The talkers

They had expected to spend New Year’s Eve together. She telephoned him at the office that morning, asking him to come uptown early. Something in her voice made him uneasy, and she admitted she was feeling a little restless, but did not seem apprehensive.

When he returned from lunching at the Forester’s Club he learned that she had called him again but had left no message.

Vaguely disturbed, he hastened to conclude business affairs for the day and arrange for everything over the holidays.

He was longer than he expected; some final stock transactions calculated to mitigate taxes were not completed; the closing for a few days of such a business required precaution and careful attention to every detail in the machinery.

However, after five, he wished everybody a happy New Year and sped uptown in his car.

He did not find Gilda at home, but he found a vaguely worded note from her saying merely that she was too nervous to see him that evening, and had gone out with friends.

A hot flush of anger carried him to the Fireside Club; but anxiety chilled it. Few men were in the club; the stillness was unusual; the Talkers ceased because they were few; silence remained unbroken save when there came distantly out of the dark city a dull rumour of tumult from the “Roaring Forties.”

Apprehension lay a dead weight on his heart; he made a pretense of eating; then, for an hour or two, he haunted the telephone booths below. But Freda had left by that time and there was no response.

Where Gilda had gone and with whom he dared not surmise. If her uneasiness of the morning had been caused by any occult apprehension—any premonition that the Other One threatened her with possession, she had not intimated as much. And it had been understood that, in such crises, she was to call him to bear the brunt of the dark obsession.

Stuart went home about eleven. His taxi skirted the Forties; far flashes from a river of fire revealed Broadway.

Before he fell asleep the vast droning of whistles penetrated his breezy bedroom. The miserable year was ending in folly amid the empty howling of a mindless people.

Freda answered his morning inquiry saying that her mistress was still sleeping.

He didn’t bother to ring up again, and his resentment had not cooled any when he had dressed, breakfasted, and was on his way to call her to account.

Freda said that her mistress was not well—not even dressed. Stuart flung his coat and hat on the hall chair and went into the living room.

The curtains were still drawn. A chill demi-light revealed the shadowy Christmas tree still standing.

On the lounge lay Gilda’s evening cloak and gloves, flung at random. It was cold in the grey obscurity of the place. As he turned he set his foot on something limp and slippery—a matted cluster of dead orchids—and he kicked them aside and went across to her bedroom.

The door hung ajar. The girl was sitting on her bed huddled in a grey wool wrapper, clasping her doll.

Her hair, loosened, fell in a coppery cascade; her little bare feet, slipperless, hung limp above the fur rug. She scarcely looked up when he opened the door.

“Where the devil have you been?” he asked harshly—suddenly reacting from the tension.

“Where—the devil—I don’t know.... I don’t know ....” she said vaguely.

There was a silence; she drew the big wax doll closer, giving the boy a vacant look.

“Are you ill?” he asked bluntly.

“Ill? Yes—quite ill. The world slipped away—somewhere.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I called you.... You were too far away.... Too far.”

“With whom were you?”

“The night was squirming with faces.... I am sick of faces. There was no shelter.”

“Was Sadoul there?”

“Yes.... There was no shelter in that glare.... I am withered.”

“So you spent the eve of the New Year with Sadoul in riot,” he said fiercely.

“In hell,” she repeated in a ghost of a voice. “The blaze has burned me out—burned out my mind—blackened me....”

She looked up out of the burnished disorder of her hair, and he saw in her eyes that the Other One was still in possession.

“Drive out that damned thing!” he cried in an ungovernable rage.

But the Other looked out of her eyes at him in dangerous beauty: “If we burn—together—our ashes will be clean.... Do you love me?”

“Get into that bed!” he said in a strangled voice; went to her, pushed her back among the pillows, and covered her to the face.

He stared at her for a moment—at her dangerous eyes looking at him, shadowed by her hair—at the vacant visage of the doll at her breast, its wax eyes closed.

He looked around him at the disorder—stockings, underclothing trailing from the sofa or underfoot—a painted horn, a fancy paper cap on the mantel——

An indescribable anger seized him; he went to the bed again, leaned over:

“You poor little devil,” he said in a strangled voice, “—you poor, miserable little devil——”

Always her eyes watched him,—depthless wells of peril.

“Don’t get up. I want you to wait for me here. I’ll be back this afternoon. Call Freda when you are able to eat. Do you promise, Gilda?”

She lifted both arms in the wool sleeves, rested them on his shoulders and lay looking at him, her red lips parted.

“Do you promise?” he repeated.

“Yes.... I am so in love—Stuart——”

“So am I. But not with the beastly thing in command of you now.”

“If you are in love with me, don’t go,” she breathed.

“Because I am, I’m going—loosen your arms!——”

He used force; she lay on the pillows again, flushed, her eyes veiled with tears.

At the door he looked back. She had bowed her head against the blond head of the doll, burying both in the disordered glory of her hair.