Joan Thursday: A Novel

Alone in the body of a touring-car, Helena Tankerville, a slender and fair woman in white, as cool and fresh to look upon as the day was hot and weary to endure, consulted her bracelet-watch, shrugged recklessly, and lifted her parasol an inch or so to enable her to level an imperious stare at the point where the straight, shining lines of railroad track debouched from the western woodland; as if expecting the very strength of her impatience to conjure into sight the overdue train.

She was very pretty and prettily dressed and sure of herself; there were evidences of temper and determination mixed with disquietude in her manner; and there was no one in her present neighbourhood (except possibly her chauffeur) of whose existence she considered it worth her while to be aware. None the less, she was conscious that she was visible. . . .

A faint puff of vapour bellied above the distant screen of pines. Immediately a far, mellow, prolonged hoot turned all faces toward the west. A rakish, low-lying locomotive with a long tail of coaches emerged from the woodland and, breathing forth vast volumes of smoke, fled a pursuing cloud of dust, straight as an arrow to the station; where, panting with triumph and relief, as one having won a race, it drew in beside the platform.

Incontinently, upwards of two hundred people, the majority of them men in apparently comfortable circumstances, well dressed to the standards of summer negligence, swarmed out of the cars and ran hither and yon, heedlessly elbowing one another and gabbling vociferously as they sought accommodation in the long rank of station-wagons, 'buses, surreys, smartly appointed traps, and motor-cars.

Helena, bending forward, overlooked them all with imperceptible disdain. The face she sought was not among those that swam in review beneath her. And presently encountering an overbold glance, she drew back with a little frown of annoyance. Already the throng was thinning; conveyances laden to the guards were drawing out of the rank and rattling and rumbling off through stifling drifts of dust; no more passengers were issuing from the coaches; and already the parlour-car porters were picking up their stools and preparing to swing back aboard the train. The conductor waved his final signal. The bell tolled its warning. The locomotive belched black smoke and cinders and amid stentorian puffings began to move, the coaches following to their tune of clanking couplings. No sign of her refractory nephew. And still Helena hesitated to give the order to drive home; John had telephoned; it wasn't like him to be delinquent in his promises.

The end of the last car was passing her when she saw him. He appeared suddenly on the rearmost platform, with the startled expression and air of a Jack-in-the-box; dropped his suit-case over the rear rail; ran down the steps; delayed an instant to gauge distance and speed: and with nice calculation dropped lightly to the ground.

Pausing only to recover his luggage, he approached the motor-car with a sheepish smile for his handsome young aunt, who regarded him with an air of mingled bewilderment and despair.

"Wel-l!" she exclaimed, as soon as he was near enough to hear—"of all things—!"

"Right you are!" he affirmed gravely, tossing his handbag into the car and following it. "Kick along, Davy," he added, with a nod to the chauffeur; and gracefully sank back upon the seat beside Helena.

Purring, the car began to grope its way through the dust-fog. Matthias turned twinkling eyes to his aunt. She compressed her lips and shook her head helplessly.

"Words inadequate, aunty?"

"Quite!" she said. "What were you doing on that train, to come so near forgetting the station?"

"Thinking," he explained: "wrapped in profound and exhaustive meditation. I say, how stunning you look!"

She gave him up; or one inferred as much from her gesture.

"You're impossible," she said in a tragic voice. "Thinking!... While I had to wait there and be ogled by all those odious men!"

"You must've been ready to sink through the ground."

She eyed him stonily. "You didn't care—!"

"Even if I hadn't been preoccupied, it would never have entered my head that you seriously objected to being admired."

She received this in injured silence. Matthias chuckled to himself and settled more comfortably into his seat. The motor-car turned off the main road from the station to the village of Port Madison, down which the greater number of its predecessors had clattered, and found unclouded air on a well-metalled lane bordered with aged oaks and maples. Through a funnel-like dip between hills, Matthias, looking past his aunt, caught a fleeting glimpse of the cluttered roofs of Port Madison, its shallow, land-locked harbour set with a little fleet of pleasure boats, and the ineffable, burning blue of the distant Sound....

"I presume," Helena returned to the charge, disarmingly aggrieved, "you think I ought to be grateful for your condescending to return at all!"

"Forgive me," he pleaded, not altogether insincerely; "I know it wasn't right of me to run away like that, but I couldn't help it."

"You couldn't help it!" she murmured despairingly.

"That's just the way of it. I got to thinking about a play I wanted to write, yesterday afternoon, and—well, along about ten o'clock it got too strong for me. I just had to get back to my typewriter. You know how that is."

"I? What do I know about your silly playwriting?"

Laughing, he bent nearer and patted the gloved hand on the cushions beside him. "You know perfectly well, Helena dear, what it is to want to do something so bad you simply can't help yourself. It's the Matthias blood in both of us. That's why you ran off and married Tankerville against everybody's advice. Of course, it did turn out beautifully; but you didn't stop to wonder whether it would or not when you took it into your head to marry him. The same with me: you decide that it's high time for your delightful sister-in-law to get married, and you look round and fix on your dutiful nephew for the bridegroom-elect—wholly because you want it to be that way."

"Don't you?" she demanded sharply.

He took a moment to think this over. "I suppose I do," he admitted almost reluctantly. "But—"

"You're in love with her!" Helena declared with spirit.

"Quite true, but—"

"Then why," she begged in tones of moderate exasperation—"why do you object—hang fire—run away like a silly, frightened schoolboy as soon as I get everything arranged for you?"

"But, you see, I'm not in a position to get married yet," he argued. "I haven't—"

"How's that—'not in a position'?" she interrupted testily.

"You keep forgetting I'm the family pauper, the poor relation, whereas Venetia has all the money there is, more or less."

"There you are!" Helena turned her palms out expressively; folded them in resignation. "What more can you ask?"

"Something more nearly approaching an equal footing, at least."

"Jack!"—she turned to him with a fine air of innocence—"how much money have you got, anyway?"

"Thirty-six hundred per annum, as you know very well," he replied. "But, my dear, dear aunty (you're one of the most beautiful creatures alive and I'm awfully proud and fond of you) surely you must understand that no decent fellow wants to go to the girl he's in love with and make a proposition like this: 'I've got thirty-six hundred and you've got three hundred and sixty thousand; let's marry and divide.'"

"How long have you been writing plays?"

"Oh ... several years."

"And how many have you written?"

"Quite a few."

"And how much have you made at it?"

"Next to nothing, but—"

"Then why do you persist?"

"Because it's the thing I want to do."

"But you can't make any money at it—"

"I may make a lot before long. Meanwhile, I like it."

"But if you'd only listen to reason and let Tankerville—"

"With all the best intentions in the world, dear Helena, Tankerville couldn't make me a successful business man. It isn't in me. Permit me to muddle along in my own, 'special, wrong-headed way, and the chances are I'll make good in the end. But, once and for all, I refuse positively to give up my trade and try to make sense of Wall Street methods."

Helena moved her shoulders impatiently. For an instant she was silenced. Then: "But marriage needn't necessarily put an end to your playwriting. A good marriage—as with Venetia—ought even to help, I should think."

"But you persist in forgetting I'm not a fortune hunter."

"But," she countered smartly, "Marbridge is."

He said: "Oh—Marbridge!" as if dumbfounded.

She smiled quietly, a very wise and superior smile.

To this point the car had been steadily ascending; the noise of the motor, together with the frequent stutterings of the exhaust with the muffler cut-out, had been sufficient to disguise the substance of their communication from the ears of the operator. Now, however, they surmounted the highest point and began the more gradual descent to the Tankerville estate. And with less noise there was consequently very little talking on the part of the two on the rear seat. For which Matthias wasn't altogether sorry. He wanted time to think—to think about Venetia Tankerville in the new light cast upon her by his aunt's concluding remark: as affected by her friendship with Vincent Marbridge.

In the natural swing of events, it would never have occurred to him to consider Marbridge's attentions seriously. Nobody ever took Marbridge seriously, he believed, aside from a few exceptionally foolish women....

Noiselessly the car slipped down a mile-long avenue to the brow of a promontory. On either hand Tanglewood's long parked terraces fell away to the water: on the left the harbour of Port Madison, on the right, Long Island Sound.

Matthias was barely conscious of these things; his mood was haunted by an extraordinarily clear vision of Vincent Marbridge: not tall, but by no means short; a trifle stout, but none the less a well-knit figure of a man, and tremendously alive; dark, with a broad, blunt, good-humoured face and seal-brown eyes that were exceedingly handsome and expressive; keen-witted and accomplished, knowing almost everybody and every place and thing worth knowing; hedonist and egoist, selfish, unscrupulous, magnetic, fascinating.

Impressed, Matthias frowned. His aunt eyed him covertly, with a sly, semi-affectionate, semi-malicious smile shadowing her mouth.

Slackening its pace, the car took the wide semicircle of the drive and slid sedately to a dead stop by the carriage-block. Matthias pulled himself together, jumped out, and gave his hand to his aunt. They turned toward the house.

Tankerville's pretentious marble palace crowned the brow of the headland with an effect as exquisite as a dream of an ancient French château realized in snow. For this its owner had his wife to thank. Helena, unable to curb her husband's desire for the most expensive and ostentatious place obtainable, had at least guided his choice of design. It was too magnificent, it was overpowering, but it was beautiful; and it was more than ever beautiful at this hour, with its walls in part bathed in a rose-pink light of sunset, in part shadowed as with a wash of violet, and with all its admirable proportions stark against the dusky sapphire of the Sound.

An unwonted stillness clung about the place. Matthias wondered.

"It might be the palace of the Sleeping Beauty," he said. "Why this deadly and benumbing silence? What—"

"Oh, simply that Tankerville decided this morning to take everybody down to Huntington for lunch. They got away quite early, in the Enchantress. Come out on the terrace; we'll look for them."

They passed through a wide, cool, panelled hallway.

"Why didn't you go?"

"You know I hate the water. Besides, I had a headache—at least, I had one until the Enchantress got under way; and furthermore I meant to stay at home and meet you and talk it out."

"Venetia went, of course?"

"Of course—and Marbridge—and everybody!"

He grunted thoughtfully. They descended to a terrace which jutted airily out over the edge of a cliff, with a sheer drop of a hundred and fifty feet to the beach.

Helena, dropping languidly into a wicker chair, motioned Matthias to the broad marble balustrade.

"Any sign of the Enchantress, O perturbed nephew?"

He lingered there for an instant, marvelling with an inexhaustible wonder at the magnificent sweep of the view, then remembering, raked the waters until he discovered Tankerville's power-cruiser standing in toward the dock from the bottle-neck mouth of Port Madison harbour.

Returning, he reported, seated himself near his aunt, lighted a cigarette.

"Why did you ask him here anyway?" he demanded abruptly.

"Who?" she parried mischievously.

"Marbridge, of course," he admitted, sulking in the face of her manifest amusement.

"Jealous, Jackie?"

"Oh—if you insist."

She laughed. "The most encouraging symptom you've yet betrayed!... I didn't ask him. Tankerville did. He likes him. The man's amusing, after all."

"But you like him?"

"He amuses me."

"He's not precisely a tame cat...."

"Dear boy!" she laughed again, "I didn't fetch you out here to worry about me. I'm fire-proof. Venetia's quite another pair of shoes. Fret about her as much as you like."

"When does he go—Marbridge, I mean?"

"Monday, I think. At least, I believe Tankerville asked him for a week only."

"And that's why you asked me, this particular week?"

"I thought you'd be a good counter-irritant; and hoped you'd come to your senses and secure Venetia against all Marbridges for all time to come. You gave me to understand you would."

"Pardon," he corrected a trifle stiffly: "I admitted to you in strict confidence that I was in love with Venetia. I never promised to ask her to marry me."

"Well, that's what I understood you to mean. And anyway, you'd better. Neither Tankerville nor I can control the girl; she's her own mistress and headstrong enough to be a good match for any Matthias that ever lived. If Marbridge ever convinces her that she likes him...."

She concluded with an eloquent ellipsis.

"Probably," mused Matthias after prolonged deliberation, "I'd have lost my head before this if it hadn't been so full of that play."

Helena smiled indulgently. "It's not too late ... I hope."

Troubled, he rose, walked to the balustrade, jerked his cigarette into space, and returned.

"As between one fortune-hunter and another," he said gloomily, "I'm conceited enough to think myself the safer bet."

His aunt smiled more openly: "See what Venetia thinks."

"I will!" said Matthias with a fine air of inalterable determination.

Since it was her whim and the winds indulged, Helena had ordered that the rite of the late dinner be celebrated by candlelight alone. Ten shaded candles graced the places. In the centre of the table an ancient candelabrum of gold added the mellow illumination of its seven alabaster arms, whose small flames yearned upward ardently, with scarce a perceptible flicker, though every window was wide to the whispering night.

One of these that faced Matthias framed a shimmering sky of stars and the still black shield of the Sound, on which the fixed and undeviating glare of a remote light-house was reflected darkly, a long unwavering way of light; he thought of a tall wax candle burning amid the sanctified shadows of some vast and dark and still cathedral....

They were ten at table: from Helena's right, Pat Atherton (Tankerville's partner), a Mrs. Majendie, Marbridge, a Mrs. Cardrow, Tankerville at the head; on his right, Mrs. Pat Atherton, Matthias, Venetia Tankerville, Majendie. The latter and his wife were almost strangers to Matthias, having arrived only the previous afternoon: but he thought them as pleasant and handsome people as any of those with whom the Tankervilles liked to fill their house. The Athertons were old friends; he had known them well, long before Helena dreamed of marrying Tankerville. Marbridge was an indifferently familiar figure in the ways of his life; they frequented the same clubs, and of late he had begun to encounter the older man more and more frequently in his theatrical divagations. Remained Mrs. Cardrow, a widow, the acquaintance of a week's standing. Cardrow had been in some way connected with the enterprises of Messrs. Tankerville & Atherton; how, Matthias didn't remember; a man of whom rumour said little that was good until it began to say De mortuis.... He had killed himself for no accountable reason. His widow seemed to have survived bereavement with amazing grace.

Matthias admired her greatly. Women, he knew—Helena in their number—mistrusted her for no cause perceptible to him. He liked her, thought her little less than absolutely charming. So, evidently, did Marbridge, whose attitude toward her this evening was a little more noticeably attentive than ever before. He seemed to exert himself to interest and divert. His black eyes snapped. As he talked his heavy body swayed slightly from the hips, lending an accent to his animation. His laugh was frequent and infectious.

She was a woman who smiled more than she laughed. She smiled now, inscrutably, her beautiful, insolent eyes half veiled with demure lashes, her face turned to Marbridge, her chin a trifle high, bringing out the clear strong lines of her throat and shoulders, which had the texture, the pallor, and the firmness of fine ivory. Her eyes, when she chose to discover them, were brown, her eyebrows almost black, her hair dull gold, the gold of the candelabrum—the gold of artifice, on the word of Helena.

Perhaps it was to this odd colouring—ivory and brown, black and gold—that Mrs. Cardrow owed most of her strange and provoking quality. But there was something else, something one could not define: at once stimulating and elusive; less charm than allure; nameless; that attracted and repelled....

These were thoughts set stirring by a dozen semi-curious glances at the woman, in pauses in his conversation with Venetia. Matthias was in fact indifferent to Mrs. Cardrow. But he was tremendously interested in Venetia. It could hardly be otherwise—since his talk with Helena. He was to marry Venetia. Amazing thought!

She was adorable. Of the other women, none compared with Mrs. Cardrow: even Helena's beauty paled in contrast. But Venetia was to Mrs. Cardrow as dawn to noon. One looked at Venetia and thought of a still sea at daybreak, mobile to the young and fitful airs, radiant with sunlight, breathless with apprehension of the long, golden hours to come. One looked at Mrs. Cardrow and thought—of Woman. Venetia was dark, and the other fair; Venetia was by no means a child, Mrs. Cardrow not yet thirty. The gulf that set them apart was not so much of years as of caste: they lived and thought on different levels, mental if not social. Matthias liked to think Venetia of the higher order.

He was to marry her. Incredible!

And tonight her eyes were warm and kind for him, and all for him. He could not see that there was anything of self-interest in the infrequent glances she cast at those who sat opposite, playing their time-old game with such engaging candour. If she had thought much of Marbridge, surely she must have betrayed some little pique or chagrin. She was not blind; neither was she patient and prone to self-effacement. Matthias had known her long enough to have garnered vivid memories of her resentment of slights, whether real or fancied. She was unique and wonderful in many ways, but (he told himself in a catch-phrase of the hour) she was essentially human. He could not have cared for a woman without temper: he cared intensely for this girl-woman whose rare loveliness seemed almost exotic in its singular scheme, whose skin, fine of texture and colourless as milk-white satin, was splashed with lips of burning scarlet, whose eyes of deepest violet were luminous in the shadow of hair of the richness and lustre of burnished bronze ... luminous and kind to him: he dared to hope greatly of their sympathy.

Through dinner she had entertained him with a mirthful, inconsecutive narrative of the adventures of the day. Now, as ices were served, her interest swerved suddenly and found a new object in himself.

"Why did you run away last night?"

"You really noticed it?"

Light malice trembled on her lips: "Not till this morning."

"You were so busy"—an imperceptible nod indicated Marbridge—"I felt myself becoming ornamental. Whereas, utility's my proudest attribute. So I left you dancing, and skipped by the light of the moon."

"Not really?"

"I assure you—"

"Put out with me, I mean?"

He sought her eyes again and found them veiled and downcast. "Not the least in the world."

"Then, again, why—?"

"I wanted to get back to work. Besides, I had a little business with a manager."

And so he had; but until this moment he had forgotten it.

"Play business?"

"I'm afraid I know no other."

"Is something new to be produced?"

Matthias nodded: "Goes into rehearsal in August. A melodrama I wrote some time ago—'The Jade God.'"

"Who produces it?"

"Rideout."

"Who's he?"

"A foolish actor: played a sketch of mine in vaudeville for a couple of years and, because that got over, thinks this piece must."

"But it will, won't it?"

"I hope so; but I'm glad it's not my money."

"And where will you open?"

"Heaven and the Shuberts only know. Rideout books through the Shuberts, you understand."

"I'm afraid I don't."

"The Shuberts are the Independents—the opposition to the Syndicate headed by Klaw and Erlanger. You see, the theatres of this country are practically all controlled by one or the other combination. If you want booking for your show, you've got to take sides—serve God or Mammon."

"And which is which?"

"The difference is imperceptible to the innocent bystander."

"But you'll let us know—?"

"If we open within motoring distance of Town—rather!"

Tankerville, edging his plump little body forward on his chair, manœuvred his round and sun-scorched face in vain attempts to catch his wife's eye past the intervening candelabrum. Helena, however, divined his desire.

"Coffee in the card-room, George?"

"Please!" Tankerville bleated plaintively.

There was a concerted movement from the table.

Venetia lingered with Matthias.

"It's auction, tonight. Shall you play?"

"'Fraid I'll have to. So will you. Helena—you know—"

"Of course. We must. Only"—she sighed, petulant—"I'd rather not. I'd rather talk to you."

"Heroic measures!" he laughed. "But—consolation note!—we're two over two full tables. Therefore we'll have to cut in and out. That'll give us some time to ourselves."

"Yes," she agreed: "but it'll be just our luck to be disengaged at different times."

He paused in amused incredulity. "Do you really want to talk to me as badly as all that?"

She nodded, curtaining her eyes.

"Very much," she said softly.

They entered the card-room and were summoned to different tables. Matthias cut and edged Mrs. Cardrow out by a single pip. How Venetia fared he did not learn, more than that she was to play while Marbridge was to stay out the first rubber.

He played even less intelligently than usual, with a mind distracted. Venetia's new attitude, pleasant as had been all their association, was a development of disconcerting suddenness; or else he had been witless and blind beyond relief. And yet—how could he say? He was so frequently misled by faculties befogged with dreaming, that overlooked when they did not flatly deny the obvious: it was possible that Helena had been more wise than he.

A sense of strain handicapped his judgment; whether atmospheric or bred of his own emotion, he could not tell. And yet, plumbing the deeps of his humour, he discovered nothing there more exacting than bewilderment, more exciting than hope. On the other hand, he could fix upon nothing in the bearing of these amiable people to lead him to believe that the feeling of tensity to which he was susceptible was not the creation of his own fancy. They played with a certain abandon of enjoyment, absorbed in their diversion....

Looking past Venetia, at the other table—Venetia slim and tall and worshipful in a wonderful black gown that rendered dazzling the whiteness of her flesh—he could see Mrs. Cardrow and Marbridge at the piano in the drawing-room. The woman sat all but motionless, white arms alone moving graciously in the half-light as her deft hands wandered over the key-board. Marbridge, his arms folded, lounged over the piano, his back to the card-room. The eloquent movements of his round, dark head, its emphatic nods and argumentative waggings, seemed to indicate that he was bearing the burden of their talk; but the music, hushed though it was, covered his accents. The woman was looking up into his face with an expression of quick, pleased interest, her lips, half-parted, smiling.

It did not occur to Matthias to wonder about the substance of their conversation. But for a sure clue to the intrigue of Venetia's heart—and his own—he would have given worlds.

Throwing down his cards, Tankerville announced with satisfaction: "Game—rubber. Jack, you go out—praise the Saints! You've cost Mrs. Pat close onto fifteen dollars, more shame to you!"

"Sorry!" Matthias smiled cheerfully, rising. "You would have me play."

"Hearkening and repentance!" retorted Tankerville. "Next time I marry, you can bet your sweet life I'm going to pick out a family of sure-'nough bridgers.... Call Mrs. Cardrow, will you now, like a good fellow."

But Mrs. Cardrow had already left the piano. Matthias held a chair for her, and then, since the rubber at the other table was not yet decided, strolled to a window.

The night tempted him. Almost unconsciously he stepped out upon the terrace and wandered to the parapet.

Abstractedly he lighted a cigarette. When the tobacco was aglow he held the match from him at arm's-length over the abyss. Its flame burned as steadily as though protected, flickering out only when, released, it fell. No night ever more still than this: land and water alike spellbound in breathless calm; even on the brow of that high foreland where Tankerville had builded him his lordly pleasure home, no hint of movement in the air! And yet Matthias was conscious of nothing resembling oppression—exhilaration, rather. He smiled vaguely into the darkness.

From far below, echoing up from the placid waters of Port Madison as from a sounding-board, came the tinkle-tinkle of a banjo and the complaint of a harmonica. When these were silent the wailing of violins was clearly audible, bridging a distance of over a mile across the harbour, from the ball-room of the country club. Far out upon the Sound the night boat for Boston trudged along like a slow-winging firefly; and presently its wash swept inshore to rouse the beach below to sibilant and murmurous protest. In the east the vault of night was pallid, azure and silver, with the promise of the reluctant moon.

A hand fell gently upon his arm: Venetia's. He had not been aware of her approach, yet he was not startled. He turned his head slowly, smiling. She said softly: "Don't say anything—wait till it rises."

They waited in silence. Her hand lingered upon his arm; and that last, he knew, was trembling. The nearness of her person, the intimacy of her touch, weighed heavily upon his senses.

An edge of golden light appeared where the skies came down to the sea; hesitated; increased. That wan and spectral light, waxing, lent emphasis to the rare and delicious wonder of her loveliness, to the impregnable mystery of her womanhood. He regarded her with something near awe, with keen perception of his unworthiness: as a spirit from Heaven had stooped to commune with him. She lived; breathed; the hand upon his arm was warm and strong.... Incredible!

The gibbous disk swung clear of the horizon and like some strange misshapen acrobat climbed a low-lying lattice-work of clouds. The girl turned away to a huge willow basket-chair. Matthias found its fellow and drew near to her. He struggled to speak; he fancied that she waited for him to speak; but his mind refused to frame, his tongue to utter, aught but the stalest of banalities.

"No dew tonight," he hazarded at length, shame-faced.

After an instant of silence she laughed clearly and gently. "O romantic man!" she said. "Now that you have, shattered the spell—if you please, a cigarette."

He supplied this need; held a match; delayed holding it when it had served its purpose, enraptured with the refulgent wonder of that cameo of sweet flesh and blood set against the melting shadows, silver and purple and blue.

With a second low, light laugh, she bent forward and daintily extinguished the flame with a single puff.

"I don't wish to be stared at...."

"Pardon," he said mechanically, startled. "But ... why?"

"Perhaps I'm afraid you may see too much...."

"Impossible!" he declared with conviction.

"Odd as it may sound," she said in a mocking voice, "I have my secrets."

Her back was to the moon, her face a pallid oval framed in ebony, illegible; but the moonlight was full upon his face, and she who would might read. His disadvantage was obvious. It wasn't fair....

Lounging, she crossed her knees, puffed thrice and cast the cigarette into the gulf. Abruptly she sat forward, studying him intently. He was disturbed with a singular uneasiness.

"Jack," said Venetia very quietly, "is it true that you love me?"

"Good lord!" he cried, sitting up.

"Is it true?"

He blinked. His head was whirling. He said nothing; sank back; quite automatically puffed with such fury that in a trice he had reduced the cigarette to an inch of glowing coal; scorched his fingers and threw it from him.

Then he gasped stupidly: "Venetia!"

"Is it true?"

She had not moved. The question had the force of stubborn purpose through its very monotony, a monotony of inflexion no less than of repetition. Her accents were both serious and sincere. She was in earnest; she meant to know.

"But, Venetia—"

"Or have you been just making believe, all this long time?"

"It—I—why—of course it's true!" he stammered lamely.

"Then why haven't you ever told me so?"

There sounded reproach, not unkindly, but real. He shook his wits together.

"How could I guess you'd care to know?"

"Do you know me so little as to think I'd resent it, if I happened not to care?"

"I—don't know—didn't think of it that way. In fact—you've knocked me silly!"

"But why? Because I've been straightforward? Dear boy!"—she lifted a hand to him: he took it in trembling—"you're twenty-seven, I'm twenty-three. We know one another pretty well: we know ourselves—at least slightly. Why can't we face things—facts—as man and woman, not as children? What's the good of make-believe? If this thing lies between us, let's be frank about it!"

He hesitated, doubting, searching her face. Her look was very sweet and kind. Of a sudden he cried "Venetia!" came to his knees beside her chair, snatched her hand and crushed it between his own, to his lips.

"I love you—I've always loved you!..."

He felt the velvet of her lips, her breath, upon his forehead; and made as if to clasp her to him. But she slipped back, straightening an arm to fend him off.

"No," she whispered—"not now—not here. Dear boy, get up! Think—this moonlight—anybody might see—"

"I love you!"

"I know and, dear, I'm glad—so glad! But—you made me ask you!"

"I couldn't help that, Venetia: I was—afraid; I hardly dared to dream—of this. You were—you are—above, beyond—"

Gently her hand sealed his mouth.

"Dear, silly boy! Get up. If you won't, I must."

Releasing her hand, he rose. His emotion shook him violently. At discretion, he dropped back into his chair. He looked about him a little wildly, his glance embracing all the weird fantasy of the night: the cold, inaccessible, glittering vault of stars, the malformed and sardonic moon, the silken bosom of the Sound, the lace and purple velvet draperies of the land. Down on the harbour the banjo and harmonica were ragging to tatters a sentimental ballad of the day. From the house came a burst of laughter—Tankerville exultant in some successful stratagem at cards.

His gaze returned to Venetia. She sat without moving, wrapped in the exquisite mystery of her enigmatic heart, bewitching, bewildering, steadfastly reading him with eyes veiled and inscrutable in liquid shadow.

Muttering—"Preposterous!"—he dropped his head between his hands. "I'm mad—mad!" he groaned.

Without stirring, she demanded: "Why?"

He shook his head free. "To have—owned up—let this come to pass. I love you: but that's all I dare say to you."

"Isn't it, maybe, enough for me?"

"I mean—I'm mad to marry you. But how can I ask you to have me? What have I to offer you? The position of wife to a poverty-stricken, half-grown playwright! It's out of reason...."

"But possibly—am I not the one to judge of that?"

"No: I won't have you marry a man unable to provide for you in the way to which you've been educated. It's a point of honour—"

"But I have—"

"You must understand: I've got to be able—able!—to humour your every whim. With things that way—what of your own you choose to spend on yourself won't count. The issue is my ability to give you everything."

"But that will come—"

"When? I can't promise—I hardly dare hope—"

"This new play isn't your only hope?"

"No—"

"Success or failure, you'll keep on?"

"Certainly...."

"Then it's only a question of time."

"But you—how can I ask you to wait?"

"There's no necessity—"

"But it must be." He rose, unable to remain still. "Give me six months: I've got another piece of work under way—and others only waiting their turn. In six months I can—"

"No!"

The monosyllable brought him up sharply. He stared. Her white arms, radiant in that clear, unearthly light, lifted toward him.

"If you want me, dear," she said in a voice tense with emotion—"it must be now—soon! To wait—six months—I—that's im—"

The beautiful modulations of Helena Tankerville's voice interrupted.

Standing in one of the windows to the card-room, she said simply: "An exquisite night."

Then, coming out upon the terrace and seeing Venetia and Matthias, she moved toward them.

"Oh, there you are, Jack. You're wanted indoors."

Matthias, unable quickly to regain his poise, said nothing. Venetia answered for him, calmly:

"He can't come."

"What, dear?"

"I say, he can't come, Helena. He's engaged."

"Engaged!"

Recovering, Helena bore down upon them with a little call of delight.

"Not really!... O my dears! I'm so glad!"

She gathered Venetia into her arms.

Unremarked by any of these, Marbridge stepped out upon the terrace. He was light of foot like most men of his type; his voice, unctuous with the Southern drawl which he affected together with quaint Southern twists of speech, was the first warning they had of his approach.

"This is surely one powerful' fine night. I don't wonder you-all like it better out here than—" He checked suddenly in both words and action: the women had started apart. "Why!" he added slowly, as though perplexed—"I hope I don't intrude...."

His quick dark eyes shifted rapidly from Helena to Venetia, to Matthias, and again back to the women, during a momentary lull of embarrassment. Then Helena said quietly:

"Not in the least. But this makes you the first to learn the news, Mr. Marbridge. Venetia and my nephew are engaged to be married."

"Engaged—!" The man's chin slacked: his eyes widened; a cigarette fell unheeded from his fingers. He smiled a trace stupidly.

"Why!"—he recollected himself almost instantaneously—"this certainly is some surprise, but I do congratulate you—both!"

With a stride he seized the hand Venetia could not refuse him, and pressed it warmly. "You're the luckiest man I ever knew!" he declared, turning to clasp hands with Matthias.

Instinctively the latter met his powerful grasp with one as forceful. "Thank you," he said, smiling gravely into the other's eyes. Under his firm but pleasant regard they wavered and fell, then steadied with a glint of temper. Their hands fell apart. Marbridge stepped back.

"Perhaps I don't know you well enough, Mr. Matthias, to congratulate Miss Tankerville as heartily as I do you; but I'm persuaded she's not liable to make any serious mistake."

Matthias nodded thoughtfully. "I understand: your intentions are excellent. I'm sure we both thank you. Venetia—?"

"Mr. Marbridge is very amiable," said the girl, a hint of mirth modifying her composure. "But I'm afraid, Helena," she added quickly—"if you don't mind—I think I'll go to my room."

To Marbridge she gave a quaint little bow that was half an old-fashioned courtesy, robbed of formality by her spirited smile: to Matthias her hand and a gentle "Good night!" Taking the arm of her sister-in-law, she drew her toward the house.

Watching them until they disappeared, Marbridge chuckled quietly.

"Took my breath away!" he declared. "Why, I never suspected for an instant!..." He dropped heavily but with characteristic grace into a chair. "It takes you quiet boys to get away with the girls like Venetia—all fire and dash!"

"Yes," said Matthias reflectively: "it does—doesn't it? Have another cigarette?" He offered his case. "You dropped yours...."

"Thanks.... She's a thoroughbred, all right. I reckon if I wasn't a mite too middle-aged, maybe I might've set you a pace that you'd've found lively going."

"Well, let's be thankful nothing of that sort happened, at all events."

Marbridge looked up over his match and lifted his brows; but if in reality a retort trembled on his lips, he thought better of it; and before either spoke again, Tankerville was on the terrace, brandishing pudgy arms.

"Hey, you!" he called fretfully. "Don't you know you're holding us all up? Come on in...."

But the game held less attraction for Matthias than ever, and after another and final failure to establish himself in Tankerville's good graces, he pocketed his losses, relinquished his place to Marbridge and—with even less inclination for bed than for cards—took himself again out into the open night. But now the terrace was all too small to contain his spirits. The need of action—movement, freedom, space—was strong upon him. Striding away down the drive that wound like a broad band of whitewash through its dark bordering lawns and darker coppices, he found even the grounds of Tanglewood too constricted for the extravagant energy that animated him; and took to the broad highways, with all Long Island free to his tireless spirit.

For several hours or more he trudged valiantly hither and yon, with little or no notion of whither he went—with his head in the stars and his feet in the dust and kicking up a famous smother of it—and in that time was wittingly as near to happiness as he had ever been in all his days. The faculty of coherent thought had passed from him utterly, but it passed unmourned: Venetia was his! This thought alone sufficed him. He had neither time nor inclination to entertain those doubts, those questionings and apprehensions which had beset him in saner humour theretofore. It mattered nothing now that he was poor and she wealthy, nothing that all his efforts to make something of himself had thus far proved vain and fruitless. She loved him: it was enough....

He came to his senses, eventually, long enough to recognize anew the grounds of Tanglewood. Of a sudden his impetuosity had run out; remained the pleasant languor of a healthy body thoroughly exercised, the peace of a mind vexed by no insatiable desire. And still he was not sleepy. Purposefully he retarded his footsteps, approaching the house with stealth, eager to escape observation and gain his room, unhindered. Tomorrow would be soon enough to submit to the ordeal of congratulations....

It was with a shock of amazement that he saw the house all quiet and dark. He pulled out his watch and studied its face by moonlight, finding its evidence difficult to credit: twenty minutes past one in the morning!

Gingerly, keeping to the grass in order that the gravel of the drive might not, by its crunching underfoot, betray him or alarm some wakeful member of the house-hold, he approached the front door, wondering if he were locked out, and—not without amusement at his self-contrived predicament—what to do if he were. To his relief one-half of the double door stood a foot or two ajar—thanks, he had no doubt, to the thoughtfulness of Helena or Tankerville. Blessing both on general principles, he entered, shut the door and softly shot the bolt; turned in deep obscurity to grope his way to the foot of the stairs; but paused with a hand on the newel-post and his breath catching in his throat.

In the hallway above a night-light was burning dim and low but sufficiently diffused to show him the figure of a woman silently descending the stairway. When he first became aware of her she was indeed almost within arm's length: a shape of shadow scarce three shades lighter than the encompassing gloom.... Venetia, possibly, having waited and watched for him from her windows overlooking the drive, stealing down to bid him that good night they had perforce foregone in the presence of Helena and Marbridge....

That wild and extravagant surmise had no more than entered his mind when he found the woman in his arms. She gave herself into them with a gesture of abandonment, with a little sigh that escaped in broken measure, murmurous and fond. An arm that, lifting, flashed naked to the shoulder as the sleeve of her negligee fell back, encircled his neck and drew down his head to hers. And her mouth fastened to his with clinging lips....

Half stunned by receipt of that mad caress, one thought shot like light through the turmoil of his senses: this was never Venetia!

With an effort he straightened his neck against the pressure of the woman's arm. She strove to overcome his resistance, wooing him in accents hushed, shaking with passion:

"Vincent ... sweetheart!..."

He interrupted hastily: "I beg pardon!" The inadequacy of that stilted form, disgusting him, he added: "I am John Matthias."

Immediately the woman released him and, with a gasp, sank back against the newel-post. Her breath came gustily, with a sound like smothered sobbing. Pitifully he divined her shame and terror; and though he knew her very well, beyond mistake, he said evenly: "Don't worry—there isn't any light."

In a stupefied voice she iterated: "No light—?"

"It's so confounded' dark," he complained: "I couldn't tell you from Eve. So perhaps you'd better run back to your room now...."

He turned away deliberately. Behind him, after a pause of an instant, there rose a sound of soft rustling draperies, a swift and hushed patter of footsteps on the stairs. A moment or two later a latch clicked very gently in the corridor above.

Quietly Matthias switched on a single light, returned to the door, unbolted and quickly opened it.

He was not disappointed that this manœuvre surprised a shadow skulking in the penumbra of rose bushes that bordered the steps, the shadow of a man who drew back swiftly when he recognized Matthias. This last stepped out, turned in the direction of the fugitive shadow, and pursuing at leisure, hailed in a quiet and natural tone: "I say—Marbridge!—that you?"

Immediately he came upon Marbridge at a standstill round the corner of the house, awaiting him in a curious posture of antagonism: his feet well apart, heavy body inclined a trifle forward, round dark head low between his shoulders, hands clenched, upon his face a cloud of anger.

Matthias greeted him suavely: "I was afraid I'd locked you out." Ignoring his attitude even as he seemed to ignore the fact that Marbridge had changed from evening dress to a suit of dark flannels, he added: "Coming in now? It's a bit late."

Marbridge pulled himself together. "Perhaps you're right," he assented surlily. But it was with patent effort that he mastered his resentment and accompanied Matthias back to the doors.

"A fine night, what?" Matthias filled in the awkward silence.

"Yes," agreed Marbridge brusquely. "Too fine," he amended—"too fine to waste in bed."

"Sleepless, eh?"

"Yes."

Following him in, Matthias refastened the door. "Several of us seem troubled with the same indisposition," he observed coolly, swinging to face Marbridge. "That's why I bothered to call you in, you know."

Marbridge scowled: "Perhaps I don't get you...."

"She has gone back to bed," Matthias explained pleasantly. "I didn't like to think of you waiting out there, all alone."

Marbridge choked on a retort, turned and began slowly to mount the stairs.

"Oh—going? Half a minute."

The man paused, and in silence looked down.

"I just happened to think perhaps you haven't a time-table in your room," said Matthias amiably. "There are several early trains tomorrow, you know. I fancy the eight-seven would suit you as well as any."

He got no answer other than a grunt. Marbridge resumed his deliberate ascent, gained the upper floor, and disappeared.

"Good night!" Matthias called after him, softly; and turned out the light.

Monday afternoon found Mr. Matthias back at his desk and in a tolerably unhappy temper, tormented not only by that conscience-stricken sensation of secret guilt inseparable from a return to neglected work, but also by a less reasonable, in fact inexplicable (to him) feeling of discomfort; as though he were a trespasser upon the premises rather than their lawful tenant.

Never before had he felt less at home, never more ill at ease in the homely solitude of his workshop and lodgings.

As for his work.... He found page 6 of that promising young first act in the typewriter carriage, precisely as it had been left on his receipt of Helena's peremptory telegram. Removing the sheet, he turned back to the first page, and read what had been written with such high and eager hope; and looked his dashed bewilderment. Knitting portentous brows, sedulously he reconsidered the manuscript at length; then with a groan put it aside, ran fingers through his hair till it rose rampant, and sat scowling darkly at the wall, groping blindly and vainly for the lost ends of that snapped thread of enthusiasm.

The first flush of confidence vanished, what he had written owned heart-rending incoherence in his understanding.

However (he assured himself) it would come back to him in time. Indeed, it was bound to. It wasn't the first time this sort of thing had happened to him, nor yet the second: he was no raw novice to cry despair over such an everyday set-back.

But what the devil was the matter with him? All the way to Town he had been full of his theme, as keen-set for work as a schoolboy for a holiday, and hardly less for the well-worn comforts of his abode. And, lo! here sat he with his head as empty as his hands, and that misfit feeling badgering him to exasperation.

Instinctively he consulted a pipe and, through its atmosphere, the view from his windows: the never-failing, tried and true, enheartening monotony of that sun-scorched area of back-yards, grim and unlovely in the happiest weather, cat-haunted and melancholy in all its phases.... But today he essayed vainly to distil from contemplation of it any of the rare glamour of yesterday's zeal and faith. It was all gone, all! and the erratic mind of him would persist in trailing off after errant thoughts of Venetia Tankerville.

Surpassing inconsistency of the human heart! Three hours ago, in her company, he had been able to control and to behave himself, to anticipate with pleasure the prospect of returning to his desk after escorting her from the Pennsylvania to the Grand Central Station and putting her aboard the train for Greenwich, whither she was bound for a fortnight's visit. But now—he could think of nothing but Venetia: Venetia's eyes, her scarlet lips, her exquisite hands, her hair of bronze; her moods and whims, her laughter and her pensiveness, alike adorable; Venetia in evening dress on the moon-drenched terrace of Tanglewood; Venetia on the tennis-courts, all in white, glorified by sunlight, an amazingly spirited, victorious figure; Venetia with her hair blown across her eyes, at the wheel of one of Tankerville's racing motor-craft; Venetia in the gloom of the Grand Central Station, lingering to say good-bye to her betrothed....

It required several days for this stupid gentleman to awaken to the fact that the name of his trouble was merely love; that an acknowledged lover is a person vastly different from a diffident and distant worshipper; that, in short, the muse of the creative fancy is a jealous mistress, prone to sulk and deny the light of her countenance to a suitor who thinks to share his addresses with another.

But this illuminating discovery did little to allay his discontent: progress with his work alone could accomplish that; and the work dragged dolefully; he scored only dismal failures in his efforts to produce something to satisfy himself. And he had only six months to prove his worth. The date of their marriage had been fixed for February; every detail of their plans had been worked out under the masterful guidance of Helena; even the steamer upon which they were to sail for Egypt had been selected and their suite reserved.

In short he positively had to win out within the allotted period of grace, who seemed able only to sit there, day in and out, beside his typewriter, with idle hands, or, with a vacant mind, to pace his trail of torment from door to window: getting nowhere, stripped of every vestige of his arduously acquired craftsmanship.... It was maddening.

None the less, doggedly, savagely determined to overcome this sentimental handicap, he worked long hours: only to review the outcome of his labours with a sinking heart. For all his knowledge of the stage, for all that a long career of failures and half-hearted successes had taught him, the play that slowly took shape under his modelling lacked vitality—the living fire of drama. Technically he could find no disastrous fault with it; but in his soul he knew it to be as passionless as a proposition in Euclid.

He was a dreamer, but not even the stuff of dreams could dull the clear perceptions of his critical intelligence....

Meantime, the superficial routine of work-a-day life went on much as it had ever since he had set up shop in the establishment of Madame Duprat. His breakfasts were served him in his rooms; for his other meals he foraged in neighbouring restaurants. A definite amount of exercise was required to keep him in working trim. In short, he was in and out of the house several times each day. Inevitably, then, he encountered fellow lodgers, either on the stoop or in the hallway; among them, and perhaps more often and less adventitiously than in other instances, one wistful young woman, shabbily dressed, in whose brown eyes lurked a hesitant appeal for recognition. He grew acquainted with the sight of her, but he was generally in haste and preoccupied, looked over her head if not through her, stepped civilly out of her way and went absently his own, and never once dreamed of identifying her with that dreary and damp creature of the rain-swept night whose necessity had turned him out of his lodgings for a single night.

One day—the second Thursday following his return to Town—he found himself waiting in the lobby of the Knickerbocker, a trifle early for a luncheon engagement with Rideout and his producing manager, Wilbrow: a meeting arranged for the purpose of discussing the forthcoming production of "The Jade God." The day was seasonably insufferable with heat, but there was here a grateful drift of air through open doors and windows. Lounging in an arm-chair, he lazily consumed a cigarette and reviewed the listless ebb and flow of guests with a desultory interest which was presently, suddenly, and rudely quickened.

Marbridge, accompanied by a woman, was leaving the eastern dining-room. They passed so near to Matthias that by stretching forth his foot he could have touched the woman's skirt. But she did not see him; her face was averted as she looked up, faintly smiling, to the face of her companion. Marbridge, on his part, was attending her with that slightly exaggerated attitude of solicitude and devotion which was peculiarly his with all women. If he saw Matthias he made no sign. His dark and boyish eyes ogled his companion; his tone was pitched low to a key of intimacy; he rolled a trifle in his walk, with the insuppressible swagger of the amateur of gallantry.

They passed on and out of the hotel; and Matthias saw the carriage-porter, at a sign from Marbridge, whistle in a taxicab.

He turned away in disgust.

A moment or so later he looked up to find Marbridge standing over him and grinning impudently as he offered a hand.

"Why, how do you do, Matthias, my boy?"

His voice, by no means subdued, echoed through the lobby and attracted curious glances.

Matthias, ignoring the hand, lifted one of his own in a gesture deprecatory.

"Softly!" he begged. "Somebody might hear you."

Unabashed, Marbridge dropped into the chair beside him. "How's that? Why shouldn't they?"

"They might make the mistake of inferring that I liked you," returned Matthias.

Marbridge, on the point of settling back, sat up with a start. A dull colour flushed his plump, dark cheeks. For an instant his hands twitched nervously and his full lips tightened on a retort which he presumably deemed inadvisable; for mastering his impulse, he sank back again, and put a period to the display with a brief but not uneasy chuckle.

"You're all there with the acidulated repartee," he observed appreciatively. "Some class to your work, my boy!" To which, Matthias making no comment, he added with at least some effort toward an appearance of sincerity: "Sorry you feel that way about me."

"Unfortunately, I do."

"Because I wouldn't act on your suggestion about that time-table, eh?"

"Because of the circumstances which moved me to drop that hint."

A brief silence prefaced Marbridge's next remark:

"But damn it! I couldn't. It would've made talk if I'd pulled out when you wanted me to."

"There would have been no occasion for any talk whatever if you'd known how to comport yourself as the guest of decent people."

And still Marbridge husbanded his resentment.

"Oh well!" he said, aggrieved—"women!"

Matthias threw away his cigarette and prepared to rise.

"Hold on a bit," Marbridge checked him. "I want to ask a favour of you.... Of course, you're right; I am a bad actor, and all that. I'm sorry I forgot myself at Tanglewood—word of honour, I am!"

"Well?" Matthias suggested with an unmoved face.

"Look here...." Marbridge sat up eagerly. "I think you're a mighty good sort—"

"Thanks!"

"You didn't blow about that business down there—"

"I couldn't very well—could I?—with a woman involved!"

"Oh, you did the white thing: I'm not disputing that. But what I'm worried about now is whether you're as good a sport as you seem."

"Meaning—?"

Marbridge nodded significantly toward the sidewalk, where he had put his late companion into the cab. "About today: you won't find it necessary to—?"

"By God!" Matthias's indignation brimmed over. "If you're so solicitous of the woman's good name, why the devil do you allow her to be seen in your company?"

"It isn't that," Marbridge persisted, keeping himself well in hand. "After all, what's a lunch at the Knick?"

"Well—?"

"The trouble is, she's supposed to be at Newport. Majendie doesn't know—"

"You just can't help being a blackguard, can you, Marbridge?" Matthias enquired curiously. "You ought to have bitten off your tongue before you named a name in a public place like this." He rose, meeting with steady eyes the vicious glare of the other. "One word more: if I hear of your accepting another invitation to Tanglewood, I'll forget to be what you call 'a good sport'."