Black Oxen

XXIV

It was a cold bright day. The ice on the trees of Central Park was a diamond iridescence. Nursemaids were leading children, bits of muffled wealth, along the alleys. Horses pounded on the bridle paths. Automobiles and taxis, that must have looked to the airman above like aimless black planes drifting in a crystal sea, were carrying people to a thousand destinies. Towering on all sides was the irregular concrete mass of New York. As dusk fell, lights in those high buildings began to appear, first intermittently, then as long necklaces of brilliants strung against the sky. Silence fell on the Park.

Clavering walked until he could walk no farther, then took a bus at One Hundred and Tenth Street for Claremont. When he reached the restaurant he could think of only three men whose companionship would be endurable, and failing to get any of them on the telephone resigned himself to a solitary dinner. But still restless, he wandered over to a window and stared out across the Hudson at the dark Palisades on the opposite shore. Battleships were at anchor, for there had been no ice in the Hudson this winter, and a steamboat with its double chain of lights swam gracefully up the river. The cold winter stars winked down indifferently upon seething human hearts.

He still refused to admit that the source of his uneasiness was that revelation set for Saturday night. Nothing but death itself could halt his marriage with this woman, for she herself had unequivocally stated that after Saturday night the future would be in his hands. His! … Her secret? Not that she had had lovers, for he had accepted that fact already, and for him the past had ceased to exist. Her husband was dead. Nothing else mattered. Nevertheless, the vague prescient chill he had experienced the night he first met her eyes, and once or twice since, accompanied as it was by a curious sense that just below his consciousness lay the key to the mystery, rattling now and again, but sinking deeper every time he made a dart at it, had defied further evasion since the receipt of her cryptic letter. He was the more uneasy as she seemed far more certain of Mrs. Oglethorpe than of himself.

Once more he heard the key rattle, but higher … almost in his consciousness … for the first time it seemed to sound a double note of warning … he had a sudden vision of a locked door—and not a door locked on a mere secret.

He swung about impatiently. The explanation of his mood was this hideous interval to be got through, Heaven alone knew how. No wonder he had felt a sensation of terror. When a man is in the unsatisfied stages of love he must expect occasional attacks of greensickness, sullen passions intensified by unreasoning fear. And he was luckier than most. He had been the confidant of men in love, with hope deferred or blasted, and although he had been sympathetic enough, and convinced that men had a far deeper capacity for suffering than women, still had his pity been tempered by a certain contempt. Those had been the times when he had flouted the idea that he was basically romantic; and that he had never made a jackass of himself over any woman had induced a feeling of superiority that had expanded his ego. Now he was convinced that his capacity for love put theirs to shame, and he was filled with pride at the thought. Still—he wished it were Saturday night.

He was crossing the room to his solitary table when he saw Jim Oglethorpe enter. His first impulse was to avoid him. The restaurant was well-filled and he could easily take a table in a corner with his back to the room. But dining alone was a melancholy business at best—and tonight! If Oglethorpe brought up Madame Zattiany's name he could change the subject or state bluntly that he had his reasons for not wishing to discuss her. As he stood hesitating, Oglethorpe caught sight of him and almost ran across the room, his face, which had looked heavy and worried, glowing with pleasure.

"Jove, this is luck!" he exclaimed. "Alone? So am I. Got in this morning and found Janet had a dinner on for those infernally noisy friends of hers. Got something to think over, so thought I'd come out here. This is really luck as I was going to hunt you up tomorrow. Let's sit here. I want to talk."

He had led the way to a table in a remote corner, secluded, so far. He beckoned the head waiter, who agreed that it should remain secluded. Then he asked Clavering to order the dinner, and, folding his arms, stared out of the window, his face sagging once more. He was still a young man, not more than forty-five, but in spite of his love of outdoor sport he showed a more consistent love of eating and drinking in flabby muscles and pouches under the eyes. It was an amiable, rather weak but stubborn face that had been handsome in youth when his eyes were bright and clear skin covered firm muscles, and it would be handsome again when years had compelled him to diet and his already faded hair had turned white; his features were regular and his figure well-knit under its premature accumulations.

He produced a flask from his pocket when the waiter had discreetly turned his back, and their ice-water might have passed for cold tea.

"Think I'll come to the point," he said. "You know me well enough not to mind anything I say."

Clavering glanced up from his oysters in alarm. "There's just one question I won't discuss," he said sharply.

Oglethorpe stared. "You don't mean to say you're interested in her? So much the better! And it strikes me you can't have any objection to discussing her with me. I'm her father, ain't I?"

"Her father—are you talking of Janet?"

"Who else? I'm worried as the devil. Have been ever since I got in this morning. I'd telegraphed I was coming, and when I got to the house Molly told me that mother wanted to see me at once and I posted down there. It was about Janet, and you know more about it than I do."

"I suppose I know what you mean. But it turned out all right. She happened to meet me, not some man who might have annoyed her. Of course she shouldn't have taken such a risk, but; what can you do with these flappers? They're all in league together and you might as well let them go their little pace. It won't last. They'll soon be older, and I don't suppose you intend to play the heavy father and lock her up."

"No, but I'd like damn well to get her married. Mother told me a pretty tale. It seems she made a row at Sherry's last night, making you and some lady you had with you as conspicuous as herself. Mrs. Vane was there and carried it straight to mother. Mother's no fool and had already got on to this younger generation business and given Janny one or two tongue lashings, but she never dreamed it had gone as far as it looks. Roaming the streets alone at one in the morning! She'd undoubtedly been drinking last night—God! I've a notion to take a switch to her. And I suppose she was pretty well lit the night you picked her up. I've never seen a hint of it. Janny's spoilt enough. Her mother never had the slightest control over her and she could always get round me. But she won't in the future. I'll get top-hand somehow. God! My daughter! Tell me your side of it, will you?"

Clavering, who was genuinely fond of Oglethorpe, and relieved, moreover, that he had not yet heard of Madame Zattiany, gave a cautious and colorless account of the adventure.

"It is possible that she had had a cocktail or two," he concluded. "But you must expect that. If the flapper should adopt a coat of arms no doubt it would be a cocktail rampant with three cigarettes argent on a field de rouge. However, it wouldn't be a bad idea if you took her in hand. That is, if you can."

"I'll do it all right. D'you mean to tell me she was at Farren's without a chaperon?"

"There may have been a chaperon to each couple for all I know."

"You know damn well there wasn't. No chaperon would have left her alone."

"But surely, Jim, you know that chaperons are practically obsolete. They don't gee with cocktails and petting parties. The New Freedom! The Reign of Youth!"

"Damn nonsense. No, I didn't know it. I supposed she was properly chaperoned, as girls of her class always have been. You know how much I care for Society, and I haven't got to the chicken stage either. Took it for granted that certain cast-iron conventions were still observed, in our set at least. Of course I've seen her drink cocktails at home and thought it rather cute, and I've rubbed the paint off her cheeks and lips once or twice. Girls are making up nowadays as if they were strumpets, but some little fool started it, and you know the old saying: 'What one monkey does the other monkey must do.' It never worried me. Of course I've heard more or less about these young idiots; they're always being discussed and written up; but somehow you never think those things can happen in your own family.… I went straight home and blew up Molly—haven't had a sight of Janet yet—and of course she bawled. Always does. When I told her that Janet had been at Farren's alone she protested that Janet had told her she was going to bed early that night. Even last night, when she had a theatre party, she understood that some young married woman was along. But Molly's a fool. What on earth am I to do with Janet? There were no such girls in my young days. Some of them were bad uns, but as discreet as you make 'em. Didn't disgrace their families. Some of them used to drink, right enough, but they were as smooth as silk in public, and went to a sanitarium to sober up when it got the best of 'em. But these girls appear to be about as discreet as street-walkers. You don't think they kick over the traces, do you?"

"I'm dead sure that Janet hasn't. She puts on the cap and bells partly because it's the fashion, partly because she thinks girls are alive and having their fun for the first time. But she's no fool. She nearly floored me once or twice. She'll take care of herself."

"Girls don't take care of themselves when they're drunk. But I've an idea there's something else the matter with her. At least mother has?"

"Something else?"

"In love."

"Well, there's your chance to marry her off. The sooner the better. But why should it drive her to drink? If she's fixed her affections on any of those chaps that dance at her beck——"

"She hasn't. She's in love with you."

"What!" Clavering dropped his fork. When the waiter had rushed to present him with another and retired, he still stared at Oglethorpe as if he had been stunned by a blow between the eyes. "Whatever—what on earth put such an idea into Mrs. Oglethorpe's head? The child can't endure me. She pretty well proved it last night, and I've always known she disliked me—since she grew up, that is. To be perfectly frank, aside from the fact that I don't care for young girls, she always irritates me like the deuce, and I've never made any secret of it. Night before last I couldn't well have made myself more disagreeable if I'd rehearsed for the part."

Oglethorpe grinned. "Lot you know about girls. Just the way to make 'em crazy about you. Like all idealists, you don't know a thing about women. Being a rank materialist myself, I know 'em like a book. The emancipated flapper is just plain female under her paint and outside her cocktails. More so for she's more stimulated. Where girls used to be merely romantic, she's romantic—callow romance of youth, perhaps, but still romantic—plus sex-instinct rampant. At least that's the way I size 'em up, and its logic. There's no virginity of mind left, mauled as they must be and half-stewed all the time, and they're wild to get rid of the other. But they're too young yet to be promiscuous, at least those of Janet's sort, and they want to fall in love and get him quick. See the point?"

"No doubt you're right. But I'm not the object of Janet's young affections. She's either led your mother to believe it for purposes of her own, or Mrs. Oglethorpe has merely jumped at that conclusion—well, Heaven only knows why."

"You know why. Because she'd like it. So would I."

"Good Lord, Jim! I'm nearly old enough to be her father. Barely ten years younger than yourself."

"You'll never be as old as I am this minute, and I'd give my eyes to see you married to her. Moreover, I'm convinced mother's right. Janny let out something—broke down, I fancy, although mother wouldn't give her away any further. And you used to be fond of her when she was a child. She's sat on your lap a hundred times."

"My dear Jim," said Clavering drily. "You've just pronounced yourself a man of consummate experience. Need I remind you that when a man has held a girl on his lap as a child, she is generally the last girl he wants on his lap later on? Man love's the shock of novelty, the spice of surprise. It's hard to get that out of a girl you have spanked—as I did Janet on two different occasions. She was a fascinating youngster, but a little devil if there ever was one."

"She's full of fascination yet. I can see that, if I am her father. A year or two from now, when she comes to her senses——"

"Oh, cut it out, Jim! I won't listen. Even it were true—and I'd stake my life it isn't—I—well——"

"D'you mean there's some other woman?"

"I don't care to talk about it—but—let it go at that."

"Sorry. I'd have liked it. You could have made a fine woman out of Janny. She has it in her."

Clavering did not express his doubts on this point aloud. He was in truth horribly embarrassed and hardly knew what to say. Not for a moment did he believe that the minx was in love with him, nor would he have taken the trouble to find out, even to please Jim Oglethorpe and his mother, had Mary Zattiany never crossed his horizon. But he felt sorry for his friend and would have liked to banish his brooding distress.

"Look here!" he exclaimed. "You'll have to buck up and take her in hand. After all, you're her father and she respects you. No girl respects her mother these days, apparently, but the father has the advantage of being male. Give her a talking to. Tell her how cut up you are. She's too young to be as hard as she likes to think. Don't preach. That would make matters worse. Appeal to her. Tell her she's making you miserable. If that doesn't work—well, your idea of taking a switch to her isn't bad. A sound spanking is what they all need, and it certainly would take the starch out of them. Make them feel so damned young they'd forget just how blasé they're trying to be."

"She might run away," rumbled Oglethorpe. "I believe I'll try it, though, if worse comes to worst. I'll have no filthy scandals in my family."

"Why not collect all the fathers and plan a regular campaign? Without their allowances they'd soon be helpless. It would be a battle royal and might make history! Might also get hold of the fathers of these young chaps. Few have independent incomes."

Oglethorpe laughed for the first time. "Not a bad idea for a bachelor, Lee. Maybe I'll try it. Let's get out of this. How about the Follies?"

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