Black Oxen Part 30

x.x.xV

When Mary Zattiany had reached her bedroom on Sunday morning she had leaned heavily on her dressing-table for a few moments, staring into the mirror. Then she curled her lip and shrugged her shoulders. Well, it was done. She had been as bald and uncompromising as she knew how to be. A picturesque softening of details, pleas to understand, and appeals to the man's sympathy, might be for other women but not for her. Life had given her a respect for hard facts and an utter contempt for the prevalent dodging of them.

She had told him that she was determined to relate her story in full as much for his sake as her own. But she had told it far more for her own. Before going any farther she was determined to know this man, who may only have intoxicated her, as thoroughly as it was possible for a woman to know any man she had not lived with. If he met the test she could be reasonably sure that for once she had made no mistake. If he did not--well, perhaps, so much the better. Surely she had had more than her share of love, and she had something to do in the world of vastly greater importance than wasting time in a man's arms. And did she really want pa.s.sion in her life again? She with her young body and her old mind! Did she?

She recalled those brief moments of complete and ecstatic surrender.

Or tried to recall them. She was very tired. Perhaps she might dream about them, but at the moment they seemed as far away as her first youth.

She awoke the next day only in time to dress and go to Mrs. Ruyler's for luncheon. She attended a concert in the afternoon, and she did not return from the Lawrences' until midnight. On Monday she lunched with Mrs. Vane and brought "Harry" and Mr. Dinwiddie home with her. She would give herself no time to think and brood. She was too wise to harden her heart against him by bitter fancies that might be as bitterly unjust, and a.s.suredly she had no intention of meeting disaster weakened by romantic castle-building. Not she. Let events take their course. Whatever came, she had the strength to meet it.

As Clavering entered the library she was standing by the hearth, one hand on the mantelshelf. Her repose was absolute as she turned her head. In her eyes was an insolent expression, a little mocking, a little challenging. There was no trace of apprehension. As she saw Clavering's angry face her brows lifted.

"What did you let those fellows in for?" he demanded, glaring at her from the door. "You set this hour for our meeting and I just missed finding them here in this room. I should have thought you would have wanted to be alone before I came----"

And then for a moment Mary Zattiany's mind felt as young as her body.

It seemed to her that she heard ruins tumbling behind her, down and out of sight. Her head felt light and she grasped the mantel for support; but she was not too dazed to realize that Clavering was in anything but a love-making mood, and she managed to steady her voice and reply lightly:

"I lunched with Polly Vane, and her devoted son was hanging 'round.

Mr. Dinwiddie was also at the luncheon, and as they both walked home with me I could do no less than ask them in for a moment. But I never have the least difficulty getting rid of people."

"Ah!" He continued to stand staring at her, and, as he had antic.i.p.ated, he saw only Mary Zattiany. As far as he was concerned Mary Ogden had never existed. But he still felt no immediate desire to touch her. He came over and stood opposite her on the hearthrug, his hands in his pockets.

"What have you been through?" he asked abruptly. "I've been through h.e.l.l."

"So I imagined," she said drily. "I can't say I've been through h.e.l.l.

I've grown too philosophical for that! I have thought as little as possible. I left it on the knees of the G.o.ds."

There certainly was neither despair nor doubt in that vital voice of hers as she looked at him, and she was smiling. He twitched his shoulders under those understanding eyes and turned his own to the fire with a frown.

"I don't believe you had a moment of misgiving. You were too sure of me."

"Oh, no, I was not! I know life too well to be sure of anything, mon ami. Unlike that nice Vane boy, you have imagination and I gave you some hard swallowing. Poor boy, I'm afraid you've been choking ever since----"

"Don't 'poor boy' me. I won't have it. I feel a thousand years old."

He glared at her once more. "You are sure of me now--and quite right ... but I don't feel in the least like kissing you... . I've barely slept and I feel like the devil."

For the first time in many days she felt an inclination to throw back her head and give vent to a joyous laugh--joyous but amused, for she would always be Mary Zattiany. But she merely said: "My dear Lee, I could not stand being made love to at four in the afternoon. It is not aesthetic. Suppose we sit down. Tell me all about it."

"I'll not tell you a thing." But he took the chair and lit a cigarette. "I'm more in love with you than ever, if you want to know.

When will you marry me?"

"Shall we say two months from today?"

"Two months! Why not tomorrow?"

"Oh, hardly. In the first place I'd like it all to be quite perfect, and I'd dreamed of spending our honeymoon in the Dolomites. I've a shooting box there on the sh.o.r.e of a wonderful lake. I used to stay there quite alone after my guests had left... . And then--well, it would hardly be fair to give New York two shocks in succession. They all take for granted I'll marry some one--I am already engaged to Mr.

Osborne, although I have heard you alluded to meaningly--but better let them talk the first sensation to rags... . They will be angry enough with me for marrying a young man, but perhaps too relieved that I have not carried off one of their own sons... . Polly is in agonies at the present moment ... we'll have to live in New York more or less--I suppose?"

"More or less? Altogether. My work is here."

"I believe there is more work for both of us in Europe."

"And do you imagine I'd live on your money? I've nothing but what I make."

"I could pull wires and get you into one of the emba.s.sies----"

"I'm no diplomat, and don't want to be. Rotten lazy job."

"Couldn't you be foreign correspondent for your newspaper?"

"We've good men in every European capital now. They've no use for more, and no excuse for displacing any of them. Besides, I've every intention of being a playwright."

"But playwrighting isn't--not really--quite as important as poor Europe. And I know of several ways in which we could be of the greatest possible use. Not only Austria----"

"Perhaps. But you'll have to wait until I've made money on at least one play. I'll be only too glad to spend the honeymoon in the Dolomites, but then I return and go to work. You'll have to make up your mind to live here for a year or two at least. And the sooner you marry me, the sooner we can go to Europe to live--for a time. I've no intention of living my life in Europe. But I'm only too willing to help you. So--better marry me tomorrow."

"I can't get away for at least two months--possibly not then. Ask Judge Trent. And a honeymoon in New York would be too flat--not?"

"Better than nothing ... however--here's an idea. I'll get to work on my play at once and maybe I can finish it before I leave. If it went over big I could stay longer. Besides, it'll be something to boil over into; I don't suppose I shall see any too much of you. What's your idea? To set all the young men off their heads and imagine you are Mary Ogden once more? It _would_ be a triumph. I've an idea that's what you are up to."

"Certainly not," she said angrily. "How trivial you must think me.

I've not the least intention of going to dancing parties. I should be bored to death. I hardly knew what young Vane was talking about today.

He seems to speak a different language from the men of my time. But it is only decent that I bore myself at luncheons and dinners, for my old friends have behaved with the utmost loyalty and generosity. Jane Oglethorpe would have been quite justified in never speaking to me again, and I have violated the most sacred traditions of the others.

But it has not made the least difference. Besides, I must keep them up to the mark. I have their promise to form a committee for the children of Austria."

"Well, that's that. We'll marry two months from today. I can finish my play in that time, and I won't wait a day longer."

"Very well... . I met Marian Lawrence the other day. I'm told you were expected to marry her at one time. She is very beautiful and has more subtlety than most American women. Why didn't you?"

"Because she wasn't you, I suppose. Did she stick a little bejewelled gold pin into you?"

"Only with her eyes. She made me feel quite the age I had left behind me in Vienna." And then she asked irresistibly, "Do you think you would have fallen in love with me, after a much longer and better opportunity to know me, if you--if we had met in Vienna before that time?"

"No, I should not. What a question! I should have loved you in one way as I do now--with that part of me that wors.h.i.+ps you. But men are men, and never will be demi-G.o.ds."

This time she did laugh, and until tears were in her eyes. "Oh, Lee!

No wonder I fell in love with you. Any other man--well, I couldn't have loved you. My soul was too old." And then her eyes widened as she stared before her. "Perhaps----"

He sprang to his feet and pulled her up from her chair. "None of that.

None of that. And now I do want to kiss you."

And as Mary Zattiany never did anything by halves she was completely happy, and completely young.

x.x.xVI

He left her at ten o'clock, and the next morning rose at seven and went to work at once on his play. He chose the one that had the greatest emotional possibilities. Gora Dwight had told him that he must learn to "externalize his emotions," and he felt that here was the supreme opportunity. Never would he have more turgid, pent-up, tearing emotions to get rid of than now. He wrote until one o'clock, then, after lunch and two hours on his column, went out and took a long walk; but lighter of heart than since he had met Mary Zattiany. He also reflected with no little satisfaction that when writing on the play he had barely thought of her. All the fire in him had flown to his head and transported him to another plane; he wondered if any woman, save in brief moments, could rival the ecstasy of mental creation. That rotten spot in the brain, dislocation of particles, whatever it was that enabled a few men to do what the countless millions never dreamed of attempting, or attempt only to fail, was, through its very abnormality, productive of a higher and more sustained delight, a more complete annihilation of prosaic life, than any mere function bestowed on all men alike. It might bring suffering, disappointment, mortification, even despair in its train, but the agitation of that uncharted tract in the brain compensated for any revenge that nature, through her by-product, human nature, might visit on those who departed from her beloved formulae.