The Fighting Chance Part 64

"Because, if I thought--"

"Sylvia, I'm not that sort! You mustn't talk to me that way. There's nothing to be sorry for about me. Any man may lose his nerve, and, if he is a man, go after it and get it back again. Every man has a fighting chance. You said it yourself once--that a man mustn't ask for a fighting chance; he must take it. And I'm going to take it and win out one way or another."

"What do you mean by 'another,' Stephen?"

"I--Nothing. It's a phrase."

"What do you mean? Answer me!"

"It's a phrase," he said again; "no meaning, you know."

"Stephen, Mr. Plank says that you are lame."

"What did he say that for?" demanded Siward wrathfully.

"I asked him. Kemp saw you on crutches at your window. So I asked Mr.

Plank, and he said you had discarded your crutches too soon and had fallen and lamed yourself again. Are you able to walk yet?"

"Yes, of course."

"Outdoors?"

"A--no, not just yet."

"In other words, you are practically bedridden."

"No, no! I can get about the room very well."

"You couldn't go down-stairs--for an hour's drive, could you?"

"Can't manage that for awhile," he said hastily.

"Oh, the vanity of you, Stephen Siward! the vanity! Ashamed to let me see you when you are not your complete and magnificently attractive self! Silly, I shall see you! I shall drive down on the first sunny morning and sit outside in my victoria until you can't stand the temptation another instant. I'm going to do it. You cannot stop me; n.o.body can stop me. I desire to do it, and that is sufficient, I think, for everybody concerned. If the sun is out to-morrow, I shall be out too!

I am so tired of not seeing you! Let central listen! I don't care. I don't care what I am saying. I've endured it so long--I--There's no use! I am too tired of it, and I want to see you.

Can't we see each other without--without--thinking about things that are settled once and for all?"

"I can't," he said.

"Then you'd better learn to! Because, if you think I'm going through life without seeing you frequently you are simple! I've stood it too long at a time. I won't go through this sort of thing again! You'd better be amiable; you'd better be civil to me, or--or--n.o.body on earth can tell what will happen! The idea of you telling me you had lost your nerve! You've got to get it back--and help me find mine! Yes, it's gone, gone, gone! I lost it in the rain, somewhere, to-day.

Does the scent of the rain come in at your window?

Do you remember--There! I can't say it.

Good-bye. Good-bye. You must get well and I must, too.

Good-bye."

The fruit of her imprudence was happiness--an excited happiness, which lasted for a day. The rain lasted, too, for another day, then turned to snow, choking the city with such a fall as had not been seen since the great blizzard--blocking avenues, barricading cross-streets, burying squares and circles and parks, and still falling, drifting, whirling like wind-whipped smoke from cornice and roof-top. The electric cars halted; even the great snow-ploughs roared impotent amid the snowy wastes; waggons floundered into cross-streets and stuck until dug out; and everywhere, in the thickening obscurity, battalions of emergency men with pick and shovel struggled with the drifts in Fifth Avenue and Broadway. Then the storm ended at daybreak.

All day long squadrons of white gulls wheeled and sailed in the sky above the snowy expanse of park where the great, rectangular sheets of water glimmered black in their white setting. As she sat at her desk she could see them drifting into and out of the gray squares of sky framed by her window-panes. Two days ago she had seen them stemming the sky blasts, heralding the coming of unfelt tempests, flapping steadily through the fragrant rain. Now, the false phantom which had mimicked spring turned on the world the gla.s.sy glare of winter, stupefying hope, stunning desire, clogging the life essence in all young, living things.

The first vague summons, the restlessness of awakening aspiration, the first delicate, indrawn breath, were stilled to deathly immobility.

Sylvia, at her escritoire, chin cradled in her hollowed hand, sat listlessly inspecting her mail--the usual pile of bills and advertis.e.m.e.nts, social demands and interested appeals, with here and there a frivolous note from some intimate to punctuate the endless importunities.

Her housekeeper had come and gone; the Belwether establishment could jog through another day. Various specialists, who cared for the health and beauty of her body, had entered and made their unctuous exits. The major had gone to Tuxedo for the week's end; her maid had bronchitis; two horses required the veterinary, and the kitchen range a new water-back.

Cards had come for the Caithness function; cards for young Austin Wadsworth's wedding to a Charleston girl of rumoured beauty; Caragnini was to sing for Mrs. Vendenning; a live llama, two-legged, had consented to undermine Christianity for Mrs. Pyne-Johnson and her guests.

"Would Sylvia be ready for the inspection of imported head-gears to harmonise with the gowns being built by Constantine?

"When--

"Would she receive the courteous agent of 'The Reigning Beauties of Manhattan,' to arrange for her portrait and biographical sketch?

"When--

"Would she realise that Jefferson B. Doty could turn earth into heaven for any young chatelaine by affixing to the laundry his anti-microbe drying machine emitting sixty sterilised hot-air blasts in thirty seconds, at a cost of one-tenth of one mill per blast?

"And when--"

But she turned her head, looking wearily across the room at the brightly burning fire beside which Mrs. Ferrall sat, nibbling mint-paste, very serious over one of those books that "everybody was reading."

"How far have you read?" inquired Sylvia without interest, turning over a new letter to cut with her paper-knife.

Grace ruffled the uncut pages of her book without looking up, then yawned shamelessly: "She's decided to try living with him for awhile, and if they find life agreeable she'll marry him.

Pleasant situation, isn't it? Nice book, very; and they say that somebody is making a play of it. I"--She yawned again, showing her small, brilliant teeth--"I wonder what sort of people write these immoral romances!"

"Probably immoral people," said Sylvia indifferently. "Drop it on the coals, Grace."

But Mrs. Ferrall reopened the book where she had laid her finger to mark the place. "Do you think so?" she asked.

"Think what?"

"That rotten books and plays come from morally rotten people?"

"I don't think about it at all," observed Sylvia, opening another letter impatiently.

"You're probably not very literary," said Grace mischievously.

"Not in that way, I suppose."

Mrs. Ferrall took another bonbon: "Did you see 'Mrs. Lane's Experiment'?"

"I did," said Sylvia, looking up, the pink creeping into her cheeks.

"You thought it very strong, I suppose?" asked Grace innocently.

"I thought it incredible."

"But, dear, it was sheer realism! Why blink at truth? And when an author has the courage to tell facts why not have the courage to applaud?"