Part 61 (1/2)

Willie eyed her with a cynical stare. ”Don't be--er--literary, mother. I remember when I was a little boy how lonely I used to get in this big old house. Poor father was so busy heaping up money I hardly knew him by sight. Once he--er--pa.s.sed me on the street and didn't speak to me! Then at night you used to give big dinners. I had to eat early and alone up in the--er--nursery. But I used to lie awake for hours, and when the doors opened I could hear laughter. And often there was music. You used to go down to dinner after I had gone to bed.”

”But I always stopped in to kiss you good night, didn't I?” the mother urged, in self-defense.

”Sometimes you would forget,” Willie sighed. ”Then I'd be left there alone with the governess. I didn't want to--er--speak French to a governess. I wanted to--er--talk to my mother. And when you did stop in to kiss me, your lips sometimes used to--er--leave red marks on my cheek.”

”Willie!” Mrs. Enslee gasped; but he went on:

”I couldn't put my arms around your neck for fear I'd--er--disarrange your hair, and even that was--er--dyed!”

Mrs. Enslee turned on him in rage. ”Willie! How dare you?”

He rounded on her fiercely. ”You know it was! You know it was!”

”You little beast!” Mrs. Enslee cried; but Willie laughed maliciously.

”See! See! Now you're showing your--er--real feelings to me.”

Mrs. Enslee controlled her pain and her wrath, and implored: ”Come, my boy, let's be friends.”

”Oh, that's all right, mother,” said Willie. ”Friends is the word. It's too late for anything else.”

”You're in one of your nasty moods, Willie,” said Mrs. Enslee, retreating from this hateful situation. ”But we were talking of Persis.

You must decide about her.”

”I have decided.”

”You won't marry her, then?”

”Not marry her?” Willie repeated, like a sarcastic echo. ”Of course I will. And why not?”

Motives are hard tangles to unravel, especially a mother's toward other women. Perhaps Mrs. Enslee was really afraid of Persis. Perhaps she wanted to a.s.sure herself of the future ability to say, ”I warned you.”

Perhaps it was just motherly jealousy of the new proprietress of Willie's time and attention. In answer to Willie's ”Why not?” she insinuated: ”People might say she is marrying you for your money.”

”Well, what of it? What if she is?” Willie stormed. ”What else is there to marry me for? My--er--beauty? What does it matter, so I get her? Why do dukes marry--er--chorus-girls--when they can afford 'em? Because they want 'em! That's why, isn't it? What fools they'd be not to take 'em if they want 'em and can get 'em?”

His mother shrugged his troubles from her shoulders and left him to ferment in his own vinegar. But Willie was not happy. He was getting what he asked for, and it was not what he wanted. Perhaps he had never been truly happy in his whole existence. He had been amused at times, but usually then with a cynical delight in somebody's misfortunes or mistakes.

How could he have been thoroughly happy when he had never been truly well? What health he had was a negation, a convalescence; it was at best a not being sick. He was of a fabric that broke down and wore through constantly. He could understand the definition of happiness as ”having a splinter in your finger and getting it out.”

But the joy that comes from bounding arteries, glowing skin, a galloping heart, a volcanic desire to laugh because the soul is bursting with laughter, or to sing for mere song's sake, or to be an instrument in the symphonic universe when it is playing one of its mighty ensembles--that cosmic happiness was unknown to Willie Enslee.

When he found a rapture he always found something the matter with it; there was a worm in the apple, a slug in the salad, a fly in the ointment, a flaw in the diamond. And so it was with his one big ambition--Persis. He had won his choice of all the world's women. And now his mother was asking if he thought she loved him, and if people would not question her motives. She was already perhapsing and better-notting.

And he was dreaming dreams that somebody else had a priority in her heart. Of course, dreams were follies. According to some superst.i.tions, they went by contraries. But they are as hard to disbelieve as a convincing play. One may not be sure that Josephine was untrue to Napoleon; but he knows that Mrs. Tanqueray II. had a most inconvenient lover, and that her past spoiled her husband's daughter's future.

So Willie, emerging from the playhouse of his nightmare, wondered who it was that was likely to interrupt his wedding with Persis. He suspected everybody except Forbes. Him he canceled at once from the list, because Forbes had met Persis only a week ago, and had never seen her alone, and had, furthermore, devoted himself to Mrs. Neff. He set Forbes down as a fortune-hunter willing to marry a much older woman of moderate means. He doubted if he were important enough for an invitation to the wedding.

He could not decide upon any other man to fit the faceless vision of his nightmare, that shadowy being who stood up in the dream-cathedral and claimed Persis for his own. He was tempted to ask Persis. But he was not tempted long. Naturally she would deny it; but what if she should confess? Then he would have to give her up. And he wanted her more than anything else on earth.