Half a Rogue Part 8

"You are sure there is no woman?"

Warrington laughed easily. "Ah, if there was a woman! I expect to be lonely some day."

Bennington put on his hat and gloves, and Warrington followed him into the hall. Once the prospective bridegroom paused, as if he had left something unsaid; but he seemed to think the better of silence, and went on.

"Tuesday morning, then?"

"Tuesday morning. Good night."

"Good night, and luck attend you."

The door closed, and Warrington went slowly back to his desk, his mind filled with pleasant recollections of youth. He re-read the letter, studied it thoroughly, in hopes that there might be an anagram. There was nothing he could see, and he put it away, rather annoyed. He arranged the sheets and notes of the scenario, marshaled the scattered pencils, and was putting the gla.s.ses on the tray, when a sound in the doorway caused him to lift his head. One of the gla.s.ses tumbled over and rolled across the desk, leaving a trail of water which found its level among the ash-trays.

"It is quite evident that you forgot me," said the woman, a faint mirthless smile stirring her lips. "It was very close in there, and I could hear nothing." She placed a hand on her forehead, swayed, and closed her eyes for a second.

"You are faint!" he cried, springing toward her.

"It is nothing," she replied, with a repelling gesture. "John Bennington, was it not?"

"Yes." His eyes grew round with wonder.

"I was going to keep it secret as long as I could, but I see it is useless. He is the man I have promised to marry." Her voice had a singular quietness.

Warrington retreated to his desk, leaning heavily against it.

"Bennington? You are going to marry John Bennington?" dully.

"Yes."

He sat down abruptly and stared at her with the expression of one who is suddenly confronted by some Medusa's head, as if in the straggling wisps of hair that escaped from beneath her hat he saw the writhing serpents. She was going to marry John Bennington!

She stepped quickly up to the desk and began to scatter things about.

Her hands shook, she breathed rapidly, her delicate nostrils dilating the while.

"Look out!" he warned, at her side the same instant. "Your hat is burning!" He smothered the incipient flame between his palms.

"Never mind the hat. My gloves, d.i.c.k, my gloves! I left them here on the desk."

"Your gloves?" Then immediately he recollected that he had seen them in Bennington's hands, but he was positive that the gloves meant nothing to Bennington. He had picked them up just as he would have picked up a paper-cutter, a pencil, a match-box, if any of these had been within reach of his nervous fingers. Most men who are at times mentally embarra.s.sed find relief in touching small inanimate objects.

So he said rea.s.suringly: "Don't let a pair of gloves worry you, girl."

"He bought them for me this morning," a break in her voice. "I MUST find them!"

The situation a.s.sumed altogether a different angle. There was a hint of tragedy in her eyes. More trivial things than a forgotten pair of gloves have brought about death and division. Together they renewed the search. They sifted the ma.n.u.scripts, the books, the magazines, burrowed into the drawers; and sometimes their hands touched, but they neither noticed nor felt the contact. Warrington even dropped to his knees and hunted under the desk, all the while "Jack Bennington, Jack Bennington!" drumming in his ears. The search was useless. The gloves were nowhere to be found. He stood up irresolute, dismayed and anxious, keenly alive to her misery and to the inferences his best friend might draw. The desk stood between them, but their faces were within two spans of the hand.

"I can't find them."

"They are gone!" she whispered.

Chapter IV

When the pathfinders came into the territory which is now called the Empire State, they carried muskets and tripods under one arm and Greek dictionaries under the other. They surveyed all day and scanned all night, skirmis.h.i.+ng intermittently with prowling redskins. They knew something about elementary geometry, too, and you will find evidences of it everywhere, even in the Dutch settlements. The Dutchman always made the beauty of geometry impossible. Thus, nowadays, one can not move forward nor backward fifty miles in any direction without having the cla.s.sic memory jarred into activity. Behold Athens, Rome, Ithaca, Troy; Homer, Virgil, Cicero; Pompey and Hannibal; cities and poets and heroes! It was, in those early days, a liberal education to be born in any one of these towns. Let us take Troy, for instance. When the young mind learned to spell it, the young mind yearned to know what Troy signified. Then came Homer, with his heroic fairy-story of G.o.ds, demiG.o.ds and mortals. Of one thing you may be reasonably sure: Helen was kept religiously in the background. You will find no city named after her; nor Sappho, nor Aspasia. The explorer and the geographer have never given woman any recognition; it was left to the poets to sing her praise. Even Columbus, fine old gentleman that he was, absolutely ignored Isabella as a geographical name.

The city of Herculaneum (so called in honor of one Hercules) was very well named. To become immortal it had the same number of tasks to perform as had old Hercules. The Augean Stables were in the City Hall; and had Hercules lived in Herculaneum, he never would have sat with the G.o.ds. The city lay in a pleasant valley, embraced by imposing wooded hills. There was plenty of water about, a lake, a river, a creek; none of these, however, was navigable for commercial purposes.

But this in nowise hindered the city's progress. On the tranquil bosom of the Erie Ca.n.a.l rode the graceful barges of commerce straight and slowly through the very heart of the town. Like its historic namesake, the city lived under the eternal shadow of smoke, barring Sundays; but its origin was not volcanic, only bituminous. True, year in and year out the streets were torn up, presenting an aspect not unlike the lava-beds of Vesuvius; but as this phase always implies, not destruction, but construction, murmurs were only local and few. It was a prosperous and busy city. It grew, it grows, and will grow. Long life to it! Every year the city directory points with pride to its growing bulk. A hundred thousand people; and, as Max O'Rell said--"All alive and kicking!" Herculaneum held its neighbors in hearty contempt, like the youth who has suddenly found his man's strength, and parades round with a chip on his shoulder.

Three railroad lines ran through the business section, bisecting the princ.i.p.al thoroughfares. The pa.s.senger trains went along swiftly enough, but often freights of almost interminable length drawled through the squares. I say drawled advisedly. Surely the whuff-whuff of the engine seems to me a kind of mechanical speech; and to this was often added the sad lowing of cattle. From time to time some earnest but misdirected young man would join the aldermanic body, and immediately lift up his voice in protest. It was outrageous, and so forth; the railroads must be brought to their senses, and so forth.

Presently a meeting would come and go without his voice being heard, another, and yet another. By and by he would silently cast his vote for the various businesses under hand, and go home. The old-timers would smile. They understood. They rode on annuals themselves.

All the same, Herculaneum was a beautiful city in parts. Great leafy maples and elms arched the streets in the residential quarters, and the streets themselves were broad and straight. There were several dignified buildings of ten and twelve stories, many handsome banks, several clubs, and two or three pa.s.sable monuments. There were at that time five enterprising newspapers, four frankly partizan and one independent. Personalities entered freely into the editorials, which often abounded in wit and scholars.h.i.+p. There were three theaters, and many churches of many denominations; religion and amus.e.m.e.nt, to thrive, must have variety. There were great steel shops, machine-shops, factories and breweries. And there were a few people who got in touch with one another, and invented society.

Herculaneum has its counterpart in every state; each city is a composite of all the others. A fas.h.i.+on in New York is immediately reproduced in every other city on the continent. Conservatism, day by day, becomes more and more retiring; presently it will exist only in Webster, side by side with the word prehistoric.

It was Sunday in Herculaneum, a June Sunday, radiant with suns.h.i.+ne.

The broad green leaves of the maples s.h.i.+vered, lacing the streets with amber and jade, and from a thousand emerald gardens rose the subtle, fragrant incense of flowers. How still and beautiful this day seems to us who have hurried hither and thither for six long days, sometimes in anger, sometimes in exultation, failure or success! It breathes a peace and quiet that is tonic. Upon this day there is truce between us and the enemy.

In Herculaneum they still went to church on a Sunday morning. Perhaps it was merely habit, perhaps it was simply formality, perhaps it was only to parade new clothes; anyhow, they went to church. At ten-thirty the procession started; gentlemen in their tiles, ladies in their furbelows, children stiffly starched. Some rode to church, but the majority walked. There were many store-windows to preen before, as in a mirror. Vanity has something to her credit, after all; it is due to her that most of us make an effort to keep spruce and clean.

Comment pa.s.sed like the fall of dominoes. Some woman, ultra-fas.h.i.+onable, would start the chatter. She NEVER saw anything like the gowns Mrs. Jones wore; Mrs. Jones touched upon the impossible feathers of Mrs. Smith's hat, and Mrs. Smith in turn questioned the exquisite complexion of Mrs. Green, who thought Mrs. White's children the homeliest in the city. (Can't you hear the dominoes going down?)

The men nodded here and there, briefly. Sat.u.r.day night in a provincial town holds many recollections.

The high church was a stately pile of granite, with lofty spire and fine memorial windows. Doves fluttered about the eaves. Upon this particular Sunday morning there seemed to be something in the air that was not a component part of any of the elements. It was simply a bit of news which the church-goers had read in the papers that morning. To many a bud and belle it was a thunder-clap, a bolt from a cloudless heaven. They whispered about it, lifted their eyebrows, and shrugged their shoulders. But their mamas gave no sign. If the fox of disappointment ate into their vitals, they determined, Spartan-like, that none should know it. An actress! Men might marry actresses in England, but Herculaneum still clung to the belief that actresses were not eligible.

Some of the men had seen Katherine Challoner act, and they sighed, retrospectively and introspectively.

"I feel for Mrs. Bennington and her daughter. It must be a great blow to their pride." Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene sat down in her pew-seat and arranged her silk petticoats. Mrs. Wilmington-Fairchilds sat down beside her. "You know I never meddle with scandal."

Mrs. Fairchilds nodded brightly.

"Never. I never repeat anything I hear. The Archibald affair was enacted right under my very nose; but did I circulate what I saw? I think not! That woman!--but there! I pray for her every night."

"Was it really true, then?" asked Mrs. Fairchilds, breathless. She knew something about the Archibald affair, but not enough.

"I saw it all with these eyes," flatly. "But, as I said, I keep my hands clean of scandal." Her hands were white and flabby. "I consider it not only wicked to start a scandal, but positively bad taste. The lightest word sometimes ruins a reputation."

"Mrs. Archibald--" began Mrs. Fairchilds.

"Not another word, my dear. I've said nothing at all; I haven't even told you what I saw. But an actress is different. Think of it, my dear! She will live among us and we shall have to meet her. Think of the actors who have kissed her in their make-believe love affairs! It is so horribly common. I have heard a good many things about her. She has romped in studios in male attire and smokes cigarettes. I should not want any son of mine to be seen with her. I'm not saying a single word against her, mind you; not a single word. You know as well as I do what a wild fellow Warrington is. Well, she has been going around with him."

"But they took him up in London," said Mrs. Wilmington-Fairchilds.

"London! London society, indeed! It's the greatest jumble in the world: n.o.bility hobn.o.bs with jockeys, piano-players, writers and actors."