CHAPTER XII

Sunny poured Jerry's tea with a hand turned ostentatiously in a direction that revealed to his amazed and indignant eye that enormous stone of fire that blazed on the finger of Sunny's left hand. His appetite, always excellent, failed him entirely, and after conquering the first surge of impulses that were almost murderous, he lapsed into an ominous silence, which no guile nor question from the girl at the head of his table could break. A steady, a cold, a biting glare, a murmured monosyllabic reply was all the response she received to her amiable overtures. His ill temper, moreover, reached out to the inoffensive Hatton, whom he ordered to clear out, and stay out, and if it came down to that get out altogether, rather than hang around snickering in that way. Thus Jerry revealed a side to his character hitherto unsuspected by Sunny, though several rumblings and barks from the "dog in the manger" would have apprized one less innocent than she.

They finished that meal--or rather Sunny did--in silence electric with coming strife. Then Jerry suddenly left the table, strode into the little hall, took down his hat and coat, and was about to go, heaven knows where, when Sunny, at his elbow, sought to restrain him by force. She took his sleeve and tenaciously held to it, saying:

"Jerry, do not go out these night. I are got some news I lig' tell to you."

"Let go my arm. I'm not interested in your news. I've a date of my own."

"But Jerry----"

"I say, let go my arm, will you?"

The last was said in a rising voice, as he reached the crest of irritation, and jerking his sleeve so roughly from her clasp, he accomplished the desired freedom, but the look on Sunny's face stayed with him all the way down those apartment stairs--he ignored the elevator--and to the door of the house. There he stopped short, and without more ado, retraced his steps, sprang up the stairs in a great hurry, and jerking open his door again, Jerry returned to his home. He discovered Sunny curled on the floor, with her head buried in the seat of his favourite chair--the one occupied that afternoon by the mischief-making Jinx.

"Sunny! I'm awfully sorry I was such a beast. Say, little girl, look here, I'm not myself. I don't know what I'm doing."

Sunny slowly lifted her face, revealing to the relieved but indignant Jerry a face on which it is true there were traces of a tear or two, but which nevertheless smiled at him quite shamelessly and even triumphantly. Jerry felt foolish, and he was divided between a notion to remain at home with the culprit--she had done nothing especially wrong, but he felt that she was to blame for something or other--or follow his first intention of going out for the night--just where, he didn't know--but anywhere would do to escape the thought that had come to him--the thought of Sunny's probable engagement to Jinx. However, Sunny gave him no time to debate the matter of his movements for the evening. She very calmly assisted him to remove his coat, hung up his hat, and when she had him comfortably ensconced in his favourite chair, had herself lit his pipe and handed it to him, she drew up a stool and sat down in front of his knees, just as if, in fact, she was entirely guiltless of an engagement of which Jerry positively did not intend to approve. Her audacity, moreover, was such that she did not hesitate to lay her left hand on Jerry's knee, where he might get the full benefit of the radiant light from that ring. He looked at it, set down his pipe on the stand at his elbow, and stirred in that restless way which portends hasty arising, when Sunny:

"Jerry, Jinx are come to-day to ask me make marriage with him."

"The big stiff. I pity any girl that has to go through life with that fathead."

"Ho! I are always lig' thad fat grow on Jinx. It look very good on him. I are told him so."

"Matter of taste of course," snarled Jerry, fascinated by the twinkling of that ring in spite of himself, and feeling at that moment an emotion that was dangerously like hatred for the girl he had done so much for.

"Monty and Bobs are also ask me marry wiz them." Sunny dimpled quite wickedly at this, but Jerry failed to see any humour in the matter. He said with assumed loftiness:

"Well, well, proposals raining down on you in every direction. Your janitor gentleman and landlord asked you too?"

"No-o, not yit, but those landlord are say he lig' take me for ride some nize days on his car ad those park."

"The hell he did!"

Jerry sat up with such a savage jerk at this that he succeeded in upsetting the innocent hand resting so confidingly upon his knee.

"Who asked him around here anyway?" demanded Jerry furiously. "Just because he owns this building doesn't mean he has a right to impose himself on the tenants, and I'll tell him so damn quick."

"But, Jerry, _I_ are ask him come up here. Itchy fall down on those fire escape, and he are making so much noise on this house when he cry, that everybody who live on this house open those windows on court, and I are run down quick on those fire escape and everybody also run out see what's all those trouble. Then I am cry so hard, bi-cause I are afraid Itchy are hurt himself too bad, bi-cause he also are cry very loud." Sunny lifted her nose sky-ward, illustrating how the dog's cries had emanated from him. "So then, everybody _very_ kind at me and Itchy, and the janitor gentleman carry him bag ad these room, and the landlord gentleman say thas all ride henceforth I have thad little dog live wiz me ad these room also. He say it is very hard for liddle girl come from country way off be 'lone all those day, and mebbe some day he take me and Itchy for ride ad those park. So I are say, 'Thang you, I will like go vaery much, thang you.'"

"Well, make up your mind to it, you're not going, do you understand? I'll have no landlords taking you riding in any parks."

Having delivered this ultimatum as viciously as the circumstances called for, Jerry leaned back in pretended ease and awaited further revelations from Sunny.

"--but," went on Sunny, as if finishing a sentence, "that landlord gentleman are not also ask me marry wiz him, Jerry. He already got big wife. I are see her. She are so big as Jinx, and she smile on me very kind, and say she have hear of me from her hosban', that I am very lonely girl from Japan, and thas very sad for me, and she goin' to take those ride wiz me also."

"Hm!" Jerry felt ashamed of himself, but he did not propose to reveal it, especially when that little hand had crept back to its old place on his knee, and the diamond flaunted brazenly before his gaze. Nobody but a "fat-head" would buy a diamond of that size anyway, was Jerry's opinion. There was something extremely vulgar about diamonds. They were not nearly as pretty as rubies or emeralds or even turquoise, and Jerry had never liked them. Of course, Miss Falconer, like every other girl, had to have her diamond, and Jerry recalled with irritation how, as a sophomore, he had purchased that first diamond. He neither enjoyed the expedition nor the memory of it. Jinx's brazen ring made him think of Miss Falconer's. However, the thought of Miss Falconer was, for some reason or other, distasteful to Jerry in these days, and, moreover, the girl before him called for his full attention as usual.

"So you decided on Jinx, did you? Bobs and Monty in the discard and the affluent fat and fair Jinx the winner."

"Jerry, I are _prefer_ marry all my friends, but I say 'no' to each one of those."

"What are you wearing Jinx's ring for then?"

"Bi-cause it are loog nize on my hands, and he _ask_ me wear it there."

New emotions were flooding over the contrite Jerry. Something was racing like champagne through his veins, and he suddenly realised how "damnably jolly" life was after all. Still, even though Sunny had admitted that no engagement existed between her and Jinx, there was that ring. Poor little girl! A fellow had to teach her all of the western conventions, she was that innocent and simple.

"Sunny, you don't want to wear a fellow's ring unless you intend to marry him, don't you understand that? The ring means that you are promised to him, do you get me?"

"No! But I _are_ promise to Jinx. I are promise that I will consider marry him some day if I do not marry some other man I _wan'_ ask me also."

"Another man. Who----?"

Sunny's glance directed full upon him left nothing to the imagination. Jerry's heart began to thump in a manner that alarmed him.

"Jerry," said Sunny, "I going to wear Jinx's ring _until_ that man also asking me. I _wan_ him do so, bi-cause I are lig' him mos' bes' of all my frien'. I think----" She had both of her hands on his knees now, and was leaning up looking so wistfully into his face that he tried to avert his own gaze. In spite of the lump that rose in his throat, in spite of the frantic beating of his heart, Jerry did not ask the question that the girl was waiting to hear. After a moment, she said gently:

"Jerry, Hatty are tell me that nex' year he are come a Leap. Then, he say, thas perlite for girl ask man make marriage wiz her. Jerry, _I_ are goin' to wait till those year of Leap are come, and then, me? I are goin' ask _you_ those question."

For one thrilling moment there was a great glow in the heart of Jerry Hammond, and then his face seemed suddenly to turn grey and old. His voice was husky and there was a mist before his eyes.

"Sunny, I must tell you--Sunny, I--I--am already engaged to be married to an American girl--a girl my people want me to marry. I've been engaged to her since my eighteenth year. I--_don't_ look at me like that, Sunny, or----"

The girl's head dropped to the level of the floor, her hands slipping helplessly from his knees. She seemed all in a moment to become purely Japanese. There was that in her bowed head that was strangely reminiscent of some old and vanished custom of her race. She did not raise her head, even as she spoke:

"I wishin' you ten thousand year of joy. Sayonara for this night."

* * * * *

Sunny had left him alone. Jerry felt the inability to stir. He stared into the dying embers of his fire with the look of one who has seen a vision that has disappeared ere he could sense its full significance. It seemed at that moment to Jerry as if everything desirable and precious in life were within reach, but he was unable to seize it. It was like his dream of beauty, ever above, but beyond man's power to completely touch. Sunny was like that, as fragile, as elusive as beauty itself. The thought of his having hurt Sunny tore his heart. She had aroused in him every impulse that was chivalrous. The longing to guard and cherish her was paramount to all other feelings. What was it Professor Barrowes had warned him of? That he should refrain from taking the bloom from the rose. Had he, then, all unwittingly, injured little Sunny?

Mechanically, Jerry went into the hall, slowly put his hat on his head and passed out into the street. He walked up and down 67th Street and along Central Park West to 59th Street, retracing his steps three times to the studio building, and turning back again. His mind was in a chaos, and he knew not what to do. Only one clear purpose seemed to push through the fog, the passionate determination to care for Sunny. She came first of all. Indeed she occupied the whole of his thought. The claim of the girl who had waited for him seven years seemed of minor importance when compared with the claim of the girl he loved. The disinclination to hurt another had kept him from breaking an engagement that had never been of his own desire, but now Jerry knew there could be no more evasions. The time had come when he must face the issue squarely. His sense of honour demanded that he make a clean breast of the entire matter to Miss Falconer. He reached this resolve while still walking on 59th Street. It gave him no more than time to catch the night train to Greenwich. As he stepped aboard the train that was bearing him from Sunny to Miss Falconer all of the fogs had cleared from Jerry's mind. He was conscious of an immense sense of relief. It seemed strange to him that he had never taken this step before. Judging the girl by himself, he felt that he knew exactly what she would say when with complete candour he should "lay his cards upon the table." He felt sure that she was a good sport. He did not delude himself with the idea that an engagement that had been irksome to himself had been of any joy to her. It was simply, so he told himself, a mistake of their parents. They had planned and worked this scheme, and into it they had dumped these two young people at a psychological moment.