Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Because it would not be fair to me.” A flush of anger — or she thought it was, brightened her cheeks. “This is nonsense,” she said abruptly. “And I’ll tell you another thing; I can’t come here again. You know I can’t. We talk foolishness — don’t you know it? And there’s another reason, anyway.”

  “What reason?”

  “The real reason,” she said, clenching both hands. “You know what it is and so do I — and — and I’m tired of pretending that the truth isn’t true.”

  “What is the truth?”

  She had turned her back on him and was staring out of the windows into the mist.

  “The truth is,” she answered deliberately, “that you and I can not be friends.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we can’t be! Because — men are always men. There isn’t any way for men and women to be friends. Forgive me for saying it. But it is quite true. A business woman in your employment — can’t forget that a real friendship with you is impossible. That is why, from the very beginning, I wanted it to be purely a matter of business between us. I didn’t really wish to skate with you, or do anything of that kind with you. I’d rather not lunch with you; I — I had rather you drew the line — and let me draw it clearly, cleanly, and without mistake — as I draw it between myself and my employees. If you wish, I can continue to come here on that basis until my work is finished. Otherwise, I shall not come again.”

  Her back was still toward him.

  “Very well,” he said, bluntly.

  She heard him rise and walk toward the door; sat listening without turning her head, already regretting what she had said. And now she became conscious that her honesty with herself and with him had been a mistake, entailing humiliation for her — the humiliation of letting him understand that she couldn’t afford to care for him, and that she did already. She had thought of him first, and of herself last — had conceded a hopeless situation in order that her decision might not hurt his vanity.

  It had been a bad mistake. And now he might be thinking that she had tried to force him into an attitude toward herself which she could not expect, or — God knew what he might be thinking.

  Dismayed and uncertain, she stood up nervously as he reëntered the room and came toward her, holding out his hand.

  “I’m going to town,” he said pleasantly. “I won’t bother you any more. Remain; come and go as you like without further fear of my annoying you. The servants are properly instructed. They will be at your orders. I’m sorry — I meant to be more agreeable. Good-bye, Miss Nevers.”

  She laid her hand in his, lifelessly, then withdrew it. Dumb, dreadfully confused, she looked up at him; then, as he turned coolly away, an inarticulate sound of protest escaped her lips. He halted and turned around.

  “It isn’t fair — what you are doing — Mr. Desboro.”

  “What else is there to do?”

  “Why do you ask me? Why must the burden of decision always rest with me?”

  “But my decision is that I had better go. I can’t remain here without — annoying you.”

  “Why can’t you remain here as my employer? Why can’t we enjoy matter-of-fact business relations? I ask no more than that — I want no more. I am afraid you think I do expect more — that I expect friendship. It is impossible, unsuitable — and I don’t even wish for it — —”

  “I do,” he said.

  “How can we be friends, from a social standpoint? There is nothing to build on, no foundation — nothing for friendship to subsist on — —”

  “Could you and I meet anywhere in the world and become less than friends?” he asked. “Tell me honestly. It is impossible, and you and I both know it.”

  And, as she made no reply: “Friends — more than friends, possibly; never less. And you know it, and so do I,” he said under his breath.

  She turned sharply toward the window and looked out across the foggy hills.

  “If that is what you believe, Mr. Desboro, perhaps you had better go.”

  “Do you send me?”

  “Always the decision seems to lie with me. Why do you not decide for yourself?”

  “I will; and for you, too, if you will let me relieve you of the burden.”

  “I can carry my own burdens.”

  Her back was still toward him. After a moment she rested her head against the curtained embrasure, as though tired.

  He hesitated; there were good impulses in him, but he went over to her, and scarcely meaning to, put one arm lightly around her waist.

  She laid her hands over her face, standing so, golden head lowered and her heart so violent that she could scarcely breathe.

  “Jacqueline.”

  A scarcely perceptible movement of her head, in sign that she listened.

  “Are we going to let anything frighten us?” He had not meant to say that, either. He was adrift, knew it, and meant to drop anchor in a moment. “Tell me honestly,” he added, “don’t you want us to be friends?”

  She said, her hands still over her face:

  “I didn’t know how much I wanted it. I don’t see, even now, how it can be. Your own friends are different. But I’ll try — if you wish it.”

  “I do wish it. Why do you think my friends are so different from you? Because some happen to be fashionable and wealthy and idle? Besides, a man has many different kinds of friends — —”

  She thought to herself: “But he never forgets to distinguish between them. And here it is at last — almost. And I — I do care for him! And here I am — like Cynthia — asking myself to pardon him.”

  She looked up at him out of her hands, a little pale, then down at his arm, resting loosely around her waist.

  “Don’t hold me so, please,” she said, in a low voice.

  “Of course not.” But instead he merely took her slender hands between his own, which were not very steady, and looked her straight in the eyes. Such men can do it, somehow. Besides, he really meant to control himself and cast anchor in a moment or two.

  “Will you trust me with your friendship?” he said.

  “I — seem to be doing it. I don’t exactly understand what I am doing. Would you answer me one question?”

  “If I can, Jacqueline.”

  “Then, friendship is possible between a man and a woman, isn’t it?” she insisted wistfully.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What! Why don’t you know? It’s merely a matter of mutual interest and respect, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve heard so.”

  “Then isn’t a friendship between us possible without anything threatening to spoil it? Isn’t it to be just a matter of enjoying together what interests each? Isn’t it? Because I don’t mind waiving social conditions that can’t be helped, and conventions that we simply can’t observe.”

  “Yes, you wonderful girl,” he said under his breath, meaning to anchor at once. But he drifted on.

  “You know,” she said, forcing a little laugh, “I am rather wonderful, to be so honest with a man like you. There’s so much about you that I don’t care for.”

  He laughed, enchanted, still retaining her hands between his own, the palms joined together, flat.

  “You’re so wonderful,” he said, “that you make the most wonderful masterpiece in the Desboro collection look like a forgery.”

  She strove to speak lightly again: “Even the gilding on my hair is real. You didn’t think so once, did you?”

  “You’re all real. You are the most real thing I’ve ever seen in the world!”

  She tried to laugh: “You mustn’t believe that I’ve never before been real when I’ve been with you. And I may not be real again, for a long time. Make the most of this moment of expansive honesty, Mr. Desboro. I’ll remember presently that you are an hereditary enemy.”

  “Have I ever acted that part?”

  “Not toward me.”

  He reddened: “Toward whom?”

  “Oh,” she said, with sudden impatience, “do you suppose I
have any illusions concerning the sort of man you are? But what do I care, as long as you are nice to me?” she laughed, more confidently. “Men!” she repeated. “I know something about them! And, knowing them, also, I nevertheless mean to make a friend of one of them. Do you think I’ll succeed?”

  He smiled, then bent lightly and kissed her joined hands.

  “Luncheon is served,” came the emotionless voice of Farris from the doorway. Their hands fell apart; Jacqueline blushed to her hair and gave Desboro a lovely, abashed look.

  She need not have been disturbed. Farris had seen such things before.

  That evening, Desboro went back to New York with her and took her to her own door in a taxicab.

  “Are you quite sure you can’t dine with me?” he asked again, as they lingered on her doorstep.

  “I could — but — —”

  “But you won’t!”

  One of her hands lay lightly on the knob of the partly open door, and she stood so, resting and looking down the dark street toward the distant glare of electricity where Broadway crossed at right angles.

  “We have been together all day, Mr. Desboro. I’d rather not dine with you — yet.”

  “Are you going to dine all alone up there?” glancing aloft at the lighted windows above the dusky old shop.

  “Yes. Besides, you and I have wasted so much time to-day that I shall go down stairs to the office and do a little work after dinner. You see a girl always has to pay for her transgressions.”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” he said contritely. “Don’t work to-night!”

  “Don’t be sorry. I’ve really enjoyed to-day’s laziness. Only it mustn’t be like this to-morrow. And anyway, I knew I’d have to make it up to-night.”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” he said again, almost tenderly.

  “But you mustn’t be, Mr. Desboro. It was worth it — —”

  He looked up, surprised, flushing with emotion; and the quick colour in her cheeks responded. They remained very still, and confused, and silent, as fire answered fire; suddenly aware how fast they had been drifting.

  She turned, nervously, pushed open the door, and entered the vestibule; he held the door ajar for her while she fitted her key with unsteady fingers.

  “So — thank you,” she said, half turning around, “but I won’t dine with you — to-night.”

  “Then, perhaps, to-morrow — —”

  “Don’t come into town with me to-morrow, Mr. Desboro.”

  “I’m coming in anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s an affair — a kind of a dance. There are always plenty of things to take me into town in the evenings.”

  “Is that why you came in to-night?” She knew she should not have said it.

  He hesitated, then, with a laugh: “I came in to town because it gave me an hour longer with you. Are you going to send me away now?” And her folly was answered in kind.

  She said, confused and trying to smile: “You say things that you don’t mean. Evening, for us, must always mean ‘good-night.’”

  “Why, Jacqueline?”

  “Because. Also, it is my hour of freedom. You wouldn’t take that away from me, would you?”

  “What do you do in the evenings?”

  “Sew, read, study, attend to the thousand wretched little details which concern my small household. And, sometimes, when I have wasted the day, I make it up at night. Because, whether I have enjoyed it or not, this day has been wasted.”

  “But sometimes you dine out and go to the theatre and to dances and things?”

  “Yes,” she said gravely. “But you know there is no meeting ground there for us, don’t you?”

  “Couldn’t you ask me to something?”

  “Yes — I could. But you wouldn’t care for the people. You know it. They are not like the people to whom you are accustomed. They would only bore you.”

  “So do many people I know.”

  “Not in the same way. Why do you ask me? You know it is better not.” She added smilingly: “There is neither wealth nor fashion nor intellectual nor social distinction to be expected among my friends — —”

  She hesitated, and added quietly: “You understand that I am not criticising them. I am merely explaining them to you. Otherwise, I’d ask you to dinner with a few people — I can only have four at a time, my dining room is so small — —”

  “Ask me, Jacqueline!” he insisted.

  She shook her head; but he continued to coax and argue until she had half promised. And now she stood, facing him irresolutely, conscious of the steady drift that was forcing her into uncharted channels with this persuasive pilot who seemed to know no more of what lay ahead of them than did she.

  But there was to be no common destination; she understood that. Sooner or later she must turn back toward the harbour they had left so irresponsibly together, her brief voyage over, her last adventure with this man ended for all time.

  And now, as the burden of decision still seemed to rest upon her, she offered him her hand, saying good-night; and he took it once more and held it between both of his. Instantly the impending constraint closed in upon them; his face became grave, hers serious, almost apprehensive.

  “You have — have made me very happy,” he said. “Do you know it, Jacqueline?”

  “Yes.”

  A curious lassitude was invading her; she leaned sideways against the door frame, as though tired, and stood so, one hand abandoned to him, gazing into the lamp-lit street.

  “Good-night, dear,” he whispered.

  “Good-night.”

  She still gazed into the lamp-lit darkness beyond him, her hand limp in his; and he saw her blue eyes, heavy lidded and dreamy, and the strand of hair curling gold against her cheek.

  When he kissed her, she dropped her head, covering her face with her forearm, not otherwise stirring — as though the magic pageant of her fate which had been gathering for two weeks had begun to move at last, passing vision-like through her mind with a muffled uproar — sweeping on, on, brilliant, disarrayed, timed by the deafening beating of her heart.

  Dully she realised that it was here at last — all that she had dreaded — if dread be partly made of hope!

  “Are you crying?” he said, unsteadily.

  She lifted her face from her arm, like a dazed child awaking.

  “You darling,” he whispered.

  Eyes remote, she stood watching unseen things in the darkness beyond him.

  “Must I go, Jacqueline?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are very tired, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You won’t sit up and work, will you?”

  “No.”

  “Will you go straight to bed?”

  She nodded slowly, yielding to him as he drew her into his arms.

  “To-morrow, then?” he asked under his breath.

  “Yes.”

  “And the next day, and the next, and next, and — always, Jacqueline?” he demanded, almost fiercely.

  After a moment she slowly turned her head and looked at him. There was no answer, and no question in her gaze, only the still, expressionless clairvoyance of a soul that sees but does not heed.

  There was no misunderstanding in her eyes, nothing wistful, nothing afraid or hurt — nothing of doubt. What had happened to others in the world was happening now to her. She understood it; that was all — as though the millions of her sisters who had passed that way had left to her the dread legacy of familiarity with the smooth, wide path they had trodden since time began on earth. And here it was, at last! Her own calmness surprised her.

  He detained her for another moment in a swift embrace; inert, unresponsive, she stood looking down at the crushed gardenia in his buttonhole, dully conscious of being bruised. Then he let her go; her hand fell from his arm; she turned and faced the familiar stairs and mounted them.

  Dinner waited for her; whether she ate or not, she could not afterward remember. About eleven o’
clock, she rose wearily from the bed where she had been lying, and began to undress.

  As for Desboro, he had gone straight to his rooms very much excited and unbalanced by the emotions of the moment.

  He was a man not easily moved to genuine expression. Having acquired certain sorts of worldly wisdom in a career more or less erratic, experience had left him unconvinced and even cynical — or he thought it had.

  But now, for the moment, all that lay latent in him of that impetuous and heedless vigour which may become strength, if properly directed, was awakening. Every recurring memory of her had already begun to tamper with his self-control; for the emotions of the moments just ended had been confusingly real; and, whatever they were arousing in him, now clamoured for some sort of expression.

  The very thought of her, now, began to act on him like some freshening perfume alternately stimulating and enervating. He made the effort again and again, and could not put her from his mind, could not forget the lowered head and the slender, yielding grace of her, and her fragrance, and her silence.

  Dressing in his rooms, growing more restless every moment, he began to walk the floor like some tormented thing that seeks alleviation in purposeless activity.

  He said, half aloud, to himself:

  “I can’t go on this way. This is damn foolish! I’ve got to find out where it’s landing me. It will land her, too — somewhere. I’d better keep away from her, go off somewhere, get out, stop seeing her, stop remembering her! — if she’s what I think she is.”

  Scowling, he went to the window and jerked aside the curtain. Across the street, the Olympian Club sparkled with electricity.

  “Good Lord!” he muttered. “What a tempest in a teapot! What the devil’s the matter with me? Can’t I kiss a girl now and then and keep my senses?”

  It seemed that he couldn’t, in the present instance, for after he had bitten the amber stem of his pipe clean through, he threw the bowl into the fireplace. It had taken him two years to colour it.

  “Idiot!” he said aloud. “What are you sorry about? You know damn well there are only two kinds of women, and it’s up to them what sort they are — not up to any man who ever lived! What are you sorry for? For her?”