Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “What else?” she asked, furious.

  “I take out the unfledged for a social airing; I exercise the mature; I smooth the plumage of the aged; I apply first aid to the socially injured; lick the hands that feed me, as in duty bound; tell my brother jackals which hands to lick and which to snap at; curl up and go to sleep in sunny boudoirs without being put out into the backyard; and give first-class vaudeville performances at a moment’s notice, acting as manager, principals, chorus, prompter, and carpenter.”

  He laughed so gaily into her unsmiling eyes that suddenly she lost control of herself and her fingers closed tight.

  “What are you saying!” she said, fiercely. “Are you telling me that this is the kind of a man I care enough for to write to — to think about — think about a great deal — care enough about to dine with in my own house when I denied myself to everybody else! Is that all you are after all? And am I finding my level by liking you?”

  He said, slowly: “I could have been anything — I could be yet — if you — —”

  “If you are not anything for your own sake you will never be for anybody’s!” she retorted.... “I refuse to believe that you are what you say, anyway. It hurts — it hurts — —”

  “It only hurts me, Mrs. Leeds — —”

  “It hurts me! I do like you. I was glad to see you — you don’t know how glad. Your letters to me were — were interesting. You have always been interesting, from the very first — more so than many men — more than most men. And now you admit to me what kind of a man you really are. If I believe it, what am I to think of myself? Can you tell me?”

  Flushed, exasperated by she knew not what, and more and more in earnest every moment, she leaned forward looking at him, her right hand tightening on the arm of the sofa, the other clenched over her twisted handkerchief.

  “I could stand anything! — my friendship for you could stand almost anything except what you pretend you are — and what other malicious tongues will say if you continue to repeat it! — And it has been said already about you! Do you know that? People do say that of you. People even say so to me — tell me you are worthless — warn me against — against — —”

  “What?”

  “Caring — taking you seriously! And it’s because you deliberately exhibit disrespect for yourself! A man — any man is what he chooses to be, and people always believe him what he pretends to be. Is there any harm in pretending to dignity and worth when — when you can be the peer of any man? What’s the use of inviting contempt? This very day a woman spoke of you with contempt. I denied what she said.... I’d rather they’d say anything else about you — that you had vices — a vigorous, wilful, unmanageable man’s vices! — than to say that of you!”

  “What?”

  “That you amount to nothing.”

  “Do you care what they say, Mrs. Leeds?”

  “Of course! It strikes at my own self-respect!”

  “Do you care — otherwise?”

  “I care — as a friend, naturally — —”

  “Otherwise still?”

  “No!”

  “Could you ever care?”

  “No,” she said, nervously.

  She sat breathing faster and more irregularly, watching him. He looked up and smiled at her, rested so, a moment, then rose to take his leave.

  She stretched out one arm toward the electric bell, but her fingers seemed to miss it, and remained resting against the silk-hung wall.

  “Are you going?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Must you?”

  “I think I’d better.”

  “Very well.”

  He waited, but she did not touch the bell button. She seemed to be waiting for him to go; so he offered his hand, pleasantly, and turned away toward the hall. And, rising leisurely, she descended the stairs with him in silence.

  “Good-night,” he said again.

  “Good-night. I am sorry you are going.”

  “Did you wish me to remain a little longer?”

  “I — don’t know what I wish....”

  Her cheeks were deeply flushed; the hand he took into his again seemed burning.

  “It’s fearfully hot in here,” she said. “Please muffle up warmly because it’s bitter weather out doors” — and she lifted the other hand as though unconsciously and passed her finger tips over his fur collar.

  “Do you feel feverish?”

  “A little. Do you notice how warm my hand is?”

  “You haven’t caught malaria in the tropics, have you?”

  “No, you funny man. I’m never ill. But it’s odd how burning hot I seem to be — —”

  She looked down at her fingers which still lay loosely across his.

  They were silent for a while. And, little by little it seemed to her as though within her a curious stillness was growing, responsive to the quiet around her — a serenity stealing over her, invading her mind like a delicate mist — a dreamy mental lethargy, soothing, obscuring sense and thought.

  Vaguely she was aware of their contact. He neither spoke nor stirred; and her palm burned softly, meltingly against his.

  At last he lifted her hand and laid his lips to it in silence. Small head lowered, she dreamily endured his touch — a slight caress over her forehead — the very ghost of contact; suffered his cheek against hers, closer, never stirring.

  Thought drifted, almost dormant, lulled by infinite and rhythmical currents which seemed to set her body swaying, gently; and, listless, non-resistant, conscious of the charm of it, she gradually yielded to the sorcery.

  Then, like a shaft of sunlight slanting through a dream and tearing its fabric into tatters, his kiss on her lips awoke her.

  She strove to turn her mouth from his — twisted away from him, straining, tearing her body from his arms; and leaned back against the stair-rail, gray eyes expressionless as though dazed. He would have spoken, but she shook her head and closed both ears with her hands; nor would she even look at him, now.

  Sight and hearing sealed against him; pale, expressionless, she stood there awaiting his departure. And presently he opened the iron and glass door; a flurry of icy air swept her; she heard the metallic snap of the spring lock, and opened her heavy eyes.

  Deadly tired she turned and ascended the stairs to her bedroom and locked the door against her maid.

  Thought dragged, then halted with her steps as she dropped onto the seat before the dresser and took her throbbing head in her hands. Cheeks and lips grew hotter; she was aware of strange senses dawning; of strange nerves signalling; stranger responses — of a subtle fragrance in her breath so strange that she became conscious of it.

  She straightened up staring at her flushed reflection in the glass while through and through her shot new pulses, and every breath grew tremulously sweet to the verge of pain as she recoiled dismayed from the unknown.

  Unknown still! — for she crouched there shrinking from the revelation — from the restless wonder of the awakening, wilfully deaf, blind, ignorant, defying her other self with pallid flashes of self-contempt.

  Then fear came — fear of him, fear of herself, defiance of him, and defiance of this other self, glimpsed only as yet, and yet already dreaded with every instinct. But it was a losing battle. Truth is very patient. And at last she looked Truth in the eyes.

  So, after all, she was what she had understood others were or must one day become. Unawakened, pure in her inherent contempt for the lesser passion; incredulous that it could ever touch her; out of nothing had sprung the lower menace, full armed, threatening her — out of a moment’s lassitude, a touch of a man’s hand, and his lips on hers! And now all her life was already behind her — childhood, girlhood, wifehood — all, all behind her now; and she, a stranger even to herself, alone on an unknown road; an unknown world before her.

  With every instinct inherent and self-inculcated, instincts of modesty, of reticence, of self-control, of pride, she quivered under this fierce humiliation born of self-kn
owledge — knowledge scornfully admitted and defied with every breath — but no longer denied.

  She was as others were — fashioned of that same and common clay, capable of the lesser emotions, shamefully and incredibly conscious of them — so keenly, so incomprehensibly, that, at one unthinkable instant, they had obscured and were actually threatening to obliterate the things of the mind.

  Was this the evolution that her winter’s idleness and gaiety and the fatigues of pleasure had been so subtly preparing for her? Was that strange moment, at the door, the moment that man’s enemy had been awaiting, to find her unprepared?

  Wretched, humiliated, she bowed her head above the flowers and silver on her dresser — the fairest among the Philistines who had so long unconsciously thanked God that she was not like other women in the homes of Gath and in the sinful streets of Ascalon.

  CHAPTER VI

  Strelsa was no longer at home to Quarren, even over the telephone. He called her up two or three times in as many days, ventured to present himself at her house twice without being received, and finally wrote her a note. But at the end of the month the note still remained unanswered.

  However, there was news of her, sometimes involving her with Langly Sprowl, but more often with Sir Charles Mallison. Also, had Quarren not dropped out of everything so completely, he might easily have met her dozens of times in dozens of places. But for a month now he had returned every day from his office to his room in the Legation, and even the members of that important diplomatic body found his door locked, after dinner, though his light sometimes brightened the transom until morning.

  Westguard, after the final rupture with his aunt, had become a soured hermit — sourer because of the low motives of the public which was buying his book by the thousands and reading it for the story, exclusively.

  His aunt had cast him off; to him she was the overfed embodiment of society, so it pleased him to consider the rupture as one between society and himself. It tasted of martyrdom, and now his own public had vulgarly gone back on him according to his ideals: nobody cared for his economics, his social evils, his moral philosophy; only what he considered the unworthy part of his book was eagerly absorbed and discussed. The proletariat had grossly betrayed him; a hermit’s exemplary but embittered career was apparently all that remained for his declining years.

  So, after dinner, he, too, retired to seclusion behind bolted doors, pondering darkly on a philosophic novel which should be no novel at all but a dignified and crushing rebuke to mankind — a solid slice of moral cake thickly frosted with social economics, heavy with ethical plums, and without any story to it whatever.

  Meanwhile his book had passed into the abhorred class of best sellers.

  As for Lacy and O’Hara, both had remarked Quarren’s abrupt retirement and his absence from that section of the social puddle which he was accustomed to embellish and splash in. O’Hara, inclining more toward sporting circles, noticed Quarren’s absence less; but Lacy, after the first week, demanded an explanation at the dinner-table.

  “You spoiled a party for Mrs. Lannis,” he said— “and Winnifred Miller was almost in tears over the charity tableaux — —”

  “I wrote them both in plenty of time, Jack.”

  “Yes. But who is there to take your place? Whatever you touch is successful. Barent Van Dyne made a dub of himself.”

  “They must break in another pup,” said Quarren, amused.

  “You mean that you’re chucking the whole bally thing for keeps?”

  “Practically.”

  “Why?” asked O’Hara, looking up blankly.

  “Oh,” said Quarren laughing, “I’m curious to find out what business I really am in. Until this week I’ve never had time to discover that I was trying to be a broker in real estate. And I’ve just found out that I’ve been one for almost three years, and never knew it.”

  “One’s own company is the best,” growled Westguard. “The monkey people sicken you and the public make you ill. Solitude is the only remedy.”

  “Not for me,” said Quarren; “I could breakfast, lunch, and dine with and on the public; and I’m laying plans to do it.”

  “They’ll turn your stomach — —”

  “Oh, dry up, Karl!” said O’Hara; “there’s a medium between extremes where you can get a good sportin’ chance at anythin’ — horse, dog, girl — anythin’ you fancy. You’d like some of my friends, now, Ricky! — they’re a good sort, all game, all jolly, all interestin’ as hell — —”

  “I don’t want to meet any cock-fighters,” growled Westguard.

  “They’re all right, too — but there are all kinds of interestin’ people in my circles — writers like Karl, huntin’ people, a professional here and there — and then there’s that fascinatin’ Mrs. Wyland-Baily, the best trap-shot — —”

  “Trap-shot,” repeated Westguard in disgust, and took his cigar and himself into seclusion.

  Quarren also pushed back his chair, preparing to rise.

  “Doin’ anythin’?” inquired O’Hara, desiring to be kind. “Young Calahan and the Harlem Mutt have it out at the Cataract Club to-night,” he added persuasively.

  “Another time, thanks,” said Quarren: “I’ve letters to write.”

  He wrote them — all the business letters he could think of, concentrating his thoughts as much as possible. Afterward he lay down on the lounge with a book, and remained there for an hour, although he changed books every few minutes. This was becoming a bad habit. But it was difficult reading although it ranged from Kipling to the Book of Common Prayer; and at last he gave it up and, turning over buried his head in the cushions.

  This wouldn’t do either: he racked his brain for further employment, found excuses for other business letters, wrote them, then attacked a pile of social matters — notes and letters heretofore deliberately neglected to the ragged edge of decency.

  He replied to them all, and invariably in the negative.

  It gave him something to do to go out to the nearest lamp post and mail his letters. But when again he came back into his room the silence there left him hesitating on his threshold.

  But he went in and locked his door, and kept his back turned to the desk where pen and ink were tempting him as usual, and almost beyond endurance now. And at last he weakened, and wrote to her once more:

  “My dear Mrs. Leeds —

  “I feel sure that your failure to answer my note of last week was unintentional.

  “Some day, when you have a moment, would you write me a line saying that you will be at home to me?

  “Very sincerely yours, “Richard Stanley Quarren.”

  He took this note to the nearest District Messenger Office; then returned to his room.

  After an interminable time the messenger reported for the signature. Mrs. Leeds was not at home and he had left the note as directed.

  The night was a white one. He did not feel very well when he sat scanning the morning paper over his coffee. Recently he had formed the custom of reading two columns only in the paper — Real Estate News and Society. In the latter column Strelsa usually figured.

  She figured as usual this morning; and he read the fulsome stuff attentively. Also there was a flourish concerning an annual event at the Santa Regina.

  And Quarren read this very carefully; and made up his mind as he finished the paragraph.

  The conclusion he came to over his coffee and newspaper materialised that afternoon at a Charity Bazaar, where, as he intended, he met Strelsa Leeds face to face. She said, coolly amiable:

  “Have you been away? One never sees you these days.”

  “I have been nowhere,” he said, pleasantly.

  She shook her pretty head in reproof:

  “Is it good policy for a young man to drop out of sight? Our world forgets over-night.”

  He laughed: “Something similar has been intimated to me by others — but less gently. I’m afraid I’ve offended some people.”

  “Oh, so you have already be
en disciplined?”

  “Verbally trounced, admonished, and still smarting under the displeasure of the powers that reign. They seem to resent my Sunday out — yet even their other domestics have that. And it’s the first I’ve taken in three years. I think I’ll have to give notice to my Missus.”

  “The spectre of servitude still seems to obsess your humour,” she observed indifferently.

  “I am that spectre, Mrs. Leeds.”

  “You certainly look pallid enough for any disembodied rôle. You have not been ill, by any chance?” — carelessly.

  “Not at all, thank you. Rude health and I continue to link arms.”

  “Then it is not by chance that you absent yourself from the various festivities where your part is usually supposed to be a leading one?”

  “All cooks eventually develop a distaste for their own concoctions,” he explained gravely.

  She lifted her eyebrows: “Yet you are here this afternoon.”

  “Oh, yes. Charity has not yet palled on my palate — perhaps because I need so much myself.”

  “I have never considered you an object of charity.”

  “Then I must draw your kind attention to my pitiable case by doing a little begging.... Could I ask your forgiveness, for example? And perhaps obtain it?”

  Her face flushed. “I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Quarren,” she said with decision.

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I scarcely know how to take your — generosity.”

  “I offer none. There is no occasion for generosity or for the exercise of any virtue, cardinal or otherwise. You have not offended me, nor I you — I trust.... Have I?”

  “No,” he said.

  Men came up to speak to her; one or two women nodded to her from nearby groups which presently mingled, definitely separating her from Quarren unless either he or she chose to evade the natural trend of things. Neither made the effort. Then Sir Charles Mallison joined her, and Quarren, smilingly accepting that gentleman’s advent as his own congé, took his leave of Strelsa and went his way — which chanced, also, to be the way of Mrs. Lester Caldera, very fetching in lilac gown and hat.