Chapter XXI

So Melissa went back from Four Oaks Farm to the apartment on Central Park West, and the Marchesa went with her. As far as the Park, that is. From the Park, the Marchesa and Anna continued upward along Riverside and were thereafter, from Melissa’s standpoint, mercifully lost to view. For a time at least. She had had, she considered, at the moment, about as much as she could stand, of Granny and her gentle maunderings.

Murdock’s complete acceptance of the Marchesa’s saintly old-ladyhood, his ingenuous response to that black-silk-lavender-water-cameo-brooch travesty filled Melissa with vicarious shame and an entirely personal remorse.

Murdock was too good to be made a fool of. Too good but not too clever. Melissa tried to even things by not encouraging him in his approaches and succeeded only in driving him into Granny’s arms. For counsel.

Granny told him not to worry Melissa. To be patient ... that all things came to him who waited. Omitting this time any mention of arteriosclerosis. “Poor child!” said Granny, “she’s so tender-hearted ... downright miserable over Mr. Kenealy and his dreadful news. She’s very loyal--dear little girl!” Loyalty was one of the virtues Murdock most admired in a woman--after Granny had done with him.

He told Melissa, parting from her on her own threshold, “I’m sorry our week-end had to be broken up like this. But of course it’s worse for poor old Luke than any one else. Do you think you’d like to go somewhere for dinner to-night--or shall you be too tired?”

Melissa said she was afraid she wasn’t quite up to going out--that she thought she’d have dinner alone and go to bed early.

“I’ll call you in the morning then,” said Murdock hopefully--“maybe to-morrow night--”

Melissa said she wasn’t promising anything.

It added nothing to her comfort to realize that all her evasions and withdrawals but whetted Murdock’s interest. Deliberate allurement of him, on her part, would have required much the same weapons as she was now using, in a sincere attempt to put him off.

It might have seemed funny if it hadn’t seemed ignoble.

Melissa, opening the door into that wide, still, lovely room, drew a long breath and put all questioning away from her.

There were her books, there were her pictures, there was her fire, there was her heart’s home.

She stood at the windows and looked out over the twilit Park for a long time--coat and hat in a heap on a chair behind her, linked hands, palm down, over her heart. She was trying to call Mister Roderick, out of the shadows, to stand at her shoulder and look with her, across the city. She shut her eyes and saw the turn of his head, the humorous twist of his smile. His rooms, his fire, his couch, his walls ... after a strange taut space, when every breath and every heartbeat of her strained to realize him, to compel him into being, beside her ... she felt--it was feeling more than hearing--his quiet comment....

“Well, old dear--the tangled web is widening--isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you mean....”

“Oh, yes, you do! You went down to that place to get Murdock. You dropped him and came back to town the minute Kenealy became a possibility.”

“That wasn’t I--that was that beast of a Marchesa!”

“You’re the Marchesa’s puppet--what’s the odds? She pulls the strings and you jump. It’s no good your vilifying her and then accepting the loot when the game’s over.”

“How rotten that sounds!”

“Sounds what it is, Lissa--you’re not the same girl that walked into my room that first evening....”

“Then I was starving....”

“And now you’re eating husks....”

“Don’t--!”

“Why not? Might as well be honest with yourself--since you aren’t going to be honest with any one else....”

“You’re cruel, Mister Roderick!”

“Oh, no, I’m not!--it’s just that I don’t like to see you making such a shameless little gold-digger of yourself. You’d be a darned sight better off back at your desk in the office....”

“Hush! I couldn’t go back to it, now! Not after this!”

“You couldn’t because you’ve gotten soft. All women get soft--and flabby--and dull ... that live by what they can make men give them.”

“You’re talking about the bad ones ... that’s too ridiculous--to me!”

“Think so? A woman doesn’t have to be technically bad to get her living the easiest way. A lot of marriages come under that heading. I tell you now--when I make a woman my wife, it’s not going to be because she’s looking for a safe investment and happens to wander my way....”

“What makes you think you’d be a safe investment?”

His shadowy smile at that! The glint of a schoolboy grin was in it.

“I wouldn’t be safe for _you_. You think I would--don’t you?”

“No--I don’t think you would! I think you’re too cold--and self-satisfied and--unbelieving.”

“If you’d be _you_ ... you’d see! I’m not like that. If you’d be you--I’d be--me. And what we couldn’t do with life--together!”

Melissa’s hand shut hard over the heavy throbbing in her breast. She shut her eyes to hold the look in Mister Roderick’s eyes, the ineffable threat and the age-old promise.

She couldn’t hold it--it evaded her--like echo, dying.

She turned from the windows and back into the room, curiously tired--as if she had been clinging to something which slipped endlessly away from her.

On the threshold of the bedroom, the thin sharp trill of the telephone stopped her. She answered with a sigh of annoyance. Dinner alone before the fire, a book and a pile of cushions, thereafter--paradise enow--if one could only be left to the enjoyment of it!

“Miss Rivers calling....”

“Ask her to come up,” said Melissa tiredly.

What Nelly Rivers wanted of her she couldn’t quite fathom. They had parted at the station without having in the several days and nights of Murdock’s unlucky party achieved any especial contact. Melissa, occupied with her own hazards and uncertainties, had been amiably aware of Nelly’s existence--that was all.

Why Nelly should wish to extend that awareness--

Nelly, knocking brusquely, answered for herself.

“Are you doing anything? Were you going out?--Be perfectly frank.”

As if one were ever entirely frank, about anything ... aloud!

“Do sit down,” said Melissa.... “I’m quite free.”

To her unspoken horror, Nelly sat down. In a corner of the deep couch. Took off her black hat and dropped it on the floor--loosened her furs and dropped them on top of the hat. Put fingertips to her eyes and said thus entrenched, “This is simply rotten of me. I haven’t any excuse for barging in on you like this.... I only thought ... truth is--I’m ghastly low, to-night ... and I thought we might eat together. Sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of dead kings ... if it wouldn’t bore you too much.”

Melissa saw her wonderful lonely evening fading away from her--unlived.

She said politely: “I’d love to have you. I’m at a loose end myself--suppose we have dinner sent up and light the fire....”

“Heaven!” said Nelly Rivers. “Though before a fire I have no decent reticences. It seems to draw confidences from me like rosin out of wood. You may regret your hospitality.”

“I’m sure I shan’t,” said Melissa, still frosted with courtesy.

“You’re a liar!” said Nelly Rivers sweetly, stretched herself like a lazy cat and laughed. “Do you know, Melissa--I’ve never seen any one so masked and gloved and hooded--as you. You interest me more than any woman I ever met. You’re as unreal as a lady on a fan--and yet one has moments of wondering....”

“Would you care for soup?” asked Melissa gently.

“I should--and I am put in my place,” said Nelly Rivers. “Funny--most women adore being psyched--you’re shy of it--aren’t you? Soup--yes--and quantities of bread and butter--a large cup of black coffee--that’s all I ask.”

“I’ll put my things away,” said Melissa, “if you don’t mind--there are books on that table behind you--”

She put her things away, called a waiter and ordered dinner for two in a chill fury of annoyance no less real for the detached and punctilious manner which covered it. Nelly Rivers had done her out of an hour or so alone. It didn’t occur to her that all her hours had been lonely--not very long ago--and that she had, at that time--badly wanted company.

She was not, as Mister Roderick had assured her, the same girl....

Dinner gone, Nelly Rivers sat smoking and staring at the fire. Her rough black hair, her velvety black eyes were really rather beautiful in a careless gypsyish way. Melissa, to whom all beauty was enchantment, thawed unwillingly. Found herself relaxing ... off guard.

“I like you,” said Nelly Rivers--“I’ve been meaning for a long time to do something like this. Just crowd in on you and make you look at me.”

“Don’t I--look--as a rule?” said Melissa.

She sat at one end of the couch, Nelly Rivers at the other, feet up--knees hugged, like creatures on a frieze. A lordly fire roared up the chimney. Some scent that Nelly used hung in the air, piquant as fresh sandalwood--which of course it could not have been.

“Oh, you look--at men!” said Nelly bluntly. “You don’t like women--do you?”

“No,” said Melissa.

“’Fraid of ’em--or just disinterested?”

“Both.”

“H’m’m! Of course men are your game.” She glanced at Melissa keenly. “You give it another name, I dare say.”

“Aren’t they yours?” asked Melissa resentfully. “Aren’t they any woman’s?”

“Not by a darn sight,” said Nelly Rivers, ground out the stub of her cigarette upon an ash-tray on the table behind her and laughed. “They’re not mine--in an economic sense. I could do a good deal better without ’em. They ... distract me. Of course a certain amount of losing one’s head is all to the good--for a singer. But one’s got to get off at the proper moment, to arrive at the best effect--and I was born with an inaccurate speedometer. I don’t always know how fast I’m going--till I’m gone.”

“That’s pretty cold-blooded, isn’t it?” asked Melissa curiously. She didn’t know a woman could be so impersonal.

“Maybe it is. Everybody’s got one true love. Mine’s my voice. Men may come and men may go. I’d feed ’em all to the fire--except in moments of acute aberration--for one perfect swooping note. Ever hear Alvarez sing ‘Homing’?”

Melissa shook her head.

Nelly said musing--a long way off--“She’s got a cry at the end of it that’s like a star falling across the sky ... when I can do that!--I won’t ask any quarter--no odds--nothing!”

“You work very hard--don’t you?” said Melissa. “Luke told me once....”

“I’ve been working very hard since I was fifteen,” said Nelly Rivers. “Lord--when I think how I’ve stayed with it!... Singing in small-town choirs. Slogging away at lessons and languages and what-not.... I rate success--if I ever get it. Believe me--I do! If ever I get my chance--I’ll have earned it!”

“And yet--” Melissa ventured hesitantly--“it hasn’t made you bitter....”

“Why should it?” asked Nelly contemptuously. “Work’s real. There’s not much else that is. I’m darned grateful I’ve got the tools ... time to be bitter is when you’re _out_ of work--not in it! Melissa--did you never work--at anything?”

Melissa let a cautious moment go by in silence. She said at last--“I’m afraid I’m rather a useless person....”

“You’re a canny one,” said Nelly Rivers, smiling to herself. “Not that I thought you’d tell. Of course you know--there’s a certain amount of conversation--in Austin’s crowd ... about you ... and your invisible means of support. Don’t freeze over again, now--It’s Granny, of course--but--? What’s the relationship?”

“Really--” said Melissa, “I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Why don’t you ask her?”

“Took all my nerve to ask you!” said Nelly Rivers cheerfully. “And now that I have done so--without any conspicuous success--shall I sing for my supper--before I go? I’d like to sing you just one small song, Melissa--a thing called ‘The Dream-Maker Man’--that might have been made for you. Stay where you are....”

She went over to the piano in the farthest corner of the room. It rippled under her fingers into a plaintive and simple tune, full of shy minors and wistful repetitions ... she played it through before she began to sing, very softly, in a voice like water falling in the dark....

Melissa sat listening, curled close against her cushions, hands tight-locked about her knees.

“Down at the edge of a wandering lane,”--(this was Nelly Rivers’
song)--
“That runs by the cares of day,
Where conscience and memory meet and explain
Their quaint little quarrels away....
A misty air-castle stands there in the dusk
Where fairies and hobgoblins dwell,
And that is the home of a crooked old gnome
Who’s making up dream-things to sell, my dear--
The loveliest dreams to sell!”

“Like it, Lissa?--That’s your song, my child--you’ve got one foot on a magic carpet--haven’t you?”

“Isn’t there any more?” asked Melissa hungrily--and Nelly Rivers sang again.

“He makes pretty dreams out of wicked men’s sighs--
He weaves on the thread of a hope,
The airiest fancy of lovers’ blind eyes
And fashions it all with a trope....
The blood of a rose and the dust of a wish
Boiled down to the ghost of a bliss,
He wraps in a smile--every once in a while--
And calls it an unborn kiss, my dear--
The dream of an unborn kiss!”

Softer, Nelly’s voice than her eyes--and her eyes were soft as black pansies. Sweeter than her ardent mouth--and that was quite sweet enough.

She left the piano laughing: “There you are, old thing! That’s for you. A bit on the soft side--but rather precious, anyway. Now let’s have my hat and I’ll go!”

“I wish you wouldn’t!” said Melissa--“Stay--stay and sing some more!”

“Not to-night,” said Nelly, snatching up furs and bag.... “Not to-night ... and perhaps not any other night! Depends on whether my song got over....”

“It did--you know it did!”

“Then call me up and ask me to dinner again.”

“I will, Nelly--you’ll see! Very soon....”

Melissa had never liked any one so suddenly and absurdly as she liked Nelly Rivers. It was odd, liking another woman like that--odd but comforting.

Not quite so comforting was the memory of the other woman’s scornful frankness: “Work’s real--there’s not much else that is!... Melissa--did you never work at anything?”

Melissa wished--after Nelly had gone, and wishes made no difference one way or the other--that she had told about the office and the hundreds of letters beginning ... “In reply to yours of the thus and so....”

She might then have had Nelly’s respect ... of which, as things now stood, considering the certain amount of conversation in Austin ... and Nelly’s ... crowd, one was none too sure. A disconcerting suggestion.