CHAPTER XVII
At a quarter past seven, when Dan Pritchard’s limousine drew up in front of the Hotel Del Monte, a white, flannel-clad figure heaved itself out of a chair on the porch, came down the steps and opened the door of the car.
“Good evening, everybody,” he greeted Dan’s party.
“Hello! Mel! You here!”
Mellenger sighed. “One might glean the impression judging by your intonation, that I haven’t any right here,” he complained. “After leaving your office today I began to feel the downhill pull, so I jumped the two o’clock train and here I am. How do you do, Miss Maisie.”
He gave Maisie his hand and assisted her to alight. They exchanged glances and Mellenger felt his hand squeezed just a little. He answered the pressure, was introduced to Mrs. Casson as Dan handed her out on the steps, and immediately turned to greet Tamea.
“Good evening, Your Majesty.”
“Good evening, Monsieur Stoneface,” Tamea answered, and ignored his outstretched hand. He knew she was not pleased to find him here, and her next words, spoken in French, clinched this conclusion. “I will make your task an easy one,” she challenged. “I have been doing some thinking.” She smiled enigmatically. “Oh, I understand you very well, indeed!”
“Yes, I think we understand each other, Tamea. I want you to know, however,” he added as they followed Dan, Maisie and Mrs. Casson into the hotel, “that my attitude is perfectly impersonal. I do not dislike you.”
“If you understood me there would have been no necessity for that speech. Listen to my words, Stoneface. I——”
“Why do you call me Stoneface?” he interrupted.
“Because to many people your face reveals nothing. It is dull and blank when you would deceive people, but you are not a fool, Stoneface. But you remind me of the tremendous stone images on the coast of Easter Island, with their plain, sad, dull faces turned ever toward the sea as if seeking something that never comes. So you are Stoneface to me.”
“And what do I seek?” he demanded.
“You seek in men those qualities which are in you. They are hard to find, Stoneface. And you seek from some woman a love that will give a little in exchange for a great deal. You are a lonely man, Stoneface—always seeking, seldom finding, never satisfied. You see, I have been thinking of you. And I have done some thinking on your words to Dan Pritchard.”
“I hope you will not quarrel with me for that.”
“It is hard to quarrel with the true friend of him I love, but you are in my way, Stoneface, and you are a resolute man. So I shall not have mercy. Of two women who love your friend, you must, it seems, approve of one. I am not that one. . . . Well, when the gods rain blows on Tamea she will take them standing and none shall know how much they hurt. And you have hurt me, Stoneface. Still, I shall be what you call a good sport. Dan Pritchard has come to this place for a few days to play—with me—and you are here to have him play—with you! Well, Stoneface, I give him to you for those few days because I love him. I would not have his mind distressed with the striving to keep two women happy. I shall not again be of gross manners and embarrass him,” she added darkly.
“You feel quite certain of yourself, do you not?”
“Yes. And why not? This girl”—with an infinitesimal shrug of her shoulder she indicated Maisie, who had met a friend in the lobby and was talking to her—“causes me no alarm, so I shall be kind to her.”
“I’m the bug in your amber, eh?”
“You must be considered,” she admitted.
He laughed.
“Why do you oppose my desires, Stoneface? I am not a black woman, I am not stupid, I have, perhaps, as much beauty as——” And again she shrugged a shoulder at Maisie.
“I am informed,” said Mellenger coolly, “that on your mother’s side you are descended from a line of kings who have never mingled their blood with that of the common people.”
“That is true.”
“I would that my friend refrained from mingling the blood of his children with that of another race, a race that is not white.”
She was silent, digesting this unanswerable argument. Then: “Some day, perhaps, Stoneface, you will cast away that argument. Like a child’s garment, it will not fit a grown man.”
Maisie came toward them. “We will go to our rooms now and dress for dinner, Tamea,” she suggested.
When he was alone in the lobby Mark Mellenger sat down in a quiet corner to think. “She bombs one,” he complained. “She fairly blows one out of the water. She will not be deferred to nor pitied nor patronized. Realizing why I am here—why I have found it necessary to be here—she renders me futile and my presence unnecessary by changing her tactics. She reads my poker face, and, having read it this evening, she has taken my job away from me and I feel foolish. Judas priest, what a woman! She’s perfectly tremendous! Fair and square, hitting straight from the shoulder and with character enough to dislike me intensely. She is adorably feminine and I’ve got my hands full to defeat her purpose. She isn’t going to plead with me to get out of her way, nor is she going to oppose me. She’s just going to ignore me. . . . Well, poor old Dan, I did the best I could by you, at any rate. The idealistic, altruistic dreamer. He’s helpless, because this girl possesses a charm that Maisie hasn’t got or hasn’t developed. Tamea can hear the pipes of Pan. That’s it! She can hear them and make men hear them, too.”
It did not occur to Mellenger that he liked reedy music.