Chapter X Recriminations
We know these things are so, we ask not why,
But act and follow as the dream goes on.
—Milnes.
“Yes, I’ve had a simply perfect day, my dear,” remarked Caroline, frankly, as we left the library to ascend to our second-story suite. “I’ve made twenty thousand dollars—by not taking your advice—and as to the ‘Old Crowd’ at the ‘Varsity Club, I think they’re really charming. I’ve been doing a good deal of miscellaneous thinking, my dear, and I’m convinced that women have a great future before them.”
“What women?” I cried, impatiently, as I tripped against the top stair and caught my better half by the tail of my coat.
“You’ll do better with practice,” remarked Caroline, soothingly. “I’m sure you enjoyed the day. Who has been here?”
“That’ll keep,” I answered, resisting an inclination to tweak my own nose. “Where’s Jenkins?”
Caroline indulged in a hoarse chuckle.
“Jenkins has gone to Hoboken. He won’t be back for at least a month. I think I can get on without a man. How’s Suzanne?”
We had come to a standstill in the upper hall, just outside of the main door to our private rooms.
“How’ll you manage to dress for dinner?” I asked, gazing at my flushed, triumphant face with sharply contrasted emotions. I was glad to see it again, but I did not like Caroline’s way of using it.
“I’m very quick to learn,” answered my voice, tauntingly. “You must admit, my dear, that I’ve been a success to-day. You don’t think that I’m to be overcome by a man’s dinner costume?”
A chill ran through me, and Caroline’s voice trembled as I said:
“What do you—ah—think I’d better wear to-night? Suzanne’ll ask me presently.”
A jovial laugh greeted my words. The humorous side of our horrible plight seemed to be always apparent to Caroline.
“You must be sure to do me credit, my dear boy,” said my wife, gruffly. “You’ve glanced over my wardrobe, have you not?”
The hot blood came into my adopted cheeks at the suggestion.
“I—I’ve been too—ah—busy to look into the—ah—matter,” I faltered. “Damn it, Caroline, don’t be so confoundedly superior! I’m crushed and discouraged. That’s straight. Give me a word of advice, will you? What shall I wear to-night? I don’t want to make a fool of myself before Suzanne.”
“Poor Suzanne!” growled Caroline, somewhat irrelevantly, I thought. “She must have had a day of it! Tell her you’ll wear the dress I wore at the Leonards’ dinner-party last week. You needn’t say much about my hair. Suzanne’ll know what to do with it.”
Her hand, or rather mine, was on the knob of the door, when a hideous and persistent horror that had haunted me for some time forced me to say, in Caroline’s most insistent treble:
“Why—oh, why—did you allow Edgerton to ask that infernal Yamama to come here to-night? It was madness, Caroline.”
“Call me Reginald,” interposed my wife, coolly.
“It was madness, I say—ah—Reginald. It was that—or worse.”
My heart beat fast in Caroline’s bosom.
“What do you mean?” asked my wife, thrusting my face forward, and transfixing me with my own eyes.
“You’ve enjoyed the day, haven’t you?” I asked, my temper overcoming my prudence. “Well, I haven’t. I’ve been driven nearly crazy by a lot of fool women, while you’ve had the time of your life.”
“I don’t follow you,” remarked my wife, severely.
“That’s just it,” I cried, angrily. “You lead me, and I’m forced to follow you. I tell you frankly that I’ve grown suspicious. You’ve been studying Oriental mysticism. You’ve been to lectures and séances, and, for all I know, you may be a favorite pupil of this chocolate-drop, Yamama.”
My wife drew herself up to my full height, and gazed down at me, freezingly.
“You mean to imply, Mrs. Stevens,” she remarked, with studied coldness, “that I was deliberately responsible for what happened this morning, or last night?”
“Don’t dare to call me Mrs. Stevens, Caroline,” I whispered, shaking with futile rage. “If I have suspected you, have I not had sufficient circumstantial evidence? Mrs. Taunton tells me that this rascally fakir Yamama turns people into pigs, frogs, any old thing. And you’ve allowed Edgerton to bring him here to-night! I don’t believe that you have the slightest desire to—ah—change back again.”
My wife laughed aloud in my most disagreeable manner.
“Here’s to you, good as you are, and here’s to me, bad as I am!” she cried, with most untimely geniality, and, without more ado, threw open the door to our apartments. In the center of the room stood Suzanne, pale but self-contained, awaiting my advent. For a moment, a mad project tempted me. If I rushed downstairs and had a fit in the lower hall, I might escape many of the horrors that the evening threatened to bring with it. But if I took this heroic course a doctor would be called in. On the whole, I preferred Suzanne to a physician.
I realize, clearly enough, that I lack the ability to keep or reject data with the unerring judgment of the professional story-teller. I should like to give to my testimony a somewhat artistic structure, but I am hampered in this inclination by the necessity of following the actual sequence of events. Being neither a novelist nor a scientist, I am in danger of making an amorphous presentment of facts that shall fail either to convince the psychologist or entertain the idle reader of an empty tale. On the whole, I am prone to make sacrifices in behalf of the latter. My natural inclination is toward Art rather than toward Science, and for this reason I shall remain silent regarding the petty episodes of the hour that followed my talk with Caroline. As it is, my narrative is overweighted with what may be called details of the toilet.
At half-after six my wife and I entered our drawing-room under a flag of truce. The annoyances that had hampered Caroline’s unaided efforts to don my evening clothes had had a beneficial effect upon her exultant, overbearing tendencies. She was subdued in manner to the verge of gloom.
“Why are you so downhearted, my dear?” I asked. “Don’t you like—ah—my appearance?”
“Which appearance?” growled Caroline, glaring at me. “Are the studs in the right place?”
“Of course they are,” I answered cheerfully. “I never looked better, I’m sure. I congratulate you. And Suzanne tells me that this costume is very becoming to you. The one I have on, I mean. Have you noticed, Caroline, what an infernal nuisance pronouns have become? I’m glad our nouns have no gender. What did you say to young Van Tromp at the Cromptons’ dance?”
My beard seemed to fairly bristle with Caroline’s anger and astonishment.
“Van Tromp!” she exclaimed, in a surly basso. “What has he been doing now? Horrid little thing! He’s not one of the boys, is he, my dear?”
I had seated myself with some difficulty, annoyed at Suzanne for lacing Caroline so tightly, but rather pleased, inwardly, at my feminine beauty and Parisian costume. Caroline stood not far away, six feet tall, broad-shouldered, a manly figure in black and white.
“Van Tromp,” I remarked, in the soft musical tones that had at last reconciled me to my borrowed voice, “Van Tromp is a wandering minstrel, a troubadour out of his time, an age-end Romeo, who haunts Juliet’s balcony at all hours of the day and night playing a hurdy-gurdy and reciting his own rhymes. Van Tromp is the one bright gleam in a black and starless night. He would atone for a dreary day were not Yamama coming too.”
“I don’t understand you, Caroline,” growled my wife, shifting my feet uneasily.
“You haven’t told me what Van Tromp said to you at the Cromptons’ dance,” I said, relentlessly. “I’ll return to the subject later on. Now tell me—ah—Reginald, what you know about Yamama. You intimated, unless I am mistaken, that my suspicions as to your collusion with this Oriental fakir were unfounded?”
“Unfounded!” exclaimed my wife, scornfully. “Absurd! ridiculous! Do you imagine that I would choose this clumsy body of yours in preference to mine? Look at me, and then glance at the mirror, my dear. I’ll admit that I’ve had a very enjoyable day. But I assure you I know little more about Yamama than you do. I am very nervous about him. I don’t know what he’ll do to us. But I have a horrible fear that he will read our secret at a glance.”
“If he does—ah—Caroline,” I cried, excitedly, “slug him! Never mind about hospitality. Hit him a crack on the nose. You can apologize to Edgerton afterward.”
“That’s just like a man,” grumbled Caroline. “You think you can defeat esoteric Buddhism with your fists. I’m rather ashamed of you, my dear.”
I felt the blood coming into Caroline’s cheeks.
“It won’t do, of course,” I murmured, presently. “We must use diplomacy, not force, in dealing with this Oriental nuisance. Perhaps Yamama will find little Van Tromp sufficiently amusing to enable us to escape detection. I’m inclined to think that Van Tromp is the outward and visible sign of a love-sick tadpole. His sister, the débutante, is not so bad. I suppose she’ll fall to Edgerton at dinner?”
“We must have a rehearsal, you and I,” remarked Caroline, gruffly. “I escort Mrs. Edgerton, of course, and you’ll take Van Tromp’s arm. You’ll like that.”
“Do you see these violets—ah—Reginald?” I cried, dramatically, making a gesture toward Van Tromp’s floral offering, now bedecking my corsage. “He sent them to you. What was Van Romeo’s little game? You were to wear the violets to-night, if you really meant what you said to him at the Cromptons’ dance. As you always mean what you say, my dear, I have hung out the sign of your—ah—veracity, so to speak. There’s more to come, of course. There’s a poem, for one thing. I’ll read it aloud when we get our coffee.”
I saw that my heavy face was flushed and that my eyes glowed with anger as I glanced upward at my wife. She strode toward me menacingly, and laid a heavy hand upon her bare shoulder. Seizing Van Tromp’s violets, before I could recover from my astonishment, she tore them from their fastenings, and hurled them toward a remote corner of the drawing-room.
“You carry a joke too far,” she growled, menacingly. “If you dare to read that poem I’ll—I’ll tell Yamama the whole story when he comes. I know what to say to him, and he’ll do what I ask him to do. I give you fair warning.”
I fell back in my chair, cold and disheartened. My worst suspicions seemed to be confirmed. Caroline was in league, as I had feared, with that sunburnt fakir from the Far East! At that moment, Jones entered the room.
“Mr. and Mrs. Edgerton,” he announced, and, an instant later, “Miss Van Tromp, Mr. Van Tromp.”