The Flirt Part 26

Cora waited till the evening was half over before she gave him any visible attention. Then, during a silence of the music, between two dances, she made him a negligent sign with her hand, the gesture of one indifferently beckoning a creature who is certain to come, and went on talking casually to the man who was with her.

Corliss was the length of the room from her, chatting gayly with a large group of girls and women; but he immediately nodded to her, made his bow to individuals of the group, and crossed the vacant, glistening floor to her. Cora gave him no greeting whatever; she dismissed her former partner and carelessly turned away with Corliss to some chairs in a corner.

"Do you see that?" asked Vilas, leaning over the balcony railing with Richard Lindley. "Look! She's showing the other girls--don't you see? He's the New Man; she let 'em hope she wasn't going in for him; a lot of them probably didn't even know that she knew him. She sent him out on parade till they're all excited about him; now she shows 'em he's entirely her property--and does it so matter-of-factly that it's rubbed in twice as hard as if she seemed to take some pains about it. He doesn't dance: she'll sit out with him now, till they all read the tag she's put on him. She says she hates being talked about. She lives on it!--so long as it's envious. And did you see her with that chap from the navy?

Neptune thinks he's dallying with Venus perhaps, but he'll get----"

Lindley looked at him commiseratingly. "I think I never saw prettier decorations. Have you noticed, Ray? Must have used a thousand chrysanthemums."

"Toreador!" whispered the other between his teeth, looking at Corliss; then, turning to his companion, he asked: "Has it occurred to you to get any information about Basilicata, or about the ancestral domain of the Moliterni, from our consul-general at Naples?"

Richard hesitated. "Well--yes. Yes, I did think of that. Yes, I thought of it."

"But you didn't do it."

"No. That is, I haven't yet. You see, Corliss explained to me that----"

His friend interrupted him with a sour laugh. "Oh, certainly! He's one of the greatest explainers ever welcomed to our city!"

Richard said mildly: "And then, Ray, once I've gone into a thing I--I don't like to seem suspicious."

"Poor old d.i.c.k!" returned Vilas compa.s.sionately. "You kind, easy, sincere men are so conscientiously untruthful with yourselves. You know in your heart that Cora would be furious with you if you seemed suspicious, and she's been so nice to you since you put in your savings to please her, that you can't bear to risk offending her. She's twisted you around her little finger, and the unnamed fear that haunts you is that you won't be allowed to stay there--even twisted!"

"Pretty decorations, Ray," said Richard; but he grew very red.

"Do you know what you'll do," asked Ray, regarding him keenly, "if this Don Giovanni from Sunny It' is shown up as a plain get-rich-quick swindler?"

"I haven't considered----"

"You would do precisely," said Ray, "nothing! Cora'd see to that.

You'd sigh and go to work again, beginning at the beginning where you were years ago, and doing it all over. Admirable resignation, but not for me! I'm a stockholder in his company and in shape to 'take steps'! I don't know if I'd be patient enough to make them legal--perhaps I should. He may be safe on the legal side. I'll know more about that when I find out if there is a Prince Moliterno in Naples who owns land in Basilicata."

"You don't doubt it?"

"I doubt everything! In this particular matter I'll have less to doubt when I get an answer from the consul-general. _I_'ve written, you see."

Lindley looked disturbed. "You have?"

Vilas read him at a glance. "You're afraid to find out!" he cried.

Then he set his hand on the other's shoulder. "If there ever was a G.o.d's fool, it's you, d.i.c.k Lindley. Really, I wonder the world hasn't kicked you around more than it has; you'd never kick back!

You're as easy as an old shoe. Cora makes you unhappy," he went on, and with the very mention of her name, his voice shook with pa.s.sion,--"but on my soul I don't believe you know what jealousy means: you don't even understand hate; you don't eat your heart----"

"Let's go and eat something better," suggested Richard, laughing.

"There's a continuous supper downstairs and I hear it's very good."

Ray smiled, rescued for a second from himself. "There isn't anything better than your heart, you old window-pane, and I'm glad you don't eat it. And if I ever mix it up with Don Giovanni T.

Corliss--'T' stands for Toreador--I do believe it'll be partly on your----" He paused, leaving the sentence unfinished, as his attention was caught by the abysmal att.i.tude of a figure in another part of the gallery: Mr. Wade Trumble, alone in a corner, sitting upon the small of his small back, munching at an unlighted cigar and otherwise manifesting a biting gloom. Ray drew Lindley's attention to this tableau of pain. "Here's a three of us!" he said. He turned to look down into the rhythmic kaleidoscope of dancers. "And there goes the girl we all _ought_ to be morbid about."

"Who is that?"

"Laura Madison. Why aren't we? What a self-respecting creature she is, with that cool, sweet steadiness of hers--she's like a mountain lake. She's lovely and she plays like an angel, but so far as anybody's ever thinking about her is concerned she might almost as well not exist. Yet she's really beautiful to-night, if you can manage to think of her except as a sort of retinue for Cora."

"She _is_ rather beautiful to-night. Laura's always a very nice-looking girl," said Richard, and with the advent of an idea, he added: "I think one reason she isn't more conspicuous and thought about is that she is so quiet," and, upon his companion's greeting this inspiration with a burst of laughter, "Yes, that was a brilliant deduction," he said; "but I do think she's about the quietest person I ever knew. I've noticed there are times when she'll scarcely speak at all for half an hour, or even more."

"You're not precisely noisy yourself," said Ray. "Have you danced with her this evening?"

"Why, no," returned the other, in a tone which showed this omission to be a discovery; "not yet. I must, of course."

"Yes, she's really 'rather' beautiful. Also, she dances 'rather'

better than any other girl in town. Go and perform your painful duty."

"Perhaps I'd better," said Richard thoughtfully, not perceiving the satire. "At any rate, I'll ask her for the next."

He found it unengaged. There came to Laura's face an April change as he approached, and she saw he meant to ask her to dance. And, as they swam out into the maelstrom, he noticed it, and remarked that it _was_ rather warm, to which she replied by a cheerful nod.

Presently there came into Richard's mind the thought that he was really an excellent dancer; but he did not recall that he had always formed the same pleasing estimate of himself when he danced with Laura, nor realize that other young men enjoyed similar self-help when dancing with her. And yet he repeated to her what Ray had said of her dancing, and when she laughed as in appreciation of a thing intended humorously, he laughed, too, but insisted that she did dance "very well indeed." She laughed again at that, and they danced on, not talking. He had no sense of "guiding" her; there was no feeling of effort whatever; she seemed to move spontaneously with his wish, not to his touch; indeed, he was not sensible of touching her at all.

"Why, Laura," he exclaimed suddenly, "you dance _beautifully_!"

She stumbled and almost fell; saved herself by clutching at his arm; he caught her; and the pair stopped where they were, in the middle of the floor. A flash of dazed incredulity from her dark eyes swept him; there was something in it of the child dodging an unexpected blow.

"Did I trip you?" he asked anxiously.

"No," she laughed, quickly, and her cheeks grew even redder. "I tripped myself. Wasn't that too bad--just when you were thinking that I danced well! Let's sit down. May we?"

They went to some chairs against a wall. There, as they sat, Cora swung by them, dancing again with her lieutenant, and looking up trancedly into the gallant eyes of the triumphant and intoxicated young man. Visibly, she was a woman with a suitor's embracing arm about her. Richard's eyes followed them.

"Ah, don't!" said Laura in a low voice.

He turned to her. "Don't what?"

"I didn't mean to speak out loud," she said tremulously. "But I meant: don't look so troubled. It doesn't mean anything at all--her coquetting with that bird of pa.s.sage. He's going away in the morning."

"I don't think I was troubling about that."

"Well, whatever it was"--she paused, and laughed with a plaintive timidity--"why, just don't trouble about it!"

"Do I look very much troubled?" he asked seriously.

"Yes. And you don't look very gay when you're not!" She laughed with more a.s.surance now. "I think you're always the wistfulest looking man I ever saw."

"Everybody laughs at me, I believe," he said, with continued seriousness. "Even Ray Vilas thinks I'm an utter fool. Am I, do _you_ think?"

He turned as he spoke and glanced inquiringly into her eyes. What he saw surprised and dismayed him.

"For heaven's sake, don't cry!" he whispered hurriedly.

She bent her head, turning her face from him.

"I've been very hopeful lately," he said. "Cora has been so kind to me since I did what she wanted me to, that I----" He gave a deep sigh. "But if you're _that_ sorry for me, my chances with her must be pretty desperate."