"Haven"t you even the excuse of caring for her?"
"Who?"
"A neighbour"s wife--who comes drifting into your hospitable haven!"
"I don"t pretend to love her, if that is what you mean," he said pleasantly.
"Then you make her believe it--and that"s dastardly!"
"Oh, no. Women don"t love unless made love to. You"ve only read that in books."
She said a little breathlessly: "You are right. I know men and women only through books. It"s time I learned for myself."
CHAPTER VII
TOGETHER
The end of June and of the house party at Roya-Neh was now near at hand, and both were to close with a moonlight fete and dance in the forest, invitations having been sent to distant neighbours who had been entertaining similar gatherings at Iron Hill and Cloudy Mountain--the Grays, Beekmans, Ellises, and Grandcourts.
Silks and satins, shoe buckles and powdered hair usually mark the high tide of imaginative originality among this sort of people. So it was to be the inevitable Louis XVI fete--or as near to it as attenuated, artistic intelligence could manage, and they altered Duane"s very clever and correct sketches to suit themselves, careless of anachronism, and sent the dainty water-colour drawings to town in order that those who sweat and sew in the perfumed ateliers of Fifth Avenue might use them as models.
"The fun--if there"s any in dressing up--ought to lie in making your own costumes," observed Duane. But n.o.body displayed any inclination to do so. And now, on hurry orders, the sewers in the hot Fifth Avenue ateliers sewed faster. Silken and satin costumes, paste jewelry and property small-swords were arriving by express; maids flew about the house at Roya-Neh, trying on, fussing with lace and ribbon, bodice and flowered pannier, altering, retr.i.m.m.i.n.g, adjusting. Their mistresses met in one another"s bedrooms for mysterious confabs over head-dress and coiffure, lace scarf, and petticoat.
As for the men, they surrept.i.tiously tried on their embroidered coats and breeches, admired themselves in secrecy, and let it go at that, returning with embarra.s.sed relief to cards, tennis, and the various forms of amiable idleness to which they were accustomed. Only Englishmen can masquerade seriously.
Later, however, the men were compelled to pay some semblance of attention to the general preparations, a.s.semble their foot-gear, head-gear, stars, orders, sashes, swords, and try them on for Duane Mallett--to that young man"s unconcealed dissatisfaction.
"You certainly resemble a scratch opera chorus," he observed after pa.s.sing in review the sheepish line-up in his room. "Delancy, you"re the limit as a Black Mousquetier--and, by the way, there weren"t any in the reign of Louis XVI, so perhaps that evens up matters. Dysart is the only man who looks the real thing--or would if he"d remove that monocle. As for Bunny and the Pink "un, they ought to be in vaudeville singing la-la-la."
"That"s really a compliment to our legs," observed Reggie Wye to Bunbury Gray, flourishing his property sword and gracefully performing a _pas seul a la Genee_.
Dysart, who had been sullen all day, regarded them morosely.
Scott Seagrave, in his conventional abbe"s costume of black and white, excessively bored, stood by the window trying to catch a glimpse of the lake to see whether any decent fish were breaking, while Scott walked around him critically, not much edified by his costume or the way he wore it.
"You"re a sad and self-conscious-looking bunch," he concluded. "Scott, I suppose you"ll insist on wearing your mustache and eyegla.s.ses."
"You bet," said Scott simply.
"All right. And kindly beat it. I want to try on my own plumage in peace."
So the costumed ones trooped off to their own quarters with the half-ashamed smirk usually worn by the American male who has persuaded himself to frivolity. Delancy Grandcourt tramped away down the hall banging his big sword, jingling his spurs, and flapping his loose boots.
The Pink "un and Bunbury Gray slunk off into obscurity, and Scott wandered back through the long hall until a black-and-red tiger moth attracted his attention, and he forgot his annoying appearance in frantic efforts to capture the brilliant moth.
Dysart, who had been left alone with Duane in the latter"s room, contemplated himself sullenly in the mirror while Duane, seated on the window sill, waited for him to go.
"You think I ought to eliminate my eye-gla.s.s?" asked Dysart, still inspecting himself.
"Yes, in deference to the conventional prejudice of the times. n.o.body wore "em at that period."
"You seem to be a stickler for convention--of the Louis XVI sort more than for the XIX century variety," remarked Dysart with a sneer.
Duane looked up from his bored contemplation of the rug.
"You think I"m unconventional?" he asked with a smile.
"I believe I suggested something of the sort to my wife the other day."
"Ah," said Duane blandly, "does she agree with you, Dysart?"
"No doubt she does, because your tendencies toward the unconventional have been the subject of unpleasant comment recently."
"By some of your debutante conquests? You mustn"t believe all they tell you."
"My own eyes and ears are competent witnesses. Do you understand me now?"
"No. Neither do you. Don"t rely on such witnesses, Dysart; they lack character to corroborate them. Ask your wife to confirm me--if you ever find time enough to ask her anything."
"That"s a d.a.m.ned impudent thing to say," returned Dysart, staring at him. A dull red stained his face, then faded.
Duane"s eyebrows went up--just a shade--yet so insolently that the other stepped forward, the corners of his mouth white and twitching.
"I can speak more plainly," he said. "If you can"t appreciate a pleasant hint I can easily accommodate you with the alternative."
There was silence for a moment.
"Dysart," said Duane, "what chance do you think you"d have in landing the--alternative?"
"That concerns me," said Dysart; and the pinched muscles around the mouth grew whiter and the man looked suddenly older. Duane had never before noticed how gray his temples were growing.
He said in a voice under perfect control: "You"re right; the chances you care to take with me concern yourself. As for your ill-humour, I suppose I have earned it by being attentive to your wife. What is it you wish; that my hitherto very harmless attentions should cease?"
"Yes," said Dysart, and his square jaw quivered.
"Well, they won"t. It takes the sort of man you are to strike cla.s.sical att.i.tudes. And, absurd as the paradox appears--and even taking into consideration your notorious indifference to your wife and your rather silly reputation as a debutante chaser--I do believe, Dysart, that, deep inside of you somewhere, there is enough latent decency to have inspired this resentment toward me--a resentment perfectly natural in any man who acts squarely toward his wife--but rather far fetched in your case."
Dysart, pallid, menacing, laid his hand on a chair.
The other laughed.
"As bad as that?" he asked contemptuously. "Don"t do it, Dysart; it isn"t in your line. You"re only a good-looking, popular, dancing man; all your deviltry is in your legs, and I"d be obliged if they"d presently waft you out of my room."
"I suppose," said Dysart unsteadily, "that you would make yourself noisily ridiculous if I knocked your blackguard head off."