The Deluge | Page 6

see much at a glance; I often have seen
much; I never saw more than just then. Instantly, I made up my mind
that the Ellerslys would lunch with me. "You've got to eat somewhere,"
said I, in a tone that put an end to his attempts to manufacture excuses.
"I'll be delighted to have you. Don't make up any more yarns."
He slowly opened the door. "Anita," said he, "Mr. Blacklock. He's
invited us to lunch."
I lifted my hat, and bowed. I kept my eyes straight upon hers. And it
gave me more pleasure to look into them than I had ever before got out
of looking into anybody's. I am passionately fond of flowers, and of
children; and her face reminded me of both. Or, rather, it seemed to me
that what I had seen, with delight and longing, incomplete in their
freshness and beauty and charm, was now before me in the fullness. I
felt like saying to her, "I have heard of you often. The children and the
flowers have told me you were coming." Perhaps my eyes did say it. At
any rate, she looked as straight at me as I at her, and I noticed that she
paled a little and shrank--yet continued to look, as if I were compelling

her. But her voice, beautifully clear, and lingering in the ears like the
resonance of the violin after the bow has swept its strings and lifted,
was perfectly self-possessed, as she said to her brother: "That will be
delightful--if you think we have time."
I saw that she, uncertain whether he wished to accept, was giving him a
chance to take either course. "He has time--nothing but time," said I.
"His engagements are always with people who want to get something
out of him. And they can wait." I pretended to think he was expecting
me to enter the trap; I got in, seated myself beside her, said to Sam:
"I've saved the little seat for you. Tell your man to take us to the
Equitable Building--Nassau Street entrance."
I talked a good deal during the first half of the nearly two hours we
were together--partly because both Sam and his sister seemed under
some sort of strain, chiefly because I was determined to make a good
impression. I told her about myself, my horses, my house in the country,
my yacht. I tried to show her I wasn't an ignoramus as to books and art,
even if I hadn't been to college. She listened, while Sam sat
embarrassed. "You must bring your sister down to visit me," I said
finally. "I'll see that you both have the time of your lives. Make up a
party of your friends, Sam, and come down--when shall we say? Next
Sunday? You know you were coming anyhow. I can change the rest of
the party."
Sam grew as red as if he were going into apoplexy. I thought then he
was afraid I'd blurt out something about who were in the party I was
proposing to change. I was soon to know better.
"Thank you, Mr.--Blacklock," said his sister. "But I have an
engagement next Sunday. I have a great many engagements just now.
Without looking at my book I couldn't say when I can go." This easily
and naturally. In her set they certainly do learn thoroughly that branch
of tact which plain people call lying.
Sam gave her a grateful look, which he thought I didn't see, and which I
didn't rightly interpret--then.
"We'll fix it up later, Blacklock," said he.
"All right," said I. And from that minute I was almost silent. It was
something in her tone and manner that silenced me. I suddenly realized
that I wasn't making as good an impression as I had been flattering
myself.

When a man has money and is willing to spend it, he can readily fool
himself into imagining he gets on grandly with women. But I had better
grounds than that for thinking myself not unattractive to them, as a rule.
Women had liked me when I had nothing; women had liked me when
they didn't know who I was. I felt that this woman did not like me. And
yet, by the way she looked at me in spite of her efforts not to do so, I
could tell that I had some sort of unusual interest for her. Why didn't
she like me? She made me feel the reason. I didn't belong to her world.
My ways and my looks offended her. She disliked me a good deal; she
feared me a little. She would have felt safer if she had been gratifying
her curiosity, gazing in at me through the bars of a cage.
Where I had been feeling and showing my