Part 10 (1/2)
She considered this dazzling idea, her eyes growing brighter every moment.
”Oh, Maud, Maud!” she cried, clasping her hands, ”what an inspiration!
I'm going on my own again. Yes, I am. Don't look so horrified. I know I've grouched and fussed a lot over my past efforts in that direction, but you see I tried to do things in a small way, cotillion favors and such, and it didn't suit me. It wasn't my _metier_, not my way. I loathe detail. I can do things on a big scale or not at all. You know that. And my present idea means the big scale. When I first came to New York I regarded it as the great adventure, but then I didn't know how to go about anything. I was as ignorant as a baby of everything--everything.
The tremendous professional skill required, my own inept.i.tude, the utter inadequacy of my poor, amateur accomplishments, my entire ignorance of business methods, all frightened, dazed, stupefied me, but now, now, I just believe I'll have another try.”
”Oh, what _have_ you got in your head now?” cried Maud in frightened resignation.
”You see it's like this,” Dita ignored the question and continued to follow her own train of thought. ”New York demands one of two things of the stranger who comes knocking at her gates, either training or a new idea. She can take care of any trained person, but if she has to conduct the educational process, she does it with a club. Now I'm going back to her with my new idea. Oh, I was crushed a bit ago, but now I am really enjoying myself as I have not done since the first dazzle of marrying Cresswell and seeing his money turn itself so easily into the beautiful things I had longed for all my life. But I've been getting tireder and tireder of being the twittering canary in the gilded cage. Cresswell opened the door last night and now I'm going to fly put, but in a totally different direction from the one he expects me to take.” She laughed delightedly. ”Oh, do you think New York will listen to my new idea?”
”She'll listen to Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth,” said Maud dryly. ”It won't make much difference about the idea, whether it's new or old.” She thought of a conversation Hepworth's friends had held at the wedding breakfast and sighed reminiscently. ”I'm afraid you're making Cress rather a background.”
”Why not?” said Dita cheerfully and defiantly. ”Serves him right, going away in the fas.h.i.+on he did and putting me in such a position. 'Moses an'
Aaron,' as my old mammy used to say, you needn't try to dissuade me.
You'll be as crazy about the idea as I am when I unfold it to you. The twittering canary is going to hop out of the gilded cage, and build her own nest. It's the great adventure. It is to live. Won't Cresswell open those sleepy eyes of his when he sees this move of mine on the chessboard? I'm done with failure, this venture of ours is a success before it's begun.”
CHAPTER XI
A DOLL OR A BOX OF CANDY
Perdita, being one of those ardent, mercurial creatures who run with winged feet to meet every event in life, whether it be joyous or disastrous, had encountered her bad quarter of an hour the morning after the dinner party.
Hepworth's, however, was postponed for a later and more lingering occasion. We euphemistically limit these seasons of judgment to quarters of an hour in speaking of them, but they are quite independent of time, and may continue through days.
Perdita had a temperamental advantage. Hers were those swift changes of mood so disconcerting to the devils of ennui and depression; but her husband's period of reaction lasted, with but little mitigation, all the way across the continent.
A most l.u.s.ty and persistent demon of doubt and self-accusation boarded his car within a few hours after the train left the station, invaded his luxurious solitude and, indifferent to a chilling reception, there remained. To Hepworth, the demon's most searing insinuation was that, instead of a masterly retreat in good order, this departure of his for the other side of the continent was a virtual renunciation of all that he cared most to win and to hold. Fool and coward, the demon whispered, to quit the game just at the moment when his presence was an imperative necessity. But, although the demon was eloquent--it is an attribute of demons--and his suggestions were like red-hot pincers, it never entered Hepworth's head to turn back. On the contrary, it was characteristic that having decided on a certain course, he was not to be swayed by the demon's most subtle and ingenious arguments. He was merely rendered supremely uncomfortable by them.
He had offered Perdita her freedom and he meant it without any reservations. She should decide on her own course, follow her own leadings according to the limits of her own folly or discretion, but free she should be, and free even from any shadowy influence that his mere presence might exert. Quixotic, scrupulously so: but then that was Hepworth's way.
The demon laughed at this obstinately maintained, unalterable decision.
What chance, it sardonically suggested, had any mere average man against a rival like Eugene Gresham? Women love glamour. Perdita especially adored it blindly. Most women, certainly Perdita, would rather follow the alluring, brilliant gleam of the will-o'-the-wisp, any time, than the smoky but dependable light of the useful household lantern.
These gloomy reflections served to goad and stab like so many tormenting banderillos, but Hepworth's resolution to absent himself for a time, and thus insure Perdita a free hand, remained unalterable, in fact it hardened, became like iron.
The journey over, his spirits improved; the demon was far less persistent and only occasionally showed himself. There were a number of business matters of varying importance requiring his attention, and these very fully occupied his mind. He had made his headquarters for a time at Santa Barbara.
Then, suddenly, his busy, if rather monotonous and routine existence became diversified by a series of peculiar events which, in his most wildly imaginative moments, he would never have conjectured.
One afternoon, as he sat before an open window in the villa he had taken, looking out over a wonderful garden, all fragrance and color, at the blue channel, the mountains, the distant islands gleaming fairy-like through their golden haze, the name of Mr. James Fleming was brought to him and served very effectually to rouse him from his spiritless daydreaming, on whose confines hovered the demon.
Hepworth sat up, care vanished from his brow, the depressed droop of his mouth changed to a smile. ”Fleming! Jim Fleming!” he exclaimed. ”Show him in at once,” to the waiting servant.
Mr. Fleming wasted no time in appearing and Hepworth pushed back his chair and rose, meeting him with a hearty hand-clasp and one of his most brilliant smiles.
This was the effect the arrival of Fleming invariably produced. One might have thought from the way men greeted him that he was some great public benefactor. Quite the opposite. Hepworth, and no doubt many others, had, through him, lost thousands of dollars, but this did not in the least affect their pleasure in his society nor tarnish their confidence in his good intentions.
Fleming was about Hepworth's age, rather tall and rather stout. He had a broad, clean-shaven face, and the mouth of an orator, large, mobile, stretching across his face in a straight line and turning up sharply at the corners. His eyes, which were blue-gray, had a most ingratiating and irresistible expression of camaraderie.