Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “You mustn’t; I won’t let you. Two kinds of dessert are sufficient at a time. But to-morrow — or perhaps the day after, you may confess to me your approbation of one more feature — only one, remember! — just one more agreeable feature. In that way I shall be able to hold out for quite a while, you see — counting my fingers as separate features! Oh, you’ve given me a taste of it; it’s your own fault, Captain Selwyn, and now I desire more if you please — in semi-weekly lingering doses—”

  A perfect gale of laughter from the sofa cut her short.

  “Drina!” she exclaimed; “it’s after eight! — and I completely forgot.”

  “Oh, dear!” protested the child, “he’s being so funny about the war in Samar. Couldn’t I stay up — just five more minutes, Eileen? Besides, I haven’t told him about Jessie Orchil’s party—”

  “Drina, dear, you know I can’t let you. Say good-night, now — if you want Mr. Lansing and your Uncle Philip to come to another party.”

  “I’ll just whisper one more confidence very fast,” she said to Boots. He inclined his head; she placed both hands on his shoulders, and, kneeling on the sofa, laid her lips close to his ear. Eileen and Selwyn waited.

  When the child had ended and had taken leave of all, Boots also took his leave; and Selwyn rose, too, a troubled, careworn expression replacing the careless gaiety which had made him seem so young in Miss Erroll’s youthful eyes.

  “Wait, Boots,” he said; “I’m going home with you.” And, to Eileen, almost absently: “Good-night; I’m so very glad you are well again.”

  “Good-night,” she said, looking up at him. The faintest sense of disappointment came over her — at what, she did not know. Was it because, in his completely altered face she realised the instant and easy detachment from herself, and what concerned her? — was it because other people, like Mr. Lansing — other interests — like those which so plainly, in his face, betrayed his preoccupation — had so easily replaced an intimacy which had seemed to grow newer and more delightful with every meeting?

  What was it, then, that he found more interesting, more important, than their friendship, their companionship? Was she never to grow old enough, or wise enough, or experienced enough to exact — without exacting — his paramount consideration and interest? Was there no common level of mental equality where they could meet? — where termination of interviews might be mutual — might be fairer to her?

  Now he went away, utterly detached from her and what concerned her — to seek other interests of which she knew nothing; absorbed in them to her utter exclusion, leaving her here with the long evening before her and nothing to do — because her eyes were not yet strong enough to use for reading.

  Lansing was saying: “I’ll drive as far as the club with you, and then you can drop me and come back later.”

  “Right, my son; I’ll finish a letter and then come back—”

  “Can’t you write it at the club?”

  “Not that letter,” he replied in a low voice; and, turning to Eileen, smiled his absent, detached smile, offering his hand.

  But she lay back, looking straight up at him.

  “Are you going?”

  “Yes; I have several—”

  “Stay with me,” she said in a low voice.

  For a moment the words meant nothing; then blank surprise silenced him, followed by curiosity.

  “Is there something you wished to tell me?” he asked.

  “N-no.”

  His perplexity and surprise grew. “Wait a second, Boots,” he said; and Mr. Lansing, being a fairly intelligent young man, went out and down the stairway.

  “Now,” he said, too kindly, too soothingly, “what is it, Eileen?”

  “Nothing. I thought — but I don’t care. Please go, Captain Selwyn.”

  “No, I shall not until you tell me what troubles you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Try, Eileen.”

  “Why, it is nothing; truly it is nothing. . . . Only I was — it is so early — only a quarter past eight—”

  He stood there looking down at her, striving to understand.

  “That is all,” she said, flushing a trifle; “I can’t read and I can’t sew and there’s nobody here. . . . I don’t mean to bother you—”

  “Child,” he exclaimed, “do you want me to stay?”

  “Yes,” she said; “will you?”

  He walked swiftly to the landing outside and looked down.

  “Boots!” he called in a low voice, “I’m not going home yet. Don’t wait for me at the Lenox.”

  “All right,” returned Mr. Lansing cheerfully. A moment later the front door closed below. Then Selwyn came back into the library.

  For an hour he sat there telling her the gayest stories and talking the most delightful nonsense, alternating with interesting incisions into serious subjects: which it enchanted her to dissect under his confident guidance.

  Alert, intelligent, all aquiver between laughter and absorption, she had sat up among her silken pillows, resting her weight on one rounded arm, her splendid young eyes fixed on him to detect and follow and interpret every change in his expression personal to the subject and to her share in it.

  His old self again! What could be more welcome? Not one shadow in his pleasant eyes, not a trace of pallor, of care, of that gray aloofness. How jolly, how young he was after all!

  They discussed, or laughed at, or mentioned and dismissed with a gesture a thousand matters of common interest in that swift hour — incredibly swift, unless the hall clock’s deadened chimes were mocking Time itself with mischievous effrontery.

  She heard them, the enchantment still in her eyes; he nodded, listening, meeting her gaze with his smile undisturbed. When the last chime had sounded she lay back among her cushions.

  “Thank you for staying,” she said quite happily.

  “Am I to go?”

  Smilingly thoughtful she considered him from her pillows:

  “Where were you going when I — spoiled it all? For you were going somewhere — out there” — with a gesture toward the darkness outside— “somewhere where men go to have the good times they always seem to have. . . . Was it to your club? What do men do there? Is it very gay at men’s clubs? . . . It must be interesting to go where men have such jolly times — where men gather to talk that mysterious man-talk which we so often wonder at — and pretend we are indifferent. But we are very curious, nevertheless — even about the boys of Gerald’s age — whom we laugh at and torment; and we can’t help wondering how they talk to each other — what they say that is so interesting; for they somehow manage to convey that impression to us — even against our will. . . . If you stay, I shall never have done with chattering. When you sit there with one lazy knee so leisurely draped over the other, and your eyes laughing at me through your cigar-smoke, about a million ideas flash up in me which I desire to discuss with you. . . . So you had better go.”

  “I am happier here,” he said, watching her.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Then — then — am I, also, one of the ‘good times’ a man can have? — when he is at liberty to reflect and choose as he idles over his coffee?”

  “A man is fortunate if you permit that choice.”

  “Are you serious? I mean a man, not a boy — not a dance or dinner partner, or one of the men one meets about — everywhere from pillar to post. Do you think me interesting to real men? — like you and Boots?”

  “Yes,” he said deliberately, “I do. I don’t know how interesting, because — I never quite realised how — how you had matured. . . . That was my stupidity.”

  “Captain Selwyn!” in confused triumph; “you never gave me a chance; I mean, you always were nice in — in the same way you are to Drina. . . . I liked it — don’t please misunderstand — only I knew there was something else to me — something more nearly your own age. It was jolly to know you were really fond of me — but youthful sisters grow faster than you im
agine. . . . And now, when you come, I shall venture to believe it is not wholly to do me a kindness — but — a little — to do yourself one, too. Is that not the basis of friendship?”

  “Yes.”

  “Community and equality of interests? — isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “ — And — in which the — the charity of superior experience and the inattention of intellectual preoccupation and the amused concession to ignorance must steadily, if gradually, disappear? Is that it, too?”

  Astonishment and chagrin at his misconception of her gave place to outright laughter at his own expense.

  “Where on earth did you — I mean that I am quite overwhelmed under your cutting indictment of me. Old duffers of my age—”

  “Don’t say that,” she said; “that is pleading guilty to the indictment, and reverting to the old footing. I shall not permit you to go back.”

  “I don’t want to, Eileen—”

  “I am wondering,” she said airily, “about that ‘Eileen.’ I’m not sure but that easy and fluent ‘Eileen’ is part of the indictment. What do you call Gladys Orchil, for example?”

  “What do I care what I call anybody?” he retorted, laughing, “as long as they

  “‘Answer to “Hi!”

  Or to any loud cry’?”

  “But I won’t answer to ‘Hi!’” she retorted very promptly; “and now that you admit that I am a ‘good time,’ a mature individual with distinguishing characteristics, and your intellectual equal if not your peer in experience, I’m not sure that I shall answer at all whenever you begin ‘Eileen.’ Or I shall take my time about it — or I may even reflect and look straight through you before I reply — or,” she added, “I may be so profoundly preoccupied with important matters which do not concern you, that I might not even hear you speak at all.”

  Their light-hearted laughter mingled delightfully — fresh, free, uncontrolled, peal after peal. She sat huddled up like a schoolgirl, lovely head thrown back, her white hands clasping her knees; he, both feet squarely on the floor, leaned forward, his laughter echoing hers.

  “What nonsense! What blessed nonsense you and I are talking!” she said, “but it has made me quite happy. Now you may go to your club and your mysterious man-talk—”

  “I don’t want to—”

  “Oh, but you must!” — she was now dismissing him— “because, although I am convalescent, I am a little tired, and Nina’s maid is waiting to tuck me in.”

  “So you send me away?”

  “Send you—” She hesitated, delightfully confused in the reversal of roles — not quite convinced of this new power which, of itself, had seemed to invest her with authority over man. “Yes,” she said, “I must send you away.” And her heart beat a little faster in her uncertainty as to his obedience — then leaped in triumph as he rose with a reluctance perfectly visible.

  “To-morrow,” she said, “I am to drive for the first time. In the evening I may be permitted to go to the Grays’ mid-Lent dance — but not to dance much. Will you be there? Didn’t they ask you? I shall tell Suddy Gray what I think of him — I don’t care whether it’s for the younger set or not! Goodness me, aren’t you as young as anybody! . . . Well, then! . . . So we won’t see each other to-morrow. And the day after that — oh, I wish I had my engagement list. Never mind, I will telephone you when I’m to be at home — or wherever I’m going to be. But it won’t be anywhere in particular because it’s Lent, of course. . . . Good-night, Captain Selwyn; you’ve been very sweet to me, and I’ve enjoyed every single instant.”

  When he had gone she rose, a trifle excited in the glow of abstract happiness, and walked erratically about, smiling to herself, touching and rearranging objects that caught her attention. Then an innocent instinct led her to the mirror, where she stood a moment looking back into the lovely reflected face with its disordered hair.

  “After all,” she said, “I’m not as aged as I pretended. . . . I wonder if he is laughing at me now. . . . But he was very, very nice to me — wherever he has gone in quest of that ‘good time’ and to talk his man-talk to other men—”

  In a reverie she stood at the mirror considering her own flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes.

  “What a curiously interesting man he is,” she murmured naïvely. “I shall telephone him that I am not going to that mi-carême dance. . . . Besides, Suddy Gray is a bore with the martyred smile he’s been cultivating. . . . As though a happy girl would dream of marrying anybody with all life before her to learn important things in! . . . And that dreadful, downy Scott Innis — trying to make me listen to him! . . . until I was ashamed to be alive! And Bradley Harmon — ugh! — and oh, that mushy widower, Percy Draymore, who got hold of my arm before I dreamed—”

  She shuddered and turned back into the room, frowning and counting her slow steps across the floor.

  “After all,” she said, “their silliness may be their greatest mystery — but I don’t include Captain Selwyn,” she added loyally; “he is far too intelligent to be like other men.”

  Yet, like other men, at that very moment Captain Selwyn was playing the fizzing contents of a siphon upon the iced ingredients of a tall, thin glass which stood on a table in the Lenox Club.

  The governor’s room being deserted except by himself and Mr. Lansing, he continued the animated explanation of his delay in arriving.

  “So I stayed,” he said to Boots with an enthusiasm quite boyish, “and I had a perfectly bully time. She’s just as clever as she can be — startling at moments. I never half appreciated her — she formerly appealed to me in a different way — a young girl knocking at the door of the world, and no mother or father to open for her and show her the gimcracks and the freaks and the side-shows. Do you know, Boots, that some day that girl is going to marry somebody, and it worries me, knowing men as I do — unless you should think of—”

  “Great James!” faltered Mr. Lansing, “are you turning into a schatschen? Are you planning to waddle through the world making matches for your friends? If you are I’m quitting you right here.”

  “It’s only because you are the decentest man I happen to know,” said Selwyn resentfully. “Probably she’d turn you down, anyway. But—” and he brightened up, “I dare say she’ll choose the best to be had; it’s a pity though—”

  “What’s a pity?”

  “That a charming, intellectual, sensitive, innocent girl like that should be turned over to a plain lump of a man.”

  “When you’ve finished your eulogy on our sex,” said Lansing, “I’ll walk home with you.”

  “Come on, then; I can talk while I walk; did you think I couldn’t?”

  And as they struck through the first cross street toward Lexington Avenue: “It’s a privilege for a fellow to know that sort of a girl — so many surprises in her — the charmingly unexpected and unsuspected! — the pretty flashes of wit, the naïve egotism which is as amusing as it is harmless. . . . I had no idea how complex she is. . . . If you think you have the simple feminine on your hands — forget it, Boots! — for she’s as evanescent as a helio-flash and as stunningly luminous as a searchlight. . . . And here I’ve been doing the benevolent prig, bestowing society upon her as a man doles out indigestible stuff to a kid, using a sort of guilty discrimination in the distribution—”

  “What on earth is all this?” demanded Lansing; “are you perhaps non compos, dear friend?”

  “I’m trying to tell you and explain to myself that little Miss Erroll is a rare and profoundly interesting specimen of a genus not usually too amusing,” he replied with growing enthusiasm. “Of course, Holly Erroll was her father, and that accounts for something; and her mother seems to have been a wit as well as a beauty — which helps you to understand; but the brilliancy of the result — aged nineteen, mind you — is out of all proportion; cause and effect do not balance. . . . Why, Boots, an ordinary man — I mean an everyday fellow who dines and dances and does the harmlessly usual about town, dwindles to anæmic
insignificance when compared to that young girl — even now when she’s practically undeveloped — when her intelligence is like an uncut gem still in the matrix of inexperience—”

  “Help!” said Boots feebly, attempting to bolt; but Selwyn hooked arms with him, laughing excitedly. In fact Lansing had not seen his friend in such excellent spirits for many, many months; and it made him exceedingly light-hearted, so that he presently began to chant the old service canticle:

  “I have another, he’s just as bad,

  He almost drives me crazy—”

  And arm in arm they swung into the dark avenue, singing “Barney Riley” in resonant undertones, while overhead the chilly little Western stars looked down through pallid convolutions of moving clouds, and the wind in the gas-lit avenue grew keener on the street-corners.

  “Cooler followed by clearing,” observed Boots in disgust. “Ugh; it’s the limit, this nipping, howling hemisphere.” And he turned up his overcoat collar.

  “I prefer it to a hemisphere that smells like a cheap joss-stick,” said Selwyn.

  “After all, they’re about alike,” retorted Boots— “even to the ladrones of Broad Street and the dattos of Wall. . . . And here’s our bally bungalow now,” he added, fumbling for his keys and whistling “taps” under his breath.

  As the two men entered and started to ascend the stairs, a door on the parlour floor opened and their landlady appeared, enveloped in a soiled crimson kimona and a false front which had slipped sideways.

  “There’s the Sultana,” whispered Lansing, “and she’s making sign-language at you. Wig-wag her, Phil. Oh . . . good-evening, Mrs. Greeve; did you wish to speak to me? Oh! — to Captain Selwyn. Of course.”

  “If you please,” said Mrs. Greeve ominously, so Lansing continued upward; Selwyn descended; Mrs. Greeve waved him into the icy parlour, where he presently found her straightening her “front” with work-worn fingers.

  “Captain Selwyn, I deemed it my duty to set up in order to inform you of certain special doin’s,” she said haughtily.

  “What ‘doings’?” he inquired.