Jill the Reckless Part 57

"Because.... Oh, it's impossible!"

There was a silence.

"Because...." He seemed to find a difficulty in speaking. "Because of Underhill?"

Jill nodded. She felt wretched. The monstrous incongruity of her surroundings oppressed her. The orchestra had dashed into a rollicking melody, which set her foot tapping in spite of herself. At a near-by table somebody was shouting with laughter. Two waiters at a service-stand were close enough for her to catch s.n.a.t.c.hes of their talk. They were arguing about an order of fried potatoes. Once again her feelings veered round, and she loathed the detachment of the world. Her heart ached for Wally. She could not look at him, but she knew exactly what she would see if she did--honest, pleading eyes searching her face for something which she could not give.

"Yes," she said.

The table creaked. Wally was leaning further forward. He seemed like something large and pathetic--a big dog in trouble. She hated to be hurting him. And all the time her foot tapped accompaniment to the rag-time tune.

"But you can't live all your life with a memory," said Wally.

Jill turned and faced him. His eyes seemed to leap at her, and they were just as she had pictured them.

"You don't understand," she said gently. "You don't understand."

"It's ended. It's over."

Jill shook her head.

"You can't still love him, after what has happened!"

"I don't know," said Jill unhappily.

The words seemed to bewilder Wally as much as they had bewildered Freddie.

"You don't know?"

Jill shut her eyes tight. Wally quivered. It was a trick she had had as a child. In perplexity, she had always screwed up her eyes just like that, as if to shut herself up in herself.

"Don't talk for a minute, Wally," she said. "I want to think."

Her eyes opened.

"It's like this," she said. He had seen her look at him in exactly the same way a hundred times. "I don't suppose I can make you understand, but this is how it is. Suppose you had a room, and it was full--of things. Furniture. And there wasn't any s.p.a.ce left. You--you couldn't put anything else in till you had taken all that out, could you? It might not be worth anything, but it would still be there, taking up all the room."

Wally nodded.

"Yes," he said. "I see."

"My heart's full, Wally dear. I know it's just lumber that's choking it up, but it's difficult to get it out. It takes time getting it out.

I put it in, thinking it was wonderful furniture, the most wonderful in the world, and--I was cheated. It was just lumber. But it's there.

It's still there. It's there all the time. And what am I to do?"

The orchestra crashed, and was silent. The sudden stillness seemed to break a spell. The world invaded the little island where they sat. A chattering party of girls and men brushed past them. The waiter, judging that they had been there long enough, slipped a strip of paper, decorously turned upside down, in front of Wally. He took the money, and went away to get change.

Wally turned to Jill.

"I understand," he said. "All this hasn't happened, and we're just as good pals as before?"

"Yes."

"But...." He forced a laugh ... "mark my words, a time may come, and then...!"

"I don't know," said Jill.

"A time may come," repeated Wally. "At any rate, let me think so. It has nothing to do with me. It's for you to decide, absolutely. I'm not going to pursue you with my addresses! If ever you get that room of yours emptied, you won't have to hang out a 'To Let' sign. I shall be waiting, and you will know where to find me. And, in the meantime, yours to command, Wallace Mason. Is that clear?"

"Quite clear." Jill looked at him affectionately. "There's n.o.body I'd rather open that room to than you, Wally. You know that."

"Is that the solemn truth?"

"The solemn truth."

"Then," said Wally, "in two minutes you will see a startled waiter.

There will be about fourteen dollars change out of that twenty he took away. I'm going to give it all to him."

"You mustn't!"

"Every cent!" said Wally firmly. "And the young Greek brigand who stole my hat at the door is going to get a dollar! That, as our ascetic and honourable friend Goble would say, is the sort of little guy _I_ am!"

The red-faced man at the next table eyed them as they went out, leaving behind them a waiter who clutched totteringly for support at the back of a chair.

"Had a row," he decided, "but made it up."

He called for a toothpick.

CHAPTER XVI

MR. GOBLE PLAYS WITH FATE

I

On the boardwalk at Atlantic City, that much-enduring seash.o.r.e resort which has been the birthplace of so many musical plays, there stands an all-day and all-night restaurant, under the same management and offering the same hospitality as the one in Columbus Circle at which Jill had taken her first meal on arriving in New York. At least, its hospitality is noisy during the waking and working hours of the day; but there are moments when it has an almost cloistral peace, and the customer, abashed by the cold calm of its snowy marble and the silent gravity of the white-robed attendants, unconsciously lowers his voice and tries to keep his feet from shuffling, like one in a temple. The members of the chorus of "The Rose of America," dropping in by ones and twos at six o'clock in the morning about two weeks after the events recorded in the last chapter, spoke in whispers and gave their orders for breakfast in a subdued undertone.

The dress-rehearsal had just dragged its weary length to a close. It is the custom of the dwellers in Atlantic City, who seem to live entirely by pleasure, to attend a species of vaudeville performances--incorrectly termed a sacred concert--on Sunday nights, and it had been one o'clock in the morning before the concert scenery could be moved out of the theatre and the first act set of "The Rose of America" moved in. And, as by some unwritten law of the drama no dress-rehearsal can begin without a delay of at least an hour and a half, the curtain had not gone up on Mr. Miller's opening chorus till half-past two. There had been dress-parades, conferences, interminable arguments between the stage-director and a mysterious man in shirt-sleeves about the lights, more dress-parades, further conferences, hitches with regard to the sets, and another outbreak of debate on the subject of blues, ambers, and the management of the "spot," which was worked by a plaintive voice, answering to the name of Charlie, at the back of the family circle. But by six o'clock a complete, if ragged, performance had been given, and the chorus, who had partaken of no nourishment since dinner on the previous night, had limped off round the corner for a bite of breakfast before going to bed.

They were a battered and a draggled company, some with dark circles beneath their eyes, others blooming with the unnatural scarlet of the make-up which they had been too tired to take off. The d.u.c.h.ess, haughty to the last, had fallen asleep with her head on the table. The red-headed Babe was lying back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.

The Southern girl blinked like an owl at the morning sunshine out on the boardwalk.

The Cherub, whose triumphant youth had brought her almost fresh through a sleepless night, contributed the only remark made during the interval of waiting for the meal.