The Price She Paid Part 26

The parties narrowed to the same four persons. Mrs. Brindley seemed never to tire of talking to Keith--or to tire of talking about him when the two men had left, late each night. As for Stanley, he referred everything to Keith--the weather prospects, where they should go for the day, what should be eaten and drunk, any point about politics or fashion, life or literature or what not, that happened to be discussed.

And he looked upon Donald's monosyllabic reply to his inquiry as a final judgment, ending all possibility of argument. Mildred held out long. Then, in spite of herself, she began to yield, ceased to dislike him, found a kind of pleasure--or, perhaps, fascinated interest--in the nervousness his silent and indifferent presence caused her. She liked to watch that immobile, perfect profile, neither young nor old, indeed not suggesting age in any degree, but only experience and knowledge--and an infinite capacity for emotion, for pa.s.sion even. The dead-white color declared it had already been lived; the brilliant, usually averted or veiled eyes a.s.serted present vitality, pulsing under a calm surface.

One day when Stanley, in the manner of one who wishes a thing settled and settled right, said he would ask Donald Keith about it, Mildred, a little piqued, a little amused, retorted:

"And what will he answer? Why, simply yes or no."

"That's all," a.s.sented Stanley. "And that's quite enough, isn't it?"

"But how do you know he's as wise as he pretends?"

"He doesn't pretend to be anything or to know anything. That's precisely it."

Mildred suddenly began to like Keith. She had never thought of this before. Yes, it was true, he did not pretend. Not in the least, not about anything. When you saw him, you saw at once the worst there was to see. It was afterward that you discovered he was not slovenly, but clean and neat, not badly but well dressed, not homely but handsome, not sickly but soundly well, not physically weak but strong, not dull but vividly alive, not a tiresome void but an unfathomable mystery.

"What does he do?" she asked Mrs. Brindley.

Cyrilla's usually positive gray eyes looked vague. She smiled. "I never asked," said she. "I've known him nearly three years, and it never occurred to me to ask, or to wonder. Isn't that strange? Usually about the first inquiry we make is what a man does."

"I'll ask Stanley," said Mildred. And she did about an hour later, when they were in the surf together, with the other two out of earshot.

Said Stanley:

"He's a lawyer, of course. Also, he's written a novel or two and a book of poems. I've never read them. Somehow, I never get around to reading."

"Oh, he's a lawyer? That's the way he makes his living."

"A queer kind of lawyer. He never goes to court, and his clients are almost all other lawyers. They go to him to get him to tell them what to do, and what not to do. He's got a big reputation among lawyers, Fred Norman tells me, but makes comparatively little, as he either can't or won't charge what he ought. I told him what Norman said, and he only smiled in that queer way he has. I said: 'You make twenty or thirty thousand a year. You ought to make ten times that.'"

"And what did he answer?" asked Mildred. "Nothing?"

"He said: 'I make all I want. If I took in more, I'd be bothered getting rid of it or investing it. I can always make all I'll want--unless I go crazy. And what could a crazy man do with money? It doesn't cost anything to live in a lunatic asylum.'"

Several items of interest to add to those she had collected. He could talk brilliantly, but he preferred silence. He could make himself attractive to women and to men, but he preferred to be detached. He could be a great lawyer, but he preferred the quiet of obscurity. He could be a rich man, but he preferred to be comparatively poor.

Said Mildred: "I suppose some woman--some disappointment in love--has killed ambition, and everything like that."

"I don't think so," replied Baird. "The men who knew him as a boy say he was always as he is now. He lived in the Arabian desert for two years."

"Why didn't he stay?" laughed Mildred. "That life would exactly suit him."

"It did," said Stanley. "But his father died, and he had to come home and support his mother--until she died. That's the way his whole life has been. He drifts in the current of circ.u.mstances. He might let himself be blown away to-morrow to the other end of the earth and stay away years--or never come back."

"But how would he live?"

"On his wits. And as well or as poorly as he cared. He's the sort of man everyone instinctively asks advice of--me, you, his valet, the farmer who meets him at a boundary fence, the fellow who sits nest him in a train--anyone."

Mildred did not merely cease to dislike him; she went farther, and rapidly. She began to like him, to circle round that tantalizing, indolent mystery as a deer about a queer bit of brush in the undergrowth. She liked to watch him. She was alternately afraid to talk before him and recklessly confidential--all with no response or sign of interest from him. If she was silent, when they were alone together, he was silent, too. If she talked, still he was silent. What WAS he thinking about? What did he think of her?--that especially.

"What ARE you thinking?" she interrupted herself to say one afternoon as they sat together on the strand under a big sunshade. She had been talking on and on about her career--talking conceitedly, as her subject intoxicated her--telling him what triumphs awaited her as soon as she should be ready to debut. As he did not answer, she repeated her question, adding:

"I knew you weren't listening to me, or I shouldn't have had the courage to say the foolish things I did."

"No, I wasn't," admitted he.

"Why not?"

"For the reason you gave."

"That what I said was--just talk?"

"Yes."

"You don't believe I'll do those things?"

"Do you?"

"I've GOT to believe it," said she. "If I didn't--" She came to a full stop.

"If you didn't, then what?" It was the first time he had ever flattered her with interest enough to ask her a question about herself.

"If I didn't believe I was going to succeed--and succeed big--" she began. After a pause, she added, "I'd not dare say it."

"Or think it," said he.

She colored. "What do you mean?" she asked.

He did not reply.

"What do you mean, Mr. Keith?" she urged.

"You are always asking me questions to which you already know the answer," said he.

"You're referring to a week or so ago, when I asked you why you disliked me?"

No answer. No sign of having heard. No outward sign of interest in anything, even in the cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth.

"Wasn't that it?" she insisted.

"You are always asking me questions to which you already know the answer," repeated he.

"I am annoying you?"

No answer.

She laughed. "Do you want me to go away and leave you in peace with that--law case--or whatever it is?"

"I don't like to be alone."

"But anyone would do?--a dog?"