What Will People Say? A Novel
"You can't go up to my place without some chaperon!" Willie snapped,
with a pettish firmness. "I don't run a road-house, you know."
"If you've got to have a chaperon, maybe you'd take me," said Mrs. Neff.
"You!" Willie laughed cynically. "And who'll chaperon the chaperon?
You'll make more mischief than anybody. Your affair with Mr. Lord--er,
pardon me, Mr. Ward--is the talk of the town already."
Mrs. Neff's laugh was a mixture of ridicule at the possibility and
yearning that it might not be impossible. Her comment was in the spirit
of burlesque.
"But if I marry him afterward it will put a stop to the scandal."
"Mother, you are simply indecent!" her daughter piped up, with a kind of
militant innocence.
The luxury of such a reproof was too dear to Mrs. Neff's unwithered
heart to be neglected. She added her vote to those of Winifred and
Persis.
Forbes dared not speak, but he was aglow with the vision of a few days
with Persis in the country. As he crossed the continent he had seen the
traces of spring everywhere; everywhere the mad incendiary had been
kindling fires in tree and shrub and sward. From the train window he
had watched the splendors unroll like a moving film. He had wished to
leap from the car and wander with somebody--with a vague somebody. And
now he had found her, and the golden opportunity tapped on the window.
Willie fenced with Winifred till the luncheon was finished. Then they
retired to the lounge for coffee. Here women had the franchise for
public smoking, and they puffed like small boys. Winifred renewed the
battle for the picnic.
Ten Eyck had watched the contest with a grin. At last he spoke: "It's a
pretty little war. Reluctant host trying to convince guests that they
are not invited. Guests saying, 'We'll come anyway.' Better give in
peacefully, Willie, or they'll take possession and lock you outside."
Then Willie gave in, but on the ground that Persis wanted it. He
attempted a sheepish gallantry and a veiled romantic reference. He, too,
had a touch of April in his frosty little heart. Forbes winced at the
rivalry; but at any price he wanted to be with Persis where the spring
was.
Willie, yielding to the role of _hote malgre lui_, announced that since
they were determined to invade his respectable ancestral home, the
sooner they got it over with the better. Persis and the rest were
creatures of impulse, glad to have an impulse, and they agreed to the
flight as quickly as a flock of birds. What engagements they had they
dismissed. Their maids could send telegrams of "regret that, owing to
unexpected absence from town," etc.
Willie went to call up his gardener and have the house thrown open to
the air and fresh provisions ordered in.
He had just gone when a page came to Persis with the word that her
father wanted to speak to her on the telephone.
She gave a start and looked afraid as she rose. Forbes watched her go,
and his heart prayed that no bad news might await her. She was so
beautiful as she moved, and so plucky. He knew that she was frightened,
but she spoke to various people she passed with all the light-hearted
graciousness imaginable. She came back speedily with a look of anxiety
vainly resisted. She explained that her father was leaving for Chicago
on the Twentieth Century, and wanted to tell her good-by. She would
barely have time to reach the house before he left.
Forbes offered to accompany her home. She insisted that he should not
leave his guests. Winifred and Mrs. Neff rose at once, claiming that
they must also leave to make ready for the excursion.
Forbes bade them good-by rather awkwardly. He regretted the disorder of
his exit as a host, but he would not forfeit this chance to be alone
with Persis.
She was so distressed about her father that she forgot Willie's
existence, and left no message for him. When he had finished his tempest
in a telephone-booth, and conveyed his orders to his head gardener, he
found Mrs. Neff and Winifred waiting for their cars. They explained
Persis' flight and made arrangements for the hour and place of meeting
for the journey.
CHAPTER XXV
When Forbes hastened after the hastening Persis and saw how distraught
she was he felt the sharp cutting-edge of sympathy. It was his first
sight of her in a mood of heartache, and his own heart ached akin.
When they reached the outer door they found to their amazement that it
was raining hard. Within doors there had been such luxurious peace under
such glowing lights that the sun was not missed and the rain was not
heard. But along the street, gusts of wind swept furious, with long
javelins of rain that made the awning almost useless. Women gathered
their finery about them, and men clung to their hats while they waited
for their cars, and then bolted for them as they came up dripping under
the guidance of dripping chauffeurs.
While Persis waited for a taxicab Forbes tried to shelter her with his
body. He ventured to hope that her father's absence would not distress
her.
"Oh no," she answered, bravely, "not at all. He's going on business. He
told me the other day he might have to leave town for a few days--on
business."
Forbes hesitated over his next words.
"I hope this won't prevent you from going up to Mr. Enslee's."
"Oh no, quite the contrary," she said. "I'd be alone at home. I'll be
glad of the--the diversion. Here's the taxi. It's really not necessary
for you to go with me."
For answer he took her arm and ran with her to the door the footman
opened. A blast of windy rain lashed them as they crept into the car.
The door slammed and they were under way, running cautiously on the
skiddish pavement.
At last he was alone with her. The rain made their shelter cozier, and
for all its bluster it was a spring rain. With its many-hoofed clatter
it was a battalion of police clearing the way for the flower procession.
Thinking of this, Forbes said:
"I'm mighty glad you're not leaving town."
"But I am."
"With your father, I mean. You're leaving town with me, instead."
She looked him in the eye with some surprise.
"It's a good thing we put the blame for that luncheon on Mrs. Neff. It
tickled her to death and--do you know that Willie really thinks you're
flirting with her--or aiming at Alice? He can't tell which." She laughed
deliciously. It did not grieve her to fool Willie.
The cab rocked in the wind, and the rain beat upon it with the sound of
waves protesting against the rush of a yacht's prow. Forbes caught a
glimpse of a street sign. It warned him that they were already passing
Fiftieth Street. In a few minutes they would be at her home.
"I'm not flirting with anybody," he said. "I'm adoring you."
A little frown of bewilderment troubled the smile she gave him. She felt
his hand on hers and tried to draw it away, but he held it fast.
"We're not at the opera, you know," she said. "That noise isn't the
music of 'Tristan and Isolde.' That's rain."
"I know it," he answered, "and I don't want you to be Isolde. If only
she had married Tristan in the first place--"
"They might have been divorced in the second place."
"Don't be--don't talk that way. I'm in deadly earnest," he pleaded, but
she laughed evasively.
"That was very heady sherry you gave us to-day."
He shook his head sadly, as over the flippancy of a child, and took her
hand in both of his.
"It's broad daylight, Mr. Forbes, and this is Madison Avenue."
"But nobody can see us," he answered. "Look at the rain."
"What difference does that make?" she answered, tugging at her hand. But
she looked, and saw how they were closed away from the world. Sheets of
water splashed and spread so thickly that they covered the windows with
gray curtains.
It was as if a brief tropical flood had burst upon New York.
Somehow it did make a difference that nobody could see. It always makes
a difference in us that nobody can see us.
Even Forbes felt the change in Persis. Perhaps it was only that her
resistance was minutely diminished, or that one of her many fears was
removed, one support gone. As a soldier he had sometime felt that
slackening of morale across the space between firing-lines. It is then
that the military genius orders a charge and turns the enemy's momentary
weakness into a panic.
So Forbes charged Persis. In his face gathered a fierce determination.
His fingers tightened upon hers, no longer caressingly, but cruelly,
till they hurt. He pulled her right hand across him with his right, and
thrust his left arm back of her, caught her farther shoulder in the
crook of it, and drew her close till their faces almost touched, till
her eyes were so close to his that they were grotesquely one.
And then he paused. He lacked the elan to seize the red flag of her
lips. He paused weakly to stare at her and to beseech the kiss he might
have captured.
"Kiss me!" he said.
So silly a phrase for so warm a deed. She shook her head, and her
fright was gone. She taunted him from her eyes as from an unconquered
citadel.
"Kiss me!" he repeated, feeling poltroon and idiotic.
She did not upbraid him or feel any anger or any helplessness; she just
studied him, ignoring the fact that he held her body close to him in a
crushing embrace. After all, that meant nothing. Almost anybody might
hold her so at a dance for all the world to see. Nothing mattered, she
thought, so long as their souls did not embrace.
But therein she was wrong, for their souls were not dancing to music. He
was demanding her love, her submission to his love. Their souls were
debating that vital question, without speech, yet with every argument.
She enjoyed the struggle. She was striking the first of the matches. She
would watch the pretty blue flame a moment before it blazed red, then
she would blow it out with a little breath from the lips he demanded.
It was fascinating to see how tremendously excited he was over the
privilege of touching his lips to hers. It was a quaint little act to
make so much of. He was a splendid man, brave, charming, good to see,
and now he was crimson and fierce-eyed and breathing hard, trembling
with the struggle to keep from taking what was so close. She smiled at
him triumphantly. She was about to puff out the flame with a whiff of
sarcasm, when he said, with all the simplicity of truth:
"I couldn't take a kiss unless you gave it to me. I don't want to kiss
you unless you want me to. May I?"
It was such a boyish plea that she could not be sophisticated in its
presence. She could not answer such hunger with wit. She felt a sudden
power from somewhere pressing her head forward to his lips and her heart
closer to his.
She smiled tenderly with veiled eyes, and no longer held off. With a
gasp of joy he understood and caught her against him. But just as their
lips would have met another instinct saved her.
She had always felt a kind of sanctity about her mouth, a preciousness
that must not be cheaply cast away. Among all the kisses she had given
and taken there still remained this first kiss, still vestal and virgin.
And that was the kiss he asked.
She turned her head swiftly, and it was her cheek that he touched. There
was such a burning in the touch that the fire ran through her. Her
cheeks crimsoned. She closed her eyes in a kind of sweet shame.
She was amazed to be there, huddled in his arms, with his lips preying
upon her cheek. Her soul was in wild debate with itself, busy with
reproaches and summons to battle against the invader. But it was like a
senate without president. There was no one to give the order.
At last she opened her eyes to see again what manner of man this was
that had conjured away all her pride and her wisdom and her strength.
Her eyes saw that the curtain of rain was slipping from the windows. The