"I"m not really. Only London is a sort of Mecca for writers just as Paris is for women of fashion.... Just fancy being feted in London after you had written a successful novel."
"I"d far rather receive recognition in my own country," said Alexina, elevating her cla.s.sic American profile. She was not feeling in the least patriotic, however. "You"d see your friend Gathbroke, though.
That would be jolly. Do take the money, Gora, and don"t be a goose."
"That subject"s closed. Don"t let me keep you. James told me that Maria is having a luncheon, and I suppose that means you are going out. I"ll rest here for awhile if you don"t mind."
CHAPTER XVI
I
Mortimer went off that night and got drunk. It was the first time in his life and possibly his last, but he made a thorough job of it. He took the precaution to telephone to the house that he was going out of town, but when he returned two days later he experienced a distinct pleasure in telling Alexina what he had done. Alexina, who still hoped that she would always be able to regard Life as G.o.d"s good joke, rather sympathized with him, and a.s.sured him that he would have nothing to apprehend from Gora in the future: she had no more fervent wish than to keep out of his way.
II
He found himself on the whole very comfortable. Maria was always most kind, Alexina polite and amiable, and Tom "decent." Joan liked him as well as she liked anybody, and when the family spent a quiet evening at home he undertook to improve her dancing and she was correspondingly grateful; it had been her weak point. The fiction was carefully preserved that the Dwights were conferring a favor on the Abbotts and that all expenses were equally shared. In time he came to believe it, and his hours of deep depression, when he had pondered over his inexplicable roguery, grew rarer and finally ceased. After all he had had nothing to lose as far as Alexina was concerned; one"s sister hardly mattered (Did women matter much, anyhow?); and his sense of security, which he hugged at this time as the most precious thing he had ever possessed, at last made him a little arrogant. He had done what he should not, of course, but it was over and done with, ancient history; and where other men had gone to State"s Prison for less, he had been protected like an infant from a rude wind. He knew that he would never do it again and that his position in life was as a.s.sured as it ever had been.
III
He spent a good many evenings at the club, and Maria found him a willing cavalier when Tom "drew the line" at dancing parties. Alexina, who had sold her car to Janet and her new gowns to Polly, had announced that she was bored with dancing and should devote the winter to study.
She spent the evenings either in her library upstairs or with her friends. Mortimer saw her only at the table.
He wondered if Tom Abbott would rent the house every winter. A pleasant feeling of irresponsibility was beginning to possess his jaded spirit.
He made a little money occasionally, but he was no longer expected to hand anything over when the first of the month came round--a date that had haunted him like a nightmare for four long years. Pie could spend it on himself, and he felt an increasing pleasure in doing so.
CHAPTER XVII
I
Gray naked trees; orchards of prune and peach and cherry, mile after mile. Orange trees in small wayside gardens heavy-laden with golden fruit. Tall accacias a ma.s.s of canary colored bloom. Opulent palms shivering against a gray sky. Close mountains green and dense with forest trees, their crests filagreed with redwoods. Far mountains lifting their bleak ridges above bare brown hills thirsting for rain.
The heavy rains were due. It was late in January. Alexina and several of her friends were motoring back to the city through the Santa Clara Valley, after luncheon with the Price Ruylers at their home on the mountain above Los Gatos. As it was Sunday there was an even number of men in the party, and Alexina, maneuvered into Jimmie Thorne"s roadster, was enduring with none of the sweet womanly graciousness which was hers to summon at will, one of those pa.s.sionate declarations of love which no beautiful young woman out of love with her husband may hope to escape; and not always when in. Alexina had grown skillful in eluding the reckless verbalisms of love, but when one is packed into a small motor car with a determined man, desperately in love, one might as well try to wave aside the whirlwind.
Jimmie Thorne was a fine specimen of the college-bred young American of good family and keen professional mind. He has no place in this biography save in so far as he jarred the inner forces of Alexina"s being, and he fell at Chateau-Thierry.
II
Alexina lifted her delicate profile and gave it as sulky an expression as she could a.s.sume. She really liked him, but was annoyed at being trapped.
"I don"t in the least wish to marry you."
"Everybody knows you don"t care a straw for Dwight. You could easily get a divorce--"
"On what grounds! Besides, I don"t want to. I"d have to be really off my head about a man even to think of such a thing. Our family has kept out of the divorce courts. And I don"t care two twigs for you, Jimmie dear."
"I don"t believe it. That is, I know I could make you care. You don"t know what love is--"
"I suppose you are about to say that you think I think I am cold, and that if I labor under this delusion it is only because the right man hasn"t come along. Well, Jimmie dear, you would only be the sixteenth.
I suppose men will keep on saying it until I am forty--forty-five--what is the limit these days? I know exactly what I am and you don"t."
"I"m not going to be put off by words. Remember I"m a lawyer of sorts.
G.o.d! I wish I"d been here when you married that codfish, instead of studying law at Columbia, Do you mean to tell me I couldn"t have won you!"
"No. Almost any man can win a little goose of eighteen if circ.u.mstances favor him. Twenty-five is another! matter. Oh, but vastly another! Even if I"d never married before I"m not at all sure I should have fallen in love with you."
"Yes, you would. You"re frozen over, that"s all."
Alexina sighed, and not with exasperation. He was very charming, magnetic, companionable. He was handsome and clever and manly. She could feel the warmth of his young virile body through their fur coats, and her own trembled a little.... It suddenly came to her that she no longer owed Mortimer anything. Their "partnership" had been dissolved by his own act. If she could have loved Jimmie Thorne with something beyond the agreeable response of the mating-season (any season is the mating season in California) ... that was the trouble. He was not individual enough to hold her. Life had been too kind to him. Save for this unsatisfied pa.s.sion he was perfectly content with life. Such men do not "live." They may have charm, but not fascination.... Perhaps it was as well after all that she had married Mortimer. Another man might not have been so easily disposed of.
"Jimmie dear, if it were a question of a few months, and I made a cult of men as some women do, it would be all right. But marry another man that I am not sure--that I know I don"t want to spend my life with. Oh, no."
He looked somewhat scandalized. Like many American men he was even more conventional than most women are; he was, moreover, a man"s man, spending most of his leisure in their society, either at the club or in out-of-door sports, and he divided women rigidly into two cla.s.ses.
Alexina was his first love and his last; and as he went over the top and crumpled up he thought of her.
"I wouldn"t have a rotten affair with you. You"re not made for that sort of thing--"
"Well, you"re not going to have one, so don"t bother to buckle on your armor." She relented as she looked into his miserable eyes, and took his hand impulsively. "I"m sorry ... sorry.... I wish ... you are worth it ... but it"s not on the map."
CHAPTER XVIII
I
Gora"s novel was published in February. Aileen Lawton, Sibyl Bascom, Alice Thornd.y.k.e, Polly Roberts, and Janet Maynard organized a campaign to make it the fashion. They went about with copies under their arms, on the street, in the shops, at luncheons, even at the matinee, and "could talk of nothing else." Sibyl and Janet bought a dozen copies each and sent them to friends and acquaintances with the advice to read it at once unless they wished to be hopelessly out of date: it was "all the rage in New York."