EARLY in June Rosalind Shore celebrated the 365th performance of her musical comedy.
She got Annan on the telephone just as he was leaving his house to dine wherever fancy suggested.
“Harry Sneyd is giving a supper dance for me,” she explained, “and he wants a bunch of names that will look well in to-morrow’s papers. Do you mind coming, Barry? Or have you become too darned great to let the public suspect that you know how to frivol?”
“Pity your mother didn’t spank the sarcasm out of you while she was getting busy,” he retorted. “Where is the frivolling and what time?”
“You nice boy! It’s after the show in the directors’ suite at The Looking Glass. Harry’s a director there, also. Mr. Shill let him have the suite. Thank you so much, Barry; I do want all the celebrities I can get, and our publicity department will be grateful to you.”
“Glad you feel that way,” he said drily.
“Ducky, it does sound like a poor relation touching the Family Hope; but I love you anyway and you know it.”
He laughed, hung up, and went his way. Only the florists at the great hotels remained open for business. At one of these he was properly robbed, but the flowers that he sent to Rosalind were magnificent.
He joined half a dozen men of his own world at the Province Club and made one of a group at dinner.
Conversation was the sort of big-town-small-talk passing current as conversation at the majority of such clubs—Wall Street tattle, social prattle, golfing week-ends, summer plans.
Somebody—Wilkes Bruce—remarked to Annan that his aunt was in town.
The prospect of seeing her cheered him, stirring up that ever latent perverse humour of his, with the prospect of an acrimonious exchange of civilities.
Not that Mrs. Magnelius Grandcourt ever received her nephew willingly; but twice every year matters concerning the estate had to be discussed with him personally.
So Annan knew that before she took herself elsewhere a summons to the presence would arrive for him at No. 3 Governor’s Place.
She possessed a horrible house in town—a caricature of a French château—closed most of the year.
In the depths of that dim and over-upholstered stronghold these semi-annual audiences were held. They resembled courts of justice, his aunt sitting, and he the malefactor on parole, reporting at intervals according to law. And he looked forward to these conferences with malicious amusement, if his aunt did not.
After dinner he played cowboy pool with Archie Mallison and Wilkes Bruce, winning as usual. For he did everything with the same facility that characterised his easy speech and manners—accurate without effort, naturally a technician, always graceful.
But a little of his own caste went a long way with Annan. Conversation at The Province, as well as at The Patroons, bored him very soon. So, having neatly disposed of Bruce and Mallison, he retired to the library—the only place he cared about in any club except when some old foozle went to sleep there and snored.
For an hour he dawdled among the great masters of written English, always curious, always charmed, unconsciously aware of a kinship between these immortals and himself.
For perhaps this young man was not unrelated, distantly, to that noble fellowship, though the subtle possibility had never entered his mind.
So he dallied among pages printed when writing was a fine art—and printing and binding, too; and about midnight he went below, put on his hat, and betook himself to The Looking Glass.
In the amusement district the tide of gaiety was still ebbing with the usual back-wash toward cabaret and midnight show.
The Looking Glass was dark and all doors closed, but there were many cars in waiting and a group of gossiping chauffeurs around the private entrance, where a gilded lamp burned.
Through this entrance he sauntered; a lift shot him upward; he disembarked amid a glare of light and a jolly tumult of string-music and laughter.
Somebody took his hat and stick and he walked into the directors’ suite of The Looking Glass.
There were a lot of people dancing in the handsome board-room—flowers, palms, orchestra—all the usual properties.
The supper room adjoining was gay with jewels and dinner-gowns, clink of silver, tinkle of glass, speeding of waiters flying like black shuttles through some rainbow fabric in the making.
Near the door a girl—one of a group—turned as he strolled up.
“Barry!” she exclaimed, and saluted him in Rialto fashion, with both arms on his shoulders and a typical district kiss.
“Thank you for my flowers, ducky,” added Rosalind, “and you’re a darling to come. Here’s Betsy, by the way——”
“Why, Betsy!” he said, taking her outstretched hands, “when did you arrive from the Coast?”
“Yesterday, my dear, and never was I so glad to see this wretched old town. To hear Californians talk you’d think you were buying a ticket to the Coast of Paradise. But I notice the Californians remain here——” She took him by both arms: “The same boy. You don’t look great. Do you feel very great, dear?”
“Perhaps His Greatness needs food to look the part,” suggested Rosalind. “Don’t get us any,” she added, as he turned to pay his devoirs to the others in the group.
He shook hands with Harry Sneyd, bowed to Wally Crawford, encountered the mischievous gaze of Nancy Cassell, and paid his respects to her with gay cordiality.
There were other people, but the flow to and fro between supper and dance cut them off. He noticed Leopold Shill, very shiny, and exchanged a perfectly polite salute with him. Beyond, the thinning black hair and sanguine face of Albert Smull were visible amid groups continually forming and disintegrating.
It came into Annan’s mind that Eris also must have returned from the Coast; and he turned and made the inquiry of Rosalind.
“Why, yes, she’s here somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Probably where the men are thickest,” drawled Rosalind. “If you see a large crowd,—and a burgundy flush,—that’s the suitors of Eris,—and Albert Smull; and you’ll find Eris in the centre of it all.”
Annan laughed and strolled on. For Smull he had no enthusiasm. As for Eris, when he thought of her he felt cordially toward her. But there was now an uneasy and increasing sense of his own neglect to subdue any spontaneous pleasure in meeting her. It annoyed him to feel that he had been guilty of neglect. Until that moment he had not felt any particular shortcoming.
A girl he knew came drifting out of the throng—one of his many and meaningless affinities. They always were glad to see him after the storm and stress of the verbal love affair. So she drifted away in his arms—one of the recent steps—picked up by him without effort—and they danced the thing out.
Some man took her off. But there were others—plenty—all sorts. He danced enough to amuse him, thinking most of the time about his new story, and now and then of Eris.
Several times the ruddy features of Smull cut his rather hazy line of vision; but he didn’t discover anybody resembling Eris in the vicinity.
He had handed his latest partner over to Frank Donnell, and had swung on his heel to avoid a large group of people. And at that moment he saw Eris.
The sheer beauty of the girl startled him, and it was an appreciable moment before he realised that her grey eyes were encountering his.
Annan seldom reddened. He did now. He was not certain, either, but that she was administering a cut direct, because there was no recognition in the grey eyes, no smile.
There were a number of men standing about between them; he hesitated to invite the full snub he deserved. Then he saw her silently disengage herself from the group about her and start directly toward him.
That galvanised him into action—rather brusquely—for he brushed a few stalwart shoulders as he caught the hand she extended in both of his.
“Can’t we find some quiet place——” she said unsteadily.
He drew her arm through his and they made their way in silence across the floor toward a vista of offices now banked with palms and flowers and invaded by the few who courted seclusion and each other.
A girl and a man gave them an unfriendly look as they entered the last of the offices, and presently took themselves off.
Eris glanced absently at the chairs they had vacated, then released her arm, turned and walked slowly to the embrasure of the window.
When he came to her she made a little gesture;—he waited.
After a while: “I couldn’t control my voice,” she said.... “I am so happy to see you.”
For the first time in his life, perhaps, speech stuck in his glib throat.
She said: “I wondered if you were going to be here. Are you quite well? You seem so.”
“And you Eris?”
“Yes;—tired, though.”
“You are successful. I’ve heard that.”
“I have very much to learn, Mr. Annan.... There seems to be no end to study.... But there is no other pleasure or excitement comparable to it.”
“Are you still hot on the trail of Truth?” he ventured with a forced smile.
She laughed frankly: “Yes, and do you know that hunting truth doesn’t seem to be a popular sport?” Then, more seriously: “Of what value is anything else, Mr. Annan? Why isn’t truth more popular? Could you tell me why?”
The old, remembered cry of Eris—“Could you tell me why?”—was sounding in his ears again—the same wistful, familiar question.
If Annan had now regained his native equanimity it was entirely due to this girl who had not even deigned to admit any awkwardness in their encounter. And he realised, gratefully, that she was continuing to ignore any lesser detail than the happy fact of reunion.
“So that’s your idea of happiness?” he said, gratefully reassured.
“It always was. I told you so long ago.”
“I remember.” He looked at her, ashamed and sorry that he had had no active part in this charming fruition. Or, rather, it was as yet merely a delicate promise with blossoms still chastely folded. No flower yet.
“It’s plain enough,” he said, “that you’ve never lost a moment in self-improvement since you went away nearly a year ago.”
“Being with Betsy taught me so much. And Frank Donnell is so wise and gentle.... But you began it all——”
“Began what?” he demanded.
“I told you that you were the first man of your kind I had ever met. That night—in the Park—it was just exactly as though I had gone to sleep deaf, dumb, and blind, and waked up possessed of every faculty——”
“You’re loyal to the point of obstinacy,” he interrupted. “You owe absolutely nothing to me. All I did was to fail you——”
“Please don’t say that, Mr. Annan; you—annoy me when you do——”
“I didn’t believe in you. I deserted you——”
“Please—you hurt me—when you speak that way——”
“I didn’t even continue to write——”
“You were too busy with important things——”
“Eris! Are you really going to overlook my rotten behaviour?”
They both had become nervously excited, although their voices were low. Her protesting hand hesitated toward his arm; his fists were clenched in his pockets,—effort at self restraint:
“You’re so square and decent,” he said. “When I saw you I realised what a rotter I’d been. You ought to have cut me dead to-night——”
“Oh,” she said with a swift intake of breath and her hovering hand a moment on his arm.
After a long silence: “All right,” he said almost grimly. He looked up, laughed: “I’m yours, Eris. Everybody else seems to be, too.”
Her face, clearing, flushed swiftly, and she gave him a confused look.
“I shan’t tease,” he said,—back on the old footing in a twinkling, “—but you do seem to be popular with people. Isn’t it a rather agreeable feeling?”
“Yes.... I want to tell you——” She hesitated, laughed hopelessly. “I’m so excited, Mr. Annan, I don’t know how to begin. Why, the things I have to tell you—and the things I have to ask you—would take a year to utter——”
“All the time you’ve been away?” he inquired gaily.
“That must be it. Every day they accumulated. I needed you....” She checked herself, breathless, smiling, the colour bright in her cheeks. “All you have done and are doing,” she said, half to herself, “I have so longed to hear about. All I have tried to do I was crazy to tell you about.... And now—I can’t think—remember——”
“We must make another engagement.”
“Please!... I was so unhappy about the other one——”
“What hour can you give me, Eris?”
To give had been his perquisite heretofore. She seemed to so consider it, still.
“Could you spare me a little time to-morrow?” she asked, almost timidly.
“Would you dine with me?”
She said naïvely: “Couldn’t we see each other before to-morrow night? It seems so long——”
The swift charm of her impatience surprised and touched him. Again this young man was rapidly losing his balance in the girl’s candour.
“Whenever you care to see me,” he said, “I’ll come.... Any day, any hour.”
She said, with surprise and emotion: “You are very kind to me, Mr. Annan. You always have been——”
“It is you who are kind. You seem unconscious of your own generosity. Will you come to see me, or shall I come to you, Eris?”
“You know,” she explained with happy animation, “I’ve taken the entire floor where I had my room in Jane Street. It would be quite all right for you to come.”
“Fine!” he exclaimed. “Tea?”
“Why—that’s not very early——”
“After lunch, then?”
“You could come to breakfast,” she said with a half shy, half laughing glance. “I was born on a farm and I rise very early. You do, too—I remember——”
“You friendly girl! You bet I’ll come!”
“I hate to waste time in sleep,” she added, still shy and smiling.... “What do you like for breakfast, Mr. Annan?—Oh, I remember. Mrs. Sniffen told me——”
“You surely can’t recollect——”
“Yes, I do.... Do you think I could ever forget anything that happened there?... You breakfast at eight——” She laughed with sheer delight: “That is going to be wonderful, Mr. Annan—to be able to offer you breakfast in my own apartment!”
“And we lunch at the Ritz and dine at my house,” he added.
“Wonderful! Wonderful! And I can accept, because I have—proper clothes! Isn’t it perfectly enchanting—the way it all has turned out?”
That he was quite conscious of the enchantment appeared plain enough to people who chanced to enter the room where they stood together in the recess of the open window.
Several of the men so recently bereaved of Eris evinced an inclination to hover about the vicinity. Once or twice Annan was aware of black hair and ruddy features in the offing—a glimpse of Albert Smull, passing, elaborately oblivious.
“I must tell you,” said Eris, making no effort to conceal regret, “that there’s a business matter I shall have to attend to in a few minutes. Rosalind insists that the announcement be made this evening. It’s a great secret, but I’ll tell you: I’m going to have my own company!”
She gave him her hands, laughing, excited by his astonishment and the ardour of his impetuous congratulations.
“Isn’t it too splendid! I can scarcely believe it, Mr. Annan. But in our last picture it came to a point where Betsy thought we were, perhaps, interfering with each other—I mean that—that——”
“I understand.”
Eris flushed: “Betsy was so sweet and generous about it. But I, somehow, realised that I’d have to go.... It was right that I should.... And I had a talk with Frank Donnell.... I don’t know who told Mr. Smull about it, but he telegraphed that he was coming out. He came with Mr. Shill.... That was how it happened. Mr. Smull offered me my company. I was thunderstruck, Mr. Annan——”
“You would be, you modest child. It’s splendid!——” He kept continually forcing out of his mind the fact of Smull’s part in the matter. “It’s an astonishing tribute to your talent and character, Eris. Who is your director?”
“Mr. Creevy.”
“Oh, Ratford Creevy?”
“Yes. Emil Shunk is our camera-man. Mr. Creevy brings his staff with him.”
Annan had his opinion of Mr. Creevy, but kept it.
“Well,” he repeated, “that’s splendid, Eris. I’m astonished,—you wanted me to be, didn’t you?——”
She laughed.
“—I’m astounded. And I’m just as happy as you are—you nice, fine girl!—you clever, clever kiddie!——”
They were laughing without reserve, her slim hands still clasped in his; and both turned without embarrassment when Rosalind came leisurely behind them.
“Albert has been chewing his moustache for half an hour,” she drawled. “Are you actually spooning, Eris?”
“How silly! Does Mr. Smull want me?”
“We’re all set. Leo Shill is to announce it. You’re to group with Albert and Ratty Creevy and receive bouquets. Come, Eris; let that young man’s educated hands alone——”
Eris, unconscious until then that Annan still retained her hands, withdrew them without embarrassment. Rosalind passed a beautifully plump arm around her waist, letting her amused glance linger on Annan:
“The immaculate lover,” she drawled, “always busy.” And to Eris: “You’ll like him better, though, after it’s all over,—after the teething, my dear. We all bite on Barry.”