CHAPTER XXV
THEY were dining that night at a picturesquely situated resort some thirty miles out of Boston. They had been there on several occasions before, for it combined an excellence of food and service, music and surroundings that was difficult to find within reasonable motoring distance of town. Its patronage was somewhat heterogeneous in character, as with all such resorts, but it was respectable. In fact, Dr. Booth had never taken Reba to any restaurant, dance-hall, or place of amusement where he was not perfectly willing to be seen with a woman other than his wife or sister, should any of his friends chance to run across him there, as they did sometimes. Moreover Reba wouldn't have fitted into too uproarious a place.
Chadwick Booth often smiled over her little prejudices. She strove hard to earn from him the title of all-round-good-sport, but there were certain things he could not persuade her to do. For instance, she would not go out to dinner with him on Sundays; and it appeared that a cocktail, or any form of alcohol, however mild, she recoiled from instinctively. Once in a long while she would acquiesce to a tiny little sip from his glass, and on one or two occasions, in the beginning of their relations (as, for instance, on the picnic on the rocks) she had accepted a glass of her own. But as she knew him better and dared, she refused absolutely to partake of this part of his entertainment.
"But why—why, Becky?" he'd demand impatiently.
"Oh, I just don't like it," she'd reply. "It's so bitter!"
"Nonsense," he'd laugh back at that, seeing through her ruse, and he'd follow up her flimsy excuse with some such taunt as, "Oh, Becky, don't the narrow little shoes squeeze?"
Such jibes would make Reba flush and squirm, but there were certain symbols of wickedness, certain standards of right and wrong, that no amount of holding up to scorn could persuade her to disregard.
To-night, it was after Chadwick Booth had drunk his usually solitary cocktail, and the waiter had departed with the carefully selected order, that Reba decided to open the subject so near her heart. She had waited until now, with careful purpose. All the pretty tributes had been paid her costume, all the day's happenings at the hospital detailed to her, all the latest questions of a certain amusing woman in the Wednesday-night First Aid class repeated and smiled over as usual; and Chadwick Booth had stretched out his long arm, and let his hand drop dead in Becky's lap once, guiding the car nonchalantly with his other hand, and had exclaimed in that small-boy way that appealed so to Reba, "Oh, I'm tired—tired, Becky, to-night. I want to be amused." He had never seemed dearer to her.
They were sitting in a secluded corner in the restaurant, close to a window. They had had to weave their way to this particular spot through a series of other tables nearer at hand, and cross the space in the middle of the room that was cleared for dancing. It was when the music had stopped, after a waltz, to which two or three couples had been dancing, that Reba took a sip of water and then began.
"Do you mind my speaking about something?"
"What is it, Becky?" Chadwick Booth asked her, gently patronizing, as he surveyed her approvingly, leaning back in his chair, with his two hands shoved comfortably into his trousers' pockets.
"Well," she went on, glancing down at the silver by her plate, "I didn't know until to-day that you were married," she brought out.
Chadwick Booth didn't change his easy attitude—just smiled.
"Didn't you, Becky? That's flattering."
"Flattering?" she murmured, glancing up and then down again.
"Yes. For two reasons. First, because it proves that domesticity isn't stamped all over me, and second because it's rather nice to be found desirable for my own modest attributes. You see, usually, Becky, I'm desirable because I'm the husband of my more desirable wife."
She winced at his easy use of these terms to her, but she got little meaning from his words.
"I didn't know you had a I didn't know," she broke off, "until to-day, but what you were just—just" She stopped.
There was something about her voice that made Chadwick Booth remove his hands from his pockets, and sit up.
"Why, my dear Becky," he exclaimed, "I thought of course you knew," which to do him full credit was true, at least until lately.
It didn't seem reasonable to him that she could live in Boston, and not be aware of the existence of his wife. He could no more have married the prominent daughter of the prominent Archibald Cross, without becoming notorious, than he could have established the Statue of Liberty's torch in his home without broadcast advertisement. Becky read the papers with refreshing punctiliousness, and the name of Mrs. Chadwick Booth appeared every week, during the season, in the society columns. Reba's acquired daily reading of the papers, however, did not include the society columns. She skipped them absolutely along with the sporting-page.
"I thought you couldn't help but know," Chadwick Booth went on. "And, besides, I was always talking about the closed house, and how forlorn it was, and how, if my family insisted upon running off to Bar Harbor for a good time, I intended to have a little good time here. Don't you remember?"
She nodded. "But I thought it was your mother and father. I didn't know it was your very own family."
"Well," Chadwick Booth reached over and patted her hand, "being married doesn't make me any less fond of you, Becky. Did you think it might?"
She quivered at his touch, and raised her eyes to him, full of hope. Then bravely and simply she asked him:
"Are you unhappily married?"
He laughed softly outloud at the concern in her voice.
"Oh, don't waste any of your sweet sympathy on me, Becky. I'm no more unhappily married than the majority. In fact, sometimes I think I'm more fortunate than most. Virginia's such a good sport."
The conversation was not taking the course that Reba had anticipated, and she felt bewildered.
"A good sport," she groped. "You mean"
"I mean that Virginia is perfectly willing to allow me my little affairs, just so I allow her hers. So we get on very amicably. Are really on the best of terms now, and when we are obliged to appear at functions together, do so very creditably."
"Is this—this I mean our being together this summer, one of the 'little affairs'?" Reba asked miserably.
"Oh, oh, Becky!" smiled Chadwick Booth, shaking his head at her accusingly. "Jealous? Is that it? Listen to me," he said, with assumed gravity. "Our being together this summer is one of the biggest 'little affairs' I've ever had. I only meant to amuse you for an evening or two, and myself, too," he admitted, shrugging, "and here you have walked straight into my affections."
Reba clasped her hands together in her lap. The waiter had arrived. He placed before her a tomato stuffed with something green and yellow. There were two slim fish crossed on top of it.
"Try that," exclaimed Chadwick Booth, good-humoredly, nodding toward the plate before her. "I think you'll find it rather good."
Mechanically Reba reached for her fork and sampled a bit of the peculiar combination. It had a sharp, highly cultivated sort of flavor. It burned her tongue. But somehow she swallowed the morsel.
"Do you like it?" Chadwick Booth smiled at her.
She was unaware of his question, was conscious only of a smarting sensation of tongue, and throat, and heart—yes, heart too! She gulped down a little water. Then in a voice she hardly recognized as her own she asked again, to be sure she was not mistaken, "So—so you are not unhappily married at all?"
"Becky," replied Chadwick Booth, "there are not many Robert-and-Elizabeth-Browning marriages in the world. You'll find that out for yourself, some day, poor girl, I suppose. It's in friendships, comradeships, such as ours where you'll find most of what you call happiness. For we meet for no other reason than for happiness' sake. You and I have nothing to haggle over, and argue about. That's the beauty of it. No furnace, nor hot-water system that you've got to heckle me to attend to. No children's education to discuss, and disagree upon. Nothing of that sort." Then abruptly he broke off. "Come, let's not lose this. It's a waltz."
Reba shook her head. "No—no—please—not now. I'd rather not dance just now."
Chadwick Booth frowned, and an expression of annoyance crossed his features.
"Look here, you aren't going to be absurd, are you?"
"No," she assured him. "No, I'm not. Only—I'd really like to finish this." And she nodded down at the tongue-biting stuffed tomato on her plate.
The frown on Chadwick Booth's face deepened as he suspiciously surveyed Reba. Then briefly to the waiter, "Bring me another cocktail," he said.
Reba had never seen Chadwick Booth annoyed with her before. But he was now. She was sure of it. She had observed that look on his face when waiters in restaurants failed to please him. But what could she do? What could she say? She pecked at the tomato before her, once or twice, then frankly gave it up. She tasted, too, the steaming soup that appeared before her, was conscious later of the fragrance of broiled chicken, and dimly aware how easily the ivory-handled, steel knife cut through its tender joints; tried to swallow a mouthful of the young juicy flesh; but she couldn't eat. She felt as if she could never eat again.
"For heaven's sake," she heard Chadwick Booth exclaim impatiently. "Whatever is the matter, Becky?"
What was the matter? Could he ask, when all about her in smoking ruins lay her shattered hopes, and fallen ideals, and she was bleeding to death beneath them?
"Nothing. Nothing's the matter," she heard her voice reply.
Chadwick Booth shrugged at that. "You've got a lot to learn, I'm afraid," he informed her.
"I suppose so," she agreed.
"I'm extremely sorry," he pursued, in a voice that stung Reba with its formality, "if you've been laboring under a misapprehension this summer, but really, my dear girl, I haven't tried to deceive you for one instant. There's no real harm been done, anyhow, as far as I can see."
Oh, why flay and torture her further? "Oh, don't talk about it." She shivered slightly.
"Is the wind too much for you from that window?" civilly and icily Chadwick Booth inquired.
"No," Reba told him. "It isn't too much."
Then, "One whisky and soda," she heard him order from the waiter. "And put down that window," he went on imperiously, "and remove some of these superfluous dishes." He waved his sensitive hands before him. "And where's the salad I ordered? Why all this delay? And when I specified fresh butter, why do you bring us salt? And don't you see we're out of ice? Send the head-waiter over here. This service is abominable!"
Later—some time after the arrival of the siphon, upon the nickel top of which, to steady herself, Reba riveted her gaze—Chadwick Booth's mood changed again. Suddenly he reached across the white cloth, and laid his hand, palm upward, before Reba, and when he spoke his voice was full of gentleness and remorse.
"Oh, Becky, please forgive my nasty temper. Please. Don't punish me any more. Don't let's throw away the whole evening. I ought not to be annoyed with you at all. It was only, dear Becky, that I begrudged wasting a single one of our precious minutes together, on things and people outside our friendship. They seemed so very far outside to-night, Becky. Our friendship has grown to mean a lot to me, and it isn't going to grow to mean less, just because summer is over. We're going to have some rare hours together, this fall and winter, somehow. And, Becky, please listen—I'm fonder of you than I could ever possibly be if our hours together were interrupted with domestic trivialities. And there's nothing wrong nor forbidden in our innocent playing together either. Don't get that notion into your little head. Everything is all right. Everything is going to be all right, too. O come, please be generous. Please come and dance."
He shoved his outstretched hand a bit nearer to her, as if to urge her to put hers into it, and give him permission to lead her to the floor.
Reba gazed at it, as if it belonged to a stranger.
"No, thanks. No. I don't believe I'll dance just now."
"Of course you will," he retorted fiercely, tenderly too; and suddenly imprisoning her passive hand lying nearby upon the cloth, he rose, and stepped around to her; and still holding her hand pulled her to her feet. "Of course you will," he went on earnestly, leaning so close that she could catch the odor of his breath. "You don't know what you'll do. You don't know what you want. But I do. I know. Becky, I'm fonder of you than ever to-night. Come!" And he drew her toward the floor.
She could not well resist, not while he held her hand like that, not while his eyes so vehemently insisted. But as she felt his arms surround her, and swing her into the maelstrom of dancers that now crowded the small dancing-space, she felt ashamed.
Round and round he bore her—would the music never stop?—round and round, holding her so close that she feared that the effect of what made his breath smell sweet like that, would be observed by others, and the manner of their dancing become conspicuous. Oh, how could he pull her out to be stared and gaped at? She felt as if she were being dragged through a mire, over and over again, in sight of hundreds of gazing faces, and each time as they passed the noisy corner where the music was placed, she felt as if she were a little less white, a little less clean than the time before.
Reba had not passed twice around the dancing-space with Chadwick Booth before she began scheming how she could escape. The more ashamed she felt, the more necessary it seemed to run and hide herself somewhere. She must get away. She must get away from this man and place as soon as possible. She could not dance with him again. She could not ride back to Boston beside him in the closed car. She could not even exchange words with him, it seemed to her. She must get away. Somehow she must get away. The necessity of immediate escape put courage into her, helped her to act with caution, and amazing calmness.
It was after the music had stopped, and Chadwick Booth and Reba had wended their way back to the table, that Reba remarked before sitting down: "I'm so warm perhaps I'd better slip on my sweater. I left it upstairs, in the dressing-room."
"I wish I could get it," solicitously he told her. Then looking into her eyes, "Am I forgiven now, dear Becky?" he asked in a low voice.
She let her gaze sink into his, as she knew how to do now. She recoiled from this kind of deceit, but she must throw him off the scent somehow.
"Yes," she replied sweetly. "You're forgiven now."
"Don't be long!" he whispered exultantly.
"I won't," she smiled, and left him.