is the limit – " She hesitated, slowly twisting a hairpin through the buttonhole of one glove. Then she buttoned it decisively. "When things got so bad at home two years ago, and I went with that show – you didn't see it – you were in mourning – but it ran on Broadway all winter. And I met one or two Reggies at suppers, and another man – the same sort – only his name happened to be Jack – and I want to tell you it was hard work not to like him."
Jacqueline stood, slim and straight, and silent, listening unsmilingly.
Cynthia went on leisurely:
"He was a friend of Mr. Desboro – the same kind of man, I suppose. That's why I read the Tattler– to see what they say about him."
"Wh-what do they say?"
"Oh, things – funny sorts of things, about his being attentive to this girl, and being seen frequently with that girl. I don't know what they mean exactly – they always make it sound queer – as though all the men and women in society are fast. And this man, too – perhaps he is."
"But what do you care, dear?"
"Nothing. It was hard work not to like him. You don't understand how it was; you've always lived at home. But home was hell for me; and I was getting fifteen per; and it grew horribly cold that winter. I had no fire. Besides – it was so hard not to like him. I used to come to see you. Do you remember how I used to come here and cry?"
"I – I thought it was because you had been so unhappy at home."
"Partly. The rest was – the other thing."
"You did like him, then!"
"Not – too much."
"I understand that. But it's over now, isn't it?"
Cynthia stood idly turning her muff between her white-gloved hands.
"Oh, yes," she said, after a moment, "it's over. But I'm thinking how nearly over it was with me, once or twice that winter. I thought I knew how to take care of myself. But a girl never knows, Jacqueline. Cold, hunger, debt, shabby clothes are bad enough; loneliness is worse. Yet, these are not enough, by themselves. But if we like a man, with all that to worry over – then it's pretty hard on us."
"How could you care for a bad man?"
"Bad? Did I say he was? I meant he was like other men. A girl becomes accustomed to men."
"And likes them, notwithstanding?"
"Some of them. It depends. If you like a man you seem to like him anyhow. You may get angry, too, and still like him. There's so much of the child in them. I've learned that. They're bad; but when you like one of them, he seems to belong to you, somehow – badness and all. I must be going, dear."
Still, neither moved; Cynthia idly twirled her muff; Jacqueline, her slender hands clasped behind her, stood gazing silently at the floor.
Cynthia said: "That's the trouble with us all. I'm afraid you like this man, Desboro. I tell you that he isn't much good; but if you already like him, you'll go on liking him, no matter what I say or what he does. For it's that way with us, Jacqueline. And where in the world would men find a living soul to excuse them if it were not for us? That seems to be about all we're for – to forgive men what they are – and what they do."
"I don't forgive them," said Jacqueline fiercely; " – or women, either."
"Oh, nobody forgives women! But you will find excuses for some man some day – if you like him. I guess even the best of them require it. But the general run of them have got to have excuses made for them, or no woman would stand for her own honeymoon, and marriages would last about a week. Good-bye, dear."
They kissed.
At the head of the stairs outside, Jacqueline kissed her again.
"How is the play going?" she inquired.
"Oh, it's going."
"Is there any chance for you to get a better part?"
"No chance I care to take. Max Schindler is like all the rest of them."
Jacqueline's features betrayed her wonder and disgust, but she said nothing; and presently Cynthia turned and started down the stairs.
"Good-night, dear," she called back, with a gay little flourish of her muff. "They're all alike – only we always forgive the one we care for!"
CHAPTER V
On Monday, Desboro waited all the morning for her, meeting every train. At noon, she had not arrived. Finally, he called up her office and was informed that Miss Nevers had been detained in town on business, and that their Mr. Kirk had telephoned him that morning to that effect.
He asked to speak to Miss Nevers personally; she had gone out, it appeared, and might not return until the middle of the afternoon.
So Desboro went home in his car and summoned Farris, the aged butler, who was pottering about in the greenhouses, which he much preferred to attending to his own business.
"Did anybody telephone this morning?" asked the master.
Farris had forgotten to mention it – was very sorry – and stood like an aged hound, head partly lowered and averted, already blinking under the awaited reprimand. But all Desboro said was:
"Don't do it again, Farris; there are some things I won't overlook."
He sat for a while in the library where a sheaf of her notes lay on the table beside a pile of books – Grenville, Vanderdyne, Herrara's splendid folios – just as she had left them on Saturday afternoon for the long, happy sleigh-ride that ended just in time for him to swing her aboard her train.
He had plenty to do beside sitting there with keen, gray eyes fixed on the pile of manuscript she had left unfinished; he always had plenty to do, and seldom did it.
His first impulse had been to go to town. Her absence was making the place irksome. He went to the long windows and stood there, hands in his pockets, smoking and looking out over the familiar landscape – a rolling country, white with snow, naked branches glittering with ice under the gilded blue of a cloudless sky, and to the north and west, low, wooded mountains – really nothing more than hills, but impressively steep and blue in the distance.
A woodpecker, one of the few feathered winter residents, flickered through the trees, flashed past, and clung to an oak, sticking motionless to the bark for a minute or two, bright eyes inspecting Desboro, before beginning a rapid, jerky exploration for sustenance.
The master of Silverwood watched him, then, hands driven deeper into his pockets, strolled away, glancing aimlessly at familiar objects – the stiff and rather picturesque portraits of his grandparents in the dress of 1820; the atrocious portraits of his parents in the awful costume of 1870; his own portrait, life size, mounted on a pony.
He stood looking at the funny little boy, with the half contemptuous, half curious interest which a man in the pride of his strength and youth sometimes feels for the absurdly clothed innocence of what he was. And, as usual when noticing the picture, he made a slight, involuntary effort to comprehend that he had been once like that; and could not.
At the end of the library, better portraits hung – his great-grandmother, by Gilbert Stuart, still fresh-coloured and clear under the dim yellow varnish which veiled but could not wither the delicate complexion and ardent mouth, and the pink rosebud set where the folds of her white kerchief crossed on her breast.
And there was her husband, too, by an unknown or forgotten painter – the sturdy member of the Provincial Assembly, and major in Colonel Thomas's Westchester Regiment – a fine old fellow in his queue-ribbon and powdered hair standing in the conventional fortress port-hole, framed by it, and looking straight out of the picture with eyes so much like Desboro's that it amused people. His easy attitude, too, the idle grace of the posture, irresistibly recalled Desboro, and at the moment more than ever. But he had been a man of vigour and of wit and action; and he was lying out there in the snow, under an old brown headstone embellished with cherubim; and the last of his name lounged here, in sight, from the windows, of the spot where the first house of Desboro in America had stood, and had collapsed