The Pagan Madonna - Page 28/141

Always to be poor, to be hanging on the edge of things, never enough of

this or that--genteel poverty. She had inherited the condition, as had her

mother before her--gentlefolk who had to count the pennies. Her two

sisters--really handsome girls--had married fairly well; but one lived in

St. Louis and the other in Seattle, so she never saw them any more.

Tired. That was it. Tired of the war for existence; tired of the following

odours of antiseptics; tired of the white walls of hospitals, the sight of

pain. On top of all, the level dullness of the past, the leaden horror of

these months in Siberia. She laughed brokenly. Gardens scattered all over

the world, and she couldn't find one--the gardens of imagination! Romance

everywhere, and she never could touch any of it!

Marriage. Outside of books, what was it save a legal contract to cook and

bear children in exchange for food and clothes? The humdrum! She flung out

her arms with a gesture of rage. She had been cheated, as always. She had

come to this side of the world expecting colour, movement, adventure. The

Orient of the novels she had read--where was it? Drab skies, drab people,

drab work! And now to return to America, to exchange one drab job for

another! Nadir, always nadir, never any zenith!

Her bitter cogitations were interrupted by a knock on the door. She threw

on her kimono and answered. A yellow hand thrust a bottle toward her. It

would be the wash for the jade. She emptied the soap dish, cleaned it,

poured in the germicide, and dropped the jade necklace into the liquid.

She left it there while she dressed.

Dennison Cleigh, returning to the States to look for a job! Nothing she

had ever read seemed quite so fantastic. She paused in her dressing to

stare at some inner thought which she projected upon the starred curtain

of the night beyond her window. Supposing they had wanted to fling

themselves into each other's arms and hadn't known how? She had had a

glimpse or two of Dennison's fierce pride. Naturally he had inherited it

from his father. Supposing they were just stupid rather than vengeful?

Poor, foolish human beings!

She proceeded with her toilet. Finishing that, she cleansed the jade

necklace with soap and water, then realized that she would not be able to

wear it, because the string would be damp. So she put on the glass beads

instead--another move by the Madonna of the Pagan. Jane Norman was to have

her fling.

Dennison was in the lobby waiting for her. He gave a little gasp of

delight as he beheld her. Of whom and of what did she remind him? Somebody

he had seen, somebody he had read about? For the present it escaped him.

Was she handsome? He could not say; but there was that in her face that

was always pulling his glance and troubling him for the want of knowing

why.