The Firing Line

"Isn't it the sand, Alida?" he pleaded. "You surely will forgive that timber-cutting—and the shooting of a few migratory birds—"

"Good night," touching her gray mare forward to where he was awkwardly blocking the wood-path.... "Do you mind moving a trifle, Mr. Portlaw?"

"About—ah—the—down there, you know, at Palm Beach," he stammered, "at that accursed lawn-party—"

"Yes?" She smiled but her eyes harboured lightning.

"It was so hot in Florida—you know how infernally hot it was, don't you, Alida?" he asked beseechingly. "I scarcely dared leave the Beach Club."

"Well?"

"I—I thought I'd just m-m-mention it. That's why I didn't call on you—I was afraid of sunstroke—"

"What!" she exclaimed, astonished at his stuttering audacity.

He knew he was absurd, but it was all he could think of. She gave him time enough to realise the pitiable spectacle he was making of himself, sitting her horse motionless, pretty eyes bent on his—an almost faultless though slight figure, smooth as a girl's yet faintly instinct with that charm of ripened adolescence just short of maturity.

And, slowly, under her clear gaze, a confused comprehension began to stir in him—at first only a sort of chagrin, then something more—a consciousness of his own heaviness of intellect and grossness of figure—the fatness of mind and body which had developed so rapidly within the last two years.

There she sat, as slim and pretty and fresh as ever; and only two years ago he had been mentally and physically active enough to find vigorous amusement in her company. Malcourt's stinging words concerning his bodily unloveliness and self-centred inertia came into his mind; and a slow blush deepened the colour in his heavy face.

What vanity he had reckoned on had deserted him along with any hope of compromising a case only too palpably against him. And yet, through the rudiments of better feeling awakening within him, the instinct of thrift still coloured his ideas a little.

"I'm dead wrong, Alida. We might just as well save fees and costs and go over the damages together.... I'll pay them. I ought to, anyway. I suppose I don't usually do what I ought. Malcourt says I don't—said so very severely—very mortifyingly the other day. So—if you'll get him or your own men to decide on the amount—"

"Do you think the amount matters?"

"Oh, of course it's principle; very proper of you to stand on your dignity—"

"I am not standing on it now; I am listening to your utter misapprehension of me and my motives.... I don't care for any—damages."

"It is perfectly proper for you to claim them, if," he added cautiously, "they are within reason—"

"Mr. Portlaw!"

"What?" he asked, alarmed.

"I would not touch a penny! I meant to give it to the schools, here—whatever I recovered.... Your misunderstanding of me is abominable!"

He hung his head, heavy-witted, confused as a stupid schoolboy, feeling, helplessly, his clumsiness of mind and body.

Something of this may have been perceptible to her—may have softened her ideas concerning him—ideas which had accumulated bitterness during the year of his misbehaviour and selfish neglect. Her instinct divined in his apparently sullen attitude the slow intelligence and mental perturbation of a wilful, selfish boy made stupid through idleness and self-indulgence. Even what had been clean-cut, attractive, in his face and figure was being marred and coarsened by his slothful habits to an extent that secretly dismayed her; for she had always thought him very handsome; and, with that natural perversity of selection, finding in him a perfect foil to her own character, had been seriously inclined to like him.

Attractions begin in that way, sometimes, where the gentler is the stronger, the frailer, the dominant character; and the root is in the feminine instinct to care for, develop, and make the most of what palpably needs a protectorate.

Without comprehending her own instinct, Mrs. Ascott had found the preliminary moulding of Portlaw an agreeable diversion; had rather taken for granted that she was doing him good; and was correspondingly annoyed when he parted his moorings and started drifting aimlessly as a derelict scow awash, floundering seaward without further notice of the trim little tug standing by and amiably ready to act as convoy.

Now, sitting her saddle in silence she surveyed him, striving to understand him—his recent indifference, his deterioration, the present figure he was cutting. And it seemed to her a trifle sad that he had no one to tell him a few wholesome truths.

"Mr. Portlaw," she said, "do you know that you have been exceedingly rude to me?"

"Yes, I—do know it."

"Why?" she asked simply.

"I don't know."

"Didn't you care for our friendship? Didn't it amuse and interest you? How could you have done the things you did—in the way you did?… If you had asked my permission to build a dozen dams I'd have given it. Didn't you know it? But my self-respect protested when you so cynically ignored me—"

"I'm a beast all right," he muttered.

She gazed at him, softened, even faintly amused at his repentant bad-boy attitude.

"Do you want me to forgive you, Mr. Portlaw?"

"Yes—but you oughtn't."

"That is quite true.... Turn your horse and ride back with me. I'm going to find out exactly how repentant you really are.... If you pass a decent examination you may dine with Miss Palliser, Mr. Wayward, and me. It's too late anyway to return through the forest.... I'll send you over in the motor."

And as they wheeled and walked their horses forward through the dusk, she said impulsively:

"We have four for Bridge if you like."

"Alida," he said sincerely, "you are a corker."

She looked up demurely. What she could see to interest her in this lump of a man Heaven alone knew, but a hint of the old half-patient, half-amused liking for him and his slow wits began to flicker once more. De gustibus—alas!

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SCHOOL OF THE RECRUIT

When Portlaw arrived home late that evening there existed within his somewhat ordinary intellect a sense of triumph. The weak usually experience it at the beginning and through every step of their own subjugation.

Malcourt, having decided to take an express which stopped on signal at six in the morning, was reading as usual before the empty fireplace; and at the first glance he suspected what had begun to happen to Portlaw.

The latter bustled about the room with an air of more or less importance, sorted his letters, fussed with a newspaper; and every now and then Malcourt, glancing up, caught Portlaw's eyes peeping triumphantly around corners at him.

"You've been riding?" he said, much amused. "Are you stiff?"

"A trifle," replied the other carelessly. "I must keep it up. Really, you know, I've rather neglected the horses lately."

"Rather. So you're taking up riding again?"

Portlaw nodded: "I've come to the conclusion that I need exercise."

Malcourt, who had been urging him for years to exercise, nodded approval as though the suggestion were a brand-new one.

"Yes," said Portlaw, "I shall ride, I think, every day. I intend to do a good bit of tramping, too. It's excellent for the liver, Louis."

At this piece of inspired information Malcourt assumed an expression of deepest interest, but hoped Portlaw might not overdo it.

"I'm going to diet, too," observed Portlaw, watching the effect of this astounding statement on his superintendent. "My theory is that we all eat too much."

"Don't do anything Spartan," said Malcourt warningly; "a man at your time of life—"

"My—what! Confound it, Louis, I'm well this side of forty!"

"Yes, perhaps; but when a man reaches your age there is not much left for him but the happiness of overeating—"

"What d'y' mean?"

"Nothing; only as he's out of the race with younger men as far as a pretty woman is concerned—"

"Who's out!" demanded Portlaw, red in the face. "What sort of men do you suppose interest women? Broilers? I always thought your knowledge of women was superficial; now I know it. And you don't know everything about everything else, either—about summonses and lawsuits, for example." And he cast an exultant look at his superintendent.

But Malcourt let him tell the news in his own way; and he did, imparting it in bits with naive enjoyment, apparently utterly unconscious that he was doing exactly what his superintendent had told him to do.

"You are a diplomat, aren't you?" said Malcourt with a weary smile.

"A little, a little," admitted Portlaw modestly. "I merely mentioned these things—" He waved his hand to check any possible eulogy of himself from Malcourt. "I'll merely say this: that when I make up my mind to settle anything—" He waved his hand again, condescendingly.

"That man," thought Malcourt, "will be done for in a year. Any woman could have had him; the deuce of it was to find one who'd take him. I think she's found."

And looking up blandly:

"Porty, old fellow, you're really rather past the marrying age—"

"I'll do what I please!" shouted Portlaw, exasperated.

Malcourt had two ways of making Portlaw do a thing; one was to tell him not to, the other the reverse. He always ended by doing it anyway; but the quicker result was obtained by the first method.

So Malcourt went to New York next morning convinced that Portlaw's bachelor days were numbered; aware, also, that as soon as Mrs. Ascott took the helm his own tenure of office would promptly expire. He wished it to expire, easily, agreeably, naturally; and that is why he had chosen to shove Portlaw in the general direction of the hymeneal altar.

He did not care very much for Portlaw—scarcely enough to avoid hurting his feelings by abandoning him. But now he had arranged it so that to all appearances the abandoning would be done by Portlaw, inspired by the stronger mind of Mrs. Ascott. It had been easy and rather amusing to arrange; it saved wordy and endless disputes with Portlaw; it would give him a longed-for release from an occupation he had come to hate.

Malcourt was tired. He wanted a year of freedom from dependence, surcease of responsibility—a year to roam where he wished, foregather with whom he pleased, haunt the places congenial to him, come and go unhampered; a year of it—only one year. What remained for him to do after the year had expired he thought he understood; yes, he was practically certain—had always been.

But first must come that wonderful year he had planned—or, if he tired of the pleasure sooner, then, as the caprice stirred him, he would do what he had planned to do ever since his father died. The details only remained to be settled.

For Malcourt, with all the contradictions in his character, all his cynicism, effrontery, ruthlessness, preferred to do things in a manner calculated to spare the prejudices of others; and if there was a way to accomplish a thing without hurting people, he usually took the trouble to do it in that way. If not, he did it anyway.

And now, at last, he saw before him the beginning of that curious year for which he had so long waited; and, concerning the closing details of which, he had pondered so often with his dark, handsome head lowered and slightly turned, listening, always listening.

But nothing of this had he spoken of to his wife. It was not necessary. He had a year in which to live in a certain manner and do a certain thing; and it was going to amuse him to do it in a way which would harm nobody.

The year promised to be an interesting one, to judge from all signs. For one item his sister, Lady Tressilvain, was impending from Paris—also his brother-in-law—complicating the humour of the visitation. Malcourt's marriage to an heiress was the perfectly obvious incentive of the visit. And when they wrote that they were coming to New York, it amused Malcourt exceedingly to invite them to Luckless Lake. But he said nothing about it to Portlaw or his wife.

Then, for another thing, the regeneration and development, ethically and artistically, of Dolly Wilming amused him. He wanted to be near enough to watch it—without, however, any real faith in its continuation.

And, also, there was Miss Suydam. Her development would not be quite as agreeable to witness; process of disillusioning her, little by little, until he had undermined himself sufficiently to make the final break with her very easy—for her. Of course it interested him; all intrigue did where skill was required with women.

And, last of all, yet of supreme importance, he desired leisure, undisturbed, to study his own cumulative development, to humorously thwart it, or misunderstand it, or slyly aid it now and then—always aware of and attentive to that extraneous something which held him so motionless, at moments, listening attentively as though to a command.

For, from that morning four years ago when, crushed with fatigue, he strove to keep his vigil beside his father who, toward daybreak, had been feigning sleep—from that dreadful dawn when, waking with the crash of the shot in his ears, his blinded gaze beheld the passing of a soul—he understood that he was no longer his own master.

Not that the occult triad, Chance, Fate, and Destiny ruled; they only modified his orbit. But from the centre of things Something that ruled them was pulling him toward it, slowly, steadily, inexorably drawing him nearer, lessening the circumference of his path, attenuating it, circumscribing, limiting, controlling. And long since he had learned to name this thing, undismayed—this one thing remaining in the world in which his father's son might take a sporting interest.

He had been in New York two weeks, enjoying existence in his own fashion, untroubled by any demands, questions, or scruples concerning responsibility, when a passionate letter from Portlaw disturbed the placid interlude:

"Confound it, Louis, haven't you the common decency to come back when you know I've had a bunch of people here to be entertained?

"Nobody's heard a peep from you. What on earth do you mean by this?

"Miss Palliser, Mrs. Ascott, Miss Cardross are here, also Wayward, and Gray Cardross—which with you and Mrs. Malcourt and myself solves the Bridge proposition—or would have solved it. But without warning, yesterday, your sister and brother-in-law arrived, bag and baggage, and Mrs. Malcourt has given them the west wing of your house. I believe she was as astonished as I, but she will not admit it.

"I don't know whether this is some sorry jest of yours—not that Lady Tressilvain and her noble spouse are unwelcome—but for Heaven's sake consider Wayward's feelings—cooped up in camp with his ex-wife! It wasn't a very funny thing to do, Louis; but now that it's done you can come back and take care of the mess you've made.

"As for Mrs. Malcourt, she is not merely a trump, she is a hundred aces and a grand slam in a redoubled Without!—if that's possible. But Mrs. Ascott is my pillar of support in what might easily become a fool of a situation.

"And you, you amateur idiot!—are down there in town, humorously awaiting the shriek of anguish from me. Well, you've heard me. But it's not a senseless shriek; it's a dignified protest. I tell you I've learned to depend on myself, recently—at Mrs. Ascott's suggestion. And I'm doing it now by wiring Virginia Suydam to come and fill in the third table.

"Now I want you to come back at once. If you don't I'm going to have a serious talk with you, Louis. I've taken Mrs. Ascott into my confidence more or less and she agrees with me that I ought to lay down a strong, rigid policy and that it is your duty to execute it. In fact she also took me into her confidence and gave me, at my request, a very clear idea of how she would run this place; and to my surprise and gratification I find that her ideas of discipline, taste, and economy are exactly mine, although I thought of them first and perhaps have influenced her in this matter as I have in others. That is, of course, natural, she being a woman.

"I think I ought to be frank with you, Louis. It isn't good form for you to leave Mrs. Malcourt the way you do every week or two and disappear in New York and give no explanation. You haven't been married long enough to do that. It isn't square to me, either.

"And while I'm about it I want to add that, at Mrs. Ascott's suggestion—which really is my own idea—I have decided not to build all those Rhine castles, which useless notion, if I am not mistaken, originated with you. I don't want to disfigure my beautiful wilderness. Mrs. Ascott and I had a very plain talk with Hamil and we forced him to agree with us that the less he did to improve my place the better for the place. He seemed to take it good-humouredly. He left yesterday to look over Mrs. Ascott's place and plan for her a formal garden and Trianon at Pride's Hall. So he being out I wired also to Virginia and to Philip Gatewood, which will make it right—four at a table. Your brother-in-law plays a stiff game and your sister is a wonder!—five grand slams last night! But I played like a dub—I'd been riding and walking and canoeing all day with Mrs. Ascott and I was terribly sleepy.

"So come on up, Louis. I'll forgive you—but don't mind if I growl at you before Mrs. Ascott as she thinks I ought to discipline you. And, confound it, I ought to, and I will, too, if you don't look out. But I'll be devilish glad to see you.

"Yours,"W. VAN BEUREN PORTLAW."

Malcourt, in his arm-chair by the open window, lay back full length, every fibre of him vibrating with laughter.

Dolly Wilming at the piano continued running over the pretty firework melodies of last season's metropolitan success—a success built entirely on a Viennese waltz, the air of which might have been taken from almost any popular Yankee hymn-book.

He folded Portlaw's letter and pocketed it; and lay for a while under the open window, enjoying his own noiseless mirth, gaily accompanied by Dolly Winning's fresh, clear singing or her capricious improvising.

Begonias bloomed in a riotous row on the sill, nodding gently in the river-wind which also fluttered the flags and sails on yacht, schooner, and sloop under the wall of the Palisades.

That day the North River was more green than blue—like the eyes of a girl he knew; summer, crowned and trimmed with green, brooded on the long rock rampart across the stream. Turquoise patches of sky and big clouds, leafy parapets, ships passing to the sea; and in mid-stream an anchored island of steel painted white and buff, bristling with long thin guns, the flower-like flag rippling astern; another battle-ship farther north; another, another; and farther still the white tomb—unlovely mansion of the dead—on outpost duty above the river, guarding with the warning of its dead glories the unlovely mansions of the living ranged along the most noble terrace in the world.

And everywhere to north, south, and east, the endless waste of city, stark, clean-cut, naked alike of tree and of art, unsoftened even by the haze of its own exudations—everywhere the window-riddled blocks of oblongs and cubes gridironed with steel rails—New York in all the painted squalor of its Pueblo splendour.

"You say you are doing well in everything except French and Italian?"

Dolly, still humming to her own accompaniment, looked over her shoulder and nodded.

"Well, how the dickens are you ever going to sing at either Opera or on the road or anywhere if you don't learn French and Italian?"

"I'm trying, Louis."

"Go ahead; let's hear something, then."

And she sang very intelligently and in excellent taste:

"Pendant que, plein d'amour, j'expire à votre porte,Vous dormez d'un paisible sommeil—"

and turned questioningly to him.

"That's all right; try another."

So, serenely obedient, she sang:

"Chantons Margot, nos amours,Margot leste et bien tournée—"

"Well, I don't see anything the matter with your French," he muttered.

The girl coloured with pleasure, resting pensively above the key-board; but he had no further requests to make and presently she swung around on the piano-stool, looking at him.

"You sing all right; you are doing your part—as far as I can discover."

"There is nothing for you to discover that I have not told you," she said gravely. In her manner there was a subdued dignity which he had noticed recently—something of the self-confidence of the very young and unspoiled—which, considering all things, he could not exactly account for.

"Does that doddering old dancing-master of yours behave himself?"

"Yes—since you spoke to him. Mr. Bulder came to the school again."

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him that you wouldn't let me sing in 'The Inca.'"

"And what did Bulder say?"

"He was persistent but perfectly respectful; asked if he might confer with you. He wrote to you I think, didn't he?"

Malcourt nodded and lighted a cigarette.

"Dolly," he said, "do you want to sing Chaské in 'The Inca' next winter?"

"Yes, I do—if you think it is all right." She added in a low voice: "I want to do what will please you, Louis."

"I don't know whether it's the best thing to do, but—you may have to." He laid his cigarette in a saucer, watched the smoke curling ceilingward, and said as though to himself:

"I should like to be certain that you can support yourself—within a reasonable time from now—say a year. That is all, Dolly."

"I can do it now if you wish it—" The expression of his face checked her.

"I don't mean a variety career devoted to 'mother' songs," he said with a sneer. "There's a middle course between diamonds and 'sinkers.' You'll get there if you don't kick over the traces.... Have you made any more friends?"

"Yes."

"Are they respectable?"

"Yes," she said, colouring.

"Has anybody been impertinent?"

"Mr. Williams."

"I'll attend to him—the little squirt!… Who are your new friends?"

"There's a perfectly sweet girl in the French class, Marguerite Barret. I think she likes me.... Louis, I don't believe you understand how very happy I am beginning to be—"

"Do people come here?"

"Yes, on Sunday afternoons; I know nearly a dozen nice girls now, and those men I told you about—Mr. Snyder, Mr. Jim Anthony and his brother the artist, and Mr. Cass and Mr. Renwick."

"You can cut out Renwick," he said briefly.

She seemed surprised. "He has always been perfectly nice to me, Louis—"

"Cut him out, Dolly. I know the breed."

"Of course, if you wish."

He looked at her, convinced in spite of himself. "Always ask me about people. If I don't know I can find out."

"I always do," she said.

"Yes, I believe you do.... You're all right, Dolly—so far.... There, don't look at me in that distressed-dove fashion; I know you are all right and mean to be for your own sake—"

"For yours also," she said.

"Oh—that's all right, too—story-book fidelity; my preserver ever!—What?—Sure—and a slow curtain.... There, there, Dolly—where's your sense of humour! Good Lord, what's changing you into a bread-and-butter boarding-school sentimentalist!—to feel hurt at nothing! Hello! look at that kitten of yours climbing your silk curtains! Spank the rascal!"

But the girl caught up the kitten and tucked it up under her chin, smiling across at Malcourt, who had picked up his hat, gloves, and stick.

"Will you come to-morrow?" she asked.

"I'm going away for a while."

Her face fell; she rose, placed the kitten on the lounge, and walked up to him, both hands clasped loosely behind her back, wistfully acquiescent.

"It's going to be lonely again for me," she said.

"Nonsense! You've just read me your visiting list—"

"I had rather have you here than anybody."

"Dolly, you'll get over that absurd sense of obligatory regard for me—"

"I had rather have you, Louis."

"I know. That's very sweet of you—and very proper.... You are all right.... I'll be back in a week or ten days, and," smilingly, "mind you have your report ready! If you've been a good girl we'll talk over 'The Inca' again and—perhaps—we'll have Mr. Bulder up to luncheon.... Good-bye."

She gave him her hand, looking up into his face.

"Smile!" he insisted.

She smiled.

So he went away, rather satiated with the pleasures of self-denial; but the lightly latent mockery soon broke out again in a smile as he reached the street.