Now she gave him both hands.
"It is so kind of you, dear Colonel Arran! It would not be a home-coming without you—" And glancing into the hall, nodded radiantly to the assembled servants—her parents' old and privileged and spoiled servants gathered to welcome the young mistress to her own.
"Oh—and there's Missy!" she said, as an inquiring "meow!" sounded close to her skirts. "You irresponsible little thing—I suppose you have more kittens. Has she, Susan?"
"Five m'm," said Susan drily.
"Oh, dear, I suppose it can't be avoided. But we mustn't drown any, you know." And with one hand resting on Colonel Arran's arm she began a tour of the house to inspect the new improvements.
Later they sat together amid the faded splendours of the southern drawing-room, where sunshine regilded cornice and pier glass, turned the lace curtains to nets of gold, and streaked the red damask hangings with slanting bars of fire.
Shiftless old Jonas shuffled in presently with the oval silver tray, ancient decanters, and seedcakes.
And here, over their cakes and Madeira, she told him about her month's visit to the Craigs'; about her life in the quaint and quiet city, the restful, old-fashioned charm of the cultivated circles on Columbia Heights and the Hill; the attractions of a limited society, a little dull, a little prim, pedantic, perhaps provincially simple, but a society caring for the best in art, in music, in literature, instinctively recognising the best although the best was nowhere common in the city.
She spoke of the agreeable people she had met—unobtrusive, gentle-mannered folk whose homes may have lacked such Madeira and silver as this, but lacked nothing in things of the mind.
She spoke of her very modest and temporary duties in church work there, and in charities; told of the advent of the war news and its effect on the sister city.
And at last, casually, but without embarrassment, she mentioned
Berkley.
Colonel Arran's large hand lay along the back of the Virginia sofa, fingers restlessly tracing and retracing the carved foliations supporting the horns of plenty. His heavy, highly coloured head was lowered and turned aside a little as though to bring one ear to bear on what she was saying.
"Mr. Berkley seems to be an—unusual man," she ventured. "Do you happen to know him, Colonel Arran?"
"Slightly."
"Oh. Did you know his parents?"
"His mother."
"She is not living, I believe."
"No."
"Is his father living?"
"I—don't know."
"You never met him?"
Colonel Arran's forefinger slowly outlined the deeply carved horn of plenty.
"I am not perfectly sure that I ever met Mr. Berkley's father."
She sat, elbows on the table, gazing reflectively into space.
"He is a—curious—man."
"Did you like him?" asked Colonel Arran with an effort.
"Yes," she said, so simply that the Colonel's eyes turned directly toward her, lingered, then became fixed on the sunlit damask folds behind her.
"What did you like about Mr. Berkley, Ailsa?"
She considered.
"I—don't know—-exactly."
"Is he cultivated?"
"Why, yes—I suppose so."
"Is he well bred?"
"Oh, yes; only—" she searched mentally—"he is not—may I say, conventional? formal?"
"It is an age of informality," observed Colonel Arran, carefully tracing out each separate grape in the horn of plenty.
Ailsa assented; spoke casually of something else; but when Colonel Arran brought the conversation around again to Berkley, she in nowise seemed reluctant.
"He is unusually attractive," she said frankly; "his features, at moments, are almost beautiful. I sometimes wonder whether he resembles his mother. Was she beautiful?"
"Yes."
"I thought she must have been. He resembles her, does he not?"
"Yes."
"His father was—is—" She hesitated, looked curiously at Colonel
Arran, then smiled.
"There was something I never thought of when I first met Mr. Berkley, but now I understand why his features seemed to me not entirely unfamiliar. I don't know exactly what it is, but there seems to be something about him that recalls you."
Colonel Arran sat absolutely still, his heavy hand gripping the horn of plenty, his face so gray that it was almost colourless.
Ailsa, glancing again at his profile, saw nothing now in it resembling Berkley; and, as he made no response, thought him uninterested. But when again she would have changed the subject, the Colonel stirred, interrupting:
"Does he seem—well?"
"Well?" she repeated. "Oh, yes."
"He—seems well . . . and in good spirits? Contented? Is he that type of young man? Happy?"
"I don't think he is really very happy, though he is cheerful and—and amusing. I don't see how he can be very light-hearted."
"Why?"
She shook her head:
"I believe he—I know he must be in painfully straightened circumstances."
"I have heard so," nodded Colonel Arran.
"Oh, he certainly is!" she said with decision. "He lost everything in the panic, and he lives in a most wretched neighbourhood, and he hasn't any business except a very little now and then. It made me quite unhappy," she added naively.
"And you find him personally agreeable?"
"Yes, I do. I didn't at first—" She checked herself—"I mean I did at the very first—then I didn't—then I did again, then I—didn't—" The delicate colour stole into her cheeks; she lifted her wineglass, looked into it pensively, set it back on the table. "But I understand him better now, I think."
"What, in him, do you understand better now?"
"I—don't—know."
"Is he a better kind of a man than you thought him at first?"
"Y-es. He has it in him to be better, I mean. . . . Yes, he is a better man than I thought him—once."
"And you like him——"
"Yes, I do. Colonel Arran."
"Admire him?"
She flushed up. "How do you mean?"
"His qualities?"
"Oh. . . . Yes, he has qualities."
"Admirable?"
"He is exceedingly intelligent."
"Intellectual?"
"I don't exactly know. He pretends to make fun of so many things. It is not easy to be perfectly sure what he really believes; because he laughs at almost everybody and everything. But I am quite certain that he really has beliefs."
"Religious?"
She looked grave. "He does not go to church."
"Does he—does he strike you as being—well, say, irresponsible—perhaps I may even say reckless?"
She did not answer; and Colonel Arran did not ask again. He remained silent so long that she presently drifted off into other subjects, and he made no effort to draw her back.
But later, when he took his leave, he said in his heavy way:
"When you see Mr. Berkley, say to him that Colonel Arran remembers him. . . . Say to him that it would be my—pleasure—to renew our very slight acquaintance."
"He will be glad, I know," she said warmly.
"Why do you think so?"
"Why? Because I like you!" she explained with a gay little laugh. "And whoever I like Mr. Berkley must like if he and I are to remain good friends."
The Colonel's smile was wintry; the sudden animation in his face had subsided.
"I should like to know him—if he will," he said absently. And took his leave of Ailsa Paige.
Next afternoon he came again, and lingered, though neither he nor Ailsa spoke of Berkley. And the next afternoon he reappeared, and sat silent, preoccupied, for a long time, in the peculiar hushed attitude of a man who listens. But the door-bell did not ring and the only sound in tile house was from Ailsa's piano, where she sat idling through the sunny afternoon.
The next afternoon he said:
"Does he never call on you?"
"Who?"
"Mr. Berkley."
"I—asked him," she replied, flushing faintly.
"He has not come, then?"
"Not yet. I suppose—business——"
The Colonel said, ponderously careless: "I imagine that he is likely to come in the late afternoon—when he does come."
"I don't know. He is in business."
"It doesn't keep him after three o'clock at his office."
She looked up surprised: "Doesn't it?" And her eyes asked instinctively: "How did you know?" But the Colonel sat silent again, his head lowered and partly averted as though to turn his good ear toward her. Clearly his mind already dwelt on other matters, she was thinking; but she was mistaken.
"When he comes," said Colonel Arran slowly, "will you have the kindness to say to him that Colonel Arran will be glad to renew the acquaintance?"
"Yes. . . . Perhaps he has forgotten the street and number. I might write to him—to remind him?" Colonel Arran made no answer.
She wrote that night:
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"I am in my own house now and am very contented—which does not mean that I did not adore being with Celia Craig and Estcourt and the children.
"But home is pleasant, and I am wondering whether you might care to see the home of which I have so often spoken to you when you used to come over to Brooklyn to see me [me erased and us neatly substituted in long, sweeping characters].
"I have been doing very little since I last saw you—it is not sheer idleness, but somehow one cannot go light-heartedly to dinners and concerts and theatres in times like these, when traitors are trampling the nag under foot, and when thousands and thousands of young men are leaving the city every day to go to the defence of our distracted country.
"I saw a friend the other day—a Mrs. Wells—and three of her boys, friends of mine, have gone with the 7th, and she is so nervous and excited that she can scarcely speak about it. So many men I know have gone or are going. Stephen was here yesterday, wild to go with the 8d Zouaves, but I promised his father to use my influence—and he is too young—although it is very fine and chivalrous of him to wish to go.
"I thought I would write you a little note, to remind you that I am at home, and already it has become a letter. Please remember—when you think of it at all—that it would give me pleasure to receive you.
"Sincerely yours,
"AILSA PAIGE."
Toward the end of the week she received a heart-broken note from Celia Craig, which caused her to hasten over to Brooklyn. She arrived late; the streets were continually blocked by departing troops, and the omnibus took a circuitous course to the ferry, going by way of Fourth Avenue and the Bowery.
"Honey-bee! O Honey-bell!" whispered her sister-in-law, taking Ailsa into her arms, "I could have behaved myse'f better if Curt were on the side of God and Justice!—But to have to let him go this way—to know the awful danger—to know he is going against my own people, my own home—against God and the Right!—O Honey-bird! Honey-bud! And the Charleston Mercury says that the South is most bitter against the Zouaves——"
"Curt! With the Zouaves!"
"Oh yes, yes, Honey-bee! The Third Regiment. And he—some wicked old men came here yesterday and read a speech—right befo' me—here in this ve'y room—and began to say that they wished him to be colonel of the 3d Zouaves, and that the Governor wished it and—other fools! And I rose straight up f'om my chair and I said, 'Curt!' And he gave me one look. Oh, Honey-bud! His face was changed; there was that same thing in it that I saw the night the news came about Sumter! And he said: 'Gentlemen, my country educated me; now it honours me.' And I tried to speak again and my lips were stiff; and then he said: 'I accept the command you offer——'"
"Oh, Celia!"
"Yes, he said it, darling! I stood there, frozen—in a corner of my heart I had been afraid—such a long time!—but to have it come real—'this terror!—to have this thing take my husband—come into our own home befo' I knew—befo' I dreamed—and take Curt!—take —my—Curt!"
"Where is he?"
"With—them. They have a camp near Fort Hamilton. He went there this morning."
"When is he coming back?"
"I don't know. Stephen is scaring me most to death; he is wild to go, too. And, oh—do you believe it? Captain Lent has gone with Curt to the camp, and Curt means to recommend him for his major. What a regiment!—all the soldiers are mere boys, they say—wilful, reckless, hair-brained boys who don't know—can't know—where they're going. . . . And Curt is so blind without his glasses, and Captain Lent is certainly a little mad, and I'm most distracted myse'f——"
"Darling—darling—don't cry!"
"Cry? Oh, I could die, Ailsa. Yet, I'm Southern enough to choke back eve'y tear and let them go with a smile if they had to go fo' God and the Right! But to see my Curt go this way—and my only son crazy to join him—Oh, it is ha'd, Honey-bee, ve'y, ve'y ha'd."
"Dearest!"
"O Honey-bud! Honey-bud!"
And the two women mourned, uncomforted.
Ailsa remained for three unhappy days in Fort Greene Place, then fled to her own house. A light, amusing letter from Berkley awaited her. It was so like him, gay, cynical, epigrammatic, and inconsequent, that it cheered her. Besides, he subscribed himself very obediently hers, but on re-examining the letter she noticed that he had made no mention of coming to pay his respects to her.
So she lived her tranquil life for another week; and Colonel Arran came every day and seemed always to be waiting for something—always listening—gray face buried in his stock. And at the week's end she answered Berkley's letter—although, in it, he had asked no question.
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Such sad news from the Craigs. Estcourt has accepted the command of one of the new zouave regiments—the 3d, in camp near Fort Hamilton. But, being in his office, I suppose you have heard all about it from Stephen. Poor Celia Craig! It is peculiarly distressing in her case; all her sympathies are with her native state, and to have her husband go under such unusually tragic circumstances seems too dreadful. Celia is convinced that he will never return; she reads some Southern paper which breathes awful threats against the Zouaves in particular. Besides, Stephen is perfectly determined to enlist in his father's regiment, and I can see that they can't restrain him much longer. I have done my best; I have had him here and talked to him and argued with him, but I have made no headway. No appeal moves him; he says that the land will need every man sooner or later, and that the quicker he begins the sooner he will learn how to look out for himself in battle.
"The regiment is almost full; to-day, the first six companies are to be mustered into the United States service for three years or for the war. Captain Barris of the regular army is the mustering officer. And on their departure I am to present a set of colours to the regiment. It is to be quite solemn. I have already bought the lances, and they are beautiful; the spears are silver gilt, the rings gilded, too, and the flags are made of the most beautiful silk with tassels and fringe of gold bullion. There are three flags: the national colours, the state flag, and a purple regimental flag lettered in gold: '3d Regt. N. Y. Zouaves,' and under it their motto: 'Multorum manibus grande levatur onus.' I hope it is good Latin, for it is mine. Is it?
"AILSA PAIGE."
To this letter he made no reply, and, after a week, his silence hurt her.
One afternoon toward the middle of May Stephen was announced; and with a sudden sense of foreboding she hastened down to the drawing-room.
"Oh!" she cried. "You—Stephen!"
But the boy in his zouave uniform was beside himself with excitement and pride, and he embraced her, laughing, and then began to walk up and down the room gesticulating.
"I couldn't stand it any longer, and they let me go. I'm sorry for mother, but look at other men's mothers! They're calling for more and more troops every week! I knew everybody would have to go, and I'm mighty fortunate to get into father's regiment—And O Ailsa! It is a fine regiment! We're drilling every minute, and now that we've got our uniforms it won't be long before our orders come——"
"Stephen—does your mother——"
"Mother knows I can't help it. I do love her; she knows that perfectly well. But men have got to settle this thing——"
"Two hundred thousand are getting ready to settle it! Are there hot enough without you?—your mother's only son——"
"Suppose everybody thought that way, where would our army be?"
"But there are hundreds of regiments forming here—getting ready, drilling, leaving on boats and trains every day——"
"And every regiment is composed of men exactly like me! They go because the Nation's business is everybody's business. And the Nation's business comes first. There's no use talking to me, Ailsa. I've had it but with father. He saw that he couldn't prevent me from doing what he has done. And old Lent is our major! Lord, Ailsa, what a terrible old man for discipline! And father is—well he is acting as though we ought to behave like West Pointers. They're cruelly hard on skylarkers and guard runners, and they're fairly kicking discipline into us. But I'm willing. I'm ready to stand anything as long as we can get away!"
He was talking in a loud, excited voice, pacing restlessly to and fro, pausing at intervals to confront Ailsa where she sat, limp and silent, gazing up at this slender youth in his short blue jacket edged with many bell-buttons, blue body sash, scarlet zouave trousers and leather gaiters.
Presently old Jonas shuffled in with Madeira, cakes, and sandwiches, and Stephen began on them immediately.
"I came over so you could see me in my uniform," he explained; "and
I'm going back right away to see mother and Paige and Marye and
Camilla." He paused, sandwich suspended, then swallowed what he
had been chewing and took another bite, recklessly.
"I'm very fond of Camilla," he said condescendingly. "She's very nice about my going—the only one who hasn't snivelled. I tell you, Ailsa, Camilla is a good deal of a girl. . . . And I've promised to look out for her uncle—keep an eye on old Lent, you know, which seems to comfort her a good deal when she begins crying——
"Oh. . . I thought Camilla didn't cry."
"She cries a little—now and then."
"About her uncle?"
"Certainly."
Ailsa looked down at her ringless fingers. Within the week she had laid away both rings, meaning to resume them some day.
"If you and your father go, your office will be closed, I suppose."
"Oh, no. Farren will run it."
"I see. . . . And Mr. Berkley, too, I suppose."
Stephen looked up from his bitten seedcake.
"Berkley? He left long ago."
"Left—where?" she asked, confused.
"Left the office. It couldn't be helped. There was nothing for him to do. I was sorry—I'm sorrier now——"
He checked himself, hesitated, turned his troubled eyes on Ailsa.
"I did like him so much."
"Don't you like him—still?"
"Yes—I do. I don't know what was the matter with that man. He went all to pieces."
"W-what!"
"Utterly. Isn't it too bad."
She sat there very silent, very white. Stephen bit into another cake, angrily.
"It's the company he keeps," he said—"a lot of fast men—fast enough to be talked about, fashionable enough to be tolerated—Jack Casson is one of them, and that little ass, Arthur Wye. That's the crowd—a horse-racing, hard-drinking, hard-gambling crew."
"But—he is—Mr. Berkley's circumstances—how can he do such things——"
"Some idiot—even Berkley doesn't know who—took all those dead stocks off his hands. Wasn't it the devil's own luck for Berkley to find a market in times like these?"
"But it ended him. . . . Oh, I was fond of him, I tell you, Ailsa!
I hate like thunder to see him this way——"
"What way!"
"Oh, not caring for anybody or anything. He's never sober. I don't mean that I ever saw him otherwise—he doesn't get drunk like an ordinary man: he just turns deathly white and polite. I've met him—and his friends—several times. They're too fast a string of colts for me. But isn't it a shame that a man like Berkley should go to the devil—and for no reason at all?"
"Yes," she said.
When Stephen, swinging his crimson fez by the tassel, stood ready to take his leave, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
After he departed Colonel Arran came, and sat, as usual, silent, listening.
Ailsa was very animated; she told him about Stephen's enlistment, asked scores of questions about military life, the chances in battle, the proportion of those who went through war unscathed.
And at length Colonel Arran arose to take his departure; and she had not told what was hammering for utterance in every heart beat; she did not know how to tell, what to ask.
Hat in hand Colonel Arran bent over her hot little hand where it lay in his own.
"I have been offered the colonelcy of a volunteer regiment now forming," he said without apparent interest.
"You!"
"Cavalry," he explained wearily.
"But—you have not accepted!"
He gave her an absent glance. "Yes, I have accepted. . . . I am going to Washington to-night."
"Oh!" she breathed, "but you are coming back before—before——"
"Yes, child. Cavalry is not made in a hurry. I am to see General Scott—perhaps Mr. Cameron and the President. . . . If, in my absence—" he hesitated, looked down, shook his head. And somehow she seemed to know that what he had not said concerned Berkley.
Neither of them mentioned him. But after Colonel Arran had gone she went slowly to her room, sat down at her desk, sat there a long, long while thinking. But it was after midnight before she wrote to Berkley:
"Have you quite forgotten me? I have had to swallow a little pride to write you again. But perhaps I think our pleasant friendship worth it.
"Stephen has been here. He has enlisted as a private in his father's regiment of zouaves. I learned by accident from him that you are no longer associated with Craig & Son in business. I trust this means at least a partial recovery of your fortune. If it does, with fortune recovered responsibilities increase, and I choose to believe that it is these new and exacting duties which have prevented me from seeing you or from hearing from you for more than three weeks.
"But surely you could find a moment to write a line to a friend who is truly your very sincere well-wisher, and who would be the first to express her pleasure in any good fortune which might concern you.
"AILSA PAIGE."
Two days passed, and her answer came:
"Ailsa Paige, dearest and most respected, I have not forgotten you for one moment. And I have tried very hard.
"God knows what my pen is trying to say to you, and not hurt you, and yet kill utterly in you the last kindly and charitable memory of the man who is writing to you.
"Ailsa, if I had known you even one single day before that night I met you, you would have had of me, in that single day, all that a man dare lay at the feet of the truest and best of women.
"But on that night I came to you a man utterly and hopelessly ruined—morally dead of a blow dealt me an hour before I saw you for the first time.
"I had not lived an orderly life, but at worst it was only a heedless life. I had been a fool, but not a damned one. There was in me something loftier than a desire for pleasure, something worthier than material ambition. What else lay latent—if anything—I may only surmise. It is all dead.
"The blow dealt me that evening—an hour before I first laid eyes on you—utterly changed me; and if there was anything spiritual in my character it died then. And left what you had a glimpse of—just a man, pagan, material, unmoral, unsafe; unmoved by anything except by what appeals to the material senses.
"Is that the kind of man you suppose me? That is the man I am. And you know it now. And you know, now, what it was in me that left you perplexed, silent, troubled, not comprehending—why it was you would not dance with me again, nor suffer my touch, nor endure me too near you.
"It was the less noble in me—all that the blow had not killed—only a lesser part of a finer and perfect passion that might perhaps have moved you to noble response in time.
"Because I should have given you all at the first meeting; I could no more have helped it than I could have silenced my heart and lived. But what was left to give could awake in you no echo, no response, no comprehension. In plainer, uglier words, I meant to make you love me; and I was ready to carry you with me to that hell where souls are lost through love—and where we might lose our souls together.
"And now you will never write to me again."
All the afternoon she bent at her desk, poring over his letter. In her frightened heart she knew that something within her, not spiritual, had responded to what, in him, had evoked it; that her indefinable dread was dread of herself, of her physical responsiveness to his nearness, of her conscious inclination for it.
Could this be she—herself—who still bent here over his written words—this tense, hot-cheeked, tremulous creature, staring dry-eyed at the blurring lines which cut her for ever asunder from this self-outlawed man!
Was this letter still unburned. Had she not her fill of its brutality, its wickedness?
But she was very tired, and she laid her arms on the desk and her head between them. And against her hot face she felt the cool letter-paper.
All that she had dreamed and fancied and believed and cared for in man passed dully through her mind. Her own aspirations toward ideal womanhood followed—visions of lofty desire, high ideals, innocent passions, the happiness of renunciation, the glory of forgiveness——
She sat erect, breathing unevenly; then her eyes fell on the letter, and she covered it with her hands, as hands cover the shame on a stricken face. And after a long time her lips moved, repeating:
"The glory of forgiveness—the glory of forgiveness——"
Her heart was beating very hard and fast as her thoughts ran on.
"To forgive—help him—teach truth—nobler ideals——"
She could not rest; sleep, if it really came, was a ghostly thing that mocked her. And all the next day she roamed about the house, haunted with the consciousness of where his letter lay locked in her desk. And that day she would not read it again; but the next day she read it. And the next.
And if it were her desire to see him once again before all ended irrevocably for ever—or if it was what her heart was striving to tell her, that he was in need of aid against himself, she could not tell. But she wrote him:
"It is not you who have written this injury for my eyes to read, but another man, demoralised by the world's cruelty—not knowing what he is saying—hurt to the soul, not mortally. When he recovers he will be you. And this letter is my forgiveness."
Berkley received it when he was not particularly sober; and lighting the end of it at a candle let it burn until the last ashes scorched his fingers.
"Burgess," he said, "did you ever notice how hard it is for the frailer things to die? Those wild doves we used to shoot in Georgia—by God! it took quail shot to kill them clean."
"Yes, sir?"
"Exactly. Then, that being the case, you may give me a particularly vigorous shampoo. Because, Burgess, I woo my volatile goddess to-night—the Goddess Chance, Burgess, whose wanton and naughty eyes never miss the fall of a card. And I desire that all my senses work like lightning, Burgess, because it is a fast company and a faster game, and that's why I want an unusually muscular shampoo!"
"Yes, sir. Poker, sir?"
"I—ah—believe so," said Berkley, lying back in his chair and closing his eyes. "Go ahead and rub hell into me—if I'll hold any more."
The pallor, the shadows under eyes and cheeks, the nervous lines at the corners of the nose, had almost disappeared when Burgess finished. And when he stood in his evening clothes pulling a rose-bud stem through the button-hole of his lapel, he seemed very fresh and young and graceful in the gas-light.
"Am I very fine, Burgess? Because I go where youth and beauty chase the shining hours with flying feet. Oh yes, Burgess, the fair and frail will be present, also the dashing and self-satisfied. And we'll try to make it agreeable all around, won't we? . . . And don't smoke all my most expensive cigars, Burgess. I may want one when I return. I hate to ask too much of you, but you won't mind leaving one swallow of brandy in that decanter, will you? Thanks. Good night, Burgess."
"Thank you, sir. Good night, sir."
As he walked out into the evening air he swung his cane in glittering circles.
"Nevertheless," he said under his breath, "she'd better be careful. If she writes again I might lose my head and go to her. You can never tell about some men; and the road to hell is a lonely one—damned lonely. Better let a man travel it like a gentleman if he can. It's more dignified than sliding into it on your back, clutching a handful of lace petticoat."
He added: "There's only one hell; and it's hell, perhaps, because there are no women there."
CHAPTER VIII
Berkley, hollow-eyed, ghastly white, but smiling, glanced at the clock.
"Only one more hand after this," he said. "I open it for the limit."
"All in," said Cortlandt briefly. "What are you going to do now?"
"Scindere glaciem," observed Berkley, "you may give me three cards, Cortlandt." He took them, scanned his hand, tossed the discards into the centre of the table, and bet ten dollars. Through the tobacco smoke drifting in level bands, the crystal chandeliers in Cortlandt's house glimmered murkily; the cigar haze even stretched away into the farther room, where, under brilliantly lighted side brackets, a young girl sat playing at the piano, a glass of champagne, gone flat, at her dimpled elbow. Another girl, in a shrimp-pink evening gown, one silken knee drooping over the other, lay half buried among the cushions, singing the air which the player at the piano picked out by ear. A third girl, velvet-eyed and dark of hair, listened pensively, turning the gems on her fingers.
The pretty musician at the piano was playing an old song, once much admired by the sentimental; the singer, reclining amid her cushions, sang the words, absently:
"Why did I give my heart away—
Give it so lightly, give it to pay
For a pleasant dream on a summer's day?
"Why did I give? I do not know.
Surely the passing years will show.
"Why did I give my love away—
Give it in April, give it in May,
For a young man's smile on a summer's day?
"Why did I love? I do not know.
Perhaps the passing years will show.
"Why did I give my soul away—
Give it so gaily, give it to pay
For a sigh and a kiss on a summer's day?
"Perhaps the passing years may show;
My heart and I, we do not know."
She broke off short, swung on the revolving chair, and called: "Mr.
Berkley, are you going to see me home?"
"Last jack, Miss Carew," said Berkley, "I'm opening it for the limit. Give me one round of fixed ammunition, Arthur."
"There's no use drawing," observed another man, laying down his hand, "Berkley cleans us up as usual."
He was right; everything went to Berkley, as usual, who laughed and turned a dissipated face to Casson.
"Cold decks?" he suggested politely. "Your revenge at your convenience, Jack."
Casson declined. Cortlandt, in his brilliant zouave uniform, stood up and stretched his arms until the scarlet chevrons on the blue sleeves wrinkled into jagged lightning.
"It's been very kind of you all to come to my last 'good-bye party,'" he yawned, looking sleepily around him through the smoke at his belongings.
For a week he had been giving a "good-bye party" every evening in his handsome house on Twenty-third Street. The four men and the three young girls in the other room were the residue of this party, which was to be the last.
Arthur Wye, wearing the brand-new uniform, red stripes and facings, of flying artillery, rose also; John Casson buttoned his cavalry jacket, grumbling, and stood heavily erect, a colossus in blue and yellow.
"You have the devil's luck, Berkley," he said without bitterness.
"I need it."
"So you do, poor old boy. But—God! you play like a professional."
Wye yawned, thrust his strong, thin hands into his trousers pockets, and looked stupidly at the ceiling.
"I wish to heaven they'd start our battery," he said vacantly.
"I'm that sick of Hamilton!"
Casson grumbled again, settling his debts with Berkley.
"Everybody has the devil's own luck except the poor God-forsaken cavalry. Billy Cortlandt goes tomorrow, your battery is under orders, but nobody cares what happens to the cavalry. And they're the eyes and ears of an army——"
"They're the heels and tail of it," observed Berkley, "and the artillery is the rump."
"Shut up, you sneering civilian!"
"I'm shutting up—shop—unless anybody cares to try one last cold hand—" He caught the eye of the girl at the piano and smiled pallidly. "'Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames!' Also I have them all scared to death, Miss Carew—the volunteer army of our country is taking water."
"It doesn't taste like water," said the pretty singer on the sofa, stretching out her bubbling glass, "try it yourself, Mr. Berkley."
They went toward the music room; Cortlandt seated himself on top of the piano. He looked rather odd there in his zouave jacket, red trousers, white-gaitered legs hanging.
"Oh the Zou-zou-zou!
Oh the Zou-zou-zou!
Oh the boys of the bully Zouaves!"
he hummed, swinging his legs vigorously. "Ladies and gentlemen, it's all over but the shooting. Arthur, I saw your battery horses; they belong in a glue factory. How arc you going to save your guns when the rebs come after you?"
"God knows, especially if the Zouaves support us," replied Wye, yawning again. Then, rising:
"I've got to get back to that cursed fort. I'll escort anybody who'll let me."
"One more glass, then," said Cortlandt. "Berkley, fill the parting cup! Ladies of the Canterbury, fair sharers of our hospitality who have left the triumphs of the drama to cheer the unfortunate soldier on his war-ward way, I raise my glass and drink to each Terpsichorean toe which, erstwhile, was pointed skyward amid the thunder of metropolitan plaudits, and which now demurely taps my flattered carpet. Gentlemen—soldiers and civilians—I give you three toasts! Miss Carew, Miss Lynden, Miss Trent! Long may they dance! Hurrah!"
"Get on the table," said Casson amid the cheering, and climbed up, spurs jingling, glass on high.
"Will it hold us all?" inquired Letty Lynden, giving her hands to
Berkley, who shrugged and swung her up beside him. "Hurrah for the
Zouaves!" she cried; "Hurrah for Billy Cortlandt!—Oh, somebody
spilled champagne all over me!"
"Hurrah for the artillery!" shouted Arthur Wye, vigorously cheering himself and waving his glass, to the terror of Ione Carew, who attempted to dodge the sparkling rain in vain.
"Arthur, you look like a troop of trained mice," observed Berkley gravely. "Has anybody a toy cannon and a little flag?"
Wye descended with a hop, sprang astride a chair, and clattered around the room, imitating his drill-master.
"Attention! By the right of batteries, break into sections, trot. Mar-r-rch! Attention-n-n! By section from the right of batteries—front into column. Mar-r-rch!"
"By section from the right, front into column, march!" repeated Cortlandt, jumping down from the table and seizing another chair. "Everybody mount a chair!" he shouted. "This is the last artillery drill of the season. Line up there, Letty! It won't hurt your gown. Berkley'll get you another, anyway! Now, ladies and gentlemen, sit firmly in your saddles. Caissons to the rear—march! Caissons, left about—pieces forward—march!"
Wye's chair buckled and he came down with a splintering crash; Casson galloped madly about, pretending his chair had become unmanageable. It, also, ultimately collapsed, landed him flat on his back, whence he surveyed the exercises of the haute ecole in which three flushed and laughing young girls followed the dashing lead of Cortlandt, while Berkley played a cavalry canter on the piano with one hand and waved his cigar in the other.
Later, breathless, they touched glasses to the departing volunteers, to each other, to the ladies ("God bless them! Hear! He-ah!"), to the war, to every regiment going, to each separate battery horse and mule in Arthur's section. And then began on the guns,
"I prophesy a quick reunion!" said Berkley. "Here's to it! Full glasses!
"Speech! Speech—you nimble-witted, limber-legged prophet!" roared John Casson, throwing a pack of cards at Berkley. "Read the cards for us!"
Berkley very gracefully caught a handful, and sorting them, began impromptu:
"Diamonds for you,
Little Miss Carew,
Strung in a row,
Tied in a bow—
What would you do
If they came true?
"What can it be?
Hearts! for Miss Letty—
Sweethearts and beaux,
Monarchs in rows,
Knaves on their knees—
Choose among these!
"Clubs now, I see!
Ace! for Miss Betty—
Clubman and swell,
Soldier as well.
Yes, he's all three;
Who can he be?
"Ione, be kind
To monarch and knave,
But make up your mind
To make 'em behave.
And when a man finds you
The nicest he's met, he
Is likely to marry you,
Letty and Betty!"
Tremendous cheering greeted these sentiments; three more cheers were proposed and given for the Canterbury.
"Home of the 'ster arts, m-music an' 'r' drama-r-r—" observed
Casson hazily—"I'm going home."
Nobody seemed to hear him.
"Home—ser-weet home," he repeated sentimentally—"home among the horses—where some Roman-nosed, camel-backed, slant-eared nag is probably waitin' to kick daylight out'r me! Ladies, farewell!" he added, tripping up on his spurs and waving his hand vaguely. "Cav'lry's eyes 'n' ears 'f army! 'Tain't the hind legs' No—no! I'm head 'n' ears—army! 'n' I wan' t' go home."
For a while he remained slanting against the piano, thoughtfully attempting to pry out the strings; then Wye returned from putting Miss Carew and Miss Trent into a carriage.
"You come to the fort with me," he said. "That'll sober you. I sleep near the magazine."
Berkley's face looked dreadfully battered and white, but he was master of himself, careful of his equilibrium, and very polite to everybody.
"You're—hic!—killin' yourself," said Cortlandt, balancing himself carefully in the doorway.
"Don't put it that way," protested Berkley. "I'm trying to make fast time, that's all. I'm in a hurry."
The other wagged his head: "You won't last long if you keep this up. The—hic!—trouble with you is that you can't get decently drunk. You just turn blue and white. That's what's—matter—you! And it kills the kind of—hic!—of man you are. B-b'lieve me," he added shedding tears, "I'm fon' 'v' you, Ber—hic!—kley."
He shed a few more scalding tears, waved his hand in resignation, bowed his head, caught sight of his own feet, regarded them with surprise.
"Whose?" he inquired naively.
"Yours," said Berkley reassuringly. "They don't want to go to bed."
"Put 'em to bed!" said Cortlandt in a stem voice. "No business wand'ring 'round here this time of night!"
So Berkley escorted Cortlandt to bed, bowed him politely into his room, and turned out the gas as a precaution.
Returning, he noticed the straggling retreat of cavalry and artillery, arms fondly interlaced; then, wandering back to the other room in search of his hat, he became aware of Letty Lynden, seated at the table.
Her slim, childish body lay partly across the table, her cheek was pillowed on one outstretched arm, the fingers of which lay loosely around the slender crystal stem of a wine-glass.
"Are you asleep?" he asked. And saw that she was.
So he roamed about, hunting for something or other—he forgot what—until he found it was her mantilla. Having found it, he forgot what he wanted it for and, wrapping it around his shoulders, sat down on the sofa, very silent, very white, but physically master of the demoralisation that sharpened the shadows under his cheek-bones and eyes.
"I guess," he said gravely to himself, "that I'd better become a gambler. It's—a—very, ve—ry good 'fession—no," he added cautiously, "per—fession—" and stopped short, vexed with his difficulties of enunciation.
He tried several polysyllables; they went better. Then he became aware of the mantilla on his shoulders.
"Some time or other," he said to himself with precision, "that little dancer girl ought to go home."
He rose steadily, walked to the table:
"Listen to me, you funny little thing," he said.
No answer.
The childlike curve of the cheek was flushed; the velvet-fringed lids lay close. For a moment he listened to the quiet breathing, then touched her arm lightly.
The girl stirred, lifted her head, straightened up, withdrawing her fingers from the wine-glass.
"Everybody's gone home," he said. "Do you want to stay here all night?"
She rose, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands, saw the mantilla he was holding, suffered him to drop it on, her shoulders, standing there sleepy and acquiescent. Then she yawned.
"Are you going with me, Mr. Berkley?"
"I'll—yes. I'll see you safe."
She yawned again, laid a small hand on his arm, and together they descended the stairs, opened the front door, and went out into Twenty-third Street. He scarcely expected to find a hack at that hour, but there was one; and it drove them to her lodgings on Fourth Avenue, near Thirteenth Street. Spite of her paint and powder she seemed very young and very tired as she stood by the open door, looking drearily at the gray pallor over the roofs opposite, where day was breaking.
"Will you—come in?"
He had prepared to take his leave; he hesitated.
"I think I will," he said. "I'd like to see you with your face washed."
Her room was small, very plain, very neat. On the bed lay folded a white night gown; a pair of knitted pink slippers stood close together on the floor beside it. There was a cheap curtain across the alcove; she drew it, turned, looked at him; and slowly her oval face crimsoned.
"You needn't wash your face," he said very gently.
She crept into the depths of a big arm-chair and lay back watching him with inscrutable eyes.
He did not disturb her for a while. After a few moments he got up and walked slowly about, examining the few inexpensive ornaments on wall and mantel; turned over the pages of an album, glanced at a newspaper beside it, then came back and stood beside her chair.
"Letty?"
She opened her eyes.
"I suppose that this isn't the—first time."
"No."
"It's not far from it, though." She was silent, but her eyes dropped.
He sat down on the padded arm of the chair.
"Do you know how much money I've made this week?" he said gaily.
She looked up at him, surprised, and shook her head; but her velvet eyes grew wide when he told her.
"I won it fairly," he said. "And I'm going to stake it all on one last bet."
[Illustration: "I won it fairly, and I'm going to stake it all on one last bet."]
"On—what?"
"On—you. Now, what do you think of that, you funny little thing?"
"How—do you mean, Mr. Berkley?" He looked down into the eyes of a hurt child.
"It goes into the bank in your name—if you say so."
"For—what?"
"I don't know," he said serenely, "but I am betting it will go for rent, and board, and things a girl needs—when she has no man to ask them of—and nothing to pay for them."
"You mean no man—-excepting—you?"
"No," he said wearily, "I'm not trying to buy you."
She crimsoned. "I thought—then why do you——"
"Why? Good God, child! I don't know! How do I know why I do anything? I've enough left for my journey. Take this and try to behave yourself if you can—in the Canterbury and out of it! . . . And buy a new lock for that door of yours. Good night."
She sprang up and laid a detaining hand on his sleeve as he reached the hallway.
"Mr. Berkley! I—I can't——"
He said, smiling: "My manners are really better than that——"
"I didn't mean——"
"You ought to. Don't let any man take his leave in such a manner. Men believe a woman to be what she thinks she is. Think well of yourself. And go to bed. I never saw such a sleepy youngster in my life! Good night, you funny, sleepy little thing."
"Mr. Berkley—I can't take—accept——"
"Oh, listen to her!" he said, disgusted. "Can't I make a bet with my own money if I want to? I am betting; and you are holding the stakes. It depends on how you use them whether I win or lose."
"I don't understand—I don't, truly," she stammered; "d-do you wish me to—leave—the Canterbury? Do you—what is it you wish?"
"You know better than I do. I'm not advising you. Where is your home? Why don't you go there? You have one somewhere, I suppose, haven't you?"
"Y-yes; I had."
"Well—where is it?"
"In Philadelphia."
"Couldn't you stand it?" he inquired with a sneer.
"No." She covered her face with her hands.
"Trouble?"
"Y-yes."
"Man?"
"Y-y-yes."
"Won't they take you back?"
"I—haven't written."
"Write. Home is no stupider than the Canterbury. Will you write?"
She nodded, hiding her face.
"Then—that's settled. Meanwhile—" he took both her wrists and drew away her clinging hands:
"I'd rather like to win this bet because—the odds are all against me." He smiled, letting her hands swing back and hang inert at her sides.
But she only closed her eyes and shook her head, standing there, slim and tear-stained in her ruffled, wine-stained dinner dress. And, watching her, he retreated, one step after another, slowly; and slowly closed the door, and went out into the dawn, weary, haggard, the taste of life bitter in his mouth.
"What a spectacle," he sneered, referring to himself, "the vicious god from the machine! Chorus of seraphim. Apotheosis of little Miss Turveydrop——"
He swayed a trine as he walked, but it was not from the wine.
A policeman eyed him unfavourably,
"No," said Berkley, "I'm not drunk. You think I am. But I'm not.
And I'm too tired to tell you how I left my happy, happy home."
In the rosy gray of the dawn he sat down on the steps of his new lodgings and gazed quietly into space.
"This isn't going to help," he said. "I can stand years of it yet. And that's much too long."
He brooded for a few moments.
"I hope she doesn't write me again. I can't stand everything."
He got up with an ugly, oblique glance at the reddening sky.
"I'm what he's made me—and I've got to let her alone. . . . Let her alone. I—" He halted, laid his hand heavily on the door, standing so, motionless.
"If I—go—near her, he'll tell her what I am. If he didn't, I'd have to tell her. There's no way—anywhere—for me. And he made me so. . . . And—by God! it's in me—in me—to—to—if she writes again—" He straightened up, turned the key calmly, and let himself in.
Burgess was asleep, but Berkley went into his room and awoke him, shining a candle in his eyes.
"Burgess!"
"S-sir?"
"Suppose you knew you could never marry a woman. Would you keep away from her? Or would you do as much as you could to break her heart first?"
Burgess yawned: "Yes, sir."
"You'd do all you could?"
"Yes, sir."
There was a long silence; then Berkley laughed. "They drowned the wrong pup," he said pleasantly. "Good night."
But Burgess was already asleep again.
CHAPTER IX
And now at last she knew what it was she feared. For she was beginning to understand that this man was utterly unworthy, utterly insensible, without character, without one sympathetic trait that appealed to anything in her except her senses.
She understood it now, lying there alone in her room, knowing it to be true, admitting it in all the bitter humiliation of self-contempt. But even in the light of this new self-knowledge her inclination for him seemed a thing so unreasonable, so terrible, that, confused and terrified by the fear of spiritual demoralisation, she believed that this bewildering passion was all that he had ever evoked in her, and fell sick in mind and body for the shame of it.
A living fever was on her night and day; disordered memories of him haunted her, waking; defied her, sleeping; and her hatred for what he had awakened in her grew as her blind, childish longing to see him grew, leaving no peace for her.
What kind of love was that?—founded on nothing, nurtured on nothing, thriving on nothing except what her senses beheld in him. Nothing higher, nothing purer, nothing more exalted had she ever learned of him than what her eyes saw; and they had seen only a man in his ripe youth, without purpose, without ideals, taking carelessly of the world what he would one day return to it—the material, born in corruption, and to corruption doomed.
It was night she feared most. By day there were duties awaiting, or to be invented. Also, sometimes, standing on her steps, she could hear the distant sound of drums, catch a glimpse far to the eastward of some regiment bound South, the long rippling line of bayonets, a flutter of colour where the North was passing on God's own errand. And love of country became a passion.
Stephen came sometimes, but his news of Berkley was always indefinite, usually expressed with a shrug and emphasised in silences.
Colonel Arran was still in Washington, but he wrote her every day, and always he asked whether Berkley had come. She never told him.
Like thousands and thousands of other women in New York she did what she could for the soldiers, contributing from her purse, attending meetings, making havelocks, ten by eight, for the soldiers' caps, rolling bandages, scraping lint in company with other girls of her acquaintance, visiting barracks and camps and "soldiers' rests," sending endless batches of pies and cakes and dozens of jars of preserves from her kitchen to the various distributing depots.
Sainte Ursula's Church sent out a call to its parishioners; a notice was printed in all the papers requesting any women of the congregation who had a knowledge of nursing to meet at the rectory for the purpose of organisation. And Ailsa went and enrolled herself as one who had had some hospital experience.
Sickness among the thousands of troops in the city there already was, also a few cases of gunshots in the accident wards incident on the carelessness or ignorance of raw volunteers. But as yet in the East there had been no soldier wounded in battle, no violent death except that of the young colonel of the 1st Fire Zouaves, shot down at Alexandria.
So there was no regular hospital duty asked of Ailsa Paige, none required; and she and a few other women attended a class of instruction conducted by her own physician, Dr. Benton, who explained the simpler necessities of emergency cases and coolly predicted that there would be plenty of need for every properly instructed woman who cared to volunteer.
So the ladies of Sainte Ursula's listened very seriously; and some had enough of it very soon, and some remained longer, and finally only a small residue was left—quiet, silent, attentive women of various ages who came every day to hear what Dr. Benton had to tell them, and write it down in their little morocco notebooks. And these, after a while, became the Protestant sisterhood of Sainte Ursula, and wore, on duty, the garb of gray with the pectoral scarlet heart.
May went out with the booming of shotted guns beyond the, Southern horizon, amid rumours of dead zouaves and cavalrymen somewhere beyond Alexandria. And on that day the 7th Regiment returned to garrison the city, and the anxious city cheered its return, and people slept more soundly for it, though all day long the streets echoed with the music of troops departing, and of regiments parading for a last inspection before the last good-byes were said.
Berkley saw some of this from his window. Never perfectly sober now, he seldom left his rooms except at night; and all day long he read, or brooded, or lay listless, or as near drunk as he ever could be, indifferent, neither patient nor impatient with a life he no longer cared enough about to either use or take.
There were intervals when the deep despair within him awoke quivering; instants of fierce grief instantly controlled, throttled; moments of listless relaxation when some particularly contemptible trait in Burgess faintly amused him, or some attempted invasion of his miserable seclusion provoked a sneer or a haggard smile, or perhaps an uneasiness less ignoble, as when, possibly, the brief series of letters began and ended between him and the dancing girl of the Canterbury.
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Could you come for me after the theatre this evening?
"LETITIA LYNDEN."
"DEAR LETTY:
"I'm afraid I couldn't.
"Very truly yours,
"P. O. BERKLEY."
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Am I not to see you again? I think perhaps you
might care to hear that I have been doing what you
wished ever since that night. I have also written home,
but nobody has replied. I don't think they want me
now. It is a little lonely, being what you wish me to
be. I thought you might come sometimes. Could you?
"LETITIA LYNDEN."
"DEAR LETITIA:
"I seem to be winning my bet, but nobody can ever
tell. Wait for a while and then write home again.
Meantime, why not make bonnets? If you want to, I'll
see that you get a chance.
"P. O. BERKLEY."
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"I don't know how. I never had any skill. I was
assistant in a physician's office—once. Thank you for
your kind and good offer—for all your goodness to me.
I wish I could see you sometimes. You have been better
to me than any man. Could I?
"LETTY."
"DEAR LETTY:
"Why not try some physician's office?"
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Do you wish me to? Would you see me sometimes
if I left the Canterbury? It is so lonely—you don't
know, Mr. Berkley, how lonely it is to be what you wish
me to be. Please only come and speak to me.
"LETTY."
"DEAR LETTY:
"Here is a card to a nice doctor, Phineas Benton,
M.D. I have not seen him in years; he remembers me
as I was. You will not, of course, disillusion him. I've
had to lie to him about you—and about myself. I've
told him that I know your family in Philadelphia, that
they asked me about the chances of a position here for
you as an assistant in a physician's office, and that now
you had come on to seek for such a position. Let me
know how the lie turns out.
"P. O. BERKLEY."
A fortnight later came her last letter:
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"I have been with Dr. Benton nearly two weeks now.
He took me at once. He is such a good man! But—I
don't know—sometimes he looks at me and looks at me
as though he suspected what I am—and I feel my cheeks
getting hot, and I can scarcely speak for nervousness;
and then he always smiles so pleasantly and speaks so
courteously that I know he is too kind and good to suspect.
"I hold sponges and instruments in minor operations, keep the office clean, usher in patients, offer them smelling salts and fan them, prepare lint, roll bandages—and I know already how to do all this quite well. I think he seems pleased with me. He is so very kind to me. And I have a little hall bedroom in his house, very tiny but very neat and clean; and I have my meals with his housekeeper, an old, old woman who is very deaf and very pleasant.
"I don't go out because I don't know where to go. I'm afraid to go near the Canterbury—afraid to meet anybody from there. I think I would die if any man I ever saw there ever came into Dr. Benton's office. The idea of that often frightens me. But nobody has come. And I sometimes do go out with Dr. Benton. He is instructing a class of ladies in the principles of hospital nursing, and lately I have gone with him to hold things for him while he demonstrates. And once, when he was called away suddenly, I remained with the class alone, and I was not very nervous, and I answered all their questions for them and showed them how things ought to be done. They were so kind to me; and one very lovely girl came to me afterward and thanked me and said that she, too, had worked a little as a nurse for charity, and asked me to call on her.
"I was so silly—do you know I couldn't see her for the tears, and I couldn't speak—and I couldn't let go of her hands. I wanted to kiss them, but I was ashamed.
"Some day do you think I might see you again? I
am what you have asked me to be. I never wanted to be
anything else. They will not believe that at home because
they had warned me, and I was such a fool—and perhaps
you won't believe me—but I didn't know what I
was doing; I didn't want to be what I became—This is
really true, Mr. Berkley. Sometime may I see you
again?
Yours sincerely,
"LETITIA A. LYNDEN."