Читать книгу The Vanity Case - Carolyn Wells - Страница 5

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THIS bottle, Myra was holding to the light and admiring its ugliness; the while she referred to a big book on glass, and verified its exact status.

"Yes," she said, raptly, "it's all right! Dyottville Glass Works—Philadelphia—oh, it's a gem! A wonderful find!"

"Damn your wonderful find!" cried her husband irritably. "It amazes me, Myra, when you are so un-enthusiastic over most things, how you can go into ecstasies over a bit of ugly old glass, just because it is old. I have a feeling for beauty, in any form, but for a rotten old whisky bottle,—no!"

"But, dear, your natural intelligence and breadth of experience, must make you realize that better judges may be better pleased. That one who is up in these things understands and appreciates values that are not apparent to the layman."

Myra's tone was kindly,—too kindly,—such as one would use to an uneducated child, and Perry resented it.

"Oh, I know all that, old thing," he said, "but so much of your glass collection is really beautiful, and of true artistic value, I don't see why you condescend to these ugly and uninteresting bits."

"Ugly, I grant, but not uninteresting," Myra returned, and Perry gave up the contest.

"I expect it held mighty good whisky," he said, "a bit different from the stuff we get now,—even prewar. This held early American booze, I suppose."

Myra took the flask from his irreverent fingers, and began to polish it with her handkerchief.

"It isn't what it held," she said, "nor is it its beauty or intrinsic worth. It's age and genuineness that make it of value."

"Oh, I know!" Perry was distinctly irritable. "Don't think I am an absolute imbecile about this collecting business! I have heard of collections before yours!"

"I'm sure you have," Myra said, with that exasperating condescension of hers. "But I have one of the finest glass collections in the country, and if I am proud of it, I am justly so."

"Of course you are!" said Inman, with enthusiasm. "I know a little about such things, and yours, Myra, is a marvelous bunch of stuff."

"Yes, it is. I am fond of it as well as proud of it."

"Marvelous bunch of rubbish," Perry said. "Half a dozen of the pieces are delightfully worthwhile, but these corner saloon bottles you've accumulated recently are commonplace as well as hideous."

Myra looked at him a few seconds, without speaking, and then returned her attention to the brown bottle.

"I love that particular stare my wife gives me occasionally," Heath said, addressing no one in particular. "It perfectly represents the attitude that is sometimes spoken of as 'God Almighty to a black bettle.' It is very amusing."

"You shall have it again, if you care for it so much," Myra returned, and gave him another look, this time showing a more definite trace of contempt.

"Come, come," said Larry, "birds in their little nests agree. Let up on the bickering, if only to spare your guests embarrassment. And, too, old scout, your pictures are no more uniformly good than Myra's glass junk. This isn't saying that some of them are not masterpieces, but on the other hand—"

"Shut up," growled Heath, "yours are uniformly bad, you know. Well, consistency's a jewel."

"Larry knows more about color than you do," said Myra, judicially, speaking almost as if she were judging an exhibition of art.

"Pooh, color is my middle name," Heath retorted. He was not miffed at all, these altercations were of frequent occurrence. "I wish to goodness, Myra, you had a little sense of color. It might lead you to see how a touch of it would improve your pure, angel face. Your lips are perfectly shaped, but too pale. Your delicate but high cheek bones would welcome a touch of rouge, and your ash blonde eyebrows are simply screaming for a pencil!"

"That's so, My," agreed Bunny, who would have agreed with Perry had he said just the reverse. "Here's my vanity box, have a try at it."

"No," said Myra, with her most negative inflection. "My face is perfect as it is."

Her assured tone robbed the words of any semblance of petty vanity. It was as if the Venus of Milo had said quietly that she had a good figure.

Inman laughed. "That's true, sweetie," he said, "but just as an experiment, I'd like to see how you'd look with some pigment on your map."

He took the vanity case from Bunny and made as if to apply some rouge to Myra's face, but she waved him away with a soft, slow movement of her long white hand, and closed the incident with her characteristic "No."

Bunny, sitting on the arm of Heath's chair, clasped her knee while she swung a well-dressed and impertinent leg.

Her own face was a trifle over-decorated, but the garish tints couldn't hide the soft loveliness of her natural complexion, and though her nose was white as a clown's, it was adorably impudent and bewitching.

She had tossed around her neck a filmy scarf of American Beauty red, and its deep tone brought out the fairy-like charm of her soft pink throat and golden hair.

"Wish I had a cigarette holder to match this scarf," she said. "Can't you get me one, Perry? Doesn't amber ever come in deep red? I believe this is my color,—don't you?"

She leaned over Heath, her saucy face near his own, and by her own movement brought herself within the circle of his arm.

"You let my husband alone, Miss Vampire," said Myra, with more spirit than she often showed.

"Good gracious! I don't want him!" and Bunny hopped off the chair arm, and pirouetted about the room.

"I know you don't," and Myra's voice grew sharper, "but you play with him, and he, poor fool, falls for it."

"Hoot, toot, Myra!" Heath cried, in astonishment at this outburst, "let her play with me if she likes. I like it myself."

Perry said this merely to rouse his wife's temper, for, as a matter of fact. Bunny rather bored him, unless he was just in the mood for her wiles.

"I know you do," Myra looked at him coldly, "you like any girl who flatters you and makes you think you're a devil. You grub at any flapper with dabs of war-paint on her face, who puffs smoke into your eyes."

"Try a dab on your own face," said Bunny, impudently, pushing her vanity case toward Myra.

"Clear out, Bunny," said her hostess. "I'm fed up with you! And, unless you transfer your very marked attentions to some other man than my husband—"

"Well, well, was she jealous?" and Bunny threw her arms round Myra's neck and kissed her.

The girl was not a bit embarrassed by the older woman's outburst; in fact, she had been expecting it, and rather welcomed it. It added excitement to the situation, and Bunny gloried in a fuss.

"Let me alone," and Myra flung the girl from her. "I'm in earnest—"

"You seem to be," and Bunny stood a pace off, and scanned her critically.

Perry Heath laughed.

"She isn't really," he said. "One can't be jealous of a man one scorns—"

"Yes, I can," Myra declared. "I do scorn you—you're little and petty and mean. You're a trashy artist and a mere apology for a man. But you are my husband, and my dignity resents your foolish actions with other women. I refuse to put up with it, and—"

"Wait a minute," said Heath, in a drawling tone, "before you proceed, what about your own actions with our friend and fellow artist here? What about your foolish actions in that direction?"

"Larry? Oh, he's my cousin—"

"Distant cousin by the family records, but a very dear cousin in actuality." Heath said, but with more the effect of amused chaffing than real accusation.

Myra flared up.

"He is my cousin and my heir. The family fortune follows the family record, and at my death—"

"Good Lord, Myra, you're not thinking of dying, are you? For Heaven's sake, don't spring these shocks so suddenly!"

"I don't know when I shall die. but I have certainly made my will in Larry's favor. To my mind that is just and right. It is far more appropriate that my father's money should revert to my father's relatives than a man my father never saw, and would never have accepted as a son-in-law, had he been consulted."

"The woman with a serpent's tongue!" exclaimed Heath, really surprised at this outburst, so unlike his calm wife. "Is this a parlor entertainment you're giving us? Whose stunt is next? I've had enough of this number."

"Don't try to be funny. You're not clever enough for that. The idea of the Country Club wanting a man of your calibre for president! They little know your limitations!"

"Well, Myra, you're getting on fine! Proceed, go right along."

"Yes, do," urged Bunny. "When you get all wrought up like that, you almost get a shade of color in your face!"

"Yes, a touch of angry brick red," Perry remarked, looking thoughtfully at Myra, as if at a picture.

As a matter of fact, she was, if anything, paler than usual, and her cold gray eyes glittered in her intense rage.

The whole scene was unprecedented. Never had Myra Heath shown this phase before.

Larry Inman was dumb with surprise. Bunny was joyously excited; and Heath himself was frankly puzzled.

"Sam Anderson is a thousand times better equipped for such a position than you are!" Myra went on.

Anderson was another candidate.

"Anderson is a freak," put in Larry, but Myra snatched back the conversational ball.

"He isn't," she declared. "And, anyway, he'd make a better president than Perry, whatever he may be! Imagine Perry presiding at a meeting of the board of governors!"

"Oh, I could swing it," Heath said carelessly. "But don't think I can't see through this tirade of Myra's. It's all her exclusiveness, you know. She thinks that as we are Harbor Gardens people, it's degrading to have too much to do with a club In Harbor Park, even to be president of it."

"Yes, I do," Myra admitted. "Let the Harbor Park people take one of their own men for president. We of the Gardens have no call to mix in with them to that extent. If Perry chooses to go over there to play golf, because the links are better than the Garden links, let him do so. Let him be a member of the club so he can do so. But as to being president—no."

"All right, old thing," said Heath, amiably, "I'll refuse the candidacy, since it pesters you so. We've been married six years, and I never before saw you so het up. Give me a light, somebody."

He lazily held a cigarette to his lips, while Bunny picked up one of four lighted candles that stood on a refectory table, and held it for his use.

As she put it back, she idly opened a portfolio of sketches that lay on the table. Inside was a card, which said, in elaborate lettering:

"The Work of Perry Heath."

"What's this for?" she said, taking it up and closing the portfolio.

"Oh, that's a work of art in itself," Heath told her. "There was a loan exhibition here last summer and that was the card that designated my collection of masterpieces. It is such a gem of Spencerian work, I saved it."

The lettering on the card was ornamented with the old-fashioned Spencerian flourishes, and further embellished with the strange bird of unknown species, with which Spencerians were wont to decorate their pen work.

Bunny laughed at it, and gayly stuck it in the corner of the frame of one of Heath's best sketches that hung on the studio wall.

"All right, then, Perry," Myra said, more mildly now, "you'll withdraw your name from the candidates, and give up the idea of the club presidency?"

" 'Nobody, my darling, could call me a fussy man'," sang Heath. "Of course I will, if your ladyship decrees it. That will leave three names to vote on still. But I doubt if Anderson gets it. Seems to me Pinkie Garrison is a more general favorite."

"Nixy," Inman disagreed. "If not Anderson, then George Morton."

"Well, they're all Park men," Myra argued. "I don't care which of them is elected, if Perry doesn't run."

"I won't, I won't, I won't!" Heath reiterated. "Now, for Heaven's sake, drop that subject. Come on, let's all go to bed. A spot of Scotch, Larry?"

"Sure. This has been an exhausting conference. Gosh, what a watery concoction! You take this, I'll mix my own!"

Inman set back on the table the mild highball Heath had compounded for him, and, his eye lighting on the card in the picture frame, he took it down and set it up against the tall glass, so that "The Work of Perry Heath" seemed to refer to the Scotch and soda.

With a smile, Heath appropriated the drink. He cared little for whisky, while Inman was rather too fond of it.

Bunny sidled up to Heath, and begged a sip from his glass, while Myra, now apparently reconciled again to the "vamp," herself accepted a portion of Larry's nightcap.

"The dove of peace once more hovers in our midst," Perry said, as he rescued his glass from the absent-minded Bunny. He beamed through his shell-rimmed glasses, with the air of a kindly paterfamilias.

"I believe those convex lenses make your eyes look bigger," said Bunny, looking closely into the said lenses.

"A good thing," remarked Myra. "Perry's eyes are all the better for a bit of magnifying."

"I rather fancy my eyes," Heath said, imperturbably. "Awfully good color, what?"

"No color at all," retorted his wife, promptly. "Just commonplace uneventful eyes. Like your hair. Except that you wear it a bit long, there's no character to it whatever."

"I don't wear it long. It's cut as short as Larry's."

"At the back, yes. But you wear it long on top,—so you can shake it back with the gesture of an artist."

"That will do, Myra," said Heath, with unusual daring. "Please let my personal appearance alone, will you?"

"Certainly, Perry. It doesn't interest me at all." Heath stared at her. What was the matter with Myra tonight? She was all on edge for some reason,—was it really because of the election question, or was she upset at his attentions to Bunny Moore?

Bunny felt sure it was the latter, and remarking again her intention to wash her hair, she danced out of the room and up the stairs.

"That child is a picture!" said Heath, with the sole and amiable desire to annoy his wife.

But he didn't succeed, for Myra only said, "Yes, she is," in an abstracted tone, that gave the impression of absent-mindedness.

"I'm off for bed, too," Inman declared. "I hope after I leave the room you'll say I'm a picture."

"Indeed we shall," Heath assured him. "There are all sorts of pictures, you know."

"Yep. Good night," Larry said, a little shortly, and swung himself off.

Husband and wife sat silent for several moments, though occasionally glancing at one another.

At last, Myra gave a little sigh, and said, "Blow out the candles, please, they bother my eyes. And put out the lights, too, we may as well go to bed. It's Katie's night out."

Heath slowly blew out the four candles on the table, but delayed turning off the electric switches.

"What ailed you tonight, Myra?" he said, not unkindly, but a trifle accusingly.

"Oh, I don't know," she returned, her pale face showing a slight frown. "We are so hopelessly mismatched, Perry. Aren't we?"

"We sure are. What would you care to do about it?"

"What can we do? If we could be divorced, I'd marry Larry, of course. I can't see you marrying Bunny, though."

"Probably not,—though I might do worse."

"You could easily do worse, and probably would. But it's out of the question. We can't have the awful publicity of that sort of thing,—and then your secret would come out—"

"What?"

"Oh, don't think I don't know all about it. Don't be an ostrich! But if you can see any way to our legal separation—"

"Collusion is not favored by the courts."

"I know that. But other people find ways to—to—"

"To whip the devil round the stump. Yes, I know,—but you don't want to go to Reno—"

"Of course not! I don't want to do anything. But if you could—er—disappear——"

"And never Come back? And under the Enoch Arden law, you could marry Inman? Oh, well, my lady, you'd have to wait seven years for that!"

"I'm not sure I should. Well, if you can't—if you can think of no way out—then—"

"Then what, Myra?"

"Then, perhaps,—oh, well, secrets sometimes leak out. Does Bunny know?"

"Heavens! Why do you lug in that child all the time? I don't know or care what she knows!"

"Aren't you in love with her, Perry?"

"Good Heavens, no! She's pretty and amusing, but after ten minutes she bores me to death. I like Polly Lanyon better than Bunny."

"Oh, yes, a Harbor Park girl! I do believe your natural instincts are more like the Parkers than the Gardeners after all."

"I dare say. At any rate, I like the Club, even if you won't let me be President—"

"Oh, perhaps you may be, yet."

"Perhaps so." Heath spoke gravely, more so than the subject seemed to warrant. "You ought to know."

"Yes, I ought to know."

The woman spoke gravely, also. All signs of bickering or caustic banter were gone now. Husband and wife seemed to be at a crisis. Was a parting of the ways imminent or would it all blow over, as it had done before?

"Let's sleep over it," suggested Heath, suddenly. "Go to bed, dear, and if necessary, we'll have this discussion continued in our next."

Myra rose, abstractedly walking toward the wide doors, and then through into the Lounge, and up the stairs.

As she turned and looked down, her attitude on the staircase was so like a Burne-Jones or a Rossetti picture, that Heath called out, "You Blessed Damozel! Wait till I get a pencil, I want to sketch you!"

But Myra only gave a light laugh and disappeared upstairs.

Perry looked at his watch, saw it was only eleven-thirty, hesitated about sitting down to read for a while, decided against it, and snapping off the lights went up to his own room.

It was just midnight when Myra softly opened her bedroom door, and crept down the stairs.

She felt her way in the dark, her sandalled feet making no sound on the rugs, and silently went on till she reached the studio.

There, one small shaded lamp was glimmering, and Inman stepped from the shadows to greet her.

"I was afraid you wouldn't come," he said, simply, as he took her in his arms.

"I was afraid I wouldn't, too," she returned, and the unusual smile that came to her face proved how beautiful she could be when she was happy.

"But you did!" he whispered, exultantly.

"That is quite evident," she smiled again, relaxing in his embrace, leaning her lovely head back to look into his eyes.

"What did Perry say to you? Any hope?"

"We didn't get anywhere. I broached the subject, but after some aimless and futile talk, he said we'd better sleep on it and take it up some other time."

"I did, and the other time is right now."

This was from Heath himself, who entered the studio and snapped on more lights as he spoke.

It was characteristic of Myra that she showed no surprise or embarrassment.

She remained in Inman's embrace, and turned her face to her husband with a slight frown of irritation at the intrusion.

Larry, too, was apparently undismayed, and stood his ground, as he took his cue from Myra.

"Then it's now a case of the time, the place and the loved one altogether," he said, lightly. "Go ahead, Perry, have your say."

"There's not much to say." Heath lighted a cigarette. "But as an interested bystander, I'd like to know what you two propose to do."

"That's only natural, I'm sure," Inman remarked, "what are we going to do, Myra?"

"You're going to do what I tell you," cried Heath, suddenly wrathy. "You, Larry, will go to your room at once, pack your things and get out of here the first thing in the morning."

"And if I refuse to obey?"

"You won't refuse. You are at my mercy. I have caught you down here, holding a clandestine meeting with my wife. I find her in your arms. By God, man, I have a right to shoot you!"

"Why don't you?" asked Inman, with maddening coolness.

"You're not worth it!" Heath glared at him. "Not worth the powder and shot it would take to kill you. Get out, I tell you! Go upstairs, and before I am down in the morning, you are to be far away from here and never come back! Get that?"

"Yes, Heath, I get that."

"Go, then." And Inman went, and again the husband and wife were alone together.