The Salamander Part 12

"It can't go on always!" she said to herself, in her turn using the very words that Winona had uttered. "Not much longer. A year, only a year, then I must make up my mind!"

"Blue, Dodo?" said Stacey.

"Horribly!"

The word seemed so incongruously ridiculous, after what she had felt, that she burst into exaggerating laughter.

"Going to change your mind?"

"No, no! I'm out of sorts--a cold! Get me back!"

They reentered the city as the first owlish lights were peeping out, futile, brave little rebels against the spreading night. Below, high in the air, suspended above the ghostly town whose sides had faded, the great illumined eye of the Metropolitan tower shone forth. Then all at once long sentinel files of lights rose on the avenue and down the fleeting side streets, miraculous electric signs burst out against the night, a myriad windows caught fire, and the city, which a moment ago had seemed flat, climbed blazing into the air. They were again nearing the great artery, which changes its name with the coming of the artificial night, no longer Broadway, but the Rialto, with its mysteries of entangled beams and profound pools of darkness, its laughter free or suspect, its mingled virtue and vice, elbowing and staring at each other, its joy and its despair treading in each other's steps.

But the dread reminder was still above, hurling its black engulfing storm across the bombardment of a million lights, that painted it with a strange red glare, but could not destroy its menace. A few cold drops of rain, wind driven, dashed against their faces, as they went with the crowd, scuttling on. There was something unreal now in all this, something artificial in the glimpse of vacant restaurants setting their candles for the guests who went fleeing home. Of plunging temperament, she had a horror of these rare depressions, striving frantically against the realization of what must be, and striving thus, always suffering the more keenly. In seeing all this fugitive world, flat shadows driven restlessly as the shorn splendor of the streets, she asked herself of what use it was after all, to be young, to be attractive, to go laughing and dancing, to dare, to conquer ... why, indeed, childhood, maturity and old age should stretch so far, and youth, the exultant brilliant hour she clung to, should be allotted only the few, the fingered years!

She felt a sense of loneliness, of terrified isolation, the need of some one to come and talk to her, to interpose himself between her and these unanswerable questions, to close her eyes and stop her ears.

When they reached Miss Pim's the rain was beginning in little flurries.

She ran in and up-stairs hurriedly. She had hoped that she would find her room lighted, that Snyder or Winona would be home. No one was there, and when she opened the door she entered a region of obscure shadowy forms, faintly lighted by the reflection of a street lamp below. Across the windows on the avenue was the cyclopean eye of the Metropolitan tower, which she saw always every night with her last peeping glance from her covers--enormous eye, bulging, swollen with curiosity. At the other side was the wall of brick pressing against the window-pane, this wall she hated as she hated the idea of the commonplace in life.

She stood in the luminous pathway, gazing outward.

"What is the matter with me?" she thought. "Am I like Winona? Am I getting tired of it all? Or is it--what?"

The metallic summons of the telephone broke upon her mood. She lighted the gas quickly. The telephone continued to clamor, but she took no step toward it. All that she had planned as a choice for the evening no longer interested her. She was in another mood. She flung down her things rapidly. Then, remembering the bouquet of Sa.s.soon's, she took it off, p.r.i.c.king her fingers. Inclosed was a bank-note for a hundred dollars!

Then she began to laugh--a bitter incongruous note. She understood now why he had gone so abruptly to his questions, confident in the test he had prepared among the fragile stems of orchids and dainty yellow pansies.

All at once her eye went to her pin-cus.h.i.+on, caught by the white note of visiting-cards left there by Josephus, the colored ch.o.r.e-boy. She crossed quickly, stretching out her finger impatiently. Which of the four had come, as she had determined? The first bore the name of Harrigan Blood, the second Albert Edward Sa.s.soon. She stood staring at the last, the hundred-dollar bill still wrapped in her fingers....

Sa.s.soon and Harrigan Blood! She let the cards drop, profoundly disappointed, prey to a sudden heavy return of disillusionment.

The telephone, querulous, impatient, again called her, but she turned her shoulder impatiently. Now the thought of an evening of gaiety revolted her. She changed quickly, wrapped herself up in an ulster, took an umbrella and went out, though by the wide-faced clock in the skies it was scarcely six. Before, she had sought to break away, to escape recklessly from the depression that claimed her: now she sought it out, surrendering to this tristesse that whirled her on with its exquisite benumbing melancholy.

She supped at a lunch-room in Lexington Avenue, paying out a precious thirty cents for a cup of coffee, a bowl of crackers and milk, a baked potato. Not many were there yet. A young fellow without an overcoat, stooping already, pinched by struggle, came and sat at her table, seeking an opportunity to offer her the sugar. But, seeing her so silent and inwardly tortured, he did not persist.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She did not notice him]

She did not notice him. She was thinking always of Ma.s.singale, and a little of Lindaberry. Why had she succeeded with Sa.s.soon and Blood only to fail where she wanted to win?

"He carries a coffin on his back!" she found herself repeating, in the cynical words of Harrigan Blood. He would not seek her out; nor would Ma.s.singale. All her castles in the air had collapsed. It was only to the others, then, that she could appeal--the flesh hunters!

She returned, swaying against the wind, holding her umbrella with difficulty against the spattering rain-drops, that seemed to rise from the glistening sidewalks. The young man, who had no umbrella, remained in the shelter of a doorway, watching her undecidedly.

"Ah, yes! I must be getting tired of it!" she said suddenly, as she reached her steps. A taxicab was turning in the avenue, having just drawn away. As she went slowly up the interminable, impenetrable, dark flights to her room, she said, revolting against an injustice:

"Well, if he doesn't come, I'll go and find him!"

She entered her room, lagging and depressed, knowing not how to spend the hours until sleep arrived. She had no feeling of reticence in seeking out Ma.s.singale and Lindaberry, since they appealed to her and would not come, any more than she felt the slightest diminution of her self-respect in situations labeled with the appearance of suspicion. Her ideas of morality and conduct were not even formulated. They existed as the sense of danger exists to a pretty animal. For, ardently as she desired it, there had not come into her soul the awakening breath of love, which, in despite of old traditions and lost heritages, alone would be to her rebellious little Salamander soul the supreme law of conduct.

Suddenly she saw that on her pin-cus.h.i.+on another card had been placed while she had been absent. She went to it without expectation. It was from Ma.s.singale--Ma.s.singale, who must have left in the taxicab even as she returned hopelessly.

Then it seemed to her as if a thousand tons had slipped from her. She felt an extraordinary joy and confidence, the alertness of a young animal, a need of light and laughter, a longing to plunge into a rush of excitement.

The telephone rang. Donald Bacon was clamoring to take her to the cabaret party. She disliked him cordially. She accepted with wild delight.

CHAPTER V

The morning was well spent when Dore awoke, after a gray return from the cabaret party where, in a revulsion of emotions, she had flirted scandalously. But the men with whom she had danced, laughed and fenced, provokingly were lost in a mist. They had only served to eat up the intervening time; she had not even a thought for them.

The busy bubbling whistle of a coffee-pot in fragrant operation sounded from the table. She opened one eye with difficulty, peering out the window at her friend, the clock. It was already thirty-five minutes past ten--what might be called a dawn breakfast in Salamanderland.

Snyder, moving about the table with a watchful eye, came to her immediately.

"Take it easy, Petty! Don't wake up unless you feel like it!"

She stood at the foot of the bed, and the smile of fond solicitude with which she bent over Dodo, lightly touching her hair, seemed like another soul looking through the tired mask of Lottie Snyder.

"You're an angel, Snyder! You spoil me!" said Dodo, rubbing her eyes and twisting her body in lazy feline stretches.

"Me an angel? Huh!" said Snyder, grinding on her heel.

She went to the improvised kitchen with the free gliding grace of the trained dancer, and lifting the top of the coffee-pot, dropped in two eggs.

Breakfast at Miss Pim's was an inviolable inst.i.tution ending at eight-thirty sharp. Wherefore, as the Salamanders would as soon have thought of getting up to see the sun rise, coffee was always an improvisation and eggs a visitation of Providence. Besides, the Salamanders, for the most part, made their arrangements for lodgings only, trusting in the faithful legion of props, but supplementing that trust by an economical planning of the schedule ahead. In a week, it was rare that a Salamander was forced to a recourse on her purse for more than one luncheon--dinner never.

"Did you hear me come in?" said Dore, raising her gleaming white arms in the air and letting the silken sleeves slip rustling to her shoulders.

"Me? No!" said Snyder, who had not closed her eyes until the return.

"Here's the mail."

Dore raised herself eagerly on one elbow.

"How many? What! only four?" she said, taking the letters from Snyder.

She frowned at the instant perception of Miss Pim's familiar straight up and down, sharp and thin writing, concealing the dreaded summons quickly below the others, that Snyder, who paid nothing, might not see.

Two she recognized; the third was unfamiliar. She turned it over, studying it, characteristically reserving the mystery until the last.

But, as she put it down on the white counterpane, she had a feeling of expectant cert.i.tude that it was from Ma.s.singale.

"Well, let's see what my dear old patriarch says!" she said, settling back in the pillows and taking up a stamped envelope, typewritten, with a business address in the corner.

"_Dear Miss Baxter_:

"Will be in town to-morrow, Friday, the twenty-second. It would give me great pleasure if you could lunch with me at twelve-thirty. Will send my car for you at twelve-twenty. I trust you are following my advice and giving attention to your health.