The Cheat (Holman)/Chapter 11
Fate is a careless stage manager. A scene-shifter could give her pointers. Usually her most important strokes lack utterly the element of the dramatic and have the appearance of the common-place. Such ordinary phenomena as missed trains, letters which did not get mailed and slips of the tongue frequently mark the turning points in human lives. A Broadway playwright would protest that there is no "punch" in such things. But in the theater of life the dramatic climaxes are not carefully arranged so that the audience can leave at eleven o'clock. The audience is not considered at all. Neither is the player who is for the moment in the star rôle. His lines are not told him in advance. He steps out before the footlights of life and Fate furnishes him with his cue. But whether, in following it, his actions and lines mark a crisis in the play, whether the critical point was reached in the first or last act, he generally cannot tell. ······· It was a month since Carmelita had taken the money won at Canary Cottage and used it to lease the elaborately furnished Sound-view "cottage" at Hedgewood. It was now a month since she had leased the cottage and Carmelita Drake was giving a birthday party at her charming Long Island country home. She was hesitating whether to place her husband or her closest other male friend, the society favorite, Prince Rao-Singh, at her side. A picture of loveliness in a red, velvety evening gown that set off her black hair and exquisite creamy skin in all its richness, she bent over the white napery of the table linen toying with two place cards.
Finally she decided it would be Dudley. She had not seen him in a week and, though it was not the thing in Lucy Hodge's and her set, who were to compose the other guests at her birthday dinner, to sit next to one's own husband, she felt that in this case she could make an exception, although it was true that Dudley was not lively company these days. He did not seem to be at home among her gay friends upon the occasion of his week-end visits and she knew that the arrangement under which they had been living during the month she had been occupying the country house and he had been staying at their Greenwich Village apartment alone, did not please him.
It was not alone the fact that he was embarrassed to be under a roof that his wife was paying for, although he resented this also. But the important thing was that Carmelita was changing, and he did not like it. He detected the influence of the fast crowd with which she was traveling. They were wasters most of them. Scandal seemed to be their chief diversion. And he had heard lately much talk of almost nightly visits to a society gambling resort called Canary Cottage, located nearby. "So-and-so made a killing in the Street last week and dropped it all at Canary Cottage the next night" or "No wonder the Stacey-Smiths have a new Pierce Arrow; look at the way they've been cleaning up at Canary Cottage lately" were samples of this kind of talk. Once or twice Carmelita and he had been invited to go along to this popular place and, with a quick glance at the person extending the invitation and then at him, she had hurriedly declined. Was there more in this than met the eye?
Yes, Carmelita was changing. She was once again the adorable, luxuriously gowned lady of wealth, it seemed, whom he had met and fallen in love with in Paris and once more in the gay world in which he had first met her. But she was yet somehow different. She seemed older, more determinedly gay, more sophisticated, and not quite happy. He had asked her if she was worried about anything and she had quickly replied in the negative. Was it money? He had never questioned her as to the amount of money she had really received from her mother's estate. Certainly it must have been a very large amount, to pay for the butler and the maid and the rest of the extravagant establishment Carmelita was running. But, once having made his decision to allow her to spend her own money in her own way, he had not inquired further into financial details.
The truth was that Dudley Drake was now living in a state of sullen resignation that was not good for his piece of mind or his relations with his wife. He still loved her with all his heart. There were lonely moments when he longed for her madly and had wild impulses to dash out to Hedgewood and sweep away all the artificiality that bound her life there and which he felt was keeping them apart, and bring her back to what she had once called their "bird cage" to enjoy her for himself alone. Added to that was his acknowledged jealousy of Rao-Singh and the apparently increasing intimacy between the Hindu, now Carmelita's close neighbor, and his wife. Dudley could hardly hear the Indian's name mentioned without bristling. He could not bear to see them together. The fellow was downright offensive, despite his wealth and his polished manner.
Carmelita had noticed her husband's growing restlessness and wondered about it, but she had other, sharper worries that occupied her mind now. Having settled the matter of the place cards by putting Dudley's next to her, with a silent hope that he would be more agreeable and light-hearted than he had been lately, she turned to find the butler with a letter for her. It bore a South American postmark and she opened it eagerly. The writing was in Spanish:
Carmelita's lips trembled. Then she walked over, letter in hand, into the living-room and to a little mahogany desk in the corner. From a drawer she drew out a formidable heap of unpaid bills—dressmakers', grocers', florists', and other tradespeople's—and stared at them abstractedly. No use looking at them again. That did not make them less. She had a few days ago in desperation cabled her father for money, hoping he had by this time reconciled himself to her marriage and was perhaps eager to hear from her. And this was the disconcerting answer.
The bills were not the only fruits of folly confronting her, staggering as the amount of themwas. She had been playing roulette three or four times a week for the past month at Canary Cottage, and almost from the start, ever since her initial lucky evening, she had lost. Hayden, the manager, held her I. O. U.'s for nearly five thousand dollars, the result of her frantic attempts to recoup her losses by playing for heavier and heavier stakes. Carmelita got little pleasure out of roulette now, but the game was the favorite with her crowd for the moment and she was expected to do as the others did.
Carmelita passed her hand distractedly over her forehead in a gesture of weariness. Well, this would never do. She was giving a birthday party within an hour and she would be, as usual, the gay and charming hostess. She turned to rise and then gave a little gasp of startled surprise at the presence of another person in the room. Prince Rao-Singh, in evening clothes, had entered noiselessly and stood a few feet from the back of her chair.
"Please forgive me for intruding," he said, "but the door was open and there was no one outside to receive me." This was quite true. The butler was assisting the maid in the kitchen in the preparations for the dinner. Carmelita had risen, the bills and her father's letter clutched in her hand. She smiled a greeting.
He did not attempt to conceal his knowledge of what the papers in her hand meant. "Are you in trouble, Carmelita?" he asked quietly.
Her pride struggled with her desire to confide in some one. Then, "Yes. Here—read it." And she handed him her father's letter, turning her face away to conceal her concern. He scanned the note gravely.
"There is little hope there," he agreed, handing the letter back. "But I cannot endure seeing you in trouble. Will you not let me help you? I can lend you—"
"No, no—please," she cried in protest. He had started to draw his check book from his pocket and he now replaced it with a's hrug of his shoulders. She did not see the look of thwarted satisfaction that clouded his face at her refusal. He was like a cat who is about to pounce upon a helpless canary and the bird suddenly flies away.
"You have not been fortunate at roulette either, have you?" he asked sympathetically.
"No," she admitted. "Hayden has been after me to make good my I. O. U.'s but he will have to wait."
"If your creditors become unmanageable, Carmelita, remember that you can always depend upon me."
She thanked him doubtfully and said that she would remember. Then because he saw that he had gone far enough and the subject was a painful one for her to discuss, he led the conversation into new and gayer channels. He reached into a back pocket and pulled out a flat box—marked, she noticed, with the burnt-in head of the Bengal tiger that curiously branded all his possessions.
"I have brought you a little birthday remembrance," he announced. "If you will close your eyes—"
Carmelita, agog with interest, obeyed and he drew from the plush-lined box an exquisite necklace of pearls and slowly clasped it around her white neck. His hands trembled as they momentarily touched her firm, smooth flesh. His eyes were narrowed with emotion. He turned her gently toward the mirror which hung near the desk and announced to her that she might open her eyes. Carmelita uttered an exclamation of deep pleasure at the sudden sight of the glittering gems. Then she caught a glimpse in the mirror of the face of their donor, flushed and desiring and, frightened, she turned quickly and started to unclasp the necklace with fumbling fingers.
"Your gift is very beautiful but it is far too extravagant. I could not accept it," she said confusedly.
"Please," he said, raising his hand as if to stop her. "It is merely a token of deep friendship—from my collection. It has been lying useless in its case and you are the only woman I know beautiful enough to match its brilliance. If you will not accept it as a gift, at least wear it to please me."
She hesitated. As they stood there close to each other Dudley, who had just arrived from New York, appeared on the threshold, a dusty bag in his hand. He was displeased at the tableau that met his eye. But the jealous flare that blazed in his eyes was controlled immediately and he said as casually as possible, ignoring the Hindu and speaking only to his wife. "Sorry I'm late—held up at the office—but I can dress in ten minutes."
Carmelita, feeling a little guilty, approached him with a welcoming kiss. Rao-Singh did not require the little nod from her to withdraw, and Carmelita, still contrite, accompanied Dudley arm in arm up to his room and busied herself laying out his things under the pretext of hastening his dressing. Alone with her he took her in his arms and tried to drown his loneliness in the joy of once more having her close to him.
"You grow more beautiful every day, carissima," he cried, using for the first time in months his pet Spanish name for her. He held her off from him to admire her. It was then he noticed for the first time the necklace.
"A present?" he asked, indicating the jewels. She was trapped for a moment and her voice was a little uncertain as she uttered the lie that flashed into her brain: "Yes—from—er—Lucy and Jack." She could rely upon Lucy to help her out.
He seemed to be satisfied. But his face was a little rueful as he dug into his pocket and pulled out a small box. "I'm almost ashamed now to offer you my present. It's so insignificant alongside those pearls." He placed upon her finger a quaint antique ring of an Italian design. He had searched all over New York for a ring that would be out of the ordinary and the price he had paid for it seemed to him at the time to class it as one of his few extravagances. But compared with those perfect pearls resting upon her neck as if they had at last found the perfect setting for their rare beauty, his ring was nothing.
Carmelita was sincerely pleased with it however. "It was dear of you to think of such a thing," she beamed upon him. Then once more the anxious hostess, "I can hear the others arriving below, Dudley. I shall have to dash down, and you must really hurry."
Though it was really not her fault, he was a little hurt because she had not lingered longer to admire her gift from him.
The last of the guests had arrived as Dudley appeared in the living-room. Except for a perfunctory greeting from the Hodges, they paid very little attention to him. It was a crowd in which husbands did not arouse much interest except from other husbands' wives. Dudley's good looks and well set-up appearance had won him attention from many of Carmelita's women hangers-on at first, but his lack of response had gradually led to a cooling of their ardor for him. He was quite evidently in love with his wife alone and not eager for further conquests. Hence uninteresting.
The men in the group were concentrating around Carmelita, and the swarthy Rao-Singh seemed to be a favorite with the women. The Hindu had the appearance of discharging the duties of a host in his own stead, Dudley thought. The butler announced dinner and he discovered to his agreeable surprise that he was to escort Carmelita.
"It is against all rules to be taken in to dinner by one's own husband but I see you so seldom—I want you all to myself," she smiled, pressing his arm.
But Rao-Singh, seated at her left, monopolized most of her attention and Dudley settled into silence early in the meal, despite the efforts of the willowy Gladys Hodge, Lucy's cousin whom she had brought out of Terre Haute to introduce to Long Island society, to engage him in chatter.