The Salamander Part 28

She asked herself no questions ... she wished no answers. The emotional self which had so violently awakened within her, overturning all her mental _qui vive_, returned, but in a gentle warm dominion.

She drew her arm under the pillow ... and her embrace was tightening about his neck again. She felt herself caught, rudely imprisoned, struggling--dominated, convulsively yielding. She moved restlessly, rearranging the pillows--returning impatiently into the illusion, feeling herself always in his arms.

"The great elemental forces of nature will decide for you," he had said....

She remembered the words confusedly. She had never quite believed in these forces ... though often in her lawless imagination she had sought to comprehend them, never convinced, always puzzled. She had permitted half stolen embraces, furtive clasps of the hand, wondering, always disillusioned. She had perceived, it is true, some inexplicable emotional madness in the men who sought her ... and sometimes roughly it had repelled her to great distances. This abrupt disorder which she could call forth with a tone of her voice, a quick lingering glance or a certain reclining languor, had excited her curiosity. There was a certain mental exhilaration in it, the cruel teasing of the feline, playing with its prey. It gave her an excited sense of power ... that was all. The slightest acquiring advance had roused in her a fury of resistance.... And now, at last, she knew! This was the force that had made playthings of men and women, that sent them where they did not wish to go, that could upset all coldly logical calculations, that gave the frailest little women irresistible weapons against the strongest men ...

or made them throw all opportunities to the wind and follow incomprehensible husbands.

She heard the cautious entering of Snyder, and instantly closed her eyes, breathing deep--a light word would have seemed a sacrilege. She waited, irritated and nervous, until her room-mate, undressing in the pale reflections, had noiselessly curled herself on the couch.

What would she have done if he had remained? Now the languor that had stolen treacherously over her senses was gone, dissipated by the presence of another human being. Her mind threw itself feverishly on the problem, encircling it, trying it from a hundred points of view.

What did it mean? Was her liberty, her freedom of action suddenly jeopardized? And the thought of this overpowering new force made her violently react ... striving to escape its verity ... just as her body had whipped around in his arms when they had suddenly closed about her.

What was it frightened her?... the man, or something awakened within her?

She sat up in bed, her head in her palms, throbbingly awake. What would have happened if he had stayed?... But he had not stayed--and she had not allowed him to return. She said it to herself victoriously ...

illogically evading an answer ... momentarily satisfied. And if he came again? Would there be a new danger?

She sank wearily on her pillow. No ... of that she was sure ... never again would she be so vulnerable.... It had been the unknown--the thing she had not believed in--which had taken her by surprise ... unprepared.

Then he had made the mistake of returning. Ma.s.singale, strong and unyielding, had had a fearfully attractive force over her will and her vanity, but the other ... the Ma.s.singale who had returned, was human, and therefore could be subjected. No!... she would never fear him again!

Did she love him?... She did not know ... at least she insisted that it could not be so--not all at once--perhaps, later. But she knew this--that she longed to see him again, to have the dragging night end, to awaken to the morning and to hear his coming,... to go hurriedly with him out of the discordant city, somewhere, where it was peaceful and solitary,... somewhere where they could turn and look in each other's eyes and know what had happened.

At other moments she said to herself with profound conviction that it must be love, that that was the way, the only way, that love could come, overpowering the reason, despite the reason, beating down all reason.

Then if it were love? Would she submit, renounce all her defiantly proclaimed liberty? Characteristically, she did not answer. Instead, she projected herself into this submission, and her imagination, volatile as a dream, whisked her from one fancy to another. She imagined what it would be like to fill a feverish letter, each night after he had gone, with all the tender, pa.s.sionate, jealous, or yearning fancies that he had left tumultuously stirring in her breast--a letter which she herself would carry hastily out into the night, running to the letter-box at the corner, that he might wake to a surprise. And each morning she, too, would awake to his call, his voice over the telephone. At other times, sentimentally urged, she visualized him as ill, sadly stricken, herself at his bedside.

"So, after all, I am going to marry--like all the rest!" she said, suddenly roused. This one word--"marriage"--pierced through all the fancied illusions. Marriage--one man; nothing but one man every day, year in and year out--was it possible? Could she resign herself? No more excitement, no more gambling with opportunity, no more dramatizing herself to each new situation, no more luring and evasion, no more sporting with dull brute strength or matching of wits--nothing but the expected, the routine--yes, the inevitable commonplace? Could she give this up--so soon? She rose fiercely against the sacrifice. Never! She preferred her youth.

All at once a sound broke across the hot flights of her conflicting fancies. She sat up instantly, bending forward, listening. She had heard a sob, m.u.f.fled but unmistakable, from the adjoining room--then another.

She slipped quickly to the floor. Snyder too had risen.

"Be quiet, Snyder. Let me go," she said to her in a whisper, forcing her back.

She felt her way to the door, and opening it quietly, pa.s.sed into Winona's room.

"Who's that?" asked a frightened voice.

"Hush! It's I--Dodo. I heard you," she said, groping. "What's wrong, Winona?"

But the figure in the bed, without answer, buried itself face down in the covers, striving to choke back the sobs.

Dore put her arm about her, endeavoring to calm her, wondering and a little apprehensive.

"But this is frightful! Winona, you mustn't!" she said helplessly.

"Winona, can't you tell me? Can't you speak?"

The girl grasped her hand, pressing it convulsively. Dore waited, seized by the mystery of the heavy night, the stillness and the little animal sound of sorrow. Between Salamanders real confidences are rare. What did she know of this life which only a wall divided from her? A suspicion flashed into her mind, knowing the perilous ways that sometimes had to be run. All at once she remembered.

"Winona!" she cried joyfully. "What a fool I am! I've good news! It's all settled--Blainey to-morrow!" And as the girl, buried in her pillow, continued to struggle against the sobs, she shook her by the shoulder, repeating: "Blainey wants to see you; he's giving you a chance. Do you hear?"

"Chance! Ah, I've had a thousand chances! What's the use!" exclaimed the girl, twisting in the bed. "It's always the same! Don't I know it--know it!"

"But you won't throw away this one?"

"Chance! Yes, that's all it is--chance!" she cried uncontrollably. "If I wasn't such a fool! What's the use of trying, anyhow? It don't make any difference. Nothing ever does! Ah, I'll give up. I'll go back!" She continued, repeating herself endlessly, beating the pillow with her fist; and as she abandoned herself to despair, old errors of speech, forgotten accents, mingled in her cries. "It ain't right! No, it ain't right--nothing ever comes of nothing! Nothing works out--nothing! Ah, no! I'll go back--I'll go back--I'll go back to it!"

"What do you mean? Back to what?"

Winona caught her throat, silenced suddenly.

"Can't you tell me?"

"I'm all right now," said Winona, shaking her head. She disengaged herself bruskly, sitting up, twisting her fingers in the physical effort at control. She turned, clutching Dore.

"Did Blainey--he--what did he say?"

Dore, inventing details, building up a favorable incident, exaggerated the importance, recounted the interview.

"I told him Zeller was after you. You know how he hates Zeller! He's crazy to steal you! You'll see! Everything will work like a charm--and the part just for you!"

She continued optimistically pouring out encouragement. Winona allowed herself to be convinced, grasping at straws. They remained talking deeply of difficulties and discouragements, always avoiding the questions that lay below. Once Dore had said tentatively:

"Winona, wouldn't it help you just to talk out everything--tell me everything? I'd understand. Do trust me!"

But the girl, resisting, answered hastily:

"No! no! Not now! Some day, perhaps."

Dore made no further effort. She drew her arm about her.

"Then let me quiet you," she said softly.

Winona, without resistance, allowed herself to go into her arms. They ceased speaking, clinging to each other there in the dark, and a strange sensation came to Dore at the touch of the body clinging to her, these unseen arms so tenaciously taut: it seemed to her almost that she heard another voice, mastering her physically and morally, making her suddenly flexible and without defense, a voice saying:

"Now, stop acting!"

"All right. Better now. I can sleep," said the girl in her arms.

"Thanks."

Dodo rose and went gliding back. Snyder, open-eyed, made no sound. She was grateful to her for this, divining the reason. Back in her bed, huddling under the covers, she recalled Winona with a feeling of horror.

To lose one's courage like that--how terrible! And if she herself were thus to be transformed, if all her indomitable audacity should suddenly go--

"There's some man back of it all," she said, thinking of Winona. "There always is a man."

Yet she had been on the point of rapturously hugging the first dream that had come to her in an uncomprehended moment, of submitting to a man--the very thought flung her back into intuitive revolt.

"But, if it isn't love, how could he have such power over me? Could there be such a vertigo without true love? Could such a thing be possible?" Time and time again she put these questions, finding different answers. At times she let herself go deliciously, stretching out her arms, conjuring up that first penetrating embrace. At others, fiercely aroused, she resisted him with every fiber of her body, rejecting submission, resolved to combat him, to subordinate him, to retain always her defiant supremacy, to revenge her momentary defeat by some future victory.

Neither in the yielding nor in the revolt was there any conviction--no peace and no calm. What there was, was all disorder, and the insistent drumming note of his voice, which drew her to him, had in it the confusion of a fever.