New York! It was calm and sunny in New York, not gray and clouded with blowing snow. It was crisp, cheery, not cold.
The sun, striking the topmost windows on the west walls of the Avenue, gleamed back in sharp slants to the east and glinted again upon panes which dispatched, deeper downward, shafts of the diminished light. At street intersections, the sun lay yellow and lent shadows to escort cars and people over the crossings.
In the sheer sides of the buildings, in the gleaming windows, in the pinnacles of the roofs, in the resound underfoot, in the snatches of talk, in the click of canes and women's heels, in soft scents, colors, smart shoulders and hats, in the glance of eyes, in the air itself, because it was New York, was excitation. To marry, marry Lida Haige, was become much more a matter of mere procedure than could have been conceivable in Chicago.
Here, people enterprised in intimate experience easily, lightly, expertly. In Chicago, the idea had done more violence; more crudely it had lain on the conscience. Chicago in comparison seemed, this morning, not only grayer and stormier but duller and sterner. Perhaps it was merely because his father was there.
"Do it!" bid New York. "Do it without bothering. It'll be an experience."
Jay walked on, up Park Avenue, his thousand dollars in his pocket. He had checked his bag at the Grand Central, Probably Lida and he would leave, married, from that station. He had halted near a booth with an idea of phoning his sister or Ralph that he had returned to New York; but what could he say? Likewise, he had considered calling Lida, but she wouldn't be up.
Improbably, she was out of bed now; yet he entered the big building on the west side of the avenue where the doorman spoke his name and the elevator boy did not inquire what floor. Eighth, it was, lofty enough to welcome the sun shining in upon a niveous Parian Psyche forever nude near a window. A cat slept in the sun, an enormous cat mistakable by its size and color for a mottled tiger cub; Lida's cat.
Mrs. Lytle was not in, nor was her husband; Lida was.
"Jay," she called, her voice coming past a door ajar.
"Hello, Lida," he hailed.
"I'm in here."
Jay handed his hat and coat to the manservant who had admitted him and he went to that half open door halting a moment, with a catch of breath, before he pushed it gently. How easily it opened! There was Lida; there she was, looking at him.
She was seated at a table, a tiny breakfast tray of a table, in the sun beside one of her windows where white, black and slashes of scarlet assailed him. The white was her skin. How white she was; her forehead, cheeks, throat and shoulder half bared and her hands below the big sleeves of her boudoir gown. The black was her hair, cut and clipped like a boy's; her brows, neat and jet and narrow; the big pupils of her eyes; and the satin sheen of her loose, looped gown. The scarlet slashings were its lining exposed at the neck and in the sleeves; scarlet, or near to scarlet, was the spot of her lips. The spot pursed and parted but she did not speak. She was looking at him.
Between them, off by the wall to his right and badly concealed by a Chinese screen, was her bed, as she had lain in it. She had arisen from it, thrusting her toes into scarlet satin mules which left her white heels bare. The black and scarlet peignoir parted and exposed her blue silk pajama jacket clinging close to her firm, small bosom. He noticed her, with no stir at all—and he needed to feel stir; he wanted to, and he couldn't.
"How glad you look!" she cast at him. "How damn glad you look!"
It was his own word of the telegram he had sent her, binding himself to her, binding himself to go through with this. "Be glad!" he had told her. "I am!" But now she saw him.
"How damn glad you look!"
He closed the door behind him, and after this half second of halt, advanced to her, smiling, or meaning to smile. An arm's length from her, just before he could touch her, he halted again as though something external stopped him. For he had meant to go directly to her and seize her. With her in his arms, he could do it gladly—or seem to do it gladly. She stirred him, excited and warmed him when he held her. But now he had stopped.
She darted a look into his eyes, down at his lips, at his forehead, at his lips, into his eyes again. She sat not still, as she seemed from a little distance, but constantly aquiver. He knew her aquiver; he knew the excitement of the slight, tense trembling of her in his arms; and suddenly he seized her, quivering, quivering against him and within his arms.
"Lida! Lida!" said his breath, leaving him. Sinking to one knee, he pressed his lips on hers. How hot were hers! How hot had become his own! Hers moved, quivering upon his in her kiss. Hers never were quiet. He had known that; but she was less quiet, warmer and wanting, requiring, claiming more than ever before.
He drew back a little; and a little, she let him. She put him further from her, pushing him away with both her hands on his face as though, if he drew back, she would have him not at all. Then the feel of her fingers changed; while she still thrust him away, her hands caressed him. More than caressed him; she drew him toward her; and her bright, black eyes danced and danced in little tempting, tantalizing circles about his eyes. Suddenly she surprised him with a second of steadiness; then her eyes set to dancing again, eluding him, teasing him, daring him. Catch me; catch me; catch me and hold me even for a minute, her eyes and the quiver of her and the hot, soft, soft caress of her fingers on his face, said. So he caught her and kissed her again; and she kissed and kissed his lips.
"Who's here?" he asked her, at last.
"No one; just us."
"When did they leave?"
"Last night. They'll be in this morning; or tney might be. But they aren't yet."
"When may they be in?"
"Why?" she asked, with lips against his—her hot, soft, caressing lips—and her hands on his cheeks.
"No why; no why," he said.
"You want them to come in?"
"I don't care."
"What do you, care about?"
"You."
"You do?"
"Of course I do. That's why I came back."
"It wasn't because I wired you?"
"Anyway, I was coming back to you."
It wasn't true, he knew; or he had known it and would know it again; but he felt no falseness in it, saying it with lips upon hers.
She tightened her clasp. "You wanted me to wire you?"
"Thank God you did."
"What?"
"Thank God you did!"
What was he saying? Did he know? The stir he had sought, and tried to force, had seized him like drunkenness. It was like knowing he was drunk and doing a thing because he was drunk and knowing it, yet not stopping himself.
"Why were you coming back to me?" Lida said.
"To marry you."
"Why to marry me?"
"When, can we do it?"
"When do you want to?"
"Now."
"Now? Right away?"
"I don't see why we should wait for anybody, not even your mother. Do you want to?"
"No reason," she said. "No reason."
He had had no notion of such immediateness as marrying her this morning. It had come to him because he had found neither her mother nor stepfather here. What had he to say or do with them? He need not see them or speak with them. Better not, in fact. He need only marry Lida; only that. And get it done before he came out of this God-sent drunkenness.
"I don't want to wait for them," she said.
"Then we won't."
He loosed himself from her and arose, and she sat looking at him, her eyes steady upon his, at last—steady for her; not steady for Ellen Powell. What a comparison to hang in his head—Ellen Powell's steady eyes!
Lida arose slowly, letting the black and scarlet peignoir part to her toes. "I'll get dressed," she said.
"I'll go out."
He thought, as he turned to the door, that only an hour later, after some one—some minister probably, perhaps a justice of the peace, perhaps a priest, he did not know—had mumbled a few words over them, he would stay. He would be her husband, she his wife, for all their lives.
"I'll not be long," Lida's voice said.
"Don't be."
He was in the sunlight of the drawing-room with the white Parian Psyche and the sleepy, enormous cat; and his stir was slipping from him like drunkenness with soberness coming on. Where was Nucast—Nucast, this morning? He could not keep it out of his mind, try as he would. The Nucast business was safe. In Chicago already this morning they would be working on the Nucast order, counting upon it, depending upon it for the next year's business. The order must have gone through by this time and been accepted.
Lida was not long. She was very quick; and slim and smart when she appeared in a dress of brown so deep it was almost black, like her eyes. She had on a hat which made her head small and smarter and accented the slightly upturned tip of her nose. She stepped into the sunlight and the warm brown in her dress and in her eyes flashed forth. She smiled confidently and kissed Jay, coolly.
"How do we get married, you and I?" she said.
"License, I suppose, first, I guess."
"You go for it; or must they look us both over?"
"Both, I seem t've heard," said Jay.
"So d'I."
"City Hall. I don't know it's the only place; but must be a place."
"All right."
The cat in the sun under the Psyche was waking up. The cat stretched herself languorously, sensuously and rubbed back and forth against Jay's leg. He withdrew. He hated that cat with its thick, tawny coat. Lida stooped and caressed the cat. "Good-bye, Raca," she said. It was her sole word of parting and, apparently, her sole sensation. How much more had been his at leaving his home in Chicago, after Beedy had called him?
The coat, which Lida chose this morning, proved to copy the color of the cat. He did not like it; he wanted to tell her, "Take another." But how absurd to-day to stick on a point of objection to the color of a coat!
At City Hall, they stood with clerks, with a streetsweeper, with an earringed groom of black, oily curls and beshawled bride, with a pallid pair of lovers, exceedingly frightened. An odd lot to carry photographed in your mind all your life. Jay knew he would see these people, at sudden moments, throughout his life.
"Now how'll we be married?" he asked Lida, when in their cab again. Nothing beyond the next, imminent step had they talked over; not even in the interminable drive to City Hall. One step—take it; now another—take it. They had their license.
"No church," said Lida.
"Minister?"
"Oh, pick one from the phone book; 'Piscopalian preferred, if I don't know him—and he's not on Staten Island or in Brooklyn."
Jay visited a cigar store and consulted a classified telephone directory. It was while there that suddenly he realized the need of a wedding ring; and he went out the back of the cigar store, found a jeweler's and purchased, guessing at the size, a platinum band.
He was standing beside Lida in a small, stuffy, livingroom, a minister with prayer book in front of him, and three women, two of whom would be witnesses, present. He said once, "I will" and repeated, after the minister, four or five words at a time, the till-death-us-do-part promise. So did Lida. Then they knelt, to please the minister. When they arose, they stood rather stupidly. They were married.
Jay took the minister aside and, from the packet of banknotes which Ellen Powell had handed him, he drew a fifty dollar bill. It was altogether too much for him to give, he knew; that he had besides, in his pockets, a couple of fives only. That was too little; and one did not ask change in a manage fee. He gave the minister the fifty. He grasped Lida's hand and led her out. He had not kissed her in the little, musty room of their marriage; he did not kiss her while on the stairs, but hand in hand with her, ran down to the door.
"Where to?" inquired the taxi driver, when they were again in the cab; and they knew that he knew they had, in the last ten minutes, been married.
"Grand Central," said Jay gaily; or apparently gaily.
Lida, his wife—for now she was his wife who sat beside him—said nothing until the cab had started.
"Why Grand Central?" she asked, then.
"Let's get away," said Jay. "Let's get on a train."
"What's the matter with getting on a boat?" his wife asked him, in her quick, cool voice.
"Boat for where?"
"Across," said Lida, coolly as before. "Europe."
"Oh."
"Nothing'll be crowded, Jay. We can get a cabin on any boat at the dock."
"We can't get passports at the dock," said Jay, and immediately refused the evasion of this excuse. "I can't manage Europe, you see, Lida."
"I can."
"I know you can," said Jay. "I know you can."
There was her money at him, already. She had not waited with it; she could not wait. Married, he, beside her, was feeling bound, constrained; married, she, beside him, was feeling freed, released. With him, she could go where and as she pleased and when she pleased.
"I want to get away, Jay!" she told him. "I'm going to get away."
"Of course you are," said Jay, "but not to Europe now."
"Bermuda?" she asked, in one of her instant shifts with which he was familiar. "Can you manage Bermuda?"
He shook his head.
"What can you manage?"
"Mountains," he said. "Mountains south."
"What mountains?"
"North Carolina; near Tryston."
"Oh, Tryston!"
"You know it?"
"I know it."
Only in the emergency of the moment had he found the destination in his mind. Tryston; he had been talking it over with some one, recently; with whom, he did not recollect.
"How d'you feel about Tryston?" he asked her.
"Let's go there," she yielded suddenly to him. "But you don't go from Grand Central, do you?"
"No," said Jay. "My bag's there."
"Mine's home. I don't want it. I'll buy what I need to-night; and wire for things to be sent. They're mostly at school, anyway. You go get your bag. I'll shop. When'll we meet at the Pennsylvania station?"
"In an hour?"
"It'll be all I need."
On Fifth Avenue near Thirty-fourth Street, he left his wife. He paid off the cab, with the tip expected from a man just married, and walked to the Grand Central.
Married! Married! He had married Lida Haige. How strange, how constrained, how bound, to be . . . married. If you felt it so. Lida didn't; she felt far, far more freed. Back on Fifth Avenue, she was spending her own money for her own things. How quickly she had yielded on Europe and Bermuda. Too quickly; she only had put off, he knew, this matter of her managing Europe, for both of them, on her money.
He counted, with a bit of panic, the amount remaining of the thousand dollars which Ellen Powell had handed him. Nine hundred and twelve; now tickets for two for Tryston, and the berths; no, a compartment, of course.
Western Union! He wrote on the yellow pad his father's name and office address; and wrote, "I have married Lida."
In a yellow envelope, it would be laid upon his father's desk; and he thought not of his father but of Ellen Powell opening it. How little she looked in his father's big chair with her toes not quite touching the floor!
At the appointed pillar in the Pennsylvania station, he met Lida; very slim and smart she stood. A red cap held a new, small, smart bag.
"I've the tickets," said Jay. "Shall we go out to the train? It's ready."
The porter, knowing the newly married, quickly departed after the bags were placed in the compartment. He closed the door behind him, Lida and Jay stood in their compartment alone. He began taking off her coat. Quivering, she was, quivering again, with her eyes dancing, daring, daring.
She put a hand to the light-switch. Darkness, in which her coat dropped; she was in his arms, her lips hot, hot upon his.