The Salamander Part 26

"And you--did you understand?"

"Of course!"

She sprang to the floor, and went to the dressing-table on the pretext of seeking a comb.

"I don't like the way you talk to me," she said, with her back to him.

"Why?"

The real reason she could not avow--that she resented this immovable impersonality of his att.i.tude. This man, who saw into her, who divined so much that she believed securely masked, and yet showed no trace of emotion even in his flattery, began to irritate her, as well as to arouse all the dangerous vanities. But, as she could not tell him this, she a.s.sumed an indignant manner and said:

"I believe you really think I shall turn into an adventuress!"

"No-o," he said slowly, as if reflecting. "You may come near it--very near it; but it will be a hazard of the imagination. You will end very differently!"

"Ah, yes," she said, suddenly remembering, her irritation yielding to her curiosity, "you were going to prophesy. Well, what's going to happen to me?"

"You will be angry if I tell you," he said, with a whimsical pursing of his lips.

"No! What?"

"You will burn up another year or so; you will come very, very near a good many things; and then you will marry, and turn into a devoted, loyal little _Hausfrau_--like a million other little _Hausfraus_ who have thought they were in this world to do anything else but marry!"

"No, no! Don't you dare say that!" she said, covering her ears and stamping her foot. "That never!"

"Mark my prophecy," he said, with mock solemnity, delighted at the fury he had aroused.

"No, no! I won't be commonplace!" she cried. "I am in this world to do something unusual, extraordinary. I'm not like every other little woman.

Marriage? Never! Three meals a day at the same hours--the same man--domesticity! Horrors!"

"Of course, of course," he said, with his provoking a.n.a.lytic exactness of phrase. "My dear girl, this is not a real life you are indulging in!

Some day, perhaps, I'll discuss it more frankly with you. All this is a phase of mild hysteria. Do you know what you are doing? You're not living; you're rejecting life--yes, just that!--with every man you meet.

The time comes when you will have to select. The forces of nature you are playing with are bigger than you; they'll conquer you in the end--decide for you! Now you play at fooling men so much that you fool yourself. When you marry, you will surprise yourself!"

"Stop!" she cried furiously. "Marriage! Yes, that's all you men believe we are capable of! But we are different now. We can be free--we can live our own lives! And I will _not_ be commonplace. Nothing can make me that. I'd rather have a tragic love-affair than that! Oh, what's the use of living, if you have to do as every one else does!"

She went to the window at the side, covering the ground with the leap of a panther, working herself to a fury.

"Do you know what this wall is?" she cried, striking the curtain, which rolled up with the report of a pistol--"this ugly, hateful, brutal wall that I hate, loathe, despise? That's matrimony!--ugly, cold, horrid wall!"

She groped with her hand, caught the ta.s.sel, and pulled the shade without turning around.

"But, you see, you can't shut it out!" he said maliciously, pointing to the s.p.a.ce that showed under the deficient shade.

"There'll be no wall in my life," she said, with a toss of her head. She felt herself in her most effective theatrical mood, and she flung the reins to it, caring nothing where it led her. Now, at all costs, she was resolved to thaw out this glacial reserve of his, rouse him, teach him that she could not be held so cheap. "No wall in my life! No man to tell me: Do this--do that--come here--go there! Sacrifices? I shall never make them! I tell you, all I want is to live--to really live! A short life, but a free one! You think Sa.s.soon tempts me; you think I'd change this room for a palace or a home! You don't understand me! No; not with all you think you understand!"

"Tell me!" he said, transforming himself into an audience.

She changed suddenly from the pa.s.sion of protest to almost a caressing delight, ready to turn into a hundred shapes to overwhelm him. For this perfect discipline of his rushed her on. She would find under the observer the spark of the savage! Perhaps it was because she had no fear that she played so boldly, recognizing in him the true gentleman, and womanlike, presuming on this knowledge. He continued like a statue. She was not quiet a moment, flitting to and fro near him, dangerously near him, with a hundred coquetries of movement, half-revealing poses, sudden flashes of the eyes, confiding smiles, all tantalizing, insinuating, caressing, tender, provoking, filled with the zest of a naughty child.

"Oh, Your Honor! you're a very, very wise man," she said, shaking her finger at him, "but you have not seized the real point. We want to be free! Yes, we could live where we wanted,--in the finest apartments,--but it is such fun to be in an old boarding-house at ten dollars a week, when you never know how you're going to raise the rent!

Ah, the rent! that's a terrible bugbear, I can tell you! You know one trick for doing it. There are a hundred, things you would never guess; for, with all your prying eyes, you are just like the rest--less stupid, not more clever!"

"Tell me some," he said, his eyes half closed as if dazzled by this sudden outpouring of youth and excitement.

"No--no," she said, shaking her hair so merrily that a loosened curl came tumbling over her ear. She changed the mood, coming near to him, laying her hand appealingly on his sleeve. "Ah, don't get wrong ideas.

Don't judge us too harshly! We're not mercenary at the bottom; it isn't the money we want--that's very little! It's the fun of playing the game!"

"Precipices?" he suggested, nodding.

"Ah, yes, precipices!" she said, in a sudden ecstasy; and as she said it her eyes drooped, her lips seemed to tremble apart as if giving up her body to a sigh half ecstasy, half languor.

"I can remember when I adored precipices, too," he said, drawing his arm away from her touch and folding it over the other, tightly across his chest.

"Remember!" she said mockingly, snapping her fingers under his nose.

"You do now. Who doesn't?" She put a s.p.a.ce between them with a sudden bound, as though he had made a move to retain her. Then, with a whirl, she poised herself gleefully on the arm of a chair. "I adore precipices!

It's such fun to go dashing along their edges, leaning up against the wind that tries to throw you over, looking way, way down, thousands of miles, and hear the little stones go tumbling down, down--and then to crouch suddenly, spring aside and see a great, stupid, puffy man s.n.a.t.c.h at the air and go head over heels, kerplunk! You don't understand that feeling?" she said, stopping short.

"I understand that!" he said curtly.

She whirled suddenly on her feet, extending her arms against an imaginary gale, and bending over, her finger on her lips, pretended to gaze into unfathomable depths.

"But you never fall in," he said wisely.

Instantly she straightened up.

"Oh, dear, no! for then, you see, there would be only _one_ precipice, endlessly, forever and ever! No more precipices, no more fun, no more Dodo--and that would be unbearable!"

"And are there many precipices, Dodo?" he said, a.s.suming the privilege.

"Oh, dear, yes--many precipices," she said, watching him maliciously.

"There are old precipices, but those aren't interesting! Then, there are new ones, too; oh, yes, several very interesting new ones!"

"Blainey," he said; but she shook her head.

"I'm afraid that's not a precipice," she said seriously. But at once, back in her roguish mood, she continued: "Sa.s.soon's a moderately exciting precipice, only he will look so ridiculous as he goes spinning down, all arms and legs!"

She took a few steps toward the door, and put her hand to her ear.

"And I think there was the beginning of another precipice there to-night; only--oh!" She exaggerated the exclamation with a confidential nod to him. "That is a very risky one. I shall have to be very careful, and always have a long start!"

"Others?"

"Others? Of course there are others!" she said indignantly.

"Everywhere--naturally--but I'm not going to tell you. You know entirely too much already. Only of one!"

"Aha!"