Black Oxen Part 22

Madame Zattiany took her leave amid much laughter, more or less perfunctory, and one and all, whatever their reactions, insisted that she must give her old friends the pleasure of entertaining her, and of seeing her as often as possible as long as she remained in New York.

She escaped at last. That was over. But tomorrow night! Tomorrow night. Every wheel and tire seemed to be revolving out the words. Well, if he were repelled and revolted, no doubt it would be for the best. She had made up her mind to spare him nothing. He would hear far more than she had told those women. Certainly he should be given full opportunity to come to his senses. If he refused to take it, on his head be the consequences. She would have done her part.

XXVII

On Sat.u.r.day afternoon as Clavering was walking up Forty-fourth Street he met Anne Goodrich coming out of the Belasco Theatre. He saw her first and tried to avoid her, for her family and the Oglethorpes were as one, but she caught sight of him and held out her hand.

"I shouldn't speak to you after your base desertion the other night,"

she said, smiling. "But you do look rather seedy and I prefer to flatter myself that you really were ill."

"Was sure I was coming down with the flu," Clavering mumbled. "Of course you know that nothing else----"

"Oh, hostesses are too canny these days to take offence. All we are still haughty enough to demand is a decent excuse. But you really owe me something, and besides I've been wanting to talk to you. Take me to Pierre's for tea."

She spoke in a light tone of command. There had been a time when issuing commands to Clavering had been her habit and he had responded with a certain palpitation, convinced for nearly a month that Anne Goodrich was the Clavering woman. He had known her as an awkward schoolgirl and then as one of the prettiest and most light-hearted of the season's debutantes, but she had never interested him until after her return from France, where she had done admirable work in the canteens. Then, sitting next to her at a dinner, and later for two hours in the conservatory, he had thought her the finest girl he had ever met. He thought so still; but although she stimulated his mind and they had many tastes in common, he had soon realized that when apart he forgot her and that only novelty had inspired his brief desire. She might have everything for another man as exacting as himself, but that una.n.a.lyzable something his own peculiar essence demanded no woman had ever possessed until he met Mary Zattiany.

He had begun too ardently to cease his visits abruptly and, moreover, he still found her more companionable than any woman he knew; he continued to show her a frank and friendly devotion until an attack of influenza sent him to the hospital for a month; when he accepted the friendly intervention of fate and thereafter timed his occasional calls to coincide with the hour of tea, when she was never alone. There were no more long morning walks, no more long rides in her car, no more hastily arranged luncheons at the Bohemian restaurants that interested her, no more "dropping in" and long telephone conversations. He still enjoyed a talk with her at a dinner, and she was always a pleasure to the eye with her calm and regular features softened by a cloud of bright chestnut hair that matched her eyes to a shade, her serene brow and her exquisite clothes. She did not carry herself well according to his standard; "well" when she came out six years ago had meant laxity of shoulders and pride of stomach, and in spite of her devotion to outdoor sports she had fallen a prey to fas.h.i.+on. She so far disapproved of the new fas.h.i.+on in girls, however, that she was making an effort to stand erect and she had even banished powder from her clear warm skin. Today she was becomingly dressed in taupe velvet, with stole and m.u.f.f and turban of sable; but Clavering had fancied that her fine face wore a weary discontented expression until she saw him, when it changed swiftly to a sort of imperious gladness. It made him vaguely uncomfortable. He had never flattered himself that she loved him, but he had believed in the possibility of winning her. He had later chosen to believe that she had grown as indifferent as himself, and he wondered, as he stood plunging about in his mind for an excuse to avoid a tete-a-tete, why she had not married.

"Well--you see----"

"Come now! You don't go to teas, men never call these days, and you surely have done your column for tomorrow. Here is the car. You can spare me an hour."

He had always avoided any appearance of rudeness and in his mind at least he had treated her badly; he followed her without further hesitation, trusting to his agile mind to keep her off the subject of Madame Zattiany. This he would do at the cost of rudeness itself, for he would not permit fiasco at the last moment.

The street was packed with automobiles and taxis, and after a slow progress toward Fifth Avenue they arrived in time to see the traffic towers flash on the yellow light and were forced to halt for another three minutes. He had started an immediate discussion of the play she had just witnessed, knowing her love of argument, but she suddenly broke off and laid her hand on his arm.

"Look!" she exclaimed. "The famous Countess Zattiany in that car with mother. Of course you know her; you were with her at the opera on the historic night, weren't you? Tell me! What is she like? Did you ever hear of anything so extraordinary?"

"Never. I really know her very slightly. But as I had met her and she had kindly asked me to dinner, I was glad to return the compliment when Mrs. Oglethorpe sent me her box, as she always does once or twice during the season, you know. But go on. What you said interested me immensely, although I don't agree with you. I have certain fixed standards when it comes to the drama."

She picked him up and the argument lasted until they were seated in Pierre's and had ordered tea.

"I might have taken you home," she said then. "We could have had tea in my den. No doubt Countess Zattiany was returning with mother, who, it seems, has always adored her----"

"This is ever so much nicer, for we are far less likely to be interrupted. I haven't had a real talk with you for months."

And he gave her a look of boyish pleasure, wholly insincere, but so well done that she flushed slightly.

"Is that my fault? There was a time when you came almost every day.

And then you never came in the same way again." It evidently cost her something to say this, for her flush deepened, but she managed a glance of dignified archness.

"Oh, remember I had a villainous attack of the flu, and after that there were arrears of work to make up. Moreover, the dramatic critic came down with an even longer attack and they piled his work on me. I don't know what it is to 'drop in' these days."

"Well--are you always to be driven to death? I read your column religiously and it runs so smoothly and spontaneously that it doesn't seem possible it can take you more than an hour to write it."

"An hour! Little you know. And subjects don't drop out of the clouds, dear Anne. I have to go through all the newspapers, read an endless number of books--not all fiction by a long sight--glance through the magazines, reviews, weekly publications and foreign newspapers, read my rivals' columns, go about among the Sophisticates, attend first-nights, prize-fights, and even see the best of the movies. I a.s.sure you it's a dog's life."

"It sounds tremendously interesting. Far, far more so than my own. I am so tired of that! I--that is one thing I wanted to talk to you about--I meant to bring it up at my dinner--I wish you would introduce me to some of your Sophisticates. Uncle Din says they are the most interesting people in New York and that he always feels young again when he is at one of their parties. Will you take me to one?"

"Of course I will. The novelty might amuse you----"

"It's not only novelty I want. I want really to know people whose minds are constantly at work, who are doing the things we get the benefit of when we are intelligent enough to appreciate them. I cannot go on in the old way any longer. I paint more or less and read a great deal--still on the lines you laid down. But one cannot paint and read and walk and motor and dance all the time. Even if I had not gone to France I should have become as bored and disgusted as I am now. You know that I have a mind. What has it to feed on? I don't mean, of course, that all the women I know are fools. Some of them no doubt are cleverer than I am. But all the girls of my set--except Marian Lawrence, and we don't get on very well--are married; and some have babies, some have lovers, some are mad about bridge, a few have gone in for politics, which don't interest me, and those that the war made permanently serious devote themselves to charities and reform movements. The war spoilt me for mere charity work--although I give a charity I founded one afternoon a week--and mother does enough for one family anyhow. I see no prospect of marrying--I don't know a young man who wants to talk anything but sport and prohibition--you are an oasis.

There you are! The Sophisticates are an inspiration. I am sure they will save my life."

"But have you reflected----" Clavering was embarra.s.sed. She had controlled her tones and spoken with her usual crisp deliberateness, but he knew that the words came from some profound emotional reaction.

For Anne Goodrich it was an outburst. "You see--it is quite possible that when the novelty wore thin you would not be much better off than you are now. All these people are intensely interested in their particular jobs. They are specialists. You----"

"You mean, what have I to give them?"

"Not exactly. You could give them a good deal. To say nothing of your own high intelligence, they are by no means averse from taking an occasional flyer into the realm of fas.h.i.+on. Curiosity partly, natural human sn.o.bbishness, perhaps. They will go to your house if you invite them, no doubt of that; and they may conceive an enthusiastic liking for you. But after all, you would not be one of them. Even though they genuinely appreciated your accomplishments, still you would be little more than an interesting incident. They are workers, engaged in doing the things they think most worth while--which are worth while because they furnish what the intelligent public is demanding just now, and upon which the current market places a high value. And you are merely an intellectual young woman of leisure. They might think it a pity you didn't have to work, but secretly, no matter what their regard, they'd consider you negligible because you belong to a cla.s.s that is content to be, not to do. I a.s.sure you they consider themselves the most important group in New York--in America--at present: the life-giving group of suns round which far-off planets humbly revolve."

"I see. You mean that my novelty would wear thin long before theirs.

Heaven knows I have little to give them. I should feel rather ashamed sitting at the head of my table offering nothing but terrapin and Gobelins. But don't you think I could make real friends of some of them? Surely we would find much in common to talk about--and they certainly take time to play, according to Uncle Din."

"I think there would always be a barrier... . Ah! I have an idea.

Why don't you set up a studio and take your painting seriously? Cut yourself off from the old life and join the ranks of the real workers?

Then, by degrees, they would accept you as a matter of course. You could return their hospitality in your studio, which could be one of the largest--there is no danger of overwhelming them; they are too successful themselves. Think it over."

Miss Goodrich's face, which had looked melancholy, almost hopeless, lit up again. Her red mouth lifted at the corners, light seemed to pour into her hazel eyes. "I'll do it!" she exclaimed. "I did a portrait of father last month and it really is good. He is delighted with it, and you know how easy he is to please! I wonder I never thought of it before. You certainly are the most resourceful man in the world, Lee--by the way, I hear there is a party at that wonderful Gora Dwight's tonight. Do take me."

"Oh! ... I'm so sorry ... it's quite impossible, Anne. I wish I could... . I'll take you to one next week. And meanwhile get to work. Be ready to meet them in the outer court at least. You'll find it an immense advantage--rob your advent of any suggestion of curiosity."

"I'll look for a studio tomorrow. That is the way I do things--my father's daughter, you see."

She spoke with gay determination, but her face had fallen again. In a moment she began to draw on her gloves. "Now I'll have to run if I'm to dress and get over to Old Westbury for dinner at eight. Thank you so much, Lee; you've been a G.o.dsend. If I were a writer instead of a mere dabbler in paints I'd dedicate my first book to you. I'm so sorry I haven't time to drive you down to Madison Square."

Clavering, drawing a long breath as if he had escaped from imminent danger, saw her into her car and then walked briskly home. He intended to dine alone tonight. And in a moment he had forgotten Anne Goodrich as completely as he had forgotten Janet Oglethorpe.

XXVIII

He called for Madame Zattiany at ten o'clock. This time she was standing in the hall as the man opened the door, and she came out immediately. A lace scarf almost concealed her face.

"I didn't order the car," she said. "It is such a fine night, and she lives so near. Do you mind?"

"I much prefer to walk, but your slippers----"

"They are dark and the heels not too high."

"I'm not going to make the slightest preliminary attempt at indifference tonight, nor wait for one of your leads. How long do you intend to stay at this party?"

"Oh, an hour, possibly. One must not be rude." Her own tones were not even, but he could not see her face.

"But you'll keep your word and tell me everything tonight?"