Chapter XX

The house-party at Four Oaks was not--for all its carefree nature--a success. Almost from the first, something went wrong. Some rift in the lute proclaimed itself by way of an increasing number of flat notes. As if the thing had not been properly orchestrated; as if an instrument somewhere in the ensemble were playing more or less than its necessary part.

At the bridge-table, dancing, riding, sitting around the fire at tea-time--no matter where Murdock’s house-guests foregathered, nor for how harmless a purpose, something jarred and something failed to fuse.

“It’s that Armistead girl,” the Marchesa told Melissa in a bed-time moment so to speak, when Granny’s cap and brooch having been laid upon the dressing-table for the night, safe in the seclusion of a rose-curtained bedroom with a stately four-poster awaiting her slumbers, the oracle resumed her avocation.

“That Armistead girl’s dangerous ... because she’s a fool and in love. I think I’ll tell her, she might as well let Kenealy alone. He doesn’t give her a thought....”

“Please--” cried Melissa in sincere distress--“I hope you won’t do anything of the sort!”

“Why not? She’s spoiling the whole thing. She’s like salt in ice-cream,” said the Marchesa thoughtfully, making a comparison, which by the homely nature of it could have derived only from that period of her existence before she encountered the Italian nobility. “She won’t let the rest of you settle to anything. She’s forever maneuvering....”

“And what am _I_ doing?” asked Melissa bitterly.

“Not so much as you might,” the Marchesa assured her. “I must admit you irritate me, at times. You don’t seem to recognize an opportunity when you meet it.”

Melissa was sitting before the Marchesa’s fire, in a soft mouse-colored velvet robe, with her dark hair loose on her shoulders.

“For instance you look extremely well in that thing,” went on the Marchesa with scientific frankness ... “and a long-haired woman these days has the lure of the unusual ... but do you take advantage of either fact? You might slip back to the library for a book some night--just as you are, now ... but does it occur to you to do so?”

“Don’t you think that’s been fairly well covered in a good many third acts?” inquired Melissa, restraining a smile.

“If it has--there’s nothing in third acts that hasn’t been done in real life,” said the Marchesa snappishly. She mused a little, sniffing her salts and blinking at the burning logs. “Of course--you’d have to be sure Murdock had stayed up to read.”

“It might be simpler,” offered Melissa demurely--“just to ask him to wait.”

“Oh, very well, Miss Impertinence!” rejoined the Marchesa--“Anna--what day is this?”

Anna, busy in another part of the room, with unfolding and refolding of the Marchesa’s countless garments, replied briefly--“Sunday the seventh.”

“Seventh,” echoed Anna’s mistress abstractedly. “We’ve been here, two whole days--with absolutely nothing to show for it.” She turned sharply on Melissa. “You were in the garden for more than an hour this afternoon--whom were you with?”

Sooner or later all Melissa’s doings had thus to be accounted for.

“I was with Luke. Nelly Rivers and Austin were with us for a while. They went walking after that. We sat on a bench and talked.”

“Why do you waste time on Kenealy?”

“Is friendship a waste of time?”

“Don’t fool yourself, Melissa--there’s no such thing as friendship between a man and a woman free to try anything else.”

“But he isn’t free,” said Melissa. “And his friendship’s all I want.”

She remembered for long after the thing she said then, because in the moment of her saying it, softly yet with a startling suggestion of destiny, somebody knocked at the door.

“Give me my cap!” whispered the Marchesa shrilly ... never one to forget her properties in any scene ... “give me those spectacles--and a handkerchief....” Melissa having put these things upon the lady’s head and in her hands, the knock came again, more insistently, and this time, the Marchesa lifting a gentle voice said, “Anna, open the door!”

It was Murdock. He stood for a second, looking at Melissa, at her loose dark hair and the whiteness of her slim arms against the smoky shadows of the things she wore before he brushed a hand across his eyes and came slowly into the room.

“Sorry--” he said ... his voice betrayed the shock of one sort or another and his pleasant, high-colored face was very grave.... “I just took a chance on your still being up ... hoped you hadn’t gone to bed.... I’ve got--bad news, y’see--Kenealy....”

“Sit down, Melissa!” said the Marchesa crisply, for at Luke’s name, Melissa had gotten to her feet and stood there, suddenly colorless, clinging to the back of her chair.

“What’s this about Kenealy?” the Marchesa demanded of Murdock. “You know how tender-hearted the child is--can’t you see you’re frightening her outrageously? Tell us at once ... don’t bother about breaking it gently. Has he been hurt?”

“He isn’t--dead?” said Melissa almost in a whisper.

Something in her cried wildly that she couldn’t bear Luke to be dead. With his quiet voice--and his laughing moody eyes--his sweet rare trick of understanding the thing you hadn’t told him....

“Not--_dead_, Murdock?” said Melissa imploringly.

“Good Lord, no!” said Murdock ... “not Luke--his wife!... He’s had a cable from Hawaii. His _wife’s_ dead. Drowned on some beach or other. He can get a boat out of San Francisco on the twelfth--if he can make it. I drove him into Baltimore to catch that one o’clock train. Hadn’t time to do anything but throw some things into a bag ... he asked me to say good-by to you all....”

“His wife,” echoed the Marchesa softly--“dear, dear, Melissa!--isn’t that too dreadful?”

Melissa did not answer. Murdock put out his hand, a big, warm, steady hand and she took it and clung to it. It sickened her to read the Marchesa’s thought. Luke, too, now--among the “possible sheaves.”

Could one ever feel clean again, after moments like this?

“He--and his wife owned a ranch--did they not?--in Hawaii?” inquired the Marchesa, feeling for her handkerchief. “I think Melissa once told me....”

“A whole flock of ranch-lands--” said Murdock, holding Melissa’s hand hard. “There’ll be all of hers now--on top of his own. He’ll have a big estate to settle before he can come back.”

“Poor boy--poor dear!” sighed the Marchesa. She added, having found her handkerchief and used it with unostentatious effect. “Murdock--I think Melissa and I had better go in to New York in the morning. It would seem too heartless--staying on--after this....”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Murdock simply. “Poor old boy--it knocked him off his feet rather ... coming so rotten sudden....”

“Ah, well,” the Marchesa reminded him gently--“Time softens all things--except perhaps arteries.”

Realizing at once that the mot was a bit out of character, she took off her glasses, wiped them and put them on again, sighing.

Mist on the lenses, obviously.

“_I hate her!_” said Melissa, deep in her revolted soul.

Clear as if he stood in the room, Mister Roderick, keen-eyed and contemptuous, answered that muted cry.

“If you hate her, why do you go on with this disgusting business?... Tell her you’re through, Melissa!”

But Melissa said nothing at all.