“But he’d like to see you—it’d cheer him up. And he’d know that we understood about tonight. He sounded awfully depressed over the phone.”
He urged her from the cab.
“Let’s only stay a minute,” she whispered tensely as they went up in the elevator. “The show starts at half-past eight.”
“Apartment on the right,” said the elevator man.
They rang the bell and waited. The door opened and they walked directly into Charley Hart’s great studio room.
It was crowded with people; from end to end ran a long lamp-lit dinner table strewn with ferns and young roses, from which a gay murmur of laughter and conversation arose into the faintly smoky air. Twenty women in evening dress sat on one side in a row chatting across the flowers at twenty men, with an elation born of the sparkling burgundy which dripped from many bottles into thin chilled glass. Up on the high narrow balcony which encircled the room a string quartet was playing something by Stravinski in a key that was pitched just below the women’s voices and filled the air like an audible wine.
The door had been opened by one of the waiters, who stepped back deferentially from what he thought were two belated guests—and immediately a handsome man at the head of the table started to his feet, napkin in hand, and stood motionless, staring toward the newcomers. The conversation faded into half silence and all eyes followed Charley Hart’s to the couple at the door. Then, as if the spell was broken, conversation resumed, gathering momentum word by word—the moment was over.
“Let’s get out!” Marion’s low, terrified whisper came to Michael out of a void and for a minute he thought he was possessed by an illusion, that there was no one but Charley in the room after all. Then his eyes cleared and he saw that there were many people here—he had never seen so many! The music swelled suddenly into the tumult of a great brass band and a wind from the loud horns seemed to blow against them; without turning he and Marion each made one blind step backward into the hall, pulling the door to after them.
“Marion—!”
She had run toward the elevator, stood with one finger pressed hard against the bell which rang through the hall like a last high note from the music inside. The door of the apartment opened suddenly and Charley Hart came out into the hall.
“Michael!” he cried, “Michael and Marion, I want to explain! Come inside. I want to explain, I tell you.”
He talked excitedly—his face was flushed and his mouth formed a word or two that did not materialize into sound.
“Hurry up, Michael,” came Marion’s voice tensely from the elevator.
“Let me explain,” cried Charley frantically. “I want—”
Michael moved away from him—the elevator came and the gate clanged open.
“You act as if I’d committed some crime.” Charley was following Michael along the hall. “Can’t you understand that this is all an accidental situation?”
“It’s all right,” Michael muttered, “I understand.”
“No, you don’t.” Charley’s voice rose with exasperation. He was working up anger against them so as to justify his own intolerable position. “You’re going away mad and I asked you to come in and join the party. Why did you come up here if you won’t come in? Did you—?”
Michael walked into the elevator.
“Down, please!” cried Marion. “Oh, I want to go down, please!”
The gate clanged shut.
They told the taxi-man to take them directly home—neither of them could have endured the theatre. Driving uptown to their apartment, Michael buried his face in his hands and tried to realize that the friendship which had meant so much to him was over. He saw now that it had been over for some time, that not once during the past year had Charley sought their company and the shock of the discovery far outweighed the affront he had received.
When they reached home, Marion, who had not said a word in the taxi, led the way into the living room and motioned for her husband to sit down.
“I’m going to tell you something that you ought to know,” she said. “If it hadn’t been for what happened tonight I’d probably never have told you—but now I think you ought to hear the whole story.” She hesitated. “In the first place, Charley Hart wasn’t a friend of yours at all.”
“What?” He looked up at her dully.
“He wasn’t your friend,” she repeated. “He hasn’t been for years. He was a friend of mine.”
“Why, Charley Hart was—”
“I know what you’re going to say—that Charley was a friend to both of us. But it isn’t true. I don’t know how he considered you at first but he stopped being your friend three or four years ago.”
“Why—” Michael’s eyes glowed with astonishment. “If that’s true, why was he with us all the time?”
“On account of me,” said Marion steadily. “He was in love with me.”
“What?” Michael laughed incredulously. “You’re imagining things. I know how he used to pretend in a kidding way—”
“It wasn’t kidding,” she interrupted, “not underneath. It began that way—and it ended by his asking me to run away with him.”
Michael frowned.
“Go on,” he said quietly. “I suppose this is true or you wouldn’t be telling me about it—but it simply doesn’t seem real. Did he just suddenly begin to—to—”
He closed his mouth suddenly, unable to say the words.
“It began one night when we three were out dancing,” Marion hesitated. “And at first I thoroughly enjoyed it. He had a faculty for noticing things—noticing dresses and hats and the new ways I’d do my hair. He was good company. He could always make me feel important, somehow, and attractive. Don’t get the idea that I preferred his company to yours—I didn’t. I knew how completely selfish he was, and what a will-o’-the-wisp. But I encouraged him, I suppose—I thought it was fine. It was a new angle on Charley, and he was amusing at it, just as he was at everything he did.”
“Yes—” agreed Michael with an effort. “I suppose it was—hilariously amusing.”
“At first he liked you just the same. It didn’t occur to him that he was doing anything treacherous to you. He was just following a natural impulse—that was all. But after a few weeks he began to find you in the way. He wanted to take me to dinner without you along—and it couldn’t be done. Well, that sort of thing went on for over a year.”
“What happened then?”
“Nothing happened. That’s why he stopped coming to see us anymore.”
Michael rose slowly to his feet.
“Do
