Their place on the bill was near the end, that week: a trick bicyclist followed them, and moving-pictures wound up the performance.
Consequently, by the time they were able to leave the theatre in the afternoon the sun was already below the horizon. They emerged the same evening from the stage-door to view a cloudless sky of pulsing amber, shading into purple at the zenith, melting into rose along the western rim of the world. A wash of old rose flooded the streets, lifting the meanest structures out of their ugliness, lending an added dignity to rows of square-set, old-fashioned residences of red-brick with white marble tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.
"Which way are you going?" Quard enquired as they approached the corner of a main thoroughfare. "Back to the hotel?"
"No; I"m sick of that hole," Joan replied with a vivid shudder. "I"m going to take a walk. Want to come?"
"I was just going to ask you."
They turned off toward the Delaware.
It was the twenty-first of November--winter still a month away; yet the breath of winter was in the air. It came up cool and brisk from the river, enriching the colour in Joan"s cheeks that were bright and glowing from the scrubbing she always gave them after removing grease-paint with cold cream. The blood coursed tingling through her veins. Her eyes shone with deepened l.u.s.tre. They walked with spirit, in step, in a pensive silence infrequently disturbed.
"Of course," Quard presently offered without preface, "it"s different in vodeveal, if you stick to it."
"What"s different?"
"Being married."
Joan"s eyes widened momentarily. Then she laughed outright. "Gee! You don"t mean to say you"ve been chewing _that_ rag ever since breakfast?"
"Ah, I just happened to think of it again," said Quard with the air of one whose motives are wantonly misconstrued.
Nevertheless, he wouldn"t let the subject languish.
"There"s plenty of family acts been playing the circuits Gawd knows how long," he pursued, with a vast display of interest in the sunset glow.
"Look"t the Cohans, before George planted the American flag in Longacre Square and annexed it to the United States. And they ain"t the only ones by a long shot. I could name a plenty that"ll stick in the big time until their toes curl. It"s all right to trot in double-harness so long"s you manage your own company."
"Well?" Joan asked with a sober mouth and mischievous eyes.
"Well--what?"
"If you"re getting ready to slip me my two-weeks" notice, why not be a man and say so?"
"What would I do that for?" Quard demanded indignantly.
"Because you"re thinking about getting married; and there"s only room for one leading lady in any company I play in."
"Quit your kidding," the man advised sulkily; "you know I couldn"t get along without you."
"Yes," Joan admitted calmly, "_I_ know it, but I didn"t know you did."
Quard shot a suspicious glance askance, but her face was immobile in its flawless loveliness.
He started to say something, choked up and reconsidered with a painful frown. A mature man"s perfect freedom is not lightly to be thrown away.
And yet ... he doubted darkly the perfection of his freedom....
They held on in silence until they came to Riverside Park.
Over the dark profile of the Pennsylvania hills the sky was jade and amethyst, a pool of light that dwindled swiftly in the thickening shades of violet. Below them, as they paused on a lonely walk, the river stole swiftly, like a great black serpent writhing through the shadows. A frosty wind swept steadily into their faces, making cool and firm the flesh flushed with exercise. There was no one near them. A train of jewelled lights swept over the railroad bridge and vanished into the night with a purring rumble that lent an accent to their isolation. Joan hugged about her voluptuously her wonderful coat, stole a glance warm with grat.i.tude at the face of Quard. He intercepted it, and edged nearer. Aglow and eager, she murmured something vapid about the prettiness of the sky.
He answered only with the arm he pa.s.sed about her. She suffered him, lashes veiling her eyes, her head at rest in the hollow of his shoulder.
The man stared down at her exquisite, suffused face, luminous in the last light of gloaming.
"Joan," he said throatily--"girlie, don"t you love me--a little?"
Her mouth grew tremulous.
"I ... don"t ... know," she whispered.
"I love you!" he cried suddenly in an exultant voice--"I love you!"
He folded her, unresisting, in both his arms, covering her face with kisses, ardent, violent kisses that bruised and hurt her tender flesh but which she still sought and hungered for, insatiable. She sobbed a little in her happiness, feeling her body yield and yearn to his, transported by that sweet, exquisite, nameless longing....
Then suddenly she was like a steel spring in his embrace, writhing to free herself. Wondering, he tried to hold her closer, but she twisted and fended him off with all the power of her strong young arms. And still wondering, he humoured her. She drew away, but yet not wholly out of his clasp.
"Charlie!" she panted.
"Darling!"
"How do you get married in New Jersey?"
He pulled up, dashed and a little disappointed, and laughed nervously.
"Why, you get a license and then--well, almost anybody"ll do to tie the knot."
She nodded tensely: "I guess a regular minister will be good enough for us."
"I guess so," he demurred; and with another laugh: "I wasn"t thinking serious" about it, but I guess I might"s well be married as the way I am."
"Well," she said quietly, "we"ve _got_ to. It"s the only way...."
XXVI
And then, suddenly, the face of life was indescribably changed: Joan Thursday seemed but a memory, a slight and somehow wistful shadow in the shadowed depths of that darkling mirror, yesterday; in her place another creature altogether reigned, the Joan Quard of today, woman, actress, wife; with a gold band round her finger; mature, initiate of mysteries, ripe in wisdom; strong, poised serenely, clear of eye; with added graciousness in her beauty, conscious of added powers over Man, but discreet in their employment.
She thought a great deal about herself in those days: not, perhaps, more than had been common with her in that so-dead yesterday, but much, and more profoundly; reading a new meaning into the riddle of existence, so changed had all things become since her marriage.
Before her pensive vision Life unfolded rare, golden-vista"d promises.
With another man, or in another stratum of society, she might have fulfilled herself wonderfully, even unto her salvation....
To begin with, she was very happy. Fond to distraction of her husband, she never doubted that he worshipped her; he gave her quick wits no cause to entertain a doubt. They were together always, inseparable. She felt that nature must truly have fashioned them solely for one another, and could not forget her wonder that their pa.s.sion should be so mutual, so complete. She loved him to distraction: all his traits, his robust swagger, his sonorous and flexible tones, the flowery eloquence of his gesture, his broad, easy-going, tolerant good-humour, the way he wore his clothes and the very cut and texture of them. And she ruled him like a despot.
Quard submitted without complaint. She was all his fancy had painted her, and something more; recognizing dimly that she excelled him variously (although he was quite incapable of a.n.a.lyzing these distinctions) he served her humbly, with unconscious deference to her many excellences. She was by way of making him a better wife than he deserved. If at times conscious of some little irk from her amiable but inflexible autocracy, he reminded himself that she was a finer woman than any he had ever known, well worth humouring: it wasn"t on every corner a fellow"d pick up one like Joan.