CHAPTER XXXII
He looked at New York through a taxicab window without much interest. A large damp grey dirty place, very crowded, where he would not like to live, he thought. He managed himself and his baggage with ease and dispatch; his indifferent, dignified manner and his reckless use of money were ideally effective with porters, taxi drivers and the like. When he reached the hotel about eight o’clock at night he went to his room and made himself carefully immaculate. He studied himself with a good deal of interest in the full length mirror which was set in the bath room door; for he had seldom encountered such a mirror and he had a considerable amount of vanity of which he was not at all conscious. It struck him that he was remarkably good-looking, and indeed he was more so than usual, his eyes bright, his face flushed, his whole body tense and poised with purpose and expectation.
He went down to the lobby, looked Julia up in the register, ascertained the number of her room, and made a note of it. Then he asked the telephone girl to call her and learn whether she was in.
“Yes; she is in. She wants to know who’s calling, please.”
“Tell her an old friend who wants to surprise her.” He did not care to risk any evasion, and he also wanted his arrival to have its full dramatic effect.
The telephone girl transmitted his message.
“She says she can’t come down yet … not for about half an hour.”
“Tell her I’ll wait. If she asks for me I’ll be in that little room there.” He pointed to a small reception room opening off the mezzanine gallery, which he had selected in advance. He had planned everything carefully.
When he stood up to meet her she gave a little gasp, and took a step back.
“Why, you! Ramon! How could you? You shouldn’t have come. You know you shouldn’t. I didn’t mean that … I had no idea.…”
He came forward and took her hand and led her to a settee. Despite all her protests he could see very plainly that he had scored heavily in his own favour. She was flustered with excitement and pleasure. Like all women, she was captivated by sudden, decisive action and loved the surprising and the dramatic.
They sat side by side, looking at each other, [pg 238] smiling, making unimportant remarks, and then looking at each other again. Ramon felt that she had changed. She was as pretty as ever, and never had she stirred him more strongly. But her appeal seemed more immediate than before; she seemed less remote. The innocence of her wide eyes was a little less noticeable and their flash of recklessness a little more so. It seemed to him that her mouth was larger, which may have been due to the fact that she had rouged it a little too much. She wore a pink decollete with straps over the shoulders one of which kept slipping down and had to be pulled up again.
Ramon was tremulous with a half-acknowledged anticipation, but he held himself strongly in hand. He felt that he had an advantage over her—that he was more at ease and she less so than at any previous meeting—and he meant to keep it.
But she was rapidly regaining her composure, and took refuge in a rather formal manner.
“Are you going to be here long?” she enquired in the conventional tone of mock-interest.
“Just a week or so on business,” he explained, determined not to be outpointed in the game. “I had to come some time this spring, and when I got your note I thought I would come while you are here.”
“But I’ll be here the rest of my life probably. This is where I live. You ought to have come [pg 239] when my husband was here. I’d like to have you meet him. As it is, I can’t see much of you, of course.…”
He refused to be put out by this coldness, but tried to strike a more intimate note.
“Tell me about your marriage,” he asked. “Are you really happy?… Do you like it?”
She looked at the floor gravely.
“You shouldn’t ask that, of course,” she reproved. “Everyone who has just been married is very, very happy.… No, I don’t like it a darn bit.”
“It’s not what you expected, then.”
“I don’t know what I expected, but from the way people talk about it and write about it you would certainly think it was something wonderful—love and passion and bliss and all that, I mean. I feel that I’ve either been lied to or cheated … of course[,]” she added with a little side glance at him, “I didn’t exactly love my husband.…” She blushed and looked down again; then laughed softly and rather joyfully for a lady with a broken heart.
“If mother could only hear me now!” she observed.… “She’d faint. I don’t care.… That’s just the way I feel.… I don’t care! All my life I’ve been trained and groomed and prepared for the grand and glorious event of marriage. I’ve been taught it’s the most wonderful [pg 240] thing that can happen to anyone. That’s what all the books say, and all the people I know. And here it turns out to be a most uncomfortable bore.…”
He looked gravely sympathetic.
“Do you think it would have been different with—someone you did love?” he enquired cautiously.
She gave him another quick thrilling glance.
“I don’t know,” she said.… “Maybe … I felt so different about you.”
Their hands met on the settee and they both moved instinctively a little closer together.
Suddenly she jerked away from him, looking him in the eyes with her head thrown back and a smile of irony on her lips.
“Aren’t we a couple of idiots?” she demanded.
“No!” he declared with fierce emphasis, and throwing an arm about her, pounced on her lips.
Just then a bell boy passed the door. They jerked apart and upright very self-consciously. Then they looked at each other and laughed. But their eyes quickly became deep and serious again, and their fingers entangled.
She sighed in mock exasperation.
[“]For Heaven’s sake, say something!” she demanded. “We can’t sit here and make eyes at each other all evening. Besides I’m compromising my priceless reputation. It’s after ten o’clock. [pg 241] I’ve got to go.” She rose, and held out her hand, which he took without saying anything.
“Good night,” she said. “I think you were mean to come and camp on me this way … dumb as ever, I see … well, good night.”
She went to the door, stopped and looked back, smiled and disappeared.
Ramon went down to the lobby and roamed all over the two floors which constituted the public part of the hotel. He looked at everything and smoked a great many cigarettes, thus restlessly whiling away an hour. Then he went to a writing room. He collected some telegrams and letters about him and appeared to be very busy. When a bell boy went by, he rapped sharply on the desk with a fifty-cent piece, and as the boy stopped, tossed it to him.
“Get me the key to 207!” he ordered sharply; then turned back to his imaginary business.
“Yes sir,” said the boy. He returned in a few minutes with the key.
Ramon sat for a long moment looking at it, tremulous with a great anticipation. He was divided between a conviction that she expected him and a fear that she did not.… His fear proved groundless.