The Pagan Madonna

Father and son, and they had not spoken! It was this that beat persistently upon her mind. What dramatic event had created such a condition? After seven years! These two, strong mentally and physically, in a private war! She understood now how it was that Dennison had been able to tell her about Monte Carlo, the South Sea Islands, Africa, Asia; he had been his father’s companion on the yacht.

Mechanically she approached the lift. In her room all her actions were more or less mechanical. From the back of her mind somewhere came the order to her hands. She took down the evening gown. This time the subtle odour of lavender left her untouched. To be beautiful, to wish that she were beautiful! Why? Her hair was lovely; her neck and arms were lovely; but her nose wasn’t right, her mouth was too large, and her eyes missed being either blue or hazel. Why did she wish to be beautiful?

Always to be poor, to be hanging on the edge of things, never enough of this or that – genteel poverty. She had inherited the condition, as had her mother before her – gentlefolk who had to count the pennies. Her two sisters – really handsome girls – had married fairly well; but one lived in St. Louis and the other in Seattle, so she never saw them any more.

Tired. That was it. Tired of the war for existence; tired of the following odours of antiseptics; tired of the white walls of hospitals, the sight of pain. On top of all, the level dullness of the past, the leaden horror of these months in Siberia. She laughed brokenly. Gardens scattered all over the world, and she couldn’t find one – the gardens of imagination! Romance everywhere, and she never could touch any of it!

Marriage. Outside of books, what was it save a legal contract to cook and bear children in exchange for food and clothes? The humdrum! She flung out her arms with a gesture of rage. She had been cheated, as always. She had come to this side of the world expecting colour, movement, adventure. The Orient of the novels she had read – where was it? Drab skies, drab people, drab work! And now to return to America, to exchange one drab job for another! Nadir, always nadir, never any zenith!

Her bitter cogitations were interrupted by a knock on the door. She threw on her kimono and answered. A yellow hand thrust a bottle toward her. It would be the wash for the jade. She emptied the soap dish, cleaned it, poured in the germicide, and dropped the jade necklace into the liquid. She left it there while she dressed.

Dennison Cleigh, returning to the States to look for a job! Nothing she had ever read seemed quite so fantastic. She paused in her dressing to stare at some inner thought which she projected upon the starred curtain of the night beyond her window. Supposing they had wanted to fling themselves into each other’s arms and hadn’t known how? She had had a glimpse or two of Dennison’s fierce pride. Naturally he had inherited it from his father. Supposing they were just stupid rather than vengeful? Poor, foolish human beings!

She proceeded with her toilet. Finishing that, she cleansed the jade necklace with soap and water, then realized that she would not be able to wear it, because the string would be damp. So she put on the glass beads instead – another move by the Madonna of the Pagan. Jane Norman was to have her fling.

Dennison was in the lobby waiting for her. He gave a little gasp of delight as he beheld her. Of whom and of what did she remind him? Somebody he had seen, somebody he had read about? For the present it escaped him. Was she handsome? He could not say; but there was that in her face that was always pulling his glance and troubling him for the want of knowing why.

The way she carried herself among men had always impressed him. Fearless and friendly, and with deep understanding, she created respect wherever she went. Men, toughened and coarsened by danger and hardship, somehow understood that Jane Norman was not the sort to make love to because one happened to be bored. On the other hand, there was something in her that called to every man, as a candle calls to the moth; only there were no burnt wings; there seemed to be some invisible barrier that kept the circling moths beyond the zone of incineration.

Was there fire in her? He wondered. That copper tint in her hair suggested it. Magnificent! And what the deuce was the colour of her eyes? Sometimes there was a glint of topaz, or cornflower sapphire, gray agate; they were the most tantalizing eyes he had ever gazed into.

“Hungry?” he greeted her.

“For fourteen months!”

“Do you know what?”

“What?”

“I’d give a year of my life for a club steak and all the regular fixings.”

“That isn’t fair! You’ve gone and spoiled my dinner.”

“Wishy-washy chicken! How I hate tin cans! Pancakes and maple syrup! What?”

“Sliced tomatoes with sugar and vinegar!”

“You don’t mean that!”

“I do! I don’t care how plebeian it is. Bread and butter and sliced tomatoes with sugar and vinegar – better than all the ice cream that ever was! Childhood ambrosia! For mercy’s sake, let’s get in before all the wings are gone!”

They entered the huge dining room with its pattering Chinese boys – entered it laughing – while all the time there was at bottom a single identical thought – the father.

Would they see him again? Would he be here at one of the tables? Would a break come, or would the affair go on eternally?

“I know what it is!” he cried, breaking through the spell.

“What?”

“Ever read ‘Phra the Phœnician’?”

“Why, yes. But what is what?”

“For days I’ve been trying to place you. You’re the British heroine!”

She thought for a moment to recall the physical attributes of this heroine.

“But I’m not red-headed!” she denied, indignantly.

“But it is! It is the most beautiful head of hair I ever laid eyes on.”

“And that is the beginning and the end of me,” she returned with a little catch in her voice.

The knowledge bore down upon her that her soul was thirsty for this kind of talk. She did not care whether he was in earnest or not.

“The beginning, but not the end of you. Your eyes are fine, too. They keep me wondering all the time what colour they really are.”

“That’s very nice of you.”

“And the way you carry yourself!”

“Good gracious!”

“You look as if you had come down from Olympus and had lost the way back.”

“Captain, you’re a dear! I’ve just been wild to have a man say foolish things to me.” She knew that she might play with this man; that he would never venture across the line. “Men have said foolish things to me, but always when I was too busy to bother. To-night I haven’t anything in this wide world to do but listen. Go on.”

He laughed, perhaps a little ruefully.

“Is there any fire in you, I wonder?”

“Well?” – tantalizing.

“Honestly, I should like to see you in a rage. I’ve been watching you for weeks, and have found myself irritated by that perpetual calm of yours. That day of the riot you stood on the curb as unconcerned as though you had been witnessing a movie.”

“It is possible that it is the result of seeing so much pain and misery. I have been a machine too long. I want to be thrust into the middle of some fairy story before I die. I have never been in love, in a violent rage. I haven’t known anything but work and an abiding discontent. Red hair – ”

“But it really isn’t red. It’s like the copper beech in the sunshine, full of glowing embers.”

“Are you a poet?”

“On my word, I don’t know what I am.”

“There is fire enough in you. The way you tossed about our boys and the Japs!”

“In the blood. My father and I used to dress for dinner, but we always carried the stone axe under our coats. We were both to blame, but only a miracle will ever bring us together. I’m sorry I ran into him. It brings the old days crowding back.”

“I’m sorry.”