The Common Law

"Yes."

Valerie's face expressed bewilderment.

"I didn't know that there were really such men."

Rita closed her disillusioned eyes.

"Plenty," she said wearily.

"I don't care to believe that."

"You may believe it, Valerie. Men are almost never single-minded; women are—almost always. You see what chance for happiness we have? But it's the truth, and the world has been made that way. It's a man's world, Valerie. I don't think there's much use for us to fight against it…. She sat very silent for a while, close to Valerie, her hot face on the younger girl's shoulder. Suddenly she straightened up and dried her eyes naïvely on the sleeve of her kimona.

"Goodness!" she said, "I almost forgot!"

And a moment later Valerie heard her at the telephone:

"Is that you, John?"

* * * * *

"Have you remembered to take your medicine?"

* * * * *

"How perfectly horrid of you! Take it at once! It's the one in the brown bottle—six drops in a wineglass of water—"

CHAPTER XII

Mrs. Hind-Willet, born to the purple—or rather entitled to a narrow border of discreet mauve on all occasions of ceremony in Manhattan, was a dreamer of dreams. One of her dreams concerned her hyphenated husband, and she put him away; another concerned Penrhyn Cardemon; and she woke up. But the persistent visualisation, which had become obsession, of a society to be formed out of the massed intellects of Manhattan regardless of race, morals, or previous condition of social servitude—a gentle intellectual affinity which knew no law of art except individual inspiration, haunted her always. And there was always her own set to which she could retreat if desirable.

She had begun with a fashionable and semi-fashionable nucleus which included Mrs. Atherstane, the Countess d'Enver, Latimer Varyck, Olaf Dennison, and Pedro Carrillo, and then enlarged the circle from those perpetual candidates squatting anxiously upon the social step-ladder all the way from the bottom to the top.

The result was what Ogilvy called intellectual local option; and though he haunted this agglomeration at times, particularly when temporarily smitten by a pretty face or figure, he was under no illusions concerning it or the people composing it.

Returning one afternoon from a reception at Mrs. Atherstane's he replied to Annan's disrespectful inquiries and injurious observations:

"You're on to that joint, Henry; it's a saloon, not a salon; and Art is the petrified sandwich. Fix me a very, ve-ry high one, dearie, because little sunshine is in love again."

"Who drew the lucky number?" asked Annan with a shrug.

"The Countess d'Enver. She's the birdie."

"Intellectually?"

"Oh, she's an intellectual four-flusher, bless her heart! But she was the only woman there who didn't try to mentally frisk me. We lunch together soon, Henry."

"Where's Count hubby?"

"Aloft. She's a bird," he repeated, fondly reminiscent over his high-ball—"and I myself am the real ornithological thing—the species that Brooklyn itself would label 'boid' … She has such pretty, confiding ways, Harry."

"You'd both better join the Audubon Society for Mutual Protection," observed Annan dryly.

"I'll stand for anything she stands for except that social Tenderloin; I'll join anything she joins except the 'classes now forming' in that intellectual dance hall. By the way, who do you suppose was there?"

"The police?"

"Naw—the saloon wasn't raided, though 'Professor' Carrillo's poem was assez raide. Mek-mek-k-k-k! But oh, the ginky pictures! Oh, the Art Beautiful! Aniline rainbows exploding in a physical culture school couldn't beat that omelette!… And guess who was pouring tea in the centre of the olio, Harry!"

"You?" inquired Annan wearily.

"Valerie West."

"What in God's name has that bunch taken her up for?"

* * * * *

For the last few weeks Valerie's telephone had rung intermittently summoning her to conversation with Mrs. Hind-Willet.

At first the amiable interest displayed by Mrs. Hind-Willet puzzled Valerie until one day, returning to her rooms for luncheon, she found the Countess d'Enver's brougham standing in front of the house and that discreetly perfumed lady about to descend.

"How do you do?" said Valerie, stopping on the sidewalk and offering her hand with a frank smile.

"I came to call on you," said the over-dressed little countess; "may I?"

"It is very kind of you. Will you come upstairs? There is no elevator."

The pretty bejewelled countess arrived in the living room out of breath, and seated herself, flushed, speechless, overcome, her little white gloved hand clutching her breast.

Valerie, accustomed to the climb, was in nowise distressed; and went serenely about her business while the countess was recovering.

"I am going to prepare luncheon; may I hope you will remain and share it with me?" she asked.

The countess nodded, slowly recovering her breath and glancing curiously around the room.

"You see I have only an hour between poses," observed Valerie, moving swiftly from cupboard to kitchenette, "so luncheon is always rather simple. Miss Tevis, with whom I live, never lunches here, so I take what there is left from breakfast."

A little later they were seated at a small table together, sipping chocolate. There was cold meat, a light salad, and fruit. The conversation was as haphazard and casual as the luncheon, until the pretty countess lighted a cigarette and tasted her tiny glass of Port—the latter a gift from Querida. "Do you think it odd of me to call on you uninvited?" she asked, with that smiling abruptness which sometimes arises from embarrassment.

"I think it is very sweet of you," said Valerie, "I am very happy to know that you remember me."

The countess flushed up: "Do you really feel that way about it?"

"Yes," said Valerie, smiling, "or I would not say so."

"Then—you give me courage to tell you that since I first met you I've been—quite mad about you."

"About me!" in smiling surprise.