An Officer and a Lady (21 page)

“It’s Kitty Vreeland,” said the young woman with a laugh. “But where is your poet’s observation? See these stripes? Kitty hasn’t any. And the cut is entirely different.”

“I can’t help it; I’m not a costume designer. Anyway, I couldn’t see from the window. What day is today?”

“Friday.”

“Is she coming? Helen wouldn’t tell me.”

“No. She’s spending a week at Newport.” The young woman added maliciously, “And I believe Massitot is there, too.”

“I don’t care,” replied the poet indifferently, “as long as she’s not here. I just wanted to look at her. Who’s coming?”

“I don’t know—Helen’s usual crowd.”

“Wortley, Townsend, Crevel?”

“I suppose so.”

“And Richard the Great?”

“I really don’t know. Oh, it would be absurd to pretend not to know who you mean. Only it’s ridiculous.”

“Of course.” The poet looked up amusedly at the little frown on her brow, then smiled softly to himself. “Of course it’s ridiculous. Really he’s no greater than any of the others, only he thinks he is, and it’s the same thing. You see, Janet, you must look at it as he does. At twenty-seven he set out to do a certain thing, and at the end of six years he is nearer his goal than most men can get in a lifetime. He has made lots of money, and he has developed a power. He is a strong man, measured by the requirements of the modern arena. What if he is conceited in his strength? So is every man who has any. So am I.”

“But why do you say all this to me?”

“Because you ought to hear it. I see things. I am a poet. I won’t be one much longer, because I’m beginning to get clever, and that is fatal. It’s my accursed laziness. I was composing today, and I had Richard Gorrin in mind.

… until he saw and heard her,

Then his heart trembled, and all his strength was weakness.’ ”

“Good heavens! Not Richard the Great!”

“Certainly.”

“But that’s impossible!”

“By no means.”

“You don’t know him, my dear Paul.”

The sudden note of bitterness in her tone caused him to look up at her, and his glance was so quick and unexpected that he caught the smile, equally bitter, on her lips, before she had time to erase it. He looked away again, and his expression of amusement gave way to one of thoughtfulness.

“You don’t understand,” he said, presently. “I don’t mean that his strength turns into weakness. The contrary. When his heart trembles with love his weakness is his real strength. It’s a good thing we’re such old friends, Janet. No man likes to explain his verses.”

“Especially when they’re absurd.”

“Absurd!”

“I mean, in this particular instance. You don’t know Mr. Gorrin. He is all strength. He has no weakness.”

Again the bitter note; and something else—was it wistfulness, regret, sorrow? Not exactly, perhaps, but something very like it.

“Of course!” cried the poet, leaping to his feet. “Of course! That’s it! I should have seen it before! The trouble is, Janet, you’re too intellectual. You need a grain more of womanish intuition. No, don’t pretend with me. Don’t you think I see things? Don’t you think I know when a woman’s in love? Only I couldn’t understand—”

“Paul—please—”

“No, no, no! And you think Richard Gorrin is all strength. How funny! I can see him now; I can hear him, with his offers to protect and cherish. How funny! There’s a great deal too much strength about, Janet. You’re as bad as he is. I really think I must change that line to something more comprehensive.”

“Paul, I am positively going in unless—”

“No, you’re not. Wait a minute, I want to think. One thing, of course, would be very simple—I don’t know—I may try it—yet, I will! It will be very funny, and it will prove I’m right. It’s a good thing we’re old friends, Janet; you won’t mind my experimenting.”

The poet paused to brush back his hair into a semblance of order, approached the hammock so that he stood directly in front of her, and bowed formally.

“Miss Beaton,” he said, “will you marry me?”

“Well! Really—”

“No, you must answer ‘yes.’ Of course you don’t want to, but neither do I, and I’ll break it off tomorrow. A poet never keeps a promise anyway, and I’m not in love with you, so you may know I shan’t hold you to it. Will you marry me? Say yes. It’s an experiment. Will you marry me?”

The lady’s lips were parted in an amused smile.

“Yes, my dear poet,” she said.

“You will?”

“Yes.”

“Good!” He took her hand and kissed the fingers. “Then that’s understood. We’re engaged. You’ll see I’m right. And now, of course, you want to be left alone to think; they always do. As for me, I’ve got two hours till dinner to repair that infernal line, and in forty minutes the train arrives with Richard the Great and the rest of them. I will retire with my newfound happiness; and by the way, Janet, next time you camp out under my window wear a different dress. It’s confusing.”

And so he left her.

Four hours later Miss Janet Beaton was back again in the hammock. It was night now, and all you could see of the shade trees was a great mass of dark blotches against the starlight in the sky, save where a shaft of yellow rays fell here and there from a window of the house. It was a cool, fresh evening in early June, and Miss Beaton had wrapped a mantle about her shoulders to keep off the dew.

Around a corner of the house, from a distance, sounded the faint cries and bursts of laughter of those who were playing tennis under the electric lights on the courts; others of the weekend guests had taken boats on the lake. Miss Beaton had managed with some difficulty to separate herself from the crowd, and had sought refuge here to think. She lay back in the hammock looking up at a lighted window—the same window through which the poet had clambered that afternoon, and behind which he was sitting now, tinkering with words.

“It was very silly,” mused the lady in an undertone. “I had no idea he meant to tell everyone. And if he really thought that Richard Gorrin could be jealous—but how childish! He didn’t mean that at all. Anyway, it was amusing to see their faces—”

She stopped and raised her head quickly, then as quickly dropped it again. Someone had suddenly appeared around the corner of the house, a dim form in the semi-darkness, calling her name.

“Miss Beaton! I say, Miss Beaton!”

Janet lay silent. The figure advanced and stopped in the path of light from a window. It was that of a tall, vigorous-looking man, not much over thirty, with a strong, expressive, agreeable face and straight, determined carriage.

“Miss Beaton!” he repeated, moving forward.

She saw that he was coming toward the hammock, so she sat up and said calmly:

“Well. Here I am.”

He approached and stood above her.

“Ah! I thought you were coming to the lake. You said—”

“I changed my mind.”

“But couldn’t you have told us—”

“I called, but you were too far ahead.”

He did not reply, but walked to a nearby tree for a garden stool, which he brought back and placed beside the hammock. Then he seated himself and lit a cigar.

“I don’t want to keep you away,” said Janet presently.

“Away from what?”

“The lake—the others.”

He grunted, puffing his cigar. There was silence for several minutes, during which Janet leaned back in the hammock giving thanks that it was too dark for him to see her face plainly; it is easier to talk when you do not have to control your expression and your voice at the same time. Suddenly Gorrin rose to his feet and threw the cigar on the ground with an impatient gesture.

“Look here,” he said abruptly, “what is this nonsense about you and Duval?”

Janet, looking up at the lighted window behind which the poet sat, smiled to herself, and her heart was filled with gratitude toward him. He had been wrong, but he had given her dignity—and yes, there could be no doubt that he had foreseen this very question. It was the question of a strong man, of a man who wins by strength. As for the reply—

“Nonsense?” she repeated, in a tone of polite inquiry.

“Yes. Of course it’s nonsense. You don’t expect me to believe you really intend to marry him?”

“Why not?”

“For several reasons. One is, he’s a dreamer, a dallier; you’re too intelligent. Another, you are going to marry me.”

Janet raised herself to lean on her elbow.

“Now you are talking nonsense,” she said quietly.

“No, I’m merely repeating the truth. You’ve heard it before.”

Gorrin took a step nearer the hammock.

“Look here, Janet, you’re a sensible woman, why play with serious questions? Why will you try to postpone the inevitable? Answer this: did you tell me once, not a year ago, that you loved me?”

“Oh,” said Janet impatiently, “are you going to begin that again?”

“Yes, I’m going to begin that. You did tell me you loved me. Why? You say, because you thought you did. But you’re intelligent; you don’t make such an admission lightly. You must have loved me. And I loved you. I love you now. But you won’t promise to marry me. I ask you why? You say I don’t really love you. You say I am too strong to need you, therefore I can know nothing of love.”

“No, I said—”

“Pardon me. It would be idle to deny my strength. I use it every day, in everything I do. I am a strong man; that’s why I can’t fall before you on my knees like a poet and talk sweet. It isn’t in me. And as I have told you many times, with that strength I am going to win you. Don’t mistake me. It was not jealousy that brought me here to ask you about that fool Duval. But accidents may happen to anyone, and I wish to guard against them. That is why I want to know what this nonsense means. Why did Duval tell us tonight that you have promised to marry him? It’s absurd, anyway. It is not done that way.”

Janet was thinking. She was asking herself: after all, are these words dictated by strength? And she felt the answer in her heart; it trembled within her. How blind she had been! She was doubly glad now that her face could not be seen clearly, for her eyes were moist. She felt ashamed of herself, of her womanliness, or lack of it, not to have known before. Only she must make sure. No mistakes now. So, summoning all her courage and cunning, she made her tone light, almost impersonal, as she said:

“But you forget that Paul is a poet. He does everything differently.”

“Bah! What is it—a wager?”

“A little more—” Janet raised herself, “a little more, and you will offend me. Really. I mean that, Mr. Gorrin.”

He looked up quickly at the new seriousness in her tone.

“But what am I to believe? I do not mean to offend. You and Duval have been—you are like brother and sister. You know him too well. It’s absurd. You would never marry so useless, so incapable—”

“Mr. Gorrin!”

He stopped.

“This afternoon,” said Janet quietly, “I promised to marry Paul Duval.”

“I know, but—”

“That is all.”

“You promised to marry him?”

“Yes.”

He straightened up, and it was with an entirely new voice that he said:

“Janet, you’re not really serious?”

She stirred and moved her head to look at him.

“What a pity,” she said, “that you will continue to delude yourself.”

“Delude myself? I am not in the habit—”

“Yes, you are. You are, Mr. Gorrin. After all, I can’t expect you to believe unless I explain. Yes, a year ago I said I loved you. No matter why—I don’t know. Then I saw I had been mistaken. I began to know you, better than you know yourself. You have asked me many times to marry you. Why?”

“Because I love you.”

“Very well, but why?”

“Why—of course—to have you, to protect and cherish you, to defend you—”

“Defend me from what?”

“From the world.”

“Well, you see, that’s just it; I don’t want anyone to defend me from the world. But the real reason is that you’re spoiled. You want me as a child wants a cookie. That’s where your strength deceives and betrays you, and where it will fail you. Some day you will really fall in love, and then see what your strength amounts to. As for me, I am engaged to Paul—and you regard it as a joke. That is why I am trying to explain to you, so you won’t annoy me any more.”

“Annoy you! Janet—”

“Yes, annoy me. You have done so for months. Your belief in yourself has been so certain! So pitiful. So childlike and Byronesque. For a time it was amusing; it has become a nuisance. And now that I am engaged to Paul it must end. He is up there in his room now. Shall I call him down to satisfy you?”

She stopped, expecting an outburst. These were strong words for a Richard Gorrin to swallow. But he was silent. She could not see his face plainly in the darkness, but she was aware somehow of its tenseness, of its expression of white astonishment. No, he would not show his rage; he was too strong for that. She found herself wondering how she had happened to hit on the word “Byronesque”; how keenly it would cut him! Yes, no doubt he would turn and go without a word. She shivered. What horrible thing was this she was doing to herself? Paul had been wrong, wrong, wrong!

Suddenly Gorrin spoke.

“You are making a mistake, Janet—”

A curious thing happened. He had begun in almost his usual tones, firm, sure, decided; but as he pronounced her name an odd sound came from his throat, as though he had suddenly choked, and he stopped. A little quiver ran up from Janet’s heart, and she thought to herself, “If I could only see his face, I would know!”

“I have had no thought of offending you,” said Gorrin, finding his voice again. “It hurts me to have you say that. I have honestly thought all the time that you were in love with me, and I—”

“And so you bullied me,” she interrupted.

“I am sorry you think me capable of that.”

“It’s true. You bullied me. I admit I deliberately led you on, because I thought you needed the lesson. And—it amused me. But now—now that Paul and I—it must stop. Take your strength somewhere else, Mr. Gorrin.”

“Janet, I love you.”

She trembled from head to foot. He had never said it like that before. But that was not enough.

“Mr. Gorrin,” she said, “you are talking to an engaged woman.”