Chapter IX Afternoon Callers
Still in dreams it comes upon me that I once on wings did soar;
But or e’er my flight commences this my dream must all be o’er.
—From the Persian.
As I look back upon it now, that afternoon wears the aspect of a variegated nightmare, from which I could not awaken.
“What will madame wear this afternoon?” Suzanne had asked me when I had returned to my apartments above-stairs.
I kicked viciously at the empty air with one of Caroline’s dainty feet. The time had come, evidently, for Suzanne to change my costume again. Should I take a ride or a walk, or remain at home? If I went out for a ride, I should have only my own bitter thoughts for company. If I took a stroll up the Avenue, almost anything unpleasant might happen to me. If I stayed in the house, I must receive callers. No one of these alternatives was alluring, but I was forced to choose the latter. For a number of rather vague reasons, I did not dare to cut off my line of communication with Caroline. She had become, as it were, a flying column not yet out of touch with headquarters.
“And she ought to be shot for disobedience to orders,” I mused, aloud.
“Pardon me, madame?” exclaimed Suzanne, interrogatively.
“N’importe, girl,” I answered, testily. “I shall remain at home, Suzanne. Give orders down-stairs that I have a headache and can receive no one.”
“But Madame is looking so much better!” protested Suzanne. “And the débutantes will call to-day. It is madame’s afternoon.”
“Well, do your worst, then,” I grumbled, discontentedly. “Can you get me some cloves, Suzanne?”
An hour later, I entered the drawing-room after a perilous descent from the second story, to confront three young women, who, I had gathered from Suzanne, held Caroline in high esteem as a chaperon. I had committed their names to memory before leaving the dressing-room, but the effort to get down-stairs without spraining my wife’s ankles had obliterated from my mind all traces of its recent acquisition. I stood, flushing painfully, gazing into the smiling faces of three handsome, modish girls who were wholly strangers to their vicarious hostess.
“Oh, Mrs. Stevens, what a charming day!”
“How lovely you are looking!”
“Wasn’t the Crompton dance perfectly stunning?”
“Mr. Van Tromp made such a pretty epigram about your costume!”
“Just a moment—ah—girls,” I gasped, seating myself awkwardly, and inclined to lose my temper. “There’s a painful lack of method about all this. Suppose we begin at the beginning. You were saying—ah—my dear—?” I remarked to the calmest of the trio. The latter exchanged puzzled glances with her companions.
“I was speaking of the compliment that Mr. Van Tromp paid to you,” explained the maiden, rather dolefully.
“He’s a bad lot, that young Van Tromp,” I exclaimed, impulsively. “Perhaps I ought not to talk against another man—ah—behind her—I mean his—back, but Van Romeo’s too easy, girls. He writes poetry. I have no doubt that he makes puns. Charming—ah—day, isn’t it?”
My beautiful callers had lost their vivacity. One of them—a pretty little brunette—had grown pale.
“What about the coaching-party, Mrs. Stevens?” the one I took to be the eldest of the three ventured to ask, presently.
“It’s all arranged—ah—my dear,” I answered, recklessly. “We’re to have a dozen cases of champagne and a brass band of ten pieces. I’m up for all day, you see. If little Van Tromp praised my executive ability—ah—girls, he’d have a career open to him. Merrily we’ll bowl along, bowl along—I’m to handle the reins, you know.”
There were now three pallid maidens confronting me. In the eyes of the eldest I saw a gleam of mingled suspicion and fear.
“I must be going,” she gasped.
“Don’t go,” I implored her, overacting my hospitable role a bit. There flashed through my mind a scene from a Gilbert-Sullivan opera—“The Mikado”—and I caught myself humming the air of “Three Little Girls from School Are We.”
Jones, to my consternation, stalked into the drawing-room, as if about to reprove me for my lack of dignity.
“Pardon me, madame,” said my bête noir, pompously, “but Mr. Stevens insists upon your coming to the telephone.”
My callers were on their feet, instantly. They appeared to be glad of an excuse for leaving me, and, also, somewhat astonished at the butler’s choice of words.
“Don’t let us keep you a moment,” cried the eldest.
“Remember me to Mr. Stevens,” urged the little brunette, mischievously.
“Good-bye! We are so grateful to you, Mrs. Stevens,” exclaimed the third, with a sigh of relief.
“Be good!” I answered, gaily. “Come again—ah—young ladies. Don’t mind Jones. You’ll get used to him. Look in next month, won’t you? Ta-ta!”
I stumbled over my skirts as I stepped forward, and the little flock of débutantes hurried away in affright, glancing over their shoulders at me in a manner that suggested gossip to come.
“Hello!” I shouted through the ‘phone, when I had managed to reach the library. “Is that you—ah—Reginald? Where are you?”
“Yes. This is Reginald,” I heard my voice in answer. “I’m at the ‘Varsity Club. Charming place. Nice boys here. You seem to be popular, my dear. ‘Here’s to you, good as you are, and here’s to me, bad as I am; but as good as you are, and as bad as I am, I’m as good as you are, bad as I am!’”
“Good Lord—ah—ah—Reginald!” I faltered, horror-stricken.
“Don’t worry, Caroline,” came my voice, soothingly. “It’s all right. I know when to stop. Had any callers? This is your day at home, is it not?”
“I’ll send the coupé for you at once—ah—Reginald,” I said, with great presence of mind. “Go easy till it arrives, will you?”
“What do you mean to imply, Caroline?” growled my wife, a note of anger in my voice. “I’m going to walk home by-and-bye. You needn’t bother about the coupé. I hear the boys calling to me. Here’s to you, my dear! Good-bye!”
Before I could utter another word, Caroline had cut me off, and I turned from the ‘phone, despondently. For a moment, it seemed to me that the library was surrounded by an iron grating and that I wore a ball and chain attached to my legs. Caroline and “the Old Crowd!” I am forced to confess that the hot tears came into my wife’s eyes as I seated myself in a reading-chair and found myself face to face with a loneliness that was provocative of despair.
Jones was hot on the scent. He strode into the library and bore down upon me relentlessly, carrying a tray upon which rested two calling-cards.
“They are in the drawing-room, madame,” said the butler, indifferently.
Caroline’s toast came ringing to my ears. “Here’s to you, good as you are, and here’s to me, bad as I am!” And here I sat, bullied by Jones and the plaything of a lot of light-headed women of all ages. For one wild, feverish, moment the thought of revolt darted through my mind. I might faint, or have a fit, and Jones would be forced to dismiss my callers. But I quickly realized that I was not up to a brilliant histrionic effort. Even as it was, I was playing another’s role with but indifferent success.
Two elderly women, richly garbed, arose as I reentered the drawing-room.
“I’m so glad to see you—ah—my dears,” I said, in a voice pitched to indicate cordiality. One of my callers tossed her head haughtily, while the prim mouth of her companion fell open. This was not encouraging, and I remained silent. We stared at each other for a long, agonizing moment.
“How do you do?” I began again, with much less assurance. “Go away, little girls,” kept running through my mind from that diabolical, tinkling “Mikado.”
“We are very well, I believe,” remarked Mrs. Martin, as she proved to be, coldly. “I think I may answer for Mrs. Smythe’s health.”
“I am in perfect health,” exclaimed Mrs. Smythe, with emphasis, staring at me in a superior kind of way.
“There’s nothing like perfect health—ah—my friends,” I said, in a high, almost hysterical, falsetto. “Who is it who says that a man is as old as he feels and a woman as old as she looks?”
“Whoever said it, Mrs. Stevens, did us a great injustice,” commented Mrs. Martin, with some warmth. “I am as young in spirit as I was ten years ago, but I don’t look it.”
“No, you don’t look it,” I hastened to remark, cordially; but my comment was not well received. Mrs. Martin glanced at Mrs. Smythe, and they stood erect on the instant.
“You’re not going—ah—my dears?” I cried, thinking it too good to be true.
“You will pardon the liberty that I am about to take, Mrs. Stevens,” began Mrs. Martin, sternly, “but it seems only fair to you that we should ask a question before leaving you. You are out of sorts to-day? Not quite yourself, are you?”
“Not quite,” I answered, drawing myself up to Caroline’s full height and struggling against an inclination to give vent to wild, feverish laughter. “I may say—Mrs.—ah—my dear—that I’m not quite myself. Not quite! It’ll pass off. I have every reason to believe it’ll pass off. But you’re right. I’m not quite myself.”
My frankness, which appalled me as I thought of it afterward, seemed to have a soothing effect upon my callers.
“You really do too much, Mrs. Stevens,” remarked Mrs. Smythe, in a motherly way. “You should try to get a nap at once.”
“Your nerves are affected,” Mrs. Martin added, speaking gently. “You are overdoing things. Did you ever try the rest cure?”
“Yes. I’ve been giving it a chance to-day,” I confessed. “But it doesn’t work. I can’t sleep in the daytime. Bear that in mind—ah—my dear. Don’t talk to me about a nap. As I said to Caroline—ah—Reginald, I’m up for all day. But you know what nerves are, do you not?”
Mrs. Martin again glanced furtively at Mrs. Smythe, and without more ado they swept out of the drawing-room.
I dropped into a chair, a feeling of relief mingled with self-disgust sweeping over me. I realized that I had been making a sad botch of the part that I had attempted to play. At that moment, heavy footsteps behind me aroused me from my black-and-white revery. Two large, hot hands were placed over my eyes, and the end of a beard tickled Caroline’s forehead.
“Guess who it is?” I heard my deep voice saying. “Here’s to you, good as you are!”
“Caroline!” I exclaimed, conflicting emotions agitating my soul.
“Guess again, little woman,” said my wife, playfully, in my voice. “They call me ‘Reggie’ at the club.”