OF WHAT AVAIL?
It was late next morning, almost noon in fact, when Florence Baker awoke; and even then she did not at once rise. A physical listlessness, very unusual to her, lay upon her like a weight. A year ago, by this time of day, she would have been ravenously hungry; but now she had a feeling that she could not have taken a mouthful of food had her life depended on it. The room, although it faced the west and was well ventilated, seemed hot and depressing. A breeze stirred the lace curtains at the window, but it was heated by the blocks of city pavements over which it had come. The girl involuntarily compared this awakening with that of a former life in what now seemed to her the very long ago. She remembered the light morning wind of the prairies, which, always fresh with the coolness of dew and of growing things, had drifted in at the tiny windows of the Baker ranch-house. She recalled the sweet scent of the buffalo grass with a vague sense of depression and irrevocable loss.
She turned restlessly beneath the covers, and in doing so her face came in contact with the moistened surface of her pillow. Propping herself up on her elbow, she looked curiously at the tell-tale bit of linen. Obviously, she had been crying in her sleep; and for this there must have been a reason. Until that moment she had not thought of the previous night; but now the sudden recollection overwhelmed her. She was only a girl-woman—a child of nature, incapable of repression. Two great tears gathered in her soft brown eyes; with instinctive desire of concealment the fluffy head dropped to the pillow, and the sobs broke out afresh.
Minutes passed; then her mother's hesitating steps approached the door.
"Florence," called a voice. "Florence, are you well?"
The dishevelled brown head lifted, but the girl made no motion to let her mother in.
"Yes—I am well," she echoed.
For a moment Mrs. Baker hesitated, but she was too much in awe of her daughter to enter uninvited.
"I have a note for you," she announced. "Mr. Sidwell's man Alec just brought it. He says there's to be an answer."
But still the girl did not move. It was an unpropitious time to mention the club-man's name. The fascination of such as he fades at early morning; it demands semi-darkness or artificial light. Just now the thought of him was distinctly depressing, like the sultry breeze that wandered in at the window.
"Very well," said Florence, at last. "Leave it, please, and tell Alec to wait. I'll be down directly."
In response, an envelope with a monogram in the corner was slipped in under the door, and the bearer's footsteps tapped back into silence.
Slowly the girl crawled from her bed, but she did not at once take up the note. Instead, she walked over to the dresser, and, leaning on its polished top, gazed into the mirror at the reflection of her tear-stained face, with its mass of disarranged hair. It was not a happy face that she saw; and just at this moment it looked much older than it really was. The great brown eyes inspected it critically and relentlessly.
"Florence Baker," she said to the face in the mirror, "you are getting to be old and haggard." A prophetic glimpse of the future came to her suddenly. "A few years more, and you will not be even—good-looking."
She stood a moment longer, then, walking over to the door, she picked up the envelope and tore it open.
"Miss Baker," ran the note, "there is to be an informal little gathering—music, dancing, and a few things cool—at the Country Club this evening. You already know most of the people who will be there. May I call for you?—Sidwell."
Florence read the missive slowly; then slowly returned it to its cover. There was no need to tell her the meaning of the unwritten message she read between the lines of those few brief sentences. It is only in story-books that human beings do not even suspect the inevitable until it arrives. As well as she knew her own name, she realized that in her answer to that evening's invitation lay the choice of her future life. She was at the turning of the ways—a turning that admitted of no reconsideration. Dividing at her feet, each equally free, were the trails of the natural and the artificial. For a time they kept side by side; but in the distance they were as separate as the two ends of the earth. By no possibility could both be followed. She must choose between them, and abide by her decision for good or for ill.
As slowly as she had read the note, Florence dressed; and even then she did not leave the room. Bathing her reddened eyes, she drew a chair in front of the window and gazed wistfully down at the handful of green grass, with the unhealthy-looking elm in its centre, which made the Baker lawn. Against her will there came to her a vision of the natural, impersonated in the form of Ben Blair as she had seen him yesterday. Masterful, optimistic, compellingly honest, splendidly vital, with loves and hates like elemental forces of nature, he intruded upon her horizon at every crisis. Try as she would to eliminate him from her life, she could not do it. With a little catch of the breath she remembered that last night, when that man had done—what he did—it was not of what her father or Clarence Sidwell would think, if either of them knew, but of what Ben Blair would think, what he would do, that she most cared. Reluctant as she might be to admit it even to herself, yet in her inner consciousness she knew that this prairie man had a power over her that no other human being would ever have. Still, knowing this, she was deliberately turning away from him. If she accepted that invitation for to-night, with all that it might mean, the separation from Ben would be irrevocable. Once more the brown head dropped into the waiting hands, and the shoulders rocked to and fro in indecision and perplexity.
"God help me!" she pleaded, in the first prayer she had voiced in months. "God help me!"
Again footsteps approached her door, and a hand tapped insistently thereon.
"Florence," said her father's voice. "Are you up?"
The girl lifted her head. "Yes," she answered.
"Let me in, then." The insistence that had been in the knock spoke in the voice. "I wish to speak with you."
Instantly an expression almost of repulsion flashed over the girl's brown face. Never in his life had the Englishman understood his daughter. He was a glaring example of those who cannot catch the psychological secret of human nature in a given situation. From the girl's childhood he had been complaisant when he should have been severe, had stepped in with the parental authority recognized by his race when he should have held aloof.
"Some other time, please," replied Florence. "I don't feel like talking to-day."
Scotty's knuckles met the door-panel with a bang. "But I do feel like it," he responded; "and the inclination is increasing every moment. You would try the patience of Job himself. Come, I'm waiting!" and he shifted from one foot to the other restlessly.
Within the room there was a pause, so long that the Englishman thought he was going to be refused point-blank; then an even voice said, "Come in," and he entered.
He had expected to find Florence defiant and aggressive at the intrusion. If he did not understand this daughter of his, he at least knew, or thought he knew, a few of her phases. But she had not even risen from her seat, and when he entered she merely turned her head until her eyes met his. Scotty felt his parental dignity vanishing like smoke,—his feelings very like those of a burglar who, invading a similar boudoir, should find the rightful owner at prayer. His first instinct was to beat a retreat, and he stopped uncertainly just within the doorway.
"Well?" questioned Florence, and the pupils of her brown eyes widened.
Scotty flushed, but memory of the impassive Alec waiting below returned, and his anger arose.
"How much longer are you going to keep that negro waiting?" he demanded. "He has been here an hour already by the clock."
A look of almost childlike surprise came over the face of the girl, an expression implying that the other was making a mountain out of a mole-hill. "I really don't know," she said.
Scotty took a chair, and ran his long fingers through his hair perplexedly. "Florence," he said, "at times you are simply maddening; and I do not want to be angry with you. Alec says he is waiting for an answer. What is it an answer to, please? It is my right to know."
Again there was a pause, so long that Scotty expected unqualified refusal: and again he was disappointed. Without a word, the girl removed the note from the envelope and passed it over to him.
Scotty read it and returned the sheet.
"You haven't written an answer yet, I judge?"
"No."
The Englishman's fingers were tapping nervously on the edge of the chair-seat.
"I wish you to decline, then."
The childish expression left the girl's eyes, the listlessness left her attitude.
"Why, if I may ask?" A challenge was in the query.
Scotty arose, and for a half-minute walked back and forth across the disordered room. At last he stopped, facing his daughter.
"The reason, first of all, is that I do not like this man Sidwell in any particular. If you respect my wishes you will have nothing to do with him or with any of his class in future. The second reason is that it is high time some one was watching the kind of affairs you attend." The speaker looked down on the girl sternly. "I think it unnecessary to suggest that neither of us desires a repetition of last night's experience."
Of a sudden, her face very red, Florence was likewise upon her feet. In the irony of circumstances, Sidwell could not have had a more powerful ally. Her decision was instantly formed.
"I quite agree with you about the incident of last evening," she flamed. "As to who shall be my associates, and where I shall go, however, I am of age—" and she started to leave the room.
But preventing, Scotty was between her and the door. "Florence,"—his face was very white and his voice trembled,—"we may as well have an understanding now as to defer it. Maybe, as you say, I have no authority over you longer; but at least I can make a request. You know that I love you, that I would not ask anything which was not for your good. Knowing this, won't you at my request cease going with this man? Won't you refuse his invitation for to-night?"
Nearer than ever before in his life was the Englishman at that moment to grasping the secret of control of this child of many moods. Had he but learned it a few years, even a few months, sooner—But again was the satire of fate manifest, the same irony which, jealously withholding the rewards of labor, keeps the student at his desk, the laborer at his bench, until the worse than useless prizes flutter about like Autumn leaves.
For a moment following Scotty's request there was absolute silence and inaction; then, with a little appealing movement, the girl came close to him.
"Oh, daddy!" she cried. "Dear old daddy! You make it so hard for me! I know you love me, and I do want to do as you wish; I want to be good; but—but"—the brown head was upon Scotty's shoulder, and two soft arms gripped him tight,—"but," the voice was all but choking, "I can't let him go now. It's too late!"
The driving of his own conveyance was to Sidwell a source of pride. It was therefore no surprise to Florence that at dusk he and his pair of thoroughbreds should appear alone. The girl, very grave, very quiet, had been waiting for him, and was ready almost before he stopped. With a smile of parental pride upon her face, Mollie was on the porch to say good-bye. At the last moment she approached and kissed her daughter on the cheek. Not in months before had the mother done such a thing as that; and despite herself, as she walked toward the waiting carriage, there came to the girl the thought of another historic kiss, and of a Judas, the betrayer. Once within the narrow single-seated buggy she looked back, hoping against hope; but her father was nowhere in sight.
After the first greeting, neither she nor Sidwell spoke for some minutes. For a time Florence did not even look at her companion. She had a suspicion that he already knew most if not all that had taken place in the Baker home the last day; and the thought tinged her face scarlet. At last she gave a furtive glance at him. He was not looking, and her eyes lingered on his face. It was paler than she had ever seen it before; there were deep circles under the eyes, and he looked nervous and tired; but over it all there was an expression of exaltation that could have but one meaning to her.
"You must let me read it when you get it in shape," she began suddenly.
Sidwell turned blankly. "Read what, please?" he asked.
The girl smiled triumphantly. "The story you have just written. I know by your face it must be good."
The flame of exaltation vanished. The man understood now.
"What if I should refute your theory?" he asked.
"I hardly believe that is possible. I know of nothing else which could make you look like that."
Sidwell hesitated. "There are but few things," he admitted, "but nevertheless I spoke the truth. It was one of them this time."
Florence smiled interestedly. "I am very curious," she suggested.
The brown eyes and the black met steadily. "Very well, then," said the man, "I'll tell you. The reason was, because I have with me the handsomest girl in the whole city."
Instantly the brown eyes dropped; the face reddened, but not with the flush of pleasure. Florence was not yet sufficiently artificial for such empty compliment.
"I'd rather you wouldn't say such things," she said simply. "They hurt me."
"But not when they're true," he persisted.
There was no answer, and they drove on again in silence; the tap of the thoroughbreds' feet on the asphalt sounding regular as the rattle of a snare-drum, the rows of houses at either side running past like the shifting scenes of a panorama. They passed numbers of other carriages, and to the occupants of several Sidwell lifted his hat. Each as he did so glanced at his companion curiously. The man was far too well known to have his actions pass without gossip. At last they reached a semblance of the open country, and a few minutes later Sidwell pointed out the row of lights on the broad veranda of the big one-story club-house. The affair had begun in the afternoon with a golf tournament, and when the two drove up and Sidwell turned over his trotters to a man in waiting, the entertainment was in full blast, although the hour was still early.
The building itself, ordinarily ample for the organization's rather exclusive membership, was fairly crowded on this occasion. The club-house had been given up to the orchestra and dancers, and refreshments were being served on the lawn and under the adjoining trees. Even the veranda had been cleared of chairs.
As Sidwell and his companion approached the place, he said in an undertone, "Let's not get in the crush yet; if we do, we won't escape all the evening." His dark eyes looked into his companion's face meaningly. "I have something I wish especially to say to you."
Florence did not meet his eyes, but she well knew the message therein. She nodded assent to the request.
Making a detour, they emerged into the park, and strolled back to a place where, seeing, they themselves could not be seen. Sidwell found a bench, and they sat down side by side. The girl offered no suggestion, no protest. Since that row of lights had appeared in the distance she had become passive. She knew beforehand all that was to take place; something that she had decided to accede to, the details of which were unimportant. An apathy which she did not attempt to explain held her. The music heard so near, the glimpses of shifting, faultlessly dressed figures, the loveliness of a perfect night—things that ordinarily would have been intensely exhilarating—now passed by her unnoticed. Her senses were temporarily in lethargy. If she had a conscious wish, it was that the inevitable would come, and be over with.
From without this land of unreality she was suddenly conscious of a voice speaking to her. "Florence," it said, "Florence Baker, you know before I say a word the thing I wish to tell you, the question I wish to ask. You know, because more than once I've tried to speak, and at the last moment you have prevented. But you can't stop me to-night. We have run on understanding each other long enough; too long. I have never lied to you yet, Florence, and I am not going to begin now. I will not even analyze the feeling I have for you, or call it by name. I know this is an unheard-of-way to talk to a girl, especially one so impressionable as you; but I cannot help it. There is something about you, Florence, that keeps me from untruth, when probably under the same circumstances I would lie to any other woman in the world. I simply know that you impersonate a desire of my nature ungratified; that without you I have no wish to live."
Strange and cold-blooded as this proposal would have seemed to a listener, Florence heard it without a sign. It did not even affect her with the shock of the unexpected. It was merely a part of that inevitable something she had anticipated, and had for months watched slowly taking form.
"I suppose it seems unaccountable to you," the voice went on, "that I should have been attracted to you in the first place. It has often been so to me, and I've tried to explain it. Beautiful, you undeniably are, Florence; but I do not believe it was that. It was, I think, because, despite your ideals of something which—pardon me—doesn't exist, you were absolutely natural; and the women I'd met before were the reverse of that. Like myself, they had tasted of life and found it flat. I danced with them, drank with them, went the round of so-called gayety with them; but they repelled me. But you, Florence, are very different. You make me think of a prairie anemone with the dew on its petals. I haven't much to offer you save money, which you already have in plenty, and an empty fame; but I'll play the game fair. I'll take you anywhere in the world, do anything you wish." Out of the shadow an arm crept around the girl's waist, closed there, and she did not stir. "I am writing an English story now, and the principal character, a soldier, has been ordered to India. To catch the atmosphere, I've got to be on the spot. The boat I wish to take will leave in ten days. Will you go with me as my wife?"
The voice paused, and the face so near her own remained motionless, waiting. Into the pause crept the music of the orchestra—beat, beat, beat, like the throbbing of a mighty heart. Above it, distinct for an instant, sounded the tinkle of a woman's laugh; then again silence. It was now the girl's turn to speak, to answer; but not a sound left her lips. She had an odd feeling that she was playing a game of checkers, and that it was her turn to play. "Move!" said an inward monitor. "Move! move!" But she knew not where or how.
The man's arm tightened around her; his lips touched hers again and again; and although she was conscious of the fact, it carried no particular significance. It all seemed a part of the scene that was going on in which she was a silent actor—of the game in which she was a player.
"Florence," said an insistent voice, "Florence, Florence Baker! Don't sit like that! For God's sake, speak to me, answer me!"
This time the figure stirred, the head drooped in assent.
"Yes," she said.
Again the circling arm tightened, and the man's lips touched her own, again and again. The very repetition aroused her.
"And you will sail with me in ten days?"
Fully awake was Florence Baker now, fully conscious of all that had happened and was happening.
"Yes," she said. "The sooner the better. I want to have it over with." A moment longer she sat still as death; then suddenly the mood of apathy departed, and in infinite weakness, infinite pathos, the dark head buried itself on the man's shoulder. "Promise me," she pleaded brokenly, "that you will be kind to me! Promise me that you always will be kind!"