Part 9

And yet she feared him, too. A while ago she had been filled with horror at his share in the "Lone Tree" affair, and since that time the knowledge had haunted her. But she had not dared to speak of it to him. She felt instinctively that this was one of the matters upon the other side of the gulf that had always yawned with more or less imminence between them. Their relations were none too stable to risk a chance of further discord. The difference in his manner which she had noticed a week or more ago had become more marked, and to-night at the dinner table he had troubled less than usual to disguise his lack of interest in her opinions. The image of Cort was ever in her mind, and the danger that threatened her seemed no less distant than before, and yet she still hoped, as she had always done, that something would happen--some miracle, some psychological crisis which would show her husband and herself the way to unity. Since she had seen Cortland Bent, she had lost some faith in herself, gained some fear of Jeff, whose present attitude she was at a loss to understand, but she still clung desperately to the tattered shreds of their strange union, though lately even those seemed less tangible. To-night, when she had asked him to take her West with him, he had refused her impatiently--almost brusquely.

She went into her own rooms slowly and undressed. As she sat before her mirror, the sight of the scratch on her face recalled the incidents of the day. Mrs. Cheyne! Her lips drew together, her brows tangled in thought, and she dismissed her maid, who had come in to brush her hair. What right had Jeff to ignore her as he had done? No matter what her own shortcomings, in public, at least, she had always shown him a proper respect and had never in her heart dishonored him by an unworthy thought. For one brief moment in Cortland Bent's arms she had been swept from the shallows into deeper water, but even then she had known, as she knew now, that loyalty to Jeff had always been uppermost in her thoughts. They must have an understanding before he went away. She would not be left here in New York alone. She had learned to distrust herself, to distrust Jeff, Cort, and all the charming irresponsible people of the gay set into which they had been introduced.

In her dressing gown she sat before her fire and listened to the murmur of voices in the drawing room, from which she had been banished. She could hear Jeff's steps as he rose and paced the floor, his voice louder and more insistent than Larry's. There was a coming and going of pages delivering and receiving telegrams, and she felt the undercurrent of a big crisis in Jeff's career--the nature of which she had only been permitted to surmise. His attitude had wounded her pride. It hurt her that Larry should see her placed in the position of a petitioner. Her one comfort was the assurance that she did not care what Jeff himself thought of her, that it was her pride which insisted on a public readjustment of their relations.

Camilla got up, slowly, thoughtfully, and at last moved to the bell determinedly.

To her maid she said, "Tell Mr. Wray I'd like to see him before he goes out."

When Wray entered the room later, a frown on his face, the cloud of business worry in his eyes, he found Camilla asleep on the divan under a lamp, a magazine on the rug beside her, where it had fallen from her fingers. His lips had been set for short words, but when he saw her he closed the door noiselessly behind him. Even sleep could not diminish the proud curve of the nostrils, or change the firmly modeled chin and the high, clearly penciled brows. Jeff looked at her a moment, his face showing some of the old reverence--the old awe of her beauty.

And while he looked, she stirred uneasily and murmured a name. He started so violently that a chair beside him scraped the floor and awoke her.

"I must have--oh--it's you, Jeff----"

"You wanted to see me?" he asked harshly.

"Yes--I----" She sat up languidly. "I did want to see you. There are some things I want to talk about--some things I want explained. Sit down, won't you?"

"I--I haven't much time."

"I won't keep you long. You've decided to go West--without me?"

"Yes, next week. Perhaps sooner if----"

"I want you to change your mind about taking me with you."

"Why?"

"I want to go."

Jeff laughed disagreeably. "You women are funny. For a year you've been telling me that the only thing you wanted was a visit to New York. Now you're here, you want to go back. I've told you to get all the clothes you need, hired you an apartment in the best hotel, given you some swell friends, bought you jewelry----"

"I don't want jewelry, or clothes, or friends," she insisted. "I want to go back and watch them build 'Glen Irwin.'"

"They've stopped working on 'Glen Irwin.' I wanted the money that was going into that."

"Oh!"

"I've a big fight on, and I need all the capital I can swing. 'Glen Irwin' will have to wait," he finished grimly.

"Of course--I didn't understand. But it makes no difference. I can stay at the hotel or at Mrs. Brennan's."

"After all this? Oh, no, you'd be miserable. Besides, I have other plans."

"You don't want me?"

"No. I'll be very busy."

"No busier than you were before we came here."

Jeff paced the length of the room and returned before he answered her.

"See here, Camilla. You ought to know, by this time that when I say a thing I mean it. I'm going West alone to do some fence-building. You're to stay here and do the same thing--socially. I need these people in my business, and I want you to keep on good terms with them."

She gazed thoughtfully at the fire. "Don't you believe me when I say I want to go with you?"

Jeff made an abrupt movement. "Well--hardly. We've always got along pretty well, so long as each of us followed our own pursuits. But I think you might as well acknowledge that you don't need me--haven't needed me now or at any other time."

"I do need you, Jeff. I want to try and take a greater interest in your affairs--to help you if I can, socially if necessary, but I'd rather do it with you than alone."

"I may not be gone long--perhaps only a week or so. In the meanwhile, you're your own mistress."

"You've always let me be that. But I have reasons for wanting to leave New York."

Wray turned and stared at her blankly. "Reasons?"

"Yes. I--I'm a little tired. The life here is so gay. I'm unused to it. It bewilders me."

"I think I understand," he said slowly. "But it can't be helped. I want you to cultivate the McIntyres, the Warringtons, and the Rumsens. Larry will stay here in the hotel for a while. You can call on him."

She fingered the pages of a book beside her. "Then this is final?" she asked.

"Yes--you must do as I say."

He had never before used that tone with her. The warm impulse that had sought this interview was dried at its source. "Very well--I'll stay," she said coldly, "no matter what happens."

He examined her shrewdly.

"You're afraid?" he asked. "That's too bad. I thought I was doing you a service."

"What do you mean?"

"Cort Bent. That's what I mean. Cort Bent. He's yours. I give him to you."

"Jeff!"

She rose and faced him, trembling, and her eyes flickered like a guttering candle, as she tried to return his look. "How could you?" she stammered. "How could you speak to me so?"

But he was merciless. "Oh, I'm not blind, and I'm not deaf, either. I've seen and I've heard. But I didn't need to see or to hear. Don't you suppose I've always known you married me out of spite--out of pique, because Cort Bent wouldn't marry you. I knew it then just as I know it now, but I hoped I could win you back and that things would be the same as they were before _he_ came meddling in my affairs. Well, you know what happened better than I do. Our marriage has been a failure. I was a fool--so were you. We've made the best of a bad job, but that don't make it a good job. I let you go your own way. I've been good to you because I knew I'd been as big a fool as you were. What I didn't know was that you'd met Cort Bent behind my back----"

"That is not true," she broke in. "That day he called here----"

"Don't explain," impatiently, "it won't help matters. I'm not blind. The main fact is that you've seen Cort Bent again and that you're still in love with him. These people are talking about you."

"Who? Mrs. Cheyne?"

"Yes, Mrs. Cheyne--and others."

Camilla steadied herself with a hand upon the table. The brutality of his short, sharp indictment unnerved her for the moment. She had hoped he would have given her the opportunity to make an explanation in her own way, a confession even which, if he had willed, might have brought them nearer in spirit than they had ever been. But that was now impossible. Every atom of him breathed antagonism--and the words of her avowal were choked in the hot effusion of blood which pride and shame sent coursing to her throat and temples.

"And if I _am_ still in love with him," she said insolently, "what then?" He looked at her admiringly, for scorn became her.

"Oh, nothing," he said with a shrug. "Only be careful, that's all. Back in Mesa City I thought of shooting Cort Bent, but I found a better way to punish him. Here"--he laughed--"I've a different plan. I'm going to give you a free foot. I'm going to throw you two together--to give you a chance to work out your salvation in your own way. Your marriage to me means nothing to you. Time has proved that. You and I are oil and water. We don't mix. We never have mixed. There isn't any reason that I can see that we're ever going to mix. We've worried along somehow, to date, but it's getting on my nerves. I'd rather we understood each other once and for all. I'm past changing. You knew what I was--a queer weed, a mongrel. I took root and I grew as Nature made me grow, in the soil I fell in, hardy, thick-ribbed, stubborn, and lawless. The world was my enemy, but I fought it as Nature taught, by putting on a rough bark and spines like the cactus that grew beside me. Oh, I grew flowers, too, pretty pale blossoms that tried to open to the sun. You had a chance to see them--but they weren't your kind. You looked beyond them at the hot-house plants----"

"Don't, Jeff," she pleaded. "I can't bear it."

But he only laughed at her.

"Well, I've brought them to you--the roses, the orchids, the carnations, and you're going to live with them, in the atmosphere you've always wanted----"

"Won't you let me speak?"

"No!" he thundered. "My mind is made up. I'm going West alone. You go your way. I go mine. Is that clear? You and Cortland Bent can meet when and where you please."

"I don't want to meet him," she whispered brokenly. "I don't want to see him again."

"I can't believe you," he sneered. "We've lived a lie since we were married. Let's tell the truth for once in our lives. When I came in this room you were asleep, but even while you slept you dreamed of him and his name was in your mouth."

The face she turned up to him was haggard, but her eyes were wide with wonder.

"I heard you--you were calling for Cort. I'm not going to be a fool any longer."

He turned away from her and went toward the door, while she got up with some dignity and walked to the fireplace.

"You're going--to Mrs. Cheyne?" she asked coldly.

"If I like," defiantly. "This game works both ways."

"Yes, I see. There's some method in your madness after all."

"I don't see why you should care--since I don't object to Bent. Mrs. Cheyne is a friend of mine. She's investing in my company----"

"Evidently," with scorn. "No doubt you make it profitable to her."

"We won't talk about Mrs. Cheyne. You don't like her. I do. You like Cort Bent. I don't. And there we are. We understand each other. It's the first time in our lives we ever have. I don't question you, and you're not to question me. All I ask is that you hide your trail, as I'll hide mine. I have some big interests at stake, and I don't want any scandal hanging around my name--or yours. I'm giving you into the hands of my enemies. The father wants to ruin my business, the son to ruin my wife. I'll fight General Bent with his own weapons. The son----"

"You're insulting," she broke in. "Will you go?"

He turned at the door--his face pale with fury.

"Yes, I'll go. And I won't bother you again. These rooms are yours. When I'm here, mine are there. Some day when I'm ready I'll get you a divorce. Then you can marry as you please. As for me," he finished passionately, "I'm done with marriage--done with it--you understand?"

And the door crashed between them.

Camilla stood for a moment, tense and breathless, staring wide-eyed at the pitiless door. Then the room went whirling and she caught at the chair at her desk and sank into it helplessly, one hand pressed against her breast. For a moment she could not think, could not see even. The brutality of his insults had driven her out of her bearings. Why he had not struck her she could not imagine, for it was in the character of the part he was playing. He had not given her a chance. He must have seen that she was trying to repair past damages and begin anew. A throb of self-pity that was almost a sob came into her throat. Tears gathered in her eyes and pattered on the desk before her. She did not notice them until she heard them fall, and then she dried her eyes abruptly as though in shame for a weakness. He did not want to begin anew. She could see it all clearly now. He was tired of her and caught at the easiest way to be rid of her, by putting her in the wrong. Her strength came quickly as she found the explanation, and she sat up rigidly in her chair, her face hot with shame and resentment. She deserved something better from him than this. All that was worst in her clamored for utterance.

With a quick movement of decision she reached forward for a pen and paper and wrote rapidly a scrawl, then rang the bell for her maid.

"Have this note mailed at once."

It was addressed to Cortland Bent.

*CHAPTER XII*

*TEA CUPS AND MUSIC*

Dropping in on Jack Perot meant being shot skyward for twelve stories in a Louis Sixteenth elevator operated by a magnificent person in white gloves and the uniform of a Prussian lieutenant. Perot's panelled door was no different from others in the corridor upstairs, except for its quaint bronze knocker, but the appearance of a man-servant in livery and the glimpse of soft tapestries and rare and curious furniture which one had on entering the small reception room gave notice that a person of more than ordinary culture and taste dwelt within. The studio of the painter itself was lofty, the great north window extending the full height of two stories of the building, while the apartment beyond, a library and dining room with steps leading above to the bedrooms, contained all the luxuries that the most exacting bachelor might require.

To arrive at the distinction of being a fashionable portrait painter one must have many qualifications. In the schools one must know how to draw and to paint from the model. In the fashionable studio one must know how to draw and paint--then discover how not to do either. If the nose of one's sitter is too long, one must know how to chop it off at the end; if the mouth is too wide, one must approximate it to the Greek proportions; eyes that squint must be made squintless and colorful; protruding ears must be reduced. Indeed, there is nothing that the beauty doctor professes to accomplish that the fashionable portrait painter must not do with his magic brush. He must make the lean spinster stout and the stout dowager lean; the freckled, spotless; the vulgar, elegant; the anaemic, rosy; his whole metier is to select agreeable characteristics and to present them so forcibly that the unpleasant ones may be forgotten, to paint people as they ought to be rather than as they are, to put women in silk who were meant for shoddy, and men in tailored coats who have grown up in shirt-sleeves.

In addition to these purely technical attainments, he must be an infallible judge of character, a diplomat, a sophist; he must have a silver tea-service, to say nothing of excellent Scotch and cigarettes. He must be able to write a sonnet or mix a salad, discuss the Book of Job or the plays of Bernard Shaw, follow the quotations of the stock market, the news of the day, and the fashions in women's hats. He must laugh when he feels dejected and look dejected when he feels like laughing. Indeed, there is nothing the fashionable portrait painter must not be able to do, except perhaps really--to paint.

Jack Perot could even do that, too, when he wanted to. The sketch of the Baroness Charny on his easel was really sincere--an honest bit of painting done with the freedom his other work lacked. Perhaps this was because it was not a commission, but just one of those happy interludes which sometimes occur amid the dreariest of measures. It pleased him, at any rate, and he stood off from it squinting delightedly through his monocle while the Baroness poured the tea.

"Really, madame, it's too bad it's finished. I was almost ready to believe myself back in Paris again," he said in French. "If one could only live one's life backward!"

"Oh, that wouldn't do--in a little while perhaps you would be quite poor."

"Yes," he sighed, "but think how much better I would paint." He stopped before the sketch and sighed again. "I think it's you, Baroness. You bring an echo of my vanished youth. Besides, I didn't paint you for money. That is the difference."

"You are going to paint that handsome Madame Wray?"

"Yes. She's coming in for tea to-day."

"They are wonderful, those people. He is so original--so _farouche_."

"He's too fond of talking about himself," he growled. "These people represent the Western type so common in New York--climbers--but New York will forgive much in the husband of Mrs. Wray."

"He doesn't care whether he's forgiven or not, does he?"

"That's a pose. All Westerners adopt it. To consent to be like other people would be to confess a weakness."

"I like him; but then"--the Baroness yawned politely--"all Americans are attractive. Mrs. Wray I find less interesting."

"Naturally, madame. You are a woman." Then, after a pause, "It is a pity she's getting herself talked about."

"Really? That's encouraging--with Monsieur Bent?"

"Oh, yes--they met in the West--the phenix of an old romance."

"How delightful! Monsieur Jeff doesn't care?"

"Oh, no," significantly. "He has his reasons."

The door-knocker clanged, and Mrs. Rumsen entered, escorting two debutantes, who paused on the threshold of the studio gurglingly, their eyes round with timidity and a precocious hopefulness of imminent deviltries.

"_So_ kind of you, Mrs. Rumsen. Good morning, Miss Van Alstyne--Miss Champney" (with Jack Perot it was always morning until six of the afternoon). "You've met the Baroness?"

"How too thweetly perfect!"

"How fearfully interesting!"

The newcomers fluttered palpitantly from canvas to canvas and only subsided when Mrs. Cheyne entered.

"Am I welcome?" she drawled. "This is your day, isn't it, Jack? Oh, how charming!" She paused before the sketch of the Baroness. "Why didn't you paint _me_ like that? I'll never forgive you. You were painting me for Cheyne, I know it. My portrait fairly exudes the early Victorian."

Perot kissed the tips of his fingers and wafted them toward her. "Quite correct, dear Rita. Cheyne was paying the bill. Now if you gave me another commission----"

"I won't--you're the most mercenary creature. Besides, I'm too hard up. One must really have billions nowadays." She sank on the couch beside the Baroness. "It's really very exhausting--trying to live on one's income. I'm very much afraid I shall have to marry again."

"You need a manager. May I offer----"

"No, thanks. I shall be in the poor-house soon enough."

"Get Mr. Wray to help," laughed the painter mischievously. "They say he has a way of making dollars bloom from sage-brush."

She glanced at him swiftly, but took her cup of tea from the Baroness and held her peace.

The knocker clanged again, and Mrs. Wray, Miss Janney, Larry Berkely, and Cortland Bent came in.

"This is really jolly, Gretchen. Hello! Cort, Berkely--Mrs. Wray, I've been pining to see your hair against my old tapestry. Oh! shades of Titian! Can I ever dare?"

Camilla colored softly, aware of Mrs. Cheyne's sleepy eyes in the shadow below the skylight. She nodded in their general direction and then took Mrs. Rumsen's proffered hand--and the seat beside her.

"I was so sorry to have missed you this morning," she said. "I'm always out, it seems, when the people I want to see come in."

"I should have 'phoned," said the lady. "I had something particular to speak to you about. Is your husband coming here?"

"I--I really don't know," Camilla stammered. "He has been away and very busy."

"He'll be back for my dance, won't he?"

"I think so--but he's never certain. He's going West very soon."

"He was telling me something about his early life. You ought to be very proud of him."

"I can't tell just what it is, but to me your husband seems like an echo of something, an incarnation of some memory of my youth--perhaps only a long-forgotten dream. But it persists--it persists. I can't seem to lose it."

"How very curious."

"It is the kind of personality one isn't likely to forget. Has he any memory of his father or--of his mother?"

"No. His mother died when he was born. His father--he doesn't remember his father at all."

Mrs. Rumsen smiled. "Forgive me, won't you? I suppose you'll think me a meddlesome old busybody. But I'm not, really. I want to be friendly. You're a stranger in New York, and it occurred to me that perhaps you might crave a little mothering once in a while. It is so easy to make mistakes here, and there are so many people who are willing to take advantage of them."

"You're very kind, Mrs. Rumsen. I'm glad you think us worth while."

"I do. So much worth while that I want to lay particular stress upon it. Perhaps I ought to tell you what I mean. Last night my brother dined with us. He was in a very disagreeable mood--and spoke very bitterly of your husband. I suppose he may even go so far as to carry his business antagonism into his social relations with you both."

"How very unfortunate!" in genuine dismay.

"That is his way. He's rather used to lording it over people here. And people stand it just because he's Cornelius Bent. I suppose Mr. Wray knows what he is about. At any rate, I honor him for his independence. I told my brother so--and we're not on speaking terms."

As Camilla protested she laughed. "Oh, don't be alarmed, dear; we have been that way most of our lives. You see we're really very much alike. But I wanted you to understand that my brother's attitude, whatever it is, will make no possible difference to me."

"I shouldn't dare to be a cause of any disagreement----"

"Not a word, child. I'm not going to permit Wall Street to tell me who my friends shall be. There is too much politics in society already. That is why I want you to dine with me before my ball, and receive with me afterward, if you will."

Camilla's eyes brightened with pleasure. "Of course, I'm very much honored, Mrs. Rumsen. I will come gladly, if you don't think I'll add fuel to the flame."

"I don't really care. Why should you?"

"There are reasons. The General was most kind to us both----"

"Because he had something to get out of you," she sniffed. "I could have told you that before."

"But it was through General Bent that we met everybody--people who have entertained us--the Janneys, the McIntyres, and yourself, Mrs. Rumsen."