Daly's at Eight

by Ralph Henry Barbour

 

“DALY’S AT EIGHT”

By Ralph Henry Barbour

CARSON, frowning, tore the note into tiny pieces with slow movements of his long, muscular fingers, tossed the fragments upon the marble counter and walked thoughtfully out of the office. For two cents, he told himself, he would go up to his room, prepare for bed and read himself to sleep with the evening papers; and the theatre might go to the dickens!

Out in the onyx-walled corridor he paused irresolutely, observed solicitously—for it was Christmas Eve—by the door-porter. But, after all, it was silly to waste two tickets. On second thoughts he would walk down to the theatre and return them; the exercise would do him good. At the check-room, with the help of an eager attendant, he slipped into his long, fur-lined coat, fixed his silk hat on a well-shaped head, tucked his stick under his arm, tipped the attendant and received a perfunctory “Thank ’e, sir,” and edged his way through the revolving-door. The door-porter grunted his disappointment.

Outside the hotel the sidewalks were two inches deep in snow and slush, and the flakes were still falling softly and deliberately like tiny feathers scattered from one of the hundreds of lighted windows which flared tier on tier up into the darkness. The crosstown cars passed with their rumbling jar curiously muffled, and the clanging gongs sounded as though wrapped in felt. At the corner of the Avenue the arc-light chattered and blinked, and the falling flakes caught the rays and made a purple halo about it.

Carson, drawing on his gloves, turned southward and strode briskly. The cold, moist air felt good against his face, and he was deaf to the soft blandishments of the hansom-drivers who steered their clumsy craft up to the curb along the block. By the time he had reached the second corner his resentment against Maitland, who had failed him at the last moment, had vanished. After all, an evening in Jack’s company would not have been especially enlivening; a man who is still in the first year of matrimony is scarcely an ideal companion for a bachelor, he reflected; another year, with a pessimistic smile into his upturned collar, and Jack Maitland would probably hesitate long before disappointing a lifelong friend in order to enjoy the society of his wife!

Hansoms and broughams rolled noiselessly over the snow-carpeted asphalt. Clubs and hotels were brilliantly lighted. Against the drawn curtains of the residences along the way wreaths of holly and evergreen were darkly silhouetted. There was an intangible something in the air, an unwonted briskness and cheerfulness in the faces of the passers-by, that before long had their effect on Carson. Christmas does not, as a rule, mean much to a man of forty whose home is a club or hotel, and to whom the word relative stands only for a few widely scattered and barely known cousins. But tonight, for the first time in several years, the Christmas elixir was getting into Carson’s blood. He threw his head back farther, swung his stick jauntily, viewed his fellow-mortals with a spark of interest and hummed a song as he turned toward Broadway. He even began to look forward with distaste to the evening spent in his room with only numerous strong cigars and the newspapers for companions.

It was a few minutes after the hour when he crossed Broadway and reached the entrance of Daly’s. Carriages were drawing up in a steady stream to empty their occupants into the throng that passed from sidewalk to lobby. Umbrellas bobbed here and there above jeweled heads and costly furs. The electric lights sizzled, merry voices called, the passing cars glided by with softened clamor or paused and went on again with harsh grinding of brakes; the cries of ticket-speculators and newsboys supplied a presto in sharp contrast to the unceasing largo of shuffling footsteps and slowly crunching wheels.

One glance toward the box-office was sufficient to make Carson hesitate. A long line wound across the lobby and back again. It would be a matter of ten or fifteen minutes to dispose of his tickets by taking his place at the end of that slow-moving coil. There were the speculators, he thought, as he drew aside at the top of the steps, but he disliked trafficking with them. Better to stand the small loss, or—why not? Why not see the show now that he was here? To be sure, he had small relish, as a rule, for solitary theatre-going, but tonight anything seemed preferable to that over-decorated and steam-scented hotel room. It suddenly came to him that if he should go back there now it would be to experience the well-nigh forgotten sensation of loneliness! He smiled blankly at the thought. What had got into him? And as he smiled his eyes lifted and his gaze, unconsciously wandering over the passing throng, paused on a woman’s face. And as it rested there a pair of calmly troubled black eyes met it fairly, held it a moment and then were turned away just as Carson felt his pulses stirring with a sensation almost as forgotten as that of loneliness.

She stood with her back to one of the pillars that broke the incoming stream of humanity. Tall, straight, lithe, the lines of her fawn-hued cloak, which fell straight from shoulders to floor, gave her a slender, graceful dignity that insistently reminded Carson of a figure which had looked calmly down at him from a canvas in the Munich Gallery a few weeks before. But when he looked again at the face the resemblance vanished. The features before him were eminently American, small, expressive, sensitive, even nervous, but distinctly beautiful. The skin was delicately flushed, the mouth held a suggestion of impertinence in the dip of the red lips. Dark eyebrows and a mass of uncovered dark hair which just escaped being black threw into contrast the not unhealthy pallor of the oval face. Long lashes curved above the eyes which, as they turned again to him with a speculative look, Carson mentally vowed were the loveliest he had ever seen. The eyes moved away from him with calm deliberateness, the lights from the street pointing them with sparks of fire.

Somewhere, at the back of his head it might be, there was a faint dizziness which had gone almost before he had time to feel it. Mentally, moving his eyes toward the street with a real effort, he scoffed at himself. Was he a boy? Had his second childhood overtaken him so soon that he should throb at the glance of a pretty woman? Or was it a part of the mild madness which had filtered into his brain this evening? Resolutely he moved toward the steps leading to the foyer, became one of the shuffling, heavily scented, over-dressed throng. The ticket-taker held out his hand for Carson’s tickets, and Carson, muttering an apology, wormed his way back and out of the eddy.

He was momentarily insane, he told himself grimly, but he would play the part out. The sensation was distinctly pleasant; he would humor this new mood, even encourage it. Christmas Eve, he thought, like Christmas Day, comes but once a year. The woman still held her place, her gaze traveling over the arrivals as they climbed the steps from the slushy sidewalk. It was very evident that she was expecting someone, and evident, too, that she had begun to lose hope. Her expression had changed. The lips drooped disappointedly and the dark eyes looked suddenly tired. Carson discovered that here was a woman of possibly twenty-five or six where, but a moment before, had stood a girl of nineteen. But she still held the air and attitude of calm self-confidence, of superiority to the whims and trickeries of fate.

The crowd had thinned now to a straggling stream. At the box-office the line had dwindled to a scant half-dozen persons, and Carson could easily have redeemed his tickets. But he had abandoned the idea. He was going to see the play, and not alone. Late comers scuttled through the ticket-gate, the foyer showed empty beyond the doors and Carson knew that the curtain was up. The woman with the black eyes, seemingly unaware of his regard; drew a tiny watch from be- neath her cloak, glanced at it, walked to the edge of the steps and looked down the street. When she turned again Carson was beside her, hat in hand.

Something almost like recognition flickered for an instant in the black eyes, and Carson wondered. It seemed that she was almost on the point of putting out her hand. Perhaps his expression deterred her. Instead she looked calmly inquiring.

“I beg your pardon,” said Carson easily, respectfully. “I’m certain you and I are in the same quandary.”

“If you mean I am expecting someone who doesn’t come,” she answered, with an almost imperceptible shrug of her shoulders, “you are right. May I ask how it happens to interest you?”

Her voice was delicious, soft, slow and musical, and her question was robbed by it of all traces of hauteur.

“I suppose I have absolutely no excuse for addressing you,” replied Carson, smiling, “unless the fact that misery loves company is some sort of an excuse.”

“Suppose we take the excuse for granted,” she answered, with a little demure smile. “Then what?”

“Then I have a favor to ask which sounds so tremendously cheeky that my courage fails me.”

“And yet you don’t apparently lack courage.”

“I deserve worse than that from you,” he laughed. “And I will take my punishment cheerfully if you will grant my favor.”

“I fear I shall have to learn what it is before I can answer.”

“It is this. I have two tickets here. At the last moment my friend failed me. I hate to go to the theatre alone. You find yourself, I fancy, in much the same predicament. Surely it isn’t intended that we shall miss our enjoyment merely because of the inconsiderate behavior of our friends?”

“You mean that you want me to occupy your second seat?” she asked calmly.

“I mean that by doing so you will confer the greatest favor on a poor mortal who detests his own company.”

“And afterwards?” she asked.

“Afterwards I will do your bidding implicitly.”

She studied his face thoughtfully a moment. Then,

“You look like a gentleman,” she said half to herself.

“I hope my looks don’t belie my actions,” he replied.

She turned toward the street. An instant passed. Then,

“Let us see,” she said, and slipped her hand within his arm.

The first act was well along when they took their seats halfway up the orchestra. They had left their wraps at the cloak-room and now Carson beheld his companion in an evening gown of pale blue that added threefold to her charms. The gown was cut away slightly at the neck and a string of turquoises fell over the lace edge. Other turquoises shone dully on her fingers when she had removed her gloves, and with them was a hoop of diamonds on the third finger of the right hand, a solitaire beside it, and a gold band on the middle finger. Carson saw and speculated. In her hair was a single bar of diamonds.

There was no conversation during the first act. She watched the stage attentively, and Carson strove to do the same, yet could not resist occasional side glances at the delicate profile of his companion. Finally he lost all track of the play in wondering who and what she was. Her total lack of embarrassment under circumstances which would have sent many women into mild hysterics suggested unflattering conclusions. Yet he had only to look at her face to be certain of the injustice of them. If her rings were to be believed, she was married; and there was that about her which gave support to this belief. But married or unmarried, she was charming, and he blessed Jack Maitland for his delinquency. The curtain fell at last, and she turned to him with a smile as the lights flared up.

“Now you may talk,” she said.

But for a moment he said nothing, merely looked at her. She shook her head.

“You mustn’t do that,” she reproved.

“What?”

“Wonder who I am and why I—came.”

“Mustn’t I?”

“No; it’s not fair. There must be no naming of names.”

“But I don’t mind telling you mine, if you care to know it,” he said craftily.

“Very well, then; who are you, please?”

“Carson, George Frederick, very much at your service.”

“Profession?”

He shook his head. “I have none.”

“Business?”

“Nor business.”

“What do you do in the world?”

“Nothing that’s worth while. I travel a bit now and then, and sometimes I try to bore people with what I’ve seen.”

“You mean that you write books?”

“I have written two or three.”

“About——?”

“One about Persia, another about Korea, another about Siberia.”

She nodded her head. “I know; I’ve seen your books.”

“You don’t happen to have read any of them?”

“No; travel doesn’t interest me.”

“I am sorry.” He sighed deeply.

“Why?”

“I thought I was about to discover one person who had read them.”

She laughed. “I am sorry to disappoint you. Is it so bad as that?”

“Very nearly.”

“But—you have money?”

“Too much.”

“And friends?”

“A few—perhaps. I thought I had one in particular until tonight. You see how he has used me—thank heaven!”

“He was to have sat where I am sitting?”

“Yes. I reached New York three days ago and sought him out. I found that he had taken advantage of my two years’ absence abroad to get married.”

“How inconsiderate!”

“Exactly. He asked me to his apartment. I declined to go.”

“Declined? But why?”

“I wanted him to realize the fact that I disapproved. But he persisted, and at last I yielded. Tomorrow I am to take dinner with my usurper.”

“You mean his wife?”

“Yes.”

“But—usurper?”

“Decidedly. You are a woman and you won’t understand. When a man marries he is lost to his male friends.”

“But why? Surely the wife doesn't ask that?’

“Not consciously. But—you can see for yourself. ‘Daly’s at eight,’ I told him. Half an hour before that time he sends me a note pleading unforeseen circumstances. Don’t I know the unforeseen circumstances? I could tell you the color of her hair.”

“Well?” she laughed.

He looked at her own dark hair. “Yellow,” he answered.

“I believe you are only guessing, if you’ve never seen her.”

“Well, I am; but I wager I am right.”

“But perhaps you are doing him an injustice. Is he a business man?”

He nodded. “Lawyer, save the mark!”

“Then isn’t it possible that he may have had a sudden call to his office or—or somewhere?”

“You are merciful,” he answered, “but—” He shook his head sadly as one who has long watched the duplicity of man.

“Now, my case is a point in proof,” she said. “I, too, was told ‘Daly’s at eight.’ But—well, you see!” She threw her hands apart. “My—my husband was obliged to go to his office right after dinner to meet some troublesome persons. I was to come here and wait for him. If he didn’t appear I was to go home again. I didn’t obey very well, did I?” she added smilingly.

“I congratulate you on your disobedience,” he said gravely. “Husbands should be taught their places.”

She laughed softly.

“There spake a bachelor.”

“Without bias,” he added. “It is possible I have met your husband,” he went on carelessly. “You said his name was——”

“Quite so.” Their eyes met and they laughed merrily.

“You mustn’t lay traps,” she said.

“What is it about snares and the unwary?” he asked. “You certainly are not one of the unwary.”

“I wonder if you really believe that?” she said, frowning her white forehead into thoughtful lines.

“I really do. I think—pardon the presumption!—I think I can tell you a great deal about yourself, your character, likes and aversions, you know. Shall I try?” He turned further toward her, a smile half ironical, wholly provocative on his good-looking features.

She shook her head. “I’d rather you didn’t. Somehow, I fancy you might hit it.” There was a pause during which she took up her program and idly turned the leaves, and wherein he found himself looking, as through a microscope, at the dead-white curve of her tiny ear and the threads of dark hair sweeping upward from behind it. The sudden sense of proximity came to him with a shock that sent his pulses to racing again. Then, without looking up:

“Well?” she said. “I am waiting.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to hear?” he protested.

“I don’t,” she laughed; “so tell me.”

“First of all, then,” he answered, dropping his voice, “you are brave in a physical way that women seldom are. I don’t believe you have ever been frightened.”

“Well—but go on.”

“I do not think you are amiable in the popular sense of the word. I can imagine you all kindness, gentleness and self-effacement where your affections are engaged, and fiercely cruel when they are not and when it pleases you to prove your sex.”

“You are uncanny,” she said, with a little shiver not wholly feigned.

“You have many masculine qualities. You hold deceit to be the greatest of all the deadly sins, and sincerity the most exalted of the virtues. You detest hypocrisy above everything. You are a stanch friend and a bitter enemy. I doubt if you are very domestic; I think you like action better than ease; had you been a man you would have led other men. You have spoken of your husband, and so I know you to be married. You married for one of two reasons only: either because you were overwhelmingly in love or because your life had become dull and you craved interest, perhaps excitement; for, in spite of your calmness, excitement is life to you. Were you a man I would seek your friendship; as it is——”

“As it is?” she asked, without looking up.

“As it is—I throw myself on your mercy,” he answered, smiling a little. “Your favors are not to be compelled.”

“You are modest,” she said lightly.

“No, I am only pretending to be. But you haven't told me how well or ill I have succeeded in my reading.”

“No. I sha’n’t do that. Should you never meet me again it won’t matter whether you know or not. If you do—there will be no need of my telling you.”

“Whether we meet or don’t meet is for you to decide,” he answered gravely.

“I have already decided,” she answered smilingly and calmly.

“And the decision is——”

“You shall hear it afterward.”

The orchestra was taking its place again; a few scrapings of ’cello and violins sounded through the hum of voices. There was silence between them for a moment. Then, turning almost impulsively, she asked:

“Will you make me a promise?”

“Not blindfolded,” he answered.

“You,” she smiled, “are not of the unwary, either, it seems. Well, promise me this—that you will not keep your engagement for dinner tomorrow with your friend.”

He tried to read the reason for the request, but her face baffled him.

“Am I to hear why?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Call it a whim.”

“I don’t think you have whims,” he answered doubtfully.

There was that almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders that he was coming to look upon as in some manner symbolical of her.

“You will promise?” she asked.

“No,” he answered calmly, “I can’t promise.”

“I didn’t think you would,” she said thoughtfully. There was nothing of either chagrin or disappointment in her tones. “But,” she continued, “if you find, when you think it over, that it is possible to break that engagement, will you do so?”

“That I can promise,” he answered, adding, “It isn’t necessary, I fancy, for me to tell you that you have aroused my curiosity.”

“Not at all necessary,” she answered, with a laugh. “The art of arousing curiosity is a woman’s most important—and infallible—accomplishment.”

“May I flatter myself that you consider me worthy of a display of that accomplishment?”

“That, again, is not fair,” she answered as the lights went down. “If I say no you will think me uncivil; if I say yes you will take it that I have said more. I prefer to be silent.”

“Thereby proving your absolute mastery of the aforesaid accomplishment.”

She smiled and took up her program.

The last act passed in a blaze of color, a whirl of action and an avalanche of melody. When the curtain finally dropped Carson piloted his companion to the cloak-room, helped her on with her wraps and silently accompanied her to the lobby. There he turned to her questioningly.

“A hansom, please,” she answered.

He gave the order and returned to her side. It was still snowing and had grown colder.

“I want to thank you for your kindness,” he said. “It was good of you.”

“I wonder if you think that?” she asked, her black eyes trying to read his face.

“I usually mean what I say,” he answered simply.

“I believe you do,” she replied. “Is that my carriage?”

He led her down the steps, across the slushy sidewalk, and helped her into the hansom. Then he looked at her again inquiringly, smiling gravely. She shook her head. He closed the doors.

“And your decision?” he asked.

“It’s out of my hands,” she said. “We shall meet again very shortly, I think. And—and I’ve a confession to make.”

“Yes?”

“I had seen your picture and I knew who you were when I first saw you tonight.”

“Indeed!” he said. “Then I have sufficient vanity to construe your course into a compliment.”

“Good night.”

“Good night,” he answered. He held her gloved hand an instant ere it was drawn slowly but decisively away. “Until that next meeting which I fear I can’t believe in as implicitly as you do.”

“It depends on you,” she answered, settling back against the cushions.

“On me? Then——”

“Move on there, hansom!” commanded a policeman.

Carson removed his hat, stepped back and caught an inscrutable smile from the depths of the carriage. Then he lighted a cigar and walked thoughtfully back to the hotel through the snow.

 

Three days later Jack Maitland found a note among his morning’s mail which at once puzzled and annoyed him. After reading it through he emitted a grunt of disapproval.

“What do you think that idiot has gone and done?” he demanded. Mrs. Maitland observed him calmly across the table.

“I’m sure I don’t know, Jack. And who is the idiot?”

“Why, Carson, of course. Listen to this:

“Dear Jack:

“When you get this I shall be crossing again. And the fact will prevent me from keeping my engagement with you and Mrs. Maitland for the theatre on Thursday. It looks a shabby trick, old man, but circumstances have arisen which render my presence on the other side of the globe rather necessary. Please present my compliments to your wife, and assure her that only imperative duty could have kept me from the pleasure promised by your kind invitation. Make my peace with her, and forgive me yourself for running off in this impolite manner. I fear I didn’t succeed in half telling you how much I enjoyed the Christmas dinner; it was a glimpse of domestic paradise to this poor beggar of a bachelor. And may your paradise blossom fairer and fairer with every year. If I ever secure a permanent address where I am going I will send it to you in the hope that you will some day drop me a line. If not, give me a thought now and then until we meet. Remember me to Mrs. Maitland, please, and accept all good wishes for yours,

“Sincerely,

“Carson.

“Now—now, what do you think of that?”

Mrs. Maitland arose from her chair and walked to the window.

“I think,” she said quietly, “I think he did what was right—and brave.”

“Right? Brave? How do you mean?” asked her husband irascibly.

“I mean,” she answered, without turning her head, “that he was brave to—to give up all this for—his duty.”

“Duty!” scoffed Maitland. “Duty! His duty’s toward his friends sometimes, it seems to me!”

His wife smiled unseen and sighed unheard.

“Perhaps that is what he thought,” she whispered.