CHAPTER XI
TWO MEN AND A MAID
Have you ever thought that the reason we can so fully sympathize withcertain great people of history, and not with others, is because weare occasionally granted a glimpse of the emotion our favoritesenjoyed--or endured?
For instance, no man who has ever knocked the "t" out of "can't"stands beside Napoleon's tomb without a sensation which takes the formof: "_We_ understand each other--don't we, old top?"
And every year at spring-time, Romeo is patted on the backcondescendingly by thousands of youths--so susceptible that they'dfall in love with anything whose skirt and waist met in the back.
The night of the Kendalls' dance _I_ knew what Cleopatra's cosmicconsciousness resembled--exactly. I knew it from the moment sheglanced away from the glint of her silver oars of the wonderful Nilebarge (because the glint of Antony's dark eyes was so much morecompelling) to the hour she recklessly unwrapped the basket of figs inher death chamber! I ran the whole gamut of her emotions--'twixt loveand duty--and I came out of it feeling that--well, certainly I feltthat a conservatory is a room where eavesdroppers hear no good ofthemselves!
"Is everybody crazy to-night?" I whispered to Guilford, as we pausedfor a moment before the dancing commenced just outside one of thedowny, silky reception rooms--quite apart from the noisy ballroomfarther back--and I saw two people inside. The girl was seated beforethe piano, and was singing softly, while the man stood at her side,listening with a rapt expression.
"Who would ever have thought that _that_ girl would be singing _that_song to _that_ man?" I asked, with a quivery little feeling that theworld was going topsyturvy with other people besides me. The singerwas the careless, rowdy golf champion of the state, and the manlistening was Oldburgh's astonishing young surgeon--the kind who neverwent anywhere because it was said he laid aside his scalpel only whenhe was obliged to pick up his fork.
"What is the song?" Guilford inquired, looking in, then drawing backsoftly and dropping the curtain that screened the doorway.
"_Caro Mio Ben!_"
"A love song?"
I smiled.
"Well, rather!"
Then somebody crowded up and separated Guilford and me. I stood therelistening to the lovely Italian words, and wondering if the night werein truth bewitched. Guilford, under the impulse induced by a whitetissue gown and big red roses, had suffered an unusual heart-actionalready and had spent half an hour whispering things in my ear whichmade me feel embarrassed and ashamed. The only thing which canpossibly make a lifelong engagement endurable is the brotherlyattitude assumed by the lover in his late teens.
"Come in," he said, elbowing his way back to me through the chatteringthrong of the autumn's debutantes, after a few minutes. "I hear theviolins beginning to groan--and say--_haven't_ they got everybodyworth having here to-night?"
"I don't--know," I replied vaguely, looking up and down the length ofthe room that we were entering.
"But--there's Mrs. Walker, and there are the Chester girls, and DanHunter, just back from Africa--and--"
"Certainly they've got a fine selection of Oldburgh's solid,rolled-gold ornaments," I commented dryly, as my eyes searched theother side of the room.
"Oh, besides local talent in plenty to create some excitement, there'san assortment of imported artists," he went on. "That French fellow,d'Osmond, has been teaching some of the kids a new figure and they'regoing to try it to-night. Have you met him?"
"Yes, indeed--oh, no, of course I haven't met him, Guilford!" Ianswered impatiently. "How could I meet a stray French nobleman? Thesociety editor is _his_ Boswell."
He turned away, hurt at my show of irritation, but I didn't care. Iwas in that reckless mood that comes during a great fire, or a stormat sea, or any other catastrophe when the trivialities of living fadeinto pygmy proportions before the vast desire for mere life.
"And there's that Consolidated Traction Company fellow," he saidhumbly, calling my attention to a bunch of new arrivals at the doorsof the ballroom. "What's his name?"
"Maitland Tait."
"Have you met him?" he inquired.
Now usually Guilford is not humble, nor even very forgiving, so thatwhen he turned to me again and showed that he was determined to beentertaining, I glanced at a mirror we happened to be passing. Howeasy it would be to keep men right where we wanted them if life couldbe carried on under frosted lights, in white tissue gowns, holding bigred roses!
"Yes, I've met him," I answered giddily. "He was at Mrs. Walker's FlagDay reception Tuesday--and he brought me to town in his car, then camecalling Wednesday afternoon, and--"
Guilford had stopped still and was looking at me as if anxious to knowwhen I'd felt the first symptoms.
"Oh, it's true," I laughed desperately.
"Then why----"
"Didn't I tell you?"
"Yes--that is, you might have mentioned it. Of course, it really makesno difference--" He smiled, dismissing it as a triviality.
Gentle reader, I don't know whether your sympathies have secretly beenwith Guilford all the time or not--but I know that mine weredistinctly with him at that moment. If there is ever a season when awoman's system is predisposed toward the malady known as sex love, itis when some man is magnanimous about another man. And Guilford'smanner at that instant was magnanimous--and I already had fifty-sevenother varieties of affection for him! I decided then, in the twinklingof my fan chain, which I was agitating rather mercilessly, that ifGuilford were the kind of a man I _could_ love, he'd be the very man Ishould adore.
--But he wasn't. And the kind I could love was disentangling himselffrom the group around the door and coming toward me at that verymoment.
"Have you met him?" I asked of my companion, trying to pretend thatthe noise was my fan chain and not my heart.
"No."
In another instant they were shaking hands cordially.
"You'll excuse me a moment?" Guilford asked, turning to me--after heand Maitland Tait had propounded and answered perfunctory questionsabout Oldburgh. "I wanted to speak to--Delia Ramage."
I had never before in my life heard of his wishing to speak to DeliaRamage, but she was the nearest one to him, so he veered across to herside, while I was left alone with the new arrival. This is calledheaping coals of fire.
"I was glad to see you--a moment ago," Maitland Tait said in that lowintimate tone which is usually begotten only by daily or hourlythought. Take two people who have not seen each other for a week, northought of each other, and when they meet they will shrill outspontaneous, falsetto tones--but not so with two people whose spiritshave communed five minutes before. They lower their voices when theycome face to face, for they realize that they are before the sanctum."You're looking most--unusually well."
He was not, but I refrained from telling him so. Most thoughtful menassume a look of constraint when they are forced to mingle with ashallow-pated, boisterous throng, and he was strictly of this type--Iobserved it with a thrill of triumph.
Yet the festive appearance of evening dress was not unbecoming to him.His was that kind of magnificent plainness which showed to advantagein gala attire, and I knew that even if I could get him off to livethe life of a cave-man, occasionally a processional of the tribe wouldcause him to thrust brilliant feathers into his goatskin cap and bindhis sandals with gleaming new thongs. But then the martial excitementof a processional would cause his eyes to light up with a brilliancyto match the feathers in his cap, and a dance could not do this.
"Of course you're engaged for the first dance?" he asked, as the musicbegan and a general commotion ensued. "I knew that I'd have to missthat--when I was late. But"--he came a step closer and spoke as ifacting under some hasty impulse--"I want to tell you how very lovelyI think you are to-night! I hope you do not mind my saying this? Ididn't know it before--I thought it was due to other influences--butyou are beautiful."
It was at this moment that the silver oars of the Nile barge weredimmed under the greater resplendence of dark eyes
--and the purplesilk sails closed out the sky, but closed in heaven. Cleopatra and Imight have cut our teeth on the same coral ring, for all theinferiority _I_ felt to her in that instant.
"I--I'm afraid--" I began palpitatingly, for you must know thatpalpitations are part of the Egyptian role--the sense of danger andwrong were what raised--or lowered--the flitting space of time out ofthe ordinary lover thrills. "I am afraid----"
"But you must not say that!" he commanded, his deep voice muffled."This is just the beginning of what I wish to say to you."
I wrenched my eyes away from his--then looked quickly for Guilford.Grandfather Moore's warnings in my ear were choking the violin musicinto demoniac howls. I don't believe that any woman ever really enjoyshaving two men love her at the same time--and this is notcontradicting what I've said in the above paragraph about Cleopatra. Inever once said that I had _enjoyed_ feeling like her--you simply tookit for granted that I had!
"Aren't you going to dance--with some one?" I asked, turning backquickly, as Guilford's arm slipped about me and we started away into aheartless, senseless motion. Maitland Tait stood looking at me for aninstant without answering, then swept his eyes down the room to whereMrs. Charles Sefton--a sister-in-law of the house of Kendall--and herdaughter Anabel were standing. Mrs. Sefton was a pillar of society,and, if one _must_ use architectural similes, Anabel was a block. Theycaught him and made a sandwich of him on the spot. I whirled away withGuilford.
At the end of the dance I found myself at the far end of the ballroom,close to a door that opened into a small conservatory. The dim greenwithin looked so calm and uncomplicated beside the glare of lightwhich surrounded me that I turned toward it--thirstily.
"I'm going in here to rest a minute, Guilford," I explained, settinghim free with a little push toward a group of girls he knew. "You runalong and dance with some of them. Men aren't any too plentifulto-night."
"No-o--I'll go with you," he objected lazily, slipping his cigarettecase from his pocket. "You're too darned pretty to-night to stay longin a conservatory alone."
"But I'll not be alone," I replied, with a return of that frightfulrecklessness which tempted me to throw myself on his mercy and say:"I'm in love with this Englishman--madly in love! I have never been inlove before--and I hope I shall never be again if it always feels likethis!" Instead of saying this, however, I said, with a smile: "Don'tthink for a moment that I shall be alone. Grandfather and UncleLancelot will be with me."
He looked disgusted.
"What's going on in your conscience now?" he asked, with slightlyprimped lips.
"Something--that I'll tell you about later."
"But has it got to be threshed out to-night?" he demanded irritably."I had hoped that we might spend this one evening acting like humanbeings."
"Still, it seems that we can't," I answered, with a foolish attempt tosound inconsequential. "Please let me sit down in here by myself for alittle while, Guilford."
He turned on his heel, with an unflattering abruptness, and left me. Ientered the damp, earthy-smelling room, where wicker tables held giantferns, and a fountain drizzling sleepily in the center of theapartment, broke off the view of a green cane bench just beyond; Imade for this settee and sank down dejectedly.
How long I sat there I could not tell--one never can, if you'venoticed--but after a little while I heard the next dance start, andthen three people, still in the position of a sandwich, entered.
"How warm it is to-night!" I heard Maitland Tait's voice suddenlyproclaim, in a fretful tone, as if the women with him were responsiblefor the disagreeable fact. But he drew up a chair, rather meekly, andsubsided into it. "This is the first really warm night we've had thissummer."
"It seems like the irony of fate, doesn't it?" Anabel Sefton askedwith a nervous little giggle. There are some girls who can never talkto a man five minutes without bringing fate's name into theconversation.
"We had almost no dances during April and May, when one really neededviolence of some sort to keep warm," her mother hastened to explain."And now, at this last dance of the season, it is actually hot."
"The last big dance, mother."
"Of course!" Mrs. Sefton leaned toward the other two chairsconfidentially. "A crush like this is too big," she declared.
"Oh, but I like the big affairs," Anabel pouted. "You never know thenwho you're going to run across! Just think of the unfamiliar faceshere to-night! I happened up on Gayle Cargill and Doctor Macdonalddown in the drawing-room a while ago--where they'd hidden to singItalian, sotto voce!"
"Then Dan Hunter is here--for a wonder," her mother agreed, as if arecital of Oldburgh's submerged tenth were quite the most interestingthing she could think up for a foreigner's delectation, "and GraceChristie! Have you met Miss Christie, Mr. Tait?"
"Yes," he replied.
"She's gone in for newspaper work," Anabel elucidated.
"Just a pose," her mother hastily added. "She really belongs to one ofour best families, and is engaged to Guilford Blake."
"But she won't marry him," Anabel said virtuously. "I'm sure _I_ can'tunderstand such a nature. They've been engaged all their livesand----"
"She doesn't deserve anything better than to lose him," her motherbroke in. "If he should chance to look in some other direction for awhile she'd change her tactics, no doubt."
"Oh--no doubt," echoed a deep male voice, the tones as cool as thewater-drops plashing into the fountain beside him.
"Anyway, it's her kind--those women who would be sirens if themythological age hadn't passed--who cause so much trouble in theworld," Mrs. Sefton wound up. At fifty-two women can look upon sirensdispassionately.
After a while the music began throbbing again, and a college boy cameup to claim Anabel. The trio melted quietly away. I rose from my chairand started toward the door when I saw that Maitland Tait had not leftwith the others. He was standing motionless beside the fountain.
I came up with him and he did not start. Evidently he had known allthe while that I was in the room.
"Well?" he said, with a certain aloofness that strangely enough gavehim the appearance of intense aristocracy. "Well?"
"Well--" I echoed, feebly, but before I could go away farther he haddrawn himself up sharply.
"I was coming to look for you--to say good-by," he said.
"Good-by?" I repeated blankly. "You mean good night, don't you?"
"No."
Our eyes met squarely then, and mine dropped. They had hit againststeel.
"And this is--good-by?" I plead, while I felt that wild wind and waveswere beating against my body and that the skies were falling.
"Of course!" he answered harshly. "What else could it be?"
I think that we must have stood there in silence for a minute or more,then, without speaking another word, or even looking at me squarelyin the face again, he moved deliberately away and I lost all trace ofhim in the crowd.
Amazing Grace, Who Proves That Virtue Has Its Silver Lining Page 11