“Did you?” said Sylvia, troubled.
“Yes, I did. When I wore short skirts I kissed him, too!”
“Did you? W — what did he wear?”
“Knickerbockers, silly! You don’t think he was still in the cradle, do you? I’m not as aged as that!”
“I missed a great deal in my childhood,” said Sylvia naïvely.
“By not knowing Stephen? Pooh! He used to pinch me, and then we’d put out our tongues in mutual derision. Once—”
“Stop!” said Sylvia faintly. “And anyhow, you probably taught him.... Look at him as he saunters across the lawn, Leila — look at him!”
“Well? I see him.”
“Isn’t he almost an ideal?”
“He is. He certainly is, dear.”
“Do you think he walks as though he were perfectly well?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Leila thoughtfully. “Sometimes people whose walk is a gracefully languid saunter develop adipose tissue after forty.”
“Nonsense! Really, Leila, do you think he walks like a perfectly well man?”
“He may be coming down with whooping-cough—”
Sylvia rose indignantly, but Leila pulled her back to the sun-warmed marble bench:
“A girl in love loses her sense of humour temporarily. Sit down, you little vixen!”
“Leila, you laugh at everything when I don’t feel like it.”
“I’m not in love, and that’s why.”
“You are in love!”
Leila looked at her, then under her breath: “In love, am I — with the whole young world ringing with the laughter I had forgotten the very sound of? Do you call that love? — with the sea and sky laughing back at me, and the wind in my ears fairly tremulous with laughter? Do you, who look out upon the pretty world so seriously through those sea-blue eyes of yours, think that I can be in love?”
“Oh, Leila, a girl’s happiness is serious enough, isn’t it? Dear, it frightens me! I was so close to losing it — once.”
“I lost mine,” said Leila, closing her eyes for a moment. “I shall not sigh if I find it again.”
They sat there in the sun, Leila’s hand lying idly in Sylvia’s, the soft sea-wind stirring their hair, and in their ears the thunderous undertone of the mounting sea.
“Look at Stephen!” murmured Sylvia, her enraptured eyes following him as he strolled hatless and coatless along the cliff’s edge, the sun glimmering on his short hair, a tall, slim, well-coupled, strongly knit shape against the sky and sea.
But Leila’s quick ear had caught a significant sound from the gravel drive behind her, and she stood up, a delicious colour tinting her face.
“Are you going in?” asked Sylvia. Then she, too, heard the subdued whirring of a motor from the front of the house, and she looked at Leila as she turned and recrossed the terrace, walking slowly but erect, her pretty head held high.
Then Sylvia faced the sea again and presently descended the terrace, crossing the long lawn toward the headland, where Siward stood looking out across the water.
Leila, from the music-room, watched her; then she heard Plank’s voice, and his step on the stair, and she called out to him gaily:
“I am downstairs, thank you. How dared you send me those foolish nurses!”
She was laughing when he came into the room, standing there erect, head high, a brilliant colour in her cheeks; and she offered him both hands which he took between his own, holding them strongly, and looking into her face with steady, questioning eyes.
“Well?” she said, still smiling, but her scarlet under-lip trembled a little; then: “Yes, you may say what you wish — what I — I wish you to say.... There can be no harm in talking about it. But — will you be very gentle with me? Don’t m-make me cry; I h-have — I am t-trying to remember how it feels to laugh once more.”
Sylvia, lying in the hot sand on the tiny crescent beach under the cliffs, listened gravely to Siward’s figures, as, note-book in hand, he went over the real-estate problem, commenting thoughtfully as he discussed the houses offered.
“Twenty by a hundred and two; good rear, north side of the street — next door to the Tommy Barclays, you know, Sylvia; only they’re asking forty-two-five.”
“That is an outrage!” said Sylvia seriously; “besides, I remember there was a wretched cellar, and only a butler’s pantry extension. I’d much rather have that little house in Sixty-fourth Street, where the Fetherbraynes live — next house on the west, you know. Then we can pull it down and build — when we want to.”
“We won’t be able to afford to build for a while, you know,” said Siward doubtfully.
“What do we care, dear? We’ll have millions of things to do, anyway, and what is the use of building?”
“As many things to do as that?” he said, looking over his note-book with a smile.
“More! Are we not just beginning to live, and open our eyes, silly? Listen: Books, books, books, from top to bottom of the house, that is what I want first of all — except my piano.”
“Do let us have a little plumbing, dear,” he said so seriously that for a fraction of a second she was on the verge of taking him seriously.
“Why extravagant plumbing when books furnish sufficient circulation for the flow of soul, dear?” she retorted gravely.
“Nobody we know will ever come to see us, if they think we read books,” said Siward.
“Isn’t it delightful!” sighed Sylvia. “We’re going to become frumps! I mustn’t forget the blue stockings for my trousseau, and you mustn’t forget the California claret for the cellar, dear. We will need it when we read Henry James to each other.”
Siward, resting his weight on one hand, laughed, and looked out at the surf drenching the reefs with silver.
“To think,” he said, “that I could ever have been enough afraid of the sea to hate it! After all, at low tide the reef is always there in the same place and none the worse for the drenching. All that surf only shows how strong a rock can be.”
He smiled, and turned to look at Sylvia; and she lay there, silent, blue eyes looking back into his. Suddenly they glimmered with tears, and she stretched out both arms, drawing his head down to hers convulsively, her quivering mouth crushed against his lips. Then she rose to her knees, to her feet, dazed, brushing the tears from her eyes.
“To think — to think,” she stammered, “that I might have let you face the world alone! Dearest, dearest, we must fight a good fight. The sea is always there — always, always there!”
He looked straight into her eyes, fearlessly, tenderly, and she looked back with the divine, untroubled gaze of a child, laying her slender, sun-tanned hands in his.
And, deep in his body, as he stood there, he heard the low challenge of his soul on guard; and he knew that the Enemy listened.
THE END
THE YOUNGER SET
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
TO
MY MOTHER
CHAPTER I
HIS OWN PEOPLE
“You never met Selwyn, did you?”
“No, sir.”
“Never heard anything definite about his trouble?” insisted Gerard.
“Oh, yes, sir!” replied young Erroll, “I’ve heard a good deal about it. Everybody has, you know.”
“Well, I don’t know,” retorted Austin Gerard irritably, “what ‘everybody’ has heard, but I suppose it’s the usual garbled version made up of distorted fact and malicious gossip. That’s why I sent for you. Sit down.”
Gerald Erroll seated himself on the edge of the big, polished table in Austin’s private office, one leg swinging, an unlighted cigarette between his lips.
Austin Gerard,
his late guardian, big, florid, with that peculiar blue eye which seems to characterise hasty temper, stood by the window, tossing up and catching the glittering gold piece — souvenir of the directors’ meeting which he had just left.
“What has happened,” he said, “is this. Captain Selwyn is back in town — sent up his card to me, but they told him I was attending a directors’ meeting. When the meeting was over I found his card and a message scribbled, saying he’d recently landed and was going uptown to call on Nina. She’ll keep him there, of course, until I get home, so I shall see him this evening. Now, before you meet him, I want you to plainly understand the truth about this unfortunate affair; and that’s why I telephoned your gimlet-eyed friend Neergard just now to let you come around here for half an hour.”
The boy nodded and, drawing a gold matchbox from his waistcoat pocket, lighted his cigarette.
“Why the devil don’t you smoke cigars?” growled Austin, more to himself than to Gerald; then, pocketing the gold piece, seated himself heavily in his big leather desk-chair.
“In the first place,” he said, “Captain Selwyn is my brother-in-law — which wouldn’t make an atom of difference to me in my judgment of what has happened if he had been at fault. But the facts of the case are these.” He held up an impressive forefinger and laid it flat across the large, ruddy palm of the other hand. “First of all, he married a cat! C-a-t, cat. Is that clear, Gerald?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good! What sort of a dance she led him out there in Manila, I’ve heard. Never mind that, now. What I want you to know is how he behaved — with what quiet dignity, steady patience, and sweet temper under constant provocation and mortification, he conducted himself. Then that fellow Ruthven turned up — and — Selwyn is above that sort of suspicion. Besides, his scouts took the field within a week.”
He dropped a heavy, highly coloured fist on his desk with a bang.
“After that hike, Selwyn came back, to find that Alixe had sailed with Jack Ruthven. And what did he do; take legal measures to free himself, as you or I or anybody with an ounce of temper in ’em would have done? No; he didn’t. That infernal Selwyn conscience began to get busy, making him believe that if a woman kicks over the traces it must be because of some occult shortcoming on his part. In some way or other that man persuaded himself of his responsibility for her misbehaviour. He knew what it meant if he didn’t ask the law to aid him to get rid of her; he knew perfectly well that his silence meant acknowledgment of culpability; that he couldn’t remain in the service under such suspicion.
“And now, Gerald,” continued Austin, striking his broad palm with extended forefinger and leaning heavily forward, “I’ll tell you what sort of a man Philip Selwyn is. He permitted Alixe to sue him for absolute divorce — and, to give her every chance to marry Ruthven, he refused to defend the suit. That sort of chivalry is very picturesque, no doubt, but it cost him his career — set him adrift at thirty-five, a man branded as having been divorced from his wife for cause, with no profession left him, no business, not much money — a man in the prime of life and hope and ambition, clean in thought and deed; an upright, just, generous, sensitive man, whose whole career has been blasted because he was too merciful, too generous to throw the blame where it belonged. And it belongs on the shoulders of that Mrs. Jack Ruthven — Alixe Ruthven — whose name you may see in the columns of any paper that truckles to the sort of society she figures in.”
Austin stood up, thrust his big hands into his pockets, paced the room for a few moments, and halted before Gerald.
“If any woman ever played me a dirty trick,” he said, “I’d see that the public made no mistake in placing the blame. I’m that sort” — he shrugged— “Phil Selwyn isn’t; that’s the difference — and it may be in his favour from an ethical and sentimental point of view. All right; let it go at that. But all I meant you to understand is that he is every inch a man; and when you have the honour to meet him, keep that fact in the back of your head, among the few brains with which Providence has equipped you.”
“Thanks!” said Gerald, colouring up. He cast his cigarette into the empty fireplace, slid off the edge of the table, and picked up his hat. Austin eyed him without particular approval.
“You buy too many clothes,” he observed. “That’s a new suit, isn’t it?”
“Certainly,” said Gerald; “I needed it.”
“Oh! if you can afford it, all right. . . . How’s the nimble Mr. Neergard?”
“Neergard is flourishing. We put through that Rose Valley deal. I tell you what, Austin, I wish you could see your way clear to finance one or two—”
Austin’s frown cut him short.
“Oh, all right! You know your own business, of course,” said the boy, a little resentfully. “Only as Fane, Harmon & Co. have thought it worth while—”
“I don’t care what Fane, Harmon think,” growled Austin, touching a button over his desk. His stenographer entered; he nodded a curt dismissal to Gerald, adding, as the boy reached the door:
“Your sister expects you to be on hand to-night — and so do we.”
Gerald halted.
“I’d clean forgotten,” he began; “I made another — a rather important engagement—”
But Austin was not listening; in fact, he had already begun to dictate to his demure stenographer, and Gerald stood a moment, hesitating, then turned on his heel and went away down the resounding marble corridor.
“They never let me alone,” he muttered; “they’re always at me — following me up as though I were a schoolboy. . . . Austin’s the worst — never satisfied. . . . What do I care for all these functions — sitting around with the younger set and keeping the cradle of conversation rocking? I won’t go to that infernal baby-show!”
He entered the elevator and shot down to the great rotunda, still scowling over his grievance. For he had made arrangements to join a card-party at Julius Neergard’s rooms that night, and he had no intention of foregoing that pleasure just because his sister’s first grown-up dinner-party was fixed for the same date.
As for this man Selwyn, whom he had never met, he saw no reason why he should drop business and scuttle uptown in order to welcome him. No doubt he was a good fellow; no doubt he had behaved very decently in a matter which, until a few moments before, he had heard little about. He meant to be civil; he’d look up Selwyn when he had a chance, and ask him to dine at the club. But this afternoon he couldn’t do it; and, as for the evening, he had made his arrangements, and he had no intention of disturbing them on Austin’s account.
When he reached his office he picked up the telephone and called up Gerard’s house; but neither his sister nor anybody else was there except the children and servants, and Captain Selwyn had not yet called. So he left no message, merely saying that he’d call up again. Which he forgot to do.
Meanwhile Captain Selwyn was sauntering along Fifth Avenue under the leafless trees, scanning the houses of the rich and great across the way; and these new houses of the rich and great stared back at him out of a thousand casements as polished and expressionless as the monocles of the mighty.
And, strolling at leisure in the pleasant winter weather, he came presently to a street, stretching eastward in all the cold impressiveness of very new limestone and plate-glass.
Could this be the street where his sister now lived?
As usual when perplexed he slowly raised his hand to his moustache; and his pleasant gray eyes, still slightly blood-shot from the glare of the tropics, narrowed as he inspected this unfamiliar house.
The house was a big elaborate limestone affair, evidently new. Winter sunshine sparkled on lace-hung casement, on glass marquise, and the burnished bronze foliations of grille and door.
It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted, frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under thei
r left arms, passed on the Park side.
But the nods of recognition, lifted hats, the mellow warnings of motor horns, clattering hoofs, the sun flashing on carriage wheels and polished panels, on liveries, harness, on the satin coats of horses — a gem like a spark of fire smothered by the sables at a woman’s throat, and the bright indifference of her beauty — all this had long since lost any meaning for him. For him the pageant passed as the west wind passes in Samar over the glimmering valley grasses; and he saw it through sun-dazzled eyes — all this, and the leafless trees beyond against the sky, and the trees mirrored in a little wintry lake as brown as the brown of the eyes which were closed to him now forever.
As he stood there, again he seemed to hear the whistle signal, clear, distant, rippling across the wind-blown grasses where the brown constabulary lay firing in the sunshine; but the rifle shots were the crack of whips, and it was only a fat policeman of the traffic squad whistling to clear the swarming jungle trails of the great metropolis.
Again Selwyn turned to the house, hesitating, unreconciled. Every sun-lit window stared back at him.
He had not been prepared for so much limestone and marquise magnificence where there was more renaissance than architecture and more bay-window than both; but the number was the number of his sister’s house; and, as the street and the avenue corroborated the numbered information, he mounted the doorstep, rang, and leisurely examined four stiff box-trees flanking the ornate portal — meagre vegetation compared to what he had been accustomed to for so many years.
Nobody came; once or twice he fancied he heard sounds proceeding from inside the house. He rang again and fumbled for his card case. Somebody was coming.
The moment that the door opened he was aware of a distant and curious uproar — far away echoes of cheering, and the faint barking of dogs. These seemed to cease as the man in waiting admitted him; but before he could make an inquiry or produce a card, bedlam itself apparently broke loose somewhere in the immediate upper landing — noise in its crudest elemental definition — through which the mortified man at the door strove to make himself heard: “Beg pardon, sir, it’s the children broke loose an’ runnin’ wild-like—”
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