THAT PARK PREDICAMENT

More May days had passed. Bedient came in from one of his night-strolls, just as an open carriage stopped in front of the Club, and Mrs. Wordling called his name. He waited while she dismissed her driver familiarly.... The Northern beauty of the night was full of charm to him. A full moon rode aloft in the blue. He had been thinking that there was cruelty and destruction wherever crowds gathered; that great cities were not a development of higher manhood. He thought of the sparcely tenanted islands around the world, of Australian, Siberian and Canadian areas of glorious, virgin mountain places and empty shores where these pent and tortured tens of thousands might have breathed and lived indeed. All they needed was but to dare. But they seemed not yet lifted from the herd; as though it took numbers to make an entity, a group to make a soul. The airs were still; the night serene as in a zone of peace blessed of God. The silence of Gramercy gave him back poise which the city a terrible companion had torn apart.

“That’s old John, who never misses a night at my theatre door, when that door opens to New York,” Mrs. Wordling said. “He only asks to know that I am in the city to be at my service night or day. And who would have a taxicab on a night like this?... Let’s not hurry in.... Have you been away?”

“No, Mrs. Wordling.”

“Don’t you think you are rather careless with your friends?” she asked, as one whom the earth had made much to mourn. “It is true, I haven’t been here many times for dinner (there have been so many invitations), but breakfasts and luncheons always I have peeked into the farthest corners hoping to see you before I sat down alone.”

“I have missed a great deal, but it’s good to be thought of,” he said.

“You didn’t mean, then, to be careless with your friends?”

“No.”

“I thought you were avoiding me.”

“If there were people here to be avoided, I’m afraid I shouldn’t stay.”

“But supposing you liked the place very much, and there was just one whom you wished to avoid

He laughed. “I give it up. I might stay but I don’t avoid certainly not one of my first friends in New York

“Yes, I was a member of the original company, when David Cairns’ Sailor-Friend was produced.... How different you seem from that night!” she added confidentially. “How is it you make people believe you so? You have been a great puzzle to me to us. I supposed at first you were just a breezy individual, whom David Cairns (who is a very brilliant man) had found an interesting type

“So long as I don’t fall from that, it is enough,” Bedient answered. “But why do you say I make people believe ?”

Mrs. Wordling considered. “I never quite understood about one part of that typhoon story,” she qualified. “You were carrying the Captain across the deck, and a Chinese tried to knife you. You just mentioned that the Chinese died.”

“Yes,” said Bedient, who disliked this part of the story, and had shirred the narrative.

“But I wanted to hear more about it

“That was all. He died. There were only a few survivors.”

Mrs. Wordling’s head was high-held. She was sniffing the night, with the air of a connoisseur. “Do you smell the mignonette, or is it Sweet William? Something we had in the garden at home when I was little.... Are you afraid to go across in the park with me?”

“Sailors are never afraid,” he said, following her pointed finger to the open gate.

They crossed the street laughingly. There had been no one at the Club entrance.... They never determined what the fragrance was, though they strolled for some time through the paths of the park, among the thick low trees, and finally sat down by the fountain. The moonlight, cut with foliage, was magic upon the water. Bedient was merry in heart. The rising error which might shadow this hour was clear enough to him, but he refused to reckon with it. He was interested, and a little troubled, to perceive there was nothing in common in Mrs. Wordling’s mind and his. They spoke a different language. He was sorry, for he knew she could think hard and suddenly, if he had the power to say the exact thing. And that which he might have taken, and which her training had designed her both to attract and exact, Bedient did not want. All her sighs, soft tones, suddennesses and confidences fell wide; and yet, to Mrs. Wordling, he was too challenging and mysterious for her to be bored an instant. Their talk throughout was trifling and ineffectual, as it had begun. Mrs. Wordling was not Bedient’s type. No woman could have dethroned Beth Truba this hour. Bedient was not sorry (nothing he had said seemed to animate) when Mrs. Wordling arose, and led the way to the gate... which had been locked meanwhile.

Mrs. Wordling was inclined to cry a little. “One couldn’t possibly climb the fence!” she moaned.

“They have keys at the Club, haven’t they?” Bedient asked.

“Yes. All the houses and establishments on the park front have keys. It’s private that far.... I should have known it would be locked after midnight. Our talk was so interesting!... Oh, one will die of exposure, and the whole Club will seethe.”

Bedient patted her shoulder cheerfully, and led the way along the fence through the thick greenery, until they were opposite the Club entrance. He had not known the park was ever locked. He saw disturbance ahead bright disturbance but steadily refused to grant it importance. He was sorry for Mrs. Wordling.

“Let the Club seethe, if it starts so readily,” he observed.

The remark astonished his companion, who had concluded he was either bashful to the depths, or some other woman’s property, probably Beth Truba’s.

“But you men have nothing to lose!” she exclaimed.

“I ask you to pardon me,” Bedient said quickly. “I had not thought of it in that way.”

They were watching the Club entrance. One o’clock struck over the city. Mrs. Wordling had become cold, and needed his coat, though she had to be forced to submit to its protection. At last, a gentleman entered the Club, and Bedient called to the page who appeared in the doorway. The boy stepped out into the street, when called a second time. Bedient made known his trouble. The keys were brought and richly paid for, though Bedient did not negotiate. The night-man smiled pleasantly, and cheered them, with the word that this had happened before, on nights less fine.

David Cairns had stepped into a telephone-booth in the main-hall of the Smilax Club the following afternoon, to announce his presence in the building to Vina Nettleton. Waiting for the exchange-operator to connect, he heard two pages talking about Bedient and Mrs. Wordling. These were bright street-boys, very clever in their uniforms, and courteous, but street-boys nevertheless; and they had not noted the man in the booth. A clouded, noisome thing, David Cairns heard. Doubtless it had passed through several grades of back-stair intelligence before it became a morsel for Cairns’ particular informers. Having heard enough to understand, he kicked the door shut, and Vina found him distraught that day....

It was in the dusk of that afternoon when Cairns met Bedient, whose happiness was eminent and shining as usual. Cairns gave him a chance to mention the episode which had despoiled his own day, but Bedient seemed to have forgotten it remotely. It was because such wonderful things had been accomplished in his own life that Cairns was troubled. In no other man would he have objected to this sort of affair, though he might have criticised the trysting-place as a matter of taste. He had to bring up the subject.

Bedient’s face clouded. “How did you hear?”

Cairns told, but spared details.

“I hoped it wouldn’t get out on account of Mrs. Wordling,” Bedient said. “I should have had the instinct to spare her from any such comments. I didn’t know the laws of the park. It was a perfect night. We talked by the fountain. She was the first to suggest that we recross the street and there we were locked in.”

Cairns asked several questions. Once he started impatiently to say that Mrs. Wordling had nothing to lose, but he caught himself in time. He saw that Bedient had been handled a bit, and had only a vague idea that he was embroiled in a scandal, the sordidness of which was apt to reach every ear but the principals’. At all events, the old Bedient was restored; in fact, if it were possible, he was brightened at one certain angle. Cairns had been unable to forbear this question:

“But, Andrew, who suggested going across to the park?”

“I can’t just say,” Bedient answered thoughtfully. “You see we smelled mignonette, and followed a common impulse. You should have seen the night to understand.... I say, David, can I do anything to straighten this out for Mrs. Wordling?”

“Only ignore it,” Cairns said hastily. “I’ll nip it wherever it comes up. And the next time a woman asks

“But I didn’t say

“The next time you smell mignonette, think of it as a soporific. Just yawn and say you’ve been working like a fire-horse on the Fourth.... You see, it isn’t what happens that gets out to the others, including those we care about, but what is imagined by minds which are not decently policed.”

“Crowds are cruel,” Bedient mused.

Cairns had found it hard not to be spiteful toward one whom he considered had abused his friend’s fineness.... They dined at the Club. The talk turned to a much fairer thing. Bedient saw (with deep and full delight) that Cairns had sighted his island of that Delectable Archipelago, and was making for it full-sailed. An enchanting idea came to Bedient (the fruit of an hour’s happy talk), as to the best way for Cairns to make a landing in still waters....

Bedient was detailing the plan with some spirit, when Cairns’ hand fell swiftly upon his arm.... At a near table just behind, Mrs. Wordling was sitting with a gentleman. Neither had noticed her come in. Mrs. Wordling turned to greet them. She was looking her best, which was sensational.