The Gay Rebellion
Page 25
LEFT OVER
XXIV
SHE knew so little about the metropolis that, on her first visit, a yearbefore, she had asked the driver of the taxicab to recommend arespectable hotel for a lady travelling alone; and he had driven her tothe Hotel Aurora Borealis--that great, gay palace of Indiana limestoneand plate glass towering above the maelstrom of Long Acre.
When, her business transacted, she returned to the Westchester farm,still timid, perplexed, and partly stunned by the glitter and noise ofher recent metropolitan abode, she determined never again to stop atthat hotel.
But when the time came for her to go again the long list of hotelsconfused her. She did not know one from the other; she shrank fromexperimenting; and, at least, she knew something about the AuroraBorealis and she would not feel like an utter stranger there.
That was the only reason she went back there _that_ time. And the nexttime she came to town that was the principal reason she returned to theAurora Borealis. But the next time, she made up her mind to go elsewhere;and in the roaring street she turned coward, and went to the only placeshe knew. And the time after that she fought a fierce little combat withherself all the way down in the train; and, with flushed cheeks, hatingherself, ordered the cabman to take her to the Hotel Aurora Borealis.
But it was not until several trips after that one--on a rainy morning inMay--that she found courage to say to the maid at the cloak-room door:
"Who _is_ that young man? I always see him in the lobby when I comehere."
The maid cast an intelligent glance toward a tall, well-built youngfellow who stood pulling on his gloves near the desk.
"Huh!" she sniffed; "he ain't much."
"What do you mean?" asked the girl.
"Why, he's a capper, mem."
"A--a what?"
"A capper--a gambler."
The girl flushed scarlet. The maid handed her a check for her rain-coatand said: "They hang around swell hotels, they do, and pick upacquaintance with likely looking and lonely boobs. Then the first thingthe lonely boob knows he's had a good dinner with a new acquaintance andis strolling into a quiet but elegant looking house in the West Fortiesor Fifties." And the maid laughed, continuing her deft offices in thedressing-room, and the girl looked into the glass at her own crimsoncheeks and sickened eyes.
At luncheon he sat at a little table by a window, alone, indolentlypreoccupied with a newspaper and a fruit salad. She, across the room,kept her troubled eyes away. Yet it was as though she saw him--perhapsthe mental embodiment of him was the more vivid for her resolutelyaverted head.
Every detail of his appearance was painfully familiar to her--his darkeyes, his smooth face which always seemed a trifle sun-tanned, thefastidious and perfect taste of his dress in harmony with his boyishcharm and quiet distinction--and the youth of him--the wholesome andself-possessed youth--that seemed to her the most dreadful thing abouthim in the new light of her knowledge. For he could scarcely betwenty-five.
Every movement he made had long since fascinated her; his unconsciousgrace had been, to her, the unstudied assurance of a man of the worldbred to a social environment about which she knew only through reading.
Never had she seen him but straightway she began to wonder who and whatexalted person in the unknown metropolitan social circle he might be.
She had often wondered, speculated; sometimes dreamily she had endowedhim with name and position--with qualities, too--ideal qualitiessuggested by his air of personal distinction--delightful qualitiessuggested by his dark, pleasant eyes, and by the slight suspicion ofhumour lurking so often on the edges of his smoothly shaven lips.
He was so clean-looking, so nice--and he had the shoulders and the handsand the features of good breeding! And, after all--after all, he was agambler!--a derelict whose sinister living was gained by his wits; atrailer and haunter and bleeder of men! Worse--a decoy sent out byothers!
She had little appetite for luncheon; he seemed to have less. But sheremembered that she had never seen him eat very much--and never drinkanything stronger than tea.
"At least," she thought with a mental quiver, "he has that to hiscredit."
The quiver surprised her; she was scarcely prepared for any emotionconcerning him except the natural shock of disillusion and the naturalpity of a young girl for anything ignoble and hopelessly unworthy.
Hopelessly? She wondered. Was it possible that God could ever find themeans of grace for such a man? It _could_ be done, of course; it were asin for her to doubt it. Yet she could not see how.
Still, he was young enough to have parents living somewhere; unmarredenough to invite confidence if he cared to. . . . And suddenly it struckher that to invite confidence was part of his business; his charm part ofhis terrible equipment.
She sat there breathing faster, thinking.
His charm was part of his equipment--an infernal weapon! She understoodit now. Long since, innocently speculating, she had from the verybeginning and without even thinking, conceded to him her confidence inhis worthiness. And--the man was a gambler!
For a few moments she hated him hotly. After a while there was moresorrow than heat in her hatred, more contempt for his profession than forhim. . . . And _somebody_ had led him astray; that was certain, becauseno man of his age--and appearance--could have deliberately and of his owninitiative gone so dreadfully and cruelly wrong in the world.
Would God pity him? Would some means be found for his salvation? Wouldsalvation come? It must; she could not doubt it--after she had liftedher eyes once more and looked at him where he sat immersed in hisnewspaper, a pleasant smile on his lips.
A bar of sunlight fell across his head, striping his shoulder; thescarlet flowers on the table were becoming to him. And, oh! he seemed soharmless--so delightfully decent; there where the sunlight fell acrosshis shoulder and spread in a golden net across the white cloth under hiselbows.
She rose, curiously weary; a lassitude lay upon her as she left the roomand went out into the city about her business--which was to see herlawyer concerning the few remaining details of her inheritance.
The inheritance was the big, prosperous Westchester farm where shelived--had always lived with her grandfather since her parents' death. Itwas turning out to be very valuable because of the mania of the wealthyfor Westchester acreage and a revival in a hundred villages of themagnificence of the old Patroons.
Outside of her own house and farm she had land to sell to the landed andrepublican gentry; and she sold it and they bought it with an aviditythat placed her financial independence beyond doubt.
All the morning she transacted business downtown with the lawyer. In theafternoon she went to a matinee all by herself, and would have had a mostblissful day had it not been for the unquiet memory of a young man who,she had learned that morning, was fairly certain of eternal damnation.
That evening she went back to Westchester absent-minded and depressed.