The Grain of Dust Part 17

"You won't kiss me any more until I tell you that I do love you?" she asked with the gravity and pathos and helplessness of a child.

"Don't you want to learn to love me?--to learn to love?"

She was silent--a silence that maddened him.

"Don't be afraid to speak," he said irritably. "What are you thinking?"

"That I don't want you to kiss me--and that I do want father to be happy."

Was this guile? Was it innocence? He put his arms round her. "Look at me," he said.

She gazed at him frankly.

"You like me?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you want me to kiss you?"

"I don't know. It makes me--dislike you."

He released her. She laid her hand on his arm eagerly. "Please--" she implored. "I don't mean to hurt you. I wouldn't offend you for anything.

Only--when you ask me a question--mustn't I tell you the truth?"

"Always," he said, believing in her, in spite of the warnings of cynical worldliness. "I don't know whether you are sincere or not--as yet. So for the present I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." He stood back and looked at her from head to foot. "You are beautiful!--perfect," he said in a low voice. He laughed. "I'll resist the temptation to kiss you again. I must go now. About your father--I'll see what can be done."

She stood with her hands behind her back, looking up at him with an expression he could not fathom. Suddenly she advanced, put up her lips and said gravely,

"Won't you kiss me?"

He eyed her quizzically. "Oh--you've changed your mind?"

She shook her head.

"Then why do you ask me to kiss you?"

"Because of what you said about father."

He laughed and kissed her. And then she, too, laughed. He said, "Not for my own sake--not a little bit?"

"Oh, yes," she cried, "when you kiss me that way. I like to be kissed. I am very affectionate."

He laughed again. "You _are_ a queer one. If it's a game, it's a good one.

Is it a game?"

"I don't know," said she gayly. "Good night. This is dreadfully late for me."

"Good night," he said, and they shook hands. "Do you like me better--or less?"

"Better," was her prompt, apparently honest reply.

"Curiously enough, I'm beginning to _like_ you," said he. "Now don't ask me what I mean by that. If you don't know already, you'll not find out from me."

"Oh, but I do know," cried she. "The way you kissed me--that was one thing. The way you feel toward me now--that's a different thing. Isn't it so?"

"Exactly. I see we are going to get on."

"Yes, indeed."

They shook hands again in friendliest fashion, and she opened the front door for him. And her farewell smile was bright and happy.

VII

In the cold clear open he proceeded to take the usual account of stock--with dismal results. She had wound him round her fingers, had made him say only the things he should not have said, and leave unsaid the things that might have furthered his purposes. He had conducted the affair ridiculously--"just what is to be expected of an infatuated fool." However, there was no consolation in the discovery that he was reduced, after all these years of experience, to the common level--man weak and credulous in his dealings with woman. He hoped that his disgust with himself would lead on to disgust, or, rather, distaste for her. It is the primal instinct of vanity to dislike and to shun those who have witnessed its humiliation.

"I believe I am coming to my senses," he said. And he ventured to call her up before him for examination and criticism. This as he stood upon the forward deck of the ferry with the magnificent panorama of New York before him. New York! And he, of its strong men, of the few in all that mult.i.tude who had rank and power--he who had won as his promised wife the daughter of one of the dozen mighty ones of the nation! What an ill-timed, what an absurd, what a crazy step down this excursion of his! And for what? There he summoned her before him. And at the first glance of his fancy at her fair sweet face and lovely figure, he quailed. He was hearing her voice again. He was feeling the yield of her smooth, round form to his embrace, the yield of her smooth white cheek to his caress. In his nostrils was the fragrance of her youth, the matchless perfume of nature, beyond any of the distillations of art in its appeal to his normal and healthy nerves. And he burned with the fire only she could quench. "I must--I must.--My G.o.d, I _must_!" he muttered.

When he reached home, he asked whether his sister was in. The butler said that Mrs. Fitzhugh had just come from the theater. In search of her, he went to the library, found her seated there with a book and a cigarette, her wrap thrown back upon her chair. "Come out to supper with me, Ursula," he said. "I'm starved and bored."

"Why, you're not dressed!" exclaimed his sister. "I thought you were at the Cameron dance with Josephine."

"Had to cut it out," replied he curtly. "Will you come?"

"I can't eat, but I'll drink. Yes, let's have a spree. It's been years since we had one--not since we were poor. Let's not go to a _deadly_ respectable place. Let's go where there are some of the other kind, too."

"But I must have food. Why not the Martin?"

"That'll do--though I'd prefer something a little farther up Broadway."

"The Martin is gay enough. The truth is, there's nothing really gay any more. There's too much money. Money suffocates gayety."

To the Martin they went, and he ordered an enormous supper--one of those incredible meals for which he was famous. They dispatched a quart of champagne before the supper began to come, he drinking at least two thirds of it. He drank as much while he was eating--and called for a third bottle when the coffee was served. He had eaten half a dozen big oysters, a whole guinea hen, a whole portion of salad, another of Boniface cheese, with innumerable crackers.

"If I could eat as you do!" sighed Ursula enviously. "Yet it's only one of your accomplishments."

"I'm not eating much nowadays," said he gloomily. "I'm losing my appet.i.te." And he lit a long black cigar and swallowed half a large gla.s.s of the champagne. "Nothing tastes good--not even champagne."

"There _is_ something wrong with you," said Ursula. "Did you ask me out for confidences, or for advice--or for both?"

"None of them," replied he. "Only for company. I knew I'd not be able to sleep for hours, and I wanted to put off the time when I'd be alone."

"I wish I had as much influence with you as you have with me," said Ursula, by way of preparation for confidences.

"Influence? Don't I do whatever you say?"