Chapter V

“The Marchesa,” said Anna, “is having a manicure ... please sit down, Miss Wayne--she’ll be out in a moment.”

Melissa sat down. It was just after five of the cryptic Wednesday and she had worked abominably hard in order to clear up her desk and leave the office thus early. She thought the Marchesa’s manicure might have been earlier concluded--or postponed.

The room was, as usual, slightly disordered. A scarf of delicate blonde lace lay across the silly little cushions of the chaise longue ... and there were fallen petals on a table beside a jar of yellow roses. It was, however, in spite of its just perceptible stuffiness and overcrowdedness, a very charming and unusual room. The room of a wayfarer whose feet had touched more shores than one, whose hands had been gracefully acquisitive. Even the plethora of photographs had its distinctive touch. There wasn’t a woman’s face on the walls. Melissa noticed this for the first time and vaguely wondered why. She was standing before the picture of a dark young man in quaintly demoded evening clothes with several orders on his coat and the words--“Toute a vous, Amalie” scrawled boldly across his trouser-leg, when she heard the sound of the Marchesa’s absurd little heels and felt that lady’s hand upon her arm.

“Ah,” said the Marchesa--“good afternoon, Miss Wayne! I see you are admiring one of the most fascinating men I ever knew ... poor dear Paolo!... aide to the King of Italy. Wonderful eyes--as you see. He was quite, quite mad about me--for years ... after my husband’s death, of course. Used to cry like a child--every time I refused him. Tried to elope with me once--against my will--but he’d no executive ability--poor darling! I kept him for tea--and talked him out of it. Have you had your tea--by the way?”

Melissa said thank you, she didn’t care for any.

“Just as well,” said the Marchesa pleasantly, “--Anna hasn’t been very nice to-day and I’d rather not give her anything else to do--at the moment. Do sit down, Miss Wayne ... take that chair over there. Should you mind handing me my scarf--a bit chilly, isn’t it! I suppose you came up in the subway?”

She settled herself in the winged chair, drew the lace scarf which Melissa gave her about her shoulders, looked at her polished nails, incongruously rosy at the ends of those small shriveled fingers, and drew a long, satisfied sigh.

“I always come in the subway,” said Melissa briefly.

“H’m’m!” said the Marchesa and flung her a curiously bright-eyed glance--“not because you prefer it, I fancy.”

“I dislike it very much,” said Melissa.

“Of course,” said her hostess. “Nasty smelly place--full of people with no manners. I was in it once myself. My nephew took me over to Brooklyn--just for the experience.”

Melissa said nothing at all. She was interested in neither the Marchesa’s experiences nor her nephew. And the subway as a unique experiment appealed to her but slightly.

Across her moody silence the old lady’s voice came briskly.

“You’ve no idea, of course, why I sent for you, to-day?”

“Not the least,” said Melissa.

“No faintest shred of an idea?”

“I thought,” said Melissa, fastening the button of her left-hand glove which had somehow come undone, “that you might wish to discontinue my reading.”

“I do,” said the Marchesa crisply.

“I--see,” said Melissa. Not too wildly remunerative, the Saturday readings--still something. She added as coolly as she might--“I fancied that was it.”

“You don’t ask the reason--” said the Marchesa.

“Why should I?” said Melissa. “Reasons so seldom matter.”

“Well--well!” said the Marchesa, looked down at her nails once more and indulged in a chuckle. “You _are_ an extraordinary person. I like you, Miss Wayne--and I don’t like most women--I think I may say that I have never sincerely liked any woman. Except, of course, my mother. I might have liked my daughter--if I had had one. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is--you interest me--and I dare say, for all that unshakable poise of yours, I shall interest _you_, when I tell you that I have been thinking over our conversation--of last Saturday, you know--and I have conceived the most charming idea--oh, extremely charming!”

“Really?” said Melissa.

“Really!” mocked the Marchesa with a touch of falsetto. “At least have the goodness to look attentive.”

“I am,” said Melissa--and she was. Something in her had leaped to attention--and defense--more swiftly than the Marchesa dreamed. If this were the preface to a working-girl’s club, or a scholarship in a business college, Melissa was ready to decline it--rather definitely.

“I am going,” said the Marchesa, “to be a fairy god-mother to you.”

“Yes?” observed dispassionate Melissa.

“The girl’s made of wood,” said the Marchesa irritably. “Don’t forget, dear Miss Wayne, that I’ve seen you in reverse, so to speak. Aren’t you curious--in the least?”

“I’m sorry,” said Melissa--as well, she thought stubbornly, to have the thing out and get it over with--“but it doesn’t seem to me that there is anything to which our conversation of last Saturday could lead....”

“Oh, isn’t there!” cried the Marchesa.

“Not--that I can see,” said Melissa firmly.

“Oh, very well!” said the Marchesa. She leaned back in her chair and assumed an expression of delighted malice.... “You don’t then care--to hear what I’d thought of?”

To her own distinct surprise, Melissa retorted--“I didn’t say that.”

“Ah-ha!” said the Marchesa in triumph--“then you do care to hear it?”

“Cat-and-mouse,” thought Melissa bitterly. Aloud she said without a smile--“I shall be glad to listen, of course.”

“Royalty, itself!” commented her hostess--“Well, my princess in disguise--”

“Please!” said Melissa proudly.

The Marchesa waved her to silence and continued: “Fetch me four white rats and a pumpkin!”

Melissa looked as if she thought the Marchesa had gone suddenly out of her head. That small, coquettish gray-curled head on its once-lovely neck.

“The Cinderella motive, of course,” explained that lady delightedly. “Perhaps the most hackneyed in existence--but who cares? We shall give it a new and amusing twist--we shall play it with a kind of romantic absurdity....”

Melissa objected justifiably--“I don’t understand.”

“Of course not,” said the Marchesa--“I haven’t yet explained. Never mind--here it is--to go back to the beginning--I have decided, dear Miss Wayne--to make you a gift.”

“Thank you,” said Melissa--with her mind full of philanthropies and uplifts she added clearly--“I’m afraid I can’t accept it.”

“You don’t even know what it is!”

“Nevertheless,” said Melissa firmly....

“A gift,” said the Marchesa, interrupting her without compunction--“of a year....”

“I have already twenty-five,” said Melissa, with an unexpected glimmer ... sardonic but still a glimmer.

“Of a year, I said--in your own world--to use your own phrase.”

Then suddenly Melissa’s heart began to stumble. Her tongue as well.

“My own world--how can you--possibly?”

“I am a very clever woman,” said the Marchesa modestly. “I have thought it all out.”

“But--my own....”

“I am going,” explained the Marchesa, “to present you with a background.”

“I don’t see....”

“Don’t talk so much,” said the Marchesa--“and you will very likely see more. Listen to me--and don’t sit with your mouth open, child--it’s not your type. I hate women whose teeth show--like guinea-pigs or rabbits. Where was I?--oh, yes--I’m going to give you a year--in an apartment which you will select--with a dress allowance which will enable you to be at home in it--”

“Why?” asked Melissa--strangely breathless.

“Because,” said the Marchesa, licking her lips daintily and settling the black velvet neck-band with her most characteristic gesture--“it amuses me. All my life--I have asked merely to be amused. I am finding it, for some reason or other ...” (she looked at Melissa sharply as if daring her to suspect the reason)--“a trifle difficult ... of late. Life doesn’t seem so--subtle--as it used. It seems, somehow ... not quite so--intriguante....”

“Yes,” said Melissa--no more. She was afraid to show the warmth of understanding she felt for the small defiant figure in the winged chair. Understanding was not the thing the Marchesa had demanded ... of life. It was written on none of those romantic and ardent specimens of photography scattered over the tables and walls of that memory-ridden room.

“You amuse me,” continued the Marchesa with a wave of one heavily-ringed hand.

“I’m very glad,” said Melissa.

“You’re such an absurd rebel,” said the Marchesa--“back of that cool immobile face of yours. I am determined to see--if you’re really the creature you think you are ... inside.”

“You talk,” said Melissa, a trifle resentfully--“as if I were a doll you could take to pieces.”

The Marchesa laughed abruptly. She flicked the lace at her wrist into prettier folds and arched a still-shapely ankle, crossing her feet on the Aubusson carpet.

“A doll,” she corrected--“which I am going to put together! If my ... offer, shall I call it? ... doesn’t interest you,--if your pride can’t bear it ... you have only to say so ... and I won’t detain you any further.”

Melissa sat a long moment in silence, staring down at her tight-clenched hands, quiet in her lap. The room wavered mistily about her. The Marchesa’s wise small smile, a faintly malicious thinning of the lips and creasing of the eyelids, grew and diminished--grew again as Melissa lifted her head.

“I haven’t any pride--” she said huskily.... “I’m starving.”

“For what I propose to give you,” suggested the Marchesa blandly.

“Exactly,” said Melissa--“It’s wonderful. I don’t know--if you want me to thank you or not.”

“Wait till the year’s up,” the Marchesa suggested with a slightly sinister gurgle. “Thank me, then--if you still care to. Now, dear Miss Wayne ... to go into details.... How soon could you leave your present position? Are you--indispensable--to your employer?”

“Not that I know of,” said Melissa--“I could resign at once--leave at the end of the week.”

“When could you be ready to move--into your new apartment?”

“Any apartment--would be new to me,” Melissa controlled a nervous tremor of laughter--“Why--I could move--at any time.”

“Say the first of next week,” said the Marchesa with business-like clarity.

“Say the first of next week,” echoed Melissa, trembling in every limb.

The Marchesa rang for Anna and ordered lights and a fire, as was her custom with the coming of dusk.

To Melissa, it was exactly as if upon some strip of stage footlights suddenly flared. Unreal--the whole of it ... but having bruised herself against reality for twenty-five slow prisoned years, she was ready--more than ready, she was passionately eager--to grapple unreality and see what might come of it.

“I’ll have my agent begin at once to look for ... your air-castle,” observed the Marchesa, spreading both hands to the newly-flaming fire. “As for clothes--you have taste. I think--I think one might trust you--not to break out in imitation ermine and cheap lace.”

“Clothes!” said Melissa, with a flutter in her smooth white throat and a ripple in her low voice--“Yes--you might trust me--with clothes. I love them too much--to make mistakes.”

“H’m’m!... Loving too much is an unusual safeguard--against mistakes--I should say,” mused the Marchesa pleasantly.... “However ... I’ll open an account for you--at my own bank. You may begin to--dress the part--at once. From the skin out, my good girl!”

“Naturally,” said Melissa. A slow smile of ineffable anticipation tipped the corners of her mouth.

“Swallow the canary feathers!” the Marchesa advised her impishly. “Your air of disdain is half your charm. Of course I shall want to advise you--about--everything.... I shall want to know everything that happens to you ... as soon as it happens....”

Melissa murmured that she would be only too happy.

“And at the end of a year,” said the Marchesa, leaning back with a gesture of finality.... “I’m not adopting you, you understand--at the end of a year, back you go!--To the old room--and the old work--and the old life....”

“It doesn’t matter--” said Melissa desperately--“a year’s a year!”

“Back you go--” continued the Marchesa, as if Melissa had not spoken, “unless ...” she chuckled like Mephisto in black taffeta and pointe de Venise ... “unless, in the meantime....”

“Yes--” said Melissa, her reckless soul in her eyes.

“Unless you’ve caught your man,” affirmed the Marchesa--“delicately speaking. Of course, that’s what I’m really giving you--a chance to acquire the kind of thing you want--with benefit of clergy. Horrid idea, h’m’m? Want to withdraw your acceptance?”

“No,” said Melissa hardily. “I hadn’t quite thought it out--I’ve been so taken off my feet, you see ... still ... no--I don’t withdraw!”

“Good!” said the Marchesa with a slight yawn patted out of sight.

“I’m afraid I’ve stayed frightfully long,” said Melissa, rising hurriedly.

“You have, as a matter of fact,” returned her hostess--“but I rather led you on. Go home and dream about me--riding a broomstick in a pointed black bonnet.... I shan’t be insulted. To-morrow--I’ll call for you at noon and take you to my bank....”

“But my work--” began Melissa uncertainly. “I suppose I could tell them....”

“Tell them nothing at all,” said the Marchesa with immense indifference--“they’d never believe the truth--and a lie is such a bore.”

As Melissa said good-by, the telephone on a little table in the corner of the room trilled wildly.

“Anna!” cried the Marchesa and struck her bell into startling discord. “Anna ... I expect that’s my nephew! Have him come up at once!” To Melissa, she added, with a nervous wave of dismissal.... “He’s leaving for Japan, to-night ... good-by, my dear--don’t let me keep you any longer!”