Part 9

"Impossible," said Beatrix, quietly.

"Why?"

"Simply because it is. I'm going to play that part and I'm going to look very nice in the clothes. Also, I'm looking forward to a great deal of fun with the matinee idol, shaved or unshaved."

Franklin whipped round upon her. "It isn't for you to say what you'll do or not do. For your sake, as well as for mine, I must take charge of this business, and you'll please carry out my orders."

"Orders!" She threw up her head. "That's a word that isn't and never will be contained in my dictionary."

"You're wrong. I've just added it to that volume," he said.

Beatrix gave a big laugh and stood up to him with her chin tilted, her eyes dancing and a look of triumph all over her lovely face. "Take charge--you!" she cried. "Think again. The whip is in my hand now and I shall use it. You dare not give me away. You're afraid of the laughter that will follow you wherever you go. I think you're right. But,--as to being your wife, not in this world, my good sir, for any reason that you can name. I'd rather die."

And then she turned on her heel and swung away, with the roses seeming to bend towards her as she went.

Franklin watched her, with his hands clenched and his mouth set. "By God," he said to himself, "we'll see about that!" And he would have added more angry words, thickly, to his mental outburst, if a new feeling,--bewildering, painful, intoxicating,--had not welled up to his heart. All round him, as he stood there in amazement, the air seemed to be filled with the song of birds. Then it came to him,--the answer to the question he had put to himself impatiently and jealously in his apartment in New York after Malcolm Fraser's little story. "I'm going to begin to live--I've met the woman who can make me give up freedom and peace of mind, take me to Heaven or draw me down into Hell!"

*XIII*

That rather charming haphazard air that is characteristic of afternoon tea in an English country house, to which young people from the tennis courts and golf links slack in just as they are and find the hostess presiding at a substantial table, assisted by all the younger men who are born to carry cups and cake--they always dance and generally play the piano--was missing from the West Terrace of the Vanderdyke mansion. Mrs. Vanderdyke "dressed" for tea. Her costume was a very beautiful and pompous affair, not cut low enough for dinner or for breakfast but quite low enough for the theatre, and she wore a considerable quantity of jewels. Brilliantly made up, she sat under the awning with her back to the sun chatting with royal condescension and studied charm. It was one of the best things that she did. It was also her first public appearance of the day, most of which had been devoted to a hard, stern and successful fight against Anno Domini.

She was surrounded by members of the house party who took themselves and her seriously and she, and they, were under the expert attention of several footmen. Carefully chosen for their height and gravity and truth to type, these men wore a very distinguished livery with knee breeches and black silk stockings, and they hovered from person to person with a rather soothing quietude, moved by invisible machinery.

The vivacious little Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves who talked continuously of "my daughter Lady Bramshaw and that sweet old place in Hampshire" was purring under the attentions of Admiral De Forrest Wontner. Although a grandmother, an event of which she spoke as if it were rather a malicious lie, Mrs. Reeves looked like a very young, blond, motion picture star who tames cave-men and broncho-busters with just one quick upward glance. Her laughter bubbled like boiling water and at odd moments she clapped her hands and opened her blue eyes very wide and pursed up her little red mouth. Of her tiny ankles she was very proud and hardly ever forgot to expose them. She underlined most of her words with gushing emphasis and everything, from a sunset to a new soap, was "_perfectly wonderful_." Wontner and she had been engaged to be married after a dance at Annapolis somewhere in the seventies, but while he was at sea on his first commission, Ettie Stanton met, danced and ran away with young E. L. Reeves of Baltimore and remained "terribly crazy" about him to the day of his death. It was indeed a peculiarly happy marriage, blessed with three fine manly boys and a girl who was always being mistaken for her mother. And now the retired sea-dog, celebrated for his early Victorian gallantry, one of the few remaining bucks in the country and a man of wit, chivalry and golden heart, carried on a St. Martin's summer flirtation with his former sweetheart, the very sight of whom dispelled his accumulation of years as the sun scatters the dew. Most people were amused at the affair and several were sympathetic.

Talking to Mrs. Vanderdyke, or rather listening to Mrs. Vanderdyke, who either talked or went into a trance, was handsome Percy Campbell, the man who drank a bottle of whiskey before breakfast and played golf all day in order to drink another before going to bed. He owned three streets in New York; he had never done anything more serious than learn to play the violin, about which he talked to everybody. He was now dangerously near fifty-three but since passing out of Harvard he had not found time to practise more than a dozen times. He carried three beautiful Strads wherever he went, however, and whenever he became genuinely fuddled motored to the nearest town, day or night, to buy a new stack of strings and rosin. His wife went with him as well as his violins and received much less consideration although many more cases. They were popular people and Campbell's shooting box in Scotland near Cupar, Fife, from which his remote ancestors strayed, was always full. No altogether Scot could compete with him in his devotion to the national beverage.

Then there were Mrs. Lucas D. Osterpath, in mourning for her son who had just married a Folly from the New Amsterdam Theatre roof; the William Bannermans, recently remarried after a most amusing divorce; Philip Kawbro in his inevitable blue and white striped collar and yellow waistcoat; Regina Westerhaus, as regal as her name, but still a spinster at the end of three seasons, and the Hon. Mrs. Claude Larpent, the centre of attraction for those three vieux marcheurs, Major Thresher, Roger Peek and Courtney Borner.

The young people avoided this function and got whatever refreshment they needed from the bachelors' house.

It was to this terrace that Beatrix made her way after flinging her triumphant refusal at Franklin. All the elation of a victor ran through her veins. What did she care about the possibility either of being blackmailed or shown up by Sutherland York? Why should she give the smallest consideration to Pelham Franklin or join him in any plan to save his name from scandal? He had said an unforgivable thing to her in her bedroom that memorable night, the sting of which still made her smart. She gloried in having been able to make him pay something on account of that huge debt and with characteristic high-handedness turned a Nelsonian eye to the black cloud that was moving up over the horizon. She had always taken chances. It was part and parcel of her nature. With a growing sense of exhilaration and the feeling that she was merely at the beginning of a great adventure she took a chance again. If the storm was fated to burst and Franklin gave her away to her parents, well, let it burst. There would be an epoch-making family row, and unless her wits protected her again she would be sent into the back of beyond. That was an appalling prospect which, however, she pushed aside. She trusted to her usual luck to carry her out of this tangle, if only by the skin of her teeth. The great point at the moment was that she had scored over Franklin and left him impotent. But for that parting remark of his before he left her room she might have considered the possibility of falling in with his plan. The humiliation of being made to obey his orders might have been lived down, greatly as she resented humiliation. But when it came to such a deliberate attack upon her vanity--that was altogether different.

Miss Honoria Vanderdyke, who had been hard at work with a secretary all the afternoon organizing a new society to look after women released from penitentiaries, came out as Beatrix was passing. The graceful, white-haired woman put her arm round the girl's shoulders. "I've never seen you look so happy, dear child," she said, with an unusual touch of tenderness.

Beatrix smiled at her and in her mind's eye saw Franklin's expression as he stood outside the summer-house with her refusal in his face. "I have every reason to be happy, Aunt Honoria," she answered, in a ringing voice. "Life has great compensations."

They fell into step on their way to tea--the elder woman a little envious of what appeared to be her niece's romantic love affair, because her own had ended tragically and left her with a broken heart. Must a woman necessarily break her heart before she will devote her life to the relief of other people's sufferings? An old philosopher, who must have been something of a misogynist, once defined woman's happiness "as that state in which all their immediate desires were gratified, a self-satisfaction which left them blind to the fact that other people littered the earth." Maybe he was right.

Aunt Honoria looked rather searchingly at the beautiful girl at her side who, alone among all the human beings that she knew, possessed the magic carpet. "Why do you talk of compensations?" she asked. "At your age, in your position? You puzzle me, child."

Beatrix laughed the question off. "Oh, that's a long story. One of these fine days, when I am overmastered by a desire to confess, I'll tell you all about it. Look, isn't mother wonderful? It's almost absurd for me to call her by anything but her Christian name."

Aunt Honoria smiled a little dryly. "My dear," she said, "all women could be as unnaturally young as your mother is if they gave up as much time to it. Tell me about that very striking person who is completely hemmed in by old men."

"Mrs. Larpent? Isn't she attractive? Isn't she exactly like one's idea of a favorite in the Court of Louis Quinze? I don't know anything about her yet. Wait until to-night and I will give you my impressions." She kissed her hand to her aunt, touched her arm with an affectionate and respectful finger and crossed the terrace to Ida Larpent's chair. "May I join your admirers?" she asked.

With a curious smile Mrs. Larpent drew closer the chair out of which Courtney Borner had done his best to spring. "I should like nothing so much," she said. It might be most useful to become the friend of the wife of the man who had stirred her calculating heart to love. Who could tell?

In the meantime having immediately gained Mrs. Vanderdyke's permission to ask a friend of his to dine and sleep, Franklin shut himself up in the telephone room, asked for the number of his apartment in New York and told Johnson to call Malcolm Fraser.

"Old man," he said, when his friend's voice came rather anxiously over the wire, "will you do something for me? Will you get a car at once and pack your things for dinner and sleeping and rattle down here as quick as you can? I can't say anything now except that I need you worse than ever.... Thanks. I knew you would. So long."

In a secret corner of his staunch heart Fraser had locked up his love for Beatrix. He was now to be consulted again as to how to put things right between her and his best pal. It's a queer world and full of paradox.

*XIV*

A few minutes later Franklin was exuberantly welcomed to tea by little Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves. "I'm _terribly_ glad to see you," she cried. "Come and tell me _all_ about _everything_. I was _distracted_ when I heard that you had gone to town. Admiral, have you _ever_ seen such an _intriguing_ tie as the boy's wearing?"

Poor little comic lady! She had much the same effect on Franklin as that diabolical machine that drills holes in steel girders. He sat down at her side and made ready to endure the continual tapping of her uncontrollable tongue because he could see Beatrix with the sun on her hair and the nape of her neck. He didn't quite know why, but he was queerly disconcerted and annoyed to see that she was in animated conversation with Ida Larpent and the fact that he received an enigmatical glance through the latter lady's half-closed eyes did much to add to this uncomfortable feeling.

"I've been talking to Mrs. Vanderdyke about your unconventional behavior, Mr. Franklin," continued Mrs. Reeves.

"Unconventional," echoed Franklin, listening with half an ear. "In what way?"

"Well, isn't it the usual thing for two young people to enjoy a honeymoon after they are married, especially such young people?"

The word honeymoon came strangely to Franklin. If it had been mentioned the day before in connection with this extraordinary business it would have caused him to scoff inwardly and do his best to pass it over with a forced smile. As it was, on top of his sudden realization that in Beatrix was the woman who called him to live bigly and love to distraction, but who had refused with utter scorn even to go through the form of marriage with him, it acted like the sting of a knife.

But the word also gave him an idea and Mrs. Reeves' remark about having spoken to Mrs. Vanderdyke a new plan. For some little time he remained where he sat while the little woman babbled, going from subject to subject in her characteristically unconcentrated way. He nodded where he thought that a nod was due, smiled frequently and threw in a yes or no as it seemed necessary. Finally he got up, when the Admiral drew his old sweetheart's attention once more to himself, and went over to Aunt Honoria.

"May I take you for a little exercise in the garden?" he asked.

"With great pleasure," she said, rising at once. "I have been trying to catch your eye for some minutes. I want your advice."

As they passed Beatrix she had the audacity to throw at Franklin a most connubial smile. It gave the elderly lady a thrill and very nearly threw Franklin off his feet. He heard the contralto of Mrs. Larpent's voice and Beatrix's ringing reply: "Yes, he's a darling." Ye gods, but this girl must surely be a surprise to Nature herself.

Miss Vanderdyke refrained from saying a word until she was out of earshot of the cheerful group. Then she drew up at the top of the Italian steps that led into the geometrical gardens. "I want you to listen to this extraordinary epistle, Pelham," she said. "It was sent to my sister-in-law before she left her rooms this afternoon." She drew it out of its envelope and read it in her clear, incisive voice.

"Dear Mrs. Vanderdyke,

"I have just received a telegram from a leading motion picture concern in Los Angeles offering me very big money to leave to-night to do a picture for them. Business before pleasure, you know, so I have just time before making a train to New York to write these few lines. I am sorry for the pastoral, but doubtless you will be able to find a substitute for me, though not, I fear, with an equal sense of rommance. Thanking you for your kindness and asuring you that I shall not require any fee for rehearsals.

"Sinceerely, "BRIAN YOUNG."

"Good Lord!" said Franklin. "Pretty cool piece of impertinence."

"I thought so. And look, he spells romance with two 'm's,' and assuring with one 's.' He also makes the inappropriate word, sincerely, look even quainter by a superfluous 'e' in the middle. Are all matinee idols quite so illiterate, I wonder?"

"Hardly," said Franklin. "What's to be done?"

Aunt Honoria shrugged her shoulders. "Your mother-in-law and I, after consultation with my brother, who showed even less than his usual interest in the matter, have decided to cancel the pastoral, especially as we have all been discussing the advisability of your taking Beatrix away."

"For a honeymoon?" asked Franklin involuntarily.

"Exactly," Aunt Honoria gave a little laugh. "Because you two young despots have broken the conventions by this secret marriage, I think it follows that you should do something to stop gossip and comment by conforming to an old custom. What do you say, my friend?"

Franklin put a curb upon his eagerness. To get Beatrix to sea on his yacht--that was the thing. It would give him a chance, just a chance, to win his way to Beatrix's untouched and wilful heart, and go far to show York that his intuition and cunning reasoning were wrong.

"If you think so," he said, "I am perfectly willing to fall in with your wishes."

"That's extremely nice of you!"

Franklin showed his excellent teeth and gave a little bow. But not being a lady's man he failed to produce an Elizabethan compliment or one that might have proved that there is gallantry even in these careless days.

Aunt Honoria took the word for the deed, and Franklin's arm down the steps. The sun was dipping into the Sound and the whole panorama of sky was striped and splashed with red. Young voices drifted toward them from the tennis courts and a flock of wild ducks high up in a wide V flew rapidly above their heads. The scent of flowers rose up to them as they walked and a very golden day slipped gently into evening.

"I don't know what Beatrix will have to say about it," said Franklin.

There was a rather dry laugh. "Oh, I had not forgotten that Beatrix, although happily married, is a factor to be consulted."

Franklin laughed too. "No," he said, with several memories very clear in his mind, "one could hardly forget that."

And then the tall, white-haired, dignified woman, about whom there was an intellectual humanity very rarely met with, did an unexpected thing. She stopped suddenly and stood in front of Franklin, eye to eye with him. "My dear Pelham," she said, with a touch of propheticism, "you will not find the woman in Beatrix, nor will she have discovered the woman in herself, until that precious moment when, quite conscious of her abdication of a mock throne, she falls in with your wishes like a simple trusting child. When that moment comes, if ever it does, I shall give praise to God, because the woman in Beatrix will be very sweet and beautiful."

And then they continued on their way through the sleepy gardens.

"So shall I," said Franklin quietly.

"The fact that the pastoral will not be given will help us considerably. Beatrix, who, by the way, has taken small part in the rehearsals, will turn for amusement to something else. Her father and mother both desire that she shall put an end to gossip and give our good friends no further excuse to hold her up as the most unconventional girl of the day. That sort of reputation so rightly belongs to young women of the stage whose success depends far more on advertisement than talent. Where is your yacht?"

"Lying in the river, fully commissioned."

"Oh, well, then everything is easy! Surely nothing could be more delightful for Beatrix than to make a cruise under these romantic circumstances. Leave it all to me, my dear boy. I'll see that you get your wife to yourself, never fear."

Beatrix ran her arm round Aunt Honoria's waist. "Well," she said, with the smile that she always used when it was urgently necessary to win a heart, "am I to be allowed in this conference, or am I a back number in the family now?" She had watched this intimate talk between Miss Vanderdyke and Franklin with growing uneasiness. Finally, in the middle of one of Ida Larpent's best stories, she had sprung up, made short work of the distance between herself and them and broken into the conversation.

"We were talking about you, my dear," said Aunt Honoria.

"No!" cried Beatrix. "Impossible!"

Franklin caught her mocking glance and dug his heels into the path.

"We were making plans for you, charming plans, honeymoon plans as a matter of fact, and as the pastoral is cancelled you will no doubt fall in with them with enthusiasm."

"The pastoral cancelled? Why?" The girl's voice was incredulous. "But I've been to all the trouble of getting a special costume, nearly all the younger people in the house-party have been chosen on purpose."

"Our friend the matinee idol has flown away to pick up a bigger seed elsewhere."

A flush of anger colored Beatrix's face and her eyes glinted. "He said something to me this morning about motion pictures. I thought he was endeavoring to advertise himself. I never dreamed he would have the impertinence to chuck _us_!"

"Well, his withdrawal simplified things, my dear, as I will tell you later. Come to my room ten minutes before dinner and I will give you the latest family plan. In the meantime, two's company, and I will get a few words with my old friend, the Admiral, who is wandering about like a lost soul." Aunt Honoria nodded and with her shoulders as square as those of a well-drilled man, went gracefully to where the septuagenarian lover was either chewing the cud of bitter reflection or recovering from a long bout of exaggerated and over-emphasized commonplaces.

And then Beatrix turned sharply to Franklin. "Be good enough to tell me what all this means," she said.

Franklin showed his teeth in his peculiar silent laugh. "Why put a pin through Miss Vanderdyke's little surprise?"

Beatrix intended to know. Her curiosity was alight. It was so obvious that she had been under discussion and as the family was to be dragged in, so certain that she was going to be coerced into something totally against her wishes. But she changed her tactics.

"Oh, look," she cried, "isn't that sail perfectly charming against the sky?"

"Corking," said Franklin, not looking at it, but at her. By Jupiter, how lovely, how desirable, but how amazingly perverse she was! A man would have not lived for nothing who could break her and make her, even if she never returned his love.

"It's a good world," she said, with a little sigh, waiting to catch Franklin on the hop. "Sometimes I'm consumed with a longing to be right away in the middle of the sea--to get even with things."

She caught him. It was uncanny. "The chance is yours," he said, easily beaten. "It has been decided that we go for our honeymoon on the _Galatea_."

She whipped around. "Oh, so that's it, is it? You've been working up a conspiracy to get me on your yacht so that you may escape from gossip? I see. Quite clever to enrol my family against me, but my answer to you this afternoon holds good."

For all the love that had come upon him so suddenly, Franklin lost patience. He put his hand on her arm and held her in a close grip. "Let it hold good," he said. "Stand out against being my wife until you see sense and learn that others deserve consideration besides yourself. But conform now to your people's wishes and put York off the scent. That's all you're required to do at the moment."

"Take your hand away," said Beatrix icily. "This is not a woman's bedroom. I can call for help here remember."

Franklin retained his grip. He was very angry. "You fool," he said, too completely out of control to choose his words. "Look at this thing sanely. Come out of your house of cards and play the game like a grown woman. The scandal that drove you into taking advantage of me will be ten thousand times worse if York gets to work."

"That doesn't worry me," said Beatrix calmly. "I'll thank you for my arm."

"You don't count," said Franklin. "Consideration must be given to your people and to me."

"I'm perfectly willing and even anxious to protect my people, but"--and she gave him two fearless eyes--"I see no reason why I should worry about you."