The Salamander Part 73

"We'll see!" he said, unruffled, his mouth half full.

"Your chance was in Cincinnati!" she said deliberately. "That was your mistake, or your good luck! I'm different now--so changed I don't recognize myself!"

"Rats!"

"True! I'm a vain, luxury-loving girl, who has got to live on excitement! I couldn't be happy a day away from all this! I adore New York! I've got to be on the go every minute! If I married a poor man, I'd ruin him in a month!"

"What?"

"In a month! I've got the taste, the habit of luxury; I just can't do without it! The man I marry has got to be able to give me everything I see other women have--dresses, jewels, automobiles,--or I should be miserable! You see, I don't spare myself; I tell you the truth. I've got to have money, and I've got to have New York!"

He reflected a moment, studying the spareribs, which had just arrived.

"Well, now, that might be arranged," he said thoughtfully. "I like this little burg myself."

"What's the use of beating around the bush?" she said suddenly. "Josh, this is the truth; I've grown away from you and from all that old life.

I've gone into a new. I'm in love, madly, blindly, and there's no other man in the world for me! You won't understand! You force me to be cruel! It's ended between us, and I never wish it to be brought up again. And if you are a gentleman, you won't pursue me; you'll go away!"

"Gentleman's a stretchy word, kid!" he said, refusing to be angry. "But I'm here, and I'll stick! You can't ruffle me! I'm not here to get frothy at the mouth; I'm here to win you back!"

She tried every means to open his eyes. She left nothing unsaid. It had no more effect on him than the wind against a cliff. He answered all attacks good-naturedly, perfectly obstinate and perfectly resolved. When they returned over the short blocks to Miss Pim's, she said at last, desperately:

"I tell you frankly, I won't see you!"

"Oh, yes, you will!" he said.

"But since you know I'm going to be married?"

"Don't know anything of the kind!" he said gruffly. "Now, Floss, just put this away in your thinker. You can't get rid of me. You'll never get rid of me until you're married--and then I won't give you up till I go to the church and see you come down--not up, _down_ the aisle hitched to another man!"

"Another thing, Josh. If you don't take the money," she said, as they came in view of Miss Pim's and Ma.s.singale's automobile waiting, "I'll tear it up!"

"Hold up! I'll take it!" he said quickly. "Only this is the way you'll ask it: 'Mr. Nebbins, you were always square by me, and I'm grateful to you for it. Thank you for what you loaned me, and do me the favor to take it back!' Say that, or it can lie there!"

She had a horror of Ma.s.singale's coming in contact with this undisciplined savage. She would do anything to prevent that. So she swallowed her pride and repeated the phrase.

"Good, Flossie!" he exclaimed joyfully. "That's like old times, when you used to have your tantrums! Just remember, now, who knows you and who you can't fool! To-morrow?"

She stopped at the foot of the steps, holding out her hand.

"What's the game now?" he asked suspiciously. "Don't want me to come up?

Oh, that's all right! Don't believe in mixing things myself! To-morrow for lunch?"

"Good-by!" she said emphatically, running up the steps.

"To-morrow!" he called after her.

When she entered, Ma.s.singale was in the parlor, and the bamboo curtains at the windows were still tinkling, where he had been posted in watch.

Nebbins had filled her with such a fear of the old ascendency that, despite the publicity of the room, she flung her arms about his neck and lay against his shoulder like a frightened fluttering bird.

"Ah, now I am happy!" she said softly, running her fingers in a caress over the tip of his ear.

"You change quickly!" he said coldly, resisting.

"You were at the window?" she asked, comprehending instantly the cause of his mistrust.

"I was!"

"I couldn't help it! It was--"

"Don't invent!" he said roughly. "I'm not in the mood!"

"No, no, I won't!" she said, with a sudden resolve. "Only, let's get away from here first. I have so much to say to you to-night!"

As they went down the steps to his automobile, she glanced nervously up and down the dimly lighted avenue. Nebbins was there, as she had expected, leaning against a stoop, his hat on one side, waiting to see if she would come out. She sprang into the closed car, extinguishing the light.

"Where?"

"Anywhere out of this. Up-town!"

They had to pa.s.s him, still waiting and curious, half revealed under the pale region of a near lamp-post. She waited breathlessly, hoping that Ma.s.singale would not perceive him. Vain hope! He leaned forward abruptly, saying:

"Who is that man?"

"I'll tell you everything! Just a moment!"

She drew nearer to him, fastening her fingers, like a lonely child, in the collar of his coat; laying her head against his arm, very quiet; tired, with a longing for strength and petting. But, stiff and resentful, he did not put his arm about her. Suddenly he burst out:

"Dodo! I can't stand it! This is driving me crazy! What do I know of you? What do you want me to think? You go and come. You tell me one minute you love me, and the next, where are you? Where do you go? Whom do you see? What is your life? Who is this man who comes as far as your door, and then waits on the corner? Whom are you with until three o'clock in the morning? And Harrigan Blood, and Sa.s.soon, and how many others? Dodo, I tell you, you are driving me wild. I suffer! If you knew what I've been going through these days, in every way!"

He stopped abruptly; he hardly recognized himself in this frantic complainant.

"Dodo, I tell you, I can't stand this any longer! You have disorganized everything in my life. I'm half mad!"

"Yes, I am very wicked, very cruel to you!" she said, with a lump in her throat, pressing his arm convulsively. "I know it! I know it! I've said it to myself a hundred times over. I can't help it! Why am I so? I don't know! Perhaps it were better if you went away, if you never saw me again. At least, you wouldn't hate me. Yes, go! You had better go!

That's it. Go! Go!"

She stopped, and each was seized with the chill of this awful thought.

He gave a deep sigh and put his arm around her. She crowded close to him, feeling so little, of such small consequence, staring out at the battling currents of brutal thoroughfares. The clamor of the city came roaring at their windows--immense glaring cars with strident bells, iron ma.s.ses above shattering the air, even the earth below periodically shaken with the rumble of mult.i.tudes tearing through the bowels of the city. Confusion, riot multiplied, echoed and reechoed; ma.s.ses of sky-cleaving prisons; millions of lights, blinding and bewildering; and everywhere the mult.i.tude, humanity in thousands on thousands, crowding their path, spying on every action, drowning out sigh and laughter! What peace or tranquillity was there? What fragile thing could endure against the buffeting? What mattered? By Ma.s.singale's side, shivering, clinging, she felt the weak tears suddenly rising, seized by a horror of this life which had to be lived, some way or other, in fear of what might follow.

"Be honest! Tell me all you've hidden! Let me know the truth, at least!"

he said suddenly.

She sat up, drawing away from him, readjusting her hat. Yes, she would throw herself on his generosity; she would tell him the truth--perhaps not the truth in every detail, but all that was vital. For she could not bear that he should see Josh Nebbins as he really was. The vulgarity, the pettiness of it, she would keep from him, divining how his aristocratic temperament would revolt at the thought that such arms had once held her as his now encircled her.

"It is nothing bad!" she said. "There is nothing in my life that I am ashamed of. That is the truth! Only, I am upset, irritated, terribly irritated. I am pa.s.sing through a most disagreeable experience. The man you saw I was engaged to three years ago, when I was an ignorant foolish girl. I regret it bitterly! We were totally unsuited. Now it is ridiculous, humiliating! I never expected to see him again!"

"Who is he?" he asked.