The Flirt

by Booth Tarkington

  “`Baw-hawbaw’!” Poor Hedrick was successfully infuriated immediately. “What in thunder is `Baw-hawbaw’? Mrs. Villawd! Baw-hawbaw! Oh, maw!”

  “She had no idea she should find ME in town, she said,” Cora ran on, happily. “She came back early on account of the children having to be sent to school. She has such adorable children—beautiful, dimpled babes–-“

  “SLUSH! SLUSH! LUV-A-LY SLUSH!”

  “—And her dear son, Egerton Villard, he’s grown to be such a comely lad, and he has the most charming courtly manners: he helped his mother out of her carriage with all the air of a man of the world, and bowed to me as to a duchess. I think he might be a great influence for good if the dear Villards would but sometimes let him associate a little with our unfortunate Hedrick. Egerton Villard is really distingue; he has a beautiful head; and if he could be induced but to let Hedrick follow him about but a little–-“

  “I’ll beat his beautiful head off for him if he but butts in on me but a little!” Hedrick promised earnestly. “Idiot!”

  Cora turned toward him innocently. “What did you say, Hedrick?”

  “I said `Idiot’!”

  “You mean Egerton Villard?”

  “Both of you!”

  “You think I’m an idiot, Hedrick?” Her tone was calm, merely inquisitive.

  “Yes, I do!”

  “Oh, no,” she said pleasantly. “Don’t you think if I were REALLY an idiot I’d be even fonder of you than I am?”

  It took his breath. In a panic he sat waiting he knew not what; but Cora blandly resumed her interrupted remarks to her mother, beginning a description of Mrs. Villard’s dress; Laura was talking unconcernedly to Miss Peirce; no one appeared to be aware that anything unusual had been said. His breath came back, and, summoning his presence of mind, he found himself able to consider his position with some degree of assurance. Perhaps, after all, Cora’s retort had been merely a coincidence. He went over and over it in his mind, making a pretence, meanwhile, to be busy with his plate. “If I were REALLY an idiot.” … It was the “REALLY” that troubled him. But for that one word, he could have decided that her remark was a coincidence; but “REALLY” was ominous; had a sinister ring. “If I were REALLY an idiot!” Suddenly the pleasant clouds that had obscured his memory of the fatal evening were swept away as by a monstrous Hand: it all came back to him with sickening clearness. So is it always with the sinner with his sin and its threatened discovery. Again, in his miserable mind, he sat beside Lolita on the fence, with the moon shining through her hair; and he knew—for he had often read it—that a man could be punished his whole life through for a single moment’s weakness. A man might become rich, great, honoured, and have a large family, but his one soft sin would follow him, hunt him out and pull him down at last. “REALLY an idiot!” Did that relentless Comanche, Cora, know this Thing? He shuddered. Then he fell back upon his faith in Providence. It COOULD not be that she knew! Ah, no! Heaven would not let the world be so bad as that! And yet it did sometimes become negligent—he remembered the case of a baby-girl cousin who fell into the bath-tub and was drowned. Providence had allowed that: What assurance had he that it would not go a step farther?

  “Why, Hedrick,” said Cora, turning toward him cheerfully, “you’re not really eating anything; you’re only pretending to.” His heart sank with apprehension. Was it coming? “You really must eat,” she went on. “School begins so soon, you must be strong, you know. How we shall miss you here at home during your hours of work!”

  With that, the burden fell from his shoulders, his increasing terrors took wing. If Laura had told his ghastly secret to Cora, the latter would not have had recourse to such weak satire as this. Cora was not the kind of person to try a popgun on an enemy when she had a thirteen-inch gun at her disposal; so he reasoned; and in the gush of his relief and happiness, responded:

  “You’re a little too cocky lately, Cora-lee: I wish you were MY daughter—just about five minutes!”

  Cora looked upon him fondly. “What would you do to me,” she inquired with a terrible sweetness—“darling little boy?”

  Hedrick’s head swam. The blow was square in the face; it jarred every bone; the world seemed to topple. His mother, rising from her chair, choked slightly, and hurried to join the nurse, who was already on her way upstairs. Cora sent an affectionate laugh across the table to her stunned antagonist.

  “You wouldn’t beat me, would you, dear? she murmured. “I’m almost sure you wouldn’t; not if I asked you to kiss me some MORE”

  All doubt was gone, the last hope fled! The worst had arrived. A vision of the awful future flamed across his staggered mind. The doors to the arena were flung open: the wild beasts howled for hunger of him; the spectators waited.

  Cora began lightly to sing:

  … “Dear,

  Would thou wert near

  To hear me tell how fair thou art!

  Since thou art gone I mourn all alone,

  Oh, my Lolita–-“

  She broke off to explain: “It’s one of those passionate little Spanish serenades, Hedrick. I’ll sing it for your boy-friends next time they come to play in the yard. I think they’d like it. When they know why you like it so much, I’m sure they will. Of course you DO like it—you roguish little lover!” A spasm rewarded this demoniacal phrase. “Darling little boy, the serenade goes on like this:

  Oh, my Lolita, come to my heart:

  Oh, come beloved, love let me press thee,

  While I caress thee

  In one long kiss, Lolita!

  Lolita come! Let me–-“

  Hedrick sprang to his feet with a yell of agony. “Laura Madison, you tattle-tale,” he bellowed, “I’ll never forgive you as long as I live! I’ll get even with you if it takes a thousand years!”

  With that, and pausing merely to kick a rung out of a chair which happened to be in his way, he rushed from the room.

  His sisters had risen to go, and Cora flung her arms round Laura in ecstacy. “You mean old viper!” she cried. “You could have told me days ago! It’s almost too good to be true: it’s the first time in my whole life I’ve felt safe from the Pest for a moment!”

  Laura shook her head. “My conscience troubles me; it did seem as if I ought to tell you—and mamma thought so, too; and I gave him warning, but now that I have done it, it seems rather mean and–-“

  “No!” exclaimed Cora. “You just gave me a chance to protect myself for once, thank heaven!” And she picked up her skirts and danced her way into the front hall.

  “I’m afraid,” said Laura, following, “I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Oh, Laura,” cried the younger girl, “I am having the best time, these days! This just caps it.” She lowered her voice, but her eyes grew even brighter. “I think I’ve shown a certain gentleman a few things he didn’t understand!”

  “Who, dear?”

  “Val,” returned Cora lightly; “Valentine Corliss. I think he knows a little more about women than he did when he first came here.”

  “You’ve had a difference with him?” asked Laura with eager hopefulness. “You’ve broken with him?”

  “Oh, Lord, no! Nothing like that.” Cora leaned to her confidentially. “He told me, once, he’d be at the feet of any woman that could help put through an affair like his oil scheme, and I decided I’d just show him what I could do. He’d talk about it to me; then he’d laugh at me. That very Sunday when I got papa to go in–-“

  “But he didn’t,” said Laura helplessly. “He only said he’d try to–-when he gets well.”

  “It’s all the same—and it’ll be a great thing for him, too,” said Cora, gayly. “Well, that very afternoon before Val left, he practically told me I was no good. Of course he didn’t use just those words—that isn’t his way—but he laughed at me. And haven’t I shown him! I sent Richard a note that very night saying papa had consented to be secretary of the company, and Richard had said he’d go in if papa did that, and he couldn’t brea
k his word–-“

  “I know,” said Laura, sighing. “I know.”

  “Laura”—Cora spoke with sudden gravity—“did you ever know anybody like me? I’m almost getting superstitious about it, because it seems to me I ALWAYS get just what I set out to get. I believe I could have anything in the world if I tried for it.”

  “I hope so, if you tried for something good for you,” said Laura sadly. “Cora, dear, you will—you will be a little easy on Hedrick, won’t you?”

  Cora leaned against the newel and laughed till she was exhausted.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mr. Trumble’s offices were heralded by a neat blazon upon the principal door, “Wade J. Trumble, Mortgages and Loans”; and the gentleman thus comfortably, proclaimed, emerging from that door upon a September noontide, burlesqued a start of surprise at sight of a figure unlocking an opposite door which exhibited the name, “Ray Vilas,” and below it, the cryptic phrase, “Probate Law.”

  “Water!” murmured Mr. Trumble, affecting to faint. “You ain’t going in THERE, are you, Ray?” He followed the other into the office, and stood leaning against a bookcase, with his hands in his pockets, while Vilas raised the two windows, which were obscured by a film of smoke-deposit: there was a thin coat of fine sifted dust over everything. “Better not sit down, Ray,” continued Trumble, warningly. “You’ll spoil your clothes and you might get a client. That word `Probate’ on the door ain’t going to keep ‘em out forever. You recognize the old place, I s’pose? You must have been here at least twice since you moved in. What’s the matter? Dick Lindley hasn’t missionaried you into any idea of WORKING, has he? Oh, no, I see: the Richfield Hotel bar has closed—you’ve managed to drink it all at last!”

  “Have you heard how old man Madison is to-day? asked Ray, dusting his fingers with a handkerchief.

  “Somebody told me yesterday he was about the same. He’s not going to get well.”

  “How do you know?” Ray spoke quickly.

  “Stroke too severe. People never recover–-“

  “Oh, yes, they do, too.”

  Trumble began hotly: “I beg to dif–-” but checked himself, manifesting a slight confusion. “That is, I know they don’t. Old Madison may live a while, if you call that getting well; but he’ll never be the same man he was. Doctor Sloane says it was a bad stroke. Says it was `induced by heat prostration and excitement.’ `Excitement!’” he repeated with a sour laugh. “Yep, I expect a man could get all the excitement he wanted in THAT house, especially if he was her daddy. Poor old man, I don’t believe he’s got five thousand dollars in the world, and look how she dresses!”

  Ray opened a compartment beneath one of the bookcases, and found a bottle and some glasses. “Aha,” he muttered, “our janitor doesn’t drink, I perceive. Join me?” Mr. Trumble accepted, and Ray explained, cheerfully: “Richard Lindley’s got me so cowed I’m afraid to go near any of my old joints. You see, he trails me; the scoundrel has kept me sober for whole days at a time, and I’ve been mortified, having old friends see me in that condition; so I have to sneak up here to my own office to drink to Cora, now and then. You mustn’t tell him. What’s she been doing to YOU, lately?”

  The little man addressed grew red with the sharp, resentful memory. “Oh, nothing! Just struck me in the face with her parasol on the public street, that’s all!” He gave an account of his walk to church with Cora. “I’m through with that girl!” he exclaimed vindictively, in conclusion. “It was the damnedest thing you ever saw in your life: right in broad daylight, in front of the church. And she laughed when she did it; you’d have thought she was knocking a puppy out of her way. She can’t do that to me twice, I tell you. What the devil do you see to laugh at?

  “You’ll be around,” returned his companion, refilling the glasses, “asking for more, the first chance she gives you. Here’s her health!”

  “I don’t drink it!” cried Mr. Trumble angrily.

  “And I’m through with her for good, I tell you! I’m not your kind: I don’t let a girl like that upset me till I can’t think of anything else, and go making such an ass of myself that the whole town gabbles about it. Cora Madison’s seen the last of me, I’ll thank you to notice. She’s never been half-decent to me; cut dances with me all last winter; kept me hanging round the outskirts of every crowd she was in; stuck me with Laura and her mother every time she had a chance; then has the nerve to try to use me, so’s she can make a bigger hit with a new man! You can bet your head I’m through! She’ll get paid though! Oh, she’ll get paid for it!”

  “How?” laughed Ray.

  It was a difficult question. “You wait and see,” responded the threatener, feebly. “Just wait and see. She’s wild about this Corliss, I tell you,” he continued, with renewed vehemence. “She’s crazy about him; she’s lost her head at last–-“

  “You mean he’s going to avenge you?”

  “No, I don’t, though he might, if she decided to marry him.”

  “Do you know,” said Ray slowly, glancing over his glass at his nervous companion, “it doesn’t strike me that Mr. Valentine Corliss has much the air of a marrying man.”

  “He has the air to ME,” observed Mr. Trumble, “of a darned bad lot! But I have to hand it to him: he’s a wizard. He’s got something besides his good looks—a man that could get Cora Madison interested in `business’! In OIL! Cora Madison! How do you suppose–-“

  His companion began to laugh again. “You don’t really suppose he talked his oil business to her, do you, Trumble?”

  “He must have. Else how could she–-“

  “Oh, no, Cora herself never talks upon any subject but one; she never listens to any other either.”

  “Then how in thunder did he–-“

  “If Cora asks you if you think it will rain,” interrupted Vilas, “doesn’t she really seem to be asking: `Do you love me? How much?’ Suppose Mr. Corliss is an expert in the same line. Of course he can talk about oil!”

  “He strikes me,” said Trumble, as just about the slickest customer that ever hit this town. I like Richard Lindley, and I hope he’ll see his fifty thousand dollars again. I wouldn’t have given Corliss thirty cents.”

  “Why do you think he’s a crook?”

  “I don’t say that,” returned Trumble. “All I know about him is that he’s done some of the finest work to get fifty thousand dollars put in his hands that I ever heard of. And all anybody knows about him is that he lived here seventeen years ago, and comes back claiming to know where there’s oil in Italy. He shows some maps and papers and gets cablegrams signed `Moliterno.’ Then he talks about selling the old Corliss house here, where the Madisons live, and putting the money into his oil company: he does that to sound plausible, but I have good reason to know that house was mortgaged to its full value within a month after his aunt left it to him. He’ll not get a cent if it’s sold. That’s all. And he’s got Cora Madison so crazy over him that she makes life a hell for poor old Lindley until he puts all he’s saved into the bubble. The scheme may be all right. How do I know? There’s no way to tell, without going over there, and Corliss won’t let anybody do that—oh, he’s got a plausible excuse for it! But I’m sorry for Lindley: he’s so crazy about Cora, he’s soft. And she’s so crazy about Corliss SHE’S soft! Well, I used to be crazy about her myself, but I’m not soft—I’m not the Lindley kind of loon, thank heaven!”

  “What kind are you, Trumble?” asked Ray, mildly.

  “Not your kind either,” retorted the other going to the door. “She cut me on the street the other day; she’s quit speaking to me. If you’ve got any money, why don’t you take it over to the hotel and give it to Corliss? She might start speaking to YOU again. I’m going to lunch!” He slammed the door behind him.

  Ray Vilas, left alone, elevated his heels to the sill, and stared out of the window a long time at a gravelled roof which presented little of interest. He replenished his glass and his imagination frequently, the latter being so stirred that when, a
bout three o’clock, he noticed the inroads he had made upon the bottle, tears of self-pity came to his eyes. “Poor little drunkard!” he said aloud. “Go ahead and do it. Isn’t anything YOU won’t do!” And, having washed his face at a basin in a corner, he set his hat slightly upon one side, picked up a walking stick and departed jauntily, and, to the outward eye, presentably sober.

  Mr. Valentine Corliss would be glad to see him, the clerk at the Richfield Hotel reported, after sending up a card, and upon Ray’s following the card, Mr. Valentine Corliss in person confirmed the message with considerable amusement and a cordiality in which there was some mixture of the quizzical. He was the taller; and the robust manliness of his appearance, his splendid health and boxer’s figure offered a sharp contrast to the superlatively lean tippler. Corliss was humorously aware of his advantage: his greeting seemed really to say, “Hello, my funny bug, here you are again!” though the words of his salutation were entirely courteous; and he followed it with a hospitable offer.

  “No,” said Vilas; “I won’t drink with you.” He spoke so gently that the form of his refusal, usually interpreted as truculent, escaped the other’s notice. He also declined a cigar, apologetically asking permission to light one of his own cigarettes; then, as he sank into a velour-covered chair, apologized again for the particular attention he was bestowing upon the apartment, which he recognized as one of the suites de luxe of the hotel.

  “`Parlour, bedroom, and bath,’” he continued, with a melancholy smile; “and `Lachrymae,’ and `A Reading from Homer.’ Sometimes they have `The Music Lesson,’ or `Winter Scene’ or `A Neapolitan Fisher Lad’ instead of `Lachrymae,’ but they always have `A Reading from Homer.’ When you opened the door, a moment ago, I had a very strong impression that something extraordinary would some time happen to me in this room.”