AS she parked the car under an oak she heard Polly’s swift roadster approaching. She darted into the heavier shade of the avenue, but that figure in its long dark cape looked ominous to two girls alone on a deserted road at night. Polly put on her brakes and brought her car to a protesting halt. She cried out sharply:
“Who’s there? I—I’ve got an automatic.”
Gita was in no laughing mood, but she heard herself giggling.
“It’s Gita!” exclaimed Elsie. “And that’s Geoffrey’s car.”
“I’m in for it!” She sighed. “And I’d have given my immortal soul to be alone tonight.”
She came out into the road. “Yes, it’s I. Been taking an airing.”
“Where’s Geoffrey?” Polly’s voice was high.
“Don’t know, I’m sure.”
“That’s his car.”
“Is it?”
“You’ve been out with him. Don’t deny it.”
Gita drew her hood over her face. “Why should I deny what you’ve no right to ask?”
“No right!”
“Certainly not. Sorry you caught me. Thought you’d telephoned to two of your heavies and were going to supper.”
“Did. But Bob Hillier passed out—how’d you know I telephoned?”
But Gita would not mention Geoffrey’s name. She turned and walked swiftly up the avenue.
“Gita Carteret!” Polly’s voice tore by her on a wild shrieking note. Elemental Polly, at last! Gita set her lips grimly and sped on. The matter was out of her hands. She would not discuss it. She wanted nothing but to be alone.
“Gita Carteret! You’ll pay! You’ll pay!”
Menacing, that shriek, no longer hysterical. Gita heard the roar of the engine behind her and moved hastily to the extreme edge of the road, glancing over her shoulder. The headlights swerved and drove toward her. She had no time even to harbor incredulity. Polly intended to ride her down!
She darted toward a space between the trees, through it and into the shrubbery, less terrified than humiliated at being obliged to run instead of standing up to a fair fight. But she could not grapple with a frantic roadster with blinding headlights.
The car plunged through the opening after her. She scrambled to the top of a hedge and swung herself over and fled across the lawn, dropping her hampering cape. The car crashed through the hedge. She waited until it was almost upon her, then jumped to one side. She caught a glimpse of the two girls. Polly’s face was a whirling disk of white fire. Elsie had flung herself upon her, trying to wrench her hands from the wheel, but Gita knew that Polly was nearly as strong as herself. Elsie took little interest in sports.
Polly brought the car about with a wide sweep, picked Gita out with the headlights and drove toward her once more. But Gita had got her breath. She dodged behind an oak on the lawn, ran swiftly to the left and entered the avenue again between trees too closely planted to admit even a roadster. Her one chance was to reach the house before Polly could bring the car about again and aim for the entrance to the avenue. She reached the foot of the steps just as Polly made a last wild attempt to ride her down.
Gita was breathless, but managed to walk up the steps with her head high. Topper had left his usual faint light in the hall. She lit several of the brackets. No more fighting-matches in the dark for her!
The car had come to a standstill and Gita wondered vagrantly why Polly hadn’t driven it up the steps and into the hall, in the fashion of their reckless ancestors when urging the more picturesque horse. But she heard nothing for a few moments but the low murmur of voices. Probably Polly had dropped out of her murderous obsession with a hard thud and was properly ashamed. She hoped she’d take herself off, and waited for the welcome sound of the roadster in the avenue. To retreat first would be to show a white feather, and if Polly wanted a scene let her have it. But she was severely shaken. She knew she had had a narrow escape. Once more she sighed. How was she to recapture those last wondrous moments out there on the meadows? Retreat into a throbbing solitude with this miracle that had come to her?
Rapid feet on the steps. They were coming!
Polly entered first. Her face was no longer blazing white. It was flushed, but otherwise composed. Elsie looked distraught, and fell at once into a chair, staring and gasping.
Polly’s head was as high as Gita’s. Her tones had never been more crisp and metallic. “Well!” she said. “I tried to kill you. No intention of denying it. Almost wish I had. But once more you’ve won out. Call the police if you like.”
Gita shrugged disdainfully.
There was a sound of flying feet on the stair.
“What is the matter?” demanded the nurse. “How could you make such a terrible noise under Mr. Bylant’s window? I only waited to give him an opiate, but he won’t calm down until he knows what has happened.”
Gita dismissed her with an impatient wave of the hand.
“Miss Pleyden lost control of her car. Nobody is hurt. Please tell him so at once.”
The nurse, her curiosity by no means gratified, retired from a promising scene.
Gita turned to Polly.
“I really think there is nothing more to say. Don’t you think we’d all better go to bed?”
Polly looked at her wonderingly.
“Don’t you realize that I tried to kill you?” she asked.
“Well, what of it? You didn’t. Nor do I feel disposed to lay it up against you. No doubt I’d have done the same thing in your place. Succeeded, too. If ever I start out to kill anyone I’ll do it. No anticlimaxes for me.”
Polly gave a short laugh. “Couldn’t have thought of anything more cutting! Can feel the knife down on the bone. Perhaps you are grateful to me. You always wanted drama. You’ve hit the high spots twice in one week.”
“Melodrama,” corrected Elizabeth Pelham. “But love and melodrama seem to be synonymous terms—in real life, at all events. We do it better in fiction. First Eustace, then you. And both of you belong to the topmost stratum of civilization!”
“No one is civilized,” snapped Polly. “There’s not one of us—who’s alive—who wouldn’t kill to get what we wanted, if we dared. Well, I dared, and I’m not feeling ashamed of myself. Not a bit.” She turned to Gita. “You said out there I had no ‘right.’ I have! And you know it! He was mine and you deliberately took him from me.”
“He never was yours. Nor had he ever the least idea you cared for him, if that’s any consolation.”
“What on earth did he think? I’ve not looked at another man for months.”
“Thought you were amusing yourself with a new type. You told him you amused yourself with one man after another.”
“Probably did. Sounds like me. Nothing so blind as a man who’s in love with another woman. Were you out with him tonight? I’ve a right to ask that.”
“Well, I was.”
“Did he make love to you?”
“Of course not! How could you think of such a thing?”
“Don’t trust any man. But he’s in love with you and you with him. Don’t deny it.”
Gita gazed over her head.
Polly turned white and beat her hands together.
“And I must take it lying down! I, who vowed I’d get him and let nothing stand in my way. I wish to God I’d killed you!” she burst out passionately, although the words ended on a sob. “I’d gladly have been hanged or electrocuted or whatever they do to you in this state. And now I can’t go at it again. I feel as limp as a young corpse inside. Can’t even try to scratch your eyes out. Am the well-brought-up Miss Pleyden once more! Well—thank God I was something else for five minutes. I’ll cherish that memory through a long and prosaic life. Poor things, we moderns. Well, I’m off.”
She hesitated, then went forward and held out her hand.
“I don’t ask you to forgive me; but we may as well be sports.”
Gita shook the cold hand. “Good-by, Polly. I’m sorry. Wish it could be wiped out. I’ll miss you.”
Miss Pleyden shrugged her shoulders. “Chapters have to end sometime. You’ve made one quite interesting for me! I’ll light a cigarette if you don’t mind.”
She performed this rite, nodded to Gita and Elsie and swung lightly down the hall. A moment later they heard her car traveling at a reasonable pace.
Gita turned to Elsie. “Vale, Polly. But you don’t go. Not yet. You stay here until Eustace is able to leave. That’s final.”
“I feel lost and deserted myself!” exclaimed Elsie. “I wish I’d never laid eyes on you. You are a terrible devastating force, Gita. What will you do to my brother!”
And then she stared at Gita’s radiant face.
“Oh, don’t worry! Don’t worry! It won’t be as bad as you think.”
“Oh, when people are in love!” Elsie’s voice was more sarcastic than her mood.
Gita swung on her heel and stared out into the moonlight. “Better go to bed,” she said coldly. “Nothing more to say, is there?” . . .
She felt herself moving forward, felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to run out into that moonlight . . . recapture that mood so strangely compounded of exaltation and dismay, triumph and disappointment, poignant sweetness and futile resentment at the remorseless incompleteness of life. . . .
She whirled upon Elsie and, although her words tumbled out fiercely, a curious quaver of helplessness ran through them. “Oh, you both have your revenge! I should think life altogether wonderful tonight and I almost hate it. It was bad enough to have to break off—to miss—to have to wait—oh, damn honor! Damn noblesse oblige! I wish we’d been born in a different class—like some of your sophisticates—that never heard of such things—no, I don’t! I only wish things could have been different—that life didn’t always laugh at you—that life wasn’t always trying to get the best of art and generally succeeding——Life could be so wonderful and it’s just a mean chromo of art and delights in the fact and in taunting our anticipations—those lovely works of art we create and hang in the blessed spaces of the mind—taunting and shattering——
“Oh, stop staring at me as if I were a lunatic, and go to bed. I’ll be all right tomorrow. Oh, yes! Oh, yes! I’ve got to be. But at any rate I won’t go to bed. That would be a little too much!”
And she hurtled past the startled Elsie and into the drawing-room and slammed the door behind her.
THE END