“What do you suppose?” Helen demanded. “Teddy sent me the oddest present—a cup rack.”
Stuart laughed. “Obviously, he means that all we’ll ever do is win cups.”
“I thought it was rather a slam,” Helen ruminated. “I saw that he was invited to everything, but he didn’t answer a single invitation. Would you mind very much stopping by his apartment now? I haven’t seen him for months and I don’t like to leave anything unpleasant in the past.”
He wouldn’t go in with her. “I’ll sit and answer questions about the auto from passers-by.”
The door was opened by a woman in a cleaning cap, and Helen heard the sound of Teddy’s piano from the room beyond. The woman seemed reluctant to admit her.
“He said don’t interrupt him, but I suppose if you’re his cousin—”
Teddy welcomed her, obviously startled and somewhat upset, but in a minute he was himself again.
“I won’t marry you,” he assured her. “You’ve had your chance.”
“All right,” she laughed.
“How are you?” He threw a pillow at her. “You’re beautiful! Are you happy with this—this centaur? Does he beat you with his riding crop?” He peered at her closely. “You look a little duller than when I knew you. I used to whip you up to a nervous excitement that bore a resemblance to intelligence.”
“I’m happy, Teddy. I hope you are.”
“Sure, I’m happy; I’m working. I’ve got MacDowell on the run and I’m going to have a shebang at Carnegie Hall next September.” His eyes became malicious. “What did you think of my girl?”
“Your girl?”
“The girl who opened the door for you.”
“Oh, I thought it was a maid.” She flushed and was silent.
He laughed. “Hey, Betty!” he called. “You were mistaken for the maid!”
“And that’s the fault of my cleaning on Sunday,” answered a voice from the next room.
Teddy lowered his voice. “Do you like her?” he demanded.
“Teddy!” She teetered on the arm of the sofa, wondering whether she should leave at once.
“What would you think if I married her?” he asked confidentially.
“Teddy!” She was outraged; it had needed but a glance to place the woman as common. “You’re joking. She’s older than you… You wouldn’t be such a fool as to throw away your future that way.”
He didn’t answer.
“Is she musical?” Helen demanded. “Does she help you with your work?”
“She doesn’t know a note. Neither did you, but I’ve got enough music in me for twenty wives.”
Visualizing herself as one of them, Helen rose stiffly.
“All I can ask you is to think how your mother would have felt—and those who care for you… Good-by, Teddy.”
He walked out the door with her and down the stairs.
“As a matter of fact, we’ve been married for two months,” he said casually. “She was a waitress in a place where I used to eat.”
Helen felt that she should be angry and aloof, but tears of hurt vanity were springing to her eyes.
“And do you love her?”
“I like her; she’s a good person and good for me. Love is something else. I loved you, Helen, and that’s all dead in me for the present. Maybe it’s coming out in my music. Some day I’ll probably love other women—or maybe there’ll never be anything but you. Good-by, Helen.”
The declaration touched her. “I hope you’ll be happy, Teddy. Bring your wife to the wedding.”
He bowed noncommittally. When she had gone, he returned thoughtfully to his apartment.
“That was the cousin that I was in love with,” he said.
“And was it?” Betty’s face, Irish and placid, brightened with interest. “She’s a pretty thing.”
“She wouldn’t have been as good for me as a nice peasant like you.”
“Always thinking of yourself, Teddy Van Beck.”
He laughed. “Sure I am, but you love me, anyhow?”
“That’s a big wur-red.”
“All right. I’ll remember that when you come begging around for a kiss. If my grandfather knew I married a bog trotter, he’d turn over in his grave. Now get out and let me finish my work.”
He sat at the piano, a pencil behind his ear. Already his face was resolved, composed, but his eyes grew more intense minute by minute, until there was a glaze in them, behind which they seemed to have joined his ears in counting and hearing. Presently there was no more indication in his face that anything had occurred to disturb the tranquillity of his Sunday morning.
II
Mrs. Cassius Ruthven and a friend, veils flung back across their hats, sat in their auto on the edge of the field.
“A young woman playing polo in breeches.” Mrs. Ruthven sighed. “Amy Van Beck’s daughter. I thought when Helen organized the Amazons she’d stop at divided skirts. But her husband apparently has no objections, for there he stands, egging her on. Of course, they always have liked the same things.”
“A pair of thoroughbreds, those two,” said the other woman complacently, meaning that she admitted them to be her equals. “You’d never look at them and think that anything had gone wrong.”
She was referring to Stuart’s mistake in the panic of 1907. His father had bequeathed him a precarious situation and Stuart had made an error of judgment. His honor was not questioned and his crowd stood by him loyally, but his usefulness in Wall Street was over and his small fortune was gone.
He stood in a group of men with whom he would presently play, noting things to tell Helen after the game—she wasn’t turning with the play soon enough and several times she was unnecessarily ridden off at important moments. Her ponies were sluggish—the penalty for playing with borrowed mounts—but she was, nevertheless, the best player on the field, and in the last minute she made a save that brought applause.
“Good girl! Good girl!”
Stuart had been delegated with the unpleasant duty of chasing the women from the field. They had started an hour late and now a team from New Jersey was waiting to play; he sensed trouble as he cut across to join Helen and walked beside her toward the stables. She was splendid, with her flushed cheeks, her shining, triumphant eyes, her short, excited breath. He temporized for a minute.
“That was good—that last,” he said.
“Thanks. It almost broke my arm. Wasn’t I pretty good all through?”
“You were the best out there.”
“I know it.”
He waited while she dismounted and handed the pony to a groom.
“Helen, I believe I’ve got a job.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t jump on the idea till you think it over. Gus Myers wants me to manage his racing stables. Eight thousand a year.”
Helen considered. “It’s a nice salary; and I bet you could make yourself up a nice string from his ponies.”
“The principal thing is that I need the money; I’d have as much as you and things would be easier.”
“You’d have as much as me,” Helen repeated. She almost regretted that he would need no more help from her. “But with Gus Myers, isn’t there a string attached? Wouldn’t he expect a boost up?”
“He probably would,” answered Stuart bluntly, “and if I can help him socially, I will. As a matter of fact, he wants me at a stag dinner tonight.”
“All right, then,” Helen said absently. Still hesitating to tell her her game was over, Stuart followed her glance toward the field, where a runabout had driven up and parked by the ropes.
“There’s your old friend, Teddy,” he remarked dryly—“or rather, your new friend, Teddy. He’s taking a sudden interest in polo. Perhaps he thinks the horses aren’t biting this summer.”
“You’re not in a very good humor,” protested Helen. “You know, if you say the word, I’ll never see him again. All I want in the world is for you and I to be together.”
“I know,” he admitted regretfully. “Selling horses and giving up clubs put a crimp in that. I know the women all fall for Teddy, now he’s getting famous, but if he tries to fool around with you I’ll break his piano over his head… Oh, another thing,” he began, seeing the men already riding on the field. “About your last chukker—”
As best he could, he put the situation up to her. He was not prepared for the fury that swept over her.
“But it’s an outrage! I got up the game and it’s been posted on the bulletin board for three days.”
“You started an hour late.”
“And do you know why?” she demanded. “Because your friend Joe Morgan insisted that Celie ride sidesaddle. He tore her habit off her three times, and she only got here by climbing out the kitchen window.”
“I can’t do anything about it.”
“Why can’t you? Weren’t you once a governor of this club? How can women ever expect to be any good if they have to quit every time the men want the field? All the men want is for the women to come up to them in the evening and tell them what a beautiful game they played!”
Still raging and blaming Stuart, she crossed the field to Teddy’s car. He got out and greeted her with concentrated intensity:
“I’ve reached the point where I can neither sleep nor eat from thinking of you. What point is that?”
There was something thrilling about him that she had never been conscious of in the old days; perhaps the stories of his philanderings had made him more romantic to her.
“Well, don’t think of me as I am now,” she said. “My face is getting rougher every day and my muscles lean out of an evening dress like
