The Foolish Virgin
T >>
Thomas Dixon >> The Foolish Virgin
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15
Mary smiled.
"Quite well--I've spent many happy hours in its
quiet walks."
"You know that place the other side of the Mall--
that ragged hill covered with rocks and trees and
mountain laurel?"
"I've been there often."
"Would you mind going there where it's quiet--I've
such a lot o' things I want to ask you--you won't mind
the walk, will you?"
"Certainly not--we'll go there," Mary responded in
even, business-like tones.
"Because, if you don't want to walk I'll call a
cab, if you'll let me----"
"Not at all," was the quick answer. "I love to
walk."
It was impossible for the girl to repress a smile
at her ridiculous situation! If any human being had
told her yesterday that she, Mary Adams, an old-
fashioned girl with old-fashioned ideas of the
proprieties of life, would have allowed herself to be
picked up by an utter stranger in this unceremonious
way, she would have resented the assertion as a
personal insult--yet the preposterous and impossible
thing had happened and she was growing each moment more
and more deeply interested in the study of the
remarkable youth by her side.
He was not handsome in the conventional sense. His
features were too strong for that. An enemy might have
called them coarse. Their first impression was of
enormous strength and exhaustless vitality. He walked
with a quick, military precision and planted his small
feet on the pavement with a soft, sure tread that
suggested the strength of a young tiger.
The one feature that puzzled her was the size of
his hands and feet. They were remarkably small and
remarkable for their slender, graceful lines.
His eyes were another interesting feature. The
lids drooped with a careless Oriental languor, as
though he would shut out the glare of the full
daylight, and yet the pupils flashed with a cold steel-
blue fire. One look into his eyes and there could be
no doubt that the man behind them was an interesting
personality.
She wondered what his business could be. Not a
lawyer or doctor or teacher certainly. His timidity in
handling books was clear proof on that point. He was
well groomed. His clothes were made by a first-class
tailor.
Her heart thumped with a sudden fear. Perhaps he
was some sort of criminal. His questions may have been
a trick to lure her away. . . .
They had just crossed the broad plaza at Fifty-
ninth Street and entered the walkway that leads to the
Mall.
She stopped suddenly.
"It's too far to the hill beyond the Mall," she
began hesitatingly. "We'll find a seat in one of the
little rustic houses along the Fifty-ninth Street
side----"
"Sure, if you say so," he agreed.
He accepted the suggestion so simply, she regretted
her suspicions, instantly changed her mind and said,
smiling:
"No, we'll go on where we started. The long walk
will do me good."
"All right," he laughed; "whatever you say's the
law. I'm the little boy that does just what his
teacher says."
She blushed and shot him a surprised look.
"Who told you that I was a teacher?" she asked,
with a smile.
"Lord, nobody! I had no idea of such a thing. It
never popped into my head that you do anything at all.
You know, I was awful scared when I spoke to you?"
"Were you?" she laughed.
"Surest thing you know! I'd 'a' never screwed up
my courage to do it if you hadn't 'a' looked so kind
and gentle and sweet. I just knew you couldn't turn me
down----"
There was no mistaking the genuineness of the
apology for his presumption. She smiled a gracious
answer, and threw the last ugly suspicion to the winds.
He broke into a laugh and lifted his hand in the
sudden gesture of a traffic policeman commanding a
halt.
"What is it?" she asked.
"You know I was so excited I clean forgot to
introduce myself! What do you think o' that? You'll
excuse me, won't you? My name's Jim Anthony. I'm
sorry I can't give you any references to my folks. I
haven't any--I'm a lost sheep in New York--no father or
mother. That's why I'm so excited about this trip I'm
plannin' down South. I hear I've got some people down
there."
He stopped suddenly as if absorbed in the thought.
Her heart went out to him in sympathy for this
confession of his orphaned life.
"I'm Mary Adams," she smiled in answer. "I'm a
teacher in the public schools."
"Gee--that accounts for it! I thought you looked
like you knew everything in those books. And you've
been to Asheville, too?"
"Yes."
"Suppose it's not as big a burg as New York?"
"Hardly--it's just a hustling mountain town of
about twenty-five thousand people."
"Lot o' swells from around New York live down
there, they tell me."
"Yes, the Vanderbilts have a beautiful castle just
outside."
"Some mountains near Asheville?"
"Hundreds of square miles."
"Mountains in every direction?"
"As far as the eye can reach, one blue range piled
above another until they're lost in the dim skies on
the horizon."
"Gee, it may be pretty hard to find your folks if
they just live in the mountains near Asheville?"
"Unless your directions are more explicit--I should
think so."
"You know, I thought the mountains near Asheville
was a bunch o' hills off one side like the Palisades,
that you couldn't miss if you tried. I've never been
outside of New York--since I can remember. I'd love to
see real mountains."
The last sentence was spoken in a wistful pathos
that touched Mary with its irresistible appeal. Her
mother instincts responded to it in quick sympathy.
"You've missed a lot," she answered gravely.
"I'll bet I have. It's a rotten old town, this New
York----"
He paused, and a queer light flashed from his steel
eyes.
"Until you get your hand on its throat," he added,
bringing his square jaws together.
Mary lifted her face with keen interest.
"And you've got it by the throat?"
"That's just what--little girl!" he cried, with a
ring of pride. "You see, I'm an inventor and I won a
little pile on my first trick. I've got a machine-shop
in a room eight-by-ten over on the East Side."
"A machine-shop all your own?"
"Yep."
"I'd like to see it some day."
He shook his head emphatically.
"It's too dirty. I couldn't let a pretty girl like
you in such a place." He paused and resumed the tone
of his narrative where she interrupted him. "You see,
I've just put a new crimp in a carburetor for the
automobile folks. They're tickled to death over it and
I've got automobiles to burn. Will you go to ride with
me tomorrow?"
The teacher broke into a joyous laugh.
"Why do you laugh?" he asked awkwardly.
"Well, in the language of New York, that would be
going some, wouldn't it?"
"And why not, I'd like to know?" he cried with
scorn. "Who's to tell us we can't? You've no kids to
bother you tomorrow. I'm my own boss. You've seen
Asheville, but you've never seen New York until you sit
down beside me in a big six-cylinder racing car I'm
handlin' next week. Let me show it to you. I'll swing
her around to your door at eight o'clock. In twenty-
five minutes we'll clear the Bronx and shoot into New
Rochelle. There'll be no cops out to bother us, and
not a wheel in sight. It'll do you good. Let me take
you! I owe you that much for bein' so nice to me
today. Will you go with me?"
Mary hesitated.
"I'll think it over and let you know."
"Got a telephone?"
"No."
"Then you'll have to tell me before I go--won't
you?"
"I suppose so," she answered demurely.
They passed the big fountain beyond the Mall and
skirted the lake to the bridge, crossed, walked along
the water's edge to the laurel-covered crags and found
a seat alone in the summer house that hides among the
trees on its highest point.
The roar of the city was dim and far away. The
only sounds to break the stillness were the laughter of
lovers along the walks below and the distant cry of
steamers in the harbor and rivers.
"You'd almost think you're in the mountains up
here, now wouldn't you?" he asked, after a moment's
silence.
"Yes. I call this park my country estate. It
costs me nothing to keep it in perfect order. The city
pays for it all. But I own it. Every tree and shrub
and flower and blade of grass, every statue and bird
and animal in it is mine. I couldn't get more joy out
of them if I had them inclosed behind an iron fence,
and the deed to the land in my pocket--not half as
much, for I'd be lonely and miserable without someone
to see and enjoy it all with me."
"Gee, that's so, ain't it? I never looked at it
like that before."
He gazed at her a long time in silent admiration,
and then spoke briskly.
"Now tell me about this North Carolina and all
those miles and square miles of mountains."
"You've a piece of paper and pencil?"
He lifted his hand school-boy fashion:
"Johnny on the spot, teacher!"
A blank-book and pencil he threw in her lap and
leaned close.
"Tear the leaves out, if you like."
"No, I'll just draw the maps on the pages and leave
them for you to study."
With deft touch she outlined in rough on the first
page, the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Virginia and North Carolina, tracing his possible route
by Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Dover, Norfolk
and Raleigh, or by Washington, Richmond, and Danville
to Greensboro.
"Either route you see," she said softly, "leads to
Salisbury, where you strike the foothills of the
mountains. It's about two hundred miles from there to
Asheville and `The Land of the Sky.'"
For two hours she answered his eager, boyish
questions about the country and its people, his eyes
wide with admiration at her knowledge.
The sun was sinking in a sea of scarlet and purple
clouds behind the tall buildings beside the Park before
she realized that they had been talking for more than
two hours.
She sprang to her feet, blushing and confused.
"Mercy, I had no idea it was so late."
"Why--is it late?" he asked incredulously.
"We must hurry----"
She brushed the stray ringlets of hair from her
forehead, laughed and hurried down the pathway.
They crossed the Park and took the Madison Avenue
line to Twenty-third Street. They were silent in the
car. The roar of the traffic was deafening after the
quiet of the summer house among the trees.
"I can see you home?" he inquired appealingly.
"We get off at Twenty-third Street."
They stood on the steps at her door beside the
Square and there was a moment's awkward silence.
He lifted his hat with a little chivalrous bow.
"Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock in my car?"
She smiled and hesitated.
"You'll have a bully time!"
"It's Sunday," she stammered.
"Sure, that's why I asked you."
"I don't like to miss my church."
"You go to church every Sunday?" he asked in
amazement.
"Yes."
"Well, just this once then. It'll do you good.
And I'll drive as careful as a farmer."
"All right," she said in low tones, and extended
her hand:
"Good night----"
"Good night, teacher!" he responded with a
boyish wave of his slender hand and quickly
disappeared in the crowd.
She rushed up the stairs, her cheeks aflame, her
heart beating a tattoo of foolish joy.
She snatched the kitten from sleep and whispered in
his tiny ear:
"Oh, Kitty dear, I've had such an adventure! I've
spent the happiest, silliest afternoon of my life! I'm
going to have a more wonderful day tomorrow. I just
feel it. In a big racing automobile if you please, Mr.
Thomascat! Sorry I can't take you but the dust would
blind you, Kitty dear. I'm sorry to tell you that
you'll have to stay at home all day alone and keep
house. It's too bad. But I'll fix your milk and bread
before I go and you must promise me on your sacred
Persian cat's honor not to look at my birds!"
She hugged him violently and he purred his soft
answer in song.
"Oh, Kitty, I'm so happy--so foolishly happy!"
CHAPTER IV
DOUBTS AND FEARS
Mary attempted no analysis of her emotions. It was all
too sudden, too stunning. She was content to feel and
enjoy the first overwhelming experience of life. Hour
after hour she lay among the pillows of her couch in
the dim light of the street lamps and lazily watched
the passing Saturday evening crowds.
The world was beautiful.
She undressed at last and went to bed, only to toss
wide-eyed for hours.
A hundred times she reenacted the scene in the
Library and recalled her first impression of Jim's
personality. What could such an utterly unforeseen and
extraordinary meeting mean except that it was her Fate?
Certainly he could not have planned it. Certainly she
had not foreseen such an event. It had never occurred
to her in the wildest flights of fancy that she could
meet and speak to a man under such conditions, to say
nothing of the walk in the Park and the hours she
spent in the little summer house.
And the strangest part of it all was that she could
see nothing wrong in it from beginning to end. It had
happened in the simplest and most natural way
imaginable. By the standards of conventional propriety
her act was the maddest folly; and yet she was still
happy over it.
There was one disquieting trait about him that made
her a little uneasy. He used the catch-words of the
street gamins of New York without any consciousness of
incongruity. She thought at first that he did this as
the Southern boy of culture and refinement
unconsciously drops into the tones and dialect of the
negro, by daily association. His constant use of the
expressive and characteristic "Gee" was startling, to
say the least. And yet it came from his lips in such a
boyish way she felt sure that it was due to his
embarrassment in the unusual position in which he had
found himself with her.
His helplessness with the dictionary was proof, of
course, that he was no scholar. And yet a boy might
have a fair education in the schools of today and be
unfamiliar with this ponderous and dignified
encyclopedia of words. It was impossible to believe
that he was illiterate. His clothes, his carriage,
even his manners made such an idea preposterous.
Besides, no inventor could be really illiterate.
He may have been forced to work and only attended night
schools. But if he were a mechanic, capable of making
a successful improvement on one of the most delicate
and important parts of an automobile, he must have
studied the principles involved in his inventions.
His choice of a profession appealed to her
imagination, too. It showed independence and
initiative. It opened boundless possibilities. He
might be an obscure and poorly educated boy today. In
five years he could be a millionaire and the head of
some huge business whose interests circled the world.
The tired brain wore itself out at last in eager
speculations, and she fell into a fitful stupor. The
roar of the street-cars waked her at daylight, and
further sleep was out of the question. She rose,
dressed quickly and got her breakfast in a quiver of
nervous excitement over the adventure of the coming
automobile.
As the hour of eight drew nearer, her doubts of the
propriety of going became more acute.
"What on earth has come over me in the past twenty-
four hours?" she asked of herself. "I've known
this man but a day. I don't KNOW him at all, and
yet I'm going to put my life in his hands in that
racing machine. Have I gone crazy?"
She was not in the least afraid of him. His face
and voice and personality all seemed familiar. Her
brain and common-sense told her that such a trip with
an utter stranger was dangerous and foolish beyond
words. In his automobile, unaccompanied by a human
soul and unacquainted with the roads over which they
would travel, she would be absolutely in his power.
She set her teeth firmly at last, her mind made up.
"It's too mad a risk. I was crazy to promise. I
won't go!"
She had scarcely spoken her resolution when the
soft call of the auto-horn echoed below. She stood
irresolute for a moment, and the call was repeated in
plaintive, appealing notes.
She tried to hold fast to her resolutions, but the
impulse to open the window and look out was resistless.
She turned the old-fashioned brass knob, swung her
windows wide on their hinges and leaned out.
His keen eyes were watching. He lifted his cap and
waved. She answered with the flutter of her
handkerchief--and all resolutions were off.
"Of course, I'll go," she cried, with a laugh.
"It's a glorious day--I may never have such a chance
again."
CHAPTER V
WINGS OF STEEL
She threw on her furs and hurried downstairs. Her
surrender was too sudden to realize that she was being
driven by a power that obscured reason and crushed her
will.
Reason made one more vain cry as she paused at the
door below to draw on her gloves.
"You have refused every invitation to see or know
the unconventional world into which thousands of women
in New York, clear-eyed and unafraid, enter daily.
You'd sooner die than pose an hour in Gordon's studio,
and on a Sabbath morning you cut your church and go on
a day's wild ride with a man you have known but fifteen
hours!"
And the voice inside quickly answered:
"But that's different! Gordon's a married man. My
chevalier is not! I have the right to go, and he has
the right."
It was settled anyhow before this little
controversy arose at the street door, but the ready
answer she gave eased her conscience and cleared
the way for a happy, exciting trip.
He leaped from the big, ugly racer to help her in,
stopped and looked at her light clothing.
"That's your heaviest coat?"
"Yes. It isn't cold."
"I've one for you."
He drew an enormous fur coat from the car and held
it up for her arms.
"You think I'll need that?" she asked.
His white teeth gleamed in a friendly smile.
"Take it from me, Kiddo, you certainly will!"
She winced just a little at the common expression,
but he said it with such a quick, boyish enthusiasm,
she wondered whether he were quoting the expression
from the Bowery boy's vocabulary or using it in a
facetious personal way.
"I knew you'd need it. So I brought it for you,"
he added genially.
"Thanks," she murmured, lifting her arms and
drawing the coat about her trim figure.
He helped her into the car and drew from his pocket
a light pair of goggles.
"Now these, and you're all hunky-dory!"
"Will I need these, too?" she asked incredulously.
"Will you!" he cried. "You wouldn't ask
that question if you knew the horse we've got
hitched to this benzine buggy today. He's got wings--
believe me! It's all I can do to hold him on the
ground sometimes."
"You'll drive carefully?" she faltered.
He lifted his hand.
"With you settin' beside me, my first name's
`Caution.'"
She fumbled the goggles in a vain effort to lift
her arms over her head to fasten them on. He sprang
into the seat by her side and promptly seized them.
"Let me fix 'em."
His slender, skillful fingers adjusted the band and
brushed a stray ringlet of hair back under the furs.
The thrill of his touch swept her with a sudden dizzy
sense of excitement. She blushed and drew her head
down into the collar of the shaggy coat.
He touched the wheel, and the gray monster leaped
from the curb and shot down the street. The single
impulse carried them to the crossing. He had shut off
the power as the machine gracefully swung into Fourth
Avenue. The turn made, another leap and the car swept
up the Avenue and swung through Twenty-sixth Street
into Fifth Avenue. Again the power was off as he made
the turn into Fifth Avenue at a snail's pace.
"Can't let her out yet," he whispered
apologetically. "Had to make these turns. There's no
room for her inside of town."
Mary had no time to answer. He touched the wheel,
and the car shot up the deserted Avenue. She gasped
for breath and braced her feet, her whole being
tingling with the first exhilarating consciousness that
she too was possessed of the devil of speed madness.
It was glorious! For the first time in her life, space
and distance lost their meaning. She was free as the
birds in the heavens. She was flying on the wings of
this gray, steel monster through space. The palaces on
the Avenue whirled by in dim ghost-like flashes. They
flew through Central Park into Seventy-second Street
and out into the Drive. The waters of the river, broad
and cool, flashing in the morning sun, rested her eyes
a moment and then faded in a twinkling. They had
leaped the chasm beyond Grant's Tomb, plunged into
Broadway and before she could get her bearings, swept
up the hill at One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street,
slipped gracefully across the iron bridge and in a
jiffy were lost in a gray cloud of dust on the Boston
Turnpike.
When the first intoxicating joy of speed had spent
itself, she found herself shuddering at the daring
turns he made, missing a curb by a hair's breadth--
grazing a trolley by half an inch. Her fears were soon
forgotten.
The hand on the wheel was made of steel, too.
The throbbing demon encased within the hood obeyed
his slightest whim. She glanced at the square, massive
jaw with furtive admiration.
Without turning his head he laughed.
"You like it, teacher?"
"I'm in Heaven!"
"You won't worry about church then, will you?"
"Not today."
They stopped at a road-house, and he put in more
gasoline, lifted the casing from the engine, touched
each vital part, examined his tires, and made sure that
his machine was at its best.
She watched him with a growing sense of his
strength of character, his poise and executive ability.
He was an awkward, stammering boy in the Library
yesterday. Today with this machine in his hand he was
the master of Time and Space.
She yielded herself completely to the delicious
sense of his protection. The extraordinary care he was
giving the machine was a plain avowal of his deep
regard for her comfort and happiness. She had been in
one or two moderately moving cars driven by careful
chauffeurs through Central Park. She had always felt
on those trips with Jane Anderson like a poor relation
from the country imposing on a rich friend.
This trip was all her own. The car and its master
were there solely for her happiness. Her slightest
whim was law for both. It was sweet, this sense of
power. She began to lift her body with a touch of
pride.
She laughed now at fears. What nonsense! No
Knight of the Age of Chivalry could treat her with more
deference. He had tried already to get her to stop for
a bite of lunch.
"Don't you want a thing to eat?" he persisted.
"Not a thing. I've just had my breakfast. It's
only nine o'clock----"
"I know, but we've come thirty miles and the air
makes you hungry. We ought to eat about six good meals
a day."
She shook her head.
"No--not yet. I'm too happy with these new wings.
I want to fly some more--come on----"
He lifted his hand in his favorite gesture of
obedience.
"'Nuff said--we'll streak it back now by another
road, hump it through town and jump over the
Brooklyn Bridge. I'll show you Coney Island and then I
know you'll want a hot dog anyhow."
He crossed the country and darted into Broadway.
Before she could realize it, the last tree and field
were lost behind in a cloud of dust, and they were
again in the crowded streets of the city. The deep
growl of his horn rang its warnings for each crossing
and Mary watched the timid women scramble to the
sidewalks five and six blocks ahead.
It was delicious. She had always been the one to
scramble before. Her heart went out in a wave of
tenderness to the man by her side, strong, daring,
masterful, her chevalier, her protector and admirer.
Yes, her admirer! There was no doubt on that
point. The moment he relaxed the tension of his hand
on the wheel, his deep, mysterious eyes beneath the
drooping lids were fixed on hers in open, shameless
admiration. Their cold fire burned into her heart and
thrilled to her finger-tips.
In spite of his deference and his obedience to her
whim, she felt the iron grip of his personality on her
imagination. Whatever his education, his origin or his
environment, he was a power to be reckoned with.
No other type of man had ever appealed to her.
Her conception of a real man had always been one who
did his own thinking and commanded rather than asked
the respect of others.
She had thrown the spell of her beauty over this
headstrong, masterful man. He was wax in her hands. A
delicious sense of power filled her. She had never
known what happiness meant before. She floated through
space. The spinning lines of towering buildings on
Broadway passed as mists in a dream.
As the velvet feet of the car touched the great
bridge she lazily opened her eyes for a moment and
gazed through the lace-work of steel at the broad sweep
of the magnificent harbor. The dark blue hills of
Staten Island framed the picture.
He was right. She had never seen New York before.
Never before had its immense panorama been swept within
two hours. Never before had she realized its
dimensions. She had always felt stunned and crushed in
the effort to conceive it. Today she had wings. The
city lay at her feet, conquered. She was mistress of
Time and Space.
Again her sidelong glance swept the lines of Jim
Anthony's massive jaw. She laughed softly.
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15