He meant he had just heard about the bonds. I knew he meant that, and he knew I knew it. But we were men of the world. “Not desperately ill,” said I. “Only about twenty guineas a day.”
He smiled a faint but flattering appreciation of my humor, then resumed his gloomy anxiety and self-reproach. “But she is ill. I read it in one of those screaming ha’penny rags and came as fast as ever I could. The truth is—well, we’ve had a bit of a row. Has she told you?”
“Not much,” said I. “A little.”
“I’ve acted the skunk, the howling skunk—and I want to— Do you think she’ll see me?”
“If you wish, I’ll find out.”
“I’d be no end grateful,” said he with enthusiasm.
She saw him as soon as she could make herself presentable—and her delay gave him a chance to tone up his nerves and to smooth out his face. That afternoon I was able to telegraph Edna that all was well The Crossleys were reconciled; Love had scored another of his famous triumphs. She came over the following day, but I had sailed for America a few hours before.
The day after my arrival in New York I saw Mary Kirkwood and Hartley Beechman lunching together at Delmonico’s. In those days that meant an engagement actual or impending—or, at least, a flirtation far advanced into the stage of loverlike intimacy. I was in the passageway looking through the glass and the screen of palms. I stood there long, noting every detail of her. She was well, perfectly well—of that much her eyes and her color assured me. Is there anything lovelier than a clear dark skin, tastefully set off by black-brown hair? Was she happy? I could not tell. Still in her face was that restless, expectant look—not unlike the expression of a child being shown a picture book and too impatient for the next page rightly to examine the one that is open. An intense interest in life, an intense vitality—that fascinating capacity to love, if she found the right man. And her beauty——
Beauty she undoubtedly had. But charm does not lie in beauty—physical charm, I mean. There is a certain light in the eyes, a certain curve of cheek and throat, of bosom and arm—and the blood flames and rushes. She had charm for me. Her beauty impressed others; it was her charm that made her the one woman to me.