Gods Men (23 page)

“You look like a princess,” he told Candace.

“William, don't tell me you're poetic.” She gave him her careless and pretty smile.

“No, just that I'm partial to princesses,” he protested. “I grew up in the neighborhood of a palace, in Peking, you know, where princesses lived and played. They're not strange to me.”

Mrs. Cameron overheard and said a little sharply. “Are your sisters coming to commencement, William?”

Taken aback he, too, spoke more sharply than he knew. “They're coming tomorrow.”

“You're a silent sort of an ape,” Jeremy put in. “Why didn't you tell me they were coming?”

“I didn't think you'd be interested,” William retorted.

“Of course I am,” Jeremy insisted. “You know my sister and am I not to know yours?”

“Henrietta is quite ugly,” William said with apparent frankness. “And though Ruth is pretty, I have never discovered anything interesting about her.”

“Men never see anything in their sisters,” Candace declared.

Their interest in any conversation not connected with themselves waned quickly. In the fashion of the rich, William thought.

“It is going to be hot,” Mrs. Cameron said in a plaintive voice.

“You can't possibly be as hot in that outfit as I am in mine,” Mr. Cameron told her.

“I don't know,” she said. “I have to wear a cor—”

“Mother, spare us!” Candace put in.

“I don't mind William,” Mrs. Cameron said. “He's used to us.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cameron,” William said. “Come and sit down. I hope you've made Candace keep the first dance for me. She promised it but she never keeps her promises.”

“She's a very naughty girl,” Mrs. Cameron said with vague indulgence, sitting down.

“I did keep it,” Candace said. “And I don't break my promises.”

The orchestra began to play and the ballroom seemed suddenly full. William made a smile serve for answer and drew Candace into his arms. He danced beautifully and he was aware of watching eyes. He imagined them thinking of him with admiration, however reluctant. He liked to compel admiration.

Then he looked down and saw Candace's face, calm and beautiful. Her skin was fine and smooth and creamy white, her lips sweet and deeply cut. How fortunate for him if she would marry him soon! Why should they be long engaged? He needed Candace now, for herself and for everything she could bring to him. He would ask her tonight. He could see Jeremy's eyes watching him. It was a man's own business whom he married and when he married. In such dreams, compounded of the many mixtures in himself, he went through the evening, evading Jeremy, dancing with Candace again and again, and when she was not free he asked no one else. Then to his horror he saw her dancing twice with Seth James. Pangs seized him. Seth was one of her kind, the son of a man richer even than her father.

He went to Candace to claim his own last dance. “I can't let Seth look at you like that,” he said sternly, as he took her in his arms.

She smiled dreamily without answer and he saw her shoulders shining white and her hair gold in the light of the lamps. He imagined that she was withdrawn from him and instantly he wanted to force her attention to himself.

“I won't tell you how beautiful you are,” he said half carelessly. “I suppose Seth has said all that.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

He imagined that she was holding herself away from him and he drew her closer. “You are not in rhythm.”

“They're playing the waltz too slowly,” she replied, but she yielded herself, her cheek all but touching his shoulder. Still he was not satisfied.

He stopped and they stood motionless in the whirling crowd. “Come along outside,” he said abruptly. “I've been full of something all evening—something I've wanted to say.”

He put her hand in his arm and led her away, looking strangely grim for a young man in love. Jeremy, across the room, watched them go through an open door and since for the moment he was not dancing, he went to find his parents. They were waltzing quietly together in a distant corner and they stopped as he came up.

“I just want to warn you,” he said in a low voice. “At this very moment William is going to ask Candace to marry him.”

“Oh dear!” his mother exclaimed.

His father looked grave. “I don't know that we can do a thing about it,” he said after an instant's thought.

Before Jeremy's astonished eyes the two looked at each other and resumed again the slow measures of their waltz. He left them after another moment and then went to pour himself a large glass of whisky and drink it down.

Outside the house, under a wisteria bower in the garden lit by Chinese lanterns, William began his proposal to Candace. He had wondered how this should be done, and had made some half-dozen plans, none of which he now used. She looked so cool, so full of sweet common sense, that he felt it wisdom to approach her in like mood.

“Candy, I think you have known for a long time that I want to marry you, if you will have me.”

These were the words he spoke almost as soon as she had sat down. She shook out her little Chinese fan. He had given her the fan last Christmas, a thing of silk and sandalwood which his mother had chosen for him in Peking. He smelled the sandalwood now in the warm air of the night, and childish memories stirred, sandalwood and incense and the close sweet smell of old temples in the hills where the American missionary families had sometimes picnicked in the long, bright northern summers. He turned away from such useless remembrance.

Candace had not replied.

“Well?” he asked a little too sharply.

“I didn't think you would ask me quite yet,” she said.

He was not able to tell from the pure cool tones whether she was glad or sorry. “I didn't know, either,” he replied in the manner with which he had chosen to present himself to her. “Perhaps I ought to wait until I have some sort of income. But the last few days I've asked myself why I should wait. I'd rather like to remember some day when I've built you a palace and filled it with slaves that I proposed to you when I was penniless and that you accepted me so.”

She laughed. “A nice idea!” She waved the fan and once more the scent came blowing against his face. He moved from it half impatiently.

“Then will you, Candy?”

“Will I what?”

“Oh, Candy, don't tease!”

“But you haven't said you love me!”

“Of course I love you.”

It was the first time he had ever spoken the words to any creature and they sat upon his tongue like pebbles.

“How strangely you say that!” she said shrewdly.

“Because it is strange to me. I've never said it before to anybody.”

This touched her, he could see. She looked at him curiously, her lashes lifted and long. He had the usual amount of passion in him, he supposed, though he had never tried himself. Jeremy was clean and delicate, and though Martin went about visiting strange places, the young men whom William had cultivated were not often physically gross. Lustfulness was not one of his own natural sins. Yet slowly he felt rise in him a strong desire to touch this beautiful girl and, guided by instinct, he put out his arms and felt her come into them. Beneath and against his cheek he felt her hair.

“Dearest!”

The word rose to his lips of its own accord. He had heard his father use it once or twice to his mother. They had not often been affectionate before others, and the word had clung in his mind.

“Will you be good to me, William?”

“Yes, I will. I swear it.”

He heard her sigh, he felt her lean against him and the fan dropped to the ground. It seemed to him suddenly that he loved her with all the love he ought to have.

Over the grass, in moonlight and lantern light mingled, a quickened waltz floated upon waves of music and Candace pulled herself away. “Let's go back and dance!”

“But are we engaged, Candy?” he urged.

She stood up but he would not let her go, his arms about her waist. He wanted to be sure she was his before she went back into the rooms crowded with young men.

“I—I suppose so,” she said, half unwillingly, half shyly.

“We are!”

He stood up and seized her again and kissed her long and hard. When he released her she gave a little cry.

“Ah, you've broken my fan!”

He had indeed. When he picked up the fan it lay in his hand like a broken flower. He had crushed the filigree with his heel, and the scent was strong in his nostrils.

“Never mind, I'll send to Peking for another, ivory instead of sandalwood, and set with kingfishers' feathers instead of silk.”

“Ivory has no scent,” she complained. “Give me the pieces, William. I shan't ever like a fan so well again.”

He gave them to her, half resentfully, and they walked into the house and began to dance together in silence. He was angry with himself and then with her. The moment that he had wanted to be perfect had ended badly. He had been awkward, perhaps, but she had been unforgiving. Nevertheless he had proposed and had been accepted. They went on dancing.

On commencement day William rose and breakfasted before Jeremy woke, and from the dining hall he went out and across the Yard to the big elm under which he had agreed to meet his sisters and grandparents. They had reached town early, had taken a hack to a small second-class hotel and there had breakfasted.

He saw them waiting for him now, and for a moment they were as detached, as isolated, as a photograph in a family album.

Henrietta was plainer than ever and his grandparents were more middle class than he had thought possible. Ruth had grown up pretty and gentle and he felt a sudden renewal of affection for her. He need not be ashamed of her. But no distaste showed on his resolute young face. He smiled and shook hands properly with his elders.

“How are you, Grandfather? Grandmother, it's awfully good of you, really—I hope the trip wasn't hard.” He kissed Henrietta's cheek and squeezed Ruth's slender shoulders in his arms. “Come along. We'll get good seats.”

The Yard was coming to life. Seniors in cap and gown were hastening here and there.

He led his guests into the wide-open doors of the hall where a few people were already gathering, and he took pains to find seats where they could see him receive his honors.

“Ruth shall sit on the aisle, so she can see me when we come marching in,” he said, and caught her smile.

Henrietta had said nothing since they met. She wore a plain dark blue linen suit and a stiff sailor hat that emphasized the angles of her face. Her eyes were brown like their father's, but they were deep-set and intense, while his were shallowly set and pleasant. This William saw but he did not notice her silence. He was in haste to be off on his own business, to leave them.

“Let's meet again under the elm after this is over.”

He met their solemn, dazed eyes, tried to smile, and hurried away. His rooms were empty. Jeremy was gone. He snatched his cap and gown and put them on, glanced at himself in the mirror, and joined the thickening crowd. He felt them looking at him as he strode toward the Yard but he pretended he did not. Confidence, excitement, the assurance of success, were hid behind his set and handsome face. The honor the day would bring him was only the first step to all that lay ahead, and he knew it. He took his place among his classmates, and the important day began, the end and purpose of four long and sometimes tedious years.

Then suddenly he lost it as he was to lose so many days from his life. Everything became unreal to him. His mind seemed to leave his body. It raced ahead into the years, planning, fighting, conquering, gaining all that he wanted. When would he have enough? When would he know and what would be satisfaction? He tried to bring himself back to this hour, which now that he had it seemed no more an end but only a beginning. He even felt vaguely that he was losing it and he wanted to keep it. It was a part of satisfaction, the first step at least toward fulfillment, a fragment of his life completed. He tried to think of Candace as he sat among his fellows; he tried to value the sound of his name upon the list of honor men.

“William Lane,
summa cum laude
—”

But he had ceased already to value what he had, so immense was his desire for what was yet to come.

When the long morning was over he went at once to his grandparents and his sisters. They were waiting for him under the big elm, and his grandmother murmured affection as he come to them.

“Your mother will be so proud.” Her eyes misted with the easy tears of the old.

“My father got the same honors,” William said modestly. “It was harder in his day, I daresay. He took much more Greek than I did.”

Ruth held out a small package, and he took it with affected surprise. “A chain for your watch,” she murmured. “It's nothing much.”

“I brought you a book,” Henrietta said, producing a package. “I wrapped it in red because it's what they do in China.”

“And Grandma and I just have a little check,” his grandfather said, giving him an envelope.

“It is all too much,” William said gracefully.

Ruth cried out softly, “Let's go and see if there are letters from Mother and Father! I know Mother was going to try to have a letter here on this very day.”

“We'll go by my rooms on our way to the hotel,” William said.

When he looked in his box there was no letter from China. A few bills were there, still to be paid, and one letter addressed in a hand he did not recognize. It was a tight scrawl, crude and yet formed in some curious personal fashion. He saw on the envelope the address of a town in Ohio that he did not know, and above it was the name of Clem Miller.

“No letter,” he told his sisters. “None from them, I mean. Here's a strange one.”

He tore open the envelope. Within it was a single sheet of lined paper, upon which was the same cramped, clear handwriting.