XIII
S has been remarked just once before, I forget by whom, this world is a small place after all. The remark is equally true of New York City. I presume that a mathematician with a stub of a lead pencil and the back of an envelope could speedily figure out for you what chance Gordon had of meeting Peggy-in-the-Rain again. And I dare say the mathematician's result would be very discouraging. However, we don't require the mathematician's services, for within eighteen hours of the time the Siren anchored in East River the unexpected and hoped-for occurred.
The Siren returned just at twilight on a Friday in the second week of May. The next forenoon Gordon, returning uptown in his car, the chauffeur driving, cried "Stop!" at the top of his voice, threw open the door, and, before the car had ceased momentum, leaped to the pavement between a dray and a Columbus Avenue trolley, dodged for his life and gained the sidewalk. But at eleven o'clock of a bright spring morning the east side of Broadway at Eighteenth Street is quite likely to be well thronged, and this morning was no exception. Gordon hurried southward, pushing and elbowing, with scant regard for the comfort of his fellow pedestrians, searching the crowd ahead with anxious eyes. He had almost given up hope when, the throng thinning at Seventeenth Street, he saw her walking briskly ahead of him. He caught up to her just as, glancing right and left, she was about to cross to the park. She turned before he could speak and her face paled and the deep blue eyes grew suddenly large and dark. Gordon's own cheeks whitened under their tan, and it was not until her small fingers lay in his insistent hand that words came to him.
"You see," he said then, with a smile that wouldn't stay straight, "I was right. The gods are kind, Miss Peggy-in-the-Rain."
The color crept slowly back into her face as she withdrew her hand. She smiled constrainedly. "Now you know," she said with a voice that, attempting to speak lightly, trembled a little, "what becomes of me when it doesn't rain." She gathered courage by looking away from his eager eyes. "You've discovered my secret, haven't you?"
"Yes," he answered.
Something in his tone brought her glance back swiftly, inquiringly. What she saw brought a little gasp to her breath.
"Yes," he went on meaningly. "I have discovered your secret, Peggy. And it's only fair, for I've told you mine already."
"Yours?" she asked, with a careless laugh that had a break in it. "Have you a secret, too?" She hurried away from danger. "It's been nice to see you again. I suppose you'll soon be off for the summer?" She moved toward the curb. "Good-by, Mr. Ames." She smiled and nodded merrily.
"Oh, but I am going with you," he said. "I'm not going to trust too often to the gods, you know."
She paused uncertainly. Then, "Please don't," she begged earnestly. "I'm on an assignment; I'm already late"
"Then you must tell me where I can find you. Life hasn't been very—pleasant since I saw you last, Peggy-in-the-Rain."
"Oh, please! Don't let us go through all that again, Mr. Ames! I've showed you how—how impossible it is"
"Yes, I know."
"Well"
"Impossibilities don't interest me, Miss Peggy. I want to see you again; I must see you again. You must tell me where you live."
She shook her head.
"Then I shall go with you now," he said calmly.
She looked at him appealingly, but found no encouragement in the firm set of his mouth. She looked frowningly down Broadway, swinging nervously the small black bag she carried. Finally,
"I can't have you call on me where I board." she said thoughtfully. "You know why. And I don't want you to come with me now." She hesitated. "Won't you please go away and—and let me alone?"
He shook his head. "I can't do that," he answered simply. "It—it's too late, Peggy, too late for both of us."
"Oh, it isn't!" she cried impatiently. "Please don't talk so! Why can't you let me be? What have I done to you"
"You don't want me to let you be, Peggy!" He captured the hand that held the bag. "You're not honest with me! Look at me, Peggy-in-the-Rain, and tell me I'm wrong, tell me you don't care!"
"You are—I don't—oh, please"
"You don't look at me, though! Look at me and tell me you don't care, Peggy dear! Do that and I'll—I'll go!"
Very slowly her eyes went up to his, faltered, fled and came back. Very dark they were in the pallor of her face. Her lips parted and Gordon bent to hear.
"I … don't …" she whispered faintly, their eyes holding. He waited. Finally,
"What?" he asked softly.
"Care …"
"For"
"You!" She said it bravely at last and tore her eyes away. She was trembling. Gordon smiled happily.
"Then—I'm to go?" he asked.
She nodded vigorously.
"But say it, Peggy—dear."
After a moment, "You're to … go," she said. "Oh, please, please don't make it any harder!"
"Then it is hard, Peggy?"
There was no answer.
"Well, I will go," he said after a moment, "for a little while, Peggy."
"But—you said," she faltered.
"That I'd—leave you alone?" he asked with a little laugh. "Yes, but you were to tell me you didn't care, dear."
"I did!"
"No." He shook his head. "The words said it; Peggy, but your eyes—Shall I tell you what your eyes said?"
Again there was no reply. He laughed softly, triumphantly.
"If you must go, Peggy, go. I won't keep you any longer. But you must tell me first where I am to see you again, and when."
"No, this is good-by."
"It is not good-by. There can be no good-by between us, Peggy-in-the-Rain! To-night at half-past seven I shall be here at this corner in my car. Will you come?"
"I—can't!"
"At half-past seven, Peggy?"
After a long moment she lifted her head tiredly and looked at him with a little wan smile.
"At half-past seven, Peggy?" he repeated.
"Yes," she said quite evenly, "only"
"Only what, Peggy-in-the-Rain?"
"I think—I hate you," she replied quietly.
He laughed again very softly, "Hate me to your heart's content, dear," he answered, "only come!"
She went slowly over the crossing, a slim, black-clad figure. Gordon, watching, drew a deep sigh and turned away. She would not look back; he knew that. He no longer felt triumphant, only vividly alive and a little bit dizzy, as though he had taken some strange drug. He wanted a drink badly and, taking the wheel, sped the car to the club.
XIV
HE was quite prompt. Gordon, who had been ten minutes early at the rendezvous, had to wait only a quarter of an hour. Then he saw her half a block away walking quickly, as though, he thought, she feared her courage would desert her if she lagged. His heart quickened and to stifle his agitation he started the motor and swung the car around so that she might step in beside him from the curb. If he expected the girl he had parted from in the forenoon he was disappointed, for this was quite another Peggy who stepped nimbly into the car, with a gay nod of her head, sank into the seat beside him and drew her dark cloak up about her neck.
"Am I late?" she asked briskly. "I tried not to be, but I'm so unused nowadays to going out anywhere that I simply was all thumbs when it came to dressing." She looked at Gordon's attire. "I'm glad you're not in dinner things," she went on with a note of relief. "I worried about that, for now that I am wearing black I haven't a thing I could have put on. Do you mind my coming in a street gown?"
"Not at all. I—we are going out of town for dinner; I thought you'd prefer it; and dinner clothes aren't necessary." He spoke very formally, puzzled and discomforted by her self-possession.
"Then that's all right," she said cheerfully. "Do you know I had to move heaven and earth to get here, sir?"
"Really?" he asked steering the car dexterously through the traffic in Madison Square and plunging into the half-shadows of the Avenue. "How was that?"
"It was not my night off and I had a regular dickens of a time convincing the city editor that I had to go. I forget whether it was a sick friend or a wedding that I offered for excuse."
"City editor?" he repeated questioningly, "what city editor? Who is he?"
"Why, the city editor of the Report, of course. That's my paper, Mr. Ames."
"Your paper?" he asked puzzledly.
She laughed gayly. "But I forget that you don't know. Yes, my paper, I don't own it, you know; I merely work for it."
"Oh, so that's—that's what you do! You're a newspaper woman!"
"Good gracious, don't say it that way! We're not that bad, really!"
"I beg your pardon! I didn't mean"
"Don't apologize. I quite understand. Some of us are a bit—well, impossible."
"I've never met any. I merely—had an idea"
"Well, you've met one now. Please say that after this you have the utmost respect and admiration for newspaper women, Mr. Ames."
"I do say it. But—but, look here, what do you do on the paper?"
"Do? What don't I do? I report weddings, funerals, parties, teas, dog shows, prize-fights"
"Prize-fights!"
"I did once. The editor wanted a story written from the woman's point of view." She laughed reminiscently. "I fear I disappointed him, for I got terribly excited about it and quite forgot that it was—well, brutal, you know, and went back and wrote a most glowing account of it! I don't think my story made much of a hit with the city editor, but the sporting editor came around the next morning, shook hands with me, told me I was a wonder, and promised me tickets whenever I wanted them! So, you see, it must have been a pretty good story from one point of view, mustn't it?"
"Ye-es. But isn't it—hard work?"
"Terribly." She sighed. "But I like it. And it's what I can do. And, besides, all work's hard, isn't it? But I don't suppose you know."
Gordon frowned.
"Do you mean," he asked, "that you have to—to go about and interview people?"
"Oh, yes, but that's fun compared with some of the assignments you get. Sometimes there's a murder that's a little unusual, that promises a human interest side. Then I get that."
"Good God!"
"Yes, it's—not nice sometimes. But usually, after the first shock of—of distaste I get interested in it. After that I like it."
He looked at her in puzzlement. It was distinctly impossible to associate her with such things, impossible and horrible! She read the thought and laughed.
"Oh, it isn't all murders, Mr. Ames! There are some very nice assignments sometimes; interviews with interesting persons—or personages; 'swell functions,' as our city editor calls them, when I put on my very best bib and tucker and pretend I'm a guest and make notes in the seclusion of the dressing-room or behind a palm so folks won't know why I am really there. That sounds snobbish, doesn't it? I suppose the real fact is that I am a little ashamed of my profession in spite of my—my pose."
He made no answer. This was not Peggy-in-the-Rain, this very capable, self-possessed young woman beside him. He turned again to observe her with a mingling of surprise and curiosity. Once more she seemed to surmise his thoughts, and smiled.
"You're trying to reconcile me with the girl you met under the magnolia that day, aren't you? A very silly, frightened girl who hung onto your hand like grim death and tried so very, very hard to believe the nice lie you told her about magnolias never being struck by lightning. You are, aren't you?"
He nodded, and then stooped to turn on the electric lights at the dash. "I believe I was," he replied. "And I was thinking how unsuited such a business—profession"
"Call it career," she suggested lightly.
"How unsuited it is to you; or perhaps I'd better say how unsuited you are to such a career."
"That sounds uncomplimentary, Mr. Ames. Really, I'm not so bad at it!"
He frowned. "You know what I mean. I don't like to think of you running around this town alone, unprotected like that. It isn't right. It's no work for a girl."
"It's the work for this girl. It's the only thing I know how to do, the only thing I could do, I fancy. And it really isn't as bad as you evidently imagine it to be. I don't go on night assignments alone, you see; at least, not where there would be any danger."
"Who goes with you?" he asked shortly.
"One of the boys. Or, rather, I go with him. Sometimes, if the thing is big two or three of us go together."
"And—I beg your pardon—does it—do they pay a good salary?"
"I work on space. Sometimes I make twenty dollars a week, sometimes thirty. Once I made nearly fifty. That was when that Italian woman was charged with murdering her husband. Do you remember? He had four or five hundred dollars in an Italian bank and the police found that she had been making inquiries about the money, apparently trying to find how much it amounted to. They almost sent her to the chair on that evidence. McConnell and Jim Crandall and I worked on that for over a month. It was really Jim who found out about the lover, although the police got the credit for it. They got him in Palermo and brought him back and he confessed."
"And you like that sort of thing!" he exclaimed incredulously.
"Yes, I think I do. There are times when—oh, there are always 'times' with every one, aren't there? And it brings me a living, Mr. Ames."
"A living! Fifty dollars a week!"
"Well, let's say thirty to be safe. And then I do a little writing besides; articles and stories for the cheaper magazines, you know."
"Your people, do they like you to do it?"
"I haven't any," she replied simply. "My father died some years ago and my—mother—just recently. There aren't any others."
"I beg your pardon! I didn't understand! It was stupid of me, but I didn't realize that your black meant mourning."
She made no reply and the car hummed across the river and sped northward. There was a chill in the air and he turned solicitously. "Are you warm enough?" he asked.
"Quite." She snuggled more closely into her cloak with a sigh of contentment. "I love it. My automobiles are usually taxicabs, you see."
"Here is one that is always at your disposal," he answered. "And listen; the exhaust; do you hear what it says?"
"Chig-a-chig-a-chig-a-chig," she laughed.
"'Peggy—Peggy—Peggy!' Can't you hear it?"
"What a polite and agreeable car! Does it always repeat the name of the lady who is riding in it?"
"It's going to after this; it's always going to say 'Peggy—Peggy—Peggy— Peggy!' Just as my heart has been saying it ever since I found you first that day under the magnolia. 'Peggy—Peggy—Peggy!'—over and over."
She laughed softly and amusedly.
"You find amusement in that?" he asked, piqued.
"No, indeed; what you said was very pretty. I was only thinking of a little tot I met once on a train. I was spending a month in the summer with some friends in Virginia and we went over to Berryville for the horse show. Across the car from me was a quaint little girl in a funny little home-made dress. She sat squarely in the middle of the seat, with a bag beside her, and as the train rattled and thumped along she swayed back and forth in time to the song of the wheels, her eyes on space and a seraphic smile on her dear little face. And as she bobbed back and forth she kept intoning just loud enough for me to hear: 'Oh—how—I—love—old—Bae—ville,—old—Bae—ville,—old—Bae—ville! Oh—how—I—love—old—Bae—ville,—old—Baeville,—old—Bae—ville!' Wasn't it dear? I wish, though, I could say Berryville just the way she did. She kept it up for goodness only knows how long! And then, at 'Baeville' a nice, plump little mother and a grinning, awkward big brother bore her off all smiles and eager questioning."
Peggy, swinging back and forth on the low seat, had mimicked the child so well that Gordon, though a little hurt and chagrined, had to laugh sympathetically. "The dear little kid," he murmured.
Peggy said "There!" in a strange tone and he looked at her sharply. "What?" he questioned.
She was silent a moment. Then,
"I suppose you'll think me silly," she said finally, "but that story is really a test, Mr. Ames. And you said just the right thing. And" she looked at him, frankly smiling and approving,—"I'm not afraid of you any more!"
"Afraid of me! Were you ever?" he asked.
"Um; a little, I guess; just about that much." She held up a gloved hand in the half-dark, thumb and finger scarcely apart. He was silent a moment.
"I wonder," he said at last, "if you were as afraid of me as I've been of you."
"Afraid of me!" she exclaimed, unconsciously mimicking him. "Oh, but that's flattering! Fancy any one—at least, any one six feet tall—being afraid of me!"
"I was—perhaps am, Peggy-in-the-Rain. Afraid and—yes, a little bit angry with you. Do you know that you're the first person, man or woman, who has ever made me—miserable?"
"Poor Mr. Ames!" she exclaimed mockingly. "I wonder"
"What?"
"Whether that's a compliment—or—or what Jim Crandall calls an 'asparagus'!"
"It seems to me this Jim Crandall is occupying a large place in your thoughts this evening."
"Jim? He's a dear!" she replied lightly. "And he's quite the smartest reporter on the Row. I told you how he dug up the real murderer in that case I spoke of. But he's done cleverer things than that even. Three years ago when we had the ballot-box stuffing scandal"
"Oh, hang Jim Scandal—I mean Crandall!"
They laughed together, Gordon a trifle ruefully.
"It's no joke, Peggy. I can't stand hearing you even talk about any one else." He turned suddenly. "Look here," he demanded, his voice dropping, "is there any one else, Peggy?"
"Any one else?" she repeated lightly.
"Yes, any one else. Is there?"
"No," she answered soberly, "there is no one else. And—there is no one."
He took his hand from the wheel and placed it over hers, folded in her lap under the cloak. "Are you certain, Peggy?"
She nodded slowly. "I don't pretend to not understand you," she replied gravely. "I like you. I'm here now because I like you. But—if that's not enough you must take me home again, or, at least, not try to see me again."
"It is not enough, and you know it, Peggy," he replied hotly. "And you knew it when you came this evening. I thought you were beyond quibbling!"
There was a moment's silence. Then, "No woman is beyond what you call quibbling, Mr. Ames," she said. "But if I'm to be quite honest, why, yes, I did know. And I wonder—why I came!"
"Wasn't it because—you cared—a little, Peggy?" he whispered.
"Was it?" she asked thoughtfully. "If I cared would I have come?" She laughed to herself. "Why try to fathom a woman's reason for doing a thing, Mr. Ames? We are handicapped from birth with an infinite capacity for doing the wrong thing."
"Then—you don't care?" he persisted.
"For you—in that way?" she asked. "What can I answer? If I say no—perhaps it won't be true. If I say yes I'm confessing my weakness and wrongness."
"I can't see that!"
"You don't care to. If I really did care I should know better than to come with you to-night. You see that, don't you?"
"If you care, Peggy, why not come with me?"
There was no answer for a moment. The car ran swiftly, almost noiselessly between country walls and farms. Overhead the sky was luminous with stars and in their faces a damp breeze hinted of the sea.
"I'll tell you," she said at last. She was looking straight ahead at the road that rushed toward them in the broad glare of the searchlights, and he surmised rather than discerned the little pucker on her brow. "May I?"
"Yes," he muttered.
"I've seen a good deal of—what we call life, Mr. Ames, and so I'm not—exactly ignorant. Perhaps I oughtn't to say these things to you. I suppose I couldn't if it were light. But it's dark, and I—somehow, in spite of the fact that I've been a little afraid of you sometimes, I—I think you're nice, if you know what I mean by that." She seemed to be groping for her words there beside him. He nodded. She must have seen it, for she went on with more confidence. "You say you like me—no, love me. You see, I'm being quite frank. Perhaps you do. Of course, I don't pretend to know much about love. I've seen a good many kinds, but it has never—never touched me. So since there are so many kinds of love—or, because this love has so many different aspects—I'm ready to believe that you do love me. And I think I care for you. Perhaps not—not in quite the same way. I don't know. It is all quite new and different and—and a little bit scary. But I think I do care some. And perhaps if—if this sort of thing went on; if we saw each other, I mean; why, perhaps I'd really come to care for you a great deal."
"Go on," he said quietly as she stopped.
"Yes. Well, don't you see that's the difficulty? If you could just do all the caring and I—could stay as I am and we could be quite contented together like this, why, it would be pleasant, wouldn't it? But I suppose we couldn't, could we?"
"No," he said hoarsely.
"I suppose not." She sighed. "Then it would mean that—that if I cared for you I'd have to" She was silent. Finally, "I don't think it is so much what we call disgrace that I'd hate. It would be the contempt I'd feel for myself—afterwards. For there'd be an afterwards. There always is, I guess. You see," she turned for the first time and smiled across the darkness, "you see I haven't said anything about marriage, Mr, Ames."
He was silent.
"Well," she went on presently, "there it is, I suppose—no, I know that I shouldn't have come to-night. I knew it when I consented. Don't ask me why I came. Perhaps—perhaps I wanted a little pleasure. There isn't so much. Perhaps" her voice faltered—"perhaps it was because—just because I do care—a little."
"Peggy!" he murmured longingly.
"At least you must own that I did try to keep you away. Even that first day there in the woods I seemed to know. And I've played traitor at last—to both of us. For you'll blame me, won't you?"
"Never! There is no blame on either side, Peggy-in-the-Rain. I love you, sweetheart, with every bit of me, and you love me, dear. Isn't happiness something? Is there so much of it in your life that you can turn your back on this? And we could be very happy, dear. For you there would be no more running around the streets, no more nosing about for—for murders. There's almost nothing you couldn't have, dear"
"Please!"
"You're right! I had no business talking that way. And yet all that does help to make happiness, Peggy-in-the-Rain."
"Oh, I wonder! Tell me, you have so much, Mr. Ames, are you happy, really and truly happy?"
"To-night, yes."
"But other times; usually; are you?"
"Is any one ever always happy? Isn't life made up of happy moments and unhappy moments, Peggy? And moments when—when we just go along without being one way or the other? I suppose I'm as happy as most fellows"
"But if wealth and all the enjoyments that wealth can buy can't make one happy every day"
"You're right, dear, it isn't wealth that brings happiness; it's love."
"Is it? I wonder again."
"Don't you think we could be happy together, Peggy? I'd be so very good and kind to you, sweetheart, if you'd only let me! We could go away together if you liked; the whole world is open to us. Couldn't we be happy, Peggy?"
"If—if I cared for you as you want me to, yes, for—for as long as it lasted. But"
"It would last, dear! You're the only woman I've ever really cared about. Will you please believe that? I've been in love—or what seemed love at the time—before; once or twice. I've never—I've kept pretty straight, dear. I'd like you to believe that, too. I'm glad I have now. Perhaps it wasn't any great merit, for I suspect that there's a little of the Puritan in me, enough to keep me—fairly decent. It would last, Peggy. Don't you think it would?"
"Perhaps. One would—would have to risk that. Every woman does."
"I suppose you are thinking that—I might marry. You've been frank with me and I'll be frank with you, dear. Well, I don't want to marry; not for a long while, at any rate. Some day—yes, I suppose I shall. When I do it will be a merger rather than a marriage. My mother is ambitious for me, ambitious for the family. It has always, since I was a mere toddler, been an understood thing that my marriage was something in which she was to have the final say. My father had that idea, too. When it comes it will be the joining of the Ames wealth to another fortune as large. She and I—whoever she is—will be merely pawns in the game. It will be just one of a score of such marriages you and I know of. So there's that. Even if I should marry, dear, it would bring no rival to you in my heart."
"I'm glad you told me about—your mother. It makes it a little easier. She doesn't consider hearts, does she?"
"She made just such a marriage herself, Peggy, and it turned out happily. Perhaps she thinks such marriages stand just as good a chance of bringing happiness as the other kind. I don't know. We've never talked about it; the event has always been remote. She is a very good mother, one of the very best, Peggy, and she's wise."
"I shouldn't have criticised her," said Peggy. "Perhaps she is right."
"At all events, I believe she thinks she is," he answered. "I suppose my rôle looks rather a mean one. Probably you are thinking that a man might choose for himself"
"No, I wasn't." She shook her head. "I understand. A big fortune is a sort of trust, I suppose, and those who possess it aren't free to—to do as they will."
"That, at least, is the way my folks look at it. And the same view is taken by other families. Where it will end, God only knows! My mother seems to believe that when all the wealth of the country is at last in the hands of a few the millennium will be here. I confess I haven't her faith in the—the goodness of humanity. Here's our place. I hope you will like it, dear."
An avenue of young maples wound off from the broad road, and at the end of it lights twinkled welcomingly. Gordon turned the car in and ran in silence over the crunching gravel. At the entrance, where two liveried attendants hurried down the steps, Peggy laid a hand on Gordon's arm.
"I'd like," she said, "to forget now for the rest of the evening. Don't you think we could?"
"I can't forget that I love you, Peggy-in-the-Rain, and want you terribly. But I'll try not to say so if you like."
"Please. I want to—to forget all the problems if I can. I want to just—just be happy for a while."
His hand closed over her hand on his arm. "I believe, dear," he whispered in a voice that was not quite steady, "I believe you are making me love you so much that I'm getting to care more for your happiness than my own. Can love be as unselfish as that, really?"
"I don't know," she faltered, "but—I'm afraid so!"
XV
HEY dined almost alone in a corner of the glassed-in porch. Tubs of palms had been placed about their table and screened them effectively from the other diners. From indoors the strains of an orchestra came softly. Through the glass the waters of the Sound were dimly visible in the starlight, with here and there a ship's lantern pricking the purple darkness with an orange flame. There were flowers on the table, white lilacs and pink roses. The head waiter seated them, gave his orders in undertones to two flurried underlings and presented a slip to Gordon.
"This is what I had arranged, Mr. Ames. Is there anything else, sir? Anything you'd like changed?"
"Not a thing, Burke. It seems perfect."
"Thank you, sir." The head seemed really pleased. "And the wine?"
Gordon glanced again and looked across. "I presume you like a sweet wine?" he asked.
"I think I'd rather not have any, if you don't mind," she answered hesitantly.
"Really? Then make that a pint, Burke. Or, wait. Would you prefer claret, Peggy? Or a sauterne?"
"Nothing, thank you."
"Not even a cocktail?" he begged.
"Yes, I think I'd like that; just a weak one."
"Clover Club?"
"Or a Palmetto," she said demurely.
"I'm afraid they don't know that here," he laughed. "Two Clover Clubs, Burke, and just a pint of the '93."
"You telephoned?" she asked when the head had gone.
"Yes. One has to here. It is so far out of the way."
"Then you were pretty sure I'd come, weren't you?"
"No, I was not sure at all. I only played it safe."
"If I hadn't come what would you have done?"
"I don't know. I'd have been horribly disappointed, though. I suppose I'd have telephoned out here and told them to chuck the dinner in the Sound."
"And then?" she persisted.
"Spent the evening thinking about you and—and swearing at you, always most politely." They laughed together. Then she sighed, smiled and, leaning back in her chair, surveyed the place through the branches of the plants.
"It's very pretty," she said. "And what makes it more delightful is that I haven't the least idea where I am? Of course, that, I suppose, is the Sound?"
"No," he answered, shaking his head gravely, "that's the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Lyons."
"And this is Nice?"
"Mentone. We go on to Nice in the morning."
"And Monte Carlo? I've always wanted to see Monte Carlo."
"I had planned for three or four days there," he replied questioningly. She nodded.
"And after that?"
"Well, I had thought up the Rhone and then across into Switzerland, if that pleases you."
She leaned forward eagerly, her eyes sparkling. "Switzerland! Do you really mean it? Lucerne? And Interlaken? And Mont Blanc? And—and the Matterhorn?"
"We omit nothing—as long as the car holds out."
"The car?" she questioned.
"The automobile. Have you forgotten that we travel by automobile?"
She clapped her hands softly. "How stupid I am! I had forgotten, really! I hope it does hold out, don't you? Still, we could go by train."
"No, the only way to really enjoy Switzerland is by motor. Perhaps afterwards we might slip down into Italy by rail; Lake Como, for instance, must be worth seeing. I have never been there."
"I shall enjoy the mountains more," she said thoughtfully.
They were still pretending when the waiter brought the cocktails. Gordon raised his glass to her across the flowers.
"To that day, Peggy," he said gravely.
She shook her head lightly. "I'm afraid by that time automobiles will be quite out of fashion," she replied laughingly, "and we shall have to make our trip in an aeroplane. Fancy doing the Alps in an aeroplane!"
"I'll do them in an ox-cart if you'll come with me, Peggy!"
"That would be novel! I could write a book about it, couldn't I? 'Up Mont Blanc in an Ox-Cart'; how would that do for a title? I've always wanted to write a book. I started one once and got as far as page forty, I think it was. It was only a novel. A book of travel would be much nicer."
"Tell me about it," he said with a smile. "The novel, I mean."
"I fear I've forgotten it now. It was a good many years ago. I was still under the influence of The Duchess. It was at boarding school, and I used to write at night after the lights were supposed to be out. I remember the story began at Devereux Hall, the country seat of Sir Godfrey Devereux. It was called 'Lady Leona's Secret.' My heroine was named Leona because that was the name of my best friend."
"Leona Morrill?" he asked.
"Yes; I forgot you knew. I liked her better than any of the others at St. Agnes'. I used to read the story to her as fast as I'd written a page or two, and I remember how excited she got. I think the real reason the story stopped at page forty was because we had our first quarrel then."
"She surely didn't object to being the heroine?"
"Oh, no; what girl would? But I had it arranged that Lady Leona was to marry her old sweetheart, the son of the gamekeeper, who had been to America and who comes back in the third chapter. You see, somebody—I've forgotten who now—was found dead in the copse—or is it coppice?—two years before and the gamekeeper's son was wrongly accused and had to flee. So he comes back in the third chapter so changed that nobody recognizes him. His name—oh, dear, what was his name?"
She gazed frowningly across the table.
"Gordon?" he suggested.
An expression of bewilderment came to her face.
"It was!" she exclaimed. "Gordon Lambert! Now, isn't that the funniest thing? I remember I had the hardest sort of a time finding the right name for him, and finally I came across Gordon, and it sounded nice and sort of dignified and—and manly, and I named him Gordon!"
"Heroes are always called Gordon," he responded soberly. "Just as heroines are always Peggy. And don't you think it's about time that I knew the rest of your name?"
"I haven't told you yet about our quarrel," she countered. "I had it all planned that Lady Leona and Gordon were to run across each other by accident in the park near the scene of the crime. I thought having it near the scene of the crime was rather clever. Do you?"
"Awfully."
"Thanks. And she was to recognize him with a cry and fall fainting on the velvety turf. I don't think I'd got much beyond that with the details, but in the end she was to marry him, throwing over the Earl of Devereux, who was afterwards killed leading a heroic charge in South Africa. But Leona insisted that she should marry the Earl, and didn't like Gordon a bit. I'm afraid I did make him a little priggish, but I tried to make Leona understand that it wasn't really she who was marrying him, but the character in the novel. But she had got it into her head by that time that she was Lady Leona, and just wouldn't think of Gordon for a minute. Of course, I wanted to please her, but, as I pointed out to her, if Lady Leona married Sir Godfrey Devereux there wouldn't be any plot! So we had a sort of a quarrel. It didn't last more than a day, but it dampened my enthusiasm for novel writing, and I've never tried it since."
They talked about books and writers during the fish course, and when the waiter filled Gordon's glass with champagne the latter again proposed a toast, this time laughingly.
"To the author of 'Lady Leona's Secret'!"
"Never mind," she replied, pretending offense, "you may make fun of it, but it would have been a beautiful book if it had ever got finished. There were places in it that would have brought tears to your eyes, perfectly heartbreaking passages, they were. I know, for I used to cry myself when I wrote them."
"I'd like to have known you then," he said wistfully. "I want to have always known you, Peggy. I don't like to think that you have lived twenty years"
"Twenty-three, please."
"Without me." He smiled. "I wonder how you managed, Peggy."
"It was very difficult," she sighed. "I was always conscious of a great want, Mr. Ames."
"Don't you think we could do without the 'Mr. Ames,' Peggy?" he asked.
She shook her head. "N-no, I don't think so—yet."
"Then will you tell me your name?"
"Peggy."
"Peggy what?"
"Peggy-in-the-Rain."
"Please!"
"Not to-night. You see, I want you to find me interesting, Mr. Ames, and nothing, I have been told, so interests a man as mystery. I can't hold my own with those beautiful women over there, and I certainly can't count on my costume. So I shall fascinate you by exciting your curiosity."
"You don't need to, dear. There isn't a woman here to hold a candle to you for beauty."
"Charming!" she laughed gayly.
"You don't believe it? Why, Peggy, there isn't another pair of eyes like yours in the world. They're like violets, dear, the big, blue violets that come in the fall. I've dreamed of them for weeks, Peggy-in-the-Rain! And your cheeks and your mouth, dear, and—oh, girl, I love you, love you!"
He reached a hand across the table to her, but she only shook her head, smiling a little tremulously.
"I thought—we were to forget," she whispered.
"I can't forget! I want you so much, Peggy! Won't you care a little for me? Won't you let yourself care a little, dear? You could if you would, couldn't you? A little, dear?"
Her eyes avoided him as she shook her head gently.
"You promised."
He sighed, withdrew his hand and leaned back in his chair. When, curiosity compelling, she looked up he was frowning at his cigarette.
"I'm sorry," she said penitently. "Have I hurt you?"
His face cleared. "You couldn't," he answered caressingly.
"Oh, yes, I could," she said wisely. "I wouldn't want to, but I could. Perhaps I shall."
"Yes, you could," he agreed. "You could hurt me more than any one else in the world. I suppose it's those we love who can hurt us most, Peggy."
"And who do," she sighed. Then she shook her slim shoulders and laughed. "Don't let's be sad and serious," she begged. "That's so easy any time. This ice is delicious, isn't it?"
"Is it? I'm glad if it is. I've ordered coffee. You drink it?"
"Yes. And—would it be terribly dissipated to have a glass of cordial?"
"I fancy you could live it down in time. What do you like?"
"I don't know. What do you think would be nice?"
"Crème Violette to match your eyes."
"Oh! But is it good?"
"Sickening," he answered cheerfully. "Try Benedictine." He called the waiter and gave the order. Then, "There is something," he continued musingly, "that I wanted to ask you. It was while you were telling about your novel. Now I seem to have forgotten it. Oh, I know what it was. Do you by any chance know a girl named Milburn? Margaret Milburn? She is a newspaper woman, too, I believe."
Peggy watched the waiter very intently as he poured the coffee into the tiny cups.
"Do you know what paper she is on?" she asked.
"No, I don't. She's a—well, a sort of relation; a rather distant one."
"Yes? Of course there are a good many women working on the papers," she said deprecatingly. "Does she do reporting? Or does she run a department?"
"I don't know that, either. It doesn't matter. I only wondered if you'd met her."
"Then you're not very much interested in her?"
"Not very," he answered smilingly. "Would you care if I were?"
"I'd be horribly jealous—to-night," she answered.
"Why just to-night?"
"Because to-night—is to-night."
"And to-morrow?"
She made a grimace. "To-morrow is something we don't speak of. To-morrow is work, and crowded cars and cross people and the smell of ink and headaches and—and"
"Peggy, leave it all. I want you terribly and I'll make you very happy. Look, dear, I won't ask for anything now but the right to care for you and look after you. Just trust me, girl dear. Won't you?"
She shook her head, dipping her spoon in and out of her coffee. "Don't spoil it, please. It's such a nice evening so far."
"There might be so many, many of them, Peggy," he said wistfully, "just as nice. And no more rotten newspapers and tiresome running about town. A home of your own, Peggy, with everything"
"But a wedding ring?" she asked smilingly.
He flushed. "Is that quite fair?" he muttered.
"Probably not," she replied a trifle cynically. "But are women ever—quite fair?"
"I think you could be very fair."
"Could be, yes; perhaps we all could be; but we're not very often. But I'll try to be with you. So I take it back—about the—the ring."
"No, you are right, Peggy," he said gloomily. "I'm a brute. It would serve me right if you never spoke to me again." He drained his glass and studied it a moment moodily before he pushed it away across the cloth. "I suppose the best thing for me to do is to get away and try to—forget you."
There was no answer and presently he looked across at her. She was leaning with her chin on her clasped hands, her eyes fixed inscrutably on him.
"Isn't it?" he demanded impatiently.
She lowered her gaze. "It would be best for both of us," she answered steadily.
"For both?" he exclaimed eagerly. "My God, Peggy, do you expect me to run away when you talk like that?"
"I don't expect you to run away at all," she replied, smiling gravely. "I don't think you mean to."
His eyes fell. "I would if I thought—it would do any good; if I thought I could forget you," he muttered. She shook her head.
"You won't," she said convincedly.
"It sounds as though you didn't want me to—forget you!" he challenged.
"I don't know—what I want," she answered tiredly. "I know that you ought to forget me, and that I ought to forget you; that if I see you again I'll be doing what is very unwise, very wrong. What I don't know is—what you'll do or what I'll do."
"Oh, the whole thing's dead wrong!" he exclaimed passionately. "It's all a wretched muddle. I love you, Peggy, as I've never loved another woman, as I never shall love another woman. I wish to God I were as poor as a church mouse!"
The waiter cleared the cloth for the bowls and Gordon watched him miserably. When he was gone,
"You are right," he said with a sigh. "I shan't run away. I couldn't forget you; I don't want to. No, I'm going to stay, Peggy. I—" He sought her eyes—"I am giving you fair warning, Peggy-in-the-Rain."
She smiled sadly as she lifted her gloves. "I gave myself warning that day in Aiken," she replied, "but I didn't heed it."
"Then you do care, dear?" he whispered caressingly.
She shook her head as she pulled on a glove. "I don't know. That is really true; I don't know. I've tried not to care. I don't want to care." Her fingers fumbled at their task and
"'I've tried not to care. I don't want to care.'"
her voice faltered. The blue eyes lifted to his, dark and piteous. "Oh, don't let me!" she whispered. "Please, please help me not to!"
For a long moment their eyes held. Then,
"It's too late, Peggy," he said almost sadly. Where, he wondered, was the ecstasy and triumph he had anticipated?
"It isn't!" she denied vehemently. "Not yet! You've no right to say that! I'm tired and I don't know what I'm saying" Her voice faltered into silence. She pulled at her gloves with trembling hands. "I want to go home, please," she whispered.
At the coat-rack he took her cloak from the attendant and placed it about her very tenderly. His hands rested for an instant caressingly on the slim shoulders and a faint odor from her hair reached him. Both left him dull and unmoved. She was his now, he told himself as she gathered the cloak together at the neck with unsteady hands, his for the taking, and yet the knowledge brought no leap of the pulse, no response from desire. For the first time since he had met her the sight and touch of her brought no thrill. He had the unpleasant feeling that they were utter strangers to each other. Dimly he realized that the mood would pass, but now it held him utterly, and it was with a sense of relief that he excused himself with a muttered word about cigars and entered the hall.
Waiting there at the entrance, she was in sight of a dozen tables, and aware of the curious looks fixed upon her; aware too of the whispered comments, and uncomfortably conscious of her plain dark gown and unfashionable cloak. She wanted to get out of sight, yet hardly liked to pass outside alone. In her embarrassment she dropped the little silver mesh purse she was carrying. Three attendants leaped for it eagerly. She accepted it from one of them with a smile, and the incident seemed to restore her poise. She stared back at the starers with careless, well-bred indifference; she had watched them too much not to have learned their tricks.
"You are laughing at me to yourselves," she thought, "you with your jewels and laces and paradise plumes. But I could have all that you have, and more, if I but paid the price that many of you are paying."
XVI
HALF MOON, looking pallid and decrepit like an old roué, was creeping into the sky as they I started homeward. For a ways there was little said. Gordon was still fighting the strange mood that had descended upon him, and Peggy seemed tired and listless. The car ran silently through the sea-scented night, past sleeping farms and dimly lighted hamlets, flooding its way with a far-reaching path of light that paled the weak attempt of the old moon. Presently the fresh, tingling air worked its spell on them both. Peggy roused herself with a sigh.
"It's like being in a sort of half dream," she said softly. "Everything just flows past without sound or motion. We must have come a long way from home."
"About thirty-eight miles," he answered.
Presently: "Don't you want to smoke?" she asked. "You threw away your cigar unfinished, didn't you?"
"Would you mind if I did? You're sure?"
He stopped the car in a stretch of meadow-bordered road. Afar off a dog was barking. Amongst the bushes the early crickets were shrilling. At times she thought she could hear the soft swish of the waves on some distant beach. Gordon lighted his cigar. The orange glare of the match illumining his well-featured face. He tossed the match to the road and turned toward her with a smile.
"Well?" he said.
"Well?" she smiled back. Somehow the creases seemed to have been smoothed out by that swift, silent flight, all the problems left behind. She felt passively contented and restful.
"Are you very tired?" he asked, a tender droop in his voice.
"No, not now. Riding has rested me. Only—I may go to sleep any moment."
He rested a hand on hers. Almost unconsciously hers snuggled into it.
"Do," he answered. "You'll be all right. Lean against my shoulder and I'll drive slowly."
His face bent over hers and, although she knew what was coming, she made no move to evade it, uttered no protest. Their lips met in a first kiss, a kiss that held little of passion on either side. His feeling was of tenderness and protectiveness and not a little pity; hers of mild wonder and passive content.
"I love you, sweetheart," he whispered almost reverently.
She smiled faintly in the half-darkness and closed her eyes.
Miles farther on, when he thought her asleep, she broke the long silence.
"You said to-night you thought I could be very fair," she said slowly. "Whatever happens I want you to feel that I have always meant to be. Will you try?"
"Whatever happens? Yes, I shall be sure of it, dear. But what are you thinking of? What is going to happen that might tempt me to think otherwise, Peggy?"
She made no answer for a while. Finally, "So much might happen," she replied. "I wanted you to know."
"I don't like the sound of that," he responded troubledly. "I thought—after to-night, dear, it was settled."
"Is it?" she questioned dreamily. "How can we tell? Yes, it does seem so now, doesn't it? But there's the morning—and other mornings." She shivered a little. "I hate them, don't you?"
"Some mornings," he answered with a laugh, "are extremely distasteful. But ours aren't going to be like that, Peggy, are they, dear?"
"I'd like it to be always like this," she said. "Just the darkness and the ragged old moon and the stars and the world slipping by and the wind in my face"
"And me, dear? Haven't I a place in it?"
"Yes," she answered, "I'm afraid so. Always."
"You dear!"
"But the morning—I'm afraid of it!"
"So shall I be in a moment," he muttered. Then, whimsically, "Let's keep away from it, Peggy. Let's go west and follow the night around the world. Shall we, dear?"
"Oh, yes!" she said eagerly, adding with a sigh: "If we only could!"
Ahead of them a broad lighting of the heavens showed the nearing city. He pointed it out. "We're getting close to home, Peggy."
"Where morning lives," she murmured.
"Shall we turn back? There's a long night ahead, dear. Will you come with me?" His voice fell pleadingly, "We'll go back, dear, with the moon and the breeze and the stars. Sweetheart, it is settled, isn't it? Then come with me, Peggy dear. Let's—face the morning together."
She shook her head. "No, not—yet," she answered. "I've got to be sure. I couldn't bear to make a mistake. When the morning comes I want to—to be able to face it with a smile and not—hide from it! You see, don't you?"
"But you do love me, sweetheart. You've shown me that. You've confessed it a dozen times, Peggy-in-the-Rain. Come to me, dear."
"I almost—could," she answered ponderingly.
"And so it must be that I—love you. Only—if it should prove to be just—something else! It isn't that, is it? Oh, I couldn't stand it if it were!"
"It isn't, dear, it isn't! You do love me, just as I love you; and that's better than anything in the world, Peggy; with all my heart and soul!"
"Do I?" she sighed. "I hope so—if I must. But, don't you see, I couldn't—now—without knowing, without being sure? You won't ask me, will you? I do want to be fair, really!"
He was silent a moment. Then: "No, I won't ask you, dear. You shall be sure. I want you desperately, but I'll wait for you until you are ready to come to me, Peggy."
She nodded. "Yes," she whispered, "until I know."
"And—will it be very long, dear?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said slowly. After a moment: "When we get back there—" she nodded at the brightening sky—"you'll set me down where you got me"
"At this time of night? Never!"
"Yes, please. And then you—you'll not try to see me for—for a few days."
"How many days?" he demanded resentfully.
"Three," she answered after a moment's thought. "Then I will write to you and—tell you."
"Three days? That's absurd, impossible!"
"No, it isn't. I suppose I'd better write to a club, hadn't I?"
"No, write to my home. But three days"
"I want them," she said quietly. "Three days aren't so many, are they, out of a lifetime?"
"But you're not going to change your mind, Peggy? No, I can't do that! I can't agree to it! Let me see you for a moment every day, dear, just for a moment. I—I'm afraid of those three days."
"And yet you are sure I really do—care for you! If I do, will three days alter it?"
"Not your caring, but" He was silent.
"You said you'd wait for me until I was ready," she said gently. "Do you want me—before I want to come?"
"I want you every minute," he muttered. "Each day is going to be a month, Peggy! If I only knew that, at the end, you'd be the same"
"If I only knew it I'd not ask for them."
"Well, all right," he agreed finally. "You'll write to me Saturday? You won't forget? You won't think that—perhaps it doesn't matter?"
"I'll write," she promised gravely.
And afterwards, speeding downtown through the long streets, he regretted his complaisance and would have her let him speak to her by telephone each day. But she refused, and in the end he accepted her terms with what grace he could find. But when they reached the comer he was again in revolt.
"I can't let you go this way," he said as he stood beside her on the curb. "Why, I don't even know your name, dear, nor where you live!"
"My name is Peggy," she answered with a little laugh, "Peggy-in-the-Rain; and if you don't know where I live, you know where I work. And so, if you don't hear from me Saturday, you can track me to my lair. Good night. It's been a wonderful evening, every bit of it. And you've been—very patient and—and nice with me."
"Tell me you do love me, dear," he whispered, drawing her to him in the shadow of the car.
"I do, oh, I do!" she faltered.
An instant after she tore her lips away from his with a gasp that was half a sob and fled across the street under the blue-white glare of the lights.
He watched her until she was swallowed up in the darkness of the side street, his heart pounding and his head reeling. Striving to light his cigar his trembling fingers dropped it in the street.
"Peggy," he groaned, "Peggy-in-the-Rain, what have you done to me, dear?"
XVII
EDNESDAY, Thursday and Friday were to be lived through. That was the thought that came to him first in the morning. The three days stretched before him blank and interminable. He regretted agreeing to the terms she had made. All sorts of doubts assailed him. Perhaps, after all, it had been with her merely an infatuation, a hysteria of sentiment that would wither under the first cold, gray light of morning. He had assured her that she loved him, and had believed it then, but supposing that her momentary fears had been well founded, that the love had been only a flash of passion born of the adventure, of the lights and music and the night with its wan moon and myriad stars, only a reflection of his own desire. Then to-day, or to-morrow, or the day after, would bring her counsel, and that Gordon feared. He sneered at the chivalry that had allowed her to slip away from him, even credited her with a sophistication that would allow her to find amusement in the ease with which she had evaded his importunities and escaped from a situation which, as he told himself savagely, might easily have produced different results. By the time he descended to breakfast he had worked himself into an extremely ugly mood.
But later, after a hard gallop through the Park, the soft, warm kindliness of the spring morning worked a change. He recalled her words and the brave timidity with which she had spoken, her face across the table, above the pink and white of the flowers, her eyes with the stars reflected in them. He closed his own eyes and heard again the sudden leap of passion in her voice as she had whispered, "I do! Oh, I do!" there in the black shadows of the corner; felt the ghost of that kiss on his mouth. He threw his shoulders back and drew a long breath of the scented air. He was glad, immeasurably glad that it had all happened as it had. She loved him, she was his and in her own time she would come to him under no compulsion save that of her own heart. And then, God helping him, she should never have a moment of regret. Theirs should be a marriage in the true sense. All the gold rings and mumbled words in the world could make it no more sacred, no more binding.
Afterwards he staved off doubt and the ceaseless longing for her by making plans for their future. There would be a house in town, and in the summer—well, perhaps only a nest of a bungalow somewhere in the mountains or by the shore; that should be of her choosing, but it must be so small that she would have no cares; two or three servants would be enough. He looked forward eagerly to the furnishing of the places. They would do that together. He saw them riding about town from store to store, side by side in a hansom. He paused and frowned. They would have to be circumspect. He was not going to have her pointed out in restaurants and leered at and whispered over. Well, then, perhaps not a hansom. She should have her own carriages and electric, of course. He would look to the ordering of those at once, and in one of those they could do their shopping. There was to be no expense spared; he only feared that she might restrain him in his joy of extravagance. The town house should be all that his own staid and old-fashioned home was not, a place of soft colors and shaded lights, of shimmering, silken rugs underfoot. He smiled with pleasure at the idea of having her own rooms furnished and decorated in a shade of blue to match the wonderful color of her eyes.
But before that they would steal away on the Siren. It could be done. No one, beyond the sailing master and crew, need know. Of course, ultimately every one would know; it would become for a week or two the gossip of drawing-rooms and cafés; that could not be helped; but he would delay that time as long as possible.
And equally, of course, his mother would learn of it. He was sorry for that. He had virtually promised only a fortnight or so ago that there would be no more illicit affairs. But this was different; only he knew that his mother would fail to discern the difference. He wondered whether, after all, it might not be possible to keep the affair secret. Instead of a house in town they might have one somewhere outside; perhaps in one of the towns along the shore. But reflection showed him the futility of that plan. He was too well-known to hope to escape unrecognized; besides, it would look—perhaps to Peggy herself—as though he were ashamed of her, ashamed of the attachment. No, the thing must be done decently, openly. After all, he was doing only what a dozen men in his set were doing, and doing with the tacit consent of society.
These plans for the future kept him occupied through the first two days. On Thursday, so impatient was he to see the fulfillment of them, that he started house-hunting. And late in the afternoon he found what he wanted, a three-story dwelling in one of the Fifties, just around the corner from the Avenue, an English basement house with a white marble front that had been rebuilt by a Western millionaire two years before and later abandoned as being two modest. The price was high, but Gordon was beyond thoughts of price. He instructed his broker to take an option on it, and went down to his club well satisfied.
Peter Waring dropped in presently from an afternoon affair of some sort, where he had somewhat disregarded his doctor's instructions and imbibed far from wisely. Gordon listened for a while to his maunderings and then took him home.
"Get into a cold tub, Pete," he admonished him, "and brace up. What are you doing this evening?"
"No' a thing," said Peter. "Got 'n' sussheshions?"
"Yes. Let's go to a show. I'll drop around for you at eight-fifteen, old man. Don't forget the tub."
"Nev' fear, Grordie. Always ready for lil' fun. Thash kin' hairpin I'm."
At half past eight Peter was sober but hazy. They went to a theater together and dropped into Louis Martin's for supper. Peter was all for finishing up the evening in a blaze of glory, but Gordon had no heart for it. The music affected him strangely, and he was rapidly acquiring a fine case of blues when Peter caused a diversion.
"Heard about Tommy Tupence?" he asked. "Gone home to Hingland."
"The deuce! What's wrong?"
"Chucked."
"Never!"
Peter nodded cheerfully. "A bit of a facer for Tommy, I'll bet. They say he's been pasting a few more mortgages on the old home to keep his end up here. It's a cropper for poor old Tommy, what?"
"Rather! But—why, I thought it was as good as settled!"
"Everybody did. I fancy the old gentleman is discouraged. First you, you know, and now his Lardship—or his Grease, or whatever he calls himself."
"Seen Leona since?"
"Yes, last night. Seemed very fit. She's a wonder, that girl."
"Ye-es."
"Well, ain't she?" Peter challenged.
"Of course she is. I was only wondering—why."
"Don't. It's no use. Never waste time wondering why any woman does anything. I don't know; you don't know; the women don't know."
"Wrong, Pete. They know but they can't explain so we'd understand. Well, I'm surprised."
"Same here." Peter ate his egg Benedict in silence for a few moments. Then he buried his face behind his napkin and said: "I say, Gordon, you know—I'm thinking of—of taking a chance myself."
"Are you? What sort?"
"Matrimonial."
"Still got that obsession, Peter? Found the happy partner of your woes yet?"
"I'm telling you, ain't I?" growled Peter. "She can't any more than throw me down, eh?"
"She might jump on you afterwards," replied Gordon. "They sometimes do. May I ask who 'she' is?"
"I've told you." Peter reddened. "It—it's her."
"Take your time," said Gordon patiently. "No hurry. There, now, try again, old man."
"Go to the devil! It's Leona. I told you so."
Gordon stared. Then he whistled. Then he grinned.
"You're not fooling, Pete?"
"Of course I'm not," Peter growled. "Why not, eh? Tell me why not? Isn't she a fine girl?"
"Yes, she is," replied Gordon sincerely. "She hates me like poison, but"
Peter shook his head. "No, she don't."
"Don't what?"
"Hate you. She only thinks she does."
"Well, it's a damned good imitation!"
"I know." Peter wagged his head gravely. "You don't know women for a damn, Gordon."
"And you do, you fat-head?" jeered his friend.
"Better than that, anyway. If you asked her to marry you to-morrow she'd grab you."
"If she did," replied the other grimly, "it would be so she could make my life a burden to me!"
"That's the only thing keeps me back," ruminated Peter. "If she wants you I dare say she'll turn up her nose at me, what?"
"If she does! Don't be a fool, Pete. I tell you she can't stand me around her."
"All right; your way. But—now, honest, would you try?"
"Why not, as you say? Only—I never knew you cared for her, Pete."
"We-ell, it's been sort of gradual. It's like drinking."
"Eh?"
"Starts in easy and you think you can quit any time you want to, and then you try and you can't let go to save your life. See what I mean? That way with me."
"Pete, you told me not over a year ago that you thought Leona a stunning girl, but that you'd as soon think of marrying the dome of—of Saint Paul's, I think it was."
Peter had the grace to blush. "My mistake," he said. "Anyway, I'd rather marry the dome of Saint Paul's than any one else I know. Only thing is, as I say, if she's still stuck on you"
"She isn't! That's your silly imagination. Ever mentioned the matter to her, Pete?"
"About"
"Yes, about wanting to marry her."
"No, not exactly; not in words, you know. I've been keeping her in flowers pretty regularly for a month or so; ever since she got back from the South, you know. I guess she has a hunch how it is with me."
"Unless she's a lot more dense than I think she is," Gordon laughed. "Well, go in and win, old man. Here's luck!"
Peter drank gloomily. "How about you?" he asked. "You still thinking of getting married?"
"Only thinking," replied Gordon gayly.
"Hm; I wish you would."
"The devil you do! A case of misery loves company, eh?"
"No, but if you got married she'd see it wasn't any use. Then maybe she—she'd consider me, what?"
"Pete, you're a silly ass," said Gordon affectionately. "Take my word for it that Leona Morrill loves me just as much as she loves a snake."
Peter shook his head, unconvinced. "Maybe. Anyhow, I guess I'll take a chance."
"Tell you what I'll do, Pete. I'll bet you a hundred she accepts you. What do you say?"
Peter cheered up. "Take you," he said promptly. "Make it five if you like."
"No, I don't want your money, old man. It's just for the sport."
Peter gravely made a memorandum in his book. "Hope I lose it," he said.
"If you do," said Gordon, "you'll be able to afford it."
"Look here," truculently, "if you think it's her money"
"Soothe yourself, Pete. I don't. What you're after is position."
"Go to the devil!" responded Peter with a grin.
XVIII
EDNESDAY and Thursday passed laggingly. Friday found Gordon nervous, unstrung, alternating between a calm certainty that all would come right and a despairing certainty that Peggy was lost to him. Hoping, but scarcely expecting that she might write to him to-day instead of waiting for the morrow, he stayed at home all the afternoon, breaking a business appointment to do so, and watched for the postman. As the time passed his nervousness became an irritability so unusual that Hurd became worried and dogged him solicitously until Gordon, with a flare of temper, damned him away. After the last delivery had been made he slammed out of the house and walked through a drizzle to the nearest club, where, by two in the morning he had managed by execrable playing, to lose many dollars at auction.
By Saturday morning the drizzle had become a very healthy downpour. Meaning to arise early, he overslept and reached the dining-room at half-past nine. The mail was heaped beside his plate. His heart, none too steady at best to-day, seemed to turn completely over as he sank into his chair under the sympathetic and comprehending eyes of Hurd. He pushed the grapefruit away and took up the Herald.
"Coffee, Hurd," he said. "Nothing else, please."
"The kidneys are very nice, sir," ventured Hurd.
"Nothing else, Hurd," responded Gordon in a tone that was final. Hurd poured the coffee gravely. Then he cunningly moved the toast-rack nearer.
"You may go," muttered Gordon, glancing unseeingly at the first page of the paper. Hurd retired noiselessly. Gordon gulped half the coffee, seized the letters and went to the window. There, with hands that trembled, he went over them in feverish hurry. Circulars, bills, announcements, broker's communications fell unheeded to the carpet. He had never seen Peggy's handwriting, and his first draw was a blank, an invitation to dinner. Impatiently he tossed it aside and again shuffled over the remaining letters. One, addressed in an easy flowing hand on a cheap business-shape envelope, was thrice disregarded, and only when he had been disappointed four times did he open it, already concluding that she had written, if at all, too late for the first delivery. The single sheet of cheap gray paper inside didn't fit the envelope and Gordon scarcely troubled to glance at the signature. But what he saw was sufficient to rivet his attention.
He let the note drop, fumbled for his cigarette case, and, not until he had sent a half-dozen clouds of blue smoke at the gray, rain-blurred window did he rescue the letter and, with pounding heart, read it.
Sincerely,
Peggy.
XIX
HE Siren lay in Gloucester harbor, anchored in four fathoms off the Field Rocks, with the wooded slopes of Fresh Water Cove rising green to the hot glare of an August sky. Across the blue water lay Ten Pound Island, bare and sun-baked and rock-girdled, the squat lighthouse agleam in the heat. The tide was going out over the bar, past the end of the long, gray breakwater, and as the yacht swung slowly around, the town, wandering helter-skelter over its granite hills, moved into the vision of the two men who, for an hour past, had had the after-deck to themselves.
For three weeks the Siren had sauntered up and 'down the coast from Shelter Island to Eastport. This morning she had come down from Portsmouth. To-morrow she was to make the run across the Bay to Provincetown. Four days later she was due at Newport, where Mrs. Ames was domiciled for the summer in the old-fashioned wooden palace that Gordon's father had built almost thirty years ago. The occupants of the luxurious staterooms had changed from time to time during the cruise and now of the party of eight on board only Gordon himself remained of those who had set sail from Newport. Mortimer Poole and his bride—he had married Sallie Craig in Philadelphia in June—were ashore with Mrs. Craig's sister, Gwen, and Lieutenant Haight, on leave of absence from the Torpedo Station at Newport. Mrs. Morrill and Leona were below, doubtless evening up for sleep lost last night when an affair at the Wentworth had kept all hands on shore until three o'clock.
Stretched in deck chairs under the green and white awning lay Gordon and Peter, Gordon a little more tanned, a little thinner, a little graver than in May; Peter a little stouter and much more contented. His engagement to Leona had been announced in June and Peter declared that they were now on their trial honeymoon. They had joined the Siren at Bar Harbor four days ago, and Mrs. Morrill, a poor sailor, had been lamenting the fact ever since. Since the engagement Peter had formed the habit of wearing a perpetual grin, which made his round face look more like a jovial full moon than ever. Gordon had grown used to the grin, but he still found Peter's rhapsodizing on the subject of Leona rather trying. If allowed to, Peter would talk Leona from morning till dark. He had been doing it this afternoon, and Gordon, gazing across the harbor, had good-naturedly seemed to listen. As a matter of fact, he had heard nothing that Peter had said for a half hour. Eight bells struck, and Gordon, coming out of his day-dreaming, broke into the middle of one of Peter's glowing periods without knowing it.
"She's up a half this morning," he said.
Peter stared, open-mouthed. "Who?" he asked.
"C. and W."
"Oh!" Peter took a sip of the contents of the tall glass at his side in an effort to readjust his thoughts. "That's good. I told you so, too. I suppose even Lovering's come 'round by now, eh?"
Peter smiled. "Lovering still regards me as a socialist, but I fancy he thinks me less dangerous than at first."
"You could have knocked me down with a feather the day I took up the paper and read that you'd started in to oust those Johnnies. I thought you'd forgotten all about it."
"No, but I funked it. Then—then something happened and I had to find something to do or—or jump into the river. Sb I did that. It was a good fight." Gordon smiled reminiscently. Then he sighed. "But it was easier than I thought it was going to be. Old Stimson disappointed me. He threw up his hands too early. As a matter of fact I suppose the Commerce Commission inquiry had them scared anyway."
"A good joke on them," chuckled Peter. "The Commission let us down darned easy, what?"
"Too easy by half. They ought to have made us sweat blood. The joke of it is that the Street still thinks the reorganization was a sop to the Government; that it was understood we were to make changes if the Commission would be lenient."
"That so? I say, Gordon, I'm not much of a business Johnnie, you know. What about these darned meetings? I got a notice last week of one. Do I have to trot back to New York?"
"No. Send in your proxy made out to me or Sewall. That'll do just as well."
Peter sighed his relief. "Well, any time you really want me to—to do anything," he said vaguely, "you let me know, eh? Of course, it would be rather a bore to go back there in this weather, what?"
"It would, Pete. That reminds me. I'm going over the line in September. Why don't you and Leona and Mrs. Morrill come along? I'll make you comfortable."
"Rippin'! I'd like to, old man. I don't know, though, about Leona and her mother. I say, you—er—you say something about it, eh? "
"All right. Anyway, even if they don't want to come, you'll join me, won't you?"
Peter looked grave until he caught Gordon's twinkle. Then he grinned again. "Oh, I don't mind your jokes, old chap. Just you wait till you get caught!" He was silent a minute. Then, lowering his voice, he said: "By the way, remember that time I told you about her?"
"About who?"
"Leona. You know; I told you one night in some restaurant or other that I was thinking of doing the Steve Brodie; recollect?" Gordon nodded. "Well, say, old chap, I made a crack about her caring for you. Remember that? You said I was wrong, but I didn't believe it. Well, you weren't!"
"I'm never wrong," said Gordon gravely.
"Shut up! But I—asked her; see?"
"The devil you did! Rather cheeky, wasn't it?"
"N-no, not the way I did it. I used diplomacy." Gordon smiled. "I told her I'd heard it said, you know, that she was sort of sweet on you, but that you said there was nothing to it. Of course, I put it carelessly; see?"
"Peter, without desiring to appear unduly inquisitive, may I ask you to repeat just what she said, in her own language?"
"Of course. She said you were dead right and that folks were always making cracks about things they didn't"
"Peter."
"Eh?"
"I said, her own words."
"Oh, well, I don't remember just how she said it. But that was the idea. And she said that if you were the only man in the world" Peter stopped, reddening.
"She wouldn't marry me?"
"Er—no, not at all, old man! Nothing as—as vulgar."
"Then what?"
Peter sought desperately for words. "Well—er—only that she—she'd die an old maid!"
"Thanks! I feel better," Gordon laughed. "Anyway, I'm glad your doubts are laid at rest, Pete. Otherwise I suppose you'd have gone through life viewing me with black suspicion, eh?"
"Rot! That's not it at all. Only what bothered me was how the deuce she could care anything for me, do you see, if—if she cared for you. I dare say I was an ass to believe what I heard."
"You were, Peter. Have a fresh drink?"
"No, thanks. You see, I'm just getting that liver of mine out of pickle, and I don't—what's that?" Peter struggled to his feet, beaming as Mrs. Morrill and Leona came out on deck. They were both dressed for shore.
"Oh, here you are, Mr. Ames," said Mrs. Morrill. "I thought perhaps you had both gone on shore and left us alone away out here on the ocean. Thanks, Peter, but I shall take this straight chair. It isn't so hard to get out of. Mr. Ames, do you suppose somebody could put us ashore? I want to get a few things at the shops. I dare say—her gaze wandered seaward along the horizon—"I dare say there are shops?"
"I think you'll be able to find anything you want if you don't want what they haven't got, Mrs. Morrill." He gave orders for the launch.
"I've had such a delightful rest," pursued Mrs. Morrill. "Do you know, I felt rather done up after last night? So I lay down and almost went to sleep!"
"I slept a whole hour," observed Leona. "I also snored. If you hadn't been asleep, mamma, you'd have heard me."
Peter looked pained. Gordon smiled. "You, too," he asked, "have shopping to do?"
Leona nodded. "I suppose so. A woman can always shop, you know."
"You'll come with us, Peter?" asked Mrs. Morrill. "I hardly know whether I ought to ask you, Mr. Ames."
"Thanks, but I think I'll stay aboard. Peter will show you where the stores are. He's never been in Gloucester, I believe, and so will be an excellent guide. Leona and I are staying here."
"Leona? Why, I thought, dear, you especially wanted"
"I've changed my mind, mamma," Leona tossed her sunshade onto a chair. "Run along. Peter, be careful of mamma at the landing. She has a passion for falling down."
Peter looked his disappointment, but departed happily a moment later, Leona smiling down on him from the railing. Then, as the launch puffed away, she seated herself comfortably and removed her hat.
"Allow me," said Gordon.
She yielded it to him and pulled at her gloves. The steward bore away hat and parasol and an order for two rickeys. Gordon seated himself at the other side of the table with its bowl of nasturtiums and its litter of newspapers and magazines. Leona folded her gloves and then glanced across at him calmly.
"Well?" she asked.
Gordon offered his cigarette case and she shook her head. He lighted up, flicked the match over the rail and smiled.
"I wonder," he said, "why you're doing it."
"Doing"
"Marrying Peter."
"Oh. Do you really want to know?" He nodded. "Well, then, because he is a man, in spite of his laziness, and because I hope to be able to care a great deal for him in time."
"I'm glad," he said simply. "I rather love old Peter."
"Just Peter, please."
Gordon looked his inquiry.
"Because after I marry him he will not be 'old Peter' any more to any one. Have you noticed any change in him yet, Gordon?"
"He is supremely happy, Fair Lady.*"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing else? I hoped you had. The fact is, Gordon, that Peter is changing and doesn't know it. A year from now you won't think of calling him 'old Peter.' Peter's dawdling days are almost over." She was silent a moment. "Poor old Peter," she murmured.
They laughed together.
"He won't like it at first," she reflected. "He's so used to being a lizard, you see."
"A lizard?"
"Yes. Haven't you ever watched them? They sit in the sunlight, with their eyes closed, all day long. That's what Peter does and always has done. I haven't told him yet."
"Don't," laughed Grordon. "He wouldn't believe it."
"I'm wondering what to make of him." Leona frowned a little. "He isn't brilliant, Peter isn't. What do you think of Wall Street?"
"For Peter?" Gordon shook his head. "I doubt it."
"So do I. Of course there will be money enough, but just to lose it doesn't signify much. Have you ever heard him express any enthusiasm for anything?"
"Nothing but you, Leona."
"Well, I shall have to think of something. I won't marry a lizard."
"He knows horses pretty well," said Gordon presently,
Leona raised her brows. "Oh, my dear Gordon, is it as bad as that? Think of all the worthless folks you and I know who 'know horses'! It's appalling!"
There was a short silence. The steward brought the rickeys. Gordon finished his cigarette and tossed it overboard. Then,
"I suppose you know he was a little bit jealous of you?" she asked.
"Yes, he intimated as much—without meaning to. He also informed me half an hour ago that it was all a mistake; that you had reassured him by saying that if I were the last man on earth you wouldn't marry me." Gordon smiled across at her. She nodded calmly.
"Yes, we have to lie sometimes. As a matter of fact, Gordon, you and I both know that I'd have jumped at you any day in the week."
"And been supremely miserable ever afterwards," he said gayly.
"Yes, I'd have had to risk that. Still—" She pondered a moment, studying him. "Why didn't you want me, Gordon?"
"Aren't you putting the screws on a bit hard, Leona?" he asked with a grimace.
"Oh, that—Don't answer if you don't care to. It's perfectly safe now, I assure you. Besides, I—recovered some time ago."
"I don't think that was difficult to see," he said with a smile. "Just how bad do you hate me?"
"Not a bit, I never did. But you wouldn't let me—care for you, and I had to do something—or pretend to." She laughed lazily. "I fancy it helped, Gordon."
"The funny part of it is," he said, "that if it weren't for Pete I'd—try my luck."
"It wouldn't be any good, my dear. I've recovered, as I say. Besides"
"Well?"
"You don't want me; you want—any one, Gordon. You're lonely and down in the mouth. Take my advice and be careful for a while or you'll find yourself married and done for. It's horribly easy. I almost did it myself."
Gordon smiled assent, thinking of the banished Tommy Tupence. Neither spoke for a minute. A crisp, cool breeze ruffled across the harbor, bringing grateful relief from the humid heat of the day. At last Leona, setting down her glass, said:
"You didn't keep me prisoner here to talk about Peter. What is it, Gordon?"
"You remember the little boy who broke into the family conversation with 'Now let's talk about something interesting. Let's talk about me'?"
"Very well, let's talk about you."
Gordon, leaning forward, studied his clasped hands a moment soberly. "I guess," he said finally, "you know pretty well what the subject uppermost in my mind is, Leona. I don't ask you where she is. I only want to know that she's well and—contented."
"Gordon, I wish I could tell you, but I can't. I had only a note from her in May, wasn't it? saying that she was leaving New York, and saying that she would write to me again. She never has yet. I've wondered why she went. I've wanted to ask you, but—well, I hardly dared."
"She went—" He stopped and viewed her doubtfully. "I want to tell you, Leona; I'd like to tell you the whole thing; only—I wonder if she would wish it. God knows I've ached to tell some one for months. You were her friend; she cared a lot for you; she told me so once. What do you think, Leona?"
"I can't decide that, Gordon. If you want to tell me and it will not hurt her, why, do so. She shall never know from me."
"Well, she went because she had got to caring too much for me, Leona. That sounds a rotten thing to say, but it's the truth. She begged me not to try to find her. Well, I didn't. That's the only decent thing I can say for myself. I drove her away from home, and for all I know she may be starving somewhere this minute."
But Leona shook her head. "She isn't, Gordon. She's too clever a girl for that. She is probably on a newspaper somewhere. I'm certain that if she were ever really in distress she'd come to me or write. I wouldn't worry about that."
"I hope you're right," he answered. "Sometimes I dream the most—the most damnable things about her. Do you believe there is anything in dreams?"
"Only indigestion," she replied lightly. "I suppose, Gordon, you didn't offer her marriage? Don't answer if you'd rather not."
"How could I?" he asked with a gesture of helplessness. "You must understand how I am placed. God knows if I had only myself to consider I'd crawl on my hands and knees to her and beg her to marry me."
She smiled faintly. "You men are strange creatures, aren't you? If the tables had been turned, Gordon; if it had been Peggy that was rich, do you suppose she'd have considered any one else?"
"Don't make it harder," he muttered.
Leona laughed scornfully. "You're all cowards, my dear Gordon, every last one of you, in the final assay."
"Is it cowardice to consider my duty, my father's wishes, my mother's happiness?"
"Yes! It's always cowardice to break a woman's heart rather than overstep conventions!"
"I don't speak of conventions. Conventions be damned! But my mother"
"Your mother would be disappointed, Gordon; she might even be very unhappy for, let us say, six months, although that's a liberal estimate. To save that you send poor Peggy into exile with—well, hearts don't break, Gordon, but I've a notion they fracture; and the doctors say a fracture is worse than a break. My dear, men are brave enough physically; I dare say you'd have gone through fire and water for her; but they're arrant cowards morally. Gordon, if I cared for a man who was poor or disgraced or anything else do you think I'd fold my arms like Napoleon at Waterloo or Austerlitz, or wherever it was, and prate nobly about duty? Not much! I'm just as fond of money and what money can buy, of position and what position can give as any woman in the world, but if the right man came along and crooked his little finger I'd"
Up went one of Leona's feet in a whisk of lace and a white pump flew across the deck.
"—Kick the conventions into a cocked hat and follow him!"
Gordon stared. "Good Lord, Leona!" he exclaimed.
She laughed grimly. "I know. You're terribly surprised. Leona Morrill is supposed to be a lump of ice and a block of marble and—and a piece of wood all rolled into one. But I'm not. I'm just the same as every other woman when it comes to—to the fundamental. And with a woman the fundamental isn't duty or decency or position or wealth; it's love! Will you please hand me my pump?"
"I beg your pardon," he murmured, as he rescued it.
"I beg yours," she laughed. "I've doubtless shocked you terribly?"
"No, but you've surprised me. After this when I think I know a little about women, Leona, I'll take myself gently but firmly by the slack of my trousers and conduct myself around behind the barn and kick myself into a suitably humble frame of mind."
"My dear Gordon, if men would only stop talking about understanding women and realize that a woman is only a supersensitized—is there such a word?—a supersensitized man they'd have no trouble understanding us. The mistake comes in starting out with the preconceived notion that we're something utterly different. We aren't. We're just like you, only—only more so!"
"I'll try to remember," he answered with a smile. Then, "So you think I acted the coward, Leona?"
She nodded vehemently. "Yes, I do, but I have no idea that I can make you see it. Still, perhaps you didn't love her enough. I'm liable to take things rather seriously, you see."
"Love her! Good heavens!" he groaned.
"But now—not quite so much?"
"More, much more, Leona. I thought I cared—a good deal—before; and I did. But after she went away—I began to really understand how much—she meant to me. Oh, but what's the good of talking?"
"Lots. Talking always helps, a fact recognized by my sex, Gordon, and ignored by yours. Besides, we started out to talk, didn't we? So let's talk. May I have one of your cigarettes, please? Do you know, Gordon, I believe it was your taste in cigarettes that first pleased me with you?"
Presently she continued, watching a blue swirl of smoke blow to leeward. "Did you ever learn her name?" she asked.
"No, I never tried. Damn it—I beg your pardon!—but sometimes I wonder if I wasn't a fool to obey her."
"You mean not try to find her?" Leona considered, revolving her cigarette between shapely fingers. "N-no, I don't think you were. I know Peggy fairly well and I'm pretty sure she meant it, Gordon. She—she has more courage and determination than many girls." She was silent a moment. Then, with a sigh, "Why didn't you believe what I told you in Aiken, Gordon, and let her alone? I told you she was not—not the sort of girl to take you without the formality prescribed for such cases."
"The mischief was already done," he muttered. "I—I was fond of her the first time I saw her; that day in the woods."
"Fond! Couldn't you have denied yourself that much? You'd have saved yourself a lot of trouble."
"I'm not sure I wouldn't do it again, if I knew what I know now," he replied. "I'm rotten miserable, and yet"
"But does it occur to you to think that possibly she may be unhappy, too?"
"Yes. And yet—oh, I don't know! Perhaps she's all over it by now."
"Let us hope so," she said. He flashed a look at her. "No? You don't agree with me? You'd rather have her unhappy?"
"No—oh, I hardly know, Leona. Only, if she really cared for me, why couldn't she have"
He paused. "God knows I'd have been good to her. There'd never have been another woman, Leona."
"Um; perhaps. The trouble would have been that if there had been another woman she'd have had no chance. After all, marriage has that advantage; it gives her the right to fight. I don't think I'd blame Peggy for not falling into your arms on your terms, Gordon. Perhaps you would have been always kind and always cared, but she may have doubted it. I should myself. She'd have been giving a good deal for just the honor of being pointed out as 'Gordon Ames's girl,' wouldn't she?"
"I've never blamed her. If I'd felt that way I'd have followed her. She was right. Circumstances were against us, that's all."
"Circumstances," she mused. "Well, perhaps you're right. Perhaps I've been too hard on you. We are tied, we folks with money. Only"
"Only?" he prompted.
She smiled whimsically. "Only I wish I had your chance, Gordon!"
"You could do no more than I've done," he said tiredly.
"Possibly not. I don't know. It's easy to lay out a course for somebody else, isn't it? Is that the Siren's launch coming down the harbor?"
Gordon looked. "Yes. I hope I haven't bored you too much?"
"Not a bit. I'm glad we've had this talk. It's cleared things up a bit for me, Gordon. I've been thinking rather hard things of you. I'm glad to know that—you really cared for her. If I ever learn anything about her—and I shall sooner or later, I'm sure—I'll tell you what I can—if you still want to know."
"Thanks. I shall—always."
"Well—" She watched the approaching launch, its smokestack aglitter in the lengthening rays of the sun. "Try to forget some of the things I've said, Gordon," she went on. "I'm afraid they have been things an unmarried woman is supposed not to even think of. And—and don't think because I spouted of the ideal lover that Peter deserves your pity. He doesn't. Peter will get more than many men get when they take unto themselves a wife."
"I'm not pitying him, Leona," Gordon replied. They both had arisen and walked to the rail. "I think I'm envying him." He took her hand. "And I think I was a fool, Leona, once."
"Only once?" she asked with her slow smile.
"If it were anybody but old Peter, I'd try again," he said warmly.
She shook her head. "Look at my eyes, Gordon."
"I'm looking," he replied a little unsteadily.
"They're not blue."
He flinched. "But if blue eyes are not for me?" he whispered.
"It would never do, Gordon dear. And yet," she added a trifle wistfully, "had you talked so a year ago—. Heigho, I suppose everything's for the best in this funny, puzzling old world."
He frowned. "Then—it's true, what you said, Leona? You really have—recovered?"
She looked at him straightly. "Quite, Gordon," she answered.
He dropped her hand. She laid it detainingly on his arm as he stepped back.
"Be honest, Gordon. Isn't it better that way?"
"I suppose so," he replied ruefully.
Leona smiled. "That's your silly old masculine vanity talking. But I don't want to hurt your vanity, Gordon, for they say that's a man's tenderest spot. I'll give you a salve for it. I said I had quite recovered. So I have to all practical purposes, but, Gordon dear, a woman never quite gets over caring for an old sweetheart. Even now, if you tried you could make me—well, make me unhappy, I think. But it wouldn't be really you—not the you of to-day—I'd be troubling for; it would be the old you and all the old illusions of the time when I really—did care. Do you see what I mean? There's a sop for your vanity. I wouldn't have told you, though, if I weren't quite sure that you wouldn't try, Gordon." She put out her hand to him and he took it. "We've got to start fresh from now, Gordon, and be just the very best of friends. I'm going to marry Peter in October."
"In October! I didn't know you'd decided."
"I hadn't—until a moment ago."
She turned and waved at the launch.
XX
HE Siren reached Newport in due time and the party scattered, Mrs. Morrill and Leona going to the Berkshires for a visit and Peter, intensely miserable, remaining for a while with Gordon. There was a good deal of gayety that summer and the two men took their parts, neither, however, having much heart for them. Gordon played polo twice, but being by no means in top form, gave it up, much to Mrs. Ames's relief. Since the reorganization of the Central and Western directorate the affairs of the road had been making steady demands on his time and he had plunged into them very gladly, gaining as time went by both executive ability and enthusiasm. There was much to learn and he was doing his best to learn it. The Central and Western was his business, his life's interest, he decided, and he meant to learn his business thoroughly. And he meant to run it honestly. Lovering still shook his head over the, in his judgment, impractical theories advanced by Gordon, but, shorn of his former despotic power, he could do no more. The new directors were more or less heartily in accord with Gordon's views, and he was able to go about the rehabilitation of the road unrestricted. The last of August he went to Chicago and met the division heads in conference. They had never seen the president and were not predisposed in his favor, but, although, he was still ignorant of the practical details of traffic and transportation, a fact which he cheerfully acknowledged, his enthusiasm, frank desire to learn and a certain personal magnetism won them. On that trip Gordon settled a long-standing dispute with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and, as a result, a slight increase in wages was announced effective all over the system on September first. The general manager of a little jerk-water road in the Southwest who, in five years, had changed a line of rusty rails into a dividend-payer, was bought over to the Central and Western and given the office of Assistant to the President. The general manager, proving himself out of sympathy with the road's new policy, was superseded and minor changes in the traffic department followed. A publicity bureau was placed in charge of a practical advertising man with headquarters in Chicago, and the road's new slogan, evolved by Gordon, "The One Best Road—C. and W.," began to placard the country.
Peter went on to the Berkshires the last of August and a week later Gordon followed him for a few days' stay. It was then that Gordon and Leona, in secret council, decided on a career for the unsuspecting Peter. Peter was to be elected a vice-president of the C. and W. Once in office, Leona declared calmly, she would see that he earned his salary. When they told Peter he grinned amiably.
"Don't know a thing about it, Gordon," he said, "but I'm willing to learn. I suppose a vice-president has his own private car; what?"
Peter and Leona were married at St. Thomas's early in October. Gordon, as best man, sustained Peter through the trying ordeal and saw them off on the steamer afterwards. Peter's grin was broader than ever. Gordon declared later that it was visible long after the Kaiser Wilhelm was hull-down on the horizon. On the steamer Leona kissed Gordon good-by, with Peter's entire approbation. "Dear Gordon," she murmured with a rather tearful smile. Halfway down the gangway he turned to wave them a final adieu. Peter shouted an absurd message of some sort. Leona only waved to him, but the look in her eyes stayed with him all the rest of the day.
"I wonder if she lied," he said to himself once.
The leave-taking left him depressed for several days, and he hailed his Western trip with genuine relief. He went alone, save for the presence of his secretary and a valet, and was gone just over a fortnight. In that time he covered every mile of C. and W. track and talked with hundreds of subordinates from division superintendents to track walkers. He ended his trip at Chicago, reaching there at dusk of a warm Indian summer day. Tired out but thoroughly satisfied with the results of his fortnight's labors, he left his car with a sense of relief and was driven to a hotel on the lake front. His rooms were already reserved, and, leaving the task of registering to his secretary, Gordon turned at once to the elevator, hoping that, by avoiding the desk, he might escape running into acquaintances. That was not to be, however, for while he was still waiting an elevator door rolled open and out stepped the Golden Widow, a dazzling apparition of black net and white shoulders and bediamonded hair.
"My dear Mr. Ames! Who'd ever thought of finding you here?"
Gordon bowed over a plump gloved hand.
"I've been wondering why, myself, until this moment. One needn't ask after your health, Fair Lady."
The Widow gave a soft shriek of comic alarm. "Don't tell me I'm stouter than when you saw me last," she begged.
"Your charms have visibly increased, but not in that way, I'm sure," he answered gravely. "Are you staying in Chicago?"
"Oh, dear, no! One never stays in Chicago; one merely passes through. I am a bird of passage, Mr. Ames."
"I should have said a bird of paradise," with a glance at the aigrette in her hair.
"You say such nice things," she sighed. Then, with a frown: "But I ought to be cross with you. You didn't treat me very nicely at Aiken, Mr. Ames."
"Really?" he asked concernedly. "In what way did I err?"
"Oh, your sins were of omission, sir. You never once made love to me."
"I never dared, Fair Lady. I adored you in hopeless silence. You were always surrounded by Peter Waring."
She made a face. "Peter! A nice admirer he proved! As soon as my back was turned he scuttled off and got himself married! I suppose you were at the wedding? But, of course, you were! I remember now; you were his best man, weren't you? Was it a pretty wedding? I sent a present, but I couldn't be there. I forget what I sent, but I remember it was something very much nicer than he deserved. I was in Switzerland at the time. Or was it Trouville? Really, I ran around so this summer I've quite forgotten. It was a long way from St. Thomas's, though. Wasn't it a surprise to you, his marrying Leona Morrill?"
"A most agreeable one. I've always been very fond of Miss Morrill."
The widow's artistically penciled brows went up in polite disbelief. "Well, now that she's married your best friend, I think you're wise in forgetting and forgiving. Personally, I never could see Leona. Considering what very new people they are I think her airs are insufferable. But I must go. Have you seen a very large, fat man with a lovely bald head roaming around anywhere?"
"Having been in Chicago quite half an hour, he replied seriously, "I've seen some three or four thousand large, fat men. Large, fat men seem to be the principal industry in Chicago."
She rapped him playfully with her fan. "How we New Yorkers do love to 'knock' poor Chicago, don't we?"
"It's the breath of life to us," he replied. "May I ask whether the gentleman you describe so—so seductively is a new conquest. Fair Lady?"
"Conquest indeed! Nobody ever looks at me any more!"
"From discretion, not choice."
The widow bridled and again brought her fan into use coquettishly. "The gentleman is Mr. Audel. Do you know him? He's quite charming, really, I ran across him at Berne, I think it was, and quite by accident we came back together on the Lusitania."
"The scheming rascal!"
"But tell me what you're doing here, Mr. Ames. Are you here for long?"
"Only passing through," he replied with a smile. "I leave for New York to-morrow."
"Oh, so soon?" she said disappointedly. "I hoped you'd have time to be a little bit nice to me. What about this evening? Couldn't you dine with us? Mr. Audel would be so pleased."
"Not this evening, thank you. I'm dead tired. Just got in from a two weeks' swing over the road. May I look you up to-morrow forenoon?"
"Do! My suite is 208. Don't forget!"
"I live for to-morrow!"
"You're a good-for-nothing blarnier," she laughed as she swept away.
Gordon dined in his room alone. His secretary, having friends in town, had hurried into dinner togs and taxied off northward. A bath had rested Gordon considerably, and, as he loitered over his coffee in a dressing-robe, he meditated spunking up and going to a theater. There were plenty of people he might have called on, but he didn't feel in the mood for them. Turning to the theatrical advertisements in an evening paper, he weighed the merits of the offered attractions. But before he had arrived at a decision the telephone bell tinkled and he crossed the room and answered it. There were four newspaper reporters downstairs who would like to see him, he was told. He instructed the desk to send them up. He was quite ready for them, having spent a part of the morning preparing, with his secretary's aid, a typewritten interview in which the incomparable merits of the Central and Western were fully set forth. When the four young men were seated about the room, each with one of Gordon's best cigars in his mouth and a whisky-and-water at his elbow, the Tribune representative acted as spokesman and for twenty minutes Gordon, responding to skillful questions, held forth on the crop condition, the rumored shortage of cars, the probability of a dawn of new prosperity, immigration, the reorganization of the C. and W. and Chicago as a metropolis. They scorned his prepared interview politely, but bore copies of it away with them, promising to use as much of it as possible. By the time they had filed out it was too late for the theater, and Gordon, now mentally alert, viewed the thought of slumber distastefully. From the windows the lights of the boulevard stretched enticingly away into the southern darkness. He decided that he would put on some clothes and go for a walk. But when he was almost ready the telephone again rang and he was told that the Star-Courier reporter begged a few minutes' conversation. Gordon was for refusing at first, but the opportunity to remind the public of the many excellencies of the C. and W. counseled consent.
The Star-Courier reporter proved to be a youth of nineteen or twenty with an alert self-possession and a compelling smile. Gordon, intending to present him with a copy of the typewritten tract and hurry him out, found himself again submitting to an interview. The Star-Courier was apparently less interested in the C. and W. than in Gordon Ames. The reporter glanced at the typewritten sheet and stuffed it into his pocket.
"I'll give that to our railroad editor; he might use some of it," he announced. "What we want is something about yourself, Mr. Ames. You see, the average reader doesn't give a cuss whether the Central and Western is paying dividends or going into the hands of receivers. What he—or she—especially she—wants to know is how Mr. Gordon Ames was dressed, what he looked like, whether he smoked a cigar or a cigarette—cigarettes always make a hit with the women readers—and what color pajamas he wears. It's the personal note I'm after."
"Evidently," replied Gordon dryly.
"Yes; and if you can tell me whether you're engaged or going to be soon, it'll make a real hit."
"I am not and don't expect to be at present."
"What's the reason?" The reporter pulled a wad of soiled paper from his pocket and fumbled for a pencil. "Don't you believe in marriage?"
Gordon, undecided whether to be amused or annoyed, laughed. "No, you don't!" he said. "I refuse to have my views on matrimony set forth in your paper. I was on the point of going out when you were announced, so I'll have to ask you to put your questions quickly."
"All right. Sorry to keep you, Mr. Ames. I'd have been around before only I got the assignment by phone only ten minutes ago. Our woman reporter had the job, but she funked it."
Gordon's heart jumped. "Woman reporter? Really? I fancy I've had a narrow escape."
The other grinned. "Believe me, you have, Mr. Ames! She's a smart girl and she'd have turned you inside out if she'd wanted to. Why she backed down I don't savvy, because you ought to be good for a full column to her. How do you like Chicago?"
"Perhaps you'd better tell me the young lady's name so I can be on my guard if I ever run across her," said Gordon carelessly.
"That wouldn't do; it would be queering her game; see? What do you think of our new hotel?"
"I used to know—or, rather, I once met a young lady in New York who was on one of the papers. I wonder if it can be the same one? Youngish, is she?"
"About twenty-four or five, maybe. I don't know much about her. She's been with the S.-C. only a month or so. She's smart, though. I suppose you have a good many friends in Chicago?"
"That sounds like the lady I had in mind," pursued Gordon. "Rather dark blue eyes?"
The reporter looked at him quizzically. "We're never going to get anywhere at this rate," he said. "You'd better stop interviewing me, Mr. Ames, and let me fire the questions."
Gordon smiled. "You answer my questions and maybe I'll answer yours. At least, I will if I can.'
"That's fair. The girl's name is Mills or Mill."
"Hm; first name?"
The other frowned, trying to remember. At last, "Margaret, I think." He grinned. "She never told me, but I have a strong notion that it's Margaret."
Gordon tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice as he asked, "Do they ever call her Peggy?"
"Who? You can bet I don't! She'd jump me, I guess."
"I see; it's probably not the same lady. Now, then, what do you want?"
"Well, suppose you give me a good hot roast on Chicago society; usual New York style, you know; mention of pork packers and newly rich—I never could say it in French—and a passing jab at our fair city's efforts to become a center of art and literature. That always gets their goat."
"I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you." Gordon laughed. "I don't know much about Chicago society or its artistic and literary ambition. I have many delightful friends and acquaintances in and about Chicago, and I usually enjoy my visits here. This time I am here only overnight; it's a business trip, you see. I've just completed an inspection of the Central and Western"
"Then you like Chicago?" interrupted the other in disappointed tones. "That's bad. I thought," he added reproachfully, "you were a New Yorker."
"I am. Mustn't I like Chicago?"
"Shouldn't be done." The reporter shook his head, scribbling on the pad. "Still, I don't know. It hits a rather original note, doesn't it? 'New York Millionaire Likes Chicago.' That's fairly startling. How does it feel to come into a hundred millions at twenty-one, Mr. Ames?"
"I never experienced it."
"Oh, well, I don't pretend to have the exact figures," replied the other carelessly. "A round hundred sounds well, though. By the way, did you reorganize your road yourself? The papers said so, but"
"The road was reorganized by the stockholders," said Gordon. "Now, I'll really have to ask you to excuse me. I'm sorry I haven't supplied you with more—material, but"
"Oh, that's all right." He dropped paper and pencil into his pockets and arose. "I've got enough for a half-column or so, and I guess that's about all the space they'll give me. If you'd got around earlier in the day you could have had all you wanted."
Gordon stared. "You mean to tell me that you're going to write a half-column about what I've said to-night?"
"Oh, well, principally. Of course, I'll have to put in a good deal about how you looked and acted. Anybody ever speak of your resemblance to Henry Miller? "
"Henry Miller?"
"Yes, the actor."
"Not that I'm aware of," replied Gordon, amused.
"Good! It's new, then. Of course, you're younger, and I don't say that the resemblance is striking, but it makes a good line. 'One immediately notes the strong resemblance to Henry Miller.' Most everybody knows how Henry Miller looks, you see. It beats trying to describe each feature. It's an idea of my own. I always decide who a person looks like and it saves trouble. Most women, by the way, look like Maxine Elliott or Maude Adams," he added with a grin.
"And most men like Henry Miller?"
"Well, sometimes it's John Drew. But that's mostly the way they dress. Drew's losing vogue a little now. About time, too. As for Maude Adams, why, I don't think a whole lot of her beauty, but the women are always tickled to death if you say they resemble her. If I want to lay it on a bit artistically I say they have Maxine Elliott's beauty and Maude Adams's charm. That rings the bell every time. Well, I'm much obliged. Hope you'll like the story in the morning."
"I shall love it," responded Gordon gravely. "Good night. By the way, let me offer you a cigar."
"Thanks; I don't mind."
"Take two or three, won't you?"
"Sure. I'll make a hit at the office. 'Have one of Gordon Ames's two dollar cigars?' I'll say. The city editor's been throwing the harpoon into me lately and maybe this'll square me for a while. Much obliged. Good night."
"Good night. Those cigars, by the way, cost only thirty-seven and a half cents apiece by the box."
"That's all right. The city editor won't know it!"
When Gordon emerged from the elevator five minutes later the reporter was leaning over the desk in conversation with the head clerk. He seemed to be exhibiting something and it looked like a cigar. Gordon went into the library and opened the big dictionary on the end of the table. When he finally stopped turning the leaves this is what he read: "Margaret. (Gr.) A pearl.—Dim. Gritty, Meg, Madge, Maggy, Margie, Margery, Meg, Meggy, Meta, Peg, Peggy (m and p being cognate letters)."
XXI
AND p being cognate letters'! 'M and p being cognate letters'!"
The phrase clung, and Gordon found himself saying it over and over in a sort of singsong as he left the hotel and turned southward along the boulevard. The night had grown dark. Over the lake, away from the effulgence of the city lights, the sky was like black velvet. There was a feeling of rain in the still, mild air.
"'M and p being cognate letters'!"
Back of its absurd babbling his mind was striving to work calmly. "'M and p—'" Could it be Peggy, the girl the reporter had spoken of? Margaret Mills! She had never told him her name, but "Margaret Mills" seemed to touch a chord of memory. Surely he had heard the name before somewhere! Margaret might well be her real name, Peggy only a diminutive—"m and p being cognate letters!" And what little the reporter had said of her tallied so well with what Gordon knew!" She'd have turned you inside out if she had wanted to!" Gordon groaned. She had already done that!
He had all along imagined, for no special reason apparently, that Peggy was in Philadelphia. Now he became certain that she was right here in Chicago. There was breathless excitement in the thought. He was in the same town with her, perhaps only a block away for all he knew! To-morrow he might meet her face to face on the street! He had agreed not to search for her, but should they meet by accident she could lay no blame on him. And if they did meet— All the old longing surged up in him imperiously, chokingly, leaving him dizzy for a moment.
A corner light proclaimed Fifteenth Street, but he kept on with no thought of distance nor direction. The boulevard was fairly empty. Now and then a carriage pattered by or an automobile swept past in a glare of light, but there were few pedestrians. The silence grew with the blocks traversed and the city seemed hushed in expectancy. The air had grown lifeless. Far off to the westward a flash of lightning ripped the darkness.
If they did meet—what? What was to be said that had not already been said? It was not likely that five months had shaken her determination. He had allowed her to choose and she had chosen; and he had accepted the verdict with what he prided himself was good grace; would it be fair to try to alter it all now?
The sound of running steps half a block ahead broke into his thoughts. A dark figure crossed the boulevard from one of the streets leading toward the lake and paused under a lamp-post. In the stillness Gordon heard, or thought he heard, the buzz of the alarm as the man released the hook. Gordon hurried his pace, but before he reached the corner the figure had disappeared again, running, into the darkness of the side street. It was a narrow cul-de-sac, poorly lighted, lined with shabby-genteel brick houses with high stoops. Lights shone here and there from transoms and windows, and three-quarters of the way toward the blind end of the street a yellow glare streamed across the pavement from an opened door. Figures moved there and voices came toward him down the shallow canyon. He broke into a run.
When he reached the house a small throng had already gathered about the door and on the sidewalk. Footsteps rang on the uneven flags as the neighboring houses caught the alarm. Smoke curled through the doorway, and the gaslight at the foot of the narrow stairs burned dimly.
"The kitchen's all on fire," said a shrill, excited voice. "We tried to put it out, but we couldn't." Gordon turned to find a white-faced, untidy maid beside him.
"Are they all out?" he asked.
"Cook ain't come yet. She went up for her box. She'd better hurry, hadn't she? Do you think it'll burn all down?"
"Anybody ring the alarm?" asked a pompous elderly man in a flowered dressing-gown. He pushed past Gordon and addressed a stout woman who stood nearby with a bird cage in her hand. Within the cage a canary kept up an agitated chirping. "Too bad, Mrs. Judson, too bad, on my word!" exclaimed the elderly man. His tones quite plainly proclaimed his delight in the excitement. "Where did it start, ma'am?"
"In the kitchen. Cook had some fat on the stove and the fire was too hot, I guess, and it boiled over and the first thing I knew the house was full of smoke. Seems like them engines might get here some time, don't it?"
As though in reply there came the distant clanging of a bell and the shriek of a whistle. Gordon glanced up at the front of the house. On the third floor a window showed a square of light. He walked to the farther side of the street and peered upward again. As he looked an arm reached up and drew down the shade.
"Somebody's up there yet, ain't they?" asked a voice beside him. It belonged to a tall youth with a cigarette hanging from the comer of his mouth.
"Did you see somebody pull the curtain down?" demanded Gordon doubtfully.
"Sure I did! He'll be comin' down on a ladder if he don't get a move on."
Gordon pushed his way through the growing throng and sprang up the steps. Warnings followed him as he met the first choking gust of smoke at the door. Halfway up the first flight of stairs he heard from behind him the clanging of the engine gongs and the trampling of the horses. From above him came a thumping sound, and as he reached the hall above he saw a shawled and bonneted woman descending the next flight dragging a small trunk behind her.
"Hurry up!" he called to her. "Is there anyone else up there?"
She paid no heed to him, seeming in a trance of terror, as, still tugging the trunk behind her, she went along the narrow passage to the lower flight, muttering to herself. Gordon's first impulse was to take the trunk from her, the next to let her manage it herself and make certain that the upper floor was empty. The smoke was pouring up the staircase well and his eyes were smarting and running. He took the next flight in bounds. The smoke was thicker here than below. Over his head a dirty skylight caught the reflection of the dim flame of the bracket gas light. Five doors opened from the hallway. He took them in succession. The room on the back of the house showed signs of hurried flight. Gordon lighted matches as he flung open closed doors. An untenanted room, a closet filled with brooms and brushes and soiled linen, another unused room, and, finally, a door at the end of the hallway, locked. He beat on the panel and shouted.
"Is there any one in there? The house is afire!"
There was no response. Gordon held his handkerchief to his face and again tried the door. It resisted firmly and he turned away. But halfway, to the stairs he stopped. Surely it had been in that room that the hand had pulled down the shade! The cook? She would never have stayed to lock the door and remove the key! And no one else had descended the stairs! Unless both he and the youth with the cigarette had been victims of optical illusion, that room was still occupied! From below came the sound of breaking glass, the tramp of feet and hoarse commands. From without came the steady throb of the engines. The light in the bracket burned red through the murk. Gordon ran back to the door, raised a foot and sent it crashing against the lock. The door gave and he stumbled into the room. A small table went over as he tried to save himself by it and an ink bottle hurtled across the floor, leaving a trail of black on the shabby carpet. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it for an instant, fighting for breath. The air was purer here. Across the room the gas was turned low, but there was light enough to see the bureau by the window, the tall ungainly wardrobe, the overturned table, a chair or two and a small bed upon which lay stretched a woman's form, black gowned, flattened against the rumpled coverlid. Gordon's streaming eyes closed in agony, and when, groping blindly toward the bed, he opened them again a white face, filled with terror and a great wonder, was looking up into his. With a cry he sank at the side of the bed and gathered her into his arms.
XXII
EGGY! Peggy, is it you, dear?"
He covered her face with kisses and she clung to him silently, tremblingly. For a long moment he held her, everything forgotten in the transport of wondering joy. Then, tearing himself from her arms, he rushed to the window, sent the shade hurtling up, opened the window with a crash and turned on the light.
"Quick," he said, "we must get out of here before it's too late. It's all on fire below. Stop for nothing!" Then, as she raised herself, dazed and bewildered, he threw open the doors of the wardrobe and seized a cloak from a hook. He threw it around her and lifted her to her feet. She swayed and clung to him desperately.
"Come," he said, "and cover your face with your cloak." Half leading and half carrying her he reached the door and pulled it open. A cloud of smoke rolled in upon them. He paused an instant, choking in the acrid fumes, and in that instant she pulled back toward the room.
"Wait," she whispered.
He let her go, groping for the door and closing it again. On the floor lay a sheet of paper. She picked it up and thrust it toward him.
"Take it," she said.
He crumpled it into a pocket and, throwing his arm about her again faced the door.
"Can we get out?" she whispered almost calmly.
"We must!" he answered. "Don't think I've found you again only to lose you, Peggy."
"Well" She raised her face, a little smile trembling about her mouth. He bent and kissed her.
"Peggy!" he murmured with a sob. Then, "God, we must get out of here!" he cried, and pulled the door open. Again the smoke leaped upon them as, closing his eyes, he groped his way along the hall. He searched for his handkerchief, but only a sheet of crumpled paper came from his pocket, and he held that against his nose as they came to the top of the stairs. Down they went. Once she fell, but his arm saved her, and then they were on the second floor and the smoke seemed lighter. Water hissed below them and a red glow beat on his closed lids as they reached the last flight. At the top he paused and looked with streaming eyes. Like a great snake a fire hose was pulsing along the hall below, spouting water from a leaky coupling, but the way was clear. Rubber-clad forms passed in and out, and the placid face of a policeman, on guard, peered around the comer of the doorway. He saw them when they were halfway down the stairs and hurried up, exclaiming. He would have taken Peggy in his arms and carried her down, but Gordon held her tightly to him. "I'll look after her," he muttered. The spray from the hose drenched them as they passed, and then they were outside and an excited murmur that was almost a cheer arose from the throng that, held back by the police, watched from a little distance. Gordon opened eyes and lungs to the fresh air and led Peggy down the steps. A youth with a fire badge on his coat and pencil and paper in hand got in the way, volleying questions. Gordon swore at him and pushed him aside. The crowd, sympathetic and admiring, opened and let them through. Somewhere in the confusion the reporter lost them. At the end of the block a cabman, pausing for a minute to watch the scene, found himself suddenly supplied with a fare.
"Drive downtown; anywhere for now; I'll tell you later," said Gordon as he helped Peggy into the little musty coupé and followed her.
The cabby snapped his whip and the roar of the engines lessened as the tired horse drew them northward. For a block or two no words were uttered in the cab. Peggy lay in his arms, silent. Now and then a little tremor passed through her. Gordon, his mind still in a state of chaos and his head and lungs aching from the smoke, pressed his face to the brown hair and watched the lights file slowly past the window. The incidents of the last quarter of an hour had taken on the quality of a dream. Presently he muttered wonderingly:
"Peggy, Peggy-in-the-Rain, is it really you?"
She answered with a sigh and a pressure of the hand in his.
"I don't understand it yet," he went on after a moment. "What were you doing in that house?"
"I lived there—ever since I came here."
"Good Lord! What a place!"
"It was the best I could afford. I haven't—done very well lately."
"But didn't you hear the engines, Peggy? Didn't any one warn you?"
There was no answer; only a shiver as she clung closer to him.
"And I came near going back without finding you!" he exclaimed in sudden horror. "My God, dear, if I had!"
"You wouldn't have," she answered with certainty.
"No, you're right, I believe. God knows how I happened to be there at all, Peggy."
"I expect God does know," she whispered.
"You mean— I wonder!" There was awe in his tone. "If he did, Peggy, I thank Him. When I beat on the door— Didn't you hear me, dear?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you answer? Were you too frightened?"
She suddenly began to sob softly against his coat.
"Peggy—sweetheart—don't cry, dear!" He lavished caresses and tender words, and presently the sobs ceased. "It's all right now, dearest, isn't it? We've found each other again and nothing is going to part us, Peggy-in-the-Rain. Forget about to-night, dear. You're tired and frightened"
"Not now." She sighed and pressed closer into his arms. "But I was—horribly. I guess I—couldn't have done it, after all."
"Done it? What, dear?"
After a moment she answered in whispers. "I meant to stay there," she said. "I thought perhaps it would—be over soon that way. That's why I didn't answer when you knocked"
"Peggy!"
"Yes." She shuddered and his arms crushed her against him. "I didn't recognize your voice, though. Isn't that strange? Sometimes I've thought I could hear it if you even whispered my name a thousand miles away!"
"Oh, my girl, I've whispered it a thousand times a day! But why did you want to do such an awful thing, dear?"
"I was—tired; and discouraged. It was your fault." She laughed a little ghost of a laugh. "The city editor said I was to go to the hotel and interview you, and I refused. He—he said I must either go or leave"
"The damned brute! Who is he?"
"Never mind him, Gordon. He was right; I ought to have gone. But—I couldn't! My week was up to-morrow night and I didn't know where to go next. I was here nearly a month before I got work on the Bulletin. And then I was ill for three days and they let me go. After that I got a place on the Star-Courier. And I made good, only when he gave me that assignment to-night I couldn't take it. And after I got home things looked so sort of—of hopeless that I—I wrote to you." Her voice died away so that he barely caught her words at the last.
"You wrote to me, Peggy?" he exclaimed. "Where is the letter, dear?"
"I gave it to you before we left. Don't you remember?"
He searched his pocket and found it, a crumpled, smoke-saturated ball.
"I have it," he said. "May I read it?"
"Yes, after you leave me."
"I'm not going to leave you," he asserted firmly.
She was silent for a moment. They were opposite the park now, the old horse still ambling along and every hinge and spring in the cab squeaking in protest. At last:
"Please, to-night," she begged, gently. "I want you to read that first. I—I won't run away from you. I—I've had my lesson."
"I didn't mean to bother you, dear; only I can't let you get very far away. But I won't trouble you. I've learned my lesson, too, dearest; that I can't do without you."
He lifted her wet face and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips trembled under his.
"I don't want to die now," she whispered.
"No, no, no! You're going to live, Peggy, and be happy!"
"Happy!" she murmured dreamily. Then, suddenly tightening herself in his arms, "Oh, yes," she cried, "I want to be happy! And I shall be, shan't I?"
"Always, sweetheart! Happy together, you and I! For oh, Peggy, Peggy-in-the-Rain, I love you so!"
After a moment he asked: "If you wrote that letter to me, dear, you didn't mean to—to leave me?"
"No. That was after. I had finished the letter and was lying on the bed. Then I smelled the smoke and heard Mrs. Judson crying fire, and something whispered to me to stay there and be rid of all the loneliness and weariness and—and aches. And so when they beat on my door I answered and said I'd come right down. Then I pulled the pillow over my head and—and prayed. And I cried a little because I was lonelier than ever. I wanted so much to see you—first, you see. Then you called to me and I thought perhaps you were a fireman and that if I didn't answer you'd go away again. And—and when you did I was terribly frightened. I think then I'd have tried to escape, only I couldn't seem to move. And then—you came back!"
"Thank God I did!" he cried. "Oh, Peggy, why did you try such a thing? What would I have done without you, girl?"
"I thought—you'd forgotten me," she whispered. "The papers said you were sailing around on your yacht and that you were going to marry some one, they didn't say whom. And I didn't quite like you to do that—so soon!"
"I've never forgotten you for an instant, Peggy. Every hour has been full of you. I've seen your face in the clouds and the water, and in my dreams I've held you as I'm holding you now. You wrote that I was not to try and find you, Peggy, and I didn't; but, oh, girl dear, it was the hardest task any man was ever set! I hoped you were well and—prospering, dear; if I had known how it was with you I'd have searched and found you. Leona said you would surely write to her or go to her if you were in trouble."
"I couldn't. I was ashamed. She knew—about us, Gordon. I had to tell her. I was so unhappy. Do you care—very much?"
"No. But I never guessed she knew!"
"She's married."
"Yes, and I hope she'll be happy, Peggy."
"I hope so, too. Perhaps she will be. She's very—wise."
The cab came to a stop and the driver asked directions.
"Where shall I take you, dear?" Gordon asked.
"I don't know," she answered untroubledly. "Anywhere. I think I'm too tired and happy to sleep, but I want to lie somewhere in the dark and—think it all over."
Gordon remembered the name of a small and unpretentious hotel and directed the cabby to drive there. The weary old horse turned slowly about and they creaked off again.
"In the morning I will come for you, dear. You'll want to sleep late, though, won't you?"
She heard the wistfulness in his voice and pressed his hand. "I'll be ready when you come, Gordon, whatever time you say."
"Then—but I won't be unreasonable. Shall we say nine—or ten, Peggy dear?"
"At nine." Then she laughed amusedly. "Do you realize that I haven't a thing with me? Not even a hair-pin?"
"By Jove, what a thoughtless brute I am! We can buy some things, can't we? What time is it?" He looked at his watch, "It's only about ten o'clock!"
"It doesn't matter. I shall get on. I only want to lie down somewhere, Gordon, and think—and think—and think." She nestled her head closer to him. "Just think and be happy, dear," she added in a whisper.
But he wouldn't be satisfied with that, and so the cabman was ordered to find a place where the lady could buy things to wear, and presently Peggy took the bill that Gordon gave her and shopped in a little cheap store with a sizzling purple arc light over the entrance, and presently returned with a brown paper package. He took her in his arms again and they went on to the hotel. They reached it very soon.
"I'll go in with you, dear," he said, "and explain about the fire. And in the morning I'll come for you and we'll go back to the house for your things, for I don't think the fire has done much damage."
"There aren't many things I want," she murmured.
"Good-night, dearest. Do you know that you haven't told me yet that you love me, Peggy?"
"I think—I've been telling you all the time," she whispered.
"I know, but I want to hear you say it, sweetheart. You do?"
"I do," she answered solemnly.
The clerk was sympathetic as he turned the register around with one hand and thumped the office bell with the other.
"We'll look after the lady, sir," he said. "Don't worry."
With pen in hand Gordon found himself in a quandary. But one name was as good as another, and it wouldn't do to let the clerk see his hesitation. So he signed "Miss Mills, City," smiling at the thought that he was still uncertain of her name. They said good-night at the elevator door, shaking hands under the pessimistic regard of the page who waited with the paper parcel.
"At nine," said Gordon.
"I'll be ready," she answered.
Then the elevator shot upward and a moment later Gordon was out on the sidewalk, lighting a cigar, and wondering if it were not all just a dream.
XXIII
ACK in his room Gordon dropped into a chair under the light and pulled the crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket. Tenderly he smoothed it out, and then, tossing away his cigar and pressing his lips to the letter, he read what she had written.
It seemed so easy—if what is easy can be the hardest thing in life!—such a fine, courageous thing to say no before and go away from you. I meant it all then, or part of me did; my heart never did. But now all the courage has left me and I'm just tired and lonely. I thought then that I was denying you because it was right, that I should, morally right, I mean. Now I think it was more my pride than anything else that prompted me to it. I wasn't willing to be pointed at, dear. I don't think I'm bad; I don't want to be. But I'm a woman and I want happiness. There is so very little else that a woman gets. If she misses that she has nothing. Perhaps I'm a coward, but I can't help it, and I did try, didn't I?
Now how shall I say what I want to? But you've already seen what is in my mind, dear, haven't you? That is, if you've read this far, and, oh, I hope you have! I've tried to be happy without you, and I've failed. I've tried to do without happiness, and I've failed. I think I have a right to happiness if I am willing to pay its price. I am willing. Is it too late? Dear, if you still care—not just a little, but as much as you did—come for me or let me come to you. I make no conditions. Just love me as long as you can, dear. And please, please don't think that I am offering to sell myself. I am giving myself—if you want the gift.
Margaret Milburn.
Afterward he read the letter again. And a long time afterward he undressed and went to bed. But sleep stayed far away from him. Some time in the early morning he arose, switched on the lights and, seating himself at the desk, wrote a letter to his mother. He spent the better part of a half-hour at it, and when it was finished he addressed it very deliberately and stamped it and laid it on the table by the door. Then he went to the open window and leaned out. In the east there was a dim radiance that foretold the dawn. The lights along the boulevard shone blurred through a gentle rain. He held his hands out, and when they were wet laved his forehead with the moisture.
He stood there many minutes with his thoughts. At last he raised his face toward the dark sky and smiled.
"I guess you'll understand, Dad," he murmured.
A drop of rain fell on his lips, and he laughed softly.
"Was that a kiss from you, dear?" he whispered. "Was it, Peggy, my Peggy-in-the-Rain?"
THE END
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