XV
For more than a week Ulick hadn't seen Mona. He hadn't much missed her in the swelter of the new passion, but after ten days passed he began to worry. What if she were sick? Or angry? And that was an unpleasant contingency. The worst of it was that he had no way of knowing the truth. Milt was at the seminary and seldom wrote. Ulick didn't know Mona's parents, not even by sight. Should he risk a call? No, anything but calling. She would be angry with him for breaking her most rigid rule. For some unearthly reason she had made him promise not to visit her, not to seek to know her father and mother; above all, not to divulge the fact of their friendship to her brother. That would be the one unforgivable sin. Ulick had promised, though reluctantly. Why this mystery! He was not married. He was not a criminal; far from it, he was considered a very good catch, not only because of his family connections and youth, but his income was a bait for ambitious mothers with unmarried daughters. He knew all this, so he was surprised at the little shifts and tactics of Mona. She is romantic. She is oversexed—he summoned to his memory her deep-set, passionate eyes; and she likes to make herself not too easy, he decided; but what in the devil has become of her?
He went to their old trysting place in the park. He went—with Dora—to the Casino and pumped M. Dorval. No, that amiable man hadn't seen either Mile. Milton or her student-brother. Suppose she came in now and found me sitting here with Dora. I shouldn't be frightened. She is too sensible not to know the nature of the animal man. But Milt might cut me and put an end to our friendship. I'll wager Mona would continue to meet me. He saw Alfred Stone one afternoon and heard from this indefatigable gossip and news-gatherer that Mrs. Milton and Mona had gone to Hot Springs for a month. He had been to see them (he calls, I can't, ruminated Ulick) and found Mrs. Milton not at all well. Nor was Mona in the best of health. She was snappy and said she needed a change. A change was good for every one, and, continued Alfred, she gave me such a disagreeable look that I beat a retreat. Say, Ulick, what are you up to with that young woman? She's not the Dora kind, you know, not even the Easter kind, and she is Milt's sister. Ulick was aghast. This busybody telling him of his moral remissness, of his intimacy with Mona. How did he find that out? And Dora. And Easter. It was too much for his irritable nerves.
"Mind your own business, Al, and I'll attend to mine." He turned and walked in another direction. He fumed with anger. Dora, too! But Stone was a visitor to every theatre and concert-hall in town. Alfred must have seen Dora with him. What did it matter, anyhow? Dora is all right. A hired woman, nothing more. But it was infernal impudence on Alfred's part to drag in Mona's name, and so suddenly. What could he know in reality? Very little. But he knew. That was the worst of it; and there was the implication of a threat in the use of Milt's name. A warning? That sink of all the iniquities, Alfred Stone, to preach to him. He deserved a kicking. He was too contemptible to punch. Ulick felt his biceps harden. And for heaven's sake why did he bring in the name of Easter? He was certain that Alfred had been jealous from the start about the way Easter deserted him for Ulick. His amour-propre was scratched. He had known her first. He had taken her to the Conservatoire, to Madame Ash, and if he missed introducing her to Lilli Lehmann, had he not urged upon that great artiste the advisability of developing the young singer? And there were the chances to make the connection a profitable one for Alfred. He never forgets self, bitterly said Ulick. He is a rotten little egotist and I wouldn't put him above chantage, polite chantage, if you will, but plain extortion at the end. Parasite, pimp, gambler. He recited a litany of abusive names. If Alfred had a hint of that New Hampshire affair, God help Easter! He would dog her like a detective. The hound. In that case the only resort for me would be to give him a horse-whipping. Would that keep his vile tongue in his mouth? I doubt it. But I'll take his advice. I'll go slow. Why hasn't Mona written me?
XVI
That idea haunted him. Why, at least, hadn't she dropped him a line saying she was going away? Had the miserable spy, Alfred, given her a hint of Dora? He had spoken of the "orgy"—that's what the newspapers called it—at the studio. It made the fortune of the pie-girl, and the list of guest's names had been scrupulously printed, Ulick Invern's among the rest. It gave him vogue at the clubs, did that wretched bacchanale, and at the opera or theatre he saw women curiously regard him. Pulpits had expounded upon the Scarlet Woman sitting, on the Seven Hills of Babylon; meaning both Rome and New York. Why, then, shouldn't Mona have heard, perhaps read, of his complicity in the horrid debauch? Not that it was so horrid to him. More stupid, in fact, than horrid. Nevertheless, she might have written him a sweet scolding letter. No, it wasn't Ned Haldane's abridged version of a Thousand and One Nights that had angered her; it was Dora; Dora and nothing else. He shrugged his shoulders over this solution and went at once to see that bewitching young person. There, the nymph making her orisons, sitting on his lap, he became moody, absent-minded, and surly, so much so that the girl exclaimed: "Ulick Invern, what's the woman's name?" He didn't answer. He was glad she hadn't called him Jewel. Only Mona called him Jewel. Mona and Easter. He softly swore that Dora must never use his pet name, and in that resolution the character of Ulick flew like a flag. His was indeed a multiple personality.