Paradise Garden Part 28

"Oh, she laughed and said that she wasn't thinking of having any children just yet."

This, then, was the type of after-dinner conversation that took place between them. I began more clearly to understand the fascination that Jerry had for her--to understand, too, her growing delight in the splendid, vital, innocent animal that she had chained to her chariot wheel.

"Go on, Jerry," I said in a moment. "She wants you to typify the new race--"

"Exactly. To spread the gospel of physical strength among my own kind--to prove that mind, other things being more or less equal, is greater than matter."

"I see," I said thoughtfully. "Then it _was_ Marcia's idea, wasn't it?"

He hesitated a moment before replying.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so. But I've been pretty keen about it from the beginning. You must admit that it's interesting in theory."

"The superbeast versus the superman," I commented. "Your mind is made up then--irrevocably?"

"Yes."

I had not known Jerry all these years for nothing. I shrugged my shoulders and sank into my chair again. "Then, of course, there's nothing for it but to try to keep the thing out of the papers."

He took up his hat and stick gayly. "Oh, they'll never guess in the world. When I go down to Flynn's I get into an old suit Christopher got for me down on Seventh Avenue--a hand-me-down, and when Marcia goes she wears--"

"Ah--Marcia goes--?"

"Oh, yes, sometimes in the afternoons. She wears the worst-looking things--her maid got 'em somewhere. She watches me work. They call her my 'steady.' It's great sport. She's having more fun than she ever had before in her life, she says. I'd like you to run down this afternoon. You know the place. It will liven up your dry bones. Come along, will you?"

"Perhaps," I said helplessly, looking out of the window.

CHAPTER XIII

UNA

Jerry's destiny was indeed in the lap of the G.o.ds. Whatever may have been my hope, during his visit to the Manor, of opening his eyes, I now confessed myself utterly at a loss. He was dipping life up by the ladle-full and yet curiously enough thus far had missed the vital, the significant fact of existence. I supposed that it was because the history of his early years was known to but few and that the men with whom he came into contact, nice enough fellows at the clubs, friends of Jack Ballard, had taken his worldliness for granted. He had missed the filthy story perhaps, or if he had heard it, had ignored its point and turned away to topics he understood. Business, too, had taken some of his time and Marcia had taken more. The clubs, I had inferred, had not greatly interested him. Flynn, his other crony, was no scandal-monger and the habits of the years at Horsham Manor would still be strong with him at the gymnasium. As I have said before, Jerry hadn't the kind of a mind to absorb what did not interest him.

It must be obvious, however, that I was greatly concerned over Jerry's venture into pugilism. I tried to view the Great Experiment as from a great distance, as across a s.p.a.ce of time looking forward to the hour when Jerry would emerge scatheless from all his tests both material and spiritual. But Jerry's personality, his thoughts, his sensibilities bulked too large. There was no room for a perspective.

To all intents and purposes I myself was Jerry, thinking his thoughts, tasting his enthusiasms and his regrets. But I think if he had married a street wench or engaged in a conspiracy to blow up the Capitol at Washington I could scarcely have been more perturbed for him than I was at finding how strong was the influence that this girl Marcia exercised upon his actions. His fondness for her was the only flaw I had ever discovered in Jerry's nature. He could speak of her spirituality as he pleased, but there was another attraction here. I had felt the allure of her personality, a magnetism less mental than physical. Physical, of course, and because incomprehensible to Jerry the more marvelous. I had looked upon the boy as a perfect human animal, forgetting that he was only an animal after all. Marcia, the woman without a heart, whose game was the hearts of others! Bah! No woman without a heart could hold Jerry. If pa.s.sion danced to him in the mask of a purer thing, Jerry's honesty would strip off the disguise in time. The danger was not now, but then, and even then perhaps more hers than his.

I waited long for Jack Ballard, but he did not return and so I went out into the streets and walked rapidly for exercise down town in the general direction of Flynn's Gymnasium over on the East Side, where I proposed to meet Jerry later in the afternoon. I had kept no record of the time and when my appet.i.te advised me that it was the luncheon hour, I looked at my watch. It was two o'clock. I sauntered into a cross street, finding at last a quiet place where I could eat and think in peace. "Dry-as-dust!" I was. Twelve years ago I had railed at the modern woman and learned my lesson from her. But now--! The years had swept madly past my sanctuary, license running riot. Sin stalked openly. The eyes of the women one met upon the streets were hard with knowledge. Nothing was sacred--nothing hidden from young or old. And men and women of wealth and tradition--I will not call them society, which is far too big a word for so small a thing--men and women born to lead and mold public thought and conduct, showed the way to a voluptuousness which rivaled tottering Rome.

And this was the world into which my sinless man had been liberated!

I smiled to myself a little bitterly. It was unfortunate that out of all the women in New York, Jerry should have fallen in love with the first hypocrite that had come his way, a follower of strange G.o.ds, cold, calculating, too selfish even to be sinful! Eheu! She was getting on my nerves. a.n.a.lysis--always a.n.a.lysis! I could not let her be. She obsessed me as she had obsessed Jerry--a slender wisp of a thing that I could have broken in my fingers and would still, I think, unless reason returned.

I paid my bill and would have risen, but just at that moment through the door beside my table entered, to my bewilderment, Jerry himself and a girl. I was so amazed at seeing him in this place that I made no sound or motion and watched the pair pa.s.s without seeing me and take a table beyond a small palm tree just beside me, and when they were seated my amazement grew again, for I saw that his companion was the girl Una--Una Habberton who had called herself Smith. Their appearance at this moment together found me at a loss to know what to do. To get up and join them would interfere with a tete-a-tete which, whatever its planning, I deemed most fortunate; to get up and leave the room without being observed would have been impossible, for Jerry faced the door. So I sat debating the matter, watching the face of the girl and listening to the conversation, aware for a second time that I was playing the part of eavesdropper upon these two and now without justification. And yet no qualm of conscience troubled me. Brazen she may have seemed at Horsham Manor, but here in New York in her sober suit and hat she seemed to have lost something of her raffish demeanor, and there was a wholesomeness about her, a frankness in her smile, which was distinctly refreshing.

It was not until several days later that I heard from Jerry how they had happened to meet. It seems that after leaving Ballard's apartment Jerry had gone home, attired himself in his old suit and made his way to meet Flynn, with whom he had an appointment to go down to Finnegan's saloon to attend to some final details of his match with Clancy. This business finished, the party came out upon the street, Jerry, Flynn, Finnegan (in his shirt sleeves) and Clancy's manager, Terry Riley. In the midst of a brogue of farewells Jerry fairly b.u.mped into the girl. He took off his hat and apologized, finding himself looking with surprise straight into Una's face. She started back and would have gone on, but Jerry caught her by the arm.

"Una!" he said. "Don't you know me?"

"Yes, Jerry. Of course, but it seems so strange to see you--here--"

She paused. "To see you down here--in the Bowery."

"It is, isn't it?" he stammered. "But I--I'll explain in a minute--if you'll let me walk with you."

She looked him over with a sober air, her gaze pa.s.sing for a moment over his soft hat pulled down over the eyes, his rough clothing, the cigarette in his fingers (he hadn't really begun rigid training yet), and then shrugged.

"Of course, I can have no objection," she said coolly.

Jerry threw the cigarette away.

"I suppose you think it's very curious to see me down here at Finnegan's," Jerry repeated.

No reply.

"I've been there on--er--a matter of business--with--with Flynn. He's my athletic instructor, you know. It's a sort of secret. I--I'm supposed to belong up town."

"Oh, _are_ you?" Still, I think, the cool, indifferent tone.

"You know I--I'm awfully glad to see you. I've been hunting for you ever since I came out of the--the asylum--you know."

It must have pleased her that Jerry should have remembered her phrase.

"Really!" her tone melting a little. "It's pleasant to be--remembered."

She turned and again searched him slowly with her gaze, smiling a little.

"How long have you been in New York?"

"Oh, ages--almost two months."

"And in that time," she said quizzically, "the Faun has learned the habit of saloons and cigarettes. You've progressed, haven't you?"

"Oh, I say, Una. That's not quite fair. I don't make a habit of saloons, and a cigarette once in a while doesn't hurt a fellow if his wind and heart are good."

"And _are_ your wind and heart good?" she asked with her puzzling smile.

"Now you're making fun of me. You always did though, didn't you? You know it's awfully fine to hear you talk like that. Makes it seem as if we'd just met by the big rock on the Sweet.w.a.ter. You remember, don't you?"

"Yes, I remember," she replied.

He eyed her sober little profile curiously. She seemed strangely demure.

"I don't think you're very glad to see me," he said. "I thought perhaps you would be. There were so many things that we began to talk about and didn't finish. I've thought about them a good deal. I really want to talk to you about them again. Couldn't we--er--go somewhere and--Have you had lunch yet? Can't we find a place to get a cup of tea?"

She turned toward him and their eyes met. When her gaze turned away from him she was smiling.