The Window-Gazer Part 47

Yorick, sunning himself by the door, gave vent to a goblin chuckle.

"Oh, what a pal was M-Mary! Oh, what a pal--Nothing doing!" he finished with a shriek and began to flap his wings.

The professor laughed. "Yorick gets his lessons mixed," he said. "But isn't he a wonder? Did you ever know a bird who could learn so quickly?"

Mary did not want to talk about birds. "Do tell me why you dislike driving?" she asked with gentle insistence.

"Oh, I like it.-It's not that. I used to drive like Jehu, or John.

Never had an accident. But when I came back from overseas I found I couldn't trust my nerve--no quick judgment, no instinctive reaction--all gone to pieces. Rather rotten."

With unerring intuition Mary knew this for a real confidence.

Fortunately she was an expert with shy game.

"Quite rotten," she said soberly. He went on.

"It's little things like that that hit hard. Not to be One's own man in a crisis--d'y' see?"

Mary nodded.

"But it's only temporary," he continued more cheer-fully. "I'll try myself out one of these days. Only, of course, arranged tests are never real ones. The crisis must leap on one to be of any use. Some little time ago, when I was at the coast, an incident happened--a kind of unexpected emergency"--he paused thoughtfully as a sudden vision of a moon-lit room flashed before him--"I got through that all right," he added, "so I'm hopeful."

"How thrilling," said Mary. "Won't you tell me what it was?"

His eyes met hers with a placidity for which she could have shaken him.

"It wouldn't interest you," he said. "I hear Aunt coming at last."

Miss Campion's voice had indeed preceded her.

"Oh, there you are, Mary," she said with some acidity. "I told Desire you were sure to be down first."

"I try to be prompt," said Mary meekly. "I have been keeping Benis company until you were ready." She spoke to Miss Campion but her slightly mocking eyes watched for some change upon the face of her young hostess. Desire, as usual, was serene.

"Mary thinks we are all heathens not to have a car," said Benis. "When are you going to choose yours, Desire?"

"Not at all, I think," said Desire.

Men, even clever men, are like that. The professor had seen no possible sting in his idly spoken words. But the sore, hot spot, which now seemed ever present in Desire's heart, grew sorer and hotter. To owe a car to the reminder of another woman! Naturally, Desire could do very well without it.

"But don't you miss a car terribly?" asked Mary with kind concern.

"I cannot miss what I have never had."

"Oh, in the west, I suppose one does have horses still."

"There may be a few left, I think." Desire's slow smile crept out as memory brought the asthmatic "chug" of the "Tillic.u.m." "My father and I used a launch almost exclusively." In spite of herself she could not resist a glance at the professor. His eyes met hers with a ghost of their old twinkle.

"A launch?" Mary's surprise was patent. "Did you run it yourself?"

"We had a Chinese engineer," said Desire demurely. "But I could manage it if necessary."

Further conversation upon modes of locomotion on the coast was cut off by the precipitate arrival of John who, coming up the drive in his best manner, narrowly escaped a triple fatality at the steps.

"You people are careless!" he exclaimed indignantly. "What do you mean by standing on the drive? Some-one might have been hurt! Anyone here like to get driven to the garden party?"

"Do doctors find time for garden parties in Bainbridge?" asked Mary in mock surprise.

"Healthiest place you ever saw!" declared Dr. John gloomily. "And anyway, this garden party is a prescription of mine. Naturally I am expected to take my own medicine. I said to Mrs. B. Jones, 'What you need, dear Mrs. Jones, is a little gentle excitement combined with fresh air, complete absence of mental strain and plenty of cooling nourishment.' Did you ever hear a garden party more delicately suggested? Desire, will you sit in front?"

"Husbands first," said Benis. "In the case of a head-on collision, I claim the post of honorable danger."

It was surely a natural and a harmless speech. But instantly the various mistaken thoughts of his hearers turned it to their will.

Desire's eyes grew still more clouded under their lowered lids. "He does not dare to sit beside Mary," whispered her particular mental highwayman. "Oho, he is beginning to show human jealousy at last,"

thought Mary. "He has noticed that she likes to sit beside me," exulted John. Of them all, only Aunt Caroline was anywhere near the truth. "He has taken my warning to heart," thought she. "But then, I always knew I could manage men if I had a chance."

A garden party in Bainbridge is not exciting, in itself. In themselves, no garden parties are exciting. As mere garden parties they partake somewhat of the slow and awful calm of undisturbed nature. One could see the gra.s.s grow at a garden party, if so many people were not trampling on it. So it is possible that there were those in Mrs. Burton Jones' grounds that afternoon who, bringing no personal drama with them, had rather a dull time. For others it was a fateful day. There were psychic milestones on Mrs. Burton Jones' smooth lawn that afternoon.

It was there, for instance, that the youngest Miss Keith (the pretty one) decided to marry Jerry Clarkson, junior (and regretted it all her life). It was there that Mrs. Keene first suspected the new princ.i.p.al of the Collegiate Inst.i.tute of Bolshevik tendencies. (He had said that, in his opinion, kings were bound to go.) And it was there that Miss Ellis spoke to Miss Sutherland for the first time in three years. (She asked her if she would have lemon or chocolate cake--a clear matter of social duty.) It was there also that Miss Mary Sophia Watkins, Dr.

Rogers' capable nurse, decided finally that a longer stay in Bainbridge would be wasted time. It was the first time she had actually seen her admired doctor and the object of his supposed regard together, and a certain look which she surprised on Dr. John's face as his eyes followed Desire across the lawn, convinced her so thoroughly that, like a sensible girl, she packed up that night and went back to the city.

Perhaps it was that very look which also decided Spence. For decide he did. There was no excuse for waiting longer. He must "have it out" with John. Desire must be given her freedom. Of John's att.i.tude he had small doubt. His infatuation for Desire had been plain from the beginning.

Time had served only to centre and strengthen it. He could not in justice blame John. He didn't blame John. That is to say, he would not officially permit himself to blame John, though he knew very well that he did blame him. A sense of the rights of other people as opposed to one's own rights has been hardly gained by the Race, and is by no means firmly seated yet. Let primitive pa.s.sions slip control for an instant and presto! good-bye to the rights of other people! The primitive man in Spence would not have argued the matter. Having obtained his mate by any means at all, it would have gone hard with anyone who, however justly, attempted to take her from him. Today, at Mrs. Burton-Jones'

garden party, the acquired restraints of character seemed wearing thin.

The professor decided that it might be advisable to go home.

Desire and Mary noticed his absence at about the same time. And both lost interest in the party with the suddenness of a light blown out.

"Things are moving," thought Mary with a thrill of triumph. But in spite of her triumph she was angry. It is not pleasant to have the power of one's rival so starkly revealed. Malice crept into her faun-like eyes as she looked across to where Desire sat, a composed young figure, listening with apparent interest to the biggest bore in Bainbridge. What right had she to hold a man's hot heart between her placid hands! Mary ground her parasol into Mrs. Burton-Jones' best sod and her small white teeth shut grindingly behind her lips.

Desire was trying to listen to the little man with the enlarged ego who attempted to entertain her. But she was very much aware of Mary and all her moods. "She is selfish. She will make him miserable," thought Desire. "But she will make him happy first. And, in any case, he must be free."

"Yes, Mrs. Spence," the little man beside her was saying, "a man like myself, however diffident, must be ready to do his full duty by the community in which he lives. That is why I feel I must accept the nomination for mayor of this town--if I am offered it. My friends say to me, 'Miller, you are a man, and we need a man. Bainbridge needs a man.' What am I to do under such circ.u.mstances? If there is no man--"

"You might try a woman," said Desire, suddenly losing patience. The garden party was stupid. The egotist was stupid. She was probably stupid too, because she knew that a few weeks ago she would have found both the party and the egotist entertaining. She would have been delighted to peep in at a window where every-thing was labelled "Big I." She would have enjoyed Mrs. Burton-Jones' windows immensely--but now, windows bored her. In the only window that mattered the blinds were down. Desire's life had narrowed as it broadened. It wasn't life that she wanted any more--it was the one thing which could have made life dear.

A great impatience of trivialities came upon her. She hardly heard the injured tones of the little man who had embarked upon a heated repudiation of a feminine mayoralty. It did not amuse her even when he proved logically that women could never be anything because they were always something else. Instead she looked to Dr. John for rescue, and Dr. John, most observant of knights, immediately rescued her.

"Did you see that?" asked Mrs. Keene (the same who discovered the Bolshevik princ.i.p.al). She touched Miss Davis significantly on the arm.

Mary, who had seen perfectly well, looked blank.

"Of course you are not one of us," went on Mrs. Keene. "So you can scarcely be expected.... Still, living in the same house ... and knowing the dear professor so well."

"Did you wish to speak to him? He has gone home, I think," said Mary, innocently. "I fancy he doesn't suffer garden parties gladly."

"No--such a pity! With a wife so young and, if I may say so, so different. One feels that she has not been brought up amongst us. So sad. I always say 'Let our young men marry at home.' So sensible. One knows where one is then, don't you think?"

Mary agreed that, in such a position, one might know where one was.