第91章 Chapter XXVII A Financier Bewitched(2)

This tall, melancholy youth, with brown eyes and pale-brown hair, was very poor. He hailed from southern Minnesota, and what between a penchant for journalism, verse-writing, and some dramatic work, was somewhat undecided as to his future. His present occupation was that of an instalment collector for a furniture company, which set him free, as a rule, at three o'clock in the afternoon. He was trying, in a mooning way, to identify himself with the Chicago newspaper world, and was a discovery of Gardner Knowles.

Stephanie had seen him about the rooms of the Garrick Players.

She had looked at his longish face with its aureole of soft, crinkly hair, his fine wide mouth, deep-set eyes, and good nose, and had been touched by an atmosphere of wistfulness, or, let us say, life-hunger. Gardner Knowles brought a poem of his once, which he had borrowed from him, and read it to the company, Stephanie, Ethel Tuckerman, Lane Cross, and Irma Ottley assembled.

"Listen to this," Knowles had suddenly exclaimed, taking it out of his pocket.

It concerned a garden of the moon with the fragrance of pale blossoms, a mystic pool, some ancient figures of joy, a quavered Lucidian tune.

"With eerie flute and rhythmic thrum Of muted strings and beaten drum."

Stephanie Platow had sat silent, caught by a quality that was akin to her own. She asked to see it, and read it in silence.

"I think it's charming," she said.

Thereafter she hovered in the vicinity of Forbes Gurney. Why, she could scarcely say. It was not coquetry. She just drew near, talked to him of stage work and her plays and her ambitions. She sketched him as she had Cowperwood and others, and one day Cowperwood found three studies of Forbes Gurney in her note-book idyllicly done, a note of romantic feeling about them.

"Who is this?" he asked.

"Oh, he's a young poet who comes up to the Players--Forbes Gurney.

He's so charming; he's so pale and dreamy."

Cowperwood contemplated the sketches curiously. His eyes clouded.

"Another one of Stephanie's adherents," he commented, teasingly.

"It's a long procession I've joined. Gardner Knowles, Lane Cross, Bliss Bridge, Forbes Gurney."

Stephanie merely pouted moodily.

"How you talk! Bliss Bridge, Gardner Knowles! I admit I like them all, but that's all I do do. They're just sweet and dear. You'd like Lane Cross yourself; he's such a foolish old Polly. As for Forbes Gurney, he just drifts up there once in a while as one of the crowd. I scarcely know him."

"Exactly," said Cowperwood, dolefully; "but you sketch him."

For some reason Cowperwood did not believe this. Back in his brain he did not believe Stephanie at all, he did not trust her. Yet he was intensely fond of her--the more so, perhaps, because of this.

"Tell me truly, Stephanie," he said to her one day, urgently, and yet very diplomatically. "I don't care at all, so far as your past is concerned. You and I are close enough to reach a perfect understanding. But you didn't tell me the whole truth about you and Knowles, did you? Tell me truly now. I sha'n't mind. I can understand well enough how it could have happened. It doesn't make the least bit of difference to me, really.

Stephanie was off her guard for once, in no truly fencing mood.

She was troubled at times about her various relations, anxious to put herself straight with Cowperwood or with any one whom she truly liked. Compared to Cowperwood and his affairs, Cross and Knowles were trivial, and yet Knowles was interesting to her. Compared to Cowperwood, Forbes Gurney was a stripling beggar, and yet Gurney had what Cowperwood did not have--a sad, poetic lure. He awakened her sympathies. He was such a lonely boy. Cowperwood was so strong, brilliant, magnetic.

Perhaps it was with some idea of clearing up her moral status generally that she finally said: "Well, I didn't tell you the exact truth about it, either. I was a little ashamed to."