The Fighting Chance

“Do you mean me?” she asked, amused.

But he continued serenely: “You have seen those pigeons called ‘tumbler pigeons’ suddenly turn a cart-wheel in mid-air? Scientists say it’s not for pleasure they do it; it’s because they get dizzy. In other words, they are not perfectly normal.”

She said, laughing: “Well, you never saw me turn a cart-wheel!”

“Only a moral one,” he replied airily.

“Stephen, what on earth do you mean? You’re not going to be disagreeable, are you?”

“I am going to be so agreeable,” he said, laughing, “that you will find it very difficult to tear yourself away.”

“I have no doubt of it, but I must, and very soon.”

“I’m not going to let you.”

“It can’t be helped,” she said, looking up at him. “I came in with Leila. We’re asked to Lenox for the week’s end. We go to Stockbridge on the early train to-morrow morning.

“I don’t care,” he said doggedly; “I’m not going to let you go yet.”

“If I took to my heels here in the park would you chase me, Stephen?” she asked with mock anxiety.

“Yes; and if I couldn’t run fast enough I’d call that policeman. Now do you begin to understand?”

“Oh, I’ve always understood that you were spoiled. I’m partly guilty of the spoiling process, too. Listen: I’ll walk with you a little way”—she looked at him—“a little way,” she continued gently; “then I must go. There is only a caretaker in our house and Leila will be furious if I leave her all alone. Besides, we’re going to dine there and it won’t be very gay if I don’t give a few orders first.”

“But you brought your maid?”

“Naturally.”

“Then telephone her that you and Leila are dining out.”

“Where, silly? Do you want us to dine somewhere with you?”

“Want you! You’ve got to!”

“Stephen, it isn’t best.”

“It is best.”

She turned to him impulsively: “Oh, I do want to so much! Do you think I might? It is perfectly delicious to see you again. I—you have no idea—”

“Yes, I have,” he said sternly.

They turned, walking past the fountain toward Fifth Avenue again. Furtively she glanced at his hands with the city pallor on them as they grasped the cross-bars of the crutches, then looked up at his worn face. He was much thinner, but now in the softly fading light the shadows under the eyes and cheek-bones seemed less sharp, his face fuller and more boyish; the contour of head and shoulders, the short, crisp hair were as she remembered—and the old charm held her, the old fascination grew, tightening her throat, stealing through every vein, stirring her pulses, awakening imperceptibly once more the best in her. The twilight of a thousand years seemed to slip from the world as she looked out at it through eyes opening from a long, long sleep; the marble arch burned rosy in the evening glow; a fairy haze hung over the enchanted avenue, stretching away, away into the blue magic of the city of dreams.

“There is no use,” she said under her breath; “I can’t go back to Leila. Stephen, the dreadful part of it is that I—I wish she were in Jericho! I wish the whole world were in Ballyhoo, and you and I alone once more!”

Under their gay laughter quivered the undertone of excitement. Sylvia said:

“I’d like to talk to you all alone. It won’t do, of course; but I may say what I’d like—mayn’t I? What time is it? If I’m dining with you we’ve got to have Leila for convention’s sake, if not from motives of sheer decency, which you and I seem to lack, Stephen.”

“We lack decency,” said Siward, “and we’re proud of it. As for Leila, I am going to arrange for her very simply but very beautifully. Plank will take care of her. Sylvia! There’s not a soul in town and we can be as imprudent as we please.”

“No, we can’t. Agatha’s at the Santa Regina. She came down with us.”

“But we are not going to dine at the Santa Regina. We’re going where Agatha wouldn’t intrude her colourless nose—to a thoroughly unfashionable and selectly common resort overlooking the classic Harlem; and we’re going to whiz thither in Plank’s car, and remain thither until you yawn for mercy, whence we will return thence—”

“Stephen, you silly! I’m perfectly mad to go with you!”

“You’ll be madder when you get there, if the table has not improved.”

“Table! As though tables mattered on a night like this!” Then with sudden self-reproach and quick solicitude: “Am I making you walk too far? Wouldn’t you like to go in now?”

“No, I’m not tired; I’m millions of years younger, and I’m as strong as the nine gods of your friend Porsena. Besides, haven’t I waited for this?” and under his breath, fiercely, “Haven’t I waited!” he repeated, turning on her.

“Do—do you mean that as a reproach?” she asked, lowering her eyes.

“No. I knew you would not come on ‘the first sunny day.’”

“Why did you think I would not come? Did you know me for the coward I am?”

“I did not think you would come,” he repeated, halting to rest on his crutches. He stood, balanced, staring dreamily into the dim perspective; and again her fascinated eyes ventured to rest on the worn, white face, listless, sombre in its fixedness.

The tears were very near her eyes; the spasm in her throat checked speech. At length she stammered: “I did not come b-because I simply couldn’t stand it!”

His face cleared as he turned quietly: “Child, you must not confuse matters. You must not think of being sorry for me. The old order is passing—ticking away on every clock in the world. All that inverted order of things is being reversed. You don’t know what I mean, do you? Ah, well; you will know when I grow into something of what you think you remember in me, and when I grow out of what I really was.”

“Truly I don’t understand, Stephen. But then—I am out of training since you went—went out of things. Have I changed? Do I seem more dull? I—it has not been very gay with me. I don’t see—looking back across all the noise, all the chaos of the winter—I do not see how I stood it alone.”

“Alone?”

“N-not seeing you—sometimes.”

He looked at her with smiling, sceptical eyes. “Didn’t you enjoy the winter?”

“Do you enjoy being drugged with champagne?”

His face altered so quickly that, confused, she only stared at him, the fixed smile stamped on her lips; then, overwhelmed in the revelation:

“Stephen, surely, surely you know what I meant! I did not mean that! Dear, do you dream for one moment that—that I could—”

“No. You have not hurt me. Besides, I know what you mean.”

After a moment he swung forward on his crutches, biting his lip, the frown gathering between his temples.

They were passing the big, old-fashioned hotel with its white façade and green blinds, a lingering landmark of the older city.

“We’ll telephone here,” he said.