Wilding had no money in the beginning. After a while, Vanya had none, or very little; but the impresario wore a new fur coat and spats. And Broadway winked wearily and said: “He’s got another!” — doubtless deeming specification mere redundancy.
Yet, somehow, Wilding did manage to book Vanya in Philadelphia — at a somewhat distant date, it is true — but it was something with which to begin the promised “nation-wide tour” under the auspices of Dawson B. Wilding.
Marya had money of her own, but trusted none of it in Wilding’s schemes. In fact, she had come to detest him thoroughly, and whenever he was announced she would rise like some beautiful, disgusted feline, which something has disturbed in her dim and favourite corner, and move lithely away to another room. And it almost seemed as though her little, warm, closely-chiselled ears actually flattened with bored annoyance as the din of Wilding’s vociferous greeting to Vanya arose behind her.
* * * * *
One day toward Christmas time, she said to Vanya, in her level, satin-smooth voice:
“You know, mon ami, I am tiring rapidly of this great fool who comes shouting and tramping into our home. And when I am annoyed beyond my nerve capacity, I am likely to leave.”
Vanya said gently that he was sorry that he had entered into financial relations with a man who annoyed her, but that it could scarcely be helped now.
He was seated at his piano, not playing, but scoring. And he resumed his composition after he had spoken, his grave, delicate head bent over the ruled sheets, a gold pencil held between his long fingers.
Marya lounged near, watched him. Not for the first time, now, did his sweet temper and gentleness vaguely irritate her — string her nerves a little tighter until they began to vibrate with an indefinable longing to say something to arouse this man — startle him — awaken him to a physical tensity and strength.... Such as Shotwell’s for example....
“Vanya?”
He looked up absently, the beauty of dreams still clouding his eyes.
And suddenly, to her own astonishment, her endurance came to its end. She had never expected to say what she was now going to say to him. She had never dreamed of confession — of enlightening him. And now, all at once, she knew she was going to do it, and that it was a needless and cruel and insane and useless thing to do, for it led her nowhere, and it would leave him in helpless pain.
“Vanya,” she said, “I am in love with Jim Shotwell.”
After a few moments, she turned and slowly crossed the studio. Her hat and coat lay on a chair. She put them on and walked out.
* * * * *
The following morning, Palla, arriving to consult Marya on a matter of the Club’s business, discovered Vanya alone in the studio.
He was lying on the lounge when she entered, and he looked ill, but he rose with all his characteristic grace and charm and led her to a chair, saluting her hand as he seated her.
“Marya has not yet arrived?” she inquired.
His delicate features became very grave and still.
“I thought,” added Palla, “that Marya usually breakfasted at eleven — —”
Something in his expression checked her; and she fell silent, fascinated by the deathly whiteness of his face.
“I am sorry to tell you,” he said, in a pleasant and steady voice, “that Marya has not returned.”
“Why — why, I didn’t know she was away — —”
“Yesterday she decided. Later she was good enough to telephone from the Hotel Rajah, where, for the present, she expects to remain.”
“Oh, Vanya!” Palla’s involuntary exclamation brought a trace of colour into his cheeks.
He said: “It is not her fault. She was loyal and truthful. One may not control one’s heart.... And if she is in love — well, is she not free to love him?”
“Who — is — it?” asked Palla faintly.
“Mr. Shotwell, it appears.”
In the dead silence, Vanya passed his hand slowly across his temples; let it drop on his knee.
“Freedom above all else,” he said, “ — freedom to love, freedom to cease loving, freedom to love anew.... Well ... it is curious — the scheme of things.... Love must remain inexplicable. For there is no analysis. I think there never could be any man who cared as I have cared, as I do care for her....”
He rose, and to Palla he seemed already a trifle stooped; — it may have been his studio coat, which fitted badly.
“But, Vanya dear—” Palla looked at him miserably, conscious of her own keen fears as well as of his sorrow. “Don’t you think she’ll come back? Do you suppose it is really so serious — what she thinks about — Mr. Shotwell?”
He shook his head: “I don’t know.... If it is so, it is so. Freedom is of first importance. Our creed is our creed. We must abide by what we teach and believe.”
“Yes.”
He nodded absently, staring palely into space.
Perhaps his lost gaze evoked the warm-skinned, sunny-haired girl who had gone out of the semi-light of this still place, leaving the void unutterably vast around him. For this had been the lithe thing’s silken lair — the slim and supple thing with beryl eyes — here where thick-piled carpets of the East deadened every human movement — where no sound stirred, nor any air — where dull shapes loomed, lacquered and indistinct, and an odour of Chinese lacquer and nard haunted the tinted dusk.
* * * * *
Like one of those lazy, golden, jewelled sea-creatures of irresponsible freedom brought seemed to fill the girl cooler currents arouses a restlessness infernal, Marya’s first long breath of freedom subtly excited her.
She had no definite ideas, no plans. She was merely tired of Vanya.
Perhaps her fresh, wholesome contact with Jim had started it — the sense of a clean vitality which had seemed to envelop her like the delicious, half-resented chill of a spring-pool plunge. For the exhilaration possessed her still; and the sudden stimulation which the sense of irresponsible freedom brought seemed to fill the girl with a new vigour.
Foot-loose, heart-loose, her green eyes on the open world where it stretched away into infinite horizons, she paced her new nest in the Hotel Rajah, tingling with subdued excitement, innocent of the faintest regret for what had been.
For a week she lived alone, enjoying the sensation of being hidden, languidly savouring the warm comfort of isolation.
She had not sent for her belongings. She purchased new personal effects, enchanted to be rid of familiar things.
There was no snow. She walked a great deal, moving in unaccustomed sections of the city at all hours, skirting in the early winter dusk the glitter of Christmas preparations along avenues and squares, lunching where she was unlikely to encounter anybody she knew, dining, too, at hazard in unwonted places — restaurants she had never heard of, tea-rooms, odd corners.
Vanya wrote her. She tossed his letters aside, scarcely read. Ilse and Palla wrote her, and telephoned her. She paid them no attention.
The metropolitan jungle fascinated her. She adored her liberty, and looked out of beryl-green eyes across the border of license, where ghosts of the half-world swarmed in no-man’s-land.
Conscious that she had been fashioned to trouble man, the knowledge merely left her indefinitely contented, save when she remembered Jim. But that he had checked her drift toward him merely excited her; for she knew she had been made to trouble such as he; and she had seen his face that night....
* * * * *
Ilse, on her way home to dress — for she was going out somewhere with Estridge — stopped for tea at Palla’s house, and found her a little disturbed over an anonymous letter just delivered — a typewritten sheet bluntly telling her to take her friends and get out of the hall where the Combat Club held its public sessions; and warning her of serious trouble if she did not heed this “friendly” advice.
“Pouf!” exclaimed Ilse contemptuously, “I get those, too, and tear them up. People who talk never strike. Are you anxious, darling?”
“Why do you say that? I think it is a wonderful winter — a beautiful year!”
Palla lifted her brown eyes and let them dwell on the beauty of this clear-skinned, golden-haired girl who had discovered beauty in the aftermath of the world’s great tragedy.
Ilse smiled: “Life is good,” she said. “This world is all to be done over in the right way. We have it all before us, you and I, Palla, and those who love and understand.”
“I am wondering,” said Palla, “who understands us. I’m not discouraged, but — there seems to be so much indifference in the world.”
“Of course. That is our battle to overcome it.”
“Yes. But, dear, there seems to be so much hatred, too, in the world. I thought the war had ended, but everywhere men are still in battle — everywhere men are dying of this fierce hatred that seems to flame up anew across the world; everywhere men fight and slay to gain advantage. None yields, none renounces, none gives. It is as though love were dead on earth.”
“Love is being reborn,” said Ilse cheerfully. “Birth means pain, always — —”
Without warning, a hot flush flooded her face; she averted it as the tea-tray was brought and set on a table before Palla. When her face cooled, she leaned back in her chair, cup in hand, a sort of confused sweetness in her blue eyes.
Palla’s heart was beating heavily as she leaned on the table, her cup untasted, her idle fingers crumbing the morsel of biscuit between them.
After a moment she said: “So you have concluded that you care for John Estridge?”
“Yes, I care,” said Ilse absently, the same odd, sweet smile curving her cheeks.
“That is — wonderful,” said Palla, not looking at her.
Ilse remained silent, her blue gaze aloof.
A maid came and turned up the lamps, and went away again.
Palla said in a low voice: “Are you — afraid?”
“No.”
They both remained silent until she rose to go. Palla, walking with her to the head of the stairs, holding one of her hands imprisoned, said with an effort: “I am frightened, dear.... I can’t help it.... You will be certain, first, won’t you? — —”
“It is as certain as death,” said Ilse in a low, still voice.
Palla shivered; she passed one arm around her; and they stood so for a while. Then Ilse’s arm tightened, and the old gaiety glinted in her sea-blue eyes:
“Is your house in order too, Palla?” she asked. “Turn around, little enigma! There; I can look into those brown eyes now. And I see nothing in them to answer me my question.”
“Do you mean Jim?”
“I do.”
“I haven’t seen him.”
“For how long?”
“Weeks. I don’t know how long it has been — —”
“Have you quarrelled?”
“Yes. We seem to. This is quite the most serious one yet.”
“You are not in love with him.”
“Oh, Ilse, I don’t know. He simply can’t understand me. I feel so bruised and tired after a controversy with him. He seems to be so merciless to my opinions — so violent — —”
“You poor child.... After all, Palla, freedom also means the liberty to change one’s mind.... If you should care to change yours — —”
“I can’t change my inmost convictions.”
“Those — no.”
“I have not changed them. I almost wish I could. But I’ve got to be honest.... And he can’t understand me.”
Ilse smiled and kissed her: “That is scarcely to be wondered at, as you don’t seem to know your own mind. Perhaps when you do he, also, may understand you. Good-bye! I must run — —”
Palla watched her to the foot of the stairs; the door closed; the engine of a taxi began to hum.
Her telephone was ringing when she returned to the living room, and the quick leap of her heart averted her of the hope revived.
But it was a strange voice on the wire, — a man’s voice, clear, sinister, tainted with a German accent:
“Iss this Miss Dumont? Yess? Then this I haff to say to you: You shall find yourself in serious trouble if you do not move your foolish club of vimmen out of the vicinity of which you know. We giff you one more chance. So shall you take it or you shall take some consequences! Goot-night!”
The instrument clicked in her ear as the unknown threatener hung up, leaving her seated there, astonished, hurt, bewildered.
* * * * *
The man who “hung up on her” stepped out of a saloon on Eighth Avenue and joined two other men on the corner.
The man was Karl Kastner; the other two were Sondheim and Bromberg.
“Get her?” growled the latter, as all three started east.
“Yess. And now we shall see what we shall see. We start the finish now already. All foolishness shall be ended. Now we fix Puma.”
They continued on across the street, clumping along with their overcoat collars turned up, for it had turned bitter cold and the wind was rising.
“You don’t think it’s a plant?” inquired Sondheim, for the third time.
Bromberg blew his red nose on a dirty red handkerchief.
“We’ll plant Puma if he tries any of that,” he said thickly.
Kastner added that he feared investigation more than they did because he had more at stake.
“Dot guy he iss rich like a millionaire,” he added. “Ve make him pay some dammach, too.”
“How’s he going to fire that bunch of women if they got a lease?” demanded Bromberg.
“Who the hell cares how he does it?” grunted Sondheim.
“Sure,” added Kastner; “let him dig up. You buy anybody if you haff sufficient coin. Effery time! Yess. Also! Let him dig down into his pants once. So shall he pay them, these vimmen, to go avay und shut up mit their mischief what they make for us already!”
Sondheim was still muttering about “plants” in the depths of his soiled overcoat-collar, when they arrived at the hall and presented themselves at the door of Puma’s outer office.
A girl took their message. After a while she returned and piloted them out, and up a wide flight of stairs to a door marked, “No admittance.” Here she knocked, and Puma’s voice bade them enter.
Angelo Puma was standing by a desk when they trooped in, keeping their hats on. The room was ventilated and illumined in the daytime only by a very dirty transom giving on a shaft. Otherwise, there were no windows, no outlet to any outer light and air.
Two gas jets caged in wire — obsolete stage dressing-room effects — lighted the room and glimmered on Puma’s polished top-hat and the gold knob of his walking-stick.
As for Puma himself, he glanced up stealthily from the scenario he was reading as he stood by the big desk, but dropped his eyes again, and, opening a drawer, laid away the typed manuscript. Then he pulled out the revolving desk chair and sat down.
“Well?” he inquired, lighting a cigar.
There was an ominous silence among the three men for another moment. Then Puma looked up, puffing his cigar, and Sondheim stepped forward from the group and shook his finger in his face.
“What yah got planted around here for us? Hey?” he demanded in a low, hoarse voice. “Come on now, Puma! What yeh think yeh got on us?” And to Kastner and Bromberg: “Go ahead, boys, look for a dictaphone and them kind of things. And if this wop hollers I’ll do him.”
A ruddy light flickered in Puma’s eyes, but the cool smile lay smoothly on his lips, and he did not even turn his head to watch them as they passed along the walls, sounding, peering, prying, and jerking open the door of the cupboard — the only furniture there except the desk and the chair on which Puma sat.
“What the hell’s the matter with yeh?” snarled Sondheim, suddenly stooping to catch Puma’s eye, which had wandered as though bored by the proceedings.
“Nothing,” said Puma
, coolly; “what’s the matter with you, Max?”
Kastner came around beside him and said in his thin, sinister tone:
“You know it vat I got on you, Angelo?”
“I do.”
“So? Also! Vas iss it you do about doze vimmen?”
“They won’t go.”
In Bromberg’s voice sounded an ominous roar: “Don’t hand us nothing like that! You hear what I’m telling you?”
Puma shrugged: “I hand you what I have to hand you. They have the lease. What is there for me to do?”
“Buy ’em off!”
“I try. They will not.”
“You offer ’em enough and they’ll quit!”
“No. They will not. They say they are here to fight you. They laugh at my money. What shall I do?”
“I’ll tell you one thing you’ll do, and do it damn quick!” roared Bromberg. “Hand over that money we need!”
“If you bellow in so loud a manner,” said Puma, “they could hear you in the studio.... How much do you ask for?”
“Two thousand.”
“No.”
“What yeh mean by ‘No’?”
“What I say to you, that I have not two thousand.”
“You lying greaser — —”
“I do not lie. I have paid my people and there remains but six hundred dollars in my bank.”
“When do we get the rest?” asked Sondheim, as Puma tossed the packet of bills onto the desk.
“When I make it,” replied Puma tranquilly. “You will understand my receipts are my capital at present. What else I have is engaged already in my new theatre. If you will be patient you shall have what I can spare.”
Bromberg rested both hairy fists on the desk and glared down at Puma.
“Who’s this new guy you got to go in with you? What’s the matter with our getting a jag of his coin?”
“You mean Mr. Pawling?”
“Yeh. Who the hell is that duck what inks his whiskers?”
“A partner.”
“Well, let him shove us ours then.”
“You wish to ruin me?” inquired Puma placidly.
“Not while you’re milkin’,” said Sondheim, showing every yellow fang in a grin.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 942