Part 24

Impossible to go out now! In order to reach the front door, she would have to pass by the sitting room, and Nickie would see her and stop her.

“Nickie has absolutely no pride!” she thought, angrier than ever. “Even after what I said to her, she’d try to drag me in there!”

She took off her hat and flung it on the bed.

“I’ll read,” she decided.

She couldn’t read. The party disturbed her too much. They were laughing and talking, and presently some one began to play the piano and sing. It was an idiotic song, but it was delivered in a hearty, boyish voice that was somehow very touching.

There was violent applause when the singer finished, and after a few minutes he began again.

Pem came nearer to the door, her face grown very pale. “Keep the Home Fires Burning!” Some one else sang that--one night in Montreal--the night before the troop ship went out--a boy in a lieutenant’s uniform. Pem snapped the light and stood listening in the dark, her hands clenched, her eyes closed.

“So turn the dark clouds inside out, Till the boys come home.”

“Oh, God!” whispered Pem; for that boy would never come home, and the Pem who had listened to his gallant young voice was gone, too.

The singing stopped, only not for Pem. It went on sounding in her ears. The voice that she would never hear again and the living voice mingled together until she could bear it no longer. She must go in and see this other one--see with her own eyes that he was a stranger, in no way like--any one else.

II

Nickie welcomed her with a cry of joy.

“Here’s my pal!” she said, triumphantly. “Now you’ll all have to be good little boys. Pem, here’s Mr. Brown and Mr. Caswell and Mr. Hadley. Look ’em over!”

But the only one Pem wanted to see was Caswell--the boy who had been singing, the boy who must not look like some one else. Well, he didn’t. That one had been fair and this one was dark. There was no resemblance in a single feature; and yet the spell was not broken.

There was some quality in this man that stirred intolerable memories to life in Pem--something in his voice, in his smile, in the hearty grip of his hand. She looked and looked at him, trying in vain to catch that fugitive likeness.

She had never been so lovely, or so utterly careless of her own beauty. Her eyes were wonderfully luminous and soft in her pale face. Her hair, a little disordered by the hat she had pulled off, floated about her forehead in tiny, misty threads. She hadn’t a trace of that cool, quiet manner now.

Under that look of hers young Caswell grew suddenly ardent.

“I say!” he began. “You know--you’re simply--simply marvelous!”

“Didn’t I tell you so?” said Nickie, delighted. “Now sing some more, Cas. That’s what brought her to.”

“No,” said Pem. “Please don’t.”

The spell was slowly dissolving. She could see Caswell without illusions now--an ordinary nice-looking young fellow, unfortunately a little the worse for drink just now, like the others.

She had come in without any idea of staying, but for Nickie’s sake she resigned herself to a wearisome half hour. This was Nickie’s idea of a good time, and these were Nickie’s “awfully nice boys”! One of them offered Pem his pocket flask, but she declined, civilly enough, and sat down on the piano stool, so that Caswell couldn’t sing again.

She was quite aware that he was looking at her all the time. Very well, let him look! She felt a thousand miles away from him and the others, and somehow very lonely.

This sudden change disturbed Nickie. Now that she had got Pem here at last, it would never do to let the party prove a fizzle. She whispered to one of the men, and then called out:

“Pem, get your hat on! We’re all going up to the Devon to dance!”

“No, thanks,” said Pem firmly.

There was a chorus of protests.

“Oh, come on, Pem!” Nickie entreated. “I don’t want to go alone with three fellows, and I’m dying for a dance. Please, Pem, just for an hour!”

“No, thanks,” said Pem again. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel up to it. I’m tired.”

And then, beside her, she heard a voice which, in spite of herself, she could not hear unmoved.

“I say, Miss Pembroke! Please!”

She shook her head, but she smiled, for once more she caught a glimpse of that curious likeness, and it made her gentle toward him. What was it? What could she see in this flushed, unsteady boy to put her in mind of that other, fine and stern, a young knight?

“Look here!” said Caswell, bending lower, so that only she could hear. “Please don’t--don’t judge me by this. I--I’m--I can’t tell you how sorry I am for you to see me--like this. I--I don’t do it, you know, I give you my word. You see, I’ve just come back from Melbourne, and this was my first night on shore, and--if you’d just give me another chance!”

“All right, I will,” said Pem suddenly. “I’ll see you again. I’ll be glad to.”

And she meant it. She no longer wanted to deny the unreasonable, half scornful liking she felt for this man. She did like him, and that was enough.

“Oh, but, look here!” he cried. “We’re sailing to-morrow for Halifax. I’ve only got this one night!”

“But you’ll come back to New York, won’t you?”

“Oh, some day!” he answered bitterly. “God knows when--_I_ don’t. We’re running all over after cargoes. We may come back here from Halifax, and we may go anywhere. It may be months before I see you again.”

“Would that be so awful?” asked Pem, with a smile.

But he didn’t smile.

“Yes,” he said. “It would--for me!”

Pem was annoyed at her own response to his emotion. She wanted to laugh at him, and she could not. This was the worst sort of nonsense--the sort of thing Nickie was always telling her about. Nickie would call this “thrilling.” Well, Pem didn’t.

“I’m sorry for you,” she said ironically; but, as if there were magic in his eyes, the words turned to truth when she looked at him. “Please don’t be silly!” she added, in a quite different voice--gentle, almost appealing.

“The only silly thing would be to pretend it wasn’t like this,” said he. “I didn’t want it to be this way, but--it just happened. As soon as I saw you--”

Pem jumped up.

“All right, Nickie!” she called out. “I’ll go with you!”

III

Caswell got into the taxi after her and slammed the door.

“Oh, Pem!” he said. “Pem, you wonderful girl!”

“You know you really are silly!” she protested.

“Then I hope to Heaven I’ll never be anything else! I’d give all the common sense and prudence and so on in the world for one night like this. Hang being sensible, anyhow! Let’s be silly, Pem!”

“I am--I have been--sillier than I ever was before in my life. Don’t, Arthur!”

She felt obliged to object to his putting his arm about her shoulders and kissing her--a very unconvincing little objection, however, to which he paid no attention.

“You do love me, don’t you, Pem?” he asked, and waited a long time. “Pem! I say, Pem! You do love me, don’t you?”

“Oh, I really don’t know!” she cried impatiently.

Was it love, she thought? It was not in any way the love she had felt before--not that strange and terrible thing, half pride, half humility, half anguish and half ecstasy.

“That couldn’t ever come again,” she thought.

It had been her consolation for so long, that never again would that intolerable emotion stir her heart. After she had lost that one man, there wasn’t another walking the earth who could capture her interest--until this evening.

She couldn’t understand the glamour that enveloped young Caswell, the inexplicable charm of him. He was neither very handsome nor very clever--just an ordinary nice-looking boy; and yet, when he said that he would give all the common sense and prudence and so on in the world for one night like this, she agreed with him in her heart.

They had gone to a restaurant and danced, they had taken a taxicab to another restaurant and danced again, they had had supper--that was all there was to it. It was simply one of those brainless “parties” so dear to Nickie--with too much drinking on the part of the men, too much smoking, the stupidest sort of talk and laughter. Then why had it been so beautiful? Because of that boy’s glance which always followed her, that look on his face, his fervent, halting love-making?

Suddenly she stopped trying to reason about it. It _was_ beautiful. She had been utterly happy again; she was happy now.

“Pem!” he said. “Oh, Pem! Can’t you tell me? I’m going away, you know.”

His voice broke, she felt the arm about her shoulders tremble a little, and her eyes filled with tears.

“I’m afraid I do love you,” she said.

She gave him one kiss, and then, with a little laugh, pushed him away.

“Don’t talk any more about it--not now,” she said. “Look! The sky’s getting light. It’s morning.”

“And I’m due on board at ten o’clock,” he said. “I’ll come back to you, Pem. Pem, you won’t forget me? You won’t--you couldn’t, could you, Pem?”

“I don’t think so,” she answered.

The taxi had stopped before the apartment house, where Nickie and the two other boys, just arrived, were waiting for them in the street. A pallid light was spreading in the sky, and a strange quiet lay over the city. Trucks rumbled far away, but there wasn’t a voice or a footstep. The street lamps still burned wanly.

“It’s time for breakfast,” suggested one of the boys. “Let’s go to a beanery and have something to eat.”

“No!” said Pem sharply. “We’ve had enough. Good-by! Come on, Nickie!”

For she had seen on Nickie’s face something that hurt her--something that she had often seen in the mirror, reflected in her own eyes.

IV

Nickie was lying on the bed, flat on her back, without a pillow, her eyes resolutely closed, in a stern effort to rest. That morning, just as she was saying good-by--very willingly--to the cantankerous old lady with a broken arm whom she had been attending for three weeks, Dr. Lucas had telephoned and told her that he wanted her for night duty on a pneumonia case. It was a bad case, and she had a bad night ahead of her. She must rest now; but she couldn’t. This wasn’t rest.

She heard the key turned in the latch, and the front door opened quietly.

“Hello, Mac!” she called.

But it was not Miss McCarty who answered. It was Pem.

“You home, Nickie?” she said. “That’s nice.”

She came into the bedroom. Nickie sat up and stared at her with wide eyes.

“For Pete’s sake!” she exclaimed. “What’s the meaning of all this, Pem?”

“I don’t know,” replied Pem slowly. She had taken off her hat and coat, and was looking at herself in the glass--at her carefully dressed hair, the artful touch of color in her cheeks, the new frock of navy twill with red leather buttons. “I look rather nice, don’t I, Nickie?”

“Yes,” said Nickie, “stunning; but--well, I suppose I’m not used to it. But what’s the reason, Pem?”

Pem’s explanation did not satisfy her. Pem said that her patient was a wealthy young woman suffering from a mild form of melancholia. She had to be diverted, and--

“I had to look halfway decent, going about with her,” said Pem. “She wanted me to.”

“Finished now?” Nickie asked.

“No--it may last for months; but I often get an afternoon off when her sister comes to stay with her. She likes me to clear out sometimes, so that she can tell her sister how awful I am.”

“Doesn’t she like you, Pem?”

“Oh, pretty well; but she doesn’t really like anybody but herself. That’s what’s the matter with her. She’s got everything on earth--money, and friends, and a wonderful husband. Lend me some of your powder, Nickie?”

“Powder? Going out again now, Pem?”

Pem nodded.

“Who with?”

“With a man,” said Pem, laughing. “Don’t faint!”

“Of course it’s not my business,” observed Nickie, “but it--it isn’t the husband, is it?”

She waited a long time for an answer.

“I wish you’d tell me, Pem. I always tell you things.”

Pem turned and looked at her steadily.

“No, you don’t, Nickie,” she said; “not always.”

Nickie looked back at her friend quite as steadily.

“I do,” she said. “I tell you anything that really matters. You see, Pem, the reason I am asking this is because I thought you were rather gone on Arthur Caswell. You see, I’ve known him for a long while, so I--”

Pem turned to open the bureau drawer, and to take out a pair of white gloves and a handkerchief.

“I’ll tell you something, Nickie,” she said in a curt, cool voice. “He would never have looked at me that night if I had been my real self. I acted like a fool, and that’s what he liked. That’s what every one likes. After he’d gone, everything seemed tame and flat, and I felt so lonely that I couldn’t stand it. I’m going to keep on being a fool, Nickie. I’m going to make people like me. I’m going to live, and enjoy myself!”

“All right,” said Nickie; “but what about Arthur Caswell?”

“He’ll never come back.”

“Yes, he will.”

“If he does, then--but he won’t. I’m not going to waste my life--or what’s left of it.”

“If I was going to waste any lives,” said Nickie, “I’d rather waste my own than any one else’s.”

Pem was astounded.

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “Are you trying to preach to me, Nickie? It was you who started the whole thing--always pestering me to go to parties.”

“I never went out with a married man in my life,” said Nickie; “and I never would, either.”

“That’s a little too much, after that last party!” returned Pem scornfully. “You wouldn’t go out with a married man, but you don’t mind three fellows who’ve been drinking!”

“How do you know I didn’t mind?” cried Nickie, jumping up. “Just let me tell you, Pem--I knew Arthur Caswell’s people in Halifax. His father’s a strict Presbyterian. I know what he’d think about that, and I’d have stopped Arthur, too, if--”

Pem was about to make a sharp retort, but she changed her mind in time. Going over to Nickie, she put her arms about her friend.

“I’m sorry, little pal,” she said gently. “I didn’t mean to.”

Nickie gave her a rough little hug.

“All right, Pem,” she said. “I know! But, Pem, for my sake, please don’t go out with this man. You’ll be sorry for it--awfully sorry. It’s not like you. Don’t do it, Pem!”

“You don’t understand, Nickie. He’s a wonderful man, so honorable--”

“He’s not honorable if he goes out with you behind his wife’s back.”

“How can he help it, when she’s turned her back on him for good? She’s horrible to him. Nobody else would have put up with her as he has. He is honorable, Nickie; he’s a gentleman through and through. He’s so lonely--you don’t know what that is, but I do. He’s longing and longing for women to be nice and friendly to him. If his wife was ever halfway decent to him--”

She stopped short, because the doorbell had rung.

“There he is,” she said. “Nickie, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I wish you’d see him and talk to him. Then you’d understand. Open the door and talk to him while I’m getting ready.”

Nickie hesitated for a moment.

“All right!” she said, then. “I’ll talk to him!”

Without even troubling to smooth her unruly hair, off she went, down the passage. In a moment she was back.

“Pem,” she cried, “Arthur Caswell is here!”

They stared at each other in a sort of dismay, both speechless for a time.

“I’ll take him out, quick,” said Pem. “When Mr. Blanchard comes, tell him something--anything. I’ll see you later, Nickie. I’ll stop here before I go back to Mr. Blanchard’s.”

“All right,” Nickie said again.

When Pem had gone, she closed the bedroom door after her; but she didn’t even try to rest now.

V

Pem went down the passage with a lagging step and a heart strangely troubled and doubting.

“No,” she said to herself. “Of course it can’t be like that. I just imagined it. I’ve thought about it so much that--no, it couldn’t really have been so wonderful. He couldn’t have been so dear. When I see him again I shall get over being so silly.”

But that silliness was the best thing in her life. For weeks the glamour of that enchanted evening had colored all her days. The music they had danced to still sounded in her ears, faint and stirring. When she closed her eyes, she could see again the sparkle and glitter of that tinsel fairyland of Broadway, made true and fine by the boy’s love.

“I won’t be an idiot!” she told herself. “When I see him again, I’ll find that he’s--not really like that!”

So, with what fortitude she had, she entered the little sitting room. He didn’t hear her. He was standing at the window, with his back toward the room, his hands in his pockets--such a straight, stalwart figure!

“Hello!” said Pem. “It’s a surprise to see you here again!”

Then he turned, and it was true, all of it--that look she had remembered, that glamour, that enchantment.

“Oh, Pem!” he said. “Didn’t you know I’d come?”

For a minute she was utterly content in his arms, as if her restless and disconsolate spirit had at last found peace; but not for long. She moved away, still holding his hand, and looking at him with a misty smile.

“You’re so beautiful!” he said. “Sometimes I thought you couldn’t be as lovely as I remembered, but you’re a hundred times--”

The clock on the mantelpiece struck three.

“Let’s go out!” she said hastily.

He was a little taken aback.

“Can’t we stay here, Pem? I want a chance to talk to you.”

“Not here. We can talk somewhere else. I know a nice little tea room where we can dance.”

“I don’t want to dance,” said he; “and--look here, Pem! I’m a bit hard up, this trip.”

She couldn’t help kissing him for that.

“As if I cared! We’ll take a bus ride, then.”

“No, we won’t do that, either,” said he, half laughing. “We’ll stay where we are. I want to talk to you. I--does this suit you, Pem?”

From his pocket he pulled out a ring, carried loose in there, without a box, without even a bit of paper, and laid it in her hand. There it was, honest and unashamed, like himself--the tiniest little diamond. She stared down at it through a veil of tears.

“Best I could do,” he said a little forlornly. “You see, I never tried to save my pay, and it’s darned small, Pem, old girl. I’m only third mate. I dare say I don’t make as much as you do.”

“Never mind! That doesn’t matter,” she answered, so low that he could scarcely hear.

It seemed to her the most touching and beautiful thing that had ever happened, that he should come to her with his poor little ring, so simply and loyally offering her all he had.

“But we can manage,” he went on more cheerfully. “I’ve figured it out. We can take a little flat, you know, and if we’re careful, we can get on. You won’t mind a pretty quiet life, will you, Pem? Nickie told me you weren’t keen on going out and all that. I’m not, either--at least, not now. I was, you know, but not now. We’ll settle down--”

He stopped short, looking at her with a faint frown, but she did not meet his eyes. She was shocked, appalled, at her own traitorous thoughts. She glanced again at the ring, and tried in vain to recapture the tenderness and pity she had felt.

To settle down and marry this boy--not to dance with him, not to listen to his love-making to the accompaniment of music, in a bright dazzle of light, but to marry him and settle down to a deadly quiet life--she knew very well what that meant. She had often enough been in the sort of little flat they would have to live in. She went into such places when sickness was already there. She had seen all the makeshifts, all the sordid and pitiful anxieties of such existences--people who hadn’t enough towels and sheets, who couldn’t afford hot water bottles, who couldn’t afford even the necessary sunlight.

The quiet life! What had he to do with a quiet life? He had come suddenly into her own chill, somber existence, startling her into youth and gayety--that was why she loved him. A dear, honest, silly boy, to dance with, to be happy with for an evening, but--

“Pem!” he said abruptly. “What’s the matter?”

At his peremptory tone, she found it less difficult to speak. She put her hand on his shoulder and spoke as kindly as she could.

“I’m afraid you’re going ahead a little too fast,” she said. “After all, we’ve only seen each other once before, you know. Doesn’t it seem--”

“Do you mean that you don’t care for me?” he interrupted.

His bluntness disconcerted her.

“No,” she said, with a trace of impatience; “but we don’t really know each other. I think we ought to wait--until we’re sure.”

He was silent for a long time, searching her downcast face.

“You’re sure now, aren’t you?” he asked at last. “All right, Pem! All my fault! I might have known--”

And in the face of his sincerity, his honest and unresentful pain, she could give him no false hope, no false consolation, nothing but the truth revealed to him by her silence.

He took the ring from her hand and looked at it with a shadowy smile. Then, before she knew what he was about, he threw it out of the open window into the street.

She came to the window and looked down, but she couldn’t see it in the street far below.

“Oh, why did you do that?” she cried. “Why, didn’t--”

A sob rose in her throat. She turned away her head, so that he should not see her tears.

“Don’t cry!” he said. “It’s all my fault. I should have known better, of course. I say, Pem! Please don’t cry! The whole thing isn’t worth it. Just--let’s say good-by, Pem!”

She held out both her hands. After a brief hesitation, he took them in his.

“I’ll never forgive myself!” she said unsteadily. “Never!”

“Nothing to forgive,” he assured her, with a gallant attempt at a smile. “I--anyhow, I’m glad I ever saw you. Good-by, Pem!”

If it could only have ended then! If he could have gone then, with that moment for them to remember! But it was their great misfortune that no such memory should be left to them.

The doorbell rang, and Nickie came out of her room.

“Shall I go, Pem?” she asked. “Or--”

Pem looked at her helplessly. As the flat was arranged, the front door could not be opened without affording a plain view of the sitting room.

“I’ll let it ring,” said Nickie, with a fine effect of carelessness. “No one we want to see.”