Miss Loring had no engagements for the evening, and excusing herself to her family, spent it alone in her room, where for a long while she sat or walked the floor, in dire distress, her faculties benumbed like those of a person who has suffered a calamitous grief or a physical violence. Sentence by sentence she slowly rehearsed the conversation of which she had been the subject, seeking vainly for some phrase that might lead her into the paths of comprehension and peace. The thought of Coleman Van Duyn loomed large, indeed, but another figure loomed larger. She was new to the world of men, of men of the world, such as she had met since she had been in New York, but it had never occurred to her to believe that there could be a person so base as Philip Gallatin. He weakened her faith in herself and in all the world. The dishonor he had offered her had been enough without this added insult to the memory of it. Downtown they were using her name scurrilously in the same breath with that of Phil Gallatin, speaking her name lightly as they spoke of—of other women they couldn’t respect. Phil Gallatin’s name and hers! It was the more bitter, because in her heart she now knew that she had given him more of her thoughts than any man had ever had before. Oh, what kind of a world was this into which she had come, which was made up of men who held their own honor and the honor of the women of their own kind so lightly? People received him, she knew. She[123] had even heard of his being at the Suydams on an evening when she had been there. She had not seen him, and thanked God for that; for since their meeting in the Park, some weeks ago, her conscience had troubled her more than once, and her heart had had curious phases of uncertainty. “What if what he had said about his own dependence on her were true?” She had questioned herself, “What if,” as in a few unrelated moments of moral irresponsibility she had madly speculated, “what if he really loved her as he said he did—and that his mad moment in the woods—their mad moment, as she had even fearfully acknowledged, was only the supreme expression of that reality?” He had solemnly sworn that he had kept the faith—that since that afternoon in the woods he had not broken it. She saw his dark eyes now and the animal-like look of irresolution which had been in them when she had turned away and left him.
Could this man they were talking of in the clubs who gibed at the virtue of women to make a good story, be the same smiling fugitive of the north woods, the man with the laugh of a boy, the tenderness of a woman and the strength of moral fiber to battle for her as he had done against the odds of the wilderness? It was unbelievable. And yet how could Coleman Van Duyn have repeated the story if he had not heard it? There was no reply for that. Weary at last, trying to reconcile the two irreconcilable facts, she fell into a fit of nervous tears at the end of which, relaxed and utterly exhausted, she sank to sleep.
Even then, though reason slept, her imagination had no rest, and she dreamed, one vision predominant—that of a tall figure who carried upon his back the carcass of a deer, his somber eyes peering over his shoulder at a shadow which followed him in the underbrush. But when[124] she spoke to the figure it smiled and the shadow behind disappeared. In her dream, she found this a curious phenomenon, and when the shadow returned, as it presently did, she spoke again. The shadow vanished and the smile appeared on the face of the man with the burden. Several times she repeated this experiment and each time the same thing happened. But in a moment the shadow formed into a definite shape, the bulky shape of Coleman Van Duyn it seemed, and growing larger as it came, closed in over them both. This time when she tried to speak, her lips would utter no sound. She awoke suffocating, and sat up in bed, gasping for breath. She looked about her and gave a long sigh of relief, for day had broken and the cool dawn was filtering through the warm flowered pattern on her window hangings, flooding the room with a rosy light.
That shadow! It had been so tangible, so real that she had fought at it with her bare hands when it had descended above Phil Gallatin’s head! She lay awhile looking up at the painted ceiling, her eyes wide open, fearing that she might sleep again and the dream return; and then, without ringing for her maid, got out of bed abruptly, slipping her small feet into fur-lined room-slippers and putting on a flowered kimono. She was angry at herself for having dreams that could not be explained.
What right had Phil Gallatin’s image to persist in her thoughts, even when she slept? And what did the vision mean? The shadow must be the shadow that had ever followed the Gallatins, and yet it looked like Coley Van Duyn! She laughed outright, and the sound of her voice echoed strangely in her ears. She had thought the shadow ominous, but she could laugh now because it looked like Coley!
She drew her bath and peered out of the window at[125] the sunlight. Familiar sounds and sights reassured her, and with her plunge came rehabilitation, physical and mental. Poor Coley! How jealous he was, and how unghostlike! So jealous, perhaps, that he had lied to her! The thought of the possibility of this moral turpitude caused her to pause in the midst of her toilet and smile at her reflection in the mirror. It was a gay little smile which seemed out of place on the pale image which confronted her. She drew back her curtains and the morning sunlight streamed into the room bringing life and good cheer. No, she would not—could not believe what Coley had told of Philip Gallatin.
She dressed quickly, and before her astonished maid had her eyes open, had found the dog, Chicot, downstairs, and was out in the frosty air breasting the keen north wind in the Avenue. It was Kee-way-din that kissed her brow, Kee-way-din that brought the flush of health and youth into her cheeks, the breath of Kee-way-din which came with a winter message of hopefulness from the distant north woods. Chicot was joyful, too, and bounded like a harlequin along the walk and into the reaches of the Park. This was an unusual privilege for him, for his mistress carried not even a leash, and he was bent on making the most of his opportunities. He seemed to be aware that only business of unusual importance would take her out at this hour of the day, and came back barking and whining his sympathy and encouragement. Like most jesters, Chicot was foolish, but he had a heart under his Eton jacket, and he took pains that she should know it.
Chicot’s philosophy cleared the atmosphere. Her course of action now seemed surprisingly clear to Jane. Philip Gallatin being no more and no less to her than any other man, deserved exactly the consideration to which her gratitude entitled him, deserved the punishment which[126] fitted the crime—precisely the punishment which she had given him. If they met, she would simply ignore him as she did other men to whom she was indifferent, and she thought that she could trust herself to manage the rest if, indeed, her rebuff had not already made her intentions clear to Gallatin. Refusing to meet him or cutting him in public would only draw attention and give him an importance with which she was far from willing to invest him. If, as she had said, he was not responsible for his actions, he was a very unfortunate young man, and deserved her pity as much as her condemnation; and it was obvious that he could not be more responsible for his actions in New York than elsewhere. She still refused to believe that her name had passed his lips, for of his honor in all things save one, reason as well as instinct now assured her.
The story of Coleman Van Duyn’s no longer persisted. In spite of herself she made a mental picture of the two men, and Van Duyn suffered in the comparison. Coley had lied to her. That was all.
She walked briskly for twenty minutes and then sat down on a bench, the very one she remembered, upon which Mr. Gallatin three weeks ago had sat and told her of his misfortunes. Chicot came and sat in front of her, his muzzle on her knees, and looked up rapturously into her eyes.
“You’re such a sinful little dorglums, Chicot,” she said to him. “Don’t you know that? To go running off and bringing back disagreeable and impudent vagabonds for me to send away? You’re quite silly. And your moustache is precisely like Colonel Broadhurst’s, except that it’s painted black. Are you really as wise as you look? I don’t believe you are, because you’re dressed like a harlequin, and harlequins are never wise, or they[127] shouldn’t be harlequins. Wise people don’t wear topknots on their heads and rings upon their tails, Chicot. Oh, it’s all very well for you to be so devoted now, but you’d run away at once if another vagabond came along—a tall vagabond with dark eyes and a deep voice that appealed to your own little vagabond heart. You’re faithless, Chicot, and I don’t care for you at all.”
She rubbed his glossy ears between her fingers, and he put one dusty paw upon her lap. “No, I can’t forgive you,” she went on. “Never! All is over between us. You’re a dissipated little vagabond, that’s what you are, with no sense of responsibility whatever. I’m going to put you in a deep dark dungeon, on a diet of dust and dungaree, where you shall stay and meditate on your sins. Not another maron—not one. You’re absolutely worthless, Chicot, that’s what you are—worthless!”
The knot on the end of the dog’s tail whisked approval; for, though he understood exactly what she said, it was the correct thing for dog-people to act only by tones of voice, but when his mistress got up he frisked homeward joyfully, with a gratified sense of his own important share in the conclusion of the business of the morning.
Jane Loring entered upon the daily round thoughtfully, but with a new sense of her responsibilities. For the first time in her life she had had a sense of the careless cruelty of the world for those thrown unprotected upon its good will. There was a note of plethoric contrition in her mail from Coleman Van Duyn. She read it very carefully twice as though committing it to memory, and then tearing it into small pieces committed it to the waste basket, a hard little glitter in her eyes which Mr. Van Duyn might not have cared to see. She made a resolve that from this hour she would live according to another[128] code. She was no longer the little school-girl from the convent in Paris. She was full-fledged now and would take life as she found it, her eyes widely opened, not with the wonder of adolescence, but keen for the excitements as well as the illusions that awaited her.
She got down from her limousine at the Pennington’s house in Stuyvesant Square that night alone. Mr. Van Duyn, in his note, had pleaded to be allowed to stop for her in his machine and bring her home, but she had not called him on the ’phone as he had requested. It was a dinner for some of the members of the Cedarcroft set, as formal as any function to which this gay company was invited, could ever be. Jane was a moment late and hurried upstairs not a little excited, for though she had known Nellie Pennington in Pau, the guests were probably strangers to her. In the dressing-room, where she found Miss Jaffray and another girl she had not met, a maid helped her off with her cloak and carriage boots and, when she was ready to go down, handed her a silver tray bearing a number of small envelopes. She selected the one which bore her name, carelessly, wondering whether her fortunes for the evening were to be entrusted to Mr. Worthington or to Mr. Van Duyn, to find on the enclosed card the name of Philip Gallatin.
She paled a little, hesitated and lingered in the darkness by the door under the mental plea of rearranging her roses, her mind in a tumult. She had hardly expected to find him here, for Mr. Gallatin, she had heard, hunted no more and Nellie Pennington had never even mentioned his name. What should she do? To say that she did not wish to go in with a man high in the favor of her host and hostess as well as every one else, without giving a reason for her refusal would be gratuitously insulting to her hostess as well as to Mr. Gallatin. She glanced helplessly[129] at Nina Jaffray, who was leaning toward the pier glass, a stick of lip-salve in her fingers, and realized at once that there was to be no rescue from her predicament. Besides, changing cards with Miss Jaffray would not help matters, for over in the men’s dressing room Mr. Gallatin by this time had read the card which told him that Miss Loring was to be his dinner partner.
She could not understand how such a thing had happened. Had Nellie Pennington heard? That was impossible. There were but three people in New York who knew about Mr. Gallatin and herself, and the third one was Coley Van Duyn, who had guessed at their relations. Could Philip Gallatin have dared—dared to ask this favor of their hostess after Jane’s repudiation of him in the Park? She couldn’t believe that either. Fate alone could have conspired to produce a situation so full of exquisite possibilities. She waited a moment, gathering her shattered resources; and with that skill at dissimulation which men sometimes ape, but never actually attain, she thrust her arm through Miss Jaffray’s and the two of them went down the wide stairway, a very pretty picture of youth and unconcern.
Jane’s eyes swept the room with obtrusive carelessness, and took in every one in it, including the person for whom the glance was intended, who saw it from a distant corner, and marveled at the smile with which she entered and greeted her hostess.
“Hello, Nina! Jane, dear, so glad you could come!” said Nellie Pennington. “Oh, what a perfectly darling dress! You went to Doucet after all—for your debutante trousseau. Perhaps, I’d better call it your layette—you absurd child! Oh, for the roses of yesterday! You know Betty Tremaine, don’t you? And Mr. Savage? Coley do stop glaring and tell Phil Gallatin to come here at[130] once. My dear, you’re going in with the nicest man—a very great friend of mine, and I want you to be particularly sweet to him. Hear? Mr. Gallatin—you haven’t met—I know. Here he is now. Miss Loring—Mr. Gallatin.”
Jane nodded and coolly extended her hand. “How do you do,” she said, tepidly polite, and then quickly to her hostess. “It was very nice of you to think of me, Nellie. It seems ages since Pau, doesn’t it?”
“Ages! You unpleasant person. When you get as old as I am, you’ll never mention the flight of time. Ugh!”
Her shudder was very effective. Nellie Pennington was thirty-five, looked twenty, and knew it.
“What difference does it make,” laughed Jane, “when Time forgets one?”
“Very prettily said, my dear. Time may amble, but he’s too nimble to let you get him by the forelock.” And turning she greeted the late comers.
Jane turned to Mr. Gallatin, who was saying something at her ear.
“I beg your pardon,” she said.
“I hope you don’t think that I—I am responsible for this situation,” he repeated.
“What situation, Mr. Gallatin?”
“I hope you don’t think that I knew I was to go in to dinner with you.”
She laughed. “I hadn’t really thought very much about it.”
“I didn’t—I didn’t even know you were to be here. It’s an accident—a cruel one. I wouldn’t have had it happen for anything in the world.”
“Do you think that’s very polite?” she asked lightly.
[131]
“I mean—” he stammered, “that you’ll have to acquit me of any intention——”
“You mean,” she interrupted quickly, with widely opened eyes, “that you don’t want to go in to dinner with me? I think that can easily be arranged,” and she turned away from him toward her hostess. But he quickly interposed.
“Don’t, Miss Loring. Don’t do that. It isn’t necessary. I didn’t want your evening spoiled.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said, and the curl of her lip did not escape him. “That could hardly happen. But, if you have any doubts about it, perhaps——”
“It was of you I was thinking——”
“That’s very kind, I’m sure. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t get on admirably. I’m not so difficult as you seem to suppose. Why should you spoil my evening, Mr. Gallatin?”
She turned and looked him full in the eyes; and he knew then what he had suspected at first, that she meant to deny that they had ever met before.
He gazed at her calmly, a slow smile twisting his lips, acknowledging her rebuke, and acquiescing silently in her position.
“I’m sure I don’t wish to spoil it. I’m only too happy—to—to be so much honored.”
“There!” she laughed easily. “You can be polite, can’t you? Do you hunt, Mr. Gallatin?” quickly changing the topic to one less personal. “I thought nobody ever dined here unless he was at least first cousin to a Centaur.”
“Oh, no,” he laughed. “Mrs. Pennington isn’t so exclusive as that. But I’m sure she’d have her own hunters in to table if she could. This is quite the liveliest[132] house! Mrs. Pennington is the most wonderful woman in the world, and the reason is that she absolutely refuses to be bored. She likes Centaurs because they’re mostly natural creatures like herself, but she hasn’t any use for Dinosaurs!”
A general movement toward the table, and Jane took Phil Gallatin’s arm and followed. A huge horse-shoe of Beauties formed the centerpiece, from which emerged the Cedarhurst Steeplechase Cup, won three years in succession by Dick Pennington. The decorations of the room were in red and gold, and a miniature steeplechase course was laid around the table with small fences, brush and water jumps, over which tiny equestrians in pink coats gayly cavorted. Miss Loring found to her delight that the neighbor on her other side was Mr. Worthington. At least she was not to be without resource if the situation grew beyond her. But Mr. Gallatin having made token of his acquiescence, gave no sign of further intrusion. His talk was of the people about them, of their ambitions and their lack of them, of motoring, of country houses and the latest news in Vanity Fair, to which she listened with interest, casually questioning or venturing an opinion. The only r?le possible for her was one of candor, and she played it with cool deliberation, carefully guiding his remarks into the well-buoyed channels of the commonplace.
And while he talked amusedly, gayly even, in the glances that she stole at his profile, she found that he had grown thinner, and that the dark shadows under his eyes, which she remembered, were still to be found there. The fingers of his right hand slowly revolved the stem of a flower. All of his wine glasses she discovered he had turned bowl downward. His cocktail he had slowly pushed aside until it was now hidden in the garland of roses which circled the table. She felt quite sorry for him, as[133] she had felt last summer, and now, better attuned to detraction than to praise, her mind and instinct both proclaimed him, in spite of herself—a gentleman. Coleman Van Duyn had lied to her. She was conscious of Coley surveying her from his seat across the table with a jaundiced eye, and this surveillance, while it made her uncomfortable, served to feed the flame of her ire. Coley Van Duyn had lied to her, and the lot of liars was oblivion.
A pause in the conversation when Nina Jaffray’s voice broke in on Mr. Gallatin’s right.
“It isn’t true, is it, Phil?”
He questioned.
“What they’re saying about you,” she went on.
He laughed uneasily. “Yes, of course, if it’s something dreadful enough.”
“Oh, it isn’t dreadful, Phil, only so enchantingly sinful that it doesn’t sound like you in the least.”
“No, Nina. It isn’t true. Enchanting sin and I are strangers. Miss Loring and I have just been talking about original sin in saddle-horses. I contend——”
“Phil, I won’t be diverted in this way. I believe it’s true.”
“Then what’s the use of questioning me?”
“I’m foolish enough to want you to deny it.”
“Even if it is an enchanting sin? You might at least let me flatter myself that much.”
Miss Jaffray’s long eyes closed the fraction of an inch, as she surveyed him aslant through her lashes, then her lips broke into a smile which showed her small and perfectly even teeth.
“You shan’t evade me any longer. I’m insanely jealous, Phil. Who was the girl you got lost with in the woods?”
Gallatin passed a miserable moment. He had sensed[134] the question and had tried to prevent it, cold with dismay that Miss Loring should be in earshot. He flushed painfully and for his life’s sake could make no reply.
“It’s true—you’re blushing. I could forgive you for the sin, but for blushing for it—never!”
Gallatin had hoped that Miss Loring might have turned to her other neighbor, but he had not dared to look. Now he felt rather than saw that she was a listener to the dialogue, and he heard her voice—cool, clear, and insistent, just at his ear:
“How very interesting, Nina! Mr. Gallatin’s sins are finding him out?”
“No, I am,” said the girl. “I’ve known Phil Gallatin since we were children, and he has always been the most unsusceptible of persons. He has never had any time for girls. And now! Now by his guilty aspect he tacitly acknowledges a love affair in the Canadian wilderness with a——”
“Oh, do stop, Nina,” he said in suppressed tones. “Miss Loring can hardly be interested in——”
“But I am,” put in Miss Loring coolly. “Do tell me something more, Nina. Was she young and pretty?”
“Ask this guilty wretch——”
“Don’t you know who she was? What was her name?”
“That’s just what I want to find out. And nobody seems to know, except Phil.”
“Do tell us, Mr. Gallatin.”
“She had no name,” said Mr. Gallatin very quietly. “There was no girl in the woods.”
“A woman, then?” queried Miss Jaffray.
“Neither girl—nor woman—only a Dryad. The woods are full of them. My Indian guide insisted that——”
“Oh, no, you sha’n’t get out of it so easily, Phil, and[135] I insist upon your sticking to facts. A Dryad, indeed, with the latest thing in fishing rods and creels!”
Miss Jaffray had not for a moment taken her gaze from Gallatin’s face, but now she changed her tone to one of impudent raillery. “You know, Phil, you’ve always held women in such high regard that I’ve always thought you positively tiresome. And now, just when I find you developing the most unusual and interesting qualities, you deny their very existence! I was just getting ready to fall madly in love with you. How disappointing you are! Isn’t he, Jane?”
“Dreadfully so,” said Miss Loring. “Tell it all, Mr. Gallatin, by all means, since we already know the half. I’m sure the reality can’t be nearly as dreadful as we already think it is.”
Her effrontery astounded him, but he met her fairly.
“There’s nothing to tell. If an enchantingly sinful man met an enchantingly helpless Dryad—what would be likely to happen? Can you tell us, Miss Loring?”
Jane’s weapons went flying for a moment, but she recovered them adroitly.
“The situation has possibilities of which you are in every way worthy, I don’t doubt, Mr. Gallatin. The name of your Dryad will, of course, be revealed in time. I’m sure if Miss Jaffray pleads with you long enough you’ll gladly tell her.”
Nina Jaffray laughed.
“Come, Phil, there’s a dear. Do tell a fellow. I’ve really got to know, if only for the fun of scratching her eyes out. I’m sure I ought to—oughtn’t I, Jane?”
But Miss Loring had already turned and was deep in conversation with Mr. Worthington, who for twenty minutes at least, had been trying to attract her attention.