“Mr. Shotwell! How absurd of you!”
“Why absurd?”
“Because I don’t think of you merely as a real-estate broker.”
“Then you do sometimes think of me?”
“What power of deduction! What logic! You seem to be in a particularly frivolous frame of mind. Are you?”
“No; I’m in a bad one.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t a bally thing to do this evening.”
“That’s silly! — with the entire town outside.... I’m glad you called me up, anyway. I’m tired and bored and exceedingly cross.”
“What are you doing, Miss Dumont?”
“Absolutely and idiotically nothing. I’m merely sitting here on the only chair in this scantily furnished house, and trying to plan what sort of carpets, draperies and furniture to buy. Can you imagine the scene?”
“I thought you had some things.”
“I haven’t anything! Not even a decent mirror. I stand on the slippery edge of a bath tub to get a complete view of myself. And then it’s only by sections.”
“That’s tragic. Have you a cook?”
“I have. But no dining room table. I eat from a tray on a packing case.”
“Have you a waitress?”
“Yes, and a maid. They’re comfortable. I bought their furniture immediately and also the batterie-de-cuisine. It’s only I who slink about like a perplexed cat, from one empty room to another, in search of familiar comforts.... But I bought a sofa to-day.
“It’s a wonderful sofa. It’s here, now. It’s an antique. But I can’t make up my mind how to upholster it.”
“Would you care for a suggestion?”
“Please!”
“Well, I’d have to see it — —”
“I thought you’d say that. Really, Mr. Shotwell, I’d like most awfully to see you, but this place is too uncomfortable. I told you I’d ask you to tea some day.”
“Won’t you let me come down for a few moments this evening — —”
“No!”
“ — And pay you a formal little call — —”
“No.... Would you really like to?”
“I would.”
“You wouldn’t after you got here. There’s nothing for you to sit on.”
“What about the floor?”
“It’s dusty.”
“What about that antique sofa?”
“It’s not upholstered.”
“What do I care! May I come?”
“Do you really wish to?”
“I do.”
“How soon?”
“As fast as I can get there.”
He heard her laughing. Then: “I’ll be perfectly delighted to see you,” she said. “I was actually thinking of taking to my bed out of sheer boredom. Are you coming in a taxi?”
“Why?”
He heard her laughing again.
“Nothing,” she answered, “ — only I thought that might be the quickest way—” Her laughter interrupted her, “ — to bring me the evening papers. I haven’t a thing to read.”
“That’s why you want me to take a taxi!”
“It is. News is a necessity to me, and I’m famishing.... What other reason could there be for a taxi? Did you suppose I was in a hurry to see you?”
He listened to her laughter for a moment:
“All right,” he said, “I’ll take a taxi and bring a book for myself.”
“And please don’t forget my evening papers or I shall have to requisition your book.... Or possibly share it with you on the upholstered sofa.... And I read very rapidly and don’t like being kept waiting for slower people to turn the page.... Mr. Shotwell?”
“Yes.”
“This is a wonderful floor. Could you bring some roller skates?”
“No,” he said, “but I’ll bring a music box and we’ll dance.”
“You’re not serious — —”
“I am. Wait and see.”
“Don’t do such a thing. My servants would think me crazy. I’m mortally afraid of them, too.”
* * * * *
He found a toy-shop on Third Avenue still open, and purchased a solemn little music-box that played ting-a-ling tunes.
Then, in his taxi, he veered over to Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, where he bought roses and a spray of orchids. Then, adding to his purchases a huge box of bon-bons, he set his course for the three story and basement house which he had sold to Palla Dumont.
CHAPTER VII
Shotwell Senior and his wife were dining out that evening.
Shotwell Junior had no plans — or admitted none, even to himself. He got into a bath and later into a dinner jacket, in an absent-minded way, and finally sauntered into the library wearing a vague scowl.
The weather had turned colder, and there was an open fire there, and a convenient armchair and the evening papers.
Perhaps the young gentleman had read them down town, for he shoved them aside. Then he dropped an elbow on the table, rested his chin against his knuckles, and gazed fiercely at the inoffensive Evening Post.
Before any open fire any young man ought to be able to make up whatever mind he chances to possess. Yet, what to do with a winter evening all his own seemed to him a problem unfathomable.
Perhaps his difficulty lay only in selection — there are so many agreeable things for a young man to do in Gotham Town on a winter’s evening.
But, oddly enough, young Shotwell was trying to persuade himself that he had no choice of occupation for the evening; that he really didn’t care. Yet, always two intrusive alternatives continually presented themselves. The one was to change his coat for a spike-tail, his black tie for a white one, and go to the Metropolitan Opera. The other and more attractive alternative was not to go.
Elorn Sharrow would be at the opera. To appear, now and then, in the Sharrow family’s box was expected of him. He hadn’t done it recently.
* * * * *
He dropped one lean leg over the other and gazed gravely at the fire. He was still trying to convince himself that he had no particular plan for the evening — that it was quite likely he might go to the opera or to the club — or, in fact, almost anywhere his fancy suggested.
In his effort to believe himself the scowl came back, denting his eyebrows. Presently he forced a yawn, unsuccessfully.
Yes, he thought he’d better go to the opera, after all. He ought to go.... It seemed to be rather expected of him.
Besides, he had nothing else to do — that is, nothing in particular — unless, of course ——
But that would scarcely do. He’d been there so often recently.... No, that wouldn’t do.... Besides it was becoming almost a habit with him. He’d been drifting there so frequently of late!... In fact, he’d scarcely been anywhere at all, recently, except — except where he certainly was not going that evening. And that settled it!... So he might as well go to the opera.
* * * * *
His mother, in scarf and evening wrap, passing the library door on her way down, paused in the hall and looked intently at her only son.
Recently she had been observing him rather closely and with a vague uneasiness born of that inexplicable sixth sense inherent in mothers.
Perhaps what her son had faced in France accounted for the change in him; — for it was being said that no man could come back from such scenes unchanged; — none could ever again be the same. And it was being said, too, that old beliefs and ideals had altered; that everything familiar was ending; — and that the former things had already passed away under the glimmering dawn of a new heaven and a new earth.
Perhaps all this was so — though she doubted it. Perhaps this son she had borne in agony might become to her somebody less familiar than the baby she had nursed at her own breast.
But so far, to her, he continued to remain the same familiar baby she had always known — the same and utterly vital part of her soul and body. No sudden fulfilment of an apocalypse had yet wrought any occ
ult metamorphosis in this boy of hers.
And if he now seemed changed it was from that simple and familiar cause instinctively understood by mothers, — trouble! — the most ancient plague of all and the only malady which none escapes.
She was a rather startlingly pretty woman, with the delicate features and colour and the snow-white hair of an 18th century belle. She stood, now, drawing on her gloves and watching her son out of dark-fringed deep blue eyes, until he glanced around uneasily. Then he rose at once, looking at her with fire-dazzled eyes.
“Don’t rise, dear,” she said; “the car is here and your father is fussing and fuming in the drawing-room, and I’ve got to run.... Have you any plans for the evening?”
“None, mother.”
“You’re dining at home?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you go to the opera to-night? It’s the Sharrows’ night.”
He came toward her irresolutely. “Perhaps I shall,” he said. And instantly she knew he did not intend to go.
“I had tea at the Sharrows’,” she said, carelessly, still buttoning her gloves. “Elorn told me that she hadn’t laid eyes on you for ages.”
“It’s happened so.... I’ve had a lot of things to do — —”
“You and she still agree, don’t you, Jim?”
“Why, yes — as usual. We always get on together.”
Helen Shotwell’s ermine wrap slipped; he caught it and fastened it for her, and she took hold of both his hands and drew his arms tightly around her pretty shoulders.
“What troubles you, darling?” she asked smilingly.
“Why, nothing, mother — —”
“Tell me!”
“Really, there is nothing, dear — —”
“Tell me when you are ready, then,” she laughed and released him.
“But there isn’t anything,” he insisted.
“Yes, Jim, there is. Do you suppose I don’t know you after all these years?”
She considered him with clear, amused eyes: “Don’t forget,” she added, “that I was only seventeen when you arrived, my son; and I have grown up with you ever since — —”
“For heaven’s sake, Helen!—” protested Sharrow Senior plaintively from the front hall below. “Can’t you gossip with Jim some other time?”
“I’m on my way, James,” she announced calmly. “Put your overcoat on.” And, to her son: “Go to the opera. Elorn will cheer you up. Isn’t that a good idea?”
“That’s — certainly — an idea.... I’ll think it over.... And, mother, if I seem solemn at times, please try to remember how rotten every fellow feels about being out of the service — —”
Her gay, derisive laughter checked him, warning him that he was not imposing on her credulity. She said smilingly:
“You have neglected Elorn Sharrow, and you know it, and it’s on your conscience — whatever else may be on it, too. And that’s partly why you feel blue. So keep out of mischief, darling, and stop neglecting Elorn — that is, if you ever really expect to marry her — —”
“I’ve told you that I have never asked her; and I never intend to ask her until I am making a decent living,” he said impatiently.
“Isn’t there an understanding between you?”
“Why — I don’t think so. There couldn’t be. We’ve never spoken of that sort of thing in our lives!”
“I think she expects you to ask her some day. Everybody else does, anyway.”
“Well, that is the one thing I won’t do,” he said, “ — go about with the seat out of my pants and ask an heiress to sew on the patch for me — —”
“Darling! You can be so common when you try!”
“Well, it amounts to that — doesn’t it, mother? I don’t care what busy gossips say or idle people expect me to do! There’s no engagement, no understanding between Elorn and me. And I don’t care a hang what anybody — —”
His mother framed his slightly flushed face between her gloved hands and inspected him humorously.
“Very well, dear,” she said; “but you need not be so emphatically excited about it — —”
“I’m not excited — but it irritates me to be expected to do anything because it’s expected of me—” He shrugged his shoulders:
“After all,” he added, “if I ever should fall in love with anybody it’s my own business. And whatever I choose to do about it will be my own affair. And I shall keep my own counsel in any event.”
His mother stepped forward, letting both her hands fall into his.
“Wouldn’t you tell me about it, Jim?”
“I’d tell you before I’d tell anybody else — if it ever became serious.”
“If what became serious?”
“Well — anything of that sort,” he replied. But a bright colour stained his features and made him wince under her intent scrutiny.
She was worried, now, though her pretty, humorous smile still challenged him with its raillery.
But it was becoming very evident to her that if this boy of hers were growing sentimental over any woman the woman was not Elorn Sharrow.
So far she had held her son’s confidence. She must do nothing to disturb it. Yet, as she looked at him with the amused smile still edging her lips, she began for the first time in her life to be afraid.
They kissed each other in silence.
* * * * *
In the limousine, seated beside her husband, she said presently: “I wish Jim would marry Elorn Sharrow.”
“He’s likely to some day, isn’t he?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, there’s no hurry,” remarked her husband. “He ought not to marry anybody until he’s thirty, and he’s only twenty-four. I’m glad enough to have him remain at home with us.”
“But that’s what worries me; he doesn’t!”
“Doesn’t what?”
“Doesn’t remain at home.”
Her husband laughed: “Well, I meant it merely in a figurative sense. Of course Jim goes out — —”
“Where?”
“Why, everywhere, I suppose,” said her husband, a little surprised at her tone.
She said calmly: “I hear things — pick up bits of gossip — as all women do.... And at a tea the other day a man asked me why Jim never goes to his clubs any more. So you see he doesn’t go to any of his clubs when he goes ‘out’ in the evenings.... And he’s been to no dances — judging from what is said to me.... And he doesn’t go to see Elorn Sharrow any more. She told me that herself. So — where does he go?”
“Well, but — —”
“Where does he go — every evening?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t answer — —”
“Every evening!” she repeated absently.
“Good heavens, Helen — —”
“And what is on that boy’s mind? There’s something on it.”
“His business, let us hope — —”
She shook her head: “I know my son,” she remarked.
“So do I. What is particularly troubling you, dear? There’s something you haven’t told me.”
“I’m merely wondering who that girl was who lunched with him at Delmonico’s — three times — last week,” mused his wife.
“Why — she’s probably all right, Helen. A man doesn’t take the other sort there.”
“So I’ve heard,” she said drily.
“Well, then?”
“Nothing.... She’s very pretty, I understand.... And wears mourning.”
“What of it?” he asked, amused. She smiled at him, but there was a trace of annoyance in her voice.
“Don’t you think it very natural that I should wonder who any girl is who lunches with my son three times in one week?... And is remarkably pretty, besides?”
* * * * *
The girl in question looked remarkably pretty at that very moment, where she sat at her desk, the telephone transmitter tilted toward her, the receiver at her ear, and her dark eyes full of gayest malice
.
“Miss Dumont, please?” came a distant and familiar voice over the wire. The girl laughed aloud; and he heard her.
“You said you were not going to call me up.”
“Is it you, Palla?”
“How subtle of you!”
He said anxiously. “Are you doing anything this evening — by any unhappy chance — —”
“I am.”
“Oh, hang it! What are you doing?”
“How impertinent!”
“You know I don’t mean it that way — —”
“I’m not sure. However, I’ll be kind enough to tell you what I’m doing. I’m sitting here at my desk, listening to an irritable young man — —”
“That’s wonderful luck!” he exclaimed joyously.
“Wonderful luck for a girl to sit at a desk and listen to an irritable young man?”
“If you’ll stop talking bally nonsense for a moment — —”
“If you bully me, I shall stop talking altogether!”
“For heaven’s sake — —”
“I hear you, kind sir; you need not shout!”
He said humbly: “Palla, would you let me drop in — —”
“Drop into what? Into poetry? Please do!”
“For the love of — —”
“Jim! You told me last evening that you expected to be at the opera to-night.”
“I’m not going.”
“ — So I didn’t expect you to call me!”
“Can’t I see you?” he asked.
“I’m sorry — —”
“The deuce!”
“I’m expecting some people, Jim. It’s your own fault; I didn’t expect a tête-à-tête with you this evening.”
“Is it a party you’re giving?”
“Two or three people. But my place is full of flowers and as pretty as a garden. Too bad you can’t see it.”
“Couldn’t I come to your garden-party?” he asked humbly.
“You mean just to see my garden for a moment?”
“Yes; let me come around for a moment, anyway — if you’re dressed. Are you?”
“Certainly I’m dressed. Did you think it was to be a garden-of-Eden party?”
Her gay, mischievous laughter came distinctly to him over the wire. Then her mood changed abruptly:
“You funny boy,” she said, “don’t you understand that I want you to come?”
“You enchanting girl!” he exclaimed. “Do you really mean it?”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 926