Zelda

“ Every one has it. I’m a thoroughly practical person, and yet I have my dreams,—my dream!”
Olive and Pollock were singing again. They were far in advance and their voices stole softly upon the night.
Zelda stopped to listen. Her heart was in a tumult of happiness and wonder. The splendor of the moonlight upon the fields about them, the gloomy shadow of the woodland beyond, the man beside her hesitating, yet ready to tell her of his love. There stole across her spirit the tremulous awe of a girl to whom love has come for the first time as it can never come again.
Leighton drew close to her. ”

“ He was a lying hypocrite, Merriam said to himself; and here was his daughter as calm and cheerful as though there were no such thing as unhappiness in the world. His admiration and affection rose to high tide as he played with the pipe that lay by his hand on the table.
“Smoke it if you like,” said Zelda. “This curse of habit, how it does take hold of a man! But a man who gives pearls away in bunches,—well, he may make a smoke-house of his castle if he likes.” ”

“ The vines about the veranda made a dark screen back of Zelda, shutting out the faint starlight and the lights of the house. She sat in a low chair with her hands clasping its rough arms, and it was well that her eyes could not be seen, for there had come into them a look of [285] sorrow and weariness and fear that is best not seen in the eyes of a girl.
Morris was not wholly dull or stupid. Olive, sitting up stairs with a book which she was not reading, would have thought well of him, if she had heard. ”

“ Zelda did not frequent the club, and the pretty, gray-eyed golf-champion with whom in other summers he had played many a round, bowed a little superciliously now when she passed him in her electric runabout. She did not salute him with a jangle of the gong as had been her pleasant habit in the genial days of their comradeship. Nor did the bands in the glittering beer-gardens tempt him; for there is something not wholly edifying in the passing spectacle of every one and every one’s cook. ”

“ Without putting aside her wraps she dropped a match into the kindling in the fireplace of the living-room, and waited until the flames leaped into the throat of the chimney. Polly was in the dining-room, showing a new assistant how to lay the table for the evening meal, and she came to the folding doors and viewed Zelda with the interest that the girl always had for her. Polly was Zelda’s slave, and she went about half the day muttering and chuckling over what seemed to her Zelda’s unaccountable whims. ”

“ I’ll kill the show,” declared Olive.
“Don’t be foolish. You are going to make the hit of your life,” said Zelda, assuringly, coughing a little. “Please don’t make me talk. There’s the overture now. One minute—there—now don’t fall over your train. You really look the duchess,”—and Zelda gently impelled [158] her cousin toward the stage. The chorus was on its last note, and Professor Schmidt, very red in the face, caught Olive with his eye, and reached across the fiery arc of the footlights with his bow, to draw her forward. ”

“ He knew by the tensity of the hush that fell upon the audience that the song’s appeal was not to himself alone. The professor beamed with joy as the full, deep notes rose in the hall; and he threw down his violin at the end and joined in the applause. And as the hand-clapping continued after Zelda had turned to take up her dialogue, she came smiling down to the footlights, made a sweeping courtesy, and pointed to her throat as she shook her head at the professor, to explain that there could be no encore. ”

“ Morris would not, of course, have spoken to Zelda had she been there instead of Olive; but Olive was always approachable and amiable. Yet he felt a trifle conscious as he stopped and bade Zelda Dameron’s cousin good morning.
“It’s too bad to disturb you; you have an appearance of comfort that rests the soul.” ”

“ Daring looks up amazed and Zelda pretends great agitation. Daring is not unkind to her. He tells her he has not discovered the will as yet. Spoken title: "I am sure that I can find a will and that you are provided for." Continuing scene, Daring speaks the above. Zelda thanks him and undulates toward the door with the well-known swaying walk of the vampire. Daring turns to his papers and does not watch her further. She looks over her shoulder, then exits, registering that she will get him yet.'" Werner dropped his copy of the script. "Understand?" he barked. "Make it fast now. ”

“ They began retracing their steps, Zelda walking beside Pollock, to whom she talked with unusual vivacity. She did not speak to Leighton again until the two young men said good night at the veranda.
“What did you treat him that way for?” demanded Olive, facing Zelda in the hall as soon as the door closed.
“What are you talking about, ma petite cousine? The moon must have—”
“It wasn’t the moon! You said something unkind to Mr. Leighton. He walked back to the house with me without saying a word. ”

“ Morris had often thought of the old man during the past year as of a gray shadow that haunted Zelda Dameron, grim and despicable but inevitably linked to the girl’s life. He must save Zelda from the consequences of her father’s acts if he could. It was out of the question for him to approach her with a warning against her father; but he would go to her uncle; and he walked directly to Rodney Merriam’s house in Seminary Square. ”

“ Zelda added vaguely, as though making an effort to recall the complexion of domestic service in Mariona.
“The blacks are not inevitable. I have Swedes. You remember, I had our consul at Stockholm get them for me. Your Uncle Rodney has two Japanese who do everything. How many of these blacks does your father keep?”
“Well, there’s Aunt Polly,” Zelda answered slowly. ”

“ I’m neither sugar, salt nor anybody’s honey. I never had a cold in my life,” she declared, as the two women exclaimed at her drenched appearance. Olive helped her out of the coat and bore it away to the kitchen, and then took Zelda to her own room, where there was more white woodwork, with draperies of pink and white in the dormer-windows.
“I know; I see through it all; you didn’t really want me to fix my dripping locks, but to see this. Isn’t it too good to be true? ”

“ A girl who could spend money with so little flourish but with so fine an air in demanding exactly what she wanted, received their best attention without question. No one had ever denied Zelda Dameron anything in her life; and she had formed the habit of asking for [81] things in a way that made denial impossible. When her aunt complained that the shopkeepers wouldn’t do anything for her, Zelda brought them to time by telephone. She knew by experience that her aunt’s methods were ineffective. ”

“ Olive had not warned her of Morris’s coming, but her cousin’s plea of letter-writing as an excuse for going indoors was not wholly sincere, as Zelda knew. But there was no escaping this talk with Morris Leighton on the veranda, and she began with sudden energy to speak rapidly of many irrelevant and frivolous things. It was not an easy matter to meet thus a man who a fortnight before had declared himself her lover. ”

“ He subscribed for several religious newspapers of his denomination, and these, too, he read and pondered. Zelda knew nothing of his own family. He was the only member of it that lived in the state. His correspondence was carried on from his office, and the only letters that the postman left at the Dameron house were the envelopes that poured in steadily, bearing invitations for Zelda, an occasional foreign letter from some friend she had made abroad, and on the first of the month, bills for her own purchases at the shops. She always found it difficult to talk to her father ”

“ Zelda watched them with a new pain in her heart. The shouts of the children to their father touched a need of her own, and she turned away into the house with a sob in her throat and tears gathering in her eyes.
[60] CHAPTER VI
THE LOBSTER
“It’s burning, I think,” suggested Zelda.
“You ought to keep stirring,” said Mrs. Forrest.
“It’s usually served hot,” remarked Leighton. “That’s what the books say.”
The successful chafing-dish cook must be a good actor also. If the wicks work badly, he must smile at his audience while his fingers burn ”

“ THE RETURN OF ZELDA DAMERON
“She’s like Margaret; she’s really one of us,” remarked Mrs. Forrest to her brother. “She carries herself as Margaret did in her girlhood, and she’s dark, as we all are.”
“I hope she’s escaped the Dameron traits; they’re unattractive,” said Rodney Merriam. “She’s taller than Margaret; but Margaret was bent at the last,—bent but not quite broken.”
Mrs. Forrest and Zelda Dameron, her niece, who were just home from a five years’ absence abroad, had, so to speak, stepped directly from the train into Mrs. Carr’s drawing-room. ”

“ Forrest, suddenly. “We must be going, Rodney. And now, Zelda, don’t stay out all night. Mrs. Carr is going to take you home. You’ll be sure to be sick if you’re not careful. And”—Zelda was looking at her aunt intently—“Miss Merriam, I do hope you will come to see me. I never go anywhere, you know. And please remember me to your mother.”
“And pray remember me, also,” said Rodney Merriam, feeling Zelda’s eyes upon him.
“Oh, Zee,” said her uncle, in a low tone; “it was all fine; but how did Pollock come to be in the show?—I don’t care to have you know him.” ”

“ My family has lived in this town a good many years; and some of us have been fools, and some of us have failed; but Zelda has the right key. She’s pitched it pretty high; but we’ll keep it at the same note, if we can. How much did he get for those lots?”
“Twenty thousand dollars; but no doubt my friend Balcomb kept a handsome commission. I’ll rather enjoy settling with him.”
“He’s one of the jewels produced by our college, isn’t he?” ”

“ It was possible for Rodney Merriam to sit in the parlor of the old house in which he had been born, and talk to Zelda with an ease and pleasure that he had not known since she came home and went to her father instead of going to live with her aunt or with himself, which would have been the sensible thing for her to do.
“I think I have begun to live,” repeated Zelda.
“I hope you are happy, Zee. To be happy’s the main thing. There is nothing else in the wide world that counts ”

“ Carr, with a groan.
Zelda lay back on the pillows and pressed the camphor-soaked handkerchief to her nose.
“That’s the only way out of it that I see. If Olive will trade with me, I think I can go ahead; but I can’t do the work of my own part. Gretchen is on the stage all the time. You’d better telephone Professor Schmidt at once. He can have a rehearsal with Olive; but you’d better go to see her. She’s at home to-day,—the Thanksgiving vacation has begun. If she’ll do it—and you tell her she must—I’ll try to take her part.” ”

“ Any woman might be proud of a love like his; yet she had treated it lightly, almost insolently; and a good woman might not lightly thrust aside the love of a good man!
She was still gazing with unseeing eyes upon the [272] moonlit world when Olive came to the door, tried it and found it locked.
“Wait a minute!” called Zelda, and she crossed the room and opened the door.
“Please, Cousin Zee, I came to beg forgiveness. I didn’t mean to scold you,—about anything!”
Zelda drew her in, and put her arms about her.
“There’s no one as fine and dear as you in all the world, Olive. ”

“ I rarely eat pie, so I’m not overworked thinking of him. He’s so thin and crisp. You could roll him out and make a nice apple tart of him. Why, Olive Merriam!”
Tears had sprung suddenly to Olive’s eyes, and Zelda dropped the rolling-pin and ran to her.
“You poor dear, I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in the world. Tell me you forgive me!”
“I’m silly, and I know you’ll think things—go on now with that crust—there are the pans all ready—but Mr. Balcomb has been very kind to me. He has taken me to the theater sometimes, and sent me things. So I think you’re not fair to him.” ”

“ You’ve simply got to go through the play to-night, some way.”
“I hope so, I hope so,” said Zelda, in a tone that was without hope.
“Even if you can’t sing, you’ll have to speak the lines. It’s too late now for a postponement.”
“Yes; if my fever goes down, I can speak the lines somehow. I’m afraid there’s fever with the cold.”
“Then you must see the doctor. You must not trifle with yourself.” ”

“ An old man is very poor company for a young girl. I had feared that you might not be satisfied here. Your uncle and aunt have never treated me fairly. We have nothing in common. I am glad to find that they have not estranged you and me; the paternal relation is a very beautiful one; very beautiful.”
The black maid was changing their plates, and Zelda rested her arms on the edge of the table and looked at him with deep, searching eyes. She knew instantly when he passed from words that represented honest feeling to his more usual note of hypocrisy. ”

“ Zelda Dameron, you are no more sick than I am! No person could get as sick as you are pretending to be in a few hours. You were as well as anybody at midnight, and you went through the rehearsal splendidly. ”

“ He hates very much the idea of having nothing to do but to take care of himself. He has been about so much,—always, let us say, looking for the moose!”
Zelda smiled at this reference to their talk at her uncle’s house. Zelda had been often in Morris’s mind since his first sight of her at Mrs. Carr’s tea. He had speculated and wondered about her, as a young man will about any girl he meets who appeals to his imagination. Carr, in speaking to him from time to time of matters connected with Ezra Dameron’s business, had let fall his own impression of the old man ”