The Business of Life. Robert W. Chambers
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leisurely undressing, she thought of Desboro and the business that concerned him. He was so very good looking—in the out-world manner—the manner of those who dwelt outside her orbit.
She had not been very friendly with him at first. She had wanted to be; instinct counselled reserve, and she had listened—until the very last. He had a way of laughing at her in every word—in even an ordinary business conversation. She had been conscious all the while of his half-listless interest in her, of an idle curiosity, which, before it had grown offensive, had become friendly and at times almost boyish in its naïve self-disclosure. And it made her smile to remember how very long it took him to take his leave.
But—a man of that kind—a man of the out-world—with the something in his face that betrays shadows which she had never seen cast—and never would see—he was no boy. For in his face was the faint imprint of that pallid wisdom which warned. Women in his own world might ignore the warning; perhaps it did not menace them. But instinct told her that it might be different outside that world.
She nestled into her fire-warmed bath-robe and sat pensively fitting and refitting her bare feet into her slippers.
Men were odd; alike and unalike. Since her father's death, she had had to be careful. Wealthy gentlemen, old and young, amateurs of armour, ivories, porcelains, jewels, all clients of her father, had sometimes sent for her too many times on too many pretexts; and sometimes their paternal manner toward her had made her uncomfortable. Desboro was of that same caste. Perhaps he was not like them otherwise.
When she had bathed and dressed, she dined alone, not having any invitation for the evening. After dinner she talked on the telephone to her little friend, Cynthia Lessler, whose late father's business had been to set jewels and repair antique watches and clocks. Incidentally, he drank and chased his daughter about with a hatchet until she fled for good one evening, which afforded him an opportunity to drink himself very comfortably to death in six months.
"Hello, Cynthia!" called Jacqueline, softly.
"Hello! Is it you, Jacqueline, dear?"
"Yes. Don't you want to come over and eat chocolates and gossip?"
"Can't do it. I'm just starting for the hall."
"I thought you'd finished rehearsing."
"I've got to be on hand all the same. How are you, sweetness, anyway?"
"Blooming, my dear. I'm crazy to tell you about my good luck. I have a splendid commission with which to begin the new year."
"Good for you! What is it?"
"I can't tell you yet"—laughingly—"it's confidential business——"
"Oh, I know. Some old, fat man wants you to catalogue his collection."
"No! He isn't fat, either. You are the limit, Cynthia!"
"All the same, look out for him," retorted Cynthia. "I know man and his kind. Office experience is a liberal education; the theatre a post-graduate course. Are you coming to the dance to-morrow night?"
"Yes. I suppose the usual people will be there?"
"Some new ones. There's an awfully good-looking newspaper man from Yonkers. He has a car in town, too."
Something—some new and unaccustomed impatience—she did not understand exactly what—prompted Jacqueline to say scornfully:
"His name is Eddie, isn't it?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
A sudden vision of Desboro, laughing at her under every word of an unsmiling and commonplace conversation, annoyed her.
"Oh, Cynthia, dear, every good-looking man we meet is usually named Ed and comes from places like Yonkers."
Cynthia, slightly perplexed, said slangily that she didn't "get" her; and Jacqueline admitted that she herself didn't know what she had meant.
They gossiped for a while, then Cynthia ended:
"I'll see you to-morrow night, won't I? And listen, you little white mouse, I get what you mean by 'Eddie'."
"Do you?"
"Yes. Shall I see you at the dance?"
"Yes, and 'Eddie,' too. Good-bye."
Jacqueline laughed again, then shivered slightly and hung up the receiver.
Back before her bedroom fire once more, Grenville's volume on ancient armour across her knees, she turned the illuminated pages absently, and gazed into the flames. What she saw among them apparently did not amuse her, for after a while she frowned, shrugged her shoulders, and resumed her reading.
But the XV century knights, in their gilded or silvered harness, had Desboro's lithe figure, and the lifted vizors of their helmets always disclosed his face. Shields emblazoned with quarterings, plumed armets, the golden morions, banner, pennon, embroidered surtout, and the brilliant trappings of battle horse and palfry, became only a confused blur of colour under her eyes, framing a face that looked back at her out of youthful eyes, marred by the shadow of a wisdom she knew about—alas—but did not know.
The man of whom she was thinking had walked back to the club through a driving rain, still under the fascination of the interview, still excited by its novelty and by her unusual beauty. He could not quite account for his exhilaration either, because, in New York, beauty is anything but unusual among the hundreds of thousands of young women who work for a living—for that is one of the seven wonders of the city—and it is the rule rather than the exception that, in this new race which is evolving itself out of an unknown amalgam, there is scarcely a young face in which some trace of it is not apparent at a glance.
Which is why, perhaps, he regarded his present exhilaration humorously, or meant to; perhaps why he chose to think of her as "Stray Lock," instead of Miss Nevers, and why he repeated confidently to himself: "She's thin as a Virgin by the 'Master of the Death of Mary'." And yet that haunting expression of her face—the sweetness of the lips upcurled at the corners—the surprising and lovely revelation of her laughter—these impressions persisted as he swung on through the rain, through the hurrying throngs just released from shops and great department stores, and onward up the wet and glimmering avenue to his destination, which was the Olympian Club.
In the cloak room there were men he knew, being divested of wet hats and coats; in reading room, card room, lounge, billiard hall, squash court, and gymnasium, men greeted him with that friendly punctiliousness which indicates popularity; from the splashed edge of the great swimming pool men hailed him; clerks and club servants saluted him smilingly as he sauntered about through the place, still driven into motion by an inexplicable and unaccustomed restlessness. Cairns discovered him coming out of the billiard room:
"Have a snifter?" he suggested affably. "I'll find Ledyard and play you 'nigger' or 'rabbit' afterward, if you like."
Desboro laid a hand on his friend's shoulder:
"Jack, I've a business engagement at Silverwood to-morrow, and I believe I'd better go home to-night."
"Heavens! You've just been there! And what about the shooting trip?"
"I can join you day after to-morrow."
"Oh, come, Jim, are you going to spoil our card quartette on the train? Reggie Ledyard will kill you."
"He might, at that," said Desboro pleasantly. "But I've got to be at Silverwood to-morrow. It's a matter of business, Jack."
"You and business! Lord! The amazing alliance! What are you going to do—sell a few superannuated Westchester hens at auction? By heck! You're a fake farmer and a pitiable piker, that's what you are. And Stuyve Van Alstyne had a wire to-night that the ducks and geese are coming in to the guns by millions——"
"Go ahead and shoot 'em, then! I'll probably be along in time to pick up the game for you."
"You won't go with us?"