_ CHAPTER IX
"Are you off the job to-night?" came the resonant voice of Bertram Chester over the telephone.
"Yes!" Eleanor laughed. "Are you coming to play with us?"
"No. You're coming to play with me. One of our best little playmates leans over my elbow as I indite these few lines--little Katie. Mark Heath is reporting great doings in Chinatown to-night, and he wants assistance. Do you suppose your Aunt Mattie will object to Chinatown?"
"Aunt Matilda never dictates--"
"Then it's Chinatown! We'll be along for you in half an hour. We're dining with the Masters, who have inconsiderately refused to come along. What's happened to you?"
"Nothing--why?"
"Your voice sounds so chipper!"
"That shows I'm in a mood to play!"
"Then we'll be along in a
quarter of an hour."
"And I'll be waiting at the garden gate!"
The swish and murmur of night, the rustle of a steady sea breeze, the composite rumble of the city far below, tuned with the song in Eleanor's blood as she stood waiting by the front gate. She looked down on the pattern of light and heavy shadow that was the city, and a curious mood of exultation came over her. Light foreshadowings of this mood had touched her now and again during the past two months; never before had these transitory feelings piled themselves up into such a definite emotion.
She could not trace its shy beginning, but she was aware of it first as a sense of the humanity in the cells of that luminous honeycomb below, the struggling, hoping, fighting, aspiring mass, each unit a thing to love, did one but know the best. The wave of love universal beat so strong on her heart that she turned her eyes away for surfeit of rapture, and looked up to the stars. They, the bright angels of judgment whose infinite spaces she could not contemplate without fear, united themselves in some mysterious bond with the little human things below; the sight of them brought the same wave of rapture. Too mighty long to be endured, the wave broke into ripples of happy contemplation. Sounding lines of forgotten poems ran through her mind, movements of old symphonies, memories of her vicarious raptures before the altar in the convent, glimpses of hillsides and valleys and woods in the winter rain which she had seen unseeing that she might reserve their deeper meaning for this deeper sight of the spirit. "I wonder if this is not happiness; if Heaven will not be so?" she thought. It came, too, that if this exaltation lasted a moment longer, she should know with God the meaning of all things, the Reason which united stars and space and men and the works of men.
The resonant bass of Bertram Chester, beating down Kate's cheerful treble, floated up from the sidewalk. The sound came almost as a relief; yet on second thought she was a little sorry for their intrusion into this lonely rapture of the spirit. She looked over the wall. Kate, revealed in the light of their gate-lamp, walked between the two men, who were bending toward her; now they were all laughing together. She was radiant, this firm-fleshed, golden flower of the West. Eleanor dipped from her clouds of glory to notice that she wore a new tailor gown, that every touch of her costume showed how she had got herself up for that special occasion. And now the spiritual fluid in Eleanor transmuted itself into a reckless gaiety. She slipped down the steps and confronted them on the sidewalk.
"Hello," said Kate, looking her over. "Well, who's given you a present?"
Eleanor hugged her. "That's just what's happened, Katie. Somebody
has given me a present--I believe it must have been the stars." She extended her hands, right and left, to the men; holding them so, she rattled on; "Boys and girls, there's so much ego in my cosmos to-night that it's running out at every pore. I'm sure there's going to be a party to-night, and I'm sure it's got up for my benefit. I'm going to play so hard--so hard that they'll put me to bed crying! Mr. Heath, bring on your Chinese and let them gambol and frisk. It's my birthday. This isn't the date in the family Bible, as Kate could tell you if she weren't a lady, but I'm sure my parents made a mistake. I just know that some menial is coming in a minute with a birthday cake--and the ring and the thimble and the coin and everything will be in my slice--Hello, Bert Chester!"
"Where do I come in?" enquired Kate.
"You? You come in as my dearest little playmate, to whom I sent the first invitation."
"I see at a glance," rejoined Mark Heath, "that we've got our work cut out for us. I will now announce to the Little Girl who is Having a Party the program of games and sports. The festival of the women is on in Chinatown."
"I saw it from the car as I passed Dupont Street," chimed in Kate. "And the Quarter is blazing like a fire in a tar barrel."
In the most natural manner, Kate linked herself to Mark Heath. She always yielded the place beside Bertram when Eleanor was present; quite as naturally, she herself took that place when Eleanor was away. Bertram cast a long look on his companion; and he ventured for the first time in weeks, on something like a compliment.
"What
has happened to you? You look--hanged if I can just tell you how you look, but it's great!"
"Oh, compliment me! I love compliments! That's my birthday present from you. I wonder if the Chinese babies will be out on the street--the little, golden babies. Why haven't they a legend about those babies? Mr. Heath, do you know Chinese mythology? Kate, aren't you sure those children are primroses transformed by the fairies to hide them from the goblins?"
Bertram frowned a little as she drew the other couple into their private conversation. But he continued to study her. This lightness and brightness which she had developed so suddenly, seemed quite to dim the radiance of his own personality. He fell into a quiet which lasted far into the evening. She, on her side, moved like one intoxicated by some divine liquor. Never had she seemed so gay, so young; and--though he did not wholly formulate this--never had she seemed to him so inaccessible.
They approached a dark alley beside an Italian tenement. Eleanor, dancing around the corner, came upon it suddenly. She drew up.
"There's an ogre in this dark den--I know there is. I must see him! Just think, I'm ten years old going onto eleven, and I never yet saw a real ogre. Come on--we're going ogre hunting!" She plunged into the shadows. Mark, laughing, followed.
Eleanor peeped into the door of a wine-house, peeped over a board fence, and came back to announce:
"He's not in. I left my card--oh, there he is--he's visiting the goblin in that garden across the street!" She skipped across to an old stone wall which held its half-acre of earth suspended over the hill-fall. Mark skipped with her; Bertram followed at a distance as one who plays a game of which he is not sure. Eleanor brought up against the wall.
"There he is--by the kitchen door. Of course you see him! Good, Kind ogre, you don't eat little girls on their birthdays do you?"
"Aren't his red eyes beautiful and hasn't he a classy set of teeth?" rejoined Mark Heath. "Be good, Fido, and you shall have a plumber for breakfast."
"But he'll spare me! He says I'm too beautiful to eat!" Eleanor was dancing back. "Oh Kate, I've seen an ogre!"
Kate did not answer. She fell in with Mark Heath, and as they drew ahead she murmured:
"I wonder what's got into her?"
"Nothing I guess. I should rather say she'd got out. I think it's bully."
"Oh, yes," said Kate, drawing out the last word.
They turned into the Quarter at Washington Street, and at once they were in the midst of the festival. From a doorway burst a group of little, immobile-featured Cantonese women, all in soft greens, deep blues, reds and golds that glimmered in the gas-lights. Banded combs in jade and gold held their smooth, glossy black hair; their slender hands, peeping from their sleeves, shone with rings. The foremost among them, a doll-girl of sixteen or so, tottered and swayed on the lily feet of a lady. The rest walked upon clattering pattens, like a French heel set by the cobbler's mistake at the instep.
Mark Heath, the young reporter, proud in his knowledge of "the inside," took up the reins of conversation.
"A fairy story for you right at the start, birthday lady! That little-foot girl is the daughter of Hom Kip. You remember the story, don't you? The old plug tried to sell this daughter of his for wife to a merchant in Portland. She had her own ideas--she eloped with the second tragedian from the theatre over there. Hom Kip put detectives on them, and caught her at Fresno. But she'd already married her actor American fashion; and the Portland bridegroom is waiting until father makes his little blossom a widow."
"As temporary Empress of Chinatown, I order that he shall do nothing of the kind," said Eleanor.
"As your grand vizier, I shall put the machinery in motion that will free the beautiful young bride," rejoined Mark Heath.
Kate broke in.
"What became of the actor? I'm one of those dull persons who always wants the rest of the story!"
"I told you, didn't I, that father is going to make her a widow? At least he was until the Empress ordered otherwise. The actor has probably abandoned his art, which gives him undesirable publicity. And some day, if father dares disobey the Empress, there'll be a mysterious murder in a backwoods laundry--police baffled."
Eleanor contemplated the lily-foot girl, swaying about the corner into Dupont, her little handkerchief in one hand, her proper fan in the other.
"Poor little blossom--I wonder if she'll mourn for him? Faithful Grand Vizier, don't tell me sad facts on my birthday night. I want only pretty things."
"Whether she'll mourn or not won't make much difference to father--or to the Highbinders. Je-hoshaphat--look!"
For they had turned the corner into Dupont Street, main avenue of the Quarter. Its narrow vista came upon them at first as a smothered flame. Innumerable paper lanterns, from scarlet globes as big as a barrel to parti-colored cones that one might hold in his palm, blazed everywhere, making strange combinations, incredible shades, in the flaring Chinese signs, the bright dresses of the women. The sidewalks quivered with life--soberly dressed coolies, making green background for the gauds of their women, bespangled babies late out of bed that they might gain good luck and blessing from those rites, priests in white robes, dignitaries in long tunics, incongruous Caucasian tourists and spectators.
A moment Eleanor drank it all in; then she addressed her Grand Vizier.
"Inform my people, through your invaluable publication, that their demonstration in my honor is perfect."
"It shall be done, liege lady--three column spread on the front page. Oh, you've got to have a shoe." For a vendor was bearing down on them, carrying a tray of pink paper shoes like valentines. "That's the symbol of this festival--the goddess lost her shoe before she died. How much, Charlie? Two bits two? All light! Empress, permit me to present this souvenir of a grateful people. Miss Waddington, have a shoe on me!"
Eleanor hung the pink trifle to the pin at her throat.
"I shall add it to the royal treasure trove," she said. It came across her then, as one of the unrelated thoughts and fancies which were coursing in such swarms through her mind, that Bertram Chester, though he stuck close to her side, had been unusually silent. She drew him in at once.
"Does it become me?" she asked.
"Everything becomes you."
"You don't say anything about
my shoes!" said Kate.
Now the crowd began to eddy and to whirl toward the next corner. There rose the clang of gongs, the shrilling of a Chinese pipe playing a mournful air in that five-toned scale Whose combinations suggest always the mystery of the East. About that corner swept the procession of the Good Lady, priests before, women worshippers behind. The priests set up a falsetto chant, the banner-bearers lifted their staves, and the parti-colored mass moved down on them.
"It's like a flower-bed on a landslide!" exclaimed Eleanor.
Mark Heath gravely pulled out his left cuff and took rapid notes with a pencil.
"That goes into the story--anything more up your sleeve like that?"
"Wasn't it good? Eleanor is always thinking up clever things to say," Kate came in. Her voice was rather flat.
At the edge of the gutter where they stood, a Chinese shoemaker had set out on a lacquer tray his offering to the gods. Red candles bordered it, surrounding little bowls of rice and sweetmeats, a slice of roast pig, a Chinese lily. As the banners approached, certain devout coolies found room on the sidewalk to prostrate themselves. Eleanor, absorbed now in a poetic appreciation of all this glory of color and spirit, felt a movement beside her. She looked down. The shoemaker was flat on his forehead beside his offering.
"Would you per-ceive that Chink grovel," spoke the voice of Bertram Chester.
Before Eleanor could turn on him, he was addressing the shoemaker.
"Feel a heap better, Charlie? Say, who-somalla you? Brush off your knees!" The Chinese, if he understood, paid no more attention than he paid to the lamp post in his path. Gathering up his offering, he pushed his way back through the crowd.
For the first time that evening, Eleanor became somewhat like her normal self as she said:
"Why, this is a religious ceremony, isn't it--all this light and color!"
"Yes," responded the personal conductor of the party, "but you have to pinch yourself to remember it. For instance, you'll be charmed to know that I saw one of those priests, up in front there, arrested last week in a raid on a gambling joint. Morals haven't an awful lot to do with this religion. Maybe that fellow on the pavement was praying that he'd have a chance to murder his dearest enemy, and maybe he was applying for luck in a lottery. Empress of Chinatown, up yon frazzled flight of stairs lurks the New York Daytime Lottery. The agents of said lottery are playing ducks and drakes right now with the pay of the printers on the imperial bulletin which I have the honor to represent. Some day, your grand vizier and most humble servant is going to do a Sunday story on a drawing in a Chinese lottery."
Eleanor showed no inclination to go on with the game.
"Have another shoe--one shoe, Charlie, for the little princess!" continued Mark Heath. This one, displayed amid the cone-sticks and New Years nuts of a sweetmeat stand, was bright blue. Mark hung it on Eleanor's shoulder; then, as a kind of afterthought, he bought a crimson tassel for Kate.
The procession was past, was breaking up. The women, in knots of three or four, were scattering to the night's festivities. Mark, as guide, let business go as he led them on his grand tour of Chinatown. They stopped to survey sidewalk altars of rice paper and jade, where priests tapped their little gongs and sang all night the glory of the Good Lady; they visited the prayer store, emporium for red candles, "devil-go-ways," punks, votive tassels, and all other Chinese devices to win favor of the gods and surcease from demons; they explored the cavernous underground dwellings beneath the Jackson Street Theatre; they climbed a narrow, reeking passage to marvel at the revel of color and riot of strange scent which was the big joss house. Bertram's spirits were rising by this time; he expressed them by certain cub-like gambols which showed both his failure to appreciate the beauty in all this strangeness and his old-time Californian contempt for the Chinese as a people. Once he tweaked a cue in passing and laughed in the face of the insulted Chinaman; and once he made pretence of stealing nuts from a sweetmeat stall.
Wherever Mark found a new design in toy shoes, he bought one for Eleanor, until she wore a string of them, like a necklace, across her bodice. Yet had the illumination gone a little out of her; she replied with diminishing vivacity to Mark's advances as he played the birthday game.
When they mounted the joss house stairs she lagged behind; and Bertram lagged with her.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "I never saw you so bright and chipper as we were awhile ago, and now--say, what's the matter?"
"Nothing. Oh, Mr. Heath--" she raised her voice, "are the actors allowed in the joss house--and if not will you have it fixed for me?"
After they had presented their votive punks to the great high god, Kate announced that she was footweary.
"Can't we find a place to sit down?" she asked. Mark took her up.
"That's the signal for tea at the Man Far Low restaurant. Ever been there? Tea store below, fantan next floor, restaurant top side all the way through the block. Come on, Empress of Chinatown. The royal board awaits."
The Man Far Low was in the throes of large preparation for the Chinese all-night banquets which would close the festival. The cashier wore his dress tunic, his cap with the red button. The kitchen door, open on the second landing, gave forth a cloud of steam which bore odors of peanut oil, duck, bamboo sprouts and Chinese garlic; through the cloud they could see cooks working mightily over their brass pots. Every compartment of the big dining hall upstairs held its prepared table; waiters in new-starched white coats were setting forth a thousand toy devices in porcelain. Though the Chinese feasting had not yet commenced, it was plain, from the attitude of the waiters, that slummers and tourists were not wanted on that night. But still the head waiter, when he came slipping over on his felt shoes, led them to a table in the Eastern dining room, from whose balconies one overlooked Portsmouth Square. His aspect, however, was anything but cheerful.
"Say, you Chink, smile!" said Bertram as he seated himself.
By a slight turn of the head, the very slightest in the world, the Chinese showed that he caught this in all its force. But he went gravely on, setting out porcelain bowls. Eleanor's hand moved a little, as though in restraint.
"Cheer up, Charlie, crops is ripe!" resumed Bertram.
"Don't--please," cried Eleanor. The first word came short, sharp and peremptory; the "please" was appealing.
The color rose under Bertram's brown skin. Kate, an outside party to this passage, smiled a quiet smile; but she spoke to Mark Heath.
"What
are those paintings on that screen--come and tell me about them!"
Now Bertram and Eleanor stood alone with the table between them.
"I was jollying him!" burst out Bertram. Eleanor glanced at Kate, who stood profile-on listening to the ready Heath.
"Shall we go out on the balcony?" She stepped through the open French window.
As they stood in the shadow, the city at their feet, neither spoke for a moment. Finally,
"It's a call-down, I suppose?" began Bertram, tentatively.
"Not necessarily."
With a slam, he brought his hand down on the balcony rail.
"You don't give--you don't give a damn--that's the trouble with you--you don't care what I do!"
Eleanor drew a little away from him before she answered:
"I care if anyone is uncivil."
"What is it but a Chink? They expect it! Why, down in Tulare--" His voice fell away as though he recognized the futility of an attack in this form. She spoke:
"It is you who should not expect it." And then, "I am sorry I said what I did. It was an impulse. We are all imperfect. I've often been unkind myself."
Bertram stood gripping the rail before him as one caught and held by a new emotion. When he spoke, his voice was low and rather hard. At the first tone of it, she shrank from the daimon in him.
"If you only cared enough to call me down! That's the trouble with you. Am I--am I the dirt under your feet?"
"Oh, don't please!" But he was going on, too fast to be stopped.
"I'm afraid of you--that's what's the matter. What have you got in you that I can't seem to melt? You kept away from me the first time ever I saw you. You've kept away ever since. You don't think I'm as good as you--and I'm not. But it's aggravating--it's damned aggravating--to have you rub it in. You've got something about you that I can't touch anywhere." And he paused, as though expecting her to deny it.
"I don't know what right you have to say this," she exclaimed.
In her swift rush to her own defence, she had dropped her guard. She realized it on the moment, heard his inevitable reply before he opened his mouth to the swift-flashing answer which, that outer self told her, was the only possible answer for him to make.
"Only this right. I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you ever since I saw you down at the Judge's ranch, only I didn't know it then. I love you." Silence for a moment, and then, "I love you!"
For just one instant, it seemed to her that she was swaying toward him in spite of herself. He made, curiously, no active motion toward her. That outer self of Eleanor's, reigning as always over her conscious self, commenting, criticising, seeing--that outer self remembered, above her mental turmoil, that never in all their later acquaintance had he tried even to touch her finger.
"Oh, don't!" she cried, "please don't!"
He made a growl in his throat, the adult counterpart to a baby's cry of disappointment.
"Didn't I tell you?" he said, "and now I've laid myself wide open for a throw-down."
"If you call it that. Oh Bertram--" he and she both noticed the shift to his familiar name--"I'm afraid I haven't been fair to you. Oh, have I been fair?"
He paused as though considering a whole new range of ideas.
"Yes, I guess you have," he responded at length.
"You're a man," she said, "and a big man. I suppose I ought--to love you. To have the power of loving you in me. And oh, there have been moments when I thought I could." She stopped as though appalled by the lengths to which she had gone. "You see, I'm trying to be fair now. I'm telling you everything."
And then, with the thought which succeeded, it was as though she felt the physical tingle of bay leaves in her nostrils, "or nearly everything."
Through the open French windows came the cheery voice of Kate Waddington.
"Tea is served, ladies and gentlemen!"
"All right--be along presently!" called Bertram. And then to Eleanor:
"You must tell me--you can't keep me hanging by the toes until I see you again."
"The rest means--since I am being perfectly fair to you--that I can't tell." Now something like strong emotion touched her voice--"Don't think I am coquetting with you--don't believe that it is anything but my effort to be fair." She turned on this, and stepped through the open window.
Bertram struggling to compose his face, Eleanor wearing her old air of sweet inscrutability, they faced the quick, perceiving glance of Kate Waddington who sat pouring tea from the crack between two shell bowls.
Eleanor settled herself on the teak-wood stool.
"You
must come out on the balcony before we go," she cried. "I never saw the city lights so wonderful."
"Well," said Kate, "it all depends on the company!" _