II
Monday found them back in New York. As they drove from the station to the hotel they watched the passing panorama in silence.
"It seems a little dwarfed, doesn't it?" Barbara said.
"Yes. New York needs an occasional dose of absence, to keep the perspective true," he answered.
They looked about the hotel living-room with a sense of its strangeness. The maid had everything in order, even to flowers everywhere.
"I can't seem to remember why we clutter up with so many luxuries," Barbara sighed.
"Are you a little sorry that you slit the envelope?" he teased her.
"No. Are you sorry I did it?"
"I had more to leave behind than you did."
She looked her surprise.
"I left the best playmate I ever had, up there in the hills."
"You mean Bill?" impudently.
"You must ask him to visit you."
"No, he belongs to the hills and a heyday holiday. I doubt if Barbara Garratry, Broadway's darling, would care for that kid."
"I'm partial to nice boys."
"He might be fascinated with you, and make me jealous."
"That is a joke," she laughed. "I had to make a sacrifice, too, you know."
"You mean?"
"I had to exchange a big boy chum for a possible governor, plain garden variety."
"I wonder if that big boy and the little feller will ever play again?"
"'I ain't no pruphut,' as Bill says."
The morrow found them both buckling down to work. Paul went off to his office at nine, and Barbara was due at the theatre an hour later. He stopped at her door a moment before he left.
"I seem to recall a great many truisms about the joy of work!"
"It's flapdoodle," she agreed, "the stuff that dreams are made of."
"No, speeches," he amended.
For a few days they both felt cramped, they shifted the old burden of the day's work uneasily, but routine breaks down resistance in the end, and they fell into step with their tasks. Paul was driven every moment. Their hurried visits were unsatisfactory enough. Bob kept in touch with his plans and movements as well as she could, but her own work was trying. The late heat was exhausting, and rehearsing always tried her soul.
"You act like a balky pony, Barbara Garratry," she scolded herself, "I wish Bill were here to give you a 'good jawin'."
Paul appeared at night about seven, hot, tired, harassed.
"Busy to-night?"
"No."
"What do you say to dinner on a roof garden—a city mountain top?"
"Delighted. Are you speaking to-night?"
"Yes, but not until late."
"May I come?"
"Oh, no, don't. I don't know why I dread so to have you in my audience."
"But I've never heard you speak. Maybe you think I couldn't understand your speeches."
"Or maybe I'm afraid you'll find out how much of them you inspire."
They went to the garden on top of the Biltmore, and secured a table as far from people as possible. They looked off over the roofs, which in the half light took on romantic outlines of mosques and minarets. The twin spires of St. Patrick's were mistily dominating it all, as usual. Lights burst slowly, here, there, then the whole upper way was white with electric radiance.
"This has a certain grandeur, too," Barbara said.
He nodded acquiescence, reading her thought.
"It inspires and stimulates, but it never rests you. I wonder why one's kind is so exhausting?" He indicated the garden, now full to the last seat. The chatter, the raised voices, the whirr of electric fans, they all taxed tired nerves to the snapping point. Barbara caught his weary look.
"Do you use all that force we stored up in the hills?" she asked.
"Of course. It's like a reserve army to a hard-pressed general."
"Let me tell you how I use it. I can plunge into the calm that lies out there in the mountains, just as surely as I stepped into that icy stream the first night we were there. I lie down in it, I drink it, I steep myself in it, and I come out refreshed and renewed. Try it, it's a trick of imagination."
The idea caught and held his attention for several minutes.
"Thanks. I'll try that. You're working very hard, aren't you?"
"Yes. I have to. I can't get interested. I want to go fishing."
"Me, too," he laughed.
"I've had bad news to-day."
He leaned toward her quickly.
"We are to open in Boston."
"No?"
"Yes. I must leave Sunday."
"You don't like Boston? You don't want to go?"
"No, I don't want to go."
"Why?" eagerly.
"Oh, I don't know. I'm more comfortable here."
"Oh!"
"You'll be glad to have me out of the way, while you're so busy."
"On the contrary. I rarely see you, but it is a pleasure to think that you are here."
"Thanks! Boston is suburban; if you could find time to——"
"I may come?"
She nodded.
"I'll find time."
Sunday she left for a month's absence. In a way she was glad to go. She realized that she needed time and solitude to think out several problems that confronted her. First and most important, she wanted to discover just how much of a part Paul Trent had come to play in her days. Removed entirely from the influence of his personality, she intended to free herself from him, look at him, and at herself impersonally.
He had rushed away from a meeting to put her on the train, and his farewell had been as casual as if she were going to Brooklyn for the evening. It had piqued her a bit. Then angry at herself that she had wanted him anything but casual, she had punished him with an indifference which a more astute student of women would have detected at once as over played.
She sighed over the growing complexity of the situation. Why could it not always be as simple and natural as it had been in the mountains? Monday was too busy for thoughts, rehearsal in the new theatre, getting settled in the new hotel, followed by a first night as climax.
When she arrived at the theatre she found her dressing-room full of Killarney roses, with a telegram from Paul: "Irish roses have to do. I wish I could fill the room with mountain laurel."
She was both touched and pleased. She knew he had taken time and thought from his busy day, and it gave her a thrill of happiness. It was enough to key her performance to a high note of joy which her audience felt at once. She was gladsome youth and daring, and she danced into their hearts, just as she had into the more hospitable affections of Broadway. There was no withstanding her. It was a triumph.
Later when the manager came to her room to congratulate her, she said: "Yes, they liked me, but I'm not going to extend the run."
"Why not, if the money's rolling in?"
"I don't care if it is. I want to get back to New York."
"You Irish are all crazy!" he remarked, with the Hebraic patience of one whose gods are all outraged. "She don't care for money, she likes New York," he mocked her.
Her friends came back in numbers after the play. She was invited to sup, to dine, to play bridge, to take tea. She refused to go anywhere until she was rested after the strain of the first night, and when they had all departed, she hurried into her street clothes. All at once it came to her that there was no need of this rush. Paul would not be pacing the corridor to-night. With a sigh and a sudden acute sense of loneliness, she led the way to the hotel.
As she stopped for her key the clerk told her that New York would call her at midnight. She hurried to her room, her heart beating, and as she opened the door the telephone rang. She flew to it.
"Yes, yes, Paul!" she said, and scarcely knew her own voice. "Yes, great success. I was wonderful, thanks to you ... yes, I was so happy about the flowers and the telegram; it sang in my playing. Tell me about your day. What happened?" She listened attentively. "Everything all right, then. Empty?... You mean you miss me? I can't be sorry for that, Playmate."
They talked on for several minutes. When good-nights were said, Bob crossed the room to lay off her cloak, smiling. She caught sight of herself in the mirror.
"Why, Barbara Garratry," she said, staring at herself. "How can you look like that after a Boston opening?" Then she laughed.
Friends absolutely closed in on her after the first few days. She had all she could do to protect herself.
The days were crowded with little things, people and teas. She found herself too restless to work. She could not analyze her state of mind at all. Nothing interested her, people seemed unusually stupid and bromidic, she lost interest in the play she was writing and found the one she was playing a bore. She knew that her health was perfect and she could not make it out.
In her search for something to divert her mind and serve as an escape from over-devoted admirers, she discovered a public municipal bath house, where she could go to swim. Clad in the shapeless blue garment provided by the bath house—Bob called it "the democratic toga"—she would shut her eyes and dive off the spring board, pretending that she was going into the mountain pool in the dark. The strength she had stored up in the hills stood her in good stead for the swimming races. Pauline, as she taught the girls to call her, was always, or nearly always, winner.
Nobody suspected who she was, and she found great amusement in the occasional outburst of some matinee adorer, in regard to the charms of Bob Garratry. She heard marvellous yarns about herself, her unhappy marriage, her large group of children, her many lovers.
"No, I haven't seen the lady," she answered one of them, "but I'll wager I can beat her swimming fifty yards."
"Oh, she wouldn't swim!" protested the girl.
"Wouldn't she? Poor sort, then," said "Pauline," trying the Australian Crawl.
"Every night at midnight Paul called her on the 'phone"
Every night at midnight Paul called her on the 'phone, and this was the one vital hour of her day. He kept her as closely in touch with his campaigning as she had been in New York. In return he demanded news of her doings, her successes, and her friends. He announced that he was to go on a trip through the state, lasting a week, and she lamented to herself that their visits would cease, but he called her just the same from the different towns.
One afternoon she sauntered down the hall to her room, after a series of alleged pleasures, including luncheon and two teas. She was tired and she vowed to herself that this was her last day of killing time. To-morrow she would force herself to work. She opened the door and was halfway across the room before she saw him smiling at her from the hearthrug. Her hand went to her heart swiftly as he came toward her, both hands out.
"Barbara!"
"Paul! But how—when——"
"I ran away! We were in a town where we were to have a meeting. I was to be the main speaker. I don't know what happened to me: I just found myself on a train coming here, and here I am."
He held her two hands and looked at her intently.
"But how long have you been here? Why didn't you let me know?"
"I wanted to surprise you. I've been pacing this room for one hour in punishment."
"Oh, I'm sorry.... You're very thin and overworked, Governor."
"I know it. The strain is over soon now, thank Heaven. But you—it's you I want to hear about; it's you I want to see, and listen to."
He helped her with her coat, placed her chair, and when she was seated, he stood looking at her.
"You think I've changed?" she smiled at him.
"I never can remember how you look. It tantalizes me."
"Oh, didn't I leave you any pictures?"
"Pictures! I don't want any Miss Barbara Garratry advertisements. I know how she looks. It's you I can't remember. You've had a big success here. Does it make you happy?"
She shook her head.
"Why not?"
"No fight—too easy. That's one of my troubles: there seems to be so little for me to fight for in my work. Lord! that sounds self-satisfied. I don't mean it that way. I mean that developing as an artist is a peaceful process, rather. The days when I had to fight for my chance, fight for my part, fight the stage manager to let me do it my way, fight the audience to make it like me—oh, those were the days that counted! Daddy and I used to talk things over nights. He was cautious. He'd say: 'Well, ye' lose yer job if you do that,' but when I had done it, he used to laugh and say: 'Bob, son av battle, shure enough'."
Paul laughed.
"The dulness of being successful! There's something in it, Bob."
"Of course there is. Report on your week, sir."
"Well, the boys say it went all right, but I didn't seem to have my heart in it. I've been so restless, so sort of bored with people and things. I can't get down to work. I even find myself thinking of what I am going to say to you over the telephone, right in the middle of a speech, with a big audience out there in front of me."
Barbara laughed.
"I suppose I'm tired. I don't know what else can be the matter with me."
She laughed again.
"What is it that amuses you?"
"Can't I laugh when I'm happy?"
"Are you happy?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I just found out something."
"What?"
"Secret."
"Tell me?"
He stared at her again.
"I know," she nodded, "I am a different girl from the one you married. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped."
"If you're happy, you aren't thinking of—you're not wanting to die?"
"Not until you're governor, anyway."
"You always say that, Barbara. It terrifies me. You mean that if I win, you still may——"
She rose and faced him.
"Not to-night. I'll tell you my plans the night you are elected. Come along now, and eat of the sacred codfish."
"You are a little glad to see me?" he asked her.
"Oh, yes. Boston is boring me to death," she evaded him.
"Damn Boston!" was his succinct reply.