Cape of Storms Part 12

They strolled about in groups of young folk, or in couples, or in family parties. She casts a wistful look toward a fruit-stand; he must go promptly and buy her something. He bargains closely; he is mindful, doubtless, of the fact that there is still the yearning for the merry-go-round, the phonograph, and the panorama, to be appeased.

In the West the sun was taking on the dull red tone of s.h.i.+ning, beaten bronze. The haze of dust began to lift, mist-wise, up against the shadowgirt horizon. From thousands of lips there presently issues a long drawn "Ah-h!" and the unwieldy ma.s.s of a balloon is seen to rise up over the meadow. A damsel in startling, gra.s.s-green tights floats in mid-air upheld by the resisting parachute, and drops earthward to the safe seclusion of a neighboring pasture. Vehicles are unhitched; there are some moments of wild shouting and maneuvering, and then the stream of humanity and horses pours out into the dusty road, and in a little while the fair grounds are merely a place for the ghosts of the things that were.

When it was all over, when he had said goodbye to Miss Ware and her mother, a sense of loneliness came over d.i.c.k, and he sank into one of those moody states that nowadays invariably meant torment. He could not remember to have talked to Dorothy of anything save commonplace and obvious things, and yet with every glance of her eye, every tone of her voice, the old glamour that he had felt aforetime had come upon him again. She was no longer the same, he had observed so much; the girlish exuberance and forth-rightness had given way to a more subdued manner, a fine, but somewhat colorless polish. Something, too, of the sparkle seemed to have gone from her; her smile had much of sadness. It flashed over him that never once had either of them referred to the words with which they once had parted. Had it been his fault, or hers? Once, she had let him hope, had she not? He remembered the dead words, but he smiled at the dim tone that yon whole picture took in his memory. It was as if it had all happened to someone else. Well,--perhaps it had; certainly he was separated by leagues of too well remembered things from that other self, the self that had said to a girl, once, "Dorothy, will you wish me luck?"

But in spite of the changes in them both, d.i.c.k felt that her charm for him was potent with a new fervor. He could not define it; it seemed a halo that surrounded her, in his eyes at least. The sardonic recesses of his memory flashed to him the echo of his foolish words to Mrs. Stewart, at the opera. "Oh, d.a.m.n the past," he muttered, hotly. He would begin all over again, he would atone for those pretty steps aside; he would pin his faith to the banner of his love for Dorothy. For he felt that he did love this girl. He longed for her; she seemed to personify a harbor of refuge, a comfort; he felt that if he could go to her, and tell her everything, and feel her hand upon his forehead, her smile, and the touch of her hand would wipe away all the ghostly cobwebs of his memory, of his past, and leave him looking futureward with stern resolves for white, and happy, wholesome days.

Surely it would be madly foolish to let a Past spoil a Future!

He saw the grin upon the face of Sophistry, and set his lips. No, there were no excusing circ.u.mstances; he had gone the way of the world, because that way was easy and pleasant. Only his weakness was to blame.

"She is as far above me," he said, before he went to sleep that night, "as the stars. But--we always want the stars!"

As for Miss Ware, it need only be chronicled that she was very quiet and abstracted that evening, so that her mother was prompted to remark that "Lincolnville don't appear to suit you powerful well, Dorothy." As a matter of fact, the girl was afar off, in thought, and her eyes were bright with tears because of the things she was remembering.

She had loved d.i.c.k, on a time. And to realize that never, in all time, would her conscience permit her to satisfy that love--that was bitter, very bitter.

CHAPTER XII

Winter was coming over the town. The gripmen of the cable cars were m.u.f.fled to their noses in heavy buffalo coats, and the pedestrians were heralded by the white steam that testified to the frostiness of the air.

The newspaper boys performed "break downs" on the corners for the mere warmth thereof, and the beggars and tramps presented a more blue-nosed, frost-bitten appearance than usual.

Everybody was in town once more. The hills, the seaside and the watering places had all given up their summer captives, and the metropolis held them all. The Tremonts were returned from Europe. The opera season, promising better entertainment than ever, had lured many of the wealthier folk from the country, for the winter at least. Among these were the Wares. It was a fas.h.i.+on steadily increasing in favor, this of living in town the winter over, and retiring to rusticity for the dog days. With the Wares it was not yet become a fas.h.i.+on; it was merely in accordance with Dorothy's wish to hear the opera and the concert season that the move townward was made.

Mrs. Annie McCallum Stewart's little "evenings" were more popular than ever. There seemed a positive danger that she would become known as the possessor of a "salon" and have a society reporter describe a representative gathering of her satellites. On this particular evening the carriages drove up to the house and drove off again without intermission all the evening. People had a habit of coming there before the theatre, or after; of staying ten minutes or two hours, just as their fancy, or Mrs. Stewart might dictate.

One of the latest to arrive was d.i.c.k Lancaster. It was his first appearance there that season. He had only come because he had heard that Dorothy Ware was to be there. He hardly looked as well as usual. He had been working very hard, making up for the time lost in the country. His cheek-bones stood out a trifle prominently, and his eyes were tired.

Mrs. Stewart proffered him the tips of her fingers, shaking her head at him with mockery of a frown.

"You ought to be introduced to me again," she said.

"I've been tremendously busy."

"Ah, you plagiarist! The sins that the word 'busy' is made to cover!

People escape debts, and calls, and engagements, nowadays, by simply flouris.h.i.+ng the magic word 'busy.'" She broke off, and began to look at him steadily over the top of her fan. Then she went on in a very low voice, "And have you found out how one's youth is lost in town?"

"You're cruel," he murmured.

"Not I. But there, go in and talk to the others. There are lots of people you haven't met before, and there are some pretty girls. Go in, and enjoy yourself if you can. And perhaps, if you find time, and I think of it again, I shall ask you to introduce me to your new self.

"I've never been introduced to that new self yet, _egomet ipse_."

He found two arch-enemies, Mrs. Tremont and Miss Leigh, conversing with cheerless enthusiasm. "I heard of you a good deal while I was abroad,"

said Mrs. Tremont, after greetings had been exchanged. d.i.c.k bowed, and looked a question.

"It was Mr. Wooton mentioned you," Mrs. Tremont went on, pompously. "We met in Germany. A charming man!" She said it with the air of one conferring a knighthood.

d.i.c.k was wondering how many times a day a woman like this one managed to be sincere. Then he said, "Miss Tremont is well, I trust?"

"Yes. She's here somewhere." She lifted her lorgnette deliberately and gazed toward the piano, "Who is that playing?" she asked.

"Mrs. Stewart herself," said Miss Leigh.

"Dear me! I didn't know she played. I must go and congratulate her." She moved off with severe dignity.

Miss Leigh laughed as she watched the expression on d.i.c.k's face.

"Do you believe in heredity?" he asked.

"Yes, and no. Not in this case, if that's what you mean. Miss Tremont is far too clever. Do you know," she went on, with slow distinctness, "that you are changed."

He made a movement of impatience. "I have heard nothing but that all evening," he declared. "Simply because the town had put it's brand on me, whether I wished it or no, am I to be forever upbraided?" There was both petulence and pathos in his voice.

"H'm," she said, "you still have all your old audacity. But I don't think it is anything but genuine interest in you that prompts such remarks."

"You once said something about being genuine. You said it was pathetic.

Now I know why that is so true. The pathos comes after one has lost the genuineness."

"Yes, but when one does nothing but think and think, and brood and brood, the pathos turns bathos. The thing to do is to laugh!"

"Is that why there is so much flippancy?"

"No doubt. Tragedy evokes flippancy and comedy starts tears."

"You are a very fountain of worldly paradoxes. Where do you get them all from?"

"From my enemies. I love my enemies, you know, for what I can deprive them of. That's right, leave me just when I'm getting brilliant! Go and talk to Miss Ware about the rich red tints of the Indian summer leaves and the poetry in the gurgle of the brook. Go on, it will be like a breath of fresh air after the dismal gloom of my conversation!" She got up, laughing, and added, in a voice that he had not heard before, "Go in and win! Your eyes have told your secret."

She moved off, and he saw Dorothy Ware coming toward him. He noticed how delightfully she seemed to fit into this scene; how charmingly at ease and how natural she looked. Her color was not as fresh as it once had been: but he remembered how popular she had at once become in town, and that her life was now a very whirl of dances and receptions and festive occasions of that sort. He had hardly shaken hands when Mrs. Tremont and her daughter approached from different directions. They were both, they declared, so perfectly delighted to see Miss Ware again.

Mrs. Stewart sailed majestically up to them at this juncture, and bore Lancaster away in triumph. He heard Mrs. Tremont asking Dorothy, as he moved away, "And how's your poor, dear mother?" Then he found himself being introduced to a personage with a Vand.y.k.e beard.

"Ah," said the personage, with some show of interest, "you're an artist?

Now, tell me, frankly, why do you Western artists never treat Western subjects?" And then d.i.c.k found himself floundering about in a sea of argument with this personage. Afterwards, when the agony was over, he discovered that it was the author, Mr. Wreath, who had thus been catechizing him. It was noised about the world that Mr. Wreath was a monomaniac on the subject of realism. d.i.c.k remembered wis.h.i.+ng he had caught the man's name at the introduction.

In the meanwhile Miss Tremont stood talking to Dorothy Ware in a dim corner of the room. There was a small table near them, and upon it were scattered portfolios of photographs.

"Do you ever hear of Mr. Wooton?" Miss Tremont asked, smiling sweetly.

Dorothy gave a little start, and a flush touched her cheek.

"No," she said tonelessly.

"He's a very clever man," persisted Miss Tremont. "I congratulate you."