Part 16

"My husband, Vincent Marbridge. Vincent, this is Joan Thursday. She's engaged to Jack Matthias. Isn't it wonderful? And aren't they both fortunate? And _isn't_ she pretty?"

Marbridge's unctuous and intimate smile accompanied his reply: "Yes to all--twice yes to your last question." His warm strong hand closed over Joan's diffident fingers. "My heartiest congratulations to you both.... Ah, Mr. Matthias, how are you? So we meet again--at Tanglewood!"

The hands of the two men touched and fell apart. But this clue was wasted upon Joan, who stood silently abashed and sullen with consciousness of her own inept awkwardness as contrasted with the amiable aplomb of these people with whom good breeding was a cult, the practice of the art of self-possession its primary rite.

To Marbridge she stammered: "Pleased to meet you." And immediately felt her face burning and as if she could faint for sheer mortification.

It was Helena who, pitiful for the gaucherie of the girl, saved the situation by raising the issue of tea. Venetia demurred: they were, it seemed, visiting friends in Southampton; had driven over only for a call of a moment; would be late for dinner if they tarried. But Marbridge settled the question by dropping solidly into a chair and announcing that there he was and there would stay pending either tea or a highball. Venetia, unable to disguise a flush of resentment, showed her back to her husband and devoted herself to George Tankerville. As Helena summoned a servant, Marbridge hitched his chair closer and inaugurated a rather one-sided conversation with Joan.

Again in her basket-chair, knees daintily crossed in imitation of a pose mentally photographed from the stage, Joan experienced renewed consciousness of her attractions, and with it regained a little ease. It could scarcely be otherwise under the wondering regard that Marbridge bent upon the girl. His admiration was unconcealed, and to Joan at first the sweeter since it was diverted from his wife.

But insensibly the situation began to affect her less pleasantly. She grew sensitive to an effect of strain in the atmosphere, made up in equal parts of Venetia's indignation, Matthias's annoyance, Helena's suave but quite fruitless efforts to interpose and distract the interest of Marbridge to herself.

And there was a confusing and disturbing element of familiar and personal significance in the man's undeviating and brazen stare. Truly, in the older sense of the word, impudent, it hinted an understanding so complete as to be almost shameful--worse, it educed a real if unspoken response from the girl; unwillingly she admitted the existence of a bond of sympathy between herself and this man whom she had never seen before, a feeling more true and intimate than that which her association with Matthias had inspired, than any she had ever known. For a time she fought against this impression, in a bewilderment that evoked from her only witless and hesitant responses. Then suddenly encountering his eyes--actually against her will--she was stricken dumb and breathless by comprehension of their intent; in effect, they stripped her: bodily and mentally they made her naked to this man.

Nor was this the sum: for the merest fraction of a moment Joan felt herself answering: in her bosom a strange oppression, strangely troubling and sweet; in her own eyes a kindling light, sympathetic, shameless....

Instantly quenched: distress and affronted modesty incarnadined her face, veiled her eyes. Almost unconsciously she turned away. Indistinctly she saw the white face of Venetia, set and hard, with a scornful lip for her husband. Shifting to view the object of his admiration, it showed no change of expression. Her voice cut incisively through his lazy, drawling accents.

"This is quite impossible," she said coolly, consulting a jewelled watch on her slender, gloved wrist. "If we stay another instant we shall be unforgivably late. But"--to Helena--"thank you so much, dear, for wanting us to stop.... Vincent, I am going."

She moved slowly toward the house. Marbridge kept his seat.

"Nonsense!" he expostulated. "Plenty of time. Tea's just coming. And I'm dying the death of a dog with thirst."

"I am going," Venetia repeated in an uninflected voice.

His dark face darkening, Marbridge glanced to Helena, to Tankerville, ignored Matthias, looked back to Joan: gaining as little encouragement from her, as from his host and hostess, since she dared not again meet his gaze. With a movement of his heavy shoulders and a chuckle he heaved himself out of the chair.

"Oh, _all_ right," he called indulgently to his wife: "coming!... All women are crazy, anyhow," he confided to the others. "You've got to let 'em have their own way. So--good night. Hope I'll have the pleasure of seeing you-all soon again."

He extended a hand to Helena--who gave him cool fingertips--and paused before Joan.

"Au revoir, Miss Thursday...."

The girl was unconscious of the proffered hand. Her eyes averted, she murmured a good night.

His smile broadening, Marbridge turned to Matthias; received from him a look that was as good as a kick, gave back a grin of graceless effrontery; and swinging, linked arms with Tankerville.

"Come along, George--take a look at our new car. She's a wonder!"

Civilly playing his part, Tankerville submitted.

They disappeared--Marbridge gabbling cheerfully--into the house. Joan uncurtained her eyes. Her lover, with a face of thunder, was looking toward his aunt; who made a slight negative motion of her head, with an admonitory flutter of one hand: a servant with a tray was drawing near. Matthias answered her with a gesture of controlled wrath; turned to the balustrade; stood there staring straight into the angry sunset glow.

On the drive a motor snorted, snored, drew away with a whine diminuendo....

Throughout the remainder of Joan's visit the incident was not once referred to. But it had had its curious and disturbing effect upon the girl. She remembered it all very vividly, reviewed it with insatiable inquisitiveness. From this she derived a feeling, which she resented, of having witnessed a scene fraught with significance indecipherable to her.

XXI

A little after the hour of four on Monday afternoon, Joan emerged from that riotous meander of hideous wooden galleries, ramps, passages, sheds, and vast echoing caves of gloom, which in those days encumbered the site of the new Grand Central Station; and with a long breath of relief turned westward on Forty-second Street.

She walked slowly and without definite aim; yet she had never felt so keenly the quickness and joy of being alive. Her idle fancy invested with a true if formless symbolism her escape from that amazing labyrinth of shadows to the clear, sweet sunlight of the clamorous, busy street: as if she had eluded and cast off convention and formality, the constraint of a settled future and the strain of aspirations to be other than as Nature had fashioned her; and was free again of the enchanting ease of being simply herself.

She had within five minutes said good-bye to her betrothed; her lips were yet warm with their parting kiss, her eyes still moist--and so, the more bewitching--with the facile tears through which she had watched his train draw out of the station.

He was not to be back within a month; more probably his return would not occur within five or six weeks....

She was contrarily possessed by two opposed humours: one approximately saturated with an exquisite melancholy and a sense of heroic emotions adequately experienced; and the other, of freedom untrammelled by restrictions of any sort.

Overruling her faint-hearted protests, Matthias had left her the sum of six weeks' wages (or allowance) in advance, by way of provision against emergencies and delays. Joan had this magnificent sum of one hundred and fifty dollars intact in her pocket-book: more money than she had ever--at least, seriously--dreamed of possessing at one time. Temporarily it represented to her imagination, level-headed as she ordinarily was in consideration of money matters, wealth almost incalculable. It thrilled her tremendously to contemplate this tangible proof of her lover's unquestioning trust and generosity--and at the same time it irked her with gnawing doubts of her worthiness. For continually the knowledge skulked in the dark backwards of her consciousness that only lack of opportunity restrained her from active disloyalty to his prejudices.

Though she had disguised it from him, and even in some measure from herself, she knew that love had not quenched but had quickened her ambition for the stage. To be desired by one man only stimulated her longing to be desired inaccessibly--beyond the impregnable barrier of footlights--by all men.

She wondered how far her strength and constancy would serve her to resist, were opportunity to come her way during the absence of Matthias, when distance should have sapped the strength of his influence and loneliness had lent an accent to her need for occupation and companionship.

Furtively she closed her left hand, until she could feel the diamond in his ring, turned in toward the palm beneath her glove: as if it were a talisman....

Turning north on Broadway, she breasted the full current of the late afternoon promenade. Where the subway kiosks encroach upon the sidewalk, in front of what had been Shanley's restaurant, there was a distinct congestion of footfarers: Joan was obliged to move more slowly, crowded from behind, close on the heels of those in front, elbowed by pedestrians bound the opposite way.

Abruptly she caught sight of Wilbrow, approaching. Almost at the same instant he saw her. Momentarily his eyes clouded with an effort of memory; then he placed her, his lantern cheeks widened with an ironic grin, and he lifted his hat with elaborate ceremony. Joan flushed slightly, smiled brightly in response, and tossed her head with a spirited suggestion of good-humoured tolerance. In another moment, wondering why she had done this, she realized that it had been due simply to a subconscious valuation of the man's interest, in the event she should ever again decide to try her luck on the stage....

Crossing at Forty-third Street, she turned again north on the sidewalk in front of a building given over almost entirely to the offices of theatrical businesses: a sidewalk darkened the year round with groups of actors sociably "resting."

One of these groups, as Joan drew near, broke up on the urgent suggestion of a special policeman detailed for the purpose; and a member of it, swinging with a laugh to "move on," stopped short to escape collision with the girl. Then he laughed again in the friendliest fashion, and offered his hand. She looked up into the face of Charlie Quard.

"Well!" he cried heartily, "I always was a lucky guy! I've been thinking about you all day--wondering what'd become of you."

Joan smiled and shook hands. "I guess it wasn't worrying you much," she retorted. "If you'd wanted to, you knew where to find me."

Quard needed no more encouragement. Promptly ranging alongside and falling into step: "That's just it," he argued; "I knew where to _start_ looking for you, all right, but I was kinda afraid you might be in when I called, and didn't know whether you'd snap my head off or not."

"That's likely," the girl countered amiably. There was a distinctly agreeable sensation to be derived from this association with one upon whom she could impose her private estimate of herself. "What made you want to see me all of a sudden?"

"Then you ain't sore on me?"

"What for?" she evaded transparently.

"Oh, you know what for, all right. I'm sore enough on myself not to want to talk about it."

"Well," said Joan indifferently, "I guess it's none of my business if you're such a rummy you can't hold onto a job. Only, of course, I don't have to stand for that sort of foolishness more than once."

"You said something then, all right," Quard approved humbly. "I can't blame you for feeling that way about it. But le' me tell you an honest fact: I ain't touched a drop of anything stronger'n buttermilk since that night--so help me Klaw and Erlanger!"

"Why?"

"Well, I guess I must've took a tumble to myself. Anyhow, when I got over the katzenjammer thing, I thought it all out and made up my mind it was up to me to behave for the balance of my sentence."

"Is that so?" Joan asked, pausing definitely on the corner at Forty-fifth Street.

"I know I can," Quard asserted convincingly. "Believe me, Joan, I hate the stuff! I'd as lief stake myself to a slug of sulphuric. No, on the level: I'm booked for the water-tank route for the rest of my natural."

"I'm awful glad," observed the girl maliciously. "It's so nice for your mother. Well ... g'dafternoon!"

"Hold on!" Quard protested. "I'll walk down to the house with you."

"No, you won't," she returned promptly.

"Why not?"

"I don't want you to."

"Oh, you don't!" he murmured blankly, pulling down the corners of his wide, expressive mouth.

"_So_ sorry," she parroted. "G'dafternoon."

She was several steps away before the man recovered from this rebuff. Then, with a face of set intent, he gave chase.

"I say--Miss Thursday!"

Joan accepted with a secret smile this sudden change from the off-hand manner of his first addresses. "Miss Thursday, eh?" she said to herself; but halted none the less.

"Well?"--with self-evident surprise.

"Look here--_lis'n_!" insisted Quard: "I got to have a talk with you."

"What about?"

"Oh, this is no good place. When can I see you?"

"Is it quite necessary, Mister Quard?"

He wagged an earnest head at her: "That's right. What are you doing tonight?"

"Oh, I got an engagement with some friends of mine," she said with spontaneous mendacity.

"Well, then, when?"

"Oh, I don't know; you might as well take your chances--call round sometime--in two or three days."

"And I got to be satisfied with that?"

"Why not?"

Quard shook his head helplessly: "I'd like to know what's come over you...."

"Why, what's the matter?" The temptation to lead him on was irresistible.

"You've changed a lot since I seen you last. What you been doing to yourself?"

She bridled.... "Maybe it's you that is changed. Maybe you're seeing things different, now you're sober."

Quard hesitated an instant, his features drawn with anger. Then abruptly: "_Plenty!_" he ejaculated, and as if afraid to trust himself further, turned and marched back to Broadway.

Smiling quietly, Joan made her way home. On the whole, the encounter had not been unenjoyable. She had not only held her own, she had condescended with striking success.

Later, she repented a little of her harshness; she had been hardly kind, if Quard were sincere in his protestations of reform; and a little tolerance might have earned her an evening less lonely.

It was spent, after a dinner which proved unexpectedly desolate, lacking the companionship to which of late she had grown accustomed, in the back-parlour (to which Matthias had left her the key) and in discontented efforts to fix her interest on a novel. Before ten o'clock she gave it up, and climbed to her room, to lie awake for hours in mute rebellion against her friendless estate. She might, it was true, have kept a promise made to her lover just before his departure, to look up and renew relations with her family. But the more she contemplated this step, the less it attracted her inclination. There'd be another row with the Old Man, most likely and ... anyway, there was plenty of time. Besides, they'd want money, if they found out she had any; and while a hundred and fifty was a lot, there was no telling when she'd get more.

Eventually she fell asleep while reviewing her meeting with Quard and turning over her hazy impression that it wouldn't hurt her to be less stand-offish with him, next time.

In the morning she settled herself at her typewriter in a fine spirit of determination to keep her mind occupied with the work in hand--and incidentally to rid her conscience of it--until the feeling of loneliness wore off or at least till its reality became a trifle less unpalatable through familiarity. But not two pages had been typed before the call of the sunlit September day proved seductive beyond her will to resist; a much-advertised "_Promenade des Toilettes_" at a department store claimed the rest of the morning; and after lunch she "took in" a moving-picture show.

But again her evening was forlorn. Theatres allured, but she hardly liked to go alone. In desperation she cast back mentally to the friends of the old days, and after rejecting her erstwhile confidant and co-labourer at the stocking counter, Gussie Innes (who lived too near home, and would tell her father, who would pass it along to the Old Man) Joan settled upon one or two girls, resident in distant Harlem, to be hunted up, treated to a musical comedy, and regaled with a narrative of the rise and adventures of Joan Thursday until their lives were poisoned with corrosive envy.

But the first mail of Wednesday furnished distractions so potent that this project was postponed indefinitely and passed out of Joan's mind, never to be revived. It brought her two letters: manufacturing an event of magnitude in the life of a young woman who had yet to write her first letter and who had thus far received only a few scrappy and incoherent notes from boyish admirers.

There was one from Matthias, posted in Chicago the preceding morning. Her first love letter, it was scanned hurriedly, even impatiently, and put aside in favour of a fat manila envelope whose contents consisted of a type-written manuscript and a note in scrawling long-hand:

"Friend Joan--

"I hope you are not still mad with me and sorry I got hot under the collar Monday only I thought you might of been a little easy on me because, I am strictly on the Water Wagon and this time mean it--

"What I wanted to talk to you about was a Sketch I got hold of a while ago you know you picked the other one only that was punk stuff compared with this I think--Please read this and tell me what you think about it if you like it, I think I will try it out soon, if it's any good it's a cinch to cop out Orpheum time for a Classy Act like this--

"Your true friend--

"Chas. H. Quard.

"P.S. of course I mean I want you to act the Womans part if you like the Sketch, what do you think!"

It was afternoon before she realized the flight of time.

She turned back to Quard's note, a trifle disappointed that he hadn't suggested an hour when he would call for her answer.

Adjusting her hat before the mirror, preparatory to going out to lunch, she realized without a qualm that there was no longer any question of her intention as between Quard's offer and the wishes of Matthias. Whatever the consequences she meant to play that part--but on terms and conditions to be dictated by herself.

But in the act of drawing on her gloves, she checked, and for a long time stood fascinated by the beauty and lustre of the diamond on her left hand. A stone of no impressive proportions, but one of the purest and most excellent water, of an exceptional brilliance, it meant a great deal to one whose ingrained passion for such adornments had, prior to her love affair, perforce been satisfied with the cheap, trashy, and perishable stuff designated in those days by the term "French novelty jewellery." Subconsciously she was sensitive to a feeling of kinship with the beautiful, unimpressionable, enigmatic stone: as though their natures were somehow complementary. Actively she knew that she would forfeit much rather than part with that perfect and entrancing jewel. With nothing else in nature, animate or inert, would it have been possible for her to spend long hours of silent, worshipful, sympathetic communion.

If she were to persist in the pursuit of her romantic ambition, it might bring about a pass of cleavage between herself and her lover; it was more than likely, indeed; she knew the prejudices of Matthias to be as strong as his love, and this last no stronger than his sense of honour. Tacitly if not explicitly, she had given him to understand that she would respect his objections to a stage career. He would not forgive unfaith--least of all, such clandestine and stealthy disloyalty as she then contemplated.

The breaking of their engagement would involve the return of the diamond.

Intolerable thought!

And yet....

Staring wide-eyed into her mirror, she saw herself irresolute at crossroads: on the one hand Matthias, marriage, the diamond, a secure and honourable future; on the other, Quard, "The Lie," disloyalty, the loss of the diamond, uncertainty--a vista of grim, appalling hazards....

And yet--she had four weeks, probably six, perhaps eight, in which to weigh the possibilities of this tremendous and seductive adventure. "The Lie" _might_ fail....

In that case, Matthias need never know.

XXII

As she drew near to Longacre Square, Joan saw Quard detach himself from an area-railing against which he had been lounging across the street, and move over to intercept her. Since she had anticipated that he might waylay her in some such manner, if he didn't call at the house, she was not surprised by this manoeuvre; but she was a little surprised and not a little amused (if quite privately) to see him throw away his cigar as they drew together, and lift his hat. Such attentions from him were distinctly novel--and gratifying.

Complacent, and at the same time excited beneath a placid demeanour, she greeted him with a cool little nod.

He grinned broadly but nervously.

"I was wondering if you wouldn't happen along soon...."

"Is that so?" Joan returned blandly.

"Mind my walking with you?"

"No-o," the girl drawled.

"Of course, if I'm in the way--"

"Oh, no--I'm just looking for some place to lunch."

"Well, I'm hungry myself. Why not let me set up the eats?"

"All right," she assented indifferently.

"Fine! Where'll we go?"

"Oh, I don't know...."

"Anywheres you say."

"Well, Rector's is right handy."

"That suits me," Quard affirmed promptly.

But Joan's sidelong glance discovered a look of some discomfiture.

"I guess you got my letter, all right?" he pursued as they crossed to the sidewalk of the New York Theatre Building.

"Oh, yes," Joan replied evenly, after a brief pause.

"Wha'd you think of the piece?"

"Oh ... the sketch! Why, it seems very interesting. Of course," Joan added in a tone of depreciation, "I didn't have much time--just glanced through it, you know--"

"I felt pretty sure you'd like it!"

"Oh, yes; I thought it _quite_ interesting," said the girl patronizingly.

She seemed unconscious of his quick, questioning glance, and Quard withdrew temporarily into suspicious, baffled silence.

In the pause they crossed Forty-fourth Street and entered the restaurant.

It was rather crowded at that hour, but by good chance they found a table for two by one of the windows; where a heavily-mannered captain of waiters, probably thinking he recognized her, held a chair for Joan and bowed her into it with an empressement that secretly delighted the girl and lent the last effect to Quard's discomfiture.

"Please," she said gravely as the actor, with the captain suave but vigilant at his elbow, knitted expressive eyebrows over the menu--"please order something very simple. I hardly _ever_ have much appetite so soon after breakfast."

"I--ah--how about a cocktail?" Quard ventured, relief manifest in his smoothened brow.

"I thought you--"

"Oh, for you, I mean. Mine's ice'-tea."

"I think," said Joan easily, "I would like a Bronx."