Chapter XXII

Melissa had one letter from Luke, on his way across the continent. He wrote briefly, with what was either an utter absence of emotion or incredible control of it:

DEAR MELISSA--

I was sorry not to have seen you to say good-by before I left Four
Oaks Farm. Murdock said he would explain for me. I am catching the
Los Angeles in two days now--with any luck--and should be in Hawaii
in another week. The cable I received said merely that Iwalani had
been drowned at Nanakuli, which is a beach near Honolulu--she must
have been down there visiting some one ... and she was a very strong
swimmer, so I still can’t see how the thing could have happened.
Except for some extraordinary circumstance--I will write you again
when I know. This is always an unpleasant trip and just now, very
nearly unbearable. I hope things are well with you--I don’t retract
any recent advice--neither do I expect you to follow it. You have a
right to your own mistakes. At the moment, I am not too proud of mine.

Yours,
LUKE.

A most un-Kenealian document, written in a rangy scrawl which might be due either to acute spiritual disturbance on Luke’s part or to the perennially rugged condition of western roadbeds.

Melissa put the letter away in her desk and missed Luke exceedingly. She had been sure, in him, of an unfailing understanding and sure--_with_ him--of herself. Which was more than could be said--for understanding--of Murdock ... and for safety--of Beall, the inscrutable.

Missing Luke, she endeavored to steer a middle course, aware, back of every other consideration that the year was wearing on, that her chance for escape from a lifetime of mediocrity would expire in the early autumn ... she had days of trying to convince herself that to go back to the office (to an office, rather, for her old place was of course long ago filled) would be the best and decentest thing which could happen to her. Those days, however, came sparsely among a stream of others in which it seemed to Melissa almost physically impossible that she should ever return to the old hopeless round, to work without aim and rest, if one cared to call it such, in the illimitable side-streets of penurious respectability.

She never discussed, with the Marchesa, the eventual ending of their agreement. The Marchesa, to her own infinite amusement, doubtless, preserved always the attitude, where Melissa was concerned, of one well-dowered lady to another. She criticized Melissa’s clothes, her manners, her management of the apartment, with the utmost, at times the most caustic freedom ... but the source of clothes, apartment and so on, was never in question. For which a certain amount of credit is due the relict of the Marchese di Ricci.

No one more deftly than she could have kept the wound open, inserted salt at appropriate intervals.

“Granny’s pretty sweet to you, isn’t she?” Beall suggested, loitering with Melissa through the Park on a late afternoon in May.

It was significant of an intensified relation between them, that he walked in the Park at all: having, in general no time for such gently sentimental practices and preferring, commonly, his newest thing in cars to personal exertion of any sort.

Melissa cherished a feeling for forsythia and syringa--so Melissa walked in the Park and Beall, however incongruously, walked with her.

“Granny--” he continued, musing critically, “is by way of being the approximate ideal in aged parents,--I should say. Where did you know her first, Melissa? Old friend of the family--and so on?”

“It’s odd!” said Melissa, smiling faintly, “--She knew Luke’s uncle, ages ago, in Venice ... did he ever tell you that?”

“Luke is a good bit like you,” Beall returned, eyes on an averted cheek, “he tells me nothing he doesn’t intend to.”

“Perhaps--like me--” said Melissa, delicately dégagé, “he has really nothing to tell. Of interest, that is, to outsiders.”

“Between the eyes--no less!” said her companion and bowed to a lady passing in a purple sedan with deference not untouched by appraisal.

“That,” he explained, “is Laure duBois ... have you seen her in my new show?”

Melissa said she hadn’t.

“Should you care to?” asked Beall.

Melissa said sorry--that she didn’t think she should.

“Aren’t you crowding your luck a bit?” she inquired. “The newspapers say such unpleasant things of it.”

Beall looked annoyed--then amused. He laughed.

“Little prig! Don’t play jeune fille, Melissa. It isn’t smart any more.”

“Neither is smut,” said Melissa. “So one’s told, by the critics.”

“I’d give a good deal to know,” said Beall suddenly--“how much of that is real with you ... and just how much is pose. I’ll admit it’s effective--but how deep does it go?”

Melissa bowed in her turn to a young man passing on horseback.

“That,” she said, “is a friend of Murdock’s. Nice-looking, isn’t he?”

“If you like ’em open-faced and dumb!” Beall retorted. He had the grace the second after to look ashamed. “Melissa--you’re on my nerves.... I don’t get you. I can’t be sure you’re what you seem....”

“I should think,” said Melissa, “that ought to endear--”

“It does,” said Beall grimly--“a good part of the time. When it doesn’t infuriate. When I don’t want to kiss you--I want to wring your pretty neck. It’s unsettling. Until I get you card-indexed and filed, I’m no good at anything else....”

He was abruptly and unquestionably in earnest. Fear stirred in Melissa and outrageous satisfaction.

“Is it so impossible to understand?” she inquired remotely. “One’s a bit fastidious--that’s all.”

“Yes--and that’s enough--quite!” he assured her. “I thought I knew women--roughly speaking....”

Melissa echoed--“Roughly speaking!... I’d say that was just your handicap.”

“I can speak your language, my dear,” said Beall--“if I cared to.” He added with extraordinary frankness. “I’m afraid I’m going to care. That’s the devil of it!”

“You’re still quite safe,” said Melissa. “Aren’t you? Unless I should care--too. And that--I don’t mean to be rude--is most unlikely.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t!” said Beall. “There’s a creature behind those eyes of yours could tell a tale worth two of that. Wait till she hears her master’s voice--you won’t always be able to turn the key on her....”

Melodramatic nonsense--for the most part. But Beall’s nonsense had the tang of sincerity and his melodrama was usually plausible.

Melissa saw him fairly often and each time with a vivider sense of approaching the edge.

She began to feel that in the long run, if she wanted to marry him, she could do it. As to taking third place in a sequence of wives ... there, romance would undoubtedly go out of the window. But life with Beall would have a background of color and movement, in which romance if not actually present might yet have acceptable substitutes. One might be repelled--or angered--or hurt--one would never be bored by him.

Melissa had lied to the Marchesa when she said she had lost interest ... and the Marchesa, after Four Oaks, Melissa rather suspected had reëxamined that lie.

“That man Beall,” said the Marchesa--“amuses me enormously. Bluebeard, with a typewriter under one arm! We shall hear more of him, Melissa.”

Melissa felt, as usual, that the Marchesa was not deceived.