A young man who had just landed in New York from one of the big, adventurous transatlantic liners hailed a taxicab and was quickly drawn away into the glitter and gayety of a bright winter morning. He sat forward eagerly, looking at everything with the air of a lad on a holiday. He was a young man, but he was not in his first youth, and under a heavy sunburn he was pale and a trifle worn, but there was about him a look of being hard and very much alive. Under a broad brow there were hawk eyes of greenish gray, a delicate beak, a mouth and chin of cleverness. It was an interesting face and looked as though it had seen interesting things. In fact, Prosper Gael had just returned from his three months of ambulance service in France, and it was the extraordinary success of his play, “The Leopardess,” that had chiefly brought him back.
“Dear Luck,” his manager had written, using the college title which Prosper’s name and unvarying good fortune suggested, “you’d better come back and gather up some of these laurels that are smothering us all. The time is very favorable for the disappearance of your anonymity. I, for one, find it more and more difficult to keep the secret. So far, not even your star knows it. She calls you ‘Mr. Luck’ ... to that extent I have been indiscreet....”
Prosper had another letter in his pocket, a letter that he had re-read many times, always with an uneasy conflict of emotions. He was in a sort of hot-cold humor over it, in a fever-fit that had a way of turning into lassitude. He postponed analysis indefinitely. Meanwhile his eyes searched the bright, cold city, its crowds, its traffics, its windows—most of all, its placards, and, not far to seek, there were the posters of “The Leopardess.” He leaned out to study one of them; a tall, wild-eyed woman crouched to spring upon a man who stared at her in fear. Prosper dropped back with a gleaming smile of amused excitement. “They’ve made it look like cheap melodrama,” he said to himself; “and yet it’s a good thing, the best thing I’ve ever done. Yet they will vulgarize the whole idea with their infernal notions of ‘what the public wants.’ Morena is as bad as the rest of them!” He expressed disgust, but underneath he was aglow with pride and interest. “There’s a performance to-night. I’ll dine with Jasper. I’ll have to see Betty first....” His thoughts trailed off and he fell into that hot-cold confusion, that uncomfortable scorching fog of mood. The cab turned into Fifth Avenue and became a scale in the creeping serpent of vehicles that glided, paused, and glided again past the thronged pavements. Prosper contrasted everything with the grim courage and high-pitched tragedy of France. He could not but wonder at the detached frivolity of these money-spenders, these spinners in the sun. How soon would the shadow fall upon them too and with what change of countenance would they look up! To him the joyousness seemed almost childish and yet he bathed his fagged spirit in it. How high the white clouds sailed, how blue was the midwinter sky! How the buildings towered, how quickly the people stepped! Here were the pretty painted faces, the absurd silk stockings, the tripping, exquisitely booted feet, the swinging walk, the tall, up-springing bodies of the women he remembered. He regarded them with impersonal delight, untinged by any of his usual cynicism.
It was late afternoon when Prosper, obedient to a telephone call from Betty, presented himself at the door of Morena’s house, just east of the Park, off Fifth Avenue; a very beautiful house where the wealthy Jew had indulged his passion for exquisite things. Prosper entered its rich dimness with a feeling of oppression—that unanalyzed mood of hot and cold feeling intensified to an almost unbearable degree. In the large carved and curtained drawing-room he waited for Betty. The tea-things were prepared; there would be no further need of service until Betty should ring. Everything was arranged for an uninterrupted tête-à-tête. Prosper stood near an ebony table, his shoulder brushed by tall, red roses, and felt his nerves tighten and his pulses hasten in their beat. “The tall child ... the tall child ...” he had called her by that name so often and never without a swift and stabbing memory of Joan, and of Joan’s laughter which he had silenced.
He took out the letter he had lately received from Betty and re-read it and, as he read, a deep line cut between his eyes. “You say you will not come back unless I can give you more than I have ever given you in the past. You say you intend to cut yourself free, that I have failed you too often, that you are starved on hope. I’m not going to ask much more patience of you. I failed you that first time because I lost courage; the second time, fate failed us. How could I think that Jasper would get well when the doctors told me that I mustn’t allow myself even a shadow of hope! Now, I think that Jasper, himself, is preparing my release. This all sounds like something in a book. That’s because you’ve hurt me. I feel frozen up. I couldn’t bear it if now, just when the door is opening, you failed me. Prosper, you are my lover for always, aren’t you? I have to believe that to go on living. You are the one thing in my wretched life that hasn’t lost its value. Now, read this carefully; I am going to be brutal. Jasper has been unfaithful to me. I know it. I have sufficient evidence to prove it in a law court and I shall not hesitate to get a divorce. Tear this up, please. Now, of all times, we must be extraordinarily careful. There has never been a whisper against us and there mustn’t be. Jasper must not suspect. A counter-suit would ruin my life. I must talk it over with you. I’ll see you once alone—just once—before I leave Jasper and begin the suit. We must have patience for just this last bit. It will seem very long....”
Prosper folded the letter. He was conscious of a faint feeling of sickness, of fear. Then he heard Betty’s step across the marble pavement of the hall. She parted the heavy curtains, drew them together behind her, and stood, pale with joy, opening and shutting her big eyes. Then she came to meet him, held him back, listening for any sound that might predict interruption, and gave herself to his arms. She was no longer pale when he let her go. She went a few steps away and stood with her hands before her face, then she went to sit by the tea-table. They were both flushed. Betty’s eyes were shining under their fluttering lids. Prosper rejoiced in his own emotion. The mental fog had lifted and the feeling of faintness was gone.
“You’ve decided not to break away altogether, then?” she asked, giving him a quick glance.
He shook his head. “Not if what you have written me is true. I’ve had such letters from you before and I’ve grown very suspicious. Are you sure this time?” He laid stress upon his bitterness. It was his one weapon against her and he had been sharpening it with a vague purpose.
“Oh,” said Betty, speaking low and furtively, “Jasper is fairly caught. I have a reliable witness in the girl’s maid. There is no doubt of his guilt, Prosper, none. Everyone is talking of it. He has been perfectly open in his attentions.”
Every minute Betty looked younger and prettier, more provoking. Her child-mouth with its clever smile was bright as though his kiss had painted it.