“Yes, I do see that for you it was easy enough. By the way! I wonder why they didn’t tell father that you were married. He went over to find out about you when you stopped coming over to see us. I’m sure they didn’t tell him. Not that you were married.”
Clare Kendry’s eyes were bright with tears that didn’t fall. “Oh, how lovely! To have cared enough about me to do that. The dear sweet man! Well, they couldn’t tell him because they didn’t know it. I took care of that, for I couldn’t be sure that those consciences of theirs wouldn’t begin to work on them afterwards and make them let the cat out of the bag. The old things probably thought I was living in sin, wherever I was. And it would be about what they expected.”
An amused smile lit the lovely face for the smallest fraction of a second. After a little silence she said soberly: “But I’m sorry if they told your father so. That was something I hadn’t counted on.”
“I’m not sure that they did,” Irene told her. “He didn’t say so, anyway.”
“He wouldn’t, ’Rene dear. Not your father.”
“Thanks. I’m sure he wouldn’t.”
“But you’ve never answered my question. Tell me, honestly, haven’t you ever thought of ‘passing’?”
Irene answered promptly: “No. Why should I?” And so disdainful was her voice and manner that Clare’s face flushed and her eyes glinted. Irene hastened to add: “You see, Clare, I’ve everything I want. Except, perhaps, a little more money.”
At that Clare laughed, her spark of anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Of course,” she declared, “that’s what everybody wants, just a little more money, even the people who have it. And I must say I don’t blame them. Money’s awfully nice to have. In fact, all things considered, I think, ’Rene, that it’s even worth the price.”
Irene could only shrug her shoulders. Her reason partly agreed, her instinct wholly rebelled. And she could not say why. And though conscious that if she didn’t hurry away, she was going to be late to dinner, she still lingered. It was as if the woman sitting on the other side of the table, a girl that she had known, who had done this rather dangerous and, to Irene Redfield, abhorrent thing successfully and had announced herself well satisfied, had for her a fascination, strange and compelling.
Clare Kendry was still leaning back in the tall chair, her sloping shoulders against the carved top. She sat with an air of indifferent assurance, as if arranged for, desired. About her clung that dim suggestion of polite insolence with which a few women are born and which some acquire with the coming of riches or importance.
Clare, it gave Irene a little prick of satisfaction to recall, hadn’t got that by passing herself off as white. She herself had always had it.
Just as she’d always had that pale gold hair, which, unsheared still, was drawn loosely back from a broad brow, partly hidden by the small close hat. Her lips, painted a brilliant geranium-red, were sweet and sensitive and a little obstinate. A tempting mouth. The face across the forehead and cheeks was a trifle too wide, but the ivory skin had a peculiar soft lustre. And the eyes were magnificent! dark, sometimes absolutely black, always luminous, and set in long, black lashes. Arresting eyes, slow and mesmeric, and with, for all their warmth, something withdrawn and secret about them.
Ah! Surely! They were Negro eyes! mysterious and concealing. And set in that ivory face under that bright hair, there was about them something exotic.
Yes, Clare Kendry’s loveliness was absolute, beyond challenge, thanks to those eyes which her grandmother and later her mother and father had given her.
Into those eyes there came a smile and over Irene the sense of being petted and caressed. She smiled back.
“Maybe,” Clare suggested, “you can come Monday, if you’re back. Or, if you’re not, then Tuesday.”
With a small regretful sigh, Irene informed Clare that she was afraid she wouldn’t be back by Monday and that she was sure she had dozens of things for Tuesday, and that she was leaving Wednesday. It might be, however, that she could get out of something Tuesday.
“Oh, do try. Do put somebody else off. The others can see you any time, while I—Why, I may never see you again! Think of that, ’Rene! You’ll have to come. You’ll simply have to! I’ll never forgive you if you don’t.”
At that moment it seemed a dreadful thing to think of never seeing Clare Kendry again. Standing there under the appeal, the caress, of her eyes, Irene had the desire, the hope, that this parting wouldn’t be the last.
“I’ll try, Clare,” she promised gently. “I’ll call you—or will you call me?”
“I think, perhaps, I’d better call you. Your father’s in the book, I know, and the address is the same. Sixty-four eighteen. Some memory, what? Now remember, I’m going to expect you. You’ve got to be able to come.”
Again that peculiar mellowing smile.
“I’ll do my best, Clare.”
Irene gathered up her gloves and bag. They stood up. She put out her hand. Clare took and held it.
“It has been nice seeing you again, Clare. How pleased and glad father’ll be to hear about you!”
“Until Tuesday, then,” Clare Kendry replied. “I’ll spend every minute of the time from now on looking forward to seeing you again. Goodbye, ’Rene dear. My love to your father, and this kiss for him.”
The sun had gone from overhead, but the streets were still like fiery furnaces. The languid breeze was still hot. And the scurrying people looked even more wilted than before Irene had fled from their contact.
Crossing the avenue in the heat, far from the coolness of the Drayton’s roof, away from the seduction of Clare Kendry’s smile, she was aware of a sense of irritation with herself because she had been pleased and a little flattered at the other’s obvious gladness at their meeting.
With her
