What Will People Say? A Novel
"I won't," Forbes laughed, elated beyond belief by the unimaginable luck
of riding at Persis' stirrup for miles and miles.
And so they mounted. Persis' horse was humbled beyond struggle; but
Enslee's big black had lately tossed his rider over his head. He tested
the seat of his new visitor. Forbes was a West-Pointer, a cavalryman,
and the horse had not made more than one pirouette before he understood
that he was bestridden by one whom it was best to obey.
Willie tried at first to keep the motor back with the horses, but Persis
ordered him to go about his business, and turned off the hard track to a
soft road.
And now at last they were free, Forbes and Persis, cantering along a
plushy road, a lovers' lane that mounted up and up till they paused at
the height to give the horses breath.
Back of them the Hudson spread its august flood between mountainous
walls. Before them the road dipped into the deep forest seas of Sleepy
Hollow.
CHAPTER XXXVI
"Is it possible that we're actually alone?" Forbes gloated, turning in
his saddle to take her in in her brisk, youthful beauty.
"I shouldn't exactly call it alone up here on the mantelpiece of the
world in broad daylight," Persis smiled. "But it's nice, isn't it?"
"Wonderful, to be riding with you!"
"I'm immensely happy," she said. "Even the horses know the difference.
This morning they hated each other. They wouldn't trot in rhythm or
alongside, and they fought like snapping-turtles. Now look at them
nuzzle and flirt. Ouch! that's my game knee you're colliding with. It
would be better if I rode side-saddle. There were advantages in
old-fashioned ways. You ride splendidly, don't you?"
"Do I?" he said. "As you told me the first time I met you, I'm glad you
like me."
"I more than that, now."
"More than like me?"
"Umm-humm!"
"Love me?"
"Umm-humm!"
"If I could only brush away all of these houses and people and take you
in my arms! If this were only a Sahara or Mojave!"
"I doubt if there's a desert where nobody is peeking. They used to tell
me that God was looking when no one else was."
"Well, He would understand."
"Maybe He would see too much. But the human beings don't understand. And
they're everywhere. Oh, Lord, I'm so sick of other people's eyes and
ears. All my life I've had them on me--servants', nurses', maids',
waiters', grooms', footmen's! Sometimes I think I'd love to live on a
desert island. Couldn't you buy me a desert island somewhere--a
thoroughly equipped desert island with hot and cold water and automatic
cooking?"
"I'll see if there's one in the market."
"It would be a fine addition to the same old town and country house and
yacht. Had you thought where you will have your--our country place?"
"Er--no, I hadn't."
"Shall you have to be at your post much? Are the office-hours very
strict?"
"Pretty strict. We'd have to live on Governor's Island, you know."
"Really? In one of those little houses?" He nodded. "I saw them there
once when they gave a lawn fete. I never dreamed I'd live in one of
them. They aren't very commodious, are they?"
"That depends."
"Nichette--she's my maid--would make an awful row, and my chauffeur--I
suppose we could keep him? He expects to marry Nichette."
"Does he?"
"If they can stop fighting long enough to get married. Does a garage go
with the house we should occupy there?"
"I doubt it."
"No garage!" she exclaimed. "How should we manage? It's rather awkward
getting to the Island, too, as I remember--a ferry or something. I don't
suppose you could arrange to live up-town and do your army work by
telephone on rainy days?"
"I'm afraid not."
His heart was thumping. She grew more exquisite as she grew more
fairy-like in her visions. He could not tell her the truth--not
yet--not, at least, till they had passed through the woods ahead, where
there was a promise of opportunity for at least a moment's embrace, at
least one hasty kiss.
They jogged on in silence awhile, she pondering like a solemn child, he
longing to give her the toys she kept imagining. They drew into the
thicket, shady and soft with a breeze that wandered about murmuring
"Woo! woo!" and leaves that whispered "Kiss! kiss!" and a deep forest
voice that mumbled "Love!"
No one was visible ahead. He turned and stared back. They were shut in
by a projecting hill that seemed to close after them like a door. He
leaned sidewise with arm outstretched to enfold her waist. But with a
quick lift of her hand and a scratch of the spur she carried her horse
aside and ahead.
"You mustn't!" she warned. "Really!"
"But no one can see us."
"So we thought in the dark hall. And there was some one there. Do you
know who it was?"
"I haven't been able to find out."
"I have!" She spoke triumphantly.
"Who was it, in Heaven's name?"
"Who would be your last guess?"
"Enslee."
"Why?"
"Because he smiled; because he let me ride with you."
"That shows how much a man's reasoning power is worth. That was just who
it was."
"Why do you think so?"
"I know so. He told me."
Forbes was dazed; he marveled aloud: "And yet he smiled? He let me ride
with you?"
She laughed. "Willie is such an idiot! He knew it was you; but he never
dreamed that the woman was me. He thought the woman was Mrs. Neff or
Winifred. That's why he smiled at you."
Forbes chuckled a moment, then flushed, as Persis went on:
"He could only hear our whispers, you know, and you can't distinguish
whispers. He thought it was a great joke. He laughed his head off. And I
laughed too. It was delicious. It came near being serious, though. What
do you suppose? He heard the door open below and thought it was a
burglar. He had a revolver and a flashlight. The flash wouldn't
work--thank the Lord! So he was going to shoot first and then call,
'Who's there!' That would have been nice, wouldn't it? Then he heard
our--our kisses. He didn't shoot. He kept quiet, smothering his
snickers. He could only judge by the closing of the door who was who. He
recognized your door, and he got mine mixed. But you're not laughing."
"It doesn't seem very funny to me," Forbes admitted. "My love for you is
no joke. I don't enjoy sneaking about in dark halls and having you
mistaken for some other woman."
She stared at him, and her mischief turned to a deep tenderness. She
rode closer and put her free hand on his bridle-hand. "How right you
are! That's the way I want you to feel, the way I want you to love me."
And then she laughed again. "What do you suppose Willie told me?
To-night he's going to wait till you sneak out with your lady bird, and
then he's going to lock the door and make you beg for admission. That'll
be nice, eh?"
"That means I can't be with you to-night."
"It seems so."
"And you won't let me kiss you now?"
"But we couldn't go spooning about in the daylight, could we? Not even
if we were an old married couple, could we?"
"I suppose not. But when--when are we going to be an old married
couple?"
"Whenever you say," she said, with a shy down-look. "We'd have to
announce our engagement, I suppose, and then it would take a long time
to get my clothes made."
"Would it?"
"Yes. I haven't a thing. I'm in perfect rags. And besides, a bride ought
to begin new. Isn't it thrilling to be talking of such things! Am I
blushing as red as I feel?"
"You're like a rose on fire."
"I feel deliciously a ninny. Can you get away from your hateful army for
a good long honeymoon, do you suppose?"
"I don't know. Where would you like to go?"
"The Riviera isn't bad. A trip around the world would be pleasant."
"Wouldn't it!" he groaned. "But I'm afraid I couldn't."
"I suppose the country would be afraid to let you get so far away, with
all this talk about trouble with the Mexicans. Oh, well, it doesn't
matter so long as we are together, does it?"
"Do you feel that way?" he asked, hungrily.
"Terribly. I love you--I love you hideously much. Watch out! Will you
never learn that somebody's always looking?--a whole picnic this time."
They were nearing Pocantico Lake. In a thicket on its shores a
wagon-load of villagers had finished its basket-lunch and scattered in a
rather dreary effort at inexpensive happiness.
Among the trees the wagon waited pitifully to take them back from their
dingy cheer to their dull homes. It was rendered only the more pitiful
by a strip of red-white-and-blue bunting. A coat of paint would have
become it better.
While the horses cropped the grass soberly a pack of substantial wives
cleared away such part of the debris of the banquet as was not scattered
about the ground.
As Forbes and Persis rounded the turn that disclosed the revelers a
homely couple evidently in search of a less populous nook severed a
highly unromantic-looking clasp. It was hard to see how either took much
pleasure from the other. The man was in his shirt-sleeves, with his hat
askew; the girl, shapeless and freckled, in a shapeless freckled dress.
They squinted their eyes against the sun, gaped at the tailor-made
couple on the varnished horses, and stumbled in the roadside gully to
let them pass.
"Isn't it ghastly?" Persis whispered. "They were trying to spoon--just
as we were. And we both broke up both of us. It makes love rather a
silly, shabby spectacle, doesn't it?"
"I don't think so," Forbes said. "I should say that instead of their
making love shabby, love covered them with a little glory."
"That's a much prettier way to put it. But shabby people--oh Lord! Look
at that family, dear! If that's wedded bliss, give me chloroform."
It was a doleful exhibit on the edge of the woods: a fat, paunchy,
sweaty man was taking his picnic in carrying a squally, messy baby.
Alongside him a bunchy woman with stringy hair waddled in answering
stupidity, hanging to her husband's suspenders.
"You can't tell which of them's going to have the next one," Persis
commented, before she caught herself. "Forgive me, I didn't realize how
it would sound."
Forbes laughed sheepishly. "It was what I was thinking, too."
As they rode on she shuddered. "What an odious thing to be like that!
Suppose you lost your job in the army and we got very poor, and I had to
take in washing, and we had a lot of children; should we be like that,
do you think?--should we?"
"You could never be anything that was not beautiful!" Forbes exclaimed,
partly because he believed it to be unquestionable truth and partly to
quell her ferocious repugnance for anything that was ugly and tawdry.
"Perhaps that awful man told that awful woman the same thing," she
groaned, "and believed it! Come on; let's run away from it." She lifted
her horse to a gallop and fled so fast that Forbes, for all the
authority and help he gave his horse, could not overtake her, since hers
was the better mount. As he followed, lumbering and scolding his black
beast, he felt that she was indeed too fleet, too elusive for him ever
to capture and keep.
But at length she relented, and reined in till he came abeam. Then she
urged her horse on again, and they galloped in the mad swoop of a
cavalry charge with boots griding together. She forgot her wounded knee,
and he forgot his doubts of her.
There were narrow escapes, unexpected swerves round loitering wagons or
deliberate wayfarers. Once she rode up a shelving bank to give him room
to avoid a mangy canine landlord so earnestly attempting to evict a
family of tenants from his left ear that he paid no heed to the risk of
his own life or hers.
"If we ride fast on levels, we can take more time later," she said;
"then they won't wonder at our being so late."
She was always thinking of what other people would think. He wished that
she would forget the eternal audience, the unbroken spectators, now and