The Dark Star

Finally his uneasiness drew him to his feet again:

“Rue,” he said, “I’m going out to telephone to Mr. Stull. It may take some little time. You don’t mind waiting, do you?”

“No,” she said.

“Don’t you want another ice or something?”

She confessed that she did.

So he ordered it and went away.

As she sat leisurely tasting her ice and watching with unflagging interest the people around her, she noticed that the dining-room was already three-quarters empty. People were leaving for café, theatre, or dance; few remained.

Of these few, two young men in evening dress now arose and walked toward the lobby, one ahead of the other. One went out; the other, in the act of going, glanced casually at her as he passed, hesitated, halted, then, half smiling, half inquiringly, came toward her.

“Jim Neeland!” she exclaimed impulsively. “ – I mean Mr. Neeland–” a riot of colour flooding her face. But her eager hand remained outstretched. He took it, pressed it lightly, ceremoniously, and, still standing, continued to smile down at her.

Amid all this strange, infernal glitter; amid a city of six million strangers, suddenly to encounter a familiar face – to see somebody – anybody – from Gayfield – seemed a miracle too delightful to be true.

“You are Rue Carew,” he said. “I was not certain for a moment. You know we met only once before.”

Rue, conscious of the startled intimacy of her first greeting, blushed with the memory. But Neeland was a tactful young man; he said easily, with his very engaging smile:

“It was nice of you to remember me so frankly and warmly. You have no idea how pleasant it was to hear a Gayfield voice greet me as ‘Jim.’”

“I – didn’t intend to–”

“Please intend it in future, Rue. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No.”

“And will you ever forget that magnificent winter night when we drove to Brookhollow after the party?”

“I have – remembered it.”

“So have I… Are you waiting for somebody? Of course you are,” he added, laughing. “But may I sit down for a moment?”

“Yes, I wish you would.”

So he seated himself, lighted a cigarette, glanced up at her and smiled.

“When did you come to New York?” he asked.

“Tonight.”

“Well, isn’t that a bit of luck to run into you like this! Have you come here to study art?”

“No… Yes, I think, later, I am to study art here.”

“At the League?”

“I don’t know.”

“Better go to the League,” he said. “Begin there anyway. Do you know where it is?”

“No,” she said.

He called a waiter, borrowed pencil and pad, and wrote down the address of the Art Students’ League. He had begun to fold the paper when a second thought seemed to strike him, and he added his own address.

“In case I can do anything for you in any way,” he explained.

Rue thanked him, opened her reticule, and placed the folded paper there beside her purse.

“I do hope I shall see you soon again,” he said, looking gaily, almost mischievously into her grey eyes. “This certainly resembles fate. Don’t you think so, Rue – this reunion of ours?”

“Fate?” she repeated.

“Yes. I should even call it romantic. Don’t you think our meeting this way resembles something very much like romance?”

She felt herself flushing, tried to smile:

“It couldn’t resemble anything,” she explained with quaint honesty, “because I am sailing for Europe tomorrow morning; I am going on board in less than an hour. And also – also, I–”

“Also?” – he prompted her, amused, yet oddly touched by her childishly literal reply.

“I am – married.”

“Good Lord!” he said.

“This morning,” she added, tasting her ice.

“And you’re sailing for Europe on your honeymoon!” he exclaimed. “Well, upon my word! And what is your ship?”

“The Lusitania.”

“Really! I have a friend who is sailing on her – a most charming woman. I sent flowers to her only an hour ago.”

“Did you?” asked Rue, interested.

“Yes. She is a widow – the Princess Mistchenka – a delightful and pretty woman. I am going to send a note to the steamer tonight saying that – that my very particular friend, Ruhannah Carew, is on board, and won’t she ask you to tea. You’d love her, Rue. She’s a regular woman.”

“But – oh, dear! – a Princess!”

“You won’t even notice it,” he said reassuringly. “She’s a corker; she’s an artist, too. I couldn’t begin to tell you how nice she has been to me. By the way, Rue, whom did you marry?”

“Mr. Brandes.”

“Brandes? I don’t remember – was he from up-state?”

“No; New York – I think–”

As she bent forward to taste her ice again he noticed for the first time the childlike loveliness of her throat and profile; looked at her with increasing interest, realising that she had grown into a most engaging creature since he had seen her.

Looking up, and beyond him toward the door, she said:

“I think your friend is waiting for you. Had you forgotten him?”

“Oh, that’s so!” he exclaimed. Then rising and offering his hand: “I wish you happiness, Rue. You have my address. When you return, won’t you let me know where you are? Won’t you let me know your husband?”

“Yes.”

“Please do. You see you and I have a common bond in art, another in our birthplace. Gayfield folk are your own people and mine. Don’t forget me, Rue.”

“No, I won’t.”

So he took his leave gracefully and went away through the enthralling, glittering unreality of it all leaving a young girl thrilled, excited, and deeply impressed with his ease and bearing amid awe-inspiring scenes in which she, too, desired most ardently to find herself at ease.

Also she thought of his friend, the Princess Mistchenka. And again, as before, the name seemed to evoke within her mind a recollection of having heard it before, very long ago.

She wondered whether Neeland would remember to write, and if he did she wondered whether a real princess would actually condescend to invite her to take tea.

CHAPTER XI

THE BREAKERS

The east dining-room was almost empty now, though the lobby and the café beyond still swarmed with people arriving and departing. Brandes, chafing at the telephone, had finally succeeded in getting Stull on the wire, only to learn that the news from Saratoga was not agreeable; that they had lost on every horse. Also, Stull had another disquieting item to detail; it seemed that Maxy Venem had been seen that morning in the act of departing for New York on the fast express; and with him was a woman resembling Brandes’ wife.

“Who saw her?” demanded Brandes.

“Doc. He didn’t get a good square look at her. You know the hats women wear.”

“All right. I’m off, Ben. Good-bye.”

The haunting uneasiness which had driven him to the telephone persisted when he came out of the booth. He cast a slow, almost sleepy glance around him, saw no familiar face in the thronged lobby, then he looked at his watch.

The car had been ordered for ten; it lacked half an hour of the time; he wished he had ordered the car earlier.

For now his uneasiness was verging on that species of superstitious inquietude which at times obsesses all gamblers, and which is known as a “hunch.” He had a hunch that he was “in wrong” somehow or other; an overpowering longing to get on board the steamer assailed him – a desire to get out of the city, get away quick.

The risk he had taken was beginning to appear to him as an unwarranted piece of recklessness; he was amazed with himself for taking such a chance – disgusted at his foolish and totally unnecessary course with this young girl. All he had had to do was to wait a few months. He could have married in safety then. And even now he didn’t know whether or not the ceremony performed by Parson Smawley had been an illegally legal one; whether it made him a bigamist for the next three months or only something worse. What on earth had possessed him to take such a risk – the terrible hazard of discovery, of losing the only woman he had ever really cared for – the only one he probably could ever care for? Of course, had he been free he would have married her. When he got his freedom he would insist on another ceremony. He could persuade her to that on some excuse or other. But in the meanwhile!

He entered the deserted dining-room, came over to where Rue was waiting, and sat down, heavily, holding an unlighted cigar between his stubby fingers.

“Well, little girl,” he said with forced cheerfulness, “was I away very long?”

“Not very.”

“You didn’t miss me?” he inquired, ponderously playful.

His heavy pleasantries usually left her just a little doubtful and confused, for he seldom smiled when he delivered himself of them.

He leaned across the cloth and laid a hot, cushiony hand over both of hers, where they lay primly clasped on the table edge:

“Don’t you ever miss me when I’m away from you, Rue?” he asked.

“I think – it is nice to be with you,” she said, hotly embarrassed by the publicity of his caress.

“I don’t believe you mean it.” But he smiled this time. At which the little rigid smile stamped itself on her lips; but she timidly withdrew her hands from his.

“Rue, I don’t believe you love me.” This time there was no smile.

She found nothing to answer, being without any experience in give-and-take conversation, which left her always uncertain and uncomfortable.

For the girl was merely a creature still in the making – a soft, pliable thing to be shaped to perfection only by the light touch of some steady, patient hand that understood – or to be marred and ruined by a heavy hand which wrought at random or in brutal haste.

Brandes watched her for a moment out of sleepy, greenish eyes. Then he consulted his watch again, summoned a waiter, gave him the parcels-room checks, and bade him have a boy carry their luggage into the lobby.

As they rose from the table, a man and a woman entering the lobby caught sight of them, halted, then turned and walked back toward the street door which they had just entered.

Brandes had not noticed them where he stood by the desk, scratching off a telegram to Stull:

“All O. K. Just going aboard. Fix it with Stein.”

He rejoined Rue as the boy appeared with their luggage; an under porter took the bags and preceded them toward the street.

“There’s the car!” said Brandes, with a deep breath of relief. “He knows his business, that chauffeur of mine.”

Their chauffeur was standing beside the car as they emerged from the hotel and started to cross the sidewalk; the porter, following, set their luggage on the curbstone; and at the same instant a young and pretty woman stepped lightly between Rue and Brandes.

“Good evening, Eddie,” she said, and struck him a staggering blow in the face with her white-gloved hand.

Brandes lost his balance, stumbled sideways, recovered himself, turned swiftly and encountered the full, protruding black eyes of Maxy Venem staring close and menacingly into his.

From Brandes’ cut lip blood was running down over his chin and collar; his face remained absolutely expressionless. The next moment his eyes shifted, met Ruhannah’s stupefied gaze.

“Go into the hotel,” he said calmly. “Quick–”

“Stay where you are!” interrupted Maxy Venem, and caught the speechless and bewildered girl by the elbow.

Like lightning Brandes’ hand flew to his hip pocket, and at the same instant his own chauffeur seized both his heavy, short arms and held them rigid, pinned behind his back.

“Frisk him!” he panted; Venem nimbly relieved him of the dull black weapon.

“Can the fake gun-play, Eddie,” he said, coolly shoving aside the porter who attempted to interfere. “You’re double-crossed. We got the goods on you; come on; who’s the girl?”

The woman who had struck Brandes now came up again beside Venem. She was young, very pretty, but deathly white except for the patches of cosmetic on either cheek. She pointed at Brandes. There was blood on her soiled and split glove:

“You dirty dog!” she said unsteadily. “You’ll marry this girl before I’ve divorced you, will you? And you think you are going to get away with it! You dog! You dirty dog!”

The porter attempted to interfere again, but Venem shoved him out of the way. Brandes, still silently struggling to free his imprisoned arms, ceased twisting suddenly and swung his heavy head toward Venem. His hat had fallen off; his face, deeply flushed with exertion, was smeared with blood and sweat.

“What’s the idea, you fool!” he said in a low voice. “I’m not married to her.”

But Ruhannah heard him say it.

“You claim that you haven’t married this girl?” demanded Venem loudly, motioning toward Rue, who stood swaying, half dead, held fast by the gathering crowd which pushed around them from every side.

“Did you marry her or did you fake it?” repeated Venem in a louder voice. “It’s jail one way; maybe both!”

“He married her in Gayfield at eleven this morning!” said the chauffeur. “Parson Smawley turned the trick.”

Brandes’ narrow eyes glittered; he struggled for a moment, gave it up, shot a deadly glance at Maxy Venem, at his wife, at the increasing throng crowding closely about him. Then his infuriated eyes met Rue’s, and the expression of her face apparently crazed him.

Frantic, he hurled himself backward, jerking one arm free, tripped, fell heavily with the chauffeur on top, twisting, panting, struggling convulsively, while all around him surged the excited crowd, shouting, pressing closer, trampling one another in eagerness to see.

Rue, almost swooning with fear, was pushed, jostled, flung aside. Stumbling over her own suitcase, she fell to her knees, rose, and, scarce conscious of what she was about, caught up her suitcase and reeled away into the light-shot darkness.

She had no idea of what she was doing or where she was going; the terror of the scene still remained luridly before her eyes; the shouting of the crowd was in her ears; an indescribable fear of Brandes filled her – a growing horror of this man who had denied that he had married her. And the instinct of a frightened and bewildered child drove her into blind flight, anywhere to escape this hideous, incomprehensible scene behind her.

Hurrying on, alternately confused and dazzled in the patches of darkness and flaring light, clutched at and followed by a terrible fear, she found herself halted on the curbstone of an avenue through which lighted tramcars were passing. A man spoke to her, came closer; and she turned desperately and hurried across a street where other people were crossing.

From overhead sounded the roaring dissonance of an elevated train; on either side of her phantom shapes swarmed – figures which moved everywhere around her, now illumined by shop windows, now silhouetted against them. And always through the deafening confusion in her brain, the dismay, the stupefaction, one dreadful fear dominated – the fear of Brandes – the dread and horror of this Judas who had denied her.

She could not drive the scene from her mind – the never-to-be forgotten picture where he stood with blood from his cut lip striping his fat chin. She heard his voice denying her through swollen lips that scarcely moved – denying that he had married her.

And in her ears still sounded the other voice – the terrible words of the woman who had struck him – an unsteady, unreal voice accusing him; and her brain throbbed with the horrible repetition: “Dirty dog – dirty dog – dirty dog–” until, almost out of her mind, she dropped her bag and clapped both hands over her ears.

One or two men stared at her. A taxi driver came from beside his car and asked her if she was ill. But she caught up her suitcase and hurried on without answering.

She was very tired. She had come to the end of the lighted avenue. There was darkness ahead, a wall, trees, and electric lights sparkling among the foliage.

Perhaps the sudden glimpse of a wide and star-set sky quieted her, calmed her. Freed suddenly from the cañon of the city’s streets, the unreasoning panic of a trapped thing subsided a little.

Her arm ached; she shifted the suitcase to her other hand and looked across at the trees and at the high stars above, striving desperately for self-command.

Something had to be done. She must find some place where she could sit down. Where was she to find it?

For a while she could feel her limbs trembling; but gradually the heavy thudding of her pulses quieted; nobody molested her; nobody had followed her. That she was quite lost did not matter; she had also lost this man who had denied her, somewhere in the depths of the confusion behind her. That was all that mattered – escape from him, from the terrible woman who had struck him and reviled him.

With an effort she checked her thoughts and struggled for self-command. Somewhere in the city there must be a railroad station from which a train would take her home.

With the thought came the desperate longing for flight, and a rush of tears that almost choked her. Nothing mattered now except her mother’s arms; the rest was a nightmare, the horror of a dream which still threatened, still clutched at her with shadowy and spectral menace.

For a moment or two she stood there on the curb, her eyes closed, fighting for self-control, forcing her disorganized brain to duty.

Somebody must help her to find a railroad station and a train. That gradually became clear to her. But when she realised that, a young man sauntered up beside her and looked at her so intently that her calmness gave way and she turned her head sharply to conceal the starting tears.

“Hello, girlie,” he said. “Got anythin’ on tonight?”

With head averted, she stood there, rigid, dumb, her tear-drenched eyes fixed on the park; and after one or two jocose observations the young man became discouraged and went away. But he had thrust the fear of strangers deep into her heart; and now she dared not ask any man for information. However, when two young women passed she found sufficient courage to accost them, asking the direction of the railroad station from which trains departed for Gayfield.

The women, who were young and brightly coloured in plumage, displayed a sympathetic interest at once.

“Gayfield?” repeated the blonder of the two. “Gee, dearie, I never heard of that place.”

“Is it on Long Island?” inquired the other.

“No. It is in Mohawk County.”

“That’s a new one, too. Mohawk County? Never heard of it; did you, Lil?”

“Search me!”

“Is it up-state, dearie?” asked the other. “You better go over to Madison Avenue and take a car to the Grand Central–”

“Wait,” interrupted her friend; “she better take a taxi–”

“Nix on a taxi you pick up on Sixth Avenue!” And to Rue, curiously sympathetic: “Say, you’ve got friends here, haven’t you, little one?”

“No.”

“What! You don’t know anyone in New York!”

Rue looked at her dumbly; then, of a sudden, she remembered Neeland.

“Yes,” she said, “I know one person.”

“Where does your friend live?”

In her reticule was the paper on which he had written the address of the Art Students’ League, and, as an afterthought, his own address.

Rue lifted the blue silk bag, opened it, took out her purse and found the paper.

“One Hundred and Six, West Fifty-fifth Street,” she read; “Studio No. 10.”

“Why, that isn’t far!” said the blonder of the two. “We are going that way. We’ll take you there.”

“I don’t know – I don’t know him very well–”

“Is it a man?”

“Yes. He comes from my town, Gayfield.”

“Oh! I guess that’s all right,” said the other woman, laughing. “You got to be leery of these men, little one. Come on; we’ll show you.”

It was only four blocks; Ruhannah presently found herself on the steps of a house from which dangled a sign, “Studios and Bachelor Apartments to Let.”

“What’s his name?” said the woman addressed as Lil.

“Mr. Neeland.”

By the light of the vestibule lantern they inspected the letter boxes, found Neeland’s name, and pushed the electric button.

After a few seconds the door clicked and opened.

“Now, you’re all right!” said Lil, peering into the lighted hallway. “It’s on the fourth floor and there isn’t any elevator that I can see, so you keep on going upstairs till your friend meets you.”

“Thank you so much for your great kindness–”

“Don’t mention it. Good luck, dearie!”

The door clicked behind her, and Rue found herself alone.

The stairs, flanked by a massive balustrade of some dark, polished wood, ascended in spirals by a short series of flights and landings. Twice she rested, her knees almost giving way, for the climb upward seemed interminable. But at last, just above her, she saw a skylight, and a great stair-window giving on a court; and, as she toiled up and stood clinging, breathless, to the banisters on the top landing, out of an open door stepped Neeland’s shadowy figure, dark against the hall light behind him.

“For heaven’s sake!” he said. “What on earth–”

The suitcase fell from her nerveless hand; she swayed a little where she stood.

The next moment he had passed his arm around her, and was half leading, half carrying her through a short hallway into a big, brilliantly lighted studio.

CHAPTER XII

A LIFE LINE

She had told him her story from beginning to end, as far as she herself comprehended it. She was lying sideways now, in the depths of a large armchair, her cheek cushioned on the upholstered wings.

Her hat, with its cheap blue enamel pins sticking in the crown, lay on his desk; her hair, partly loosened, shadowed a young face grown pinched with weariness; and the reaction from shock was already making her grey eyes heavy and edging the under lids with bluish shadows.

She had not come there with the intention of telling him anything. All she had wanted was a place in which to rest, a glass of water, and somebody to help her find the train to Gayfield. She told him this; remained reticent under his questioning; finally turned her haggard face to the chairback and refused to answer.

For an hour or more she remained obstinately dumb, motionless except for the uncontrollable trembling of her body; he brought her a glass of water, sat watching her at intervals; rose once or twice to pace the studio, his well-shaped head bent, his hands clasped behind his back, always returning to the corner-chair before the desk to sit there, eyeing her askance, waiting for some decision.

But it was not the recurrent waves of terror, the ever latent fear of Brandes, or even her appalling loneliness that broke her down; it was sheer fatigue – nature’s merciless third degree – under which mental and physical resolution disintegrated – went all to pieces.

And when at length she finally succeeded in reconquering self-possession, she had already stammered out answers to his gently persuasive questions – had told him enough to start the fuller confession to which he listened in utter silence.

And now she had told him everything, as far as she understood the situation. She lay sideways, deep in the armchair, tired, yet vaguely conscious that she was resting mind and body, and that calm was gradually possessing the one, and the nerves of the other were growing quiet.

Listlessly her grey eyes wandered around the big studio where shadowy and strangely beautiful but incomprehensible things met her gaze, like iridescent, indefinite objects seen in dreams.

These radiantly unreal splendours were only Neeland’s rejected Academy pictures and studies; a few cheap Japanese hangings, cheaper Nippon porcelains, and several shaky, broken-down antiques picked up for a song here and there. All the trash and truck and dust and junk characteristic of the conventional artist’s habitation were there.

But to Ruhannah this studio embodied all the wonders and beauties of that magic temple to which, from her earliest memory, her very soul had aspired – the temple of the unknown God of Art.

Vaguely she endeavoured to realise that she was now inside one of its myriad sanctuaries; that here under her very tired and youthful eyes stood one of its countless altars; that here, also, near by, sat one of those blessed acolytes who aided in the mysteries of its wondrous service.

“Ruhannah,” he said, “are you calm enough to let me tell you what I think about this matter?”

“Yes. I am feeling better.”

“Good work! There’s no occasion for panic. What you need is a cool head and a clear mind.”