Treasure and Trouble Therewith Part 15

"Always proud, always independent, always keeping her guard up." He cast a questioning side glance at her face, grave and pale by his shoulder.

"You wild thing, can no one tame you?"

"Why do you say I'm wild?"

"Because you are. How long have I known you? Since early in September and I don't get any nearer. You still keep me guessing."

"About what?"

"About _what_?" He leaned down and spied at her profile. "About yourself."

"Oh, me!"

"Yes, you--what else? You're the most secretive little sphinx outside Egypt."

She did not answer for a moment. She _had_ been secretive, but it was about the humble surroundings of her youth, those ignominious beginnings of hers. Of this she could not bring herself to tell, fearful that it would lower her in his esteem. She saw him, hearing of the Buon Gusto restaurant and the life along the desert, withdrawing from her in shocked repugnance. About other things--the stage, the lovers--she had been frank, almost confidential.

"I don't see why you say that," she protested; "I've told you any amount of stuff."

"But not everything. You know that, Pancha."

He was now so keen, like a dog with its nose to the scent, that he forgot her recent refusal and hooked his hand inside her arm. This time she did not draw away and they walked on, close-linked, alone in the moonlit street. Conscious of her reticences, ashamed of her lack of candor, and yet afraid to make damaging revelations, she said defensively:

"I've told you as much as I want to tell."

He seized on that, in his eagerness pressing her arm against his side, bending over her like a lover.

"Yes, but not all. And why not all? Why should you keep anything from me?"

"But why _should_ I tell you?" she asked, her loitering step coming to a stop.

As the situation stood the question was a poser. He did not want to be her lover, had never intended it; his easy gallantry had meant nothing.

But now, seeing her averted face, the eyes down-drooped, he could think of no reply that was not love-making. She stole a swift look at him, recognized his hesitation, and felt a stab, for it was the love-making answer she had expected. The mortified anger of the woman who has made a bid for tenderness and seen herself mistaken surged up in her.

She jerked her arm violently out of his grasp and walked forward at a swinging pace.

"What's the matter?" he said, chasing at her heels. "Are you angry?"

"I shouldn't wonder," she threw over her shoulder. "Being nagged at for fun doesn't appeal to me."

"But what do you mean?--I'm all at sea."

She suddenly brought up short, and wheeling, faced him, her face lowering, her breath quick:

"I'm the one to say that, for I don't get you, Boye Mayer, I don't see what you're up to. But sometimes I think you've just come snooping round roe to find out something. You come and you go, always so curious, always wanting to know, p.u.s.s.y-footing round with your questions and your compliments. What's on your mind?"

Mayer found himself in an impa.s.se. She knew him too well and she was too angry to be diverted with the temporizing lightness of their early acquaintance. There was only one thing to say to her, and--the cause of her excitement plain to his informed mind--it was not difficult to say.

"Pancha," he pleaded, "you don't understand."

"You bet I don't and I want to. I'd like to have it explained--I'd like to know what you hang round me for. Do you think I'm hiding something? Do you think I'm a criminal?"

"I think you're the most charming girl in the world," he protested.

She gave a smothered sound of rage and started off, faster than ever, down the street. This time he kept up with her, and rounding a corner the two lamps at the foot of the Vallejo's steps loomed up close at hand.

"Stop," he said. "Wait." He had no idea the hotel was so near, and surprised at the sight of it his voice became suddenly imperious and he seized her arm with a dominating grip. She tried to jerk it away, but he held it and drew her, stiff and averse, toward him.

"You foolish one," he whispered. "Why, don't you see? I hang around because I can't help it. I come because I can't stay away--I want to know about you because I'm jealous of every man that ever looked at you."

With the last word he threw his arm about her and s.n.a.t.c.hed her close.

Against him she suddenly relaxed, melted into a thing of yielding softness, while his lips touched a cheek like a burning rose petal.

The next moment she was gone. He had a glimpse of her on the Vallejo steps in swallow-swift silhouette and then heard the bang of the door.

In her room Pancha moved about mechanically, doing the accustomed things.

She lighted the light, took off her hat and jacket, brought the milk from the window sill. Then, with the bottle on the table beside her, she sat down, her hands in her lap, her eyes on s.p.a.ce. She was as motionless as a statue, save for the breaths that lifted her chest. She sat that way for a long time, her only movements a s.h.i.+fting of her blank gaze or a respiration deeper than the others. She saw nothing of what her glance rested on, heard none of the decreasing midnight sounds in the street or the house about her. An intensity of feeling had lifted her to a plane where the familiar and habitual had no more place than had premonitions and forebodings.

CHAPTER XIII

FOOLS IN THEIR FOLLY

"The Zingara" had run its course and given place to "The Gray Lady,"

which had not pleased the public. The papers said the leading role did not show Miss Lopez off to the greatest advantage and the audiences thinned, for Miss Lopez had transformed the Albion from a house of light opera to a temple enshrining a star. The management, grumbling over their mistake, laid about for something that would give the star a chance to exhibit those qualities which had deflected so many dollars from the "Eastern attractions" to their own box office.

Charlie Crowder and Mark Burrage, walking together in the early night, turned into the Albion to have a look at the house and see Pancha in the last act. They stood in the back, surveying the rows of heads in a dark level, against the glaring picture of the stage, upon which, picked out by the spotlight, Pancha stood singing her final solo. Crowder's eye dropped from the solitary central figure to the audience and noted gaps in the lines, unusual in the Albion and predicting "The Gray Lady's"

speedy demise. As the curtain fell he told Mark he was "going behind" for a word with his friend, she would need cheering up, and Mark, nodding, said he'd move along, he had work to do at home.

The floor of heads broke as though upheaved by an earthquake, and the house rose, rustling and murmurous, and began crowding into the aisles.

The young man, leaning against the rail behind the last row, watched it, a dense, coagulated ma.s.s, animated by a single impulse and moving as a unit. Crowding up the aisle it looked like a thick dark serpent, uncoiling its slow length, writhing toward the exit, the faces turned toward him a pattern of pale dots on its back. Among them at first unnoticed by his vaguely roving glance were three he knew--the two Alston girls and Aunt Ellen.

It was always hot and stuffy in the Albion and Aunt Ellen had been uncomfortable and fussed about it, and Chrystie was disappointed that her favorite had not been able to make the performance a success. As they edged forward she explained to Lorry that it wasn't Pancha's fault, it was the sort of thing she didn't do as well as other things and she oughtn't to have been made to do it. Then, her eye ranging, she suddenly stopped and gave Lorry a dig with her elbow.

"There's Marquis de Lafayette. Do you see him?"

Lorry had, which did not prevent her from saying in a languid voice,

"Where?"

"Over there by the railing. You know he _is_ good-looking, Lorry, when he's all by himself that way, not trying to be worthy of a college education."

"Um," said her sister. "It's fearfully hot in here."

"I don't see why we ever came," Aunt Ellen moaned.

They were near him now and he saw them. For a moment he stared, then gave a nod and reddened to his forehead.