Cards — that is Bridge and Preference — ruled as usual; and the latter game being faster suited Mortimer and Ferrall, but did not aid Siward toward recouping his Bridge losses.
Noticing this, late in the week, Major Belwether kindly suggested Klondyke for Siward’s benefit, which proved more quickly disastrous to him than anything yet proposed; and he went back to Bridge, preferring rather to “carry” Agatha Caithness at intervals than crumble into bankruptcy under the sheer deadly hazard of Klondyke.
Two matters occupied him; since “cup day” he had never had another opportunity to see Sylvia Landis alone; that was the first matter. He had touched neither wine nor spirits nor malt since the night Ferrall had found him prone, sprawling in a stupor on his disordered bed. That was the second matter, and it occupied him, at times required all his attention, particularly when the physical desire for it set in, steadily, mercilessly, mounting inexorably like a tide.... But, like the tide, it ebbed at last, particularly when a sleepless night had exhausted him.
He had gone back to his shooting again after a cool review of the ethics involved. It even amused him to think that the whimsical sermon delivered him by a girl who had cleverness enough to marry many millions, with Quarrier thrown in, could have so moved him to sentimentality. He had ceded the big cup of antique silver to Quarrier, too — a matter which troubled him little, however, as in the irritation of the reaction he had been shooting with the brilliancy of a demon; and the gun-room books were open to any doubting guests’ inspection.
Time, therefore, was never heavy on his hands, save when the tide threatened — when at night he stirred and awoke, conscious of its crawling advance, aware of its steady mounting menace. Moments at table, when the aroma of wine made him catch his breath, moments in the gun-room redolent of spicy spirits; a maddening volatile fragrance clinging to the card-room, too! Yes, the long days were filled with such moments for him.
But afield the desire faded; and even during the day, indoors, he shrugged desire aside. It was night that he dreaded — the long hours, lying there tense, stark-eyed, sickened with desire.
As for Sylvia, she and Grace Ferrall had taken to motoring, driving away into the interior or taking long flights north and south along the coast. Sometimes they took Quarrier, sometimes, when Mrs. Ferrall drove, they took in ballast in the shape of a superfluous Page boy and a girl for him. Once Grace Ferrall asked Siward to join them; but no definite time being set, he was scarcely surprised to find them gone when he returned from a morning on the snipe meadows. And Sylvia, leagues away by that time, curled up in the tonneau beside Grace Ferrall, watched the dark pines flying past, cheeks pink, eyes like stars, while the rushing wind drove health into her and care out of her — cleansing, purifying, overwhelming winds flowing through and through her, till her very soul within her seemed shining through the beauty of her eyes. Besides, she had just confessed.
“He kissed you!” repeated Grace Ferrall incredulously.
“Yes — a number of times. He was silly enough to do it, and I let him.”
“Did — did he say—”
“I don’t know what he said; I was all nerves — confused — scared — a perfect stick in fact!... I don’t believe he’d care to try again.”
Then Mrs. Ferrall deliberately settled down in her furs to extract from the girl beside her every essential detail; and the girl, frank at first, grew shy and silent — reticent enough to worry her friend into a silence which lasted a long while for a cheerful little matron of her sort.
Presently they spoke of other matters — matters interesting to pretty women with much to do in the coming winter between New York, Hot Springs, and Florida; surmises as to dinners, dances, and the newcomers in the younger sets, and the marriages to be arranged or disarranged, and the scandals humanity is heir to, and the attitude of the bishop toward divorce.
And the new pavillion to be built for Saint Berold’s Hospital, and the various states of the various charities each was interested in, and the chances of something new at the opera, and the impossibility of saving Fifth Avenue from truck traffic, and the increasing importance of Washington as a social centre, and the bad manners of a foreign ambassador, and the better manners of another diplomat, and the lack of discrimination betrayed by our ambassador to a certain great Power in choosing people for presentation at court, and the latest unhappy British-American marriage, and the hopelessness of the French as decent husbands, and the recent accident to the Claymores’ big yacht, and the tendency of well-born young men toward politics, and the anything but distinguished person of Lord Alderdene, which was, however, vastly superior to the demeanour and person of others of his rank recently imported, and the beauty of Miss Caithness, and the chance that Captain Voucher had if Leila Mortimer would let him alone, and the absurdity of the Page twins, and the furtive coarseness of Leroy Mortimer and his general badness, and the sadness of Leila Mortimer’s lot when she had always been in love with other people, — and a little scandalous surmise concerning Tom O’Hara, and the new house on Seventy-ninth Street building for Mrs. Vendenning, and that charming widow’s success at last year’s horse show — and whether the fashion of the function was reviving, and whether Beverly Plank had completely broken into the social sets he had besieged so long, or whether a few of the hunting and shooting people merely permitted him to drive pheasants for them, and why Katharyn Tassel made eyes at him, having sufficient money of her own to die unwed, and — and — and then, at last, as the big motor car swung in a circle at Wenniston Cross-Roads, and poked its brass and lacquer muzzle toward Shotover, the talk swung back to Siward once more — having travelled half the world over to find him.
“He is the sweetest fellow with his mother,” sighed Grace; “and that counts heavily with me. But there’s trouble ahead for her — sorrow and trouble enough for them both, if he is a true Siward.”
“Heredity again!” said Sylvia impatiently. “Isn’t he man enough to win out? I’ll bet you he settles down, marries, and—”
“Marries? Not he! How many girls do you suppose have believed that — were justified in believing he meant anything by his attractive manner and nice ways of telling you how much he liked you? He had a desperate affair with Mrs. Mortimer — innocent enough I fancy. He’s had a dozen within three years; and in a week Rena Bonnesdel has come to making eyes at him, and Eileen gives him no end of chances which he doesn’t see. As for Marion Page, the girl had been on the edge of loving him for years! You laugh? But you are wrong; she is in love with him now as much as she ever can be with anybody.”
“You mean—”
“Yes I do. Hadn’t you suspected it?”
And as Sylvia had suspected it she remained silent.
“If any woman in this world could keep him to the mark, she could,” continued Mrs. Ferrall. “He’s a perfect fool not to see how she cares for him.”
Sylvia said: “He is indeed.”
“It would be a sensible match, if she cared to risk it, and if he would only ask her. But he won’t.”
“Perhaps,” ventured Sylvia, “she’ll ask him. She strikes me as that sort. I do not mean it unkindly — only Marion is so tailor-made and cigaretteful—”
Mrs. Ferrall looked up at her.
“Did he propose to you?”
“Yes — I think so.”
“Then it’s the first time for him. He finds women only too willing to play with him as a rule, and he doesn’t have to be definite. I wonder what he meant by being so definite with you?”
“I suppose he meant marriage,” said Sylvia serenely; yet there was the slightest ring in her voice; and it amused Mrs. Ferrall to try her a little further.
“Oh, you think he really intended to commit himself?”
“Why not?” retorted Sylvia, turning red. “Do you think he found me over-willing, as you say he finds others?”
“You were probably a new sensation for him,” inferred Mrs. Ferrall musingly. “You mustn’t take him seriously, child — a m
an with his record. Besides, he has the same facility with a girl that he has with everything else he tries; his pen — you know how infernally clever he is; and he can make good verse, and write witty jingles, and he can carry home with him any opera and play it decently, too, with the proper harmonies. Anything he finds amusing he is clever with — dogs, horses, pen, brush, music, women” — that was too malicious, for Sylvia had flushed up painfully, and Grace Ferrall dropped her gloved hand on the hand of the girl beside her: “Child, child,” she said, “he is not that sort; no decent man ever is unless the girl is too.”
Sylvia, sitting up very straight in her furs, said: “He found me anything but difficult — if that’s what you mean.”
“I don’t. Please don’t be vexed, dear. I plague everybody when I see an opening. There’s really only one thing that worries me about it all.”
“What is that?” asked Sylvia without interest.
“It’s that you might be tempted to care a little for him, which, being useless, might be unwise.”
“I am... tempted.”
“Not seriously!”
“I don’t know.” She turned in a sudden nervous impatience foreign to her. “Howard Quarrier is too perfectly imperfect for me. I’m glad I’ve said it. The things he knows about and doesn’t know have been a revelation in this last week with him. There is too much surface, too much exterior admirably fashioned. And inside is all clock-work. I’ve said it; I’m glad I have. He seemed different at Newport; he seemed nice at Lenox. The truth is, he’s a horrid disappointment — and I’m bored to death at my brilliant prospects.”
The low whizzing hum of the motor filled a silence that produced considerable effect upon Grace Ferrall. And, after mastering her wits, she said in a subdued voice:
“Of course it’s my meddling.”
“Of course it isn’t. I asked your opinion, but I knew what I was going to do. Only, I did think him personally possible — which made the expediency, the mercenary view of it easier to contemplate.”
She was becoming as frankly brutal as she knew how to be, which made the revolt the more ominous.
“You don’t think you could endure him for an hour or two a day, Sylvia?”
“It is not that,” said the girl almost sullenly.
“But—”
“I’m afraid of myself — call it inherited mischief if you like! If I let a man do to me what Mr. Siward did when I was only engaged to Howard, what might I do—”
“You are not that sort!” said Mrs. Ferrall bluntly. “Don’t be exotic, Sylvia.”
“How do you know — if I don’t know? Most girls are kissed; I — well I didn’t expect to be. But I was! I tell you, Grace, I don’t know what I am or shall be. I’m unsafe; I know that much.”
“It’s moral and honest to realize it,” said Mrs. Ferrall suavely; “and in doing so you insure your own safety. Sylvia dear, I wish I hadn’t meddled; I’m meddling some more I suppose when I say to you, don’t give Howard his congé for the present. It is a horridly common thing to dwell upon, but Howard is too materially important to be cut adrift on the impulse of the moment.”
“I know it.”
“You are too clever not to. Consider the matter wisely, dispassionately, intelligently, dear; then if by April you simply can’t stand it — talk the thing over with me again,” she ended rather vaguely and wistfully; for it had been her heart’s desire to wed Sylvia’s beauty and Quarrier’s fortune, and the suitability of the one for the other was apparent enough to make even sterner moralists wobbly in their creed. Quarrier, as a detail of modern human architecture, she supposed might fit in somewhere, and took that for granted in laying the corner stone for her fairy palace which Sylvia was to inhabit. And now! — oh, vexation! — the neglected but essentially constructive detail of human architecture had buckled, knocking the dream palace and its princess and its splendour about her ears.
“Things never happen in real life,” she observed plaintively; “only romances have plots where things work out. But we people in real life, we just go on and on in a badly constructed, plotless sort of way with no villains, no interesting situations, no climaxes, no ensemble. No, we grow old and irritable and meaner and meaner; we lose our good looks and digestions, and we die in hopeless discord with the unity required in a dollar and a half novel by a master of modern fiction.”
“But some among us amass fortunes,” suggested Sylvia, laughing.
“But we don’t live happy ever after. Nobody ever had enough money in real life.”
“Some fall in love,” observed Sylvia, musing.
“And they are not content, silly!”
“Why? Because nobody ever had enough love in real life,” mocked Sylvia.
“You have said it, child. That is the malady of the world, and nobody knows it until some pretty ninny like you babbles the truth. And that is why we care for those immortals in romance, those fortunate lovers who, in fable, are given and give enough of love; those magic shapes in verse and tale whose hearts are satisfied when the mad author of their being inks his last period and goes to dinner.”
Sylvia laughed awhile, then, chin on wrist, sat musing there, muffled in her furs.
“As for love, I think I should be moderate in the asking, in the giving. A little — to flavour routine — would be sufficient for me I fancy.”
“You know so much about it,” observed Mrs. Ferrall ironically.
“I am permitted to speculate, am I not?”
“Certainly. Only speculate in sound investments, dear.”
“How can you make a sound investment in love? Isn’t it always sheerest speculation?”
“Yes, that is why simple matrimony is usually a safer speculation than love.”
“Yes, but — love isn’t matrimony.”
“Match that with its complementary platitude and you have the essence of modern fiction,” observed Mrs. Ferrall. “Love is a subject talked to death, which explains the present shortage in the market I suppose. You’re not in love and you don’t miss it. Why cultivate an artificial taste for it? If it ever comes naturally, you’ll be astonished at your capacity for it, and the constant deterioration in quantity and quality of the visible supply. Goodness! my epigrams make me yawn — or is it age and the ill humour of the aged when the porridge spills over on the family cat?”
“I am the cat, I suppose,” asked Sylvia, laughing.
“Yes you are — and you go tearing away, back up, fur on end, leaving me by the fire with no porridge and only the aroma of the singeing fur to comfort me.... Still there’s one thing to comfort me.”
“What?”
“Kitty-cats come back, dear.”
“Oh, I suppose so.... Do you believe I could induce him to wear his hair any way except pompadour?... and, dear, his beard is so dreadfully silky. Isn’t there anything he could take for it?”
“Only a razor I’m afraid. Those long, thick, soft, eyelashes of his are ominous. Eyes of that sort ruin a man for my taste. He might just as reasonably wear my hat.”
“But he can’t follow the fashions in eyes,” laughed Sylvia. “Oh, this is atrocious of us — it is simply horrible to sit here and say such things. I am cold-blooded enough as it is — material enough, mean, covetous, contemptible—”
“Dear!” said Grace Ferrall mildly, “you are not choosing a husband; you are choosing a career. To criticise his investments might be bad taste; to be able to extract what amusement you can out of Howard is a direct mercy from Heaven. Otherwise you’d go mad, you know.”
“Grace! Do you wish me to marry him?”
“What is the alternative, dear?”
“Why, nothing — self-respect, dowdiness, and peace.”
“Is that all?”
“All I can see.”
“Not Stephen Siward?”
“To marry? No. To enjoy, yes.... Grace, I have had such a good time with him; you don’t know! He is such a boy — sometimes; and I — I believe that I am rather good for him.... Not
that I’d ever again let him do that sort of thing.... Besides, his curiosity is quenched; I am the sort he supposed. Now he’s found out he will be nice.... It’s been days since I’ve had a talk with him. He tried to, but I wouldn’t. Besides, the major has said nasty things about him when Howard was present; nothing definite, only hints, smiling silences, innuendoes on the verge of matters rather unfit; and I had nothing definite to refute. I could not even appear to understand or notice — it was all done in such a horridly vague way. But it only made me like him; and no doubt that actress he took to the Patroons is better company than he finds in nine places out of ten among his own sort.”
“Oh,” said Grace Ferrall slowly, “if that is the way you feel, I don’t see why you shouldn’t play with Mr. Siward whenever you like.”
“Nor I. I’ve been a perfect fool not to.... Howard hates him.”
“How do you know?”
“What a question! A woman knows such things. Then, you remember that caricature — so dreadfully like Howard? Howard has no sense of humour; he detests such things. It was the most dreadful thing that Mr. Siward could have done to him.”
“Meddled again!” groaned Grace. “Doesn’t Howard know that I did that?”
“Yes, but nothing I can say alters his conviction that the likeness was intended. You know it was a likeness! And if Mr. Siward had not told me that it was not intended, I should never have believed it to be an accident.”
After a prolonged silence Sylvia said, overcarelessly: “I don’t quite understand Howard. With me anger lasts but a moment, and then I’m open to overtures for peace... I think Howard’s anger lasts.”
“It does,” said Grace. “He was a muff as a boy — a prig with a prig’s memory under all his shallow, showy surface. I’m frank with you; I never could take my cousin either respectfully or seriously, but I’ve known him to take his own anger so seriously that years after he has visited it upon those who had really wronged him. And he is equipped for retaliation if he chooses. That fortune of his reaches far.... Not that I think him capable of using such a power to satisfy a mere personal dislike. Howard has principles, loads of them. But — the weapon is there.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 289