第39章 VII(5)

He usually loved compliment, could take it in its rawest form with fine human gusto. Now, he did not care enough about that "father says" to rise to her obvious bait. "I'm horribly tired," he said. "Shall I see you to-morrow? No, I guess not--not for several days. You understand?"

"Perfectly," replied she. "I'll miss you dreadfully, but my father has trained me well. I know I mustn't be selfish--and tempt you to neglect things."

"Thank you," said he. "I must be off."

"You'll come in--just a moment?" Her eyes sparkled. "The butler will have sense enough to go straight away--and the small reception room will be quite empty as usual."

He could not escape. A few seconds and he was alone with her in the little room--how often had he--they--been glad of its quiet and seclusion on such occasions! She laid her hand upon his shoulders, gazed at him proudly. "It was here," said she, "that you first kissed me. Do you remember?"

To take her gaze from his face and to avoid seeing her look of loving trust, he put his arms round her.

"I don't deserve you," he said--one of those empty pretenses of confession that yet give the human soul a sense of truthfulness.

"You'd not say that if you knew how happy you make me," murmured she.

The welcome sound of a step in the hall give him his release. When he was in the street, he wiped his hot face with his handkerchief. "And I thought I had no moral sense left!" he reflected--not the first man, in this climax day of the triumph of selfish philosophies, to be astonished by the discovery that the dead hands of heredity and tradition have a power that can successfully defy reason.

He started to walk back home, on impulse took a passing taxi and went to his club. It was the Federal.

They said of it that no man who amounted to anything in New York could be elected a member, because any man on his way up could not but offend one or more of the important persons in control. Most of its members were nominated at birth or in childhood and elected as soon as they were twenty-one. Norman was elected after he became a man of consequence. He regarded it as one of the signal triumphs of his career; and beyond question it was proof of his power, of the eagerness of important men, despite their jealousy, to please him and to be in a position to get the benefit of his brains should need arise. Norman's whole career, like every career great and small, in the arena of action, was a derision of the ancient moralities, a demonstration of the value of fear as an aid to success. Even his friends--and he had as many as he cared to have--had been drawn to him by the desire to placate him, to stand well where there was danger in standing ill.

Until dinner time he stood at the club bar, drinking one cocktail after another with that supreme indifference to consequences to health which made his fellow men gape and wonder--and cost an occasional imitator health, and perhaps life. Nor did the powerful liquor have the least effect upon him, apparently. Possibly he was in a better humor, but not noticeably so.

He dined at the club and spent the evening at bridge, winning several hundred dollars. He enjoyed the consideration he received at that club, for his fellow members being men of both social and financial consequence, their conspicuous respect for him was a concentrated essence of general adulation. He lingered on, eating a great supper with real appetite. He went home in high good humor with himself. He felt that he was a conqueror born, that such things of his desire as did not come could be forced to come. He no longer regarded his passion for the nebulous girl of many personalities as a descent from dignity. Was he not king?

Did not his favor give her whatever rank he pleased?

Might not a king pick and choose, according to his fancy? Let the smaller fry grow nervous about these matters of caste. They did well to take care lest they should fall. But not he! He had won thus far by haughtiness, never by cringing. His mortal day would be that in which he should abandon his natural tactics for the modes of lesser men. True, only a strong head could remain steady in these giddy altitudes of self-confidence. But was not his head strong?

And without hesitation he called up the vision that made him delirious-and detained it and reveled in it until sleep came.