The Sixty-First Second

by Owen Johnson

  *CHAPTER IX*

  The party was in full progress when they arrived. Jack and TomLindabury resided, as far as they could be said to reside anywhere, in agreat green stone house of the 1860 period, with a deep garden in theback on which originally stood a stable, access to which was had, in theParisian style, by a long, vaulted passage at one side. The Lindaburys,having discovered, as many other young men of fortune did at thisperiod, the social adaptability of the artist's atelier, had transformedthe stable into a great studio, with a kitchen and two or threedressing-rooms, which served when the place was given over to amateurtheatricals or to the not always restrained fetes of the brothers'invention.

  Gunther's party emerged from the hollow passage into the sudden cool ofthe short garden, where masked stone seats and arbors were faintlydisclosed by the great stable lantern which swung at the entrance of thestudio. Several couples, profiting by the obscurity, could be seenmoving in the sudden shadows of the garden, laughing with a nervous,stifled laughter, as groups crossed or joined one another.

  Holliday and Beecher, recognizing acquaintances, saluted them with thelight banter, which was the note of the evening. Mme. Fornez, inside,called her companions with exclamations of surprise which drew thewhispered curiosity of every one to her entrance.

  "Oh, how funny it is! Look, Teddy, what do you call it? It isyour--cowboy life, is it not?"

  The great room had been transformed into a mining saloon of the typemade popular by a certain play of the day. A bar ran across one end,presided over by an impossibly wicked bartender. A roulette-wheel wascrowded at one side, while a negro orchestra, in 1850 costume, wasbusily sawing away, led by a cotton-head darky on a soap-box, who dronedout his directions. Three-fourths of the room were in costume, Indian,Spanish, cowboy or frontier At the appearance of the new arrivals inevening dress, a shout went up:

  "Tenderfeet, tenderfeet!"

  "Fine them!"

  "Shoot 'em up!"

  But, in deference to Mrs. Fontaine and Emma Fornez, the protest was notso boisterous or accompanied by such rushing tactics as had greetedothers. Nevertheless they were fined and escorted to one of thedressing-rooms. The men were forced to don dusters and white top-hats,and the women were given sombreros and mantillas.

  Mme. Fornez, despite the frowns of Holliday, clung to Beecher's arm,insisting on being personally conducted, plying him with innumerablequestions.

  "Oh what a terrible man! What an awful knife. I like the blackmen--_sont ils rigolots_--with their red and white collars. I want tosee the bar-man toss drinks--so, in the air, Teddy. Come this way."

  All at once she stopped, and, facing about, took him by the lapels ofthe coat.

  "It does not annoy you that I adopt you--that I call you Teddy?" shesaid, with a simulation of timidity and a sudden concentration of herswimming black eyes.

  "Emma," he said, laughing, "if you stop there I shall die ofdisappointment."

  She frowned a little at the "Emma," but yielded the point.

  "You are not very responsive, Monsieur Beecher," she said, with a flash,"when I am so nice to you."

  "My dear Emma," said Beecher, who, not being in love, could see clearly,"if I don't fall at your feet, it's because I know very well that themoment I did you would bulldoze me like Bob Holliday."

  Emma Fornez looked at him with a sudden gay approval.

  "Teddy, you are very nice," she said decidedly. "You understand how toplay. I forbid you to fall in love, to get caught by any other woman,you understand. You are to be mine for the whole season--_hein_?"

  "Nothing promised," said Beecher, laughing.

  Holliday came with two or three friends, clamoring to be introduced.Beecher profited by the confusion to make the turn of the room, whichwas crowded with laughing groups striving to penetrate the disguises ofothers while maintaining their own. At the faro table, a group from hisclub called to him to join them, but he kept on, saluting the dealer,costumed according to Bret Harte, with an approving wave of the hand.

  The assembly was one of those curious social demarcations which prevailwhen formal society essays to be Bohemian, and which is probably evolvedby the women in their always curious desire to study at close rangethose whose lives they are generally condemning. As is usually thecase, the guests were made up of those who remained wrapped up in amantel of inquisitive respectability, and would go early; a large bodywho waited impatiently for this first secession; and a certain element,not all professionals, at present exceedingly punctilious, who wouldinherit the right to put out the lanterns and close up the doors.

  Young Beecher, pacing restlessly, nodding and smiling, searched in thecrowd without quite admitting to himself what it was he sought. In theshort period of his return, he had gone into many different sets, alwaysretaining the prerogatives of his own. The women, besides those of theyounger married women whom he knew, were of the opera, the stage, one ortwo, even, whose names were electrically displayed in vaudeville. Hewas caught up, greeted enthusiastically, and extricated himself withdeftness, seeking in a general way to reach the great fireplace nearwhich he had detected the figure of Mrs. Kildair.

  The men, without exception, were of his own kind--of that secondgeneration which is the peculiar problem of America. They were strong,well put together, with heads chiseled somewhat on the vigorous lines ofthe father spirits, condemned by the accident of wealth to the mostun-American of professions, the idler. Without the mental languor ofthe foreign dilettante, consumed in reality by their own imprisonedenergy, they were a restless, dissatisfied testimony of the error oftheir own civilization, the inability of the great, barbaric,money-acquiring American to comprehend the uses of wealth. Tonight,threatened with tomorrow's disaster, stirred by the restlessness of themultitude, this excess of baffled energy was felt everywhere: at thebar, in the Anglo-Saxon intensity; at the faro table where the play hada certain desperate counterpart of the spirit that had assembled thefuture; in the momentary sudden accesses of gaiety that began to spreadthrough the hesitant crowd, as an overturned bottle spreads its fluidover the cloth.

  Beecher, too, without comprehending it, felt the stimulus, awakening allthe nervous unemployed funds of energy within him and the intoxicationof movement and laughter that brought him a sudden feverish hilarity,brought also a sense of unrest and dissatisfaction. Underneath all theover-excited spirits of frivolity was a current of grave apprehensionwhich he felt in the occasional groupings of men and the low snatches ofconversation which reached him.

  "Bo Lynch's cleaned out."

  "--not the only one."

  "--and thousands thrown on the market."

  "Eddie Fontaine's crowd."

  "Copper'll blow up higher than a kite!"

  "--if Slade goes too."

  "They say there's a line formed in front of the Atlantic."

  In his progress he encountered Jack Lindabury, lank andbroad-shouldered, with the magnificent shell of a head that might havebeen set on the shoulders of a Gladstone. They shook hands withcordiality.

  "Devil of a mess about Majendie," said Lindabury.

  "Are you hit?"

  "Of course; Eddie Fontaine's had us all in on his tip. Some of thecrowd are liable to be wiped out. They tell me Bo Lynch had plungedevery cent in the world."

  "Shouldn't wonder," said Beecher, reflecting. "Is he here?"

  "Sure; he's the bartender," said Lindabury.

  Beecher, surprised, nodded and made his way toward the end that had beenconverted into a frontier saloon, where, behind enormous mustaches, herecognized the long features of his fellow lodger.

  "What'll y'have?" said Lynch, in hoarse accents. Then, perceiving thathe was recognized, he drew Beecher aside and said anxiously:

  "You owe me fifty, Ted; we pulled it out. Go over and stake it at thetable for me, if you've got it."

  "Sorry," said Beecher, eying him critically and resolving to lie.

  "Oh, well," said Lynch philosophically, "it'll look bi
g as a houseto-morrow."

  "Are you cleaned out, Bo?" said Beecher anxiously.

  "Oh, no; I'm worth thousands," said Lynch, with a grin, "until themarket opens to-morrow."

  "Tough luck."

  "Steve Plunkett's worse--he's got to negotiate his gold fillings, theysay."

  A party came up, clamoring for attention, and Lynch hastened to therescue. Beecher continued curiously toward the faro table, admiringwith an admiration tinged with compassion the _sang froid_ of thelosers, who in a desperate attempt to recover the imminent loss of themorrow, were staking sums that made the spectators raise their eyebrowsin amazement.

  "Supposing that Jap came back and sneaked the ring the second time,"said Gunther, taking his arm.

  Beecher started in surprise.

  "I wasn't thinking of that," he said.

  "But I was. That puzzle of yours has been running in my head eversince. I've got six people now absolutely logically worked out for thethief--perfect deduction. Take me over to Mrs. Kildair; I want to meetthat woman."

  "I say, Bruce," said Beecher as they started to cross the room, "it'sgoing to be an awful smash. All the boys are caught. There'll be thedeuce to pay here later on."

  "Shouldn't wonder--they started in pretty fierce."

  "Eat, drink, and be merry--eh?"

  "Sure."

  By the hazards of the crowd they found themselves opposite Nan Charters,who was on the arm of Charlie Lorraine, a clean-cut, pleasant type ofthe racing set, decidedly handsome in a dark way.

  "Hello, fellows, any old clothes to give away?" said Lorraine, who hadthe topic of the evening in jest. "I speak first. How the deuce didEddie Fontaine miss you two? Heard what we are doing? We are organizingthe Eddie Club. Every one who's taken his tip is going up to live onEddie's farm for the winter--great idea, eh?"

  While Gunther and Lorraine were laughing over this plan, a creation ofBo Lynch's, Beecher was listening to Nan Charters, with a difficultattempt at calming the sudden emotion which her appearance with Lorrainehad fired within him.

  "What a dreadful time you chose to call!" she said directly. "Don't youknow that it takes a modern woman hours to mix her war-paint?"

  She looked at him with a little tantalizing malice in her eyes.

  "Coquette," he thought furiously. "She is delighted because I was assenough to call and give her the opportunity to refuse to see me."

  "Oh, not a call," he said aloud, committing the stupidity of lying. "Iwas just rushing downtown, and stopped to inquire how you were afterlast night."

  This answer brought a natural pause. Each looked at the other, he withdefiance, she with laughter in her eyes.

  "You're staying late," he said at last, because her listening attitudeforced him to say something.

  "Yes, indeed."

  "It'll be more amusing when it thins out," he said in a purposelylanguid tone.

  "When the sight-seers have left--yes," she said, smiling.

  Wishing to show what slight importance he attached to the encounter, hecontrived to nudge Gunther as a signal that he was ready; but, hisfriend proving insensible, he was forced to proceed.

  "Did you come with Mrs. Kildair?" he said perfunctorily.

  "No."

  "With whom?" he asked, regretting the question as soon as it wasuttered.

  "With Mr. Lorraine--of course," she said, looking down modestly, butbeneath her eyelids he divined again the cunning malice.

  At this moment, to his delight, Emma Fornez perceived him, and, beingprofoundly bored by her chance cavalier, a purely passive listenerthoroughly bewildered by her sallies, gave a cry of joy:

  "Teddy, traitor, where have you been?"

  Dismissing her companion with a bob of her head, she seized Beecher'sarm, exclaiming:

  "Heavens--save me! I have been shrieking at a deaf-mute."

  In the crowd, the head of her late companion could be seen, rolling hisuncomprehending eyes. Beecher, overjoyed at the arrival, which gave himan advantage he was quick to perceive, nodded to Miss Charters anddeparted, exaggerating, for her benefit, the confidential intimacy whichMme. Fornez's attitude permitted.

  "Who is that woman?" said Emma Fornez immediately. "She is watching us.She doesn't seem pleased. _Tant pis_!"

  "Nan Charters--one of our younger actresses."

  "Ah! Good?"

  "Yes."

  "She is pretty--in a way," said Mme. Fornez, using her lorgnette,without caring in the least that Miss Charters perceived it. "_Pasmal--pas mal_. Not much temperament--afraid to uncover her shoulders.It is not an actress; it is a woman. You are interested, Teddy?"

  "No."

  "Oh, _avec ca_. You are in love?"

  "I met her last night for the first time."

  "That's not an answer. Yes, you have a guilty look. You are a littletaken--she provokes you--these little dolls always do. I will give yougood advice; I will help you."

  "How?" said Beecher, a bit confused.

  "I will be very, very nice with you," said his companion gaily, her feetdancing to the music. "A woman always wants what another woman wants,particularly when she is a little actress and I am Emma Fornez. It'svery simple, but it never fails; only, I will not help you if you arereally in love, you understand?"

  Beecher solemnly assured her that she need have no fear.

  "Very well, then. Be sure to pay attention to Madame Fontaine too; shelikes you. We are the two women most distinguished here tonight--bothhigh, high above your little Charters. It will double the effect. Doas I say; it'll be amusing."

  Gunther joined them, protesting.

  "I say, Madame Fornez, it's not fair. We'll have to get up a Whitecapsparty and kidnap Ted, if you don't stop."

  "Oh, we understand each other perfectly," said Beecher, delighted toperceive that Nan Charters was still following his progress. "WheneverEmma wants to escape from some one, she remembers that she's crazy aboutme. It is all arranged."

  Emma Fornez burst out laughing and gave him a little pat on his shoulderwith the lorgnon.

  "We are--chums, you say--_hein_, Teddy? Monsieur Gunthere is different.I like to talk with him--seriously."

  But at this moment, in response to a clamor, one of the negroes begandancing a shuffle in a quickly formed circle. Emma Fornez rushed off,with a cry of delight, deserting both young men.

  "You've made a killing, Ted," said Gunther, laughing.

  "Pooh! she'll forget my name tomorrow," said Beecher, who, however,believed nothing of the sort. "Come on."

  Mrs. Kildair was standing by the great Italian fireplace, her glanceplaying incessantly through the crowd, nodding from time to time, butwithout hearing the remarks of two or three older men who surroundedher. So different was the magnetic animation of her whole attitude fromthe ordinary feline languor of her pose, that Beecher noticed it atonce, an impression heightened by the flash of the eyes and the almostelectric warmth of her hand as she greeted him. Mrs. Kildair, who hadfollowed his entrance with Mrs. Craig Fontaine and Emma Fornez andmoreover was particularly pleased at his presenting young Gunther, wasunusually gracious.

  Gunther, with his direct, almost obtrusive stare, studied her withunusual curiosity, conversed a little, and departed, after receiving acordial invitation from her to call.

  "What is the matter with you, Rita?" said Beecher immediately.

  "Matter--how do you mean?"

  "I have never seen you so excited."

  "Really, do I seem so?" she said, waving to some one on the floor.

  "Extraordinarily so."

  "I am generally--dormant," she said, laughing. "Yes, I am excitedtonight."

  "You are on the track of the ring--you have found it," he saidinstantly, with a pang of disappointment.

  "No, not that," she said, with a frown.

  An idea came to him. He imagined that she too, like the good gambler hefelt her to be, was laughing before the irretrievable disaster of themorrow.

  "Look here, Rita," he said sympathetical
ly, "you're not caught in thestock market, are you?

  "No, no, of course not." She saw the look on his face, and was touchedby it. "Ruined and dying game? No, no; I am excited, very muchexcited, that's all. Will you ask me to dance, sir?"

  "Are they dancing?"

  "Of course. Hurry up!"

  Some of the more ardent spirits, impatient for the crowd to thin out,were whirling about, clearing an expanding circle by force of theirrevolving attacks. In a moment they were moving among the dancers.

  Mrs. Kildair danced remarkably well. In this lithe body, so pliant andyet so inspired with the vertigo of the waltz, Beecher was again awareof the strange excitement that seemed to animate her whole being, andcontinued to ask himself the cause of such an unusual emotion. Fromtime to time, the light fingers on his arms contracted imperiously,urging him to a wilder measure. He had a strange sensation of mysteryand flight, as though he were no longer dancing, but whirling aroundwith her in his arms, each striving, in the frantic flight, to conquerthe other.

  The dance ended. The spectators burst into applause. Mrs. Kildair, halfopening her eyes, thanked him with a grateful smile. He walked awaywith her on his arm, agitated and troubled. What all the brilliance ofEmma Fornez had not been able to accomplish, one touch of Rita Kildairhad effected.

  "I've lots of things to ask you," he said hurriedly, rememberingMcKenna's suggestions.

  "No, no; not now--tomorrow," she said breathlessly, with the samecaressing, half-veiled look. She gave him her hand in dismissal.

  He understood. The sensation which had come in the few moments of theirvertigo had been too extraordinary to be dimmed by a descent toconversation.

  He left her, as always, aware of the artist in her, that never failed inthe conception of a situation.

  "If I fall in love, it won't be with Nan Charters," he said, followingMrs. Kildair with his eyes.

  Then, mindful of Emma Fornez's advice, he joined Mrs. Fontaine, stayingwith her until she gave the signal to leave for those who had come towatch.

  With this departure, in which Mrs. Kildair joined, a certain element ofrestraint disappeared. The unmistakable rising note of loosened tonguesfreed from Anglo-Saxon restraint by the scientifically contrived punch,began to mount above the rhythmic beat of the music, which itself seemedsuddenly possessed of a wilder abandon. At the roulette table theplayers, coldly concentrated, continued in strained attitudes, obliviousof all but the blinding green nap before them.

  Toward two o'clock the thirty or forty who still remained formed acircle, camping on the floor, Indian fashion, clamoring for songs andvaudeville turns. Jack Lindabury and Bo Lynch gave their celebratedtake-off on grand opera. Elsie Ware, riotously acclaimed, accompaniedby an hilarious chorus, sang her famous successes, turning to and frocoquetting with first one man and then another.

  Emma Fornez, excited as a child, without waiting to be urged, ran to thepiano and struck the first riotous chords of the "Habanera" of _Carmen_.Instantly there was a scramble for the sides of the long piano, and whenshe looked up again it was into a score of comically adoring faces, eachstriving to attract her attention. But Beecher, first to a position ofvantage, received the full concentration of the diva's glances. Flushedwith the peculiar fleeting intoxication of exuberant youth--theknowledge of the evening's success with women others coveted--he leanedfar over the piano, resting his chin in his hands, gazing with aprovoking malice into the eyes of the singer, exaggerating the intensityof his look, maliciously obvious of Nan Charters, whom he felt at hisside. Emma Fornez, lending herself to the maneuver, opened her wide,languorous eyes, singing to him alone, with a little forward leaning ofher body:

  "_L'amour est enfant de la Boheme,_ _Il n'a jamais connu de loi_ _Si tu m'aimes._"

  The song ended in a furore. Mme. Fornez was overwhelmed withspontaneous adulation, and Beecher, laughing and struggling, was chokedand carried away by the indignant suitors. Escaping, he came back,happy and resolved on more mischief. He had always had a passion forwhat is called fancy dancing, and in Europe had learned the dances ofthe country. He proposed to Emma Fornez a Spanish dance, and the ideawas received with shouts of enthusiasm. Every one camped on the flooragain, while three or four of the men, converting their sombreros intoimaginary tambourines, shook them frantically in the air, led by BoLynch, who had somehow procured a great tin tray.

  "You dance--are you sure?" asked Emma Fornez, looking at his flushedface with an anxious look; for some of the men, notably Lorraine andLynch, were in a visibly excited state.

  "Very well," he said confidently.

  "_Allons_, then!"

  The dance he had chosen was one somewhat akin to the tarantella, a slowmovement gradually and irresistibly singing up into a barbaric frenzy atthe climax--one of those dances that are the epitome of primal coquetry,of the savage fascinating allurements of the feline, provoking to thedancer, doubly provoking to the spectator, bewildered by the suddenantagonisms of the poses and the brusque yieldings. At the end,according to Spanish custom, the dance ended in an embrace. EmmaFornez, surprised to find so inspired a partner, transported by themood, ended laughingly with a kiss, her warm arms remaining languidly amoment about the shoulders of the young man, whom she complimented withexpressions of surprise. Besieged at every side with cries for anencore, they repeated the dance, freer in their revolving movements fromthe intimacy of the first passage.

  From time to time Beecher had managed to steal a glance in the directionof Nan Charters. She was sitting straight and unrelaxing, her eyesnever leaving him, the lines of her mouth drawn a little tightly. WhenEmma Fornez had embraced him for the second time, Beecher, relaxing,perceived that Nan Charters turned her back and was conversing volubly,her shoulders rising and falling with little rapid movements, while herfan had the same nervous lashing that one sees in the uneasy panther.

  He was delighted at his success, at the revenge he had inflicted, at thesuperiority he had regained. The dances began again, but he did notdance. He held himself near the entrance, surveying the scenetriumphantly. The experience was new to him; in the few years he hadpassed since college, he had been really out of the world. Thisgame--the most fascinating of all the games of chance that can fascinatethe gambler in each human being--the game between man and woman, came tohim as a revelation, with a zest that was almost a discovery of hisyouth.

  All at once a feminine hand was laid on his arm and the voice of NanCharters said:

  "Come outside--in the garden. I want to speak to you. Come quietly."

  "'Come outside--in the garden. I want to speak to you.Come quietly'"]

  Elated by a strange, almost cruel feeling of conquest, he followed her,with a last look back at the studio, at the littered bar, where Bo Lynchwas still calling raucously for customers, at the silent intensity ofthe gamblers, whom he occasionally perceived between the flittingdresses of the dancers. In the middle of the floor Lorraine andPlunkett, stumbling and unsteady, were solemnly waltzing in each other'sarms--the specter of the morning forgotten.

  He closed the door softly and joined the young actress, who was waitingfor him at some distance.

  "Can you take me home?" she asked directly. "Mr. Lorraine is in such acondition that I do not wish to go with him."

  "Certainly," he said, a feeling of protection replacing the firstvictorious perception of the fire of jealousy he had awakened in her.

  Gunther's automobile was waiting, and they entered it. She did not saya word to him, and he, determined to force her to begin theconversation, waited with a pleased enjoyment until three-quarters ofthe journey had been accomplished. All at once she turned, and, takinghim by the lapels of the coat, brought him toward her as one scolds achild.

  "Are you so angry because I didn't see you this afternoon?" she said,smiling.

  The feminine defensive instinct of avoiding the issue by ambushing itwith subterfuges, is equaled only by that instinct for attack whichbrushes aside all preliminaries and strikes directly.
Beecher, takenoff his guard, was a prey to two contrary impulses. Two replies,absolutely opposed and illogically joined, came to his lips. Onebrutal, still charged with the savageness of the evening, to say:

  "Angry? Not at all. Aren't you claiming a little too much?"

  And the other, a warm, yielding desire to blurt out frankly:

  "Yes, I was angry. I wanted to see you."

  She waited. Her large eyes, seeming larger in the dim light of thecarriage, continued steadily on him. The first impulse dominated thesecond, but was modified by it.

  "Angry? What a curious idea!" he began, with a half laugh. "You wereso upset--"

  She interrupted him, shaking her head.

  "Why did you act the way you did tonight? Don't do things that are notlike you. That is not the way we began."

  He was silent, not knowing what to answer. Presently she withdrew intoher corner, glanced out of the window, as if to assure herself that theywere near their destination, and, placing her hand over his, saidgently:

  "You are very sympathetic to me. Keep it so."

  For all that he said to himself that it was his favor with other womenthat made him precious to her, he felt a certain yielding of the spirit.He wondered if he could take her in his arms; but he restrained himself,and closed his two hands over hers.

  "Yes, we are very sympathetic," he said; but he did not say all hemeant.

  "What a foolish boy you are," she said finally, looking up at him."Don't you know that if I say one word you will go wherever I want youto?"

  He was so taken by surprise at the audacity and confidence of herremark, that he could not collect himself for an answer, outgeneraled bythe woman who had so calculated to a nicety her last words that thearrival of the automobile left him without response.

  He went home, repeating to himself what she had asserted, resisting awild desire to return to the Lindaburys' and forget there the disorderin his soul; and, though he rebelled scornfully against her confidentassertion, the incessant repetition of it did leave an impression.

  As he passed the great marble facade of the Atlantic Trust, an unusualsight made him bend out of the window. In the chill gray of the comingdawn, a thin line of depositors was waiting, some standing, othershuddled on campstools. At the sight the seriousness of life smote him,and he returned home, the tremulous turns of the human gamble he hadplayed feverishly blended and confused with the dark realities of therising tragedy of speculation.