The Salamander Part 44

Benson shook her hand gratefully.

Zip rubbed his hands together in delight, wagging his bearded head.

"Goot, goot! Make de bretty kirls habby, eh? Vat apout it, hein? Trow in de shtockinks, eh?"

The two girls exclaimed furiously. Benson, laughing and roguish, defended the pedler from their wrath, protesting he was loaded with money, crazy to get rid of it, carrying his point in the end. Zip, recipient of a hundred-dollar bill, departed, grinning and wagging; nor did Mr. Benson, in the joyous delight of this newly permitted intimacy, for a moment suspect that the silks and laces which now lay so provokingly on the table would presently return to the pack of the histrionic Zip, at forty per cent. off for commission.

For the accuracy of historic customs, another detail must be added. When silk stockings were purchased, the color chosen was invariably pink, one pair of that color being in the cooperative possession, always at hand, to be borrowed hastily and worn for a convincing effect on the last purchaser.

Ten minutes later Josephus produced a card which Ida, on receiving, said:

"How stupid, Josephus! That's for Miss Baxter. Come on, Harry. Dodo's most particular and secretive--we won't embarra.s.s her, will we?" She opened the door of Winona's room, lingering a moment behind the laughing prop to whisper: "Tell Tony to telephone this evening. Say I've called up from a studio--had to finish rush job--awful sorry! Be particular!"

She disappeared, locking the door for security's sake.

The next moment Mr. Tony Rex entered, in evident agitation and surprise--Ida and Harry Benson slipping down-stairs by the second stairway as Dore was saying glibly:

"Oh, Mr. Rex, Miss Summers has just telephoned! She wants me to tell you--"

But she proceeded no further. Mr. Tony Rex was watching her with a sarcastic smile.

"Come off! Don't hand me any _useless_ fibs, Miss Baxter! Ida's here; I took the precaution to find out! What's her little game to-day?"

Suddenly, as if struck by an idea, he moved to the window. Below, Ida Summers was just springing to her seat in the big yellow automobile.

Dore had no time to prevent him; in fact, she had momentarily lost her wits. One thing had startled her on his arrival--his shoes: patent leather with yellow tops--not chamois, but close enough to recall the dreadful wraith of Josh Nebbins.

"So she's chucked me for a stuffed image like Benson?" he said grimly.

"Oh, I know the owner; I asked the chauffeur!"

"What a terrible man!" she thought. Even in that he recalled that other persistent suitor! Aloud she said hastily, as he took up his hat:

"What are you going to do?"

He affected to misunderstand the question.

"Look here, Miss Baxter," he said abruptly, "I'm dead serious in this!

I'm going to marry that little kid, and it's going to happen soon!

Likewise, I'm a wise one, and I know just the game she's playing--and the dangers! Some of you can keep your heads--maybe you can and maybe you can't! She's nothing but a babe--she doesn't know! That's why I'm going to stop this fooling, P. D. Q.!"

"Look out! You can't drive a girl into things!" said Dore.

"Oh, yes, I can! Watch me!" he said confidently. "Now, I'm going to find where they're lunching, buy up the table next, and see how jolly a little party Miss Ida'll have out of it, with me for an audience! Lesson number one!"

He was off in a rush before she could recover from her laughter. Left at last alone, she sought to return into herself, to adjust the Dodo of the day to the surprising self of the night before. It even struck her as incongruous that, after the depths she had sounded in the silence and loneliness of the world, she should now be forced to return to the superficiality of banter and petty intrigue. Lindaberry--she thought of him as of a great wounded animal lifting up to her a thorn-stricken paw.

He would come for her in a few minutes, according to agreement, and she half feared the encounter. Would it be disillusionment? Would all that had so enveloped her with the mystery and charity of human relations now dissipate thinly in the commonplace day? Had they been swayed simply by a pa.s.sing sentimentality, as he himself had feared? She did not know quite what she hoped. She did not feel the slightest sentimental inclination. She did not even attempt to dramatize herself as the good angel. She had only an immense curiosity as to herself, wondering if she had really discovered something new, if in fact it were possible for the same Dore, who selfishly, in will-o'-the-wisp fashion, enticed men on to mock their discomfiture, could open up a flood of womanly strength to one who came to her in weakness.

To return into the exaltation of the night was impossible. After all, the day was perhaps more real than the moods of dreams. She looked on the experience in a comfortable, satisfied way, always incredulous of her deeper moods, inclined to shun them with a defensive instinct that life was safer when lived on the surface.

But the night which had awakened so many dormant yearnings had brought back to her again the famine in her own soul. Lindaberry was yet confused, Ma.s.singale clear and insistent. She had arrived, at last, in her tortuous feminine logic, to the point where, in her longing, she was willing to ask herself if there were any excuse for what he had done. Once she sought to excuse him, she found small difficulty. He had been very much of a gentleman. She had led him on, tried him beyond what was right; and, even after the explosion, he had recovered himself, tried to leave in order to protect her. There had been a moment of weakness; but she had wished for that--yes, even compelled it. And then, he cared! Yes, that was the great thought that emerged from the confusion of the night: he cared! She knew it by the wound she had drawn across his eyes, by the tone of his voice when he had pleaded with her at the last. He cared, and he suffered as she suffered, fought as she fought, to remain away! But he was married--he belonged to another woman!

Marriage was to her an uncomprehended world, an _impa.s.se_: a man disappeared into it as into a monastery. When she had thought of marriage, it was always as the end of life, irrevocable, and she admitted it only when some one came so strong and bewildering that nothing else mattered. She never had thought of it as an experiment, nor as something that could be rejected if found lacking. That man and woman, if unsuited, could still be yoked together before the world, living each a separate life in private, was yet outside of her a.n.a.lysis of human experience. There was the world of pleasure, and that world of duty--marriage.

Curiously enough, Lindaberry's story of his own deception, and the marriage of his brother--the glimpse he had given her behind the scenes of Mrs. Jock--had started new questionings. Who could blame such a husband for what he did? From which thought she proceeded to Ma.s.singale.

He did not love his wife--of that she was sure. What was the arrangement, then? Perhaps he too concealed his cares, suffering in silence. Even the figures of the two men disappeared before this new obsession. She sought to create before herself the image of a wife--of his wife; for at Tenafly's she had not, in her agitation, even turned to look. Sometimes, with a feeling of guilt, she perceived a weak creature, gentle and shrinking, all tears, before whom, at the thought of inflicting pain, she retreated instinctively. At others, she saw a woman in the imagined guise of Mrs. Jock, vulture-like, scornful, icy, narrowed by worldly cravings, a pretty brute. Then she had a feeling as if she were flinging herself between the two, husband and wife, shielding the man from the woman.

"I must see her!" she said to herself pa.s.sionately. She thought of Estelle Monks. She would find some way where, unknown, she would be able to look upon the face of Mrs. Ma.s.singale. And, not realizing all the wilderness that was yawning before her, she repeated: "Oh, yes! I must see her. I shan't have a moment's peace until I do!"

As if any peace were in store for her--no matter what she found!

When Lindaberry came to take her for lunch at a quiet country inn somewhere up the Hudson, she went to him without reserve, surprised at the strength of the impulses of tenderness, solicitude and protection that awoke within her. She had not yet named to herself the danger of the first overt step back to Ma.s.singale; perhaps, though, she intuitively felt the set of the tide about her, and turned to this better side of her nature. If what she might soon do lay beyond the permitted, at least this man, this saving of a soul, should be to her credit. Her religion was, indeed, of the simplest. If G.o.d would not approve of her yielding to the yearning to see Ma.s.singale again,--or what followed,--at least he would notice all the good she would pour into the life of Lindaberry. It was a sort of bargain which she secretly planned to offer: Lindaberry should buy her forgiveness! She felt glorified by this thought, finding in herself depths of gentle strength and maternal comforting which amazed her.

"Are we still dreaming, Dodo?" he said to her suddenly, when they were free of the city's clamor.

She smiled appreciatively.

"It's not a dream; it's real!" she said energetically.

"You've taken up a pretty big contract, young lady!"

"And you?"

He thought a moment.

"And I. Five years ago it would have been like a kitten toying with a ball. Now it's a question of the will--and the body! That's what we've got to find out. The body's a curious thing, Dodo, and it has curious ways of going back on you all at once, without as much as saying 'by your leave.' There was a chap in at Doctor Lampson's this morning--chap I knew in college, strong as a Hercules, a body just glowing with strength. He'll be dead within the year--galloping consumption!"

"You went to a doctor?"

"The finest. Wanted to get down to facts, Dodo; find out what's going on inside."

"What did he say?" she asked breathlessly.

"He said it could be done!" said Lindaberry in a matter-of-fact way. "We talked over ways. But first, I thought I'd give you another chance."

"What do you mean?"

"Last night, out there--stars and all that--wasn't a fair start! How do you feel now with a practical old sun winking down at you?" he asked, with a quizzical smile that did not conceal the intensity of his suspended waiting.

"Oh, Mr. Lindaberry!" she said impulsively. "Do it for your own self! Be strong!"

"No," he said quietly; "I won't do it for myself. I'll make the fight for you--to please you, Dodo! You've got hold of me as no one ever has.

And then you're not afraid, bless your childish eyes! Well, am I to do it for you?"

She was quiet a moment, thrown out of all her mental calculations by the swift electric appeal to her emotional self that came with his blunt declaration. Men had loved her sooner or later, mildly or with infatuation; but she had never before felt so deeply what she and a divine hazard could mean in one life. Her eyes filled with sudden tears.

"Do it for me!" she said gently, and the next moment her heart smote her as if she had been guilty of a second lie.

"Now is a good date--rather close to Thanksgiving," he said, in his chuckling Anglo-Saxon way. Then he laid one hand on her arm and said solemnly: "Wrecks oughtn't to get sentimental. I won't! But remember this, Dodo: you're the first breath of real life that's come to me.

You've got hold of me--strong! I'm going to win out for you--and I'm going--" He halted as abruptly as he had begun. "Now, that's all till I get straightened out. If I don't, forget it!"