Making Money Part 41

"You were rather well interested, weren't you?"

"More than that, as you know, Gladys," he said, looking directly in her eyes. A certain look she saw there caused her to make a sudden retreat into ba.n.a.lity--

"Do you play?"

"Sometimes."

Miss Stoughton and others impatient of the role of spectators were organizing tables of auction inside the house. His reason told him that the best thing for him to do would be to join them and show a certain indifference, but the longing, miserable and unreasoning, within him to stay, to be where he could see her, filling his eyes, after all the long vacant summer, was too strong. He hesitated and remained, saying to himself--

"Suppose I am a fool. She'll think I haven't the nerve of a mouse."

He wanted to chatter, to laugh at the slightest pretext, to maintain an att.i.tude of light inconsequential amus.e.m.e.nt, but the attempt failed. He remained moody and taciturn, his eyes irresistibly fastened on the young figure, so free and untamed, reveling in the excitement and hazards of the game, wondering to himself that this girl, who now seemed so calmly steeled against the display of the slightest interest in him, had once swayed against his shoulder, yielding to the enveloping sense of a moonlight night, loneliness and the invisible, inexplicable impulse toward each other. What had come to end all this and how was it possible for her to dissemble the emotion that she must feel, with the knowledge of his eyes steadily and moodily fixed upon her?

He was resolved to find a moment's isolation in which to speak to her directly and she just as determined to prevent it. As a consequence he felt himself circ.u.mvented at every move, without being able to say to himself that it had been done deliberately. The others who perhaps perceived his intention sought an instinctive distance, with that innate sympathy which goes out to lovers, but Patsie with a foreseeing eye called young Stoughton to her side and pretending a slightly wrenched ankle, leaned heavily on his arm. In which fashion they regained the house without Bojo having been able by hook or crook to have gained a moment for a private word.

At dinner, where he had hoped that Skeeter Stoughton, in return for his half confidence, would have arranged so that he should sit next to her, he found Patsie on the opposite side of the table. An accusatory glance towards Skeeter was answered by one of mystification. Then he understood that she must have rearranged the cards herself. He was unskilled in the knowledge of the ways of young girls and their instinctive cruelty to those who love them and even those whom they themselves love. He was hurt, embarra.s.sed, prey to idiotic suppositions that left him miserable and self-conscious. He was even ready to believe that she had taken the others into her confidence, that every one must be watching, smiling behind their correct masks. The dinner seemed interminable. He was too wretched to conceal his emotions, neglecting his neighbors shamefully until one, a debutante of the year, rallied him maliciously.

"Mr. Crocker, I believe you're in love!"

He glanced at Patsie, frightened lest the remark might have carried, but from her att.i.tude he could divine nothing. She was rattling away, answering some lightly flung remark from down the table. He began to talk desperately in idiotic, meaningless sentences, aware that his neighbor was watching him with a mischievous smile.

"Are you really in love?" she said delightedly when he had run out of ideas.

He was struck by a sudden inspiration.

"If I confess will you help me?" he said in a whisper. Miss Hunter, enraptured with the idea of anything that bordered on the romantic, bobbed her head in enthusiastic response.

"Very well, after dinner," he said in the same low tone. He had a feeling that Patsie had been trying to listen and began to talk with a gaiety for which he found no reason in himself. Several times he glanced across the table and he felt--though their eyes never met--that her glance had but just left him, was on him the moment he turned away. He found her much changed. She was not yet a woman, by a certain veil of fragility and inconscient shyness, but the child was gone. Her glance was more sobered and more thoughtful as though the touch of some sadness had stolen the bubbling spirits of childhood and left a comprehension of deeper trials approaching. At times she a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of great dignity, la grande maniere, which was yet but a.s.sumed and made him smile.

Dinner over, dancing began. He made no attempt to seek out Patsie, putting off Miss Hunter too with evasive answers. He danced once or twice, but without enjoyment and finally, not to witness the spectacle of her dancing with other men, made the pretext of an evening cigar to seek the obliterating darkness of the verandah. Safely hidden in a favoring corner, he sat, moodily watching the occasional flitting of laughing couples silhouetted against the starry night. He was totally at loss to account for the reception. At times a suspicion pa.s.sed through his mind that Doris might have given a different account of their parting scene than the facts warranted. At others, remembering details of romantic novels, he had devoured, he was willing to believe that his letter had not reached her, had been intercepted perhaps by Mrs. Drake.

At the end of an hour, fearing to have made his absence too noticeable, he rose unwillingly to join the gay party within. Suddenly as he rounded the corner he came upon a couple separating, the man returning to the dance, the girl leaning against a pillar, plucking at invisible vines.

Then she too turned, coming into a momentary reflection. It was Patsie.

She stopped short, divining who it was, and the instinctive step backward which she made brought an angry outburst to his lips.

"I beg your pardon," he said stiffly. "I didn't mean to annoy you. I had been finishing my smoke. I--" He paused, at his wits' end. At this moment if he had been called upon to recognize his true feelings, he would have sworn that he hated her bitterly with a fierce, unreasoning hatred.

"You do not annoy me," she said quietly.

"I was afraid so."

"No."

He hesitated a moment.

"Did you get my letters?"

"Yes."

"Did you answer them?" he said, with a last hope of some possible misunderstanding.

She shook her head.

He waited a moment for some explanation and as none came, he started to leave, saying,

"I don't understand at all--but--I don't suppose that matters--"

He went toward the door. Then stopped. He thought he had heard her calling his name. He returned slowly.

"Did you call me?"

"No, no."

All at once he came to her tempestuously, catching her arm as he would a naughty child's.

"Drina, I won't be turned away like this. In heaven's name what have I done that you should treat me like this? At least tell me!"

She did not struggle against his hold, but turned away her head without answer.

"Was it my first letter? You didn't like me to write that way--so soon--so soon after breaking the engagement? Was that it? It was, wasn't it?"

It seemed to him, though he could not be sure, that her head made a little affirmative nod.

"But what was wrong?" he cried in dismay. "You wouldn't have me be insincere. You know and I know what you meant to me, you know that if I went on with Doris after--after that night, it was only from a sense of duty, of loyalty. Yes, because you yourself came to me and begged me to.

If that's true, why not be open about--"

"Hush," she said hastily. "Some one will hear."

"I don't care if they all hear," he said recklessly. "Drina, what's the use of pretending. You know I've been in love with you, you and only you, from the first day I saw you."

She drew her arm from his grasp and turned on him defiantly--

"Thanks-- I don't care to be second fiddle!" she said spitefully.

"Good heavens, that is it!"

"Yes, that is it," she cried out and breaking from him she fled around the corner of the verandah and it seemed to him that he had caught the sound of a sob.

He entered the house, a prey to conflicting emotions, perplexed, angry, inclined to laugh, with alternate flashes of hope and as sudden relapses into despair. Just as he had made up his mind that she had left for the night, she reappeared without a trace of concern. But try as he might he did not succeed in getting another opportunity to speak to her. She avoided him with a settled cold antagonism. The next day it was the same. It seemed that everything she did was calculated to wound him and display her hostility. He had neither the strength nor the wisdom to respond with indifference, suffering openly. At ten o'clock that night as he was miserably preparing to enter the automobile that was to take him to the station, Patsie came hurriedly down the steps, something white in her hand.

"Please do something for me," she said breathlessly.

"What is it?"

"A letter-- I want you to mail this letter--it's important."

He turned, taking the letter and putting it in his pocket without noticing it.

She held out her hand. Surprised, he took it, yet without relenting.