K Part 27

But who? And again--why?

Before going downstairs, Sidney placed the letter in a saucer and set fire to it with a match. Some of the radiance had died out of her eyes.

The Street voted the wedding a great success. The alley, however, was rather confused by certain things. For instance, it regarded the awning as essentially for the carriage guests, and showed a tendency to duck in under the side when no one was looking. Mrs. Rosenfeld absolutely refused to take the usher's arm which was offered her, and said she guessed she was able to walk up alone.

Johnny Rosenfeld came, as befitted his position, in a complete chauffeur's outfit of leather cap and leggings, with the s.h.i.+eld that was his State license pinned over his heart.

The Street came decorously, albeit with a degree of uncertainty as to supper. Should they put something on the stove before they left, in case only ice cream and cake were served at the house? Or was it just as well to trust to luck, and, if the Lorenz supper proved inadequate, to sit down to a cold snack when they got home?

To K., sitting in the back of the church between Harriet and Anna, the wedding was Sidney--Sidney only. He watched her first steps down the aisle, saw her chin go up as she gained poise and confidence, watched the swinging of her young figure in its gauzy white as she pa.s.sed him and went forward past the long rows of craning necks. Afterward he could not remember the wedding party at all. The service for him was Sidney, rather awed and very serious, beside the altar. It was Sidney who came down the aisle to the triumphant strains of the wedding march, Sidney with Max beside her!

On his right sat Harriet, having reached the first pinnacle of her new career. The wedding gowns were successful. They were more than that--they were triumphant. Sitting there, she cast comprehensive eyes over the church, filled with potential brides.

To Harriet, then, that October afternoon was a future of endless lace and chiffon, the joy of creation, triumph eclipsing triumph. But to Anna, watching the ceremony with blurred eyes and ineffectual bluish lips, was coming her hour. Sitting back in the pew, with her hands folded over her prayer-book, she said a little prayer for her straight young daughter, facing out from the altar with clear, unafraid eyes.

As Sidney and Max drew near the door, Joe Drummond, who had been standing at the back of the church, turned quickly and went out. He stumbled, rather, as if he could not see.

CHAPTER XIV

The supper at the White Springs Hotel had not been the last supper Carlotta Harrison and Max Wilson had taken together. Carlotta had selected for her vacation a small town within easy motoring distance of the city, and two or three times during her two weeks off duty Wilson had gone out to see her. He liked being with her. She stimulated him.

For once that he could see Sidney, he saw Carlotta twice.

She had kept the affair well in hand. She was playing for high stakes.

She knew quite well the kind of man with whom she was dealing--that he would pay as little as possible. But she knew, too, that, let him want a thing enough, he would pay any price for it, even marriage.

She was very skillful. The very ardor in her face was in her favor.

Behind her hot eyes lurked cold calculation. She would put the thing through, and show those puling nurses, with their pious eyes and evening prayers, a thing or two.

During that entire vacation he never saw her in anything more elaborate than the simplest of white dresses modestly open at the throat, sleeves rolled up to show her satiny arms. There were no other boarders at the little farmhouse. She sat for hours in the summer evenings in the square yard filled with apple trees that bordered the highway, carefully posed over a book, but with her keen eyes always on the road. She read Browning, Emerson, Swinburne. Once he found her with a book that she hastily concealed. He insisted on seeing it, and secured it. It was a book on brain surgery. Confronted with it, she blushed and dropped her eyes.

His delighted vanity found in it the most insidious of compliments, as she had intended.

"I feel such an idiot when I am with you," she said. "I wanted to know a little more about the things you do."

That put their relations.h.i.+p on a new and advanced basis. Thereafter he occasionally talked surgery instead of sentiment. He found her responsive, intelligent. His work, a sealed book to his women before, lay open to her.

Now and then their professional discussions ended in something different. The two lines of their interest converged.

"Gad!" he said one day. "I look forward to these evenings. I can talk shop with you without either shocking or nauseating you. You are the most intelligent woman I know--and one of the prettiest."

He had stopped the machine on the crest of a hill for the ostensible purpose of admiring the view.

"As long as you talk shop," she said, "I feel that there is nothing wrong in our being together; but when you say the other thing--"

"Is it wrong to tell a pretty woman you admire her?"

"Under our circ.u.mstances, yes."

He twisted himself around in the seat and sat looking at her.

"The loveliest mouth in the world!" he said, and kissed her suddenly.

She had expected it for at least a week, but her surprise was well done.

Well done also was her silence during the homeward ride.

No, she was not angry, she said. It was only that he had set her thinking. When she got out of the car, she bade him good-night and good-bye. He only laughed.

"Don't you trust me?" he said, leaning out to her.

She raised her dark eyes.

"It is not that. I do not trust myself."

After that nothing could have kept him away, and she knew it.

"Man demands both danger and play; therefore he selects woman as the most dangerous of toys." A spice of danger had entered into their relations.h.i.+p. It had become infinitely piquant.

He motored out to the farm the next day, to be told that Miss Harrison had gone for a long walk and had not said when she would be back. That pleased him. Evidently she was frightened. Every man likes to think that he is a bit of a devil. Dr. Max settled his tie, and, leaving his car outside the whitewashed fence, departed blithely on foot in the direction Carlotta had taken.

She knew her man, of course. He found her, face down, under a tree, looking pale and worn and bearing all the evidence of a severe mental struggle. She rose in confusion when she heard his step, and retreated a foot or two, with her hands out before her.

"How dare you?" she cried. "How dare you follow me! I--I have got to have a little time alone. I have got to think things out."

He knew it was play-acting, but rather liked it; and, because he was quite as skillful as she was, he struck a match on the trunk of the tree and lighted a cigarette before he answered.

"I was afraid of this," he said, playing up. "You take it entirely too hard. I am not really a villain, Carlotta."

It was the first time he had used her name.

"Sit down and let us talk things over."

She sat down at a safe distance, and looked across the little clearing to him with the somber eyes that were her great a.s.set.

"You can afford to be very calm," she said, "because this is only play to you; I know it. I've known it all along. I'm a good listener and not--unattractive. But what is play for you is not necessarily play for me. I am going away from here."

For the first time, he found himself believing in her sincerity. Why, the girl was white. He didn't want to hurt her. If she cried--he was at the mercy of any woman who cried.

"Give up your training?"

"What else can I do? This sort of thing cannot go on, Dr. Max."

She did cry then--real tears; and he went over beside her and took her in his arms.

"Don't do that," he said. "Please don't do that. You make me feel like a scoundrel, and I've only been taking a little bit of happiness. That's all. I swear it."

She lifted her head from his shoulder.