AS Callendar reëntered the cabriolet, Ellen settled back into her corner to wait. She watched, as always, but this time she was conscious that there was another who was watching. It seemed for the first time that there had risen up in her path a person, perhaps even an enemy, who played the same waiting game. Callendar sat in his corner, his dark face visible now and then as a streak of light from the lamps entered the door, and in that uncertain and shifting illumination, Ellen studied him closely for the first time.
It was a strangely pleasing face; the very dark pallor, so evenly distributed, so perfectly shaded caught her attention as a kind of beauty new to her. There was no ruddiness here, no boisterous energy. Rather it was a silent, subtle kind of beauty. The power behind it was not so much a crude energy as a strength that was placid yet possessed of the quality of steel. It was a strength that revealed itself in the firm, clean line of the jaw and in the square, almost hard modeling of the intelligent head. If there was a hint of passion it lay in the red lips that were so full and sensual beneath the fine black mustache. He wore the collar of his coat turned up a little, with his hat pulled well over his eyes so that the whole gave an impression of rakishness and adventure. Yet her instinct told her that here was something to be feared, something subtle and rather neat, of a sort strange to her.
They must have ridden several blocks in silence when he said to her, in a voice that was warm and carried faint traces of an accent, "I say, you are a remarkable person. I'd never dreamed how much it took to bring you where you are."
When she answered, Ellen felt a new and absurd inclination to become a helpless, almost arch, young girl. "It's nothing," she said. "I'd never thought about it."
"It was an entertaining story you gave us. . . . You see people like me and Sabine seldom get any idea of what the real world is like." He paused for a moment and then continued as if to make clear what he meant—"I mean a world in which people have to fight for things. We just have them. We forget about the others. And we're in the minority of about . . . shall we say . . . one to a thousand. I've always had what I wanted. . . . I suppose I'll always have it."
This was strange talk, in a queer philosophic vein, to which Ellen answered again, "I don't know . . . I've never thought about the difference. I know what I want and some day . . . I suppose I'll have it."
"You are an extraordinary musician . . . you know," he continued. "I wonder if you know how extraordinary."
Ellen did know; she was sure of it. But she saw fit not to answer because she was a little puzzled. In a world bounded by Clarence and Herman Biggs, she had not met a man of this sort. He was younger than Clarence and not much older than Herman but that made no difference. It was something that had nothing to do with age. Rather it was a matter of experience. She knew she was an excellent musician; she must have believed it or she could not have gone her own way with such unswerving directness, but she chose to answer modestly. In the dim light of the cab, it was impossible to know whether or not she actually smirked.
"Perhaps I am. How is one to know? . . . About one's self, I mean."
"My mother and I know about such things," he replied, and then for a time the cabriolet fell into silence. They turned from the avenue into the park, and presently out of his corner he spoke again.
"You're sure you told us everything to-night? You didn't leave out of the story anything that might interest us?"
There was in this an impertinence which Ellen sensed and considered for a time. He was looking out of the window at the bare trees of the park with a splendid air of indifference, which Ellen felt was not indifference at all. Far back in her consciousness an odd feeling of triumph came into existence, a queer, inexplicable feeling that she was the dominant one, that somehow she had caught him now off his guard, as if she found he was not so clever as he thought. She became aware of a genuine sense of conflict, vague and undefined, . . . a sort of conflict between her own intelligence and one that was quite as powerful. She watched the clear-cut ivory profile for a time and then said, "No. I left out nothing that could possibly interest anybody but me."
(That much for his curiosity about the little man he saw for an instant through the open door at the Babylon Arms!)
Callendar turned to her. "I sound impertinent, but I only ask because it seems to me that you are even more interesting than the story you tell."
Again this was bold and even personal, as though he sought to assume possession of that part of her which should belong to no one . . . the part which was herself, at which he had no right to pry. The temptation to become feminine seized her once more.
"I suppose," she said, "that that is a compliment. I thank you for it. Of course, I don't know how true it is."
"It is true," he replied abruptly. "You are admirable . . . and courageous. Spirit is a fine thing . . . the greatest in the world."
There was one thing for which she was thankful. He did not treat her as if she were a silly girl, as a man might, for example, have treated May Seton. In years he was not much older than herself yet in reality she understood that he was centuries older. Of that, she was certain. What she did not understand was that his approach to life, down to the veriest detail, was one which, by the nature of things, was not only alien but incomprehensible. He had patience, a quality which in her was so utterly lacking as to be inconceivable; he could wait. It was this which puzzled her . . . this and the sense of conflict, so complicated, that was always a little way off, just out of reach and not to be understood.
From a great distance, she watched him and even herself, confused, puzzled, but profundly interested. That much she had gained from the blood that flowed in old Gramp Tolliver's veins. She was always watching, waiting, learning.
The rest of their conversation was less interesting. It possessed, to be sure, a strange quality of leisure; there were long silences not in the least awkward and uncomfortable. On the contrary, despite that sense of conflict and watching, there was a certain calmness about them, as of the silences which fall between old friends immersed in a perfect understanding. It was perhaps the same friendliness which she neglected always to take into consideration, in which she would never quite believe.
At the Babylon Arms they passed between the Syrian Lions of cast iron and at the elevator he left her. There was no prying this time, no evidence of curiosity. As he bade her good night, he suggested that one day they might lunch together. Then the swaying elevator bore her upward to Clarence and out of sight of Callendar.
The sense of conflict disturbed her, even after Clarence came in from the Bunces', murmuring apologies for having forgotten her and stayed so late. He apologized too for having, in the enthusiasm of a pinochle game, invited the Bunces to dinner four weeks later when he had returned from his western trip.