II
He stood beside what was left of his fire and watched her walking away, a swift, light little figure against so vast a horizon; and he felt very unhappy.
“What’s the matter with me, anyhow?” he asked himself angrily. “It’s no crime to ask a girl out to dinner, is it?”
He stamped out the last sparks and set off for his sister’s house. He was surprised, when he drew near, to hear the phonograph still playing. It seemed to him that he had been gone so long, so far!
He crossed the lawn, went up on the veranda, and looked in at the window. They were still dancing in there. He saw that pretty little blond girl in her short, sleeveless white satin frock. There came before him the face of that other girl, seen only for a brief instant in the firelight—that little dark face with shining eyes.
“I love her!” he thought, with a sort of awe. “She’s the girl I’ve always been waiting for. Emmy—little darling, wonderful Emmy—I love her!”
He could not endure to go in, to dance, to speak to any one else. He stayed out there in the dark garden, walking up and down, smoking, cherishing his dear vision.
After awhile the two girls who had been dancing, and whom his sister had invited specially on his account, came out, with two young fellows. Kirby stepped back into the shadow of the trees and waited until they had driven off, until he could no longer hear their gay voices.
He compared these girls with Emmy. She wore no paint or powder; he had not seen her dancing in a hot and brilliant room. She belonged to another world—a world of sea and open sky and firelight. She was a creature with the free, fearless innocence of the Golden Age.
“I love her so!” he thought.
Nearly all of that long summer night he walked there in the garden, profoundly stirred by the great thing that had overtaken him. Before him was always the vision of her lovely face, filling his heart with tenderness and a troubled delight.
“I’m not good enough for her,” he thought.
Without realizing it, he began to forget that he had smiled to himself at the dear, funny things she had said, to forget what a little young thing she was. What was in his mind now was a sort of goddess, beautifully kind, but austere and aloof—a woman to be worshiped. His humility was honest and fine and touching, but it was cruel, because there was no goddess girl like that. There was only little Emmy Richards, who was nineteen, and altogether human and liable to error.
He let himself into the house quietly, so that no one heard him. He did not want to talk to any one.
When he came downstairs the next morning, he was still anxious for silence, but his sister was not disposed to humor him.
“Where did you go last night?” she demanded.
How was he to answer that? He had gone into an enchanted world, and he had found his beloved!
“I took a walk along the beach,” he said, briefly.
“A walk!” she cried. “You come here to visit me, and I ask people in to meet you, and you go off, without a word, and take a walk! I never heard of anything so selfish and hateful!”
Her indignation took him by surprise. It seemed to him the most preposterous thing that she should blame him for being with Emmy.
“I’m sorry,” he said, though he really wasn’t, and his sister knew it; but, looking at him, she saw that he was tired and troubled, and she held her tongue.
Kirby’s work suffered that day because of his preoccupation with the problem of the evening before him. He was determined to offer something at least a little worthy of her. He had taken other girls out to dinner, but this was beyond measure different.[Pg 520]
At last he thought of a restaurant he had seen advertised—a quiet, dignified place; and he went there, engaged a table, and ordered a wonderful little dinner. All the rest of the day he imagined how it was going to be, he and Emmy sitting at that table, softly lit by candles. He knew what he was going to say to her, and how she would look at him, with her shining, solemn eyes.
He came early to the waiting room and walked up and down, restless and anxious.
“She didn’t want to come,” he thought. “Perhaps she didn’t like me.”
A pretty girl sitting on one of the benches smiled at him, but he looked past her. Ten minutes late now! Of course, other girls were usually late, but Emmy was different—utterly different. He remembered her now with a sort of amazement—the innocent beauty of her face, the almost incredible charm of her dear friendliness.
“No one like her!” he thought.
And that was true. There was not, and never could be, any girl like the one that he, in his ardent, imperious young heart, had invented.
Suppose she didn’t come at all?
“I’ll find her!” he thought. “I know her name, and I’ll find her. I won’t lose her!”
He glanced around the waiting room again, and again he met the eyes of the pretty girl who had smiled at him before. No denying that she was pretty, but he was sternly uninterested. Let her smile!
This time, though, she rose from her seat, and made a step in his direction.
“She’ll ask me some question about a train,” thought Kirby.
He was a good-looking young fellow, and this sort of thing had happened to him before. At another time he might perhaps have been a little less severe. She was very pretty—a tall, slender girl in a very short frock, with a red hat pulled down over one eye. Her piquant little face was rouged and powdered. Kirby might have seen a sort of debonair charm about her, if he had not had in his heart the image of another face, so honest, so unspoiled, so very different!
He walked the length of the room, and when he came back he passed quite close to her. She smiled again—a tremulous, miserable, forlorn little smile. He stopped and stared at her.
“Look here!” he said. “You’re not—are you—Miss Richards?”
“Yes, I am,” she replied in a defiant and unsteady voice.
He could not speak for a moment, so bitter was his disappointment. She was not rare and wonderful; she was only a pretty, silly, painted little thing, like thousands of others.
“If only she hadn’t come!” he thought. “If only I’d never seen her again! Then I could have gone on—”
He realized, however, that he had invited her to meet him, and that in common decency he must not let her see how he felt; so he smiled as politely as he could.
“Didn’t recognize you at first,” he said. “I’m sorry!”
That was all he could manage for the moment. She, too, was silent, with a set, strained smile on her lips.
“We can’t stand here like this,” he thought. “I’ve asked her to dinner!”
But he was not going to take this girl to the quiet little restaurant with candles on the table. That had been for the other girl—the grave, aloof, and beautiful one, who didn’t exist.
“Come on!” he said briefly. “We’ll get a taxi.”
She followed him without a word, and he helped her into a cab.
“Where would you like to go?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t care,” she answered.
Very well—if she didn’t care, neither would he. He gave the driver an address and got in beside her.
“Like to dance?” he asked.
“I love it!”
Then this would be merely an evening like other evenings. He would dance with her, spend more money than he could afford, and then forget her. She was not different, after all. There never had been any girl like the one he had dreamed of, or invented, last night in the firelight.
“What a fool I was!” he thought.
He wanted to laugh at himself, and could not; it hurt too much. He so badly needed the girl who did not exist—that honest, friendly, lovely little thing with the innocent glamour of childhood still about her. He glanced at the real one, sitting beside him. By the passing lights he could see her face, which was turned toward the window.
“She doesn’t know anything about me,[Pg 521]” he thought. “She doesn’t care. All she wants is a ‘good time’!”
He took out his cigarette case and tendered it to her.
“No, thank you,” she said.
“I will, if you don’t mind,” said Kirby, and that was all he did say.
He sat back in his corner, smoking, lost in his own thoughts. It was a long drive, for he was taking her to a road house just outside the city—a third-rate sort of place.
“But she said she didn’t care,” he thought.