"Does Dunleavy think much?"
She raised her eyebrows a bit, but hesitated. "Oh yes--no, I don"t suppose he does. Or anyway, mostly about the violin. He played a lot when he was in Yale."
Thus was Carl encouraged to be fatuous, and he said, in a manner which quite dismissed Phil Dunleavy: "I don"t believe he"s very deep.
Ra-ther light, I"d say."
Her eyebrows had ascended farther. "Do you think so? I"m sorry."
"Why sorry?"
"Oh, he"s always been rather a friend of mine. Olive and Phil and I roller-skated together at the age of eight."
"But----"
"And I shall probably--marry--Phil--some day before long." She turned abruptly to Charley Forbes with a question.
Lost, already lost, was the playmate; a loss that disgusted him with life. He beat his spirit, cursed himself as a clumsy mechanic. He listened to Olive only by self-compulsion. It was minutes before he had the ability and the chance to say to Ruth:
"Forgive me--in the name of the Blue Bowl. Mr. Dunleavy was rather rude to me, and I"ve been just as rude--and to you! And without his excuse. For he naturally would want to protect you from a wild aviator coming from Lord knows where."
"You are forgiven. And Phil _was_ rude. And you"re not a Lord-knows-where, I"m sure."
Almost brusquely Carl demanded: "Come for a long tramp with me, on the Palisades. Next Sat.u.r.day, if you can and if it"s a decent day.... You said you liked to run away.... And we can be back before dinner, if you like."
"Why--let me think it over. Oh, I _would_ like to. I"ve always wanted to do just that--think of it, the Palisades just opposite, and I never see them except for a walk of half a mile or so when I stay with a friend of mine, Laura Needham, at Winklehurst, up on the Palisades.
My mother never approved of a wilder wilderness than Central Park and the habit----I"ve never been able to get Olive to explore. But it isn"t conventional to go on long tramps with even the nicest new Johnnies, is it?"
"No, but----"
"I know. You"ll say, "Who makes the convention?" and of course there"s no answer but "They." But They are so all-present. They----Oh yes, yes, yes, I will go! But you will let me get back by dinner-time, won"t you? Will you call for me about two?... And can you----I wonder if a hawk out of the windy skies can understand how daring a dove out of Ninety-second Street feels at going walking on the Palisades?"
CHAPTER x.x.xI
The iron Hudson flowed sullenly, far below the ice-enameled rock on the Palisades, where stood Ruth and Carl, shivering in the abrupt wind that cut down the defile. The scowling, slatey river was filled with ice-floes and chunks of floating, water-drenched snow that broke up into bobbing sheets of slush. The sky was solid cold gray, with no arch and no hint of the lost sun. Crows winging above them stood out against the sky like pencil-marks on clean paper. The estates in upper New York City, across the river, were snow-cloaked, the trees chilly and naked, the houses standing out as though they were freezing and longing for their summer wrap of ivy. And naked were the rattling trees on their side of the river, on the Palisades. But the cold breeze enlivened them, the sternness of the swift, cruel river and miles of brown sh.o.r.e made them gravely happy. As they tramped briskly off, atop the cliffs, toward the ferry to New York, five miles away, they talked with a quiet, quick seriousness which discovered them to each other. It was too cold for conversational fencing. It was too splendidly open for them not to rejoice in the freedom from New York streets and feel like heroes conquering the miles.
Carl was telling of Joralemon, of Plato, of his first flights before country fairs; something of what it meant to be a newspaper hero, and of his loneliness as a Dethroned Prince. Ruth dropped her defenses of a chaperoned young woman; confessed that now that she had no mother to keep her mobilized and in the campaign to get nearer to "Society" and a "decent marriage," she did not know exactly what she wanted to do with life. She spoke tentatively of her vague settlement work; in all she said she revealed an honesty as forthright as though she were a gaunt-eyed fanatic instead of a lively-voiced girl in a blue corduroy jacket with collar and cuffs of civet and b.u.t.tons from Venice.
Then Carl spoke of his religion--the memory of Forrest Haviland. He had never really talked of him to any one save Colonel Haviland and t.i.therington, the English aviator; but now this girl, who had never seen Forrest, seemed to have known him for life. Carl made vivid by his earnestness the golden hours of work together in California; the confidences in New York restaurants; his long pa.s.sion for their Brazilian trip. Ruth"s eyes looked up at him with swift comprehension, and there was a tear in them as he told in ten words of the message that Forrest was dead.
They turned gay, Ruth"s st.u.r.dy, charming shoulders shrugging like a Frenchman"s with the exhilaration of fast walking and keen air, while her voice, light and cheerful, with graceful modulations and the singer"s freedom from tw.a.n.g, rejoiced:
"I"m so glad we came! I"m so glad we came! But I"m afraid of the wild beasts I see in the woods there. They have no right to have twilight so early. I know a big newspaper man who lives at Pompton, N. J., and I"m going to ask him to write to the governor about it. The legislature ought to pa.s.s a law that dusk sha"n"t come till seven, Sat.u.r.day afternoons. Do you know how glad I am that you made me come?... And how honored I am to have you tell me--Lieutenant Haviland--and the very bad Carl that lived in Joralemon?"
"It"s----I"m glad----Say, gee! we"ll have to hurry like the d.i.c.kens if we"re going to catch a ferry in time to get you home for dinner."
"I have an idea. I wonder if we dare----I have a friend, sort of a distant cousin, who married her a husband at Winklehurst, on the Palisades, not very far from the ferry. I wonder if we couldn"t make her invite us both for dinner? Of course, she"ll want to know all about you; but we"ll be mysterious, and that will make it all the more fun, don"t you think? I do want to prolong our jaunt, you see."
"I can"t think of anything I"d rather do. But do you dare impose a perfectly strange man on her?"
"Oh yes, I know her so well that she"s told me what kind of a tie her husband had on when he proposed."
"Let"s do it!"
"A telephone! There"s some shops ahead there, in that settlement.
Ought to be a telephone there.... I"ll make her give us a good dinner!
If Laura thinks she"ll get away with hash and a custard with a red cherry in it, she"d better undeceive herself."
They entered a tiny wayside shop for the sale of candy and padlocks and mittens. While Ruth telephoned to her friend, Mrs. Laura Needham, Carl bought red-and-blue and lemon-colored all-day suckers, and a sugar mouse, and a candy kitten with green ears and real whiskers. He could not but hear Ruth telephoning, and they grinned at each other like conspirators, her eyelids in little wrinkles as she tried to look wicked, her voice amazingly innocent as she talked, Carl carefully arraying his purchases before her, making the candy kitten pursue the sugar mouse round and round the telephone.
"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo! Is Mrs. Needham there?... h.e.l.lo!... Oh, hel-_lo_, Laura dear. This is Ruth. I.... Fine. I feel fine. But chillery. Listen, Laura; I"ve been taking a tramp along the Palisades. Am I invited to dinner with a swain?... What?... Oh yes, I am; certainly I"m invited to dinner.... Well, my dear, go in town by all means, with my blessing; but that sha"n"t prevent you from having the opportunity to enjoy being hospitable.... I don"t know. What ferry do you catch?...
The 7.20?... N-no, I don"t think we can get there till after that, so you can go right ahead and have the Biddy get ready for us.... All right; that _is_ good of you, dear, to force the invitation on me."
She flushed as her eyes met Carl"s. She continued: "But seriously, will it be too much of a tax on the Biddy if we do come? We"re drefful cold, and it"s a long crool way to town.... Thank you, dear. It shall be returned unto you--after not too many days.... What?... Who?... Oh, a man.... Why, yes, it might be, but I"d be twice as likely to go tramping with Olive as with Phil.... No, it isn"t.... Oh, as usual.
He"s getting to be quite a dancing-man.... Well, if you must know--oh, I can"t give you his name. He"s----" She glanced at Carl appraisingly, "----he"s about five feet tall, and he has a long French shovel beard and a lovely red nose, and he"s listening to me describe him!"
Carl made the kitten chase the mouse furiously.
"Perhaps I"ll tell you about him some time.... Good-by, Laura dear."
She turned to Carl, rubbing her cold ear where the telephone-receiver had pressed against it, and caroled: "Her husband is held late at the office, and Laura is going to meet him in town, and they"re going to the theater. So we"ll have the house all to ourselves. Exciting!" She swung round to telephone home that she would not be there for dinner.
As they left the shop, went over a couple of blocks for the Winklehurst trolley, and boarded it, Carl did some swift thinking. He was not above flirting or, if the opportunity offered, carrying the flirtation to the most delicious, exciting, uncertain lengths he could. Here, with "dinner in their own house," with a girl interesting yet unknown, there was a feeling of sudden intimacy which might mean anything. Only--when their joined eyes had pledged mischief while she telephoned, she had been so quiet, so frank, so evidently free from a shamefaced erotic curiosity, that now he instantly dismissed the query, "How far could I go? What does she expect?" which, outside of pure-minded romances, really does come to men. It was a wonderful relief to dismiss the query; a simplification to live in the joy each moment gave of itself. The hour was like a poem. Yet he was no extraordinary person; he had, in the lonely hours of a dead room, been tortured with the unmoral longings which, good or bad, men do feel.
As they took their seats in the car, and Ruth beat on her knees with her fur-lined gloves, he laughed back, altogether happy, not pretending, as he had pretended with Eve L"Ewysse.
Happy. But hungry!
Mrs. Needham should have been graciously absent by the time they reached her house--a suburban residence with a large porch. But, as they approached, Ruth cried:
""Shhhh! There seems to be somebody moving around in the living room.
I don"t believe Laura "s gone yet. That would spoil it. Come on. Let"s peep. Let"s be Indian scouts!"
Cautioning each other with warning pats, they tiptoed guiltily to the side of the house and peered in at the dining-room window, where the shade was raised a couple of inches above the sill. A noise at the back of the house made them start and flatten against the wall.
"Big chief," whispered Carl, "the redskins are upon us! But old Brown Barrel shall make many an one bite the dust!"
"Hush, silly.... Oh, it"s just the maid. See, she"s looking at the clock and wondering why we don"t get here."
"But maybe Mrs. Needham "s in the other room."
"No. Because the maid"s sniffing around--there, she"s reading a post-card some one left on the side-table. Oh yes, and she"s chewing gum. Laura has certainly departed. Probably Laura is chewing gum herself at the present moment, now that she"s out from under the eye of her maid. Laura always was ree-fined, but I wouldn"t trust her to be proof against the feeling of wild dissipation you can get out of chewing gum, if you live in Winklehurst."
They had rung the door-bell on the porch by now.
"I"m so glad," said Ruth, "that Laura is gone. She is very literal-minded. She might not understand that we could be hastily married and even lease a house, this way, and still be only tea acquaintances."