The Deaves Affair Part 21

"How dare you!" she gasped. "You brute!"

"Yes, I'm a brute!" he said. "I'm glad of it! Brutal things need to be said to clear the air. There's been too much sickly nonsense. You despise men, don't you? You like to see them crawling? You need a lesson! You shall be mine, and mine only and you shall respect me!"

Corinna was well-nigh speechless now. "I hate you! I hate you!" she gasped. "Leave my room!"

"Not till we come to an understanding."

She darted for the door. It was a mistake in tactics. A joyous flame leaped up in his eyes and he seized her. She fought him like a little tigress, but he only laughed deep inside of him, and drawing her close kissed her pulsing throat.

She ceased to struggle. The hands that had been beating his face stole around his neck. Her lips sought his of their own accord.

"I love you!" she murmured. "I can't help myself! I love you! What will happen to me now!"

At breakfast next morning Evan was in the highest spirits. His piercing inaccurate whistling of "Mighty Lak' a Rose" got Charley out of bed a good half hour before his time. Charley looked at him rather sourly, not too well pleased to have his role of little sunshine usurped by another. A scratch decorated one of Evan's cheeks which Charley did not overlook.

"What have you been in?" he asked sarcastically.

"Cut myself shaving," replied Evan with a casual air.

"You must have shaved early. It's dry."

Evan's only reply was another cadenza.

"Here's a change of tune!" commented Charley. "Last night it was the Dead March from Saul."

"Come on, slug! Breakfast's on the table."

It was impossible for Charley to be ill-tempered for long. Presently he began to grin. "Pleasant walking in the Square last night?" he asked dryly.

Evan couldn't quite confide in him, but he was not unwilling that Charley should guess how matters stood. "Out-o'-sight!" he cried.

"Want to borrow some money?" said Charley carelessly. "I'm flush."

Evan stared. "How did you guess that?"

"They generally do," said Charley airily.

"I'll be paid by the old man at the end of the week."

"That's all right. Here's five, son. I can recommend the one on the Avenue just below Fourteenth."

"The one what?" asked Evan innocently.

"Florist."

Evan blushed.

On his way down-stairs Evan tapped on her door with beating heart.

There was no answer. With a sigh he went on. Carmen, who missed little, had heard him stop and coming out, volunteered the information that Miss Playfair had gone out real early. Evan thanked her, and hurried on, dreading to face the sharp-eyed spinster.

All morning he walked the streets with Simeon Deaves in a dream. In the middle of the day he made an excuse to avoid luncheon at the Deaves' and rushed home, stopping en route to buy a small-sized cartwheel of violets.

He let himself in softly and managed to get on the stairs without attracting Carmen's attention. The violets were hidden under his coat.

Corinna's door stood open now, and his heart began to beat. "Will she recognise my step?" he thought. "I would know hers on my flight."

He stood in her doorway and the heart slowly froze in his breast. The room was empty, dreadfully empty. She was gone. The empty mantel, the empty floor, the empty place where the piano had stood seemed to mock at him. He turned a little sick, and put his hand out behind him on the door frame for support. "There is some mistake," he told himself, but he knew in his heart there was no mistake. This was the natural outcome of the tormenting mystery in which Corinna enveloped herself.

He looked stupidly down at the violets in his hand. In a spasm of pain he threw them on the floor and ground them under his heel. Their fragrance filled the room. Then the violence pa.s.sed and he felt dead inside. He looked inside the little dressing-room--not that he expected to find her there, but it was a place to look. It was empty of course.

When he issued out again the sight of the bruised flowers caused him a fresh wrench. Lying there they were like a public advertis.e.m.e.nt of his betrayed heart. He picked them up and thrust them as far as he could reach up the chimney flue.

In the midst of Evan's pain a voice seemed to whisper to him: "You might have expected it. It was too much happiness!"

Later he thought: "There will be a letter for me up-stairs," and ran up the two flights, knowing there would be no letter. Yet he searched even in the unlikeliest places. There was no letter. To his relief Charley was out.

He thought of Carmen. Dreadful as it was to face her prying eyes, it was still more dreadful not to know what had happened. He went down-stairs again. On the final flight the unhappy wretch started to whistle, hoping by that to attract her to her door that he might not have to ask for information.

The ruse was successful. She came out into the hall. Evan found himself curiously studying the odd b.u.mps that the curling pins made under her frowsy boudoir cap. She required no lead to make her talk.

"Miss Playfair has gone!" she cried.

"So I see," said Evan. He listened carefully to the sound of his own voice. It did not shake. He kept his back to the light from the front door.

"What do you know about that! I never did like her. One of them flibbertigibbets! You never can trust a red-haired woman! And such a display of her hair, as if it was beautiful indeed! That showed her character. But I should worry! Paid me a month's rent in advance when she came. Wanted part of it back this morning. But I said, 'Oh, no, my dear! That's the landlady's propensity--I mean perquisite.'"

Evan wondered if the sick disgust he felt of the woman showed in his face. As a matter of fact his face was simply wooden. Carmen rattled on unsuspiciously:

"That's enough for me. I don't care if I never rent the rooms. No more women in my house. They lower the tone. A man of course can do anything and it doesn't matter, but a woman in the house is a cause for suspicion even if she doesn't do anything."

Evan was not interested in Miss Sisson's ideas. He wanted information.

"What reason did she give for leaving?" he asked carelessly.

"Said she had an important musical offer from out of town. But do you believe that? I don't."

"She didn't lose much time in moving her things," suggested Evan.

"No indeed. Looks very suspicious if you ask me."

Evan was obliged to put his question in more direct form. "Who moved her things?"

"Just an ordinary truck without any name on it. I looked particularly.

The piano people came for the piano. Rented. It was a Stannering."

Fearing that the next question could not but betray him, Evan was nevertheless obliged to ask it: "Did she leave any forwarding address?"

Miss Sisson's gimlet eyes bored him through before she replied. "Yes, I asked her. She said she didn't expect anything to come here, but if it did I could forward it care of her friend Miss Evans, 133 West Ninth street. Did she owe you any money?"