Deuces Wild/Chapter 12

HAT which came to Forbes was an inspiration, such as comes oftenest to the kind-hearted, the impulsive and, I might add, the youthful. So he hailed the first taxicab he could find and hurried over to the Dryden. Keen-witted and observing, as full of romance as a water-chestnut is of starch, he saw that his best friend and the girl with the copper-beech hair were a pair of proud fools, spoiling their lives over a trifle. One was too proud to tell and the other too proud to listen to the truth. It was all just as silly (and human!) as one of those East Side melodramas over which the wise critics laughed and commented upon as humanly impossible. Just the same, he knew that these silly affairs made the melodramas of a vast host of people.

Miss Mearson was still up.

“This is Mr. Forbes.”

“Forbes?”

“The gentleman who was recently tied up in that fine old Sheraton of yours.”

“Oh!”

“Do you want those papers?”

“Papers?”

He thought her repetitions a trifle stupid. “Yes. I know who took them. But we'll have to hurry. Mr. Crawford sails for Italy at dawn and may go aboard to-night.”

“Wait!” This was thundered through the panels of the door.

She had on her sables when she came out, but her hair was tousled like the other woman's.

“Your father...” he began.

“At his club. Have you a taxicab down-stairs?”

“Yes.”

“Come!” She caught him by the sleeve and dragged him to the lift. Down they went; the lift-boy's eyes opened their fullest She never let go of the sleeve till she was inside the cab. “It was Jim, and it never came to me! How quickly can we get there?”

“In about a quarter of an hour.” He directed the chauffeur, and they rumbled off.

“Did he tell you he was going to Italy?”

“Yes. He was up-stairs with us, playing poker. He doesn't intend to come back.”

“Did he send you?“

“Send me! He'll probably never speak to me again. No; there was a misunderstanding...”

“I don't want any explanations, please!” she interrupted. “Not a word about that other woman. What do I care who or what she is, now? Oh, fool! Pardon! You're a good man, Mr. Forbes, to come and tell me. I shouldn't have known.... Going away for good and never coming back because my love wasn't worth a copper penny! It isn't even now!”

“Perhaps Jim was a fool, too,” said Forbes grimly. He hadn't bargained for hysterics.

“He never was a fool; it was I.”

Said Forbes: “I love him better than any man I know, and I want to help him straighten out the tangle; but if you go to him in this state, you'll spoil everything. You'll be crying and he won't be able...”



“How can I be calm? It was my letters. He remembered I kept them in that box. He wanted to take away something that belonged to me. I am worse than an infidel; I have been making an idol of propriety. I've lied to myself for five years. If he goes to Italy in the morning, I shall go with him.”

Forbes took off his hat and wiped his forehead.

“Oh, I know my heart now!”

“Will you be quiet, Miss Mearson? The chauffeur keeps turning round, and he'll run into something; then we'll never get there.”

“Forgive me!”

From time to time the light from a street-lamp touched her hair, and the glory of it filled him with envy and sadness and he knew not what else. No woman like this one would ever run out into the night after him. It was always the quiet chap like Crawford who awakened and held such a woman. He knew something about the species; they were all more or less mad; they did the wildest things without reason, on the spur of the moment. The reverse of man, they wanted recklessly to give up everything .... for nothing; a kind of get-poor-quick scheme which profited no one, not even the man to whom these priceless gifts were offered. Of foresight, of calculation, they had none ... till after they had given everything away. Forbes looked out of his side of the cab, lonely, very much depressed, hating his flirtations, his triflings, and wondering if there would ever be a woman for him. Of course there were lots of girls.... How the deuce would he ever get her back to the Dryden in case Crawford was obdurate? Here it was again: these quiet chaps who never say anything and who never give in.

“You must think I am mad,” came lowly from her corner.

Bad sign, thought Forbes. She was beginning to think it over.

“I am mad.”

No, she wasn't thinking it over.

“I shall always be mad like this. But what must you think of me!”

“I'm thinking a whole lot. I don't know but what you call madness is sudden sanity. Jim may be glad to see me, and then he may not be. You'll have to intercede for me.”

“Don't worry about your part, Mr. Forbes. No man could do a kinder thing than you have done. Why, you don't even know me! But you'll not regret it.”

“No? How do you know I shan't regret it?”—lightly. “When I've watched you day by day as you went past my studio, and wondered how I should meet you, wondered if the day would ever come when I'd say the same words Crawford said five years ago!”

“Don't laugh, Mr. Forbes.”

“Laugh? The Lord knows I'm serious enough. But here we are. Get yourself in hand. I want to make this a happy-ever-after story, and tell it to a friend of mine who'll make thousands of silly schoolgirls shudder with rapture.”

“You're a strange man.”

“No, only I'm a little mad myself to-night.”

The girl was at the top of the steps, hunting for the bell, ere Forbes could complete his directions to the chauffeur, who nodded boredly and took out a cigarette. These night-adventures were as old as the hills to him.