Part 23

The slightest suggestion of being displayed, of being put on parade, sent her into gusts of temper. Mr. Pomello, who could not understand the reasons of her impatience, acceded hastily. In fact, during the last week he had been on tenterhooks, so fearful that she would change her mind and throw him over at the last moment that his stress of mind was patent to all. In truth, there was reason for his apprehension. Myrtle Popper, as the day approached, grew more restless and unsettled. For a word, she would flare up into a sudden anger, nor try as he would, could he divine what action of his would displease her. With the others, particularly toward Millie Brewster, who appeared to avoid her, she was haughty, abrupt, and suspicious of a whisper or a low-pitched tone, as though she felt she were being made the subject of ridicule. King O’Leary, during this time, was noticeably absent, seldom appearing in the studio and then only in the company of others.

The afternoon before the ceremony arrived, and the hours were spent in excited preparation for the morrow. Dangerfield, camped on a step-ladder and bombarded with copious and futile suggestions from Tootles below, was endeavoring to hang a symbolic Cupid, with arrows of mistletoe, in the center of radiating garlands of smilax, which ran to every point of vantage in the room. Flick, stretched on the sofa, his hands under his head, was adding his yawning suggestions to the general confusion of the girls, who were passing and repassing, their arms heaped with trailing greens. Mr. Pomello, by the step-ladder, had been draped with vines until he disappeared under them like a stone satyr overgrown with ivy.

O’Leary, who had finished the moving of great pieces of furniture, had gone to the open window to cool off, when Myrtle Popper came abruptly over to his side. He looked up, measured the distance which separated them from the laughing group about the submerged Mr. Pomello, noticed the look in the girl’s eyes, and realized that the interview he had persistently avoided had come.

“Hot work,” he said, smiling to hide his confusion.

“Take me out to dinner to-night,” she said directly.

“To-night?” he said, amazed.

“Yes; I’ve got to talk to you!”

He shook his head, and his face grew grave.

“No; can’t do it, Myrtle--sorry.”

“You mean, you won’t?”

He nodded.

“Put it that way.”

Her hand closed tensely over his arm.

“King, for heaven’s sake let me see you; let me talk to you! You’ve avoided me all the week. I’m desperate!”

“Look out!” he said hastily, drawing his arm away.

“I don’t care,” she said defiantly. “Listen: Go down the hall, down to the third floor--there’s no one there--and I’ll come after you.”

“No, I won’t,” he said angrily.

“You won’t? King, you must, you must--if you don’t--I--I shall scream--go mad. I can’t keep up!”

“Look here,” he said roughly; “you’ve got no right to act this way--you’re about to be married, too--it ain’t right, Myrtle. You’ve chosen--play square!”

“How do you know I’m going through with it?” she said, with a catch in her voice.

“Here, steady now--none of that!” he said, with an apprehensive glance backward.

“Lean out the window; they won’t pay no attention to us,” she said, under her breath. “King, you’ve got to listen to me! If you don’t--I’ll--I’ll throw my arms about you--I’ll do something dreadful!”

“You won’t do anything of the kind.”

“Yes, I will,” she said obstinately. She spoke under her breath, her shoulders close to his, her lips drawn, and her gaze set in sternness over the dusty roofs and sooty chimneys. Suddenly she drew off the engagement ring Mr. Pomello had given her, a magnificent solitaire.

“Pretty fine--isn’t it?--cost over a thousand, King--some diamond!”

“There’ll be more of those, too,” said O’Leary cunningly.

She held it gingerly in her fingers and extended her arm over the sheer dark descent into the thronged street.

“You say the word, and it’s down it goes.”

“And what’d Pomello say?”

“Pomello and all his rocks can go”--she laughed gaily at him, defiantly--“well, you know where--if you say the word.”

“I’ve told you my advice,” he said, looking away from her. “It’s your life, not mine. What have I got to do with it?”

“Shall I marry him?” she said obstinately.

“You’d be a fool if you didn’t!”

“Won’t you ever understand?” she said, in a low voice.

“You ask my advice--I’ve told you it.”

“You’ve told me nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can’t you understand--won’t you understand that I’m throwing myself at you, King? Have I got to make myself plain?”

“Don’t,” he said hastily.

“What do I care? It’s my last chance. Listen, King: Say the word, and I’m yours. It’s you I want--it’s _you_. You’ve made me say it--I don’t care. Think of me what you want, but if you’ll as much as wave your little finger at me, King, I’ll follow--and that’s flat!”

She stopped breathlessly and waited the answer which was forming in his mind.

“Well?” she said, at last, and her hand stole out and lay over his.

“You should not have said it,” he mumbled, “you ain’t in your right mind.”

“That’s not the answer I want,” she said abruptly. “King, give it to me straight. Is it to be me and you--or----”

“You’re right, Myrtle,” he said, frowning; “I’ve got to hand it out straight. Well, I’m sorry. It can’t be.”

“You’re saying that because you’re only thinking of the money, because you think it’s too big an opportunity for me, that you oughtn’t to stand in my way. Don’t you think I’m flesh and blood? You don’t think I can forget that--that time you took me in your arms----”

“I shouldn’t have done it!”

She laughed, a laugh that made Inga turn and glance in their direction.

“Look out!” he said hastily.

“I don’t care; let them all hear! Well?”

“Well, kid, I’m sorry--sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I had no right to do what I did, because----”

“Because you don’t love me,” she said quickly.

“Not in that way,” he said lamely, looking away from her, across the chimneys, to the river with its floating steam clouds.

“Any one else?” she said finally.

He shook his head.

“And what you said’s the truth?”

“The whole truth.”

“Yes; I guess it is,” she said quietly.

They stood a moment longer at the window, gazing aimlessly. Then she slipped the ring back on her finger and returned to the crowd.

* * * * *

The wedding-breakfast was a great success. The bride went through the day with complete equanimity, without a trace of the irritation of the past week, and came back to the Arcade a vision of youth and gaiety under the gossamer veil. She was in the liveliest spirits and danced so repeatedly with King O’Leary that all marveled, with the exception of Mr. Pomello, who moved about quite bewildered, as though he could not comprehend that this thing of beauty and joy was actually his. At the supper, every one made a speech of congratulation, with prophecies of future bliss to the bride and groom, in a wave of optimism which spread from Mr. Teagan’s simple, romantic soul to Tootles, who forgave Pansy Hartmann and surreptitiously clung to her fingers under the table-cloth. Then King O’Leary rose to his toast. What made him reveal what he did no one could quite understand--perhaps it was the treacherous sentimental currents of such affairs; perhaps the explanation lay in the cunning of the punch; perhaps the real reason was understood by only Myrtle herself.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, beginning awkwardly enough, “you’ve all heard about what Mr. Teagan had to say about wedded bliss--”

“Thirty years, and we’ve yet to have our first growl!” said Teagan joyfully, with his glass upraised to his better half.

“Thirty years and never a growl,” said O’Leary solemnly, and those near him saw that he hesitated and shifted nervously. “Well, all I’ve got to say is, I hope--” He waved one hand awkwardly toward the bride and groom--“I hope you get off better than I did.” At this, every one drew back with a scraping of chairs and looked at him in amazement. O’Leary breathed hard and went on obstinately: “Yes; I wish you never get what I got! I haven’t said anything about it--a man’s own affairs are his own affairs, I guess. But ten years ago, I sat down just as you’re sitting down and just as proud and happy. And for a year and a half I was just that--the happiest and proudest man in North Ameriky or any other Ameriky. Then something went wrong--I never knew; I wasn’t given the benefit of knowing even that. Perhaps the going was too hard--perhaps--well, anyhow, it was out in Seattle and luck was against us. We were stranded for sure--seventeenth of April--that was the day. I came back to the rooms and found them empty, everything gone, cleaned out, even to the tooth-brush on the wall and not a word of why or where for. That was eight years ago. I never knew what was wrong or why she did it. I’ve never heard of her since. I don’t know as I ought to have chucked my tale of woe into this sort of an affair. Well, perhaps, it may be worth while to remember there are other sides--sides it’s better to keep away from. I hope you’ll get a better deal than I did, Mr. and Mrs. Pomello!”

He sat down abruptly and every one began talking in excited tones. Dangerfield, who was watching the blurred, staring gaze of Myrtle Pomello, formed his own opinions of why O’Leary had done what he had done, and possibly Mr. Cornelius also understood with his shrewd, kindly glance. As for the others, they were so frightened at the revelation that they flung themselves nervously into a revulsion of momentary gaiety--all except Millie Brewster. She sat quite still, looking down, and never said a word until they all rose from the table. Then she disappeared without any one’s remembering just when she had left.

* * * * *

A week later, with only King O’Leary present, Dangerfield and Inga were married before a justice of the peace, and departed quietly for the lakes of New Hampshire, where Dangerfield had gone as a boy, and where, in the unfashionable month of May, he sought the seclusion and solitude of awakening nature, which his own reawakening soul had begun to crave. It had been her wish that there should be as little ceremony as possible, and from the court-room they drove directly to the station.

“I can’t bear to think of other people watching us at such a time,” she had said. “I want to feel alone.”

He had nodded assent, grateful for the depth of delicacy which he divined in her. Now, in the carriage, O’Leary left behind on the curb with still uplifted hat, he had a feeling of being indeed alone, alone with strange thoughts which surprised him, alone with the sudden stranger who sat silently by his side, whose thoughts he could not divine, alone and yet violently and abruptly apart. She had passed through the ceremony as one steeled to an ordeal, gravely calm, without useless words, neither showing joy, nor elation, nor trace of shyness or excitement. When he had put the ring on her finger and the words had been pronounced which made them man and wife, she turned and looked at him--a long, searching glance that moved him so that he forgot his surroundings gazing into the profound eyes that seemed to open to him the road to tears. The judge joked him for a laggard; he caught himself, glanced down at her, and kissed her hurriedly.

“Best man’s privilege!” said the judge, chuckling, while the attendants grinned.

She gravely offered her cheek to O’Leary, who hesitated and then raised her hand to his lips.

When they were at last alone, Dangerfield said abruptly:

“You can take it off now; you don’t need to wear it--the ring.”

She took off her glove and held up the little hand with the golden circle shining among the slender fingers. Then she drew the glove on again.

“No; I shall wear it.”

He felt a strangeness in this intimacy, almost a diffidence. He wondered why he could not speak to her, but he remained silent--he could not mention trivial things, and what lay next to their hearts seemed forbidden. For the thoughts that had come to him now seemed to be the beginning of the barrier which would grow between them day by day, month by month, the prohibition that every one instinctively erects to solitudes of the soul from the encroachment of complete possession.

He had taken the final step, and he felt its finality; he had burned his bridges behind him--there was now no retreat back into the life from which he had come, into that kingdom of caste that, despite the devastation it had worked on him, still held him with remembered instinct.

“It’s ended. This will be my life from now on--a life of work. The other, the old associations, the old friends are gone,” he said to himself. “I have cut myself off from all that--whatever happens. I have done the right thing. I can never leave her now--no matter what happens. This is final; this is what I wanted.”

It was done, and he had wished it done. Yet he was surprised at the stir in him which the realization had brought, and, though he was angry at himself, he was conscious of a certain unreasoning rebellion, not so much at the fact that his marriage meant to him the seeking of another world but that his freedom of choice had ended. The feeling seemed to him almost disloyalty. He hated himself for entertaining it, and then he glanced at Inga, sitting so straight and grave by his side, and wondered curiously if such secret thoughts could live behind the brooding of her eyes.

“What a rabble, what an insanity of noise and ugliness!” he said, at last, glancing out the window at the torpid, living masses in the street, and the ugly, vacant masses above, which shut out the sky. “Thank God, we’re getting away to something clean and real!”

She nodded.

“I’m glad.”

And this was all they said to each other--until they had gone through the flurry of the station and found their compartment. The porter stowed their bags, glanced at them with a smile, and went out, closing the door. Presently the train began to move, and something black and stifling closed about them. The same gravity still lay upon her, the same faraway brooding in her eyes. All at once, at the compelling touch of his hand, her glance met his, and then her lips smiled bravely.

“Doesn’t it seem strange to you?” he said quietly.

“Very.”

“I feel as if I have done the last thing I wanted to do--brought sorrow into your life,” he said, in despair. “I don’t know; I can’t understand--you seem to have gone further from me than ever before.”

She looked at him again, with the same intense, prophetic scrutiny she had given him after the ceremony. Then she put out her hand and drew his into the warm shelter of hers.

“Don’t try to say anything--we can’t--not now,” she said. They continued to sit thus side by side silently, while the train ran on into the fading day.

XXXVI

The porch of the bungalow was filled with trunks and packing-boxes. Across the settee, piles of clothes, outing-shirts, corduroy skirts, and sweaters were balanced in perilous pyramids. Dangerfield, pipe in mouth, bareheaded, sleeves rolled up over his tanned, muscular forearms, came out of the camp and stood a moment in frowning disapproval of an intruding motor-boat, venturing near the rocky line of the shore, evidently on curiosity bent. The bungalow stood on a projecting point, impending over the lapping waters that ran in whitening distances into broken vistas of wooded islands, while beyond, like crouching leopards, the deep blue of a mountain range bound the horizon. It was mid-July by the dryness in the air, by every leaf at rest, by the smoky haze which hung over the heated lake.

The long razor-bow of the white racer furrowed through the dull waters that rolled up angrily and snapped together in a hissing serpentine defiance.

“The third this morning!” said Dangerfield irritably. “Why can’t they stay at their own end of the lake?”

The speeding boat, with its flash of white waists and colored parasols, swung around in a wide, foaming loop while the racing throb of the engine suddenly ceased. Across the water came women’s voices:

“Oh, there he is now!”

“What a romantic spot!”

“She’s quite pretty.”

“Do you suppose they’re married?”

“Hush--he may hear you!”

Then the engine took up its rhythmic hammering and the boat shot away. Dangerfield breathed a curse at all humanity in general and those obnoxious members in particular who roamed in motor-boats. He went back into the living-room, drew out a map, and spread it on the table. For the last two weeks, with the influx of summer visitors, even the distant seclusion of their camp had been invaded by these human pests. Each day the feeling of restlessness had been growing over him and the longing for flight. The pervading green monotony of the American summer had come, and with it the end of the long day’s sketching in the open air. Yet he had lingered, loath to end the dream. The two months had drifted away like the lazy mists of the dawn rolling on the mountainsides. They had been rich in the living, in the tranquillity, and in the achievement. The great living-room, with its wide windows and deep fireplace, was covered with sketches, rapid water-colors of transient moods of the day, the hazy purples of the dawn, the ruddy glow of early sunset on the distant mountain-tops, white patches of late snow against the young, green meadows, sketches without other thought than the joy of the impulse--penetrating, daring, and keenly lived.

He searched the map, studied it without result, and finally pushed it away in indecision, glanced at his watch, and lounged out onto the steps, scanning the lake impatiently. Resolved to break up camp and plunge into a remoter solitude, he felt the unease of change. He had been happy, completely happy. It had been to him home. He took out his watch and consulted it nervously again, restless and dissatisfied the moment he was forced to fall back upon his own company. Presently, across the lake, there came a patient chug-chug of a motor which he had learned to distinguish from every other engine, and around the long point which shut out the village a dory appeared. Insensibly, the fretting lines about his forehead cleared and a feeling of content seemed to permeate his body. He rose, and went swinging down to the dock.

Inga stood erect in the lumbering flat-bottomed dory, her slender figure outlined against the shining lake, clad in white, her head hidden under a wide-brimmed straw hat, her hair (which she had thrown loose the minute she had left the village), floating lazily out in the breeze of the passage. He watched her eagerly, hungrily, as she came sweeping over the glassy waters like some Rhine maiden out of fairy fastnesses.

The boat slipped swiftly on, made a quick, sweeping curve, and rushed at the dock. Inga bent forward just in time, reversed the engines, and brought up snugly to the side, crying:

“Don’t touch. See how well I can do it!”

He laughed, standing away, well content with the spectacle of her confident youth as she shut off the engine, leaped out, and made fast. Then she sprang lightly back, and, picking up a package, flung it to him.

“Catch. Steak for dinner. Another coming. Look out! Bread!”

He caught the deftly tossed bundles and came forward, but, disdaining assistance, she leaped lightly to the dock, holding out a pair of smudgy hands.

“Don’t touch me; I’m covered with grease. Had an awful time making her go. Take my hat.”

He removed the wide Panama, bending down to the lips which were offered to him. She ran to the end of the dock and kneeling splashed her hands in the water; daintiness itself in the bending slenderness of her lines, the thin skirt clinging to the willowy hips, the curved line of the leg unconsciously revealed, the spilling masses of her hair which, though caught at the back, came tumbling about her cheeks, now pouting in disdain at the soiling smudges.

All at once she straightened up, shaking the brilliant drops from her fingers, and glanced up into his face, her intuition feeling immediately the change.

“What is the matter?”

“They’ve been around again--three of them!”

Her face clouded; she nodded gloomily.

“The beasts! Don’t mind them.”

“You were away a dreadfully long time,” he said restlessly.

She came to his side, passing her arm through his, smiling with the pleasure of knowing how much she had been desired.

“All the fault of the poky engine.” Then she perceived the porch and the trunks which he had dragged out in his fitful impatience, and stopped with an involuntary exclamation of dismay.

“Time to break up camp,” he said fretfully. “It’s impossible here!”

“Yes; I suppose so,” she said slowly.

“I can’t stand being spied on--being watched. I can’t paint.”

“But it’s midsummer----”

“I know that, and yet it annoys me. I can’t bear to be idle. There’s so much to be done! It isn’t that--it’s--it’s I want to get away--to be alone. You understand?”

“Of course.”

She nodded, trying to conceal her disappointment, though, for a moment, the horror of change, of the venture into an unknown land was so keen, that she burst out suddenly:

“I hate to go!”

“I also--I hate to go,” he said gloomily.

“It’s not what it is now,” she said wistfully, with a little gesture toward the wooded shelter which had been the first note of home to her; “it’s all it has been.”

“But we’ll find another spot just as this was--away from the world.” She turned away, but he caught her arm. “Inga, dear--why, you are crying!”

“No, no--I am not,” she said, her lips quivering and her deep gray-blue eyes swimming with the film of tears she could not control. Then, all at once, she broke from him and ran away, disappearing in the woods with an imploring wave of her hand. In five minutes she was back, as though nothing had happened, smiling bravely.

“Mr. Dan, I’m ashamed of myself!”

Whenever she wished to tease him out of a contrary mood by arousing his ire, she addressed him as she had done in the old days of the Arcade. This time, he understood that she was struggling with her own moods, and smiled indulgently.

“If you behave that way, we’ll bundle right back to New York!”

“Oh, no; you won’t do that--not yet!” she cried, frightened by the suggestion. She approached, looked at him curiously and said, “Where shall we go?”

“You’ve forgotten what I promised you,” he said smiling.

“The sea!” she cried rapturously.

He nodded.

“But where? Won’t everything be crowded with people?”

“Not the place I’m thinking of,” he said. “A little island up off the Maine coast, fifty miles from a railroad, where no human being thinks of going--by ‘human being,’ you know what I mean--inhuman beings. There are lots of fishermen and farmers and rocks and curious old inlets, filled with pirates and sea-serpents.”

“Really--and the sea--the sea itself!”

“The sea that comes sweeping in with great, long, sleek combers. Only, I have written to an old skipper of mine and don’t know why I haven’t got an answer,” he added, frowning.

“Oh, in Maine--I forgot!”

She dove into her waist and brought out a letter in contrite embarrassment. “Came to-day. I’d quite forgotten!”

He glanced at the postmark eagerly, nodded, and read the letter rapidly.

“It’s all right,” he said, glancing up brightly. “Inga, there’s a little shack waiting for us, in the wildest, rockiest cove you ever imagined, and the sea goes thundering around the point!”

She was so excited that she could not believe it until he had shown her the letter and she had devoured it herself with her own eyes. Then she sprang into his arms, closing her hands about his neck, glowing and tremulous, frantic with joy and happiness, in one of those rare moments, seldom in the day, when she showed him the tumultuous depths of her emotions. After a while they grew quieter, and she said:

“All the same--I hate to go--it’s been so simple--so natural here, hasn’t it?”

He nodded gravely.