10

It was long after ten in the morning, when Graham wandered into the music room. Despite the fact that he was a several days’ guest in the Big House, so big was it that the music room was a new territory. It was an exquisite room where a warm golden light was diffused from a skylight of yellow glass.

Graham was lazily contemplating some pictures, when of his eye, he saw his hostess. She came in from the far entrance. She was clad entirely in white, and looked very young and quite tall.

They smiled greeting across the room. She came toward him.

“You made a mistake with this room,” he said gravely.

“No, don’t say that! But how?”

“It must be longer, much longer, twice as long at least.”

“Why?” she demanded, with a disapproving shake of head.

“Because, then,” he answered, “you will walk twice as far this morning and my pleasure of watching you will be correspondingly increased.”

“I see you are like Dick,” she retorted. “always with your compliments. Now I want to show you the room. Dick gave it to me. It’s all mine, you see.”

“And the pictures?”

“I selected them,” she nodded, “every one of them. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

Graham was prepared to talk on pictures, when Donald Ware entered. His violin was under his arm, and he crossed to the piano.

“We’re going to work till lunch,” Paula explained to Graham. “We’ll see you there. You can stay if you care, of course; but I warn you it’s really going to be work. And we’re going swimming this afternoon. Four o’clock at the pool, Dick says. Also, he’s got a new song he’s going to sing then. What time is it, Mr. Ware?”

“Ten minutes to eleven,” the musician answered briefly.

“You’re ahead of time—the engagement was for eleven. And till eleven you’ll wait, sir. I must see Dick, first. I haven’t said good morning to him yet.”

Paula knew her husband’s timetable. Her notes reminded her that he had coffee at six-thirty; was inaccessible between nine and ten, dictating correspondence to Blake; was inaccessible between ten and eleven, conferring with managers and foremen.

At eleven, unless there were unexpected telegrams or business, she could usually find Dick alone. Passing the secretaries’ room, she pressed the button that swung aside a section of filled book-shelves and revealed the tiny spiral of steel steps that led up to Dick’s work room. A shade of vexation passed across her face as she recognized Jeremy Braxton’s voice. Jeremy was the general superintendent of the Harvest Group. And the news he was telling was not good. She paused in indecision and stole back down the spiral on her way to the music room. She was depressed, due to her missing her morning greeting to Dick. But this depression vanished at seeing Graham, who had lingered with Ware at the piano.

“Don’t run away,” she urged. “Stay and watch the people work. Maybe you will start that book Dick has told me about.”

11

On Dick’s face, at lunch, there was no sign of trouble over the Harvest Group. After lunch everybody went out for a walk.

Paula wore a tan linen blouse with white turnback collar. A short skirt reached the knees. Skirt and trousers were of fawn-colored silk corduroy. Soft white gauntlets on her hands matched with the collar in the one emphasis of color. Her head was bare.

“I don’t see how you can keep such a skin and expose yourself to the sun this way,” Graham said.

“I don’t,” she smiled with a dazzle of white teeth. “That is, I don’t expose my face this way more than a few times a year.”

As four o’clock approached, Donald Ware returned in a car to the Big House. Dick was at the pool when the party arrived, and the girls were immediately insistent for the new song.

“It isn’t exactly a new song,” Dick explained, his gray eyes twinkling roguery, “and it’s not my song. It was sung in Japan before I was born, and, I think, before Columbus discovered America. Also, it is a duet—a competitive duet with forfeit penalties attached. Paula will sing it with me—I’ll teach you. Sit down there, that’s right—now all the rest of you gather around and sit down.”

Paula sat down, facing her husband, in the center of the sitting audience. Then he sang the song, which was short and which she quickly picked up, singing it with him and clapping the accent. It was chanted slowly, almost monotonously:

 

“Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,

Jong-Jong, Keena-Keena,

Yo-ko-ham-a, Nag-a-sak-i,

Kobe-mar-o-hoy!”

 

The last syllable, hoy, was uttered suddenly, explosively, and an octave and more higher than the pitch of the melody. At the same moment that it was uttered, Paula’s and Dick’s hands were abruptly shot toward each other’s, either clenched or open. The point of the game was that Paula’s hands, open or closed, at the instant of uttering hoy, should match Dick’s. Thus, the first time she matched him, both his and her hands were closed. Dick took off his hat and tossed it into Lute’s lap.

“My forfeit,” he explained. “Come on, Paul, again.” And again they sang and clapped:

 

“Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,

Jong-Jong, Keena-Keena,

Yo-ko-ham-a, Nag-a-sak-i,

Kobe-mar-o-hoy!”

 

This time, with the hoy, her hands were closed and his were open.

“Forfeit!—forfeit!” the girls cried.

She looked her costume, asking, “What can I give?”

“A hair pin,” Dick advised; and one of her hair pins joined his hat.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, when the last of her hair pins had gone the same way. “I can’t see why I am so slow and stupid. Besides, Dick, you’re too clever. I can never guess what you are going to do.”

Again they sang the song. She lost, and she forfeited a spur. Then Dick lost thrice and gave his wrist watch and both spurs. Then she lost her wrist watch and the remaining spur.

Dick, emitting a triumphant “Hoy!” won again, and joined in the laughter as Paula took off one of her little boots.

“Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,” Paula chanted on with her husband. Her laughing face was all rosy.

Evan Graham, a silent spectator, was indignant. He knew the “Jong-Keena” song from the geishas of the tea houses, and he was shocked that Paula was taking part in such a game. By this time Dick’s cigarette case and matches and Paula’s second boot, belt, skirt-pin, and wedding ring had joined the mound of forfeits.

“Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,” Paula laughed and sang on.

“Hoy!” Paula and Dick cried simultaneously, as they thrust out their hands. But Dick’s were closed, and hers were open.

“Come on, Lady Godiva,” Dick commanded. “You have sung, you have danced; now it’s time to pay.”

“Is he a fool?” was Graham’s thought. “With a wife like that!”

“Well,” Paula sighed. Her fingers were playing with the buttons of her blouse, “if I must, I must.”

Graham averted his gaze. There was a pause, in which everybody was waiting what she would do next. Then came a giggle from Ernestine, a burst of laughter from all, and “A frame-up!” from Bert. Graham looked quickly. The Little Lady’s blouse was off, and she appeared in her swimming suit. It was evident that she had dressed over it for the ride.

After swimming, Dick and Paula rode back side by side to the Big House.

“How do you like Graham?” he asked.

“Splendid,” was her reply. “He’s your type, Dick. He’s universal, he’s an artist, too. And he’s good fun. Have you noticed his smile? It’s irresistible. Everyone wants to smile with him.”

“And he’s got his serious scars, as well,” Dick nodded.

“Yes—right in the corners of the eyes, just after he has smiled, you’ll see them. They sign the old eternal questions: Why? What for? What’s it worth? What’s it all about?”

Ernestine and Graham talked as well.

“Dick is not that simple,” she was saying. “You don’t know him very well. He’s dreadfully deep. I know him a little. Paula knows him a lot. But very few others can understand him. He’s a real philosopher, and he can act very well.”

12

It was time for Graham to leave the Big House on the first train, but he wanted to see Paula. He desired to be with her.

Often Graham strayed into the music room, and sat there listening to their “work.” The young musician loved Paula with an ardency that was almost painful; but what hurt Graham was the way she sometimes looked at the musician. It hurt him a lot, and he could no longer suffer sitting close to them.

Once, just after Ware had departed, Graham found Paula still seated at the piano. She regarded him almost unrecognizingly, and left the room. Despite his vexation and hurt, Graham thought that women were curious creatures.

With the departure of Ware, Paula Forrest retired almost completely into her private wing behind the door without a knob.

“Paula is a woman who finds herself very good company,” Ernestine explained, “and she often goes in for periods of aloneness, when Dick is the only person who sees her.”

The number of guests of the Big House was decreasing. A few people, on business or friendship, continued to come, but more departed. Dick rarely appeared, even for a moment, until lunch, and Paula never appeared before dinner.

“And now’s the time,” one day Dick told Graham, “for your book. I’m looking forward to reading it and I’m looking forward hard.”

So Graham, in his tower room, arranged his notes and photographs and began to work. He knew that Paula sometimes went for long solitary rides. Once he caught her at the hitching rails.

“Don’t you think you are spoiling that mare always riding alone?” he asked.

Paula laughed and shook her head.

“Well, then,” he asserted stoutly, “Let me accompany you.”

“There’s Ernestine, and Bert, and all the rest.”

“This is a new country,” he said. “And one learns country through the people who know it. I’ve seen it through the eyes of Ernestine and all the rest; but there is a lot I haven’t seen and which I can see only through your eyes.”

“A pleasant theory,” she answered. “A sort of landscape vampirism.”

“But without the ill effects of vampirism,” he urged quickly.

“I don’t know about that,” she said.

“But we have so much we can say to each other,” he tried again. “So much we … must say to each other.”

“I understand,” she answered quietly.

She understands! The thought of it was a flame to him, but his tongue was not quick enough to serve him.