The Silent Battle

XV

DISCOVERED

Women have a code of their own, a system of signals, a lip and sign language perfectly intelligible among themselves, but mystifying, as they purpose it to be, to mere man. Overweening husbands, with a fine air of letting the cat out of the bag, have been known to whisper that these carefully guarded secrets are no secrets at all, and that women are merely children of a larger growth, playing at hide and seek with one another (and with their common enemy) for the mere love of the game, that there are no mysteries in their natures to be solved, and that the vaunted woman’s instinct, like the child’s, is as apt to be wrong as often as it is right. Of course, no one believes this, and even if one did, man would go his way and woman hers. Woman would continue to believe in the accuracy of her intuitions and man would continue to marvel at them. Woman would continue to play at hide and seek, and man would continue to enjoy the game.

Call them by what name you please, instinct, intuition, or guesswork, Mrs. Richard Pennington had succeeded by methods entirely feminine, in discovering that Phil Gallatin’s Dryad was Jane Loring, that he was badly in love with her and that Jane was not indifferent to his attentions. Phil Gallatin had not been difficult to read, and Mrs. Pennington took a greater pride in the discovery of Jane’s share in the romance, for she knew when Jane left her house in company with Phil that her intuition had not erred.

Jane Loring had kissed her on both cheeks and called her “odious.”

This in itself was almost enough, but to complete the chain of evidence, she learned that Dawson, her head coachman, in the course of execution of her orders, had gone as far North as 125th Street before his unfortunate mistake of Miss Loring’s number had been discovered by the occupants of the brougham.

Mrs. Pennington realized that this last bit of evidence had been obtained at the expense of a breach of hospitality, for she was not a woman who made a practice of talking with her servants, but she was sure that the ends had justified the means and the complete success of her maneuver more than compensated for her slight loss of self-respect in its accomplishment.

But while her discovery pleased her, she was not without a sense of responsibility in the matter. She had been hoping for a year that a girl of the right kind would come between Phil and the fate he seemed to be courting, for since his mother’s death he had lived alone, and seclusion was not good for men of his habits. She had wanted Phil to meet Jane Loring, and her object in bringing them together had been expressed in a definite hope that they would learn to like each other a great deal. But now that she knew what their relations were, she was slightly oppressed by the thought of unpleasant possibilities.

It was in the midst of these reflections that Miss Jaffray was announced, and in a moment she entered the room with a long half-mannish, half-feline stride and took up her place before the mantelpiece where she stood, her feet apart, toasting her back at the open fire. Mrs. Pennington indicated the cigarettes, and Nina Jaffray took one, rolling it in her fingers and tapping the end of it on her wrist to shake out the loose dust as a man would do.

“I’m flattered, Nina,” said Nellie Pennington. “To what virtue of mine am I indebted for the earliness of this visit?”

“I slept badly,” said Nina laconically.

“And I’m the anodyne? Thanks.”

“Oh, no; merely an antidote.”

“For what?”

“Myself. I’ve got the blues.”

“You! Impossible.”

“Oh, yes. It’s quite true. I’m quite wretched.”

“Dressmaker or milliner?”

“Neither. Just bored, I think. You know I’ve been out five years now. Think of it! And I’m twenty-four. Isn’t that enough to make an angel weep?”

“It’s too sad to mention,” said Mrs. Pennington. “You used to be such a nice little thing, too.”

Nina Jaffray raised a hand in protest.

“Don’t, Nellie, it’s no joke, I can tell you. I’m not a nice little thing any longer, and I know it. I’m a hoydenish, hard-riding, loud-spoken vixen, and that’s the truth. I wish I was a ‘nice little thing’ as you call it, like Jane Loring for instance, with illusions and hopes and a proclivity for virtue. I’m not. I like the talk of men–”

“That’s not unnatural—so do I.”

“I mean the talk of men among men. They interest me, more what they say than what they are. They’re genuine, somehow. You can get the worst and the best of them at a sitting. One can’t do that with women. Most of us are forever purring and pawing and my-dearing one another when we know that what we want to do is to spit and claw. I like the easy ways of men—collectively, Nellie, not individually, and I’ve come and gone among them because it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do. I’ve made a mistake. I know it now. When a girl gets to be ‘a good fellow’ she does it at the expense either of her femininity or her morals. And men make the distinction without difficulty. I’m ‘a good fellow,’” she said scornfully, “and I’m decent. Men know it, but they know, too, that I have no individual appeal. Why only last week at the Breakfast the Sackett boy clapped me on the back and called me ‘a jolly fine chap.’ I put him down, I can tell you. I’d rather he’d called me anything—anything—even something dreadful—if it had only been feminine.”

She flicked her cigarette into the fire and dropped into a chair.

Mrs. Pennington laughed.

“All this is very unmanly of you, Nina.”

“Oh, I’m not joking. You’re like the others. Just because I’ve ridden through life with a light hand, you think I’m in no danger of a cropper. Well, I am. I’ve had too light a hand, and I’m out in the back-stretch with a winded horse. You didn’t make that mistake, Nellie. Why couldn’t you have warned me?”

Mrs. Pennington held off the embroidery frame at arm’s length and examined it with interest.

“You didn’t ask me to, Nina,” she replied quietly.

“No, I didn’t. I never ask advice. When I do, it’s only to do the other thing. But you might have offered it just the same.”

“I might have, if I knew you wouldn’t have followed it.”

“No,” reflectively. “I think I’d have done what you said. I like you immensely, you know, Nellie. You’re a good sort—besides being everything I’m not.”

“Meaning—what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re all woman, for one thing.”

“I have had two children,” smiled the other toward the ceiling. “I could hardly be anything else.”

“Is that it?” asked the visitor; and then after a pause, “I don’t like children.”

“Not other people’s. You’d adore your own.”

“I wonder.”

Mrs. Pennington’s pretty shoulders gave an expressive shrug.

“Marry, my dear. Nothing defines one’s sex so accurately. Marry for love if you can, marry for money if you must, but marry just the same. You may be unhappy, but you’ll never be bored.”

Nina Jaffray gazed long into the fire.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said. “That’s what I came to see you about.”

“Oh, Nina, I’m delighted!” cried Nellie Pennington genuinely, “and so flattered. Who, my dear child?”

“I’ve been thinking—seriously.”

“You must have had dozens of offers.”

“Oh, yes, from fortune hunters and gentlemen jockeys, but I’m not a philanthropic institution. Curiously enough my taste is quite conventional. I want a New Yorker—a man with a mind—with a future, perhaps, neither a prig nor a rake—human enough not to be too good, decent enough not to be burdensome—a man with weaknesses, if you like, a poor man, perhaps–”

“Nina. Who?”

Miss Jaffray paused.

“I thought I’d marry Phil Gallatin,” she said quietly.

Mrs. Pennington laid her embroidery frame down and looked up quickly. Nina Jaffray’s long legs were extended toward the blaze, but her head was lowered and her eyes gazed steadily before her. It was easily to be seen that she was quite serious—more serious than Mrs. Pennington liked.

“Phil Gallatin! Oh, Nina, you can’t mean it?”

“I do. There isn’t a man in New York I’d rather marry than Phil.”

“Does he know it?”

“No. But I mean that he shall.”

“Don’t be foolish. You two would end in the ditch in no time.”

Nina straightened and examined her hostess calmly.

“Do you think so?” she asked at last.

“Yes, I think so–” Nellie Pennington paused, and whatever it was that she had in mind to say remained unspoken. Instinct had already warned her that Nina was the kind of girl who is only encouraged by obstacles, and it was not her duty to impose them.

“Stranger things have happened, Nellie,” she laughed.

“But are you sure Phil will—er—accept you?”

“Oh, no, and I shan’t be discouraged if he refuses,” she went on oblivious of Nellie Pennington’s humor.

“Then you do mean to speak to him?”

“Of course.” Nina’s eyes showed only grave surprise at the question. “How should he know it otherwise?”

“Your methods are nothing, if not direct.”

“Phil would never guess unless I told him. For a clever man he’s singularly stupid about women. I think that’s why I like him. Why shouldn’t I tell him? What’s the use of beating around the bush? It’s such a waste of time and energy.”

Mrs. Pennington’s laugh threw discretion to the winds.

“Oh, Nina, you’ll be the death of me yet. There never was such a passion since the beginning of Time.”

“I didn’t say I loved Phil Gallatin,” corrected Nina promptly. “I said I’d decided to marry him.”

“And have you any reason to suppose that he shares your—er—nubile emotions?”

“None whatever. He has always been quite indifferent to me—to all women. I think the arrangement might be advantageous to him. He’s quite poor and I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. He’s not a fool, and I’m—Nellie, I’m not old-looking or ugly, am I? Why shouldn’t he like me, if he doesn’t like any one else?”

“No reason in the world, dear. I’d marry you, if I were a man.”

Mrs. Pennington took to cover uneasily, conscious that here was a situation over which she could have no control. She was not in Phil Gallatin’s confidence or in Jane Loring’s, and the only kind of discouragement she could offer must fail of effectiveness with a girl who all her life had done everything in the world that she wanted to do, and who had apparently decided that what she now wanted was Phil Gallatin. Nina’s plans would have been amusing had they not been rather pathetic, for Nellie Pennington had sought and found below her visitor’s calm exterior, a vein of seriousness, of regret and self-reproach, which was not to be diverted by the usual methods. Did she really care for Phil? Clever as Mrs. Pennington was, she could not answer that. But she knew that it was a part of Nina Jaffray’s methods to do the unexpected thing, so that her sincerity was therefore always open to question. Nellie Pennington took the benefit of that doubt.

“Has it occurred to you, Nina, that he may care for some one else?”

Her visitor turned quickly. “You don’t think so, do you?” she asked sharply.

“How should I know?” Mrs. Pennington evaded.

“I’ve thought of that, Nellie. Who was Phil’s wood-nymph? He’s very secretive about it. I wonder why.”

“I don’t believe there was a wood-nymph,” said Mrs. Pennington slowly. “Besides, Phil would hardly be in love with that sort of girl.”

“That’s just the point. What sort of a girl was she? What reason could Phil have for keeping the thing a secret? Was it an amourette? If it was, then it’s Phil Gallatin’s business and nobody else’s. But if the girl was one of Phil’s own class and station, like–”

“Miss Loring,” announced the French maid softly from the doorway.

Nina Jaffray paused and an expression of annoyance crossed her face. She straightened slowly in her chair, then rose and walked across the room. Mrs. Pennington hoped that she would go, but she only took another cigarette and lit it carefully.

“You’re too popular, Nellie,” she said, taking a chair by the fire.

Mrs. Pennington raised a protesting hand.

“Don’t say that, Nina. For years I’ve been dreading that adjective. When a woman finds herself popular with her own sex it means that she’s either too passée to be dangerous, too staid to be interesting, or too stupid to be either. Morning, Jane! So glad! Is it chilly out or are those cheeks your impersonal expression of the joy of living?”

“Both, you lazy creature! How do you do, Nina? This is my dinner call, Mrs. Pennington. I simply couldn’t wait to be formal.”

“I’m glad, dear.” And then mischievously, “Did you get home safely?”

“Oh, yes, but it was a pity to take poor Mr. Gallatin so far out of his way,” she replied carelessly.

“Poor Phil! That’s the fate of these stupid ineligible bachelors—to act as postilion to the chariot of Venus. Awfully nice boy, but so uninteresting at times.”

“Is he? I thought him very attractive,” said Jane. “He’s one of the Gallatins, isn’t he?”

“Yes, dear, the last of them. I was afraid you wouldn’t like him.”

“Oh, yes, I do. Quite a great deal. He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he, Nina?”

“I’ve known him for ages,” said Miss Jaffray dryly; and then to Mrs. Pennington, “Why shouldn’t Jane like him, Nellie?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she finished with a gesture of graceful retirement. Their game of hide and seek was amusing, but hazardous in the present company, so she quickly turned the conversation into other channels.

Nina Jaffray and Jane Loring had met in the late autumn at a house party at the Ledyards’ place in Virginia, and while their natures were hardly concordant, each had found in the other some ingredients which made for amiability. Jane’s interest had been dictated by curiosity rather than approval, for Nina Jaffray was like no other girl she had ever met before. Whatever her manners, and these, Jane discovered, could be atrocious, her instincts were good, and her intentions seemed of the best. To Miss Jaffray, Jane Loring was ‘a nice little thing’ who had shown a disposition not to interfere with other people’s plans, a nice little thing, amiable and a trifle prudish, for whom Nina’s kind of men hadn’t seemed to care. They had not been, and could never be intimate, but upon a basis of good fellowship, they existed with mutual toleration and regard.

Nellie Pennington, from her shadowed corner, watched the two girls with the keenest of interest and curiosity. Nina Jaffray sat with hands clasped around one upraised knee, her head on one side listening carelessly to Jane’s enthusiastic account of the Ledyards’ ball, commenting only in monosyllables, but interested in spite of herself in Jane’s ingenuous point of view, aware in her own heart of a slight sense of envy that she no longer possessed a susceptibility to those fresh impressions.

Nina was not pretty this morning, Nellie Pennington thought. Hers was the effectiveness of midnight which requires a spot-light and accessories and, unless in the hunting field, midday was unkind to her; while Jane who had danced late brought with her all the freshness of early blossoms. But she liked Nina, and that remarkable confession, however stagy and Nina-esque, had set her thinking about Jane Loring and Mr. Gallatin. It was a pretty triangle and promised interesting possibilities.

Jane was still speaking when Nina interrupted, as though through all that she had heard, one train of thought had persisted.

“What did you mean, Nellie, about Phil Gallatin being ineligible?” she asked. “And I know you don’t think him stupid. And why shouldn’t Jane Loring like him? I don’t think I understand?”

Nellie Pennington smiled. She had made a mistake. Hide and seek as a game depends for its success upon the elimination of the bystander.

“I am afraid, of course, that Jane would be falling in love with him,” she said lightly. And then, “That would have been a pity. Don’t you think so, Nina?”

“There’s hardly a danger of that,” laughed Jane, “seeing that I’ve just—just been introduced to the man. You needn’t be at all afraid, Nina.”

“I’m not. Besides he’s awfully gone on a wood-nymph. You saw him blush when I spoke of it at dinner here—didn’t you, Jane?”

“Yes, I did,” said Jane, now quite rosy herself.

“Phil wouldn’t have blushed you know,” said Nina confidently, “unless he was terribly rattled. He was rattled. That’s what I can’t understand. Suppose he did find a girl who was lost in the woods. What of it? It’s nobody’s business but his own and the girl’s. I’d be furious if people talked about me the way they’re talking about Phil and that girl. I was lost once in the Adirondacks. You were, too, in Canada only last summer, Jane. You told me so down in Virginia and–”

Jane Loring had struggled hard to control her emotion, and bent her head forward to conceal her discomposure, but Nina’s eyes caught the rising color which had flowed to the very tips of her ears.

“Jane!” cried Nina in sharp accents of amazed discovery. “It was you!”

The game of hide and seek had terminated disastrously for Jane, and her system of signals, useful to deceive as well as reveal had betrayed her. It was clearly to be seen that further dissimulation would be futile, so she raised her head slowly, the color gone from her cheeks.

“Yes, it was I,” she said with admirable coolness. “Meeting Mr. Gallatin here the other night reminded me of it. That was one of the things I came to tell Mrs. Pennington this morning. But I don’t suppose there’s any reason why you shouldn’t know it, too, Nina. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Gallatin I know I should have died. You see, I had slipped and wrenched my ankle and, of course, couldn’t move–”

“It must have been terrible!” put in Nellie Pennington in dire distress. “You poor child!”

“I haven’t spoken of it,” Jane went on hurriedly, “because there wasn’t any reason why I should. But now, of course, that this story is going the rounds, it’s just as well that people knew. It wasn’t necessary to tell Mr. Gallatin my name up there, and until he met me in New York he did not know who I was. That, of course, is why the whole thing has seemed so mysterious.” She paused and smiled rather obtrusively at her companions. “It’s really a very trivial matter to make such a fuss about, isn’t it?”

“Absurd!” said Mrs. Pennington, with enthusiasm. “I wouldn’t worry about it in the least.”

“It does sound rather romantic, though,” laughed Jane uneasily, “but it wasn’t a bit. We nearly starved and poor Mr. Gallatin was almost dead with fatigue—when they found us.”

“Who found you?” asked Miss Jaffray.

“The guides, of course.”

“Oh!” said Nina.

Nellie Pennington put down her embroidery and rose. This wouldn’t do.

“Jane,” she said laughing. “You make me wild with envy. You’re a person to whom all sorts of interesting things are always happening. And now I hear you’re engaged to Coleman Van Duyn. Come, child, sit here and tell me all about it.”

“It’s not true. I’m very flattered, of course, but–”

“You’d better admit it. Nina won’t tell, will you, Nina?”

But Miss Jaffray had risen and was drawing on her gloves.

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t tell. Besides—you know I don’t believe it.” She glanced at the clock, and brushed a speck from her sleeve.

“I think I’ll be going on,” she said. “Good-by, Jane. Nellie, I’ll see you at the ‘Pot and Kettle,’ won’t I?” and went out of the room.

Mrs. Pennington followed her to the upper landing and when she had gone, returned thoughtfully to the room.

XVI

BEHIND THE ENEMY’S BACK

As she turned and came into the room again, Jane Loring met her in the middle of the rug, seized her in her arms, kissed her rapturously on both cheeks, and confessed, though not without some hesitation, the object of her visit. Nellie Pennington led her to a divan near the window, and seated there holding one of her visitor’s hands in both of hers, listened enchanted to the full tale of Jane’s romance. Her delight was undisguised, for Nina Jaffray’s rather frigid exit had already been forgotten by them both.

“Oh, Nellie, I’m so happy. I simply had to tell somebody. I wanted to come here yesterday, but I couldn’t muster up the courage.”

“And I’m not really ‘odious’?” asked Mrs. Pennington.

“No, no,” laughed Jane. “You’re a sister to the angels. I hated him, Nellie, that night. I would have died rather than let him know I cared for him—and yet—I did let him know it–”

“Love and hate are first cousins. Love hates because it’s afraid, Jane.”

“Yes, that’s true. I was afraid of myself—of him–”

“Not now?”

“No,” proudly. “Not even of Fate itself. We’ll face whatever is to come—together. I believe in him—utterly.”

Nellie Pennington kissed her.

“So do I, Jane. I always have—and in you. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you have told me all this. Flattered, too, child. I’m rather worldly wise, perhaps, even more so than your mother–”

“I haven’t told mother,” Jane put in with sudden demureness.

“Take my advice and do so immediately. Omit nothing. Your mother must put a stop to this story by telling the truth.”

“Mother, you know, had hoped that I would marry Coleman Van Duyn. She doesn’t approve of Phil, and father—” Jane paused as she remembered her father’s estimate of Phil Gallatin—“and neither does my father,” she finished thoughtfully.

“Oh, it will work out some way; such things do. But tell them at once.”

“I think I had already decided that. But it isn’t going to be easy. With me—with mother, my father is the soul of kindness, but with men–” She paused.

“Phil must take his chance.”

“Yes, but father must respect him.”

“Phil must earn his respect.”

Jane was silent for a moment.

“My father has a sharp tongue at times,” she went on. “He has mentioned Phil Gallatin’s name—unpleasantly. I couldn’t stand hearing him spoken about in that way. I couldn’t listen. I couldn’t tolerate it—even from my father. I have made a decision and father must abide by it. He must accept Phil as I have accepted him. I am satisfied. A man’s past is his own. He can only give a girl his future. I used to think differently, but I’m content with that. Phil’s future is mine, and I’ll take my half of it, whatever it is.”

At the mention of her father, Jane had risen and walked restlessly about, but as she finished speaking she turned and faced her companion squarely. Nellie Pennington rose and took her again in her arms.

“You’ll do, Jane. I’m not afraid for you—for either of you. Let me help you. I want to. I don’t think I could be happier if I were in love myself. He’s worthy of you. I’m sure of it. Shall you marry him soon, dear?”

Jane colored adorably.

“No—not soon, I think. We have not spoken of that. Phil wants time—to prove—to show—everybody–”

She paused and Nellie Pennington breathed a sigh of relief. Her responsibilities had oppressed her.

“Let him, Jane,” she urged quickly. “It’s better so. You’re very young. There’s plenty of time. A year or two and then–”

“I’ll marry him when he asks me to,” Jane finished simply.