The Salamander Part 31

He drew a chair opposite and flung into it; then, with an erect stiffening of his body, clasped his hands eagerly between his knees, releasing them in sudden flights, returning them always to their tenacious grip. There was something in the combustibility of the gesture that was significant of the whole man.

"By George!" he said suddenly, without relevancy, "why haven't I the right to stretch out my hand and take you?"

Dore burst out laughing, immensely flattered.

"What a nuisance you are!" he continued savagely. "What good do you do in the world? All you women do is to interfere! And to think that this sentimental civilization--idiotic civilization--is going to experiment for a few hundred years with pretending that women are made to share the progress of the world with men!"

"So you're not a woman's--"

"I'm absolutely against the whole feminine twaddle!" he broke in. "Man's the only thing that counts! We're suffocated with feminism already--over-sentimentalized; can't think but in the terms of an individual." He stopped, and glaring at her, said, with a furious gesture: "And now, here you are, an impudent little girl who doesn't do the world a bit of good, sitting back there and laughing contentedly because you've suddenly popped up to raise Cain with me!"

The originality of his attack delighted her. It pleased her immensely to feel her attraction for such a man, for it seemed to her a promise that with another she would not lack charm and fascination.

"What a strange method of courting," she said demurely. "If that's the way you're going on, I think I prefer to be shown the--"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Why did you do this?"]

"The machines, of course," he cut in. "That's the trouble with you.

That's all they ever understand--the things they see. But, my dear girl, _I_ am the paper; all the rest is only wheels, chains, links; every man here is only part of the machine. I only am the indispensable force."

He had found an idea, and was off on its exposition, starting up, pacing and gesturing.

"Yes, all the rest is only a machine. I can change every bolt in twenty-four hours and it will go on just the same. I pay a cartoonist twenty thousand dollars a year, and he thinks he's indispensable; but I can take another and make him famous in a month. I give him the ideas!

Yes, they are lieutenants here--editors of Sunday supplements, special writers, women's columns, sporting experts. I can change 'em all, take a handful of boys, and whip them into shape in six weeks! That's not journalism. What is? I'll tell you. Others have copied me; I found it out--_emotions_ and _ideas_! You don't get it? Listen! They're two heads: the news column and the editorial page."

He paused at the table, and taking up a paper, struck it disdainfully.

"Tras.h.!.+ I know it! News? No! That's not what the public wants--not my public! It wants fiction, it wants emotions! You don't know what the mult.i.tude is; I do! A great sunken city, a million stifling, starved existences, hurried through, railroaded through life. News? Bah! They want a taste of dreams! I make their dreams live in my paper. It's everything to them, melodrama, society, romance; it's a peep-hole into the worlds they can't touch. I show 'em millionaires moving behind their house-walls, rolling in wealth, fighting one another, battling for one another's wives, flinging a billion against a billion, ruining thousands for a whim. 'Monte Cristo'? It's tame to what I serve 'em.

'Mr. X Gives a Hundred Thousand Dollar Lunch'--'Secret Drama of Oil Trust's Home'--'Deserts Millionaire Husband for Chauffeur'--'Ten Millions in Five Years'! That's life--that's emotion! That's what makes 'em go on! Look here, did you ever stop to think what does make the five million slaves go on, day in and day out, driven, groaning? Hope! the belief that in some miraculous way life is going to change."

He stopped, and with a drop to cold a.n.a.lysis, laying his hand on the editorial sheet, said:

"This is what does count. This is real--ideas! The other is just tom-tom-beating to get the crowd around--yes, just that: the band outside the circus. But this is different; this is true. America, the future--the glorious future when I've stirred up their imagination and taught them to think! There! Now do you understand what kind of man I am?"

She had understood one thing clearly, in this stupendous flurry of egotism--that, as Sa.s.soon had sought to tempt her with the lure of his wealth, Harrigan Blood was seeking to overwhelm her with the brilliancy of his mind. She did not oppose him, seeking flattery, needing fresh proofs of her power, thinking: "If he wants me, Ma.s.singale--Ma.s.singale, who is so clever and strong--will want me too."

"You lunch with me," he said confidently.

She shook her head. "Previous engagement."

"Where?"

"Tenafly's at one."

"Sa.s.soon?" he said, sitting up with a jerk.

"Yes," she answered, with malice aforethought.

"What--you're going to be caught by that whited sepulcher?"

"And you, Mr. Blood?" she said softly.

"I? I'm loyal!"

"But not monogamous."

"Sa.s.soon only wants to be stung out of a lethargy. Women--I need them to help me. I have the right! That's why I want you!"

"I'm not the kind you want," she said, drawing back, for his precipitation gave her the feeling of being crowded into a corner.

"You would if I could make you love me!"

"Indeed! Are you considering--matrimony?"

"Never!" he said angrily. "Marriage is a reciprocal tyranny. I don't want to own a woman, or have her own me! What, you can have a career, and you want to marry?"

She defended herself, laughing, a.s.suring him that was not the case.

"You have your career; I have mine. I'll educate you! Ten thousand men will give you money--I'll give you brains! My little girl, I wonder if you know what opportunity is dangling on your little finger-tips. Break your engagement!"

"I can't!"

"Interested?"

"Um! Very curious. Certain sides are amusing!" Then she turned, a.s.suming an air of dignity, repeating her defensive formula: "Mr. Blood, I am not like other girls. I play fair. I give one warning--and one only. Then take the consequences."

"What's your warning?" he said abruptly, with a bullish stare.

"You will lose your time," she said calmly. "You think you know me. You may, and you may not. I won't give you the slightest hint, but I tell you frankly now, and only once, you will lose your time!"

"But," he said contemptuously, "you don't know what a real man is!

There's nothing real in your life. I'm going to give you realities!"

"How charming!" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "And in the same breath you let me know it won't last. Thanks; I don't enjoy being an episode!"

"That depends on you."

"Frank!"

"Don't you know," he said suddenly, coming toward her, "what is true about a man like myself?--yes, about all men? They say we're naturally polygamous. Rats! nothing of the sort! We want to be true to one woman only. Look here. The real tragedy in life is that a man can't find in one woman all he wants,--all the time!"

At this moment, much to Dore's relief, Ida Summers and her companion returned. As they went out to the elevator, Blood made another opportunity for a final word:

"I haven't said half that I wanted to. When can I get a chance really to talk with you?"

A malicious suggestion, prompted by some devil of intrigue within her, suddenly rose in her imagination.

"Come and get me after luncheon."