Who Cares? Part 22

He turned on his heel with the look of a dog at which a stone had been flung by a friend, and disappeared.

Two minutes later there was a light touch on his arm, and Joan stood at his side on the veranda. "Well, Gilbert," she said, "it's good to see you again."

"So good that I might be a man touting for an encyclopedia," he answered angrily.

She sat upon the rough stone wall and crossed her little feet. Her new frock was white and soft and very perfectly simple. It demanded the young body of a nymph,--and was satisfied. The magic of the moon was on her. She might have been Spring resting after a dancing day.

"If you were," she said, taking a delight in unspoiling this immaculate man, "I'm afraid you'd never get an order from me. Of all things the encyclopedia must be accompanied by a winning smile and irresistible manners. I suppose you've done lots of amusing things since I saw you last."

He went nearer so that her knees almost touched him. "No," he said.

"Only one, and that was far from amusing. It has marked me like a blow.

I've been waiting for you. Where have you been, and why haven't you taken the trouble to write me a single letter?"

"I've been ill," she said. "Yes, I have. Quite ill. I deliberately set out to hurt myself and succeeded. It was an experiment that I sha'n't repeat. I don't regret it. It taught me something that I shall never forget. Never too young to learn, eh? Isn't it lovely here? Just smell the sea, and look at those lights bobbing up and down out there. I never feel any interest in ships in the daytime, but at night, when they lie at anchor, and I can see nothing but their lonely eyes, I would give anything to be able to fly round them like a gull and peep into their cabins. Do they affect you like that?"

Palgrave wasn't listening to her. It was enough to look at her and refresh his memory. She had been more than ever in his blood all these weeks. She was like water in a desert or sunlight to a man who comes up from a mine. He had found her again and he thanked whatever G.o.d he recognized for that, but he was forced to realize from her imperturbable coolness and unaffected ease that she was farther away from him than ever. To one of his temperament and schooling this was hard to bear with any sort of self-control. The fact that he wanted her of all the creatures on earth, that she, alone among women, had touched the fuse of his desire, and that, knowing this, she could sit there a few inches from his lips and put a hundred miles between them, maddened him, from whom nothing hitherto had been impossible.

"Have I got to begin all over again?" he asked, with a sort of petulance.

"Begin what, Gilbert?" There was great satisfaction in playing with one who thought that he had only to touch a bell to bring the moon and the sun and the stars to his bidding.

"Good G.o.d," he cried out. "You're like wet sand on which a man expects to find yesterday's footmarks. Hasn't anything of me and the things I've said to you remained in your memory?"

"Of course," she said. "I shall never forget the night you took me to the Brevoort, for instance, and supplied the key to all the people with unkempt hair and comic ties."

Some one on the beach below shot out a low whistle.

A little thrill ran through Joan. In ten minutes, perhaps less, she would be dancing once more to the lunatic medley of a Jazz band, dancing with a boy who gave her all that she needed of him and asked absolutely nothing of her; dancing among people who were less than the dust in the scheme of things, so far as she was concerned, except to give movement and animation to the room and to be steered through. That was the right att.i.tude towards life and its millions, she told herself.

As salt was to an egg so was the element of false romance to this Golf Club dance. In a minute she would get rid of Palgrave, yes, even the fastidious Gilbert Palgrave, who had never been able quite to disguise the fact that his love for her was something of a condescension; she would fly in the face of the unwritten law of the pompous house on the dunes and mingle with what Hosack had called the crowd from the hotel.

It was all laughable and petty, but it was what she wanted to do. It was all in the spirit of "Who Cares?" that she had caught at again. Why worry as to what Mrs. Hosack might say or Palgrave might feel? Wasn't she as free as the air to follow her whims without a soul to make a claim upon her or to hold out a hand to stop?

Through these racing thoughts she heard Palgrave talking and crickets rasping and frogs croaking and a sudden burst of laughter and talk in the drawing-room,--and the whistle come again.

"Yes," she said, because yes was as good as any other word. "Well, Gilbert, dear, if you're not an early bird you will see me again later,"--and jumped down from the wall.

"Where are you going?"

"Does that matter?"

"Yes, it does. I want you here. I've been waiting all these weeks."

She laughed. "It's a free country," she said, "and you have the right to indulge in any hobby that amuses you. Au revoir, old thing." And she spread out her arms like wings and flew to the steps and down to the beach and away with some one who had sent out a signal.

"That boy," said Palgrave. "I'm to be turned down for a cursed boy! By G.o.d, we'll know about that."

And he followed, seeing red.

He saw them get into a low-lying two-seater built on racing lines, heard a laugh flutter into the air, watched the tail light sweep round the drive and become smaller and smaller along the road.

So that was it, was it? He had been relegated to the hangers-on, reduced to the ranks, put into the position of any one of the number of extraneous men who hung round this girl-child for a smile and a word!

That was the way he was to be treated, he, Gilbert Palgrave, the connoisseur, the decorative and hitherto indifferent man who had refused to be subjected to any form of discipline, who had never, until Joan had come into his life, allowed any one to put him a single inch out of his way, who had been triumphantly one-eyed and selfish,--that was the way he was to be treated by the very girl who had fulfilled his once wistful hope of making him stand, eager and startled and love-sick among the chaos of individualism and indolence, who had shaken him into the Great Emotion! Yes, by G.o.d, he'd know about that.

Bare-headed and surging with untranslatable anger he started walking.

He was in no mood to go into the drawing-room and cut into a game of bridge and show his teeth and talk the pleasant inanities of polite society. All the stucco of civilization fell about him in slabs as he made his way with long strides out of the Hosacks' place, across the sandy road and on to the springy turf of the golf links. It didn't matter where he went so long as he got elbow room for his indignation, breathing s.p.a.ce for his rage and a wide loneliness for his blasphemy....

He had stood humble and patient before this virginal girl. He had confessed himself to her with the tremendous honesty of a man made simple by an overwhelming love. She was married. So was he. But what did that matter to either of them whose only laws were self-made? The man to whom she was not even tied meant as little to her as the girl he had foolishly married meant or would ever mean to him. He had placed himself at her beck and call. In order to give her amus.e.m.e.nt he had taken her to places in which he wouldn't have been seen dead, had danced his good hours of sleep away for the pleasure of seeing her pleased, had revolutionized his methods with women and paid her tribute by the most scrupulous behavior and, finally, instead of setting out to turn her head with pearls and diamonds and carry her by storm while she was under the hypnotic influence of priceless glittering things for bodily adornment, which render so many women easy to take, he had recognized her as intelligent and paid her the compliment of treating her as such, had stated his case and waited for the time when the blaze of love would set her alight and bring her to his arms.

There was something more than mere egotism in all this,--the natural egotism of a man of great wealth and good looks, who had walked through life on a metaphorical red carpet pelted with flowers by adoring women to whom even virtue was well lost in return for his attention. Joan, like the spirit of spring, had come upon Palgrave at that time of his life when youth had left him and he had stood at the great crossroads, one leading down through a mora.s.s of self-indulgence to a hideous senility, the other leading up over the stones of sacrifice and service to a dignified usefulness. Her fresh young beauty and enthusiasm, her golden virginity and unself-consciousness, her unaffected joy in being alive, her superb health and vitality had shattered his conceit and self-obsession, broken down his aloofness and lack of scruple and filled the empty frame that he had hung in his best thoughts with her face and form.

There was something of the great lover about Palgrave in his new and changed condition. He had laid everything unconditionally at the feet of this young thing. He had shown a certain touch of bigness, of n.o.bility, he of all men, when, after his outburst in the little drawing-room that night, he had stood back to wait until Joan had grown up. He had waited for six weeks, going through tortures of Joan-sickness that were agonizing. He had asked her to do what she could for him in the way of a little kindness, but had not received one single line. He was prepared to continue to wait because he knew his love to be so great that it must eventually catch hold of her like the licking flame of a prairie fire. It staggered him to arrive at the Hosacks' place and find her fooling with a smooth-faced lad. It outraged him to be left cold, as though he were a mere member of the house party and watch her to whom he had thrown open his soul go joy-riding with a cursed boy. It was, in a sort of way, heresy. It proved an almost unbelievable inability to realize the great thing that this was. Such love as his was not an everyday affair, to be treated lightly and carelessly. It was, on the contrary, rare and wonderful and as such to be, at any rate, respected. That's how it seemed to him, and by G.o.d he would see about it.

He drew up short, at last, on his strange walk across the undulating course. The light from the Country Club streamed across his feet, and the jangle of the Jazz band broke into his thoughts. From where he stood, surprised to find himself in civilization, he could see the crowd of dancers through the open windows of what resembled a huge bungalow, at one side of which a hundred motor cars were parked. He went nearer, drawn forward against his will. He was in no mood to watch a summer dance of the younger set. He made his way to the wide veranda and stood behind the rocking chairs of parents and friends. But not for more than fifty seconds. There was Joan, with her lovely laughing face alight with the joy of movement, held in the arms of the cursed boy.

Between two chairs he went, into and across the room in which he was a trespa.s.ser, tapped young Oldershaw sharply on the arm, cut into the dance, and before the boy could recover from his surprise, was out of reach with Joan against his heart.

"Oh, well done, Gilbert," said Joan, a little breathlessly. "When Marty did that to you at the Crystal Room..."

She stopped, and a shadow fell on her face and a little tremble ran across her lips.

Smoking a cigarette on the veranda young Oldershaw waited for the dance to end. It was encored several times but being a sportsman and having achieved a monopoly of Joan during all the previous dances, he let this man enjoy his turn. He was a great friend of hers, she had said on the way to the club, and was, without doubt, a very perfect person with his wide-set eyes and well-groomed head, his smooth moustache and the cleft on his chin. He didn't like him. He had decided that at a first glance.

He was too supercilious and self-a.s.sured and had a way of looking clean through men's heads. He conveyed the impression of having bought the earth,--and Joan. A pity he was too old for a year or two of Yale. That would make him a bit more of a man.

When presently the Jazzers paused in order to recuperate,--every one of them deserving first aid for the wounded,--and Joan came out for a little air with Palgrave, Harry strolled up. This was his evening, and in a perfectly nice way he conveyed that impression by his manner. He was, moreover, quite determined to give nothing more away. He conveyed that, also.

"Shall we sit on the other side?" he asked. "The breeze off the sea keeps the mosquitoes away a bit."

Refusing to acknowledge his existence Palgrave guided Joan towards a vacant chair. He went on with what he had been saying and swung the chair round.

Joan was smiling again.

Oldershaw squared his jaw. "I advise against this side, Joan," he said.

"Let me take you round."

He earned a quick amused look and a half shrug of white shoulders from Joan. Palgrave continued to talk in a low confidential voice. He regarded Oldershaw's remarks as no more of an interruption than the chorus of the frogs. Oldershaw's blood began to boil, and he had a queer p.r.i.c.kly sensation at the back of his neck. Whoo, but there'd have to be a pretty good shine in a minute, he said to himself. This man Palgrave must be taught.

He marched up to Joan and held out his arm. "We may as well get back,"

he said. "The band's going to begin again."

But Joan sat down, looking from one man to the other. All the woman in her revelled in this rivalry,--all that made her long-dead sisters crowd to the arenas, wave to armored knights in deadly combat, lean forward in grand stands to watch the t.i.tanic struggles of Army and Navy, Yale and Harvard on the football field. Her eyes danced, her lips were parted a little, her young bosom rose and fell.

"And so you see," said Palgrave, putting his hand on the back of her chair, "I can stay as long as the Hosacks will have me, and one day I'll drive you over to my bachelor cottage on the dune. It will interest you."

"The only thing that has any interest at the moment is dancing," said Oldershaw loudly. "By the way, you don't happen to be a member of the club, do you, Mr. Palgrave?"

With consummate impudence Palgrave caught his eye and made a sort of policeman gesture. "Run away, my lad," he said, "run away and amuse yourself." He almost asked for death.

With a thick mutter that sounded like "My G.o.d," Oldershaw balanced himself to hit, his face the color of a beet-root,--and instantly Joan was on her feet between them with a hand on the boy's chest.

"No murder here," she said, "please!"