Читать книгу White Magic - David Graham Phillips - Страница 6

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Toward four the next afternoon Wade, at the studio, heard a knock on the door. He recognized it so promptly that one might almost have suspected he had been expecting it—or, would hoping for it be a more exactly accurate phrase? By way of answer he tiptoed across the floor, rested his full weight against the door, as there was no bolt, indeed no fastening of any kind but the unused outside bar and padlock. If that assault was to be repelled he must rely wholly upon his own unaided strength. He was not content with resting his weight; he braced himself and pushed.

The knock came again—right between his shoulder-blades with only the inch plank between.

It was as if those pretty knuckles of hers were tapping him on the back, on the spinal cord, which, as everyone knows, immediately radiates sensation to all parts of even such a huge body as was Chang’s. He grew quite pale, then an absurdly boyish red. He muttered something that sounded like “damn fool”—and it certainly must have been addressed to himself.

The knock came the third time, quickly—a triumphant knock, seeming to say, “So you’re in there, are you? Well, surrender at once!”

He wondered how she had found out, for he certainly had made no sound she could have heard. With the fourth and most vigorous knock he discovered the secret. He noted that his body against the door made the knock sound differently. He hastily lifted himself away, put his hands against the door high up above where she, merely a person of medium height, and woman’s medium height at that, could reach. When she knocked again he felt absurd. For the sound, hollow once more, must reveal to her that there was indeed some change of conditions within, proving beyond doubt the presence of some intelligent—or, at least, brain-using—being.

His poor opinion of himself and his fear of her sagacity were forthwith justified. “It’s only I,” she called. “So you can open.”

The impudence! As if he were eager to see her, would instantly open for her! Why, she was positively brazen, this sweet, innocent young girl. No—that was unjust. Just because she was innocent she did these outlandish, outrageous things. Yet how could a girl of twenty-two, out four years, extremely intelligent—how could she be thus unaware of what was proper and modest for a young woman dealing with a bachelor? How could she venture upon—no, not merely venture upon, but boldly tackle, grapple with—the subject which the maiden should never so much as hint until the man has forced it upon her? “I don’t understand it,” he muttered. “She’s some queer mixture of craft and innocence. And where the one begins and the other ends I’m blessed if I know. There’s some mystery in this. She’s got some notion—some false notion—or something—Heaven knows what. All I know is, she’s got to stop hounding me—and she’s not going to get in.”

As if she had heard these angry but cautious undertones she said: “Now, Chang, don’t be a silly. I know you’re against the other side of the door. I could tell by the way the knocks sounded. Besides, I’ve just peeped through the crack underneath and I saw your big feet.”

Then he did feel like an ass! Caught holding a door, like a ten-year-old boy—he, a great, huge, grown man, no less than thirty-two years old! Still, of the two absurd courses open to him—to let her in and to continue to bar her out—the less absurd was the latter. To face her with a red and sheepish countenance—to face her mocking smile—that was not to be thought of.

“Don’t be afraid, Chang,” she scoffed. “I haven’t got a clergyman with me.”

“Run along home, you foolish child,” he cried. “I’m busy and mustn’t be interrupted.”

“I must see you—for just a minute,” she pleaded—the kind of pleading that is command. “Don’t be so vain. Don’t take yourself so seriously.”

That voice of hers—it sounded sanely humorous. And he certainly was putting himself in the position of having egotistically believed to the uttermost her remarks of yesterday, which were probably nothing but a fantastic mood. But he simply could not open that door and face her plump off. He made three or four steps away from it on tiptoe, then walked heavily, calling out in a tone of gruff indifference: “Come on! But don’t forget I’m busy.” Luckily he happened to glance at the picture; he had just time hastily to fling a drape over it. He went to the fireplace and busied himself with the fire—for the day after the heavy rain was of an almost winter coolness. He heard the door open and close.

“Your manners are simply shocking,” came in her voice.

He turned round to face her. No, she was not in the least abashed, as one would have expected her to be on seeing him for the first time after her proposal. What did it mean? What was in that industrious, agile mind? She was much better dressed than she had been as his model. She was wearing a most becoming gray gown with a small, gray walking hat to match. Yes, she looked prettier, more ladylike, but—

“How do you like my new suit?” asked she.

“Very good,” replied he. “But while you’ve gained something, you’ve lost more.”

“I know it,” admitted she. “I saw it the instant I looked at myself in the glass, and I’ve felt it all the way here. I’ve lost what you like best in me. That is, I’ve not exactly lost it, but covered it up. But it’s still here.” This last in a tone gay with enjoyment in teasing him.

He stood with his back to the fire, and waited. She came slowly toward him, halting at every second step. Her smile was mysterious—and disquieting. It was a mocking smile, yet behind it there lurked—what? What was the mystery of that proposal?

“Well, I suppose you’ll be satisfied now,” said she. “I’m engaged.”

“I don’t care anything about it,” declared he. “Let’s talk of something else.”

They were facing each other now, not many steps apart; and the sight of her, in such high good humor, made it simply impossible for him to remain grumpy, or to pretend that he was. She went on: “I did it this morning—instead of coming to pose for you. I hope I didn’t put you out too much. I couldn’t think of any way to send you word.”

“I wasn’t there,” said he. “I can finish the picture up here.”

“Then you don’t need me any more?” inquired she. And the little hands she was stretching out to the blaze dropped pathetically to her side and up went her face to gaze into his mournfully.

“I’ve done with models in America!” said he, laughing—not in very mirthful fashion, however.

Her eyes—they were innocent to-day—remained serious. “I don’t see why you were upset by what I said,” observed she reflectively, warming her palms. “You can’t have had much experience with women or you’d not have been.”

It was a notable proof of Chang’s fundamental simplicity of character that this usually sure thrust at masculine vanity did not reach him, though he was only thirty-two. “You’re not a woman,” replied he. “You’re a girl—a child—a stray from the nursery.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m a woman. You’ve made me a woman.”

“There you go again!” cried he. “Blaming me!”

“Thanking you!” corrected she gently. “But please don’t get excited about—yesterday. How can we be friends if you begin to fuss and fume every time you think of it? Really, I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.”

He dropped into a chair and laughed heartily.

“I simply proposed to you,” said she.

“So you think it is ordinary for a girl to propose to a man—and to insist on it, in spite of his protests? Well—maybe it is—in America.”

“I don’t know,” said she reflectively. “I never did it before.”

“Really?”

“No,” she answered him unsmilingly. “But I’m sure I’ll do it again—if I feel like it.”

“I wouldn’t—if I were you. The next man might misunderstand.”

“You didn’t?” The gray eyes were not interrogative, but affirmative.

“Certainly not. I’m not so vain; and, besides, I knew you.”

“That had a great deal to do with it—I mean, the fact that we knew each other so well. I shouldn’t, of course, do such a thing to a perfect stranger.” There was no suggestion of irony, of any kind of humor, in her voice. But he felt uneasy. She proceeded tranquilly: “I suppose any girl would—in the same circumstances—any sensible girl.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” confessed he. What did she mean by “in the same circumstances”? There seemed a chance to penetrate into the mystery, but he would venture no questions. He contented himself with repeating: “No, I never heard of it.”

“Naturally,” observed she. “A girl wouldn’t tell it afterwards—and the man couldn’t—if he were a gentleman. I’m sure if anyone ever asks me whether I ever proposed to a man I’ll say no. And, in a way, it is true. Really, you were the one that proposed to me.” She nodded slowly. “Really, it was you.”

“I?” he exclaimed in derision.

“Yes, you,” she affirmed, meeting his gaze gravely.

His eyes wavered; he confusedly sought and lit a cigarette.

“Of course,” pursued she, “I never could have done such a thing if I hadn’t known it would be—agreeable.”

That word agreeable struck him as being a peculiarly happy choice. He chuckled. Her smile showed that she herself regarded it as a rhetorical triumph. “You’ll have a chocolate—won’t you?” said he.

“Thank you,” she accepted, with eager gratitude. “Won’t you let me make it?”

He was already busy. “I can’t have you mussing in my closet,” he laughed. “Though, Heaven knows, I feel as if you were at home here.” It slipped out, before he realized what he was saying. He hoped she had not heard.

But she had. “That’s it!” cried she. “Don’t we feel at home and at ease with each other! I never felt that way with anybody in my life before. And I’ve an instinct that you never did, either—never so much so.... What’s the matter?”

He had turned in the closet doorway, was gazing gloomily at her, and, being so big and so dark, his gloom was indeed somber—suggested the darkness of an enchanted forest. “After all my resolutions!” he exclaimed, with bitterness of self-reproach. He shut the closet. “No chocolate,” he said firmly. “You must go home and let me work.”

“Why, what are you afraid of?” cried she, an angry light in her eyes. “You told me yesterday you wouldn’t have me. And now I’m engaged.”

“You must go.”

She stamped her foot, and in poise of head, in curve of brow and lip showed for the first time the imperiousness she had told him about. “If I didn’t like you so well!” she cried. “Do be sensible. You’re always calling me a baby. It’s you that are the baby.”

“I think so, myself,” said he, the more quietly but also the more strongly for her threatening outburst of temper. “Listen to me, Rix. This nonsense has got to stop. We’re going to keep away from each other. We’re not in love—and we’re not going to put ourselves in the way of temptation.” He looked reproachfully at her. “Why in thunder did you have to go and spoil everything with that chatter of yours yesterday? We were getting along beautifully, and the idea of you as a girl in the ordinary sense never had entered my head.”

“You didn’t understand yourself,” said she. “Women are wiser about those things than men—the most foolish women than the wisest men. Besides, if you knew the circumstances as I know them, you’d not attach so much importance to what was perfectly natural.”

He puzzled for an instant with this second mysterious reference to the “circumstance,” dismissed it. “Anyhow, the milk’s spilled,” said he with determination. “And you must go and not come back.”

“But now that I’m engaged——”

“Engaged be hanged!” exclaimed he violently. “I’m not as stupid as you think. Can’t I see that you’re up to the same tricks as yesterday? What do you mean by it? What’s going on in the back of your head? No—never mind. I don’t want to know. I want you to go.”

She sat on the long, low bench and began to cry. “You’re brutal to me,” she sobbed. “Here I went and got engaged just to oblige you and so that we could be friends. And now you won’t be friends!”

He fretted about, glancing angrily at her from time to time until he could endure her unhappiness no longer. He rushed for the closet and began rattling the pots and dishes. “You are making an ass of me!” he cried. “I never heard of such a woman! No matter what I say or do, you put me in the wrong.... Dry those tears and I’ll give you chocolate. But, mind you, this is the last time.”

She removed the traces of grief with celerity and cheerfulness. She beamed on him. “I simply won’t let us not be friends,” said she. “I never had a friend before. I couldn’t get along without you. You teach me so much, and give me such good advice.”

“Which you take,” said he, grumpily ironical.

“All of it that’s good,” replied she. “You wouldn’t want me to take the bad advice, would you, Chang? No, certainly you wouldn’t.”

In the end he let her help him make the chocolate, guided her as she investigated the secrets of the closet—the easels and paints, the canvases and drawing paper. And she laughed at his pair of big, old slippers, and insisted on trying on a working coat full of holes and smelling fiercely of stale tobacco. Before he realized what was going on he was submitting joyously while she combed his hair in a new way—“one that’ll bring out the artist in you.” And then they had a picnic before the fire, and neither said a single word that would not have sounded foolish from the lips of twelve years old—foolish, mind you, not silly; there’s a world of difference between foolish and silly, between folly and flatness. They had a hilariously good time, like the two attractive grown-up children that they were—both brimming with the joy of life, both eager for laughter as only intelligent, imaginative people with no blight of solemn-ass false dignity upon them are. And how thoroughly congenial they were! He did not awaken until she cried: “Good gracious! What time is it? Six o’clock? I must go this minute.”

“Don’t hurry. I’ll take you home,” said he. Then, with sudden virtue, “You know, this is to be the last.”

She shook her head, laughing. “Oh, no. I’ll be down at the lake, as usual, to-morrow morning.”

“I’ll not be there.”

“Then I’ll come on here.”

“Now, Rix, that isn’t square.”

“Square? To whom?”

“To me—to yourself—to that chap you’re engaged to.”

“Are you afraid of falling in love with me?”

“No—not in the least,” replied he, hasty and vigorous. “I don’t think of you at all in that way.”

“You think you’ll hurt my vanity and make me angry.”

“Nothing of the kind!” protested he crossly. “You simply can’t get it through your head that I don’t love you—that my life is settled along other lines.”

“Then why shouldn’t I come?”

His mouth opened to reply, closed again. His expression was foolish.

She laughed. “You are vain!” she cried. “You think the more I see of you the more I’ll love you. Oh, Chang, Chang—what a peacock!”

“You’ve got a positive genius for putting me in the wrong. You——”

“Now, isn’t it sensible,” she interrupted, “for you to let me come—and get cured of my romantic nonsense, as you call it?”

“I don’t need you any more. You only interrupt my work. And I’ve got a hard fight, making a career in this country. I——”

“You know you do need me. The picture isn’t done.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I saw it in your face when I first came and spoke about the picture.”

She had him there. The picture did indeed need several days more with the model. He took another tack. “It’s a mean trick for you to play on that—that fellow you’re going to marry.”

“He and I understand each other,” said she with dignity.

“Does he know about—about this?”

“As much as is good for him. He isn’t the kind of man that can be told the whole truth. A person has to be careful, you know, and judge the character of the person she’s dealing with.”

Her manner was so wise and serious that he could not but laugh. “I’m afraid Rix is—just a little deceitful.”

“You seem very much interested,” said she. “Well, I’ll tell you all about it. Perhaps you can advise me better, if——”

He put up his hands. “Not a word!” he cried. “I don’t want to know. I don’t care anything about it.”

“Please let me say just one thing. If you’ll let me come——”

“But I won’t.”

“Oh, yes, you will,” cried she, looking mockingly at him, her head on one side. “You say you are devoted to your art. Then you’ve no right to sacrifice your picture to your vanity.”

“My vanity! Well, I like that!”

“Your vanity. Your idea that on acquaintance you are more and more fascinating, instead of less and less so.”

“I can take care of the picture.”

“Oughtn’t I to pose till it’s done? Honestly, Chang?”

He could not lie when she put it to him that way. “Well, I will admit,” he conceded with much reluctance, “the picture would be the better for a few more sittings. But they’re not absolutely necessary.”

“I have my right, too, Chang,” continued she. “We’re doing that picture together. I’ve got a share in it—haven’t I?”

He had grown still and thoughtful. He nodded.

“So I insist that it must be done right.... Have you noticed I haven’t once to-day said anything about loving you?”

“For Heaven’s sake, Rix, don’t talk that way. It gets on my nerves. It makes me feel like a jumping idiot.”

“But have I said anything?” persisted she.

“Not in so many words,” he admitted. “But——”

“I’m not responsible for what you may have read into my looks and voice, Chang. You know, you are so vain!... I haven’t said anything, and I’ll promise not to—to get on those shaky nerves of yours when I come to pose.”

“That’s a bargain?”

“Shake hands.”

And they shook hands. “Now, I must go,” said she. When he began to get ready to accompany her she forbade him in a tone that admitted of no discussion. “It’s an hour from even dusk,” said she. “Anyhow, I’m afraid of nothing.”

“I should say!” laughed he.

“Because I’m not afraid of you? Oh, you are vain!”

“Till to-morrow?”

“To-morrow.”

“And no more nonsense?”

“I thought it all out last night,” said she. “I understand that you haven’t got the money to support a wife——”

“Stop right there!” commanded he. “Can’t you ever get it straight? I don’t love you—and you don’t love me. That’s all.”

“Is my hat on straight?... I must hurry.... Well, I’ve no time to discuss. Only I do admire and respect you for not wanting to marry a girl when you couldn’t support her properly. Now, don’t get red and cross and begin to bluster at me. I must go. Good-by.”

And, without giving him a chance to collect words for a reply, she darted lightly and gracefully away.