Chapter 2

“She has a splendid time. She's out tonight with Mr. Jasper in a rolling chair, and he has loads and loads of money. It makes all the other women cross.”

“Here you are, then, till she gets back?”

“There's no one else.”

“But, as a parent, infinitely preferable to the righteous,” he murmured. “And you--”

“I think mother's perfect,” she answered simply.

He shook his head. “You won't succeed at it, though. Your mother, for example, isn't dark.”

“The loveliest gold hair,” she said ecstatically. “She's much much prettier than I'll ever be.”

“Prettier, yes. The trouble is, you are lovely, magical. You will stay for a lifetime in the memory. The merest touch of you will be more potent than any duty or fidelity. A man's only salvation will be his blindness.”

Although she didn't understand a word of this, Linda liked to hear him; he was talking as though she were grown up, and in response to the flattery she was magnetic and eager.

“One time,” he said, “very long ago, beauty was worshiped. Men, you see, know better now. They want their dollar's worth. The world was absolutely different then--there were deep adventurous forests with holy chapels in the green combe for an orison, and hermits rising to Paradise on the _Te Deum Laudamus_ of the angels and archangels. There were black castles and, in the broad meadows, silk tents with ivory pegs and poles of gold.

“The enchantments were as thick as shadows under the trees: perhaps the loveliest of women riding a snow-white mule, with a saddle cloth of red samite, or, wrapped in her shining hair, on a leopard with yellow eyes, lured you to a pavilion, scattered with rushes and flowers and magical herbs, and a shameful end. Or a silver doe would weep, begging you to pierce her with your sword, and, when you did, there knelt the daughter of the King of Wales.

“But I started to tell you about the worship of beauty. Plato started it although Cardinal Pietro Bembo was responsible for the creed. He lived in Italy, in an age like a lily. It developed mostly at Florence in the Platonic Academy of Cosomo and Pico della Mirandola. Love was the supreme force, and its greatest expression a desire beyond the body.”

He gazed at Linda with a quizzical light in his eyes deep in shadow.

“Love,” he said again, and then paused. “One set of words will do as well as another. You will understand, or not, with something far different from intellectual comprehension. The endless service of beauty. Of course, a woman--but never the animal; the spirit always. Born in the spirit, served in the spirit, ending in the spirit. A direct contradiction, you see, to nature and common sense, frugality and the sacred symbol of the dollar.

“It wouldn't please your Mr. Jasper, with his heaps and heaps of money. Mr. Jasper would consider himself sold. But Novalis, not so very long ago, understood.... A dead girl more real than all earth. You mustn't suppose it to be mere mysticism.”

Linda said, “Very well, I won't.”

He nodded. “No one could call Michelangelo hysterical. Sometime in the history of man, of a salt solution, this divinity has touched them. Touched them hopefully, and perhaps gone--banished by the other destination. Or I can comprehend nature killing it relentlessly, since it didn't lead to propagation. Then, too, as much as was useful was turned into a dogma for politics and priests.

“You saw in the rushlight a woman against the arras; there was a humming of viola d'amore from the musicians' balcony; she smiled at you, lingering, and then vanished with a whisper of brocade de Lyons on a sanded floor. Nothing else but a soft white glove, eternally fragrant, in your habergeon, an eternally fragrant memory; the dim vision in stone street and coppice; a word, a message, it might be, sent across the world of steel at death. And then, in the last flicker of vision, the arras and the clear insistent strings, the whispering brocade de Lyons on the landing.

“The philosophy of it,” he said in a different tone, “is exact, even a scientific truth. But men have been more concerned with turning lead into gold; naturally the spirit has been neglected. The science of love has been incredibly soiled:

“The old gesture toward the stars, the bridge of perfection, the escape from the fatality of flesh. Yet it was a service of the body made incredibly lovely in actuality and still never to be grasped. Never to be won. It ought to be clear to you that realized it would diminish into quite a different thing--

“'_La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa idea._'”

His voice grew so faint that Linda could scarcely distinguish articulate sounds. All that he said, without meaning for her, stirred her heart. She was used to elder enigmas of speech; her normal response was instinctively emotional, and nothing detracted from the gravity of her attention.

“Not in pious men,” he continued, more uncertain; “nor in seminaries of virtue. They have their reward. But in men whose bitterness of longing grew out of hideous fault. The distinction of beauty--not a payment for prayers or chastity. The distinction of love ... above chests of linen and a banker's talent and patents of nobility.... Divine need. Idiotic. But what else, what better, offers?”

He was, she saw, terribly sick. His hands were clenched and his entire being strained and rigid, as though he were trying to do something tremendously difficult. At last, with infinite pain, he succeeded.

“I must get away,” he articulated.

Linda was surprised at the effort necessary for this slight accomplishment when he had said the most bewildering things with complete ease. Well, the elevators were right in front of him. He rose slowly, and, with Linda standing at his side, dug a sharp hand into her shoulder. It hurt, but instinctively she bore it and, moving forward, partly supported him. She pressed the bell that signaled for the elevator and it almost immediately sank into view. “Hurry,” he said harshly to the colored operator in a green uniform; and quite suddenly, leaving a sense of profound mystery, he disappeared.

III

Linda decided that he had told her a rather stupid fairy story. She was too old for such ridiculous things as ladies in their shining hair on a leopard. She remembered clearly seeing one of the latter at a zoological garden. It had yellow eyes, but no one would care to ride on it. Her mother, she was certain, knew more about love than any man. His words faded quickly from her memory, but a confused rich sense stirred her heart, a feeling such as she experienced after an unusually happy day: white gloves and music and Mr. Jasper displeased.

A clock chimed ten, and she proceeded to her mother's room, where she must wait up with her information about Mr. Jasper's wife. She was furious at him for a carelessness that had brought her mother such unfavorable criticism. Everything had been put away before going down, and there was nothing for her to do. The time dragged tediously. The hands of the traveling-clock in purple leather on the dressing-table moved deliberately around to eleven. A ringing of ice in one of the metal pitchers carried by the bell boys sounded from the corridor. There was the faint wail of a baby.

Suddenly and acutely Linda was lonely--a new kind of loneliness that had nothing to do with the fact that she was by herself. It was a strange cold unhappiness, pressing over her like a cloud and, at the same time, it was nothing at all. That is, there was no reason for it. The room was brightly lighted and, anyhow, she wasn't afraid of “things.” She thought that at any minute she must cry like that baby. After a little she felt better; rather the unhappiness changed to wanting. What she wanted was a puzzle; but nothing else would satisfy her. It might be a necklace of little pearls, but it wasn't. It might be--. Now it was twelve o'clock. Dear, dear, why didn't she come back!

Music, awfully faint, and a whisper, like a dress, across the floor. Her emotion changed again, to an extraordinary delight, a glow like that which filled her at the expression of her adoration for her mother, but infinitely greater. She was seated, and she lifted her head with her eyes closed and hands clasped. The clock pointed to one and her parent came into the room.

“Linda,” she exclaimed crossly, “whatever are you doing up? A bad little girl. I told you to be asleep hours before this.”

“There is something you had to know right away,” Linda informed her solemnly. “I only just heard it from Mrs. Randall and Miss Skillern.” Her mother's flushed face hardened. “Mr. Jasper is married,” Linda said.

Mrs. Condon dropped with an angry flounce into a chair. Her broad scarf of sealskin slipped from one shoulder. Her hat was crooked and her hair disarranged. “So that's it,” she said bitterly; “and they went to you. The dam' old foxes. They went to you, nothing more than a child.”

Linda put in, “They didn't mean to; it just sort of came out. I knew you'd stop as soon as you heard. Wasn't it horrid of him?”

“And this,” Mrs. Condon declared, “is what I get for being, yes--proper.

“I said to-night, 'George,' I said, 'go right back home. It's the only thing. They have a right to you.' I told him that only to-night. And, 'No, I must consider my little Linda.' If I had held up my finger,” she held up a finger to show the smallness of the act necessary, “where would we have all been?

“But this is what I get. You might think the world would notice a woman's best efforts. No, they all try to crowd her and see her slip. If they don't watch out I'll skid, all right, and with some one they least expect. I have opportunities.”

Linda realized with a sense of confusion that her mother had known of Mr. Jasper's marriage all the while. But she had nobly tried to save him from something; just what Linda couldn't make out. The other's breath was heavy with drinking.

“You go to bed, Lin,” she continued; “and thank you for taking care of mama. I hope to goodness you'll learn from all this--pick out what you want and make for it. Don't bother with the antique frumps, the disappointed old tabbies. Have your fun. There's nothing else. If you like a man, be on the level with him--give and take. Men are not saints and we're better for it; we don't live in a heaven. You've got a sweet little figure. Always remember mama telling you that the most expensive corsets are the cheapest in the end.”

Linda undressed slowly and methodically, her mother's words ringing in her head. Always remember--but of course she would have the nicest things possible.... A keepsake and faint music. She thought, privately, that she was too thin; she'd rather be her mother, with shoulders like bunches of smooth pink roses. In bed, just as she was falling asleep, a sound disturbed her from the corridor above--the slow tramping of heavy feet, like a number of men carefully bearing an awkward object. She listened with suspended breath while they passed. The footfalls seemed to pound on her heart. Slowly, slowly they went, unnatural and measured. They were gone now, but she still heard them. The crashing of her mother into bed followed with a deep sigh. The long fall of a wave on the shore was audible. Two things contended in her stilled brain--the mysterious feeling of desire and her mother's advice. They were separate and fought, yet they were strangely incomprehensibly joined.

IV

In the morning Mrs. Condon, with a very late breakfast-tray in bed, had regained her usual cheerful manner. “The truth is,” she told Linda, “I'm glad that Jasper man has gone. He had no idea of discretion; tired of them anyhow.” Linda radiated happiness. This was the mother she loved above all others. Her mind turned a little to the man who had talked to her the night before. She wondered if he were better. His thin blanched face, his eyes gleaming uncomfortably in smudges, recurred to her. Perhaps he'd be down by the cigar-stand again. She went, presently, to see, but the row of chairs was empty.

However, the neglected thick brown-covered magazine was still on the ledge by which he had been sitting. There was a name on it, and while, ordinarily, she couldn't read handwriting, this was so clear and regular, but minutely small, that she was able to spell it out--Howard Welles.

It disappointed her not to find him; at lunch she observed nearly every one present, but still he was lost. He wasn't listening to the music after dinner, nor below. A deep sense of disappointment grew within her. Linda wanted to see him, hear him talk; at times a sharp hurt in the shoulder he had grasped brought him back vividly. The next day it was the same, and finally, diffidently, she approached the hotel desk. A clerk she knew, Mr. Fiske, was rapidly sorting mail, and she waited politely until he had finished.

“Well?” he asked.

“I found this down-stairs,” she said, giving him the magazine. “Perhaps he'll want it.” Mr. Fiske looked at the written name, and then glanced sharply at her. “No,” he told her brusquely, “he won't want it.” He turned away with the magazine and left Linda standing irresolutely. She wanted to ask if Mr. Welles were still at the Boscombe; if the latter didn't want the magazine she'd love to have it, Linda couldn't tell why. But the clerk went into the treasurer's office and she was forced to move away.

Later, lingering inexplicably about the spot where she had heard so many bewildering words, a very different man spoke to her. He, Linda observed, was smoking a cigar, a good one, she was certain. He was smallish and had a short bristling mustache and head partly bald. His shoes were very shiny and altogether he had a look of prosperity. “Hello, cutie!” he cried, capturing her arm. She responded listlessly. The other produced a crisp dollar bill. “Do you see the chocolates in that case?” he said, indicating the cigar-stand. “Well, get the best. If they cost more, let me know. Our financial rating is number one.” Linda answered that she didn't think she cared for any. “All right,” the man agreed; “sink the note in the First National Ladies Bank, if you know where that is.”

He engineered her unwillingly onto a knee. “How's papa?” he demanded. “I suppose he will be here Saturday to take his family through the stores?”

She replied with dignity, “There is only my mother and me.”

At this information he exclaimed “Ah!” and touched his mustache with a diminutive gold-backed brush from a leather case. “That's more than I have,” he confided to her; “there is only myself. Isn't that sad? You must be sorry for the lonely old boy.”

She wasn't. Probably he, too, had a wife somewhere; men were beastly. “I guess your mother wants a little company at times herself?”

Linda, straining away from him, replied, “Oh, dear, no; there are just packs of gentlemen whenever she likes. But she is tired of them all.” She escaped and he settled his waistcoat.

“You mustn't run away,” he admonished her; “nice children don't. Your mother didn't bring you up like that, I'm sure. She wouldn't like it.”

Linda hesitated, plainly conveying the fact that, if she were to wait, he would have to say something really important.

“Just you two,” he deliberated; “Miss and Mrs. Jones.”

“Not at all,” Linda asserted shortly; “our name is Condon.”

“I wonder if you'd tell her this,” he went on: “a gentleman's here by himself named Bardwell, who has seen her and admires her a whole lot. Tell her he's no young sprig but he likes a good time all the better. Dependable, too. Remember that, cutie. And he wouldn't presume if he had a short pocket. He knows class when he sees it.”

“It won't do any good,” Linda assured him in her gravest manner. “She said only this morning she was sick of them.”

“That was before dinner,” he replied cheerfully. “Things look different later in the day. You do what I tell you.”

All this Linda dutifully repeated. Her mother was at the dressing-table, rubbing cream into her cheeks, and she paused, surveying her reflection in the mirror. “He was smoking a big cigar,” Linda added. The other laughed. “What a sharp little thing you are!” she exclaimed. “A body ought to be careful what they tell you.” She wiped off the cream and rubbed a soft pinkish powder into her skin.

“He saw me, did he?” she apparently addressed the glass. “Admired me a whole lot. Was he nice, Linda?” she turned. “Were his clothes right? You must point him out to me to-night. But do it carefully, darling. No one should notice. Your mother isn't on the shelf yet; she can hold her own, even in the Boscombe, against the whole barnyard.”

Linda, at the entrance to the dining-room, whispered, “There he is.” But immediately Mr. Bardwell was smiling and speaking to them.

“I had a delightful conversation with your little girl to-day,” he told Mrs. Condon; “such a pretty child and well brought up.”

“And good, too,” her mother replied; “not a minute's trouble. The common sense of the grown; you'd never believe it.”

“Why shouldn't I?” he protested gallantly. “Every reason to.” Mrs. Condon blushed becomingly.

“She had to make up for a lot,” she sighed.

An hour or more after dinner Mrs. Randall stopped Linda in the hall beyond the music. “Mama out?” she inquired brightly. “I thought Mr. Jasper left this morning?”

Linda told her that Mr. Jasper had gone; she added nothing else.

“I must look at the register,” Mrs. Randall continued; “I really must.”

Obeying an uncontrollable impulse Linda half cried, “I'd like to see you riding on a leopard!” A flood of misery enveloped her, and she hurried up to the silence of her mother's deserted room.

V

It was on her fourteenth birthday that Linda noticed a decided change in her mother; a change, unfortunately, that most of all affected the celebrated good humors. In the first place Mrs. Condon spent an increasingly large part of the day before the mirror of her dressing-table, but without any proportionate pleasure; or, if there was a proportion kept, it exhibited the negative result of a growing annoyance. “God knows why they all show at once,” she exclaimed discontentedly, seated--as customary--before the eminently truthful reflection of a newly discovered set of lines. “I'm not old enough to begin to look like a hag.”

“Oh, mother,” Linda protested, shocked, “you mustn't say such horrid things about yourself. Why, you're perfectly lovely, and you don't seem a speck older than you did years ago.”

The other, biting her full underlip at the unwelcome fact in turn biting a full lower lip back at her, made no reply. Linda lingered for a moment at her mother's ruffled pink shoulders; then, with a sigh, she turned to the reception-room of their small suite at the Hotel Gontram. It was a somber chamber furnished in red plush, with a complication of shades and gray-white net curtains at long windows and a deep green carpet. There was a fireplace, with a grate, supported by varnished oak pillars and elaborate mantel and glass, a glittering reddish center-table with a great many small odd shelves below, a desk with sheaves of hotel writing paper and the telephone.

The Gontram was entirely different from the hotels at the lakes or seashore or in the South. It was a solid part of a short block west of Fifth Avenue in the middle of the city. Sherry's filled a corner with its massive stone bulk and glimpses of dining-rooms with glittering chandeliers and solemn gaiety, then impressive clubs and wide entrances under heavy glass and metal, tall porters in splendid livery, succeeded each other to the Hotel Gontram and the dull thunder of the elevated trains beyond.

The revolving door, through which Linda sedately permitted herself to be moved, opened into a high space of numerous columns and benches, writing-desks and palms. At the back was the white room where, usually alone, she had breakfast, while the dining-room, discreetly lighted, was at the left. It was more interesting here than, for example, at the Boscombe; people were always coming in or going, and there were quantities of men. She watched them arriving with shoals of leather bags in the brisk care of the bellboys, disappear into the elevator, and, if it was evening, come down in dinner coats with vivid silk scarfs folded over their white shirts.

The women were perpetually in street clothes or muffled in satin wraps; Linda only regarded them when they were exceptional. Usually she was intent on the men. It often happened that they returned her frank gaze with a smile, or stopped to converse with her. Sometimes it was an actor with a face dryly pink like a woman's from make-up; they were familiar and pinched her cheeks, calling her endearing names in conscious echoing voices as if they were quite hollow within. Then there were simply business men, who never appeared to take off their derby hats, and spoke to her of their little girls at home. She was entirely at ease with the latter--so many of her mother's friends were similar--and critically valued the details of their dress, the cigar-cases with or without gold corners, the watch-chains with jeweled insignia, the cuff-links and embroidered handkerchiefs.

If her mother approached while Linda was so engaged the elder would linger with a faint smile, at which, now, the girl was conscious of a growing impatience. She'd rise with dignity and, if possible, escape with her parent from florid courtesies. This sense of annoyance oppressed her, too, in the dining-room, where her mother, a cocktail in her hand, would engage in long cheerful discussions with the captains or waiters. Other women, Linda observed, spoke with complete indifference and their attention on the _carte de jour_. Of course it was much more friendly to be interested in the servants' affairs--they told her mother about their wives and the number of their children, the difficulties of bringing both ends together, and served her with the promptest care; but instinctively Linda avoided any but the most formal contact.

She had to insist, as well, on paying the tips; for Mrs. Condon, her sympathies engaged, was quite apt to leave on the table a five-dollar bill or an indiscriminate heap of silver. “You are a regular little Jew,” she would reply lightly to Linda's protests. This, the latter thought, was unfair; for the only Jew she knew, Mr. Moses Feldt, an acquaintance of their present period in New York, was quite the most generous person she knew. “Certainly you don't take after your mama.”

After she said this she always paused with tight lips. It was charged with the assumption that, while Linda didn't resemble her, she did very much a mysterious and unfavorably regarded personage. Her father, probably. More and more Linda wondered about him. He was dead, she knew, but that, she began to see, was no reason for the positive prohibition to mention him at all. Perhaps he had done something dreadful, with money, and had disgraced them all. Yet she was convinced that this was not so.

She had heard a great many uncomplimentary words applied to husbands, most of which she had been unable to comprehend; and she speculated blankly on them in her mother's connection. On the whole the women agreed that they were remarkably stupid and transparent, they protested that they understood and guided every move husbands made; and this surely gave her father no opportunity for independent crime. She was held from questioning not so much by her mother's command--at times she calmly and successfully ignored that--as from its unfortunate effect on the elder.