gone to bed in Petersburg and, on the +morrow, had awakened in Petrograd. Though, in addition to this much +surprised lady, before whose eyes Petrograd subsequently dissolved into +Retrograd and afterward into delirium, there was her son, a boy of +three. Mme. Balaguine's prince did not count, or rather had ceased to. +As lieutenant of the guards he had gone to the front where a portion of +him had been buried, the rest having been minutely dispersed.</p> + +<p>To perpetuate the clan in its elder branch, there was therefore but this +young man, a circumstance which, on his return from Havana, his father +advanced.</p> + +<p>They were then at luncheon. For the father there was biscuit and milk. +For the son there was an egg cooked in a potato. Yet, in the kitchen, +or, if not there, somewhere about, were three chefs. Moreover on the +walls were Beauvais. The ceiling was the spoil of a Venetian palace. The +luncheon however simple was not therefore disagreeable.</p> + +<p>With an uplift of the chin, the elder man flicked a crumb and sat back. +The action was a signal. Three servants filed out.</p> + +<p>Formerly his manner had been cited and imitated. To many a woman it had +been myrrh and cassia. It had been deadly nightshade as well. After a +fashion of long ago, he wore a cavalry moustache which, once black, now +was white. He was tall, bald, very thin. But that air of his, the air of +one accustomed to immediate obedience, yet which could be very urbane +and equally insolent, that air endured.</p> + +<p>In sitting back he looked at his son for whom he had no affection. For +no human being had he ever had any affection, except for himself, and +latterly even that unique love had waned.</p> + +<p>The chefs, originally retained on shifts of eight hours each, in order +that this man might breakfast or sup whenever he so desired, that he +might breakfast, as a gentleman may, at four in the afternoon, or sup at +seven in the morning, these chefs were useless. His wife, who had died, +not as one might suppose of a broken heart but of fatty degeneration, +had succumbed to their delicately toxic surprises with groans but also +with thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>That is ancient history. At present her widower supped on powdered +charcoal and breakfasted on bismuth. The cooks he still retained, not to +prepare these triumphs, but for the benefit of his heir, for whom he had +no affection but whom he respected as the next incumbent and treated +accordingly, that is to say, as one gentleman treats another.</p> + +<p>On this high noon, when the servants had gone, the father sat back and +looked at his son, who, it then occurred to him, astonishingly resembled +his mother. He had the same eyes, too big, too blue; the same lashes, +too long, too dark; the same ears, too small and a trifle too far +forward. In addition he had the same full upper-lip, the same cleft in +the chin, the same features refined almost to the point of degeneracy. +But the ensemble was charming—too charming, as was his voice, which he +had acquired at Oxford where, at the House, he had studied, though what, +except voice culture, one may surmise and never know. Men generally +disliked him and accounted the way he spoke, or the way he looked, the +reason. But what repelled them was probably his aura of which, though +unaware, they were not perhaps unconscious.</p> + +<p>His father motioned: "Thank God, you are here. At any moment now we may +be in it and you will have to go. You are not a divinity student and you +cannot be a slacker."</p> + +<p>The old man paused and added: "Meanwhile you will have to marry. If +anything should happen to you, there would be but Sally and the +Balaguine brat and I shouldn't like that. God knows why I care, but I +do. There has always been a Paliser here and it is your turn now—which +reminds me. I have made over some property to you. You would have had it +any way, but the transfer will put you on your feet, besides saving the +inheritance tax."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"The Place, the Wall Street and lower Broadway property, that damned +hotel and the opera-box. Jeroloman wrote you about it. Didn't you get +his letter?"</p> + +<p>"I may have. I don't know that I read it."</p> + +<p>"When you have a moment look in on him. He will tell you where you are."</p> + +<p>"And where is that?"</p> + +<p>The old man summarised it. Even with the increased cost of matrimony, it +was enough for a Mormon, for a tribe of them. But the young man omitted +to say so. He said nothing.</p> + +<p>His father nodded at him. "You think marriage a nuisance. So it is. So +is everything. By Gad, sir, I wish I were well out of it. I go +nowhere—not even to church. I have grown thin through the sheer +nuisance of things. But if nothing happens over there and you don't make +a mess of it, the next twenty years of your life ought not to be +profoundly disagreeable. Now I dislike to be a nuisance myself, but in +view of the war, it is necessary that there should be another Paliser, +if not here, at least en route."</p> + +<p>"I will think it over," said this charming young man, who had no +intention of doing anything of the kind.</p> + +<p>"The quicker the better then, and while you are at it select a girl with +good health and no brains. They wear best. I did think of Margaret +Austen for you, but she has become engaged. Lennox his name is. Her +mother told me. Told me too she hated it. Said you must come to dinner +and she'd have a girl or two for you to look at. Oblige me by going. +Plenty of others though. Girls here are getting healthier and stupider +and uglier every year. By Gad, sir, I remember——"</p> + +<p>The old man rambled on. He was back in the days when social New York +foamed with beauty, when it held more loveliness to the square inch than +any other spot on earth. He was back in the days when Fifth Avenue was +an avenue and not a ghetto.</p> + +<p>With an air of interest the young man listened. The air was not feigned. +Yet what interested him was not the outworn tale but the pathological +fact that the reminiscences of the aged are symptomatic of hardening of +the arteries.</p> + +<p>Mentally he weighed his father, gave him a year, eighteen months, and +that, not because he was anxious for his shoes, but out of sheer +dilettantism.</p> + +<p>The idea that his father would survive him, that it was he who was +doomed, that already behind the curtains of life destiny was staging his +death—and what a death!—he could no more foresee than he foresaw the +Paliser Case, which, to the parties subsequently involved, was then +unimaginable, yet which, at that very hour, a court of last resort was +deciding.</p> + +<p>He looked over at his father. "Palmerston asked everybody, particularly +when he didn't know them from Adam, 'How's the old complaint?' How is +yours?"</p> + +<p>With that air that had won so many hearts, and broken them too, the old +man smiled.</p> + +<p>"When I don't eat anything and sit perfectly still, it is extraordinary +how well I feel."</p> + +<p>How he felt otherwise, he omitted to state. A gentleman never talks of +disagreeable matters.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + + +<p>In the shouted extras that succeeded the initial news of the murder, +Margaret Austen was mentioned, not as the criminal, no one less criminal +than the girl could be imagined, but as being associated with the +parties involved.</p> + +<p>That was her misfortune and a very grievous misfortune, though, however +grievous, it was as nothing to other circumstances for which she +subsequently blamed herself, after having previously attributed them to +fate, or rather, as fate is more modernly known, to karma.</p> + +<p>Any belief may console. A belief in karma not only consoles, it +explains. As such it is not suited to those who accept things on faith, +which is a very good way to accept to them. It may be credulous to +believe that Jehovah dictated the ten commandments. But the commandments +are sound. Moreover it is perhaps better to be wrong in one's belief's +than not to have any.</p> + +<p>Margaret Austen believed in karma and in many related and wonderful +things. Her face showed it. It showed other things; appreciation, +sympathy, unworldliness, good-breeding and that minor charm that beauty +is. It showed a girl good to look at, good through and through; a girl +tall, very fair, who smiled readily, rarely laughed and never +complained.</p> + +<p>It is true that at the time this drama begins it would have been +captious of her to have complained of anything were it not that life is +so ordered that it has sorrow for shadow. The shadow on this human rose +was her mother.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen had seen worse days and never proposed to see them again. +Among the chief assets of her dear departed was a block of New Haven. +The stock, before collapsing, shook. Then it tripped, fell and kept at +it. Through what financial clairvoyance the dear departed's trustee got +her out, just in time, and, quite illegally but profitably, landed her +in Standard Oil is not a part of this drama. But meanwhile she had +shuddered. Like many another widow, to whom New Haven was as good as +Governments, she might have been in the street. Pointing at her had been +that spectre—Want!</p> + +<p>It was just that which she never proposed to see again. The spectre in +pointing had put a mark on this woman who was arrogant, ambitious and +horribly shrewd.</p> + +<p>A tall woman with a quick tongue, a false front, an air of great +affability and, when on parade, admirably sent out, she ruled her +daughter, or thought she did, which is not quite the same thing.</p> + +<p>Margaret Austen was ruled by her conscience and her beautiful beliefs. +These were her masters. This human rose was their lovely slave. But +latterly a god had enthralled her. It was with wonder and thanksgiving +that she recognised the overlordship of that brat of a divinity, whom +poets call Eros, and thinkers the Genius of the Species.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, who had danced many a time before his shrine, had no +objection whatever to the godlet, except only when he neglected to +appear Olympianly, as divinity should, with a nimbus of rentrolls and +gold.</p> + +<p>In view of the fact that he had come to Margaret in déshabille, that is +to say without any discernible nimbus, he affronted Mrs. Austen's +ambitious eyes.</p> + +<p>Of that she said nothing to Margaret. But at dinner one evening she +summarised it to Peter Verelst who sat at her right.</p> + +<p>The room, which was furnished with tolerable taste, gave on Park Avenue +where she resided. At her left was Monty Paliser. Farther down were +Margaret, Lennox and Kate Schermerhorn. Coffee had been served. Paliser +was talking to Miss Schermerhorn; Lennox to Margaret.</p> + +<p>"I don't like it," Mrs. Austen said evenly to Peter Verelst. "But what +can I do?"</p> + +<p>Peter Verelst was an old New Yorker and an old beau. Mrs. Austen had +known him when she was in shorter frocks than those then in vogue. Even +as a child she had been ahead of the fashion.</p> + +<p>"Do?" Verelst repeated. "Do nothing."</p> + +<p>"I am a snob," she resumed, expecting him to contradict her. "I did hope +that Margaret, with her looks, would marry brilliantly."</p> + +<p>Peter Verelst bent over his coffee. "The young man next door?"</p> + +<p>Out of the corner of an eye Mrs. Austen glanced at Paliser and then back +at Verelst. "Well, something of the kind."</p> + +<p>Verelst raised his cup. He had known Lennox' father. He knew and liked +the son. For Margaret he had an affection that was almost—and which +might have been—paternal. But, noting the barometer, he steered into +the open.</p> + +<p>"Have Lennox here morning, noon and night. See to it that Margaret has +every opportunity to get sick to death of him. Whereas if you +interfere——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, as though invoking the saints, lifted her eyes. "Ah, I +know! If I had not been interfered with I would not have taken Austen. +Much good it did me!"</p> + +<p>Verelst, his hand on the tiller, nodded. "There you are! That locksmith +business is very sound. Love revels in it. But give him his head and +good-bye. Sooner or later he is bound to take to his heels, but, the +more he is welcomed, the sooner he goes. The history of love is a +history of farewells."</p> + +<p>Paliser, who had caught the last phrase, felt like laughing and +consequently looked very serious. The spectacle of two antiques +discussing love seemed to him as hilarious as two paupers discussing +wealth. He patted his tie.</p> + +<p>"Very interesting topic, Mrs. Austen."</p> + +<p>The woman smiled at him. "Love? Yes. How would you define it?"</p> + +<p>Paliser returned her smile. "A mutual misunderstanding."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen's smile deepened. "Would you like to have one?"</p> + +<p>"With your daughter, yes."</p> + +<p>Et moi donc! thought this lady, who, like others of our aristocracy, +occasionally lapsed into French. But she said: "Why not enter the +lists?"</p> + +<p>"I thought they were closed."</p> + +<p>"Are they ever?"</p> + +<p>But now Verelst addressed the too charming young man. "How is your +father?"</p> + +<p>"In his usual poor health, thank you."</p> + +<p>"What does he say about the war?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing very original—that the Kaiser ought to be sent to Devil's +Island. But that I told him would be an insult to Dreyfus, who was +insulted enough. The proper place for the beast is the zoo. At the same +time, the fellow is only a pawn. The blame rests on Rome—rests on her +seven hills."</p> + +<p>Verelst drew back. In the great days, or more exactly in the great +nights, he had been a pal of M. P. That palship he had no intention of +extending to M. P.'s son, and it was indifferently that he asked: "In +what way?"</p> + +<p>Kate Schermerhorn, who had been talking to Margaret and to Lennox, +turned. Lennox also had turned. Paliser had the floor, or rather the +table. He made short work of it.</p> + +<p>"It was Cæsar's policy to create a solitude and call it peace. That +policy Rome abandoned. Otherwise, that is if she had continued to turn +the barbarians into so many dead flies, their legs in the air, there +would be no barbarian now on the throne of Prussia. There would be no +Prussia, no throne, no war."</p> + +<p>You ought to write for the comic papers, thought Verelst, who said: +"Well, there is one comfort. It can't last forever."</p> + +<p>With feigned sympathy Mrs. Austen took it up. "Ah, yes, but meanwhile +there is that poor Belgium!"</p> + +<p>"By the way," Paliser threw in. "I have a box or two for the Relief Fund +at the Splendor to-night. Would anybody care to go?"</p> + +<p>Kate Schermerhorn, who looked like a wayward angel, exclaimed at it: +"Oh, do let's. There's to be a duck of a medium and I am just dying to +have my fortune told."</p> + +<p>Verelst showed his handsome false teeth. "No need of a medium for that, +my dear. Your path is one of destruction. You will bowl men over as you +go."</p> + +<p>Kate laughed at him. "You seem very upright."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen turned to Margaret. "If you care to go, we might get our +wraps."</p> + +<p>A moment later, when the women had left the room and the men were +reseated, Verelst stretched a hand to Lennox. "Again I congratulate you +and with all my heart."</p> + +<p>Keith Lennox grasped that hand, shook it, smiled. The smile illuminated +a face which, sombre in repose, then was radiant. Tall and straight, +hard as nails, he had the romantic figure. In a costume other than +evening clothes, he might have walked out of a tapestry.</p> + +<p>With ambiguous amiability, Paliser smiled also. Already Margaret's +beauty had stirred him. Already it had occurred to him that Lennox was +very invitingly in the way.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + + +<p>The ballrooms of the Splendor, peopled, as Mrs. Austen indulgently +noted, with Goodness knows who from Heaven knows where, received her and +her guests.</p> + +<p>Not all of them, however. At the entrance, Verelst, pretexting a +pretext, sagely dropped out. Within, a young man with ginger hair and +laughing eyes, sprang from nowhere, pounced at Kate, floated her away.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, Margaret, Lennox and Paliser moved on.</p> + +<p>In one room there was dancing; in another, a stage. It was in the first +room that Kate was abducted. On the stage in the room beyond, a fat +woman, dressed in green and gauze, was singing faded idiocies. Beyond, +at the other end of the room was a booth above which was a sign—The +Veiled Lady of Yucatan. Beneath the sign was a notice: All ye that enter +here leave five dollars at the door.</p> + +<p>The booth, hung with black velvet, was additionally supplied with +hierograms in burnished steel. What they meant was not for the profane, +or even for the initiate. Champollion could not have deciphered them. +Fronting the door stood a young woman with a dark skin, a solemn look +and a costume which, at a pinch, might have been Maya.</p> + +<p>In those accents which the Plaza shares with Mayfair, she hailed +Margaret. "Hello, dear! Your turn next."</p> + +<p>For a moment, the dark skin, the solemn look, the costume puzzled +Margaret. Then at once she exclaimed: "Why, Poppet!" She paused and +added: "This is Mr. Paliser—Miss Bleecker. You know Mr. Lennox."</p> + +<p>But now, from the booth, a large woman with high colour, grey hair and a +jewelled lorgnette rushed out and fastened herself on the sultry girl.</p> + +<p>"Gimme back my money. Your veiled lady is a horror! Said I'd marry +again!"</p> + +<p>She raised her glasses. "Mary Austen, as I'm a sinner! Go in and have +your misfortunes told. How do do Margaret? Marry again indeed! Oughtn't +I to have my money back?"</p> + +<p>"Poppet ought to make you pay twice," Mrs. Austen heartlessly retorted +at this woman, the relict of Nicholas Amsterdam, concerning whom a story +had come out and who had died, his friends said, of exposure.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Amsterdam turned on Paliser whom she had never seen before. "What +do you say?"</p> + +<p>"I am appalled," he answered.</p> + +<p>She turned again. "There, Poppet, you hear that? Gimme back my money."</p> + +<p>But Miss Bleecker occupied herself with Lennox, who was paying for +Margaret.</p> + +<p>Margaret entered the booth where a little old woman, very plainly +dressed, sat at a small deal table. From above hung a light. Beside her +was a vacant chair.</p> + +<p>"Sit there, please," the medium, in a low voice, told the girl. "And +now, if you please, your hand."</p> + +<p>Margaret, seating herself, removed a glove. The hand in which she then +put hers was soft and warm and she feared that it might perspire. She +looked at the woman who looked at her, sighed, closed her eyes and +appeared to go to sleep. Then, presently, her lips parted and in a voice +totally different from that in which she had just spoken, a voice that +was thin and shrill, words came leapingly.</p> + +<p>"You are engaged to be married. Your engagement will be broken. You will +be very unhappy. Later, you will be thankful. Later you will realise +that sorrow is sent to make us nobler than we were."</p> + +<p>With an intake of the breath, the medium started, straightened, opened +her eyes.</p> + +<p>At the shock of it Margaret had started also. "But——"</p> + +<p>The medium, in her former voice, low and gentle, interrupted.</p> + +<p>"I can tell you nothing else. I do not know what was said. But I am +sorry if you have had bad news."</p> + +<p>Margaret stood up, replacing her glove. She knew, as we all know, that +certain gifted organisms hear combinations of sound to which the rest of +us are deaf. She knew, as many of us also know, that there are other +organisms that can foresee events to which the rest of us are blind. But +she knew too that in the same measure that the auditions of composers +are not always notable, the visions of clairvoyants are not always +exact. The knowledge steadied and partially comforted, but partially +only.</p> + +<p>At the entrance, Lennox stood with Miss Bleecker. A little beyond were +Paliser and her mother. Mrs. Amsterdam, minus her money, must have +rushed away.</p> + +<p>Poppet Bleecker laughed and questioned: "No horrors?"</p> + +<p>Lennox questioned also, but with his eyes.</p> + +<p>Margaret hesitated. Then she got it. Taking the girl's hand she patted +it and to Lennox said, and lightly enough: "Do go in. I want to see if +what the medium says to you conforms with what she said to me."</p> + +<p>Yet, however lightly she spoke, behind her girdle was that sensation +which only the tormented know.</p> + +<p>Beyond on the stage, the fat woman, now at the piano, was accompanying a +girl who was singing a brindisi. The girl was young, good-looking, +unembarrassed, very much at home. Her dress, a black chiffon, became +her.</p> + +<p>Then, in a moment, as Lennox entered the booth, Margaret joined her +mother and looked at the girl.</p> + +<p>"What is she singing?"</p> + +<p>Paliser covered her with his eyes. "Verdi's <i>Segreto per esser +felice</i>—the secret of happiness. Such a simple secret too."</p> + +<p>"Yes?" Margaret absently returned. She was looking now at the booth. +Quite as vaguely she added: "In what does it consist?"</p> + +<p>"In getting what we do not deserve."</p> + +<p>There was nothing in that to offend. But the man's eyes, of which +already she had been conscious, did offend. They seemed to disrobe her. +Annoyedly she turned.</p> + +<p>Paliser turned with her. "Verdi's bric-à-brac is very banal. Perhaps you +prefer Strauss. His dissonances are more harmonic than they sound."</p> + +<p>Now though there was applause. With a roulade the brindisi had ceased +and the singer as though pleased, not with herself but with the +audience, bowed. The fat woman twisting on her bench, was also smiling. +She looked cheerful and evil.</p> + +<p>"I do believe that's the Tamburini," Mrs. Austen remarked. "I heard her +at the Academy, ages ago." The usual touch followed. "How she has gone +off!"</p> + +<p>The fat woman stood up, and, preceded by the girl, descended into the +audience.</p> + +<p>Margaret looked again at the booth. Lennox was coming out. He said a +word to Miss Bleecker and glanced about the room.</p> + +<p>Margaret motioned. He did not notice. The girl who had been singing was +bearing down on him, a hand outstretched and, in her face, an expression +which Margaret could not interpret. But she saw Lennox smile, take her +hand and say—what? Margaret could not tell, but it was something to +which the girl was volubly replying.</p> + +<p>"Who's his little friend?" Mrs. Austen in her even voice inquired. "Mr. +Paliser," she added. "Would you mind telling—er—my daughter's young +man that we are waiting."</p> + +<p>Margaret winced. She had turned from Paliser and she turned then from +her mother.</p> + +<p>Paliser, whom the phrase "my daughter's young man" amused, sauntered +away. He strolled on to where Lennox stood with the girl. The fat woman +joined them.</p> + +<p>Lennox must have introduced Paliser, for Margaret could see them all +talking at once. Then Lennox again looked about, saw Margaret and her +mother, and came over.</p> + +<p>"Who's your friend?" Mrs. Austen asked.</p> + +<p>Lennox' eyes caressed Margaret. Then he turned to her mother. "She is a +Miss Cara. Cassy Cara her name is. I know her father. He is a +violinist."</p> + +<p>And my daughter is second fiddle, thought Mrs. Austen, who said: "How +interesting!"</p> + +<p>With his sombre air, Lennox summarised it. "She is studying for the +opera. The woman with her, Madame Tamburini, is her coach. You may have +heard of her."</p> + +<p>"A fallen star," Mrs. Austen very pleasantly remarked. Quite as +pleasantly she added: "The proper companion for a soiled dove."</p> + +<p>The charm of that was lost. Margaret, who had not previously seen this +girl but who had heard of her from Lennox, was speaking to him.</p> + +<p>"It was her father, was it?" Then, dismissing it, she asked anxiously: +"But do tell me, Keith, what did the medium say?"</p> + +<p>"That I would be up for murder."</p> + +<p>Margaret's eyes widened. But, judging it ridiculous, she exclaimed: "Was +that all?"</p> + +<p>"All!" Lennox grimly repeated. "What more would you have?" Abruptly he +laughed. "I don't wonder Mrs. Amsterdam wanted her money back."</p> + +<p>On the stage, from jungles of underwear, legs were tossing. The +orchestra had become frankly canaille. Moreover the crowd of Goodness +knows who had increased. A person had the temerity to elbow Mrs. Austen +and the audacity to smile at her. It was the finishing touch.</p> + +<p>She poked at Margaret. "Come."</p> + +<p>As they moved on, a man smiled at Lennox, who, without stopping, gave +him a hand.</p> + +<p>He was an inkbeast. But there was nothing commercial in his appearance. +Ordinarily, he looked like a somnambulist. When he was talking, he +resembled a comedian. In greeting Lennox he seemed to be in a pleasant +dream. The crowd swallowed him.</p> + +<p>"Who was that?" Mrs. Austen enquired.</p> + +<p>"Ten Eyck Jones."</p> + +<p>"The writer?" asked this lady, who liked novels, but who preferred to +live them.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Paliser was talking to Cassy Cara and the Tamburini. The +latter listened idly, with her evil smile. Yet Paliser's name was very +evocative. The syllables had fallen richly on her ears.</p> + +<p>Cassy Cara had not heard them and they would have conveyed nothing to +her if she had. She was a slim girl, with a lot of auburn hair which was +docked. The careless-minded thought her pretty. She was what is far +rarer; she was handsome. Her features had the surety of an intaglio. +Therewith was an air and a look that were not worldly or even superior, +but which, when necessary as she sometimes found it, could reduce a man, +and for that matter a woman, to proportions really imperceptible.</p> + +<p>A little beauty and a little devil, thought Paliser, who was an expert. +But leisurely, in his Oxford voice, he outlined for her a picture less +defined. "You remind me of something."</p> + +<p>With entire brevity and equal insolence, she returned it. "I dare say."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Of supper."</p> + +<p>"An ogre, are you?"</p> + +<p>Paliser, ruminating the possibilities of her slim beauty served Régence, +smiled at this girl who did not smile back. "Not Nebuchadnezzar at any +rate. Vegetarianism is not my forte. Won't you and Madame Tamburini take +potluck with me? There must be a restaurant somewhere."</p> + +<p>The fallen star moistened her painted lips. "Yes, why not?"</p> + +<p>Born in California, of foreign parents, she had neither morals or accent +and spoke in a deep voice. She spoke American and English. She spoke the +easy French of the boulevards, the easier Italian of the operatic stage. +She never spoke of Tamburini. She left him to be imagined, which perhaps +he had been.</p> + +<p>From the room they went on into a wide, crowded hall, beyond which was +another room, enclosed in glass, where there were tables and palms.</p> + +<p>As they entered, a captain approached. There was a smell of pineapple, +the odour of fruit and flowers. From a gallery came the tinkle of +mandolins. Mainly the tables were occupied. But the captain, waving the +way, piloted them to a corner, got them seated and stood, pad in hand.</p> + +<p>Paliser looked at Cassy Cara. She was hungry as a wolf, but she said +indifferently: "A swallow of anything."</p> + +<p>"One swallow does not make a supper," Paliser retorted and looked at the +Tamburini who appeared less indifferent.</p> + +<p>"Ham and eggs."</p> + +<p>Without a quiver, the captain booked it.</p> + +<p>"Also," Paliser told him, "caviare, woodcock, Ruinart." From the man he +turned to the girl. "It was very decent of Lennox to introduce me to +you."</p> + +<p>Cassy put her elbows on the table. "He could not be anything else than +decent. Don't you know him well?"</p> + +<p>Paliser shrugged. "Our intimacy is not oppressive."</p> + +<p>"He saved her father's life," the Tamburini put in. "Her father is a +musician—and authentically marquis," she added, as though that +explained everything.</p> + +<p>"We are Portuguese," said Cassy, "or at least my father is. He used to +play at the Metro. But he threw it up and one night, when he was coming +home from a private house where he had been giving a concert, he was +attacked. There were two of them. They knocked him down——"</p> + +<p>"Before he had time to draw his sword-cane," the fat woman interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Cassy resumed, "and just then Mr. Lennox came along and knocked +them down and saved his violin which was what they were after."</p> + +<p>"It's a Cremona," said the Tamburini who liked details.</p> + +<p>"But that is not all of it," the girl continued. "My father's arm was +broken. He has not been able to play since. Mr. Lennox brought him home +and sent for his own physician. He's a dear."</p> + +<p>"Who is?" Paliser asked. "The physician?"</p> + +<p>But now a waiter was upon them with a bottle which he produced with a +pop! Dishes followed to which Cassy permitted the man to help her. Her +swallow of anything became large spoonfuls of rich blackness and the +tenderness of savorous flesh. She was not carnal, but she was hungry and +at her home latterly the food had been vile.</p> + +<p>The Tamburini, with enigmatic ideas in the back of her head, ate her +horrible dish very delicately, her little finger crooked. But she drank +nobly.</p> + +<p>Paliser too had ideas which, however, were not enigmatic in the least +and not in the back of his head either. They concerned two young women, +one of whom was patently engaged to Lennox and the other probably in +love with him. The situation appealed to this too charming young man to +whom easy conquests were negligible.</p> + +<p>He had been looking at Cassy. On the table was a vase in which there +were flowers. He took two of them and looked again at the girl.</p> + +<p>"Sunday is always hateful. Couldn't you both dine with me here?"</p> + +<p>The former prima donna wiped her loose mouth. She could, she would, and +she said so.</p> + +<p>Paliser put the flowers before Cassy.</p> + +<p>"Le parlate d'amor," the ex-diva began and, slightly for a moment, her +deep voice mounted.</p> + +<p>Cassy turned on her. "You're an imbecile."</p> + +<p>With an uplift of the chin—a family habit—Paliser summoned the waiter. +While he was paying him, Cassy protested. She had nothing to wear.</p> + +<p>She had other objections which she kept to herself. If it had been +Lennox she would have had none at all. But it was not Lennox. It was a +man whom she had never seen before and who was entirely too free with +his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Come as you are," said the Tamburini, who massively stood up.</p> + +<p>Paliser also was rising. "Let me put you in a cab and on Sunday——"</p> + +<p>Cassy gave him a little unsugared look. "You take a great deal for +granted."</p> + +<p>Behind the girl's back the Tamburini gave him another look. Cheerful and +evil and plainer than words it said: "Leave it to me."</p> + +<p>Cassy, her perfect nose in the air, announced that she must get her +things.</p> + +<p>Through the emptying restaurant Paliser saw them to the entrance. There, +as he waited, the captain hurried to him.</p> + +<p>"Everything satisfactory, sir?"</p> + +<p>"I want a private dining-room on Sunday."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. For how many?"</p> + +<p>"Two."</p> + +<p>"Sorry, sir. It's against the rules."</p> + +<p>Paliser surveyed him. "Whom does this hotel belong to? You?"</p> + +<p>The captain smiled and caressed his chin. "No, sir, the hotel does not +belong to me. It is owned by Mr. Paliser."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. So I thought. I am Mr. Paliser. A private dining-room on +Sunday for two."</p> + +<p>But now Cassy and the Tamburini, hatted and cloaked, were returning. The +chastened waiter moved aside. Through the still crowded halls, Paliser +accompanied them to the street where, a doorkeeper assiduously +assisting, he got them into a taxi, asked the addresses, paid the +mechanician, saw them off.</p> + +<p>Manfully, as the cab veered, the Tamburini swore.</p> + +<p>"You damn fool, that man is rich as all outdoors."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + + +<p>The house in which Cassy lived was what is agreeably known as a walk-up. +There was no lift, merely the stairs, flight after flight, which +constituted the walk-up, one that ascended to the roof, where you had a +fine view of your neighbours' laundry. Such things are not for +everybody. Cassy hated them.</p> + +<p>On this night when the taxi, after reaching Harlem, landed her there +and, the walk-up achieved, she let herself into a flat on the fifth +floor, a "You're late!" filtered out at her.</p> + +<p>It was her father, who, other things being equal, you might have +mistaken for Zuloaga's "Uncle." The lank hair, the sad eyes, the wan +face, the dressing-gown, there he sat. Only the palette was absent. +Instead was an arm in a sling. There was another difference. Beyond, in +lieu of capricious manolas, was a piano and, above it, a portrait with +which Zuloaga had nothing to do. The portrait represented a man who +looked very fierce and who displayed a costume rich and unusual. Beneath +the portrait was a violin. Beside the piano was a sword-cane. Otherwise, +barring a rose-wood table, the room contained nothing to boast of.</p> + +<p>"You're late," he repeated.</p> + +<p>His name was Angelo Cara. When too young to remember it, he had come to +New York from Lisbon. With him had come the swashbuckler in oil. He grew +up in New York, developed artistic tastes, lost the oil man, acquired a +wife, lost her also, but not until she had given him a daughter who was +named Bianca, a name which, after elongating into Casabianca, shortened +itself into Cassy.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, on Madison Avenue, then unpolluted, there was a brown-stone +front, a landau, other accessories, the flower of circumstances not +opulent but easy, the rents and increments of the swashbuckler's estate, +which by no means had come from Lisbon but which, the rich and unusual +costume boxed in camphor, had been acquired in the import and sale of +wine.</p> + +<p>The fortune that the swashbuckler made descended to his son, who went to +Wall Street with it. There the usual cropper wiped him out, affected his +health, drove him, and not in a landau either, from Madison Avenue, left +him the portrait, the violin, the table and nothing else.</p> + +<p>But that is an exaggeration. To have debts is to have something. They +stir you. They stirred him. Besides there was Cassy. To provide for both +was the violin which in his hands played itself. For years it sufficed. +Then, with extreme good sense, he fought with the Union, fought with +Toscanini, disassociated himself from both. Now, latterly, with his arm +in a sling, the wolf was not merely at the door, it was in the +living-room of this Harlem flat which Cassy had just entered.</p> + +<p>It was then that he repeated it. "You're late!"</p> + +<p>For the past hour he had sat staring at things which the room did not +contain—a great, glowing house; an orchestra demoniacally led by a +conductor whom he strangely resembled; a stage on which, gracile in the +violet and silver of doublet and hose, the last of the Caras bowed to +the vivas.</p> + +<p>Then abruptly the curtain had fallen, the lights had gone out, the +vision faded, banished by the quick click of her key.</p> + +<p>But not entirely. More or less the dream was always with him. When +to-day is colourless, where can one live except in the future? To-day is +packed with commonplaces which, could we see them correctly, are +probably false for in the future only beautiful things are true. It is +stupid not to live among them, particularly if you have the ability, and +what artist lacks it? In the future, there is fame for the painter, +there is posterity for the poet and much good may it do them. But for +the musician, particularly for the song-bird, there is the vertigo of +instant applause. In days like these, days that witness the fall of +empires, the future holds for the donna, for the prima donna, for the +prima donna assoluta, the grandest of earthly careers.</p> + +<p>That career, Angelo Cara foresaw for his daughter, foresaw it at least +in the hypnogogic visions which the artist always has within beck and +call. In the falsifying commonplaces of broad daylight he was not so +sure. Her upper register had in it a parterre of flowers, but elsewhere +it lacked volume, lacked line, lacked colour, and occasionally he +wondered whether her voice would not prove to be a voix de salon and not +the royal organ that fills a house. Yet in the strawberry of her throat, +the orifice was wide, the larynx properly abnormal. In addition the +Tamburini was prophetically comforting.</p> + +<p>But did the woman know her trade? He did not believe it. He believed +though that she had no morals, never had had any, even as a child. It +was the same way with Rachel and the fact left him cold. He was +artistically indifferent to what the putana did or omitted, to what +anybody omitted or did. But anybody by no means included his daughter. +At the thought of anything amiss with her, presto! his sad eyes flamed. +Very needlessly too. Cassy was as indifferent to other people's +conceptions of decorum as he was himself. The matter did not touch her. +Clear-eyed, clean-minded, she was straight as a string.</p> + +<p>"How did it go?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Cassy laughed. She had had a glass of champagne. She had too, what is +far headier, the wine of youth.</p> + +<p>"Well, I didn't see any showmen tumbling over each other. Mr. Lennox was +there. He asked after you, and introduced a man who had us out to +supper. It was very good. I did so wish for you, poor dear."</p> + +<p>"What man? What is his name?"</p> + +<p>"Paliser, I think. Something of the kind. Ma Tamby told me."</p> + +<p>"Not old M. P.?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, I don't know. He has hair like a looking-glass. He did not +seem old; he seemed very impudent. Ma Tamby says he's rich as all +outdoors."</p> + +<p>"That's the son then. Don't have anything to do with him. They're a bad +lot."</p> + +<p>"As if I cared! Ma Tamby said he could get me an engagement."</p> + +<p>"Ha! In vaudeville with acrobats and funny men and little suppers to +follow."</p> + +<p>"Why not big ones?"</p> + +<p>"Big what?"</p> + +<p>"Big goose!" replied Cassy, who removed her gloves, took off her hat, +ran a pin through it, put it down.</p> + +<p>Her father stared. Behind the girl stood a blonde brute whom the supper +had evoked. He wore a scowl and a bloody apron. In his hand was a bill. +Behind him was the baker, the candlestickmaker. Behind these was the +agent, punctual and pertinacious, who had come for the rent. Though but +visions, they were real. Moreover, though they evaporated at once, +solidly they would return. He had been staring at her, and through her, +at them. In staring his eyes filled. Immediately they leaked.</p> + +<p>Cassy bit her lip. The tumbril and the guillotine would not have made +her weep. Dry-eyed she would have gone from one to the other. Besides, +what on earth was he wowing about? But immediately it occurred to her +that he might be experiencing one of the attacks to which he was +subject. She leaned over him. "You poor dear, is it your heart?"</p> + +<p>He brushed his eyes. Dimly they lighted. With artistic mobility his face +creased in a smile. "No, farther down."</p> + +<p>Cassy moved back. "What in the world——"</p> + +<p>But now his face clouded again. "I am glad you had supper. To-morrow +we'll starve."</p> + +<p>The exaggeration annoyed her, she exclaimed at it and then stopped +short. Already she had envisaged the situation. But it was idle, she +thought, to excite him additionally.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he almost whinnied.</p> + +<p>But as he would have to know, she out with it. "There's the portrait, +there's the violin. Either would tide us over."</p> + +<p>In speaking she had approached him again. He shoved her aside. With a +jerk he got to his feet, struck an attitude, tapped himself on the +breast.</p> + +<p>"I, Marquis de Casa-Evora, sell my father's picture! I, Angelo Cara, +sell my violin! And you, my daughter, suggest such a thing! But are you +my daughter? Are you—oh!"</p> + +<p>It trailed away. The noble anger, real or assumed, fell from him. No +longer the outraged father, he was but a human being in pain.</p> + +<p>Cassy hurried to the mantel where, in provision of these attacks, were +glass tubes with amyl in them. She took and broke one and had him inhale +it.</p> + +<p>Then, though presently the spasm passed, the wolf remained. But the +beast had no terrors for Cassy. Buoyant, as youth ever is, his fangs +amused her. They might close on her, but they would not hurt, at any +rate very much, or, in any case, very long. Meanwhile she had had supper +and for the morrow she had a plan. That night she dreamed of it. From +the dream she passed into another. She dreamed she was going about +giving money away. The dream of a dream, it was very beautiful, and +sometimes, to exceptional beings, beautiful dreams come true, not in the +future merely, but in a walk-up.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + + +<p>In Park Avenue that night there was no dramatic father in waiting. There +were no bills, no scenes, no thought of secret errands; merely a +drawing-room in which a fire was burning and where, presently, Margaret +and Lennox were alone.</p> + +<p>"I have letters to write," Mrs. Austen told them.</p> + +<p>She had no letters to write, but she did have a thing or two to +consider. What the wolf was to Cassy's father, Lennox was to her.</p> + +<p>At dinner, Peter Verelst's advice to do nothing had seemed strategic. At +the Splendor, it had seemed stupid. The spectacle of that girl +hobnobbing with Lennox had interested her enormously. If a spectacle can +drip, that had dripped and with possibilities which, if dim as yet, were +none the less providential, particularly when viewed spaciously, in the +light of other possibilities which Paliser exhaled. Mrs. Austen was a +woman of distinction. You had only to look at her to be aware of it. +Yet, at the possible possibilities, she licked her chops.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, with the seriousness of those to whom love is not the +sentiment that it once was, or the sensation that it has become, but the +dense incarnate mystery that it ever should be, Margaret and Lennox were +also occupied with the future.</p> + +<p>In connection with it, Lennox asked: "Can you come to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>As he spoke, Margaret released her hand. Her mother was entering and he +stood up.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Austen," he resumed, "won't you and Margaret have tea at my +apartment to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>He would have reseated himself but the lady saw to it that he did not.</p> + +<p>"You have such pleasant programmes, Mr. Lennox. You are not going +though, are you? Well, if you must, good-night."</p> + +<p>It was boreal, yet, however arctic, it was smiling, debonair. As such, +Lennox had no recourse but to accept it. He bent over Margaret's hand, +touched two of Mrs. Austen's fingers. In a moment, he had gone.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, smiling still, sat down.</p> + +<p>"Nice young man. Very nice. Nice hats, nice ties, nice coats. Then also +he is a theosophist, I suppose, or, if not, then by way of becoming one. +What more could the heart desire? Would you mind putting out one of +those lights? Not that one—the other."</p> + +<p>Gowned in grey which in spite of its hue contrived to be brilliant, Mrs. +Austen rustled ever so slightly. Always a handsome woman and well aware +of it, she was of two minds about her daughter's looks. They far +surpassed her own and she did not like that. On the other hand they were +an asset on which she counted.</p> + +<p>She rustled, quite as slightly again.</p> + +<p>"And such a taking way with him! That little singing-girl whom we saw +to-night, quite a pretty child, didn't you think? She seemed quite +smitten. Then there are others, one may suppose. Yes, certainly, a very +nice young man."</p> + +<p>"Mother!"</p> + +<p>"Well, what? Young men will be young men. Only a theosophist could +imagine that they would be young girls. I make every allowance from +him—as doubtless he does for others. This is quite as it should be. I +have no patience with model young men. Model young men delight their +mothers' hearts and ruin their wives' temper. They remodel themselves +after marriage. Whereas a young man who is not model at all, one who has +had his fling beforehand, settles down and becomes quite fat. You have +chosen very wisely, my dear. If you had waited you might have had +Paliser and I should not have liked that. He is too good."</p> + +<p>Margaret stretched a hand to the fire. She was not cold and the movement +was mechanical. But she made no reply. In Matthew we are told that for +every idle word we utter we shall answer at the day of judgment. That +passage she had longly meditated. She did not believe that Matthew wrote +it and she did not believe in a day of judgment. Matthew was a peasant +who spoke Syro-Chaldaic. It was not supposable that he could write in +Greek. It was not supposable that there can be a specific day of +judgment, since every moment of our days is judged. But through Margaret +had her tolerant doubts, she knew that the message itself was sound. It +did not condemn evil and vulgar words, for they condemn themselves. What +it condemned was idle words and she regretted that her mother employed +them. But theosophy is, primarily, a school of good manners. The Gospel +condemns idle words, theosophy forbids disagreeable ones.</p> + +<p>To her mother's remarks, she made therefore no reply. Instead, she +changed the subject.</p> + +<p>"Will you care to go with me to his rooms to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>With a mimic of surprise and of gentle remonstrance that was admirably +assumed, Mrs. Austen lifted a hand.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear! Were you thinking of going alone?"</p> + +<p>The remonstrance, however gentle, was absurd and she knew it. Margaret +could go where she liked. It would all be chaste as a piano-recital. But +the flea that she had been trying to put in the girl's ear seemed very +ineffective. She is just as I was at her age, thought this lady, who, in +so thinking, flattered herself extraordinarily.</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "For if you were, it would not do. Such things may +pass in London, they don't here. But to-morrow is Saturday, isn't it? +Yes, to-morrow is Saturday. At three I have an appointment with the +dentist. I'll telephone though. That always pains them and, where a +dentist is concerned, I do think turn about is fair play."</p> + +<p>It was pleasantly said. To make it pleasanter, she stood up and added: +"Are you to sit here and read? There is a French book lying around +somewhere that belonged to your dear father. I don't remember who wrote +it and I have forgotten the title, but you are sure to like it. There! I +have it. It is called: 'L'art de tromper les femmes.'"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen moved to the door and looked back.</p> + +<p>"But if you don't find it readily, let it go for to-night. Your young +man is sure to have a copy. No nice young man is without one."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + + +<p>Lennox was a broker, a vocation which he practised in Wall Street. Early +on the following afternoon, while returning from there, he sat wedged +between a gunman and a Hun. He was unconscious of either. The uncertain +market; the slump, momentarily undiscernible, but mathematically +inevitable; customers, credulous or sceptical, but always avid; the +pulse of the feverish street which the ticker indifferently registered; +the atmosphere of tobacco and greed; the trailing announcements; "Steel, +three-fourths; Pennsy, a half," these things were forgotten. The train +crashed on. Of that too he was unconscious.</p> + +<p>Before him a panorama had unrolled—the day he first saw her, the hour +he first loved her, the moment he first thought she might care for +him—the usual panorama that unfolds before any one fortunate enough to +love and to be loved in return.</p> + +<p>"Grand Central!"</p> + +<p>The gunman disappeared, the Hun had gone, the car emptied itself on a +platform from which it was at once refilled. Lennox ascended the stair, +reached the street, boarded a taxi, drove to his home.</p> + +<p>The latter, situated on the ground floor of an apartment house a step +from Park Avenue, was entirely commonplace, fitted with furniture large +and ugly, yet minutely relieved by a photograph which showed the almost +perfect oval of Margaret's almost perfect face.</p> + +<p>The photograph stood on a table in the sitting-room beyond which +extended other rooms that, in addition to being ugly, were dark. But +Lennox had no degrading manias for comfort. Pending the great day he +camped in these rooms, above which, on an upper storey was a duplex +apartment which, if Margaret liked, he proposed to take.</p> + +<p>It was for her opinion regarding it that he had asked her to come. In +the forenoon she had telephoned that she and her mother would both be +with him. He had instructed his servant accordingly and now a silver +tea-service that had belonged to his grandmother and which, being +Victorian, was hideous, gleamed at him as he entered the rooms.</p> + +<p>Something else gleamed also. On a rug, a puddle of sunlight had spilled.</p> + +<p>Above, on the embossed platter, were petits fours, watercress +sandwiches, a sack of sweetmeats, a bunch of violets, a scatter of cups. +Beneath was the puddle.</p> + +<p>Lennox looked. It seemed all right.</p> + +<p>Harris, his servant, a little man, thin as an umbrella, sidled silently +by. The vestibule took him. From it came the sound of a voice, limpid, +clear, which Lennox knew and knew too was not Margaret's.</p> + +<p>"A lady to see you, sir," Harris, reappearing and effacing himself, +announced.</p> + +<p>The doorway framed her. There, with her shock of auburn hair, her cameo +face, her slim figure and her costume which, though simple, was not the +ruinous simplicity that Fifth Avenue achieves, Cassy presented a picture +very different from that on the table, a picture otherwise +differentiated by a bundle that was big as a baby.</p> + +<p>Lennox did not know but that it might contain a baby and the possibility +alarmed this man who was afraid of nobody.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>In exclaiming, he stared. He liked the girl. But at the moment she was +in the way. Moreover, why she had come to these rooms of his, where she +had not been invited, and where she had not ventured before, was a +mystery.</p> + +<p>"How's your father?" he added.</p> + +<p>There are people, as there are animals, that cannot be awkward and are +never ridiculous. Cassy was one of them. None the less she stood on one +foot. The tea-table had become very talkative. It told her that it was +expecting somebody; that watercress sandwiches were not for her; no, nor +Victorian horrors either.</p> + +<p>"Be off!" it shouted.</p> + +<p>"Sit down," said Lennox.</p> + +<p>Cassy, hugging the bundle, remained in the doorway. It was not the +tea-table merely, but something else, the indefinable something which +one may feel and not describe that was telling her to hurry. Afterward, +with that regret which multiplies tears and subtracts nothing, she +wished she had hurried, wished rather that she had not come, wished that +she had defied the wolf, outfaced the butcher, done anything except +enter these rooms.</p> + +<p>She shifted the bundle. "I have been gadding about in Wall Street. I +never was there before, but it is so nice and windy I may go there +again. This is just a good-day and good-bye."</p> + +<p>As she spoke she turned, and as she turned Lennox' heart smote him. He +hurried to her.</p> + +<p>"See here! You can't go like this. Have a cup of tea."</p> + +<p>Cassy gave him the rare seduction of her smile. "Thank you. I am out on +business and I never drink in business hours."</p> + +<p>But now Lennox had got himself between her and the vestibule.</p> + +<p>"Business!" he repeated. "What is it? Anything in my line? Let's +transact it here. Wall Street is no place"—for a pretty girl he was +about to say but, desisting, he substituted—"for you."</p> + +<p>"But you are expecting people."</p> + +<p>"How in the world did you know? Anyway, they are not here yet and if +they were they would be glad to meet you."</p> + +<p>"I wonder!" said Cassy, whose wonder concerned not their pleasure but +her own, and concerned it because she hated snobs, among whom she knew +that Lennox moved.</p> + +<p>"Now, tell me," he resumed.</p> + +<p>Cassy, realising that it must be then or never, looked up at him.</p> + +<p>"You remember father's violin?"</p> + +<p>"I should say I did."</p> + +<p>"Well, my business in Wall Street was to offer it as—what do you call +it?—as collateral."</p> + +<p>Lennox indicated the bundle. "Is that it?"</p> + +<p>Cassy nodded. "I had to hide it and smuggle it out without his knowing +it. He thinks it stolen. If he knew, he would kill me. As it is, he has +gone crazy. To quiet him, I said I would go to the police."</p> + +<p>Lennox laughed. "And I am the police!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you're the police."</p> + +<p>"All right then. The police have recovered it. Take it back to him. How +much do you need? Will a hundred do?"</p> + +<p>That was not Cassy's idea. She shook her docked head at it. "You're the +police but I am a business man. If you make the loan, you must keep the +collateral."</p> + +<p>"You are a little Jew, that's what you are," Lennox, affecting +annoyance, replied.</p> + +<p>Cassy smiled, "I like your jeu d'esprit. But not well enough to accept +money as a gift."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" Lennox protested. "Look here! I am not giving money away. I +don't mean it as a gift. Pay me back whenever you like. Until then, what +do you expect me to do with that thing? Give serenades? No, take it back +to your father. I know just how he feels about it. He told me."</p> + +<p>Cassy shifted the bundle. "Good-bye then." But as he still blocked the +way, she added: "Will you let me pass?"</p> + +<p>Moralists maintain that a man should never argue with a woman, +particularly when she is young and good-looking. He should yield, they +assert. Cassy's youth and beauty said nothing audible to Lennox. They +said nothing of which he was then aware. In addition he was not a +moralist. But there are influences, as there are bacilli, which +unconsciously we absorb. For some time he had been absorbing a few. He +did not realise it then. When he did, he was in prison. That though was +later. At the moment he threw up his hands.</p> + +<p>"I surrender. Will you mind putting it down somewhere?"</p> + +<p>Cassy turned. Beyond was a table and near it a chair to which she went. +There she dumped the violin. In so doing she saw Margaret's picture.</p> + +<p>"What a lovely girl!"</p> + +<p>Lennox, who had followed, nodded. "That is Miss Austen to whom I am +engaged."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Cassy. She did not know that Lennox was engaged. But suddenly +the room had become uncomfortably warm and she blurted it: "How happy +she must be!"</p> + +<p>At the slip, for he thought it one, Lennox laughed.</p> + +<p>"You mean how happy I must be," exclaimed this rare individual to whom +the verb to be happy had a present tense, yet one which even then it was +losing.</p> + +<p>He had been fumbling in a pocket. From it he drew a wad of bills, fives +and tens, and made another wad. "Here you are. I will mail you a receipt +for the collateral."</p> + +<p>Cassy, taking the money in one hand, extended the other. "May I say +something?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course."</p> + +<p>Cassy could talk and very fluently. But at the moment she choked. What +is worse, she flushed. Conscious of which and annoyed at it, she +withdrew her hand and said: "It's so hot here!"</p> + +<p>Lennox looked about, then at her. "Is it? Was that what you wanted to +say?"</p> + +<p>Cassy shook herself. "No, and it was very rude of me. I wanted to thank +you. Good-bye, Mr. Policeman."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he threw after the girl, who, in leaving the room, must have +taken the sunlight with her. As she passed over the rug, the puddle +passed too. It followed her out like a dog.</p> + +<p>That phenomenon, to which Lennox then attached no significance, he +afterward recalled. For the moment he busied himself with pen and ink. +Presently he touched a button.</p> + +<p>From regions beyond the little old man appeared.</p> + +<p>Lennox motioned at the bundle. "Take that to this address. Ask for Mr. +Cara and say it comes from the police. From the police, don't forget, +Harris."</p> + +<p>"I'll not forget, sir."</p> + +<p>"And go now. When the ladies come, I'll open the door."</p> + +<p>As it happened, only shadows came. The shadows lengthened. They lapped +the floor, devoured the silver, turned the rug into a pit, the room into +darkness. Apart from shadows, no one came, no one rang. But, though +Lennox was unaware of it, two people did come, and of the two one would +have rung, had not the other prevented.</p> + +<p>Lennox did not know that. On the inaccessible planes where events are +marshalled, it was perhaps prearranged that he should not.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + + +<p>Margaret, on her way to Lennox that afternoon, wondered whether it might +not be possible for them to live elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Born and bred in the sordid hell with a blue sky that New York was +before the war, latterly the sky itself had darkened. The world in which +she moved, distressed her. Its parure of gaiety shocked. Those who +peopled it were not sordid, they were not even blue. Europe agonised and +they dined and danced, displayed themselves at the opera, summarised the +war as dreadful, dismissed it, gossiped and laughed. It was that +attitude which distressed this girl who, had she been capable of wishing +ill to any one, might have wished them treated as were the élegantes of +Brussels.</p> + +<p>Margaret had no such evil wish. But she did hope that when married, she +might reside elsewhere.</p> + +<p>"There goes that Mrs. Tomlinson," said her mother. "Last night at the +Bazaar—what do you suppose? She asked me to dinner. She actually did! +The woman must be mad."</p> + +<p>Margaret made no reply. Park Avenue was very bright. To her also for the +moment the scientific savagery of the Huns was remote. The brightness of +the April day was about her.</p> + +<p>"I am in rags," continued Mrs. Austen, who was admirably dressed. "On +Monday I must really look in on Marguerite. She is an utter liar, but +then you feel so safe with her. Where is it that your young man lives? +Somebody said that lies whiten the teeth. It must be there, isn't it? Or +is it here? These places all look alike, none of them seems to have any +numbers and that makes it so convenient."</p> + +<p>They had reached a chalk cliff, on the face of which were windows, +balconies and, at the base, two low steps. On the upper step, in large +black letters, was the cliff's name.</p> + +<p>Through glasses, which she did not need, Mrs. Austen surveyed it. "The +Sandringham! Why not The Throne?"</p> + +<p>Margaret went on and up. Mrs. Austen followed. At once they were in a +large, marble-flagged hall. Beyond, from a lift, a boy in green and +gilt, peered greedily. At the left was a door with a brass plate that +said: "Dr. Winship." Opposite was another door with another plate on +which was "Lennox."</p> + +<p>That, also, Mrs. Austen surveyed. "I did not know your young man was an +earl, but perhaps he is merely a duke. Shall we send that boy or do we +ring? In bachelor quarters one hardly knows what to do—or what goes on +in them either," she immediately and suggestively added.</p> + +<p>The door at the right had opened. Cassy was coming out. The flush was +still on her face and in her hand was the money. Mechanically she +thumbed it. She had looked down at the roll of bills and through them at +the butcher, the baker, the candlestickmaker. She looked up and saw +Margaret whose photograph she had seen a moment before. Instantly she +recognised her. Instantly she realised that it was for her the violets +and the sack of bonbons were waiting. As quickly she understood why the +teapot had shouted: "Be off!"</p> + +<p>From Margaret she glanced at Mrs. Austen, who was well worth it. In and +about her eyes and mouth there was an expression of such lofty +aloofness, an air of such aristocratic disdain, that though she stood +without motion, movement, or gesture; though, too, there was no draught, +the skirt of her admirable frock seemed to lift and avert itself. It was +the triumph of civilised life. Yet that triumph she contrived to +heighten. Raising the glasses which she did not need, she levelled them +at Cassy.</p> + +<p>Cassy, who had but glanced at her, arrested the glance and, for a +second, held it on her, but with an unconcern so obliterating that it +had the effect of blotting-paper. Mrs. Austen felt herself disappearing. +It was as though Cassy had looked at her and had seen nothing whatever.</p> + +<p>And that to Mrs. Austen! The lady squirmed but she rallied, the more +readily perhaps since now Cassy had gone, and she said and pleasantly +enough: "What a charming vestal! Such an engaging manner! Seemed, too, +so at home! Let me see? It was she, was it not, who was singing last +night? Rather a coincidence, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>Margaret made no reply. The incident, though long in the telling, had +barely outlasted a moment, and crossing the hall, she was approaching +Lennox' door.</p> + +<p>Without haste, Mrs. Austen circumvented her. "Not to-day, my dear. As it +is, it is fortunate we came on foot. Otherwise, it would have been +awkward and that is always so distressing. Another day."</p> + +<p>Quietly, easily she had got herself in front of Margaret who, without +shoving, could not reach the bell.</p> + +<p>With candid eyes she looked at her mother. "You seem to be +suggesting——"</p> + +<p>"Perish the thought!" Mrs. Austen sweetly and quickly cut in. "I would +not even suggest that one and two make three, for perhaps they don't. +No, my dear, I suggest nothing. I merely insist. To-day we must postpone +our little visit and to-night, when he comes, you can have it out with +him. A lover's quarrel! What more could you wish? But here now is the +lift-boy. We must dissemble. It's quite like a play.</p> + +<p>"No," she interrupted herself to remark at the approaching, greedy and +enquiring youth, "I want nothing whatever except not to be engaged in +conversation."</p> + +<p>"Whachyer mean?" asked the boy, who, however, promptly blighted by her +level stare, omitted to pursue it.</p> + +<p>She turned again to Margaret. "We will find a taxi at the corner. These +first spring days are so enervating."</p> + +<p>Margaret faced her. "I am going in."</p> + +<p>The sight of Cassy issuing from Lennox' rooms had surprised her, as the +unexpected will surprise. But in saying that she was going in, it was +not at all for explanations. Explanations are for strangers. Love +understands—or should understand, and Margaret divined that Cassy had +come on some errand from her father, of whose waylaying and rescue +Lennox had long since told her.</p> + +<p>"Will you please move a little?" she added.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, after routing the boy, had lowered her glasses. She raised +them again. "Look there!"</p> + +<p>At the entrance were two women with a child between them. On the stair +was a man. The door marked "Dr. Winship" had opened. The wide hall was +suddenly full of people.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen lowered her lorgnette. "Don't make a scene, my dear. At +least, don't make one over my dead body."</p> + +<p>Resistance was easy, but to what end? Margaret felt that she could +persist, insist, ring and go in, but now only to be accompanied by her +mother's mocking and stilted sneers. The consciousness of that +subtracted the brightness from the day, the pleasure from the visit. +Then, too, that evening he would come. Then they would be alone.</p> + +<p>She turned. A moment more and both were in the street, where Mrs. Austen +forgot about the taxi. Other matters occupied the good woman and +occupied her very agreeably. She had been playing a game, and a rare +game it is, with destiny. The stakes were extravagant, but her cards +were poor. Then abruptly, in one of the prodigious shuffles that fate +contrives, a hand, issuing from nowhere, had dealt her a flush. She +purred at it, at the avenue, at the world, at her daughter.</p> + +<p>"I am so glad we are not going anywhere to-night." A car flew by, a +gloved hand waved and the purr continued. "Wasn't that Sarah Amsterdam? +By the way, what did the medium tell you? Anything about a dark man +crossing your path? If not, it was very careless of her. But what was I +talking about? Oh, yes, I am so glad we are to be at home. You can have +a nice, quiet evening with your young man. Only, do you know, I wouldn't +say anything about that little vestal. He might not like it. Men are so +queer. They hate to be misunderstood and to be understood makes them +furious. No, I wouldn't mention it. But now isn't he as full of +surprises as a grab-bag? I thought him a model of the most perfect +propriety, and that only shows how wrong it is to judge by appearances. +Model young men always remind me of floor-walkers. Who was that that +just bowed? Dear me, so it was, and he looked so down in the mouth he +might have been a dentist. On Monday I really must go to my dentist. He +does hurt terribly and that is so reassuring. You feel that you are +getting your money's worth. Don't your teeth need attending to? Ah, here +we are at last! God bless our home!"</p> + +<p>Entering the hall, she looked at a little room to the right in which the +manager awed prospecting tenants. Usually it was empty. It was empty +then. Mrs. Austen looked, passed on and, preceding Margaret, entered a +lift that floated them to the home on which she had asked a blessing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + + +<p>The Italians have a proverb about waiting for some one who does not +come. They call it deadly. Among the lapping shadows Lennox felt the +force of it. But concluding that visitors had detained his guests, he +dressed and went around a corner or two to the Athenæum Club where +usually he dined.</p> + +<p>In the main room which gives on Fifth Avenue, he found Ten Eyck Jones +talking war. Jones was a novelist, but he did not look like one. There +was nothing commercial in his appearance, which was that of a man +half-asleep, except when he talked and then he seemed very much awake. +He was not fat and though an inkbeast, he dressed after the manner of +those who put themselves in the best hands and then forget all about it. +But for Lennox he had a superior quality, he was a friend. With him was +Harry Cantillon, who, the night before, had danced away with Kate +Schermerhorn. Straddling an arm of Cantillon's chair was Fred Ogston, a +young man of a type that, even before the war, was vanishing and which +was known as about town. Adjacently sat Peter Verelst. Servants brought +little decanters and removed others. In a corner an old man glared with +envious venom at the liquors of which he had consumed too many and of +which, at the price of his eyesight, he could consume no more.</p> + +<p>Jones waved at Lennox. "I have been telling these chaps that before they +are much older they will be in khaki."</p> + +<p>"Houp!" cried Cantillon. He sprang up, ran to the arched entrance, +where, lightly, without effort, he turned a somersault and was gone.</p> + +<p>The old man in the corner raised himself, shuffled to a table, sat down +and wrote to the house committee. Such conduct could not be tolerated! +Having said it, he raised himself again and shuffled over with the +letter to Dunwoodie, a lawyer with the battered face of a bulldog and a +ruffian's rumpled clothes.</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie, instead of taking the letter, gave the old man a look, one +look, his famous look, the look with which—it was said—he reversed the +Bench. Angrily the old man turned tail, collided with Paliser, +apologised furiously, damning him beneath his breath, damning Dunwoodie, +damning the house committee, damning the club.</p> + +<p>"Are you to dine here?" Jones asked Ogston, who swore gently, declaring +that, worse luck, he was due at his aunt's.</p> + +<p>"But you are," Jones told Lennox. "Come on and I'll make your hair stand +on end." He turned: "And yours, too."</p> + +<p>Peter Verelst smoothed the back of his head. "Thank you, Ten Eyck. But +such hair as I have I prefer should remain as it is."</p> + +<p>The two men went on and up into another room, spacious, high-ceiled, set +with tables, where a captain got them seated, took their orders, +carefully transmitted them to a careful waiter, an omnibus meanwhile +producing ice-water which Jones had promptly removed.</p> + +<p>He smiled at Lennox. "Who was the jeunesse you and Paliser were talking +to last night? She had been singing."</p> + +<p>Lennox unfolded a napkin. "I thought you were to make my hair stand on +end."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the novelist, who spoke better than he knew, "she may make +Paliser's. There's a young man with plenty of perspective. I saw him in +London just before the deluge. He was then en route for the Marquesas. I +envied him that. I envied him the vanilla-scented nights; the skies, a +solid crust of stars, and also, and particularly, the tattooed ghosts. +But I am forgetting your hair. Were you ever in Berlin?"</p> + +<p>Lennox scowled. "Yes. Once."</p> + +<p>"And once is too often. The last time I was there, I looked down the +Wilhelmstrasse and it got up and threatened me. Barring the +possibilities of future avatars, I shall not promenade there again. But +I would give a red pippin, I would give two of them, to have been in +Potsdam on that night, that cloudless night, the night in July, when in +a room, gorgeous as only vulgarity could made it, there was sounded the +crack of doom."</p> + +<p>Jones gestured and a waiter hurried to him. He motioned him away.</p> + +<p>"You can picture it, Lennox, or, if not, who am I to refuse my aid? At +the doors were lackeys; at the gates were guards. Without and beyond, to +the four points of the compass, an unsuspecting world slept, toiled, +feasted, fasted, occupied with its soap-bubble hates and loves. But, in +that room, saurians, with titles as long as your arm, were contriving a +cataclysm that was to exceed the deluge. Since then, and though it be +but through the headlines, you and I stand witness to events that no +mortal ever saw before. That night, in that room they were concocted. By +comparison, what are the mythical exploits of Homer's warriors, the +fabulous achievements of Charlemagne's paladins, the fading memories of +Napoleon's campaigns? What are they all by comparison to a world in +flames? Hugo, with his usual sobriety, said that Napoleon inconvenienced +God. Napoleon wanted Europe. These gunmen want the earth. They won't get +it. Hell is their portion. But, while they were planning the +crib-cracking, I would give a red pippin to have been in their joint +that night. A little more trout?"</p> + +<p>Jones turned to the waiter. "Take it away and fetch the roast."</p> + +<p>He was about to give other orders, yet these Lennox interrupted.</p> + +<p>"But look here. You spoke of an unsuspecting world. The Kaiser had been +rattling the sabre for years. Everybody knew that."</p> + +<p>"So he had," said Jones, who contradicted no one. "But England did not +take him seriously, nor did this country either. Consequently, when the +war began it was regarded as but another robber-raid which shortly would +be over. That was an idea that everybody shared, even to the Kaiser, who +afterward said that he had not wanted this war. Incredible as it may +seem he spoke the truth. He did not want a war in which he would be +tripped on the Marne, blocked on the Yser and foiled at Verdun. He +wanted a war in which France would be felled, Russia rolled back, a war +in which, over Serbia's ravaged corpse, his legions could pour down +across the Turkish carpet into the realm where Sardanapalus throned, +beyond to that of Haroun-al-Raschid, on from thence to Ormus and the +Ind, and, with the resulting thralls and treasure, overwhelm England, +gut the United States, destroy civilisation and, on the ruins, set +Deutschland über Alles!"</p> + +<p>"Hear! Hear!" said Lennox from between bites.</p> + +<p>Jones, after a momentary interlude with a fork, got back at it. "That is +what he wanted! But to get it, he lacked one thing, one thing only. He +had everything else, he had everything that forethought, ingenuity and +science could provide. The arsenals were stocked. The granaries were +packed, the war-chests replete. Grey-green uniforms were piled endlessly +in heaps. Kiel—previously stolen from Denmark, but then reconstructed +and raised to the war degree—at last was open. The navy was ready. The +army was ready. Against any possible combination of European forces, the +oiled machine was prepared. In addition, clairvoyance had supplied the +pretext and stupidity the chance. Petersburg was then in the throes of a +general strike—which the Wilhelmstrasse had engineered. In Paris, the +slipshod condition of the army had been publicly denounced. England and +Ireland were nearly at each other's throats. Yet, had they been in each +other's arms, the Kaiser was convinced that England would not interfere. +Moreover in France, mobilisation required weeks; in Russia, months; and +even then the Russian army, otherwise unequipped, the Tsarina had +supplied with two hundred Teuton generals. That woman used to exclaim at +her resemblance to Marie Antoinette. She flattered herself. It is +Bazaine whom she resembled. But where was I? Oh, yes. The opportunity +was so obvious and everything so neatly prepared that, for good measure, +the pretext was added. An archduke, sinister when living and still more +sinister dead, was, by the Kaiser's orders, bombed to bits and the +bombing fastened on Serbia. Allied stupidity provided the opportunity, +imperial forethought supplied the rest. Since highwayry began, never was +there such a chance. On the last gaiter was the last button. The Kaiser +lacked but one thing."</p> + +<p>Lennox shoved at his plate. "So you have said."</p> + +<p>Jones, abandoning his fork, repeated it. "One thing! In Potsdam, on that +cloudless July night, when the world, on which he proposed to batten, +slept, toiled, feasted, fasted, occupied with its futile loves and +hates, that thing must have occurred to him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but confound it, what was it?"</p> + +<p>Jones lit a cigar. "Bernstorff said, or is said to have said—I do not +count him among my acquaintances—that on that night this supercanaille +showed symptoms of what I think I have seen described as vacillation. +That is quite on the cards. It bears out my theory. In any event the +fellow had his ambitions. He wanted to descend into the red halls of +history disguised. He might have succeeded. History is very careless and +to-day barely recalls that at five o'clock on the morning succeeding his +marriage to a dowdy fat girl, he treated his regiment to a drill. The +fact is uninteresting and would be equally unimportant were it not for +the note that it struck. Subsequently, when he leaped on the throne, he +shouted that those who opposed him he would smash. "There is no other +law than mine"; he later announced—a fine phrase and yet but a modern +variant of Domitian's: "Your god and master orders it." Incidentally, in +addition to the Garter, an honorific which the Duke of Cambridge +admirably summarised as "having, sir, none of the damned nonsense of +merit about it," he had other distinctions. He had—and has—uranomania, +that is to say, a flight of fancy in which the patient believes himself +associated with God. He had also defilirium tremens, which manifested +itself in those man[oe]uvres that are war's image and in which the +troops defile. Yet, when it came to the real thing, it may be that this +paradomaniac lacked the stomach. Apart from the Kruger incident, and one +or two other indecencies, his observance of international etiquette was +relatively correct. The lackeys of history might therefore have +deodorised him. With a sow's ear a lot may be done. Have a cigar?"</p> + +<p>Lennox laughed. "I would prefer the point."</p> + +<p>"Now, how greedy you are. Well then, here it is. On that fatidic night +in July, this fellow was fifty-five."</p> + +<p>"What of it?"</p> + +<p>"Everything. At his age Alexander had been dead twenty years."</p> + +<p>As Jones spoke he raised his hands. "Spirit of the Great Sinner, forgive +me! This scrofulous dwarf has no kinship with thee!"</p> + +<p>"No," Jones, dropping his hands, resumed. "None. His kin are Herod, +Caracalla, Attila, Genghis Khan, and Cloacus, Lord of Sewers. Those are +his kin. To the shade of the Lampsacene, whom the world had forgotten; +to that of Cloacus, whom civilisation had ignored, subsequently he +devoted the army. For the troops he invoked them. But that night the +ghosts of the others gave him pause. At his age, Caracalla, Attila, +Genghis, were dead. They had died hideous, monstrous—but young. Herod +alone may have seemed a promising saint to swear by, though, in the +obscurities of Syrian chronology, even of him he could not be sure. The +one kindred hyena who, at fifty-five, had defied the world was Tsi An, +the Chinese Empress, and he had helped to squelch her. Do you see it +now? To burglarise the world, this thug had every advantage. The police +were asleep. The coast was clear. The jimmies and the dynamite sticks +were ready. Even the dark lantern was packed. The kit was complete. He +had everything. He lacked nothing, except the one essential—Youth! The +eyes of youth are clear. His were too dimmed to foresee that the +allies——"</p> + +<p>Lennox was rising.</p> + +<p>Amiably Jones switched on and off again. "Hold on a minute. You have not +given me the "Who's Who" of that young woman."</p> + +<p>In Lennox' brain, instantly cells latent, alert, and of which he was +entirely unconscious, functioned actively. Before him Cassy stood. +Beside her was another. This other, very lovely, was a saint. Yet, +prompted still by the cells and equally unaware of it, it occurred to +him that a lovely saint may resemble a vase that is exquisite, but +unresilient and perhaps even empty. Whereas a siren, like Cassy——</p> + +<p>Abruptly he caught himself up. The unawaited disloyalty into which he +had floundered, surprised and annoyed him. He could not account for the +delicate infidelity and perplexedly he looked at Jones who still was at +it.</p> + +<p>"The diva I mean. The diva in duodecimo who sang at the Bazaar."</p> + +<p>Lennox shook himself and sat down again. Modestly then the thrice-told +tale was repeated—Angelo Cara, a violin in one hand, a sword-cane in +the other, trudging home. The attack, the rout, the rescue, the +acquaintance with Cassy that ensued.</p> + +<p>Jones, absorbing the story, pigeonholed his memory with the details +which, sometime, for copy purposes, might be of use.</p> + +<p>"They are Portuguese," Lennox, rising again, concluded.</p> + +<p>Jones peered about. The great room was filled with members, eating, +drinking, laughing, talking—talking mainly of nothing whatever. He +motioned. "Isn't that Cantillon over there with—of all +people!—Dunwoodie?"</p> + +<p>Lennox looked and nodded. "Cantillon is in Dunwoodie's office. He asked +me to give him my law business." Indifferently, with the air of one +considering the improbable, Lennox added: "Some day I may. Good-night."</p> + +<p>But in the night into which he then went, already that day was breaking.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + + +<p>That same evening, as Lennox was leaving the club, Mrs. Austen, rising +from the dinner-table, preceded Margaret into the drawing-room and +looked at the clock, a prostrate nymph, balancing a dial on the soles of +her feet. At the figures on the dial, the nymph pointed a finger.</p> + +<p>From the clock Mrs. Austen turned and exclaimed at the windows which she +had already examined. "The jardinières have not yet been attended to! It +is inconceivable!"</p> + +<p>Margaret, who had seated herself, said: "You might send for the +manager."</p> + +<p>"He would only keep me waiting and then expect me to tell him what I +wanted. He ought to know. Besides, I might have forgotten. It is very +tiresome."</p> + +<p>Margaret stood up. "I will tell him."</p> + +<p>With a click, Mrs. Austen unfurled a fan and, with another click, +refurled it. "No. I will see him myself. I am quite in the humour."</p> + +<p>Margaret looked after her mother, who was leaving the room. The sudden +tempest in a flowerpot surprised her. But the outer door closed. +Margaret reseated herself. Presently he would come and together they +would make those plans that lovers make—and then unmake, unless, +elsewhere, they have been made for them.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile she waited. The incident at the Sandringham, the sight of +Cassy, her mother's facile insinuations, these things had distressed +her, because, and only because, they had prevented her from enjoying the +innocent pleasure of the innocent visit to the rooms of her betrothed, +whom she loved with a love that was too pure and too profound, to +harbour doubt and suspicion and that evil child of theirs which jealousy +is. Her faith was perfect. That faith showed in her face and heightened +her beauty with a candour that should have disarmed her mother, who, in +the hall below, was, at that moment, instructing a man and not about +flower-boxes either.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lennox, you may know him, by sight I mean, will be coming here +shortly. Please have him shown into that room there."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen passed on. The little room at which she had glanced that +afternoon received her—a hospitality in which a mirror joined. The +latter welcomed her with a glimpse of herself. It was like meeting an +old friend. But no; a friend certainly, yet not an old one. Age had not +touched this lady, not impudently at least, though where it may have had +the impertinence to lay a finger, art had applied another, a moving +finger that had written a parody of youth on her face which was then +turning to some one behind her whom the mirror disclosed.</p> + +<p>In turning, she smiled.</p> + +<p>"It is so good of you, Mr. Lennox, to look in on me. The door-man told +you about Margaret, did he not? No? How careless of him. The dear child +has a headache and has gone to bed."</p> + +<p>"Has she?" said Lennox. He found but that. But at least he understood +why Margaret had not come to his rooms. The headache had prevented her.</p> + +<p>"It is nothing." Mrs. Austen was telling him. "To-morrow she will be +herself again. Nice weather we are having."</p> + +<p>"Very," Lennox answered.</p> + +<p>As he would have said the same thing if Mrs. Austen had declared that +the weather was beastly, the reply did not matter. It did not matter to +her; it did not matter to him. She was thinking of something else and he +was also. He was thinking of Margaret, wondering whether he might not go +to her. Were it not for the strait-jacket that conventionality is and +which pinions the sturdiest, he would have gone. He was a little afraid +of Mrs. Austen, as an intelligent man sometimes is afraid of an imbecile +woman. But his fear of her fainted beside the idea that if, disregarding +the bagatelles of the door, he made his way to Margaret, she herself +might not like it. That alone restrained him. Afterward he wished he had +let nothing prevent him. Afterward he regretted it. It is the misery of +life—and sometimes its reward—that regret should be futile.</p> + +<p>But, at the moment, grim and virile, a hat in one hand, a stick in the +other, his white tie just showing between the lapels of his overcoat, +already he was consoling himself. He had not seen Margaret in the +afternoon, and he was not to see her this evening. No matter. The morrow +would repay—that morrow which is falser than the former day.</p> + +<p>Pleasantly at him and at his thoughts, Mrs. Austen played the flute. +"Won't you sit down?" In speaking, she sank on a sofa which she occupied +amply.</p> + +<p>Lennox, shifting his stick, took a chair. Later, in one of those evil +moods that come to the best, as well as to the worst, he wished he had +brained her with it.</p> + +<p>With the magic flute, Mrs. Austen continued: "To-morrow is Sunday, is it +not? You must be sure to come. Dear me! I can remember when everybody +went to church on Sunday and then walked up and down Fifth Avenue. Fifth +Avenue had trees then instead of shops and on the trees were such funny +little worms. They used to hang down and crawl on you. The houses, too, +were so nice. They all had piazzas and on the piazzas were honeysuckles. +But I fear I am boasting. I don't really remember all that. It was my +father who told me. Those must have been the good old days!"</p> + +<p>Lennox again shifted his stick. "To-day I had hoped that you would look +in on me."</p> + +<p>The flute caressed the strain. "Yes. It was too bad! We had quite +counted on it. Bachelor quarters must be so exciting."</p> + +<p>"Well, not mine at any rate. They are rather dark."</p> + +<p>"But that must make them all the more exciting! Blindman's buff! Hide +and go seek! What fun you must have with your friends romping about!"</p> + +<p>"My friends are too busy for that. Though to-day——"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>Lennox hesitated. He knew that this woman took no interest in him +whatever, but he had intended to tell Margaret about Cassy.</p> + +<p>Pleasantly Mrs. Austen prodded him. "Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing of any moment. This afternoon, Miss Cara, the girl who sang +last night, came to see me. You may remember I told you I knew her +father."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me I do."</p> + +<p>"Things have not gone well there and I advanced her a trifle for him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen unfurled her fan. It was all Honest Injun. She had not a +doubt of it and never had. But if she had thought it a Sioux and +Comanche story, it would have been the same to her.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry you did not meet her," Lennox continued. "You might have +lent her a hand."</p> + +<p>"Professionally, you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I might have her sing here," replied Mrs. Austen, who would have seen +Cassy hanged first.</p> + +<p>Lennox considered the picture: Mrs. Austen in the rôle of shepherdess, +herding for Cassy's benefit the flock of sheep that society is. But the +picture did not detain him. He stood up.</p> + +<p>"That would be very good of you. Please tell Margaret I am sorry she has +a headache and that I will look in on her to-morrow."</p> + +<p>No you won't, thought Mrs. Austen, who said: "Yes, do."</p> + +<p>In a moment, when he had gone, she looked again in the mirror. It showed +her a woman who would not steal, unless she could do so undetectably; a +woman who would not forge, because she did not know how. Crimes +ridiculous or merely terrific she was too shrewd to commit. But there +are crimes that the law cannot reach. There are cards, too, that fate +may deal.</p> + +<p>After looking at the woman, she looked at the cards. They were +dreamlike. Even so, they needed stacking. Mrs. Austen arranged them +carefully, ran them up her sleeve and floated to the room where Margaret +waited.</p> + +<p>As she entered, Margaret turned to her. Her face had that disquieting +loveliness which Spanish art gave to the Madonna, the loveliness of +flesh eclipsed certainly by the loveliness of the soul, but still flesh, +still lovely.</p> + +<p>At sight of it Mrs. Austen experienced the admiration tinctured with the +vitriol of jealousy that some mothers inject. Mrs. Austen had been a +belle in the nights when there were belles but her belledom, this girl, +who was not a belle, outshone. Yet the glow of it while necessarily +physical had in it that which was moral. Unfortunately the radiance of +moral beauty only those who are morally beautiful can perceive. Mrs. +Austen was blind to it. It was her daughter's physical beauty that she +always saw and which, though she was jealous of it, had, she knew, a +value, precisely as beauty had a value in Circassia where, before the +war, it fetched as much as a hundred Turkish pounds. In New York, where +amateurs are keener and beauty is more rare, it may run into millions.</p> + +<p>Commercially conscious of that, Mrs. Austen felt for the cards and +carelessly produced one.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, I believe we are to have a shower. Your young man got off +just in time."</p> + +<p>Margaret, who had glanced at the prostrate nymph, looked at her upright +mother. "Do you mean that Keith has come—and gone?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen sat down and extracted another card. "My dear, when I went +below he was coming in. We——"</p> + +<p>Margaret, with her usual directness, interrupted. "But he is coming +back?"</p> + +<p>"That depends on you."</p> + +<p>"On me? How? What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"That you must do as you like, of course. But if you elect to see him, +for goodness' sake don't refer to it."</p> + +<p>"Refer to it!" Margaret exclaimed. "Refer to what?"</p> + +<p>"The vestal whom we saw this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand."</p> + +<p>Indulgently Mrs. Austen motioned. "It is hardly proper that you should."</p> + +<p>Margaret winced and coloured. "Your insinuation is horrible."</p> + +<p>Cheerfully Mrs. Austen smiled. Margaret's start, her heightened colour, +her visible annoyance, these things comforted her. A grandee of Spain +warmed his hands at the auto-da-fé. There are people just like him. +There are people that take comfort in another's distress. Mrs. Austen +did not know that she resembled them. She had nothing but Margaret's +welfare in view. Nothing but that and her own. Her own though came +first.</p> + +<p>She raised the fan. "My dear, you misjudge me. I always said that he is +a good young man and I stick to it. He is good, far too good, too good +to be true." With that, lowering the fan, she produced a trump. +"Downstairs, a moment ago, he told me so."</p> + +<p>Margaret gasped. "He told you—he told you——"</p> + +<p>"Precisely. That is just what he did tell me."</p> + +<p>Margaret straightened. "I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen waved at her. "Oh, I don't mean that he has deceived you. He +has done nothing of the kind. It is you who have deceived yourself. That +was to be expected. At your age I deceived myself quite as thoroughly. I +thought your father a conquering hero and he was merely a bore. But he +pointed a moral, though he adorned no tale. He married to settle down. +That is this young man's idea and I must give him credit for the fact +that while he has not deceived you, he did deceive me. I thought him a +tedious person; whereas, not a bit of it. He is exceedingly lively. If +he keeps it up, his wife will be blessed among women. But that is just +it. He won't keep it up. He swore he would not and I believe him. He has +turned over a new leaf. I can't cry over it, but it is really too bad."</p> + +<p>Margaret, who had straightened, stiffened. "If I believed a word of what +you tell me, I would forgive him entirely."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, unprepared for that, leaned forward. "My dear, I had no +idea you were so sensible."</p> + +<p>"I would forgive entirely," Margaret continued. "But I would never see +him again."</p> + +<p>How good that tasted! Mrs. Austen swallowed it contentedly. "Of course +you will see him. You are not going blind, I suppose. But when you do +see him, it will be only decent of you to ignore the matter which is not +a fit subject for you to discuss."</p> + +<p>Margaret, who had straightened and stiffened, now was rigid. "I +certainly shall ignore it. It is not worth talking about."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen leaned back. "Ah, my dear, how right you are. He could not +tell you that he had loved wisely, it would not be very flattering. He +could not say he had loved too well, for that would be embarrassing. +What a pretty frock you have on. Did Marguerite make it? Of course he +could not. It would not be nice at all. But to me he made a soiled +breast of it. Don't you think the skirt a bit too long? Stand up a +minute."</p> + +<p>Margaret coloured again. She coloured with a flush that put two red +spots on her. She did not believe it. She could not and would not. Yet +credence, like the wind, bloweth where it listeth.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, noting the spots, knew that the card had been well played +and leisurely selected another.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is the way you are sitting. Yes, altogether it is quite +ducky. I really must go to Marguerite on Monday. Don't let me forget +about it or the dentist either. I shall have my hands full and my mouth +also. The proper caper, too, apparently. That little dollymop, whom we +saw this afternoon, had her hands full. Did you notice the roll of bills +that she was counting? Such an enjoyable occupation! But it won't last. +You need not worry on that score. He had been paying her off. He assured +me of that and so unnecessarily. Why, I saw the whole thing at a glance. +Anybody but you would have seen it too. But you are so theosophically +nearsighted. It was for that reason I took you away. Now, though, he is +going to begin on a clean slate. Those were his very words, and you, I +suppose, are the clean slate. He has such original expressions, hasn't +he? But there! I forgot. He did not mean me to tell you. In fact, he +begged me not to."</p> + +<p>From Margaret's face the flush retreating left it white with that +whiteness which dismay creates. A bucket of mud had drenched her. It did +more, it dazed her. The idea that the bucket was imaginary, the mud +non-existent, that every word she had heard was a lie, did not occur to +this girl who, if a Psyche, was not psychic. In her heart was the mud; +in her mother's hand was the bucket. But the mire itself, he had put +there. The evidence of her own eyes she might have questioned. But he +had admitted it and the fact that he had induced in her the purely +animal feeling to get away, to be alone and to suffer unseen.</p> + +<p>She left the room, went to her own, closed the door and at a prie-Dieu +fell on her knees, not to pray—she knew that the Lords of Karma are not +to be propitiated or coerced—but in humiliation.</p> + +<p>In humiliation there may be self-pity and that is always degrading. With +uncertain hands she tried to transform that pity into sorrow, not for +herself, but for him. The burnt offering seared her. In the secret +chambers of her being her young soul tripped and fell. For support she +clutched at her creed. Ordinarily it would have sustained her. +Ordinarily it would have told her that her suffering was the penalty for +suffering which she had caused, a penalty that the gods of the doors +that close behind our birth were measuring to her. Ordinarily she would +have realised that in some anterior, enigmatic and forgotten life, she, +too, had debased herself and that this cross was the punishment for that +debasement. Ordinarily the creed would have sustained her. But as she +clutched at it, it receded. Only the cross remained and that was too +heavy.</p> + +<p>In the drawing-room an indifferent nymph pointed a finger at hours, all +of which wound and of which the last one kills.</p> + +<p>In that room Mrs. Austen was writing a note. Addressed to Montagu +Paliser, jr., esqre., it asked him to dinner.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> + + +<p>In the subway, the following evening, Cassy saw a man eyeing her. She +turned and saw another man who also was eyeing her. On the seat opposite +two women were discussing her clothes.</p> + +<p>The clothes, her own manufacture, were not of the fashion, not behind +it, or ahead of it, but above it. A mode, or a mood of her own, they +consisted in a blue silk smock and a yellow cloth skirt. On the sleeves +and about the neck of the smock there was also yellow, touches of it, +with which the skirt married. Therewith she was hatless, rebellious and +handsome.</p> + +<p>Accustomed to the inquisitiveness of appraising eyes, she ignored the +women as, already, she had ignored the men. With obliterating unconcern, +she reduced them to the fluidity of the inchoate. Other matters occupied +her, and, primarily, a trick, an extremely shabby one, from which she +had not yet recovered.</p> + +<p>The day before, after paying the butcher, the baker, and the punctual +and pertinacious agent, she had scaled the walk-up where she found her +father with the violin, on which, an hour earlier, Lennox had loaned her +the money.</p> + +<p>The spectacle flabbergasted her. Then, realising what Lennox had done, +his iniquity struck her as hateful. At once, in an effort to account, +however imaginatively, for the apparent sorcery of it all, she tried to +invent a fairy-tale. But the tale would not come. Nor was it needed. Her +father dispensed with any. Impatient of detail, as the artist usually +is, he required none. The extraordinary perspicacity of the police who +had nailed and returned the violin instanter, this wizardry that would +have thrown any one else into stupors of bewilderment, interested him +not at all. He had the violin. That sufficed. The rest did not matter.</p> + +<p>It mattered though and monumentally to Cassy. To owe the butcher, the +baker, the candlestickmaker, and to have them look slantingly at you, +that was disgusting. But to be beholden for a gift, which you had +refused to accept, and which then, behind your back, was dumped in on +you, that was degrading. Consequently, while conjecturing new versions +of Perrault, versions which it relieved her to find were not wanted, she +gnashed her milk-white teeth at Lennox, felt that she hated him, yet +felt, too, and the feeling was maddening, that the hatred was very +tender.</p> + +<p>All this was irritating enough and the Tamburini had contrived to add to +the irritation. It had been arranged that the fallen star was to come to +the walk-up and accompany Cassy to the Splendor. Instead of which, at +the last moment, the ex-diva had telephoned that she would join her at +the hotel, and Cassy foresaw a tedious sitting about in the lobby, for +Ma Tamby was always late. But when have misfortunes come singly? Cassy +foresaw, too, that the tedium would not be attenuated by Paliser's +conversation.</p> + +<p>It was not for that, or for him, that she was then in the subway, but +for dinner. Young, healthy and consequently carnal, though not otherwise +carnal than hunger can make you, she liked food, on condition that she +had not prepared it, and—in particular, and why not?—she liked the +savorously truffled menus that walk-ups lack. She had another reason for +being in the subway, one that Ma Tamby had lodged, like a flea, in her +ear.</p> + +<p>But now, near the heart of Manhattan, the train had stopped. Cassy got +out, looked at her white gloves, wondered if they smelled of benzine, +decided that they did, took them off and went on to the Splendor where +Paliser was waiting.</p> + +<p>Other people appeared to be similarly occupied. In the high, wide hall +were groups of careful men and careless women, the latter very +scrumptious in their imported frocks. The sight of these Parisianisms +abashed Cassy no more than her appearance abashed Paliser. Etiquette, +Formality, the Proper Thing, the great inane gods of the ante-bellum +heavens, he had never acknowledged and now, though locally their altars +remained and their worship persisted, he knew they were forever dead, +blown into the dust-bin of the things that were, tossed there in +derision by that atheist, the War.</p> + +<p>The careless women looked at Cassy and carefully looked away. The +careful men looked at her and carelessly looked again. In the severity +of the wide, high hall, the girl with her rebellious beauty and +harlequin gown, struck a note which it lacked, struck two of them, the +go-and-be-hanged-to-you and originality.</p> + +<p>In evening clothes that said Savile Row, Paliser approached. "You are +punctual as a comet and equally luminous."</p> + +<p>Cassy, ignoring the remark, ignoring, too, the hand that accompanied it, +cut him short. "Haven't seen Madame Tamburini, have you?"</p> + +<p>Paliser's hair had the effect of a mirror. He smoothed the back of it. +The ex-diva he had certainly seen and not later than just before she +telephoned to Cassy. But it is injudicious, and also tiresome, to tell +everything. With the wave of a cheque, the complicity of the former +first-lady had been assured, and assured moreover without a qualm on her +part. Ma Tamby did not know what it is to have a qualm—which she could +not have spelled if she had known. She was differently and superiorly +educated. In the university that life is, she had acquired encyclopedias +of recondite learning. She knew that ice is not all that it is cracked +up to be: that a finger in the pie is better than two in the fire, and +that angels have been observed elsewhere than at Mons—learning which, +as you may see, is surprising.</p> + +<p>Over the ham and eggs of an earlier evening, the syllables of Paliser's +name had awakened echoes of old Academy nights and Mapleson's "grand +revivals" of the Trovatore, echoes thin and quavering, yet still +repeating hymns in glory of the man's angelic papa. On the way from ham +and eggs to Harlem, she had, in consequence, conjured, for Cassy's +benefit, with performing fleas. But when, on this afternoon, M. P. <span class="smcap">jr.</span>, +had come and waved cheques at her, she had felt that her worst hopes +were realised, that her finger was really in the pie, and she had agreed +to everything, which, however, for the moment, was nothing at all, +merely to abandon Cassy that evening; merely also to collaborate later +in the evocation of a myth, and meanwhile to keep at it with the fleas.</p> + +<p>Now, in the hall of the Splendor, as Paliser patted the back of his +head, he was enjoying Cassy's open-air appearance that needed only a +tennis-racket to be complete.</p> + +<p>Cassy glanced about. She had a penny or two more than her carfare and +yet, if she had owned the shop, she could not have appeared more at ease +in this smartest of smart inns, a part of which, destiny, in its +capriciousness, was to offer her.</p> + +<p>"No," he answered. "But I have a private room somewhere. She can find +her way there, unless you prefer palms and an orchestra."</p> + +<p>"I do," said Cassy, to whom a room with this man said only boredom and +who liked to see what was going on.</p> + +<p>Then when, presently, they were seated at a table, to which the +chastened captain of the ham-and-egg night had piloted the way, Cassy +beheld what she had never beheld before, and what few mortals ever do +behold, a cradled bottle of Clos de Vougeot. But to her, the royal crû +was very much like the private room. It said nothing. A neighbouring +table was more eloquent.</p> + +<p>Among the people seated there was an imperial woman with an imperial +manner, whom Cassy instantly recognised. She was prima donna, prima +donna assoluta, and though Cassy did not know it—nor would it have +interested her if she had known—dissoluta also.</p> + +<p>To be in her shoes!</p> + +<p>In that seven-leagued dream, she forgot Paliser, the delinquent +Tamburini, the trick that Lennox had played. In a golden gloom, on a +wide stage, to a house packed to the roof, Cassy was bowing. Her final +roulade had just floated on and beyond, lost now in cyclonic bravas.</p> + +<p>"It was the Duc d'Aumale," Paliser was saying.</p> + +<p>"Eh?" Abruptly Cassy awoke.</p> + +<p>"Or, if not, some other chap who, recognising it, ordered his regiment +to halt and present arms."</p> + +<p>"To whom?"</p> + +<p>"To the vineyard where the grape in that bottle was grown."</p> + +<p>Cassy shook out a napkin. "You talk just like my janitress. I never +understand a word she says."</p> + +<p>But now a waiter was bringing delicacies other than those obtainable in +Harlem; in particular, a dish that had the merit of pleasing Cassy.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Muskrat."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Muskrat with terrapin for a pseudonym. The pseudonym shows imagination. +Let us be thankful for that. Gastronomy is bankrupt. Formerly it was +worshipped. Formerly gastronomy was a goddess. To-day the sole tributes +consist in bills-of-fare that are just like the Sahara minus the oases. +It is the oases we want and it is muskrat we get. That is all wrong. The +degree of culture that any nation may claim is shown in its cookery and +if there is anything viler than what we get here it must be served in +Berlin. It must have been Solon who said: 'Tell me what you eat and I +will tell you who you are.' He added, or should have, that animals feed, +man dines and, when permitted, dines devoutly. There are dishes, as +there are wines, to which one should rise and bow. But hereabouts it is +only by special dispensation that one gets them. In a hotel such as this +there is an outward show of reverence, but it is sheer hypocrisy; of +real piety there is none, a sham attempt to observe the sacred rites +without knowing how. I admit I don't know either. From me the divine +afflatus has been withheld. But elsewhere I have been conscious of the +presence. Once or twice I was blessed. Here, though, in default of +shrines there should be chairs. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, should +establish a few. When I was in college I was taught everything that it +is easiest to forget. If the youth of the land were instructed in +gastronomy we would all be wiser and better. Chairs on gastronomy, that +is what we need!"</p> + +<p>Cassy laughed. "Why not tables?"</p> + +<p>Paliser laughed with her. The laughter was a bond. It joined them +however tenuously. It was what he had been driving at. Accustomed to +easy successes, Cassy's atmosphere, with its flavour of standoffishness +and indifference, appealed to this man, who had supped on the facile and +who wanted the difficult. Cassy, he could have sworn, would supply it +and, if he had, he would have sworn very truly.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the muskrat had gone. Dishes less false but equally fair had +followed. Now, with the air of a conjurer, the waiter just showed them +an entremets which he hastened to serve. It was a soufflée.</p> + +<p>At it, Cassy, just showing the point of her strawberry tongue, exclaimed +without rancour: "Ma Tamby has thrown us over."</p> + +<p>Paliser lit a cigarette. "She may be singing in the private room."</p> + +<p>Cassy laughed again. "Yes. 'Una voce poco fa!' That would be just the +thing—wouldn't it?—to sing privately in private."</p> + +<p>Paliser answered, though what, she did not hear. The orchestra drowned +it and for a moment she considered him, conscious that he was less +objectionable than he had seemed, yet entirely unconscious that such +objection as she had experienced was due to his extreme good-looks, +which in a man are always objectionable to a woman when she herself is +handsome, for they make him resemble her and, in so doing, constitute an +encroachment on her prerogatives, which, in itself, is an affront.</p> + +<p>Cassy, ignorant of the psychology of it, equally unaware that +familiarity which may breed contempt can also dissolve dislike, and +feeling merely a lessening of her instinctive hostility, told herself +that he was perhaps not as cocky as he looked and drank of the glass +before her.</p> + +<p>The Clos de Vougeot which, to the educated palate, is art, literature +and song combined, meant nothing more to her than if it had been Médoc. +She drank it because it was there at her hand, as she would have drunk +water, without savouring it, without any realisation of the enormity of +the crime. Yet though it meant nothing, nothing at least of which she +was aware, the royal crû was affecting her. It modified and mollified, +admonishing her that this man was an inoffensive insect who, +circumstances favouring, might, as Ma Tamby when inserting the flea had +told her, put her father on his feet.</p> + +<p>In just what the favouring circumstances could consist, the fallen star +had not bothered to indicate, and she had not bothered because they were +too obvious and also because she was sure that Cassy was not insane.</p> + +<p>Paliser abandoned his cigarette. "If you like, we might look in at the +Metropolitan. I believe I have a box."</p> + +<p>Apart from down-stage and the centre of it, apart, too, from the flys +and the dressing-rooms, Cassy's imagination had not as yet conceived +anything more beckoning than a box at the opera, even though, as on this +occasion, the opera happened to be a concert. "Why, yes. Only——" +Pausing, she looked about. The imperial lady had gone.</p> + +<p>"Only what?" Paliser very needlessly asked for he knew.</p> + +<p>"I fear I am a bit overdressed."</p> + +<p>"Not for Sunday. The house will be full and nobody in it. Besides, what +do you care?"</p> + +<p>Cassy shrugged. "Personally, not a rap. It was of you I was thinking."</p> + +<p>Paliser, who had been signing the check and feeing the waiter, looked at +her. "I did not know that you were so considerate."</p> + +<p>Cassy, in surprise not at him, but at herself, laughed. "Nor did I."</p> + +<p>Paliser stood up and drew back her chair. "Be careful. You might become +cynical. It is in thinking of others that cynicism begins."</p> + +<p>The platitude slipped from him absently. He had no wish for the concert, +no wish to hear Berlinese trulls and bubonic bassi bleat. But, for the +tolerably delicate enterprise that he had in hand, there were the +preliminary steps which could only be hastened slowly and anything +slower than the Metropolitan on a Sunday night, it was beyond him to +conjecture.</p> + +<p>But though on that evening a basso did bleat, it may be that he was not +bubonic. Moreover he was followed by a soprano who, whether trullish or +not, at any rate was not Berlinese and whose voice had the lusciousness +of a Hawaiian pineapple. But the selections, which were derived from old +Italian cupboards, displeased Paliser, who called them painted mush.</p> + +<p>But not twice! Cassy turned her back on him. The painted mush shook +stars in her ears, opened vistas on the beyond. Save for him she would +have been quite happy. But his remark annoyed her. It caused her to +revise her opinion. Instead of an inoffensive insect he was an offensive +fool. None the less, as the concert progressed, she revised it again. On +entering the box she had seen his name on the door. The memory of that, +filtering through the tinted polenta from the ancient cupboards, +softened her. A man so gifted could express all the imbecilities he +liked. Elle s'enfichait.</p> + +<p>As a result, before it was over, in lieu of her back, she gave him the +seduction of her smile, and, later when, in his car, on the way to the +walk-up, he spoke of future dinners, fresher songs, she had so far +forgotten the painted mush insult, that momentarily she foresaw but one +objection. She had nothing to wear and frankly, with entire unconcern, +she out with it.</p> + +<p>For that he had a solution which he kept to himself. The promptly +obliterating stare with which she would have reduced him to +non-existence, he dodged in advance.</p> + +<p>Apparently changing the subject, he said: "You know—or know of—Mrs. +Beamish, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Never heard of her," said Cassy, entirely unaware that no one else ever +had either.</p> + +<p>"She was at the Bazaar the other night and admired your singing."</p> + +<p>"Very good of her I am sure," replied Cassy, who, a born anarchist and +by the same token a born autocrat, loathed condescension.</p> + +<p>Paliser corrected it. "No, not good—appreciative. She wants you to sing +at her house. If you are willing, could she arrange about it through +Madame Tamburini?"</p> + +<p>"If she tried very hard, I suppose she might," Cassy, with the same +loftiness, answered.</p> + +<p>But the loftiness was as unreal as Mrs. Beamish. Inwardly she jubilated, +wondering how much she would get. A hundred? In that case she could +repay Lennox at once. At the thought of it, again she revised her +opinion. Paliser was young and in her judgment all young men were +insects. On the other hand he was serviceable. Moreover, though he +looked cocky, he did not presume. He talked rot, but he did not argue. +Then, too, his car was a relief.</p> + +<p>But now the car, after bolting through the Park and flying along the +Riverside, had swerved. It was mounting the upper reaches of the longest +highway on the planet. There it swerved again. From Broadway it barked +loudly into a side-street where easily, with a soapy slide, it stopped.</p> + +<p>Paliser got out, preceded Cassy to the steps of the walk-up and smiled +in her face. "When?"</p> + +<p>Cassy, the revised opinion of him about her, gave him her hand. "Ask the +telephone."</p> + +<p>The hall took her. She was scaling the stairs. On the way Mrs. Beamish +accompanied her. She wished she could tell her father. Yet, if she told +him, how could she account for what she did with the money? And would it +be a hundred? Perhaps fifty, perhaps less.</p> + +<p>But Paliser saw to it that Mrs. Beamish behaved properly. On the morrow +Ma Tamby dumped in Cassy's astonished lap two hundred and fifty—less +ten per cent., business is business—for samples of the bel canto which +Mrs. Beamish was not to hear, and for an excellent reason, there was no +such person.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Austen looked at Lennox, who had been looking at her, but who was +then looking at the rug, in the border of which were arabesques. He did +not see them. The rug was not there. The room itself had disappeared. +The nymph, the dial, the furniture, the decorations and costly +futilities with which the room was cluttered, all these had gone. Mrs. +Austen had ceased to be. In that pleasant room, in the presence of this +agreeable woman, Lennox was absolutely alone, as, in any great crisis of +the emotions, we all are.</p> + +<p>Of one thing he was conscious. He was suffering atrociously. Pain +blanketed him. But though the blanket had the poignancy of thin knives, +he kept telling himself that it was all unreal.</p> + +<p>He raised his eyes. During the second in which they had been lowered, a +second that had been an eternity in hell, his expression had not +altered. He was taking it, apparently at least, unmoved.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, who was looking at him, saw it and thought: He is a +gentleman. The reflection encouraged her and she sighed and said: +"Believe me, I am sorry."</p> + +<p>Lennox did not believe her, but he let it go. What he did believe was +that Margaret could not see him. But whether she would, if she could, +was another matter. On Saturday he had expected her at his rooms. She +had not come. In the evening he had called. She had a headache. On the +following day he had returned. She was not feeling well. Now on this +third day, Mrs. Austen, who on the two previous occasions had received +him, once more so far condescended, yet on this occasion to tell him +that he was free, that it was Margaret's wish, that the engagement was +ended.</p> + +<p>In so telling him, Mrs. Austen told, for a wonder, the truth, though as +will sometimes happen even to the best of us, not all the truth. It were +extravagant to have expected it of her. But she told all that she +thought good for him; more exactly good for Margaret; more precisely for +herself.</p> + +<p>It was then that the pleasant room with its clutter of costly futilities +disappeared and this agreeable woman ceased to be. The avalanche of the +modulated announcement sent Lennox reeling not merely out of the room, +but out of the world, deeply into hell.</p> + +<p>It was then, too, that with a sigh, modulated also, Mrs. Austen had +added: "Believe me, I am sorry."</p> + +<p>Lennox looked at her. "You say that Margaret wants our engagement +broken. Why?"</p> + +<p>"She has changed her mind."</p> + +<p>"So I infer. But why?"</p> + +<p>"Because she is a woman."</p> + +<p>"But not the ordinary woman. It is the ordinary woman who changes her +mind—when she has one to change. Margaret is not of that kind. Margaret +is not the kind to promise herself to a man and then throw him over. You +will forgive me if I speak heatedly, but I do not believe it."</p> + +<p>With frosty indulgence Mrs. Austen reassured him. "You do not believe +that I will forgive you? But, really, there is nothing to forgive. +Though, whether Margaret is ordinary or superior, has nothing to do with +it. Dear me, no. Women are not what they were. One often hears that and +often, too, one hears people wondering why. That always amuses me. The +reason is so simple, isn't it? Women are not what they were because they +used to be girls. Before that they were children. At one time they were +babes. Naturally they change. They can't help it. It must be a general +law. Or at least one may suppose so. One may suppose, too, that, in +changing, they develop and in developing acquire the extraordinary +ability to think things over. That is just what Margaret had done. It is +no reflection on you, Mr. Lennox, and I should be very sorry if you +thought so. I am sure Margaret has the highest esteem for you. I know +that I have."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, smiling frostily as she lied, thought: Now why doesn't he +take it and go? I hope he won't be tedious.</p> + +<p>Lennox too had his thoughts. She is trying to swamp me in words, he told +himself. That angered him and he showed it.</p> + +<p>"What are these things? When I last saw Margaret she said nothing about +any things. There was no change in her then. I would stake my life that +she had no idea of breaking our engagement. There must be a reason for +it. What is it?"</p> + +<p>Arrogantly Mrs. Austen took it up. "There is no reason for your raising +your voice, at any rate. As for the things, they ought to be obvious. In +addition to habits and customs, very suitable in Wall Street no doubt, +but not otherwise appealing, Margaret has found you a bit rough, +high-tempered, domineering for all I know to the contrary, and——"</p> + +<p>That's a damned lie, thought Lennox, who aggressively cut in: "Margaret +never found me anything of the kind. What is more I will thank you to +understand that I will not accept this dismissal—if it be one—from +you."</p> + +<p>There is a show of decency that is due to any woman. But the veneer of +civilisation is very thin. From beneath it, the potential troglodyte, +that lurks in us all, is ready enough to erupt. Ready and eager then, he +was visible in Lennox' menacing eyes, manifest in his threatening voice.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen saw the brute, saw rather that little, if anything, +restrained Lennox from jumping up, banging about, hunting for Margaret's +room, entering there and catechising her violently. Margaret was ill but +never too ill to tell the truth. Once he learned that, there was the fat +in the fire.</p> + +<p>She had no time to lose. From the wardrobe of the actress that she was, +she snatched at an oleaginous mask and with the mucilage of it smiled at +him.</p> + +<p>"Why, of course not. Not for a moment would I have you accept it from +me. I never dreamed of such a thing. It wouldn't be right. Margaret +shall tell you herself. She would be here now, but the poor child had +such a wretched night. You never had neuralgia, have you? At her age I +was a martyr to it. I remember I took something that ended in 'ine.' +Yesterday I suggested it but the doctor would not hear of it. Said she +needed building up. Spoke of her just as though she were a town out +West; so unsympathetic I thought him, but of course I did not say so. He +might have charged extra and he is expensive enough as it is, and always +so ready to talk about his own affairs, just like my dentist. I told him +once—the dentist I mean—that I really could not afford to pay him +thirty dollars an hour to hear about his wife and I don't think he liked +it. I know I didn't when I got his bill. But where was I? Oh, yes. +To-morrow or the next day, as soon as Margaret is the least bit better, +you will be sure to have a line from her and if you do not, and you care +to, you must certainly look in. For you must always regard us as +friends. Me at any rate. Won't you, Mr. Lennox?"</p> + +<p>Moistening her lips, mentally she continued: Yes, count on that. But +inwardly she relaxed. Such danger as there may have been had gone. Under +the dribble of the mucilage the fire in his eyes had flickered and sunk. +He was too glued now for revolt. So she thought, but she did not know +him.</p> + +<p>During the sticky flow of her words, he knew she was trying to gammon +him. But he knew quite as well that Margaret would make no such attempt, +and he knew it for no other reason than because he knew she was +incapable of it. Incidentally he determined what he would do. Having +determined it, he stood up.</p> + +<p>"Very good. I shall expect to hear from Margaret to-morrow. If I do not +hear I will come, and when I come——"</p> + +<p>Lennox paused and compressed his lips. The compression finished the +sentence. If come he did, no power of hers, or of any one else, would +budge him an inch until he saw Margaret and had it out with her.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening," he added and Mrs. Austen found herself looking at his +retreating back which, even in retreat, was a menace.</p> + +<p>"Merciful fathers!" she exclaimed, and, with that sense of humour which +is the saving grace, the dear woman put her hand to her stays. She was +feeling for her heart. She had none. Or any appetite, she presently told +a servant who came to say that dinner was served.</p> + +<p>She misjudged herself. For twenty-five minutes, in an adjoining room, +she ate steadily and uncomplainingly. She had bouillon, skate in black +butter, cutlets in curl-papers, sweetbread and cockscombs, a cold +artichoke, hot almond pudding, an apricot, a bit of roquefort, a pint of +claret, a thimble of bénédictine and not a twinge, none of the +indigestion of square-dealing, none of gastritis of good faith. She was +a well-dressed ambition, intent on her food. No discomfort therefore. On +the contrary. Margaret was in bed—safe there. Fate and the cook were +kind.</p> + +<p>With the taste of the liqueur still in her mouth, she went to her +daughter who was ill with one of those maladies which, being primarily +psychical, science cannot treat. Science is a classification of human +ignorance. It has remedies for the flesh, it has none for the soul. The +remedies exist, but they are dispensed only by the great apothecaries +that time and philosophy are.</p> + +<p>At the moment neither was available. Behind Margaret's forehead a +monster crouched and crunched. That was nothing. It was in the tender +places of her heart that the girl agonised and by comparison to the +torture there, the monster was benign.</p> + +<p>Margaret was nineteen, which is a very mature age; perhaps the most +mature, since all girlhood lies behind it. Beyond are the +pharmacop[oe]ias of time and, fortune favouring, the sofas of +philosophy. But these sofas, even when within reach, are not adapted to +everybody. To the young, they are detestable. Reposefully they admonish +that nothing is important. They whisper patience to the impatient. To +hope, they say, "Be still"; to desire, "Be quiet"; to wisdom, "Be +foolish."</p> + +<p>Conversation of that kind is very irritating, when you have heard it, +which Margaret never had. She was otherwise ignorant. She did not know +that a sage wrote a book in praise of folly. But she acted as though she +knew it by heart. She believed, as many of us do believe, that love +confers the right to run a fence around the happy mortals for whom we +care. It is a very astounding belief. Margaret, who believed in many +wonderful things, believed in that and, being credulous, believed also +that her betrothed had crawled under the fence and into what mire! It +polluted her, soiled her thoughts, followed and smeared her in the +secret chambers of her being. Any cross is heavy. This cross was +degrading.</p> + +<p>In her darkened room, on her bed of pain, she had shrunk from it. Her +forehead was a coronet of fire. That was nothing. A greater pain +suppresses a lesser one. The burn of her soul was a moxa to the burn of +the flesh.</p> + +<p>The cross, at first, seemed to her more than she could bear. She tried +to put it from her. Failing in that, she tried to endure it. But there +are times and occasions when resignation in its self-effacement +resembles suicide. She tried to resign herself, but she could not, her +young heart rebelled.</p> + +<p>In that rebellion, evil came, peered at her, sat at her side, pulled at +her sleeve, sprang at her. The evil was hatred for this man who had +taken her love and despoiled it. She clasped it to her. It bruised but +it comforted. It dulled both the flame in her forehead and the shame in +her soul. Then as suddenly she began to cry.</p> + +<p>Philosophy she lacked, but theosophy, which is a pansophy, she +possessed—when she did not need it. Now, when she needed it most, it +was empty as the noise in the street. Even otherwise it could not have +changed the unchangeable course of events.</p> + +<p>There are sins that are scarlet. There are others, far worse, that are +drab. Melancholy tops them. It is a mere duty to be serene. That she +could not be. She could not face life, as life perhaps is. She could not +smile at a lover who loved elsewhere. It was not herself, it was he who +prevented her. So she thought and for hours in her darkened room she +washed her hands of him, washed them in tears. It took a wise man to +write the praise of folly.</p> + +<p>The door of the room opened. It opened slowly, noiselessly, obviously. +With exasperating precautions Mrs. Austen entered. The taste of +bénédictine was still in her mouth and, savouring it, she whispered:</p> + +<p>"Are you asleep?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Will you eat anything?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Are you able to talk?"</p> + +<p>Margaret turned. She could talk, but to what end and to whom? Certainly +not to her mother, who possessed in its perfection, the household art of +misinterpreting everything. Margaret had tried to love her. But perhaps +any affection is a habit when it does not happen to be an instinct. The +habit had never been formed, the instinct had been repressed. Always her +mother had treated her with that indulgence which is as empty as an +unfilled grate. There was no heat there. You could not warm your heart +at it. But a child must love some one. Margaret had begun by loving her +mother. That is the way with children. They begin by loving their +parents. Later they judge them. Sometimes, though not always, they +forgive. One should not judge anybody. Margaret knew that, but she was a +human being. She thought her mother a worldly woman. The fact that she +was false as Judas was not apparent to this girl whose knowledge of +Iscariotism was as hearsay as her knowledge of gorillas.</p> + +<p>Now, as she turned in her bed, it was in defence against intrusion. +Deference to her mother she had always observed. But she could not admit +her to the privacy of her thoughts and, in turning her face to the wall, +she told herself that she would not be cross-questioned.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen had no intention of putting her daughter in the +confessional. Anything of the kind would have bored her. Besides, what +she thought was unimportant. It was what she did or might do that +mattered.</p> + +<p>Vacating the door she approached the bed. "Are you feeling any better?"</p> + +<p>Margaret was feeling, if possible, worse. But she never complained, or, +if she had to complain, then the complaint was solely by way of +explanation. She turned again.</p> + +<p>"For if you are," Mrs. Austen continued, "I ought to say something."</p> + +<p>Margaret put a hand to her forehead.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Austen persisted. "It is important."</p> + +<p>Margaret's eyes were open. She closed them and said: "Yes, mother, what +is it?"</p> + +<p>Through the door came light from the hall. Mrs. Austen looked about. +Nearby was a chair on which was one of those garments, made of +franfreluches, which the French call a Jump-from-bed. Removing it, she +sat down.</p> + +<p>"It is too bad. I know you don't feel like discussing affairs of State, +but it is Luxemburg all over again. If I were alone concerned, I am sure +I would capitulate. But where the State is concerned, and by that I mean +you, I am like the little grand-duchess—pretty child, from her +pictures, didn't you think?—and I must resist the invader. It is true, +I don't know exactly what the grand-duchess did do, though they said she +sat in a motor on a bridge and flourished a revolver. But you never can +tell. I daresay she and her maids of honour hid in a cellar. Perhaps we +may have to."</p> + +<p>Margaret lowered her hand. "Mother, what are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"Your young man, of course. What else? A half-hour ago, he was roaring +and stamping about and calling me a liar. If it had not been for my dead +body, he would have rushed in here and killed you. My dead body, or what +I told him about passing over it, was the revolver that I flourished. He +has gone, but he swore he would return. Now, unless you rally to the +colours, we will have to hide in the cellar, or rather, as we haven't +any, in the pantry. Don't you think you could eat a bit of sweetbread, +or perhaps some almond pudding?"</p> + +<p>Again Margaret put her hand to her forehead. "Don't say that, mother. +Keith did not call you a liar and it is not like him to roar and stamp +about."</p> + +<p>"My dear, I don't wonder you don't believe me. He went on like a madman. +He could not get over the fact that his dollymop was one too many for +you. He seemed to think that it was none of your business."</p> + +<p>"Don't."</p> + +<p>"My dear Margaret, you must do me the justice to admit that I stood up +for him. I said he was an attractive young man. So he is. But that is +just it. Attractive young men are most unreliable and reliable young men +are most unattractive. At your age, I used to like them fair and false. +That was your father's fault. He perverted me. He was so domestic!"</p> + +<p>It was an old wound that Mrs. Austen touched then and under it Margaret +winced. "The poor dear! He was a saint and you know it."</p> + +<p>"Know it! I should say I did. I know too that he made me hate saints. +But you love them and thought you had one, instead of which you got a +devil. Your luck is far better than mine. If you take my advice, you +will hang on to him like grim death. It is not too late. To-morrow he +will be here, thundering at the gates."</p> + +<p>Dimly at the moment the girl's creed turned a ray on her. She lifted her +head.</p> + +<p>"He will not thunder at the gates and he is not what you say. But +perhaps I am. I may have done worse than he has and what he has done is +my punishment."</p> + +<p>It was very little but it was too much. Mrs. Austen, in spite of her +facile digestion, gagged at it.</p> + +<p>"If that is theosophy, I will believe it when I am old, fat and a Hun."</p> + +<p>Margaret sank back. "But I am sorry you have been annoyed. It won't +happen again. I will write to him."</p> + +<p>Later, she did write.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Forgive me, dear Keith, if I cause you pain, but I feel that I am +not suited to you. Forgive me therefore for not recognising it +sooner. I have thought it all over and, though it wrings my heart +to say it, I cannot see you again. Forgive me and forget.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Margaret.</span></p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> + + +<p>Hell was supposed to be very hot, very red, full of pugnacious demons. +Educated people do not believe in it any more. It is curious how +ignorant educated people have become. Hell is an actual plane, less +vivid than was formerly imagined, not hot but cold, grey rather than +red, but amply provided with demons, with the devils of self-accusation, +with the fiends of insoluble queries. Very real and very actual, it is +surprising how many educated people are there. The oddity of that is +increased by the fact that they regard it as a private establishment. +They regard their hell as unique. Perhaps the idea flatters them. Yet +sooner or later everybody enters it. Hell may seem private. It is +universal.</p> + +<p>Headlong into it, Margaret's letter precipitated Lennox. Being a man, he +struggled up. But not out. In hell there are no signposts. It takes time +to find one's way. It takes more, it takes resignation. When both have +been acquired, the walls part of themselves. The aspect of life has +altered, but you are free.</p> + +<p>Lennox, in struggling up, encountered the demons of enigmatic riddles. +Each word of Margaret's letter they converted into a Why? They thrust it +at him, demanding an answer. But the answer her heart alone possessed. +That heart had been his. It was his no longer. The heart that she had +given him, she had taken away. Nothing could be simpler and nothing more +mysterious. The mystification was complete, but not the suffering. +Suffering is never complete. However deep the hell, there is always a +deeper one.</p> + +<p>From the letter he looked at the walls. They were dumb. There was no +answer for the demons there, not anywhere, perhaps, except among +werewolves, basilisks and Mrs. Austens. These monsters did not occur to +him. The monstrous letter sufficed. But Margaret was still too near, her +vows were too recent for him to credit it, and the fact that he could +not disclosed itself in those words which all have uttered, all at least +before whom the inexplicable has sprung.</p> + +<p>"It is impossible!"</p> + +<p>Yet there it was. Yet there too was something else. But what? At once he +was back again in the issueless circle of infernal questions.</p> + +<p>The day before he had known that something was amiss. The attitude of +Mrs. Austen had been too assured, too venomous, too smiling, for him to +doubt it. But though he did not doubt that, not for a second did he +doubt Margaret either. Always aware of the woman's hostility, he had +been equally aware that it could not influence the girl. Not for a +moment therefore had he accepted the statement that the engagement was +broken. At the time he had thought that when next he had a word with +Margaret it would all be explained. But all what? His life was as clean +as his face. It was not that then. On the other hand he was not rich. By +the same token, Margaret's only idea of money was to help others with +it. It was not that then either. Nor was it that she had not loved him. +She had loved him. He could have sworn it and not out of vanity, for he +had none, but because never could she have promised herself to him if +she had not. None the less, she could not see him again. She had thought +it over. She was not suited to him. He was told to forget her. Why?</p> + +<p>That Why, repeating itself, forced him deeper into the circles of which +hell is made.</p> + +<p>But even in hell despair is brief. Unless it consume you utterly, and it +would not be hell if it did, it goads. It compels you to seek an issue. +Apart from time, which is very slow, and resignation, which is never +prompt, there is another portal.</p> + +<p>A poet, who discovered it, scrawled on it: "Lascia la donna e studia la +matematica"—a cryptogram which subsequent pilgrims variously +deciphered. To some, it spelled Thought; to others, Action. Action is +thought put in motion.</p> + +<p>Lennox, to whom time was too dilatory and resignation too remote, +happened on the device which he translated after his manner.</p> + +<p>But however you construe the hierograph, the door must be demolished +before you get out. Across the door is written: Hope. It is a very hard +door to crack. When you succeed you are covered with splinters. They +cling to you and pierce you. Joiners, carpenters, pilgrims, poets and +fiends have a name for them. They call the splinters Regrets. Though you +have escaped, they accompany you. Hell encircles you still.</p> + +<p>It was on the day following the conversation with Mrs. Austen that +Lennox received Margaret's letter. In his dark rooms it was waiting. A +moment previous he had intended to go to her. He had it all planned. +Mrs. Austen could say what she liked; the physician might interfere; he +would submit to no one. He proposed to see her, to adjust it, to swing +up and out from the circles which already were closing about him.</p> + +<p>On leaving Mrs. Austen he had gone to dinner. He could not eat. He had +gone to bed. He could not sleep. In the morning his face was flushed. +Always fit, hard as nails, these phenomena perplexed. Yet he knew it was +not illness that produced them. What he did not know was that poison +had. The poison was anger, an unphilosophic emotion which disturbs the +circulation, the stomach and social intercourse. He could have wrung +Mrs. Austen's neck.</p> + +<p>In that murderous mood he went to Wall Street and in that mood returned. +Already hell was gaping. Headlong into it the letter threw him. Being a +man he sought and found the door, smashed it and passed out. Not at once +however. It took him many a sleepless hour before he deciphered the +device Lascia la donna. Leave the lady? Certainly. Since she so wished, +what else in decency could he do? Go and badger her with complaints and +questions? Not he. But how do you translate: Studia la matematica? The +dictionary that is in every man, who is a man, told him. Then he knew. +Meanwhile the flush in departing left him grey.</p> + +<p>In every affection there is the germ of hate. Margaret, confronted by +the unawaited, hated Lennox. Lennox, confronted by the inexplicable, +hated Margaret. Hatred is love turned inside out. Love is perhaps a +fermentation of the molecules of the imagination. In that case so also +is hate. Of all things mystery disturbs the imagination most. Margaret +could not understand how Lennox could have acted as he had. Lennox could +not understand how Margaret could act as she did. Dual misunderstanding, +in which the imagination fermented. Hence the hate. Yet each, in hating, +loved the other. Each felt the splinters which, as Browning somewhere +noted, kept fresh and fine. Only a touch and the splinters would have +joined.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, for all her horrible shrewdness, could not have prevented +that. But pride, that gives so many of us a fall, was more potent than +she. Margaret, insulted, could but turn away. Lennox, dismissed, could +but let her go.</p> + +<p>Any emotion is unbecoming. Pride is merely ridiculous. It resides in the +youthful-minded, however old. In residing in these young people, it +resisted the touch that would have combined them and, through its +opposition, made one of them ill and the other grey. To be proud! How +splendid it seems and how stupid it is. Hell is paved with just such +imbecilities.</p> + +<p>It is said of Dante that children peered at him and whispered: "That man +has been in hell."</p> + +<p>None of the children that clubmen are, pointed at Lennox, though two of +them whispered. The others did not know, not yet at least. But Verelst +knew and Jones guessed. The guess was due to the romantic profession +that endows a novelist with the wonderful faculty of putting two and two +together.</p> + +<p>Hitherto, that is since the engagement was announced and, for that +matter, long previously, Lennox had passed the evening in Park Avenue. +Where else would he have passed it? After the rupture he sat about and +read all the papers. When a man is down and out that is just what he +does do, though not necessarily in the Athenæum Club.</p> + +<p>Jones, noticing it, rapidly divined the reason which Verelst confirmed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, her mother told me."</p> + +<p>It was in a club window, of an afternoon. Before them was Fifth Avenue +which, in the Aprils of not so long ago, used to be a horse-show of fair +faces, ravishing hats, discreet liveries, folded arms and yards of +yodeling brass.</p> + +<p>Verelst, eyeing the usurping motors, added: "It is because of some girl +I believe, or rather I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>Jones sat back. Instantly the motors were replaced by the picture of a +girl whose face was noble and reserved. He had seen the face at the +Bazaar. He had seen Lennox talking to it. Afterward Lennox had told him +that the girl was Portuguese. The picture was attractive but +unconvincing. In agreement with Verelst he was about to say so. But +behind him he heard a voice that he knew and he switched and said:</p> + +<p>"What a remarkable country Portugal is! Born dumb, she spoke twice: once +when she gave Asia to Europe, again when she presented the Lusiades to +the world. Her history is resumed in two miracles, a discovery and a +masterpiece. But when the Cape of Good Hope was succeeded by Camoens, +once more she relapsed into a silence that was broken only when she +shouted her defiance at the Huns."</p> + +<p>Now though that voice was addressing them. Both turned and Lennox asked: +"What are you talking about—war?"</p> + +<p>"Sit down," said Verelst, who gave him a hand.</p> + +<p>Jones gave him another. "What else is there to talk about? It will be +talked of forever. So will that scrofulous Kaiser. Unfortunately he +knows it and that pleases him. Last year or the year before he called +for the death and destruction of all who opposed him. With singular +modesty he added: 'God who speaks through my mouth so orders!' Loti +claims that what spoke through him was a hyena. Loti is lacking in +literary sobriety. When a hyena has eaten he is at peace with the world. +But when was bestiality ever filled? It is insatiable and so is this +thug whom God, at most, may have permitted to look in the mirror without +vomiting. Meanwhile we stand by. A generation ago we fought for Cuba. +What is Hecuba to us in comparison to the Anima Mundi?"</p> + +<p>Verelst turned on the novelist. "And what is literary sobriety? You are +hurling words in massed formation."</p> + +<p>Jones smiled at him. "Where is my harp?"</p> + +<p>"You mean your megaphone," Lennox put in. "You are always rehearsing +copy. One of these days I may give you some."</p> + +<p>"From the front?" Jones asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, though I don't see how you knew. The President has asked for war. +Why aren't we up and at 'em? If Congress hems and haws over it much +longer, I'll get my gun and join the Foreign Legion."</p> + +<p>Jones nodded. He had guessed that also and he said: "Wait and join the +legions here. At present, the country is alarmingly apathetic. The man +in the subway is muddled. The call to arms does not stir him. The +issues, clear enough to us, seem to him mixed as macaroni. He does not +understand a war that is three thousand miles away. But in a year, every +man in the country—a country that has never been beaten!—will be in it +body and soul. Undividedly, shoulder to shoulder, we will be in it as we +have never been in anything before."</p> + +<p>The novelist touched a bell. "Lennox, have a Bronx. Verelst, what will +you take? I'll wager a pippin that war is declared to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Done," said Verelst—who lost it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> + + +<p>The two hundred and fifty—less ten per cent—which an imaginary Mrs. +Beamish had paid for the pleasure of not hearing Cassy sing, transported +the girl who was not given to transports. These subsiding, she viewed +the matter from its business aspect. She needed a frock, a wrap, a hat, +gloves, shoes and certain things that are nowhere visible except in +advertisements, shop-windows and extreme privacy. Also, her hair +required tralalaing. Meanwhile, first and foremost, Lennox must be paid. +The subsidy was not too much by a penny. These considerations occupied +but an instant.</p> + +<p>"When is it?" she asked the Tamburini, who, a moment before, had +dumbfounded her with the money.</p> + +<p>"When is what?" inquired the ex-star who already had forgotten Mrs. +Beamish.</p> + +<p>"Why, the concert!"</p> + +<p>Carlotta Tamburini was dressed like a fat idol, in silk and false +pearls. There the idolatry ceased. In her hand was an umbrella and on +her head a hat of rose-leaves which a black topknot surmounted. About +her shoulders was a feather boa. It seemed a bit mangy. Seated on +Cassy's bed she looked at a window that gave on a wall. Cassy was +standing. Behind Cassy was a door which the extinguished light had +closed. Beyond, in the living-room, was the marquis. Anything that he +did not hear would not hurt him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she'll let us know."</p> + +<p>"What sort of a catamount is she?"</p> + +<p>At that the former prima donna's imagination balked. But she got +something out. "Nice enough. What do you care?"</p> + +<p>"I hate all those snobs."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said the Tamburini, who worshipped the breed even when +non-existent. "But don't go and include him. If it hadn't been for +him——"</p> + +<p>"Was he with her?"</p> + +<p>"You ought to have heard the way he went on about you. She said: 'Why, +Monty, I do believe you'd like to marry her.'"</p> + +<p>Cassy's mouth twitched as she munched it. "She presumed to say that! +She's an insolent beast."</p> + +<p>"He shut her up, I can tell you. He said if he got on his knees, you +wouldn't dust your feet on him."</p> + +<p>"That jackanapes! I should say not!"</p> + +<p>"You might say worse. Take the Metro. You're spat on if you're down and +spat at if you're up. A dog's own life." Lifting her voice, the fat +woman sang: "Croyez-moi car j'ai passé par la."</p> + +<p>"What has that to do with it?"</p> + +<p>Nothing whatever, the Tamburini truthfully reflected but omitted to say +so. Paliser, in producing Mrs. Beamish, had also produced the programme. +With both was a cheque. With the cheque was the assurance of another and +a bigger one. She had only to earn it. To earn it she had only to follow +the programme. The poor soul was trying to. The job was not easy. Cassy +was skittish. A pull on the rein and she would kick the apple-cart over.</p> + +<p>Femininely she discounted it all. Cassy was not worth the time, the +trouble, particularly the careful handling. There were girls in plenty, +quite as good-looking, who, without stopping to count two, or even one, +would jump at it. But there you were! Paliser did not want partridges +that flew broiled into his mouth. A true sportsman, he liked to snare +the bird. The feminine in her understood that also. Besides it was all +grist for her mill. But the grist was uphill, and if the noble marquis +got so much as an inkling of it, he was just the sort of damn fool to +whip out his sword-cane and run her through. The honour of the +Casa-Evora, what? Yet, being on the job, she buckled to it.</p> + +<p>"What will you get, dearie?"</p> + +<p>Cassy sat down. Her previous ruminations returned. Escorting them was a +vision of a baronial castle. In the hall, a guest-book in which you +wrote your name. A squad of lackeys that showed you into a suite of +salons. Rugs on which there was peace; sofas on which there was ease; +étagères on which there were reveries. Nothing else. No cupboards hung +with confections. No models sailing in and out. Nothing so commercial as +anything for sale. Nothing but patrician repose and the châtelaine—a +duchess disguised as a dressmaker—who might, or might not, ask you +upstairs.</p> + +<p>In war time at that! Though, it is true, Congress had only just declared +it.</p> + +<p>But, Cassy reflected, two hundred and fifty, with Lennox deducted and +less ten per cent, would not take her as far as the drawbridge. The +fleeting vision of the castle passed, replaced by the bargain seductions +of department-stores.</p> + +<p>Fingering the money, she said: "Where does this person live? She ought +to send a taxi."</p> + +<p>"Certamente," replied the fat woman, lapsing, as she occasionally did +lapse, into the easy Italian of the lyric stage. "She certainly will."</p> + +<p>Cassy jumped up. "Well, then, you come along while I take a look about. +Afterward we will have lunch. I'll eat, you can watch me and I'll tell +you how it tastes. There's the telephone!"</p> + +<p>Cassy opened the door, went out into the narrow and shadowy hall and +took the receiver.</p> + +<p>"Yes? Oh! None the better for the asking. To-night? Impossible. +To-morrow? Perhaps. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Who was that?" the noble marquis called from the room beyond.</p> + +<p>"An imbecile who wants me to dine and go to the opera."</p> + +<p>"Not that Paliser?"</p> + +<p>Cassy, poking her head in at him, threw him a kiss and returned to the +Tamburini with whom, a little later, she was praying among the +worshippers that thread the sacred and silent way where Broadway and +Sixth Avenue meet.</p> + +<p>In an adjacent basilica, the atmosphere charged with pious emanations, +with envy, malice, greed and all other charitableness, choked the girl. +But at last the holy rites were ended. To the voluntary of $109.99, she +passed into the peace of Herald Square where the ex-diva swayed, stopped +and holding her umbrella as one holds a guitar, looked hopelessly and +helplessly about.</p> + +<p>"You're not preparing to serenade the Elevated?" Cassy bawled in her +ear.</p> + +<p>In the slam-bang of trains and the metallic howls of surface cars that +herded and volplaned about them, the fat lady, now apparently gone mad, +was gesticulating insanely. Yet she was but indicating, or trying to +indicate, the relative refuge of a side street in which there was a +cook-shop.</p> + +<p>Then, presently, after all the dangers that may be avoided in remaining +at home, and supplied with such delights as clam fritters offer, she +savorously remarked: "I hope I am not going to be sick."</p> + +<p>The charm of scented streets, the sedatives of shopping, the joy of +lightsome fritters, these things, combined with the job, the unearned +cheque and the fear of losing both, made her ghastly.</p> + +<p>Cassy, devoid of pity, said: "Have some beer."</p> + +<p>The Tamburini gulped. "I couldn't talk to you this morning and I've got +to. It's for your own good, dearie; it is, so help me! Supposing he is a +jackanapes. What do you want? A prize-fighter? Take it from me, whether +he is one or the other, in no time it will be quite the same."</p> + +<p>Cassy's lips curled. "Croyez-moi car j'ai passé par la." But, in mocking +the woman, she frowned. "What business is it of yours?"</p> + +<p>The fallen star gulped again. Conscious that she had struck the wrong +note, she struck another. "Your papa is no better, is he? Between you +and me and the bedpost, I doubt if he ever will be. I doubt if he plays +again. You'll have to look after him. How're you going to? You can't +expect to sing every night to the tune of two hundred and fifty. Not +with war marching in on us. Not with everybody hard up."</p> + +<p>Cassy had been about to order a chocolate éclair. The new note stayed +her. But though new, it was not novel. She had heard it before. It rang +true. Absently she shoved at her plate.</p> + +<p>In theory she knew her way about. The migratory systems of domestic +experience said nothing to her, nor, thus far, had the charts of +matrimony either. In the sphere of life to which a walk-up leads, the +charts were dotted with but the postman and the corner druggist. Men and +plenty of them she had met, but they too said nothing and not at all +because they were dumb, but because, as the phrase is, they did not talk +her language. But for every exception there is perhaps a rule. The one +man who did speak her language, had held his tongue.</p> + +<p>Now, as she shoved at her plate, she saw him, saw the tea-caddy, saw his +rooms and saw too, as she left them, the girl to whom he was engaged. In +the memory of that she lingered and looked down.</p> + +<p>"Why, he could lead an orchestra of his own, your papa could."</p> + +<p>Cassy looked up. She had been far away, too far, in a land where dreams +do not come true. Impatiently she twisted. "What?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you hear me, dearie? I was talking about money—bushels of it."</p> + +<p>About the bushels the woman rolled her tongue. They tasted better than +the fritters.</p> + +<p>A waiter approached. The room was long, dark, narrow, slovenly, spaced +with tables on which were maculate cloths and lamps with faded shades. +Greasily the waiter produced the bill.</p> + +<p>"Bushels!" she appetisingly repeated.</p> + +<p>Cassy paid. The waiter slouched away.</p> + +<p>"You will drive through life in a hundred horsepower car and be fined +for speeding. The papers will say: 'Mrs. Pal——'"</p> + +<p>"What did he pay you to tell me that?" Cassy exploded at her.</p> + +<p>Unruffled by the shot, which was part and parcel of the job, and +realising that any denial would only confirm what at most could be but a +suspicion, the former diva fingered her pearls and assumed an air of +innocence.</p> + +<p>But already Cassy had covered her with her blotting-paper look. "As if I +cared!"</p> + +<p>"Dearie, he did pay me. He paid me the compliment of supposing that I +take an interest in you. But he said nothing except what I said he said. +He said if he got down on his knees you would turn your back on him."</p> + +<p>"Then he is cleverer than he looks."</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway, he is clever enough to have bushels of money and that is +the greatest cleverness there is."</p> + +<p>"In New York," retorted Cassy, who had never been anywhere else, +physically at least, though mentally her little feet had trod the +streets of Milan, the boards of the Scala.</p> + +<p>"It can't be much different in Patagonia," replied this lady, who, to +save her life, could not have told whether the land was Asiatic or +African, nor who, to save her soul—if the latter were still +salvable—could not have told that it was neither. "Besides," she added, +"I was only thinking of your poor, dear papa."</p> + +<p>Cassy said nothing. She stood up. She was making for the door and the +charm of the scented streets.</p> + +<p>Ma Tamby sighed, rose and followed. It was the devil's own job. +Housebreaking must be easier!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2> + + +<p>Cassy's department-store investments reached her the next day. Her +father, who opened the door to them, fell back before the sum total of +the C. O. D. With an arm in a sling, he could not hold the packages, +much less pay for them, and he gasped as he called for aid.</p> + +<p>The money that Cassy then produced seemed to him darkly mysterious and +although he believed as firmly in her virtue, as, before the break, he +had believed in the maestria of his own right hand, none the less, in +addition to aid, he exacted light.</p> + +<p>Cassy, dumping the packages on her bed, occupied herself in verifying +the change which amounted to one cent. Then she sketched it.</p> + +<p>His surprise fell away. The mythical catamount, the imaginary concert, +the ponderable subsidy—two hundred and fifty, less ten per +cent.—seemed to him natural and an unnatural world.</p> + +<p>"And there's about ten dollars remaining," Cassy resumed. "Ten dollars +and a penny. You can have the penny and I will keep the ten, or I'll +keep the ten and you can have the penny."</p> + +<p>That also seemed natural. But the addition or subtraction disclosed a +deficit and he exclaimed at it. "You said two hundred and fifty!"</p> + +<p>Cassy too saw the hole, but she could not lie out of it. "Well, I owed +the difference."</p> + +<p>In speaking she turned. Before her was a mirror in which she glanced +at her hair that had been superiorly tralala'd. She turned again, +reflecting that Lennox must have already received the postal-order, +which she had mailed the night before, and wondering whether he had +liked her little scrawl of indignant thanks.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you about it later," she added. "Now I must get your dinner. +How would you like a tenderloin, a salad, and a box of Camembert?"</p> + +<p>He shuffled. "There is no Camembert any more." The tragedy of that +seemed to overwhelm him. "I wish I were dead."</p> + +<p>Cassy laughed. "Now it's the cheese. On Saturday it was the violin. +Well, you got it back. What will you say if I find some Camembert? Do +stop meowing. Any one might think you didn't have me."</p> + +<p>At her young laughter, he groaned. "Formerly if I let a day go without +practising, I noticed it. If I let two days go, Toscanini noticed it. +Now it's weeks and weeks. It's killing me."</p> + +<p>To cheer him, Cassy said gaily: "The artist never dies."</p> + +<p>But it did not cheer him. Besides, though Cassy had laughed, there had +been a tugging at her heartstrings. Shabby, unkempt, in a frayed +dressing-gown, his arm in a dismal sling, he looked so out of it, so +forlorn, so old.</p> + +<p>He had shuffled away. She bit her lip. Later, when he had had his +tenderloin and she had department-stored herself, a pint of grocer's +burgundy had reduced him to tears.</p> + +<p>The day before it had seemed to her that the frock would do. But her +judgment had been hurried. Shops, crowds, the vibrations of both, +devitalised and confused her. In choosing the frock she had not +therefore given it the consideration which it perhaps did not merit, and +now her mirror shrieked it. The frock was not suited to her. Nothing was +suited to her, except the produce of baronial halls, where the simplest +thing exceeded the dreams of avarice, or else the harlequinades which +she herself devised. None the less she would have liked to have had her +father exclaim and tell her how smart she looked. He omitted it.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"I told you. Dinner and the opera."</p> + +<p>"Opera! There is no opera to-night. What do you mean? What did you tell +me?"</p> + +<p>On the table were dishes and the lamentable bottle. Cassy, in doubt +whether to clear them then or later, hesitated. The hesitation he +misconstrued.</p> + +<p>"You told me nothing. You tell me nothing. I am kept in the dark."</p> + +<p>Cassy, adjusting the wrap which she had left open that he might admire +the unadmirable, moved to where he sat and touched him. "You're the +silliest kind of a silly. I told you yesterday. Perhaps the opera was +last night. But how could I go? Except that old black rag I had nothing +to wear. If there is no opera to-night, there will be a concert or +something. Don't you remember now? I was at the telephone."</p> + +<p>He did remember, but apparently the recollection displeased. He growled. +"Yes. It was that Paliser."</p> + +<p>"Well, why not? If it had not been for him, I would not have got the +catamount's money and you would not have had the burgundy."</p> + +<p>But he was not to be mollified. The growl sharpened into a snarl. +"Paliser! I don't like the breed. By God, if——"</p> + +<p>The peradventure of that Cassy got before he could utter it. Paliser! Of +all men! The absurdity convulsed her. Her laughter ran up and down the +scale.</p> + +<p>"You're the dearest old duck of a goose I ever heard of." She turned. +Her wrap swished. "I only wish you were going too."</p> + +<p>Below, in the street, a man, precipitatingly vacating the box of a +machine, touched his cap at her. "Beg pardon, mem. Miss Cara? Mr. +Paliser's compliments and he's sent a car."</p> + +<p>Cassy glanced at the man, who looked like a Roman emperor. From the man +she turned to the car. Superiorly and soberly finished, it beckoned. +Now, though, the Cæsar was holding open the door. Cassy got in. The +emperor hopped up. The car leaped.</p> + +<p>On the front seat was a box with her name on it. In it was a handful of +orchids. The luxury of the car, the beauty of the demon-flowers, the +flight from the walk-up, yet more, perhaps, the caresses and surrenders +of spring, affected her. If, she thought, if only the things that might +be could be the things that are! If only——</p> + +<p>On the pale cushions she leaned back. Before her a curtain parted. In a +wide, marble-flagged hall she was looking at a girl who was looking at +her. A moment before he had said: "That is Miss Austen to whom I am +engaged." A moment before she had seen her picture. The girl was good to +look at, so good that, without further acquaintance, you knew she was +good through and through. There was no mistaking that. But was she good +enough? Was any girl good enough for him? And who was that with her? +Probably her mother who probably too was the catamount's sister. They +had a family likeness. Then at once the scene shifted. Cassy was in a +room floored with thick rugs, hung with heavy draperies, and in that +room the catamount had hired her to sing! But the disgust of it passed. +The curtain fell. Cassy turned to the window, through which a breath of +lilac blew.</p> + +<p>She sniffed and stared. Where was she? Where was the Riverside? Where, +for that matter, was the roar of the glittering precinct in which the +Splendor tossed its turrets to the sky? Here were dirty and reeling +goblins; budding trees that bowed and fainted; a stretch of empty road +that the scudding car devoured. Afar was a house that instantly +approached and as suddenly vanished. Dimly beyond was another.</p> + +<p>Cassy, leaning forward, poked at the emperor. "I will thank you to tell +me where you are going. Don't you know where the Splendor is?"</p> + +<p>Back at her he mumbled, but what she could not hear.</p> + +<p>"Stop at once," she called.</p> + +<p>Easily, without a quiver, almost within its own length, the car drew in +and the Cæsar, touching his cap, was looking at her. "Beg pardon, mem. +There was a note for you in the box. Mr. Paliser said——"</p> + +<p>But now Cassy had it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Chère demoiselle—though I do not know why I call you that, except +that it sounds less perfunctory than dear Miss Cara, who, I hope +will do me the honour of dining in the country, if for no better +reason than because there is no opera to-night and I am her +obedient servant.</p> + +<p>M. P., <span class="smcap">jr</span>.</p></div> + +<p>Cassy looked up from it. "Country! He says country. What country? What +does this mean?"</p> + +<p>"The Place, mem. Paliser Place. It's not far now."</p> + +<p>Cassy had not bargained for that. Stories of girls decoyed, drugged, +spirited away, never heard of again, sprang at her. Quite as quickly she +dismissed them. But, being human, she had to find fault.</p> + +<p>"You should have told me before. That will do. Drive on."</p> + +<p>She sank back. The car leaped and she smiled. Paliser in the rôle of +white-slaver! Her momentary alarm was now a mile behind her. But would +they be alone? Though, after all, what did it matter? Yet in Harlem +there was a broken old man who would not like it. And the basilica +investments! If she had known she would have worn the black rag. But +they would do for that tiresome Mrs. Beamish. As yet she had not decided +what she would sing. The <i>Caro nome</i> occurred to her. Under her breath +she began it and abruptly desisted. The <i>Dear Name</i> suggested another.</p> + +<p>For it she substituted the <i>Ombra leggiera</i>. In its scatter of trills +that mount, as birds mount, there were no evocations, though she did +begin wondering again about Mrs. Beamish's music-room. If it were not +too impossible she might give the <i>Ernani involame</i>. But at that and +very unintentionally she thought of Lennox again.</p> + +<p>She made a face and looked through the window. As usual she was hungry. +The car now was bellowing through opening gates which, as she looked +back, a man in brown was closing. On either side was a high stone wall, +but beyond, as she looked again, was an avenue bordered with trees and +farther on a white house with projecting wings in which was a court, an +entrance and, above and about the latter, a pillared perron.</p> + +<p>From the entrance she could see a man in livery hastening. Behind him, a +man in black appeared. The car stopped. The first man opened the door. +Cassy got out. The other man additionally assisted by looking on and +moving aside. Cassy went into a hall where a young person who did not +resemble the Belle Chocolatière but whose costume suggested her, +diligently approached.</p> + +<p>"Would madame care to go upstairs?"</p> + +<p>No, madame would not. But Cassy, instinctively insolent to +pretentiousness, was very simple with the simple. "Thank you. Will you +mind taking my wrap? Thank you again."</p> + +<p>She looked about the hall. Before she could inventory it, here was +another man. "A nice trick you played on me," Cassy threw at him. "I was +half-way before I discovered it. The orchids reconciled me. Thank you +for them. Who is here?"</p> + +<p>Smiling, deferential, apparently modest, perfectly sent out in perfectly +cut evening clothes, Paliser took her hand. "You are and, incidentally, +I am."</p> + +<p>Cassy withdrew her hand. "I suppose you think you are a host in +yourself."</p> + +<p>"Merely the most fortunate of mortals," replied Paliser, who could be +eighteenth-century when he liked, but who seldom bothered to keep it up.</p> + +<p>Already he had been doing a little inventorying on his own account. The +basilica frock did not say much and what it did say was not to his +taste. The Sunday night fantasy he much preferred. It was rowdy, but it +was artistic. But beauty may be dishonoured, it cannot be vulgarised. +Even in pseudo-Parisianisms Cassy was a gem. A doubt though, one that +had already visited him, returned. Was the game worth the possible +scandal?</p> + +<p>But now Cassy was getting back at him. "To stand about with the most +fortunate of mortals ought to be a shape of bliss. As it happens, I +would rather sit."</p> + +<p>"Naturally. Only, worse luck, there is no throne."</p> + +<p>Cassy gave it to him again: "There is a court fool, though. Where are +your cap and bells?"</p> + +<p>"Not on you at any rate."</p> + +<p>He motioned and Cassy passed on into a room beyond which other rooms +extended, each different, but all in the same key, a monotone attenuated +by lustres and the atmosphere, infinitely relaxing, which wealth +exhales.</p> + +<p>Cassy's thin nostrils quivered. Since childhood, it was her first breath +of anything similar. It appeased and disarmed this anarchist who was +also an autocrat.</p> + +<p>"Will you sit here?"</p> + +<p>Paliser was drawing a chair. The table before it lacked the adjacent +severity. On it were dishes of Sèvres and of gold. Adjacently were three +men. Their faces were white and sensual. They moved as forms move in a +dream.</p> + +<p>The stories of girls decoyed, spirited away, never heard of again, +returned to Cassy. She had put the orchids beside her. Her flexible +mouth framed a smile.</p> + +<p>"You know, for a moment, I had the rare emotion of feeling and fearing +that I was being eloped with."</p> + +<p>A pop interrupted. She turned to a man at her elbow. "Only half a glass, +please, and fill it with water." She returned to Paliser, who was +opposite. "I had been thinking of something. I had not noticed where the +car was going; and all of a sudden, I found myself I did not know where. +Then, houp! It got me."</p> + +<p>Paliser helped himself to a clam. "The charm of elopements passed with +the post-chaise. Then they had the dignity of danger and pistol shots +through the windows. Nowadays you go off in a Pullman and return as +prosaic as you started."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes even more so," Cassy put in.</p> + +<p>Paliser helped himself to another clam. "You speak feelingly and that is +only right. This is a very important matter. It is a shame that romance +should have passed with the post-chaise. Why should it not revisit us in +the motor?"</p> + +<p>Cassy sipped and considered it. "There ought to be a law on the +subject."</p> + +<p>"There is one. You may be summoned for speeding and get your name in the +papers."</p> + +<p>"Then the dignity of danger remains."</p> + +<p>"But not in clams. Aren't you going to eat any?"</p> + +<p>Cassy laughed. "I had some yesterday with Ma Tamby. They did not seem to +agree with her. She became very noisy about a Mrs. Beamish. Who is she?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Beamish?" Paliser repeated. He also had forgotten. But, with a +click, memory raised a latch. From behind it the lady emerged. "Oh, +she's a cousin of mine."</p> + +<p>"Rather distant, I should fancy," said Cassy, who was conscious of the +delay, though not of the click. The delay she had noticed without, +however, divining the cause. But how could she possibly imagine that +Mrs. Beamish had been evolved for the sole purpose of providing her with +basilica opportunities? Yet the fault, if fault there were, resided in +her education. She had never read Eliphas Levi. She did not know that +genii can be evoked.</p> + +<p>"Well, she is more my sister's cousin than mine," Paliser anxious to get +out of it, threw in. "I mean my sister has a more cousinly nature."</p> + +<p>"I did not know you had a sister," said Cassy, who not only did not know +but did not care. "Though, come to think of it, a sister with a cousinly +nature must be so gratifying. Another distant relative, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Very. She is in Petrograd."</p> + +<p>That too was evocative. Cassy began talking about the biggest cropper +that history has beheld—a tsar tossed from the saddle to Siberia!</p> + +<p>Paliser, glad to be rid of Mrs. Beamish, took it up. The sordid story of +the Russian chief of staff, bought by Hindenburg and shot by the +Grand-Duke Nicholas, whom the tsar then exiled, was told once more.</p> + +<p>"What else could you expect of that Hun?" Paliser concluded.</p> + +<p>"A Hun!" Cassy exclaimed. "Why he is a Romanov."</p> + +<p>"No more than you are," Paliser replied. "The last of the Romanovs +married Catherine the Greater. There the breed ended. Paul, who followed +and who married a German drab, was Catherine's son but not her +husband's. The rest of the litter, down to the father of the recent +incumbent, all married German drabs. The father of the ex-tsar married a +Dane. The fellow is therefore one-eighth Dane and seven-eighths Hun. +Totally apart from which, a grocer who knew his business would not have +had him for clerk. His family knew that and, before he had time to be +tsar, tried to poison him. To the misfortune, not of Russia merely, but +of Christendom, they failed. If they had succeeded the eastern front +would be secure. As for his wife, I saw her once. It was in the Winter +Palace which, before it was sacked, was a palace. Since the palace of +the Caliphs of Cordova crumbled, there has never been a palace like it. +It outshone them all. Well, that woman tarnished it."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile dishes were brought and removed by servants, wooden-faced, yet +with ears alert. The subject of elopements had seemed promising, but it +led to nothing. At their own table, talk was gayer.</p> + +<p>Cassy enjoyed the food, the diluted wine, Paliser's facile touch. He +appeared to know a lot and she surprised herself by so telling him. "I +wish I did," she added. "I am ignorant as a carp."</p> + +<p>"You know how to charm," he replied. But, seeing her stiffen, he +resumed, "With your voice. That is enough. It would be a mistake for you +to be versatile. Versatility is for the amateur. The artist is a flower, +never a bouquet."</p> + +<p>It was decently said. In the decency of it, the agreeable insult which a +compliment usually is was so chastened that Cassy flushed and felt that +she had. It annoyed her, and she attributed it to the wine.</p> + +<p>It was not the wine. Other influences were at work on this girl, born to +a forsaken purple and whose soul was homesick for it. But purple is +perhaps picturesque. It was not that for which her soul sighed, but the +dream that hides behind it, the dream of going about and giving money +away. To her the dream had been the dream of a dream, realisable only on +the top rungs of the operatic ladder, which, later, she felt she was not +destined to scale. None the less there are dreams that do come true, +though usually, beforehand, there is a desert to cross.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if I might have a cavatina?" Paliser asked, rising and moving +to her.</p> + +<p>Cassy shrugged. I have to pay for my dinner, she thought, but she too +got up.</p> + +<p>Preceding her, he led the way to a room of which the floor, inlaid and +waxed, was rugless. The windows were not curtained, they were shuttered. +In the centre was a grand and a bench. Afar, at the other end, masking a +door, was a portière, the colour of hyacinth. Near it, were two +unupholstered chairs; one, white; the other, black. Save for these, save +too for a succession of mirrors and of lights, the room was bare. In +addition, it was spacious, a long oblong, ceiled high with light +frescoes, the proper aviary for a song-bird.</p> + +<p>Cassy curtsied to it. At table she had not wanted to sing. The mere +sight of this room inspired.</p> + +<p>Paliser opened the piano and, seating himself, ran his long thin fingers +over the keys. He was heating them, preluding a score, passing from it +to another. Presently he looked up; she nodded and the <i>Ah, non giunge</i> +floated from her.</p> + +<p>"Brava!" Paliser muttered as the final trill drifted away. Again he +looked up. "You will be a very great artist."</p> + +<p>He did not mean it. He judged her voice colourful but lacking in +carriage.</p> + +<p>Cassy, leaning forward, struck the keys, giving him the note and again +she sang, this time the <i>Libiamo</i>, which, old as the hills, claptrap, +utterly detestable, none the less served to display the bravura quality +of her voice.</p> + +<p>When it passed, Paliser sprang up, faced her. "Open your mouth! There! +Wide!"</p> + +<p>Cassy, familiar with the ritual, obeyed. Paliser peered into the +strawberry of her throat. It was deep as a well and he moved back.</p> + +<p>"You have the organ but you do not know how to use it. You don't know +how to breathe."</p> + +<p>Cassy forgot that he was young, that she was, that in the great room in +the great house they were alone. Through the shutters came the smell of +lilacs, the sorceries of spring. In the sexlessness of art these things +were unnoticed. For the first time she liked him. It was his frankness +that drew her, though if he had been a frank old woman she would have +liked him as well.</p> + +<p>"My father says that. He says it is Ma Tamby's fault. He can't bear +her."</p> + +<p>For a while they discussed it. Paliser maintaining that were it not for +the war she ought to go to Paris and Cassy asserting, though without +conviction, that the specialty of the Conservatoire consisted in dried +fruit.</p> + +<p>Finally she said: "It must be late. I have a wrap somewhere and oh! my +orchids."</p> + +<p>The young person was summoned. The wrap was recovered, the orchids +reappeared.</p> + +<p>Paliser, helping Cassy with the wrap, said: "Shall I see it here again?" +He knew he would but he thought it civil to ask.</p> + +<p>Cassy too had her thoughts. The freedom with which, during the +ham-and-eggs episode, his eyes had investigated her, where was it? On +Sunday he had bored her to tears. That also had gone. During the past +hour or two he had shown himself reasonably intelligent, unpresuming, +without offensiveness of any kind. With a movement of the hand she +lifted the wrap at her neck. "Here?"</p> + +<p>It occurred to her that she did not know where the polished and inlaid +floor on which she stood was located. Nor did she particularly care. +Besides if her geography were vague, the floor was pleasant, a bit +slippery perhaps, though just how slippery she was yet to learn.</p> + +<p>"Yes. The day after to-morrow. Why not? I would like to run over a score +or two with you."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! You are not composing an opera, are you?"</p> + +<p>Paliser laughed. "I want to lead you away from painted mush into the +arms of——"</p> + +<p>"Not Strauss?" Cassy interrupted. "Art does not recognise frontiers but +the Huns do not either and I will not recognise a Hun. Is the car at the +door?"</p> + +<p>He saw her out and away, and reentering the house went to a room in the +wing. It was lined with bookcases that you did not have to break your +back to examine. They began four feet from the floor and ended two feet +higher. The room contained other objects of interest.</p> + +<p>From among the latter, Paliser helped himself to a brandy and soda. It +had been dry work. The drink refreshed him. It stimulated too. Also it +suggested. He put the glass down and lightly swore at it.</p> + +<p>"Damn Benny! He has only one thumb."</p> + +<p>For a moment he eyed the glass. Then taking from a shelf Gautier's very +spiritual account of the de Maupin, he eyed that. Not for long though. +He put it back. He did not want to read. He did not want to drink. There +were several things that he did not want. In particular he did not want +to be alone.</p> + +<p>He rang, ordered out a car and went sailing in town, to a brown-stone +front where you could lose as much money as you liked and not in +solitude either. On the way, the thought of the damned and thumbless +Benny accompanied him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2> + + +<p>Through the inflated proprieties of social New York, Paliser's father +had driven four-in-hand, and at a pace so klinking that social New York +cut him dead. A lot he cared! The high-steppers in their showy harness +flung along as brazenly as before. He did not care. He had learned to +since. Age is instructive. It teaches that though a man defy the world, +he cannot ignore it. But tastes are inheritable. Monty Paliser came in +for a few, but not for the four-in-hand. Less vigorous than his father, +though perhaps more subtle, he preferred the tandem.</p> + +<p>In preparation for one that he had in view, he looked in, not at a mart, +but at a shrine.</p> + +<p>It was on the afternoon succeeding Cassy's visit to his slippery floor. +The day was radiant, a day not of spring, or of summer, but of both. +Above was a sky of silk wadded with films of white cotton. From below +there ascended a metallic roar, an odour of gasoline—the litanies and +incense of the temple, Semitic and Lampsacene, that New York long since +became.</p> + +<p>Lampsacus worshipped a very great god and worshipped him uniquely. New +York, more devout and less narrow, has worshipped him also and has knelt +too to a god almost as great. Their combined rituals have exalted the +temple into a department-store where the pilgrim obtains anything he can +pay for, which is certainly a privilege. Youth, beauty, virtue, even +smiles, even graciousness, Priapus and Mammon bestow on the faithful +that garland the altars with cash.</p> + +<p>In Park Avenue, on this radiant afternoon, Mrs. Austen and Paliser were +occupied with their devotions. Mrs. Austen was priestess and Paliser was +saying his prayers; that is, he was jingling his money, not audibly, but +none the less potently in the lady's uplifted eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the lady, who as usual did not mean it. "It is too bad. +Margaret, the dear child, is so inexperienced that I feel that I must +blame myself. I have kept from her—how shall I put it? Well, +everything, and when she learned about this, I could not tell her that +it was all very usual. It would have offended her modesty too much."</p> + +<p>Pausing, Mrs. Austen smiled her temple smile. "I could not tell her, as +somebody expressed it, that actresses happen in the best of families, +but I left her to decide whether she cared to have them happen in her +ménage."</p> + +<p>The priestess, looking to the north and south, resumed: "It might have +been different if she had been older, more experienced and had really +cared for him. But how could she care? The child's nature is dormant. +She does not know what love is. He is very nice, I have not a word to +say against him, not one, but a lamp-post would be quite as capable of +arousing her affection. She accepted him, I grant you that and you may +well ask why. I know I asked myself the same thing, until I remembered +that Mr. Austen offered to take me to Niagara Falls and I married him +just to go there. At the time I was a mere chit and Margaret is little +more. Now, I am not, I hope, censorious and I do not say that she had a +lucky escape, but I can say she thinks so. It was such a relief that it +gave her neuralgia. But the child will be up and about in no time and +then you must come and dine. You got my note?"</p> + +<p>Paliser stifled a yawn. The priestess was, he knew, entirely willing to +deliver whatever he wanted at temple rates. But he knew, too, there were +forms and ceremonies to be observed. Being bored was one of them.</p> + +<p>At another portal he has been obliged to go through the forms with +Carlotta Tamburini. She also had wearied him, though less infernally +than Mrs. Austen, and of the two he preferred her. The ex-diva was +certainly canaille, but her paw was open and ready, whereas this woman's +palm, while quite as itching, was delicately withheld. Their gods were +identical. It was the shrines that differed. The one at which the +Tamburini presided was plain as a pikestaff. The Austen's was bedecked +like a girl on her wedding-day. Behind each Priapus leered. Above both +was the shining face of Mammon.</p> + +<p>In the present rites, that which wearied Paliser was the recital of the +reason of the broken engagement. It was broken, that was the end of it, +an end which, in ordinary circumstances, he would have regretted. +Ordinarily it would have made the running too easy. The hurdles were +gone. There were no sticks, no fences. It would not even have been a +race, just a canter. The goal remained but the sporting chance of +beating Lennox to it would have departed. That is the manner in which +ordinarily he would have regarded it. But the war, that was to change us +all, already had changed his views. The draft act had not then been +passed, yet it was realised that some such act would be passed, and +generally it was assumed that among the exempt would be men with wives +dependent on them and cogently he had reflected that if he married that +would be his case precisely. At the same time he could not take a +possible bride by the scruff of the neck and drag her off to a +clergyman. Though it be to save your hide, such things are not done. +Even in war-time there are wearisome preliminaries and these +preliminaries, which a broken engagement abridged, the neuralgia of a +possible bride prolonged. That was distinctly annoying and a moment +later, when he had the chance, he vented the annoyance on Lennox.</p> + +<p>"You got my note?" Mrs. Austen was asking.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "and I will come with pleasure. Meanwhile, if my +sympathy is not indiscreet, please convey it to your daughter." The kick +followed. "Though, to be sure, Lennox is a loose fish."</p> + +<p>"He is?" Mrs. Austen unguardedly exclaimed. Not for a moment had she +suspected it and, in her surprise, her esteem for him jumped. Good +heavens! she thought. How I have maligned him!</p> + +<p>In the exclamation and the expression which her eyes took on, Paliser +divined some mental somersault, divined too that behind it was something +obscure, something that she was keeping back. Warily he backed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, as for that, loose fish may mean anything. It is a term that has +been applied to me and I dare say very correctly. If I did not live like +a monk, I should be jailed for my sins."</p> + +<p>He is his father all over again, Mrs. Austen cheerfully reflected and +absently asked: "How is he?"</p> + +<p>"Lennox? I haven't an idea."</p> + +<p>"I mean your father."</p> + +<p>"In a great hurry, thank you. The war has gone to his head."</p> + +<p>"At his age? Surely——"</p> + +<p>"He wants me to go," said Paliser, who had no intention of it whatever +and whom subsequent events completely exempted. "He is in a hurry for me +to enlist and in a greater hurry to have me marry."</p> + +<p>Austerely, this pleasant woman grabbed it. "It is your duty!"</p> + +<p>That was too much for Paliser, who, knowing as well as she did what she +was driving at, wanted to laugh. Like the yawn, he suppressed it.</p> + +<p>The priestess's austerity faded. A very fair mimic of exaltation +replaced it. "Whoever she is, how proud she will be! A war-bride!"</p> + +<p>But Paliser, who had his fill, was rising and, abandoning histrionics, +she resumed: "The 24th at eight; don't forget!" Then as he passed from +the portal, the priestess lifted her hands. "What a fish! Fast or loose, +what a fish!"</p> + +<p>Above her Mammon glowed, behind her leered Priapus.</p> + +<p>Through the sunny streets, Paliser drove to the Athenæum, where +everybody was talking war. The general consensus of ignorance was quite +normal.</p> + +<p>Lennox, seated with Jones at a window, was summarising his own point of +view. "In a day or two I shall run down to Mineola, Perhaps they will +take me on at the aviation field. Anyway I can try."</p> + +<p>Jones crossed himself. He is signing his death-warrant, he thought. But +he said: "Take you, Icarus. They will fly away with you. You will become +a cavalier of the clouds, a toreador of the aerial arena, an archangel +soaring among the Eolian melodies of shrapnel. I envy, I applaud, but I +cannot emulate. The upper circles are reserved for youth and over musty +tomes I have squandered mine. I am thirty-two by the clock and I should +hie me to the grave-digger that he may take my measure. And yet if I +could—if I could!—I would like to be one of the liaison chaps and fall +if I must in a shroud of white swords."</p> + +<p>Sombrely Lennox considered his friend. "Your shroud of white swords is +ridiculous."</p> + +<p>Jones agreed with him. To change the subject, he rattled a paper. "Have +you seen this? There is an account here of a man who shot his girl. He +thought her untrue. Probably she was."</p> + +<p>"Reason enough then," said Lennox, who latterly had become very +murderous.</p> + +<p>"I wonder! Anyway, though the paper does not say so, that was not his +reason. The poor devil killed her not because she had been untrue, but +because he loved her. He killed the thing he loved the best out of sheer +affection. Unfortunately, for his virtues, he loved her innocently, +ignorantly, as most men do love, without any idea that the one affection +worth giving is a love that nothing can alter, a love that can not only +forgive but console."</p> + +<p>"Is that what you call originality?" Lennox severely enquired. "If so, I +have never run across any of it in your books."</p> + +<p>"Heaven forbid that you should, dear boy. I live by the sweat of my pen. +Originality never has, and never will make a best-seller."</p> + +<p>It was while Jones was airing these platitudes that Paliser entered the +room. He approached the two men. Lennox at once got up, turned his back, +marched away.</p> + +<p>A few days later, Jones, in reviewing the incident, wondered whether +Lennox could, even then, have suspected. But, at the moment, in apology +for him, he merely lied.</p> + +<p>"I frightened him off with shop-talk."</p> + +<p>Paliser took the vacant seat "What are you writing?"</p> + +<p>"Cheques. There is nothing simpler and, except cash, nothing so easily +understood. To keep my hand in I will write one now."</p> + +<p>Then Jones too got up. Paliser, to whom solitude was always irksome, +found himself alone. But his solitude was not prolonged. A man joined +him. Another followed. Presently there was a group.</p> + +<p>From the table where Jones had gone, the inkbeast saw and seeing +thought: Empires may totter, nations fall. The face of the earth will be +changed. But the toady endureth forever.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2> + + +<p>It was another perfect day, a forenoon after Veronese, a day of which +the charm was heightened by the witcheries that Harlem knows—the +shouted temptations of push-carts; the pastimes of children, so noisy, +so dirty, so dear! the engaging conversation of German ladies; the +ambient odour of cabbage and the household linen fluttering gaily on the +roofs. It was rapturous. Just beyond was a sewer—the Hudson. But above +was the turquoise of the mid-April day.</p> + +<p>Cassy went by and on, turned a corner, crossed the street, descended +into a cave, smiled sweetly at a man who was closing a door and who, +seeing that smile, smiled at it, smiled wantonly, held the door open, +yet, noting then but an arid blankness where her smile had been, banged +the door and shouted fiercely: "Hundred-thirty-seven-street-next."</p> + +<p>The train crashed on. Cassy, her nose in the air, assumed a barbed-wire +attitude, her usual defensive against the conjecturing eyes of old men +and the Hello, Kid! glances of New York's subtle youth. This attitude, +which enabled her to ignore everything and everybody, enabled her also +to think of what she liked, or of what she did not like, a circumstance +that happened to her then and which was induced by her father.</p> + +<p>That day he had been terrible. The tragedies of the fated Atrides, what +were they to his? A lamentation longer than Jeremiah's followed. His +arm, his skill, his art, his strength, his money, everything, for all he +knew even his daughter, was taken from him. How long, O Lord, how long! +And presto! da capo, all over and afresh she had it.</p> + +<p>Then, shaking a finger, he cried: "Where were you last night?"</p> + +<p>Cassy, reduced to tears, exclaimed at him. "Why here. Where else?"</p> + +<p>Darkly he eyed her. "Yes, but earlier, before you came in, where were +you?"</p> + +<p>Cassy could not help it, she shook. A moment before she had been crying +whole-heartedly, associating herself, as a daughter may, in her father's +woe. But that was too much. With the tears still in her eyes, she +laughed. "Gracious goodness! You don't take me for a fly-by-night?"</p> + +<p>The noble marquis, who had been standing, sat down. Before him, on the +ginger of the wall, hung the portrait of the gorgeous swashbuckler. +Behind the latter were portraits, dim, remote, visionary, of other +progenitors who probably never existed. But he was convinced that they +had, convinced that always, sword in hand, they had upheld the honour of +the Casa-Evora. No, surely, his daughter had not forfeited that. No, +certainly, he did not suspect her. But there was much that he did not +understand. The misery of the mystery of things overcame him. He wept +noisily.</p> + +<p>Cassy, who had been seated, stood up. She had on her rowdy frock. She +also had on a hat—if you can call a tam-o'-shanter a hat. Therewith +were white gloves which she had got at the basilica and which as yet +were free from benzine. Her father had distressed her inhumanly, but she +had survived it, as youth survives anything, and she looked then, not +tear-stained in the least, but, as usual, very handsome.</p> + +<p>Bending forward, she touched him. "There, you dear old thing, don't take +on so. I have been planning something fat for you. Everything will come +out right Just wait and see—and when you're hungry, there's some nice +cold veal in the kitchy."</p> + +<p>But though in the kitchen there was cold veal, which it were perhaps +poetic to describe as nice, yet even the poetry of that was exceeded by +the poetry of the plan. Cassy had planned nothing lean or fat, nothing +whatever. She had spoken as a little mother may, in an effort to +console, though perhaps prompted subconsciously by the inscrutable +possibilities of life. Anything may happen. Already on the stage of +which destiny is the scene-shifter, the fates, in their eternal rôle of +call-boy, were summoning the actors to the drama in which the leading +rôle was hers and on which the curtain was about to rise.</p> + +<p>Her father, comforted by the imaginary, looked up. She had gone. From +the sling he took his arm. The elbow was stiff, though less stiff than +it had been. Moreover the wrist moved readily and the fingers were as +flexible as before. Consoled by that, comforted already, he shuffled +into the kitchen and consumed the cold veal.</p> + +<p>Now, in the crashing car, Cassy's thoughts went forward and back. Her +father's question, that had succeeded in being both pointed and +pointless, returned. She smiled at it. It would take another Don Juan +than Mozart's to entice me, she serenely reflected. Yet, after all, +would he have to be so remarkable? At any rate he would have to be fancy +free and not engaged as was a certain person who had not so much as said +Boo!</p> + +<p>Cassy coloured. Always corsetless, she was not straight-laced. Given the +attraction and with it the incentive, and that tam-o'-shanter might have +gone flying over the windmill. The tam was very safe. There was no +incentive and, though there was no moral corset either, she was +temperamentally unable to go poaching on another's preserves. Barring +the chimerical, that any girl may consider and most girls do, she was +straight as a string. A shabby old man had no need to ask.</p> + +<p>"Seventy-second!" The trainman bawled unmollifiably at her.</p> + +<p>Cassy left a certain person there. Into her thoughts another man had +hopped. She surveyed him. He was good-looking. He was rich. These +attributes said nothing. A beautiful male—always an anomaly—never +attracts a beautiful woman. That other anomaly, a man of inherited +wealth, is disgusting to the anarchist. Cassy was a beauty and an +anarchist. She was also an aristocrat. The tattered portières of the +House of Casa-Evora, the bedrabbled robes of the marquisate, all that +was ridiculous to her. She was an aristocrat none the less. She had a +high disdain for low things. In the kitchen, which she called the +kitchy, she bent her back but not her head. Her head was unbowed. She +sullied her hands but not her conscience. A dirty act she could not +perform. Aristocrat and anarchist, she was also an artist. With simple +things and simple people, she was simple as you please. Stupidity and +pretentiousness enraged her. The philistine and the ignoble she loathed.</p> + +<p>Now, through the windows of her soul, she surveyed him. His looks, his +money, said nothing. On the other hand there was about him an aroma that +appealed. The aroma was not the odour that local society exhales. At +that Cassy's nose was in the air. A lot of nobodies occupied with +nothing—and talking about it! Such was her opinion of the gilded gang, +an opinion which Paliser—to do him the justice that the historian +should—would have had put to music and arranged for trumpets. It was +not that, therefore. The aroma was more fetching. The man talked her +language, liked what she liked, never presumed. In considering these +factors, she considered her gloves. Thank God, they did not smell of +benzine!</p> + +<p>"Grand Central!"</p> + +<p>Cassy, abandoning Paliser there, went on to Fifth Avenue, where, with +the protection of cross-town traffic, she attempted to get to the other +side. But half-way, she saw, or thought she saw, the young woman to whom +a certain person was engaged. She turned to look, backed into the +traffic-sign and put it in motion. Instantly motors were careering at +each other. Instantly a purple policeman grown suddenly black, was +smitten with St. Vitus.</p> + +<p>Dancing and bellowing as he danced, he righted the sign and swore at +Cassy, who, for added outrage, had flung herself at him and was smiling +sweetly in his swollen face. About them the torrent poured. Then all at +once, in a riot that afterwards seemed to her phantasmagoric, the +policeman raised a forefinger in salute. From the maelstrom she was +hoisted bodily into a car. Somebody, the policeman probably, was +boosting her from behind. Never had she suffered such indignities! To +accentuate them, somebody else was shouting in her face.</p> + +<p>"I've saved your life, you'll have to marry me."</p> + +<p>"Well, I declare!" Cassy, horribly ruffled, exclaimed at Paliser, who +had the impudence to laugh. She smoothed the smock, patted the hat, +passed a gloved hand over her nose.</p> + +<p>"You're all there," Paliser, amused by the mimic, was telling her. "What +is more, one pick-me-up deserves another."</p> + +<p>With his stick, he poked at the mechanician, gestured with it, +indicating a harbour.</p> + +<p>The car veered and stopped at a restaurant that had formerly resided in +Fourteenth Street, but which had moved, as the heart of Manhattan moved, +and was then thinking of moving again.</p> + +<p>In the entrance were Cantillon and Ogston, agreeable young men, who +stood aside for Cassy, raised their hats at Paliser, nudging each other +with unfathomable good-fellowship.</p> + +<p>"A peach!"</p> + +<p>"No, a pair!"</p> + +<p>Their pleasantries were lost. Cassy and Paliser moved on and in to the +Fifth Avenue room, crowded as usual on this high noon. But what are +head-waiters for? Promptly there was a table, one not too near the +orchestra and yet which gave on the street.</p> + +<p>"What would you dislike the least?" Paliser from over a bill-of-fare +inquired. He had brought his hat and stick with him and, in spite of a +waiter's best efforts, had put both on the floor.</p> + +<p>I am not fit to be seen, thought Cassy, looking about at two and three +hundred dollar frocks and at blouses that were almost as cheap.</p> + +<p>Paliser, turning to the waiter, translated passages from the menu. +"Surprised tomatoes, cocottish eggs, suprême on a sofa, ice Aurora +Borealis. And a baked potato." He turned to Cassy. "Barring the ice, a +baked potato is the only thing in which they can't stick grease."</p> + +<p>"Et comme vin, monsieur?" enquired the waiter who ought to have been at +the front.</p> + +<p>"Aqua pura. But probably you have not got it. Celestial Vichy, then." He +looked again at Cassy. "What else might displease your ladyship?"</p> + +<p>"Do stop talking like a low comedian," Cassy vexatiously retorted. "If +you had not used force I would not be here. I could not make a row at +the door."</p> + +<p>"No, one scene on Fifth Avenue is enough for one day."</p> + +<p>"I should say so and it was you who made it. I was going quietly about +my business when I was derricked into your car."</p> + +<p>"Not at all. You threw yourself at my head. If it had not been for me, +the policeman would have marched you off to prison."</p> + +<p>Cassy laughed. "The dear man! He knew I would be worse off with you."</p> + +<p>"Yes. He was certainly perspicacious. Where did you say you were going?"</p> + +<p>Cassy removed her gloves. "Before I was attacked? To a music-shop. There +is a song I want to get for Mrs. Thingumagig's, Mrs. Beamish——"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Who?" Paliser asked. Again he had forgotten the lady. But from one +of memory's pantries her wraith peered out. "Ah, yes, of course! Well, +we can stop by for it and you can run it over in the country to-night. +You remember that you are to dine with me, don't you?"</p> + +<p>Cassy lifted a lip as a dog does when about to bite. "Remember it, I +have thought of nothing else."</p> + +<p>But now the waiter put a dish between them and Paliser said: "You make +me feel like this surprised tomato."</p> + +<p>Then came the bite. "While you are about it, you can feel like both of +them. I am not going."</p> + +<p>Argument weakens everything and wearies everybody—except the young. The +mouths of youth are naturally full of objections and insults. Were it +otherwise, young people would be too servile to the past, too respectful +to the present and the future would not know them as guides.</p> + +<p>Paliser, young in years, but old at heart, omitted to argue. He did what +is perhaps superior, he changed the subject. "What is this song you were +speaking of? Why not try that thing of Rimsky-Korsakov, the 'Chanson +Hindoue'?"</p> + +<p>Then, throughout that course and the courses that followed, peace +descended upon them. Even to talk music soothes the savage breast. It +soothed Cassy and to such an extent that, finally, when the ice came she +made no bones about admitting it was her favourite dish.</p> + +<p>"Du café, monsieur? Des liqueurs?" the slacker asked.</p> + +<p>But no, Paliser did not wish anything else, nor did Cassy. The ice +sufficed. She ate it slowly, a little forkful at a time, wishing that +her father could share it, wishing that he, too, could have sofa'd +suprêmes and some one to pay for them. She raised her napkin.</p> + +<p>Paliser lit a cigarette and said: "You made no reply to that statement +of mine."</p> + +<p>She stared. "What statement?"</p> + +<p>"About saving your life."</p> + +<p>"And ruining my reputation?"</p> + +<p>"Well, life comes first. I said you would have to marry me to pay for +it. Will you?"</p> + +<p>Cassy lowered the napkin. He was talking in jest she knew, or thought +she knew, but the subject was not to her taste, though if he had been +serious she would have disliked it still more. She wanted to give it to +him, but no fitting insolence occurred to her and she turned to the +window before which two Japanese were passing, with the air, certainly +feigned, which these Asiatics display, of being hilarious and naïf.</p> + +<p>"Will you?" he repeated.</p> + +<p>"Will I what?"</p> + +<p>"Marry me?"</p> + +<p>Perhaps he did mean it, she thought. He was cheeky enough for anything. +But now he was prodding her. "Say yes. Say to-morrow; say to-day."</p> + +<p>She turned on him. "Why not yesterday? Or is it just another of your +pearls of thought? You are simply ridiculous."</p> + +<p>Paliser put down his cigarette. "That is the proper note. Marriage is +ridiculous. But it is the most ancient of human institutions. Divorce +must have been invented at least three weeks later."</p> + +<p>Cassy did not mean to laugh and did not want to, but she could not help +herself and she exploded it. "You are so ardent!"</p> + +<p>Innocently Paliser caressed his chin. He had made her laugh and that was +a point gained. But such pleasure as he may have experienced he +succeeded in concealing.</p> + +<p>"Again the proper note! I am ardent. Yet—shall I admit it?—formerly I +walked in darkness. It is all due to my father. I have forgotten the +prophet preaching on the hillside who denounced respectability as a low +passion. But my father, while deeply religious, has views more advanced. +He dotes on respectability. He tried to instil it into me and, alas! how +vainly! I was as the blind, the light was withheld and continued to be +until, well, until a miracle occurred. You appeared, I was healed, I saw +and I saw but you. What do you say?"</p> + +<p>"That your conversation is singularly edifying." In speaking, Cassy +gathered her gloves with an air slightly hilarious but not in the least +naïf. Before Paliser could cut in, she added: "If I don't hurry, Ma +Tamby will be out and I shall lose my lesson."</p> + +<p>Paliser shifted. She is devilish pretty, he thought. But is she worth +it? For a second he considered the possible scandal which he had +considered before.</p> + +<p>He stood up. "Let me take you. We can stop for the song on the way."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2> + + +<p>"My Carlottatralala! Dear Carlottatralala!"</p> + +<p>Lightly at the door, Cassy strung the words to a mazourka. Her voice +twisted, swung, danced into a trill that was captured by echoes that +carried it diminishingly down the stairway of the mansion where Carlotta +Tamburini lived.</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>Partially the door opened. A fat slovenly woman showed an unpowdered +nose, a loose unpainted mouth, and, at sight of Paliser, backed. "For +God's sake! One moment, dearie. Straight ahead. With you in two shakes."</p> + +<p>Cassy, her yellow frock swishing, led the way to a room furnished with +heaped scores, with a piano, a bench, chairs and a portrait, on foot, of +a star before the fall. Adjacently were framed programmes, the faded +tokens of forgetless and forgotten nights, and, with them, the usual +portraits of the usual royalties, but perhaps unusually signed. The +ex-diva had attended to that herself.</p> + +<p>Paliser, straddling the bench, put his hat on the piano and looked at +Cassy, who had gone to the window. It was not the palaces opposite that +she saw. Before her was a broken old man revamped. In his hand was a +baton which he brandished demoniacally at an orchestra of his own. The +house foamed with faces, shook with applause, and without, at the +glowing gates, a chariot carried him instantly to the serenities of +elaborate peace.</p> + +<p>"It won't take over an hour."</p> + +<p>The vision vanished. Across the way, in a window opposite, a young man +was dandling, twirling one side of a moustache, cocking a conquering +eye. Cassy did not see him. Directly behind her another young man was +talking. She did not hear.</p> + +<p>On leaving the restaurant and, after it, the music-shop, the car had +taken them into the Park where Paliser, alleging that he was out of +matches, had handed her into another restaurant where more Vichy was put +before her and, with it, that question.</p> + +<p>The air was sweet with lilacs. On the green beyond Cassy could see them, +could see, too, a squirrel there that had gone quite mad. It flew around +and around, stopped suddenly short, chattered furiously and with a +flaunt of the tail, disappeared up a tree.</p> + +<p>"What a dear!" was Cassy's reply to that question.</p> + +<p>But Paliser gave her all the rope that she wanted. He had no attraction +for her, he knew it, and in view of other experiences, the fact +interested him. It had the charm of novelty to this man who, though +young, was old; who, perhaps, was born old; born, as some are, too old +in a world too young.</p> + +<p>He struck a match and watched the little blue-gold flame flare and +subside. It may have seemed to him typical. Then he looked up.</p> + +<p>"Frankly, I have no inducements to offer, and, by the same token, no +lies. It would be untrue if I said I loved you. Love is not an emotion, +it is a habit, one which it takes time to form. I have had no +opportunity to acquire it, but I have acquired another. I have formed +the habit of admiring you. The task was not difficult. Is there anything +in your glass?"</p> + +<p>"A bit of cork, I think," said Cassy, who was holding the glass to the +light and who was holding it moreover as though she had thoughts for +nothing else.</p> + +<p>But her thoughts were agile as that squirrel. A why not? Why not? Why +not? was spinning in them, spinning around and around so quickly that it +dizzied her. Then, like the squirrel, up a tree she flew. For herself, +no. She did not want him, never had wanted him, never could.</p> + +<p>"May I have it?" Paliser took the glass. Save for subsiding bubbles, and +the bogus water, there was nothing there. "Will you take mine? I have +not touched it."</p> + +<p>Cassy took it from him, drank it, drank it all. Her thoughts raced on. +She was aware of that, though with what they were racing she could not +tell.</p> + +<p>"I don't know why I am so thirsty."</p> + +<p>Paliser knew. He knew that the taste of perplexity is very salt. She was +considering it, he saw, and he payed out the rope.</p> + +<p>"People who claim to be wise are imbeciles. But people who claim to be +happy are in luck. I have no pretensions to wisdom but I can claim to be +lucky if——"</p> + +<p>Cassy, her steeple-chasing thoughts now out of hand, was saying +something and he stopped.</p> + +<p>"It is very despicable of me even to listen to you. I don't think I +would have listened, if you had not been frank. But you have had the +honesty not to pretend. I must be equally sincere. I——"</p> + +<p>It was Paliser's turn. With a laugh he interrupted. "Don't. A little +sincerity is a dangerous thing and a great deal of it must be fatal. +Besides I know it all by heart. I am the son of rich and disreputable +people. That is not my fault, and, anyway, it is all one to you. But +what you mean is that, should you consent, the consideration will not +be—er—personal with me or—er—spiritual with you, but—er—just plain +and simple materialism."</p> + +<p>Cassy looked wonderingly at him. It was surprising how quickly and how +completely he had nailed it. But into the bewilderment there crept +something else. "Yes, and I am ashamed to look myself in the face."</p> + +<p>Paliser gave a tug at the rope. "Then don't do that either. Look at me. +Matrimony is no child's play. It is like a trip to England—close +confinement with the chance of being torpedoed. Interference is the +submarine that sinks good ships. If you consent, there is only one thing +on which I shall insist, but I shall insist on it absolutely."</p> + +<p>Visibly the autocrat stiffened. "Shall you, indeed!"</p> + +<p>Paliser pounded, or affected to pound, on the table. "Yes, absolutely."</p> + +<p>You may go to Flanders then, thought Cassy, but, with that look which +she could summon and which was tolerably blighting, she said, "Ah! The +drill sergeant!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and here is the goose-step. The drill sergeant orders that you +must always have your own way in everything."</p> + +<p>Considerably relaxed by that, Cassy laughed. "You are very rigorous. But +don't you think it is rather beside the mark?"</p> + +<p>"Beside it!" Paliser exclaimed. "It tops it, goes all over it, covers +it, covers the grass, covers everything—except a fair field, a free +rein and every favour."</p> + +<p>Cassy was gazing beyond where the squirrel had been. A limousine passed. +A surviving victoria followed. Both were superior. So also were the +occupants. They were very smart people. You could tell it from the way +they looked. They had an air contemptuous and sullen. The world is not +good enough for them, Cassy thought. In an hour, car and carriage would +stop. The agreeable occupants would alight. They would enter fastidious +homes. Costly costumes they would exchange for costumes that were +costlier. They would sit at luxurious boards, lead the luxurious life +and continue to, until they died of obesity of the mind.</p> + +<p>None of that! Cassy decided. But already the picture was fading, +replaced by another that showed a broken old man, without a penny to his +name, or a hope save in her.</p> + +<p>From the screen, she turned to Paliser, who, aware of her absence, had +omitted to recall her. Now, though, that she again condescended to be +present, he addressed her in his Oxford voice.</p> + +<p>"But what was I saying? Yes, I remember, something that somebody said +before me. Nowadays every one marries except a few stupid women and a +few very wise men. Yet, then, as I told you, I have no pretensions to +wisdom."</p> + +<p>"Nor I to stupidity," Cassy thoughtlessly retorted. Yet at once, +realising not merely the vanity of the boast but what was far worse, the +construction that it invited, she tried to recall it, tangled her +tongue, got suddenly red and turned away.</p> + +<p>"You do me infinite honour then," said Paliser, who spoke better than he +knew. But her visible discomfort delighted him. He saw that she wanted +to wriggle out of it and, like a true sportsman, he gave her an opening +in which she would trip.</p> + +<p>"Matrimony is temporary insanity with permanent results. You must not +incur them blindfolded. Do me the favour to look this way. Before you +sits a pauper."</p> + +<p>In the surprise of that, Cassy did look and walked straight into it. +"What?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely." In sheer enjoyment he began lying frankly and freely. He +lied because lying is a part of the game, because it is an agreeable +pastime and because, too, if she swallowed it—and why shouldn't +she?—it might put a spoke in such wheels as she might otherwise and +subsequently set going.</p> + +<p>"Precisely," he repeated. "It is different with my father. My father has +what is called a regular income. One of these days I shall inherit it. +It will keep us out of the poorhouse. But meanwhile I have only the +pittance that he allows me."</p> + +<p>Yes, Cassy sagaciously reflected. What with Paliser Place, its upkeep +and the rest of it, it must be a pittance. But the lie behind it, which +she mistook for honesty, tripped her as it was intended to do. A moment +before she might have backed out. Now, in view of the lie that she +thought was truth, how could she? It would be tantamount to +acknowledging she was for sale but that he hadn't the price. Red +already, at the potential shame of that she got redder.</p> + +<p>Paliser, who saw everything, saw the heightening flush, knew what it +meant, knew that he was landing her, but knew, too, that he must bear +the honours modestly.</p> + +<p>"Bread and cheese in a cottage and with you!" he exclaimed. "But, +forgive me, I am becoming lyrical." He turned, summoned the waiter, paid +for the water, paid for the service and took from the man his stick.</p> + +<p>Cassy went with him to the car. She had made no reply. If she were to +take the plunge, there was no use shivering on the brink. But what would +her father say? He would be furious of course, though how his fury would +change into benedictions when he found himself transported from the +walk-up, lifted from Harlem and cold veal! Presently there would be a +flower in his button-hole and everything that went with the flower. +Moreover, if the poor dear wanted to be absurd, she would let him parade +his marquisate; while, as for herself, she would have to say good-bye to +so much that had been so little. Good-bye! Addio per sempre! The phrase +from La Tosca came to her. It told of kisses and caresses that she had +never had. Yet, beneath her breath, she repeated it. Addio per sempre!</p> + +<p>Then suddenly, without transition, she felt extraordinarily at peace +with herself, with everybody, with everything. After all, she did not +know, stranger things had happened, she might even learn to care for him +and to care greatly. But whether she did or she did not, she would be +true as steel—truer! He had been so nice about it! Yes, she might, +particularly since she had made a clean breast of it and he knew she was +marrying him for what it pleased him to describe as his pittance.</p> + +<p>The car now was flying up the Riverside. An omnibus passed. From the +roof, a country couple spotted the handsome girl and the handsome young +man who were lolling back so sumptuously, and the lady stranger, +pointing, said to her gentleman: "Vanderbilt folk, I guess, ain't they +dandy!" Behind the lady sat a novelist who was less enthusiastic. +Another girl gone gay, was his mental comment. Well, why not? he +reflected, for Jones' prejudices were few and far between. Besides, he +added: Les Portugais sont toujours gais. But he had other things to +think about and he dismissed the incident, which, in less than a week, +he had occasion to recall.</p> + +<p>Cassy, meanwhile, after serenading a fat woman's door and looking from a +palatial window at the moving-pictures of her thoughts, at last heard +Paliser, who, already, had twice addressed her.</p> + +<p>"It won't take over an hour or so."</p> + +<p>But now the Tamburini, ceremoniously attired in a wrapper, strode in and +Paliser, who had been straddling the music-bench, stood up.</p> + +<p>The fact that they had come together and were together, had already +darkly enlightened the fallen star and as she strode in she exclaimed +with poetry and fervour: "Two souls with but a single thought!"</p> + +<p>Paliser took his hat. "We are a trifle better provided. I have as many +as three or four thoughts and one of them concerns a license. I am going +to get it."</p> + +<p>His face was turned from Cassy and his eyes, which he had fastened on +his hostess, held caveats, commands, rewards.</p> + +<p>Massively she flung herself on Cassy. "Dearie, I weep for joy!"</p> + +<p>Cassy shoved her away. "Not on me, Tamby."</p> + +<p>But the dear lady, in attacking her, shot a glance at Paliser. It was +very voluble.</p> + +<p>Cassy, too, was looking at him. Her education had been thorough. She +knew any number of useless things. In geography, history, and the +multiplication-table she was versed. But Kent's Commentaries, passionate +as they are, were beyond her ken. The laws to which they relate were +also. None the less, on the subject of one law she had an inkling, +vague, unprecised, and, for all she knew to the contrary, incorrect. She +blurted it. "Don't I have to go, too?"</p> + +<p>Ma Tamby grabbed it. "Go where, dearie?"</p> + +<p>"For the license?"</p> + +<p>Ma Tamby tittered. "Not unless you love the song of the subway. The +license is a man's job." Twisting, she giggled at Paliser. "But not hard +labour, he, he!"</p> + +<p>"A life-term, though," he answered and added: "I'll go at once."</p> + +<p>That settled it for Cassy. A chair stretched its arms to her. She sat +down.</p> + +<p>Wildly the fat woman gesticulated. "Dearie, no! But how it gets me! As +true as gospel I dreamed so much about it that it kept me awake. I do +believe I have a pint of champy. Shall I fetch it? I must."</p> + +<p>Coldly Cassy considered her. "Don't. You'll only get tight."</p> + +<p>Paliser, making for the door, called back: "Save a drop for me."</p> + +<p>"May the Lord forgive me," sighed the fat woman. "I was that flustered I +forgot to congratulate him. But how it takes me back! Dearie, I too was +young! I too have loved! Ah, gioventu primavera della vita! Ah, l'amore! +Ah! Ah!"</p> + +<p>"You make me sick," said Cassy.</p> + +<p>"Dearie——"</p> + +<p>"Be quiet. My father won't like it and I can't lie to him about it. But +I shall need some things and you will have to go for them. What will you +tell him?"</p> + +<p>With one hand, the fat woman could have flattened Cassy's father out. +But not his tongue. The nest of vipers there, even then hissed at her.</p> + +<p>"Why, dearie, to-morrow you'll have your pick of Fifth Avenue and until +then, if you need a tooth-brush, I'll get one for you around the +corner."</p> + +<p>"But my father will have to be told something. He'll worry to death. I +might write though, and put on a special delivery. Look here. Have you +any note paper that isn't rotten with scent? If not, I do believe I'll +chuck it."</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, dearie!"</p> + +<p>Hastily, in search of scentless paper, the fat woman made off.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2> + + +<p>Over the way, on the jimcrack of the stately mansion opposite, the +westering sun had put an aigrette of gold. The young man with the +conquering eye had gone. A lovely Jewess, leaning like a gargoyle, +violently threatened some Ikey in the unlovely street below. Above was a +pallid green. Beyond, across the river, the sun, poised on a hill-top, +threw from its eternal palette shades of salmon and ochre that tinted an +archipelago of slender clouds. But in the street was the music of +carefree lads, playing baseball, exchanging chaste endearments. There +too was the gaiety of little trulls, hasty and happy on their +roller-skates. While perhaps to generalise these delights, a trundled +organ tossed a ragtime. The charm was certainly affecting and that charm +the horn of Paliser's approaching car merely increased.</p> + +<p>Long since the letter had gone and, with it, another to Mrs. Yallum. In +the former, Cassy had tried to gild the pill, yet without succeeding in +disguising it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dear Daddy:</p> + +<p>You are the best man in the world and the next best your little +girl is to marry now, right away, and become Mrs. Monty Paliser. +But my heart will be with you and so will Mrs. Yallum. Don't fuss +with her, there's a dear, and take your medicine regularly and be +ready to give me your blessing as soon as I can run in, which will +be at the first possible moment, when I shall have more news, good +news, better news, best of daddies, for thee.</p> + +<p>A whirlwind of kisses,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Cassy.</span></p></div> + +<p>Adjacently, on the upper reaches of Broadway, Ma Tamby was shopping. The +sun now, gone from the river, was painting other spheres. From a corner, +shadows crept. They devoured the floor, absorbed the piano, assimilated +the room. They left pits where they passed. They enveloped Cassy.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, she shivered.</p> + +<p>She had been far away, outside of the world, in a region to which the +clamouring street could not mount. Her thoughts had lifted her to a land +that had the colours, clear and yet capricious, of which dreams are +made. There beauty stood, and truth with beauty, and so +indistinguishably that the two were one. But truth, detaching herself, +showed her candid face. The shadows elongating, reached up and darkened +it. The candour remained, but the candour had become terrible. Cassy saw +it. She saw that the land to which she had been lifted was the land of +beauty and horror. It was then she shivered.</p> + +<p>Instantly something touched her. There was no one. The land, the beauty, +the horror had faded. No longer on the heights, she was in a trivial +room in Harlem. She was awake. She was absolutely alone. None the less +something that was nothing, something invisible, inaudible, intangible, +imperceptible, something emanating from the depths where events crouch, +prepared to pounce, had touched her. She knew it, she felt it. Her +impulse was to scream, to rush away. But from what? It was all +imaginary. Common-sense, that can be so traitorous, told her that. Then, +immediately, before the wireless from the unknown, which modern +occultism calls the impact, could impel her, the room was invaded.</p> + +<p>Ma Tamby, tramping in, switching on the lights, was exclaiming and +gesticulating at her and at Paliser, who had followed and who was +standing in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Dearie! For God's sake! The child's asleep! In all my born days I never +knew the likes of that!"</p> + +<p>Icily Cassy eyed her. "What have you there?"</p> + +<p>"Where? What? This?" Feelingly the woman exhibited a nice, big package. +"Why, the things I bought for you!"</p> + +<p>"And do you for a moment suppose that I am going to carry a bundle?"</p> + +<p>"Saints alive, child! Didn't you tell me——"</p> + +<p>But now Paliser, in his cultured voice, intervened. "If I may have it?" +He took it, moved to the window, leaned from it, called: "Mike! You see +this? Then see too that you don't muff it."</p> + +<p>The bundle vanished.</p> + +<p>He turned to Cassy. "I telephoned to Dr. Grantly. He is a clergyman. It +might seem uncivil to keep him waiting."</p> + +<p>Cassy saw him at once—a starchy old man, with a white tie and little +side whiskers, who lived—and would die—in a closed circle of thought.</p> + +<p>Then again that nothing touched her, though, because of the others, more +lightly, less surely. But it touched her. She was quite conscious of it, +equally conscious that there was still time, that she could still +desist, that she had only to say that she would not, that she had +changed her mind and tell them no, right out and be hanged to them. On +the strawberry of her tongue it trembled. At once before her there +floated another picture, the picture of a shabby old man, without a +penny in the world, or a hope save in her.</p> + +<p>She stood up.</p> + +<p>"Dearie, dearie, I wish you joy, I do!" the fat woman sobbed, or +appeared to sob, and everything being possible, it may be that she did +not sob. La joie fait peur. She had done her part. On the morrow a +cheque would reach her. "Dearie, dearie!"</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool," Cassy frigidly threw at her.</p> + +<p>"Will you take my arm?" Paliser asked.</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool either," she threw at him and bravely, head up, went on +to the events that waited.</p> + +<p>In the street below a strain overtook her. Ma Tamby was amusing herself +with "Lohengrin."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h2> + + +<p>Paliser, alighting, turned to help Cassy. But Cassy could get out +unassisted.</p> + +<p>The gravel crunched beneath the wheels of the retreating car. From afar +came the bark of a dog, caught up and repeated. Otherwise the air was +still, very sweet. The house too was silent. In the hall and in the +windows there were lights, but there seemed to be nobody about and that +and the quiet gave her the delicious impression that the house was +enchanted. It was a very nonsensical impression, but it was the nonsense +that made it delicious.</p> + +<p>Paliser was saying something, though what she did not hear. The sky now +was indigo and in it hung a yellow feather. On the Hudson it had been +very pale, the ghost of a feather. But, as Harlem receded, it had ridden +higher and brightened in the ride. Cassy had watched it, wishing that +Paliser would not talk. He had sat next to her, on the same seat, yet if +the portion of it which he occupied had been in a Queensland back-block, +he could not have been farther from her heart. He took her hand and she +let him. He kissed her and she submitted to that. But she wondered +whether courtesans do not hate the men who pay them, more than they hate +themselves. Was she any better? However a priest mumbled at her, she was +selling herself. Love alone is marriage. She had none, nor had he. The +whole thing was abominable, and, as he held her hand and pressed her +lips, her young soul rebelled. Even for her father's sake, this cup was +too much.</p> + +<p>Now though, the empty hall and the great silent house took on the +atmosphere of the Palace of the White Cat. The cup became a philtre. The +abomination changed into deliciousness. There are fairy-tales that are +real. For all she knew, Paliser might change into Prince Charming and +certainly he looked it.</p> + +<p>He had been saying something, what she did not hear. But on the steps +beneath the perron, she turned and saw that which previously she had not +realised, he was extraordinarily good-looking, and about her closed a +consciousness that her rowdy frock was a tissue of diamonds and that he +was in doublet and hose.</p> + +<p>A moment only. But during it something melted about her. Immediately +aware of the phenomenon, she felt that she ought to freeze. She tried to +and failed. The atmosphere of deliciousness prevented and, though she +did not know the reason, she did know that she had failed and the fact +instead of annoying, amused. Then, as she followed Paliser into the +house, she told herself that she was an imbecile, that she did not know +her own mind and, without transition, wondered how her father was taking +it.</p> + +<p>From the hall, they passed through a succession of rooms vacant, +subdued, rich, and on into that other room where she had sung. At the +farther end was a hyacinth curtain that masked a door. But near the +entrance through which she had come was an ivory chair. Cassy, seating +herself on it, wondered what had become of the bundle. She was sure that +it held everything except what she wanted. Then suddenly behind her blue +smock came a gnawing. She thought she would ask Paliser to have somebody +fetch her a sandwich, two sandwiches, or else some bread and butter, +but, now that she looked for him, he had gone.</p> + +<p>She got up, crossed the room and sat down on another chair which was +black, probably ebony. It had a curial appearance that suggested the +senate, not the senate at Washington, but the S. P. Q. of Rome. It was +quite near the hyacinth curtain and behind the latter she heard voices. +Like the rooms they were subdued. She could distinguish nothing. Yet +there must be a bell somewhere and she decided that if Paliser did not +shortly return, she would ring. The gnawing was sharper. She was very +hungry.</p> + +<p>Again she got up and looked from a window. It gave on a garden in which +there was underbush that the moon was chequering with amber spots. After +all, it was a queer sort of a wedding. But what had she expected? Grace +Church? St. Thomas'? Invitations a fortnight in advance, aisles banked +with flowers, filled with snobs and the garbage of the Wagner score that +Ma Tamby had tossed after her? Not by a long shot!</p> + +<p>She turned. Paliser was entering. But the gnawing had nibbled away the +enchantment and, as she turned, she looked rather cross.</p> + +<p>Paliser, noticing that but mistaking the cause, said very +sympathetically: "During the Terror, a princess jogged along, smelling a +rose. Marriage is no worse than the guillotine, besides being much less +summary. Will you come?"</p> + +<p>"Less summary? I should say so!" Cassy retorted. "It is far too +lingering."</p> + +<p>But she followed him out into another hall, one that was hung with +tapestries. They were dim and embroidered with what seemed to be pearls. +On the floor was a rug, dim also, narrow, very long, that extended to a +room, lined with high-placed bookcases and set with low-placed lights. +In the room stood a man. He wore a long black coat and a waistcoat that +reached to his collar. In his hand was a book.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Grantly," said Paliser, who added, "Miss Cara."</p> + +<p>Dr. Grantly bowed but without distinction. Because of the position of +the lights, his face was obscured and what Cassy could discern of it she +judged young and uninteresting. When Paliser had first mentioned +him—and how long ago it seemed!—she had fancied him old. She had +fancied too that he would have little side whiskers. The fact that he +was young was not a disappointment. Clergymen, whether old or young, did +not interest her. She did not care for them, or for churches, or the +services in them. The ceremonial of worship seemed to her empty. Creeds +professed but not practised seemed to her vain. But she would carry an +injured cat for miles. A lost dog was found the moment she spotted it. +She did what good she could, not because it is a duty, but for a +superior reason. She liked to do it. One may be a Christian without +caring for churches.</p> + +<p>"Dearly beloved——"</p> + +<p>In the depths over which she had passed, excitement and the novelty of +it had, until then, supported her. But at that exordium, instantly, they +fell away; instantly fear, like a wave, swept over her. Instantly she +felt, and the feeling is by no means agreeable, that she was struggling +with the intangible in a void. But she had not intended to drown, or no, +that was not it, she had not wanted to marry. Aware of the depths, not +until then had she known their peril. Until that moment she had not +realised their menace. Then abruptly it caught and submerged her.</p> + +<p>"I require and charge you both as ye will answer at the dreadful day of +judgment——"</p> + +<p>The solemnity of the sonorous exhortation was water in her ears. The +sound of it reached her confusedly, in a jumble. She was drowning and it +was unconsciously, in this condition, that poked by Paliser, she heard +herself uttering the consenting words that are so irrevocable and so +fluid.</p> + +<p>It was over then—or nearly! The thought of it shook her from the mental +swoon. Behind her some one spoke and she wondered who it could be. But a +movement distracted her. Dr. Grantly had shifted the book from one hand +to the other and as absently she followed the movement, she saw that the +hand that now held the book was maimed or else malformed.</p> + +<p>But what immediately occupied her were other words which, prompted by +him, she was automatically repeating. The words are very beautiful, +really exalting, they are words that spread peace as dawn spreads upon +the sea. Yet, in their delivery, twice Dr. Grantly tripped and, though +on each occasion he pulled himself up and went on again without +embarrassment, it seemed to Cassy that he did so without dignity.</p> + +<p>The impression, which was but momentary, drifted; another distraction +intervened, her finger was being ringed. I'm done for! she despairingly +thought.</p> + +<p>"Amen!"</p> + +<p>"Ouf!" Cassy gasped. It was really over, over at last, and still a +little bewildered, she turned. The butler and the maid were leaving the +room, which they must have entered when the ceremony first over-whelmed +her. From the hall a slight cackle floated back.</p> + +<p>It amused them, she generously reflected.</p> + +<p>Paliser did not notice. He was addressing the clergyman. "Thank you very +much, doctor." He turned to his bride. "Cutting your head off may have +been worse, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>If I can't be gay at least I should appear so, she told herself and +desperately she laughed.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the man of God, relapsing into the man of the world, or of its +neighbourhood, did not seem to know what to do with himself. He dropped +the book, picked it up, put it on the table. Considerately, in his +Oxford voice, Paliser instructed him.</p> + +<p>"You must be going? Ah, well, I appreciate. Let me thank you again."</p> + +<p>Dr. Grantly mumbled something, smiled at the bride, smiled at the happy +man or, more exactly, he smiled at an envelope which the happy man was +giving him and which, Cassy divined, contained his fee. How much? she +wondered. However much or little, it was excessive.</p> + +<p>The hall took him and the groom grappled with the bride, embracing her +with that rudimentary paranoia which lawful passion comports.</p> + +<p>She struggled free and, a bit breathless, but with the same desperate +gaiety, exclaimed: "If this is matrimony, give me war!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you would prefer dinner first," Paliser, with recovered calm, +replied.</p> + +<p>Wouldn't she, though! Now that she was definitely dished, hunger again +bit at her and she accompanied Paliser through the dim hall, through the +music-room, through the long suite, into the dining-room where, as +before, three men, with white sensual faces, stood waiting.</p> + +<p>Paliser motioned. "Mrs. Paliser will sit there. Move the other chair +here." He drew a seat for her and gave additional instructions. "There +will be people here to-morrow. If we are motoring, have them wait."</p> + +<p>"What people?" asked Cassy, before whom an uncomfortable vision of her +father and Ma Tamby jumped.</p> + +<p>Paliser replied in French. "A man and a woman or two from Fifth Avenue."</p> + +<p>I wonder where that bundle is, thought Cassy who said: "A man? What +man?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, just a clerk. That is almond soup. Do you care for it?" He looked +down at his plate which appeared to engross him.</p> + +<p>Cassy raised her spoon. "A penny for your thoughts."</p> + +<p>He looked up. "They are worth far more. I was thinking of the night I +first met you."</p> + +<p>Cassy laughed. "And Ma Tamby's ham and eggs?"</p> + +<p>Paliser, raising his own spoon, added: "It was Lennox who introduced us. +You knew he was engaged to Miss Austen? Well, she has broken it."</p> + +<p>Cassy must have swallowed the soup the wrong way. She coughed, lifted +her napkin and saw a road, long, dark, infinitely fatiguing on which she +was lost. But the soup adjusted itself, the road turned to the right. +Lennox had never so much as said boo! In anger at herself she rubbed her +mouth hard and put the napkin down.</p> + +<p>Paliser, who had been tasting and sniffing at a glass, looked at the +butler. "What is this? Take it away. It is not fit for a convict." He +looked over at Cassy. "I am sorry."</p> + +<p>"One gets so bored with good wine," said Cassy, who recently had been +reading Disraeli. Yet she said it absently, the unscrambled eggs about +her.</p> + +<p>But the saying was new to Paliser, to whom few things were. He relished +it accordingly and the more particularly because of its fine flavour of +high-bred insolence.</p> + +<p>From where he sat, he eyed her. Although she was eating, which is never +a very engaging occupation, her face had an air that was noble and +reserved. At the moment, a scruple in which there was a doubt, presented +itself. In view of the coming draft act, it occurred to him that he +might have gone the wrong way about it. But the scruple concerned merely +the expediency of the adventure. It was not related to his conscience. +He had none.</p> + +<p>Now, though, a new decanter was before him; he tried it, drank of it, +judged it decent and drank again. Being decent, it was not heady. It did +not affect him. Cassy had done that. In her was a bouquet which the +vineyard of youth and beauty alone produces. He had hankered for it. +Now, like the decanter, it was before him. He could drink his fill. Then +like the other wine, he could send it away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h2> + + +<p>The elder Paliser, seated in the hall of his town house, held a cup. In +the chair, a doge had throned. On the bottom of the cup was an N topped +by a crown. The cup contained hot milk.</p> + +<p>Returning, a little before, from a drive, he had been helped up the +steps, into the hall, into the chair. He had not wished to be helped +farther. In the hall, the milk had been brought. As he sipped it, he +looked placid, dignified, evil. He looked very much like a wicked old +doge.</p> + +<p>"When I don't move, it is remarkable how well I feel."</p> + +<p>His son, to whom he spoke, sat in a sedan-chair which, delicately +enamelled without, was as delicately upholstered within. Through the +window of the chair, only the young man's face showed. If you had not +known better you might have mistaken it for the face of a lady of an +earlier, a politer, though not of a bloodier age. But you would have +known better. The hair, powdered white, was absent; so too were the +patches; so also was the rouge.</p> + +<p>Behind the doge's chair a servant stood. Adjacently was a malachite +bench. Beyond was a malachite stairway. The elder Paliser, finishing +with the milk, extended the cup. The servant took it and turned. +Recesses, back of the stairway, engulfed him.</p> + +<p>Monty Paliser straightened. The movement disclosed his collar, the white +of his tie.</p> + +<p>It was the evening of the fourth day since the wedding. He had motored +in to dine at the Austens'. Cassy had seen him go and had seen too +uninterrupted hours in the music-room. The prospect was consoling.</p> + +<p>But, pending the dinner and with an ample quarter of an hour to the +good, he had looked in on his father whom he had found in the hall. +Nothing filial had motived this looking-in. On the surface, it was a +visit of circumstance such as one gentleman may pay to another. But, +beneath the surface, was an object which, when the servant and the cup +had gone, he approached.</p> + +<p>"I hope Benny has not been in your way."</p> + +<p>"Not in the least. I told him to go back to you."</p> + +<p>"Is he still here?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't an idea."</p> + +<p>"You might send him to Newport."</p> + +<p>"You want to be rid of him, eh?"</p> + +<p>"The Place does not need three gardeners."</p> + +<p>The old man, who seemed to be feeling about for something, scowled. +"What it does not need is the atmosphere that you are giving it. You may +go to the devil your own way. I sha'n't stop you. But it puts a bad +taste in my mouth to have you turn it into a road-house. Damn it, sir, +you were born there."</p> + +<p>Through the window of the sedan-chair, the young man was watching. He +saw it coming and masked himself.</p> + +<p>"How funny of Benny to give you such an idea."</p> + +<p>Then, straight at him, went the bomb.</p> + +<p>"It was not a gift. What I got, I extracted. Why don't you marry? Eh? +Why don't you? In order that you might, I made over to you a thing or +two. I wish to God, I hadn't. But perhaps you are satisfied. If you are, +well and good. As it is, unless you marry, I'll leave the property to +Sally's brat and have him change his name. By Gad, sir, if I don't have +some assurance from you and have it now, I'll send for Jeroloman. I will +make a new will and I'll make it to-night. If you came here to dine, you +can stop on and listen to it."</p> + +<p>The bomb was full of fumes. In the still air they floated. But in +throwing it, the old man's scowl had deepened. It had become a grimace +that creased every wrinkle into prominence. His hand had gone to his +chest. Gasping, he held it there. Then presently it fell. His features +relaxed and dryly, in an even tone, he resumed: "It is remarkable how +well I feel, if I don't talk. Any excitement suffocates me."</p> + +<p>In the trench, that the sedan-chair had become, Monty Paliser tightened +the mask. "There is no need for any excitement. I will marry. You have +my word."</p> + +<p>On the great blasoned throne, the old man shifted. The easy victory +mollified him. "Ah! You dine here?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, no. I am dining at the Austens'."</p> + +<p>"Where?" the elder Paliser asked. He had heard but he wanted it +repeated. It seemed vaguely promising.</p> + +<p>"At the Austens'. You may remember that the pearl of the household was +engaged. It's off."</p> + +<p>Slowly the old man twisted. "What is? The engagement?"</p> + +<p>"So her mother told me."</p> + +<p>"And you are dining there."</p> + +<p>"In a few minutes."</p> + +<p>The old man took it in, turned it over. It seemed not only victory but +peace, and peace with annexation.</p> + +<p>"Very good then. I draw the veil over your road-house. Put the young +woman in a flat. Put her in two flats. Nobody who is anybody ever sees +anything that was not intended for them. Don't beat the drum. That is +all that the right people ask and all I require, except——"</p> + +<p>He paused, considered the annexation and added: "I wish you an excellent +appetite. Austen himself was a drivelling idiot and his wife used to be +a rare old girl—is still, I daresay—but they came of good stock, and +the daughter has looks and no brains. You couldn't do better."</p> + +<p>He paused again, appeared to lose himself in the past, looked up and +suddenly exclaimed: "You are ridiculous in that damned thing! Oblige me +by getting out."</p> + +<p>The young man extracted himself and sat down on the malachite bench. It +was more exposed than the trench and the fumes of the gas bomb that his +father had hurled were hazardous still. Additional protection from them +was needed and he said: "What will you do about Benny?"</p> + +<p>The old man disliked to be questioned. On the arm of his chair he beat +with his fingers a quick, brief tattoo.</p> + +<p>"Benny belongs to the Place. His father served me there. His grandfather +served yours. You don't get such people nowadays."</p> + +<p>Negligently the young man smoothed his tie. "Very picturesque and +feudal. But I don't want him."</p> + +<p>His father did not seem to hear, or to care. He was afar, wandering from +it. "Ever notice that he has only one thumb? Same way with his father. +Probably a family trait. I wish there were more families like 'em. This +house is full of trollops and rascals. So is Newport. The house at +Newport is full of rapscallions. Believe I'll offer it to the Government +for a hospital. I wish to God Sally would come over and run it. Do you +ever hear from her?"</p> + +<p>The young man stood up. "Never."</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt she is well rid of Balaguine. I've run into a baker's +dozen of Russian princes. All canaille. What she wanted to marry him +for, God only knows, and in saying that I exaggerate. Nice mess they +have made of things there. Are you going? Oblige me by touching the +bell."</p> + +<p>The young man touched it and, while he was at it, something else. +"Couldn't you oblige me by shipping Benny to Newport?"</p> + +<p>The old man motioned. It was as though he dismissed it. "My compliments +to her mother and remember that I have your word. Don't dilly-dally. +Good God, sir, can't you realise that any day now you may be drafted? +You've no time to lose. If I were your age, I'd enlist to-morrow. Don't +stand on one foot, you make me nervous."</p> + +<p>The son, putting on a white glove, got back at it. "I was asking you +about Benny."</p> + +<p>Again the old man shifted. "Hum! Well! Since you make a point of it. +Yes. I'll send him to Newport."</p> + +<p>"You won't forget?"</p> + +<p>"I never forget," replied the old man, who, from that moment, forgot it +utterly—until the following night when throttlingly it leaped at him.</p> + +<p>Even if he had remembered, it could only have delayed the course of +events. Benny went the next day and, in going, merely accelerated a +drama which perhaps was preordered.</p> + +<p>But now, from behind the recesses of the malachite stairway, a rascal +appeared and approached and opened a bronze door, from which a young +gentleman passed out and entered his car.</p> + +<p>It was dark then, darker than convenient. There are ways that are +obscure. The martyr who discovered that virtue is its own reward, died +unwept, unhonoured, unsung. History does not know him. Perhaps he was an +editor. But he bequeathed a valid idea.</p> + +<p>As the car swam on, Monty Paliser was conscious of it. It would, he +reflected, simplify matters very much if his father died immediately. He +had no ill-feeling toward him, no good-feeling, no feeling whatever. For +the property conveyed to him and otherwise bestowed, he had no +gratitude. These gifts were in the nature of things. Gifts similar or +cognate his father had received, as also had his grandfather, his +great-grandfather and so on ab initio. They were possessions handed down +and handed over for the greater glory of the House. He had therefore no +gratitude for them. When the time came he would repeat the process and +expect no gratitude either. Meanwhile though the gifts were adequate, +there were more en route, so many that they would lift him within +hailing distance of the richest men in the world. Though whether that +were worth five minutes of perplexity, ten minutes of tears, a row and, +possibly, your name in the papers, depended on the point of view.</p> + +<p>In considering it, he found himself—and very much to his +disgust—rememorating a moral axiom: Great wealth is a great burden. The +axiom was a favourite with his father, who had sickened him with it. But +on its heels always there had trod a variant. "By Gad, sir, you can say +what you like, it puts you in a position to tell anybody to go to hell."</p> + +<p>The variant had a lilt, a go, a flourish. To employ a vulgarism of the +hour, it had the punch. It landed you and between the eyes. It required +neither commentaries nor explanation. It was all there. It was tangible +as a brickbat, self-evident as the sun.</p> + +<p>In admiring it, the young man philosophised stoically. Did he not have +enough for that already?</p> + +<p>Yes, but later? Later might he not want to philosophise less stoically +and more luxuriously? It was a problem. Meanwhile there was Cassy. He +had no wish to lose her. Yet about him already was the shadow of the +inevitable draft act. That was not a problem merely, it was a pit.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile there was Cassy whom he did not wish to lose. She was +delightful, delectable, delicious. Not divine though, thank heaven! The +gleam in her eyes could be quite infernal. The gleam heightened a charm +which in itself was fugitive. He recognised that. However delicious a +dish may be, no man can feed on it always. Not he at any rate. But, for +the time being, it was very appetising. For the present, it did very +well. On the other hand, Margaret Austen represented a succession of +courses which, in addition to being appetising, would lift him to a +parity with the super-rich.</p> + +<p>It was certainly perplexing. But it is a long turning that has no lane. +He was a decent whip and a string made up of Margaret and Cassy was one +that, let him alone for it, he could handle.</p> + +<p>But now the car had stopped. Abandoning perplexity, he went on and up.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h2> + + +<p>"Here you are! Bright and late as usual!"</p> + +<p>In her fluted voice, with her agreeable smile, Mrs. Austen greeted him. +The lady was attired in a manner that left her glitteringly and +splendidly bare. With her, in the cluttered drawing-room, were Margaret, +Kate Schermerhorn, Poppet Bleecker, Verelst, Cantillon and Ogston.</p> + +<p>"Will you take my daughter out?" Mrs. Austen, with that smile, +continued. "Oh!" she interrupted herself to remark. "You have not +congratulated Mr. Cantillon. Has no little bird told you? It's this dear +child Kate. Just now—don't you think?—engagements, like lilacs, are in +the air." She turned to Verelst. "Grey deceiver!"</p> + +<p>Verelst crooked his arm. "However much I tried to deceive, I got grey +before I could."</p> + +<p>"What are you laughing at?" Mrs. Austen with her tireless smile enquired +of Paliser, who, after speaking to the girls, had said something to +Cantillon.</p> + +<p>"Somersaults being a specialty of his, I was telling him that now is the +time for a triple one."</p> + +<p>Paliser turned to Margaret. She had said nothing. She was very pale. +Mute, white, blonde, she was a vision.</p> + +<p>At table, Verelst, addressing him, asked: "How is your father?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Enjoying his usual poor health." He turned again to +Margaret. "No one could mistake my father for an auctioneer. He has so +few admirations. But he knew your father and admired him greatly."</p> + +<p>Margaret made no reply. She was thinking of the land of Splendours and +Terrors, where the princess sat in chains. Margaret envied her. Over the +hill the true knight was hastening and Margaret knew, as we all know, +what happened then. It is a very pretty story, but it can be equally sad +to a sorrowing girl who has no true knight, or who had one, and who +found that he was neither knightly nor true.</p> + +<p>Paliser misconstrued her silence. About her eyes and mouth was an +expression that is displayed by those who have suffered from some long +malady or from some perilous constraint. That also he misconstrued. He +had been told she had washed her hands of Lennox and had washed them +with the soap of indifference, which is the most effective of all. He +was not credulous but he had believed it. The idea that her throat was +choked and her heart a haunt of regret, did not occur to this subtle +young man. He attributed both her silence and her expression to +neuralgia. The latter did not disturb him. But her loveliness did. It +inundated him. The gallery of his memory was hung with fair faces. Her +face exceeded them all.</p> + +<p>The dinner proceeded. Presently, Kate Schermerhorn called over at him. +"Who was the damsel I saw you making up to in the Park the other day?"</p> + +<p>Paliser turned to her. "I have forgotten."</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder. You seemed to have lost your head."</p> + +<p>"Probably then because it wasn't you."</p> + +<p>"Fiddlesticks! You looked as though you could cut your throat for her. +Didn't you feel that way? I am sure you did."</p> + +<p>"You must be thinking of Cantillon. That's the way he looks at you. If +he didn't, he wouldn't have any feeling at all. One might even say he +was quite heartless."</p> + +<p>Kate was laughing. In laughing she showed her red mouth and her teeth, +small, white, a trifle uneven, and, though she continued to show them, +her laughter ceased. With her red mouth open, she stared. That mouth +closed, opened again. She was saying something.</p> + +<p>Everybody was exclaiming. All were hurriedly getting up.</p> + +<p>Paliser turned to Margaret. She had gone.</p> + +<p>Verelst now was between him and her chair. He was bending over. Bending +also was Mrs. Austen. On the other side were Cantillon, Ogston and Miss +Bleecker.</p> + +<p>Then, as the surprise of it lifted Paliser, he saw that they were +lifting her.</p> + +<p>"Brandy!" said Verelst. "Tell the man."</p> + +<p>"Permit me!" Without officiousness, without noticeable shoves, Paliser +got among them and got on his knees beside the girl whom Verelst and +Mrs. Austen were supporting.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen wanted to wink at him. Instead, she made way. He took her +place, took the girl in his arms and thought he would like to keep her +there—though not, of course, forever. But he said: "The other room, +perhaps."</p> + +<p>Margaret's head was on his shoulder. She raised it. Her eyes had opened. +She looked at him, at the arms that were about her. A shudder shook her. +Verelst stretched a hand, Ogston another. With them, but otherwise +without effort, she stood up.</p> + +<p>Cantillon exclaimed at her. "Right as rain again! I say, Miss Austen, +you did give us a start!"</p> + +<p>Yet at once, and so endearingly, with the air of an elder sister, Mrs. +Austen resumed the maternal functions. "Dearest child, you have been +overdoing it!"</p> + +<p>Kate patted the girl. "Margaret! I nearly fainted too. I was looking at +you. You went over like that!"</p> + +<p>"Sorry," said Margaret evenly. Her hands had gone to the back of her +head. She dropped them and added: "If you will excuse me."</p> + +<p>Lovingly her mother dismissed her. "The smelling-salts! You will find +them somewhere." The lady looked about. "Shall we have coffee in the +other room? You men can smoke there if you like, or here if you prefer."</p> + +<p>It was quite modern. But Verelst was old, therefore old-fashioned. He +preferred the dining-room. Already the girls had followed Margaret. Mrs. +Austen passed out. Verelst sat down. So also did Cantillon and Ogston. +But Paliser, who had nothing to say to them, accompanied Mrs. Austen.</p> + +<p>"It never happened to her before," she told him. "Where shall you sit? +Here, by me?" In speaking she made room on the sofa and with amiable +suspicion eyed him. "You hadn't said anything to her, had you?"</p> + +<p>Paliser shook his handsome head. "I wanted to."</p> + +<p>Pleasantly she invited it. "Yes?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted to ask her to marry me."</p> + +<p>There he was dangling, and what a fish! The dear woman licked her chops, +not vulgarly, of course, but mentally.</p> + +<p>Paliser, who knew perfectly well what she was at, smiled tantalisingly. +"It is beastly to boast, but I am an epicure."</p> + +<p>What in the world does he mean? the dear woman wondered. But she said: +"Of course you are."</p> + +<p>Paliser, who was enjoying himself hugely, resumed: "An epicure, you +know, postpones the finest pleasures. He does so sometimes because of +the enchantment of distance and again because he can't help himself. +That has been my case."</p> + +<p>It was fully a moment before Mrs. Austen got it. Then she said: "But I +told you, didn't I? Mr. Lennox is dead and buried."</p> + +<p>It was quick work. Paliser, admiring her agility, laughed. "So recently +though! The immortelles have not had time to fade."</p> + +<p>That would have made a saint swear! Not being a saint, Mrs. Austen +contented herself with virtuous surprise. "But there were none! I told +you that. I told you that any attraction he may have had for my child, +he shocked straight out of her. Not deliberately. Dear me, I would not +have you fancy such a thing for a moment. Nor would I misjudge him. I +hope I am too conscientious. But such interest as the child had in +him—an interest I need hardly say that was girlish and immature—he +destroyed."</p> + +<p>The picture, bold but crude, had its defects. To remedy them, Mrs. +Austen applied the brush. "That singing-girl! You know whom I mean. I +saw you with her the night we went to the Bazaar."</p> + +<p>Paliser nodded. He knew indeed! He knew too that, for a moment, he had +fancied that Cassy was in love with Lennox. But that idea he had long +since abandoned and what she could now be doing in this galley intrigued +him.</p> + +<p>With a free hand Mrs. Austen laid on the colours. "You will hardly +credit it, but we as good as caught him with her. As good or as bad. It +is a matter of taste. For me it was very painful. A woman should be +spared such an experience. As for Margaret, while the child certainly +did not understand—how could she?—yet, even in her innocence, she +realised—well—that he is just what you said."</p> + +<p>It was a bit thick and Paliser began to laugh.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen saw that he did not believe her. The fact annoyed and in +vexation she piled it on. "Afterward, in this very room, I taxed him +with it and he admitted it."</p> + +<p>What a lie! thought Paliser, who specialised in that article. But, a +second thought prompting, he wondered whether it were a lie. His +knowledge of Cassy refuted it. At the same time, where women are +concerned, you never know. One thing, however, he did know. In his +quality of expert he knew that there are statements which, whether true +or false, may come in handy and, comfortably, he smiled.</p> + +<p>"So that was the reason why the engagement was broken."</p> + +<p>"What more would you have?" replied the candid creature, who now felt +that he had swallowed it.</p> + +<p>Quite as comfortably, Paliser returned to his muttons. "I may cease then +to be an epicure?"</p> + +<p>There was the fish again, but how to land him? The glittering fisherlady +could not bind and gag the bait and drop her into his mouth. At any such +attempt, the bait would pack and go, might even go without packing. Yet +there was the fish, eager, willing, the gills awiggle. Barring a few +gold-fish in Bradstreet, in Burke and in Lemprière, this fish was the +pick of the basket. To see him glide away, and for no other earthly +reason than because the bait refused to be hooked, was simply inhuman. +Flesh and blood could not stand it. No, nor ingenuity either. Instantly +the angler saw that in default of bait, a net may do the trick and, with +the ease of a prestidigitateur, she produced one.</p> + +<p>"You have my blessing!"</p> + +<p>Paliser laughed and bowed. He was in it, it was where he wanted to be +and he liked it. But in view of existing domestic arrangements, he was +in it a bit too soon and, wriggling through a mesh, he stopped laughing +and looked solemn.</p> + +<p>"You are very good. But beforehand my father will expect to be consulted +and, just at present, that is impossible. The physicians would forbid +it."</p> + +<p>"The poor dear old man! You don't mean——"</p> + +<p>Paliser half raised a hand. The gesture was slight but expressive. One +never knew!</p> + +<p>But so much the better, thought Mrs. Austen. Pending the delay she could +so bombard the bait, bombard her day in, day out, and the whole night +through, that, like Liège and Namur, her resistance would crumble, and +meanwhile he would come in for everything, or nearly everything, she +reflected, and the reflection prompting, she affected concern.</p> + +<p>"Has your sister been informed?"</p> + +<p>"I cabled her to-day," said Paliser, who had done nothing of the kind.</p> + +<p>With the same concern, Mrs. Austen lied as freely. "It is too sad for +words." But at once the air of the sympathiser departed, replaced by +that of the hostess. Through one door the men were entering. Through +another came the girls.</p> + +<p>Kate Schermerhorn approached. "Dear Mrs. Austen, Margaret's all right, +but she has a headache." As she spoke, she threw a glance at Cantillon.</p> + +<p>Poppet Bleecker also approached. "It is too bad, Margaret is such a +dear! I would like to stop on but they tell me my maid is here. Thank +you so much, dear Mrs. Austen."</p> + +<p>The lady stood up. "But you are not all going!" They all were though. +She knew it and was glad of it. The object of the dinner was achieved +and achievement, however satisfactory, is fatiguing. "You too!" she +successively exclaimed at Ogston and Cantillon. "And you also!" she +exclaimed at Paliser, to whom, dropping her voice, she added: "If +possible, remember me to him."</p> + +<p>As they went, Verelst surveyed her. He stood against the mantel, his +back to the empty grate.</p> + +<p>Turning she saw him. "Well, what now?"</p> + +<p>Verelst, adjusting his glasses, said, and distantly enough: "What now? +No, what next?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen sat down. "Peter, if you ever loved me, don't adopt that +tone."</p> + +<p>"It is not the tone, it is the tune and the tune is yours."</p> + +<p>"Tune? What tune? What on earth are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"The tune to which the dinner was set. I heard it. Margaret heard it. It +knocked her out."</p> + +<p>She raised her eyes to him, made them pathetic. "Peter, I haven't a +penny."</p> + +<p>"You have twenty thousand a year."</p> + +<p>"Nineteen, not a dollar more, and that is genteel poverty and there's +nothing genteel in poverty now."</p> + +<p>Verelst tugged at his moustache. "Tell me this. Is she to marry him?"</p> + +<p>In affected surprise, she started. "How you do jump at conclusions."</p> + +<p>Angrily he nodded. "I appear to have jumped at the correct one."</p> + +<p>But his anger had gained her. She faced him. "Heavens and earth! What +have you against him? What have you all against him? My eyes are as good +as any one's. I can't see it."</p> + +<p>"You might feel it then."</p> + +<p>"Feel what?"</p> + +<p>Verelst tugged again at his moustache. He had never heard of elementals +and, if he had heard, he would not have believed in them. He knew +nothing of auræ—which photography has captured. He was very old fogy. +But he knew an honest man when he saw one and a gentleman before he +opened his mouth.</p> + +<p>"Feel what?" Mrs. Austen repeated.</p> + +<p>Verelst, thrashing about, could not get it, but he said: "I can't +describe it, but it's something. His father had it. He——"</p> + +<p>"His father is at death's door."</p> + +<p>"Ah! Is he? Well, I'm sorry for that. M. P. used to be no better than +the law allows—and the law is very lenient."</p> + +<p>"You were too."</p> + +<p>"I daresay. But M. P. has got over it. Without boasting, I think I have +also. But that is neither here nor there. In the old days, I have seen +people shrink from him."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! Precious little shrinking I ever did."</p> + +<p>"Timidity was never one of your many virtues."</p> + +<p>"Don't be coarse, Peter, and if possible don't be stupid. If you know +anything against Monty, say it I may find it in his favour."</p> + +<p>Impatiently Verelst motioned. "Decent men avoid him."</p> + +<p>"And you!" Mrs. Austen retorted. "What do you call yourself? You are +always civil to him."</p> + +<p>Verelst showed his teeth. "One of the few things life has taught me is +to be civil to everybody."</p> + +<p>"Except to me. Now do sit down and make yourself uncomfortable. You have +made me uncomfortable enough. Any one might think you a country parson."</p> + +<p>But Verelst, scowling at the dial which the legs of the nymph upheld, +removed his glasses. "I am going." He moved to the door, stopped, half +turned, motioned again. "Tell Margaret I would rather see her in her +coffin."</p> + +<p>Angrily she started. "I'll tell her nothing of the kind."</p> + +<p>It was his back that she addressed. She saw him go, saw too her anger go +with him. The outer door had not closed before the tune of which he had +spoken was dispersing it.</p> + +<p>But was it a tune? It seemed something far rarer. In it was a whisper of +waters, the lap of waves, the muffled voice of a river, which, winding +from hill to sea, was pierced by a note very high, very clear, entirely +limpid, a note that had in it the gaiety of a sunbeam, a note that +mounted in loops of light, expanding as it mounted, until, bursting into +jets of fire, it drew from the stream's deepest depths the sonority and +glare of its riches.</p> + +<p>The ripple of it ran down the spine of this woman, who at heart was a +Hun and to whom the harmonies disclosed, not the mythical gleam of the +Rheingold, but the real radiance of the Paliser wealth.</p> + +<p>At the glow of it she rubbed her hands.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2> + + +<p>In the club window, on the following afternoon, Jones was airing copy.</p> + +<p>"Capua must have been packed with yawns. It is the malediction of +mortals to want what they lack until they get it, when they want it no +more. Epicurus said that or, if he did not, Lucretius said it for him. +'Surgit amari aliquid.' But here I am running into quotations when the +only ones that interest anybody are those in the Street. Conditions here +are revolting. Nowhere at any time has there been a metropolis that so +stank to heaven. The papers drip with stocks and scandals and over +there, before the massed artillery, the troops are wheeling down to +death. But wheeling is perhaps poetic. The Marne was the last battle in +the grand style."</p> + +<p>"I don't see what that has to do with Capua," said Verelst.</p> + +<p>"Nor I," Jones replied. "But, come to think of it, there is a +connection. In Capua everybody yawned their heads off. In Flanders and +Champagne they are shot off. Life swings like a pendulum between boredom +and pain. When the world is not anæmic, it is delirious. If ever again +its pulse registers normal, sensible people will go back to Epicurus, +whose existence was one long lesson in mental tranquillity. By the Lord +Harry, the more I consider it, the more convinced I become that there is +nothing else worth having. Niente, nada, rien. Nothing whatever."</p> + +<p>Verelst smiled. "In that case it is hardly worth while getting excited +over it." He raised the lapel of his coat. There were violets in it. He +took a whiff and added: "Has Lennox been here to-day?"</p> + +<p>But Jones did not know.</p> + +<p>Regretfully, Verelst continued: "He goes to Mineola to-morrow and soon +he will be over the top."</p> + +<p>Jones lit a cigarette. "Assuming that he gets back, the women will be +mad about him. Some of them at any rate."</p> + +<p>Verelst rolled an enquiring eye.</p> + +<p>"Of course they will," Jones resumed. "Times have changed precious +little since Victor Hugo.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Les belles out le goût des héros. Le sabreur<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Effroyable, trainant après lui tant d'horreur<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Qu'il ferait reculer jusqu'à la sombre Hécate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Charme la plus timide et la plus delicate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sur ce, battez tambours! Ce qui plait à la bouche<br /></span> +<span class="i0">De la blonde aux yeux doux, c'est le baiser farouche.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">La femme se fait faire avec joie un enfant,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Par l'homme qui tua, sinistre et triomphant.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et c'est la volupté de toutes ces colombes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">D'ouvrir leur lit à ceux qui font ouvrir les tombes.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"What rhythm! What music! The score is Napoleonic but——"</p> + +<p>"Hello!" Verelst interrupted. Before the window a car had passed. He was +looking at it. On the back seat was a man in a high hat and an overcoat. +"M. P.!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"What of it?" Jones asked.</p> + +<p>Verelst removed his glasses and looked distrustfully at them. It was as +though he doubted their vision. Then, after a moment he said: "Last +night I heard he was dying."</p> + +<p>"Which," Jones remarked, "is the aim, the object and the purpose of +life. But apparently he has not achieved it yet. Apparently also you are +a futurist. The Napoleonic score did not interest you."</p> + +<p>Verelst, resuming his glasses, replied: "It would not interest Lennox, +if that is what you mean. He has been hit too hard."</p> + +<p>Jones nodded. He knew all about it. It had even suggested a story, a +famous story; one that was told in Babylon and has been retold ever +since; the story of lovers vilely parted in the beginning and virtuously +united at the end. It is a highly original story, to which anybody can +give a fresh twist and Jones had planned to have the hero killed at the +front and the heroine marry the villain, but only to divorce the latter +before the hero—whose death had been falsely gazetted—limps in.</p> + +<p>But Jones knew his trade. He knew that the reader always balks unless +the hero gets the heroine firsthand and he had thought of making the +villain an invalid. Yet at that too he knew the reader would balk. The +reader is so nice-minded!</p> + +<p>Now, the plot recurring, he said to Verelst: "Your knowledge of women +has, I am sure, made you indulgent."</p> + +<p>"Not in the least."</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"Look here," Verelst interrupted. "When I was young and consequently +very experienced, I was indulgent. But monsters change you. Last night I +dined with one."</p> + +<p>"Enviable mortal!"</p> + +<p>"You remember Abraham?" Verelst continued. "His name was Abraham—wasn't +it?—that benevolent old man in the Bible who made the sacrifice of +sacrificing an animal instead of his son? Well, last night it seemed to +me that there are women Abrahams, only less benevolent. The altar was +veiled, the knife was concealed, but the victim was there—a girl for +whom, at your age, I would have died, or offered to die, which amounts +to the same thing. What is more to the point, at your age, or no, for +you are much older than your conversation would lead one to believe, but +in my careless days I offered to die for her mother. I swore I could not +live without her. That is always a mistake. It is too flattering, +besides being untrue. Perhaps she so regarded it. In any event another +man fared better or worse. Afterward, time and again, he said to me: +'Peter, for God's sake, run away with her.' Am I boring you?"</p> + +<p>"Enormously."</p> + +<p>"Well, he was very gentlemanly about it. Without making a fuss at home, +he went away and died in a hospital. She was very grateful to him for +that. But her gratitude waned when she came in for his money. It was +adequate but not opulent, the result being that she tried to train her +daughter for the great matrimonial steeplechase. Just here the plot +thickens. Recently the filly shied, took the bit in her teeth +and—hurrah, boys!—she was off on her own, until her mother jockied her +up to a hurdle that she could not take and the filly came a cropper. But +her mother was still one too many for her. She had her up in a jiffy and +now she is heading her straight for the sweepstakes."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," Jones with affected meekness put in. "I assume that the +sacrificial victim and the filly are one and the same."</p> + +<p>"Your perspicacity does you much credit."</p> + +<p>Jones laughed. "I have my little talents. But you! The wizardry with +which you mix metaphors is beautiful. You produce a dinner-table and +transform it into an altar which instantly becomes a racecourse. That is +what I call genius. But to an every-day sort of chap like me, would you +mind being less cryptic?"</p> + +<p>"Can you keep a secret?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"So can I."</p> + +<p>Again Jones laughed. "Not in my neighbourhood. You were talking of +Lennox and drifted from him into the Bible. Your thoughts of the one +recalled studies of the other and at once you had Abraham's daughter +downed on the racecourse. Well, she won't be."</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that?"</p> + +<p>"Because it is my business to see things before they occur. Miss +Austen——"</p> + +<p>"I never mentioned her," Verelst heatedly exclaimed. "You have no right +to——"</p> + +<p>"I admit it. But because of Lennox the whole matter has preoccupied me +and quite as much, I daresay, as it has distressed you."</p> + +<p>"I don't see at all what you have to do with it."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not. But preoccupation may lead to crystal-gazing. Now I will +wager a red pippin that I can tell what you said at the steeplechase to +the steeplestakes. You asked after his father."</p> + +<p>Verelst stared. A man of the world and, as such, at his ease in any +circumstances, none the less he was startled. "How in God's name did you +get that?"</p> + +<p>"It is very simple. Five minutes ago his father sailed by. You made a +remark about him. The remark suggested a train of thought which landed +you at the racecourse where you saw, or intimated that you saw, the +steeplestakes. But what visible sweepstakes are there except M. P.'s +son? You and M. P. are friends. It is only natural that you should ask +about him."</p> + +<p>Verelst turned uneasily. "I don't yet see how you got it. The only thing +I said is that I heard he was dying."</p> + +<p>"And five minutes ago you exclaimed at his resurrection. There is a +discrepancy there that is very suggestive."</p> + +<p>"It is none of my making then."</p> + +<p>"It is none the less suggestive. The death-bed was invented."</p> + +<p>"M. P. may have recovered."</p> + +<p>"Yes, men of his age make a practice of jumping into their death-bed and +then jumping out. It is good for them. It keeps them in training."</p> + +<p>"Oh, rubbish!" Verelst resentfully exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"No," Jones pursued. "The story was invented and the invention had a +reason. If you like, you may ask what it is."</p> + +<p>"You seem to be very good at invention yourself. I shall ask nothing of +the kind."</p> + +<p>"But you would like to know and I will tell you. It was invented to +delay a possible announcement. It could have had no other object."</p> + +<p>"I said nothing of any announcement," Verelst angrily protested. "What +announcement are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"The heading of the filly for the sweepstakes. The expression—very +graphic by the way—is your own."</p> + +<p>"Graphic or not I wish you would drop it. Besides——"</p> + +<p>"Besides what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, confound it, admitting the engagement, which I ought not to admit +for it is not out yet, why should he play for delay?"</p> + +<p>"Ha!" exclaimed Jones, whom the spectacle of Paliser and Cassy sailing +up the Riverside had supplied with an impression or two. "I thought I +would interest you. He played for delay because he feared that if it +were known, a pitcher of ice-water might come dashing over it."</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that?" asked Verelst, eager and anxious enough for a +spoke—if spoke there could be—to shove in a certain lady's wheels.</p> + +<p>"Given the man and the deduction is easy."</p> + +<p>The spoke was receding. Verelst, swallowing his disappointment, +retorted: "Incoherence is easy too."</p> + +<p>"Well, you are right there," Jones, lighting another cigarette, replied. +"But there is nothing incoherent in the fact that fear is magnetic. What +we dread, we attract. If our winning young friend fears the pitcher, the +pitcher will probably land on him. That is the reason why, to vary your +various metaphors, I declared that there would be no downing on the +racecourse. On the contrary and look here. I will wager you not one +pippin or two pippins, I will go so far as to lay a whole basket that +Miss Austen becomes Mrs. Lennox."</p> + +<p>Verelst sniffed. "You don't know her mother."</p> + +<p>"No. I have not that honour. But I enjoy a bowing acquaintance with +logic."</p> + +<p>"Do you, now? I wonder if it bows back. I'll book your bet."</p> + +<p>"Very good. Make it fancy pippins."</p> + +<p>Verelst stood up. "Fancy is the only term that could be applied them."</p> + +<p>"And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," Jones told himself as the old +man moved away.</p> + +<p>He looked about. The great room had filled. Stocks, money, war, the +odour of alcohol, the smell of cigars, the rustling of evening papers, +the sound of animated talk about nothing whatever, the usual atmosphere +had reassembled itself.</p> + +<p>From it he turned to the window, to the westering sun, to the motors, +the smart gowns and the women who looked so delightful and of whom all +had their secrets—secrets trivial, momentous, perverse or merely +horrible.</p> + +<p>Again he turned. Lennox, who had approached, was addressing him. "You +were at the law school. I have to make a will. Will you help me?"</p> + +<p>Serviceably Jones sprang up. "Come to my shop. It is just around the +corner."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2> + + +<p>Among the old brocades with which the room was fitted and which, +together with the silver bed and the enamelled faïence, gave it an +earlier century air, Cassy stood before a cheval-glass.</p> + +<p>She was properly dressed. Her costume, light cloth, faintly blue, was +exquisitely embroidered. Beneath it was lingerie of the kind which, it +is said, may be drawn through a ring. Behind and between was Cassy, on +whose docked hair sat a hat that was very unbecoming and therefore +equally smart.</p> + +<p>A moment before she had thanked and dismissed Emma. Emma was the maid. +With a slant of the eye, that said and suppressed many things, Emma had +gone.</p> + +<p>Through the open windows came the call of birds, the smell of fresh +turf. A patch of sky was visible. It was tenderly blue. There was a +patch too of grass that showed an asparagus green.</p> + +<p>From the mirror Cassy went to a table and, from a jade platter, took a +ring. It was made of six little hoops each set with small stones. She +put it on. The platter held other rings. There was a sapphire, +inch-long, deep and dark. She put that on. There was also an Australian +opal and an Asian emerald, the latter greener than the grass. She put +these on. Together with the wedding-ring they made quite a show. Too +much of a show, she thought.</p> + +<p>Like the costume, the hat, like other costumes, more hats and box after +box of lingerie, they had all surprisingly dumped themselves, there, at +her feet, the day after the wedding. The bundle, which she had brought +with her, she had found very useless and so awkward that she would have +given it to Emma, had it not seemed unsuited to a young person +manifestly so fine. Since then it had been tucked away in a cupboard, +safely out of sight.</p> + +<p>That was just five days ago, a brief eternity, during which life seemed +to be driving her headlong to some unimagined goal. Until the evening +previous she had had barely a moment. But on that evening, Paliser, who +was dining at the Austens', had given her a few hours to herself.</p> + +<p>Now, on this afternoon, he was again in town.</p> + +<p>The air was very still. Afar, a train bellowed, rumbled, died away. From +the garage came the bark of a dog, caught up and repeated on the +hillside beyond. On the lawn, a man in an apron was at work. Otherwise +the air was still, fragrant, freighted with spring.</p> + +<p>Cassy, turning from the table, went to the mirror again and tilted the +hat. However unbecoming, it was certainly smart, and Cassy wondered what +her father would think of Mrs. Monty Paliser.</p> + +<p>In the spaciousness of the name, momentarily she lost herself. It is +appalling to be a snob. But there are attributes that pour balm all over +you. In the deference of the bored yet gracious young women who, with +robes et manteaux, had come all the way from Fifth Avenue, there had +been a flagon or two of that balm. In the invariable "Thank you, mem's" +of the Paliser personnel there had been more. It is appalling to be a +snob. There are perfumes that appeal.</p> + +<p>Then also, particularly after Harlem, the great, grave, silent house had +a charm that was enveloping, almost enchanted. Apparently uncommanded, +it ran itself, noiselessly, in ordered grooves. Cassy fancied that +somewhere about there must be a majordomo who competently saw to +everything and kept out of the way. But she did not know. In her own +rooms she was now at home, as she was also at home in the state chambers +on the floor below. In regard to the latter, she had an idea—entirely +correct, by the way—that at Lisbon, the royal palace—when there was +one—could not have been more suave. But the rest of the house was as +yet unexplored, though in regard to the upper storey she had another +idea, that there was a room there close-barred, packed with coffins.</p> + +<p>The idea delighted her. In this Palace of the White Cat it was the note +macabre, the proper note, the note that synchronised the circumambient +enchantments. In the historical nights of which Perrault told, the +princess had but a gesture to make, the offender sank dead. At once a +bier was produced, the corpse was hurried away, and the veils of charm +restored fell languorously.</p> + +<p>Yet, in that historical epoch, there subsisted—perhaps as a reminder of +the vanities even of fairyland—the rose-leaf suggestively crumpled. The +crumple affected Cassy but far less than she had expected. Paliser had +been very gentlemanly. He had deferred to her in all things, agreed with +her about everything, and though none the less he always had his own +way, yet the pedestal was so obvious that if she had not known otherwise +she might have thought herself continuously upon it.</p> + +<p>The crumple was not there, or at least only such crumple as she had +naturally awaited. The discomfort of the leaf consisted in the fact that +married she was not mated, that she did not love him, and probably never +could.</p> + +<p>Now, as she tilted her hat, the spaciousness of the name recurred to +her. Its potentialities she had considered before she accepted it, but +only because of her father. The idea that it would lift him out of the +walk-up, out of Harlem and cold veal, was the one excuse for her voyage +to Cytherea. The voyage had been eminently respectable. Undertaken with +full ecclesiastical sanction, Aphrodite and her free airs had had +nothing to do with it. None the less it was to Cytherea that she had +gone—and to Lampsacus also, for all she and her geography knew to the +contrary.</p> + +<p>Now, though, in tilting her hat, the disreputable beauty of the land was +forgotten. She was in another and a fairer realm. A modern garden of the +Hesperides lay about her. She saw herself distributing the golden fruit. +The mirror showed her a red-crossed Lady Bountiful in an ambulance, in +two ambulances, in a herd of ambulances, at the front. There was no end +to the golden fruit, no end to his father's money, no end to the good he +might allow her to do.</p> + +<p>The picture so delighted her that she flushed and in the emotion of it +two tears sprang to her eyes that were not of the crying kind.</p> + +<p>She dried them, telling herself that if he framed the picture, she could +love him, and she would.</p> + +<p>It would be all so perfect, not the loving, but the giving, the joy of +giving, the joy of always giving, of giving with both hands, of just +shovelling it out and keeping at it, of never saying "No," of saying, +"Yes, and here is more and here is more," of saying, too, "Don't thank +me, it is for me to thank you." What joy ever was there, or ever will +be, that can compare to that!</p> + +<p>Why, I'm crazy, she thought, and thought also, he never will but he +might, he could and if he should——</p> + +<p>Then at once the Paliser of the Savile Row clothes and the St. James's +Street boots, the Paliser of the looking-glass hair and the Oxford +voice, assumed the hue and stature of a deva. Love him! It would be +something higher. It would be worship!</p> + +<p>She made a face. It was sheer nonsense. He had an allowance which, +obviously, was very liberal and with which he was liberal enough. Unlike +many rich men he was not close. But to fancy him beneficent was +laughable. Cassy could not imagine him in the rôle of Lord Bountiful. +Then too there was something queer about him. He hated to be alone. +There are people who kill silence and he was one of them. He was always +talking. Cassy could not understand it. To be silent with any one +procures an intimacy which talk cannot supply. Moreover solitude was as +necessary to her and as refreshing as her bath. Silence and solitude he +could not endure. She tilted her nose and went to the window.</p> + +<p>That night they were to go to the opera. But in a moment she was to +motor in and see her father. Since she put Harlem behind her, she had +wondered and worried about him. The condition of his heart was hazardous +and she had been told that any excitement might be fatal. She had +worried over that, over his sudden rages at tradespeople, and she had +been fearful lest Mrs. Yallum, the janitress, who spoke no known tongue, +had, instead of being of use, only enraged him further.</p> + +<p>She would see to it, though. It was for that she was going in. As yet +she had no money. But there were the rings and one more or one less, +what did it matter? Of the lot she preferred the string of hoops. It was +quaint, there was nothing philistine about it and probably it had not +cost so very much. The emerald was different. It was a stone that would +please any woman with plenty of money and a modicum of taste. Probably +it had cost a thousand on Fifth Avenue, in which case it would fetch a +hundred on Broadway. Or if not, then the sapphire would. Either or both +she would hock very willingly. But not the hoop-ring and not the opal, +unless she had to, and if Paliser, who apparently noticed nothing and +saw everything, asked concerning them, why then she would out with it. +Her father was a beggar! Did he expect her to let him starve? But what +on earth do you suppose I married you for? For yourself? Take a walk. I +sold myself for bread—and butter, and you can fork them over.</p> + +<p>At the possibility of any such conversation—and of such language!—she +flushed afresh and again called herself a fool. There could be no such +conversation. Paliser would never question. He was too indifferent The +consciousness comforted, precisely as, a moment before, the picture of +herself shovelling gold had moved her to tears.</p> + +<p>Then absently she found herself looking in the garden where the aproned +man was at work. But it was Lennox that she saw. Again and again since +the wedding-evening, when Paliser had told her of the unscrambled eggs, +she had wondered about the broken engagement. On that evening she had +felt that she had taken the wrong road and had lost her way. The feeling +was momentary. If Lennox had never been engaged, the result would have +been the same. Not once had he so much as said boo! He had not even +looked it. At table, on the wedding-evening, the unscrambled eggs had +not tasted very good, but reflection had salted them and since then, in +reviewing the matter, it had occurred to her that it was none of her +business.</p> + +<p>Now as she looked out on the garden she wondered whether he had cared +very greatly for this girl, for if he had, what then did she mean by +throwing over a man who was too good for her, too good for anybody?</p> + +<p>She sighed and absently looked again at the gardener. He was bending +down, occupied in planting something. Since she had first noticed him he +had half-circled a parterre and she was about to telephone and ask if +the car were ready when he straightened, turned, extracted a pipe and +attempted to light it.</p> + +<p>The air was very still, there was no breeze, but the match was +ineffective. On his trousers, with a backward movement, he struck +another match and raised it to the bowl. The flame, faintly blue, +mounted and, with it, a curl of smoke. But it was not Cassy or, more +exactly, it was not her objective self, that saw it. It was her +subjective self that registered and afterward reproduced that momentary +and entirely commonplace incident. What the objective Cassy saw was not +the flame or the smoke or the pipe, but the hand that held the match. It +was thumbless. Many hands are. From the hand she looked at the man's +face and gave a little scream, instantly suppressed.</p> + +<p>But her mouth twitched, she tried to swallow and she experienced, what +was new to her, an odd sensation in the epiglottis. She did not remember +that she had ever been what is called sick at the stomach, none the less +she realised that she was on the point of becoming so. Like the little +scream, she choked it back. But the immanence of nausea stifled her, and +she sat down on a brocade-covered chair.</p> + +<p>Her hand had gone to her throat and though almost at once the sensation +subsided, she held it there. The gold bands of the rings that were +pressed against her throat cooled it, but the palm of the hand was wet. +Unconscious of that, she was unaware that she could not think. A crack +on the head makes you dizzy and into her dizziness a somnolence had +entered. The somnolence dulled all the cells of the brain save one and +that one cell, vehemently active, was inciting her to some effort, +though to what she did not know.</p> + +<p>"I must get up," she presently told herself and told it once more.</p> + +<p>In the repetition of the words there was the effect of a spray. The +irritability of the one active cell subsided, that of the others was +aroused. Somnambulism ceased. The entire brain awoke. But the truth had +not yet fully permeated all the cerebral convolutions and the fact that +it had not, manifested itself in the melodramatic phrase which, a week +previous, Lennox had uttered, which all have uttered, all at least +before whom the unforseen has sprung.</p> + +<p>"It is impossible!"</p> + +<p>She got up, went to the window, looked again. There was no impossibility +there, no doubt even, or the peradventure of one. There was only the +ineluctable truth. The aproned man disclosed it. His thumbless hand had +held the book. From his mouth, in which there was a pipe, had come the +benediction. He was Dr. Grantly. That was the ineluctable truth, the +truth which already perhaps she had intercepted in the land of Beauty +and Horror.</p> + +<p>The first sight of it had sickened. Now the physical effect had gone. +But the nausea in passing had been replaced by another sensation, +deadlier, equally human, that made her red and hot, blurred her eyes, +set her quivering, shook her, put her thoughts on fire, vitriolised her +with hate.</p> + +<p>Nietzsche said that a woman's ability to hate is in proportion to her +inability to charm. The brute omitted to add that a woman's ability to +charm corresponds to her evolution.</p> + +<p>There was nothing evolved about Cassy then. She had lapsed back into the +primitive. Like Armide, she could have burned the palace that enchanted +her. None the less, she did nothing. To do nothing may be very +important. The inactivity saved her. During it, the vitriol vaporised; +the hate fell by. She was still trembling, her hands were unsteady, but +the fever was departing, the crisis had passed, the primitive had slunk +back into the cellars of the subconscious, and, in the chair, to which +without knowing it she had returned, she faced it.</p> + +<p>Without, some one knocked and, getting no answer, accepted the +invitation as most people do.</p> + +<p>"Beg pardon, Mrs. Paliser. The car is at the door."</p> + +<p>Cassy half turned. "What?"</p> + +<p>Emma reconstructed it. "Whenever you are ready, mem, the car will be +waiting."</p> + +<p>Cassy turned away. "That will do."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, mem."</p> + +<p>With that air which servants assume, Emma pursed her lips, reopened +them, thought better of it, closed them and closed too the door.</p> + +<p>Facing it still, Cassy sat in the brocaded chair. Anger had shaken her +and gone, taking with it its spawn which hatred is. What inhabited her +then was disgust.</p> + +<p>I am in a nice mess, she told herself. But she told it without surprise, +as though all along it was something which she might have known, could +have avoided, but into which she had put her foot. A momentary vision of +the red-crossed Lady Bountiful returned and she even smiled at it. It +was a sad little smile though.</p> + +<p>Abstractedly, she had been turning and twisting the rings. The motion +aroused her. It drew her attention to them. They also had something to +say. Something which they had been saying ever since the smoke curled +from the pipe. She had not heard it then. There had been too many things +tumbling about her. But now she did hear. She took them off, stood up +and dropped them on the table where they fell between gold-backed +brushes and a vase, gorgeous in delicacy, the colour of ox-blood.</p> + +<p>From a cupboard she took the rowdy frock, the tam, the basilica +underwear and, for a moment, searched and searched vainly for a pair of +stockings. In hunting for them she unearthed the bundle, and that +together with the other things, she threw on the bed, which was not +brocaded, or even daised. It was silver. A few days before, when she had +first seen it, she had clapped her hands. The vase too she had +applauded. Now the lovely room, that had seemed so lovely, a curl of +smoke had turned into a lupanar.</p> + +<p>Quickly, one after another, the modish hat, the delicious frock, the +things that could be drawn through a ring, were removed and replaced. In +the mirror she looked, stopped, looked again, adjusted the tam and was +going to the bed for the bundle when she heard a horn. Head-drawn, she +listened.</p> + +<p>She would have so much preferred to leave without seeing him or speaking +to him. If she could, she would have gone without a word, silently, in +the only dignified manner that was possible. But, apparently, matters +had arranged themselves otherwise. She went to the bed, took the bundle, +moved back to the table and waited.</p> + +<p>She did not wait long. Paliser, with the pretence of a knock and a smile +on his lips walked in—but not far. That frock, that bundle, the sight +of her there, sufficed. He knew. With an awkwardness that was unusual +with him, he closed the door and twisted his hat. The smile had gone +from his lips. They were dry.</p> + +<p>Then as he looked at her and she looked at him—and with what a +look!—words seemed such poor things. It was as though already +everything had been said, as perhaps in the silent temples of their +being, everything, accusations, recriminations, all the futilities of +speech had been uttered, impotently, a moment since. A moment earlier +she had said her say. As he looked at her he knew that she had and knew +too, that before he entered the room, already she had heard his replies.</p> + +<p>The consciousness of this, equally shared by both, was so intense that, +for a second, Cassy felt that everything happening then had happened +ages ago, that she was taking part in a drama rehearsed on a stage that +memory cannot reconstruct but which stood, and, it may be, still stands, +back of those doors that close behind our birth.</p> + +<p>The hallucination, if it be one, and which, given certain crises of the +emotions, is common enough, vanished abruptly as it had come. But two +seconds had gone since Paliser entered the room, yet, in those seconds, +both recognised that eternity had begun between them.</p> + +<p>With his hat, a hat studiously selected, made to order, Paliser motioned +and with the same studiousness, selecting a platitude, he produced it. +"I was going to take you out."</p> + +<p>"After taking me in," Cassy in reviewing the situation subsequently +commented. But at the time she said nothing. She merely looked. Her rage +was gone, her anger spent. Only disgust remained. It was that which her +face expressed. It was withering.</p> + +<p>Paliser, steadying himself and, as was perhaps only natural, hedging +still, resumed: "But apparently you have other intentions."</p> + +<p>What a cad that blackguard is! thought Cassy who still said nothing.</p> + +<p>"May I ask what they are?"</p> + +<p>Cassy threw up her chin. "My intentions are to leave——"</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"Don't presume to interrupt me. My intentions are to leave your +assignation-house and have you horsewhipped."</p> + +<p>Paliser had been served with strong drink before, but none ever as +strong as that. It steadied him. He had expected that when it got to +her, as eventually it must, there would be the passionate upbraidings, +the burst of sobs, the Oh! Oh's!, the What will become of me?, the usual +run up and down the scale and the usual remedies which a bank account +supplies. He had expected all that. He had prescribed for it often. +There was not a symptom for which he did not know the proper dose and +just when to administer it. But barely had he crossed the threshold +before he realised that all his science would be in default.</p> + +<p>Cassy presented an entirely new case, but, fortunately, in the drink +which she had served, he saw or thought he saw how to treat it.</p> + +<p>He gestured again. "I never cared for scenes. But this house, which it +has pleased you to describe from your knowledge of other establishments, +is——"</p> + +<p>Whatever he may have intended to add, was interrupted. Cassy, previously +inexorable as fate, but converted then into a fury, dropped the bundle +and caught up the vase. Missing him, it hit the door, where musically it +crashed and shattered.</p> + +<p>He turned, looked at it, looked at her, at the table. Barring the +gold-backed brushes, the jade platter and that bundle, there was nothing +that she could conveniently shy, and, in his Oxford voice, but civilly +enough, he gave it to her.</p> + +<p>"Allow me. There is no necessity whatever for your acting in this +manner. The situation, such as it is, it had been my intention to +remedy. It had been my intention, I say. But yesterday it came to my +knowledge that it is because of your relations with Lennox that his +engagement is broken."</p> + +<p>Take that, he mentally added and continued aloud: "I might not have +believed the story, but I was told that Lennox admitted it." Take that, +too, he mentally resumed. I shall be treated to tears in a minute and in +no time it will be "Kamerad!"</p> + +<p>Sidewise he looked at the ruin of the vase, on which Daughters of Heaven +and an ablated dynasty may have warmed their eyes. It affronted his own. +Insult, yes, that could be tossed about, but not art, not at least the +relatively unique.</p> + +<p>With a crease in his lips which now were dry no longer, he looked at +Cassy. The awaited tears were not yet visible. But the blood-madness +that had seized her, must have let her go, routed, as hæmatomania may +be, by the trivial and, in this instance, by a lie. That lie suffocated +her. It was as though, suddenly, she had been garroted.</p> + +<p>The condition was only momentary, but, during it, a curtain fell on this +vulgar drama, which was to affect so many lives. Before the girl a +panorama passed. She saw herself leaving Lennox' rooms. She saw Margaret +Austen, saw the woman with her, saw the former's candid eyes; saw the +latter's ridiculous airs, saw the construction which between them they +had reached and saw, too, the consequences that had resulted. The dirt +with which she had been besplattered she did not see. The panorama did +not display it. What it alone revealed was Lennox' disaster. Of herself +she did not think and regarding Margaret she did not care. That which +occupied her was Lennox.</p> + +<p>But was it true? In Paliser nothing was true, not even his lies. For it +was unaccountable that a matter so simple could not have been cleared +with a word. But it was not unaccountable at all. It was obvious. +Margaret, a born snob, had given Lennox no chance for that word. Some +one, Paliser probably, had invented the admission and she had refused to +see him, after condemning him unheard.</p> + +<p>I will attend to that, Cassy decided.</p> + +<p>At once the suffocation ceased, the panorama sank, the scene shifted, +the curtain parted, the drama proceeded and she found herself staring at +Paliser, who was staring at her.</p> + +<p>"As it is——" he tentatively resumed and would have said more, a lot, +anything to coerce the tears to her eyes and with them surrender.</p> + +<p>She gave him no chance. She took the bundle and, before he could +continue, she passed him, opened the door, slammed it with a din that +had in it the clatter of muskets, went down the stair and out to the +perron, before which stood a car.</p> + +<p>"The station!" she threw at the mechanician.</p> + +<p>The house now, jarred a moment earlier by the crash of porcelain and the +slamming door, had recovered its silence.</p> + +<p>From within, Emma, very agreeably intrigued, a footman with a white +sensual face beside her, looked out with slanting eyes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV</h2> + + +<p>Harris, wrinkled as a sweetbread and thin as an umbrella, blinked at +Cassy. "Mr. Lennox is out, mem."</p> + +<p>"Then go and fetch him."</p> + +<p>Past the servant, Cassy forced her way through the vestibule, into the +sitting-room, where the usual gloom abided, but where, unusually, were a +smell of camphor, two overcoats, two trunks and a bag.</p> + +<p>Cassy, putting down the bundle, exclaimed at them. "He is not leaving +town?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mem, to-morrow morning, for Mineola." He spoke grudgingly, looking +as he spoke like a little old mule at bay.</p> + +<p>Cassy, noticing that, said: "See here, I don't mean to bully you, but it +is most important that I should see Mr. Lennox—important for him, do +you hear?"</p> + +<p>"I hear you, mem, but I don't know where he is."</p> + +<p>"Then find out. There must be a telephone."</p> + +<p>Harris scratched his head but otherwise he did nothing.</p> + +<p>"Come!" Cassy told him. "Hurry!"</p> + +<p>Harris shifted. "I don't know as how he'd like it. He's been that upset +these last few days. I——" He hesitated. Visibly an idea had visited +him with which he was grappling. "You're not from Miss Austen, now, are +you?"</p> + +<p>Cassy caught at it. To confirm it would be fanciful. To deny it would be +extravagant. Choosing an in-between for the benefit of this servant whom +she knew to be English, she produced it.</p> + +<p>"I am the Viscountess of Casa-Evora."</p> + +<p>Harris wiped his mouth. A viscountess who had come only the other day +with a bundle, and who now forced her way in with another bundle, did +not coincide with such knowledge as he had of the nobility. But she was +certainly overbearing enough to be anybody.</p> + +<p>He turned. "Very good, your ladyship, I'll telephone."</p> + +<p>Don't ladyship me, Cassy was about to reply, but judging that impolitic, +she sat down.</p> + +<p>On the train in she had debated whether she would go first to Harlem or +to Lennox and in either case what afterward she should do. She had a few +dollars which her father would need. The thought of these assets +reminded her that in changing her clothes she had omitted to change back +into her own stockings. Well, when she changed again she would return +the pair which she had on and, as she determined on that, she saw +Paliser's face as she had seen it when she threw the vase. That relapse +into the primitive shamed her. She had behaved like a fish-wife. But +though she regretted the violence, she regretted even more deeply the +vase. The destruction of art is so despicably Hun! For moxa, she evoked +the Grantly masquerade.</p> + +<p>The entire lack of art in that seemed to her incongruous with the +surface Paliser whom she had known. But had she even known the surface +which itself was a mask? Yet behind the mask was an intelligence which +at least was not ordinary, yet which, none the less, had descended to +that! She could not understand it. She could not understand, what some +one later explained to her, that a high order of intellect does not of +itself prevent a man from soiling it and, with it, himself and his +hands. The explanation came later, when other matters were occupying her +and when Paliser, headlined in the papers, was dead.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the train had landed her in the Grand Central and she decided +to go to Lennox first.</p> + +<p>Now as she sat in his sitting-room where, for all she knew, she might +have to sit for hours, it comforted her to think that she had so +decided. If she had put it off until the morrow, Lennox would, by then, +have gone to the aviation-field, where he might be killed before she +could patch things up. At thought of that, she wondered whether he might +not stay out undiscoverably all night and send for his things to be +fetched to the station.</p> + +<p>But in that case, Cassy promptly reflected, I'll go to her, pull her out +of bed, drag her there—and no thanks either. I didn't do it for you, I +did it for him. He's too good for you.</p> + +<p>On the mantel, a clock struck, while thinly, through a lateral entrance, +Harris emerged.</p> + +<p>"The hall-porter at Mr. Lennox' club says he's just gone out with Mr. +Jones. Yes, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jones! What Mr. Jones? The novelist?"</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking so, ma'am. A very haffable gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Try to get him. Ask if Mr. Lennox, is there. Or, no, I'll do the +talking."</p> + +<p>Then presently she was doing it, collaborating rather in the dialogue +that ensued.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jones?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, darling."</p> + +<p>Cassy, swallowing it, resumed: "Mr. Jones, forgive a stranger for +intruding, I——"</p> + +<p>"Beautiful voice, forgive me. Triple brute that I am, I thought it was +my aunt."</p> + +<p>"Then let me introduce myself. This is Miss Cara."</p> + +<p>"Casta diva! You do me infinite honour!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jones, I must see Mr. Lennox. It is a matter of life and death."</p> + +<p>"Lennox is engaged with death now."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"He is preparing for the great adventure. At this moment he is making +his will. Miss Cara?"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Lennox takes even serious matters gravely."</p> + +<p>"But he is with you?"</p> + +<p>"In my workshop and at your service as I am."</p> + +<p>"You will let me come there?"</p> + +<p>"Enthusiastically and yet with all humility for I have no red carpet to +run down the stair."</p> + +<p>"Then hold on to him, please."</p> + +<p>Ouf! sighed Cassy, as she hung it up. Another man who might be Mrs. +Yallum's husband! She took the telephone-book, found and memorised the +address and turned to Harris. "Thank you very much. Will you mind giving +me that package?"</p> + +<p>"Beg pardon, ma'am," the little man said, as he opened the door for her. +"There's nothing more amiss, is there?"</p> + +<p>Cassy covered him with her lovely eyes. "When Mr. Lennox comes back +here, he may tell you to unpack."</p> + +<p>"Then may God bless your ladyship."</p> + +<p>Cassy went on.</p> + +<p>At Jones' shop, a floor in a reconstructed private house, a man who had +the air of performing a feat, showed her into a room that was summarily, +but not spartanly, furnished. On one side was a bookcase supported by +caryatides. Above, hung a stretch of silk on which was a flight of +dragons. Above the silk was an ivory mask. Fronting the bookcase was the +biggest table that Cassy had ever seen.</p> + +<p>Jones, vacating the table, advanced to greet her. Perched on his +shoulder, was a cat that peered at her. It had long hair, the colour of +smoke; a bushy tail; the eyes of an angel and a ferocious moustache.</p> + +<p>Although Cassy had other matters in hand, she exclaimed at it. "What a +duck!"</p> + +<p>Jones, who saw, and at once, that she had not come to ask the time of +day, exclaimed also: "Yes, but ducky is as ducky does. That cat talks in +her sleep."</p> + +<p>But now Lennox, advancing too, had taken her hand.</p> + +<p>Withdrawing it, she put the bundle on the table, on which were papers, +and, noticeably, a dagger, brilliant, wicked, thin as a shadow. On the +blade was a promise—Penetrabo.</p> + +<p>She looked up. Jones and the cat had gone. She looked at Lennox. "I +don't know where to begin."</p> + +<p>Lennox could not tell her. On learning that she wanted to see him, he +had supposed it was about her father and he had said as much to Jones. +But in greeting her, the novelist knew from her vibrations that whatever +her object might be, at least it was not ordinary. Then, taking the cat, +he had gone.</p> + +<p>Now, though, Cassy was at it. "The day you loaned me a hundred, you +remember? As I went out I had the money in my hand. In the hall was Miss +Austen. You had just shown me her picture. I recognised her at once. +With her was a woman, thin-faced, thin-lipped, thin-minded. She saw me, +saw the money, gave me a look. I did not forget it. But it is only +to-day that I learned what it meant. It meant that I am no better than I +ought to be—or you either."</p> + +<p>Lennox had one hand on the table. He raised the other. "Who told you +this?"</p> + +<p>"Paliser. He said it was the reason your engagement was broken."</p> + +<p>In the palm of the upraised hand, the fingers moved forward and back, +regularly, methodically, mechanically. Lennox was unaware of it. He was +unaware of anything except the monstrous perversity of the tale.</p> + +<p>"I came directly from him to your rooms. Your man said you were going +away. Thank goodness, I am not too late."</p> + +<p>Cassy had seated herself, but now, reaching for the bundle, she stood +up. Across the street, in the house opposite, a boy was lowering a +shade. It seemed to Cassy that she had raised one. But there are +explanations that explain nothing. To Lennox there was a shade suspended +before Margaret, who had judged him unheard. It obscured her. He could +not see her at all.</p> + +<p>Over the way, the boy lowered a second shade and Cassy, as though +prompted by it, raised another. "Paliser said you admitted it."</p> + +<p>From the obscurity Lennox turned, but it was still about him. "Admitted +what?"</p> + +<p>Cassy reddened. "What I told you."</p> + +<p>With the movement of the head that a bull has when he is going for you, +Lennox bent his own. The movement, which was involuntary, was momentary. +The shade had lifted. He saw Margaret, but behind her he saw others +holding her back, telling her he was not fit to be spoken to. He was +going for them. Meanwhile he had forgotten Cassy. He looked up, saw her, +remembered the part attributed to her in the story and struck the table.</p> + +<p>"It is damnable that such a thing should be said of you."</p> + +<p>"Oh," Cassy put in. "It was not at all on my account that I told you. +I——" She stopped short. The promised horsewhipping occurred to her.</p> + +<p>Lennox took up the knife, gave it a turn, shoved it away. It was very +much as though he had twisted it in somebody's gizzards. The idea had +come to him that Paliser had concocted the admission. But, as he was +unable to conceive what his object could be, he dismissed it. None the +less, for what the man had said, he deserved to be booted down the club +steps.</p> + +<p>Cassy had stopped short. The story behind the story did not concern +Lennox, yet as he might wonder how Paliser had ventured with her on such +a subject, she began at it again.</p> + +<p>"We were married recently, or anyway I thought so. To-day I discovered +that the ceremony was bogus. Then I told him a thing or two and he told +me that."</p> + +<p>Lennox stared. Angry already, angry ever since the rupture, angry with +that intensity of anger which only those who love—or who think they +do—and who are thwarted in it ever know, and all the angrier because he +had no one and could have no one to vent it on, until he got to the +front and got at the Huns, at that last fillip from Cassy he saw some +one on whom he could vent it, and yet to whom none the less he felt +strangely grateful. For, whatever Paliser had done or omitted, at any +rate, he had completely clarified the situation.</p> + +<p>"I must run," said Cassy. "But you can tell Miss Austen, can't you?"</p> + +<p>Lennox, controlling himself, motioned. "Would you mind repeating this to +Jones?"</p> + +<p>Cassy's eyebrows arched themselves. "It was hard enough to tell you. +Were it not for your engagement, I wouldn't have said anything. When +dreadful things happen to a girl, people always think that she must be +dreadful herself. Isn't that nice of them? I——"</p> + +<p>"See here," Lennox interrupted, "you can't leave it like this. Something +has got to be done. I can give Paliser a hiding and I will. But that +isn't enough. I don't know whether a criminal action will lie, but I do +know that you can get damages and heavy ones."</p> + +<p>Cassy's lovely eyes searched the room. "Who was that speaking? It wasn't +you, was it?"</p> + +<p>Lennox, recognising the rebuke, acknowledged it. "Forgive me. I forgot +whom I was addressing. Jones will be less stupid. Let us have him in."</p> + +<p>But when Jones, immediately requisitioned, appeared, Cassy again putting +down her bundle, protested. "Mr. Lennox regards me as an Ariadne and +expects me to act like a young lady in a department-store. Either rôle +is too up-stage."</p> + +<p>Jones, taken with her mobile mouth, her lovely eyes, the oval of her +handsome face, said lightly: "It seems to me that you might assume any +part."</p> + +<p>Lennox struck out. "Paliser hocuspocused her with a fake marriage. +He——"</p> + +<p>"Oh," Cassy gently put in, "I have no one to blame but myself. I ought +to have known better."</p> + +<p>Jones nodded. "Probably you did know. The misadventure is rare of which +we are not warned in advance. We cannot see the future but the future +sees us. It sends us messages which we call premonitions."</p> + +<p>Instantly Cassy was back in the Tamburini's room, where she had seen +both beauty and horror. She had not reached the latter yet and the +sudden vision Lennox dissipated.</p> + +<p>"Stuff and nonsense! Haven't you anything else to say?"</p> + +<p>Amiably Jones turned to him. "I can say that no one is wise on an empty +stomach." He turned to Cassy. "The Splendor is not far. Will you dine +with us, Mrs. Paliser?"</p> + +<p>Violently Lennox repeated it; "Mrs. Paliser! Miss Cara is no more Mrs. +Paliser than you are."</p> + +<p>"To err is highly literary," Jones with great meekness replied. "I hear +that it is even human."</p> + +<p>Cassy reached again for the bundle. "It is only natural. If I had been +told in advance, I could not have believed it. I could not have believed +that mock marriages occur anywhere except in cheap fiction. But we live +and unlearn. Now I must run."</p> + +<p>Lennox took her hand. "I owe you a debt. Count on me."</p> + +<p>He spoke gravely and the gravity of it, the force that he exhaled, +comforted Cassy's bruised little heart and the comfort, the first that +she had had, made her lip twitch. None of that, though! Reacting she +rallied and smiled.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye—and good luck!"</p> + +<p>Jones saw her to the door, followed her out, followed her down to the +street, where for a moment he detained her.</p> + +<p>"Just a word, if you don't mind. You have been abominably treated and +you seek no revenge. That is very fine. You have been abominably treated +and you bear no malice. That is superior. You have been abominably +treated and you accept it with a smile. That is alchemy. It is only a +noble nature that can extract the beautiful from the base. Where do you +live?"</p> + +<p>At the change of key Cassy laughed but she told him. "Good-bye," she +added. "My love to your cat."</p> + +<p>She passed on into the sunset. The bundle seemed heavy now, but her +heart was lighter. She had got it off, Lennox knew, presently a young +woman would be informed and though she could not be expected to dance at +the wedding, yet, after all——</p> + +<p>The Park took her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI</h2> + + +<p>When Cassy had gone, Jones went back to his rooms. He went absently, his +mind not on her story, which was old as the Palisades, but on a +situation, entirely new, which it had suggested.</p> + +<p>"Nice girl," he remarked as he re-entered the workshop. "Suppose we go +and have dinner."</p> + +<p>Sombrely Lennox looked up. At the table where he sat, he had been +fingering some papers. He threw them down.</p> + +<p>"I am going to have a word with Paliser."</p> + +<p>Jones cocked an eye at him. "See here, you are not a knight-errant. The +age of chivalry is over." The novelist paused and exclaimed: "What am I +saying! The age of chivalry is not over. It can't be. Last night, +Verelst dined with a monster!"</p> + +<p>Lennox pushed at the papers. "If I were alone concerned, I would thank +Paliser. He has done me a good turn. He has set me straight."</p> + +<p>Then, to the listening novelist, who later found the story very useful, +Lennox repeated Cassy's version of the rhyme and reason of the broken +engagement.</p> + +<p>The tale of it concluded, Lennox flicked at a speck. "I am grateful to +Paliser for that, but for the manner in which he treated her, I shall +have a word with him. Just one."</p> + +<p>Jones sat down. "A word, eh? Well, why not? Flipping a man in the face +with a glove was fashionable in the days of Charles II. Tweaking the +nose was Georgian. The horsewhip went out with Victoria. Posting your +man was always rather coffee-house and a rough-and-tumble very hooligan. +If I were you, which I am not, but if I were, I would adopt +contemporaneous methods. To-day we just sit about and backbite. That is +progress. Let me commend it to you."</p> + +<p>With a wide movement, Lennox swept the papers, shoved them into a pocket +and stood up.</p> + +<p>Jones also stood up. "Got an appetite? Well, dining has the great +disadvantage of taking it away. Come along."</p> + +<p>Lennox put on his hat. "I am going first to Park Avenue."</p> + +<p>No you're not, thought Jones, who, with an agility which for him was +phenomenal, hurried to the door and backed against it.</p> + +<p>Lennox motioned him aside.</p> + +<p>Jones, without budging, lied. "They're out of town." It was very +imbecile. He knew it was, knew, too, that Lennox knew it, and, for the +imbecile lie, he substituted another. "I mean they are dining out."</p> + +<p>"What the devil are you driving at?" Lennox asked, and not very civilly +either.</p> + +<p>"A windmill, I suppose. You look like one. I——"</p> + +<p>Jones broke off. The expression on Lennox' face arrested him. The +attempt at interference, the stupid evasions, the conviction which these +things produced, that there was something behind them, something +secreted, something about Margaret that Jones knew and which he was +concealing, made him livid.</p> + +<p>"Out with it."</p> + +<p>Jones looked at him, looked away, adjusted his neckcloth, vacated the +door, crossed the room and sat down. He did not know to what saint to +vow himself. But realising that it was all very useless, that everything +is, except such solicitude as one pilgrim may show to another, and that, +anyway, Lennox would soon hear it, he gave it to him.</p> + +<p>"She is engaged to Paliser."</p> + +<p>Lennox, who was approaching, stopped short. "Miss Austen is?"</p> + +<p>Jones nodded.</p> + +<p>"To Paliser?"</p> + +<p>But it seemed too rough and, to take the edge off, Jones added. "It may +not be true."</p> + +<p>"How did you hear?"</p> + +<p>"Verelst told me. He dined there last night."</p> + +<p>Lennox turned on his heel. Futilely in that hell to which one may look +back and see that it was not hell but purgatory prior to paradise, +futilely there he had sought the reason of his damnation. A few minutes +before he had thought that Cassy's story revealed it. In the light of it +he had seen himself condemned, as many another has been, for crimes +which he had not committed. But he had seen, too, the order of release. +He had only a word to say. He was going to Park Avenue to say it.</p> + +<p>When Jones was below with Cassy so he had thought and not without +gratitude to Paliser either. If the cad had held his tongue, +enlightenment might have been withheld until to his spirit, freed +perhaps in Flanders, had come the revelation. Personally he was +therefore grateful to Paliser. But vicariously he was bitter. For his +treatment of that girl, punishment should follow.</p> + +<p>That girl! Obscurely, in the laboratory of the senses where, without our +knowledge, often against our will, our impulses are dictated, a process, +intricate and interesting, which Stendhal called crystallisation, was at +work.</p> + +<p>Unaware of that, conscious only of the moment, to his face had come the +look and menace of the wolf.</p> + +<p>Now——!</p> + +<p>"There is a book over there," Jones, who was watching him, cut in. "It +is Seneca's 'De animæ tranquilitate.' Take a peek at it. It will tell +you, what it has told me, that whatever happens, happens because it had +to happen and because it could not happen otherwise. There is no sounder +lesson in mental tranquillity."</p> + +<p>But for all Lennox heard of that he might then have been dead. Without +knowing what he was doing, he sat down. Paliser, Margaret! Margaret, +Paliser! Before him, on encephalic films, their forms and faces moved as +clearly as though both were in the room. He saw them approaching, saw +them embrace. The obsession of jealousy that creates the image, +projected it. He closed his eyes, covered his face with his hands. The +image got behind them. It persisted but less insistently. The figures +were still there. It was their consistence that seemed to fade. Where +they had been were shadows—evil, shallow, malign, perverse, lurid as +torches and yet but shades. For the jealousy that inflames love can also +consume it and, when it does, it leaves ashes that are either sterile +with indifference or potent with hate. At the shadows that were torches +Lennox looked with closed eyes. Obscurely, without his knowledge, in the +laboratory of his senses, crystallisation was at work.</p> + +<p>Jones, leaning forward, touched him. "I say, old chap!"</p> + +<p>Lennox had been far away, on a journey from which some men return, but +never as they went. At Jones' touch he dropped his hands. The innate +sentiment of form repossessed him. He straightened, looked about and, +after the manner of the deeply preoccupied, who answer a question ten +minutes after it is put, said evenly:</p> + +<p>"Suppose we do."</p> + +<p>Do what? But Jones, getting it at once, stood up. "Come along, then."</p> + +<p>On the way to the neighbourly Athenæum, the novelist talked endlessly +about the disadvantages of not being born, which is a very safe subject. +Talking still, he piloted Lennox to the dining-room where, the +advantages of sedatives occurring to him, he ordered a bottle of +Pommard, which is mother's milk.</p> + +<p>But when it was brought Lennox would not touch it. He wanted brandy and +soda and told Johnson, a captain, to see to it.</p> + +<p>In the great high-ceiled room, other members were dining. From one of +the tables Ogston sauntered over and, noting that Jones and Lennox had +not dressed, which he had, and very beautifully, remarked brilliantly: +"You fellers aren't going to the opera, are you? It's the last night."</p> + +<p>It was another safe subject and Jones smiled falsely at him. "But you +are, eh? Sit down."</p> + +<p>Ogston put a hand on the novelist's chair. "No. I'm off to a +theatre-party. But I have a ticket for the Metropolitan. You don't +either of you want it, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Let me see, what is it, to-night?" Jones, with that same false smile, +enquired. "And where is the seat?"</p> + +<p>"In Paliser's box. He's to be alone and left it here with a note asking +me to join him."</p> + +<p>Deeply, beneath his breath, Jones swore, but with the same smile, he +tried to shift the subject. "You're quite a belle, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"See here, Ogston," Lennox put in, "let me have it."</p> + +<p>Ogston, fumbling in his white waistcoat, extracted the ticket and handed +it over.</p> + +<p>"By the way, Lennox, do you mind my doing a little touting for +Cantillon? He's with Dunwoodie. Give him your law business—some of it, +anyhow."</p> + +<p>"I'll give him some, when I have it," answered Lennox, who was to have +some, and sooner and far more monumentally, than either he, or even +Jones, suspected.</p> + +<p>"Good for you, Lennox. Good-night, Jones." The brilliant and beautifully +dressed young man nodded and passed on.</p> + +<p>But now the captain was bearing down on them.</p> + +<p>Jones looked at Lennox. "You will have to come back to my shop after +dinner. There is a phrase in your will that I omitted. I forgot the +'seized and possessed.'"</p> + +<p>Lennox drank before he spoke. Then he said: "After dinner, I shall do +for Paliser."</p> + +<p>Jones, waiting until the captain had gone, looked at Lennox again. "The +greatest revenge is the disdain of any."</p> + +<p>Lennox made no reply. A waiter put a plate before him and another before +Jones. Members passed, going to their tables or leaving them. +Occasionally one of them stopped, exchanged the time of day and then +passed on. In each exchange Jones collaborated. Lennox said nothing. The +food before him he tormented, poking at it with a fork, but not eating +it.</p> + +<p>Presently he asked for coffee, drank a cup and got up.</p> + +<p>Jones, too, got up and, to stay him, put out a hand.</p> + +<p>Lennox, treating it, and him, like a cobweb, went on.</p> + +<p>Afterward, Jones thought of the Wild Women of whom Æschylus tells, the +terrible Daughters of Hazard that lurk in the shadows of coming events +which, it may be, they have marshalled.</p> + +<p>Afterward he thought of them. But at the moment, believing that Lennox +would do nothing and realising that, in any case, nothing can be more +futile than an attempt to avert the inevitable, he was about to resume +his seat, when something on the floor attracted him. He bent over, took +it, looked at it and tucked it in a pocket.</p> + +<p>Then, sitting down again, mentally he followed Lennox, whom later he was +to follow farther, whom he was to follow deep in the depths where the +Wild Women, lurking in wait, had thrown him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII</h2> + + +<p>The Park that had taken Cassy and from which, at that hour, children and +nursemaids had gone, was green, fragrant, quiet. Its odorous peace +enveloped the girl who had wanted to cry. In hurrying on she had choked +it back. But you cannot always have your way with yourself. The tears +would come and she sat down on a bench, from behind which a squirrel +darted.</p> + +<p>Before her the grass departed, the trees disappeared, the path wound +into nothingness. In their place was the empty vastness that sorrow is. +The masquerade that had affected her physically, had affected her +psychically and in each instance profoundly. It had first sickened and +then stabbed. There had been no place for sorrow in the double assault. +There had been no time for it either. Occupied as she had almost at once +become with the misadventures of another, she had no opportunity to +consider her own. Yet now the aspect that sorrow took was not that of +disaster. What it showed was the loneliness of the soul, solitary as it +ever is in that desert which, sooner or later, we all must cross. Vast, +arid, empty, before her it stretched.</p> + +<p>Nearby, on the bench, crouching there, eager, anxious, wary, a squirrel, +its fluffy tail and tiny nostrils aquiver, watched her with eyes of +bead. From the desert she turned and seeing the little gracious thing, +stretched her hand. She would have liked to take it and pet it. It would +have made her solitude less acute. At the movement, a ball of misty fur +bounded. Where it had been, there was air.</p> + +<p>The abrupt evaporation distracted her. Before her the desert lay, but in +it now was her father. She had been going to him. Previously, she had +thought that, when she did go, her hands would be filled with gifts. +Instead they were bruised, bare to the bone. They would madden him and +she wondered whether she could endure it. The long, green afternoon, +that had been so brief, had been so torturesome that she doubted her +ability. But he would have to be told. She could not lie to him and +humanly she wished that it were to-morrow, the day after, the day after +that, when it would be over and done for, put away, covered by woes of +his own, though inevitably to be dragged out again and shown her, and +shown her, too, with the unconscious cruelty that those who love you +display.</p> + +<p>It would be crucifying, but there was no help for it. Reaching for the +bundle, she stood up and went her way, across the Park, to the subway, +from which she got out in Harlem.</p> + +<p>The loveliness of that land of love seemed to have changed, though the +change, she then recognised, was in herself. But at least the walk-up +was unaltered. In the grimy entrance was Mrs. Yallum, a fat Finn, who +looked like a dirty horse, and who yapped at her volubly, +incomprehensibly, but with such affection that Cassy, yapping back, felt +less lonely as she ascended the stair.</p> + +<p>The comfort was mediocre. In the afternoon she had gone from a ruin. Now +she had the sensation of entering another, one from which she had also +gone, but to which she was returning and with a spirit so dulled in the +journey! Had she, she wondered, any spirit left at all? At least enough +remained to prevent any wish for the reconstruction of the ruin behind +her. About the fallen walls were forms of filth; in the crevices there +were vermin, and though, before her, the desert stretched, it was clean. +However arid, it was wholesome.</p> + +<p>But now she was at the door. She let herself in, hurried to the +living-room, where, with the feigned cheerfulness of the unselfish, she +beamed at her father and bent over him.</p> + +<p>"Here I am to look after you again! How well you look. I am so glad and +oh! where is your sling?"</p> + +<p>In speaking she stroked him. His skin was clearer, she thought, and the +abandoned sling was a relief.</p> + +<p>He looked up at her. "You got married without me. I ought to have been +there. Why didn't you tell me? It was for me to give you away. Who did?"</p> + +<p>"Who did what?"</p> + +<p>"Who gave you in marriage?"</p> + +<p>With the mimic of gaiety, Cassy laughed. "Why, you old dear, all that +has gone out. Hereabouts, nowadays, a father never goes to a +wedding—only to funerals."</p> + +<p>She paused and, with the idea of breaking it to him in bits, resumed: +"Besides, it was all done in a hurry, in too much of a hurry."</p> + +<p>He took it in, but at the wrong end. "Sick of him already, eh? Well, it +isn't because I did not warn you. Where is he?"</p> + +<p>Cassy moved back. Should she give it to him then or later? But the +question, repeating itself, followed her.</p> + +<p>"Where is your husband?"</p> + +<p>Now for it, she thought. But at once he switched. "There was nothing in +the papers. Why is that? What is that package?"</p> + +<p>Cassy looked at the bundle which she still held. It gave her courage.</p> + +<p>"I am not married."</p> + +<p>For a second he stared. It was obvious that he had not got it. "Where +have you been, then?"</p> + +<p>Cassy fingered the bundle. Always she had hated to explain and of all +possible explanations what could be more hateful than this? If only he +would guess it, flare up, stamp about, get it over, let it go. But the +cup was there and she drank it.</p> + +<p>"I thought I was married. I am a fool."</p> + +<p>For the awaited curse, she braced herself. The explosion did not come, +but his eyes had widened. They covered her. Then, with an intake of the +breath and of understanding, he lowered them. Apparently he was weighing +it and Cassy thought he was trying to restrain himself, and she blessed +him for it. It was less terrible than she had feared. But immediately it +occurred to her that instead of trying to restrain himself, he was +seeking the strength wherewith to rend her. And I am so innocent, she +despairfully thought.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were upon him and he looked up into hers.</p> + +<p>"Why did you think you were married?"</p> + +<p>"I told you, because I am a fool. There was a clergyman and a ceremony. +Afterwards I found that the clergyman was not a clergyman and that the +ceremony was a sham."</p> + +<p>"When was that?"</p> + +<p>"This afternoon."</p> + +<p>"What did you do?"</p> + +<p>"What was there for me to do? I left him."</p> + +<p>"Where is he now?"</p> + +<p>Cassy put down the bundle. She had no idea. But she said: "This evening +we were to go to the opera. I hardly fancy he will miss it on my +account." She paused and with a little catch in her voice continued: "I +know it is all my fault, I ought to have known better and I shall be so +unhappy if you mind. Won't you try not to?"</p> + +<p>As she spoke, he stood up and she thought that the delayed volcano of +his wrath was about to burst. To smother it, she touched him. "Of course +you will mind. But I would not have been such a fool if I had not +believed that everything would be so much nicer for you. Can't you see +that and, if you do, can't you forgive me?"</p> + +<p>He had moved from her to the piano; there he turned and looked. "There +is nothing to forgive, Cassy. You have been a good girl always. I am +sorry, of course I am sorry, but you are not to blame."</p> + +<p>Understanding instead of maledictions! Sympathy in lieu of abuse! Such +things are affecting. The tears swam to her eyes and wretchedly and yet +thankfully she wept.</p> + +<p>He did not seem to notice. In the narrow space he was moving about, +shifting things on the piano, displacing and replacing a score, which, +finally, he let fall. He stooped for it. As he raised it, Cassy saw +through her tears that his hand was shaking. He, too, may have seen it. +He left the room and she heard him pottering in the kitchen.</p> + +<p>She wiped her eyes. Across the court was another kitchen in which were a +woman and a child. Often she had seen them there, but if she had seen +them elsewhere she would not have recognised them. They were but forms, +the perceptions of a perceiver, and though Cassy had never read Fichte +and was unacquainted with Berkeley, the idea visited her that they had +no real existence, that, it might be, she had none either, that all she +had endured was a dream drifting by, with nothing past which to drift.</p> + +<p>It was her father's attitude that had induced these metaphysical +hysterics. She had expected that some demon within him would spring out +and gibber. Instead of which he had told her, and so gently, that she +was not to blame. It is words like these that bring tears swiftest. The +tears had come, but the words had also sufficed to reduce the people +across the way into baseless appearances, in which, for the moment, she +included herself.</p> + +<p>But now at least her father was actual. He was coming in with glasses +and a bottle which he put on the table.</p> + +<p>"You are tired," he said. "Have a little."</p> + +<p>Seating himself, he drank and Cassy feared that if the liquor exerted +the authority that liquor has, he might go back into it and exact from +her details which it would revolt her to supply. In helping himself, he +had poured a glass for her. She did not want it. What she wanted was bed +and the blanket of long, dreamless sleep. It could not be too long. She +was tired, as he had said, but more so than he knew, tired with the +immense fatigue that emotions and their crises create.</p> + +<p>She moved over to where he sat. Several minutes had gone since he spoke +yet it seemed to her but the moment before.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am tired, but you're a good daddy and I love you."</p> + +<p>She bent over him, went to the kitchen, got a glass of milk and a +biscuit, which she carried to her room, where she opened the window and +closed the door.</p> + +<p>Long later, when she awoke, it was with the consciousness of something +there, something waiting, something evil, something that had jeered and +pummelled her in her sleep. But what? Then, instantly, she knew. A +palace of falsehoods had tumbled about her and the lies had laughed and +bruised her as they fell. They had been laughing and falling the whole +night through.</p> + +<p>The light distracted her. In the morning, because of the building +opposite, her room was dark. Now it was bright. The sun had scaled the +roof. A gleam looked in and told her it was noon.</p> + +<p>How could I have slept so long? she wondered. She put some things on and +opening the door smelled coffee. The poor dear! she thought, he had to +make it himself.</p> + +<p>She went on into the living-room. There her father sat. On the table +before him was a paper.</p> + +<p>Without speaking he pointed at a headline. The letters squirmed. They +leaped and sprang at her. From before them she backed. But what +nonsense! It was impossible. She could not believe it. Yet there it was! +Abruptly there also was something else. An electric chair, the man of +all men in it!</p> + +<p>From before the horror of that she reeled, steadied herself, looked at +her father, looked without seeing him.</p> + +<p>"God of gods! And I did it!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII</h2> + + +<p>In high red boots, wide purple breeches and a yellow mandarin jacket, +Jones entered the workshop.</p> + +<p>His appearance did not alarm him. He was invisible. Lloyd George and +Clémenceau might have called. Mr. Ten Eyck Jones was not at home, sir. +If necessary he was dead. Always, while he dressed, his servant put, +unseen, a tray on the workshop table and, still unseen, disappeared. +With the tray was the morning paper and the usual letters, which Jones +never read. Morning in the workshop meant work. No interruptions +permitted. On one occasion the house got on fire. His servant did not +venture to tell him, though the firemen did. Apart from such outrages, +necessarily infrequent, the only intrusion was the morning paper and the +cat that talked in her sleep. The cat had many privileges, the paper had +few. Sometimes it was briefly considered, more often it was not even +looked at, but its great privilege consisted in being stacked.</p> + +<p>On this morning Jones did look, but quite involuntarily, and only +because a headline caught his eye. It was the same headline from before +which Cassy backed. The leaping words shouted at the girl. They shouted +at the novelist, a circumstance which did not prevent him from +breakfasting.</p> + +<p>The fruit, the crescents, the coffee he consumed, not as was customary, +with his thoughts on his own copy, but on that which the paper supplied. +It was very colourful. At the opera, the night before, Monty Paliser had +been killed.</p> + +<p>In New York, many men are killed, but not so many are murdered and of +those that are murdered, few are millionaires and fewer still have a box +at the Metropolitan, where, apart from stage business, no one up to then +had been done for. The case was therefore unique and, save for the +assassination of Abraham Lincoln, without a parallel. In the +circumstances, the leaded line of leaping words was justified.</p> + +<p>According to the story that followed and which, Jones realised, must +have reached the city editor just as the paper was going to press, an +attendant, whose duty it was to visit the boxes after the performance +and see what, if anything, the occupants had forgotten, had, on entering +Paliser's box, found him at the back of it, unconscious, on the floor. +There were no external marks of violence, but a commandeered physician +pronounced him dead and, on examination, further pronounced that death +was due to internal hemorrhage, superinduced by heart-puncture, which +itself had been caused by some instrument, presumably a stiletto.</p> + +<p>A picturesque detail followed. The box at the right was owned by the +Leroy Thompsons. The box at the left was the Harriwells'. At the late +hour, an attempt to communicate with the former had failed, but over the +wire, Mr. Legrand Harriwell stated that the deceased had come in during +the third act, that he had spoken to Mrs. Harriwell, after which he had +moved back and had either gone, or remained in the rear of the box. Mr. +Harriwell knew nothing else, he had been unaware of anything occurring, +he was not in the habit of spying about and he wished it distinctly +understood that he must not be mixed up in the matter, or Mrs. Harriwell +either.</p> + +<p>The dear thing! thought Jones, who saw him, a tall, thin-lipped beast of +a brute, with a haw-haw manner and an arrogant air. God bless him!</p> + +<p>But, Jones resumed to himself, voyons! The opera was Aïda. Paliser came +in during the third act. The house then is brilliant. But during the +fourth—the duo in the crypt—it is dark. It was then that he was done +for and with what is assumed to have been a stiletto.</p> + +<p>To cut out the account, Jones turned in search of a dagger, long, thin, +wicked, which, one adventurous night in Naples, he had found—just in +time—in his back. On the blade was inscribed a promise, Penetrabo. Now +his eyes roamed the table. He lifted the tray, lifted his copy, looked +on the floor. Yet only the evening before, when Lennox was there and +Cassy Cara had come, he had seen it. Since then it had gone.</p> + +<p>The disappearance did not disturb him. Occasionally, in hunting for an +object, he found it in his hand. It is somewhere, he cogently reflected +and, taking a pencil, set to work.</p> + +<p>But the muse was timorous as a chicken. The metaphor is entirely +metaphorical. Jones had no faith in the wanton. He believed in regular +hours, in silence and no interruptions. No intrusions of any kind. A +letter was an intrusion, so also was the news of the day. These things +he considered, when he did consider them, after his work was done. +Sometimes he ignored them entirely. Usually he had a bushel of letters +that he had not opened, a bale of papers at which he had not looked. Of +such is the life known as literary or, at any rate, such was the life +led by Jones.</p> + +<p>On this morning, his copy, ordinarily fluent enough, would not come. +Ideas fluttered away just out of reach. The sequence of a chapter had +been in his head. Like the dagger, it had gone. He could not account for +that disappearance, nor did he try. It would turn up again. So, +ultimately, would the ousted sequence. For the latter's departure he did +not try to account either. The effort was needless. He knew. An +interruption had occurred. The news of the day had intruded itself upon +him. A headline had entangled his thoughts.</p> + +<p>Abandoning the pencil, he lit a cigarette. Across the room, above the +bookcase, was a stretch of silk, a flight of dragons that he had got in +Rangoon. Above the silk was an ivory mask, the spoil of a sarcophagus, +which he had found in Seville. He looked at them. The dragons fled on, +the mask fell asleep. Something else took their place.</p> + +<p>On the wall was the scene at the opera.</p> + +<p>In the golden gloom of the darkened house, it showed Paliser, sitting +back in his box, presumably enjoying the <i>Terra addio</i>, for which Caruso +had, as usual, been saving himself. Without, in the corridor, a figure +furtively peering at the names on the doors. Then the voice of the +soprano blending with that of the tenor and, during the divine duo, the +door of the box opening, letting in a thread of light; Paliser turning +to look and beholding that figure and a hand which, instantly +descending, deepened the gloom forever.</p> + +<p>It was certainly <i>Terra addio</i>, Jones reflected. Certainly, too, the +scene is easy enough to reconstruct But whose was the hand?</p> + +<p>Flicking his ashes, he looked about and saw two hands, between which, he +also saw, he was entirely free to pick and choose. One hand, slight and +fragile, was Cassy Cara's. The other, firm and virile, was Lennox'.</p> + +<p>Lennox had threatened. He had been acidly murderous. He had a motive. He +had the opportunity. He knew where Paliser would be. He had been +supplied with a seat in that box. The hand was his. It was a clear case. +That was obvious, particularly to Jones, who regarded the obvious as +very misleading.</p> + +<p>Given the chance, he reflected, and Lennox might have done for Paliser, +but he would have done for him with bare fists, never with a knife. It +was not Lennox to use one. It was not Lennox at all.</p> + +<p>Jones threw him out and pulled in Cassy Cara.</p> + +<p>The case against her was equally clear. Presumably she owned the +stiletto which a hat pin is. In addition, she also had a motive. If ever +a girl had cause to up and do it, she had. Then, too, the risk was +negligible. Any jury would acquit and tumble over each other to shake +hands with her. For equity has justice that the law does not know. +Moreover there are crimes that jurists have not codified. Some are too +inhuman, others too human. Cassy's righting of her own wrongs belonged +among the latter. Cassy's, that is, provided she had done it. But had +she? Logically, yes. If the police could look behind the scenes, +logically they would say to her, "Thou art the man."</p> + +<p>But, Jones resumed, logic when pushed far enough becomes incoherence. +The psychologist prefers vision and it would display none to believe +that she did it. In the abstract, that is to be regretted. A lovely +assassin! A beautiful girl slaying a recreant lover! A future prima +donna killing a local millionaire! Monty Paliser murdered by the +Viscountess of Casa-Evora! And at the opera! If I had ever put anything +of the kind in my copy, reviewers would have indolently asked: "Why +doesn't this imbecile study life?"</p> + +<p>Jones laughed. The enjoyment of one's own ideas—or of the absence of +them—is a literary trait. When Dumas wrote, he roared.</p> + +<p>Here it is, then, Jones continued. If the police knew certain things +they would nab Lennox. If they knew others, they would nab Cassy Cara. +If they knew more, they would nab me. I should be held as a witness. +This is cheerful, particularly as my sole complicity in the matter has +been due to a desire to be of use. But that is just it. Through the +enigmatic laws of life, any kindness is repaid in pain.</p> + +<p>Pleasurably, for a moment, he considered the altruism of that aphorism. +Then he got back at the murder which, he decided, must have been +premeditated by some one who knew where Paliser would be. That +conclusion reached, he groped for another. Lennox knew, but did Cassy +know, and, if she did, had she utilised the knowledge?</p> + +<p>To decide the point he reviewed the visit of the previous evening.</p> + +<p>Ostensibly Cassy's visit had been occasioned not by any wish to relate +what had happened to her, but to acquaint Lennox with the cause of what +had happened to him. In view of what had befallen her, the proceeding +was certainly considerate. In the misadventures of life, the individual +is usually so obsessed by his own troubles that they blind him to those +of another. But ostensibly Cassy had sunk her troubles and had pulled +them up, not to exhibit them, but to show Lennox the lay of the land as +it affected not her at all but him. The proceeding was certainly +considerate—unless it were astute, unless her object had been to employ +Lennox for the wreaking of her own revenge.</p> + +<p>That was possible, but was it probable?</p> + +<p>An ordinary young woman would have gone at it differently, gone at it +hammer and tongs. Cassy's methods were merely finer. That was the common +sense view. But was it psychology? The common sense view that is +applicable to the average individual is inapplicable to a problematic +nature and, consequently, not to Cassy, who must therefore have had +another incentive for her visit, an incentive stronger than the +primitive instinct for revenge.</p> + +<p>But, Jones asked himself, what are the fundamental principles of human +activity? They are self-preservation and the perpetuation of the +species. Every idea that has existed, or does exist, in the mind of man +is the result of the permutations and combinations of those two +principles, of which the second is the stronger and its basis is sex. +That is what actuated Cassy. She is, or was, in love with Lennox, and +told him for no other reason.</p> + +<p>That is it, Jones decided. But the course of her true love could not +have run very smooth and, knowing that Lennox was otherwise interested, +she took up with Paliser out of pique.</p> + +<p>Pique! he repeated. But no, that is not Cassy Cara either. She——</p> + +<p>Like a thread snapped suddenly, the novelist's meditations ceased. On +the wall before him the dragons alighted, the mask awoke. Between them a +canvas was emerging. Dim, shadowy, uncertain, it hesitated, wavered, +advanced.</p> + +<p>Then, as it hung unsupported in the air—far too unsupported, he +presently thought—he looked it over.</p> + +<p>To apparitions he was accustomed. They were part of his equipment. +Unsummoned, without incantations they came, sent, one might think, by +the muse whom he derided, but more naturally and very simply produced by +the machinery in his brain.</p> + +<p>Now, as he examined the canvas, its imprecision diminished, the shadows +passed, the obscurity lifted, the penumbra brightened, outlines defined +themselves, the colouring appeared, a colouring, after the manner of +Rembrandt, composed of darkness in which there is light and which, as +such, reveals.</p> + +<p>Jones stood up, turned around and sat down again as gamblers, disquieted +by their luck, will do.</p> + +<p>Before him still the picture floated. He disavowed it, disowned it. Yet +there it was, the child of his fancy, the first-born of the morning, the +fruit of his concentrated thought, and as, surprisedly, he considered +it, it took on such semblances of legitimacy, that the disavowals +ceased. Then, slowly disintegrating, its consistence lessened. It was +departing, vaporously as it had come. Jones waved at it, omitting out of +sheer abstraction to say Au revoir, yet omitting also, and through equal +modesty, to say Eureka!</p> + +<p>He pressed a button. Instantly, as though sprung from a trap, his +servant appeared.</p> + +<p>"Get Mr. Lennox on the telephone."</p> + +<p>The minutes lengthened. Finally the servant reappeared.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lennox is not at home, sir. His man says he's gone to Centre +Street. He's been arrested. Mr. Lennox has been arrested. Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>Pausing, the servant cocked an ear and added: "They're calling extras, +sir. Would you wish one?"</p> + +<p>Circuitously, through the open door, the cat, her tail in the air, +approached and wowed.</p> + +<p>Jones leaned over and tickled her in the stomach. The cat hopped up on +him. He put a finger to his forehead, held it there, removed it and +looked at the man.</p> + +<p>"In war-time, with the price of everything going up, it is a criminal +waste of money to buy an extra—particularly when you know what isn't in +it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>Jones motioned. "Look through the old newspapers. Among the March issues +there is one that has an article entitled 'The Matter of Ziegler.' Let +me have it."</p> + +<p>The cat, now on his shoulder, purred profusely in his ear. Raising a +hand, he tickled her again.</p> + +<p>"Mimi-Meow, this Matter of Ziegler may interest us very much and after +we have looked it over, I will attend to our friend von Lennox, who +seems to have become a Hun."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>XXIX</h2> + + +<p>Already over the picked-up codfish, flapjacks, Hamburg steaks and +cognate enticements on which the Bronx and Harlem breakfasts, the news +of it had buttered the toast, flavoured the coffee, added a sweetness to +this April day and provided a cocktail to people who did not know +Paliser from the Pierrot in the moon. That he was spectacularly wealthy +was a tid-bit, that he had been killed at the Metropolitan was a +delight, the war news was nothing to the fact that the party with the +stiletto had escaped "unbeknownst." These people were unacquainted with +Paliser. But here was a young man with an opera-box of his own, and +think of that! Here was the mythological monster that the Knickerbocker +has become. Here was the heir to unearned and untold increments. These +attributes made him as delectable to the majority who did not know him, +as he had become to the privileged few who did.</p> + +<p>Elsewhere, and particularly in and about fashion's final citadel which +the Plaza is, solemn imbeciles viewed the matter vehemently. "Young +Paliser! Why, there is no better blood in town! By Jove, I believe we +are related!"</p> + +<p>Or else: "That's M. P.'s son, isn't it? Yes, here it is. I never met the +old cock but I heard of him long before we came East. A damned outrage, +that's what I call it."</p> + +<p>Or again: "Dear me, what is the world coming to? What a blessing it is +we were not there. They might have come and murdered us all!"</p> + +<p>Adjacently, in clubland, old men with one foot in the grave and the +other on Broadway, exchanged reminiscences of the nights when social New +York was a small and early family party and M. P. led the ball, and at a +pace so klinking that he danced beyond the favours of the cotillon—the +german as it, the cotillon, was then lovingly called—into assemblies, +certainly less select, but certainly, too, more gay, and had horrified +scrumptious sedateness with the uproar of his orgies.</p> + +<p>The indicated obituaries followed. "Well, at any rate, they didn't +murder him for it." "The son now, a chip of the old block, eh?" "Nothing +of the kind, a quiet young prig." "The papers say——" "Damn the papers, +they never know anything." "You mean they don't print what they do +know." "I mean they don't give us the woman. For it was a woman. I'll +eat my hat it was a woman." "Let's have lunch instead."</p> + +<p>Generally, for the moment, that was the verdict, one in which the police +had already collaborated. But what woman? And, assuming the woman, +whence had she come? Where had she gone?—problems, momentarily +insoluble but which investigations, then in progress, would probably +decide.</p> + +<p>At the great white house on upper Fifth Avenue, the servants knew only +that they knew nothing. Nothing at all. Already coached, they were sure +and unshakable in their knowledge of that. A Mr. Harvey—from +Headquarters—could not budge them an inch. Not one!</p> + +<p>The night before, at the first intelligence of it, M. P. came nearer to +giving up the ghost than is commonly advisable. Suffocation seized him. +An incubus within was pushing his life-springs out. So can emotion and +an impaired digestion affect a father. The emotion was not caused by +grief. It was fear. For weeks, for months, during the tedium and terror +of the trial, his name, Paliser, would top the page! It had topped it +before, very often, but that was years ago. Then he had not cared. Then +the wine of youth still bubbled. No, he had not cared. But that was long +ago. Since then the wine of youth had gone, spilled in those orgies +which he had survived, yet, in the survival, abandoned more and more to +solitude and making him seek, what the solitary ever do seek, +inconspicuousness. For years he had courted obscurity as imbeciles court +fame. And now!</p> + +<p>If only the boy had had the decency to die of pneumonia!</p> + +<p>It was then the incubus gripped him. For a second he saw the visage, +infinitely consoling, that Death can display and possibly, but for an +immediate drug, there too would have echoed the <i>Terra addio</i>!</p> + +<p>He was then in white velvet. A preparation of menthe, dripping from a +phial, spotted it green. He did not notice. At the moment the spasm had +him. Then as that clicked and passed, he looked in the expressionless +face of the butler who had told him.</p> + +<p>The spasm had shaken him into a chair.</p> + +<p>The room, an oblong, was furnished after a fashion of long ago. The +daised bed was ascended by low, wide steps. Beyond stood a table of +lapis-lazuli. A mantel of the same material was surmounted by a mirror +framed in jasper. Beneath the mirror, a fire burned dimly. The lights +too were dim. They were diffused by tall wax candles that stood shaded +in high gold sticks. On the table there were three of them.</p> + +<p>The chair was near this table, at which M. P. had been occupied very +laboriously, in doing nothing, a task that he performed in preparation +for the bed, which was always ready for him, and for sleep, which seldom +was. There he had been told. It had shaken him to his feet, shaken +apoplexy at him and shaken him back in the chair.</p> + +<p>Now, as he looked at the servant's wooden mask, for a moment he relived +an age, not a pleasant one either and of which this blow, had he known +it, was perhaps the karma. He did not know it. He knew nothing of karma. +None the less, with that curious intuition which the great crises +induce, he too divined the woman and wished to God that he had kept his +hands off, wished that he had not interfered and told Monty to put her +in a flat and be damned to her! It was she, he could have sworn it. At +once, precisely as he wished he had let her alone, he hoped and quite as +fervently that she had covered her tracks, that there would be no trial, +nothing but inept conjectures and that forgetfulness in which all +things, good and bad, lose their way.</p> + +<p>The futility of wishing passed. The time for action had come. He +motioned. "Is Benny here?"</p> + +<p>"He left this noon, sir."</p> + +<p>"Did he say anything?"</p> + +<p>The butler did not know whether to lie or not, but seeing no personal +advantage in either course, he hedged. "Very little, sir."</p> + +<p>That little, the old man weighed. A little is often enough. It may be +too much.</p> + +<p>"He spoke about a girl, eh?"</p> + +<p>"He said a lady was stopping there. Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"What else?"</p> + +<p>The butler shuffled. "He said she was very pretty, sir."</p> + +<p>"Go on, Canlon."</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, it seems there was a joke about it. The young lady thought +she was married."</p> + +<p>"How was that?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not supposed to know, sir. But from what was let on, Benny was +rigged out as a dominie and it made 'em laugh."</p> + +<p>The old man ran his head out like a turtle. "Damnation, what has that to +do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, sir, he pretended to marry her."</p> + +<p>"Benny did?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"He pretended that she was his wife."</p> + +<p>"No, sir, he pretended to marry her to Mr. Monty."</p> + +<p>"Good God!" the old man muttered and sank back. The blackness was +blacker than any black he had entered. In days gone by, he had agreeably +shocked New York with the splendid uproar of his orgies. He had left +undone those things which he ought to have done and done those things +which he should have avoided. He had been whatever you like—or +dislike—but never had he been dishonest. Little that would avail him +now. If this turpitude were published, it would be said that he had +fathered it. At the prospect, he felt the incubus returning. In a moment +it would have him and, spillingly, he drank the green drug.</p> + +<p>The agony receded, but the nightmare confronted him. He grappled with +it.</p> + +<p>"The coat I had on at dinner. There is a card-case in the pocket. Give +it to me."</p> + +<p>Probably it was all very useless. Probably no matter what he contrived, +the police would ferret her out. There was just one chance though which, +properly taken, might save the situation.</p> + +<p>The card-case, pale damask, lined with pale silk, the man brought him. +He put it on the table.</p> + +<p>"Canlon!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Benny said nothing."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir."</p> + +<p>"I have a few hundred for you here, between eight and nine, I think."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow there will be more."</p> + +<p>"I am sure I am very grateful, sir."</p> + +<p>"Don't interrupt me. Recently my son returned from Cuba. Occasionally he +went visiting. Where he went, he did not tell you. That is all you know. +You know nothing else. You heard nothing. Nobody here heard anything. +Nobody, in this house, knows anything at all. You understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Then see to it. The police will come. You must be at the door. You know +now what to say. They will want a word with me. I am too prostrated to +see anybody."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir."</p> + +<p>"Telephone to the Place. Get Benny. Repeat my orders. Say I will do as +well by him as I shall by you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir."</p> + +<p>"Take the money. You may have the case also."</p> + +<p>"I thank you, sir."</p> + +<p>"Tell Peters to fetch me some brandy. The 1810. That will do."</p> + +<p>Presently, when the police did come and, several hours later, in the +person of Mr. Harvey, came again, they came upon the barriers, invisible +and unscalable, which ignorance, properly paid, can erect. With an empty +bag, Mr. Harvey made off; not far, however, a few squares below to the +Athenæum Club.</p> + +<p>There, the hall-porter succeeded in being magnificent The strange and +early visitor he rebuked. It was not customary for members to be +murdered!</p> + +<p>A badge, carelessly disclosed, disconcerted him. For a second only. +However unusual a member might be, no information could be supplied +concerning him. There was another rule, equally strict. Strangers were +not admitted. Though, whether the rule applied to a bull, he was +uncertain. Momentarily, the hall-porter, previously magnificent, became +an unhappy man. Misery is fertile. A compromise surprised him.</p> + +<p>He crooked a thumb. "Here! Go 'round by the back way and ask for Mr. +Johnson—he's one of the captains."</p> + +<p>From the steps, in the slanting rays of the morning sun, he saw him off. +But the gaiety of the eager rays that charged the air with little gold +motes, did not cheer him. The lustre of his office was tarnished. A +member had been murdered! It was most unusual.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, down the area steps, a hostile and hasty youth in +shirt-sleeves and a slashed waistcoat barred the way. The barring was +brief. The badge and a smile demolished it. Within, beneath a low +ceiling, at a long table, other youths, equally slashed but less +hostile, were at breakfast.</p> + +<p>Affably, the intruder raised a hand. "Gentlemen, don't let me disturb +you. I'm just having a look-in on Mr. Johnson."</p> + +<p>Mr. Johnson did not breakfast with slashed young men; it would have been +subversive to discipline, and it was negligently, through a lateral +entrance, that presently he appeared. In evening clothes on this early +morning, he surveyed his visitor, a big fellow with a slight moustache, +an easy way and a missing front tooth, who went straight at it.</p> + +<p>"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Johnson. My name's Harvey. It's about young +Paliser. There may be something in it for you. I'm from Headquarters."</p> + +<p>The captain coughed. "It's awful. I can't tell you anything though. He +wasn't here often. Doubt if I've seen him in a week." He looked about. +The slashed youths were edging up. "Come in here."</p> + +<p>In an adjoining room, he took a chair, waved politely at another, +coughed again and resumed. "You say there may be something in it for +me?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Harvey sat down. "Cert. There'll be a reward—a big one."</p> + +<p>The captain turned it over. "It is as much as my place is worth, but +last evening one of the members was talking fierce about him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, so I heard," said Mr. Harvey, who had heard nothing of the kind +and who, not for an instant, had expected to tumble on a fierce-talking +member. "I heard his name too. It's—er——"</p> + +<p>"Lennox," the captain put in.</p> + +<p>"Lennox, yes, that's it, and just to see how my account tallies with +yours, what did he say?"</p> + +<p>"He said he'd do for him. I could have laughed."</p> + +<p>"It was funny, I laughed myself, and about a woman, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. But he was engaged to be married. I saw it in the +papers."</p> + +<p>"And this young Paliser butted in?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't say. But he threw up his business and sat around and last +night he was going to do for him."</p> + +<p>"At the opera?"</p> + +<p>"He was talking random-like. He had just had a B. and S. I didn't hear +anything about the opera. He wasn't got up for it. Just a business suit. +But, Lord bless you, he didn't do it. He isn't that kind. Nice, +free-handed feller."</p> + +<p>"No, of course not. I wouldn't believe it, not if you told me so. Let me +see. Where did I hear he lives?"</p> + +<p>"I don't rightly know. Somewhere in the neighbourhood."</p> + +<p>"So I thought and his first name is?"</p> + +<p>"I've forgotten. Hold on! Keith! That's it. Keith Lennox. Are you going +to see him? P'raps he can set you straight."</p> + +<p>"P'raps he can."</p> + +<p>"But don't let on about me, my friend."</p> + +<p>"Not on your life," replied his friend, who added: "Where's your hat?"</p> + +<p>"My hat!" Mr. Johnson surprisedly exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Affably that friend of his nodded. "Ever been to Headquarters? Well, +you're going there now!"</p> + +<p>Then, presently, the captain and his friend ascended a stairway, down +which, a few hours later, hoarse voices came.</p> + +<p>"Extra! Extra!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>XXX</h2> + + +<p>At the Athenæum, that afternoon, members gathered together, buttonholed +each other, talked it over and so importantly that, if you had not known +better, you might have thought the war a minor event. It gave one rather +a clear idea of the parochialism of clubland. But then, to discuss the +affairs of people who never heard of you is, essentially, a social act.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the shouted extras had told of Lennox' arrest. The evening +papers supplied the evidence.</p> + +<p>In them you read that Lennox had said he would "do" for Paliser, that in +his possession had been found a stiletto, an opera-check, together with +a will, and that, when apprehended, he had been effecting what is called +a getaway.</p> + +<p>There you had the threat, the instrument, the opportunity and what more +could you ask, except the motive? As for the rest, it was damning. On +that point foregathering members agreed—with one exception.</p> + +<p>In a seated group was Jones. His neighbours alarmed him. They belonged, +he thought, to a very dangerous class, to a class which a sociologist +defined as the most dangerous of all—to the stupid. According to them, +Lennox was not merely guilty, he was worse. He had besplattered the club +with the blood of a man who, hang it all, whether you liked him or not, +was also a member. The Athenæum would become a byword. Already, no +doubt, it was known as the Assassin's. Et cetera and so forth.</p> + +<p>The group thinned, increased, thinned again, scattered.</p> + +<p>Jones, alone with a survivor, addressed him. "How is my handsome friend +to-day?"</p> + +<p>Verelst turned impatiently. "In no mood for jesting. I ought to have +hurried him off. Now he is in jail."</p> + +<p>Jones lit a cigarette. "There are honest men everywhere, even in jail, +perhaps particularly in jail. Whom has he, do you know?"</p> + +<p>"To defend him? Dunwoodie. Ogston told me. Ogston says——"</p> + +<p>"I daresay he does. His remarks are always very poignant."</p> + +<p>"But look here. Before the arrest was known, Ogston was in this room +telling everybody that, last night, he gave Lennox a seat in Paliser's +box. He will have to testify to it. He can't help himself."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I can help him though. I was with Lennox at the time."</p> + +<p>"You were? That's awkward. You may have to corroborate him."</p> + +<p>"I certainly shall. I have the seat."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Lennox dropped the ticket. After he had gone, I found it on the floor. +It is in my shop now."</p> + +<p>"Well, well!" Verelst astoundedly exclaimed. "But, here, hold on. The +papers say he had a return check."</p> + +<p>Jones flicked his ashes. "I have one or two myself. Probably you have. +Even otherwise return checks tell no tales, or rather no dates."</p> + +<p>"I never thought of that."</p> + +<p>"Think of it now, then."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but confound it, there is the stiletto."</p> + +<p>"As you say, there it is and I wish it were here. It is mine."</p> + +<p>Verelst adjusted his glasses. "What are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"The war," Jones answered. "What else? In my shop last evening, Lennox +was drawing his will. In gathering up the sheets, the knife must have +got among them and, without knowing it, he carried it off. This morning +I missed it. The loss affected me profoundly. It is an old friend."</p> + +<p>"You don't tell me."</p> + +<p>"Don't I? I'll go so far as to lay you another basket of pippins that +the police can't produce another like it. On the blade is inscribed +Penetrabo—which is an endearing device."</p> + +<p>"But see here," Verelst excitedly exclaimed. "You must tell Dunwoodie. +You——" In sheer astonishment he broke off.</p> + +<p>Innocently Jones surveyed him. "You think it important as all that?"</p> + +<p>"Important? Important isn't the word."</p> + +<p>With the same air of innocence, Jones nodded. "I thought it wasn't the +word. I should have said trivial."</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>Wickedly Jones laughed. "If you feel reckless enough to go another +basket of pippins, I will wager that if I tell Dunwoodie anything—and +mind the 'if'—he will agree that the paper-cutter is of no +consequence—except to its lawful owner, who wants it back."</p> + +<p>"But tell me——"</p> + +<p>"Anything you like. For the moment, though, tell me something."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>Jones blew a ring of smoke. "Do you happen to know whether Paliser had +anything?"</p> + +<p>"What on earth has that to do with it?"</p> + +<p>Jones blew another ring. "I had an idea that his mother might have left +him something. You knew her, didn't you? Any way, you still know M. P. +Did he ever say anything about it?"</p> + +<p>"He did not need to. It was in the papers. He made over to him the +Splendor, the Place, and some Wall Street and lower Broadway property +that has been part of the Paliser estate since the year One."</p> + +<p>"What is it all worth?" Jones asked. "Ten or twenty million?"</p> + +<p>"Thirty, I should say. Perhaps more. But what has it to do with Lennox?"</p> + +<p>Negligently Jones flicked his ashes. "Well, it changes the subject. I +can't talk about the same thing all the time. It is too fatiguing."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he stood up.</p> + +<p>Verelst put out a hand. "Dunwoodie is sure to look in. Where are you off +to?"</p> + +<p>Jones smiled at him. "I am going to gaze in a window where there are +pippins on view."</p> + +<p>"Go to the devil!" said Verelst, who also got up.</p> + +<p>Fabulists tell strange tales. It is their business to tell them. Jones +had no intention of looking at pippins. What he had in mind was fruit of +another variety. It was some distance away. Before he could make an +appreciable move toward it, Verelst, who had turned from him, turned +back.</p> + +<p>"There!"</p> + +<p>Beyond, through the high-arched entrance, a man was limping. He had the +battered face of an old bulldog and the rumpled clothes of a young +ruffian.</p> + +<p>"There's Dunwoodie!"</p> + +<p>Verelst, a hand on Jones' elbow, propelled him toward the lawyer, who +gratified them with the look, very baleful and equally famous, with +which he was said to reverse the Bench.</p> + +<p>But Verelst, afraid of nothing except damp sheets, stretched a hand. +"You know Ten Eyck Jones. He has something very important to tell you."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jones. "In March, on the eighth or ninth, I have forgotten +which, but it must be in the 'Law Journal,' a decision was rendered——"</p> + +<p>He got no farther. Other members, crowding about, were questioning, +surmising, eager for a detail, a prediction, an obiter dictum, for +anything they could take away and repeat concerning the murder, in which +all knew that the great man was to appear.</p> + +<p>But Dunwoodie was making himself heard, and not gently either. It was as +though already he was at the district attorney's throat.</p> + +<p>"Where is the evidence? Where is it? Where is the evidence? There is not +a shred, not a scintilla. On the absence of facts adduced, I shall +maintain what I assert until the last armed Court of Appeals expires. +Hum! Ha!"</p> + +<p>Fiercely he turned on Jones. "What were you saying, sir?"</p> + +<p>Before Jones could reply, Verelst cut in. "The stiletto is his. He has +the opera-ticket. He——"</p> + +<p>"Imbeciles tell each other that great men think alike," Jones, +interrupting, remarked at Dunwoodie. "I merely happened to be +forestalling your views, when a recent decision occurred to me and——"</p> + +<p>Jones' remarks were lost, drowned by others, by questions, exclamations, +the drivel that amazement creates.</p> + +<p>"But, I say——" "Tell me this——" "No evidence!" "The stiletto his!" +"How did Lennox get it?" "Then what about——"</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie, fastening on Jones, roared at him. "You tell me the +instrument is yours?"</p> + +<p>Jones patted his chin. "I did not, but I will."</p> + +<p>"How do you know, sir?"</p> + +<p>"It has a little love message on it."</p> + +<p>"Hum! Ha!" Dunwoodie barked. "Come to my office to-morrow. Come before +ten."</p> + +<p>Dreamily Jones tilted his hat. "I am not up before ten. Where do you +live? In the Roaring Forties?"</p> + +<p>But, in the mounting clamour, the answer, if answer there were, was +submerged. Jones went out to the street, entered a taxi, gave an address +and sailed away, up and across the Park, along the Riverside and into +the longest thoroughfare—caravan routes excepted—on the planet.</p> + +<p>On a corner was a drug-shop, where anything was to be had, even to +umbrellas and, from a sign that hung there, apparently a notary public +also. Opposite was a saloon, the Ladies Entrance horribly hospitable. +Jones' trained eye—the eye of a novelist—gathered these things which +it dropped in that bag which the subconscious is. Meanwhile the car, +scattering children, tooted, turned and stopped before a leprous door.</p> + +<p>In the hall, a girl of twelve, with the face of a seraph, and the voice +of a fiend, was shrieking at a switchboard. Jones fearing, if he +addressed her, that she might curse him, went on and up, higher, still +higher, and began to feel quite birdlike. On the successive landings +were doors and he wondered what tragedies, what comedies, what aims, +lofty, mean or merely diabolic, they concealed. They were all labelled +with names, Hun or Hebrew, usually both. But one name differed. It +caressed.</p> + +<p>There he rang.</p> + +<p>When it opened, a strawberry mouth opened also. "Oh!" Cassy's blue eyes +were red. There was fright in them. "It is horrible! Tell me, do you +think it was he?"</p> + +<p>Jones removed his hat. "I know it was not."</p> + +<p>That mouth opened again, opened for breath, opened with relief. Gasping, +she stared. "Thank God! I was afraid——But are you sure? It was I who +told him—I thought it my fault. It was killing me. Tell me. Are you +really sure?"</p> + +<p>Jones motioned. "His lawyer is. I have just seen him."</p> + +<p>"He is! Thank God then! Thank God! And my father! It has made him ill. +He liked him so! I am going for medicine now. Will you go in and speak +to him?"</p> + +<p>She turned and called. "It is Mr. Jones—a friend of Mr. Lennox." She +turned again. "I will be back in a minute."</p> + +<p>Beyond, in the room with the piano and the painted warrior, the musician +lay on a sofa, bundled in a rug. There was not much space on the sofa, +yet, as Jones entered, he seemed to recede. Then, cavernously, he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me for not rising. This business has been too much for me. Sit +down."</p> + +<p>Jones put his hat on the table and drew a chair. "I am sorry it has +upset you. It amounts to nothing."</p> + +<p>Perplexedly the musician repeated it. "Nothing?"</p> + +<p>"I was referring to our friend Lennox."</p> + +<p>"You call his arrest nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Well, everything is relative. It may seem unusual to be held without +bail and yet, if we all were, it would be commonplace."</p> + +<p>The musician plucked at the rug. "I suppose everybody thinks he did it?"</p> + +<p>"Everybody, no. I don't think so and I am sure your daughter doesn't."</p> + +<p>"I wish she would hurry."</p> + +<p>"Nor do you."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think so."</p> + +<p>"I doubt if the police do either."</p> + +<p>"After jailing him!"</p> + +<p>Jones, who had been taking in the room, the piano, the portrait, the +table, sketched a gesture.</p> + +<p>"We are all in jail. The opinion of the world is a prison, our own ideas +are another. We are doubly jailed, and very justly. We are depraved +animals. We think, or think we think, and what we think others have +thought for us and, as a rule, erroneously."</p> + +<p>From a phonograph somewhere, in some adjacent den, there floated a tenor +aria, the <i>Bella figlia del amore</i>, pierced suddenly and beautifully by +a contralto's rich voice.</p> + +<p>Jones turned. "That's Caruso. I don't know who the Maddelena is. Do you +remember Campanini?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember him. He was a better actor than Caruso."</p> + +<p>"And so ugly that he was good-looking. Caruso is becoming uneven."</p> + +<p>Vaguely the musician considered the novelist. "You think so?"</p> + +<p>"It rather looked that way last night."</p> + +<p>Angelo Cara plucked again at the rug.</p> + +<p>"But," Jones continued, "in the 'Terra addio' he made up for it. What an +enchantment that duo is!"</p> + +<p>The musician's hand moved from the rug to his face. "You were there +then?"</p> + +<p>I was this morning, thought Jones, but he said: "How sinful Rigoletto is +by comparison to Aïda—by comparison I mean to the last act."</p> + +<p>The other duo now had become a quartette. The voices of Gilda and +Rigoletto were fusing with those of the figlia and the duke.</p> + +<p>The musician appeared to be listening. His sunken eyes were lifted. +Slowly he turned them on Jones.</p> + +<p>"You didn't see anything, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Last night? I did not see Lennox, if that is what you mean, or +Paliser—except for a moment, during the crypt scene."</p> + +<p>Chokingly the musician drew breath. In the effort he gasped. "Then you +know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know."</p> + +<p>The rug rose and fell. It was as though there were a wave beneath it.</p> + +<p>With an air of detachment, Jones added: "Paliser turned to see who was +there. A sword-cane told him."</p> + +<p>The musician's lips twitched, his face had contracted, his hand now was +on his breast. "I wish Cassy would hurry. She's gone for amyl."</p> + +<p>"Is it far?"</p> + +<p>"The corner. Are you going to do anything?"</p> + +<p>Jones shook his head. "I don't need to."</p> + +<p>The sunken eyes were upon him. "Why do you say that?"</p> + +<p>"You are an honest man."</p> + +<p>The sunken eyes wavered. "At least I never supposed they would arrest +Lennox. How could I?"</p> + +<p>"No one could have supposed it. Besides, in your own conscience you were +justified, were you not?"</p> + +<p>"You know about that, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know about that."</p> + +<p>The Rigoletto disc now had been replaced by another, one from which a +voice brayed, a voice nasal, jocular, felonious.</p> + +<p>"That beast ought to be shot," Jones added.</p> + +<p>The musician raised himself a little. "You don't misjudge her, do you?"</p> + +<p>Jones, annoyed at the swill tossed about, had turned from him. He turned +back. "Believe me, Mr. Cara, there is no one for whom I have a higher +respect."</p> + +<p>A spasm seized the musician. For a moment, save for the effort at +breath, he was silent. Then feebly he said: "I wish she would hurry."</p> + +<p>"Can I do anything?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, tell me. Do you condemn me?"</p> + +<p>The novelist hesitated. "There are no human scales for any soul. Though, +to be sure——"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"It might have been avoided. As it is, they will suspect her."</p> + +<p>"Cassy?"</p> + +<p>"Naturally. They can't hold Lennox on a paper-cutter—that belongs to +me, and a few empty words said in my presence and which, if necessary, I +did not hear. They can't hold him on that. But when they learn, as they +will, the circumstances of your daughter's misadventure, they will +arrest her."</p> + +<p>"Merciful God!"</p> + +<p>The jeopardy to her, a jeopardy previously undiscerned, but which then +shaken at him, instantly took shape, twisted his mouth into the +appalling grimace that mediæval art gave to the damned.</p> + +<p>"And you don't want that," Jones remotely resumed.</p> + +<p>"Want it!" Galvanised by the shock, the musician sat suddenly up. "Last +night, after I got back, I slept like a log. This morning, I felt if I +had not done it, I would still have it to do and that satisfied me. But +afterwards, when I learned about Lennox, it threw me here. Now——My +God!"</p> + +<p>He fell back.</p> + +<p>The poor devil is done for, thought Jones, who, wondering whether he +could get it over in time, leaned forward.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Cara, don't you think you had best make it plain sailing for +everybody, and let me draw up a declaration?"</p> + +<p>The disc now had run out. The grunt of the beast was stilled. From +beyond came the quick click of a key. Almost at once Cassy appeared.</p> + +<p>She hurried to her father. "There were people ahead of me. They took +forever. Has Mr. Jones told you? Mr. Lennox did not do it."</p> + +<p>Breaking a tube in a handkerchief, she was administering the amyl and +Jones wondered whether she could then suspect. But her face was turned +from him, he could not read it, and realising that, in any event, she +must be spared the next act, he cast about for an excuse to get her +away. At once, remembering the notary, he produced him.</p> + +<p>"Your father wants me to draw a paper on which his signature should be +attested. If I am not asking too much, would you mind going back to the +druggist for the notary whose sign I saw there?"</p> + +<p>Cassy turned from her father. "A paper? What paper?"</p> + +<p>Bravely Jones lied. "A will."</p> + +<p>Cassy looked from one to the other. "The poor dear often has these +attacks. He will be better soon—now that he knows. Won't you, daddy?"</p> + +<p>Angelo Cara's eyes had in them an expression infinitely tender, equally +vacant. It was as though, in thinking of her, he was thinking too of +something else. Though, as Jones afterward decided, he probably was not +thinking at all.</p> + +<p>Cassy exclaimed at him. "Besides, what have you—except me?"</p> + +<p>"Everybody has to make a will," Jones, lying again, put in. "There has +been a new law passed. The eternal revenue collector requires it."</p> + +<p>Cassy smoothed the rug, put the handkerchief on the table, opened a +drawer, got out some paper, a pen, a bottle of ink.</p> + +<p>In a moment she had gone.</p> + +<p>Jones seated himself at the table. "Forgive me for asking, but may I +assume that you believe in God, a life hereafter and in the rewards and +punishments which, we are told, await us?"</p> + +<p>The musician closed his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Jones, who began to write:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I, Angelo Cara, being in full possession of my senses and conscious +of the immanence of death, do solemnly swear to the truth of this +my dying declaration, which, I also solemnly swear, is made by me +without any collusion with Keith Lennox. First; I firmly believe in +God, in a life hereafter, and in future rewards and punishments. +Second; I alone am guilty of the murder of Montagu Paliser, jr., +whom I killed without aid or accomplices and without the privity or +knowledge of any other person.</p></div> + +<p>Jones, wishing that in his law-school days he had crammed less and +studied more, looked up.</p> + +<p>"I cannot compliment you on your pen, Mr. Cara. But then, pen and ink +always seem so emphatic. Personally, I prefer a pencil. Writing with a +pencil is like talking in a whisper."</p> + +<p>It was in an effort to deodorise the atmosphere, charged with the +ghastly, that he said it. The declarant did not appear to notice. His +sunken eyes had been closed. Widely they opened.</p> + +<p>"The other side!"</p> + +<p>Jones blotted the declaration. "The other side cannot be very different +from this side. Not that part of it at least which people, such as you +and I, first visit. A bit farther on, I suppose we prepare for our +return here. For that matter, it will be very careless of us, if we +don't. We relive and redie and redie and relive, endlessly, ad +infinitum. The Church does not put it in just that manner, but the +allegory of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting +amounts, perhaps, to the same thing. 'Never the spirit was born, the +spirit shall cease to be never.' That is the way Edwin Arnold expressed +it, after the 'Gita' had expressed it for him. But probably you have not +frequented the 'Gita,' Mr. Cara. It is an exceedingly——"</p> + +<p>"Cassy's lace dress is all torn. It was so pretty."</p> + +<p>He is in the astral now, thought Jones, who said: "She will have a much +prettier one."</p> + +<p>But now again from the hall came that quick click and Cassy appeared, a +little fat man behind her.</p> + +<p>Jones stood up. "How do you do. You know Mr. Cara. Mr. Cara wants his +signature attested."</p> + +<p>The little man exhibited his gold teeth. "With a will that is not the +way. I told this young lady so but she would have it that I come along."</p> + +<p>The young lady, who was taking her hat off, left the room.</p> + +<p>Jones fished in a pocket. "It is very good of you. Here, if you please, +is your fee. The document is not a will, it is a release."</p> + +<p>As the novelist spoke, he put the pen in the musician's hand and, +finding it necessary, or thinking that it was, for, as he afterward +realised, it was not, he guided it.</p> + +<p>"You acknowledge this——" the notary began. But at the moment Cassy +returned and, it may be, distracted by her, he mumbled the rest, took +the reply for granted, applied the stamp, exhibited his teeth. Then, at +once, the hall had him.</p> + +<p>Cassy turned to Jones. Her face disclosed as many emotions as an opal +has colours. Relief, longing, uncertainty, and distress were there, +ringed in beauty.</p> + +<p>"Miss Austen ought to know how she has misjudged him. Do you suppose she +would let me see her?"</p> + +<p>Bully for you! thought Jones, who said: "I cannot imagine any one +refusing you anything."</p> + +<p>In speaking, he heard something. Cassy turned. She too had heard it. But +what?</p> + +<p>With a cry she ran to the sofa. "Daddy!"</p> + +<p>His face was grey, the grey that dawn has, the grey than which there is +nothing greyer and yet in which there is light. That light was there. +His upper-lip was just a little raised. It was as though he had seen +something that pleased him and of which he was about to tell.</p> + +<p>"Daddy!"</p> + +<p>Jones followed her. He drew down the rug and bent over. After a moment, +he drew the rug up, well up, and, with a forefinger, saluted.</p> + +<p>Cassy, tearing the covering back, flung herself there. Jones could not +see her tears. He heard them. Her slim body shook.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>XXXI</h2> + + +<p>On leaving the walk-up Jones discovered a restaurant that he judged +convenient and vile. But the convenience appealed, and the villainy of +the place did not extend to the telephone-book, which was the first +thing he ordered.</p> + +<p>While waiting for it, it occurred to him that in a novel the death he +had witnessed would seem very pat. Why is life so artificial? he +wonderingly asked.</p> + +<p>The query suggested another. It concerned not the decedent but his +daughter.</p> + +<p>By the Lord Harry, he told himself, her linen shall not be washed in +public if I can prevent it, and what is the use in being a novelist if +you can't invent?</p> + +<p>But now the book was before him. In it he found that Dunwoodie resided +near Columbia University. It was ages since he had ventured in that +neighbourhood, which, when finally he got there, gave him the agreeable +sensation of being in a city other than New York.</p> + +<p>Hic Labor, Haec Quies, he saw written on the statue of a tall maiden, +and though, in New York, quiet is to be had only in the infrequent +cemeteries, deep down, yet with the rest of the inscription he had been +engaged all day.</p> + +<p>Gravely saluting the maiden, who was but partly false, he passed on to +an apartment-house and to Dunwoodie's door, which was opened by +Dunwoodie himself. In slippers and a tattered gown, he was Hogarthian.</p> + +<p>"I thought it a messenger!" he bitterly exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Jones smiled at him. "When a man of your eminence is not wrong, he is +invariably right. I am a messenger."</p> + +<p>In the voice of an ogre, Dunwoodie took it up. "What is the message, +sir?"</p> + +<p>Jones pointed at the ceiling. Involuntarily, Dunwoodie looked up and +then angrily at the novelist.</p> + +<p>"An order of release," the latter announced.</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie glared. "I suppose, sir, I must let you in, but allow me to +tell you——"</p> + +<p>Urbanely Jones gestured. "Pray do not ask my permission, it is a +privilege to listen to anything you may say."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie turned. Through a winding hall he led the way to a room in +which a lane went from the threshold to a table. The lane was bordered +with an underbush of newspapers, pamphlets, magazines. Behind the +underbush was a forest of books. Beside the table were an armchair and a +stool. From above, hung a light. Otherwise, save for cobwebs, the room +was bare and very relaxing.</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie taking the chair, indicated the stool. "Now, sir!"</p> + +<p>Jones gave him the declaration.</p> + +<p>With not more than a glance Dunwoodie possessed himself of the contents. +He put it down.</p> + +<p>"If I had not known you had studied law, not for a moment would that +rigamarole lead me to suspect it."</p> + +<p>In a protest which was quite futile, Jones raised a hand. "The notary is +unnecessary, I know that. I know also that a dying declaration is not +the best evidence, but——"</p> + +<p>"Do you at least know that the declarant is dead?"</p> + +<p>Jones, who favoured the dramatic, nodded. "He died in my arms."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie took it in and took it out. "It is curious how crime leads to +bad taste."</p> + +<p>Jones leaned forward. "I may tell you for your information——"</p> + +<p>"Spare me, I am overburdened with information as it is."</p> + +<p>Jones sat back. He had no intention of taking Dunwoodie then behind the +scenes. That would come later. But he did want to try out an invention +that had occurred to him. He sighed.</p> + +<p>"Don't you care to hear why he did it?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least."</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie fumbled in a pocket. "The district attorney may be more +receptive. I shall go to him in the morning and I will thank you to go +with me."</p> + +<p>"I am not up in the morning."</p> + +<p>"Then don't go to bed."</p> + +<p>From the pocket, Dunwoodie extracted an enormous handkerchief. It +fascinated Jones. He had never seen one that resembled it.</p> + +<p>"You dispose of me admirably. The district attorney, I suppose, will +enter a nolle prosequi."</p> + +<p>In that handkerchief, Dunwoodie snorted. "You may suppose what you +like."</p> + +<p>Jones laughed. "It is my business to suppose. I suppose, when the murder +was committed, that Lennox was at home. If I am right, he has an alibi +which his servant can confirm."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie stared. "Whatever your business may be, it is not to teach me +mine."</p> + +<p>Jones drew out a cigarette-case. "Let me sit at your feet then. What +does Lennox say?"</p> + +<p>"How inquisitive you are! But to be rid of you, he——"</p> + +<p>"May I smoke?" Jones interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Good God, sir! You are not preparing to make a night of it?"</p> + +<p>"I have one or two other little matters in hand. But since I may suppose +all I like, I take it that Lennox intended to go to the opera, though I +fancy also that he had no intention of going to Paliser's box. I suppose +that he intended to wait about and go for him hot and heavy when he came +out. I suppose also that, while dressing, he changed his mind. And, by +the way, isn't there such a writ as a mandamus, or a duces tecum? I +would like my paper-cutter returned."</p> + +<p>"Confound your paper-cutter! You don't deserve to have me admit it, but +Lennox' account of it is that before going on to the opera, he stopped +to write a letter to Miss—er—Hum! Ha!"</p> + +<p>"Miss Austen?"</p> + +<p>"And when he got through it was midnight."</p> + +<p>"I'll lay a pippin he didn't send it."</p> + +<p>"What, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Lennox had a lot to say. It was gagging him. He would have suffocated +if he had kept it in. The effect of getting it on black and white was an +emetic. He read it over, judged it inadequate, tore it up. I have done +the same thing. I daresay you have."</p> + +<p>The great man sat back. "His scrap-basket has been visited. The letter +was there."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I suppose the short and long of it is, you will have him +out to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"As I said, you may suppose all you like."</p> + +<p>"Without indiscretion then, may I suppose that you live here alone?"</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie flourished his handkerchief. It was cotton and big as a towel.</p> + +<p>"I am not as young as you are, sir, and whether erroneously or not, I +believe myself better informed."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Jones put in. "Your physiognomy corroborates you. I have sometimes +thought that it were difficult for the Seven Sages to be as wise as you +look—which is the reason, perhaps, why I do not quite follow you."</p> + +<p>"I did not imagine that you would. You are a sociable being. Every +imbecile is pitiably sociable. But for a thinking man, a man without +vices and without virtues, what is there except solitude?"</p> + +<p>Appreciatively Jones motioned. "Thank you for descending to my level. As +it happens, I also have a cloister where I have the double advantage of +being by myself and of not being with others. But now that I am in your +hermitage, there is this Matter of Ziegler, concerning which I would +like the benefit of your professional advice."</p> + +<p>"Hum! Ha! Got yourself mixed up with a woman and want me to pull you +out. Well, sir, you will find it expensive. But a hermitage is not an +office. I shall expect you at mine to-morrow. I shall expect you before +ten."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie stood up. "To-morrow, though, your turpitudes will have to +wait. Have you been served?"</p> + +<p>Jones laughed. "Not yet."</p> + +<p>"Time enough then. You can find the door?"</p> + +<p>Through the lane, bordered by rubbish, and on through the winding hall, +Jones went out. As Dunwoodie had said, there was time enough. There had +been no service—no summons, no complaint. It might be that there would +be none. The matter might adjust itself without any. It might be that +there was no ground for action. Jones could not tell. After the manner +of those who have crammed for a law examination, there had been a moment +when he knew, or thought he knew, it all. But also after the manner of +those who have not taken the post-graduate course which practice is, the +crammed knowledge had gone. Only remnants and misfits remained. It was +on these that he had conjectured the suit which, meanwhile, constituted +a nut to crack. There was time and to spare though. Besides, for the +moment, he had other things to do.</p> + +<p>Then, as he went on to attend to them, he wondered why Dunwoodie, who, +he thought, must make a hundred thousand a year, lived like a ragpicker.</p> + +<p>Before him, the starshell, which imagination projects, burst suddenly.</p> + +<p>He said he had no virtues and probably told the truth, Jones decided. In +which case he cannot be a miser. But he also said he had no vices and +probably lied like a thief. The old scoundrel is a philanthropist. I +would wager an orchard of pippins on that, but there is no one to take +me up—except this policeman.</p> + +<p>"Officer," he resumed aloud. "Behold a stranger in a strange land. By +any miracle, is there a taxi-stand nearby?"</p> + +<p>Then presently Jones was directing a driver.</p> + +<p>"The Tombs!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>XXXII</h2> + + +<p>In a dirty cell Lennox sat on a dirty cot. Through a door, dirty too, +but barred, came a shuffle of feet, the sound of the caged at bay and +that odour, perhaps unique, which prisons share, the smell of dry-rot, +perspiration, disinfectants and poisoned teeth. In addition to the odour +there was light, not much, but some. Nearby was a sink. Altogether it +was a very nice cell, fit for the Kaiser. Lennox took no pleasure in it. +Rage enveloped him. The rage was caused not by the cell but by his +opinion of it. That was only human.</p> + +<p>Events in themselves are empty. It is we who fill them. They become +important or negligible, according to the point of view. We give them +the colours, violent, agreeable, or merely neutral, that they obtain. It +is the point of view that fills and affects them. The point of view can +turn three walls and a door into a madhouse. It can convert them into an +ivory tower. To Lennox they were merely revolting.</p> + +<p>That morning he had laughed. His arrest amused him. He laughed at it, +laughed at the police. They took no offence. Instead they took the +cigars that he offered and a few accessories which they grabbed. It is a +way the police have. Still Lennox laughed. He knew of course that at +Headquarters he would be at once released, the entire incident properly +regretted. When he found himself not only elaborately wrong but in +court, laughter ceased. Anger replaced it. He had been first amused, +then surprised, afterwards exasperated, emotions that finally addled +into rage, not at others but at himself, which was rather decent. In any +of the defeats of life, the simple blame others; the wise blame +themselves; the evolved blame nobody. Lennox had not reached that high +plane then but in directing his anger at himself he showed the +advantages of civilisation which the war has put in such admirable +relief.</p> + +<p>Now, on that cot, in that cell, ragingly he retraced his steps. He saw +himself loving Margaret Austen as though he were to love her forever. A +hero can do no more. He saw her loving him with a love so light that a +breath had blown it away. A nymph in the brake could do no worse. Yet +whether on her part it were perversity or mere shallowness, the result +was the same. It had landed him in jail. For that he acquitted her +completely. What he could not forgive was his own stupidity in +persisting in loving her after she had turned away.</p> + +<p>The night before, while, at the opera, the <i>Terra Addio</i> was being sung, +he had been writing her one of the endless letters that only those +vomiting in an attack of indignation morbus ever produce. In the relief +of getting it in black and white, the nausea abated. Then judging it all +very idle, he tore the letter in two. It was a gesture made before +relapsing into a silence which he had intended should be eternal. At the +very moment when Paliser was being run through the gizzards, he, turning +a page of life, had scrawled on it Hic jacet.</p> + +<p>Now, on that cot, Paliser recurring, he thought of him with so little +animosity that he judged his spectacular death inadequate. But who, he +wondered, had staged it? Not Cassy. Cassy took things with too high a +hand and reasonably perhaps, since she took them from where her +temperament had placed her. Then, without further effort at the riddle, +his thoughts drifted back to that afternoon when, from his rooms, the +sunlight had followed her out like a dog.</p> + +<p>He had been looking at the floor, but without seeing it. Then at once, +without seeing it either, he saw something else, something which for a +long time must have been there, something that had been acting on him +and in him without his knowledge. It was the key to another prison, the +key to the prison that life often is and which, in the great defeats, +every man who is a man finds at his feet and usually without looking for +it either.</p> + +<p>"But I love her!" he suddenly exclaimed.</p> + +<p>There is a magic in those words. No sooner were they uttered than his +mind became a rendezvous of apparitions. He saw Cassy as he had seen her +first, as he had seen her last, as he had seen her through all the +changes and mutations of their acquaintance, saw her eyes lifted to his, +saw her face turned from him.</p> + +<p>The crystallisation which, operating in the myriad cells of the brain, +creates our tastes, our temptations, our desires; creates them unknown +to us, creates them even against our will, and which without his will or +knowledge, had, like a chemical precipitate, been acting on him, then +was complete.</p> + +<p>"I love her!" he repeated.</p> + +<p>The dirty cot, the dirty cell, the dirty floor, a point of view was +transforming. At the moment they ceased to be revolting. Then +immediately another view restored their charm.</p> + +<p>"She won't have me!"</p> + +<p>The dirty cell reshaped itself and he thought of life, a blind fate +treacherous always.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, how I envy you!"</p> + +<p>Lennox turned. Wriggling through the bars a hand which a keeper checked, +stood Jones.</p> + +<p>"When Cervantes enjoyed the advantages that you possess, the walls +parted and through them cavalcaded the strumpet whose name is Fame. In +circumstances equally inspiring Bunyan entertained that hussy. Verlaine +too. From a dungeon she lifted him to Parnassus, lifted him to the top. +If I only had their luck—and yours! It is too good for you. You don't +appreciate it. Besides you will be out to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"I ought not to be here at all," Lennox indignantly retorted.</p> + +<p>"No, you are most undeserving. Mais écoute. C'est le père de la petite +qui a fait le coup. Il me l'a avoué, ensuite il a claqué et depuis j'ai +vu ton avocat. C'est une brute mais——"</p> + +<p>"Can that," put in the keeper, a huge creature with a cauliflower face, +dingy and gnarled. "You guys got to cough English."</p> + +<p>Ingratiatingly Jones turned to him. "I mistook you for a distinguished +foreigner. Dear me, my life is too full of pleasure!"</p> + +<p>He turned to Lennox. "That's it. You are here to-day and gone to-morrow. +Now that I have envied you insufficiently I'll go too. While I am about +it I'll go to Park Avenue. Any message?"</p> + +<p>"None."</p> + +<p>"Make it briefer. Besides, look here. I'll wager a wilderness of pippins +that Park Avenue was not and never thought of being engaged to what's +his name. I'll wager because it is not in the picture. Do you hear me?"</p> + +<p>"I hear you."</p> + +<p>"You are very gifted. Nothing wrong with your tongue, though, is there?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever."</p> + +<p>"Behold then the messenger awaiting the message."</p> + +<p>"Very good. I'm through. Absolutely, completely, entirely. If you must +be a busybody say that. I'm through."</p> + +<p>But that was not Jones' idea of the game and he out with it. "I'll do +nothing of the kind."</p> + +<p>"Won't you?" Lennox retorted. He had remained seated. But rising then, +he looked at the keeper, motioned at Jones.</p> + +<p>"If that man asks for me again, say I'm out."</p> + +<p>Jones laughed. "Wow-wow, old cock! I wish I could have said that but I +probably shall. Meanwhile book this: Dinner to-morrow, Athenæum at +eight. By-bye. Remember Cervantes. Don't forget Verlaine. Sweet dreams."</p> + +<p>Lennox sat down, looked at the key, tried to turn it. That door too was +barred.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII</h2> + + +<p>The offices of Dunwoodie, Bramwell, Strawbridge and Cohen were supplied +with a rotunda in which Jones sat waiting, and Jones loved to sit and +wait.</p> + +<p>Since the musician's tenement had crumbled and the soul of the violinist +had gone forth, gone to the unseen assessors who pityingly, with +indulgent hands, weigh our stupid sins, since then a week had passed. +During it, a paper signed by the dead had been admitted by the living, a +prisoner had been discharged and for no other imaginable reason than +because he had killed nobody, Lennox became a hero.</p> + +<p>New York is very forgetful. Lennox sank back into the blank anonymity to +which humanity in the aggregate is eternally condemned and from which, +at a bound, he had leaped. The papers were to tell of him again, but +casually, without scareheads, among the yesterdays and aviators in +France. That though was later.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile an enigma remained. Very heroically a young man had done +nothing. Hurrah and good-bye! The calciums of curiosity turned on an +obscure fiddler who, after murdering another young man, had succeeded in +bilking the chair.</p> + +<p>But why had he killed him? That was the enigma, one which would have +been exciting, if the solution had not been so prompt and so tame. At +the proceedings which resulted in Lennox' discharge, it was testified +that Angelo Cara had been temporarily deranged.</p> + +<p>The testimony, expertly advanced by a novelist who was not an expert, +the reporters grabbed before the court could rule it out. The grabbing +was natural. The decedent's declaration had been made to Jones who, +though not an alienist, was the teller of tales that have been +translated into every polite language, including the Japanese, which is +the politest of all. Moreover, have not the mendacious been properly +subdivided into liars, damned liars and expert witnesses? To Verdun with +the lot! Mr. Ten Eyck Jones was certainly not an expert, but certainly +too he was somebody, he was a best-seller and in the way we live now, +the testimony of the best-seller is entitled to every editorial respect. +The court might rule his testimony out, city editors saluted it.</p> + +<p>Jones' little invention did wash therefore and, in the washing, poured +balm by the bucket over the father of the murdered man.</p> + +<p>Then, gradually, like everything else, except war and the taxes, both +murderer and murdered were dropped in the great dust-bin of oblivion +that awaits us all.</p> + +<p>In the rotunda, meanwhile, Jones sat kicking his heels. It was in the +morning, and always in the morning Jones was invisibly at work. Now, his +routine upset, loathingly he kicked his heels. But Jones had ways of +consoling himself that were very commonplace.</p> + +<p>I am doing all the evil I can, he vindictively reflected, and it was +with the comfort of his animosity about him that, ultimately, he was +shown into an office—bright and, on this May forenoon, very airy—that +gave on Broad Street.</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie, twisting in a chair, glared at him.</p> + +<p>"Ecce iterum Crispinus!" Jones tritely began. "What price retainers +to-day?"</p> + +<p>"I hoped to God I had seen the last of you," Dunwoodie, with elaborate, +old-fashioned courtesy, replied.</p> + +<p>Jones, disdaining to be asked, drew a chair.</p> + +<p>Viciously Dunwoodie eyed him. "What the devil do you want?"</p> + +<p>Jones smiled at him. "That decision."</p> + +<p>"What decision, sir?"</p> + +<p>"The one I cited when I brought you the paper that secured Lennox' +discharge."</p> + +<p>"Damme, sir, nothing of the kind. I would have had him discharged any +way."</p> + +<p>Jones' smile broadened. "You seem capable of anything. It is a great +quality. Believe me, if I thought you lacked it, you would not now be +enjoying my society."</p> + +<p>"You flatter yourself strangely, sir. If you have nothing to say, don't +keep on saying it."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, I am here to listen to you," Jones agreeably put in. +"I want your views on that case, 'The Matter of Ziegler.'"</p> + +<p>"Hum! Ha! Got yourself in a mess. Yaas. I remember. Been served yet? +Give me the facts."</p> + +<p>One after another, Jones produced them.</p> + +<p>During their recital, Dunwoodie twirled his thumbs. At their conclusion, +he expressed himself with entire freedom. After which, he saw Jones to +the door, an act which he performed only when he felt particularly +uncivil. At the moment the old bulldog's lip was lifted. But not at +Jones.</p> + +<p>Broad Street was very bright that day. Its brilliance did not extend to +the market. Values were departing. The slump was on. Speculators, +investors, the long and the shorts, bank-messengers, broker's-clerks, +jostled Jones, who went around the corner, where a cavern gaped and +swallowed him.</p> + +<p>Crashingly the express carried him uptown. He did not know but that he +might have lingered. There is always room at the top, though perhaps it +is unwise to buy there. At the bottom, there is room too, much more. It +is very gloomy, but it is the one safe place. Jones did not think that +the market had got there yet. None the less it was inviting. On the +other hand, he did think he might eat something. There was a restaurant +that he wot of where, the week before, he had had a horrible bite. The +restaurant was nauseating, but convenient. To that dual attraction he +succumbed.</p> + +<p>At table there, he meditated on the inscrutable possibilities of life +which, he decided, is full of changes, particularly in the subway; +whereupon a tale in Perrault's best manner occurred to him.</p> + +<p>A waiter, loutish and yet infinitely dreary, intervened. Jones paid and +went out on the upper reaches of Broadway. The fairy-tale that he had +evoked accompanied him. It was charmful as only a fairy-tale can be. But +the end, while happy, was hazy. He did not at all know whether it would +do.</p> + +<p>Abruptly he awoke.</p> + +<p>"Will you come in?" Cassy was saying.</p> + +<p>She had her every-day manner, her every-day clothes, her usual hat. +Jones, noting these details, inwardly commended them. But at once, +another detail was apparent. The entrance to the room where the <i>Bella +figlia</i> had been succeeded by a dirge, was blocked. There was a table in +it.</p> + +<p>Cassy motioned. "I was trying to get it out when it got itself wedged +there. Will you crawl under it, as I have to, or would you prefer to use +it as a divan?"</p> + +<p>"Where your ladyship crawleth, I will crawl," Jones gravely replied. "I +just love going on all fours."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he went under. With a sad little smile she followed.</p> + +<p>"I know I ought to be in mourning," she told him as he brushed his +knees.</p> + +<p>She hesitated and sat down. She did not say that she lacked the money to +buy the suits and trappings. She did not want to say that she had sold +the table, which was the last relic of her early home, nor yet that she +had been trying to get it out, in order to prevent the Jew purchaser +from again coming in. Instead, she fingered her smock.</p> + +<p>"I have been looking for an engagement and they don't want you in +black."</p> + +<p>Jones took a chair. "War has made mourning an anachronism in Europe. If +it lasts long enough, it will do the same here and do the same with art. +But you are very brave." He looked about. "I understood your father had +a Cremona."</p> + +<p>"The poor dear thought so, but a dealer to whom I took it said it was a +Tyrolean copy."</p> + +<p>Jones put down his hat. "The brutes always say something of the kind. +What did it look like?"</p> + +<p>Cassy glanced at him. "A flute, of course. What else would a violin look +like?"</p> + +<p>"You are quite right. I meant the colour."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the colour! Madeira with a sheen in it."</p> + +<p>"Yes!" Jones exclaimed. "That is the exact and precise description of +the Amati varnish, of which the secret is lost. I hope you did not let +the brute have it."</p> + +<p>Cassy did not want to tell him that either. But when you are very +forlorn it is hard to keep everything in.</p> + +<p>"I needed a little for the funeral and he gave it to me."</p> + +<p>"And it was worth thousands! Have you found an engagement?"</p> + +<p>"The season is ending. Then too, either I have lost confidence or I am +not up to it, not yet at least."</p> + +<p>"I can understand that."</p> + +<p>Cassy gestured. "It is not this empty room, it is the doors that slam. +We know we should hasten to love those whom we do love, lest they leave +us forever before we have loved them enough. But do we? We think we have +time and to spare. I know I thought so. I was careless, forgetful, +selfish. That is one of the doors. I can't close it."</p> + +<p>"Time will."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. Meanwhile I am told I should change my name. At first, I felt +very bitterly toward you for what you did here. It seemed inhuman of +you. Since then I have realised that you could not have done otherwise. +It saved Mr. Lennox. I would have done that."</p> + +<p>"I am sure of it."</p> + +<p>"But I won't change my name. I won't put such an affront on the poor +dear who thought—yet there! I shall never know what he thought, but +who, however wrongly, did it because of me. If only I had not told him! +I ought never to have said a word. Never! That door slams the loudest. +It wakes me. It is slamming all the time."</p> + +<p>"That too shall pass."</p> + +<p>Cassy doubted it. The door and the noise of it hurt. Her eyes filled. +Yet, too sensitive to weep at anybody, even at an inkbeast, she stood +up, went to the window and, while reabsorbing her tears, looked, or +affected to look, at a lean stripe of blue sky.</p> + +<p>Meditatively Jones considered her. "Fine day for a walk."</p> + +<p>It was as though he had offered her a handkerchief. Tearful no longer, +but annoyed, she turned and sat down.</p> + +<p>"You seem very original."</p> + +<p>"It is absentmindedness, I think. I meant to ask, are you ever down near +the Stock Exchange?"</p> + +<p>"That is where Mr. Lennox goes, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"There are others that frequent the neighbourhood. Among them is a +deacon named Dunwoodie."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he the lawyer who acted for Mr. Lennox?"</p> + +<p>"Now you mention it, I believe he is. Anyway, I wonder if you would care +to have him act for you?"</p> + +<p>Cassy crossed her hands. "I don't understand you."</p> + +<p>"For a moment or two, he didn't either. Then he said he would like to +see you. That was an hour ago. I have just come from his office."</p> + +<p>"But what in the world does he want of me? Everything is over now, isn't +it? Or are there more doors? Really, if there are, I don't think I can +stand it. I don't think I can, Mr. Jones."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but there are doors that don't slam, doors that are closed and +locked and barred. Sometimes there is romance behind them, sometimes +there are santal-wood boxes crammed with rubies; sometimes there are +secrets, sometimes there are landscapes of beckoning palms. One never +quite knows what there is behind closed doors. He may open one or two +for you. Wouldn't it interest you to let him try?"</p> + +<p>Cassy's eyelids had been a trifle tremulous, in her under-lip there had +been also a little uncertainty. But at the vistas which the novelist +dangled at her, she succeeded in looking, as she could look, +immeasurably remote.</p> + +<p>"That sort of thing is chorus-girl!"</p> + +<p>Blankly Jones stared. "What sort of thing?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you want me to bring an action. I will do nothing of the kind. +Even if he were living, I would rather be dead. Besides, it was all my +fault. I ought to have known better."</p> + +<p>"Better than what?" enquired the novelist, who now had got his bearings.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jones, I told you all about it."</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, if I seem to contradict you. You did not tell all."</p> + +<p>Cassy stiffened.</p> + +<p>"How could you?" Jones continued. "Details are so tiresome. To-day when +I was talking to Dunwoodie, I advanced a few. Dunwoodie is a very +ordinary person. Details bore you, they bore me. He dotes on them. By +the way, you said something about changing your name. I wish you would. +Couldn't you take mine?"</p> + +<p>"You are ridiculous."</p> + +<p>"As you like. Any one else would call me mercenary."</p> + +<p>He's crazy, Cassy uncomfortably reflected. What shall I do?</p> + +<p>Modestly the novelist motioned. "Ten Eyck Jones now! It doesn't rhyme +with Victor Hugo or even with Andrew Carnegie, but it has a lilt. It +might be worse."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about?" Cassy, with increasing discomfort, put in.</p> + +<p>"There is a little thing that turns men into flint and women into putty. +That's what I am talking about. I am talking money."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. The subject does not interest me."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but you are evolved! Would that the butcher were! We all have to +consider his incapacities and money helps us. I have an idea that your +dear departed may have left you a trifle."</p> + +<p>"Really, Mr. Jones, you are talking nonsense."</p> + +<p>"It is a specialty of mine."</p> + +<p>"Besides, it is impossible."</p> + +<p>"Impossible is a word that intelligent young women never employ."</p> + +<p>"Very good. Admitting the possibility, I won't take it."</p> + +<p>"It might be paid into your bank."</p> + +<p>"I haven't any bank."</p> + +<p>"One could be found for you."</p> + +<p>"I would tell them not to accept it."</p> + +<p>"The bank that won't accept money does not exist."</p> + +<p>Cassy flushed. "I rather liked you. Couldn't you be less hateful?"</p> + +<p>"You are trying to pick a quarrel with me."</p> + +<p>"Nothing of the kind."</p> + +<p>"Then will you let me take you to Dunwoodie?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not."</p> + +<p>"Then will you go alone?"</p> + +<p>"But why? Why should I? What does this man with an absurd name want of +me?"</p> + +<p>Jones pulled at a cuff. "Well, look at it from this angle. Before you +discovered that your marriage was a sham, you were prepared to assume a +few obligations and some of them may still subsist. The man with the +absurd name can tell you what they are. Surely you are not a slacker. +This is war-time."</p> + +<p>With that abandonment which is so gracious in a woman, Cassy half raised +a hand. "My front line is wavering."</p> + +<p>Jones reached for his hat. "Over the top then!"</p> + +<p>Under the table they crawled.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV</h2> + + +<p>"Your very obedient servant, madam."</p> + +<p>With that and a fine bow, Dunwoodie greeted Cassy when Jones had +succeeded in getting her into the inner and airy office. The old ruffian +drew a chair.</p> + +<p>"Do me the honour."</p> + +<p>Cassy sat down. What a funny old man, she thought.</p> + +<p>Jones addressing the door, remarked dreamily: "Pendente lite, I will +renew my acquaintance with Swinburne's 'Espousals.'"</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie glared. "You will find it in the library." Then he sat down, +folded his hands on his waistcoat and smiled at Cassy. "Nice day."</p> + +<p>"Very."</p> + +<p>"Down here often?"</p> + +<p>Cassy shook her docked hair. "No, and I don't at all know why I am here +now. I do know though, and I may as well tell you at once, I have no +intention of making a fuss."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie's smile, a smile quasi-ogrish, semi-paternal, expanded. "If +our Potsdam friend only resembled you!"</p> + +<p>For a young woman so recently and doubly bereaved, Cassy's blue smock +and yellow skirt seemed to him properly subdued. Moreover, from a word +that Jones had dropped, he realised that wealth had not presided at +their selection.</p> + +<p>He twirled his thumbs. "But let me ask, what may your full name be?"</p> + +<p>"Bianca Cara."</p> + +<p>"Hum! Ha! Most becoming. And how young are you?"</p> + +<p>Well, I like that! thought Cassy, who answered: "Twenty-one."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie crossed his legs. "You think me an impertinent old man. I +don't mean to be impertinent. I take a great interest in you."</p> + +<p>"Very good of you, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Not at all. Is your grandmother living?"</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sake! You did not know her, did you?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I stand ready to take her place."</p> + +<p>"You would find it difficult. She is buried in Portugal."</p> + +<p>"The place of your grandfather then, the place of any one whom you can +trust."</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"Well, let me ask. What are your plans?"</p> + +<p>"My plans? Mr. Jones asked me that. I have a sort of a voice and I am +looking for an engagement. But the season is ending. Then too I am told +I ought to change my name. I won't do it."</p> + +<p>"Hum! Ha! But it appears that you have."</p> + +<p>He's crazy too, thought Cassy, who said: "I don't know what you are +talking about."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie extracted his towel. "Why, my dear young lady, you are Mrs. +Paliser."</p> + +<p>Cassy flushed. "I am nothing of the kind. I don't know how you got such +an idea."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie, quite as though he were doing some hard thinking, folded and +refolded that towel which was his handkerchief. "Yet you married Montagu +Paliser, Jr., did you not?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. That is I thought I did, but the man who performed the +ceremony was a gardener."</p> + +<p>"Dear me! Is it possible! And where was this?"</p> + +<p>What is it to you? thought Cassy. "At Paliser Place, if you must know."</p> + +<p>"And when did it occur?"</p> + +<p>"Really, Mr. Dunwoodie, I can't see why you are putting me through this +examination, but if it is of any benefit to you, it happened just five +days before he died."</p> + +<p>"Anybody about?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. There were two other servants who enjoyed it very much. I +heard them laughing and I don't blame them. It was a rare treat. A child +would have laughed at it. All my fault too. I behaved like a ninny. But +my great mistake was in telling my father. I would give the world if I +had not. Won't you please send for Mr. Jones? As I told you, I don't +know why I am here."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie shook out the towel. "You must blame him then. He said you +were Paliser's widow."</p> + +<p>"Well, you see I am not."</p> + +<p>"Yet you consented to be his wife."</p> + +<p>"Whose? Mr. Jones'?"</p> + +<p>"Paliser's, my dear young lady. However fictitious the ceremony, you +consented to be Paliser's wife."</p> + +<p>"What if I did? It has nothing to do with it now."</p> + +<p>"Just a little, perhaps. Did you hear Jones say that he would renew his +acquaintance with Swinburne?"</p> + +<p>"From the way he talks, one might think he knew him by heart."</p> + +<p>"Yaas, he is very objectionable. But you are referring to the poet. He +was referring to the jurist. The jurist wrote a very fine book. Let me +quote a passage from it. 'It is the present and perfect consent the +which alone maketh matrimony, without either solemnisation or'—here, +Dunwoodie, skipping the frank old English, substituted—'or anything +else, for neither the one nor the other is the essence of matrimony, but +consent only. Consensus non concubitus facit matrimoniam.' Hum! Ha! In +other words, whether marriage is or is not contracted in facie ecclesiæ, +it is consent alone that constitutes its validity. You understand +Latin?"</p> + +<p>Cassy laughed. "I dream in it."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie laughed too. "Pleasant dreams to you always. But what I have +quoted was the common law, and so remained until altered by the Revised +Statutes, with which no doubt you are equally familiar."</p> + +<p>Cassy smoothed her frock. "I was brought up on them."</p> + +<p>"I don't need to tell you then that when adopted here they provided that +marriage should be a civil contract. In so providing, they merely +reaffirmed the existing common law. Subsequently, the law was changed. +The legislature enacted that a marriage must be solemnised by certain +persons—ecclesiastic, judicial or municipal—or else, that it should be +entered into by written contract, which contract was to be filed in the +office of the town clerk. Coincidentally the legislature prohibited any +marriage contracted otherwise than in the manner then prescribed."</p> + +<p>That morning Cassy had been to an agent, a saponacious person with a +fabulous nose. At the moment the nose was before her. She was wondering +whether it would scent out for her an engagement.</p> + +<p>"However," Dunwoodie, twisting the edge of his towel, continued, +"various amendments were afterward adopted and certain sections +repealed. Among the latter was the one containing the prohibition which +I have cited. In my opinion, it was not the intention of the legislature +to repeal it. Yet, however that may be, repealed it was. Since then, or, +more exactly, a few weeks ago, the enactments regarding the manner in +which marriage must be solemnised were held to be not mandatory but +directory, the result being that the law originally prevailing has now +come again into operation, common-law marriages are as valid as before +and——"</p> + +<p>Here Dunwoodie flaunted the towel.</p> + +<p>"And you are Mrs. Paliser."</p> + +<p>Of the entire exposition, Cassy heard but that. It ousted the agent and +his fabulous nose. She bristled.</p> + +<p>"I can't be. I don't want to be. You don't seem to see that the +clergyman was not a clergyman at all. He was one of the help there. I +thought I told you. Why, there was not even a license! That man said he +had one. It was only another of the whimsicalities that took me in."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie repocketing the towel, showed his yellow teeth. "A young +gentlewoman who dreams in Latin, and who was brought up on the Revised +Statutes, must be familiar with Byron. 'Men were deceivers ever.' Not +long ago, a Lovelace whose history is given in the New York Reports +conducted himself in a manner that would be precisely analogous to that +of your late husband, were it not that, instead of dying, he did what +was less judicious, he married again—and was sent up for bigamy. He too +had omitted to secure a license. He also entertained a lady with a +fancy-ball. None the less, the Supreme Court decided that he had legally +tied the matrimonial noose about him and that decision the Court of +Appeals affirmed."</p> + +<p>Cassy shook her pretty self. "Well, even so, I don't see what difference +it makes, now at any rate. He is dead and that is the end of it."</p> + +<p>"Hum! Not entirely. As widow you are entitled to a share in such +property as your late husband possessed. How much, or how little, he did +possess I cannot say. But I assume that such share of it as may accrue, +will be—ha!—adequate for you."</p> + +<p>"But he hadn't anything. He told me so."</p> + +<p>"He didn't always tell you the truth though, did he? In any event it is +probable that he left enough to provide for your maintenance."</p> + +<p>Cassy threw up her hands. "Never in the world."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie again ran his eyes over the severity of her costume. "You +think it would be inadequate?"</p> + +<p>But Cassy was angry. "I don't think anything about it. Whether it would +or would not be adequate, does not make the slightest difference. I +won't take it."</p> + +<p>"Ha! And why not?"</p> + +<p>Cassy fumed. "Why not? But isn't it evident? That man had no intention +of marrying me, no intention whatever of leaving me a cent."</p> + +<p>"As it happens, he did both."</p> + +<p>Cassy clenched her small fist. "No matter. He did not intend to and +don't you see if I were to accept a ha'penny of his wretched money, I +would be benefiting by a crime for which may God forgive my poor, dear +father."</p> + +<p>There was a point which the legislature had not considered, which not +one of all the New York Reports construed, a point not of law but of +conscience, a point for a tribunal other than that which sits in banco. +It floored Dunwoodie.</p> + +<p>Damnation, she's splendid, he decided as, mentally, he picked himself +up. But it would never do to say so and he turned on her his famous +look.</p> + +<p>"Madam, once your marriage is established, the money becomes rightfully +and legally yours, unless——"</p> + +<p>With that look he was frowning at this handsome girl who took law and +order with such a high hand. But behind the frown was a desire, which he +restrained, to hug her.</p> + +<p>Frowning still he looked from Cassy to the door and there at a boy, who +was poking through it a nose on which freckles were strewn thick as +bran.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rymple, sir, says he has an appointment."</p> + +<p>The old ruffian, rising, turned to Cassy. "One moment, if you please."</p> + +<p>The door, caught in a draught, slammed after him, though less violently +than other doors that were slamming still. Would they never stop? Cassy +wondered. Would they slam forever? Were there no rooms in life where she +might enter and find the silence that is peace? Surely, some time, +somewhere that silence might be hers.</p> + +<p>She turned. Jones, looking extremely disagreeable, was walking in.</p> + +<p>Cassy, closing her ears to those doors, exclaimed at him. "Here's a +pretty how d'ye do. Mr. Dunwoodie says I am Mrs. Paliser."</p> + +<p>"That afternoon, when you sent your love to my cat, I could have told +you that. In fact I did."</p> + +<p>From Jones' air and manner you would have said that he was willing and +able to bite a ten-penny nail.</p> + +<p>Cassy did not notice. "It appears, too, that I am entitled to some of +his wretched money."</p> + +<p>"It is unfortunate I did not know that also."</p> + +<p>"I believe you did. But I sha'n't take it."</p> + +<p>Jones drew a chair. Hatefully he looked her up and down.</p> + +<p>"You are quite right. Sixty years ago there was but one millionaire in +the country. The plutocrat had not appeared in the street, he had not +even appeared in the dictionary. The breed was unknown. To-day there are +herds of such creatures. I was reading the statistics recently and they +depressed me beyond words. It is always depressing to know how much +money other people have. You are quite right not to suffer poor devils +to be depressed by you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Yallum! thought Cassy, who said as much; "I don't know what you are +talking about."</p> + +<p>"You are very intelligent. I am talking small change."</p> + +<p>Cassy gave a shrug. "Mr. Dunwoodie said I would have enough to live on. +I can do as well as that myself, thank you."</p> + +<p>"No doubt," Jones snarled. "I am even sure you could do worse. It is +extraordinary how much one can accomplish in refusing a dollar or two +that might save another man's life. To hell with everybody! That is the +noble attitude. I admire your spirit. A handful of bank-notes are crying +at you: 'I'm yours, take me, give me to the wounded, to the starving!' +Not a bit of it. The Viscountess of Casa-Evora is too proud. That's +superb."</p> + +<p>Cassy turned on him. "See here, young man——"</p> + +<p>"Don't you young man me," Jones irritably cut in. "In the rotunda out +there, Dunwoodie gave me a foretaste of your swank and I can tell you I +relished it. You won't look at a penny of this money because, if you +did, you would be benefiting by an act committed by your father, who, as +sure as you live, was impelled by the powers invisible to rid the earth +of Paliser and to rid it of him for no other reason than that this money +might serve a world in flames. Refused by you it will only revert to an +old rounder who never did a good deed in his life; whereas, instead, it +could call down blessings on your father's grave. But no, perish the +thought! All that is leather and prunella to a young woman who regards +herself as the arbiter of destiny. By God, you are prodigious!"</p> + +<p>"I think you are horrid."</p> + +<p>"So are you. You are the heiress to millions and millions. No wonder you +put on airs."</p> + +<p>Occasionally, to exceptional beings, a hand issuing from nowhere offers +a cup brimming with madness, filled to the top with follies and dreams.</p> + +<p>At that cup Cassy stared. It was unreal. If she tried to touch it, it +would vanish.</p> + +<p>"It is impossible!" she cried.</p> + +<p>Jones looked about. "Where is my harp?"</p> + +<p>Cassy did not know, she could not tell him. She had not even heard. A +crater in the Wall Street sky had opened and from it, in an enchanted +shower, fell sequins, opals, perfumes and stars.</p> + +<p>But Jones must have found his harp. To that shower he was strumming an +accompaniment.</p> + +<p>"In to-day's paper there is a Red Cross appeal which says that what we +give is gone. It is incredible, but educated people believe it. The +ignorance of educated people is affecting. By reason of their education, +which now and then includes mythology, they believe that happiness is +the greatest of all the gifts that the gods can bestow. Being mortal, +they try to obtain it. Being ignorant, they fail. Ignorance confounds +pleasure with happiness. Pleasure comes from without, happiness from +within. People may be very gay and profoundly miserable, really rich and +terribly poor. In either case their condition is due to the fact that +the happiness which they sought, they sought for themselves. Their error +would be stupid were it not pathetic. In seeking happiness for +themselves they fail to find it, but when they succeed in securing it +for others, they find that on them also it has been bestowed. The money +we give is not gone. It comes back to us. It returns in happiness and +all the happiness that the richest, the poorest, the wisest, the +stupidest can ever possess, is precisely that happiness which they have +given away."</p> + +<p>Where now where those doors? Cassy, the cascade of flowers and stars +about her, looked at the harper. In listening to him, the doors had +ceased to slam. About them there was peace. But her eyes had filled.</p> + +<p>Jones was still at it.</p> + +<p>"The greatest happiness is the cessation of pain. That pagan aphorism +the Red Cross might put on its banners. Spiritually it is defective, but +practically it is sound and some relief the Red Cross supplies. Give to +it. You can put your money to no fairer use. It will hallow the grave +where your father lies."</p> + +<p>From beyond, from the adjacent Curb, came the shouts of brokers.</p> + +<p>Jones, abandoning his harp, looked over at the girl. "What are you +crying about?"</p> + +<p>"I am not crying," spluttered Cassy, who was blubbering like a baby. "I +never cry. It is disgusting of you to say so."</p> + +<p>"You are crying."</p> + +<p>"I am not crying," Cassy, indignantly sniffing and sobbing, snapped at +him. Fiercely she rubbed her eyes. "It is none of your business, +anyhow." Pausing, she choked, recovered and blearily added: "And, +anyway, if the money is mine, really mine, honestly mine, I will give it +away, all of it, every p—penny."</p> + +<p>"No, no, not all of it," Jones hastily threw in, for now the door was +opening and Dunwoodie appeared. "Keep a pear for your thirst, put a +little million aside."</p> + +<p>He turned to the lawyer. "Mrs. Paliser accepts her responsibilities."</p> + +<p>"Hum! Ha!" The great man sat down and looked at Cassy. He looked many +things but he said very few. "My dear young lady, familiar as you are +with Latin, with law and with literature, who am I to remind you that +chickens should first be hatched? Your rights may be contested. The +Paliser Case, as it will be called, may——"</p> + +<p>"The Paliser Case!" interjected Jones, who could see the headline from +where he sat. "Shade of Blackstone! It will be famous! It will be +filmed! The eminent jurist here will be screened and you, too, my lady."</p> + +<p>Balefully Dunwoodie shot a glance at the inkbeast and another at Cassy.</p> + +<p>"It may last some time. I have no doubt of the result. None whatever. +But in spite of your legal knowledge I suggest that you have associate +counsel. Now, permit me to ask, would you care to retain me or would +you prefer some one else?"</p> + +<p>Cassy, who had dried her eyes, looked at him and it was remarkable how +pretty she looked.</p> + +<p>"Why, no, Mr. Dunwoodie, I would much rather have you, only——" +Uncertainly she paused.</p> + +<p>The eminent jurist took it up. "Only what?"</p> + +<p>"Well, all I know about law is that it is very expensive and I have +nothing except my grandfather's portrait."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie touched a button. "Ha! One moment."</p> + +<p>A thin young man, with a pasty face and a slight stoop, opened the door.</p> + +<p>The old ruffian raised a stubby finger. "Purdy, a cheque for a thousand +dollars, to the order of Bianca Paliser, is to be mailed to this lady +to-night."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Dunwoodie!" Cassy exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"You must allow me to be your banker," he told her, and turned again to +the clerk. "Get Mr. Jeroloman. Say, with my compliments, I shall be +obliged if he will look in here. And, Purdy, see to it that that cheque +is attended to. Mrs. Paliser will give you her address."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Dunwoodie!" Cassy exclaimed again, as the sallow youth went +out.</p> + +<p>To distract her attention, instantly Jones improvised a limerick. "There +was a young man named Purdy, who was not what you'd call very sturdy. To +be more of a sport, he drank gin by the quart, and danced on a +hurdy-gurdy."</p> + +<p>"You're insane," announced Cassy, who was a trifle demented herself.</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie extracted his towel. "Jeroloman is the attorney for the other +side. He will want to meet Mrs. Paliser, but that honour will not be his +to-day."</p> + +<p>Cassy stood up. "I should hope not. He would be the last camel on the +straw—I mean the last straw on the camel."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie, rising also, gave her his fine bow and to Jones a hand.</p> + +<p>Then as the two made for the door, from over her shoulder she smiled +back at him.</p> + +<p>"My grandmother could not have been nicer."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?" Jones absently inquired.</p> + +<p>But, in the rotunda now, Mr. Purdy was asking her address. If he had +dared he would have followed her there. Fortune favouring, he would have +followed her to the ends of the earth. It was what one of our allies +calls the thunderbolt. Never before had he beheld such a face. Earnestly +he prayed that he might behold it again. Allah is great. The prayer was +granted.</p> + +<p>In the cañon below, Jones, as he piloted her to the subway, pulled at +his gloves.</p> + +<p>"If I had the ability, I would write an opera, call it 'Danaë' and +offer you the title-rôle."</p> + +<p>Cassy, her thoughts on her grandmother, repeated it. "Danaë?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the lady disconnected by marriage with Jupiter who tubbed her in +gold—gold ink, I suppose. But as I am not a composer I shall put you +between the sheets—of a novel I mean. Fiction has its consolations."</p> + +<p>But now, leaving the cañon, they entered a cavern which a tunnel fluted. +There Cassy looked up at the inkbeast. "How is Mr. Lennox? Do you see +him?"</p> + +<p>"I find it very difficult not to. Unattached people are sticky as +flies. When Lennox was engaged, he was invisible. Now he is all over the +place."</p> + +<p>From the tunnel a train erupted. It came with the belch of a monstrous +beetle, red-eyed and menacing, hastening terribly to some horrible task.</p> + +<p>Jones, shoving the girl into its bowels, added: "I was happier when he +was jugged."</p> + +<p>A corner beckoned. There, as the beetle resumed its flight, the novelist +spread his wings.</p> + +<p>"I would have wagered a red pippin that you couldn't say Jack Robinson +before he and that young woman were convoluting joyously. I even planned +to be best man. Saw my tailor about it. Whether it were on that account +or not the Lords of Karma only know, but he told Miss Austen to go to +hell."</p> + +<p>Cassy started. From before her everything was receding.</p> + +<p>Jones noting the movement, interpreted it naturally and therefore +stupidly. He apologised.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me. I picture you as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conversation. +Forgive me, then. Besides, what Lennox did say, he said with less +elegance. He said: 'I'm through.' Yes and asked me to repeat it to her. +I studiously omitted to, but as Proteus—Mr. Blount in private +life—somewhere expressed it, 'Hell has no more fixed or absolute +decree.'"</p> + +<p>Because of the crashing beetle Jones had to shout it. He shouted it in +Cassy's ear. It was a lovely ear and Jones was aware of it. But only +professionally. Since that night in Naples when, by way of keepsake, he +got a dagger in his back, he had entertained the belief that a novelist +should have everything, even to sex, in his brain. Such theories are +very safe. Jones' admirations were not therefore carnal. To Balzac, a +pretty woman was a plot. Cassy was a plot to Jones, who continued to +shout.</p> + +<p>"If Lennox and Margaret Austen moved and had their being in a novel of +mine, the wedding-bells would now be ringing at a cradle in the last +chapter. Commercially it would be my duty to supply that happy and +always unexpected touch. I even made a bet about it, which shows how +iniquitous gambling is. What's more, it shows that I must have an +unsuspected talent for picture-plays. As it was in heaven, so it is now +in the movies. It is there that marriages are made. But forgive me +again. I am talking shop."</p> + +<p>The renewed apology was needless. Though Jones shouted, Cassy did not +hear. It was not the clattering beetle that interfered. To that also +Cassy was deaf. She heard nothing. The echo of noisy millions had gone. +The slamming doors were silent. But her face was pale as running water +when, the beetle at last abandoned, she thanked Jones for seeing her all +the way.</p> + +<p>All the way to where? God, if she only knew!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>XXXV</h2> + + +<p>Later that day, Jeroloman, the attorney for the other side, who at the +time had no idea that there was another side, or any side at all, +entered the rotunda and asked for Dunwoodie.</p> + +<p>In asking, he removed his hat, glanced at its glisten, put it on again. +The hat was silk. It topped iron grey hair, steel-blue eyes, a +turn-under nose, a thin-lipped mouth, a pointed chin, a stand-up collar, +a dark neckcloth, a morning coat, grey gloves, grey trousers, drab spats +and patent-leather boots. These attributes gave him an air that was +intensely respectable, equally tiresome. One pitied his wife.</p> + +<p>"This way, sir."</p> + +<p>In the inner and airy office, Dunwoodie nodded, motioned at a chair.</p> + +<p>"Ha! Very good of you to trouble."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman, seating himself, again removed his hat. Before he could +dispose of it, Dunwoodie was at him.</p> + +<p>"Young Paliser's estate. In round figures what does it amount to?"</p> + +<p>Jeroloman, selecting a safe place on the table, put the hat on it and +answered, not sparringly, there was nothing to spar about, but with +civil indifference: "Interested professionally?"</p> + +<p>"His widow is my client."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman's eyes fastened themselves on Dunwoodie, who he knew was +incapable of anything that savoured, however remotely, of shysterism. +But it was a year and a day since he had been closeted with him. In the +interim, time had told. Diverting those eyes, he displayed a smile that +was chill and dental.</p> + +<p>"Well, well! We all make mistakes. There is no such person." He paused, +awaiting the possible protest. None came and he added: "The morning +after the murder, his father told me that the young man contemplated +marriage with a lady who had his entire approval. Unfortunately——"</p> + +<p>"Yaas," Dunwoodie broke in. "Unfortunately, as you say. The morning +after was the 26th. On the 21st, a gardener, who pretended to be a +clergyman, officiated at his marriage to my client."</p> + +<p>Dryly but involuntarily Jeroloman laughed. Dunwoodie was getting on, +getting old. In his day he had been remarkably able. That day had gone.</p> + +<p>"Well, well! Even admitting that such a thing could have happened, it +must have been only by way of a lark."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie whipped out his towel. "You don't say so!"</p> + +<p>Carelessly Jeroloman surveyed him. He was certainly senile, yet, because +of his laurels, entitled to all the honours of war.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Mr. Dunwoodie. You are not by any chance serious, are you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm looking. While I was about it, I looked into the case. Per +verba de præsenti, my client consented to be young Paliser's wife. Now +she is his widow."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman weighed it. The weighing took but an instant. Dunwoodie was +living in the past, but there was no use in beating about the bush and +he said as much.</p> + +<p>"You are thinking of the common law, sir."</p> + +<p>Absently Dunwoodie creased his towel. "Now you mention it, I believe I +am."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman glanced at his watch. It was getting late. His residence was +five miles away. He was to dress, dine early and take his wife to the +theatre. He would have to hurry and he reached for his hat.</p> + +<p>"The common law was abrogated long ago."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie rumpled the towel. "Why, so it was!"</p> + +<p>Jeroloman took the hat and with a gloved finger rubbed at the brim. +"Even otherwise, the term common-law wife is not legally recognised. The +law looks with no favour on the connection indicated by it. The term is +synonymous for a woman who, having lived illicitly with a man, seeks to +assume the relationship of wife after his death and thereby share in the +proceeds of his property."</p> + +<p>From under beetling brows, Dunwoodie looked at him. "Thanks for the +lecture, Jeroloman. My client has no such desire. In this office, an +hour ago, she refused them."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman stood up. "Very sensible of her, I'm sure." He twirled the +hat. "Who is she?"</p> + +<p>"I thought I told you. She is Mrs. Paliser."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman waved that hat. "Well, well! I thought I told you. As it is, +if you will take the trouble to look at the laws of 1901, you will find +that common-law marriages are inhibited."</p> + +<p>"Hum! Ha! And if you will trouble to look at the Laws of 1907, you will +find they are inhibited no longer."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman stared. "I have yet to learn of it."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie repocketed his towel. "Is it possible? Then when the +opportunity occurs you might inform yourself. At the same time let me +recommend the Court of Appeals for March. You may find there additional +instruction. But I see you are going. Don't let me detain you."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman sat down. "What case are you referring to?"</p> + +<p>"The Matter of Ziegler."</p> + +<p>Uncertainly Jeroloman's steel-blue eyes shifted. "It seems to me I read +the syllabus."</p> + +<p>"Then your powers of concealment are admirable."</p> + +<p>"But just what does it hold?"</p> + +<p>"Can it be that you don't remember? Well, well!—to borrow your own +agreeable mode of expression—it holds that common-law marriages that +were valid before and until the enactments which you were good enough to +cite, were again made valid by their appeal in Chapter 742 of the Laws +of 1907."</p> + +<p>"But," Jeroloman began and paused. "But——" He paused again.</p> + +<p>Comfortably Dunwoodie helped him. "Yes?"</p> + +<p>"You say that marriages valid before and until the Laws of 1901 are, by +virtue of a repeal, now valid again?"</p> + +<p>"That is what I say, Jeroloman. Merely that and nothing more. In +addition to the Ziegler case, let me commend to you 'The Raven.'"</p> + +<p>"Let's get down to facts, sir. From your account of it, this alleged +marriage never could have been valid."</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie wiped his mouth. "Dear me! I had no idea that my account of it +could lead to such interesting views. You do surprise me."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Dunwoodie, you said the ceremony was performed by a gardener who +pretended to be a clergyman. Those were your very words."</p> + +<p>"Yaas. Let the cat out of the bag, didn't I?"</p> + +<p>Archly but chillily Jeroloman smiled. "Well, no, I would not care to put +it in that way, but your office-boy must know that false representations +void it."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" Dunwoodie exclaimed. It was as though he had been hit in +the stomach.</p> + +<p>Jeroloman, who was eyeing him, gave a little nod that was tantamount to +saying, "Take that!"</p> + +<p>But Dunwoodie was recovering. He sat back, looked admiringly at +Jeroloman, clasped his hands and twirled his thumbs.</p> + +<p>Jeroloman, annoyed at the attitude and in haste to be going, pursed his +thin lips. "Well, sir?"</p> + +<p>With an affability that was as unusual as it was suspicious, Dunwoodie +smiled at him. "Your objection is well taken. Not an hour ago, in that +chair in which you are sitting, this lady, my client, who not once in +her sweet life has opened the Revised Statutes, and who, to save it, +could not tell the difference between them and the Code, well, sir, she +entered that same objection."</p> + +<p>"I don't see——"</p> + +<p>"Nor did she, God bless her! And I fear I wearied her with my reasons +for not sustaining it. But I did not tell her, what I may confide in +you, that in Hays versus The People—25 New York—it is held immaterial +whether a person who pretended to solemnise a marriage contract, was or +was not a clergyman, or whether either party to the contract was +deceived by false representations of this character. Hum! Ha!"</p> + +<p>Jeroloman pulled at his long chin. In so doing he rubbed his hat the +wrong way. He did not notice. That he was to dress, dine early, take his +wife to the theatre, that it was getting late and that his residence was +five miles away, all these things were forgotten. What he saw were +abominations that his client would abhor—the suit, the notoriety, the +exposure, the whole dirty business dumped before the public's greedy and +shining eyes.</p> + +<p>"Who is she?" he suddenly asked.</p> + +<p>"Who was she?" Dunwoodie corrected. "Miss Cara."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman started and dropped his hat. "Not——?"</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie nodded. "His daughter."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman, bending over, recovered his hat. Before it, a picture +floated. It represented an assassin's child gutting the estate of a son +whom the father had murdered. It was a bit too cubist. Somewhere he had +seen another picture of that school. It showed a young woman falling +downstairs. He did not know but that he might reproduce it. At least he +could try. Meanwhile it was just as well to take the model's measure and +again his eyes fastened on Dunwoodie.</p> + +<p>"What do you suggest?"</p> + +<p>Dunwoodie, loosening his clasped hands, beat with the fingers a tattoo +on his waistcoat.</p> + +<p>"Let me see. There is 'The Raven,' the first primer, the multiplication +table. Is it for your enlightenment that you ask?"</p> + +<p>Jeroloman moistened his lips. Precise, careful, capable, intensely +respectable, none the less he could have struck him. A moment only. From +the sleeve of his coat he flicked, or affected to flick, a speck.</p> + +<p>"Yes, thank you, for my enlightenment. You have not told me what your +client wants."</p> + +<p>"What a woman wants is usually beyond masculine comprehension."</p> + +<p>Methodically Jeroloman dusted his hat. "You might enquire. We, none of +us, favour litigation. In the interests of my client I always try to +avoid it and, while at present. I have no authority, yet——Well, well! +Between ourselves, how would a ponderable amount, four or five thousand, +how would that do?"</p> + +<p>Blandly Dunwoodie looked at this man, who was trying to take Cassy's +measure.</p> + +<p>"For what?"</p> + +<p>"To settle it."</p> + +<p>That bland air, where was it? In its place was the look which +occasionally the ruffian turned on the Bench.</p> + +<p>"Hum! Ha! Then for your further enlightenment let me inform you that my +client will settle it for what she is legally entitled to, not one +ponderable dollar more, not one ponderable copper less."</p> + +<p>Mentally, from before that look, Jeroloman was retreating. Mentally as +well, already he had reversed himself. He had judged Dunwoodie old, +back-number, living in the past. Instead of which the fossil was what he +always had been—just one too many. Though not perhaps for him. Not for +Randolph F. Jeroloman. Not yet, at any rate. The points advanced were +new, undigested, perhaps inexact, filled with discoverable flaws. +Though, even so, how M. P. would view them was another kettle of fish. +But that was as might be. He put on his hat and stood up.</p> + +<p>"Very good. I will give the matter my attention."</p> + +<p>"Do," Dunwoodie, with that same look, retorted, "And meanwhile I will +apply for letters of administration. Hum! Ha! My compliments to your +good lady."</p> + +<p>He turned in his chair. Attention, indeed! He knew what that meant. The +matter would be submitted to M. P. The old devil had not a leg to stand +on, he lacked even a crutch, and in that impotent, dismembered and +helpless condition he would be thrown out of court. A ponderable amount! +Hum!</p> + +<p>For a moment he considered the case. But it may be that already it had +been heard and adjudged. Long since, perhaps, at some court of last +resort, the Paliser Case had been decided.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>XXXVI</h2> + + +<p>On the morrow, Jeroloman waited on his client, who received him in the +library, an agreeable room in which there was nothing literary, but +which succeeded at once in becoming extremely unpleasant.</p> + +<p>M. P. was in tweeds. When his late lamented departed this life, he wore +crêpe on his hat for ninety days. It was a tribute that he paid, not to +the lady's virtues, which were notoriously absent; nor to any love of +her, for he had disliked her exceedingly; nor yet because it was +conventional, he hated conventionality; but, by Gad, sir, because it +bucks the women up! All that was long ago. Since then he had become less +fastidious. At his son's funeral he appeared in black.</p> + +<p>Now, on this day, dressed in tweeds, he greeted Jeroloman with his usual +cordiality.</p> + +<p>"I hope to God you are not going to bother me about anything?"</p> + +<p>The wicked old man, who had faced wicked facts before, faced a few of +them then. The stench of the main fact had been passing from him, +deodorised by the fumigating belief that his son had been killed by a +lunatic. Now here it was again, more mephitic than ever, and for the +whiffs of it with which Jeroloman was spraying him, he hated the man.</p> + +<p>"Whom has she?"</p> + +<p>"Dunwoodie."</p> + +<p>He reviewed the bar. There was Bancroft, whose name was always in the +papers and to whom clients flocked. There was Gwathmay, whom the papers +ignored and whom only lawyers consulted. He might have either or both, +the rest of the crew as well, and in spite of them all, unless he +permitted himself to be done, the publicity would be just as resounding.</p> + +<p>In the old nights, when social New York was a small and early, threats +had amused him. "I have my hours for being blackmailed, this is not one +of them," he had lightly remarked at a delightful gang. "Do your +damnedest."</p> + +<p>They took him at his word and so completely that the small and early saw +him no more. What was that to him? There were other pastures, less +scrumptious perhaps, but also far less fatiguing. He had not cared, not +a rap. Behind him the yard of brass yodled in a manner quite as lordly +as before. His high-steppers lost none of their sheen; his yacht +retained all its effulgence; so, too, did the glare of his coin. No, he +had not cared. But that was long ago, so long that it might have +happened in an anterior existence. He had not cared then. Age is +instructive. He had learned to since. Moreover, in testimony of his +change of heart, a miracle had been vouchsafed. The affair at the Opera, +attributed to a lunatic, had been buried safely, like his son, the +scandal tossed in for shroud. How freely he had breathed since then! The +little green bottle of menthe he had barely touched. He might live to +see everything forgiven or, what is quite as satisfactory, forgotten. +And now! Columns and columns, endlessly, day in, day out; the Paliser +Case dragged from one court to another, the stench of it exceeded only +by that of the Huns! But, by comparison, blackmail, however bitter, was +sweet. When one may choose between honey and gall, decision is swift.</p> + +<p>"What'll she take?"</p> + +<p>Jeroloman, who had left his hat on the malachite bench in the hall, +smoothed his gloves. He was about to reply. Before he could, his client +shook a fist at him.</p> + +<p>"The slut hasn't a cent. Came to the Place with a bundle, damn her. A +suit like this costs something. Where's she going to get it? What'll she +take?"</p> + +<p>Jeroloman looked up from his gloves. "I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Then find out."</p> + +<p>"I offered Dunwoodie a ponderable amount."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"He refused it."</p> + +<p>"Double it, then, triple it."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Paliser, I'm sorry, but it won't do."</p> + +<p>"Damnation, why not?"</p> + +<p>"It is all or nothing with him and maybe nothing in the end. I told him +so. I told him that the courts view with no favour a woman who, having +lived illicitly with a man, claims, on his demise, to be his widow. Such +a claim is but the declaration of a woman entered after the death of her +alleged husband and, as such, is inadmissible under Section 829 of the +Code. I have posted myself very thoroughly in the matter, though I find +it has been held——"</p> + +<p>"Damn what has been held. It's all or nothing, is it?"</p> + +<p>Jeroloman pulled at his long chin.</p> + +<p>All, the wicked old man reflected. All! All would be ten million and ten +million was less than a tenth of his wealth—ten million for which he +had no earthly need, which it would fatigue him to spend, burden him to +hoard, disgrace him to fight for, and which, normally, would go to a +brat whom he had never seen and whom, as next in line, he hated.</p> + +<p>Already he had decided. Though, it may be that on planes of which he +knew nothing, long since it had been decided for him.</p> + +<p>None the less it hurt. It hurt horribly. From a pocket, he drew a little +bottle.</p> + +<p>"Settle it then."</p> + +<p>"On what basis?"</p> + +<p>"All and be damned to her."</p> + +<p>But now the menthe that he had raised to his lips was trickling from the +bottle, staining his tweeds. He hiccoughed, gasped, motioned.</p> + +<p>"And good-day to you."</p> + +<p>Below, on the malachite bench, a silk hat was waiting. When that hat +again appeared in Dunwoodie's office, the Paliser Case was over. It had +ended before it began.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>XXXVII</h2> + + +<p>Cassy sat in the kitchen. Before her were a cheque and a letter. The +letter was from the theatre-man. The cheque was Dunwoodie's. The cheque +begged to be cashed, the letter begged her to call.</p> + +<p>During the night she had gone looking along an avenue where there were +houses with candid windows from which faces peered and smiled. But it +was not for these that she was looking and she awoke in a tempest of +farewells.</p> + +<p>Now, across the court, in the kitchen opposite, were two inoffensive +beings. On that evening when her father had made her cry, they had +seemed unreal. On this forenoon their baseless appearance persisted. But +their unreality was not confined to them. Their kitchen, the court, the +building shared it. They were all unreal, everything was, except one +thing only, which perhaps was more unreal than all things else.</p> + +<p>She looked at the letter and from it at the cheque. The day before, on +returning from the shower of millions that had caught and drenched her +in Broad Street, she was not entirely dry. The glisten of the golden +rain hung all about her. None the less on reaching the walk-up she +forgot it. There were other matters, more important, that she had in +mind. But only a philosopher could be drenched as she had been and +remain unaffected. The bath is too voluptuous for the normal heart. On +its waters float argosies crimson-hulled, purple-rigged, freighted with +dreams come true. You have but a gesture to make. Those dreams are +spaniels crouching at your feet. At a bath not dissimilar but +financially far shallower, Monte Cristo cried: "The world is mine!" It +was very amusing of him. But though, since then, values have varied, a +bagatelle of ten millions is deep enough for any girl, sufficiently deep +at least for its depths to hold strange things.</p> + +<p>At those things, strange indeed and yet not unfamiliar, Cassy beckoned. +In their embrace she saw herself, as Jones had pictured her, going +about, giving money away, strewing it full-handed, changing sobs into +smiles. The picture lacked novelty. Often she had dreamed it. Only +recently, on the afternoon just before the clock struck twelve, just +before the gardener lit his pipe and the mask had fallen, only then, +and, relatively, that was but yesterday, she had promenaded in it. It +was a dream she had dreamed when a child, that had haunted her girlhood, +that had abided since then. It was the dream of a dream she had dreamed +without daring to believe in its truth. Now, from the core of the web +that is spun by the spiderous fates, out it had sprung. There, before +her eyes, within her grasp was that miracle, a rainbow solidified, +vapour made tangible, a dream no longer a dream but a palette and a +palette that you could toss in the air, put in the bank, secrete or +squander, a palette with which you could paint the hours and make them +twist to jewelled harps. No more walk-up! Good-bye, kitchy! Harlem, +addio! The gentleman with the fabulous nose could whistle. Vaudeville, +indeed! She could buy the shop, buy a dozen of them, tear them down, +build them up, throw them into one and sing there, sing what she liked, +when she liked, as she liked. Yes, but for whom? God of gods, for whom?</p> + +<p>A local newspaper bears—or bore—a sage device: La nuit porte conseil. +That night, on her white bed, in her black room, Cassy sought it. But +the counsel that night brings is not delivered while you toss about. +Night waits until you sleep. Then, to the subjective self that never +sleeps, the message is delivered. It may be fallible, often it is and, +in our scheme of things, what is there that is not? Yet in any dilemma +bad advice may be better than none. Then, without transition, the black +room changed into an avenue where faces peered and smiled. It was not +though for these that she was looking, but for her way. It must have +been very narrow. Though she looked and looked she could not find it. +Yet it was near, perhaps just around the corner. But in some manner, she +could not reach it. Sleep sank her deeper. When she awoke, there it was.</p> + +<p>Now as she sat in the kitchen, before which, in the kitchen opposite, +bundles of baseless appearances came and went, she began counting her +wealth on her fingers. Youth! Up went her thumb. Health! The forefinger. +Lungs! The second finger. Not being a fright! The fourth. How rich she +was! But was there not something else? Oh, yes! Sadly she smiled. A +clear conscience! She had forgotten that and that came first. Youth, +health, lungs, looks, these were gamblers' tokens in the great roulette +of life. In the hazards of chance at any moment she might lose one or +all, as eventually she must lose them and remain no poorer than before. +But her first asset which she had counted last, that was her fortune, +the estate she held by virtue of a trust so guardedly created that if +she lost one mite, the whole treasure was withdrawn.</p> + +<p>On the washtub—covered admirably with linoleum—at which she sat, were +the cheque for a thousand dollars and the bid from the vaudeville man. +The bid, she knew, meant money. But the cheque would beggar her.</p> + +<p>She drew breath and sat back. From above a filter of sunlight fell and +told her it was noon. Across the court the bundles of baseless +appearances transformed themselves into a real woman, an actual child. +The kitchen in which they moved, the house in which they dwelled were no +longer the perceptions of a perceiver. They also were real. So, too, was +life.</p> + +<p>An hour and Mr. Purdy's pasty face turned feebly red. He stammered it.</p> + +<p>No, unfortunately, Mr. Dunwoodie was out. Would Mrs. Paliser wait? In +Mr. Dunwoodie's private office? And the 'Herald' perhaps or the +'Times'—or—or——</p> + +<p>Everything there, Broad Street to boot, the Stock Exchange included, Mr. +Purdy was ready and anxious to offer.</p> + +<p>No, Mrs. Paliser would not wait—and mentally she thanked her stars for +it. But would Mr. Purdy do something for her?</p> + +<p>Would he! The brave spirit of Talleyrand must have animated that sickly +young man. If what Mrs. Paliser desired were possible it would be done: +if impossible, it was done already.</p> + +<p>Cassy gave him the rare seduction of her smile. She also was +entertaining an emotion or two. She had not at all known where she would +find the strength to confront and confute a grandmotherly old ruffian. +But luck was with her. He was out.</p> + +<p>So very good of Mr. Purdy then and would he please give Mr. Dunwoodie +this cheque and say she's sorry she can't accept it or the other money +either? She had said she would, but, really, it was not intended for +her. Supposing she took it. She would feel like a thief in a fog. +Exactly that. A thief in a fog. No, she couldn't. Couldn't and wouldn't. +Just as grateful though to Mr. Dunwoodie. Her regrets to him and a +thousand thanks.</p> + +<p>"And good-day, Mr. Purdy. I thank you also."</p> + +<p>Mr. Purdy, flushing feebly, saw her to the door, saw her to the hall +without. There, while he waited with her for a descending lift, a silk +hat that had just come from a malachite bench, alighted from an +ascending one. Immediately the other lift took her.</p> + +<p>"Who was that?" the hat's owner alertly asked.</p> + +<p>Mr. Purdy rubbed his perspiring hands. "Mrs. Paliser."</p> + +<p>Jeroloman wheeled like a rat. He looked at the cage. It had vanished. He +looked at the other. Above it a moving finger pointed upward. +Cold-blooded, meticulously precise, intensely respectable, none the +less, for one delirious second, madness seized him. He wished to God he +could hurry down, overtake the impostor, lure her into his own office, +frighten her out of such wits as she possessed and buy her off for +tuppence. Instantly Respectability had him by the collar. He could not. +Precision gave him a kick. Wouldn't stand if he did.</p> + +<p>Deeply he swore. The millions were gone. Hands down, without a struggle, +the Paliser estate was rooked. No fault of his though, and mechanically +he adjusted that hat. Damn her!</p> + +<p>In the street below, superbly, with sidereal indifference, the sun shone +down on the imbecile activities of man. The storm of the day before that +had drenched Cassy so abundantly, had been blown afar, blown from her +forever. The sky in which a volcano had formed was remote and empty.</p> + +<p>"Ouf!" Cassy muttered in relief and muttered, too: "Now for the agent!"</p> + +<p>She had reached the corner. Just beyond was the subway. It would land +her within two squares of the man's greasy office. Now, though, +suddenly, she felt a gnawing. A sandwich would taste good. Two +sandwiches would taste better. Then, quite as suddenly, that vision, the +street with it, everything, except one thing only, vanished.</p> + +<p>Blocking the way stood Lennox.</p> + +<p>"Where to in such a hurry?"</p> + +<p>Easily she smiled and told him. "I'm going to buy a rhinoceros." But for +all the easiness of it her tongue nearly tripped. "And what are you +doing?"</p> + +<p>"I? Oh! Cleaning up."</p> + +<p>Wall Street is not a Japanese tea-garden. It lacks the klop-klop of +fountains. Yet, even in its metallic roar there may—for exceptional +beings—be peace there. Not for Cassy, though. She could have screamed.</p> + +<p>A moment only. Lennox turned and both moved on.</p> + +<p>"Let's get out of this."</p> + +<p>Cassy looked up at him. "You forget my little errand."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes! The rhinoceros. Couldn't you ask me to meet him?"</p> + +<p>"I shall be giving dinner-parties for him every evening. Would you care +to come?"</p> + +<p>They had reached cavernous steps down which Cassy was going.</p> + +<p>Lennox raised his hat. "I will come to-night."</p> + +<p>Through the metallic roar, the four words dropped and hummed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a>XXXVIII</h2> + + +<p>"It is going to be splendid. There will be candles!"—a young person, +dead since but still living, exclaimed of her poet's fête. The fête, +however lavish, and which you will find reported by Murger, was not held +in a kitchen. The poet's garret did not contain a kitchen. That was +Paris.</p> + +<p>Hereabouts, nowadays, walk-ups are more ornate. Cassy's dinner that +night was served on rich linoleum and not out of snobbishness either but +because the table had gone from the living-room and though the piano +remained one could not very well dine on that, or, for that matter, on +the sofa. There are details into which a hostess never enters. Cassy—in +black chiffon—did not offer any and Lennox—in evening clothes—did not +ask. He had never dined in a kitchen before and, so far as the present +historian knows not to the contrary, he did not dine in one again. But +he enjoyed the experience. There was cold chicken, a salad, youth, +youth's wine and running laughter. For dessert, a remark.</p> + +<p>The rich linoleum then had been abandoned for the other room where Cassy +sat on the sofa and Lennox on the one surviving chair. Beyond was the +piano. Additionally, in some neighbourly flat, a phonograph performed.</p> + +<p>Among these luxuries sweets were served. A question preceded them.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember the afternoon you were in my rooms?"</p> + +<p>Yes, Cassy remembered it.</p> + +<p>Then came the remark. "That afternoon I laughed. Until to-night—except +once—I haven't laughed since then."</p> + +<p>Very good dessert, with more to follow.</p> + +<p>"When you went, the sunlight went with you. It went out at your heels +like a dog. I was thinking about it recently. I don't seem to have seen +the sunlight again, until it played about your rhinoceros."</p> + +<p>There are sweets that are bitter. Cassy took one.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jones told me. It does seem such a pity, such a great pity. I saw +her once and I could see she was not merely good to look at but really +good, good through and through."</p> + +<p>"May I smoke?" Lennox asked.</p> + +<p>Had he wished he could have stood on his head. Cassy nodded at him. He +got out a cigar.</p> + +<p>"Miss Austen is all you say. She is a saint. A man doesn't want a saint. +A man wants flesh and blood."</p> + +<p>Cassy took another bitter-sweet. "She's that. Any one would know it."</p> + +<p>Lennox bit at the cigar. "Too good for me, though. So good that she +threw me over."</p> + +<p>Cassy put a finger through it. "She did not understand. Any girl might +have done the same."</p> + +<p>Sombrely Lennox considered her. "Would you? You say she did not +understand. I know well enough she did not. But if you cared for a man, +would you throw him over because of a charge which you could not be sure +was true and without giving him a chance to disprove it? Would you?"</p> + +<p>He could stand on his head, yes, but it was unfair to grill her. She +flushed.</p> + +<p>"I don't see what that has to do with it."</p> + +<p>"How, you don't see?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't it obvious? Miss Austen and I move in different worlds. On any +subject our views might differ and I don't mean at all but that hers +would be superior."</p> + +<p>"There can be but one view of what's square."</p> + +<p>"I am sure she meant to be."</p> + +<p>Unconcernedly, Lennox smiled. The smile lit his face. From sombre it +became radiant.</p> + +<p>"That's all very well. The point is what you would think. Would you +think it square to throw a man over as she threw me?"</p> + +<p>Cassy showed her teeth. "If I didn't care for him, certainly I would."</p> + +<p>"But if you did?"</p> + +<p>That was too much. Cassy exclaimed at it. "If! If! How can I tell? I +don't know. I lack experience."</p> + +<p>"But not heart."</p> + +<p>He was right about that, worse luck. How it beat, too! It would kill her +though to have him suspect it.</p> + +<p>"I do wish you would tell me," he added.</p> + +<p>Cassy, casting about, felt like an imbecile and said brilliantly: +"Haven't you a match? Shall I fetch one?"</p> + +<p>Lennox extracted a little case. "Thanks. It's an answer I'd like."</p> + +<p>It was enough to drive you mad and again casting about, but not getting +it, she hedged.</p> + +<p>"It will have to be in the abstract, then."</p> + +<p>"Very good. Let's have it in the abstract."</p> + +<p>Yet even in the abstract! However, with an uplift of the chin that gave +her, she felt, an air of discussing a matter in which she had no concern +at all, she plunged.</p> + +<p>"One never knows, don't you know, but it seems to me that if by any +chance I did care for a man—not that it is in the least presumable that +I ever shall—but if I did, why, then, no. He couldn't get rid of me, +not unless he tried very hard, but if he didn't, then no matter what I +heard, no matter how true it might be, I would cling to his coat-tails, +that is, if he wore them, and if, also, he cared for a ninny like me."</p> + +<p>Cassy paused, shook her docked hair and solemnly resumed: "Which, of +course, he couldn't."</p> + +<p>"I knew you would say that."</p> + +<p>"Say what?" Previously flushed, she reddened. But there is a God. The +room had grown dim.</p> + +<p>"That you wouldn't cut and run."</p> + +<p>She could have slapped him. "Then why did you ask me?"</p> + +<p>Lennox blew a ring of smoke.</p> + +<p>"To have you see it as I do. To have you see that at the first flurry +Miss Austen ran to cover. I am quite sure I could show her that she ran +too quick, but I am equally sure it is a blessing that she did run. It +is not ambitious of a man to want a girl who will stand her ground. +Sooner or later some other flurry would have knocked the ground from +under and then it might have been awkward. This one let me out."</p> + +<p>He stood up, opened the window, dropped the cigar from it. The cigar +might have been Margaret Austen.</p> + +<p>"What are your plans?" he asked and sat again.</p> + +<p>Ah, how much safer that was! Cassy grabbed at it.</p> + +<p>"You are the third person to ask me. First, Mr. Jones. Then—then——" +But she did not want to mention Dunwoodie or anything about the great +cascade of gorgeous follies and she jumped them both. "Then an agent. He +asked me yesterday and to-day he had a contract for me and a cheque in +advance. He is a very horrid little man but so decent!"</p> + +<p>"When does it begin?"</p> + +<p>"The engagement? Next week. What plans have you?"</p> + +<p>"A few that have been made for me. Presently we sail."</p> + +<p>"For France?"</p> + +<p>"For France."</p> + +<p>It was cooler now, at least her face was, and she got up and switched +the light.</p> + +<p>"I wish I might go, too," she told him. "But I lack the training to be +nurse and the means to be vivandière—canteener, I think they call it." +She hesitated and added, "Shall I see you before you go?"</p> + +<p>But now from the phonograph in the neighbourly flat, the <i>Non te +scordar</i> drifted, sung nobly by some fat tenor who probably loathed it.</p> + +<p>Lennox, who had risen with her, asked: "May I come to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>The aria enveloped them and for a moment Cassy trilled in.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps to-morrow you will sing for me," he continued.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll sing."</p> + +<p>Later, in the black room on the white bed, the fat tenor's tuneful +prayer floated just above her. Cassy repeated the words and told herself +she was silly. She may have been, but also she was tired. She knew it +and for a moment wondered why. Painted hours dancing to jewelled harps +are not to be sneezed at. But when they are not yours, when you have +really no right to them, it is not fatiguing to say so. A gesture does +not fatigue. It is certainly taxing to go to a greasy office, sign your +name and receive a cheque. Taxing but endurable. It is not that that +does you up. It is argument that tires you, particularly when there is +no need for any and you are forced to turn yourself inside out. How +fortunate it was, though, that the room had been dark! In the balm of +that, sleep took her.</p> + +<p>The next day she had many things to do and succeeded in botching most of +them. I have no mind for anything, she decided. What is the matter with +me? But, at least, when at last she opened the door for him, there was +nothing amiss with her appearance.</p> + +<p>In the room where the piano was, she sat down on the bench and smiled up +at him. "Shall I sing now?"</p> + +<p>Lennox put his hat on the sofa. "If you don't mind my talking to you."</p> + +<p>"Very good, we will have a duo."</p> + +<p>Over the keys her fingers moved, sketching a melody, passing from it +into another.</p> + +<p>Beside the bench Lennox had drawn the only chair. He looked about, then +at her.</p> + +<p>"I remember so well the first time I came here."</p> + +<p>Her lips tightened, but, suppressing the smile, she turned to him and +said and so patiently:</p> + +<p>"Is it a song without words you want, or words without song?"</p> + +<p>Lennox leaned toward her. It was then or, it might be, never.</p> + +<p>"It is you I want."</p> + +<p>Cassy turned from him. Her fingers, prompted by a note, had gone from it +into Gounod.</p> + +<p>"Will you marry me?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not."</p> + +<p>It was as though he had asked her to go skating. To mark the absurdity +of it her voice mounted.</p> + +<p>"<i>Le printemps chasse les hivers——</i>"</p> + +<p>The words are imbecile but the air, which is charming, seemed to occupy +her wholly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Et sourit dans les arbres verts</i>——"</p> + +<p>"I know you don't care for me but couldn't you try?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?" Cassy stayed her fingers, reached for a score on the top of the +upright. "I thought you wanted me to sing."</p> + +<p>"I want to know whether you can't ever care for me."</p> + +<p>It sang about her like a flute. Something else was singing, not the bird +in her throat, for she had hushed it, but a bird in her heart. It had +been singing ever since he had entered the room. It had been singing +with her the duo of which lightly she had spoken. But it was singing too +loud.</p> + +<p>Hastily she replaced the score, pulled at another, shoved it back.</p> + +<p>"Won't you tell me?" Lennox was asking.</p> + +<p>It will burst, she thought. Sidling from the bench, she went to the +sofa, looked at it as though she had never seen it before, and sat down.</p> + +<p>"Won't you?" he repeated.</p> + +<p>She glanced over at him. Apparently now she was calm as you please.</p> + +<p>"People marry out of optimism, or at any rate I did. I have had my +lesson, thank you."</p> + +<p>Lennox stood up. "You have suffered——"</p> + +<p>"I read somewhere," she cut in, "that we have to suffer terribly before +we learn not to suffer at all." Pausing, she added: "I suppose then we +are dead."</p> + +<p>She was getting away from it and he rounded on her.</p> + +<p>"See here! We have both been in hell, but that's over. Even otherwise, +hell would not be hell to me if I were in it with you."</p> + +<p>Thump! Thump! It was worse than ever. None the less she looked cool as a +cucumber.</p> + +<p>"The prospect is not very tempting. Besides, even if it were——" Again +she paused, but this time without getting on with it.</p> + +<p>He came toward her. "Even if it were what?"</p> + +<p>"Temptation has its dangers. It may lead to captivity."</p> + +<p>"And you fear that?"</p> + +<p>"For you, yes."</p> + +<p>"For me!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>How it thumped! It thumped so that it hurt, yet spartanly she contrived +to smile.</p> + +<p>"You or any one. I was speaking generally. Then, too, you know, hell may +not be all your fancy pictures it."</p> + +<p>He floundered in it. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"In no time you might get sick to death of me."</p> + +<p>"Never!"</p> + +<p>The denial exploded with such violence that the walls fell. Or at least +so it seemed to Cassy. It seemed to her that the room had become a tent +of fulgurant colours. They were blinding. She could not look at them. +How delicious it all was, though! In spite of which, she sighed.</p> + +<p>"Well, there is no telling. Some day I may go and take a look there."</p> + +<p>With mounting astonishment he repeated it. "Some day! But, if you ever +will, why not now?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes then were on him. "To find out."</p> + +<p>"Find out what?"</p> + +<p>"How you felt about it."</p> + +<p>"But how could you, if you don't care for me?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that?"</p> + +<p>"Because you told me so."</p> + +<p>Innocently, with an air of wonder, she took it up. "Did I? I don't think +so. I am sure I did not. I am convinced that I would not have +volunteered it and I am certain you did not ask."</p> + +<p>"I asked you a moment ago."</p> + +<p>If I don't make it stop, she thought, it will jump out. What shall I do?</p> + +<p>"And I ask you again," he gravely continued.</p> + +<p>It was in her throat. Try as she might she could not choke it back. Out +it came.</p> + +<p>"I have never cared for any one else."</p> + +<p>Lennox stared. It was incredible. Like many another it was incredible to +him that he should have sought afar for what was at his side.</p> + +<p>But not having finished, she resumed. "And I never shall."</p> + +<p>To that there could be but one reply. It was rough enough. Cassy did not +mind, but she freed herself, undulantly, as a woman can.</p> + +<p>Unrebuffably Lennox renewed it. "Let's be married at once."</p> + +<p>Cassy smoothed her rumpled hair. "No." The monosyllable fell like a +stone.</p> + +<p>Lennox kicked it. "In God's name, why not?"</p> + +<p>Cassy turned away. It was the hardest of all. Beside it, what was the +gesture of the day before?</p> + +<p>"Because. Just because."</p> + +<p>"Because why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I could not live to see you regret it."</p> + +<p>"But why should I? I never shall." His hands on her shoulders, violently +his eyes probed her own.</p> + +<p>She thought him so dear, but she said: "I have not cared for any one +else. You have. The growth of love is slow. You cannot love me now as +I love you."</p> + +<p>He wanted to shake her and nearly did. "But when you find I do?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, when that day comes, I will."</p> + +<p>"And meanwhile?"</p> + +<p>She just plucked at his sleeve. Nothing could have been more yielding. +It was yielding as water, and yielding still, her eyes fell.</p> + +<p>"For your sake only. Later—if—if——"</p> + +<p>Any great astonishment is dumb and, at the moment, a whirlwind tossed +his thoughts. In the swirling gale were sudden pictures; the girl's fair +arms, the delight of her lips, his own desire. Tumultuously they passed. +Before him flew the hazards of life, of death, and, curling there, the +iniquity of leaving her afterward, as leave her he must, alone to face +them. The counter-blast steadied him. Astonishment may be dumb, love is +clairvoyant.</p> + +<p>"For your own sake, no. The war cannot last forever and if I return, +then—then——"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Shortly, among the Victorian horrors of his gloomy rooms, she came to +see him off.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Austen, who heard of everything, heard of that. "I always knew it!" +she exclaimed. The dear woman had known nothing of the kind and her +perspicacity amazed her.</p> + +<p>But this has nothing to do with the Paliser Case which ended before it +began.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3><i>BY EDGAR SALTUS</i></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">HISTORIA AMORIS<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">IMPERIAL PURPLE<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">MARY MAGDALEN<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">THE POMPS OF SATAN<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">THE LORDS OF THE GHOSTLAND<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">DAUGHTERS OF THE RICH<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i0"><i>In preparation</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">SCAFFOLDS AND ALTARS<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Transcriber's Notes:</p> + +<p>Printer's error - No Chapter XVII header in text.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Paliser case, by Edgar Saltus + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PALISER CASE *** + +***** This file should be named 29847-h.htm or 29847-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/4/29847/ + +Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +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. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/29847.txt b/29847.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e27fdc2 --- /dev/null +++ b/29847.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11047 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Paliser case, by Edgar Saltus + +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 Paliser case + +Author: Edgar Saltus + +Release Date: August 29, 2009 [EBook #29847] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PALISER CASE *** + + + + +Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + THE PALISER CASE + + BY EDGAR SALTUS + + +BONI AND LIVERIGHT +NEW YORK 1919 + +COPYRIGHT, 1919, +BY EDGAR SALTUS + +_Printed in the U. S. A._ + + + _Then headlong down the stair of life he fell, while up + that stairway others laughed and mounted and all were + drunken with the wine of youth._ + + + + +THE PALISER CASE + + + + +I + + +The murder of Monty Paliser, headlined that morning in the papers, shook +the metropolis at breakfast, buttered the toast, improved the taste of +the coffee. + +Murdered! It seemed too bad to be false. Moreover, there was his +picture, the portrait of a young man obviously high-bred and insolently +good-looking. In addition to war news and the financial page, what more +could you decently ask for a penny? Nothing, perhaps, except the address +of the murderer. But that detail, which the morning papers omitted, +extras shortly supplied. Meanwhile in the minds of imaginative New +Yorkers, visions of the infernal feminine surged. The murdered man's +name was evocative. + +His father, Montagu Paliser, generally known as M. P., had lived in that +extensive manner in which New York formerly took an indignant delight. +Behind him, extending back to the remotest past when Bowling Green was +the centre of fashion, always there had been a Paliser, precisely as +there has always been a Livingston. These people and a dozen others +formed the landed gentry--a gentry otherwise landed since. But not the +Paliser clan. The original Paliser was very wealthy. All told he had a +thousand dollars. Montagu Paliser, the murdered man's father, had stated +casually, as though offering unimportant information, that, by Gad, sir, +you can't live like a gentleman on less than a thousand dollars a day. +That was years and years ago. Afterward he doubled his estimate. +Subsequently, he quadrupled it. It made no hole in him either. In spite +of his yacht, his racing stable, his town house, his country residences +and formerly in the great days, or rather in the great nights, his +ladies of the ballet, in spite of these incidentals his wealth +increased. No end to it, is about the way in which he was currently +quoted. + +All New Yorkers knew him, at any rate by repute, precisely as the least +among us knows Mr. Carnegie, though perhaps more intimately. The tales +of his orgies, of his ladies, of that divorce case and of the yacht +scandal which burst like a starball, tales Victorian and now legendary, +have, in their mere recital, made many an old reprobate's mouth +champagne. But latterly, during the present generation that is, the +ineffable Paliser--M. P. for short--who, with claret liveries and a yard +of brass behind him had tooled his four-in-hand, or else, in his superb +white yacht, gave you something to talk about, well, from living very +extensively he had renounced the romps and banalities of this life. + +Old reprobates could chuckle all they liked over the uproar he had +raised in the small and early family party that social New York used to +be. But in club windows there were no new tales of him to tell. Like a +potentate outwearied with the circumstance of State, he had chucked it, +definitely for himself, and recently in favour of his son, Monty, who, +in the month of March, 1917, arrived from Havana at the family +residence, which in successive migrations had moved, as the heart of +Manhattan has moved, from the neighbourhood of the Battery to that of +the Plaza. + +In these migrations the Palisers had not derogated from their high +estate. Originally, one of the first families here, the centuries, few +but plural, had increased what is happily known as their prestige. Monty +Paliser was conscious of that, but not unwholesomely. The enamellings +that his father had added gave him no concern whatever. On the contrary. +He knew that trade would sack the Plaza, as long since it had razed the +former citadels of fashion, and he foresaw the day when the family +residence, ousted from upper Fifth Avenue, would be perched on a peak of +Washington Heights, where the Palisers would still be among the first +people in New York--to those coming in town that way. + +That result it was for him to insure. Apart from second cousins, to whom +he had never said a word and never proposed to address, apart from them, +apart too from his father and himself, there was only his sister, Sally +Balaguine, who, one night, had gone to bed in Petersburg and, on the +morrow, had awakened in Petrograd. Though, in addition to this much +surprised lady, before whose eyes Petrograd subsequently dissolved into +Retrograd and afterward into delirium, there was her son, a boy of +three. Mme. Balaguine's prince did not count, or rather had ceased to. +As lieutenant of the guards he had gone to the front where a portion of +him had been buried, the rest having been minutely dispersed. + +To perpetuate the clan in its elder branch, there was therefore but this +young man, a circumstance which, on his return from Havana, his father +advanced. + +They were then at luncheon. For the father there was biscuit and milk. +For the son there was an egg cooked in a potato. Yet, in the kitchen, +or, if not there, somewhere about, were three chefs. Moreover on the +walls were Beauvais. The ceiling was the spoil of a Venetian palace. The +luncheon however simple was not therefore disagreeable. + +With an uplift of the chin, the elder man flicked a crumb and sat back. +The action was a signal. Three servants filed out. + +Formerly his manner had been cited and imitated. To many a woman it had +been myrrh and cassia. It had been deadly nightshade as well. After a +fashion of long ago, he wore a cavalry moustache which, once black, now +was white. He was tall, bald, very thin. But that air of his, the air of +one accustomed to immediate obedience, yet which could be very urbane +and equally insolent, that air endured. + +In sitting back he looked at his son for whom he had no affection. For +no human being had he ever had any affection, except for himself, and +latterly even that unique love had waned. + +The chefs, originally retained on shifts of eight hours each, in order +that this man might breakfast or sup whenever he so desired, that he +might breakfast, as a gentleman may, at four in the afternoon, or sup at +seven in the morning, these chefs were useless. His wife, who had died, +not as one might suppose of a broken heart but of fatty degeneration, +had succumbed to their delicately toxic surprises with groans but also +with thanksgiving. + +That is ancient history. At present her widower supped on powdered +charcoal and breakfasted on bismuth. The cooks he still retained, not to +prepare these triumphs, but for the benefit of his heir, for whom he had +no affection but whom he respected as the next incumbent and treated +accordingly, that is to say, as one gentleman treats another. + +On this high noon, when the servants had gone, the father sat back and +looked at his son, who, it then occurred to him, astonishingly resembled +his mother. He had the same eyes, too big, too blue; the same lashes, +too long, too dark; the same ears, too small and a trifle too far +forward. In addition he had the same full upper-lip, the same cleft in +the chin, the same features refined almost to the point of degeneracy. +But the ensemble was charming--too charming, as was his voice, which he +had acquired at Oxford where, at the House, he had studied, though what, +except voice culture, one may surmise and never know. Men generally +disliked him and accounted the way he spoke, or the way he looked, the +reason. But what repelled them was probably his aura of which, though +unaware, they were not perhaps unconscious. + +His father motioned: "Thank God, you are here. At any moment now we may +be in it and you will have to go. You are not a divinity student and you +cannot be a slacker." + +The old man paused and added: "Meanwhile you will have to marry. If +anything should happen to you, there would be but Sally and the +Balaguine brat and I shouldn't like that. God knows why I care, but I +do. There has always been a Paliser here and it is your turn now--which +reminds me. I have made over some property to you. You would have had it +any way, but the transfer will put you on your feet, besides saving the +inheritance tax." + +"Thank you. What is it?" + +"The Place, the Wall Street and lower Broadway property, that damned +hotel and the opera-box. Jeroloman wrote you about it. Didn't you get +his letter?" + +"I may have. I don't know that I read it." + +"When you have a moment look in on him. He will tell you where you are." + +"And where is that?" + +The old man summarised it. Even with the increased cost of matrimony, it +was enough for a Mormon, for a tribe of them. But the young man omitted +to say so. He said nothing. + +His father nodded at him. "You think marriage a nuisance. So it is. So +is everything. By Gad, sir, I wish I were well out of it. I go +nowhere--not even to church. I have grown thin through the sheer +nuisance of things. But if nothing happens over there and you don't make +a mess of it, the next twenty years of your life ought not to be +profoundly disagreeable. Now I dislike to be a nuisance myself, but in +view of the war, it is necessary that there should be another Paliser, +if not here, at least en route." + +"I will think it over," said this charming young man, who had no +intention of doing anything of the kind. + +"The quicker the better then, and while you are at it select a girl with +good health and no brains. They wear best. I did think of Margaret +Austen for you, but she has become engaged. Lennox his name is. Her +mother told me. Told me too she hated it. Said you must come to dinner +and she'd have a girl or two for you to look at. Oblige me by going. +Plenty of others though. Girls here are getting healthier and stupider +and uglier every year. By Gad, sir, I remember----" + +The old man rambled on. He was back in the days when social New York +foamed with beauty, when it held more loveliness to the square inch than +any other spot on earth. He was back in the days when Fifth Avenue was +an avenue and not a ghetto. + +With an air of interest the young man listened. The air was not feigned. +Yet what interested him was not the outworn tale but the pathological +fact that the reminiscences of the aged are symptomatic of hardening of +the arteries. + +Mentally he weighed his father, gave him a year, eighteen months, and +that, not because he was anxious for his shoes, but out of sheer +dilettantism. + +The idea that his father would survive him, that it was he who was +doomed, that already behind the curtains of life destiny was staging his +death--and what a death!--he could no more foresee than he foresaw the +Paliser Case, which, to the parties subsequently involved, was then +unimaginable, yet which, at that very hour, a court of last resort was +deciding. + +He looked over at his father. "Palmerston asked everybody, particularly +when he didn't know them from Adam, 'How's the old complaint?' How is +yours?" + +With that air that had won so many hearts, and broken them too, the old +man smiled. + +"When I don't eat anything and sit perfectly still, it is extraordinary +how well I feel." + +How he felt otherwise, he omitted to state. A gentleman never talks of +disagreeable matters. + + + + +II + + +In the shouted extras that succeeded the initial news of the murder, +Margaret Austen was mentioned, not as the criminal, no one less criminal +than the girl could be imagined, but as being associated with the +parties involved. + +That was her misfortune and a very grievous misfortune, though, however +grievous, it was as nothing to other circumstances for which she +subsequently blamed herself, after having previously attributed them to +fate, or rather, as fate is more modernly known, to karma. + +Any belief may console. A belief in karma not only consoles, it +explains. As such it is not suited to those who accept things on faith, +which is a very good way to accept to them. It may be credulous to +believe that Jehovah dictated the ten commandments. But the commandments +are sound. Moreover it is perhaps better to be wrong in one's belief's +than not to have any. + +Margaret Austen believed in karma and in many related and wonderful +things. Her face showed it. It showed other things; appreciation, +sympathy, unworldliness, good-breeding and that minor charm that beauty +is. It showed a girl good to look at, good through and through; a girl +tall, very fair, who smiled readily, rarely laughed and never +complained. + +It is true that at the time this drama begins it would have been +captious of her to have complained of anything were it not that life is +so ordered that it has sorrow for shadow. The shadow on this human rose +was her mother. + +Mrs. Austen had seen worse days and never proposed to see them again. +Among the chief assets of her dear departed was a block of New Haven. +The stock, before collapsing, shook. Then it tripped, fell and kept at +it. Through what financial clairvoyance the dear departed's trustee got +her out, just in time, and, quite illegally but profitably, landed her +in Standard Oil is not a part of this drama. But meanwhile she had +shuddered. Like many another widow, to whom New Haven was as good as +Governments, she might have been in the street. Pointing at her had been +that spectre--Want! + +It was just that which she never proposed to see again. The spectre in +pointing had put a mark on this woman who was arrogant, ambitious and +horribly shrewd. + +A tall woman with a quick tongue, a false front, an air of great +affability and, when on parade, admirably sent out, she ruled her +daughter, or thought she did, which is not quite the same thing. + +Margaret Austen was ruled by her conscience and her beautiful beliefs. +These were her masters. This human rose was their lovely slave. But +latterly a god had enthralled her. It was with wonder and thanksgiving +that she recognised the overlordship of that brat of a divinity, whom +poets call Eros, and thinkers the Genius of the Species. + +Mrs. Austen, who had danced many a time before his shrine, had no +objection whatever to the godlet, except only when he neglected to +appear Olympianly, as divinity should, with a nimbus of rentrolls and +gold. + +In view of the fact that he had come to Margaret in deshabille, that is +to say without any discernible nimbus, he affronted Mrs. Austen's +ambitious eyes. + +Of that she said nothing to Margaret. But at dinner one evening she +summarised it to Peter Verelst who sat at her right. + +The room, which was furnished with tolerable taste, gave on Park Avenue +where she resided. At her left was Monty Paliser. Farther down were +Margaret, Lennox and Kate Schermerhorn. Coffee had been served. Paliser +was talking to Miss Schermerhorn; Lennox to Margaret. + +"I don't like it," Mrs. Austen said evenly to Peter Verelst. "But what +can I do?" + +Peter Verelst was an old New Yorker and an old beau. Mrs. Austen had +known him when she was in shorter frocks than those then in vogue. Even +as a child she had been ahead of the fashion. + +"Do?" Verelst repeated. "Do nothing." + +"I am a snob," she resumed, expecting him to contradict her. "I did hope +that Margaret, with her looks, would marry brilliantly." + +Peter Verelst bent over his coffee. "The young man next door?" + +Out of the corner of an eye Mrs. Austen glanced at Paliser and then back +at Verelst. "Well, something of the kind." + +Verelst raised his cup. He had known Lennox' father. He knew and liked +the son. For Margaret he had an affection that was almost--and which +might have been--paternal. But, noting the barometer, he steered into +the open. + +"Have Lennox here morning, noon and night. See to it that Margaret has +every opportunity to get sick to death of him. Whereas if you +interfere----" + +Mrs. Austen, as though invoking the saints, lifted her eyes. "Ah, I +know! If I had not been interfered with I would not have taken Austen. +Much good it did me!" + +Verelst, his hand on the tiller, nodded. "There you are! That locksmith +business is very sound. Love revels in it. But give him his head and +good-bye. Sooner or later he is bound to take to his heels, but, the +more he is welcomed, the sooner he goes. The history of love is a +history of farewells." + +Paliser, who had caught the last phrase, felt like laughing and +consequently looked very serious. The spectacle of two antiques +discussing love seemed to him as hilarious as two paupers discussing +wealth. He patted his tie. + +"Very interesting topic, Mrs. Austen." + +The woman smiled at him. "Love? Yes. How would you define it?" + +Paliser returned her smile. "A mutual misunderstanding." + +Mrs. Austen's smile deepened. "Would you like to have one?" + +"With your daughter, yes." + +Et moi donc! thought this lady, who, like others of our aristocracy, +occasionally lapsed into French. But she said: "Why not enter the +lists?" + +"I thought they were closed." + +"Are they ever?" + +But now Verelst addressed the too charming young man. "How is your +father?" + +"In his usual poor health, thank you." + +"What does he say about the war?" + +"Nothing very original--that the Kaiser ought to be sent to Devil's +Island. But that I told him would be an insult to Dreyfus, who was +insulted enough. The proper place for the beast is the zoo. At the same +time, the fellow is only a pawn. The blame rests on Rome--rests on her +seven hills." + +Verelst drew back. In the great days, or more exactly in the great +nights, he had been a pal of M. P. That palship he had no intention of +extending to M. P.'s son, and it was indifferently that he asked: "In +what way?" + +Kate Schermerhorn, who had been talking to Margaret and to Lennox, +turned. Lennox also had turned. Paliser had the floor, or rather the +table. He made short work of it. + +"It was Caesar's policy to create a solitude and call it peace. That +policy Rome abandoned. Otherwise, that is if she had continued to turn +the barbarians into so many dead flies, their legs in the air, there +would be no barbarian now on the throne of Prussia. There would be no +Prussia, no throne, no war." + +You ought to write for the comic papers, thought Verelst, who said: +"Well, there is one comfort. It can't last forever." + +With feigned sympathy Mrs. Austen took it up. "Ah, yes, but meanwhile +there is that poor Belgium!" + +"By the way," Paliser threw in. "I have a box or two for the Relief Fund +at the Splendor to-night. Would anybody care to go?" + +Kate Schermerhorn, who looked like a wayward angel, exclaimed at it: +"Oh, do let's. There's to be a duck of a medium and I am just dying to +have my fortune told." + +Verelst showed his handsome false teeth. "No need of a medium for that, +my dear. Your path is one of destruction. You will bowl men over as you +go." + +Kate laughed at him. "You seem very upright." + +Mrs. Austen turned to Margaret. "If you care to go, we might get our +wraps." + +A moment later, when the women had left the room and the men were +reseated, Verelst stretched a hand to Lennox. "Again I congratulate you +and with all my heart." + +Keith Lennox grasped that hand, shook it, smiled. The smile illuminated +a face which, sombre in repose, then was radiant. Tall and straight, +hard as nails, he had the romantic figure. In a costume other than +evening clothes, he might have walked out of a tapestry. + +With ambiguous amiability, Paliser smiled also. Already Margaret's +beauty had stirred him. Already it had occurred to him that Lennox was +very invitingly in the way. + + + + +III + + +The ballrooms of the Splendor, peopled, as Mrs. Austen indulgently +noted, with Goodness knows who from Heaven knows where, received her and +her guests. + +Not all of them, however. At the entrance, Verelst, pretexting a +pretext, sagely dropped out. Within, a young man with ginger hair and +laughing eyes, sprang from nowhere, pounced at Kate, floated her away. + +Mrs. Austen, Margaret, Lennox and Paliser moved on. + +In one room there was dancing; in another, a stage. It was in the first +room that Kate was abducted. On the stage in the room beyond, a fat +woman, dressed in green and gauze, was singing faded idiocies. Beyond, +at the other end of the room was a booth above which was a sign--The +Veiled Lady of Yucatan. Beneath the sign was a notice: All ye that enter +here leave five dollars at the door. + +The booth, hung with black velvet, was additionally supplied with +hierograms in burnished steel. What they meant was not for the profane, +or even for the initiate. Champollion could not have deciphered them. +Fronting the door stood a young woman with a dark skin, a solemn look +and a costume which, at a pinch, might have been Maya. + +In those accents which the Plaza shares with Mayfair, she hailed +Margaret. "Hello, dear! Your turn next." + +For a moment, the dark skin, the solemn look, the costume puzzled +Margaret. Then at once she exclaimed: "Why, Poppet!" She paused and +added: "This is Mr. Paliser--Miss Bleecker. You know Mr. Lennox." + +But now, from the booth, a large woman with high colour, grey hair and a +jewelled lorgnette rushed out and fastened herself on the sultry girl. + +"Gimme back my money. Your veiled lady is a horror! Said I'd marry +again!" + +She raised her glasses. "Mary Austen, as I'm a sinner! Go in and have +your misfortunes told. How do do Margaret? Marry again indeed! Oughtn't +I to have my money back?" + +"Poppet ought to make you pay twice," Mrs. Austen heartlessly retorted +at this woman, the relict of Nicholas Amsterdam, concerning whom a story +had come out and who had died, his friends said, of exposure. + +Mrs. Amsterdam turned on Paliser whom she had never seen before. "What +do you say?" + +"I am appalled," he answered. + +She turned again. "There, Poppet, you hear that? Gimme back my money." + +But Miss Bleecker occupied herself with Lennox, who was paying for +Margaret. + +Margaret entered the booth where a little old woman, very plainly +dressed, sat at a small deal table. From above hung a light. Beside her +was a vacant chair. + +"Sit there, please," the medium, in a low voice, told the girl. "And +now, if you please, your hand." + +Margaret, seating herself, removed a glove. The hand in which she then +put hers was soft and warm and she feared that it might perspire. She +looked at the woman who looked at her, sighed, closed her eyes and +appeared to go to sleep. Then, presently, her lips parted and in a voice +totally different from that in which she had just spoken, a voice that +was thin and shrill, words came leapingly. + +"You are engaged to be married. Your engagement will be broken. You will +be very unhappy. Later, you will be thankful. Later you will realise +that sorrow is sent to make us nobler than we were." + +With an intake of the breath, the medium started, straightened, opened +her eyes. + +At the shock of it Margaret had started also. "But----" + +The medium, in her former voice, low and gentle, interrupted. + +"I can tell you nothing else. I do not know what was said. But I am +sorry if you have had bad news." + +Margaret stood up, replacing her glove. She knew, as we all know, that +certain gifted organisms hear combinations of sound to which the rest of +us are deaf. She knew, as many of us also know, that there are other +organisms that can foresee events to which the rest of us are blind. But +she knew too that in the same measure that the auditions of composers +are not always notable, the visions of clairvoyants are not always +exact. The knowledge steadied and partially comforted, but partially +only. + +At the entrance, Lennox stood with Miss Bleecker. A little beyond were +Paliser and her mother. Mrs. Amsterdam, minus her money, must have +rushed away. + +Poppet Bleecker laughed and questioned: "No horrors?" + +Lennox questioned also, but with his eyes. + +Margaret hesitated. Then she got it. Taking the girl's hand she patted +it and to Lennox said, and lightly enough: "Do go in. I want to see if +what the medium says to you conforms with what she said to me." + +Yet, however lightly she spoke, behind her girdle was that sensation +which only the tormented know. + +Beyond on the stage, the fat woman, now at the piano, was accompanying a +girl who was singing a brindisi. The girl was young, good-looking, +unembarrassed, very much at home. Her dress, a black chiffon, became +her. + +Then, in a moment, as Lennox entered the booth, Margaret joined her +mother and looked at the girl. + +"What is she singing?" + +Paliser covered her with his eyes. "Verdi's _Segreto per esser +felice_--the secret of happiness. Such a simple secret too." + +"Yes?" Margaret absently returned. She was looking now at the booth. +Quite as vaguely she added: "In what does it consist?" + +"In getting what we do not deserve." + +There was nothing in that to offend. But the man's eyes, of which +already she had been conscious, did offend. They seemed to disrobe her. +Annoyedly she turned. + +Paliser turned with her. "Verdi's bric-a-brac is very banal. Perhaps you +prefer Strauss. His dissonances are more harmonic than they sound." + +Now though there was applause. With a roulade the brindisi had ceased +and the singer as though pleased, not with herself but with the +audience, bowed. The fat woman twisting on her bench, was also smiling. +She looked cheerful and evil. + +"I do believe that's the Tamburini," Mrs. Austen remarked. "I heard her +at the Academy, ages ago." The usual touch followed. "How she has gone +off!" + +The fat woman stood up, and, preceded by the girl, descended into the +audience. + +Margaret looked again at the booth. Lennox was coming out. He said a +word to Miss Bleecker and glanced about the room. + +Margaret motioned. He did not notice. The girl who had been singing was +bearing down on him, a hand outstretched and, in her face, an expression +which Margaret could not interpret. But she saw Lennox smile, take her +hand and say--what? Margaret could not tell, but it was something to +which the girl was volubly replying. + +"Who's his little friend?" Mrs. Austen in her even voice inquired. "Mr. +Paliser," she added. "Would you mind telling--er--my daughter's young +man that we are waiting." + +Margaret winced. She had turned from Paliser and she turned then from +her mother. + +Paliser, whom the phrase "my daughter's young man" amused, sauntered +away. He strolled on to where Lennox stood with the girl. The fat woman +joined them. + +Lennox must have introduced Paliser, for Margaret could see them all +talking at once. Then Lennox again looked about, saw Margaret and her +mother, and came over. + +"Who's your friend?" Mrs. Austen asked. + +Lennox' eyes caressed Margaret. Then he turned to her mother. "She is a +Miss Cara. Cassy Cara her name is. I know her father. He is a +violinist." + +And my daughter is second fiddle, thought Mrs. Austen, who said: "How +interesting!" + +With his sombre air, Lennox summarised it. "She is studying for the +opera. The woman with her, Madame Tamburini, is her coach. You may have +heard of her." + +"A fallen star," Mrs. Austen very pleasantly remarked. Quite as +pleasantly she added: "The proper companion for a soiled dove." + +The charm of that was lost. Margaret, who had not previously seen this +girl but who had heard of her from Lennox, was speaking to him. + +"It was her father, was it?" Then, dismissing it, she asked anxiously: +"But do tell me, Keith, what did the medium say?" + +"That I would be up for murder." + +Margaret's eyes widened. But, judging it ridiculous, she exclaimed: "Was +that all?" + +"All!" Lennox grimly repeated. "What more would you have?" Abruptly he +laughed. "I don't wonder Mrs. Amsterdam wanted her money back." + +On the stage, from jungles of underwear, legs were tossing. The +orchestra had become frankly canaille. Moreover the crowd of Goodness +knows who had increased. A person had the temerity to elbow Mrs. Austen +and the audacity to smile at her. It was the finishing touch. + +She poked at Margaret. "Come." + +As they moved on, a man smiled at Lennox, who, without stopping, gave +him a hand. + +He was an inkbeast. But there was nothing commercial in his appearance. +Ordinarily, he looked like a somnambulist. When he was talking, he +resembled a comedian. In greeting Lennox he seemed to be in a pleasant +dream. The crowd swallowed him. + +"Who was that?" Mrs. Austen enquired. + +"Ten Eyck Jones." + +"The writer?" asked this lady, who liked novels, but who preferred to +live them. + +Meanwhile Paliser was talking to Cassy Cara and the Tamburini. The +latter listened idly, with her evil smile. Yet Paliser's name was very +evocative. The syllables had fallen richly on her ears. + +Cassy Cara had not heard them and they would have conveyed nothing to +her if she had. She was a slim girl, with a lot of auburn hair which was +docked. The careless-minded thought her pretty. She was what is far +rarer; she was handsome. Her features had the surety of an intaglio. +Therewith was an air and a look that were not worldly or even superior, +but which, when necessary as she sometimes found it, could reduce a man, +and for that matter a woman, to proportions really imperceptible. + +A little beauty and a little devil, thought Paliser, who was an expert. +But leisurely, in his Oxford voice, he outlined for her a picture less +defined. "You remind me of something." + +With entire brevity and equal insolence, she returned it. "I dare say." + +"Yes. Of supper." + +"An ogre, are you?" + +Paliser, ruminating the possibilities of her slim beauty served Regence, +smiled at this girl who did not smile back. "Not Nebuchadnezzar at any +rate. Vegetarianism is not my forte. Won't you and Madame Tamburini take +potluck with me? There must be a restaurant somewhere." + +The fallen star moistened her painted lips. "Yes, why not?" + +Born in California, of foreign parents, she had neither morals or accent +and spoke in a deep voice. She spoke American and English. She spoke the +easy French of the boulevards, the easier Italian of the operatic stage. +She never spoke of Tamburini. She left him to be imagined, which perhaps +he had been. + +From the room they went on into a wide, crowded hall, beyond which was +another room, enclosed in glass, where there were tables and palms. + +As they entered, a captain approached. There was a smell of pineapple, +the odour of fruit and flowers. From a gallery came the tinkle of +mandolins. Mainly the tables were occupied. But the captain, waving the +way, piloted them to a corner, got them seated and stood, pad in hand. + +Paliser looked at Cassy Cara. She was hungry as a wolf, but she said +indifferently: "A swallow of anything." + +"One swallow does not make a supper," Paliser retorted and looked at the +Tamburini who appeared less indifferent. + +"Ham and eggs." + +Without a quiver, the captain booked it. + +"Also," Paliser told him, "caviare, woodcock, Ruinart." From the man he +turned to the girl. "It was very decent of Lennox to introduce me to +you." + +Cassy put her elbows on the table. "He could not be anything else than +decent. Don't you know him well?" + +Paliser shrugged. "Our intimacy is not oppressive." + +"He saved her father's life," the Tamburini put in. "Her father is a +musician--and authentically marquis," she added, as though that +explained everything. + +"We are Portuguese," said Cassy, "or at least my father is. He used to +play at the Metro. But he threw it up and one night, when he was coming +home from a private house where he had been giving a concert, he was +attacked. There were two of them. They knocked him down----" + +"Before he had time to draw his sword-cane," the fat woman interrupted. + +"Yes," Cassy resumed, "and just then Mr. Lennox came along and knocked +them down and saved his violin which was what they were after." + +"It's a Cremona," said the Tamburini who liked details. + +"But that is not all of it," the girl continued. "My father's arm was +broken. He has not been able to play since. Mr. Lennox brought him home +and sent for his own physician. He's a dear." + +"Who is?" Paliser asked. "The physician?" + +But now a waiter was upon them with a bottle which he produced with a +pop! Dishes followed to which Cassy permitted the man to help her. Her +swallow of anything became large spoonfuls of rich blackness and the +tenderness of savorous flesh. She was not carnal, but she was hungry and +at her home latterly the food had been vile. + +The Tamburini, with enigmatic ideas in the back of her head, ate her +horrible dish very delicately, her little finger crooked. But she drank +nobly. + +Paliser too had ideas which, however, were not enigmatic in the least +and not in the back of his head either. They concerned two young women, +one of whom was patently engaged to Lennox and the other probably in +love with him. The situation appealed to this too charming young man to +whom easy conquests were negligible. + +He had been looking at Cassy. On the table was a vase in which there +were flowers. He took two of them and looked again at the girl. + +"Sunday is always hateful. Couldn't you both dine with me here?" + +The former prima donna wiped her loose mouth. She could, she would, and +she said so. + +Paliser put the flowers before Cassy. + +"Le parlate d'amor," the ex-diva began and, slightly for a moment, her +deep voice mounted. + +Cassy turned on her. "You're an imbecile." + +With an uplift of the chin--a family habit--Paliser summoned the waiter. +While he was paying him, Cassy protested. She had nothing to wear. + +She had other objections which she kept to herself. If it had been +Lennox she would have had none at all. But it was not Lennox. It was a +man whom she had never seen before and who was entirely too free with +his eyes. + +"Come as you are," said the Tamburini, who massively stood up. + +Paliser also was rising. "Let me put you in a cab and on Sunday----" + +Cassy gave him a little unsugared look. "You take a great deal for +granted." + +Behind the girl's back the Tamburini gave him another look. Cheerful and +evil and plainer than words it said: "Leave it to me." + +Cassy, her perfect nose in the air, announced that she must get her +things. + +Through the emptying restaurant Paliser saw them to the entrance. There, +as he waited, the captain hurried to him. + +"Everything satisfactory, sir?" + +"I want a private dining-room on Sunday." + +"Yes, sir. For how many?" + +"Two." + +"Sorry, sir. It's against the rules." + +Paliser surveyed him. "Whom does this hotel belong to? You?" + +The captain smiled and caressed his chin. "No, sir, the hotel does not +belong to me. It is owned by Mr. Paliser." + +"Thank you. So I thought. I am Mr. Paliser. A private dining-room on +Sunday for two." + +But now Cassy and the Tamburini, hatted and cloaked, were returning. The +chastened waiter moved aside. Through the still crowded halls, Paliser +accompanied them to the street where, a doorkeeper assiduously +assisting, he got them into a taxi, asked the addresses, paid the +mechanician, saw them off. + +Manfully, as the cab veered, the Tamburini swore. + +"You damn fool, that man is rich as all outdoors." + + + + +IV + + +The house in which Cassy lived was what is agreeably known as a walk-up. +There was no lift, merely the stairs, flight after flight, which +constituted the walk-up, one that ascended to the roof, where you had a +fine view of your neighbours' laundry. Such things are not for +everybody. Cassy hated them. + +On this night when the taxi, after reaching Harlem, landed her there +and, the walk-up achieved, she let herself into a flat on the fifth +floor, a "You're late!" filtered out at her. + +It was her father, who, other things being equal, you might have +mistaken for Zuloaga's "Uncle." The lank hair, the sad eyes, the wan +face, the dressing-gown, there he sat. Only the palette was absent. +Instead was an arm in a sling. There was another difference. Beyond, in +lieu of capricious manolas, was a piano and, above it, a portrait with +which Zuloaga had nothing to do. The portrait represented a man who +looked very fierce and who displayed a costume rich and unusual. Beneath +the portrait was a violin. Beside the piano was a sword-cane. Otherwise, +barring a rose-wood table, the room contained nothing to boast of. + +"You're late," he repeated. + +His name was Angelo Cara. When too young to remember it, he had come to +New York from Lisbon. With him had come the swashbuckler in oil. He grew +up in New York, developed artistic tastes, lost the oil man, acquired a +wife, lost her also, but not until she had given him a daughter who was +named Bianca, a name which, after elongating into Casabianca, shortened +itself into Cassy. + +Meanwhile, on Madison Avenue, then unpolluted, there was a brown-stone +front, a landau, other accessories, the flower of circumstances not +opulent but easy, the rents and increments of the swashbuckler's estate, +which by no means had come from Lisbon but which, the rich and unusual +costume boxed in camphor, had been acquired in the import and sale of +wine. + +The fortune that the swashbuckler made descended to his son, who went to +Wall Street with it. There the usual cropper wiped him out, affected his +health, drove him, and not in a landau either, from Madison Avenue, left +him the portrait, the violin, the table and nothing else. + +But that is an exaggeration. To have debts is to have something. They +stir you. They stirred him. Besides there was Cassy. To provide for both +was the violin which in his hands played itself. For years it sufficed. +Then, with extreme good sense, he fought with the Union, fought with +Toscanini, disassociated himself from both. Now, latterly, with his arm +in a sling, the wolf was not merely at the door, it was in the +living-room of this Harlem flat which Cassy had just entered. + +It was then that he repeated it. "You're late!" + +For the past hour he had sat staring at things which the room did not +contain--a great, glowing house; an orchestra demoniacally led by a +conductor whom he strangely resembled; a stage on which, gracile in the +violet and silver of doublet and hose, the last of the Caras bowed to +the vivas. + +Then abruptly the curtain had fallen, the lights had gone out, the +vision faded, banished by the quick click of her key. + +But not entirely. More or less the dream was always with him. When +to-day is colourless, where can one live except in the future? To-day is +packed with commonplaces which, could we see them correctly, are +probably false for in the future only beautiful things are true. It is +stupid not to live among them, particularly if you have the ability, and +what artist lacks it? In the future, there is fame for the painter, +there is posterity for the poet and much good may it do them. But for +the musician, particularly for the song-bird, there is the vertigo of +instant applause. In days like these, days that witness the fall of +empires, the future holds for the donna, for the prima donna, for the +prima donna assoluta, the grandest of earthly careers. + +That career, Angelo Cara foresaw for his daughter, foresaw it at least +in the hypnogogic visions which the artist always has within beck and +call. In the falsifying commonplaces of broad daylight he was not so +sure. Her upper register had in it a parterre of flowers, but elsewhere +it lacked volume, lacked line, lacked colour, and occasionally he +wondered whether her voice would not prove to be a voix de salon and not +the royal organ that fills a house. Yet in the strawberry of her throat, +the orifice was wide, the larynx properly abnormal. In addition the +Tamburini was prophetically comforting. + +But did the woman know her trade? He did not believe it. He believed +though that she had no morals, never had had any, even as a child. It +was the same way with Rachel and the fact left him cold. He was +artistically indifferent to what the putana did or omitted, to what +anybody omitted or did. But anybody by no means included his daughter. +At the thought of anything amiss with her, presto! his sad eyes flamed. +Very needlessly too. Cassy was as indifferent to other people's +conceptions of decorum as he was himself. The matter did not touch her. +Clear-eyed, clean-minded, she was straight as a string. + +"How did it go?" he asked. + +Cassy laughed. She had had a glass of champagne. She had too, what is +far headier, the wine of youth. + +"Well, I didn't see any showmen tumbling over each other. Mr. Lennox was +there. He asked after you, and introduced a man who had us out to +supper. It was very good. I did so wish for you, poor dear." + +"What man? What is his name?" + +"Paliser, I think. Something of the kind. Ma Tamby told me." + +"Not old M. P.?" + +"Perhaps, I don't know. He has hair like a looking-glass. He did not +seem old; he seemed very impudent. Ma Tamby says he's rich as all +outdoors." + +"That's the son then. Don't have anything to do with him. They're a bad +lot." + +"As if I cared! Ma Tamby said he could get me an engagement." + +"Ha! In vaudeville with acrobats and funny men and little suppers to +follow." + +"Why not big ones?" + +"Big what?" + +"Big goose!" replied Cassy, who removed her gloves, took off her hat, +ran a pin through it, put it down. + +Her father stared. Behind the girl stood a blonde brute whom the supper +had evoked. He wore a scowl and a bloody apron. In his hand was a bill. +Behind him was the baker, the candlestickmaker. Behind these was the +agent, punctual and pertinacious, who had come for the rent. Though but +visions, they were real. Moreover, though they evaporated at once, +solidly they would return. He had been staring at her, and through her, +at them. In staring his eyes filled. Immediately they leaked. + +Cassy bit her lip. The tumbril and the guillotine would not have made +her weep. Dry-eyed she would have gone from one to the other. Besides, +what on earth was he wowing about? But immediately it occurred to her +that he might be experiencing one of the attacks to which he was +subject. She leaned over him. "You poor dear, is it your heart?" + +He brushed his eyes. Dimly they lighted. With artistic mobility his face +creased in a smile. "No, farther down." + +Cassy moved back. "What in the world----" + +But now his face clouded again. "I am glad you had supper. To-morrow +we'll starve." + +The exaggeration annoyed her, she exclaimed at it and then stopped +short. Already she had envisaged the situation. But it was idle, she +thought, to excite him additionally. + +"Well?" he almost whinnied. + +But as he would have to know, she out with it. "There's the portrait, +there's the violin. Either would tide us over." + +In speaking she had approached him again. He shoved her aside. With a +jerk he got to his feet, struck an attitude, tapped himself on the +breast. + +"I, Marquis de Casa-Evora, sell my father's picture! I, Angelo Cara, +sell my violin! And you, my daughter, suggest such a thing! But are you +my daughter? Are you--oh!" + +It trailed away. The noble anger, real or assumed, fell from him. No +longer the outraged father, he was but a human being in pain. + +Cassy hurried to the mantel where, in provision of these attacks, were +glass tubes with amyl in them. She took and broke one and had him inhale +it. + +Then, though presently the spasm passed, the wolf remained. But the +beast had no terrors for Cassy. Buoyant, as youth ever is, his fangs +amused her. They might close on her, but they would not hurt, at any +rate very much, or, in any case, very long. Meanwhile she had had supper +and for the morrow she had a plan. That night she dreamed of it. From +the dream she passed into another. She dreamed she was going about +giving money away. The dream of a dream, it was very beautiful, and +sometimes, to exceptional beings, beautiful dreams come true, not in the +future merely, but in a walk-up. + + + + +V + + +In Park Avenue that night there was no dramatic father in waiting. There +were no bills, no scenes, no thought of secret errands; merely a +drawing-room in which a fire was burning and where, presently, Margaret +and Lennox were alone. + +"I have letters to write," Mrs. Austen told them. + +She had no letters to write, but she did have a thing or two to +consider. What the wolf was to Cassy's father, Lennox was to her. + +At dinner, Peter Verelst's advice to do nothing had seemed strategic. At +the Splendor, it had seemed stupid. The spectacle of that girl +hobnobbing with Lennox had interested her enormously. If a spectacle can +drip, that had dripped and with possibilities which, if dim as yet, were +none the less providential, particularly when viewed spaciously, in the +light of other possibilities which Paliser exhaled. Mrs. Austen was a +woman of distinction. You had only to look at her to be aware of it. +Yet, at the possible possibilities, she licked her chops. + +Meanwhile, with the seriousness of those to whom love is not the +sentiment that it once was, or the sensation that it has become, but the +dense incarnate mystery that it ever should be, Margaret and Lennox were +also occupied with the future. + +In connection with it, Lennox asked: "Can you come to-morrow?" + +As he spoke, Margaret released her hand. Her mother was entering and he +stood up. + +"Mrs. Austen," he resumed, "won't you and Margaret have tea at my +apartment to-morrow?" + +He would have reseated himself but the lady saw to it that he did not. + +"You have such pleasant programmes, Mr. Lennox. You are not going +though, are you? Well, if you must, good-night." + +It was boreal, yet, however arctic, it was smiling, debonair. As such, +Lennox had no recourse but to accept it. He bent over Margaret's hand, +touched two of Mrs. Austen's fingers. In a moment, he had gone. + +Mrs. Austen, smiling still, sat down. + +"Nice young man. Very nice. Nice hats, nice ties, nice coats. Then also +he is a theosophist, I suppose, or, if not, then by way of becoming one. +What more could the heart desire? Would you mind putting out one of +those lights? Not that one--the other." + +Gowned in grey which in spite of its hue contrived to be brilliant, Mrs. +Austen rustled ever so slightly. Always a handsome woman and well aware +of it, she was of two minds about her daughter's looks. They far +surpassed her own and she did not like that. On the other hand they were +an asset on which she counted. + +She rustled, quite as slightly again. + +"And such a taking way with him! That little singing-girl whom we saw +to-night, quite a pretty child, didn't you think? She seemed quite +smitten. Then there are others, one may suppose. Yes, certainly, a very +nice young man." + +"Mother!" + +"Well, what? Young men will be young men. Only a theosophist could +imagine that they would be young girls. I make every allowance from +him--as doubtless he does for others. This is quite as it should be. I +have no patience with model young men. Model young men delight their +mothers' hearts and ruin their wives' temper. They remodel themselves +after marriage. Whereas a young man who is not model at all, one who has +had his fling beforehand, settles down and becomes quite fat. You have +chosen very wisely, my dear. If you had waited you might have had +Paliser and I should not have liked that. He is too good." + +Margaret stretched a hand to the fire. She was not cold and the movement +was mechanical. But she made no reply. In Matthew we are told that for +every idle word we utter we shall answer at the day of judgment. That +passage she had longly meditated. She did not believe that Matthew wrote +it and she did not believe in a day of judgment. Matthew was a peasant +who spoke Syro-Chaldaic. It was not supposable that he could write in +Greek. It was not supposable that there can be a specific day of +judgment, since every moment of our days is judged. But through Margaret +had her tolerant doubts, she knew that the message itself was sound. It +did not condemn evil and vulgar words, for they condemn themselves. What +it condemned was idle words and she regretted that her mother employed +them. But theosophy is, primarily, a school of good manners. The Gospel +condemns idle words, theosophy forbids disagreeable ones. + +To her mother's remarks, she made therefore no reply. Instead, she +changed the subject. + +"Will you care to go with me to his rooms to-morrow?" + +With a mimic of surprise and of gentle remonstrance that was admirably +assumed, Mrs. Austen lifted a hand. + +"But, my dear! Were you thinking of going alone?" + +The remonstrance, however gentle, was absurd and she knew it. Margaret +could go where she liked. It would all be chaste as a piano-recital. But +the flea that she had been trying to put in the girl's ear seemed very +ineffective. She is just as I was at her age, thought this lady, who, in +so thinking, flattered herself extraordinarily. + +She shook her head. "For if you were, it would not do. Such things may +pass in London, they don't here. But to-morrow is Saturday, isn't it? +Yes, to-morrow is Saturday. At three I have an appointment with the +dentist. I'll telephone though. That always pains them and, where a +dentist is concerned, I do think turn about is fair play." + +It was pleasantly said. To make it pleasanter, she stood up and added: +"Are you to sit here and read? There is a French book lying around +somewhere that belonged to your dear father. I don't remember who wrote +it and I have forgotten the title, but you are sure to like it. There! I +have it. It is called: 'L'art de tromper les femmes.'" + +Mrs. Austen moved to the door and looked back. + +"But if you don't find it readily, let it go for to-night. Your young +man is sure to have a copy. No nice young man is without one." + + + + +VI + + +Lennox was a broker, a vocation which he practised in Wall Street. Early +on the following afternoon, while returning from there, he sat wedged +between a gunman and a Hun. He was unconscious of either. The uncertain +market; the slump, momentarily undiscernible, but mathematically +inevitable; customers, credulous or sceptical, but always avid; the +pulse of the feverish street which the ticker indifferently registered; +the atmosphere of tobacco and greed; the trailing announcements; "Steel, +three-fourths; Pennsy, a half," these things were forgotten. The train +crashed on. Of that too he was unconscious. + +Before him a panorama had unrolled--the day he first saw her, the hour +he first loved her, the moment he first thought she might care for +him--the usual panorama that unfolds before any one fortunate enough to +love and to be loved in return. + +"Grand Central!" + +The gunman disappeared, the Hun had gone, the car emptied itself on a +platform from which it was at once refilled. Lennox ascended the stair, +reached the street, boarded a taxi, drove to his home. + +The latter, situated on the ground floor of an apartment house a step +from Park Avenue, was entirely commonplace, fitted with furniture large +and ugly, yet minutely relieved by a photograph which showed the almost +perfect oval of Margaret's almost perfect face. + +The photograph stood on a table in the sitting-room beyond which +extended other rooms that, in addition to being ugly, were dark. But +Lennox had no degrading manias for comfort. Pending the great day he +camped in these rooms, above which, on an upper storey was a duplex +apartment which, if Margaret liked, he proposed to take. + +It was for her opinion regarding it that he had asked her to come. In +the forenoon she had telephoned that she and her mother would both be +with him. He had instructed his servant accordingly and now a silver +tea-service that had belonged to his grandmother and which, being +Victorian, was hideous, gleamed at him as he entered the rooms. + +Something else gleamed also. On a rug, a puddle of sunlight had spilled. + +Above, on the embossed platter, were petits fours, watercress +sandwiches, a sack of sweetmeats, a bunch of violets, a scatter of cups. +Beneath was the puddle. + +Lennox looked. It seemed all right. + +Harris, his servant, a little man, thin as an umbrella, sidled silently +by. The vestibule took him. From it came the sound of a voice, limpid, +clear, which Lennox knew and knew too was not Margaret's. + +"A lady to see you, sir," Harris, reappearing and effacing himself, +announced. + +The doorway framed her. There, with her shock of auburn hair, her cameo +face, her slim figure and her costume which, though simple, was not the +ruinous simplicity that Fifth Avenue achieves, Cassy presented a picture +very different from that on the table, a picture otherwise +differentiated by a bundle that was big as a baby. + +Lennox did not know but that it might contain a baby and the possibility +alarmed this man who was afraid of nobody. + +"Hello!" he exclaimed. + +In exclaiming, he stared. He liked the girl. But at the moment she was +in the way. Moreover, why she had come to these rooms of his, where she +had not been invited, and where she had not ventured before, was a +mystery. + +"How's your father?" he added. + +There are people, as there are animals, that cannot be awkward and are +never ridiculous. Cassy was one of them. None the less she stood on one +foot. The tea-table had become very talkative. It told her that it was +expecting somebody; that watercress sandwiches were not for her; no, nor +Victorian horrors either. + +"Be off!" it shouted. + +"Sit down," said Lennox. + +Cassy, hugging the bundle, remained in the doorway. It was not the +tea-table merely, but something else, the indefinable something which +one may feel and not describe that was telling her to hurry. Afterward, +with that regret which multiplies tears and subtracts nothing, she +wished she had hurried, wished rather that she had not come, wished that +she had defied the wolf, outfaced the butcher, done anything except +enter these rooms. + +She shifted the bundle. "I have been gadding about in Wall Street. I +never was there before, but it is so nice and windy I may go there +again. This is just a good-day and good-bye." + +As she spoke she turned, and as she turned Lennox' heart smote him. He +hurried to her. + +"See here! You can't go like this. Have a cup of tea." + +Cassy gave him the rare seduction of her smile. "Thank you. I am out on +business and I never drink in business hours." + +But now Lennox had got himself between her and the vestibule. + +"Business!" he repeated. "What is it? Anything in my line? Let's +transact it here. Wall Street is no place"--for a pretty girl he was +about to say but, desisting, he substituted--"for you." + +"But you are expecting people." + +"How in the world did you know? Anyway, they are not here yet and if +they were they would be glad to meet you." + +"I wonder!" said Cassy, whose wonder concerned not their pleasure but +her own, and concerned it because she hated snobs, among whom she knew +that Lennox moved. + +"Now, tell me," he resumed. + +Cassy, realising that it must be then or never, looked up at him. + +"You remember father's violin?" + +"I should say I did." + +"Well, my business in Wall Street was to offer it as--what do you call +it?--as collateral." + +Lennox indicated the bundle. "Is that it?" + +Cassy nodded. "I had to hide it and smuggle it out without his knowing +it. He thinks it stolen. If he knew, he would kill me. As it is, he has +gone crazy. To quiet him, I said I would go to the police." + +Lennox laughed. "And I am the police!" + +"Yes, you're the police." + +"All right then. The police have recovered it. Take it back to him. How +much do you need? Will a hundred do?" + +That was not Cassy's idea. She shook her docked head at it. "You're the +police but I am a business man. If you make the loan, you must keep the +collateral." + +"You are a little Jew, that's what you are," Lennox, affecting +annoyance, replied. + +Cassy smiled, "I like your jeu d'esprit. But not well enough to accept +money as a gift." + +"Good Lord!" Lennox protested. "Look here! I am not giving money away. I +don't mean it as a gift. Pay me back whenever you like. Until then, what +do you expect me to do with that thing? Give serenades? No, take it back +to your father. I know just how he feels about it. He told me." + +Cassy shifted the bundle. "Good-bye then." But as he still blocked the +way, she added: "Will you let me pass?" + +Moralists maintain that a man should never argue with a woman, +particularly when she is young and good-looking. He should yield, they +assert. Cassy's youth and beauty said nothing audible to Lennox. They +said nothing of which he was then aware. In addition he was not a +moralist. But there are influences, as there are bacilli, which +unconsciously we absorb. For some time he had been absorbing a few. He +did not realise it then. When he did, he was in prison. That though was +later. At the moment he threw up his hands. + +"I surrender. Will you mind putting it down somewhere?" + +Cassy turned. Beyond was a table and near it a chair to which she went. +There she dumped the violin. In so doing she saw Margaret's picture. + +"What a lovely girl!" + +Lennox, who had followed, nodded. "That is Miss Austen to whom I am +engaged." + +"Oh!" said Cassy. She did not know that Lennox was engaged. But suddenly +the room had become uncomfortably warm and she blurted it: "How happy +she must be!" + +At the slip, for he thought it one, Lennox laughed. + +"You mean how happy I must be," exclaimed this rare individual to whom +the verb to be happy had a present tense, yet one which even then it was +losing. + +He had been fumbling in a pocket. From it he drew a wad of bills, fives +and tens, and made another wad. "Here you are. I will mail you a receipt +for the collateral." + +Cassy, taking the money in one hand, extended the other. "May I say +something?" + +"Why, of course." + +Cassy could talk and very fluently. But at the moment she choked. What +is worse, she flushed. Conscious of which and annoyed at it, she +withdrew her hand and said: "It's so hot here!" + +Lennox looked about, then at her. "Is it? Was that what you wanted to +say?" + +Cassy shook herself. "No, and it was very rude of me. I wanted to thank +you. Good-bye, Mr. Policeman." + +"Good-bye," he threw after the girl, who, in leaving the room, must have +taken the sunlight with her. As she passed over the rug, the puddle +passed too. It followed her out like a dog. + +That phenomenon, to which Lennox then attached no significance, he +afterward recalled. For the moment he busied himself with pen and ink. +Presently he touched a button. + +From regions beyond the little old man appeared. + +Lennox motioned at the bundle. "Take that to this address. Ask for Mr. +Cara and say it comes from the police. From the police, don't forget, +Harris." + +"I'll not forget, sir." + +"And go now. When the ladies come, I'll open the door." + +As it happened, only shadows came. The shadows lengthened. They lapped +the floor, devoured the silver, turned the rug into a pit, the room into +darkness. Apart from shadows, no one came, no one rang. But, though +Lennox was unaware of it, two people did come, and of the two one would +have rung, had not the other prevented. + +Lennox did not know that. On the inaccessible planes where events are +marshalled, it was perhaps prearranged that he should not. + + + + +VII + + +Margaret, on her way to Lennox that afternoon, wondered whether it might +not be possible for them to live elsewhere. + +Born and bred in the sordid hell with a blue sky that New York was +before the war, latterly the sky itself had darkened. The world in which +she moved, distressed her. Its parure of gaiety shocked. Those who +peopled it were not sordid, they were not even blue. Europe agonised and +they dined and danced, displayed themselves at the opera, summarised the +war as dreadful, dismissed it, gossiped and laughed. It was that +attitude which distressed this girl who, had she been capable of wishing +ill to any one, might have wished them treated as were the elegantes of +Brussels. + +Margaret had no such evil wish. But she did hope that when married, she +might reside elsewhere. + +"There goes that Mrs. Tomlinson," said her mother. "Last night at the +Bazaar--what do you suppose? She asked me to dinner. She actually did! +The woman must be mad." + +Margaret made no reply. Park Avenue was very bright. To her also for the +moment the scientific savagery of the Huns was remote. The brightness of +the April day was about her. + +"I am in rags," continued Mrs. Austen, who was admirably dressed. "On +Monday I must really look in on Marguerite. She is an utter liar, but +then you feel so safe with her. Where is it that your young man lives? +Somebody said that lies whiten the teeth. It must be there, isn't it? Or +is it here? These places all look alike, none of them seems to have any +numbers and that makes it so convenient." + +They had reached a chalk cliff, on the face of which were windows, +balconies and, at the base, two low steps. On the upper step, in large +black letters, was the cliff's name. + +Through glasses, which she did not need, Mrs. Austen surveyed it. "The +Sandringham! Why not The Throne?" + +Margaret went on and up. Mrs. Austen followed. At once they were in a +large, marble-flagged hall. Beyond, from a lift, a boy in green and +gilt, peered greedily. At the left was a door with a brass plate that +said: "Dr. Winship." Opposite was another door with another plate on +which was "Lennox." + +That, also, Mrs. Austen surveyed. "I did not know your young man was an +earl, but perhaps he is merely a duke. Shall we send that boy or do we +ring? In bachelor quarters one hardly knows what to do--or what goes on +in them either," she immediately and suggestively added. + +The door at the right had opened. Cassy was coming out. The flush was +still on her face and in her hand was the money. Mechanically she +thumbed it. She had looked down at the roll of bills and through them at +the butcher, the baker, the candlestickmaker. She looked up and saw +Margaret whose photograph she had seen a moment before. Instantly she +recognised her. Instantly she realised that it was for her the violets +and the sack of bonbons were waiting. As quickly she understood why the +teapot had shouted: "Be off!" + +From Margaret she glanced at Mrs. Austen, who was well worth it. In and +about her eyes and mouth there was an expression of such lofty +aloofness, an air of such aristocratic disdain, that though she stood +without motion, movement, or gesture; though, too, there was no draught, +the skirt of her admirable frock seemed to lift and avert itself. It was +the triumph of civilised life. Yet that triumph she contrived to +heighten. Raising the glasses which she did not need, she levelled them +at Cassy. + +Cassy, who had but glanced at her, arrested the glance and, for a +second, held it on her, but with an unconcern so obliterating that it +had the effect of blotting-paper. Mrs. Austen felt herself disappearing. +It was as though Cassy had looked at her and had seen nothing whatever. + +And that to Mrs. Austen! The lady squirmed but she rallied, the more +readily perhaps since now Cassy had gone, and she said and pleasantly +enough: "What a charming vestal! Such an engaging manner! Seemed, too, +so at home! Let me see? It was she, was it not, who was singing last +night? Rather a coincidence, don't you think?" + +Margaret made no reply. The incident, though long in the telling, had +barely outlasted a moment, and crossing the hall, she was approaching +Lennox' door. + +Without haste, Mrs. Austen circumvented her. "Not to-day, my dear. As it +is, it is fortunate we came on foot. Otherwise, it would have been +awkward and that is always so distressing. Another day." + +Quietly, easily she had got herself in front of Margaret who, without +shoving, could not reach the bell. + +With candid eyes she looked at her mother. "You seem to be +suggesting----" + +"Perish the thought!" Mrs. Austen sweetly and quickly cut in. "I would +not even suggest that one and two make three, for perhaps they don't. +No, my dear, I suggest nothing. I merely insist. To-day we must postpone +our little visit and to-night, when he comes, you can have it out with +him. A lover's quarrel! What more could you wish? But here now is the +lift-boy. We must dissemble. It's quite like a play. + +"No," she interrupted herself to remark at the approaching, greedy and +enquiring youth, "I want nothing whatever except not to be engaged in +conversation." + +"Whachyer mean?" asked the boy, who, however, promptly blighted by her +level stare, omitted to pursue it. + +She turned again to Margaret. "We will find a taxi at the corner. These +first spring days are so enervating." + +Margaret faced her. "I am going in." + +The sight of Cassy issuing from Lennox' rooms had surprised her, as the +unexpected will surprise. But in saying that she was going in, it was +not at all for explanations. Explanations are for strangers. Love +understands--or should understand, and Margaret divined that Cassy had +come on some errand from her father, of whose waylaying and rescue +Lennox had long since told her. + +"Will you please move a little?" she added. + +Mrs. Austen, after routing the boy, had lowered her glasses. She raised +them again. "Look there!" + +At the entrance were two women with a child between them. On the stair +was a man. The door marked "Dr. Winship" had opened. The wide hall was +suddenly full of people. + +Mrs. Austen lowered her lorgnette. "Don't make a scene, my dear. At +least, don't make one over my dead body." + +Resistance was easy, but to what end? Margaret felt that she could +persist, insist, ring and go in, but now only to be accompanied by her +mother's mocking and stilted sneers. The consciousness of that +subtracted the brightness from the day, the pleasure from the visit. +Then, too, that evening he would come. Then they would be alone. + +She turned. A moment more and both were in the street, where Mrs. Austen +forgot about the taxi. Other matters occupied the good woman and +occupied her very agreeably. She had been playing a game, and a rare +game it is, with destiny. The stakes were extravagant, but her cards +were poor. Then abruptly, in one of the prodigious shuffles that fate +contrives, a hand, issuing from nowhere, had dealt her a flush. She +purred at it, at the avenue, at the world, at her daughter. + +"I am so glad we are not going anywhere to-night." A car flew by, a +gloved hand waved and the purr continued. "Wasn't that Sarah Amsterdam? +By the way, what did the medium tell you? Anything about a dark man +crossing your path? If not, it was very careless of her. But what was I +talking about? Oh, yes, I am so glad we are to be at home. You can have +a nice, quiet evening with your young man. Only, do you know, I wouldn't +say anything about that little vestal. He might not like it. Men are so +queer. They hate to be misunderstood and to be understood makes them +furious. No, I wouldn't mention it. But now isn't he as full of +surprises as a grab-bag? I thought him a model of the most perfect +propriety, and that only shows how wrong it is to judge by appearances. +Model young men always remind me of floor-walkers. Who was that that +just bowed? Dear me, so it was, and he looked so down in the mouth he +might have been a dentist. On Monday I really must go to my dentist. He +does hurt terribly and that is so reassuring. You feel that you are +getting your money's worth. Don't your teeth need attending to? Ah, here +we are at last! God bless our home!" + +Entering the hall, she looked at a little room to the right in which the +manager awed prospecting tenants. Usually it was empty. It was empty +then. Mrs. Austen looked, passed on and, preceding Margaret, entered a +lift that floated them to the home on which she had asked a blessing. + + + + +VIII + + +The Italians have a proverb about waiting for some one who does not +come. They call it deadly. Among the lapping shadows Lennox felt the +force of it. But concluding that visitors had detained his guests, he +dressed and went around a corner or two to the Athenaeum Club where +usually he dined. + +In the main room which gives on Fifth Avenue, he found Ten Eyck Jones +talking war. Jones was a novelist, but he did not look like one. There +was nothing commercial in his appearance, which was that of a man +half-asleep, except when he talked and then he seemed very much awake. +He was not fat and though an inkbeast, he dressed after the manner of +those who put themselves in the best hands and then forget all about it. +But for Lennox he had a superior quality, he was a friend. With him was +Harry Cantillon, who, the night before, had danced away with Kate +Schermerhorn. Straddling an arm of Cantillon's chair was Fred Ogston, a +young man of a type that, even before the war, was vanishing and which +was known as about town. Adjacently sat Peter Verelst. Servants brought +little decanters and removed others. In a corner an old man glared with +envious venom at the liquors of which he had consumed too many and of +which, at the price of his eyesight, he could consume no more. + +Jones waved at Lennox. "I have been telling these chaps that before they +are much older they will be in khaki." + +"Houp!" cried Cantillon. He sprang up, ran to the arched entrance, +where, lightly, without effort, he turned a somersault and was gone. + +The old man in the corner raised himself, shuffled to a table, sat down +and wrote to the house committee. Such conduct could not be tolerated! +Having said it, he raised himself again and shuffled over with the +letter to Dunwoodie, a lawyer with the battered face of a bulldog and a +ruffian's rumpled clothes. + +Dunwoodie, instead of taking the letter, gave the old man a look, one +look, his famous look, the look with which--it was said--he reversed the +Bench. Angrily the old man turned tail, collided with Paliser, +apologised furiously, damning him beneath his breath, damning Dunwoodie, +damning the house committee, damning the club. + +"Are you to dine here?" Jones asked Ogston, who swore gently, declaring +that, worse luck, he was due at his aunt's. + +"But you are," Jones told Lennox. "Come on and I'll make your hair stand +on end." He turned: "And yours, too." + +Peter Verelst smoothed the back of his head. "Thank you, Ten Eyck. But +such hair as I have I prefer should remain as it is." + +The two men went on and up into another room, spacious, high-ceiled, set +with tables, where a captain got them seated, took their orders, +carefully transmitted them to a careful waiter, an omnibus meanwhile +producing ice-water which Jones had promptly removed. + +He smiled at Lennox. "Who was the jeunesse you and Paliser were talking +to last night? She had been singing." + +Lennox unfolded a napkin. "I thought you were to make my hair stand on +end." + +"Well," said the novelist, who spoke better than he knew, "she may make +Paliser's. There's a young man with plenty of perspective. I saw him in +London just before the deluge. He was then en route for the Marquesas. I +envied him that. I envied him the vanilla-scented nights; the skies, a +solid crust of stars, and also, and particularly, the tattooed ghosts. +But I am forgetting your hair. Were you ever in Berlin?" + +Lennox scowled. "Yes. Once." + +"And once is too often. The last time I was there, I looked down the +Wilhelmstrasse and it got up and threatened me. Barring the +possibilities of future avatars, I shall not promenade there again. But +I would give a red pippin, I would give two of them, to have been in +Potsdam on that night, that cloudless night, the night in July, when in +a room, gorgeous as only vulgarity could made it, there was sounded the +crack of doom." + +Jones gestured and a waiter hurried to him. He motioned him away. + +"You can picture it, Lennox, or, if not, who am I to refuse my aid? At +the doors were lackeys; at the gates were guards. Without and beyond, to +the four points of the compass, an unsuspecting world slept, toiled, +feasted, fasted, occupied with its soap-bubble hates and loves. But, in +that room, saurians, with titles as long as your arm, were contriving a +cataclysm that was to exceed the deluge. Since then, and though it be +but through the headlines, you and I stand witness to events that no +mortal ever saw before. That night, in that room they were concocted. By +comparison, what are the mythical exploits of Homer's warriors, the +fabulous achievements of Charlemagne's paladins, the fading memories of +Napoleon's campaigns? What are they all by comparison to a world in +flames? Hugo, with his usual sobriety, said that Napoleon inconvenienced +God. Napoleon wanted Europe. These gunmen want the earth. They won't get +it. Hell is their portion. But, while they were planning the +crib-cracking, I would give a red pippin to have been in their joint +that night. A little more trout?" + +Jones turned to the waiter. "Take it away and fetch the roast." + +He was about to give other orders, yet these Lennox interrupted. + +"But look here. You spoke of an unsuspecting world. The Kaiser had been +rattling the sabre for years. Everybody knew that." + +"So he had," said Jones, who contradicted no one. "But England did not +take him seriously, nor did this country either. Consequently, when the +war began it was regarded as but another robber-raid which shortly would +be over. That was an idea that everybody shared, even to the Kaiser, who +afterward said that he had not wanted this war. Incredible as it may +seem he spoke the truth. He did not want a war in which he would be +tripped on the Marne, blocked on the Yser and foiled at Verdun. He +wanted a war in which France would be felled, Russia rolled back, a war +in which, over Serbia's ravaged corpse, his legions could pour down +across the Turkish carpet into the realm where Sardanapalus throned, +beyond to that of Haroun-al-Raschid, on from thence to Ormus and the +Ind, and, with the resulting thralls and treasure, overwhelm England, +gut the United States, destroy civilisation and, on the ruins, set +Deutschland ueber Alles!" + +"Hear! Hear!" said Lennox from between bites. + +Jones, after a momentary interlude with a fork, got back at it. "That is +what he wanted! But to get it, he lacked one thing, one thing only. He +had everything else, he had everything that forethought, ingenuity and +science could provide. The arsenals were stocked. The granaries were +packed, the war-chests replete. Grey-green uniforms were piled endlessly +in heaps. Kiel--previously stolen from Denmark, but then reconstructed +and raised to the war degree--at last was open. The navy was ready. The +army was ready. Against any possible combination of European forces, the +oiled machine was prepared. In addition, clairvoyance had supplied the +pretext and stupidity the chance. Petersburg was then in the throes of a +general strike--which the Wilhelmstrasse had engineered. In Paris, the +slipshod condition of the army had been publicly denounced. England and +Ireland were nearly at each other's throats. Yet, had they been in each +other's arms, the Kaiser was convinced that England would not interfere. +Moreover in France, mobilisation required weeks; in Russia, months; and +even then the Russian army, otherwise unequipped, the Tsarina had +supplied with two hundred Teuton generals. That woman used to exclaim at +her resemblance to Marie Antoinette. She flattered herself. It is +Bazaine whom she resembled. But where was I? Oh, yes. The opportunity +was so obvious and everything so neatly prepared that, for good measure, +the pretext was added. An archduke, sinister when living and still more +sinister dead, was, by the Kaiser's orders, bombed to bits and the +bombing fastened on Serbia. Allied stupidity provided the opportunity, +imperial forethought supplied the rest. Since highwayry began, never was +there such a chance. On the last gaiter was the last button. The Kaiser +lacked but one thing." + +Lennox shoved at his plate. "So you have said." + +Jones, abandoning his fork, repeated it. "One thing! In Potsdam, on that +cloudless July night, when the world, on which he proposed to batten, +slept, toiled, feasted, fasted, occupied with its futile loves and +hates, that thing must have occurred to him." + +"Yes, but confound it, what was it?" + +Jones lit a cigar. "Bernstorff said, or is said to have said--I do not +count him among my acquaintances--that on that night this supercanaille +showed symptoms of what I think I have seen described as vacillation. +That is quite on the cards. It bears out my theory. In any event the +fellow had his ambitions. He wanted to descend into the red halls of +history disguised. He might have succeeded. History is very careless and +to-day barely recalls that at five o'clock on the morning succeeding his +marriage to a dowdy fat girl, he treated his regiment to a drill. The +fact is uninteresting and would be equally unimportant were it not for +the note that it struck. Subsequently, when he leaped on the throne, he +shouted that those who opposed him he would smash. "There is no other +law than mine"; he later announced--a fine phrase and yet but a modern +variant of Domitian's: "Your god and master orders it." Incidentally, in +addition to the Garter, an honorific which the Duke of Cambridge +admirably summarised as "having, sir, none of the damned nonsense of +merit about it," he had other distinctions. He had--and has--uranomania, +that is to say, a flight of fancy in which the patient believes himself +associated with God. He had also defilirium tremens, which manifested +itself in those man[oe]uvres that are war's image and in which the +troops defile. Yet, when it came to the real thing, it may be that this +paradomaniac lacked the stomach. Apart from the Kruger incident, and one +or two other indecencies, his observance of international etiquette was +relatively correct. The lackeys of history might therefore have +deodorised him. With a sow's ear a lot may be done. Have a cigar?" + +Lennox laughed. "I would prefer the point." + +"Now, how greedy you are. Well then, here it is. On that fatidic night +in July, this fellow was fifty-five." + +"What of it?" + +"Everything. At his age Alexander had been dead twenty years." + +As Jones spoke he raised his hands. "Spirit of the Great Sinner, forgive +me! This scrofulous dwarf has no kinship with thee!" + +"No," Jones, dropping his hands, resumed. "None. His kin are Herod, +Caracalla, Attila, Genghis Khan, and Cloacus, Lord of Sewers. Those are +his kin. To the shade of the Lampsacene, whom the world had forgotten; +to that of Cloacus, whom civilisation had ignored, subsequently he +devoted the army. For the troops he invoked them. But that night the +ghosts of the others gave him pause. At his age, Caracalla, Attila, +Genghis, were dead. They had died hideous, monstrous--but young. Herod +alone may have seemed a promising saint to swear by, though, in the +obscurities of Syrian chronology, even of him he could not be sure. The +one kindred hyena who, at fifty-five, had defied the world was Tsi An, +the Chinese Empress, and he had helped to squelch her. Do you see it +now? To burglarise the world, this thug had every advantage. The police +were asleep. The coast was clear. The jimmies and the dynamite sticks +were ready. Even the dark lantern was packed. The kit was complete. He +had everything. He lacked nothing, except the one essential--Youth! The +eyes of youth are clear. His were too dimmed to foresee that the +allies----" + +Lennox was rising. + +Amiably Jones switched on and off again. "Hold on a minute. You have not +given me the "Who's Who" of that young woman." + +In Lennox' brain, instantly cells latent, alert, and of which he was +entirely unconscious, functioned actively. Before him Cassy stood. +Beside her was another. This other, very lovely, was a saint. Yet, +prompted still by the cells and equally unaware of it, it occurred to +him that a lovely saint may resemble a vase that is exquisite, but +unresilient and perhaps even empty. Whereas a siren, like Cassy---- + +Abruptly he caught himself up. The unawaited disloyalty into which he +had floundered, surprised and annoyed him. He could not account for the +delicate infidelity and perplexedly he looked at Jones who still was at +it. + +"The diva I mean. The diva in duodecimo who sang at the Bazaar." + +Lennox shook himself and sat down again. Modestly then the thrice-told +tale was repeated--Angelo Cara, a violin in one hand, a sword-cane in +the other, trudging home. The attack, the rout, the rescue, the +acquaintance with Cassy that ensued. + +Jones, absorbing the story, pigeonholed his memory with the details +which, sometime, for copy purposes, might be of use. + +"They are Portuguese," Lennox, rising again, concluded. + +Jones peered about. The great room was filled with members, eating, +drinking, laughing, talking--talking mainly of nothing whatever. He +motioned. "Isn't that Cantillon over there with--of all +people!--Dunwoodie?" + +Lennox looked and nodded. "Cantillon is in Dunwoodie's office. He asked +me to give him my law business." Indifferently, with the air of one +considering the improbable, Lennox added: "Some day I may. Good-night." + +But in the night into which he then went, already that day was breaking. + + + + +IX + + +That same evening, as Lennox was leaving the club, Mrs. Austen, rising +from the dinner-table, preceded Margaret into the drawing-room and +looked at the clock, a prostrate nymph, balancing a dial on the soles of +her feet. At the figures on the dial, the nymph pointed a finger. + +From the clock Mrs. Austen turned and exclaimed at the windows which she +had already examined. "The jardinieres have not yet been attended to! It +is inconceivable!" + +Margaret, who had seated herself, said: "You might send for the +manager." + +"He would only keep me waiting and then expect me to tell him what I +wanted. He ought to know. Besides, I might have forgotten. It is very +tiresome." + +Margaret stood up. "I will tell him." + +With a click, Mrs. Austen unfurled a fan and, with another click, +refurled it. "No. I will see him myself. I am quite in the humour." + +Margaret looked after her mother, who was leaving the room. The sudden +tempest in a flowerpot surprised her. But the outer door closed. +Margaret reseated herself. Presently he would come and together they +would make those plans that lovers make--and then unmake, unless, +elsewhere, they have been made for them. + +Meanwhile she waited. The incident at the Sandringham, the sight of +Cassy, her mother's facile insinuations, these things had distressed +her, because, and only because, they had prevented her from enjoying the +innocent pleasure of the innocent visit to the rooms of her betrothed, +whom she loved with a love that was too pure and too profound, to +harbour doubt and suspicion and that evil child of theirs which jealousy +is. Her faith was perfect. That faith showed in her face and heightened +her beauty with a candour that should have disarmed her mother, who, in +the hall below, was, at that moment, instructing a man and not about +flower-boxes either. + +"Mr. Lennox, you may know him, by sight I mean, will be coming here +shortly. Please have him shown into that room there." + +Mrs. Austen passed on. The little room at which she had glanced that +afternoon received her--a hospitality in which a mirror joined. The +latter welcomed her with a glimpse of herself. It was like meeting an +old friend. But no; a friend certainly, yet not an old one. Age had not +touched this lady, not impudently at least, though where it may have had +the impertinence to lay a finger, art had applied another, a moving +finger that had written a parody of youth on her face which was then +turning to some one behind her whom the mirror disclosed. + +In turning, she smiled. + +"It is so good of you, Mr. Lennox, to look in on me. The door-man told +you about Margaret, did he not? No? How careless of him. The dear child +has a headache and has gone to bed." + +"Has she?" said Lennox. He found but that. But at least he understood +why Margaret had not come to his rooms. The headache had prevented her. + +"It is nothing." Mrs. Austen was telling him. "To-morrow she will be +herself again. Nice weather we are having." + +"Very," Lennox answered. + +As he would have said the same thing if Mrs. Austen had declared that +the weather was beastly, the reply did not matter. It did not matter to +her; it did not matter to him. She was thinking of something else and he +was also. He was thinking of Margaret, wondering whether he might not go +to her. Were it not for the strait-jacket that conventionality is and +which pinions the sturdiest, he would have gone. He was a little afraid +of Mrs. Austen, as an intelligent man sometimes is afraid of an imbecile +woman. But his fear of her fainted beside the idea that if, disregarding +the bagatelles of the door, he made his way to Margaret, she herself +might not like it. That alone restrained him. Afterward he wished he had +let nothing prevent him. Afterward he regretted it. It is the misery of +life--and sometimes its reward--that regret should be futile. + +But, at the moment, grim and virile, a hat in one hand, a stick in the +other, his white tie just showing between the lapels of his overcoat, +already he was consoling himself. He had not seen Margaret in the +afternoon, and he was not to see her this evening. No matter. The morrow +would repay--that morrow which is falser than the former day. + +Pleasantly at him and at his thoughts, Mrs. Austen played the flute. +"Won't you sit down?" In speaking, she sank on a sofa which she occupied +amply. + +Lennox, shifting his stick, took a chair. Later, in one of those evil +moods that come to the best, as well as to the worst, he wished he had +brained her with it. + +With the magic flute, Mrs. Austen continued: "To-morrow is Sunday, is it +not? You must be sure to come. Dear me! I can remember when everybody +went to church on Sunday and then walked up and down Fifth Avenue. Fifth +Avenue had trees then instead of shops and on the trees were such funny +little worms. They used to hang down and crawl on you. The houses, too, +were so nice. They all had piazzas and on the piazzas were honeysuckles. +But I fear I am boasting. I don't really remember all that. It was my +father who told me. Those must have been the good old days!" + +Lennox again shifted his stick. "To-day I had hoped that you would look +in on me." + +The flute caressed the strain. "Yes. It was too bad! We had quite +counted on it. Bachelor quarters must be so exciting." + +"Well, not mine at any rate. They are rather dark." + +"But that must make them all the more exciting! Blindman's buff! Hide +and go seek! What fun you must have with your friends romping about!" + +"My friends are too busy for that. Though to-day----" + +"Yes?" + +Lennox hesitated. He knew that this woman took no interest in him +whatever, but he had intended to tell Margaret about Cassy. + +Pleasantly Mrs. Austen prodded him. "Yes?" + +"Nothing of any moment. This afternoon, Miss Cara, the girl who sang +last night, came to see me. You may remember I told you I knew her +father." + +"It seems to me I do." + +"Things have not gone well there and I advanced her a trifle for him." + +Mrs. Austen unfurled her fan. It was all Honest Injun. She had not a +doubt of it and never had. But if she had thought it a Sioux and +Comanche story, it would have been the same to her. + +"I am sorry you did not meet her," Lennox continued. "You might have +lent her a hand." + +"Professionally, you mean?" + +"Yes." + +"I might have her sing here," replied Mrs. Austen, who would have seen +Cassy hanged first. + +Lennox considered the picture: Mrs. Austen in the role of shepherdess, +herding for Cassy's benefit the flock of sheep that society is. But the +picture did not detain him. He stood up. + +"That would be very good of you. Please tell Margaret I am sorry she has +a headache and that I will look in on her to-morrow." + +No you won't, thought Mrs. Austen, who said: "Yes, do." + +In a moment, when he had gone, she looked again in the mirror. It showed +her a woman who would not steal, unless she could do so undetectably; a +woman who would not forge, because she did not know how. Crimes +ridiculous or merely terrific she was too shrewd to commit. But there +are crimes that the law cannot reach. There are cards, too, that fate +may deal. + +After looking at the woman, she looked at the cards. They were +dreamlike. Even so, they needed stacking. Mrs. Austen arranged them +carefully, ran them up her sleeve and floated to the room where Margaret +waited. + +As she entered, Margaret turned to her. Her face had that disquieting +loveliness which Spanish art gave to the Madonna, the loveliness of +flesh eclipsed certainly by the loveliness of the soul, but still flesh, +still lovely. + +At sight of it Mrs. Austen experienced the admiration tinctured with the +vitriol of jealousy that some mothers inject. Mrs. Austen had been a +belle in the nights when there were belles but her belledom, this girl, +who was not a belle, outshone. Yet the glow of it while necessarily +physical had in it that which was moral. Unfortunately the radiance of +moral beauty only those who are morally beautiful can perceive. Mrs. +Austen was blind to it. It was her daughter's physical beauty that she +always saw and which, though she was jealous of it, had, she knew, a +value, precisely as beauty had a value in Circassia where, before the +war, it fetched as much as a hundred Turkish pounds. In New York, where +amateurs are keener and beauty is more rare, it may run into millions. + +Commercially conscious of that, Mrs. Austen felt for the cards and +carelessly produced one. + +"Do you know, I believe we are to have a shower. Your young man got off +just in time." + +Margaret, who had glanced at the prostrate nymph, looked at her upright +mother. "Do you mean that Keith has come--and gone?" + +Mrs. Austen sat down and extracted another card. "My dear, when I went +below he was coming in. We----" + +Margaret, with her usual directness, interrupted. "But he is coming +back?" + +"That depends on you." + +"On me? How? What do you mean?" + +"That you must do as you like, of course. But if you elect to see him, +for goodness' sake don't refer to it." + +"Refer to it!" Margaret exclaimed. "Refer to what?" + +"The vestal whom we saw this afternoon." + +"I don't understand." + +Indulgently Mrs. Austen motioned. "It is hardly proper that you should." + +Margaret winced and coloured. "Your insinuation is horrible." + +Cheerfully Mrs. Austen smiled. Margaret's start, her heightened colour, +her visible annoyance, these things comforted her. A grandee of Spain +warmed his hands at the auto-da-fe. There are people just like him. +There are people that take comfort in another's distress. Mrs. Austen +did not know that she resembled them. She had nothing but Margaret's +welfare in view. Nothing but that and her own. Her own though came +first. + +She raised the fan. "My dear, you misjudge me. I always said that he is +a good young man and I stick to it. He is good, far too good, too good +to be true." With that, lowering the fan, she produced a trump. +"Downstairs, a moment ago, he told me so." + +Margaret gasped. "He told you--he told you----" + +"Precisely. That is just what he did tell me." + +Margaret straightened. "I don't believe it." + +Mrs. Austen waved at her. "Oh, I don't mean that he has deceived you. He +has done nothing of the kind. It is you who have deceived yourself. That +was to be expected. At your age I deceived myself quite as thoroughly. I +thought your father a conquering hero and he was merely a bore. But he +pointed a moral, though he adorned no tale. He married to settle down. +That is this young man's idea and I must give him credit for the fact +that while he has not deceived you, he did deceive me. I thought him a +tedious person; whereas, not a bit of it. He is exceedingly lively. If +he keeps it up, his wife will be blessed among women. But that is just +it. He won't keep it up. He swore he would not and I believe him. He has +turned over a new leaf. I can't cry over it, but it is really too bad." + +Margaret, who had straightened, stiffened. "If I believed a word of what +you tell me, I would forgive him entirely." + +Mrs. Austen, unprepared for that, leaned forward. "My dear, I had no +idea you were so sensible." + +"I would forgive entirely," Margaret continued. "But I would never see +him again." + +How good that tasted! Mrs. Austen swallowed it contentedly. "Of course +you will see him. You are not going blind, I suppose. But when you do +see him, it will be only decent of you to ignore the matter which is not +a fit subject for you to discuss." + +Margaret, who had straightened and stiffened, now was rigid. "I +certainly shall ignore it. It is not worth talking about." + +Mrs. Austen leaned back. "Ah, my dear, how right you are. He could not +tell you that he had loved wisely, it would not be very flattering. He +could not say he had loved too well, for that would be embarrassing. +What a pretty frock you have on. Did Marguerite make it? Of course he +could not. It would not be nice at all. But to me he made a soiled +breast of it. Don't you think the skirt a bit too long? Stand up a +minute." + +Margaret coloured again. She coloured with a flush that put two red +spots on her. She did not believe it. She could not and would not. Yet +credence, like the wind, bloweth where it listeth. + +Mrs. Austen, noting the spots, knew that the card had been well played +and leisurely selected another. + +"Perhaps it is the way you are sitting. Yes, altogether it is quite +ducky. I really must go to Marguerite on Monday. Don't let me forget +about it or the dentist either. I shall have my hands full and my mouth +also. The proper caper, too, apparently. That little dollymop, whom we +saw this afternoon, had her hands full. Did you notice the roll of bills +that she was counting? Such an enjoyable occupation! But it won't last. +You need not worry on that score. He had been paying her off. He assured +me of that and so unnecessarily. Why, I saw the whole thing at a glance. +Anybody but you would have seen it too. But you are so theosophically +nearsighted. It was for that reason I took you away. Now, though, he is +going to begin on a clean slate. Those were his very words, and you, I +suppose, are the clean slate. He has such original expressions, hasn't +he? But there! I forgot. He did not mean me to tell you. In fact, he +begged me not to." + +From Margaret's face the flush retreating left it white with that +whiteness which dismay creates. A bucket of mud had drenched her. It did +more, it dazed her. The idea that the bucket was imaginary, the mud +non-existent, that every word she had heard was a lie, did not occur to +this girl who, if a Psyche, was not psychic. In her heart was the mud; +in her mother's hand was the bucket. But the mire itself, he had put +there. The evidence of her own eyes she might have questioned. But he +had admitted it and the fact that he had induced in her the purely +animal feeling to get away, to be alone and to suffer unseen. + +She left the room, went to her own, closed the door and at a prie-Dieu +fell on her knees, not to pray--she knew that the Lords of Karma are not +to be propitiated or coerced--but in humiliation. + +In humiliation there may be self-pity and that is always degrading. With +uncertain hands she tried to transform that pity into sorrow, not for +herself, but for him. The burnt offering seared her. In the secret +chambers of her being her young soul tripped and fell. For support she +clutched at her creed. Ordinarily it would have sustained her. +Ordinarily it would have told her that her suffering was the penalty for +suffering which she had caused, a penalty that the gods of the doors +that close behind our birth were measuring to her. Ordinarily she would +have realised that in some anterior, enigmatic and forgotten life, she, +too, had debased herself and that this cross was the punishment for that +debasement. Ordinarily the creed would have sustained her. But as she +clutched at it, it receded. Only the cross remained and that was too +heavy. + +In the drawing-room an indifferent nymph pointed a finger at hours, all +of which wound and of which the last one kills. + +In that room Mrs. Austen was writing a note. Addressed to Montagu +Paliser, Jr., esqre., it asked him to dinner. + + + + +X + + +In the subway, the following evening, Cassy saw a man eyeing her. She +turned and saw another man who also was eyeing her. On the seat opposite +two women were discussing her clothes. + +The clothes, her own manufacture, were not of the fashion, not behind +it, or ahead of it, but above it. A mode, or a mood of her own, they +consisted in a blue silk smock and a yellow cloth skirt. On the sleeves +and about the neck of the smock there was also yellow, touches of it, +with which the skirt married. Therewith she was hatless, rebellious and +handsome. + +Accustomed to the inquisitiveness of appraising eyes, she ignored the +women as, already, she had ignored the men. With obliterating unconcern, +she reduced them to the fluidity of the inchoate. Other matters occupied +her, and, primarily, a trick, an extremely shabby one, from which she +had not yet recovered. + +The day before, after paying the butcher, the baker, and the punctual +and pertinacious agent, she had scaled the walk-up where she found her +father with the violin, on which, an hour earlier, Lennox had loaned her +the money. + +The spectacle flabbergasted her. Then, realising what Lennox had done, +his iniquity struck her as hateful. At once, in an effort to account, +however imaginatively, for the apparent sorcery of it all, she tried to +invent a fairy-tale. But the tale would not come. Nor was it needed. Her +father dispensed with any. Impatient of detail, as the artist usually +is, he required none. The extraordinary perspicacity of the police who +had nailed and returned the violin instanter, this wizardry that would +have thrown any one else into stupors of bewilderment, interested him +not at all. He had the violin. That sufficed. The rest did not matter. + +It mattered though and monumentally to Cassy. To owe the butcher, the +baker, the candlestickmaker, and to have them look slantingly at you, +that was disgusting. But to be beholden for a gift, which you had +refused to accept, and which then, behind your back, was dumped in on +you, that was degrading. Consequently, while conjecturing new versions +of Perrault, versions which it relieved her to find were not wanted, she +gnashed her milk-white teeth at Lennox, felt that she hated him, yet +felt, too, and the feeling was maddening, that the hatred was very +tender. + +All this was irritating enough and the Tamburini had contrived to add to +the irritation. It had been arranged that the fallen star was to come to +the walk-up and accompany Cassy to the Splendor. Instead of which, at +the last moment, the ex-diva had telephoned that she would join her at +the hotel, and Cassy foresaw a tedious sitting about in the lobby, for +Ma Tamby was always late. But when have misfortunes come singly? Cassy +foresaw, too, that the tedium would not be attenuated by Paliser's +conversation. + +It was not for that, or for him, that she was then in the subway, but +for dinner. Young, healthy and consequently carnal, though not otherwise +carnal than hunger can make you, she liked food, on condition that she +had not prepared it, and--in particular, and why not?--she liked the +savorously truffled menus that walk-ups lack. She had another reason for +being in the subway, one that Ma Tamby had lodged, like a flea, in her +ear. + +But now, near the heart of Manhattan, the train had stopped. Cassy got +out, looked at her white gloves, wondered if they smelled of benzine, +decided that they did, took them off and went on to the Splendor where +Paliser was waiting. + +Other people appeared to be similarly occupied. In the high, wide hall +were groups of careful men and careless women, the latter very +scrumptious in their imported frocks. The sight of these Parisianisms +abashed Cassy no more than her appearance abashed Paliser. Etiquette, +Formality, the Proper Thing, the great inane gods of the ante-bellum +heavens, he had never acknowledged and now, though locally their altars +remained and their worship persisted, he knew they were forever dead, +blown into the dust-bin of the things that were, tossed there in +derision by that atheist, the War. + +The careless women looked at Cassy and carefully looked away. The +careful men looked at her and carelessly looked again. In the severity +of the wide, high hall, the girl with her rebellious beauty and +harlequin gown, struck a note which it lacked, struck two of them, the +go-and-be-hanged-to-you and originality. + +In evening clothes that said Savile Row, Paliser approached. "You are +punctual as a comet and equally luminous." + +Cassy, ignoring the remark, ignoring, too, the hand that accompanied it, +cut him short. "Haven't seen Madame Tamburini, have you?" + +Paliser's hair had the effect of a mirror. He smoothed the back of it. +The ex-diva he had certainly seen and not later than just before she +telephoned to Cassy. But it is injudicious, and also tiresome, to tell +everything. With the wave of a cheque, the complicity of the former +first-lady had been assured, and assured moreover without a qualm on her +part. Ma Tamby did not know what it is to have a qualm--which she could +not have spelled if she had known. She was differently and superiorly +educated. In the university that life is, she had acquired encyclopedias +of recondite learning. She knew that ice is not all that it is cracked +up to be: that a finger in the pie is better than two in the fire, and +that angels have been observed elsewhere than at Mons--learning which, +as you may see, is surprising. + +Over the ham and eggs of an earlier evening, the syllables of Paliser's +name had awakened echoes of old Academy nights and Mapleson's "grand +revivals" of the Trovatore, echoes thin and quavering, yet still +repeating hymns in glory of the man's angelic papa. On the way from ham +and eggs to Harlem, she had, in consequence, conjured, for Cassy's +benefit, with performing fleas. But when, on this afternoon, M. P. Jr., +had come and waved cheques at her, she had felt that her worst hopes +were realised, that her finger was really in the pie, and she had agreed +to everything, which, however, for the moment, was nothing at all, +merely to abandon Cassy that evening; merely also to collaborate later +in the evocation of a myth, and meanwhile to keep at it with the fleas. + +Now, in the hall of the Splendor, as Paliser patted the back of his +head, he was enjoying Cassy's open-air appearance that needed only a +tennis-racket to be complete. + +Cassy glanced about. She had a penny or two more than her carfare and +yet, if she had owned the shop, she could not have appeared more at ease +in this smartest of smart inns, a part of which, destiny, in its +capriciousness, was to offer her. + +"No," he answered. "But I have a private room somewhere. She can find +her way there, unless you prefer palms and an orchestra." + +"I do," said Cassy, to whom a room with this man said only boredom and +who liked to see what was going on. + +Then when, presently, they were seated at a table, to which the +chastened captain of the ham-and-egg night had piloted the way, Cassy +beheld what she had never beheld before, and what few mortals ever do +behold, a cradled bottle of Clos de Vougeot. But to her, the royal cru +was very much like the private room. It said nothing. A neighbouring +table was more eloquent. + +Among the people seated there was an imperial woman with an imperial +manner, whom Cassy instantly recognised. She was prima donna, prima +donna assoluta, and though Cassy did not know it--nor would it have +interested her if she had known--dissoluta also. + +To be in her shoes! + +In that seven-leagued dream, she forgot Paliser, the delinquent +Tamburini, the trick that Lennox had played. In a golden gloom, on a +wide stage, to a house packed to the roof, Cassy was bowing. Her final +roulade had just floated on and beyond, lost now in cyclonic bravas. + +"It was the Duc d'Aumale," Paliser was saying. + +"Eh?" Abruptly Cassy awoke. + +"Or, if not, some other chap who, recognising it, ordered his regiment +to halt and present arms." + +"To whom?" + +"To the vineyard where the grape in that bottle was grown." + +Cassy shook out a napkin. "You talk just like my janitress. I never +understand a word she says." + +But now a waiter was bringing delicacies other than those obtainable in +Harlem; in particular, a dish that had the merit of pleasing Cassy. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"Muskrat." + +"What!" + +"Muskrat with terrapin for a pseudonym. The pseudonym shows imagination. +Let us be thankful for that. Gastronomy is bankrupt. Formerly it was +worshipped. Formerly gastronomy was a goddess. To-day the sole tributes +consist in bills-of-fare that are just like the Sahara minus the oases. +It is the oases we want and it is muskrat we get. That is all wrong. The +degree of culture that any nation may claim is shown in its cookery and +if there is anything viler than what we get here it must be served in +Berlin. It must have been Solon who said: 'Tell me what you eat and I +will tell you who you are.' He added, or should have, that animals feed, +man dines and, when permitted, dines devoutly. There are dishes, as +there are wines, to which one should rise and bow. But hereabouts it is +only by special dispensation that one gets them. In a hotel such as this +there is an outward show of reverence, but it is sheer hypocrisy; of +real piety there is none, a sham attempt to observe the sacred rites +without knowing how. I admit I don't know either. From me the divine +afflatus has been withheld. But elsewhere I have been conscious of the +presence. Once or twice I was blessed. Here, though, in default of +shrines there should be chairs. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, should +establish a few. When I was in college I was taught everything that it +is easiest to forget. If the youth of the land were instructed in +gastronomy we would all be wiser and better. Chairs on gastronomy, that +is what we need!" + +Cassy laughed. "Why not tables?" + +Paliser laughed with her. The laughter was a bond. It joined them +however tenuously. It was what he had been driving at. Accustomed to +easy successes, Cassy's atmosphere, with its flavour of standoffishness +and indifference, appealed to this man, who had supped on the facile and +who wanted the difficult. Cassy, he could have sworn, would supply it +and, if he had, he would have sworn very truly. + +Meanwhile the muskrat had gone. Dishes less false but equally fair had +followed. Now, with the air of a conjurer, the waiter just showed them +an entremets which he hastened to serve. It was a soufflee. + +At it, Cassy, just showing the point of her strawberry tongue, exclaimed +without rancour: "Ma Tamby has thrown us over." + +Paliser lit a cigarette. "She may be singing in the private room." + +Cassy laughed again. "Yes. 'Una voce poco fa!' That would be just the +thing--wouldn't it?--to sing privately in private." + +Paliser answered, though what, she did not hear. The orchestra drowned +it and for a moment she considered him, conscious that he was less +objectionable than he had seemed, yet entirely unconscious that such +objection as she had experienced was due to his extreme good-looks, +which in a man are always objectionable to a woman when she herself is +handsome, for they make him resemble her and, in so doing, constitute an +encroachment on her prerogatives, which, in itself, is an affront. + +Cassy, ignorant of the psychology of it, equally unaware that +familiarity which may breed contempt can also dissolve dislike, and +feeling merely a lessening of her instinctive hostility, told herself +that he was perhaps not as cocky as he looked and drank of the glass +before her. + +The Clos de Vougeot which, to the educated palate, is art, literature +and song combined, meant nothing more to her than if it had been Medoc. +She drank it because it was there at her hand, as she would have drunk +water, without savouring it, without any realisation of the enormity of +the crime. Yet though it meant nothing, nothing at least of which she +was aware, the royal cru was affecting her. It modified and mollified, +admonishing her that this man was an inoffensive insect who, +circumstances favouring, might, as Ma Tamby when inserting the flea had +told her, put her father on his feet. + +In just what the favouring circumstances could consist, the fallen star +had not bothered to indicate, and she had not bothered because they were +too obvious and also because she was sure that Cassy was not insane. + +Paliser abandoned his cigarette. "If you like, we might look in at the +Metropolitan. I believe I have a box." + +Apart from down-stage and the centre of it, apart, too, from the flys +and the dressing-rooms, Cassy's imagination had not as yet conceived +anything more beckoning than a box at the opera, even though, as on this +occasion, the opera happened to be a concert. "Why, yes. Only----" +Pausing, she looked about. The imperial lady had gone. + +"Only what?" Paliser very needlessly asked for he knew. + +"I fear I am a bit overdressed." + +"Not for Sunday. The house will be full and nobody in it. Besides, what +do you care?" + +Cassy shrugged. "Personally, not a rap. It was of you I was thinking." + +Paliser, who had been signing the check and feeing the waiter, looked at +her. "I did not know that you were so considerate." + +Cassy, in surprise not at him, but at herself, laughed. "Nor did I." + +Paliser stood up and drew back her chair. "Be careful. You might become +cynical. It is in thinking of others that cynicism begins." + +The platitude slipped from him absently. He had no wish for the concert, +no wish to hear Berlinese trulls and bubonic bassi bleat. But, for the +tolerably delicate enterprise that he had in hand, there were the +preliminary steps which could only be hastened slowly and anything +slower than the Metropolitan on a Sunday night, it was beyond him to +conjecture. + +But though on that evening a basso did bleat, it may be that he was not +bubonic. Moreover he was followed by a soprano who, whether trullish or +not, at any rate was not Berlinese and whose voice had the lusciousness +of a Hawaiian pineapple. But the selections, which were derived from old +Italian cupboards, displeased Paliser, who called them painted mush. + +But not twice! Cassy turned her back on him. The painted mush shook +stars in her ears, opened vistas on the beyond. Save for him she would +have been quite happy. But his remark annoyed her. It caused her to +revise her opinion. Instead of an inoffensive insect he was an offensive +fool. None the less, as the concert progressed, she revised it again. On +entering the box she had seen his name on the door. The memory of that, +filtering through the tinted polenta from the ancient cupboards, +softened her. A man so gifted could express all the imbecilities he +liked. Elle s'enfichait. + +As a result, before it was over, in lieu of her back, she gave him the +seduction of her smile, and, later when, in his car, on the way to the +walk-up, he spoke of future dinners, fresher songs, she had so far +forgotten the painted mush insult, that momentarily she foresaw but one +objection. She had nothing to wear and frankly, with entire unconcern, +she out with it. + +For that he had a solution which he kept to himself. The promptly +obliterating stare with which she would have reduced him to +non-existence, he dodged in advance. + +Apparently changing the subject, he said: "You know--or know of--Mrs. +Beamish, don't you?" + +"Never heard of her," said Cassy, entirely unaware that no one else ever +had either. + +"She was at the Bazaar the other night and admired your singing." + +"Very good of her I am sure," replied Cassy, who, a born anarchist and +by the same token a born autocrat, loathed condescension. + +Paliser corrected it. "No, not good--appreciative. She wants you to sing +at her house. If you are willing, could she arrange about it through +Madame Tamburini?" + +"If she tried very hard, I suppose she might," Cassy, with the same +loftiness, answered. + +But the loftiness was as unreal as Mrs. Beamish. Inwardly she jubilated, +wondering how much she would get. A hundred? In that case she could +repay Lennox at once. At the thought of it, again she revised her +opinion. Paliser was young and in her judgment all young men were +insects. On the other hand he was serviceable. Moreover, though he +looked cocky, he did not presume. He talked rot, but he did not argue. +Then, too, his car was a relief. + +But now the car, after bolting through the Park and flying along the +Riverside, had swerved. It was mounting the upper reaches of the longest +highway on the planet. There it swerved again. From Broadway it barked +loudly into a side-street where easily, with a soapy slide, it stopped. + +Paliser got out, preceded Cassy to the steps of the walk-up and smiled +in her face. "When?" + +Cassy, the revised opinion of him about her, gave him her hand. "Ask the +telephone." + +The hall took her. She was scaling the stairs. On the way Mrs. Beamish +accompanied her. She wished she could tell her father. Yet, if she told +him, how could she account for what she did with the money? And would it +be a hundred? Perhaps fifty, perhaps less. + +But Paliser saw to it that Mrs. Beamish behaved properly. On the morrow +Ma Tamby dumped in Cassy's astonished lap two hundred and fifty--less +ten per cent., business is business--for samples of the bel canto which +Mrs. Beamish was not to hear, and for an excellent reason, there was no +such person. + + + + +XI + + +Mrs. Austen looked at Lennox, who had been looking at her, but who was +then looking at the rug, in the border of which were arabesques. He did +not see them. The rug was not there. The room itself had disappeared. +The nymph, the dial, the furniture, the decorations and costly +futilities with which the room was cluttered, all these had gone. Mrs. +Austen had ceased to be. In that pleasant room, in the presence of this +agreeable woman, Lennox was absolutely alone, as, in any great crisis of +the emotions, we all are. + +Of one thing he was conscious. He was suffering atrociously. Pain +blanketed him. But though the blanket had the poignancy of thin knives, +he kept telling himself that it was all unreal. + +He raised his eyes. During the second in which they had been lowered, a +second that had been an eternity in hell, his expression had not +altered. He was taking it, apparently at least, unmoved. + +Mrs. Austen, who was looking at him, saw it and thought: He is a +gentleman. The reflection encouraged her and she sighed and said: +"Believe me, I am sorry." + +Lennox did not believe her, but he let it go. What he did believe was +that Margaret could not see him. But whether she would, if she could, +was another matter. On Saturday he had expected her at his rooms. She +had not come. In the evening he had called. She had a headache. On the +following day he had returned. She was not feeling well. Now on this +third day, Mrs. Austen, who on the two previous occasions had received +him, once more so far condescended, yet on this occasion to tell him +that he was free, that it was Margaret's wish, that the engagement was +ended. + +In so telling him, Mrs. Austen told, for a wonder, the truth, though as +will sometimes happen even to the best of us, not all the truth. It were +extravagant to have expected it of her. But she told all that she +thought good for him; more exactly good for Margaret; more precisely for +herself. + +It was then that the pleasant room with its clutter of costly futilities +disappeared and this agreeable woman ceased to be. The avalanche of the +modulated announcement sent Lennox reeling not merely out of the room, +but out of the world, deeply into hell. + +It was then, too, that with a sigh, modulated also, Mrs. Austen had +added: "Believe me, I am sorry." + +Lennox looked at her. "You say that Margaret wants our engagement +broken. Why?" + +"She has changed her mind." + +"So I infer. But why?" + +"Because she is a woman." + +"But not the ordinary woman. It is the ordinary woman who changes her +mind--when she has one to change. Margaret is not of that kind. Margaret +is not the kind to promise herself to a man and then throw him over. You +will forgive me if I speak heatedly, but I do not believe it." + +With frosty indulgence Mrs. Austen reassured him. "You do not believe +that I will forgive you? But, really, there is nothing to forgive. +Though, whether Margaret is ordinary or superior, has nothing to do with +it. Dear me, no. Women are not what they were. One often hears that and +often, too, one hears people wondering why. That always amuses me. The +reason is so simple, isn't it? Women are not what they were because they +used to be girls. Before that they were children. At one time they were +babes. Naturally they change. They can't help it. It must be a general +law. Or at least one may suppose so. One may suppose, too, that, in +changing, they develop and in developing acquire the extraordinary +ability to think things over. That is just what Margaret had done. It is +no reflection on you, Mr. Lennox, and I should be very sorry if you +thought so. I am sure Margaret has the highest esteem for you. I know +that I have." + +Mrs. Austen, smiling frostily as she lied, thought: Now why doesn't he +take it and go? I hope he won't be tedious. + +Lennox too had his thoughts. She is trying to swamp me in words, he told +himself. That angered him and he showed it. + +"What are these things? When I last saw Margaret she said nothing about +any things. There was no change in her then. I would stake my life that +she had no idea of breaking our engagement. There must be a reason for +it. What is it?" + +Arrogantly Mrs. Austen took it up. "There is no reason for your raising +your voice, at any rate. As for the things, they ought to be obvious. In +addition to habits and customs, very suitable in Wall Street no doubt, +but not otherwise appealing, Margaret has found you a bit rough, +high-tempered, domineering for all I know to the contrary, and----" + +That's a damned lie, thought Lennox, who aggressively cut in: "Margaret +never found me anything of the kind. What is more I will thank you to +understand that I will not accept this dismissal--if it be one--from +you." + +There is a show of decency that is due to any woman. But the veneer of +civilisation is very thin. From beneath it, the potential troglodyte, +that lurks in us all, is ready enough to erupt. Ready and eager then, he +was visible in Lennox' menacing eyes, manifest in his threatening voice. + +Mrs. Austen saw the brute, saw rather that little, if anything, +restrained Lennox from jumping up, banging about, hunting for Margaret's +room, entering there and catechising her violently. Margaret was ill but +never too ill to tell the truth. Once he learned that, there was the fat +in the fire. + +She had no time to lose. From the wardrobe of the actress that she was, +she snatched at an oleaginous mask and with the mucilage of it smiled at +him. + +"Why, of course not. Not for a moment would I have you accept it from +me. I never dreamed of such a thing. It wouldn't be right. Margaret +shall tell you herself. She would be here now, but the poor child had +such a wretched night. You never had neuralgia, have you? At her age I +was a martyr to it. I remember I took something that ended in 'ine.' +Yesterday I suggested it but the doctor would not hear of it. Said she +needed building up. Spoke of her just as though she were a town out +West; so unsympathetic I thought him, but of course I did not say so. He +might have charged extra and he is expensive enough as it is, and always +so ready to talk about his own affairs, just like my dentist. I told him +once--the dentist I mean--that I really could not afford to pay him +thirty dollars an hour to hear about his wife and I don't think he liked +it. I know I didn't when I got his bill. But where was I? Oh, yes. +To-morrow or the next day, as soon as Margaret is the least bit better, +you will be sure to have a line from her and if you do not, and you care +to, you must certainly look in. For you must always regard us as +friends. Me at any rate. Won't you, Mr. Lennox?" + +Moistening her lips, mentally she continued: Yes, count on that. But +inwardly she relaxed. Such danger as there may have been had gone. Under +the dribble of the mucilage the fire in his eyes had flickered and sunk. +He was too glued now for revolt. So she thought, but she did not know +him. + +During the sticky flow of her words, he knew she was trying to gammon +him. But he knew quite as well that Margaret would make no such attempt, +and he knew it for no other reason than because he knew she was +incapable of it. Incidentally he determined what he would do. Having +determined it, he stood up. + +"Very good. I shall expect to hear from Margaret to-morrow. If I do not +hear I will come, and when I come----" + +Lennox paused and compressed his lips. The compression finished the +sentence. If come he did, no power of hers, or of any one else, would +budge him an inch until he saw Margaret and had it out with her. + +"Good-evening," he added and Mrs. Austen found herself looking at his +retreating back which, even in retreat, was a menace. + +"Merciful fathers!" she exclaimed, and, with that sense of humour which +is the saving grace, the dear woman put her hand to her stays. She was +feeling for her heart. She had none. Or any appetite, she presently told +a servant who came to say that dinner was served. + +She misjudged herself. For twenty-five minutes, in an adjoining room, +she ate steadily and uncomplainingly. She had bouillon, skate in black +butter, cutlets in curl-papers, sweetbread and cockscombs, a cold +artichoke, hot almond pudding, an apricot, a bit of roquefort, a pint of +claret, a thimble of benedictine and not a twinge, none of the +indigestion of square-dealing, none of gastritis of good faith. She was +a well-dressed ambition, intent on her food. No discomfort therefore. On +the contrary. Margaret was in bed--safe there. Fate and the cook were +kind. + +With the taste of the liqueur still in her mouth, she went to her +daughter who was ill with one of those maladies which, being primarily +psychical, science cannot treat. Science is a classification of human +ignorance. It has remedies for the flesh, it has none for the soul. The +remedies exist, but they are dispensed only by the great apothecaries +that time and philosophy are. + +At the moment neither was available. Behind Margaret's forehead a +monster crouched and crunched. That was nothing. It was in the tender +places of her heart that the girl agonised and by comparison to the +torture there, the monster was benign. + +Margaret was nineteen, which is a very mature age; perhaps the most +mature, since all girlhood lies behind it. Beyond are the +pharmacop[oe]ias of time and, fortune favouring, the sofas of +philosophy. But these sofas, even when within reach, are not adapted to +everybody. To the young, they are detestable. Reposefully they admonish +that nothing is important. They whisper patience to the impatient. To +hope, they say, "Be still"; to desire, "Be quiet"; to wisdom, "Be +foolish." + +Conversation of that kind is very irritating, when you have heard it, +which Margaret never had. She was otherwise ignorant. She did not know +that a sage wrote a book in praise of folly. But she acted as though she +knew it by heart. She believed, as many of us do believe, that love +confers the right to run a fence around the happy mortals for whom we +care. It is a very astounding belief. Margaret, who believed in many +wonderful things, believed in that and, being credulous, believed also +that her betrothed had crawled under the fence and into what mire! It +polluted her, soiled her thoughts, followed and smeared her in the +secret chambers of her being. Any cross is heavy. This cross was +degrading. + +In her darkened room, on her bed of pain, she had shrunk from it. Her +forehead was a coronet of fire. That was nothing. A greater pain +suppresses a lesser one. The burn of her soul was a moxa to the burn of +the flesh. + +The cross, at first, seemed to her more than she could bear. She tried +to put it from her. Failing in that, she tried to endure it. But there +are times and occasions when resignation in its self-effacement +resembles suicide. She tried to resign herself, but she could not, her +young heart rebelled. + +In that rebellion, evil came, peered at her, sat at her side, pulled at +her sleeve, sprang at her. The evil was hatred for this man who had +taken her love and despoiled it. She clasped it to her. It bruised but +it comforted. It dulled both the flame in her forehead and the shame in +her soul. Then as suddenly she began to cry. + +Philosophy she lacked, but theosophy, which is a pansophy, she +possessed--when she did not need it. Now, when she needed it most, it +was empty as the noise in the street. Even otherwise it could not have +changed the unchangeable course of events. + +There are sins that are scarlet. There are others, far worse, that are +drab. Melancholy tops them. It is a mere duty to be serene. That she +could not be. She could not face life, as life perhaps is. She could not +smile at a lover who loved elsewhere. It was not herself, it was he who +prevented her. So she thought and for hours in her darkened room she +washed her hands of him, washed them in tears. It took a wise man to +write the praise of folly. + +The door of the room opened. It opened slowly, noiselessly, obviously. +With exasperating precautions Mrs. Austen entered. The taste of +benedictine was still in her mouth and, savouring it, she whispered: + +"Are you asleep?" + +"No." + +"Will you eat anything?" + +"No." + +"Are you able to talk?" + +Margaret turned. She could talk, but to what end and to whom? Certainly +not to her mother, who possessed in its perfection, the household art of +misinterpreting everything. Margaret had tried to love her. But perhaps +any affection is a habit when it does not happen to be an instinct. The +habit had never been formed, the instinct had been repressed. Always her +mother had treated her with that indulgence which is as empty as an +unfilled grate. There was no heat there. You could not warm your heart +at it. But a child must love some one. Margaret had begun by loving her +mother. That is the way with children. They begin by loving their +parents. Later they judge them. Sometimes, though not always, they +forgive. One should not judge anybody. Margaret knew that, but she was a +human being. She thought her mother a worldly woman. The fact that she +was false as Judas was not apparent to this girl whose knowledge of +Iscariotism was as hearsay as her knowledge of gorillas. + +Now, as she turned in her bed, it was in defence against intrusion. +Deference to her mother she had always observed. But she could not admit +her to the privacy of her thoughts and, in turning her face to the wall, +she told herself that she would not be cross-questioned. + +Mrs. Austen had no intention of putting her daughter in the +confessional. Anything of the kind would have bored her. Besides, what +she thought was unimportant. It was what she did or might do that +mattered. + +Vacating the door she approached the bed. "Are you feeling any better?" + +Margaret was feeling, if possible, worse. But she never complained, or, +if she had to complain, then the complaint was solely by way of +explanation. She turned again. + +"For if you are," Mrs. Austen continued, "I ought to say something." + +Margaret put a hand to her forehead. + +But Mrs. Austen persisted. "It is important." + +Margaret's eyes were open. She closed them and said: "Yes, mother, what +is it?" + +Through the door came light from the hall. Mrs. Austen looked about. +Nearby was a chair on which was one of those garments, made of +franfreluches, which the French call a Jump-from-bed. Removing it, she +sat down. + +"It is too bad. I know you don't feel like discussing affairs of State, +but it is Luxemburg all over again. If I were alone concerned, I am sure +I would capitulate. But where the State is concerned, and by that I mean +you, I am like the little grand-duchess--pretty child, from her +pictures, didn't you think?--and I must resist the invader. It is true, +I don't know exactly what the grand-duchess did do, though they said she +sat in a motor on a bridge and flourished a revolver. But you never can +tell. I daresay she and her maids of honour hid in a cellar. Perhaps we +may have to." + +Margaret lowered her hand. "Mother, what are you talking about?" + +"Your young man, of course. What else? A half-hour ago, he was roaring +and stamping about and calling me a liar. If it had not been for my dead +body, he would have rushed in here and killed you. My dead body, or what +I told him about passing over it, was the revolver that I flourished. He +has gone, but he swore he would return. Now, unless you rally to the +colours, we will have to hide in the cellar, or rather, as we haven't +any, in the pantry. Don't you think you could eat a bit of sweetbread, +or perhaps some almond pudding?" + +Again Margaret put her hand to her forehead. "Don't say that, mother. +Keith did not call you a liar and it is not like him to roar and stamp +about." + +"My dear, I don't wonder you don't believe me. He went on like a madman. +He could not get over the fact that his dollymop was one too many for +you. He seemed to think that it was none of your business." + +"Don't." + +"My dear Margaret, you must do me the justice to admit that I stood up +for him. I said he was an attractive young man. So he is. But that is +just it. Attractive young men are most unreliable and reliable young men +are most unattractive. At your age, I used to like them fair and false. +That was your father's fault. He perverted me. He was so domestic!" + +It was an old wound that Mrs. Austen touched then and under it Margaret +winced. "The poor dear! He was a saint and you know it." + +"Know it! I should say I did. I know too that he made me hate saints. +But you love them and thought you had one, instead of which you got a +devil. Your luck is far better than mine. If you take my advice, you +will hang on to him like grim death. It is not too late. To-morrow he +will be here, thundering at the gates." + +Dimly at the moment the girl's creed turned a ray on her. She lifted her +head. + +"He will not thunder at the gates and he is not what you say. But +perhaps I am. I may have done worse than he has and what he has done is +my punishment." + +It was very little but it was too much. Mrs. Austen, in spite of her +facile digestion, gagged at it. + +"If that is theosophy, I will believe it when I am old, fat and a Hun." + +Margaret sank back. "But I am sorry you have been annoyed. It won't +happen again. I will write to him." + +Later, she did write. + + Forgive me, dear Keith, if I cause you pain, but I feel that I am + not suited to you. Forgive me therefore for not recognising it + sooner. I have thought it all over and, though it wrings my heart + to say it, I cannot see you again. Forgive me and forget. + + MARGARET. + + + + +XII + + +Hell was supposed to be very hot, very red, full of pugnacious demons. +Educated people do not believe in it any more. It is curious how +ignorant educated people have become. Hell is an actual plane, less +vivid than was formerly imagined, not hot but cold, grey rather than +red, but amply provided with demons, with the devils of self-accusation, +with the fiends of insoluble queries. Very real and very actual, it is +surprising how many educated people are there. The oddity of that is +increased by the fact that they regard it as a private establishment. +They regard their hell as unique. Perhaps the idea flatters them. Yet +sooner or later everybody enters it. Hell may seem private. It is +universal. + +Headlong into it, Margaret's letter precipitated Lennox. Being a man, he +struggled up. But not out. In hell there are no signposts. It takes time +to find one's way. It takes more, it takes resignation. When both have +been acquired, the walls part of themselves. The aspect of life has +altered, but you are free. + +Lennox, in struggling up, encountered the demons of enigmatic riddles. +Each word of Margaret's letter they converted into a Why? They thrust it +at him, demanding an answer. But the answer her heart alone possessed. +That heart had been his. It was his no longer. The heart that she had +given him, she had taken away. Nothing could be simpler and nothing more +mysterious. The mystification was complete, but not the suffering. +Suffering is never complete. However deep the hell, there is always a +deeper one. + +From the letter he looked at the walls. They were dumb. There was no +answer for the demons there, not anywhere, perhaps, except among +werewolves, basilisks and Mrs. Austens. These monsters did not occur to +him. The monstrous letter sufficed. But Margaret was still too near, her +vows were too recent for him to credit it, and the fact that he could +not disclosed itself in those words which all have uttered, all at least +before whom the inexplicable has sprung. + +"It is impossible!" + +Yet there it was. Yet there too was something else. But what? At once he +was back again in the issueless circle of infernal questions. + +The day before he had known that something was amiss. The attitude of +Mrs. Austen had been too assured, too venomous, too smiling, for him to +doubt it. But though he did not doubt that, not for a second did he +doubt Margaret either. Always aware of the woman's hostility, he had +been equally aware that it could not influence the girl. Not for a +moment therefore had he accepted the statement that the engagement was +broken. At the time he had thought that when next he had a word with +Margaret it would all be explained. But all what? His life was as clean +as his face. It was not that then. On the other hand he was not rich. By +the same token, Margaret's only idea of money was to help others with +it. It was not that then either. Nor was it that she had not loved him. +She had loved him. He could have sworn it and not out of vanity, for he +had none, but because never could she have promised herself to him if +she had not. None the less, she could not see him again. She had thought +it over. She was not suited to him. He was told to forget her. Why? + +That Why, repeating itself, forced him deeper into the circles of which +hell is made. + +But even in hell despair is brief. Unless it consume you utterly, and it +would not be hell if it did, it goads. It compels you to seek an issue. +Apart from time, which is very slow, and resignation, which is never +prompt, there is another portal. + +A poet, who discovered it, scrawled on it: "Lascia la donna e studia la +matematica"--a cryptogram which subsequent pilgrims variously +deciphered. To some, it spelled Thought; to others, Action. Action is +thought put in motion. + +Lennox, to whom time was too dilatory and resignation too remote, +happened on the device which he translated after his manner. + +But however you construe the hierograph, the door must be demolished +before you get out. Across the door is written: Hope. It is a very hard +door to crack. When you succeed you are covered with splinters. They +cling to you and pierce you. Joiners, carpenters, pilgrims, poets and +fiends have a name for them. They call the splinters Regrets. Though you +have escaped, they accompany you. Hell encircles you still. + +It was on the day following the conversation with Mrs. Austen that +Lennox received Margaret's letter. In his dark rooms it was waiting. A +moment previous he had intended to go to her. He had it all planned. +Mrs. Austen could say what she liked; the physician might interfere; he +would submit to no one. He proposed to see her, to adjust it, to swing +up and out from the circles which already were closing about him. + +On leaving Mrs. Austen he had gone to dinner. He could not eat. He had +gone to bed. He could not sleep. In the morning his face was flushed. +Always fit, hard as nails, these phenomena perplexed. Yet he knew it was +not illness that produced them. What he did not know was that poison +had. The poison was anger, an unphilosophic emotion which disturbs the +circulation, the stomach and social intercourse. He could have wrung +Mrs. Austen's neck. + +In that murderous mood he went to Wall Street and in that mood returned. +Already hell was gaping. Headlong into it the letter threw him. Being a +man he sought and found the door, smashed it and passed out. Not at once +however. It took him many a sleepless hour before he deciphered the +device Lascia la donna. Leave the lady? Certainly. Since she so wished, +what else in decency could he do? Go and badger her with complaints and +questions? Not he. But how do you translate: Studia la matematica? The +dictionary that is in every man, who is a man, told him. Then he knew. +Meanwhile the flush in departing left him grey. + +In every affection there is the germ of hate. Margaret, confronted by +the unawaited, hated Lennox. Lennox, confronted by the inexplicable, +hated Margaret. Hatred is love turned inside out. Love is perhaps a +fermentation of the molecules of the imagination. In that case so also +is hate. Of all things mystery disturbs the imagination most. Margaret +could not understand how Lennox could have acted as he had. Lennox could +not understand how Margaret could act as she did. Dual misunderstanding, +in which the imagination fermented. Hence the hate. Yet each, in hating, +loved the other. Each felt the splinters which, as Browning somewhere +noted, kept fresh and fine. Only a touch and the splinters would have +joined. + +Mrs. Austen, for all her horrible shrewdness, could not have prevented +that. But pride, that gives so many of us a fall, was more potent than +she. Margaret, insulted, could but turn away. Lennox, dismissed, could +but let her go. + +Any emotion is unbecoming. Pride is merely ridiculous. It resides in the +youthful-minded, however old. In residing in these young people, it +resisted the touch that would have combined them and, through its +opposition, made one of them ill and the other grey. To be proud! How +splendid it seems and how stupid it is. Hell is paved with just such +imbecilities. + +It is said of Dante that children peered at him and whispered: "That man +has been in hell." + +None of the children that clubmen are, pointed at Lennox, though two of +them whispered. The others did not know, not yet at least. But Verelst +knew and Jones guessed. The guess was due to the romantic profession +that endows a novelist with the wonderful faculty of putting two and two +together. + +Hitherto, that is since the engagement was announced and, for that +matter, long previously, Lennox had passed the evening in Park Avenue. +Where else would he have passed it? After the rupture he sat about and +read all the papers. When a man is down and out that is just what he +does do, though not necessarily in the Athenaeum Club. + +Jones, noticing it, rapidly divined the reason which Verelst confirmed. + +"Yes, her mother told me." + +It was in a club window, of an afternoon. Before them was Fifth Avenue +which, in the Aprils of not so long ago, used to be a horse-show of fair +faces, ravishing hats, discreet liveries, folded arms and yards of +yodeling brass. + +Verelst, eyeing the usurping motors, added: "It is because of some girl +I believe, or rather I don't believe it." + +Jones sat back. Instantly the motors were replaced by the picture of a +girl whose face was noble and reserved. He had seen the face at the +Bazaar. He had seen Lennox talking to it. Afterward Lennox had told him +that the girl was Portuguese. The picture was attractive but +unconvincing. In agreement with Verelst he was about to say so. But +behind him he heard a voice that he knew and he switched and said: + +"What a remarkable country Portugal is! Born dumb, she spoke twice: once +when she gave Asia to Europe, again when she presented the Lusiades to +the world. Her history is resumed in two miracles, a discovery and a +masterpiece. But when the Cape of Good Hope was succeeded by Camoens, +once more she relapsed into a silence that was broken only when she +shouted her defiance at the Huns." + +Now though that voice was addressing them. Both turned and Lennox asked: +"What are you talking about--war?" + +"Sit down," said Verelst, who gave him a hand. + +Jones gave him another. "What else is there to talk about? It will be +talked of forever. So will that scrofulous Kaiser. Unfortunately he +knows it and that pleases him. Last year or the year before he called +for the death and destruction of all who opposed him. With singular +modesty he added: 'God who speaks through my mouth so orders!' Loti +claims that what spoke through him was a hyena. Loti is lacking in +literary sobriety. When a hyena has eaten he is at peace with the world. +But when was bestiality ever filled? It is insatiable and so is this +thug whom God, at most, may have permitted to look in the mirror without +vomiting. Meanwhile we stand by. A generation ago we fought for Cuba. +What is Hecuba to us in comparison to the Anima Mundi?" + +Verelst turned on the novelist. "And what is literary sobriety? You are +hurling words in massed formation." + +Jones smiled at him. "Where is my harp?" + +"You mean your megaphone," Lennox put in. "You are always rehearsing +copy. One of these days I may give you some." + +"From the front?" Jones asked. + +"Yes, though I don't see how you knew. The President has asked for war. +Why aren't we up and at 'em? If Congress hems and haws over it much +longer, I'll get my gun and join the Foreign Legion." + +Jones nodded. He had guessed that also and he said: "Wait and join the +legions here. At present, the country is alarmingly apathetic. The man +in the subway is muddled. The call to arms does not stir him. The +issues, clear enough to us, seem to him mixed as macaroni. He does not +understand a war that is three thousand miles away. But in a year, every +man in the country--a country that has never been beaten!--will be in it +body and soul. Undividedly, shoulder to shoulder, we will be in it as we +have never been in anything before." + +The novelist touched a bell. "Lennox, have a Bronx. Verelst, what will +you take? I'll wager a pippin that war is declared to-morrow." + +"Done," said Verelst--who lost it. + + + + +XIII + + +The two hundred and fifty--less ten per cent--which an imaginary Mrs. +Beamish had paid for the pleasure of not hearing Cassy sing, transported +the girl who was not given to transports. These subsiding, she viewed +the matter from its business aspect. She needed a frock, a wrap, a hat, +gloves, shoes and certain things that are nowhere visible except in +advertisements, shop-windows and extreme privacy. Also, her hair +required tralalaing. Meanwhile, first and foremost, Lennox must be paid. +The subsidy was not too much by a penny. These considerations occupied +but an instant. + +"When is it?" she asked the Tamburini, who, a moment before, had +dumbfounded her with the money. + +"When is what?" inquired the ex-star who already had forgotten Mrs. +Beamish. + +"Why, the concert!" + +Carlotta Tamburini was dressed like a fat idol, in silk and false +pearls. There the idolatry ceased. In her hand was an umbrella and on +her head a hat of rose-leaves which a black topknot surmounted. About +her shoulders was a feather boa. It seemed a bit mangy. Seated on +Cassy's bed she looked at a window that gave on a wall. Cassy was +standing. Behind Cassy was a door which the extinguished light had +closed. Beyond, in the living-room, was the marquis. Anything that he +did not hear would not hurt him. + +"Oh, she'll let us know." + +"What sort of a catamount is she?" + +At that the former prima donna's imagination balked. But she got +something out. "Nice enough. What do you care?" + +"I hate all those snobs." + +"So do I," said the Tamburini, who worshipped the breed even when +non-existent. "But don't go and include him. If it hadn't been for +him----" + +"Was he with her?" + +"You ought to have heard the way he went on about you. She said: 'Why, +Monty, I do believe you'd like to marry her.'" + +Cassy's mouth twitched as she munched it. "She presumed to say that! +She's an insolent beast." + +"He shut her up, I can tell you. He said if he got on his knees, you +wouldn't dust your feet on him." + +"That jackanapes! I should say not!" + +"You might say worse. Take the Metro. You're spat on if you're down and +spat at if you're up. A dog's own life." Lifting her voice, the fat +woman sang: "Croyez-moi car j'ai passe par la." + +"What has that to do with it?" + +Nothing whatever, the Tamburini truthfully reflected but omitted to say +so. Paliser, in producing Mrs. Beamish, had also produced the programme. +With both was a cheque. With the cheque was the assurance of another and +a bigger one. She had only to earn it. To earn it she had only to follow +the programme. The poor soul was trying to. The job was not easy. Cassy +was skittish. A pull on the rein and she would kick the apple-cart over. + +Femininely she discounted it all. Cassy was not worth the time, the +trouble, particularly the careful handling. There were girls in plenty, +quite as good-looking, who, without stopping to count two, or even one, +would jump at it. But there you were! Paliser did not want partridges +that flew broiled into his mouth. A true sportsman, he liked to snare +the bird. The feminine in her understood that also. Besides it was all +grist for her mill. But the grist was uphill, and if the noble marquis +got so much as an inkling of it, he was just the sort of damn fool to +whip out his sword-cane and run her through. The honour of the +Casa-Evora, what? Yet, being on the job, she buckled to it. + +"What will you get, dearie?" + +Cassy sat down. Her previous ruminations returned. Escorting them was a +vision of a baronial castle. In the hall, a guest-book in which you +wrote your name. A squad of lackeys that showed you into a suite of +salons. Rugs on which there was peace; sofas on which there was ease; +etageres on which there were reveries. Nothing else. No cupboards hung +with confections. No models sailing in and out. Nothing so commercial as +anything for sale. Nothing but patrician repose and the chatelaine--a +duchess disguised as a dressmaker--who might, or might not, ask you +upstairs. + +In war time at that! Though, it is true, Congress had only just declared +it. + +But, Cassy reflected, two hundred and fifty, with Lennox deducted and +less ten per cent, would not take her as far as the drawbridge. The +fleeting vision of the castle passed, replaced by the bargain seductions +of department-stores. + +Fingering the money, she said: "Where does this person live? She ought +to send a taxi." + +"Certamente," replied the fat woman, lapsing, as she occasionally did +lapse, into the easy Italian of the lyric stage. "She certainly will." + +Cassy jumped up. "Well, then, you come along while I take a look about. +Afterward we will have lunch. I'll eat, you can watch me and I'll tell +you how it tastes. There's the telephone!" + +Cassy opened the door, went out into the narrow and shadowy hall and +took the receiver. + +"Yes? Oh! None the better for the asking. To-night? Impossible. +To-morrow? Perhaps. Good-bye." + +"Who was that?" the noble marquis called from the room beyond. + +"An imbecile who wants me to dine and go to the opera." + +"Not that Paliser?" + +Cassy, poking her head in at him, threw him a kiss and returned to the +Tamburini with whom, a little later, she was praying among the +worshippers that thread the sacred and silent way where Broadway and +Sixth Avenue meet. + +In an adjacent basilica, the atmosphere charged with pious emanations, +with envy, malice, greed and all other charitableness, choked the girl. +But at last the holy rites were ended. To the voluntary of $109.99, she +passed into the peace of Herald Square where the ex-diva swayed, stopped +and holding her umbrella as one holds a guitar, looked hopelessly and +helplessly about. + +"You're not preparing to serenade the Elevated?" Cassy bawled in her +ear. + +In the slam-bang of trains and the metallic howls of surface cars that +herded and volplaned about them, the fat lady, now apparently gone mad, +was gesticulating insanely. Yet she was but indicating, or trying to +indicate, the relative refuge of a side street in which there was a +cook-shop. + +Then, presently, after all the dangers that may be avoided in remaining +at home, and supplied with such delights as clam fritters offer, she +savorously remarked: "I hope I am not going to be sick." + +The charm of scented streets, the sedatives of shopping, the joy of +lightsome fritters, these things, combined with the job, the unearned +cheque and the fear of losing both, made her ghastly. + +Cassy, devoid of pity, said: "Have some beer." + +The Tamburini gulped. "I couldn't talk to you this morning and I've got +to. It's for your own good, dearie; it is, so help me! Supposing he is a +jackanapes. What do you want? A prize-fighter? Take it from me, whether +he is one or the other, in no time it will be quite the same." + +Cassy's lips curled. "Croyez-moi car j'ai passe par la." But, in mocking +the woman, she frowned. "What business is it of yours?" + +The fallen star gulped again. Conscious that she had struck the wrong +note, she struck another. "Your papa is no better, is he? Between you +and me and the bedpost, I doubt if he ever will be. I doubt if he plays +again. You'll have to look after him. How're you going to? You can't +expect to sing every night to the tune of two hundred and fifty. Not +with war marching in on us. Not with everybody hard up." + +Cassy had been about to order a chocolate eclair. The new note stayed +her. But though new, it was not novel. She had heard it before. It rang +true. Absently she shoved at her plate. + +In theory she knew her way about. The migratory systems of domestic +experience said nothing to her, nor, thus far, had the charts of +matrimony either. In the sphere of life to which a walk-up leads, the +charts were dotted with but the postman and the corner druggist. Men and +plenty of them she had met, but they too said nothing and not at all +because they were dumb, but because, as the phrase is, they did not talk +her language. But for every exception there is perhaps a rule. The one +man who did speak her language, had held his tongue. + +Now, as she shoved at her plate, she saw him, saw the tea-caddy, saw his +rooms and saw too, as she left them, the girl to whom he was engaged. In +the memory of that she lingered and looked down. + +"Why, he could lead an orchestra of his own, your papa could." + +Cassy looked up. She had been far away, too far, in a land where dreams +do not come true. Impatiently she twisted. "What?" + +"Didn't you hear me, dearie? I was talking about money--bushels of it." + +About the bushels the woman rolled her tongue. They tasted better than +the fritters. + +A waiter approached. The room was long, dark, narrow, slovenly, spaced +with tables on which were maculate cloths and lamps with faded shades. +Greasily the waiter produced the bill. + +"Bushels!" she appetisingly repeated. + +Cassy paid. The waiter slouched away. + +"You will drive through life in a hundred horsepower car and be fined +for speeding. The papers will say: 'Mrs. Pal----'" + +"What did he pay you to tell me that?" Cassy exploded at her. + +Unruffled by the shot, which was part and parcel of the job, and +realising that any denial would only confirm what at most could be but a +suspicion, the former diva fingered her pearls and assumed an air of +innocence. + +But already Cassy had covered her with her blotting-paper look. "As if I +cared!" + +"Dearie, he did pay me. He paid me the compliment of supposing that I +take an interest in you. But he said nothing except what I said he said. +He said if he got down on his knees you would turn your back on him." + +"Then he is cleverer than he looks." + +"Well, anyway, he is clever enough to have bushels of money and that is +the greatest cleverness there is." + +"In New York," retorted Cassy, who had never been anywhere else, +physically at least, though mentally her little feet had trod the +streets of Milan, the boards of the Scala. + +"It can't be much different in Patagonia," replied this lady, who, to +save her life, could not have told whether the land was Asiatic or +African, nor who, to save her soul--if the latter were still +salvable--could not have told that it was neither. "Besides," she added, +"I was only thinking of your poor, dear papa." + +Cassy said nothing. She stood up. She was making for the door and the +charm of the scented streets. + +Ma Tamby sighed, rose and followed. It was the devil's own job. +Housebreaking must be easier! + + + + +XIV + + +Cassy's department-store investments reached her the next day. Her +father, who opened the door to them, fell back before the sum total of +the C. O. D. With an arm in a sling, he could not hold the packages, +much less pay for them, and he gasped as he called for aid. + +The money that Cassy then produced seemed to him darkly mysterious and +although he believed as firmly in her virtue, as, before the break, he +had believed in the maestria of his own right hand, none the less, in +addition to aid, he exacted light. + +Cassy, dumping the packages on her bed, occupied herself in verifying +the change which amounted to one cent. Then she sketched it. + +His surprise fell away. The mythical catamount, the imaginary concert, +the ponderable subsidy--two hundred and fifty, less ten per +cent.--seemed to him natural and an unnatural world. + +"And there's about ten dollars remaining," Cassy resumed. "Ten dollars +and a penny. You can have the penny and I will keep the ten, or I'll +keep the ten and you can have the penny." + +That also seemed natural. But the addition or subtraction disclosed a +deficit and he exclaimed at it. "You said two hundred and fifty!" + +Cassy too saw the hole, but she could not lie out of it. "Well, I owed +the difference." + +In speaking she turned. Before her was a mirror in which she glanced +at her hair that had been superiorly tralala'd. She turned again, +reflecting that Lennox must have already received the postal-order, +which she had mailed the night before, and wondering whether he had +liked her little scrawl of indignant thanks. + +"I'll tell you about it later," she added. "Now I must get your dinner. +How would you like a tenderloin, a salad, and a box of Camembert?" + +He shuffled. "There is no Camembert any more." The tragedy of that +seemed to overwhelm him. "I wish I were dead." + +Cassy laughed. "Now it's the cheese. On Saturday it was the violin. +Well, you got it back. What will you say if I find some Camembert? Do +stop meowing. Any one might think you didn't have me." + +At her young laughter, he groaned. "Formerly if I let a day go without +practising, I noticed it. If I let two days go, Toscanini noticed it. +Now it's weeks and weeks. It's killing me." + +To cheer him, Cassy said gaily: "The artist never dies." + +But it did not cheer him. Besides, though Cassy had laughed, there had +been a tugging at her heartstrings. Shabby, unkempt, in a frayed +dressing-gown, his arm in a dismal sling, he looked so out of it, so +forlorn, so old. + +He had shuffled away. She bit her lip. Later, when he had had his +tenderloin and she had department-stored herself, a pint of grocer's +burgundy had reduced him to tears. + +The day before it had seemed to her that the frock would do. But her +judgment had been hurried. Shops, crowds, the vibrations of both, +devitalised and confused her. In choosing the frock she had not +therefore given it the consideration which it perhaps did not merit, and +now her mirror shrieked it. The frock was not suited to her. Nothing was +suited to her, except the produce of baronial halls, where the simplest +thing exceeded the dreams of avarice, or else the harlequinades which +she herself devised. None the less she would have liked to have had her +father exclaim and tell her how smart she looked. He omitted it. + +"Where are you going?" + +"I told you. Dinner and the opera." + +"Opera! There is no opera to-night. What do you mean? What did you tell +me?" + +On the table were dishes and the lamentable bottle. Cassy, in doubt +whether to clear them then or later, hesitated. The hesitation he +misconstrued. + +"You told me nothing. You tell me nothing. I am kept in the dark." + +Cassy, adjusting the wrap which she had left open that he might admire +the unadmirable, moved to where he sat and touched him. "You're the +silliest kind of a silly. I told you yesterday. Perhaps the opera was +last night. But how could I go? Except that old black rag I had nothing +to wear. If there is no opera to-night, there will be a concert or +something. Don't you remember now? I was at the telephone." + +He did remember, but apparently the recollection displeased. He growled. +"Yes. It was that Paliser." + +"Well, why not? If it had not been for him, I would not have got the +catamount's money and you would not have had the burgundy." + +But he was not to be mollified. The growl sharpened into a snarl. +"Paliser! I don't like the breed. By God, if----" + +The peradventure of that Cassy got before he could utter it. Paliser! Of +all men! The absurdity convulsed her. Her laughter ran up and down the +scale. + +"You're the dearest old duck of a goose I ever heard of." She turned. +Her wrap swished. "I only wish you were going too." + +Below, in the street, a man, precipitatingly vacating the box of a +machine, touched his cap at her. "Beg pardon, mem. Miss Cara? Mr. +Paliser's compliments and he's sent a car." + +Cassy glanced at the man, who looked like a Roman emperor. From the man +she turned to the car. Superiorly and soberly finished, it beckoned. +Now, though, the Caesar was holding open the door. Cassy got in. The +emperor hopped up. The car leaped. + +On the front seat was a box with her name on it. In it was a handful of +orchids. The luxury of the car, the beauty of the demon-flowers, the +flight from the walk-up, yet more, perhaps, the caresses and surrenders +of spring, affected her. If, she thought, if only the things that might +be could be the things that are! If only---- + +On the pale cushions she leaned back. Before her a curtain parted. In a +wide, marble-flagged hall she was looking at a girl who was looking at +her. A moment before he had said: "That is Miss Austen to whom I am +engaged." A moment before she had seen her picture. The girl was good to +look at, so good that, without further acquaintance, you knew she was +good through and through. There was no mistaking that. But was she good +enough? Was any girl good enough for him? And who was that with her? +Probably her mother who probably too was the catamount's sister. They +had a family likeness. Then at once the scene shifted. Cassy was in a +room floored with thick rugs, hung with heavy draperies, and in that +room the catamount had hired her to sing! But the disgust of it passed. +The curtain fell. Cassy turned to the window, through which a breath of +lilac blew. + +She sniffed and stared. Where was she? Where was the Riverside? Where, +for that matter, was the roar of the glittering precinct in which the +Splendor tossed its turrets to the sky? Here were dirty and reeling +goblins; budding trees that bowed and fainted; a stretch of empty road +that the scudding car devoured. Afar was a house that instantly +approached and as suddenly vanished. Dimly beyond was another. + +Cassy, leaning forward, poked at the emperor. "I will thank you to tell +me where you are going. Don't you know where the Splendor is?" + +Back at her he mumbled, but what she could not hear. + +"Stop at once," she called. + +Easily, without a quiver, almost within its own length, the car drew in +and the Caesar, touching his cap, was looking at her. "Beg pardon, mem. +There was a note for you in the box. Mr. Paliser said----" + +But now Cassy had it. + + Chere demoiselle--though I do not know why I call you that, except + that it sounds less perfunctory than dear Miss Cara, who, I hope + will do me the honour of dining in the country, if for no better + reason than because there is no opera to-night and I am her + obedient servant. + + M. P., Jr. + +Cassy looked up from it. "Country! He says country. What country? What +does this mean?" + +"The Place, mem. Paliser Place. It's not far now." + +Cassy had not bargained for that. Stories of girls decoyed, drugged, +spirited away, never heard of again, sprang at her. Quite as quickly she +dismissed them. But, being human, she had to find fault. + +"You should have told me before. That will do. Drive on." + +She sank back. The car leaped and she smiled. Paliser in the role of +white-slaver! Her momentary alarm was now a mile behind her. But would +they be alone? Though, after all, what did it matter? Yet in Harlem +there was a broken old man who would not like it. And the basilica +investments! If she had known she would have worn the black rag. But +they would do for that tiresome Mrs. Beamish. As yet she had not decided +what she would sing. The _Caro nome_ occurred to her. Under her breath +she began it and abruptly desisted. The _Dear Name_ suggested another. + +For it she substituted the _Ombra leggiera_. In its scatter of trills +that mount, as birds mount, there were no evocations, though she did +begin wondering again about Mrs. Beamish's music-room. If it were not +too impossible she might give the _Ernani involame_. But at that and +very unintentionally she thought of Lennox again. + +She made a face and looked through the window. As usual she was hungry. +The car now was bellowing through opening gates which, as she looked +back, a man in brown was closing. On either side was a high stone wall, +but beyond, as she looked again, was an avenue bordered with trees and +farther on a white house with projecting wings in which was a court, an +entrance and, above and about the latter, a pillared perron. + +From the entrance she could see a man in livery hastening. Behind him, a +man in black appeared. The car stopped. The first man opened the door. +Cassy got out. The other man additionally assisted by looking on and +moving aside. Cassy went into a hall where a young person who did not +resemble the Belle Chocolatiere but whose costume suggested her, +diligently approached. + +"Would madame care to go upstairs?" + +No, madame would not. But Cassy, instinctively insolent to +pretentiousness, was very simple with the simple. "Thank you. Will you +mind taking my wrap? Thank you again." + +She looked about the hall. Before she could inventory it, here was +another man. "A nice trick you played on me," Cassy threw at him. "I was +half-way before I discovered it. The orchids reconciled me. Thank you +for them. Who is here?" + +Smiling, deferential, apparently modest, perfectly sent out in perfectly +cut evening clothes, Paliser took her hand. "You are and, incidentally, +I am." + +Cassy withdrew her hand. "I suppose you think you are a host in +yourself." + +"Merely the most fortunate of mortals," replied Paliser, who could be +eighteenth-century when he liked, but who seldom bothered to keep it up. + +Already he had been doing a little inventorying on his own account. The +basilica frock did not say much and what it did say was not to his +taste. The Sunday night fantasy he much preferred. It was rowdy, but it +was artistic. But beauty may be dishonoured, it cannot be vulgarised. +Even in pseudo-Parisianisms Cassy was a gem. A doubt though, one that +had already visited him, returned. Was the game worth the possible +scandal? + +But now Cassy was getting back at him. "To stand about with the most +fortunate of mortals ought to be a shape of bliss. As it happens, I +would rather sit." + +"Naturally. Only, worse luck, there is no throne." + +Cassy gave it to him again: "There is a court fool, though. Where are +your cap and bells?" + +"Not on you at any rate." + +He motioned and Cassy passed on into a room beyond which other rooms +extended, each different, but all in the same key, a monotone attenuated +by lustres and the atmosphere, infinitely relaxing, which wealth +exhales. + +Cassy's thin nostrils quivered. Since childhood, it was her first breath +of anything similar. It appeased and disarmed this anarchist who was +also an autocrat. + +"Will you sit here?" + +Paliser was drawing a chair. The table before it lacked the adjacent +severity. On it were dishes of Sevres and of gold. Adjacently were three +men. Their faces were white and sensual. They moved as forms move in a +dream. + +The stories of girls decoyed, spirited away, never heard of again, +returned to Cassy. She had put the orchids beside her. Her flexible +mouth framed a smile. + +"You know, for a moment, I had the rare emotion of feeling and fearing +that I was being eloped with." + +A pop interrupted. She turned to a man at her elbow. "Only half a glass, +please, and fill it with water." She returned to Paliser, who was +opposite. "I had been thinking of something. I had not noticed where the +car was going; and all of a sudden, I found myself I did not know where. +Then, houp! It got me." + +Paliser helped himself to a clam. "The charm of elopements passed with +the post-chaise. Then they had the dignity of danger and pistol shots +through the windows. Nowadays you go off in a Pullman and return as +prosaic as you started." + +"Sometimes even more so," Cassy put in. + +Paliser helped himself to another clam. "You speak feelingly and that is +only right. This is a very important matter. It is a shame that romance +should have passed with the post-chaise. Why should it not revisit us in +the motor?" + +Cassy sipped and considered it. "There ought to be a law on the +subject." + +"There is one. You may be summoned for speeding and get your name in the +papers." + +"Then the dignity of danger remains." + +"But not in clams. Aren't you going to eat any?" + +Cassy laughed. "I had some yesterday with Ma Tamby. They did not seem to +agree with her. She became very noisy about a Mrs. Beamish. Who is she?" + +"Mrs. Beamish?" Paliser repeated. He also had forgotten. But, with a +click, memory raised a latch. From behind it the lady emerged. "Oh, +she's a cousin of mine." + +"Rather distant, I should fancy," said Cassy, who was conscious of the +delay, though not of the click. The delay she had noticed without, +however, divining the cause. But how could she possibly imagine that +Mrs. Beamish had been evolved for the sole purpose of providing her with +basilica opportunities? Yet the fault, if fault there were, resided in +her education. She had never read Eliphas Levi. She did not know that +genii can be evoked. + +"Well, she is more my sister's cousin than mine," Paliser anxious to get +out of it, threw in. "I mean my sister has a more cousinly nature." + +"I did not know you had a sister," said Cassy, who not only did not know +but did not care. "Though, come to think of it, a sister with a cousinly +nature must be so gratifying. Another distant relative, isn't she?" + +"Very. She is in Petrograd." + +That too was evocative. Cassy began talking about the biggest cropper +that history has beheld--a tsar tossed from the saddle to Siberia! + +Paliser, glad to be rid of Mrs. Beamish, took it up. The sordid story of +the Russian chief of staff, bought by Hindenburg and shot by the +Grand-Duke Nicholas, whom the tsar then exiled, was told once more. + +"What else could you expect of that Hun?" Paliser concluded. + +"A Hun!" Cassy exclaimed. "Why he is a Romanov." + +"No more than you are," Paliser replied. "The last of the Romanovs +married Catherine the Greater. There the breed ended. Paul, who followed +and who married a German drab, was Catherine's son but not her +husband's. The rest of the litter, down to the father of the recent +incumbent, all married German drabs. The father of the ex-tsar married a +Dane. The fellow is therefore one-eighth Dane and seven-eighths Hun. +Totally apart from which, a grocer who knew his business would not have +had him for clerk. His family knew that and, before he had time to be +tsar, tried to poison him. To the misfortune, not of Russia merely, but +of Christendom, they failed. If they had succeeded the eastern front +would be secure. As for his wife, I saw her once. It was in the Winter +Palace which, before it was sacked, was a palace. Since the palace of +the Caliphs of Cordova crumbled, there has never been a palace like it. +It outshone them all. Well, that woman tarnished it." + +Meanwhile dishes were brought and removed by servants, wooden-faced, yet +with ears alert. The subject of elopements had seemed promising, but it +led to nothing. At their own table, talk was gayer. + +Cassy enjoyed the food, the diluted wine, Paliser's facile touch. He +appeared to know a lot and she surprised herself by so telling him. "I +wish I did," she added. "I am ignorant as a carp." + +"You know how to charm," he replied. But, seeing her stiffen, he +resumed, "With your voice. That is enough. It would be a mistake for you +to be versatile. Versatility is for the amateur. The artist is a flower, +never a bouquet." + +It was decently said. In the decency of it, the agreeable insult which a +compliment usually is was so chastened that Cassy flushed and felt that +she had. It annoyed her, and she attributed it to the wine. + +It was not the wine. Other influences were at work on this girl, born to +a forsaken purple and whose soul was homesick for it. But purple is +perhaps picturesque. It was not that for which her soul sighed, but the +dream that hides behind it, the dream of going about and giving money +away. To her the dream had been the dream of a dream, realisable only on +the top rungs of the operatic ladder, which, later, she felt she was not +destined to scale. None the less there are dreams that do come true, +though usually, beforehand, there is a desert to cross. + +"I wonder if I might have a cavatina?" Paliser asked, rising and moving +to her. + +Cassy shrugged. I have to pay for my dinner, she thought, but she too +got up. + +Preceding her, he led the way to a room of which the floor, inlaid and +waxed, was rugless. The windows were not curtained, they were shuttered. +In the centre was a grand and a bench. Afar, at the other end, masking a +door, was a portiere, the colour of hyacinth. Near it, were two +unupholstered chairs; one, white; the other, black. Save for these, save +too for a succession of mirrors and of lights, the room was bare. In +addition, it was spacious, a long oblong, ceiled high with light +frescoes, the proper aviary for a song-bird. + +Cassy curtsied to it. At table she had not wanted to sing. The mere +sight of this room inspired. + +Paliser opened the piano and, seating himself, ran his long thin fingers +over the keys. He was heating them, preluding a score, passing from it +to another. Presently he looked up; she nodded and the _Ah, non giunge_ +floated from her. + +"Brava!" Paliser muttered as the final trill drifted away. Again he +looked up. "You will be a very great artist." + +He did not mean it. He judged her voice colourful but lacking in +carriage. + +Cassy, leaning forward, struck the keys, giving him the note and again +she sang, this time the _Libiamo_, which, old as the hills, claptrap, +utterly detestable, none the less served to display the bravura quality +of her voice. + +When it passed, Paliser sprang up, faced her. "Open your mouth! There! +Wide!" + +Cassy, familiar with the ritual, obeyed. Paliser peered into the +strawberry of her throat. It was deep as a well and he moved back. + +"You have the organ but you do not know how to use it. You don't know +how to breathe." + +Cassy forgot that he was young, that she was, that in the great room in +the great house they were alone. Through the shutters came the smell of +lilacs, the sorceries of spring. In the sexlessness of art these things +were unnoticed. For the first time she liked him. It was his frankness +that drew her, though if he had been a frank old woman she would have +liked him as well. + +"My father says that. He says it is Ma Tamby's fault. He can't bear +her." + +For a while they discussed it. Paliser maintaining that were it not for +the war she ought to go to Paris and Cassy asserting, though without +conviction, that the specialty of the Conservatoire consisted in dried +fruit. + +Finally she said: "It must be late. I have a wrap somewhere and oh! my +orchids." + +The young person was summoned. The wrap was recovered, the orchids +reappeared. + +Paliser, helping Cassy with the wrap, said: "Shall I see it here again?" +He knew he would but he thought it civil to ask. + +Cassy too had her thoughts. The freedom with which, during the +ham-and-eggs episode, his eyes had investigated her, where was it? On +Sunday he had bored her to tears. That also had gone. During the past +hour or two he had shown himself reasonably intelligent, unpresuming, +without offensiveness of any kind. With a movement of the hand she +lifted the wrap at her neck. "Here?" + +It occurred to her that she did not know where the polished and inlaid +floor on which she stood was located. Nor did she particularly care. +Besides if her geography were vague, the floor was pleasant, a bit +slippery perhaps, though just how slippery she was yet to learn. + +"Yes. The day after to-morrow. Why not? I would like to run over a score +or two with you." + +"Good heavens! You are not composing an opera, are you?" + +Paliser laughed. "I want to lead you away from painted mush into the +arms of----" + +"Not Strauss?" Cassy interrupted. "Art does not recognise frontiers but +the Huns do not either and I will not recognise a Hun. Is the car at the +door?" + +He saw her out and away, and reentering the house went to a room in the +wing. It was lined with bookcases that you did not have to break your +back to examine. They began four feet from the floor and ended two feet +higher. The room contained other objects of interest. + +From among the latter, Paliser helped himself to a brandy and soda. It +had been dry work. The drink refreshed him. It stimulated too. Also it +suggested. He put the glass down and lightly swore at it. + +"Damn Benny! He has only one thumb." + +For a moment he eyed the glass. Then taking from a shelf Gautier's very +spiritual account of the de Maupin, he eyed that. Not for long though. +He put it back. He did not want to read. He did not want to drink. There +were several things that he did not want. In particular he did not want +to be alone. + +He rang, ordered out a car and went sailing in town, to a brown-stone +front where you could lose as much money as you liked and not in +solitude either. On the way, the thought of the damned and thumbless +Benny accompanied him. + + + + +XV + + +Through the inflated proprieties of social New York, Paliser's father +had driven four-in-hand, and at a pace so klinking that social New York +cut him dead. A lot he cared! The high-steppers in their showy harness +flung along as brazenly as before. He did not care. He had learned to +since. Age is instructive. It teaches that though a man defy the world, +he cannot ignore it. But tastes are inheritable. Monty Paliser came in +for a few, but not for the four-in-hand. Less vigorous than his father, +though perhaps more subtle, he preferred the tandem. + +In preparation for one that he had in view, he looked in, not at a mart, +but at a shrine. + +It was on the afternoon succeeding Cassy's visit to his slippery floor. +The day was radiant, a day not of spring, or of summer, but of both. +Above was a sky of silk wadded with films of white cotton. From below +there ascended a metallic roar, an odour of gasoline--the litanies and +incense of the temple, Semitic and Lampsacene, that New York long since +became. + +Lampsacus worshipped a very great god and worshipped him uniquely. New +York, more devout and less narrow, has worshipped him also and has knelt +too to a god almost as great. Their combined rituals have exalted the +temple into a department-store where the pilgrim obtains anything he can +pay for, which is certainly a privilege. Youth, beauty, virtue, even +smiles, even graciousness, Priapus and Mammon bestow on the faithful +that garland the altars with cash. + +In Park Avenue, on this radiant afternoon, Mrs. Austen and Paliser were +occupied with their devotions. Mrs. Austen was priestess and Paliser was +saying his prayers; that is, he was jingling his money, not audibly, but +none the less potently in the lady's uplifted eyes. + +"Yes," said the lady, who as usual did not mean it. "It is too bad. +Margaret, the dear child, is so inexperienced that I feel that I must +blame myself. I have kept from her--how shall I put it? Well, +everything, and when she learned about this, I could not tell her that +it was all very usual. It would have offended her modesty too much." + +Pausing, Mrs. Austen smiled her temple smile. "I could not tell her, as +somebody expressed it, that actresses happen in the best of families, +but I left her to decide whether she cared to have them happen in her +menage." + +The priestess, looking to the north and south, resumed: "It might have +been different if she had been older, more experienced and had really +cared for him. But how could she care? The child's nature is dormant. +She does not know what love is. He is very nice, I have not a word to +say against him, not one, but a lamp-post would be quite as capable of +arousing her affection. She accepted him, I grant you that and you may +well ask why. I know I asked myself the same thing, until I remembered +that Mr. Austen offered to take me to Niagara Falls and I married him +just to go there. At the time I was a mere chit and Margaret is little +more. Now, I am not, I hope, censorious and I do not say that she had a +lucky escape, but I can say she thinks so. It was such a relief that it +gave her neuralgia. But the child will be up and about in no time and +then you must come and dine. You got my note?" + +Paliser stifled a yawn. The priestess was, he knew, entirely willing to +deliver whatever he wanted at temple rates. But he knew, too, there were +forms and ceremonies to be observed. Being bored was one of them. + +At another portal he has been obliged to go through the forms with +Carlotta Tamburini. She also had wearied him, though less infernally +than Mrs. Austen, and of the two he preferred her. The ex-diva was +certainly canaille, but her paw was open and ready, whereas this woman's +palm, while quite as itching, was delicately withheld. Their gods were +identical. It was the shrines that differed. The one at which the +Tamburini presided was plain as a pikestaff. The Austen's was bedecked +like a girl on her wedding-day. Behind each Priapus leered. Above both +was the shining face of Mammon. + +In the present rites, that which wearied Paliser was the recital of the +reason of the broken engagement. It was broken, that was the end of it, +an end which, in ordinary circumstances, he would have regretted. +Ordinarily it would have made the running too easy. The hurdles were +gone. There were no sticks, no fences. It would not even have been a +race, just a canter. The goal remained but the sporting chance of +beating Lennox to it would have departed. That is the manner in which +ordinarily he would have regarded it. But the war, that was to change us +all, already had changed his views. The draft act had not then been +passed, yet it was realised that some such act would be passed, and +generally it was assumed that among the exempt would be men with wives +dependent on them and cogently he had reflected that if he married that +would be his case precisely. At the same time he could not take a +possible bride by the scruff of the neck and drag her off to a +clergyman. Though it be to save your hide, such things are not done. +Even in war-time there are wearisome preliminaries and these +preliminaries, which a broken engagement abridged, the neuralgia of a +possible bride prolonged. That was distinctly annoying and a moment +later, when he had the chance, he vented the annoyance on Lennox. + +"You got my note?" Mrs. Austen was asking. + +"Yes," he replied, "and I will come with pleasure. Meanwhile, if my +sympathy is not indiscreet, please convey it to your daughter." The kick +followed. "Though, to be sure, Lennox is a loose fish." + +"He is?" Mrs. Austen unguardedly exclaimed. Not for a moment had she +suspected it and, in her surprise, her esteem for him jumped. Good +heavens! she thought. How I have maligned him! + +In the exclamation and the expression which her eyes took on, Paliser +divined some mental somersault, divined too that behind it was something +obscure, something that she was keeping back. Warily he backed. + +"Oh, as for that, loose fish may mean anything. It is a term that has +been applied to me and I dare say very correctly. If I did not live like +a monk, I should be jailed for my sins." + +He is his father all over again, Mrs. Austen cheerfully reflected and +absently asked: "How is he?" + +"Lennox? I haven't an idea." + +"I mean your father." + +"In a great hurry, thank you. The war has gone to his head." + +"At his age? Surely----" + +"He wants me to go," said Paliser, who had no intention of it whatever +and whom subsequent events completely exempted. "He is in a hurry for me +to enlist and in a greater hurry to have me marry." + +Austerely, this pleasant woman grabbed it. "It is your duty!" + +That was too much for Paliser, who, knowing as well as she did what she +was driving at, wanted to laugh. Like the yawn, he suppressed it. + +The priestess's austerity faded. A very fair mimic of exaltation +replaced it. "Whoever she is, how proud she will be! A war-bride!" + +But Paliser, who had his fill, was rising and, abandoning histrionics, +she resumed: "The 24th at eight; don't forget!" Then as he passed from +the portal, the priestess lifted her hands. "What a fish! Fast or loose, +what a fish!" + +Above her Mammon glowed, behind her leered Priapus. + +Through the sunny streets, Paliser drove to the Athenaeum, where +everybody was talking war. The general consensus of ignorance was quite +normal. + +Lennox, seated with Jones at a window, was summarising his own point of +view. "In a day or two I shall run down to Mineola, Perhaps they will +take me on at the aviation field. Anyway I can try." + +Jones crossed himself. He is signing his death-warrant, he thought. But +he said: "Take you, Icarus. They will fly away with you. You will become +a cavalier of the clouds, a toreador of the aerial arena, an archangel +soaring among the Eolian melodies of shrapnel. I envy, I applaud, but I +cannot emulate. The upper circles are reserved for youth and over musty +tomes I have squandered mine. I am thirty-two by the clock and I should +hie me to the grave-digger that he may take my measure. And yet if I +could--if I could!--I would like to be one of the liaison chaps and fall +if I must in a shroud of white swords." + +Sombrely Lennox considered his friend. "Your shroud of white swords is +ridiculous." + +Jones agreed with him. To change the subject, he rattled a paper. "Have +you seen this? There is an account here of a man who shot his girl. He +thought her untrue. Probably she was." + +"Reason enough then," said Lennox, who latterly had become very +murderous. + +"I wonder! Anyway, though the paper does not say so, that was not his +reason. The poor devil killed her not because she had been untrue, but +because he loved her. He killed the thing he loved the best out of sheer +affection. Unfortunately, for his virtues, he loved her innocently, +ignorantly, as most men do love, without any idea that the one affection +worth giving is a love that nothing can alter, a love that can not only +forgive but console." + +"Is that what you call originality?" Lennox severely enquired. "If so, I +have never run across any of it in your books." + +"Heaven forbid that you should, dear boy. I live by the sweat of my pen. +Originality never has, and never will make a best-seller." + +It was while Jones was airing these platitudes that Paliser entered the +room. He approached the two men. Lennox at once got up, turned his back, +marched away. + +A few days later, Jones, in reviewing the incident, wondered whether +Lennox could, even then, have suspected. But, at the moment, in apology +for him, he merely lied. + +"I frightened him off with shop-talk." + +Paliser took the vacant seat "What are you writing?" + +"Cheques. There is nothing simpler and, except cash, nothing so easily +understood. To keep my hand in I will write one now." + +Then Jones too got up. Paliser, to whom solitude was always irksome, +found himself alone. But his solitude was not prolonged. A man joined +him. Another followed. Presently there was a group. + +From the table where Jones had gone, the inkbeast saw and seeing +thought: Empires may totter, nations fall. The face of the earth will be +changed. But the toady endureth forever. + + + + +XVI + + +It was another perfect day, a forenoon after Veronese, a day of which +the charm was heightened by the witcheries that Harlem knows--the +shouted temptations of push-carts; the pastimes of children, so noisy, +so dirty, so dear! the engaging conversation of German ladies; the +ambient odour of cabbage and the household linen fluttering gaily on the +roofs. It was rapturous. Just beyond was a sewer--the Hudson. But above +was the turquoise of the mid-April day. + +Cassy went by and on, turned a corner, crossed the street, descended +into a cave, smiled sweetly at a man who was closing a door and who, +seeing that smile, smiled at it, smiled wantonly, held the door open, +yet, noting then but an arid blankness where her smile had been, banged +the door and shouted fiercely: "Hundred-thirty-seven-street-next." + +The train crashed on. Cassy, her nose in the air, assumed a barbed-wire +attitude, her usual defensive against the conjecturing eyes of old men +and the Hello, Kid! glances of New York's subtle youth. This attitude, +which enabled her to ignore everything and everybody, enabled her also +to think of what she liked, or of what she did not like, a circumstance +that happened to her then and which was induced by her father. + +That day he had been terrible. The tragedies of the fated Atrides, what +were they to his? A lamentation longer than Jeremiah's followed. His +arm, his skill, his art, his strength, his money, everything, for all he +knew even his daughter, was taken from him. How long, O Lord, how long! +And presto! da capo, all over and afresh she had it. + +Then, shaking a finger, he cried: "Where were you last night?" + +Cassy, reduced to tears, exclaimed at him. "Why here. Where else?" + +Darkly he eyed her. "Yes, but earlier, before you came in, where were +you?" + +Cassy could not help it, she shook. A moment before she had been crying +whole-heartedly, associating herself, as a daughter may, in her father's +woe. But that was too much. With the tears still in her eyes, she +laughed. "Gracious goodness! You don't take me for a fly-by-night?" + +The noble marquis, who had been standing, sat down. Before him, on the +ginger of the wall, hung the portrait of the gorgeous swashbuckler. +Behind the latter were portraits, dim, remote, visionary, of other +progenitors who probably never existed. But he was convinced that they +had, convinced that always, sword in hand, they had upheld the honour of +the Casa-Evora. No, surely, his daughter had not forfeited that. No, +certainly, he did not suspect her. But there was much that he did not +understand. The misery of the mystery of things overcame him. He wept +noisily. + +Cassy, who had been seated, stood up. She had on her rowdy frock. She +also had on a hat--if you can call a tam-o'-shanter a hat. Therewith +were white gloves which she had got at the basilica and which as yet +were free from benzine. Her father had distressed her inhumanly, but she +had survived it, as youth survives anything, and she looked then, not +tear-stained in the least, but, as usual, very handsome. + +Bending forward, she touched him. "There, you dear old thing, don't take +on so. I have been planning something fat for you. Everything will come +out right Just wait and see--and when you're hungry, there's some nice +cold veal in the kitchy." + +But though in the kitchen there was cold veal, which it were perhaps +poetic to describe as nice, yet even the poetry of that was exceeded by +the poetry of the plan. Cassy had planned nothing lean or fat, nothing +whatever. She had spoken as a little mother may, in an effort to +console, though perhaps prompted subconsciously by the inscrutable +possibilities of life. Anything may happen. Already on the stage of +which destiny is the scene-shifter, the fates, in their eternal role of +call-boy, were summoning the actors to the drama in which the leading +role was hers and on which the curtain was about to rise. + +Her father, comforted by the imaginary, looked up. She had gone. From +the sling he took his arm. The elbow was stiff, though less stiff than +it had been. Moreover the wrist moved readily and the fingers were as +flexible as before. Consoled by that, comforted already, he shuffled +into the kitchen and consumed the cold veal. + +Now, in the crashing car, Cassy's thoughts went forward and back. Her +father's question, that had succeeded in being both pointed and +pointless, returned. She smiled at it. It would take another Don Juan +than Mozart's to entice me, she serenely reflected. Yet, after all, +would he have to be so remarkable? At any rate he would have to be fancy +free and not engaged as was a certain person who had not so much as said +Boo! + +Cassy coloured. Always corsetless, she was not straight-laced. Given the +attraction and with it the incentive, and that tam-o'-shanter might have +gone flying over the windmill. The tam was very safe. There was no +incentive and, though there was no moral corset either, she was +temperamentally unable to go poaching on another's preserves. Barring +the chimerical, that any girl may consider and most girls do, she was +straight as a string. A shabby old man had no need to ask. + +"Seventy-second!" The trainman bawled unmollifiably at her. + +Cassy left a certain person there. Into her thoughts another man had +hopped. She surveyed him. He was good-looking. He was rich. These +attributes said nothing. A beautiful male--always an anomaly--never +attracts a beautiful woman. That other anomaly, a man of inherited +wealth, is disgusting to the anarchist. Cassy was a beauty and an +anarchist. She was also an aristocrat. The tattered portieres of the +House of Casa-Evora, the bedrabbled robes of the marquisate, all that +was ridiculous to her. She was an aristocrat none the less. She had a +high disdain for low things. In the kitchen, which she called the +kitchy, she bent her back but not her head. Her head was unbowed. She +sullied her hands but not her conscience. A dirty act she could not +perform. Aristocrat and anarchist, she was also an artist. With simple +things and simple people, she was simple as you please. Stupidity and +pretentiousness enraged her. The philistine and the ignoble she loathed. + +Now, through the windows of her soul, she surveyed him. His looks, his +money, said nothing. On the other hand there was about him an aroma that +appealed. The aroma was not the odour that local society exhales. At +that Cassy's nose was in the air. A lot of nobodies occupied with +nothing--and talking about it! Such was her opinion of the gilded gang, +an opinion which Paliser--to do him the justice that the historian +should--would have had put to music and arranged for trumpets. It was +not that, therefore. The aroma was more fetching. The man talked her +language, liked what she liked, never presumed. In considering these +factors, she considered her gloves. Thank God, they did not smell of +benzine! + +"Grand Central!" + +Cassy, abandoning Paliser there, went on to Fifth Avenue, where, with +the protection of cross-town traffic, she attempted to get to the other +side. But half-way, she saw, or thought she saw, the young woman to whom +a certain person was engaged. She turned to look, backed into the +traffic-sign and put it in motion. Instantly motors were careering at +each other. Instantly a purple policeman grown suddenly black, was +smitten with St. Vitus. + +Dancing and bellowing as he danced, he righted the sign and swore at +Cassy, who, for added outrage, had flung herself at him and was smiling +sweetly in his swollen face. About them the torrent poured. Then all at +once, in a riot that afterwards seemed to her phantasmagoric, the +policeman raised a forefinger in salute. From the maelstrom she was +hoisted bodily into a car. Somebody, the policeman probably, was +boosting her from behind. Never had she suffered such indignities! To +accentuate them, somebody else was shouting in her face. + +"I've saved your life, you'll have to marry me." + +"Well, I declare!" Cassy, horribly ruffled, exclaimed at Paliser, who +had the impudence to laugh. She smoothed the smock, patted the hat, +passed a gloved hand over her nose. + +"You're all there," Paliser, amused by the mimic, was telling her. "What +is more, one pick-me-up deserves another." + +With his stick, he poked at the mechanician, gestured with it, +indicating a harbour. + +The car veered and stopped at a restaurant that had formerly resided in +Fourteenth Street, but which had moved, as the heart of Manhattan moved, +and was then thinking of moving again. + +In the entrance were Cantillon and Ogston, agreeable young men, who +stood aside for Cassy, raised their hats at Paliser, nudging each other +with unfathomable good-fellowship. + +"A peach!" + +"No, a pair!" + +Their pleasantries were lost. Cassy and Paliser moved on and in to the +Fifth Avenue room, crowded as usual on this high noon. But what are +head-waiters for? Promptly there was a table, one not too near the +orchestra and yet which gave on the street. + +"What would you dislike the least?" Paliser from over a bill-of-fare +inquired. He had brought his hat and stick with him and, in spite of a +waiter's best efforts, had put both on the floor. + +I am not fit to be seen, thought Cassy, looking about at two and three +hundred dollar frocks and at blouses that were almost as cheap. + +Paliser, turning to the waiter, translated passages from the menu. +"Surprised tomatoes, cocottish eggs, supreme on a sofa, ice Aurora +Borealis. And a baked potato." He turned to Cassy. "Barring the ice, a +baked potato is the only thing in which they can't stick grease." + +"Et comme vin, monsieur?" enquired the waiter who ought to have been at +the front. + +"Aqua pura. But probably you have not got it. Celestial Vichy, then." He +looked again at Cassy. "What else might displease your ladyship?" + +"Do stop talking like a low comedian," Cassy vexatiously retorted. "If +you had not used force I would not be here. I could not make a row at +the door." + +"No, one scene on Fifth Avenue is enough for one day." + +"I should say so and it was you who made it. I was going quietly about +my business when I was derricked into your car." + +"Not at all. You threw yourself at my head. If it had not been for me, +the policeman would have marched you off to prison." + +Cassy laughed. "The dear man! He knew I would be worse off with you." + +"Yes. He was certainly perspicacious. Where did you say you were going?" + +Cassy removed her gloves. "Before I was attacked? To a music-shop. There +is a song I want to get for Mrs. Thingumagig's, Mrs. Beamish----" + +"Mrs. Who?" Paliser asked. Again he had forgotten the lady. But from one +of memory's pantries her wraith peered out. "Ah, yes, of course! Well, +we can stop by for it and you can run it over in the country to-night. +You remember that you are to dine with me, don't you?" + +Cassy lifted a lip as a dog does when about to bite. "Remember it, I +have thought of nothing else." + +But now the waiter put a dish between them and Paliser said: "You make +me feel like this surprised tomato." + +Then came the bite. "While you are about it, you can feel like both of +them. I am not going." + +Argument weakens everything and wearies everybody--except the young. The +mouths of youth are naturally full of objections and insults. Were it +otherwise, young people would be too servile to the past, too respectful +to the present and the future would not know them as guides. + +Paliser, young in years, but old at heart, omitted to argue. He did what +is perhaps superior, he changed the subject. "What is this song you were +speaking of? Why not try that thing of Rimsky-Korsakov, the 'Chanson +Hindoue'?" + +Then, throughout that course and the courses that followed, peace +descended upon them. Even to talk music soothes the savage breast. It +soothed Cassy and to such an extent that, finally, when the ice came she +made no bones about admitting it was her favourite dish. + +"Du cafe, monsieur? Des liqueurs?" the slacker asked. + +But no, Paliser did not wish anything else, nor did Cassy. The ice +sufficed. She ate it slowly, a little forkful at a time, wishing that +her father could share it, wishing that he, too, could have sofa'd +supremes and some one to pay for them. She raised her napkin. + +Paliser lit a cigarette and said: "You made no reply to that statement +of mine." + +She stared. "What statement?" + +"About saving your life." + +"And ruining my reputation?" + +"Well, life comes first. I said you would have to marry me to pay for +it. Will you?" + +Cassy lowered the napkin. He was talking in jest she knew, or thought +she knew, but the subject was not to her taste, though if he had been +serious she would have disliked it still more. She wanted to give it to +him, but no fitting insolence occurred to her and she turned to the +window before which two Japanese were passing, with the air, certainly +feigned, which these Asiatics display, of being hilarious and naif. + +"Will you?" he repeated. + +"Will I what?" + +"Marry me?" + +Perhaps he did mean it, she thought. He was cheeky enough for anything. +But now he was prodding her. "Say yes. Say to-morrow; say to-day." + +She turned on him. "Why not yesterday? Or is it just another of your +pearls of thought? You are simply ridiculous." + +Paliser put down his cigarette. "That is the proper note. Marriage is +ridiculous. But it is the most ancient of human institutions. Divorce +must have been invented at least three weeks later." + +Cassy did not mean to laugh and did not want to, but she could not help +herself and she exploded it. "You are so ardent!" + +Innocently Paliser caressed his chin. He had made her laugh and that was +a point gained. But such pleasure as he may have experienced he +succeeded in concealing. + +"Again the proper note! I am ardent. Yet--shall I admit it?--formerly I +walked in darkness. It is all due to my father. I have forgotten the +prophet preaching on the hillside who denounced respectability as a low +passion. But my father, while deeply religious, has views more advanced. +He dotes on respectability. He tried to instil it into me and, alas! how +vainly! I was as the blind, the light was withheld and continued to be +until, well, until a miracle occurred. You appeared, I was healed, I saw +and I saw but you. What do you say?" + +"That your conversation is singularly edifying." In speaking, Cassy +gathered her gloves with an air slightly hilarious but not in the least +naif. Before Paliser could cut in, she added: "If I don't hurry, Ma +Tamby will be out and I shall lose my lesson." + +Paliser shifted. She is devilish pretty, he thought. But is she worth +it? For a second he considered the possible scandal which he had +considered before. + +He stood up. "Let me take you. We can stop for the song on the way." + + + + +XVIII + + +"My Carlottatralala! Dear Carlottatralala!" + +Lightly at the door, Cassy strung the words to a mazourka. Her voice +twisted, swung, danced into a trill that was captured by echoes that +carried it diminishingly down the stairway of the mansion where Carlotta +Tamburini lived. + +"Eh?" + +Partially the door opened. A fat slovenly woman showed an unpowdered +nose, a loose unpainted mouth, and, at sight of Paliser, backed. "For +God's sake! One moment, dearie. Straight ahead. With you in two shakes." + +Cassy, her yellow frock swishing, led the way to a room furnished with +heaped scores, with a piano, a bench, chairs and a portrait, on foot, of +a star before the fall. Adjacently were framed programmes, the faded +tokens of forgetless and forgotten nights, and, with them, the usual +portraits of the usual royalties, but perhaps unusually signed. The +ex-diva had attended to that herself. + +Paliser, straddling the bench, put his hat on the piano and looked at +Cassy, who had gone to the window. It was not the palaces opposite that +she saw. Before her was a broken old man revamped. In his hand was a +baton which he brandished demoniacally at an orchestra of his own. The +house foamed with faces, shook with applause, and without, at the +glowing gates, a chariot carried him instantly to the serenities of +elaborate peace. + +"It won't take over an hour." + +The vision vanished. Across the way, in a window opposite, a young man +was dandling, twirling one side of a moustache, cocking a conquering +eye. Cassy did not see him. Directly behind her another young man was +talking. She did not hear. + +On leaving the restaurant and, after it, the music-shop, the car had +taken them into the Park where Paliser, alleging that he was out of +matches, had handed her into another restaurant where more Vichy was put +before her and, with it, that question. + +The air was sweet with lilacs. On the green beyond Cassy could see them, +could see, too, a squirrel there that had gone quite mad. It flew around +and around, stopped suddenly short, chattered furiously and with a +flaunt of the tail, disappeared up a tree. + +"What a dear!" was Cassy's reply to that question. + +But Paliser gave her all the rope that she wanted. He had no attraction +for her, he knew it, and in view of other experiences, the fact +interested him. It had the charm of novelty to this man who, though +young, was old; who, perhaps, was born old; born, as some are, too old +in a world too young. + +He struck a match and watched the little blue-gold flame flare and +subside. It may have seemed to him typical. Then he looked up. + +"Frankly, I have no inducements to offer, and, by the same token, no +lies. It would be untrue if I said I loved you. Love is not an emotion, +it is a habit, one which it takes time to form. I have had no +opportunity to acquire it, but I have acquired another. I have formed +the habit of admiring you. The task was not difficult. Is there anything +in your glass?" + +"A bit of cork, I think," said Cassy, who was holding the glass to the +light and who was holding it moreover as though she had thoughts for +nothing else. + +But her thoughts were agile as that squirrel. A why not? Why not? Why +not? was spinning in them, spinning around and around so quickly that it +dizzied her. Then, like the squirrel, up a tree she flew. For herself, +no. She did not want him, never had wanted him, never could. + +"May I have it?" Paliser took the glass. Save for subsiding bubbles, and +the bogus water, there was nothing there. "Will you take mine? I have +not touched it." + +Cassy took it from him, drank it, drank it all. Her thoughts raced on. +She was aware of that, though with what they were racing she could not +tell. + +"I don't know why I am so thirsty." + +Paliser knew. He knew that the taste of perplexity is very salt. She was +considering it, he saw, and he payed out the rope. + +"People who claim to be wise are imbeciles. But people who claim to be +happy are in luck. I have no pretensions to wisdom but I can claim to be +lucky if----" + +Cassy, her steeple-chasing thoughts now out of hand, was saying +something and he stopped. + +"It is very despicable of me even to listen to you. I don't think I +would have listened, if you had not been frank. But you have had the +honesty not to pretend. I must be equally sincere. I----" + +It was Paliser's turn. With a laugh he interrupted. "Don't. A little +sincerity is a dangerous thing and a great deal of it must be fatal. +Besides I know it all by heart. I am the son of rich and disreputable +people. That is not my fault, and, anyway, it is all one to you. But +what you mean is that, should you consent, the consideration will not +be--er--personal with me or--er--spiritual with you, but--er--just plain +and simple materialism." + +Cassy looked wonderingly at him. It was surprising how quickly and how +completely he had nailed it. But into the bewilderment there crept +something else. "Yes, and I am ashamed to look myself in the face." + +Paliser gave a tug at the rope. "Then don't do that either. Look at me. +Matrimony is no child's play. It is like a trip to England--close +confinement with the chance of being torpedoed. Interference is the +submarine that sinks good ships. If you consent, there is only one thing +on which I shall insist, but I shall insist on it absolutely." + +Visibly the autocrat stiffened. "Shall you, indeed!" + +Paliser pounded, or affected to pound, on the table. "Yes, absolutely." + +You may go to Flanders then, thought Cassy, but, with that look which +she could summon and which was tolerably blighting, she said, "Ah! The +drill sergeant!" + +"Yes, and here is the goose-step. The drill sergeant orders that you +must always have your own way in everything." + +Considerably relaxed by that, Cassy laughed. "You are very rigorous. But +don't you think it is rather beside the mark?" + +"Beside it!" Paliser exclaimed. "It tops it, goes all over it, covers +it, covers the grass, covers everything--except a fair field, a free +rein and every favour." + +Cassy was gazing beyond where the squirrel had been. A limousine passed. +A surviving victoria followed. Both were superior. So also were the +occupants. They were very smart people. You could tell it from the way +they looked. They had an air contemptuous and sullen. The world is not +good enough for them, Cassy thought. In an hour, car and carriage would +stop. The agreeable occupants would alight. They would enter fastidious +homes. Costly costumes they would exchange for costumes that were +costlier. They would sit at luxurious boards, lead the luxurious life +and continue to, until they died of obesity of the mind. + +None of that! Cassy decided. But already the picture was fading, +replaced by another that showed a broken old man, without a penny to his +name, or a hope save in her. + +From the screen, she turned to Paliser, who, aware of her absence, had +omitted to recall her. Now, though, that she again condescended to be +present, he addressed her in his Oxford voice. + +"But what was I saying? Yes, I remember, something that somebody said +before me. Nowadays every one marries except a few stupid women and a +few very wise men. Yet, then, as I told you, I have no pretensions to +wisdom." + +"Nor I to stupidity," Cassy thoughtlessly retorted. Yet at once, +realising not merely the vanity of the boast but what was far worse, the +construction that it invited, she tried to recall it, tangled her +tongue, got suddenly red and turned away. + +"You do me infinite honour then," said Paliser, who spoke better than he +knew. But her visible discomfort delighted him. He saw that she wanted +to wriggle out of it and, like a true sportsman, he gave her an opening +in which she would trip. + +"Matrimony is temporary insanity with permanent results. You must not +incur them blindfolded. Do me the favour to look this way. Before you +sits a pauper." + +In the surprise of that, Cassy did look and walked straight into it. +"What?" + +"Precisely." In sheer enjoyment he began lying frankly and freely. He +lied because lying is a part of the game, because it is an agreeable +pastime and because, too, if she swallowed it--and why shouldn't +she?--it might put a spoke in such wheels as she might otherwise and +subsequently set going. + +"Precisely," he repeated. "It is different with my father. My father has +what is called a regular income. One of these days I shall inherit it. +It will keep us out of the poorhouse. But meanwhile I have only the +pittance that he allows me." + +Yes, Cassy sagaciously reflected. What with Paliser Place, its upkeep +and the rest of it, it must be a pittance. But the lie behind it, which +she mistook for honesty, tripped her as it was intended to do. A moment +before she might have backed out. Now, in view of the lie that she +thought was truth, how could she? It would be tantamount to +acknowledging she was for sale but that he hadn't the price. Red +already, at the potential shame of that she got redder. + +Paliser, who saw everything, saw the heightening flush, knew what it +meant, knew that he was landing her, but knew, too, that he must bear +the honours modestly. + +"Bread and cheese in a cottage and with you!" he exclaimed. "But, +forgive me, I am becoming lyrical." He turned, summoned the waiter, paid +for the water, paid for the service and took from the man his stick. + +Cassy went with him to the car. She had made no reply. If she were to +take the plunge, there was no use shivering on the brink. But what would +her father say? He would be furious of course, though how his fury would +change into benedictions when he found himself transported from the +walk-up, lifted from Harlem and cold veal! Presently there would be a +flower in his button-hole and everything that went with the flower. +Moreover, if the poor dear wanted to be absurd, she would let him parade +his marquisate; while, as for herself, she would have to say good-bye to +so much that had been so little. Good-bye! Addio per sempre! The phrase +from La Tosca came to her. It told of kisses and caresses that she had +never had. Yet, beneath her breath, she repeated it. Addio per sempre! + +Then suddenly, without transition, she felt extraordinarily at peace +with herself, with everybody, with everything. After all, she did not +know, stranger things had happened, she might even learn to care for him +and to care greatly. But whether she did or she did not, she would be +true as steel--truer! He had been so nice about it! Yes, she might, +particularly since she had made a clean breast of it and he knew she was +marrying him for what it pleased him to describe as his pittance. + +The car now was flying up the Riverside. An omnibus passed. From the +roof, a country couple spotted the handsome girl and the handsome young +man who were lolling back so sumptuously, and the lady stranger, +pointing, said to her gentleman: "Vanderbilt folk, I guess, ain't they +dandy!" Behind the lady sat a novelist who was less enthusiastic. +Another girl gone gay, was his mental comment. Well, why not? he +reflected, for Jones' prejudices were few and far between. Besides, he +added: Les Portugais sont toujours gais. But he had other things to +think about and he dismissed the incident, which, in less than a week, +he had occasion to recall. + +Cassy, meanwhile, after serenading a fat woman's door and looking from a +palatial window at the moving-pictures of her thoughts, at last heard +Paliser, who, already, had twice addressed her. + +"It won't take over an hour or so." + +But now the Tamburini, ceremoniously attired in a wrapper, strode in and +Paliser, who had been straddling the music-bench, stood up. + +The fact that they had come together and were together, had already +darkly enlightened the fallen star and as she strode in she exclaimed +with poetry and fervour: "Two souls with but a single thought!" + +Paliser took his hat. "We are a trifle better provided. I have as many +as three or four thoughts and one of them concerns a license. I am going +to get it." + +His face was turned from Cassy and his eyes, which he had fastened on +his hostess, held caveats, commands, rewards. + +Massively she flung herself on Cassy. "Dearie, I weep for joy!" + +Cassy shoved her away. "Not on me, Tamby." + +But the dear lady, in attacking her, shot a glance at Paliser. It was +very voluble. + +Cassy, too, was looking at him. Her education had been thorough. She +knew any number of useless things. In geography, history, and the +multiplication-table she was versed. But Kent's Commentaries, passionate +as they are, were beyond her ken. The laws to which they relate were +also. None the less, on the subject of one law she had an inkling, +vague, unprecised, and, for all she knew to the contrary, incorrect. She +blurted it. "Don't I have to go, too?" + +Ma Tamby grabbed it. "Go where, dearie?" + +"For the license?" + +Ma Tamby tittered. "Not unless you love the song of the subway. The +license is a man's job." Twisting, she giggled at Paliser. "But not hard +labour, he, he!" + +"A life-term, though," he answered and added: "I'll go at once." + +That settled it for Cassy. A chair stretched its arms to her. She sat +down. + +Wildly the fat woman gesticulated. "Dearie, no! But how it gets me! As +true as gospel I dreamed so much about it that it kept me awake. I do +believe I have a pint of champy. Shall I fetch it? I must." + +Coldly Cassy considered her. "Don't. You'll only get tight." + +Paliser, making for the door, called back: "Save a drop for me." + +"May the Lord forgive me," sighed the fat woman. "I was that flustered I +forgot to congratulate him. But how it takes me back! Dearie, I too was +young! I too have loved! Ah, gioventu primavera della vita! Ah, l'amore! +Ah! Ah!" + +"You make me sick," said Cassy. + +"Dearie----" + +"Be quiet. My father won't like it and I can't lie to him about it. But +I shall need some things and you will have to go for them. What will you +tell him?" + +With one hand, the fat woman could have flattened Cassy's father out. +But not his tongue. The nest of vipers there, even then hissed at her. + +"Why, dearie, to-morrow you'll have your pick of Fifth Avenue and until +then, if you need a tooth-brush, I'll get one for you around the +corner." + +"But my father will have to be told something. He'll worry to death. I +might write though, and put on a special delivery. Look here. Have you +any note paper that isn't rotten with scent? If not, I do believe I'll +chuck it." + +"For God's sake, dearie!" + +Hastily, in search of scentless paper, the fat woman made off. + + + + +XIX + + +Over the way, on the jimcrack of the stately mansion opposite, the +westering sun had put an aigrette of gold. The young man with the +conquering eye had gone. A lovely Jewess, leaning like a gargoyle, +violently threatened some Ikey in the unlovely street below. Above was a +pallid green. Beyond, across the river, the sun, poised on a hill-top, +threw from its eternal palette shades of salmon and ochre that tinted an +archipelago of slender clouds. But in the street was the music of +carefree lads, playing baseball, exchanging chaste endearments. There +too was the gaiety of little trulls, hasty and happy on their +roller-skates. While perhaps to generalise these delights, a trundled +organ tossed a ragtime. The charm was certainly affecting and that charm +the horn of Paliser's approaching car merely increased. + +Long since the letter had gone and, with it, another to Mrs. Yallum. In +the former, Cassy had tried to gild the pill, yet without succeeding in +disguising it. + + Dear Daddy: + + You are the best man in the world and the next best your little + girl is to marry now, right away, and become Mrs. Monty Paliser. + But my heart will be with you and so will Mrs. Yallum. Don't fuss + with her, there's a dear, and take your medicine regularly and be + ready to give me your blessing as soon as I can run in, which will + be at the first possible moment, when I shall have more news, good + news, better news, best of daddies, for thee. + + A whirlwind of kisses, + + CASSY. + +Adjacently, on the upper reaches of Broadway, Ma Tamby was shopping. The +sun now, gone from the river, was painting other spheres. From a corner, +shadows crept. They devoured the floor, absorbed the piano, assimilated +the room. They left pits where they passed. They enveloped Cassy. + +Suddenly, she shivered. + +She had been far away, outside of the world, in a region to which the +clamouring street could not mount. Her thoughts had lifted her to a land +that had the colours, clear and yet capricious, of which dreams are +made. There beauty stood, and truth with beauty, and so +indistinguishably that the two were one. But truth, detaching herself, +showed her candid face. The shadows elongating, reached up and darkened +it. The candour remained, but the candour had become terrible. Cassy saw +it. She saw that the land to which she had been lifted was the land of +beauty and horror. It was then she shivered. + +Instantly something touched her. There was no one. The land, the beauty, +the horror had faded. No longer on the heights, she was in a trivial +room in Harlem. She was awake. She was absolutely alone. None the less +something that was nothing, something invisible, inaudible, intangible, +imperceptible, something emanating from the depths where events crouch, +prepared to pounce, had touched her. She knew it, she felt it. Her +impulse was to scream, to rush away. But from what? It was all +imaginary. Common-sense, that can be so traitorous, told her that. Then, +immediately, before the wireless from the unknown, which modern +occultism calls the impact, could impel her, the room was invaded. + +Ma Tamby, tramping in, switching on the lights, was exclaiming and +gesticulating at her and at Paliser, who had followed and who was +standing in the doorway. + +"Dearie! For God's sake! The child's asleep! In all my born days I never +knew the likes of that!" + +Icily Cassy eyed her. "What have you there?" + +"Where? What? This?" Feelingly the woman exhibited a nice, big package. +"Why, the things I bought for you!" + +"And do you for a moment suppose that I am going to carry a bundle?" + +"Saints alive, child! Didn't you tell me----" + +But now Paliser, in his cultured voice, intervened. "If I may have it?" +He took it, moved to the window, leaned from it, called: "Mike! You see +this? Then see too that you don't muff it." + +The bundle vanished. + +He turned to Cassy. "I telephoned to Dr. Grantly. He is a clergyman. It +might seem uncivil to keep him waiting." + +Cassy saw him at once--a starchy old man, with a white tie and little +side whiskers, who lived--and would die--in a closed circle of thought. + +Then again that nothing touched her, though, because of the others, more +lightly, less surely. But it touched her. She was quite conscious of it, +equally conscious that there was still time, that she could still +desist, that she had only to say that she would not, that she had +changed her mind and tell them no, right out and be hanged to them. On +the strawberry of her tongue it trembled. At once before her there +floated another picture, the picture of a shabby old man, without a +penny in the world, or a hope save in her. + +She stood up. + +"Dearie, dearie, I wish you joy, I do!" the fat woman sobbed, or +appeared to sob, and everything being possible, it may be that she did +not sob. La joie fait peur. She had done her part. On the morrow a +cheque would reach her. "Dearie, dearie!" + +"Don't be a fool," Cassy frigidly threw at her. + +"Will you take my arm?" Paliser asked. + +"Don't be a fool either," she threw at him and bravely, head up, went on +to the events that waited. + +In the street below a strain overtook her. Ma Tamby was amusing herself +with "Lohengrin." + + + + +XX + + +Paliser, alighting, turned to help Cassy. But Cassy could get out +unassisted. + +The gravel crunched beneath the wheels of the retreating car. From afar +came the bark of a dog, caught up and repeated. Otherwise the air was +still, very sweet. The house too was silent. In the hall and in the +windows there were lights, but there seemed to be nobody about and that +and the quiet gave her the delicious impression that the house was +enchanted. It was a very nonsensical impression, but it was the nonsense +that made it delicious. + +Paliser was saying something, though what she did not hear. The sky now +was indigo and in it hung a yellow feather. On the Hudson it had been +very pale, the ghost of a feather. But, as Harlem receded, it had ridden +higher and brightened in the ride. Cassy had watched it, wishing that +Paliser would not talk. He had sat next to her, on the same seat, yet if +the portion of it which he occupied had been in a Queensland back-block, +he could not have been farther from her heart. He took her hand and she +let him. He kissed her and she submitted to that. But she wondered +whether courtesans do not hate the men who pay them, more than they hate +themselves. Was she any better? However a priest mumbled at her, she was +selling herself. Love alone is marriage. She had none, nor had he. The +whole thing was abominable, and, as he held her hand and pressed her +lips, her young soul rebelled. Even for her father's sake, this cup was +too much. + +Now though, the empty hall and the great silent house took on the +atmosphere of the Palace of the White Cat. The cup became a philtre. The +abomination changed into deliciousness. There are fairy-tales that are +real. For all she knew, Paliser might change into Prince Charming and +certainly he looked it. + +He had been saying something, what she did not hear. But on the steps +beneath the perron, she turned and saw that which previously she had not +realised, he was extraordinarily good-looking, and about her closed a +consciousness that her rowdy frock was a tissue of diamonds and that he +was in doublet and hose. + +A moment only. But during it something melted about her. Immediately +aware of the phenomenon, she felt that she ought to freeze. She tried to +and failed. The atmosphere of deliciousness prevented and, though she +did not know the reason, she did know that she had failed and the fact +instead of annoying, amused. Then, as she followed Paliser into the +house, she told herself that she was an imbecile, that she did not know +her own mind and, without transition, wondered how her father was taking +it. + +From the hall, they passed through a succession of rooms vacant, +subdued, rich, and on into that other room where she had sung. At the +farther end was a hyacinth curtain that masked a door. But near the +entrance through which she had come was an ivory chair. Cassy, seating +herself on it, wondered what had become of the bundle. She was sure that +it held everything except what she wanted. Then suddenly behind her blue +smock came a gnawing. She thought she would ask Paliser to have somebody +fetch her a sandwich, two sandwiches, or else some bread and butter, +but, now that she looked for him, he had gone. + +She got up, crossed the room and sat down on another chair which was +black, probably ebony. It had a curial appearance that suggested the +senate, not the senate at Washington, but the S. P. Q. of Rome. It was +quite near the hyacinth curtain and behind the latter she heard voices. +Like the rooms they were subdued. She could distinguish nothing. Yet +there must be a bell somewhere and she decided that if Paliser did not +shortly return, she would ring. The gnawing was sharper. She was very +hungry. + +Again she got up and looked from a window. It gave on a garden in which +there was underbush that the moon was chequering with amber spots. After +all, it was a queer sort of a wedding. But what had she expected? Grace +Church? St. Thomas'? Invitations a fortnight in advance, aisles banked +with flowers, filled with snobs and the garbage of the Wagner score that +Ma Tamby had tossed after her? Not by a long shot! + +She turned. Paliser was entering. But the gnawing had nibbled away the +enchantment and, as she turned, she looked rather cross. + +Paliser, noticing that but mistaking the cause, said very +sympathetically: "During the Terror, a princess jogged along, smelling a +rose. Marriage is no worse than the guillotine, besides being much less +summary. Will you come?" + +"Less summary? I should say so!" Cassy retorted. "It is far too +lingering." + +But she followed him out into another hall, one that was hung with +tapestries. They were dim and embroidered with what seemed to be pearls. +On the floor was a rug, dim also, narrow, very long, that extended to a +room, lined with high-placed bookcases and set with low-placed lights. +In the room stood a man. He wore a long black coat and a waistcoat that +reached to his collar. In his hand was a book. + +"Dr. Grantly," said Paliser, who added, "Miss Cara." + +Dr. Grantly bowed but without distinction. Because of the position of +the lights, his face was obscured and what Cassy could discern of it she +judged young and uninteresting. When Paliser had first mentioned +him--and how long ago it seemed!--she had fancied him old. She had +fancied too that he would have little side whiskers. The fact that he +was young was not a disappointment. Clergymen, whether old or young, did +not interest her. She did not care for them, or for churches, or the +services in them. The ceremonial of worship seemed to her empty. Creeds +professed but not practised seemed to her vain. But she would carry an +injured cat for miles. A lost dog was found the moment she spotted it. +She did what good she could, not because it is a duty, but for a +superior reason. She liked to do it. One may be a Christian without +caring for churches. + +"Dearly beloved----" + +In the depths over which she had passed, excitement and the novelty of +it had, until then, supported her. But at that exordium, instantly, they +fell away; instantly fear, like a wave, swept over her. Instantly she +felt, and the feeling is by no means agreeable, that she was struggling +with the intangible in a void. But she had not intended to drown, or no, +that was not it, she had not wanted to marry. Aware of the depths, not +until then had she known their peril. Until that moment she had not +realised their menace. Then abruptly it caught and submerged her. + +"I require and charge you both as ye will answer at the dreadful day of +judgment----" + +The solemnity of the sonorous exhortation was water in her ears. The +sound of it reached her confusedly, in a jumble. She was drowning and it +was unconsciously, in this condition, that poked by Paliser, she heard +herself uttering the consenting words that are so irrevocable and so +fluid. + +It was over then--or nearly! The thought of it shook her from the mental +swoon. Behind her some one spoke and she wondered who it could be. But a +movement distracted her. Dr. Grantly had shifted the book from one hand +to the other and as absently she followed the movement, she saw that the +hand that now held the book was maimed or else malformed. + +But what immediately occupied her were other words which, prompted by +him, she was automatically repeating. The words are very beautiful, +really exalting, they are words that spread peace as dawn spreads upon +the sea. Yet, in their delivery, twice Dr. Grantly tripped and, though +on each occasion he pulled himself up and went on again without +embarrassment, it seemed to Cassy that he did so without dignity. + +The impression, which was but momentary, drifted; another distraction +intervened, her finger was being ringed. I'm done for! she despairingly +thought. + +"Amen!" + +"Ouf!" Cassy gasped. It was really over, over at last, and still a +little bewildered, she turned. The butler and the maid were leaving the +room, which they must have entered when the ceremony first over-whelmed +her. From the hall a slight cackle floated back. + +It amused them, she generously reflected. + +Paliser did not notice. He was addressing the clergyman. "Thank you very +much, doctor." He turned to his bride. "Cutting your head off may have +been worse, don't you think?" + +If I can't be gay at least I should appear so, she told herself and +desperately she laughed. + +Meanwhile the man of God, relapsing into the man of the world, or of its +neighbourhood, did not seem to know what to do with himself. He dropped +the book, picked it up, put it on the table. Considerately, in his +Oxford voice, Paliser instructed him. + +"You must be going? Ah, well, I appreciate. Let me thank you again." + +Dr. Grantly mumbled something, smiled at the bride, smiled at the happy +man or, more exactly, he smiled at an envelope which the happy man was +giving him and which, Cassy divined, contained his fee. How much? she +wondered. However much or little, it was excessive. + +The hall took him and the groom grappled with the bride, embracing her +with that rudimentary paranoia which lawful passion comports. + +She struggled free and, a bit breathless, but with the same desperate +gaiety, exclaimed: "If this is matrimony, give me war!" + +"Perhaps you would prefer dinner first," Paliser, with recovered calm, +replied. + +Wouldn't she, though! Now that she was definitely dished, hunger again +bit at her and she accompanied Paliser through the dim hall, through the +music-room, through the long suite, into the dining-room where, as +before, three men, with white sensual faces, stood waiting. + +Paliser motioned. "Mrs. Paliser will sit there. Move the other chair +here." He drew a seat for her and gave additional instructions. "There +will be people here to-morrow. If we are motoring, have them wait." + +"What people?" asked Cassy, before whom an uncomfortable vision of her +father and Ma Tamby jumped. + +Paliser replied in French. "A man and a woman or two from Fifth Avenue." + +I wonder where that bundle is, thought Cassy who said: "A man? What +man?" + +"Oh, just a clerk. That is almond soup. Do you care for it?" He looked +down at his plate which appeared to engross him. + +Cassy raised her spoon. "A penny for your thoughts." + +He looked up. "They are worth far more. I was thinking of the night I +first met you." + +Cassy laughed. "And Ma Tamby's ham and eggs?" + +Paliser, raising his own spoon, added: "It was Lennox who introduced us. +You knew he was engaged to Miss Austen? Well, she has broken it." + +Cassy must have swallowed the soup the wrong way. She coughed, lifted +her napkin and saw a road, long, dark, infinitely fatiguing on which she +was lost. But the soup adjusted itself, the road turned to the right. +Lennox had never so much as said boo! In anger at herself she rubbed her +mouth hard and put the napkin down. + +Paliser, who had been tasting and sniffing at a glass, looked at the +butler. "What is this? Take it away. It is not fit for a convict." He +looked over at Cassy. "I am sorry." + +"One gets so bored with good wine," said Cassy, who recently had been +reading Disraeli. Yet she said it absently, the unscrambled eggs about +her. + +But the saying was new to Paliser, to whom few things were. He relished +it accordingly and the more particularly because of its fine flavour of +high-bred insolence. + +From where he sat, he eyed her. Although she was eating, which is never +a very engaging occupation, her face had an air that was noble and +reserved. At the moment, a scruple in which there was a doubt, presented +itself. In view of the coming draft act, it occurred to him that he +might have gone the wrong way about it. But the scruple concerned merely +the expediency of the adventure. It was not related to his conscience. +He had none. + +Now, though, a new decanter was before him; he tried it, drank of it, +judged it decent and drank again. Being decent, it was not heady. It did +not affect him. Cassy had done that. In her was a bouquet which the +vineyard of youth and beauty alone produces. He had hankered for it. +Now, like the decanter, it was before him. He could drink his fill. Then +like the other wine, he could send it away. + + + + +XXI + + +The elder Paliser, seated in the hall of his town house, held a cup. In +the chair, a doge had throned. On the bottom of the cup was an N topped +by a crown. The cup contained hot milk. + +Returning, a little before, from a drive, he had been helped up the +steps, into the hall, into the chair. He had not wished to be helped +farther. In the hall, the milk had been brought. As he sipped it, he +looked placid, dignified, evil. He looked very much like a wicked old +doge. + +"When I don't move, it is remarkable how well I feel." + +His son, to whom he spoke, sat in a sedan-chair which, delicately +enamelled without, was as delicately upholstered within. Through the +window of the chair, only the young man's face showed. If you had not +known better you might have mistaken it for the face of a lady of an +earlier, a politer, though not of a bloodier age. But you would have +known better. The hair, powdered white, was absent; so too were the +patches; so also was the rouge. + +Behind the doge's chair a servant stood. Adjacently was a malachite +bench. Beyond was a malachite stairway. The elder Paliser, finishing +with the milk, extended the cup. The servant took it and turned. +Recesses, back of the stairway, engulfed him. + +Monty Paliser straightened. The movement disclosed his collar, the white +of his tie. + +It was the evening of the fourth day since the wedding. He had motored +in to dine at the Austens'. Cassy had seen him go and had seen too +uninterrupted hours in the music-room. The prospect was consoling. + +But, pending the dinner and with an ample quarter of an hour to the +good, he had looked in on his father whom he had found in the hall. +Nothing filial had motived this looking-in. On the surface, it was a +visit of circumstance such as one gentleman may pay to another. But, +beneath the surface, was an object which, when the servant and the cup +had gone, he approached. + +"I hope Benny has not been in your way." + +"Not in the least. I told him to go back to you." + +"Is he still here?" + +"I haven't an idea." + +"You might send him to Newport." + +"You want to be rid of him, eh?" + +"The Place does not need three gardeners." + +The old man, who seemed to be feeling about for something, scowled. +"What it does not need is the atmosphere that you are giving it. You may +go to the devil your own way. I sha'n't stop you. But it puts a bad +taste in my mouth to have you turn it into a road-house. Damn it, sir, +you were born there." + +Through the window of the sedan-chair, the young man was watching. He +saw it coming and masked himself. + +"How funny of Benny to give you such an idea." + +Then, straight at him, went the bomb. + +"It was not a gift. What I got, I extracted. Why don't you marry? Eh? +Why don't you? In order that you might, I made over to you a thing or +two. I wish to God, I hadn't. But perhaps you are satisfied. If you are, +well and good. As it is, unless you marry, I'll leave the property to +Sally's brat and have him change his name. By Gad, sir, if I don't have +some assurance from you and have it now, I'll send for Jeroloman. I will +make a new will and I'll make it to-night. If you came here to dine, you +can stop on and listen to it." + +The bomb was full of fumes. In the still air they floated. But in +throwing it, the old man's scowl had deepened. It had become a grimace +that creased every wrinkle into prominence. His hand had gone to his +chest. Gasping, he held it there. Then presently it fell. His features +relaxed and dryly, in an even tone, he resumed: "It is remarkable how +well I feel, if I don't talk. Any excitement suffocates me." + +In the trench, that the sedan-chair had become, Monty Paliser tightened +the mask. "There is no need for any excitement. I will marry. You have +my word." + +On the great blasoned throne, the old man shifted. The easy victory +mollified him. "Ah! You dine here?" + +"Thank you, no. I am dining at the Austens'." + +"Where?" the elder Paliser asked. He had heard but he wanted it +repeated. It seemed vaguely promising. + +"At the Austens'. You may remember that the pearl of the household was +engaged. It's off." + +Slowly the old man twisted. "What is? The engagement?" + +"So her mother told me." + +"And you are dining there." + +"In a few minutes." + +The old man took it in, turned it over. It seemed not only victory but +peace, and peace with annexation. + +"Very good then. I draw the veil over your road-house. Put the young +woman in a flat. Put her in two flats. Nobody who is anybody ever sees +anything that was not intended for them. Don't beat the drum. That is +all that the right people ask and all I require, except----" + +He paused, considered the annexation and added: "I wish you an excellent +appetite. Austen himself was a drivelling idiot and his wife used to be +a rare old girl--is still, I daresay--but they came of good stock, and +the daughter has looks and no brains. You couldn't do better." + +He paused again, appeared to lose himself in the past, looked up and +suddenly exclaimed: "You are ridiculous in that damned thing! Oblige me +by getting out." + +The young man extracted himself and sat down on the malachite bench. It +was more exposed than the trench and the fumes of the gas bomb that his +father had hurled were hazardous still. Additional protection from them +was needed and he said: "What will you do about Benny?" + +The old man disliked to be questioned. On the arm of his chair he beat +with his fingers a quick, brief tattoo. + +"Benny belongs to the Place. His father served me there. His grandfather +served yours. You don't get such people nowadays." + +Negligently the young man smoothed his tie. "Very picturesque and +feudal. But I don't want him." + +His father did not seem to hear, or to care. He was afar, wandering from +it. "Ever notice that he has only one thumb? Same way with his father. +Probably a family trait. I wish there were more families like 'em. This +house is full of trollops and rascals. So is Newport. The house at +Newport is full of rapscallions. Believe I'll offer it to the Government +for a hospital. I wish to God Sally would come over and run it. Do you +ever hear from her?" + +The young man stood up. "Never." + +"I don't doubt she is well rid of Balaguine. I've run into a baker's +dozen of Russian princes. All canaille. What she wanted to marry him +for, God only knows, and in saying that I exaggerate. Nice mess they +have made of things there. Are you going? Oblige me by touching the +bell." + +The young man touched it and, while he was at it, something else. +"Couldn't you oblige me by shipping Benny to Newport?" + +The old man motioned. It was as though he dismissed it. "My compliments +to her mother and remember that I have your word. Don't dilly-dally. +Good God, sir, can't you realise that any day now you may be drafted? +You've no time to lose. If I were your age, I'd enlist to-morrow. Don't +stand on one foot, you make me nervous." + +The son, putting on a white glove, got back at it. "I was asking you +about Benny." + +Again the old man shifted. "Hum! Well! Since you make a point of it. +Yes. I'll send him to Newport." + +"You won't forget?" + +"I never forget," replied the old man, who, from that moment, forgot it +utterly--until the following night when throttlingly it leaped at him. + +Even if he had remembered, it could only have delayed the course of +events. Benny went the next day and, in going, merely accelerated a +drama which perhaps was preordered. + +But now, from behind the recesses of the malachite stairway, a rascal +appeared and approached and opened a bronze door, from which a young +gentleman passed out and entered his car. + +It was dark then, darker than convenient. There are ways that are +obscure. The martyr who discovered that virtue is its own reward, died +unwept, unhonoured, unsung. History does not know him. Perhaps he was an +editor. But he bequeathed a valid idea. + +As the car swam on, Monty Paliser was conscious of it. It would, he +reflected, simplify matters very much if his father died immediately. He +had no ill-feeling toward him, no good-feeling, no feeling whatever. For +the property conveyed to him and otherwise bestowed, he had no +gratitude. These gifts were in the nature of things. Gifts similar or +cognate his father had received, as also had his grandfather, his +great-grandfather and so on ab initio. They were possessions handed down +and handed over for the greater glory of the House. He had therefore no +gratitude for them. When the time came he would repeat the process and +expect no gratitude either. Meanwhile though the gifts were adequate, +there were more en route, so many that they would lift him within +hailing distance of the richest men in the world. Though whether that +were worth five minutes of perplexity, ten minutes of tears, a row and, +possibly, your name in the papers, depended on the point of view. + +In considering it, he found himself--and very much to his +disgust--rememorating a moral axiom: Great wealth is a great burden. The +axiom was a favourite with his father, who had sickened him with it. But +on its heels always there had trod a variant. "By Gad, sir, you can say +what you like, it puts you in a position to tell anybody to go to hell." + +The variant had a lilt, a go, a flourish. To employ a vulgarism of the +hour, it had the punch. It landed you and between the eyes. It required +neither commentaries nor explanation. It was all there. It was tangible +as a brickbat, self-evident as the sun. + +In admiring it, the young man philosophised stoically. Did he not have +enough for that already? + +Yes, but later? Later might he not want to philosophise less stoically +and more luxuriously? It was a problem. Meanwhile there was Cassy. He +had no wish to lose her. Yet about him already was the shadow of the +inevitable draft act. That was not a problem merely, it was a pit. + +Meanwhile there was Cassy whom he did not wish to lose. She was +delightful, delectable, delicious. Not divine though, thank heaven! The +gleam in her eyes could be quite infernal. The gleam heightened a charm +which in itself was fugitive. He recognised that. However delicious a +dish may be, no man can feed on it always. Not he at any rate. But, for +the time being, it was very appetising. For the present, it did very +well. On the other hand, Margaret Austen represented a succession of +courses which, in addition to being appetising, would lift him to a +parity with the super-rich. + +It was certainly perplexing. But it is a long turning that has no lane. +He was a decent whip and a string made up of Margaret and Cassy was one +that, let him alone for it, he could handle. + +But now the car had stopped. Abandoning perplexity, he went on and up. + + + + +XXII + + +"Here you are! Bright and late as usual!" + +In her fluted voice, with her agreeable smile, Mrs. Austen greeted him. +The lady was attired in a manner that left her glitteringly and +splendidly bare. With her, in the cluttered drawing-room, were Margaret, +Kate Schermerhorn, Poppet Bleecker, Verelst, Cantillon and Ogston. + +"Will you take my daughter out?" Mrs. Austen, with that smile, +continued. "Oh!" she interrupted herself to remark. "You have not +congratulated Mr. Cantillon. Has no little bird told you? It's this dear +child Kate. Just now--don't you think?--engagements, like lilacs, are in +the air." She turned to Verelst. "Grey deceiver!" + +Verelst crooked his arm. "However much I tried to deceive, I got grey +before I could." + +"What are you laughing at?" Mrs. Austen with her tireless smile enquired +of Paliser, who, after speaking to the girls, had said something to +Cantillon. + +"Somersaults being a specialty of his, I was telling him that now is the +time for a triple one." + +Paliser turned to Margaret. She had said nothing. She was very pale. +Mute, white, blonde, she was a vision. + +At table, Verelst, addressing him, asked: "How is your father?" + +"Thank you. Enjoying his usual poor health." He turned again to +Margaret. "No one could mistake my father for an auctioneer. He has so +few admirations. But he knew your father and admired him greatly." + +Margaret made no reply. She was thinking of the land of Splendours and +Terrors, where the princess sat in chains. Margaret envied her. Over the +hill the true knight was hastening and Margaret knew, as we all know, +what happened then. It is a very pretty story, but it can be equally sad +to a sorrowing girl who has no true knight, or who had one, and who +found that he was neither knightly nor true. + +Paliser misconstrued her silence. About her eyes and mouth was an +expression that is displayed by those who have suffered from some long +malady or from some perilous constraint. That also he misconstrued. He +had been told she had washed her hands of Lennox and had washed them +with the soap of indifference, which is the most effective of all. He +was not credulous but he had believed it. The idea that her throat was +choked and her heart a haunt of regret, did not occur to this subtle +young man. He attributed both her silence and her expression to +neuralgia. The latter did not disturb him. But her loveliness did. It +inundated him. The gallery of his memory was hung with fair faces. Her +face exceeded them all. + +The dinner proceeded. Presently, Kate Schermerhorn called over at him. +"Who was the damsel I saw you making up to in the Park the other day?" + +Paliser turned to her. "I have forgotten." + +"I don't wonder. You seemed to have lost your head." + +"Probably then because it wasn't you." + +"Fiddlesticks! You looked as though you could cut your throat for her. +Didn't you feel that way? I am sure you did." + +"You must be thinking of Cantillon. That's the way he looks at you. If +he didn't, he wouldn't have any feeling at all. One might even say he +was quite heartless." + +Kate was laughing. In laughing she showed her red mouth and her teeth, +small, white, a trifle uneven, and, though she continued to show them, +her laughter ceased. With her red mouth open, she stared. That mouth +closed, opened again. She was saying something. + +Everybody was exclaiming. All were hurriedly getting up. + +Paliser turned to Margaret. She had gone. + +Verelst now was between him and her chair. He was bending over. Bending +also was Mrs. Austen. On the other side were Cantillon, Ogston and Miss +Bleecker. + +Then, as the surprise of it lifted Paliser, he saw that they were +lifting her. + +"Brandy!" said Verelst. "Tell the man." + +"Permit me!" Without officiousness, without noticeable shoves, Paliser +got among them and got on his knees beside the girl whom Verelst and +Mrs. Austen were supporting. + +Mrs. Austen wanted to wink at him. Instead, she made way. He took her +place, took the girl in his arms and thought he would like to keep her +there--though not, of course, forever. But he said: "The other room, +perhaps." + +Margaret's head was on his shoulder. She raised it. Her eyes had opened. +She looked at him, at the arms that were about her. A shudder shook her. +Verelst stretched a hand, Ogston another. With them, but otherwise +without effort, she stood up. + +Cantillon exclaimed at her. "Right as rain again! I say, Miss Austen, +you did give us a start!" + +Yet at once, and so endearingly, with the air of an elder sister, Mrs. +Austen resumed the maternal functions. "Dearest child, you have been +overdoing it!" + +Kate patted the girl. "Margaret! I nearly fainted too. I was looking at +you. You went over like that!" + +"Sorry," said Margaret evenly. Her hands had gone to the back of her +head. She dropped them and added: "If you will excuse me." + +Lovingly her mother dismissed her. "The smelling-salts! You will find +them somewhere." The lady looked about. "Shall we have coffee in the +other room? You men can smoke there if you like, or here if you prefer." + +It was quite modern. But Verelst was old, therefore old-fashioned. He +preferred the dining-room. Already the girls had followed Margaret. Mrs. +Austen passed out. Verelst sat down. So also did Cantillon and Ogston. +But Paliser, who had nothing to say to them, accompanied Mrs. Austen. + +"It never happened to her before," she told him. "Where shall you sit? +Here, by me?" In speaking she made room on the sofa and with amiable +suspicion eyed him. "You hadn't said anything to her, had you?" + +Paliser shook his handsome head. "I wanted to." + +Pleasantly she invited it. "Yes?" + +"I wanted to ask her to marry me." + +There he was dangling, and what a fish! The dear woman licked her chops, +not vulgarly, of course, but mentally. + +Paliser, who knew perfectly well what she was at, smiled tantalisingly. +"It is beastly to boast, but I am an epicure." + +What in the world does he mean? the dear woman wondered. But she said: +"Of course you are." + +Paliser, who was enjoying himself hugely, resumed: "An epicure, you +know, postpones the finest pleasures. He does so sometimes because of +the enchantment of distance and again because he can't help himself. +That has been my case." + +It was fully a moment before Mrs. Austen got it. Then she said: "But I +told you, didn't I? Mr. Lennox is dead and buried." + +It was quick work. Paliser, admiring her agility, laughed. "So recently +though! The immortelles have not had time to fade." + +That would have made a saint swear! Not being a saint, Mrs. Austen +contented herself with virtuous surprise. "But there were none! I told +you that. I told you that any attraction he may have had for my child, +he shocked straight out of her. Not deliberately. Dear me, I would not +have you fancy such a thing for a moment. Nor would I misjudge him. I +hope I am too conscientious. But such interest as the child had in +him--an interest I need hardly say that was girlish and immature--he +destroyed." + +The picture, bold but crude, had its defects. To remedy them, Mrs. +Austen applied the brush. "That singing-girl! You know whom I mean. I +saw you with her the night we went to the Bazaar." + +Paliser nodded. He knew indeed! He knew too that, for a moment, he had +fancied that Cassy was in love with Lennox. But that idea he had long +since abandoned and what she could now be doing in this galley intrigued +him. + +With a free hand Mrs. Austen laid on the colours. "You will hardly +credit it, but we as good as caught him with her. As good or as bad. It +is a matter of taste. For me it was very painful. A woman should be +spared such an experience. As for Margaret, while the child certainly +did not understand--how could she?--yet, even in her innocence, she +realised--well--that he is just what you said." + +It was a bit thick and Paliser began to laugh. + +Mrs. Austen saw that he did not believe her. The fact annoyed and in +vexation she piled it on. "Afterward, in this very room, I taxed him +with it and he admitted it." + +What a lie! thought Paliser, who specialised in that article. But, a +second thought prompting, he wondered whether it were a lie. His +knowledge of Cassy refuted it. At the same time, where women are +concerned, you never know. One thing, however, he did know. In his +quality of expert he knew that there are statements which, whether true +or false, may come in handy and, comfortably, he smiled. + +"So that was the reason why the engagement was broken." + +"What more would you have?" replied the candid creature, who now felt +that he had swallowed it. + +Quite as comfortably, Paliser returned to his muttons. "I may cease then +to be an epicure?" + +There was the fish again, but how to land him? The glittering fisherlady +could not bind and gag the bait and drop her into his mouth. At any such +attempt, the bait would pack and go, might even go without packing. Yet +there was the fish, eager, willing, the gills awiggle. Barring a few +gold-fish in Bradstreet, in Burke and in Lempriere, this fish was the +pick of the basket. To see him glide away, and for no other earthly +reason than because the bait refused to be hooked, was simply inhuman. +Flesh and blood could not stand it. No, nor ingenuity either. Instantly +the angler saw that in default of bait, a net may do the trick and, with +the ease of a prestidigitateur, she produced one. + +"You have my blessing!" + +Paliser laughed and bowed. He was in it, it was where he wanted to be +and he liked it. But in view of existing domestic arrangements, he was +in it a bit too soon and, wriggling through a mesh, he stopped laughing +and looked solemn. + +"You are very good. But beforehand my father will expect to be consulted +and, just at present, that is impossible. The physicians would forbid +it." + +"The poor dear old man! You don't mean----" + +Paliser half raised a hand. The gesture was slight but expressive. One +never knew! + +But so much the better, thought Mrs. Austen. Pending the delay she could +so bombard the bait, bombard her day in, day out, and the whole night +through, that, like Liege and Namur, her resistance would crumble, and +meanwhile he would come in for everything, or nearly everything, she +reflected, and the reflection prompting, she affected concern. + +"Has your sister been informed?" + +"I cabled her to-day," said Paliser, who had done nothing of the kind. + +With the same concern, Mrs. Austen lied as freely. "It is too sad for +words." But at once the air of the sympathiser departed, replaced by +that of the hostess. Through one door the men were entering. Through +another came the girls. + +Kate Schermerhorn approached. "Dear Mrs. Austen, Margaret's all right, +but she has a headache." As she spoke, she threw a glance at Cantillon. + +Poppet Bleecker also approached. "It is too bad, Margaret is such a +dear! I would like to stop on but they tell me my maid is here. Thank +you so much, dear Mrs. Austen." + +The lady stood up. "But you are not all going!" They all were though. +She knew it and was glad of it. The object of the dinner was achieved +and achievement, however satisfactory, is fatiguing. "You too!" she +successively exclaimed at Ogston and Cantillon. "And you also!" she +exclaimed at Paliser, to whom, dropping her voice, she added: "If +possible, remember me to him." + +As they went, Verelst surveyed her. He stood against the mantel, his +back to the empty grate. + +Turning she saw him. "Well, what now?" + +Verelst, adjusting his glasses, said, and distantly enough: "What now? +No, what next?" + +Mrs. Austen sat down. "Peter, if you ever loved me, don't adopt that +tone." + +"It is not the tone, it is the tune and the tune is yours." + +"Tune? What tune? What on earth are you talking about?" + +"The tune to which the dinner was set. I heard it. Margaret heard it. It +knocked her out." + +She raised her eyes to him, made them pathetic. "Peter, I haven't a +penny." + +"You have twenty thousand a year." + +"Nineteen, not a dollar more, and that is genteel poverty and there's +nothing genteel in poverty now." + +Verelst tugged at his moustache. "Tell me this. Is she to marry him?" + +In affected surprise, she started. "How you do jump at conclusions." + +Angrily he nodded. "I appear to have jumped at the correct one." + +But his anger had gained her. She faced him. "Heavens and earth! What +have you against him? What have you all against him? My eyes are as good +as any one's. I can't see it." + +"You might feel it then." + +"Feel what?" + +Verelst tugged again at his moustache. He had never heard of elementals +and, if he had heard, he would not have believed in them. He knew +nothing of aurae--which photography has captured. He was very old fogy. +But he knew an honest man when he saw one and a gentleman before he +opened his mouth. + +"Feel what?" Mrs. Austen repeated. + +Verelst, thrashing about, could not get it, but he said: "I can't +describe it, but it's something. His father had it. He----" + +"His father is at death's door." + +"Ah! Is he? Well, I'm sorry for that. M. P. used to be no better than +the law allows--and the law is very lenient." + +"You were too." + +"I daresay. But M. P. has got over it. Without boasting, I think I have +also. But that is neither here nor there. In the old days, I have seen +people shrink from him." + +"Nonsense! Precious little shrinking I ever did." + +"Timidity was never one of your many virtues." + +"Don't be coarse, Peter, and if possible don't be stupid. If you know +anything against Monty, say it I may find it in his favour." + +Impatiently Verelst motioned. "Decent men avoid him." + +"And you!" Mrs. Austen retorted. "What do you call yourself? You are +always civil to him." + +Verelst showed his teeth. "One of the few things life has taught me is +to be civil to everybody." + +"Except to me. Now do sit down and make yourself uncomfortable. You have +made me uncomfortable enough. Any one might think you a country parson." + +But Verelst, scowling at the dial which the legs of the nymph upheld, +removed his glasses. "I am going." He moved to the door, stopped, half +turned, motioned again. "Tell Margaret I would rather see her in her +coffin." + +Angrily she started. "I'll tell her nothing of the kind." + +It was his back that she addressed. She saw him go, saw too her anger go +with him. The outer door had not closed before the tune of which he had +spoken was dispersing it. + +But was it a tune? It seemed something far rarer. In it was a whisper of +waters, the lap of waves, the muffled voice of a river, which, winding +from hill to sea, was pierced by a note very high, very clear, entirely +limpid, a note that had in it the gaiety of a sunbeam, a note that +mounted in loops of light, expanding as it mounted, until, bursting into +jets of fire, it drew from the stream's deepest depths the sonority and +glare of its riches. + +The ripple of it ran down the spine of this woman, who at heart was a +Hun and to whom the harmonies disclosed, not the mythical gleam of the +Rheingold, but the real radiance of the Paliser wealth. + +At the glow of it she rubbed her hands. + + + + +XXIII + + +In the club window, on the following afternoon, Jones was airing copy. + +"Capua must have been packed with yawns. It is the malediction of +mortals to want what they lack until they get it, when they want it no +more. Epicurus said that or, if he did not, Lucretius said it for him. +'Surgit amari aliquid.' But here I am running into quotations when the +only ones that interest anybody are those in the Street. Conditions here +are revolting. Nowhere at any time has there been a metropolis that so +stank to heaven. The papers drip with stocks and scandals and over +there, before the massed artillery, the troops are wheeling down to +death. But wheeling is perhaps poetic. The Marne was the last battle in +the grand style." + +"I don't see what that has to do with Capua," said Verelst. + +"Nor I," Jones replied. "But, come to think of it, there is a +connection. In Capua everybody yawned their heads off. In Flanders and +Champagne they are shot off. Life swings like a pendulum between boredom +and pain. When the world is not anaemic, it is delirious. If ever again +its pulse registers normal, sensible people will go back to Epicurus, +whose existence was one long lesson in mental tranquillity. By the Lord +Harry, the more I consider it, the more convinced I become that there is +nothing else worth having. Niente, nada, rien. Nothing whatever." + +Verelst smiled. "In that case it is hardly worth while getting excited +over it." He raised the lapel of his coat. There were violets in it. He +took a whiff and added: "Has Lennox been here to-day?" + +But Jones did not know. + +Regretfully, Verelst continued: "He goes to Mineola to-morrow and soon +he will be over the top." + +Jones lit a cigarette. "Assuming that he gets back, the women will be +mad about him. Some of them at any rate." + +Verelst rolled an enquiring eye. + +"Of course they will," Jones resumed. "Times have changed precious +little since Victor Hugo. + + 'Les belles out le gout des heros. Le sabreur + Effroyable, trainant apres lui tant d'horreur + Qu'il ferait reculer jusqu'a la sombre Hecate, + Charme la plus timide et la plus delicate. + Sur ce, battez tambours! Ce qui plait a la bouche + De la blonde aux yeux doux, c'est le baiser farouche. + La femme se fait faire avec joie un enfant, + Par l'homme qui tua, sinistre et triomphant. + Et c'est la volupte de toutes ces colombes + D'ouvrir leur lit a ceux qui font ouvrir les tombes.' + +"What rhythm! What music! The score is Napoleonic but----" + +"Hello!" Verelst interrupted. Before the window a car had passed. He was +looking at it. On the back seat was a man in a high hat and an overcoat. +"M. P.!" he exclaimed. + +"What of it?" Jones asked. + +Verelst removed his glasses and looked distrustfully at them. It was as +though he doubted their vision. Then, after a moment he said: "Last +night I heard he was dying." + +"Which," Jones remarked, "is the aim, the object and the purpose of +life. But apparently he has not achieved it yet. Apparently also you are +a futurist. The Napoleonic score did not interest you." + +Verelst, resuming his glasses, replied: "It would not interest Lennox, +if that is what you mean. He has been hit too hard." + +Jones nodded. He knew all about it. It had even suggested a story, a +famous story; one that was told in Babylon and has been retold ever +since; the story of lovers vilely parted in the beginning and virtuously +united at the end. It is a highly original story, to which anybody can +give a fresh twist and Jones had planned to have the hero killed at the +front and the heroine marry the villain, but only to divorce the latter +before the hero--whose death had been falsely gazetted--limps in. + +But Jones knew his trade. He knew that the reader always balks unless +the hero gets the heroine firsthand and he had thought of making the +villain an invalid. Yet at that too he knew the reader would balk. The +reader is so nice-minded! + +Now, the plot recurring, he said to Verelst: "Your knowledge of women +has, I am sure, made you indulgent." + +"Not in the least." + +"But----" + +"Look here," Verelst interrupted. "When I was young and consequently +very experienced, I was indulgent. But monsters change you. Last night I +dined with one." + +"Enviable mortal!" + +"You remember Abraham?" Verelst continued. "His name was Abraham--wasn't +it?--that benevolent old man in the Bible who made the sacrifice of +sacrificing an animal instead of his son? Well, last night it seemed to +me that there are women Abrahams, only less benevolent. The altar was +veiled, the knife was concealed, but the victim was there--a girl for +whom, at your age, I would have died, or offered to die, which amounts +to the same thing. What is more to the point, at your age, or no, for +you are much older than your conversation would lead one to believe, but +in my careless days I offered to die for her mother. I swore I could not +live without her. That is always a mistake. It is too flattering, +besides being untrue. Perhaps she so regarded it. In any event another +man fared better or worse. Afterward, time and again, he said to me: +'Peter, for God's sake, run away with her.' Am I boring you?" + +"Enormously." + +"Well, he was very gentlemanly about it. Without making a fuss at home, +he went away and died in a hospital. She was very grateful to him for +that. But her gratitude waned when she came in for his money. It was +adequate but not opulent, the result being that she tried to train her +daughter for the great matrimonial steeplechase. Just here the plot +thickens. Recently the filly shied, took the bit in her teeth +and--hurrah, boys!--she was off on her own, until her mother jockied her +up to a hurdle that she could not take and the filly came a cropper. But +her mother was still one too many for her. She had her up in a jiffy and +now she is heading her straight for the sweepstakes." + +"Excuse me," Jones with affected meekness put in. "I assume that the +sacrificial victim and the filly are one and the same." + +"Your perspicacity does you much credit." + +Jones laughed. "I have my little talents. But you! The wizardry with +which you mix metaphors is beautiful. You produce a dinner-table and +transform it into an altar which instantly becomes a racecourse. That is +what I call genius. But to an every-day sort of chap like me, would you +mind being less cryptic?" + +"Can you keep a secret?" + +"Yes." + +"So can I." + +Again Jones laughed. "Not in my neighbourhood. You were talking of +Lennox and drifted from him into the Bible. Your thoughts of the one +recalled studies of the other and at once you had Abraham's daughter +downed on the racecourse. Well, she won't be." + +"Why do you say that?" + +"Because it is my business to see things before they occur. Miss +Austen----" + +"I never mentioned her," Verelst heatedly exclaimed. "You have no right +to----" + +"I admit it. But because of Lennox the whole matter has preoccupied me +and quite as much, I daresay, as it has distressed you." + +"I don't see at all what you have to do with it." + +"Perhaps not. But preoccupation may lead to crystal-gazing. Now I will +wager a red pippin that I can tell what you said at the steeplechase to +the steeplestakes. You asked after his father." + +Verelst stared. A man of the world and, as such, at his ease in any +circumstances, none the less he was startled. "How in God's name did you +get that?" + +"It is very simple. Five minutes ago his father sailed by. You made a +remark about him. The remark suggested a train of thought which landed +you at the racecourse where you saw, or intimated that you saw, the +steeplestakes. But what visible sweepstakes are there except M. P.'s +son? You and M. P. are friends. It is only natural that you should ask +about him." + +Verelst turned uneasily. "I don't yet see how you got it. The only thing +I said is that I heard he was dying." + +"And five minutes ago you exclaimed at his resurrection. There is a +discrepancy there that is very suggestive." + +"It is none of my making then." + +"It is none the less suggestive. The death-bed was invented." + +"M. P. may have recovered." + +"Yes, men of his age make a practice of jumping into their death-bed and +then jumping out. It is good for them. It keeps them in training." + +"Oh, rubbish!" Verelst resentfully exclaimed. + +"No," Jones pursued. "The story was invented and the invention had a +reason. If you like, you may ask what it is." + +"You seem to be very good at invention yourself. I shall ask nothing of +the kind." + +"But you would like to know and I will tell you. It was invented to +delay a possible announcement. It could have had no other object." + +"I said nothing of any announcement," Verelst angrily protested. "What +announcement are you talking about?" + +"The heading of the filly for the sweepstakes. The expression--very +graphic by the way--is your own." + +"Graphic or not I wish you would drop it. Besides----" + +"Besides what?" + +"Why, confound it, admitting the engagement, which I ought not to admit +for it is not out yet, why should he play for delay?" + +"Ha!" exclaimed Jones, whom the spectacle of Paliser and Cassy sailing +up the Riverside had supplied with an impression or two. "I thought I +would interest you. He played for delay because he feared that if it +were known, a pitcher of ice-water might come dashing over it." + +"Why do you say that?" asked Verelst, eager and anxious enough for a +spoke--if spoke there could be--to shove in a certain lady's wheels. + +"Given the man and the deduction is easy." + +The spoke was receding. Verelst, swallowing his disappointment, +retorted: "Incoherence is easy too." + +"Well, you are right there," Jones, lighting another cigarette, replied. +"But there is nothing incoherent in the fact that fear is magnetic. What +we dread, we attract. If our winning young friend fears the pitcher, the +pitcher will probably land on him. That is the reason why, to vary your +various metaphors, I declared that there would be no downing on the +racecourse. On the contrary and look here. I will wager you not one +pippin or two pippins, I will go so far as to lay a whole basket that +Miss Austen becomes Mrs. Lennox." + +Verelst sniffed. "You don't know her mother." + +"No. I have not that honour. But I enjoy a bowing acquaintance with +logic." + +"Do you, now? I wonder if it bows back. I'll book your bet." + +"Very good. Make it fancy pippins." + +Verelst stood up. "Fancy is the only term that could be applied them." + +"And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," Jones told himself as the old +man moved away. + +He looked about. The great room had filled. Stocks, money, war, the +odour of alcohol, the smell of cigars, the rustling of evening papers, +the sound of animated talk about nothing whatever, the usual atmosphere +had reassembled itself. + +From it he turned to the window, to the westering sun, to the motors, +the smart gowns and the women who looked so delightful and of whom all +had their secrets--secrets trivial, momentous, perverse or merely +horrible. + +Again he turned. Lennox, who had approached, was addressing him. "You +were at the law school. I have to make a will. Will you help me?" + +Serviceably Jones sprang up. "Come to my shop. It is just around the +corner." + + + + +XXIV + + +Among the old brocades with which the room was fitted and which, +together with the silver bed and the enamelled faience, gave it an +earlier century air, Cassy stood before a cheval-glass. + +She was properly dressed. Her costume, light cloth, faintly blue, was +exquisitely embroidered. Beneath it was lingerie of the kind which, it +is said, may be drawn through a ring. Behind and between was Cassy, on +whose docked hair sat a hat that was very unbecoming and therefore +equally smart. + +A moment before she had thanked and dismissed Emma. Emma was the maid. +With a slant of the eye, that said and suppressed many things, Emma had +gone. + +Through the open windows came the call of birds, the smell of fresh +turf. A patch of sky was visible. It was tenderly blue. There was a +patch too of grass that showed an asparagus green. + +From the mirror Cassy went to a table and, from a jade platter, took a +ring. It was made of six little hoops each set with small stones. She +put it on. The platter held other rings. There was a sapphire, +inch-long, deep and dark. She put that on. There was also an Australian +opal and an Asian emerald, the latter greener than the grass. She put +these on. Together with the wedding-ring they made quite a show. Too +much of a show, she thought. + +Like the costume, the hat, like other costumes, more hats and box after +box of lingerie, they had all surprisingly dumped themselves, there, at +her feet, the day after the wedding. The bundle, which she had brought +with her, she had found very useless and so awkward that she would have +given it to Emma, had it not seemed unsuited to a young person +manifestly so fine. Since then it had been tucked away in a cupboard, +safely out of sight. + +That was just five days ago, a brief eternity, during which life seemed +to be driving her headlong to some unimagined goal. Until the evening +previous she had had barely a moment. But on that evening, Paliser, who +was dining at the Austens', had given her a few hours to herself. + +Now, on this afternoon, he was again in town. + +The air was very still. Afar, a train bellowed, rumbled, died away. From +the garage came the bark of a dog, caught up and repeated on the +hillside beyond. On the lawn, a man in an apron was at work. Otherwise +the air was still, fragrant, freighted with spring. + +Cassy, turning from the table, went to the mirror again and tilted the +hat. However unbecoming, it was certainly smart, and Cassy wondered what +her father would think of Mrs. Monty Paliser. + +In the spaciousness of the name, momentarily she lost herself. It is +appalling to be a snob. But there are attributes that pour balm all over +you. In the deference of the bored yet gracious young women who, with +robes et manteaux, had come all the way from Fifth Avenue, there had +been a flagon or two of that balm. In the invariable "Thank you, mem's" +of the Paliser personnel there had been more. It is appalling to be a +snob. There are perfumes that appeal. + +Then also, particularly after Harlem, the great, grave, silent house had +a charm that was enveloping, almost enchanted. Apparently uncommanded, +it ran itself, noiselessly, in ordered grooves. Cassy fancied that +somewhere about there must be a majordomo who competently saw to +everything and kept out of the way. But she did not know. In her own +rooms she was now at home, as she was also at home in the state chambers +on the floor below. In regard to the latter, she had an idea--entirely +correct, by the way--that at Lisbon, the royal palace--when there was +one--could not have been more suave. But the rest of the house was as +yet unexplored, though in regard to the upper storey she had another +idea, that there was a room there close-barred, packed with coffins. + +The idea delighted her. In this Palace of the White Cat it was the note +macabre, the proper note, the note that synchronised the circumambient +enchantments. In the historical nights of which Perrault told, the +princess had but a gesture to make, the offender sank dead. At once a +bier was produced, the corpse was hurried away, and the veils of charm +restored fell languorously. + +Yet, in that historical epoch, there subsisted--perhaps as a reminder of +the vanities even of fairyland--the rose-leaf suggestively crumpled. The +crumple affected Cassy but far less than she had expected. Paliser had +been very gentlemanly. He had deferred to her in all things, agreed with +her about everything, and though none the less he always had his own +way, yet the pedestal was so obvious that if she had not known otherwise +she might have thought herself continuously upon it. + +The crumple was not there, or at least only such crumple as she had +naturally awaited. The discomfort of the leaf consisted in the fact that +married she was not mated, that she did not love him, and probably never +could. + +Now, as she tilted her hat, the spaciousness of the name recurred to +her. Its potentialities she had considered before she accepted it, but +only because of her father. The idea that it would lift him out of the +walk-up, out of Harlem and cold veal, was the one excuse for her voyage +to Cytherea. The voyage had been eminently respectable. Undertaken with +full ecclesiastical sanction, Aphrodite and her free airs had had +nothing to do with it. None the less it was to Cytherea that she had +gone--and to Lampsacus also, for all she and her geography knew to the +contrary. + +Now, though, in tilting her hat, the disreputable beauty of the land was +forgotten. She was in another and a fairer realm. A modern garden of the +Hesperides lay about her. She saw herself distributing the golden fruit. +The mirror showed her a red-crossed Lady Bountiful in an ambulance, in +two ambulances, in a herd of ambulances, at the front. There was no end +to the golden fruit, no end to his father's money, no end to the good he +might allow her to do. + +The picture so delighted her that she flushed and in the emotion of it +two tears sprang to her eyes that were not of the crying kind. + +She dried them, telling herself that if he framed the picture, she could +love him, and she would. + +It would be all so perfect, not the loving, but the giving, the joy of +giving, the joy of always giving, of giving with both hands, of just +shovelling it out and keeping at it, of never saying "No," of saying, +"Yes, and here is more and here is more," of saying, too, "Don't thank +me, it is for me to thank you." What joy ever was there, or ever will +be, that can compare to that! + +Why, I'm crazy, she thought, and thought also, he never will but he +might, he could and if he should---- + +Then at once the Paliser of the Savile Row clothes and the St. James's +Street boots, the Paliser of the looking-glass hair and the Oxford +voice, assumed the hue and stature of a deva. Love him! It would be +something higher. It would be worship! + +She made a face. It was sheer nonsense. He had an allowance which, +obviously, was very liberal and with which he was liberal enough. Unlike +many rich men he was not close. But to fancy him beneficent was +laughable. Cassy could not imagine him in the role of Lord Bountiful. +Then too there was something queer about him. He hated to be alone. +There are people who kill silence and he was one of them. He was always +talking. Cassy could not understand it. To be silent with any one +procures an intimacy which talk cannot supply. Moreover solitude was as +necessary to her and as refreshing as her bath. Silence and solitude he +could not endure. She tilted her nose and went to the window. + +That night they were to go to the opera. But in a moment she was to +motor in and see her father. Since she put Harlem behind her, she had +wondered and worried about him. The condition of his heart was hazardous +and she had been told that any excitement might be fatal. She had +worried over that, over his sudden rages at tradespeople, and she had +been fearful lest Mrs. Yallum, the janitress, who spoke no known tongue, +had, instead of being of use, only enraged him further. + +She would see to it, though. It was for that she was going in. As yet +she had no money. But there were the rings and one more or one less, +what did it matter? Of the lot she preferred the string of hoops. It was +quaint, there was nothing philistine about it and probably it had not +cost so very much. The emerald was different. It was a stone that would +please any woman with plenty of money and a modicum of taste. Probably +it had cost a thousand on Fifth Avenue, in which case it would fetch a +hundred on Broadway. Or if not, then the sapphire would. Either or both +she would hock very willingly. But not the hoop-ring and not the opal, +unless she had to, and if Paliser, who apparently noticed nothing and +saw everything, asked concerning them, why then she would out with it. +Her father was a beggar! Did he expect her to let him starve? But what +on earth do you suppose I married you for? For yourself? Take a walk. I +sold myself for bread--and butter, and you can fork them over. + +At the possibility of any such conversation--and of such language!--she +flushed afresh and again called herself a fool. There could be no such +conversation. Paliser would never question. He was too indifferent The +consciousness comforted, precisely as, a moment before, the picture of +herself shovelling gold had moved her to tears. + +Then absently she found herself looking in the garden where the aproned +man was at work. But it was Lennox that she saw. Again and again since +the wedding-evening, when Paliser had told her of the unscrambled eggs, +she had wondered about the broken engagement. On that evening she had +felt that she had taken the wrong road and had lost her way. The feeling +was momentary. If Lennox had never been engaged, the result would have +been the same. Not once had he so much as said boo! He had not even +looked it. At table, on the wedding-evening, the unscrambled eggs had +not tasted very good, but reflection had salted them and since then, in +reviewing the matter, it had occurred to her that it was none of her +business. + +Now as she looked out on the garden she wondered whether he had cared +very greatly for this girl, for if he had, what then did she mean by +throwing over a man who was too good for her, too good for anybody? + +She sighed and absently looked again at the gardener. He was bending +down, occupied in planting something. Since she had first noticed him he +had half-circled a parterre and she was about to telephone and ask if +the car were ready when he straightened, turned, extracted a pipe and +attempted to light it. + +The air was very still, there was no breeze, but the match was +ineffective. On his trousers, with a backward movement, he struck +another match and raised it to the bowl. The flame, faintly blue, +mounted and, with it, a curl of smoke. But it was not Cassy or, more +exactly, it was not her objective self, that saw it. It was her +subjective self that registered and afterward reproduced that momentary +and entirely commonplace incident. What the objective Cassy saw was not +the flame or the smoke or the pipe, but the hand that held the match. It +was thumbless. Many hands are. From the hand she looked at the man's +face and gave a little scream, instantly suppressed. + +But her mouth twitched, she tried to swallow and she experienced, what +was new to her, an odd sensation in the epiglottis. She did not remember +that she had ever been what is called sick at the stomach, none the less +she realised that she was on the point of becoming so. Like the little +scream, she choked it back. But the immanence of nausea stifled her, and +she sat down on a brocade-covered chair. + +Her hand had gone to her throat and though almost at once the sensation +subsided, she held it there. The gold bands of the rings that were +pressed against her throat cooled it, but the palm of the hand was wet. +Unconscious of that, she was unaware that she could not think. A crack +on the head makes you dizzy and into her dizziness a somnolence had +entered. The somnolence dulled all the cells of the brain save one and +that one cell, vehemently active, was inciting her to some effort, +though to what she did not know. + +"I must get up," she presently told herself and told it once more. + +In the repetition of the words there was the effect of a spray. The +irritability of the one active cell subsided, that of the others was +aroused. Somnambulism ceased. The entire brain awoke. But the truth had +not yet fully permeated all the cerebral convolutions and the fact that +it had not, manifested itself in the melodramatic phrase which, a week +previous, Lennox had uttered, which all have uttered, all at least +before whom the unforseen has sprung. + +"It is impossible!" + +She got up, went to the window, looked again. There was no impossibility +there, no doubt even, or the peradventure of one. There was only the +ineluctable truth. The aproned man disclosed it. His thumbless hand had +held the book. From his mouth, in which there was a pipe, had come the +benediction. He was Dr. Grantly. That was the ineluctable truth, the +truth which already perhaps she had intercepted in the land of Beauty +and Horror. + +The first sight of it had sickened. Now the physical effect had gone. +But the nausea in passing had been replaced by another sensation, +deadlier, equally human, that made her red and hot, blurred her eyes, +set her quivering, shook her, put her thoughts on fire, vitriolised her +with hate. + +Nietzsche said that a woman's ability to hate is in proportion to her +inability to charm. The brute omitted to add that a woman's ability to +charm corresponds to her evolution. + +There was nothing evolved about Cassy then. She had lapsed back into the +primitive. Like Armide, she could have burned the palace that enchanted +her. None the less, she did nothing. To do nothing may be very +important. The inactivity saved her. During it, the vitriol vaporised; +the hate fell by. She was still trembling, her hands were unsteady, but +the fever was departing, the crisis had passed, the primitive had slunk +back into the cellars of the subconscious, and, in the chair, to which +without knowing it she had returned, she faced it. + +Without, some one knocked and, getting no answer, accepted the +invitation as most people do. + +"Beg pardon, Mrs. Paliser. The car is at the door." + +Cassy half turned. "What?" + +Emma reconstructed it. "Whenever you are ready, mem, the car will be +waiting." + +Cassy turned away. "That will do." + +"Thank you, mem." + +With that air which servants assume, Emma pursed her lips, reopened +them, thought better of it, closed them and closed too the door. + +Facing it still, Cassy sat in the brocaded chair. Anger had shaken her +and gone, taking with it its spawn which hatred is. What inhabited her +then was disgust. + +I am in a nice mess, she told herself. But she told it without surprise, +as though all along it was something which she might have known, could +have avoided, but into which she had put her foot. A momentary vision of +the red-crossed Lady Bountiful returned and she even smiled at it. It +was a sad little smile though. + +Abstractedly, she had been turning and twisting the rings. The motion +aroused her. It drew her attention to them. They also had something to +say. Something which they had been saying ever since the smoke curled +from the pipe. She had not heard it then. There had been too many things +tumbling about her. But now she did hear. She took them off, stood up +and dropped them on the table where they fell between gold-backed +brushes and a vase, gorgeous in delicacy, the colour of ox-blood. + +From a cupboard she took the rowdy frock, the tam, the basilica +underwear and, for a moment, searched and searched vainly for a pair of +stockings. In hunting for them she unearthed the bundle, and that +together with the other things, she threw on the bed, which was not +brocaded, or even daised. It was silver. A few days before, when she had +first seen it, she had clapped her hands. The vase too she had +applauded. Now the lovely room, that had seemed so lovely, a curl of +smoke had turned into a lupanar. + +Quickly, one after another, the modish hat, the delicious frock, the +things that could be drawn through a ring, were removed and replaced. In +the mirror she looked, stopped, looked again, adjusted the tam and was +going to the bed for the bundle when she heard a horn. Head-drawn, she +listened. + +She would have so much preferred to leave without seeing him or speaking +to him. If she could, she would have gone without a word, silently, in +the only dignified manner that was possible. But, apparently, matters +had arranged themselves otherwise. She went to the bed, took the bundle, +moved back to the table and waited. + +She did not wait long. Paliser, with the pretence of a knock and a smile +on his lips walked in--but not far. That frock, that bundle, the sight +of her there, sufficed. He knew. With an awkwardness that was unusual +with him, he closed the door and twisted his hat. The smile had gone +from his lips. They were dry. + +Then as he looked at her and she looked at him--and with what a +look!--words seemed such poor things. It was as though already +everything had been said, as perhaps in the silent temples of their +being, everything, accusations, recriminations, all the futilities of +speech had been uttered, impotently, a moment since. A moment earlier +she had said her say. As he looked at her he knew that she had and knew +too, that before he entered the room, already she had heard his replies. + +The consciousness of this, equally shared by both, was so intense that, +for a second, Cassy felt that everything happening then had happened +ages ago, that she was taking part in a drama rehearsed on a stage that +memory cannot reconstruct but which stood, and, it may be, still stands, +back of those doors that close behind our birth. + +The hallucination, if it be one, and which, given certain crises of the +emotions, is common enough, vanished abruptly as it had come. But two +seconds had gone since Paliser entered the room, yet, in those seconds, +both recognised that eternity had begun between them. + +With his hat, a hat studiously selected, made to order, Paliser motioned +and with the same studiousness, selecting a platitude, he produced it. +"I was going to take you out." + +"After taking me in," Cassy in reviewing the situation subsequently +commented. But at the time she said nothing. She merely looked. Her rage +was gone, her anger spent. Only disgust remained. It was that which her +face expressed. It was withering. + +Paliser, steadying himself and, as was perhaps only natural, hedging +still, resumed: "But apparently you have other intentions." + +What a cad that blackguard is! thought Cassy who still said nothing. + +"May I ask what they are?" + +Cassy threw up her chin. "My intentions are to leave----" + +"But why?" + +"Don't presume to interrupt me. My intentions are to leave your +assignation-house and have you horsewhipped." + +Paliser had been served with strong drink before, but none ever as +strong as that. It steadied him. He had expected that when it got to +her, as eventually it must, there would be the passionate upbraidings, +the burst of sobs, the Oh! Oh's!, the What will become of me?, the usual +run up and down the scale and the usual remedies which a bank account +supplies. He had expected all that. He had prescribed for it often. +There was not a symptom for which he did not know the proper dose and +just when to administer it. But barely had he crossed the threshold +before he realised that all his science would be in default. + +Cassy presented an entirely new case, but, fortunately, in the drink +which she had served, he saw or thought he saw how to treat it. + +He gestured again. "I never cared for scenes. But this house, which it +has pleased you to describe from your knowledge of other establishments, +is----" + +Whatever he may have intended to add, was interrupted. Cassy, previously +inexorable as fate, but converted then into a fury, dropped the bundle +and caught up the vase. Missing him, it hit the door, where musically it +crashed and shattered. + +He turned, looked at it, looked at her, at the table. Barring the +gold-backed brushes, the jade platter and that bundle, there was nothing +that she could conveniently shy, and, in his Oxford voice, but civilly +enough, he gave it to her. + +"Allow me. There is no necessity whatever for your acting in this +manner. The situation, such as it is, it had been my intention to +remedy. It had been my intention, I say. But yesterday it came to my +knowledge that it is because of your relations with Lennox that his +engagement is broken." + +Take that, he mentally added and continued aloud: "I might not have +believed the story, but I was told that Lennox admitted it." Take that, +too, he mentally resumed. I shall be treated to tears in a minute and in +no time it will be "Kamerad!" + +Sidewise he looked at the ruin of the vase, on which Daughters of Heaven +and an ablated dynasty may have warmed their eyes. It affronted his own. +Insult, yes, that could be tossed about, but not art, not at least the +relatively unique. + +With a crease in his lips which now were dry no longer, he looked at +Cassy. The awaited tears were not yet visible. But the blood-madness +that had seized her, must have let her go, routed, as haematomania may +be, by the trivial and, in this instance, by a lie. That lie suffocated +her. It was as though, suddenly, she had been garroted. + +The condition was only momentary, but, during it, a curtain fell on this +vulgar drama, which was to affect so many lives. Before the girl a +panorama passed. She saw herself leaving Lennox' rooms. She saw Margaret +Austen, saw the woman with her, saw the former's candid eyes; saw the +latter's ridiculous airs, saw the construction which between them they +had reached and saw, too, the consequences that had resulted. The dirt +with which she had been besplattered she did not see. The panorama did +not display it. What it alone revealed was Lennox' disaster. Of herself +she did not think and regarding Margaret she did not care. That which +occupied her was Lennox. + +But was it true? In Paliser nothing was true, not even his lies. For it +was unaccountable that a matter so simple could not have been cleared +with a word. But it was not unaccountable at all. It was obvious. +Margaret, a born snob, had given Lennox no chance for that word. Some +one, Paliser probably, had invented the admission and she had refused to +see him, after condemning him unheard. + +I will attend to that, Cassy decided. + +At once the suffocation ceased, the panorama sank, the scene shifted, +the curtain parted, the drama proceeded and she found herself staring at +Paliser, who was staring at her. + +"As it is----" he tentatively resumed and would have said more, a lot, +anything to coerce the tears to her eyes and with them surrender. + +She gave him no chance. She took the bundle and, before he could +continue, she passed him, opened the door, slammed it with a din that +had in it the clatter of muskets, went down the stair and out to the +perron, before which stood a car. + +"The station!" she threw at the mechanician. + +The house now, jarred a moment earlier by the crash of porcelain and the +slamming door, had recovered its silence. + +From within, Emma, very agreeably intrigued, a footman with a white +sensual face beside her, looked out with slanting eyes. + + + + +XXV + + +Harris, wrinkled as a sweetbread and thin as an umbrella, blinked at +Cassy. "Mr. Lennox is out, mem." + +"Then go and fetch him." + +Past the servant, Cassy forced her way through the vestibule, into the +sitting-room, where the usual gloom abided, but where, unusually, were a +smell of camphor, two overcoats, two trunks and a bag. + +Cassy, putting down the bundle, exclaimed at them. "He is not leaving +town?" + +"Yes, mem, to-morrow morning, for Mineola." He spoke grudgingly, looking +as he spoke like a little old mule at bay. + +Cassy, noticing that, said: "See here, I don't mean to bully you, but it +is most important that I should see Mr. Lennox--important for him, do +you hear?" + +"I hear you, mem, but I don't know where he is." + +"Then find out. There must be a telephone." + +Harris scratched his head but otherwise he did nothing. + +"Come!" Cassy told him. "Hurry!" + +Harris shifted. "I don't know as how he'd like it. He's been that upset +these last few days. I----" He hesitated. Visibly an idea had visited +him with which he was grappling. "You're not from Miss Austen, now, are +you?" + +Cassy caught at it. To confirm it would be fanciful. To deny it would be +extravagant. Choosing an in-between for the benefit of this servant whom +she knew to be English, she produced it. + +"I am the Viscountess of Casa-Evora." + +Harris wiped his mouth. A viscountess who had come only the other day +with a bundle, and who now forced her way in with another bundle, did +not coincide with such knowledge as he had of the nobility. But she was +certainly overbearing enough to be anybody. + +He turned. "Very good, your ladyship, I'll telephone." + +Don't ladyship me, Cassy was about to reply, but judging that impolitic, +she sat down. + +On the train in she had debated whether she would go first to Harlem or +to Lennox and in either case what afterward she should do. She had a few +dollars which her father would need. The thought of these assets +reminded her that in changing her clothes she had omitted to change back +into her own stockings. Well, when she changed again she would return +the pair which she had on and, as she determined on that, she saw +Paliser's face as she had seen it when she threw the vase. That relapse +into the primitive shamed her. She had behaved like a fish-wife. But +though she regretted the violence, she regretted even more deeply the +vase. The destruction of art is so despicably Hun! For moxa, she evoked +the Grantly masquerade. + +The entire lack of art in that seemed to her incongruous with the +surface Paliser whom she had known. But had she even known the surface +which itself was a mask? Yet behind the mask was an intelligence which +at least was not ordinary, yet which, none the less, had descended to +that! She could not understand it. She could not understand, what some +one later explained to her, that a high order of intellect does not of +itself prevent a man from soiling it and, with it, himself and his +hands. The explanation came later, when other matters were occupying her +and when Paliser, headlined in the papers, was dead. + +Meanwhile the train had landed her in the Grand Central and she decided +to go to Lennox first. + +Now as she sat in his sitting-room where, for all she knew, she might +have to sit for hours, it comforted her to think that she had so +decided. If she had put it off until the morrow, Lennox would, by then, +have gone to the aviation-field, where he might be killed before she +could patch things up. At thought of that, she wondered whether he might +not stay out undiscoverably all night and send for his things to be +fetched to the station. + +But in that case, Cassy promptly reflected, I'll go to her, pull her out +of bed, drag her there--and no thanks either. I didn't do it for you, I +did it for him. He's too good for you. + +On the mantel, a clock struck, while thinly, through a lateral entrance, +Harris emerged. + +"The hall-porter at Mr. Lennox' club says he's just gone out with Mr. +Jones. Yes, ma'am." + +"Mr. Jones! What Mr. Jones? The novelist?" + +"I'm thinking so, ma'am. A very haffable gentleman." + +"Try to get him. Ask if Mr. Lennox, is there. Or, no, I'll do the +talking." + +Then presently she was doing it, collaborating rather in the dialogue +that ensued. + +"Mr. Jones?" + +"Yes, darling." + +Cassy, swallowing it, resumed: "Mr. Jones, forgive a stranger for +intruding, I----" + +"Beautiful voice, forgive me. Triple brute that I am, I thought it was +my aunt." + +"Then let me introduce myself. This is Miss Cara." + +"Casta diva! You do me infinite honour!" + +"Mr. Jones, I must see Mr. Lennox. It is a matter of life and death." + +"Lennox is engaged with death now." + +"What!" + +"He is preparing for the great adventure. At this moment he is making +his will. Miss Cara?" + +"Yes?" + +"Lennox takes even serious matters gravely." + +"But he is with you?" + +"In my workshop and at your service as I am." + +"You will let me come there?" + +"Enthusiastically and yet with all humility for I have no red carpet to +run down the stair." + +"Then hold on to him, please." + +Ouf! sighed Cassy, as she hung it up. Another man who might be Mrs. +Yallum's husband! She took the telephone-book, found and memorised the +address and turned to Harris. "Thank you very much. Will you mind giving +me that package?" + +"Beg pardon, ma'am," the little man said, as he opened the door for her. +"There's nothing more amiss, is there?" + +Cassy covered him with her lovely eyes. "When Mr. Lennox comes back +here, he may tell you to unpack." + +"Then may God bless your ladyship." + +Cassy went on. + +At Jones' shop, a floor in a reconstructed private house, a man who had +the air of performing a feat, showed her into a room that was summarily, +but not spartanly, furnished. On one side was a bookcase supported by +caryatides. Above, hung a stretch of silk on which was a flight of +dragons. Above the silk was an ivory mask. Fronting the bookcase was the +biggest table that Cassy had ever seen. + +Jones, vacating the table, advanced to greet her. Perched on his +shoulder, was a cat that peered at her. It had long hair, the colour of +smoke; a bushy tail; the eyes of an angel and a ferocious moustache. + +Although Cassy had other matters in hand, she exclaimed at it. "What a +duck!" + +Jones, who saw, and at once, that she had not come to ask the time of +day, exclaimed also: "Yes, but ducky is as ducky does. That cat talks in +her sleep." + +But now Lennox, advancing too, had taken her hand. + +Withdrawing it, she put the bundle on the table, on which were papers, +and, noticeably, a dagger, brilliant, wicked, thin as a shadow. On the +blade was a promise--Penetrabo. + +She looked up. Jones and the cat had gone. She looked at Lennox. "I +don't know where to begin." + +Lennox could not tell her. On learning that she wanted to see him, he +had supposed it was about her father and he had said as much to Jones. +But in greeting her, the novelist knew from her vibrations that whatever +her object might be, at least it was not ordinary. Then, taking the cat, +he had gone. + +Now, though, Cassy was at it. "The day you loaned me a hundred, you +remember? As I went out I had the money in my hand. In the hall was Miss +Austen. You had just shown me her picture. I recognised her at once. +With her was a woman, thin-faced, thin-lipped, thin-minded. She saw me, +saw the money, gave me a look. I did not forget it. But it is only +to-day that I learned what it meant. It meant that I am no better than I +ought to be--or you either." + +Lennox had one hand on the table. He raised the other. "Who told you +this?" + +"Paliser. He said it was the reason your engagement was broken." + +In the palm of the upraised hand, the fingers moved forward and back, +regularly, methodically, mechanically. Lennox was unaware of it. He was +unaware of anything except the monstrous perversity of the tale. + +"I came directly from him to your rooms. Your man said you were going +away. Thank goodness, I am not too late." + +Cassy had seated herself, but now, reaching for the bundle, she stood +up. Across the street, in the house opposite, a boy was lowering a +shade. It seemed to Cassy that she had raised one. But there are +explanations that explain nothing. To Lennox there was a shade suspended +before Margaret, who had judged him unheard. It obscured her. He could +not see her at all. + +Over the way, the boy lowered a second shade and Cassy, as though +prompted by it, raised another. "Paliser said you admitted it." + +From the obscurity Lennox turned, but it was still about him. "Admitted +what?" + +Cassy reddened. "What I told you." + +With the movement of the head that a bull has when he is going for you, +Lennox bent his own. The movement, which was involuntary, was momentary. +The shade had lifted. He saw Margaret, but behind her he saw others +holding her back, telling her he was not fit to be spoken to. He was +going for them. Meanwhile he had forgotten Cassy. He looked up, saw her, +remembered the part attributed to her in the story and struck the table. + +"It is damnable that such a thing should be said of you." + +"Oh," Cassy put in. "It was not at all on my account that I told you. +I----" She stopped short. The promised horsewhipping occurred to her. + +Lennox took up the knife, gave it a turn, shoved it away. It was very +much as though he had twisted it in somebody's gizzards. The idea had +come to him that Paliser had concocted the admission. But, as he was +unable to conceive what his object could be, he dismissed it. None the +less, for what the man had said, he deserved to be booted down the club +steps. + +Cassy had stopped short. The story behind the story did not concern +Lennox, yet as he might wonder how Paliser had ventured with her on such +a subject, she began at it again. + +"We were married recently, or anyway I thought so. To-day I discovered +that the ceremony was bogus. Then I told him a thing or two and he told +me that." + +Lennox stared. Angry already, angry ever since the rupture, angry with +that intensity of anger which only those who love--or who think they +do--and who are thwarted in it ever know, and all the angrier because he +had no one and could have no one to vent it on, until he got to the +front and got at the Huns, at that last fillip from Cassy he saw some +one on whom he could vent it, and yet to whom none the less he felt +strangely grateful. For, whatever Paliser had done or omitted, at any +rate, he had completely clarified the situation. + +"I must run," said Cassy. "But you can tell Miss Austen, can't you?" + +Lennox, controlling himself, motioned. "Would you mind repeating this to +Jones?" + +Cassy's eyebrows arched themselves. "It was hard enough to tell you. +Were it not for your engagement, I wouldn't have said anything. When +dreadful things happen to a girl, people always think that she must be +dreadful herself. Isn't that nice of them? I----" + +"See here," Lennox interrupted, "you can't leave it like this. Something +has got to be done. I can give Paliser a hiding and I will. But that +isn't enough. I don't know whether a criminal action will lie, but I do +know that you can get damages and heavy ones." + +Cassy's lovely eyes searched the room. "Who was that speaking? It wasn't +you, was it?" + +Lennox, recognising the rebuke, acknowledged it. "Forgive me. I forgot +whom I was addressing. Jones will be less stupid. Let us have him in." + +But when Jones, immediately requisitioned, appeared, Cassy again putting +down her bundle, protested. "Mr. Lennox regards me as an Ariadne and +expects me to act like a young lady in a department-store. Either role +is too up-stage." + +Jones, taken with her mobile mouth, her lovely eyes, the oval of her +handsome face, said lightly: "It seems to me that you might assume any +part." + +Lennox struck out. "Paliser hocuspocused her with a fake marriage. +He----" + +"Oh," Cassy gently put in, "I have no one to blame but myself. I ought +to have known better." + +Jones nodded. "Probably you did know. The misadventure is rare of which +we are not warned in advance. We cannot see the future but the future +sees us. It sends us messages which we call premonitions." + +Instantly Cassy was back in the Tamburini's room, where she had seen +both beauty and horror. She had not reached the latter yet and the +sudden vision Lennox dissipated. + +"Stuff and nonsense! Haven't you anything else to say?" + +Amiably Jones turned to him. "I can say that no one is wise on an empty +stomach." He turned to Cassy. "The Splendor is not far. Will you dine +with us, Mrs. Paliser?" + +Violently Lennox repeated it; "Mrs. Paliser! Miss Cara is no more Mrs. +Paliser than you are." + +"To err is highly literary," Jones with great meekness replied. "I hear +that it is even human." + +Cassy reached again for the bundle. "It is only natural. If I had been +told in advance, I could not have believed it. I could not have believed +that mock marriages occur anywhere except in cheap fiction. But we live +and unlearn. Now I must run." + +Lennox took her hand. "I owe you a debt. Count on me." + +He spoke gravely and the gravity of it, the force that he exhaled, +comforted Cassy's bruised little heart and the comfort, the first that +she had had, made her lip twitch. None of that, though! Reacting she +rallied and smiled. + +"Good-bye--and good luck!" + +Jones saw her to the door, followed her out, followed her down to the +street, where for a moment he detained her. + +"Just a word, if you don't mind. You have been abominably treated and +you seek no revenge. That is very fine. You have been abominably treated +and you bear no malice. That is superior. You have been abominably +treated and you accept it with a smile. That is alchemy. It is only a +noble nature that can extract the beautiful from the base. Where do you +live?" + +At the change of key Cassy laughed but she told him. "Good-bye," she +added. "My love to your cat." + +She passed on into the sunset. The bundle seemed heavy now, but her +heart was lighter. She had got it off, Lennox knew, presently a young +woman would be informed and though she could not be expected to dance at +the wedding, yet, after all---- + +The Park took her. + + + + +XXVI + + +When Cassy had gone, Jones went back to his rooms. He went absently, his +mind not on her story, which was old as the Palisades, but on a +situation, entirely new, which it had suggested. + +"Nice girl," he remarked as he re-entered the workshop. "Suppose we go +and have dinner." + +Sombrely Lennox looked up. At the table where he sat, he had been +fingering some papers. He threw them down. + +"I am going to have a word with Paliser." + +Jones cocked an eye at him. "See here, you are not a knight-errant. The +age of chivalry is over." The novelist paused and exclaimed: "What am I +saying! The age of chivalry is not over. It can't be. Last night, +Verelst dined with a monster!" + +Lennox pushed at the papers. "If I were alone concerned, I would thank +Paliser. He has done me a good turn. He has set me straight." + +Then, to the listening novelist, who later found the story very useful, +Lennox repeated Cassy's version of the rhyme and reason of the broken +engagement. + +The tale of it concluded, Lennox flicked at a speck. "I am grateful to +Paliser for that, but for the manner in which he treated her, I shall +have a word with him. Just one." + +Jones sat down. "A word, eh? Well, why not? Flipping a man in the face +with a glove was fashionable in the days of Charles II. Tweaking the +nose was Georgian. The horsewhip went out with Victoria. Posting your +man was always rather coffee-house and a rough-and-tumble very hooligan. +If I were you, which I am not, but if I were, I would adopt +contemporaneous methods. To-day we just sit about and backbite. That is +progress. Let me commend it to you." + +With a wide movement, Lennox swept the papers, shoved them into a pocket +and stood up. + +Jones also stood up. "Got an appetite? Well, dining has the great +disadvantage of taking it away. Come along." + +Lennox put on his hat. "I am going first to Park Avenue." + +No you're not, thought Jones, who, with an agility which for him was +phenomenal, hurried to the door and backed against it. + +Lennox motioned him aside. + +Jones, without budging, lied. "They're out of town." It was very +imbecile. He knew it was, knew, too, that Lennox knew it, and, for the +imbecile lie, he substituted another. "I mean they are dining out." + +"What the devil are you driving at?" Lennox asked, and not very civilly +either. + +"A windmill, I suppose. You look like one. I----" + +Jones broke off. The expression on Lennox' face arrested him. The +attempt at interference, the stupid evasions, the conviction which these +things produced, that there was something behind them, something +secreted, something about Margaret that Jones knew and which he was +concealing, made him livid. + +"Out with it." + +Jones looked at him, looked away, adjusted his neckcloth, vacated the +door, crossed the room and sat down. He did not know to what saint to +vow himself. But realising that it was all very useless, that everything +is, except such solicitude as one pilgrim may show to another, and that, +anyway, Lennox would soon hear it, he gave it to him. + +"She is engaged to Paliser." + +Lennox, who was approaching, stopped short. "Miss Austen is?" + +Jones nodded. + +"To Paliser?" + +But it seemed too rough and, to take the edge off, Jones added. "It may +not be true." + +"How did you hear?" + +"Verelst told me. He dined there last night." + +Lennox turned on his heel. Futilely in that hell to which one may look +back and see that it was not hell but purgatory prior to paradise, +futilely there he had sought the reason of his damnation. A few minutes +before he had thought that Cassy's story revealed it. In the light of it +he had seen himself condemned, as many another has been, for crimes +which he had not committed. But he had seen, too, the order of release. +He had only a word to say. He was going to Park Avenue to say it. + +When Jones was below with Cassy so he had thought and not without +gratitude to Paliser either. If the cad had held his tongue, +enlightenment might have been withheld until to his spirit, freed +perhaps in Flanders, had come the revelation. Personally he was +therefore grateful to Paliser. But vicariously he was bitter. For his +treatment of that girl, punishment should follow. + +That girl! Obscurely, in the laboratory of the senses where, without our +knowledge, often against our will, our impulses are dictated, a process, +intricate and interesting, which Stendhal called crystallisation, was at +work. + +Unaware of that, conscious only of the moment, to his face had come the +look and menace of the wolf. + +Now----! + +"There is a book over there," Jones, who was watching him, cut in. "It +is Seneca's 'De animae tranquilitate.' Take a peek at it. It will tell +you, what it has told me, that whatever happens, happens because it had +to happen and because it could not happen otherwise. There is no sounder +lesson in mental tranquillity." + +But for all Lennox heard of that he might then have been dead. Without +knowing what he was doing, he sat down. Paliser, Margaret! Margaret, +Paliser! Before him, on encephalic films, their forms and faces moved as +clearly as though both were in the room. He saw them approaching, saw +them embrace. The obsession of jealousy that creates the image, +projected it. He closed his eyes, covered his face with his hands. The +image got behind them. It persisted but less insistently. The figures +were still there. It was their consistence that seemed to fade. Where +they had been were shadows--evil, shallow, malign, perverse, lurid as +torches and yet but shades. For the jealousy that inflames love can also +consume it and, when it does, it leaves ashes that are either sterile +with indifference or potent with hate. At the shadows that were torches +Lennox looked with closed eyes. Obscurely, without his knowledge, in the +laboratory of his senses, crystallisation was at work. + +Jones, leaning forward, touched him. "I say, old chap!" + +Lennox had been far away, on a journey from which some men return, but +never as they went. At Jones' touch he dropped his hands. The innate +sentiment of form repossessed him. He straightened, looked about and, +after the manner of the deeply preoccupied, who answer a question ten +minutes after it is put, said evenly: + +"Suppose we do." + +Do what? But Jones, getting it at once, stood up. "Come along, then." + +On the way to the neighbourly Athenaeum, the novelist talked endlessly +about the disadvantages of not being born, which is a very safe subject. +Talking still, he piloted Lennox to the dining-room where, the +advantages of sedatives occurring to him, he ordered a bottle of +Pommard, which is mother's milk. + +But when it was brought Lennox would not touch it. He wanted brandy and +soda and told Johnson, a captain, to see to it. + +In the great high-ceiled room, other members were dining. From one of +the tables Ogston sauntered over and, noting that Jones and Lennox had +not dressed, which he had, and very beautifully, remarked brilliantly: +"You fellers aren't going to the opera, are you? It's the last night." + +It was another safe subject and Jones smiled falsely at him. "But you +are, eh? Sit down." + +Ogston put a hand on the novelist's chair. "No. I'm off to a +theatre-party. But I have a ticket for the Metropolitan. You don't +either of you want it, do you?" + +"Let me see, what is it, to-night?" Jones, with that same false smile, +enquired. "And where is the seat?" + +"In Paliser's box. He's to be alone and left it here with a note asking +me to join him." + +Deeply, beneath his breath, Jones swore, but with the same smile, he +tried to shift the subject. "You're quite a belle, aren't you?" + +"See here, Ogston," Lennox put in, "let me have it." + +Ogston, fumbling in his white waistcoat, extracted the ticket and handed +it over. + +"By the way, Lennox, do you mind my doing a little touting for +Cantillon? He's with Dunwoodie. Give him your law business--some of it, +anyhow." + +"I'll give him some, when I have it," answered Lennox, who was to have +some, and sooner and far more monumentally, than either he, or even +Jones, suspected. + +"Good for you, Lennox. Good-night, Jones." The brilliant and beautifully +dressed young man nodded and passed on. + +But now the captain was bearing down on them. + +Jones looked at Lennox. "You will have to come back to my shop after +dinner. There is a phrase in your will that I omitted. I forgot the +'seized and possessed.'" + +Lennox drank before he spoke. Then he said: "After dinner, I shall do +for Paliser." + +Jones, waiting until the captain had gone, looked at Lennox again. "The +greatest revenge is the disdain of any." + +Lennox made no reply. A waiter put a plate before him and another before +Jones. Members passed, going to their tables or leaving them. +Occasionally one of them stopped, exchanged the time of day and then +passed on. In each exchange Jones collaborated. Lennox said nothing. The +food before him he tormented, poking at it with a fork, but not eating +it. + +Presently he asked for coffee, drank a cup and got up. + +Jones, too, got up and, to stay him, put out a hand. + +Lennox, treating it, and him, like a cobweb, went on. + +Afterward, Jones thought of the Wild Women of whom AEschylus tells, the +terrible Daughters of Hazard that lurk in the shadows of coming events +which, it may be, they have marshalled. + +Afterward he thought of them. But at the moment, believing that Lennox +would do nothing and realising that, in any case, nothing can be more +futile than an attempt to avert the inevitable, he was about to resume +his seat, when something on the floor attracted him. He bent over, took +it, looked at it and tucked it in a pocket. + +Then, sitting down again, mentally he followed Lennox, whom later he was +to follow farther, whom he was to follow deep in the depths where the +Wild Women, lurking in wait, had thrown him. + + + + +XXVII + + +The Park that had taken Cassy and from which, at that hour, children and +nursemaids had gone, was green, fragrant, quiet. Its odorous peace +enveloped the girl who had wanted to cry. In hurrying on she had choked +it back. But you cannot always have your way with yourself. The tears +would come and she sat down on a bench, from behind which a squirrel +darted. + +Before her the grass departed, the trees disappeared, the path wound +into nothingness. In their place was the empty vastness that sorrow is. +The masquerade that had affected her physically, had affected her +psychically and in each instance profoundly. It had first sickened and +then stabbed. There had been no place for sorrow in the double assault. +There had been no time for it either. Occupied as she had almost at once +become with the misadventures of another, she had no opportunity to +consider her own. Yet now the aspect that sorrow took was not that of +disaster. What it showed was the loneliness of the soul, solitary as it +ever is in that desert which, sooner or later, we all must cross. Vast, +arid, empty, before her it stretched. + +Nearby, on the bench, crouching there, eager, anxious, wary, a squirrel, +its fluffy tail and tiny nostrils aquiver, watched her with eyes of +bead. From the desert she turned and seeing the little gracious thing, +stretched her hand. She would have liked to take it and pet it. It would +have made her solitude less acute. At the movement, a ball of misty fur +bounded. Where it had been, there was air. + +The abrupt evaporation distracted her. Before her the desert lay, but in +it now was her father. She had been going to him. Previously, she had +thought that, when she did go, her hands would be filled with gifts. +Instead they were bruised, bare to the bone. They would madden him and +she wondered whether she could endure it. The long, green afternoon, +that had been so brief, had been so torturesome that she doubted her +ability. But he would have to be told. She could not lie to him and +humanly she wished that it were to-morrow, the day after, the day after +that, when it would be over and done for, put away, covered by woes of +his own, though inevitably to be dragged out again and shown her, and +shown her, too, with the unconscious cruelty that those who love you +display. + +It would be crucifying, but there was no help for it. Reaching for the +bundle, she stood up and went her way, across the Park, to the subway, +from which she got out in Harlem. + +The loveliness of that land of love seemed to have changed, though the +change, she then recognised, was in herself. But at least the walk-up +was unaltered. In the grimy entrance was Mrs. Yallum, a fat Finn, who +looked like a dirty horse, and who yapped at her volubly, +incomprehensibly, but with such affection that Cassy, yapping back, felt +less lonely as she ascended the stair. + +The comfort was mediocre. In the afternoon she had gone from a ruin. Now +she had the sensation of entering another, one from which she had also +gone, but to which she was returning and with a spirit so dulled in the +journey! Had she, she wondered, any spirit left at all? At least enough +remained to prevent any wish for the reconstruction of the ruin behind +her. About the fallen walls were forms of filth; in the crevices there +were vermin, and though, before her, the desert stretched, it was clean. +However arid, it was wholesome. + +But now she was at the door. She let herself in, hurried to the +living-room, where, with the feigned cheerfulness of the unselfish, she +beamed at her father and bent over him. + +"Here I am to look after you again! How well you look. I am so glad and +oh! where is your sling?" + +In speaking she stroked him. His skin was clearer, she thought, and the +abandoned sling was a relief. + +He looked up at her. "You got married without me. I ought to have been +there. Why didn't you tell me? It was for me to give you away. Who did?" + +"Who did what?" + +"Who gave you in marriage?" + +With the mimic of gaiety, Cassy laughed. "Why, you old dear, all that +has gone out. Hereabouts, nowadays, a father never goes to a +wedding--only to funerals." + +She paused and, with the idea of breaking it to him in bits, resumed: +"Besides, it was all done in a hurry, in too much of a hurry." + +He took it in, but at the wrong end. "Sick of him already, eh? Well, it +isn't because I did not warn you. Where is he?" + +Cassy moved back. Should she give it to him then or later? But the +question, repeating itself, followed her. + +"Where is your husband?" + +Now for it, she thought. But at once he switched. "There was nothing in +the papers. Why is that? What is that package?" + +Cassy looked at the bundle which she still held. It gave her courage. + +"I am not married." + +For a second he stared. It was obvious that he had not got it. "Where +have you been, then?" + +Cassy fingered the bundle. Always she had hated to explain and of all +possible explanations what could be more hateful than this? If only he +would guess it, flare up, stamp about, get it over, let it go. But the +cup was there and she drank it. + +"I thought I was married. I am a fool." + +For the awaited curse, she braced herself. The explosion did not come, +but his eyes had widened. They covered her. Then, with an intake of the +breath and of understanding, he lowered them. Apparently he was weighing +it and Cassy thought he was trying to restrain himself, and she blessed +him for it. It was less terrible than she had feared. But immediately it +occurred to her that instead of trying to restrain himself, he was +seeking the strength wherewith to rend her. And I am so innocent, she +despairfully thought. + +Her eyes were upon him and he looked up into hers. + +"Why did you think you were married?" + +"I told you, because I am a fool. There was a clergyman and a ceremony. +Afterwards I found that the clergyman was not a clergyman and that the +ceremony was a sham." + +"When was that?" + +"This afternoon." + +"What did you do?" + +"What was there for me to do? I left him." + +"Where is he now?" + +Cassy put down the bundle. She had no idea. But she said: "This evening +we were to go to the opera. I hardly fancy he will miss it on my +account." She paused and with a little catch in her voice continued: "I +know it is all my fault, I ought to have known better and I shall be so +unhappy if you mind. Won't you try not to?" + +As she spoke, he stood up and she thought that the delayed volcano of +his wrath was about to burst. To smother it, she touched him. "Of course +you will mind. But I would not have been such a fool if I had not +believed that everything would be so much nicer for you. Can't you see +that and, if you do, can't you forgive me?" + +He had moved from her to the piano; there he turned and looked. "There +is nothing to forgive, Cassy. You have been a good girl always. I am +sorry, of course I am sorry, but you are not to blame." + +Understanding instead of maledictions! Sympathy in lieu of abuse! Such +things are affecting. The tears swam to her eyes and wretchedly and yet +thankfully she wept. + +He did not seem to notice. In the narrow space he was moving about, +shifting things on the piano, displacing and replacing a score, which, +finally, he let fall. He stooped for it. As he raised it, Cassy saw +through her tears that his hand was shaking. He, too, may have seen it. +He left the room and she heard him pottering in the kitchen. + +She wiped her eyes. Across the court was another kitchen in which were a +woman and a child. Often she had seen them there, but if she had seen +them elsewhere she would not have recognised them. They were but forms, +the perceptions of a perceiver, and though Cassy had never read Fichte +and was unacquainted with Berkeley, the idea visited her that they had +no real existence, that, it might be, she had none either, that all she +had endured was a dream drifting by, with nothing past which to drift. + +It was her father's attitude that had induced these metaphysical +hysterics. She had expected that some demon within him would spring out +and gibber. Instead of which he had told her, and so gently, that she +was not to blame. It is words like these that bring tears swiftest. The +tears had come, but the words had also sufficed to reduce the people +across the way into baseless appearances, in which, for the moment, she +included herself. + +But now at least her father was actual. He was coming in with glasses +and a bottle which he put on the table. + +"You are tired," he said. "Have a little." + +Seating himself, he drank and Cassy feared that if the liquor exerted +the authority that liquor has, he might go back into it and exact from +her details which it would revolt her to supply. In helping himself, he +had poured a glass for her. She did not want it. What she wanted was bed +and the blanket of long, dreamless sleep. It could not be too long. She +was tired, as he had said, but more so than he knew, tired with the +immense fatigue that emotions and their crises create. + +She moved over to where he sat. Several minutes had gone since he spoke +yet it seemed to her but the moment before. + +"Yes, I am tired, but you're a good daddy and I love you." + +She bent over him, went to the kitchen, got a glass of milk and a +biscuit, which she carried to her room, where she opened the window and +closed the door. + +Long later, when she awoke, it was with the consciousness of something +there, something waiting, something evil, something that had jeered and +pummelled her in her sleep. But what? Then, instantly, she knew. A +palace of falsehoods had tumbled about her and the lies had laughed and +bruised her as they fell. They had been laughing and falling the whole +night through. + +The light distracted her. In the morning, because of the building +opposite, her room was dark. Now it was bright. The sun had scaled the +roof. A gleam looked in and told her it was noon. + +How could I have slept so long? she wondered. She put some things on and +opening the door smelled coffee. The poor dear! she thought, he had to +make it himself. + +She went on into the living-room. There her father sat. On the table +before him was a paper. + +Without speaking he pointed at a headline. The letters squirmed. They +leaped and sprang at her. From before them she backed. But what +nonsense! It was impossible. She could not believe it. Yet there it was! +Abruptly there also was something else. An electric chair, the man of +all men in it! + +From before the horror of that she reeled, steadied herself, looked at +her father, looked without seeing him. + +"God of gods! And I did it!" + + + + +XXVIII + + +In high red boots, wide purple breeches and a yellow mandarin jacket, +Jones entered the workshop. + +His appearance did not alarm him. He was invisible. Lloyd George and +Clemenceau might have called. Mr. Ten Eyck Jones was not at home, sir. +If necessary he was dead. Always, while he dressed, his servant put, +unseen, a tray on the workshop table and, still unseen, disappeared. +With the tray was the morning paper and the usual letters, which Jones +never read. Morning in the workshop meant work. No interruptions +permitted. On one occasion the house got on fire. His servant did not +venture to tell him, though the firemen did. Apart from such outrages, +necessarily infrequent, the only intrusion was the morning paper and the +cat that talked in her sleep. The cat had many privileges, the paper had +few. Sometimes it was briefly considered, more often it was not even +looked at, but its great privilege consisted in being stacked. + +On this morning Jones did look, but quite involuntarily, and only +because a headline caught his eye. It was the same headline from before +which Cassy backed. The leaping words shouted at the girl. They shouted +at the novelist, a circumstance which did not prevent him from +breakfasting. + +The fruit, the crescents, the coffee he consumed, not as was customary, +with his thoughts on his own copy, but on that which the paper supplied. +It was very colourful. At the opera, the night before, Monty Paliser had +been killed. + +In New York, many men are killed, but not so many are murdered and of +those that are murdered, few are millionaires and fewer still have a box +at the Metropolitan, where, apart from stage business, no one up to then +had been done for. The case was therefore unique and, save for the +assassination of Abraham Lincoln, without a parallel. In the +circumstances, the leaded line of leaping words was justified. + +According to the story that followed and which, Jones realised, must +have reached the city editor just as the paper was going to press, an +attendant, whose duty it was to visit the boxes after the performance +and see what, if anything, the occupants had forgotten, had, on entering +Paliser's box, found him at the back of it, unconscious, on the floor. +There were no external marks of violence, but a commandeered physician +pronounced him dead and, on examination, further pronounced that death +was due to internal hemorrhage, superinduced by heart-puncture, which +itself had been caused by some instrument, presumably a stiletto. + +A picturesque detail followed. The box at the right was owned by the +Leroy Thompsons. The box at the left was the Harriwells'. At the late +hour, an attempt to communicate with the former had failed, but over the +wire, Mr. Legrand Harriwell stated that the deceased had come in during +the third act, that he had spoken to Mrs. Harriwell, after which he had +moved back and had either gone, or remained in the rear of the box. Mr. +Harriwell knew nothing else, he had been unaware of anything occurring, +he was not in the habit of spying about and he wished it distinctly +understood that he must not be mixed up in the matter, or Mrs. Harriwell +either. + +The dear thing! thought Jones, who saw him, a tall, thin-lipped beast of +a brute, with a haw-haw manner and an arrogant air. God bless him! + +But, Jones resumed to himself, voyons! The opera was Aida. Paliser came +in during the third act. The house then is brilliant. But during the +fourth--the duo in the crypt--it is dark. It was then that he was done +for and with what is assumed to have been a stiletto. + +To cut out the account, Jones turned in search of a dagger, long, thin, +wicked, which, one adventurous night in Naples, he had found--just in +time--in his back. On the blade was inscribed a promise, Penetrabo. Now +his eyes roamed the table. He lifted the tray, lifted his copy, looked +on the floor. Yet only the evening before, when Lennox was there and +Cassy Cara had come, he had seen it. Since then it had gone. + +The disappearance did not disturb him. Occasionally, in hunting for an +object, he found it in his hand. It is somewhere, he cogently reflected +and, taking a pencil, set to work. + +But the muse was timorous as a chicken. The metaphor is entirely +metaphorical. Jones had no faith in the wanton. He believed in regular +hours, in silence and no interruptions. No intrusions of any kind. A +letter was an intrusion, so also was the news of the day. These things +he considered, when he did consider them, after his work was done. +Sometimes he ignored them entirely. Usually he had a bushel of letters +that he had not opened, a bale of papers at which he had not looked. Of +such is the life known as literary or, at any rate, such was the life +led by Jones. + +On this morning, his copy, ordinarily fluent enough, would not come. +Ideas fluttered away just out of reach. The sequence of a chapter had +been in his head. Like the dagger, it had gone. He could not account for +that disappearance, nor did he try. It would turn up again. So, +ultimately, would the ousted sequence. For the latter's departure he did +not try to account either. The effort was needless. He knew. An +interruption had occurred. The news of the day had intruded itself upon +him. A headline had entangled his thoughts. + +Abandoning the pencil, he lit a cigarette. Across the room, above the +bookcase, was a stretch of silk, a flight of dragons that he had got in +Rangoon. Above the silk was an ivory mask, the spoil of a sarcophagus, +which he had found in Seville. He looked at them. The dragons fled on, +the mask fell asleep. Something else took their place. + +On the wall was the scene at the opera. + +In the golden gloom of the darkened house, it showed Paliser, sitting +back in his box, presumably enjoying the _Terra addio_, for which Caruso +had, as usual, been saving himself. Without, in the corridor, a figure +furtively peering at the names on the doors. Then the voice of the +soprano blending with that of the tenor and, during the divine duo, the +door of the box opening, letting in a thread of light; Paliser turning +to look and beholding that figure and a hand which, instantly +descending, deepened the gloom forever. + +It was certainly _Terra addio_, Jones reflected. Certainly, too, the +scene is easy enough to reconstruct But whose was the hand? + +Flicking his ashes, he looked about and saw two hands, between which, he +also saw, he was entirely free to pick and choose. One hand, slight and +fragile, was Cassy Cara's. The other, firm and virile, was Lennox'. + +Lennox had threatened. He had been acidly murderous. He had a motive. He +had the opportunity. He knew where Paliser would be. He had been +supplied with a seat in that box. The hand was his. It was a clear case. +That was obvious, particularly to Jones, who regarded the obvious as +very misleading. + +Given the chance, he reflected, and Lennox might have done for Paliser, +but he would have done for him with bare fists, never with a knife. It +was not Lennox to use one. It was not Lennox at all. + +Jones threw him out and pulled in Cassy Cara. + +The case against her was equally clear. Presumably she owned the +stiletto which a hat pin is. In addition, she also had a motive. If ever +a girl had cause to up and do it, she had. Then, too, the risk was +negligible. Any jury would acquit and tumble over each other to shake +hands with her. For equity has justice that the law does not know. +Moreover there are crimes that jurists have not codified. Some are too +inhuman, others too human. Cassy's righting of her own wrongs belonged +among the latter. Cassy's, that is, provided she had done it. But had +she? Logically, yes. If the police could look behind the scenes, +logically they would say to her, "Thou art the man." + +But, Jones resumed, logic when pushed far enough becomes incoherence. +The psychologist prefers vision and it would display none to believe +that she did it. In the abstract, that is to be regretted. A lovely +assassin! A beautiful girl slaying a recreant lover! A future prima +donna killing a local millionaire! Monty Paliser murdered by the +Viscountess of Casa-Evora! And at the opera! If I had ever put anything +of the kind in my copy, reviewers would have indolently asked: "Why +doesn't this imbecile study life?" + +Jones laughed. The enjoyment of one's own ideas--or of the absence of +them--is a literary trait. When Dumas wrote, he roared. + +Here it is, then, Jones continued. If the police knew certain things +they would nab Lennox. If they knew others, they would nab Cassy Cara. +If they knew more, they would nab me. I should be held as a witness. +This is cheerful, particularly as my sole complicity in the matter has +been due to a desire to be of use. But that is just it. Through the +enigmatic laws of life, any kindness is repaid in pain. + +Pleasurably, for a moment, he considered the altruism of that aphorism. +Then he got back at the murder which, he decided, must have been +premeditated by some one who knew where Paliser would be. That +conclusion reached, he groped for another. Lennox knew, but did Cassy +know, and, if she did, had she utilised the knowledge? + +To decide the point he reviewed the visit of the previous evening. + +Ostensibly Cassy's visit had been occasioned not by any wish to relate +what had happened to her, but to acquaint Lennox with the cause of what +had happened to him. In view of what had befallen her, the proceeding +was certainly considerate. In the misadventures of life, the individual +is usually so obsessed by his own troubles that they blind him to those +of another. But ostensibly Cassy had sunk her troubles and had pulled +them up, not to exhibit them, but to show Lennox the lay of the land as +it affected not her at all but him. The proceeding was certainly +considerate--unless it were astute, unless her object had been to employ +Lennox for the wreaking of her own revenge. + +That was possible, but was it probable? + +An ordinary young woman would have gone at it differently, gone at it +hammer and tongs. Cassy's methods were merely finer. That was the common +sense view. But was it psychology? The common sense view that is +applicable to the average individual is inapplicable to a problematic +nature and, consequently, not to Cassy, who must therefore have had +another incentive for her visit, an incentive stronger than the +primitive instinct for revenge. + +But, Jones asked himself, what are the fundamental principles of human +activity? They are self-preservation and the perpetuation of the +species. Every idea that has existed, or does exist, in the mind of man +is the result of the permutations and combinations of those two +principles, of which the second is the stronger and its basis is sex. +That is what actuated Cassy. She is, or was, in love with Lennox, and +told him for no other reason. + +That is it, Jones decided. But the course of her true love could not +have run very smooth and, knowing that Lennox was otherwise interested, +she took up with Paliser out of pique. + +Pique! he repeated. But no, that is not Cassy Cara either. She---- + +Like a thread snapped suddenly, the novelist's meditations ceased. On +the wall before him the dragons alighted, the mask awoke. Between them a +canvas was emerging. Dim, shadowy, uncertain, it hesitated, wavered, +advanced. + +Then, as it hung unsupported in the air--far too unsupported, he +presently thought--he looked it over. + +To apparitions he was accustomed. They were part of his equipment. +Unsummoned, without incantations they came, sent, one might think, by +the muse whom he derided, but more naturally and very simply produced by +the machinery in his brain. + +Now, as he examined the canvas, its imprecision diminished, the shadows +passed, the obscurity lifted, the penumbra brightened, outlines defined +themselves, the colouring appeared, a colouring, after the manner of +Rembrandt, composed of darkness in which there is light and which, as +such, reveals. + +Jones stood up, turned around and sat down again as gamblers, disquieted +by their luck, will do. + +Before him still the picture floated. He disavowed it, disowned it. Yet +there it was, the child of his fancy, the first-born of the morning, the +fruit of his concentrated thought, and as, surprisedly, he considered +it, it took on such semblances of legitimacy, that the disavowals +ceased. Then, slowly disintegrating, its consistence lessened. It was +departing, vaporously as it had come. Jones waved at it, omitting out of +sheer abstraction to say Au revoir, yet omitting also, and through equal +modesty, to say Eureka! + +He pressed a button. Instantly, as though sprung from a trap, his +servant appeared. + +"Get Mr. Lennox on the telephone." + +The minutes lengthened. Finally the servant reappeared. + +"Mr. Lennox is not at home, sir. His man says he's gone to Centre +Street. He's been arrested. Mr. Lennox has been arrested. Yes, sir." + +Pausing, the servant cocked an ear and added: "They're calling extras, +sir. Would you wish one?" + +Circuitously, through the open door, the cat, her tail in the air, +approached and wowed. + +Jones leaned over and tickled her in the stomach. The cat hopped up on +him. He put a finger to his forehead, held it there, removed it and +looked at the man. + +"In war-time, with the price of everything going up, it is a criminal +waste of money to buy an extra--particularly when you know what isn't in +it." + +"Yes, sir." + +Jones motioned. "Look through the old newspapers. Among the March issues +there is one that has an article entitled 'The Matter of Ziegler.' Let +me have it." + +The cat, now on his shoulder, purred profusely in his ear. Raising a +hand, he tickled her again. + +"Mimi-Meow, this Matter of Ziegler may interest us very much and after +we have looked it over, I will attend to our friend von Lennox, who +seems to have become a Hun." + + + + +XXIX + + +Already over the picked-up codfish, flapjacks, Hamburg steaks and +cognate enticements on which the Bronx and Harlem breakfasts, the news +of it had buttered the toast, flavoured the coffee, added a sweetness to +this April day and provided a cocktail to people who did not know +Paliser from the Pierrot in the moon. That he was spectacularly wealthy +was a tid-bit, that he had been killed at the Metropolitan was a +delight, the war news was nothing to the fact that the party with the +stiletto had escaped "unbeknownst." These people were unacquainted with +Paliser. But here was a young man with an opera-box of his own, and +think of that! Here was the mythological monster that the Knickerbocker +has become. Here was the heir to unearned and untold increments. These +attributes made him as delectable to the majority who did not know him, +as he had become to the privileged few who did. + +Elsewhere, and particularly in and about fashion's final citadel which +the Plaza is, solemn imbeciles viewed the matter vehemently. "Young +Paliser! Why, there is no better blood in town! By Jove, I believe we +are related!" + +Or else: "That's M. P.'s son, isn't it? Yes, here it is. I never met the +old cock but I heard of him long before we came East. A damned outrage, +that's what I call it." + +Or again: "Dear me, what is the world coming to? What a blessing it is +we were not there. They might have come and murdered us all!" + +Adjacently, in clubland, old men with one foot in the grave and the +other on Broadway, exchanged reminiscences of the nights when social New +York was a small and early family party and M. P. led the ball, and at a +pace so klinking that he danced beyond the favours of the cotillon--the +german as it, the cotillon, was then lovingly called--into assemblies, +certainly less select, but certainly, too, more gay, and had horrified +scrumptious sedateness with the uproar of his orgies. + +The indicated obituaries followed. "Well, at any rate, they didn't +murder him for it." "The son now, a chip of the old block, eh?" "Nothing +of the kind, a quiet young prig." "The papers say----" "Damn the papers, +they never know anything." "You mean they don't print what they do +know." "I mean they don't give us the woman. For it was a woman. I'll +eat my hat it was a woman." "Let's have lunch instead." + +Generally, for the moment, that was the verdict, one in which the police +had already collaborated. But what woman? And, assuming the woman, +whence had she come? Where had she gone?--problems, momentarily +insoluble but which investigations, then in progress, would probably +decide. + +At the great white house on upper Fifth Avenue, the servants knew only +that they knew nothing. Nothing at all. Already coached, they were sure +and unshakable in their knowledge of that. A Mr. Harvey--from +Headquarters--could not budge them an inch. Not one! + +The night before, at the first intelligence of it, M. P. came nearer to +giving up the ghost than is commonly advisable. Suffocation seized him. +An incubus within was pushing his life-springs out. So can emotion and +an impaired digestion affect a father. The emotion was not caused by +grief. It was fear. For weeks, for months, during the tedium and terror +of the trial, his name, Paliser, would top the page! It had topped it +before, very often, but that was years ago. Then he had not cared. Then +the wine of youth still bubbled. No, he had not cared. But that was long +ago. Since then the wine of youth had gone, spilled in those orgies +which he had survived, yet, in the survival, abandoned more and more to +solitude and making him seek, what the solitary ever do seek, +inconspicuousness. For years he had courted obscurity as imbeciles court +fame. And now! + +If only the boy had had the decency to die of pneumonia! + +It was then the incubus gripped him. For a second he saw the visage, +infinitely consoling, that Death can display and possibly, but for an +immediate drug, there too would have echoed the _Terra addio_! + +He was then in white velvet. A preparation of menthe, dripping from a +phial, spotted it green. He did not notice. At the moment the spasm had +him. Then as that clicked and passed, he looked in the expressionless +face of the butler who had told him. + +The spasm had shaken him into a chair. + +The room, an oblong, was furnished after a fashion of long ago. The +daised bed was ascended by low, wide steps. Beyond stood a table of +lapis-lazuli. A mantel of the same material was surmounted by a mirror +framed in jasper. Beneath the mirror, a fire burned dimly. The lights +too were dim. They were diffused by tall wax candles that stood shaded +in high gold sticks. On the table there were three of them. + +The chair was near this table, at which M. P. had been occupied very +laboriously, in doing nothing, a task that he performed in preparation +for the bed, which was always ready for him, and for sleep, which seldom +was. There he had been told. It had shaken him to his feet, shaken +apoplexy at him and shaken him back in the chair. + +Now, as he looked at the servant's wooden mask, for a moment he relived +an age, not a pleasant one either and of which this blow, had he known +it, was perhaps the karma. He did not know it. He knew nothing of karma. +None the less, with that curious intuition which the great crises +induce, he too divined the woman and wished to God that he had kept his +hands off, wished that he had not interfered and told Monty to put her +in a flat and be damned to her! It was she, he could have sworn it. At +once, precisely as he wished he had let her alone, he hoped and quite as +fervently that she had covered her tracks, that there would be no trial, +nothing but inept conjectures and that forgetfulness in which all +things, good and bad, lose their way. + +The futility of wishing passed. The time for action had come. He +motioned. "Is Benny here?" + +"He left this noon, sir." + +"Did he say anything?" + +The butler did not know whether to lie or not, but seeing no personal +advantage in either course, he hedged. "Very little, sir." + +That little, the old man weighed. A little is often enough. It may be +too much. + +"He spoke about a girl, eh?" + +"He said a lady was stopping there. Yes, sir." + +"What else?" + +The butler shuffled. "He said she was very pretty, sir." + +"Go on, Canlon." + +"Well, sir, it seems there was a joke about it. The young lady thought +she was married." + +"How was that?" + +"I'm not supposed to know, sir. But from what was let on, Benny was +rigged out as a dominie and it made 'em laugh." + +The old man ran his head out like a turtle. "Damnation, what has that to +do with it?" + +"Why, sir, he pretended to marry her." + +"Benny did?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"He pretended that she was his wife." + +"No, sir, he pretended to marry her to Mr. Monty." + +"Good God!" the old man muttered and sank back. The blackness was +blacker than any black he had entered. In days gone by, he had agreeably +shocked New York with the splendid uproar of his orgies. He had left +undone those things which he ought to have done and done those things +which he should have avoided. He had been whatever you like--or +dislike--but never had he been dishonest. Little that would avail him +now. If this turpitude were published, it would be said that he had +fathered it. At the prospect, he felt the incubus returning. In a moment +it would have him and, spillingly, he drank the green drug. + +The agony receded, but the nightmare confronted him. He grappled with +it. + +"The coat I had on at dinner. There is a card-case in the pocket. Give +it to me." + +Probably it was all very useless. Probably no matter what he contrived, +the police would ferret her out. There was just one chance though which, +properly taken, might save the situation. + +The card-case, pale damask, lined with pale silk, the man brought him. +He put it on the table. + +"Canlon!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Benny said nothing." + +"Very good, sir." + +"I have a few hundred for you here, between eight and nine, I think." + +"Thank you, sir." + +"To-morrow there will be more." + +"I am sure I am very grateful, sir." + +"Don't interrupt me. Recently my son returned from Cuba. Occasionally he +went visiting. Where he went, he did not tell you. That is all you know. +You know nothing else. You heard nothing. Nobody here heard anything. +Nobody, in this house, knows anything at all. You understand?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Then see to it. The police will come. You must be at the door. You know +now what to say. They will want a word with me. I am too prostrated to +see anybody." + +"Thank you, sir." + +"Telephone to the Place. Get Benny. Repeat my orders. Say I will do as +well by him as I shall by you." + +"Thank you, sir." + +"Take the money. You may have the case also." + +"I thank you, sir." + +"Tell Peters to fetch me some brandy. The 1810. That will do." + +Presently, when the police did come and, several hours later, in the +person of Mr. Harvey, came again, they came upon the barriers, invisible +and unscalable, which ignorance, properly paid, can erect. With an empty +bag, Mr. Harvey made off; not far, however, a few squares below to the +Athenaeum Club. + +There, the hall-porter succeeded in being magnificent The strange and +early visitor he rebuked. It was not customary for members to be +murdered! + +A badge, carelessly disclosed, disconcerted him. For a second only. +However unusual a member might be, no information could be supplied +concerning him. There was another rule, equally strict. Strangers were +not admitted. Though, whether the rule applied to a bull, he was +uncertain. Momentarily, the hall-porter, previously magnificent, became +an unhappy man. Misery is fertile. A compromise surprised him. + +He crooked a thumb. "Here! Go 'round by the back way and ask for Mr. +Johnson--he's one of the captains." + +From the steps, in the slanting rays of the morning sun, he saw him off. +But the gaiety of the eager rays that charged the air with little gold +motes, did not cheer him. The lustre of his office was tarnished. A +member had been murdered! It was most unusual. + +Meanwhile, down the area steps, a hostile and hasty youth in +shirt-sleeves and a slashed waistcoat barred the way. The barring was +brief. The badge and a smile demolished it. Within, beneath a low +ceiling, at a long table, other youths, equally slashed but less +hostile, were at breakfast. + +Affably, the intruder raised a hand. "Gentlemen, don't let me disturb +you. I'm just having a look-in on Mr. Johnson." + +Mr. Johnson did not breakfast with slashed young men; it would have been +subversive to discipline, and it was negligently, through a lateral +entrance, that presently he appeared. In evening clothes on this early +morning, he surveyed his visitor, a big fellow with a slight moustache, +an easy way and a missing front tooth, who went straight at it. + +"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Johnson. My name's Harvey. It's about young +Paliser. There may be something in it for you. I'm from Headquarters." + +The captain coughed. "It's awful. I can't tell you anything though. He +wasn't here often. Doubt if I've seen him in a week." He looked about. +The slashed youths were edging up. "Come in here." + +In an adjoining room, he took a chair, waved politely at another, +coughed again and resumed. "You say there may be something in it for +me?" + +Mr. Harvey sat down. "Cert. There'll be a reward--a big one." + +The captain turned it over. "It is as much as my place is worth, but +last evening one of the members was talking fierce about him." + +"Yes, so I heard," said Mr. Harvey, who had heard nothing of the kind +and who, not for an instant, had expected to tumble on a fierce-talking +member. "I heard his name too. It's--er----" + +"Lennox," the captain put in. + +"Lennox, yes, that's it, and just to see how my account tallies with +yours, what did he say?" + +"He said he'd do for him. I could have laughed." + +"It was funny, I laughed myself, and about a woman, wasn't it?" + +"I don't know. But he was engaged to be married. I saw it in the +papers." + +"And this young Paliser butted in?" + +"I couldn't say. But he threw up his business and sat around and last +night he was going to do for him." + +"At the opera?" + +"He was talking random-like. He had just had a B. and S. I didn't hear +anything about the opera. He wasn't got up for it. Just a business suit. +But, Lord bless you, he didn't do it. He isn't that kind. Nice, +free-handed feller." + +"No, of course not. I wouldn't believe it, not if you told me so. Let me +see. Where did I hear he lives?" + +"I don't rightly know. Somewhere in the neighbourhood." + +"So I thought and his first name is?" + +"I've forgotten. Hold on! Keith! That's it. Keith Lennox. Are you going +to see him? P'raps he can set you straight." + +"P'raps he can." + +"But don't let on about me, my friend." + +"Not on your life," replied his friend, who added: "Where's your hat?" + +"My hat!" Mr. Johnson surprisedly exclaimed. + +Affably that friend of his nodded. "Ever been to Headquarters? Well, +you're going there now!" + +Then, presently, the captain and his friend ascended a stairway, down +which, a few hours later, hoarse voices came. + +"Extra! Extra!" + + + + +XXX + + +At the Athenaeum, that afternoon, members gathered together, buttonholed +each other, talked it over and so importantly that, if you had not known +better, you might have thought the war a minor event. It gave one rather +a clear idea of the parochialism of clubland. But then, to discuss the +affairs of people who never heard of you is, essentially, a social act. + +Meanwhile the shouted extras had told of Lennox' arrest. The evening +papers supplied the evidence. + +In them you read that Lennox had said he would "do" for Paliser, that in +his possession had been found a stiletto, an opera-check, together with +a will, and that, when apprehended, he had been effecting what is called +a getaway. + +There you had the threat, the instrument, the opportunity and what more +could you ask, except the motive? As for the rest, it was damning. On +that point foregathering members agreed--with one exception. + +In a seated group was Jones. His neighbours alarmed him. They belonged, +he thought, to a very dangerous class, to a class which a sociologist +defined as the most dangerous of all--to the stupid. According to them, +Lennox was not merely guilty, he was worse. He had besplattered the club +with the blood of a man who, hang it all, whether you liked him or not, +was also a member. The Athenaeum would become a byword. Already, no +doubt, it was known as the Assassin's. Et cetera and so forth. + +The group thinned, increased, thinned again, scattered. + +Jones, alone with a survivor, addressed him. "How is my handsome friend +to-day?" + +Verelst turned impatiently. "In no mood for jesting. I ought to have +hurried him off. Now he is in jail." + +Jones lit a cigarette. "There are honest men everywhere, even in jail, +perhaps particularly in jail. Whom has he, do you know?" + +"To defend him? Dunwoodie. Ogston told me. Ogston says----" + +"I daresay he does. His remarks are always very poignant." + +"But look here. Before the arrest was known, Ogston was in this room +telling everybody that, last night, he gave Lennox a seat in Paliser's +box. He will have to testify to it. He can't help himself." + +"Perhaps I can help him though. I was with Lennox at the time." + +"You were? That's awkward. You may have to corroborate him." + +"I certainly shall. I have the seat." + +"What?" + +"Lennox dropped the ticket. After he had gone, I found it on the floor. +It is in my shop now." + +"Well, well!" Verelst astoundedly exclaimed. "But, here, hold on. The +papers say he had a return check." + +Jones flicked his ashes. "I have one or two myself. Probably you have. +Even otherwise return checks tell no tales, or rather no dates." + +"I never thought of that." + +"Think of it now, then." + +"Yes, but confound it, there is the stiletto." + +"As you say, there it is and I wish it were here. It is mine." + +Verelst adjusted his glasses. "What are you talking about?" + +"The war," Jones answered. "What else? In my shop last evening, Lennox +was drawing his will. In gathering up the sheets, the knife must have +got among them and, without knowing it, he carried it off. This morning +I missed it. The loss affected me profoundly. It is an old friend." + +"You don't tell me." + +"Don't I? I'll go so far as to lay you another basket of pippins that +the police can't produce another like it. On the blade is inscribed +Penetrabo--which is an endearing device." + +"But see here," Verelst excitedly exclaimed. "You must tell Dunwoodie. +You----" In sheer astonishment he broke off. + +Innocently Jones surveyed him. "You think it important as all that?" + +"Important? Important isn't the word." + +With the same air of innocence, Jones nodded. "I thought it wasn't the +word. I should have said trivial." + +"But----" + +Wickedly Jones laughed. "If you feel reckless enough to go another +basket of pippins, I will wager that if I tell Dunwoodie anything--and +mind the 'if'--he will agree that the paper-cutter is of no +consequence--except to its lawful owner, who wants it back." + +"But tell me----" + +"Anything you like. For the moment, though, tell me something." + +"What?" + +Jones blew a ring of smoke. "Do you happen to know whether Paliser had +anything?" + +"What on earth has that to do with it?" + +Jones blew another ring. "I had an idea that his mother might have left +him something. You knew her, didn't you? Any way, you still know M. P. +Did he ever say anything about it?" + +"He did not need to. It was in the papers. He made over to him the +Splendor, the Place, and some Wall Street and lower Broadway property +that has been part of the Paliser estate since the year One." + +"What is it all worth?" Jones asked. "Ten or twenty million?" + +"Thirty, I should say. Perhaps more. But what has it to do with Lennox?" + +Negligently Jones flicked his ashes. "Well, it changes the subject. I +can't talk about the same thing all the time. It is too fatiguing." + +As he spoke, he stood up. + +Verelst put out a hand. "Dunwoodie is sure to look in. Where are you off +to?" + +Jones smiled at him. "I am going to gaze in a window where there are +pippins on view." + +"Go to the devil!" said Verelst, who also got up. + +Fabulists tell strange tales. It is their business to tell them. Jones +had no intention of looking at pippins. What he had in mind was fruit of +another variety. It was some distance away. Before he could make an +appreciable move toward it, Verelst, who had turned from him, turned +back. + +"There!" + +Beyond, through the high-arched entrance, a man was limping. He had the +battered face of an old bulldog and the rumpled clothes of a young +ruffian. + +"There's Dunwoodie!" + +Verelst, a hand on Jones' elbow, propelled him toward the lawyer, who +gratified them with the look, very baleful and equally famous, with +which he was said to reverse the Bench. + +But Verelst, afraid of nothing except damp sheets, stretched a hand. +"You know Ten Eyck Jones. He has something very important to tell you." + +"Yes," said Jones. "In March, on the eighth or ninth, I have forgotten +which, but it must be in the 'Law Journal,' a decision was rendered----" + +He got no farther. Other members, crowding about, were questioning, +surmising, eager for a detail, a prediction, an obiter dictum, for +anything they could take away and repeat concerning the murder, in which +all knew that the great man was to appear. + +But Dunwoodie was making himself heard, and not gently either. It was as +though already he was at the district attorney's throat. + +"Where is the evidence? Where is it? Where is the evidence? There is not +a shred, not a scintilla. On the absence of facts adduced, I shall +maintain what I assert until the last armed Court of Appeals expires. +Hum! Ha!" + +Fiercely he turned on Jones. "What were you saying, sir?" + +Before Jones could reply, Verelst cut in. "The stiletto is his. He has +the opera-ticket. He----" + +"Imbeciles tell each other that great men think alike," Jones, +interrupting, remarked at Dunwoodie. "I merely happened to be +forestalling your views, when a recent decision occurred to me and----" + +Jones' remarks were lost, drowned by others, by questions, exclamations, +the drivel that amazement creates. + +"But, I say----" "Tell me this----" "No evidence!" "The stiletto his!" +"How did Lennox get it?" "Then what about----" + +Dunwoodie, fastening on Jones, roared at him. "You tell me the +instrument is yours?" + +Jones patted his chin. "I did not, but I will." + +"How do you know, sir?" + +"It has a little love message on it." + +"Hum! Ha!" Dunwoodie barked. "Come to my office to-morrow. Come before +ten." + +Dreamily Jones tilted his hat. "I am not up before ten. Where do you +live? In the Roaring Forties?" + +But, in the mounting clamour, the answer, if answer there were, was +submerged. Jones went out to the street, entered a taxi, gave an address +and sailed away, up and across the Park, along the Riverside and into +the longest thoroughfare--caravan routes excepted--on the planet. + +On a corner was a drug-shop, where anything was to be had, even to +umbrellas and, from a sign that hung there, apparently a notary public +also. Opposite was a saloon, the Ladies Entrance horribly hospitable. +Jones' trained eye--the eye of a novelist--gathered these things which +it dropped in that bag which the subconscious is. Meanwhile the car, +scattering children, tooted, turned and stopped before a leprous door. + +In the hall, a girl of twelve, with the face of a seraph, and the voice +of a fiend, was shrieking at a switchboard. Jones fearing, if he +addressed her, that she might curse him, went on and up, higher, still +higher, and began to feel quite birdlike. On the successive landings +were doors and he wondered what tragedies, what comedies, what aims, +lofty, mean or merely diabolic, they concealed. They were all labelled +with names, Hun or Hebrew, usually both. But one name differed. It +caressed. + +There he rang. + +When it opened, a strawberry mouth opened also. "Oh!" Cassy's blue eyes +were red. There was fright in them. "It is horrible! Tell me, do you +think it was he?" + +Jones removed his hat. "I know it was not." + +That mouth opened again, opened for breath, opened with relief. Gasping, +she stared. "Thank God! I was afraid----But are you sure? It was I who +told him--I thought it my fault. It was killing me. Tell me. Are you +really sure?" + +Jones motioned. "His lawyer is. I have just seen him." + +"He is! Thank God then! Thank God! And my father! It has made him ill. +He liked him so! I am going for medicine now. Will you go in and speak +to him?" + +She turned and called. "It is Mr. Jones--a friend of Mr. Lennox." She +turned again. "I will be back in a minute." + +Beyond, in the room with the piano and the painted warrior, the musician +lay on a sofa, bundled in a rug. There was not much space on the sofa, +yet, as Jones entered, he seemed to recede. Then, cavernously, he spoke. + +"Forgive me for not rising. This business has been too much for me. Sit +down." + +Jones put his hat on the table and drew a chair. "I am sorry it has +upset you. It amounts to nothing." + +Perplexedly the musician repeated it. "Nothing?" + +"I was referring to our friend Lennox." + +"You call his arrest nothing?" + +"Well, everything is relative. It may seem unusual to be held without +bail and yet, if we all were, it would be commonplace." + +The musician plucked at the rug. "I suppose everybody thinks he did it?" + +"Everybody, no. I don't think so and I am sure your daughter doesn't." + +"I wish she would hurry." + +"Nor do you." + +"No, I don't think so." + +"I doubt if the police do either." + +"After jailing him!" + +Jones, who had been taking in the room, the piano, the portrait, the +table, sketched a gesture. + +"We are all in jail. The opinion of the world is a prison, our own ideas +are another. We are doubly jailed, and very justly. We are depraved +animals. We think, or think we think, and what we think others have +thought for us and, as a rule, erroneously." + +From a phonograph somewhere, in some adjacent den, there floated a tenor +aria, the _Bella figlia del amore_, pierced suddenly and beautifully by +a contralto's rich voice. + +Jones turned. "That's Caruso. I don't know who the Maddelena is. Do you +remember Campanini?" + +"Yes, I remember him. He was a better actor than Caruso." + +"And so ugly that he was good-looking. Caruso is becoming uneven." + +Vaguely the musician considered the novelist. "You think so?" + +"It rather looked that way last night." + +Angelo Cara plucked again at the rug. + +"But," Jones continued, "in the 'Terra addio' he made up for it. What an +enchantment that duo is!" + +The musician's hand moved from the rug to his face. "You were there +then?" + +I was this morning, thought Jones, but he said: "How sinful Rigoletto is +by comparison to Aida--by comparison I mean to the last act." + +The other duo now had become a quartette. The voices of Gilda and +Rigoletto were fusing with those of the figlia and the duke. + +The musician appeared to be listening. His sunken eyes were lifted. +Slowly he turned them on Jones. + +"You didn't see anything, did you?" + +"Last night? I did not see Lennox, if that is what you mean, or +Paliser--except for a moment, during the crypt scene." + +Chokingly the musician drew breath. In the effort he gasped. "Then you +know." + +"Yes, I know." + +The rug rose and fell. It was as though there were a wave beneath it. + +With an air of detachment, Jones added: "Paliser turned to see who was +there. A sword-cane told him." + +The musician's lips twitched, his face had contracted, his hand now was +on his breast. "I wish Cassy would hurry. She's gone for amyl." + +"Is it far?" + +"The corner. Are you going to do anything?" + +Jones shook his head. "I don't need to." + +The sunken eyes were upon him. "Why do you say that?" + +"You are an honest man." + +The sunken eyes wavered. "At least I never supposed they would arrest +Lennox. How could I?" + +"No one could have supposed it. Besides, in your own conscience you were +justified, were you not?" + +"You know about that, too?" + +"Yes, I know about that." + +The Rigoletto disc now had been replaced by another, one from which a +voice brayed, a voice nasal, jocular, felonious. + +"That beast ought to be shot," Jones added. + +The musician raised himself a little. "You don't misjudge her, do you?" + +Jones, annoyed at the swill tossed about, had turned from him. He turned +back. "Believe me, Mr. Cara, there is no one for whom I have a higher +respect." + +A spasm seized the musician. For a moment, save for the effort at +breath, he was silent. Then feebly he said: "I wish she would hurry." + +"Can I do anything?" + +"Yes, tell me. Do you condemn me?" + +The novelist hesitated. "There are no human scales for any soul. Though, +to be sure----" + +"What?" + +"It might have been avoided. As it is, they will suspect her." + +"Cassy?" + +"Naturally. They can't hold Lennox on a paper-cutter--that belongs to +me, and a few empty words said in my presence and which, if necessary, I +did not hear. They can't hold him on that. But when they learn, as they +will, the circumstances of your daughter's misadventure, they will +arrest her." + +"Merciful God!" + +The jeopardy to her, a jeopardy previously undiscerned, but which then +shaken at him, instantly took shape, twisted his mouth into the +appalling grimace that mediaeval art gave to the damned. + +"And you don't want that," Jones remotely resumed. + +"Want it!" Galvanised by the shock, the musician sat suddenly up. "Last +night, after I got back, I slept like a log. This morning, I felt if I +had not done it, I would still have it to do and that satisfied me. But +afterwards, when I learned about Lennox, it threw me here. Now----My +God!" + +He fell back. + +The poor devil is done for, thought Jones, who, wondering whether he +could get it over in time, leaned forward. + +"Mr. Cara, don't you think you had best make it plain sailing for +everybody, and let me draw up a declaration?" + +The disc now had run out. The grunt of the beast was stilled. From +beyond came the quick click of a key. Almost at once Cassy appeared. + +She hurried to her father. "There were people ahead of me. They took +forever. Has Mr. Jones told you? Mr. Lennox did not do it." + +Breaking a tube in a handkerchief, she was administering the amyl and +Jones wondered whether she could then suspect. But her face was turned +from him, he could not read it, and realising that, in any event, she +must be spared the next act, he cast about for an excuse to get her +away. At once, remembering the notary, he produced him. + +"Your father wants me to draw a paper on which his signature should be +attested. If I am not asking too much, would you mind going back to the +druggist for the notary whose sign I saw there?" + +Cassy turned from her father. "A paper? What paper?" + +Bravely Jones lied. "A will." + +Cassy looked from one to the other. "The poor dear often has these +attacks. He will be better soon--now that he knows. Won't you, daddy?" + +Angelo Cara's eyes had in them an expression infinitely tender, equally +vacant. It was as though, in thinking of her, he was thinking too of +something else. Though, as Jones afterward decided, he probably was not +thinking at all. + +Cassy exclaimed at him. "Besides, what have you--except me?" + +"Everybody has to make a will," Jones, lying again, put in. "There has +been a new law passed. The eternal revenue collector requires it." + +Cassy smoothed the rug, put the handkerchief on the table, opened a +drawer, got out some paper, a pen, a bottle of ink. + +In a moment she had gone. + +Jones seated himself at the table. "Forgive me for asking, but may I +assume that you believe in God, a life hereafter and in the rewards and +punishments which, we are told, await us?" + +The musician closed his eyes. + +"Thank you," said Jones, who began to write: + + I, Angelo Cara, being in full possession of my senses and conscious + of the immanence of death, do solemnly swear to the truth of this + my dying declaration, which, I also solemnly swear, is made by me + without any collusion with Keith Lennox. First; I firmly believe in + God, in a life hereafter, and in future rewards and punishments. + Second; I alone am guilty of the murder of Montagu Paliser, Jr., + whom I killed without aid or accomplices and without the privity or + knowledge of any other person. + +Jones, wishing that in his law-school days he had crammed less and +studied more, looked up. + +"I cannot compliment you on your pen, Mr. Cara. But then, pen and ink +always seem so emphatic. Personally, I prefer a pencil. Writing with a +pencil is like talking in a whisper." + +It was in an effort to deodorise the atmosphere, charged with the +ghastly, that he said it. The declarant did not appear to notice. His +sunken eyes had been closed. Widely they opened. + +"The other side!" + +Jones blotted the declaration. "The other side cannot be very different +from this side. Not that part of it at least which people, such as you +and I, first visit. A bit farther on, I suppose we prepare for our +return here. For that matter, it will be very careless of us, if we +don't. We relive and redie and redie and relive, endlessly, ad +infinitum. The Church does not put it in just that manner, but the +allegory of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting +amounts, perhaps, to the same thing. 'Never the spirit was born, the +spirit shall cease to be never.' That is the way Edwin Arnold expressed +it, after the 'Gita' had expressed it for him. But probably you have not +frequented the 'Gita,' Mr. Cara. It is an exceedingly----" + +"Cassy's lace dress is all torn. It was so pretty." + +He is in the astral now, thought Jones, who said: "She will have a much +prettier one." + +But now again from the hall came that quick click and Cassy appeared, a +little fat man behind her. + +Jones stood up. "How do you do. You know Mr. Cara. Mr. Cara wants his +signature attested." + +The little man exhibited his gold teeth. "With a will that is not the +way. I told this young lady so but she would have it that I come along." + +The young lady, who was taking her hat off, left the room. + +Jones fished in a pocket. "It is very good of you. Here, if you please, +is your fee. The document is not a will, it is a release." + +As the novelist spoke, he put the pen in the musician's hand and, +finding it necessary, or thinking that it was, for, as he afterward +realised, it was not, he guided it. + +"You acknowledge this----" the notary began. But at the moment Cassy +returned and, it may be, distracted by her, he mumbled the rest, took +the reply for granted, applied the stamp, exhibited his teeth. Then, at +once, the hall had him. + +Cassy turned to Jones. Her face disclosed as many emotions as an opal +has colours. Relief, longing, uncertainty, and distress were there, +ringed in beauty. + +"Miss Austen ought to know how she has misjudged him. Do you suppose she +would let me see her?" + +Bully for you! thought Jones, who said: "I cannot imagine any one +refusing you anything." + +In speaking, he heard something. Cassy turned. She too had heard it. But +what? + +With a cry she ran to the sofa. "Daddy!" + +His face was grey, the grey that dawn has, the grey than which there is +nothing greyer and yet in which there is light. That light was there. +His upper-lip was just a little raised. It was as though he had seen +something that pleased him and of which he was about to tell. + +"Daddy!" + +Jones followed her. He drew down the rug and bent over. After a moment, +he drew the rug up, well up, and, with a forefinger, saluted. + +Cassy, tearing the covering back, flung herself there. Jones could not +see her tears. He heard them. Her slim body shook. + + + + +XXXI + + +On leaving the walk-up Jones discovered a restaurant that he judged +convenient and vile. But the convenience appealed, and the villainy of +the place did not extend to the telephone-book, which was the first +thing he ordered. + +While waiting for it, it occurred to him that in a novel the death he +had witnessed would seem very pat. Why is life so artificial? he +wonderingly asked. + +The query suggested another. It concerned not the decedent but his +daughter. + +By the Lord Harry, he told himself, her linen shall not be washed in +public if I can prevent it, and what is the use in being a novelist if +you can't invent? + +But now the book was before him. In it he found that Dunwoodie resided +near Columbia University. It was ages since he had ventured in that +neighbourhood, which, when finally he got there, gave him the agreeable +sensation of being in a city other than New York. + +Hic Labor, Haec Quies, he saw written on the statue of a tall maiden, +and though, in New York, quiet is to be had only in the infrequent +cemeteries, deep down, yet with the rest of the inscription he had been +engaged all day. + +Gravely saluting the maiden, who was but partly false, he passed on to +an apartment-house and to Dunwoodie's door, which was opened by +Dunwoodie himself. In slippers and a tattered gown, he was Hogarthian. + +"I thought it a messenger!" he bitterly exclaimed. + +Jones smiled at him. "When a man of your eminence is not wrong, he is +invariably right. I am a messenger." + +In the voice of an ogre, Dunwoodie took it up. "What is the message, +sir?" + +Jones pointed at the ceiling. Involuntarily, Dunwoodie looked up and +then angrily at the novelist. + +"An order of release," the latter announced. + +Dunwoodie glared. "I suppose, sir, I must let you in, but allow me to +tell you----" + +Urbanely Jones gestured. "Pray do not ask my permission, it is a +privilege to listen to anything you may say." + +Dunwoodie turned. Through a winding hall he led the way to a room in +which a lane went from the threshold to a table. The lane was bordered +with an underbush of newspapers, pamphlets, magazines. Behind the +underbush was a forest of books. Beside the table were an armchair and a +stool. From above, hung a light. Otherwise, save for cobwebs, the room +was bare and very relaxing. + +Dunwoodie taking the chair, indicated the stool. "Now, sir!" + +Jones gave him the declaration. + +With not more than a glance Dunwoodie possessed himself of the contents. +He put it down. + +"If I had not known you had studied law, not for a moment would that +rigamarole lead me to suspect it." + +In a protest which was quite futile, Jones raised a hand. "The notary is +unnecessary, I know that. I know also that a dying declaration is not +the best evidence, but----" + +"Do you at least know that the declarant is dead?" + +Jones, who favoured the dramatic, nodded. "He died in my arms." + +Dunwoodie took it in and took it out. "It is curious how crime leads to +bad taste." + +Jones leaned forward. "I may tell you for your information----" + +"Spare me, I am overburdened with information as it is." + +Jones sat back. He had no intention of taking Dunwoodie then behind the +scenes. That would come later. But he did want to try out an invention +that had occurred to him. He sighed. + +"Don't you care to hear why he did it?" + +"Not in the least." + +"But----" + +Dunwoodie fumbled in a pocket. "The district attorney may be more +receptive. I shall go to him in the morning and I will thank you to go +with me." + +"I am not up in the morning." + +"Then don't go to bed." + +From the pocket, Dunwoodie extracted an enormous handkerchief. It +fascinated Jones. He had never seen one that resembled it. + +"You dispose of me admirably. The district attorney, I suppose, will +enter a nolle prosequi." + +In that handkerchief, Dunwoodie snorted. "You may suppose what you +like." + +Jones laughed. "It is my business to suppose. I suppose, when the murder +was committed, that Lennox was at home. If I am right, he has an alibi +which his servant can confirm." + +Dunwoodie stared. "Whatever your business may be, it is not to teach me +mine." + +Jones drew out a cigarette-case. "Let me sit at your feet then. What +does Lennox say?" + +"How inquisitive you are! But to be rid of you, he----" + +"May I smoke?" Jones interrupted. + +"Good God, sir! You are not preparing to make a night of it?" + +"I have one or two other little matters in hand. But since I may suppose +all I like, I take it that Lennox intended to go to the opera, though I +fancy also that he had no intention of going to Paliser's box. I suppose +that he intended to wait about and go for him hot and heavy when he came +out. I suppose also that, while dressing, he changed his mind. And, by +the way, isn't there such a writ as a mandamus, or a duces tecum? I +would like my paper-cutter returned." + +"Confound your paper-cutter! You don't deserve to have me admit it, but +Lennox' account of it is that before going on to the opera, he stopped +to write a letter to Miss--er--Hum! Ha!" + +"Miss Austen?" + +"And when he got through it was midnight." + +"I'll lay a pippin he didn't send it." + +"What, sir?" + +"Lennox had a lot to say. It was gagging him. He would have suffocated +if he had kept it in. The effect of getting it on black and white was an +emetic. He read it over, judged it inadequate, tore it up. I have done +the same thing. I daresay you have." + +The great man sat back. "His scrap-basket has been visited. The letter +was there." + +"Well, then, I suppose the short and long of it is, you will have him +out to-morrow." + +"As I said, you may suppose all you like." + +"Without indiscretion then, may I suppose that you live here alone?" + +Dunwoodie flourished his handkerchief. It was cotton and big as a towel. + +"I am not as young as you are, sir, and whether erroneously or not, I +believe myself better informed." + +"Ah!" Jones put in. "Your physiognomy corroborates you. I have sometimes +thought that it were difficult for the Seven Sages to be as wise as you +look--which is the reason, perhaps, why I do not quite follow you." + +"I did not imagine that you would. You are a sociable being. Every +imbecile is pitiably sociable. But for a thinking man, a man without +vices and without virtues, what is there except solitude?" + +Appreciatively Jones motioned. "Thank you for descending to my level. As +it happens, I also have a cloister where I have the double advantage of +being by myself and of not being with others. But now that I am in your +hermitage, there is this Matter of Ziegler, concerning which I would +like the benefit of your professional advice." + +"Hum! Ha! Got yourself mixed up with a woman and want me to pull you +out. Well, sir, you will find it expensive. But a hermitage is not an +office. I shall expect you at mine to-morrow. I shall expect you before +ten." + +Dunwoodie stood up. "To-morrow, though, your turpitudes will have to +wait. Have you been served?" + +Jones laughed. "Not yet." + +"Time enough then. You can find the door?" + +Through the lane, bordered by rubbish, and on through the winding hall, +Jones went out. As Dunwoodie had said, there was time enough. There had +been no service--no summons, no complaint. It might be that there would +be none. The matter might adjust itself without any. It might be that +there was no ground for action. Jones could not tell. After the manner +of those who have crammed for a law examination, there had been a moment +when he knew, or thought he knew, it all. But also after the manner of +those who have not taken the post-graduate course which practice is, the +crammed knowledge had gone. Only remnants and misfits remained. It was +on these that he had conjectured the suit which, meanwhile, constituted +a nut to crack. There was time and to spare though. Besides, for the +moment, he had other things to do. + +Then, as he went on to attend to them, he wondered why Dunwoodie, who, +he thought, must make a hundred thousand a year, lived like a ragpicker. + +Before him, the starshell, which imagination projects, burst suddenly. + +He said he had no virtues and probably told the truth, Jones decided. In +which case he cannot be a miser. But he also said he had no vices and +probably lied like a thief. The old scoundrel is a philanthropist. I +would wager an orchard of pippins on that, but there is no one to take +me up--except this policeman. + +"Officer," he resumed aloud. "Behold a stranger in a strange land. By +any miracle, is there a taxi-stand nearby?" + +Then presently Jones was directing a driver. + +"The Tombs!" + + + + +XXXII + + +In a dirty cell Lennox sat on a dirty cot. Through a door, dirty too, +but barred, came a shuffle of feet, the sound of the caged at bay and +that odour, perhaps unique, which prisons share, the smell of dry-rot, +perspiration, disinfectants and poisoned teeth. In addition to the odour +there was light, not much, but some. Nearby was a sink. Altogether it +was a very nice cell, fit for the Kaiser. Lennox took no pleasure in it. +Rage enveloped him. The rage was caused not by the cell but by his +opinion of it. That was only human. + +Events in themselves are empty. It is we who fill them. They become +important or negligible, according to the point of view. We give them +the colours, violent, agreeable, or merely neutral, that they obtain. It +is the point of view that fills and affects them. The point of view can +turn three walls and a door into a madhouse. It can convert them into an +ivory tower. To Lennox they were merely revolting. + +That morning he had laughed. His arrest amused him. He laughed at it, +laughed at the police. They took no offence. Instead they took the +cigars that he offered and a few accessories which they grabbed. It is a +way the police have. Still Lennox laughed. He knew of course that at +Headquarters he would be at once released, the entire incident properly +regretted. When he found himself not only elaborately wrong but in +court, laughter ceased. Anger replaced it. He had been first amused, +then surprised, afterwards exasperated, emotions that finally addled +into rage, not at others but at himself, which was rather decent. In any +of the defeats of life, the simple blame others; the wise blame +themselves; the evolved blame nobody. Lennox had not reached that high +plane then but in directing his anger at himself he showed the +advantages of civilisation which the war has put in such admirable +relief. + +Now, on that cot, in that cell, ragingly he retraced his steps. He saw +himself loving Margaret Austen as though he were to love her forever. A +hero can do no more. He saw her loving him with a love so light that a +breath had blown it away. A nymph in the brake could do no worse. Yet +whether on her part it were perversity or mere shallowness, the result +was the same. It had landed him in jail. For that he acquitted her +completely. What he could not forgive was his own stupidity in +persisting in loving her after she had turned away. + +The night before, while, at the opera, the _Terra Addio_ was being sung, +he had been writing her one of the endless letters that only those +vomiting in an attack of indignation morbus ever produce. In the relief +of getting it in black and white, the nausea abated. Then judging it all +very idle, he tore the letter in two. It was a gesture made before +relapsing into a silence which he had intended should be eternal. At the +very moment when Paliser was being run through the gizzards, he, turning +a page of life, had scrawled on it Hic jacet. + +Now, on that cot, Paliser recurring, he thought of him with so little +animosity that he judged his spectacular death inadequate. But who, he +wondered, had staged it? Not Cassy. Cassy took things with too high a +hand and reasonably perhaps, since she took them from where her +temperament had placed her. Then, without further effort at the riddle, +his thoughts drifted back to that afternoon when, from his rooms, the +sunlight had followed her out like a dog. + +He had been looking at the floor, but without seeing it. Then at once, +without seeing it either, he saw something else, something which for a +long time must have been there, something that had been acting on him +and in him without his knowledge. It was the key to another prison, the +key to the prison that life often is and which, in the great defeats, +every man who is a man finds at his feet and usually without looking for +it either. + +"But I love her!" he suddenly exclaimed. + +There is a magic in those words. No sooner were they uttered than his +mind became a rendezvous of apparitions. He saw Cassy as he had seen her +first, as he had seen her last, as he had seen her through all the +changes and mutations of their acquaintance, saw her eyes lifted to his, +saw her face turned from him. + +The crystallisation which, operating in the myriad cells of the brain, +creates our tastes, our temptations, our desires; creates them unknown +to us, creates them even against our will, and which without his will or +knowledge, had, like a chemical precipitate, been acting on him, then +was complete. + +"I love her!" he repeated. + +The dirty cot, the dirty cell, the dirty floor, a point of view was +transforming. At the moment they ceased to be revolting. Then +immediately another view restored their charm. + +"She won't have me!" + +The dirty cell reshaped itself and he thought of life, a blind fate +treacherous always. + +"Good Lord, how I envy you!" + +Lennox turned. Wriggling through the bars a hand which a keeper checked, +stood Jones. + +"When Cervantes enjoyed the advantages that you possess, the walls +parted and through them cavalcaded the strumpet whose name is Fame. In +circumstances equally inspiring Bunyan entertained that hussy. Verlaine +too. From a dungeon she lifted him to Parnassus, lifted him to the top. +If I only had their luck--and yours! It is too good for you. You don't +appreciate it. Besides you will be out to-morrow." + +"I ought not to be here at all," Lennox indignantly retorted. + +"No, you are most undeserving. Mais ecoute. C'est le pere de la petite +qui a fait le coup. Il me l'a avoue, ensuite il a claque et depuis j'ai +vu ton avocat. C'est une brute mais----" + +"Can that," put in the keeper, a huge creature with a cauliflower face, +dingy and gnarled. "You guys got to cough English." + +Ingratiatingly Jones turned to him. "I mistook you for a distinguished +foreigner. Dear me, my life is too full of pleasure!" + +He turned to Lennox. "That's it. You are here to-day and gone to-morrow. +Now that I have envied you insufficiently I'll go too. While I am about +it I'll go to Park Avenue. Any message?" + +"None." + +"Make it briefer. Besides, look here. I'll wager a wilderness of pippins +that Park Avenue was not and never thought of being engaged to what's +his name. I'll wager because it is not in the picture. Do you hear me?" + +"I hear you." + +"You are very gifted. Nothing wrong with your tongue, though, is there?" + +"Nothing whatever." + +"Behold then the messenger awaiting the message." + +"Very good. I'm through. Absolutely, completely, entirely. If you must +be a busybody say that. I'm through." + +But that was not Jones' idea of the game and he out with it. "I'll do +nothing of the kind." + +"Won't you?" Lennox retorted. He had remained seated. But rising then, +he looked at the keeper, motioned at Jones. + +"If that man asks for me again, say I'm out." + +Jones laughed. "Wow-wow, old cock! I wish I could have said that but I +probably shall. Meanwhile book this: Dinner to-morrow, Athenaeum at +eight. By-bye. Remember Cervantes. Don't forget Verlaine. Sweet dreams." + +Lennox sat down, looked at the key, tried to turn it. That door too was +barred. + + + + +XXXIII + + +The offices of Dunwoodie, Bramwell, Strawbridge and Cohen were supplied +with a rotunda in which Jones sat waiting, and Jones loved to sit and +wait. + +Since the musician's tenement had crumbled and the soul of the violinist +had gone forth, gone to the unseen assessors who pityingly, with +indulgent hands, weigh our stupid sins, since then a week had passed. +During it, a paper signed by the dead had been admitted by the living, a +prisoner had been discharged and for no other imaginable reason than +because he had killed nobody, Lennox became a hero. + +New York is very forgetful. Lennox sank back into the blank anonymity to +which humanity in the aggregate is eternally condemned and from which, +at a bound, he had leaped. The papers were to tell of him again, but +casually, without scareheads, among the yesterdays and aviators in +France. That though was later. + +Meanwhile an enigma remained. Very heroically a young man had done +nothing. Hurrah and good-bye! The calciums of curiosity turned on an +obscure fiddler who, after murdering another young man, had succeeded in +bilking the chair. + +But why had he killed him? That was the enigma, one which would have +been exciting, if the solution had not been so prompt and so tame. At +the proceedings which resulted in Lennox' discharge, it was testified +that Angelo Cara had been temporarily deranged. + +The testimony, expertly advanced by a novelist who was not an expert, +the reporters grabbed before the court could rule it out. The grabbing +was natural. The decedent's declaration had been made to Jones who, +though not an alienist, was the teller of tales that have been +translated into every polite language, including the Japanese, which is +the politest of all. Moreover, have not the mendacious been properly +subdivided into liars, damned liars and expert witnesses? To Verdun with +the lot! Mr. Ten Eyck Jones was certainly not an expert, but certainly +too he was somebody, he was a best-seller and in the way we live now, +the testimony of the best-seller is entitled to every editorial respect. +The court might rule his testimony out, city editors saluted it. + +Jones' little invention did wash therefore and, in the washing, poured +balm by the bucket over the father of the murdered man. + +Then, gradually, like everything else, except war and the taxes, both +murderer and murdered were dropped in the great dust-bin of oblivion +that awaits us all. + +In the rotunda, meanwhile, Jones sat kicking his heels. It was in the +morning, and always in the morning Jones was invisibly at work. Now, his +routine upset, loathingly he kicked his heels. But Jones had ways of +consoling himself that were very commonplace. + +I am doing all the evil I can, he vindictively reflected, and it was +with the comfort of his animosity about him that, ultimately, he was +shown into an office--bright and, on this May forenoon, very airy--that +gave on Broad Street. + +Dunwoodie, twisting in a chair, glared at him. + +"Ecce iterum Crispinus!" Jones tritely began. "What price retainers +to-day?" + +"I hoped to God I had seen the last of you," Dunwoodie, with elaborate, +old-fashioned courtesy, replied. + +Jones, disdaining to be asked, drew a chair. + +Viciously Dunwoodie eyed him. "What the devil do you want?" + +Jones smiled at him. "That decision." + +"What decision, sir?" + +"The one I cited when I brought you the paper that secured Lennox' +discharge." + +"Damme, sir, nothing of the kind. I would have had him discharged any +way." + +Jones' smile broadened. "You seem capable of anything. It is a great +quality. Believe me, if I thought you lacked it, you would not now be +enjoying my society." + +"You flatter yourself strangely, sir. If you have nothing to say, don't +keep on saying it." + +"On the contrary, I am here to listen to you," Jones agreeably put in. +"I want your views on that case, 'The Matter of Ziegler.'" + +"Hum! Ha! Got yourself in a mess. Yaas. I remember. Been served yet? +Give me the facts." + +One after another, Jones produced them. + +During their recital, Dunwoodie twirled his thumbs. At their conclusion, +he expressed himself with entire freedom. After which, he saw Jones to +the door, an act which he performed only when he felt particularly +uncivil. At the moment the old bulldog's lip was lifted. But not at +Jones. + +Broad Street was very bright that day. Its brilliance did not extend to +the market. Values were departing. The slump was on. Speculators, +investors, the long and the shorts, bank-messengers, broker's-clerks, +jostled Jones, who went around the corner, where a cavern gaped and +swallowed him. + +Crashingly the express carried him uptown. He did not know but that he +might have lingered. There is always room at the top, though perhaps it +is unwise to buy there. At the bottom, there is room too, much more. It +is very gloomy, but it is the one safe place. Jones did not think that +the market had got there yet. None the less it was inviting. On the +other hand, he did think he might eat something. There was a restaurant +that he wot of where, the week before, he had had a horrible bite. The +restaurant was nauseating, but convenient. To that dual attraction he +succumbed. + +At table there, he meditated on the inscrutable possibilities of life +which, he decided, is full of changes, particularly in the subway; +whereupon a tale in Perrault's best manner occurred to him. + +A waiter, loutish and yet infinitely dreary, intervened. Jones paid and +went out on the upper reaches of Broadway. The fairy-tale that he had +evoked accompanied him. It was charmful as only a fairy-tale can be. But +the end, while happy, was hazy. He did not at all know whether it would +do. + +Abruptly he awoke. + +"Will you come in?" Cassy was saying. + +She had her every-day manner, her every-day clothes, her usual hat. +Jones, noting these details, inwardly commended them. But at once, +another detail was apparent. The entrance to the room where the _Bella +figlia_ had been succeeded by a dirge, was blocked. There was a table in +it. + +Cassy motioned. "I was trying to get it out when it got itself wedged +there. Will you crawl under it, as I have to, or would you prefer to use +it as a divan?" + +"Where your ladyship crawleth, I will crawl," Jones gravely replied. "I +just love going on all fours." + +As he spoke he went under. With a sad little smile she followed. + +"I know I ought to be in mourning," she told him as he brushed his +knees. + +She hesitated and sat down. She did not say that she lacked the money to +buy the suits and trappings. She did not want to say that she had sold +the table, which was the last relic of her early home, nor yet that she +had been trying to get it out, in order to prevent the Jew purchaser +from again coming in. Instead, she fingered her smock. + +"I have been looking for an engagement and they don't want you in +black." + +Jones took a chair. "War has made mourning an anachronism in Europe. If +it lasts long enough, it will do the same here and do the same with art. +But you are very brave." He looked about. "I understood your father had +a Cremona." + +"The poor dear thought so, but a dealer to whom I took it said it was a +Tyrolean copy." + +Jones put down his hat. "The brutes always say something of the kind. +What did it look like?" + +Cassy glanced at him. "A flute, of course. What else would a violin look +like?" + +"You are quite right. I meant the colour." + +"Oh, the colour! Madeira with a sheen in it." + +"Yes!" Jones exclaimed. "That is the exact and precise description of +the Amati varnish, of which the secret is lost. I hope you did not let +the brute have it." + +Cassy did not want to tell him that either. But when you are very +forlorn it is hard to keep everything in. + +"I needed a little for the funeral and he gave it to me." + +"And it was worth thousands! Have you found an engagement?" + +"The season is ending. Then too, either I have lost confidence or I am +not up to it, not yet at least." + +"I can understand that." + +Cassy gestured. "It is not this empty room, it is the doors that slam. +We know we should hasten to love those whom we do love, lest they leave +us forever before we have loved them enough. But do we? We think we have +time and to spare. I know I thought so. I was careless, forgetful, +selfish. That is one of the doors. I can't close it." + +"Time will." + +"Perhaps. Meanwhile I am told I should change my name. At first, I felt +very bitterly toward you for what you did here. It seemed inhuman of +you. Since then I have realised that you could not have done otherwise. +It saved Mr. Lennox. I would have done that." + +"I am sure of it." + +"But I won't change my name. I won't put such an affront on the poor +dear who thought--yet there! I shall never know what he thought, but +who, however wrongly, did it because of me. If only I had not told him! +I ought never to have said a word. Never! That door slams the loudest. +It wakes me. It is slamming all the time." + +"That too shall pass." + +Cassy doubted it. The door and the noise of it hurt. Her eyes filled. +Yet, too sensitive to weep at anybody, even at an inkbeast, she stood +up, went to the window and, while reabsorbing her tears, looked, or +affected to look, at a lean stripe of blue sky. + +Meditatively Jones considered her. "Fine day for a walk." + +It was as though he had offered her a handkerchief. Tearful no longer, +but annoyed, she turned and sat down. + +"You seem very original." + +"It is absentmindedness, I think. I meant to ask, are you ever down near +the Stock Exchange?" + +"That is where Mr. Lennox goes, isn't it?" + +"There are others that frequent the neighbourhood. Among them is a +deacon named Dunwoodie." + +"Isn't he the lawyer who acted for Mr. Lennox?" + +"Now you mention it, I believe he is. Anyway, I wonder if you would care +to have him act for you?" + +Cassy crossed her hands. "I don't understand you." + +"For a moment or two, he didn't either. Then he said he would like to +see you. That was an hour ago. I have just come from his office." + +"But what in the world does he want of me? Everything is over now, isn't +it? Or are there more doors? Really, if there are, I don't think I can +stand it. I don't think I can, Mr. Jones." + +"Yes, but there are doors that don't slam, doors that are closed and +locked and barred. Sometimes there is romance behind them, sometimes +there are santal-wood boxes crammed with rubies; sometimes there are +secrets, sometimes there are landscapes of beckoning palms. One never +quite knows what there is behind closed doors. He may open one or two +for you. Wouldn't it interest you to let him try?" + +Cassy's eyelids had been a trifle tremulous, in her under-lip there had +been also a little uncertainty. But at the vistas which the novelist +dangled at her, she succeeded in looking, as she could look, +immeasurably remote. + +"That sort of thing is chorus-girl!" + +Blankly Jones stared. "What sort of thing?" + +"Why, you want me to bring an action. I will do nothing of the kind. +Even if he were living, I would rather be dead. Besides, it was all my +fault. I ought to have known better." + +"Better than what?" enquired the novelist, who now had got his bearings. + +"Mr. Jones, I told you all about it." + +"Forgive me, if I seem to contradict you. You did not tell all." + +Cassy stiffened. + +"How could you?" Jones continued. "Details are so tiresome. To-day when +I was talking to Dunwoodie, I advanced a few. Dunwoodie is a very +ordinary person. Details bore you, they bore me. He dotes on them. By +the way, you said something about changing your name. I wish you would. +Couldn't you take mine?" + +"You are ridiculous." + +"As you like. Any one else would call me mercenary." + +He's crazy, Cassy uncomfortably reflected. What shall I do? + +Modestly the novelist motioned. "Ten Eyck Jones now! It doesn't rhyme +with Victor Hugo or even with Andrew Carnegie, but it has a lilt. It +might be worse." + +"What are you talking about?" Cassy, with increasing discomfort, put in. + +"There is a little thing that turns men into flint and women into putty. +That's what I am talking about. I am talking money." + +"Thank you. The subject does not interest me." + +"Ah, but you are evolved! Would that the butcher were! We all have to +consider his incapacities and money helps us. I have an idea that your +dear departed may have left you a trifle." + +"Really, Mr. Jones, you are talking nonsense." + +"It is a specialty of mine." + +"Besides, it is impossible." + +"Impossible is a word that intelligent young women never employ." + +"Very good. Admitting the possibility, I won't take it." + +"It might be paid into your bank." + +"I haven't any bank." + +"One could be found for you." + +"I would tell them not to accept it." + +"The bank that won't accept money does not exist." + +Cassy flushed. "I rather liked you. Couldn't you be less hateful?" + +"You are trying to pick a quarrel with me." + +"Nothing of the kind." + +"Then will you let me take you to Dunwoodie?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Then will you go alone?" + +"But why? Why should I? What does this man with an absurd name want of +me?" + +Jones pulled at a cuff. "Well, look at it from this angle. Before you +discovered that your marriage was a sham, you were prepared to assume a +few obligations and some of them may still subsist. The man with the +absurd name can tell you what they are. Surely you are not a slacker. +This is war-time." + +With that abandonment which is so gracious in a woman, Cassy half raised +a hand. "My front line is wavering." + +Jones reached for his hat. "Over the top then!" + +Under the table they crawled. + + + + +XXXIV + + +"Your very obedient servant, madam." + +With that and a fine bow, Dunwoodie greeted Cassy when Jones had +succeeded in getting her into the inner and airy office. The old ruffian +drew a chair. + +"Do me the honour." + +Cassy sat down. What a funny old man, she thought. + +Jones addressing the door, remarked dreamily: "Pendente lite, I will +renew my acquaintance with Swinburne's 'Espousals.'" + +Dunwoodie glared. "You will find it in the library." Then he sat down, +folded his hands on his waistcoat and smiled at Cassy. "Nice day." + +"Very." + +"Down here often?" + +Cassy shook her docked hair. "No, and I don't at all know why I am here +now. I do know though, and I may as well tell you at once, I have no +intention of making a fuss." + +Dunwoodie's smile, a smile quasi-ogrish, semi-paternal, expanded. "If +our Potsdam friend only resembled you!" + +For a young woman so recently and doubly bereaved, Cassy's blue smock +and yellow skirt seemed to him properly subdued. Moreover, from a word +that Jones had dropped, he realised that wealth had not presided at +their selection. + +He twirled his thumbs. "But let me ask, what may your full name be?" + +"Bianca Cara." + +"Hum! Ha! Most becoming. And how young are you?" + +Well, I like that! thought Cassy, who answered: "Twenty-one." + +Dunwoodie crossed his legs. "You think me an impertinent old man. I +don't mean to be impertinent. I take a great interest in you." + +"Very good of you, I'm sure." + +"Not at all. Is your grandmother living?" + +"For heaven's sake! You did not know her, did you?" + +"No, but I stand ready to take her place." + +"You would find it difficult. She is buried in Portugal." + +"The place of your grandfather then, the place of any one whom you can +trust." + +"But why?" + +"Well, let me ask. What are your plans?" + +"My plans? Mr. Jones asked me that. I have a sort of a voice and I am +looking for an engagement. But the season is ending. Then too I am told +I ought to change my name. I won't do it." + +"Hum! Ha! But it appears that you have." + +He's crazy too, thought Cassy, who said: "I don't know what you are +talking about." + +Dunwoodie extracted his towel. "Why, my dear young lady, you are Mrs. +Paliser." + +Cassy flushed. "I am nothing of the kind. I don't know how you got such +an idea." + +Dunwoodie, quite as though he were doing some hard thinking, folded and +refolded that towel which was his handkerchief. "Yet you married Montagu +Paliser, Jr., did you not?" + +"Not at all. That is I thought I did, but the man who performed the +ceremony was a gardener." + +"Dear me! Is it possible! And where was this?" + +What is it to you? thought Cassy. "At Paliser Place, if you must know." + +"And when did it occur?" + +"Really, Mr. Dunwoodie, I can't see why you are putting me through this +examination, but if it is of any benefit to you, it happened just five +days before he died." + +"Anybody about?" + +"Oh, yes. There were two other servants who enjoyed it very much. I +heard them laughing and I don't blame them. It was a rare treat. A child +would have laughed at it. All my fault too. I behaved like a ninny. But +my great mistake was in telling my father. I would give the world if I +had not. Won't you please send for Mr. Jones? As I told you, I don't +know why I am here." + +Dunwoodie shook out the towel. "You must blame him then. He said you +were Paliser's widow." + +"Well, you see I am not." + +"Yet you consented to be his wife." + +"Whose? Mr. Jones'?" + +"Paliser's, my dear young lady. However fictitious the ceremony, you +consented to be Paliser's wife." + +"What if I did? It has nothing to do with it now." + +"Just a little, perhaps. Did you hear Jones say that he would renew his +acquaintance with Swinburne?" + +"From the way he talks, one might think he knew him by heart." + +"Yaas, he is very objectionable. But you are referring to the poet. He +was referring to the jurist. The jurist wrote a very fine book. Let me +quote a passage from it. 'It is the present and perfect consent the +which alone maketh matrimony, without either solemnisation or'--here, +Dunwoodie, skipping the frank old English, substituted--'or anything +else, for neither the one nor the other is the essence of matrimony, but +consent only. Consensus non concubitus facit matrimoniam.' Hum! Ha! In +other words, whether marriage is or is not contracted in facie ecclesiae, +it is consent alone that constitutes its validity. You understand +Latin?" + +Cassy laughed. "I dream in it." + +Dunwoodie laughed too. "Pleasant dreams to you always. But what I have +quoted was the common law, and so remained until altered by the Revised +Statutes, with which no doubt you are equally familiar." + +Cassy smoothed her frock. "I was brought up on them." + +"I don't need to tell you then that when adopted here they provided that +marriage should be a civil contract. In so providing, they merely +reaffirmed the existing common law. Subsequently, the law was changed. +The legislature enacted that a marriage must be solemnised by certain +persons--ecclesiastic, judicial or municipal--or else, that it should be +entered into by written contract, which contract was to be filed in the +office of the town clerk. Coincidentally the legislature prohibited any +marriage contracted otherwise than in the manner then prescribed." + +That morning Cassy had been to an agent, a saponacious person with a +fabulous nose. At the moment the nose was before her. She was wondering +whether it would scent out for her an engagement. + +"However," Dunwoodie, twisting the edge of his towel, continued, +"various amendments were afterward adopted and certain sections +repealed. Among the latter was the one containing the prohibition which +I have cited. In my opinion, it was not the intention of the legislature +to repeal it. Yet, however that may be, repealed it was. Since then, or, +more exactly, a few weeks ago, the enactments regarding the manner in +which marriage must be solemnised were held to be not mandatory but +directory, the result being that the law originally prevailing has now +come again into operation, common-law marriages are as valid as before +and----" + +Here Dunwoodie flaunted the towel. + +"And you are Mrs. Paliser." + +Of the entire exposition, Cassy heard but that. It ousted the agent and +his fabulous nose. She bristled. + +"I can't be. I don't want to be. You don't seem to see that the +clergyman was not a clergyman at all. He was one of the help there. I +thought I told you. Why, there was not even a license! That man said he +had one. It was only another of the whimsicalities that took me in." + +Dunwoodie repocketing the towel, showed his yellow teeth. "A young +gentlewoman who dreams in Latin, and who was brought up on the Revised +Statutes, must be familiar with Byron. 'Men were deceivers ever.' Not +long ago, a Lovelace whose history is given in the New York Reports +conducted himself in a manner that would be precisely analogous to that +of your late husband, were it not that, instead of dying, he did what +was less judicious, he married again--and was sent up for bigamy. He too +had omitted to secure a license. He also entertained a lady with a +fancy-ball. None the less, the Supreme Court decided that he had legally +tied the matrimonial noose about him and that decision the Court of +Appeals affirmed." + +Cassy shook her pretty self. "Well, even so, I don't see what difference +it makes, now at any rate. He is dead and that is the end of it." + +"Hum! Not entirely. As widow you are entitled to a share in such +property as your late husband possessed. How much, or how little, he did +possess I cannot say. But I assume that such share of it as may accrue, +will be--ha!--adequate for you." + +"But he hadn't anything. He told me so." + +"He didn't always tell you the truth though, did he? In any event it is +probable that he left enough to provide for your maintenance." + +Cassy threw up her hands. "Never in the world." + +Dunwoodie again ran his eyes over the severity of her costume. "You +think it would be inadequate?" + +But Cassy was angry. "I don't think anything about it. Whether it would +or would not be adequate, does not make the slightest difference. I +won't take it." + +"Ha! And why not?" + +Cassy fumed. "Why not? But isn't it evident? That man had no intention +of marrying me, no intention whatever of leaving me a cent." + +"As it happens, he did both." + +Cassy clenched her small fist. "No matter. He did not intend to and +don't you see if I were to accept a ha'penny of his wretched money, I +would be benefiting by a crime for which may God forgive my poor, dear +father." + +There was a point which the legislature had not considered, which not +one of all the New York Reports construed, a point not of law but of +conscience, a point for a tribunal other than that which sits in banco. +It floored Dunwoodie. + +Damnation, she's splendid, he decided as, mentally, he picked himself +up. But it would never do to say so and he turned on her his famous +look. + +"Madam, once your marriage is established, the money becomes rightfully +and legally yours, unless----" + +With that look he was frowning at this handsome girl who took law and +order with such a high hand. But behind the frown was a desire, which he +restrained, to hug her. + +Frowning still he looked from Cassy to the door and there at a boy, who +was poking through it a nose on which freckles were strewn thick as +bran. + +"Mr. Rymple, sir, says he has an appointment." + +The old ruffian, rising, turned to Cassy. "One moment, if you please." + +The door, caught in a draught, slammed after him, though less violently +than other doors that were slamming still. Would they never stop? Cassy +wondered. Would they slam forever? Were there no rooms in life where she +might enter and find the silence that is peace? Surely, some time, +somewhere that silence might be hers. + +She turned. Jones, looking extremely disagreeable, was walking in. + +Cassy, closing her ears to those doors, exclaimed at him. "Here's a +pretty how d'ye do. Mr. Dunwoodie says I am Mrs. Paliser." + +"That afternoon, when you sent your love to my cat, I could have told +you that. In fact I did." + +From Jones' air and manner you would have said that he was willing and +able to bite a ten-penny nail. + +Cassy did not notice. "It appears, too, that I am entitled to some of +his wretched money." + +"It is unfortunate I did not know that also." + +"I believe you did. But I sha'n't take it." + +Jones drew a chair. Hatefully he looked her up and down. + +"You are quite right. Sixty years ago there was but one millionaire in +the country. The plutocrat had not appeared in the street, he had not +even appeared in the dictionary. The breed was unknown. To-day there are +herds of such creatures. I was reading the statistics recently and they +depressed me beyond words. It is always depressing to know how much +money other people have. You are quite right not to suffer poor devils +to be depressed by you." + +Mrs. Yallum! thought Cassy, who said as much; "I don't know what you are +talking about." + +"You are very intelligent. I am talking small change." + +Cassy gave a shrug. "Mr. Dunwoodie said I would have enough to live on. +I can do as well as that myself, thank you." + +"No doubt," Jones snarled. "I am even sure you could do worse. It is +extraordinary how much one can accomplish in refusing a dollar or two +that might save another man's life. To hell with everybody! That is the +noble attitude. I admire your spirit. A handful of bank-notes are crying +at you: 'I'm yours, take me, give me to the wounded, to the starving!' +Not a bit of it. The Viscountess of Casa-Evora is too proud. That's +superb." + +Cassy turned on him. "See here, young man----" + +"Don't you young man me," Jones irritably cut in. "In the rotunda out +there, Dunwoodie gave me a foretaste of your swank and I can tell you I +relished it. You won't look at a penny of this money because, if you +did, you would be benefiting by an act committed by your father, who, as +sure as you live, was impelled by the powers invisible to rid the earth +of Paliser and to rid it of him for no other reason than that this money +might serve a world in flames. Refused by you it will only revert to an +old rounder who never did a good deed in his life; whereas, instead, it +could call down blessings on your father's grave. But no, perish the +thought! All that is leather and prunella to a young woman who regards +herself as the arbiter of destiny. By God, you are prodigious!" + +"I think you are horrid." + +"So are you. You are the heiress to millions and millions. No wonder you +put on airs." + +Occasionally, to exceptional beings, a hand issuing from nowhere offers +a cup brimming with madness, filled to the top with follies and dreams. + +At that cup Cassy stared. It was unreal. If she tried to touch it, it +would vanish. + +"It is impossible!" she cried. + +Jones looked about. "Where is my harp?" + +Cassy did not know, she could not tell him. She had not even heard. A +crater in the Wall Street sky had opened and from it, in an enchanted +shower, fell sequins, opals, perfumes and stars. + +But Jones must have found his harp. To that shower he was strumming an +accompaniment. + +"In to-day's paper there is a Red Cross appeal which says that what we +give is gone. It is incredible, but educated people believe it. The +ignorance of educated people is affecting. By reason of their education, +which now and then includes mythology, they believe that happiness is +the greatest of all the gifts that the gods can bestow. Being mortal, +they try to obtain it. Being ignorant, they fail. Ignorance confounds +pleasure with happiness. Pleasure comes from without, happiness from +within. People may be very gay and profoundly miserable, really rich and +terribly poor. In either case their condition is due to the fact that +the happiness which they sought, they sought for themselves. Their error +would be stupid were it not pathetic. In seeking happiness for +themselves they fail to find it, but when they succeed in securing it +for others, they find that on them also it has been bestowed. The money +we give is not gone. It comes back to us. It returns in happiness and +all the happiness that the richest, the poorest, the wisest, the +stupidest can ever possess, is precisely that happiness which they have +given away." + +Where now where those doors? Cassy, the cascade of flowers and stars +about her, looked at the harper. In listening to him, the doors had +ceased to slam. About them there was peace. But her eyes had filled. + +Jones was still at it. + +"The greatest happiness is the cessation of pain. That pagan aphorism +the Red Cross might put on its banners. Spiritually it is defective, but +practically it is sound and some relief the Red Cross supplies. Give to +it. You can put your money to no fairer use. It will hallow the grave +where your father lies." + +From beyond, from the adjacent Curb, came the shouts of brokers. + +Jones, abandoning his harp, looked over at the girl. "What are you +crying about?" + +"I am not crying," spluttered Cassy, who was blubbering like a baby. "I +never cry. It is disgusting of you to say so." + +"You are crying." + +"I am not crying," Cassy, indignantly sniffing and sobbing, snapped at +him. Fiercely she rubbed her eyes. "It is none of your business, +anyhow." Pausing, she choked, recovered and blearily added: "And, +anyway, if the money is mine, really mine, honestly mine, I will give it +away, all of it, every p--penny." + +"No, no, not all of it," Jones hastily threw in, for now the door was +opening and Dunwoodie appeared. "Keep a pear for your thirst, put a +little million aside." + +He turned to the lawyer. "Mrs. Paliser accepts her responsibilities." + +"Hum! Ha!" The great man sat down and looked at Cassy. He looked many +things but he said very few. "My dear young lady, familiar as you are +with Latin, with law and with literature, who am I to remind you that +chickens should first be hatched? Your rights may be contested. The +Paliser Case, as it will be called, may----" + +"The Paliser Case!" interjected Jones, who could see the headline from +where he sat. "Shade of Blackstone! It will be famous! It will be +filmed! The eminent jurist here will be screened and you, too, my lady." + +Balefully Dunwoodie shot a glance at the inkbeast and another at Cassy. + +"It may last some time. I have no doubt of the result. None whatever. +But in spite of your legal knowledge I suggest that you have associate +counsel. Now, permit me to ask, would you care to retain me or would +you prefer some one else?" + +Cassy, who had dried her eyes, looked at him and it was remarkable how +pretty she looked. + +"Why, no, Mr. Dunwoodie, I would much rather have you, only----" +Uncertainly she paused. + +The eminent jurist took it up. "Only what?" + +"Well, all I know about law is that it is very expensive and I have +nothing except my grandfather's portrait." + +Dunwoodie touched a button. "Ha! One moment." + +A thin young man, with a pasty face and a slight stoop, opened the door. + +The old ruffian raised a stubby finger. "Purdy, a cheque for a thousand +dollars, to the order of Bianca Paliser, is to be mailed to this lady +to-night." + +"But, Mr. Dunwoodie!" Cassy exclaimed. + +"You must allow me to be your banker," he told her, and turned again to +the clerk. "Get Mr. Jeroloman. Say, with my compliments, I shall be +obliged if he will look in here. And, Purdy, see to it that that cheque +is attended to. Mrs. Paliser will give you her address." + +"But, Mr. Dunwoodie!" Cassy exclaimed again, as the sallow youth went +out. + +To distract her attention, instantly Jones improvised a limerick. "There +was a young man named Purdy, who was not what you'd call very sturdy. To +be more of a sport, he drank gin by the quart, and danced on a +hurdy-gurdy." + +"You're insane," announced Cassy, who was a trifle demented herself. + +Dunwoodie extracted his towel. "Jeroloman is the attorney for the other +side. He will want to meet Mrs. Paliser, but that honour will not be his +to-day." + +Cassy stood up. "I should hope not. He would be the last camel on the +straw--I mean the last straw on the camel." + +Dunwoodie, rising also, gave her his fine bow and to Jones a hand. + +Then as the two made for the door, from over her shoulder she smiled +back at him. + +"My grandmother could not have been nicer." + +"What do you mean by that?" Jones absently inquired. + +But, in the rotunda now, Mr. Purdy was asking her address. If he had +dared he would have followed her there. Fortune favouring, he would have +followed her to the ends of the earth. It was what one of our allies +calls the thunderbolt. Never before had he beheld such a face. Earnestly +he prayed that he might behold it again. Allah is great. The prayer was +granted. + +In the canon below, Jones, as he piloted her to the subway, pulled at +his gloves. + +"If I had the ability, I would write an opera, call it 'Danae' and +offer you the title-role." + +Cassy, her thoughts on her grandmother, repeated it. "Danae?" + +"Yes, the lady disconnected by marriage with Jupiter who tubbed her in +gold--gold ink, I suppose. But as I am not a composer I shall put you +between the sheets--of a novel I mean. Fiction has its consolations." + +But now, leaving the canon, they entered a cavern which a tunnel fluted. +There Cassy looked up at the inkbeast. "How is Mr. Lennox? Do you see +him?" + +"I find it very difficult not to. Unattached people are sticky as +flies. When Lennox was engaged, he was invisible. Now he is all over the +place." + +From the tunnel a train erupted. It came with the belch of a monstrous +beetle, red-eyed and menacing, hastening terribly to some horrible task. + +Jones, shoving the girl into its bowels, added: "I was happier when he +was jugged." + +A corner beckoned. There, as the beetle resumed its flight, the novelist +spread his wings. + +"I would have wagered a red pippin that you couldn't say Jack Robinson +before he and that young woman were convoluting joyously. I even planned +to be best man. Saw my tailor about it. Whether it were on that account +or not the Lords of Karma only know, but he told Miss Austen to go to +hell." + +Cassy started. From before her everything was receding. + +Jones noting the movement, interpreted it naturally and therefore +stupidly. He apologised. + +"Forgive me. I picture you as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conversation. +Forgive me, then. Besides, what Lennox did say, he said with less +elegance. He said: 'I'm through.' Yes and asked me to repeat it to her. +I studiously omitted to, but as Proteus--Mr. Blount in private +life--somewhere expressed it, 'Hell has no more fixed or absolute +decree.'" + +Because of the crashing beetle Jones had to shout it. He shouted it in +Cassy's ear. It was a lovely ear and Jones was aware of it. But only +professionally. Since that night in Naples when, by way of keepsake, he +got a dagger in his back, he had entertained the belief that a novelist +should have everything, even to sex, in his brain. Such theories are +very safe. Jones' admirations were not therefore carnal. To Balzac, a +pretty woman was a plot. Cassy was a plot to Jones, who continued to +shout. + +"If Lennox and Margaret Austen moved and had their being in a novel of +mine, the wedding-bells would now be ringing at a cradle in the last +chapter. Commercially it would be my duty to supply that happy and +always unexpected touch. I even made a bet about it, which shows how +iniquitous gambling is. What's more, it shows that I must have an +unsuspected talent for picture-plays. As it was in heaven, so it is now +in the movies. It is there that marriages are made. But forgive me +again. I am talking shop." + +The renewed apology was needless. Though Jones shouted, Cassy did not +hear. It was not the clattering beetle that interfered. To that also +Cassy was deaf. She heard nothing. The echo of noisy millions had gone. +The slamming doors were silent. But her face was pale as running water +when, the beetle at last abandoned, she thanked Jones for seeing her all +the way. + +All the way to where? God, if she only knew! + + + + +XXXV + + +Later that day, Jeroloman, the attorney for the other side, who at the +time had no idea that there was another side, or any side at all, +entered the rotunda and asked for Dunwoodie. + +In asking, he removed his hat, glanced at its glisten, put it on again. +The hat was silk. It topped iron grey hair, steel-blue eyes, a +turn-under nose, a thin-lipped mouth, a pointed chin, a stand-up collar, +a dark neckcloth, a morning coat, grey gloves, grey trousers, drab spats +and patent-leather boots. These attributes gave him an air that was +intensely respectable, equally tiresome. One pitied his wife. + +"This way, sir." + +In the inner and airy office, Dunwoodie nodded, motioned at a chair. + +"Ha! Very good of you to trouble." + +Jeroloman, seating himself, again removed his hat. Before he could +dispose of it, Dunwoodie was at him. + +"Young Paliser's estate. In round figures what does it amount to?" + +Jeroloman, selecting a safe place on the table, put the hat on it and +answered, not sparringly, there was nothing to spar about, but with +civil indifference: "Interested professionally?" + +"His widow is my client." + +Jeroloman's eyes fastened themselves on Dunwoodie, who he knew was +incapable of anything that savoured, however remotely, of shysterism. +But it was a year and a day since he had been closeted with him. In the +interim, time had told. Diverting those eyes, he displayed a smile that +was chill and dental. + +"Well, well! We all make mistakes. There is no such person." He paused, +awaiting the possible protest. None came and he added: "The morning +after the murder, his father told me that the young man contemplated +marriage with a lady who had his entire approval. Unfortunately----" + +"Yaas," Dunwoodie broke in. "Unfortunately, as you say. The morning +after was the 26th. On the 21st, a gardener, who pretended to be a +clergyman, officiated at his marriage to my client." + +Dryly but involuntarily Jeroloman laughed. Dunwoodie was getting on, +getting old. In his day he had been remarkably able. That day had gone. + +"Well, well! Even admitting that such a thing could have happened, it +must have been only by way of a lark." + +Dunwoodie whipped out his towel. "You don't say so!" + +Carelessly Jeroloman surveyed him. He was certainly senile, yet, because +of his laurels, entitled to all the honours of war. + +"Look here, Mr. Dunwoodie. You are not by any chance serious, are you?" + +"Oh, I'm looking. While I was about it, I looked into the case. Per +verba de praesenti, my client consented to be young Paliser's wife. Now +she is his widow." + +Jeroloman weighed it. The weighing took but an instant. Dunwoodie was +living in the past, but there was no use in beating about the bush and +he said as much. + +"You are thinking of the common law, sir." + +Absently Dunwoodie creased his towel. "Now you mention it, I believe I +am." + +Jeroloman glanced at his watch. It was getting late. His residence was +five miles away. He was to dress, dine early and take his wife to the +theatre. He would have to hurry and he reached for his hat. + +"The common law was abrogated long ago." + +Dunwoodie rumpled the towel. "Why, so it was!" + +Jeroloman took the hat and with a gloved finger rubbed at the brim. +"Even otherwise, the term common-law wife is not legally recognised. The +law looks with no favour on the connection indicated by it. The term is +synonymous for a woman who, having lived illicitly with a man, seeks to +assume the relationship of wife after his death and thereby share in the +proceeds of his property." + +From under beetling brows, Dunwoodie looked at him. "Thanks for the +lecture, Jeroloman. My client has no such desire. In this office, an +hour ago, she refused them." + +Jeroloman stood up. "Very sensible of her, I'm sure." He twirled the +hat. "Who is she?" + +"I thought I told you. She is Mrs. Paliser." + +Jeroloman waved that hat. "Well, well! I thought I told you. As it is, +if you will take the trouble to look at the laws of 1901, you will find +that common-law marriages are inhibited." + +"Hum! Ha! And if you will trouble to look at the Laws of 1907, you will +find they are inhibited no longer." + +Jeroloman stared. "I have yet to learn of it." + +Dunwoodie repocketed his towel. "Is it possible? Then when the +opportunity occurs you might inform yourself. At the same time let me +recommend the Court of Appeals for March. You may find there additional +instruction. But I see you are going. Don't let me detain you." + +Jeroloman sat down. "What case are you referring to?" + +"The Matter of Ziegler." + +Uncertainly Jeroloman's steel-blue eyes shifted. "It seems to me I read +the syllabus." + +"Then your powers of concealment are admirable." + +"But just what does it hold?" + +"Can it be that you don't remember? Well, well!--to borrow your own +agreeable mode of expression--it holds that common-law marriages that +were valid before and until the enactments which you were good enough to +cite, were again made valid by their appeal in Chapter 742 of the Laws +of 1907." + +"But," Jeroloman began and paused. "But----" He paused again. + +Comfortably Dunwoodie helped him. "Yes?" + +"You say that marriages valid before and until the Laws of 1901 are, by +virtue of a repeal, now valid again?" + +"That is what I say, Jeroloman. Merely that and nothing more. In +addition to the Ziegler case, let me commend to you 'The Raven.'" + +"Let's get down to facts, sir. From your account of it, this alleged +marriage never could have been valid." + +Dunwoodie wiped his mouth. "Dear me! I had no idea that my account of it +could lead to such interesting views. You do surprise me." + +"Mr. Dunwoodie, you said the ceremony was performed by a gardener who +pretended to be a clergyman. Those were your very words." + +"Yaas. Let the cat out of the bag, didn't I?" + +Archly but chillily Jeroloman smiled. "Well, no, I would not care to put +it in that way, but your office-boy must know that false representations +void it." + +"Good Lord!" Dunwoodie exclaimed. It was as though he had been hit in +the stomach. + +Jeroloman, who was eyeing him, gave a little nod that was tantamount to +saying, "Take that!" + +But Dunwoodie was recovering. He sat back, looked admiringly at +Jeroloman, clasped his hands and twirled his thumbs. + +Jeroloman, annoyed at the attitude and in haste to be going, pursed his +thin lips. "Well, sir?" + +With an affability that was as unusual as it was suspicious, Dunwoodie +smiled at him. "Your objection is well taken. Not an hour ago, in that +chair in which you are sitting, this lady, my client, who not once in +her sweet life has opened the Revised Statutes, and who, to save it, +could not tell the difference between them and the Code, well, sir, she +entered that same objection." + +"I don't see----" + +"Nor did she, God bless her! And I fear I wearied her with my reasons +for not sustaining it. But I did not tell her, what I may confide in +you, that in Hays versus The People--25 New York--it is held immaterial +whether a person who pretended to solemnise a marriage contract, was or +was not a clergyman, or whether either party to the contract was +deceived by false representations of this character. Hum! Ha!" + +Jeroloman pulled at his long chin. In so doing he rubbed his hat the +wrong way. He did not notice. That he was to dress, dine early, take his +wife to the theatre, that it was getting late and that his residence was +five miles away, all these things were forgotten. What he saw were +abominations that his client would abhor--the suit, the notoriety, the +exposure, the whole dirty business dumped before the public's greedy and +shining eyes. + +"Who is she?" he suddenly asked. + +"Who was she?" Dunwoodie corrected. "Miss Cara." + +Jeroloman started and dropped his hat. "Not----?" + +Dunwoodie nodded. "His daughter." + +Jeroloman, bending over, recovered his hat. Before it, a picture +floated. It represented an assassin's child gutting the estate of a son +whom the father had murdered. It was a bit too cubist. Somewhere he had +seen another picture of that school. It showed a young woman falling +downstairs. He did not know but that he might reproduce it. At least he +could try. Meanwhile it was just as well to take the model's measure and +again his eyes fastened on Dunwoodie. + +"What do you suggest?" + +Dunwoodie, loosening his clasped hands, beat with the fingers a tattoo +on his waistcoat. + +"Let me see. There is 'The Raven,' the first primer, the multiplication +table. Is it for your enlightenment that you ask?" + +Jeroloman moistened his lips. Precise, careful, capable, intensely +respectable, none the less he could have struck him. A moment only. From +the sleeve of his coat he flicked, or affected to flick, a speck. + +"Yes, thank you, for my enlightenment. You have not told me what your +client wants." + +"What a woman wants is usually beyond masculine comprehension." + +Methodically Jeroloman dusted his hat. "You might enquire. We, none of +us, favour litigation. In the interests of my client I always try to +avoid it and, while at present. I have no authority, yet----Well, well! +Between ourselves, how would a ponderable amount, four or five thousand, +how would that do?" + +Blandly Dunwoodie looked at this man, who was trying to take Cassy's +measure. + +"For what?" + +"To settle it." + +That bland air, where was it? In its place was the look which +occasionally the ruffian turned on the Bench. + +"Hum! Ha! Then for your further enlightenment let me inform you that my +client will settle it for what she is legally entitled to, not one +ponderable dollar more, not one ponderable copper less." + +Mentally, from before that look, Jeroloman was retreating. Mentally as +well, already he had reversed himself. He had judged Dunwoodie old, +back-number, living in the past. Instead of which the fossil was what he +always had been--just one too many. Though not perhaps for him. Not for +Randolph F. Jeroloman. Not yet, at any rate. The points advanced were +new, undigested, perhaps inexact, filled with discoverable flaws. +Though, even so, how M. P. would view them was another kettle of fish. +But that was as might be. He put on his hat and stood up. + +"Very good. I will give the matter my attention." + +"Do," Dunwoodie, with that same look, retorted, "And meanwhile I will +apply for letters of administration. Hum! Ha! My compliments to your +good lady." + +He turned in his chair. Attention, indeed! He knew what that meant. The +matter would be submitted to M. P. The old devil had not a leg to stand +on, he lacked even a crutch, and in that impotent, dismembered and +helpless condition he would be thrown out of court. A ponderable amount! +Hum! + +For a moment he considered the case. But it may be that already it had +been heard and adjudged. Long since, perhaps, at some court of last +resort, the Paliser Case had been decided. + + + + +XXXVI + + +On the morrow, Jeroloman waited on his client, who received him in the +library, an agreeable room in which there was nothing literary, but +which succeeded at once in becoming extremely unpleasant. + +M. P. was in tweeds. When his late lamented departed this life, he wore +crepe on his hat for ninety days. It was a tribute that he paid, not to +the lady's virtues, which were notoriously absent; nor to any love of +her, for he had disliked her exceedingly; nor yet because it was +conventional, he hated conventionality; but, by Gad, sir, because it +bucks the women up! All that was long ago. Since then he had become less +fastidious. At his son's funeral he appeared in black. + +Now, on this day, dressed in tweeds, he greeted Jeroloman with his usual +cordiality. + +"I hope to God you are not going to bother me about anything?" + +The wicked old man, who had faced wicked facts before, faced a few of +them then. The stench of the main fact had been passing from him, +deodorised by the fumigating belief that his son had been killed by a +lunatic. Now here it was again, more mephitic than ever, and for the +whiffs of it with which Jeroloman was spraying him, he hated the man. + +"Whom has she?" + +"Dunwoodie." + +He reviewed the bar. There was Bancroft, whose name was always in the +papers and to whom clients flocked. There was Gwathmay, whom the papers +ignored and whom only lawyers consulted. He might have either or both, +the rest of the crew as well, and in spite of them all, unless he +permitted himself to be done, the publicity would be just as resounding. + +In the old nights, when social New York was a small and early, threats +had amused him. "I have my hours for being blackmailed, this is not one +of them," he had lightly remarked at a delightful gang. "Do your +damnedest." + +They took him at his word and so completely that the small and early saw +him no more. What was that to him? There were other pastures, less +scrumptious perhaps, but also far less fatiguing. He had not cared, not +a rap. Behind him the yard of brass yodled in a manner quite as lordly +as before. His high-steppers lost none of their sheen; his yacht +retained all its effulgence; so, too, did the glare of his coin. No, he +had not cared. But that was long ago, so long that it might have +happened in an anterior existence. He had not cared then. Age is +instructive. He had learned to since. Moreover, in testimony of his +change of heart, a miracle had been vouchsafed. The affair at the Opera, +attributed to a lunatic, had been buried safely, like his son, the +scandal tossed in for shroud. How freely he had breathed since then! The +little green bottle of menthe he had barely touched. He might live to +see everything forgiven or, what is quite as satisfactory, forgotten. +And now! Columns and columns, endlessly, day in, day out; the Paliser +Case dragged from one court to another, the stench of it exceeded only +by that of the Huns! But, by comparison, blackmail, however bitter, was +sweet. When one may choose between honey and gall, decision is swift. + +"What'll she take?" + +Jeroloman, who had left his hat on the malachite bench in the hall, +smoothed his gloves. He was about to reply. Before he could, his client +shook a fist at him. + +"The slut hasn't a cent. Came to the Place with a bundle, damn her. A +suit like this costs something. Where's she going to get it? What'll she +take?" + +Jeroloman looked up from his gloves. "I don't know." + +"Then find out." + +"I offered Dunwoodie a ponderable amount." + +"Well?" + +"He refused it." + +"Double it, then, triple it." + +"Mr. Paliser, I'm sorry, but it won't do." + +"Damnation, why not?" + +"It is all or nothing with him and maybe nothing in the end. I told him +so. I told him that the courts view with no favour a woman who, having +lived illicitly with a man, claims, on his demise, to be his widow. Such +a claim is but the declaration of a woman entered after the death of her +alleged husband and, as such, is inadmissible under Section 829 of the +Code. I have posted myself very thoroughly in the matter, though I find +it has been held----" + +"Damn what has been held. It's all or nothing, is it?" + +Jeroloman pulled at his long chin. + +All, the wicked old man reflected. All! All would be ten million and ten +million was less than a tenth of his wealth--ten million for which he +had no earthly need, which it would fatigue him to spend, burden him to +hoard, disgrace him to fight for, and which, normally, would go to a +brat whom he had never seen and whom, as next in line, he hated. + +Already he had decided. Though, it may be that on planes of which he +knew nothing, long since it had been decided for him. + +None the less it hurt. It hurt horribly. From a pocket, he drew a little +bottle. + +"Settle it then." + +"On what basis?" + +"All and be damned to her." + +But now the menthe that he had raised to his lips was trickling from the +bottle, staining his tweeds. He hiccoughed, gasped, motioned. + +"And good-day to you." + +Below, on the malachite bench, a silk hat was waiting. When that hat +again appeared in Dunwoodie's office, the Paliser Case was over. It had +ended before it began. + + + + +XXXVII + + +Cassy sat in the kitchen. Before her were a cheque and a letter. The +letter was from the theatre-man. The cheque was Dunwoodie's. The cheque +begged to be cashed, the letter begged her to call. + +During the night she had gone looking along an avenue where there were +houses with candid windows from which faces peered and smiled. But it +was not for these that she was looking and she awoke in a tempest of +farewells. + +Now, across the court, in the kitchen opposite, were two inoffensive +beings. On that evening when her father had made her cry, they had +seemed unreal. On this forenoon their baseless appearance persisted. But +their unreality was not confined to them. Their kitchen, the court, the +building shared it. They were all unreal, everything was, except one +thing only, which perhaps was more unreal than all things else. + +She looked at the letter and from it at the cheque. The day before, on +returning from the shower of millions that had caught and drenched her +in Broad Street, she was not entirely dry. The glisten of the golden +rain hung all about her. None the less on reaching the walk-up she +forgot it. There were other matters, more important, that she had in +mind. But only a philosopher could be drenched as she had been and +remain unaffected. The bath is too voluptuous for the normal heart. On +its waters float argosies crimson-hulled, purple-rigged, freighted with +dreams come true. You have but a gesture to make. Those dreams are +spaniels crouching at your feet. At a bath not dissimilar but +financially far shallower, Monte Cristo cried: "The world is mine!" It +was very amusing of him. But though, since then, values have varied, a +bagatelle of ten millions is deep enough for any girl, sufficiently deep +at least for its depths to hold strange things. + +At those things, strange indeed and yet not unfamiliar, Cassy beckoned. +In their embrace she saw herself, as Jones had pictured her, going +about, giving money away, strewing it full-handed, changing sobs into +smiles. The picture lacked novelty. Often she had dreamed it. Only +recently, on the afternoon just before the clock struck twelve, just +before the gardener lit his pipe and the mask had fallen, only then, +and, relatively, that was but yesterday, she had promenaded in it. It +was a dream she had dreamed when a child, that had haunted her girlhood, +that had abided since then. It was the dream of a dream she had dreamed +without daring to believe in its truth. Now, from the core of the web +that is spun by the spiderous fates, out it had sprung. There, before +her eyes, within her grasp was that miracle, a rainbow solidified, +vapour made tangible, a dream no longer a dream but a palette and a +palette that you could toss in the air, put in the bank, secrete or +squander, a palette with which you could paint the hours and make them +twist to jewelled harps. No more walk-up! Good-bye, kitchy! Harlem, +addio! The gentleman with the fabulous nose could whistle. Vaudeville, +indeed! She could buy the shop, buy a dozen of them, tear them down, +build them up, throw them into one and sing there, sing what she liked, +when she liked, as she liked. Yes, but for whom? God of gods, for whom? + +A local newspaper bears--or bore--a sage device: La nuit porte conseil. +That night, on her white bed, in her black room, Cassy sought it. But +the counsel that night brings is not delivered while you toss about. +Night waits until you sleep. Then, to the subjective self that never +sleeps, the message is delivered. It may be fallible, often it is and, +in our scheme of things, what is there that is not? Yet in any dilemma +bad advice may be better than none. Then, without transition, the black +room changed into an avenue where faces peered and smiled. It was not +though for these that she was looking, but for her way. It must have +been very narrow. Though she looked and looked she could not find it. +Yet it was near, perhaps just around the corner. But in some manner, she +could not reach it. Sleep sank her deeper. When she awoke, there it was. + +Now as she sat in the kitchen, before which, in the kitchen opposite, +bundles of baseless appearances came and went, she began counting her +wealth on her fingers. Youth! Up went her thumb. Health! The forefinger. +Lungs! The second finger. Not being a fright! The fourth. How rich she +was! But was there not something else? Oh, yes! Sadly she smiled. A +clear conscience! She had forgotten that and that came first. Youth, +health, lungs, looks, these were gamblers' tokens in the great roulette +of life. In the hazards of chance at any moment she might lose one or +all, as eventually she must lose them and remain no poorer than before. +But her first asset which she had counted last, that was her fortune, +the estate she held by virtue of a trust so guardedly created that if +she lost one mite, the whole treasure was withdrawn. + +On the washtub--covered admirably with linoleum--at which she sat, were +the cheque for a thousand dollars and the bid from the vaudeville man. +The bid, she knew, meant money. But the cheque would beggar her. + +She drew breath and sat back. From above a filter of sunlight fell and +told her it was noon. Across the court the bundles of baseless +appearances transformed themselves into a real woman, an actual child. +The kitchen in which they moved, the house in which they dwelled were no +longer the perceptions of a perceiver. They also were real. So, too, was +life. + +An hour and Mr. Purdy's pasty face turned feebly red. He stammered it. + +No, unfortunately, Mr. Dunwoodie was out. Would Mrs. Paliser wait? In +Mr. Dunwoodie's private office? And the 'Herald' perhaps or the +'Times'--or--or---- + +Everything there, Broad Street to boot, the Stock Exchange included, Mr. +Purdy was ready and anxious to offer. + +No, Mrs. Paliser would not wait--and mentally she thanked her stars for +it. But would Mr. Purdy do something for her? + +Would he! The brave spirit of Talleyrand must have animated that sickly +young man. If what Mrs. Paliser desired were possible it would be done: +if impossible, it was done already. + +Cassy gave him the rare seduction of her smile. She also was +entertaining an emotion or two. She had not at all known where she would +find the strength to confront and confute a grandmotherly old ruffian. +But luck was with her. He was out. + +So very good of Mr. Purdy then and would he please give Mr. Dunwoodie +this cheque and say she's sorry she can't accept it or the other money +either? She had said she would, but, really, it was not intended for +her. Supposing she took it. She would feel like a thief in a fog. +Exactly that. A thief in a fog. No, she couldn't. Couldn't and wouldn't. +Just as grateful though to Mr. Dunwoodie. Her regrets to him and a +thousand thanks. + +"And good-day, Mr. Purdy. I thank you also." + +Mr. Purdy, flushing feebly, saw her to the door, saw her to the hall +without. There, while he waited with her for a descending lift, a silk +hat that had just come from a malachite bench, alighted from an +ascending one. Immediately the other lift took her. + +"Who was that?" the hat's owner alertly asked. + +Mr. Purdy rubbed his perspiring hands. "Mrs. Paliser." + +Jeroloman wheeled like a rat. He looked at the cage. It had vanished. He +looked at the other. Above it a moving finger pointed upward. +Cold-blooded, meticulously precise, intensely respectable, none the +less, for one delirious second, madness seized him. He wished to God he +could hurry down, overtake the impostor, lure her into his own office, +frighten her out of such wits as she possessed and buy her off for +tuppence. Instantly Respectability had him by the collar. He could not. +Precision gave him a kick. Wouldn't stand if he did. + +Deeply he swore. The millions were gone. Hands down, without a struggle, +the Paliser estate was rooked. No fault of his though, and mechanically +he adjusted that hat. Damn her! + +In the street below, superbly, with sidereal indifference, the sun shone +down on the imbecile activities of man. The storm of the day before that +had drenched Cassy so abundantly, had been blown afar, blown from her +forever. The sky in which a volcano had formed was remote and empty. + +"Ouf!" Cassy muttered in relief and muttered, too: "Now for the agent!" + +She had reached the corner. Just beyond was the subway. It would land +her within two squares of the man's greasy office. Now, though, +suddenly, she felt a gnawing. A sandwich would taste good. Two +sandwiches would taste better. Then, quite as suddenly, that vision, the +street with it, everything, except one thing only, vanished. + +Blocking the way stood Lennox. + +"Where to in such a hurry?" + +Easily she smiled and told him. "I'm going to buy a rhinoceros." But for +all the easiness of it her tongue nearly tripped. "And what are you +doing?" + +"I? Oh! Cleaning up." + +Wall Street is not a Japanese tea-garden. It lacks the klop-klop of +fountains. Yet, even in its metallic roar there may--for exceptional +beings--be peace there. Not for Cassy, though. She could have screamed. + +A moment only. Lennox turned and both moved on. + +"Let's get out of this." + +Cassy looked up at him. "You forget my little errand." + +"Ah, yes! The rhinoceros. Couldn't you ask me to meet him?" + +"I shall be giving dinner-parties for him every evening. Would you care +to come?" + +They had reached cavernous steps down which Cassy was going. + +Lennox raised his hat. "I will come to-night." + +Through the metallic roar, the four words dropped and hummed. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +"It is going to be splendid. There will be candles!"--a young person, +dead since but still living, exclaimed of her poet's fete. The fete, +however lavish, and which you will find reported by Murger, was not held +in a kitchen. The poet's garret did not contain a kitchen. That was +Paris. + +Hereabouts, nowadays, walk-ups are more ornate. Cassy's dinner that +night was served on rich linoleum and not out of snobbishness either but +because the table had gone from the living-room and though the piano +remained one could not very well dine on that, or, for that matter, on +the sofa. There are details into which a hostess never enters. Cassy--in +black chiffon--did not offer any and Lennox--in evening clothes--did not +ask. He had never dined in a kitchen before and, so far as the present +historian knows not to the contrary, he did not dine in one again. But +he enjoyed the experience. There was cold chicken, a salad, youth, +youth's wine and running laughter. For dessert, a remark. + +The rich linoleum then had been abandoned for the other room where Cassy +sat on the sofa and Lennox on the one surviving chair. Beyond was the +piano. Additionally, in some neighbourly flat, a phonograph performed. + +Among these luxuries sweets were served. A question preceded them. + +"Do you remember the afternoon you were in my rooms?" + +Yes, Cassy remembered it. + +Then came the remark. "That afternoon I laughed. Until to-night--except +once--I haven't laughed since then." + +Very good dessert, with more to follow. + +"When you went, the sunlight went with you. It went out at your heels +like a dog. I was thinking about it recently. I don't seem to have seen +the sunlight again, until it played about your rhinoceros." + +There are sweets that are bitter. Cassy took one. + +"Mr. Jones told me. It does seem such a pity, such a great pity. I saw +her once and I could see she was not merely good to look at but really +good, good through and through." + +"May I smoke?" Lennox asked. + +Had he wished he could have stood on his head. Cassy nodded at him. He +got out a cigar. + +"Miss Austen is all you say. She is a saint. A man doesn't want a saint. +A man wants flesh and blood." + +Cassy took another bitter-sweet. "She's that. Any one would know it." + +Lennox bit at the cigar. "Too good for me, though. So good that she +threw me over." + +Cassy put a finger through it. "She did not understand. Any girl might +have done the same." + +Sombrely Lennox considered her. "Would you? You say she did not +understand. I know well enough she did not. But if you cared for a man, +would you throw him over because of a charge which you could not be sure +was true and without giving him a chance to disprove it? Would you?" + +He could stand on his head, yes, but it was unfair to grill her. She +flushed. + +"I don't see what that has to do with it." + +"How, you don't see?" + +"Isn't it obvious? Miss Austen and I move in different worlds. On any +subject our views might differ and I don't mean at all but that hers +would be superior." + +"There can be but one view of what's square." + +"I am sure she meant to be." + +Unconcernedly, Lennox smiled. The smile lit his face. From sombre it +became radiant. + +"That's all very well. The point is what you would think. Would you +think it square to throw a man over as she threw me?" + +Cassy showed her teeth. "If I didn't care for him, certainly I would." + +"But if you did?" + +That was too much. Cassy exclaimed at it. "If! If! How can I tell? I +don't know. I lack experience." + +"But not heart." + +He was right about that, worse luck. How it beat, too! It would kill her +though to have him suspect it. + +"I do wish you would tell me," he added. + +Cassy, casting about, felt like an imbecile and said brilliantly: +"Haven't you a match? Shall I fetch one?" + +Lennox extracted a little case. "Thanks. It's an answer I'd like." + +It was enough to drive you mad and again casting about, but not getting +it, she hedged. + +"It will have to be in the abstract, then." + +"Very good. Let's have it in the abstract." + +Yet even in the abstract! However, with an uplift of the chin that gave +her, she felt, an air of discussing a matter in which she had no concern +at all, she plunged. + +"One never knows, don't you know, but it seems to me that if by any +chance I did care for a man--not that it is in the least presumable that +I ever shall--but if I did, why, then, no. He couldn't get rid of me, +not unless he tried very hard, but if he didn't, then no matter what I +heard, no matter how true it might be, I would cling to his coat-tails, +that is, if he wore them, and if, also, he cared for a ninny like me." + +Cassy paused, shook her docked hair and solemnly resumed: "Which, of +course, he couldn't." + +"I knew you would say that." + +"Say what?" Previously flushed, she reddened. But there is a God. The +room had grown dim. + +"That you wouldn't cut and run." + +She could have slapped him. "Then why did you ask me?" + +Lennox blew a ring of smoke. + +"To have you see it as I do. To have you see that at the first flurry +Miss Austen ran to cover. I am quite sure I could show her that she ran +too quick, but I am equally sure it is a blessing that she did run. It +is not ambitious of a man to want a girl who will stand her ground. +Sooner or later some other flurry would have knocked the ground from +under and then it might have been awkward. This one let me out." + +He stood up, opened the window, dropped the cigar from it. The cigar +might have been Margaret Austen. + +"What are your plans?" he asked and sat again. + +Ah, how much safer that was! Cassy grabbed at it. + +"You are the third person to ask me. First, Mr. Jones. Then--then----" +But she did not want to mention Dunwoodie or anything about the great +cascade of gorgeous follies and she jumped them both. "Then an agent. He +asked me yesterday and to-day he had a contract for me and a cheque in +advance. He is a very horrid little man but so decent!" + +"When does it begin?" + +"The engagement? Next week. What plans have you?" + +"A few that have been made for me. Presently we sail." + +"For France?" + +"For France." + +It was cooler now, at least her face was, and she got up and switched +the light. + +"I wish I might go, too," she told him. "But I lack the training to be +nurse and the means to be vivandiere--canteener, I think they call it." +She hesitated and added, "Shall I see you before you go?" + +But now from the phonograph in the neighbourly flat, the _Non te +scordar_ drifted, sung nobly by some fat tenor who probably loathed it. + +Lennox, who had risen with her, asked: "May I come to-morrow?" + +The aria enveloped them and for a moment Cassy trilled in. + +"Perhaps to-morrow you will sing for me," he continued. + +"Yes, I'll sing." + +Later, in the black room on the white bed, the fat tenor's tuneful +prayer floated just above her. Cassy repeated the words and told herself +she was silly. She may have been, but also she was tired. She knew it +and for a moment wondered why. Painted hours dancing to jewelled harps +are not to be sneezed at. But when they are not yours, when you have +really no right to them, it is not fatiguing to say so. A gesture does +not fatigue. It is certainly taxing to go to a greasy office, sign your +name and receive a cheque. Taxing but endurable. It is not that that +does you up. It is argument that tires you, particularly when there is +no need for any and you are forced to turn yourself inside out. How +fortunate it was, though, that the room had been dark! In the balm of +that, sleep took her. + +The next day she had many things to do and succeeded in botching most of +them. I have no mind for anything, she decided. What is the matter with +me? But, at least, when at last she opened the door for him, there was +nothing amiss with her appearance. + +In the room where the piano was, she sat down on the bench and smiled up +at him. "Shall I sing now?" + +Lennox put his hat on the sofa. "If you don't mind my talking to you." + +"Very good, we will have a duo." + +Over the keys her fingers moved, sketching a melody, passing from it +into another. + +Beside the bench Lennox had drawn the only chair. He looked about, then +at her. + +"I remember so well the first time I came here." + +Her lips tightened, but, suppressing the smile, she turned to him and +said and so patiently: + +"Is it a song without words you want, or words without song?" + +Lennox leaned toward her. It was then or, it might be, never. + +"It is you I want." + +Cassy turned from him. Her fingers, prompted by a note, had gone from it +into Gounod. + +"Will you marry me?" + +"Certainly not." + +It was as though he had asked her to go skating. To mark the absurdity +of it her voice mounted. + +"_Le printemps chasse les hivers----_" + +The words are imbecile but the air, which is charming, seemed to occupy +her wholly. + +"_Et sourit dans les arbres verts_----" + +"I know you don't care for me but couldn't you try?" + +"Eh?" Cassy stayed her fingers, reached for a score on the top of the +upright. "I thought you wanted me to sing." + +"I want to know whether you can't ever care for me." + +It sang about her like a flute. Something else was singing, not the bird +in her throat, for she had hushed it, but a bird in her heart. It had +been singing ever since he had entered the room. It had been singing +with her the duo of which lightly she had spoken. But it was singing too +loud. + +Hastily she replaced the score, pulled at another, shoved it back. + +"Won't you tell me?" Lennox was asking. + +It will burst, she thought. Sidling from the bench, she went to the +sofa, looked at it as though she had never seen it before, and sat down. + +"Won't you?" he repeated. + +She glanced over at him. Apparently now she was calm as you please. + +"People marry out of optimism, or at any rate I did. I have had my +lesson, thank you." + +Lennox stood up. "You have suffered----" + +"I read somewhere," she cut in, "that we have to suffer terribly before +we learn not to suffer at all." Pausing, she added: "I suppose then we +are dead." + +She was getting away from it and he rounded on her. + +"See here! We have both been in hell, but that's over. Even otherwise, +hell would not be hell to me if I were in it with you." + +Thump! Thump! It was worse than ever. None the less she looked cool as a +cucumber. + +"The prospect is not very tempting. Besides, even if it were----" Again +she paused, but this time without getting on with it. + +He came toward her. "Even if it were what?" + +"Temptation has its dangers. It may lead to captivity." + +"And you fear that?" + +"For you, yes." + +"For me!" he exclaimed. + +How it thumped! It thumped so that it hurt, yet spartanly she contrived +to smile. + +"You or any one. I was speaking generally. Then, too, you know, hell may +not be all your fancy pictures it." + +He floundered in it. "What do you mean?" + +"In no time you might get sick to death of me." + +"Never!" + +The denial exploded with such violence that the walls fell. Or at least +so it seemed to Cassy. It seemed to her that the room had become a tent +of fulgurant colours. They were blinding. She could not look at them. +How delicious it all was, though! In spite of which, she sighed. + +"Well, there is no telling. Some day I may go and take a look there." + +With mounting astonishment he repeated it. "Some day! But, if you ever +will, why not now?" + +Her eyes then were on him. "To find out." + +"Find out what?" + +"How you felt about it." + +"But how could you, if you don't care for me?" + +"Why do you say that?" + +"Because you told me so." + +Innocently, with an air of wonder, she took it up. "Did I? I don't think +so. I am sure I did not. I am convinced that I would not have +volunteered it and I am certain you did not ask." + +"I asked you a moment ago." + +If I don't make it stop, she thought, it will jump out. What shall I do? + +"And I ask you again," he gravely continued. + +It was in her throat. Try as she might she could not choke it back. Out +it came. + +"I have never cared for any one else." + +Lennox stared. It was incredible. Like many another it was incredible to +him that he should have sought afar for what was at his side. + +But not having finished, she resumed. "And I never shall." + +To that there could be but one reply. It was rough enough. Cassy did not +mind, but she freed herself, undulantly, as a woman can. + +Unrebuffably Lennox renewed it. "Let's be married at once." + +Cassy smoothed her rumpled hair. "No." The monosyllable fell like a +stone. + +Lennox kicked it. "In God's name, why not?" + +Cassy turned away. It was the hardest of all. Beside it, what was the +gesture of the day before? + +"Because. Just because." + +"Because why?" + +"Because I could not live to see you regret it." + +"But why should I? I never shall." His hands on her shoulders, violently +his eyes probed her own. + +She thought him so dear, but she said: "I have not cared for any one +else. You have. The growth of love is slow. You cannot love me now as +I love you." + +He wanted to shake her and nearly did. "But when you find I do?" + +"Ah, when that day comes, I will." + +"And meanwhile?" + +She just plucked at his sleeve. Nothing could have been more yielding. +It was yielding as water, and yielding still, her eyes fell. + +"For your sake only. Later--if--if----" + +Any great astonishment is dumb and, at the moment, a whirlwind tossed +his thoughts. In the swirling gale were sudden pictures; the girl's fair +arms, the delight of her lips, his own desire. Tumultuously they passed. +Before him flew the hazards of life, of death, and, curling there, the +iniquity of leaving her afterward, as leave her he must, alone to face +them. The counter-blast steadied him. Astonishment may be dumb, love is +clairvoyant. + +"For your own sake, no. The war cannot last forever and if I return, +then--then----" + + * * * * * + +Shortly, among the Victorian horrors of his gloomy rooms, she came to +see him off. + +Mrs. Austen, who heard of everything, heard of that. "I always knew it!" +she exclaimed. The dear woman had known nothing of the kind and her +perspicacity amazed her. + +But this has nothing to do with the Paliser Case which ended before it +began. + + * * * * * + +_BY EDGAR SALTUS_ + + HISTORIA AMORIS + + IMPERIAL PURPLE + + MARY MAGDALEN + + THE POMPS OF SATAN + + THE LORDS OF THE GHOSTLAND + + DAUGHTERS OF THE RICH + + + _In preparation_ + + SCAFFOLDS AND ALTARS + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Printer's error - No Chapter XVII header in text. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Paliser case, by Edgar Saltus + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PALISER CASE *** + +***** This file should be named 29847.txt or 29847.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/4/29847/ + +Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +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. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/29847.zip b/29847.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..442d794 --- /dev/null +++ b/29847.zip 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..6723a4f --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #29847 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29847) |