Ben Blair Part 27

Clarence Sidwell--Chad, his friends called him--leaned farther back in the big wicker chair, with an involuntary motion adjusted his well-creased trousers so there might be no tension at the knees, and looked across the tiny separating table at his _vis-a-vis_, while his eyelids whimsically tightened.

"Well," he queried, "what do you think of it?"

The little brunette, his companion, roused herself almost with a start, while a suggestion of conscious red tinged her face. "I beg your pardon?" she said, inquiringly.

The man smiled. "Forgotten already, wasn't I?" he bantered.

"No, certainly not. I--"

A hand, delicate and carefully manicured as a woman's, was raised in protest. "Don't prevaricate, please. The occasion isn't worth it." The hand returned to the chair-arm with a play of light upon the solitaire it bore. The smile broadened. "You were caught. Confess, and the sentence will be lighter."

As a wave recedes, the red flood began to ebb from the girl's face. "I confess, then. I was--thinking."

"And I was--forgotten. My statement was correct."

She looked up, and the two smiled companionably.

"Admitted. I await the penalty."

The man's expression changed into mock sternness. "Very well, Miss Baker; having heard your confession and remembering a promise to exercise clemency, this court is about to impose sentence. Are you prepared to listen?"

"I'm growing stronger every minute."

The court frowned, the heavy black eyebrows making the face really formidable.

"I fear the defendant doesn't realize the enormity of the offence.

However, we'll pa.s.s that by. The sentence, Miss Baker, brings me back to the starting-point. You are directed to answer the question just propounded, the question which for some inexplicable reason you didn't hear. What do you think of it--this roof-garden, and things in general?"

The stern voice paused; the brows relaxed, and he smiled again. "But first, you're sure you won't have something more--an ice, a wee bottle--anything?"

The girl shook her head.

"Then let's make room here at this table for a better man; to hint at vacating for a better woman would be heresy! It's pleasanter over there in the corner out of the light, where one can see the street."

They found a vacant bench behind a skilfully arranged screen of palms, and Sidwell produced a cigar.

"In listening to a tale or a confession," he explained, "one should always call in the aid of nicotine. I fancy Munchausen's listeners must have been smokers."

The girl steadily inspected the dark mobile face, half concealed in the shadow. "You're making sport of me," she announced presently.

Instantly her companion's smile vanished. "I beg your pardon, Miss Baker, but you misunderstood. I thought by this time you knew me better than that."

"You really are interested, then? Would you truly like to know--what you asked?"

"I truly would."

Florence hesitated. Her breath came a trifle more quickly. She had not yet learned the trick of repression of the city folk.

"I think it's wonderful," she said. "Everything is wonderful. I feel like a child in fairyland; only the fairies must be giants. This great building, for instance,--I can't make it seem a product of mere six-foot man! In spite of myself, I keep expecting a great genie to emerge somewhere. I suppose this seems silly to you, but it's the feeling I have, and it makes me realize my own insignificance."

Sidwell smoked in silence.

"That's the first impression--the most vivid one, I think. The next is about the people themselves. I've been here nearly a half-year now, but even yet I stare at them--as you caught me staring to-night--almost with open mouth. To see these men in the daylight hours down town one would think they cared more for a minute than for their eternal happiness. I'm almost afraid to speak to them, my little affairs seem so tiny in comparison with the big ones it must take to make men work as they do.

And then, a little later,--apparently for no other reason than that the sun has ceased to s.h.i.+ne,--I see them, as here, for instance, unconscious that not minutes but hours are going by. They all seem to have double lives. I get to thinking of them as Jekylls and Hydes. It makes me a bit afraid."

Still Sidwell smoked in silence, and Florence observed him doubtfully.

"You really wish me to chatter on in this way?" she asked.

"I was never more interested in my life."

The girl felt her face grow warm. She was glad they were in the shadow, so the man could not see it too clearly. For a moment she looked about her, at the host of skilful waiters, at the crowd of brightly dressed pleasure-seekers, at the kaleidoscopic changes, at the lights and shadows. From somewhere invisible the string orchestra, which for a time had been silent, started up anew, while her answering pulses beat to swifter measure. The air was a familiar one, heard everywhere about town; and she was conscious of a childish desire to join in singing it.

The novelty of the scene, the sparkle, the animation, the motion intoxicated her. She leaned back in her seat luxuriously.

"This is life," she murmured. "I never grasped the meaning of the word until within the last few months, but now I begin to understand. To work mightily when one works, to abandon one's self completely when one rests--that is the secret of life."

The man in the shadow s.h.i.+fted his position, and, looking up, Florence found his eyes upon her. "Do you really believe that?" he asked.

"I do, most certainly."

Sidwell lit a fresh cigar, and for a moment the light of the burning match showed his face clearly. He seemed about to say more; but he did not, and Florence too was silent. In the pause that followed, the great express elevator stopped softly at the roof floor. The gate opened with a musical click, and a woman and a man stepped out. Both were immaculately dressed, both had the unmistakable air of belonging to the leisure cla.s.s. They spied the place Florence and Sidwell had left vacant, and leisurely made their way to it. A waiter appeared, a coin changed hands, an order was given. The man drew out a cigarette case that flashed in colors from the nearby arc-light. Smilingly the woman held a match, and a moment later wreath after wreath of curling blue smoke floated above them into the night.

Florence Baker watched the scene with a strange fascination. She was conscious of having at some time visited a play wherein a similar action had taken place. She had thought it merely a creation of the writer's imagination at the time, but in her present broadened experience she knew better. It was real,--real as the air she breathed. She simply had not known the meaning of life then; she was merely existing. Now she knew!

The waiter returned, bearing something in a cooler. There were a few swift motions, a pop distinctly heard above the drone of the orchestra.

The man tossed aside his cigarette and leaned forward. Two gla.s.ses with slender stems, each containing a liquid that effervesced and sparkled, one in the man's hand, one in the woman's, met midway of the board. The empty gla.s.ses returned to the table.

Many other seekers of pleasure were about, but Florence had no eyes for them. This pair alone, so indifferent to their surroundings, so thoroughly a part of them, perfectly fulfilled her newly formed conception. They had solved this puzzle of existence, solved it so completely that she wondered it could ever have appealed to her as a puzzle at all. Again the formula, distinct as the handwriting upon the wall, stood revealed before her. One had but to _live_ life, not reason it, and all would be well.

Again and again, the delicate gla.s.ses sparkled to waiting lips, and returned empty to the table. The man lit another cigarette, and its smoke mingled with the darkness above. In the hands of the waiter the cooler disappeared, and was returned; a second cork popped as had the first. The woman's eyes sparkled as brilliantly as the gems upon her fingers. The languor of the man had pa.s.sed. With the old action repeated, the br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.ses touched across the board, were exchanged after the foreign fas.h.i.+on, and again were dry. The figure of the man leaned far over the table. He spoke earnestly, rapidly. Unconscious motions of his hands added emphasis to his words. Neither he nor she who listened was smiling now. Instead, there was a look, identical upon either face, a look somehow strangely familiar to the watcher, one she had met with before, somewhere--somewhere. Memory flew back on lightning wings, searched all the paths of her experience, the dim all-but-forgotten crannies, stopped with pointing finger; and with a tug at her very being, she looked, and unbelieving looked again. Ah, could it be possible--could it? Yes, there it was, unmistakable; the same expression as this before her--there, blazing from the eyes of a group of strange street-loafers, as she herself, she, Florence Baker, pa.s.sed by!

In the shadow the face of the spectator crimsoned, the hot flood burned at her ears, a tightness like a physical hand gripped at her throat; but it seemed that her eyes could not leave the figures before her. Not the alien interest of a watcher at the play, but a more intense, a more personal meaning, was in her gaze now. Something of vital moment to her own life was taking place out there so near, and she must see. A fleeting wonder as to whether her own companion was likewise watching came to her, but she did not turn to discover. The denouement, inevitable as death, was approaching, might come if she for an instant looked away.

The man out there under the electric globe was still talking; the woman, his companion, still listened. Florence caught herself straining her ears to hear what he was saying; but to no purpose. She heard only the repressed murmur of his well-modulated, resonant voice; yet that in itself was enough. The old song of the sirens was flowing from his lips, and pa.s.sion flamed in his eyes. Farther and farther across the tiny intervening table, nearer the woman's face, his own approached. The last empty bottle, the thin-stemmed gla.s.ses, stood in his way, and he moved them aside with his elbow. So near now was he that their breaths mingled, and as the drone of his voice ceased, the music of the orchestra, a waltz, flowed into the rift with its steady one-two-three.

He was motionless; but his eyes, intense blue eyes under long lashes, were fixed absorbingly on hers.

It was the woman's turn to move. Gradually, gracefully, unconsciously, her own face came forward toward his. Sparkling in the light, a jewelled hand rested on the surface of the table. A tinge of crimson mounted the long white neck, and colored it to the roots of her hair. The arteries at the throat throbbed under the thin skin. Simultaneously, the opening gate of the elevator clicked, and a man--another with that unmistakable air of leisure--approached; but still she did not notice, did not hear.

Instead, with a sudden motion, heedless of surroundings, reckless of spectators, her face crossed the gap intervening between her and her companion; her lips touched his lips, caught fire with the contact, met them again and again.

Watching, scarcely breathing, Florence saw the figure of the man come closer. His eyes also were upon the pair. He caught their every motion; but he did not hurry. On he came, leisurely, impa.s.sively, as though out for a stroll. He stopped by their side, a darkening shadow with a mask-like face. Instinctively the two glanced up. There was a crash of gla.s.sware, as the tiny table lurched in the woman's hand--and they were on their feet. A moment the three looked into each others' eyes, looked deep and long; then together, without a word, they turned toward the elevator. Again, droning monotonously, the car appeared and disappeared.

After them, vibrant, mocking, there beat the unvarying rhythm of the waltz, one-two-three, one-two-three.

In the shadow, Florence Baker's face dropped into her hands. When at last she glanced up another couple, likewise immaculate of attire, likewise debonair and smiling, were seated at the little table. She turned to her companion. His cigar was still glowing brightly. He had not moved.

"I think I'll go home now, if you please," she said, and every trace of animation had left her voice. "I'm rather tired."

The man roused himself. "It's early yet. There'll be vaudeville here in a little while, after the theatre."

The girl observed him curiously. "It's early, did you say?"