Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

"I hope you realize," he said presently, with a dignity that would have been ridiculous if it hadn't been pathetic, "that Miss Van Wyck is a very good friend of mine."

"Is she?" I asked quietly.

"Yes—I'm very fond of her."

"Are you?" still quietly.

"Yes." He walked the floor jerkily, made a false start or so and then brought up before me with an air of decision. "I—I'm sorry you don't like her, Roger. I—I should be truly grieved if I—I thought you meant it. For I intend some day to ask her to be my—my—wife."

It was as bad as that? I dropped pretense and the newspaper, folding my arms and regarding him steadily.

"Isn't this decision—er—rather sudden?" I asked evenly.

"I've loved her from the first moment I saw her," he exclaimed. "She is everything, everything that a woman should be. Amiable, charitable, beautiful, talented, intellectual." He paused and threw out his arms with an appealing gesture. "I can't understand why you don't see it, Roger, why you can't see her as I see her."

I was beginning to realize that the situation was one to be handled with discretion. He was in a frame of mind where active opposition would only add fuel to his flame.

"I'm sorry that I've grown to be so critical, Jerry. You forget that I've never much cared for the sex."

It seemed that this was just the reply to restore him to partial sanity, for his face broke in a smile.

"I forgot, old Dry-as-dust. You don't like 'em—don't like any of 'em. That's different. But you will like Marcia. You shall. Why, Roger, she's an angel. You couldn't help liking her."

I smiled feebly. My acquaintance with decadent angels had been limited. I turned the subject adroitly.

"Have you discovered who Una is?" I asked.

"No. Marcia wouldn't tell me. She only laughed at me, but I really wanted to know. She was a nice girl, Roger, and I'd hate to have her shown in a false light. Not that Marcia would do that, of course, but girls are queer. I think she really resented our acquaintance. I can't imagine why."

"Nor I," I said shortly. "She doesn't own you, does she?"

He looked up at me with a blank expression.

"No, I suppose not," he said slowly.

I followed up my advantage swiftly.

"It's rather curious, Jerry, this attraction Miss Van Wyck has for you. A moment ago you were chivalrous enough in your hope that Una's identity would not be discovered. Was this chivalry genuine? Were you sorry on Una's account or on your own? I really want to know. You liked Una, Jerry. Didn't you?"

"Yes, but—"

"She seemed a very interesting, a fine, even a noble creature. The thought of a girl doing the sort of things she was doing made you reproach yourself for your idleness—your cowardice, I think you called it. Now what I'd like to discover is whether you've quite forgotten the impression she made—the ideal she left in your mind?"

"Of course not. My ideals are still the same. I've tried to tell you that I'm going to put them into practice," he muttered.

"You've forgotten the impression made by Una herself; what reason have you for believing that you won't forget the ideals also?"

"There's no danger of that. She merely opened my eyes. Anyone else could have done the same thing."

"Ah! Has Miss Van Wyck done so?"

"Yes. She's very charitable. But she doesn't make a business of it like Una. She has so many interests and then—" He paused. I waited.

"Roger," he went on in a moment, "I thought Una wonderful. I still do. But Marcia's different. Una was a chance visitor. Marcia is a friend—an old friend. She's like no other woman in the world. You will understand her better some day."

"Perhaps," I said thoughtfully. After that Jerry would say no more. Perhaps he thought he had already said too much, for presently he took himself off to bed. At the foot of the stairs he paused.

"By the way, Roger, we'll be five instead of four for dinner tomorrow."

"Who now?"

"A friend of Marcia's, Channing Lloyd, a chap from town. He came up today."

That admission cost Jerry something, and it explained many things, for I had heard of Channing Lloyd.

"Ah, very well," I said carelessly and shook out my paper.

"Good-night, Roger."

"Good-night, Jerry."

The boy was changed. It may not seem a serious thing to you, my precocious reader, who number your flirtations among the trivial affairs of life. Calf love, you will say, is not a matter worth bothering one's brains about. You will class that ailment perhaps with the whooping cough and the measles and sneer it out of existence. But I would remind you that Jerry's mind and character were quite mature. I had schooled them myself and I know. If Jerry had fallen in love with Marcia Van Wyck who proposed to play at her game of "pitch-farthing" with so fine a soul as Jerry's, the thing was serious, serious for both of them. His attitude toward the girl in his conversation tonight reminded me that affairs had already progressed a long way. She had come to Briar Hills, flattering Jerry, of course, that they could be alone, intriguing meanwhile with Channing Lloyd, a wild fellow, according to Jack Ballard, who at thirty could have unprofitably shared his omniscience with the devil. A fine foil for Jerry!

At dinner, the following night, we made a curious party. Marcia Van Wyck, radiant in pale green, with her admirers one at either hand; Channing Lloyd, dark, massive, well-groomed, with a narrow smile and an air of complete domination of the table; Jerry at the other side, rolling bread-pills and forcing humor rather awkwardly; Miss Gore, solemn in black satin—all of them elegant and correct in evening clothes, while I in my rather shabby serge sat awkwardly trying to hide the shininess of my elbows. From my position at one end of the table I had an excellent opportunity to study the company. I saw in Lloyd, I think, the attraction for Marcia. His looks, his topics, his appetites were animal and gross. He drank continuously, smoked after his salad, and monopolized the guest of the evening to the complete exclusion of the others. Fragments of their talk reached me, of which I understood a little—Greek to Jerry. Miss Gore sat calmly through it all, leading Jerry into the conversation at propitious moments and out of it when it threatened incomprehension.

There is a kind of charity of the dinner table and ballroom finer, I think, than the mere kindness of giving, finer because it requires discretion, nobler because it requires self-elimination. The more I saw of Miss Gore the more deeply was I impressed by her many amiable qualities. She had an ear for Jerry, but aware of my complete elimination by the rowdy upon my left, found time to relieve the awkwardness of my situation and contribute something to the pleasure of what for me would otherwise have been a very unenjoyable repast.

But when dinner was over, to my great surprise, I found myself alone with the girl Marcia. I have no very distinct notion of the means by which she accomplished this feat, remembering only hazily that we all ambled over to the conservatory, where a particular variety of orchid seemed to interest the girl. And there we were, I explaining and she listening, the others off somewhere near the entrance to the gymnasium, where I heard Lloyd's voice in bored monotone. I was quite sure in a moment that she hadn't managed to get me there to talk orchids, and I felt a vague sense of discomfort at her nearness. I have given the impression that her eyes were cold. As I looked into them I saw that I had been mistaken. In the dim light they seemed illumined at their greater depth by a hidden fire. She fixed her gaze upon my face and moved ever so slightly toward me. You may think it strange after what I have written when I say that at this moment I felt a doubt rising in me as to whether or not I might have done this girl an injustice, for her smile was frank, her air gracious, her tone friendly.

"Oh, Mr. Canby," she said in her even voice, "I've wanted to tell you what a wonderful thing it is that you have created—to thank you for Jerry. He's a gift, Mr. Canby, refreshing like the rain to thirsty flowers. You can't know what meeting a man like Jerry means to a woman like me. I don't think you possibly can."

"What does it mean to you?" I asked.

"It means a new point of view on life, a thing scarce enough in this day when all existence is either sordid or vicious. I had reached a Slough of Despond, Mr. Canby, weary of the attainable, not strong enough or clever enough or courageous enough to defy criticism and obey the small voice that urged. I was sick with self-analysis, filled to the brim with modern philosophies—"

"I understand," I broke in with a smile, which seemed to come in spite of me. "There's no medicine for that."

"Yes, Jerry. I—I think he's cured me—or at least Pm well on the road to recovery. Nobody could be mind-sick long with Jerry letting daylight in."

"Daylight, yes. You found it startling?"

"A little, at first. I felt the way I look sometimes at dawn after dancing all night, my tinsel tarnished, my color faded. All my effects are planned for artificial light, you see."

Her frankness disarmed me.

"I'm thanking you for Jerry," she went on, "but I can't help knowing that Jerry is what you've made him; that his ideals, his simplicity, his purity are yours also."

If she had baited her hook with flattery there was no sign of premeditation in the gentleness of her accents or in the friendly look she gave me. Could it be possible that this was the person in whom I had seen such a menace to Jerry's happiness?