The Perfume of Eros: A Fifth Avenue Incident Part 18

f.a.n.n.y looked at him wonderingly. "How did she take it?"

"What difference does it make? She has gone. Is not that sufficient?"

"For you, no doubt. But for her! No; really I am sorry. When you told her that you loved her I am sure she thought you meant forever. I am sure, too, that you meant for a week. It is a shame to treat a girl like that and then turn her loose."

Loftus had begun to busy himself with some fish. He put his fork down. "But, confound it, you told me to."

"Did I? I forgot. Besides, you are not usually so obedient."

Loftus turned to his fish. "It seems to me that there is rather a change in the temperature. Isn't there?" he asked.

"But, Royal, I cannot help feeling sorry for that girl. I cannot help feeling, too, that if you can get rid of her in this lively fashion you might do the same with me."

"In that case it only shows what a simpleton you are. If I have had anything to do with her at all it was only because I couldn't have anything to do with you."

"Well, hardly in that way. But you could have asked me to marry you."

"I have since."

"Say, rather, I asked you."

"Anyway, the other evening it was settled. If now you have changed your mind----"

"Regarding you my mind will never change. I shall speak to Arthur tonight."

"What's that?" called Annandale who, from the other end of the table, had caught the mention of his name. "What's that?"

"We were talking stocks," Loftus answered. "Do you know how money was today?"

"I know it was beastly tight."

"And that seems to me," f.a.n.n.y with one of her limpid smiles remarked, "such a vulgar condition for money to be in."

"Did I hear you ask," Orr inquired, "how money was today? It was sixty per cent."

"Dear me, Melanchthon," Mrs. Waldron exclaimed. "I think I must get you to speak to the Trust Company. They only give me three. A mouse could not live in New York on that."

"The time is not distant," said Orr, "when the population of New York will be exclusively composed of mice and millionaires. n.o.body but plutocrats and paupers will be able to live here. Already it is little more than a sordid h.e.l.l with a blue sky. I can remember----"

Orr ran on. He had the table. In the impromptu which ensued other conversation was swamped. But during it, for a second, Loftus had f.a.n.n.y's hand in his. It clasped it and in clasping thrilled. It was the first time in her life that she had permitted herself--or him--such a thing. It was the last.

Sylvia, happening at the moment to turn that way, could not help seeing what was going on. She colored and looked at Annandale.

During Orr's impromptu he had been attempting with plentiful champagne to fill the hole of which he had complained.

Later, the dinner at an end, the women gone, the hole still unfilled, he called for whisky and soda and monologued plaintively on the disasters of the day. As he talked he drank. But the monologue, which was becoming tedious, Harris interrupted. Mrs. Waldron had sent in to say that she and Miss Waldron were going, and would Mr. Orr be so good as to see them home.

At this Annandale got up. With the others he made for the room beyond.

There, shortly, the guests of the evening departed; husband and wife were alone.

"Do you know, f.a.n.n.y, how much I have lost today?" that husband began.

"No, Arthur," that wife replied. "Nor do I know that I particularly care. There is something more important to me than money just now. I want a divorce."

"Eh?" Annandale had been walking up and down the room, but at this he stopped short. He did not seem to have heard aright. "Eh?"

"Eh?" f.a.n.n.y repeated in open mimic. "Yes, I want a divorce."

"A divorce?" Munching the syllables of the word, Annandale put a hand to his shirt front. "From me?" Had f.a.n.n.y asked him to make good the fifty million loss to the country which Orr had mentioned his bewilderment could not have been more sheer.

He stared at f.a.n.n.y. She was nodding at him. Influenced by that motion of her head, slowly, almost laboriously, he sat down. There the disasters of the day fusing with the alcohol of the night blent with the demand and bewildered him still more.

"What an odd thing to want," he said at last. Then rallying he added, "You must be j-joking. Yes--really, for you know you can't tell me why."

To this, f.a.n.n.y who had been eyeing him narrowly, retorted severely: "I wonder are you in a condition to have me tell you anything at all?"

At the imputation the poor chap, after the fashion of poor chaps in similar shape, flared indignantly. "There is nothing the matter with me," he protested. Though very much mixed, he managed for the moment not to appear so. "Nothing," he reiterated.

"Then Arthur, to be quite frank, we are not suited to each other. If you will give me a divorce it will be nice of you. If not I shall go to Dakota and get one."

Annandale pa.s.sed a hand over his forehead. He did not in the least understand what all this was about. Then suddenly the fumes of wine disclosed a retrospect of incidents garnered unconsciously, memories of f.a.n.n.y and Loftus, the sense of her increasing aloofness, the knowledge of his constant presence. These things made pictures which he saw and, seeing, inflamed. At once, in answer not to her but to them, he got from his seat, pounded violently on an etagere and cried with the viciousness of drink: "I'll shoot him! I'll shoot Royal Loftus for the dog that he is!"

"Beg pardon, sir." Through the lateral entrance to the drawing-room Harris emerged, a tray in his hand. "A necklace, sir. It was under the dining-room table where Miss Waldron sat, sir."

Annandale strangled an oath. He glared at f.a.n.n.y, glared at the man, glared at the pearls, took the latter, thrust them in his pocket, motioned to Harris, strode from the room, went upstairs, then down and out from the house, slamming the door after him with a noise in which there was the clatter of musketry and the din of oaths.

The night was black yet full of stars, the hour homicidal and serene.

Annandale strode on. Before him was the park, about it a fence of high iron and within phantasmal peace. He did not notice it. He was wondering angrily what he would do, how he should act.

Had he been sober he would have known at once. When in his sphere of life a woman wants to go, it is a man's mere duty to open the doors, open the windows, run ahead, get a divorce and bring it back to her on a salver. Had he been sober he would have realized that. He would have recognized too the propriety of f.a.n.n.y's frank request. After little more than five months of marriage it was perhaps precipitate. Yet considered simply as a request it was, in the world in which he moved, more common than the reverse.

Ordinarily he would have realized that. What is more, he would have realized that what f.a.n.n.y had said was true. They were not suited for each other. When people are not so suited it is best that they should separate. But people that have bowed when they met might just as well bow when they part. In the life known as polite big words and little threats have long since gone out of fashion.

All of which ordinarily Annandale would have known. He was essentially urbane, of a nature far more inclined to inaction than anger.

Ordinarily, he would have accepted the situation, without joy, no doubt, but certainly without raising the roof. Whereupon, having so accepted it, he would have turned in and gone to bed.

But alcohol plays strange tricks. It affects manners and memories. It affects, too, the imagination. Annandale was drunk. The Yellow Fay that lurks in liquor awoke in him the manger dog. He told himself that he was being robbed. And of what? The wife of his bosom! And by whom?

His nearest friend! The outrage and the villainy of that loomed, or rather, the Yellow Fay aiding, seemed to loom so monstrously, that, beside it, the disasters of the Street dwindled into nothing, lost in the sense of this wrong.

It was d.a.m.nable, he decided.

Putting a hand in a pocket his fingers encountered a string of pearls.

It was not that which he was seeking. Besides, he had forgotten them.

But finding them there it occurred to him that he ought to restore them at once. Circling the park he entered Irving Place and rang at Sylvia's door.

There, instead of the usual if brief delay, the door opened at once.

Orr was coming out. Beyond in the hall Sylvia stood. Orr looked at Annandale, wondering what the d.i.c.kens he was after. But Annandale brushed by. Orr pa.s.sed on. Annandale entered the hall.

As the door closed the light revealed to Sylvia what Orr in the semi-obscurity of the stoop had not observed and which, had he observed, would, in view of an anterior episode, have induced his return.