Softly, gently, she closed the door upon him. Then she stumbled up the stairs to her room, and in the dark threw herself face down on her bed.
CHAPTER XXV
IN THE PARK
Either Frances had grown more beautiful in the last three months, or Don had forgotten how really beautiful she was when she left; for, when she stepped down the gangplank toward him, he was quite sure that never in his life had he seen any one so beautiful as she was then.
Her cheeks were tanned, and there was a foreign touch in her costume that made her look more like a lady of Seville than of New York. As she bent toward him for a modest kiss, he felt for a second as if he were in the center of some wild plot of fiction. This was not she to whom he was engaged,--she whom he purposed to marry within the week,--but rather some fanciful figure of romance.
He stepped into her car,--he did not know even if he was asked,--and for a half-hour listened to her spirited narration of incidents of the voyage. It was mostly of people, of this man and that, this woman and that, with the details of the weather and deck sports. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances he might have enjoyed the talk; but, with all he had to tell her, it sounded trivial.
They reached the house. Even then, there was much talk of trunks and other things of no importance to him whatever. Stuyvesant hung around in frank and open admiration of his daughter; and Mrs. Stuyvesant beamed and listened and stayed. Don had a feeling that, in spite of his position in the family, they looked upon him at this moment as an intruder.
It was another half-hour before he found himself alone with her. She came to his side at once--almost as if she too had been awaiting this opportunity.
"Dear old Don," she said. "It"s good to see you again. But you look tired."
"And you look beautiful!" he exclaimed.
Now that he was alone with her, he felt again as he had at the steamer--that this woman was not she to whom he was engaged, but some wonderful creature of his imagination. The plans he had made for her became commonplace. One could not talk over with her the matter-of-fact details of marrying and of housekeeping and of salaries. And those things that yesterday had filled him with inspiration, that had appeared to him the most wonderful things in life, that had been a.s.sociated with the stars, seemed tawdry. She had been to London to see the Queen, and the flavor of that adventure was still about her.
"Don, dear, what"s the matter?"
He was so long silent that she was worried. He pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead.
"I don"t know," he answered honestly. "There were a lot of things I wanted to say to you, and now I can"t think of them."
"Nice things?"
"Perhaps it"s the house," he replied vaguely. "I wish we could get out of here for a little while. After lunch I want you to come to walk with me. Will you?"
"Where, Don?"
He smiled.
"In the park."
"What an odd fancy!" she answered.
"Here I get you all mixed up with your father and mother and the Queen," he ran on. "I want to talk to you alone."
He sounded more natural to her when he talked like that.
"All right, Don, though there are a hundred things I ought to do this afternoon. And I must decide about going to the mountains with Dolly.
What _were_ those other plans you cabled me about?"
"Those are what I want to talk over with you," he answered.
"What are they? I"m dying to know."
"I"ll tell you in the park. Now I"ll go, so that you"ll have time to do some of the hundred things you want to do."
He turned.
"Don"t you want to--to--"
She held out her arms to him. He kissed her lips. Then she seemed to come back to him as she had been before she sailed. He could have said all he wished to say then. But her mother was calling her.
"I"ll be here at two. And, this once--you must cancel every other engagement."
"Yes, Don."
She came to the door with him, and stood there until he turned the corner. He did not know where to go, but unconsciously his steps took him downtown. He stopped at a florist"s and ordered a dozen roses to be sent back to the house. He stopped to order a box of her favorite bonbons. Then he kept on downtown toward the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves. But this was the first day of his vacation, and so he had no object in going there. He must find a place to lunch. He came to a dairy lunch, and then he knew exactly what it was he needed. He needed Sally Winthrop to talk over his complication with him.
As he made his way to the counter for his sandwich and coffee, he frowned. He had told her that he would surely need her. Now she was gone. He suddenly recalled that she had not even left her address.
Only two days before he had been discussing with her the final details of the house awaiting Frances, and she had made him feel that everything was perfect.
"She will love it," she had a.s.sured him.
It was as if he heard her voice again repeating that sentence. Once again he reacted to her enthusiasm and saw through her eyes. She had made him feel that money--the kind of money Stuyvesant stood for--was nonsense. A salary of twelve hundred a year was enough for the necessities, and yet small enough to give his wife an opportunity to help.
"When the big success comes," she had said to him, "then Frances can feel that it is partly her success too. A woman doesn"t become a wife by just marrying a man, does she? It"s only when she has a chance to help that she can feel herself really a wife."
As she said it he felt that to be true, although to him it was a brand-new point of view.
And Sally Winthrop had given him, in her own life, a new point of view on woman. He understood that she had never married because she had never happened to fall in love. She had always been too busy.
But if ever she did fall in love, what a partner she would make!
Partner--that was the word.
"It"s in you to get everything in the world you want," she had said last night, when she was leaving him.
So it was. He gulped down the rest of his coffee and glanced at his watch. It was shortly after one. He must stay down here another half-hour--stay around these streets where he had walked with her and where she had made him see straight--until he had just time to meet Frances.
He went out and walked past the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves, and then walked to the Elevated station where she took the train at night for home. The sight of the steps up which they had climbed together made him almost homesick. He wished to Heaven that she had postponed her vacation another day. If only he could see her a few minutes right now, he would be absolutely sure of himself.
It was after two when he reached the house, but Frances was not ready.
She was never quite ready.
"I"ll wait outside," he told the maid.
The maid raised her brows a trifle, but answered civilly:--
"Very well, sir."
As he walked back and forth the Stuyvesant machine also drew up before the door and waited. He viewed it with suspicion. He could not say what he had to say in that. She must be afoot, as Sally Winthrop always was.