«Oh, no,» he said to himself…. «No.»
He was a dignified, impressive young man, rather stout now, but otherwise unmarked by dissipation. He could have been cast for a pillar of something—at times you were sure it was not society, at others nothing else—for the law, for the church. He stood for a few minutes motionless on the sidewalk in front of a 47th Street apartment-house; for almost the first time in his life he had nothing whatever to do.
Then he began to walk briskly up Fifth Avenue, as if he had just been reminded of an important engagement there. The necessity of dissimulation is one of the few characteristics that we share with dogs, and I think of Anson on that day as some well-bred specimen who had been disappointed at a familiar back door. He was going to see Nick, once a fashionable bartender in demand at all private dances, and now employed in cooling non-alcoholic champagne among the labyrinthine cellars of the Plaza Hotel.
«Nick,» he said, «what’s happened to everything?»
«Dead,» Nick said.
«Make me a whiskey sour.» Anson handed a pint bottle over the counter. «Nick, the girls are different; I had a little girl in Brooklyn and she got married last week without letting me know.»
«That a fact? Ha-ha-ha,» responded Nick diplomatically. «Slipped it over on you.»
«Absolutely,» said Anson. «And I was out with her the night before.»
«Ha-ha-ha,» said Nick, «ha-ha-ha!»
«Do you remember the wedding, Nick, in Hot Springs where I had the waiters and the musicians singing ‘God save the King’?»
«Now where was that, Mr. Hunter?» Nick concentrated doubtfully. «Seems to me that was——»
«Next time they were back for more, and I began to wonder how much I’d paid them,» continued Anson.
«—seems to me that was at Mr. Trenholm’s wedding.»
«Don’t know him,» said Anson decisively. He was offended that a strange name should intrude upon his reminiscences; Nick perceived this.
«Naw—aw—» he admitted, «I ought to know that. It was one of your crowd—Brakins …. Baker——»
«Bicker Baker,» said Anson responsively. «They put me in a hearse after it was over and covered me up with flowers and drove me away.»
«Ha-ha-ha,» said Nick. «Ha-ha-ha.»
Nick’s simulation of the old family servant paled presently and Anson went up-stairs to the lobby. He looked around—his eyes met the glance of an unfamiliar clerk at the desk, then fell upon a flower from the morning’s marriage hesitating in the mouth of a brass cuspidor. He went out and walked slowly toward the blood-red sun over Columbus Circle. Suddenly he turned around and, retracing his steps to the Plaza, immured himself in a telephone-booth.
Later he said that he tried to get me three times that afternoon, that he tried every one who might be in New York—men and girls he had not seen for years, an artist’s model of his college days whose faded number was still in his address book—Central told him that even the exchange existed no longer. At length his quest roved into the country, and he held brief disappointing conversations with emphatic butlers and maids. So-and-so was out, riding, swimming, playing golf, sailed to Europe last week. Who shall I say phoned?
It was intolerable that he should pass the evening alone—the private reckonings which one plans for a moment of leisure lose every charm when the solitude is enforced. There were always women of a sort, but the ones he knew had temporarily vanished, and to pass a New York evening in the hired company of a stranger never occurred to him—he would have considered that that was something shameful and secret, the diversion of a travelling salesman in a strange town.
Anson paid the telephone bill—the girl tried unsuccessfully to joke with him about its size—and for the second time that afternoon started to leave the Plaza and go he knew not where. Near the revolving door the figure of a woman, obviously with child, stood sideways to the light—a sheer beige cape fluttered at her shoulders when the door turned and, each time, she looked impatiently toward it as if she were weary of waiting. At the first sight of her a strong nervous thrill of familiarity went over him, but not until he was within five feet of her did he realize that it was Paula.
«Why, Anson Hunter!»
His heart turned over.
«Why, Paula——»
«Why, this is wonderful. I can’t believe it, Anson!»
She took both his hands, and he saw in the freedom of the gesture that the memory of him had lost poignancy to her. But not to him—he felt that old mood that she evoked in him stealing over his brain, that gentleness with which he had always met her optimism as if afraid to mar its surface.
«We’re at Rye for the summer. Pete had to come East on business—you know of course I’m Mrs. Peter Hagerty now—so we brought the children and took a house. You’ve got to come out and see us.»
«Can I?» he asked directly. «When?»
«When you like. Here’s Pete.» The revolving door functioned, giving up a fine tall man of thirty with a tanned face and a trim mustache. His immaculate fitness made a sharp contrast with Anson’s increasing bulk, which was obvious under the faintly tight cut-away coat.
«You oughtn’t to be standing,» said Hagerty to his wife. «Let’s sit down here.» He indicated lobby chairs, but Paula hesitated.
«I’ve got to go right home,» she said. «Anson, why don’t you—why don’t you come out and have dinner with us to-night? We’re just getting settled, but if you can stand that——»
Hagerty confirmed the invitation cordially.
«Come out for the night.»
Their car waited in front of the hotel, and Paula with a tired gesture sank back against silk cushions in the corner.
«There’s so much I want to talk to you about,» she said, «it seems hopeless.»
«I want to hear about you.»
«Well»—she smiled at Hagerty—»that would take a long time too. I have three children—by my first marriage. The oldest is five, then four, then three.» She smiled again. «I didn’t waste much time having them, did I?»
«Boys?»
«A boy and two girls. Then—oh, a lot of things happened, and I got a divorce in Paris a year ago and married Pete. That’s all—except that I’m awfully happy.»
In Rye they drove up to a large house near the Beach Club, from which there issued presently three dark, slim children who broke from an English governess and approached them with an esoteric cry. Abstractedly and with difficulty Paula took each one into her arms, a caress which they accepted stiffly, as they had evidently been told not to bump into Mummy. Even against their fresh faces Paula’s skin showed scarcely any weariness—for all her physical languor she seemed younger than when he had last seen her at Palm Beach seven years ago.
At dinner she was preoccupied, and afterward, during the homage to the radio, she lay with closed eyes on the sofa, until Anson wondered if his presence at this time were not an intrusion. But at nine o’clock, when Hagerty rose and said pleasantly that he was going to leave them by themselves for a while, she began to talk slowly about herself and the past.
«My first baby,» she said—»the one we call Darling, the biggest little girl—I wanted to die when I knew I was going to have her, because Lowell was like a stranger to me. It didn’t seem as though she could be my own. I wrote you a letter and tore it up. Oh, you were so bad to me, Anson.»
It was the dialogue again, rising and falling. Anson felt a sudden quickening of memory.
«Weren’t you engaged once?» she asked—»a girl named Dolly something?»
«I wasn’t ever engaged. I tried to be engaged, but I never loved anybody but you, Paula.»
«Oh,» she said. Then after a moment: «This baby is the first one I ever really wanted. You see, I’m in love now—at last.»
He didn’t answer, shocked at the treachery of her remembrance. She must have seen that the «at last» bruised him, for she continued:
«I was infatuated with you, Anson—you could make me do anything you liked. But we wouldn’t have been happy. I’m not smart enough for you. I don’t like things to be complicated like you do.» She paused. «You’ll never settle down,» she said.
The phrase struck at him from behind—it was an accusation that of all accusations he had never merited.
«I could settle down if women were different,» he said. «If I didn’t understand so much about them, if women didn’t spoil you for other women, if they had only a little pride. If I could go to sleep for a while and wake up into a home that was really mine—why, that’s what I’m made for, Paula, that’s what women have seen in me and liked in me. It’s only that I can’t get through the preliminaries any more.»
Hagerty came in a little before eleven; after a whiskey Paula stood up and announced that she was going to bed. She went over and stood by her husband.
«Where did you go, dearest?» she demanded.
«I had a drink with Ed Saunders.»
«I was worried. I thought maybe you’d run away.»
She rested her head against his coat.
«He’s sweet, isn’t he, Anson?» she demanded.
«Absolutely,» said Anson, laughing.
She raised her face to her husband.
«Well, I’m ready,» she
