Chapter 11

The telegram reached Courtland Friday evening, just as he was going to the Dare dinner, and filled him with an almost childish delight. Not for a long time had he had anything as nice as that happen; not even when he made Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year had he been so filled with exultation. It was like having a fairy-tale come true. To think there had really been a woman in the world who would respond in that cordial way to a call from the great unknown!

He presented himself in his most sparkling mood at the house where he was to dine. There was nothing at all blue about him. His eyes fairly danced with pleasure and his smile was rare. Gila looked and drooped her eyes demurely. She thought the sparkle was all for her, and her little wicked heart gave a throb of exultant joy.

Mrs. Dare was no longer a large, purple person. She was in full evening dress, explaining that she and her husband had an engagement at the opera after dinner. She resembled the fat dough people that the cook used to fashion for him in his youth. Her pudgy arms so reminded him of those shapeless cooky arms that he found himself fascinated by the thought as he watched her moving her bejeweled hands among the trinkets at her end of the glittering table. Her gown, what there was of it, was of black gauze emblazoned with dartling sequins of deep blue. An aigret in her hair twinkled knowingly above her coarse, painted face. Courtland, as he studied her more closely, rejoiced that the telegram had arrived before he left the dormitory, for he never could have had the courage to come to this plump-shouldered lady seeking refuge for his refined little Bonnie girl.

The father of the family was a little wisp of a man with a nervous laugh and a high, thin voice. There were kind lines around his mouth and eyes, indulgent lines--not self-indulgent, either, and insomuch they were noble--but there was a weakness about the face that showed he was ruled by others to a large extent. He said, "Yes, my dear!" quite obediently when his wife ordered him affably around. There was a cunning look in his eye that might explain the general impression current that he knew how to turn a dollar to his own account.

It occurred to Courtland to wonder what would happen if he should suddenly ask Mr. Dare what he thought of Christ, or if he believed in the resurrection. He could quite imagine they would look aghast as if he had spoken of something impolite. One couldn't think of Mrs. Dare in a resurrection, she would seem so out of place, so sort of unclothed for the occasion, in those fat, doughy arms with her glittering jet shoulder-straps. He realized that all these thoughts that raced through his head were but fantasies occasioned no doubt by his own highly wrought nervous condition, but they kept crowding in and bringing the mirth to his eyes. How, for instance, would Mother Marshall and Mother Dare hit it off if they should happen together in the same heaven?

Gila was all in white, from the tip of her pearly shoulders down to the tip of her pearl-beaded slippers--white and demure. Her skin looked even more pearly than when she wore the brilliant red-velvet gown. It had a pure, dazzling whiteness, different from most skins. It perplexed him. It did not look like flesh, but more like some ethereal substance meant for angels. He drew a breath of satisfaction that there was not even a flush upon it to-night. No painting there at least! He was not master of the rare arts that skins are subject to in these days. He knew artificial whiteness only when it was glaring and floury. This pearly paleness was exquisite, delicious; and in contrast the great dark eyes, lifted pansy-like for an instant and then down-drooped beneath those wonderful, long curling lashes, were almost startling in their beauty. The hair was simply arranged with a plain narrow band of black velvet around the white temples, and the soft loops of cloudy darkness drawn out on her cheeks in her own fantastic way. There was an attempt at demureness in the gown; soft folds of pure transparent nothing seemed to shelter what they could not hide, and more such folds drooped over the lovely arms to the elbows. Surely, surely, this was loveliness undefiled. The words of Peer Gynt came floating back disconnectedly, more as a puzzled question in his mind than as they stand in the story:

"Is your psalm-book in your 'kerchief? Do you glance adown your apron? Do you hold your mother's skirt-fold? Speak!"

But he only looked at her admiringly, and talked on about the college games, making himself agreeable to every one, and winning more and more the lifted pansy-eyes.

When dinner was over they drifted informally into a large white-and-gold reception-room, with inhospitable chairs and settees whose satin slipperiness offered no inducements to sit down. There were gold-lacquered tables and a curious concert-grand piano, also gold inlaid with mother-of-pearl cupids and flowers. Everything was most elaborate. Gila, in her soft transparencies, looked like a wraith amid it all. The young man chose to think she was too rare and fine for a place so ornate.

Presently the fat cooky arms of the mother were enfolded in a gorgeous blue-plush evening cloak beloaded with handsome black fur; and with many bows and kindly words the little husband toddled off beside her, reminding Courtland of a big cinnamon bear and a little black-and-tan dog he had once seen together in a show.

Gila stood bewitchingly childish in the great gold room, and shyly asked if he would like to go to the library, where it was cozier. The red light glowed across the hall, and he turned from it with a shudder of remembrance. The glow seemed to beat upon his nerves like something striking his eyeballs.

"I'd like to hear you play, if you will," he answered, wondering in his heart if, after all, a dolled-up instrument like that was really meant to be played upon.

Gila pouted. She did not want to play, but she would not seem to refuse the challenge. She went to the piano and rippled off a brilliant waltz or two, just to show him she could do it, played Humoresque, and a few little catchy melodies that were in the popular ear just then, and then, whirling on the gilded stool, she lifted her big eyes to him:

"I don't like it in here," she said, with a little shiver, as a child might do; "let's go into the library by the fire. It's pleasanter there to talk."

Courtland hesitated. "Look here," said he, frankly, "Wouldn't you just as soon sit somewhere else? I don't like that red light of yours. It gets on my nerves. I don't like to see you in it. It makes you look--well--something different from what I believe you really are. I like a plain, honest white light."

Gila gave him one swift, wondering glance and walked laughingly over to the library door. "Oh, is that all?" she said, and, touching a button, she switched off the big red table-lamp and switched on what seemed like a thousand little tapers concealed softly about the ceiling.

"There!" she cried, half mockingly. "You can have as much light as you like, and when you get tired of that we can cut them all off and sit in the firelight." She touched another button and let him see the room in the soft dim shadows and rich glow of the fire. Then she turned the full light on again and entered the room, dropping into one big leather chair at the side of the fireplace and indicating another big chair on the opposite side. She had no notion of sitting near him or of luring him to her side to-night. She had read him aright. Hers was the demure part to play, the reserved, shy maiden, the innocent, child-like, womanly woman. She would play it, but she would humble him! So she had vowed with her little white teeth set in her red lips as she stood before her dressing-table mirror that night when he had fled from her red room and her.

Well pleased, with a sigh of relief he dropped into the chair and sat watching her, talking idly, as one who is feeling his way to a pleasant intimacy of whose nature he is not quite sure. She was very sweet and sympathetic about the examinations, told how she hated them herself and thought they ought to be abolished; said he was a wonder, that her cousin had told her he was a regular shark, and yet he hadn't let himself be spoiled by it, either. She flattered him gently with that deference a girl can pay to a man which makes her appear like an angel of light, and fixes him for any confidence in the world he has to give. She sat so quietly, with big eyes lifted now and then, talking earnestly and appreciatively of fine and noble things, that all his best thoughts about her were confirmed. He watched her, thinking what a lovely, lovable woman she was, what gentle sympathy and keen appreciation of really fine qualities she showed, child even though she seemed to be! He studied her, thinking what a friend she might be to that other poor girl in her loneliness and sorrow if she only would. He didn't know that he was yielding again to the lure that the red light had made the last time he was there. He didn't realize that, red light or white light, he was being led on. He only knew that it was a pleasure to talk to her, to be near her, to feel her sympathy; and that something had unlocked the innermost depths of his heart, the place he usually kept to himself, even away from the fellows. He had never quite opened it to a human being before. Tennelly had come nearer to getting a glimpse than any one. But now he was really going to open it, for he had at last found another human being who could understand and appreciate.

"May I shut off the bright light and sit in the firelight?" he asked, and Gila acquiesced sweetly. It was just what she had been leading up to, but she did not move from her reticent yet sympathetic position in the retired depths of the great chair, where she knew the shadows and the glow of the fire would play on her face and show her sweet, serious pose.

"I want to tell you about a girl I have met this week."

A chill fell upon Gila, but she did not show it, she never even flickered those long lashes. Another girl! How dared he! The little white teeth set down sharply on the little red tongue out of sight, but the sweet, sympathetic mouth in the glow of the firelight remained placid.

"Yes?" The inflection, the lifted lashes, the whole attitude, was perfect. He plunged ahead.

"You are so very wonderful yourself that I am sure you will appreciate and understand her, and I think you are just the friend she needs."

Gila stiffened in her chair and turned her face nicely to the glow of the fire, so he could just see her lovely profile.

"She is all alone in the city--"

"Oh!" broke forth Gila in almost childish dismay. "Not even a chaperon?"

Courtland stopped, bewildered. Then he laughed indulgently. "She didn't have any use for a chaperon, child," he said, as if he were a great deal older than she. "She came here with her little brother to earn their living."

"Oh, she _had_ a brother, then!" sighed Gila with evident relief.

It occurred to Courtland to be a bit pleased that Gila was so particular about the conventionalities. He had heard it rumored more than once that her own conduct overstepped the most lenient of rules. That must have been a mistake. It was a relief to know it from her own lips. But he explained, gently:

"The little brother was killed on Monday night," he said, gravely. "Just run down in cold blood by a passing automobile."

"How perfectly dreadful!" shuddered Gila, shrinking back into the depths of the chair. "But you know you mustn't believe a story like that! Poor people are always getting up such tales about rich people's automobiles. It isn't true at all. No chauffeur would do a thing like that! The children just run out and get in the way of the cars to tantalize the drivers. I've seen them myself. Why, our chauffeur has been arrested three or four times and charged with running over children and dogs, when it wasn't his fault at all; the people were just trying to get some money out of us! I don't suppose the little child was run over. It was probably his own fault."

"Yes, he was run over," said Courtland, gently. "I saw it myself! I was standing on the curbstone when the boy--he was a beautiful little fellow with long golden curls--rushed out to meet his sister, calling out to her, and the automobile came whirring by without a sign of a horn, and crushed him down just like a broken lily. He never lifted his head nor made a motion again, and the automobile never even slowed up to see--just shot ahead and was gone."

Gila was still for a minute. She had no words to meet a situation like this. "Oh, well," she said, "I suppose he is better off, and the girl is, too. How could she take care of a child in the city alone, and do any work? Besides, children are an awful torment, and very likely he would have turned out bad. Boys usually do. What did you want me to do for her? Get her a position as a maid?"

There was something almost flippant in her tone. Strange that Courtland did not recognize it. But the firelight, the white gown, the pure profile, the down-drooped lashes had done for him once more what the red light had done before--taken him out of his normal senses and made him see a Gila that was not really there: soft, sweet, tender, womanly. The words, though they did not satisfy him, merely meant that she had not yet understood what he wanted, and was striving hard to find out.

"No," he said, gently. "I want you to go and see her. She is sick and in the hospital. She needs a friend, a real girl friend, such as you could be if you would."

Gila answered in her slow, pretty drawl: "Why, I hate hospitals! I wouldn't even go to see mama when she had an operation on her neck last winter, because I hate the odors they have around. But I'll go if you want me to. Of course I won't promise how much good I'll do. Girls of that stamp don't want to be helped, you know. They think they know it all, and they are usually most insulting. But I'll see what I can do. I don't mind giving her something. I've three evening dresses that I perfectly hate, and one of them I've never had on but once. She might get a position to act somewhere or sing in a café if she had good clothes."

Courtland hastened earnestly to impress her with the fact that Miss Brentwood was a refined girl of good family, and that it would be an insult to offer her second-hand clothing; but when he gave it up and yielded to Gila's plea that he drop these horrid, gloomy subjects and talk about something cheerful, he had a feeling of failure. Perhaps he ought not to have told Gila, after all. She simply couldn't understand the other girl because she had never dreamed of such a situation.

If he could have seen his gentle Gila a couple of hours later, standing before her mirror again and setting those little sharp teeth into her red lip, the ugly frown between her angry eyes; if he could have heard her low-muttered words, and, worse still, guessed her thoughts about himself and that other girl--he certainly would have gone out and gnashed his teeth in despair. If he could have known what was to come of his request to Gila Dare he would have rung up the hospital and had Miss Brentwood moved to another one in hot haste, or, better still, have taken strenuous measures to prevent that visit. But instead of that he read Mother Marshall's telegram over again, and lay down to forget Gila Dare utterly, and think pleasant thoughts about the Marshalls.