"Good-night--boy," she gasped.
He turned sharply, quivering under the familiar name. Her maid, standing in the snow, moved forward, and he motioned her to enter the brougham.
"Home," he said unsteadily; and stood there very still for a minute or two, even after the carriage had whirled away into the storm. Then, looking up at the house, he felt for his keys; but a sudden horror of being alone arrested him, and he stepped back, calling out to his cabman, who was already turning his horse"s head, "Wait a moment; I think I"ll drive back to Mrs. Gerard"s... . And take your time."
It was still early--lacking a quarter of an hour to midnight--when he arrived. Nina had retired, but Austin sat in the library, obstinately plodding through the last chapters of a brand-new novel.
"This is a wretched excuse for sitting up," he yawned, laying the book flat on the table, but still open. "I ought never to be trusted alone with any book." Then he removed his reading gla.s.ses, yawned again, and surveyed Selwyn from head to foot.
"Very pretty," he said. "Well, how are the yellow ones, Phil? Or was it all debutante and slop-twaddle?"
"Few from the cradle, but bunches were arriving for the dance as I left."
"Eileen went at half-past eleven."
"I didn"t know she was going," said Selwyn, surprised.
"She didn"t want you to. The Playful Kitten business, you know--frisks apropos of nothing to frisk about. But we all fancied you"d stay for the dance." He yawned mightily, and gazed at Selwyn with ruddy gravity.
"Whisk?" he inquired.
"No."
"Cigar?"--mildly urgent.
"No, thanks."
"Bed?"
"I think so. But don"t wait for me, Austin... . Is that the evening paper? Where is St. Paul?"
Austin pa.s.sed it across the table and sat for a moment, alternately yawning and skimming the last chapter of his novel.
"Stuff and rubbish, mush and piffle!" he muttered, closing the book and pushing it from him across the table; "love, as usual, grossly out of proportion to the ensemble. That theory of the earth"s rotation, you know; all these absurd books are built on it. Why do men read "em? They grin when they do it! Love is only the sixth sense--just one-sixth of a man"s existence. The other five-sixths of his time he"s using his other senses working for a living."
Selwyn looked up over his newspaper, then lowered and folded it.
"In these novels," continued Gerard, irritably, "five-sixths of the pages are devoted to love; everything else is subordinated to it; it controls all motives, it initiates all action, it drugs reason, it prolongs the tuppenny suspense, sustains cheap situations, and produces agonisingly profitable climaxes for the authors... . Does it act that way in real life?"
"Not usually," said Selwyn.
"n.o.body else thinks so, either. Why doesn"t somebody tell the truth? Why doesn"t somebody tell us how a man sees a nice girl and gradually begins to tag after her when business hours are over? A respectable man is busy from eight or nine until five or six. In the evening he"s usually at the club, or dining out, or asleep; isn"t he? Well, then, how much time does it leave for love? Do the problem yourself in any way you wish; the result is a fraction every time; and that fraction represents the proper importance of the love interest in its proper ratio to a man"s entire life."
He sat up, greatly pleased with himself at having reduced sentiment to a fixed proportion in the ingredients of life.
"If I had time," he said, "I could tell them how to write a book--" He paused, musing, while the confident smile spread. Selwyn stared at s.p.a.ce.
"What does a young man know about love, anyway?" demanded his brother-in-law.
"Nothing," replied Selwyn listlessly.
"Of course not. Look at Gerald. He sits on the stairs with a pink and white ninny; and at the next party he does it with another. That"s wholesome and natural; and that"s the way things really are. Look at Eileen. Do you suppose she has the slightest suspicion of what love is?"
"Naturally not," said Selwyn.
"Correct. Only a fool novelist would attribute the deeper emotions to a child like that. What does she know about anything? Love isn"t a mere emotion, either--that is all fol-de-rol and fizzle!--it"s the false basis of modern romance. Love is reason--not a nervous phenomenon. Love is a sane pa.s.sion, founded on a basic knowledge of good and evil. That"s what love is; the rest!"--he lifted the book, waved it contemptuously, and pushed it farther away--"the rest is neuritis; the remedy a pill.
I"m going to bed; are you?"
But Selwyn had lighted a cigar, and was again unfolding his evening paper; so his brother-in-law moved ponderously away, yawning frightfully at every heavy stride, and the younger man settled back in his chair, a fragrant cigar balanced between his strong, slim fingers, one leg dropped loosely over the other. After a while the newspaper fell to the floor.
He sat there without moving for a long time; his cigar, burning close, had gone out. The reading-lamp spread a circle of soft light over the floor; on the edge of it lay Kit-Ki, placid, staring at him. After a while he noticed her. "You?" he said absently; "you hid so they couldn"t put you out."
At the sound of his voice she began to purr.
"Oh, it"s all very well," he nodded; "but it"s against the law.
However," he added, "I"m rather tired of rules and regulations myself.
Besides, the world outside is very cold to-night. Purr away, old lady; I"m going to bed."
But he did not stir.
A little later, the fire having burned low, he rose, laid a pair of heavy logs across the coals, dragged his chair to the hearth, and settled down in it deeply. Then he lifted the cat to his knees. Kit-Ki sang blissfully, spreading and relaxing her claws at intervals as she gazed at the mounting blaze.
"I"m going to bed, Kit-Ki," he repeated absently, "because that"s a pretty good place for me ... far better than sitting up here with you--and conscience."
But he only lay back deeper in the velvet chair and lighted another cigar.
"Kit-Ki," he said, "the words men utter count in the reckoning; but not as heavily as the words men leave unuttered; and what a man does scores deeply; but--alas for the scars of the deeds he has left undone."
The logs were now wrapped in flame, and their low mellow roaring mingled to a monotone with the droning of the cat on his knees.
Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze.
When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, and her pretty little Alsatian maid beside her, laying a log across the andirons.
"Upon my word!" he murmured, confused; then rising quickly, "Is that you, Miss Erroll? What time is it?"
"Four o"clock in the morning, Captain Selwyn," she said, straightening up to her full height. "This room is icy; are you frozen?"
Chilled through, he stood looking about in a dazed way, incredulous of the hour and of his own slumber.
"I was conversing with Kit-Ki a moment ago," he protested, in such a tone of deep reproach that Eileen laughed while her maid relieved her of furs and scarf.
"Susanne, just unhook those two that I can"t manage; light the fire in my bedroom; _et merci bien, ma pet.i.te!_"
The little maid vanished; Kit-Ki, who had been unceremoniously spilled from Selwyn"s knees, sat yawning, then rose and walked noiselessly to the hearth.
"I don"t know how I happened to do it," he muttered, still abashed by his plight.