The Salamander Part 42

"Then take up the bet!"

"Why, that's an idea!" he said, with a chuckle.

He considered more profoundly, his arm still on her shoulder; but there was in it no acquiring touch, only a clinging--the clinging of a weak hand groping for companionship.

"I suppose I'm a lonely cuss at bottom," he said slowly, nor did she follow his thought.

"Anything I can do I'll do," she urged. "It'll be my fight too! Come to me, call me night or day, when you need me--when things are getting too much for you! I'll come any time!"

"You can't!"

"I can!" she cried defiantly. "What do I care what is said, if I know and you know that all is right! Thank G.o.d, I'm alone! I have no one to whom it matters what the world says. I'm only a waif, a drifter!"

"Drifters both!" he said solemnly.

She stopped a moment, struck by the idea, feeling their mutual clinging, and the incomprehensible, unseen winds of the night sweeping about them and carrying them--whither?

"Listen!" she added hurriedly. "This is my promise. Fight it out, and I will help you by everything that's in me! No matter whom I'm with or where I'm going, I'll turn over everything, when you need me, and come!"

"Even nights like this?" he said. "For that's when it'll be the hardest!"

"Especially nights like this!" she cried, opening her arms with a feeling of glorification.

"Tell me something," he said slowly; "and be honest with me!"

"I swear I always will," she said impulsively from her heart, devoutly believing it.

"Are you in love now?"

"Yes!"

"Are you sure?"

His arm, as if suddenly aware of her body, removed itself. He bent toward her, striving to see her face.

An instant before, she had sworn to herself, swiftly, in the exultation of a new-born spiritual self, that to this man, at least, she would never lie; and all at once, by the divining charity of her woman's soul, bent on saving him, she began her first deception!

"No; I am not--sure!"

She had a quick fear that he would spoil everything by an overt movement, and shrank from him, conscious of the male and of her s.e.x. But at the end he rose quietly, saying:

"All right, Dodo. The fight's begun!"

If there were a double meaning in his words, he gave no sign of it. He went to the front and cranked the car, then drew the rug about her with solicitous deference, that had in it a new att.i.tude. He did not even offer his hand to seal the compact, and for that, too, she was profoundly thankful, watching him with slanted approving glances.

"Whatever he does he will do magnificently!" she thought.

"Comfy?" he asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Yes!"

They shot out into the white road. He did not ask her wish, but, as if sure of her acquiescence, went flying into the country, at times with magnificent ease, at others with wild bursts of speed, break-a-neck, the monster obeying the fierce exultant moods of the master. She lay back in the seat, her eyes on the jagged tree-line, where broken shadows spun past her, and the stars swam overhead. She felt his mood in every glide, in every resentful bound, knowing what was in his spirit, uplifted into a new manifestation, resolved, whatever happened, that to this one, at least, she would give the divine that was in her.

It was three o'clock by the paling of the dawn in the east, and the slinking scavengers in the streets, when they returned.

She fell almost instantly to sleep, for the first time in long weeks.

And as she tucked her hand under her cheek contentedly, in perfect peace, she had a satisfied feeling that G.o.d, her inscrutable friend, had not been so angry with her as she had believed; that in the moment of her failing He had shown her this way out. She did not question her feelings toward this new man. Pity? Yes, a great compa.s.sion, a tenderness and a sure belief in his protection, all were confusedly in her mind; but above all a great fatigue, and a wonder how the night would remain in the beating clarity of the day.

CHAPTER XVIII

Her first waking thought was not of Lindaberry, but of Ma.s.singale. It seemed as if he were beside her, his restraining touch on her arm, trouble in his eyes, as on the night before when he had pleaded with her under the hissing arc-lights and the background of curious creatures of the dark. Instead, it was Ida Summers, curled on the bed, who was tickling her arm with a feather, crying:

"Wake up, lazy-bones!"

Dore comprehended, even in her foggy state, that if such a reproach could come from Ida Summers, it must be very late indeed! She shot a hasty glance at the tower clock; it was nearing twelve.

"Any broken bones? What happened? You're a nice one! Why didn't you come back? Don't lecture me any more!" continued Ida, in rapid fire, and emphasizing her remarks by pinching the toes under the covers. "Poor Harry Benson! pining away, one eye on the door and one on the clock!

Which reminds me--he's coming for lunch."

Harry Benson had been the youngest and most susceptible of Dore's abandoned escorts.

"Oh, is that his name?"

"Heartless creature!" continued Ida, rolling her eyes. "Three automobiles, shover, father a patent-medicine king. I might have married him, Do, if you hadn't popped up! However, this is my business day; I forgot. How'm I going to get hold of Zip?"

"So that's the game?" said Dore, laughing for reasons that will appear.

"Be careful how you do it, though; Mr. Benson strikes me as a very _rapid_ advancer!"

"Yes, Miss p.u.s.s.y," exclaimed Ida, laughing; "you give very good advice--in the morning. However, I just must have a fur m.u.f.f I saw yesterday, and that's all there is to it! Also, my room's too small for visitors, so get up and dress, as I'm going to receive him here. What's Zip's telephone?"

"You'll find it on the pad," said Dore, rising precipitately.

"Good, the bait's planted," said Ida, presently reappearing. "I told Zip to be most _oxpensive_; Benson's a fierce spender!"

"How do you know?"

"A girl friend of mine," said Ida evasively.

"What's become of that little fellow you annexed at the _Free Press_?"

"Tony Rex? Bothers the life out of me. Got it bad! Sighs and poetry.

Jealous as a Turk! Doesn't want me to pose--wants to shut me up in a convent. Lord! I don't know how to shake him!"

"I thought him rather insignificant," said Dore, at the dressing-table.