escorting his aunt to the car, matthias helped her in, closed the door, and then, with a grin of amused resignation masking that trepidation to which he was actually a prey, folded his arms on the top of the door and invited the storm with one word of whimsical accent: "well?"
"is it true?" she demanded, as if downright incredulous.
"most true," he insisted with convincing simplicity.
the tip of one gloved finger to her chin, helena considered remotely.
"she's very beautiful," she conceded, "and sweet and fetching and hopelessly plebeian. she'd be wonderful to have around, to look at; but to listen to.... oh my dear! what are you thinking of?"
"cut it," tankerville advised from his corner. "none of your funeral, old lady."
"that consideration never yet hindered a matthias," his wife retorted—"or a tankerville, either, as far as i've been gifted to observe. however"—she turned again to her nephew—"you are presumably in love, and i hope you'll be happy, if ever you marry her. i shan't interfere—don't be afraid—but ... i could murder venetia for this!"
"good night," said matthias, offering his hand.
but instead of taking it, his aunt leaned forward, caught his cheeks between both hands, and kissed him publicly.
"good night," she murmured in a tragical voice. "and heaven help you!... when is it going to be?"
"we haven't settled that yet," he laughed; "but you may be sure i shan't marry until i'm able to support my wife in a manner to which she's unaccustomed."
he returned to joan with—until he recrossed the threshold of his study—a thought ironic concerning the inconsistency of helena's veneration of caste with her union to fat, good-natured, pretentiously commonplace george tankerville. for that matter, the matthias dynasty itself was descended from a needy, out-at-elbows english adventurer who had one day founded the family fortunes by taking title to manhattan real estate in settlement of a gambling debt and on the next had died in a duel—the only act of thoughtful provision against improvidence registered in his biography. so matthias wasn't much disposed to reverence his pedigree: social position, at least as a claim upon his consideration, meant little to him: the only class distinctions he was inclined to acknowledge were those created by the intellect and of the heart. in his private world people were either intelligent or stupid, either kindly or (stupidly) egoistic. to the first order, with humility of soul he aspired; for the other he was, without condescension, heartily sorry....
but there was nothing half so analytical as this in his temper when he rejoined joan: only wonder and rejoicing and delight in her.
he found her near the door, tense and hesitant, as though poised on the point of imminent flight. there was in her wide eyes a look almost of consternation; they seemed to glow, shot with the fire of her lambent thoughts. a doubting thumb and forefinger clipped her chin; a thin line of exquisite whiteness shone between her scarlet lips.
closing the door, he opened his arms. she came to them swiftly and confidently. doubts and fears vanished in the joy of his embrace; she was no longer lonely in a world unfriendly.
from the eloquent deeps of their submerged and blended senses, words now and again floated up like bubbles to the surface of consciousness:
"you still love me?"
"i love you."
"it wasn't pity—impulse—jack—?"
"it was—love. it is love. it shall be love, dear heart, forever and always...."
"you told her—your aunt—we were engaged!"
"aren't we?"
a convulsive tightening of her arms....
a whisper barely articulate: "you really ... want me ... enough to marry me?"
"i love you."
"but...."
"isn't that enough?"
"but i am—only me: nothing: a girl who dares to love you."
"could any man ask more?"
"you.... what will your friends say?... you'll be ashamed of me."
"hush! that's treason."
"but you will—you won't be able to help it—"
a faint, half-hearted cry of protest: words indistinguishable, silenced by lips on lips; a space of quiet....
"how shall i make myself worthy of you?"
"love me always."
"how shall i dare to meet your family, your friends—?"
"you will be my wife."
"but that won't be for a long time...."
"yes, we must wait—be patient, joan." she lifted her head, wondering. "but don't fear; love will sustain us."
"i will be patient. you'll have to give me time to learn how not to disgrace you—"
"what nonsense!"
"i mean it. i must be somebody. i'm nobody now."
"you are my dearest love."
"i must be more, to be your wife. give me time to learn to act. when i am a success—"
"no more of that!" there was definite resolution in the interruption. "you must give up all thought of the stage."
"but i want to—"
"it's not the place for you—for my wife that is to be."
"but we're not to be married for a long time, you say."
"i'm a poor man, dear—i have enough for one, not enough for two. it may be only weeks, it may be months or years before my work begins to pay."
"but meantime i must live—support myself, somehow."
"you will leave that to me?"
"i must do something—be independent—"
"won't you leave it all to me? i will arrange everything—"
"i'll do whatever you wish me to."
"and forget the stage—?"
"i don't know—i'll try, jack."
"you must, dear one."
it was not a time for disagreements. joan clung more closely to him. the issue languished in default, was forgotten for the time....
transports ebbed: the faintest premonitory symptoms of a return to something resembling sanity made their appearance; of a sudden matthias remembered the hour.
"do you know," he said with tender gravity, having consulted his watch, "it's after eleven?"
"it doesn't seem possible," she laughed happily.
"and i'm hungry," he announced. "aren't you?"
she dared to be as frank as he: "famished!"
"come along, then! run, get your hat. it gives us an excuse for at least two hours more...."
by the time she had repaired the damage this miracle had wrought with her appearance, matthias had walked to the astor and brought back a taxicab. the attention affected joan with a poignant and exquisite sense of happiness.
it was only her second ride in a motor vehicle. the top being down, they sat very circumspectly apart; but matthias captured her hand and eye spoke to eye with secret laughter of delight, each reading the other's longing thought. the speed of the cab and its sudden slackening as it picked its path down broadway, the flow of cool air against her face, the swimming maze of lights through which they sped, the sense of luxury and protection, added the last touch of delirious pleasure to joan's mood.
matthias had chosen the café of "old martin's," at twenty-sixth street, the first place that suggested itself as one where they could sup without the girl being made to feel out of place in her modest work-a-day attire; but his thoughtfulness was misapplied: joan was exalted beyond such annoyances; and those feminine glances which she detected, of pity, disdain, and jealousy, she took complacently as envious tributes to her prettiness and her conquest.
from a seat against the wall, in a corner, she reviewed the other patrons of the smoke-wreathed room with a hauteur of spirit that would have seemed laughable had it been suspected. she thought of herself as the handsomest woman there, and the youngest, of matthias as the most distinguished man and—the luckiest. the circumstances of the place and her partner enchanted her to distraction.
the food matthias ordered she devoured heedlessly; but there was a delicious novelty in the experience of sipping her first glass of champagne. it was, for that matter, the first time she had ever tasted good wine, or any kind of alcoholic drink other than an occasional glass of lukewarm beer, cheap and nasty to begin with and half-stale at best, and that poisonous red wine of the italian boarding-house to which charlie quard had introduced her. she had never dreamed of anything so delicious as this dry and exhilarating draught with its exotic bouquet and aromatic bubbles.
with a glowing face and dancing eyes she nodded to matthias over the rim of her goblet.
"when we are rich," she laughed softly, "i'm never going to drink anything else!"
he smiled quietly, enjoying her enjoyment; but, when emptied, the half-bottle he had ordered was not renewed.
there was without that enough intoxication in his fondness, in the simulacrum of gaiety manufactured by the lights, the life, the laughter, and in the muted, interweaving strains of music. joan felt that she was living wonderfully and intensely, a creature of an existence transcendent and radiant.
it was after one when another taxicab whisked them homeward through the quieting streets. she sat as close as could be to her lover and would not have objected on the grounds of "people looking" had he put an arm round her. though he didn't, she was not disappointed, sharing something of his mood of sublimely sufficient contentment. but when he bade her good night at the foot of the stairs in the deserted and poorly lighted hallway, she gave herself to his caresses with a passion and abandon that startled and sobered matthias, and sent him off to his room and bed in a thoughtful frame of mind.
lying awake in darkness until darkness was dimly tempered by the formless dusk that long foreruns the dawn, he communed gravely with his troubled heart.
"things can't go on this way—as they've started. there's got to be sanity.... it's myself i've got to watch, of course," he said with stubborn loyalty to his ideal. "i mustn't forget i'm a man—nine years older—nearly ten.... why, she's hardly more than a kiddie.... she doesn't know.... i've got to watch myself...."
and in her room, four floors above, joan sat as long before her bureau, chin cradled on her slim, laced fingers, eyeing intently the face shown her by gas-light in the one true patch of the common, tarnished mirror.
when at length she rose, suddenly conscious of a heavy weariness, she lingered yet another long moment for one last fond look.
"it's true," she told herself with a little nod of conviction; "i am beautiful. she said i was ... he thinks i am ... i must be...."
