WHEN Annan arrived at the Jane Street apartment, Eris had just telephoned Hattie, the negro maid, that she had been detained at the studio; would be late; and to say this to Mr. Annan.
So constantly yet unconsciously during the two days’ separation had he visualised this meeting, pictured it to the least detail, that this slight delay in realisation tightened a nervous tension of which he had been aware all day.
It was rather ridiculous; he had seen her only two days before. It had seemed much longer. Also, knowledge of her dinner engagement with Albert Smull had not quieted his impatience. But there had been nothing to do about it except to send her fresh roses and a great sheaf of lilies. Over the telephone he told Hattie to place these in her bed-room before she returned.
So now he picked up the evening paper in the little living-room and composed himself to wait.
The culinary clatter of Hattie in the kitchen came to him fitfully; shrill voices from ragged children at play in the sunset-flooded street; the grinding roar of motor trucks herded like leviathans toward their west-side corrals; the eternal jar and quiver of the vast, iron city. Otherwise, silence; a heated stillness in the isolated abode of Eris, “Daughter of Discord”; the subdued breath of his roses in the air, which glimmered with gilded sun-dust; red rays from the west painted across the eastern wall. And, possessing all, a hushed magic—a spell invisible—the intimacy of this absent girl;—its mystery, everywhere—in the shadowy doorway beyond, from which stole the scent of unseen lilies....
So intimate, so part of her seemed everything that even his roses appeared intruders here in the rosy demi-dusk where sun-rays barred door and window of her sanctuary with barriers of crimson fire.
The evening paper had slipped to the floor. His speculative eyes, remote, were fixed on the red rods of waning light: he sat upright, unstirring, in the attitude of one who hears without listening, but awaits the unheard.
She came up the stairs, running lightly; flung open the door ajar, greeted him with a little gasp of happy, breathless recognition.
When she could explain at her ease: “Frank Donnell is patching in and re-taking with me before Mr. Creevy begins. To-morrow we finish, and the day after—” she laughed excitedly, “—I begin with my own company!”
“Wonderful!” he admitted; “I hope you’ll be as happy and as fortunate with your new director, Eris.”
“I hope so. I’m very fond of Mr. Donnell——” She pulled off her blue turban, glanced over her shoulder into the mirror, turned and looked happily at Annan. Then her smile faded. “Aren’t you well?” she asked.
“Certainly I am. Why?”
“I thought—you seemed thin—a trifle tired——”
“Bored,” he nodded briefly.
“Why?” she demanded, astonished.
“I don’t know. Probably because I’ve missed you.”
Recognising only a jest in kindness meant, she smiled response and went into her bed-room.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “my room is full of lilies!” She came to the door, inarticulate with gratitude, exaggerating, as always, kindness of giver and beauty of gift; then inadequately thanked him—invited him to enter and see where Hattie had placed his flowers.
“Don’t sleep with them; they’ll give you a headache,” he remarked.
For a little while she lingered over the scented flowers. Then there was just a moment’s hesitation; and, as he did not seem inclined to leave, she seated herself at her dressing table, shook out her bobbed hair—fleeting revelation of close-set ears and nape milk-white under thickest chestnut curls.
Deftly she re-parted, re-touched, coaxed, petted, intent upon her business with this soft, crisp shock of curls. Her every movement fascinated him—the twisted grace of her lithe back, celerity of slender wrist and fingers,—white!—oh, so white and swift and sure!...
He bent and touched her head with his lips. Movement ceased instantly; hovering hands froze stiff, suspended; she sat as motionless as the lilies in her room.
After a moment’s wordless silence, manual activity ventured to resume, tentatively, with little intervals of hesitation—silent, intent, inquiring perhaps; perhaps inherent apprehension which turns the feminine five senses into ears.
“You want the place to yourself,” he said, as coolly as he could; and sauntered into the living-room. Where he resumed the evening paper as though impatient to read it. But his eyes watched her closing door; rested there.
Before she reappeared, Hattie waddled into view to announce dinner. Annan, pacing the room, impatient of his own restlessness, turned nervously as Eris opened her door. She wore a thin black gown—nothing to relieve its slim and sombre simplicity except the snowy skin and the cheek’s rose-warmth shadowed by gold-red hair.
She smiled her confidence; invited him with extended hand. He took possession of her cool, bare arm, walked slowly with her to the dining-room, seated her, touched her hair lightly with his cheek.
For all his fluency he found no word to link the liaison—nothing to smooth the slight contact of caress.
She drew his attention to the rose beside his service plate: he leaned toward her; she picked up the bud and drew it through his lapel without embarrassment.
In the girl’s slight smile suddenly Annan found his tongue. And now, as always, his easy flow of speech began to stimulate her to an increasing facility of response.
Hers, too, was now the initiative as often as his; she told him gaily about the closing hours at the studio under Frank Donnell’s directorship; all about the assembling of her own company under Mr. Creevy; about her new camera-man, Emil Shunk; the search for stories; the several continuities still under consideration. She spoke warmly of Albert Smull, and of his partner, Leopold Shill; of their constant generosity to her, and of her determination that they should never regret their belief in her ability to make their investment profitable.
“It seems to me,” she said, “so amazing, so wonderful, that such keen business men should venture to risk so much on a girl they scarcely know, that it frightens me at moments.”
“Don’t worry,” he remarked with a shrug; “it’s a more interesting gamble for them than the stock-market offers these days. They’re having their fun out of it—Shill, Smull & Co.”
“Oh! Do you think it’s quite that?” she asked, flushing.
“Well,” he replied, “every enterprise is a risk of sorts, isn’t it? To take a chance is always amusing. Nothing flatters like picking a winner on one’s own best judgment. You’re what Broadway calls ‘sure fire.’ It doesn’t take much courage to lay odds on you, Eris.”
She nodded, her colour still high: “Yes, I suppose Mr. Smull looks at it that way. It really is a matter of business, of course.... But he is very kind to me.”
“If it were anything except a matter of business it would scarcely do, would it?” asked Annan carelessly.
“I don’t think I understand. Please tell me.”
“I mean—it’s quite all right for a man to bet on a girl if he believes her professionally capable. That’s finance—of one sort. That’s a business investment.”
“What other sort of investment is there?” she asked. “Will you tell me?”
“The other sort is to finance an enterprise out of—friendship. That’s not legitimate—on either side.... And even when it’s sheer business it’s a ticklish one.”
She remained absorbed for a while in her own reflections. Then, idling over her strawberries and orange ice: “Do you think that a girl really has no right to accept such heavy responsibility as is now mine?” she inquired.
“I’m thinking about your obligations—burdensome in success, crushing in failure.... Because you are the kind of girl who will so consider them.”
“What kind of girl do you mean?”
“Conscientious.”
“Of course.”
“But too sensitive, too generous, too easily overwhelmed by a sense of obligations—mostly imaginary.”
She continued with her reflections and her strawberries. Finally coffee was served; he lighted a cigarette. Eris had not yet commented upon his final proposition.
“It really depends on the man,” he remarked, “how difficult or how easy a girl’s position is to be. It’s always certain to be difficult if the deal be merely a speculation in friendship and not in business.”
She tasted her coffee: “Yes, it might be—perplexing,” she said.
“You see the possibility of confusion?—gratitude worrying about what is expected of it; dread of reproach for benefits forgot—the mask to choose and wear in the lively hope of benefits to come—no; speculation in friendship is never legitimate gambling. It’s bad business, bad sportsmanship.”
She considered this over her coffee, her serious eyes intent on the flecks of foam in her cup, with which she played with her little silver spoon.
“Do you think,” she said slowly, “that Mr. Smull is taking a legitimate chance in financing my company?”
“You’re a perfectly legitimate risk. I told you so. You’re sure fire.”
She looked up: “Do you think that was Mr. Smull’s motive?”
“I don’t know, Eris.”
After a pause: “You don’t like him, do you?”
“Not much.”
“Will you tell me why?”
“I’m not quite sure why.... Do you like him, Eris?”
“I’d be ashamed not to.”
“Because he’s kind?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you say you like me,” observed Annan, smiling.
She smiled, too, rather vaguely.
“Is that the reason you like me, Eris?” he persisted—“because you consider me kind?”
“What do you think it is?” she murmured, still smiling a little to herself.
“I’m not certain you like me as well as you once did.”
The boy obvious, suddenly! The eternal and beloved ass that every woman is destined to meet. And forgive.
“I—think I do,” she said.
“Like me as well as you once did?”
“Yes.”
“Oh! My conversation still amuses you. But otherwise—well, I’m afraid you don’t care quite as much for me as you did, Eris.”
“Why?”—with slow lifted eyes.
The ass obvious, at last!
She made no reply. Perhaps he hoped for shy denial—for some diffident evasion anyway. Her unembarrassed silence troubled him because he had not really harboured the fear he pretended.
Now, however, the possibility made him uneasy.
“Glance into your mirror, Eris,” he said lightly, “and tell me how I could have helped what I did.”
Her face, partly averted, remained so, unflushed, unresponsive.
Hattie opened the kitchen door and looked in, bulking like a vast, dark cloud.
“You may come in and clear up,” said Eris quietly. She rose from the table and they walked into the farther room and seated themselves, she on the sofa, with an untroubled aloofness that did not encourage him to closer approach than a chair pulled up opposite her.
She had turned to some of his flowers as though to include them in a friendly circle.
“Your roses are such heavenly company,” she said in a low voice.
“I never knew anybody so charmingly interested in flowers,” he said with smiling malice.
She understood, laughed, turned to him.
“I’m interested, also, to hear how your novel is progressing,” she said.
“It isn’t.”
“Haven’t you worked?” she inquired with sweet concern.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” he said deliberately, “my mind is too full of you to contain anything else.”
A pause: “Then,” she said, “you had better not see me until you feel inclined to resume work.”
“You don’t seem to care very much,” he remarked.
She was looking again at the roses. She made no reply. The cold, rosy loveliness of her enthralled and chilled him. Where the chestnut hair touched her cheek a carnation flush warmed the slight shadow.
“I’ll resume work,” he said abruptly.
She nodded, her face close to the roses.
“How would you like me to make a scenario of my last novel for you?” he asked. He had prepared this surprise during the two days’ separation—had even visualised her delight.
If he expected emotional response, the impulsive gratitude that hitherto had so charmingly over-valued his little gifts, he was to be stunningly disappointed.
She turned and looked at him out of frankly troubled eyes; and from that moment he learned that whatever he ever was to have from this girl would be only what her honesty could offer.
“I couldn’t play such a part,” she said.... “You are most kind.... But I never could be able to do it.”
“Why? Do you think it would prove too difficult?”
“Yes, ... too difficult ... because I don’t believe in such a part—or in such a character.”
He sat thunderstruck. Then he flushed to the temples and the last rag of masculine condescension fell from him, leaving him boyishly bewildered and chagrined.
“Do you mean that you don’t like the story?” he asked incredulously.
“I like the way you wrote it. But my opinion is of no value. Everybody says it is a great novel. Betsy told me that the whole country is madly discussing it. Everybody who can judge such things knows that it is a very wonderful book. So does it matter what I think——”
“It does, to me,” he said almost savagely. “Why don’t you like it, Eris?”
She was silent, and his tone changed: “Won’t you tell me why?” he pleaded.
Again the order reversed—the eternal cry of Eris on his lips, now,—he, her court of appeal, appealing to her,—in mortified quest of knowledge,—of truth, perhaps,—or, astonished, wounded in snobbery and pride, seeking some remedy for the surprising hurt—some shred of his former authority to guide her back into the attitude which now he realised had meant so much to unconscious snobbery and happy vanity.
And now Eris knew that their hour for understanding had arrived. She had much to say to him. Her clasped hands tightened nervously in her lap but the level eyes were steady.
She said, very slowly: “I have known unhappiness, Mr. Annan. And ugliness. And hardship. But I’d be ashamed to let my mind dwell upon these things.... Stories where life begins without hope and continues hopelessly, seem needless and more or less distorted. And rather cowardly.... One’s mind dwells most constantly on what one likes.... I do not like deformity. Also, it is not the rule; it is the exception.... So is ugliness. And evil. A little seasons art sufficiently.... Only beasts eat garlic wholesale.... Those who find perpetual interest in misshapen minds and bodies and souls are either physicians or are themselves in some manner misshapen.... Unhappiness, ugliness, squalor, misery, evil,—in the midst of these, or of the even more terrible isolation of the lonely mind,—always one can summon courage to dream nobly.... And what one dares dream one can become,—inwardly always,—often outwardly and actually.”
She lifted her deep, grey eyes to his reddened face.
“I do admire you, and your mind, and your skill in attainment. But I have not been able to comprehend the greatness of what you write, and what all acclaim.... I do not like it. I cannot.
“I could neither understand nor play such a character as the woman in your last book.... Nor could I ever believe in her.... Nor in the ugliness of her world—the world you write about, nor in the dreary, hopeless, malformed, starving minds you analyse.... My God, Mr. Annan—are there no wholesome brains in the world you write about?... I’m sorry.... You know that I am ignorant, not experienced, crude—trying to learn truths, striving to see and understand.... I have not travelled far on any road. But I shall never live long enough to travel the road you follow, nor shall I ever comprehend such vision, such intention, such art as you have mastered.... You are a master. I do believe that.... Always you have remained very wonderful to me.... Your mind.... Your wisdom.... You.”
She clasped her slender fingers tighter over her knees but looked at him out of clear, intelligent eyes that seemed almost black in their purplish depths.
“With me,” she said, “the love of beauty, and the belief in it, give me all my strength. I need to believe in beauty: it is my first necessity.... And remains my last.... And I never have discovered a truth that is not beautiful.... There is no ugliness, no evil in Truth.”
He got to his feet slowly, and began to walk about the room in an aimless, nervous way, as though under some vague, indefinite menace,—of proven inferiority, perhaps.
Reaction set in toward boyish self-assertion; and it came with a sudden rush,—and a forced laugh that, unexpectedly to her, exposed his wound.
Surprised that he had suffered such a one, incredulous that so slight a mind as hers had dealt it, she sat watching him. Gradually all the bright hardness in her gaze melted to a tender grey. Yet, it seemed incredible that so slight a creature as she could matter to him intellectually,—could have hurt so brilliantly armoured a being.
And then, all suddenly, she realised she had hurt a boy and not a mind.
He came to her where she was seated, took her hands from her lap, looked wretchedly into her eyes, starry now with imminence of tears.
“All that really matters,” he said, “is that your mind should forgive mine and your heart care for mine.”
His clasp was drawing her to her feet; and she stood up, not resisting, not confused, nor betraying any emotion visible to him, unless he understood the starry brilliancy of her young eyes.
“I’m falling in love with you, Eris. That is the only thing that matters,” he said.
He kissed her mouth twice; drew her warm head to his breast; touched her face with his lips, very gently,—her clustered curls; and she looked back at him out of eyes in which light trembled.
If her soft, cool lips remained unresponsive, at least they did not avoid his, nor did her cool body drawn close, closely imprisoned.
After a long while, against him, he was aware of her heart, hurrying. In the first flash of boyish passion he crushed her in his arms and felt her breath and lips suddenly hot against his.
Then, in the instant, she had disengaged herself violently and had stepped clear of him, scarlet and silent. Nor spoke until he followed and she had avoided him again.
“Don’t—do that,” she said unsteadily.... “You—hurt me.”
“Eris! I love you——”
“Don’t say that.... I don’t like it.... I don’t like it,” she repeated breathlessly.
A silence—confusion of hurrying atoms of time—a faint flash from chaos.
“Can’t you care for me, Eris?” he whispered.
She turned on him, pale, controlled: “I don’t like what you did, I tell you!... And that’s that!”
For a long while they stood there, unstirring.
“Do you dismiss me?” he asked at last.
“Had you rather that I should go, Eris?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” he asked, like a whipped boy.
“Because I am tired of you,” she said evenly.
He stepped to the corridor, took his hat and stick, but lingered, all hot with the rebuff, despising himself for lingering. He laid his hand on the door-knob, miserably hoping, miserable in his self-contempt.
“Eris!”
She did not even turn her head.
He left the hall door open, still miserably hoping, scorning himself, but lagging on the stairs. As he reached the street door he heard her close her own with a crash and bolt it.
It was after midnight,—and after she had finished crying,—that the girl began to undress.
Once she thought she heard him return,—thought she heard his voice at her door, calling her; and her eyes flamed.
But on her pillow she began to cry again, soundlessly, one arm flung across her face.
Eris, daughter of Discord.…