V
Pem went down the passage with a lagging step and a heart strangely troubled and doubting.
“No,” she said to herself. “Of course it can’t be like that. I just imagined it. I’ve thought about it so much that—no, it couldn’t really have been so wonderful. He couldn’t have been so dear. When I see him again I shall get over being so silly.”
But that silliness was the best thing in her life. For weeks the glamour of that enchanted evening had colored all her days. The music they had danced to still sounded in her ears, faint and stirring. When she closed her eyes, she could see again the sparkle and glitter of that tinsel fairyland of Broadway, made true and fine by the boy’s love.
“I won’t be an idiot!” she told herself. “When I see him again, I’ll find that he’s—not really like that!”
So, with what fortitude she had, she entered the little sitting room. He didn’t hear her. He was standing at the window, with his back toward the room, his hands in his pockets—such a straight, stalwart figure!
“Hello!” said Pem. “It’s a surprise to see you here again!”
Then he turned, and it was true, all of it—that look she had remembered, that glamour, that enchantment.
“Oh, Pem!” he said. “Didn’t you know I’d come?[Pg 145]”
For a minute she was utterly content in his arms, as if her restless and disconsolate spirit had at last found peace; but not for long. She moved away, still holding his hand, and looking at him with a misty smile.
“You’re so beautiful!” he said. “Sometimes I thought you couldn’t be as lovely as I remembered, but you’re a hundred times—”
The clock on the mantelpiece struck three.
“Let’s go out!” she said hastily.
He was a little taken aback.
“Can’t we stay here, Pem? I want a chance to talk to you.”
“Not here. We can talk somewhere else. I know a nice little tea room where we can dance.”
“I don’t want to dance,” said he; “and—look here, Pem! I’m a bit hard up, this trip.”
She couldn’t help kissing him for that.
“As if I cared! We’ll take a bus ride, then.”
“No, we won’t do that, either,” said he, half laughing. “We’ll stay where we are. I want to talk to you. I—does this suit you, Pem?”
From his pocket he pulled out a ring, carried loose in there, without a box, without even a bit of paper, and laid it in her hand. There it was, honest and unashamed, like himself—the tiniest little diamond. She stared down at it through a veil of tears.
“Best I could do,” he said a little forlornly. “You see, I never tried to save my pay, and it’s darned small, Pem, old girl. I’m only third mate. I dare say I don’t make as much as you do.”
“Never mind! That doesn’t matter,” she answered, so low that he could scarcely hear.
It seemed to her the most touching and beautiful thing that had ever happened, that he should come to her with his poor little ring, so simply and loyally offering her all he had.
“But we can manage,” he went on more cheerfully. “I’ve figured it out. We can take a little flat, you know, and if we’re careful, we can get on. You won’t mind a pretty quiet life, will you, Pem? Nickie told me you weren’t keen on going out and all that. I’m not, either—at least, not now. I was, you know, but not now. We’ll settle down—”
He stopped short, looking at her with a faint frown, but she did not meet his eyes. She was shocked, appalled, at her own traitorous thoughts. She glanced again at the ring, and tried in vain to recapture the tenderness and pity she had felt.
To settle down and marry this boy—not to dance with him, not to listen to his love-making to the accompaniment of music, in a bright dazzle of light, but to marry him and settle down to a deadly quiet life—she knew very well what that meant. She had often enough been in the sort of little flat they would have to live in. She went into such places when sickness was already there. She had seen all the makeshifts, all the sordid and pitiful anxieties of such existences—people who hadn’t enough towels and sheets, who couldn’t afford hot water bottles, who couldn’t afford even the necessary sunlight.
The quiet life! What had he to do with a quiet life? He had come suddenly into her own chill, somber existence, startling her into youth and gayety—that was why she loved him. A dear, honest, silly boy, to dance with, to be happy with for an evening, but—
“Pem!” he said abruptly. “What’s the matter?”
At his peremptory tone, she found it less difficult to speak. She put her hand on his shoulder and spoke as kindly as she could.
“I’m afraid you’re going ahead a little too fast,” she said. “After all, we’ve only seen each other once before, you know. Doesn’t it seem—”
“Do you mean that you don’t care for me?” he interrupted.
His bluntness disconcerted her.
“No,” she said, with a trace of impatience; “but we don’t really know each other. I think we ought to wait—until we’re sure.”
He was silent for a long time, searching her downcast face.
“You’re sure now, aren’t you?” he asked at last. “All right, Pem! All my fault! I might have known—”
And in the face of his sincerity, his honest and unresentful pain, she could give him no false hope, no false consolation, nothing but the truth revealed to him by her silence.
He took the ring from her hand and looked at it with a shadowy smile. Then, before she knew what he was about, he[Pg 146] threw it out of the open window into the street.
She came to the window and looked down, but she couldn’t see it in the street far below.
“Oh, why did you do that?” she cried. “Why, didn’t—”
A sob rose in her throat. She turned away her head, so that he should not see her tears.
“Don’t cry!” he said. “It’s all my fault. I should have known better, of course. I say, Pem! Please don’t cry! The whole thing isn’t worth it. Just—let’s say good-by, Pem!”
She held out both her hands. After a brief hesitation, he took them in his.
“I’ll never forgive myself!” she said unsteadily. “Never!”
“Nothing to forgive,” he assured her, with a gallant attempt at a smile. “I—anyhow, I’m glad I ever saw you. Good-by, Pem!”
If it could only have ended then! If he could have gone then, with that moment for them to remember! But it was their great misfortune that no such memory should be left to them.
The doorbell rang, and Nickie came out of her room.
“Shall I go, Pem?” she asked. “Or—”
Pem looked at her helplessly. As the flat was arranged, the front door could not be opened without affording a plain view of the sitting room.
“I’ll let it ring,” said Nickie, with a fine effect of carelessness. “No one we want to see.”
But that was not Pem’s way. She came of an austere and stiff-necked family, living secluded on an exhausted little Vermont farm. They had nothing much but pride to keep them warm in winter, to feed and clothe them. Pride was the only heritage that came down to Pem, and pride would not allow her to refuse admission to Mr. Blanchard, no matter what it cost her. As for the possible cost to Arthur Caswell and to Nickie, that didn’t occur to her just then.
She opened the door herself.
“I’m afraid I’m a little late,” said a courteous, apologetic voice. “Please—”
Then, as he followed Pem inside, he caught sight of the others, and made a general bow.
“This is Mr. Blanchard, Nickie,” said Pem.
He looked altogether what Pem had called him—a gentleman through and through. He was a rather slight man in the middle forties, with a sensitive, harassed face, hair a little gray on the temples, and fine, dark eyes. He hadn’t in the least a furtive or shamefaced air. Indeed, there was a quiet sort of straightforwardness about him that favorably impressed Nickie, in spite of her prejudice against the man.
“I’ve heard a great deal about you from Miss Pembroke,” he said.
Nickie liked his smile, his voice, his well bred ease. She liked all this, and yet, when Pem presented Caswell to him, her liking was a pain. Arthur seemed so young, so awkward, such an immature and unimpressive creature, in contrast to his senior. She wanted to defend him against comparison. She wanted to force Pem to see, and Mr. Blanchard to see, the splendid qualities in the young sailor.
But she had no chance. Before she could interfere, Blanchard had mentioned that it was growing late. Pem had answered that she was ready, and off they went.