Chapter IX

After a certain famous Tea-Party at which a March Hare and a Mad Hatter assisted, Melissa felt fairly sure hers led the rest--in bland absurdity.

Entrenched behind a battery of cups and plates and saucers--hospitably engrossed with matters of lemon or cream--she managed to be in the party but not of it, for a saving quarter of an hour, in which time she rallied her startled forces and was able to present to any possible inquisition, the unfearing front of innocence.

She listened, still as Mona Lisa, while the Marchesa inquired vivaciously of the young man beside her if his uncle had ever married....

“Well, yes--and no!” replied Mr. Kenealy thoughtfully.

The Marchesa gave vent to a thin arpeggio of laughter, very like a cynical spinet touched by ghostly fingers. “You mean, more than once?”

“And less! He--well, frankly--” said the young man, helping himself with a sigh to a second piece of toast, “it was rather a grief to the family that he seemed to lose in Europe his--ah--sense of continuity, if you see what I mean? It was at times very difficult to know if my Uncle Luke were married--or not.”

“Nonsense!” said the Marchesa irritably. “He was an artist.”

“You put it much better than I do,” said Mr. Kenealy, bowing.

“I have never forgotten his voice! Melissa--”

“Yes?” said Melissa, coming sweetly back from illimitable musings.

“You may have noticed the photograph of a very handsome man in the costume of _Rodolpho_, standing on the little table beside the Sèvres bowl?”

“Yes,” said Melissa again.

“That--was Mr. Kenealy’s uncle,” said the Marchesa graciously.

“I should like very much to see it,” said Mr. Kenealy.

“Melissa,” conceded the Marchesa, “may bring you--some afternoon.”

“Please!” said Mr. Kenealy.

“Of course,” said Melissa.

She wouldn’t meet his look, but she smiled. It was a smile that flickered out when the Marchesa demanded abruptly:

“How long have you two known each other?”

And cocked a curious eye above the rim of her tea-cup.

“Not fearfully long,” said Melissa slowly.

She felt her heart stumble and scorned herself with a savage intensity. Afraid--of that small, malicious creature in the deep chair across the tea-table? Afraid of those shrewd, burnt-out eyes, that withered mouth? Of course, she was! Subtly and humiliatingly afraid. What chance had a dreamer like Melissa before the garnered disillusion of the Marchesa’s glance? No chance whatever, save to be seen through and stared at--and mocked....

Mr. Kenealy was saying, while he presented his cup to his hostess with an imploring look: “We met through a chap named Tarleton--Jerry Tarleton--whom I had known in China, and Lissa ... sorry--let _me_!...” for at this casual introduction of her most intimate name Melissa dropped a teaspoon with a small, incriminating crash. “As I was saying--thanks, two lumps!--Lissa had known him--”

“In Alabama--when I was a child,” said Melissa gravely, not to be too inadequate.

She rather liked the look he gave her then--keen with mischief, warm with approval. It spurred her to further daring.

“So, when--Luke--came into the office, the day before I left, with a letter from Jerry--”

“We hadn’t far to go, to be friends,” finished Mr. Kenealy.

“So I should say,” accepted the Marchesa. “That’s very good toast. I’ll have another piece.” Crunching it with the unashamed appetite which her meager frame made almost grotesque, she inquired amiably, “What do you think of Melissa’s windfall?”

“Pardon!” said Mr. Kenealy. His quick sidelong glance warned Melissa to keep silent and wait the cat’s jumping. An odd moment! A moment full of prettily covered pitfalls and dimly gleaming traps.

“Her legacy!” explained the Marchesa impatiently. “Hasn’t she told you about it? You said you saw her at the office--didn’t you? Why did you suppose she was leaving there? Retiring, on a stenographer’s salary?”

Color surged across Melissa’s face. She set her teeth in a rigor of wounded pride.

“I didn’t inquire,” said Mr. Kenealy gently. Upon an even note he continued--“I didn’t feel it concerned me.”

“Very pretty!” said the Marchesa, set down her cup and wiped her lips with an air of finality. “However--you must have wondered ... being Luke Kenealy’s nephew....”

“Oh, I say, now!”

Chuckling outrageously, the Marchesa waved his protest down. “Never mind ... I knew him rather well, remember! And I say you must have wondered just where all this ...” she swept Melissa’s darling room with a gesture ... “was coming from. Stupid of the girl not to tell you!”

“I had so much rather,” said Melissa at this juncture in a voice of exquisite coolness and detachment--“that _you_ told him.”

But the blood ran fast in her veins. Like cobwebs she felt the straining of multiple unseen webs against her flesh. If she had known--if she had guessed, what vistas of intrigue ... intrigue was in the Marchesa’s blood ... of course!... Wasn’t that, in itself, the thing she wanted of Melissa? Puppet-play--for her sensation-starved old age--“a doll I am going to put together.”... Whatever she wanted, she had paid to have it. Remembering which debt, Melissa held herself steady and said again: “Do tell him, Marchesa!”

Thus urged.... “Her grandfather,” said the Marchesa dryly, “died in--Alabama, was it?--a little while ago. Left her something. Not very much. She’s taking this way to get rid of it.”

“She’s wise,” said Mr. Kenealy. He smiled at Melissa and, sweetly reckless, she smiled at him.

“Money,” said Mr. Kenealy, “is worth only what it’ll buy.”

“Did Luke Kenealy leave you anything?” asked the Marchesa sharply.

“Not even a high note,” averred the regretful heir.

“Ha!” said the Marchesa--“I’m not surprised. Well ... you must come and see his picture....”

“If I may,” said Mr. Kenealy.

The Marchesa rose with amazing agility. Melissa and Mr. Kenealy rose too. Twilight was gathering in the long, high-ceilinged room. Beyond the four tall windows, lights were blossoming along a cloudy sky. Melissa twitched tasseled strings and lit the two lovely lamps beside the couch.

“Lord--what a set!” said Mr. Kenealy, then bit his lip and grinned. He begged of the Marchesa--“Let me see you to your car!”

She gave him her hand and a grimace of complete understanding. “Thoughtful of old ladies--of course--you didn’t inherit _that_! He couldn’t bear ’em!”

To Melissa a stroke of the velvet paw--“Not bad for a first at-home, my dear.... I congratulate you!”

“Oh--I hope to do it rather better!” said Melissa.... She yielded her fingers to Mr. Kenealy’s close hold.... “Good-by,” she told him--“nice to have seen you ... my love to Jerry--when you write.”

“I’ll see you again before that!” said Mr. Kenealy.

Melissa closed the door, softly but very definitely upon his parting smile. Too full of understanding, entirely! What did he think her?--An adventuress? For all the Marchesa’s spurious grandfather, dying in--Alabama, was it?--and providing for purposes of respectability, a legacy! What could any man think Melissa but an adventuress? Sitting down beside a stranger in the Park--speaking to him, as if he were some one she thought she knew. _That_ hadn’t fooled any one a moment.

Witness the staggering reply--“I’ve often been taken for Tarleton before this....”

When he knew and Melissa knew--and each knew quite well that the other knew--there wasn’t any Tarleton!

Was there actually a Luke Kenealy? How could one tell? And even if there had been such a man--in the Marchesa’s amazing and man-spangled past--was this one really his nephew? Or merely the quickest-witted, most convincing liar in the world?

The Marchesa believed him--or did she? Impossible to predict the Marchesa. Melissa felt the invisible threads draw tight. Fear touched her for a moment....

Then, because at the very most she had nothing to lose, she shrugged the whole involved question away from her.

“I’m not backing down, now,” thought Melissa. “Hardly!”

She went over to the desk at the farther end of the room and lit the lamp, gold-shaded and mellow, which stood there. A letter lay waiting, sealed and stamped, addressed to Sixty-third Street ... something about handkerchiefs, forgotten in a drawer.... Melissa had intended that afternoon to mail it.

She thought: “There’s a mail chute out by the elevators--” and turned her step that way.

It was perhaps the most startling, the least expected, the maddest of all that mad day’s happenings, that just beyond her door, letter in hand, a whisper of song on her lips, she should come face to face with Mr. Kenealy, advancing quietly.

“You!” cried Melissa in a horrified undertone.... “_You!_--Why on earth...?”

And stood with her back to the wall and stared at him, frozen.

He put out a reassuring hand. He smiled his engaging smile.

“This--” said Melissa and could not for all her most gallant effort control a betraying tremor--“This--is taking an outrageous advantage....” She really was shaking with apprehension.

“Of what?” inquired Mr. Kenealy very reasonably.

“Don’t pretend not to know!--You _are_--a gentleman--aren’t you?”

“Why--I don’t as a rule make a song about it....”

“Then--I don’t have to tell you how horrid this is of you!”

“But you do have to tell me--that is, if I’m going to know.”

Melissa moved back along the wall with a kind of sliding swiftness till she stood just at her door and drew it to behind her.

“Please go away, at once!” she said with all the dignity of which she was capable. “I admit it is partly my fault--for speaking to you as I did. You had every reason to suppose that I wasn’t--quite nice--”

“Good Lord!” said Mr. Kenealy with a groan.

“But I assure you I am ... and you need not expect me--to ask you in--now....”

“I’m not suggesting it, am I?” he protested with a touch of annoyance.

“Then what are you doing here?” insisted Melissa coldly. “What possible excuse could you have...?”

“Well--if it comes to that--” said Mr. Kenealy ... his brown eyes narrowed with sudden and uncontrollable amusement ... “--I--ah--I live in the next apartment--d’y’see? And the only way I can get to it is through this little hall--I’m sorry ... the whole thing’s a bit unusual--I can see that myself!”

Melissa’s hands dropped limp at her sides--she stared--she caught her breath in a long, staggered silence. At last:

“You--” she stammered--“you ... you....”

“In the next apartment, yes,” repeated Mr. Kenealy patiently.

“Did you know....”

He disclaimed that hurriedly.... “Give you my word, I nearly dropped in my tracks, when you brought me here....”

“_I_--brought _you_! I deserve that, of course,” said Melissa proudly.

“Oh, please--don’t be so unkind! Mere figure of speech. Let’s say we brought each other ... shall we? Anyhow--isn’t it, honestly, the darnedest thing that ever happened--outside a Vajda comedy?”

Wave after wave of poignant recollection broke over Melissa’s head.... “You were singing--‘Somebody Loves Me’--”

He admitted modestly. “I do--a little. When was this?”

“The evening I came here first--why--it was only two days ago! You whistled it--waiting for the elevator.”

“One’s got to do something at such a time,” said Mr. Kenealy.

“Oh--!” said Melissa--“I remember! You are the sugar planter--from Hawaii.”

“Anybody, from Hawaii, is a sugar planter--the minute he sets foot on the mainland. Who gave you my dossier?”

“The clerk from downstairs.”

“Sounds like it. I wonder who gave it to _him_? Just as a matter of public interest--my people are ranchers.”

“But you _are_ from Hawaii?”

“Born and raised there--as you say in--Alabama, was it?”

“One thing more,” insisted Melissa desperately, ignoring the matter of her natal state--“Was he really your uncle--the tenor?”

“Of course,” said Mr. Kenealy. “Why not?”

“I don’t know--the whole thing--it’s so like a movie scenario!”

“Don’t sneer at the movies--I write for ’em.”

“Stories?” gasped Melissa.

“No. Cut-ins. _You_ know the kind of things ...” he quoted with expression--“And as the dawn broke, a woman’s soul was born....”

“I know!” said Melissa hurriedly.

“Some better than that,” said Mr. Kenealy judicially--“some--not so good.”

He put out his hand once more and this time Melissa gave him hers.

He said with charming sincerity--“You _will_ let me come again?”

“I’m sorry,” said Melissa--“I mean I’m sorry I was so atrociously rude to you ... and of course you may come again ... soon!”

She continued upon her way to the mail-chute and watched her letter flash down with a queer little smile on her lips.

“Ranchers--” she was thinking--“and sugar planters--it’s much the same thing.” It isn’t, at all, of course, except from a financial standpoint--which, regrettably enough, was the one Melissa momentarily considered.

Slipping off to sleep that night, she muttered drowsily--“Not a bad beginning, for a man-hunter!”

The Marchesa herself might have said it.