Mistress Anne Part 40

"Is d.i.c.ky invited?"

"Of course. But I'm not sure that I want him."

"He wouldn't come if he knew that you felt like that."

"It isn't anything personal. And you know my manner is perfect when I'm with him."

"Yes. Poor d.i.c.ky. Pip, we are a pair of deceivers. I sometimes think I ought to tell him."

"There's nothing to tell."

"Nothing tangible,--but he's so straightforward. And he'd hate the idea that I'm letting you--make love to me."

"I don't make love. I have never touched the tip of your finger."

"_Pip!_ Of course not. But your eyes make love, and your manner--and deep down in my heart I am afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"That Fate isn't going to give me what I want. I don't want you, Pip. I want d.i.c.ky. And if you loved me--you'd let me alone."

"Tell me to go,--and I won't come back."

"Not ever?"

"Never."

She weakened. "But I don't want you to go away. You see, you are my good friend, Pip."

She should not have let him stay. She knew that. She found it necessary to apologize to Richard. "You see, Pip cares an awful lot."

Richard had little sympathy. "He might as well take his medicine and not hang around you, Eve."

"If you would hang around a little more perhaps he wouldn't."

"I am very busy. You know that."

His voice was stern. "If I am a busy husband, will you make that an excuse for having Pip at your heels?"

"_Richard._"

"I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said that. But marriage to me means more than good times. Life means more than good times. When I am here in New York it seems to me sometimes that I am drugged by work and pleasure.

That there isn't a moment in which to live in a leisurely thoughtful sense."

"You should have stayed at Crossroads."

"I can't go back. I have burned my bridges. Austin expects things of me, and I must live up to his expectations. And, besides, I like it."

"Really, d.i.c.ky?"

"Really. There's a stimulus about the rush of it and the big things we are doing. Austin is a giant. My a.s.sociation with him is the biggest thing that has ever come into my life."

"Bigger than your love for me?"

Thus she brought him back to it. Making always demands upon him which he could not meet. He found himself hara.s.sed by her continued harping on the personal point of view, yet there were moments when she swung him into step with her. And one of the moments came when she spoke of the yachting trip. It was very hot, and Richard loved the sea.

"d.i.c.ky, I'll keep Pip in the background if you I promise to come."

"How can you keep him in the background when he is our host?"

"He is going to invite Marie-Louise. And he'll have to be nice to her.

And you and I----! d.i.c.ky, we'll feel the slap of the breeze in our faces, and forget that there's a big city back of us with sick people in it, and slums and hot nights. d.i.c.ky--I love you--and I am going to be your wife.

Won't you come--because I want you--_d.i.c.ky_?"

There were tears on her cheeks as she made her plea, and he was always moved by her tears. It was his protective sense that had first tied him to her; it was still through his chivalry that she made her most potent appeal.

Marie-Louise was glad to go. "It will be like watching a play."

She and Richard were waiting for Pip's "Mermaid" to make a landing at the pier at Rose Acres. A man-servant with their bags stood near, and Marie-Louise's maid was coated and hatted to accompany her mistress. "It will be like watching a play," Marie-Louise repeated. "The eternal trio.

Two men and a girl."

She waved to the quartette on the forward deck. "Your big man looks fine in his yachting things. And your Eve is nice in white."

Marie-Louise was not in white. In spite of the heat she was wrapped to the ears in a great coat of pale buff. On her head was a Chinese hat of yellow straw, with a peac.o.c.k's feather. Yet in spite of the blueness and yellowness, and the redness of her head, she preserved that air of amazing coolness, as if her blood were mixed with snow and ran slowly.

Arriving on deck, she gave Pip her hand. "I am glad it is clear. I hate storms. I am going to ask Dr. Brooks to pray that it won't be rough. He is a good man, and the G.o.ds should listen."

CHAPTER XVII

_In Which Fear Walks in a Storm._

THE "Mermaid," having swept like a bird out of the harbor, stopped at Coney Island. Marie-Louise wanted her fortune told. Eve wanted peanuts and pop-corn. "It will make me seem a little girl again."

Marie-Louise, cool in her buff coat, shrugged her shoulders. "I was never allowed to be that kind of a little girl," she said, "but I think I'd like to try it for a day."

Eve and Marie-Louise got on very well together. They spoke the same language. And if Marie-Louise was more artificial in some ways, she was more open than Eve.

"You'd better tell Dr. Brooks," she told the older girl, as the two of them walked ahead of Richard and Pip on the pier. Tony and Winifred had elected to stay on board.

"Tell him what?"

"That you are keeping the big man in reserve."

Eve flushed. "Marie-Louise, you're horrid."