Part 32 (2/2)
”I--I've heard from you but twice this summer, Mr. Cole. Thank you for letting me know that Gordon was still well. Have you any further news of him?”
”Yes, I have just heard,” I replied. ”He is on his way back and I wrote you this morning at Southampton.”
I watched her closely. For a moment she drove on, looking neither to the right or left, but I saw that her lower lip was being pressed on by her teeth.
”He--he never let me know,” she finally said. ”I--I hope he will return well and happy.”
”Pardon me. I am afraid that something has happened to him,” I said, again. ”Gordon is the sort of fellow who would see the thing through. He would go on to the end, you know, and--and he didn't write, this time. I have the cable here. You might stop a moment under these trees.”
She brought the machine to a standstill, gently, with no undue pressure of brake, losing none of her expertness, and put her hand out for the paper I held.
”I see,” she said, very simply and quietly, though the paper shook a little in her grasp. ”He has been very badly hurt, Mr. Cole. Otherwise he would have remained, until he was well again, to take up the work once more. I--I would give anything on earth to meet that steamer!”
”The easiest thing in the world, Miss Van Rossum.”
”No, the hardest, the most impossible,” she retorted, quickly. ”He--he might not be glad to see me, else he would have cabled me also, I think.
You will be there, of course! Be very sure you meet him, Mr. Cole, and then, please--please let me know what has happened, and find out for me whether there is anything I can do. You promise, don't you?”
I put out my hand and she crushed it, nervously, with wonderful strength, and let it go at once.
”We will go on now, I think,” she said, and pressed the selfstarter.
Soon we were in the main driveway again, among a flooding and ebbing tide of carriages and motors. Some women bowed to her and she returned the salutations with a graceful move of her head. She drove as easily as usual, and the turn was completed. Finally, she dropped me off at the club and went on, after brief but very genuine thanks.
”Good Lord! David,” said Ceballo, a moment later. ”Just caught sight of you with Diana at the wheel. Splendid young lady, isn't she? I know her father quite well.”
”Yes,” I answered, ”she is a very fine young woman.”
”Doesn't much care for literature, does she?”
”I don't know, but she has a heart of gold, and that's what counts.”
So we retired to a small private table and disputed and argued for a couple of hours, at the end of which my brains were addled and I told him to do as he pleased, whereat he beamed and I parted from him.
Then I began counting the days till the _Rochambeau_ should arrive, and Frances came back to town and sent me word at once. She received me joyfully and told me how much good the sea-air on the Newport cliffs had done Baby Paul, who was beginning to talk like a little man and to say ”G.o.d bless David” in the prayer he babbled after her each evening.
”I'm only back for a short time,” she said, ”because I'm to sing at a concert in Boston next week, and then we are going to Buffalo for a day, after which I shall return. And what do you think, David? I am to sign an engagement for the Metropolitan! Tsheretshewski is going abroad this winter to play in Spain and England, and so I shall be, for the whole winter, here in New York, and--and I hope you won't neglect me.”
I a.s.sured her that I would call every day, and left her, after I had inspected Baby Paul, who deigned to let me kiss him and favored my moustache with a powerful tug. He is a stunning infant. She was standing at the outer door of her apartment, her dear sweet smile speaking of her friends.h.i.+p and regard. The temptation came on me again, the awful longing for a touch of those lips, but I held myself within bounds, as bravely as I could, and touched the elevator signal. She waited until the cage had shot up and waved her hand at me. Her ”Good-by, Dave” held all the charm of her song and the tenderness of her heart, I thought, and I answered it with a catch in my throat.
”You will never be anything but a big over-grown kid, David,” Frieda had told me, a few days before. Ay! I realized it! I would never cease crying for that radiant moon. Sometimes, in silly dreams, I have seen myself standing before her, with her two hands in mine, with her lips near, with her heart ready to come into my keeping. But, when I waken, I remember the words she said last year, when Gordon made her so unhappy.
How could love be left in her heart? she had asked. Was there ever a night when she didn't kneel and pray for the poor soul of the man buried somewhere in France, in those dreadful fields, with, perhaps, never a cross over him nor a flower to bear to him a little of the love she had given? Let well enough alone, David, my boy! You can have her song whenever you care to beg for it, and her friends.h.i.+p and her smiles.
Would you forfeit these things because you must come forth and beg for more, ay, for more than she can give you? Would you force her dear eyes to shed tears of sorrow for you, and hear her soft voice breaking with the pain it would give her to refuse?
A few days later she met me at her door, excitedly, and told me that Baby Paul had a slight cold and that Dr. Porter had advised her not to take him away with her.
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