CHAPTER XXXVII
A SOCIAL CYNIC
One evening, a few weeks after the auction, Winn, in his new occupation,was detailed to report one of those affairs in high life where wealthgathered to display its gowns, and fops, in evening dress, utteredflattering nothings to beauty in undress. A crush of fashionable peoplewho ate, drank, danced, simpered, and smirked until the wee small hoursand then went home to curry one another's reputation and conduct.
Winn, not in the swim, was made duly welcome by virtue of his errandthere, and, furnished with a list of the ladies' names and costumes bythe hostess (not forgetting her own), was about to depart when he wasaccosted by Ethel Sherman.
He had noticed her first, surrounded by gentlemen, and feeling he mightbe one too many, kept away.
"Why, Winn," she said, coming to his side and smiling graciously as sheextended her hand, "I am glad to see you. How do you happen to behere?"
"Business," he answered laconically; "I am a reporter now."
"Yes, I heard so from your aunt. You have not favored me with a call nowfor weeks," she said, "and you are a naughty boy to neglect me."
"You are looking charming, as usual," he answered, glancing at herexquisite costume, very decollete, and feeling that it was what he mustsay.
"Of course," she replied, "every man feels that he must say that, butyou needn't. Compliments are like perfume, to be inhaled, not swallowed;so let the rest utter them, and you can spare me. I'd rather know howyou are getting on."
"Fairly well," he answered coolly, for he had really kept away from herfor weeks from a lurking sense of danger to his own feelings. "It is anoccupation that keeps me busy and makes a living, that is all. It maylead to something better."
"I read your splendid _expose_ of Weston & Hill," she continued, stillsmiling admiration, "and it did my heart good. I wish Weston could seeit. And that poor widow whose plight you described--it was pitiful."
"Only a sample case of the evil wrought by such as Weston," Winnanswered modestly. "I wish I knew where he is; I'd mail him a markedcopy of the paper."
Then, as some one came up to claim her for a dance, she said hurriedly,"I must leave you now, but please promise to call to-morrow evening,I've lots I want to ask you."
And Winn, yielding to the magic of her luring eyes, promised and wenthis way.
It was after midnight before he finished his column account of thisaffair, and turning it over to the night editor, left the newspaperoffice.
The streets were deserted, only now and then some late worker likehimself hurrying homeward; and as he pushed on, his footsteps echoedbetween the brick walls of the narrow street he was following. Somehowtheir clatter carried his thoughts back to Rockhaven and one night whenthey had sounded so loud on the plank walk there. When his room wasreached he lighted a cigar, and as once before, when he had gone to thetower on Norse Hill to commune with himself, he fell into a revery.
Now, as then, it was to balance in his mind one woman's face and onewoman's influence against another's.
He saw Mona as she was then, as she had been to him for months, asweet, simple, untutored girl, with the eyes of a Madonna and the soulof a saint. He saw her in the cave, once fern-carpeted by her tenderthought, and once again heard the notes from her violin quivering inthat rock-walled gorge.
And now it was all ended!
Then came this other woman's face and form,--a brilliant,self-contained, self-poised, cultured exotic, knowing men's weaknessesand keen to reach and sway them. A social sun, where the other was but apale and tender moon.
But Winn's heart was still true to Rockhaven, and the ecstatic moment,when he had held Mona close in his arms, still seemed a sacred bond.
"I'll never believe it is to end thus," he thought, "until I go thereand hear it from her lips."
But he kept his promise and called on Ethel the next evening.
She had been charming always; now she was fascinating, for somehow ithad come to this conquest-loving woman, that Winn's heart was elsewhere,and that was a spur.
Then beyond was a better thought, for the very indifference that piquedher also awoke respect, and he seemed to her, as she had told him, aneagle among jackdaws.
"I am glad you have found an occupation," she said, as he once more satin her parlor, "but I wish it were less menial. You have outgrownservitude since you went to the island. What has wrought the change? Wasit the sea winds?"
"Maybe," answered Winn, "or constantly looking out upon a boundlessocean. That always dwarfs humanity to me. But I have some business totake up my mind. I was sadly discontented until this opening came."
"I wish you had kept that money in your own hands," she saidconfidentially, "and used it to buy an interest in a paper. When I readyour description of the reception this morning, it seemed to me that wasyour forte."
"Thanks for your compliment," he answered, "and I only wish you editedthe paper now. But if you did, my pencil-pushing wouldn't strike youthat way."
"But it really did," she continued, "and the best of it was what youdidn't say, knowing, as I do, how you regard such affairs. Hiding yourown opinion so well was fine art."
"I wasn't expected to express my views," he asserted, "but to flatteryou all judiciously; that's what makes a paper popular."
"And do you think I wanted to be flattered?" she asked.
"Certainly," he replied, "you are a woman."
Ethel laughed.
"Personally, you are wrong; in general, right. I receive so much of it,it wearies me, knowing as I do how insincere it all is, but most of mysex, I'll admit, feel otherwise. But tell me why you haven't called forthree weeks?"
It was a question he could not answer truthfully, and like all thepolite world he evaded it.
"My work is my excuse," he said; "and then I've not been in a mood forsociability."
Ethel looked at him long and earnestly, reading him, as she read mostmen, like an open book.
"Winn, my dear old friend," she said at last, in the open-your-hearttone so natural to her, "I made you a promise long ago and I shall keepit, so forgive my question. But you needn't fear me. I want to be yourfriend and feel you are mine, in spite of the old score and this newinfluence. And when you are ready to trust me, no one in the world shallbe more worthy of it."
Then they drifted to commonplaces: she, as all women will, relating thegossip of her set and chatting of the latest opera, what was on at thetheatres and the like. Now and then she let fall a word of quietflattery, or what was more potent, one by inference; for Ethel Shermanwas past-mistress in that art. And all the while she looked at Winn,smiling deference to his opinions and pointing hers about others with akeen wit so natural to her.
She played and sang, selecting as once before (and unfortunately,perhaps) the songs that carried his thoughts to Rockhaven.
So charming was she in all this, when she chose, that the evening spedby while Winn was unconscious of its lapse.
"I wish you would be more neighborly," she said, when he rose to go;"there are so few men in my set whom I can speak to as freely as you,and besides I want to watch your progress toward an editorial chair.Forget your old grudge, and let us be good friends once more."
And when he was gone, and she ready to retire, she looked long andearnestly at a photograph of him she had scarce glanced at thrice inthree years. "I wish he were rich," she sighed; "what a delightful loverhe would make!"
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