"Then don't call," he advised. "Send your valet in a cab to leave a card at the door. Calling has gone clean out--unless a man's got something very especial in mind. Never show that you're eager. Keep your hand hid."

"They'd know I had something especial in mind if I called?"

"Certainly, and if you'd gone in those togs, they'd have a.s.sumed you had come to--to ask the old man for his daughter--or something like that."

I lost no time in getting back into a business suit.

A week pa.s.sed and, just as I was within sight of my limit of patience, Bromwell Ellersly appeared at my office. "I can't put my hand on the necessary cash, Mr. Blacklock--at least, not for a few days. Can I count on your further indulgence?" This in his best exhibit of old-fashioned courtliness--the "gentleman" through and through, ignorant of anything useful.

"Don't let that matter worry you, Ellersly," said I, friendly, for I wanted to be on a somewhat less business-like basis with that family. "The market's steady, and will go up before it goes down."

"Good!" said he. "By the way, you haven't kept your promise to call."

"I'm a busy man," said I. "You must make my excuses to your wife. But--in the evenings. Couldn't we get up a little theater-party--Mrs. Ellersly and your daughter and you and I--Sam, too, if he cares to come?"

"Delightful!" cried he.

"Whichever one of the next five evenings you say," I said. "Let me know by to-morrow morning, will you?" And we talked no more of the neglected margins; we understood each other. When he left he had negotiated a three months' loan of twenty thousand dollars.

They were so surprised that they couldn't conceal it, when they were ushered into my apartment on the Wednesday evening they had fixed upon. If my taste in dress was somewhat too p.r.o.nounced, my taste in my surroundings was not. I suppose the same instinct that made me like the music and the pictures and the books that were the products of superior minds had guided me right in architecture, decoration and furniture. I know I am one of those who are born with the instinct for the best. Once Monson got in the way of free criticism, he indulged himself without stint, after the customary human fashion; in fact, so free did he become that had I not feared to frighten him and so bring about the defeat of my purposes, I should have sat on him hard very soon after we made our bargain. As it was, I stood his worst impudences without flinching, and partly consoled myself with the amus.e.m.e.nt I got out of watching his vanity lead him on into thinking his knowledge the most vital matter in the world--just as you sometimes see a waiter or a clerk with the air of sharing the care of the universe with the Almighty.

But even Monson could find nothing to criticize either in my apartment or in my country house. And, by the way, he showed his limitations by remarking, after he had inspected: "I must say, Blacklock, your architects and decorators have done well by you." As if a man's surroundings were not the unfailing index to himself, no matter how much money he spends or how good architects and the like he hires. As if a man could ever buy good taste.

I was pleased out of all proportion to its value by what Ellersly and his wife looked and said. But, though I watched Miss Ellersly closely, though I tried to draw from her some comment on my belongings--on my pictures, on my superb tapestries, on the beautiful carving of my furniture--I got nothing from her beyond that first look of surprise and pleasure. Her face resumed its statuelike calm, her eyes did not wander; her lips, like a crimson bow painted upon her clear, white skin, remained closed. She spoke only when she was spoken to, and then as briefly as possible. The dinner--and a mighty good dinner it was--would have been memorable for strain and silence had not Mrs. Ellersly kept up her incessant chatter. I can't recall a word she said, but I admired her for being able to talk at all. I knew she was in the same state as the rest of us, yet she acted perfectly at her ease; and not until I thought it over afterward did I realize that she had done all the talking, except answers to her occasional and cleverly-sprinkled direct questions.

Ellersly sat opposite me, and I was irritated, and thrown into confusion, too, every time I lifted my eyes, by the crushed, criminal expression of his face. He ate and drank hugely--and extremely bad manners it would have been regarded in me had I made as much noise as he, or lifted such quant.i.ties at a time into my mouth. But through his noisy gluttony he managed somehow to maintain that hang-dog air--like a thief who has gone through the house and, on his way out, has paused at the pantry, with the sack of plunder beside him, to gorge himself.

I looked at Anita several times, each time with a carefully-framed remark ready; each time I found her gaze on me--and I could say nothing, could only look away in a sort of panic. Her eyes were strangely variable. I have seen them of a gray, so pale that it was almost silver--like the steely light of the snow-line at the edge of the horizon; again, and they were so that evening, they shone with the deepest, softest blue, and made one think, as one looked at her, of a fresh violet frozen in a block of clear ice.

I sat behind her in the box at the theater. During the first and second intermissions several men dropped in to speak to her mother and her--fellows who didn't ever come down town, but I could tell they knew who I was by the way they ignored me. It exasperated me to a pitch of fury, that coldly insolent air of theirs--a jerky nod at me without so much as a glance, and no notice of me when they were leaving _my_ box beyond a faint, supercilious smile as they pa.s.sed with eyes straight ahead. I knew what it meant, what they were thinking--that the "Bucket-Shop King," as the newspapers had dubbed me, was trying to use old Ellersly's necessities as a "jimmy" and "break into society." When the curtain went down for the last intermission, two young men appeared; I did not get up as I had before, but stuck to my seat--I had reached that point at which courtesy has become cowardice.

They craned and strained at her round me and over me, presently gave up and retired, disguising their anger as contempt for the bad manners of a bounder. But that disturbed me not a ripple, the more as I was delighting in a consoling discovery. Listening and watching as she talked with these young men, whom she evidently knew well, I noted that she was distant and only politely friendly in manner habitually, that while the ice might thicken for me, it was there always. I knew enough about women to know that, if the woman who can thaw only for one man is the most difficult, she is also the most constant. "Once she thaws toward me!" I said to myself.

When the young men had gone, I leaned forward until my head was close to hers, to her hair--fine, soft, abundant, electric hair. Like the infatuated fool that I was, I tore out all the pigeon-holes of my brain in search of something to say to her, something that would start her to thinking well of me. She must have felt my breath upon her neck, for she moved away slightly, and it seemed to me a shiver visibly pa.s.sed over that wonderful white skin of hers.

I drew back and involuntarily said, "Beg pardon." I glanced at her mother and it was my turn to shudder. I can't hope to give an accurate impression of that stony, mercenary, mean face. There are looks that paint upon the human countenance the whole of a life, as a flash of lightning paints upon the blackness of the night miles on miles of landscape. That look of Mrs.

Ellersly's--stern disapproval at her daughter, stern command that she be more civil, that she unbend--showed me the old woman's soul. And I say that no old harpy presiding over a dive is more full of the venom of the hideous calculations of the market for flesh and blood than is a woman whose life is wrapped up in wealth and show.

"If you wish it," I said, on impulse, to Miss Ellersly in a low voice, "I shall never try to see you again."

I could feel rather than see the blood suddenly beating in her skin, and there was in her voice a nervousness very like fright as she answered: "I'm sure mama and I shall be glad to see you whenever you come."

"You?" I persisted.

"Yes," she said, after a brief hesitation.

"Glad?" I persisted.

She smiled--the faintest change in the perfect curve of her lips. "You are very persistent, aren't you?"

"Very," I answered. "That is why I have always got whatever I wanted."

"I admire it," said she.

"No, you don't," I replied. "You think it is vulgar, and you think I am vulgar because I have that quality--that and some others."

She did not contradict me.

"Well, I _am_ vulgar--from your standpoint," I went on. "I have purposes and pa.s.sions. And I pursue them. For instance, you."

"I?" she said tranquilly.

"You," I repeated. "I made up my mind the first day I saw you that I'd make you like me. And--you will."

"That is very flattering," said she. "And a little terrifying. For"--she faltered, then went bravely on--"I suppose there isn't anything you'd stop at in order to gain your end."

"Nothing," said I, and I compelled her to meet my gaze.

She drew a long breath, and I thought there was a sob in it--like a frightened child.

"But I repeat," I went on, "that if you wish it, I shall never try to see you again. Do you wish it?"

"I--don't--know," she answered slowly. "I think--not."

As she spoke the last word, she lifted her eyes to mine with a look of forced friendliness in them that I'd rather not have seen there. I wished to be blind to her defects, to the stains and s.m.u.tches with which her surroundings must have sullied her. And that friendly look seemed to me an unmistakable hypocrisy in obedience to her mother. However, it had the effect of bringing her nearer to my own earthy level, of putting me at ease with her; and for the few remaining minutes we talked freely, I indifferent whether my manners and conversation were correct. As I helped her into their carriage, I pressed her arm slightly, and said in a voice for her only, "Until to-morrow."

XIV. FRESH AIR IN A GREENHOUSE

At five the next day I rang the Ellerslys' bell, was taken through the drawing-room into that same library. The curtains over the double doorway between the two rooms were almost drawn. She presently entered from the hall. I admired the picture she made in the doorway--her big hat, her embroidered dress of white cloth, and that small, sweet, cold face of hers.

And as I looked, I knew that nothing, nothing--no, not even her wish, her command--could stop me from trying to make her my own. That resolve must have shown in my face--it or the pa.s.sion that inspired it--for she paused and paled.

"What is it?" I asked. "Are you afraid of me?"

She came forward proudly, a fine scorn in her eyes. "No," she said. "But if you knew, you might be afraid of me."

"I am," I confessed. "I am afraid of you because you inspire in me a feeling that is beyond my control. I've committed many follies in my life--I have moods in which it amuses me to defy fate. But those follies have always been of my own willing. You"--I laughed--"you are a folly for me. But one that compels me."

She smiled--not discouragingly--and seated herself on a tiny sofa in the corner, a curiously impregnable intrenchment, as I noted--for my impulse was to carry her by storm. I was astonished at my own audacity; I was wondering where my fear of her had gone, my awe of her superior fineness and breeding. "Mama will be down in a few minutes," she said.

"I didn't come to see your mother," replied I. "I came to see you."

She flushed, then froze--and I thought I had once more "got upon" her nerves with my rude directness. How eagerly sensitive our nerves are to bad impressions of one we don't like, and how coa.r.s.ely insensible to bad impressions of one we do like!