“You mean to say you don’t know the derivation of the fête? You don’t know the religious significance behind it?” Frank looked at Barbara in astonishment.
“I don’t know anything,” she said angrily. “I feel as though I’ve been dead for twenty years. Mardi Gras means license in the lexicon of my family.”
“I thought everyone knew what Mardi Gras really is,” Frank said wonderingly.
“Well, tell me,” Barbara said impatiently.
“The words themselves mean Fat Tuesday,” Frank said slowly. “They are French, of course. That’s an allusion to the fat ox which the French ceremoniously parade through the streets on Shrove Tuesday.”
“Shrove Tuesday?” Barbara wrinkled her brow prettily. “Seems to me I’ve heard of Shrove Tuesday,” she acknowledged.
“The day preceding Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. You know what Lent is?” he challenged.
“Of course,” Barbara said indignantly. “It’s the period of fasting or something before Easter.”
“Forty days of spiritual cleansing before the Resurrection. Shrove Tuesday is so-called because it’s the day of shrift, or confession before the fast begins. It’s been a day of celebration for centuries. The last grand gesture of gorging and merrymaking to prepare for the fast during Lent.”
“But no one fasts during Lent any more,” Barbara protested.
“Catholics do,” Frank told her. “In Protestant countries the custom has merely survived because it’s a good opportunity and excuse to blow off steam. New Orleans, of course, was predominantly French at one time, and predominantly Catholic. It’s been something like a hundred years since the first Mardi Gras Carnival was celebrated in New Orleans. At the beginning it was just a procession of maskers and buffoons.”
“And this is what a hundred years has done?” Barbara murmured.
“Exactly. From a simple procession of masked paraders it has evolved to the spectacle you saw climaxed to-day. Of course, you saw only the Rex pageant. There are many others, all rivaling Rex in magnificence. The Krewe of Comus, the Krewe of Momus, the Krewe of Proteus, the Ancient Order of Druids... and, of course, hundreds of smaller organizations all over the city.”
“And all of that started from a little happiness on the Tuesday preceding Lent?” Barbara marveled.
“But the underlying motif is the same,” Frank pointed out. “Beneath all the hilarity and merriment there is a deeply religious fervor. Your own feeling is better proof of that than anything else. Knowing nothing about it, yet you sensed the feeling of something more than the mere spirit of play. That’s why the madness will rise to such heights to-night. One of the most impressive aspects of Mardi Gras is the descent of the mantle of spiritual dignity at midnight with the tolling of the Cathedral chimes. Almost instantly the masks are discarded and the frolicking thousands assume the sober garb of Lenten simplicity.”
“You speak very feelingly,” Barbara said slowly. “With superb oratorical effect. Your face is lighted and almost radiant.”
“It gets hold of you somehow,” Frank said simply. “I’m not a religious man, but one can’t play through a Mardi Gras Carnival and see it end without being impressed. To-night you’ll see a sort of supertensity grip the masqueraders as midnight approaches. Instinctively every ear will be waiting to hear the chimes proclaim the end of another Mardi Gras. The merriment will mount to a thunderous crescendo... with each madly endeavoring to crowd a lifetime of laughter into the last hour... the last minute. It’s gripping. Magnificent. Perhaps a reversion to the superstitions of the Dark Ages, but, to me, it speaks well for our modern civilization.”
“I see.” Barbara drew in a deep breath and her eyes were luminous. “Thank you,” she said simply. “I understand better... how I feel. And why I feel that I must find understanding before midnight... before the end of Mardi Gras. Will you... help me?”
She arose from the table and her face was white. She swayed toward him supplicatingly.
“You’re very sure... of what you want?” He caught her in his arms and held her hungrily.
“Very sure,” she responded. “I’m glad that... last night was a fiasco. I’m stronger to-day... know better what I want... surer of myself. I want you to take me.”
Her white face was upturned to his. Her body was soft and pliant beneath the thin silk. Her lips were a gash of scarlet which parted entreatingly.
Frank looked deep into her eyes for a long moment. Her passion communicated itself to him as the sweet warmth of her innocent body enveloped him.
Bending swiftly, he gathered her in his arms and carried her easily into the drawing room and up the broad stairs. Into his room where he deposited her on the same bed she had lain upon the preceding night.
“Take those pajamas off,” he said harshly. “Strip every thread off your body if you’re in earnest about going through with this.”
He drew away from her and stood in the center of the floor. Barbara sat up in the center of the bed and her fingers trembled uncontrollably as she drew off the blouse and untied the wide sash.
Her eyes were fastened on Frank and frenzy lurked there as he flung his shirt to the floor. His magnificent torso bared, the sash came loose, and her pajamas joined his flannels on the floor.
This time she didn’t faint.
She sat upon the bed, unclothed and unashamed. She smiled mistily at Frank, and patted his cheek tenderly.
“And that’s all there is to it?” she asked.
Frank raised himself on one elbow to study her face. “Disappointed?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Barbara made a vague gesture. “In myself perhaps. Now. Studying my reaction after it’s over. I wasn’t disappointed... a few moments ago.”
“You were glorious.” Frank attempted to draw her down to him. “Stop analyzing your emotions, and enjoy them,” he commanded sternly.
“That? From you?” she asked in wide-eyed surprise. “It was you who taught me to analyze,” she reminded him.
“There are times for analysis, and times for enjoying the moment,” he said petulantly.
“I know of no better time to study myself than right now,” Barbara told him calmly.
“Why now, for heaven’s sake?”
“Technically, I’ve just entered into a new phase of development,” she returned coolly. “Half an hour ago I was a virgin. Now I’m what Cousin Hattie would call a loose woman.”
“Do you feel sinful?”
“No. Only released. That’s the only change I can sense. And... very happy,” she went on, studying her words carefully.
“Happy? Tell me why.”
“Because you’ve shown me that passion without love is much more glamorous in expectancy than in reality,” she told him serenely. “Because I’ve just learned how little passion or sexual giving has to do with love. Because I know now what life can be with love to give meaning to desire.”
“You learned all that from me?” Frank asked the question weakly.
“Yes. The experiment was a huge success.” She smiled at him.
“Experiment? I like that.” His tone said that he didn’t like it at all.
“Wasn’t it an experiment? You were careful to explain in the beginning that you didn’t love me,” Barbara reminded him.
“See here! Where does all this lead to? I feel like a bug impaled on a pin beneath a microscope,” Frank protested.
“All this leads to Sonia,” Barbara said firmly.
“Sonia?”
“Sonia Jenson,” she explained patiently. “Ethel told me you knew her quite well.”
“Sonia Jenson?” Frank’s voice was desperate. “What the devil has she to do with you? What is this? A guessing game?”