Chapter XXIX

Anna opened the door to Melissa’s rather nervous ring, upon the following afternoon, and admitted her, unsmiling. The Marchesa was at home, said Anna and would Miss Wayne please come in.

Miss Wayne came in, cool and charming in the sheerest black imaginable, with a wide black hat upon her dusky hair, a string of pearls about her milk-white throat. She dropped a glove and Anna retrieved it ungraciously.

Anna quite obviously had never liked Melissa, but then Anna was a creature of infinite prejudice and Melissa sometimes thought cared for no one at all excepting--in a crabbed sort of way, her employer.

“It’s very warm this afternoon, isn’t it?” Melissa offered weakly, an attempt at conciliation for which she promptly despised herself. Anna admitted reluctantly that it was adding no verbal gingerbread.

“In here,” muttered Anna and led the way to the lair of the home-keeping Marchesa.

Murdock was calling upon the lady ... a fact which stopped Melissa in the doorway, conscious of surprise and somewhat unreasonable displeasure.

“Well, Melissa!” cried the Marchesa in a brisk staccato ... “this is very nice indeed. You’re just in time to hear Murdock’s news ... he has been telling me the most interesting.... Bring that chair, dear boy....” She indicated the gilt trifle upon which Melissa was to sit ... and, Murdock having moved it nearer the Marchesa, waved Melissa into it with an hospitable gesture, and commanded.... “Now, Murdock--tell her what you’ve just been telling me!”

Murdock met Melissa’s eyes not without a touch of embarrassment. He was looking very fit, well turned out, as always, but he had a little the air of one caught in smuggling. He looked at the Marchesa and grinned. Looked back at Melissa and lifted imploring eyebrows.

“Fact is,” he said--“nothing much ... I’ve got a chance to go with this South African expedition that’s taking off next month--you may have heard of it ... been a good deal in the papers--they’re collecting for some zoo or other ... movie stuff on the side ... it listens well. I’ve always wanted to try something like that. Fellow I knew in Harvard--matter of fact we had rooms together one year--he’s the big stick in this--and he’s offered to take me along.... Might be pretty good, eh? Big game shooting and so on.”

“Wonderful,” said Melissa sweetly. Something touched her like a wind off a chilly sea. Murdock then was not waiting upon her choice.

“Nothing could be more appropriate,” agreed the Marchesa, inspecting her freshly rouged nails and smiling to herself.

“Appropriate--how d’you mean?” Murdock inquired doubtfully.

“Of course you don’t read English novels--or you wouldn’t ask,” said the Marchesa.

Murdock said he was sorry--that he got so little time for reading.

The Marchesa said it didn’t matter--that reading would probably only spoil him anyway. That men of dominant personality didn’t need to read a great deal. That books were written about and not for them.

At which Murdock looked deprecatory but pleased.

“Next month?” asked Melissa aloofly in the midst of all this.

Murdock said--“I’m to give ’em a definite answer on Friday. The thing’s still open, you see.”

“Murdock,” said the Marchesa (just a touch of Granny in her deepening tones), “I shall be greatly disappointed in you if you let an opportunity of this sort pass you by. Think!---It may never come your way again! You are young--you are in magnificent health--you have never been to Africa--you say you have always wanted to shoot tigers....”

Murdock, who couldn’t remember having mentioned tigers especially, but was by no means averse to the portrait of himself as a thwarted Nimrod, nodded gravely.

“What is there to keep you here?” demanded the Marchesa.... “Is there any reason on earth why you should not go?”

Murdock glanced at Melissa and away again a trifle uneasily.

“We shall all be waiting for you, upon your return,” the Marchesa assured him astutely,--“immensely proud of you ... and happy in your prowess.” Unable to sustain existence too long upon such heights, she added with the ghost of a giggle.... “No reason so far as that goes, why you shouldn’t bring us a tiger-skin apiece--is there, Melissa?”

“I think,” said Melissa, “you ought by all means to go, Murdock. It sounds most alluring.”

“Well--I think perhaps I will,” said Murdock cautiously. He committed himself no further.

The Marchesa adroitly required no further assurance. She began directly after that to talk of travel in general, her own migrations in particular, Europe,--Russia--coming down by imperceptible degrees, China--its potteries and bandits ... an amazing monologue rapidly delivered....

Melissa, sitting glazed with disinterest before that scintillant exhibition, caught suddenly a word, a glance, a name, and realized what undercurrent was setting her way.

She said clearly, repeating the Marchesa’s last word “Japan--I’ve never been there....”

“Wonderful country,” the Marchesa mused and shook her silver curls in reminiscent ecstasy. “I was there, years ago--as a guest of the American Ambassador--most interesting! However--I understand it’s all greatly changed. Extraordinarily modernized. My nephew returned from Tokio, only this morning ... dear me, Melissa, how pale you are, child! Is that window too much for you? After a siege like yours--one can’t be too careful.... Murdock, give her that white lace shawl--on the chaise longue, there!”

“I am not cold ... thank you ...!” said Melissa to Murdock, accepting the shawl, however, rather than stop for a discussion of temperature. To the Marchesa, she continued clearly. “You say your nephew returned--this morning--how interesting!”

“Yes--isn’t it nice!” the Marchesa admitted. “Perhaps a little sherry, Melissa, would pick you up--shall I ring for Anna? Murdock--that bell near the door....”

“Please--not for me!” said Melissa and stopped Murdock with an imperative look.

The Marchesa shrugged and grimaced delicately. “One ought to take no chances, after influenza.”

“I’m not taking chances,” said Melissa, very nearly frantic. “I feel most awfully well. Do tell us about your nephew--does Murdock know him?”

“Do you know him?” the Marchesa unexpectedly diverted, inquired of Murdock. “He’s Roderick Delano....” Melissa felt the blood stealing across her throat. She had never heard his name before ... if it hadn’t been _his_ she wouldn’t have liked it. Amalie Delano ... that was what the Marchesa had called herself when Murdock happened in that day--at Melissa’s apartment.... Mister Roderick would be the child of the Marchesa’s brother....

Murdock said suddenly, scowling with the effort of remembering: “There was a Rod Delano at Harvard ... a senior in my freshman year ... awfully popular chap. Everybody liked him.”

“Roderick has more friends,” observed the Marchesa with a rare touch of feeling, “than any young man I know.”

“So he’s back?” said Murdock amiably.... “Been away long?”

Melissa sat tense--and listened. Better, far better that questions came from another source. Any other source.

“Almost a year,” said the Marchesa. “He’s had an amazing time of it. I wonder he came back at all. He seems so in love with the Orient. However--something unexpected developed in his affairs here at home--he was cabled for, he says....”

“Did he come back in answer to a cable?” asked Melissa. She looked at the Marchesa out of dark, pleading eyes and impishly the Marchesa chuckled.

“A most extraordinary message he says--doesn’t yet know what it’s all about. Well--things of that sort explain themselves, don’t they? Sooner or later.... I haven’t had a great deal of talk with him ... he’s coming in to-morrow night for a bit of supper ... perhaps then....”

To-morrow night--a bit of supper--Melissa’s eyelids burned--perhaps then....

“What was he doing in Japan?” asked Murdock casually--“Just kicking about?”

The Marchesa explained with sweet indulgence.... “Oil and iron--large interests ... he’s a born Midas, Roderick!”

“Like to meet him, sometime,” said Murdock.

“You shall,” said the Marchesa--“when you come back from Africa. I promise you a party, Murdock ...” her caressing smile said plainly--to one looker-on at least what sort of party it would be.

Melissa said she was sorry but that she would have to be running along. She couldn’t bear for another moment, the Marchesa’s unscrupulous playing of Murdock--not that her own hands were any cleaner!

Murdock, rising too, said that he would take her home.

The Marchesa didn’t ask either of them to stay. She lay back in the winged chair and looked up at Melissa curiously.

“Are you free, to-morrow night?” she inquired.

“Yes,” said Melissa, looking steadily back into those faded and filmy gray eyes. “Quite free.”

“I should like you to come in--about seven. Don’t make another engagement.”

“I shan’t,” said Melissa--“I assure you.”

Neither could have put it more nakedly--nor more safely.

“Good-by, Murdock,” said the Marchesa and gave him her hand with a smile for consolation. “I’m not asking you, dear boy, because I want all my attention for Roderick ... and if you were there ... he might suffer!”

“Wonderful old girl--isn’t she?” observed Murdock, ringing for the elevator. “Slings a wicked line--even now. She says Granny’s in England, for the summer. Sorry I didn’t see her again before she sailed.”

Melissa agreed with him. She would have agreed with him on any subject imaginable rather than just then have to think what she was saying.

She was still in a maze when they left the building and came out into the airless street. Sunset burned at the end of it.

“Let’s walk,” Murdock offered. “I haven’t had any exercise to-day--I’ll bet you haven’t either.”

Melissa said she hadn’t and that she would like very much to walk.

They walked--and talked--for ten minutes like the merest acquaintances. Discussing the weather, a play or so....

“Melissa,” said Murdock abruptly in the middle of a block--“shall I go with this African outfit--or not?”

“Why--Murdock!” said Melissa. Panic touched her for a moment. She stalled, as Murdock himself would have put it, a trifle tardily: “Why do you ask _me_?”

“Because if you say stay--I will,” said Murdock simply. “I mean--if you want me to stay--you don’t even have to say it....” He stared at her hopefully. “Y’know--I’ve had a feeling--quite a while, now--that you--well, that you’d sort of lost interest. I thought for a while I had--kind of a drag with you. Now I don’t. I mean I don’t think so. But if I’m wrong....”

He waited anxiously for Melissa to contradict him. She couldn’t. She steeled herself to see that honest eagerness fade and go blank before her silence.

“Guess I’ll go with ’em--” said Murdock presently in quite a different tone of voice. “I _thought_ when you wouldn’t see me all the time you were sick....”

“Murdock--I wasn’t seeing any one....”

“You’ve seen a good deal of Kenealy since you’ve been out again, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” said Melissa with dogged frankness. “I have--but there isn’t--”

“I’m not asking,” said Murdock with a touch of sullenness. “It’s none of my business whom you see--so long as you don’t care to see me.”

“But I do, Murdock--I’ll always care to see you....”

“Old stuff!” said Murdock rudely. “You know what I mean. Only thing I don’t get is ... why did you want to be so darned sweet to me in the first place if you weren’t going to--oh, well ... somebody’s beat my time, of course.”

“Murdock!”

“Here we are!” said Murdock turning into Central Park West with the precision of a drill sergeant. He said nothing more of his emotions and Melissa, not proud of her share in arousing them, was only too grateful for another subject. She felt when she said a quite commonplace good-by to him on the steps of Mister Roderick’s house that she would in all probability never see him again. And Murdock being what he was and life being what it is--she never did.