The Everlasting Whisper Part 12

Gloria's escort, obviously holding himself to be privileged through virtue of his briefly temporary office, thrust himself along in her wake. Him King did not notice; King saw only Gloria. As of old she set his pulse stirring restlessly with her sparkling, vivid loveliness.

To-night was Gloria's night; she was eighteen and queen of the world.

"And----Oh, look!" She let her hands remain in his but her eyes were all for the little brown bundle of fur at King's feet, that began now to whine and pull back at its chain. "My birthday present!"

Just now Mark King would have given anything he could think of to have that bear cub back in the woods where it belonged. He hadn't had time to a.n.a.lyse impulses; he didn't know why all of a sudden his gift seemed out of place. As he let Gloria's fingers slip through his he looked at the young fellow, a boy of Gloria's own age, in the doorway. Perhaps the full evening dress had something to do with King's new att.i.tude toward his pet. But now as Gloria, a little timid and holding her skirts back and yet clearly delighted, flashed him her look of understanding and grat.i.tude, he was content.

Gloria remembered to make Mr. King known to Mr. Trimble. Then King suggested that they take the cub around back and lodge him for the night in the garage. But Gloria, discovering that she could pat and fondle the little creature, and that he was of friendly disposition, insisted on having him brought into the house for all to see.

"It's the most delightful present of all!" she whispered to King.

In the hallway they were surrounded by a crowd of the curious. Girls in pretty dresses, young fellows in black suits, all very exact as to the proper evening appointments. At first they were disposed to look on King as "the man who brought the cub," and it was only when Gloria began a string of introductions that they understood. One and all, they regarded Mark King curiously.

The cub was made much of, and finally led off to the kitchen for sugar and a bed in a box under the table. Mrs. Gaynor appeared and was "very glad indeed to see Mr. King again." Gratton, whom King remembered with small liking, came up and shook hands, and looked at King in a way which did nothing to increase the liking. Ben, it appeared, had been unable to come this year. King was sorry for that as he looked about him. Only now did he remember the violets he had brought for Gloria.

The evening was anything but that to which he had looked forward. From the beginning he regretted coming; before the end it was slow torture for him. He was out of place and felt more out of place than he was.

Glances at his carelessly purchased clothes were veiled, and never utterly impolite, but he was conscious of them. He was conspicuous because he was different; outwardly in garb, inwardly in much else.

There was no one here whom he knew; he had never felt that he knew Gloria's mother, and to-night Gloria's self, puzzling him, baffling him, was an Unknown. Not that she was not delightful to him; she was just as delightful to every other man there, and in the same way. His days with her in the forest blurred and faded.

Gloria gave him the first dance after his arrival, highhandedly commanding a fair-haired and despondent youth to surrender to King one of his numbers. King caught her into his arms hungrily--only to feel that she was very far away from him. He knew that he was dancing awkwardly; he had not danced for a dozen years. Gloria suggested sitting out the rest of the dance; she said it prettily but he understood. He understood, too, by that sixth sense of man which is so keen at certain moments of mental distress that all of Gloria's friends were wondering about him, where he came from, "what his business was." He was tanned, rugged. He was not of them. He fancied, sensitively, that among themselves they laughed at him. As he sat with Gloria and found little to say, he was conscious of her eyes probing at him when she thought that he did not see. He looked away, a shadow in his eyes, and chanced to see Gratton. Gratton, who had struck him as contemptible in the woods, a misfit and a poor sort of man at best, was here on his own heath. He carried himself well, he talked well; he bore himself with a certain distinction. Clearly he was much in favour among the girls and women, much envied by the younger men. Yes; Gloria was right: this was another sort of wilderness where Mark King was the misfit, where Gratton was as much in tone with his environment as was King among the forest and crags of the ridges.

Another dance. Gloria excused herself lightly and escaped into the arms of Gratton himself. Escaped! King understood; that was the word for it.

He watched them; saw Gratton whisper something into her ear, saw Gloria toss her head, saw her cheeks flush. Then Gratton laughed and she laughed with him. They danced wonderfully together, swaying together like two reeds in the same gentle wind. Others than King noticed; there were knowing smiles. At the end of the dance King saw the look which Gloria, flushed and happy, flashed up at Gratton, and his heart contracted in a sudden spasm of pain.

When again couples were seeking each other to the jazzy invitation of the musicians, King slipped away and went outside. He stood in the shadows of the porch seeking to get a grip on himself. In a moment he would go in and say good-night to Mrs. Gaynor; he'd say good-night to Gloria; he would go and put an end to a hideous nightmare. He held himself very much of a fool, and he knew that he was fanciful. But he was of no mind to stay.

Two or three couples came out; he remained unnoticed in the darkness. He heard a girl's voice:

"But _who_ is he? I think he's terribly handsome. And distinguished-looking. Superior to our kind of nonsense."

"Who are you talking about, Betty?" Her dancing partner pretended to be in doubt. "Me?"

A whirlwind of girls' laughter. Then one of them saying:

"_You_ distinguished-looking! Or handsome! She means the sixty-nine-dollar serge suit."

Good G.o.d! Was there a price tag on him?

"Oh, the animal trainer!" They laughed again. Then Gloria came and they called to her, demanding:

"_Who_ is he?"

"Oh," said Gloria carelessly, "he is an old friend of papa's and his name is King."

They went in, two of the girls lingering a little behind the others.

Gloria and another. The other, bantering and yet curious, said:

"Georgia told me all about a Mr. King up in the mountains this spring.

And that it looked like love at first sight to her. 'Fess up, Glory, my dear."

Gloria's laughter, unfettered, spontaneous, was of high amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Georgia said, just the same, that she'd bet on an elopement--"

King reddened and stirred uneasily. Gloria gasped.

"Georgia's crazy!" she said emphatically. "Why, the man is impossible!"

Five minutes later King went in, found his hat, and told Mrs. Gaynor good-night. She was glad that he was going, and he knew it though she made the obvious perfunctory remark. Gloria saw and came tripping across the room.

"Not going so soon?"

"Yes," he said briefly. "Good-bye, Gloria."

"Good-night, you mean, don't you?"

"I mean good-bye," he said quietly.

Gratton thrust forward. King left abruptly, leaving them together, conscious of the quick look of pleasure on the face of Gloria's mother.

_Chapter XI_

Always Gloria, yielding to the heady impulses of youth, was ready for High Adventure. Therein lay the explanation of many things which Gloria did.

Time went scurrying on. Mark King had returned to the Sierra; no word came from him, and Gloria told herself with an exaggerated air of indifference that she had just about forgotten him. Autumn came, that finest of all seasons about San Francis...o...b..y, the ocean fogs were thrust back, unveiling the clear sunny skies by day, the crystalline glitter of stars by night. The city grew gayer as the season advanced; dinners and dances and theatre-parties made life a gloriously joyful affair for Gloria. She had hardly the time to ask herself: "Just where am I going?" It was so much easier to laugh and cry lightly, in the phrase of the day, "I am on my way!" She had drifted, drifted like one in a canoe trailing her fingers idly in the clear water and never noting when the little craft was caught by a steady, purposeful current. It was speeding now; but she only laughed breathlessly and drank her fill of the hour, and left to others the thoughts which carve fine lines about brow and eyes. She knew that her father was beset by some sort of financial troubles; for the first time in her life he had not come to her birthday-party, and her mother had explained, rather soberly, that it was because of a business crisis. Gloria did not know that crises lasted so long. Weeks and weeks had gone and still she knew from a look which her mother could not hide that the money troubles were still stalking her father, and coming so close that for the first time in history they cast a shadow from the top of the Sierra down into her mother's heart in San Francisco.

Now Gratton became the man of the hour. He had studied Gloria with infinite patience and he never displeased her. "He understood her," as she comfortingly a.s.sured herself. That meant, of course, that he gave in to her always; that tirelessly he exerted himself to please her. At a time when there was much financial depression, Gratton's obvious affluence was very agreeable to the pleasure-seeker. He dressed well; he entertained with due respect for the most charming accessories; he took her to dance or theatre, or for a drive in the park or down the peninsula in a new, elegantly appointed limousine. And about the same time fate had it that by two entirely una.s.sociated trends of circ.u.mstance he should draw to the dregs of Gloria's lively and romantic interest. In the first place, he began to become a prominent figure in San Francisco. His name was in the papers with names of "men who counted." And, of far greater import to Gloria, he became what she liked to consider a "Man of Mystery!"

For, weeks ago, Gloria had noted that regularly once a week Mr. Gratton dropped out of sight, to be gone for one or two days. He was never to be seen Sat.u.r.day; seldom Sunday; always any day from Monday to Friday night. During week-ends he was "out of town." And, though there were countless opportunities for an off-hand explanation, Gratton never gave it. Others than Gloria remarked the fact; a girl friend insinuatingly remarked: "Better watch out for him, Glory, dear. _Cherchez la femme_, you know."

Gloria never suspected any such condition of affairs; she was too sure of Gratton's attentions. But, being Gloria, she wondered.

One night she and Gratton were having a late supper together at the Palace. They had been to the theatre and now, yielding to the demands of her young appet.i.te, they sat before sandwiches and coffee. Gloria saw the page as he came to the doorway; he stood, an envelope in his hand, looking up and down the room. When at last his eyes rested on her and her companion, the boy came to the table.

"Telegram, Mr. Gratton."

Gratton, more interested in what she was saying than in the yellow envelope, opened it carelessly. But in a flash his attention was whipped away from her; she stopped in the middle of a sentence and knew that he had not noticed. A quick spurt of blood flushed his dead-white skin; his eyes grew bright with excitement. He read in a sweeping glance, and before his eyes came back to her they went hurriedly to his watch.

"I've got to go, Gloria," he said nervously. "Immediately. This is important."

"Why, of course," she agreed. "I can get a bite when I get home."

He thrust the telegram into his pocket and came around to the back of her chair. He was all impatience; it seemed he could not wait until hat and coats were gotten. On the way to the street he looked again at his watch.