Jadwin laughed, and leaning over, put his fingers upon Cressler"s breast, as though turning off a switch.
"Now, Miss Dearborn," he announced, "we"ve shut him off. Charlie means all right, but now and then some one brushes against him and opens that switch."
Cressler, good-humouredly laughed with the others, but Laura"s smile was perfunctory and her eyes were grave. But there was a diversion.
While the others had been talking the rehearsal had proceeded, and now Page beckoned to Laura from the far end of the parlor, calling out:
"Laura--"Beatrice," it"s the third act. You are wanted."
"Oh, I must run," exclaimed Laura, catching up her play-book. "Poor Monsieur Gerardy--we must be a trial to him."
She hurried across the room, where the coach was disposing the furniture for the scene, consulting the stage directions in his book:
"Here the kitchen table, here the old-fashioned writing-desk, here the armoire with practicable doors, here the window. Soh! Who is on? Ah, the young lady of the sick nose, "Marion." She is discovered--knitting.
And then the d.u.c.h.ess--later. That"s you Mademoiselle Dearborn. You interrupt--you remember. But then you, ah, you always are right. If they were all like you. Very well, we begin."
Creditably enough the Gretry girl read her part, Monsieur Gerardy interrupting to indicate the crossings and business. Then at her cue, Laura, who was to play the role of the d.u.c.h.ess, entered with the words:
"I beg your pardon, but the door stood open. May I come in?"
Monsieur Gerardy murmured:
"_Elle est vraiment superbe._"
Laura to the very life, to every little trick of carriage and manner was the high-born gentlewoman visiting the home of a dependent. Nothing could have been more dignified, more gracious, more gracefully condescending than her poise. She dramatised not only her role, but the whole of her surroundings. The interior of the little cottage seemed to define itself with almost visible distinctness the moment she set foot upon the scene.
Gerardy tiptoed from group to group, whispering:
"Eh? Very fine, our d.u.c.h.ess. She would do well professionally."
But Mrs. Wessels was not altogether convinced. Her eyes following her niece, she said to Corth.e.l.l:
"It"s Laura"s "grand manner." My word, I know her in _that_ part.
That"s the way she is when she comes down to the parlor of an evening, and Page introduces her to one of her young men."
"I nearly die," protested Page, beginning to laugh. "Of course it"s very natural I should want my friends to like my sister. And Laura comes in as though she were walking on eggs, and gets their names wrong, as though it didn"t much matter, and calls them Pinky when their name is Pinckney, and don"t listen to what they say, till I want to sink right through the floor with mortification."
In haphazard fashion the rehearsal wore to a close. Monsieur Gerardy stormed and fretted and insisted upon repeating certain scenes over and over again. By ten o"clock the actors were quite worn out. A little supper was served, and very soon afterward Laura made a move toward departing. She was wondering who would see her home, Landry, Jadwin, or Sheldon Corth.e.l.l.
The day had been sunshiny, warm even, but since nine o"clock the weather had changed for the worse, and by now a heavy rain was falling.
Mrs. Cressler begged the two sisters and Mrs. Wessels to stay at her house over night, but Laura refused. Jadwin was suggesting to Cressler the appropriateness of having the coupe brought around to take the sisters home, when Corth.e.l.l came up to Laura.
"I sent for a couple of hansoms long since," he said. "They are waiting outside now." And that seemed to settle the question.
For all Jadwin"s perseverance, the artist seemed--for this time at least--to have the better of the situation.
As the good-bys were being said at the front door Page remarked to Landry:
"You had better go with us as far as the house, so that you can take one of our umbrellas. You can get in with Aunt Wess" and me. There"s plenty of room. You can"t go home in this storm without an umbrella."
Landry at first refused, haughtily. He might be too poor to parade a lot of hansom cabs around, but he was too proud, to say the least, to ride in "em when some one else paid.
Page scolded him roundly. What next? The idea. He was not to be so completely silly. She didn"t propose to have the responsibility of his catching pneumonia just for the sake of a quibble.
"Some people," she declared, "never seemed to be able to find out that they are grown up."
"Very well," he announced, "I"ll go if I can tip the driver a dollar."
Page compressed her lips.
"The man that can afford dollar tips," she said, "can afford to hire the cab in the first place."
"Seventy-five cents, then," he declared resolutely. "Not a cent less. I should feel humiliated with any less."
"Will you please take me down to the cab, Landry Court?" she cried. And without further comment Landry obeyed.
"Now, Miss Dearborn, if you are ready," exclaimed Corth.e.l.l, as he came up. He held the umbrella over her head, allowing his shoulders to get the drippings.
They cried good-by again all around, and the artist guided her down the slippery steps. He handed her carefully into the hansom, and following, drew down the gla.s.ses.
Laura settled herself comfortably far back in her corner, adjusting her skirts and murmuring:
"Such a wet night. Who would have thought it was going to rain? I was afraid you were not coming at first," she added. "At dinner Mrs.
Cressler said you had an important committee meeting--something to do with the Art Inst.i.tute, the award of prizes; was that it?"
"Oh, yes," he answered, indifferently, "something of the sort was on. I suppose it was important--for the Inst.i.tute. But for me there is only one thing of importance nowadays," he spoke with a studied carelessness, as though announcing a fact that Laura must know already, "and that is, to be near you. It is astonishing. You have no idea of it, how I have ordered my whole life according to that idea."
"As though you expected me to believe that," she answered.
In her other lovers she knew her words would have provoked vehement protestation. But for her it was part of the charm of Corth.e.l.l"s att.i.tude that he never did or said the expected, the ordinary. Just now he seemed more interested in the effect of his love for Laura upon himself than in the manner of her reception of it.
"It is curious," he continued. "I am no longer a boy. I have no enthusiasms. I have known many women, and I have seen enough of what the crowd calls love to know how futile it is, how empty, a vanity of vanities. I had imagined that the poets were wrong, were idealists, seeing the things that should be rather than the things that were. And then," suddenly he drew a deep breath: "_this_ happiness; and to me.
And the miracle, the wonderful is there--all at once--in my heart, in my very hand, like a mysterious, beautiful exotic. The poets are wrong," he added. "They have not been idealists enough. I wish--ah, well, never mind."
"What is it that you wish?" she asked, as he broke off suddenly. Laura knew even before she spoke that it would have been better not to have prompted him to continue. Intuitively she had something more than a suspicion that he had led her on to say these very words. And in admitting that she cared to have the conversation proceed upon this footing, she realised that she was sheering towards unequivocal coquetry. She saw the false move now, knew that she had lowered her guard. On all accounts it would have been more dignified to have shown only a mild interest in what Corth.e.l.l wished. She realised that once more she had acted upon impulse, and she even found time to wonder again how it was that when with this man her impulses, and not her reason prevailed so often. With Landry or with Curtis Jadwin she was always calm, tranquilly self-possessed. But Corth.e.l.l seemed able to reach all that was impetuous, all that was unreasoned in her nature. To Landry she was more than anything else, an older sister, indulgent, kind-hearted. With Jadwin she found that all the serious, all the sincere, earnest side of her character was apt to come to the front.
But Corth.e.l.l stirred troublous, unknown deeps in her, certain undefined trends of recklessness; and for so long as he held her within his influence, she could not forget her s.e.x a single instant.
It dismayed her to have this strange personality of hers, this other headstrong, impetuous self, discovered to her. She hardly recognised it. It made her a little afraid; and yet, wonder of wonders, she could not altogether dislike it. There was a certain fascination in resigning herself for little instants to the dominion of this daring stranger that was yet herself.
Meanwhile Corth.e.l.l had answered her:
"I wish," he said, "I wish you could say something--I hardly know what--something to me. So little would be so much."
"But what can I say?" she protested. "I don"t know--I--what can I say?"
"It must be yes or no for me," he broke out. "I can"t go on this way."
"But why not? Why not?" exclaimed Laura. "Why must we--terminate anything? Why not let things go on just as they are? We are quite happy as we are. There"s never been a time of my life when I"ve been happier than this last three or four months. I don"t want to change anything.
Ah, here we are."