Part 29 (1/2)
”Back from the river!” she cried, ”soon will come men who, with long, sharp poles, will push out the logs from the eddies, and from the still waters of the bends, and, should the men of Moncrossen find this man they will kill him--for all men die! Did not Lacombie die?”
CHAPTER XXVI
MAN OR TOY MAN?
The newspaper prediction of the forthcoming announcement of the engagement of Miss Ethel Manton and Gregory St. Ledger was published, not without color of authority, nor was it entirely out of keeping with appearances.
As the gay calendar of society's romp and rout drew toward its close, the names of these two became more and more intimately a.s.sociated. It was an a.s.sociation a.s.siduously cultivated by young St. Ledger, and earnestly fostered and abetted by the St. Ledger sisters who, fluttering uncertainly upon the outermost rim of the circle immediately surrounding society's innermost shrine, realized that the linking of the Manton name with the newer name of St. Ledger, would prove an open sesame to the half-closed doors of the Knickerbockers.
Despite two years' residence in the most expensive suite of a most expensive hotel, n.o.body seemed to know much about the St. Ledgers. It was an accepted fact that they were islanders from somewhere, variously stated to be Jamaica, The Isle of Pines, and Barbadoes, whose wealth was founded upon sugar, and appeared limitless.
St. Ledger _pere_, tall and saturnine, divided his time about equally between New York and ”the islands.”
The two girls, ravis.h.i.+ngly beautiful in their dark, semi-mysterious way, had been brought from some out-of-the-way French convent to the life of the great city, where to gain entree into society's holy of holies became a fetish above their G.o.ds.
There was no _mere_ St. Ledger, and vague whisperings pa.s.sed back and forth between certain bleached out, flat-chested virgins, whose forgotten youth and beauty were things long past, but whose tenure upon society was as firm and una.s.sailable as Plymouth Rock and the silver leg of Peter Stuyvesant could make it.
It was hinted that the high-piled tresses of the sisters matched too closely the hue of the raven's wing, and that the much admired ”waves”
if left to themselves would resolve into decided ”kinks.”
They were guarded whisperings, however, non-committal, and so worded that a triumphantly blazoned ”I told you so!” or a depreciatory and horrified: ”You misunderstood me, _dear_,” hung upon the pending verdict of the powers that be.
Gregory St. Ledger, in so far as any one knew, was neither liked nor disliked among men; being of the sort who enjoy watching games of tennis and, during the later hours of the afternoon, drive pampered Pekingese about the streets in silver-mounted electrics.
He enjoyed, also, a baby-blue reputation which successfully cloaked certain spots of pale cerise in his rather negligible character.
He smoked innumerable scented cigarettes, gold as to tip and monogram, which he selected with ostentatious unostentation from a heavy gold case liberally bestudded with rubies and diamonds.
He viewed events calmly through a life-size monocle, was London tailored, Paris shod, and New York manicured; and carried an embossed leather check-book, whose detachable pink slips proved a potent safety factor against undue increment of the St. Ledger exchequer.
Thus equipped, and for reasons of family, young St. Ledger decided to marry Ethel Manton; and to this end he devoted himself persistently and insidiously, but with the inborn patience and diplomacy of the South Islander.
Bill Carmody he hated with the snakelike hate of little men, but shrewdly perceiving that the girl held more than a friendly regard for him, enthusiastically sang his praises in her ears; praises that, somehow, always left her with a strange smothering sensation about the heart and a dull resentment of the fact that she cared.
With the disappearance of young Carmody, St. Ledger redoubled his attentions. The young man found it much easier than did his sisters to be numbered ”among those present” at the smart functions of the elite.
When New York s.h.i.+vered in the first throes of winter, a well-planned cruise in mild waters under soft skies on board the lavishly appointed and bountifully supplied St. Ledger yacht, whose sailing list included a carefully selected and undeniably congenial party of guests, worked wonders in the matter of St. Ledger's social aspirations.
At the clubs, substantial and easily forgotten loans to members of the embarra.s.sed elect, coupled with vague hints, rarely failed to pay dividends in the form of invitations to ultra-exclusive _affaires_.
At the hostelry the St. Ledger _soirees_, if so glitteringly bizarre as to draw high-browed frowns from the more reserved and staid of the thinning old guard of ancestor-wors.h.i.+pers, nevertheless, were enthusiastically hailed and eagerly attended by the younger set, and played no small part in the insinuation of ”those St. Ledgers” into the realms of the anointed.
Thus the winter wore away, and, at all times and in all places Gregory St. Ledger appeared as the devoted satellite of Ethel Manton, who entered the social melee without enthusiasm, but with dogged determination to let the world see that the disappearance of Bill Carmody affected her not at all.
She tolerated St. Ledger, even encouraged him, for he amused and offered a welcome diversion for her thoughts.
She was a girl of moods whose imagination carried her into far places in the picturing of a man--her man--big, and strong, and clean; fighting bare-fisted among men for his place in the world, and alone conquering the secret devil of desire that he might claim the right to her love.