“Say,” he blurted out, “what else did you let me in for when I put my money into your business? Think I’m going to be held up by any game like that? Think I’m going to stand for any shake-down from that gang? Watch me.”
Puma stopped and looked at him stealthily: “What is it you would do, Elmer?”
But Skidder offered no suggestion. He remained, however, extremely uneasy. For it was plain enough that Puma had been involved in dealings sufficiently suspicious to warrant Government surveillance.
All Skidder’s money and real estate were now invested in Super-Pictures. No wonder he was anxious. No wonder Puma, also, seemed worried.
For, whatever he might have done in the past of a shady nature, now he had become prosperous and financially respectable and, if let alone, would doubtless continue to make a great deal of money for Skidder as well as for himself. And Skidder, profoundly troubled, wondered whether his partner had ever been guiltily involved in German propaganda, and had escaped Government detection only to fall a victim, in his dawning prosperity, to blackmailing associates of earlier days.
“That mutt Sondheim looks like a bad one to me, and the other guy — Kastner,” he observed gloomily.
“It is better that we should not offend them.”
“Just as you say, brother.”
“I say it. Yes. We shall be wise to turn to them a pleasing face.”
“Sure. The best thing to do for a while is to stall along,” nodded Skidder, “ — but always be ready for a chance to hand it to them. That’s safest; wait till we get the goods on them. Then slam it to ’em plenty!”
“If they annoy me too much,” purred Puma, displaying every dazzling tooth, “it may not be so agreeable for them. I am bad man to crowd.... Meanwhile — —”
“Sure; we’ll stall along, Angy!”
They opened the glass door and went out into the studio. And Puma began again on his favourite theme, the acquiring of Broadway property and the erection of a cinema theatre. And Skidder, with his limited imagination of a cross-roads storekeeper, listened cautiously, yet always conscious of agreeable thrills whenever the subject was mentioned.
And, although he knew that capital was shy and that conditions were not favourable, his thoughts always reverted to a man he might be willing to go into such a scheme with — the president of the Shadow Hill Trust Company, Alonzo Pawling.
* * * * *
At that very moment, too, it chanced that Mr. Pawling’s business had brought him to New York — in fact, his business was partly with Palla Dumont, and they were now lunching together at the Ritz.
Alonzo Pawling stood well over six feet. He still had all his hair — which was dyed black — and also an inky pair of old-fashioned side whiskers. For the beauty of his remaining features less could be said, because his eyes were a melancholy and faded blue, his nose very large and red, and his small, loose mouth seemed inclined to sag, as though saturated with moisture.
Many years a widower he had, when convenient opportunity presented itself, never failed to offer marriage to Palla Dumont. And when, as always, she refused him in her frank, amused fashion, they returned without embarrassment to their amiable footing of many years — she as child of his old friend and neighbour, Judge Dumont, he as her financial adviser, and banker.
As usual, Mr. Pawling had offered Palla his large, knotty hand in wedlock that morning. And now that this inevitable preliminary was safely over, they were approaching the end of a business luncheon on entirely amiable terms with each other.
Financial questions had been argued, investments decided upon, news of the town discussed, and Palla was now telling him about Elmer Skidder and his new and apparently prosperous venture into moving pictures.
“He came to see me last evening,” she said, smiling at the recollection, “and he arrived in a handsome limousine with an extra man on the front — oh, very gorgeous, Mr. Pawling! — and we had tea and he told me how prosperous he had become in the moving picture business.”
“I guess,” said Mr. Pawling, “that there’s a lot of money in moving pictures. But nobody ever seems to get any of it except the officials of the corporation and their favourite stars.”
“It seems to be an exceedingly unattractive business,” said Palla, recollecting her unpleasant impressions at the Super-Picture studios.
“The right end of it,” said Mr. Pawling, “is to own a big theatre.”
She smiled: “You wouldn’t advise me to make such an investment, would you?”
Mr. Pawling’s watery eyes rested on her reflectively and he sucked in his lower lips as though trying to extract the omnipresent moisture.
“I dunno,” he said absently.
“Mr. Skidder told me that he would double his invested capital in a year,” she said.
“I guess he was bragging.”
“Perhaps,” she rejoined, laughing, “but I should not care to make such an investment.”
“Did he ask you?”
“No. But it seemed to me that he hinted at something of that nature. And I was not at all interested because I am contented with my little investments and my income as it is. I don’t really need much money.”
Mr. Pawling’s pendulous lip, released, sagged wetly and his jet-black eyebrows were lifted in a surprised arch.
“You’re the first person I ever heard say they had enough money,” he remarked.
“But I have!” she insisted gaily.
Mr. Pawling’s sad horse-face regarded her with faded surprise. He passed for a rich man in Shadow Hill.
“Where is Elmer’s place of business?” he inquired finally, producing a worn note-book and a gold pencil. And he wrote down the address.
There was in all the world only one thing that seriously worried Mr. Pawling, and that was this worn note-book. Almost every day of his life he concluded to burn it. He lived in a vague and daily fear that it might be found on him if he died suddenly. Such things could happen — automobile or railroad accidents — any one of numberless mischances.
And still he carried it, and had carried it for years — always in a sort of terror while the recent Mrs. Pawling was still alive — and in dull but perpetual anxiety ever since.
There were in it pages devoted to figures. There were, also, memoranda of stock transactions. There were many addresses, too, mostly feminine.
Now he replaced it in the breast pocket of his frock-coat, and took out a large wallet strapped with a rubber band.
While he was paying the check, Palla drew on her gloves; and, at the Madison Avenue door, stood chatting with him a moment longer before leaving for the canteen.
Then, smilingly declining his taxi and offering her slender hand in adieu, she went westward on foot as usual. And Mr. Pawling’s directions to the chauffeur were whispered ones as though he did not care to have the world at large share in his knowledge of his own occult destination.
* * * * *
Palla’s duty at the canteen lasted until six o’clock that afternoon, and she hurried on her way home because people were dining there at seven-thirty.
With the happy recollection that Jim, also, was dining with her, she ran lightly up the steps and into the house; examined the flowers which stood in jars of water in the pantry, called for vases, arranged a centre-piece for the table, and carried other clusters of blossoms into the little drawing-room, and others still upstairs.
Then she returned to criticise the table and arrange the name-cards. And, this accomplished, she ran upstairs again to her own room, where her maid was waiting.
Two or three times in a year — not oftener — Palla yielded to a rare inclination which assailed her only when unusually excited and happy. That inclination was to whistle.
She whistled, now, while preparing for the bath; whistled like a blackbird as she stood before the pier-glass before the maid hooked her into a filmy, rosy evening gown — her first touch of colour since assuming mourning.
The bell rang, and the waitress brought an elab
orate florist’s box. There were pink orchids in it and Jim’s card; — perfection.
How could he have known! She wondered rapturously, realising all the while that they’d have gone quite as well with her usual black.
Would he come early? She had forgotten to ask it. Would he? For, in that event — and considering his inclination to take her into his arms — she decided to leave off the orchids until the more strenuous rites of friendship had been accomplished.
She was carrying the orchids and the long pin attached, in her left hand, when the sound of the doorbell filled her with abrupt and delightful premonitions. She ventured a glance over the banisters, then returned hastily to the living room, where he discovered her and did exactly what she had feared.
Her left hand, full of orchids, rested on his shoulder; her cool, fresh lips rested on his. Then she retreated, inviting inspection of the rosy dinner gown; and fastened her orchids while he was admiring it.
Her guests began to arrive before either was quite ready, so engrossed were they in happy gossip. And Palla looked up in blank surprise that almost amounted to vexation when the bell announced that their tête-à-tête was ended.
Shotwell had met the majority of Palla’s dinner guests. Seated on her right, he received from his hostess information concerning some of those he did not know.
“That rather talkative boy with red hair is Larry Rideout,” she said in a low voice. “He edits a weekly called The Coming Race. The Post Office authorities have refused to pass it through the mails. It’s rather advanced, you know.”
“Who is the girl on his right — the one with the chalky map?”
“Questa Terrett. Don’t you think her pallor is fascinating?”
“No. What particular stunt does she perform?”
“Don’t be flippant. She writes.”
“Ads?”
“Jim! She writes poems. Haven’t you seen any of them?”
“I don’t think so.”
“They’re rather modern poems. The lines don’t rhyme and there’s no metrical form,” explained Palla.
“Are they any good?”
“They’re a little difficult to understand. She leaves out so many verbs and nouns — —”
“I know. It’s a part of her disease — —”
“Jim, please be careful. She is taken seriously — —”
“Taken seriously ill? There, dear, I won’t guy your guests. What an absolutely deathly face she has!”
“She is considered beautiful.”
“She has the profile of an Egyptian. She’s as dead-white as an Egyptian leper — —”
“Hush!”
“Hush it is, sweetness! Who’s the good-looking chap over by Ilse?”
“Stanley Wardner.”
“And his star trick?”
“He’s a secessionist sculptor.”
“What’s that?”
“He is one of the ultra-modern men who has seceded from the Society of American Sculptors to form, with a few others, a new group.”
“Is he any good?”
“Well, Jim, I don’t know,” she said candidly. “I don’t think I am quite in sympathy with his work.”
“What sort is it?”
“If I understand him, he is what is termed, I believe, a concentrationist. For instance, in a nude figure which he is exhibiting in his studio, it’s all a rough block of marble except, in the middle of the upper part, there is a nose.”
“A nose!”
“Really, it is beautifully sculptured,” insisted Palla.
“But — good heavens! — isn’t there any other anatomical feature to that block of marble?”
“I explained that he is a concentrationist. His school believes in concentrating on a single feature only, and in rendering that feature as minutely and perfectly as possible.”
Jim said: “He looks as sane as a broker, too. You never can tell, can you, sweetness?”
He glanced at several other people whose features were not familiar, but Palla’s explanations of her friends had slightly discouraged him and he made no further inquiries.
Vanya Tchernov was there, dreamy and sweet-mannered; Estridge sat by Ilse, looking a trifle careworn, as though hospital work were taking it out of him. Marya Lanois was there, too, with her slightly slanting green eyes and her tiger-red hair — attracting from him a curious sort of stealthy admiration, inexplicable to him because he knew he was so entirely in love with Palla.
A woman of forty sat on his right — he promptly forgot her name each time he heard it — who ate fastidiously and chose birth-control as the subject for conversation. And he dodged it in vain, for her conversation had become a monologue, and he sat fiddling with his food, very red, while the silky voice, so agreeable in pitch and intonation, slid smoothly on.
Afterward Palla explained that she was a celebrated sociologist, but Jim remained shy of her.
Other people came in after dinner. Vanya seated himself at the piano and played from one of his unpublished scores. Ilse sang two Scandinavian songs in her fresh, wholesome, melodious voice — the song called Ygdrasil, and the Song of Thokk. Wardner had brought a violin, and he and Vanya accompanied Marya’s Asiatic songs, but with some difficulty on the sculptor’s part, as modern instruments are scarcely adapted to the sort of Russian music she chose to sing.
Marya had a way, when singing, which appeared almost insolent. Seated, or carelessly erect, her supple figure fell into lines of indolently provocative grace; and the warm, golden notes welling from her throat seemed to be flung broadcast and indifferently to her listeners, as alms are often flung, without interest, toward abstract poverty and not to the poor breathing thing at one’s elbow.
She sang, in her preoccupied way, one of her savage, pentatonic songs, more Mongol than Cossack; then she sang an impudent burlatskiya lazily defiant of her listeners; then a so-called “dancing song,” in which there was little restraint in word or air.
The subtly infernal enchantment of girl and music was felt by everybody; but several among the illuminati and the fair ultra-modernettes had now reached their limit of breadth and tolerance, and were becoming bored and self-conscious, when abruptly Marya’s figure straightened to a lovely severity, her mouth opened sweetly as a cherub’s, and, looking up like a little, ruddy bird, she sang one of the ancient Kolyadki, Vanya alone understanding as his long, thin fingers wandered instinctively into an improvised accompaniment:
I
“Young tears
Your fears disguise;
He is not coming!
Sweet lips
Let slip no sighs;
Cease, heart, your drumming!
He is not coming,
[A]Lada!
He is not coming.
Lada oy Lada!
“Gaze not in wonder, —
Yonder no rider comes;
Hark how the kettle-drums
Mock his hoofs’ thunder;
Hark to their thudding,
Pretty breasts budding, —
Setting the Buddhist bells
Clanking and banging, —
Wheels at the hidden wells
Clinking and clanging!
(Lada oy Lada!)
Plough the flower under;
Tear it asunder!
“Young eyes
In swift surprise,
What terror veils you?
Clear eyes,
Who gallops here?
What wolf assails you?
What horseman hails you,
Lada!
What pleasure pales you?
Lada oy Lada!
“Knight who rides boldly,
May Erlik impale you, —
Your mother bewail you,
If you use her coldly!
Health to the wedding!
Joy to the bedding!
Set all the Christian bells
Swinging and ringing —
Monks in their stony cells
Chanting and singing
&nb
sp; (Lada oy Lada!)
Bud of the rose,
Gently unclose!”
Marya, her gemmed fingers bracketed on her hips, the last sensuous note still afloat on her lips, turned her head so that her rounded chin rested on her bare shoulder; and looked at Shotwell. He rose, applauding with the others, and found a chair for her.
But when she seated herself, she addressed Ilse on the other side of him, leaning so near that he felt the warmth of her hair.
“Who was it wrestled with Loki? Was it Hel, goddess of death? Or was it Thor who wrestled with that toothless hag, Thokk?”
Ilse explained.
The conversation became general, vaguely accompanied by Vanya’s drifting improvisations, where he still sat at the piano, his lost gaze on Marya.
Bits of the chatter around him came vaguely to Shotwell — the birth-control lady’s placid inclination toward obstetrics; Wardner on concentration, with Palla listening, bending forward, brown eyes wide and curious and snowy hands framing her face; Ilse partly turned where she was seated, alert, flushed, half smiling at what John Estridge, behind her shoulder, was saying to her, — some improvised nonsense, of which Jim caught a fragment:
“If he who dwells in Midgard
With cunning can not floor her,
What hope that Mistress Westgard
Will melt if I implore her?
“And yet I’ve come to Asgard,
And hope I shall not bore her
If I tell Mistress Westgard
How deeply I adore her — —”
Through the hum of conversation and capricious laughter, Vanya’s vague music drifted like wind-blown thistle-down, and his absent regard never left Marya, where she rested among the cushions in low-voiced dialogue with Jim.
“I had hoped,” she smiled, “that you had perhaps remembered me — enough to stop for a word or two some day at tea-time.”
He had had no intention of going; but he said that he had meant to and would surely do so, — the while she was leisurely recognising the lie as it politely uncoiled.
“Why won’t you come?” she asked under her breath.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 936