Part 9

She never relinquished her intention of getting him into an atmosphere of calm and order, and occasionally tried by devious ways to suggest the subject of unpacking. But the moment the man felt a compelling hand, some malicious and refractory devil seemed to rise up in him, and he would say:

“I know what you’re after. Well, I won’t do it.”

Then, one morning, to her surprise, he called her and said abruptly:

“Well, I’m going to fix up the studio. There now--will you be satisfied?”

“Thank you,” she said, with a bright nod.

“Oh, you needn’t thank me,” he said grimly. “Wait and see. You may regret it.”

They set to work with a vim, and once launched on a new idea, he threw himself into it with the enthusiasm of a child. Sassafras was pressed into service (having surreptitiously jammed the elevator), rolling his eyes at the magnificence he uncovered. They spent a gay morning transforming the boarded bareness of the studio with the warm, green background of great tapestries, restful in harmony and dreamy verdure. The man had a love of beauty as intense as all his desires, and if she did not always understand the value of the really fine bits of Louis XV furniture, spreading _fauteuils_ and the great flat-top desk with bulging curves which reminded one of a pompous burgomaster, or the shadowy massiveness of the carved-oak sideboard, she had an instinctive eye for proportion and delicacy.

“Well, I suppose we’ll have to stop for lunch,” he said at last.

“Send Sam for sandwiches, and let’s go on,” she said eagerly.

“Do you want to?”

“Indeed I do!”

They lunched on a great Florentine table of carved oak, ample enough to seat a dozen, discussing where the sideboard should stand and the old Roman chest with beaten brass clasps. Underneath them, a great rug in the center transformed the floor with the heavy faded yellows and greens of its rich softness.

“We’ll draw a curtain of China silk, a warm gray, over the skylight,” he said, studying the harmonies that had come into the room. “Hello! What are you doing?” he added, smiling.

She had stolen from her slippers, and was moving lightly over the deep Oriental rug, reveling in its velvety voluptuousness.

“I love the very feel of it,” she said, her face flushing in the first emotion she had shown him.

“Go back into the tapestry,” he said, with mock sternness, and half closing his eyes, he nodded approvingly, his glance following the flowing line of the deep-green silk skirt which turned from the graceful hip, the firm, dark neck rising above the youthful breast, and the forestlike wildness of the oval face.

She slipped her green-silk feet back into the slippers and said impulsively:

“It’s all just as I thought you would have it.”

“Oh, it is?” he said, enjoying her enthusiasm.

“Things you live with tell so much,” she said, moving curiously toward the chest.

“You’ve got some strange ideas about me,” he said grimly.

“I have the right one,” she said calmly. She laid her hand on the chest. “What’s hidden here?”

“So you can have curiosity, too?” he said, smiling, caught by the rare mood of enthusiasm, which seemed to waken sudden delicate flushes and sensitive emotions across the blue veil of her eyes and the finely turned upper lip.

He opened the chest and drew forth an armful of old silks and velvets, rare satins and brocades, spilling a riot of color into her arms--leaping, flashing swirls of sapphire, gold, and faded amethyst. She put them aside, and, with a cry of delight, seized something lying in the chest--a rose velvet with the faintest silver sheen, which brought back the pageantry of the Middle Ages.

“How wonderful!”

“You have a good instinct,” he said, nodding. “That’s Italian, thirteenth century, the rarest of all. What color, eh?”

She wrapped her arms in it and drew her cheek across the glorious velvet, which might have lain against the cheek of a storied princess, and as her breath drew deep, across the dark face there spread such a blush of pleasure that she seemed to absorb the rare tint into her own body. He took it from her and gazed at it hungrily, as though he were plunging his look into some gorgeous autumnal pool, drinking in its ecstasy with the mingled pain and pleasure of a lost love remembered.

“Color--color!” he said, held by it. “It thrills you like the first sight of your own country.”

All at once, with a smothered cry--the longing of his soul for the lost days of inspiration, perhaps--he struck the chest with the full force of his fist and turned away in rebellion.

“God!”

“Don’t.” She laid her hands quickly on his shoulders, straight and slim, as she stood gazing earnestly into his tormented eyes. “Mr. Dangerfield, that’ll come again.”

“Never; no, never,” he said gloomily, and his lips twitched as he glanced away.

Sassafras returned at this moment. Then they set to work again, but she had lost him for the day. The exuberance had departed. He gave his assent in monosyllables, and seemed to have so completely lost interest that she hastened the work, fearing that the whim would seize him to countermand it. The worst of it was that in such moods there was no arguing with him, as he seemed to go so completely from her as to have no sense of what he heard. With the coming of the night and the blazing-out of the lights, he began to get restless, wandering about the room as though each thing in it were raising a haunting memory before him. Once he objected, when Sassafras had started to unpack the easel and the paint-boxes.

“Not that!” he said angrily.

“Unpack them; you can put them away afterward,” she said casually.

He looked at her so furiously that, for a moment, she half expected an angry answer. Then he laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

“I know your idea--little good it will do!” he said, with a stubborn look, and went to the window, gazing out without further notice of what she did.

There was yet much to be done, but the essential had been accomplished. The studio had been rid of boxes and wrappings, and though frames and bric-à-brac, porcelains, bronzes, terra cottas, stood against the walls, mingled with the dull gray of rapiers, green masks and brown boxing gloves, with glowing pools of burnished copper, the room was humanized.

“That’s enough for to-night,” she said, after she had sent Sassafras away.

He turned, and the first thing he saw was the easel.

“You seem to know where to place it,” he said abruptly.

“I am glad that’s right,” she said quietly.

“Well, now that you’ve gotten me to do it,” he said, staring dully about the room, his nails at his mouth, “we’ll see what will come of it.”

She started to leave.

“Wait! I don’t mean to be rude,” he said nervously, “only----”

“Why, Mr. Dangerfield, don’t say that!” she said quietly. “I understand.”

He nodded, and rather absent-mindedly patted her shoulder. Then, apparently irrelevantly, he said:

“Afraid I’m going off on a wild night, aren’t you?”

“I wasn’t thinking of it.”

“See here,” he said abruptly; “I want you to understand one thing--that isn’t the trouble--I can stop that any time I want”--he added almost viciously--“but I don’t want to.” Then he said, seemingly without reason, as though his mind were vacillating from one extreme to the other: “How long is it to the twentieth?”

“Why, twelve days.”

“Still twelve? The twentieth--that’s a date to remember,” he said, as though to himself.

She saw him frown and stare past her, as that other self came into his eyes, bristling, savage, rebelling against some inner torture.

He started at the sound of her voice, looked at her a moment as though trying to account for her presence, and ended by saying:

“Well, it was curious.”

“What?”

“How you knew where to place that easel.”

“I don’t think so,” she said quietly.

He waited a moment, evidently turning something over in his mind, before saying with the same abruptness:

“Do I remind you of any one?”

She glanced at him quickly, and then shook her head twice energetically.

“That’s strange--well, you made me think so,” he said, and without explaining his meaning, he went off.

* * * * *

Having permitted her to influence him so far, out of pure deviltry, he seemed determined to make her regret it. To the surprise of every one, he became exceedingly sociable, dropping in at all hours, with the exception of tea-time, when the girls came back at the end of the day. He was always polite to them; but it was plain to see that they did not interest him in the least. This new phase of Dangerfield’s had unfortunately an upsetting influence, just as virtue had set in strongly, with Tootles composing the figure-scheme of his monumental work which would represent the ages in admiration before the apotheosis of the well-dressed man; Flick beginning new duties as the press-agent for a folding tooth-brush which could be carried in the vest pocket; and King O’Leary installed at the piano at Campeau’s restaurant. If Tootles and O’Leary maintained some semblance of concentration, Flick, who never refused an invitation to patrol the city or to usher in the sun, abandoned the folding tooth-brush on the second day of sightseeing in Dangerfield’s company. Sometimes the night ended in the studio with boxing or fencing or a group about the card-table, and Sassafras promoted to the station and perquisites of a butler. It was not so much the drinking that went on, though there was enough of that, but the waste of energy that was appalling. Though Dangerfield drank heavily and continuously, he had a knack of concealing it, of always remaining within the limits of his dignity. It was rather his consuming of vitality and lack of sleep that seemed to be wearing him down before their eyes.

“I am a classy, two-handed little champion myself,” said Flick, shaking his head; “but I’ve got to sleep once in three days to get the kinks out of my hair. I’ve seen some tough ones in my day, but my hat’s off to this one!”

“He can’t go on this way forever,” said Tootles, seriously.

“Right! There’s a smash-up coming soon,” said O’Leary laconically. “I know the signs.”

And then a curious interruption occurred.

They were all in Dangerfield’s studio, about eleven o’clock one night--a mixed group, for Dangerfield and Flick, in the wanderings of the night before, had been seized with the idea of giving a boxing carnival and had annexed two ornaments of the profession, Spike Feeley and Gumbo Rickey, who knew Flick of old. In order to impress Tootles, Flick had plotted a dramatic finale, in which, after the professionals had disposed of the amateurs, they were to go down before the might of his thin arms. Unfortunately, the imminence of this conclusion and the slight floating doubt which always accompanies trafficking with men of lower ethical standards had so weighed upon Flick that he had resorted to much artificial encouragement, until by the time Spike Feeley had floored Drinkwater (which was part of the program) and King O’Leary and Gumbo Rickey had slugged each other to their hearts’ content, Flick, the coming champion, was heard to whisper to his antagonist:

“First time--down--you down; make sure--see!”

Spike, to the honor of the profession, carried out his part of the contract to the extent of going down under the first assault, with a realistic imitation of unconsciousness. Unfortunately, Flick went down also, and, going down, stayed there; so that a new record was established in the annals of the fistic art by the spectacle of both men knocked out by one blow. When the laughter and confusion had subsided, Dangerfield made up his mind suddenly to put on the gloves. Until now, though he had fenced several bouts with Mr. Cornelius, who wielded the rapier with surprising dexterity, Dangerfield had never boxed; but something in the joyful fury of O’Leary’s bout had sent the fighting blood coursing in him. He stripped to the waist, and, in the glare of the top light which cut its brilliant circle through the obscurity of the farther room, his body came out impressively, muscled and knitted, despite the loose coating of flesh that lay over it.

“Look out for yourself, Spike!” he said suddenly, as Feeley slouched into a lazy, receptive attitude; and the joy with which his voice rang warned them that he could box.

Feeley came forward languidly with an orthodox feint. Dangerfield walked into him and drove a hard left straight to the face that sent the professional back with a rude jar and a quick flash of temper.

“All right, if that’s the way ye’s fightin’,” he said, and he came back crouching, with chin thrust out.

“I told you to look out,” said Dangerfield, laughing, and the next moment they were at it, back and forth, hammer and tongs, fast and heavy.

In the long run, condition must, of course, have told, though, to be fair, the professional, too, had been in the cups that night; but at a quick, mixing scrap, Dangerfield had him at his mercy. There was something ferocious in the way he plunged in, as though reveling in the opportunity of throwing off the tension under which he had struggled--a certain wild delight in the clash of bodies which caused the on-lookers to watch him a little apprehensively. He caught hard smashes with a reckless laugh, giving in kind. Once he went reeling against the old Roman chest and almost over, but he steadied himself and fought back, rocking the other man under the impact of his blows. It was no tame boxing exhibition but a fight for blood by now, and the spectators were on their feet, shouting in excitement, Drinkwater quite beside himself with curiosity and satisfaction at his host’s exhibition. A blow caught Feeley full on the head; he staggered, and Dangerfield stepped in with a mighty drive at the body which lifted him off the floor and flung him crashing into a pile of copper plaques that went clanging in every direction.... And at that precise moment the door opened and a woman stood looking in. Feeley, bounding up, came rushing in furiously, but Dangerfield stopped him with a quick oath, and he turned, gazing, too, at the tall figure, purposely concealed in furs and heavy veils.

There was a silence as flat as a calm in a gale. Each recognized at once that it was a woman of the world and that she had the right to be there, and drew back so as to leave the room to the two figures: the woman drawn up scornfully against the door, and Dangerfield, with his lips twitching and his curious bearlike stare, facing her, with the white lights running over his glistening neck and torso. It was a hard moment for him, and those who knew the man wondered into what paroxysm of anger he might go. In the end the breeding in him won out, and though his rage flashed up at the position into which she had put him, he held himself in fairly well. Fortunately, as he was standing there, seeking an excuse, King O’Leary came to his assistance.

“Better clear out, you fellows,” he sang out; and with that, like a herd of huddling sheep, awkwardly and nervously, they crowded out of the room, suddenly quieted and sobered. King O’Leary, who came last, closed the door, leaving Dangerfield alone with the woman, who, by the possessive assurance of her attitude, they instinctively divined must be his wife.

XIII

This dramatic interruption made a tremendous commotion. The party broke up instantly. O’Leary, who had been watching Drinkwater from the moment Dangerfield had put on the gloves, purposely left the door of their room open into the hall.

“What’s going on there is no business of ours,” he said grimly. “I propose to keep it so.”

Sure enough, presently along came Drinkwater, head down, as though unaware of the open door.

“Hey, there!”

At O’Leary’s call, the elongated figure pulled up abruptly, and Drinkwater’s gipsy face loomed high in the door-frame.

“Yes?” he said, blowing nervously through his nose. “What is it?”

“I say, Drinkwater, better keep away from that end of the hall,” said O’Leary casually. “You see, you might overhear something you oughtn’t to.”

Drinkwater looked around with an excellent simulation of surprise.

“Really?” he said affably. “I wasn’t noticing. Good-night.” With which, smiling, he moved away, and quite casually he reached out and closed the door.

O’Leary, whistling to himself, rose and opened it again, saying sarcastically:

“Now, wasn’t that cute of him!”

Presently, just as he had expected, Drinkwater came by the door again.

“Hey, there!”

The lawyer stopped, but this time there was no smile on his face.

“Well, what is it?” he said curtly.

“Told you to keep away from this end--savvy?” said O’Leary, looking at him.

“I do not recognize, O’Leary,” said the lawyer, puffing after every third word, and speaking as though he were addressing the court, “any right of yours to tell me what I should do.”

“You don’t? Well, I do. What’s going on in there is nothing in your life, old horse, so I’ve just made up my mind to sit here and see that no little five-dollar lawyer goes soft-footing it down there to sneak around. You see, Drinkwater, I’m on to your game.”

“What do you mean?” said the other, quietly enough, though his fingers were twitching at the hem of his coat.

“Think it over,” said O’Leary. “I’m not at all certain that this isn’t some of your work to-night. But you heard what I said. Now, git!”

Drinkwater stood looking at him stubbornly, hatred fairly oozing out of his brilliant black eyes that were now drawn and wicked as a cornered reptile’s. Then he blew through his nostrils again and went up the hall.

They waited with a sense of impending tragedy--Tootles at the table drawing nervous caricatures on a pad, Flick and Schneibel by the window, talking in low tones, O’Leary moving restlessly up and down the room. The woman had been there an hour by the watch which he jerked out every five minutes, when, all at once, they heard steps coming down the hall. O’Leary turned with a sudden start and shot over to the door, whether he believed it was Drinkwater again or whether he had some other possibility in mind. This time it was Mr. Cornelius, who, unable to contain his anxiety, had come down for news.

“Now, isn’t this a nice damn thing?” he said, in his staccato, excited way, and they noticed that his gray mustache, ordinarily so immaculate, was sadly twisted and awry. He stood there, fretting and undecided. “How long is it now since she was there?”

“Over an hour.”

Instinctively they were silent, listening. From the next room not a sound came to them.

“You hear anything?” said the baron.

“Once. They were getting up pretty high,” said O’Leary. “I gave them a rap or two on the wall.”

“I don’t like it--_une sale affaire! Que diable vient-elle faire ici?_” said the baron, twitching at the tuft under his chin.

“Do you think some one had better break it up?” said O’Leary, who showed a good deal of uneasiness, for him.

Tootles drew a big breath, shoved away his pad, and went to listen by the wall.

“A nice damn thing,” said Mr. Cornelius, angrily. “What a stupid damn thing--eh? Yes, perhaps some one had better go. One never knows--at such times. He is--so--so wild!”

“If any one goes, it’s up to you, Baron,” said O’Leary solemnly. “You’ve got more of the inside dope than we. It wouldn’t be quite so raw--” He pulled out his watch again, though he had consulted it only a few moments before, and said nervously: “Yes; darned if I don’t think you’d better see what’s going on.”

At this moment the door of the corner studio opened, and they heard Dangerfield say:

“Too late--I’ve said it--you’ve got just four days more.” Then something unintelligible in the woman’s voice, evidently a supplication, for he replied with a scornful laugh:

“With all your cleverness--you’re not clever enough. You should have known the man you were dealing with.”

The nerves of the listeners were at such a tension that they were quite unconscious of their exposed position in the hall. Dangerfield perceived them first, for he drew up, folded his arms and said:

“Don’t waste time--good-by.”

Whether or not she became aware of her listeners, she seemed to accept the inevitable, for, after a moment she said quietly:

“You will, at least, I suppose, see me to my car?”

He hesitated, and was about to comply, though it was evident that it went against the grain to do so, when the door of the little studio opened abruptly and Inga came out.

“Don’t go!” she said emphatically, moving directly to Dangerfield and touching his arm.

This unlooked-for action on the part of Inga left them all amazed. Curiously enough, the only one who seemed to take it as a matter of course was Dangerfield.

“Why do you say that?” he said sharply, yet seeming to give the matter attention.

“Don’t go--don’t!” she repeated insistently.

While every one was waiting for what was going to happen next, the woman said quietly, with supreme insolence, as though such persons as Inga were beneath her notice:

“You have not quite lost, I suppose, all sense of decency? Kindly take me out of this humiliating scene.”

There was something in her tone that did not quite ring true. It was too calm, too calculatedly unresentful, perhaps. At any rate, each was conscious of an uneasy sense of distrust. Dangerfield, who had been looking at Inga’s tense face, seemed to make up his mind all at once.

“O’Leary, are you there?” he said abruptly.

To the surprise of the others, O’Leary stepped forward at once and blurted out:

“Miss Sonderson’s advice is good. If you want, I’ll show the lady down.”

“Do,” said Dangerfield, who by now was in a high pitch of excitement, staring with shifty suspicion at the woman. At such moments, there was something brooding and combustible about him that gave one the sensation of walking over a mine.

The woman drew hastily away, as though really alarmed; then she turned on them as they stood together, Inga’s hand still resting on his arm, as though to quiet him.

“So that’s how it is?” she said, with a high-pitched laugh.

Then she turned and went around the corner. At the steps she seemed to see O’Leary for the first time.

“I don’t need your assistance,” she said curtly.

O’Leary, without reply, continued to follow. At the bottom of the flight she turned again. This time her voice was conciliating.

“Thank you, but I prefer to go on alone.”

“Yes, yes,” said O’Leary, as though he had grown suddenly deaf; “but it’s no trouble--none at all.”

At the next flight she wheeled around with abrupt determination.

“You evidently don’t understand me,” she said sharply. “Your presence is obnoxious. I _wish_ to be left alone.”

“Very probably,” said O’Leary, without, however, having shown any signs of departing.

“Do you hear me?” she said angrily.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Useless to talk to me like that, my lady,” he said, exaggerating his role for purposes of his own. “I’m no gentleman, you see--you can’t put those tricks over on me. I’m just King O’Leary, and I’m going to see that you get out of here. Now that you understand things better, will you go quietly, or do you want me to pick you up and carry you?”

She drew back with a cry.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Well, which is it?”

She made up her mind quickly; evidently she could size up a situation and reconcile herself to it when faced with a crisis, for she turned and went down the other flights without a word.

On the second floor, his ear caught the sounds of hurried, slipping steps. He turned hastily, almost certain that he had seen the passage of some tall, shifting body, but he did not dare to investigate them, with the duty in hand.

“Are you satisfied now?” she said, when they had reached the ground floor. “Your intention is not to annoy me, is it?”