The Red Book Magazine/Volume 6/Number 4/Nanette Maneuvers

“Do you love me?” snapped Nanette.

“You know I do,” said Mr. Thompson, sulkily.

“I know that you love yourself; I did not know that your heart was big enough to embrace us both!”

“If I loved myself I would marry you at once.”

“No, you wouldn't. If you loved me you would not care if people said that you were marrying for money.”

“No one who had ever seen you would ever say that.”

“If you could only hold that pace I would soon be dragged to the altar—”

“Don't be common, Nanette.”

“There's the reaction! What would you like to have me do? Give away my money until our fortunes are equal; in other words, give it all away?”

“Be reasonable, Nanette; or, if that is impossible, let me be reasonable.” There was a look of weariness upon his handsome face. “You have your inherited millions; I have nothing. You have also your inherited extravagances and love of luxury. You could never come down to my uncertain income, so I would have to go up to yours; become a dependency. Wouldn't you be proud of a husband like that?”

“I should always be proud of you, Morris!” Nanette was touched, and when she was touched it was the custom for her violet eyes to fill and often over flow; then her prettiness shone through the pique as the sun burns through thin ice. There were many frosts in Nanette's darker moments, but there was always the warm sun behind the clouds.

“Don't mind if I am cross, Morris; I have to either love or hate, and when I don't love you I think I hate you like the devil!”

“Nanette!”

“I do; when you look troubled, though, I love you, no matter how nasty you've been. You are proud and selfish and inconsiderate, but I think that you would sacrifice yourself almost as soon as you would sacrifice me—”

“You mean—”

“No, I don't; I mean what I say. You lie in the dust and allow yourself to be trampled by the thousand-legged dragon, Public Opinion. But you are high-minded and honest and brave and big and handsome, and know it, and I love you and want you to marry me in a very great hurry; be engaged, anyway. I'm tired of being a maverick.”

Mr. Thompson's aristocratic face assumed the set expression of a family portrait; the “death rather than dancing” expression of his Puritan ancestors. Negation was written in the thinly compressed lips.

“Never?” demanded Nanette.

“Not until my salary is adequately lucrative—”

“Don't choke yourself, Morris. Shall I thump you on the back? Why don't you say 'never' and be done with it! Did you ever sell a house? The Lord made you to buy real estate, Morris, not to sell it—there, I didn't mean to hurt you, old boy! You have my permission to kiss me—for a punishment!”

Nanette held up her piquant face like a pansy to the sun. If the face had been merely childish, the sun might have kissed it, or something might have kissed it, but there was too much of temperament lurking in the subtle lines of mouth and eyes to warrant a kiss of peace. Mr. Thompson hesitated, wavered, looked high-minded and conscientious, and the petals shut with a snap.

“I did you an injustice!” said Nanette. “Some day you will be very rich; you are so careful! Of course, you will have to live a good while—”

“Nanette!”

“Miss Latour, if you please.” The ice had skimmed the violet eyes again. “If you think that I am going to wait until the frosts of a wintry old age silver my auburn hair and walk hand in hand with you down the toboggan slide of life, you are very much mistaken! You do not fully understand my wishes. I want you, I will admit, but I also want to be married. I'm tired of being cursed with single blessedness.”

“Nanette!”

“Good afternoon!”

The door of the real estate office of Morris Thompson and a fictitious company slammed with a crash which threatened the ground-glass; the front door opened swiftly to the imperious wave of a small, neatly-gloved hand. “Home!” snapped Miss Latour to her chauffeur, and the next moment the pansy face was crushed against the cushions of the automobile and staccato sobs mingled with the grind of the machinery.

Three city squares were Nanette's outside limits for tears; the last few stragglers were winked out impatiently, for Nanette had received an inspiration, and when the busy little brain was active there was no room for futile tears. She leaned forward and gave the chauffeur an address; the lumbering machine slowed, cut a wide circle, then forged ahead with protesting groans.

Nanette glanced in the mirror, dried her eyes carefully, as one would blot a letter, ran deft fingers through her hair, straightened her hat, produced a superfluous reticule from which she extracted sundry strange accessories to her peace of mind, if not her beauty. She took the “shine” from her cheeks; something was whisked across her already carmine lips; all that she needed was a bird-bath to flirt a few drops upon her feathers; the process was the same, yet some would have regarded her actions as immoral!

The big red automobile drew up beneath the marquise of an apartment hotel, a so-called “bachelor apartments,” because bachelors are supposed to be able to afford higher rent rates. Nanette sent in her card.

“If Mr. Stirling is in ask him to come to the carriage,” said she. Mr. Stirling was in and obeyed the summons promptly.

“Hello, Nan.” His voice was deep with a lilt of mockery; he was mostly mockery. His build seemed unnecessarily powerful, his intellectual face wore inconsistent lines of dissipation, sensual but not weak; the lines seemed due rather to strong senses than feeble will, and his eyes wore the look of one to whom nothing mattered.

“Get in,” said Nanette.

“Why?”

“Get in; I'm not going to kidnap you.”

“Then what's the use of getting in?” Nevertheless he got in.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

“Anywhere—with you. Loose your lightning; let her roll!”

“Where were you going?”

“To the club—after a few of the —but never mind, my heart is sufficiently stimulated.”

“Can you really get along without? Shall I stop at a drug store—”

“I can get along with nothing else as long as I am with you,” he answered, with a sort of mocking earnestness.

“Because I want to talk with you. Jim, you are the only man friend that I have.”

“The rest are all suitors?”

“Yes, or else don't like me.”

“By which I take it they are ex-suitors. Proceed. We are listening.”

“Jim, I am, as you know, very much in love with Morris Thompson.”

“You are, as I feared, very much in love with Morris Thompson. I am very sorry; he is an ass!”

“But he absolutely refuses to marry me.”

“I beg his pardon; he is an imbecile.”

“Nevertheless, I am in love with him.”

“It is often contagious. What are his scruples; afraid that people will say he is a fortune-hunter?”

“How did you know that?”

“I didn't; I know Morris Thompson. I would like to give people a chance to say that I married for money.”

“You have had several opportunities.”

“I did not need the money then.”

“Do you need it now?”

“Like the mischief.”

“Will you borrow?”

“Like a shot.”

“Very well. Will five hundred help?” Nanette signalled for a stop and extracted from her wrist-bag a check-book and a gold fountain pen.

“It will more than help; it will rescue—but, look here, Nan—”

“Be still, Jim. We have known each other from childhood, have we not? We have not seen much of each other lately because I've been painting in Paris and you've been painting in New York.” Nanette began to write the check. An expression which was a stranger, which the features did not know how to entertain, crept into Mr. Stirling's hard face.

“Oh, look here, Nan—”

“Kindly be still! What difference does it make to me? And, who knows, it might keep the sheriff away from the door. Be careful, it's still wet!”

“Thanks.” She caught a glimpse of a strange face as he turned away for a moment. The check fluttered, held by one corner.

“This is an aside. It has nothing to do with my errand, Jim. I came to you because, as I say, you are the only man friend I can think of. I give you that insignificant check for the same reason. Friendship gives one the right to give as well as ask, does it not?”

“Perhaps so. Can't say. Never had any experience.”

“Then it's time you had; I'm going to ask advice and probably a favor.

“Won't warrant the advice, but you can count on the favor, if it's anything good for you.”

“Morris flatly refuses to marry me. He says that he loves me, whereas I know that he hates you as only—”

“A Puritan can hate a cavalier. He has the advantage of me; it never occurred to me to hate him.”

“Don't be insulting, Jim; remember that I am in love with him.”

“There seem always to be compensations for the congenital chump.”

“He considers you worthless and vicious—”

“Glimmerings of intelligence—”

“And generally detests you. He describes you as 'one of those unprincipled profligates who menace our social system.'”

“Gad, how he must love to roll that out! He's in the wrong business, Nan. He ought to be offering heavenly estates instead of those on Long Island Sound.'”

“Please don't interrupt. Some of his views are narrow, Jim, I admit, but he is really a splendid fellow. Everyone admits that. He was voted the most popular man in his class at college.”

“No wonder he can't earn a living—”

“And he is a magnificent athlete, and so good-looking.”

“Just created to be supported!”

“He should have been rich—”

“Here's his opportunity. Fortune, after all, is only a matter of judging the ripeness of the moment, just as one thumbs a melon.”

“I intend that he shall embrace—eh—seize it, and I want you to help me.”

“I'll do it, even at the price of helping him.” A grimness settled on the hard face of Mr. Stirling and he stared moodily at the people they were passing. “I don't suppose it really makes any difference whether you're in love with him or not,” he observed, as one communing with himself. “You think that you are and won't be happy till you get him. Then you'll probably be sorry, like a puppy chasing a toad.”

“You are a rough brute, Jim.”

“What do you want me to do; threaten to marry you myself?” There was again the note of flippant earnestness in the mocking voice of Mr. Stirling.

“Yes. Announce our engagement.”

“Eh! What!” The mockery was swept aside; he glared at her as if about to shake her.

“Yes, Jim,” she answered. There was a flutter in her voice; her mind grew suddenly confused. Something in the masculine roughness of his tone shocked her femininity; she dropped her cloak of cool assurance and felt unclothed, embarrassed, puzzled, and wound up in helpless silence.

“Didn't mean to scare you, Nan.” She marvelled at the unexpected note of gentleness, “but you don't really mean it.”

“But I do, Jim,” she pleaded. “That is, of course, if you don't mind.”

His short laugh brought the blood to her cheeks and the tenderness of his voice kept it there. She had never thought to find any tenderness in him.

“What a baby you are, Nan.” The color deepened. Morris never called her a baby. It was cheeky of Jim, especially when she had just given him a check for five hundred dollars, and yet it was rather nice, too!

“A mere kid—ought to have a nurse. Fancy your being engaged to me!” The contempt in his voice at the mention of himself brought the ever-ready tears of pity to her eyes. “Clever, though. Morris would immediately proceed to convolvulate; have epileptiform convolvulations, like a duck that's swallowed a live locust! Then, when his agony had reached the supreme limits of lachrymose self-sacrifice, he would come forward, a weeping martyr to his love, and say: 'Enough! Dismiss this rounder! Rather than see you lose your soul I myself will'—”

“Don't! Oh, don't!” Nanette pressed both hands to her eyes as if to shut out what she knew to be a faithful delineation. “You make him appear such—”

“An ass? You flatter me. He does it himself, don't you think?”

“You are too caustic, Jim,” she protested. Protesting was new to Nanette; insistence was her usual method. “Everyone admits that Morris has a fine mind—”

“Even Morris himself. That's just the trouble; it's so fine that he can't bear to give any of it away.”

Nanette was irresolute, again assailed by her new uncertainty. She felt childishly inadequate to defend the absent favored one. Everyone said that Morris was a fine fellow, just as everyone said that Jim was a good-for-nothing, or worse things. Morris was supposedly brilliant—at everything but the sale of real estate, yet Nanette could never remember Morris having bundled up her ideas and crammed them back into the closet as Jim was doing. She resented it, and this helped her a little.

“Morris is a man of high ideals, Jim, and he feels as he does more on my account than his own. He wants my husband to command the respect of society; he thinks that we should wait; but who is going to give me back these years?” Her voice was tremulous.

The mockery in the stony eyes of Mr. Stirling vanished. His hard face softened.

“Forgive me, Nan. I used to have high ideals myself, but there's only one of them left, and that's the reason—I say, Nan, do you think that you really love him?” He looked at her curiously.

“I—I think that I must, Jim. I was never in love before, so, of course, I can't be—be absolutely sure, but I think that I must, to go to so much trouble. Don't you, Jim?”

“I think that you will be as long as he's at large. When you get him penned and have a chance for a good close look at him, perhaps you'll think differently. Your scheme's not a bad one, barring the material involved; not half bad, for a woman to dope out. When it's known that you're engaged to me there'll be an awful howl, and if Morris has got the sense that goes with his style of beauty he'll see his chance to dash in and snatch you from the shipwreck of your happiness amidst the plaudits of the society of which he stands so much in awe. You see, people will then say: 'Poor fellow, he never would have married her except to rescue her.'”

“What a perfectly beastly way you have of looking at things.”

“True, isn't it?”

“That's what makes it so beastly.”

“Not my fault. I'll shut up. You go ahead, Nan, and tell me what you want done. It's going to strain your respectability a bit to be engaged to a gentleman of my supposed gaieties, but since you're going to chuck me in the end you'll rise like a salamander from the flames; no, I'm the salamander; you'll be a phoenix, only—” He tore the check slowly into small pieces and let them filter through his fingers into the mire of the street.

“What are you doing?”

“Don't forget to cross off the stub. You see, it's hardly a salaried job.” The early irony had found its way back into the reckless voice. “It's rather a—eh—labor of love.”

“It's nothing of the sort! It's merely a friendly act, Just like my giving you the check.”

“Either would be all right, alone, but they don't go well together; like a crab-salad and ice-cream.”

“Oh, very well. If you are going to be foolish we will call the whole thing off. I'm not going to accept a favor of a man who won't permit me to do him one. I never would have accused you of sentiment, Jim, but never mind. Have you any other bad character you can think of whom I might secure in your place— There! I know of just the man!”

“Who?”

“Never mind

“Don't do that. I'll see it through.”

“And take the check?”

“No. Hang the check!”

“I suppose you know your own affairs,” said Nanette, weakly. Like most women who have never known want, she could not conceive of money being a very real necessity. An inconvenience to be without, and she had offered the check as she might have offered a surplus umbrella. If he really did not want it he could not be much inconvenienced.

“When do you want to throw your bomb?” asked Mr. Stirling.

“In about a week; we must be seen about together first. Have you anything for to-night?”

“No.”

“Then you may take Auntie and me to the play. I'll get the tickets now. Afterwards we will go to supper. Can you meet me at the Humphrey's tea to-morrow afternoon?”

“I'm not allowed there.”

“As bad as that? You will be in a fortnight.”

“Good! I'll walk in behind you and grin like a dog brought into the parlor by his master.”

“Then you must come to see me very often.”

“The butler will find me wagging my tail on the doormat every time he sweeps the steps.”

“He doesn't sweep the steps. As soon as our engagement is announced we'll be invited together to dinners.”

“Good. I won't need the check after all.”

“I wish you'd take it, anyway. Will you?”

“No.”

“I'm going to the dressmaker's now. Where are you going?”

“Set me down here.”

“What do you suppose they are saying?” asked Nanette a fortnight later as she and Mr. Stirling passed the windows of his club.

“I don't suppose; I know. Not that it's any intellectual feat to tell what men in a club window are talking about.”

“What are they talking about?”

“'There goes Nanette Latour; stunning girl. Wonder how long it'll take her to get enough of Jim Stirling.' That's what they're saying.”

“They haven't much confidence in you, Jim.”

“Never attempted to inspire it. Only decent trait I've got.”

“You inspire it in me without trying.”

“Then I've got two.”

Nanette stole a sidelong glance at his face; it was fuller than it had been two weeks before and there was a color on the high cheeks which had then been lacking, It was a rugged face; strong rather than handsome and should have belonged to a sailor or a soldier.

“Being fiancé agrees with you, Jim,” said Nanette, brightly. “You look better than you did two weeks ago.” She studied him more attentively and was struck by the clearness of his complexion.

“Have you stopped drinking?” she asked abruptly.

“What do you want to know for?”

“Never mind. Have you?”

“Yes.”

“When did you stop?”

“Two weeks ago. You didn't suppose that I was going to be about you reeking of cocktails, did you?”

“I didn't think of it. I knew that you would do nothing that you shouldn't when you were with me, Jim. Was it hard to stop?”

“Rather, at first.”

“What did you do it for?”

“Wrote a play.”

“A play! Not really, Jim! A real live play?”

“I thought it was fairly dead, but Dick Claverham likes it.”

“Claverham, the actor? Do you know him?”

“Known him for a good while. He read it last night; said he'd put it on. Wants me to do another.”

“Oh Jim! I'm—I'm so glad, I'm so grateful.”

“All your doing. I'm the one to be glad and grateful.”

“When—when are you going to drink again, Jim?”

“Hadn't thought. At your wedding, probably, if I get a bid to it.”

Nanette glanced quickly away and at the lofty spires of the cathedral as they rose a frosted white against the perfect blue of the winter sky. The spires grew blurred, quivered, began to totter as if an earthquake was rocking their bases.

“My house shall always be open to you, Jim, no matter what you do or what you are.”

“Thanks. How about Thompson?”

“I said my house. But I am so excited about the play, Jim. When am I to see it? What is it; what kind of a play?”

“Comedy; I was feeling too beastly to write anything else. When I showed it to Claverham he read it through with a glum face; never so far flattered it as to grin from start to finish, The more he read the sadder he got until I wanted to kick him. If it had been tragedy I'd have burst with pride. When he finished he stared at the fire in a melancholy way.

“The brute!”

“No, it was because he liked it and it presented a business possibility, that was all.”

Nanette skipped like a child of six. “I knew that you had it in you to do something clever, Jim. And to think that I should have been the one to have brought it out!” They reached the house. “Do come in and tell me all about it,” begged Nanette.

“I'd like to, little girl, but I can't. Got an engagement with Claverham; he wants certain parts shifted on account of the expense of staging. I'll bring it up in a day or two and bore you a bit. Good-bye.”

Nanette dashed up the steps, her face aglow, her eyes sparkling. Before she had pressed the bell the door was swung open by Mr. Thompson, outward bound, top-coated, hatted, gloved, and caned. He stopped in time to prevent a collision, glanced at Nanette, then at the departing figure of Mr. Stirling.

“I—eh—am—” he paused discreetly.

“I wish to have a talk with you, Nanette,” he remarked austerely.

“I am not sure that Miss Latour is in,” replied Nanette. “Perhaps it would be well to ring and ask.”

“Please don't be frivolous; my errand is quite important—to me, at least, and I hope it will prove so to you.”

Nanette reflected swiftly that she had known exactly what those last words were to be and just exactly the tone in which they were to be uttered. She did not feel in the mood for quarreling; she wished to be alone and put her mind in order, and if there was any time left, to think of Jim and his play. She felt that at the moment she was hardly meet for fight and disliked the idea of not doing herself justice.

“Can't you call tomorrow? I'm tired.”

“You are looking bad, Nanette,” observed Mr. Thompson. Nanette was, just for the moment. He would not have thought so if he had seen her face as she dashed up the steps.

“I never felt better in my life. Oh, all right, come in if you want to.” She reflected wisely that one sleeps better on wounds than upon nervous expectation. They entered the little palm room at the rear of the house, Nanette leading, sprightly but nervous, Mr. Thompson following, erect, uncompromising, with the facial expression of one of his Puritan ancestors; reeking with the smug anticipation of an unpleasant duty; an, expression first invented to attend the burning of a witch.

“You are almost a stranger, Morris.” Nanette's voice was a trifle tremulous.

“It is your own fault, Nanette.”

“Oh, I wasn't complaining; I was merely stating a fact.” Resentment was to Nanette a shield and buckler.

“Nanette, what is this ridiculous story I hear of your engagement to that—to this man Stirling?”

“I don't know what you've heard, but I'm engaged to Mr. James Stirling.”

“But I thought that you were in love with—with me!”

“Did you?”

“You certainly gave me every reason to believe so. Tell me honestly, Nanette, have you done this through pique? I have been thinking a great deal about what you said when I saw you last and have about decided that you were right, dear. It is selfish of me to let my pride stand in the way of our happiness—”

“I do not quite understand. Do you realize that you are talking to an engaged girl?” Nanette could play grande dame at times, and this was one of them.

“But, Nanette, you surely have no serious intention of marrying this dissipated, dissolute—”

“Must I remind you again that you are speaking of my fiancé?”

“But you do not know him as—”

“He is one of my oldest friends.”

“His behavior has quite forfeited his right to—”

“His behavior since he has been engaged to me has more than compensated for that, Morris. Now, please don't say anything—”

“Then he has imposed upon your simplicity, Nanette.” Mr. Thompson's righteous anger was brewing into one of the pale rages which start slowly, like an easterly gale beneath a thickening sky, and then last a week, leaving a trail of wreckage in their wakes. “The man is unprincipled, a snake-in-the-grass, a—”

But at this point the gale was deflected by a local cyclone. Nanette sprang to her feet, cheeks crimson, violet eyes lurid.

“You cad! I wish that you would say that to his face! You coward! I despise you! I hate you! I never want to set eyes on your face again! Go away! Go out of the house! quickly, before I throw something at you—” She threw herself face downward on the divan and the deluge relieved the atmospheric pressure.

At the end of at least two minutes of wild and frantic weeping she raised her head tentatively and found that she was quite alone. She looked about her, considered what she had said, nodded, smiled, approved her words. Then she dried her eyes deftly and rising swiftly rushed to the next room, there to beat the piano into utter insensibility.

“Here's the play, Nan,” said Mr. Stirling, in the voice of a schoolboy and with an expression to match. He felt suddenly juvenile.

“Oh Jim! I'm so glad! Let's take it into the den and read it at once.”

“Will you read it or shall I?”

“You read it. Sit here on the divan so that I may look over your shoulder, if I like.”

“Don't read ahead; it spoils the dramatic effect.” Mr. Stirling began to shove the cushions out of the way. “Hello! Who spoiled this little pink silk chap? Someone's poured a bucket of water over him.”

“My fault,” said Nanette, contritely. Mr. Stirling regarded her keenly from beneath his heavy eyebrows.

“Tears?”

Nanette nodded. “Morris was here yesterday; he asked me to marry him.” She dropped her violet eyes; not so far however, that she failed to catch the death grimace in the happiness of the face beside her.

“Did, eh? Not very wild, is he? Lies to a dog like a woodcock. Congratulations, little girl. Hope you will be radiantly happy. Here, give me the old play and tell me all about your plans.”

Nanette clutched the manuscript tightly.

“I suppose I'm out of office?” The hard old ring had found its way back into Mr. Stirling's voice.

“Not until you answer a question, Jim. Will you?”

“If I know the answer.”

“Then—are you in love with me yourself?”

All of its newly-found color left the face of Mr. Stirling. However, he was accustomed to the keen-edged thrusts of Fate. He laughed shortly.

“What a greedy little kid you are; must everybody love you?”

“You said you would answer my question.”

“I lied. I won't answer it.”

“Why not? Don't you know the answer?”

“Oh, yes. I know the answer, but, you see, you are the fiancée of some one else.”

Nanette reflected swiftly that Morris had not considered this insignificant detail. Then she glanced at the man at her side; her eyes filled and a new tenderness enveloped her in a warm wave.

“You may kiss me if you like, Jim,” she whispered.

“But Nan!”

“I said that you might kiss me; do you hear, kiss me! I am not engaged to Morris. I am still engaged to you, you big silly!” Her voice grew plaintive. “It's funny what a hard time I have to get any one to kiss me.”

But the subsequent remarks of Nanette were too muffled to be audible.