Part 7

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.

IX

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 manoeuvre 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.

X

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?"