«I think we’d get along,» she continued, on the same note, «unless probably you’ve forgotten me and fallen in love with another girl.»
Her confidence was obviously enormous. She had said, in effect, that she found such a thing impossible to believe, that if it were true he had merely committed a childish indiscretion—and probably to show off. She would forgive him, because it was not a matter of any moment but rather something to be brushed aside lightly.
«Of course you could never love anybody but me,» she continued, «I like the way you love me. Oh, Dexter, have you forgotten last year?»
«No, I haven’t forgotten.»
«Neither have I!»
Was she sincerely moved—or was she carried along by the wave of her own acting?
«I wish we could be like that again,» she said, and he forced himself to answer:
«I don’t think we can.»
«I suppose not…. I hear you’re giving Irene Scheerer a violent rush.»
There was not the faintest emphasis on the name, yet Dexter was suddenly ashamed.
«Oh, take me home,» cried Judy suddenly; «I don’t want to go back to that idiotic dance—with those children.»
Then, as he turned up the street that led to the residence district, Judy began to cry quietly to herself. He had never seen her cry before.
The dark street lightened, the dwellings of the rich loomed up around them, he stopped his coupé in front of the great white bulk of the Mortimer Joneses house, somnolent, gorgeous, drenched with the splendor of the damp moonlight. Its solidity startled him. The strong walls, the steel of the girders, the breadth and beam and pomp of it were there only to bring out the contrast with the young beauty beside him. It was sturdy to accentuate her slightness—as if to show what a breeze could be generated by a butterfly’s wing.
He sat perfectly quiet, his nerves in wild clamor, afraid that if he moved he would find her irresistibly in his arms. Two tears had rolled down her wet face and trembled on her upper lip.
«I’m more beautiful than anybody else,» she said brokenly, «why can’t I be happy?» Her moist eyes tore at his stability—her mouth turned slowly downward with an exquisite sadness: «I’d like to marry you if you’ll have me, Dexter. I suppose you think I’m not worth having, but I’ll be so beautiful for you, Dexter.»
A million phrases of anger, pride, passion, hatred, tenderness fought on his lips. Then a perfect wave of emotion washed over him, carrying off with it a sediment of wisdom, of convention, of doubt, of honor. This was his girl who was speaking, his own, his beautiful, his pride.
«Won’t you come in?» He heard her draw in her breath sharply.
Waiting.
«All right,» his voice was trembling, «I’ll come in.»
V
It was strange that neither when it was over nor a long time afterward did he regret that night. Looking at it from the perspective of ten years, the fact that Judy’s flare for him endured just one month seemed of little importance. Nor did it matter that by his yielding he subjected himself to a deeper agony in the end and gave serious hurt to Irene Scheerer and to Irene’s parents, who had befriended him. There was nothing sufficiently pictorial about Irene’s grief to stamp itself on his mind.
Dexter was at bottom hard-minded. The attitude of the city on his action was of no importance to him, not because he was going to leave the city, but because any outside attitude on the situation seemed superficial. He was completely indifferent to popular opinion. Nor, when he had seen that it was no use, that he did not possess in himself the power to move fundamentally or to hold Judy Jones, did he bear any malice toward her. He loved her, and he would love her until the day he was too old for loving—but he could not have her. So he tasted the deep pain that is reserved only for the strong, just as he had tasted for a little while the deep happiness.
Even the ultimate falsity of the grounds upon which Judy terminated the engagement that she did not want to «take him away» from Irene—Judy, who had wanted nothing else—did not revolt him. He was beyond any revulsion or any amusement.
He went East in February with the intention of selling out his laundries and settling in New York—but the war came to America in March and changed his plans. He returned to the West, handed over the management of the business to his partner, and went into the first officers’ training-camp in late April. He was one of those young thousands who greeted the war with a certain amount of relief, welcoming the liberation from webs of tangled emotion.
VI
This story is not his biography, remember, although things creep into it which have nothing to do with those dreams he had when he was young. We are almost done with them and with him now. There is only one more incident to be related here, and it happens seven years farther on.
It took place in New York, where he had done well—so well that there were no barriers too high for him. He was thirty-two years old, and, except for one flying trip immediately after the war, he had not been West in seven years. A man named Devlin from Detroit came into his office to see him in a business way, and then and there this incident occurred, and closed out, so to speak, this particular side of his life.
«So you’re from the Middle West,» said the man Devlin with careless curiosity. «That’s funny—I thought men like you were probably born and raised on Wall Street. You know—wife of one of my best friends in Detroit came from your city. I was an usher at the wedding.»
Dexter waited with no apprehension of what was coming.
«Judy Simms,» said Devlin with no particular interest; «Judy Jones she was once.»
«Yes, I knew her.» A dull impatience spread over him. He had heard, of course, that she was married—perhaps deliberately he had heard no more.
«Awfully nice girl,» brooded Devlin meaninglessly, «I’m sort of sorry for her.»
«Why?» Something in Dexter was alert, receptive, at once.
«Oh, Lud Simms has gone to pieces in a way. I don’t mean he ill-uses her, but he drinks and runs around——-«
«Doesn’t she run around?»
«No. Stays at home with her kids.»
«Oh.»
«She’s a little too old for him,» said Devlin.
«Too old!» cried Dexter. «Why, man, she’s only twenty-seven.»
He was possessed with a wild notion of rushing out into the streets and taking a train to Detroit. He rose to his feet spasmodically.
«I guess you’re busy,» Devlin apologized quickly. «I didn’t realize——»
«No, I’m not busy,» said Dexter, steadying his voice. «I’m not busy at all. Not busy at all. Did you say she was—twenty-seven? No, I said she was twenty-seven.»
«Yes, you did,» agreed Devlin dryly.
«Go on, then. Go on.»
«What do you mean?»
«About Judy Jones.»
Devlin looked at him helplessly.
«Well, that’s—I told you all there is to it. He treats her like the devil. Oh, they’re not going to get divorced or anything. When he’s particularly outrageous she forgives him. In fact, I’m inclined to think she loves him. She was a pretty girl when she first came to Detroit.»
A pretty girl! The phrase struck Dexter as ludicrous.
«Isn’t she—a pretty girl, any more?»
«Oh, she’s all right.»
«Look here,» said Dexter, sitting down suddenly, «I don’t understand. You say she was a ‘pretty girl’ and now you say she’s ‘all right.’ I don’t understand what you mean—Judy Jones wasn’t a pretty girl, at all. She was a great beauty. Why, I knew her, I knew her. She was——»
Devlin laughed pleasantly.
«I’m not trying to start a row,» he said. «I think Judy’s a nice girl and I like her. I can’t understand how a man like Lud Simms could fall madly in love with her, but he did.» Then he added: «Most of the women like her.»
Dexter looked closely at Devlin, thinking wildly that there must be a reason for this, some insensitivity in the man or some private malice.
«Lots of women fade just like that» Devlin snapped his fingers. «You must have seen it happen. Perhaps I’ve forgotten how pretty she was at her wedding. I’ve seen her so much since then, you see. She has nice eyes.»
A sort of dulness settled down upon Dexter. For the first time in his life he felt like getting very drunk. He knew that he was laughing loudly at something Devlin had said, but he did not know what it was or why it was funny. When, in a few minutes, Devlin went he lay down on his lounge and looked out the window at the New York sky-line into which the sun was sinking in dull lovely shades of pink and gold.
He had thought that having nothing else to lose he was invulnerable at last—but he knew that he had just lost something more, as surely as if he had married Judy Jones and seen her fade away before his eyes.
The dream was gone. Something had been taken from him. In a sort of panic he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and tried to bring up a picture of the waters lapping on Sherry Island and the moonlit veranda, and gingham on the golf-links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck’s soft down. And her mouth damp to his kisses and her eyes
