The Forbidden Way. Gibbs George
you insist on not marrying me."
Miss Janney sank in a chair by the table, fingering the pages of a magazine. She said nothing in reply, but in a few moments spoke carelessly.
"Tell me something about Lawrence Berkely, will you?"
"Larry? You've only met him once. Your curiosity is indecent."
"You know he's coming here with the Wrays."
"Not really? That's going a bit strong. I don't think I'll stand for that."
"Oh, yes, you will. He's quite as good as we are. He belongs to the Berkelys of Virginia. Mrs. Rumsen knows them."
"That's convincing. Any one Aunt Caroline knows will need no card to Saint Peter. Oh, Larry's all right. But I warn you not to fall in love with him."
"That's precisely what I've done," she asserted.
He glanced at her amusedly, but she met his look coolly.
"It's true, Cort. He's actually the only man I've met since I came out who really isn't eligible. I'm so delighted. Of course, father would never have permitted it if he'd only known that Mr. Berkely wasn't rich. He hasn't much use for poor people. Oh, he's well enough off, I suppose, as Mr. Wray's partner, but then he doesn't own any of that fabulous gold mine."
"How do you know all these things?"
"He told me. Besides, he's terribly good looking, and has had something the matter with his lungs."
"Well, of all the – "
"That's why he's been living in the West. But he's quite well now. Isn't it splendid? I only hope he'll like me. Don't you think he has wonderful eyes?"
"I'm sure I never noticed. See here, Gretchen, you're talking rot. I'm going to tell your father."
"Oh, I don't care," airily. "But if you do, I'll tell Mr. Wray."
"Wray?"
"Yes – that you're in love with his wife."
Miss Janney exploded this bombshell casually while she removed her hat, watching him carefully meanwhile in the mirror. If she had planned her coup, she could not have been more fully rewarded, for Cortland started up, clutching at the chair arms, his face aghast; but when his eyes met hers in the mirror he sank back again, laughing uneasily.
"What – who on earth put that silly idea into your head?"
"You – yourself. I watched you at the Warringtons."
"What nonsense! I've known Camilla a long time."
"Not so long as you've known me. And you never looked at me like that." She laid her hat beside her crop on the table, then turned quickly and put her hand over his on the chair arm. "You may trust me, Cortland, dear. If I'm going to be your sister, I may as well begin at once. It's true, isn't it?"
He remained silent a long while, his gaze fixed on the open fire before him. Then at last he turned his hand over so that his fingers clasped hers. "Yes," he whispered, "it's true, Gretchen. It's true."
"I'm so sorry, Cort," she murmured. "I suspected from your letters. I wish I might have helped you. I feel somehow that I am to blame – that we ever got engaged. Won't you tell me how it happened that she married him – instead of you?"
"No, no," he said, rising and walking to the window. "She – she married Wray – because – because she loved him, that's all. I wasn't the man."
Gretchen watched him wistfully, still standing beside the chair he had vacated, full of the first deep sympathy she had ever known. Slowly she walked over and put her hand timidly on his shoulder.
"You'll forgive me, won't you, Cort? I wouldn't have spoken if I had known how deeply you felt." She turned aside with a bitter little laugh. "Isn't it queer that life should be so full of complications? Everybody expects you and me to marry each other – at least, everybody but ourselves, and we won't because – why is it that we won't? Chiefly because everybody expects us to – and because it's so easy. I'm sure if there was any reason why we shouldn't marry, I'd love you quite madly. Instead of which, you're in love with a married woman, and I – I'm interested in a youth with sad romantic eyes and an impaired breathing apparatus."
"Gretchen, don't be silly," he said, smiling in spite of himself.
"I'm really serious – you'll see." She stopped and clutched Bent's arm. "Tell me, Cort. He's not married already, is he?"
"You silly child. Not that I know of. Berkely is a conscientious sort of a bird – he wouldn't have let you make love to him – "
"I didn't," with dignity, "we talked about the weather mostly."
"That must have been romantic."
"Cort, I'll not speak to you again." She rushed past him to the window, her head erect. Outside was the whirr of an arriving motor. "How tiresome. Here come the Billy Havilands," she said, "and they'll want to be playing 'Auction' at once. They always do. As if there was nothing but 'Bridge' in the world!" She sniffed. "I wish we were going to be fewer in number. Just you and I and – "
"And Larry?"
"Yes – and Mrs. Wray," she put in viciously.
Curtis Janney was already in the big stair hall to welcome the arrivals.
"Billy – Dorothy – welcome! Of course you had to bring your buzz-wagon. I suppose I'll be driven to build a garage some day – but it will be well down by the East Lodge. Do you expect to follow in that thing? Rita! Awfully glad. Your hunter came over last night. He looks fit as a fiddle. Aren't you cold? Gretchen, dear, ring for tea."
Noiseless maids and men-servants appeared, appropriated wraps and hand baggage, and departed.
"We timed it nicely," said Haviland, looking at his watch. "Forty-seven from the ferry. We passed your wagons a moment ago. Gretchen, who's the red-haired girl with the Rumsens?"
"Et tu, Brute? That's Mrs. Wray. None of us has a chance when she's around. Here they are now."
The two station wagons drew up at the terrace, and the guests dismounted. Mr. and Mrs. Rumsen with the Wrays in the station wagon, and the Baroness Charny, the Warringtons, Jack Perot, and Lawrence Berkely in the 'bus.
"Well, Worthy! Got here after all! Caroline, Mrs. Wray, would you like to go right up or will you wait for tea? Wray, there's something stronger just inside. Show him, won't you, Billy?"
Wray entered the big hall with a renewed appreciation of the utility of wealth. The houses in New York which he had seen were, of course, built upon a more moderate scale. He had still to discover that the men of wealth were learning to make their week-ends out of town longer, and that the real home-life of many of them had been transferred to the country, where broad acres and limitless means enabled them to gratify their tastes in developing great estates which would hand down their names in the architectural history of the country when their city houses should be overwhelmed and lost in the march of commerce. Curtis Janney, for all his great responsibilities, was an open-air man, and he took a real delight in his great Tudor house and stables. The wide entrance hall which so impressed Jeff was designed in the ripe Palladian manner which distinguished the later work of the great Inigo Jones. This lofty room was the keynote of the building – a double cube in shape, the staircase which led from the centre opposite the door ornate in a character purely classic – the doorways to the other rooms on the same floor masterful in structural arrangement and elegant in their grace and simplicity. It almost seemed as though the room had been designed as a framework for the two wonderful Van Dykes which were placed at each side of the stairway.
Jeff smiled as he walked into the smoking room – the smile of possession. He realized, as never before, that taste, elegance, style, were things which could be bought with money, as one would buy stock or a piece of real estate. The only difference between Curtis Janney and himself was that his host had an ancestor or two – while Jeff had none.
Miss Janney had quietly and cleverly appropriated Lawrence Berkely and was already on her way to the conservatory. Jack Perot, who painted the portraits of fashionable ladies, had taken the Baroness to the Long Room, where the English