The Salamander Part 64

Before she could be prevented, deaf to the entreaties of Lindaberry or the expostulations of his brother, she walked out, in a fine temper.

Lindaberry did not understand in the least the motive of her revolt. He rather ascribed it to a refusal on her part to commit herself. The next day, when she came, he stammered out:

"Dodo, look here. You don't understand! I'm not taking things for granted--I meant what I said. You're bound to nothing. What I--"

But she laid her hand across his lips, frowning.

"We won't discuss it!"

The evening came when Garry, still with a touch of weakness in voice and in complexion, was ready to go off for a month in the open with Doctor Lampson--a hunting trip in the clarifying wilds of snow-ridden Canada on the track of moose: a month in which to fight the first battles against old habits, with the strength of a devoted friend at his side, far from old a.s.sociations, nightmares of interminable electric lights and the battering, nerve-tiring hammer of New York. He had come doggedly out of the shadow, fortified by the inspiration a great love had raised in him.

Not that the fight was easy: on the contrary, alone he never would have conquered. He loved, and he felt resurrected. He had no fear of the test. The old manhood, sharp and decisive, returned. Sometimes, when, on a sleepless night, he had gone trudging, in greatcoat and boots, for miles across frozen sleeping blocks, he would return to her home, gazing up at her window with the adoration of the Magi. For him she was the purest spirit that could exist, without evil--without even the power to perceive ugliness.

He had never again referred to their relations since the unfortunate introduction to his brother. He saw her every day, at every hour, but he guarded strictly the retinue of friendship, putting into this self-discipline a fierce pride. The result was that she little divined, under the soldier, how deep a love had been kindled. She believed in his grat.i.tude only; but this, to her independent romantic spirit, raised an impossible barrier.

She went to the station with him, alone in the automobile, her hand in his all the way. He did not say a word. She spoke rapidly, and then by fits and starts, wondering at his silence. The truth was, he dared not permit himself a word, for fear of the torrent which lay pent up in his soul. Perhaps had the outburst come in one wild moment, it would have frightened her, given her a new insight, satisfied her and awakened in her other sides that craved for expression--the sides below the serenity and the tenderness that were so ready.

Doctor Lampson met them at the station, shooting a queer little glance at their quiet faces. The train was ready, the great iron cavern filled with the monster cries of steam animals, bells ringing, crowds frantic, bundles, trunks, children, babies, rushing by in pandemonium. There was nothing else to do but to say good-by.

"Better be getting on--better be moving!" remarked Doctor Lampson, in his nervous rough way. "Good-by, Miss Baxter. You're a trump--the finest of the fine! I'll take care of Garry. He'll come back like a drum-major!

Good-by, good-by--G.o.d bless you! Come on now, Garry; come on."

He turned obligingly away, shouting orders at a couple of negro porters staggering under valises and gun-cases. She looked up at Garry, a lump in her throat, thrilled through her misty eyes at the victory she had wrought in the erect and confident figure. Would he take her in his arms and kiss her, there, before all the people? She did not care ... it would only be natural after all she had won for him. She did not care ... perhaps, she longed for this embrace without knowing quite why.

"Dodo ..." he began, and then suddenly caught himself, and his great chest rose. He stopped, took her hand, pressed it as though to crush it, did not even seek her eyes, turned and went quickly away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Good-by, Miss Baxter. You're a trump."]

"How he reveres me!" she thought, tears rushing to her eyes. She clung to the iron railing, her handkerchief to her face, a sob in her throat, following the strong figure, which the crowd slowly obliterated. Once she thought he had turned and she waved her white signal feebly--not quite certain. It seemed eternity waiting for the train to move. At the last she had a mad desire to run after him, to call him back, to hold him and to be held, to look in his eyes, to give up all the daring and the curiosity of life, to be just a weak woman and to hear him say those words which she had steadfastly forbidden. She was afraid to let him go. She felt as though she needed him more than he had needed her.

It had all been so serene. The goodness in the world seemed to vanish with his going. What was left was so black, so impenetrable. If only she were different--like other women....

The great black shape stirred at last, drew swiftly away and curved into nothingness. It seemed to her all at once as though a door had closed on her life, even as the iron gate had slammed against her tears. She drifted out in a daze. The whole clanging tumultuous station was empty to her eyes. Energetic purposeful crowds buffeted her and unresisting she went with the current and feebly home to where she knew Ma.s.singale at least would be waiting for her. For with all her fancied daring, she had a consuming horror of being left alone. The twilight electric world of New York roared in her ears and weakly she felt that to stand against this merciless leap of contending thousands she had no strength but the strength of the men her instincts could draw about her.

Ma.s.singale had been waiting interminably for Dore. He had come in a little after five to take her off to dinner, as she had ordered. But hardly had he arrived when she had told him a story he did not believe: Ida Summers had quarreled with an admirer and had asked her to make it up for her; she would be only a moment below, half an hour at the most--would he mind waiting? He had a.s.sented heavily, with a new vexation, certain that this was but a new trial she was imposing on him, part and parcel with the misery of the wretched last weeks, and yet too proud to show the pain.

He sat down alone in the great vacant room--her room, in which every breath brought him some perfume of her, feeling her tantalizing presence in a hundred vanishing shapes twirling about him: in the alcove, a glimpse of pillow and counterpane, where she slept, unconscious of torture and craving; in the swung door of the closet, soft filmy fabrics that seemed yet warm from her body; in the ugly dressing-table, with its musty mirror which seemed reclaimed by the glamour of her reflection; in all the undisciplined touches, in all the poverty-conquering gaiety--her room, her world, into which she had drawn him as the Lorelei steals the fisherman from his boat. Outside, vacancy, a cold and colorless world, his world, the life he had chosen, believing it secure. He took up a magazine, gazed at a random page without turning and laid it down. Was it love or hatred?--the malignant, brute-to-brute pa.s.sion for destruction of the male, tormented and defied! How she had made him suffer, wounded him in his pride, humiliated him before himself in all this blind clinging to something which had no answer! And here he was now, Judge Ma.s.singale, enduring new indignity, waiting supinely in her room, exposed to the ridicule of any chance entrance. He glanced at his watch: forty-five minutes had already elapsed. He started up angrily.

No! he would endure no more! The time had come to revolt! He would humble himself no longer; now, at last, he would make an end--once and forever! He went down-stairs quietly, and into the parlor. It was as he had surmised--she was not there. Only one more lie! Then, resolved, with a feeling of liberation, he went up-stairs again, took out paper and envelope, and sat down at her desk, saying to himself:

"This is the end, thank G.o.d! She is making a fool of me; I am only ridiculous! Now to finish it!"

Without phrasing or hesitation, he wrote with rapid furious scratches:

"_My Dear Girl_:

"You have been very clever, and I have been nothing but a fool, but for once you have gone too far! Thanks; it has opened my eyes!

It is not only that I do not believe one single word you tell me, but that I see what a ridiculous role you have made me play. Don't attempt to invent any new fiction--I warn you, I will not see you!

I leave you without the slightest fear for your future. You are quite capable of taking care of yourself.

"M."

Prudently he affixed only his initial, sealed the envelope, and rose, again glancing at his watch. It had been fully an hour and a quarter.

"If she is not here in five minutes--" he began angrily.

The door flew open, and Dodo rushed into his arms. He crushed the envelope clumsily into his pocket, and caught her to him.

"Ah, hold me strongly!" she cried, quivering and breathless.

"More--more! You are so kind--you are so patient with me, Your Honor!

And I have been so cruel. How I must have plagued you! Forgive me!

Forgive me! Forgive me!"

"It's nothing--nothing!" he said, troubled with her embrace, which had never seemed so complete an abnegation, a surrender and a seeking.

"Oh, I'll make it up to you now!" she cried, her cheeks wet.

She clung to him, craving affection, the pain of his clutching arms, the strength of his male body, in a strange impulse, the inconscient seeking from one man what another had roused. Did she know herself to whom she was clinging, or why she had such a wild hunger in her sorrow-racked body? She clung to him, but she did not cry his name!

CHAPTER XXVI

As January went shivering into the slush and fury of February, and the fatal tenth of March drew nearer, Dodo found herself approaching the great test of her character. All the different dramatizations that she had permitted herself, with her joyful instinct toward comedy, suddenly loomed before her, no longer trivial and facile, but reaching into seriousness, fraught with the elements of tragedy. Impossible to describe the fever of emotion into which she now plunged, acting and reacting, perpetually in a whirl, avoiding solitude and rest, trying every impulse, frantically proceeding from one flirtation to another, aghast at the necessity which she had imposed on herself of definitely choosing what her life should be. She was rarely in bed before the wan grays were scurrying in their pallid flight before the dawn, like thieves across the city. She saw the heavy, jangling milk-wagons plodding to their deliveries, abhorrent figures combing the refuse of yesterday, groups in rags asleep on iron gratings which sent the warm blast of underground furnaces into the shivering winds. Often, heavy-eyed and vibrantly awake, returning in singing parties of four or six from long hours of dancing, she came suddenly upon night shifts emerging from their slavery in the bowels of the earth, black shadows trooping up from the flare of kerosene lamps, an underworld which stared at the revelers in brutish hostility.

She consumed the night thus--fearing it, avoiding its quiet reflections, stopping her ears to its whispers of rules learned in childhood; afraid to face G.o.d, who, in her simple superst.i.tious faith, was ever personal.

She felt that if she did not recall herself to Him, G.o.d, who had so much to do, would not notice her. When she returned, she fell at once into profound, dream-driven sleep from which she woke at noon, heavy and incredulous, arousing herself into a febrile energy, impatient for the whirling day to start. At the foot of the alcove she had placed an enormous calendar; and each night, on entering, she tore off another sheet--counting the days that yet intervened before the coming tenth of March. In the whole room she saw nothing but these looming figures, black against white, marking her little allotted hours. She had so little time left to revel and dare, to skirt the edge of precipices or tease the leaping flames ... such a little while to be just Dodo.

The pace she set began to tell on her vitality, to proclaim itself in the hollowing of her cheeks and the strained cords of the neck. Her eyes were never quiet, nor could her body find an instant's repose. Snyder, who had succeeded to Winona's room, perceived the danger, as did Ma.s.singale; but to the remonstrances of each Dore would run to the calendar, half laughing, half serious, drumming on it with her little fist, crying:

"Pretty soon--pretty soon. Can't stop now! Soon it'll be over!"

It was not simply three or four intrigues that she drove at once, but a dozen, keeping the threads from tangling, adding new ones each night, for a few days' mystification and abandonment. Yet, despite the nerve-racking and exhaustion, never had she felt so triumphant or known herself so desirable. The city which once had crushed her imagination in the first despair of her arrival, the city which she felt in all its moods, grumbling, defiant, waiting cruelly, submissive or ominous, now rolled before her in a brilliant succession of pleasures, her world and her destiny--theater and restaurant, opera and cabaret; and everywhere, in the burst of lights, or languidly sunk in the seduction of music, in the lure of shop-windows was the zest of precious temptations--dangers that it was an ecstasy to be able to reject. Everything succeeded for her: Ma.s.singale, Blood, Sa.s.soon the patient, Gilday, Stacey and dozens of others. She managed as she wished, arranged her day so that they never crossed one another, and yet leaping from one dramatization to another. Never had she felt so confident of the mastery of her destinies, so avid of the delicious draft of pleasure. She felt that she was coming to a supreme sacrifice, self-immolation, but that the setting was superb and the climax must be magnificent!

She adored the reckless threading flight of taxi-cabs through the streets, plunging into sudden openings, grinding to hairbreadth stops, rounding abrupt corners, tossed and buffeted, skimming into new perils.

It was all something of herself, her reckless, daring, danger-loving self. Then, there was the telephone, which called to her twenty times a day: she never went to it without a little thrill of antic.i.p.ation. She adored it as the gambler the rolling ball, this mysterious instrument which, with its startling jangle, could change the complexion of a dull and hopeless day and send her swiftly out on some new dare, throbbing with excitement. She appreciated it, too, for its mocking moments of conversation, engagements to take or to refuse, laughing excuses or new traps to set; but it was especially this quality of the unexpected she adored, the possibility at the last moment, after a day of calculated planning, to throw everything to the winds, to go rushing off on the hazards of the unexpected. During this period her pa.s.sion for the opera increased: _Tristan and Isolde_, _Boheme_, _Tosca_, _Manon_--she never let a performance of these favorites pa.s.s unattended if she could manage it, hanging breathless on the pa.s.sionate poignant tragedies at the end, soothed and satisfied, convinced, resolved, saying:

"Ah, yes! That is what love is--what it must mean!"

At such times, if she happened to be with Ma.s.singale, she would close her eyes, serenely content, her fingers fastened over his hand, clinging, as if her arms were wrapped about him. She was certain now that this was the best--if only she could bring him to the height she wished, if she could only make him rise above the commonplace and know the tragic ecstasy. She knew now that he loved her; would it be as she wished, great enough to justify the sacrifice she would willingly make to grasp the dream? Perhaps, unconsciously, at the bottom it was necessary for her to know of what he was capable before she could decide what she herself would do. To force him to this was now her one idea; she was fiercely resolved that what had started as a casual flirtation should redeem itself in a heroic flame.

Besides, Ma.s.singale had a physical effect over her. In the antic.i.p.ation of his coming she was always nervous and excited; in his presence always conscious of a feverish magnetized need of drawing closer, of touching his hand, his arm, of the pressure of his shoulder against hers, resisting the impulse to be caught in his arms; and always melancholy and depressed on his departure. This empire over her senses was so strong, she was convinced that this was the only way love could show itself. She was glad, at such times, that the day of decision was coming; for if, in her contrary moods, she inflicted torture on him, she, too, knew now what it was to suffer. The strong emotions on which she was living had at last aroused the elemental in her below all the mental hazards of the girl. If she had ever seen him clearly, she could not now. She had so completely visualized him in the image of what she imagined a lover should be that she might have created him herself.

At an earlier moment Ma.s.singale might have perceived this; but he had now drunk too deep of the narcotic on her lips, and followed too long the firefly lights in her eyes, to distinguish fact from fancy. He saw he could no longer command, and he felt no strength in him to run away.

He was resigned to letting her conduct them where she willed. For he, too, was in love with love for the first time in his life; yet it was not a hungry scanning of future horizons, but a profound melancholic reflection over the wasted past. He saw himself young, capable of dreams once more, remembering the hours when he fondly believed in a great destiny; and this longing, which, against his reason, had fastened him to the young, ardent and graceful girl, had she but divined it, was the same that made Peavey so ridiculous--the yearning back to a stolen youth.

And Lindaberry? Yes; certainly she thought of him often, but as something she had surrendered, that was not for her rebellious life. It was love, lawless and destructive, which she sought, not that quiet content that rises from the wells of peace and serenity. She was indeed a lawless waif of a law-defying generation, and her mind was set on great flaming sensations, hating conventions and resolved on rebellion.

She saw her future in the hands of Ma.s.singale, Blainey--yes, possibly even Sa.s.soon, if the others should fail; and conscious of the fierceness and selfishness of her desires, she judged herself unworthy of Lindaberry. Once or twice she had paused to consider such a marriage; but the affection for him which she termed friendship, sympathy, pity--everything but love--was so deep that she shrank from the thought of inflicting harm, saying:

"If I married him, what would come?"