CHAPTER XIX
It was likely to be a dull evening at the Fireside. Frances Hazlet was giving a birthday party—or, rather, some kind gentleman was giving one for her, and had taken Fantozzi’s drab, demure private mansion on Lexington Avenue.
Sutton had gone home from the office to dress. He was rather restless because he had not been able to get Gilda on the telephone. He dined alone at the Province Club, finally, but continued to haunt the telephone between courses.
Something in Freda’s placid responses hatched suspicion in his mind. He began to wonder if Gilda was really at home and wouldn’t come to the telephone. He had vaguely suspected this on other occasions, but always concluded there could be no reason for such behaviour, and was ashamed to mention it to her.
However, the odd suspicion returned, now, to haunt him; and, the Province Club palling on him, he sent for a taxi and drove to the Fireside.
Seeing Sadoul reading in a corner relieved him, although Sadoul also was in evening dress and, moreover, wore a camelia. They exchanged nods but no words. Sadoul calmly turned a page in his book. Sutton sat down by the log fire to smoke a cigar.
Toward eleven Pockman came rocking in with his coattails flying, an opera hat crammed over his prominent ears. Sadoul laid aside his book, got up and went downstairs with him.
After that there was a gradual exodus from the club toward Fantozzi’s. Warne went, Lyken, other men.
Sutton tried to read; couldn’t; grew irritable; decided to go home; decided not to; tried Gilda’s house again, but nobody answered, not even Freda.
His watch seemed to have gone wrong; he discredited what it reported. So he went downstairs and looked at the standard clock in the lobby; and discovered it was long after midnight.
Where could Gilda be? It was none of his business, which made him the madder. She had decided not to go to Frances Hazlet’s party. She declined his guidance thither. Had she changed her mind?
Harry Stayr strolled into the cloak-room to reconstruct his white evening tie.
“Going to Fantozzi’s?” he inquired, looking at Sutton in the mirror.
“No,” said Stuart shortly.
Stayr turned, took him by the elbow; but Sutton demurred, saying he didn’t feel like dancing.
“One can always eat and drink,” observed Stayr. “Come on, like a sport. That Esthonian Prince and his suite are there, and it’s likely to turn lively by this time. Besides, don’t you want to pay homage to concentrated pulchritude?”
“I’m not in the humour——”
“You’re going with me, old dick! Get into your bonnet!”
“It’s one o’clock—nearly half past one, Harry——”
“Those night-blooming blossoms will be in the fuller bloom! Allons! Houp! Come into the garden, friend. There’s many a nosegay to gather at Fantozzi’s.”
When they descended from their taxi there was not a gleam of light visible about the house; all shades were drawn; Fantozzi’s had the aspect of a private mansion fast asleep.
They ascended the brownstone steps and rang. The door opened.
Into a dim vestibule they stepped; the outer door closed; then an inner grille clicked and they stepped into a glaring inferno of heat and noise.
Fantozzi’s fairly seethed with colour and turmoil; the rooms to the right were swarming with dancers whirling through tobacco haze, amid a deafening outcrash from the energetic orchestra.
Upstairs, downstairs, on the stairs, everywhere were pretty faces—flushed, laughing, eager faces vis-a-vis masculine and ardent youth—lank youth, fat youth, chuckleheaded youth, handsome youth—and middle age, too, bearded and saturnine like Sadoul, with a half sneer on his features—dapper and bald like George Derring yonder, capering with Nikka Weld, whose bobbed hair bobbed as she danced.
And there was his Serene Highness of Esthonia footing it enthusiastically with Frances Hazlet. He and his suite looked like Ritz waiters—having no backs to their heads—but they were tenderly cherished by beauty, and seemed to be having a magnificent time.
Already the party had become a trifle rough. There was a girl there whose partner had lifted her off the floor, and was swinging her in circles, her body and legs nearly horizontal.
Sutton eluded collision with this pair of flying feet and backed into the hallway.
Here a girl he had never before beheld seized him and danced with him. Here, later, he encountered Frances Hazlet, who kissed him boisterously in return for birthday wishes.
About that time an Esthonian fell downstairs; and Freedom was preparing to shriek, but he landed uninjured on the back part of his skull which wasn’t there.
The heat and noise were bewildering. Stayr beckoned Sutton to the punch bowl, where his Serene Highness, encouraged by Katharine Ashley, was bobbing for floating strawberries, amid shouts of laughter. He lifted a dripping muzzle in triumph and bolted a berry.
“Nasty beast,” muttered Stayr, tucking several bottles of champagne under his arm and picking up a silver ice-bucket. “Come on upstairs, Stuart, and we’ll crack a quart like gentlemen.”
There was tumult, too, above stairs; laughter and singing at the supper tables; a negro banjo trio hammering stridently; sporadic dancing and a riotous tendency to throw flowers and sweet-meats at all new arrivals.
Sutton received a heavy handful of flowers full in the face; then the girl in the white dinner gown, who had hurled them, rose straight up among the gay and disorderly group surrounding her, pushed her way violently through the throng, gained the hall, and already had started running downstairs, when Sutton caught her by the waist.
Both were breathing irregularly and fast when they confronted each other. Her cheeks burned crimson, and there was a scent of wine in her breath.
“I thought you weren’t coming here,” he said. “You told me so.”
“You said you weren’t coming!”
“Is that why you came?”
No answer.
“Tell me,” he insisted.
“Yes, it is,” she panted, “——if you’ve got to know! Please, may I pass you——”
“One moment, Gilda. Where are you going?”
“I’m going home.”
“Then I’ll take you——”
“I don’t wish you to!”
“Is somebody else——”
“Yes, Sadoul!—if you’ve got to know.”
The shock left him white and silent; the girl released herself, started to pass him, saw his ghastly face, stopped, stood motionless and mute with her green eyes fixed on him.
After a moment she shivered as though chilled. “I’m safe with Sadoul,” she said. “Can’t you understand that I’m safe with Sadoul when I’m this way?”
“Have you had too much wine?”
She shook her head, set one foot on the stair below, descended another step, laid her left hand on the banister, halted, looked back and upward.
“I’m better off with Sadoul,” she said again.
He made no answer.
Suddenly she turned, sprang up the stairs and came close to him where he stood on the step above her:
“You are not to care what I do!” she cried. “Let me go home! You don’t know what you’re doing to me!”
“I’m not holding you,” he said, astonished.
Her fingers tightened on the banisters. All at once her eyes were glittering with tears.
“Take me home,” she whispered. “I can’t stand this.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Yes! Yes! Can’t you see I do?... Only—I was safer with Sadoul.... When this happens—when I’m this way—I’m safe with anybody except you.”
She took his hands, strained them convulsively between her own. Cheeks, eyes, lips were burning; the column of her white throat was stretched up toward him. For the second time in their lives she threw both arms around his neck and returned his kiss as passionately as he gave it.
But now the hallway was invaded by a noisy company ascending the stairs. The girl clung tightly to his arm as he started downward with her through the increasing tumult and disorder.
She was tearful, excited, incoherent, when they entered the taxi; almost hysterical when they ran up the dark stairway, unlocked her door, and entered.
“I want you to go,” she wailed. “I’m not myself tonight—not the girl you know—not even friendly——”
“Don’t be frightened. Has Sadoul tried any of his beastly tricks——”
“Don’t you understand what I mean!” she cried. “Can’t you see it’s not I who stand here? It’s that damned Other One!
“It’s the thing you saw!... She’ll tear my heart out for this! She’ll tear my soul out! I’m trying to tell you that we’re not safe with her.... I’m asking—you—to go——”
She turned with a tragic gesture and caught her quivering face in both hands. He stared. After a moment she dropped her snowy, naked arms, moved her lovely head until her eyes met his.
“I suppose you know I’m in love with you,” she said.
When he could find his voice he said: “Do you know that I am in love with you, also?”
“I knew it tonight, on the stairs.”
Neither stirred for the moment, but the boy was all a-quiver now; swept by his first overwhelming surge of passionate love.
She came to him and rested both white hands on his shoulders.
“What are we going to do about it?” she asked.
He gazed blindly into her altered face. All the flushed and sensuous stigmata were there. He felt the heavy sweetness of her body; the languour of her eyes invaded him.
Suddenly the clamour of the telephone filled his ears. She paid no heed to it; her gaze lost in his, searched deeper; her red lips, too full, trembled.
But the monotonous shrilling of the telephone had partly aroused him to some consciousness of the world about him—to self-consciousness, too. And, with this confused resurrection of submerged senses, came mental awakening—a glimmering recognition of facts.... Of indestructible facts which never change.... Old, old facts which never can be ignored, never altered....
There were two things which a man of his race did not do. One of these he was about to do now.
He took the girl into his arms and held her close, not kissing her.
“I’m in love with you, Gilda,” he said unsteadily.
“I want you to be.”
There was a brief and breathless silence, filled suddenly by the racket of the telephone bell. The metallic outburst cleared his brain, but it seemed to madden hers.
She flung wide her bare arms in a sort of childish rage, her lovely mouth distorted.
“Do you hear that telephone?” she cried. “That’s Sadoul! And this is where his damned cleverness is urging me—not into his arms—into yours!——” And she clasped him fiercely, strained him to her with a little cry:
“It’s you, not Sadoul! It’s you! only you! Shall I prove I love you better than my soul?”
The boy turned scarlet: “I want—want you to marry me,” he stammered.
“What!” she exclaimed in flushed astonishment.
“Didn’t you understand?” he demanded.
“M-marry you?” she faltered. “Darling! What are you saying? Don’t you know I can’t marry?”
“Why not?”
“Because I am married.”
He gazed at her aghast.
“Darling! I married Sadoul in Paris ten months ago. Didn’t anybody ever tell you?”
He seemed stupefied.
“I thought you knew it,” she repeated in a bewildered voice. “That’s why I ask you what are we to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said vacantly;.... “I’d better leave you alone, I suppose——”
She caught his lips with hers to silence him; clung closer in a passion of fear until again he drew her to him.
She was trembling all over now, imprisoned in his arms. After a while the boy dropped his blond head beside hers, pressing his face against her hot cheek.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, “——it isn’t in me—it isn’t in any of my race—to love—lawlessly....”
The girl was crying silently. But when he lifted his head she looked up at him through her tears:
“I didn’t ever want you to see me when I am this way,” she said tremulously. “That’s why I always try to escape being with you when—when the Other One is in possession—and I seem to be what I am not——”
“Do you mean that this other—this intruder, this strange, depraved intelligence—is in possession of you now!” he demanded hoarsely.
“Can’t you see? Look at me, Stuart. Can’t you see that tonight I am the—the thing Sadoul showed you?”
But already he knew it was true; knew that he was in love with her even as he saw her now—even with this depraved intruder gazing out at him through Gilda’s lovely eyes.
Exasperated, well nigh beside himself, he took the girl by her bare shoulders, violently:
“You’ve got to free yourself,” he cried; “You’ve got to rid yourself of this obsession—this waking nightmare. You’ve got to divorce Sadoul——”
“He won’t let me, Stuart. What can I expect from a man who trapped my soul when I lay dead and sent this other shameless thing into me, hoping it would prove a friend to him?”
“Can’t your own soul drive it out?”
“It is fighting now.... By tomorrow, I hope——”
“But your mind is still your own, Gilda.”
“My own soul controls that, always. It’s the senses that the Other seizes.”
He looked at her fearfully, unloosed his clasp from her waist, stepped backward, passing one hand heavily across his eyes.
“This is incredible,” he muttered. “If it’s true, it’s too monstrous to be without remedy.... After all, God lives—somewhere——”
He pressed his hand, tight, over his eyes again.
“Stuart?”
“Yes,” he said harshly.
“Shall I attempt to make it clearer to you? I think I can.”
“How?”
She thought a moment: “Dearest, I am going to try to show you more than Sadoul once showed you. I want you to know exactly what happens to me. Come.”
She took his hand, led him across the room, and opened her chamber door.
There was a bright ceiling lamp burning in her bedroom. She lighted the rose-shaded night lamp also, then pointed toward the lounge.
He seated himself. She said in a low voice: “I think God will let me show you.... I pray that He will.... Don’t touch me—afterward. Don’t even speak. Just turn out both lights and go home very quietly. Do you promise?”
He nodded.
The girl went over to the bed and lay down on the lace counterpane, extending her slender figure so that she rested on her left side. Her left arm lay extended; her eyes were covered by her right hand.
For a second or so she moved a little, adjusting herself; then she lay unstirring under the brilliant ceiling light.
Minutes passed. He scarcely stirred, watching her motionless form. But into his memory crowded poignant recollections of another night, when he had sat beside a dead girl until, unable to endure it, he had dropped on his knees beside her to ask an “Unknown God” for equity and justice.
Thinking of God now, and his eyes fixed upon the still form on the bed, he was suddenly aware of another person in the room—a girl, standing near the fireplace.
Over his neck and back and thighs slow chills crawled.
She was like Gilda; lovelier, possibly. The brilliancy of her complexion under the ceiling light—the exquisite, nameless grace of her somehow seemed to still the surging fear in him—quiet his pulse’s panic.
In the flood of light where she stood there was absolutely nothing unreal about her. And had Gilda not been lying there on the bed he would have believed this girl was she.
Then, to his astonishment, she looked at him smilingly; came to him and rested a light hand on his shoulder. He could feel the warmth of it; he looked up into her face, and felt the fragrance of her breath.
This was no phantom. Scarcely knowing what he did, he started to rise, and was arrested by the pressure of her hand gently resisting.
“You promised,” she said, smiling. The sweetness of the low voice was indescribable.
“Are you real?” he asked, under his breath.
She laughed silently. “Oh, very,” she said. “Touch me.”
Her arms and body were warm and firm. She took his hand and placed it over her heart. Under it he felt the steady beating.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
“I am Gilda.”
“Then—then what is that on the bed?”
“My home. There is an intruder in it.... Look! Do you see her lying there, watching us?”
And now, beside the motionless shape on the bed, he saw another figure lying, half hidden, peering stealthily at him over the naked shoulder of the unstirring form.
Slowly, furtively, its head lifted; and he recognised the sensual features of the thing that Sadoul had made him see—the languorous eyes, the scarlet lips, the neck too white and thick, the limbs, marble fair, heavy, marvellous——
The thing rose on the bed, supported by one naked arm to prop it. Suddenly it leaped lightly to the carpet—a living creature, breathing, palpable, utterly real.
The girl on the bed stirred slightly and a deep sigh escaped her.
The figure beside Stuart bent down and whispered to him to put out the lights and go.
He rose. The Other One laughed at him; touched his face with her soft pink fingers as he passed her to extinguish the rose-shaded night lamp.
Before he put out the ceiling light he paused, his hand on the electric button, and looked at the three he was leaving in the bedroom—leaving in darkness there.
He looked at the motionless form on the lace counterpane; he looked at the Other One in all her flagrant beauty; he looked at his first and loveliest visitor, who returned his gaze sweetly, tranquilly, reassuringly.
Then he switched off the light.