Her voice became unsteady again and her mouth curved; but she held her head high and her eyes were as fearlessly direct as a child’s.
“And now,” she said calmly, “you know where I stand and what I will not stand. Natural deference to an older woman, the natural self-distrust of a girl in the presence of social experience — and under its protection as she had a right to suppose — prevented me from checking you when your conversation became distasteful. You, perhaps, mistook my reticence for acquiescence; and you were mistaken. I am still quite willing to remain on agreeable terms with you, if you wish, and to forget what you have done to me this morning.”
If Rosamund had anything left to say, or any breath to say it, there were no indications of it. Never in her flippant existence had she been so absolutely flattened by any woman. As for this recent graduate from fudge and olives, she could scarcely realise how utterly and finally she had been silenced by her. Incredulity, exasperation, amazement had succeeded each other while Miss Erroll was speaking; chagrin, shame, helplessness followed as bitter residue. But, in the end, the very incongruity of the situation came to her aid; for Rosamund very easily fell a prey to the absurd — even when the amusement was furnished at her own expense; and a keen sense of the ridiculous had more than once saved her dainty skirts from a rumpling that her modesty perhaps might have forgiven.
“I’m certainly a little beast,” she said impulsively, “but I really do like you. Will you forgive?”
No genuine appeal to the young girl’s generosity had ever been in vain; she forgave almost as easily as she breathed. Even now in the flush of just resentment it was not hard for her to forgive; she hesitated only in order to adjust matters in her own mind.
Mrs. Fane swung her horse and held out her right hand:
“Is it pax, Miss Erroll? I’m really ashamed of myself. Won’t you forgive me?”
“Yes,” said the young girl, laying her gloved hand on Rosamund’s very lightly; “I’ve often thought,” she added naïvely, “that I could like you, Mrs. Fane, if you would only give me a chance.”
“I’ll try — you blessed innocent! You’ve torn me into rags and tatters, and you did it adorably. What I said was idle, half-witted, gossiping nonsense. So forget every atom of it as soon as you can, my dear, and let me prove that I’m not an utter idiot, if I can.”
“That will be delightful,” said Eileen with a demure smile; and Rosamund laughed, too, with full-hearted laughter; for trouble sat very lightly on her perfect shoulders in the noontide of her strength and youth. Sin and repentance were rapid matters with Rosamund; cause, effect, and remorse a quick sequence to be quickly reckoned up, checked off, and cancelled; and the next blank page turned over to be ruled and filled with the next impeachment.
There was, in her, more of mischief than of real malice; and if she did pinch people to see them wiggle it was partly because she supposed that the pain would be as momentary as the pinch; for nothing lasted with her, not even the wiggle. So why should the pain produced by a furtive tweak interfere with the amusement she experienced in the victim’s jump?
But what had often saved her from a social lynching was her ability to laugh at her own discomfiture, and her unfeigned liking and respect for the turning worm.
“And, my dear,” she said, concluding the account of the adventure to Mrs. Ruthven that afternoon at Sherry’s, “I’ve never been so roundly abused and so soundly trounced in my life as I was this blessed morning by that red-headed novice! Oh, my! Oh, la! I could have screamed with laughter at my own undoing.”
“It’s what you deserved,” said Alixe, intensely annoyed, although Rosamund had not told her all that she had so kindly and gratuitously denied concerning her relations with Selwyn. “It was sheer effrontery of you, Rosamund, to put such notions into the head of a child and stir her up into taking a fictitious interest in Philip Selwyn which I know — which is perfectly plain to m — to anybody never existed!”
“Of course it existed!” retorted Rosamund, delighted now to worry Alixe. “She didn’t know it; that is all. It really was simple charity to wake her up. It’s a good match, too, and so obviously and naturally inevitable that there’s no harm in playing prophetess. . . . Anyway, what do we care, dear? Unless you—”
“Rosamund!” said Mrs. Ruthven exasperated, “will you ever acquire the elements of reticence? I don’t know why people endure you; I don’t, indeed! And they won’t much longer—”
“Yes, they will, dear; that’s what society is for — a protective association for the purpose of enduring impossible people. . . . I wish,” she added, “that it included husbands, because in some sets it’s getting to be one dreadful case of who’s whose. Don’t you think so?”
Alixe, externally calm but raging inwardly, sat pulling on her gloves, heartily sorry she had lunched with Rosamund.
The latter, already gloved, had risen and was coolly surveying the room.
“Tiens!” she said, “there is the youthful brother of our red-haired novice, now. He sees us and he’s coming to inflict himself — with another moon-faced creature. Shall we bolt?”
Alixe turned and stared at Gerald, who came up boyishly red and impetuous:
“How d’ye do, Mrs. Ruthven; did you get my note? How d’ye do, Mrs. Fane; awf’fly jolly to collide this way. Would you mind if—”
“You,” interrupted Rosamund, “ought to be downtown — unless you’ve concluded to retire and let Wall Street go to smash. What are you pretending to do in Sherry’s at this hour, you very dreadful infant?”
“I’ve been lunching with Mr. Neergard — and would you mind—”
“Yes, I would,” began Rosamund, promptly, but Alixe interrupted: “Bring him over, Gerald.” And as the boy thanked her and turned back:
“I’ve a word to administer to that boy, Rosamund, so attack the Neergard creature with moderation, please. You owe me that at least.”
“No, I don’t!” said Rosamund, disgusted; “I won’t be afflicted with a—”
“Nobody wants you to be too civil to him, silly! But Gerald is in his office, and I want Gerald to do something for me. Please, Rosamund.”
“Oh, well, if you—”
“Yes, I do. Here he is now; and don’t be impossible and frighten him, Rosamund.”
The presentation of Neergard was accomplished without disaster to anybody. On his thin nose the dew glistened, and his thick fat hands were hot; but Rosamund was too bored to be rude to him, and Alixe turned immediately to Gerald:
“Yes, I did get your note, but I’m not at home on Tuesday. Can’t you come — wait a moment! — what are you doing this afternoon?”
“Why, I’m going back to the office with Mr. Neergard—”
“Nonsense! Oh, Mr. Neergard, would you mind” — very sweetly— “if Mr. Erroll did not go to the office this afternoon?”
Neergard looked at her — almost — a fixed and uncomfortable smirk on his round, red face: “Not at all, Mrs. Ruthven, if you have anything better for him—”
“I have — an allopathic dose of it. Thank you, Mr. Neergard. Rosamund, we ought to start, you know: Gerald!” — with quiet significance— “good-bye, Mr. Neergard. Please do not buy up the rest of Long Island, because we need a new kitchen-garden very badly.”
Rosamund scarcely nodded his dismissal. And the next moment Neergard found himself quite alone, standing with the smirk still stamped on his stiffened features, his hat-brim and gloves crushed in his rigid fingers, his little black mousy eyes fixed on nothing, as usual.
A wandering head-waiter thought they were fixed on him and sidled up hopeful of favours, but Neergard suddenly snarled in his face and moved toward the door, wiping the perspiration from his nose with the most splendid handkerchief ever displayed east of Sixth Avenue and west of Third.
Mrs. Ruthven’s motor moved up from its waiting station; Rosamund was quite ready to enter when Alixe said cordially: “Where can we drop you, dear? Do let us take you to the exchange if you are goi
ng there—”
Now Rosamund had meant to go wherever they were going, merely because they evidently wished to be alone. The abruptness of the check both irritated and amused her.
“If I knew anybody in the Bronx I’d make you take me there,” she said vindictively; “but as I don’t you may drop me at the Orchils’ — you uncivil creatures. Gerald, I know you want me, anyway, because you’ve promised to adore, honour, and obey me. . . . If you’ll come with me now I’ll play double dummy with you. No? Well, of all ingratitude! . . . Thank you, dear, I perceive that this is Fifth Avenue, and furthermore that this ramshackle chassis of yours has apparently broken down at the Orchils’ curb. . . . Good-bye, Gerald; it never did run smooth, you know. I mean the course of T.L. as well as this motor. Try to be a good boy and keep moving; a rolling stone acquires a polish, and you are not in the moss-growing business, I’m sure—”
“Rosamund! For goodness’ sake!” protested Alixe, her gloved hands at her ears.
“Dear!” said Rosamund cheerfully, “take your horrid little boy!”
And she smiled dazzlingly upon Gerald, then turned up her pretty nose at him, but permitted him to attend her to the door.
When he returned to Alixe, and the car was speeding Parkward, he began again, eagerly:
“Jack asked me to come up and, of course, I let you know, as I promised I would. But it’s all right, Mrs. Ruthven, because Jack said the stakes will not be high this time—”
“You accepted!” demanded Alixe, in quick displeasure.
“Why, yes — as the stakes are not to amount to anything—”
“Gerald!”
“What?” he said uneasily.
“You promised me that you would not play again in my house!”
“I — I said, for more than I could afford—”
“No, you said you would not play; that is what you promised, Gerald.”
“Well, I meant for high stakes; I — well, you don’t want to drive me out altogether — even from the perfectly harmless pleasure of playing for nominal stakes—”
“Yes, I do!”
“W-why?” asked the boy in hurt surprise.
“Because it is dangerous sport, Gerald—”
“What! To play for a few cents a point—”
“Yes, to play for anything. And as far as that goes there will be no such play as you imagine.”
“Yes, there will — I beg your pardon — but Jack Ruthven said so—”
“Gerald, listen to me. A bo — a man like yourself has no business playing with people whose losses never interfere with their appetites next day. A business man has no right to play such a game, anyway. I wonder what Mr. Neergard would say if he knew you—”
“Neergard! Why, he does know.”
“You confessed to him?”
“Y-es; I had to. I was obliged to — to ask somebody for an advance—”
“You went to him? Why didn’t you go to Captain Selwyn? — or to Mr. Gerard?”
“I did! — not to Captain Selwyn — I was ashamed to. But I went to Austin and he fired up and lit into me — and we had a muss-up — and I’ve stayed away since.”
“Oh, Gerald! And it simply proves me right.”
“No, it doesn’t; I did go to Neergard and made a clean breast of it. And he let me have what I wanted like a good fellow—”
“And made you promise not to do it again!”
“No, he didn’t; he only laughed. Besides, he said that he wished he had been in the game—”
“What!” exclaimed Alixe.
“He’s a first-rate fellow,” insisted Gerald, reddening; “and it was very nice of you to let me bring him over to-day. . . . And he knows everybody downtown, too. He comes from a very old Dutch family, but he had to work pretty hard and do without college. . . . I’d like it awfully if you’d let me — if you wouldn’t mind being civil to him — once or twice, you know—”
Mrs. Ruthven lay back in her seat, thoroughly annoyed.
“My theory,” insisted the boy with generous conviction, “is that a man is what he makes himself. People talk about climbers and butters-in, but where would anybody be in this town if nobody had ever butted in? It’s all rot, this aping the caste rules of established aristocracies; a decent fellow ought to be encouraged. Anyway, I’m going to propose, him for the Stuyvesant and the Proscenium. Why not?”
“I see. And now you propose to bring him to my house?”
“If you’ll let me. I asked Jack and he seemed to think it might be all right if you cared to ask him to play—”
“I won’t!” cried Alixe, revolted. “I will not turn my drawing-rooms into a clearing-house for every money-laden social derelict in town! I’ve had enough of that; I’ve endured the accumulated wreckage too long! — weird treasure-craft full of steel and oil and coal and wheat and Heaven knows what! — I won’t do it, Gerald; I’m sick of it all — sick! sick!”
The sudden, flushed outburst stunned the boy. Bewildered, he stared round-eyed at the excited young matron who was growing more incensed and more careless of what she exposed every second:
“I will not make a public gambling-hell out of my own house!” she repeated, dark eyes very bright and cheeks afire; “I will not continue to stand sponsor for a lot of queer people simply because they don’t care what they lose in Mrs. Ruthven’s house! You babble to me of limits, Gerald; this is the limit! Do you — or does anybody else suppose that I don’t know what is being said about us? — that play is too high in our house? — that we are not too difficile in our choice of intimates as long as they can stand the pace!”
“I — I never believed that,” insisted the boy, miserable to see the tears flash in her eyes and her mouth quiver.
“You may as well believe it for it’s true!” she said, exasperated.
“T-true! — Mrs. Ruthven!”
“Yes, true, Gerald! I — I don’t care whether you know it; I don’t care, as long as you stay away. I’m sick of it all, I tell you. Do you think I was educated for this? — for the wife of a chevalier of industry—”
“M-Mrs. Ruthven!” he gasped; but she was absolutely reckless now — and beneath it all, perhaps, lay a certainty of the boy’s honour. She knew he was to be trusted — was the safest receptacle for wrath so long repressed. She let prudence go with a parting and vindictive slap, and opened her heart to the astounded boy. The tempest lasted a few seconds; then she ended as abruptly as she began.
To him she had always been what a pretty young matron usually is to a well-bred but hare-brained youth just untethered. Their acquaintance had been for him a combination of charming experiences diluted with gratitude for her interest and a harmless soupçon of sentimentality. In her particular case, however, there was a little something more — a hint of the forbidden — a troubled enjoyment, because he knew, of course, that Mrs. Ruthven was on no footing at all with the Gerards. So in her friendship he savoured a piquancy not at all distasteful to a very young man’s palate.
But now! — he had never, never seen her like this — nor any woman, for that matter — and he did not know where to look or what to do.
She was sitting back in the limousine, very limp and flushed; and the quiver of her under lip and the slightest dimness of her averted brown eyes distressed him dreadfully.
“Dear Mrs. Ruthven,” he blurted out with clumsy sympathy, “you mustn’t think such things, b-because they’re all rot, you see; and if any fellow ever said those things to me I’d jolly soon—”
“Do you mean to say you’ve never heard us criticised?”
“I — well — everybody is — criticised, of course—”
“But not as we are! Do you read the papers? Well, then, do you understand how a woman must feel to have her husband continually made the butt of foolish, absurd, untrue stories — as though he were a performing poodle! I — I’m sick of that, too, for another thing. Week after week, month by month, unpleasant things have been accumulating; and they’re getting too heavy, Gerald —
too crushing for my shoulders. . . . Men call me restless. What wonder! Women link my name with any man who is k-kind to me! Is there no excuse then for what they call my restlessness? . . . What woman would not be restless whose private affairs are the gossip of everybody? Was it not enough that I endured terrific publicity when — when trouble overtook me two years ago? . . . I suppose I’m a fool to talk like this; but a girl must do it some time or burst! — and to whom am I to go? . . . There was only one person; and I can’t talk to — that one; he — that person knows too much about me, anyway; which is not good for a woman, Gerald, not good for a good woman. . . . I mean a pretty good woman; the kind people’s sisters can still talk to, you know. . . . For I’m nothing more interesting than a divorcée, Gerald; nothing more dangerous than an unhappy little fool. . . . I wish I were. . . . But I’m still at the wheel! . . . A man I know calls it hard steering but assures me that there’s anchorage ahead. . . . He’s a splendid fellow, Gerald; you ought to know him — well — some day; he’s just a clean-cut, human, blundering, erring, unreasonable, lovable man whom any woman, who is not a fool herself, could manage. . . . Some day I should like to have you know him — intimately. He’s good for people of your sort — even good for a restless, purposeless woman of my sort. Peace to him! — if there’s any in the world. . . . Turn your back; I’m sniveling.”
A moment afterward she had calmed completely; and now she stole a curious side glance at the boy and blushed a little when he looked back at her earnestly. Then she smiled and quietly withdrew the hand he had been holding so tightly in both of his.
“So there we are, my poor friend,” she concluded with a shrug; “the old penny shocker, you know, ‘Alone in a great city!’ — I’ve dropped my handkerchief.”
“I want you to believe me your friend,” said Gerald, in the low, resolute voice of unintentional melodrama.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 337