Chapter XVI

Luke, saying good night at Melissa’s threshold, looked at her hard, shook his head and sighed deeply.

“Fresh as the mythical daisy,” he commented. “Don’t look as if you’d ever had a jolt in your life. I take it I did Cassandra for nothing. Austin was the Perfect Playmate and no more. Well ... I stick to my story--nevertheless!”

“Good night, Luke,” said Melissa softly.

He kissed the tips of her outstretched fingers: “Good night, Lissa! You may keep your thoughts but I’d give a penny or so to know your dreams....”

“Wouldn’t you!” said Melissa ... and closed the door on him very gently.

She was telling no one either thoughts or dreams ... no one, that is, in the flesh.

All the way home from Beall’s house--where the party still raged, with unabated enthusiasm--Melissa had sat in a kind of tense abstraction, going over and over, the things Beall had said, the things he had looked and the last thing of all which he had startlingly and disconcertingly done before the Zuloaga lady in his library.

“If only I had some one to talk to about it!” fretted Melissa in silence. “Some one who could help....”

Not Luke--after his justifiable and disregarded advice.

Not the Marchesa--Melissa shuddered to fancy the Marchesa’s malicious amusement over Melissa’s discomfiture.

There wasn’t anywhere in the world any one who really cared--_what_ happened to Melissa--nor how she came out of her maze.

Nobody in the world. Loneliness unbelievable!

She flung her cloak on a chair and lit the lamp at the farther end of the couch beside a bowl of Murdock’s roses. He had gotten to roses, eventually--deep heavy-headed red ones, which was more than one might have expected, from him, florally speaking.

Three o’clock! The world was still as death. Hardly a sound came up from the street below. The lamp made a shallow golden circle--on the couch, on a bit of the rug.

Melissa touched a match to the fire laid waiting on the hearth and curled herself up against cushions, bare arms hugging her silver knees, dark eyes fixed on the flames.

She was hurt--she was sore--she was shamed, in some fair inner place of her soul, by Beall’s embrace--that fierce and undesired contact, which had nothing to do with love--or affection--or even friendship--

“I’m not even sure I should want that sort of thing from a man I--cared for ...” she mused unhappily--“Only--perhaps--from a man I cared for--it wouldn’t seem--that sort of thing....”

For the first time she began to doubt her ability to go through with the venture she had undertaken. “There isn’t a chance in a thousand that the man who can give me the--material--stuff I want ... can give me ... love ... as well. That’s too much of a fairy-tale! And I don’t know if I can pay--for the rest.”

She didn’t know when the eyes of the man in the picture came between her and the fire. She seemed presently to have been looking into those eyes for a long time and not at the singing blaze at all.

She seemed to be talking to him--and not to herself--his voice was not strange ... she might have been hearing it for years.

She had of course been wearing the picture about, in the craziest way, over her heart--looking at it long moments and dreaming over it--the room held echoes of him perhaps....

Kathleen had said, “Mister Roderick’s been living here, now--oh, eight or nine years ... ever since he finished college. He’s that fond of the place and no wonder.”

And no wonder! Melissa’s beloved room. Her air-castle.

Silent in that enchanted lamplight she knew what he would be saying; with a slight quizzical smile, with a faint indulgent scowl: “My good child, you’re playing with fire. What did you expect? He’s a man who knows--as much as any man knows--about women. You know nothing at all about men--except from books. Inside that pretty shell of yours....”

Melissa fancied herself crying--a small breathless interruption--“You _do_ think it’s a pretty shell?”

And Mister Roderick replying--casually, with a teasing smile--“Oh, it will pass ... I’d have let you know if I hadn’t liked it. Well--as I was saying, from a worldly standpoint, you’re ridiculously--innocent.”

Melissa retorted--always good at a verbal thrust in imaginary conversation--“You _like_ me to be innocent--don’t you?”

“There’s always one man who likes a woman to be innocent. But even he knows she’s safer with a little wisdom in her pocket.”

“I didn’t know he was going to kiss me.”

“You might have known it--going off into his work-shop with him--away from the rest of the crowd. You knew what he was like. Luke Kenealy had told you. You knew he was attracted by you. You could feel it. Women can. No, no, Melissa--I’m not at all sorry for you! You asked for trouble--and you got it. One good thing--you’ll know better next time. You know now, he isn’t a prospect--only a prospector.”

“Please!--that’s horrible!”

“Spades, with no bows on the handles! You were gunning for him. He was gunning for you. He drew first--that’s all. Serves you darned well right for not selecting your opponents with a little more intelligence.”

“That’s--sordid.”

“So is what you’re doing. And that outrageous old woman, my aunt, is making it worse all the time. What’s the good of lying to yourself? It’s a soft berth you want....”

“It isn’t--that isn’t the thing I want most!”

“You don’t want a thing most--when you’re willing to sell it to buy something else.”

“I want beauty--I’d walk through fire to get it.”

“You’re fooling yourself, Melissa--there isn’t any beauty without love. Look at a sunset, the day you’ve lost your lover--you won’t see the rose and gold any more than a blind man. The world you walk in will have beauty washed out of it by the tears you’ve shed. That’s not a phrase--that’s the truth. Your eyes will be out of focus. Let alone your eyes! You won’t be _keyed_ to beauty--and for you it won’t be _there_!”

The fire, a matter of green wood, doubtless, began to smoke. Flame sank to ember and smudge. All in a moment a thing of life became a thing of dissolution and dark unloveliness. Melissa, warm among her cushions, shivered as if a twitch-nosed rabbit had gone over her grave.

“What about the broken-hearted poets who’ve made the sweetest songs?”

“They were painting from memory, old dear! It’s lovely to look at--but painful to do. Now run along to bed--and forget about Beall! You scored at the last....”

“I shan’t tell Luke, and have him crowing.”

“You needn’t tell any one but me.”

“If the Marchesa asks--I promised. That’s really all she gets for what she’s spending on me.”

“Looking back into life--over your shoulder! Tell her, then. It doesn’t matter.”

Melissa was asleep before the fire died.

She had no need to dream--asleep.