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diff --git a/1386-0.txt b/1386-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef8d002 --- /dev/null +++ b/1386-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10524 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1386 *** + +LADY BALTIMORE + +By Owen Wister + + + To + S. Weir Mitchell + With the Affection and Memories of All My Life + + + +To the Reader + + +You know the great text in Burns, I am sure, where he wishes he could +see himself as others see him. Well, here lies the hitch in many a work +of art: if its maker--poet, painter, or novelist--could but have become +its audience too, for a single day, before he launched it irrevocably +upon the uncertain ocean of publicity, how much better his boat would +often sail! How many little touches to the rigging he would give, how +many little drops of oil to the engines here and there, the need of +which he had never suspected, but for that trial trip! That’s where the +ship-builders and dramatists have the advantage over us others: they can +dock their productions and tinker at them. Even to the musician comes +this useful chance, and Schumann can reform the proclamation which opens +his B-flat Symphony. + +Still, to publish a story in weekly numbers previously to its appearance +as a book does sometimes give to the watchful author an opportunity to +learn, before it is too late, where he has failed in clearness; and it +brings him also, through the mails, some few questions that are pleasant +and proper to answer when his story sets forth united upon its journey +of adventure among gentle readers. + +How came my hero by his name? + +If you will open a book more valuable than any I dare hope to write, and +more entertaining too, The Life of Paul Jones, by Mr. Buell, you will +find the real ancestor of this imaginary boy, and fall in love with John +Mayrant the First, as did his immortal captain of the Bon Homme Richard. +He came from South Carolina; and believing his seed and name were +perished there to-day, I gave him a descendant. I have learned that the +name, until recently, was in existence; I trust it will not seem taken +in vain in these pages. + +Whence came such a person as Augustus? + +Our happier cities produce many Augustuses, and may they long continue +to do so! If Augustus displeases any one, so much the worse for that +one, not for Augustus. To be sure, he doesn’t admire over heartily +the parvenus of steel or oil, whose too sudden money takes them to the +divorce court; he calls them the ‘yellow rich’; do you object to that? +Nor does he think that those Americans who prefer their pockets to their +patriotism, are good citizens. He says of such people that ‘eternal +vigilance cannot watch liberty and the ticker at the same time.’ Do you +object to that? Why, the young man would be perfect, did he but attend +his primaries and vote more regularly,--and who wants a perfect young +man? + +What would John Mayrant have done if Hortense had not challenged him as +she did? + +I have never known, and I fear we might have had a tragedy. + +Would the old ladies really have spoken to Augustus about the love +difficulties of John Mayrant? + +I must plead guilty. The old ladies of Kings Port, like American +gentlefolk everywhere, keep family matters sacredly inside the family +circle. But you see, had they not told Augustus, how in the world could +I have told--however, I plead guilty. + +Certain passages have been interpreted most surprisingly to signify a +feeling against the colored race, that is by no means mine. My only wish +regarding these people, to whom we owe an immeasurable responsibility, +is to see the best that is in them prevail. Discord over this seems on +the wane, and sane views gaining. The issue sits on all our shoulders, +but local variations call for a sliding scale of policy. So admirably +dispassionate a novel as The Elder Brother, by Mr. Jervey, forwards the +understanding of Northerners unfamiliar with the South, and also that +friendliness between the two places, which is retarded chiefly by +tactless newspapers. + +Ah, tact should have been one of the cardinal virtues; and if I didn’t +possess a spice of it myself, I should here thank by name certain two +members of the St. Michael family of Kings Port for their patience with +this comedy, before ever it saw the light. Tact bids us away from many +pleasures; but it can never efface the memory of kindness. + + + + +LADY BALTIMORE + + + + +I: A Word about My Aunt + + +Like Adam, our first conspicuous ancestor, I must begin, and lay the +blame upon a woman; I am glad to recognize that I differ from the father +of my sex in no important particular, being as manlike as most of his +sons. Therefore it is the woman, my Aunt Carola, who must bear the whole +reproach of the folly which I shall forthwith confess to you, since she +it was who put it into my head; and, as it was only to make Eve happy +that her husband ever consented to eat the disastrous apple, so I, save +to please my relative, had never aspired to become a Selected Salic +Scion. I rejoice now that I did so, that I yielded to her temptation. +Ours is a wide country, and most of us know but our own corner of it, +while, thanks to my Aunt, I have been able to add another corner. This, +among many other enlightenments of navel and education, do I owe her; +she stands on the threshold of all that is to come; therefore I were +lacking in deference did I pass her and her Scions by without due +mention,--employing no English but such as fits a theme so stately. +Although she never left the threshold, nor went to Kings Port with me, +nor saw the boy, or the girl, or any part of what befell them, she knew +quite well who the boy was. When I wrote her about him, she remembered +one of his grandmothers whom she had visited during her own girlhood, +long before the war, both in Kings Port and at the family plantation; +and this old memory led her to express a kindly interest in him. How odd +and far away that interest seems, now that it has been turned to cold +displeasure! + +Some other day, perhaps, I may try to tell you much more than I can tell +you here about Aunt Carola and her Colonial Society--that apple which +Eve, in the form of my Aunt, held out to me. Never had I expected to +feel rise in me the appetite for this particular fruit, though I had +known such hunger to exist in some of my neighbors. Once a worthy dame +of my town, at whose dinner-table young men and maidens of fashion sit +constantly, asked me with much sentiment if I was aware that she was +descended from Boadicea. Why had she never (I asked her) revealed this +to me before? And upon her informing me that she had learned it +only that very day, I exclaimed that it was a great distance to have +descended so suddenly. To this, after a look at me, she assented, adding +that she had the good news from the office of The American Almanach de +Gotha, Union Square, New York; and she recommended that publication +to me. There was but a slight fee to pay, a matter of fifty dollars or +upwards, and for this trifling sum you were furnished with your rightful +coat-of-arms and with papers clearly tracing your family to the Druids, +the Vestal Virgins, and all the best people in the world. Therefore I +felicitated the Boadicean lady upon the illustrious progenitrix +with whom the Almanach de Gotha had provided her for so small a +consideration, and observed that for myself I supposed I should continue +to rest content with the thought that in our enlightened Republic every +American was himself a sovereign. But that, said the lady, after giving +me another look, is so different from Boadicea! And to this I perfectly +agreed. Later I had the pleasure to hear in a roundabout way that she +had pronounced me one of the most agreeable young men in society, though +sophisticated. I have not cherished this against her; my gift of humor +puzzles many who can see only my refinement and my scrupulous attention +to dress. + +Yes, indeed, I counted myself proof against all Boadiceas. But you have +noticed--have you not?--how, whenever a few people gather together and +style themselves something, and choose a president, and eight or nine +vice-presidents, and a secretary and a treasurer, and a committee on +elections, and then let it be known that almost nobody else is qualified +to belong to it, that there springs up immediately in hundreds and +thousands of breasts a fiery craving to get into that body? You may +try this experiment in science, law, medicine, art, letters, society, +farming, I care not what, but you will set the same craving afire in +doctors, academicians, and dog breeders all over the earth. Thus, when +my Aunt--the president, herself, mind you!--said to me one day that +she thought, if I proved my qualifications, my name might be favorably +considered by the Selected Salic Scions--I say no more; I blush, though +you cannot see me; when I am tempted, I seem to be human, after all. + +At first, to be sure, I met Aunt Carola’s suggestion in the way that I +am too ready to meet many of her remarks; for you must know she once, +with sincere simplicity and good-will, told my Uncle Andrew (her +husband; she is only my Aunt by marriage) that she had married beneath +her; and she seemed unprepared for his reception of this candid +statement: Uncle Andrew was unaffectedly merry over it. Ever since then +all of us wait hopefully every day for what she may do or say next. + +She is from old New York, oldest New York; the family manor is still +habitable, near Cold Spring; she was, in her youth, handsome, I am +assured by those whose word I have always trusted; her appearance even +to-day causes people to turn and look; she is not tall in feet and +inches--I have to stoop considerably when she commands from me the +familiarity of a kiss; but in the quality which we call force, in moral +stature, she must be full eight feet high. When rebuking me, she can +pronounce a single word, my name, “Augustus!” in a tone that renders +further remark needless; and you should see her eye when she says of +certain newcomers in our society, “I don’t know them.” She can make +her curtsy as appalling as a natural law; she knows also how to “take +umbrage,” which is something that I never knew any one else to take +outside of a book; she is a highly pronounced Christian, holding all +Unitarians wicked and all Methodists vulgar; and once, when she was +talking (as she does frequently) about King James and the English +religion and the English Bible, and I reminded her that the Jews +wrote it, she said with displeasure that she made no doubt King James +had--“well, seen to it that all foreign matter was expunged”--I give you +her own words. Unless you have moved in our best American society (and +by this I do not at all mean the lower classes with dollars and no +grandfathers, who live in palaces at Newport, and look forward to +every-thing and back to nothing, but those Americans with grandfathers +and no dollars, who live in boarding-houses, and look forward to +nothing and back to everything)--unless you have known this haughty and +improving milieu, you have never seen anything like my Aunt Carola. +Of course, with Uncle Andrew’s money, she does not live in a +boarding-house; and I shall finish this brief attempt to place her +before you by adding that she can be very kind, very loyal, very +public-spirited, and that I am truly attached to her. + +“Upon your mother’s side of the family,” she said, “of course.” + +“Me!” I did not have to feign amazement. + +My Aunt was silent. “Me descended from a king?” + +My Aunt nodded with an indulgent stateliness. “There seems to be the +possibility of it.” + +“Royal blood in my veins, Aunt?” + +“I have said so, Augustus. Why make me repeat it?” + +It was now, I fear, that I met Aunt Carola in that unfitting spirit, +that volatile mood, which, as I have said already, her remarks often +rouse in me. + +“And from what sovereign may I hope that I--?” + +“If you will consult a recent admirable compilation, entitled The +American Almanach de Gotha, you will find that Henry the Seventh--” + +“Aunt, I am so much relieved! For I think that I might have hesitated +to trace it back had you said--well--Charles the Second, for example, or +Elizabeth.” + +At this point I should have been wise to notice my Aunt’s eye; but I did +not, and I continued imprudently:-- + +“Though why hesitate? I have never heard that there was anybody present +to marry Adam and Eve, and so why should we all make such a to-do +about--” + +“Augustus!” + +She uttered my name in that quiet but prodigious tone to which I have +alluded above. + +It was I who was now silent. + +“Augustus, if you purpose trifling, you may leave the room.” + +“Oh, Aunt, I beg your pardon. I never meant--” + +“I cannot understand what impels you to adopt such a manner to me, when +I am trying to do something for you.” + +I hastened to strengthen my apologies with a manner becoming the +possible descendant of a king toward a lady of distinction, and my Aunt +was pleased to pass over my recent lapse from respect. She now broached +her favorite topic, which I need scarcely tell you is genealogy, +beginning with her own. + +“If your title to royal blood,” she said, “were as plain as mine +(through Admiral Bombo, you know), you would not need any careful +research.” + +She told me a great deal of genealogy, which I spare you; it was not +one family tree, it was a forest of them. It gradually appeared that +a grandmother of my mother’s grandfather had been a Fanning, and there +were sundry kinds of Fannings, right ones and wrong ones; the point for +me was, what kind had mine been? No family record showed this. If it was +Fanning of the Bon Homme Richard variety, or Fanning of the Alamance, +then I was no king’s descendant. + +“Worthy New England people, I understand,” said my Aunt with her nod of +indulgent stateliness, referring to the Bon Homme Richard species, “but +of entirely bourgeois extraction--Paul Jones himself, you know, was +a mere gardener’s son--while the Alamance Fanning was one of those +infamous regulators who opposed Governor Tryon. Not through any such +cattle could you be one of us,” said my Aunt. + +But a dim, distant, hitherto uncharted Henry Tudor Fanning had fought +in some of the early Indian wars, and the last of his known blood was +reported to have fallen while fighting bravely at the battle of Cowpens. +In him my hope lay. Records of Tarleton, records of Marion’s men, these +were what I must search, and for these I had best go to Kings Port. If I +returned with Kinship proven, then I might be a Selected Salic Scion, a +chosen vessel, a royal seed, one in the most exalted circle of men +and women upon our coasts. The other qualifications were already mine: +ancestors colonial and bellicose upon land and sea-- + +“--besides having acquired,” my Aunt was so good as to say, “sufficient +personal presentability since your life in Paris, of which I had rather +not know too much, Augustus. It is a pity,” she repeated, “that you will +have so much research. With my family it was all so satisfactorily clear +through Kill-devil Bombo--Admiral Bombo’s spirited, reckless son.” + +You will readily conceive that I did not venture to betray my ignorance +of these Bombos; I worked my eyebrows to express a silent and timeworn +familiarity. + +“Go to Kings Port. You need a holiday, at any rate. And I,” my Aunt +handsomely finished, “will make the journey a present to you.” + +This generosity made me at once, and sincerely, repentant for my +flippancy concerning Charles the Second and Elizabeth. And so, partly +from being tempted by this apple of Eve, and partly because recent +overwork had tired me, but chiefly for her sake, and not to thwart at +the outset her kindly-meant ambitions for me, I kissed the hand of my +Aunt Carola and set forth to Kings Port. + +“Come back one of us,” was her parting benediction. + + + + +II: I Vary My Lunch + + +Thus it was that I came to sojourn in the most appealing, the most +lovely, the most wistful town in America; whose visible sadness and +distinction seem also to speak audibly, speak in the sound of the quiet +waves that ripple round her Southern front, speak in the church-bells +on Sunday morning, and breathe not only in the soft salt air, but in the +perfume of every gentle, old-fashioned rose that blooms behind the +high garden walls of falling mellow-tinted plaster: Kings Port the +retrospective, Kings Port the belated, who from her pensive porticoes +looks over her two rivers to the marshes and the trees beyond, the +live-oaks, veiled in gray moss, brooding with memories! Were she my +city, how I should love her! + +But though my city she cannot be, the enchanting image of her is mine to +keep, to carry with me wheresoever I may go; for who, having seen her, +could forget her? Therefore I thank Aunt Carola for this gift, and for +what must always go with it in my mind, the quiet and strange romance +which I saw happen, and came finally to share in. Why it is that my Aunt +no longer wishes to know either the boy or the girl, or even to hear +their names mentioned, you shall learn at the end, when I have finished +with the wedding; for this happy story of love ends with a wedding, +and begins in the Woman’s Exchange, which the ladies of Kings Port have +established, and (I trust) lucratively conduct, in Royal Street. + +Royal Street! There’s a relevance in this name, a fitness to my errand; +but that is pure accident. + +The Woman’s Exchange happened to be there, a decorous resort for those +who became hungry, as I did, at the hour of noon each day. In my very +pleasant boarding-house, where, to be sure, there was one dreadful +boarder, a tall lady, whom I soon secretly called Juno--but let +unpleasant things wait--in the very pleasant house where I boarded (I +had left my hotel after one night) our breakfast was at eight, and our +dinner not until three: sacred meal hours in Kings Port, as inviolable, +I fancy, as the Declaration of Independence, but a gap quite beyond the +stretch of my Northern vitals. Therefore, at twelve, it was my habit to +leave my Fanning researches for a while, and lunch at the Exchange upon +chocolate and sandwiches most delicate in savor. As, one day, I was +luxuriously biting one of these, I heard his voice and what he was +saying. Both the voice and the interesting order he was giving caused +me, at my small table, in the dim back of the room, to stop and watch +him where he stood in the light at the counter to the right of the +entrance door. Young he was, very young, twenty-two or three at the +most, and as he stood, with hat in hand, speaking to the pretty girl +behind the counter, his head and side-face were of a romantic and +high-strung look. It was a cake that he desired made, a cake for a +wedding; and I directly found myself curious to know whose wedding. Even +a dull wedding interests me more than other dull events, because it +can arouse so much surmise and so much prophecy; but in this wedding +I instantly, because of his strange and winning embarrassment, became +quite absorbed. How came it he was ordering the cake for it? Blushing +like the boy that he was entirely, he spoke in a most engaging voice: +“No, not charged; and as you don’t know me, I had better pay for it +now.” + +Self-possession in his speech he almost had; but the blood in his cheeks +and forehead was beyond his control. + +A reply came from behind the counter: “We don’t expect payment until +delivery.” + +“But--a--but on that morning I shall be rather particularly engaged.” + His tones sank almost away on these words. + +“We should prefer to wait, then. You will leave your address. In +half-pound boxes, I suppose?” + +“Boxes? Oh, yes--I hadn’t thought--no--just a big, round one. Like this, +you know!” His arms embraced a circular space of air. “With plenty of +icing.” + +I do not think that there was any smile on the other side of the +counter; there was, at any rate, no hint of one in the voice. “And how +many pounds?” + +He was again staggered. “Why--a--I never ordered one before. I want +plenty--and the very best, the very best. Each person would eat a pound, +wouldn’t they? Or would two be nearer? I think I had better leave it +all to you. About like this, you know.” Once more his arms embraced a +circular space of air. + +Before this I had never heard the young lady behind the counter enter +into any conversation with a customer. She would talk at length about +all sorts of Kings Port affairs with the older ladies connected with the +Exchange, who were frequently to be found there; but with a customer, +never. She always took my orders, and my money, and served me, with a +silence and a propriety that have become, with ordinary shopkeepers, a +lost art. They talk to one indeed! But this slim girl was a lady, and +consequently did the right thing, marking and keeping a distance between +herself and the public. To-day, however, she evidently felt it her +official duty to guide the hapless young, man amid his errors. He now +appeared to be committing a grave one. + +“Are you quite sure you want that?” the girl was asking. + +“Lady Baltimore? Yes, that is what I want.” + +“Because,” she began to explain, then hesitated, and looked at him. +Perhaps it was in his face; perhaps it was that she remembered at this +point the serious difference between the price of Lady Baltimore (by +my small bill-of-fare I was now made acquainted with its price) and the +cost of that rich article which convention has prescribed as the cake +for weddings; at any rate, swift, sudden delicacy of feeling prevented +her explaining any more to him, for she saw how it was: his means were +too humble for the approved kind of wedding cake! She was too young, too +unskilled yet in the world’s ways, to rise above her embarrassment; and +so she stood blushing at him behind the counter, while he stood blushing +at her in front of it. + +At length he succeeded in speaking. “That’s all, I believe. +Good-morning.” + +At his hastily departing back she, too, murmured: “Good-morning.” + +Before I knew it I had screamed out loudly from my table: “But he hasn’t +told you the day he wants it for!” + +Before she knew it she had flown to the door--my cry had set her going, +as if I had touched a spring--and there he was at the door himself, +rushing back. He, too, had remembered. It was almost a collision, and +nothing but their good Southern breeding, the way they took it, saved it +from being like a rowdy farce. + +“I know,” he said simply and immediately. “I am sorry to be so careless. +It’s for the twenty-seventh.” + +She was writing it down in the order-book. “Very well. That is Wednesday +of next week. You have given us more time than we need.” She put +complete, impersonal business into her tone; and this time he marched +off in good order, leaving peace in the Woman’s Exchange. + +No, not peace; quiet, merely; the girl at the counter now proceeded to +grow indignant with me. We were alone together, we two; no young man, +or any other business, occupied her or protected me. But if you suppose +that she made war, or expressed rage by speaking, that is not it at +all. From her counter in front to my table at the back she made her +displeasure felt; she was inaudibly crushing; she did not do it even +with her eye, she managed it--well, with her neck, somehow, and by the +way she made her nose look in profile. Aunt Carola would have embraced +her--and I should have liked to do so myself. She could not stand the +idea of my having, after all these days of official reserve that she had +placed between us, startled her into that rush to the door annihilated +her dignity at a blow. So did I finish my sandwiches beneath her +invisible but eloquent fire. What affair of mine was the cake? And +what sort of impertinent, meddlesome person was I, shrieking out my +suggestions to people with whom I had no acquaintance? These were the +things that her nose and her neck said to me the whole length of the +Exchange. I had nothing but my own weakness to thank; it was my interest +in weddings that did it, made me forget my decorum, the public place, +myself, everything, and plunge in. And I became more and more delighted +over it as the girl continued to crush me. My day had been dull, my +researches had not brought me a whit nearer royal blood; I looked at +my little bill-of-fare, and then I stepped forward to the counter, +adventurous, but polite. + +“I should like a slice, if you please, of Lady Baltimore,” I said with +extreme formality. + +I thought she was going to burst; but after an interesting second she +replied, “Certainly,” in her fit Regular Exchange tone; only, I thought +it trembled a little. + +I returned to the table and she brought me the cake, and I had my first +felicitous meeting with Lady Baltimore. Oh, my goodness! Did you ever +taste it? It’s all soft, and it’s in layers, and it has nuts--but I +can’t write any more about it; my mouth waters too much. + +Delighted surprise caused me once more to speak aloud, and with my mouth +full. “But, dear me, this Is delicious!” + +A choking ripple of laughter came from the counter. “It’s I who make +them,” said the girl. “I thank you for the unintentional compliment.” + Then she walked straight back to my table. “I can’t help it,” she said, +laughing still, and her delightful, insolent nose well up; “how can +I behave myself when a man goes on as you do?” A nice white curly dog +followed her, and she stroked his ears. + +“Your behavior is very agreeable to me,” I remarked. + +“You’ll allow me to say that you’re not invited to criticise it. I +was decidedly put out with you for making me ridiculous. But you have +admired my cake with such enthusiasm that you are forgiven. And--may I +hope that you are getting on famously with the battle of Cowpens?” + +I stared. “I’m frankly very much astonished that you should know about +that!” + +“Oh, you’re just known all about in Kings Port.” + +I wish that our miserable alphabet could in some way render the soft +Southern accent which she gave to her words. But it cannot. I could +easily misspell, if I chose; but how, even then, could I, for instance, +make you hear her way of saying “about”? “Aboot” would magnify it; and +besides, I decline to make ugly to the eye her quite special English, +that was so charming to the ear. + +“Kings Port just knows all about you,” she repeated with a sweet and +mocking laugh. + +“Do you mind telling me how?” + +She explained at once. “This place is death to all incognitos.” + +The explanation, however, did not, on the instant, enlighten me. “This? +The Woman’s Exchange, you mean?” + +“Why, to be sure! Have you not heard ladies talking together here?” + +I blankly repealed her words. “Ladies talking?” + +She nodded. + +“Oh!” I cried. “How dull of me! Ladies talking! Of course!” + +She continued. “It was therefore widely known that you were consulting +our South Carolina archives at the library--and then that notebook you +bring marked you out the very first day. Why, two hours after your first +lunch we just knew all about you!” + +“Dear me!” said I. + +“Kings Port is ever ready to discuss strangers,” she further explained. +“The Exchange has been going on five years, and the resident families +have discussed each other so thoroughly here that everything is known; +therefore a stranger is a perfect boon.” Her gayety for a moment +interrupted her, before she continued, always mocking and always sweet: +“Kings Port cannot boast intelligence offices for servants; but if you +want to know the character and occupation of your friends, come to the +Exchange!” How I wish I could give you the raciness, the contagion, of +her laughter! Who would have dreamed that behind her primness all this +frolic lay in ambush? “Why,” she said, “I’m only a plantation girl; it’s +my first week here, and I know every wicked deed everybody as done since +1812!” + +She went back to her counter. It had been very merry; and as I was +settling the small debt for my lunch I asked: “Since this is the proper +place for information, will you kindly tell me whose wedding that cake +is for?” + +She was astonished. “You don’t know? And I thought you were quite a +clever Ya--I beg your pardon--Northerner. + +“Please tell me, since I know you’re quite a clever Reb--I beg your +pardon--Southerner.” + +“Why, it’s his own! Couldn’t you see that from his bashfulness?” + +“Ordering his own wedding cake?” Amazement held me. But the door opened, +one of the elderly ladies entered, the girl behind the counter stiffened +to primness in a flash, and I went out into Royal Street as the curly +dog’s tail wagged his greeting to the newcomer. + + + + +III: Kings Port Talks + +Of course I had at once left the letters of introduction which Aunt +Carola had given me; but in my ignorance of Kings Port hours I had +found everybody at dinner when I made my first round of calls between +half-past three and five--an experience particularly regrettable, since +I had hurried my own dinner on purpose, not then aware that the hours at +my boarding-house were the custom of the whole town. (These hours +even since my visit to Kings Port, are beginning to change. But such +backsliding is much condemned.) Upon an afternoon some days later, +having seen in the extra looking-glass, which I had been obliged to +provide for myself, that the part in my back hair was perfect, I set +forth again, better informed. + +As I rang the first doorbell, another visitor came up the steps, a +beautiful old lady in widow’s dress, a cardcase in her hand. + +“Have you rung, sir?” said she, in a manner at once gentle and +voluminous. + +“Yes, madam.” + +Nevertheless she pulled it again. “It doesn’t always ring,” she +explained, “unless one is accustomed to it, which you are not.” + +She addressed me with authority, exactly like Aunt Carola, and with even +greater precision in her good English and good enunciation. Unlike the +girl at the Exchange, she had no accent; her language was simply +the perfection of educated utterance; it also was racy with the free +censoriousness which civilized people of consequence are apt to exercise +the world over. “I was sorry to miss your visit,” she began (she knew +me, you see, perfectly); “you will please to come again soon, and +console me for my disappointment. I am Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, and my +house is in Le Maire Street (Pronounced in Kings Port, Lammarree) as you +have been so civil as to find out. And how does your Aunt Carola do in +these contemptible times? You can tell her from me that vulgarization is +descending, even upon Kings Port.” + +“I cannot imagine that!” I exclaimed. + +“You cannot imagine it because you don’t know anything about it, young +gentleman! The manners of some of our own young people will soon be as +dishevelled as those in New York. Have you seen our town yet, or is it +all books with you? You should not leave without a look at what is +still left of us. I shall be happy if you will sit in my pew on Sunday +morning. Your Northern shells did their best in the bombardment--did +you say that you rang? I think you had better pull it again; all the +way out; yes, like that--in the bombardment, but we have our old +church still, in spite of you. Do you see the crack in that wall? The +earthquake did it. You’re spared earthquakes in the North, as you seem +to be spared pretty much everything disastrous--except the prosperity +that’s going to ruin you all. We’re better off with our poverty than +you. Just ring the bell once more, and then we’ll go. I fancy Julia--I +fancy Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael--has run out to stare at the Northern +steam yacht in the harbor. It would be just like her. This house is +historic itself. Shabby enough now, to be sure! The great-aunt of my +cousin, John Mayrant (who is going to be married next Wednesday, to such +a brute of a girl, poor boy!), lived here in 1840, and made an answer +to the Earl of Mainridge that put him in his place. She was our famous +Kings Port wit, and at the reception which her father (my mother’s +uncle) gave the English visitor, he conducted himself as so many +Englishmen seem to think they can in this country. Miss Beaufain +(pronounced in Kings Port, Bowfayne), as she was then, asked the Earl +how he liked America; and he replied, very well, except for the people, +who were so vulgar. ‘What can you expect?’ said Miss Beaufain; ‘we’re +descended from the English.’ Mrs. St. Michael is out, and the servant +has gone home. Slide this card under the door, with your own, and come +away.” + +She took me with her, moving through the quiet South Place with a +leisurely grace and dignity at which my spirit rejoiced; she was so +beautiful, and so easy, and afraid of nothing and nobody! (This must be +modified. I came later to suspect that they all stood in some dread of +their own immediate families.) + +In the North, everybody is afraid of something: afraid of the +legislature, afraid of the trusts, afraid of the strikes, afraid of what +the papers will say, of what the neighbors will say, of what the cook +will say; and most of all, and worst of all, afraid to be different +from the general pattern, afraid to take a step or speak a syllable that +shall cause them to be thought unlike the monotonous millions of their +fellow-citizens; the land of the free living in ceaseless fear! Well, +I was already afraid of Mrs. Gregory St. Michael. As we walked and she +talked, I made one or two attempts at conversation, and speedily found +that no such thing was the lady’s intention: I was there to listen; and +truly I could wish nothing more agreeable, in spite of my desire to hear +further about next Wednesday’s wedding and the brute of a girl. But to +this subject Mrs. St. Michael did not return. We crossed Worship Street +and Chancel Street, and were nearing the East Place where a cannon was +being shown me, a cannon with a history and an inscription concerning +the “war for Southern independence, which I presume your prejudice calls +the Rebellion,” said my guide. “There’s Mrs. St. Michael now, coming +round the corner. Well, Julia, could you read the yacht’s name with +your naked eye? And what’s the name of the gambler who owns it? He’s +a gambler, or he couldn’t own a yacht--unless his wife’s a gambler’s +daughter.” + +“How well you’re feeling to-day, Maria!” said the other lady, with a +gentle smile. + +“Certainly. I have been talking for twenty minutes.” I was now presented +to Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, also old, also charming, in widow’s dress +no less in the bloom of age than Mrs. Gregory, but whiter and very +diminutive. She shyly welcomed me to Kings Port. “Take him home with +you, Julia. We pulled your bell three times, and it’s too damp for you +to be out. Don’t forget,” Mrs. Gregory said to me, “that you haven’t +told me a word about your Aunt Carola, and that I shall expect you to +come and do it.” She went slowly away from us, up the East Place, tall, +graceful, sweeping into the distance like a ship. No haste about her +dignified movement, no swinging of elbows, nothing of the present hour! + +“What a beautiful girl she must have been!” I murmured aloud, +unconsciously. + +“No, she was not a beauty in her youth,” said my new guide in her shy +voice, “but always fluent, always a wit. Kings Port has at times thought +her tongue too downright. We think that wit runs in her family, for +young John Mayrant has it; and her first-cousin-once-removed put the +Earl of Mainridge in his place at her father’s ball in 1840. Miss +Beaufain (as she was then) asked the Earl how he liked America; and he +replied, very well, except for the people, who were so vulgar. ‘What can +you expect?’ said Miss Beaufain; ‘we’re descended from the English.’ +I am very sorry for Maria--for Mrs. St. Michael--just at present. Her +young cousin, John Mayrant, is making an alliance deeply vexatious to +her. Do you happen to know Miss Hortense Rieppe?” + +I had never heard of her. + +“No? She has been North lately. I thought you might have met her. Her +father takes her North, I believe, whenever any one will invite them. +They have sometimes managed to make it extend through an unbroken year. +Newport, I am credibly informed, greatly admires her. We in Kings +Port have never (except John Mayrant, apparently) seen anything in her +beauty, which Northerners find so exceptional.” + +“What is her type?” I inquired. + +“I consider that she looks like a steel wasp. And she has the assurance +to call herself a Kings Port girl. Her father calls himself a general, +and it is repeated that he ran away at the battle of Chattanooga. I hope +you will come to see me another day, when you can spare time from the +battle of Cowpens. I am Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, the other lady is +Mrs. Gregory St. Michael. I wonder if you will keep us all straight?” + And smiling, the little lady, whose shy manner and voice I had found to +veil as much spirit as her predecessor’s, dismissed me and went up her +steps, letting herself into her own house. + +The boy in question, the boy of the cake, John Mayrant, was coming out +of the gate at which I next rang. The appearance of his boyish figure +and well-carried head struck me anew, as it had at first; from his whole +person one got at once a strangely romantic impression. He looked at me, +made as if he would speak, but passed on. Probably he had been hearing +as much about me as I had been hearing about him. At this house the +black servant had not gone home for the night, and if the mistress had +been out to take a look at the steam yacht, she had returned. + +“My sister,” she said, presenting me to a supremely fine-looking old +lady, more chiselled, more august, than even herself. I did not catch +this lady’s name, and she confined herself to a distant, though perhaps +not unfriendly, greeting. She was sitting by a work-table, and she +resumed some embroidery of exquisite appearance, while my hostess talked +to me. + +Both wore their hair in a simple fashion to suit their years, which must +have been seventy or more; both were dressed with the dignity that such +years call for; and I may mention here that so were all the ladies above +a certain age in this town of admirable old-fashioned propriety. In New +York, in Boston, in Philadelphia, ladies of seventy won’t be old ladies +any more; they’re unwilling to wear their years avowedly, in quiet +dignity by their firesides; they bare their bosoms and gallop +egregiously to the ball-rooms of the young; and so we lose a particular +graciousness that Kings Port retains, a perspective of generations. +We happen all at once, with no background, in a swirl of haste and +similarity. + +One of the many things which came home to me during the conversation +that now began (so many more things came home than I can tell you!) was +that Mrs. Gregory St. Michael’s tongue was assuredly “downright” for +Kings Port. This I had not at all taken in while she talked to me, and +her friend’s reference to it had left me somewhat at a loss. That better +precision and choice of words which I have mentioned, and the manner +in which she announced her opinions, had put me in mind of several fine +ladles whom I had known in other parts of the world; but hers was an +individual manner, I was soon to find, and by no means the Kings Port +convention. This convention permitted, indeed, condemnations of one’s +neighbor no less sweeping, but it conveyed them in a phraseology far +more restrained. + +“I cannot regret your coming to Kings Port,” said my hostess, after we +had talked for a little while, and I had complimented the balmy March +weather and the wealth of blooming flowers; “but I fear that Fanning is +not a name that you will find here. It belongs to North Carolina.” + +I smiled and explained that North Carolina Fannings were useless to me. +“And, if I may be so bold, how well you are acquainted with my errand!” + +I cannot say that my hostess smiled, that would be too definite; but I +can say that she did not permit herself to smile, and that she let +me see this repression. “Yes,” she said, “we are acquainted with your +errand, though not with its motive.” + +I sat silent, thinking of the Exchange. + +My hostess now gave me her own account of why all things were known +to all people in this town. “The distances in your Northern cities are +greater, and their population is much greater. There are but few of us +in Kings Port.” In these last words she plainly told me that those “few” + desired no others. She next added: “My nephew, John Mayrant, has spoken +of you at some length.” + +I bowed. “I had the pleasure to see and hear him order a wedding cake.” + +“Yes. From Eliza La Heu (pronounced Layhew), my niece; he is my nephew, +she is my niece on the other side. My niece is a beginner at the +Exchange. We hope that she will fulfil her duties there in a +worthy manner. She comes from a family which is schooled to meet +responsibilities.” + +I bowed again; again it seemed fitting. “I had not, until now, known the +charming girl’s name,” I murmured. + +My hostess now bowed slightly. “I am glad that you find her charming.” + +“Indeed, yes!” I exclaimed. + +“We, also, are pleased with her. She is of good family--for the +up-country.” + +Once again our alphabet fails me. The peculiar shade of kindness, of +recognition, of patronage, which my agreeable hostess (and all Kings +Port ladies, I soon noticed) imparted to the word “up-country” cannot be +conveyed except by the human voice--and only a Kings Port voice at that. +It is a much lighter damnation than what they make of the phrase “from +Georgia,” which I was soon to hear uttered by the lips of the lady. “And +so you know about his wedding cake?” + +“My dear madam, I feel that I shall know about everything.” + +Her gray eyes looked at me quietly for a moment. “That is possible. But +although we may talk of ourselves to you, we scarcely expect you to talk +of ourselves to us.” + +Well, my pertness had brought me this quite properly! And I received it +properly. “I should never dream--” I hastened to say; “even without your +warning. I find I’m expected to have seen the young lady of his choice,” + I now threw out. My accidental words proved as miraculous as the staff +which once smote the rock. It was a stream, indeed, which now broke +forth from her stony discretion. She began easily. “It is evident that +you have not seen Miss Rieppe by the manner in which you allude to +her--although of course, in comparison with my age, she is a young +girl.” I think that this caused me to open my mouth. + +“The disparity between her years and my nephew’s is variously stated,” + continued the old lady. “But since John’s engagement we have all of us +realized that love is truly blind.” + +I did not open my mouth any more; but my mind’s mouth was wide open. + +My hostess kept it so. “Since John Mayrant was fifteen he has had many +loves; and for myself, knowing him and believing in him as I do, I feel +confident that he will make no connection distasteful to the family when +he really comes to marry.” + +This time I gasped outright. “But--the cake!--next Wednesday!” + +She made, with her small white hand, a slight and slighting gesture. +“The cake is not baked yet, and we shall see what we shall see.” From +this onward until the end a pinkness mounted in her pale, delicate +cheeks, and deep, strong resentment burned beneath her discreetly +expressed indiscretions. “The cake is not baked, and I, at least, am not +solicitous. I tell my cousin, Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, that she must +not forget it was merely his phosphates. That girl would never have +looked at John Mayrant had it not been for the rumor of his phosphates. +I suppose some one has explained to you her pretensions of birth. Away +from Kings Port she may pass for a native of this place, but they come +from Georgia. It cannot be said that she has met with encouragement +from us; she, however, easily recovers from such things. The present +generation of young people in Kings Port has little enough to remind us +of what we stood for in manners and customs, but we are not accountable +for her, nor for her father. I believe that he is called a general. His +conduct at Chattanooga was conspicuous for personal prudence. Both of +them are skillful in never knowing poor people--but the Northerners +they consort with must really be at a loss how to bestow their money. +Of course, such Northerners cannot realize the difference between Kings +Port and Georgia, and consequently they make much of her. Her features +do undoubtedly possess beauty. A Newport woman--the new kind--has even +taken her to Worth! And yet, after all, she has remained for John. We +heard a great deal of her men, too. She took care of that, of course. +John Mayrant actually followed her to Newport. + +“But,” I couldn’t help crying out, “I thought he was so poor!” + +“The phosphates,” my hostess explained. “They had been discovered on his +land. And none of her New York men had come forward. So John rushed +back happy.” At this point a very singular look came over the face of +my hostess, and she continued: “There have been many false reports (and +false hopes in consequence) based upon the phosphate discoveries. It was +I who had to break it to him--what further investigation had revealed. +Poor John!” + +“He has, then, nothing?” I inquired. + +“His position in the Custom House, and a penny or two from his mother’s +fortune.” + +“But the cake?” I now once again reminded her. + +My hostess lifted her delicate hand and let it fall. Her resentment at +the would-be intruder by marriage still mounted. “Not even from that +pair would I have believed such a thing possible!” she exclaimed; and +she went into a long, low, contemplative laugh, looking not at me, but +at the fire. Our silent companion continued to embroider. “That girl,” + my hostess resumed, “and her discreditable father played on my nephew’s +youth and chivalry to the tune of--well, you have heard the tune.” + +“You mean--you mean--?” I couldn’t quite take it in. + +“Yes. They rattled their poverty at him until he offered and they +accepted.” + +I must have stared grotesquely now. “That--that--the cake--and that sort +of thing--at his expense? + +“My dear sir, I shall be glad if you can find me anything that they have +ever done at their own expense!” + +I doubt if she would ever have permitted her speech such freedom had +not the Rieppes been “from Georgia”; I am sure that it was anger--family +anger, race anger--which had broken forth; and I think that her +silent, severe sister scarcely approved of such breaking forth to me, +a stranger. But indignation had worn her reticence thin, and I had +happened to press upon the weak place. After my burst of exclamation I +came back to it. “So you think Miss Rieppe will get out of it?” + +“It is my nephew who will ‘get out of it,’ as you express it.” + +I totally misunderstood her. “Oh!” I protested stupidly. “He doesn’t +look like that. And it takes all meaning from the cake.” + +“Do not say cake to me again!” said the lady, smiling at last. +“And--will you allow me to tell you that I do not need to have my +nephew, John Mayrant, explained to me by any one? I merely meant to say +that he, and not she, is the person who will make the lucky escape. Of +course, he is honorable--a great deal too much so for his own good. It +is a misfortune, nowadays, to be born a gentleman in America. But, as +I told you, I am not solicitous. What she is counting on--because +she thinks she understands true Kings Port honor, and does not in the +least--is his renouncing her on account of the phosphates--the bad +news, I mean. They could live on what he has--not at all in her way, +though--and besides, after once offering his genuine, ardent, foolish +love--for it was genuine enough at the time--John would never--” + +She stopped; but I took her up. “Did I understand you to say that his +love was genuine at the lime?” + +“Oh, he thinks it is now--insists it is now! That is just precisely what +would make him--do you not see?--stick to his colors all the closer.” + +“Goodness!” I murmured. “What a predicament!” + +But my hostess nodded easily. “Oh, no. You will see. They will all see.” + +I rose to take my leave; my visit, indeed, had been, for very interest, +prolonged beyond the limits of formality--my hostess had attended quite +thoroughly to my being entertained. And at this point the other, the +more severe and elderly lady, made her contribution to my entertainment. +She had kept silence, I now felt sure, because gossip was neither +her habit nor to her liking. Possibly she may have also felt that her +displeasure had been too manifest; at any rate, she spoke out of her +silence in cold, yet rich, symmetrical tones. + +“This, I understand, is your first visit to Kings Port?” + +I told her that it was. + +She laid down her exquisite embroidery. “It has been thought a place +worth seeing. There is no town of such historic interest at the North.” + +Standing by my chair, I assured her that I did not think there could be. + +“I heard you allude to my half-sister-in-law, Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. +It was at the house where she now lives that the famous Miss Beaufain +(as she was then) put the Earl of Mainridge in his place, at the +reception which her father gave the English visitor in 1840. The Earl +conducted himself as so many Englishmen seem to think they can in this +country; and on her asking him how he liked America, he replied, very +well, except for the people, who were so vulgar. + +“‘What can you expect?’ said Miss Beaufain; ‘we’re descended from the +English.’” + +“But I suppose you will tell me that your Northern beauties can easily +outmatch such wit.” + +I hastened to disclaim any such pretension; and having expressed my +appreciation of the anecdote, I moved to the door as the stately lady +resumed her embroidery. + +My hostess had a last word for me. “Do not let the cake worry you.” + +Outside the handsome old iron gate I looked at my watch and found that +for this day I could spend no more time upon visiting. + + + + +IV: THE GIRL BEHIND THE COUNTER--I + +I fear--no; to say one “fears” that one has stepped aside from the +narrow path of duty, when one knows perfectly well that one has done +so, is a ridiculous half-dodging of the truth; let me dismiss from +my service such a cowardly circumlocution, and squarely say that I +neglected the Cowpens during certain days which now followed. Nay, more; +I totally deserted them. Although I feel quite sure that to discover one +is a real king’s descendant must bring an exultation of no mean order to +the heart, there’s no exultation whatever in failing to discover this, +day after day. Mine is a nature which demands results, or at any +rate signs of results coming sooner or later. Even the most abandoned +fisherman requires a bite now and then; but my fishing for Fannings had +not yet brought me one single nibble--and I gave up the sad sport for +a while. The beautiful weather took me out of doors over the land, and +also over the water, for I am a great lover of sailing; and I found a +little cat-boat and a little negro, both of which suited me very well. +I spent many delightful hours in their company among the deeps and +shallows of these fair Southern waters. + +And indoors, also, I made most agreeable use of my time, in spite of +one disappointment when, on the day following my visit to the ladies, I +returned full of expectancy to lunch at the Woman’s exchange, the girl +behind the counter was not there. I found in her stead, it is true, a +most polite lady, who provided me with chocolate and sandwiches that +were just as good as their predecessors; but she was of advanced years, +and little inclined to light conversation. Beyond telling me that Miss +Eliza La Heu was indisposed, but not gravely so, and that she was not +likely to be long away from her post of duty, this lady furnished me +with scant information. + +Now I desired a great deal of information. To learn of an imminent +wedding where the bridegroom attends to the cake, and is suspected of +diminished eagerness for the bride, who is a steel wasp--that is not +enough to learn of such nuptials. Therefore I fear--I mean, I know--that +it was not wholly for the sake of telling Mrs. Gregory St. Michael about +Aunt Carola that I repaired again to Le Maire Street and rang Mrs. St. +Michael’s door-bell. + +She was at home, to be sure, but with her sat another visitor, the tall, +severe lady who had embroidered and had not liked the freedom with which +her sister had spoken to me about the wedding. There was not a bit of +freedom to-day; the severe lady took care of that. + +When, after some utterly unprofitable conversation, I managed to say in +a casual voice, which I thought very well tuned for the purpose, “What +part of Georgia did you say that General Rieppe came from?” the severe +lady responded:-- + +“I do not think that I mentioned him at all.” + +“Georgia?” said Mrs. Gregory St. Michael. “I never heard that they came +from Georgia.” + +And this revived my hopes. But the severe lady at once remarked to +her:-- + +“I have received a most agreeable letter from my sister in Paris.” + +This stopped Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, and dashed my hopes to earth. + +The severe lady continued to me:-- + +“My sister writes of witnessing a performance of the Lohengrin. Can you +tell me if it is a composition of merit?” + +I assured her that it was a composition of the highest merit. + +“It is many years since I have heard an opera,” she pursued. “In my day +the works of the Italians were much applauded. But I doubt if Mozart +will be surpassed. I hope you admire the Nozze?” + +You will not need me to tell you that I came out of Mrs. Gregory St. +Michael’s house little wiser than I went in. My experience did not lead +me to abandon all hope. I paid other visits to other ladies; but these +answered my inquiries in much the same sort of way as had the lady who +admired Mozart. They spoke delightfully of travel, books, people, and +of the colonial renown of Kings Port and its leading families; but it +is scarce an exaggeration to say that Mozart was as near the cake, the +wedding, or the steel wasp as I came with any of them. By patience, +however, and mostly at our boarding-house table, I gathered a certain +knowledge, though small in amount. + +If the health of John Mayrant’s mother, I learned, had allowed that lady +to bring him up Herself, many follies might have been saved the youth. +His aunt, Miss Eliza St. Michael, though a pattern of good intentions, +was not always a pattern of wisdom. Moreover, how should a spinster +bring up a boy fitly? + +Of the Rieppes, father and daughter, I also learned a little more. They +did not (most people believed) come from Georgia. Natchez and Mobile +seemed to divide the responsibility of giving them to the world. It was +quite certain the General had run away from Chattanooga. Nobody disputed +this, or offered any other battle as the authentic one. Of late the +Rieppes were seldom to be seen in Kings Port. Their house (if it had +ever been their own property, which I heard hotly argued both ways) had +been sold more than two years ago, and their recent brief sojourns in +the town were generally beneath the roof of hospitable friends--people +by the name of Cornerly, “whom we do not know,” as I was carefully +informed by more than one member of the St. Michael family. The girl had +disturbed a number of mothers whose sons were prone to slip out of the +strict hereditary fold in directions where beauty or champagne was to +be found; and the Cornerlys dined late, and had champagne. Miss Hortense +had “splurged it” a good deal here, and the measure of her success +with the male youth was the measure of her condemnation by their female +elders. + +Such were the facts which I gathered from women and from the few men +whom I saw in Kings Port. This town seemed to me almost as empty of men +as if the Pied Piper had passed through here and lured them magically +away to some distant country. It was on the happy day that saw Miss +Eliza La Heu again providing me with sandwiches and chocolate that my +knowledge of the wedding and the bride and groom began really to take +some steps forward. + +It was not I who, at my sequestered lunch at the Woman’s Exchange, began +the conversation the next time. That confection, “Lady Baltimore,” about +which I was not to worry myself, had, as they say, “broken the ice” + between the girl behind the counter and myself. + +“He has put it off!” This, without any preliminaries, was her direct and +stimulating news. + +I never was more grateful for the solitude of the Exchange, where I +had, before this, noted and blessed an absence of lunch customers as +prevailing as the trade winds; the people I saw there came to talk, not +to purchase. Well, I was certainly henceforth coming for both! + +I eagerly plunged in with the obvious question:-- + +“Indefinitely?” + +“Oh, no! Only Wednesday week.” + +“But will it keep?” + +My ignorance diverted her. “Lady Baltimore? Why, the idea!” And she +laughed at me from the immense distance that the South is from the +North. + +“Then he’ll have to pay for two?” + +“Oh, no! I wasn’t going to make it till Tuesday. + +“I didn’t suppose that kind of thing would keep,” I muttered rather +vaguely. + +Her young spirits bubbled over. “Which kind of thing? The wedding--or +the cake?” + +This produced a moment of laughter on the part of us both; we giggled +joyously together amid the silence and wares for sale, the painted cups, +the embroidered souvenirs, the new food, and the old family “pieces.” + +So this delightful girl was a verbal skirmisher! Now nothing is more +to my liking than the verbal skirmish, and therefore I began one +immediately. “I see you quite know,” was the first light shot that I +hazarded. + +Her retort to this was merely a very bland and inquiring stare. + +I now aimed a trifle nearer the mark. “About him--her--it! Since you +practically live in the Exchange, how can you exactly help yourself?” + +Her laughter came back. “It’s all, you know, so much later than 1812.” + +“Later! Why, a lot of it is to happen yet!” + +She leaned over the counter. “Tell me what you know about it,” she said +with caressing insinuation. + +“Oh, well--but probably they mean to have your education progress +chronologically.” + +“I think I can pick it up anywhere. We had to at the plantation.” + +It was from my table in the distant dim back of the room, where things +stood lumpily under mosquito netting, that I told her my history. She +made me go there to my lunch. She seemed to desire that our talk over +the counter should not longer continue. And so, back there, over +my chocolate and sandwiches, I brought out my gleaned and arranged +knowledge which rang out across the distance, comically, like a lecture. +She, at her counter, now and then busy with her ledger, received it with +the attentive solemnity of a lecture. The ledger might have been notes +that she was dutifully and improvingly taking. After I had finished she +wrote on for a little while in silence. The curly white dog rose into +sight, looked amiably and vaguely about, stretched himself, and sank to +sleep again out of sight. + +“That’s all?” she asked abruptly. + +“So far,” I answered. + +“And what do you think of such a young man?” she inquired. + +“I know what I think of such a young woman.” + +She was still pensive. “Yes, yes, but then that is so simple.” + +I had a short laugh. “Oh, if you come to the simplicity!” + +She nodded, seeming to be doing sums with her pencil. + +“Men are always simple--when they’re in love.” + +I assented. “And women--you’ll agree?--are always simple when they’re +not!” + +She finished her sums. “Well, I think he’s foolish!” she frankly stated. +“Didn’t Aunt Josephine think so, too?” + +“Aunt Josephine?” + +“Miss Josephine St. Michael--my greet-aunt--the lady who embroidered. +She brought me here from the plantation.” + +“No, she wouldn’t talk about it. But don’t you think it is your turn +now?” + +“I’ve taken my turn!” + +“Oh, not much. To say you think he’s foolish isn’t much. You’ve seen him +since?” + +“Seen him? Since when?” + +“Here. Since the postponement. I take it he came himself about it.” + +“Yes, he came. You don’t suppose we discussed the reasons, do you?” + +“My dear young lady, I suppose nothing, except that you certainly must +have seen how he looked (he can blush, you know, handsomely), and that +you may have some knowledge or some guess--” + +“Some guess why it’s not to be until Wednesday week? Of course he said +why. Her poor, dear father, the General, isn’t very well.” + +“That, indeed, must be an anxiety for Johnny,” I remarked. + +This led her to indulge in some more merriment. “But he does,” she then +said, “seem anxious about something.” + +“Ah,” I exclaimed. “Then you admit it, too!” + +She resorted again to the bland, inquiring stare. + +“What he won’t admit,” I explained, “even to his intimate Aunt, because +he’s so honorable.” + +“He certainly is simple,” she commented, in soft and pensive tones. + +“Isn’t there some one,” I asked, “who could--not too directly, of +course--suggest that to him?” + +“I think I prefer men to be simple,” she returned somewhat quickly. + +“Especially when they’re in love,” I reminded her somewhat slowly. + +“Do you want some Lady Baltimore to-day?” she inquired in the official +Exchange tone. + +I rose obediently. “You’re quite right, I should have gone back to the +battle of Cowpens long ago, and I’ll just say this--since you asked me +what I thought of him--that if he’s descended from that John Mayrant who +fought the Serapes under Paul Jones--” + +“He is!” she broke in eagerly. + +“Then there’s not a name in South Carolina that I’d rather have for my +own.” + +I intended that thrust to strike home, but she turned it off most +competently. “Oh, you mustn’t accept us because of our ancestors. That’s +how we’ve been accepting ourselves, and only look where we are in the +race!” + +“Ah!” I said, as a parting attempt, “don’t pretend you’re not perfectly +satisfied--all of you--as to where you are in the race!” + +“We don’t pretend anything!” she flashed back. + + + + +V: The Boy of the Cake + +One is unthankful, I suppose, to call a day so dreary when one has +lunched under the circumstances that I have attempted to indicate; the +bright spot ought to shine over the whole. But you haven’t an idea what +a nightmare in the daytime Cowpens was beginning to be. + +I had thumbed and scanned hundreds of ancient pages, some of them +manuscript; I had sat by ancient shelves upon hard chairs, I had sneezed +with the ancient dust, and I had not put my finger upon a trace of the +right Fanning. I should have given it up, left unexplored the territory +that remained staring at me through the backs of unread volumes, had it +not been for my Aunt Carola. To her I owed constancy and diligence, +and so I kept at it; and the hermit hours I spent at Court and Chancel +streets grew worse as I knew better what rarely good company was ready +to receive me. This Kings Port, this little city of oblivion, held, shut +in with its lavender and pressed-rose memories, a handful of people +who were like that great society of the world, the high society of +distinguished men and women who exist no more, but who touched history +with a light hand, and left their mark upon it in a host of memoirs and +letters that we read to-day with a starved and home-sick longing in +the midst of our sullen welter of democracy. With its silent houses and +gardens, its silent streets, its silent vistas of the blue water in the +sunshine, this beautiful, sad place was winning my heart and making +it ache. Nowhere else in America such charm, such character, such +true elegance as here--and nowhere else such an overwhelming sense of +finality!--the doom of a civilization founded upon a crime. And yet, how +much has the ballot done for that race? Or, at least, how much has the +ballot done for the majority of that race? And what way was it to meet +this problem with the sudden sweeping folly of the Fifteenth Amendment? +To fling the “door of hope” wide open before those within had learned +the first steps of how to walk sagely through it! Ah, if it comes to +blame, who goes scatheless in this heritage of error? I could have +shaped (we all could, you know) a better scheme for the universe, a plan +where we should not flourish at each other’s expense, where the lion +should be lying down with the lamb now, where good and evil should not +be husband and wife, indissolubly married by a law of creation. + +With such highly novel thoughts as these I descended the steps from my +researches at the corner of Court and Chancel streets an hour earlier +than my custom, because--well, I couldn’t, that day, stand Cowpens for +another minute. Up at the corner of Court and Worship the people were +going decently into church; it was a sweet, gentle late Friday in Lent. +I had intended keeping out-of-doors, to smell the roses in the gardens, +to bask in the soft remnant of sunshine, to loiter and peep in through +the Kings Port garden gates, up the silent walks to the silent verandas. +But the slow stream of people took me, instead, into church with the +deeply veiled ladies of Kings Port, hushed in their perpetual mourning +for not only, I think, those husbands and brothers and sons whom the +war had turned to dust forty years ago, but also for the Cause, the lost +Cause, that died with them. I sat there among these Christians suckled +in a creed outworn, envying them their well-regulated faith; it, +too, was part of the town’s repose and sweetness, together with the +old-fashioned roses and the old-fashioned ladies. Men, also, were in +the congregation--not many, to be sure, but all unanimously wearing that +expression of remarkable virtue which seems always to visit, when he +goes to church, the average good fellow who is no better than he should +be. I became, myself, filled with this same decorous inconsistency, and +was singing the hymn, when I caught sight of John Mayrant. What lady +was he with? It was just this that most annoyingly I couldn’t make +out, because the unlucky disposition of things hid it. I caught +myself craning my neck and singing the hymn simultaneously and with no +difficulty, because all my childhood was in that hymn; I couldn’t tell +when I hadn’t known words and music by heart. Who was she? I tried for +a clear view when we sat down, and also, let me confess, when we knelt +down; I saw even less of her so; and my hope at the end of the service +was dashed by her slow but entire disappearance amid the engulfing exits +of the other ladies. I followed where I imagined she had gone, out by +a side door, into the beautiful graveyard; but among the flowers and +monuments she was not, nor was he; and next I saw, through the iron +gate, John Mayrant in the street, walking with his intimate aunt and her +more severe sister, and Miss La Heu. I somewhat superfluously hastened +to the gate and greeted them, to which they responded with polite, +masterly discouragement. He, however, after taking off his hat to them, +turned back, and I watched them pursuing their leisurely, reticent +course toward the South Place. Why should the old ladies strike me as +looking like a tremendously proper pair of conspirators? I was wondering +this as I turned back among the tombs, when I perceived John Mayrant +coming along one of the churchyard paths. His approach was made at right +angles with that of another personage, the respectful negro custodian +of the place. This dignitary was evidently hoping to lead me among +the monuments, recite to me their old histories, and benefit by my +consequent gratitude; he had even got so far as smiling and removing his +hat when John Mayrant stopped him. The young man hailed the negro by his +first name with that particular and affectionate superiority which few +Northerners can understand and none can acquire, and which resembles +nothing so much as the way in which you speak to your old dog who has +loved you and followed you, because you have cared for him. + +“Not this time,” John Mayrant said. “I wish to show our relics to this +gentleman myself--if he will permit me?” This last was a question put to +me with a courteous formality, a formality which a few minutes more were +to see smashed to smithereens. + +I told him that I should consider myself undeservedly privileged. + +“Some of these people are my people,” he said, beginning to move. + +The old custodian stood smiling, familiar, respectful, disappointed. +“Some of ‘em my people, too, Mas’ John,” he cannily observed. + +I put a little silver in his hand. “Didn’t I see a box somewhere,” I +said, “with something on it about the restoration of the church?” + +“Something on it, but nothing in it!” exclaimed Mayrant; at which +moderate pleasantry the custodian broke into extreme African merriment +and ambled away. “You needn’t have done it,” protested the Southerner, +and I naturally claimed my stranger’s right to pay my respects in this +manner. Such was our introduction, agreeable and unusual. + +A silence then unexpectedly ensued and the formality fell colder than +ever upon us. The custodian’s departure had left us alone, looking at +each other across all the unexpressed knowledge that each knew the other +had. Mayrant had come impulsively back to me from his aunts, without +stopping to think that we had never yet exchanged a word; both of us +were now brought up short, and it was the cake that was speaking volubly +in our self-conscious dumbness. It was only after this brief, deep gap +of things unsaid that John Mayrant came to the surface again, and began +a conversation of which, on both our parts, the first few steps were +taken on the tiptoes of an archaic politeness; we trod convention like a +polished French floor; you might have expected us, after such deliberate +and graceful preliminaries, to dance a verbal minuet. + +We, however, danced something quite different, and that conversation +lasted during many days, and led us, like a road, up hill and down dale +to a perfect acquaintance. No, not perfect, but delightful; to the end +he never spoke to me of the matter most near him, and I but honor him +the more for his reticence. + +Of course his first remark had to be about Kings Port and me; had he +understood rightly that this was my first visit? + +My answer was equally traditional. + +It was, next, correct that he should allude to the weather; and his +reference was one of the two or three that it seems a stranger’s destiny +always to hear in a place new to him: he apologized for the weather--so +cold a season had not, in his memory, been experienced in Kings Port; it +was to the highest point exceptional. + +I exclaimed that it had been, to my Northern notions, delightfully mild +for March. “Indeed,” I continued, “I have always said that if March +could be cut out of our Northern climate, as the core is cut out of +an apple, I should be quite satisfied with eleven months, instead of +twelve. I think it might prolong one’s youth.” + +The fire of that season lighted in his eyes, but he still stepped upon +polished convention. He assured me that the Southern September hurricane +was more deplorable than any Northern March could be. “Our zone should +be called the Intemperate zone,” said he. + +“But never in Kings Port,” I protested; “with your roses +out-of-doors--and your ladies indoors!” + +He bowed. “You pay us a high compliment.” + +I smiled urbanely. “If the truth is a compliment!” + +“Our young ladies are roses,” he now admitted with a delicate touch of +pride. + +“Don’t forget your old ones! I never shall.” + +There was pleasure in his face at this tribute, which, he could see, +came from the heart. But, thus pictured to him, the old ladies brought +a further idea quite plainly into his expression; and he announced it. +“Some of them are not without thorns.” + +“What would you give,” I quickly replied, “for anybody--man or +woman--who could not, on an occasion, make themselves sharply felt?” + +To this he returned a full but somewhat absent-minded assent. He seemed +to be reflecting that he himself didn’t care to be the “occasion” upon +which an old lady rose should try her thorns; and I was inclined to +suspect that his intimate aunt had been giving him a wigging. + +Anyhow, I stood ready to keep it up, this interchange of +lofty civilities. I, too, could wear the courtly red-heels of +eighteenth-century procedure, and for just as long as his Southern +up-bringing inclined him to wear them; I hadn’t known Aunt Carola for +nothing! But we, as I have said, were not destined to dance any minuet. + +We had been moving, very gradually, and without any attention to our +surroundings, to and fro in the beautiful sweet churchyard. Flowers were +everywhere, growing, budding, blooming; color and perfume were parts of +the very air, and beneath these pretty and ancient tombs, graven with +old dates and honorable names, slept the men and women who had given +Kings Port her high place is; in our history. I have never, in this +country, seen any churchyard comparable to this one; happy, serene dead, +to sleep amid such blossoms and consecration! Good taste prevailed here; +distinguished men lay beneath memorial stones that came no higher than +your waist or shoulder; there was a total absence of obscure grocers +reposing under gigantic obelisks; to earn a monument here you must win +a battle, or do, at any rate, something more than adulterate sugar and +oil. The particular monument by which young John Mayrant and I found +ourselves standing, when we reached the point about the ladies and the +thorns, had a look of importance and it caught his eye, bringing him +back to where we were. Upon his pointing to it, and before we had spoken +or I had seen the name, I inquired eagerly: “Not the lieutenant of the +Bon Homme Richard?” and then saw that Mayrant was not the name upon it. + +My knowledge of his gallant sea-fighting namesake visibly gratified him. +“I wish it were,” he said; “but I am descended from this man, too. He +was a statesman, and some of his brilliant powers were inherited by +his children--but they have not come so far down as me. In 1840, his +daughter, Miss Beaufain--” + +I laid my hand right on his shoulder. “Don’t you do it, John Mayrant!” + I cried. “Don’t you tell me that. Last night I caught myself saying that +instead of my prayers.” + +Well, it killed the minuet dead; he sat flat down on the low stone +coping that bordered the path to which we had wandered back--and I +sat flat down opposite him. The venerable custodian, passing along a +neighboring path, turned his head and stared at our noise. + +“Lawd, see those chillun goin’ on!” he muttered. “Mas’ John, don’t you +get too scandalous, tellin’ strangers ‘bout the old famblies.” + +Mayrant pointed to me. “He’s responsible, Daddy Ben. I’m being just as +good as gold. Honest injun!” + +The custodian marched slowly on his way, shaking his head. “Mas’ John +he do go on,” he repeated. His office was not alone the care and the +showing off of the graveyard, but another duty, too, as native and +peculiar to the soil as the very cotton and the rice: this loyal +servitor cherished the honor of the “old famblies,” and chide their +young descendants whenever he considered that they needed it. + +Mayrant now sat revived after his collapse of mirth, and he addressed me +from his gravestone. “Yes, I ought to have foreseen it.” + +“Foreseen--?” I didn’t at once catch the inference. + +“All my aunts and cousins have been talking to you.” + +“Oh, Miss Beaufain and the Earl of Mainridge! Well, but it’s quite +worth--” + +“Knowing by heart!” he broke in with new merriment. + +I kept on. “Why not? They tell those things everywhere--where they’re so +lucky as to possess them! It’s a flawless specimen.” + +“Of 1840 repartee?” He spoke with increasing pauses. “Yes. We do at +least possess that. And some wine of about the same date--and even +considerably older.” + +“All the better for age,” I exclaimed. + +But the blue eyes of Mayrant were far away and full of shadow. “Poor +Kings Port,” he said very slowly and quietly. Then he looked at me with +the steady look and the smile that one sometimes has when giving voice +to a sorrowful conviction against which one has tried to struggle. “Poor +Kings Port,” he affectionately repeated. His hand tapped lightly two or +three times upon the gravestone upon which he was seated. “Be honest and +say that you think so, too,” he demanded, always with his smile. + +But how was I to agree aloud with what his silent hand had expressed? +Those inaudible taps on the stone spoke clearly enough; they said: “Here +lies Kings Port, here lives Kings Port. Outside of this is our true +death, on the vacant wharves, in the empty streets. All that we have +left is the immortality which these historic names have won.” How could +I tell him that I thought so, too? Nor was I as sure of it then as he +was. And besides, this was a young man whose spirit was almost surely, +in suffering; ill fortune both material and of the heart, I seemed to +suspect, had made him wounded and bitter in these immediate days; and +the very suppression he was exercising hurt him the more deeply. So I +replied, honestly, as he had asked: “I hope you are mistaken.” + +“That’s because you haven’t been here long enough,” he declared. + +Over us, gently, from somewhere across the gardens and the walls, came +a noiseless water breeze, to which the roses moved and nodded among the +tombs. They gave him a fanciful thought. “Look at them! They belong to +us, and they know it. They’re saying, ‘Yes; yes; yes,’ all day long. I +don’t know why on earth I’m talking in this way to you!” he broke off +with vivacity. “But you made me laugh so.” + + + + +VI: In the Churchyard + +“Then it was a good laugh, indeed!” I cried heartily. + +“Oh, don’t let’s go back to our fine manners!” he begged comically. +“We’ve satisfied each other that we have them! I feel so lonely; and my +aunt just now--well, never mind about that. But you really must excuse +us about Miss Beaufain, and all that sort of thing. I see it, because +I’m of the new generation, since the war, and--well, I’ve been to other +places, too. But Aunt Eliza, and all of them, you know, can’t see it. +And I wouldn’t have them, either! So I don’t ever attempt to explain +to them that the world has to go on. They’d say, ‘We don’t see the +necessity!’ When slavery stopped, they stopped, you see, just like a +clock. Their hand points to 1865--it has never moved a minute since. And +some day”--his voice grew suddenly tender--“they’ll go, one by one, to +join the still older ones. And I shall miss them very much.” + +For a moment I did not speak, but watched the roses nodding and moving. +Then I said: “May I say that I shall miss them, too?” + +He looked at me. “Miss our old Kings Port people?” He didn’t invite +outsiders to do that! + +“Don’t you see how it is?” I murmured. “It was the same thing once with +us.” + +“The same thing--in the North?” His tone still held me off. + +“The same sort of dear old people--I mean charming, peppery, refined, +courageous people; in Salem, in Boston, in New York, in every place that +has been colonial, and has taken a hand in the game.” And, as certain +beloved memories of men and women rose in my mind, I continued: “If you +knew some of the Boston elder people as I have known them, you would +warm with the same admiration that is filling me as I see your people of +Kings Port.” + +“But politics?” the young Southerner slowly suggested. + +“Oh, hang slavery! Hang the war!” I exclaimed. “Of course, we had a +family quarrel. But we were a family once, and a fine one, too! We knew +each other, we visited each other, we wrote letters, sent presents, kept +up relations; we, in short, coherently joined hands from one generation +to another; the fibres of the sons tingled with the current from their +fathers, back and back to the old beginnings, to Plymouth and Roanoke +and Rip Van Winkle! It’s all gone, all done, all over. You have to be a +small, well-knit country for that sort of exquisite personal unitedness. +There’s nothing united about these States any more, except Standard Oil +and discontent. We’re no longer a small people living and dying for a +great idea; we’re a big people living and dying for money. And these +ladies of yours--well, they have made me homesick for a national and +a social past which I never saw, but which my old people knew. They’re +like legends, still living, still warm and with us. In their quiet +clean-cut faces I seem to see a reflection of the old serene candlelight +we all once talked and danced in--sconces, tall mirrors, candles burning +inside glass globes to keep them from the moths and the draft that, of +a warm evening, blew in through handsome mahogany doors; the good bright +silver; the portraits by Copley and Gilbert Stuart; a young girl at a +square piano, singing Moore’s melodies--and Mr. Pinckney or Commodore +Perry, perhaps, dropping in for a hot supper!” + +John Mayrant was smiling and looking at the graves. “Yes, that’s it; +that’s all it,” he mused. “You do understand.” + +But I had to finish my flight. “Such quiet faces are gone now in the +breathless, competing North: ground into oblivion between the clashing +trades of the competing men and the clashing jewels and chandeliers of +their competing wives--while yours have lingered on, spared by your very +adversity. And that’s why I shall miss your old people when they follow +mine--because they’re the last of their kind, the end of the chain, the +bold original stock, the great race that made our glory grow and saw +that it did grow through thick and thin: the good old native blood of +independence.” + +I spoke as a man can always speak when he means it; and my listener’s +face showed that my words had gone where meant words always go--home to +the heart. But he merely nodded at me. His nod, however, telling as it +did of a quickly established accord between us, caused me to bring out +to this new acquaintance still more of those thoughts which I condescend +to expose to very few old ones. + +“Haven’t you noticed,” I said, “or don’t you feel it, away down here in +your untainted isolation, the change, the great change, that has come +over the American people?” + +He wasn’t sure. + +“They’ve lost their grip on patriotism.” + +He smiled. “We did that here in 1861.” + +“Oh, no! You left the Union, but you loved what you considered was your +country, and you love it still. That’s just my point, just my strange +discovery in Kings Port. You retain the thing we’ve lost. Our big men +fifty years ago thought of the country, and what they could make it; our +big men to-day think of the country and what they can make out of it. +Rather different, don’t you see? When I walk about in the North, I +merely meet members of trusts or unions--according to the length of +the individual’s purse; when I walk about in Kings Port, I meet +Americans.--Of course,” I added, taking myself up, “that’s too sweeping +a statement. The right sort of American isn’t extinct in the North by +any means. But there’s such a commercial deluge of the wrong sort, that +the others sometimes seem to me sadly like a drop in the bucket.” + +“You certainly understand it all,” John Mayrant repeated. “It’s amazing +to find you saying things that I have thought were my own private +notions.” + +I laughed. “Oh, I fancy there are more than two of us in the country.” + +“Even the square piano and Mr. Pinckney,” he went on. “I didn’t suppose +anybody had thought things like that, except myself.” + +“Oh,” I again said lightly, “any American--any, that is, of the +world--who has a colonial background for his family, has thought, +probably, very much the same sort of things. Of course it would be all +Greek or gibberish to the new people.” + +He took me up with animation. “The new people! My goodness, sir, yes! +Have you seen them? Have you seen Newport, for instance?” His diction +now (and I was to learn it was always in him a sign of heightening +intensity) grew more and more like the formal speech of his ancestors. +“You have seen Newport?” he said. + +“Yes; now and then.” + +“But lately, sir? I knew we were behind the times down here, sir, but I +had not imagined how much. Not by any means! Kings Port has a long +road to go before she will consider marriage provincial and chastity +obsolete.” + +“Dear me, Mr. Mayrant! Well, I must tell you that it’s not all quite +so--so advanced--as that, you know. That’s not the whole of Newport.” + +He hastened to explain. “Certainly not, sir! I would not insult the +honorable families whom I had the pleasure to meet there, and to whom my +name was known because they had retained their good position since +the days when my great-uncle had a house and drove four horses there +himself. I noticed three kinds of Newport, sir.” + +“Three?” + +“Yes. Because I took letters; and some of the letters were to people +who--who once had been, you know; it was sad to see the thing, sir, so +plain against the glaring proximity of the other thing. And so you can +divide Newport into those who leave to sell their old family pictures, +those who have to buy their old family pictures, and the lucky few who +need neither buy nor sell, who are neither goin’ down nor bobbing up, +but who have kept their heads above the American tidal wave from the +beginning and continue to do so. And I don’t believe that there are any +nicer people in the world than those.” + +“Nowhere!” I exclaimed. “When Near York does her best, what’s +better?--If only those best set the pace!” + +“If only!” he assented. “But it’s the others who get into the papers, +who dine the drunken dukes, and make poor chambermaids envious a +thousand miles inland!” + +“There should be a high tariff on drunken dukes,” I said. + +“You’ll never get it!” he declared. “It’s the Republican party whose +daughters marry them.” + +I rocked with enjoyment where I sat; he was so refreshing. And I agreed +with him so well. “You’re every bit as good as Miss Beaufain,” I cried. + +“Oh, no; oh, no! But I often think if we could only deport the negroes +and Newport together to one of our distant islands, how happily our two +chief problems would be solved!” + +I still rocked. “Newport would, indeed, enjoy your plan for it. Do go +on!” I entreated him But he had, for the moment, ceased; and I rose +to stretch my legs and saunter among the old headstones and the wafted +fragrance. + +His aunt (or his cousin, or whichever of them it had been) was certainly +right as to his inheriting a pleasant and pointed gift of speech; and a +responsive audience helps us all. Such an audience I certainly was for +young John Mayrant, yet beneath the animation that our talk had filled +his eyes with lay (I seemed to see or feel) that other mood all the +time, the mood which had caused the girl behind the counter to say to +me that he was “anxious about something.” The unhappy youth, I was +gradually to learn, was much more than that--he was in a tangle of +anxieties. He talked to me as a sick man turns in bed from pain; the +pain goes on, but the pillow for a while is cool. + +Here there broke upon us a little interruption, so diverting, so utterly +like the whole quaint tininess of Kings Port, that I should tell it +to you, even if it did not bear directly upon the matter which was +beginning so actively to concern me--the love difficulties of John +Mayrant. + +It was the letter-carrier. + +We had come, from our secluded seats, round a corner, and so by the +vestry door and down the walk beside the church, and as I read to myself +the initials upon the stones wherewith the walk was paved, I drew near +the half-open gateway upon Worship Street. The postman was descending +the steps of the post-office opposite. He saw me through the gate and +paused. He knew me, too! My face, easily marked out amid the resident +faces he was familiar with, had at once caught his attention; very +likely he, too, had by now learned that I was interested in the battle +of Cowpens; but I did not ask him this. He crossed over and handed me a +letter. + +“No use,” he said most politely, “takin’ it away down to Mistress +Trevise’s when you’re right here, sir. Northern mail eight hours late +to-day,” he added, and bowing, was gone upon his route. + +My home letter, from a man, an intimate running mate of mine, soon had +my full attention, for on the second page it said:-- + +“I have just got back from accompanying her to Baltimore. One of us +went as far as Washington with her on the train. We gave her a dinner +yesterday at the March Hare by way of farewell. She tried our new +toboggan fire-escape on a bet. Clean from the attic, my boy. I imagine +our native girls will rejoice at her departure. However, nobody’s +engaged to her, at least nobody here. How many may fancy themselves so +elsewhere I can’t say. Her name is Hortense Rieppe.” + +I suppose I must have been silent after finishing this letter. + +“No bad news, I trust?” John Mayrant inquired. + +I told him no; and presently we had resumed our seats in the quiet charm +of the flowers. + +I now spoke with an intention. “What a lot you seem to have seen and +suffered of the advanced Newport!” + +The intention wrought its due and immediate effect. “Yes. There was no +choice. I had gone to Newport upon--upon an urgent matter, which took me +among those people.” + +He dwelt upon the pictures that came up in his mind. But he took me away +again from the “urgent matter.” + +“I saw,” he resumed more briskly, “fifteen or twenty--most amazing, +sir!--young men, some of them not any older than I am, who had so many +millions that they could easily--” he paused, casting about for some +expression adequate--“could buy Kings Port and put it under a glass +case in a museum--my aunts and all--and never know it!” He livened with +disrespectful mirth over his own picture of his aunts, purchased by +millionaire steel or coal for the purposes of public edification. + +“And a very good thing if they could be,” I declared. + +He wondered a moment. “My aunts? Under a glass case?” + +“Yes, indeed--and with all deference be it said! They’d be more +invaluable, more instructive, than the classics of a thousand +libraries.” + +He was prepared not to be pleased. “May I ask to whom and for what?” + +“Why, you ought to see! You’ve just been saying it yourself. They would +teach our bulging automobilists, our unlicked boy cubs, our +alcoholic girls who shout to waiters for ‘high-balls’ on country club +porches--they would teach these wallowing creatures, whose money has +merely gilded their bristles, what American refinement once was. The +manners we’ve lost, the decencies we’ve banished, the standards we’ve +lowered, their light is still flickering in this passing generation of +yours. It’s the last torch. That’s why I wish it could, somehow, pass on +the sacred fire.” + +He shook his head. “They don’t want the sacred fire. They want the +high-balls--and they have money enough to be drunk straight through the +next world!” He was thoughtful. “They are the classics,” he added. + +I didn’t see that he had gone back to my word. “Roman Empire, you mean?” + +“No, the others; the old people we’re bidding good-by to. Roman +Republic! Simple lives, gallant deeds, and one great uniting +inspiration. Liberty winning her spurs. They were moulded under that, +and they are our true American classics. Nothing like them will happen +again.” + +“Perhaps,” I suggested, “our generation is uneasily living in a ‘bad +quarter-of-an-hour’--good old childhood gone, good new manhood not yet +come, and a state of chicken-pox between whiles.” And on this I made to +him a much-used and consoling quotation about the old order changing. + +“Who says that?” he inquired; and upon my telling him, “I hope so,” he +said, “I hope so. But just now Uncle Sam ‘aspires to descend.’” + +I laughed at his counter-quotation. “You know your classics, if you +don’t know Tennyson.” + +He, too, laughed. “Don’t tell Aunt Eliza!” + +“Tell her what?” + +“That I didn’t recognize Tennyson. My Aunt Eliza educated me--and she +thinks Tennyson about the only poet worth reading since--well, since +Byron and Sir Walter at the very latest!” + +“Neither she nor Sir Walter come down to modern poetry--or to alcoholic +girls.” His tone, on these last words, changed. + +Again, as when he had said “an urgent matter,” I seemed to feel hovering +above us what must be his ceaseless preoccupation; and I wondered if he +had found, upon visiting Newport, Miss Hortense sitting and calling for +“high-balls.” + +I gave him a lead. “The worst of it is that a girl who would like +to behave herself decently finds that propriety puts her out of the +running. The men flock off to the other kind.” + +He was following me with watching eyes. + +“And you know,” I continued, “what an anxious Newport parent does on +finding her girl on the brink of being a failure.” + +“I can imagine,” he answered, “that she scolds her like the dickens.” + +“Oh, nothing so ineffectual! She makes her keep up with the others, you +know. Makes her do things she’d rather not do.” + +“High-balls, you mean?” + +“Anything, my friend; anything to keep up.” + +He had a comic suggestion. “Driven to drink by her mother! Well, +it’s, at any rate, a new cause for old effects.” He paused. It seemed +strangely to bring to him some sort of relief. “That would explain a +great deal,” he said. + +Was he thus explaining to himself his lady-love, or rather certain +Newport aspects of her which had, so to speak, jarred upon his Kings +Port notions of what a lady might properly do? I sat on my gravestone +with my wonder, and my now-dawning desire to help him (if improbably I +could), to get him out of it, if he were really in it; and he sat on his +gravestone opposite, with the path between us, and the little noiseless +breeze rustling the white irises, and bearing hither and thither the +soft perfume of the roses. His boy face, lean, high-strung, brooding, +was full of suppressed contentions. I made myself, during our silence, +state his possible problem: “He doesn’t love her any more, he won’t +admit this to himself; he intends to go through with it, and he’s +catching at any justification of what he has seen in her that has +chilled him, so that he may, poor wretch! coax back his lost illusion.” + Well, if that was it, what in the world could I, or anybody, do about +it? + +His next remark was transparent enough. “Do you approve of young ladies +smoking?” + +I met his question with another: “What reasons can be urged against it?” + +He was quick. “Then you don’t mind it?” There was actual hope in the way +he rushed at this. + +I laughed. “I didn’t say I didn’t mind it.” (As a matter of fact I do +mind it; but it seemed best not to say so to him.) + +He fell off again. “I certainly saw very nice people doing it up there.” + +I filled this out. “You’ll see very nice people doing it everywhere.” + +“Not in Kings Port! At least, not my sort of people!” He stiffly +proclaimed this. + +I tried to draw him out. “But is there, after all, any valid objection +to it?” + +But he was off on a preceding speculation. “A mother or any parent,” he +said, “might encourage the daughter to smoke, too. And the girl might +take it up so as not to be thought peculiar where she was, and then she +might drop it very gladly.” + +I became specific. “Drop it, you mean, when she came to a place where +doing it would be thought--well, in bad style?” + +“Or for the better reason,” he answered, “that she didn’t really like it +herself.” + +“How much you don’t ‘really like it’ yourself!” I remarked. + +This time he was slow. “Well--well--why need they? Are not their lips +more innocent than ours? Is not the association somewhat--?” + +“My dear fellow,” I interrupted, “the association is, I think you’ll +have to agree, scarcely of my making!” + +“That’s true enough,” he laughed. “And, as you say, very nice people +do it everywhere. But not here. Have you ever noticed,” he now inquired +with continued transparency, “how much harder they are on each other +than we are on them?” + +“Oh, yes! I’ve noticed that.” I surmised it was this sort of thing +he had earlier choked himself off from telling me in his unfinished +complaint about his aunt; but I was to learn later that on this occasion +it was upon the poor boy himself and not on the smoking habits of Miss +Rieppe, that his aunt had heavily descended. I also reflected that if +cigarettes were the only thing he deprecated in the lady of his choice, +the lost illusion might be coaxed back. The trouble was that deprecated +something fairly distant from cigarettes. The cake was my quite +sufficient trouble; it stuck in my throat worse than the probably +magnified gossip I had heard; this, for the present, I could manage to +swallow. + +He came out now with a personal note. “I suppose you think I’m a ninny.” + +“Never in the wildest dream!” + +“Well, but too innocent for a man, anyhow.” + +“That would be an insult,” I declared laughingly. + +“For I’m not innocent in the least. You’ll find we’re all men here, just +as much as any men in the North you could pick out. South Carolina +has never lacked sporting blood, sir. But in Newport--well, sir, we +gentlemen down here, when we wish a certain atmosphere and all that, +have always been accustomed to seek the demi-monde.” + +“So it was with us until the women changed it.” + +“The women, sir?” He was innocent! + +“The ‘ladies,’ as you Southerners so chivalrously continue to style +them. The rich new fashionable ladies became so desperate in their +competition for men’s allegiance that they--well, some of them would, in +the point of conversation, greatly scandalize the smart demi-monde.” + +He nodded. “Yes. I heard men say things in drawing-rooms to ladies that +a gentleman here would have been taken out and shot for. And don’t you +agree with me, sir, that good taste itself should be a sort of religion? +I don’t mean to say anything sacrilegious, but it seems to me that even +if one has ceased to believe some parts of the Bible, even if one does +not always obey the Ten Commandments, one is bound, not as a believer +but as a gentleman, to remember the difference between grossness and +refinement, between excess and restraint--that one can have and keep +just as the pagan Greeks did, a moral elegance.” + +He astonished me, this ardent, ideal, troubled boy; so innocent +regarding the glaring facts of our new prosperity, so finely penetrating +as to some of the mysteries of the soul. But he was of old Huguenot +blood, and of careful and gentle upbringing; and it was delightful +to find such a young man left upon our American soil untainted by the +present fashionable idolatries. + +“I bow to your creed of ‘moral elegance,’” I cried. “It never dies. It +has outlasted all the mobs and all the religions.” + +“They seemed to think,” he continued, pursuing his Newport train of +thought, “that to prove you were a dead game sport you must behave +like--behave like--” + +“Like a herd of swine,” I suggested. + +He was merry. “Ah, if they only would--completely!” + +“Completely what?” + +“Behave so. Rush over a steep place into the sea.” + +We sat in the quiet relish of his Scriptural idea, and the western +crimson and the twilight began to come and mingle with the perfumes. +John Mayrant’s face changed from its vivacity to a sort of pensive +wistfulness, which, for all the dash and spirit in his delicate +features, was somehow the final thing one got from the boy’s expression. +It was as though the noble memories of his race looked out of his eyes, +seeking new chances for distinction, and found instead a soil laid +waste, an empty fatherland, a people benumbed past rousing. Had he not +said, “Poor Kings Port!” as he tapped the gravestone? Moral elegance +could scarcely permit a sigh more direct. + +“I am glad that you believe it never dies,” he resumed. “And I am glad +to find somebody to--talk to, you know. My friends here are everything +friends and gentlemen should be, but they don’t--I suppose it’s because +they have not had my special experiences.” + +I sat waiting for the boy to go on with it. How plainly he was telling +me of his “special experiences”! He and his creed were not merely in +revolt against the herd of swine; there would be nothing special in +that; I had met people before who were that; but he was tied by honor, +and soon to be tied by the formidable nuptial knot, to a specimen +devotee of the cult. He shouldn’t marry her if he really did not want +to, and I could stop it! But how was I to begin spinning the first faint +web of plan how I might stop it, unless he came right out with the whole +thing? I didn’t believe he was the man to do that ever, even under the +loosening inspiration of drink. In wine lies truth, no doubt; but within +him, was not moral elegance the bottom truth that would, even in his +cups, keep him a gentleman, and control all such revelations? He might +smash the glasses, but he would not speak of his misgivings as to +Hortense Rieppe. + +He began again, “Nor do I believe that a really nice girl would continue +to think as those few do, if she once got safe away from them. Why, my +dear sir,” he stretched out his hand in emphasis, “you do not have to +do anything untimely and extreme if you are in good earnest a dead game +sport. The time comes, and you meet the occasion as the duck swims. +There was one of them--the right kind.” + +“Where?” I asked. + +“Why--you’re leaning against her headstone!” + +The little incongruity made us both laugh, but it was only for the +instant. The tender mood of the evening, and all that we had said, +sustained the quiet and almost grave undertone of our conference. My own +quite unconscious act of rising from the grave and standing before him +on the path to listen brought back to us our harmonious pensiveness. + +“She was born in Kings Port, but educated in Europe. I don’t suppose +until the time came that she ever did anything harder than speak French, +or play the piano, or ride a horse. She had wealth and so had her +husband. He was killed in the war, and so were two of her sons. The +third was too young to go. Their fortune was swept away, but the +plantation was there, and the negroes were proud to remain faithful to +the family. She took hold of the plantation, she walked the rice-banks +in high boots. She had an overseer, who, it was told her, would possibly +take her life by poison or by violence. She nevertheless lived in that +lonely spot with no protector except her pistol and some directions +about antidotes. She dismissed him when she had proved he was cheating +her; she made the planting pay as well as any man did after the war; +she educated her last son, got him into the navy, and then, one evening, +walking the river-banks too late, she caught the fever and died. +You will understand she went with one step from cherished ease to +single-handed battle with life, a delicately nurtured lady, with no +preparation for her trials.” + +“Except moral elegance,” I murmured. + +“Ah, that was the point, sir! To see her you would never have guessed +it! She kept her burdens from the sight of all. She wore tribulation as +if it were a flower in her bosom. We children always looked forward +to her coming, because she was so gay and delightful to us, telling +us stories of the old times--old rides when the country was wild, old +journeys with the family and servants to the Hot Springs before the +steam cars were invented, old adventures, with the battle of New Orleans +or a famous duel in them--the sort of stories that begin with (for you +seem to know something of it yourself, sir) ‘Your grandfather, my +dear John, the year that he was twenty, got himself into serious +embarrassments through paying his attentions to two reigning beauties +at once.’ She was full of stories which began in that sort of pleasant +way.” + +I said: “When a person like that dies, an impoverishment falls upon us; +the texture of life seems thinner.” + +“Oh, yes, indeed! I know what you mean--to lose the people one has +always seen from the cradle. Well, she has gone away, she has taken +her memories out of the world, the old times, the old stories. Nobody, +except a little nutshell of people here, knows or cares anything about +her any more; and soon even the nutshell will be empty.” He paused, and +then, as if brushing aside his churchyard mood, he translated into his +changed thought another classic quotation: “But we can’t dawdle over +the ‘tears of things’; it’s Nature’s law. Only, when I think of the +rice-banks and the boots and the pistol, I wonder if the Newport ladies, +for all their high-balls, could do any better!” + +The crimson had faded, the twilight was altogether come, but the little +noiseless breeze was blowing still; and as we left the quiet tombs +behind us, and gained Worship Street, I could not help looking back +where slept that older Kings Port about which I had heard and had said +so much. Over the graves I saw the roses, nodding and moving, as if in +acquiescent revery. + + + + +VII: The Girl Behind the Counter--II + +“Which of them is idealizing?” This was the question that I asked +myself, next morning, in my boarding-house, as I dressed for breakfast; +the next morning is--at least I have always found it so--an excellent +time for searching questions; and to-day I had waked up no longer +beneath the strong, gentle spell of the churchyard. A bright sun was +shining over the eastern waters of the town, I could see from my upper +veranda the thousand flashes of the waves; the steam yacht rode placidly +and competently among them, while a coastwise steamer was sailing by +her, out to sea, to Savannah, or New York; the general world was going +on, and--which of them was idealizing? It mightn’t be so bad, after +all. Hadn’t I, perhaps, over-sentimentalized to myself the case of John +Mayrant? Hadn’t I imagined for him ever so much more anxiety than the +boy actually felt? For people can idealize down just as readily as +they can idealize up. Of Miss Hortense Rieppe I had now two partial +portraits--one by the displeased aunts, the other by their chivalric +nephew; in both she held between her experienced lips, a cigarette; +there the similarity ceased. And then, there was the toboggan +fire-escape. Well, I must meet the living original before I could decide +whether (for me, at any rate) she was the “brute” as seen by the eyes +of Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, or the “really nice girl” who was going +to marry John Mayrant on Wednesday week. Just at this point my thoughts +brought up hard again at the cake. No; I couldn’t swallow that any +better this morning than yesterday afternoon! Allow the gentleman to pay +for the feast! Better to have omitted all feast; nothing simpler, and +it would have been at least dignified, even if arid. But then, there was +the lady (a cousin or an aunt--I couldn’t remember which this morning) +who had told me she wasn’t solicitous. What did she mean by that? And +she had looked quite queer when she spoke about the phosphates. Oh, +yes, to be sure, she was his intimate aunt! Where, by the way, was Miss +Rieppe? + +By the time I had eaten my breakfast and walked up Worship Street to +the post-office I was full of it all again; my searching thoughts +hadn’t simplified a single point. I always called for my mail at +the post-office, because I got it sooner; it didn’t come to the +boarding-house before I had departed on my quest for royal blood, +whereas, this way, I simply got my letters at the corner of Court and +Worship streets and walked diagonally across and down Court a few +steps to my researches, which I could vary and alleviate by reading and +answering news from home. + +It was from Aunt Carola that I heard to-day. Only a little of what +she said will interest you. There had been a delightful meeting of the +Selected Salic Scions. The Baltimore Chapter had paid her Chapter a +visit. Three ladies and one very highly connected young gentleman had +come--an encouragingly full and enthusiastic meeting. They had lunched +upon cocoa, sherry, and croquettes, after which all had been more than +glad to listen to a paper read by a descendant of Edward the Third and +the young gentleman, a descendant of Catherine of Aragon, had recited +a beautiful original poem, entitled “My Queen Grandmother.” Aunt Carola +regretted that I could not have had the pleasure and the benefit of this +meeting, the young gentleman had turned out to be, also, a refined and +tasteful musician, playing, upon the piano a favorite gavotte of Louis +the Thirteenth “And while you are in Kings Port,” my aunt said; “I +expect you to profit by associating with the survivors of our good +American society--people such as one could once meet everywhere when +I was young, but who have been destroyed by the invasion of the +proletariat. You are in the last citadel of good-breeding. By the way, +find out, if you can, if any of the Bombo connection are extant; as +through them I should like, if possible, to establish a chapter of +the Scions in South Carolina. Have you, met a Miss Rieppe, a decidedly +striking young woman, who says she is from Kings Port, and who recently +passed through here with a very common man dancing attendance on her? He +owns the Hermana, and she is said to be engaged to him.” + +This wasn’t as good as meeting Miss Rieppe myself; but the new angle at +which I got her from my Aunt was distinctly a contribution toward the +young woman’s likeness; I felt that I should know her at sight, if ever +she came within seeing distance. And it would be entertaining to find +that she was a Bombo; but that could wait; what couldn’t wait was the +Hermana. I postponed the Fannings, hurried by the door where they waited +for me, and, coming to the end of Court Street, turned to the right and +sought among the wharves the nearest vista that could give me a view of +the harbor. Between the silent walls of commerce desolated, and by the +empty windows from which Prosperity once looked out, I threaded my way +to a point upon the town’s eastern edge. Yes, that was the steam yacht’s +name: the Hermana. I didn’t make it out myself, she lay a trifle too far +from shore; but I could read from a little fluttering pennant that her +owner was not on board; and from the second loafer whom I questioned I +learned, besides her name, that she had come from New York here to +meet her owner, whose name he did not know and whose arrival was still +indefinite. This was not very much to find out; but it was so much more +than I had found out about the Fannings that, although I now faithfully +returned to my researches, and sat over open books until noon, I +couldn’t tell you a word of what I read. Where was Miss Rieppe, and +where was the owner of the Hermana? Also, precisely how ill was the hero +of Chattanooga, her poor dear father? + +At the Exchange I opened the door upon a conversation which, in +consequence, broke off abruptly; but this much I came in for:-- + +“Nothing but the slightest bruise above his eye. The other one is in +bed.” + +It was the severe lady who said this; I mean that lady who, among all +the severe ones I had met, seemed capable of the highest exercise of +this quality, although she had not exercised it in my presence. She +looked, in her veil and her black street dress, as aloof, and as coldly +scornful of the present day, as she had seemed when sitting over her +embroidery; but it was not of 1818, or even 1840, that she had been +talking just now: it was this morning that somebody was bruised, +somebody was in bed. + +The handsome lady acknowledged my salutation completely, but not +encouragingly, and then, on the threshold, exchanged these parting +sentences with the girl behind the counter:-- + +“They will have to shake hands. He was not very willing, but he listened +to me. Of course, the chastisement was right--but it does not affect my +opinion of his keeping on with the position.” + +“No, indeed, Aunt Josephine!” the girl agreed. “I wish he wouldn’t. Did +you say it was his right eye?” + +“His left.” Miss Josephine St. Michael inclined her head once more to me +and went out of the Exchange. I retired to my usual table, and the +girl read in my manner, quite correctly, the feelings which I had not +supposed I had allowed to be evident. She said:-- + +“Aunt Josephine always makes strangers think she’s displeased with +them.” + +I replied like the young ass which I constantly tell myself I have +ceased to be: “Oh, displeasure is as much notice as one is entitled to +from Miss St. Michael.” + +The girl laughed with her delightful sweet mockery. + +“I declare, you’re huffed! Now don’t tell me you’re not. But you mustn’t +be. When you know her, you’ll know that that awful manner means Aunt +Josephine is just being shy. Why, even I’m not afraid of her George +Washington glances any more!” + +“Very well,” I laughed, “I’ll try to have your courage.” Over my +chocolate and sandwiches I sat in curiosity discreditable, but natural. +Who was in bed--who would have to shake hands? And why had they stopped +talking when I came in? Of course, I found myself hoping that John +Mayrant had put the owner of the Hermana in bed at the slight cost of +a bruise above his left eye. I wondered if the cake was again +countermanded, and I started upon that line. “I think I’ll have to-day, +if you please, another slice of that Lady Baltimore.” And I made ready +for another verbal skirmish. + +“I’m so sorry! It’s a little stale to-day. You can have the last slice, +if you wish.” + +“Thank you, I will.” She brought it. “It’s not so very stale,” I said. +“How long since it has been made?” + +“Oh, it’s the same you’ve been having. You’re its only patron just now.” + +“Well, no. There’s Mr. Mayrant.” + +“Not for a week yet, you remember.” + +So the wedding was on yet. Still, John might have smashed the owner of +the Hermana. + +“Have you seen him lately?” I asked. + +There was something special in the way she looked. “Not to-day. Have +you?” + +“Never in the forenoon. He has his duties and I have mine.” + +She made a little pause, and then, “What do you think of the President?” + +“The President?” I was at a loss. + +“But I’m afraid you would take his view--the Northern view,” she mused. + +It gave me, suddenly, her meaning. “Oh, the President of the United +States! How you do change the subject!” + +Her eyes were upon me, burning with sectional indignation, but she +seemed to be thinking too much to speak. Now, here was a topic that I +had avoided, and she had plumped it at me. Very well; she should have my +view. + +“If you mean that a gentleman cannot invite any respectable member of +any race he pleases to dine privately in his house--” + +“His house!” She was glowing now with it. “I think he is--I think +he is--to have one of them--and even if he likes it, not to +remember--cannot speak about him!” she wound up “I should say unbecoming +things.” She had walked out, during these words, from behind the counter +and as she stood there in the middle of the long room you might have +thought she was about to lead a cavalry charge. Then, admirably, she +put it all under, and spoke on with perfect self-control. “Why can’t +somebody explain it to him? If I knew him, I would go to him myself, and +I would say, Mr. President, we need not discuss our different tastes as +to dinner company. Nor need we discuss how much you benefit the colored +race by an act which makes every member of it immediately think that +he is fit to dine with any king in the world. But you are staying in +a house which is partly our house, ours, the South’s, for we, too, pay +taxes, you know. And since you also know our deep feeling--you may even +call it a prejudice, if it so pleases you--do you not think that, so +long as you are residing in that house, you should not gratuitously +shock our deep feeling?” She swept a magnificent low curtsy at the air. + +“By Jove, Miss La Heu!” I exclaimed, “you put it so that it’s rather +hard to answer.” + +“I’m glad it strikes you so.” + +“But did it make them all think they were going to dine?” + +“Hundreds of thousands. It was proof to them that they were as good as +anybody--just as good, without reading or writing or anything. The very +next day some of the laziest and dirtiest where we live had a new strut, +like the monkey when you put a red flannel cap on him--only the monkey +doesn’t push ladies off the sidewalk. And that state of mind, you know,” + said Miss La Heu, softening down from wrath to her roguish laugh, “isn’t +the right state of mind for racial progress! But I wasn’t thinking of +this. You know he has appointed one of them to office here.” + +A light entered my brain: John Mayrant had a position at the Custom +House! John Mayrant was subordinate to the President’s appointee! She +hadn’t changed the subject so violently, after all. + +I came squarely at it. “And so you wish him to resign his position?” + +But I was ahead of her this time. + +“The Chief of Customs?” she wonderingly murmured. + +I brought her up with me now. “Did Miss Josephine St. Michael say it was +over his left eye?” + +The girl instantly looked everything she thought. “I believe you were +present!” This was her highly comprehensive exclamation, accompanied +also by a blush as splendidly young as John Mayrant had been while he +so stammeringly brought out his wishes concerning the cake. I at once +decided to deceive her utterly, and therefore I spoke the exact truth: +“No, I wasn’t present.” + +They did their work, my true words; the false impression flowed out of +them as smoothly as California claret from a French bottle. + +“I wonder who told you?” my victim remarked. “But it doesn’t really +matter. Everybody is bound to know it. You surely were the last person +with him in the churchyard?” + +“Gracious!” I admitted again with splendidly mendacious veracity. “How +we do find each other out in Kings Port!” + +It was not by any means the least of the delights which I took in the +company of this charming girl that sometimes she was too much for +me, and sometimes I was too much for her. It was, of course, just the +accident of our ages; in a very few years she would catch up, would +pass, would always be too much for me. Well, to-day it was happily my +turn; I wasn’t going to finish lunch without knowing all she, at any +rate, could tell me about the left eye and the man in bed. + +“Forty years ago,” I now, with ingenuity, remarked, “I suppose it would +have been pistols.” + +She assented. “And I like that better--don’t you--for gentlemen?” + +“Well, you mean that fists are--” + +“Yes,” she finished for me. + +“All the same,” I maintained, “don’t you think that there ought to be +some correspondence, some proportion, between the gravity of the cause +and the gravity of--” + +“Let the coal-heavers take to their fists!” she scornfully cried. +“People of our class can’t descend--” + +“Well, but,” I interrupted, “then you give the coal-heavers the palm for +discrimination.” + +“How’s that?” + +“Why, perfectly! Your coal-heaver kills for some offenses, while for +lighter ones he--gets a bruise over the left eye.” + +“You don’t meet it, you don’t meet it! What is an insult ever but an +insult?” + +“Oh, we in the North notice certain degrees--insolence, impudence, +impertinence, liberties, rudeness--all different.” + +She took up my phrase with a sudden odd quietness. “You in the North.” + +“Why, yes. We have, alas! to expect and allow for rudeness sometimes, +even in our chosen few, and for liberties in their chosen few; it’s only +the hotel clerk and the head waiter from whom we usually get impudence; +while insolence is the chronic condition of the Wall Street rich.” + +“You in the North!” she repeated. “And so your Northern eyes can’t +see it, after all!” At these words my intelligence sailed into a great +blank, while she continued: “Frankly--and forgive me for saying it--I +was hoping that you were one Northerner who would see it.” + +“But see what?” I barked in my despair. + +She did not help me. “If I had been a man, nothing could have insulted +me more than that. And that’s what you don’t see,” she regretfully +finished. “It seems so strange.” + +I sat in the midst of my great blank, while her handsome eyes rested +upon me. In them was that look of a certain inquiry and a certain +remoteness with which one pauses, in a museum, before some specimen of +the cave-dwelling man. + +“You comprehend so much,” she meditated slowly, aloud; “you’ve been such +an agreeable disappointment, because your point of view is so often the +same as ours.” She was still surveying me with the specimen expression, +when it suddenly left her. “Do you mean to sit there and tell me,” she +broke out, “that you wouldn’t have resented it yourself?” + +“O dear!” my mind lamentably said to itself, inside. Of what may have +been the exterior that I presented to her, sitting over my slice of Lady +Baltimore, I can form no impression. + +“Put yourself in his place,” the girl continued. + +“Ah,” I gasped, “that is always so easy to say and so hard to do.” + +My remark proved not a happy one. She made a brief, cold pause over +it, and then, as she wheeled round from me, back to the counter: “No +Southerner would let pass such an affront.” + +It was final. She regained her usual place, she resumed her ledger; the +curly dog, who had come out to hear our conversation, went in again; I +was disgraced. Not only with the profile of her short, belligerent +nose, but with the chilly way in which she made her pencil move over the +ledger, she told me plainly that my self-respect had failed to meet +her tests. This was what my remarkable ingenuity had achieved for me. I +swallowed the last crumbs of Lady Baltimore, and went forward to settle +the account. + +“I suppose I’m scarcely entitled to ask for a fresh one to-morrow,” I +ventured. “I am so fond of this cake.” + +Her officialness met me adequately. “Certainly the public is entitled to +whatever we print upon our bill-of-fare.” + +Now this was going to be too bad! Henceforth I was to rank merely as +“the public,” no matter how much Lady Baltimore I should lunch upon! A +happy thought seized me, and I spoke out instantly on the strength of +it. + +“Miss La Heu, I’ve a confession to make.” + +But upon this beginning of mine the inauspicious door opened and young +John Mayrant came in. It was all right about his left eye; anybody could +see that bruise! + +“Oh!” he exclaimed, hearty, but somewhat disconcerted. “To think of +finding you here! You’re going? But I’ll see you later?” + +“I hope so,” I said. “You know where I work.” + +“Yes--yes. I’ll come. We’ve all sorts of things more to say, haven’t we? +We--good-by!” + +Did I hear, as I gained the street, something being said about the +General, and the state of his health? + + + + +VIII: Midsummer-Night’s Dream + +You may imagine in what state of wondering I went out of that place, and +how little I could now do away with my curiosity. By the droll looks and +head-turnings which followed me from strangers that passed me by in the +street, I was made aware that I must be talking aloud to myself, and the +words which I had evidently uttered were these: “But who in the world +can he have smashed up?” + +Of course, beneath the public stare and smile I kept the rest of +my thoughts to myself; yet they so possessed and took me from my +surroundings, that presently, while crossing Royal Street, I was nearly +run down by an electric car. Nor did even this serve to disperse my +preoccupation; my walk back to Court and Chancel streets is as if it had +not been; I can remember nothing about it, and the first account that +I took of external objects was to find myself sitting in my accustomed +chair in the Library, with the accustomed row of books about the battle +of Cowpens waiting on the table in front of me. How long we had thus +been facing each other, the books and I, I’ve not a notion. And with +such mysterious machinery are we human beings filled--machinery that is +in motion all the while, whether we are aware of it or not--that now, +with some part of my mind, and with my pencil assisting, I composed +several stanzas to my kingly ancestor, the goal of my fruitless search; +and yet during the whole process of my metrical exercise I was really +thinking and wondering about John Mayrant, his battles and his loves. + + ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF ROYALTY + + I sing to thee, thou Great Unknown, + Who canst connect me with a throne + Through uncle, cousin, aunt, or sister, + But not, I trust, through bar sinister. + + Chorus: + Gules! Gules! and a cuckoo peccant! + +Such was the frivolous opening of my poem, which, as it progressed, grew +even less edifying; I have quoted this fragment merely to show you how +little reverence for the Selected Salic Scions was by this time left +in my spirit, and not because the verses themselves are in the least +meritorious; they should serve as a model for no serious-minded singer, +and they afford a striking instance of that volatile mood, not to say +that inclination to ribaldry, which will at seasons crop out in me, do +what I will. It is my hope that age may help me to subdue this, although +I have observed it in some very old men. + +I did not send my poem to Aunt Carola, but I wrote her a letter, +even there and then, couched in terms which I believe were altogether +respectful. I deplored my lack of success in discovering the link that +was missing between me and king’s blood; I intimated my conviction +that further effort on my part would still be met with failure; and I +renounced with fitting expressions of disappointment my candidateship +for the Scions thanking Aunt Carola for her generosity, by which I must +now no longer profit. I added that I should remain in Kings Port for the +present, as I was finding the climate of decided benefit to my health, +and the courtesy of the people an education in itself. + +Whatever pain at missing the glory of becoming a Scion may have lingered +with me after this was much assuaged in a few days by my reading an +article in a New York paper, which gave an account of a meeting of my +Aunt’s Society, held in that city. My attention was attracted to this +article by the prominent heading given to it: THEY WORE THEIR CROWNS. +This in very conspicuous Roman capitals, caused me to sit up. There must +have been truth in some of it, because the food eaten by the Scions +was mentioned as consisting of sandwiches, sherry and croquettes; yet I +think that the statement that the members present addressed each +other according to the royal families from which they severally traced +descent, as, for example, Brother Guelph and Sister Plantagenet, can +scarce have beers aught but an exaggeration; nevertheless, the article +brought me undeniable consolation for my disappointment. + +After finishing my letter to Aunt Carola I should have hastened out to +post it and escape from Cowpens, had I not remembered that John Mayrant +had more or less promised to meet me here. Now, there was but a +slender chance that he boy would speak to me on the subject of his late +encounter; this I must learn from other sources; but he might speak to +me about something that would open a way for my hostile preparations +against Miss Rieppe. So far he had not touched upon his impending +marriage in any way, but this reserve concerning a fact generally known +among the people whom I was seeing could hardly go on long without +becoming ridiculous. If he should shun mention of it to-day, I would +take this as a plain sign that he did not look forward to it with the +enthusiasm which a lover ought to feel for his approaching bliss; and +on such silence from him I would begin, if I could, to undermine his +intention of keeping an engagement of the heart when the heart no longer +entered into it. + +While my thoughts continued to be busied over this lover and his +concerns, I noticed the works of William Shakespeare close beside me +upon a shelf; and although it was with no special purpose in mind that +I took out one of the volumes and sat down with it to wait for John +Mayrant, in a little while an inspiration came to me from its pages, +so that I was more anxious than ever the boy should not fail to meet me +here in the Library. + +Was it the bruise on his forehead that had perturbed his manner just now +when he entered the Exchange? No, this was not likely to be the reason, +since he had been full as much embarrassed that first day of my seeing +him there, when he had given his order for Lady Baltimore so lamely that +the girl behind the counter had come to his aid. And what could it have +been that he had begun to tell her to-day as I was leaving the place? +Was the making of that cake again to be postponed on account of the +General’s precarious health? And what had been the nature of the insult +which young John Mayrant had punished and was now commanded to shake +hands over? Could it in truth be the owner of the Hermana whom he had +thrashed so well as to lay him up in bed? That incident had damaged two +people at least, the unknown vanquished combatant in his bodily welfare, +and me in my character as an upstanding man in the fierce feminine +estimation of Miss La Heu; but this injury it was my intention to set +right; my confession to the girl behind the counter was merely delayed. +As I sat with Shakespeare open in my lap, I added to my store of +reasoning one little new straw of argument in favor of my opinion that +John Mayrant was no longer at ease or happy about his love affair. I +had never before met any young man in whose manner nature was so finely +tempered with good bringing-up; forwardness and shyness were alike +absent from him, and his bearing had a sort of polished unconsciousness +as far removed from raw diffidence as it was from raw conceit; it +was altogether a rare and charming address in a youth of such true +youthfulness, but it had failed him upon two occasions which I have +already mentioned. Both times that he had come to the Exchange he had +stumbled in his usually prompt speech, lost his habitual ease, and +betrayed, in short, all the signs of being disconcerted. The matter +seemed suddenly quite plain to me: it was the nature of his errands to +the Exchange. The first time he had been ordering the cake for his own +wedding, and to-day it was something about the wedding again. Evidently +the high mettle of his delicacy and breeding made him painfully +conscious of the view which others must take of the part that Miss +Rieppe was playing in all this--a view from which it was out of his +power to shield her; and it was this consciousness that destroyed +his composure. From what I was soon to learn of his fine and unmoved +disregard for unfavorable opinion when he felt his course to be the +right one, I know that it was no thought at all of his own scarcely +heroic role during these days, but only the perception that outsiders +must detect in his affianced lady some of those very same qualities +which had chilled his too precipitate passion for her, and left +him alone, without romance, without family sympathy, without social +acclamations, with nothing indeed save his high-strung notion of honor +to help him bravely face the wedding march. How appalling must the +wedding march sound to a waiting bridegroom who sees the bride, that he +no longer looks at except with distaste and estrangement, coming nearer +and nearer to him up the aisle! A funeral march would be gayer than that +music, I should think! The thought came to me to break out bluntly and +say to him: “Countermand the cake! She’s only playing with you while +that yachtsman is making up his mind.” But there could be but one +outcome of such advice to John Mayrant: two people, instead of one, +would be in bed suffering from contusions. As I mused on the boy and +his attractive and appealing character, I became more rejoiced than ever +that he had thrashed somebody, I cared not very much who nor yet very +much why, so long as such thrashing had been thorough, which seemed +quite evidently and happily the case. He stood now in my eyes, in some +way that is too obscure for me to be able to explain to you, saved from +some reproach whose subtlety likewise eludes my powers of analysis. + +It was already five minutes after three o’clock, my dinner hour, when he +at length appeared in the Library; and possibly I put some reproach into +my greeting: “Won’t you walk along with me to Mrs. Trevise’s?” (That was +my boarding house.) + +“I could not get away from the Custom House sooner,” he explained; +and into his eyes there came for a moment that look of unrest and +preoccupation which I had observed at times while we had discussed +Newport and alcoholic girls. The two subjects seemed certainly far +enough apart! But he immediately began upon a conversation briskly +enough--so briskly that I suspected at once he had got his subject ready +in advance; he didn’t want me to speak first, lest I turn the talk into +channels embarrassing, such as bruised foreheads or wedding cake. +Well, this should not prevent me from dropping in his cup the wholesome +bitters which I had prepared. + +“Well, sir! Well, sir!” such was his hearty preface. “I wonder if you’re +feeling ashamed of yourself?” + +“Never when I read Shakespeare,” I answered restoring the plume to its +place. + +He looked at the title. “Which one?” + +“One of the unsuitable love affairs that was prevented in time.” + +“Romeo and Juliet?” + +“No; Bottom and Titania--and Romeo and Juliet were not prevented in +time. They had their bliss once and to the full, and died before they +caused each other anything but ecstasy. No weariness of routine, no +tears of disenchantment; complete love, completely realized--and finis! +It’s the happiest ending of all the plays.” + +He looked at me hard. “Sometimes I believe you’re ironic!” + +I smiled at him. “A sign of the highest civilization, then. But +please to think of Juliet after ten years of Romeo and his pin-headed +intelligence and his preordained infidelities. Do you imagine that her +predecessor, Rosamond, would have had no successors? Juliet would have +been compelled to divorce Romeo, if only for the children’s sake. + +“The children!” cried John Mayrant. “Why, it’s for their sake deserted +women abstain from divorce!” + +“Juliet would see deeper than such mothers. She could not have her +little sons and daughters grow up and comprehend their father’s +absences, and see their mother’s submission to his returns for such +discovery would scorch the marrow of any hearts they had.” + +At this, as we came out of the Library, he made an astonishing +rejoinder, and one which I cannot in the least account for: “South +Carolina does not allow divorce.” + +“Then I should think,” I said to him, “that all you people here would +be doubly careful as to what manner of husbands and wives you chose for +yourselves.” + +Such a remark was sailing, you may say, almost within three points of +the wind; and his own accidental allusion to Romeo had brought it about +with an aptness and a celerity which were better for my purpose than +anything I had privately developed from the text of Bottom and Titania; +none the less, however, did I intend to press into my service that fond +couple also as basis for a moral, in spite of the sharp turn which those +last words of mine now caused him at once to give to our conversation. +His quick reversion to the beginning of the talk seemed like a dodging +of remarks that hit too near home for him to relish hearing pursued. + +“Well, sir,” he resumed with the same initial briskness, “I was ashamed +if you were not.” + +“I still don’t make out what impropriety we have jointly committed.” + +“What do you think of the views you expressed about our country?” + +“Oh! When we sat on the gravestones.” + +“What do you think about it to-day?” + +I turned to him as we slowly walked toward Worship Street. “Did you say +anything then that you would take back now?” + +He pondered, wrinkling his forehead. “Well, but all the same, didn’t we +give the present hour a pretty black eye?” + +“The present hour deserves a black eye, and two of them!” + +He surveyed me squarely. “I believe you’re a pessimist!” + +“That is the first trashy thing I’ve heard you say.” + +“Thank you! At least admit you’re scarcely an optimist.” + +“Optimist! Pessimist! Why, you’re talking just like a newspaper!” + +He laughed. “Oh, don’t compare a gentleman to a newspaper.” + +“Then keep your vocabulary clean of bargain-counter words. A while ago +the journalists had a furious run upon the adjective ‘un-American.’ +Anybody or anything that displeased them was ‘un-American.’ They ran it +into the ground, and in its place they have lately set up ‘pessimist,’ +which certainly has a threatening appearance. They don’t know its +meaning, and in their mouths it merely signifies that what a man says +snakes them feel personally uncomfortable. The word has become a dusty +rag of slang. The arrested burglar very likely calls the policeman a +pessimist; and, speaking reverently and with no intention to shock +you, the scribes and Pharisees would undoubtedly have called Christ a +pessimist when He called them hypocrites, had they been acquainted with +the word.” + +Once more my remarks drew from the boy an unexpected rejoinder. We had +turned into Worship Street, and, as we passed the churchyard, he stopped +and laid his hand upon the railing of the pate. + +“You don’t shock me,” he said; and then: “But you would shock my aunts.” + He paused, gazing into the churchyard, before he continued more slowly: +“And so should I--if they knew it--shock them.” + +“If they knew what?” I asked. + +His hand indicated a sculptured crucifix near by. + +“Do you believe everything still?” he answered. “Can you?” + +As he looked at me, I suppose that he read negation in my eyes. + +“No more can I,” he murmured. Again he looked in among the tombstones +and flowers, where the old custodian saw us and took off his hat. +“Howdy, Daddy Ben!” John Mayrant returned pleasantly, and then resuming +to me: “No more can I believe everything.” Then he gave a brief, comical +laugh. “And I hope my aunts won’t find that out! They would think me +gone to perdition indeed. But I always go to church here” (he pointed to +the quiet building, which, for all its modest size and simplicity, had +a stately and inexpressible charm), “because I like to kneel where +my mother said her prayers, you know.” He flushed a little over this +confidence into which he had fallen, but he continued: “I like the words +of the service, too, and I don’t ask myself over-curiously what I +do believe; but there’s a permanent something within us--a Greater +Self--don’t you think?” + +“A permanent something,” I assented, “which has created all the +religions all over the earth from the beginning, and of which +Christianity itself is merely one of the present temples.” + +He made an exclamation at my word “present.” + +“Do you think anything in this world is final?” I asked him. + +“But--” he began, somewhat at a loss. + +“Haven’t you found out yet that human nature is the one indestructible +reality that we know?” + +“But--” he began again. + +“Don’t we have the ‘latest thing’ all the time, and never the +ultimate thing, never, never? The latest thing in women’s hats is that +huge-brimmed affair with the veil as voluminous as a double-bed mosquito +netting. That hat will look improbable next spring. The latest thing +in science is radium. Radium has exploded the conservation of energy +theory--turned it into a last year’s hat. Answer me, if Christianity is +the same as when it wore among its savage ornaments a devil with horns +and a flaming Hell! Forever and forever the human race reaches out its +hand and shapes some system, some creed, some government, and declares: +‘This is at length the final thing, the cure-all,’ and lo and behold, +something flowing and eternal in the race itself presently splits the +creed and the government to pieces! Truth is a very marvelous thing. We +feel it; it can fill our eyes with tears, our hearts with joy, it can +make us die for it; but once our human lips attempt to formulate and +thus imprison it, it becomes a lie. You cannot shut truth up in any +words.” + +“But it shall prevail!” the boy exclaimed with a sort of passion. + +“Everything prevails,” I answered him. + +“I don’t like that,” he said. + +“Neither do I,” I returned. “But Jacob got Esau’s inheritance by a mean +trick.” + +“Jacob was punished for it.” + +“Did that help Esau much?” + +“You are a pessimist!” + +“Just because I see Jacob and Esau to-day, alive and kicking in Wall +Street, Washington, Newport, everywhere?” + +“You’re no optimist, anyhow!” + +“I hope I’m blind in neither eye.” + +“You don’t give us credit--” + +“For what?” + +“For what we’ve accomplished since Jacob.” + +“Printing, steam, and electricity, for instance? They spread the Bible +and the yellow journal with equal velocity.” + +“I don’t mean science. Take our institutions.” + +“Well, we’ve accomplished hospitals and the stock market--a pretty even +set-off between God and the devil.” + +He laughed. “You don’t take a high view of us!” + +“Nor a low one. I don’t play ostrich with any of the staring permanences +of human nature. We’re just as noble to-day as David was sometimes, +and just as bestial to-day as David was sometimes, and we’ve every +possibility inside us all the time, whether we paint our naked skins, or +wear steel armor or starched shirts.” + +“Well, I believe good is the guiding power in the world.” + +“Oh, John Mayrant! Good and evil draw us on like a span of horses, +sometimes like a tandem, taking turns in the lead. Order has melted into +disorder, and disorder into new order--how many times?” + +“But better each time.” + +“How can you know, who never lived in any age but your own?” + +“I know we have a higher ideal.” + +“Have we? The Greek was taught to love his neighbor as himself. He gave +his great teacher a cup of poison. We gave ours the cross.” + +Again he looked away from me into the sweet old churchyard. “I can’t +answer you, but I don’t believe it.” + +This brought me to gayety. “That’s unanswerable, anyhow!” + +He still stared at the graves. “Those people in there didn’t think all +these uncomfortable things.” + +“Ah! no! They belonged in the first volume of the history of our +national soul, before the bloom was off us.” + +“That’s an odd notion! And pray what volume are we in now?” + +“Only the second.” + +“Since when?” + +“Since that momentous picnic, the Spanish War!” + +“I don’t see how that took the bloom off us.” + +“It didn’t. It merely waked Europe up to the facts.” + +“Our battleships, you mean?” + +“Our steel rails, our gold coffers, our roaring affluence.” + +“And our very accurate shooting!” he insisted; for he was a Southerner, +and man’s gallantry appealed to him more than man’s industry. + +I laughed. “Yes, indeed! We may say that the Spanish War closed our +first volume with a bang. And now in the second we bid good-by to the +virgin wilderness, for it’s explored; to the Indian, for he’s conquered; +to the pioneer, for he’s dead; we’ve finished our wild, romantic +adolescence and we find ourselves a recognized world power of eighty +million people, and of general commercial endlessness, and playtime +over.” + +I think, John Mayrant now asserted, “that it is going too far to say the +bloom is off us.” + +“Oh, you’ll find snow in the woods away into April and May. The +freedom-loving American, the embattled farmer, is not yet extinct in the +far recesses. But the great cities grow like a creeping paralysis over +freedom, and the man from the country is walking into them all the time +because the poor, restless fellow believes wealth awaits him on their +pavements. And when he doesn’t go to them, they come to him. The Wall +Street bucket-shop goes fishing in the woods with wires a thousand miles +long; and so we exchange the solid trailblazing enterprise of Volume One +for Volume Two’s electric unrest. In Volume One our wagon was hitched +to the star of liberty. Capital and labor have cut the traces. The labor +union forbids the workingman to labor as his own virile energy and skill +prompt him. If he disobeys, he is expelled and called a ‘scab.’ Don’t +let us call ourselves the land of the free while such things go on. +We’re all thinking a deal too much about our pockets nowadays. Eternal +vigilance cannot watch liberty and the ticker at the same time. + +“Well,” said John Mayrant, “we’re not thinking about our pockets in +Kings Port, because” (and here there came into his voice and face that +sudden humor which made him so delightful)--“because we haven’t got any +pockets to think of!” + +This brought me down to cheerfulness from my flight among the cold +clouds. + +He continued: “Any more lamentations, Mr. Jeremiah?” + +“Those who begin to call names, John Mayrant--but never mind! I +could lament you sick if I chose to go on about our corporations and +corruption that I see with my pessimistic eye; but the other eye sees +the American man himself--the type that our eighty millions on the whole +melt into and to which my heart warms each time I land again from more +polished and colder shores--my optimistic eye sees that American dealing +adequately with these political diseases. For stronger even than his +kindness, his ability, and his dishonesty is his self-preservation. He’s +going to stand up for the ‘open shop’ and sit down on the ‘trust’; and I +assure you that I don’t in the least resemble the Evening Post.” + +A look of inquiry was in John Mayrant’s features. + +“The New York Evening Post,” I repeated with surprise. Still the inquiry +of his face remained. + +“Oh, fortunate youth!” I cried. “To have escaped the New York Evening +Post!” + +“Is it so heinous?” + +“Well!... well!... how exactly describe it?... make you see it?... +It’s partially tongue-tied, a sad victim of its own excesses. Habitual +over-indulgence in blaming has given it a painful stutter when +attempting praise; it’s the sprucely written sheet of the supercilious; +it’s the after-dinner pill of the American who prefers Europe; it’s our +Republic’s common scold, the Xantippe of journalism, the paper without a +country.” + +“The paper without a country! That’s very good!” + +“Oh, no! I’ll tell you something much better, but it is not mine. A +clever New Yorker said that what with The Sun--” + +“I know that paper.” + +“--what with The Sun making vice so attractive in the morning and the +Post making virtue so odious in the evening, it was very hard for a man +to be good in New York.” + +“I fear I should subscribe to The Sun,” said John Mayrant. He took his +hand from the church-gate railing, and we had turned to stroll down +Worship Street when he was unexpectedly addressed. + +For some minutes, while John Mayrant and I had been talking, I had grown +aware, without taking any definite note of it, that the old custodian +of the churchyard, Daddy Ben, had come slowly near us from the distant +corner of his demesne, where he had been (to all appearances) engaged in +some trifling activity among the flowers--perhaps picking off the faded +blossoms. It now came home to me that the venerable negro had really +been, in a surreptitious way, watching John Mayrant, and waiting for +something--either for the right moment to utter what he now uttered, or +his own delayed decision to utter it at all. + +“Mas’ John!” he called quite softly. His tone was fairly padded with +caution, and I saw that in the pause which followed, his eye shot +a swift look at the bruise on Mayrant’s forehead, and another look, +equally swift, at me. + +“Well, Daddy Ben, what is it?” + +The custodian shunted close to the gate which separated him from us. +“Mas’ John, I speck de President he dun’ know de cullud people like we +knows ‘um, else he nebber bin ‘pint dat ar boss in de Cussum House, no, +sah.” + +After this effort he wiped his forehead and breathed hard. + +To my astonishment, the effort brought immediately a stern change over +John Mayrant’s face; then he answered in the kindest tones, “Thank you, +Daddy Ben.” + +This answer interpreted for me the whole thing, which otherwise would +have been obscure enough: the old man held it to be an indignity that +his young “Mas’ John” should, by the President’s act, find himself the +subordinate of a member of the black race, and he had just now, in +his perspiring effort, expressed his sympathy! Why he had chosen this +particular moment (after quite obvious debate with himself) I did not +see until somewhat later. + +He now left us standing at the gate; and it was not for some moments +that John Mayrant spoke again, evidently closing, for our two selves, +this delicate subject. + +“I wish we had not got into that second volume of yours.” + +“That’s not progressive.” + +“I hate progress.” + +“What’s the use? Better grow old gracefully! + + “‘Qui no pas l’esprit de son age + De son age a tout le malheur.’” + +“Well, I’m personally not growing old, just yet.” + +“Neither is the United States.” + +“Well, I don’t know. It’s too easy for sick or worthless people to +survive nowadays. They are clotting up our square miles very fast. +Philanthropists don’t seem to remember that you can beget children a +great deal faster than you can educate them; and at this rate I believe +universal suffrage will kill us off before our time.” + +“Do not believe it! We are going to find out that universal suffrage is +like the appendix--useful at an early stage of the race’s evolution but +to-day merely a threat to life.” + +He thought this over. “But a surgical operation is pretty serious, you +know.” + +“It’ll be done by absorption. Why, you’ve begun it yourselves, and so +has Massachusetts. The appendix will be removed, black and white--and +I shouldn’t much fear surgery. We’re not nearly civilized enough yet to +have lost the power Of recuperation, and in spite of our express-train +speed, I doubt if we shall travel from crudity to rottenness without a +pause at maturity.” + +“That is the old, old story,” he said. + +“Yes; is there anything new under the sun?” + +He was gloomy. “Nothing, I suppose.” Then the gloom lightened. “Nothing +new under the sun--except the fashionable families of Newport!” + +This again brought us from the clouds of speculation down to Worship +Street, where we were walking toward South Place. It also unexpectedly +furnished me with the means to lead back our talk so gently, without +a jolt or a jerk, to my moral and the delicate topic of matrimony from +which he had dodged away, that he never awoke to what was coming until +it had come. He began pointing out, as we passed them, certain houses +which were now, or had at some period been, the dwellings of his many +relatives: “My cousin Julia So-and-so lives there,” he would say; or, +“My great-uncle, known as Regent Tom, owned that before the War”; and +once, “The Rev. Joseph Priedieu, my great-grandfather, built that house +to marry his fifth wife in, but the grave claimed him first.” + +So I asked him a riddle. “What is the difference between Kings Port and +Newport?” + +This he, of course, gave up. + +“Here you are all connected by marriage, and there they are all +connected by divorce.” + +“That’s true!” he cried, “that’s very true. I met the most +embarrassingly cater-cornered families.” + +“Oh, they weren’t embarrassed!” I interjected. + +“No, but I was,” said John. + +“And you told me you weren’t innocent!” I exclaimed. “They are going +to institute a divorce march,” I continued. “‘Lohengrin’ or +‘Midsummer-Night’s Dream’ played backward. They have not settled which +it is to be taught in the nursery with the other kindergarten melodies.” + +He was still unsuspectingly diverted; and we walked along until we +turned in the direction of my boarding-house. + +“Did you ever notice,” I now said, “what a perpetual allegory +‘Midsummer-Night’s Dream’ contains?” + +“I thought it was just a fairy sort of thing.” + +“Yes, but when a great poet sets his hand to a fairy sort of thing, you +get--well, you get poor Titania.” + +“She fell in love with a jackass,” he remarked. “Puck bewitched her.” + +“Precisely. A lovely woman with her arms around a jackass. Does that +never happen in Kings Port?” + +He began smiling to himself. “I’m afraid Puck isn’t all dead yet.” + +I was now in a position to begin dropping my bitters. “Shakespeare was +probably too gallant to put it the other way, and make Oberon fall in +love with a female jackass. But what an allegory!” + +“Yes,” he muttered. “Yes.” + +I followed with another drop. “Titania got out of it. It is not always +solved so easily.” + +“No,” he muttered. “No.” It was quite evident that the flavor of my +bitters reached him. + +He was walking slowly, with his head down, and frowning hard. We had now +come to the steps of my boarding-house, and I dropped my last drop. “But +a disenchanted woman has the best of it--before marriage, at least.” + +He looked up quickly. “How?” + +I evinced surprise. “Why, she can always break off honorably, and we +never can, I suppose.” + +For the third time this day he made me an astonishing rejoinder: “Would +you like to take orders from a negro?” + +It reduced me to stammering. “I have never--such a juncture has never--” + +“Of course you wouldn’t. Even a Northerner!” + +His face, as he said this, was a single glittering piece of fierceness. +I was still so much taken aback that I said rather flatly: “But who has +to?” + +“I have to.” With this he abruptly turned on his heel and left me +standing on the steps. For a moment I stared after him; and then, as I +rang the bell, he was back again; and with that formality which at times +overtook him he began: “I will ask you to excuse my hasty--” + +“Oh, John Mayrant! What a notion!” + +But he was by no means to be put off, and he proceeded with stiffer +formality: “I feel that I have not acted politely just now, and I beg to +assure you that I intended no slight.” + +My first impulse was to lay a hand upon his shoulder and say to him: +“My dear fellow, stuff and nonsense!” Thus I should have treated any +Northern friend; but here was no Northerner. I am glad that I had +the sense to feel that any careless, good-natured putting away of his +deliberate and definitely tendered apology would seem to him a “slight” + on my part. His punctilious value for certain observances between +man and man reached me suddenly and deeply, and took me far from the +familiarity which breeds contempt. + +“Why, John Mayrant,” I said, “you could never offend me unless I thought +that you wished to, and how should I possibly think that?” + +“Thank you,” he replied very simply. + +I rang the bell a second time. “If we can get into the house,” I +suggested, “won’t you stop and dine with me?” + +He was going to accept. “I shall be--” he had begun, in tones of +gratification, when in one instant his face was stricken with complete +dismay. “I had forgotten,” he said; and this time he was gone indeed, +and in a hurry most apparent. It resembled a flight. + +What was the matter now? You will naturally think that it was an +appointment with his ladylove which he had forgotten; this was certainly +my supposition as I turned again to the front door. There stood one of +the waitresses, glaring with her white eyes half out of her black face +at the already distant back of John Mayrant. + +“Oh!” I thought; but, before I could think any more, the tall, dreadful +boarder--the lady whom I secretly called Juno--swept up the steps, and +by me into the house, with a dignity that one might term deafening. + +The waitress now muttered, or rather sang, a series of pious +apostrophes. “Oh, Lawd, de rampages and de ructions! Oh, Lawd, sinner is +in my way, Daniel!” She was strongly, but I think pleasurably, excited; +and she next turned to me with a most natural grin, and saying, +“Chick’n’s mos’ gone, sah,” she went back to the dining room. + +This admonition sent me upstairs to make as hasty a toilet as I could. + + + + +IX: Juno + +Each recent remarkable occurrence had obliterated its predecessor, and +it was with difficulty that I made a straight parting in my hair. Had it +been Miss Rieppe that John so suddenly ran away to? It seemed now more +as if the boy had been running away from somebody. The waitress had +stared at him with extraordinary interest; she had seen his bruise; +perhaps she knew how he had got it. Her excitement--had he smashed up +his official superior at the custom house? That would be an impossible +thing, I told myself instantly; as well might a nobleman cross swords +with a peasant. Perhaps the stare of the waitress had reminded him of +his bruise, and he might have felt disinclined to show himself with it +in a company of gossiping strangers. Still, that would scarcely account +for it--the dismay with which he had so suddenly left me. Was Juno +the cause--she had come up behind me; he must have seen her and her +portentous manner approaching--had the boy fled from her? + +And then, his fierce outbreak about taking orders from a negro when I +was moralizing over the misfortune of marrying a jackass! I got a sort +of parting in my hair, and went down to the dining room. + +Juno was there before me, with her bonnet, or rather her headdress, +still on, and I heard her making apologies to Mrs. Trevise for being so +late. Mrs. Trevise, of course, sat at the head of her table, and Juno +sat at her right hand. I was very glad not to have a seat near Juno, +because this lady was, as I have already hinted, an intolerable person +to me. Either her Southern social position or her rent (she took the +whole second floor, except Mrs. Trevise’s own rooms) was of importance +to Mrs. Trevise; but I assure you that her ways kept our landlady’s +cold, impervious tact watchful from the beginning to the end of almost +every meal. Juno was one of those persons who possess so many and such +strong feelings themselves that they think they have all the feelings +there are; at least, they certainly consider no one’s feelings but +their own. She possessed an inexhaustible store of anecdote, but it was +exclusively about our Civil War; you would have supposed that nothing +else had ever happened in the world. When conversation among the rest of +us became general, she preserved a cold and acrid inattention; when +the fancy took her to open her own mouth, it was always to begin some +reminiscence, and the reminiscence always began: “In September, 1862, +when the Northern vandals,” etc., etc., or “When the Northern vandals +were repulsed by my husband’s cousin, General Braxton Bragg,” etc., etc. +Now it was not that I was personally wounded by the term, because at the +time of the vandals I was not even born, and also because I know that +vandals cannot be kept out of any army. Deeply as I believed the March +to the Sea to have been imperative, of “Sherman’s bummers” and their +excesses I had a fair historic knowledge and a very poor opinion; and +this I should have been glad to tell Juno, had she ever given me the +chance; but her immodest sympathy for herself froze all sympathy for +her. Why could she not preserve a well-bred silence upon her sufferings, +as did the other old ladies I had met in Kings Port? Why did she drag +them in, thrust them, poke them, shove them at you? Thus it was that for +her insulting disregard of those whom her words might wound I +detested Juno; and as she was a woman, and nearly old enough to be +my grandmother, it was, of course, out of the question that I should +retaliate. When she got very bad indeed, it was calm Mrs. Trevise’s +last, but effective, resort to tinkle a little handbell and scold one of +the waitresses whom its sound would then summon from the kitchen. This +bell was tinkled not always by any means for my sake; other travellers +from the North there were who came and went, pausing at Kings Port +between Florida and their habitual abodes. + +At present our company consisted of Juno; a middle-class Englishman +employed in some business capacity in town; a pair of very young +honeymooners from the “up-country”; a Louisiana poetess, who wore the +long, cylindrical ringlets of 1830, and who was attending a convention +the Daughters of Dixie; two or three males and females, best described +as et ceteras; and myself. “I shall only take a mouthful for the sake +of nourishment,” Juno was announcing, “and then I shall return to his +bedside.” + +“Is he very suffering?” inquired the poetess, in melodious accent. + +“It was an infamous onslaught,” Juno replied. + +The poetess threw up her eyes and crooned, “Noble, doughty champion!” + +“You may say so indeed, madam,” said Juno. + +“Raw beefsteak’s jolly good for your eye,” observed the Briton. + +This suggestion did not appear to be heard by Juno. + +“I had a row with a chap,” the Briton continued. He’s my best friend +now. He made me put raw beefsteak--” + +“I thank you,” interrupted Juno. “He requires no beefsteak, raw or +cooked.” + +The face of the Briton reddened. “Too groggy to eat, is he?” + +Mrs. Trevise tinkled her bell. “Daphne! I have said to you twice to hand +those yams.” + +“I done handed ‘em twice, ma’am.” + +“Hand them right away, Daphne, and don’t be so forgetful.” It was not +easy to disturb the composure of Mrs. Trevise. + +The poetess now took up the broken thread. “Had I a son,” she declared, +“I would sooner witness him starve than hear him take orders from a +menial race.” + +“But mightn’t starving be harder for him to experience than for you to +witness, y’ know?” asked the Briton. + +At this one of the et ceteras made a sort of snuffing noise, and ate his +dinner hard. + +It was the male honeymooner who next spoke. “Must have been quite a +tussle, ma’am.” + +“It was an infamous onslaught!” repeated Juno. “Wish I’d seen it!” + sighed the honeymooner. + +His bride smiled at him beamingly. “You’d have felt right lonesome to be +out of it, David.” + +“No apology has yet been offered,” continued Juno. + +“But must your nephew apologize besides taking a licking?” inquired the +Briton. + +Juno turned an awful face upon hint. “It is from his brutal assailant +that apologies are due. Mr. Mayrant’s family” (she paused here for +blighting emphasis) “are well-bred people, and he will be coerced into +behaving like a gentleman for once.” + +I checked an impulse here to speak out and express my doubts as to +the family coercion being founded upon any dissatisfaction with John’s +conduct. + +“I wonder if reading or recitation might not soothe your nephew?” said +the poetess, now. + +“I should doubt it,” answered Juno. “I have just come from his bedside.” + +“I should so like to soothe him, if I could,” the poetess murmured. “If +he were well enough to hear my convention ode--” + +“He is not nearly well enough,” said Juno. + +The et cetera here coughed and blew his nose so remarkably that we all +started. + +A short silence followed, which Juno relieved. + +“I will give the young ruffian’s family the credit they deserve,” she +stated. “The whole connection despises his keeping the position.” + +Another et cetera now came into it. “Is it known what exactly +precipitated the occurrence?” + +Juno turned to him. “My nephew is a gentleman from whose lips no +unworthy word could ever fall.’ + +“Oh!” said the et cetera, mildly. “He said something, then?” + +“He conveyed a well-merited rebuke in fitting terms.” + +“What were the terms?” inquired the Briton. + +Juno again did not hear him. “It was after a friendly game of cards. +My nephew protested against any gentleman remaining at the custom house +since the recent insulting appointment.” + +I was now almost the only member of the party who had preserved strict +silence throughout this very interesting conversation, because, having +no wish to converse with Juno at any time, I especially did not desire +it now, just after her seeing me (I thought she must have seen me) in +amicable conference with the object of her formidable displeasure. + +“Every Mayrant is ferocious that I ever heard of,” she continued. “You +cannot trust that seemingly delicate and human exterior. His father had +it, too--deceiving exterior and raging interior, though I will say for +that one that he would never have stooped to humiliate the family name +as his son is doing. His regiment was near by when the Northern vandals +burned our courthouse, and he made them run, I can tell you! It’s a +mercy for that poor girl that the scales have dropped from her eyes and +she has broken her engagement with him.” + +“With the father?” asked a third et cetera. + +Juno stared at the intruder. + +Mrs. Trevise drawled a calm contribution. “The father died before this +boy was born.” + +“Oh, I see!” murmured the et cetera, gratefully. + +Juno proceeded. “No woman’s life would be safe with him.” + +“But mightn’t he be safer for a person’s niece than for their nephew?” + said the Briton. + +Mrs. Trevise’s hand moved toward the bell. + +But Juno answered the question mournfully: “With such hereditary +bloodthirstiness, who can tell?” And so Mrs. Trevise moved her hand away +again. + +“Excuse me, but do you know if the other gentleman is laid up, too?” + inquired the male honeymooner, hopefully. + +“I am happy to understand that he is,” replied Juno. + +In sheer amazement I burst out, “Oh!” and abruptly stopped. + +But it was too late. I had instantly become the centre of interest. The +et ceteras and honeymooners craned their necks; the Briton leaned toward +me from opposite; the poetess, who had worn an absent expression since +being told that the injured champion was not nearly well enough to +listen to her ode, now put on her glasses and gazed at me kindly; while +Juno reared her headdress and spoke, not to me, but to the air in my +general neighborhood. + +“Has any one later intelligence than what I bring from my nephew’s +bedside?” + +So she hadn’t perceived who my companion at the step had been! Well, she +should be enlightened, they all should be enlightened, and vengeance was +mine. I spoke with gentleness:-- + +“Your nephew’s impressions, I fear, are still confused by his deplorable +misadventure.” + +“May I ask what you know about his impressions?” + +Out of the corner of my eye I saw the hand of Mrs. Trevise move toward +her bell; but she wished to hear all about it more than she wished +concord at her harmonious table; and the hand stopped. + +Juno spoke again. “Who, pray, has later news than what I bring?” + +My enemy was in my hand; and an enemy in the hand is worth I don’t know +how many in the bush. + +I answered most gently: “I do not come from Mr. Mayrant’s bedside, +because I have just left him at the front door in sound health--saving a +bruise over his left eye.” + +During a second we all sat in a high-strung silence, and then Juno +became truly superb. “Who sees the scars he brazenly conceals?” + +It took away my breath; my battle would have been lost, when the Briton +suggested: “But mayn’t he have shown those to his Aunt?” + +We sat in no silence now; the first et cetera made extraordinary sounds +on his plate, Mrs. Trevise tinkled her handbell with more unction than I +had ever yet seen in her; and while she and Daphne interchanged streams +of severe words which I was too disconcerted to follow, the other et +ceteras and the honeymooners hectically effervesced into small talk. I +presently found myself eating our last course amid a reestablished calm, +when, with a rustle, Juno swept out from among us, to return (I suppose) +to the bedside. As she passed behind the Briton’s chair, that invaluable +person kicked me under the table, and on my raising my eyes to him he +gave me a large, robust wink. + + + + +X: High Walk and the Ladies + +I now burned to put many questions to the rest of the company. If, +through my foolish and outreaching slyness with the girl behind the +counter, the door of my comprehension had been shut, Juno had now opened +it sufficiently wide for a number of facts to come crowding in, so to +speak, abreast. Indeed, their simultaneous arrival was not a little +confusing, as if several visitors had burst in upon me and at once begun +speaking loudly, each shouting a separate and important matter which +demanded my intelligent consideration. John Mayrant worked in the +custom house, and Kings Port frowned upon this; not merely Kings Port in +general--which counted little with the boy, if indeed he noticed general +opinion at all--but the boy’s particular Kings Port, his severe old +aunts, and his cousins, and the pretty girl at the Exchange, and the +men he played cards with, all these frowned upon it, too; yet even this +condemnation one could disregard if some lofty personal principle, some +pledge to one’s own sacred honor, were at stake--but here was no such +thing: John Mayrant hated the position himself. The salary? No, the +salary would count for nothing in the face of such a prejudice as I had +seen glitter from his eye! A strong, clever youth of twenty-three, with +the world before him, and no one to support--stop! Hortense Rieppe! +There was the lofty personal principle, the sacred pledge to honor; he +was engaged presently to endow her with all his worldly goods; and to +perform this faithfully a bridegroom must not, no matter how little he +liked “taking orders from a negro,” fling away his worldly goods some +few days before he was to pronounce his bridegroom’s vow. So here, at +Mrs. Trevise’s dinner-table, I caught for one moment, to the full, a +vision of the unhappy boy’s plight; he was sticking to a task which he +loathed that he might support a wife whom he no longer desired. Such, as +he saw it, was his duty; and nobody, not even a soul of his kin or his +kind, gave him a word or a thought of understanding, gave him anything +except the cold shoulder. Yes; from one soul he had got a sign--from +aged Daddy Ben, at the churchyard gate; and amid my jostling surmises +and conclusions, that quaint speech of the old negro, that little act of +fidelity and affection from the heart of a black man, took on a +strange pathos in its isolation amid the general harshness of his white +superiors. Over this it was that I was pausing when, all in a second, +perplexity again ruled my meditations. Juno had said that the engagement +was broken. Well, if that were the case--But was it likely to be the +case? Juno’s agreeable habit, a habit grown familiar to all of us in the +house, was to sprinkle about, along with her vitriol, liberal quantities +of the by-product of inaccuracy. Mingled with her latest illustrations, +she had poured out for us one good dose of falsehood, the antidote for +which it had been my happy office to administer on the spot. If John +Mayrant wasn’t in bed from the wounds of combat, as she had given us to +suppose, perhaps Hortense Rieppe hadn’t released him from his plighted +troth, as Juno had also announced; and distinct relief filled me when I +reasoned this out. I leave others to reason out why it was relief, and +why a dull disappointment had come over me at the news that the match +was off. This, for me, should have been good news, when you consider +that I had been so lately telling myself such a marriage must not be, +that I must myself, somehow (since no one else would), step in and +arrest the calamity; and it seems odd that I should have felt this +blankness and regret upon learning that the parties had happily settled +it for themselves, and hence my difficult and delicate assistance was +never to be needed by them. + +Did any one else now sitting at our table know of Miss Rieppe’s reported +act? What particulars concerning John’s fight had been given by Juno +before my entrance? It didn’t surprise me that her nephew was in bed +from Master Mayrant’s lusty blows. One could readily guess the manner +in which young John, with his pent-up fury over the custom house, would +“land” his chastisement all over the person of any rash critic! And what +a talking about it must be going on everywhere to-day! If Kings Port +tongues had been set in motion over me and my small notebook in a +library, the whole town must be buzzing over every bruise given and +taken in this evidently emphatic battle. I had hoped to glean some +more precise information from my fellow-boarders after Juno had +disembarrassed us of her sonorous presence; but even if they were +possessed of all the facts which I lacked, Mrs. Trevise in some masterly +fashion of her own banished the subject from further discussion. She +held us off from it chiefly, I think, by adopting a certain upright +posture in her chair, and a certain tone when she inquired if we wished +a second help of the pudding. After thirty-five years of boarders and +butchers, life held no secrets or surprises for her; she was a mature, +lone, disenchanted, able lady, and even her silence was like an arm of +the law. + +An all too brief conversation, nipped by Mrs. Trevise at a stage even +earlier than the bud, revealed to me that perhaps my fellow-boarders +would have been glad to ask me questions, too. + +It was the male honeymooner who addressed me. “Did I understand you to +say, sir, that Mr. Mayrant had received a bruise over his left eye?” + +“Daphne!” called out Mrs. Trevise, “Mr. Henderson will take an orange.” + +And so we finished our meal without further reference to eyes, or +noses, or anything of the sort. It was just as well, I reflected, when I +reached my room, that I on my side had been asked no questions, since I +most likely knew less than the others who had heard all that Juno had to +say; and it would have been humiliating, after my superb appearance of +knowing more, to explain that John Mayrant had walked with me all the +way from the Library, and never told me a word about the affair. + +This reflection increased my esteem for the boy’s admirable reticence. +What private matter of his own had I ever learned from him? It was other +people, invariably, who told me of his troubles. There had been that +single, quickly controlled outbreak about his position in the Custom +House, and also he had let fall that touching word concerning his faith +and his liking to say his prayers in the place where his mother had said +them; beyond this, there had never yet been anything of all that must at +the present moment be intimately stirring in his heart. + +Should I “like to take orders from a negro?” Put personally, it came to +me now as a new idea came as something which had never entered my mind +before, not even as an abstract hypothesis I didn’t have to think before +reaching the answer though; something within me, which you ma call what +you please--convention, prejudice, instinct--something answered most +prompt and emphatically in the negative. I revolved in my mind as I +tried to pack into a box a number of objects that I had bought in one +or to “antique” shops. They wouldn’t go in, the objects; they were of +defeating and recalcitrant shapes, and of hostile materials--glass and +brass--and I must have a larger box made, and in that case I would buy +this afternoon the other kettle-supporter (I forget its right name) and +have the whole lot decently packed. Take orders from a colored man? Have +him give you directions, dictate you letters, discipline you if you were +unpunctual? No, indeed! And if such were my feeling, how must this young +Southerner feel? With this in my mind, I made sure that the part in my +back hair was right, and after that precaution soon found myself on my +way, in a way somewhat roundabout, to the kettle-supporter sauntering +northward along High Walk, and stopping often; the town, and the water, +and the distant shores all were so lovely, so belonged to one another, +so melted into one gentle impression of wistfulness and tenderness! +I leaned upon the stone parapet and enjoyed the quiet which every +surrounding detail brought to my senses. How could John Mayrant endure +such a situation? I continued to wonder; and I also continued to assure +myself it was absurd to suppose that the engagement was broken. + +The shutting of a front door across the street almost directly behind +me attracted my attention because of its being the first sound that had +happened in noiseless, empty High Walk since I had been strolling there; +and I turned from the parapet to see that I was no longer the solitary +person in the street. Two ladies, one tall and one diminutive, both +in black and with long black veils which they had put back from their +faces, were evidently coming from a visit. As the tall one bowed to me +I recognized Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, and took off my hat. It was not +until they had crossed the street and come up the stone steps near where +I stood on High Walk that the little lady also bowed to me; she was Mrs. +Weguelin St. Michael, and from something in her prim yet charming manner +I gathered that she held it to be not perfectly well-bred in a lady to +greet a gentleman across the width of a public highway, and that she +could have wished that her tall companion had not thus greeted me, a +stranger likely to comment upon Kings Port manners. In her eyes, such +free deportment evidently went with her tall companion’s method of +speech: hadn’t the little lady informed me during our first brief +meeting that Kings Port at times thought Mrs. Gregory St. Michael’s +tongue “too downright”? + +The two ladies having graciously granted me permission to join them +while they took the air, Mrs. Gregory must surely have shocked Mrs. +Weguelin by saying to me, “I haven’t a penny for your thoughts, but I’ll +exchange.” + +“Would you thus bargain in the dark, madam?” + +“Oh, I’ll risk that; and, to say truth, even your back, as we came out +of that house, was a back of thought.” + +“Well, I confess to some thinking. Shall I begin?” + +It was Mrs. Weguelin who quickly replied, smiling: “Ladies first, you +know. At least we still keep it so in Kings Port.” + +“Would we did everywhere!” I exclaimed devoutly; and I was quite aware +that beneath the little lady’s gentle smile a setting down had lurked, a +setting down of the most delicate nature, administered to me not in +the least because I had deserved one, but because she did not like Mrs. +Gregory’s “downright” tongue, and could not stop her. + +Mrs. Gregory now took the prerogative of ladies, and began. “I was +thinking of what we had all just been saying during our visit across the +way--and with which you are not going to agree--that our young people +would do much better to let us old people arrange their marriages for +them, as it Is done in Europe.” + +“O dear!” + +“I said that you would not agree; but that is because you are so young.” + +“I don’t know that twenty-eight is so young.” + +“You will know it when you are seventy-three.” This observation again +came from Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, and again with a gentle and +attractive smile. It was only the second time that she had spoken; and +throughout the talk into which we now fell as we slowly walked up +and down High Walk, she never took the lead; she left that to the +“downright” tongue--but I noticed, however, that she chose her moments +to follow the lead very aptly. I also perceived plainly that what we +were really going to discuss was not at all the European principle of +marriage-making, but just simply young John and his Hortense; they were +the true kernel of the nut with whose concealing shell Mrs. Gregory was +presenting me, and in proposing an exchange of thoughts she would get +back only more thoughts upon the same subject. It was pretty evident how +much Kings Port was buzzing over all this! They fondly believed they +did not like it; but what would they have done without it? What, indeed, +were they going to do when it was all over and done with, one way or +another? As a matter of fact, they ought to be grateful to Hortense for +contributing illustriously to the excitement of their lives. + +“Of course, I am well aware,” Mrs. Gregory pursued, “that the young +people of to-day believe they can all ‘teach their grandmothers to suck +eggs,’ as we say in Kings Port.” + +“We say it elsewhere, too,” I mildly put in. + +“Indeed? I didn’t know that the North, with its pest of Hebrew and other +low immigrants, had retained any of the good old homely saws which we +brought from England. But do you imagine that if the control of marriage +rested in the hands of parents and grandparents (where it properly +belongs), you would be witnessing in the North this disgusting spectacle +of divorce?” + +“But, Mrs. St. Michael--” + +“We didn’t invite you to argue when we invited you to walk!” cried the +lady, laughing. + +“We should like you to answer the question,” said Mrs. Weguelin St. +Michael. + +“And tell us,” Mrs. Gregory continued, “if it’s your opinion that a boy +who has never been married is a better judge of matrimony’s pitfalls +than his father.” + +“Or than any older person who has bravely and worthily gone through with +the experience,” Mrs. Weguelin added. + +“Ladies, I’ve no mind to argue. But we’re ahead of Europe; we don’t need +their clumsy old plan.” + +Mrs. Gregory gave a gallant, incredulous snort. “I shall be interested +to learn of anything that is done better here than in Europe.” + +“Oh, many things, surely! But especially the mating of the fashionable +young. They don’t need any parents to arrange for them; it’s much better +managed through precocity.” + +“Through precocity? I scarcely follow you.” + +And Mrs. Weguelin softly added, “You must excuse us if we do not follow +you.” But her softness nevertheless indicated that if there were any one +present needing leniency, it was myself. + +“Why, yes,” I told them, “it’s through precocity. The new-rich American +no longer commits the blunder of keeping his children innocent. You’ll +see it beginning in the dancing-class, where I heard an exquisite little +girl of six say to a little boy, ‘Go away; I can’t dance with you, +because my mamma says your mamma only keeps a maid to answer the +doorbell.’ When they get home from the dancing-class, tutors in poker +and bridge are waiting to teach them how to gamble for each other’s +little dimes. I saw a little boy in knickerbockers and a wide collar +throw down the evening paper--” + +“At that age? They read the papers?” interrupted Mrs. Gregory. + +“They read nothing else at any age. He threw it down and said, ‘Well, I +guess there’s not much behind this raid on Steel Preferred.’ What need +has such a boy for parents or grandparents? Presently he is travelling +to a fashionable boarding-school in his father’s private car. At college +all his adolescent curiosities are lavishly gratified. His sister at +home reads the French romances, and by eighteen she, too, knows (in her +head at least) the whole of life, so that she can be perfectly trusted; +she would no more marry a mere half-millionaire just because she loved +him than she would appear twice in the same ball-dress. She and her +ball-dresses are described in the papers precisely as if she were an +animal at a show--which indeed is what she has become; and she’s eager +to be thus described, because she and her mother--even if her mother +was once a lady and knew better--are haunted by one perpetual, sickening +fear, the fear of being left out. And if you desire to pay correct +ballroom compliments, you no longer go to her mother and tell her she’s +looking every bit as young as her daughter; you go to the daughter and +tell her she’s looking every bit as old as her mother, for that’s what +she wishes to do, that’s what she tries for, what she talks, dresses, +eats, drinks, goes to indecent plays and laughs for. Yes, we manage +it through precocity, and the new-rich American parent has achieved at +least one new thing under the sun, namely, the corruption of the child.” + +My ladies silently consulted each other’s expressions, after which, +in equal silence, their gaze returned to me; but their equally +intent scrutiny was expressive of quite different things. It was with +expectancy that Mrs. Gregory looked at me--she wanted more. Not so Mrs. +Weguelin; she gave me disapproval; it was shadowed in her beautiful, +lustrous eyes that burned dark in her white face with as much fire +as that of youth, yet it was not of youth, being deeply charged with +retrospection. + +In what, then, had I sinned? For the little lady’s next words, coldly +murmured, increased in me an uneasiness, as of sin:-- + +“You have told us much that we are not accustomed to hear in Kings +Port.” + +“Oh, I haven’t begun to tell you!” I exclaimed cheerily. + +“You certainly have not told us,” said Mrs. Gregory, “how your +‘precocity’ escapes this divorce degradation.” + +“Escape it? Those people think it is--well, provincial--not to have been +divorced at least once!” + +Mrs. Gregory opened her eyes, but Mrs. Weguelin shut her lips. + +I continued: “Even the children, for their own little reasons, like +it. Only last summer, in Newport, a young boy was asked how he enjoyed +having a father and an ex-father.” + +“Ex-father!” said Mrs. Gregory. “Vice-father is what I should call him.” + +“Maria!” murmured Mrs. Weguelin, “how can you jest upon such topics?” + +“I am far from jesting, Julia. Well, young gentleman, and what answer +did this precious Newport child make?” + +“He said (if you will pardon my giving you his little sentiment in his +own quite expressive idiom), ‘Me for two fathers! Double money birthdays +and Christmases. See?’ That was how he saw divorce.” + +Once again my ladies consulted each other’s expressions; we moved along +High Walk in such silence that I heard the stiff little rustle which +the palmettos were making across the street; even these trees, you might +have supposed, were whispering together over the horrors that I had +recited in their decorous presence. + +It was Mrs. Gregory who next spoke. “I can translate that last boy’s +language, but what did the other boy mean about a ‘raid on Steel +Preferred’--if I’ve got the jargon right?” + +While I translated this for her, I felt again the disapproval in Mrs. +Weguelin’s dark eyes; and my sins--for they were twofold--were presently +made clear to me by this lady. + +“Are such subjects as--as stocks” (she softly cloaked this word in scorn +immeasurable)--“are such subjects mentioned in your good society at the +North?” + +I laughed heartily. “Everything’s mentioned!” + +The lady paused over my reply. “I am afraid you must feel us to be very +old-fashioned in, Kings Port,” she then said. + +“But I rejoice in it!” + +She ignored my not wholly dexterous compliment. “And some subjects,” she +pursued, “seem to us so grave that if we permit ourselves to speak of +them at all we cannot speak of them lightly.” + +No, they couldn’t speak of them lightly! Here, then, stood my two sins +revealed; everything I had imparted, and also my tone of imparting it, +had displeased Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, not with the thing, but with +me. I had transgressed her sound old American code of good manners, +a code slightly pompous no doubt, but one in which no familiarity was +allowed to breed contempt. To her good taste, there were things in +the world which had, apparently, to exist, but which one banished from +drawing-room discussion as one conceals from sight the kitchen and +outhouses; one dealt with them only when necessity compelled, and never +in small-talk; and here had I been, so to speak, small-talking them in +that glib, modern, irresponsible cadence with which our brazen age rings +and clatters like the beating of triangles and gongs. Not triangles and +gongs, but rather strings and flutes, had been the music to which Kings +Port society had attuned its measured voice. + +I saw it all, and even saw that my own dramatic sense of Mrs. Weguelin’s +dignity had perversely moved me to be more flippant than I actually +felt; and I promised myself that a more chastened tone should forthwith +redeem me from the false position I had got into. + +“My dear,” said Mrs. Gregory to Mrs. Weguelin, “we must ask him to +excuse our provincialism.” + +For the second time I was not wholly dexterous. “But I like it so much!” + I exclaimed; and both ladies laughed frankly. + +Mrs. Gregory brought in a fable. “You’ll find us all ‘country mice’ +here.” + +This time I was happy. “At least, then, there’ll be no cat!” And this +caused us all to make little bows. + +But the word “cat” fell into our talk as does a drop of some acid into +a chemical solution, instantly changing the whole to an unexpected new +color. The unexpected new color was, in this instance, merely what had +been latently lurking in the fluid of our consciousness all through and +now it suddenly came out. + +Mrs. Gregory stared over the parapet at the harbor. “I wonder if anybody +has visited that steam yacht?” + +“The Hermana?” I said. “She’s waiting, I believe, for her owner, who is +enjoying himself very much on land.” It was a strong temptation to add, +“enjoying himself with the cat,” but I resisted it. + +“Oh!” said Mrs. Gregory. “Possibly a friend of yours?” + +“Even his name is unknown to me. But I gather that he may be coming to +Kings Port--to attend Mr. John Mayrant’s wedding next Wednesday week.” + +I hadn’t gathered this; but one is at times driven to improvising. I +wished so much to know if Juno was right about the engagement being +broken, and I looked hard at the ladies as my words fairly grazed the +“cat.” This time I expected them to consult each other’s expressions, +and such, indeed, was their immediate proceeding. + +“The Wednesday following, you mean,” Mrs. Weguelin corrected. + +“Postponed again? Dear me!” + +Mrs. Gregory spoke this time. “General Rieppe. Less well again, it +seems.” + +It would be like Juno to magnify a delay into a rupture. Then I had a +hilarious thought, which I instantly put to the ladies. “If the +poor General were to die completely, would the wedding be postponed +completely?” + +“There would not be the slightest chance of that,” Mrs. Gregory +declared. And then she pronounced a sentence that was truly oracular: +“She’s coming at once to see for herself.” + +To which Mrs. Weguelin added with deeper condemnation than she had so +far employed at all: “There is a rumor that she is actually coming in an +automobile.” + +My silence upon these two remarks was the silence of great and sudden +interest; but it led Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael to do my perceptions +a slight injustice, and she had no intention that I should miss the +quality of her opinion regarding the vehicle in which Hortense was +reported to be travelling. + +“Miss Rieppe has the extraordinary taste to come here in an automobile,” + said Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, with deepened severity. + +Though I understood quite well, without this emphasizing, that the +little lady would, with her unbending traditions, probably think it more +respectable to approach Kings Port in a wheelbarrow, I was absorbed +by the vague but copious import of Mrs. Gregory’s announcement. The +oracles, moreover, continued. + +“But she is undoubtedly very clever to come and see for herself,” was +Mrs. Weguelin’s next comment. + +Mrs. Gregory’s face, as she replied to her companion, took on a +censorious and superior expression. “You’ll remember, Julia, that I told +Josephine St. Michael it was what they had to expect.” + +“But it was not Josephine, my dear, who at any time approved of taking +such a course. It was Eliza’s whole doing.” + +It was fairly raining oracles round me, and they quite resembled, for +all the help and light they contained, their Delphic predecessors. + +“And yet Eliza,” said Mrs. Gregory, “in the face of it, this very +morning, repeated her eternal assertion that we shall all see the +marriage will not take place.” + +“Eliza,” murmured Mrs. Weguelin, “rates few things more highly than her +own judgment.” + +Mrs. Gregory mused. “Yet she is often right when she has no right to be +right.” + +I could not bear it any longer, and I said, “I heard to-day that Miss +Rieppe had broken her engagement.” + +“And where did you hear that nonsense?” asked Mrs. Gregory. + +My heart leaped, and I told her where. + +“Oh, well! you will hear anything in a boarding-house. Indeed, that +would be a great deal too good to be true.” + +“May I ask where Miss Rieppe is all this while?” + +“The last news was from Palm Beach, where the air was said to be +necessary for the General.” + +“But,” Mrs. Weguelin repeated, “we have every reason to believe that she +is coming here in an automobile.” + +“We shall have to call, of course,” added Mrs. Gregory to her, not to +me; they were leaving me out of it. Yes, these ladies were forgetting +about me in their using preoccupation over whatever crisis it was that +now hung over John Mayrant’s love affairs--a preoccupation which was +evidently part of Kings Port’s universal buzz to-day, and which my +joining them in the street had merely mitigated for a moment. I did +not wish to be left out of it; I cannot tell you why--perhaps it was +contagious in the local air--but a veritable madness of craving to know +about it seized upon me. Of course, I saw that Miss Rieppe was, almost +too grossly and obviously, “playing for time”; the health of people’s +fathers did not cause weekly extensions of this sort. But what was +it that the young lady expected time to effect for her? Her release, +formally, by her young man, on the ground of his worldly ill fortune? Or +was it for an offer from the owner of the Hermana that she was waiting, +before she should take the step of formally releasing John Mayrant? No, +neither of these conjectures seemed to furnish a key to the tactics +of Miss Rieppe and the theory that each of these affianced parties was +strategizing to cause the other to assume the odium of breaking their +engagement, with no result save that of repeatedly countermanding a +wedding-cake, struck me as belonging admirably to a stage-comedy in +three acts, but scarcely to life as we find it. Besides, poor John +Mayrant was, all too plainly, not strategizing; he was playing as +straight a game as the honest heart of a gentleman could inspire. And +so, baffled at all points, I said (for I simply had to try something +which might lead to my sharing in Kings Port’s vibrating secret):-- + +“I can’t make out whether she wants to marry him or not.” + +Mrs. Gregory answered. “That is just what she is coming to see for +herself.” + +“But since her love was for his phosphates only--!” was my natural +exclamation. + +It caused (and this time I did not expect it) my inveterate ladies to +consult each other’s expressions. They prolonged their silence so much +that I spoke again:-- + +“And backing out of this sort of thing can be done, I should think, +quite as cleverly, and much more simply, from a distance.” + +It was Mrs. Weguelin who answered now, or, rather, who headed me off. +“Have you been able to make out whether he wants to marry her or not?” + +“Oh, he never comes near any of that with me!” + +“Certainly not. But we all understand that he has taken a fancy to you, +and that you have talked much with him.” + +So they all understood this, did they? This, too, had played its +little special part in the buzz? Very well, then, nothing of my private +impressions should drop from my lips here, to be quoted and misquoted +and battledored and shuttlecocked, until it reached the boy himself (as +it would inevitably) in fantastic disarrangement. I laughed. “Oh, yes! +I have talked much with him. Shakespeare, I think, was our latest +subject.” + +Mrs. Weguelin was plainly watching for something to drop. “Shakespeare!” + Her tone was of surprise. + +I then indulged myself in that most delightful sort of impertinence, +which consists in the other person’s not seeing it. “You wouldn’t be +likely to have heard of that yet. It occurred only before dinner to-day. +But we have also talked optimism, pessimism, sociology, evolution--Mr. +Mayrant would soon become quite--” I stopped myself on the edge of +something very clumsy. + +But sharp Mrs. Gregory finished for me. “Yes, you mean that if he didn’t +live in Kings Port (where we still have reverence, at any rate), he fit +would imbibe all the shallow quackeries of the hour and resemble all the +clever young donkeys of the minute.” + +“Maria!” Mrs. Weguelin murmurously expostulated. + +Mrs. Gregory immediately made me a handsome but equivocal apology. +“I wasn’t thinking of you at all!” she declared gayly; and it set me +doubting if perhaps she hadn’t, after all, comprehended my impertinence. +“And, thank Heaven!” she continued, “John is one of us, in spite of his +present stubborn course.” + +But Mrs. Weguelin’s beautiful eyes were resting upon me with that +disapproval I had come to know. To her, sociology and evolution and all +“isms” were new-fangled inventions and murky with offense; to touch them +was defilement, and in disclosing them to John Mayrant I was a corrupter +of youth. She gathered it all up into a word that was radiant with a +kind of lovely maternal gentleness:-- + +“We should not wish John to become radical.” + +In her voice, the whole of old Kings Port was enshrined: hereditary +faith and hereditary standards, mellow with the adherence of generations +past, and solicitous for the boy of the young generation. I saw her eyes +soften at the thought of him; and throughout the rest of our talk to its +end her gaze would now and then return to me, shadowed with disapproval. + +I addressed Mrs. Gregory. “By his ‘present stubborn course’ I suppose +you mean the Custom House.” + +“All of us deplore his obstinacy. His Aunt Eliza has strongly but vainly +expostulated with him. And after that, Miss Josephine felt obliged to +tell him that he need not come to see her again until he resigned a +position which reflects ignominy upon us all.” + +I suppressed a whistle. I thought (as I have said earlier) that I +had caught a full vision of John Mayrant’s present plight. But my +imagination had not soared to the height of Miss Josephine St. Michael’s +act of discipline. This, it must have been, that the boy had checked +himself from telling me in the churchyard. What a character of sterner +times was Miss Josephine! I thought of Aunt Carola, but even she was not +quite of this iron, and I said so to Mrs. Gregory. “I doubt if there +be any old lady left in the North,” I said, “capable of such antique +severity.” + +But Mrs. Gregory opened my eyes still further. “Oh, you’d have them +if you had the negro to deal with as we have him. Miss Josephine,” she +added, “has to-day removed her sentence of banishment.” + +I felt on the verge of new discoveries. “What!” I exclaimed, “and did +she relent?” + +“New circumstances intervened,” Mrs. Gregory loftily explained. +“There was an occurrence--an encounter, in fact--in which John Mayrant +fittingly punished one who had presumed. Upon hearing of it, this +morning, Miss Josephine sent a message to John that he might resume +visiting her. + +“But that is perfectly grand!” I cried in my delight over Miss Josephine +as a character. + +“It is perfectly natural,” returned Mrs. Gregory, quietly. “John has +behaved with credit throughout. He was at length made to see that +circumstances forbade any breach between his family and that of +the other young man. John held back--who would not, after such an +insult?--but Miss Josephine was firm, and he has promised to call and +shake hands. My cousin, Doctor Beaugarcon, assures me that the +young man’s injuries are trifling--a week will see him restored and +presentable again.” + +“A week? A mere nothing!” I answered “Do you know,” I now suggested, +“that you have forgotten to ask me what I was thinking about when we +met?” + +“Bless me, young gentleman! and was it so remarkable?” + +“Not at all, but it partly answers what Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael asked +me. If a young man does not really wish to marry a young woman there are +ways well known by which she can be brought to break the engagement.” + +“Ah,” said Mrs. Gregory, “of course; gayeties and irregularities--” + +“That is, if he’s not above them,” I hastily subjoined. + +“Not always, by any means,” Mrs. Gregory returned. “Kings Port has been +treated to some episodes--” + +Mrs. Weguelin put in a word of defence. “It is to be said, Maria, +that John’s irregularities have invariably been conducted with perfect +propriety.” + +“Oh,” said Mrs. Gregory, “no Mayrant was ever known to be gross!” + +“But this particular young lady,” said Mrs. Weguelin, “would not be +estranged by an masculine irregularities and gayeties. Not many.” + +“How about infidelities?” I suggested. “If he should flagrantly lose his +heart to another?” + +Mrs. Weguelin replied quickly. “That answers very well where hearts are +in question.” + +“But,” said I, “since phosphates are no longer--?” + +There was a pause. “It would be a new dilemma,” Mrs. Gregory then said +slowly, “if she turned out to care for him, after all.” + +Throughout all this I was getting more and more the sense of how a +total circle of people, a well-filled, wide circle of interested people, +surrounded and cherished John Mayrant, made itself the setting of which +he was the jewel; I felt in it, even stronger than the manifestation +of personal affection (which certainly was strong enough), a collective +sense of possession in him, a clan value, a pride and a guardianship +concentrated and jealous, as of an heir to some princely estate, who +must be worthy for the sake of a community even before he was worthy +for his own sake. Thus he might amuse himself--it was in the code that +princely heirs so should pour se deniaiser, as they neatly put it in +Paris--thus might he and must he fight when his dignity was assailed; +but thus might he not marry outside certain lines prescribed, or depart +from his circle’s established creeds, divine and social, especially to +hold any position which (to borrow Mrs. Gregory’s phrase) “reflected +ignominy” upon them all. When he transgressed, their very value for him +turned them bitter against him. I know that all of us are more or less +chained to our community, which is pleased to expect us to walk its way, +and mightily displeased when we please ourselves instead by breaking +the chain and walking our own way; and I know that we are forgiven very +slowly; but I had not dreamed what a prisoner to communal criticism a +young American could be until I beheld Kings Port over John Mayrant. + +And to what estate was this prince heir? Alas, his inheritance was all +of it the Past and none of it the Future; was the full churchyard and +the empty wharves! He was paying dear for his princedom! And then, there +was yet another sense of this beautiful town that I got here completely, +suddenly crystallized, though slowly gathering ever since my arrival: +all these old people were clustered about one young one. That was it; +that was the town’s ultimate tragic note: the old timber of the forest +dying and the too sparse new growth appearing scantily amid the tall, +fine, venerable, decaying trunks. It had been by no razing to the ground +and sowing with salt that the city had perished; a process less violent +but more sad had done away with it. Youth, in the wake of commerce, had +ebbed from Kings Port, had flowed out from the silent, mourning houses, +and sought life North and West, and wherever else life was to be found. +Into my revery floated a phrase from a melodious and once favorite song: +O tempo passato perche non ritorni? + +And John Mayrant? Why, then, had he tarried here himself? That is a hard +saying about crabbed age and youth, but are not most of the sayings +hard that are true? What was this young man doing in Kings Port with +his brains, and his pride, and his energetic adolescence? If the Custom +House galled him, the whole country was open to him; why not have tried +his fortune out and away, over the hills, where the new cities lie, all +full of future and empty of past? Was it much to the credit of such a +young man to find himself at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four, +sound and lithe of limb, yet tied to the apron strings of Miss +Josephine, and Miss Eliza, and some thirty or forty other elderly female +relatives? + +With these thoughts I looked at the ladies and wondered how I might lead +them to answer me about John Mayrant, without asking questions which +might imply something derogatory to him or painful to them. I could not +ever say to them a word which might mean, however indirectly, that I +thought their beautiful, cherished town no place for a young man to go +to seed in; this cut so close to the quick of truth that discourse must +keep wide away from it. What, then, could I ask them? As I pondered, +Mrs. Weguelin solved it for me by what she was saying to Mrs. Gregory, +of which, in my preoccupation, I had evidently missed a part:-- + +“--if he should share the family bad taste in wives.” + +“Eliza says she has no fear of that.” + +“Were I Eliza, Hugh’s performance would make me very uneasy.” + +“Julia, John does not resemble Hugh.” + +“Very decidedly, in coloring, Maria.” + +“And Hugh found that girl in Minneapolis, Julia, where there was +doubtless no pick for the poor fellow. And remember that George chose a +lady, at any rate.” + +Mrs. Weguelin gave to this a short assent. “Yes.” It portended +something more behind, which her next words duly revealed. “A lady; but +do--any--ladies ever seem quite like our own? + +“Certainly not, Julia.” + +You see, they were forgetting me again; but they had furnished me with a +clue. + +“Mr. John Mayrant has married brothers?” + +“Two,” Mrs. Gregory responded. “John is the youngest of three children.” + +“I hadn’t heard of the brothers before.” + +“They seldom come here. They saw fit to leave their home and their +delicate mother.” + +“Oh!” + +“But John,” said Mrs. Gregory, “met his responsibility like a Mayrant.” + +“Whatever temptations he has yielded to,” said Mrs. Weguelin, “his +filial piety has stood proof.” + +“He refused,” added Mrs. Gregory, “when George (and I have never +understood how George could be so forgetful of their mother) wrote +twice, offering him a lucrative and rising position in the railroad +company at Roanoke.” + +“That was hard!” I exclaimed. + +She totally misapplied my sympathy. “Oh, Anna Mayrant,” she corrected +herself, “John’s mother, Mrs. Hector Mayrant, had harder things than +forgetful sons to bear! I’ve not laid eyes on those boys since the +funeral.” + +“Nearly two years,” murmured Mrs. Weguelin. And then, to me, with +something that was almost like a strange severity beneath her gentle +tone: “Therefore we are proud of John, because the better traits in his +nature remind us of his forefathers, whom we knew.” + +“In Kings Port,” said Mrs. Gregory, “we prize those who ring true to the +blood.” + +By way of response to this sentiment, I quoted some French to her. “Bon +chien chasse de race.” + +It pleased Mrs. Weguelin. Her guarded attitude toward me relented. “John +mentioned your cultivation to us,” she said. “In these tumble-down +days it is rare to meet with one who still lives, mentally, on the +gentlefolks’ plane--the piano nobile of intelligence!” + +I realized how high a compliment she was paying me, and I repaid it with +a joke. “Take care. Those who don’t live there would call it the piano +snobile.” + +“Ah!” cried the delighted lady, “they’d never have the wit!” + +“Did you ever hear,” I continued, “the Bostonian’s remark--‘The mission +of America is to vulgarize the world’?” + +“I never expected to agree so totally with a Bostonian!” declared Mrs. +Gregory. + +“Nothing so hopeful,” I pursued, “has ever been said of us. For +refinement and thoroughness and tradition delay progress, and we are +sweeping them out of the road as fast as we can.” + +“Come away, Julia,” said Mrs. Gregory. “The young gentleman is getting +flippant again, and we leave him.” + +The ladies, after gracious expressions concerning the pleasure of their +stroll, descended the steps at the north end of High Walk, where the +parapet stops, and turned inland from the water through a little street. +I watched them until they went out of my sight round a corner; but the +two silent, leisurely figures, moving in their black and their veils +along an empty highway, come back to me often in the pictures of my +thoughts; come back most often, indeed, as the human part of what my +memory sees when it turns to look at Kings Port. For, first, it sees +the blue frame of quiet sunny water, and the white town within its frame +beneath the clear, untainted air; and then it sees the high-slanted +roofs, red with their old corrugated tiles, and the tops of leafy +enclosures dipping below sight among quaint and huddled quadrangles; +and, next, the quiet houses standing in their separate grounds, their +narrow ends to the street and their long, two-storied galleries open +to the south, but their hushed windows closed as if against the prying, +restless Present that must not look in and disturb the motionless +memories which sit brooding behind these shutters; and between all these +silent mansions lie the narrow streets, the quiet, empty streets, along +which, as my memory watches them, pass the two ladies silently, in their +black and their veils, moving between high, mellow-colored garden walls +over whose tops look the oleanders, the climbing roses, and all the +taller flowers of the gardens. + +And if Mrs. Gregory and Mrs. Weguelin seemed to me at moments as narrow +as those streets, they also seemed to me as lovely as those serene +gardens; and if I had smiled at their prejudices, I had loved their +innocence, their deep innocence, of the poisoned age which has succeeded +their own; and if I had wondered this day at their powers for cruelty, I +wondered the next day at the glimpse I had of their kindness. For during +a pelting cold rainstorm, as I sat and shivered in a Royal Street car, +waiting for it to start upon its north-bound course, the house-door +opposite which we stood at the end of the track opened, and Mrs. +Weguelin’s head appeared, nodding to the conductor as she sent her black +servant out with hot coffee for him! He took off his hat, and smiled, +and thanked her; and when we had started and I, the sole passenger in +the chilly car, asked him about this, he said with native pride: “The +ladies always watches out for us conductors in stormy weather, sir. +That’s Mistress Weguelin St. Michael, one of our finest.” And then he +gave me careful directions how to find a shop that I was seeking. + +Think of this happening in New York! Think of the aristocracy of that +metropolis warming up with coffee the--but why think of it, or of a New +York conductor answering your questions with careful directions! It is +not New York’s fault, it is merely New York’s misfortune: New York is in +a hurry; and a world of haste cannot be a world either of courtesy or +of kindness. But we have progress, progress, instead; and that is a +tremendous consolation. + + + + +XI: Daddy Ben and His Seed + +But what was Hortense Rieppe coming to see for herself? + +Many dark things had been made plain to me by my talk with the two +ladies; yet while disclosing so much, they had still left this important +matter in shadow. I was very glad, however, for what they had revealed. +They had showed me more of John Mayrant’s character, and more also of +the destiny which had shaped his ends, so that my esteem for him had +increased; for some of the words that they had exchanged shone like +bright lanterns down into his nature upon strength and beauty lying +quietly there--young strength and beauty, yet already tempered by manly +sacrifice. I saw how it came to pass through this, through renunciation +of his own desires, through performance of duties which had fallen upon +him not quite fairly, that the eye of his spirit had been turned away +from self; thus had it grown strong-sighted and able to look far and +deep, as his speech sometimes revealed, while still his flesh was of his +youthful age, and no saint’s flesh either. This had the ladies taught me +during the fluttered interchange of their reminders and opinions, and by +their eager agreements and disagreements, I was also grateful to them in +that I could once more correct Juno. The pleasure should be mine to +tell them in the public hearing of our table that Miss Rieppe was still +engaged to John Mayrant. + +But what was this interesting girl coming to see for herself? + +This little hole in my knowledge gave me discomfort as I walked along +toward the antiquity shop where I was to buy the other kettle-supporter. +The ladies, with all their freedom of comment and censure, had kept +something from me. I reviewed, I pieced together, their various remarks, +those oracles, especially, which they had let fall, but it all came back +to the same thing. I did not know, and they did, what Hortense Rieppe +was coming to see for herself. At all events, the engagement was not +broken, the chance to be instrumental in having it broken was still +mine; I might still save John Mayrant from his deplorable quixotism; and +as this reflection grew with me I took increasing comfort in it, and +I stepped onward toward my kettle-supporter, filled with that sense of +moral well-being which will steal over even the humblest of us when we +feel that we are beneficently minding somebody else’s business. + +Whenever the arrangement did not take me too widely from my course, I so +mapped out my walks and errands in Kings Port that I might pass by the +churchyard and church at the corner of Court and Worship streets. Even +if I did not indulge myself by turning in to stroll and loiter among the +flowers, it was enough pleasure to walk by that brick-wall. If you are +willing to wander curiously in our old towns, you may still find in many +of them good brick walls standing undisturbed, and equal in their color +and simple excellence to those of Kings Port; but fashion has pushed +these others out of its sight, among back streets and all sorts of +forgotten purlieus and abandoned dignity, and takes its walks to-day +amid cold, expensive ugliness; while the old brick walls of Kings Port +continually frame your steps with charm. No one workman famous for his +skill built them so well proportioned, so true to comeliness; it was the +general hand of their age that could shape nothing wrong, as the hand of +to-day can shape nothing right, save by a rigid following of the old. + +I gave myself the pleasure this afternoon of walking by the churchyard +wall; and when I reached the iron gate, there was Daddy Ben. So full was +I of my thoughts concerning John Mayrant, and the vicissitudes of his +heart, and the Custom House, that I was moved to have words with the old +man upon the general topic. + +“Well,” I said, “and so Mr. John is going to be married.” + +No attempt to start a chat ever failed more signally. He assented with +a manner of mingled civility and reserve that was perfection, and +after the two syllables of which his answer consisted, he remained as +impenetrably respectful as before. I felt rather high and dry, but I +tried it again:-- + +“And I’m sure, Daddy Ben, that you feel as sorry as any of the family +that the phosphates failed.” + +Again he replied with his two syllables of assent, and again he stood +mute, respectful, a little bent with his great age; but now his good +manners--and better manners were never seen--impelled him to break +silence upon some subject, since he would not permit himself to speak +concerning the one which I had introduced. It was the phosphates which +inspired him. + +“Dey is mighty fine prostrate wukks heah, sah.” + +“Yes, I’ve been told so, Daddy Ben.” + +“On dis side up de ribber an’ tudder side down de ribber ‘cross de new +bridge. Wuth visitin’ fo’ strangers, sah.” + +I now felt entirely high and dry. I had attempted to enter into +conversation with him about the intimate affairs of a family to which he +felt that he belonged; and with perfect tact he had not only declined +to discuss them with me, but had delicately informed me that I was a +stranger and as such had better visit the phosphate works among the +other sights of Kings Port. No diplomat could have done it better; and +as I walled away from him I knew that he regarded me as an outsider, a +Northerner, belonging to a race hostile to his people; he had seen Mas’ +John friendly with me, but that was Mas’ John’s affair. And so it +was that if the ladies had kept something from me, this cunning, old, +polite, coal-black African had kept everything from me. + +If all the negroes in Kings Port were like Daddy Ben, Mrs. Gregory St. +Michael would not have spoken of having them “to deal with,” and the +girl behind the counter would not have been thrown into such indignation +when she alluded to their conceit and ignorance. Daddy Ben had, so far +from being puffed up by the appointment in the Custom House, disapproved +of this. I had heard enough about the difference between the old and new +generations of the negro of Kings Port to believe it to be true, and I +had come to discern how evidently it lay at the bottom of many things +here: John Mayrant and his kind were a band united by a number of strong +ties, but by nothing so much as by their hatred of the modern negro +in their town. Yes, I was obliged to believe that the young Kings Port +African left to freedom and the ballot, was a worse African than his +slave parents; but this afternoon brought me a taste of it more pungent +than all the assurances in the world. + +I bought my kettle-supporter, and learned from the robber who sold it +to me (Kings Port prices for “old things” are the most exorbitant that +I know anywhere) that a carpenter lived not far from Mrs. Trevise’s +boarding-house, and that he would make for me the box in which I could +pack my various purchases. + +“That is, if he’s working this week,” added the robber. + +“What else would he be doing?” + +“It may be his week for getting drunk on what he earned the week +before.” And upon this he announced with as much bitterness as if he had +been John Mayrant or any of his aunts, “That’s what Boston philanthropy +has done for him.” + +I dared up at this. “I suppose that’s a Southern argument for +reestablishing slavery.” + +“I am not Southern; Breslau is my native town, and I came from New York +here to live five years ago. I’ve seen what your emancipation has done +for the black, and I say to you, my friend, honest I don’t know a fool +from a philanthropist any longer.” + +He had much right upon his side; and it can be seen daily that +philanthropy does not always walk hand-in-hand with wisdom. Does +anything or anybody always walk so? Moreover, I am a friend to not many +superlatives, and have perceived no saying to be more true than the one +that extremes meet: they meet indeed, and folly is their meeting-place. +Nor could I say in the case of the negro which folly were the more +ridiculous;--that which expects a race which has lived no one knows +how many thousand years in mental nakedness while Confucius, Moses, +and Napoleon were flowering upon adjacent human stems, should put +on suddenly the white man’s intelligence, or that other folly which +declares we can do nothing for the African, as if Hampton had not +already wrought excellent things for him. I had no mind to enter +into all the inextricable error with this Teuton, and it was he who +continued:-- + +“Oh, these Boston philanthropists; oh, these know-it-alls! Why don’t +they stay home? Why do they come down here to worry us with their +ignorance? See here, my friend, let me show you!” + +He rushed about his shop in a search of distraught eagerness, and with +a multitude of small exclamations, until, screeching jubilantly once, +he pounced upon a shabby and learned-looking volume. This he brought me, +thrusting it with his trembling fingers between my own, and shuffling +the open pages. But when the apparently right one was found, he +exclaimed, “No, I have better! and dashed away to a pile of pamphlets +on the floor, where he began to plough and harrow. Wondering if I was +closeted with a maniac, I looked at the book in my passive hand, and saw +diagrams of various bones to me unknown, and men’s names of which I +was equally ignorant--Mivart, Topinard, and more,--but at last that +of Huxley. But this agreeable sight was spoiled at once by the quite +horrible words Nycticebidoe, platyrrhine, catarrhine, from which I +raised my eyes to see him coming at me with two pamphlets, and scolding +as he came. + +“Are you educated, yes? Have been to college, yes? Then perhaps you will +understand.” + +Certainly I understood immediately that he and his pamphlets were as bad +as the book, or worse, in their use of a vocabulary designed to cause +almost any listener the gravest inconvenience. Common Eocene ancestors +occurred at the beginning of his lecture; and I believed that if it +got no stronger than this, I could at least preserve the appearance of +comprehending him; but it got stronger, and at sacro-iliac notch I may +say, without using any grossly exaggerated expression, that I became +unconscious. At least, all intelligence left me. When it returned, he +was saying.-- + +“But this is only the beginning. Come in here to my crania and jaws.” + +Evidently he held me hypnotized, for he now hurried me unresisting +through a back door into a dark little where he turned up the gas, and I +saw shelves as in a museum, to one of which he led me. I suppose that +it was curiosity that rendered me thus sheep-like. Upon the shelf were a +number of skulls and jaws in admirable condition and graded arrangement, +beginning to the left with that flat kind of skull which one associates +with gorillas. He resumed his scolding harangue, and for a few brief +moments I understood him. Here, told by themselves, was as much of the +story of the skulls as we know, from manlike apes through glacial man +to the modern senator or railroad president. But my intelligence was +destined soon to die away again. + +“That is the Caucasian skull: your skull,” he said, touching a specimen +at the right. + +“Interesting,” I murmured. “I’m afraid I know nothing about skulls.” + +“But you shall know someding before you leave,” he retorted, wagging his +head at me; and this time it was not the book, but a specimen, that he +pushed into my grasp. He gave it a name, not as bad as platyrrhine, but +I feared worse was coming; then he took it away from me, gave me another +skull, and while I obediently held it, pronounced something quite beyond +me. + +“And what is the translation of that?” he demanded excitedly. + +“Tell me,” I feebly answered. + +He shouted with overweening triumph: “The translation of that is South +Carolina nigger. Notice well this so egcellent specimen. Prognathous, +megadont, platyrrhine.” + +“Ha! Platyrrhine!” I saluted the one word I recognized as I drowned. + +“You have said it yourself!” was his extraordinary answer;--for what +had I said? Almost as if he were going to break into a dance for joy, he +took the Caucasian skull and the other two, and set the three together +by themselves, away from the rest of the collection. The picture which +they thus made spoke more than all the measurements and statistics which +he now chattered out upon me, reading from his book as I contemplated +the skulls. There was a similarity of shape, a kinship there between +the three, which stared you in the face; but in the contours of vaulted +skull, the projecting jaws, and the great molar teeth--what was to +be seen? Why, in every respect that the African departed from the +Caucasian, he departed in the direction of the ape! Here was zoology +mutely but eloquently telling us why there had blossomed no Confucius, +no Moses, no Napoleon, upon that black stem; why no Iliad, no Parthenon, +no Sistine Madonna, had ever risen from that tropic mud. + +The collector touched my sleeve. “Have you now learned someding about +skulls, my friend? Will you invite those Boston philanthropists to stay +home? They will get better results in civilization by giving votes to +monkeys than teaching Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to riggers.” + +Retaliation rose in me. “Haven’t you learned to call them negroes?” I +remarked. But this was lost upon the Teuton. I was tempted to tell him +that I was no philanthropist, and no Bostonian, and that he need not +shout so loud, but my more dignified instincts restrained me. I withdrew +my sleeve from his touch (it was this act of his, I think, that had +most to do with my displeasure), and merely bidding him observe that the +enormous price of the kettle-supporter had been reduced for me by +his exhibition to a bagatelle, I left the shop of the screaming +anatomist--or Afropath, or whatever it may seem most fitting that he +should be called. + +I bore the kettle-supporter with me, tied up objectionably in newspaper, +and knotted with ungainly string; and it was this bundle which prevented +my joining the girl behind the counter, and ending by a walk with a +young lady the afternoon that had begun by a walk with two old ones. I +should have liked to make my confession to her. She was evidently out +for the sake of taking the air, and had with her no companion save the +big curly white dog; confession would have been very agreeable; but I +looked again at my ugly newspaper bundle, and turned in a direction that +she was not herself pursuing. + +Twice, as I went, I broke into laughter over my interview in the shop, +which I fear has lost its comical quality in the relating. To enter a +door and come serenely in among dingy mahogany and glass objects, to +bargain haughtily for a brass bauble with the shopkeeper, and to have +a few exchanged remarks suddenly turn the whole place into a sort of +bedlam with a gibbering scientist dashing skulls at me to prove his +fixed idea, and myself quite furious--I laughed more than twice; but, +by the time I had approached the neighborhood of the carpenter’s +shop, another side of it had brought reflection to my mind. Here was a +foreigner to whom slavery and the Lost Cause were nothing, whose whole +association with the South had begun but five years ago; and the race +question had brought his feelings to this pitch! He had seen the Kings +Port negro with the eyes of the flesh, and not with the eyes of theory, +and as a result the reddest rag for him was pale beside a Boston +philanthropist! + +Nevertheless, I have said already that I am no lover of superlatives, +and in doctrine especially is this true. We need not expect a Confucius +from the negro, nor yet a Chesterfield; but I am an enemy also of that +blind and base hate against him, which conducts nowhere save to the +de-civilizing of white and black alike. Who brought him here? Did he +invite himself? Then let us make the best of it and teach him, lead +him, compel him to live self-respecting, not as statesman, poet, or +financier, but by the honorable toil of his hand and sweat of his brow. +Because “the door of hope” was once opened too suddenly for him is no +reason for slamming it now forever in his face. + +Thus mentally I lectured back at the Teuton as I went through the +streets of Kings Port; and after a while I turned a corner which took me +abruptly, as with one magic step, out of the white man’s world into the +blackest Congo. Even the well-inhabited quarter of Kings Port (and I +had now come within this limited domain) holds narrow lanes and recesses +which teem and swarm with negroes. As cracks will run through fine +porcelain, so do these black rifts of Africa lurk almost invisible +among the gardens and the houses. The picture that these places offered, +tropic, squalid, and fecund, often caused me to walk through them and +watch the basking population; the intricate, broken wooden galleries, +the rickety outside stair cases, the red and yellow splashes of color on +the clothes lines, the agglomerate rags that stuffed holes in decaying +roofs or hung nakedly on human frames, the small, choked dwellings, +bursting open at doors and windows with black, round-eyed babies as an +overripe melon bursts with seeds, the children playing marbles in the +court, the parents playing cards in the room, the grandparents smoking +pipes on the porch, and the great-grandparents stairs gazing out at you +like creatures from the Old Testament or the jungle. From the jungle we +had stolen them, North and South had stolen them together, long ago, to +be slaves, not to be citizens, and now here they were, the fruits of +our theft; and for some reason (possibly the Teuton was the reason) that +passage from the Book of Exodus came into my head: “For I the Lord thy +God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the +children.” + +These thoughts were interrupted by sounds as of altercation. I had +nearly reached the end of the lane, where I should again emerge into the +White man’s world, and where I was now walking the lane spread into a +broader space with ells and angles and rotting steps, and habitations +mostly too ruinous to be inhabited. It was from a sashless window in one +of these that the angry voices came. The first words which were distinct +aroused my interest quite beyond the scale of an ordinary altercation:-- + +“Calls you’self a reconstuckted niggah?” + +This was said sharply and with prodigious scorn. The answer which it +brought was lengthy and of such a general sullen incoherence that I +could make out only a frequent repetition of “custom house,” and that +somebody was going to take care of somebody hereafter. + +Into this the first voice broke with tones of highest contempt and +rapidity:-- + +“President gwine to gib brekfus’ an’ dinnah an suppah to de likes ob +you fo’ de whole remaindah oh youh wuthless nat’ral life? Get out ob my +sight, you reconstuckted niggah. I come out oh de St. Michael.” + +There came through the window immediately upon this sounds of scuffling +and of a fall, and then cries for help which took me running into the +dilapidated building. Daddy Ben lay on the floor, and a thick, young +savage was kicking him. In some remarkable way I thought of the solidity +of their heads, and before the assailant even knew that he had a +witness, I sped forward, aiming my kettle-supporter, and with its sharp +brass edge I dealt him a crack over his shin with astonishing accuracy. +It was a dismal howl that he gave, and as he turned he got from me +another crack upon the other shin. I had no time to be alarmed at my +deed, or I think that I should have been very much so; I am a man above +all of peace, and physical encounters are peculiarly abhorrent to me; +but, so far from assailing me, the thick, young savage, with the single +muttered remark, “He hit me fuss,” got himself out of the house with the +most agreeable rapidity. + +Daddy Ben sat up, and his first inquiry greatly reassured me as to his +state. He stared at my paper bundle. “You done make him hollah wid dat, +sah!” + +I showed him the kettle-supporter through a rent in its wrapping, and +I assisted him to stand upright. His injuries proved fortunately to be +slight (although I may say here that the shock to his ancient body kept +him away for a few days from the churchyard), and when I began to talk +to him about the incident, he seemed unwilling to say much in answer to +my questions. And when I offered to accompany him to where he lived, he +declined altogether, assuring me that it was close, and that he could +walk there as well as if nothing had happened to him; but upon my asking +him if I was on the right way to the carpenter’s shop, he looked at me +curiously. + +“No use you gwine dab, sah. Dat shop close up. He not wukkin, dis week, +and dat why fo’ I jaw him jus’ now when you come in an’ stop him. He de +cahpentah, my gran’son, Cha’s Coteswuth.” + + + + +XII: From the Bedside + +Next morning when I saw the weltering sky I resigned myself to a day of +dullness; yet before its end I had caught a bright new glimpse of +John Mayrant’s abilities, and also had come, through tribulation, to a +further understanding of the South; so that I do not, to-day, regret the +tribulation. As the rain disappointed me of two outdoor expeditions, to +which I had been for some little while looking forward, I dedicated most +of my long morning to a sadly neglected correspondence, and trusted that +the expeditions, as soon as the next fine weather visited Kings Port, +would still be in store for me. Not only everybody in town here, but +Aunt Carola, up in the North also, had assured me that to miss the sight +of Live Oaks when the azaleas in the gardens of that country seat were +in flower would be to lose one of the rarest and most beautiful things +which could be seen anywhere; and so I looked out of my window at the +furious storm, hoping that it might not strip the bushes at Live Oaks +of their bloom, which recent tourists at Mrs. Trevise’s had described +as drawing near the zenith of its luxuriance. The other excursion to +Udolpho with John Mayrant was not so likely to fall through. Udolpho +was a sort of hunting lodge or country club near Tern Creek and an old +colonial church, so old that it bore the royal arms upon a shield +still preserved as a sign of its colonial origin. A note from Mayrant, +received at breakfast, informed me that the rain would take all +pleasure from such an excursion, and that he should seize the earliest +opportunity the weather might afford to hold me to my promise. The wet +gale, even as I sat writing, was beating down some of the full-blown +flowers in the garden next Mrs. Trevise’s house, and as the morning wore +on I watched the paths grow more strewn with broken twigs and leaves. + +I filled my correspondence with accounts of Daddy Ben and his grandson, +the carpenter, doubtless from some pride in my part in that, but also +because it had become, through thinking it over, even more interesting +to-day than it had been at the moment of its occurrence; and in replying +to a sort of postscript of Aunt Carola’s in which she hurriedly wrote +that she had forgotten to say she had heard the La Heu family in South +Carolina was related to the Bombos, and should be obliged to me if I +would make inquiries about this, I told her that it would be easy, +and then described to her the Teuton, plying his “antiquity” trade +externally while internally cherishing his collected skulls and nursing +his scientific rage. All my letters were the more abundant concerning +these adventures of mine from my having kept entirely silent upon them +at Mrs. Trevise’s tea-table. I dreaded Juno when let loose upon the +negro question; and the fact that I was beginning to understand her +feelings did not at all make me wish to be deafened by them. Neither +Juno, therefore, nor any of them learned a word from me about the +kettle-supporter incident. What I did take pains to inform the assembled +company was my gratification that the report of Mr. Mayrant’s engagement +being broken was unfounded; and this caused Juno to observe that in +that case Miss Rieppe must have the most imperative reasons for uniting +herself to such a young man. + +Unintimidated by the rain, this formidable creature had taken herself +off to her nephew’s bedside almost immediately after breakfast; and +later in the day I, too, risked a drenching for the sake of ordering the +packing-box that I needed. When I returned, it was close on tea-time; +I had seen Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael send out the hot coffee to the +conductor, and I had found a negro carpenter whose week it happily was +to stay sober; and now I learned that, when tea should be finished, the +poetess had in store for us, as a treat, her ode. + +Our evening meal was not plain sailing, even for the veteran navigation +of Mrs. Trevise; Juno had returned from the bedside very plainly +displeased (she was always candid even when silent) by something which +had happened there; and before the joyful moment came when we all +learned what this was, a very gouty Boston lady who had arrived with her +husband from Florida on her way North--and whose nature you will readily +grasp when I tell you that we found ourselves speaking of the man as +Mrs. Braintree’s husband and never as Mr. Braintree--this crippled lady, +who was of a candor equal to Juno’s, embarked upon a conversation with +Juno that compelled Mrs. Trevise to tinkle her bell for Daphne after +only two remarks had been exchanged. + +I had been sorry at first that here in this Southern boarding-house +Boston should be represented only by a lady who appeared to unite in +herself all the stony products of that city, and none of the others; +for she was as convivial as a statue and as well-informed as a +spelling-book; she stood no more for the whole of Boston than did Juno +for the whole of Kings Port. But my sorrow grew less when I found +that in Mrs. Braintree we had indeed a capable match for her Southern +counterpart. Juno, according to her custom, had remembered something +objectionable that had been perpetrated in 1865 by the Northern vandals. + +“Edward,” said Mrs. Braintree to her husband, in a frightfully clear +voice, “it was at Chambersburg, was it not, that the Southern vandals +burned the house in which were your father’s title-deeds?” + +Edward, who, it appeared, had fought through the whole Civil War, and +was in consequence perfectly good-humored and peaceable in his feelings +upon that subject, replied hastily and amiably: “Oh, yes, yes! Why, I +believe it was!” + +But this availed nothing; Juno bent her great height forward, and +addressed Mrs. Braintree. “This is the first time I have been told +Southerners were vandals.” + +“You will never be able to say that again!” replied Mrs. Braintree. + +After the bell and Daphne had stopped, the invaluable Briton addressed a +genial generalization to us all: “I often think how truly awful your war +would have been if the women had fought it, y’know, instead of the men.” + +“Quite so!” said the easy-going Edward “Squaws! Mutilation! Yes!” and he +laughed at his little joke, but he laughed alone. + +I turned to Juno. “Speaking of mutilation, I trust your nephew is better +this evening.” + +I was rejoiced by receiving a glare in response. But still more joy was +to come. + +“An apology ought to help cure him a lot,” observed the Briton. + +Juno employed her policy of not hearing him. + +“Indeed, I trust that your nephew is in less pain,” said the poetess. + +Juno was willing to answer this. “The injuries, thank you, are the +merest trifles--all that such a light-weight could inflict.” And +she shrugged her shoulders to indicate the futility of young John’s +pugilism. + +“But,” the surprised Briton interposed, “I thought you said your nephew +was too feeble to eat steak or hear poetry.” + +Juno could always stem the eddy of her own contradictions--but she did +raise her voice a little. “I fancy, sir, that Doctor Beaugarcon knows +what he is talking about.” + +“Have they apologized yet?” inquired the male honeymooner from the +up-country. + +“My nephew, sir, nobly consented to shake hands this afternoon. He did +it entirely out of respect for Mr. Mayrant’s family, who coerced him +into this tardy reparation, and who feel unable to recognize him since +his treasonable attitude in the Custom House.” + +“Must be fairly hard to coerce a chap you can’t recognize,” said the +Briton. + +An et cetera now spoke to the honeymoon bride from the up-country: “I +heard Doctor Beaugarcon say he was coming to visit you this evening.” + +“Yais,” assented the bride. “Doctor Beaugarcon is my mother’s fourth +cousin.” + +Juno now took--most unwisely, as it proved--a vindictive turn at me. “I +knew that your friend, Mr. Mayrant, was intemperate,” she began. + +I don’t think that Mrs. Trevise had any intention to ring for Daphne at +this point--her curiosity was too lively; but Juno was going to risk no +such intervention, and I saw her lay a precautionary hand heavily down +over the bell. “But,” she continued, “I did not know that Mr. Mayrant +was a gambler.” + +“Have you ever seen him intemperate?” I asked. + +“That would be quite needless,” Juno returned. “And of the gambling I +have ocular proof, since I found him, cards, counters, and money, with +my sick nephew. He had actually brought cards in his pocket.” + +“I suppose,” said the Briton, “your nephew was too sick to resist him.” + +The male honeymooner, with two of the et ceteras, made such unsteady +demonstrations at this that Mrs. Trevise protracted our sitting no +longer. She rose, and this meant rising for us all. + +A sense of regret and incompleteness filled me, and finding the Briton +at my elbow as our company proceeded toward the sitting room, I said: +“Too bad!” + +His whisper was confident. “We’ll get the rest of it out of her yet.” + +But the rest of it came without our connivance. + +In the sitting room Doctor Beaugarcon sat waiting, and at sight of Juno +entering the door (she headed our irregular procession) he sprang up +and lifted admiring hands. “Oh, why didn’t I have an aunt like you!” he +exclaimed, and to Mrs. Trevise as she followed: “She pays her nephew’s +poker debts.” + +“How much, cousin Tom?” asked the upcountry bride. + +And the gay old doctor chuckled, as he kissed her: “Thirty dollars this +afternoon, my darling.” + +At this the Briton dragged me behind a door in the hall, and there we +danced together. + +“That Mayrant chap will do,” he declared; and we composed ourselves for +a proper entrance into the sitting room, where the introductions had +been made, and where Doctor Beaugarcon and Mrs. Braintree’s husband had +already fallen into war reminiscences, and were discovering with mutual +amiability that they had fought against each other in a number of +battles. + +“And you generally licked us,” smiled the Union soldier. + +“Ah! don’t I know myself how it feels to run!” laughed the Confederate. +“Are you down at the club?” + +But upon learning from the poetess that her ode was now to be read +aloud, Doctor Beaugarcon paid his fourth cousin’s daughter a brief, +though affectionate, visit, lamenting that a very ill patient should +compel him to take himself away so immediately, but promising her +presently in his stead two visitors much more interesting. + +“Miss Josephine St. Michael desires to call upon you,” he said, “and I +fancy that her nephew will escort her.” + +“In all this rain?” said the bride. + +“Oh, it’s letting up, letting up! Good night, Mistress Trevise. Good +night, sir; I am glad to have met you.” He shook hands with Mrs. +Braintree’s husband. “We fellows,” he whispered, “who fought in the war +have had war enough.” And bidding the general company good night, and +kissing the bride again, he left us even as the poetess returned from +her room with the manuscript. + +I soon wished that I had escaped with him, because I feared what Mrs. +Braintree might say when the verses should be finished; and so, I think, +did her husband. We should have taken the hint which tactful Doctor +Beaugarcon had meant, I began to believe, to give us in that whispered +remark of his. But it had been given too lightly, and so we sat and +heard the ode out. I am sure that the poetess, wrapped in the thoughts +of her own composition, had lost sight of all but the phrasing of her +poem and the strong feelings which it not unmusically voiced; there +Is no other way to account for her being willing to read it in Mrs. +Braintree’s presence. + +Whatever gayety had filled me when the Boston lady had clashed with Juno +was now changed to deprecation and concern. Indeed, I myself felt +almost as if I were being physically struck by the words, until mere +bewilderment took possession of me; and after bewilderment, a little, +a very little, light, which, however, rapidly increased. We were the +victors, we the North, and we had gone upon our way with songs and +rejoicing--able to forget, because we were the victors. We had our +victory; let the vanquished have their memory. But here was the cry of +the vanquished, coming after forty years. It was the time which at +first bewildered me; Juno had seen the war, Juno’s bitterness I could +comprehend, even if I could not comprehend her freedom in expressing it, +but the poetess could not be more than a year or two older than I was; +she had come after it was all over. Why should she prolong such memories +and feelings? But my light increased as I remembered she had not written +this for us, and that if she had not seen the flames of war, she had +seen the ashes; for the ashes I had seen myself here in Kings Port, and +had been overwhelmed by the sight, forty years later, more overwhelmed +than I could possibly say to Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, or Mrs. Weguelin, +or anybody. The strain of sitting and waiting for the end made my hands +cold and my head hot, but nevertheless the light which had come enabled +me to bend instantly to Mrs. Braintree and murmur a great and abused +quotation to her:-- + + “Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.” + +But my petition could not move her. She was too old; she had seen the +flames of war; and so she said to her husband:-- + +“Edward, will you please help me upstairs?” + +And thus the lame, irreconcilable lady left the room with the assistance +of her unhappy warrior, who must have suffered far more keenly than I +did. + +This departure left us all in a constraint which was becoming unbearable +when the blessed doorbell rang and delivered us, and Miss Josephine St. +Michael entered with John Mayrant. He wore a most curious expression; +his eyes went searching about the room, and at length settled upon Juno +with a light in them as impish as that which had flickered in my own +mood before the ode. + +To my surprise, Miss Josephine advanced and gave me a special and marked +greeting. Before this she had always merely bowed to me; to-night she +held out her hand. “Of course my visit is not to you; but I am very glad +to find you here and express the appreciation of several of us for your +timely aid to Daddy Ben. He feels much shame in having said nothing to +you himself.” + +And while I muttered those inevitable modest nothings which fit such +occasions, Miss St. Michael recounted to the bride, whom she was +ostensibly calling upon, and to the rest of our now once more harmonious +circle, my adventures in the alleys of Africa. These loomed, even with +Miss St. Michael’s perfectly quiet and simple rendering of them, almost +of heroic size, thanks doubtless to Daddy Ben’s tropical imagery when he +first told the tale; and before they were over Miss St. Michael’s +marked recognition of me actually brought from Juno some reflected +recognition--only this resembled in its graciousness the original about +as correctly as a hollow spoon reflects the human countenance divine. +Still, it was at Juno’s own request that I brought down from my chamber +and displayed to them the kettle-supporter. + +I have said that Miss St. Michael’s visit was ostensibly to the bride: +and that is because for some magnetic reason or other I felt diplomacy +like an undercurrent passing among our chairs. Young John’s expression +deepened, whenever he watched Juno, to a devilishness which his polite +manners veiled no better than a mosquito netting; and I believe that his +aunt, on account of the battle between their respective nephews, had for +family reasons deemed it advisable to pay, indirectly, under cover of +the bride, a state visit to Juno; and I think that I saw Juno accepting +it as a state visit, and that the two together, without using a word +of spoken language, gave each other to understand that the recent +deplorable circumstances were a closed incident. I think that his Aunt +Josephine had desired young John to pay a visit likewise, and, to make +sure of his speedy compliance, had brought him along with her--coerced +him, as Juno would have said. He wore somewhat the look of having been +“coerced,” and he contributed remarkably few observations to the talk. + +It was all harmonious, and decorous, and properly conducted, this state +visit; yet even so, Juno and John exchanged at parting some verbal +sweet-meats which rather stuck out from the smooth meringue of +diplomacy. + +She contemplated his bruise. “You are feeling stronger, I hope, than you +have been lately? A bridegroom’s health should be good.” + +He thanked her. “I am feeling better to-night than for many weeks.” + +The rascal had the thirty dollars visibly bulging that moment in his +pocket. I doubt if he had acquainted his aunt with this episode, but she +was certain to hear it soon; and when she did hear it, I rather fancy +that she wished to smile--as I completely smiled alone in my bed that +night thinking young John over. + +But I did not go to sleep smiling; listening to the “Ode for the +Daughters of Dixie” had been an ordeal too truly painful, because it +disclosed live feelings which I had thought were dead, or rather, it +disclosed that those feelings smouldered in the young as well as in the +old. Doctor Beaugarcon didn’t have them--he had fought them out, just +as Mr. Braintree had fought them out; and Mrs. Braintree, like Juno, +retained them, because she hadn’t fought them out; and John Mayrant +didn’t have them, because he had been to other places; and I didn’t have +them--never had had them in my life, because I came into the world when +it was all over. Why then--Stop, I told myself, growing very wakeful, +and seeing in the darkness the light which had come to me, you have +beheld the ashes, and even the sight has overwhelmed you; these others +were born in the ashes, and have had ashes to sleep in and ashes to eat. +This I said to myself; and I remembered that War hadn’t been all; that +Reconstruction came in due season; and I thought of the “reconstructed” + negro, as Daddy Ben had so ingeniously styled him. These white people, +my race, had been set beneath the reconstructed negro. Still, still, +this did not justify the whole of it to me; my perfectly innocent +generation seemed to be included in the unforgiving, unforgetting ode. +“I must have it out with somebody,” I said. And in time I fell asleep. + + + + +XIII: The Girl Behind the Counter--III + +I was still thinking the ode over as I dressed for breakfast, for which +I was late, owing to my hair, which the changes in the weather had +rendered somewhat recalcitrant. Yes; decidedly I must have it out with +somebody. The weather was once more superb; and in the garden beneath my +window men were already sweeping away the broken twigs and debris of the +storm. I say “already,” because it had not seemed to me to be the Kings +Port custom to remove debris, or anything, with speed. I also had it in +my mind to perform at lunch Aunt Carola’s commission, and learn if the +family of La Heu were indeed of royal descent through the Bombos. I +intended to find this out from the girl behind the counter, but the +course which our conversation took led me completely to forget about it. + +As soon as I entered the Exchange I planted myself in front of the +counter, in spite of the discouragement which I too plainly perceived in +her countenance; the unfavorable impression which I had made upon her at +our last interview was still in force. + +I plunged into it at once. “I have a confession to make.” + +“You do me surprising honor.” + +“Oh, now, don’t begin like that! I suppose you never told a lie.” + +“I’m telling the truth now when I say that I do not see why an entire +stranger should confess anything to me.” + +“Oh, my goodness! Well, I told you a lie, anyhow; a great, successful, +deplorable lie.” + +She opened her mouth under the shock of it, and I recited to her +unsparingly my deception; during this recital her mouth gradually +closed. + +“Well, I declare, declare, declare!” she slowly and deliciously breathed +over the sum total; and she considered me at length, silently, before +her words came again, like a soft soliloquy. “I could never +have believed it in one who”--here gayety flashed in her eyes +suddenly--“parts his back hair so rigidly. Oh, I beg your pardon for +being personal!” And her gayety broke in ripples. Some habitual instinct +moved me to turn to the looking-glass. “Useless!” she cried, “you can’t +see it in that. But it’s perfectly splendid to-day.” + +Nature has been kind to me in many ways--nay, prodigal; it is not every +man who can perceive the humor in a jest of which he is himself the +subject. I laughed with her. “I trust that I am forgiven,” I said. + +“Oh, yes, you are forgiven! Come out, General, and give the gentleman +your right paw, and tell him that he is forgiven--if only for the sake +of Daddy Ben.” With these latter words she gave me a gracious nod of +understanding. They were all thanking me for the kettle-supporter! She +probably knew also the tale of John Mayrant, the cards, and the bedside. + +The curly dog came out, and went through his part very graciously. + +“I can guess his last name,” I remarked. + +“General’s? How? Oh, you’ve heard it! I don’t believe in you any more.” + +“That’s not a bit handsome, after my confession. No, I’m getting to +understand South Carolina a little. You came from the ‘up-country,’ you +call your dog General; his name is General Hampton!” + +Her laughter assented. “Tell me some more about South Carolina,” she +added with her caressing insinuation. + +“Well, to begin with--” + +“Go sit down at your lunch-table first. Aunt Josephine would never +tolerate my encouraging gentlemen to talk to me over the counter.” + +I went back obediently, and then resumed: “Well, what sort of people are +those who own the handsome garden behind Mrs. Trevise’s!” + +“I don’t know them.” + +“Thank you; that’s all I wanted.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“They’re new people. I could tell it from the way you stuck your nose in +the air.” + +“Sir!” + +“Oh, if you talk about my hair, I can talk about your nose, I think. +I suspected that they were: ‘new people’ because they cleaned up their +garden immediately after the storm this morning. Now, I’ll tell you +something else: the whole South looks down on the whole North.” + +She made her voice kind. “Do you mind it very much?” + +I joined in her latent mirth. “It makes life not worth living! But more +than this, South Carolina looks down on the whole South.” + +“Not Virginia.” + +“Not? An ‘entire stranger,’ you know, sometimes notices things which +escape the family eye--family likenesses in the children, for instance.” + +“Never Virginia,” she persisted. + +“Very well, very well! Somehow you’ve admitted the rest, however.” + +She began to smile. + +“And next, Kings Port looks down on all the rest of South Carolina.” + +She now laughed outright. “An up-country girl will not deny that, +anyhow!” + +“And finally, your aunts--” + +“My aunts are Kings Port.” + +“The whole of it?” + +“If you mean the thirty thousand negroes--” + +“No, there are other white people here--there goes your nose again!” + +“I will not have you so impudent, sir!” + +“A thousand pardons, I’m on my knees. But your aunts--” There was such a +flash of war in her eye that I stopped. + +“May I not even mention them?” I asked her. + +And suddenly upon this she became serious and gentle. “I thought that +you understood them. Would you take them from their seclusion, too? It +is all they have left--since you burned the rest in 1865.” + +I had made her say what I wanted! That “you” was what I wanted. Now I +should presently have it out with her. But, for the moment, I did not +disclaim the “you.” I said:-- + +“The burning in 1865 was horrible, but it was war.” + +“It was outrage.” + +“Yes, the same kind as England’s, who burned Washington in 1812, and +whom you all so deeply admire.” + +She had, it seemed, no answer to this. But we trembled on the verge of a +real quarrel. It was in her voice when she said:-- + +“I think I interrupted you.” + +I pushed the risk one step nearer the verge, because of the words I +wished finally to reach. “In 1812, when England burned our White House +down, we did not sit in the ashes; we set about rebuilding.” + +And now she burst out. “That’s not fair, that’s perfectly inexcusable! +Did England then set loose on us a pack of black savages and politicians +to help us rebuild? Why, this very day I cannot walk on the other side +of the river, I dare not venture off the New Bridge; and you who first +beat us and then unleashed the blacks to riot in a new ‘equality’ that +they were no more fit for than so many apes, you sat back at ease in +your victory and your progress, having handed the vote to the negro as +you might have handed a kerosene lamp to a child of three, and let us +crushed, breathless people cope with the chaos and destruction that +never came near you. Why, how can you dare--” Once again, admirably she +pulled herself up as she had done when she spoke of the President. +“I mustn’t!” she declared, half whispering, and then more clearly and +calmly, “I mustn’t.” And she shook her head as if shaking something off. +“Nor must you,” she finished, charmingly and quietly, with a smile. + +“I will not,” I assured her. She was truly noble. + +“But I did think that you understood us,” she said pensively. + +“Miss La Heu, when you talked to me about the President and the White +House, I said that you were hard to answer. Do you remember?” + +“Perfectly. I said I was glad you found me so.’ + +“You helped me to understand you then, and now I want to be helped to +further understanding. Last night I heard the ‘Ode for the Daughters of +Dixie.’ I had a bad time listening to that.” + +“Do you presume to criticise it? Do we criticise your Grand Army +reunions, and your ‘Marching through Georgia,’ and your ‘John Brown’s +Body,’ and your Arlington Museum? Can we not be allowed to celebrate our +heroes and our glories and sing our songs?” + +She had helped me already! Still, still, the something I was groping +for, the something which had given me such pain during the ode, remained +undissolved, remained unanalyzed between us; I still had to have it out +with her, and the point was that it had to be with her, and not +simply with myself alone. We must thrash out together the way to an +understanding; an agreement was not in the least necessary--we could +agree to differ, for that matter, with perfect cordiality--but an +understanding we must reach. And as I was thinking this my light +increased, and I saw clearly the ultimate thing which lay at the bottom +of my own feeling, and which had been strangely confusing me all along. +This discovery was the key to the whole remainder of my talk; I never +let go of it. The first thing it opened for me was that Eliza La Heu +didn’t understand me, which was quite natural, since I had only just +this moment become clear to myself. + +“Many of us,” I began, “who have watched the soiling touch of politics +make dirty one clean thing after another, would not be wholly desolated +to learn that the Grand Army of the Republic had gone to another world +to sing its songs and draw its pensions.” + +She looked astonished, and then she laughed. Down in the South here she +was too far away to feel the vile uses to which present politics had +turned past heroism. + +“But,” I continued, “we haven’t any Daughters of the Union banded +together and handing it down.” + +“It?” she echoed. “Well, if the deeds of your heroes are not a sacred +trust to you, don’t invite us, please, to resemble you.” + +I waited for more, and a little more came. + +“We consider Northerners foreigners, you know.” + +Again I felt that hurt which hearing the ode had given me, but I now +knew how I was going to take it, and where we were presently coming out; +and I knew she didn’t mean quite all that--didn’t mean it every day, at +least--and that my speech had driven her to saying it. + +“No, Miss La Heu; you don’t consider Northerners, who understand you, to +be foreigners.” + +“We have never met any of that sort.” + +(“Yes,” I thought, “but you really want to. Didn’t you say you hoped I +was one? Away down deep there’s a cry of kinship in you; and that you +don’t hear it, and that we don’t hear it, has been as much our fault as +yours. I see that very well now, but I’m afraid to tell you so, yet.”) + +What I said was: “We’re handing the ‘sacred trust’ down, I hope.” + +“I understood you to say you weren’t.” + +“I said we were not handing ‘it’ down.” + +I didn’t wonder that irritation again moulded her reply. “You must +excuse a daughter of Dixie if she finds the words of a son of the Union +beyond her. We haven’t had so many advantages.” + +There she touched what I had thought over during my wakeful hours: the +tale of the ashes, the desolate ashes! The war had not prevented my +parents from sending me to school and college, but here the old had seen +the young grow up starved of what their fathers had given them, and the +young had looked to the old and known their stripped heritage. + +“Miss La Heu,” I said, “I could not tell you, you would not wish me to +tell you, what the sight of Kings Port has made me feel. But you will +let me say this: I have understood for a long while about your old +people, your old ladies, whose faces are so fine and sad.” + +I paused, but she merely looked at me, and her eyes were hard. + +“And I may say this, too. I thank you very sincerely for bringing +completely home to me what I had begun to make out for myself. I hope +the Daughters of Dixie will go on singing of their heroes.” + +I paused again, and now she looked away, out of the window into Royal +Street. + +“Perhaps,” I still continued, “you will hardly believe me when I say +that I have looked at your monuments here with an emotion more poignant +even than that which Northern monuments raise in me.” + +“Why?” + +“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Need you have asked that? The North won.” + +“You are quite dispassionate!” Her eyes were always toward the window. + +“That’s my ‘sacred trust.’” + +It made her look at me. “Yours?” + +“Not yours--yet! It would be yours if you had won.” I thought a slight +change came in her steady scrutiny. “And, Miss La Heu, it was awful +about the negro. It is awful. The young North thinks so just as much as +you do. Oh, we shock our old people! We don’t expect them to change, +but they mustn’t expect us not to. And even some of them have begun to +whisper a little doubtfully. But never mind them--here’s the negro. We +can’t kick him out. That plan is childish. So, it’s like two men having +to live in one house. The white man would keep the house in repair, the +black would let it rot. Well, the black must take orders from the white. +And it will end so.” + +She was eager. “Slavery again, you think?” + +“Oh, never! It was too injurious to ourselves. But something between +slavery and equality.” And I ended with a quotation: “‘Patience, cousin, +and shuffle the cards.’” + +“You may call me cousin--this once--because you have been, really, quite +nice--for a Northerner.” + +Now we had come to the place where she must understand me. + +“Not a Northerner, Miss La Heu.” + +She became mocking. “Scarcely a Southerner, I presume?” + +But I kept my smile and my directness. “No more a Southerner than a +Northerner.” + +“Pray what, then?” + +“An American.” + +She was silent. + +“It’s the ‘sacred trust’--for me.” + +She was still silent. + +“If my state seceded from the Union tomorrow, I should side with the +Union against her.” + +She was frankly astonished now. “Would you really?” And I think some +light about me began to reach her. A Northerner willing to side against +a Northern state! I was very glad that I had found that phrase to make +clear to her my American creed. + +I proceeded. “I shall help to hand down all the glories and all the +sadnesses; Lee’s, Lincoln’s, everybody’s. But I shall not hand ‘it’ +down.” + +This checked her. + +“It’s easy for me, you know,” I hastily explained. “Nothing noble +about it at all. But from noble people”--and I looked hard at her--“one +expects, sooner or later, noble things.” + +She repressed something she had been going to reply. + +“If ever I have children,” I finished, “they shall know ‘Dixie’ and +‘Yankee Doodle’ by heart, and never know the difference. By that time +I should think they might have a chance of hearing ‘Yankee Doodle’ in +Kings Port.” + +Again she checked a rapid retort. “Well,” she, after a pause, repeated, +“you have been really quite nice.” + +“May I tell you what you have been?” + +“Certainly not. Have you seen Mr. Mayrant to-day?” + +“We have an engagement to walk this afternoon. May I go walking with you +sometime?” + +“May he, General?” A wagging tail knocked on the floor behind the +counter. “General says that he will think about it. What makes you like +Mr. Mayrant so much?” + +This question struck me as an odd one; nor could I make out the import +of the peculiar tone in which she put it. “Why, I should think everybody +would like him--except, perhaps, his double victim.” + +“Double?” + +“Yes, first of his fist and then of--of his hand!” + +But she didn’t respond. + +“Of his hand--his poker hand,” I explained. + +“Poker hand?” She remained honestly vague. + +It rejoiced me to be the first to tell her. “You haven’t heard of +Master John’s last performance? Well, finding himself forced by that +immeasurable old Aunt Josephine of yours to shake hands, he shook ‘em +all right, but he took thirty dollars away as a little set-off for his +pious docility.” + +“Oh!” she murmured, overwhelmed with astonishment. Then she broke into +one of her delicious peals of laughter. + +“Anybody,” I said, “likes a boy who plays a hand--and a fist--to that +tune.” I continued to say a number of commendatory words about young +John, while her sparkling eyes rested upon me. But even as I talked I +grew aware that these eyes were not sparkling, were starry rather, +and distant, and that she was not hearing what I said; so I stopped +abruptly, and at the stopping she spoke, like a person waking up. + +“Oh, yes! Certainly he can take care of himself. Why not?” + +“Rather creditable, don’t you think?” + +“Creditable?” + +“Considering his aunts and everything.” + +She became haughty on the instant. “Upon my word! And do you suppose +the women of South Carolina don’t wish their men to be men? Why”--she +returned to mirth and that arch mockery which was her special charm--“we +South Carolina women consider virtue our business, and we don’t expect +the men to meddle with it!” + +“Primal, perpetual, necessary!” I cried. “When that division gets +blurred, society is doomed. Are you sure John can take care of himself +every way?” + +“I have other things than Mr. Mayrant to think about.” She said this +quite sharply. + +It surprised me. “To be sure,” I assented. “But didn’t you once tell me +that you thought he was simple?” + +She opened her ledger. “It’s a great honor to have one’s words so well +remembered.” + +I was still at a loss. “Anyhow, the wedding is postponed,” I continued; +“and the cake. Of course one can’t help wondering how it’s all coming +out.” + +She was now working at her ledger, bending her head over it. “Have +you ever met Miss Rieppe?” She inquired this with a sort of wonderful +softness--which I was to hear again upon a still more memorable +occasion. + +“Never,” I answered, “but there’s nobody at present living whom I long +to see so much.” + +She wrote on for a little while before saying, with her pencil steadily +busy, “Why?” + +“Why? Don’t you? After all this fuss?” + +“Oh, certainly,” she drawled. “She is so much admired--by Northerners.” + +“I do hope John is able to take care of himself,” I purposely repeated. + +“Take care of yourself!” she laughed angrily over her ledger. + +“Me? Why? I understand you less and less!” + +“Very likely.” + +“Why, I want to help him!” I protested. “I don’t want him to marry her. +Oh, by the way do you happen to know what it is that she is coming here +to see for herself?” + +In a moment her ledger was left, and she was looking at me straight. +Coming? When? + +“Soon. In an automobile. To see something for herself.” + +She pondered for quite a long moment; then her eyes returned, +searchingly, to me. “You didn’t make that up?” + +I laughed, and explained. “Some of them, at any rate,” I finished, “know +what she’s coming for. They were rather queer about it, I thought.” + +She pondered again. I noticed that she had deeply flushed, and that the +flush was leaving her. Then she fixed her eyes on me once more. “They +wouldn’t tell you?” + +“I think that they came inadvertently near it, once or twice, and +remembered just in time that I didn’t know about it.” + +“But since you do know pretty much about it!” she laughed. + +I shook my head. “There’s something else, something that’s turned up; +the sort of thing that upsets calculations. And I merely hoped that +you’d know.” + +On those last words of mine she gave me quite an extraordinary look, and +then, as if satisfied with what she saw in my face.-- + +“They don’t talk to me.” + +It was an assurance, it was true, it had the ring of truth, that evident +genuineness which a piece of real confidence always possesses; she meant +me to know that we were in the same boat of ignorance to-day. And yet, +as I rose from my lunch and came forward to settle for it, I was aware +of some sense of defeat, of having been held off just as the ladies on +High Walk had held me off. + +“Well,” I sighed, “I pin my faith to the aunt who says he’ll never marry +her.” + +Miss La Heu had no more to say upon the subject. “Haven’t you forgotten +something?” she inquired gayly; and, as I turned to see what I had left +behind--“I mean, you had no Lady Baltimore to-day.” + +“I clean forgot it!” + +“No loss. It is very stale; and to-morrow I shall have a fresh supply +ready.” + +As I departed through the door I was conscious of her eyes following +me, and that she had spoken of Lady Baltimore precisely because she was +thinking of something else. + + + + +XIV: The Replacers + +She had been strange, perceptibly strange, had Eliza La Heu; that was +the most which I could make out of it. I had angered her in some manner +wholly beyond my intention or understanding and not all at one fixed +point in our talk; her irritation had come out and gone in again in +spots all along the colloquy, and it had been a displeasure wholly +apart from that indignation which had flashed up in her over the negro +question. This, indeed, I understood well enough, and admired her for, +and admired still more her gallant control of it; as for the other, I +gave it up. + +A sense of guilt--a very slight one, to be sure--dispersed my +speculations when I was preparing for dinner, and Aunt Carola’s +postscript, open upon my writing-table, reminded me that I had never +asked Miss La Heu about the Bombos. Well, the Bombos could keep! And I +descended to dinner a little late (as too often) to feel instantly in +the air that they had been talking about me. I doubt if any company +in the world, from the Greeks down through Machiavelli to the present +moment, has ever been of a subtlety adequate to conceal from an +observant person entering a room the fact that he has been the subject +of their conversation. This company, at any rate, did not conceal it +from me. Not even when the upcountry bride astutely greeted me with:-- + +“Why, we were just speaking of you! We were lust saying it would be a +perfect shame if you missed those flowers at Live Oaks.” And, at this, +various of the guests assured me that another storm would finish them; +upon which I assured every one that to-morrow should see me embark upon +the Live Oaks excursion boat, knowing quite well in my heart that some +decidedly different question concerning me had been hastily dropped upon +my appearance at the door. It poked up its little concealed head, did +this question, when the bride said later to me, with immense archness:-- + +“How any gentleman can help falling just daid in love with that lovely +young girl at the Exchange, I don’t see!” + +“But I haven’t helped it!” I immediately exclaimed. + +“Oh!” declared the bride with unerring perception, “that just shows +he hasn’t been smitten at all! Well, I’d be ashamed, if I was a single +gentleman.” And while I brought forth additional phrases concerning the +distracted state of my heart, she looked at me with large, limpid eyes. +“Anybody could tell you’re not afraid of a rival,” was her resulting +comment; upon which several of the et ceteras laughed more than seemed +to me appropriate. + +I left them all free again to say what they pleased; for John Mayrant +called for me to go upon our walk while we were still seated at table, +and at table they remained after I had excused myself. + +The bruise over John’s left eye was fading out, but traces of his +spiritual battle were deepening. During the visit which he had paid +(under compulsion, I am sure) to Juno at our boarding-house in company +with Miss Josephine St. Michael, his recent financial triumph at the +bedside had filled his face with diabolic elation as he confronted his +victim’s enraged but checkmated aunt; when to the thinly veiled venom +of her inquiry as to a bridegroom’s health he had retorted with venom as +thinly veiled that he was feeling better that night than for many weeks, +he had looked better, too; the ladies had exclaimed after his departure +what a handsome young man he was, and Juno had remarked how fervently +she trusted that marriage might cure him of his deplorable tendencies. +But to-day his vitality had sagged off beneath the weight of his +preoccupation: it looked to me as if, by a day or two more, the boy’s +face might be grown haggard. + +Whether by intention, or, as is more likely, by the perfectly natural +and spontaneous working of his nature, he speedily made it plain to +me that our relation, our acquaintance, had progressed to a stage more +friendly and confidential. He did not reveal this by imparting any +confidence to me; far from it; it was his silence that indicated +the ease he had come to feel in my company. Upon our last memorable +interview he had embarked at once upon a hasty yet evidently +predetermined course of talk, because he feared that I might touch upon +subjects which he wished excluded from all discussion between us; to-day +he embarked upon nothing, made no conventional effort of any sort, but +walked beside me, content with my mere society; if it should happen that +either of us found a thought worth expressing aloud, good! and if this +should not happen, why, good also! And so we walked mutely and agreeably +together for a long while. The thought which was growing clear in my +mind, and which was decidedly worthy of expression, was also unluckily +one which his new reliance upon my discretion completely forbade my +uttering in even the most shadowy manner; but it was a conviction which +Miss Josephine St. Michael should have been quick to force upon him for +his good. Quite apart from selfish reasons, he had no right to marry a +girl whom he had ceased to care for. The code which held a “gentleman” + to his plighted troth in such a case did more injury to the “lady” than +any “jilting” could possibly do. Never until now had I thought this +out so lucidly, and I was determined that time and my own tact should +assuredly help me find a way to say it to him, if he continued in his +present course. + +“Daddy Ben says you can’t be a real Northerner.” + +This was his first observation, and I think that we must have walked a +mile before he made it. + +“Because I pounded a negro? Of course, he retains your Southern +ante-bellum mythical notion of Northerners--all of us willing to have +them marry our sisters. Well, there’s a lady at our boarding-house who +says you are a real gambler.” + +The impish look came curling round his lips, but for a moment only, and +it was gone. + +“That shook Daddy Ben up a good deal.” + +“Having his grandson do it, do you mean?” + +“Oh, he’s used to his grandson! Grandsons in that race might just as +well be dogs for all they know or care about their progenitors. Yet +Daddy Ben spent his savings on educating Charles Cotesworth and two +more--but not one of them will give the old man a house to-day. If ever +I have a home--” John stopped himself, and our silence was no longer +easy; our unspoken thoughts looked out of our eyes so that they could +not meet. Yet no one, unless directly invited by him, had the right to +say to hint what I was thinking, except some near relative. Therefore, +to relieve this silence which had ceased to be agreeable, I talked +about Daddy Ben and his grandsons, and negro voting, and the huge lie of +“equality” which our lips vociferate and our lives daily disprove. This +took us comfortably away from weddings and cakes into the subject +of lynching, my violent condemnation of which surprised him; for our +discussion had led us over a wide field, and one fertile in well-known +disputes of the evergreen sort, conducted by the North mostly with more +theory than experience, and by the South mostly with more heat than +light; whereas, between John and me, I may say that our amiability +was surpassed only by our intelligence! Each allowed for the other’s +standpoint, and both met in many views: he would have voted against +the last national Democratic ticket but for the Republican upholding +of negro equality, while I assured him that such stupid and criminal +upholding was on the wane. He informed me that he did not believe the +pure blooded African would ever be capable of taking the intellectual +side of the white man’s civilization, and I informed him that we must +patiently face this probability, and teach the African whatever he could +profitably learn and no more; and each of us agreed with the other. I +think that we were at one, save for the fact that I was, after all, a +Northerner--and that is a blemish which nobody in Kings Port can quite +get over. John, therefore, was unprepared for my wholesale denunciation +of lynching. + +“With your clear view of the negro,” he explained. + +“My dear man, it’s my clear view of the white! It’s the white, the +American citizen, the ‘hope of humanity,’ as he enjoys being called, +who, after our English-speaking race has abolished public executions, +degenerates back to the Stone Age. It’s upon him that lynching works the +true injury.” + +“They’re nothing but animals,” he muttered. + +“Would you treat an animal in that way?” I inquired. + +He persisted. “You’d do it yourself if you had to suffer from them.” + +“Very probably. Is that an answer? What I’d never do would be to make a +show, an entertainment, a circus, out of it, run excursion trains to see +it--come, should you like your sister to buy tickets for a lynching?” + +This brought him up rather short. “I should never take part myself,” he +presently stated, “unless it were immediate personal vengeance.” + +“Few brothers or husbands would blame you,” I returned. “It would be +hard to wait for the law. But let no community which treats it as a +public spectacle presume to call itself civilized.” + +He gave a perplexed smile, shaking his head over it. “Sometimes I think +civilization costs--” + +“Civilization costs all you’ve got!” I cried. + +“More than I’ve got!” he declared. “I’m mortal tired of civilization.” + +“Ah, yes! What male creature is not? And neither of us will live quite +long enough to see the smash-up of our own.” + +“Aren’t you sometimes inconsistent?” he inquired, laughing. + +“I hope so,” I returned. “Consistency is a form of death. The dead are +the only perfectly consistent people.” + +“And sometimes you sound like a Socialist,” he pursued, still laughing. + +“Never!” I shouted. “Don’t class me with those untrained puppies of +thought. And you’ll generally observe,” I added, “that the more nobly +a Socialist vaporizes about the rights of humanity, the more wives and +children he has abandoned penniless along the trail of his life.” + +He was livelier than ever at this. “What date have you fixed for the +smash-up of our present civilization?” + +“Why fix dates? Is it not diversion enough to watch, and step handsomely +through one’s own part, with always a good sleeve to laugh in?” + +Pensiveness returned upon him. “I shall be able to step through my own +part, I think.” He paused, and I was wondering secretly, “Does that +include the wedding?” when he continued: “What’s there to laugh at?” + +“Why, our imperishable selves! For instance: we swear by universal +suffrage. Well, sows’ ears are an invaluable thing in their place, +on the head of the animal; but send them to make your laws, and what +happens? Bribery, naturally. The silk purse buys the sow’s ear. We swear +by Christianity, but dishonesty is our present religion. That little +phrase ‘In God We Trust’ is about as true as the silver dollar it’s +stamped on--worth some thirty-nine cents. We get awfully serious about +whether or no good can come of evil, when every sky-scraping thief +of finance is helping hospitals with one hand while the other’s in my +pocket; and good and evil attend each other, lead to each other, are +such Siamese twins that if separated they would both die. We make +phrases about peace, pity, and brotherhood, while every nation stands +prepared for shipwreck and for the sinking plank to which two are +clinging and the stronger pushes the weaker into the flood and thus +floats safe. Why, the old apple of wisdom, which Adam and Eve swallowed +and thus lost their innocence, was a gentle nursery drug compared +with the new apple of competition, which, as soon as chewed, instantly +transforms the heart into a second brain. But why worry, when nothing is +final? Haven’t you and I, for instance, lamented the present rottenness +of smart society? Why, when kings by the name of George sat on the +throne of England, society was just as drunken, just as dissolute! Then +a decent queen came, and society behaved itself; and now, here we come +round again to the Georges, only with the name changed! There’s nothing +final. So, when things are as you don’t like them, remember that and +bear them; and when they’re as you do like them, remember it and make +the most of them--and keep a good sleeve handy!” + +“Have you got any creed at all?” he demanded. + +“Certainly; but I don’t live up to it.” + +“That’s not expected. May I ask what it is?” + +“It’s in Latin.” + +“Well, I can probably bear it. Aunt Eliza had a classical tutor for me.” + +I always relish a chance to recite my favorite poet, and I began +accordingly:-- + + “Laetus in praesens animus quod ultra est + Oderit curare et--” + +“I know that one!” he exclaimed, interrupting me. “The tutor made me +put it into English verse. I had the severest sort of a time. I ran away +from it twice to a deer-hunt.” And he, in his turn, recited:-- + + “Who hails each present hour with zest + Hates fretting what may be the rest, + Makes bitter sweet with lazy jest; + Naught is in every portion blest.” + +I complimented him, in spite of my slight annoyance at being deprived by +him of the chance to declaim Latin poetry, which is an exercise that +I approve and enjoy; but of course, to go on with it, after he had +intervened with his translation, would have been flat. + +“You have written good English, and very close to the Latin, too,” I +told him, “particularly in the last line.” And I picked up from the +bridge which we were crossing, an oyster-shell, and sent it skimming +over the smooth water that stretched between the low shores, wide, blue, +and vacant. + +“I suppose you wonder why we call this the ‘New Bridge,’” he remarked. + +“I did wonder when I first came,” I replied. + +He smiled. “You’re getting used to us!” + +This long structure wore, in truth, no appearance of yesterday. It was +newer than the “New Bridge” which it had replaced some fifteen years +ago, and which for forty years had borne the same title. Spanning +the broad river upon a legion of piles, this wooden causeway lies +low against the face of the water, joining the town with a serene and +pensive country of pines and live oaks and level opens, where glimpses +of cabin and plantation serve to increase the silence and the soft, +mysterious loneliness. Into this the road from the bridge goes straight +and among the purple vagueness gently dissolves away. + +We watched a slow, deep-laden boat sliding down toward the draw, across +which we made our way, and drew near the further end of the bridge. The +straight avenue of the road in front of us took my eyes down its quiet +vista, until they were fixed suddenly by an alien object, a growing +dot, accompanied by dust, whence came the small, distorted honks of +an automobile. These fat, importunate sounds redoubled as the machine +rushed toward the bridge, growing up to its full staring, brazen +dimensions. Six or seven figures sat in it, all of the same dusty, +shrouded likeness, their big glass eyes and their masked mouths +suggesting some fabled, unearthly race, a family of replete and bilious +ogres; so that as they flew honking by us I called out to John:-- + +“Behold the yellow rich!” and then remembered that his Hortense probably +sat among them. + +The honks redoubled, and we turned to see that the drawbridge had no +thought of waiting for them. We also saw a bewildered curly white dog +and a young girl, who called despairingly to him as he disappeared +beneath the automobile. The engine of murder could not, as is usual, +proceed upon its way, honking, for the drawbridge was visibly swinging +open to admit the passage of the boat. When John and I had run back near +enough to become ourselves a part of the incident, the white dog lay +still behind the stationary automobile, whose passengers were craning +their muffled necks and glass eyes to see what they had done, while one +of their number had got out, and was stooping to examine if the machine +had sustained any injuries. The young girl, with a face of anguish, was +calling the dog’s name as she hastened toward him, and her voice aroused +him: he lifted his head, got on his legs, and walked over to her, which +action on his part brought from the automobile a penetrating female +voice:-- + +“Well, he’s in better luck than that Savannah dog!” + +But General was not in luck. He lay quietly down at the feet of his +mistress and we soon knew that life had passed from his faithful body. +The first stroke of grief, dealt her in such cruel and sudden form, +overbore the poor girl’s pride and reserve; she made no attempt to +remember or heed surroundings, but kneeling and placing her arms about +the neck of her dead servant, she spoke piteously aloud:-- + +“And I raised him, I raised him from a puppy!” + +The female voice, at this, addressed the traveller who was examining the +automobile: “Charley, a five or a ten spot is what her feelings need.” + +The obedient and munificent Charley straightened up from his stooping +among the mechanical entrails, dexterously produced money, and advanced +with the selected bill held out politely in his hand, while the glass +eyes and the masks peered down at the performance. Eliza La Heu had +perceived none of this, for she was intent upon General; nor had John +Mayrant, who had approached her with the purpose of coming to her +aid. But when Charley, quite at hand, began to speak words which were +instantly obliterated from my memory by what happened, the young girl +realized his intention and straightened stiffly, while John, with the +rapidity of light, snatched the extended bill from Charley’s hand, and +tearing it in four pieces, threw it in his face. + +A foreign voice cackled from the automobile: “Oh la la! il a du +panache!” + +But Charley now disclosed himself to be a true man of the world--the +financial world--by picking the pieces out of the mud; and, while +he wiped them and enclosed them in his handkerchief and with perfect +dignity returned them to his pocket, he remarked simply, with a shrug: +“As you please.” His accent also was ever so little foreign--that New +York downtown foreign, of the second generation, which stamps so, many +of our bankers. + +The female now leaned from her seat, and with the tone of setting the +whole thing right, explained: “We had no idea it was a lady.” + +“Doubtless you’re not accustomed to their appearance,” said John to +Charley. + +I don’t know what Charley would have done about this; for while the +completely foreign voice was delightedly whispering, “Toujours +le panache!” a new, deep, and altogether different female voice +exclaimed:-- + +“Why, John, it’s you!” + +So that was Hortense, then! That rich and quiet utterance was hers, a +schooled and studied management of speech. I found myself surprised, +and I knew directly why; that word of one of the old ladles, “I consider +that she looks like a steel wasp,” had implanted in me some definite +anticipations to which the voice certainly did not correspond. How +fervently I desired that she would lift her thick veil, while John, with +hat in hand, was greeting her, and being presented to her companions! +Why she had not spoken to John sooner was of course a recondite +question, and beyond my power to determine with merely the given +situation to guide me. Hadn’t she recognized him before? Had her +thick veil, and his position, and the general slight flurry of the +misadventure, intercepted recognition until she heard his voice when +he addressed Charley. Or had she known her lover at once, and rapidly +decided that the moment was an unpropitious one for a first meeting +after absence, and that she would pass on to Kings Port unrevealed, but +then had found this plan become impossible through the collision +between Charley and John? It was not until certain incidents of the days +following brought Miss Rieppe’s nature a good deal further home to me, +that a third interpretation of her delay in speaking to John dawned upon +my mind; that I was also made aware how a woman’s understanding of +the words “Steel wasp,” when applied by her to one of her own sex, may +differ widely from a man’s understanding of them; and that Miss Rieppe, +through her thick veil, saw from her seat in the automobile something +which my own unencumbered vision had by no means detected. + +But now, here on the bridge, even her outward appearance was as shrouded +as her inward qualities--save such as might be audible in that voice, +as her skilful, well-placed speeches to one and the other of the company +tided over and carried off into ease this uneasy moment. All men, at +such a voice, have pricked up their ears since the beginning; there was +much woman in it; each slow, schooled syllable called its challenge to +questing man. But I got no chance to look in the eye that went with that +voice; she took all the advantages which her veil gave her; and how well +she used them I was to learn later. + +In the general smoothing-out process which she was so capably effecting, +her attention was about to reach me, when my name was suddenly called +out from behind her. It was Beverly Rodgers, that accomplished and +inveterate bachelor of fashion. Ten years before, when I had seen much +of him, he had been more particular in his company, frequently declaring +in his genial, irresponsible way that New York society was going to the +devil. But many tempting dances on the land, and cruises on the water, +had taken him deep among our lower classes that have boiled up from +the bottom with their millions--and besides, there would be nothing +to marvel at in Beverly’s presence in any company that should include +Hortense Rieppe, if she carried out the promise of her voice. + +Beverly was his customary, charming, effusive self, coming out of +the automobile to me with his “By Jove, old man,” and his “Who’d have +thought it, old fellow?” and sprinkling urbane little drops of jocosity +over us collectively, as the garden water-turning apparatus sprinkles +a lawn. His knowing me, and the way he brought it out, and even the +tumbling into the road of a few wraps and chattels of travel as he +descended from the automobile, and the necessity of picking these up and +handing them back with delightful little jocular apologies, such as, “By +Jove, what a lout I am,” all this helped the meeting on prodigiously, +and got us gratefully away from the disconcerting incident of the torn +money. Charley was helpful, too; you would never have supposed from the +polite small-talk which he was now offering to John Mayrant that he had +within some three minutes received the equivalent of a slap across the +eyes from that youth, and carried the soiled consequences in his pocket. +And such a thing is it to be a true man of the world of finance, that +upon the arrival now of a second automobile, also his property, and +containing a set of maids and valets, and also some live dogs sitting +up, covered with glass eyes and wrappings like their owners, munificent +Charley at once offered the dead dog and his mistress a place in it, and +begged she would let it take her wherever she wished to go. Everybody +exclaimed copiously and condolingly over the unfortunate occurrence. +What a fine animal he was, to be sure! What breed was he? Of course, he +wasn’t used to automobiles! Was it quite certain that he was dead? Quel +dommage! And Charley would be so happy to replace him. + +And how was Eliza La Heu bearing herself amid these murmurously +chattered infelicities? She was listening with composure to the murmurs +of Hortense Rieppe, more felicitous, no doubt. Miss Rieppe, through her +veil, was particularly devoting herself to Miss La Lieu. I could not +hear what she said; the little chorus of condolence and suggestion +intercepted all save her tone, and that, indeed, coherently sustained +its measured cadence through the texture of fragments uttered by Charley +and the others. Eliza La Heu had now got herself altogether in hand, +and, saving her pale cheeks, no sign betrayed that the young girl’s +feelings had been so recently too strong for her. To these strangers, +ignorant of her usual manner, her present strange quietness may very +well have been accepted as her habit. + +“Thank you,” she replied to munificent Charley’s offer that she would +use his second automobile. She managed to make her polite words cut like +a scythe. “I should crowd it.” + +“But they shall get out and walk; it will be good for them,” said +Charley, indicating the valets and maids, and possibly the dogs, too. + +Beverly Rodgers did much better than Charley. With a charming gesture +and bow, he offered his own seat in the first automobile. “I am going to +walk in any case,” he assured her. + +“One gentleman among them,” I heard John Mayrant mutter behind me. + +Miss La Heu declined, the chorus urged, but Beverly (who was indeed a +gentleman, every inch of him) shook his head imperceptibly at Charley; +and while the little exclamations--“Do come! So much more comfortable! +So nice to see more of you!”--dropped away, Miss La Heu had settled +her problem quite simply for herself. A little procession of vehicles, +townward bound, had gathered on the bridge, waiting until the closing of +the draw should allow them to continue upon their way. From these most +of the occupants had descended, and were staring with avidity at us all; +the great glass eyes and the great refulgent cars held them in timidity +and fascination, and the poor lifeless white body of General, stretched +beside the way, heightened the hypnotic mystery; one or two of the +boldest had touched him, and found no outward injury upon him; and this +had sent their eyes back to the automobile with increased awe. Eliza La +Heu summoned one of the onlookers, an old negro; at some word she said +to him he hurried back and returned, leading his horse and empty cart, +and General was lifted into this. The girl took her seat beside the old +driver. + +“No,” she said to John Mayrant, “certainly not.” + +I wondered at the needless severity with which she declined his offer to +accompany her and help her. + +He stood by the wheel of the cart, looking up at her and protesting, and +I joined him. + +“Thank you,” she returned, “I need no one. You will both oblige me by +saying no more about it.” + +“John!” It was the slow, well-calculated utterance of Hortense Rieppe. +Did I hear in it the caressing note of love? + +John turned. + +The draw had swung to, the mast and sail of the vessel were separating +away from the bridge with a stealthy motion, men with iron bars were at +work fastening the draw secure, and horses’ hoofs knocked nervously upon +the wooden flooring as the internal churning of the automobiles burst +upon their innocent ears. + +“John, if Mr. Rodgers is really not going with us--” + +Thus Hortense; and at that Miss La Heu:-- + +“Why do you keep them waiting?” There was no caress in that note! It was +polished granite. + +He looked up at her on her high seat by the extremely dilapidated negro, +and then he walked forward and took his place beside his veiled +fiancee, among the glass eyes. A hiss of sharp noise spurted from the +automobiles, horses danced, and then, smoothly, the two huge engines +were gone with their cargo of large, distorted shapes, leaving behind +them--quite as our present epoch will leave behind it--a trail of power, +of ingenuity, of ruthlessness, and a bad smell. + +“Hold hard, old boy!” chuckled Beverly, to whom I communicated this +sentiment. “How do you know the stink of one generation does not become +the perfume of the next?” Beverly, when he troubled to put a thing +at all (which was seldom--for he kept his quite good brains well-nigh +perpetually turned out to grass--or rather to grass widows) always put +it well, and with a bracing vocabulary. “Hullo!” he now exclaimed, and +walked out into the middle of the roadway, where he picked up a parasol. +“Kitty will be in a jolly old stew. None of its expensive bones broken +however.” And then he hailed me by a name of our youth. “What are you +doing down here, you old sourbelly?” + +“Watching you sun yourself on the fat cushions of the yellow rich.” + +“Oh, shucks, old man, they’re not so yellow!” + +“Charley strikes me as yellower than his own gold.” + +“Charley’s not a bad little sort. Of course, he needs coaching a bit +here and there--just now, for instance, when he didn’t see that that +girl wouldn’t think of riding in the machine that had just killed her +dog. By Jove, give that girl a year in civilization and she’d do! Who +was the young fire-eater?” + +“Fire-eater! He’s a lot more decent than you or I.” + +“But that’s saying so little, dear boy!” + +“Seriously, Beverly.” + +“Oh, hang it with your ‘seriously’! Well, then, seriously, melodrama +was the correct ticket and all that in 1840, but we’ve outgrown it; it’s +devilish demode to chuck things in people’s faces. + +“I’m not sorry John Mayrant did it!” I brought out his name with due +emphasis. + +“All the same,” Beverly was beginning, when the automobile returned +rapidly upon us, and, guessing the cause of this, he waved the parasol. +Charley descended to get it--an unnecessary act, prompted, I suppose, by +the sudden relief of finding that it was not lost. + +He made his thanks marked. “It is my sister’s,” he concluded, to me, by +way of explanation, in his slightly foreign accent. “It is not much, but +it has got some stones and things in the handle.” + +We were favored with a bow from the veiled Hortense, shrill thanks from +Kitty, and the car, turning, again left us in a moment. + +“You’ve got a Frenchman along,” I said. + +“Little Gazza,” Beverly returned. “Italian; though from his morals you’d +never guess he wasn’t Parisian. Great people in Rome. Hereditary right +to do something in the presence of the Pope--or not to do it, I forget +which. Not a bit of a bad little sort, Gazza. He has just sold a lot of +old furniture--Renaissance--Lorenzo du Borgia--that sort of jolly old +truck--to Bohm, you know.” + +I didn’t know. + +“Oh, yes, you do, old boy. Harry Bohm, of Bohm & Cohn. Everybody knows +Bohm, and we’ll all be knowing Cohn by next year. Gazza has sold him +a lot of furniture, too. Bohm’s from Pittsfield, or South Lee, or East +Canaan, or West Stockbridge, or some of those other back-country cider +presses that squirt some of the hardest propositions into Wall Street. +He’s just back from buying a railroad, and four or five mines in Mexico. +Bohm represents Christianity in the firm. At Newport they call him the +military attache to Jerusalem. He’s the big chap that sat behind me in +the car. He’ll marry Kitty as soon as she can get her divorce. Bohm’s a +jolly old sort--and I tell you, you old sourbelly, you’re letting this +Southern moss grow over you a bit. Hey? What? Yellow rich isn’t half +bad, and I’ll say it myself, and pretend it’s mine; but hang it, +old man, their children won’t be worse than lemon-colored, and the +grandchildren will be white!” + +“Just in time,” I exclaimed, “to take a back seat with their evaporated +fortunes!” + +Beverly chuckled. “Well, if they do evaporate, there will be new ones. +Now don’t walk along making Mayflower eyes at me. I’m no Puritan, and my +people have had a front seat since pretty early in the game, which I’m +holding on to, you know. And by Jove, old man, I tell you, if you wish +to hold on nowadays, you can’t be drawing lines! If you don’t want to +see yourself jolly well replaced, you must fall in with the replacers. +Our blooming old republic is merely the quickest process of endless +replacing yet discovered, and you take my tip, and back the replacers! +That’s where Miss Rieppe, for all her Kings Port traditions, shows +sense.” + +I turned square on him. “Then she has broken it?” + +“Broken what?” + +“Her engagement to John Mayrant. You mean to say that you didn’t--?” + +“See here, old man. Seriously. The fire-eater?” + +I was so very much bewildered that I merely stared at Beverly Rodgers. +Of course, I might have known that Miss Rieppe would not feel the need +of announcing to her rich Northern friends an engagement which she had +fallen into the habit of postponing. + +But Beverly had a better right to be taken aback. “I suppose you must +have some reason for your remark,” he said. + +“You don’t mean that you’re engaged to her?” I shot out. + +“Me? With my poor little fifteen thousand a year? Consider, dear boy! +Oh, no, we’re merely playing at it, she and I. She’s a good player. But +Charley--” + +“He is?” I shouted. + +“I don’t know, old man, and I don’t think he knows--yet.” + +“Beverly,” said I, “let me tell you.” And I told him. + +After he had got himself adjusted to the novelty of it he began to take +it with a series of thoughtful chuckles. + +Into these I dropped with: “Where’s her father, anyhow?” I began to +feel, fantastically, that she mightn’t have a father. + +“He stopped in Savannah,” Beverly answered. “He’s coming over by the +train. Kitty--Charley’s sister, Mrs. Bleecker--did the chaperoning for +us. + +“Very expertly, I should guess,” I said. + +“Perfectly; invisibly,” said Beverly. And he returned to his thoughts +and his chuckles. + +“After all, it’s simple,” he presently remarked. + +“Doesn’t that depend on what she’s here for?” + +“Oh, to break it.” + +“Why come for that?” + +He took another turn among his cogitations. I took a number of turns +among my own, but it was merely walking round and round in a circle. + +“When will she announce it, then?” he demanded. + +“Ah!” I murmured. “You said she was a good player.” + +“But a fire-eater!” he resumed. “For her. Oh, hang it! She’ll let him +go!” + +“Then why hasn’t she?” + +He hesitated. “Well, of course her game could be spoiled by--” + +His speech died away into more cogitation, and I had to ask him what he +meant. + +“By love getting into it somewhere.” + +We walked on through Worship Street, which we had reached some while +since, and the chief features of which I mechanically pointed out to +him. + +“Jolly old church, that,” said Beverly, as we reached my favorite corner +and brick wall. “Well, I’ll not announce it!” he murmured gallantly. + +“My dear man,” I said, “Kings Port will do all the announcing for you +to-morrow.” + + + + +XV: What She Came to See + +But in this matter my prognostication was thoroughly at fault; yet +surely, knowing Kings Port’s sovereign habit, as I had had good cause +to know it, I was scarce beyond reasonable bounds in supposing that the +arrival of Miss Rieppe would heat up some very general and very audible +talk about this approaching marriage, against which the prejudices of +the town were set in such compact array. I have several times mentioned +that Kings Port, to my sense, was buzzing over John Mayrant’s affairs; +buzzing in the open, where one could hear it, and buzzing behind closed +doors, where one could somehow feel it; I can only say that henceforth +this buzzing ceased, dropped wholly away, as if Gossip were watching so +hard that she forgot to talk, giving place to a great stillness in +her kingdom. Such occasional words as were uttered sounded oddly and +egregiously clear in the new-established void. + +The first of these words sounded, indeed, quite enormous, issuing as it +did from Juno’s lips at our breakfast-table, when yesterday’s meeting on +the New Bridge was investing my mind with many thoughts. She addressed +me in one of her favorite tones (I have met it, thank God! but in two +or three other cases during my whole experience), which always somehow +conveyed to you that you were personally to blame for what she was going +to tell you. + +“I suppose you know that your friend, Mr. Mayrant, has resigned from the +Custom House?” + +I was, of course, careful not to give Juno the pleasure of seeing that +she had surprised me. I bowed, and continued in silence to sip a little +coffee; then, setting my coffee down, I observed that it would be some +few days yet before the resignation could take effect; and, noticing +that Juno was getting ready some new remark, I branched off and spoke to +her of my excursion up the river this morning to see the azaleas in the +gardens at Live Oaks. + +“How lucky the weather is so magnificent!” I exclaimed. + +“I shall be interested to hear,” said Juno, “what explanation he finds +to give Miss Josephine for his disrespectful holding out against her, +and his immediate yielding to Miss Rieppe.” + +Here I deemed it safe to ask her, was she quite sure it had been at the +instance of Miss Rieppe that John had resigned? + +“It follows suspiciously close upon her arrival,” stated Juno. She might +have been speaking of a murder. “And how he expects to support a +wife now--well, that is no affair of mine,” Juno concluded, with a +washing-her-hands-of-it air, as if up to this point she had always +done her best for the wilful boy. She had blamed him savagely for not +resigning, and now she was blaming him because he had resigned; and +I ate my breakfast in much entertainment over this female acrobat in +censure. + +No more was said; I think that my manner of taking Juno’s news had been +perfectly successful in disappointing her. John’s resignation, if it +had really occurred, did certainly follow very close upon the arrival of +Hortense; but I had spoken one true thought in intimating that I doubted +if it was due to the influence of Miss Rieppe. It seemed to me to the +highest degree unlikely that the boy in his present state of feeling +would do anything he did not wish to do because his ladylove happened to +wish it--except marry her! There was apparently no doubt that he would +do that. Did she want him, poverty and all? Was she, even now, with eyes +open, deliberately taking her last farewell days of automobiles and +of steam yachts? That voice of hers, that rich summons, with its quiet +certainty of power, sounded in my memory. “John,” she had called to him +from the automobile; and thus John had gone away in it, wedged in among +Charley and the fat cushions and all the money and glass eyes. And +now he had resigned from the Custom House! Yes, that was, whatever it +signified, truly amazing--if true. + +So I continued to ponder quite uselessly, until the up-country bride +aroused me. She, it appeared, had been greatly carried away by the +beauty of Live Oaks, and was making her David take her there again this +morning; and she was asking me didn’t I hope we shouldn’t get stuck? The +people had got stuck yesterday, three whole hours, right on a bank in +the river; and wasn’t it a sin and a shame to run a boat with ever so +many passengers aground? By the doctrine of chances, I informed her, we +had every right to hope for better luck to-day; and, with the assurance +of how much my felicity was increased by the prospect of having her and +David as company during the expedition, I betook myself meanwhile to my +own affairs, which meant chiefly a call at the Exchange to inquire for +Eliza La Heu, and a visit to the post-office before starting upon a +several hours’ absence. + +A few steps from our front door I came upon John Mayrant, and saw at +once too plainly that no ease had come to his spirit during the hours +since the bridge. He was just emerging from an adjacent house. + +“And have you resigned?” I asked him. + +“Yes. That’s done. You haven’t seen Miss Rieppe this morning?” + +“Why, she’s surely not boarding with Mrs. Trevise?” + +“No; stopping here with her old friend, Mrs. Cornerly.” He indicated +the door he had come from. “Of course, you wouldn’t be likely to see her +pass!” And with that he was gone. + +That he was greatly stirred up by something there could be no doubt; +never before had I seen him so abrupt; it seemed clear that anger had +taken the place of despondency, or whatever had been his previous mood; +and by the time I reached the post-office I had already imagined and +dismissed the absurd theory that John was jealous of Charley, had +resigned from the Custom House as a first step toward breaking his +engagement, and had rung Mrs. Cornerly’s bell at this early hour with +the purpose of informing his lady-love that all was over between them. +Jealousy would not be likely to produce this set of manifestations in +young, foolish John; and I may say here at once, what I somewhat later +learned, that the boy had come with precisely the opposite purpose, +namely, to repeat and reenforce his steadfast constancy, and that it was +something far removed from jealousy which had spurred him to this. + +I found the girl behind the counter at her post, grateful to me for +coming to ask how she was after the shock of yesterday, but unwilling to +speak of it at all; all which she expressed by her charming manner, and +by the other subjects she chose for conversation, and especially by the +way in which she held out her hand when I took my leave. + +Near the post-office I was hailed by Beverly Rodgers, who proclaimed to +me at once a comic but genuine distress. He had already walked, he said +(and it was but half-past nine o’clock, as he bitterly bade me +observe on the church dial), more miles in search of a drink than his +unarithmetical brain had the skill to compute. And he confounded such a +town heartily; he should return as soon as possible to Charley’s yacht, +where there was civilization, and where he had spent the night. During +his search he had at length come to a door of promising appearance, and +gone in there, and they had explained to him that it was a dispensary. +A beastly arrangement. What was the name of the razor-back hog they +said had invented it? And what did you do for a drink in this confounded +water-hole? + +He would find it no water-hole, I told him; but there were methods which +a stranger upon his first morning could scarce be expected to grasp. “I +could direct you to a Dutchman,” I said, “but you’re too well dressed to +win his confidence at once.” + +“Well, old man,” began Beverly, “I don’t speak Dutch, but give me a +crack at the confidence.” + +However, he renounced the project upon learning what a Dutchman was. +Since my hours were no longer dedicated to establishing the presence +of royal blood in my veins I had spent them upon various local +investigations of a character far more entertaining and akin to my +taste. It was in truth quite likely that Beverly could in a very few +moments, with his smile and his manner, find his way to any Dutchman’s +heart; he had that divine gift of winning over to him quickly all sorts +and conditions of men; and my account of the ingenious and law-baffling +contrivances, which you found at these little grocery shops, at once +roused his curiosity to make a trial; but he decided that the club was +better, if less picturesque. And he told me that all the men of the +automobile party had received from John Mayrant cards of invitation to +the club. + +“Your fire-eater is a civil chap,” said Beverly. “And by the way, do you +happen to know,” here he pulled from his pocket a letter and consulted +its address, “Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael?” + +I was delighted that he brought an introduction to this lady; Hortense +Rieppe could not open for him any of those haughty doors; and I wished +not only that Beverly (since he was just the man to appreciate it and +understand it) should see the fine flower of Kings Port, but also that +the fine flower of Kings Port should see him; the best blood of the +South could not possibly turn out anything better than Beverly Rodgers, +and it was horrible and humiliating to think of the other Northern +specimens of men whom Hortense had imported with her. I was here +suddenly reminded that the young woman was a guest of the Cornerlys, +the people who swept their garden, the people whom Eliza La Heu at the +Exchange did not “know”; and at this the remark of Mrs. Gregory St. +Michael, when I had walked with her and Mrs. Weguelin, took on an added +lustre of significance:-- + +“We shall have to call.” + +Call on the Cornerlys! Would they do that? Were they ready to stand by +their John to that tune? A hotel would be nothing; you could call on +anybody at a hotel, if you had to; but here would be a demarche indeed! +Yet, nevertheless, I felt quite certain that, if Hortense, though the +Cornerlys’ guest, was also the guaranteed fiancee of John Mayrant, the +old ladies would come up to the scratch, hate and loathe it as they +might, and undoubtedly would: they could be trusted to do the right +thing. + +I told Beverly how glad I was that he would meet Mrs. Weguelin St. +Michael. “The rest of your party, my friend,” I said, “are not very +likely to.” And I generalized to him briefly upon the town of Kings +Port. “Supposing I take you to call upon Mrs. St. Michael when I come +back this afternoon?” I suggested. + +Beverly thought it over, and then shook his head. “Wouldn’t do, old man. +If these people are particular and know, as you say they do, hadn’t I +better leave the letter with my card, and then wait till she sends some +word?” + +He was right, as he always was, unerringly. Consorting with all the +Charleys, and the Bohms, and the Cohns, and the Kitties hadn’t taken +the fine edge from Beverly’s good inheritance and good bringing up; his +instinct had survived his scruples, making of him an agile and charming +cynic, whom you could trust to see the right thing always, and never +do it unless it was absolutely necessary; he would marry any amount +of Kitties for their money, and always know that beside his mother and +sisters they were as dirt; and he would see to it that his children +took after their father, went to school in England for a good accent and +enunciation, as he had done, went to college in America for the sake +of belonging in their own country, as he had done, and married as many +fortunes, and had as few divorces, as possible. + +“Who was that girl on the bridge?” he now inquired as we reached the +steps of the post-office; and when I had told him again, because he +had asked me about Eliza La Heu at the time, “She’s the real thing,” he +commented. “Quite extraordinary, you know, her dignity, when poor old +awful Charley was messing everything--he’s so used to mere money, you +know, that half the time he forgets people are not dollars, and you have +to kick him to remind him--yes, quite perfect dignity. Gad, it took a +lady to climb up and sit by that ragged old darky and take her dead dog +away in the cart! The cart and the darky only made her look what she +was all the more. Poor Kitty couldn’t do that--she’d look like a +chambermaid! Well, old man, see you again.” + +I stood on the post-office steps looking after Beverly Rodgers as he +crossed Court Street. His admirably good clothes, the easy finish of +his whole appearance, even his walk, and his back, and the slope of his +shoulders, were unmistakable. The Southern men, going to their business +in Court Street, looked at him. Alas, in his outward man he was as a +rose among weeds! And certainly, no well-born American could unite with +an art more hedonistic than Beverly’s the old school and the nouveau +jeu! + +Over at the other corner he turned and stood admiring the church and +gazing at the other buildings, and so perceived me still on the steps. +With a gesture of remembering something he crossed back again. + +“You’ve not seen Miss Rieppe?” + +“Why, of course I haven’t!” I exclaimed. Was everybody going to ask me +that? + +“Well, something’s up, old boy. Charley has got the launch away with +him--and I’ll bet he’s got her away with him, too. Charley lied this +morning.” + +“Is lying, then, so rare with him?” + +“Why, it rather is, you know. But I’ve come to be able to spot him when +he does it. Those little bulgy eyes of his look at you particularly +straight and childlike. He said he had to hunt up a man on business--V-C +Chemical Company, he called it--” + +“There is such a thing here,” I said. + +“Oh, Charley’d never make up a thing, and get found out in that way! But +he was lying all the same, old man.” + +“Do you mean they’ve run off and got married?” + +“What do you take them for? Much more like them to run off and not get +married. But they haven’t done that either. And, speaking of that, I +believe I’ve gone a bit adrift. Your fire-eater, you know--she is an +extraordinary woman!” And Beverly gave his mellow, little humorous +chuckle. “Hanged if I don’t begin to think she does fancy him.” + +“Well!” I cried, “that would explain--no, it wouldn’t. Whence comes your +theory?” + +“Saw her look at him at dinner once last night. We dined with some +people--Cornerly. She looked at him just once. Well, if she intends--by +gad, it upsets one’s whole notion of her!” + +“Isn’t just one look rather slight basis for--” + +“Now, old man, you know better than that!” Beverly paused to chuckle. +“My grandmother Livingston,” he resumed, “knew Aaron Burr, and she used +to say that he had an eye which no honest woman could meet without +a blush. I don’t know whether your fire-eater is a Launcelot, or a +Galahad, but that girl’s eye at dinner--” + +“Did he blush?” I laughed. + +“Not that I saw. But really, old man, confound it, you know! He’s no +sort of husband for her. How can he make her happy and how can she make +him happy, and how can either of them hit it off with the other the +least little bit? She’s expensive, he’s not; she’s up-to-date, he’s not; +she’s of the great world, he’s provincial. She’s all derision, he’s all +faith. Why, hang it, old boy, what does she want him for?” + +Beverly’s handsome brow was actually furrowed with his problem; and, as +I certainly could furnish him no solution for it, we stood in silence on +the post-office steps. “What can she want him for?” he repeated. Then +he threw it off lightly with one of his chuckles. “So glad I’ve no +daughters to marry! Well--I must go draw some money.” + +He took himself off with a certain alacrity, giving an impatient cut +with his stick at a sparrow in the middle of Worship Street, nor did +I see him again this day, although, after hurriedly getting my letters +(for the starting hour of the boat had now drawn near), I followed where +he had gone down Court Street, and his cosmopolitan figure would +have been easy to descry at any distance along that scantily peopled +pavement. He had evidently found the bank and was getting his money. + +David of the yellow heir and his limpid-looking bride were on the +horrible little excursion boat, watching for me and keeping with some +difficulty a chair next themselves that I might not have to stand up all +the way; and, as I came aboard, the bride called out to me her relief, +she had made sure that I would be late. + +“David said you wouldn’t,” she announced in her clear up-country accent +across the parasols and heads of huddled tourists, “but I told him a +gentleman that’s late to three meals aivry day like as not would forget +boats can’t be kept hot in the kitchen for you.” + +I took my place in the chair beside her as hastily as possible, for +there is nothing that I so much dislike as being made conspicuous for +any reason whatever; and my thanks to her were, I fear, less gracious in +their manner than should have been the case. Nor did she find me, I must +suppose, as companionable during this excursion--during the first part +of it, at any rate--as a limpid-looking bride, who has kept at some +pains a seat beside her for a single gentleman, has the right to expect; +the brief hours of this morning had fed my preoccupation too richly, and +I must often have fallen silent. + +The horrible little tug, or ferry, or wherry, or whatever its +contemptible inconvenience makes it fitting that this unclean and +snail-like craft should be styled, cast off and began to lumber along +the edges of the town with its dense cargo of hats and parasols and +lunch parcels. We were a most extraordinary litter of man and womankind. +There was the severe New England type, improving each shining hour, and +doing it in bleak costume and with a thoroughly northeast expression; +there were pink sunbonnets from (I should imagine) Spartanburg, or +Charlotte, or Greenville; there were masculine boots which yet bore +incrusted upon their heels the red mud of Aiken or of Camden; there +was one fat, jewelled exhalation who spoke of Palm Beach with the true +stockyard twang, and looked as if she swallowed a million every morning +for breakfast, and God knows how many more for the ensuing repasts; she +was the only detestable specimen among us; sunbonnets, boots, and even +ungenial New England proved on acquaintance kindly, simple, enterprising +Americans; yet who knows if sunbonnets and boots and all of us wouldn’t +have become just as detestable had we but been as she was, swollen and +puffy with the acute indigestion of sudden wealth? + +This reflection made me charitable, which I always like to be, and I +imparted it to the bride. + +“My!” she said. And I really don’t know what that meant. + +But presently I understood well why people endured the discomfort of +this journey. I forgot the cinders which now and then showered upon us, +and the heat of the sun, and the crowded chairs; I forgot the boat and +myself, in looking at the passing shores. Our course took us round +Kings Port on three sides. The calm, white town spread out its width +and length beneath a blue sky softer than the tenderest dream; the white +steeples shone through the enveloping brightness, taking to each +other, and to the distant roofs beneath them, successive and changing +relations, while the dwindling mass of streets and edifices followed +more slowly the veering of the steeples, folded upon itself, and +refolded, opened into new shapes and closed again, dwindling always, +and always white and beautiful; and as the far-off vision of it held +the eye, the few masts along the wharves grew thin and went out into +invisibility, the spires became as masts, the distant drawbridge through +which we had passed sank down into a mere stretching line, and shining +Kings Port was dissolved in the blue of water and of air. + +The curving and the narrowing of the river took it at last from view; +and after it disappeared the spindling chimneys and their smoke, which +were along the bank above the town and bridge, leaving us to progress +through the solitude of marsh and wood and shore. The green levels of +stiff salt grass closed in upon the breadth of water, and we wound among +them, looking across their silence to the deeper silence of the woods +that bordered them, the brooding woods, the pines and the liveoaks, +misty with the motionless hanging moss, and misty also in that Southern +air that deepened when it came among their trunks to a caressing, +mysterious, purple veil. Every line of this landscape, the straight +forest top, the feathery breaks in it of taller trees, the curving +marsh, every line and every hue and every sound inscrutably spoke +sadness. I heard a mocking-bird once in some blossoming wild fruit tree +that we gradually reached and left gradually behind; and more than once +I saw other blossoms, and the yellow of the trailing jessamine; but the +bird could not sing the silence away, and spring with all her abundance +could not hide this spiritual autumn. + +Dreams, a land of dreams, where even the high noon itself was dreamy; a +melting together of earth and air and water in one eternal gentleness of +revery! Whence came the melancholy of this? I had seen woods as solitary +and streams as silent, I had felt nature breathing upon me a greater +awe; but never before such penetrating and quiet sadness. I only know +that this is the perpetual mood of those Southern shores, those rivers +that wind in from the ocean among their narrowing marshes and their +hushed forests, and that it does not come from any memory of human hopes +and disasters, but from the elements themselves. + +So did we move onward, passing in due time another bridge and a few +dwellings and some excavations, until the river grew quite narrow, and +there ahead was the landing at Live Oaks, with negroes idly watching for +us, and a launch beside the bank, and Charley and Hortense Rieppe about +to step into it. Another man stood up in the launch and talked to them +where they were on the landing platform, and pointed down the river as +we approached; but evidently he did not point at us. I looked hastily +to see what he was indicating to them, but I could see nothing save the +solitary river winding away between the empty woods and marshes. + +So this was Hortense Rieppe! It was not wonderful that she had caused +young John to lose his heart, or, at any rate, his head and his senses; +nor was it wonderful that Charley, with his little bulging eyes, should +take her in his launch whenever she would go; the wonderful thing was +that John, at his age and with his nature, should have got over it--if +he had got over it! I felt it tingling in me; any man would. Steel wasp +indeed! + +She was slender, and oh, how well dressed! She watched the passengers +get off the boat, and I could not tell you from that first sight of her +what her face was like, but only her hair, the sunburnt amber of its +masses making one think of Tokay or Chateau-Yquem. She was watching me, +I felt, and then saw; and as soon as I was near she spoke to me without +moving, keeping one gloved hand lightly posed upon the railing of the +platform, so that her long arm was bent with perfect ease and grace. +I swear that none but a female eye could have detected any toboggan +fire-escape. + +Her words dropped with the same calculated deliberation, the same +composed and rich indifference. “These gardens are so beautiful.” + +Such was her first remark, chosen with some purpose, I knew quite +well; and I observed that I hoped I was not too late for their full +perfection, if too late to visit them in her company. + +She turned her head slightly toward Charley. “We have been enjoying them +so much.” + +It was of absorbing interest to feel simultaneously in these brief +speeches he vouchsafed--speeches consummate in their inexpressive +flatness--the intentional coldness and the latent heat of the creature. +Since Natchez and Mobile (or whichever of them it had been that had +witnessed her beginnings) she had encountered many men and women, those +who could be of use to her and those who could not; and in dealing +with them she had tempered and chiselled her insolence to a perfect +instrument, to strike or to shield. And of her greatest gift, also, +she was entirely aware--how could she help being, with her evident +experience? She knew that round her whole form swam a delicious, +invisible sphere, a distillation that her veriest self sent forth, as +gardenias do their perfume, moving where she moved and staying where she +stayed, and compared with which wine was a feeble vapor for a man to get +drunk on. + +“Flowers are always so delightful.” + +That was her third speech, pronounced just like the others, in a low, +clear voice--simplicity arrived at by much well-practiced complexity. +And she still looked at Charley. + +Charley now responded in his little banker accent. “It is a magnificent +collection.” This he said looking at me, and moving a highly polished +finger-nail along a very slender mustache. + +The eyes of Hortense now for a moment glanced at the mixed company of +boat-passengers, who were beginning to be led off in pilgrim groups by +the appointed guides. + +“We were warned it would be too crowded,” she remarked. + +Charley was looking at her foot. I can’t say whether or not the two +light taps that the foot now gave upon the floor of the landing brought +out for me a certain impatience which I might otherwise have missed +in those last words of hers. From Charley it brought out, I feel quite +sure, the speech which (in some form) she had been expecting from him as +her confederate in this unwelcome and inopportune interview with me, +and which his less highly schooled perceptions had not suggested to him +until prompted by her. + +“I should have been very glad to include you in our launch party if I +had known you were coming here to-day,” lied little Charley. + +“Thank you so much!” I murmured; and I fancy that after this Hortense +hated me worse than ever. Well, why should I play her game? If anybody +had any claim upon me, was it she? I would get as much diversion as I +could from this encounter. + +Hortense had looked at Charley when she spoke for my benefit, and it now +pleased me very much to look at him when I spoke for hers. + +“I could almost give up the gardens for the sake of returning with you,” + I said to him. + +This was most successful in producing a perceptible silence before +Hortense said, “Do come.” + +I wanted to say to her, “You are quite splendid--as splendid as you +look, through and through! You wouldn’t have run away from any battle of +Chattanooga!” But what I did say was, “These flowers here will fade, but +may I not hope to see you again in Kings Port?” + +She was looking at me with eyes half closed; half closed for the sake +of insolence--and better observation; when eyes like that take on +drowsiness, you will be wise to leave all your secrets behind you, +locked up in the bank, or else toss them right down on the open table. +Well, I tossed mine down, thereto precipitated by a warning from the +stranger in the launch:-- + +“We shall need all the tide we can get.” + +“I’m sure you’d be glad to know,” I then said immediately (to Charley, +of course), “that Miss La Heu, whose dog you killed, is back at her work +as usual this morning.” + +“Thank you,” returned Charley. “If there could be any chance for me to +replace--” + +“Miss La Heu is her name?” inquired Hortense. “I did not catch it +yesterday. She works, you say?” + +“At the Woman’s Exchange. She bakes cakes for weddings--among her other +activities.” + +“So interesting!” said Hortense; and bowing to me, she allowed the +spellbound Charley to help her down into the launch. + +Each step of the few that she had to take was upon unsteady footing, and +each was taken with slow security and grace, and with a mastery of her +skirts so complete that they seemed to do it of themselves, falling and +folding in the soft, delicate curves of discretion. + +For the sake of not seeming too curious about this party, I turned from +watching it before the launch had begun to move, and it was immediately +hidden from me by the bank, so that I did not see it get away. As I +crossed an open space toward the gardens I found myself far behind the +other pilgrims, whose wandering bands I could half discern among winding +walks and bordering bushes. I was soon taken into somewhat reprimanding +charge by an admirable, if important, negro, who sighted me from a door +beneath the porch of the house, and advanced upon me speedily. From him +I learned at once the rule of the place, that strangers were not allowed +to “go loose,” as he expressed it; and recognizing the perfect propriety +of this restriction, I was humble, and even went so far as to put myself +right with him by quite ample purchases of the beautiful flowers that he +had for sale; some of these would be excellent for the up-country bride, +who certainly ought to have repentance from me in some form for my +silence as we had come up the river: the scenery had caused me most +ungallantly to forget her. + +My rule-breaking turned out all to my advantage. The admirable and +important negro was so pacified by my liberal amends that he not only +placed the flowers which I had bought in a bucket of water to wait in +freshness until my tour of the gardens should be finished and the moment +for me to return upon the boat should arrive, but he also honored me +with his own special company; and instead of depositing me in one of the +groups of other travellers, he took me to see the sights alone, as if +I were somebody too distinguished to receive my impressions with the +common herd. Thus I was able to linger here and there, and even to +return to certain points for another look. + +I shall not attempt to describe the azaleas at Live Oaks. You will +understand me quite well, I am sure, when I say that I had heard the +people at Mrs. Trevise’s house talk so much about them, and praise them +so superlatively, that I was not prepared for much: my experience +of life had already included quite a number of azaleas. Moreover, my +meeting with Hortense and Charley had taken me far away from flowers. +But when that marvelous place burst upon me, I forgot Hortense. I have +seen gardens, many gardens, in England, in France; in Italy; I have seen +what can be done in great hothouses, and on great terraces; what can be +done under a roof, and what can be done in the open air with the aid +of architecture and sculpture and ornamental land and water; but no +horticulture that I have seen devised by mortal man approaches the +unearthly enchantment of the azaleas at Live Oaks. It was not like +seeing flowers at all; it was as if there, in the heart of the wild +and mystic wood, in the gray gloom of those trees veiled and muffled in +their long webs and skeins of hanging moss, a great, magic flame of +rose and red and white burned steadily. You looked to see it vanish; you +could not imagine such a thing would stay. All idea of individual +petals or species was swept away in this glowing maze of splendor, +this transparent labyrinth of rose and red and white, through which you +looked beyond, into the gray gloom of the hanging moss and the depths of +the wild forest trees. + +I turned back as often as I could, and to the last I caught glimpses +of it, burning, glowing, and shining like some miracle, some rainbow +exorcism, with its flooding fumes of orange-rose and red and white, +merging magically. It was not until I reached the landing, and made my +way on board again, that Hortense returned to my thoughts. She hadn’t +come to see the miracle; not she! I knew that better than ever. And who +was the other man in the launch? + +“Wasn’t it perfectly elegant!” exclaimed the up-country bride. And upon +my assenting, she made a further declaration to David: “It’s just aivry +bit as good as the Isle of Champagne.” + +This I discovered to be a comic opera, mounted with spendthrift +brilliance, which David had taken her to see at the town of Gonzales, +just before they were married. + +As we made our way down the bending river she continued to make many +observations to me in that up-country accent of hers, which is a fashion +of speech that may be said to differ as widely from the speech of the +low-country as cotton differs from rice. I began to fear that, in spite +of my truly good intentions, I was again failing to be as “attentive” as +the occasion demanded; and so I presented her with my floral tribute. + +She was immediately arch. “I’d surely be depriving somebody!” and on +this I got to the full her limpid look. + +I assured her that this would not be so, and pointed to the other +flowers I had. + +Accordingly, after a little more archness, she took them, as she had, +of course, fully meant to do from the first; she also took a woman’s +revenge. “I’ll not be any more lonesome going down than I was coming +up,” she said. “David’s enough.” And this led me definitely to conclude +that David had secured a helpmate who could take care of herself, in +spite of the limpidity of her eyes. + +A steel wasp? Again that misleading description of Mrs. Weguelin St. +Michael’s, to which, since my early days in Kings Port, my imagination +may be said to have been harnessed, came back into my mind. I turned its +injustice over and over beneath the light which the total Hortense now +shed upon it--or rather, not the total Hortense, but my whole impression +of her, as far as I had got; I got a good deal further before we had +finished. To the slow, soft accompaniment of these gliding river shores, +where all the shadows had changed since morning, so that new loveliness +stood revealed at every turn, my thoughts dwelt upon this perfected +specimen of the latest American moment--so late that she contained +nothing of the past, and a great deal of to-morrow. I basked myself +in the memory of her achieved beauty, her achieved dress, her achieved +insolence, her luxurious complexity. She was even later than those quite +late athletic girls, the Amazons of the links, whose big, hard football +faces stare at one from public windows and from public punts, whose +giant, manly strides take them over leagues of country and square miles +of dance-floor, and whose bursting, blatant, immodest health glares upon +sea-beaches and round supper tables. Hortense knew that even now the +hour of such is striking, and that the American boy will presently turn +with relief to a creature who will more clearly remind him that he is a +man and that she is a woman. + +But why was the insolence of Hortense offensive, when the insolence +of Eliza La Heu was not? Both these extremely feminine beings could +exercise that quality in profusion, whenever they so wished; wherein did +the difference lie? Perhaps I thought, in the spirit of its exercise; +Eliza was merely insolent when she happened to feel like it; and man +has always been able to forgive woman for that--whether the angels do or +not, but Hortense, the world-wise, was insolent to all people who could +not be of use to her; and all I have to say is, that if the angels can +forgive them, they’re welcome; I can’t! + +Had I made sure of anything at the landing? Yes; Hortense didn’t care +for Charley in the least, and never would. A woman can stamp her foot +at a man and love him simultaneously; but those two light taps, and +the measure that her eyes took of Charley, meant that she must love his +possessions very much to be able to bear him at all. + +Then, what was her feeling about John Mayrant? As Beverly had said, what +could she want him for? He hadn’t a thing that she valued or needed. His +old-time notions of decency, the clean simplicity of his make, his good +Southern position, and his collection of nice old relatives--what did +these assets look like from an automobile, or on board the launch of +a modern steam yacht? And wouldn’t it be amusing if John should grow +needlessly jealous, and have a “difficulty” with Charley? not a mere +flinging of torn paper money in the banker’s face, but some more decided +punishment for the banker’s presuming to rest his predatory eyes upon +John’s affianced lady. + +I stared at the now broadening river, where the reappearance of the +bridge, and of Kings Port, and the nearer chimneys pouring out their +smoke a few miles above the town, betokened that our excursion was +drawing to its end. And then from the chimney’s neighborhood, from +the waterside where their factories stood, there shot out into the +smoothness of the stream a launch. It crossed into our course ahead +of us, preceded us quickly, growing soon into a dot, went through the +bridge, and so was seen no longer; and its occupants must have reached +town a good half hour before we did. And now, suddenly, I was stunned +with a great discovery. The bride’s voice sounded in my ear. “Well, I’ll +always say you’re a prophet, anyhow!” + +I looked at her, dull and dazed by the internal commotion the discovery +had raised in me. + +“You said we wouldn’t get stuck in the mud, and we didn’t,” said the +bride. + +I pointed to the chimneys. “Are those the phosphate works?” + +“Yais. Didn’t you know?” + +“The V-C phosphate works?” + +“Why, yais. Haven’t you been to see them yet? He ought to, oughtn’t he, +David? ‘Specially now they’ve found those deposits up the river were +just as rich as they hoped, after all.” + +“Whose? Mr. Mayrant’s?” I asked with such sharpness that the bride was +surprised. + +David hadn’t attended to the name. It was some trust estate, he thought; +Regent Tom, or some such thing. + +“And they thought it was no good,” said the bride. “And it’s aivry bit +as good as the Coosaw used to be. Better than Florida or Tennessee.” + +My eyes instinctively turned to where they had last seen the launch; of +course it wasn’t there any more. Then I spoke to David. + +“Do you know what a phosphate bed looks like? Can one see it?” + +“This kind you can,” he answered. “But it’s not worth your trouble. +Just a kind of a square hole you dig along the river till you strike the +stuff. What you want to see is the works.” + +No, I didn’t want to see even the works; they smelt atrociously, and I +do not care for vats, and acids, and processes: and besides, had I not +seen enough? My eyes went down the river again where that launch had +gone; and I wondered if the wedding-cake would be postponed any more. + +Regent Tom? Oh, yes, to be sure! John Mayrant had pointed out to me the +house where he had lived; he had been John’s uncle. So the old gentleman +had left his estate in trust! And now--! But certainly Hortense would +have won the battle of Chattanooga! + +“Don’t be too sure about all this,” I told myself cautiously. But there +are times when cautioning one’s self is quite as useless as if somebody +else had cautioned one; my reason leaped with the rapidity of intuition; +I merely sat and looked on at what it was doing. All sorts of odds +and ends, words I hadn’t understood, looks and silences I hadn’t +interpreted, little signs that I had thought nothing of at first, but +which I had gradually, through their multiplicity, come to know meant +something, all these broken pieces fitted into each other now, fell +together and made a clear pattern of the truth, without a crack in +it--Hortense had never believed in that story about the phosphates +having failed--“pinched out,” as they say of ore deposits. There she +had stood between her two suitors, between her affianced John and the +besieging Charley, and before she would be off with the old love and on +with the new, she must personally look into those phosphates. Therefore +she had been obliged to have a sick father and postpone the wedding two +or three times, because her affairs--very likely the necessity of making +certain of Charley--had prevented her from coming sooner to Kings Port. +And having now come hither, and having beheld her Northern and her +Southern lovers side by side--had the comparison done something to her +highly controlled heart? Was love taking some hitherto unknown liberties +with that well-balanced organ? But what an outrage had been perpetrated +upon John! At that my deductions staggered in their rapid course. How +could his aunts--but then it had only been one of them; Miss Josephine +had never approved of Miss Eliza’s course; it was of that that Mrs. +Weguelin St. Michael had so emphatically reminded Mrs. Gregory in my +presence when we had strolled together upon High Walk, and those two +ladies had talked oracles in my presence. Well, they were oracles no +longer! + +When the boat brought us back to the wharf, there were the rest of my +flowers unbestowed, and upon whom should I bestow them? I thought first +of Eliza La Heu, but she wouldn’t be at the Exchange so late as this. +Then it seemed well to carry them to Mrs. Weguelin. Something, however, +prompted me to pass her door, and continue vaguely walking on until I +came to the house where Miss Josephine and Miss Eliza lived; and here I +rang the bell and was admitted. + +They were sitting as I had seen them first, the one with her embroidery, +and the other on the further side of a table, whereon lay an open +letter, which in a few moments I knew must have been the subject of the +discussion which they finished even as I came forward. + +“It was only prolonging an honest mistake.” That was Miss Eliza. + +“And it has merely resulted in clinching what you meant it to finish.” + That was Miss Josephine. + +I laid my flowers upon the table, and saw that the letter was in John +Mayrant’s hand. Of course. + +I avoided looking at it again; but what had he written, and why had he +written? His daily steps turned to this house--unless Miss Josephine had +banished him again. + +The ladies accepted my offering with gracious expressions, and while I +told them of my visit to Live Oaks, and poured out my enthusiasm, the +servant was sent for and brought water and two beautiful old china +bowls, in which Miss Eliza proceeded to arrange the flowers with her +delicate white hands. She made them look exquisite with an old lady’s +art, and this little occupation went on as we talked of indifferent +subjects. + +But the atmosphere of that room was charged with the subject of which we +did not speak. The letter lay on the table; and even as I struggled to +sustain polite conversation, I began to know what was in it, though I +never looked at it again; it spoke out as clearly to me as the launch +had done. I had thought, when I first entered, to tell the ladies +something of my meeting with Hortense Rieppe; I can only say that I +found this impossible. Neither of them referred to her, or to John, or +to anything that approached what we were all thinking of; for me to do +so would have assumed the dimensions of a liberty; and in consequence of +this state of things, constraint sat upon us all, growing worse, and +so pervading our small-talk with discomfort that I made my visit a very +short one. Of course they were civil about this when I rose, and begged +me not to go so soon; but I knew better. And even as I was getting my +hat and gloves in the hall I could tell by their tones that they had +returned to the subject of that letter. But in truth they had never left +it; as the front door shut behind me I felt as if they had read it aloud +to me. + + + + +XVI: The Steel Wasp + +Certainly Hortense Rieppe would have won the battle of Chattanooga! +I know not from which parent that young woman inherited her gift of +strategy, but she was a master. To use the resources of one lover +in order to ascertain if another lover had any; to lay tribute on +everything that Charley possessed; on his influence in the business +world, which enabled him to walk into the V-C Chemical Company’s office +and borrow an expert in the phosphate line; on his launch in which to +pop the expert and take him up the river, and see in his company and +learn from his lips just what resources of worldly wealth were likely to +be in-store for John Mayrant; and finally (which was the key to all +the rest) on his inveterate passion for her, on his banker-like +determination through all the thick and thin of discouragement, and +worse than discouragement, of contemptuous coquetry, to possess her at +any cost he could afford;--to use all this that Charley had, in order +that she might judiciously arrive at the decision whether she would take +him or his rival, left one lost in admiration. And then, not to waste +a moment! To reach town one evening, and next morning by ten o’clock +to have that expert safe in the launch on his way up the river to the +phosphate diggings! The very audacity of such unscrupulousness commanded +my respect: successful dishonor generally wins louder applause than +successful virtue. But to be married to her! Oh! not for worlds! Charley +might meet such emergency, but poor John, never! + +I nearly walked into Mrs. Weguelin and Mrs. Gregory taking their +customary air slowly in South Place. + +“But why a steel wasp?” I said at once to Mrs. Weguelin. It was a more +familiar way of beginning with the little, dignified lady than would +have been at all possible, or suitable, if we had not had that little +joke about the piano snobile between us. As it was, she was not wholly +displeased. These Kings Port old ladies grew, I suspect, very slowly +and guardedly accustomed to any outsider; they allowed themselves very +seldom to suffer any form of abruptness from him, or from any one, for +that matter. But, once they were reassured as to him, then they might +sometimes allow the privileged person certain departures from their +own rule of deportment, because his conventions were recognized to be +different from theirs. Moreover, in reminding Mrs. Weguelin of the steel +wasp, I had put my abruptness in “quotations,” so to speak, by the +tone I gave it, just as people who are particular in speech can often +interpolate a word of current slang elegantly by means of the shade of +emphasis which they lay upon it. + +So Mrs. Weguelin smiled and her dark eyes danced a little. “You remember +I said that, then?” + +“I remember everything that you said.” + +“How much have you seen of the creature?” demanded Mrs. Gregory, with +her head pretty high. + +“Well, I’m seeing more, and more, and more every minute. She’s rather +endless.” + +Mrs. Weguelin looked reproachful. “You surely cannot admire her, too?” + +Mrs. Gregory hadn’t understood me. “Oh, if you really can keep her away, +you’re welcome!” + +“I only meant,” I explained to the ladies, “that you don’t really begin +to see her till you have seen her: it’s afterward, when you’re out of +reach of the spell.” And I told them of the interview which I had not +been able to tell to Miss Josephine and Miss Eliza. “I doubt if it +lasted more than four minutes,” I assured them. + +“Up the river?” repeated Mrs. Gregory + +“At the landing,” I repeated. And the ladies consulted each other’s +expressions. But that didn’t bother me any more. + +“And you can admire her?” Mrs. Weguelin persisted. + +“May I tell you exactly, precisely?” + +“Oh, do!” they both exclaimed. + +“Well, I think many wise men would find her immensely desirable--as +somebody else’s wife!” + +At this remark Mrs. Weguelin dropped her eyes, but I knew they were +dancing beneath their lids. “I should not have permitted myself to say +that, but I am glad that it has been said.” + +Mrs. Gregory turned to her companion. “Shall we call to-morrow?” + +“Don’t you feel it must be done?” returned Mrs. Weguelin, and then she +addressed me. “Do you know a Mr. Beverly Rodgers?” + +I gave him a golden recommendation and took my leave of the ladies. + +So they were going to do the handsome thing; they would ring the +Cornerlys’ bell; they would cross the interloping threshold, they would +recognize the interloping girl; and this meant that they had given it +up. It meant that Miss Eliza had given it up, too, had at last abandoned +her position that the marriage would never take place. And her own act +had probably drawn this down upon her. When the trustee of that estate +had told her of the apparent failure of the phosphates, she had hailed +it as an escape for her beloved John, and for all of them, because she +made sure that Hortense would never marry a virtually penniless man. And +when the work went on, and the rich fortune was unearthed after all, her +influence had caused that revelation to be delayed because she was so +confident that the engagement would be broken. But she had reckoned +without Hortense; worse than that, she had reckoned without John +Mayrant; in her meddling attempt to guide his affairs in the way that +she believed would be best for him, she forgot that the boy whom she had +brought up was no longer a child, and thus she unpardonably ignored his +rights as a man. And now Miss Josephine’s disapproval was vindicated, +and her own casuistry was doubly punished. Miss Rieppe’s astute journey +of investigation--for her purpose had evidently become suspected by some +of them beforehand--had forced Miss Eliza to disclose the truth about +the phosphates to her nephew before it should be told him by the girl +herself; and the intolerable position of apparent duplicity precipitated +two wholly inevitable actions on his part; he had bound himself more +than ever to marry Hortense, and he had made a furious breach with his +Aunt Eliza. That was what his letter had contained; this time he had +banished himself from that house. What was his Aunt Eliza going to do +about it? I wondered. She was a stiff, if indiscreet, old lady, and it +certainly did not fall within her view of the proprieties that young +people should take their elders to task in furious letters. But she +had been totally in the wrong, and her fault was irreparable, because +important things had happened in consequence of it; she might repent the +fault in sackcloth and ashes, but she couldn’t stop the things. Would +she, then, honorably wear the sackcloth, or would she dishonestly shirk +it under the false issue of her nephew’s improper tone to her? Women can +justify themselves with more appalling skill than men. + +One drop there was in all this bitter bucket, which must have tasted +sweet to John. He had resigned from the Custom House: Juno had got +it right this time, though she hadn’t a notion of the real reason for +John’s act. This act had been, since morning, lost for me, so to speak, +in the shuffle of more absorbing events; and it now rose to view again +in my mind as a telling stroke in the full-length portrait that all his +acts had been painting of the boy during the last twenty-four hours. +Notwithstanding a meddlesome aunt, and an arriving sweetheart, and +imminent wedlock, he hadn’t forgotten to stop “taking orders from a +negro” at the very first opportunity which came to him; his phosphates +had done this for him, at least, and I should have the pleasure of +correcting Juno at tea. + +But I did not have this pleasure. They were all in an excitement over +something else, and my own different excitement hadn’t a chance against +this greater one; for people seldom wish to hear what you have to say, +even under the most favorable circumstances, and never when they have +anything to say themselves. With an audience so hotly preoccupied I +couldn’t have sat on Juno effectively at all, and therefore I kept it +to myself, and attended very slightly to what they were telling me about +the Daughters of Dixie. + +I bowed absently to the poetess. “And your poem?” I said. “A great +success, I am sure?” + +“Why, didn’t you hear me say so?” said the upcountry bride; and then, +after a smile at the others, “I’m sure your flowers were graciously +accepted.” + +“Ask Miss Josephine St. Michael,” I replied. + +“Oh, oh, oh!” went the bride. “How would she know?” + +I gave myself no pains to improve or arrest this tiresome joke, and they +went back to their Daughters of Dixie; but it is rather singular how +sometimes an utterly absurd notion will be the cause of our taking a +step which we had not contemplated. I did carry some flowers to Miss La +Heu the next day. I was at some trouble to find any; for in Kings Port +shops of this kind are by no means plentiful, and it was not until I had +paid a visit to a quite distant garden at the extreme northwestern edge +of the town that I lighted upon anything worthy of the girl behind the +counter. The Exchange itself was apt to have flowers for sale, but I +hardly saw my way to buying them there, and then immediately offering +them to the fair person who had sold them to me. As it was, I did much +better; for what I brought her were decidedly superior to any that were +at the Exchange when I entered it at lunch time. + +They were, as the up-country bride would have put it, “graciously +accepted.” Miss La Heu stood them in water on the counter beside her +ledger. She was looking lovely. + +“I expected you yesterday,” she said. “The new Lady Baltimore was +ready.” + +“Well, if it is not all eaten yet--” + +“Oh, no! Not a slice gone.” + +“Ah, nobody does your art justice here!” + +“Go and sit down at your table, please.” + +It was really quite difficult to say to her from that distance the sort +of things that I wished to say; but there seemed to be no help for it, +and I did my best. + +“I shall miss my lunches here very much when I’m gone.” + +“Did you say coffee to-day?” + +“Chocolate. I shall miss--” + +“And the lettuce sandwiches?” + +“Yes. You don’t realize how much these lunches--” + +“Have cost you?” She seemed determined to keep laughing. + +“You have said it. They have cost me my--” + +“I can give you the receipt, you know.” + +“The receipt?” + +“For Lady Baltimore, to take with you.” + +“You’ll have to give me a receipt for a lost heart.” + +“Oh, his heart! General, listen to--” From habit she had turned to +where her dog used to lie; and sudden pain swept over her face and was +mastered. “Never mind!” she quickly resumed. “Please don’t speak about +it. And you have a heart somewhere; for it was very nice in you to come +in yesterday morning after--after the bridge.” + +“I hope I have a heart,” I began, rising; for, really, I could not go on +in this way, sitting down away back at the lunch table. + +But the door opened, and Hortense Rieppe came into the Woman’s Exchange. + +It was at me that she first looked, and she gave me the slightest bow +possible, the least sign of conventional recognition that a movement +of the head could make and be visible at all; she didn’t bend her head +down, she tilted it ever so little up. It wasn’t new to me, this form +of greeting, and I knew that she had acquired it at Newport, and that it +denoted, all too accurately, the size of my importance in her eyes; she +did it, as she did everything, with perfection. Then she turned to Eliza +La Heu, whose face had become miraculously sweet. + +“Good morning,” said Hortense. + +It sounded from a quiet well of reserve music; just a cupful of +melodious tone dipped lightly out of the surface. Her face hadn’t +become anything; but it was equally miraculous in its total void of all +expression relating to this moment, or to any moment; just her beauty, +her permanent stationary beauty, was there glowing in it and through it, +not skin deep, but going back and back into her lazy eyes, and shining +from within the modulated bloom of her color and the depths of her amber +hair. She was choosing, for this occasion, to be as impersonal as some +radiant hour in nature, some mellow, motionless day when the leaves have +turned, but have not fallen, and it is drowsily warm; but it wasn’t so +much of nature that she, in her harmonious lustre, reminded me, as of +some beautiful silken-shaded lamp, from which color rather than light +came with subdued ampleness. + +I saw her eyes settle upon the flowers that I had brought Eliza La Heu. + +“How beautiful those are!” she remarked. + +“Is there something that you wish?” inquired Miss La Heu, always +miraculously sweet. + +“Some of your good things for lunch; a very little, if you will be so +kind.” + +I had gone back to my table while the “very little” was being selected, +and I felt, in spite of how slightly she counted me, that it would be +inadequate in me to remain completely dumb. + +“Mr. Mayrant is still at the Custom House?” I observed. + +“For a few days, yes. Happily we shall soon break that connection.” And +she smelt my flowers. + +“‘We,’” I thought to myself, “is rather tremendous.” + +It grew more tremendous in the silence as Eliza La Heu brought me my +orders. Miss Rieppe did not seat herself to take the light refreshment +which she found enough for lunch. Her plate and cup were set for her, +but she walked about, now with one, and now with the other, taking her +time over it, and pausing here and there at some article of the Exchange +stock. + +Of course, she hadn’t come there for any lunch; the Cornerlys had midday +lunch and dined late; these innovated hours were a part of Kings Port’s +deep suspicion of the Cornerlys; but what now became interesting was her +evident indifference to our perceiving that lunch was merely a pretext +with her; in fact, I think she wished it to be perceived, and I also +think that those turns which she took about the Exchange--her apparent +inspection of an old mahogany table, her examination of a pewter +set--were a symbol (and meant to be a symbol) of how she had all the +time there was, and the possession of everything she wished including +the situation, and that she enjoyed having this sink in while she was +rearranging whatever she had arranged to say, in consequence of finding +that I should also hear it. And how well she was worth looking at, no +matter whether she stood, or moved, or what she did! Her age lay beyond +the reach of the human eye; if she was twenty-five, she was marvelous in +her mastery of her appearance; if she was thirty-four, she was marvelous +in her mastery of perpetuating it, and by no other means than perfect +dress personal to herself (for she had taken the fashion and welded it +into her own plasticity) and perfect health; for without a trace of the +athletic, her graceful shape teemed with elasticity. There was a touch +of “sport” in the parasol she had laid down; and with all her blended +serenity there was a touch of “sport” in her. Experience could teach +her beauty nothing more; it wore the look of having been made love to by +many married men. + +Quite suddenly the true light flashed upon me. I had been slow-sighted +indeed! So that was what she had come here for to-day! Miss Hortense +was going to pay her compliments to Miss La Heu. I believe that my sight +might still have been slow but for that miraculous sweetness upon +the face of Eliza. She was ready for the compliments! Well, I sat +expectant--and disappointment was by no means my lot. + +Hortense finished her lunch. “And so this interesting place is where you +work?” + +Eliza, thus addressed, assented. + +“And you furnish wedding cakes also?” + +Eliza was continuously and miraculously sweet. “The Exchange includes +that.” + +“I shall hope you will be present to taste some of yours on the day it +is mine.” + +“I shall accept the invitation if my friends send me one.” + +No blood flowed from Hortense at this, and she continued with the same +smooth deliberation. + +“The list is of necessity very small; but I shall see that it includes +you.” + +“You are not going to postpone it any more, then?” + +No blood flowed at this, either. “I doubt if John--if Mr. Mayrant--would +brook further delay, and my father seems stronger, at last. How much do +I owe you for your very good food?” + +It is a pity that a larger audience could not have been there to enjoy +this skilful duet, for it held me hanging on every musical word of it. +There, at the far back end of the long room, I sat alone at my +table, pretending to be engaged over a sandwich that was no more in +existence--external, I mean--and a totally empty cup of chocolate. I +lifted the cup, and bowed over the plate, and used the paper Japanese +napkin, and generally went through the various discreet paces of eating, +quite breathless, all the while, to know which of them was coming out +ahead. There was no fairness in their positions; Hortense had Eliza in +a cage, penned in by every fact; but it doesn’t do to go too near some +birds, even when they’re caged, and, while these two birds had been +giving their sweet manifestations of song, Eliza had driven a peck +or two home through the bars, which, though they did not draw visible +blood, as I have said, probably taught Hortense that a Newport education +is not the only instruction which fits you for drawing-room war to the +knife. + +Her small reckoning was paid, and she had drawn on one long, tawny +glove. Even this act was a luxury to watch, so full it was of the +feminine, of the stretching, indolent ease that the flesh and the spirit +of this creature invariably seemed to move with. But why didn’t she go? +This became my wonder now, while she slowly drew on the second glove. +She was taking more time than it needed. + +“Your flowers are for sale, too?” + +This, after her silence, struck me as being something planned out after +her original plan. The original plan had finished with that second +assertion of her ownership of John (or, I had better say, of his +ownership in her), that doubt she had expressed as to his being willing +to consent to any further postponement of their marriage. Of course she +had expected, and got herself ready for, some thrust on the postponement +subject. + +Eliza crossed from behind her counter to where the Exchange flowers +stood on the opposite side of the room and took some of them up. + +“But those are inferior,” said Hortense. “These.” And she touched +rightly the bowl in which my roses stood close beside Eliza’s ledger. + +Eliza paused for one second. “Those are not for sale.” + +Hortense paused, too. Then she hung to it. “They are so much the best.” + She was holding her purse. + +“I think so, too,” said Eliza. “But I cannot let any one have them.” + +Hortense put her purse away. “You know best. Shall you furnish us +flowers as well as cake?” + +Eliza’s sweetness rose an octave, softer and softer. “Why, they have +flowers there! Didn’t you know?” + +And to this last and frightful peck through the bars Hortense found no +retaliation. With a bow to Eliza, and a total oblivion of me, she went +out of the Exchange. She had flaunted “her” John in Eliza’s face, she +had, as they say, rubbed it in that he was “her” John;--but was it such +a neat, tidy victory, after all? She had given away the last word to +Eliza, presented her with that poisonous speech which when translated +meant:-- + +“Yes, he’s ‘your’ John; and you’re climbing up him into houses where +you’d otherwise be arrested for trespass.” For it was in one of the +various St. Michael houses that the marriage would be held, owing to the +nomadic state of the Rieppes. + +Yes, Hortense had gone altogether too close to the cage at the end, +and, in that repetition of her taunt about “furnishing” supplies for the +wedding, she had at length betrayed something which her skill and +the intricate enamel of her experience had hitherto, and with entire +success, concealed--namely, the latent vulgarity of the woman. She was +wearing, for the sake of Kings Port, her best behavior, her most knowing +form, and, indeed it was a well-done imitation of the real thing; it +would last through most occasions, and it would deceive most people. +But here was the trouble: she was wearing it; while, through the whole +encounter, Eliza La Heu had worn nothing but her natural and perfect +dignity; yet with that disadvantage (for good breeding, alas!, is at +times a sort of disadvantage, and can be battered down and covered with +mud so that its own fine grain is invisible) Eliza had, after a somewhat +undecisive battle, got in that last frightful peck! But what had led +Hortense, after she had come through pretty well, to lose her temper +and thus, at the finish, expose to Eliza her weakest position? That her +clothes were paid for by a Newport lady who had taken her to Worth, that +her wedding feast was to be paid for by the bridegroom, these were not +facts which Eliza would deign to use as weapons; but she was marrying +inside the doors of Eliza’s Kings Port, that had never opened to admit +her before, and she had slipped into putting this chance into Eliza’s +hand--and how had she come to do this? + +To be sure, my vision had been slow! Hortense had seen, through her +thick veil, Eliza’s interest in John in the first minute of her arrival +on the bridge, that minute when John had run up to Eliza after the +automobile had passed over poor General. And Hortense had not revealed +herself at once, because she wanted a longer look at them. Well, she had +got it, and she had got also a look at her affianced John when he was in +the fire-eating mood, and had displayed the conduct appropriate to 1840, +while Charley’s display had been so much more modern. And so first she +had prudently settled that awkward phosphate difficulty, and next she +had paid this little visit to Eliza in order to have the pleasure of +telling her in four or five different ways, and driving it in deep, and +turning it round: “Don’t you wish you may get him?” + +“That’s all clear as day,” I said to myself. “But what does her loss of +temper mean?” + +Eliza was writing at her ledger. The sweetness hadn’t entirely gone; it +was too soon for that, and besides, she knew I must be looking at her. + +“Couldn’t you have told her they were my flowers?” I asked her at the +counter, as I prepared to depart. Eliza did not look up from her ledger. +“Do you think she would have believed me?” + +“And why shouldn’t--” + +“Go out!” she interrupted imperiously and with a stamp of her foot. +“You’ve been here long enough!” + +You may imagine my amazement at this. It was not until I had reached +Mrs. Trevise’s, and was sitting down to answer a note which had been +left for me, that light again came. Hortense Rieppe had thought those +flowers were from John Mayrant, and Eliza had let her think so. + +Yes, that was light, a good bright light shed on the matter; but a still +more brilliant beam was cast by the up-country bride when I came into +the dining-room. I told her myself, at once, that I had taken flowers to +Miss La Heu; I preferred she should hear this from me before she learned +it from the smiling lips of gossip. It surprised me that she should +immediately inquire what kind of flowers? + +“Why, roses,” I answered; and she went into peals of laughter. + +“Pray share the jest,” I begged her with some dignity. + +“Didn’t you know,” she replied, “the language that roses from a single +gentleman to a young lady speak in Kings Port?” + +I stood staring and stiff, taking it in, taking myself, and Eliza, and +Hortense, and the implicated John, all in. + +“Why, aivrybody in Kings Port knows that!” said the bride; and now my +mirth rose even above hers. + + + + +XVII: Doing the Handsome Thing + +It by no means lessened my pleasure to discern that Hortense must feel +herself to be in a predicament; and as I sat writing my answer to +the note, which was from Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael and contained an +invitation to me for the next afternoon, I thought of those pilots whose +dangers have come down to us from distant times through the songs of +ancient poets. The narrow and tempestuous channel between Scylla and +Charybdis bristled unquestionably with violent problems, but with none, +I should suppose, that called for a nicer hand upon the wheel, or an eye +more alert, than this steering of your little trireme to a successful +marriage, between one man who believed himself to be your destined +bridegroom and another who expected to be so, meanwhile keeping each +in ignorance of how close you were sailing to the other. In Hortense’s +place I should have wished to hasten the wedding now, have it safely +performed this afternoon, say, or to-morrow morning; thus precipitated +by some invaluable turn in the health of her poor dear father. But she +had worn it out, his health, by playing it for decidedly as much as it +could bear; it couldn’t be used again without risk; the date must stand +fixed; and, uneasy as she might have begun to be about John, Hortense +must, with no shortening of the course, get her boat in safe without +smashing it against either John or Charley. I wondered a little that she +should feel any uncertainty about her affianced lover. She must know how +much his word was to him, and she had had his word twice, given her +the second time to put his own honor right with her on the score of the +phosphates. But perhaps Hortense’s rich experiences of life had taught +her that a man’s word to a woman should not be subjected to the test +of another woman’s advent. On the whole, I suppose it was quite natural +those flowers should annoy her, and equally natural that Eliza, the +minx, should allow them to do so! There’s a joy to the marrow in +watching your enemy harried and discomfited by his own gratuitous +contrivances; you look on serenely at a show which hasn’t cost you a +groat. However, poor Eliza had not been so serene at the very end, +when she stormed out at me. For this I did not have to forgive her, of +course, little as I had merited such treatment. Had she not accepted my +flowers? But it was a gratification to reflect that in my sentimental +passages with her I had not gone to any great length; nothing, do I ever +find, is so irksome as the sense of having unwittingly been in a false +position. Was John, on his side, in love with her? Was it possible he +would fail in his word? So with these thoughts, while answering and +accepting Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael’s invitation to make one of a +party of strangers to whom she was going to show another old Kings Port +church, “where many of my ancestors lie,” as her note informed me, I +added one sentence which had nothing to do with the subject “She is a +steel wasp,” I ventured to say. And when on the next afternoon I met the +party at the church, I received from the little lady a look of highly +spiced comprehension as she gently remarked, “I was glad to get your +acceptance.” + +When I went down to the dinner-table, Juno sat in her best clothes, +still discussing the Daughters of Dixie. + +I can’t say that I took much more heed of this at dinner than I had +done at tea; but I was interested to hear Juno mention that she, too, +intended to call upon Hortense Rieppe. Kings Port, she said, must take +a consistent position; and for her part, so far as behavior went, she +didn’t see much to choose between the couple. “As to whether Mr. Mayrant +had really concealed the discovery of his fortune,” she continued, “I +asked Miss Josephine--in a perfectly nice way, of course. But old Mr. +St. Michael Beaugarcon, who has always had the estate in charge, did +that. It is only a life estate, unless Mr. Mayrant has lawful issue. +Well, he will have that now, and all that money will be his to +squander.” + +Aunt Carola had written me again this morning, but I had been in no +haste to open her letter; my neglect of the Bombos did not weigh too +heavily upon me, I fear, but I certainly did put off reading what I +expected to be a reprimand. And concerning this I was right; her first +words betokened reprimand at once. “My dear nephew Augustus,” she began, +in her fine, elegant handwriting. That was always her mode of address +to me when something was coming, while at other times it would be, less +portentously, “My dear Augustus,” or “My dear nephew “; but whenever +my name and my relationship to her occurred conjointly, I took the +communication away with me to some corner, and opened it in solitude. + +It wasn’t about the Bombos, though; and for what she took me to task I +was able to defend myself, I think, quite adequately. She found fault +with me for liking the South too much, and this she based upon the +enthusiastic accounts of Kings Port and its people that I had written +to her; nor had she at all approved of my remarks on the subject of the +negro, called forth by Daddy Ben and his grandson Charles Cotesworth. + +“When I sent you (wrote Aunt Carola) to admire Kings Port good-breeding, +I did not send you to forget your country. Remember that those people +were its mortal enemies; that besides their treatment of our prisoners +in Libby and Andersonville (which killed my brother Alexander) they +displayed in their dealings, both social and political, an arrogance +in success and a childish petulance at opposition, which we who saw and +suffered can never forget, any more than we can forget our loved ones +who laid down their lives for this cause.” + +These were not the only words with which Aunt Carola reproved what she +termed my “disloyalty,” but they will serve to indicate her feeling +about the Civil War. It was--on her side--precisely the feeling of all +the Kings Port old ladies on Heir side. But why should it be mine? And +so, after much thinking how I might best reply respectfully yet say to +Aunt Carola what my feeling was, I sat down upstairs at my window, and, +after some preliminary sentences, wrote:-- + +“There are dead brothers here also, who, like your brother, laid down +their lives for what they believed was their country, and whom their +sisters never can forget as you can never forget him. I read their +names upon sad church tablets, and their boy faces look out at me from +cherished miniatures and dim daguerreotypes. Upon their graves the women +who mourn them leave flowers as you leave flowers upon the grave of your +young soldier. You will tell me, perhaps, that since the bereavement +is equal, I have not justified my sympathy for these people. But the +bereavement was not equal. More homes here were robbed by death of their +light and promise than with us; and to this you must add the material +desolation of the homes themselves. Our roofs were not laid in ashes, +and to-day we sit in affluence while they sit in privation. You will +say to this, perhaps, that they brought it upon themselves. But even +granting that they did so, surely to suffer and to lose is more bitter +than to suffer and to win. My dear aunt, you could not see what I have +seen here, and write to me as you do; and if those years have left +upon your heart a scar which will not vanish, do not ask me, who came +afterward, to wear the scar also. I should then resemble certain of the +younger ones here, with less excuse than is theirs. As for the negro, +forgive me if I assure you that you retain an Abolitionist exaltation +for a creature who does not exist, or whose existence is an ineffectual +drop in the bucket, a creature on grateful knees raising faithful eyes +to one who has struck off his chains of slavery, whereas the creature +who does exist is--” + +I paused here in my letter to Aunt Carola, and sought for some fitting +expression that should characterize for her with sufficient severity +the new type of deliberately worthless negro; and as I sought, my eyes +wandered to the garden next door, the garden of the Cornerlys. On a +bench near a shady arrangement of vines over bars sat Hortense Rieppe. +She was alone, and, from her attitude, seemed to be thinking deeply. The +high walls of the garden shut her into a privacy that her position near +the shady vines still more increased. It was evident that she had come +here for the sake of being alone, and I regretted that she was so turned +from me that I could not see her face. But her solitude did not long +continue; there came into view a gentleman of would-be venerable +appearance, who approached her with a walk carefully constructed for +public admiration, and who, upon reaching her, bent over with the same +sort of footlight elaboration and gave her a paternal kiss. I did not +need to hear her call him father; he was so obviously General Rieppe, +the prudent hero of Chattanooga, that words would have been perfectly +superfluous in his identification. + +I was destined upon another day to hear the tones of his voice, and +thereupon may as well state now that they belonged altogether with the +rest of him. There is a familiar type of Northern fraud, and a Southern +type, equally familiar, but totally different in appearance. The +Northern type has the straight, flat, earnest hair, the shaven upper +lip, the chin-beard, and the benevolent religious expression. He will be +the president of several charities, and the head of one great business. +He plays no cards, drinks no wine, and warns young men to beware of +temptation. He is as genial as a hair-sofa; and he is seldom found out +by the public unless some financial crash in general affairs uncovers +his cheating, which lies most often beyond the law’s reach; and because +he cannot be put in jail, he quite honestly believes heaven is his +destination. We see less of him since we have ceased to be a religious +country, religion no longer being an essential disguise for him. The +Southern type, with his unction and his juleps, is better company, +unless he is the hero of too many of his own anecdotes. He is commonly +the possessor of a poetic gaze, a mane of silvery hair, and a noble +neck. As war days and cotton-factor days recede into a past more and +more filmed over with romance, he too grows rare among us, and I +regret it, for he was in truth a picturesque figure. General Rieppe was +perfect. + +At first I was sorry that the distance they were from me rendered +hearing what they were saying impossible; very soon, however, the frame +of my open window provided me with a living picture which would have +been actually spoiled had the human voice disturbed its eloquent +pantomime. + +General Rieppe’s daughter responded to her father’s caress but +languidly, turning to him her face, with its luminous, stationary +beauty. He pointed to the house, and then waved his hand toward the +bench where she sat; and she, in response to this, nodded slightly. +Upon which the General, after another kiss of histrionic paternity +administered to her forehead, left her sitting and proceeded along +the garden walk at a stately pace, until I could no longer see him. +Hortense, left alone upon the bench, looked down at the folds of her +dress, extended a hand and slowly rearranged one of them, and then, with +the same hand, felt her hair from front to back. This had scarce been +accomplished when the General reappeared, ushering Juno along the walk, +and bearing a chair with him. When they turned the corner at the arbor, +Hortense rose, and greetings ensued. Few objects could be straighter +than was Juno’s back; her card-case was in her hand, but her pocket was +not quite large enough for the whole of her pride, which stuck out so +that it could have been seen from a greater distance than my window. +The General would have departed, placing his chair for the visitor, when +Hortense waved for him an inviting hand toward the bench beside her; +he waved a similarly inviting hand, looking at Juno, who thereupon sat +firmly down upon the chair. At this the General hovered heavily, looking +at his daughter, who gave him no look in return, as she engaged in +conversation with Juno; and presently the General left them. Juno’s back +and Hortense’s front, both entirely motionless as they interviewed each +other’ presented a stiff appearance, with Juno half turned in her seat +and Hortense’s glance following her slight movement; the two then rose, +as the General came down the walk with two chairs and Mrs. Gregory and +Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. Juno, with a bow to them, approached Hortense +by a step or two, a brief touch of their fingers was to be seen, and +Juno’s departure took place, attended by the heavy hovering of General +Rieppe. + +“That’s why!” I said to myself aloud, suddenly, at my open window. +Immediately, however, I added, “but can it be?” And in my mind a whole +little edifice of reasons for Hortense’s apparent determination to marry +John instantly fabricated itself--and then fell down. + +Through John she was triumphantly bringing stiff Kings Port to her, was +forcing them to accept her. But this was scarce enough temptation for +Hortense to marry; she could do very well without Kings Port--indeed, +she was not very likely to show herself in it, save to remind them, now +and then, that she was there, and that they could not keep her out any +more; this might amuse her a little, but the society itself would +not amuse her in the least. What place had it for her to smoke her +cigarettes in? + +Eliza La Heu, then? Spite? The pleasure of taking something that +somebody else wanted? The pleasure of spoiling somebody else’s pleasure? +Or, more accurately, the pleasure of power? Well, yes; that might be it, +if Hortense Rieppe were younger in years, and younger, especially, in +soul; but her museum was too richly furnished with specimens of the +chase, she had collected too many bits and bibelots from life’s Hotel +Druot and the great bazaar of female competition, to pay so great a +price as marriage for merely John; particularly when a lady, even in +Newport, can have but one husband at a time in her collection. If she +did actually love John, as Beverly Rodgers had reluctantly come to +believe, it was most inappropriate in her! Had I followed out the train +of reasoning which lay coiled up inside the word inappropriate, I might +have reached the solution which eventually Hortense herself gave me, +and the jewelled recesses of her nature would have blazed still more +brilliantly to my eyes to-day; but in truth, my soul wasn’t old enough +yet to work Hortense out by itself, unaided! + +While Mrs. Gregory and Mrs. Weguelin sat on their chairs, and Hortense +sat on her bench, tea was brought and a table laid, behind whose +whiteness and silver Hortense began slight offices with cups and sugar +tongs. She looked inquiry at her visitors, in answer to which Mrs. +Gregory indicated acceptance, and Mrs. Weguelin refusal. The beauty of +Hortense’s face had strangely increased since the arrival of these two +visitors. It shone resplendent behind the silver and the white cloth, +and her movement, as she gave the cup to Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, was +one of complete grace and admirable propriety. But once she looked away +from them in the direction of the path. Her two visitors rose and left +her, Mrs. Gregory setting her tea-cup down with a gesture that said +she would take no more, and, after their bows of farewell, Hortense sat +alone again pulling about the tea things. + +I saw that by the table lay a card-case on the ground, evidently dropped +by Mrs. Gregory; but Hortense could not see it where she sat. Her quick +look along the path heralded more company and the General with more +chairs. Young people now began to appear, the various motions of whom +were more animated than the approaches and greetings and farewells of +their elders; chairs were moved and exchanged, the General was useful in +handling cups, and a number of faces unknown to me came and went, some +of them elderly ones whom I had seen in church, or passed while walking; +the black dresses of age mingled with the brighter colors of youth; and +on her bench behind the cups sat Hortense, or rose up at right moments, +radiant, restrained and adequate, receiving with deferential attention +the remarks of some dark-clothed elder, or, with sufficiently interested +countenance, inquiring something from a brighter one of her own +generation; but twice I saw her look up the garden path. None of them +stayed long, although when they were all gone the shadow of the garden +wall had come as far as the arbor; and once again Hortense sat alone +behind the table, leaning back with arms folded, and looking straight +in front of her. At last she stirred, and rose slowly, and then, with +a movement which was the perfection of timidity, began to advance, as +John, with his Aunt Eliza, came along the path. To John, Hortense with +familiar yet discreet brightness gave a left hand, as she waited for the +old lady; and then the old lady went through with it. What that embrace +of acknowledgment cost her cannot be measured, and during its process +John stood like a sentinel. Possibly this was the price of his +forgiveness to his Aunt Eliza. + +The visitors accepted tea, and the beauty in Hortense’s face was now +supreme. The old lady sat, forgetting to drink her tea, but very still +in outward attitude, as she talked with Hortense; and the sight of one +hand in its glove lying motionless upon her best dress, suddenly almost +drew unexpected tears to my eyes. John was nearly as quiet as she, but +the glove that he held was twisted between his fingers. I expected +that he would stay with his Hortense when his aunt took her leave; he, +however, was evidently expected by the old lady to accompany her out and +back, I suppose, to her house, as was proper. + +But John’s departure from Hortense differed from his meeting her. She +gave no left hand to him now; she gazed at him, and then, as the old +lady began to go toward the house, she moved a step toward him, and +then she cast herself into his arms! It was no acting, this, no skilful +simulation; her head sank upon his shoulder, and true passion spoke in +every line of that beautiful surrendered form, as it leaned against her +lover’s. + +“So that’s why!” I exclaimed, once more aloud. + +It was but a moment; and John, released, followed Miss Eliza. The old +lady walked slowly, with that half-failing step that betokens the body’s +weariness after great mental or moral strain. Indeed, as John regained +her side, she put her arm in his as if her feebleness needed his +support. Thus they went away together, the aunt and her beloved boy, who +had so sorely grieved and disappointed her. + +But if this sight touched me, this glimpse of the vanquished leaving the +field after supreme acknowledgment of defeat, upon Hortense it wrought +another effect altogether. She stood looking after them, and as she +looked, the whole woman from head to foot, motionless as she was, seemed +to harden. Yet still she looked, until at length, slowly turning, her +eyes chanced to fall upon Mrs. Gregory St. Michael’s card-case. There +it lay, the symbol of Kings Port’s capitulation. She swooped down and +up with a flying curve of grace, holding her prey caught; and then, +catching also her handsome skirts on either side, she danced like a +whirling fan among the empty chairs. + + + + +XVIII: Again the Replacers + +But a little while, and all that I had just witnessed in such vivid +dumb-show might have seemed to me in truth some masque; so smooth had +it been, and voiceless, coming and going like a devised fancy. And +after the last of the players was gone from the stage, leaving the white +cloth, and the silver, and the cups, and the groups of chairs near the +pleasant arbor, I watched the deserted garden whence the sunlight was +slowly departing, and it seemed to me more than ever like some empty and +charming scene in a playhouse, to which the comedians would in due +time return to repeat their delicate pantomime. But these were mental +indulgences, with which I sat playing until the sight of my interrupted +letter to Aunt Carola on the table before me brought the reality of +everything back into my thoughts; and I shook my head over Miss Eliza. I +remembered that hand of hers, lying in despondent acquiescence upon +her lap, as the old lady sat in her best dress, formally and faithfully +accepting the woman whom her nephew John had brought upon them as his +bride-elect--formally and faithfully accepting this distasteful person, +and thus atoning as best she could to her beloved nephew for the +wrong that her affection had led her to do him in that ill-starred and +inexcusable tampering with his affairs. + +But there was my letter waiting. I took my pen, and finished what I had +to say about the negro and the injustice we had done to him, as well as +to our own race, by the Fifteenth Amendment. I wrote:-- + +“I think Northerners must often seem to these people strangely obtuse in +their attitude. And they deserve such opinion, since all they need to do +is come here and see for themselves what the War did to the South. + +“You may have a perfectly just fight with a man and beat him rightly; +but if you are able to go on with your work next day, while his health +is so damaged that for a long while he limps about as a cripple, you +must not look up from your busy thriving and reproach him with his +helplessness, and remind him of its cause; nor must you be surprised +that he remembers the fight longer than you have time for. I know that +the North meant to be magnanimous, that the North was magnanimous, that +the spirit of Grant at Appomattox filled many breasts; and I know that +the magnanimity was not met by those who led the South after Lee’s +retirement, and before reconstruction set in, and that the Fifteenth +Amendment was brought on by their own doings: when have two wrongs made +a right? And to place the negro above these people was an atrocity. You +cannot expect them to inquire very industriously how magnanimous this +North meant to be, when they have suffered at her hands worse, far +worse, than France suffered from Germany’s after 1870. + +“I do think there should be a different spirit among some of the +later-born, but I have come to understand even the slights and +suspicions from which I here and there suffer, since to their minds, +shut in by circumstance, I’m always a ‘Yankee.’ + +“We are prosperous; and prosperity does not bind, it merely assembles +people--at dinners and dances. It is adversity that binds--beside the +gravestone, beneath the desolated roof. Could you come here and see +what I have seen, the retrospect of suffering, the long, lingering +convalescence, the small outlook of vigor to come, and the steadfast +sodality of affliction and affection and fortitude, your kind but +unenlightened heart would be wrung, as mine has been, and is being, at +every turn.” + +After I had posted this reply to Aunt Carola, I had some fears that my +pen had run away with me, and that she might now descend upon me +with that reproof which she knew so well how to exercise in cases of +disrespect. But there was actually a certain pathos in her mildness when +it came. She felt it her duty to go over a good deal of history first, +but:-- + +“I do not understand the present generation,” she finished, “and I +suppose that I was not meant to.” + +The little sigh in these words did great credit to Aunt Carola. + +This vindication off my mind, and relieved by it of the more general +thoughts about Kings Port and the South, which the pantomime of Kings +Port’s forced capitulation to Hortense had raised in me, I returned to +the personal matters between that young woman and John, and Charley. How +much did Charley know? How much would Charley stand? How much would John +stand, if he came to know? + +Well, the scene in the garden now helped me to answer these questions +much better than I could have answered them before its occurrence. With +one fact--the great fact of love--established, it was not difficult to +account for at least one or two of the several things that puzzled me. +There could be no doubt that Hortense loved John Mayrant, loved him +beyond her own control. When this love had begun, made no matter. +Perhaps it began on the bridge, when the money was torn, and Eliza La +Heu had appeared. The Kings Port version of Hortense’s indifference to +John before the event of the phosphates might well enough be true. It +might even well enough be true that she had taken him and his phosphates +at Newport for lack of anything better at hand, and because she was sick +of disappointed hopes. In this case, Charley’s subsequent appearance +as something very much better (if the phosphates were to fail) would +perfectly explain the various postponements of the wedding. + +So I was able to answer my questions to myself thus: How much did +Charley know?--Just what he could see for himself, and what he had +most likely heard from Newport gossip. He could have heard of an old +engagement, made purely for money’s sake, and of recent delays created +by the lady; and he could see the gentleman--an impossible husband from +a Wall Street standpoint!--to whom Hortense was evidently tempering her +final refusal by indulgently taking an interest in helping along his +phosphate fortune. Charley would not refuse to lend her his aid in this +estimable benevolence; nor would it occur to Charley’s sensibilities +how such benevolence would be taken by John if John were not “taken” + himself. Yes, Charley was plainly fooled, and fooled the more readily +because he had the old version of the truth. How should he suspect +there was a revised version? How should he discover that passion had now +changed sides, that it was now John who allowed himself to be loved? The +signs of this did not occur before his eyes. Of course, Charley would +not stay fooled forever; the hours of that were numbered,--but their +number was quite beyond my guessing! + +How much would Charley stand? He would stand a good deal, because the +measure of his toleration was the measure of his desire for Hortense; +and it was plain that he wanted her very much indeed. But how much +would John stand? How soon would his “fire-eating” traditions produce a +“difficulty”? Why had they not done this already? Well, the garden had +in some way helped me to frame a fairly reasonable answer for this also. +Poor Hortense had become as powerless to woo John to warmth as poor +Venus had been with Adonis; and passion, in changing sides, had advanced +the boy’s knowledge. He knew now the difference between the embraces +of his lady when she had merely wanted his phosphates, and these other +caresses now that, she wanted him. In his ceaseless search for some +possible loophole of escape, his eye could not have overlooked the +chance that lay in Charley, and he was far too canny to blast his +forlorn hope. He had probably wondered what had changed the nature of +Hortense’s caresses, and the adventure of the torn money could scarce +have failed to suggest itself to the mind of a youth who, little as +he had trodden the ways of the world, evidently possessed some lively +instincts regarding the nature of women. To batter Charley as he had +battered Juno’s nephew, might result in winding the arms of Hortense +around his own neck more tightly than ever. + +Why Hortense should keep Charley “on” any longer, was what I could least +fathom, but I trusted her to have excellent reasons for anything that +she did. “It’s sure to be quite simple, once you know it,” I told +myself; and the near future proved me to be right. + +Thus I laid most of my enigmas to rest; there was but one which now +and then awakened still. Were Hortense a raw girl of eighteen, I could +easily grant that the “fire-eater” in John would be sure to move her. +But Hortense had travelled many miles away from the green forests of +romance; her present fields were carpeted, not with grass and flowers, +but with Oriental mats and rugs, and it was electric lights, not the +moon and stars, that shone upon her highly seasoned nights. No, torn +money and all, it was not appropriate in a woman of her experience; and +so I still found myself inquiring in the words of Beverly Rodgers, “But +what can she want him for?” + +The next time that I met Mrs. Gregory St. Michael it was on my way to +join the party at the old church, which Mrs. Weguelin was going to show +them. The card-case was in her hand, and the sight of it prompted me to +allude to Hortense Rieppe. + +“I find her beauty growing upon me?” I declared. + +Mrs. Gregory did not deny the beauty, although she spoke with reserve at +first. “It is to be said that she knows how to write a suitable note,” + the lady also admitted. + +She didn’t tell me what the note was about, naturally; but I could +imagine with what joy in the exercise of her art Hortense had +constructed that communication which must have accompanied the prompt +return of the card-case. + +Then Mrs. Gregory’s tongue became downright. “Since you’re able to see +so much of her, why don’t you tell her to marry that little steam-yacht +gambler? I’m sure he’s dying to, and he’s just the thing for her?” + +“Ah,” I returned, “Love so seldom knows what’s just the thing for +marriage.” + +“Then your precocity theory falls,” declared Mrs. St. Michael. And as +she went away from me along the street, I watched her beautiful stately +walk; for who could help watching a sight so good? + +Charley, then, was no secret to John’s people. Was John still a secret +to Charley? Could Hortense possibly have managed this? I hoped for a +chance to observe the two men with her during the visit of Mrs. Weguelin +St. Michael and her party to the church. + +This party was already assembled when I arrived upon the spot appointed. +In the street, a few paces from the church, stood Bohm and Charley and +Kitty and Gazza, with Beverly Rodgers, who, as I came near, left them +and joined me. + +“Oh, she’s somewhere off with her fire-eater,” responded Beverly to my +immediate inquiry for Hortense. “Do you think she was asked, old man?” + +Probably not, I thought. “But she goes so well with the rest,” I +suggested. + +Beverly gave his chuckle. “She goes where she likes. She’ll meet us here +when we’re finished, I’m pretty sure.” + +“Why such certainty?” + +“Well, she has to attend to Charley, you know!” + +Mrs. Weguelin, it appeared, had met the party here by the church, but +had now gone somewhere in the immediate neighborhood to find out why the +gate was not opened to admit us, and to hasten the unpunctual custodian +of the keys. I had not looked for precisely such a party as Mrs. +Weguelin’s invitation had gathered, nor could I imagine that she had +fully understood herself what she was gathering; and this I intimated to +Beverly Rodgers, saying:-- + +“Do you suppose, my friend, that she suspected the feather of the birds +you flock with?” + +Beverly took it lightly. “Hang it, old boy, of course everybody can’t be +as nice as I am!” But he took it less lightly before it was over. + +We stood chatting apart, he and I, while Bohm and Charley and Kitty +and Gazza walked across the street to the window of a shop, where old +furniture was for sale at a high price; and it grew clearer to me +what Beverly had innocently brought upon Mrs. Weguelin, and how he had +brought it. The little quiet, particular lady had been pleased with his +visit, and pleased with him. His good manners, his good appearance, his +good English-trained voice, all these things must have been extremely +to her taste; and then--more important than they--did she not know about +his people? She had inquired, he told me, with interest about two of his +uncles, whom she had last seen in 1858. “She’s awfully the right sort,” + said Beverly. Yes, I saw well how that visit must have gone: the gentle +old lady reviving in Beverly’s presence, and for the sake of being civil +to him, some memories of her girlhood, some meetings with those uncles, +some dances with them; and generally shedding from her talk and manner +the charm of some sweet old melody--and Beverly, the facile, the +appreciative, sitting there with her at a correct, deferential angle on +his chair, admirably sympathetic and in good form, and playing the old +school. (He had no thought to deceive her; the old school was his by +right, and genuinely in his blood, he took to it like a duck to the +water.) How should Mrs. Weguelin divine that he also took to the nouveau +jeu to the tune of Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza? And so, to show +him some attention, and because she couldn’t ask him to a meal, why, she +would take him over the old church, her colonial forefathers’; she would +tell him the little legends about them; he was precisely the young man +to appreciate such things--and she would be pleased if he would also +bring the friends with whom he was travelling. + +I looked across the street at Bohm and Charley and Kitty and Gazza. +They were now staring about them in all their perfection of stare: small +Charley in a sleek slate-colored suit, as neat as any little barber; +Bohm, massive, portentous, his strong shoes and gloves the chief note in +his dress, and about his whole firm frame a heavy mechanical strength, a +look as of something that did something rapidly and accurately when set +going--cut or cracked or ground or smashed something better and faster +than it had ever been cut or cracked or ground or smashed before, and +would take your arms and legs off if you didn’t stand well back from it; +it was only in Bohm’s eye and lips that you saw he wasn’t made entirely +of brass and iron, that champagne and shoulders decolletes received a +punctual share of his valuable time. And there was Kitty, too, just the +wife for Bohm, so soon as she could divorce her husband, to whom she had +united herself before discovering that all she married him for, his old +Knickerbocker name, was no longer in the slightest degree necessary for +social acceptance; while she could feed people, her trough would be well +thronged. Kitty was neat, Kitty was trig, Kitty was what Beverly would +call “swagger “; her skilful tailor-made clothes sheathed her closely +and gave her the excellent appearance of a well-folded English umbrella; +it was in her hat that she had gone wrong--a beautiful hat in itself, +one which would have wholly become Hortense; but for poor Kitty it +didn’t do at all. Yes, she was a well folded English umbrella, only +the umbrella had for its handle the head of a bulldog or the leg of a +ballet-dancer. And these were the Replacers whom Beverly’s clear-sighted +eyes saw swarming round the temple of his civilization, pushing down +the aisles, climbing over the backs of the benches, walking over each +other’s bodies, and seizing those front seats which his family had +sat in since New York had been New York; and so the wise fellow very +prudently took every step that would insure the Replacers’ inviting him +to occupy one of his own chairs. I had almost forgotten little Gazza, +the Italian nobleman, who sold old furniture to new Americans. Gazza was +not looking at the old furniture of Kings Port, which must have filled +his Vatican soul with contempt; he was strolling back and forth in +the street, with his head in the air, humming, now loudly, now softly +“La-la, la-la, E quando a la predica in chiesa siederia, la-la-la-la;” + and I thought to myself that, were I the Pope, I should kick him into +the Tiber. + +When Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael came back with the keys and their +custodian, Bohm was listening to the slow, clear words of Charley, in +which he evidently found something that at length interested him--a +little. Bohm, it seemed, did not often speak himself: possibly once a +week. His way was to let other people speak to him when there were signs +in his face that he was hearing anything which they said, it was a high +compliment to them, and of course Charley could command Bohm’s ear; for +Charley, although he was as neat as any barber, and let Hortense walk on +him because he looked beyond that, and purposed to get her, was just as +potent in the financial world as Bohm, could bring a borrowing empire +to his own terms just as skillfully as could Bohm; was, in short, a +man after Bohm’s own--I had almost said heart: the expression is so +obstinately embedded in our language! Bohm, listening, and Charley, +talking, had neither of them noticed Mrs. Weguelin’s arrival; they +stood ignoring her, while she waited, casting a timid eye upon them. +But Beverly, suddenly perceiving this, and begging her pardon for them, +brought the party together, and we moved in among the old graves. + +“Ah!” said Gazza, bending to read the quaint words cut upon one of them, +as we stopped while the door at the rear of the church was being opened, +“French!” + +“It was the mother-tongue of these colonists,” Mrs. Weguelin explained +to him. + +“Ah! like Canada!” cried Gazza. “But what a pretty bit is that!” And he +stood back to admire a little glimpse, across a street, between tiled +roofs and rusty balconies, of another church steeple. “Almost, one would +say, the Old World,” Gazza declared. + +“Our world is not new,” said Mrs. Weguelin; and she passed into the +church. + +Kings Port holds many sacred nooks, many corners, many vistas, that +should deeply stir the spirit and the heart of all Americans who know +and love their country. The passing traveller may gaze up at certain +windows there, and see History herself looking out at him, even as she +looks out of the windows of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. There are +also other ancient buildings in Kings Port, where History is shut up, as +in a strong-box,--such as that stubborn old octagon, the powder-magazine +of Revolutionary times, which is a chest holding proud memories of blood +and war. And then there are the three churches. Not strong-boxes, these, +but shrines, where burn the venerable lamps of faith. And of these three +houses of God, that one holds the most precious flame, the purest +light, which treasures the holy fire that came from France. The English +colonists, who sat in the other two congregations, came to Carolina’s +soil to better their estate; but it was for liberty of soul, to lift +their ardent and exalted prayer to God as their own conscience bade +them, and not as any man dictated, that those French colonists sought +the New World. No Puritan splendor of independence and indomitable +courage outshines theirs. They preached a word as burning as any that +Plymouth or Salem ever heard. They were but a handful, yet so fecund +was their marvelous zeal that they became the spiritual leaven of their +whole community. They are less known than Plymouth and Salem, because +men of action, rather than men of letters, have sprung from the loins +of the South; but there they stand, a beautiful beacon, shining upon the +coasts of our early history. Into their church, then, into the shrine +where their small lamp still burns, their devout descendant, Mrs. +Weguelin St. Michael led our party, because in her eyes Kings Port could +show nothing more precious and significant. There had been nothing to +warn her that Bohm and Charley were Americans who neither knew nor loved +their country, but merely Americans who knew their country’s wealth and +loved to acquire every penny of it that they could. + +And so, following the steps of our delicate and courteous guide, we +entered into the dimness of the little building; and Mrs. Weguelin’s +voice, lowered to suit the sanctity which the place had for her, began +to tell us very quietly and clearly the story of its early days. + +I knew it, or something of it, from books; but from this little lady’s +lips it took on a charm and graciousness which made it fresh to me. I +listened attentively, until I felt, without at first seeing the +cause, that dulling of enjoyment, that interference with the receptive +attention, which comes at times to one during the performance of music +when untimely people come in or go out. Next, I knew that our group of +listeners was less compact; and then, as we moved from the first point +in the church to a new one, I saw that Bohm and Charley were dropping +behind, and I lingered, with the intention of bringing them closer. + +“But there was nothing in it,” I heard Charley’s slow monologue +continuing behind me to the silent Bohm. “We could have bought the +Parsons road at that time. ‘Gentlemen,’ I said to them, ‘what is there +for us in tide-water at Kings Port? ’” + +It was not to be done, and I rejoined Mrs. Weguelin and those of +the party who were making some show of attention to her quiet little +histories and explanations; and Kitty’s was the next voice which I heard +ring out-- + +“Oh, you must never let it fall to pieces! It’s the cunningest little +fossil I’ve seen in the South.” + +“So,” said Charley behind me, “we let the other crowd buy their +strategic point; and I guess they know they got a gold brick.” + +I moved away from the financiers, I endeavored not to hear their words; +and in this much I was successful; but their inappropriate presence +had got, I suppose upon my nerves; at any rate, go where I would in the +little church, or attend as I might and did to what Mrs. Weguelin +St. Michael said about the tablets, and whatever traditions their +inscriptions suggested to her, that quiet, low, persistent banker’s +voice of Charley’s pervaded the building like a draft of cold air. Once, +indeed, he addressed Mrs. Weguelin a question. She was telling Beverly +(who followed her throughout, protectingly and charmingly, with his most +devoted attention and his best manner) the honorable deeds of certain +older generations of a family belonging to this congregation, some of +whose tombs outside had borne French inscriptions. + +“My mother’s family,” said Mrs. Weguelin. + +“And nowadays,” inquired Beverly, “what do they find instead of military +careers?” + +“There are no more of us nowadays; they--they were killed in the war.” + +And immediately she smiled, and with her hand she made a light gesture, +as if to dismiss this subject from mutual embarrassment and pain. + +“I might have known better,” murmured the understanding Beverly. + +But Charley now had his question. “How many, did you say?” + +“How many?” Mrs. Weguelin did not quite understand him. + +“Were killed?” explained Charley. + +Again there was a little pause before Mrs. Weguelin answered, “My four +brothers met their deaths.” + +Charley was interested. “And what was the percentage of fatality in +their regiments?” + +“Oh,” said Mrs. Weguelin, “we did not think of it in that way.” And she +turned aside. + +“Charley,” said Kitty, with some precipitancy, “do make Mr. Bohm look at +the church!” and she turned after Mrs. Weguelin. “It is such a gem!” + +But I saw the little lady try to speak and fail, and then I noticed that +she was leaning against a window-sill. + +Beverly Rodgers also noticed this, and he hastened to her. + +“Thank you,” she returned to his hasty question, “I am quite well. If +you are not tired of it, shall we go on?” + +“It is such a gem!” repeated Kitty, throwing an angry glance at Charley +and Bohm. And so we went on. + +Yes, Kitty did her best to cover it up; Kitty, as she would undoubtedly +have said herself, could see a few things. But nobody could cover it +up, though Beverly was now vigilant in his efforts to do so. Indeed, +Replacers cannot be covered up by human agency; they bulge, they loom, +they stare, they dominate the road of life, even as their automobiles +drive horses and pedestrians to the wall. Bohm, roused from his +financial torpor by Kitty’s sharp command, did actually turn his eyes +upon the church, which he had now been inside for some twenty minutes +without noticing. Instinct and long training had given his eye, when +it really looked at anything, a particular glance--the glance of the +Replacer--which plainly calculated: “Can this be made worth money to +me?” and which died instantly to a glaze of indifference on seeing that +no money could be made. Bohm’s eye, accordingly, waked and then glazed. +Manners, courtesy, he did not need, not yet; he had looked at them with +his Replacer glance, and, seeing no money in them, had gone on looking +at railroads, and mines, and mills,--and bare shoulders, and bottles. +Should manners and courtesy come, some day, to mean money to him, +then he could have them, in his fashion, so that his admirers and his +apologists should alike declare of him, “A rough diamond, but consider +what he has made of himself!” + +“After what, did you say?” This was the voice of Gazza, addressing Mrs. +Weguelin St. Michael. It must be said of Gazza that he, too, made a +certain presence of interest in the traditions of Kings Port. + +“After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,” replied Mrs. Weguelin. + +“Built it in Savannah,” Charley was saying to Bohm, “or Norfolk. This +is a good place to bury people in, but not money. Now the phosphate +proposition--” + +Again I dragged my attention by force away from that quiet, relentless +monologue, and listened as well as I could to Mrs. Weguelin. There had +come to be among us all, I think--Beverly, Kitty, Gazza, and myself--a +joint impulse to shield her, to cluster about her, to follow her steps +from each little lecture that she finished to the new point where the +next lecture began; and we did it, performed our pilgrimage to the end; +but there was less and less nature in our performance. I knew (and it +was like a dream which I could not stop) that we pressed a little too +close, that our questions were a little too eager, that we overprinted +our faces with attention; knowing this did not help, nothing helped, and +we went on to the end, seeing ourselves doing it; and it must have +been that Mrs. Weguelin saw us likewise. But she was truly admirable in +giving no sign, she came out well ahead; the lectures were not +hurried, one had no sense of points being skipped to accommodate our +unworthiness, it required a previous familiarity with the church to +know (as I did) that there was, indeed, more and more skipping; yet the +little lady played her part so evenly and with never a falter of +voice nor a change in the gentle courtesy of her manner, that I do not +think--save for that moment at the window-sill--I could have been sure +what she thought, or how much she noticed. Her face was always so pale, +it may well have been all imagination with me that she seemed, when we +emerged at last into the light of the street, paler than usual; but I +am almost certain that her hand was trembling as she stood receiving the +thanks of the party. These thanks were cut a little short by the arrival +of one of the automobiles, and, at the same time, the appearance of +Hortense strolling toward us with John Mayrant. + +Charley had resumed to Bohm, “A tax of twenty-five cents on the ton +is nothing with deposits of this richness,” when his voice ceased; and +looking at him to see the cause, I perceived that his eye was on John, +and that his polished finger-nail was running meditatively along his +thin mustache. + +Hortense took the matter--whatever the matter was--in hand. + +“You haven’t much time,” she said to Charles, who consulted his watch. + +“Who’s coming to see me off?” he inquired. + +“Where’s he going?” I asked Beverly. + +“She’s sending him North,” Beverly answered, and then he spoke with his +very best simple manner to Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. “May I not walk +home with you after all your kindness?” + +She was going to say no, for she had had enough of this party; but she +looked at Beverly, and his face and his true solicitude won her; she +said, “Thank you, if you will.” And the two departed together down the +shabby street, the little veiled lady in black, and Beverly with +his excellent London clothes and his still more excellent look of +respectful, sheltering attention. + +And now Bohm pronounced the only utterance that I heard fall from his +lips during his stay in Kings Port. He looked at the church he had come +from, he looked at the neighboring larger church whose columns stood out +at the angle of the street; he looked at the graveyard opposite that, +then at the stale, dusty shop of old furniture, and then up the shabby +street, where no life or movement was to be seen, except the distant +forms of Beverly and Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. Then from a gold +cigar-case, curved to fit his breast pocket, he took a cigar and lighted +it from a gold match-box. Offering none of us a cigar, he placed the +case again in his pocket; and holding his lighted cigar a moment with +two fingers in his strong glove, he spoke:-- + +“This town’s worse than Sunday.” + +Then he got into the automobile. They all followed to see Charley off, +and he addressed me. + +“I shall be glad,” he said, “if you will make one of a little party +on the yacht next Sunday, when I come back. And you also,” he added to +John. + +Both John and I expressed our acceptance in suitable forms, and the +automobile took its way to the train. + +“Your Kings Port streets,” I said, as we walked back toward Mrs. +Trevise’s, “are not very favorable for automobiles.” + +“No,” he returned briefly. I don’t remember that either of us found more +to say until we had reached my front door, when he asked, “Will the day +after to-morrow suit you for Udolpho?” + +“Whenever you say,” I told him. + +“Weather permitting, of course. But I hope that it will; for after that +I suppose my time will not be quite so free.” + +After we had parted it struck me that this was the first reference to +his approaching marriage that John had ever made in my hearing since +that day long ago (it seemed long ago, at least) when he had come to the +Exchange to order the wedding-cake, and Eliza La Heu had fallen in love +with him at sight. That, in my opinion, looking back now with eyes at +any rate partially opened, was what Eliza had done. Had John returned +the compliment then, or since? + + + + +XIX: Udolpho + +It was to me continuously a matter of satisfaction and of interest to +see Hortense disturbed--whether for causes real or imaginary--about +the security of her title to her lover John, nor can I say that my +misinterpreted bunch of roses diminished this satisfaction. I should +have been glad to know if the accomplished young woman had further +probed that question and discovered the truth, but it seemed scarce +likely that she could do this without the help of one of three persons, +Eliza and myself who knew all, or John who knew nothing; for the +up-country bride, and whatever other people in Kings Port there were +to whom the bride might gayly recite the tale of my roses, were none +of them likely to encounter Miss Rieppe; their paths and hers would not +meet until they met in church at the wedding of Hortense and John. No, +she could not have found out the truth; for never in the world would +she, at this eleventh hour, risk a conversation with John upon a subject +so full of well-packed explosives; and so she must be simply keeping +on both him and Eliza an eye as watchful as lay in her power. As for +Charley, what bait, what persuasion, what duress she had been able to +find that took him at an hour so critical from her side to New York, I +could not in the least conjecture. Had she said to the little banker, +Go, because I must think it over alone? It did not seem strong enough. +Or had she said, Go, and on your return you shall have my answer? Not +adequate either, I thought. Or had it been, If you don’t go, it shall +be “no,” to-day and forever? This last was better; but there was no +telling, nor did Beverly Rodgers, to whom I propounded all my theories, +have any notion of what was between Hortense and Charley. He only knew +that Charley was quite aware of the existence of John, but had always +been merely amused at the notion of him. + +“So have you been merely amused,” I reminded him. + +“Not since that look I saw her give him, old chap. I know she wants him, +only not why she wants him. And Charley, you know--well, of course, poor +Charley’s a banker, just a banker and no more; and a banker is merely +the ace in the same pack where the drummer is the two-spot. Our American +civilization should be called Drummer’s Delight--and there’s nothing in +your fire-eater to delight a drummer: he’s a gentleman, he’ll be only +so-so rich, and he’s away back out of the lime-light, while poor old +Charley’s a bounder, and worth forty millions anyhow, and right in the +centre of the glare. How should he see any danger in John?” + +“I wonder if he hasn’t begun to?” + +“Well, perhaps. He and Hortense have been ‘talking business’; I know +that. Oh--and why do you think she said he must go to New York? To make +a better deal for the fire-eater’s phosphates than his fuddling old +trustee here was going to close with. Charley said that could be +arranged by telegram. But she made him go himself! She’s extraordinary. +He’ll arrive in town to-morrow, he’ll leave next day, he’ll reach here +by the Southern on Saturday night in time for our Sunday yacht picnic, +and then something has got to happen, I should think.” + +Here was another key, unlocking a further piece of knowledge for me. I +had not been able to guess why Hortense should be keeping Charley “on”; +but how natural was this policy, when understood clearly! She still +needed Charley’s influence in the world of affairs. Charley’s final +service was to be the increasing of his successful rival’s fortune. I +wondered what Charley would do, when the full extent of his usefulness +dawned upon him; and with wonder renewed I thought of General Rieppe, +and this daughter he had managed to beget. Surely the mother of +Hortense, whoever she may have been, must have been a very richly +endowed character! + +“Something has most certainly got to happen and soon,” I said to Beverly +Rodgers. “Especially if my busy boarding-house bodies are right in +saying that the invitations for the wedding are to be out on Monday.” + +Well, I had Friday, I had Udolpho; and there, while on that excursion, +when I should be alone with John Mayrant during many hours, and +especially the hours of deep, confidential night, I swore to myself on +oath I would say to the boy the last word, up to the verge of offense, +that my wits could devise. Apart from a certain dramatic excitement as +of battle--battle between Hortense and me--I truly wished to help him +out of the miserable mistake his wrong standard, his chivalry gone +perverted, was spurring him on to make; and I had a comic image of +myself, summoning Miss Josephine, summoning Miss Eliza, summoning Mrs. +Gregory and Mrs. Weguelin, and the whole company of aunts and cousins, +and handing to them the rescued John with the single but sufficient +syllable: “There!” + +He was in apparent spirits, was John, at that hour of our departure +for Udolpho; he pretended so well that I was for a while altogether +deceived. He had wished to call for me with the conveyance in which he +should drive us out into the lonely country through the sunny afternoon; +but instead, I chose to walk round to where he lived, and where I +found him stuffing beneath the seats of the vehicle the baskets and the +parcels which contained the provisions for our ample supper. + +“I have never seen you drink hearty yet, and now I purpose to,” said +John. + +As the packing was finishing Miss Josephine St. Michael came by; and the +sight of the erect old lady reminded me that of all Kings Port figures +known to me and seen in the garden paying their visit of ceremony to +Hortense, she alone--she and Eliza La Heu--had been absent. Eliza’s +declining to share in that was well-nigh inevitable, but Miss Josephine +was another matter. Perhaps she had considered her sister’s going there +to be enough; at any rate, she had not been party to the surrender, +and this gave me whimsical satisfaction. Moreover, it had evidently +occasioned no ruffle in the affectionate relations between herself and +John. + +“John,” said she, “as you drive by, do get me a plumber.” + +“Much better get a burglar, Aunt Josephine. Cheaper in the end, and +neater work.” + +It was thus, at the outset, that I came to believe John’s spirits were +high; and this illusion he successfully kept up until after we had left +the plumber and Kings Port several sordid miles behind us; the +approach to Kings Port this way lies through dirtiest Africa. John +was loquacious; John discoursed upon the Replacers; Mrs. Weguelin St. +Michael had quite evidently expressed to her own circle what she thought +of them; and the town in consequence, although it did not see them or +their automobiles, because it appeared they were gone some twenty miles +inland upon an excursion to a resort where was a large hotel, and a +little variety in the way of some tourists of the Replacer stripe,--the +town kept them well in its mind’s eye. The automobiles would have +sufficed to bring them into disrepute, but Kings Port had a better +reason in their conduct in the church; and John found many things to +say to me, as we drove along, about Bohm and Charley and Kitty. Gazza he +forgot, although, as shall appear in its place, Gazza was likely to live +a long while in his memory. Beverly Rodgers he, of course, recognized +as being a gentleman--it was clear that Beverly met with Kings Port’s +approval--and, from his Newport experiences, John was able to make out +quite as well as if he had heard Beverly explain it himself the whole +wise philosophic system of joining with the Replacers in order that you +be not replaced yourself. + +“In his shoes mightn’t I do the same?” he surmised. “I fear I’m not as +Spartan as my aunts--only pray don’t mention it to them!” + +And then, because I had been answering him with single syllables, or +with nods, or not at all, he taxed me with my taciturnity; he even went +so far as to ask me what thoughts kept me so silent--which I did not +tell him. + +“I am wondering,” I told him instead, “how much they steal every week.” + +“Those financiers?” + +“Yes. Bohm is president of an insurance company, and Charley’s a +director, and reorganizes railroads.” + +“Well, if other people share your pleasant opinion of them, how do they +get elected?” + +“Other people share their pleasant spoils--senators, vestrymen--you +can’t be sure who you’re sitting next to at dinner any more. Come live +North. You’ll find the only safe way is never to know anybody worth more +than five millions--if you wish to keep the criminal classes off your +visiting list.” + +This made him merry. “Put ‘em in jail, then!” + +“Ah, the jail!” I returned. “It’s the great American joke. It reverses +the rule of our smart society. Only those who have no incomes are +admitted.” + +“But what do you have laws and lawyers for?” + +“To keep the rich out of jail. It’s called ‘professional etiquette.’” + +“Your picture flatters!” + +“You flatter me; it’s only a photograph. Come North and see.” + +“One might think, from your account, the American had rather be bad than +good.” + +“O dear, no! The American had much rather be good than bad!” + +“Your admission amazes me!” + +“But also the American had rather be rich than good. And he is having +his wish. And money’s golden hand is tightening on the throat of liberty +while the labor union stabs liberty in the back--for trusts and unions +are both trying to kill liberty. And the soul of Uncle Sam has turned +into a dollar-inside his great, big, strong, triumphant flesh; so that +even his new religion, his own special invention, his last offering to +the creeds of the world, his gatherer of converted hordes, his Christian +Science, is based upon physical benefit.” + +John touched the horses. “You’re particularly cheerful to-day!” + +“No. I merely summarize what I’m seeing.” + +“Well, a moral awakening will come,” he declared. + +“Inevitably. To-morrow, perhaps. The flesh has had a good, long, +prosperous day, and the hour of the spirit must be near striking. And +the moral awakening will be followed by a moral slumber, since, in +the uncomprehended scheme of things, slumber seems necessary; and you +needn’t pull so long a face, Mr. Mayrant, because the slumber will be +followed by another moral awakening. The alcoholic society girl +you don’t like will very probably give birth to a water-drinking +daughter--who in her turn may produce a bibulous progeny: how often must +I tell you that nothing is final?” + +John Mayrant gave the horses a somewhat vicious lash after these last +words of mine; and, as he made no retort to them, we journeyed some +little distance in silence through the mild, enchanting light of the +sun. My deliberate allusion to alcoholic girls had made plain what I +had begun to suspect. I could now discern that his cloak of gayety +had fallen from him, leaving bare the same harassed spirit, the same +restless mood, which had been his upon the last occasion when we had +talked at length together upon some of the present social and political +phases of our republic--that day of the New Bridge and the advent of +Hortense. Only, upon that day, he had by his manner in some subtle +fashion conveyed to me a greater security in my discretion than I felt +him now to entertain. His many observations about the Replacers, with +always the significant and conspicuous omission of Hortense, proved more +and more, as I thought it over, that his state was unsteady. Even now, +he did not long endure silence between us; yet the eagerness which he +threw into our discussions did not, it seemed to me, so much proceed +from present interest in their subjects (though interest there was at +times) as from anxiety lest one particular subject, ever present with +him, should creep in unawares. So much I, at any rate, concluded, and +bided my time for the creeping in unawares, content meanwhile to +parry some of the reproaches which he now and again cast at me with an +earnestness real or feigned. + +We had made now considerable progress, and were come to a space of sand +and cabins and intersecting railroad tracks, where freight cars and +locomotives stood, and negroes of all shapes, but of one lowering and +ragged appearance, lounged and stared. + +“There used to be a murder here about once a day,” said John, “before +the dispensary system. Now, it is about once a week.” + +“That law is of benefit, then?” I inquired. + +“To those who drink the whiskey, possibly; certainly to those who sell +it!” And he condensed for me the long story of the state dispensary, +which in brief appeared to be that South Carolina had gone into the +liquor business. The profits were to pay for compulsory education; the +liquor was to be pure; society and sobriety were to be advanced: such +had been the threefold promise, of which the threefold fulfillment +was--defeat of the compulsory education bill, a political monopoly +enriching favored distillers, “and lately,” said John, “a thoroughly +democratic whiskey for the plain people. Pay ten cents for a bottle of +X, if you’re curious. It may not poison you--but the murders are coming +up again.” + +“What a delightful example of government ownership!” I exclaimed. + +But John in Kings Port was not in the way of hearing that cure-all +policy discussed, and I therefore explained it to him. He did not seem +to grasp my explanation. + +“I don’t see how it would change anything,” he remarked, “beyond +switching the stealing from one set of hands to another.” + +I put on a face of concern. “What? You don’t believe in our patent +American short-cuts?” + +“Short-cuts?” + +“Certainly. Short-cuts to universal happiness, universal honesty, +universal everything. For instance: Don’t make a boy study four years +for a college degree; just cut the time in half, and you’ve got a +short-cut to education. Write it down that man is equal. That settles +it. You’ll notice how equal he is at once. Write it down that the negro +shall vote. You’ll observe how instantly he is fit for the suffrage. +Now they want it written down that government shall take all the wicked +corporations, because then corruption will disappear from the face of +the earth. You’ll find the farmers presently having it written down that +all hens must hatch their eggs in a week, and next, a league of earnest +women will advocate a Constitutional amendment that men only shall bring +forth children. Oh, we Americans are very thorough!” And I laughed. + +But John’s face was not gay. “Well,” he mused, “South Carolina took a +short-cut to pure liquor and sober citizens--and reached instead a new +den of thieves. Is the whole country sick?” + +“Sick to the marrow, my friend; but young and vigorous still. A nation +in its long life has many illnesses before the one it dies of. But we +shall need some strong medicine if we do not get well soon.” + +“What kind?” + +“Ah, that’s beyond any one! And we have several things the matter with +us--as bad a case, for example, of complacency as I’ve met in history. +Complacency’s a very dangerous disease, seldom got rid of without the +purge of a great calamity. And worse, where does our dishonesty begin, +and where end? The boy goes to college, and there in football it awaits +him; he graduates, and in the down-town office it smirks at him; he +rises into the confidence of his superiors, the town’s chief citizens, +and finds their gray hairs crowned with it,--the very men he has looked +up to, believed in, his ideals, his examples, the merchant prince, +the railroad magnate, the president of insurance companies--all dirty +rascals! Presently he faces worldly success or failure, and then, in +the new ocean of mind that has swallowed morals up, he sinks with his +isolated honesty, like a fool, or swims to respectability with his +brother knaves. And into this mess the immigrant sewage of Europe is +steadily pouring. Such is our continent to-day, with all its fair winds +and tides and fields favorable to us, and only our shallow, complacent, +dishonest selves against us! But don’t let these considerations make you +gloomy; for (I must say it again) nothing is final; and even if we rot +before we ripen--which would be a wholly novel phenomenon--we shall have +made our contribution to mankind in demonstrating by our collapse that +the sow’s ear belongs with the rest of the animal, and not in the voting +booth or the legislature, and that the doctrine of universal suffrage +should have waited until men were born honest and equal. That in itself +would be a memorable service to have rendered.” + +We had come into the divine, sad stillness of the woods, where the warm +sunlight shone through the gray moss, lighting the curtained solitudes +away and away into the depths of the golden afternoon; and somewhere +amid the miles of sleeping wilderness sounded the hoarse honk of the +automobile. The Replacers were abroad, enjoying what they could in this +country where they did not belong, and which did not as yet belong to +them. Once again we heard their honk off to our left, from a farther +distance, and I am glad to say that we did not see them at all. + +“If,” said John Mayrant, “what you have said is true, the nation had +better get on its knees and pray God to give it grace.” + +I looked at the boy and saw that his countenance had grown very fine. +“The act,” I said, “would bring grace, wherever it comes from.” + +“Yes,” he assented. “If in the stars and awfulness of space there’s +nothing, that does not trouble me; for my greater self is inside me, +safe. And our country has a greater self somewhere. Think!” + +“I do not have to think,” I replied, “when I know the nobleness we have +risen to at times.” + +“And I,” he pursued, “happen to believe it is not all only stars and +space; and that God, as much as any ship-builder, rejoices to watch +every tiniest boat meet and brave the storm.” + +Out of his troubles he had brought such mood, sweetness instead of +bitterness; he was saying as plainly as if his actual words said it, +“Misfortune has come to me, and I am going to make the best of it.” His +nobleness, his moral elegance, compelled him to this, and I envied him, +not sure if I myself, thus placed, would acquit myself so well. And +there was in his sweetness a contagion that strangely reconciled me to +the troubled aspects of our national hour. I thought, “Invisible among +our eighty millions there is a quiet legion living untainted in the +depths, while the yellow rich, the prismatic scum and bubbles, boil on +the surface.” Yes, he had accidentally helped me, and I wished doubly +that I might help him. It was well enough he should feel he must not +shirk his duty, but how much better if he could be led to see that +marrying where he did not love was no duty of his. + +I knew what I had to say to him, but lacked the beginning of it; and +of this beginning I was in search as we drove up among the live-oaks of +Udolpho to the little club-house, or hunting lodge, where a negro and +his wife received us, and took the baskets and set about preparing +supper. My beginning sat so heavily upon my attention that I took +scant notice of Udolpho as we walked about its adjacent grounds in the +twilight before supper, and John Mayrant pointed out to me its fine old +trees, its placid stream, and bade me admire the snug character of the +hunting lodge, buried away for bachelors’ delights deep in the heart of +the pleasant forest. I heard him indulging in memories and anecdotes of +date sittings after long hunts; but I was myself always on a hunt for my +beginning, and none of his words clearly reached my intelligence until I +was aware of his reciting an excellently pertinent couplet:-- + + “If you would hold your father’s land, + You must wash your throat before your hand--” + +and found myself standing by the lodge table, upon which he had set two +glasses, containing, I soon ascertained, gin, vermouth, orange bitters, +and a cherry at the bottom--all which he had very skillfully mingled +himself in the happiest proportions. + +“The poetry,” he remarked, “is hereditary in my family;” and setting +down the empty glasses we also washed our hands. A moon half-grown +looked in at the window from the filmy darkness, and John, catching +sight of it, paused with the wet soap in his hand and stared out at the +dimly visible trees. “Oh, the times, the times!” he murmured to himself, +gazing long; and then with a sort of start he returned to the present +moment, and rinsed and dried his hands. Presently we were sitting at the +table, pledging each other in well-cooled champagne; and it was not long +after this that not only the negro who waited on us was plainly reveling +in John’s remarks, but also the cook, with her bandannaed ebony head +poked round the corner of the kitchen door, was doing her utmost to lose +no word of this entertainment. For John, taking up the young and the +old, the quick and the dead, of masculine Kings Port, proceeded to +narrate their private exploits, until by coffee-time he had unrolled for +me the richest tapestry of gayeties that I remember, and I sat without +breath, tearful and aching, while the two negroes had retired far into +the kitchen to muffle their emotions. + +“Tom, oh Tom! you Tom!” called John Mayrant; and after the man had come +from the kitchen: “You may put the punch-bowl and things on the table, +and clear away and go to bed. My Great-uncle Marston Chartain,” he +continued to me, “was of eccentric taste, and for the last twenty years +of his life never had anybody to dinner but the undertaker.” He paused +at this point to mix the punch, and then resumed: “But for all that, he +appears to have been a lively old gentleman to the end, and left us his +version of a saying which is considered by some people an improvement on +the original, ‘Cherchez la femme.’ Uncle Marston had it, ‘Hunt the other +woman.’ Don’t go too fast with that punch; it isn’t as gentle as it +seems.” + +But John and his Uncle Marston had between them given me my beginning, +and, as I sat sipping my punch, I ceased to hear the anecdotes which +followed. I sat sipping and smoking, and was presently aware of the +deepening silence of the night, and of John no longer at the table, but +by the window, looking out into the forest, and muttering once more, +“Oh, the times, the times!” + +“It’s always a triangle,” I began. + +He turned round from his window. “Triangle?” He looked at my glass of +punch, and then at me. “Go easy with the Bombo,” he repeated. + +“Bombo?” I echoed. “You call this Bombo? You don’t know how remarkable +that is, but that’s because you don’t know Aunt Carola, who is very +remarkable, too. Well, never mind her now. Point is, it’s always a +triangle.” + +“I haven’t a doubt of it,” he replied. + +“There you’re right. And so was your uncle. He knew. Triangle.” Here I +found myself nodding portentously at John, and beating the table with my +finger very solemnly. + +He stood by his window seeming to wait for me. And now everything in +the universe grew perfectly clear to me; I rose on mastering tides of +thought, and all problems lay disposed of at my feet, while delicious +strength and calm floated in my brain and being. Nothing was difficult +for me. But I was getting away from the triangle, and there was John +waiting at the window, and I mustn’t say too much, mustn’t say too much. +My will reached out and caught the triangle and brought it close, and I +saw it all perfectly clear again. + +“What are they all,” I said, “the old romances? You take Paris and Helen +and Menelaus. What’s that? You take Launcelot and Arthur and Guinevere. +You take Paola and Francesca and her husband, what’s-his-name, or +Tristram and Iseult and Mark. Two men, one woman. Triangle and trouble. +Other way around you get Tannhauser and Venus and Elizabeth; two women, +one man; more triangle and more trouble. Yes.” And I nodded at him +again. The tide of my thought was pulling me hard away from this to +other important world-problems, but my will held, struggling, and I kept +to it. + +“You wait,” I told him. “I know what I mean. Trouble is, so hard to +advise him right.” + +“Advise who right?” inquired John Mayrant. + +It helped me wonderfully. My will gripped my floating thoughts and held +them to it. “Friend of mine in trouble; though why he asks me when I’m +not married--I’d be married now, you know, but afraid of only one wife. +Man doesn’t love twice; loves thrice, four, six, lots of times; but they +say only one wife. Ought to be two, anyhow. Much easier for man to marry +then.” + +“Wouldn’t it be rather immoral?” John asked. + +“Morality is queer thing. Like kaleidoscope. New patterns all the time. +Abraham and wives--perfectly respectable. You take Pharaohs--or kings of +that sort--married own sisters. All right then. Perfectly horrible now, +of course. But you ask men about two wives. They’d say something to be +said for that idea. Only there are the women, you know. They’d never. +But I’m going to tell my friend he’s doing wrong. Going to write him +to-night. Where’s ink?” + +“It won’t go to-night,” said John. “What are you going to tell him?” + +“Going to tell him, since only one wife, wicked not to break his +engagement.” + +John looked at me very hard, as he stood by the window, leaning on the +sill. But my will was getting all the while a stronger hold, and my +thoughts were less and less inclined to stray to other world-problems; +moreover, below the confusion that still a little reigned in them was +the primal cunning of the old Adam, the native man, quite untroubled and +alert--it saw John’s look at me and it prompted my course. + +“Yes,” I said. “He wants the truth from me. Where’s his letter? No harm +reading you without names.” And I fumbled in my pocket. + +“Letter gone. Never mind. Facts are: friend’s asked girl. Girl’s said +yes. Now he thinks he’s bound by that.” + +“He thinks right,” said John. + +“Not a bit of it. You take Tannhauser. Engagement to Venus all a +mistake. Perfectly proper to break it. Much more than proper. Only +honorable thing he could do. I’m going to write it to him. Where’s ink?” + And I got up. + +John came from his window and sat down at the table. His glass was +empty, his cigar gone out, and he looked at me. But I looked round the +room for the ink, noting in my search the big fireplace, simple, wooden, +unornamented, but generous, and the plain plaster walls of the lodge, +whereon hung two or three old prints of gamebirds; and all the while I +saw John out of the corner of my eye, looking at me. + +He spoke first. “Your friend has given his word to a lady; he must stand +by it like a gentleman. + +“Lot of difference,” I returned, still looking round the room, “between +spirit and letter. If his heart has broken the word, his lips can’t make +him a gentleman.” + +John brought his fist down on the table. “He had no business to get +engaged to her! He must take the consequences.” + +That blow of the fist on the table brought my thoughts wholly clear and +fixed on the one subject; my will had no longer to struggle with them, +they worked of themselves in just the way that I wanted them to do. + +“If he’s a gentleman, he must stand to his word,” John repeated, “unless +she releases him.” + +I fumbled again for my letter. “That’s just about what he says himself,” + I rejoined, sitting down. “He thinks he ought to take the consequences.” + +“Of course!” John Mayrant’s face was very stern as he sat in judgment on +himself. + +“But why should she take the consequences?” I asked. + +“What consequences?” + +“Being married to a man who doesn’t want her, all her life, until +death them do part. How’s that? Having the daily humiliation of his +indifference, and the world’s knowledge of his indifference. How’s that? +Perhaps having the further humiliation of knowing that his heart belongs +to another woman. How’s that? That’s not what a girl bargains for. His +standing to his word is not an act of honor, but a deception. And in +talking about ‘taking the consequences,’ he’s patting his personal +sacrifice on the back and forgetting all about her and the sacrifice +he’s putting her to. What’s the brief suffering of a broken engagement +to that? No: the true consequences that a man should shoulder for making +such a mistake is the poor opinion that society holds of him for placing +a woman in such a position; and to free her is the most honorable thing +he can do. Her dignity suffers less so than if she were a wife chained +down to perpetual disregard.” + +John, after a silence, said: “That is a very curious view.” + +“That is the view I shall give my friend,” I answered. “I shall tell him +that in keeping on he is not at bottom honestly thinking of the girl and +her welfare, but of himself and the public opinion he’s afraid of, if +he breaks his engagement. And I shall tell him that if I’m in church +and they come to the place where they ask if any man knows just cause or +impediment, I shall probably call out, ‘He does! His heart’s not in +it. This is not marriage that he’s committing. You’re pronouncing your +blessing upon a fraud.’” + +John sat now a long time silent, holding his extinct cigar. The lamp +was almost burned dry; we had blown out the expiring candles some while +since. “That is a very curious view,” he repeated. “I should like to +hear what your friend says in answer.” + +This finished our late sitting. We opened the door and went out for a +brief space into the night to get its pure breath into our lungs, and +look to the distant place where the moon had sailed. Then we went to +bed, or rather, I did; for the last thing that I remembered was John, +standing by the window of our bedroom still dressed, looking out into +the forest. + + + + +XX: What She Wanted Him For + +He was neither at the window, nor in his bed, nor anywhere else to be +seen, when I opened my eyes upon the world next morning; nor did any +answer come when I called his name. I raised myself and saw outside the +great branches of the wood, bathed from top to trunk in a sunshine that +was no early morning’s light; and upon this, the silence of the house +spoke plainly to me not of man still sleeping, but of man long risen and +gone about his business. I stepped barefoot across the wooden floor to +where lay my watch, but it marked an unearthly hour, for I had neglected +to wind it at the end of our long and convivial evening--of which my +head was now giving me some news. And then I saw a note addressed to me +from John Mayrant. + +“You are a good sleeper,” it began, “but my conscience is clear as +to the Bombo, called by some Kill-devil, about which I hope you will +remember that I warned you.” + +He hoped I should remember! Of course I remembered everything; why did +he say that? An apology for his leaving me followed; he had been obliged +to take the early train because of the Custom House, where he was +serving his final days; they would give me breakfast when ever I should +be ready for it, and I was to make free of the place; I had better visit +the old church (they had orders about the keys) and drive myself into +Kings Port after lunch; the horses would know the way, if I did not. It +was the boy’s closing sentence which fixed my attention wholly, took +it away from Kill-devil Bombo and my Aunt Carola’s commission, for the +execution of which I now held the clue, and sent me puzzling for the +right interpretation of his words:-- + +“I believe that you will help your friend by that advice which startled +me last night, but which I now begin to see more in than I did. Only +between alternate injuries, he may find it harder to choose which is the +least he can inflict, than you, who look on, find it. For in following +your argument, he benefits himself so plainly that the benefit to the +other person is very likely obscured to him. But, if you wish to, tell +him a Southern gentleman would feel he ought to be shot either way. +That’s the honorable price for changing your mind in such a case.” + +No interpretation of this came to me. I planned and carried out my day +according to his suggestion; a slow dressing with much cold water, a +slow breakfast with much good hot coffee, a slow wandering beneath the +dreamy branches of Udolpho,--this course cleared my head of the Bombo, +and brought back to me our whole evening, and every word I had said +to John, except that I had lost the solution which, last night, the +triangle had held for me. At that moment, the triangle, and my whole +dealing with the subject of monogamy, had seemed to contain the +simplicity of genius; but it had all gone now, and I couldn’t get +it back; only, what I had contrived to say to John about his own +predicament had been certainly well said; I would say that over again +to-day. It was the boy and the meaning of his words which escaped me +still, baffled me, and formed the whole subject of my attention, even +when I was inside the Tern Creek church; so that I retain nothing +of that, save a general quaintness, a general loneliness, a little +deserted, forgotten token of human doings long since done, standing +on its little acre of wilderness amid that solitude which suggests the +departed presence of man, and which is so much more potent in the flavor +of its desolation than the virgin wilderness whose solitude is still +waiting for man to come. + +It made no matter whether John had believed in the friend to whom I +intended writing advice, or had seen through and accepted in good part +my manoeuvre; he had considered my words, that was the point; and he had +not slept in his bed, but on it, if sleep had come to him at all; this +I found out while dressing. Several times I read his note over. “Between +alternate injuries he may find it harder to choose.” This was not an +answer to me, but an explanation of his own perplexity. At times it +sounded almost like an appeal, as if he were saying, “Do not blame me +for not being convinced;” and if it was such appeal, why, then, taken +with his resolve to do right at any cost, and his night of inward +contention, it was poignant. “I believe that you will help your friend.” + Those words sounded better. But--“tell him a Southern gentleman ought to +be shot either way.” What was the meaning of this? A chill import rose +from it into my thoughts, but that I dismissed. To die on account +of Hortense! Such a thing was not to be conceived. And yet, given a +high-strung nature, not only trapped by its own standards, but also +wrought upon during many days by increasing exasperation and unhappiness +while helpless in the trap, and with no other outlook but the trap: the +chill import returned to me more than once, and was reasoned away, as, +with no attention to my surroundings, I took a pair of oars, and got +into a boat belonging to the lodge, and rowed myself slowly among the +sluggish windings of Tern Creek. + +Whence come those thoughts that we ourselves feel shame at? It shamed +me now, as I pulled my boat along, that I should have thoughts of John +which needed banishing. What tale would this be to remember of a boy’s +life, that he gave it to buy freedom from a pledge which need never +have been binding? What pearl was this to cast before the sophisticated +Hortense? Such act would be robbed of its sadness by its absurdity. Yet, +surely, the bitterest tragedies are those of which the central anguish +is lost amid the dust of surrounding paltriness. If such a thing should +happen here, no one but myself would have seen the lonely figure of John +Mayrant, standing by the window and looking out into the dark quiet of +the wood; his name would be passed down for a little while as the name +of a fool, and then he would be forgotten. “I believe that you will help +your friend.” Yes; he had certainly written that, and it now came to me +that I might have said to him one thing more: Had he given Hortense the +chance to know what his feelings to her had become? But he would merely +have answered that here it was the duty of a gentleman to lie. Or, had +he possibly, at Newport, ever become her lover too much for any escaping +now? Had his dead passion once put his honor in a pawn which only +marriage could redeem? This might fit all that had come, so far; and +still, with such a two as they, I should forever hold the boy the +woman’s victim. But this did not fit what came after. Perhaps it was the +late sitting of the night before, and the hushed and strange solitude +of my surroundings now, that had laid my mind open to all these thoughts +which my reason, in dealing with, answered continually, one by one, yet +which returned, requiring to be answered again; for there are times when +our uncomfortable eyes see through the appearances we have arranged for +daily life, into the actualities which lie forever behind them. + +Going about thus in my boat, I rowed sleepiness into myself, and pushed +into a nook where shade from some thick growth hid the boat and me from +the sun; and there, almost enmeshed in the deep lattice of green, I +placed my coat beneath my head, and prone in the boat’s bottom I drifted +into slumber. Once or twice my oblivion was pierced by the roaming honk +of the automobile; but with no more than the half-melted consciousness +that the Replacers were somewhere in the wood, oblivion closed over me +again; and when it altogether left me, it was because of voices near me +on the water, or on the bank. Their calls and laughter pushed themselves +into my drowsiness, and soon after I grew aware that the Replacers +were come here to see what was to be seen at Udolpho--the club, the old +church, a country place with a fine avenue--and that it was the church +they now couldn’t get into, because my visit had disturbed the usual +whereabouts of the key, of which Gazza was now going in search. I could +have told him where to find it, but it pleased me not to disturb myself +for this, as I listened to him assuring Kitty that it was probably +in the cabin beyond the bridge, but not to be alarmed if he did not +immediately return with it. Kitty, not without audible mirth, assured +him that they should not be alarmed at all, to which the voice of +Hortense supplemented, “Not at all.” They were evidently in a boat, +which Hortense herself was rowing, and which she seemed to bring to +the bank, where I gathered that Kitty got out and sat while Hortense +remained in the boat. There was the little talk and movement which goes +with borrowing of a cigarette, a little exclamation about not falling +out, accompanied by the rattle of a displaced oar, and then stillness, +and the smell of tobacco smoke. + +Presently Kitty spoke. “Charley will be back to-night.” + +To this I heard no reply. + +“What did his telegram say?” Kitty inquired, after another silence. + +“It’s all right.” This was Hortense. Her slow, rich murmur was as +deliberate as always. + +“Mr. Bohm knew it would be,” said Kitty. “He said it wouldn’t take five +minutes’ talk from Charley to get a contract worth double what they were +going to accept.” + +After this, nothing came to me for several minutes, save the odor of the +cigarettes. + +Of course there was now but one proper course for me, namely, to utter a +discreet cough, and thus warn them that some one was within earshot. But +I didn’t! I couldn’t! Strength failed, curiosity won, my baser nature +triumphed here, and I deliberately remained lying quiet and hidden. +It was the act of no gentleman, you will say. Well, it was; and I must +simply confess to it, hoping that I am not the only gentleman in the +world who has, on occasion, fallen beneath himself. + +“Hortense Rieppe,” began Kitty, “what do you intend to say to my brother +after what he has done about those phosphates?” + +“He is always so kind,” murmured Hortense. + +“Well, you know what it means.” + +“Means?” + +“If you persist in this folly, you’ll drop out.” + +Hortense chose another line of speculation. “I wonder why your brother +is so sure of me?” + +“Charley is a set man. And I’ve never seen him so set on anything as on +you, Hortense Rieppe.” + +“He is always so kind,” murmured Hortense again. + +“He’s a man you’ll always know just where to find,” declared Kitty. +“Charley is safe. He’ll never take you by surprise, never fly out, never +do what other people don’t do, never make any one stare at him by the +way he looks, or the way he acts, or anything he says, or--or--why, how +you can hesitate between those two men after that ridiculous, childish, +conspicuous, unusual scene on the bridge--” + +“Unusual. Yes,” said Hortense. + +Kitty’s eloquence and voice mounted together. “I should think it was +unusual! Tearing people’s money up, and making a rude, awkward fuss +that everybody had to smooth over as hard as they could! Why, even Mr. +Rodgers says that sort of thing isn’t done, and you’re always saying he +knows.” + +“No,” said Hortense. “It isn’t done.” + +“Well, I’ve never seen anything approaching such behavior in our set. +And he was ready to go further. Nobody knows where it might have gone +to, if Charley’s perfect coolness hadn’t rebuked him and brought him to +his senses. There’s where it is, that’s what I mean, Hortense, by saying +you could always feel safe with Charley.” + +Hortense put in a languid word. “I think I should always feel safe with +Mr. Mayrant.” + +But Kitty was a simple soul. “Indeed you couldn’t, Hortense! I assure +you that you’re mistaken. There’s where you get so wrong about men +sometimes. I have been studying that boy for your sake ever since we +got here, and I know him through and through. And I tell you, you cannot +count upon him. He has not been used to our ways, and I see no promise +of his getting used to them. He will stay capable of outbreaks like that +horrid one on the bridge. Wherever you take him, wherever you put +him, no matter how much you show him of us, and the way we don’t allow +conspicuous things like that to occur, believe me, Hortense, he’ll never +learn, he’ll never smooth down. You may brush his hair flat and keep him +appearing like other people for a while, but a time will come, something +will happen, and that boy’ll be conspicuous. Charley would never be +conspicuous.” + +“No,” assented Hortense. + +Kitty urged her point. “Why, I never saw or beard of anything like that +on the bridge--that is, among--among--us!” + +“No,” assented Hortense, again, and her voice dropped lower with each +statement. “One always sees the same thing. Always hears the same thing. +Always the same thing.” These last almost inaudible words sank away into +the silent pool of Hortense’s meditation. + +“Have another cigarette,” said Kitty. “You’ve let yours fall into the +water.” + +I heard them moving a little, and then they must have resumed their +seats. + +“You’ll drop out of it,” Kitty now pursued. + +“Into what shall I drop?” + +“Just being asked to the big things everybody goes to and nobody counts. +For even with the way Charley has arranged about the phosphates, it will +not be enough to keep you in our swim--just by itself. He’ll weigh more +than his money, because he’ll stay different--too different.” + +“He was not so different last summer.” + +“Because he was not there long enough, my dear. He learned bridge +quickly, and of course he had seen champagne before, and nobody had time +to notice him. But he’ll be married now and they will notice him, and +they won’t want him. To think of your dropping out!” Kitty became very +earnest. “To think of not seeing you among us! You’ll be in none of the +small things; you’ll never be asked to stay at the smart houses--why, +not even your name will be in the paper! Not a foreigner you entertain, +not a dinner you give, not a thing you wear, will ever be described next +morning. And Charley’s so set on you, and you’re so just exactly made +for each other, and it would all be so splendid, and cosey, and jolly! +And to throw all this away for that crude boy!” Kitty’s disdain was high +at the thought of John. + +Hortense took a little time over it “Once,” she then stated, “he told me +he could drown in my hair as joyfully as the Duke of Clarence did in his +butt of Malmsey wine!” + +Kitty gave a little scream. “Did you let him?” + +“One has to guard one’s value at times.” + +Kitty’s disdain for John increased. “How crude!” + +Hortense did not make any answer. + +“How crude!” Kitty, after some silence, repeated. She seemed to have +found the right word. + +Steps sounded upon the bridge, and the voice of Gazza cried out that the +stupid key was at the imbecile club-house, whither he was now going for +it, and not to be alarmed. Their voices answered reassuringly, and Gazza +was heard growing distant, singing some little song. + +Kitty was apparently unable to get away from John’s crudity. “He +actually said that?” + +“Yes.” + +“Where was it? Tell me about it, Hortense.” + +“We were walking in the country on that occasion.” + +Kitty still lingered with it. “Did he look--I’ve never had any man--I +wonder if--how did you feel?” + +“Not disagreeably.” And Hortense permitted herself to laugh musically. + +Kitty’s voice at once returned to the censorious tone. “Well, I call +such language as that very--very--” + +Hortense helped her. “Operatic?” + +“He could never be taught in those ways either,” declared Kitty. “You +would find his ardor always untrained--provincial.” + +Once more Hortense abstained from making any answer. + +Kitty grew superior. “Well, if that’s to your taste, Hortense Rieppe!” + +“It was none of it like Charley,” murmured Hortense. + +“I should think not! Charley’s not crude. What do you see in that man?” + +“I like the way his hair curls above his ears.” + +For this Kitty found nothing but an impatient exclamation. + +And now the voice of Hortense sank still deeper in dreaminess,--down +to where the truth lay; and from those depths came the truth, flashing +upward through the drowsy words she spoke: “I think I want him for his +innocence.” + +What light these words may have brought to Kitty, I had no chance to +learn; for the voice of Gazza returning with the key put an end to this +conversation. But I doubted if Kitty had it in her to fathom the nature +of Hortense. Kitty was like a trim little clock that could tick tidily +on an ornate shelf; she could go, she could keep up with time, with +the rapid epoch to which she belonged, but she didn’t really have many +works. I think she would have scoffed at that last languorous speech +as a piece of Hortense’s nonsense, and that is why Hortense uttered it +aloud: she was safe from being understood. But in my ears it sounded +the note of revelation, the simple central secret of Hortense’s fire, +a flame fed overmuch with experience, with sophistication, grown cold +under the ministrations of adroitness, and lighted now by the “crudity” + of John’s love-making. And when, after an interval, I had rowed my +boat back, and got into the carriage, and started on my long drive from +Udolpho to Kings Port, I found that there was almost nothing about all +this which I did not know now. Hortense, like most riddles when you are +told the answer, was clear:-- + +“I think I want him for his innocence.” + +Yes; she was tired of love-making whose down had been rubbed off; she +hungered for love-making with the down still on, even if she must pay +for it with marriage. Who shall say if her enlightened and modern eye +could not look beyond such marriage (when it should grow monotonous) to +divorce? + + + + +XXI: Hortense’s Cigarette Goes Out + +John was the riddle that I could not read. Among my last actions of +this day was one that had been almost my earliest, and bedtime found me +staring at his letter, as I stood, half undressed, by my table. The calm +moon brought back Udolpho and what had been said there, as it now shone +down upon the garden where Hortense had danced. I stared at John’s +letter as if its words were new to me, instead of being words that I +could have fluently repeated from beginning to end without an error; it +was as if, by virtue of mere gazing at the document, I hoped to wring +more meaning from it, to divine what had been in the mind which had +composed it; but instead of this, I seemed to get less from it, instead +of more. Had the boy’s purpose been to mystify me, he could scarce have +done better. I think that he had no such intention, for it would have +been wholly unlike him; but I saw no sign in it that I had really helped +him, had really shaken his old quixotic resolve, nor did I see any +of his having found a new way of his own out of the trap. I could not +believe that the dark road of escape had taken any lodgement in his +thought, but had only passed over it, like a cloud with a heavy shadow. +But these are surmises at the best: if John had formed any plan, I can +never know it, and Juno’s remarks at breakfast on Sunday morning sounded +strange, like something a thousand miles away. For she spoke of the +wedding, and of the fact that it would certainly be a small one. She +went over the names of the people who would have to be invited, and +doubted if she were one of these. But if she should be, then she would +go--for the sake of Miss Josephine St. Michael, she declared. In short, +it was perfectly plain that Juno was much afraid of being left out, and +that wild horses could not drag her away from it, if an invitation came +to her. But, as I say, this side of the wedding seemed to have nothing +to do with it, when I thought of all that lay beneath; my one interest +to-day was to see John Mayrant, to get from him, if not by some word, +then by some look or intonation, a knowledge of what he meant to do. +Therefore, disappointment and some anxiety met me when I stepped from +the Hermana’s gangway upon her deck, and Charley asked me if he was +coming. But the launch, sent back to wait, finally brought John, +apologizing for his lateness. + +Meanwhile, I was pleased to find among the otherwise complete party +General Rieppe. What I had seen of him from a distance held promise, and +the hero’s nearer self fulfilled it. We fell to each other’s lot for the +most natural of reasons: nobody else desired the company of either of +us. Charley was making himself the devoted servant of Hortense, while +Kitty drew Beverly, Bohm, and Gazza in her sprightly wake. To her, +indeed, I made a few compliments during the first few minutes after my +coming aboard, while every sort of drink and cigar was being circulated +among us by the cabin boy. Kitty’s costume was the most markedly +maritime thing that I have ever beheld in any waters, and her white +shoes looked (I must confess) supremely well on her pretty little feet. +I am no advocate of sumptuary laws; but there should be one prohibiting +big-footed women from wearing white shoes. Did these women know what a +spatulated effect their feet so shod produce, no law would be needed. +Yes, Kitty was superlatively, stridently maritime; you could have known +from a great distance that she belonged to the very latest steam yacht +class, and that she was perfectly ignorant of the whole subject. On her +left arm, for instance, was worked a red propeller with one blade down, +and two chevrons. It was the rating mark for a chief engineer, but this, +had she known it, would not have disturbed her. + +“I chose it,” she told me in reply to my admiration of it, “because +it’s so pretty. Oh, won’t we enjoy ourselves while those stupid old +blue-bloods in Kings Port are going to church!” And with this she gave +a skip, and ordered the cabin boy to bring her a Remsen cooler. Beverly +Rodgers called for dwarf’s blood, and I chose a horse’s neck, and soon +found myself in the society of the General. + +He was sipping whiskey and plain water. “I am a rough soldiers sir,” he +explained to me, “and I keep to the simple beverage of the camp. Had we +not ‘rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know +not of’?” And he waved a stately hand at my horse’s neck. “You are +acquainted with the works of Shakespeare?” + +I replied that I had a moderate knowledge of them, and assured him that +a horse’s neck was very simple. + +“Doubtless, sir; but a veteran is ever old-fashioned.” + +“Papa,” said Hortense, “don’t let the sun shine upon your head.” + +“Thank you, daughter mine.” They said no more; but I presently felt that +for some reason she watched him. + +He moved farther beneath the awning, and I followed him. “Are you a +father, sir? No? Then you cannot appreciate what it is to confide such a +jewel as yon girl to another’s keeping.” He summoned the cabin boy, who +brought him some more of the simple beverage of the camp, and I, feeling +myself scarce at liberty to speak on matters so near to him and so +far from me as his daughter’s marriage, called his attention to the +beautiful aspect of Kings Port, spread out before us in a long white +line against the blue water. + +The General immediately seized his opportunity. “‘Sweet Auburn, +loveliest village of the plain!’ You are acquainted with the works of +Goldsmith, sir?” + +I professed some knowledge of this author also, and the General’s talk +flowed ornately onward. Though I had little to say to him about his +daughter’s marriage, he had much to say to me. Miss Josephine St. +Michael would have been gratified to hear that her family was considered +suitable for Hortense to contract an alliance with. “My girl is not +stepping down, sir,” the father assured me; and he commended the St. +Michaels and the whole connection. He next alluded tragically but +vaguely to misfortunes which had totally deprived him of income. I could +not precisely fix what his inheritance had been; sometimes he spoke of +cotton, but next it would be rice, and he touched upon sugar more than +once; but, whatever it was, it had been vast and was gone. He told me +that I could not imagine the feelings of a father who possessed a jewel +and no dowry to give her. “A queen’s estate should have been hers,” he +said. “But what! ‘Who steals my purse steals trash.’” And he sat up, +nobly braced by the philosophic thought. But he soon was shaking his +head over his enfeebled health. Was I aware that he had been the cause +of postponing the young people’s joy twice? Twice had the doctors +forbidden him to risk the emotions that would attend his giving his +jewel away. He dwelt upon his shattered system to me, and, indeed, +it required some dwelling on, for he was the picture of admirable +preservation. “But I know what it is myself,” he declared, “to be a +lover and have bliss delayed. They shall be united now. A soldier must +face all arrows. What!” + +I had hoped he might quote something here, but was disappointed. +His conversation would soon cease to interest me, should I lose the +excitement of watching for the next classic; and my eye wandered from +the General to the water, where, happily, I saw John Mayrant coming in +the launch. I briskly called the General’s attention to him, and was +delighted with the unexpected result. + +“‘Oh, young Lochinvar has come out of the West,’” said the General, +lifting his glass. + +I touched it ceremoniously with mine. “The day will be hot,” I said; +“‘The boy stood on the burning deck.’” + +On this I made my escape from him, and, leaving him to his whiskey and +his contemplating, I became aware that the eyes of the rest of the party +were eager to watch the greeting between Hortense and John. But there +was nothing to see. Hortense waited until her lover had made his +apologies to Charley for being late, and, from the way they met, +she might have been no more to him than Kitty was. Whatever might be +thought, whatever might be known, by these onlookers, Hortense set the +pace of how the open secret was to be taken. She made it, for all of us, +as smooth and smiling as the waters of Kings Port were this fine day. +How much did they each know? I asked myself how much they had shared +in common. To these Replacers Kings Port had opened no doors; they and +their automobile had skirted around the outside of all things. And if +Charley knew about the wedding, he also knew that it had been already +twice postponed. He, too, could have said, as Miss Eliza had once said +to me, “The cake is not baked yet.” The General’s talk to me (I felt as +I took in how his health had been the centred point) was probably the +result of previous arrangements with Hortense herself; and she quite as +certainly inspired whatever she allowed him to say to Charley. + +As for Kitty, she knew that her brother was “set”; she always came back +to that. + +If Hortense found this Sunday morning a passage of particularly delicate +steering, she showed it in no way, unless by that heightened radiance +and triumph of beauty which I had seen in her before. No; the splendor +of the day, the luxuries of the Hermana, the conviviality of the +Replacers--all melted the occasion down to an ease and enjoyment in +which even John Mayrant, with his grave face, was not perceptible, +unless, like myself, one watched him. + +It was my full expectation that we should now get under way and proceed +among the various historic sights of Kings Port harbor, but of this I +saw no signs anywhere on board the Hermana. Abeam of the foremast her +boat booms remained rigged out on port and starboard, her boats riding +to painters, while her crew wore a look as generally lounging as that of +her passengers. Beverly Rodgers told me the reason: we had no pilot; the +negro Waterman engaged for this excursion in the upper waters had failed +of appearance, and when Charley was for looking up another, Kitty, Bohm, +and Gazza had dissuaded him. + +“Kitty,” said Beverly, “told me she didn’t care about the musty old +forts and things, anyhow.” + +I looked at Kitty, and heard her tongue ticking away, like the little +clock she was; she had her Bohm, she had her nautical costume and her +Remsen cooler. These, with the lunch that would come in time, were +enough for her. + +“But it was such a good chance!” I exclaimed in disappointment + +“Chance for what, old man?” + +“To see everything--the forts, the islands--and it’s beautiful, you +know, all the way to the navy yard.” + +Beverly followed my glance to where the gay company was sitting among +the cracked ice, and bottles, and cigar boxes, chattering volubly, with +its back to the scenery. He gave his laisser-faire chuckle, and laid a +hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry ‘em with forts and islands, old boy! +They know what they want. No living breed on earth knows better what it +wants.” + +“Well, they don’t get it.” + +“Ho, don’t they?” + +“The cold fear of ennui gnaws at their vitals this minute.” + +Shrill laughter from Kitty and Gazza served to refute my theory. + +“Of course, very few know what’s the matter with them,” I added. “You +seldom spot an organic disease at the start.” + +“Hm,” said Beverly, lengthily. “You put a pin through some of ‘em. +Hortense hasn’t got the disease, though.” + +“Ah, she spotted it! She’s taking treatment. It’s likely to help +her--for a time.” + +He looked at me. “You know something.” + +I nodded. He looked at Hortense, who was now seated among the noisy +group with quiet John beside her. She was talking to Bohm, she had no +air of any special relation to John, but there was a lustre about her +that spoke well for the treatment. + +“Then it’s coming off?” said Beverly. + +“She has been too much for him,” I answered. + +Beverly misunderstood. “He doesn’t look it.” + +“That’s what I mean.” + +“But the fool can cut loose!” + +“Oh, you and I have gone over all that! I’ve even gone over it with +him.” + +Beverly looked at Hortense again. “And her fire-eater’s fortune is about +double what it would have been. I don’t see how she’s going to square +herself with Charley.” + +“She’ll wait till that’s necessary. It isn’t necessary to-day.” + +We had to drop our subject here, for the owner of the Hermana approached +us with the amiable purpose, I found, of making himself civil for a +while to me. + +“I think you would have been interested to see the navy yard,” I said to +him. + +“I have seen it,” Charley replied, in his slightly foreign, careful +voice. “It is not a navy yard. It is small politics and a big swamp. I +was not interested.” + +“Dear me!” I cried. “But surely it’s going to be very fine!” + +“Another gold brick sold to Uncle Sam.” Charley’s words seemed always +to drop out like little accurately measured coins from some minting +machine. “They should not have changed from the old place if they wanted +a harbor that could be used in war-time. Here they must always keep at +least one dredge going out at the jetties. So the enemy blows up your +dredge and you are bottled in, or bottled out. It is very simple for the +enemy. And, for Kings Port, navy yards do not galvanize dead trade. It +was a gold brick. You have not been on the Hermana before?” + +He knew that I had not, but he wishes to show her to me; and I +soon noted a difference as radical as it was diverting between this +banker-yachtsman’s speech when he talked of affairs on land and when +he attempted to deal with nautical matters. The clear, dispassionate +finality of his tone when phosphates, or railroads, or navy yards, or +imperial loans were concerned, left him, and changed to something +very like a recitation of trigonometry well memorized but not at all +mastered; he could do that particular sum, but you mustn’t stop him; +and I concluded that I would rather have Charley for my captain during +a panic in Wall Street than in a hurricane at sea. He, too, wore highly +pronounced sea clothes of the ornamental kind; and though they fitted +him physically, they hung baggily upon his unmarine spirit; giving him +the air, as it were, of a broiled quail served on oyster shells. Beverly +Rodgers, the consummate Beverly, was the only man of us whose clothes +seemed to belong to him; he looked as if he could sail a boat. + +While the cabin boy continued to rush among the guests with siphons, +ice, and fresh refreshments, Charley became the Hermana’s guidebook +for me; and our interview gave me, I may say, entertainment unalloyed, +although there lay all the while, beneath the entertainment, my sadness +and concern about John. Charley was owner of the Hermana, there was +no doubt of that; she had cost him (it was not long before he told me) +fifty thousand dollars, and to run her it cost him a thousand a month. +Yes, he was her owner, but there it stopped, no matter with how solemn +a face he inspected each part of her, or spoke of her details; he was as +much a passenger on her as myself; and this was as plain on the equally +solemn faces of his crew, from the sailing-master down through the two +quartermasters to the five deck-hands, as was the color of the +Hermana’s stack, which was, of course, yellow. She was a pole-mast, +schooner-rigged steam yacht, Charley accurately told me, with clipper +bow and spiked bowsprit. + +“About a hundred tons?” I inquired. + +“Yes. A hundred feet long, beam twenty feet, and she draws twelve feet,” + said Charley; and I thought I detected the mate listening to him. + +He now called my attention to the flags, and I am certain that I saw +the sailing-master hide his mouth with his hand. Some of the deck-hands +seemed to gather delicately nearer to us. + +“Sunday, of course,” I said; and I pointed to the Jack flying from a +staff at the bow. + +But Charley did not wish me to tell him about the flags, he wished to +tell me about the flags. “I am very strict about all this,” he said, his +gravity and nauticality increasing with every word. “At the fore truck +flies our club burgee.” + +I went through my part, giving a solemn, silent, intelligent assent. + +“That is my private signal at the main truck. It was designed by Miss +Rieppe.” + +As I again intelligently nodded, I saw the boatswain move an elbow into +the ribs of one of the quartermasters. + +“On the staff at the taffrail I have the United States yacht ensign,” + Charley continued. “That’s all,” he said, looking about for more flags, +and (to his disappointment, I think) finding no more. For he added: “But +at twelve o’c--at eight bells, the crew’s meal-flag will be in the +port fore rigging. While we are at lunch, my meal-flag will be in the +starboard main rigging.” + +“It should be there all day,” I was tempted to remark to him, as my +wandering eye fell on the cabin boy carrying something more on a plate +to Kitty. But instead of this I said: “Well, she’s a beautiful boat!” + +Charley shook his head. “I’m going to get rid of her.” + +I was surprised. “Isn’t she all right?” It seemed to me that the crew +behind us were very attentive now. + +“There is not enough refrigerator space,” said Charley. One of the +deck-hands whirled round instantly; but stolidity sat like adamant upon +the faces of the others as Charley turned in their direction, and we +continued our tour of the Hermana. Thus the little banker let me see +his little soul, deep down; and there I saw that to pass for a real +yachtsman--which he would never be able to do--was dearer to his pride +than to bring off successfully some huge and delicate matter in the +world’s finance--which he could always do supremely well. “I’m just like +that, too,” I thought to myself; and we returned to the gay Kitty. + +But Kitty, despite her gayety, had serious thoughts upon her mind. +Charley’s attentions to me had met all that politeness required, and +as we went aft again, his sister caused certain movements and +rearrangements to happen with chairs and people. I didn’t know this at +once, but I knew it when I found myself somehow sitting with her and +John, and saw Hortense with Charley. Hortense looked over at Kitty with +a something that had in it both raised eyebrows and a shrug, though +these visible signs did not occur; and, indeed, so far as anything +visible went (except the look) you might have supposed that now Hortense +had no thoughts for any man in the world save Charley. And John was +plainly more at ease with Kitty! He began to make himself agreeable, so +that once or twice she gave him a glance of surprise. There was nothing +to mark him out from the others, except his paleness in the midst of +their redness. Yachting clothes bring out wonderfully how much you are +in the habit of eating and drinking; and an innocent stranger might have +supposed that the Replacers were richly sunburned from exposure to the +blazing waters of Cuba and the tropics. Kitty deemed it suitable to +extol Kings Port to John. “Quaint” was the word that did most of this +work for her; she found everything that, even the negroes; and when +she had come to the end of it, she supposed the inside must be just as +“quaint” as the outside. + +“It is,” said John Mayrant. He was enjoying Kitty. Then he became +impertinent. “You ought to see it.” + +“Do you stay inside much?” said Kitty. + +“We all do,” said John. “Some of us never come out.” + +“But you came out?” Kitty suggested. + +“Oh, I’ve been out,” John returned. He was getting older. I doubt if the +past few years of his life had matured him as much as had the past few +days. Then he looked at Kitty in the eyes. “And I’d always come out--if +Romance rang the bell.” + +“Hm!” said Kitty. “Then you know that ring?” + +“We begin to hear it early in Kings Port,” remarked John. “About the age +of fourteen.” + +Kitty looked at him with an interest that now plainly revealed +curiosity also. It occurred to me that he could not have found any +great embarrassment in getting on at Newport. “What if I rang the bell +myself?” explained Kitty. + +“Come in the evening,” returned John. “We won’t go home till morning.” + +Kitty kissed her hand to him, and, during the pleased giggle that +she gave, I saw her first taking in John and then Hortense. Kitty +was thinking, thinking, of John’s “crudity.” And so I made a little +experiment for myself. + +“I wonder if men seem as similar in making love as women do in receiving +it?” + +“They aren’t!” shouted both John and Kitty, in the same indignant +breath. Their noise brought Bohm to listen to us. + +This experiment was so much a success that I promptly made another +for the special benefit of Bohm, Kitty’s next husband. I find it often +delightful to make a little gratuitous mischief, just to watch the +victims. I addressed Kitty. “What would you do if a man said he could +drown in your hair as joyfully as the Duke of Clarence did in his butt +of Malmsey?” + +“Why--why--” gasped Kitty, “why--why--” + +I suppose it gave John time; but even so he was splendid. + +“She has heard it said!” This was his triumphant shout. I should not +have supposed that Kitty could have turned any redder, but she did. John +buried his nose in his tall glass, and gulped a choking quantity of its +contents, and mopped his face profusely; but little good that effected. +There sat this altogether innocent pair, deeply suffused with the +crimson of apparent guilt, and there stood Kitty’s next husband, eyeing +them suspiciously. My little gratuitous mischief was a perfect success, +and remains with me as one of the bright spots in this day of pleasure. + +Vivacious measures from the piano brought Kitty to her feet. + +“There’s Gazza!” she cried. “We’ll make him sing!” And on the instant +she was gone down the companionway. Bohm followed her with a less +agitated speed, and soon all were gone below, leaving John and me alone +on the deck, sitting together in silence. + +John lolled back in his chair, slowly sipping at his tall glass, and +neither of us made any remark. I think he wanted to ask me how I came to +mention the Duke of Clarence; but I did not see how he very well could, +and he certainly made no attempt to do so. Thus did we sit for some +time, hearing the piano and the company grow livelier and louder with +solos, and choruses, and laughter. By and by the shadow of the awning +shifted, causing me to look up, when I saw the shores slowly changing; +the tide had turned, and was beginning to run out. Land and water lay +in immense peace; the long, white, silent picture of the town with its +steeples on the one hand, and on the other the long, low shore, and the +trees behind. Into this rose the high voice of Gazza, singing in broken +English, “Razzla-dazzla, razzla-dazzla,” while his hearers beat upon +glasses with spoons--at least so I conjectured. + +“Aren’t you coming, John?” asked Hortense, appearing at the +companionway. She looked very bacchanalian. Her splendid amber hair was +half riotous, and I was reminded of the toboggan fire-escape. + +He obeyed her; and now I had the deck entirely to myself, or, rather, +but one other and distant person shared it with me. The hour had +come, the bells had struck; Charley’s crew was eating its dinner +below forward; Charley’s guests were drinking their liquor below aft; +Charley’s correct meal-flag was to be seen in the port fore rigging, as +he had said, red and triangular; and away off from me in the bow was +the anchor watch, whom I dreamily watched trying to light his pipe. +His matches seemed to be bad; and the brotherly thought of helping +him drifted into my mind--and comfortably out of it again, without +disturbing my agreeable repose. It had been really entertaining in John +to tell Kitty that she ought to see the inside of Kings Port; that was +like his engaging impishness with Juno. If by any possible contrivance +(and none was possible) Kitty and her Replacers could have met +the inside of Kings Port, Kitty would have added one more “quaint” + impression to her stock, and gone away in total ignorance of the quality +of the impression she had made--and Bohm would probably have again +remarked, “Worse than Sunday.” No; the St. Michaels and the Replacers +would never meet in this world, and I see no reason that they should +in the next. John’s light and pleasing skirmish with Kitty gave me the +glimpse of his capacities which I had lacked hitherto. John evidently +“knew his way about,” as they say; and I was diverted to think how Miss +Josephine St. Michael would have nodded over his adequacy and shaken +her head at his squandering it on such a companion. But it was no +squandering; the boy’s heavy spirit was making a gallant “bluff” at +playing up with the lively party he had no choice but to join, and this +one saw the moment he was not called upon to play up. + +The peaceful loveliness that floated from earth and water around me +triumphed over the jangling hilarity of the cabin, and I dozed away, +aware that they were now all thumping furiously in chorus, while Gazza +sang something that went, “Oh, she’s my leetle preety poosee pet.” + When I roused, it was Kitty’s voice at the piano, but no change in the +quality of the song or the thumping; and Hortense was stepping on +deck. She had a cigarette, her beauty flashed with devilment, and John +followed her. “They are going to have an explanation,” I thought, as I +saw his face. If that were so, then Kitty had blundered in her strategy +and hurt Charley’s cause; for after the two came Gazza, as obviously +“sent” as any emissary ever looked: Kitty took care of the singing, +while Gazza intercepted any tete-a-tete. I rose and made a fourth with +them, and even as I was drawing near, the devilment in Hortense’s face +sank inward beneath cold displeasure. + +I had never been a welcome person to Hortense, and she made as little +effort to conceal this as usual. Her indifferent eyes glanced at me with +drowsy insolence, and she made her beautiful, low voice as remote and +inattentive as her skilful social equipment could render it. + +“It is so hot in the cabin.” + +This was all she had for me. Then she looked at Gazza with returning +animation. + +“Oh, la la!” said Gazza. “If it is hot in the cabin!” And he flirted his +handkerchief back and forth. + +“I think I had the best of it,” I remarked. “All the melody and none of +the temperature.” + +Hortense saw no need of noticing me further + +“The singer has the worst of it,” said Gazza. + +“But since you all sang!” I laughed. + +“Miss Rieppe, she is cool,” continued Gazza. “And she danced. It is not +fair.” + +John contributed nothing. He was by no means playing up now. He was +looking away at the shore. + +Gazza hummed a little fragment. “But after lunch I will sing you good +music.” + +“So long as it keeps us cool,” I suggested. + +“Ah, no! It will not be cool music!” cried Gazza--“for those who +understand.” + +“Are those boys bathing?” Hortense now inquired. + +We watched the distant figures, and presently they flashed into the +water. + +“Oh, me!” sighed Gazza. “If I were a boy!” + +Hortense looked at him. “You would be afraid.” The devilment had come +out again, suddenly and brilliantly: + +“I never have been afraid!” declared Gazza. + +“You would not jump in after me,” said Hortense, taking his measure more +and more provokingly. + +Gazza laid his hand on his heart. “Where you go, I will go!” + +Hortense looked at him, and laughed very slightly and lightly. + +“I swear it! I swear!” protested Gazza. + +John’s eyes were now fixed upon Hortense. + +“Would you go?” she asked him + +“Decidedly not!” he returned. I don’t know whether he was angry or +anxious. + +“Oh, yes, you would!” said Hortense; and she jumped into the water, +cigarette and all. + +“Get a boat, quick,” said John to me; and with his coat flung off he was +in the river, whose current Hortense could scarce have reckoned with; +for they were both already astern as I ran out on the port boat boom. + +Gazza was dancing and shrieking, “Man overboard!” which, indeed, was the +correct expression, only it did not apply to himself. Gazza was a very +sensible person. I had, as I dropped into the nearest boat, a brisk +sight of the sailing-master, springing like a jack-in-the-box on the +deserted deck, with a roar of “Where’s that haymaker?” His reference was +to the anchor watch. The temptation to procure good matches to light +his pipe had ended (I learned later) by proving too much for this +responsible sailor-man, and he had unfortunately chosen for going +below just the unexpected moment when it had entered the daring head of +Hortense to perform this extravagance. Of course, before I had pulled +many strokes, the deck of the Hermana was alive with many manifestations +of life-saving and they had most likely been in time. But I am not +perfectly sure of this; the current was strong, and a surprising +distance seemed to broaden between me and the Hermana before another +boat came into sight around her stern. By then, or just after that (for +I cannot clearly remember the details of these few anxious minutes), I +had caught up with John, whose face, and total silence, as he gripped +the stern of the boat with one hand and held Hortense with the other, +plainly betrayed it was high time somebody came. A man can swim +(especially in salt water) with his shoes on, and his clothes add +nothing of embarrassment, if his arms are free; but a woman’s clothes +do not help either his buoyancy or the freedom of his movement. John now +lifted Hortense’s two hands, which took a good hold of the boat. From +between her lips the dishevelled cigarette, bitten through and limp, +fell into the water. The boat felt the weight of the two hands to it. + +“Take care,” I warned John. + +Hortense opened her eyes and looked at me; she knew that I meant her. +“I’ll not swamp you.” This was her first remark. Her next was when, +after no incautious haste, I had hauled her in over the stern, John +working round to the bow for the sake of balance: “I was not dressed for +swimming.” Very quietly did Hortense speak; very coolly, very evenly; no +fainting--and no flippancy; she was too game for either. + +After this, whatever emotions she had felt, or was feeling, she showed +none of them, unless it was by her complete silence. John’s coming into +the boat we managed with sufficient dexterity; aided by the horrified +Charley, who now arrived personally in the other boat, and was for +taking all three of us into that. But this was altogether unnecessary; +he was made to understand that such transferences as it would occasion +were superfluous, and so one of his men stepped into our boat to help me +to row back against the current; and for this I was not unthankful. + +Our return took, it appeared to me, a much longer time than everything +else which had happened. When I looked over my shoulder at the Hermana, +she seemed an incredible distance off, and when I looked again, she had +grown so very little nearer that I abandoned this fruitless proceeding. +Charley’s boat had gone ahead to announce the good news to General +Rieppe as soon as possible. But if our return was long to me, to +Hortense it was not so. She sat beside her lover in the stern, and I +knew that he was more to her than ever: it was her spirit also that +wanted him now. Poor Kitty’s words of prophecy had come perversely true: +“Something will happen, and that boy’ll be conspicuous.” Well, it had +happened with a vengeance, and all wrong for Kitty, and all wrong for +me! Then I remembered Charley, last of all. My doubt as to what he would +have done, had he been on deck, was settled later by learning from his +own lips that he did not know how to swim. + +Yes, the sentimental world (and by that I mean the immense and mournful +preponderance of fools, and not the few of true sentiment) would soon +be exclaiming: “How romantic! She found her heart! She had a glimpse of +Death’s angel, and in that light saw her life’s true happiness!” But I +should say nothing like that, nor would Miss Josephine St. Michael, if I +read that lady at all right. She didn’t know what I did about Hortense. +She hadn’t overheard Sophistication confessing amorous curiosity about +Innocence; but the old Kings Port lady’s sound instinct would tell her +that a souse in the water wasn’t likely to be enough to wash away the +seasoning of a lifetime; and she would wait, as I should, for the day +when Hortense, having had her taste of John’s innocence, and having +grown used to the souse in the water, would wax restless for the +Replacers, for excitement, for complexity, for the prismatic life. Then +it might interest her to corrupt John; but if she couldn’t, where would +her occupation be, and how were they going to pull through? + +But now, there sat Hortense in the stern, melted into whatever best she +was capable of; it had come into her face, her face was to be read--for +the first time since I had known it--and, strangely enough, I couldn’t +read John’s at all. It seemed happy, which was impossible. + +“Way enough!” he cried suddenly, and, at his command, the sailor and I +took in our oars. Here was Hermana’s gangway, and crowding faces above, +and ejaculations and tears from Kitty. Yes, Hortense would have liked +that return voyage to last longer. I was first on the gangway, and stood +to wait and give them a hand out; but she lingered, and; rising slowly, +spoke her first word to him, softly:-- + +“And so I owe you my life.” + +“And so I restore it to you complete,” said John, instantly. + +None could have heard it but myself--unless the sailor, beyond whose +comprehension it was--and I doubted for a moment if I could have heard +right; but it was for a moment only. Hortense stood stiff, and then, +turning, came in front of him, and I read her face for an instant longer +before the furious hate in it was mastered to meet her father’s embrace, +as I helped her up the gang. + +“Daughter mine!” said the General, with a magnificent break in his +voice. + +But Hortense was game to the end. She took Kitty’s-hysterics and the +men’s various grades of congratulation; her word to Gazza would have +been supreme, but for his imperishable rejoinder. + +“I told you you wouldn’t jump,” was what she said. + +Gazza stretched both arms, pointing to John. “But a native! He was surer +to find you!” + +At this they all remembered John, whom they thus far hadn’t thought of. + +“Where is that lion-hearted boy?” the General called out. + +John hadn’t got out of the boat; he thought he ought to change his +clothes, he said; and when Charley, truly astonished, proffered his +entire wardrobe and reminded him of lunch, it was thank you very much, +but if he could be put ashore--I looked for Hortense, to see what she +would do, but Hortense, had gone below with Kitty to change her clothes, +and the genuinely hearty protestations from all the rest brought merely +pleasantly firm politeness from John, as he put on again the coat he +had flung off on jumping. At least he would take a drink, urged Charley. +Yes, thank you, he would; and he chose brandy-and-soda, of which he +poured himself a remarkably stiff one. Charley and I poured ourselves +milder ones, for the sake of company. + +“Here’s how,” said Charley to John. + +“Yes, here’s how,” I added more emphatically. + +John looked at Charley with a somewhat extraordinary smile. “Here’s +unquestionably how!” he exclaimed. + +We had a gay lunch; I should have supposed there was plenty of room in +the Hermana’s refrigerator; nor did the absence of Hortense and John, +the cause of our jubilation, at all interfere with the jubilation +itself; by the time the launch was ready to put me ashore, Gazza +had sung several miles of “good music” and double that quantity of +“razzla-dazzla,” and General Rieppe was crying copiously, and assuring +everybody that God was very good to him. But Kitty had told us all that +she intended Hortense to remain quiet in her cabin; and she kept her +word. + +Quite suddenly, as the launch was speeding me toward Kings Port, I +exclaimed aloud: “The cake!” + +And, I thought, the cake was now settled forever. + + + + +XXII: Behind the Times + +It was my lot to attend but one of the weddings which Hortense +precipitated (or at least determined) by her plunge into the water; and, +truth to say, the honor of my presence at the other was not requested; +therefore I am unable to describe the nuptials of Hortense and Charley. +But the papers were full of them; what the female guests wore, what the +male guests were worth, and what both ate and drank, were set forth in +many columns of printed matter; and if you did not happen to see this, +just read the account of the next wedding that occurs among the New York +yellow rich, and you will know how Charley and Hortense were married; +for it’s always the same thing. The point of mark in this particular +ceremony of union lay in Charley’s speech; Charley found a happy thought +at the breakfast. The bridal party (so the papers had it) sat on a +dais, and was composed exclusively of Oil, Sugar, Beef, Steel, and Union +Pacific; merely at this one table five hundred million dollars were +sitting (so the papers computed), and it helped the bridegroom to his +idea, when, by the importunate vociferations of the company, he was +forced to get on his unwilling legs. + +“Poets and people of that sort say” (Charley concluded, after thanking +them) “that happiness cannot be bought with money. Well, I guess a poet +never does learn how to make a dollar do a dollar’s work. But I am no +poet; and I have learned it is as well to have a few dollars around. And +I guess that my friends and I, right here at this table, could organize +a corner in happiness any day we chose. And if we do, we will let you +all in on it.” + +I am told that the bride looked superb, both in church and at the +reception which took place in the house of Kitty; and that General +Rieppe, in spite of his shattered health, maintained a noble appearance +through the whole ordeal of parting with his daughter. I noticed that +Beverly Rodgers and Gazza figured prominently among the invited guests: +Bohm did not have to be invited, for some time before the wedding he had +become the husband of the successfully divorced Kitty. So much for the +nuptials of Hortense and Charley; they were, as one paper pronounced +them, “up to date and distingue.” The paper omitted the accent in +the French word, which makes it, I think, fit this wedding even more +happily. + +“So Hortense,” I said to myself as I read the paper, “has squared +herself with Charley after all.” And I sat wondering if she would +be happy. But she was not constructed for happiness. You cannot be +constructed for all the different sorts of experiences which this world +offers: each of our natures has its specialty. Hortense was constructed +for pleasure; and I have no doubt she got it, if not through Charley, +then by other means. + +The marriage of Eliza La Heu and John Mayrant was of a different +quality; no paper pronounced it “up to date,” or bestowed any other +adjectival comments upon it; for, being solemnized in Kings Port, where +such purely personal happenings are still held (by the St. Michael +family, at any rate) to be no business of any one’s save those +immediately concerned, the event escaped the famishment of publicity. +Yes, this marriage was solemnized, a word that I used above without +forethought, and now repeat with intention; for certainly no respecter +of language would write it of the yellow rich and their blatant unions. +If you’re a Bohm or a Charley, you may trivialize or vulgarize or +bestialize your wedding, but solemnize it you don’t, for that is not “up +to date.” + +And to the marriage of Eliza and John I went; for not only was the honor +of my presence requested, but John wrote me, in both their names, a +personal note, which came to me far away in the mountains, whither I had +gone from Kings Port. This was the body of the note:-- + +“To the formal invitation which you will receive, Miss La Heu joins her +wish with mine that you will not be absent on that day. We should +both really miss you. Miss La Heu begs me to add that if this is not +sufficient inducement, you shall have a slice of Lady Baltimore.” + +Not a long note! But you will imagine how genuinely I was touched by +their joint message. I was not an old acquaintance, and I had done +little to help them in their troubles, but I came into the troubles; +with their memory of those days I formed a part, and it was a part which +it warmed me to know they did not dislike to recall. I had actually been +present at their first meeting, that day when John visited the Exchange +to order his wedding-cake, and Eliza had rushed after him, because in +his embarrassment he had forgotten to tell her the date for which he +wanted it. The cake had begun it, the cake had continued it, the cake +had brought them together; and in Eliza’s retrospect now I doubted If +she could find the moment when her love for John had awakened; but if +with women there ever is such a moment, then, as I have before said, +it was when the girl behind the counter looked across at the handsome, +blushing boy, and felt stirred to help him in his stumbling attempts to +be businesslike about that cake. If his youth unwittingly kindled hers, +how could he or she help that? But, had he ever once known it and shown +it to her during his period of bondage to Hortense, then, indeed, the +flame would have turned to ice in Eliza’s breast. What saved him for +her was his blind steadfastness against her. That was the very thing she +prized most, once it became hers; whereas, any secret swerving toward +her from Hortense during his heavy hours of probation would have +degraded John to nothing in Eliza’s eyes. And so, making all this out +by myself in the mountains after reading John’s note, I ordered from the +North the handsomest old china cake-dish that Aunt Carola could find +to be sent to Miss Eliza La Heu with my card. I wanted to write on +the card, “Rira bien qui viva le dernier”; but alas! so many pleasant +thoughts may never be said aloud in this world of ours. That I ordered +china, instead of silver, was due to my surmise that in Kings Port--or +at any rate by Mrs. Weguelin and Miss Josephine St. Michael--silver +from any one not of the family would be considered vulgar; it was only a +surmise, and, of course, it was precisely the sort of thing that I could +not verify by asking any of them. + +But (you may be asking) how on earth did all this come about? What +happened in Kings Port on the day following that important swim which +Hortense and John took together in the waters of the harbor? + +I wish that I could tell you all that happened, but I can only tell you +of the outside of things; the inside was wholly invisible and inaudible +to me, although we may be sure, I think, that when the circles that +widened from Hortense’s plunge reached the shores of the town, there +must have been in certain quarters a considerable splashing. I presume +that John communicated to somebody the news of his broken engagement; +for if he omitted to do so, with the wedding invitations to be out the +next day, he was remiss beyond excuse, and I think this very unlikely; +and I also presume (with some evidence to go on) that Hortense did not, +in the somewhat critical juncture of her fortunes, allow the grass to +grow under her feet--if such an expression may be used of a person who +is shut up in the stateroom of a steam yacht. To me John Mayrant made no +sign of any sort by word or in writing, and this is the highest proof +he ever gave me of his own delicacy, and also of his reliance upon +mine; for he must have been pretty sure that I had overheard those last +destiny-deciding words spoken between himself and Hortense in the boat, +as we reached the Hermana’s gangway. In John’s place almost any man, +even Beverly Rodgers, would have either dropped a hint at the moment, or +later sent me some line to the effect that the incident was, of +course, “between ourselves.” That would have been both permissible and +practical; but there it was, the difference between John of Kings Port +and us others; he was not practical when it came to something “between +gentlemen,” as he would have said. The finest flower of breeding +blossoms above the level of the practical, and that is why you do not +find it growing in the huge truck-garden of our age, save in corners +where it has not yet been uprooted. John’s silence to me was something +that I liked very much, and he must have found that it was not +misplaced. + +The first external splash of the few that I have to narrate was a +negative manifestation, and occurred at breakfast: Juno supposed if the +wedding invitations would be out later in the day. The next splash was +somewhat louder on, was at dinner, when Juno inquired of Mrs. Trevise +if she had received any wedding invitation. At tea time was very decided +splashing. No invitation had come to anybody. Juno had called at five of +the St. Michael houses and got in at none of them, and there was a rumor +that the Hermana had disappeared from the harbor. So far, none of the +splashing had wet me but I now came in for a light sprinkle. + +“Were you not on board that boat yesterday?” Juno inquired; and to see +her look at me you might have gathered that I was suspected of sinking +the vessel. + +“A most delightful occasion!” I exclaimed, filling my face with a bright +blankness. + +“Isn’t he awful to speak that way about Sunday!” said the up-country +bride. + +This was a chance for the poetess, and she took it. “To me,” she mused, +“every day seems fraught with an equal holiness.” + +“But I should think,” observed the Briton, “that you could knock off a +hymn better on Sundays.” + +All this while Juno was looking at me, and I knew it, and therefore I +ate my food in a kindly sort of unconscious way, until she fired another +shot at me. “There is an absurd report that somebody fell overboard.” + +“Dear me!” I laughed. “So that is what it has grown to already! I did go +out on the boat boom, and I did drop off--but into a boat.” + +At this confession of mine the up-country bride became extraordinarily +arch on the subject of the well-known hospitality of steam yachts, and +for this I was honestly grateful to her; but Juno brooded still. “I hope +there is nothing wrong,” she said solemnly. + +Feeling that silence at this point would not be golden, I went into it +with spirit I told them of our charming party, of General Rieppe’s +rich store of quotations, of the strict discipline on board the +well-appointed Hermana, of the great beauty of Hortense, and her evident +happiness when her lover was by her side. This talk of mine turned off +any curiosity or suspicion which the rest of the company may have begun +to entertain; but upon Juno I think it made scant impression, save +causing her to set me down as an imbecile. For there was Doctor +Beaugarcon when we came into the sitting-room, who told us before any +one could even say “How-do-you-do,” that Miss Hortense Rieppe had broken +her engagement with John Mayrant, and that he had it from Mrs. Cornerly, +whom he was visiting professionally. I caught the pitying look which +Juno threw at me at this news, and I was happy to have acquitted myself +so creditably in the manipulation of my secret: nobody asked me any more +questions! + +There is almost nothing else to tell you of how the splashes broke +on Kings Port. Before the day when I was obliged to call in Doctor +Beaugarcon’s professional services (quite a sharp attack put me to bed +for half a week) I found merely the following things: the Hermana gone +to New York, the automobiles and the Replacers had also disappeared, +and people were divided on the not strikingly important question as to +whether Hortense and the General had accompanied Charley on the yacht, +or continued northward in an automobile, or taken the train. Gone, in +any case, the whole party indubitably was, leaving, I must say, a sense +of emptiness: the comedy was over, the players departed. I never heard +any one, not even Juno, doubt that it was Hortense who had broken the +engagement; this part of the affair was conducted by the principals +with great skill. Hortense had evidently written her version to the +Cornerlys, and not a word to any other effect ever came from John’s +mouth, of course. One result I had not looked for, though it was a +natural one: if the old ladies had felt indignation at Hortense for her +determination to marry John Mayrant, this indignation was doubled by her +determination not to! I fear that few of us live by logic, even in Kings +Port; and then, they had all called upon her in that garden for nothing! +The sudden thought of this made me laugh alone in my bed of sickness; +and when I came out of it, had such a thing been possible, I should have +liked to congratulate Miss Josephine St. Michael on her absence from the +garden occasion. I said, however, nothing to her, or to any of the other +ladies, upon this or any subject, for I was so unlucky as to find them +not at home when I paid my round of farewell visits. Nor (to my real +distress) did I see John Mayrant again. The boy wrote me (I received it +in bed) a short, warm note of regret, with nothing else in it save the +fact that he was leaving town, having become free from the Custom House +at last. I fancy that he ran away for a judicious interval. Who would +not? + +Was there one person to whom he told the truth before he went? Did the +girl behind the counter hear the manner in which the engagement was +broken? Ah, none of us will ever know that! But, although I could not, +without the highest impropriety, have spoken to any of the old ladies +about this business, unless they had chosen to speak to me--and somehow +I feel that after the abrupt close of it not even Mrs. Gregory +St. Michael would have been likely to touch on the subject with an +outsider--there was nothing whatever to forbid my indulging in a +skirmish with Eliza La Heu; therefore I lunched at the Exchange on my +last day. + +“To the mountains?” she said, in reply to my information about my plans +of travel. + +“Doctor Beaugarcon says nothing else can so quickly restore me.” + +“Stay there for the rhododendrons, then,” she bade me. “No sight more +beautiful in all the South.” + +“Town seems deserted,” I pursued. “Everybody gone.” + +“Oh, not everybody!” + +“All the interesting people.” + +“Thank you.” + +“I meant, interesting to you.” + +I saw her decide not to be angry; and her decision changed and saved our +conversation from the trashy, bantering tone which it was taking, and +brought it to a pass most unexpected to both of us. + +She gave me a charming and friendly smile. “Well, you, at any rate, are +going away. And I am really sorry for that.” + +Her eyes rested upon me with perfect frankness. I was not in love with +Eliza La Heu, but nearer to love than I had ever been then, and it would +have been easy, very easy, to let one’s self go straight onward into +love. There are for a man more ways of falling into that state than +romancers would have us to believe, and one of them is by an assent +of the will at a certain given moment, which the heart promptly +follows--just as a man in a moment decides he will espouse a cause, and +soon finds himself hotly fighting for it body and soul. I could have +gone out of that Exchange completely in love with Eliza La Heu; but my +will did not give its assent, and I saw John Mayrant not as a rival, but +as one whose happiness I greatly desired. + +“Thank you,” I said, “for telling me you are sorry I am going. And +now, may I treat you more than ever as a friend, and tell you of a +circumstance which Kings Port does not know?” + +It put her on her guard. “Don’t be indiscreet,” she laughed. + +“Isn’t timely indiscretion discretion?” + +“And don’t be clever,” she said. “Tell me what you have to say--if +you’re quite sure you’ll not be sorry.” + +“Quite sure. There’s no reason--now that the untruth is properly and +satisfactorily established--that one person should not know that John +Mayrant broke that engagement.” And I told her the whole of it. “If I’m +outrageous to share this secret with you,” I concluded, “I can only say +that I couldn’t stand the unfairness any longer.” + +“He jumped straight in?” said Eliza. + +“Oh, straight!” + +“Of course,” she murmured. + +“And just after declaring that he wouldn’t.” + +“Of course,” she murmured again. “And the current took them right away?” + +“Instantly.” + +“Was he very tired when you got to him?” + +I answered this question and a number of others, backward and forward, +until she had led me to cover the whole incident about twice-and-a-half +times. Then she had a silence, and after this a reflection. + +“How well they managed it!” + +“Managed what?” + +“The accepted version.” + +“Oh, yes, indeed!” + +“And you and I will not spoil it for them,” she declared. + +As I took my final leave of her she put a flower in my buttonhole. My +reflection was then, and is now, that if she already knew the truth from +John himself, how well she managed it! + +So that same night I took the lugubrious train which bore me with the +grossest deliberation to the mountains; and among the mountains and +their waterfalls I stayed and saw the rhododendrons, and was preparing +to journey home when the invitation came from John and Eliza. + +I have already said that of this wedding no word was in the papers. +Kings Port by the war lost all material things, but not the others, +among which precious privacy remains to her; and, O Kings Port, may +you never lose your grasp of that treasure! May you never know the land +where the reporter blooms, where if any joy or grief befall you, the +public press rings your doorbell and demands the particulars, and if you +deny it the particulars, it makes them up and says something scurrilous +about you into the bargain. Therefore nothing was printed, morning +or evening, about John and Eliza. Nor was the wedding service held in +church to the accompaniment of nodding bonnets and gaping stragglers. No +eye not tender with regard and emotion looked on while John took Eliza +to his wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy +state of matrimony. + +In Royal Street, not many steps from South Place, there stands a quiet +house a little back, upon whose face sorrow has struck many blows, but +made no deep wounds yet; no scorch from the fires of war is visible, +and the rending of the earthquake does not show too plainly; but there +hangs about the house a gravity that comes from seeing and suffering +much, and a sweetness from having sheltered many generations of smiles +and tears. The long linked chain of births and deaths here has not been +broken and scattered, and the grandchildren look out of the same windows +from which the grandsires gazed, whose faces now in picture frames still +watch serenely the sad present from their happy past. Therefore the +rooms lie in still depths of association, and from the walls, the +stairs, the furniture, flows the benign influence of undispersed +memories; it sheds its tempered radiance upon the old miniatures, and +upon every fresh flower that comes in from the garden; it seems to pass +through the open doors to and fro like a tranquil blessing; it is beyond +joy and pain, because time has distilled it from both of these; it +is the assembled essence of kinship and blood unity, enriched by each +succeeding brood that is born, is married, is fruitful in its turn, and +dies remembered; only the balm of faith is stronger to sustain and heal; +for that comes from heaven, while it is earth that gives us this; and +the sacred cup of it which our native land once held is almost empty. + +Amid this influence John and Eliza were made one, and the faces of +the older generations grew soft beneath it, and pensive eyes became +lustrous, and into pale cheeks the rosy tint came like an echo faintly +back for a short hour. They made so little sound in their quiet +happiness of congratulation that it might have been a dream; and they +were so few that the house with the sense of its memories was not lost +with the movement and crowding, but seemed still to preside over the +whole, and send down its benediction. + +When it was my turn to shake the hands of bride and groom, John asked:-- + +“What did your friend do with your advice?” + +And I replied. “He has taken it.” + +“Perhaps not that,” John returned, “but you must have helped him to see +his way.” + +When the bride came to cut the cake, she called me to her and fulfilled +her promise. + +“You have always liked my baking,” she said. + +“Then you made it after all,” I answered. + +“I would not have been married without doing so,” she declared sweetly. + +When the time came for them to go away, they were surrounded with +affectionate God-speeds; but Miss Josephine St. Michael waited to be +the last, standing a little apart, her severe and chiselled face turned +aside, and seeming to watch a mocking-bird that was perched in his cage +at a window halfway up the stairs. + +“He is usually not so silent,” Miss Josephine said to me. “I suppose we +are too many visitors for him.” + +Then I saw that the old lady, beneath her severity, was deeply moved; +and almost at once John and Eliza came down the stairs. Miss Josephine +took each of them to her heart, but she did not trust herself to speak; +and a single tear rolled down her face, as the boy and girl continued to +the hall-door. There Daddy Ben stood, and John’s gay good-by to him +was the last word that I heard the bridegroom say. While we all stood +silently watching them as they drove away from the tall iron gate, the +mocking-bird on the staircase broke into melodious ripples of song. + + + + +XXIII: Poor Aunt Carola! + +And now here goes my language back into the small-clothes that it wore +at the beginning of all, when I told you something of that colonial +society, the Selected Salic Scions, dear to the heart of my Aunt. It +were beyond my compass to approach this august body of men and women +with the respect that is its due, did I attire myself in that modern +garment which, in the phrase of the vulgar, is denoted pants. + +You will scarce have forgot, I must suppose, the importance set by my +Aunt Carola upon the establishing of the Scions in new territories, +wherever such persons as were both qualified by their descent and in +themselves worthy, should be found; and you will remember that I +was bidden by her to look in South Carolina for members of the Bombo +connection which she was inclined to suspect existed in that state. My +neglect to make this inquiry for my kind Aunt now smote me sharply when +all seemed too late. John Mayrant had spoken of Kill-devil Bombo, the +very personage through whom lay Aunt Carola’s claim to kingly lineage, +and I had let John Mayrant go away upon his honeymoon without ever +questioning him upon this subject. As I looked back upon the ease +with which I might have settled the matter, and forward to my return +empty-handed to the generous relative to whom I owed this agreeable +experience of travel, I felt guilty indeed. I wrote a letter to follow +John Mayrant into whatever retreat of bliss he had betaken himself to, +and I begged him earnestly to write me at his early convenience all that +he might know of Bombos in South Carolina. Consequently, I was able, on +reaching home, to meet Aunt Carola with some sort of countenance, and to +assure her that I expected presently to be furnished with authentic and +valuable particulars. + +I now learned that the Selected Salic Scions had greatly increased in +numbers during my short absence. It appeared that the origin of the +whole movement had sprung from a needy but ingenious youth in some +manufacturing town of New England. This lad had a cousin, who had +amassed from nothing a noble fortune by inventing one day a speedy +and convenient fashion of opening beer bottles; and this cousin’s +achievement had set him to looking about him. He soon discovered that in +our great republic everywhere there were living hundreds and thousands +of men and women who were utterly unaware that they were descended from +kings. Borrowing a little money to float him, he set up The American +Almanach de Gotha and began (for the minimum sum of fifty dollars +a pedigree) to reveal to these eager people the chain of links that +connected them with royalty. Thus, in a period of time the brevity of +which is incredible, this young man passed from complete indigence to +a wife and four automobiles, or an automobile and four wives--I don’t +remember which he had the four of. There was so much royal blood about +that it had spilled into several rival organizations, each bitterly +warring with the other; but my Aunt assured me that her society was the +only one that any respectable person belonged to. + +I am minded to announce a rule of discreet conduct: Never read aloud +any letter that you have not first read to yourself. Had I observed this +rule--but listen:-- + +It so happened that Aunt Carola was at luncheon with us when the postman +brought John Mayrant’s answer to my inquiry, and at the sight of his +handwriting I thoughtlessly exclaimed to my Aunt that here at last we +had all there was to be known concerning the Bombos in South Carolina; +with this I tore open the missive and embarked upon a reading of it +for the edification of all present. I pass over the beginning of John’s +communication, because it was merely the observations of a man upon +his honeymoon, and was confined to laudatory accounts of scenery and +weather, and the beauty of all life when once one saw it with his eyes +truly opened. + +“No Bombos ever came to Carolina,” he now continued, “that I know of, or +that Aunt Josephine knows of, which is more to the point. Aunt Josephine +has copied me a passage from the writings of William Byrd, Esq., of +Westover, Virginia, in which mention is made, not of the family, but of +a rum punch which seems to have been concocted first by Admiral Bombo, +from a New England brand of rum so very deadly that it was not inaptly +styled ‘kill-devil’ by the early planters of the colony. That the punch +drifted to Carolina and still survives there, you have reason to know. +Therefore if any remote ancestors of yours contracted an alliance with +Kill-devil Bombo, I can imagine no resulting offspring of such union but +a series of severe attacks of delir--” + +“What?” interrupted Aunt Carola, at this point, in her most formidable +voice. “What’s that stuff you’re reading, Augustus?” + +I shook in my shoes. “Why, Aunt, it’s John--” + +“Not another word, sir! And never let me hear his name again. To +think--to think--” But here Aunt Carola’s face grew extremely red, and +she choked so decidedly that Uncle Andrew poured her a glass of water. + +The rest of our luncheon was conducted with remarkable solemnity. + +As we were rising from table, my Aunt said:-- + +“It was high time, Augustus, that you came home. You seem to have got +into very strange company down there.” + +This was the last reference to the Bombos that my Aunt ever made in my +hearing. Of course it is preposterous to suppose that she traces her +descent from a king through a mere bowl of punch, and her being still +the president of the Selected Salic Scions is proof irrefutable that her +claim rests upon a more solid foundation. + + + + +XXIV: Post Scriptum + +I think that John Mayrant, Jr., is going to look like his mother. I was +very glad to be present when he was christened, and at this ceremony I +did not feel as I had felt the year before at the wedding; for then I +had known well enough that if the old ladies found any blemish on +that occasion, it was my being there! To them I must remain forever a +“Yankee,” a wall perfectly imaginary and perfectly real between us; and +the fact that young John could take any other view of me, was to them a +sign of that “radical” tendency in him which they were able to forgive +solely because he was of the younger generation and didn’t know any +better. + +And with these thoughts in my mind, and remembering a certain very grave +talk I had once held with Eliza in the Exchange about the North and the +South, in which it was my good fortune to make her see that there is on +our soil nowadays such a being as an American, who feels, wherever +he goes in our native land, that it is all his, and that he belongs +everywhere to it, I looked at the little John Mayrant, and then I said +to his mother:-- + +“And will you teach him ‘Dixie’ and ‘Yankee Doodle’ as well?” + +But Eliza smiled at me with friendly, inscrutable eyes. + +“Oh,” said John, “you mustn’t ask too much of the ladies. I’ll see to +all that.” + +Perhaps he will. And an education at Harvard College need not cause +the boy to forget his race, or his name, or his traditions, but only to +value them more, as they should be valued. And the way that they should +be valued is this: that the boy in thinking of them should say to +himself, “I am proud of my ancestors; let my life make them proud of +me.” + +But, in any case, is it not pleasant to think of the boy being brought +up by Eliza, and not by Hortense? + +And so my portrait of Kings Port is finished. That the likeness is not +perfect, I am only too sensible. No painter that I have heard of ever +satisfies the whole family. But, should any of the St. Michaels see +this picture, I trust they may observe that if some of the touches are +faulty, true admiration and love of his subject animated the artist’s +hand; and if Miss Josephine St. Michael should be pleased with any +of it, I could wish that she might indicate this by sending me a Lady +Baltimore; we have no cake here that approaches it. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lady Baltimore, by Owen Wister + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1386 *** |