II
Grace’s experience of drunkenness had been limited to the occasional sight of a tipsy man in the street and she was shocked by the unhappy change in Kemp’s appearance. His suave courtesy had disappeared. His hair was in disorder; Irene had rumpled it before they left the table, saying that he was too pretty; and as he talked his head moved queerly in time with his jerky articulation. And he looked old; one might have thought that Age, as a punishment for his intemperance had snatched away his youthful mask. Finding that Grace and Trenton paid no heed to his demand that they drink more wine he followed them over the floor and finally arrested them while he apologized elaborately for neglecting Grace. She was his guest and it was time that he was dancing with her. Irene rose from the couch where she had been watching them and announced her determination to teach Trenton a new step; his manner of dancing was all out of date she said. She flung her arms around his neck and with her head on his shoulder pushed him about, while Kemp, delighted at Trenton’s discomfiture, clapped his hands in time to the music.
Grace, finding herself free, seized the moment to try to escape, but Kemp lunged to the door and intercepted her.
“Runnin’ ’way from me! Awfu’ bad manners run away from host. Gotta dance with me like Irene. Thass right, Grace; good li’l’ sport; Irene’s friends all good sports.”
He caught her arms and clasped them about his neck but as his muddled senses were unequal to responding to the rhythm of the music the performance resolved itself chiefly into an attempt on Grace’s part to keep him on his feet.
“Sorry I stepped on you. Awfu’ sorry, Grace. Wouldn’t step on you for anything in this wide, wide world.”
“Oh, it was great fun!” Grace cried when the record had played itself out. She was determined to make the best of it, but Trenton, mopping his brow, intervened.
“Tommy, you’re too rough! Grace doesn’t want to dance any more; we’re going to have our coffee. You go and dance with Irene.”
“Poor sport! Awfu’ poor sport,” Kemp retorted as Trenton led Grace away. He bawled after them his conviction that they were both poor sports and resumed dancing with Irene.
Jerry had placed the coffee-tray in a long, comfortably furnished sun porch opening off the dining room, where the music and the voices from the living room penetrated only feebly.
“I think I’m going to like this better,” said Grace with a sigh of relief.
“A little calm is agreeable after a rough house,” said Trenton watching her intently as she seated herself by the table and filled the cups. “Tommy never knows his limit,” he went on, taking a cigarette from a silver box on the stand. “He can’t carry the stuff as he used to and he doesn’t act pretty when he’s shot. But he recovers quickly; he’ll be all right soon. Irene knows how to manage him. One lump, thank you.”
Grace was still breathing deeply from the violence of her romp with Kemp. She was hoping that Trenton would renew the talk she had been enjoying at the table; but his silence was disconcerting. She wondered whether he was not purposely waiting for her to speak, to show her reaction to the scenes in which they had been participating in the living room.
She turned to him presently with a slight smile on her lips.
“You can see that I’m a terrible greenhorn. I don’t know how to act at a party—not this kind of a party. I suppose it isn’t nice of us to run away, but you were an angel to come to the rescue.”
“It’s always pleasant to be called an angel!” he remarked. “It hasn’t happened to me for some time. Tommy would die of chagrin if he knew he’d been making a monkey of himself; but he’s likely to do most anything when he gets a bun.”
Jerry came in to inspect the wick of the coffee lamp and Trenton detained him.
“Oh! Jerry, you needn’t serve any more drinks. Mr. Kemp doesn’t need any more.”
“Yezzah.” The boy bowed imperturbably and withdrew.
“Jerry and I understand each other perfectly. He’ll take care of that. I wonder what the boy thinks! But you never can penetrate the innermost recesses of the Oriental mind. He probably doesn’t approve of Tommy’s parties, if we knew the truth.”
“I suppose he’s used to them. Let me see, what were we talking about?”
“We hadn’t settled anything; we were going round in a circle.”
“Then let’s keep revolving! I want to hear you talk some more. I want to know your ideas about everything.”
“Oh, that’s a large order,” he laughed. “But I’ll do my best!”
She was struck suddenly with a fear that he might be finding her company irksome. It was quite likely that at other times, when he had been provided with a companion familiar with the technic of such parties, he had contributed more to the gaiety of the occasions. But her imagination was unequal to the task of visualizing him in such antics as Kemp was engaged in. He impressed her more and more as she studied him as a man who kept himself in perfect control; who found indeed a secret enjoyment in merely looking on when others were bent upon making an exhibition of themselves.
“We were speaking awhile ago of our naughtiness in accepting an invitation to a function like this. I’ve attended a lot of such parties here and elsewhere. I am always wondering why I’m invited and why I go. Perhaps,” he smiled quizzically, “it’s to give moral tone! That’s undoubtedly why you were invited.”
“That excuse won’t do for me!” she replied quickly. “I wanted to come; I was perfectly crazy to come!”
“Well, it’s just as well to satisfy your curiosity. I assure you these parties are all alike. I’ve taken a hand in them in every part of the world. The only thing that makes this one different is—” he smiled broadly and his eyes danced with humor—“is you! I might say that you are quite different. You create an atmosphere quite your own.”
“Hurry up and explain that!” She clasped her hands in mock appeal. “I might be different and still very unsatisfactory!”
“Yes, there is that possibility,” he answered musingly. “A girl requires a little practice to catch the stroke. That is, she has got to get over the first shock before she becomes a good party girl. You’re a novice. It will be interesting to know just how you emerge from the novitiate.”
“Would you be interested in that,—really?”
“Vastly!”
Her attention wavered and with a quick lifting of the head she bent a startled questioning look upon him. The new records of distinguished operatic stars which Kemp and Irene had been playing had served as a faint accompaniment to their talk, but the music and the sound of voices were no longer audible in the sun porch. Grace glanced nervously about, oppressed by the silence. Voices and steps were heard in the rooms above. Trenton asked if she had read a novel which he took from the lower shelf of the stand that held the coffee things. Her negative reply was almost hostile and she did not meet his gaze. Her face wore a look of cold detachment. It seemed to him that the girl was no longer there; that what he saw was merely a shadowy shape that might pass utterly at any moment. He rose and dropped his half-smoked cigarette into an ashtray on the stand. When he faced her again the look had changed. He interpreted it as an appeal and he was not unmindful of its poignancy. She sat erect, her head lifted, her hands clasped upon her knees.
“I was just wondering—” she began.
“Oh, Tommy and Irene? They’re about somewhere,” he said carelessly. He reached for a fresh cigarette, eyed it as though it were an unfamiliar thing and lighted it deliberately. That look in her face, the appeal in her eyes, had struck deep into him. He sat down beside her on the davenport, crossed his knees and folded his arms. His composure restored her confidence. In a moment she settled back, quite herself again.
He touched rapidly upon a great number of problems, talking well, with an animation that surprised her. But she knew that he was trying to make her forget her perturbation of a moment ago. It was an enormous satisfaction to know that he understood; it was almost uncanny that he understood so much of what was in her mind and heart without being told.
“If it isn’t impudent for me to ask, I’d like to know just what you’re aiming at,” he said. “You look like a girl who might be cursed with ambitions. Can’t you let me into the secret?”
“Oh, honestly, I haven’t any! When I was at the university I thought I had some—but they were silly. Like every other girl I was crazy for a while to be a trained nurse, then a settlement worker, and I even thought I might be a writer, and for about a week I had a craze to study medicine. Then I had to leave college, so I took a job in a department store! How’s that for ambition!”
“A little mixed; but the books are not closed yet! There’s plenty of time for fresh entries. There’s marriage. You’ve overlooked that. That must be on the program!”
“It’s not the first number! College girls who don’t get married the day after commencement are likely to wait awhile. I’m not a bit excited about getting married. I want to look the world over before I settle down.”
“Suppose you fell in love—some fine fellow who could take good care of you. What then?”
“Well, I’ve had chances to marry and I couldn’t see it. I’ve never been in love—not really. There’s a professor who wanted to marry me—a widower with two children. You wouldn’t have me do that? And young fellows, several of them, very nice, who caused me a lot of bother before I got rid of them. I liked them all but I couldn’t love them.”
“Then I’ll make the prediction that always applies in such cases; some day you’ll meet just the right man and that will be the end of it.”
“Maybe; but I don’t see it now. All I want—all I want right now is to be free!” she said and a far-away look came into the dark eyes.
“One can be free and terribly lonesome too,” he suggested. “There’s nothing quite so horrible as being lonesome. This is a big world and just knocking around by yourself isn’t much good. We all need companionship; the soul cries for it.”
She glanced at him quickly, surprised at his sudden seriousness and the note of depression in his voice. In her great liking for him she groped for an explanation of his change of mood. He had not struck her as at all a moody person. Some reply seemed necessary and she was at a loss to know what to say to him.
“But you’re a success!” she exclaimed. “It’s only when a man fails that he’s likely to be lonesome.”
“Success is a beautiful word, but to myself I’m a decided failure. I’ve failed in the most important thing a man ever undertakes. Don’t look at me like that! I’ll explain. I’m supposed to be a mechanical expert, but there’s one mechanism that’s beyond me. I’m referring to the heart of a woman. My ignorance of that contrivance is complete.”
The grim look that had come into his face yielded to a smile as he saw her bewilderment.
“You’re going to be bored in a minute! I didn’t want you to think me more than twenty-seven and you’re already guessing that I’m at least seventy and a doddering wreck!”
“I wasn’t thinking that at all. You seemed unhappy and I was sorry!”
“Well, don’t be sorry for me. I’m not deserving of any one’s pity—not even my own. When I spoke of failure I was thinking of my marriage. Irene probably told you I’m married?”
“Oh, yes; I asked her the first thing!”
“And it made no difference to you—about coming I mean.”
“None whatever,” she laughed. “I just thought of it as an experience.”
“Rather like studying a bug under glass, is that it?”
“Yes, something of the sort. But—you were speaking of your wife.”
“Well,” he said with a smile; “my being married is not a confidential matter; nothing to hide or be ashamed of. My wife is a very charming woman. You’d probably fall under her spell if you knew her; people frequently do. And I think she’d probably like you.”
“Not if she knew I had met you at a party like this.”
“Bless you, that wouldn’t make a particle of difference in her liking you or not liking you! She’s broad-minded—very much so! And it’s one of her many good points that she isn’t jealous. If she came in here and found me talking to you she wouldn’t scream and break up the furniture; she’d join in the conversation and make herself interesting—say startling things just to make us sit up. After a fashion she’s a philosopher, very much entertained by what the world’s doing. She sees in me only one of the many millions, a queer specimen for the microscope. She actually puts me into the books she writes!”
Grace bent her head, lifted it quickly and exclaimed: “Is she Mary Graham Trenton? I’ve read her ‘Clues to a New Social Order’ but I never imagined——”
“No, you wouldn’t connect me with anything so daring! I need hardly repeat that she’s a broad-minded woman. I’d be interested to know how you come to know about that book.”
“Oh, that’s easy enough. We had a lecture on it in our sociology course at the university. The head of the department didn’t approve of Mrs. Trenton’s views and warned us against the book, so of course I read it!”
“Naturally!”
“But it’s interesting; awfully interesting.”
“Written, I assure you,” laughed Trenton, “by a remarkable woman!”