Chapter III: Part 3

As a hurdy-gurdy groaned out a melancholy rendering of I hear you calling me, the little lady stooped over a great chest, painted bright pink and studded with brass-headed nails, and raised the cover. From the gaping box one gathered a confused impression of a nest of lethargic serpents. One, more active than the rest, elevated his great jewelled head, with its staring, beaded eyes, and protruded his forked tongue. With a lack of relish, an active distaste, indeed, which must have been apparent even to the small boys present, the little lady lifted the huge, scaly monster out of the chest and disposed his heavy iridescent folds around her torso. Up to a certain point, the snake submitted with an easy grace and a seeming lassitude. Quite suddenly, however, with a quick brilliant movement, which in its intricacy baffled the beholder, he coiled himself securely three or four times about her waist in an embrace which constantly grew more perilous, while, with his head pointing vertically straight upward from her abdomen, he darted what might be called forked kisses at her chin. The girl’s face assumed a pallor which gave to her beauty an even greater delicacy. Her lips quivered; immediately, only the whites of her eyes were visible; her body collapsed, and she fell heavily to the floor. The serpent, alarmed, perhaps, by this new game, swiftly unrolled himself and glided back into his box.

Quick! Campaspe whispered to John. Quick! Get the child!

Armstrong vaulted to the platform, caught Zimbule in his arms and, descending, made his way through the group, too astonished to question or oppose him, out to the open air. Thence Campaspe and the others followed him.

That’s right! the barker approved. Take her out! Give her the air!

It’s criminal. She’s only a baby ... Campaspe exclaimed.

They all have to begin, said the barker. It’s her first show here, but she swore she was on. These kids lie like hell.

To a little plot of grass behind the show-building John had borne her, laying her gently on the sward, while Campaspe and the others swiftly surrounded her and kept the crowd from surging too close. Paul had found some water which he dashed in her face. Presently, she opened her great green eyes.

Who are you? she asked, and Campaspe was relieved to discover that a rather common voice and accent offered the proper contrast to the refined beauty of her features.

Don’t talk, suggested Campaspe. Wait till you feel better.

The amateur snake-charmer glanced searchingly into the faces of her new friends; presently, she smiled.

Well, I was game.

What did you do it for? demanded Campaspe.

Coin. You gotta eat.

Hungry?

Ain’t had a good feed for a week.

Where do you live?

No place.

Where’s your family?

In hell, I guess.

Any friends?

Don’t kid me.

Campaspe turned to John again. Carry her to the car, she directed.

He bent over to lift her once more, but the child, now resting her chin on the palm of her left hand, and half sitting up, rejected his offer of assistance.

Say, I can walk.

Come with us. We’ll get you something to eat, Campaspe explained. She slipped a five dollar bill into the palm of the barker, with the words, She doesn’t belong here.

The barker grinned. Glad to get rid of her, lady, so easy. I couldn’t leave her do another show.

The group, pressing close about to protect her from the still curious crowd, made their way slowly to the spot where the motor was parked. Once in the car, Campaspe directed her chauffeur to drive to a hotel further down the beach. The girl slid into the cushions, between John and Campaspe. The others found places.

As the car started, the girl’s distrust awakened. Say, she cried, what’s the idea?

You’re hungry, aren’t you?

I sure am.

Want something to eat?

God, yes.

Well, you’re going to get it. Keep quiet for a while. You’re not strong enough to talk yet.

The child offered no further resistance, but at the entrance to the dining-room of the hotel, Campaspe met with a new form of opposition. It was early, and the room was practically empty, but the costume of the young lady! Campaspe sent for the head-waiter.

You know Mr. Lorillard?

Certainly, madame.

Well, I am Mrs. Lorillard. This is the Duchess of Manchester. She is studying Coney Island for her book on America, and it is her fancy to dress like this.... Shall we go to the...? She named another hotel nearby.

Certainly not, Mrs. Lorillard. The man became obsequious at once. Come right in here, of course. He led them to a table near the window.

What do you want to eat? asked Paul.

Steak, pork chops, ham and eggs.... Whether from lack of breath or lack of imagination the girl did not make the list longer.

Campaspe turned to the waiter. Bring her a glass of milk and some toast and be quick about it. The girl is starving. Then to the pseudo-enchantress of serpents: You can’t have everything you want now. You’re not strong enough to eat it. It would make you ill. Now don’t talk any more till you’ve swallowed some food.

The girl obeyed and remained silent, but her great green eyes wandered curiously from face to face. When, after a very short interval, the waiter returned with the order, she drank the milk at a single gulp, and crunched the toast between her strong young jaws with an intensity which betokened anxiety lest the food should be removed before she could dispatch it. Campaspe and the boys were sipping glasses of orange juice, into which Paul had dexterously inserted drops from the field-glass cases which Ki had prepared.

Feel better now, kid? asked John Armstrong.

I feel all right.

What is your name? Campaspe asked.

Wotschures?

Campaspe Lorillard.

Zimbule O’Grady.

Zimbule O’Grady, exclaimed Paul, with delight.... Zim--

The girl misunderstood his tone. Don’t you like it? she flared.

Paul was quick to aver that he adored it.

Bunny, whose mind, as usual, was wandering, accidentally saved the situation. He was sitting with his back to the corner, facing the entrance. Idly watching people coming in, his attention was attracted by a pair just about to sit down at a table across the room.

My God! ’paspe, he cried, look at Cupid!

Campaspe and the others turned to gaze across the long, vine-hung and trellised room, at a short, fat man, slightly bald, who stood beside a massive blonde, wearing a black dress, quivering with jet, an enormous hat, trembling with paradise plumes, and from whose wrists dangled enough gold-bags, vanity-cases, bracelets, chains, gold pencils, and bangles to set a minor Sixth Avenue merchant up in business.

Campaspe smiled. What abominable taste Cupid has in women, she remarked. He looks like an olive on a holiday. Then: I think we’d better start back. We’ve had our adventure.

What about dinner? asked John Armstrong.

We’ll stop somewhere else for that.

Why not go back to the apartment? Paul suggested. Ki can run out for some cold cuts and a salad.

Kalter Aufschnitt! Just the thing! cried Campaspe, delighted, and no danger of seeing vulgar people!

Can he get some ham? Zimbule demanded hopefully.

Yes, and you will be ready to eat it then.

For the drive back, certain rearrangements of position were effected. Bunny attempted to slip into the back seat beside Zimbule, but, with some dexterity, Campaspe pushed John Armstrong between herself and the girl, and, as Harold and Paul already occupied the strapontins, Bunny was forced to take the seat by the chauffeur. He sulked. Harold was feeling altogether confused and uncomfortable. Paul was highly amused.

Zimbule now seemed as strong as a young ox, as alert as a wren searching for worms. She had completely forgone her momentary distrust, and was behaving as only a young animal, bereft of self-consciousness, can behave. In the restaurant, she and Bunny, from their positions of propinquity, had indulged in quaint plays of words and hands. They had even been a little rough at times. Now she called out to him, and occasionally reached over to poke him in the back or to pull his hair. Campaspe, for some curious and secret reason, was concentrating her attention on John Armstrong, flattering the handsome stock-broker with overt suavities until he responded with some of the clumsy intuition of a Newfoundland dog. Bunny, too, found that his feet were getting hot. These Rolls-Royces! But what a burrrrrrrrrrrrrrr for a tone-poem! Inns and trees flew past. Farmhouses and fields, aqueducts, railroad embankments. At last (it was late twilight), the illuminated city, the tall gloomy towers, their pinnacles gleaming, the serrated silhouette of Manhattan. John Armstrong ventured to take Campaspe’s hand in his. She made no objection.

Ki opened the door with his habitual enigmatic smile, and when bidden to seek refreshments, he smiled more blandly than ever. While Ki laid the table, Paul was shaking cocktails, assisted by Harold, who cracked the ice and squeezed the oranges. Zimbule was sitting on Bunny’s lap.

Oh, Ki! cried Campaspe, I forgot to tell Ambrose I wouldn’t need him any more. Run down and tell him not to wait. I’ll walk home. Well--she turned to the spread table--here we are again. As for you, young lady, you go home with me, of course.

What will Cupid say? from Bunny.

Whatever he likes.

A dubious expression lurked between Zimbule’s eyebrows, and Bunny crossed his fingers. The girl seemed as comfortable as if she had been accustomed to pass every evening in Paul’s apartment, showing no curiosity. She was, Campaspe noted, oblivious to surroundings. Things, in themselves, meant nothing to her. Harold, she saw, was too self-conscious and embarrassed to eat.

After supper, Campaspe settled herself on a couch, with John Armstrong on the floor beneath her.

Lucky I came today, ’paspe. I thought I should never see you again. It’s been six months since we met for the first time.

You really like me?

I adore you, ’paspe.

That’s right.... You Wall Street men! So substantial! No jaundice.

Paul turned to Harold: There won’t be many days like this.

It doesn’t matter. Father said....

Oh! I know. Strange bird, your father. I don’t mind telling you I’m not wise.

What kind of women do you like? Campaspe was hailing Harold.

I like you. He was very much in earnest.

Very good for an amateur. You shall have your day, but this is John’s night.

John squeezed her hand. You’re making fun of me, ’paspe.

She regarded him quizzically.

Towards two o’clock, Campaspe glanced at her wrist watch.

I must take the child home, she said. She must be tired.

Where is your child? Paul set down his cocktail glass. Both noted for the first time that Zimbule was no longer in the room.

Where is Bunny? demanded John Armstrong.

Paul rose and strode across the floor to the closed bedroom door. Opening it softly, he emitted a low chuckle. The others joined him.

The bed-lamp, shedding a soft amber glow, was still lighted. The floor was strewn with spangled crimson skirts, stockings the shade of blue-jay feathers, sequined caps, boots, trousers, shirts, chemises.... Under the sheet in Paul’s superb bed, with a crest-emblazoned head-board shaped like the façade of a Dutch house and with its posts terminating in bleeding pomegranates, in this bed, which had once been the property of some Iberian grandee, lay Bunny and Zimbule, their bare arms entwined round each other’s throats, their lips slightly parted, their eyes closed. They were asleep.

C’est Vénus toute entière à sa proie attachée! whispered Paul.

Don’t disturb them, said Campaspe quietly. They look too cunning like that. Zimbule passes the night here. John can take me home.

Harold’s expression was one of the wildest horror.

_Chapter V_

Campaspe lived on East Nineteenth Street, just around the corner from Paul’s apartment in Gramercy Park. In the cool, June night air, John Armstrong walked home with her. Directly they were alone her manner changed almost imperceptibly; not that she seemed more dignified--Campaspe, even in her most apparently careless moments, always had dignity--; rather, she appeared to be preoccupied. As they strolled down Irving Place John made an effort to arouse her from her presumed lassitude. He started to speak and, indeed, did form sentences, but her replies were abstract and distant, if not entirely formal. Once or twice his hand edged nervously towards her arm, and even touched it, but she gave no sign that she was aware of this contact: she made no effort to move away, nor did she respond to it. Her mood was exacerbating, and it roused in John a kind of dumb anger and childlike helplessness. In a few brief moments, however, they stood before her door. After the fashion of the houses on this street, a short flight of steps descended to the entrance. He followed her, without a plan, largely without hope, but with a blind animal instinct, into the darkened vestibule and, as she was fitting her key in the lock, drew her quickly to him and kissed her, perforce, on the throat, as she had turned her head away.

Good-night, John, she said in an even voice, as she swung the door open.

Good God, Campaspe!

She slipped through the open doorway and shut the door behind her, not ostentatiously slamming it in his face, but closing it softly. Nevertheless, she noted, to John the effect wore the same air of finality. Through the eyes in the back of her head she was aware that he hesitated for a moment, dazed, before he walked away.

Campaspe, meanwhile, ascended the stairs, entered her chamber, and pressed a button, flooding the pleasant room with light. The soft toile de Jouy hangings at the windows blew gently back and forth with the refreshing breeze. The bed with its delicate linen was spread open, waiting for her. Frederika, her maid, following instructions, had long since retired, and Campaspe did not awaken her. It was with rather a sensuous feeling that she slipped off her clothes, and stood before a long mirror, regarding herself. At length, she donned a night-gown of French hand-manufacture and the colour of champagne, as filmy as it is possible for such a garment to be made. Over her shoulders she drew a négligé of the shade of the green orchid, as she sat down before her dressing-table, an elaborate altar, laid with rose-jade cists for cosmetics and crystal vials of French holy waters, blessed by Houbigant and Coty. She combed out her short hair until it bristled on either side of her face. Now she rubbed cold cream into her flesh, wiping away the discarded artificial complexion with a towel. Then she carefully made up again, applying fresh carmine to her lips, new rouge to her cheeks, and outlining her eyelids with a blue pencil. This was her invariable custom before retiring, and she often said to herself that she looked at least as well in bed as she did at the opera. Presently, still sitting before her dressing-table, she lighted a cigarette and began to reflect, one knee resting lightly on the other, swinging her leg backwards and forwards, from the foot of which a satin mule, the toe sparkling with an infinity of tiny mirrors, depended.

John Armstrong: she really never could accustom herself to men who smoked cigars. The manly American. Why, she wondered, was it deemed manly in America to drink coffee and effeminate to drink tea?... A strangely reluctant boy, Harold. It would be interesting to know why he was so reluctant. She hoped, however, that he always would be. In his reluctance lay his claim to charm.... Lucky Paul! And lucky Bunny! Would he ever write fine music? she asked herself. Could a woman help him do this? Could this woman? A fine animal. The finest animal she had ever seen. Delicate and exquisite, and yet like an animal. She considered: not like a doe, more like a tiger; graceful and exquisite ... and hungry! Campaspe smiled.

She recalled a phrase from A. E., which she had run across a day or so earlier: I could not desire what was not my own, and what is our own we cannot lose.... Desire is hidden identity.... Was life, she queried of the alert face in her mirror, a straight or a zigzag line? Do we, perhaps, live backwards and forwards, with memories of the past and mystic visions of the future? She remembered how some one had said of her that she was like a pleasant pool ... exposing a dormant silvery surface ... or rippling placidly ... with shadows, which portended hidden depths. No one, she reflected, save herself, knew how deep the pool was, or what might lie concealed at the bottom.... Shadows! There must be a philosophy of shadows! Shadows were the only realities. And there were always shadows, but most people overlooked the shadow in their search for the object which cast it. It was, she assured herself, like searching for Richard Wagner, instead of listening to Tristan. She smiled again as a phrase of Paul’s recurred to her: Campaspe does not know the vices, she invents them! Invents them! Imagination, that was the shadow of personality, assuredly the deepest enchantment! Savoir n’est rien, imaginer est tout. Rien n’existe que ce qu’on imagine, the sagacious fairy had remarked to Sylvestre Bonnard.... Campaspe sprayed herself with Guerlain’s l’Heure Bleue.

She put out her cigarette and, casting aside her négligé and her mules, got into bed. Pressing a button in the jewelled head of an enamelled tortoise on her bed-table, she extinguished the lights, save that of her reading lamp, a great iridescent dragonfly, suspended over her bed. Propping herself up against the pillows, she examined the books on her bed-table: plays by Luigi Pirandello, tales by Dopo Kunikida, poems by the Welsh poet, Ab Gwilym, Jésus-la-Caille by Francis Carco, Las Sonatas by Del Valle Inclán, and Aldous Huxley’s Mortal Coils.... She swept these from the table, leaving one or two at the bottom of the pile. Choosing Rachilde’s l’Animale, she read a few lines, and then put it aside. She opened a slight volume by Norman Douglas, and that met a similar fate. Two paragraphs in Ronald Firbank’s Vainglory satisfied her. She was not criticizing the authors of these works, but it was her habit to insist that a book should satisfy a mood. With a sigh, again she stretched her arm towards her bed-table, and her fingers closed on a little volume bound in black leather: The Book of Common Prayer.

Opening at random, she happened on the service for St. Mark’s Day: I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.... I am the vine, ye are the branches.... She flipped the pages: Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit: or whither shall I go then from thy presence? If I take the wings of the morning: and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea.... A veil of silver betraying violet shut the page from her eyes. Instead, rose a vision of the sufficing peacocks designed by Gaston Lachaise. She must have an avenue of these, carved from semi-precious stones: chalcedony, sardonyx, malachite, onyx, pink and black, brown and carnation jade, crystal, and chrysoprase.... The veil lifted and exposed a brilliant flight of butterflies: the White-letter Hairstreak, the Dingy Skipper, the Camberwell Beauty, and the Pearl-bordered Fritillary, sapphire and emerald butterflies, and one of pale silver.... And the book was open at the Veni Creator Spiritus:

Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,
_And lighten with celestial fire_.
Thou the anointing spirit art,
_Who dost the sevenfold gifts impart_....

Campaspe fell asleep.

* * * * *

About three o’clock in the afternoon she awakened feeling refreshed. She was one of those who awaken from the deepest sleep to immediate consciousness, and she was at once aware that it was raining. The room was gloomy, the curtains at the windows still drawn, but from the bathroom came the sound of water pouring into her tub. Frederika, with a curiously exact intuition, invariably anticipated the rising of her mistress by two or three minutes. The maid entered.

Good afternoon, madame.

Good afternoon, Frederika. Campaspe smiled. She was in the best of humours....

Frederika brought the Times and the morning mail on a tray, and then retired to prepare Campaspe’s breakfast. Campaspe picked up the Times and rapidly glanced over the headlines.... The Kaiser’s state carriages bought by a funeral director caught her eye. How splendid, she turned it over, to be borne to the tomb in such a manner, and she wondered if these royal vehicles resembled the state coaches of Ludwig of Bavaria, rococo, with Cupids and gilt.... She read of a blind man at Peekskill who had attended an execution at Sing Sing so that he might sense _the feeling of it_.... She fingered the envelopes on the tray. One of them, in a strange handwriting, she opened. It was a bill from a hat-shop on Fifty-seventh Street. She tore this up slowly. The other letters she tossed unopened on her bed-table. Frederika had returned, and Campaspe sipped her coffee.

Paul had promised to come in at five. Would he bring Harold? She laughed to herself as she recalled the precipitate romance of Bunny and Zimbule. Two babes in the woods, she mused aloud.... There were a few orders for the cook, which Campaspe delivered through Frederika. She never had trouble with servants. She had a system, which was to give each of them a certain part of the work to do. When they had completed their allotted tasks they could come or go as they liked. She put no restrictions on their time. As for Frederika, a middle-aged Alsatian woman, with a sad face, which reminded Campaspe irresistibly of Duse’s, she adored her mistress, and was inventive in contriving ways to please her.

After her bath, Campaspe dressed carefully but comfortably. She liked to feel the stiff brush moving through her hair, and the pressure of Frederika’s arm. She took quite as much pleasure in her body as she did in her mind. Was not her body, indeed, her chief mental pleasure?... An hour later she descended to the salon in a frock designed by Erté, of cornflower-blue batiste, with soft butter-colour linen collar and cuffs. The drawing-room was spacious and cool. Campaspe did not like crowded rooms. There were few rugs, few pictures, few pieces of furniture. The chairs and the couches were covered with toile de Jouy, with a design printed in mauve, a design in which Cupid and Psyche embraced in the company of nightingales and camellias. The pictures on the walls were by Monticelli, Derain, Jennie Vanvleet Cowdery, and Matisse. Near the high windows, looking down on the street below, stood great jars of lustre ware in which were growing forced geranium trees, nearly three feet tall, the stalks bare, bursting, at the top, into clusters of scarlet blossoms framed in velvet-green. She moved to the piano and touched the keys. On the rack was a jumble of sheets, in great disorder, pages of this laid between pages of that, fox-trots and jazz tunes, music by Manuel de Falla and Darius Milhaud. She mentally noted her intention of purchasing some American Indian and Spanish gipsy records for her victrola. She rang the bell. Are there brioches, Frederika? Mr. Moody likes brioches. Yes, madame. Again it occurred to her to wonder if Paul would bring Harold.

When at last he was announced, he had come alone. Sensitive to impressions, he was immediately aware of her disappointment and of the occasion for it.

You wanted me to bring Harold, he said. Of course, I intended to bring him, but he has not been near me today. I’m afraid last night was more than he expected.

I hope the poor boy is not too alarmed. He is reluctant, Paulet....

Frederika bore in the tea in a miniature alabaster pot, set, together with three alabaster cups without handles, on an engraved and filigreed alabaster tray. Campaspe was standing by the mantel. Raising an ancient burnished copper mirror with a phœnix picked in the back to a level with her face, she contemplated her reflection.

I’ve just finished my breakfast, Paulet ... I can’t drink any tea. Pour some for yourself. She handled the mirror in a reverent, even an affectionate, manner.

I had breakfast at ten, Paul groaned. The snake-charmer was hungry and she began to prowl about for food!

Are they there still? Campaspe smiled at the memory of the pretty picture.

No. After breakfast--Zimbule ate seven eggs--Bunny telephoned for a taxi, and they departed together, after kissing me. They have sworn eternal affection and they have begun housekeeping in Bunny’s apartment.

I’d like to have them here, Campaspe threw in, _almost_....

Almost ... is what I felt. It’s the way we both feel about so many things.

It’s my philosophy ... almost. Campaspe replaced the mirror on the mantelshelf.

Paul had walked to the window and was looking down on the rain-swept street. Suddenly he exclaimed, How strange! A sailor with an umbrella.

Why? What? How strange? Campaspe joined him.

Sailors don’t carry umbrellas. Never. It’s an unwritten law in the navy.

The sailor was now passing the house. The wind was high and as he walked abreast of the window the umbrella tilted far back, exposing the young man’s face.

The rule remains unbroken, Campaspe cried. It isn’t a sailor at all. It’s the Duke!

The Duke?

The Duke of Middlebottom. I thought he was in Capri, but he’s always travelling about in some disguise or other. How delightful of him to come here. He will assist in Harold’s education.

Is he the man you told me about ... the man who gave those parties in London?

Yes.

God help Harold!

Oh! We’ll look out for Harold. What a splendid prank. I wonder what can he be up to?

* * * * *

A little later, after Paul had gone and it had grown quite dark, Campaspe still lingered in the drawing-room. Frederika came in to light the lamps, but Campaspe requested the maid to leave the room dark. It was still drizzling outside and the drops of rain rattled against the window-panes. The rain fell interminably this summer. Campaspe sat quietly in a high-backed chair, resting her chin on her palm, thinking.... Presently she heard a step in the hall.

Is that you, Cupid? she called.

Campaspe! He came in; slunk would be a better word.

She rang the bell, and asked Frederika to light the lamps. As the room became brighter she looked at her husband; he was so small, so tired, so worried, so generally insignificant. She also noted, with some alarm, that he wore an air of conscious guilt, which betokened an effort at explanation.

He began, indeed, at once: Campaspe, can you forgive me?

Forgive you? Her tone was gentle. For what?

For what I did last night.

She was very languid, very uninterested, very kind, a trifle impatient, perhaps, with his stupidity.

There is, of course, nothing for which I need forgive you.

Campaspe!

What have I to forgive you?

You saw me with....

That! She laughed. Cupid, why will you always be so romantic? Will you never believe me when I tell you that I don’t care in the least what you do? I should never have married you if I had planned to worry about you. I married you because I knew I should never have to worry about you. You understand my views perfectly. Do just as you please, but I will not have you making these scenes over nothing.

Campaspe.... Couldn’t things be different between us? Couldn’t you?...

She rose with a look of determination. It’s quite impossible.... Her tone was firmer now.... It’s no good going over it. You must understand that it is quite impossible. We have our children, and it is very comfortable living this way. So long as you are satisfied, I am content, but anything else is quite impossible.

Campaspe!

She was leaving the room, but she turned back to face him. In her face now there was an expression of definite displeasure. Her square jaw was set hard.

Do, please, she said, stop pronouncing my name like a moonstruck savage.

Where are you going? His look was haunting, intense, pitiful, helpless.

I am going to change my dress.

Are you dining at home tonight? He was _almost_ pathetic.

I had intended to ... but now, I don’t know. I can’t bear you when you’re sentimental.

I’ll promise ... he choked ... not to be.

And you’ll stop apologizing?

Yes.

And you’ll talk about something else than me?

Ye-es.

And do get over looking moonstruck, Cupid, and, for God’s sake, don’t call me Campaspe again tonight!

She passed on through the open door, and ascended the stairs. Cupid stared after her with the rapt, hopeless expression of a dog who has howled in vain for two hours, and has at last lost faith in his power to open doors.

_Chapter VI_

The morning after his first lesson with Paul Moody, Harold’s mail contained an envelope which he tore open in febrile haste. Within the envelope he found a sheet of folded note-paper, but there was no writing thereon. The paper merely served as a garment for a crisp new one hundred dollar bill. Not a word! She had already thanked him, he recalled, but she might have found the heart to say something more. His life, begun so pleasantly on his first day in New York, now seemed to be caught in a perilous and inextricable tangle. The matchless Alice Blake had vanished, while a more motley crew than he had imagined could exist outside of literature had taken official possession of him. These wasters, apparently, incessantly staggered about seeking sensation. They had, it would appear, no other consistent aim. Sensation, in itself, was at the farthest pole from Harold’s true desire. What he thought he wanted was a little grey home in the east with Alice Blake. Instead, he had been delivered, uncompromisingly, by an eccentric father, whom he was beginning to hate, into the hands of Paul Moody, a strange, cynical fellow. Worse even than Paul was his entourage, Bunny Hugg, John Armstrong, and now, this beastly little animal, Zimbule O’Grady. Would she and Bunny go on living together frankly at Paul’s, or was that simply a lodging for the night? He could not answer this question from his limited experience. He realized that the conventions of this new existence, if there were any, were entirely unknown to him. What--he summed up his distrust in one vague, generalizing query--what did people do who lived as these people lived? What, indeed, did they not do? Had they any beliefs or faiths? Had they any responsibilities or duties or consciences? Were their days compounded of visits to Coney Island and the discovery of snake-charmers? The prey of such meditations--phantoms to which his tranquil past had not accustomed him--, Harold felt terribly alone. There was, to be sure, the horrible Drains, more horrible than ever in his massive attempts to be sympathetic. And there was ... Mrs. Lorillard. But was she laughing at him? At moments, in her frankness, her ease, her buoyant assertion of personality, she had reminded him irresistibly of his aunt. Could he, however, he wondered, count on her as an ally in this thicket of foes? Were they, definitely, foes? In his ignorance he was unable to decide. He only was aware of how uncomfortable they made him feel, and he fortified himself with the assurance that the more they advanced, the more he would retreat.

He determined, as the day wore on, to write to Alice. Sitting down before his desk, he tried to compose a letter. It was a difficult matter, he soon discovered, to compose a letter--the first--to a girl with whom he was in love, a girl whom, at the same time, he scarcely knew. Dear Miss Blake, he began; after a moment of perturbed reflection he drew his pen through these words. Dear lady; too formal. Dear friend; how absurd! She might even deny this. Dear stranger; more absurd still. Finally, he decided to begin his letter without any address at all, and now he found that he could write it quite easily.

You have frightened me, his pen traced. I know nobody in New York. Absolutely nobody. I haven’t had time to tell you my story, and so you will not understand, but I cannot hope ever to be formally introduced to you. Couldn’t you, in some way, explain to your father? I do so want to see you, to know you. We have met under such strange circumstances that there has been no opportunity for a quiet talk. Can’t you arrange something? _Please do._ I _must_ see you. I eagerly await your reply.

He gave the letter to Drains to post, but immediately after Drains had departed on this mission, he felt the need of going out himself. A novel restlessness had besieged him. Drawing on his rain-coat, he left the house. Without being particularly conscious of where he was walking, without any desire to walk to any definite place, he directed his steps towards Gramercy Park. The rain-drops pelted his face with a welcome freshness. He did not want to go to Paul’s but he craved the opportunity of talking to somebody, and to whom else could he talk? Ki, at the door, informed him that Paul had gone out. Would he come in and wait? He declined. Too nervous to sit still, he preferred to walk around the iron-grating enclosing the park. The benches in the enclosure were deserted. The trees, drenched by the windy rain, shook drops of water on the vivid green grass.... Harold walked round and round the iron fence. A policeman in a rubber-coat stood on the corner of Lexington Avenue. On the other side of the park, Harold passed a sailor under an umbrella.... What would Alice say? Would she answer his letter at all? He felt completely miserable. Why couldn’t his father give him a position in his own home where he could meet people? He was, he assured himself, to all intents and purposes an outcast. He returned to Paul’s. Paul had not yet come in. Ki smiled. Would the gentleman wait? Harold again declined. Round and round the grating. The rain continued to fall. It was twilight.

Drains, too, was smiling, as he opened the door for Harold. How could everybody smile? And they all smiled cynically, as if they knew some secret of which he was not aware. Did they all understand why life was so cruel? Did they all comprehend the jest of the cruelty? The evening was almost a replica of his first evening in his own apartment. Drains asked what he would have for dinner ... and gave him chops, etc. Again he went early to bed with books and magazines which he did not read. He could not tolerate this waiting. He, who had been patient all his life, was becoming impatient. He lifted the receiver from the hook ... and put it back again. She had asked him, he forced himself to remember, not to telephone. Drains departed for the night. The driving rain was still beating against the window-panes. The lightning flashed occasionally and there were heavy crashes of thunder. Harold shuddered. How lonely he was! He who had been alone so much formerly, now could not suffer being alone. His circumstances had been so different then. Now he felt that the world was against him, had separated him from the one person he wanted to see. His heart almost stopped beating when the telephone bell tinkled. It was Paul. Harold’s voice registered his disappointment. Yes, he had called. No, nothing in particular. Yes, he would drop in tomorrow.

What are we going to do? Harold asked desperately.

Anything you like. We’ll decide when you arrive.

Then, quite suddenly, after the naïve manner of youth, Harold cried out for sympathy: Can I come over tonight?

Sorry, old man, Paul answered; it’s quite impossible. I have a rendezvous in a doss-house with my aged grandmother.

Realizing that he had made a mistake, Harold mumbled a good-bye. Tears streamed out of the corners of his eyes. He felt more alone, more miserable than ever. At this moment, he would have been glad to see even Drains. He tried to read, but nothing held his interest. At last, he got up and walked about, his restlessness increasing as he fed it. Suddenly his eye fell on a carafe, half-full of brandy, standing on the side-board. Grasping it, he poured out enough to fill a wine-glass, and, with much gulping, he contrived to swallow the burning fluid. Then and then only was he able to fall asleep.

* * * * *

The answer to his letter was delivered by messenger in the afternoon. The envelope, he noted, was addressed in a different hand from that which had penned the envelope containing the hundred dollar bill. Still it must be.... He tore it open. His own note, the top of the envelope neatly slit, tumbled out first. Then a letter:

Sir:--

My daughter has informed me of the manner in which you have become
implicated in her affairs. I take this occasion to thank you for
your assistance, if you have given assistance, but I must ask you
not to pursue my daughter further. If you seek more than gratitude
for what you have done, I shall be glad to send you a check. Under
no circumstances, however, are you to address another letter to my
daughter. Any such I shall be obliged to open and, if you persist in
making her the butt of your unwelcome attentions, I shall be obliged
to pay a visit to the police court myself.

very truly yours,
+BECKFORD BLAKE+.

What an insult! The hideous mortification of receiving such a letter burned Harold’s cheeks with shame. And poor Alice. How must she feel? What had her father done to her? Then he suddenly remembered that he had been on the verge of telling the whole story to Paul. If he had seen Paul last evening he certainly would have told him, and Paul would have laughed. Paul surely would laugh at this story; so would Drains. With a sort of furtive intuition he began to believe that no women were innocent in the eyes of Paul and Drains. Harold felt more than ever a martyr. His life, which, it seemed, began with a mistake on the day he was born, would, he was convinced, never shape itself. All his existence, apparently, would continue to be one long mistake. Again, quite spontaneously, the idea recurred to him that he hated his father for, however unconsciously, shaping it for him. It wasn’t, he began to realize, his college years which had proved his present undoing, but his early bringing up, the inadequate and unworldly supervision of Aunt Sadi and Persia Blaine. And this was his father’s doing! To be sure, his aunt and Persia had meant well; they had loved him ... but they had not been capable of preparing him for the perils he had to face.

* * * * *

Paul, that day, and for several days following, was rather inclined to be distrait, and Harold, silent concerning the only matter which really interested him, on his part found comparatively little to say. He encountered Campaspe on several occasions, and once or twice, he fancied, he saw her looking at him with sympathy, but they were never alone, and mainly she was preoccupied with gossip about the Duke of Middlebottom, who had arrived, unaccountably, in New York _in June_.

June, he had remarked to Campaspe, is the London season; why not make it the New York season as well? I told him, Campaspe repeated in her narrative to Paul, that all he would need was an impresario to produce an opera or two, three or four ladies of society, and a climate. His answer was direct. He said, and it is perfectly true, that New York is cooler than London in the summer, that wherever I was there was sure to be society, and that he would give the opera himself. He is committed to some such plan.

Bunny and Zimbule, also, offered matter for discussion. They were much talked about and, when one wasn’t talking about them, they ran in to talk about themselves. They were settled in Bunny’s small apartment in Greenwich Village and were living a life in which love and ambition played equal parts. Bunny was composing his two bar songs and piano pieces, and he had succeeded, without much difficulty, in securing Zimbule a situation on the stage for, after a day’s reflection, she had decided that she would rather go on the stage than do anything else.

She spent days in Campaspe’s motor, and out of it in smart shops, outfitting herself at Campaspe’s expense. She was aware of her beauty and not without taste, it was discovered, when it came to adorning it, withal this taste was somewhat bizarre. She had begun by assuming such ready-made dresses as could be easily summoned from the backs of models at Bendel’s, Tappé’s and Gilbert Clark’s, but very soon, under the spell of the compliments which her really exquisite loveliness won from the lips of the attendants in these shops, she was encouraged by Campaspe, whose desire in life was to amuse herself, and whose purse was sufficiently heavy to make the carrying out of this desire facile, to go a little further along the route of self-expression. Campaspe’s philosophy was as sure at this point as at another. It was only, she frequently said, those who expected to find amusement in themselves who wandered about disconsolate and bored. Amusement was to be derived from watching others, when one permitted them to be entirely themselves. One was born with oneself and, if one were intelligent, one got to know oneself thoroughly at the age of four. Thereafter, a life of boredom intervened until the grave yawned, unless one surrounded oneself with people who were individual enough to comport themselves with some eccentricity, not to say perversity. Zimbule was not cut to any conventional pattern. She filled Campaspe’s bill.

Soon the child began to notice the difference between stuffs, the difference between patterns and colours. Warm as it was, she affected an interest in kinkob and camel’s-hair shawls, and she became aware of the sacred names of Reboux, Premet, Chéruit, and Maria Guy.

I adore her! Campaspe ejaculated one day. I can never cease to thank God that we captured her from those embracing snakes. She is the most amusing person we’ve ever discovered. She’s wholly natural, wholly an animal. I’ve never met a woman like her. When she’s hungry she eats; when she’s sleepy, she sleeps; and when she’s amorous, she loves. She’s imitative like an animal too. Having observed that I wear geraniums, she’s clever enough to realize that geraniums are not her flower. When I called for her the other day she was sporting a great bouquet of orchids. Bunny, of course, can never pay for them and so I have taken to sending her orchids every morning, developing an expensive taste. Her next lover may be rich enough to afford them. But you can never tell with Zimbule. Animals are not interested in money. If she falls in love with a rich man it will be an accident.

Bunny, it was certain, was deeply in love with Zimbule. He had no eyes for her eccentricities, but he was delighted that Campaspe had dressed her up. The practical side of these attentions dawned on him more fully when she was engaged, solely on her looks, for a good part in support of a female star. Zimbule took this engagement entirely as a matter of course. Everything with Zimbule was a matter of course. She ate, slept, lived, loved as a matter of course. And, quite naturally, like the little animal she was, she never thought at all.

* * * * *

One afternoon, the Duke of Middlebottom appeared at Paul’s apartment, and Harold was astonished by the grace and charm of Drains’s former master. The Duke immediately manifested an interest in Harold which appeared to be sincere. As for Harold, the Duke appealed to him from the beginning, without giving him the sense, which the others made him feel so constantly, that he was being made game of. The Duke was younger than Harold had expected to find him. Somehow, Harold had thought of all Dukes as middle-aged men, and this particular Duke was but scantily past thirty. He was a tall, blond English-man; his hair, of course, was curly; his cheeks were rosy, and his eyes were blue. He was always dressed to perfection, wore a monocle, and had the habit of flaunting three cornflowers as a boutonnière. His trousers flared at the bottom and his small feet were encased in round-toed French boots with cloth tops. He had very ugly hands, thick across, with short, stubby fingers with spatulate terminations, and nails which seemed never to have permitted the attentions of a manicure. Not only were they unevenly clipped; often, they were actually dirty. Another peculiarity of the Duke was that he stammered, but this apparent defect actually added to his attractiveness. His name was eponymous for a certain group that frequented the Café Royal in London and with his crest on his stationery was the motto: A thing of beauty is a boy for ever. The Duke made it a point to live by the Julian Calendar, thirteen days behind the Gregorian. In this wise he contrived to evade all unsatisfactory engagements, especially if they were complicated in any way by daylight-saving time, an American refinement of which he was utterly ignorant.

Harold found him very delightful and wondered if Drains’s strictures were part of that valet’s demoniacal cynicism. He judges everybody, thought Harold, in terms of himself and his own rotten life. It was plainly to be seen that the Duke of Middlebottom never entertained an evil thought.

Campaspe and the Duke were old friends, and they talked of Capri, from whence the Duke had recently emerged, the new English plays, the best of which, the Duke appeared to believe, were by Beaumont and Fletcher, Poiret’s inventions for the grues at Auteuil, Cocteau’s café, Le Bœuf sur le Toit, and kindred subjects. He was a charming and engaging conversationalist, and the most winning quality of his manner was its utter frankness and apparent absence of guile. Harold had been fully prepared, by advance reports, to meet an ironic epigrammatist, who perhaps removed his coat in public to inject a shot of morphia into his arm. The Duke seemed free from a mania for exhibitionism. Not only was he delightful to Harold, he was equally at his ease with Paul, and he had bestowed upon Zimbule, whom he playfully described as a sciurine oread, the accolade of his particular interest. He had made her his friend at once by promising to present her with a long string of coral beads of the valuable and rare colour of the berries of wintergreen.

At their first meeting, she had challenged his monocle.

What’d you do if it dropped and broke? she asked.

For answer, the Duke relaxed the muscles around his eye, and the glass fell to the floor, shivering into fragments. Immediately, he took another glass from his waistcoat pocket, and adjusted it.

The Duke questioned Harold regarding his tastes, and told him long stories of harmless adventures among the Italian peasantry, in which shepherd boys and bersaglieri figured in sympathetic guises. Sheep were saved, and ladies escorted through perilous mountain-passes, while banditi rained down shot from convenient posts above. There was also a harrowing, but amusing, account of the birth of a child in the compartment of a railway carriage during the prolonged passage through the Simplon Tunnel. Only once did Harold betray what he thought was a trace of affectation in the Duke when that one, being questioned, declared that he had never seen the Blue Grotto.

But you have just come from Capri!

The boy does not believe you, Campaspe interposed. Ronald never lies, Harold. Think a moment. How long have you been in New York?

Nearly three weeks.

Have you seen the Statue of Liberty?

No.

Or Grant’s Tomb?

No.

Or the Metropolitan Museum of Art?

No-o.

Or Poe’s house?

No.

Or the Bronx Zoo?

No.

Or Fraunces’ Tavern?

No.

Or the Aquarium?

No.

And you have been here three weeks. The Duke spent two or three weeks in Capri and yet you expect him to have seen the Blue Grotto!

During the progress of this dialogue there was a crescendo in Harold’s abashment, but the Duke only smiled and did not seem to be at all put out.

Youth, he remarked, is always incredulous. The Firebird, however, hasn’t t-t-t-told you the whole truth. I pass t-t-two or three weeks in Capri every year, and yet I have never seen the B-B-B-Blue Grotto.

I believe you, said Harold fervently.

I would never see Mount Ætna at T-T-Taormina, or Vesuvius at Naples if it were possible to escape them. But they see me first and then they insist that I look.

Why, asked Harold, quite ready to let this subject drop, do you call Campaspe the Firebird?

It seems natural, even inevitable, to do so. Her p-p-plumage is so brilliant. It glistens and d-d-dazzles.

Oh!

Wait. There is more. I am not thinking of the Zhar-Ptitsa of Russian legend. Rather I am making an impious in-t-t-terpretation of certain passages in the Comte de Gabalis. Probably you have not yet read that fascinating seventeenth century satirical romance in which the author, the Abbé de Montfaucon de Villars, was undoubtedly poking fun at the occultists. Ironically enough, the modern Rosicrucians have taken the b-b-b-book seriously and use it as their B-B-Bible. In this delicious capolavoro, the Comte discourses with the author, somewhat after the fashion of .... Well, certainly such works as W. H. Mallock’s New Republic and Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow stem from this book.

The Comte recommends marriage with one of the immortal beings who people the elements rather than with a human; he advises cohabitation with the nymphs who swim in the water, the gnomes who inhabit the earth, the sylphs who fly in the air, or the salamanders who thrive in the fire. Campaspe, I am convinced, has married a salamander and has embraced his element. She b-b-b-burns like a clear white flame, using our emotions for fuel. Wherever there is passion, Campaspe’s incandescence increases, but she remains faithful, under all circumstances, to her salamander. Occasionally, in one of her soaring flights, she drops a fiery feather, and some poor mortal mistakes it for the living bird.

But I have married a mortal, Campaspe objected.

Your children are salamanders, was the Duke’s final word.

Harold was uncertain whether to tell Drains that he had met the Duke, but Drains saved him the trouble. As he brought in Harold’s coffee one morning, the man remarked:

I saw my old master yesterday, sir.

The Duke .... Yes, I know. I’ve met him. He isn’t a bit the sort you described.

Drains raised his eyebrows.

I described the Duke! he exclaimed. I told you that I had been in his employ, sir, but I scarcely permitted myself to go further.

You told me why you had left him, dared Harold.

Drains’s face had regained its customary imperturbability.

I cannot, of course, contradict you, sir, but I assure you, sir, that you are labouring under some misapprehension. I could never have discussed the affairs of the Duke. He is a fine gentleman, sir.

Well, for once we agree, said Harold, and he began to wonder if he had misjudged Drains.

_Chapter VII_