Who Cares [37]
have the right to my fling. This marriage of mine is just a part of the adventure that Martin and I plunged into as a great joke, and he knows it and he's one of the best, and I'm grateful to him, believe me. Good night. God bless you!"
She stood for a moment on the top step to taste the air that was filled with the essence of youth. Across a sky as clear as crystal a series of young clouds were chasing each other, putting out the stars for a moment as they scurried playfully along. It was a joy to be alive and fit and careless. Summer was lying in wait for spring, and autumn would lay a withering hand upon summer, and winter with its crooked limbs and lack-luster eyes was waiting its inevitable turn.
"A short life and a merry one!" whispered Joan to the moon, throwing it a kiss.
A footman, sullen for want of sleep, opened the door of the limousine. Some one was sitting in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Marty! Is that you?"
"It's all right," said Gilbert Palgrave. "I've been playing patience for half an hour. I'm going to see you home."
V
"You are going home?"
"Yes," said Joan, "without the shadow of a doubt."
"Which means that I'd better tell the chauffeur to drive round to the One-o'clock, eh?"
"I'll drop you there if you like. I'm really truly going home."
"All right."
Joan began to sing as the car bowled up Fifth Avenue. Movement always made her sing, and the effect of things slipping behind her. But she stopped suddenly as an expression of Alice's flicked across her memory. "You'll catch Alice up, if you go straight back," she said.
"Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire! I wonder why it is the really good woman is never appreciated by a man until he's obliged to sit on the other side of the fireplace? I wish we were driving away out into the country. I have an unusual hankering to stand on the bank of a huge lake and watch the moonlight on the water."
Joan was singing again. The trees in the Park were bespattered with young leaves.
Palgrave controlled an ardent desire to touch with his lips that cool white shoulder from which the cloak had slipped. It was extraordinary how this mere girl inflamed him. Alice--Alice-Sit-by- the-Fire! She seemed oddly like some other man's wife, these days.
"Suppose I tell your man to drive out of the city beyond this rabble of bricks and mortar?"
But Joan went on singing. Spring was in her blood. How fast the car was moving, and those young clouds.
Palgrave helped her out with a hot hand.
She opened the door with her latch-key. "Thank you, Gilbert," she said. "Good night."
But Palgrave followed her in. "Don't you think I've earned the right to one cigarette?" He threw his coat into a chair in the hall and hung his hat on the longest point of an antler. It was a new thing for this much flattered man to ask for favors. This young thing's exultant youth made him feel old and rather humble.
"There are sandwiches in the dining room and various things to drink," said Joan, waving her hand toward it.
"No, no. Let's go up to the drawing-room--that is, unless you--"
But Joan was already on the stairs, with the chorus of her song. She didn't feel in the least like sleep with its escape from life. It was so good to be awake, to be vital, to be tingling with the current of electricity like a telegraph wire. She flung back the curtains, raised all the windows, opened her arms to the air, spilled her cloak on the floor, sat at the piano and ragged "The Spring Song."
"I am a kid," she said, speaking above the sound, and going on with her argument to Alice. "I am and I will be, I will be. And I'll play the fool and revel in it as long as I can--so there!"
Palgrave had picked up the cloak and was holding it unconsciously against his immaculate shirt. It was the sentimental act of a virtuoso in the art of pleasing women--who are so easily pleased. At the moment he had achieved forgetfulness of boudoir trickery and so retained almost all his usual assumption of dignity. Even Joan, with her quick eye for the ridiculous,
She stood for a moment on the top step to taste the air that was filled with the essence of youth. Across a sky as clear as crystal a series of young clouds were chasing each other, putting out the stars for a moment as they scurried playfully along. It was a joy to be alive and fit and careless. Summer was lying in wait for spring, and autumn would lay a withering hand upon summer, and winter with its crooked limbs and lack-luster eyes was waiting its inevitable turn.
"A short life and a merry one!" whispered Joan to the moon, throwing it a kiss.
A footman, sullen for want of sleep, opened the door of the limousine. Some one was sitting in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Marty! Is that you?"
"It's all right," said Gilbert Palgrave. "I've been playing patience for half an hour. I'm going to see you home."
V
"You are going home?"
"Yes," said Joan, "without the shadow of a doubt."
"Which means that I'd better tell the chauffeur to drive round to the One-o'clock, eh?"
"I'll drop you there if you like. I'm really truly going home."
"All right."
Joan began to sing as the car bowled up Fifth Avenue. Movement always made her sing, and the effect of things slipping behind her. But she stopped suddenly as an expression of Alice's flicked across her memory. "You'll catch Alice up, if you go straight back," she said.
"Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire! I wonder why it is the really good woman is never appreciated by a man until he's obliged to sit on the other side of the fireplace? I wish we were driving away out into the country. I have an unusual hankering to stand on the bank of a huge lake and watch the moonlight on the water."
Joan was singing again. The trees in the Park were bespattered with young leaves.
Palgrave controlled an ardent desire to touch with his lips that cool white shoulder from which the cloak had slipped. It was extraordinary how this mere girl inflamed him. Alice--Alice-Sit-by- the-Fire! She seemed oddly like some other man's wife, these days.
"Suppose I tell your man to drive out of the city beyond this rabble of bricks and mortar?"
But Joan went on singing. Spring was in her blood. How fast the car was moving, and those young clouds.
Palgrave helped her out with a hot hand.
She opened the door with her latch-key. "Thank you, Gilbert," she said. "Good night."
But Palgrave followed her in. "Don't you think I've earned the right to one cigarette?" He threw his coat into a chair in the hall and hung his hat on the longest point of an antler. It was a new thing for this much flattered man to ask for favors. This young thing's exultant youth made him feel old and rather humble.
"There are sandwiches in the dining room and various things to drink," said Joan, waving her hand toward it.
"No, no. Let's go up to the drawing-room--that is, unless you--"
But Joan was already on the stairs, with the chorus of her song. She didn't feel in the least like sleep with its escape from life. It was so good to be awake, to be vital, to be tingling with the current of electricity like a telegraph wire. She flung back the curtains, raised all the windows, opened her arms to the air, spilled her cloak on the floor, sat at the piano and ragged "The Spring Song."
"I am a kid," she said, speaking above the sound, and going on with her argument to Alice. "I am and I will be, I will be. And I'll play the fool and revel in it as long as I can--so there!"
Palgrave had picked up the cloak and was holding it unconsciously against his immaculate shirt. It was the sentimental act of a virtuoso in the art of pleasing women--who are so easily pleased. At the moment he had achieved forgetfulness of boudoir trickery and so retained almost all his usual assumption of dignity. Even Joan, with her quick eye for the ridiculous,