The Forbidden Way

"Why should I be?" coolly.

"I don't know. I thought you might be. I stopped at your house. They told me you were here, so I came right down."

"You're very kind – but I didn't leave any instructions."

"No, but they told me. I wanted to see you." "You didn't want to see me the other night."

"I couldn't – I 'phoned you."

"Don't you think it would have been in better taste if you had come yourself?"

"I left in the morning for Washington. I've just returned. I'm sorry you didn't understand."

"I did. You had other fish to fry. Did you know I came all the way in from the country to see you? No woman cares to throw herself at the head of a man. Personally I prefer an insult to a slight, Mr. Wray."

"Good Lord! I hope you don't think I could do that. I certainly have never showed you anything but friendship. I've been worried over – over business matters."

"That's a man's excuse. It lacks originality. I'm not accustomed to rebuffs, Mr. Wray. I made the mistake of showing that I liked you. That's always fatal, I thought you were different. I know better now. There's no depth too great for the woman who cheapens herself – I'm glad I learned that in time."

"Don't talk like that. I tell you I've been away," he protested.

"Really! Why didn't you write to me then?"

"Write?"

"Or send me some roses?"

"I'll send you a wagon-load."

"It's too late," she sighed. "It was the thought I wanted."

Wray rubbed his chin pensively. It occurred to him that there were still many things with which he was unfamiliar.

"I did think of you."

"Why didn't you tell me so then?"

"I'm telling you now."

She leaned toward him with a familiar gesture of renewed confidences.

"There are a thousand ways of telling a woman you're thinking of her, Mr. Wray. The only way not to tell her is to say that you are. What a man says is obvious and unimportant. A woman always judges a man by the things that he ought to have done – and the things he ought not to have done."

"I don't suppose I'll ever learn – "

"Not unless some woman teaches you."

"Won't you try me again?"

"I'll think about it." And then with one of her sudden transitions, she added in a lower tone, "I am at home to-night. It is your last chance to redeem yourself."

"I'll take it. I can't lose you, Mrs. Cheyne."

"No – not if I can help it," she whispered.

A general movement among Perot's visitors brought the conversation to a pause. Mrs. Rumsen, after a final word with Camilla, departed with her small brood. Cortland Bent, with a mischievous intention of supplying evidence of the inefficacy of the parental will, removed one wing of the screen which sheltered Berkely and his own ex-fiancée. But Miss Janney was not in the least disconcerted, only turning her head over her shoulder to throw at him:

"Please go away, Cort. I'm extremely busy."

Camilla smiled, but was serious again when Bent whispered at her ear, "My refuge!" he said. "Yoursis yonder."

She followed his glance toward Wray and Rita Cheyne, who were so wrapped in each other's conversation that they were unconscious of what went on around them.

"Come," said Camilla, her head in the air, "let us go."

CHAPTER XIII

GOOD FISHING

A clock struck the hour of nine. Mrs. Cheyne lowered the volume of Shaw's plays, the pages of which she had made a pretence of reading, and frowned at the corner of the rug. She now wore a house gown of clinging material whose colors changed from bronze to purple in the shadow of the lamps. It fitted her slim figure closely like chain-mail and shimmered softly like the skin of a dusky chameleon. Mrs. Cheyne was fond of uncertain colors in a low key, and her hour was in the dim of twilight, which lent illusions, stimulated the imagination to a perception of the meaning of shadows – softened shadows which hung around her eyes and mouth, which by day were merely lines – a little bitter, a little hard, a little cynical. Mrs. Cheyne's effects were all planned with exquisite care; the amber-colored shades, the warmish rug and scarlet table cover, the Chinese mandarin's robe on her piano, the azaleas in the yellow pots, all were a part of a color scheme upon which she had spent much thought. Her great wealth had not spoiled her taste for simplicity. The objects upon her table and mantel-shelf were few but choice, and their arrangement, each with reference to the other, showed an artistry which had learned something from Japan. She hated ugliness. Beauty was her fetich. The one great sorrow of her life was the knowledge that her own face was merely pretty; but the slight irregularity of her features somewhat condoned for this misfortune, and she had at last succeeded in convincing herself that the essence of beauty lies rather in what it suggests than in what it reveals. Nature, by way of atoning for not making each feature perfect, had endowed them all with a kind of Protean mobility, and her mind with a genius for suggestion, which she had brought to a high degree of usefulness. Without, therefore, being beautiful at all, she gave the impression of beauty, and she rejoiced in the reputation which she possessed of being marked "Dangerous."

She had rejoiced in it, moreover, because she had been aware that, no matter how dangerous she might prove to be with others, with herself she had not been dangerous. The kind of romance, the kind of sentiment, in which she indulged she had come to regard as highly specialized art in which she was Past Grand Mistress. She loved them for their own sake. She was a fisher of men, but fished only for the love of fishing, and it was her pleasure while her victims still writhed to unhook them as tenderly as might be and let them flap ungracefully back into their own element. Her fly-book was a curiosity and of infinite variety. Izaak Walton advances the suggestion that trout bite "not for hunger, but wantonness." Rita Cheyne was of the opinion that men bit for a similar reason; and so she whipped the social streams ruthlessly for the mere joy of the game, matching her skill to the indifference of her quarry, her artistry to their vehemence.

And now she suddenly discovered that she must throw her fly-book away – she had tried them all – the "silver-doctor," the "white moth," the "brown hackle" – and all to no purpose. Her fish had risen, but he would not bite. She was fishing in unfamiliar waters, deeper waters, where there were hidden currents she could not understand. The tackle she had used when fishing for others would not serve for Jeff Wray.

It provoked her that her subtlety was of no avail, for she had the true fisher's contempt for heavy tackle. And yet she realized that it was only heavy tackle which would land him. He was the only man who had really interested her in years, and his conquest was a matter of pride with her. She had other reasons, too. His wife was beautiful. Rita Cheyne was merely artistic. Victory meant that Beauty was only an incident – that Art, after all, was immortal. The theory of a whole lifetime needed vindication.

When Wray entered she was deep in "You Never Can Tell," but looked up at her visitor slowly and extended a languid hand.

"Aren't you early?" she asked, slipping a marker in the pages of her book and closing it slowly.

"No, I don't think so. I thought I was late. I was detained."

She held up a hand in protest.

"I was really hoping you might not come. I've been really so amused – and when one is really amused nowadays one should expect nothing more of the gods."

Wray got up hurriedly. "I won't 'butt in' then. I don't want to disturb – "

"Oh, sit down – do. You make me nervous. Have a cigarette – I'll take one, too. Now tell me what on earth is the matter with you."

"The matter? Nothing. I'm all right."

"You've changed somehow. When I met you at the Bents' I thought you the most wonderful person I had ever met – with great – very great possibilities. Even at the Janneys' the illusion still remained. Something has happened to change you. You do nothing but scowl and say the wrong thing. There's no excuse for any man to do that."

"I'm worried. There's been a slight tangle in my plans. I – but I'm not going to trouble you with – "

"I want to hear – of course. You went to Washington?"