CHAPTER XIX
MR. MINOT GOES THROUGH FIRE
THE Duchess of Lismore elected to give her dinner and dance in Miss Meyrick's honor as near to the bright Florida stars as she could. On the top floor of the De la Pax was a private dining-room, only partially enclosed, with a picturesque view of the palm-dotted courtyard below. Adjacent to this was a sun-room with a removable glass roof, and this the duchess had ordered transformed into a ballroom. There in the open the newest society dances should rise to offend the soft southern sky.
Being a good general, the hostess was early on the scene, marshaling her forces. To her there came Cynthia Meyrick, radiant and lovely and wide-eyed on the eve of her wedding.
"How sweet you look, Cynthia," said the duchess graciously. "But then, you long ago solved the problem of what becomes you."
"I have to look as sweet as I can," replied the girl wearily. "All the rest of my life I shall have to try and live up to the nobility."
She sighed.
"To think," remarked the duchess, busy over a great bowl of flowers, "that to-morrow night this time little Cynthia will be Lady Harrowby. I suppose you'll go to Rakedale Hall for part of the year at least?"
"I suppose so."
"I, too, have had my Rakedale Hall. Formal, Cynthia dear, formal. Nothing but silly little hunts, silly little shoots—American men would die there. As for American women—nothing ever happens—the hedges bloom in neat little rows—the trees blossom—they're bare again— Cynthia, sometimes I've been in a state where I'd give ten years of my life just to hear the rattle of an elevated train!"
She stood looking down at the girl, an all too evident pity in her eyes.
"It isn't all it might be, I fancy—marrying into the peerage," Cynthia said.
"My dear," replied the duchess, "I've nearly died at times. I never was exactly what you'd call a patriot, but—often I've waked in the night and thought of Detroit. My little car rattling over the cobblestones—a new gown tried on at Madame Harbier's—a matinée—and chocolate afterward at that little place—you remember it. And our house on Woodward Avenue—the good times there. On the veranda in the evening, and Jack Little just back from college in the east running across the lawns to see me. What became of Jack, dear?"
"He married Elise Perkins."
"Ah—I know—and they live near our old house—have a box when the opera comes—entertain the Yale glee club every Christmas—oh, Cynthia, maybe it's crude, maybe it's middle-class in English eyes—but it's home! When you introduced that brother of Lord Harrowby's this afternoon—that big splendid chap who said America looked better than a title to him—I could have thrown my arms about his neck and kissed him!" She came closer to the girl, and stood looking down at her with infinite tenderness in her washed-out eyes. "Wasn't there—any American boy, my dear?" she asked.
"I—I—hundreds of them," answered Cynthia Meyrick, trying to laugh.
The duchess turned away.
"It's wrong of me to discourage you like that," she said. "Marrying into the peerage is something, after all. You must come home every year—insist on it. Johnson—are these the best caviar bowls the hotel can furnish?"
And the Duchess of Lismore, late of Detroit, drifted off into a bitter argument with the humble Johnson.
Miss Meyrick strolled away, out upon a little balcony opening off the dining-room. She stood gazing down at the waving fronds in the court-yard six stories below. If only that fountain down there were Ponce de Leon's! But it wasn't To-morrow she must put youth behind. She must go far from the country she loved—did she care enough for that? Strangely enough, burning tears filled her eyes. Hot revolt surged into her heart. She stood looking down
Meanwhile the other members of the dinner-party were gathering with tender solicitude about their hostess in the ballroom beyond. Dick Minot, hopeless, glum, stalked moodily among them. Into the crowd drifted Jack Paddock, his sprightly air noticeably lacking, his eyes worried, dreadful.
"For the love of heaven," Minot asked, as they stepped together into a secluded corner, "what ails you?"
"Be gentle with me, boy," said Paddock unhappily. "I'm in a horrible mess. The graft, Dick—the good old graft. It's over and done with now."
"What do you mean?"
"It happened last night after our wild chase of Harrowby—I was fussed—excited I prepared two sets of repartee for my two customers to use to-night"
"Yes?"
"I always make carbon copies to refer to myself just before the stuff is to be used. A few minutes ago I took out my copies. Dick! I sent the same repartee to both of them!"
"Good lord!"
"Good lord is meek and futile. So is damn. Put on your little rubber coat, my boy. I predict a hurricane."
In spite of his own troubles, Minot laughed.
"Mirth, eh?" said Paddock grimly, "I can't see it that way. I'll be as popular as a Republican in Texas before this evening is over. Got a couple of hasty rapid-fire resignations all ready. Thought at first I wouldn't come—but that seemed cowardly. Anyway, this is my last appearance on any stage as a librettist. Kindly omit flowers."
And Mr. Paddock drifted gloomily away.
While the servants were passing cocktails on gleaming trays, Minot found the door to the balcony and stepped outside. A white wraith flitted from the shadows to his side.
"Mr. Minot," said a soft, scared little voice.
"Ah—Miss Meyrick," he cried.
Merciful fate this, that they met for the first time since that incident on the ramparts in kindly darkness.
"Miss Meyrick," began Minot hurriedly, "I'm very glad to have a moment alone "with you. I want to apologize—for last night—I was mad—I did Harrowby a very palpable wrong. I'm very ashamed of myself as I look back. Can I hope that you will—forget—all I said?"
She did not reply, but stood looking down at the palms far below.
"Can I hope that you will forget—and forgive?"
She glanced up at him, and her eyes shone in the dusk.
"I can forgive," she said softly. "But I can't forget. Mr.—Mr. Minot"
"Yes?"
"What—what—is—woman's greatest privilege?"
Something in the tone of her voice sent a cold chill sweeping through Minot's very soul. He clutched the rail for support.
"If—if you'd answer," said the girl, "it would make it easier for"
Aunt Mary's generous form appeared in the doorway.
"Oh, there you are, Cynthia! You are keeping the duchess' dinner waiting."
Cynthia Meyrick joined her aunt. Minot stayed behind a moment. Below him Florida swam in the azure night. What had the girl been about to say?
Pulling himself together, he went inside and learned that he was to take in to dinner a glorious blond bridesmaid. When they were seated, he found that Miss Meyrick's face was hidden from him by a profusion of Florida blossoms. He was glad of that. He wanted to think—think.
A few others were thinking at that table, Mrs. Bruce and the duchess among them. Mrs. Bruce was mentally rehearsing. The duchess glanced at her.
"The wittiest woman in San Marco," thought the hostess. "Bah!"
Mr. Paddock, meanwhile, was toying unhappily with his food. He had little to say. The attractive young lady he had taken in had already classified him as a bore. Most unjust of the attractive young lady.
"It's lamentable, really." Mrs. Bruce was speaking. "Even in our best society conversation has given way to the turkey trot. Our wits are in our feet. Where once people talked art, music, literature—now they tango madly. It really seems—"
"Everything you say is true," interrupted the duchess blandly. "I sometimes think the race of the future will be—a trotting race."
Mrs. Bruce started perceptibly. Her eyes lighted with fire. She had been working up to this line herself, and the coincidence was passing strange. She glared at the hostess. Mr. Paddock studied his plate intently.
"I for one," went on the Duchess of Lismore, "do not dance the tango or the turkey trot. Nor am I willing to take the necessary steps to learn them."
A little ripple ran round the table—the ripple that up to now had been the exclusive privilege of Mrs. Bruce. That lady paled visibly. She realized that there was no coincidence here.
"It seems too bad, too," she said, fixing the hostess firmly with an angry eye. "Because women could have the world at their feet—if they'd only keep their feet still long enough."
It was the turn of the duchess to start, and start she did. As one who could not believe her ears, she stared at Mrs. Bruce. The "wittiest hostess in San Marco" was militantly under way.
"Women are not what they used to be," she continued. "Either they are mad about clothes, or they go to the other extreme and harbor strange ideas about the vote, eugenics, what not. In fact, the sex reminds me of the type of shop that abounds in a small town—its specialty is dry-goods and notions."
The duchess pushed away a plate which had only that moment been set before her. She regarded Mrs. Bruce with the eye of Mrs. Pankhurst face to face with a prime minister.
"We are hardly kind to our sex," she said, "but I must say I agree with you. And the extravagance of women! Half the women of my acquaintance wear gorgeous rings on their fingers—while their husbands wear blue rings about their eyes."
Mrs. Bruce's face was livid.
"Madam!" she said through her teeth.
"What is it?" asked the duchess sweetly.
They sat glaring at each other. Then with one accord they turned—to glare at Mr. Jack Paddock.
Mr. Paddock, prince of assurance, was blushing furiously. He stood the combined glare as long as he could—then he looked up into the night.
"How—how close the stars seem," he murmured faintly.
It was noted afterward that Mrs. Bruce maintained a vivid silence during the remainder of that dinner. The duchess, on the contrary, wrung from her purchased lines every possibility they held.
And in that embattled setting Mr. Minot sat, deaf to the delicous lisp of the débutante at his side. What was woman's greatest privilege? Wasn't it
His forehead grew damp. His knees trembled beneath the table. "Jephson—Thacker, Jephson—Thacker," he said over and over to himself.
After dinner, when the added guests invited by the duchess for the dance crowded the ballroom, Minot encountered Jack Paddock, Mr. Paddock was limp and pitiable.
"Ever apologize to an angry woman?" he asked. "Ever try to expostulate with a storm at sea? I've had it out with Mrs. Bruce—offered to do anything to atone—she said the best thing I could do would be to disappear from San Marco. She's right. I'm going. This is my exit from the butterfly life. And I don't intend to say good-by to the duchess, either."
"I wish I could go with you," said Minot sadly.
"Well—come along"
"No. I—I'll stick it out See you later."
Mr. Paddock slipped unostentatiously away in the direction of the elevator. On a dais hidden by palms the orchestra began to play softly.
"You haven't asked to see my card," said Cynthia Meyrick at Minot's side.
He smiled a wan smile, and wrote his name opposite number five. She drifted away. The music became louder, rising to the bright stars themselves. The dances that had furnished so much bitter conversation at table began to break out. Minot hunted up the balcony and stood gazing miserably down at fairy-land below.
There Miss Meyrick found him when the fifth dance was imminent
"Is it customary for girls to pursue their partners?" she inquired.
"I'm sorry," he said weakly. "Shall we go in?"
"It's so—so glorious out here."
He sighed—a sigh of resignation. He turned to her.
"You asked me—what is woman's greatest privilege," he said.
"Yes."
"Is it—to change her mind?"
She looked timidly into his eyes.
"It—is," she whispered faintly.
The most miserably happy man in history, he gasped.
"Cynthia! It's too late—you're to be married to-morrow. Do you mean—you'd call it all off now—at the last minute?"
She nodded her head, her eyes on the ground.
"My God!" he moaned, and turned away.
"It would be all wrong—to marry Harrowby," she said faintly. "Because I've come to—I—oh, Dick, can't you see?"
"See! Of course I see!" He clenched his fists. "Cynthia, my dearest"
Below him stretched six stories of open space. In his agony he thought of leaping over the rail—of letting that be his answer. But no—it would disarrange things so—it might even postpone the wedding!
"Cynthia," he groaned, "you can't understand. It mustn't be—I've given my word. I can't explain. I can never explain. But—Cynthia—Cynthia"
Back in the shadow the girl pressed her hands to her burning cheeks.
"A strange love—yours," she said. "A love that blows hot and cold."
"Cynthia—that isn't true—I do love you"
"Please! Please let us—forget." She stepped into the moonlight, fine, brave, smiling. "Do we—dance?"
"Cynthia!" he cried unhappily. "If you only understood"
"I think I do. The music has stopped. Harrowby has the next dance—he'd hardly think of looking for me here."
She was gone! Minot stood alone on the balcony. He was dazed, blind, trembling. He had refused the girl without whom life could never be worth while! Refused her, to keep the faith!
He entered upon the bright scene inside, slipped unnoticed to the elevator and, still dazed, descended to the lobby. He would walk in the moonlight until his senses were regained. Near the main door of the De la Pax he ran into Henry Trimmer. Mr. Trimmer had a newspaper in his hand.
"What's the matter with the women nowadays?" he demanded indignantly. Minot tried in vain to push by him. "Seen what those London suffragettes have done now?" And Trimmer pointed to a head-line.
"What have they done?" asked Minot.
"Done? They put dynamite under the statue of Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square and blew it sky-high. It fell over into the Strand"
"Good!" cried Minot wildly. "Good! I hope to hell it smashed the whole of London!" And, brushing aside the startled Trimmer, he went out into the night.
It was nearly twelve o'clock when Mr. Minot, somewhat calmer of mind, returned to the De la Pax. As he stepped into the courtyard he was surprised to see a crowd gathered before the hotel. Then he noticed that from a second-floor window poured smoke and flame, and that the town fire department was wildly getting into action.
He stopped—his heart almost ceased beating. That was her window! The window to which he had called her on that night that seemed so far away—last night! Breathlessly he ran forward.
And he ran straight into a group just descended from the ballroom. Of that group Cynthia Meyrick was a member. For a moment they stood gazing at each other. Then the girl turned to her aunt.
"My wedding dress!" she cried. "I left it lying on my bed. Oh, I can't possibly be married to-morrow if that is burned!"
There was a challenge in that last sentence, and the young man for whom it was intended did not miss it. Mad with the injustice of life, he swooped down on a fireman struggling with a wabbly ladder. Snatching away the ladder, he placed it against the window from which the smoke and flame poured. He ran up it.
"Here!" shouted the chief of the fire department, laying angry hands on the ladder's base. "Wot you doing? You can't go in there."
"Why the devil can't I?" bellowed Minot. "Let go of that ladder!"
He plunged into the room. The smoke filled his nostrils and choked him. His eyes burned. He staggered through the smoky dusk into another room. His hands met the brass bars of a bed—then closed over something soft and filmy that lay upon it. He seized the something close, and hurried back into the other room.
A fireman at another window sought to turn a stream of water on him. Water—on that gown!
"Cut that out, you fool!" Minot shouted. The fireman, who had suspected himself of saving a human life, looked hurt. Minot regained his window. Disheveled, smoky, but victorious, he half fell, half climbed, to the ground. The fire chief faced him.
"Who was you trying to rescue?" the chief commanded. His eyes grew wide. "You idiot," he roared, "they ain't nobody in that dress."
"Damn it, I know that," Minot cried.
He ran across the lawn and stood, a panting, limp, battered, ludicrous figure before Cynthia Meyrick.
"I—I hope it's the right one," he said, and held out the gown.
She took his offering, and came very close to him.
"I hate you!" she said in a low tone. "I hate you!"
"I—I was afraid you would," he muttered.
A shout from the firemen announced that the blaze was under control. To his dismay, Minot saw that an admiring crowd was surrounding him. He broke away and hurried to his room.
Cynthia Meyrick's final words to him rang in his ears. Savagely he tore at his ruined collar.
Was this ridiculous farce never to end?
"Hope it's the right one"
To-morrow, at high noon!