The Crimson Tide: A Novel

“It’s after one o’clock,” she said, glancing at her tiny platinum wrist-watch. “Here’s Delmonico’s, Jim. Shall we lunch together?”

He experienced a second’s odd hesitation, then: “Certainly,” he said. And she signalled the chauffeur.

The place was beginning to be crowded, but there was a table on the Fifth Avenue side.

As they crossed the crowded room toward it, women looked up at Elorn Sharrow, instantly aware that they saw perfection in hat, gown and fur, and a face and figure not to be mistaken for any imitation of the Gotham type.

She wore silver fox–just a stole and muff. Every feminine eye realised their worth.

When they were seated:

“I want,” she said gaily, “some consommé and a salad. You, of course, require the usual nourishment of the carnivora.”

But it seemed not. However, he ordered a high-ball, feeling curiously depressed. Then he addressed himself to making the hour agreeable, conscious, probably, that reparation was overdue.

Friends from youthful dancing-class days, these two had plenty to gossip about; and gradually he found himself drifting back into the lively, refreshing, piquant intimacy of yesterday. And realised that it was very welcome.

For, about this girl, always a clean breeze seemed to be blowing; and the atmosphere invariably braced him up.

And she was always responsive, whether or not agreeing with his views; and he was usually conscious of being at his best with her. Which means much to any man.

So she dissected her pear-salad, and he enjoyed his whitebait, and they chatted away on the old footing, quite oblivious of people around them.

Elorn was having a very happy time of it. People thought her captivating now–freckles, mouth and all–and every man there envied the fortunate young fellow who was receiving such undivided attention from a girl like this.

But whether in Elorn’s heart there really existed all the gaiety that laughed at him out of her grey eyes, is a question. Because it seemed to her that, at moments, a recurrent shadow fell across his face. And there were, now and then, seconds suggesting preoccupation on his part, when it seemed to her that his gaze grew remote and his smile a trifle absent-minded.

She was drawing on her gloves; he had scribbled his signature across the back of the check. Then, as he lifted his head to look for their waiter, he found himself staring into the brown eyes of Palla Dumont.

The heavy flush burnt his face–burnt into it, so it seemed to him.

She was only two tables distant. When he bowed, her smile was the slightest; her nod coolly self-possessed. She was wearing orchids. There seemed to be a girl with her whom he did not know.

Why the sudden encounter should have upset him so–why the quiet glance Elorn bestowed upon Palla should have made him more uncomfortable still, he could not understand.

He lighted a cigarette.

“A wonderfully pretty girl,” said Elorn serenely. “I mean the girl you bowed to.”

“Yes, she is very charming.”

“Who is she, Jim?”

“I met her on the steamer coming back. She is a Miss Dumont.”

Elorn’s smile was a careless dismissal of further interest. But in her heart perplexity and curiosity contended with concern. For she had seen Jim’s face. And had wondered.

He laid away his half-consumed cigarette. She was quite ready to go. She rose, and he laid the stole around her shoulders. She picked up her muff.

As she passed through the narrow aisle, she permitted herself a casual side-glance at this girl in black; and Palla looked up at her, kept her quietly in range of her brown eyes to the limit of breeding, then her glance dropped as Jim passed; and he heard her speaking serenely to the girl beside her.

At the revolving doors, Elorn said: “Shall I drop you at the office, Jim?”

“Thanks–if you don’t mind.”

In the car he talked continually, not very entertainingly, but there was more vivacity about him than there had been.

“Are you doing anything to-night?” he inquired.

She was, of course. Yet, she felt oddly relieved that he had asked her… But the memory of the strange expression in his face persisted in her mind.

Who was this girl with whom he had crossed the ocean? And why should he lose his self-possession on unexpectedly encountering her?

Had there been anything about Palla–the faintest hint of inferiority of any sort–Elorn Sharrow could have dismissed the episode with proud, if troubled, philosophy. For many among her girl friends had cub brothers. And the girl had learned that men are men–sometimes even the nicest–although she could not understand it.

But this brown-eyed girl in black was evidently her own sort–Jim’s sort. And that preoccupied her; and she lent only an inattentive ear to the animated monologue of the man beside her.

Before the offices of Sharrow & Co. her car stopped.

“I’m sorry, Jim,” she said, “that I’m so busy this week. But we ought to meet at many places, unless you continue to play the recluse. Don’t you really go anywhere any more?”

“No. But I’m going,” he said bluntly.

“Please do. And call me up sometimes. Take a sporting chance whenever you’re free. We ought to get in an hour together now and then. You’re coming to my dance of course, are you not?”

“Of course I am.”

The girl smiled in her sweet, generous way and gave him her hand again.

And he went into the office feeling rather miserable and beginning to realise why.

For in spite of what he had said to Palla about the wisdom of absenting himself, the mere sight of her had instantly set him afire.

And now he wanted to see her–needed to see her. A day was too long to pass without seeing her. An evening without her–and another–and others, appalled him.

And all the afternoon he thought of her, his mind scarcely on his business at all.

His parents were dining at home. He was very gay that evening–very amusing in describing his misadventures with Messrs. Puma and Skidder. But his mother appeared to be more interested in the description of his encounter with Elorn.

“She’s such a dear,” she said. “If you go to the Speedwells’ dinner on Thursday you’ll see her again. You haven’t declined, I hope; have you, Jim?”

It appeared that he had.

“If you drop out of things this way nobody will bother to ask you anywhere after a while. Don’t you know that, dear?” she said. “This town forgets overnight.”

“I suppose so, mother. I’ll keep up.”

His father remarked that it was part of his business to know the sort of people who bought houses.

Jim agreed with him. “I’ll surely kick in again,” he promised cheerfully… “I think I’ll go to the club this evening.”

His mother smiled. It was a healthy sign. Also, thank goodness, there were no girls in black at the club.

At the club he resolutely passed the telephone booths and even got as far as the cloak room before he hesitated.

Then, very slowly, he retraced his steps; went into the nearest booth, and called a number that seemed burnt into his brain. Palla answered.

“Are you doing anything, dear?” he asked–his usual salutation.

“Oh. It’s you!” she said calmly.

“It is. Who else calls you dear? May I come around for a little while?”

“Have you forgotten what you–”

“No! May I come?”

“Not if you speak to me so curtly, Jim.”

“I’m sorry.”

She deliberated so long that her silence irritated him.

“If you don’t want me,” he said, “please say so.”

“I certainly don’t want you if you are likely to be ill-tempered, Jim.”

“I’m not ill-tempered… I’ll tell you what’s the trouble if I may come. May I?”

“Is anything troubling you?”

“Of course.”

“I’m so sorry!”

“Am I to come?”

“Yes.”

She herself admitted him. He laid his hat and coat on a chair in the hall and followed her upstairs to the living-room.

When she had seated herself she looked up at him interrogatively, awaiting his pleasure. He stood a moment with his back to the fire, his hands twisting nervously behind him. Then:

“My trouble,” he explained naïvely, “is that I am restless and unhappy when I remain away from you.”

The girl laughed. “But, Jim, you seemed to be having a perfectly good time at Delmonico’s this noon.”

He reddened and gave her a disconcerted look.

“I don’t see,” she added, “why any man shouldn’t have a good time with such an attractive girl. May I ask who she is?”

“Elorn Sharrow,” he replied bluntly.

Palla’s glance had sometimes wandered over social columns in the papers and periodicals, and she was not ignorant concerning the identity and local importance of Miss Sharrow.

She looked up curiously at Jim. He was so very good to look at! Better, even, to know. And Miss Sharrow was his kind. They had seemed to belong together. And it came to Palla, hazily, and for the first time, that she herself seemed to belong nowhere in particular in the scheme of things.

But that was quite all right. She had now established for herself a habitation. She had some friends–would undoubtedly make others. She had her interests, her peace of mind, and her independence. And behind her she had the dear and tragic past–a passionate memory of a dead girl; a terrible remembrance of a dead God.

The heart of the world alone could make up to her these losses. For now she was already preparing to seek it in her own way, under her own Law of Love.

“Jim,” she said almost timidly, “I have not intended to make you unhappy. Don’t you understand that?”

He seated himself: she lighted a cigarette for him.

“I suppose you can’t help doing it,” he said glumly.

“I really can’t, it seems. I don’t love you. I wish I did.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course I do… I wish I were in love with you.”

After a moment she said: “I told you how much I care for you. But–if you think it is easier for you–not to see me–”

“I can’t seem to stay away.”

“I’m glad you can’t–for my sake; but I’m troubled on your account. I do so adore to be with you! But–but if–”

“Hang it all!” he exclaimed, forcing a wry smile. “I act like an unbaked fool! You’ve gone to my head, Palla, and I behave like a drunken kid… I’ll buck up. I’ve got to. I’m not the blithering, balmy, moon-eyed, melancholy ass you think me–”

Her quick laughter rang clear, and his echoed it, rather uncertainly.

“You poor dear,” she said, “you’re nearest my heart of anybody. I told you so. It’s only that one thing I don’t dare do.”

He nodded.

“Can’t you really understand that I’m afraid?”

“Afraid!” he repeated. “I should think you might be, considering your astonishing point of view. I should think you’d be properly scared to death!”

“I am. No girl, afraid, should ever take such a chance. Love and Fear cannot exist together. The one always slays the other.”

He looked at her curiously, remembering what Estridge had told him about her–how, on that terrible day in the convent chapel, this girl’s love had truly slain the fear within her as she faced the Red assassins and offered to lay down her life for her friend. Than which, it is said, there is no greater love…

“Of what are you thinking?” she asked, watching his expression.

“Of you–you strange, generous, fearless, wilful girl!” Then he squared his shoulders and shook them as though freeing himself of something oppressive.

“What you may need is a spanking!” he suggested coolly.

“Good heavens, Jim!–”

“But I’m afraid you’re not likely to get it. And what is going to happen to you–and to me–I don’t know–I don’t know, Palla.”

“May I prophesy?”

“Go to it, Miriam.”

“Behold, then: I shall never care for any man more than I care now for you; I shall never care more for you than I do now… And if you are sweet-tempered and sensible, we shall be very happy with each other… Even after you marry… Unless your wife misunderstands–”

“My wife!” he repeated derisively.

“Miss Sharrow, for instance.”

He turned a dull red; the girl’s heart missed a beat, then hurried a little before it calmed again under her cool recognition and instant disdain of the first twinge of jealousy she could remember since childhood.

The absurdity of it, too! After all, it was this man’s destiny to marry. And, if it chanced to be that girl–

“You know,” he said in a detached, musing way, “it is well for you to remember that I shall never marry unless I marry you… Life is long. There are other women… I may forget you–at intervals… But I shall never marry except with you, Palla.”

Her smile forced the gravity from her lips and eyes:

“If you behave like a veiled prophet you’ll end by scaring me,” she said.

But he merely gathered her into his arms and kissed her–laid back her head and looked down into her face and kissed her lips, without haste, as though she belonged to him.

Her head rested quite motionless on his shoulder. Perhaps she was still too taken aback to do anything about the matter. Her heart had hurried a little–not much–stimulated, possibly, by the rather agreeable curiosity which invaded her–charmingly expressive, now, in her wide brown eyes.

“So that’s the way of it,” he concluded, still looking down at her. “There are other women in the world. And life is long. But I marry you or nobody. And it’s my opinion that I shall not die unmarried.”

She smiled defiantly.

“You don’t seem to think much of my opinions,” she said.

“Are you more friendly to mine?”

“Certain opinions of yours,” he retorted, “originated in the diseased bean of some crazy Russian–never in your mind! So of course I hold them in contempt.”

She saw his face darken, watched it a moment, then impulsively drew his head down against hers.

“I do care for your opinions,” she said, her cheek, delicately warm, beside his. “So, even if you can not comprehend mine, be generous to them. I’m sincere. I try to be honest. If you differ from me, do it kindly, not contemptuously. For there is no such thing as ‘noble contempt!’ There is respectability in anger and nobility in tolerance. But none in disdain, for they are contradictions.”

“I tell you,” he said, “I despise and hate this loose socialistic philosophy that makes a bonfire of everything the world believes in!”

“Don’t hate other creeds; merely conform to your own, Jim. It will keep you very, very busy. And give others a chance to live up to their beliefs.”

He felt the smile on her lips and cheek:

“I can’t live up to my belief if I marry you,” she said. “So let us care for each other peacefully–accepting each other as we are. Life is long, as you say… And there are other women… And ultimately you will marry one of them. But until then–”

He felt her lips very lightly against his–cool young lips, still and fragrant and sweet.

After a moment she asked him to release her; and she rose and walked across the room to the mirror.

Still busy with her hair, she turned partly toward him:

“Apropos of nothing,” she said, “a man was exceedingly impudent to me on the street this evening. A Russian, too. I was so annoyed!”

“What do you mean?”

“It happened just as I started to ascend the steps… There was a man there, loitering. I supposed he meant to beg. So I felt for my purse, but he jumped back and began to curse me roundly for an aristocrat and a social parasite!”

“What did he say?”

“I was so amazed–quite stupefied. And all the while he was swearing at me in Russian and in English, and he warned me to keep away from Marya and Vanya and Ilse and mind my own damned business. And he said, also, that if I didn’t there were people in New York who knew how to deal with any friend of the Russian aristocracy.”

She patted a curly strand of hair into place, and came toward him in her leisurely, lissome way.

“Fancy the impertinence of that wretched Red! And I understand that both Vanya and Marya have received horribly insulting letters. And Ilse, also. Isn’t it most annoying?”

She seated herself at the piano and absently began the Adagio of the famous sonata.