Читать книгу Scandal - Cosmo Hamilton - Страница 4

IV

It was twelve o'clock before Beatrix left the house with Mrs. Lester Keene and walked down to Fifty-seventh Street. To the relief of the gasping city, a phalanx of dark clouds had put out the sun. A storm which had burst with great violence over Westchester County was bearing slowly down. The air was heavy and windless, and the gasoline vapor from all motor traffic hung like an oily veil everywhere. The seats in the Park were filled with listless people. Men sat on the tops of busses with their coats off. The very trees looked tired and sapless.

"I wonder how soon we shall get the storm," said Beatrix.

Mrs. Keene fanned herself with an envelope. "The sooner the better. This heat is unbearable. Don't you think, dear, that you can leave town to-night? I'm longing to get back to the country."

Beatrix crossed the street. The only cool figure in the city was that of the rather too plump young woman who stood naked and unashamed over the fountain in the geometrical open space in front of the Plaza. "Oh, yes, I could, of course," she said, "but if you can put up with another night here, I won't. I'm not going to allow mother and father and Aunt Honoria to imagine that I'm awed by them—that would be weak. For the sake of the whole of the younger generation I must maintain my attitude of complete independence." She glanced at the line of automobiles which were drawn up outside the famous shop in Fifty-seventh Street. "The Dames from Virginia seem to be keeping Raoul fairly busy. I rather hope that Tubby will be here to-day. She is such fun."

"Tubby" was the nickname which had been given to the astute woman who had started her dressmaking business in London and extended it to New York,—a woman who had married an Italian Count and who, with consummate art and the assistance of an imaginative press agent, ran herself as though she were an actor-manager and her shops as though they were theatres. By charging enormous prices and calling her frocks by poetical names she had bluffed the gullible public into believing that she was the last word—the very acme of fashion. Like most charlatans who succeed, she had grown to believe that she was what she said she was,—an artist who had been sent into the world not for the purpose of making money or any such vulgar and banal proceeding, but in order to design coverings for female forms which would leave as much of them as possible open to the gaze without causing the arrest of the wearer.

At the first sight of Beatrix there was a stir and a rustle among a collection of tall, willowy and rather insolent young women who were lolling about, and a whisper of "Miss Vanderdyke" was passed from one to the other. Tubby's deputy wabbled forward,—herself a lady of very generous proportions who shone, like a fat seal, in very shiny satin. "Oh, good morning, Miss Vanderdyke!" she said, deferentially. "Your costume is well advanced. Will you be good enough to step upstairs?"

Beatrix nodded. "Is Tubby here to-day?" she asked.

The seal-like lady looked as though she had received a prod from a sharp fork. "No," she said, "the Countess is feeling the strain of an even more than usually busy season. She is undergoing a rest cure. As you know, she's very high-strung."

"I'm sorry," said Beatrix.

Followed by Mrs. Keene, she went up a wide staircase painted white and arrived at what Tubby invariably called the "atelier," on the first floor. Here the Southerners, to whom Beatrix had referred, were undergoing the apparently exciting process of being tried on. There were perhaps a dozen women in the large airy room, and each one was surrounded by fitters sticking pins into various parts of them and paying no sort of attention to the suggestions or the protests of their victims.

A very special girl came forward with the Shakesperian costume that was being carried out, or "created," as Tubby would say, for Beatrix. It was a sort of Titania costume, white, loose and airy, with a shimmer here and there of silver, which could very easily have been made at home for a mere nothing. The special girl, with a quiet "If you will allow me," unhooked Beatrix's frock, murmuring one or two well-turned compliments as to her figure, and helped her into the robe that was to cause a sensation in the Queen Anne gardens of the Vanderdyke country house.

Utterly unconscious of the other women in the room, Beatrix swept up to the astonished Mrs. Keene, and in a high clear voice, cried out: "Set your heart at rest; the fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a votaress of my order; and in the spiced Indian air, by night, full often hath she gossip'd by my side; and sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, marking the embarked traders on the flood; when we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive and grow big-bellied with the wanton wind——"

"Oh, my dear!" cried Mrs. Keene. "Do you remember that there are people present. That may be Shakespeare, but really his choice of words is very shocking."

Beatrix burst out laughing. "You should have waited for the next few lines, Brownie. Even I am going to blush when I spout them under the trees. Yes," she said to the girl, "I think this costume will do quite well. Don't forget to let me have a wand. The wreath I'll make myself of real flowers. Shall I have to come again?"

"No, Miss Vanderdyke, there's nothing to do now except the silver belt, and we needn't trouble you as to that."

"Well," said Beatrix, "I shall leave town to-morrow directly after lunch. Be sure you send the dress round to my house in good time. Thank you. Good morning."

Mrs. Keene gave a little cry. "Oh, you've forgotten to put on your frock, dear," she said.

"Have I? It's so hot it didn't seem necessary."

Beatrix came back. She had already arrived half-way towards the staircase in what was a most bewitching undress. She never could resist the temptation of putting Mrs. Keene on tenter-hooks. She stepped into her frock and submitted to being hooked up. She noticed that the girl who had tried her on looked very pale and tired. "Aren't you going away?" she asked.

A rather wan smile passed over the girl's pretty face. "No, Miss Vanderdyke, not this year."

"What, you aren't going to take any holiday at all?"

The girl shook her head. "My mother has been very ill, and doctor's bills——"

"I'm so sorry," said Beatrix. "What's your name?"

"Mary Nicholson."

Beatrix went over to Mrs. Keene, who was examining a Paris model between the windows. She opened a bag which hung on the elderly lady's arm and took out a cheque-book. Armed with this she made her way over to a desk, sat down and wrote a cheque for five hundred dollars, payable to the girl whom she had seen constantly on duty since the previous October. This she slipped into an envelope and wrote on it, "Please take a little holiday to oblige me?" And having returned the cheque-book to the ample bag in which Mrs. Keene kept enough necessities to provide against shipwreck or other likely accidents, slipped the envelope into the girl's hand and said "Good-bye. Let me know about your mother."

On the way down stairs the first crash of thunder broke over the city and heavy rain beat against the window. "We shall have to drive home," said Beatrix. "Will you ask them to call up a taxi?"

Her ladyship's deputy came forward. "I hope you found the costume to your liking, Miss Vanderdyke."

"Oh, yes," said Beatrix. "It'll do very well. I shall have to be very careful how I'm photographed, because if I stand against the light there'll be very little left to the imagination."

"This's an artistic age," replied Madame, with a sly smile.

Beatrix joined her companion under the shop's awning, from the corners of which the rain came down in long streams. The uniformed man, with "Raoul" on his hat, was making frantic endeavors to obtain a cab, but without success. The line of taxis outside the Great Northern Hotel had been taken.

"I'm afraid we shall have to wait," said Mrs. Keene.

"I don't mind the rain," said Beatrix. "Let's walk."

"I'd so much rather not, dear," said Mrs. Keene. "Getting wet always brings on my rheumatism, and will absolutely spoil my dress. Have patience for at least five minutes."

"D'you think I can?" asked Beatrix. "Five minutes is a long time."

Two men drove by in a new and beautiful limousine. The one who was not driving turned round and saw the two ladies standing under the awning. The car slowed down, turned and came smoothly up to Raoul's. Fraser jumped out and stood bare-headed in front of Beatrix.

"How d'you do?" he said. "Pretty bad storm this. Can we drive you anywhere?"

"Oh, hello!" said Beatrix. "I thought it must be you. Yes, it'll be awfully kind of you to give us a lift. Taxis seem to be at a premium. Mrs. Lester Keene—Mr. Malcolm Fraser."

"How d'you do," said Mrs. Keene, the thought of rheumatism and a spoiled dress at the back of her cordiality. "It is very kind of you to come to our rescue."

Fraser beamed at Beatrix. His whole whimsical, sincere and honest personality paid deference to her loveliness. "You owe me nothing," he said. "I wish you did. I only happened to see you standing here. It's Franklin's car."

Beatrix smiled back at him. He still seemed to her to be the self-constituted brother—the round-faced serious boy who used to look after her sled and carry her skates and make himself generally and generously useful. "You have a gift for happening to see people when they need you, Malcolm," she said, and he was amply rewarded.

Franklin got out of the car and came to meet Beatrix as she led the way under the rain-splashed awning.

"How are we to thank you, Mr. Franklin?" Beatrix held out a most gracious hand. "You come just at the moment when I was going to plough through all this wet."

"You'd have been soaked to the skin in about a minute," he said. "It's tropical." He held open the door of the limousine.

He showed a touch of reproof at her impatience which Beatrix was quick to catch. She remembered that invariably when she had met him there had been a suggestion of antagonism in his manner. For some reason she was not, she knew, altogether to his liking. It amused her. "I'll ride in front, if I may," she said, with the mischievous intention of seeing whether he would try to coerce her as he had done once before, "but I'll wait until you get in."

He, too, remembered the incident at a dance the year before when he had told her that she was sitting in a dangerous draught and asked her to move, and she had declined. He stood up to her. This spoiled, wilful girl needed a master. He felt an impish desire to prevent her from getting her own way. "I'd rather you rode inside," he replied. "Then there'll be no chance of your getting wet."

"Please let me ride in front," said Beatrix, and a bewitching smile and a little upward look of appeal settled the matter.

Franklin returned to his seat and, when Beatrix was in, made a long arm over her knees and shut the door with a bang. "What a girl!" he said to himself. "As pretty as paint; but, ye gods, how she needs the spurs."

As sick as a dog that Beatrix was not with him, Fraser handed Mrs. Keene in and yelled, through another crash of thunder: "Go ahead, Pel!"

"Where may I drive you?"

"Anywhere you like," said Beatrix, airily. "I've nothing to do."

The rain was running in streams along the gutters and the day had gone as dark as though it were late evening. The sidewalks were deserted and people who had been caught were huddling under doorways. A clean, fresh smell had taken the place of stale gasoline.

Franklin was nonplussed. He looked round and saw the girl's delicately-cut profile with its short nose blunted at the tip, its rather full, red lips and round chin. She was sitting with her shoulders back, her head held high, and an air of supreme unconcern. In no part of the world, under any sort of sky, under any kind of condition had he seen a girl so delightful to the eye and so irritating to the temper. He and Fraser were on their way home and two men were going to lunch with them. It didn't matter to her whether he were on his way to a wedding or a funeral. She had nothing to do.

He sent the car forward, turned it into Fifth Avenue and drove up to the Vanderdyke house. Its great doors were boarded up and no footman was ready to spring out with a huge umbrella.

"I'm quite happy," said Beatrix. "May I sit here until this downpour relaxes a little? It's a very nice car."

Franklin sent out a big laugh. This young woman took the biscuit. It might go on pouring for an hour. But she was quite happy, she had nothing to do and therefore he must cry a halt to life and its obligations and engagements and be content, and even thankful, to sit at her side until such time as it pleased her and the storm to make a move.

"Please sit here as long as you like," he said. "Fraser and I have some men coming to lunch at one o'clock. Will you excuse me if we get out and leave you?"

"Of course," said Beatrix, without allowing him to see the remotest inkling of the fact that she knew how much he would love to treat her as though she were an unbroken colt. "Before you have to go, tell me about to-morrow. You'll drive, I suppose? I saw your name on mother's list for the Pastoral house-party, and she told me that you had agreed to play a small part."

"Yes, I shall drive," said Franklin, running his eyes over her curiously, thinking how beautiful she was and how badly she stood in need of coming up against love or grief. "Fraser's an old friend of yours, it appears," he added, looking at his watch.

"Indeed, yes. But mother doesn't know my old friends."

"I see." He knew that this implied question as to why Fraser was not included in the house-party was answered. This girl might have served as First Secretary to an Ambassador, or have been a leader of society for twenty years.

Then he opened the door of the car and stood bareheaded in the downpour. "I hope you won't be obliged to sit here long," he said. "I'll send a man along to look after the car. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Beatrix, with a perfectly straight face, but laughing at him with her eyes. "Thank you so much for rescuing and looking after two lone females."

"Come on, Malcolm," said Franklin, shortly.

And Fraser, wondering what sort of madness had attacked his friend, murmured things to the equally amazed elderly lady, bowed to the calm, slight, alluring figure in the front of the car and went.

Beatrix watched them duck their heads against the slanting rain which bounced up from the pavement and hurry away. "I like him for that," she thought. "I didn't think he would do it." Then she picked up the speaking tube and called out: "Brownie, so that you sha'n't get rheumatism and spoil your dress we're going to enjoy this shelter until the rain stops. And, by the way, I think the house-party's going to be fairly interesting after all."

V

The Vanderdyke house at Greenwich was built upon a point which jutted out into the Sound. It was not merely a house, it was an edifice,—a great florid, stiff, stone building which might easily have been a town hall, a public library, a museum, a lunatic asylum or a hospital. It had a peculiar green roof and many turrets, and it formed a landmark which could be seen for miles from all parts of the country.

A long drive through beautifully wooded gardens ablaze with lilac and rhododendron, and wide lawns bespattered with uncountable groups of erect tulips did much to soften the angular pomposity of the barrack which had been built by Beatrix's grandfather. Stone pergolas covered with climbing roses on the point of bursting into bloom shot out from the house and hid the ample stables and garages. An inspiring and invigorating view of the Sound caught the eye through the trees. There had been a belated spring, after a long and cantankerous winter, but now tree and shrub vied with one another and the first fresh green of them all was almost dazzling. The chestnuts, especially, were prodigal with bloom and looked like great Christmas trees thickly covered with bunches of white candles, and everywhere birds sang and went merrily about the little business of their lives.

The car in which Beatrix and Mrs. Lester Keene drove up was followed closely by Franklin's new Rolls Royce, in the body of which all his baggage was stacked. Franklin, who had been driving, sprang out and opened the door of the other car. "I've been dogging your heels," he said, "and incidentally getting all your dust. How d'you do?"

"Don't blame me for the dust," said Beatrix. "Why didn't you overtake us and finish the journey in bright conversation with the two grateful and admiring females to whom you behaved like a knight errant yesterday? You and I always seem to have a great deal to talk about, don't we?"

Franklin knew that she was pulling his leg. Hitherto, during their occasional meetings, their conversation had been more or less monosyllabic. He felt tempted to say that he preferred driving to talking to women, but held his peace. There would perhaps be plenty of opportunities of getting his own back.

They passed a double line of men-servants and went into the large hall together. Mrs. Keene gave one quick glance round and, imitating a rabbit which hears the approach of enemy, scuttled across to the elaborate staircase and hurried away. Mrs. Vanderdyke,—a very finished, rather too tall, insistently slight woman who never raised her voice and seldom laughed and seemed to be continually watching herself in a mental looking-glass,—met them. Her dark hair was dressed as carefully as a salad. Her perfectly correct and well-balanced face was as well painted as the cover of a magazine, and without any undue compression she wore a white frock which might have been made for a girl of twenty-four. She gave her left hand to Beatrix and placed a mere suggestion of a kiss on her left ear. "So you've come," she said. Her right hand she gave to Franklin, to whom she added, "You are very welcome."

"Thanks," said Franklin. "I'm delighted to be here."

And then Miss Honoria Vanderdyke sailed forward. With her white hair, thin, thoroughbred face, rather frail, tall figure and old-fashioned dress she might have stepped out of one of Jane Austen's books. Without any attempt to act the part, she looked every inch the great lady and stood frankly and proudly for all that was best of the generation which is scoffingly referred to as mid-Victorian. She, too, gave Beatrix a perfunctory greeting and the merest peck on the cheek, and turned with the utmost graciousness to Franklin. "I'm very glad to see you," she said. "Your father and I were old friends. I hope that we may know each other better."

Franklin bowed over her hand. In all his travels he had rarely seen a woman who so well lived up to his ideas of dignity and beauty grown old gracefully. "Thank you very much," he said. "You're very kind."

Then Mr. Vanderdyke made his appearance—the mere husk of a man—uneager, hypochondriacal, melancholy-looking, grey-headed, with a white moustache every hair of which seemed to be in a state of utter depression. Completely ignoring his daughter, he gave a limp hand to Franklin. "I'm glad to see you," he said, without any warmth, and then backed away and began to look at Beatrix with an expression of such pained surprise that she almost burst out laughing.

Her whole reception by the family proved to her that she was now regarded by them as the prodigal daughter. There was obviously going to be a scene presently. Well, she didn't care. She could hold her own against all of them. She almost wished that there was enough in her relations with Sutherland York to warrant their disturbed feelings. It was like eating an egg without salt to proceed into a row without a cause.

"I dare say that you'd like to go up to your room at once," said Mrs. Vanderdyke.

Franklin bowed, smiled and followed the footman upstairs.

Through the French windows Beatrix caught sight of a number of people having tea on one of the terraces. She made no effort to join them, but sat on the edge of a long, narrow table with bulbous legs and selected a magazine. Beneath her short frock rather more than two delicate ankles showed themselves. She saw no reason why they shouldn't, knowing that they were worth infinite admiration. Her father irritably acknowledged that he had never seen her so lovely, so cool, so self-possessed or more utterly desirable in her first sweet flush of beauty and youth. She seemed to say: "Come on, all of you, and get it over, and then let there be peace."

Her challenge was eagerly accepted by her mother, who looked round to see that the hall was deserted of guests and servants, and closed down upon Beatrix with more anger in her eyes than the girl had ever before seen in them.

"I don't quite know what's to be done with you," she said.

"I thought it was agreed that I shall play 'Titania,'" replied Beatrix, glancing up with an air of mild surprise. "I've brought a charming costume with me."

Aunt Honoria joined in. "In my opinion the moment is ill-chosen for this unpleasant business. It might better have been reserved until our guests are changing for dinner. However, there's every excuse for your mother's impatience, Beatrix, and as the matter is one about which we all feel very deeply it will be well for you to take it seriously."

Beatrix gave a little bow.

"In the history of the family," said Mr. Vanderdyke, with more feeling than anyone had ever seen him display, "never before has one of its women been connected with a scandal."

Beatrix laid down the magazine. "Somebody said that scandal comes from the mouth of Ananias." She gave them all the epigram for what it was worth.

Her mother spoke again. "Aunt Honoria has had a letter from a friend of hers telling her that you've been seen going into the apartment of a portrait painter, called Sutherland York, late at night."

"And coming out," added her father.

"I should naturally come out," said Beatrix, smiling at him as though he had said an unintentionally comic thing.

"It has been reported to me," said Aunt Honoria, "that as often as once a week during the winter and spring you've visited this man alone at night. You don't deny that?"

"Oh, no."

"Good God!" said Mr. Vanderdyke.

"And you don't deny that you were there last night?"

"The night before last," said Beatrix quietly.

Mrs. Vanderdyke almost raised her voice. "What you could see in a flamboyant creature of that type——"

"That isn't the point," said Aunt Honoria. "We are not concerned as to whether Beatrix has developed vulgar tastes and has found this painter attractive. We are concerned with the fact that for some utterly inadequate and inexcusable reason, she has surrounded our name with a net-work of vulgar gossip which, inevitably, will find its way into the scurrilous paragraphs of the carrion press."

"For the first time in history!" Mr. Vanderdyke almost wailed.

"We're very jealous of our good name," continued Aunt Honoria. "We've endeavored to set an example to society. It's inconceivable to us that it should have been left to you, old enough as you are to appreciate the truth of things, to put a slur upon us and with an obvious disregard for our reputation the subject of smoke-room gossip. I don't think that even you could make me believe that you've played the fool with this picturesque person, who, I hear, makes professional love to the silly wives of men with more money than sense. I can see that you've been merely indulging your latent sense of adventure or trying to persuade yourself that you've been playing the heroine's part in a romance."

"I wonder," said Mrs. Vanderdyke.

Beatrix gave her a quick look. The implication of those two words hit her hard. But she said nothing, and gave the white-haired lady another little bow.

"A portrait-painting charlatan!" said Mr. Vanderdyke.

Aunt Honoria paid very little attention to these interruptions. "That's my firm belief. Please God, I'm justified. You were asked to return last night, so that this most unfortunate business might be gone into quietly. You exercised the right of modern youth to tell us that we might go to the devil. Let me assure you, my dear Beatrix, now that you've chosen to come, that we do not intend to be relegated to that person, even to oblige you. On the contrary, the point that has been gone into during your absence is the place to which we are going to relegate you."

"I don't quite understand," said Beatrix.

Her mother put in "probably not," to the peculiar discussion which was being conducted, on the face of it, as though its subject were politics,—without outward heat, angry gesture or raised voices, but with an intensity of feeling that made the air vibrate all round these four ultra-civilized people.

"And I am very far from well," said Mr. Vanderdyke, with curious irrelevance.

Beatrix very nearly laughed. "Dear old Daddy," she said to herself, "how funny he can be."

"We came to a decision this morning," said Aunt Honoria, "in which I think you'll be interested. Your attitude over the telephone on top of my very inconvenient visit to New York the night before last,—of which, naturally, your companion told you,—was a pretty conclusive proof that you're quite callous of what has been and will be said about you and that you show no inclination to accept our demands, requests or pleadings to tone down your supreme individualism to a normal level and give up playing the ostrich in town. In short, my dear Beatrix, we realize that unless we assert our authority this once and make it impossible for you to get us all into a deeper scandal, you'll continue to 'carry on,'—I quote the expression from the language of the servants' hall,—either with York or some other equally impossible member of the long-haired brigade."

"I'm old enough to take care of myself, I think," said Beatrix.

"We don't," said her mother.

"Nor of us and the family reputation," added Aunt Honoria, "which, as I've said already, is the point. You'll go through with the pastoral,—that'll avoid comment,—then you'll see a doctor and it'll be given out that your constitution needs an entire change of air and scene. About a week after the present house-party has broken up you'll join me on a visit to my cottage in Maine, and there you'll spend a quiet, thoughtful year learning how to live from nature, with my devoted assistance."

Mrs. Vanderdyke punctuated this sentence of banishment with an inaudible comment.

A sort of groan came from Mr. Vanderdyke. He adored his only child.

With a supreme effort of will, Beatrix controlled an almost overwhelming desire to scream at what was, to her way of thinking, a form of punishment quite barbarian in its severity. She remained, instead, in an attitude of polite patience, determining to die rather than to show how awful the very thought of such an excommunication was to her, who was only really happy when in the whirl of town life. Her inherent honesty made her confess to herself that, little as she realized it at the time,—never having stopped in her impetuous desire to go her own way and carry out her own wishes,—she had laid herself open to every charge brought against her. She owned that her indiscretion had been colossal, and instantly dismissed all idea of giving her family a picture of the utter harmlessness of her relations with York. She disliked and regretted having brought the family name into the mouth of gossipers as much as the three people who stood over her and knew perfectly well that they fully intended to carry the punishment out to its bitter end. But,—and here her fertile mind began to work,—was there a single living person so foolish as to believe that she was made of the feeble stuff that knuckled down to the loss of one whole exciting season in town for the lack of a brain wave? Had she ever yet, either in the nursery or in school, so wanted in courage or in wit as not to have been able to carry out a quick and effective counterstroke against authority? Not she!

She looked up, avoided the eyes of her father, mother and aunt, and saw Pelham Franklin in the gallery that ran round the hall. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking at a portrait of the Vanderdyke who had come over from Holland to lay the foundations of a great fortune. A sudden impish and daring idea took possession of her. She would use this man, as she had hitherto used any other likely person, to triumph over her present quandary, and trust to her invariable good luck to see her through. It was the legitimate outcome of her autocratic upbringing, the fact that she had had it instilled into her from babyhood that she had only to raise her finger to obtain her own way. Acting, as usual, on impulse and not stopping to give a second's thought to the complications that might be caused by it, she turned back to the three people who stood waiting for her to speak with a very sweet smile, and the glorious knowledge that she could turn the tables upon them and become top-dog again. She was going to fight for that season in town with all her strength, never mind who paid for her success.

"I'm very sorry about all this," she said, "and I want you to believe that I had no intention of inspiring unpleasant remarks or putting you to all this pain. But you'll be glad to hear that this story about my visits to Sutherland York is only half true,—like most stories of the kind. It hasn't occurred to you, has it, that more than one man may live in York's apartment house and that I may have been going to see him?" She saw, with a quicker action of her heart, that Franklin was coming downstairs.

"It makes no difference whether the man you went to see was York or another," said Aunt Honoria, in her most incisive way. "The fact remains that everyone is talking about your visits to some man, alone at night."

Franklin caught the words, gave a quick, sympathetic glance at Beatrix, whom he rather pitied,—he detested family rows,—and drew up to examine another picture, with well-simulated interest.

Beatrix began to enjoy herself. A wave of exhilaration swept over her. She had a surprise in store for her family that would transfer her from the position of a prodigal daughter to that of a Joan of Arc, a Grace Darling, a Florence Nightingale. Never mind who paid!

She raised her voice so that Franklin should hear her. "I would willingly and without any argument be sent to the backwoods for a year if I'd made a fool of myself with a man like Sutherland York. He was never anything more to me than a poseur and a freak, and as such he amused me. But what will you and all these people with nasty minds say if I tell you that I had every right to pay midnight visits to the man who lived in the studio opposite to York's, and if there is anything attaching to our name it is not scandal, but romance?"

Franklin wheeled round. What on earth was the girl trying to suggest to save her skin?

An amazing change came over the three accusers. They all knew that Franklin's rooms were in the same building as York's,—Franklin, the man whom they would rather see married into their family than anyone alive.

"W-what d'you mean?" cried Mr. Vanderdyke, stammering in his eagerness.

Mrs. Vanderdyke lost her perfect reserve for once and grasped her daughter's arm. "Tell us! Tell us!" she cried.

Over Aunt Honoria's face the beginning of a new understanding came. "What is this right, Beatrix?" she asked. "What is it?"

Beatrix came to the jump, rose to it and cleared it at a bound, with every drop of blood in her lovely body tingling with excitement and a glorious sense of being alive, being beautiful, being able to carry everything before her. She was leaping from one scrape to another, but in this one she was dealing with a sportsman who would help her somehow.

"The right," she said, throwing up her head, "of a girl who goes to see the man to whom she has been secretly married."

She rose, and with exquisite shyness and her fair skin touched with the color that nature paints upon the petals of apple blossoms, went across to Franklin and ran her hand through his arm.

VI

In her relief at being able to put a stop to the ugly story which coupled the names of Beatrix Vanderdyke and Sutherland York, Aunt Honoria,—who invariably took the lead in all matters relating to her family,—not only at once gave out to the house-party the news of the romantic marriage of her niece and Pelham Franklin, but, with her characteristic thoroughness, called up the editor of the New York Times and gave it to him for immediate publication. In her mind's eye she saw the front page of the next day's issue setting forth under big headlines, with photographs of the happy couple, an elaborate account of the wealth and importance of the families of Vanderdyke and Franklin. This would be taken up and spun out by all the other papers in the country, and then, she rejoiced to know, would be killed the insidious scandal with which the family name had been connected to the horror and pain of all who bore it.

Neither she, nor any of the members of the house party, stopped to ask a single question. They had swallowed the story of Beatrix and Sutherland York whole. They now swallowed the news of the secret marriage with the same appetite. It is the human way. The details mattered nothing. The motive which led to so unusual a proceeding as a secret marriage, the place and date of the ceremony, mattered nothing. They had all believed without corroboration that Beatrix had fallen a victim to the picturesque attractions of the much-advertised portrait painter. In the same way they accepted the new and much more exciting fact and hastened to congratulate their hostess and the two young people concerned.

Beatrix found herself, as she knew that she would, the heroine of the family. Her mother smiled upon her during the remainder of the day and frequently placed her usually unemotional hand on her daughter's shoulder and said: "My dear, dear child," or "dear Beatrix."

Her father,—that rather pathetic figure, a man who had never done a stroke of work since his birth—whose immense wealth had utterly deprived him of the initiative to do things, conquer things or achieve things, and who found himself in late middle-age without having discovered the master-secret of life—how to live,—came out of his almost settled melancholia for the time being and behaved at dinner like any ordinary healthy, normal man, laughing frequently and cracking little jokes with his guests.. Whenever he caught his daughter's eyes he gave her the most tender and appreciative smile, and came so far out of his shell as to raise his glass to Franklin, who responded with a very queer smile.

As for Aunt Honoria,—a past-mistress in the art of graciousness,—so proud and happy was she that her pet ambition of a union between her family and Franklin's had been fulfilled, that she readily forgave the unconventional behavior of the two young people, the lack of a wonderful wedding and a great society function, and beamed upon them both. She caught Beatrix as she was about to dash upstairs to change for dinner and folded her arms about the girl, whose eyes danced with the spirit of mischief and the sheer fun of it all. "My darling," she said, "you've made me very happy. No wonder you came home to-day defiant and with a high head. You held a royal flush. You've won the love of a man, my dear. Honor and respect it, and may God bless you!"

Upstairs in her room, whose windows gave a view of the Sound that was indescribably charming, Beatrix had a brief, almost breathless talk with Mrs. Lester Keene, to whom the story of the secret marriage had come as a frightful shock. This amiable, weak woman, hide-bound in her ideas of right and wrong, met her with nerves unstrung, and incoherent in her terror of being implicated in what she knew to be a lie.

But Beatrix waved her stammering reproaches aside. "Brownie," she cried, at the top of her form, "whatever happens you're safe, so don't worry. I've jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, but I'm an excellent jumper and I believe in luck. I dare not think where the next spring will land me, so I'm not going to think. Sufficient unto the day, you know, and Franklin is a sportsman. All I know is that at this moment I'm the little pet of all the world; that I had the unspeakable delight of turning the tables on my people and that I feel as beautiful as I look,—and that's saying a good deal. Now run away and tell Helene to come and dress me as befits a young wife still on her honeymoon." She gave the elderly, disturbed lady a kiss on both her cheeks, shooed her out of the room and broke into song.

Only once during dinner did she permit herself to meet Franklin's eyes and then, for the first time since she had sprung her suddenly conceived surprise upon her irate family, she received a momentary shock which ran through her body like that of electricity, leaving her tingling and frightened. But with her abounding capacity for recovery and her all-conquering belief in herself and her gift for getting out of scrapes she shook the feeling off and went through the rest of the evening in the highest spirits. No one had ever seen her looking so brilliantly or so exquisitely beautiful. Her eyes shone like stars, her dimples came and went and came again. She was the life of the house, moving from group to group like a young Helen—a wood nymph—the very spirit of joy and laughter. Not for the ninety-ninth part of a second did she permit herself to pull up and wonder what she had done; where her impetuous, hare-brained, autocratic desire for self-preservation might lead. Never for an instant, or the fraction of an instant, did she give a thought to the appalling difficult position into which her spur-of-the-moment scheme had placed Franklin. What she had done she had done, and there, for the time being, was the end of it. Somehow or other everything would come right, as it always did. Why else was she who she was? Why else had she been led to believe that the earth, the sun and the moon were hers. It was all the natural correlation of her training since she had been brought into the world.

Franklin allowed Beatrix to avoid a talk with him until many of the guests had gone to bed. Between the moment when she had slipped her arm through his and made that urgent and almost childlike appeal which had carried him off his feet and left him without caution and sanity, and the one when he stalked across the pompous hall to her side and drew her into an alcove, he had done some peculiar thinking. He was a straight-going, honest fellow, who, like Beatrix, had gone through life having his own way. No living soul had ever before coerced him from the path that he had chosen. He was in no sense of the word a lady's man, and he had no idea of marrying and settling down until he had had enough of hunting and camping.

He had watched Beatrix closely. He had seen her reinstated into the family favor, taking the congratulations that were poured upon her by them and their friends with a charming dignity that took his breath away. He guessed, of course, that he had been "used" by Beatrix to save herself from punishment, because he had been obliged to overhear the last part of the family attack. But he expected from moment to moment that she would either permit him to deny the story of the secret marriage or do so herself. It was inconceivable to him that this lie was to be allowed to get them both deeper and deeper into a most deplorable tangle.

He was blazing with anger when at last he found her alone for a moment, and he made no attempt to hide it. "I want a word with you," he said shortly.

Beatrix tried to escape. "A little later," she said.

"No, now."

"I'm so sorry——"

Franklin took her arm and led her into the quiet corner. "Sit down," he said.

There was something so new and refreshing in receiving orders, that Beatrix gave a little laugh and obeyed.

Franklin took a seat at her side. Their knees almost touched.

"You evidently take me for many kinds of a fool," he said.

"Not at all. May I trouble you for a cushion?" She bent slightly forward.

He placed one behind her back. "Whether you do or not, you've made me one,—the most colossal example of a damned idiot I've ever struck."

"Oh, please don't say that."

Franklin's eyes flicked. This girl could be flippant under such circumstances, could she? She could sit knee to knee with an angry man and remain as self-possessed and undisturbed as though she were resting between dances. Well, he would show her with whom she was dealing!

"Before your mother goes to bed," he said, "I'm going to put my foot through this yarn of yours and give the game away."

"Oh, no," replied Beatrix, "you'll certainly not do that."

"Why not?"

"Because, in addition to many other attributes, you happen to be a sportsman."

"But how long d'you imagine I'm to let this thing go on?"

"I haven't thought about it."

"Don't you see that you'd better begin to think pretty quickly?"

"No. Everything is going very well. Why disturb it?"

"But look at it from my point of view."

"To tell you the truth—I usually do tell the truth—to-day has been the exception that proves the rule,—I'm only able at present to look at it from mine."

"You realize that every hour makes the whole thing more impossible. It'll all be in the papers to-morrow."

"Isn't that exciting? I hope they'll be able to get an attractive photograph of you." Her heart was beating more and more quickly.

Franklin began to pull his short moustache. He hardly dared to trust to his choice of words. Yesterday he had told himself that this girl wanted the spurs. The thought came back to him as he sat racking his brain for some way out of the ghastly mess into which she had placed him. He saw that it was no earthly use to endeavor to talk sensibly to her and that she had made up her mind to hold him to the mad plan of escape into which she had dragged him. Very good. He would show her that sportsmen were also very human men.

He raised his finger to a footman who was crossing the hall. "Have my things taken at once from my room to Mrs. Franklin's," he said, and, as the man bowed and went, put his hand under the elbow of the girl—who had turned as white as the gardenia at her waist—and added: "Let's go and say good night, darling. It's time for bed."

Beatrix turned upon him and wrenched her arm away. "You don't know what you're saying," she said.

"Oh, yes, I do. You've had your way to-day, I'm going to have mine to-night. Two can play your game, you know, and I'm going to show you how completely I can play it when I choose."

He took her hand in a grip of iron and led her to where Mrs. Vanderdyke was standing with Aunt Honoria. He looked the loving husband to the life. "Good night," he said. "Bee and I are rather tired after an exciting day."

Mrs. Vanderdyke gave him her hand, with her best smile. "And to-morrow we begin rehearsing and shall all be very busy. Good night."

"You look quite tired, my darling," said Aunt Honoria tenderly.

Beatrix received the kiss, tried to return the smile and to find even one word to say, but her heart was trembling, and her hand was held so tight that her fingers were crushed together. She heard other remarks as though they were spoken a long way off, felt herself guided and controlled up the wide stairway as if she were walking in a dream, and found herself standing in the gallery.

"Which is your room!"

It was not a question. It was an order, sharp and short.

She pointed to the door, shaking like a frightened deer.

But when she stood inside her room, heard the door shut and locked, and saw Franklin with his white teeth gleaming under his moustache, her voice came back and she clasped her hands together in a very ecstasy of appeal.

"Let me off! Please, please let me off!"

Franklin shot out a laugh. "Not I. You've told everybody that you're my wife. Good. Live up to it."

He took the key out of the lock and put it in his pocket. Then he sat down and crossed one leg over the other. "How long will you be?" he asked.

This girl needed the spurs. He intended to use them.