CHAPTER IX
AN INVITATION
That evening Laurie walked across the square to Doris's studio with adecision in his stride which definitely expressed his mental attitude.He had come to the conclusion that something must be done. What thissomething would be was still hazy in his mind, but the first step atleast seemed clear. Doris must move.
He was so convinced of the urgency of this step that he brought up thesubject almost before the greetings of guest and hostess were over.Tossing his hat and coat on a convenient chair, he stood facing Doris,his hands in his pockets, his black eyes somber.
"We've got to get you out of this, you know," he abruptly announced.
Her eyes, which had brightened at his entrance, grew as somber as hisown. Without replying, she turned, walked across the room to the window,and stood looking down into the street.
"Is he there?" she asked at last, and without moving her head.
"Shaw? Great Scott, no! At least I didn't see him. I suppose he takes afew hours off now and then, during the twenty-four; doesn't he?"
"Oh, yes, he comes and goes, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly. I didnot see him at all to-day until late this afternoon. Then he took up hispost across the street just opposite this window, and stood there foralmost an hour."
Laurie ground his teeth.
"What does he expect to gain by that performance?"
"Several things, I suppose. For one, he wants to get on my nerves; andhe does," she added somberly, and still without turning.
Laurie made a vague tour around the room and brought up by her side.
"You know," he confessed, "I haven't really taken this thing in yet.Even now, this minute, it doesn't seem possible to me that Shaw could doyou any real harm."
She nodded. "I know. Why should it? Even to me it is like a nightmareand I keep hoping to wake up. There are hours, even days, when Iconvince myself that it isn't real." She stopped. "It must be very hardfor any one else to understand," she ended, when he did not speak.
"Nevertheless," admitted Laurie, "I can't forget it. I can't think ofanything else."
She took this as naturally as she had taken his first remark.
"It's going to be very hard for you. I was wrong to draw you into it. Iam realizing that more and more, every minute."
"You couldn't help yourself," he cheerfully reminded her. "Now that I amin it, as I've warned you before, I intend to run things. It seems to methat the obvious course for you is to move. After you're safely hiddensomewhere, I think I can teach Herbert Ransome Shaw a lesson that won'treact on you."
She shook her head.
"If I moved, how long do you think it would take him to find me?"
"Weeks, perhaps months."
Again she shook her head.
"I moved here a few days ago. He appeared exactly forty-eight hourslater. If I moved from here it would only mean going through the game ofhare and hounds again."
"But--" he began. She interrupted him.
"I've reached the point where I can't endure that any more." For thefirst time her voice broke. "Can't you imagine what that sort of thingwould be? To get up in the morning and wonder if this is the day I'llsee him under my window? To go to bed at night and ask myself if he islurking in the shadows below, or across the street, or perhaps outsidemy very door? To know that sooner or later he will be there, that hiscoming is as inevitable as death itself--" She broke off.
"I sometimes think I'd rather see a boa-constrictor crawling into myroom than see Shaw down on the sidewalk," she ended. "And yet--I knowyou can understand this--there's a queer kind of relief in the knowledgethat at last, and finally, he has got me."
She whirled to face Laurie and threw out her hands. There was nothingtheatrical in the gesture, merely an effect of entire finality.
"We have come to the end of things," she finished. "Since you would nothave them end my way, they must end his way. Whatever happens, I shallnot run and hide any more."
For a moment silence hung like a substance between them. Then thevisitor resolutely shook off the effect of her words.
"I promise you I will get to the bottom of this," he quietly told her."In the meantime, will you try to forget it, for a little while? Youknow you said you could do that, occasionally."
He was clearing the table as he spoke. Now he proceeded to unpack abasket he had sent over an hour before by Griggs, and which, heobserved, had not been opened. Dropping back into her big chair, shewatched him with an odd look. If he had seen this look it would havesorely puzzled him, for it held not only interest but an element ofapprehension, even of fear.
"In the past two days," she said, after an interval, "you have sent mefive baskets of food, four baskets of fruit, six boxes of candy, andthree boxes of flowers. What do you suppose becomes of them all?"
"I know what becomes of the flowers." He cast an appreciative glancearound the transformed room. "And I hope," he mildly added, "that youeat the food."
She broke into her rare laugh, soft, deep-throated, and contagious.Under it his spirits rose dizzyingly.
"You are feeding half the people in this building," she said, "not tomention Sam and his home circle. Sam has absorbed roast chicken, coldpartridge, quail, and sweetbreads till he is getting critical. He askedme this morning if I shouldn't like ham and eggs for a change!"
Laurie felt slightly aggrieved.
"Do you mean to say that you're not eating any of the stuff yourself?"he demanded.
"Oh, I eat three meals a day. But I don't keep boarders, you know; so Igive the rest to Sam to distribute. He feeds several dozen art students,I infer, and staggers home every night under the burden of what'sleft."
"There won't be anything left this night."
She had risen now and was helping to set the little table. Laurie lookedat her with shining eyes. One of her rapid changes of mood had takenplace, and she was entering into the spirit of the impromptu supper ascheerfully as if it were a new game and she a child. She had become awholly different personality from the tragic-eyed girl who less than tenminutes ago had somberly announced that she was making her last stand inlife. Again, as often before, Laurie felt overwhelmed by the rush ofconflicting emotions she aroused.
"Shall we have this big bowl of roses in the center, or the four littlebowls at the corners?" she asked absorbedly.
As she spoke, she studied the flowers with her head on one side. For themoment, it was clear, the question she had asked was the most vital inthe world.
"The little ones," decided the guest. "The big one might shut off someof you from my devouring eyes." He was mixing ingredients in achafing-dish as he spoke, and he wore the trying air of smug complacencythat invariably accompanies that simple process.
"No," he objected, as she tried to help him, "I will do the brain-work.Your part is to be feminine and rush briskly back and forth, offering methings I don't want. And at the last moment," he added gloomily, "youmay tell me that there isn't a lemon in the place." He looked about withthe hopelessness of a great artist facing the failure of hischef-d'oeuvre. "I forgot the lemons."
She went across the room to a small closet. Even in the strain of themoment he observed the extraordinary grace and swiftness of hermovements. She was very slender, very lithe, and she moved like a flashof light.
"Fancy my being caught without a lemon!" she scoffed, as she returnedwith the fruit. "Your brain-work stops abruptly sometimes, doesn't it?"
She handed him the lemons with a little gesture expressing amusement,triumph, and a dash of coquetry. Laurie's eyes glowed as he looked ather. For the second time, in her actual presence, a sharp thrill shotthrough him. Oh, if she were always like this!--gay, happy, without thatincredible, unbelievable background of tragedy and mystery! He turnedhis mind resolutely from the intruding thought. This hour at least washers and his. It should be prolonged to the last moment.
What he longed for was to hear her talk, but that way, he knew, laydisaster to the little supper in swift-returning memory. If sh
e began totalk, the forbidden topic, now dormant, would uncoil its hideous lengthand hiss. He must hold her attention to other things.
He plunged at random into chatter. For the first time he told her aboutBangs, his chum, and about Epstein, their manager; about their plays andtheir experiences in rehearsals and on the road. Being very young andslightly spoiled, he experienced some chagrin in the discovery that sheseemed alike ignorant of the men and the plays. Worse yet, she seemednot even aware that she should have known who Bangs and Epstein were.She did not recall having heard the title of "The Black Pearl." She wasnot only unaware that "The Man Above" had broken all box-office records;she seemed unconscious that it had ever been written. Observing hisartless surprise, she gravely explained. "I have been interested inother things," she reminded him.
The forbidden topic was stirring, stretching. To quiet it, Laurie leapedinto the comedy scenes of "The Man Above." They delighted her. Her soft,delicious laughter moved him to give her bits from "The Black Pearl,"and, following these, the big scenes from the latter play. This lasteffort followed the supper; and Laurie, now in his highest spirits,added to his effects by the use of a brilliant afghan, and by muchraising and lowering of the light of the reading-lamp.
He was a fine mimic. He became by turns the star, the leading lady, thecomedian, and the "heavy" of the big play. It was only when he hadstopped for a moment's rest, and Doris demanded a description of theleading lady's gowns, now represented by the afghan, that his ingenuityfailed.
"They're so beautiful that most people think I made them," he said,serenely. "But I didn't, really, so I can't give you any details, exceptthat they're very close-fitting around the feet."
He was folding up the afghan as he spoke, and he stopped in the act,leaving one end dangling on the floor. From the street below the soundof a whistle came up to him, sharp and penetrating, repeating over andover the same musical phrase, the opening notes of the Fifth Symphony.At first he thought the notes were whistled by some casual passer-by.Then, glancing at the girl's face, he knew better. The sharp, recurrentphrase was a signal.
He finished folding the afghan, and carefully replaced it on the divanfrom which he had borrowed it. As he did so, he prattled on. He hadsuddenly decided not to hear that signal. Doris, sitting transfixed andstaring at him, slowly became convinced that he had not heard it.
He glanced at his watch.
"A shocking hour!" he ejaculated. "Ten o'clock. If I go now, may I comeback for breakfast?"
"You may not." She made an effort to speak lightly.
"To take you to luncheon, then, at one?"
"No, please."
He shook his head at her.
"This is not the atmosphere of hospitality I am used to, but I shallcome anyway. I'll be here at one. In the meantime, I suddenly realizethat we are not using all of our opportunities. We must change that."
He looked around as he spoke, and, finding what he sought, picked it up.It was a small scarf, a narrow bit of Roman silk carrying a vividstripe. He held this before her.
"Something may happen some day, and you may want me in a hurry," hesaid. "I have observed with regret that you have no telephone in thisroom, but we can get on without one. My mirror reflects your window, youknow," he added a little self-consciously. "If you need me, hang up thisscarf. Just drape it over this big window-catch. If I ever see it, I'llcome prancing across the square like a knight to your rescue."
"Thank you."
She gave him her hand and the enigmatic smile that always subtly butintensely annoyed him. There was something in that smile which he didnot understand, but he suspected that it held an element of amusedunderstanding. So might Doris, years hence, smile at her little son.
"She thinks I'm a reed," Laurie reflected as he waited in the outer hallfor the elevator. "I don't blame her. I've been a perfectly good reedever since I met her friend Bertie."
His thoughts, thus drawn to Shaw, dwelt on that ophidian personality.When the elevator arrived he was glad to recognize the familiar face ofSam.
"Yaas, sah," that youth affably explained, with a radiant exhibition ofteeth, "it's Henry's night _off_, so I has to be _on_."
They were alone in the car. Laurie, lighting a cigarette, asked a casualquestion.
"There's a plump person in blue serge who hangs around here a gooddeal," he remarked, indifferently. "Does he live in the building?"
"The one wid eyes what sticks out?"
"That's the one."
Sam's jaw set.
"No, sah, dat party don' live yere. An' ef he don' stop hangin' 'roundyere, somethin's gwine t' happen to dat man," he robustly asserted.
"What's he after?"
"I dunno. I only seen him twicet. Las' time he was sneakin' fum de topflo'. But I cert'n'y don' like dat man's looks!"
Nothing more was to be learned from Sam. Laurie thoughtfully walked outinto the square. He had taken not more than a dozen steps when a voice,strange yet unpleasantly familiar, accosted him.
"Good-evening, Mr. Devon," it said.
Laurie turned sharply. Herbert Ransome Shaw was walking at his side,which was as it should be. It was to meet and talk with Herbert RansomeShaw that he had so abruptly ended his call.
"Look here," he said at once, "I want a few words with you."
"Exactly." Shaw spoke with suave affability. "It is to have a few wordsthat I am here."
"Where can we go?"
Shaw appeared to reflect.
"Do you mind coming to my rooms?" Laurie hesitated. "I live quite near,and my quarters, though plain, are comfortable."
Anger surged up in the young man beside him. There was something almostinsulting in Shaw's manner as he uttered the harmless words, and in thereassuring yet doubtful intonation of his voice.
"Confound him!" Laurie told himself. "The hound is actually hinting thatI'm afraid to go!" Aloud, he said brusquely, "All right."
"You have five minutes to spare? That's capital!"
Shaw was clearly both surprised and pleased. He strode forward withshort steps, rapid yet noiseless, and Laurie adapted his longer strideto his companion's. He, too, was content. Now, at last, he reflected, hewas through with mysteries, and was coming to a grip with somethingtangible.
The Girl in the Mirror Page 9