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Flaming Youth

<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> Before she was fully awake next morning Pat had come to a daring resolution. To prepare her way she got up, went to the loggia, and looked in the wood-box. No newspaper was there. The maids had not yet made their rounds; therefore Dee must have taken it up with her. Dee did not appear at breakfast, but at ten o'clock she came down. Her face was weary and apathetic; her lithe body seemed to have lost something of its poise. Sorely compassionate and thrilling to the sense of secret and adventurous matters Pat seized upon the first chance of speaking to her alone. "Dee, did you take a newspaper from the wood-box?" Dee's expression was inscrutable. "Yes." "The one Bobs was grouching about? I wanted to see it." "You!" The exclamation was pregnant with astonishment and dismay. It crystallised Pat's suspicion as to Dee's motive in taking the paper. The older woman rose slowly, walked across the room and stared down into the thoughtful face of the younger. "What do you want that for?" "Just cussed curiosity." "Bobs is a nut," said Dee listlessly. "There's nothing in that paper. I tore it up." "Dee, are you that way?" "None of your business." "Con told me when she was." "Con's a cow." "She's tickled pink. I should think you'd be." [Pg 221] "Oh, would you!" Dee's self-control broke. Her face worked spasmodically. "I'd kill myself first." The badinage faded from Pat's lips. "That doesn't sound like you, Dee. I'd think you'd be a sport about it anyway." "Pat, I can't have a baby." "Rats! You're as strong as an ox." "It isn't that. I'm not afraid that way." "What else is there to be afraid of?" "It isn't fear. It's—it's disgust." "Disgust?" Pat stared. "I don't get you." "Pat, listen to me," burst out the sister, her hands twitching, one over the other in a nervous spasm. "Whatever you do, when the time comes however much it may seem the thing to do at the time, don't, don't, don't marry a man you aren't in love with. It's a thing to make you sick of yourself every day of your life." "Dee!" "It is. I'll never talk to you like this again. But I tell you now; do anything, take any chance but that." Pat's voice was hushed as she asked: "Do you hate Jimmie-James so much?" "Not as much as I hate myself. But I've got cause against him. He hasn't kept to his bargain. He hasn't been on the level." Pat's eyes widened. "You'll never make me believe that the correct and careful T. Jameson has been straying off the reservation." "I wish to God he would! It isn't that. It's worse—for me. I oughtn't to be spilling this to you, Pat." "Oh, go ahead! Get it off your chest." "I married Jim under a private agreement. We were to live together for a month, and after that if either of us wanted to quit we were to just say so and stop being[Pg 222] husband and wife without any legal separation or any fuss of that sort. The house is big enough for two separate lives." "No house is," denied the sapient Pat. "I don't know much about marriage, but I know that much. It's a fool arrangement." "I thought it would be a clever sort of trial marriage. Trial marriage"—Dee gave a short and bitter laugh—"doesn't work out so well after the ceremony. If a girl is going to experiment, she might better make her experiments before—— Oh, damn it, Pat! I don't mean it. I think I've gone crazy mooning over this thing." "What was wrong? Wouldn't Jimmie keep to his part of the agreement?" "No." "Bum sport," pronounced Pat. "And he knew you wanted to quit?" "Yes." "Why?" Dee's body writhed under its loose covering. "I can't explain." "Has it got something to do with—with the other man?" "What other man?" It was not like direct Dee to fence, Pat reflected. She persisted: "The one you told me about." "I never told you about any man." "Oh, well! You talked about that thrill stuff——" "Don't!" gasped Dee. "I'm sorry," said Pat in swift contrition. "Is it as bad as that? Then I suppose it is the angel-face on skates." The hard lines melted out of Dee's face. "Yes," she whispered. She seemed to find relief in the admission. [Pg 223] Pat took her courage in her hands. "Dee, is it his baby?" "If it were, I'd want to have it," was the low, vehement response. "I'd be proud to have it." For the moment Pat was awed. Passion she understood well enough; but not in this degree. She gathered her forces again. "Is it Jimmie's, then?" "Yes; it's Jim's." "You say that," marvelled Pat, "as if you were ashamed of it." "I am. God knows I am!" She bowed her proudly set head in her hands and rocked it to and fro. "Pat, there's nothing so rotten and shameful in the world as marrying a man you don't love." "You didn't have to," said Pat, gaping. "What did you do it for?" "The usual thing: convenience. And because I was afraid of making a fool of myself by—with someone else. It couldn't come to anything, the other thing. So I got reckless and took Jim. It wasn't a fool that I made of myself; it was something worse. Shall I tell you?" "No. Don't think it. You did the right thing." "Of course! As we figure it out. And I've paid for it. But I won't pay for it this way. I won't! I won't!" "I would," said Pat slowly. "If I went into it I'd go through with it. You've got to be fair to Jimmie. Does he know?" The smile called forth by the query disfigured Dee's mouth. "No. And he never will know, what's more." "You're going to get out of it? You're going to one of those people in the newspaper?" "Yes." "Isn't it terribly dangerous?" [Pg 224] "What do I care if it is?" "Dee, why don't you go to Bobs?" "Bobs?" She hesitated. "I couldn't go to Bobs. He wouldn't help me out anyway. Doctors aren't allowed to." "He'd do anything in the world for you, Dee." "If he would, that's all the more reason why I couldn't go to him with this," muttered Dee obscurely. Pat had an inspiration. "I could. I'll tell him. I'll tell him the whole thing. Except about Angel-face, of course. I'll tell him he's just got to get you out of it. Let me, Dee." "Oh, go ahead! I don't care. I don't care about anything. I wish I were dead." "Don't be an ass. We'll fix it." Pat was exuberant with the sense of great and delicate affairs in her hands. "I'll go right now and tackle him. If he sends for you will you come?" "Yes," agreed Dee listlessly. "You're a good little sport, Pat," she added. The response was curt and unexpected: "Are you?" "For not going through with it, you mean?" "Yes. On Jimmie's account. It's as much his as yours." "Is it!" Bitter laughter followed. "He's no right to it. He's no right to me." "Why didn't you quit him, then? I would have. In a minute." "I couldn't. You don't know." "You could have come home. Of course there'd have been a stink-up, but——" "I wouldn't have cared. I'd have done anything to get away from him. But he found out—about Stanley." "Stanley? Oh, Angel-face! Dee, had you?" "No; no! There was never any question of that[Pg 225] between us," she said moodily. "I did meet him, though. It was accidental at first, for I never meant to see him again after I married Jim. After that we met once in a while, for walks and in places like the skating rink. That was all there was to it, but Jim found it out and used it to blackmail me and hold me to the marriage. White slave stuff, on the respectable side! But Bobs won't do anything," she added dully. "You'll see." Pat caught her in a sudden, reassuring hug. "Leave it to me," was her commonplace but confident rejoinder to this baring of a woman's self-wrought and therefore doubly grim tragedy. Having carefully rehearsed her form of attack upon the family physician Pat went to his bungalow. "Why the face so solemn, Infant?" he greeted her. "I've got something serious to say to you, Bobs." "What devilment have you been up to now?" "It isn't me," returned Pat, with her usual superiority to the laws of grammar. "It's Dee." "Hello!" His expression changed. "Anything wrong?" "Yes. She's going to have a baby." "Dee," he murmured, "a mother." He lost himself in musing, seeming to forget Pat's presence. "But she doesn't want to be a mother." "Eh?" Osterhout quite jumped, startled by the emphasis which Pat gave to the assertion. "Oh! That's unimportant. They often don't in the early stages." "Dee never will. Never! Never!" The physician smiled tolerantly. "And you've got to help her out of it." "I?" The scandalised amazement in his expression tempted Pat to mirth, but she restrained herself. "Help her out! In what way, may I ask?" "You needn't may-I-ask in that hateful tone. You[Pg 226] know perfectly well. Doctors do those things, don't they?" "Oh, certainly! By all means. It's the backbone and mainstay of the profession." "Now you're being sarcastic. And it's terribly serious." "You go back to Dee and tell her not to be a damned fool. She ought to be ashamed of herself for sending you on such an errand. I don't understand it in Dee." "Liar yourself, Bobs. She didn't send me. I came. And"—a little breathlessly—"if you don't do it for her somebody else will." "Somebody else? Who?" "I don't know yet. One of these people in here." She produced the newspaper page which she had extracted from Dee. Osterhout swore vividly and voluminously. "Just what I said! Leaving such filth about where girls can pick it up." He rose, shuffled over to Pat, took her chin between finger and thumb and peered down into her limpid, troubled eyes. "What's behind all this foolishness?" came the stern question. "Oh, Bobs! Be good and help us. She can't have the baby. Truly she can't. I mustn't tell you why, but you'd say so, too, if you knew." His face darkened. "What's this? Isn't it James's child?" Pat was virtuously indignant, notwithstanding that she had put a like query herself a few moments earlier. "Of course it is!" "Then it's probably the very best thing that could happen to her." "Won't you believe me, Bobs," Pat implored, "when I tell you——" [Pg 227] "I'm going to put you out of this house in a minute if you don't stop talking such trash." "You won't help her?" "Not by so much as stirring a finger." Then Pat, offering up a silent prayer to the genius of histrionics, played her trump card. "Will you help—me, then?" Her eyes were cast down; that was in the rôle she had assumed; but she heard his pipe clatter to the floor, felt the insistence of his stare fixed upon her. "Bambina!" It was long since he had called her by the old pet-name of her childhood. The realisation of what the reversion implied almost broke down her resolution. But he instantly recovered his self-command; was wholly the physician. "Tell me about it," he said gently. "What is there to tell more?" She threw out her arms in what she deemed the proper gesture. "Are you sure?" "Yes. Or I'd never have come to you." "Who is the man?" Pat shook her head. She had not invented the man even in her own mind. "Tell me, Pat." Her lips set firm indicating (as she had seen determination "registered" on the screen) that rather would she die than betray her lover. "The damned scoundrel has got to marry you." "He can't." "Why? Is he married?" Her head inclined slowly. She was quite pale with emotion now, living into her part thoroughly. "Then I'll drive the dirty whelp out of town. Pat, you're not going to leave this room until you tell me." [Pg 228] "Real old mellerdrammer stuff," thought Pat. Sadly she said: "What's the use, Bobs? I'll never tell. He'd marry me if he could. Oh, you needn't go guessing," she added hastily. "You've never seen or heard of him. Word of honour." He went over to the window and stood, staring out into the soft, grey drizzle of an early thaw. When he turned to her his face was set in a still resolution. "Pat, you're absolutely certain that he can't marry you?" "Absolutely," returned Pat, with the conviction of truth. "Then, will you marry me?" "Bobs!" She started to her feet, astounded, incredulous. "You're joking." "I'm in dead earnest." The irrepressible coquette within her seized upon and dominated her. "Do you mean to say that you're in love with me? With little Pat?" she crowed. "No." "Oh!" The coquette retired, discomfited. "I'm offering you a marriage of safety; a marriage of form, only. I should never make any claim on you." "I couldn't," she gasped, still in the grip of utter amazement. "Do you see any other way out?" he asked with grim patience. "But why should you do it?" "Why shouldn't I? I'd do it for your mother's sake if for no other reason. It isn't as if I had anything else to do with my life. You needn't be afraid of my ever bothering you; and when the time comes, we can get a quiet divorce." [Pg 229] Pat fell back into her chair, her brain still whirling. "No. No. No. No. No! Never in this world! I couldn't even think of it." "If the idea of me as a pretended husband is so repulsive——" "It isn't. I think you're divine. I adore you. Not that way, though. And I couldn't mess things up that way for both of us. I'd kill myself, first." She was winning back, though badly jarred, into the drama of it again. "Bobs, you will help me through. The—the other way." "What! A criminal operation? Why, I couldn't if I were willing. I'm no obstetrician!" Pat had the grace to turn red. "No. Not you, of course. But if you'd just send me somewhere—to one of the men in the paper——" "That would be just as bad." "Then you'd rather stand by and see me ruined and disgraced," she cried hotly. With a swift change to beseeching softness she murmured, "Mona would tell you to help me if she were here." Again Osterhout turned to look out into the colorless tumult of the storm: "You're wrong, Pat. She wouldn't. She'd know me better." "Then what am I going to do?" He prowled up and down the room like an anxious bear. "I don't know. We'll have to get you away somewhere. Oh, Bambina! How could you be such an infernal little fool? Why didn't I look after you better?" "Poor old Bobs!" said she softly. "How could you know anything about it?" "One thing you absolutely must not do," he pursued vigorously, "is to go to any of those scoundrelly quacks in the paper." [Pg 230] "It's easy enough to tell me what not to do." "You've got to go through with it. I'll make the arrangements when the time comes. Just try not to worry any more than you can help." Pat nodded her assent and farewell. But inwardly her mood was anything but acquiescent. If Bobs, her trusted stand-by of so many years, wouldn't help, well—Outside in the drizzle she drew out the newspaper and scanned the second legend in the discreet looking column. It gave an obscure address in Newark and was signed "Dr. Jelleco." <hr /> [Pg 231] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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