Chapter 8

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER VIII

_In Which Little-Lovely Leila Sees a Picture in an Unexpected Place; and in Which Perfect Faith Speaks Triumphantly Over the Telephone._

Whatever Delilah Jeliffe might lack, it was not originality. The apartment which she chose for her winter in Washington was like any other apartment when she went into it, but the changes which she made--the things which she added and the things which she took away, stamped it at once with her own individuality.

The peacock screen before the fireplace, the cushions of sapphire and emerald and old gold on the couch, the mantel swept of all ornament except a seven-branched candlestick; these created the first impression. Then one's eyes went to an antique table on which a crystal ball, upborne by three bronze monkeys, seemed to gather to itself mysteriously all the glow of firelight and candlelight and rich color. At the other end of the table was a low bowl, filled always with small saffron-hued roses.

In this room, one morning, late in Lent, Leila Dick sat, looking as out of place as an English daisy in a tropical jungle.

Leila did not like the drawn curtains and the dimness. Outside the sun was shining, gloriously, and the sky was a deep and lovely blue.

She was glad when Lilah sent for her.

"You are to come right to her room," the maid announced.

"Heavens, child," said the Delilah-beauty, who was combing her hair, "I didn't promise to be up with the birds."

"The birds were up long ago," Leila perched herself on an old English love-seat. "We're to have lunch before we go to Fort Myer, and it is almost one now."

Lilah yawned, "Is it?" and went on combing her hair with the air of one who has hours before her. She wore a silken negligee of flamingo red which matched her surroundings, for this room was as flaming as the other was subdued. Yet the effect was not that of crude color; it was, rather, that of color intensified deliberately to produce a contrast. Delilah's bedroom was high noon under a blazing sun, the sitting-room was midnight under the stars.

With her black hair at last twisted into wonderful coils, Delilah surveyed her face reflectively in the mirror, and having decided that she needed no further aid from the small jars on her dressing table, she turned to her friend.

"What shall I wear, Leila?"

"If I told you," was the calm response, "you wouldn't wear it."

Delilah laughed. "No, I wouldn't. I simply have to think such things out for myself. But I meant what kind of clothes--dress up or motor things?"

"Porter will take us out in his car. You'll need your heavy coat, and something good-looking underneath, for lunch, you know."

"Is Mary Ballard going?"

"Of course. We shouldn't get Porter's car if she weren't."

"Mary wasn't with us the day we had tea with him in the Park."

"No, but she was asked. Porter never leaves her out."

"Are they engaged?"

"No, Mary won't be."

"She'll never get a better chance," Delilah reflected. "She isn't pretty, and she's rather old style."

Leila blazed. "She's beautiful----"

"To you, duckie, because you love her. But the average man wouldn't call Mary Ballard beautiful."

"I don't care--the un-average one would. And Mary Ballard wouldn't look at an ordinary man."

"No man is ordinary when he is in love."

"Oh, with you," Leila's tone was scornful, "love's just a game."

Lilah rose, crossed the room with swift steps, and kissed her. "Don't let me ruffle your plumage, Jenny Wren," she said; "I'm a screaming peacock this morning."

"What's the matter?"

"I'm not the perfect success I planned to be. Oh, I can see it. I've been here for three months, and people stare at me, but they don't call on me--not the ones I want to know. And it's because I am too--emphasized. In New York you have to be emphatic to be anything at all. Otherwise you are lost in the crowd. That's why Fifth Avenue is full of people in startling clothes. In the mob you won't be singled out simply for your pretty face--there are too many pretty faces; so it is the woman who strikes some high note of conspicuousness who attracts attention. But you're like a flock of cooing doves, you Washington girls. You're as natural and frank and unaffected as a--a covey of partridges. I believe I am almost jealous of your Mary Ballard this morning."

"Not because of Porter?"

"Not because of any man. But there are things about her which I can't acquire. I've the money and the clothes and the individuality. But there's a simplicity about her, a directness, that comes from years of association with things I haven't had. Before I came here, I thought money could buy anything. But it can't. Mary Ballard couldn't be anything else. And I--I can be anything from a siren to a soubrette, but I can't be a lady--not the kind that you are--and Mary Ballard."

Saying which, the tropic creature in flamingo red sat down beside the cooing dove, and continued:

"You were right just now, when you said that the un-average man would love Mary Ballard. Porter Bigelow loves her, and he tops all the other men I've met. And he'd never love me. He will laugh with me and joke with me, and if he wasn't in love with Mary, he might flirt with me--but I'm not his kind--and he knows it."

She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "There are other fish in the sea, of course, and Porter Bigelow is Mary's. But I give you my word, Leila Dick, that when I catch sight of his blessed red head towering above the others--like a lion-hearted Richard, I can't see anybody else."

For the first time since she had known her, Leila was drawn to the other by a feeling of sympathetic understanding.

"Are you in love with him, Lilah?" she asked; timidly.

Lilah stood up, stretching her hands above her head. "Who knows? Being in love and loving--perhaps they are different things, duckie."

With which oracular remark she adjourned to her dressing-room, where, in long rows, her lovely gowns were hung.

Leila, left alone, picked up a magazine on the table beside her glanced through it and laid it down; picked a bonbon daintily out of a big box and ate it; picked up a photograph----

"Mousie," said Lilah, coming back, several minutes later, "what makes you so still? Did you find a book?"

No, Leila had not found a book, and the photograph was back where she had first discovered it, face downward under the box of chocolates. And she was now standing by the window, her veil drawn tightly over her close little hat, so that one might not read the trouble in her telltale eyes. The daisy drooped now, as if withered by the blazing sun.

But Delilah saw nothing of the change. She wore a saffron-hued coat, which matched the roses in the other room, and her leopard skins, with a small hat of the same fur.

As she surveyed herself finally in the long glass, she flung out the somewhat caustic remark:

"When I get down-stairs and look at Mary Ballard, I shall feel like a Beardsley poster propped up beside a Helleu etching."

After lunch, Porter took Aunt Isabelle and Barry and the three girls to Fort Myer. The General and Mr. Jeliffe met them at the drill hall, and as they entered there came to them the fresh fragrance of the tan bark.

As the others filed into their seats, Barry held Leila back. "We will sit at the end," he said. "I want to talk to you."

Through her veil, her eyes reproached him.

"No," she said; "no."

He looked down at her in surprise. Never before had Little-Lovely Leila refused the offer of his valuable society.

"You sit beside--Delilah," she said, nervously, "She's really your guest."

"She is Porter's guest," he declared. "I don't see why you want to turn her over to me." Then as she endeavored to pass him, he caught her arm.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.

"Nothing," faintly,

"Nothing----" scornfully. "I can read you like a book. What's happened?"

But she merely shook her head and sat down, and then the bugle sounded, and the band began to play, and in came the cavalry--a gallant company, through the sun-lighted door, charging in a thundering line toward the reviewing stand--to stop short in a perfect and sudden salute.

The drill followed, with men riding bareback, men riding four abreast, men riding in pyramids, men turning somersaults on their trained and intelligent steeds.

One man slipped, fell from his horse, and lay close in the tan bark, while the other horses went over him, without a hoof touching, so that he rose unhurt, and took his place again in the line.

Leila hid her eyes in her muff. "I don't like it," she said. "I've never liked it. And what if that man had been killed?"

"They don't get killed," said Barry easily. "The hospital is full of those who get hurt, but it is good for them; it teaches them to be cool and competent when real danger comes."

And now came the artillery, streaming through that sun-lighted entrance, the heavy wagons a featherweight to the strong, galloping horses. Breathless Leila watched their manoeuvres, as they wheeled and circled and crisscrossed in spaces which seemed impossibly small--horses plunging, gun-wagons rattling, dust flying--faster, faster---- Again she shut her eyes.

But Mary Ballard, cheeks flushed, eyes dancing, turned to Porter. "Don't you love it?" she asked.

"I love you----" audaciously. "Mary, you and I were born in the wrong age. We belong to the days of King Arthur. Then I could have worn a coat of mail and have stormed your castle, and I shouldn't have cared if you hurled defiance from the top turret. I'd have known that, at last, you'd be forced to let down the drawbridge; and I would have crossed the moat and taken you prisoner, and you'd have been so impressed with my strength and prowess that you would----"

"No, I wouldn't," said Mary quickly.

"Wait till I finish," said Porter, coolly. "I'd have shut you up in a tower, and every night I'd have come and sung beneath your window, and at last you'd have dropped a red rose down to me."

They were laughing together now, and Delilah on the other side of Porter demanded, "What's the joke?"

"There isn't any," said Porter; "it is all deadly earnest--for me, if not for Mary."

And now a horse was down; there was a quick bugle-note, silence. Like clockwork, everything had stopped.

People were asking, "Is anybody hurt?"

Barry looked down at Leila. Then he leaned toward her father. "I'm going to take this child outside," he said; "she's as white as a sheet. She doesn't like it. We will meet you all later."

Leila's color came back in the sunshine and air and she insisted that Barry should return to the hall.

"I don't want you to miss it," she said, "just because I am so silly. I can stay in Porter's car and wait."

"I don't want to see it--it's an old story to me."

So they walked on toward Arlington, entering at last the gate which leads into that wonderful city of the nation's Northern dead, which was once the home of Southern hospitality. In a sheltered corner they sat down and Barry smiled at Little-Lovely Leila.

"Are you all right now, kiddie?"

"Yes," but she did not smile.

He bent down and peered through her veil. "Take it off and let me look at your eyes."

With trembling hands, she took out a pin or two and let it fall.

"You've been crying."

"Oh, Barry," the words were a cry--the cry of a little wounded bird.

He stopped smiling. "Blessed one, what is it?"

"I can't tell you."

"You must."

"No."

A low-growing magnolia hid them from the rest of the world; he put masterful hands on her shoulders and turned her face toward him--her little unhappy face.

"Now tell me."

She shook herself free. "Don't, Barry."

He flushed suddenly and sensitively. "I know I'm not much of a fellow."

She answered with a dignity which seemed to surmount her usual childishness, "Barry, if a man wants a woman to believe in him, he's got to make himself worthy of it."

"Well," defiantly, "what have I done?"

"Don't you know?"

"No-o."

"Then I'll tell you. Yes, I _will_ tell you," with sudden courage. "I was at Delilah's this morning, and I saw your picture, and what you had written on it----"

He stared at her, with a sense of surging relief. If it was only that he had to explain about--Lilah. A smile danced in his eyes.

"Well?"

"I know you like to--play the game--but I didn't think you'd go as far as that----"

"How far?"

"Oh, you know."

"I don't."

"_Barry!_"

"I don't. I wish you'd tell me what you mean, Leila."

"I will." Her eyes were not reproachful now, they were blazing. She had risen, and with her hands tucked into her muff, and her veil blowing about her flushed cheeks, she made her accusation. "You wrote on that picture, 'To the One Girl--Forever.' Is that the way you think of Delilah, Barry?"

"No. It is the way I think of you. And how did that picture happen to be in Delilah's possession? I sent it to you."

"To me?"

"Yes, I took it over to you yesterday, and left it with one of the maids--a new one. I intended, to go in and give it to you, but when she said you had callers, I handed her the package----"

"And I thought--oh, Barry, what else could I think?"

She was so little and lovely in her tender contrition, that he flung discretion to the winds. "You are to think only one thing," he said, passionately, "that I love you--not anybody else, not ever anybody else. I haven't dared put it into words before. I haven't dared ask you to marry me, because I haven't anything to offer you yet. But I thought you--knew----"

Her little hand went out to him. "Oh, Barry," she whispered, "do you really feel that way about me?"

"Yes. More than I have said. More than I can ever say."

He drew her down beside him on the bench. "Our world won't want us to get married, Leila; they will say that I am such a boy. But you will believe in me, dear one?"

"Always, Barry."

"And you love me?"

"Oh, you know it."

"Yes, I know it," he said, in a moved voice, as he raised her hands and kissed them, "I know it--thank God."

After the drill, Porter took the whole party back to Delilah's for tea. And when her guests had gone, and the black-haired beauty went to her flamingo room to dress for dinner, she found a note on her pincushion.

"I have taken Barry's picture, because he meant it for me; it was a mistake, your getting it. He left it with the new maid one day when you were at our house, and she handed it to you instead of to me--she mixed up our names, just as the maids used to mix them up at school. And I know you won't mind my taking it, because with you it is just a game to play at love--with Barry. But it is my life, as you said that day in the Park. And to-day Barry told me that it is his life, too. And I am very happy. But this is our secret, and please let it be your secret until we let the rest of the world know----"

Delilah, reading the childish scrawl, smiled and shook her head. Then she went to the telephone and called up Leila.

"Duckie," she said, "I'll dance at your wedding. Only don't love him too much--no man is worth it."

Then, triumphant from the other end of the line, came the voice of Perfect Faith--"Oh, Barry's worth it. I've known him all my life, Lilah, and I've never had a single doubt." _

Read next: Chapter 9

Read previous: Chapter 7

Table of content of Contrary Mary


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book