I

Angela wanted to ride downtown with her sister. “Perhaps I might bring you luck.” But on this theme Jinny was adamant. “You’d be much more likely to bring yourself bad luck. No, there’s no sense in taking a chance. I’ll take the elevated; my landlady said it would drop me very near the school where I’m taking the examination. You go some other way.” Down in the hall Mrs. Gloucester was busy dusting, her short bustling figure alive with housewifely ardour. Virginia paused near her and held out her hand to Angela. “Goodbye, Miss Mory,” she said wickedly, “it was very kind of you to give me so much time. If you can ever tear yourself away from your beloved Village, come up and I’ll try to show you Harlem. I don’t think it’s going to take me long to learn it.”

Obediently Angela let her go her way and walking over to Seventh Avenue mounted the bus, smarting a little under Jinny’s generous precautions. But presently she began to realize their value, for at 114th Street Anthony Cross entered. He sat down beside her. “I never expected to see you in my neighbourhood.”

“Oh is this where you live? I’ve often wondered.”

“As it happens I’ve just come here, but I’ve lived practically all over New York.” He was thin, restless, unhappy. His eyes dwelt ceaselessly on her face. She said a little nervously:

“It seems to me I hardly ever see you any more. What do you do with yourself?”

“Nothing that you would be interested in.”

She did not dare make the obvious reply and after all, though she did like him very much, she was not interested in his actions. For a long moment she sought for some phrase which would express just the right combination of friendliness and indifference.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had lunch together; come and have it today with me. You be my guest.” She thought of Jinny and the possible sale of the house. “I’ve just found out that I’m going to get a rather decent amount of money, certainly enough to stand us for lunch.”

“Thank you, I have an engagement; besides I don’t want to lunch with you in public.”

This was dangerous ground. Flurried, she replied unwisely: “All right, come in some time for tea; every once in a while I make a batch of cookies; I made some a week ago. Next time I feel the mood coming on me I’ll send you a card and you can come and eat them, hot and hot.”

“You know you’ve no intention of doing any such thing. Besides you don’t know my address.”

“An inconvenience which can certainly be rectified,” she laughed at him.

But he was in no laughing mood. “I’ve no cards with me, but they wouldn’t have the address anyway.” He tore a piece of paper out of his notebook, scribbled on it. “Here it is. I have to get off now.” He gave her a last despairing look. “Oh, Angel, you know you’re never going to send for me!”

The bit of paper clutched firmly in one hand, she arrived finally at her little apartment. Naturally of an orderly turn of mind she looked about for her address book in which to write the street and number. But some unexplained impulse led her to smooth the paper out and place it in a corner of her desk. That done she took off her hat and gloves, sat down in the comfortable chair and prepared to face her thoughts.

Yesterday! Even now at a distance of twenty-four hours she had not recovered her equilibrium. She was still stunned, still unable to realize the happening of the day. Only she knew that she had reached a milestone in her life; a possible turning point. If she did not withdraw from her acquaintanceship with Roger now, even though she committed no overt act she would never be the same; she could never again face herself with the old, unshaken pride and self-confidence. She would never be the same to herself. If she withdrew, then indeed, indeed she would be the same old Angela Murray, the same girl save for a little sophistication that she had been before she left Philadelphia, only she would have started on an adventure and would not have seen it to its finish, she would have come to grips with life and would have laid down her arms at the first onslaught. Would she be a coward or a wise, wise woman? She thought of two poems that she had read in Hart’s Class-Book, an old, old book of her father’s⁠—one of them ran:

“He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
For fear of losing all.”

The other was an odd mixture of shrewdness and cowardice:

“He who fights and runs away
Shall live to fight another day
But he who is in battle slain
Has fallen ne’er to rise again.”

Were her deserts small or should she run away and come back to fight another day when she was older, more experienced? More experienced! How was she to get that experience? Already she was infinitely wiser, she would, if occasion required it, exercise infinitely more wariness than she had yesterday with Roger. Yet it was precisely because of that experience that she would know how to meet, would even know when to expect similar conditions.

She thought that she knew which verse she would follow if she were Jinny, but, back once more in the assurance of her own rooms, she knew that she did not want to be Jinny, that she and Jinny were two vastly different persons. “But,” she said to herself, “if Jinny were as fair as I and yet herself and placed in the same conditions as those in which I am placed her colour would save her. It’s a safeguard for Jinny; it’s always been a curse for me.”

Roger had come for her in the blue car. There were a hamper and two folding chairs and a rug stored away in it. It was a gorgeous day. “If we can,” he said, “we’ll picnic.” He was extremely handsome and extremely nervous. Angela was nervous too, though she did not show it except in the loss of her colour. She was rather plain today; to be so near the completion of her goal and yet to have to wait these last few agonizing moments, perhaps hours, was deadly. They were rather silent for a while, Roger intent on his driving. Traffic in New York is a desperate strain at all hours, at eleven in the morning it is deadly; the huge leviathan of a city is breaking into the last of its stride. For a few hours it will proceed at a measured though never leisurely pace and then burst again into the mad rush of the homeward bound.

But at last they were out of the city limits and could talk. For the first time since she had known him he began to speak of his possessions. “Anything, anything that money can buy, Angèle, I can get and I can give.” His voice was charged with intention. They were going in the direction of Forest Hills; he had a cottage out there, perhaps she would like to see it. And there was a grove not far away. “We’ll picnic there,” he said, “and⁠—and talk.” He certainly was nervous, Angela thought, and liked him the better for it.

The cottage or rather the house in Forest Hills was beautiful, absolutely a gem. And it was completely furnished with taste and marked daintiness. “What do you keep it furnished for?” asked Angela wondering. Roger murmured that it had been empty for a long time but he had seen this equipment and it had struck him that it was just the thing for this house so he had bought it; thereby insensibly reminding his companion again that he could afford to gratify any whim. They drove away from the exquisite little place in silence. Angela was inclined to be amused; surely no one could have asked for a better opening than that afforded by the house. What would make him talk, she wondered, and what, oh what would he say? Something far, far more romantic than poor Matthew Henson could ever have dreamed of⁠—yes and far, far less romantic, something subconscious prompted her, than Anthony Cross had said. Anthony with his poverty and honour and desperate vows!

They had reached the grove, they had spread the rug and a tablecloth; Roger had covered it with dainties. He would not let her lift a finger, she was the guest and he her humble servant. She looked at him smiling, still forming vague contrasts with him and Matthew and Anthony.

Roger dropped his sandwich, came and sat behind her. He put his arm around her and shifted his shoulder so that her head lay against it.

“Don’t look at me that way Angèle, Angèle! I can’t stand it.”

So it was actually coming. “How do you want me to look at you?”

He bent his head down to hers and kissed her. “Like this, like this! Oh Angèle, did you like the house?”

“Like it? I loved it.”

“Darling, I had it done for you, you know. I thought you’d like it.”

It seemed a strange thing to have done without consulting her, and anyway she did not want to live in a suburb. Opal Street had been suburb enough for her. She wanted, required, the noise and tumult of cities.

“I don’t care for suburbs, Roger.” How strange for him to talk about a place to live in and never a word of love!

“My dear girl, you don’t have to live in a suburb if you don’t want to. I’ve got a place, an apartment in Seventy-second Street, seven rooms; that would be enough for you and your maid, wouldn’t it? I could have this furniture moved over there, or if you think it too cottagey, you could have new stuff altogether.”

Seven rooms for three people! Why she wanted a drawing-room and a studio and where would he put his things? This sudden stinginess was quite inexplicable.

“But Roger, seven rooms wouldn’t be big enough.”

He laughed indulgently, his face radiant with relief and triumph. “So she wants a palace, does she? Well, she shall have it. A whole ménage if you want it, a place on Riverside Drive, servants and a car. Only somehow I hadn’t thought of you as caring about that kind of thing. After that little hole in the wall you’ve been living in on Jayne Street I’d have expected you to find the place in Seventy-Second Street as large as you’d care for!”

A little hurt, she replied: “But I was thinking of you too. There wouldn’t be room for your things. And I thought you’d want to go on living in the style you’d been used to.” A sudden welcome explanation dawned on her rising fear. “Are you keeping this a secret from your father? Is that what’s the trouble?”

Under his thin, bright skin he flushed. “Keeping what a secret from my father? What are you talking about, Angèle?”

She countered with his own question. “What are you talking about, Roger?”

He tightened his arms about her, his voice stammered, his eyes were bright and watchful. “I’m asking you to live in my house, to live for me; to be my girl; to keep a love-nest where I and only I may come.” He smiled shamefacedly over the cheap current phrase.

She pushed him away from her; her jaw fallen and slack but her figure taut. Yet under her stunned bewilderment her mind was racing. So this was her castle, her fortress of protection, her refuge. And what answer should she make? Should she strike him across his eager, half-shamed face, should she get up and walk away, forbidding him to follow? Or should she stay and hear it out? Stay and find out what this man was really like; what depths were in him and, she supposed, in other men. But especially in this man with his boyish, gallant air and his face as guileless and as innocent apparently as her own.

That was what she hated in herself, she told that self fiercely, shut up with her own thoughts the next afternoon in her room. She hated herself for staying and listening. It had given him courage to talk and talk. But what she most hated had been the shrewdness, the practicality which lay beneath that resolve to hear it out. She had thought of those bills; she had thought of her poverty, of her helplessness, and she had thought too of Martha Burden’s dictum: “You must make him want you.” Well here was a way to make him want her and to turn that wanting to account. “Don’t,” Martha said, “withhold too much. Give a little.” Suppose she gave him just the encouragement of listening to him, of showing him that she did like him a little; while he meanwhile went on wanting, wanting⁠—men paid a big price for their desires. Her price would be marriage. It was a game, she knew, which women played all over the world although it had never occurred to her to play it; a dangerous game at which some women burned their fingers. “Don’t give too much,” said Martha, “for then you lose yourself.” Well, she would give nothing and she would not burn her fingers. Oh, it would be a great game.

Another element entered too. He had wounded her pride and he should salve it. And the only unguent possible would be a proposal of marriage. Oh if only she could be a girl in a book and when he finally did ask her for her hand, she would be able to tell him that she was going to marry someone else, someone twice as eligible, twice as handsome, twice as wealthy.

Through all these racing thoughts penetrated the sound of Roger’s voice, pleading, persuasive, seductive. She was amazed to find a certain shamefaced timidity creeping over her; yet it was he who should have shown the shame. And she could not understand either why she was unable to say plainly: “You say you care for me, long for me so much, why don’t you ask me to come to you in the ordinary way?” But some pride either unusually false or unusually fierce prevented her from doing this. Undoubtedly Roger with his wealth, his looks and his family connections had already been much sought after. He knew he was an “eligible.” Poor, unknown, stigmatized, if he but knew it, as a member of the country’s least recognized group she could not bring herself to belong even in appearance to that band of young women who so obviously seek a “good match.”

When he had paused a moment for breath she told him sadly: “But, Roger, people don’t do that kind of thing, not decent people.”

“Angèle, you are such a child! This is exactly the kind of thing people do do. And why not? Why must the world be let in on the relationships of men and women? Some of the sweetest unions in history have been of this kind.”

“For others perhaps, but not for me. Relationships of the kind you describe don’t exist among the people I know.” She was thinking of her parents, of the Hallowells, of the Hensons whose lives were indeed like open books.

He looked at her curiously, “The people you know! Don’t tell me you haven’t guessed about Paulette!”

She had forgotten about Paulette! “Yes I know about her. She told me herself. I like her, she’s been a mighty fine friend, but, Roger, you surely don’t want me to be like her.”

“Of course I don’t. It was precisely because you weren’t like her that I became interested. You were such a babe in the woods. Anyone could see you’d had no experience with men.”

This obvious lack of logic was too bewildering. She looked at him like the child which, in these matters, she really was. “But⁠—but Roger, mightn’t that be a beginning of a life like Paulette’s? What would become of me after we, you and I, had separated? Very often these things last only for a short time, don’t they?”

“Not necessarily; certainly not between you and me. And I’d always take care of you, you’d be provided for.” He could feel her gathering resentment. In desperation he played a cunning last card: “And besides who knows, something permanent may grow out of this. I’m not entirely my own master, Angèle.”

Undoubtedly he was referring to his father whom he could not afford to offend. It never occurred to her that he might be lying, for why should he?

To all his arguments, all his half-promises and implications she returned a steady negative. As twilight came on she expressed a desire to go home; with the sunset her strength failed her; she felt beaten and weary. Her unsettled future, her hurt pride, her sudden set-to with the realities of the society in which she had been moving, bewildered and frightened her. Resentful, puzzled, introspective, she had no further words for Roger; it was impossible for him to persuade her to agree or to disagree with his arguments. During the long ride home she was resolutely mute.

Yet on the instant of entering Jayne Street she felt she could not endure spending the long evening hours by herself and she did not want to be alone with Roger. She communicated this distaste to him. While not dishevelled they were not presentable enough to invade the hotels farther uptown. But, anxious to please her, he told her they could go easily enough to one of the small cabarets in the Village. A few turns and windings and they were before a house in a dark side street knocking on its absurdly barred door, entering its black, myterious portals. In a room with a highly polished floor, a few tables and chairs, some rather bizarre curtains, five or six couples were sitting, among them Paulette, Jack Hudson, a tall, rather big, extremely blonde girl whose name Angela learned was Carlotta Parks, and a slender, black-avised man whose name she failed to catch. Paulette hailed him uproariously; the blonde girl rose and precipitately threw her arms about Fielding’s neck.

“Roger!”

“Don’t,” he said rather crossly. “Hello, Jack.” He nodded to the dark man whom he seemed to know indifferently well. “What have they got to eat here, you fellows? Miss Mory and I are tired and hungry. We’ve been following the pike all day.” Miss Parks turned and gave Angela a long, considering look.

“Sit here,” said Paulette, “there’s plenty of room. Jack, you order for them, the same things we’ve been having. You get good cooking here.” She was radiant with happiness and content. Under the influence of the good, stimulating food Angela began to recover, to look around her.

Jack Hudson, a powerfully built bronze figure of a man, beamed on Paulette, saying nothing and in his silence saying everything. The dark man kept his eyes on Carlotta, who was oblivious to everyone but Roger, clearly her friend of long standing. She sat clasping one of his hands, her head almost upon his shoulder. “Roger it’s so good to see you again! I’ve thought of you so often! I’ve been meaning to write to you; we’re having a big house party this summer. You must come! Dad’s asking up half of Washington; attachés, ‘Prinzessen, Countessen and serene English Altessen’; he’ll come up for weekends.”

A member of the haut monde, evidently she was well-connected, powerful, even rich. A girl of Roger’s own set amusing herself in this curious company. Angela felt her heart contract with a sort of helpless jealousy.

The dark man, despairing of recapturing Carlotta’s attention, suddenly asked Angèle if she would care to dance. He was a superb partner and for a moment or two, reinvigorated by the food and the snappy music, she became absorbed in the smooth, gliding motion and in her partner’s pleasant conversation. Glancing over her shoulder she noted Carlotta still talking to Roger. The latter, however, was plainly paying the girl no attention. His eyes fixed on Angela, he was moodily following her every motion, almost straining, she thought, to catch her words. His eyes met hers and a long, long look passed between them so fraught, it seemed to her, with a secret understanding and sympathy, that her heart shook with a moment’s secret wavering.

Her partner escorted her back to the table. Paulette, flushed and radiant, with the mien of a dishevelled baby, was holding forth while Hudson listened delightedly. As a raconteuse she had a faint, delicious malice which usually made any recital of her adventures absolutely irresistible. “Her name,” she was saying loudly, regardless of possible listeners, “was Antoinette Spewer, and it seems she had it in for me from the very first. She told Sloane Corby she wanted to meet me and he invited both of us to lunch. When we got to the restaurant she was waiting for me in the lobby; Sloane introduced us and⁠—she pulled a lorgnette on me⁠—a lorgnette on me!” She said it very much as a Westerner might speak of someone “pulling” a revolver. “But I fixed that. There were three or four people passing near us. I drew back until they were well within hearing range, and then I said to her: ‘I beg pardon but what did you say your last name was?’ Well, when a person’s named Spewer she can’t shout it across a hotel lobby! Oh, she came climbing down off her high horse; she respects me to this day, I tell you.”

Roger rose. “We must be going; I can’t let Miss Mory get too tired.” He was all attention and courtesy. Miss Parks looked at her again, narrowing her eyes.

In the car Roger put his arm about her. “Angèle, when you were dancing with that fellow I couldn’t stand it! And then you looked at me⁠—oh such a look! You were thinking about me, I felt it, I knew it.”

Some treacherous barrier gave way within her. “Yes, and I could tell you were thinking about me.”

“Of course you could! And without a word! Oh, darling, darling, can’t you see that’s the way it would be? If you’d only take happiness with me there we would be with a secret bond, an invisible bond, existing for us alone and no one else in the world the wiser. But we should know and it would be all the sweeter for that secrecy.”

Unwittingly he struck a responsive chord within her⁠—stolen waters were the sweetest, she of all people knew that.

Aloud she said: “Here we are, Roger. Some of the day has been wonderful; thank you for that.”

“You can’t go like this! You’re going to let me see you again?”

She knew she should have refused him, but again some treacherous impulse made her assent. He drove away, and, turning, she climbed the long, steep flights of stairs, bemused, thrilled, frightened, curious, the sense of adventure strong upon her. Tomorrow she would see Jinny, her own sister, her own flesh and blood, one of her own people. Together they would thresh this thing out.