by Frank Norris
The day had been sunshiny, warm even, but since nine o’clock the weather had changed for the worse, and by now a heavy rain was falling. Mrs. Cressler begged the two sisters and Mrs. Wessels to stay at her house over night, but Laura refused. Jadwin was suggesting to Cressler the appropriateness of having the coupe brought around to take the sisters home, when Corthell came up to Laura.
“I sent for a couple of hansoms long since,” he said. “They are waiting outside now.” And that seemed to settle the question.
For all Jadwin’s perseverance, the artist seemed — for this time at least — to have the better of the situation.
As the good-bys were being said at the front door Page remarked to Landry:
“You had better go with us as far as the house, so that you can take one of our umbrellas. You can get in with Aunt Wess’ and me. There’s plenty of room. You can’t go home in this storm without an umbrella.”
Landry at first refused, haughtily. He might be too poor to parade a lot of hansom cabs around, but he was too proud, to say the least, to ride in ’em when some one else paid.
Page scolded him roundly. What next? The idea. He was not to be so completely silly. She didn’t propose to have the responsibility of his catching pneumonia just for the sake of a quibble.
“Some people,” she declared, “never seemed to be able to find out that they are grown up.”
“Very well,” he announced, “I’ll go if I can tip the driver a dollar.”
Page compressed her lips.
“The man that can afford dollar tips,” she said, “can afford to hire the cab in the first place.”
“Seventy-five cents, then,” he declared resolutely. “Not a cent less. I should feel humiliated with any less.”
“Will you please take me down to the cab, Landry Court?” she cried. And without further comment Landry obeyed.
“Now, Miss Dearborn, if you are ready,” exclaimed Corthell, as he came up. He held the umbrella over her head, allowing his shoulders to get the drippings.
They cried good-by again all around, and the artist guided her down the slippery steps. He handed her carefully into the hansom, and following, drew down the glasses.
Laura settled herself comfortably far back in her corner, adjusting her skirts and murmuring:
“Such a wet night. Who would have thought it was going to rain? I was afraid you were not coming at first,” she added. “At dinner Mrs. Cressler said you had an important committee meeting — something to do with the Art Institute, the award of prizes; was that it?”
“Oh, yes,” he answered, indifferently, “something of the sort was on. I suppose it was important — for the Institute. But for me there is only one thing of importance nowadays,” he spoke with a studied carelessness, as though announcing a fact that Laura must know already, “and that is, to be near you. It is astonishing. You have no idea of it, how I have ordered my whole life according to that idea.”
“As though you expected me to believe that,” she answered.
In her other lovers she knew her words would have provoked vehement protestation. But for her it was part of the charm of Corthell’s attitude that he never did or said the expected, the ordinary. Just now he seemed more interested in the effect of his love for Laura upon himself than in the manner of her reception of it.
“It is curious,” he continued. “I am no longer a boy. I have no enthusiasms. I have known many women, and I have seen enough of what the crowd calls love to know how futile it is, how empty, a vanity of vanities. I had imagined that the poets were wrong, were idealists, seeing the things that should be rather than the things that were. And then,” suddenly he drew a deep breath: “this happiness; and to me. And the miracle, the wonderful is there — all at once — in my heart, in my very hand, like a mysterious, beautiful exotic. The poets are wrong,” he added. “They have not been idealists enough. I wish — ah, well, never mind.”
“What is it that you wish?” she asked, as he broke off suddenly. Laura knew even before she spoke that it would have been better not to have prompted him to continue. Intuitively she had something more than a suspicion that he had led her on to say these very words. And in admitting that she cared to have the conversation proceed upon this footing, she realised that she was sheering towards unequivocal coquetry. She saw the false move now, knew that she had lowered her guard. On all accounts it would have been more dignified to have shown only a mild interest in what Corthell wished. She realised that once more she had acted upon impulse, and she even found time to wonder again how it was that when with this man her impulses, and not her reason prevailed so often. With Landry or with Curtis Jadwin she was always calm, tranquilly self-possessed. But Corthell seemed able to reach all that was impetuous, all that was unreasoned in her nature. To Landry she was more than anything else, an older sister, indulgent, kind-hearted. With Jadwin she found that all the serious, all the sincere, earnest side of her character was apt to come to the front. But Corthell stirred troublous, unknown deeps in her, certain undefined trends of recklessness; and for so long as he held her within his influence, she could not forget her sex a single instant.
It dismayed her to have this strange personality of hers, this other headstrong, impetuous self, discovered to her. She hardly recognised it. It made her a little afraid; and yet, wonder of wonders, she could not altogether dislike it. There was a certain fascination in resigning herself for little instants to the dominion of this daring stranger that was yet herself.
Meanwhile Corthell had answered her:
“I wish,” he said, “I wish you could say something — I hardly know what — something to me. So little would be so much.”
“But what can I say?” she protested. “I don’t know — I — what can I say?”
“It must be yes or no for me,” he broke out. “I can’t go on this way.”
“But why not? Why not?” exclaimed Laura. “Why must we — terminate anything? Why not let things go on just as they are? We are quite happy as we are. There’s never been a time of my life when I’ve been happier than this last three or four months. I don’t want to change anything. Ah, here we are.”
The hansom drew up in front of the house. Aunt Wess’ and Page were already inside. The maid stood in the vestibule in the light that streamed from the half-open front door, an umbrella in her hand. And as Laura alighted, she heard Page’s voice calling from the front hall that the others had umbrellas, that the maid was not to wait.
The hansom splashed away, and Corthell and Laura mounted the steps of the house.
“Won’t you come in?” she said. “There is a fire in the library.”
But he said no, and for a few seconds they stood under the vestibule light, talking. Then Corthell, drawing off his right-hand glove, said:
“I suppose that I have my answer. You do not wish for a change. I understand. You wish to say by that, that you do not love me. If you did love me as I love you, you would wish for just that — a change. You would be as eager as I for that wonderful, wonderful change that makes a new heaven and a new earth.”
This time Laura did not answer. There was a moment’s silence. Then Corthell said:
“Do you know, I think I shall go away.”
“Go away?”
“Yes, to New York. Possibly to Paris. There is a new method of fusing glass that I’ve promised myself long ago I would look into. I don’t know that it interests me much — now. But I think I had better go. At once, within the week. I’ve not much heart in it; but it seems — under the circumstances — to be appropriate.” He held out his bared hand. Laura saw that he was smiling.
“Well, Miss Dearborn — good-by.”
“But why should you go?” she cried, distressfully. “How perfectly — ah, don’t go,” she exclaimed, then in desperate haste added: “It would be absolutely foolish.”
“Shall I stay?” he urged. “Do you tell me to stay?”
“Of course I do,” she answered. “It would break up the p
lay — your going. It would spoil my part. You play opposite me, you know. Please stay.”
“Shall I stay,” he asked, “for the sake of your part? There is no one else you would rather have?” He was smiling straight into her eyes, and she guessed what he meant.
She smiled back at him, and the spirit of daring never more awake in her, replied, as she caught his eye:
“There is no one else I would rather have.”
Corthell caught her hand of a sudden.
“Laura,” he cried, “let us end this fencing and quibbling once and for all. Dear, dear girl, I love you with all the strength of all the good in me. Let me be the best a man can be to the woman he loves.”
Laura flashed a smile at him.
“If you can make me love you enough,” she answered.
“And you think I can?” he exclaimed.
“You have my permission to try,” she said.
She hoped fervently that now, without further words, he would leave her. It seemed to her that it would be the most delicate chivalry on his part — having won this much — to push his advantage no further. She waited anxiously for his next words. She began to fear that she had trusted too much upon her assurance of his tact.
Corthell held out his hand again.
“It is good-night, then, not good-by.”
“It is good-night,” said Laura.
With the words he was gone, and Laura, entering the house, shut the door behind her with a long breath of satisfaction.
Page and Landry were still in the library. Laura joined them, and for a few moments the three stood before the fireplace talking about the play. Page at length, at the first opportunity, excused herself and went to bed. She made a great show of leaving Landry and Laura alone, and managed to convey the impression that she understood they were anxious to be rid of her.
“Only remember,” she remarked to Laura severely, “to lock up and turn out the hall gas. Annie has gone to bed long ago.”
“I must dash along, too,” declared Landry when Page was gone.
He buttoned his coat about his neck, and Laura followed him out into the hall and found an umbrella for him.
“You were beautiful to-night,” he said, as he stood with his hand on the door knob. “Beautiful. I could not keep my eyes off of you, and I could not listen to anybody but you. And now,” he declared, solemnly, “I will see your eyes and hear your voice all the rest of the night. I want to explain,” he added, “about those hansoms — about coming home with Miss Page and Mrs. Wessels. Mr. Corthell — those were his hansoms, of course. But I wanted an umbrella, and I gave the driver seventy-five cents.”
“Why of course, of course,” said Laura, not quite divining what he was driving at.
“I don’t want you to think that I would be willing to put myself under obligations to anybody.”
“Of course, Landry; I understand.”
He thrilled at once.
“Ah,” he cried, “you don’t know what it means to me to look into the eyes of a woman who really understands.”
Laura stared, wondering just what she had said.
“Will you turn this hall light out for me, Landry?” she asked. “I never can reach.”
He left the front door open and extinguished the jet in its dull red globe. Promptly they were involved in darkness.
“Good-night,” she said. “Isn’t it dark?”
He stretched out his hand to take hers, but instead his groping fingers touched her waist. Suddenly Laura felt his arm clasp her. Then all at once, before she had time to so much as think of resistance, he had put both arms about her and kissed her squarely on her cheek.
Then the front door closed, and she was left abruptly alone, breathless, stunned, staring wide-eyed into the darkness.
Her first sensation was one merely of amazement. She put her hand quickly to her cheek, first the palm and then the back, murmuring confusedly:
“What? Why? — why?”
Then she whirled about and ran up the stairs, her silks clashing and fluttering about her as she fled, gained her own room, and swung the door violently shut behind her. She turned up the lowered gas and, without knowing why, faced her mirror at once, studying her reflection and watching her hand as it all but scoured the offended cheek.
Then, suddenly, with an upward, uplifting rush, her anger surged within her. She, Laura, Miss Dearborn, who loved no man, who never conceded, never capitulated, whose “grand manner” was a thing proverbial, in all her pitch of pride, in her own home, her own fortress, had been kissed, like a school-girl, like a chambermaid, in the dark, in a corner.
And by — great heavens! — Landry Court. The boy whom she fancied she held in such subjection, such profound respect. Landry Court had dared, had dared to kiss her, to offer her this wretchedly commonplace and petty affront, degrading her to the level of a pretty waitress, making her ridiculous.
She stood rigid, drawn to her full height, in the centre of her bedroom, her fists tense at her sides, her breath short, her eyes flashing, her face aflame. From time to time her words, half smothered, burst from her.
“What does he think I am? How dared he? How dared he?”
All that she could say, any condemnation she could formulate only made her position the more absurd, the more humiliating. It had all been said before by generations of shop-girls, school-girls, and servants, in whose company the affront had ranged her. Landry was to be told in effect that he was never to presume to seek her acquaintance again. Just as the enraged hussy of the street corners and Sunday picnics shouted that the offender should “never dare speak to her again as long as he lived.” Never before had she been subjected to this kind of indignity. And simultaneously with the assurance she could hear the shrill voice of the drab of the public balls proclaiming that she had “never been kissed in all her life before.”
Of all slights, of all insults, it was the one that robbed her of the very dignity she should assume to rebuke it. The more vehemently she resented it, the more laughable became the whole affair.
But she would resent it, she would resent it, and Landry Court should be driven to acknowledge that the sorriest day of his life was the one on which he had forgotten the respect in which he had pretended to hold her. He had deceived her, then, all along. Because she had — foolishly — relaxed a little towards him, permitted a certain intimacy, this was how he abused it. Ah, well, it would teach her a lesson. Men were like that. She might have known it would come to this. Wilfully they chose to misunderstand, to take advantage of her frankness, her good nature, her good comradeship.
She had been foolish all along, flirting — yes, that was the word for it flirting with Landry and Corthell and Jadwin. No doubt they all compared notes about her. Perhaps they had bet who first should kiss her. Or, at least, there was not one of them who would not kiss her if she gave him a chance.
But if she, in any way, had been to blame for what Landry had done, she would atone for it. She had made herself too cheap, she had found amusement in encouraging these men, in equivocating, in coquetting with them. Now it was time to end the whole business, to send each one of them to the right-about with an unequivocal definite word. She was a good girl, she told herself. She was, in her heart, sincere; she was above the inexpensive diversion of flirting. She had started wrong in her new life, and it was time, high time, to begin over again — with a clean page — to show these men that they dared not presume to take liberties with so much as the tip of her little finger.
So great was her agitation, so eager her desire to act upon her resolve, that she could not wait till morning. It was a physical impossibility for her to remain under what she chose to believe suspicion another hour. If there was any remotest chance that her three lovers had permitted themselves to misunderstand her, they were to be corrected at once, were to be shown their place, and that without mercy.
She called for the maid, Annie, whose husband was the janitor of the house, and who slept in the top story.
&n
bsp; “If Henry hasn’t gone to bed,” said Laura, “tell him to wait up till I call him, or to sleep with his clothes on. There is something I want him to do for me — something important.”
It was close upon midnight. Laura turned back into her room, removed her hat and veil, and tossed them, with her coat, upon the bed. She lit another burner of the chandelier, and drew a chair to her writing-desk between the windows.
Her first note was to Landry Court. She wrote it almost with a single spurt of the pen, and dated it carefully, so that he might know it had been written immediately after he had left. Thus it ran:
“Please do not try to see me again at any time or under any circumstances. I want you to understand, very clearly, that I do not wish to continue our acquaintance.”
Her letter to Corthell was more difficult, and it was not until she had rewritten it two or three times that it read to her satisfaction.
“My dear Mr. Corthell,” so it was worded, “you asked me to-night that our fencing and quibbling be brought to an end. I quite agree with you that it is desirable. I spoke as I did before you left upon an impulse that I shall never cease to regret. I do not wish you to misunderstand me, nor to misinterpret my attitude in any way. You asked me to be your wife, and, very foolishly and wrongly, I gave you — intentionally — an answer which might easily be construed into an encouragement. Understand now that I do not wish you to try to make me love you. I would find it extremely distasteful. And, believe me, it would be quite hopeless. I do not now, and never shall care for you as I should care if I were to be your wife. I beseech you that you will not, in any manner, refer again to this subject. It would only distress and pain me.
“Cordially yours,
“LAURA DEARBORN.”
The letter to Curtis Jadwin was almost to the same effect. But she found the writing of it easier than the others. In addressing him she felt herself grow a little more serious, a little more dignified and calm. It ran as follows:
MY DEAR MR. JADWIN:
“When you asked me to become your wife this evening, you deserved a straightforward answer, and instead I replied in a spirit of capriciousness and disingenuousness, which I now earnestly regret, and which ask you to pardon and to ignore.