"If you only cared enough to call me down! That"s the trouble with you. Am I--am I the dirt under your feet?"
"Oh, don"t please!" But he was going on, too fast to be stopped.
"I"m afraid of you--that"s what"s the matter. What have you got in you that I can"t seem to melt? You kept away from me the first time ever I saw you. You"ve kept away ever since. You don"t think I"m as good as you--and I"m not. But it"s aggravating--it"s d.a.m.ned aggravating--to have you rub it in. You"ve got something about you that I can"t touch anywhere." And he paused, as though expecting her to deny it.
"I don"t know what right you have to say this," she exclaimed.
In her swift rush to her own defence, she had dropped her guard. She realized it on the moment, heard his inevitable reply before he opened his mouth to the swift-flashing answer which, that outer self told her, was the only possible answer for him to make.
"Only this right. I"m in love with you. I"ve been in love with you ever since I saw you down at the Judge"s ranch, only I didn"t know it then. I love you." Silence for a moment, and then, "I love you!"
For just one instant, it seemed to her that she was swaying toward him in spite of herself. He made, curiously, no active motion toward her.
That outer self of Eleanor"s, reigning as always over her conscious self, commenting, criticising, seeing--that outer self remembered, above her mental turmoil, that never in all their later acquaintance had he tried even to touch her finger.
"Oh, don"t!" she cried, "please don"t!"
He made a growl in his throat, the adult counterpart to a baby"s cry of disappointment.
"Didn"t I tell you?" he said, "and now I"ve laid myself wide open for a throw-down."
"If you call it that. Oh Bertram--" he and she both noticed the shift to his familiar name--"I"m afraid I haven"t been fair to you. Oh, have I been fair?"
He paused as though considering a whole new range of ideas.
"Yes, I guess you have," he responded at length.
"You"re a man," she said, "and a big man. I suppose I ought--to love you. To have the power of loving you in me. And oh, there have been moments when I thought I could." She stopped as though appalled by the lengths to which she had gone. "You see, I"m trying to be fair now.
I"m telling you everything."
And then, with the thought which succeeded, it was as though she felt the physical tingle of bay leaves in her nostrils, "or nearly everything."
Through the open French windows came the cheery voice of Kate Waddington.
"Tea is served, ladies and gentlemen!"
"All right--be along presently!" called Bertram. And then to Eleanor:
"You must tell me--you can"t keep me hanging by the toes until I see you again."
"The rest means--since I am being perfectly fair to you--that I can"t tell." Now something like strong emotion touched her voice--"Don"t think I am coquetting with you--don"t believe that it is anything but my effort to be fair." She turned on this, and stepped through the open window.
Bertram struggling to compose his face, Eleanor wearing her old air of sweet inscrutability, they faced the quick, perceiving glance of Kate Waddington who sat pouring tea from the crack between two sh.e.l.l bowls.
Eleanor settled herself on the teak-wood stool.
"You _must_ come out on the balcony before we go," she cried. "I never saw the city lights so wonderful."
"Well," said Kate, "it all depends on the company!"
CHAPTER X
Kate"s plump and inert mother, who always regarded this daughter of hers somewhat as a cuckoo in the nest, was in a complaining mood this morning. She sat in her dressing-gown embroidering peonies on a lambrequin and aired her grievances. Kate, writing notes at the old-fashioned black walnut writing desk, looked up at the climaxes of her mother"s address, bit her pen and frowned over her shoulder. For the greater part of the time, however, Mrs. Waddington spoke to empty air.
"I never did see such a daughter," said Mrs. Waddington, jabbing with her scissors at a loose end of pink silk. "As if it isn"t enough, gallivanting around the way you do, fairly living in other people"s houses, never bringing any company home, but you can"t even be decently civil when you _are_ at home. We might just as well be a hotel for all the respect you pay us. What are you doing when you"re away, I"d like to know? It"s all well enough, the stories you tell--"
Kate, resting between notes, saw fit to parry this last thrust.
"I"ve always supposed I was capable of taking care of myself," she said. "At any rate, you"ve let me proceed on that theory."
It needed only the slightest flutter of an opponent"s rapier to throw Mrs. Waddington on the defensive.
"You never let me," she mourned. "Goodness knows, I gave you every chance to take me along. When first you began going with those painter people, you might have counted me in."
"You didn"t seem eager, perceptibly, until I had made my own way,"
Kate vouchsafed. At that moment the telephone rang.
While Kate was in the house, no one else thought of answering the telephone. Mrs. Waddington would have been the last to usurp the prerogative. For that instrument was the tap root of her spy system over her daughter. By it, she picked up things; learned what this irresponsible responsibility of hers was doing. Mrs. Waddington had her mental lists of Kate"s telephonic friends. She imagined that she could tell, by the tone of her daughter"s voice, just who was on the other end of the line.
"Oh, Bert Chester!" came Kate"s voice from the hall. Mrs. Waddington made note number one. This mention of the name was significant. The discreet Kate, who knew her mother"s habits, hardly ever called names over the wire.
A pause for a very short reply, and then:
"Certainly. Zinkand at one. I"m beginning to think it"s time I worked at my job as confidant. What is the use of a confidant if you don"t confide?"
Mrs. Waddington leaned forward while Kate got her reply. The mother in her, unsensitized though as it was, noted the sparkle in Kate"s voice.
But for the intervening door, she might have seen a great deal more sparkle in Kate"s face, down-turned to listen.
"Oh yes, I was aware of that!" Kate"s voice went on. "Dolt! Did I catch it? You"re a poor dissembler. You"re too honest. You might tell the verdict before I tell you--"
Mrs. Waddington could stand it no longer. It was so uncommon for her daughter to speak thus freely and emotionally at the telephone, that she must have a look. She rose, therefore, and crossed past the open hall door. She noticed a certain tension in her daughter"s face as she bent her head to await the reply.
"You poor, perplexed boy!" went on Kate"s purring, caressing voice, "Then you need a confidant. Zinkand"s at one--and I"ll look my prettiest to draw you out!"
Mrs. Waddington, when her daughter was come back into the room, renewed her plaint:
"I wish you"d save for your parents a little of the graciousness you give your friends," she said. "I wouldn"t mind so much if you were getting somewhere. But here you are, nearly twenty-four years old and goodness knows if you"ve had a young man, I don"t hear about it. How can a respectable young man want to marry a girl like you, I"d like to know? Those they play with, they don"t marry."
Kate"s mood had changed completely. She advanced now with the prettiest caressing gesture in the world, threw one arm across the wrinkled skin and old lace of her mother"s throat. Mrs. Waddington resisted for a moment, her head turned away; then, gradually, she let her being lap itself in this quieter air. Her head settled down on Kate"s shoulder.
"Perhaps," said Kate, "I may."
"Well I wish you"d hurry up about it," said Mrs. Waddington. "Girls will be girls, I suppose, and they"ve got to learn for themselves.
There, there--you"re mussing my work."
Kate dropped a kiss on her mother"s forehead and vanished up the stairs.